For some little time now, the people who make a living knowing these things have been saying a “spectacular” suicide operation was inevitable. And sure enough, along came the peace movement.
It’s not enough to say that those who opposed the war against the Iraqi state were wrong. Nobody can be asked to know the future. But how to you continue to be so wrong? Almost as bad – the badness mitigated by its inconsequentiality – is the unwillingness to acknowledge the wrong. The hapless Dennis Kucinch declared, on the eve of the fall of Baghdad, that now was the moment to withdraw. A major anti-war demo was scheduled for April 12. There has been an easy forgetting of all the horrible consequences that we should surely have expected. There was some grudging concession that it was good to see Sadaam Hussein turned out: unsaid was how else but by massive American violence it was to be done.
What’s left of the anti-war movement is now outraged at the peace. There’s been lots of carping, at this and that, almost all of it some combination of disingenuous, petty, and wrongheaded. Looting was reported. Thefts of Iraq’s (pre-Arab) antiquities received the most attention. When the stories sifted, though, what had happened was found to be rather different. The losses were smaller than announced and the thefts were mostly an inside job (by people with Ba’thist connections). So? News stories develop one way or another. Anyone can draw the wrong conclusion from a story’s first couple of days. What’s not so excusable is the pouncing on this story, as if missing art-work invalidated the freeing of a people.
It is argued that since America made such quick work of the Iraqi forces, the war is now shown to have been unjustified. Well, no. Consider two points. First, we knew, nightfall of Sept. 11, certain things about our enemies. They torture flight attendants in this country. They routinely massacre non-Pashtun populations in Afghanistan. They machine-gun tourists in Egypt. They rape and murder entire villages in Algeria. They carry out slave-raids in Sudan. They blow up Israeli civilians by the busload. These are not worthy opponents.[1] They still need to be killed, and in great number.
Second, let’s state the obvious: this was a brilliant military victory. Iraq’s forces might have defeated someone else. It didn’t happen this time. American victory, was not simply the result of overwhelming firepower. “Shock and awe” fell flat. But the targeting of commanders and command structures worked, as did the campaign to induce military units to disband without a fight. And the individual American soldier, one on one, overwhelmingly outfought their Arab adversaries. How does any of that amount to being wrong?
The big complaint these days is, the W.M.D, where are they? Since the war was all about W.M.D, it’s clear that we were gulled. Well, again, no. First, it is fantastic to think that Iraq had no programs to develop weapons of mass destruction. Nobody really argued such a thing, not even the Iraqi state. The argument was always, what to think of those programs, and how to regulate or end them. The remnants of the anti-war movement are claiming that the non-discovery (i.e. except where it ‘s been discovered) of materials and documents easily hidden or destroyed prove the badness of the war. Surely, being proved wrong must be addictive.
But also: was this war just about non-proliferation? The administration often gave that impression. Our objective was said to be that “Sadaam must disarm,” and in its overtures to the U.N. it spoke of disarmament above all.2 The real objective was, or should have been, the destruction of the Iraqi state. That was worth a war. The Iraqis who refused to fight for Sadaam, they saw that. The Iraqis, who rejoiced in Sadaam’s fall, they saw that. One slogan had it – with some truth – that “The World Says No To War.” Fool of a World: it should learn to see what should have been plain to all.
What’s particularly revealing about the anti-war movement is its current position on sanctions. Supporters of the “pro-Arab” position have long maintained that the U.N. (not U.S.) sanctions against Iraq were a great crime against humanity – remember that these sanctions were offered in extenuation of 9/11. Today, when they are so clearly pointless, sanctions are no longer an issue for the proponents of peace (just not this peace).
***
Now’s not the time to gloat.
From September 11 to April 9, we have been living through (if amid languors) Churchillian great days. “Nothing almost sees miracles but misery.” Great days, but not good times. The world is, unavoidably, not what it was. It is a smaller world, and not overall, a happier one. It will seem ominous to some that the President spoke of the “battle” of Iraq. But we are still, like it or not, in the day after 9/11. The thing must be seen to its end. The rousting of the Arab and Afghan pirate utopias was a good start. The destruction of the most heavily armed Arab state, and perhaps the most hostile to us, was a good follow-up. What follows will depend on some combination of our will and local circumstances in that part of the world. But it’s not over. No more 9-11’s means that even the most obtuse Middle Eastern bigot comes to understand that such measures as 9-11 will be answered with utterly disproportionate violence; and that nothing in his world can force us to surrender. And certainly, if we enter Syria and its Lebanese colony, and we destroy the Ba’th Party there and Hizbullah, there is no ethical obstacle to doing so. But it’s bloody work, and not work we ever asked for.
After April 9, recriminations should be precision weapons. It’s not unfair to call the big anti-war protests “objectively pro-Sadaam;” but it would not be useful to describe a random participant so. Many who marched simply don’t trust this administration – and there they had a point, even if they had got this issue wrong. Many thought that peace just is a good thing – and it often is, even though this “peace” was far more destructive than “Bush’s War on the Iraqi People.” Most of the peace movement’s slogans were, at least, embarrassing. But only the prominent need be embarrassed. Celebrities fall into two groups. People in entertainment – showfolk – shouldn’t face boycotts. Actors and musicians don’t do opinion professionally. (Imagine listening to a musician hold forth on the economic consequences of a war.) Opinion-mongers are a different case. They shouldn’t be boycotted, quite. But why would you want to take seriously on a subject someone who has been so wrong so consistently? Those who have discredited themselves are – discredited.
The question of recriminations is distinct from civil liberties issues, although many in the peace movement have tried to blur the distinction. Criticism of the peace movement does not violate free speech, not do boycotts. And look at those supposedly victimized by their anti-war advocacy.
* Noam Chomsky’s non-book 9-11 becomes a #1 best seller.
* Michael Moore won an Academy Award for a tendentious “documentary.”
* Katha Pollitt has just won a National Magazine Award (proof that no-one reads her)
* Edward Said was most recently awarded a literary prize worth $50,000 Euros (and a Miro sculpture)
* Susan Sontag sold her papers for over a $1,000,000
* Lynne Stewart was just given a public interest award at the CUNY Law School
* Cornel West’s snits have been given front-page attention by The New York Times, which also ran an article treating him as our Socrates (minus the wisdom, and the humility and the hemlock)
Contrast this with the coals of unkindness heaped on Steve Earle and the Dixie Chicks.[3] The First Amendment and the Justice Department have nothing to do with it. It’s capitalism at work. People who appear on CMT protest the war at some risk. A Chomsky has a niche, a market sector.4 He can lie outrageously and profit from those lies. Sontag complains of how she is treated. Think rather of poor Steve and poor Natalie, Sontag once – a long time ago (and even then it wasn’t the hippest preference imaginable) – spoke approvingly of the Supremes. Today, Steve Earle and the Dixie Chicks might easily record a Supremes song; and it would be a greater addition to the culture than, say, In America. There are civil liberties concerns in the country, as there were on Sept. 10, 2001. The anti-war left has had nothing useful to say on the subject, being to pre-occupied admiring its embattled self, pumping up the prerogatives of an Arab/Islamic constituency, and otherwise offering Chicken-Little prognoses. Those most seriously and effectively concerned with civil liberties post-USA Patriot Act have been libertarians – who skew right.
People should be free to say whatever they want, but nothing protects them from being wrong. The claims of the anti-war movement have been so demonstrably false (or beside-the-point) and, often, so repugnant as to make any criticism of administration policy look bad. That’s unfortunate. Years ago, Jeanne Kirkpatrick coined the phrase, “Blame America first,” and the anti-war movement could have been her Exhibit A. There’s a problem with the phrase, though. Where public opinion can be said to exist – and that’s not everywhere – appeal should be made to that opinion. When opposition to government policy can be expressed at no great cost in one place, but not in another, it should be more readily expressed there (whether it should be expressed at all depends on the policy). When your actions can affect an outcome, the case for taking action is, to that extent, stronger. So, yes, blame America first: first, because you can, and because it may do some good. And yes, blame America. Virtue ought to begin at home. A patriotism that gives blanket approval to everything about the home country and magnifies the slightest failure of the rest of the world is simple hypocrisy. To blame America first is fine. What’s not fine is to blame America when it was not blameworthy, to accuse it falsely – as the peace movement did. And it’s not fine, having “blamed America first,” to stop there, to then refuse to blame, say, the other side (or to offer the most perfunctory, pro forma, unctuous condemnations of truly monstrous characters).
There is a need for a left, now that the imagined left has excised itself so clearly from the national conversation. The peace movement looked at polls showing support for military action with U.N. approval and concluded that a majority was against the war. The moment came. The U.N. didn’t matter, and opposition to the war sank toward single digit percentages. Domestically, the war has had some clear winners, all on one side. Those who said “no to Bush’s war” – as if it were his war – have no share in the victory. Nancy Pelosi was reduced to saying, truly enough, that the Democratic Party had “no position” on the war. No position! The Nation had dreamt that she was “ready to rumble.” Her stance, rather, was, No comment in thunder.
The former left might have avoided becoming Sadaam’s Great White Hope. It might have asked the right questions instead of offering the wrong answers. A war like this one could be a very bad thing. This one wasn’t. This one wasn’t. A war like this could be a very bad thing. Who, worth listening to, will tell the wars apart? To have a hegemon in the world is dangerous. Not to have a hegemon in the world is dangerous. What is to become of Iraq? Will it become a free-trading, constitutional republic? Are they supposed to become just like us? How constrained is possibility? Is our future, and the world’s, just more of our present?
Think no.
Notes
1 September 11 seemed unprecedented. But that combination of months (or years) of planning and the meagerness of tools is actually typical of most jailbreaks, once the trick is known, it stops working: Flight 93. What distinguishes the flower of Arab manhood from our worst felons was not a greater ingenuity, or courage, or any virtue, but its unsought of depravity.
2 The U.S., of course, failed to get a second (in fact, eighteenth) resolution in the Security Council. Suppose that a resolution had been proposed forbidding the U.S. from going to war? Clearly, it would have been vetoed (or ignored). So, too, if Russia were to invade Georgia, it would have its veto ready, and if China attacked Taiwan, and so on… The United Nations Organization is not without value, but it is very limited and very flawed. Most people if they were confused about it before, they’re not now.
3 Steve Earle and the Dixie Chicks aren’t hardcore country but their hardcore fans are. These performers deserve sympathy. Think of Steve Earle, skeletal and near death from drug use, imprisoned, and always eagerly courting commercial failure: In trouble again. And the Dixie Chicks: I saw them on TV explaining to John Hiatt that they haven’t known too much sorrow, and so there is none in the songs they write. He brightened up and offered that he thought he could help. Now, they’re probably learning on their own. By contrast, what a repellent bunch Chomsky and the others are.
4 It would, of course, be reductive to say that a Chomsky is in it for the money. But he cannot seriously pretend to disinterest. His stance pays, and it doesn’t cost. And we should be mindful of the claims of a hack like Paul Buhler that everybody on the other side has been bought and paid for: Paul Buhle, a tenured professor (and fighter for the workers) at Brown University, and holder of one book contract after another (and what books they are). We should remember, too, Edward Said’s constant query: Who’s behind him? There’s a lot of money behind him.
A Note on Profiling
Before the 2000 election, there was a lot of argument about profiling. Part of the argument was deciding just what the thing was. Two things could be distinguished, with lots falling in between, and both were, unfortunately called “profiling.” One was driving-while-black profiling. The other was the narrowing of suspects in a particular police investigation to one racial category.
The driving-while-black issue is not a hard one: it is standard for long-standing police practice. There is a continuity from the Slave Codes to Jim Crow to de facto segregation to DWB. It has served to restrict the movement of black people (not just young men) to certain areas, and within certain areas. It has resulted in a liberty under proviso. Doing away with this kind of profiling has more to do with the Thirteenth Amendment than the Fourth.
The other kind of “profiling” can very easily be abused, but it is not itself an abuse. Take the case of Amadou Diallo. The cops in that case were said to be looking for a serial rapist in that neighborhood. The rapist was black; his victims were black. You can if you like believe that the cops were, in fact, guilty of murder. But does the case say anything about profiling, or alternatives to profiling? To avoid profiling, would it have made sense to stop white men (or women) in another borough?
Turn it around. A kid with pink hair is reported to be selling Ecstasy in a club. Plainclothes cops come in, and they stop/question/search/arrest someone within the usual search-and-seizure/due process constraints. They should be looking for a kid with pink hair, or if there’s more than one, try to determine which is their kid with pink hair. They cannot justify giving a black kid in the club a hard time. “Inclusion” won’t justify it. “Color-blindness” won’t justify it. Sensitivity to the feelings of people with minority fashion preferences won’t justify it. The “profile” is what it is. Including someone extraneous to the profile within an investigation is either, in most cases, inconsequential, or else, simple oppression.
The debate over profiling – once a real one – was killed on the 2000 campaign trail. George W. Bush seized on “profiling” – carefully undefined – as a “black” issue he could get behind. There was a twist, though. The Republican Party was trolling for Arab-American votes; and with the assistance of such unsavory types as Grover Norquist and Sami al-Arian, the effort had some success. And Al Gore was not about to be out civil rightsed. So: “profiling” – whatever it was – died officially (whatever police practice on the ground may continue to be).
The great beneficiaries of this death have been, with no history of oppression, with higher income levels than the average, with no little degree of privilege: Arabs and Arab-Americans. For every 25 year-old male Saudi searched at an airport, a black grandmother must be searched. A quick look under a hijab is protested as virtual rape. A woman described as a “convert to Islam” demands that her Florida driver’s license show her with a veil, as if Andres Serrano had gone to work for the DMV. Groups like CAIR and AMC, so generally dishonest, are thieves of other people’s oppression. As matters stand, you are likelier to be profiled into prison for making a wallet disappear than for making a city disappear.
It’s not surprising that the “profiling” of those ethnically most eligible for al-Qa’ida got more support from black than white Americans. (They knew the difference.)
From June, 2003