When I first saw this Fox caption capture from Media Matters linked at Surfdom, I thought it was some sort of aberration. But the idea that civil war in Iraq would be a good thing has already made it into the opinion pages of the Oz, propounded by Daniel Pipes. The same from James Joyner and Vodkapundit, though Glenn Reynolds demurs mildly.
Meanwhile, as Tim D notes, doublethink is SOP at Fox. As far as I can tell, the official pro-war position now emerging is
* there is no civil war in Iraq
* there will be no civil war in Iraq
* if civil war comes, it won’t be our fault
* when civil war comes, it will be a good thing
Unfortunately, at this point there’s not much anyone can do. The US and Uk have long since lost control of the situation, and the dynamic has gone beyond the control of any individual or group in Iraq. We’ll just have to hope that the Iraqi leaders (Sistani and Sadr on the Shia side, and the various groups contending to represent the Sunni Arabs and Kurds, among others) can pull something out of the fire between them.
John Quiggin 
Katz,
Yes, that is a direct quote, and no I have no desire to unsay it. However, it is a quote taken pretty horribly out of context for the purposes of making a flip point as substitute for argument. The line that precedes it which I reposted for your benefit, in case the culprit for the misinterpretation was the rate at which the post was read (although I probably should have written “did not become” instead of “were”, but nonetheless, it was pretty difficult to misunderstand the message). That line again
makes it clear beyond possible doubt that I wasn’t contesting the occupied status of those countries after the war- neigh, pointing to it as blowing up your claim that US machinations in devising the South Vietnamese government somehow prove that the US Vietnamese involvement was a colonialist enterprise. I take it you’re disowning this claim now?
Let’s move on. I’ve never claimed that the Vietnam fiasco was MOTIVATED by colonialism, at least of the annexationalist kind. There were certainly geopolitical considerations. My claim is that for a period the Americans used colonialist METHODS.
My further contention is that these American methods poisoned the entire venture in Vietnam because the Vietnamese themselves had a rich history of colonisation into which they could incorporate the Americans, the last in a long line of would-be colonial overlords.
(The Vietnamese were mistaken about the actual intentions of the US, but you can hardly blame them, given US methods. It’s hard to be benevolent in your use of agent orange and napalm. One destroys nature the other destroys friends and family.)
Majorajam
1. I would have accepted without demur “did not become”.
Unfortunately, for you, you wrote “were”.
I’m not a mind reader. I read words.
2. Thank you for those extensive cribs from Warren G. Harding. It should be clear to all that Harding is second to no incumbent US president in intoning noble sentiments. Of more interest is the architecture of Harding’s thinking, which I notice you haven’t cribbed.
Katz,
Fair enough, and there is nothing in that post that I disagree with. However, I contend that motivations do matter, and what’s more, that the mattering tends to differentiate Vietnam from Iraq, even as Vietnam had a far higher body count (to date). The former simply wasn’t as blatantly fraudulent and wasn’t anywhere near as obviously pointless, ex-post analysis aside. As for the Vietnamese, I don’t begrudge them a grudge against Americans (even as I don’t recall encountering any on my visit). I would however caution you that there is far less unanimity of belief about unification or of American involvement than you imply- in particular and unsurprisingly in the South.
1. “I would however caution you that there is far less unanimity of belief about unification or of American involvement than you imply- in particular and unsurprisingly in the South.”
I don’t doubt that Majorajam. Communism is a bleak old system, even though temporarily preferable to whatever the Americans may have had in mind.
2. Motivations matter the motivated. The rest of the world judges by results.
3. I agree. Iraq is a mendacious, ill-conceived swindle on everyone involved, most tragically the American people.
Katz,
Read these words
and tell me how this
And crib for me an explanation of how “their sovereignty was in the hands of the occupying powers” can be interpreted in such a way as to not make it insanely inane. This just in- obstinacy does not double as argument.
Lemme see if I have the Harding argument straight- the noble sentiments I have pasted do not reveal the architecture of his mind, but some others present in the text of his inaugural speech do. Keen insight my man- care to share with the plebeians?
My turn to concede a little.
I should have written architecture of his GEOPOLITICAL thinking.
My agreement with your earlier points is not vitiated by your recent outburst.
Katz,
I see, so this is the decision that was weighed in the undifferentiated mass that are the Vietnamese as they fought the Americans. Is this the narrative? If so, I suggest reading. Lots.
Motivations don’t matter? Outstanding. So if I drive up on a curve in order to avoid hitting an old lady, lose control of my car and plow into a school bus, causing it to explode, that is not morally differentiated from putting explosives under the bus and detonating them. You learn something every day.
Now you’re being downright captious Majorajam.
1. My broad generalisation is necessitated by lack of time and energy. I’ve conceded dissent and disagreement among Vietnamese just like I’ve conceded that it’s likely htat many have changed their minds about Communism.
2. Fallacy of composition old boy. Nations, especially superpowers, aren’t judged like drivers or terrorists.
And please note I didn’t say motivations “don’t matter.” I said that they matter to the motivated. It’s excellent that Americans, or anyone else, applie some ethical standards to the intentions of their governments. On the other hand, the guy in the village of which it was said “we had to destroy that village in order to save it” doesn’t give a damn about the supposed intention (MOTIVE) to save the village. All he knows is that the village is destroyed (RESULT).
I can see your heart’s in the right place. Take more notice of nuance.
Katz,
I’m reading your words, not your mind, so you will likewise have to excuse one. On two, I disagree. Why are nations judged differently than individuals? How should they be judged? Does a man whose wife is murdered by a mentally deranged man whose sanity was the price of an abused childhood forgive him? Should he? Perhaps you can explain better why these aren’t fair comparisons. Motivations matter and not only to the motivated.
“Why are nations judged differently than individuals? ”
Umm, because they’re different? Also have you tried to get several million or more people into a courtroom? It’s not as easy as it sounds.
Nabakov,
On the same basis, should a company, particularly a large company, not be capable of being judged in this way? Trying to get all of the shareholders in BHP (most of us, through our super funds) into court to meet any charges of bribery or corruption that may arise from the Cole enquiry could be interesting.
Oh dear Majorajam, bedevilled by that little imp Nuance again.
You’re interpreting my statement that:
“nations are judged by results”
as meaning
“nations should not be judged by their motives”
It is true that these two statements can be conflated by the incautious.
But I hope you can see that they don’t mean the same thing.
What DOES happen is one thing.
What OUGHT to happen is often quite different.
Katz,
I’m satisfied that you feel superior. Now, let me see if I can’t make this so clear you cannot misunderstand (although it would help if you made more of an effort in that regard, and dispensed with the flip pedantry).
You said: “motivation matters the motivated [and that is all]”. I answered with a hypothetical example that illustrated that the assertion did not hold in any moral or ethical sense imaginable. The example was of two separate individuals. You response was, “fallacy of composition” (which it patently was not) and that “nations, especially superpowers, and individuals cannot be judged in the same way”. To substantiate the latter non sequitur you cited a story of a person who suffers loss at the hands of a nation’s well intentioned policy. To this I stated a counterexample showing why your example did not demonstrate that the motivations for national actions are irrelevant or less relevant to their morality than the motivations of individuals; that a person could respond identically to the one in your hypothetical to victimization at the hands of a well intentioned individual (e.g. a dim witted man just out of a CPR class collapses the lungs of a person who’s fainted from heat stroke, killing the person). The relevance of national motivations is what we were discussing, was it not???
More to the point I asked specific questions that you failed to answer. Still waiting.
Nabakov, if you have anything intelligent to say, by all means, jump right in.
“nations, especially superpowers, and individuals cannot be judged in the same way�
again Majorajam, note that I did not say;
“nations, especially superpowers, and individuals SHOULD NOT be judged in the same way�
A perfectly ordered world may well be comprised of one which has a supra-national judicial system binding on all, including superpowers, where responsible persons may be sent for judgement and punishment.
But we don’t have such a court and we won’t have such a court, so we may as well be discussing the animal welfare policies of Camelot as discussing a world where such a court may exist.
In the meantime, at a supranational level, powers, including superpowers are judged more pragmatically. Negative judgements follow hubristic overreach.
In democracies and nations of laws, such as your own, the people and their representatives have an opportunity to punish evildoers who wrap themselves in the national flag. However, note that even the United States, a great beacon of constitutionalist limited government, is toying with notions of exective discretion that, to my way of thinking, undermine the intentions of the Founding Fathers.
Thus, Hobbesian notions of Leviathan, the doctine of immunity from the laws of men, is infecting the United States.
When the world’s only superpower heads off in that direction, the notion of a world based on justice becomes still more remote.
SHOULD this happen? No.
IS this happening? I think so.
Katz,
There is nothing pragmatic about a failure of judgment even as it may be understandable. It may be understandable to gratify revenge, fear, greed and suspicion as is going on for various reasons amongst sectarian and ethnic factions in Iraq, but it certainly doesn’t qualify as pragmatism (and is in fact manifestly the opposite). Human nature being what it is, visceral emotional reactions often tend to rule the roost, but in intellectual circles one tends to place a premium on more objective analysis.
This was my original point: you may feel a certain way about a superpower as defined by its actions or the world order it has cultivatied, but if your judgment is out of the context of historical or potential superpowers, their actions and world orders, then it is irrelevant; something akin to ‘we should all just get along’. It is in that context alone that my judgment of the US as curator of a world order extending from whenever it started until whenever it ends, was benevolent (and certainly as compared to the European powers that preceded it). Note that none of this line of argument has anything to do with the criminal justice system, international or domestic. These institutions are ultimately not responsible for codifying morality or passing judgements. Citizens are.
Your last comment portends the potential for the US’s recent bout of insanity (as personified by the administration of dubya bush) to affect its erstwhile benevolence (the last sentiment decidedly not yours). I agree, but I don’t think it will happen (this is not to say that there haven’t already been calamitous incidents, but that the worst of it is behind us). My worry is rather what happens after the huge economic liabilities we have been accruing at an unprecedented pace over the last five years are brought to bear. Nazi Germany rose out of a hyperinflating and wrecked real economy. That was no accident. My honest forecast is that there will come a time in this country where we will need some good people to step up and keep us from truly heading in the wrong direction. I only hope if it comes to that, there are enough of these types out there.
Majorajam,
“My honest forecast is that there will come a time in this country where we will need some good people to step up and keep us from truly heading in the wrong direction.”
This is also my view, and have expressed it more than once on this blog. I have enormous confidence in the benignity of the marginal US voter. I predict an electoral holocaust for Bushites.
“My worry is rather what happens after the huge economic liabilities we have been accruing at an unprecedented pace over the last five years are brought to bear.”
I agree with this too. Americans have become addicted to consumerism. Any administration that addresses this problem is confronted with some daunting tasks:
1. Explaining to Americans why they have to pay more tax. This isn’t a message that American voters want to hear.
2. Explaining to Americans why a return to protectionism is no solution to the declining competitiveness of large sectors of the US economy. This is also a politically charged topic.
If successful, cultural changes arising from them will necessarily have international effects:
1. Managing international reactions to any major fall in the exchange value of the US dollar.
2. Contributing to combatting international economic vicissitudes arising from the US going on a consumption diet.
All this is not beyond the wit and resourcefulness of the US political system. Clinton achieved a large measure of success in these aspects.
Most of all, however, means must be found to counter once and for all the seductive message pedalled by the Right in the US that the United States is subject to a different set of laws and priorites from those experienced by the rest of humanity.
Only when that pathology is cut out of American political culture can the rest of the world come to trust American rationality, benignity and steadfastness of purpose.
Katz,
They’ll have to pay more than they are presently, but most additional funds could be raised from the wealthy, which is not as politically tricky with the mass populace. In any case, the liabilities that most threaten the country are not those of the federal government, (although these aren’t a plus), but rather those of the external variety (those owed by Americans to foreigners- closing fast on a net $4 trillion). What’s more, the federal debt, inclusive of unfunded liabilities is, in and of itself, manageable. It is far more troublesome in the context of issues of solvency elsewhere in the economy. Of large concern is US household debt, which, as you note, is an outgrowth of the culture of consumerism that has come to define our society. However, it is worth mentioning that the culture itself is largely a manifestation of the easy money showered on Americans for generations, or rather, since the establisment of post-war global monetary system. As with Britain before us, the corrosive effects of this kind of ‘exorbitant privilege’ eventually lead to its demise (not that present day Britain doesn’t have its own issues with external liabilities- or Australia for that matter).
I find it odd the extent to which the left and the right embrace the free movement of capital. It’s the new religion. Meanwhile the contrarian in me can’t help but have admiration for the Pat Buchannons of the world whose philosophy is unwavering, even as it has gone well and truly out of favor. What I would like to know is what isn’t protectionism a solution for? “Declining competitiveness”? So, if the whole world prefers dollars to any other currency, and that preference boosts American unit labor costs far above where they would be otherwise, that is characterized as “declining competitiveness”? I have myriad worries about the state of American competitiveness but current flows of goods and services- which are as much a symptom of the world’s malignant monetary processes as anything- are certainly not one of them.
“So, if the whole world prefers dollars to any other currency, and that preference boosts American unit labor costs far above where they would be otherwise, that is characterized as “declining competitivenessâ€?? I have myriad worries about the state of American competitiveness but current flows of goods and services- which are as much a symptom of the world’s malignant monetary processes as anything- are certainly not one of them.”
I’d be more confident of the truth of your sentiments were I persuaded that the capital flows you mention motivated by commercial motives, narrowly defined. That definition would emphasise rate of return and risk. That definition would de-emphasise political-economic considerations such as using theextension of cheap credit to the US as a form of international fiscal neo-keysian pump-priming.
This latter motive seems to predominate in the minds of the Bank of China, the source of a very large part of the funds that finance US public and private debt.
You are correct about Australia. I believe that private debt is larger here than the US. However, Australian governments run large surpluses. JQ calls the relationship between Australian debtors and foreign creditors “the consenting adults model.”
Australia’s very large private debt may have a powerful impact on public policy in that the Conservative coalition in this country may well be punished electorally when and if Australians find themselves saddled with large debts and negative equity in previously overpriced real estate and other assets, notably shares.
Katz,
It’s not the motivation for the preference that is relevant, it’s the fact that it exists. Does it profit Asian markets to stockpile dollar claims even as they are storing up assets that look to have a negative expected return? I suppose the answer to that depends on whether you are an autocratic policy maker or not. Nevertheless, at an objective social level, the math isn’t supportive. But be that as it may, the effect is the same. The exchange value of the dollar is boosted, and the cost of American labor is less competative. Given the choice between wealth and work, I’d take wealth, but then I’m a creature of my debauched culture. The answer that promotes welfare at a social level is most certainly work, and especially in dignified, (i.e. non-Starbucks), jobs we have lost most precipitously- such as building things.
Majorajam,
We’ve danced the motives/outcomes waltz before, if I recall correctly.
In this case, to understand the actions of the Bank of China, you have to understand their motives, which I believe to be “commercial’ only in the broader sense of the word discussed above.
You are correct when you say that the motives of the Bank of China aren’t relevant when measuring economic effects of their actions.
However, an appreciation of the motives of the lenders must surely be relevant if and when American borrowers resolve to form an opinion about what the lenders may be up to:
One response may be: Gee, these nice Chinese want us to have all this neat stuff. (Apologies to Homer Simpson.)
Another may be: This neat stuff is great to have, but maybe it’s costing more than we think in the way of jobs, nation-building and self-respect.
Still another may be: Those Chinese are engaged in a conspiracy to destroy the United States by crucifying us on a cross of debt. (Apologies to William Jennings Bryan.)
The salient political point is that Americans will behave in very different ways according to how they interpret the motives of the Bank of China and other major foreign lenders.
Katz,
Perhaps, but it is not so much American actions that are the operative concern in issues related to the deindustrialization of the country, but rather the actions of the employers and, more to the point, their customers who prefer the lower cost versions coming out of Bangalore and Guangdong.
I should clarify that I am not at all a proponent of the shameful belief that the actions of Asian central banks are to blame for US profligacy. This, “they were willing to lend, so we borrowed”, mentality is a gross and grossly negligent abdication of responsibility- a typical one amongst recent American policy makers I should add. We could quite easily enforce higher savings rates either by legislation (e.g. adjustment to the tax code), protectionism, monetary or fiscal policy. The only problem is the allure of denial, and of course the constituencies that profit from the status quo and the influence their dirty money buys. So, I certainly don’t pin the blame for America’s malaise on foreigners. Far far from it.
“The only problem is the allure of denial…”
Denial is when stubbornness feasts on failure.
This can be a very sticky problem.