Monday, June 16, 2014

Always Right

As a 13 year old boy, one in flesh with the American spirit that reigned, I eagerly supported the sanguine efforts of the United States government to do something finally about radical Islam and its connections to terror. Eleven years, two presidents, four secretaries of state, and several Iraqi governors later, we are still in that country next to Iran. The situation there is now the worst it has been since Saddam Hussein was at the peak of his powers and killing Kurds by the thousands. Soon Iraq will be an Islamic state more radical, although less technologically advanced, than Iran and we have nobody but ourselves to blame.

Contrary to what libertarian and liberal conspiracy theorists will say about oil, America invaded Iraq with the intention of being there for a year or so and then continuing on a tour of the Middle East, replacing terrorist-friendly regimes with democratic states. Iran, Lybia, Syria, and Pakistan were all potential candidates for improvement. Since that time we have not moved on to the next project and Deo volente never will. American democracy was supposed to be self-evidently superior to the existing system. The Iraqis would see this and stabilize their own government by removing hostile forces within their country. Freedom and prosperity, the two great prongs of American culture, would prove irresistible. And then it failed.

Bush's policy failed, partially due to his inability to apply and enforce Donald Rumsfeld's ideas more forcefully. By 2006 President Bush had to implement his "surge" to regain control. It seemed to work, at least enough to enable America to leave Iraq a democracy and save face. Then the current cretin took office and through nothing but negligence has permitted the situation to devolve into a catastrophe mired in death. No one person is to blame, even if I think the current president bears the brunt of the responsibility for the current level of trouble. The entire endeavor is the result of our American view that we are always right.

When I lived in England, among the few patriotic people I met, I learned a valuable lesson in understanding international affairs, namely that people can support their countries and disagree with their policies or even support their countries for irrational reasons. Margaret Thatcher put it best: England was founded by history and America by philosophy. What does it mean to be English? To have been born in England. What does it mean to be an American? To believe that every human being is entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of temporal happiness. To have opposed imperialism in 19th century England would have put one at odds with the public's material happiness. To have opposed the Iraqi invasion for any reason in 2003 would have put one at risk of being called un-American. To be American one must support American principles and seek to apply them everywhere.

Now in fairness, most who opposed the Iraqi invasion in 2003 were hipster peaceniks crying for the days of free love and Woodstock. A few though were wise enough to know that America was wholly unsuited to effect a major regime and paradigm change in the heart of the Islamic world. Our military was ill equipped and ill trained for the occupation period. The neo-conservatives who planned the new government and who administered the war had no understanding or appreciation for religion other than as some sort of cultural artifact and it showed. And lastly, we Americans are not very good at making mild militaristic changes. No country is or ever has been. Either fish or cut bait. Either invade a country and make it a satellite state or leave it alone. High on patriotic fever we thought we could do something no other nation could ever do. Why? Because we must always be right.

I wonder at times if our Israeli policy is not a fruit of the same tree. The creation of the state of Israel seems to have wrought nothing positive. I still support Israel as a country for the lack of better options. It is the lone pro-Western state in the middle of an anti-Western powder keg, but what happens when someone lights a match? Zionism was an ideologically and religiously predicated movement, in part supported today by American Evangelicals eager to usher in the end times. It was not in America's best interest or in the best interest of Jewish people. It was a mistake yet we must live with it and make the best of it.

Today I am bereft of political ideology. I no longer identify as a conservative or a neo-conservative. Liberalism is still odious in my sight. Monarchism is impractical right now. The Tea Party movement has many positives, but the centrist Republican party's refusal to integrate it means the Tea Party will remain the haven of political Luddites, conspiracy theorists, and 1920s styled isolationists—the sort Richard Hofstadter analyzed in his essay Paranoid Style. I usually pull the lever for Republicans in local races, although not always. I doubt I will be able to vote in the 2016 national elections though. We were always right, and now we are dead in the wrong.

11 comments:

  1. "To be American one must support American principles and seek to apply them everywhere." But I categorically reject American (classical liberal, masonic) principles (as should every Catholic), both in theory and in practice, and this is why I am now (as of 2013) to the point of not voting at all. The English have the correct view of what constitutes being a constituent member of a given society; call me a New Yorker.

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  2. Don't vote, and you're complicit in allowing any bulwark - no matter how small - against infanticide, legal sodomy, the destruction of marriage, and the criminalization of Catholicism/Christianity to evaporate.

    Abandoning the field to the enemy is NOT the solution.

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    1. Playing in the enemy's determined box/system is also not the solution. As soon as Catholics accepted the enemy's premise (i.e. religious "liberty" and democracy) as a good and a given, the field was long since abandoned to the enemy.

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    2. Agreed. Take the "gay marriage" debate for instance, no matter what position you take you are supporting a bastardized Protestant definition of "marriage". Holy Matrimony is above this legal stupidity, and will not be destroyed by it.

      I still vote, but many times it is out of sheer spite. It doesn't take very long and then I can get back to important things. As a former hopeful idealistic Ron Paul libertarian, I have long given up on "saving" this nation through its broken and rigged electoral process. I will remain a skeptical Quasi-Libertarian Chestertonian Distributist until Roman Empire 2.0 inevitably crumbles under its own weight.

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    3. Actually, Jon, abandoning a battlefield to the enemy is often a wise thing to do if a battle is unwinnable. You withdraw, gather your strength, and wait for an opportunity to face the enemy on terrain of YOUR choosing. That is the difference between a tactician and a strategist.

      It's a lesson Chiang Kai-Shek never learned.

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    4. Terrain of YOUR choosing? Playing in the enemy's box not the solution?

      At least here in the US, short of secession to form a new nation of states or city-states, and a new constitution to go along with them, pray what new box or terrain can you possibly be imagining?

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  3. "Either invade a country and make it a satellite state or leave it alone." Quite. This is true. But elsewhere you say that surge worked and Pres Osama lost it. Could be both. Go in for the long haul if going in.
    I would probably be a little stronger in support of Israel perhaps on grounds of national self determination - at risk of sounding too Wilsonian (your very worst president apart from the cretin of cool and peanut boy who personally caused the mullahs: the Shah was right). That just leaves the Kurds and the Tamils. Requiescant omnes.

    Always remember please that Our Lord and Our Lady in their earthly living never set foot in 'Palestine'. They had not then heard the name as it was invented by Rome after AD 70 to call the land something after the revolt. Palestine meant to be Latin cognate with Philistine. They went that far back. But my apologies for my countryman Balfour. What a blockhead.

    Interesting you say Bush undermined Rumsfeld. Could the plan have worked? No for reasons you mention.

    Here the friend of a friend insists Blair is war criminal because for him the invasion only functioned to bring him fame he could use to make money out of office. Deaths for money. Straight swap. On that analysis no good could ever come.
    More recently it was nearly done again in Syria. Invade a small mid East country, removing a secular dictator the saud don't like, hope the moslems will applaud and sit back and get rich. The foreign secretary Hague, a complex and troubled man, plus Cameron who is stupid enough for anything, simply hoped to be as famous as Blair. This time Providence seems to have intervened. How did dictators suddenly get into the West's firing line? We have done business with enough and let Stalin die in his bed...

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  4. I supported the 'Stop the War' movement in the UK and would not consider myself to be in the genre of 'hipster peaceniks'. I would share the view of one of the comments above that BLIar used the opportunity from the worst of motives.

    The UK's worst foreign policy decision was its role in the establishment of the Israeli state. The treatment of the Palestinians feeds fundamentalism within Islam. Pope Francis' unscheduled stop at the 'other' wall was perhaps the most poignant moment of his recent visit.

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  5. I supported the 'Stop the War' movement in the UK and would not consider myself to be in the genre of 'hipster peaceniks'. I would share the view of one of the comments above that BLIar used the opportunity from the worst of motives.

    The UK's worst foreign policy decision was its role in the establishment of the Israeli state. The treatment of the Palestinians feeds fundamentalism within Islam. Pope Francis' unscheduled stop at the 'other' wall was perhaps the most poignant moment of his recent visit.

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  6. I think we could learn a lesson from good Cicero and acknowledge the virtue in civic duty. We should not only vote for the best candidate available, but run for office, local, and maybe one day national. Or at least strongly support someone who is running that is good. We need to participate more aggressively.

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  7. It is sort of weird to see highly intelligent men think that their vote actually matters. What makes you think that the powers which control these United States would allow to stand for election any man (and by man I mean Hilary) who could take power from them?

    On election day, stay home, drink some quality cabernet, and listen to Vivaldi

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