[Peace-discuss] Norman Soloman

[Stuart Levy]

On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 09:52:27PM -0500, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> Which is the case?
>
>    [1] The war dead in AfPak are the result of a crime committed by the USG 
> for geopolitical goals; in a well-ordered universe, the leaders of that 
> government would be in cells in The Hague, awaiting trial on the charges -- 
> notably those about aggressive war -- on which the German leaders were 
> executed at Nuremberg; or
>
>    [2] The war dead in Afpak are not the result of any crime but are the 
> incidental result of the ineffectual policy choices of USG officials  who 
> are probably trying to do the right thing but are unfortunately enmeshed in 
> "cognitive dissonance," "self-hypnosis," and an "ultimately unhinged
> process."
>
> The answer is obvious.

Eh... The AWARE table is too small.  We need more room
to squeeze in the excluded middle.

If you remove from [2] the "are not the result of any crime" -- a claim
I'm sure Norman Solomon would not want included in any paraphrase of
his article -- then both kinds of descriptions can be true.    And both
can be useful.  When trying to understand how to dissuade people,
it's worth looking into what they think they're up to, with self-deception
and all.

Most of the WW II warmaking Nazis probably thought they were working to
improve the world, too.  Certainly the US eugenist movement seemed to think so.

>
> Brussel Morton K. wrote:
>
>> 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.
>>
>> 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.
>> 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" .
>> 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.
>> 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.
>> 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.
>> I don't believe he would agree with your characterization of his thoughts. 
>> I
>> don't. See my point 6) below.
> >>
>>> 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. 
>>>>>> 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 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.
>>>>>>> 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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