The Dish

Vladimir Nabokov’s son allows the publication of something his father never wanted to see the light of day. It’s hard to control what people make of or do with your work after you’re dead. But the important thing is: we know the author’s intention. And readers can weigh that in the balance.

A reader writes:

I’ve been following your debate with McArdle and Larison about war crimes and total war with interest.  I think it’s misguided to conflate things like Night Area Bombing of Nazi Germany, or even the use of the Atomic Bomb at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with things like torture camps. They’re just entirely different in kind.  Strategic bombing in World War II fulfilled clear strategic objectives in fighting very powerful industrialized nations: it weakened the will of the people to fight; it destroyed industrial capacity and killed factory workers; and it demonstrated the severe consequences of starting wars.  I put things like this on par with General Tecumseh Sherman’s March to the Sea during the Civil War, in which he burnt down houses and destroyed essential infrastructure.  His professed aim was to: "make war so terrible that they will be ready to exhaust all peaceful remedies before taking up arms."  These aims–a speedy end to war and the prevention of future war–are legitimate and real: the south has not fought again, nor (yet) have Germany and Japan.

 

Torture and torture camps are an entirely different aspect of war, and in my view they are unjustifiable.  The difference is that torture’s aim is as much humiliation and dehumanization as it is to obtain information. 

A personal anecdote: I went to a Quaker High School, and when we attacked Afghanistan, many people at the school expressed disapproval at our Meeting for Worship (the Quaker religious service).  I stood to defend the war.  I’m still proud I did that. What I’m not proud of was the words I used.  I called the men we were fighting "animals, who deserved to be treated like animals."  This is the mentality that not only justifies torture but makes it appealing: to reduce your enemies to pathetic creatures; to at once demonstrate your superiority and to make someone–anyone will do–the vessel for your own pain and your own humiliation.  It’s a psychological form of warfare all the way down, and it dehumanizes all parties.

 

So it confuses the issue to talk about strategic bombing as being comparable to the torture regime.  Strategic bombing and the like aims to end war and prevent war.  The torture regime is a war on persons and an exercise in power and domination for its own sake.  If we can’t make this distinction, it’s difficult to see where the Allies and the Nazis would part ways in our moral calculus.

The candidate the Clintons and Rove say is weak has a 52 – 38 percent lead over McCain. Clinton’s lead is 5 percent. There’s a reason the GOP establishment wants Clinton. And the "he’s a commie leftist God-Hating racist" line of attack hasn’t worked too well:

Sixty percent (60%) of Minnesota voters have a favorable opinion of Obama, up from 57% a month ago. McCain’s favorables are at 56%, Clinton’s at 51%.

The only way past this is through it. Yes he can!

Michelle Cottle draws a line. Good luck, Michelle.

The final tally.

A reader writes:

I’m currently reading this collection of the correspondence between two of my favorite writers, "Striving Towards Being: The Letters of Thomas Merton and Czeslaw Milosz," that spans the last 10 years of Merton’s life.  It’s a fascinating read that for some reason is not currently in print (though used copies can be found quite easily online).  When I read the following from Merton I had to chuckle.  I guess people are people, whether it’s 1960 (when this letter was written) or today:

"It is quite true that I ought to speak more with the accents of my time. They are serious, they are not just a pose, the bitterness of people is not just something to be dismissed. I detest the fake optimism that is current in America, including in American religion. I shall continue to think about these things."

Judah Grunstein questions Petraeus’s credentials:

I’m surprised that, so far, no one’s had the temerity to point out that compared to his CENTCOM predecessors, Gen. Petraeus’ credentials are underwhelming for such a strategically vital regional command. Admiral Fallon’s prior regional command experience was too deep to count. Gen. Abizaid did prior staff tours in the Office of the Army Chief of Staff, the Southern European Task Force, and the U.S. Army Europe HQ. Gen. Franks commanded the 3rd Army for three years prior to taking over CENTCOM, and Gen. Zinni was CENTCOM Deputy C-i-C for nine months before assuming the top spot.

The bulk of Petraeus’ experience, meanwhile, has been in operations and training (which is what you’d expect for someone who has demonstrated such tactical brilliance). Challenging as it is, Commander MNF-I is his broadest command to date. Now it could be that Petraeus is, in addition to being a tactical genius, a strategic genius as well. But a case could be made for the argument that, in leapfrogging Adm. Fallon through his personal relationship with President Bush, Petraeus has essentially served as de facto Commander of CENTCOM for the past year and a half. And in that time he has put the Iraq theater ahead of our broader regional interests, and according to many, ahead of the health of the Army.

John Harris urges restraint:

Contrary to the idea that the F and C words have lost their impact, they seem to me to still have the power not necessarily to shock, but to render the atmosphere charged and discomfiting. Couple them with an insult, and the point becomes even clearer. Far from believing that 21st century swearing is all but meaningless, I’d wager that we all know this: to swear is still to ramp up the force of what’s said, and its potential to offend. In short, in the right (or, rather, wrong) context, swearing can still be brutal and non-empathetic – verbal violence, if you will,…

Apply that to the ever-increasing flood of swearing on post-watershed TV, or the ubiquity of the words in your average town and city, and you might arrive at the following conclusion: to take umbrage at all that profanity isn’t to ally oneself with the Daily Mail and the successors to Mary Whitehouse, but to understand that vocabulary speaks volumes about prevailing social conditions, and that all our swearing says something very powerful about what a mutually contemptuous, atomised, inarticulate society we’re becoming.