Like a Rhinestone Cowboy

Your beloved former guest blogger No Nym sent me a link this morning to a blog about "the political uses of violence, for good and bad." Good reading for the pacifists among us; one of the things I liked best about Mr. B.'s time in the military was being forced to learn a more nuanced understanding of what Clausewitz called "politics by other means." War is, for good and bad, a political act as well as a moral one; the left is often accused of failing to recognize that. Falsely, I think, in general terms; but it's certainly true that there are some lefties with whom it's impossible to talk about the strategies or practicalities of war and its subsidiaries (strategy, covert action, mobilization, and yes, peacekeeping) in any other than black/white moral terms.

So, e.g., the war in Iraq: we're mostly agreed that it's unwinnable, unjust, illegal, a catastrophic waste of American and Iraqui lives. Strategically, it's stupid and always was: while the U.S. has gotten away with less overt acts of political violence in the middle east for a long time, and probably could still have done so for years--arguably an important tool of our policy in the region--outright war and frankly deposing a government is something that previous administrations have avoided (the latter) or pursued very cautiously indeed (the former). This not only because our interference is resented in the region--pretty much most nations are going to resent foreign strongarming--but because, duh, the middle east is not without power over us. We care about what's happening there not only out of some abstract sense of concern (e.g., Darfur) or because longer-term thinking recognizes that instability is, well, destabilizing; but because Iraq and Iran and Syria and Jordan and especially Saudi Arabia and even Palestine (etc.) have actual, real power over us in the forms of oil, alliances, and their own potentials for violence as a policy tool (e.g., terrorism, attacking Israel).

That's one reason why pulling out of Iraq is a tricky question. It's not just the moral imperative--you broke it, you bought it, as Colin Powell warned before he got brainwashed into shilling for the administration. It's also the practical and strategic one. If we bail, we're taking our hands off of a tricky and unpredictable situation that's definitely going to affect us, directly, for a long time to come. (Of course, if we pull out, we're hardly going to leave Iraq--we'll just go back to those lesser tools of covert action, strategic mobilization, tactical alliances, and so on.)

Which brings us to Korea. Ironically, it's the Bush administration, rather than the left, that's approached North Korea with a clear, simplistic moral attitude: they're a "rogue nation," and we don't negotiate or talk with evildoers.

And look where it's gotten us. Kim may or may not have a nuclear bomb that's big enough to threaten South Korea (or Japan), and we don't really have any way of knowing for sure because we've pretty much cut off contact with him. The major political tool of military strength is all tied up in Iraq, and Kim knows it; we don't have a lot of leverage over him, and we haven't been using what we have. Now we get to squawk on the sidelines and run around all a-flutter. We've not only encouraged terrorism in the middle east, by giving a lot more folks good reason to hate our guts; we've pretty much embraced terrorism in Korea, by ignoring an obvious problem until it's gotten so big we can't ignore it any longer, and then freaking out over an entirely predictable situation. The Bush doctrine: passive-aggressive foreign policy. How fabulously rugged of us: nice hat, but the cattle are all mired up to their necks in a swamp we pushed them into because we thought we'd look so manly, standing all alone up on dry ground.



Speaking of manliness and Korea, if you havent seen The Brotherhood of War, definitely put it on your Netflix queue or look for it at your local good video store. Fabulous film about the Korean war; one of those marvellous movies that really opens up the emotional landscape of masculinity and violence.