War Jonesin’ (Updated)
Max Boot discourses on what’s really funny about peace, love and understanding: it sucks! Which means that the people who champion it suck too! But then Boot’s theme has always been that the zenith of moral endeavor is the art of warmongering. So it’s just “logical” that he’d argue that the nadir of all possible moral positions is that of the peacemaker.
Max Boot has put on his thinking cap
I HAPPENED TO BE in London last week when the Independent newspaper ran a front-page petition calling for “a cease-fire now,” signed by a cross-section of the smoked-salmon socialist set — various retired ambassadors, human rights lawyers and creative geniuses such as Peter Gabriel and Harold Pinter.
What a coincidence! I happened to be on the internet when the L.A. Times ran an Orwellian piece by one of the Vienna Sausage wingnut set.
Their petition calls on Prime Minister Tony Blair to force Israel “to end its disproportionate and counterproductive response to Hezbollah’s aggression.” The petition also calls for bringing “all pressure possible on Hezbollah to end its attacks on Israel,” but of course the result of a cease-fire now would be to end all pressure on the terrorists. The signatories are smart enough to know that, but they don’t care.
Whereas Max Boot may or may not be smart enough to know that a peace settlement would stop the murder of civilians and the destruction of Lebanese democracy. It would also stop the war from enlarging into Syria and Iran, which would put the civilians of all countries involved in even greater peril. But then it would also deprive Max Boot of war porn, which is the real problem: how cruel those pacifists are!
Some of those hellbent on a cease-fire are no doubt animated by sheer animus against Israel, a nation that is held to a standard different from anyone else…. But there’s more at work here than a Mel Gibson-esque bias (“Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world”).
Ahh, so peacemakers are anti-semites. Wondered when he’d get around to that. Yet immediately after he drops that bomb he reaches for his pearls:
There is also a palpable sense of self-satisfaction among those who advocate peace at any price. It is all too easy to bask in your own virtue while castigating someone else as a warmonger, even though few peace treaties have achieved much unless preceded by decisive military action. The greatest peacemakers in modern history were generals like the Duke of Wellington, William Tecumseh Sherman, Curtis LeMay, George S. Patton and Ariel Sharon, who ruthlessly waged war on behalf of Western democracies.
So another war equals peace bit from a wingnut? No, that would be banal. Boot is special; it’s not just war that equals peace, it’s “ruthless[ness]” in war that equals peace. This is lovely euphemism: what he actually means is that war crimes = peace. Sharon greenlighting Sabra and Shatila. Sherman writing to General Grant first that the men women and children of the wealthy class in the South should all be exterminated, then trying his best to put that thought into action, then writing about and doing the same thing to the Sioux. Curtis LeMay of course was the basis for Buck Turgidson. Butchers.
However, such “militarists” win no Nobel Peace Prizes. Those accolades sometimes go to brave dissidents such as Lech Walesa and Aung San Suu Kyi, but more often they go to ineffectual peace activists such as Pugwash-founder Joseph Rotblat and U.S. Secretary of State Frank Kellogg, author of a 1928 treaty that purported to outlaw war. On two occasions, the prize was even granted to cynical aggressors — the PLO’s Yasser Arafat and North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho — for whom a peace treaty was merely a tactical step on the way to achieving their ultimate aims by force.
Aren’t those scarequotes beautiful? “Militarists!”: haha, it is to laugh! What do you mean, “history book” and “moral decency”? But to Boot’s point, and what a point it is: The Nobel Peace Prize is a sham because it’s not awarded to the butchers, war criminals, and genocidal madmen of democracies! Oh a few Prizes might be rightly awarded, but most are not.
Actually some are awarded to butchers, which is why Boot thoughtfully left Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Kissinger off his undeserving Nobel laureate list. The reasons why are obvious. No one on earth loved war more than TR. And as for Kissinger, he sabotaged the 1968 peace talks between the U.S. and Vietnam, telling the Vietnamese that if they gave Johnson’s people the finger, North Vietnam would get a better deal in the new Nixon administration, of which Kissinger knew he’d be a part. For Boot, such people are deserving of accolades; and if the accolades are given for an alleged contribution to World Peace, well then the joke’s on the world. So in a roundabout way, Boot is right that Nobel Peace Prizes are sometimes given with a heavy sense of irony.
Architects of unsuccessful wars are rightly held responsible for their actions, as Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara were for the Vietnam War and as George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld may be for the Iraq war, but there is no comparable settling of accounts for those responsible for failed peace pacts.
Key word is “unsuccessful”, not immoral or depraved or stupid or devious or opportunistic. For Boot, LBJ and McNamara are held responsible by neocon “history” because they didn’t murder enough Indochinese. Boot’s obviously worried that neocon “history” will end up holding Bush and Rummy responsible for not being butchers enough in Iraq. You know, for “lack of resolve”. Not enough will to power. Insert your Naziism here.
Nowhere is the dismal record of peace processes clearer than in Israel’s case. Over the years, the “international community” repeatedly has stepped in to prevent Israel from finishing off its enemies — for instance, following its 1982, 1993 and 1996 incursions into Lebanon. Unrelenting pressure even led Israel in 2000 to leave Lebanon altogether. The result? Not peace, but a stronger, more dangerous adversary on Israel’s border.
Man, if only Sharon and the Phalange could have murdered all the other Lebanese and Palestinians in 1982, instead of merely those penned-up in refugee camps, this mess wouldn’t have happened! Thanks for nothing, International Community!
Samuel Johnson’s famous epigram needs to be amended. In the 18th century, patriotism may have been the last refuge of the scoundrel. Today, it’s peace activism.
Interesting. The only quote I know by heart by Senator Roscoe Conkling goes like this: “When Dr. Johnson defined patriotism as ‘the last refuge of the scoundrel’, he ignored the enormous possibilities of the word ‘reform'”. Conkling of course was one of the most corrupt and reactionary personages of an extremely corrupt and reactionary era, and so very hostile to those who were bringing his and his friends’ myriad crimes to light. Like Conkling, Boot amends a famous quote to sneer-smear his moral superiors. For Conkling, the real heros were kleptocrats like himself. For Boot, real heros — indeed, real peacemakers — are the butchers whom he lives through vicariously.
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Update: See also B^3 and, courtesy of Flying Rodent in comments, The Onion.
Yes there is a cootie factor in the Mises link. And needless to say one shouldnt pay attention to the author’s silly capitalism apologia interlarded in the piece. But he’s sound on what Sherman and Sheridan thought of and did to the Sioux (and where they learned it from), and it’s handier than me digging through my books right now. Sherman and Sheridan were genocidal madmen where the Indians were concerned, and if they’d had the technology and infrastructural abilities of Hitler, there would have been gas chambers in the Dakotas: their intents were the same. And considering what they DID do to the Sioux, with what they had available to do it with, then Ward Churchill is right (his academic failings here being irrelvant) in saying that the United States is guilty of a moral crime equivalent to that of the Nazis, for which it has never paid a price.
Which in turn explains why I hate hate hate Boot and Glenn Reynolds and Adam Yoshida and all the rest of the wingnuts who use how the Indians were treated as a proper template for how this country should treat its “enemies” today. To me such people are *exact* moral equivalents to the scum that pollute Prussian Blue fan sites: they might as well have “I’m of the master race” and “what Holocaust?” tattooed on their foreheads.
[…] What if I told you my fiancee left me for another man? Does that make me more likable, less likable, as likable? Let’s start over here this time. « War Jonesin’ Aug4 […]
Retardo,
Reading this, I couldn’t help but be reminded…
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29178
…yesterday’s satire becomes today’s right-wing prayer.
OMG thanks, Flying Rodent, I’d never seen that one before. It’s perfect.
That’s simply… stunning. “War is great, so long as you always win.” I guess.
His list is interesting. I dun know much about most of the generals, but I’m pretty certain that “peacemaking” was pretty damn low on their “to-do” list.
Having had some time to process this, I think the best way to put what he’s saying is, “The world would be a much better place if we could just kill everyone I don’t like. People who disagree with this philosophy are fair game, too.”
Unbelievable.
Under his belief, I guess, should China invade and take DC (Take my DC. Please!) Americans should just shrug our shoulders at the Successful War they launched, and start buying chopsticks and Mandarin Textbooks. Since, being successful, they are peacemakers. In a sense. Like, if you take it to mean that by creating war and death, they’re bring a peace, which begins when they stop killing people.
I’m getting a feeling that neocons suffer from what I can only imagine is an intense, all-consuming desire to have been there at the end of WWII. Not fight, of course. That’s icky and not air-conditioned. But to come home victorious to a tickertape parade, having fought the righteous fight and restoring glory to what was. Or something. And if we have to create whole new wars with which to live vicariously though glory days never experienced, then by God, who’s to stop us?
Held responsible for failed peace pacts? Is he fucking serious? Who’s that Senator who basically told the out-of-state firefighters to go fuck themselves? Cause those two are pretty much in their own little league there.
Two quotes dress this pretty much perfectly, for me.
“A martyr is willing to die for their country; a hero would much rather live for theirs.” – I dunno who, probably West Wing.
“You can’t fix stupid.” – Ron White
Boy, I can hardly wait for Gary Ruppert and his misshapen doppleganger, Jose Chung to latch themselves onto this thread. What will they say? IT IS A MYSTERY!!1
I’m sick and tired of “those who advocate peace at any price”, too. Peace at any price? Hah! How about war at any price? That’s a lot easier. It’s very hard to maintain a peace, but to maintain a war, that’s a piece of cake! And who would want a piece of cake at any price? I’d pay about 2 bucks for a piece of cake. Maybe three-fifty for a really good piece of pie. But any price? Damned pie-eating appeasers. I’ll bet if Hitler marched into Washington DC selling Zwiebelkuchen those lefties would say, “Sure, Hitler, I’ll pay any price for your Onion Pie, just so long as there’s no war, boo hoo hoo” And Max Boot would be all like, “We will not eat your Onion Pie, Furher! Just take it back to the Fatherland. We shall fight on the seas and oceans, 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, and we will not eat your heinous Onion Pie!” That’d show him.
Yeah, create a desert and call it “peace”, that’s the ticket.
Damn smoked salmon eaters are always harshing my warbuzz.
[…] War is Peace. […]
Doesn’t this simply shorter to “War is Peace?”
But, would we fight Hitler
yin the onion fields? That’s the question needs answering!even though few peace treaties have achieved much unless preceded by decisive military action
Isn’t a “peace treaty” by definition, preceded by military action?
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LOVE the Onion article!
You guys have seen the Censure Carter site, right? I’m starting to worry about how much I hate these guys.
And, you know, considering what this war is going for, I don’t think “peace at any price” is something they need to worry about.
I probably should have left this comment here instead of on the next post. That’s what you get for reading backwards, I guess.
I can’t understand what Boot has against Le Duc Tho.
On two occasions, the prize was even granted to cynical aggressors — the PLO’s Yasser Arafat and North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho — for whom a peace treaty was merely a tactical step on the way to achieving their ultimate aims by force.
I mean, North Vietnam was ruthless in pursuit of its war aims, right? And it won the war, right? And Vietnam has been peaceful ever since, right?
So how on earth can he call Curtis LeMay a peacemaker, but Le Duc Tho a cynical aggressor? What on earth is the distinction – except, of course, that LeMay is responsible for slaughtering far more civilians; advocated war with Cuba in 1962; and, as far as his (limited) role in Vietnam is concerned, was a failure, rather than a success?
But to come home victorious to a tickertape parade, having fought the righteous fight and restoring glory to what was. Or something.
Nope. When you get home, you sleep on the floor, ’cause you can’t sleep on a goddam matteress for months. You sleep with a loaded gun because that was the ONLY way to sleep for the last year. When people speak to you, you don’t always answer them ’cause you’re not sure if they’re real or not. You eat too much, drink too much, smoke too much, cry too much. You go to a movie you laugh at the wrong parts – and stupid little things make you incredibly angry. And when you get angry, or scared, you want to shoot somebody, just get some rounds downrange. You walk into a room where people who love you are sitting together and they all fall into an awkward silence. You begin to wonder if you can live in peacetime. If there’s any way that you can fit seamlessly into this society like you used to before they changed your entire universe by sending you to war.
What the hell’s the point? Just this. If war is such a problem solver, such a balm on human interaction, such a certain road to peace and prosperity, why does it do these things to it’s participants? What can be good about an undertaking that wrecks EVERYTHING? Everything is destroyed, ruined, tainted. All the people are dead, sick, hurt or fucked up. All the money is wasted, never to be spent on making people’s lives better. Ashes. Smoke. Rubble. And there are people who WANT this?
mikey
“Vietnam has been peaceful ever since, right?”
Well, except for a little tussle with China. But no white folks were killed, so it wasn’t much noticed in the west.
Well, except for stepping in and stopping the Cambodian genocide, too.
“…I’m getting a feeling that neocons suffer from what I can only imagine is an intense, all-consuming desire to have been there at the end of WWII…. But to come home victorious to a tickertape parade, having fought the righteous fight and restoring glory to what was.â€?
Sure, they’d’a loved to be there, in der Vaterland, at the end of WWII. Only problem is, they’d’ve wanted to be the Nazis. And victors. And the tickertape parade would have been, if they’d had their way, down the Ku-damm. But…alas.
But here they are again. Guess they just can’t take “NO!� for an answer.
“[T]here is no comparable settling of accounts for those responsible for failed peace pacts.”
That would explain why no one ever says anything bad about Neville Chamberlain.
“So how on earth can he call Curtis LeMay a peacemaker, but Le Duc Tho a cynical aggressor? What on earth is the distinction – except, of course, that LeMay is responsible for slaughtering far more civilians; advocated war with Cuba in 1962; and, as far as his (limited) role in Vietnam is concerned, was a failure, rather than a success?”
Because the chinks aren’t any more human then the wogs or the redskins.
Man, that something so vile, so incredibly monstrous could be published in a major US Newspaper… well, I guess it’s par for the course, but it still pisses me off.
Somewhat OT, It’s always weird to me that even liberal scholars can refer to “the indians” in such a general fashion, as if the genocides were a single action against a single people.
I mean, yeah, capitalism sure helped excuse the killing of a lot of people, but Christianity of the western European variety coloured the early actions of white folks in the USA, and if you want to go further and include Mexicans under the rubric of “Native Americans”, European culture was in fact the driving force behuind much of the horrible atrocites, to, I would argue, at least as great an extant as capitalism, depending on how strictly you want to define capitalism.
It’s a complicated convergence of factors that changed depending on time and space, is what I’m saying.
And yeah, it wasn’t much different from the Holocaust, and sweet jesus how much healthier this country would be if people knew that.
My fiance’s father, a full blooded Apache, raised on a res until he was 14 when he ‘lit out for the territories’, tells me that when he was a young man driving a semi in Washington State, he would see signs posted in grocery and restaurant windows saying “No dogs or Indians allowed”. At least Germany attempted to correct the wrongs done when the war was over. The holocaust in this country against the indiginous people is to some extent still going on. I’m often amused by how they are now screwing the white man with their casinos. Although, with the Jack Ass Abramoffs of this world around, they could get screwed on that deal too.
At any rate, in the privacy of their own homes, violence worshipping jerks like the guy who wrote this vile article come out from behind the thin veils covering their bigotry and freely admit that they’d love to have all the brown, red, black, and yellow peoples of the world gone. (and any white people who disagree with them.) They want to destroy the village of the entire freakin’ world in order to ‘save’ it. And they don’t care about the kids who join the Army they claim to ‘support’, because they’re just poor white trash and blacks and it’s just peachy keen if they get used for cannon fodder.
The whole Jessica Lynch thing comes to mind. The Hopi soldier who was so brave and died didn’t get much of a eulogy at all, did she? And how many people know her name? Pfc. Lori Ann Piestewa, first woman killed in Iraq. Jeez, it makes me sick.