[Peace-discuss] Bacevich: Vietnam vs. Munich, and Creating an "Iraq/Afghanistan Syndrome"

Tue Aug 3 21:13:02 CDT 2010

There are two separate issues here. One is Bacevich's particular take
on the causation story. This is something about which reasonable
people with essentially the same interests and values can, and often
do, vigorously disagree. For example, how much importance should one
attach to the Israel Lobby, the oil industry, the weapons
manufacturers, etc. in the Iraq war? As Chomsky pointed out, noting
the obvious, it's hard to pull apart the contributions of multiple
causes that are pointing in the same direction.

The other is the question of whether Bacevich is against the Empire.
That is beyond reasonable dispute. He is, resolutely.

On Tue, Aug 3, 2010 at 8:59 PM, Brussel Morton K. <mkbrussel at comcast.net> wrote:
> You are nitpicking.  Most of what Bacevich says is true  ["And the pressure
> comes from what President Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex,
>  The pressure comes from the national security apparatus."], but you don't
> like his word "norms" . You put the worst possible meaning on what he may
> mean by that term. The bottom line for me is that he does not agree with the
> American policies, wants to see them reversed, and, I would say, has come
> out strongly against American imperialism in general, economic and military.
> He's explicitly said so, and so written. He may still be a capitalist pig,
> but your arguments fail in the sense that he objects to the aspects of that
> capitalism that leads to imperialism, not recognizing, you think,  that that
> is impossible.  Finally, you condemn him because he does not come right out
> and say that Obama is part and parcel of the MI  (+ media and academic)
> complex.
> IMHO, your last paragraph below ["…are we interested in inventing fictional
> accounts that aggrandize the patriotic self-image of people like
> Bacevich?"] is absolute rubbish, and I'm almost embarrassed that see you
> stoop in that direction.  You invidiously presume to know Bacevich's mind
> and character.
> Again, what is most important for me at this time is to stop the killing,
> stop the occupations, stop the violation of human rights, … ; I'll stick up
> for those who manifestly work  and write for those ends, despite their other
> perceived defects, lack of understanding, or wanting to change other, or
> even associated, aspects of the "system".
> Your approach contributes to rendering progressive politics impotent . Its
> cock-sure stridency, and intolerance, alienates.
> --mkb
>
>
> On Aug 3, 2010, at 7:44 PM, David Green wrote:
>
> Every or almost every aspect of Bacevich's analysis is wrong. Two examples
> from the interview on DN:
>
> "We wish to dominate. We wish to ensure that norms that work to the
> advantage, or perceive to work to the advantage, of the United States
> prevail across the world. And we are, I think, uniquely, in this moment,
> determined to rely on military power to enforce those norms."
>
> What norm is that? The norm that we control the world's resources? Does
> Bacevich define these "norms?"
>
> "But you asked the question, where does the pressure come from? And the
> pressure comes from what President Eisenhower called the military-industrial
> complex. The pressure comes from the national security apparatus. There are
> people in institutions who are deeply invested in maintaining the status
> quo. There are budgets, there are prerogatives, there are ambitions, that
> ostensibly get satisfied by maintaining this drive for American globalism,
> again, backed by an emphasis on military power. So I don’t discount for a
> second that the President would have had to, you know, shove aside some
> fairly stubborn resistance to make that course change on Afghanistan, and he
> chose not to do it."
>
> Yes, there is that, but in service of what or whom? It's the "industrial"
> aspect that's more important than the military as a fighting force. And it's
> economic interests that go beyond both to determine our elites' interest in
> controlling oil. The resistance that the President would have to "shove
> aside" (and won't, because he doesn't want to) is that of more than the M-I
> complex, and they also have to do with "credibility" in terms of our use of
> violence.
>
> So are we interested in understanding why we're in Afghanistan and how to
> explain that to people, or are we interested in inventing fictional accounts
> that aggrandize the patriotic self-image of people like Bacevich? It's
> really just a pragmatic argument. Bob's suggestion won't work, it just won't
> work, can't work. Ever.
>
> DG
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Brussel Morton K. <mkbrussel at comcast.net>
> To: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com
> Cc: Peace-discuss List <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
> Sent: Tue, August 3, 2010 6:46:30 PM
> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Bacevich: Vietnam vs. Munich, and Creating an
> "Iraq/Afghanistan Syndrome"
>
> Thanks for sending this on, Bob. Some on this list think Bacevich is a
> stooge, a closet imperialist. Quoting:
> Bacevich is an imperialist goof.
>
> For his generally benighted view, see his book "American Empire" (2002),
> where he wrote about "the imperative of America's mission as the vanguard of
> history, transforming the global order and, in doing so, perpetuating its
> own dominance [guided by] the imperative of military supremacy, maintained
> in perpetuity and projected globally" (p.215ff.)
>
> This is the sort of person who ends up as professor of "international
> relations" at Boston University (where Howard Zinn was hounded out).
>
> His objection to American policy in the Mideast on Democracy Now! today is
> that it isn't working. We're not killing enough Asians to make our writ run,
> and it's too expensive.
>
> … [ironic praise for something the author agrees with here.] Continuing:
>
> The totality of the interview is the sort of objection that Nazi generals
> might have made of the Russian campaign.
>
> The antiwar movement continues to be in serious trouble when people who
> purport to be against the war praise Bacevich.  --CGE
> Quite remakable.
> What is to be emphasized here are the virulent attacks on those who do not
> precisely say what these guys want them to say (or admit), even when they
> are saying things that would get the U.S. government to change its
> behavior. It is all devious, they say.  It appears as a kind of absolutely
> rigid ideological response not so different from when the Communist party
> line eminating from Lenin and Stalin condemned those like Rosa Luxemberg,
> Mensheviks, Trotskyities, socialists of various stripes, etc. in the early
> part of the 20th century. They would have been happy to see these deviants
> burned at the stake. (Trotsky indeed was assasinated, and others also fell.)
> --mkb
> On Aug 3, 2010, at 5:16 PM, Robert Naiman wrote:
>
> Campaigning for President, Senator Obama said: "I don't want to just
> end the war, but I want to end the mindset that got us into war in the
> first place." But as Andrew Bacevich notes in his new book,
> "Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War," as President,
> Obama has done the opposite: he has promoted and acted on behalf of
> the mindset that leads to war. Bacevich's book is a call for Americans
> to reject the Washington consensus for permanent war, global
> counterinsurgency and global military power projection, and to demand
> instead that America "come home," as Martin Luther King called for in
> 1967, and focus on resolving its own domestic problems rather than act
> as a self-appointed global police and occupation force. Because of his
> personal background and establishment credentials, Bacevich may be
> able to move Americans currently beyond the reach of the peace
> movement. This is important, because a key task for ending our current
> wars and preventing future ones is to break the current
> near-monolithic support for permanent war among the dominant
> institutions of the Republican Party - a stance that effectively
> disenfranchises the substantial minority of Republican voters who
> oppose the permanent war.
>
> This is why Bacevich's new book is potentially important for the U.S.
> peace movement. Get the book, read it, give it to a Republican friend,
> and talk to them about it. Join Just Foreign Policy on September 24th
> for a "Virtual Brown Bag" with Andrew Bacevich, and try to virtually
> bring your Republican friend.
>
> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/bacevich-vietnam-vs-munic_b_669502.html
>
> http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/8/3/17494/90841
>
> http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/662
> --
> Robert Naiman
> Policy Director
> Just Foreign Policy
> www.justforeignpolicy.org
> naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
>
> Urge Congress to Support a Timetable for Military Withdrawal from
> Afghanistan
> http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/feingold-mcgovern
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>
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-- 
Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org

Urge Congress to Support a Timetable for Military Withdrawal from Afghanistan
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/feingold-mcgovern