Because throughout he assumes there's only the question of either intervention in world disputes because we're "moral", or not intervening because we're "immoral" or "confused". Nowhere does he address the core facts that it has never been the intention of the Constitutional origins of our country to do such things. Nor does he address the uglier facts of US intervention causing massive carnage directly and through installed puppet dictators.
Check the last paragraph where he even says the most ridiculous statement of al, that those who espouse non-intervention speak for the liberal left and should have the "honesty to call themselves conservatives, of the Henry Kissinger school". LOL! Man, that's a polemical tour de force. Mr. K is the one who designed and implemented policies that killed millions over there in 'Nam, courtesy of a bit of explosives dropped from great heights, and installation of a vicious leader or two. I suppose Buruma would like us to forget about all that unpleasantness, and compare all US interventions to stopping the Nazis, whether there's any basis or not.
But even before you get to that, the other paragraphs immediately leave any idea of the US having its own problems in the dust:
Para 1 - scolding Vidal, then his comment that Iraqis problems aren't our problems, implying we have some sort of responsibility to intervene.
Para 2 - same, for North Korea
Para 3 - dismissing answers to disproportionate questions as the "frivolity of a decadent old man"
Para 6 - Invoking Arundathi Roy's "no easy ... way of dealing with them" about US-sponsored dictators, simply dismissing the obvious fact that the US should not be sponsoring such dictators, instead leaving the impression we should accept the carnage and resulting messy removal of them afterwards.
Para 7 - "well-heeled commentators" are claimed to be talking about the suffering of people in an "off-handed way", rather than the facts of Roy and Vidal's true argument, which is that the US involvement is often the cause of the carnage, and per Vidal that the US has no right to get involved in any case.
Para 8 - The emphasis as usual of the US being the "richest and most powerful" nation on earth, and the obligation to get involved in preventing mass murder and millions starving. What this paragraph does is dishonestly (like the rest of the article) sneak in "citizens of the richest nation", when in fact the author is declaring the US government should continue to be obligated --- very different things. The "citizens" are free people able to assist anywhere in the world that they wish. The "government" is an entirely different matter, constrained by laws, especially the Constitution, from chasing Iraqis and Columbians around and shooting at them.
The very language ties ridicule of Vidal with ridicule of non-interventionism, "Vidal [is] an old-fashioned isolationist screaming to be let out of the great man's bulky frame", etc. In that same para he equates refusal to supply more US-sponsored military intervention (i.e., bombing) as "insouciant" and as a "call for more aggression".
The two unspoken premises are: (a)US intervention causes less carnage than non-intervention, and (b)it is constitutional for the US gov't to intervene wherever the public officials wish. Both premises are false.
The rest of the discussion wanders aimlessly through old ideological right/left, liberal/conservative arguments that are obsolete, and is occasionally right when he says things like "there appears to have been a reversal of roles between left and right".
The only real argument holding sway in our impending fascist gov't is how best to turn the US population into command-and-control slaves, and further dominate the world for fun and profit... |
