Peter Beinart | Dec 13 '04 | TNR | " A Fighting Faith"

[jrtruth1]

A Fighting Faith
At the dawn of the cold war, liberals rose to meet the challenge of a new totalitarian threat. Today, three years after September 11, they still have not--and time is running out. An argument for a new liberalism....

Today, the war on terrorism is partially obscured by the war in Iraq, which has made liberals cynical about the purposes of U.S. power. But, even if Iraq is Vietnam, it no more obviates the war on terrorism than Vietnam obviated the battle against communism. Global jihad will be with us long after American troops stop dying in Falluja and Mosul. And thus, liberalism will rise or fall on whether it can become, again, what Schlesinger called "a fighting faith."

Of all the things contemporary liberals can learn from their forbearers half a century ago, perhaps the most important is that national security can be a calling. If the struggles for gay marriage and universal health care lay rightful claim to liberal idealism, so does the struggle to protect the United States by spreading freedom in the Muslim world. It, too, can provide the moral purpose for which a new generation of liberals yearn. As it did for the men and women who convened at the Willard Hotel.

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This article from Peter Beinart @ The New Republic makes a great case for an issue that can help return liberal Dems to majority status.

(TNR is a subscription site and links will not work)

[Gloria]

1. Last night, Garafolo's sidekick Sam Seder didn't sound very

happy about Beinart AT ALL.....

[ewagner]

2. Let's examine this phrase

"...protect the United States by spreading freedom in the Muslim world."

this is a debate we haven't had and sorely need to have. Look at the words:

"....spreading freedom..." Is that what we intend to do? Is that our mission? What happened to Self-determination among Nations ?

"...in the Muslim world." Is that a security measure or a crusade?

"...protect the United States..."Is spreading democracy really protecting the United States? Especially if you choose to spread democracy at the point of a gun.

I personally cringe everytime I hear Bush* or a pundit mindlessly parrot this line that our objective as a nation is to spread democracy or freedom to other parts of the world. This is NOT PAX AMERICANA!

[jrtruth1]

3. Peter Beinart has started a great discussion the must take seriously.

The liberals and progressives need to be seen as strong on anti-terrorism and as strong on protecting our citizens.

We cannot be marginalized by the rightwing.


I think that Beinart has a strong point.

[eridani]

4. To fight terrorism, we must first stop engaging in it

This is what the 'moral purpose' of the US has been after WW II-

We have 50 per cent of the world's wealth, but only 6.3 per cent of its population. In this situation, our real job in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which permit us to maintain this position of disparity. To do so, we have to dispense with all sentimentality . . . we should cease thinking about human rights, the raising of living standards and democratisation.

--George Kennan, US Cold War planner, 1948 NSC-68 document
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/nsc-68/nsc68-1.htm
--Source: Naval War College Review, Vol. XXVII (May-June, 1975), pp. 51-108. Also in U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States: > 1950, Volume I.

The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist -McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the builder of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.

--Thomas Friedman, "A Manifesto for the Fast World," The New York Times Magazine, March 28, 1999


If the US had ever given a flying fuck about spreading democracy in the Mideast, it would never have overthrown the secular democratic government of Iran in 1953. That't the trouble with democracy--if people really do have a choice, they will choose to use their resources for their own benefit, as the Iranians did.

Not that the US is the first country to get too big for its britches.


.. we are not a young people with an innocent record and a scanty inheritance. We have engrossed to ourselves an altogether disproportionateshare of the wealth and traffic of the world. We have got all we want in territory, and our claim to be left in the unmolested enjoyment of vast and splendid possessions, mainly acquired by violence, largely maintained by force, often seems less reasonable to others than to us.

--Winston Churchill , "The World Crisis", released in the 1920s. Bolded words deleted before original publication

For in the Romans is an arrogance which no submission or good behaviour can escape. Pillagers of the world, they have exhausted the land by their indiscriminate plunder, and now they ransack the sea. A rich enemy excites their cupidity; a poor one, their lust for power. East and West alike have failed to satisfy them. They are the only people on earth to whose covetousness both riches and poverty are equally tempting. To robbery, butchery, and rapine, they give the lying name of `government'; they create a desolation and call it peace.

--Tacitus ,The Agricola and the Germania, London: Penguin, 1970 pp. 80-81


And one last comment about what eventually happens to the non-elite within empires. Think of the joke that the Roman Senate became after empire. Can you say "Patriot Act"? I knew you could.

We assert that no nation can long endure half republic and half empire, and we warn the American people that imperialism abroad will lead quickly and inevitably to despotism at home.

-- Democratic National Platform, 1900

They had some smart old farts back then, no?

[peacebird]

5. eridani - you are correct, thank you for posting this.

[jrtruth1]

6. Churchill made a great point -

We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

Winston Churchill


"You'd think from listening to America's European and Arab critics that we'd upset some bucolic native culture and natural harmony in Iraq, as if the Baath Party were some colorful local tribe out of National Geographic. Alas, our opponents in Iraq, and their fellow travelers, know otherwise. They know they represent various forms of clan and gang rule, and various forms of religious and secular totalitarianism ... from Talibanism to Baathism. And they know that they need external enemies to thrive and justify imposing their demented visions.
In short, America's opponents know just what's at stake in the postwar struggle for Iraq, which is why they flock there: beat America's ideas in Iraq and you beat them out of the whole region; lose to America there, lose everywhere.

Thomas Friedman


The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.

Tacitus


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I think that it's time for libs and progressives to get on with what simply needs to be done.

[eridani]

7. Churchill was good when minding Britain's own defense--

--but not when fucking with other people's countries.

If he gave a good goddam about democracy in the ME, why did he gas the Iraqis in the 20s, and why did Britain support the overthrow of the secular democratic government of Iran in 1953? Seems that people were starting to get over tribalism just fine without any 'help' from American and Eurotrash.

More moral cretinism from the people who want their boots on everyone else's necks. Such a noble enterprise