The War For The West.

international | anti-war / imperialism | opinion/analysis

Tuesday May 11, 2004 13:08

by John Hawkins

What this war is really about

Can we stop for a moment, take a deep breath, and remember the hysteria of the last three years—and then learn something from it?

What did we do to deserve September 11? Cannot we provide a Marshall Plan for the Middle East? Who let our guard down—who became paranoid and passed the Patriot Act? Shouldn’t we at least listen to what bin Laden is saying?

Why kill innocent civilians in Afghanistan? The British and Russians failed and so will we. The peaks are too high; the Northern Alliance is a sham. We can’t fight during Ramadan. There are too few troops. After four weeks, let’s face it: we are in a Vietnam quagmire. Who let bin Laden and Mullah Omar escape? Consensual government will never work with these people. We murdered tens of thousands of innocent Afghans. The country is no better off than before. Can’t we get NATO or the UN into Kabul? Are our air-dropped food packages deliberately made to look like cluster bombs—and laced as well with fatty peanut-butter and jelly?
Who are these neocons? Wasn’t the invasion cooked-up years ago for the Likud party? Don’t preempt or be unilateral in Iraq—but who screwed up in not preempting before 9-11? If we strike Saddam Hussein there will be millions of refugees. Thousands of Americans will die. Moderate governments will fall. We will kill millions of Iraqis. The oil fields will go up in smoke. We want only cheap gas—we will cause gas to skyrocket if we go in. Pay the poor Turks—don’t be blackmailed by them. There are far too few troops. It will be a bloodbath—it was a bullying walkover.

Our troops will be gassed; where is the gas? The sandstorm has ruined our momentum; we are in a quagmire. We will lose 3,000 troops taking Baghdad. The coalition is a sham; don’t insult Bulgaria. We protected oil ministries while they looted 180,000 precious objects in the museum.

Why did he strut on the aircraft carrier? Why can’t we find Saddam—why humiliate him with a dental exam? Was it really necessary to show the corpses of his sons? Why were they embalmed? Why isn’t there more electric power? Be careful not to antagonize Sadr—who let Sadr get out of control? We are losing Afghanistan while we fight in Iraq. Rid the country of the Baathists; be careful in disbanding the Iraqi army. The Shiites are our friends—the Shiites are fanatics. Stay loyal to the Kurds; the Kurds are grasping troublemakers. More troops are needed. We need more Iraqis on the street or more of the UN or soldiers from Muslim countries or NATO to the rescue.

Do we remember the revolving door of hysterical critics who have periodically weighed in—a Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Norman Mailer, Alice Walker, Barbara Streisand, Al Franken, Jessica Lange, Dixie Chicks, or Tim Robbins? Remember Scott Ritter, those forgettable congressmen who went to prewar Baghdad, and all the assorted Europeans who employed Nazi metaphors to demonize the invasion of Iraq? All of them did their small part to convince us that we were either crazy or immoral for taking out a mass murderer.

We have been fighting two wars all along. The easier one was against the fascists in the Middle East, whom we demolished in Afghanistan in less than eight weeks and routed in Iraq in three—while rounding them up worldwide and preventing another 9-11 attack here at home. But the other challenge? Now that has been nearly impossible to win. For here in the West we are split into two widely divergent groups who disagree about almost everything that has transpired since September 11, a cataclysmic event that apparently exposed a widening fault line.

On the one side are those who believe in Western exceptionalism, the unique menu of individual freedom, personal liberty, consensual government, capitalism, rationalism, free markets, religious tolerance and self-critique. These believe that Western liberalism historically has been the only hope for mankind, inasmuch as it is an evolving concept that allows criticism and change, and incorporates widely divergent religions and races under its singular cultural aegis. Western societies are multiracial, not multicultural as a Rwanda or Iraq, and thus offer divergent peoples the common ground of shared values within the now much maligned nation state.

The West is, of course, not perfect; but its sins are those of mankind, of which it seeks to ameliorate through constant moral questioning. For those who embrace these values, our miracle of security, affluence, and freedom is entirely logical, and of course allows people a level of decency and civility not found elsewhere in the world—whether in the commonplace that means water that doesn’t make you sick, toilet paper in public restrooms, cars that halt at stop signs, and lines that queue up rather than mobs that rush, or in the exalted sense a Bill of Rights, media that are free, and officials who are accountable.

This classically liberal vision is always under assault on the left by utopian totalitarians, devils who demand coercive government powers to force us to be angels, and on the right by autocratic romantics who believe in the superiority of a pure religion, race, or nationality. Thus we must defend the promise of the West and its manifestation in America almost constantly. Indeed, it seems to me in these trying times that the greater sin is for thinking people to remain silent and allow the idea of America to be slurred without retort than it is for the ignorant to so breezily condemn it. We made no claims that we were perfect, only far better than the alternative and thus had the moral obligation and indeed the power and skill to defeat our enemies and preserve our culture.

On the other hand in this great divide at home are civilization’s discontents. Perhaps it is the comfort of Western liberality, affluence, and leisure that has made them so smug, guilt-ridden and hypercritical, inasmuch as so many are so upscale. Or maybe it is a sincere belief that American society is inherently exploitive and believes only in an equality of opportunity rather than their own far more important equality of results.

Many seem aristocratic and resent a radically egalitarian popular culture that caters to those well outside the university, sophisticated media, or the general intelligentsia. After all, America pays a lot more attention to “American Idol” and an array of grasping wannabees on “The Apprentice” than to Guggenheim-prize winners, university-press poets, and independent film-makers. Those who are very skeptical of what America is about seem very unlikely to go to NASCAR, listen to talk radio, join Rotary, or own a plumbing supply business.

For the last three years these most influential Americans among the intellentsia have argued that the United States either should not, or could not, retaliate against our enemies. We lacked both the power and a clear sense of moral right to take the “law” into our own hands and move unilaterally. And so every step of the way, in almost every 24-hour news cycle, we have seen a litany of criticisms about our ability or right to take action. Such fury has been deductive—preconceived distrust of the United States always looking for and finding yet another proof that we are either wrong or weak.

If the former group of defenders of the West accepts the tragic view of mankind—we are all flawed and thus seek to craft a civilization that can ameliorate our more glaring sins in the brief time allotted to us on earth—the latter is surely therapeutic: give us enough money, education, or power and we can create a perfect person who will worship reason rather than a mere religious totem, and thus soon make the world a perfectly fair and equitable place. For some, the pantheon is a Churchill, C.S. Lewis, or Tolkien, for others Michel Foucault and Edward Said.

So now we come to the earthquake of Iraq, and the divide has become a gaping abyss. Yes, there is real controversy over troop levels, the mission and purpose of our stay, and the costs of reconstructing Iraq. But behind the conundrum rest very, very different views of what the West and indeed the world should be. This fight for the future of Iraq is turning out to be for more than a referendum on democracy in the Middle East, but rather a trial of our own culture here at home.

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Comments (12 of 12)

rubbish

by jeff

Tue May 11, 2004 15:23

There was no debate about western values or clashes of snivilisation before 9/11, or even before Shrub. 9/11 has been used as an excuse by weird intellectuals to try out their gobshite theories. Here. In the West.

I am sick to death of you snivelling right wing airbags trying to justify the murder of 13,000 Iraqis because of the murder of 3000 thousand people in New York.

I am sick to death of reading stupid theories about western this and liberal that, and free market this,k and charges of relativism or anti americanism against those of us against bombing and invading foregin countries.

Wise up; the Iraqis will soon want to kill us all, and it is not the fault of those against killing, but the fault of those with their hairbrained theories and their so called acadmeic backgrounds. I'm studying poli sci myself, but as far as I am concerned, there is more intellectual, moral, and basic common sense superiority in Blur's ' Think tank' album than any of the crazed scribblings of Hutington, Krauthammer. Dr. Condi Rice, or any of that ilk.

Thank god Ireland's media has not been so intellectually infected. Thankfully we only have clowns like Brendan O' Connor, or piss stained alcoholics like Eoghan Harris. Even the dogs on the street would be able to see through those reprobates. If a dog had been present when O' Conner was trying to start on young fellas half his age on the march May 1st, the dog would have growled and bit that slug's leg.

There is my rant. Try not to be another clown. Maybe you will get to drive a Saab, like O' Connor, but truth be known, slugs like him are quickly going out of fashion.

Big time.

Lovelt piucs by the way from Abu Ghraib. Very Western indeed, as is the new flag of Iraq.

not.

"expel the invader!"

Why We Will Never Abandon Iraq

Tue May 11, 2004 16:17

We are locked in a historic struggle in Iraq. On its outcome hangs more than the fate of the Iraqi people. Were we to fail, which we will not, it is more than "the power of America" that would be defeated. The hope of freedom and religious tolerance in Iraq would be snuffed out. Dictators would rejoice; fanatics and terrorists would be triumphant. Every nascent strand of moderate Arab opinion, knowing full well that the future should not belong to fundamentalist religion, would be set back in bitter disappointment.

If we succeed -- if Iraq becomes a sovereign state, governed democratically by the Iraqi people; the wealth of that potentially rich country, their wealth; the oil, their oil; the police state replaced by the rule of law and respect for human rights -- imagine the blow dealt to the poisonous propaganda of the extremists. Imagine the propulsion toward change it would inaugurate all over the Middle East.

In every country, including our own, the fanatics are preaching their gospel of hate, basing their doctrine on a wilful perversion of the true religion of Islam. At their fringe are groups of young men prepared to conduct terrorist attacks however and whenever they can. Thousands of victims the world over have now died, but the impact is worse than the death of innocent people.

The terrorists prey on ethnic or religious discord. From Kashmir to Chechnya, to Palestine and Israel, they foment hatred, they deter reconciliation. In Europe, they conducted the massacre in Madrid. They threaten France. They forced the cancellation of the President of Germany's visit to Djibouti. They have been foiled in Britain, but only for now.

Of course they use Iraq. It is vital to them. As each attack brings about American attempts to restore order, so they then characterise it as American brutality. As each piece of chaos menaces the very path toward peace and democracy along which most Iraqis want to travel, they use it to try to make the coalition lose heart, and bring about the retreat that is the fanatics' victory.

They know it is a historic struggle. They know their victory would do far more than defeat America or Britain. It would defeat civilisation and democracy everywhere. They know it, but do we? The truth is, faced with this struggle, on which our own fate hangs, a significant part of Western opinion is sitting back, if not half-hoping we fail, certainly replete with schadenfreude at the difficulty we find.

So what exactly is the nature of the battle inside Iraq itself? This is not a "civil war," though the purpose of the terrorism is undoubtedly to try to provoke one. The current upsurge in violence has not spread throughout Iraq. Much of Iraq is unaffected and most Iraqis reject it. The insurgents are former Saddam sympathisers, angry that their status as "boss" has been removed, terrorist groups linked to al-Qaeda and, most recently, followers of the Shia cleric, Muqtada-al-Sadr.

The latter is not in any shape or form representative of majority Shia opinion. He is a fundamentalist, an extremist, an advocate of violence. He is wanted in connection with the murder of the moderate and much more senior cleric, Ayatollah al Khoei last year. The prosecutor, an Iraqi judge, who issued a warrant for his arrest, is the personification of how appallingly one-sided some of the Western reporting has become. Dismissed as an American stooge, he has braved assassination attempts and extraordinary intimidation in order to follow proper judicial process and has insisted on issuing the warrant despite direct threats to his life in doing so.

There you have it. On the one side, outside terrorists, an extremist who has created his own militia, and remnants of a brutal dictatorship which murdered hundreds of thousands of its own people and enslaved the rest. On the other side, people of immense courage and humanity who dare to believe that basic human rights and liberty are not alien to Arab and Middle Eastern culture, but are their salvation.

Over the past few weeks, I have met several people from the Iraqi government, the first genuine cross-community government Iraq had seen. People like Mrs Barwari, the Minister of Public Works, who has just survived a second assassination attempt that killed her bodyguard; people like Mr Zebari, the Foreign Minister. They are intelligent, forward-looking, tolerant, dedicated to their country. They know that 'the occupation' can be used to stir up anti-coalition feeling; they, too, want their country governed by its people and no one else. But they also know that if we cut and run, their country would be at the mercy of warring groups which are united only in their distaste for democracy.

The tragedy is that outside of the violence which dominated the coverage of Iraq, there are incredible possibilities of progress. There is a huge amount of reconstruction going on; the legacy of decades of neglect is slowly being repaired.

By 1 June, electricity will be 6,000 MW, 50 percent more than prewar, but short of the 7,500 MW they now need because of the massive opening up of the economy, set to grow by 60 percent this year and 25 per cent the next.

The first private banks are being opened. A new currency is in circulation. Those in work have seen their salaries trebled or quadrupled and unemployment is falling. One million cars have been imported. Thirty per cent now have satellite TV, once banned, where they can watch al-Jazeera, the radical Arab TV station, telling them how awful the Americans are.

The internet is no longer forbidden. Shrines are no longer shut. Groups of women and lawyers meet to discuss how they can make sure the new constitution genuinely promotes equality. The universities eagerly visit Western counterparts to see how a modern, higher-education system, free to study as it pleases, would help the new Iraq.

People in the West ask: why don't they speak up, these standard-bearers of the new Iraq? Why don't the Shia clerics denounce al-Sadr more strongly? I understand why the question is asked. But the answer is simple: they are worried. They remember 1991, when the West left them to their fate. They know their own street, unused to democratic debate, rife with every rumour, and know its volatility. They read the Western papers and hear its media. And they ask, as the terrorists do: have we the stomach to see it through?

I believe we do. And the rest of the world must hope that we do. None of this is to say we do not have to learn and listen. There is an agenda that could unite the majority of the world. It would be about pursuing terrorism and rogue states on the one hand and actively remedying the causes around which they flourish on the other: the Palestinian issue; poverty and development; democracy in the Middle East; dialogue between main religions.

I have come firmly to believe the only ultimate security lies in our values. The more people are free, the more tolerant they are of others; the more prosperous, the less inclined they are to squander that prosperity on pointless feuding and war.

But our greatest threat, apart from the immediate one of terrorism, is our complacency. When some ascribe, as they do, the upsurge in Islamic extremism to Iraq, do they really forget who killed whom on September 11, 2001? When they call on us to bring the troops home, do they seriously think that this would slake the thirst of these extremists, to say nothing of what it would do to the Iraqis?

Or if we scorned our American allies and told them to go and fight on their own, that somehow we would be spared? If we withdraw from Iraq, they will tell us to withdraw from Afghanistan and, after that, to withdraw from the Middle East completely and, after that, who knows? But one thing is for sure: they have faith in our weakness just as they have faith in their own religious fanaticism. And the weaker we are, the more they will come after us.

It is not easy to persuade people of all this; to say that terrorism and unstable states with WMD are just two sides of the same coin; to tell people what they don't want to hear; that, in a world in which we in the West enjoy all the pleasures, profound and trivial, of modern existence, we are in grave danger.

There is a battle we have to fight, a struggle we have to win and it is happening now in Iraq.

why is it so terrible to consider

by the unknown womble

Tue May 11, 2004 16:51

a complete withdrawl of US forces from the Levant, Maghreb, Middle East, Far East, Africa, South America, the Pacfic Rim, the Artic zone, the bases of Europe, the bases of Anatartica, and of course the Space Program?

It would save you money, which you could spend on wallpapering the crack at home.
And it would really impress the French, who 50 years ago, painfully learnt all the lessons you are being taught now. Who knows maybe they'd use their 2nd largest diplomatic organisation in the world to stabalise your country and restore your republic and democracy.
You'd all like that, wouldn't you, over in YankeeDixie land?

Which is why your average european is counting the days till the demise and disintegration not only of YankeeDixie hegamony but also the disintegration of the Union of 51 states and dependent republics and associated commonwealths.

The sooner you get to grips with that reality, in john Hopkin's university as in Tennesee as in Mexico City, the better. Old Man Bush did the USSR and Germany. Did you really think such a spectacular would go without balancing some year further down the line?

If you did, then you deserve your defecit.
You deserve your poverty. You deserve your human rights record, and your highest levsl of illiteracy, child mortality, incarcerated, executed and bodies in uniform in the civilised world.
But your aircraft carriers will not save you from the terrorists you spawned.

horses for courses, and yankee dixie is an impressive norman giant of a horse, but all the others are wingèd arabian stallions. = you're a losing yourselves in the dust.

john hawkins

Tue May 11, 2004 22:00

The Palestinian issue, and the other issues you mention are all by products of the West and it's need for oil, and, as the previous poster mentioned, the terrorists are the spawn of the West.

WEhere did you get your figures John Hawkins? Why should the average Arab even trust the West now? As I said, 13,000 died as a result of your bombing, Israel continues to annex the West bank and build settlements, and Sharon's promise to weithdraw from the Gaza strip seems like hot air.

Arabs don't trust the west, and this mistrust goes back to the 1920s. Fallujah has just been flattened, and, as I mentioned before, the unveiling of a new flag is an insult to the average Iraqi.

The governing council ministers are handpicked by the US, a regime that seems to have known about the torture inflicted as early as January. Haliburton are (trying to )make a fortune, and mercenaries with guns patrol the streets of Iraq.

Go say this to the average Iraqi-"we bombed you to help you, we are bombing Fallujah because we want to help you, you have to understand. Our troops raid your homes and kill your children because we need to help you, our soldiers torture your sons and brothers and fathers because, well, we are trying to help you..."

Who are you anyway, John Hawkins?How do you meet these people? Who do you report for?

isn't it ironic?

by Northern Eye

Tue May 11, 2004 22:26

Isn't it ironic that:

America said they were going into Iraq because it was a threat to them and also to continue their fight against Al'Qaeda but now find that only because the invaded Iraq is it any threat to them now at all and also that by their actions they have made Al-Qaeda popular beyond bin Laden's wildest dreams?!

Isn't it ironic that America sold Saddam WMD's and stood by him when he used them against his enemies but then say they invaded Iraq to stop him using WMD's against his enemies again when they knew he had none left?!

Isn't it ironic that the occuping American army is complaining about foreign fighters in Iraq?!

Isn't it ironic that America is now saying that they invaded iraq to free the people there from a brutal dictator but america itself is the biggest sponser of brutal dictators in the world and actively supported the dictator of Iraq when he was at his worst?!

Isn't it ironic that the real reason America invaded iraq was to create a friendly country in the mid-east where they could have military bases and control of oil but by its actions ensured that come these fabled elections in Iraq the people of that country will vote for the most extreme anti-Western parties they can find - one's that will vow never to co-operate with America?!

Isn't it ironic that America calls their crusade the 'War on Terror' when that phrase itself is a meaningless oxymoron as you cannot have a war without terror?!

Isn't it ironic that America slaughtered tens of thousdands of people to show that slaughtering people was wrong?!

Ironic? Oil say!

Even more Ironic...

by Peig Mahone

Wed May 12, 2004 01:40

when you consider that the Americans have no sense of Irony in the first place.... and the world suffers accordingly.. ermmm... ironically.

What is well ironic

Wed May 12, 2004 18:02

Is the fact that the language used by Hawkins would have ben soooo un PC five years ago. Western Values, liberal values, our values, blow your own trumpet noises. John Hawkins is just another gobshite who cannot show his sources, or even tell us who the hell he is.

Gwan John, go to foreign places and give them values. Good man, oh, and don't forget to read out Rudyard Kiplings The White Man's Burden, and tell them about our great pantheon of fairy tale writers like CS Lewis, etc

oh but for the love of God...

WHAT AN ASS!

Hawkins is right

by don

Wed May 12, 2004 18:35

This is an 'historic struggle' for civilisation. And seeing as the stakes are so high I think we should consider killing all Muslims. (In the interests of world peace, you understand).

Nuke Iran till it glows! (remember that one, John?).

And even more ironic

by Lone gunman

Wed May 12, 2004 21:33

That Northern eye thinks that there are 51 states in the USA.
Even more ironic that it was the French,Germans,and Russians and Canadians[gerard Bull,developer of the Iraqi supergun]who sold Saddam the technology to create WMDS,which he usedagainst the Kurds and the Iranians.Not to mind that the Iraqui airforce was mostly made up of French and Russkie aircraft.Even more ironic that most anti American leftist fools wont ever accept that fact.
Even more ironic that in the cold war the Soviets sponsored as much ,if not more puppet regimes than the USA in Africa,Europe,[15 Ex glorious workers republics just signed up to the EU.]and Asia
Even more ironic is that somone on a two bit chat group has the answers to why the USA invaded Iraq,when their reasoning is faulty Re oil[ US could have vetoed the UN sanction and bought as it pleased of Saddam]
Air bases [plenty in Turkey,Kuwait,Saudi.Oman]
That Osama is now more pouplar in Iraq.Kind of difficult as he belongs to a minority Islamic sect.,that neither Shias or Sunnis accept,and condier the Whabbists heretics and infidels.

Even more ironic that the" tens of thousands "of Iraqi dead civillans are bandied about when the thousands that Saddam killed are seemingly forgotten.
Even more ironic is that the first casuality in war is the truth,except when it suits.

Loner Gonemad

Wed May 12, 2004 21:59

Northern Eye dosen't think there are 51 states in the US. Northern Eye never said anything of the sort. And even if I had it wouldn't be ironic anyway. it would just have been wrong. Now thats ironic - stating somethings ironic when it isn't.

And anyway I would be totally oppossed to the Soviets. They were just another corrupt empire like America. Anyone who can't see that is a buffoon.

America did sell Iraq massive amounts of WMD. Fance and all might have supported Iraq in that regard too, but the difference is that France didn't decide to invade Iraq citing WMD as the reason, you see.

America has its main military bases for the mid-east in Saudi Arabia but they're on their way out. Thats another reason why it had the fantastic idea to invade Iraq so they could build some military bases there.

I never said that bin Laden was more popular in Iraq (although he undoubtly is among a lot of the Sunni population and now has a foothold in the country) but that he was more popular full stop. In the wider Muslim world a lot of people who would have been horrified by the actions of Al Qaeda have now turned towards them as they lust for revenge against the imperial liars of America.

The oil. Do you really think America would have invaded Iraq if it wasn't for the oil reserves in the region. Yeah they want bases and to impose their will in a lot of places, but they they aren't prepared to put up with the difficulties in invading all the countries in the world they don't like without great financal rewards. They had many nefarious reasons for invading Iraq but the lust for oil drove them on like no other.

and

Wed May 12, 2004 22:08

Forget about the 1,000,000 civilians America helped kill by supporting UN sanctions against Iraq, did you? I'm just saying that the US dosen't give two fucks about dead Iraqis and human rights abuses in Iraq. They lie and they lie big time by trying now to make out this war was based on humanitarian principals.

Oh, wow, Lone Gunman

Thu May 13, 2004 20:41

Really, an individual we must all respect, with his whiskey induced rants.

Listen, idiot, do you think for one minute, anyone in any country would go;

" Hey, thanks for dropping that 500 pound bomb on my village. I appreciate it was a mistake, and that you are only here to liberate us. So, it is ok that I have had to pick up pieces of dead toddler. I appreciate that very much, Mr. Johnny Foreigner. Thanks heaps,

Yours with lots of love,
Achmed the Iraqi peasant."

Of course, this is the logic from a reprobate, who, as part of another debate a few weeks back, saw fit to tell a woman that she was disagreeing with him because " it must be rag week."

The woman showed considerable restraint, but if you said that in public to my sister or mother, I would find a way to hurt you.

Lone Gunman, you are scum off a shoe. Editors, please note; any more bile, like the bile in relation to the woman I was on about, should have this cancer of a "man" banned for life from writing into this list.

People writing into right wing lists get banned for expressing different opinions. Yet indymedia seems to let any scumbag toerag write in, and give abuse to women.No offence to indymedia, what is ironic that the likes of the Sindo, etc constantly tell us we are the ones unable to debate.

Telling a woman its rag week is like saying to a Chinese person that he / she can't debate because their eyes are too slanty and thus they cannot see the "truth" or something equally sick.

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