Decentists and other ex-lefties – Page 5

The Decentist philosophy in a nutshell

Published on March 7, 2008

Jamie has it, in a quote from one Paul Rogers taken from a review in the house organ of the English cruise missile left, Decentiya:

What wretched timing for Rogers then, that his book should be released at a time when American success in prosecuting the War on Terror is possibly at its highest point since the halcyon days of early 2003.

What moves it from standard decentist “we so are winning the war on terror! We are! We are!” boilerplate is the phrase “halcyon days of early 2003”. For most of us, the “halycon days of early 2003” was when a disastrious war was started that so far has claimed the lives of a million or so Iraqis, cost literally trillions of dollars and has left Iraq a wasteland. For the decents this was the start of their glorious democratic crusade against totalitarism and the last time they could pretend that it was indeed a glorious crusade, instead of the clusterfuck it really was. Normally, they are self aware enough to realise most of us don’t share their nostalgia and hence temper their longing in public somewhat, but not Rogers.

The myth of Afghanistan

Published on October 12, 2007

John Quiggin writes:

[…] I can make the point in mitigation that, if the Afghanistan war had not been so shamefully mismanaged, most obviously the diversion of most of the required resources to the Iraq venture, it might well have reached a successful conclusion by now. But even after that mismanagement, I still, reluctantly, support the view that it is better to try and salvage the situation in Afghanistan by committing more resources, rather than pulling out and leaving the Afghans to sort it out themselves. I draw that conclusion because I think there would be even more bloodshed after a withdrawal, and that there’s a reasonable prospect that a democratic government and a largely free society can survive in Afghanistan with our help. And, even after all the mismanagement, I think most Afghans are better off now (or at least no worse off) than they would have been with a continuation of Taliban rule and civil war.

What John writes here seems to be widely believed by disappointed war supporters, but I think it’s a myth. Aghanistan was always a sideshow, a stepping stone on the way to the war that Bush really wanted: Iraq. It would’ve taken another president entirely for Afghanistan to be taken serious the way John wanted it to be. But there’s a deeper fallacy here, which is that if this war had been pursued more seriously, it could’ve been a succes. Again, it’s hard to see this happening with Bush in charge, as the example of Iraq, which has had all the funds and attention Afghanistan has lacked, shows. And let’s not forget the Soviet experience in Afghanistan either; that fiasco can’t be accused of having been underfunded. Enforcing democracy (or socialism) from the barrel of a gun is hard. That’s the lesson I wish more people would learn: that war is hardly the best way to export respect for democracy and human rights.

The other lesson I wish people like John would learn is that “things could be worse” is not a valid reason for staying the course, that hoping that spending more time, more money and more lives in doing the same thing will do the trick this time is not a strategy. We cannot solve the problems of Afghanistan and our presence only makes things worse.

Because until those on the left learn that waging war in the name of democracy and human rights is counterproductive, we will get more Afghanistans and more Iraqs.

Good liberal wars

Published on October 3, 2007

In the middle of a good review of two rightwing revisionist books about the War on Vietnam, Rick Perlstein says something profound but obvious:

And yet, in his own confused way, Moyar is also onto something. Americans, even “neoconservative” ones, are prone to liberal sentimentalizing about the possibility of “good” wars. But war is not good. War is the attempt of one group to violently impose its will on another. Fields of blood and fire are no kind of workshop for Jeffersonian democracy.

Yet nonetheless quite a few people who would say of themselves that they are of the left, and I’m not just talking about Decentists, have this illusion that it is possible to wage war for democracy, or human rights. Hence Kosovo, Afghanistan and, to a certain extent, Iraq. In all cases war supporting leftists were not the ones who made these wars possible, but helped legitimise them by providing non-official (and non-binding!) motivations for supporting them.

Leftist political maturity

Published on September 5, 2005

For some reason, when I wanted to post a comment to this post at Reading A1 it was forbidden, so I’ll post it here. First, some context.

Michael at Reading A1 took to task Marc Cooper, yet another pseudo-Democrat who was wringing his hand on the lack of “viable alternatives” coming from the anti-war movement for the mess in Iraq. Michael correctly pointed out that it’s not the anti-war movement’s job to do this: we’re not in power,
we’re not listened to by Bush and co anyway and the only way that we can get any traction on this issue is to keep on calling loudly to get the troops out. So what is the motive for Cooper to criticise the anti-war movement for being too shrill as well as having the wrong elements in it?

Reading A1 hints at the answer in the last part of the post, which is what set me off:

Check out the update Marc Cooper thoughtfully added to his post, if you want to see a more unmediated version of his real politics:

Some of the more delusional responses [to the Juan Cole essay] predictably enough come from the
Idiot Right who accuse Cole of being a traitor. And, yes, also from those who want immediate,
unconditional, un-thought-out withdrawal on the Unrepentant Idiot Left. One of the more prolific buffoons from that corner — Louis Proyect the self-described “Unrepentant Marxist” — can offer no better response than to compare Cole with Dick Nixon and then further suggest I undergo a lobotomy for having linked to Cole and to cure what he diagnoses as my incipient Hitchens Syndrome (Ahh.. for the good old days of the Show Trials when prosecutor Vishinsky would end his feverish closing statements with a call to “Shoot these mad dogs!”). Oh well… I suppose every day that political Neanderthals like this have their mitts far, far, far from any levers of power is, at least, an OK day. For that I give thanks.

Still fighting the anti-Communist battles of the fifties, I see. And how are those “Neanderthals” (I make no endorsement of Proyect, by the way) any closer to power than you yourself are, Marc? And how close to power do you really think gloating over their lack of it is going to get you, or the people you endorse?

Of course, Proyect is right in saying that any sort of managed withdrawal of the sort Cole proposes and Cooper endorses is making the same mistake as the US did in Vietnam. Vietnam should’ve taught us that there are times when even the US cannot go against the tide of history: exactly the outcome it feared happened, only with many more lives lost than if it had not interfered.

Since Cooper is yet another beltway flack, this is of course far beyond his ken as none of these people has any sense of history or any desire to learn from it.

And it’s not even that his wishes for socalled “viable alternatives” is correct but mistimed, it’s that they’ve been wrong from the start and still wrong in their analysis of this war. Again this is from a lack of historical insight and a dependency on Beltway wisdom rather than real critical analysis.

What it all comes down to is that policy is nothing without ideology and people like Cooper have long let go of even their watered down version of liberalism for a misguided “realism”. This is the greatest disease afflicting the Democrats right now: the party’s elite no longer beliefs in anything but electability. Which is how abominations like the war on Iraq happen.

Living Marxism watch

Published on May 11, 2005

It is interesting how often the erstwhile comrades of Living Marxism manage to be cited in the British media to spout their obsession with risk aversion

Case in point. Here we have Frank Furedi, the ex-Living Marxism, ex-Revolutionary Communist Party guru, on the subject of “smug parents” in last week’s Observer:

‘The situation is compounded because we have privatised childcare. It is no longer the responsibility of
society to look after the next generation but the sole responsibility of individuals who feel that they
must parent all the time.’ […]

‘This means that there is now a threat that this can define you completely. Your personality is no longer comprised of what job you do, what films you like or cultural references — being a parent becomes your whole identity and you live your life through your kids.’

What annoys me is not necessarily there relentless banging of their obsessions, but the fact that the British newsmedia presents Furedi and co as neutral experts on whatever topic they’re asked their opinion on, without acknowledgement of the specific political agenda behind their opinions. (Take for example this potted BBC profile of Claire Fox. Nothing about what her “Institute of Ideas” stands for.)