Greetings, gentle readers. My apologies for the relatively long dearth of posts; the post-election season has been, at turns, depressing, frightening, and incredibly busy. I'm hard at work (well, maybe not
too hard at work ;-) coming up with a strategy/ideological framework for our local think tank, dealing with the holidays, and trying to get my professional writing done. Still, there's always a bit of time to ruminate on the current crises, particularly when there are so many to choose from.
For now, there's the issue of terrorism -- particularly Bush's incompetence and the liberal/progressive response -- as currently being discussed in a pissing contest of sorts between
Kevin Drum and
Atrios, all started by a truly asinine piece of work in
The New Republic, which my favorite local politician would call a "Vichy Democrat" magazine. Essentially, the article espouses a purge of people like Michael Moore and organizations such as
MoveOn for being "soft" on terrorism. They are to be replaced with a grassroots Democratic force, which is interesting as almost all of the grassroots energy in the Democratic party is coming from groups like MoveOn.
The article is fundamentally McCarthyesque, particularly in its attempts to dismiss charges of McCarthyism. Yet it specifically refers to 50s purges of insufficiently hard-line liberals --
within liberal organizations of the time. It is the old song of "tougher than thou," a game no sane liberal will ever win against rabid "kill 'em all" pseudo-conservatives. Kevin, as usual, is more balanced:
Let's take first things first: it's pretty clear that a lot of liberals really don't like being told they need to "get serious" about terrorism. And I don't blame them — especially since regular readers know that I think Republicans are the ones who have trivialized terrorism by treating it more like a partisan wedge issue than a serious danger.
So let's be more precise: the charge isn't so much that liberals don't have a serious approach to terrorism, it's that liberals tend to think that terrorism and national security just aren't very important in the first place.
...
Rather, he criticizes MoveOn because they even opposed the Afghanistan war (and he criticizes Moore for flatly denying that terrorism is a real threat). This is quite a different thing, and a distinction that strikes me as pretty well justified.
The problem is, Beinart's criticism is, um, well, let's be generous and call it a generalization. There's also the issue that many who opposed the Afghanistan war did so because they saw the Bush administration's incompetence clearly and didn't trust them to run a boxing match, let alone the most important American military conflict since V-J day. (I supported the war initially, and boy, I had to eat some serious helpings of crow, let me tell you.)
Meanwhile, Atrios' response is largely on target:
The consequence of marginalizing all such sentiments, or reducing them to caricatures, is that we never have a decent conversation about what we're doing. Acknowledging that there are almost always other options than war is one way to ensure that we understand more fully the consequences of those wars. War should be the last option, not the first one, almost no matter what. I don't say this because I'm a peacenik, but because war is fucking expensive in blood and treasure and has a lot of unintended consequences.
...
Final thought: who should be considered more worthy of marginalization? Those who cautioned against a just war, or those who supported an unjust and increasingly catastrophic one. Whatever the ultimate outcome of our Afghanistan conflict (which, by the way, is still going on), I submit it's quite likely a decision to not go to war there would have had far fewer negative consequences than our decision to go to war in Iraq.
...but I'll submit that the above paragraph goes a bit far. Our problem, IMO, is not the "hards" or the "softs" but the left's tradition of self-immolation. The circular firing squad is in fine form just now, and while I sympathize greatly with the Atrioses and MoveOns here, I do believe there is a strong case to be made for a robust, nuanced, multifaceted engagement on terrorism in all its forms.
As usual,
Orcinus nails it:
Over the past 15 years and more, the great generator of terrorist acts around the world has been the phenomenon that embodies the commingling of all these traits: radical religious fundamentalism. The forms this takes range from the right-wing domestic terrorists of the Patriot movement to the Al Qaeda fanatics who struck on 9/11. (A variant on this is Tim McVeigh, who was closer to a neo-Nazi than a fundamentalist; but he clearly shared their apocalyptic worldview and urge to defend "traditional" values.) All of them have one key trait in common: an abiding hatred of modernity and progressive values.
So progressives indeed have a clear and compelling interest in opposing terrorism. Central to their support, indeed, is confronting the core of what is driving the phenomenon. The left naturally will readily confront radical fundamentalism, as long as it's made clear that's what we're dealing with.
What's been missing, however, is either a recognition or at least acknowledgement of this aspect of the problem from the right and its toadies on the left. Since American fundamentalism is primarily associated with the mainstream right, it probably shouldn't surprise anyone that the Bush administration has assiduously refused to frame the modern terrorist threat (including, notably, Al Qaeda) as primarily a right-wing phenomenon -- even though that is clearly what it is. And the ever-timid "moderate" leadership of the Democratic Party has been too polite to point it out.
I highly recommend the entire post, which (like many of
Orcinus' posts) is too long to quote in its entirety here. Still, none of this answers the one big question, which Kevin sums up nicely (IMO, he's better at coming up with the questions than the answers):
Maybe Islamic totalitarianism is as big a threat as fascism and communism were in their day. Maybe it's not. I'm not sure. But I would like to see liberals address the issue head on. It would be good for liberalism and it would be instructive for me.
Excuse me while I indulge in a bit of hubris here, and tackle this head-on.
The short answer to this is
yes, though I'd recast the question as "fundamentalist terrorism." If we don't count the strongmen who basically serve American interests, the "Islamofascist" governments can be counted thusly: Iran and the remaining portions of Afghanistan controlled by the Taliban. They're not going to be landing platoons in Arlington any time soon.
Terrorists, however, might turn it into glass someday. And therein lies the problem.
Imagine if one of the planes that hit the World Trade Center had a nuclear device on board. What would the political, social and economic consequences of wiping Manhattan off the face of the Earth have been? Chemical weapons could be even more insidious, and a stupid terrorist with the right virus could wipe out the human race. Yes, religious fanatics with WMDs are a a real and unspeakable threat, and many on the left must indeed face this danger realistically.
At the same time, the disgust many liberals and progressive feel about the war on terror can be explained very simply: the Bush administration isn't taking it seriously. They use it as an excuse to conquer nations with oil and then implement various ideological theories of
warfare and
economics. They crack down on peaceful activists while
botching enormous swathes of the battle against Islamic extremism and
completely ignoring domestic terrorism. Unless you count nude environmentalists on bicycles.
But hey, it's good for beating Democrats with. Even Vietnam vets who
lost three limbs in service to their country. That's what the War on Terror amounts to for Bush, Cheney and Rove -- a political advantage over their rivals. If no terrorists hit America, they've protected Our Country. If terrorists
do hit America, we have to vote Republican because it's too dangerous to change horsemen in the middle of an apocalypse. And all the while, it makes a convenient tool for silencing criticism and shredding the Constitution.
It
is time for an articulate progressive position on fighting terrorism. Bush's nonsense about the "failed policy of law enforcement" is laughable, and one of the most toxic effects he's had on the whole debate. The only administration that's ever failed against large-scale extra-national terrorism is his. Clinton's administration could be said to have failed in the Oklahoma City bombing, but is anyone arguing that we have to declare martial law in areas with large militia movements? The simple truth is, we need to use every tool in our arsenal to battle what is in every real sense
a criminal empire. You fight al-Qaeda the way you fight the mob -- you go after their assets, you infiltrate their ranks, you raid their bases when you can, and you make being a member unpalatable by making life as a decent citizen more attractive. Given that terrorists do occasionally acquire "state sponsors," military intervention is one tool -- but it is arguably the least efficient tool, because any mistake made when using it exacerbates all the other facets of the conflict rather than relieving them.
It is vital for Democrats and progressives to come up with an alternate strategy in the battle against fundamentalist terrorism, not only because it is an essential political job, but because Bush's horribly incompetent ego-driven policy is endangering the entire world.
(/) Roland X
Getting Serious Today
