Does Pacifism Save Lives?
.
My answer to a recent question: "Does Pacifism Save Lives?"
... in reference to an October, 2002 article by Victor Davis Hanson
(http://victorhanson.com/articles/hanson101802.html)
_______
Pacifism is opposition to war or violence as a means of settling disputes.
Appeasement is to bring to a state of peace or quiet, or by a lesser definition: to pacify.
While appease and pacify are deemed synonymous, the two words are by no means equal.
In fairness, the historian Dr. Victor Davis Hanson, Ph.D., never once used either word "pacify" or "pacifism" in his "Voices in the Wilderness."
A different take on the article presented in the original post here ...
Listening to the U.S. administration make a case for preemptive action brought to me disgust - realizing that such an act could be executed because "precedent" had been established - with at best questionable legal basis. To the skepticism of the U.N., open disdain of the Europeans, opposition of Arab countries, and disparagement from domestic opposition, the president warned only of a danger on the horizon - ONE selected danger "on the horizon" - while at the same time disregarding, or refusing to deal with, or it seems, even to consider other equal and more serious dangers, each of which pose grave threat to the survival of humanity itself. While speaking of the "rule of law" the American president chose to focus on what would, or (since he cannot know with certainty) could happen if action was not taken, rather than choosing a course of action consistent with rule of law, the president instead embarked on an illegal and immoral course. That illegal course was based on decades of lies kept hidden from a complacent American citizenry, the majority of whom believe in the "moral superiority" of their government's actions because the majority of those actions are moral. American complacency also allows those immoral actions, though few in number, of the United States government to go mostly under reported and unnoticed, given so little attention that essentially no criticism is directed at their purpose, while they are passed off as mistakes, errors of oversight, but seldom as prosecutable criminal behaviour. For the president to say in this case that preemption now will save more innocent lives later is essentially the same as saying a city's police force must preemptively invade every citizen's home because of the possibility that a few citizens are "terrorists."
In a sane Twenty First century world, a U.S. president's admonishments calling for sacrifice and danger could be laughed at, knowing the recent U.S. government history, yet ought be taken extremely seriously. Saddam Hussein's record of killing tens and hundreds of thousands of his own people was aided by United States government funding, technology, weapons - direct support and encouragement; much of Saddam's "hoards" of biological and chemical weapons were purchased from, or received from, the United States and from U.S. allies; and Saddam's battles against neighboring nations simply could not have been as frequent and aggressive without U.S. support. For all the demonizing of the man who was Saddam Hussein, truth was finally revealed to the entire world when Saddam was found hiding in a tiny hole dug in the earth, showing him to be just one tiny man, encouraged to act in evil ways by evil people who profited from his actions, but by himself nothing more than brag and boast. In a post-September 11 world, there is no margin of error when dealing with a government which pretends to rule the world, manipulates leaders of other nations to do its bidding, eliminates them when they no longer serve a "needed" purpose, eliminates entire populations at will, including some among its own people.
The more information we learn of various contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq, between al Qaeda and CIA and Pakistani ISI, between al Qaeda and Mossad, between Mossad and British Intelligence services, and so on, the more we are assured that we are not being told the truth of what has been happening among these "services" - agencies which supposedly exist to serve the peoples who authorize them. Newspapers and documentaries daily and quite freely reveal "information" they are authorized to disseminate, which may say that al Qaeda terrorists have been in Iraq, while failing to mention at all that CIA and Mossad employees and their agents have "been in Iraq" so as to give the public a false impression; in other words, to misinform, to mislead.
Any danger that Saddam Hussein might have presented to the civilian population of the United States was in what he, like Noriega and others in a similar position, could have revealed in a proper court of law where a truly fair hearing would reveal the criminals who enable characters such as Saddam. Saddam Hussein had at no time in his life the resources and technological capabilities of either a Tojo or a Hitler to create such advanced weaponry as was acquired, for its own use, by the United States when Japan and Germany were defeated in World War II. Whatever "egomaniacal" tendencies Saddam Hussein may have harbored within himself, they were for personal glory within a regional Muslim context - never so grand a plan as that of Hitler's apparent determination to conquer the entire world. Attributing sleeper cells and dirty bombs and anthrax spores to some fantastic plan created by Saddam Hussein is no more than a flimsy effort to justify an illegal war which, as we know today, was planned well in advance of the very events for which that war is now said to be "necessary."
We do not and have not lived in a sane world for a very long time. Twenty First century Americans are led to believe that Marines killed in their barracks, oil tankers blown up, religious rivals butchered, tourists incinerated, local residents blown up in marketplaces, are atrocities committed by people who are simply unfriendly to the United States or to Westerners or to another religion, etc., while hardly any print space or air time is given to WHY those people are "unfriendly." Information about terrorist acts against those deemed "unfriendly" is suppressed, simply not authorized for broadcast. Additional corporate media propaganda "informs" Americans that "terrorist cells broken up from Oregon to New York" are attributable to al Qaeda or "radical Muslims" while totally failing to "report" that not a single one of those "terrorist cells" has led to convictions which represent any real threat to the internal security of the United States of America. Yes, Americans are at war - unfortunately as yet unable to identify their enemy. al Qaeda is a creature manufactured by the corporate United States government, and when al Qaeda becomes less than effective as a bogeyman, it too will be replaced by a new enemy, just the same as Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein have been replaced.
Yes it is human nature to want to put aside distant threats of the future to enjoy tangible, if temporary, benefits of our hard work, or to pretend our work is hard, or to create villains if necessary to make us feel loved, needed, vital, relevant, in a world where life continues so easily without us. It is a sick aspect of human nature that we are at all able to use another individual's thinking so as to cause him to puff himself up and become offensive, help him believe others are out to get him but that we will defend him, no matter what, until the day we reveal our true intentions to make a fool of him, then take our fun in destroying someone we have so demoralized - yet we continue to view ourselves as healthy and moral individuals, pretending that were we to come face-to-face with the very Creator (forgetting that in fact we are face-to-face every day) we would not see a frowning face. It may be human nature to want to rewrite history once an individual's demise is accomplished so as to attempt to ensure anything good that person may have contributed is not part of "history" - history as written by conquerors, by killers, by criminals - yet truth will always rise to the top. Such attempts to alter actual fact may be the supreme "arrogance of those who still breathe and so shrug that the dead are already gone, and that their memory and the anger at their unfair departure should nevertheless not endanger our own tenuous claim on the world above."
In his article published by nationalreview.com, Fresno State University professor Victor Davis Hanson, Ph.D., best known as a scholar of ancient warfare, attempted to use "appeasement" as a bully issue to justify the illegal "preemptive" invasion of Iraq by the United States, coloring his wake with bits of Greek history while confusing Adolph Hitler with Yasser Arafat. Once again, it is human nature to want revenge for acts much less egregious than those which occurred September 11, 2001. It can also be said that it is simply "human nature" to lie and to cheat, to steal, rape, murder, torture, and to subject certain groups to slavery - none of which justifies or in any way elevates by itself "human nature."
So is any Twenty First century human being actually spiritually enlightened or evolved to such a level that we can stand up and freely declare whether a "preemptive strike" is a moral action; whether invading a sovereign nation against international law, and against our own national law, is a "legal" act; whether the resulting deaths of hundreds of thousands of "others" truly justifies an argument that it will "save lives at home" or save lives at all; and for those who profess to be Christian, how does one answer when The Creator confronts us with so many innocent lives lost for which guilt is on us for our actions, or inaction, for our decision, for our vengeance ?
The very definition of the word "appeasement" easily points out to us the forlorn manipulation Mr. Hanson intends. Action which has as its determined goal "to bring to a state of peace or quiet" may be necessarily anything BUT pacifist or peaceful. Such action may be coercive, intrusive, even violent. Determined goals are not so easily accomplished by those who act out of vengeance, and anyone who has been to war will listen to a voice like Hanson's and respectfully ask him to stand in line when he suggests sending our next generation to fight and die on a frontline with which he, himself, is somehow familiar only through history books. A military historian may compose fine and convincing literature, but can he win in battle ? That IS where the generals and their medals exist, is it not - actually defeating an enemy rather than talking and writing about such things ?
Mr. Hanson, as evidenced by his contributions to the "Fresno Bee" in his column seems comfortable with his opinions and apparently believes his opinions carry more weight because of his Ph.D. The San Joaquin Valley olive grower and vineyard owner ("He lives and works with his family on their forty-acre tree and vine farm near Selma, California, where he was born in 1953." according to his own website) seems to equate intelligence with possession of a high-school diploma, which, from where I sit, says something about the amount of knowledge Dr. Hanson received with his Ph.D.
"According to Hanson, Western values such as political freedom, capitalism, individualism, democracy, scientific inquiry, rationalism, and open debate form an especially lethal combination when applied to warfare. Non-Western societies can win the occasional victory when warring against a society with these Western values, writes Hanson, but the "Western way of war" will prevail in the long run. Hanson emphasizes that Western warfare is not necessarily more (or less) moral than war as practiced by other cultures; his argument is simply that the "Western way of war" is unequalled in its devastation and decisiveness."
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Davis_Hanson
What seems lost in Hanson's "fog of history" is that current conflicts do not hinge on some medieval invasion by armada, or an overland cavalry blitzkrieg that Ghenghis Khan or even Adolph Hitler would have mounted. Instead, when it comes down to it - all the way down - today it is simply a command given to push a button, for which a few thousand years of one people's "civilization" is instantly, and forever, vaporized, vanished, gone. Such a decision, once taken, has severe consequences, as we know, for those of us who remain on the planet.
How offensive it is for Hanson to place historic figures "equal" to each other, such as saying " ... Churchill - and President Bush today - struggled to make a complacent audience grasp the nature of a distant and still theoretical threat, one that could only grow through appeasement and would end with confrontation and defeat." Churchill was aware of his mistakes as he neared the end of his life, apologetic, and who is there to diminish Churchill's accomplisments regardless of his mistakes. Is it possible that Hanson is confused about who would have appeased Hitler ? Without Churchill, there would have been no Iraq, and no Saddam. As it turned out, Iraq continued to exist only because of Saddam, and now that Saddam is gone, Iraq is also history, since nothing and no one remains to hold together what once was Iraq.
Words of someone with no military experience pretend to diminsh hard-considered decisions made by others in the face of their own imminent annihilation - decisions made with determination that humanity would remain free of tyranny - yet measured decisions, not lashing out, making it clear the author does not understand the word "appeasement" - thinking it perhaps some utopian affliction. Yes - by all means, let the inspectors do their work, because that is part of the social contract we have established under the rule of law ... and if you ask why we should abide that rule of law in the face of our enemy's intentions, your question speaks clearly to your own lack of understanding or outright ignorance why we find our enemy's intentions contrary to our own well-being. Should you ask, "What is our policy ?" I will answer you: "We give our enemies rope enough to hang themselves if they choose."
There is NO "victory at any cost" for anyone, anywhere, ever, and any idea that "sacrificing" anything of what has brought us to be able to live today and to have any moral standing whatsoever in today's world can be somehow justified in order to win this one battle, to win a war, to defeat an enemy, is not folly - it is suicide. The United States today, even if temporarily, possesses a military force which, when fully deployed, is impossible for any other nation by itself to overcome. The current United States military budget so far exceeds combined expenditures of other nations as to leave everyone in utter awe. Some nations in this world presently would be agrarian and non-military were it not for the expansive research and development of weaponry and systems provided by the United States. Some nations in today's world would be peaceful partners were it not for decades old intentional interference in their affairs and the affairs of their neighbours, for which they have increasingly found it necessary to arm themselves by purchasing military hardware from the very same military-industrial complex which is responsible for interfering in their sovereign affairs and upsetting their neighbours against them.
For all its glorious promise, the United States took a very wrong turn in the few years following World War II. Instead of building a peaceful world on the foundations of freedoms secured by that war, the corporate United States government chose to look upon the universe as an unfriendly place, as a conglomeration of potential enemies which could be played against one another for profit, and those profits have been very, very good.
Now, after half a century of delivering "defense" only to withhold it when it becomes more convenient (or profitable) to label an ally as aggressor, after delivering death and destruction packaged carelessly as democracy, it is Americans mostly who remain among the few who do not recognize that United States' belligerence and profiteering have been seen for what they are by humanity at large, and the U.S. government will be tolerated only until it can be overcome, which it will be - one way or another. If ever there was any good reason to lie to the American people, the U.S. government has far exceeded its "authority" even in that department, and is now known around the world as the government that cried "wolf" one too many times.
God bless us all to be so fortunate forever after as to fight our own private wars in our own private orchards.
"Appeasement wins applause for its ethical posturing and non-belligerency," Hanson says, clearly misunderstanding that appeasement is NOT limited to "buying off" an aggressor. Appeasement means primarily "to bring to a state of peace or quiet" - which may very well mean hanging (killing) an enemy who has been given enough rope (given an option to recognize a DEFINITE need to change his own course of action). We hope and pray our enemies will use their own innate intelligence which is given to every one of us the living, choose to live in peace with us ... but Hanson does not quit there, adding " ... and even when the corpses later pile up it rarely earns the disgust it deserves for getting thousands killed."
There is NO evidence that al Qaeda "terrorists" or "radical muslims" would have, or could have, threatened the national security of the United States - not by themselves, no matter how hard they tried to, no matter how badly they wanted to, no matter how willingly they may have given their lives to such a cause. There IS ample evidence that so-called "terrorists" or "extremists" were enabled by elements of the United States government to commit acts within United States territories, including the United States of America itself, so as to create an impression that U.S. national security was breached and / or "at risk" when in fact such a breach NEVER existed. Evidence of criminal acts perpetrated on the day of September 11, 2001, aided and abetted by elements of the corporate United States government, was immediately suppressed, contained, eliminated, such tampering and suppression of evidence having begun even prior to the act itself. Duties of sworn officers of the United States government under the Constitution of the United States of America continue to be ignored five and a half years later by criminals who do not honour their oath of office and who do not act in accordance with American law.
None of the usual forensic analysis we naturally expect to accompany ANY murder investigation was conducted to determine - not even for the families of those who died that day - the true identities of the murderers, who sent them, who paid them, who allowed them to be in the U.S., why they were allowed to be in the U.S., why elements of U.S. government maintained such a close relationship with them for so long prior to the event, why efforts to prevent the attack were ignored, why those in government who risked their careers to prevent the attack were threatened physically and financially and in some cases eliminated (murdered); why those who are sworn to uphold and to defend the Constitution and yet fail to do so by ignoring information given them, who are complicit in covering up such information or in cooperating with a perceived enemy, or of threatening subordinates sincere in honouring their own oaths of office, or of all those wrongs combined and more, are still allowed not only to continue in their appointed positions, with pay, and with full pensions, but are not even subjected to the slightest investigation.
Meanwhile, the article referenced here would have us believe:
"In contrast, preemption is always equated with blood lust; and even when it saves thousands, critics sigh that in retrospect there must have been a better way."
There surely was a "better way" when prior to September 11, 2001 officials in high levels of our government so needed to know that by simply doing the right thing, by doing the very job they swore an oath to do when appointed, they certainly would have, not just could have, saved thousands of innocent American lives.
Well of course it is unthinkable to the author that any of our trusted government officials could possibly possess thinking so totally messed up as to commit acts which subsequent evidence shows them guilty of. Anyone who can review the evidence and not spend time in his orchard puking his guts out might very well have an opinion that is less than informed, but no military victory is ever accomplished by anyone who has not thouroughly studied his enemy.
How can I have respect for any man who apparently can so easily justify the slaughter of innocent human beings, an act which creates additional enemies every day, which I must suppose from this logic means a neverending supply of more human beings to be killed; someone who attempts to justify the deaths of innocents on the basis of a flimsy argument centered on a word the meaning of which he has not bothered to read or think on; an argument meant to justify killing innocent people on the possibility that if they are allowed to live, they might kill us ? I would rather let go my life today. Never would I allow such a man to watch my back, never trust him in any serious role regarding any kind of security. Mr. Dr. Victor Davis Hanson, Ph.D., may be a fine student of antiquity, but he seems to know very little of what goes on in the Twenty First century, at least as I read his mind in "Voices in the Wilderness."
~
.
My answer to a recent question: "Does Pacifism Save Lives?"
... in reference to an October, 2002 article by Victor Davis Hanson
(http://victorhanson.com/articles/hanson101802.html)
_______
Pacifism is opposition to war or violence as a means of settling disputes.
Appeasement is to bring to a state of peace or quiet, or by a lesser definition: to pacify.
While appease and pacify are deemed synonymous, the two words are by no means equal.
In fairness, the historian Dr. Victor Davis Hanson, Ph.D., never once used either word "pacify" or "pacifism" in his "Voices in the Wilderness."
A different take on the article presented in the original post here ...
Listening to the U.S. administration make a case for preemptive action brought to me disgust - realizing that such an act could be executed because "precedent" had been established - with at best questionable legal basis. To the skepticism of the U.N., open disdain of the Europeans, opposition of Arab countries, and disparagement from domestic opposition, the president warned only of a danger on the horizon - ONE selected danger "on the horizon" - while at the same time disregarding, or refusing to deal with, or it seems, even to consider other equal and more serious dangers, each of which pose grave threat to the survival of humanity itself. While speaking of the "rule of law" the American president chose to focus on what would, or (since he cannot know with certainty) could happen if action was not taken, rather than choosing a course of action consistent with rule of law, the president instead embarked on an illegal and immoral course. That illegal course was based on decades of lies kept hidden from a complacent American citizenry, the majority of whom believe in the "moral superiority" of their government's actions because the majority of those actions are moral. American complacency also allows those immoral actions, though few in number, of the United States government to go mostly under reported and unnoticed, given so little attention that essentially no criticism is directed at their purpose, while they are passed off as mistakes, errors of oversight, but seldom as prosecutable criminal behaviour. For the president to say in this case that preemption now will save more innocent lives later is essentially the same as saying a city's police force must preemptively invade every citizen's home because of the possibility that a few citizens are "terrorists."
In a sane Twenty First century world, a U.S. president's admonishments calling for sacrifice and danger could be laughed at, knowing the recent U.S. government history, yet ought be taken extremely seriously. Saddam Hussein's record of killing tens and hundreds of thousands of his own people was aided by United States government funding, technology, weapons - direct support and encouragement; much of Saddam's "hoards" of biological and chemical weapons were purchased from, or received from, the United States and from U.S. allies; and Saddam's battles against neighboring nations simply could not have been as frequent and aggressive without U.S. support. For all the demonizing of the man who was Saddam Hussein, truth was finally revealed to the entire world when Saddam was found hiding in a tiny hole dug in the earth, showing him to be just one tiny man, encouraged to act in evil ways by evil people who profited from his actions, but by himself nothing more than brag and boast. In a post-September 11 world, there is no margin of error when dealing with a government which pretends to rule the world, manipulates leaders of other nations to do its bidding, eliminates them when they no longer serve a "needed" purpose, eliminates entire populations at will, including some among its own people.
The more information we learn of various contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq, between al Qaeda and CIA and Pakistani ISI, between al Qaeda and Mossad, between Mossad and British Intelligence services, and so on, the more we are assured that we are not being told the truth of what has been happening among these "services" - agencies which supposedly exist to serve the peoples who authorize them. Newspapers and documentaries daily and quite freely reveal "information" they are authorized to disseminate, which may say that al Qaeda terrorists have been in Iraq, while failing to mention at all that CIA and Mossad employees and their agents have "been in Iraq" so as to give the public a false impression; in other words, to misinform, to mislead.
Any danger that Saddam Hussein might have presented to the civilian population of the United States was in what he, like Noriega and others in a similar position, could have revealed in a proper court of law where a truly fair hearing would reveal the criminals who enable characters such as Saddam. Saddam Hussein had at no time in his life the resources and technological capabilities of either a Tojo or a Hitler to create such advanced weaponry as was acquired, for its own use, by the United States when Japan and Germany were defeated in World War II. Whatever "egomaniacal" tendencies Saddam Hussein may have harbored within himself, they were for personal glory within a regional Muslim context - never so grand a plan as that of Hitler's apparent determination to conquer the entire world. Attributing sleeper cells and dirty bombs and anthrax spores to some fantastic plan created by Saddam Hussein is no more than a flimsy effort to justify an illegal war which, as we know today, was planned well in advance of the very events for which that war is now said to be "necessary."
We do not and have not lived in a sane world for a very long time. Twenty First century Americans are led to believe that Marines killed in their barracks, oil tankers blown up, religious rivals butchered, tourists incinerated, local residents blown up in marketplaces, are atrocities committed by people who are simply unfriendly to the United States or to Westerners or to another religion, etc., while hardly any print space or air time is given to WHY those people are "unfriendly." Information about terrorist acts against those deemed "unfriendly" is suppressed, simply not authorized for broadcast. Additional corporate media propaganda "informs" Americans that "terrorist cells broken up from Oregon to New York" are attributable to al Qaeda or "radical Muslims" while totally failing to "report" that not a single one of those "terrorist cells" has led to convictions which represent any real threat to the internal security of the United States of America. Yes, Americans are at war - unfortunately as yet unable to identify their enemy. al Qaeda is a creature manufactured by the corporate United States government, and when al Qaeda becomes less than effective as a bogeyman, it too will be replaced by a new enemy, just the same as Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein have been replaced.
Yes it is human nature to want to put aside distant threats of the future to enjoy tangible, if temporary, benefits of our hard work, or to pretend our work is hard, or to create villains if necessary to make us feel loved, needed, vital, relevant, in a world where life continues so easily without us. It is a sick aspect of human nature that we are at all able to use another individual's thinking so as to cause him to puff himself up and become offensive, help him believe others are out to get him but that we will defend him, no matter what, until the day we reveal our true intentions to make a fool of him, then take our fun in destroying someone we have so demoralized - yet we continue to view ourselves as healthy and moral individuals, pretending that were we to come face-to-face with the very Creator (forgetting that in fact we are face-to-face every day) we would not see a frowning face. It may be human nature to want to rewrite history once an individual's demise is accomplished so as to attempt to ensure anything good that person may have contributed is not part of "history" - history as written by conquerors, by killers, by criminals - yet truth will always rise to the top. Such attempts to alter actual fact may be the supreme "arrogance of those who still breathe and so shrug that the dead are already gone, and that their memory and the anger at their unfair departure should nevertheless not endanger our own tenuous claim on the world above."
In his article published by nationalreview.com, Fresno State University professor Victor Davis Hanson, Ph.D., best known as a scholar of ancient warfare, attempted to use "appeasement" as a bully issue to justify the illegal "preemptive" invasion of Iraq by the United States, coloring his wake with bits of Greek history while confusing Adolph Hitler with Yasser Arafat. Once again, it is human nature to want revenge for acts much less egregious than those which occurred September 11, 2001. It can also be said that it is simply "human nature" to lie and to cheat, to steal, rape, murder, torture, and to subject certain groups to slavery - none of which justifies or in any way elevates by itself "human nature."
So is any Twenty First century human being actually spiritually enlightened or evolved to such a level that we can stand up and freely declare whether a "preemptive strike" is a moral action; whether invading a sovereign nation against international law, and against our own national law, is a "legal" act; whether the resulting deaths of hundreds of thousands of "others" truly justifies an argument that it will "save lives at home" or save lives at all; and for those who profess to be Christian, how does one answer when The Creator confronts us with so many innocent lives lost for which guilt is on us for our actions, or inaction, for our decision, for our vengeance ?
The very definition of the word "appeasement" easily points out to us the forlorn manipulation Mr. Hanson intends. Action which has as its determined goal "to bring to a state of peace or quiet" may be necessarily anything BUT pacifist or peaceful. Such action may be coercive, intrusive, even violent. Determined goals are not so easily accomplished by those who act out of vengeance, and anyone who has been to war will listen to a voice like Hanson's and respectfully ask him to stand in line when he suggests sending our next generation to fight and die on a frontline with which he, himself, is somehow familiar only through history books. A military historian may compose fine and convincing literature, but can he win in battle ? That IS where the generals and their medals exist, is it not - actually defeating an enemy rather than talking and writing about such things ?
Mr. Hanson, as evidenced by his contributions to the "Fresno Bee" in his column seems comfortable with his opinions and apparently believes his opinions carry more weight because of his Ph.D. The San Joaquin Valley olive grower and vineyard owner ("He lives and works with his family on their forty-acre tree and vine farm near Selma, California, where he was born in 1953." according to his own website) seems to equate intelligence with possession of a high-school diploma, which, from where I sit, says something about the amount of knowledge Dr. Hanson received with his Ph.D.
"According to Hanson, Western values such as political freedom, capitalism, individualism, democracy, scientific inquiry, rationalism, and open debate form an especially lethal combination when applied to warfare. Non-Western societies can win the occasional victory when warring against a society with these Western values, writes Hanson, but the "Western way of war" will prevail in the long run. Hanson emphasizes that Western warfare is not necessarily more (or less) moral than war as practiced by other cultures; his argument is simply that the "Western way of war" is unequalled in its devastation and decisiveness."
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Davis_Hanson
What seems lost in Hanson's "fog of history" is that current conflicts do not hinge on some medieval invasion by armada, or an overland cavalry blitzkrieg that Ghenghis Khan or even Adolph Hitler would have mounted. Instead, when it comes down to it - all the way down - today it is simply a command given to push a button, for which a few thousand years of one people's "civilization" is instantly, and forever, vaporized, vanished, gone. Such a decision, once taken, has severe consequences, as we know, for those of us who remain on the planet.
How offensive it is for Hanson to place historic figures "equal" to each other, such as saying " ... Churchill - and President Bush today - struggled to make a complacent audience grasp the nature of a distant and still theoretical threat, one that could only grow through appeasement and would end with confrontation and defeat." Churchill was aware of his mistakes as he neared the end of his life, apologetic, and who is there to diminish Churchill's accomplisments regardless of his mistakes. Is it possible that Hanson is confused about who would have appeased Hitler ? Without Churchill, there would have been no Iraq, and no Saddam. As it turned out, Iraq continued to exist only because of Saddam, and now that Saddam is gone, Iraq is also history, since nothing and no one remains to hold together what once was Iraq.
Words of someone with no military experience pretend to diminsh hard-considered decisions made by others in the face of their own imminent annihilation - decisions made with determination that humanity would remain free of tyranny - yet measured decisions, not lashing out, making it clear the author does not understand the word "appeasement" - thinking it perhaps some utopian affliction. Yes - by all means, let the inspectors do their work, because that is part of the social contract we have established under the rule of law ... and if you ask why we should abide that rule of law in the face of our enemy's intentions, your question speaks clearly to your own lack of understanding or outright ignorance why we find our enemy's intentions contrary to our own well-being. Should you ask, "What is our policy ?" I will answer you: "We give our enemies rope enough to hang themselves if they choose."
There is NO "victory at any cost" for anyone, anywhere, ever, and any idea that "sacrificing" anything of what has brought us to be able to live today and to have any moral standing whatsoever in today's world can be somehow justified in order to win this one battle, to win a war, to defeat an enemy, is not folly - it is suicide. The United States today, even if temporarily, possesses a military force which, when fully deployed, is impossible for any other nation by itself to overcome. The current United States military budget so far exceeds combined expenditures of other nations as to leave everyone in utter awe. Some nations in this world presently would be agrarian and non-military were it not for the expansive research and development of weaponry and systems provided by the United States. Some nations in today's world would be peaceful partners were it not for decades old intentional interference in their affairs and the affairs of their neighbours, for which they have increasingly found it necessary to arm themselves by purchasing military hardware from the very same military-industrial complex which is responsible for interfering in their sovereign affairs and upsetting their neighbours against them.
For all its glorious promise, the United States took a very wrong turn in the few years following World War II. Instead of building a peaceful world on the foundations of freedoms secured by that war, the corporate United States government chose to look upon the universe as an unfriendly place, as a conglomeration of potential enemies which could be played against one another for profit, and those profits have been very, very good.
Now, after half a century of delivering "defense" only to withhold it when it becomes more convenient (or profitable) to label an ally as aggressor, after delivering death and destruction packaged carelessly as democracy, it is Americans mostly who remain among the few who do not recognize that United States' belligerence and profiteering have been seen for what they are by humanity at large, and the U.S. government will be tolerated only until it can be overcome, which it will be - one way or another. If ever there was any good reason to lie to the American people, the U.S. government has far exceeded its "authority" even in that department, and is now known around the world as the government that cried "wolf" one too many times.
God bless us all to be so fortunate forever after as to fight our own private wars in our own private orchards.
"Appeasement wins applause for its ethical posturing and non-belligerency," Hanson says, clearly misunderstanding that appeasement is NOT limited to "buying off" an aggressor. Appeasement means primarily "to bring to a state of peace or quiet" - which may very well mean hanging (killing) an enemy who has been given enough rope (given an option to recognize a DEFINITE need to change his own course of action). We hope and pray our enemies will use their own innate intelligence which is given to every one of us the living, choose to live in peace with us ... but Hanson does not quit there, adding " ... and even when the corpses later pile up it rarely earns the disgust it deserves for getting thousands killed."
There is NO evidence that al Qaeda "terrorists" or "radical muslims" would have, or could have, threatened the national security of the United States - not by themselves, no matter how hard they tried to, no matter how badly they wanted to, no matter how willingly they may have given their lives to such a cause. There IS ample evidence that so-called "terrorists" or "extremists" were enabled by elements of the United States government to commit acts within United States territories, including the United States of America itself, so as to create an impression that U.S. national security was breached and / or "at risk" when in fact such a breach NEVER existed. Evidence of criminal acts perpetrated on the day of September 11, 2001, aided and abetted by elements of the corporate United States government, was immediately suppressed, contained, eliminated, such tampering and suppression of evidence having begun even prior to the act itself. Duties of sworn officers of the United States government under the Constitution of the United States of America continue to be ignored five and a half years later by criminals who do not honour their oath of office and who do not act in accordance with American law.
None of the usual forensic analysis we naturally expect to accompany ANY murder investigation was conducted to determine - not even for the families of those who died that day - the true identities of the murderers, who sent them, who paid them, who allowed them to be in the U.S., why they were allowed to be in the U.S., why elements of U.S. government maintained such a close relationship with them for so long prior to the event, why efforts to prevent the attack were ignored, why those in government who risked their careers to prevent the attack were threatened physically and financially and in some cases eliminated (murdered); why those who are sworn to uphold and to defend the Constitution and yet fail to do so by ignoring information given them, who are complicit in covering up such information or in cooperating with a perceived enemy, or of threatening subordinates sincere in honouring their own oaths of office, or of all those wrongs combined and more, are still allowed not only to continue in their appointed positions, with pay, and with full pensions, but are not even subjected to the slightest investigation.
Meanwhile, the article referenced here would have us believe:
"In contrast, preemption is always equated with blood lust; and even when it saves thousands, critics sigh that in retrospect there must have been a better way."
There surely was a "better way" when prior to September 11, 2001 officials in high levels of our government so needed to know that by simply doing the right thing, by doing the very job they swore an oath to do when appointed, they certainly would have, not just could have, saved thousands of innocent American lives.
Well of course it is unthinkable to the author that any of our trusted government officials could possibly possess thinking so totally messed up as to commit acts which subsequent evidence shows them guilty of. Anyone who can review the evidence and not spend time in his orchard puking his guts out might very well have an opinion that is less than informed, but no military victory is ever accomplished by anyone who has not thouroughly studied his enemy.
How can I have respect for any man who apparently can so easily justify the slaughter of innocent human beings, an act which creates additional enemies every day, which I must suppose from this logic means a neverending supply of more human beings to be killed; someone who attempts to justify the deaths of innocents on the basis of a flimsy argument centered on a word the meaning of which he has not bothered to read or think on; an argument meant to justify killing innocent people on the possibility that if they are allowed to live, they might kill us ? I would rather let go my life today. Never would I allow such a man to watch my back, never trust him in any serious role regarding any kind of security. Mr. Dr. Victor Davis Hanson, Ph.D., may be a fine student of antiquity, but he seems to know very little of what goes on in the Twenty First century, at least as I read his mind in "Voices in the Wilderness."
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posted by JamesB | 12:34 PM
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