Enemies of the people
Oct. 24th, 2010 08:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
necturusI suspect there has never been a ruler of any sovereign state who hasn't been guilty of atrocities. There are always inconvenient persons and groups who have to be repressed for the sake of public order, state security, or political expediency. Treaties and other sovereign commitments are torn up as soon as they become inconvenient, and laws and constitutions often reveal themselves to be little more than so much ink on paper in the face of political exigency. We condemn assassinations, arbitrary arrests, tortures, and mass deportations when they are done by our enemies but do not hesitate to employ such measures ourselves, despite our laws, constitutions, and belief in inalienable human rights. if Stalin's assassination of Leon Trotsky was abominable, then surely so is President Obama's declared intention to assassinate Anwar al-Awlaqi.
Moreover, the notion of a nation or government waging "war" against an individual or group of individuals or against an ideology strikes me as profoundly Stalinist. If "Islamic extremism" is the enemy, then all Muslims are suspect, and anyone with Muslim ancestry, an Arabic name, or the wrong skin color might be accused of sympathizing with the enemy, even if he be President of the United States. Moreover, anyone questioning the paranoia du jour or the vast amounts of money pouring down the gullet of the military-industrial-homeland security complex is likely to have his or her patriotism questioned. While we are not yet at the point where the governor of New York or a dozen members of Congress might disappear in the middle of the night or make tearful confessions in a media circus show trial, it's not difficult to imagine that happening if a sufficient group of political or military leaders were to find a pretext (such as a new terrorist attack), particularly at a time when so many of us in this country are angry and resentful at the sudden loss of our former prosperity and, perhaps, at our government's seeming impotence to deal effectively not only with the economy and the terrorists but with emerging superpowers such as China.
We are not so different from the Russians, the Italians, the Spaniards, or the Germans, I think, that such things cannot happen here, and unlike those nations, we have nothing in our history to warn us of such dangers.
How does the American occupation of Afghanistan, which is supposed to be a good thing, differ from the former Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, which was supposed to be a bad thing? There is of course very little difference; even the objectives of the two invading powers were identical: to contain the spread of militant Islam, but in the process to take advantage of the country's natural resources. Moreover, whereas the British in the 19th century had been content with imposing rulers favorably disposed to them on a country they otherwise left to govern itself, both the United States and the Soviet Union insisted on imposing their political ideologies on the Afghans, with fairly disastrous results. How much more sense might it have made to grab one of Zahir Shah's cousins, plop him on the throne, call a council of tribal leaders to ratify his succession, and depart, leaving the Afghans to wallow in their medieval ways?
On its face, the notion that al-Qaeda and its ilk presents an existential threat to the United States is absurd. We are talking about a group of people that possesses not a single tank, warship, or fighter jet, nor any of the industrial capacity to produce such things. They have not a single division under arms. Moreover, their ideology is profoundly medieval and framed in the language of a religion unknown to 95% of the American people; it has essentially no mass appeal. Al-Qaeda is little more than a bogeyman, as Trotskyism was in Stalin's USSR, with which to frighten us into doing as we are told. If we know what is good for us, we will refuse to be frightened, and call our leaders to account for actions that exceed the limits of the powers we have delegated to them.
Moreover, the notion of a nation or government waging "war" against an individual or group of individuals or against an ideology strikes me as profoundly Stalinist. If "Islamic extremism" is the enemy, then all Muslims are suspect, and anyone with Muslim ancestry, an Arabic name, or the wrong skin color might be accused of sympathizing with the enemy, even if he be President of the United States. Moreover, anyone questioning the paranoia du jour or the vast amounts of money pouring down the gullet of the military-industrial-homeland security complex is likely to have his or her patriotism questioned. While we are not yet at the point where the governor of New York or a dozen members of Congress might disappear in the middle of the night or make tearful confessions in a media circus show trial, it's not difficult to imagine that happening if a sufficient group of political or military leaders were to find a pretext (such as a new terrorist attack), particularly at a time when so many of us in this country are angry and resentful at the sudden loss of our former prosperity and, perhaps, at our government's seeming impotence to deal effectively not only with the economy and the terrorists but with emerging superpowers such as China.
We are not so different from the Russians, the Italians, the Spaniards, or the Germans, I think, that such things cannot happen here, and unlike those nations, we have nothing in our history to warn us of such dangers.
How does the American occupation of Afghanistan, which is supposed to be a good thing, differ from the former Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, which was supposed to be a bad thing? There is of course very little difference; even the objectives of the two invading powers were identical: to contain the spread of militant Islam, but in the process to take advantage of the country's natural resources. Moreover, whereas the British in the 19th century had been content with imposing rulers favorably disposed to them on a country they otherwise left to govern itself, both the United States and the Soviet Union insisted on imposing their political ideologies on the Afghans, with fairly disastrous results. How much more sense might it have made to grab one of Zahir Shah's cousins, plop him on the throne, call a council of tribal leaders to ratify his succession, and depart, leaving the Afghans to wallow in their medieval ways?
On its face, the notion that al-Qaeda and its ilk presents an existential threat to the United States is absurd. We are talking about a group of people that possesses not a single tank, warship, or fighter jet, nor any of the industrial capacity to produce such things. They have not a single division under arms. Moreover, their ideology is profoundly medieval and framed in the language of a religion unknown to 95% of the American people; it has essentially no mass appeal. Al-Qaeda is little more than a bogeyman, as Trotskyism was in Stalin's USSR, with which to frighten us into doing as we are told. If we know what is good for us, we will refuse to be frightened, and call our leaders to account for actions that exceed the limits of the powers we have delegated to them.
