War talk reveals U.S. hawks as policy amateurs
William Pfaff
International Herald Tribune/Los Angeles Times Syndicate International Monday, August 12, 2002
Threatening Saddam
PARIS George W. Bush is talking himself into a position where he will have to go to war, even though there is no convincing argument that war would be good for the United States, or even good for Bush.
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The military are certainly not convinced that war is a good idea. The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff have made that clear through a series of leaks to the press. They are wary of a war whose objectives - beyond Saddam Hussein's overthrow - remain murky, and for whose aftermath no serious policy exists.
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Generals are against war, but amateurs are for it. Who among the neo-conservative polemicists and op-ed writers baying for war against Saddam has personally spilled blood, or seen it spilled, or even heard shots fired in anger?
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The president himself, thanks to his father's friends, was flying a National Guard fighter to defend the State of Texas against the Viet Cong.
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The leading hawks in the administration made their records as Defense Department bureaucrats. Donald Rumsfeld was a peacetime naval flyer, but the only administration heavyweight who has actually fought in a war is Colin Powell, and he is the Bush administration's leading dove.
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The Defense Department's Policy Board, presided over by Richard Perle (A Jewish-American Israel Firster who is also Chairman of the Jerusalem Post), and last week was briefed by the hitherto unknown Laurent Murawiec of the Rand Corporation. He told them that Saudi Arabia is America's enemy, fosters terrorism "at every level in the terror chain," is "the kernel of evil, the prime mover, the most dangerous opponent" of the U.S. in the Middle East.
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He recommended that the U.S. issue an ultimatum to the Saudi government to "stop all anti-U.S. and anti-Israeli statements in the country" - a preposterous demand - or see its oil fields and overseas financial assets "targeted," which would seem to mean seized by the United States.
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Henry Kissinger, the intelligent member of the Policy Board, was the only one to demur, refusing to speak of the Saudi Arabians as strategic adversaries.
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Law doesn't come much into amateur discussions since it is taken for granted that the United States is justified in doing pretty much as it pleases. This administration has consistently insisted on exemption from international law and refuses the inconvenient constraints of treaties signed under previous administrations. In internal security affairs, it claims an equivalent exemption from constitutional restraint.
.
This administration seems to regard the United States as exempt from the laws of war and from the traditional norms governing just and unjust war. These have only philosophical or moral authority, but were taken serious in American government as recently as the 1950s and 1960s in policy debates over nuclear war.
.
Is there an alternative to this war? Have all of the alternative courses for achieving the goal been exhausted? Is war the sole and necessary means to a just goal? What is the disposition of those conducting the war: to do good with a minimum of harm? Or to aggrandize their own and the nation's power and standing at the expense of the lives or legitimate claims of others?
.
The Rand Corporation used to wonder about such things. It would be much better for Rand's reputation as an intellectually responsible organization to send briefers on just war to Washington, rather than promoters of aggressive war and international illegality.
.
However, a measure of consolation for what the Bush people are up to can be sought in what Walter Lippmann once wrote: "A policy is bound to fail which deliberately violates our pledges and our principles, our treaties and our laws. The American conscience is a reality."
.
International Herald Tribune Los Angeles Times Syndicate International < < Back to Start of Article Threatening Saddam
PARIS George W. Bush is talking himself into a position where he will have to go to war, even though there is no convincing argument that war would be good for the United States, or even good for Bush.
.
The military are certainly not convinced that war is a good idea. The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff have made that clear through a series of leaks to the press. They are wary of a war whose objectives - beyond Saddam Hussein's overthrow - remain murky, and for whose aftermath no serious policy exists.
.
Generals are against war, but amateurs are for it. Who among the neo-conservative polemicists and op-ed writers baying for war against Saddam has personally spilled blood, or seen it spilled, or even heard shots fired in anger?
.
The president himself, thanks to his father's friends, was flying a National Guard fighter to defend the State of Texas against the Viet Cong.
.
The leading hawks in the administration made their records as Defense Department bureaucrats. Donald Rumsfeld was a peacetime naval flyer, but the only administration heavyweight who has actually fought in a war is Colin Powell, and he is the Bush administration's leading dove.
.
The Defense Department's Policy Board, presided over by Richard Perle, last week was briefed by the hitherto unknown Laurent Murawiec of the Rand Corporation. He told them that Saudi Arabia is America's enemy, fosters terrorism "at every level in the terror chain," is "the kernel of evil, the prime mover, the most dangerous opponent" of the U.S. in the Middle East.
.
He recommended that the U.S. issue an ultimatum to the Saudi government to "stop all anti-U.S. and anti-Israeli statements in the country" - a preposterous demand - or see its oil fields and overseas financial assets "targeted," which would seem to mean seized by the United States.
.
Henry Kissinger, the intelligent member of the Policy Board, was the only one to demur, refusing to speak of the Saudi Arabians as strategic adversaries.
.
Law doesn't come much into amateur discussions since it is taken for granted that the United States is justified in doing pretty much as it pleases. This administration has consistently insisted on exemption from international law and refuses the inconvenient constraints of treaties signed under previous administrations. In internal security affairs, it claims an equivalent exemption from constitutional restraint.
.
This administration seems to regard the United States as exempt from the laws of war and from the traditional norms governing just and unjust war. These have only philosophical or moral authority, but were taken serious in American government as recently as the 1950s and 1960s in policy debates over nuclear war.
.
Is there an alternative to this war? Have all of the alternative courses for achieving the goal been exhausted? Is war the sole and necessary means to a just goal? What is the disposition of those conducting the war: to do good with a minimum of harm? Or to aggrandize their own and the nation's power and standing at the expense of the lives or legitimate claims of others?
.
The Rand Corporation used to wonder about such things. It would be much better for Rand's reputation as an intellectually responsible organization to send briefers on just war to Washington, rather than promoters of aggressive war and international illegality.
.
However, a measure of consolation for what the Bush people are up to can be sought in what Walter Lippmann once wrote: "A policy is bound to fail which deliberately violates our pledges and our principles, our treaties and our laws. The American conscience is a reality."
.
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