Posted on 05/01/2004 3:14:58 PM PDT by Thorin
Why do Americans who talk about freedom and democracy rely on coercion?
The political left is all for coercion against the rich. Freedom and democracy mean taking the rich’s money and giving it to those who have a "right" to it.
For conservatives, freedom and democracy issue forth from the barrels of our guns. National Review’s cover (May 3) proclaims: "To the Death, Crushing the insurgency, saving Iraq." The magazine’s conservative editors are too serious to see the irony, but polls show that Americans are appalled at the growing carnage.
An April 28 CBS/New York Times poll found "just 32%, the lowest number ever, say Iraq was a threat that required immediate military action a year ago." A majority of Americans now say the invasion was a mistake.
I remember when conservatives complained about people like Hitler and Stalin, who were good at crushing people. Now conservatives have the spirit themselves.
In a series of articles in the May 3 issue, National Review’s writers show off their new face. Leading off with his plan for gaining legitimacy in Iraq, John O’Sullivan writes:
"Our first tasks now must be to crush the rebellions, punish the al-Sadr types, and disband the militias. Ceasefires must be conducted in ways that dispel any impression of weakness. If threats are made – like the threat to kill or capture al-Sadr – they must be carried out. In general the U.S. must not only win but also be seen to win."
All this bloodshed, however, is insufficient to solve "the underlying problem," which is, O’Sullivan writes, "that Iraq is too divided to be a fully sovereign democracy." Solving that problem will require "several decades" as a US colony, and "during this long period the most important politician in Iraq will be the US ambassador."
How many Iraqis would be left after decades of being killed and crushed? Not to worry. In the next article, David Pryce-Jones writes: "For as long as anyone can remember, Iraq has been in the hands of some thug whose will is the only law." Having rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein, the secret of success is to retain his methods. In the hands of our thugs, Iraqis are better off, Pryce-Jones writes, because we have good intentions for crushing them.
To achieve our good intentions, however, we have "no choice except to work through the custom inherent in absolute rule. " What is this custom? Pryce-Jones’ answer: "Superior and exemplary force alone can prove that the political and military leadership of the coalition has confidence in its goals, and the strength to carry them through."
"Liberals in the West," complains Pryce-Jones, object to the proper way of handling our new colonial subjects, because liberals are "ignorant about the harsh imperatives of absolutism." To help liberals understand that the harsh imperatives of absolutism lead to freedom and democracy, Pryce-Jones quotes the great admirer of American democracy, Alexis de Tocqueville, who advised French officers in the front line in Algeria in 1841: "Only force and terror, my dear sirs, work with those [Muslim] fellows."
As for al-Sadr, writes Pryce-Jones, the US should take its cue from Stalin: "No man, no problem." We must do no less than Saddam Hussein, who "would have arrested Moqtada al-Sadr and shot him, as he shot the ayatollah’s father and other members of the family." For goodness sake, Pryce-Jones exclaims, we mustn’t sit around and let "those seeking power" [not us of course] "believe that victory is theirs for the taking" just because we don’t exercise the harsh imperatives of absolutism. Don’t Americans understand that the ends justify the means?
Next, Michael Rubin assures the faint-hearted that Iraqis want the US to be forceful like Saddam Hussein and stop acting like wimps. The Iraqi people don’t want American troops to leave, he claims. Iraqis are upset with us "because American calls for more UN involvement or for outright withdrawal do little but project weakness." Iraqis, Rubin tells us, "watch with disbelief" as we project weakness instead of acting like men and exercising the harsh imperatives of absolutism.
Richard Lowry writes that the US need not worry, because we have "the Marines who will fight in Fallujah and elsewhere in Iraq." Unlike weak-kneed politicians, Marines aren’t afflicted with doubts, because Marines accept "an absolute and unquestioning submission to authority" and can be relied on to do as they are told.
Lowry sees the Borg as the conservative future. He romanticizes the training process, which teaches an 18-year old kid to speak of himself in the third person and turns him into an automaton whose identity becomes the unit.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan disagrees with National Review’s plan. He says, "Violent military action by an occupying power against inhabitants of an occupied country will only make matters worse." Obviously, Annan doesn’t understand the harsh imperatives of absolutism, which is why the UN must be kept out of the picture.
The Bush administration maintains that the only Iraqis who oppose our occupation are "thugs and criminals." According to a new USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll, that is most of Iraq: 71% of Iraqis see the US as an occupier (81% if Kurds are excluded), not as a liberator, and the majority want us to leave.
Who do you believe, gentle reader, National Review’s writers or the polls?
This sounds like something from our friends at DU -- they love calling people Nazis. As for me, that's where I stop reading -- I conclude the author is a kook who is worth no more of my time.
uhhh....errrr.....excuse me iffen I sound ignerint Mr. Roberts, but the way I read it, it seems that Mr. Pryce-Jones, Lowry, and O'Sullivan are suggesting that our troops pretty much only shoot back at people who first fire upon them (our troops that is).
What exactly were the Polish pipples shooting at Germany that caused Herr Hitler to respond with his tanks? And what were the Russian peasants trying to grow that so threatened Stalin that he found it necessary to kill tens of millions of them?
He describes Americans as "appalled at the carnage." He neglects to mention that the "carnage" is less than ANY war we have ever fought, from the American Revolution to the present. He is demontrating the tendency of American reporters to be "copropages," consuming their own excrement.
The poll results he hangs his hat on are no more than a reflection of the press reporting which is, at best, incompetent in ignoring the history of American wars, at worst, dishonest, for doing that deliberately. The very stupid and short-sighted polls are no more than an echo of the bad press coverage.
I make this case explicit in my column of last week, "Is Iraq Becoming Like Vietnam," up on FreeRepublic and ChronWatch.
Congressman Billybob
Latest column, "Honesty Problems with Kerry and Gorelick: Pin the Truth on the Democrat."
Yeah, but LewRockwell is generally a cesspool of pitiful thinking... must have gotten to PCR.
I personally can't imagine writing for a site that institutionally believes in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. And they call others Nazis!
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Last time I checked, the murderer, Saddam, hasn't been executed.
Rockwell's complaint is that National Review is calling for us to crush the current popular rebellion against foreign occupiers (us) no matter what the cost in blood and money to US citizens.
Sacrificing the welfare of one's own nation for one's imperialist ambitions is rather Hitleresque.
There was no national security rationale for us to invade Iraq and there is no national security rationale for us to remain. Since I am a patriot and a conservative, I support an immediate pull out. Maybe we could use the money and soldiers to defend our own borders from illegal immigrants, hey?
What is the national rebellion against the US?
There is a Shi'ite rebellion around the Iranian Agent Sadr, whose Mehdi Army is full of Iranians and mebers of Hezbollah.
There is a Sunni Rebellion supported by the minority that ran the foriegn regime to the detriment of the majority of Iraqis. The Ba'athists, who are Pan-Arab nationalists, not Iraqi nationalists, are supported by their ideological bretherin in Ba'athist Syria.
Finally we have Sunni Fundamentalists associeted with Al Qaeda and supported by the Saudis.
What is the cost of failing to bring order to Iraq?
Robert's is allied to the Islamists and Ba'athists in so far as they all want the US out of Iraq so that we are discredited.
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