Op-Ed from the Ayn Rand Institute.

[galtgulch]

Op-Ed from the Ayn Rand Institute.

"Muslim Opinion" Be Damned:

Hatred of America is Irrational and Undeserved

By Alex Epstein

To listen to most of our foreign-policy commentators, the biggest problem facing America today, six years after 9/11, is the fact that many Muslims are mad at us.

"Whatever one's views on the [iraq] war," writes a New York Times columnist, "thoughtful Americans need to consider . . . the bitter anger that it has provoked among Muslims around the world." In response to the Abu Ghraib scandal several years ago, Ted Kennedy lamented, "We have become the most hated nation in the world, as a result of this disastrous policy in the prisons." Muslim anger over America's support of Israel, we are told, is a major cause of anti-American terrorism.

We face, these commentators say, a crisis of "Muslim opinion." We must, they say, win the "hearts and minds" of angry Muslims by heaping public affection on Islam, by shutting down Guantanamo, by being more "evenhanded" between free Israel and the terrorist Palestinian Authority--and certainly by avoiding any new military action in the Muslim world. If we fail to win over "Muslim opinion," we are told, we will drive even more to become terrorists.

All of this evades one blatant truth: the hatred being heaped on America is irrational and undeserved. Consider the issue of treatment of POWs. Many Muslims are up in arms about the treatment of prisoners of war in Iraq and at Guantanamo--many of whom were captured on battlefields trying to kill Americans. Yet these same Muslims are silent about the summary convictions and torture--real torture, with electric drills and vats of acid--that are official policy and daily practice throughout the Middle East.

Or consider "Muslim opinion" over the U.S. handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in which the United States is accused of not being "hard enough" on Israel--a free nation with laws that protect all citizens, Jew and Arab alike--for Israel's supposed mistreatment of Palestinians. Yet "Muslim opinion" reveres the Palestinian Authority, a brutal dictatorship that deprives Palestinians of every basic freedom, keeps them in unspeakable poverty, and routinely tortures and executes peaceful dissenters.

So-called Muslim opinion is not the unanimous and just consensus that its seekers pretend. It is the irrational and unjust opinion of the world's worst Muslims: Islamists and their legions of "moderate" supporters and sympathizers. These people oppose us not because of any legitimate grievances against America, but because they are steeped in a fundamentalist interpretation of their religion--one that views America's freedom, prosperity, and pursuit of worldly pleasures as the height of depravity. They do not seek respect for the rights of the individual (Muslim or non-Muslim), they seek a world in which the rights of all are sacrificed to the dictates of Islam.

The proper response to Islamists and their supporters is to identify them as our ideological and political enemies--and dispense justice accordingly. In the case of our militant enemies, we must kill or demoralize them--especially those regimes that support terrorism and fuel the Islamist movement; as for the rest, we must politically ignore them and intellectually discredit them, while proudly arguing for the superiority of Americanism. Such a policy would make us safe, expose Islamic anti-Americanism as irrational and immoral, and embolden the better Muslims to support our ideals and emulate our ways.

President Bush, like most politicians and intellectuals, has taken the opposite approach to "Muslim opinion": appeasement. Instead of identifying anti-American Muslims as ideological enemies to be discredited, he has appealed to their sensibilities and met their demands--e.g., sacrificing American soldiers to save Iraqi civilians and mosques. Instead of seeking to crush the Islamists by defeating the causes they fight for--such as Islamic world domination and the destruction of Israel--he has appeased those causes, declaring Islam a "great religion" and rewarding the Palestinian terrorist Jihad with a promised Palestinian state. Instead of destroying terrorist regimes that wage war against the West--including, most notably, Iran--he has sought their "cooperation" and even cast some as coalition partners.

Such measures have rewarded our enemy for waging physical and spiritual war against us. Condemn America, they have learned, and American leaders will praise your ideals and meet your demands. Attack America via terrorist proxy, terrorist states and movements have been taught, and America will neither blame you nor destroy you, but redouble its efforts to buy your love.

Every attempt to appease "Muslim opinion" preserves, promotes, and emboldens our enemies. Every concession to angry Muslim mobs gives hope to the Islamist cause. Every day we allow terrorist regimes to exist gives their minions time to execute the next Sept. 11. America needs honest leadership with the courage to identify and defeat our enemies--"Muslim opinion" be damned.

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[Chris Grieb]

I guess ARI think that everything that went on Abu Grav was alright. I guess that there no such thing as balance.

[Neil Parille]

I don't know if Rand ever wrote systematically on foreign policy, but I think she was inclined toward non-interventionism. And as late as 1982 (in The Ominous Parallels), Peikoff opposed US invovlement in WW1 and WW2 saying it was intellectuals who hornswaggled a peaceful & isolationist nation into war. Now ARIans are holding us involvment and conduct in WW2 as the epitomy of a proper foreign policy.

Does anyone know why or how the Official Objectivist movement went from isolationist to interventionism?

[Chris Grieb]

Neil;

It's an interesting question. Miss Rand had big problems with the Korean and Viet=Nam wars. It is worth noting that in both these wars Miss Rand called for victory.

In the early years of NBI a book called Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace was sold by NBI. The book was collection of revisionist essays about the US involvement in World War II.

[zantonavitch]

Alex Epstein gets it somewhat right, but he misses a lot, and I think his title is disastrous. He needs to recall that almost all Muslims have had their thinking brains washed and their human spirits crushed by Islam. So they're essentially half-alive children who mostly can't think or argue. Thus, intellectually defeating them, or damning their opinions, isn't much of an achievement and doesn't have much of a result.

The obvious fact is Muslims are mostly wrong about everything, and thus their views and hatreds should be mostly ignored or casually slammed. But sometimes Muslims have a point. Sometimes they're right. And the simple reality of today is America is not a solidly pro-freedom and pro-justice nation in that it routinely practices torture and detention without charge at places like Abu Graib and Guantanamo. Moreover, the US government consistently befriends loathsome Muslim (and American) enemies like Saudia Arabia and Pakistan. Muslims know all this and they hate and condemn it -- and they're right to do so!

So just mindlessly damning "Muslim opinion" is very irrational, immoral, and injust on the part of Alex Epstein. He's not seeing the big picture. He's not seeing this issue in context. If this guy really calls himself an Objectivist, or a friend of Objectivism, then the obvious point is: With friends like him, Objectivism doesn't need enemies.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

These people oppose us not because of any legitimate grievances against America, but because they are steeped in a fundamentalist interpretation of their religion--one that views America's freedom, prosperity, and pursuit of worldly pleasures as the height of depravity.

He needs to recall that almost all Muslims have had their thinking brains washed and their human spirits crushed by Islam.

I see the same error in both of these quotes. These authors know a little bit about what they want to know and not much else. Their statements are normative to the exclusion of cognitive, and mostly fear-driven.

Suggesting that these authors actually learn something about the people they collectivize is probably as futile as suggesting that Islamic fundamentalists actually learn something about Jews.

It's the same collectivism, just a different master pulling the strings.

Michael

[Martin Radwin]

Op-Ed from the Ayn Rand Institute.

"Muslim Opinion" Be Damned:

Hatred of America is Irrational and Undeserved

By Alex Epstein

To listen to most of our foreign-policy commentators, the biggest problem facing America today, six years after 9/11, is the fact that many Muslims are mad at us.

"Whatever one's views on the [iraq] war," writes a New York Times columnist, "thoughtful Americans need to consider . . . the bitter anger that it has provoked among Muslims around the world." In response to the Abu Ghraib scandal several years ago, Ted Kennedy lamented, "We have become the most hated nation in the world, as a result of this disastrous policy in the prisons." Muslim anger over America's support of Israel, we are told, is a major cause of anti-American terrorism.

We face, these commentators say, a crisis of "Muslim opinion." We must, they say, win the "hearts and minds" of angry Muslims by heaping public affection on Islam, by shutting down Guantanamo, by being more "evenhanded" between free Israel and the terrorist Palestinian Authority--and certainly by avoiding any new military action in the Muslim world. If we fail to win over "Muslim opinion," we are told, we will drive even more to become terrorists.

Apparently, according to the ARI view of things, there are only two alternatives for US foreign policy:

1) Heaping public affection on Islam, by declaring that "we are all Muslims now" and stand ready to submit before the will of Allah

2) Continuing the existing policy, followed by the US for over half a century, which has involved overthrowing democratically elected governments and installing dictators friendly to the US, complete with Soviet style secret police trained by the CIA, selling WMD to a dictator and supporting this dictator in a war against a rival Muslim country, leading to the death of over a million people, then imposing sanctions which have led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of more people, in order to remove the dictator formerly supported by the US from power, and providing billions of dollars in military aid to some of the world's most brutal dictatorships while professing a love for freedom and democracy.

God forbid we should avoid "any new military action in the Muslim world". It is obviously our God given right to engage in any military action against anyone we want, for any reason we want, until the entire Muslim world bends to our will.

As for shutting down Guantanamo, perhaps this should be done, not to appease Islam, but in the name of simple human decency and respect for human liberty.

All of this evades one blatant truth: the hatred being heaped on America is irrational and undeserved. Consider the issue of treatment of POWs. Many Muslims are up in arms about the treatment of prisoners of war in Iraq and at Guantanamo--many of whom were captured on battlefields trying to kill Americans. Yet these same Muslims are silent about the summary convictions and torture--real torture, with electric drills and vats of acid--that are official policy and daily practice throughout the Middle East.

In fact, many of the prisoners at Guantanamo were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and guilty of nothing. The US government was offering bounties for every "enemy combatant" turned in, so bounty hunters were grabbing innocent people off the streets and turning them in as enemy combatants, in order to collect their rewards. Many of these innocent detainees have been released after years of imprisonment. In Iraq, at the time of the Abu Ghraib scandal, it was estimated that 80-90% of the prisoners being held at Abu Ghraib were completely innocent, merely swept up in waves by American soldiers unable to distinguish between innocent civilians and insurgents. ARI has not a word to say suggesting even the slightest impropriety by the US government in these areas.

ARI is shocked, shocked to discover that many Muslims have double standards when it comes to behavior inflicted by their government and by the US government. Of course, Americans would never be guilty of such a thing. Never mind that Americans look on with shock and horror at terrorist acts committed by Muslims, while being utterly indifferent to the US government carpet bombing Iraq or imposing sanctions which led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

As to the ARI assertion that "the hatred being heaped on America is irrational and undeserved", given the history of US government involvement in that region of the world, hatred of the US government by the millions of people who have been victimized by it is quite rational and deserved. The fact that some of the reasons for the hatred of America may be totally irrational does not mean that other reasons may not be completely rational. And hatred of the US government and its brutal policies should not be equated with hatred of the American people.

Or consider "Muslim opinion" over the U.S. handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in which the United States is accused of not being "hard enough" on Israel--a free nation with laws that protect all citizens, Jew and Arab alike--for Israel's supposed mistreatment of Palestinians. Yet "Muslim opinion" reveres the Palestinian Authority, a brutal dictatorship that deprives Palestinians of every basic freedom, keeps them in unspeakable poverty, and routinely tortures and executes peaceful dissenters.

So-called Muslim opinion is not the unanimous and just consensus that its seekers pretend. It is the irrational and unjust opinion of the world's worst Muslims: Islamists and their legions of "moderate" supporters and sympathizers. These people oppose us not because of any legitimate grievances against America, but because they are steeped in a fundamentalist interpretation of their religion--one that views America's freedom, prosperity, and pursuit of worldly pleasures as the height of depravity. They do not seek respect for the rights of the individual (Muslim or non-Muslim), they seek a world in which the rights of all are sacrificed to the dictates of Islam.

ARI claims that Muslim opinion is not unanimous, then proceeds to claim that all Muslims who oppose the US do so unanimously because of their fundamentalist interpretation of their religion. The obvious reality is that some Muslims oppose the US for cultural reasons based on its perceived irreligious nature, some oppose the US because of its foreign policy, for which they have very legimitate grievances, and some oppose the US for some combination of these reasons. It's also pretty obvious that it's a lot easier to recruit terrorists to wage holy war against a country that has been killing your people and occupying your lands than to recruit terrorists to wage holy war against a country that enjoys too much sexual freedom and makes movies that you don't like.

The proper response to Islamists and their supporters is to identify them as our ideological and political enemies--and dispense justice accordingly. In the case of our militant enemies, we must kill or demoralize them--especially those regimes that support terrorism and fuel the Islamist movement; as for the rest, we must politically ignore them and intellectually discredit them, while proudly arguing for the superiority of Americanism. Such a policy would make us safe, expose Islamic anti-Americanism as irrational and immoral, and embolden the better Muslims to support our ideals and emulate our ways.

ARI's idea of how to "dispense justice accordingly" is to slaughter hundreds of thousands of people, to bomb, invade, and occupy a country that never attacked us and never threatened to attack us. Now that we are done destroying Iraq, they encourage us to go on to destroy Iran as well, bombing the hell out of that country and killing hundreds of thousands of their people. We'd better hope that the Muslims who have been victimized by us don't decide to "emulate our ways" by launching terrorist attacts killing thousands of Americans in retaliation.

President Bush, like most politicians and intellectuals, has taken the opposite approach to "Muslim opinion": appeasement. Instead of identifying anti-American Muslims as ideological enemies to be discredited, he has appealed to their sensibilities and met their demands--e.g., sacrificing American soldiers to save Iraqi civilians and mosques. Instead of seeking to crush the Islamists by defeating the causes they fight for--such as Islamic world domination and the destruction of Israel--he has appeased those causes, declaring Islam a "great religion" and rewarding the Palestinian terrorist Jihad with a promised Palestinian state. Instead of destroying terrorist regimes that wage war against the West--including, most notably, Iran--he has sought their "cooperation" and even cast some as coalition partners.

This is really funny. So, according to ARI, we have sacrificed American soldiers to save Iraqi civilians. So far, there have been about 3,000 American soldiers killed in the Iraq war and subsequent occupation. While this war and occupation have led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. According to the Lancet study, an estimated 600,000 Iraqis have died as a result of this war. The exact figure can only be estimated, and may be as high as 1,000,000. But even conservatively assuming that the Lancet study is too high by a factor of 2, this war would have caused 300,000 Iraqi deaths, meaning that the ratio of Iraqi to American deaths is 100 to 1. Apparently, this ratio is just too low for ARI. Perhaps each American life is worth 1,000 or 10,000 or 1,000,000 Iraqi lives. In addition to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths caused by this war, the war has also created an estimated 4,000,000 Iraqi refugees, half who have fled Iraq and half who have become refugees within their own country in order to escape the widespread ethnic cleaning produced by our "liberation" of their country. In a country with a population of about 25,000,000, one out of every six Iraqis has been forced to flee their home and become a refugee. A proportionally equivalent war in the US would kill millions of Americans and produce 50,000,000 American refugees. But, darn, we have just been too darned altruistic toward those Iraqis.

Such measures have rewarded our enemy for waging physical and spiritual war against us. Condemn America, they have learned, and American leaders will praise your ideals and meet your demands. Attack America via terrorist proxy, terrorist states and movements have been taught, and America will neither blame you nor destroy you, but redouble its efforts to buy your love.

That's just what we've been doing in Iraq, buying the love of the Iraqis by bombing them back to the stone age. We'll soon be buying the love of the Iranians by bombing them back to the stone age too.

Every attempt to appease "Muslim opinion" preserves, promotes, and emboldens our enemies. Every concession to angry Muslim mobs gives hope to the Islamist cause. Every day we allow terrorist regimes to exist gives their minions time to execute the next Sept. 11. America needs honest leadership with the courage to identify and defeat our enemies--"Muslim opinion" be damned.

Actually, the policies advocated by ARI, in addition to being crimes against humanity, greatly increase the likelihood of more terrorist attacks in the US.

Martin

[BaalChatzaf]

Actually, the policies advocated by ARI, in addition to being crimes against humanity, greatly increase the likelihood of more terrorist attacks in the US.

Martin

Not if we are thorough.

Instead of decency and goodness, consider the following alternatives:

1. Protect and cherish your friends (as long as they are friendly).

2. Kill or incapacitate your enemies

3. Be polite to the neutrals.

We live in a bad neighborhood. Screw decency. And please do remember that no Good Deed will go unpunished.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

ARI claims that Muslim opinion is not unanimous, then proceeds to claim that all Muslims who oppose the US do so unanimously because of their fundamentalist interpretation of their religion.

Martin,

This is one of the big problems I have with this kind of mentality. They do not see the contradiction in their reasoning. How can Muslim opinion not be unanimous and be unanimous at the same time? Whatever happened to "A is A" with this Objectivist and those who sanction him?

From this kind of thinking to "The only good Muslim is a dead Muslim" is but a hop. One thing that is disgusting me enormously these days is that I am perceiving Objectivism being used by many to justify primitive bigotry. And when you look deeper, that's all there is except fear.

I have a caveat to your comments, though. I happen to be one who agrees with you about America's sins and inconsistencies with foreign policy because I have seen some of them with my own eyes. However, I do not take a one-sided view like you do because I have not only seen the innocent foreigners, but I have seen the guilty ones, too. They are not a pretty sight.

If it comes down to their thugs or our thugs, I will take our thugs for now because I am here. That does not mean that I sanction thugery. I merely choose the best case for my survival between two evils.

America's foreign policy is a holy mess of lies, inconsistencies, hypocrisy, crony politics, and all the rest. But there are some real evil bastards out there, too, and, despite the mess, America has done a great deal of good in the world. I used to argue with Brazilians that if the USA was buying Brazil for a song, that was because some Brazilians were selling it for a song. I certainly don't see anyone (neither American nor foreigner) with a diploma for sainthood on his wall.

The more I look at all this, the more I see tribal warfare and very little else. That means the American tribe and the different foreign tribes. As human beings, we can do a hell of a lot better than that.

I have a suggestion, which you are free to accept or not of course. Instead of constantly bashing the USA for not living up to its ideals, why not try a different approach and make a call for it to do so? It's a subtle difference but it is real. It is saying "We should not be doing this because we are better than that," instead of "Look how evil we are." This, at least, is what I intend to do. American ideals are worth fighting for.

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

I don't know if Rand ever wrote systematically on foreign policy, but I think she was inclined toward non-interventionism. And as late as 1982 (in The Ominous Parallels), Peikoff opposed US involvement in WW1 and WW2 saying it was intellectuals who hornswoggled a peaceful & isolationist nation into war. Now ARIans are holding us involvement and conduct in WW2 as the epitome of a proper foreign policy.

Does anyone know why or how the Official Objectivist movement went from isolationist to interventionism?

Neil,

Here's my take on what happened.

Ayn Rand wrote about foreign policy insightfully in some of her essays (e.g., "The Roots of War") but never had a systematic view.

On the one hand, she had a powerful streak of non-interventionism in her. (If you're interested in her relationship with Isabel Paterson, you'll find they had a lot in common here.) Leonard Peikoff's former takes on World War I and World War II were essentially the same as hers. She thought US involvement in Vietnam was foolish. (I don't recall seeing anything in writing about Korea, but I doubt she was an enthusiast of that war.) She thought wars were typically initiated as a distraction from failed interventionist policies at home, or as an extension of them.

On the other hand, she was reflexively pro-Israel and anti-Arab. She did not push for war with the Soviet Union, but made an off-the-cuff remark once that if the US nuked the Soviet Union, no one should be too sorry for the millions of dead civilians who obeyed the regime out of fear and hadn't mustered the gumption to overthrow it (ARIans love to quote that one these days). She claimed that US foreign policy should be guided by "national self-interest" (from her methodological individualist point of view, can there be such a thing?). She was against the Vietnam war, but afraid of showing weakness to the Communists by withdrawing--and, probably, of allowing opponents of the war, the vast majority of whom she despised, to say "I told you so." She called Vietnam an "altruistic" war, whatever that means exactly. She opined once in print that the President of the United States should have "wide powers" to order wiretaps and such.

I don't know the entire history whereby the ARIans have embraced Rand's pro-war side and buried her non-interventionism. I suspect it's because the Soviet Union and other Communist military threats have been displaced as the main adversary (except in the remnant case of North Korea). Now it's Islamic imperialist organizations like Al Qa'eda, and the Islamic imperialist state of Iran under the rule of the Ayatollahs.

To say more I'd have to make a close survey of the Leonard Peikoff Institute's foreign policy output from 1985 to 2001 and compare it with what they've been putting forth since 9-11.

If my guess is correct, though, I think you will find calls for war against Iran well before 9-11, but probably nothing close to the current institutional infatuation with Sherman's march to the sea, the fire bombing of Dresden, and so on. I would be very surprised to find the revisionist history that now applauds Franklin D. Roosevelt for his manner of running the war (I wonder whether, in her most pessimistic imaginings, Ayn Rand ever envisioned the supposed keepers of her flame praising FDR).

Robert Campbell

[Brant Gaede]

In a Ford Hall Forum Q & A in the early 70s AR hoped that there might someday be a "just" war with the USSR. She obviously gave no thought to the unmitigated destruction that would cause. I suspect that if she had made such a remark in private conversation she would have recognized the caveats others would have raised and issued several qualifications.

--Brant

[Chris Grieb]

Robert:

It is worth noting that at time of hostage crisis with Iran that Peter Schwartz said the US should sign any agreement to get the hostages out and then start bombing Tehran and Quom.

I must add that I think the hostage taking was an act of war and Carter's performance was disgraceful.

It is worth noting that the latest book on the hostage taking says that Carter thought the rescue mission could be done without killing any of the hostage takers. Carter said one the things that he was proudest of was that no Iranians or Americans had been killed.

I think it is safe to say ARI thinks we have been at war with Iran since 1979 and wars should be won.

I am looking forward to your piece about American foreign policy.

Edited September 6, 2007 by Chris Grieb

[Robert Campbell]

Chris,

Was Peter Schwartz calling for "total war" against Iran in 1979? Carpet-bombing or carpet-nuking the whole country?

I'm not planning to write anything more formally about American foreign policy. It's well-trodden ground, to say the least. I have my opinions, but it's not something that I claim any expertise on.

Robert Campbell

[Chris Grieb]

Robert; He got some flak from Libertarians about the killing of innocent people and said no one under eight was innocent. I believe other ARIans have said it would be all right to occupy any Middle Eastern county.

[Martin Radwin]

Actually, the policies advocated by ARI, in addition to being crimes against humanity, greatly increase the likelihood of more terrorist attacks in the US.

Martin

Not if we are thorough.

It is not possible to be that thorough, short of nuking the entire planet. How many Muslims do you propose to slaughter in order to protect the US from a possible terrorist attack? Even if the US government were ruthlessly competent with infallible intelligence, it could not bomb its way into insuring the safety of the US against possible terrorism. And the US government security apparatus is anything but ruthlessly competent.

Instead of decency and goodness, consider the following alternatives:

1. Protect and cherish your friends (as long as they are friendly).

2. Kill or incapacitate your enemies

3. Be polite to the neutrals.

I would propose a far more rational, humane, and effective guide to US foreign policy:

1) Mind your own damn business. Stop interfering in the affairs of other nations. Stop creating enemies.

2) Do not go abroad searching for monsters to destroy.

3) Free trade and cultural exchange with all, foreign military entanglements with none.

4) Stop selling weapons to dictatorships.

5) Stop befriending dictators and then preaching about freedom and democracy.

6) The only legitimate purpose of the military is to defend the nation against attack, not to establish a worldwide empire.

7) Set an example for the world of what a free country is all about by being a living embodiment of freedom.

Martin

[Brant Gaede]

Thx for the list, Martin.

--Brant

[Martin Radwin]

ARI claims that Muslim opinion is not unanimous, then proceeds to claim that all Muslims who oppose the US do so unanimously because of their fundamentalist interpretation of their religion.

Martin,

This is one of the big problems I have with this kind of mentality. They do not see the contradiction in their reasoning. How can Muslim opinion not be unanimous and be unanimous at the same time? Whatever happened to "A is A" with this Objectivist and those who sanction him?

From this kind of thinking to "The only good Muslim is a dead Muslim" is but a hop. One thing that is disgusting me enormously these days is that I am perceiving Objectivism being used by many to justify primitive bigotry. And when you look deeper, that's all there is except fear.

I have a caveat to your comments, though. I happen to be one who agrees with you about America's sins and inconsistencies with foreign policy because I have seen some of them with my own eyes. However, I do not take a one-sided view like you do because I have not only seen the innocent foreigners, but I have seen the guilty ones, too. They are not a pretty sight.

If it comes down to their thugs or our thugs, I will take our thugs for now because I am here. That does not mean that I sanction thugery. I merely choose the best case for my survival between two evils.

America's foreign policy is a holy mess of lies, inconsistencies, hypocrisy, crony politics, and all the rest. But there are some real evil bastards out there, too, and, despite the mess, America has done a great deal of good in the world. I used to argue with Brazilians that if the USA was buying Brazil for a song, that was because some Brazilians were selling it for a song. I certainly don't see anyone (neither American nor foreigner) with a diploma for sainthood on his wall.

The more I look at all this, the more I see tribal warfare and very little else. That means the American tribe and the different foreign tribes. As human beings, we can do a hell of a lot better than that.

I have a suggestion, which you are free to accept or not of course. Instead of constantly bashing the USA for not living up to its ideals, why not try a different approach and make a call for it to do so? It's a subtle difference but it is real. It is saying "We should not be doing this because we are better than that," instead of "Look how evil we are." This, at least, is what I intend to do. American ideals are worth fighting for.

Michael

If I seem overly negative and bitter, Michael, it's because I am. The reason I spend so much time bashing the US government is because I see it slowly destroying this country from within, more insidiously than anything Al Qaeda could ever hope to accomplish. The Iraq war has been a catastrophy. Many thousands of American soldiers have been killed or horribly wounded, physically and mentally. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed. A sixth of the population of Iraq has been turned into refugees. Iraq has been totally destroyed, for no good reason, based on a series of lies propogated by the war criminals in the Bush administration. Al Qaeda had no presence in Iraq before the US invasion and occupation; it's there now. The same propoganda used to sell the Iraq war to Americans is now being used to sell the American public on what will be an even more catastrophic war with Iran. All signs point toward the Bush administration planning a massive bombing campaign against Iran, an attack that would be one of history's great war crimes and that is certain to trigger a series of catastrophic consequences and blowback. While all this is going on, the US is being transformed into a police state. Habeas corpus, one of the foundations of any free society, has been all but abolished. The executive branch now has the authority to arrest any American as an enemy combatant and lock them up forever without trial. Preparations have been made for the executive branch to commandeer the state national guards and to declare martial law in the event of another terrorist attack on Americal soil, something which is becoming increasingly likely to happen as the US government pursues its murderous policy.

American ideals of liberty, freedom, and justice are indeed worth fighting for. But there is almost noone left to fight for them.

Best wishes for liberty and peace,

Martin

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

American ideals of liberty, freedom, and justice are indeed worth fighting for. But there is almost noone left to fight for them.

Martin,

I am in full agreement with your post except for this last statement. There are many and they are fighing.

What you are seeing as a matter of kind, I am seeing as a matter of degree (which is also very dangerous to freedom). To counterbalance your negative vision, I will give a positive one below. Please understand that I am not rebutting your points. They are true.

But I think the whole picture needs to be seen. Before I do that, though, here is an example of what I mean. You state "habeas corpus, one of the foundations of any free society, has been all but abolished." This is true for some cases where national security is involved, and it is limited to specific contexts and government agencies. It is also a very tiny number of cases when seen side-by-side with the number of people in the country who actually utilize habeas corpus in their involvement with law enforcement and the courts. Thus it is not actually abolished, but the seed for it being abolished has been planted. If that seed grows, and this is usually the case when governments establish legal precedent and expand their powers, the USA will actually become a dictatorship that will oppress the average citizen and make him live in squalor. But so far, the average citizen lives a pretty free and comfortable life. And we can still wage an intellectual campaign to reverse this. (We must.) This is what I mean by kind and degree.

(Incidentally, I have been bitching about the Patriot Act ever since it was passed. I made a prediction back then that George Bush ultimately will be seen as one of the worst Presidents in history because of trashing the Bill of Rights. I see this happening now. The only way I see this reversed is if he promotes giving back the freedom he had the government confiscate back then, but I don't see that happening ever. I only see that happening with another politician, if it does happen at all.)

So here goes.

We have globalization, which has a downside with IMF, etc., but has actually increased freedom and prosperity throughout the world. I have seen what happens when stupid trade barriers are maintained in a third-world country and what happens to the economy when those in power are allowed to run rampant. Since exports cannot be paid for with inflated currency, those in power are forced to revise high-inflation measures. Otherwise, no goodies from abroad. There are many other benefits of this nature. Lots and lots of countries have benefited from American trade involvement for manufactured goods and services. (I will not discuss raw materials, since I have a much different take on that.)

The computer, Internet and satellite technology has allowed us greater freedom and prowess than ever before in mankind's history. On the war end, we are intellectually able to penetrate dictatorships with the click of a mouse and this has been one of the greatest weapons in use against terrorism. On the economy end, it has allowed many many, many people to earn wealth from their own homes when they otherwise would have had to settle for a poor-to-modest existence. It also balances the news manipulation of mainstream media in getting facts to folks. The benefits of this technology are incalculable and it has impacted society just as much, if not more, than the industrial revolution did.

The entertainment industry is at an all time high in practically all fields. This is in all parameters, going from free to ultra-expensive, from simple to highly sophisticated, from piss-poor to works of genius. There is literally something for everybody within easy reach.

While there are abuses in the legal system, we have the possibility of taking a person who has wronged us to court. We can appeal initial judgments. We can protect ourselves temporarily during bureaucratic processing times with injunctions. We can call our politicians all kinds of names in public and we can openly wage nonviolent activism campaigns against their policies.

The medical industry provides us with cures and procedures unprecedented in history in both efficacy and access for a host of woes.

I could go on and on. These are just some of the benefits we enjoy in today's world. I do not want to lose them, but I see no benefit in denying that we have them, either.

The sad part is that all of the dirt you mentioned is fully real also, and it is a horribly nasty stain on all this magnificence. And I fully agree with you that it is a threat. We will lose our world of wonders if we allow the nasty stuff to grow.

Michael

[Mark]

Chris Grieb,

.... "In the early years of NBI a book called

..... Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace

..... was sold by NBI. The book was collection

..... of revisionist essays about the US involvement

..... in World War II."

Amazon.com lists three books of that title. The only one around at the time you mention is:

Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: A Critical Examination of the Foreign Policy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Its Aftermath

edited by Harry Elmer Barnes, with essays by William Henry Chamberlin, Percy L. Greaves Jr., George A. Lundberg, George Morgenstern, William L. Neumann, Frederic R. Sanborn, Charles Callan Tansill.

1953, republished 1982.

http://www.amazon.com/Perpetual-War-Peace-...6797516-6268652

and

http://www.amazon.com/Perpetual-Peace-Harr...6797516-6268652

Is that the one?

[Wolf DeVoon]

The entertainment industry is at an all time high in practically all fields.

Huh? Music industry in the red. Film in long-term decline. Newspapers losing to cable and the web. I don't follow you, Mike. Help me figure out what you mean about an "all time high." X Box, Wii, and i-tune oldies on demand ??

W.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Wolf,

One field is not actually losing to the other if you look at the people and companies in them. The industry dudes are constantly expanding and migrating into new fields. There's money flowing all over the place.

For instance, theatrical presentations may be more limited for movies (and even then, not too much), but DVD, broadcast and foreign rights almost ensures that a film will break even at the worst if the minimum standards for a target audience are met. Just look at the sheer number of films being made every year. These are basically the same people in the different fields until the outlet level is reached, and even then many of the retailers are owned by entertainment industry heavies.

Michael

[Chris Grieb]

Mark; The book you found is the one. In the middle 60ths NBI Book Service stopped selling it.

[Wolf DeVoon]

Wolf,

One field is not actually losing to the other if you look at the people and companies in them. The industry dudes are constantly expanding and migrating into new fields. There's money flowing all over the place.

For instance, theatrical presentations may be more limited for movies (and even then, not too much), but DVD, broadcast and foreign rights almost ensures that a film will break even at the worst if the minimum standards for a target audience are met. Just look at the sheer number of films being made every year. These are basically the same people in the different fields until the outlet level is reached, and even then many of the retailers are owned by entertainment industry heavies.

Michael

I stand corrected: Michael is right. See MPAA stats

W.