[Peace-discuss] Norman Soloman

[Brussel Morton K.]

Final comments: This has gone on long enough. --mkb


On May 22, 2009, at 9:18 AM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:

>
> I'll try to ignore the ad hominems because I think there's a fairly  
> important
> disagreement here.
>
> First of all, aren't you astonished that Solomon is reduced to  
> offering an
> insanity defense -- "folly" -- for the undeniable fact that the  
> transition from
> Bush to Obama has meant an increase in aggression and violence in the
> prosecution of the war, especially in Afghanistan and Pakistan?   
> It's amazing
> that he's reduced to that, in order to try to explain how a  
> president he
> supports is committing war crimes.

Solomon is not offering any "insanity defense" for Obama. That is  
strictly your misleading interpretation. And of course, even if Obama  
is going along with US imperial actions, it is still "folly" when  
those actions/interests lead to a "quagmire" both for the military  
grunts, and for the U.S. and Afghan/Pakistani populations.
>
>
> He's taken Tuchman's silly book from a generation ago, a paean of  
> praise to Kennedy liberalism, and used it to suggest that the  
> problem is that "Obama's policy adrenalin is now surging to engorge  
> something called counterinsurgency"!  (The argument is so weak that  
> even his prose breaks down: can adrenaline really surge to engorge  
> something?)

I thought Solomon made a insightful metaphor. Yes, it may be true that  
Obama, with power in his hands, gets taken by it---- a kind of surge  
of adrenalin.  That does not imply that there are not other reasons  
why he wants to continue on the road taken.

  I'm less the literary critic than you, but I find the literary note  
snide.
>
> Second, Solomon is in a position and of an age to know how false  
> Tuchman's account of Vietnam is.  It does make a difference whether  
> Vietnam was a "quagmire" that the US stumbled into inadvertently, or  
> a logical outcome of US postwar imperialism.

You ignore that I've already answered this. Who are you to say that it  
was a "logical outcome"? Others differed, evidently. Hence the  
"quagmire" .
>
>
> There were in fact two anti-war arguments in regard to Vietnam, and  
> they are now
> being refurbished for the Long War.  The first was that Vietnam  
> began as a
> "blundering attempt to do good" and got out of hand; the second was  
> that the US
> saw Vietnam as an demonstration war in its imperial policy.  The  
> first is false,
> and the second is true.

I would say it was a blundering attempt to "rescue" S. Vietnam --from  
an American perspective, although many did believe that it was a  
"good" attempt that simply turned disastrous, a mistake. Probably the  
main administration argument was that if S. Vietnam "fell", there  
would be a domino effect----the cold war was raging----, threatening  
U.S. interests. The N. Vietnamese, were, after all, considered  
'Commies", and the resistance in S. Vietnam was thought to be a N.  
Vietnam Commie plot.
>
> The US did leave Vietnam, after a fashion, but only after its  
> conscript army
> revolted -- and after it had killed millions and destroyed the  
> region, thus
> achieving its war aim of preventing "the threat of a good example" of
> independent development.  It did not achieve its maximum war aim of  
> placing a
> viable puppet government in South Vietnam (the war was always  
> principally
> against South Vietnam), but the government that resulted was forced  
> to be
> properly dutiful, as it is today.

This (the first sentence) is an argument often cited, but some in the  
military dispute it. They say we could have prevailed. I'm not sure.
>
>
> You're right that "from a military point of view" the US never left  
> SE Asia.
> But the mass murder there, as today in Afpak, was not the result of  
> "surging
> adrenaline" but imperial policy; it was not "folly" but imperialism,  
> a geopolitical advantage for dominant social groups in the US, again  
> as
> it is today.

MacNamara. Kennedy et al. might well have been under the influence of  
surging adrenaline, but with other goals, as I've already noted wrt  
Obama.
>
>
> Finally, Solomon argues quite fantastically that American killing in  
> Afpak is a
> result of "cognitive dissonance," "self-hypnosis," and an  
> "ultimately unhinged
> process" (just like the mid-1960s, according to Tuchman) in order to  
> avoid
> admitting that the White House is simply following a murderous  
> imperialist
> policy.  Yes, he certainly "left some things unsaid."  --CGE

I don't believe he would agree with your characterization of his  
thoughts. I don't. See my point 6) below.

--mkb
.
>
>
>
> Brussel Morton K. wrote:
>>> A few comments:
>>> 1) Norman Solomon is as anti-war and anti-occupation (and empire)  
>>> as Carl
>>> Estabrook, although I agree he left some things unsaid in that  
>>> article. So,
>>> attacking him is misplaced, barking up the wrong tree, and I think  
>>> harmful
>>> to the already sufficiently fragmented antiwar "movement". There's  
>>> a kind
>>> of Leninist mentality working here.
>>> 2) Who expects total consistency? I don't know the facts of the  
>>> matter, but
>>> Tuchman may well have been pro Israel, and hence ready to believe  
>>> Joan
>>> Peters.
>>> 3) You say: "/But Tuchman's analysis is unreliable. Hers is a  
>>> Vietnam book,
>>> another version of the "quagmire" myth -- that US policy makers  
>>> didn't know
>>> what they were getting into in SE Asia./ "  I think, even if they  
>>> (US
>>> policy makers) had intended to control and occupy South Vietnam  
>>> (as in S.
>>> Korea), they clearly underestimated the resistance they would  
>>> encounter. In
>>> that sense, they did get stuck in a "quagmire", and Tuchman is not  
>>> wrong.
>>> And after all, they finally left. It is not clear to me that from a
>>> military point of view they had to.
>>> 4) That Tuchman's work is now contradicted by Estabrook, who is so  
>>> sure of
>>> his own views, is evidence enough of a certain arbitrariness in the
>>> interpretation of history. Solomon was convinced by the analogies  
>>> he saw; I
>>> thought what he had to say was worthwhile.
>>> 5) As to the rest, I basically agree, but the vitriolic tone and  
>>> frequently
>>> distorting elements of Estabrook's critiques tend to alienate even  
>>> those
>>> who generally are on the same anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti- 
>>> capitalist
>>> side as he.
>>> 6) Finally, I would only note that the "cognitive dissonance" and  
>>> imperialist aims are not contradictory.
>>> --mkb
>>> On May 21, 2009, at 5:38 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>>>> ..."only lacking," in other words, the reason that Americans are  
>>>> killing
>>>> people around the world and inviting reprisals at home.  Some  
>>>> omission.
>>>> Norman Solomon [sic], rather desperately, puts up an insanity  
>>>> defense for
>>>> Obama's war policy.  To do so, he enlists the help of the late  
>>>> Barbara
>>>> Tuchman and her book, "The March of Folly: From Troy to  
>>>> Vietnam" (1984).
>>>> But Tuchman's analysis is unreliable. Hers is a Vietnam book,  
>>>> another version of the "quagmire" myth -- that US policy makers  
>>>> didn't know what
>>>> they were getting into in SE Asia. That's nonsense, and it's  
>>>> disturbing
>>>> that it's being belched out again to provide a liberal  
>>>> smokescreen over
>>>> the Long War in SW Asia.
>>>> About the time of her Folly book (yes), Tuchman was one of the  
>>>> promoters
>>>> of the embarrassing hoax by Joan Peters, "From Time Immemorial,"  
>>>> proving
>>>> that there were no Palestinians...
>>>> (I'd also like to contest her account of the Reformation, but  
>>>> Mort tells
>>>> us that "all this discussion about what might have been [is]  
>>>> rather silly
>>>> [because] no one knows what the future might have been, in the  
>>>> short or
>>>> the long run, if other actions/policies had been taken ... It's  
>>>> what's
>>>> called idle speculation, that leads to nowhere."  But apparently  
>>>> not,
>>>> when Tuchman talks about Vietnam, etc.)
>>>> To return to the facts, US policy in the 1500-mile radius around  
>>>> the Persian Gulf -- goals and strategies -- has been consistent  
>>>> for two generations, and it's quite rational in the Weberian  
>>>> sense of fitting means to ends.  But both the ends -- US colonial  
>>>> control of Mideast energy resources, as an advantage over our  
>>>> economic rivals in Europe and
>>>> Asia -- and the means to them, are vicious.  (See "The Torture  
>>>> Memos and
>>>> Historical Amnesia," recently posted here.)
>>>> Solomon writes that Tuchman "devotes the closing chapters of 'The  
>>>> March
>>>> of Folly' to the long arc of the U.S. war in Vietnam. The  
>>>> parallels with
>>>> the current escalation of the war in Afghanistan are more than  
>>>> uncanny;
>>>> they speak of deeply rooted patterns."  But the patterns are not  
>>>> in some
>>>> trick of mind but in the consistency of US policy.
>>>> It's right that Obama is like Kennedy in that their "brain power"  
>>>> is devoted to "counterinsurgency," but counterinsurgency needs to  
>>>> be called
>>>> by its right name: terrorism.  As the Kennedy intellectuals  
>>>> invented
>>>> death squads for Latin America and then used them to kill tens of
>>>> thousands in the "Phoenix Program" in Vietnam, so Obama has put an
>>>> assassin in charge of his AfPak terrorism -- which he has increased
>>>> substantially over Bush's (e.g., 16 drone strikes in the first four
>>>> months of 2009 compared with 36 in all of 2008; ordering the end  
>>>> of the
>>>> peace deal in Swat).
>>>> Tuchman and Solomon are wrong to say that "cognitive dissonance"  
>>>> was the
>>>> reason the USG remained in Vietnam.  Imperialism was -- the US  
>>>> set out to
>>>> demonstrate in Vietnam that no country in the Third World would be
>>>> allowed to pursue its own path of development outside US control.  
>>>> (It
>>>> would be a bad example to others.) And it should be clear that  
>>>> the US won
>>>> the war in Vietnam -- in sense of preventing an example of  
>>>> alternative
>>>> development, at astonishing human and environmental cost.   
>>>> Vietnam today
>>>> begs for new Nike plants.
>>>> The "unhinged process that Barbara Tuchman charts" and that  
>>>> Solomon applies to the Obama White House is a chimera -- and a  
>>>> propaganda cover.
>>>> With Tuchman's ambiguous help, Solomon thinks (after Napoleon's  
>>>> police
>>>> chief) that Obama's policy in Afghanistan is "worse than a crime  
>>>> -- it's
>>>> a blunder."  But in spite of their myth-making, it's not a  
>>>> blunder --
>>>> unfortunately, American policy makers know what they're doing.   
>>>> It's a
>>>> crime.  --CGE
>>>> Morton K. Brussel wrote:
>>>>> A interesting commentary, only lacking, I think, what may be the  
>>>>> roots
>>>>> of the Obama administration's policies, i.e., what the "pros"  
>>>>> think is
>>>>> the value of controlling S and SW Asia.  --mkb Published on  
>>>>> Thursday,
>>>>> May 21, 2009 by CommonDreams.org <http://www.commondreams.org/>  
>>>>> The
>>>>> March of Folly, Continued by Norman Solomon To understand what's  
>>>>> up
>>>>> with President Obama as he escalates the war in Afghanistan,  
>>>>> there may
>>>>> be no better place to look than a book published 25 years ago.  
>>>>> "The
>>>>> March of Folly <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345308239?ie=UTF8&tag=commondreams-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0345308239
>>>>> <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345308239?ie=UTF8&tag=commondreams-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0345308239 
>>>>> >>,"
>>>>> by historian Barbara Tuchman, is a chilling assessment of how  
>>>>> very smart people in power can do very stupid things -- how a  
>>>>> war effort, ordered from on high, goes from tic to repetition  
>>>>> compulsion to
>>>>> obsession -- and how we, with undue deference and lethal  
>>>>> restraint, pay
>>>>> our respects to the dominant moral torpor to such an extent that  
>>>>> mass
>>>>> slaughter becomes normalized in our names. <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345308239?ie=UTF8&tag=commondreams-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0345308239
>>>>> <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345308239?ie=UTF8&tag=commondreams-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0345308239 
>>>>> >>
>>>>> What happens among policymakers is a "process of self-hypnosis,"  
>>>>> Tuchman writes. After recounting examples from the Trojan War to  
>>>>> the British moves against rebellious American colonists, she  
>>>>> devotes the
>>>>> closing chapters of "The March of Folly" to the long arc of the  
>>>>> U.S.
>>>>> war in Vietnam. The parallels with the current escalation of the  
>>>>> war in
>>>>> Afghanistan are more than uncanny; they speak of deeply rooted
>>>>> patterns. With clarity facing backward, President Obama can make  
>>>>> many
>>>>> wise comments about international affairs while proceeding with  
>>>>> actual
>>>>> policies largely unfettered by the wisdom. From the outset of U.S.
>>>>> involvement in Vietnam, Tuchman observes, vital lessons were  
>>>>> "stated"
>>>>> but "not learned." As with John Kennedy -- another young president
>>>>> whose administration "came into office equipped with brain  
>>>>> power" and
>>>>> "more pragmatism than ideology" -- Obama's policy adrenalin is now
>>>>> surging to engorge something called counterinsurgency. "Although  
>>>>> the
>>>>> doctrine emphasized political measures, counterinsurgency in  
>>>>> practice
>>>>> was military," Tuchman writes, an observation that applies all  
>>>>> too well
>>>>> to the emerging Obama enthusiasm for counterinsurgency. And  
>>>>> "counterinsurgency in operation did not live up to the high- 
>>>>> minded zeal
>>>>> of the theory. All the talk was of ‘winning the allegiance' of  
>>>>> the people to their government, but a government for which  
>>>>> allegiance had
>>>>> to be won by outsiders was not a good gamble." Now, as during the
>>>>> escalation of the Vietnam War -- despite all the front-paged  
>>>>> articles
>>>>> and news bulletins emphasizing line items for civic aid from  
>>>>> Washington
>>>>> -- the spending for U.S. warfare in Afghanistan is overwhelmingly
>>>>> military. Perhaps overeager to assume that the context of bombing
>>>>> campaigns ordered by President Obama is humanitarian purpose, many
>>>>> Americans of antiwar inclinations have yet to come to terms with
>>>>> central realities of the war effort -- for instance, the  
>>>>> destructive
>>>>> trajectory of the budgeting for the war, which spends 10 dollars  
>>>>> toward
>>>>> destruction for every dollar spent on humanitarian programs.  
>>>>> From the
>>>>> top of the current administration -- as the U.S. troop  
>>>>> deployments in
>>>>> Afghanistan continue to rise along with the American air-strike  
>>>>> rates
>>>>> -- there is consistent messaging about the need to "stay the  
>>>>> course," even while bypassing such tainted phrases. The dynamic  
>>>>> that Tuchman
>>>>> describes as operative in the first years of the 1960s, while the
>>>>> Vietnam War gained momentum, is no less relevant today: "For the  
>>>>> ruler
>>>>> it is easier, once he has entered a policy box, to stay inside.  
>>>>> For the
>>>>> lesser official it is better, for the sake of his position, not  
>>>>> to make
>>>>> waves, not to press evidence that the chief will find painful to
>>>>> accept. Psychologists call the process of screening out discordant
>>>>> information ‘cognitive dissonance,' an academic disguise for  
>>>>> ‘Don't
>>>>> confuse me with the facts.'" Along the way, cognitive dissonance
>>>>> "causes alternatives to be ‘deselected since even thinking about  
>>>>> them
>>>>> entails conflicts.'" Such a psycho-political process inside the  
>>>>> White
>>>>> House has no use for the report from the Congressional Progressive
>>>>> Caucus that came out of the caucus's six-part forum on Capitol  
>>>>> Hill
>>>>> this spring, "Afghanistan: A Road Map for Progress." Souped up and
>>>>> devouring fuel, the war train cannot slow down for the Progressive
>>>>> Caucus report's recommendation that "an 80-20 ratio (political- 
>>>>> military) should be the formula for funding our efforts in
>>>>> the region with oversight by a special inspector general to  
>>>>> ensure compliance." Or that "U.S. troop presence in the region  
>>>>> must be
>>>>> oriented toward training and support roles for Afghan security  
>>>>> forces
>>>>> and not for U.S.-led counterinsurgency efforts." Or that "the  
>>>>> immediate
>>>>> cessation of drone attacks should be required." Or that "all aid
>>>>> dollars should be required to have a majority percentage of  
>>>>> dollars
>>>>> tied or guaranteed to local Afghan institutions and  
>>>>> organizations, to ensure countrywide job mapping, assessment and  
>>>>> workforce development process to directly benefit the Afghan  
>>>>> people." The policymakers who
>>>>> are gunning the war train can't be bothered with such ideas.  
>>>>> After all,
>>>>> if the solution is -- rhetoric aside -- assumed to be largely  
>>>>> military,
>>>>> why dilute the potency of the solution? Especially when, as we're
>>>>> repeatedly made to understand, there's so much at stake. During  
>>>>> the
>>>>> mid-1960s, while American troops poured into Vietnam, "enormity  
>>>>> of the
>>>>> stakes was the new self-hypnosis," Tuchman comments. She quotes  
>>>>> the wisdom -- conventional and self-evident -- of New York Times  
>>>>> military correspondent Hanson Baldwin, who wrote in 1966 that  
>>>>> U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam would bring "political,  
>>>>> psychological and military
>>>>> catastrophe," signaling that the United States "had decided to  
>>>>> abdicate
>>>>> as a great power." Many Americans are eager to think of our  
>>>>> nation as
>>>>> supremely civilized even in warfare; the conceits of noble
>>>>> self-restraint have been trumpeted by many a president even  
>>>>> while the
>>>>> Pentagon's carnage apparatus kept spinning into overdrive.  
>>>>> "Limited war
>>>>> is not nicer or kinder or more just than all-out war, as its  
>>>>> proponents
>>>>> would have it," Tuchman notes. "It kills with the same  
>>>>> finality." For a
>>>>> president, with so much military power under his command,  
>>>>> frustrations call for more of the same. The seductive allure of  
>>>>> counterinsurgency is
>>>>> apt to heighten the appeal of "warnography" for the commander in  
>>>>> chief;
>>>>> whatever the earlier resolve to maintain restraint, the
>>>>> ineffectiveness of more violence invites still more -- in  
>>>>> Afghanistan
>>>>> and Pakistan, as in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. "The American  
>>>>> mentality
>>>>> counted on superior might," Tuchman commented, "but a tank cannot
>>>>> disperse wasps." In Vietnam, the independent journalist Michael  
>>>>> Herr
>>>>> wrote, the U.S. military's violent capacities were awesome: "Our
>>>>> machine was devastating. And versatile. It could do everything but
>>>>> stop." And that is true, routinely, of a war-making  
>>>>> administration. The
>>>>> grim and ultimately unhinged process that Barbara Tuchman charts  
>>>>> is in evidence with President Obama and his approach to the  
>>>>> Afghan war: "In
>>>>> its first stage, mental standstill fixes the principles and  
>>>>> boundaries
>>>>> governing a political problem. In the second stage, when  
>>>>> dissonances
>>>>> and failing function begin to appear, the initial principles  
>>>>> rigidify.
>>>>> This is the period when, if wisdom were operative, re- 
>>>>> examination and
>>>>> re-thinking and a change of course are possible, but they are  
>>>>> rare as
>>>>> rubies in a backyard. Rigidifying leads to increase of  
>>>>> investment and
>>>>> the need to protect egos; policy founded upon error multiplies,  
>>>>> never
>>>>> retreats. The greater the investment and the more involved in it  
>>>>> the
>>>>> sponsor's ego, the more unacceptable is disengagement." A week  
>>>>> ago, one
>>>>> out of seven members of the House of Representatives voted  
>>>>> against a
>>>>> supplemental appropriations bill providing $81.3 billion to the  
>>>>> Pentagon, mainly for warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan. An  
>>>>> opponent of
>>>>> the funding, Congressman John Conyers, pointed out that "the  
>>>>> president
>>>>> has not challenged our most pervasive and dangerous national  
>>>>> hubris:
>>>>> the foolhardy belief that we can erect the foundations of civil  
>>>>> society
>>>>> through the judicious use of our many high-tech instruments of
>>>>> violence." Conyers continued: "That belief, promoted by the  
>>>>> previous administration in the wake of the terrorist attacks of  
>>>>> September 11,
>>>>> assumes that the United States possesses the capacity and also  
>>>>> has a
>>>>> duty to determine the fate of nations in the greater Middle  
>>>>> East. "I
>>>>> oppose this supplemental war funding bill because I believe that  
>>>>> we are
>>>>> not bound by such a duty. In fact, I believe the policies of  
>>>>> empire
>>>>> are counterproductive in our struggle against the forces of  
>>>>> radical religious extremism. For example, U.S. strikes from  
>>>>> unmanned Predator
>>>>> Drones and other aircraft produced 64 percent of all civilian  
>>>>> deaths
>>>>> caused by the U.S., NATO and Afghan forces in 2008. Just this  
>>>>> week,
>>>>> U.S. air strikes took another 100 lives, according to Afghan  
>>>>> officials
>>>>> on the ground. If it is our goal to strengthen the average  
>>>>> Afghan or
>>>>> Pakistani citizen and to weaken the radicals that threaten  
>>>>> stability in
>>>>> the region, bombing villages is clearly counterproductive. For  
>>>>> every
>>>>> family broken apart by an incident of ‘collateral damage,' seeds  
>>>>> of
>>>>> hate and enmity are sown against our nation. . . . "Should we  
>>>>> support
>>>>> this measure, we risk dooming our nation to a fate similar to  
>>>>> Sisyphus
>>>>> and his boulder: to being trapped in a stalemate of unending  
>>>>> frustration and misery, as our mistakes inevitably lead us to  
>>>>> the same
>>>>> failed outcomes. Let us step back; let us remember the mistakes  
>>>>> and heartbreak of our recent misadventures in the streets of  
>>>>> Fallujah and
>>>>> Baghdad. If we honor the ties that bind us to one another, we  
>>>>> cannot in
>>>>> good faith send our fellow citizens on this errand of folly. It is
>>>>> still not too late to turn away from this path."
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