Very interesting take from Glenn Greenwald on the Israeli commission into the Lebanon war. He doesn’t take the predictable angle of writing about the geostrategic implications of the war, or even what it says for the future of the Olmert government and the broader Middle East. Rather, his concern is with the difference between a society which can subject its own government’s actions to searching criticism during and after a war, and societies where governments routinely lie, deny, and obstruct any such probing, at the very least, when they’re not denouncing it as treasonous and “giving comfort to the enemy”. I think he’s right to suggest that Israel’s attitude to war is far more mature and far more democratic (at least as instanced through this series of events) than that of America or, indeed, Australia. But perhaps that’s because the vast majority of Israelis live with war, as compared to societies where, recently, war is either something that is metaphysical, largely a matter of partisan politics, and only to be fought by volunteer forces largely drawn from socio-economically disadvantaged citizens.
What sacrifices have we, in the West, been asked to make in the cause of wars which we’ve been told are matters of our “existential” future? Precious little, perhaps only our liberties. Certainly the Bush message of “spend and enjoy your tax cuts” after s11 doesn’t connote any sort of national sacrifice. And, to be truthful, most of us white middle class folks know that it’s not our liberties that suffer, and we’ve been reminded of this in hundreds of subtle and not so subtle ways over the last six years.
With sacrifice comes responsibility. As it should accompany danger. We’ve seen, rather, irresponsibility on a grand scale.
I think it’s also important to note that the Israeli mainstream media has at least some diversity (in views and ownership), compared to Australia’s echo chamber.
Having said that, I’m not so sure that the commission itself actually questioned the fundamental legitimacy of the war. It seems mainly to have quibbled about matters of tactics, and whether war leaders met their KPI’s. So in this case, whilst there is criticism, it is of a rather limited sort.
The coverage of the Iraq war that we find in Australian and US media is similar in this respect - many members of the commentariat ‘dissent’ from the Government insofar they suggest that Iraq’s liberation was badly handled. Nonetheless, few of these people actually criticised the notion of a faux ‘liberation’ prior to it taking place.
Fair points, but there was a lot of criticism in Ha’aretz (and I’m sure in other places, but that was the source I was looking at contemperaneously) of the actual decision at the time.
I don’t endorse every jot and tittle of Greenwald’s argument, but I think the broader point is well worth making.
Greenwald’s critique of the adolescent nature of US popular culture in relation to war is well-targeted:
And didn’t we read many examples of that fury on this very blog. [Cue thinking music to allow conjuring up of memories of your own favourite RWDB Keyboard Kommando.]
Yep that just about covers your common or rumpus room cum command bunker Australian Wingnut as wall.
Like Arab states, you mean?
Oh, no. You mean the US, of course … where there simply hasn’t been a word written criticising the Iraq war since it began.
Ah, well. Maybe in 30 years time, once the Bush dictatorship is well and truly history, we might see the first volume offering some timid criticisms of the war.
I wasn’t aware that Arab states were democracies, Paulus, which is what I’m talking about. I think that part of the grand neo-con utopia was put on hold.
And you might like to consider the egregious way in which papers like the NYT reported rubbish as fact, and the difficulty any dissenting voices had in being heard in the States until the tide began to turn in 05.
“We’re all recovering ex-neocons now.”
“I wasn’t aware that Arab states were democracies, Paulus, which is what I’m talking about. I think that part of the grand neo-con utopia was put on hold.”
This is THE problem with your argument. You want to judge Arab states by a different standard. This is wrong.
The screaming about Iraq war started long before the invasion and NYT published more anti-war than pro-war material. The same with SMH. Both can be lies of course, no problem with that.
However the point about sacrifices is a sound one. Since abolishion of the draft these issues slip from the top of the agenda. But only up to a certain body count. Iraq has probably decided the outcome of the mid-term election and the current state of the debate in the US is hardly one-sided. If anything it is the administration that is on the defensive.
Not true. Australia’s mainstream media swallowed wholesale a bunch of patent untruths.
1. The fairytale of WMD’s and the risk of ‘imminent attack’, which even Labour politicians believed in, was always implausible - Iraq was in economic ruin, surrounded by no-fly zones, and its navy and airforce had already been destroyed by the US before the war officially began.
2. The US were desperate to manufacture a war. When it looked as though things might go to a security council vote, several non-permanent members of the council were believed to have had their diplomats personal correspondence bugged, for blackmail purposes. In Australia, on ABC reproted this.
3. Links between Saddam and bin Laden were always fanciful, and without any evidential support whatsoever. Again, it took years before this link was openly challenged in the media. Australian media habitually mentioned Iraq and terrorism in the same breath.
4. I would wager that many around the world would see the Iraq war as a more or less imperialist exercise - where is this particular ‘anti-war’ view represented in Australian or US media?
Happy Revolutionary, in answer to your points:
1. A lot of people with arms control expertise did not take it to be implausible. Iraq was a closed society, and was throwing obstacles in the way of inspectors, and had a vast CBW infrastructure in the past, so it genuinely came as a surprise when nothing turned up. It’s easy to be wise now with 20:20 hindsight.
Western leaders considerably overstated the reliability of their intelligence, and made dubious claims about Saddam’s likelihood to use any weapons he might have. Still, the complete absence of WMD was a genuine surprise, not least to many of Iraq’s leaders:
“When it came to WMD, Saddam attempted to convince one audience that they were gone while simultaneously convincing another that Iraq still had them. … many within Iraq’s ruling circle never stopped believing that the weapons still existed.”
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060501faessay85301-p10/kevin-woods-james-lacey-williamson-murray/saddam-s-delusions-the-view-from-the-inside.html
2. Nope, the Murdoch press reported on it too. And undoubtedly Fairfax as well.
The Australian 03/03/2003: “Uncle Sam spies on UN delegations” … “The leaked memorandum, dated January 31, makes clear that the target of the heightened surveillance efforts are the delegations from Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Mexico, Guinea and Pakistan at the UN headquarters in New York.”
(Incidently, there’s much intelligence gathering on diplomats at the UN, and not just by the US and UK. Basically, everyone does it to everyone else, or at least tries to.)
4. Oh, just about every article on the subject in the Fairfax media, and the occasional article in the Murdoch press too.
No - it’s not a problem with my argument in the slightest. I am interested in comparing the reaction of democracies to war. Therefore I am not under any obligation to make any comparison with states that are not democracies. To suggest otherwise is not to point to a logical or argumentative flaw, but rather to make a polemical political point - as if one can’t be critical of a democracy without criticising non democracies. That really makes no sense, except as a flawed debating point.
“I am interested in comparing the reaction of democracies to war. ”
Why such an artificial selection? In these matters authoritarian countries affect the occurrence of war as much as the democracies do.
It’s not at all an artificial selection if what you are trying to do is compare the reaction among citizens and states of democratic nations - it’s a measure of how healthy a democracy is, I’m arguing, as to how it reacts to perceived or real external threats. That’s what my interest in this issue is. I thought I’d made it fairly clear that I’m not discussing factors which lead to war, or anything other than what I’m explicitly talking about - the degree to which the robust or otherwise nature of free speech and limits to liberty are revealed when countries committed to liberal principles go to war.
It seems that some folks are inclined to forget that a democracy is to be judged by the strength of its commitment to the principle of popular sovereignty.
If citizens are denied the ability or right to scrutinise decisions made by governments and their consequences (for example a failed military adventure) then that nation ceases to be a democracy.
The Bush administration, unlike the Olmert administration, seeks to deny the legitimacy of the people’s right to know by smearing efforts to discoverthe truth as “giving aid and comfort to the enemy”.
I believe Mark’s underlying point to be that administrations that act like Bush’s run the risk of joining the non-democratic club of nations.
He’s got a point, you know.
“4. I would wager that many around the world would see the Iraq war as a more or less imperialist exercise - where is this particular ‘anti-war’ view represented in Australian or US media?”
ABC, SBS, Radio National.
Churchill promised nothing but blood, sweat, tears and toil. Bush argued for tax cuts and continued shopping….
“Nuff said
Cheers…