avoid making ahistorical assertions.
Gosh, no, I wouldn't want to do that! Enough of that going on already.
Generalizations are always defective descriptions, especially in realm of policy discussion. It doesn't matter which side of an argument you are on.
Briefly, we've read this -or something like it- lots of times
<...we deserved it (WTC) because of our fascist foreign policies>
both as a retort to those who believe something like what it says, or from folk who believe it.
No one deserved it. No one had a right to do it. It can't be justified.
It is worth studying the motivation of those who did it. And it's worth studying western foreign policy, particularly the US's, to see what aspects of it may have contributed to the success or continued survival or growth of organizations such as al Qaeda.
It's worth studying the conditions in the area the attack came from. It's worthwhile finding a connection, if there is one, between US policy and conditions which lead to the growth etc of aQ and to the growth and maintenance of tyrannical regimes in the area.
It's worthwhile changing the policies and acting to change the area's conditions and to destroy those who did 9/11, and want to do lots more things like it.
Those who advocated invading Iraq did the study and acted. They disagree among themselves as to the particular objectives, the correctness of the action, the timing, etc, but despite the doubts of some, they acted.
The validity of their conclusions and correctness of action are always open to question. But you reduce the history to this:
The War Party sees the cause-and-effect as linear:
A causes B, which causes C:
They hate us, so they attack us, so we attack them. No blame attaches to us, because all our violence is reactive and defensive.
This won't wash. There's lots of the hate stuff going around and it doesn't all lead to 9/11s or hundreds of thousands of mass graves. It first needs focussing with ideology and financing and organizing, and its result -'they attack us'- requires a response which in your scheme is 'C': 'so we attack them'.
So you manage to trivialize their hate, their attack, the losses they cause, and the response. You've managed to eliminate the history of both sides. So far, you've managed to produce propositions so flabby they have no value in the real world, either T or F.
After the second colon it could as easily, (and more truthfully) read, 'due to their ideology and conditions in ME, aQ has attacked us several times, the last time causing great losses, we must go into the area and change the conditions there and we can do this using Iraq, which is vastly overdue for change so we'll invade it and start changing things'. This, at least, has the merit of enough substance that it may be criticized. And this is simply incorrect : "...all our violence is reactive..." It's pretty clear a good bit of that violence is proactive and it's not hard to find those who advocate action saying that it is.
Your next proposition
The Peace Party sees the cause-and-effect as circular:
A causes B, B causes A, repeat endlessly:
We attack them, they attack us back, we attack them again, they attack us again. The blame cannot be heaped on any one side; it's a cycle of violence, perpetuated by both sides exclusively blaming the Other, and both sides habitually seeking violent solutions to problems.
The vast demerit here is again utterly trivial terms are instantiated for 'A' and 'B': 'We attack them...they attack us again.' And in the follow up sentence the reasoning, ideology, actions, existential challenges, of all sides are cast aside for meaningless reification:
Again, no real world Ts and Fs are produced to be challenged: That one side or the other may reject cessation of violence is not considered, as in, 'what are consequences if, at any given time, only one side desires cessation of violence and acts on it'? There are real losses of life, wealth, power, territory, and way of life to be taken. And, most important, there are ideologies which can't be reconciled.
The War Party [whatever that is] rejects self-examination as defeatism, while the Peace Party [whatever that is] thinks self-examination is necessary for the war to be won.
Those against the present action and policy are badly used. Some truly believe that whatever the US does, is wrong. Some see the reality of foreign policy to a degree dependent on power as a mistake, others see it as an ethical mistake, if not a defect. Some see any application of force as wrong. Some think the present course is wrongly focused and will cause more problems than it resolves. Some are impartial in their stance, others are partisan. Some don't want the war to be won at all.
Generally, (and here I teeter on the edge of the same pit into which you've fallen), those you characterize as the War Party believe war was declared on the West, and especially the US - and more generally, modernity - some years before 9/11, whereas those you characterize as the Peace Party prefer not to rigorously examine the claim and its implications.
The hand waving business you put forward as differences over "self examination" is a red herring: both sides have defects in this area. |
