John Lewis, In Memoriam

[Philip Coates]

John Lewis, an Objectivist Professor of History and specialist in the Classics just passed away after a battle with cancer.

The Jefferson School Objectivist summer conferences took place alternate summers for two weeks. I met John right at the start. He was from Hartford and at that time had had a long career in insurance. Since the conferences were two weeks long, we had three 'free days'. With a conference of more than 300 people, you'd gravitate toward a small circle of maybe five, maybe ten new simpatico people and older friends and go off and do something. It was in San Diego, so you'd spend the day at Sea World or Disneyland or wind surfing or something fun. John was one of that handful of people, men and women, I felt most completely comfortable with, and often spent those days with. And even out of 300 plus people, there weren't that many that I was 'simpatico' with in temperament, spirit, sense of fun, and just being on a compatible wavelength.

I was enormously impressed later on when he bootstrapped himself years later than his contemporaries into getting a Ph.D. from Oxford and becoming a professor of history and a writer of books on the classical world. What I remember most about him from that previous time -- if I can put it into words -- was a sort of down-to-earth niceness. Unpretentious. Sort of a boyish, innocent enthusiasm in personality. Not like one of those people who puts on airs and wants to impress you with his knowledge of Objectivism. (Among the people I got to know and sometimes hang out with in the later TAS conferences and among the intellectuals or academically accomplished, Ed Hudgins is perhaps the person who most reminds me of John. Which I think is why I've liked him the most among that group. And both men have a certain elusive benevolence in attitude.) Some years later at one of the post-break conferences where everyone knew where I stood, I felt like I had a ten foot airborne contagion zone around me, and all the other inner circle types were afraid or unwilling to talk to me, John had no problem seeking me out as an old friend, coming up to me as though it were the most easy and natural thing in the world, and having an easy, relaxed, pleasant social conversation about nothing in particular.

I can't quite put my finger on why I use this phrase, but of all the many Objectivists I knew, the phrase "pureness of heart" somehow fit him in those Jefferson School years.

He was definitely one of the good guys. The good ones die too young. You don't meet many people like John and I'll miss him.

[Philip Coates]

There's a good picture of him on this page:

http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2012/01/john-david-lewis-a-man-who-lived/

[Guyau]

Boy was I lucky. I got to attend John Lewis’ course last summer at OCON 2011. It covered the history of ancient Greece in the early fourth century B.C. He made it come alive. He had it all so well in hand, all the factions and factors, all brought together. It was delicious to come to his session, and you could feel it in the students around you. He was a beautiful mind and a great communicator. Unforgettable.*

[Brant Gaede]

What a shame this is the first I've heard of him.

--Brant

[Dennis Hardin]

Excellent epitaph, Phil. Very touching and poignant. Your affection for the man comes through loud and clear.

I never heard him speak at conferences, but I did enjoy his books and his articles for The Objective Standard. I could be mistaken, but I believe he took over after Leonard Peikoff discontinued his radio show many years ago.

His books:

Nothing Less Than Victory: Decisive Wars and the Lessons of History

Solon The Thinker

Here is an interview he did for Capitalism Magazine in April, 2009.

Dr. John Lewis Interview

Here is Craig Biddle’s tribute to Dr. Lewis on The Objective Standard website;

John David Lewis: A Man Who Lived

John was one of the greatest men I’ve ever known. A husband, historian, writer, speaker, professor, musician, and friend, he pursued his values with awe-inspiring passion.

[George H. Smith]

Here is the first part of a talk by John Lewis (May 21, 2008). Several more of his videos are available on YouTube:

Ghs

[Philip Coates]

> I believe he took over after Leonard Peikoff discontinued his radio show many years ago.

Dennis, my recollection was that was Andrew Lewis, who had actually worked with LP on the show for some time beforehand.

[Mark]

Dying isn’t a virtue and dying doesn’t make a bad man virtuous.

As a professional intellectual John David Lewis will be remembered for glorifying U.S. involvement in World War II. He had a agenda in the glorifying: he wanted the U.S. to invade Iran, and he compared German and Japan of the 1930s to Iran of today.

He got what he wanted: the U.S. "sanctions" against Iran is an act of war. If Iran suffers enough to respond militarily, Obama will accuse Iran of aggression and begin bombing, which with bogus self-righteousness he will call self-defense.

Lewis was too late on the Ayn Rand Institute scene to help with their propaganda promoting a war against Iraq, but he did approve of the war afterwards and criticized Bush for not bombing Iraq soon enough.

Like most ARI people he consorts with neoconservatives, which is natural given their neoconservative views.

[Dennis Hardin]

> I believe he took over after Leonard Peikoff discontinued his radio show many years ago.

Dennis, my recollection was that was Andrew Lewis, who had actually worked with LP on the show for some time beforehand.

You're right, Phil. My mistake.

[Philip Coates]

> Dying isn’t a virtue and dying doesn’t make a bad man virtuous. [Mark]

Philosophical-practical-political disagreements or mistakes don't always make a good man a bad man.

[Dennis Hardin]

Dying isn’t a virtue and dying doesn’t make a bad man virtuous.

Being stupid is not a virtue and insulting a good man out of spite and ignorance makes you look anything but virtuous. Your disrespect of Dr. Lewis and his accomplishments mirrors your disrespect of the truth.

Lewis was too late on the Ayn Rand Institute scene to help with their propaganda promoting a war against Iraq, but he did approve of the war afterwards and criticized Bush for not bombing Iraq soon enough.

Dr. Lewis (and ARI) totally opposed the war in Iraq.

Interview with Historian John David Lewis about U.S. Foreign Policy and the Middle East

And while it leads us to evade major threats, altruism also leads us to take action against certain despotic leaders regardless of whether they’re an immediate threat to us. Under altruism, our own interests are of secondary importance, if important at all. Thus, we wage war against Saddam Hussein to overthrow his regime in order to bring “freedom” to Iraqis at the expense of American lives and with nothing clear to be gained from it for us. And although we wage war against Afghanistan for some good reasons—namely, to end its support of Al-Qaeda—we’ve wound up trying to build some kind of a nation or stable “democracy” in Afghanistan that doesn’t clearly support our interests. And now we’re fighting Gadhafi, who gave up his nuclear program and has become one of many run-of-the-mill thugs in the Middle East, and we’re doing so on the grounds that it’s our moral duty to defend civilians in Libya.

Altruism has come to set the moral tone for American foreign policy and is one of the major factors leading us into these wars that are, at best, secondary to the main wars we should be waging and, at worst, contrary to our own interests.

Like most ARI people he consorts with neoconservatives, which is natural given their neoconservative views.

ARI (and Dr. Lewis) have consistently opposed neoconservatism.

Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea by C. Bradley Thompson with Yaron Brook

The title is ironic, in part because the authors hope that their book may cause the movement’s death, thus “inspiring the need for some future obituary."…

The authors wrote their lean work to Americans “who value our nation’s founding principles.” The main message is that neoconservatives, who boast of being “in the American grain,” threaten those principles. . .

[Mark]

... "Philosophical-practical-political disagreements or mistakes don’t always make a good man a bad man."

Of course. But trying to convince young men to risk getting maimed or killed in the Middle East for the pack of lies and sophistries put out by him and ARI does rather tarnish the man’s image.

... "Being stupid is not a virtue and insulting a good man out of spite and ignorance ... [etc.]"

Naturally I disagree with the epithets. I think the spite and ignorance is on the other side.

... "Dr. Lewis (and ARI) totally opposed the war in Iraq."

False. Right up to its start they urged the war. Later -- as if Bush and the neoconservatives hadn’t been clear enough before the start -- they criticized its handling: Bush wasn’t brutal enough, etc. ARI wrote that U.S. soldiers were coddling the Iraqis even as they murdered and maimed with free and easy abandon.

Not to mention war-profiteering military contractors getting rich at your expense.

As for Thompson/Brook’s essay and book supposedly denouncing neoconservatism, these ARI people try to have it both ways. The fact is they have much in common with neoconservatives, almost everything that really matters these days, and they consort with, and in some case even support hardcore neoconservatives. See Birds of a Feather on ARI Watch. The panelists featured at their last shindig September 8 at the National Press Club was a Who’s Who of neocon think tanks.

[Dennis Hardin]

... "Dr. Lewis (and ARI) totally opposed the war in Iraq."

False. Right up to its start they urged the war.

After researching the ARI op-eds at the time, it does appear that I overstated ARI’s opposition to the war in Iraq. However, it is more accurate to say that they urged war on any nation that sponsored terrorism rather than Iraq in particular.

The Iraq war began in March, 2003. As early as July, 2003, Onkar Ghate said the following:

Unfortunately, little has changed since September 11. Our politicians' actions remain hopelessly unprincipled. Despite the Bush administration's rhetoric about ending states that sponsor terrorism, President Bush has left the most dangerous of these--Iran--untouched. The attack on Iraq, though justifiable, was hardly a priority in our war against militant Islam and the countries (principally Saudi Arabia and Iran) that promote it.

The attitude of ARI was that the war against Iraq was morally justifiable from the perspective of Saddam Hussein’s support of terrorists, but that it was the wrong war because other nations—especially Iran—were much more important from the standpoint of America’s self-defense. Some ARI spokesman did see the war against Iraq as a positive sign that Bush was getting more aggressive, but they also criticized Bush for deliberately choosing the weaker, more vulnerable target. Once the war was underway, they definitely did criticize the timid, self-sacrificial manner in which it was prosecuted. And the fact that it was promoted as “Operation: Iraqi Freedom” instead of “Operation: American Security.”

To indict Dr. John Lewis for changing sides about the Iraq war, however, is unwarranted. There is every indication that he regarded the war as a serious mistake because of Saddam's stategic position as an enemy of Iran.

[Mark]

Regarding Iraq, the intensity of ARI's pre-war promotion of the war can be judged from the selections in Relentless Propaganda.

Mr. Lewis, far from regarding the war as a serious mistake, thought it wasn’t started soon enough. In his post-war essay "The Threat of a Faith-Based Defense of America" (Capitalism Magazine, June 6, 2004) he complains that Bush is:

"undercutting the very idea of self-defense. Mr. Bush spent over a year asking the UN for permission to invade Iraq, all the while claiming that no permissions will be sought. He is re-defining ‘overwhelming force’ into ‘a consensual war fought with compassionate regard for innocents.’ "

Evidently Mr. Lewis wanted Bush to invade Iraq sooner than he did. As for regard for innocents, you have to wonder what planet Mr. Lewis inhabits. Does he read the news at all?

(That quote and comment can be found in Part II of "Presidential Elections – Ayn Rand & ARI" on ARI Watch here.)

Mr. Lewis might have read the news, but as war propagandist and Israel booster he had no use for inconvenient facts. There are degrees of rottenness among ARI writers, John Lewis was one of the worst.

About Saddam Hussein, he wasn’t responsible for any terrorist act against the U.S. proper. I don’t regard the far flung bases in the Middle East that help shore up the dictatorships of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Uzbekistan etc. as proper. (And if memory serves even including these bases Saddam Hussein wasn’t responsible for any terrorist act against them. Israel is not part of the U.S. by the way.) ARI hadn’t a moral leg to stand on promoting that war. It wasn’t "Operation American Security" and never could have been.

[BaalChatzaf]

Mr. Lewis, far from regarding the war as a serious mistake, thought it wasn’t started soon enough. In his post-war essay "The Threat of a Faith-Based Defense of America" (Capitalism Magazine, June 6, 2004) he complains that Bush is:

"undercutting the very idea of self-defense. Mr. Bush spent over a year asking the UN for permission to invade Iraq, all the while claiming that no permissions will be sought. He is re-defining ‘overwhelming force’ into ‘a consensual war fought with compassionate regard for innocents.’ "

Evidently Mr. Lewis wanted Bush to invade Iraq sooner than he did. As for regard for innocents, you have to wonder what planet Mr. Lewis inhabits. Does he read the news at all?

Apparently Mr. Lewis has some notion of what war is about. The nature of war was eloquently stated by William T. Sherman

"You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. "

War is cruelty. Got it? Tough luck on the collaterals and "innocents". One cannot scruple to make an omlette without breaking eggs. One cannot achieve the ends without exercising the means. When the nation is at war, the only sane course is to win it by whatever means suffice

Lewis lived on Planet Earth, where wars are frequent and nasty.

Ba'al Chatzaf

War is all hell --- Wm. T. Sherman

[Mark]

Since war is hell all us Americans ought to follow our president into war. Now that’s an argument!

"You can't make an omlette without breaking eggs" is a line straight from the Bolshevik playbook.

Ayn Rand had Ellsworth Toohey, the main villain of The Fountainhead, utter the line.

Part of the dialog in the novel It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis might have been written in reply to the above post. It’s between the hero and his son, the latter of whom has become sympathetic to the "Corpo" dictatorship. The excerpt begins with the son talking:

"... No one abhors violence more than I do. Still, you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs --"

"Hell and damnation! ... If I ever hear that ‘can’t make an omelet’ phrase again, I’ll start doing a little murder myself! It’s used to justify every atrocity under every despotism, Fascist or Nazi or Communist or American labor war. Omelet! Eggs! By God, sir, men’s souls and blood are not eggshells for tyrants to break!"

"Oh, sorry, sir. I guess maybe the phrase is a little shopworn! I just mean to say -- I’m just trying to figure this situation out realistically!"

"‘Realistically’! That’s another buttered bun to excuse murder!"

"But honestly, you know -- horrible things do happen, thanks to the imperfection of human nature, but you can forgive the means if the end is a rejuvenated nation that --"

"I can do nothing of the kind! I can never forgive evil and lying and cruel means, and still less can I forgive fanatics that use that for an excuse! If I may imitate Romain Rolland, a country that tolerates evil means -- evil manners, standards of ethics -- for a generation, will be so poisoned that it never will have any good end. I’m just curious, but do you know how perfectly you’re quoting every Bolshevik apologist that sneers at decency and kindness and truthfulness in daily dealings as ‘bourgeois morality’? ..."

[BaalChatzaf]

Since war is hell all us Americans ought to follow our president into war. Now that’s an argument!

"You can't make an omlette without breaking eggs" is a line straight from the Bolshevik playbook.

Ayn Rand had Ellsworth Toohey, the main villain of The Fountainhead, utter the line.

Part of the dialog in the novel It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis might have been written in reply to the above post. It’s between the hero and his son, the latter of whom has become sympathetic to the "Corpo" dictatorship. The excerpt begins with the son talking:

"... No one abhors violence more than I do. Still, you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs --"

"Hell and damnation! ... If I ever hear that ‘can’t make an omelet’ phrase again, I’ll start doing a little murder myself! It’s used to justify every atrocity under every despotism, Fascist or Nazi or Communist or American labor war. Omelet! Eggs! By God, sir, men’s souls and blood are not eggshells for tyrants to break!"

"Oh, sorry, sir. I guess maybe the phrase is a little shopworn! I just mean to say -- I’m just trying to figure this situation out realistically!"

"‘Realistically’! That’s another buttered bun to excuse murder!"

"But honestly, you know -- horrible things do happen, thanks to the imperfection of human nature, but you can forgive the means if the end is a rejuvenated nation that --"

"I can do nothing of the kind! I can never forgive evil and lying and cruel means, and still less can I forgive fanatics that use that for an excuse! If I may imitate Romain Rolland, a country that tolerates evil means -- evil manners, standards of ethics -- for a generation, will be so poisoned that it never will have any good end. I’m just curious, but do you know how perfectly you’re quoting every Bolshevik apologist that sneers at decency and kindness and truthfulness in daily dealings as ‘bourgeois morality’? ..."

I am a Primate version 3.0. I live with the smart talkative Apes in The Zoo. But we call it Planet Earth.

We are Primates, we are smart, and at times we are very bad. That is the way it is.

That is why we invented Repentance so we could live with our Horrible Selves.

Humans are, at times, a bad lot. Get used to it.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Mark]

"Humans are, at times, a bad lot."

Some are, a truly profound remark.

I'm being sarcastic.

I couldn't get used to the foul (and foolish) mind of Robert Kolker in a million years.

[BaalChatzaf]

"Humans are, at times, a bad lot."

Some are, a truly profound remark.

I'm being sarcastic.

I couldn't get used to the foul (and foolish) mind of Robert Kolker in a million years.

You hanker after Goodness. You will be disappointed.

I gave up on Goodness 40 years ago. Now I just settle for Good Manners.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Dennis Hardin]

Mr. Lewis, far from regarding the war as a serious mistake, thought it wasn’t started soon enough. In his post-war essay "The Threat of a Faith-Based Defense of America" (Capitalism Magazine, June 6, 2004) he complains that Bush is:

"undercutting the very idea of self-defense. Mr. Bush spent over a year asking the UN for permission to invade Iraq, all the while claiming that no permissions will be sought. He is re-defining ‘overwhelming force’ into ‘a consensual war fought with compassionate regard for innocents.’ "

Evidently Mr. Lewis wanted Bush to invade Iraq sooner than he did. As for regard for innocents, you have to wonder what planet Mr. Lewis inhabits. Does he read the news at all?

(That quote and comment can be found in Part II of "Presidential Elections – Ayn Rand & ARI" on ARI Watch here.)

Mr. Lewis might have read the news, but as war propagandist and Israel booster he had no use for inconvenient facts. There are degrees of rottenness among ARI writers, John Lewis was one of the worst.

Since this thread was started as a tribute to the late Dr. Lewis, the main issue here is whether your vicious attack him (post #8) was factually accurate.

Your earlier post stated:

Lewis was too late on the Ayn Rand Institute scene to help with their propaganda promoting a war against Iraq, but he did approve of the war afterwards and criticized Bush for not bombing Iraq soon enough.

In support of this, you have quoted an excerpt from this June, 2004 article by Lewis:

The Threat of a Faith-Based Defense of America

The article you linked from ARI Watch (duplicated in your post above) quotes a passage from Dr. Lewis’ article and adds a comment:

Dr. Lewis: “All of this is undercutting the very idea of self-defense. Mr. Bush spent over a year asking the UN for permission to invade Iraq, all the while claiming that no permissions will be sought. He is re-defining ‘overwhelming force’ into ‘a consensual war fought with compassionate regard for innocents.’ “

ARI Watch: Evidently Mr. Lewis wanted Bush to invade Iraq sooner than he did.

The comment by you and ARI watch is totally bogus. The quotation from Dr. Lewis in no way implies that he ever supported going to war against Iraq. It simply criticizes the U.S. President for seeking permission from the U.N. to take action in the name of American security. That is a general principle which has disastrous implications far beyond any specific war.

In fact, ARI Watch (and you) reveal the same dishonesty so common in the left wing “drive by” media by quoting Dr. Lewis out of context. In the exact same June, 2004 article, Dr. Lewis says the following:

Mr. Bush. . . threw down a secular dictator in Iraq and established the constitutional language by which the country can become a fundamentalist state. Iranian theocrats--who assaulted our embassy in the first action of the war--have been assured that their overthrow is not on our agenda. We have bombed their opponents in Iraq, and negotiated with their Shi'ite stooges who plan to take over Iraq. If they succeed, a greater fundamentalist state, armed with nuclear bombs, would be a gift from George Bush.

From the moment of the 9/11 attacks, Mr. Bush exercised his leadership by declaring the war not against militant Islam, but against "terrorism." This has obfuscated the nature of our enemies--a world-wide Islamist network--and led us to squander our resources in ways not central to our interests. Had our president named the enemy properly, but then taken no action at all, we would be better able to repudiate that inaction and fight the war properly. Now we must repudiate the very aims of the war. It will take extraordinary leadership to reverse this error.

The Threat of a Faith-Based Defense of America

A very odd way for Dr. Lewis to go about “approving the war afterwards.”

In September of 2004, Dr. Lewis reaffirmed his criticism of the Iraq war:

By removing Saddam Hussein, we did for the Iranians in three weeks what they could not do themselves in twenty years: destroy the enemy that was stopping the westward expansion of the Islamic revolution. This is our gift to the Iranian regime.

Our Gift to Iran

Once the war was underway, Dr. Lewis (along with other ARI commentators) did criticize the timid, self-sacrificial manner in which it was conducted because it was destructive to America's self-interest. (Ayn Rand made similar comments about Vietnam, although she opposed the war itself as sacrificial.) This carries no implication that Dr. Lewis ever thought the war itself was in America’s self-interest. There is no evidence that he ever approved the Iraq war or took any action to promote that war.

There is, however, significant evidence that you and ARI Watch are not only dishonest but engage in vicious, unwarranted post-humous attacks on good, decent people.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I have stayed out of this thread up to now because I did not--and do not--agree with Dr. Lewis's approach in applying morality to war. It cuts to the fundaments of human nature, so this is a big deal to me.

Added to this, I don't like using eulogies or memorial occasions to discuss politics. I can do that at other times, as I have done and will continue to do. A funeral is a hell of a place to try to persuade people of anything. And heckling (including responding in kind) and bickering at a funeral is a total waste of time.

Dr. Lewis was a studied intellectual on the pro-reason side who, I believe, was honest and had good intentions.

Even in my disagreement, he gave me (and many others) a lot to think about. Some premises to examine. Some perspectives that were not obvious. He helped me use my mind better than I did before. And that is a very good thing.

So I grieve his loss.

May he rest in peace.

Michael

[Mark]

The quotation from Dr. Lewis in no way implies that he ever supported going to war against Iraq.

I’ll let the reader decide. I think the quotation implies that Lewis approved of the invasion, and I don’t think the quotation was out of context, either.

As for Lewis’s other article denouncing the war, this only shows his inconsistency. He and ARI’s criticism of the war after they got it was not of the war per se but in how Bush handled it, even as Bush had said how he would handle it before he began bombing. In 2003 ARI people really just didn’t care how, just do it, right now -- that was their attitude. (Again, see Relentless Propaganda.)

Then a year later they pretend they didn’t mean it ! ARI people want it both ways. Don’t hold me responsible for their mendacity.

In any case, this is a quibble because if the war had been handled the way ARI wanted -- something along the lines of a nuclear bomb -- the war would still have been wrong.

This is John Lewis’s memorial. He was an intellectual scoundrel.

Dennis might tell us what Saddam Hussein ever did to you, or threatened to do to you, that your government should turn Iraq into a mass grave.

By the way, note that Dennis has stepped around (1) Lewis’s glorification of U.S. entry into World War II, (2) Lewis’s claim that World War II is relevant to fourth generation, stateless, warfare.

[william.scherk]

In any case, this is a quibble because if the war had been handled the way ARI wanted -- something along the lines of a nuclear bomb -- the war would still have been wrong.

I have stayed out of this thread up to now because I did not--and do not--agree with Dr. Lewis's approach in applying morality to war. It cuts to the fundaments of human nature, so this is a big deal to me.

Added to this, I don't like using eulogies or memorial occasions to discuss politics.

I do, though not during the procession or speeches. During the obseques of important folks (like Kim Jong Il) I have been known to shout abuse. Similarly with deaths of controversial figures in the world of politics, law, religion, entertainment, newsmaking, or in the case of John Lewis, Objectivism.

Let Mark understand or not that some people here knew Lewis personally. Let him understand or not that some people here got something profound and enriching from their encounters with or reading of or study under John Lewis.

I think I understand that this cohort exists, and that some of that cohort memorialized Lewis here. And I hope I understand that when Michael says he personally grieves John Lewis, we can be as fully human as possible in the face of that grief.

But let us face it. Nobody intimate in Lewis's family is here or paying attention in any way to Mark's comments. Nobody will deny that if a topic explored Lewis's legacy, his views on war within and without ARI would be subject to debate. If Mark had started a new thread devoted to that, no harm for those who think they are in a funeral procession or service here.

As for Dennis Hardin, I support his right to demonize Mark and splash about great gouts of black paint and white paint. As for the quibbles about warmongering, what are you supposed to say if you believe that a great man was also a great warmonger, was irresponsible, was wrong in his famous pronouncements? If you are Mark, you just stand up and say it.

Mark notes, telllingly, his entire orientation to Lewis (whom he groups under ARI Warmongers): "if the war had been handled the way ARI wanted -- something along the lines of a nuclear bomb -- the war would still have been wrong."

Here is an excerpt from an article at Capitalism. From the way it is composed, it seems this is a retelling of a speech given to Ashland University (published 20 September 2001):

I will be specific here. What is needed is an all-out immediate attack, nuclear if necessary, on targets chosen by the US. 24 hours notice should then be given to the governments of Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Libya, that they are to resign their political positions now or face more of the same tomorrow. Arafat must be told that the leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Islamic Jihad are to be turned over to us now, or he faces annihilation, in the form decided on by us.

If destruction follows it is their fault, not ours. They started it. They evidently wish it. If babies are killed it is because they hide behind them. We didn't start this war-they did, by arming, training, protecting and sanctioning the attackers who killed innocent Americans.

Further, the US should not ask permission of anyone about this. In my opinion it is actually vital that such permissions not be asked. Our actions must be unilateral. EVERY government, friend and foe, must know that an attack on America will be followed by retaliation: inevitably, always, everywhere, regardless of what they think.

Our retaliation must take on the status of natural justice, as a law of nature, inescapable across time and space. Throw a stone into the air and it falls. A flash of lightning is followed by thunder. Touch a hot stove and you get burned. Touch an American, and fire falls out of the sky onto you and anyone who breathes the same air as you.

Golly, I think about this, and discount the emotional walloping he had received a day or two before, but look at the actual call for war:

all-out

immediate attack

,

nuclear

if necessary ...

Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Libya

... face more of the same tomorrow. Arafat must be told that the leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Islamic Jihad are to be turned over to us now, or he faces annihilation

.

One odd thing stands out. He says Arafat (the leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, at the time of the writing allowed to live in the West Bank) must be told that the leaders of Hamas/Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad must be turned over. This is a bit nutty. Arafat had zero ability to 'turn over' Nasrallah.

But later in the article he appends further justifications for total war on all these countries ...

There has never been a revolution in a Middle-Eastern country in favor of a constitutional republic that protects the rights of its citizens. If the people lack freedom it is because their government recognizes no individual rights. Let their governments establish these principles rather than military coups. And, I'll add, if many people there do want freedom, what better can we do for them than to remove the source of their slavery? Their interests are identical with ours: the destruction of their governments, and the establishment of rights-protecting constitutional republics.

This passage strikes me as obvious support for Mark's concern with warmongering. What would have been the effect had Lewis's mad bombing ultimatums been carried out? All those countries, all those 'enemy' corpses, all those countries now seeking to overthrow the very same authoritiarian states that Lewis contemplated turning into smoke and rubble.

Edited January 9, 2012 by william.scherk

[Dennis Hardin]

The quotation from Dr. Lewis in no way implies that he ever supported going to war against Iraq.

I’ll let the reader decide. I think the quotation implies that Lewis approved of the invasion, and I don’t think the quotation was out of context, either.

We have bombed their opponents in Iraq, and negotiated with their Shi'ite stooges who plan to take over Iraq. If they succeed, a greater fundamentalist state, armed with nuclear bombs, would be a gift from George Bush.(June, 2004)

By removing Saddam Hussein, we did for the Iranians in three weeks what they could not do themselves in twenty years: destroy the enemy that was stopping the westward expansion of the Islamic revolution. This is our gift to the Iranian regime.(September, 2004)

Don't admit you made an unwarranted accusation. Just call it a "quibble" and try to change the subject.

Additional note (regarding the 2001 quote): Dr. Lewis opposed removing Saddam Hussein from power while leaving Iran in a position to expand their Islamic empire.

[Philip Coates]

> I don't like using eulogies or memorial occasions to discuss politics...A funeral is a hell of a place to try to persuade people of anything. And heckling (including responding in kind) and bickering at a funeral is a total waste of time. [MSK]

I agree. Another thread should have been started. I started this thread to remember some positive -personal- characteristics of the man.