Monday, March 31, 2003
[posted by jaed at 10:17 AM]
What went wrong:
Democracy requires elections, but elections are in some ways its least important element. A civil society - the web of rights, responsibilities, and expectations that binds people together into a political entity - is a necessary precondition for democracy, unless you're satisfied with the kind of degenerate "democracy"-in-name-only that holds elections where the approved candidate gets 100% of a 100%-turnout vote.
Amir Taheri writes about the destruction of Arab civil society in the wake of colonialism and de-colonization:
Anxious to protect its power and privilege, the Arab military elite adopted a nationalist discourse.[...] The military rulers did what they knew best: Wage war. They began by waging war against civil society with the aim of destroying all potential sources of alternative authority and legitimacy. They disarmed as many of the tribes as they could and executed, imprisoned, exiled, or bought most of their leaders.
Next it was the turn of religious authorities to be brought under state control and deprived of the independence they had enjoyed for over 1,000 years.[...]
The army-backed state also annexed the educational system, nationalizing thousands of private Koranic schools and setting the curricula. The traditional guilds of trades and crafts, some with centuries of history behind them, were attacked and disbanded. Taheri paints a picture of civil society attacked and destroyed from within. I've known about this sort of thing for a while, but this article pulls together the disparate facts into a full picture of the evolution of Arab society away from anything that can support democracy.
Friday, March 28, 2003
[posted by jaed at 5:53 PM]
Don't assume...
...that "pro-liberation" means "not anti-America". As the British poll numbers shift, and if the numbers in other countries should show a similar shift, it's tempting to think that they reflect a less unfriendly attitude toward America.
I am reminded, as my weekly round of blogs reaches Harry Hatchet (ne Harry Steele), a pro-war British blogger, that this isn't a safe assumption. Specifically, by the repeated references to Americans as "septics". (It's Cockney rhyming slang, though I've more often seen the Australian version, "seppos" - "Yank" > "Septic Tank" > "Septic" > "Seppo".) He's not expressing a negative opinion about the war, here - it seems to be just residual despite and contempt. It seems to me that I've seen similar attitudes elsewhere, though less colorfully expressed.
There are certainly people who believe continuing the Iraqis' ordeal to be too high a price to pay to keep one of America's enemies going. But taking that position doesn't mean they're friendly or neutral to us. I suspect success in the war will, in fact, shift the poll numbers in Europe, but it will be a mistake to take such a shift as a warming trend.
On the other hand: British troops are fighting with us, some dying. There is no more potent proof of friendship and steadfastness than that, and I am grateful. National policy doesn't always track with personal feelings, though, and it's the latter I'm concerned about.
Update: Reader Chris Harper writes:
Just as an FYI - for an Australian or Briton to refer to Americans as septics is a friendly expression. It may sound derogatory but there is seldom any animosity attached to it. It is on a par with being able to refer to a friend as a bastard without damaging the friendship. Those who are truly anti American are unlikely to use this semi affectionate term. I take the point... but I don't think I've ever heard "seppos" used non-contemptuously. Possibly it means one thing when said to a particular friend, and another when used of Americans impersonally?
Wednesday, March 26, 2003
[posted by jaed at 6:32 PM]
Dark thought of the day:
When I read this:
Vandals in southwest Bordeaux torched a replica of the Statue of Liberty and cracked the pedestal of a plaque honoring victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. the first thought I had was "I wonder whether these people are going to go after the real thing next. I hope the NYC people are on their toes."
Now I'm wondering what the hell planet I woke up on. Because the expression of that much spite doesn't seem unrealistic to me, not from people who trash a memorial to the dead.
Sigh.
(via Michael Totten)
Tuesday, March 25, 2003
[posted by jaed at 12:22 PM]
European anti-Americanism as bad philosophy:
The Wild Monk offers an extraordinarily thought-provoking essay linking the current European anti-Americanism to Rousseauean revolutionary romanticism. Long post, and worth every word. ...when protestors carry signs to the effect that "America is the terrorist" or "Bush = Hitler", they are not simply being stupid.� They are reflecting - in a crass and foggy way -�a fundamental conclusion of the Post-Modern philosophical tradition. It is an article of faith in this tradition that Democratic Capitalism (or Classical Liberalism) is discredited as a�moral force.� When joined to the enormous power of the American state, this "immoral force," offers a greater threat to Europe and the world than fundamentalist Islam.��The material success of Democratic Capitalism is no saving grace nor counter argument to this view.� Indeed, in the inverted world of Post-Modernism, the greater the material success enjoyed by Democratic Capitalism, the greater the evidence of its failure.�
Note that the argument is assuredly not that the protestors all�return home�to read Heidegger and Derrida.� Indeed, few are likely to be acquainted with the details of Post-Modernism.� Nonetheless,�they are immersed in a�culture in which Post-Modernism is the dominant force in academia and among the intellectual classes.� The outlines of the philosophy and its political manifestations are clear enough that even teenagers feel justified in hoisting up a banner decrying the "millions slaughtered" by American hegemony.
[...]
Clearly, Europe does not march in monolithic lockstep with the Post-Modernist left.� However, the sheer scope of the European protests, the philosophical sentiments (crudely) presented by the protestors, organizers and press, and the massive public support for Chirac make it clear that the Post-Modern Left exerts a very strong influence over European thought.��In America, while the Post-Modern Left has a sizable presence among the American intelligentsia, the country as a whole remains firmly in the Democratic Capitalist camp.� Given these observations, it is clear that America's present conflict with Europe is not simply a function of disagreement over military intervention: they reflect fundamental differences in the dominant philosophical systems operating in each domain.� Furthermore, these two traditions - and thus America and Europe - cannot be reconciled: their disagreements reach down to their very foundations.� This "Cold War" of ideologies provides the energy that will continue to keep anti-Americanism bubbling in Europe for the foreseeable future. I'm not at all sure I agree with the idea that this conflict is usefully thought of as a continuation of the Cold War, but that is a nitpick. One of the hallmarks of the war that started on 9/11/2003 has been the sense of icebergs slowly rising - of what looked like small problems and minor conflicts gradually turning into much larger ones as I came to focus on more of the picture. This essay has had that same effect for me, tying together relatively trivial and superficial conflicts into a coherent, if much more frightening, whole.
Sunday, March 23, 2003
[posted by jaed at 9:49 AM]
And lo, the blind see and the deaf hear:
I was a naive fool to be a human shield for Saddam:
The human shields appealed to my anti-war stance, but by the time I had left Baghdad five weeks later my views had changed drastically. I wouldn't say that I was exactly pro-war - no, I am ambivalent - but I have a strong desire to see Saddam removed.
We on the bus felt that we were sympathetic to the views of the Iraqi civilians, even though we didn't actually know any.
[...]
Jake, one of the others, just kept saying, "Oh my God" as the driver described the horrors of the regime. Jake was so shocked at how naive he had been. We all were. It hadn't occurred to anyone that the Iraqis might actually be pro-war. (via Instapundit)
Saturday, March 22, 2003
[posted by jaed at 5:35 PM]
I have a bad feeling about this:
The UN's move to reinstate the oil-for-food sanctions program, that is.
When I first heard this, I thought it was just a symptom of denial. But my paranoid side has now piped up and is wondering whether this is a move to take away whatever gains for the US and for Iraq come out of this war. Think about it: - The oil-for-food program is part of the sanctions regime. Reinstalling it indicates Iraq is still under economic sanctions. I had assumed that these sanctions would end when the original cause for them ended... but what if the UNSC decides that being under temporary US occupation is enough cause to continue blockading Iraq?
- That would certainly damage US efforts to construct a reasonable Iraqi governance for the future by damaging Iraq's economy.
- It would also "withhold legitimacy" (whatever legitimacy the UNSC can still claim) from the war. This factor alone might attract anti-American support, regardless of the harm to Iraqis. (If the harm-to-Iraqis argument were going to be persuasive with these people, the decision on removing Saddam Hussein would have gone differently in the first place. Much of the world has already decided that harming the US is more important than relieving the suffering of Iraqis.)
- And of course, there's the money angle. The UN takes in a huge amount of money in administration costs for the oil-for-food program.
- Speaking of money, I'm sure the French and Russians are eager to have their current contracts, with their favorable ROI, imposed on Iraq in perpetuity.
- Continuing the program is a good way to keep Iraqis dependent - the statistic I've heard is that 60% of Iraqis are dependent on the rations issued by the program. Keeping people dependent is a good way of keeping them down in general - the permanently economically-dependent person may rant and riot but is unlikely to act independently, and this is a scenario where introducing democracy is less likely to succeed. It could be seen as another way of blocking US hopes for the country.
- And even if it's not, taking food handouts is no way to live long-term.
- Finally, of course, the assumption embedded in all this is that the UN will govern Iraq after we've done the hard work of freeing it from the octopus-like grip of the Ba'athists. The UN will sadly accept its responsibility for healing the damage wrought by the cowboy Americans, etc. There will be no de-Ba'athization, no democracy, no economic reform, no general ownership of oil interests for the Iraqi people. After having seen what happens when the US does this (Japan, Germany) and what happens when the UN does it (55-year-old refugee camps), if I were Iraqi I'd damn well hope not to be left to the tender mercies of the UN.
There've been indications via Ari Fleischer that the administration might actually accept this state of affairs. I hope not. The world doesn't need another UN-administered festering sore - one it will never let go, given the amounts of money involved - and Iraqis have suffered more than enough without being subjected to this sort of kindly tyranny.
Update: Bite the Wax Tadpole suggests that this is a move by Chirac to drive a wedge between the US and the UK, since the British public can be expected to welcome the idea of the UN taking charge of Iraq. I'm not so sure, myself - mostly because this was also the popular analysis regarding going to war without the approval of France, that doing so would bring Blair down - but it's definitely a possibility I'll be thinking about.
Update: On the other hand, this story makes me feel a little better.
Tuesday, March 18, 2003
[posted by jaed at 5:36 PM]
It's all about the ooooiiiiilllll:
More about the adventures of TotalFinaElf: this extensive story from last year about the bribery scandal concerning the French oil company. The story is told through the involvement of Eva Joly, the French investigative magistrate who broke the case. (I can see a miniseries here.)
It's as if Joly had netted a load of fish, which are now left to rot in the sun while the French public politely holds its nose. Worse, Joly and her fellow magistrates find themselves on the defensive. She has been compared to the American independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr�a scathing insult in a France still astonished that a president could be impeached for lying about oral sex. (via
Monday, March 17, 2003
[posted by jaed at 1:40 PM]
"When it comes to French national interests, the United Nations does not exist":
Arnaud de Borchgrave offers a brief history of French actions to change regimes (mostly in the area of France's former African colonies, and always without even a figleaf of international support), including a lightning 58-minute coup in the Central African Republic.
I wonder whether we should have invaded Iraq and then gone to the UNSC for a resolution. It's what France did with the Ivory Coast, after all, and this sort of behavior didn't seem to bother anyone unless I've missed the slew of condemnatory polemics in the European press.
Saturday, March 15, 2003
[posted by jaed at 8:09 PM]
Two continents separated by a common language:
"Unilateral" may not be the only word that means something different when Europeans use it and when Americans use it. Consider the word "secular".
To an American, "secular" means "disentangled from religion" or nonreligious. Possibly neutral to religion, possibly hostile to it, but the term rules out promotion of religion.
I keep hearing Saddam Hussein described as a "secularist" (usually in the context of an argument that he can't possibly work with jihadists, they hate him, etc.). And it keeps puzzling me, because this is a ruler who's just spent millions building the world's second-largest mosque, who had a Koran written in his own blood, and whose state-directed imams are, shall we say, vociferous in their sermons, specifically calling upon ideas of religious duty. I can't say whether he actually believes in God or the religion of Islam, but he certainly acts like a religious devotee. And I don't think a government that builds mosques and pays prayer leaders can be called secular, either.
On the other hand, many European governments have a state religion, and all the things (such as paying clergy and labeling their citizens by religion) that go with that status. It finally dawned on me that "secular" is being used in the sense of "a state where the government is supreme over religious institutions". And by that definition, Iraq is indeed "secular", and Saddam Hussein a "secularist".
Which makes me wonder, in turn, whether Europeans consider the United States a truly secular country. I sometimes wonder, considering the degree and kind of both handwringing and insult emanating from European pens over the general level of religiousity in America. (Particularly over the scandalous fact that the current president is openly a devout Christian.) This country is formally neutral to religion, in practice occasionally hostile and occasionally promotional... but the government certainly doesn't control religion here. No state church, no licensing of clergy, none of that.
Anyway, mixing these two meanings may be responsible for some of the confusion I perceive in the argument that jihadists can't ally with Ba'athists. "Secular" in this sense does not mean "nonreligious" or "hostile to religion", not at all.
(And yes, I know I'm talking primarily about countries whose primary language isn't English, but I couldn't think of another headline. The language of diplomacy... the language of political analysis... work with me here!)
Update: Entre Nous has some interesting thoughts about European vs American attitudes toward religion that go partway to confirming the third-to-last paragraph above for me.
Thursday, March 13, 2003
[posted by jaed at 12:38 PM]
"It wasn't very hip."
John Fund's Political Diary reviews recent history to show that the anti-war stance of some celebrities is, well, context-dependent:
Similarly, singer Sheryl Crow is appalled by George Bush's moves against Iraq, but she had no problem with Bill Clinton's intervention in the Balkans. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the singer accompanied Hillary Clinton on a USO tour to entertain U.S. troops in Bosnia. "Once over there, I felt extremely patriotic," Ms. Crow told a reporter that year. "Here are these people, from 18-year-olds to military veterans, enduring real duress for the cause of peace. I don't ever want to play for a regular audience again, only military folks who are starving for music." Ms. Crow hasn't been seen around any military bases lately. I'm not actually sure how important this is, because (I hope) anti-war protesters aren't actually looking to Hollywood stars for moral guidance, only for a sort of coolness-glaze applied to an already existing position. Their moral inconsistency doesn't really matter for that role. But I can't help being a little disgusted.
Wednesday, March 12, 2003
[posted by jaed at 7:54 PM]
It's all about the oil:
The French oil company, TotalFinaElf, has been much discussed amid speculation that its remarkably rich deals with Saddam Hussein are a big part of the motive for Chirac's actions. EuroPundits offers a brief history of the company (where are the permalinks?? Scroll down to the March 9 post titled "France's Mighty Elf"):
It reported a 2002 net income of 6.26 billion euros, with operations in hydrocarbons and chemicals that span Europe, Africa, North & South America, as well as the Middle and Far East. (1) What is it? Total Fina Elf: France's massive petrochemical company that, for over 40 years, has made and dethroned African leaders with the consent, if not the support, of the French government.
In order to understand France's Elf, you have to understand its history...
[posted by jaed at 11:16 AM]
Millions for terrorism, but not one cent for help:
Chris Patten informs us that since the US has defied the authority of Jacques Chirac the EU, the EU will punish Iraq by withholding postwar aid.
First thought: what an ass.
Second thought: the Iraqis may be better off without. He's certainly done a bang-up job providing bomb money for the Palestinian Authority and Fatah (pun not intended when I started writing this sentence, but let's go with it anyway).
He also incidentally confirms my thesis below, about differences between the European and American views of the UN, with this:
"It is in the interests of the whole world that power should be constrained by global rules, and used only with international agreement. What other source of international legitimacy but the U.N. exists for military intervention?" To me this sounds like diplo-gibberish, of a sort that I wouldn't have bothered analyzing before a year and a half ago, because I wouldn't have expected it to make sense; I would have taken it as something intended to sound good, not to convey an idea. Now, however, I take it as a serious attempt to convey the speaker's idea of what international relations should be based on, and my response is something like:
It is in the interests of the whole world that power should be constrained by the limits of moral action, and used only to do the right thing. What do rules - particularly rules created largely by dictatorships - have to do with it? Are there dangers in this view? Of course. Humans excel at rationalization for their acts, and it's easy enough to fool one's self into thinking one's actions are right. Still...should we not at least make the attempt? Look what happens when we don't bother to.
Monday, March 10, 2003
[posted by jaed at 7:55 PM]
Portrait of the shaheed as would-be dotcommer:
This article in the NYT magazine tells us about Fadi, a Jordanian who wants to kill Americans - and also wants to become a famous and rich programmer for Microsoft:
Fadi doesn't see anything strange about using American self-help tapes to get a job at an American company, while at the same time harboring hatred of the American government to the point of self-annihilation. Self-help, computer programming, the Koran and jihad are all aspects of the same thing, he says: a search for a way for a good Muslim to live in the modern world. I used to read stories like this and think the protagonists were like kids, not able to decide what they want. It's obvious that "I hate America" and "I want all the things America can give me" contains a contradiction.
Isn't it?
I'm starting to wonder. Do people like Fadi - who isn't a kid, he's 23, which is old enough to be able to think like an adult - understand that the things they strive for, the things they use, the things they rely on every day are Western? Fadi uses NLP tapes for self-help. He's a computer programmer. He eats at the local pizza parlor. He wants to work for Microsoft.
There's a discussion somewhere in VS Naipaul's two books on the Islamic world where he's talking about Muslim leaders seeking medical care in the United States. He meets, as well, a man who spits fire against America but is trying to get his sons there to study - because it's their future. And he says an interesting thing about all this. The West, in the view he found, is evil, but what that West creates is neutral, part of the cornucopia of goods, there for Muslims to partake of. The material goods and the learning we create are not part of the West, for people of this mindset. Computers and medicine and NLP audio tapes are just... there.
For the Arab world to stop failing and start succeeding, this misapprehension absolutely must be brought down. How can you expect to have the material and mental prosperity of the West when you're trying to destroy it? You can't. How can you despise the ideas of the West - freedom, equality - while coveting the fruits of those ideas? That way lies corruption at best.
(via the indispensable Watch)
[posted by jaed at 7:08 PM]
Not-so-scary Turks?
Interesting tidbit of information from this National Review article, reprinted from UPI:
Without the crisis of confidence created by NATO, there can be no doubt that the unexpected razor-thin loss of Saturday's vote in the Turkish parliament on U.S. troop deployment in Turkey would have gone the other way. In that context, it is instructive to note that the allegedly scary "Islamists" in the governing party voted 3-1 in favor of the United States, a bigger majority than in the British Labor party.
The opposition party, which voted almost unanimously against the United States, was of course led by ex-World Bank stooge and media darling Kermal Dervis, on whose feeble leftist stewardship of the Turkish economy in 2001-02 billions of dollars of Western taxpayer money were wasted. Hmmm. All the commentary I read about that vote seems to have assumed that the aforementioned scary Islamists were the ones responsible for the vote's going the way it did. Another cause of unstated assumptions leading in the wrong direction?
(The article also displays a refreshingly crabby attitude toward international aid agencies and their gravy-train riding compassionate and caring employees. Don't even get me started.)
Sunday, March 09, 2003
[posted by jaed at 8:08 PM]
In the New Republic, Paul Berman comments on Robert Kagan's idea that Americans see the world as Hobbesian while Europeans see it as Kantian:
This idea seems to me almost entirely wrong. The modern European idea does not seem to me Kantian. It seems to me Tocquevillean. It is a liberal democratic idea of a sort that cannot conceive of wielding power. It assumes that liberal democracy can only follow the path of a Sweden or a Switzerland or a Florentine Republic--the liberal democracy of virtuous and admirable countries that cannot possibly defend themselves, except by being inoffensive. In the European idea, power is imperial or nothing--the power of brutal empires, such as the Europeans themselves used to administer. Kagan writes that Europe has chosen to emphasize a nonviolent approach to world events today because the Europeans do not enjoy an option of doing otherwise. But the opposite is true. The Europeans (as Kagan acknowledges in a somewhat contradictory remark), with their 400 million people and their $9 trillion economy, could make themselves extremely powerful. They do not choose to do so. It is because they wish to be liberal democrats. And liberal democracy, in their concept, is a compromise, a mediocrity. It is, by definition, a negotiation--a good thing, but, as Tocqueville took pains to show, not entirely a good thing. And, because the Europeans cannot conceive or accept the notion of liberal democracy as a revolutionary project for universal liberation, they cannot imagine how to be liberal democrats and wield power at the same time. Berman's complaints near the end of the piece about Bush's inability to speak persuasively about the American democratic project seem to me to miss the mark - Bush's plain and sometimes emotional language seem to me to be more what's needed here than cultured phrases and hip-to-the-moment references - and his deduction that the administration is therefore "Hobbesian" strikes me as bizarre.
But the article is well worth reading for its insight into the reasons Europe has for reluctance to assume military power. And while I suspect his conclusion is motivated more by antipathy toward Bush's style than by a realistic assessment of the situation, its direction to the importance of inspiration and of moral argument is completely right.
(via Harry Steele)
[posted by jaed at 5:43 PM]
Those American dogs!
In a recent lecture [PDF] to the Centre for Policy Studies, Conrad Black mentions a somewhat revealing (especially in the reaction) anecdote:
I had occasion to say in the Iraq debate in the House of Lords two months ago that this notion of the relationship of the United States and the UN Security Council was an attempt to treat the United States as a great St. Bernard dog which would take the risks and do the work, while others, and not necessarily allies, would hold the leash and give the instructions.
One of my noble friends leapt excitedly at the metaphor and asked if I had ever tried to restrain a St. Bernard bitch in heat. Another said the United States was not a St. Bernard but a rotweiler. Well, according to Bill Murray in "Stripes" we're mutts. I guess a purebred is a step up, socially.
It's an interesting read. Black also gives us the phrase "the Ruritanian posturing of the French". I think I've got a tea leaf lodged in my nose now.
[posted by jaed at 11:33 AM]
"The thralls surrender!"
The Sunday Mirror reports that Iraqi soldiers have already attempted to surrender, mistakenly thinking the war had started already and wanting to get in at the head of the line. It took them some trouble, too:
The Iraqis found a way across the fortified border, which is sealed off with barbed-wire fencing, watchtowers and huge trenches. A couple of thoughts:- I hope the British didn't make a terrible mistake sending them back and that they won't face reprisals.
- Those journalists our army has been taking out for training - is "accepting surrenders" part of the course? (I'm about half serious here. Remember the Iraqi tank crew, I think it was, that tried to surrender to the BBC during the Gulf War? It might very well happen, and it's not a bad idea to provide some advice on what to do if it does.)
And geek points to anyone who names the source of the headline. (Not a bad analogy, now that I think about it, minus the harnesses of course.)
(via Instapundit)
Saturday, March 08, 2003
[posted by jaed at 3:04 AM]
Europe, Multilateralism, and Moral Imperatives Redux:
"That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it..." -- Thomas Jefferson
I don't have to name the document quoted above to any American, and the ideas in it - in particular, the idea that a government exists to do a task for the people, who can judge whether it's performing that task acceptably well or not - form the basic, unquestioned assumptions of our politics. We swim in Jefferson's tradition like fish in water, seldom noticing that our unspoken assumptions aren't widely shared - indeed, that when put into words and applied to current political problems, people who don't share our tradition think of them as crazy, even impossible.
As an American, I tend to see the UN in utilitarian terms, much the way I see the government. (The UN's not a government, but it occupies - or tries to occupy - a similar niche, and is - or was - seen by many as a step toward a world government.) It's there to ensure security. If it fails to do this, or if it actively damages security, altering or abolishing it, and replacing it with something that works better, comes to mind right quick. It's a major step, but not an unthinkable one; the UN's moral legitimacy arises from its utility, and to get rid of it for non-performance is more like firing an incompetent worker than tearing down a temple.
For Americans, protecting international security is the UN's purpose, its reason for being. Looking at the organization's recent history, we can see many instances in which it has failed to accomplish its purpose: the genocide in Rwanda, the incredible fuckup in Srebrenica, UN soldiers stepping aside and allowing the 1967 attack on Israel, and on and on. Clearly not much good at protection.
Now it seems that the Security Council is not only unwilling to aid in ensuring security, it's engaged in strenuous attempts to prevent America from ensuring its own security. (For those who do not think Iraq is a threat to America's security, please note that the Security Council isn't adducing that position as a reason for blocking an eighteenth resolution on Iraq or for opposing American military action.) The UN is not only not useful, it's become actively harmful - not in a trivial "Let's spout some anti-Semitic rhetoric today" way, but in a way that if allowed to succeed will have a real price in blood. To me - having grown up in Jefferson's tradition - it looks like "alter or abolish" time.
But what does it look like to Europeans? I think that Europeans see the UN's mission, not as ensuring security, but as acting as a check on unfettered nationalism. And I see this profound but unstated difference in perception of the UN's purpose as the underlying source of the current UN conflict.
Considering what European nationalism did to the twentieth century - not to mention the nineteenth, the eighteenth, and I could go on for a while - it's reasonable for them to have concluded that nationalism unrestrained is the evil that causes war. And to have turned, after the Second World War, to transnational organizations - the UN, the EC, the EU - as a way of putting chains on nationalism, of keeping it within bounds, of preventing it from ever again drawing the whole world into war. These organizations are entrusted with keeping the old demon of nationalism down, and so naturally, they must have a certain degree of authority over national governments.
In order to do this, the UN - more precisely, the web of transnational organizations, but the UN is the foremost of them - must be endowed not only with political power, but with moral force as well. Nationalism is a spiritual phenomenon and it engages people's hearts. To counter it and to overmaster it, the UN must also call upon spiritual ideas: the brotherhood of all people, the future of the world, and peace itself. It must be conceived, not only as symbolizing these things, but as embodying them. Defiance of the UN becomes synonymous with breaking the community of mankind.
Needless to say, this approach results in a far different attitude toward the UN than the one I described above. Even altering it is difficult to contemplate. Abolishing it is unthinkable, tantamount to giving up all hope of a peaceful world. Withdrawing from it is the same as withdrawing from the family of man.
Steven den Beste suggests that the UN, driven by European and Europe-influenced members, has now adopted opposition to America as its purpose. I agree that this is the effect of what's happening. But I don't think anti-Americanism is the fundamental principle driving UN actions. I also don't think that the European conception of the organization's purpose has suddenly changed.
Rather, I think that Americans and Europeans have always accepted the UN on fundamentally different grounds. I think that for a long time these different principles resulted in the same practical positions, so the differences could be ignored. I think that the new divergence of opinion on the subject of UN legitimacy, and the limits to UN moral relevance, is not really new, but simply exposes a fundamental difference that has been there all along.
I wrote a while back about the different perceptions of what "unilateralism" means. (Summarized: to Americans, "unilateral" means "acting alone", while to Europeans, "unilateral" means "acting outside transnational organizations".) One thing I didn't bring up is that to Americans, even "acting alone" is not ipso facto wrong or immoral; in fact, the lone man who speaks and acts to bring justice, against the opposition of all, is a common part of American myth. Unilateral (in the American sense) policy may be imprudent or dangerous in a given situation - one may need the help of friends to successfully carry it out, for example - but it's not a bad thing in itself. And, of course, there's the fact that we do have allies - not the Germans and French to be sure, but "without Germany and France" does not equal "acting alone".
Between one thing and the other, the charge of "unilateralism" does not carry anywhere near the sting it's clearly intended to convey. Americans have not been that impressed by this rhetoric. Those making the charge seem puzzled that it hasn't brought us up short. This is because when sent, the message reads "You are doing a horrendously immoral thing!", but at the point of reception, it reads something closer to "You're not obeying us (and we're confused about the root meaning of 'uni-')!"
When Europeans look at America now, they see nationalism rearing its head again. They see God only knows what - a new Nazism, a new Fascism, an age of empire (the real thing, not "the US is an empire because 'Baywatch' reruns and McDonalds are popular") - because those are the associations nationalism has had for Europeans. Americans do not tend to carry these fears, because their experience of nationalism hasn't been the same. And because this is all part of the background, the water we swim in, the assumptions tend to be unspoken, and when they collide like this people may not even realize that they're working from fundamentally different pictures of the way the world works. This is why there's such a disconnect; this is why we are not reacting the way the Europeans expect.
And they see the UN's role now, in this dangerous time, as reining in America - not out of fundamental anti-Americanism but out of anti-nationalism. Sovereignty, in this way of looking at the UN's purpose, must be constrained by transnational institutions. Unfettered sovereignty is dangerous, and the more powerful the country, the greater the danger. America is the most powerful country in the world, and its president is saying in so many words that America's decisions regarding its security will not be limited by UN mandates and that in this matter we do not have to ask anyone's permission to defend ourselves. This doesn't sound unexceptionable to an American ear, but to a European who sees limiting nationalism as the UN's sine qua non, it strikes at the heart of the entire UN project and all it embodies. America's willingness to ignore UN wishes and UN procedures, if need be to protect itself, is not just pragmatism in this view. It's almost blasphemous.
And there's worse coming. If Stephen Pollard's sources are right, and we provisionally leave the UN if a nineteenth resolution on Iraq is vetoed, Americans will see it as a major act - but as, fundamentally, a pragmatic one in intent. The UN is no longer serving its purpose, the reasoning will go, and it's therefore a waste of time and money and attention. If other countries want to keep doing it for their own entertainment, fine, but there's no point if it's not doing what it was designed to do.
But if I'm right about their mindset, Europeans are more likely to see US withdrawal from the UN not as a practical act but as a symbolic of throwing off all civilized bonds. Such a thing carries a symbolic weight for them that we have a hard time understanding. As with the "unilateralism" charge, the message will be distorted in transit by our differing background assumptions. They'll say "But you can't! It's madness!" and we'll hear something more like "Come back here so we can finish beating you up!" We will not hear the depth of their fear at the implications of this action.
den Beste says that if we do leave the UN over this, fight a successful war, and find the evidence we expect to in Iraq, "it's going to make it obvious to anyone who isn't blinded by anti-American paranoia that the UK and America were right, and that the UN clearly wasn't able to fulfill its nominal role." I'm not convinced of this. If the Europeans shared our assumptions about the UN's role, this would be true. But for those who see the UN's nominal role as curbing runaway nationalism, a US withdrawal followed by a quick victory will only stoke their worst fears, regardless of what evidence about Iraq is found. For them, Iraq is not the issue because Iraqi nationalism is not their predominant fear.
The UN is about to come apart. On the one side, it's taken an explicit stand against a member country doing what it's made clear it needs to for its security, and on the other side, a member country is about to go against its explicit wishes. The organization cannot survive such a breach as anything more than a shadow, and maybe not even as that.
But the seeds of its destruction were sown long ago, at the time of its founding. It's just that it's taken until now for a situation to arise that reveals the internal stresses that have been part of its flawed foundation all along.
Friday, March 07, 2003
[posted by jaed at 4:36 PM]
Dark Age of Something, anyway:
Porphyrogenitus posts this email from a gaming friend:
- North Korea has challenged you to a duel! Type /duel accept to accept or /duel decline to decline the challenge.
- /duel decline
- North Korea tells you: "Dood u r teh suq. I will r0xxorz u"
- You tell North Korea: No thanks, guy. Trying to get an RvR raid going.
- North Korea tells you: "Ur just scaerd of teh pwnage"
- You tell North Korea: Riiiigh. STFU, okay? I'm busy
- North Korea taunts you.
- /ignore North Korea. Hee.
Monday, March 03, 2003
[posted by jaed at 9:03 PM]
Venezuela: The Petrostate Explained
Caracas Chronicles has a three-part series on Venezuelan society, politics, and oil. Too extensive to excerpt:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Well, OK, a couple of excerpts:
Another key part of the petrostate model that's often overlooked is that by creating this huge patron-client networks, the political parties became big and strong enough to make democracy viable. The web of social relationships created by clientelism - now such a reviled word - were actually healthy for society back then. Those relationships ensured that enough people were socially and emotionally attached to democratic institutions, that enough people felt they had a personal stake in the political system, to keep the whole society stable and democratic. And it worked, the system worked. There were elections every five years, parties routinely and peacefully alternated in power, Venezuela was an island of democracy and stability in a continent torn apart by Marxist insurgents and coup-plotting reactionary generals.
[...]
The February 27th riots were a kind of September 11th moment for Venezuela: they transformed the country deeply. Until then, Venezuelans had seen themselves as different, more civilized, more democratic, better than their Latin American neighbors. 31 years of unbroken, stable, petrostate-funded democracy had made us terribly cocky. In a sense, the riots marked Venezuela�s entry into Latin America. The country was no longer different: just another hard-up Latin American republic struggling to put its democracy on a stable footing.
[...]
In 1998, the voters wanted to hear someone tell them that the country is rich, that prosperity is their birthright, and that the only reason they are poor is that their share of the oil money was stolen. They wanted to hear that because that was what they intimately believed. And Ch�vez articulated it brilliantly. With amazing vigor and charisma, he captured the volcanic anger they felt at the breakdown of the old model. Ch�vez became their voice. So they voted for him. What could be more natural?
There's just one minor inconvenience: the Ch�vez era has made the petrostate model even more unworkable than it was 4 years ago, much more unworkable.
[posted by jaed at 9:48 AM]
Are you coming?
A phone conversation between an Iraqi and his relative in America:
"Do you know when?"
"I'm not sure."
"Are you coming?"
"Yes. I am coming. We will . . . "
"Why are you silent?"
"I'm afraid that you'll be in danger."
"Don't be afraid. We are not afraid. This time is serious."
"I am coming with the American Army."
"Is there a way that we can register our names with the American forces to work with them when they arrive? Will you call my house at the first moment you arrive? I will help." I've said before that I don't advocate this battle because of what it will do for the Iraqis but because of what it will do for our safety.
But god damn, I hope we don't let them down again this time.
Sunday, March 02, 2003
[posted by jaed at 8:12 PM]
Regime change considered as border change
A 1999 Ralph Peters article considers the case for advocating border change:
In our addiction to stasis and our obsession--for it is nothing less than that--with "inviolable" interstate boundaries carved out by imperial force in a different age, we are putting ourselves on the side of the empires we destroyed. America thoughtlessly supports oppression because we find the lines on the map familiar and convenient. The ghosts of kaisers, kings, and czars must be howling with glee in hell. Peters is mostly talking about Eastern Europe here, but this is also something I've been thinking about in regard to the Arab countries. It's pretty clear to me that functionally, "Arabia" is a single nation, borders or no borders. The borders that exist now were drawn arbitrarily by imperial Britain and France, for reasons pretty much completely unrelated to any realities of that territory.
All the discussion of postwar Iraq has assumed its borders will remain inviolable. But is this really the best assumption to make if we want the result to be a stable, peaceful, prosperous region? I'm not at all convinced.
Even if we leave aside the Kurd/Arab conflict and many Kurds' desire for a state, Iraq has serious internal divisions among its Arab population - divisions that are reflected geographically. (It's not the only Arab country that's in that situation.) It may make more sense in the long run to think in terms of a loose confederation making up an Arab nation than in terms of keeping the Picot-Sykes borders inviolate.
[posted by jaed at 10:35 AM]
Kurdistan - the Motion Picture:
Assume the Position has a long, detailed post on Kurds. Too long to excerpt, but contains histories of the various Kurdish political groups and their relations, a timeline, and much more.
[posted by jaed at 10:09 AM]
Just like summer camp:
The Telegraph reports that the people who went to Iraq to protect Saddam Hussein ("we'll work with children! We'll stand in front of orphanages and hospitals and other things the evil Americans want to bomb!") are beginning to wake up to the actual situation they've placed themselves in:
Nine of the 11 British shields on the pioneering wave of red double-deckers left this weekend. At the Andalus hotel five kilometres away, Dr Abdul Hashimi, the official overseeing their mission in Iraq, had issued the shocked group with an ultimatum: deploy to the "strategic sites" hand-picked by the government or leave immediately. Not all of them, however:
Bruce, a 24-year-old Canadian wearing a T-shirt saying "I don't want to die", was one of a group of tanned young men who were drafted into protect a grain store. Initially, he, like others, had concerns about the sites, which included an oil refinery, a water purification plant and electricity stations. He was won over when the Iraqis provided televisions, VCRs, telephones and a Play Station.
"Dr Hashimi has explained that we help the population more by staying in the 'strategic sites'," he explained. Oh for Christ's sake.
Look. I remember the Iraqi government making an announcement months ago that anyone who showed up to volunteer their services as a "human shield" would be placed at strategic targets: army bases, bridges, weapons depots. Even if these people don't care about the Iraqis' well-being - which is fairly clear to me; if they cared more about that than about maintaining the emanations of their own spiritual goodness and purity, they'd find some way to help Iraqis that didn't involve keeping their torturer in power indefinitely - you'd think they'd have some inkling that standing around military installations in a war zone isn't a healthy thing to do.
But now look at them. They're leaving... because it's suddenly dawned on them that they might get killed. (Is there an exemption in the Geneva provisions on war crimes for stupidity?)
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