Let’s hope for an American defeat over Syria (Salon)

[MNBrewer]

http://www.salon.com/2013/09/13/lets_hope_for_an_american_defeat_over_syria/

The Syria crisis deepens not by the day but by the hour, and it delivers us to the threshold of a reality that will cause some to quake and bring others relief. One must hope for an American defeat. To turn back the White House’s rogue-nation plan to shell Syria, which risks putting a match to the oil in every Middle Eastern well, is to cross this threshold into a new space. In this defeat, if Americans are fortunate enough to have it forced upon them, lies none other than victory.

It means this. The U.S. has a chance now to conquer an old, compulsive claim to stand-tall world leadership that makes no fit with history, sound judgment, or (at this point) the facts in the morning’s papers, such as one can decipher them. These chances do not come often. Take this one and we will remove from our worldly relations an element of intrusive irrationality that has claimed millions of lives during our “American century” and proven time and again to be dangerous—as it is now.

“Why are we doing this?” is the incessant question this week. I point people toward our myths, a mistrust of thought in favor of sentiment and belief, an abiding addiction to violence, a suspicion that the world plots against our plentitude, an obsession with the grail of “total security,” a neurotic fear of weakness—or worse, effeminacy—and (scarcely least) an infantile trust in some guiding hand of Providence.

Sometimes this reply registers and other times not. But the full list is evident in any good account of the American idea as hatched in the 17th and 18th centuries. And it is where we have to look now to explain our national ambitions to ourselves. Follow the arguments for acting alone against Bashar al-Assad and you will climb the stairway to heaven: God wants us to do it. We are the ones, his archangels.

This is what I mean by victory within defeat. The myths are such and no more. We have to think our way through the 21st century. God is only on the money. We are set for all comers on the defense side—at the cost of much else, of course—but terrible swift swords cannot cure insecurity and paranoia. These are the things we have a chance to master. And that is what makes our moment very, very large. Miss it not.

[SamKnause]

1. Defeat

Excellent article.

Thanks for posting !!!!