Fake Inconsistency
I have various points of agreement and various points of disagreement with this review, but let me note its deployment of one of the world's most annoying rhetorical tropes:
Recall how during the 1990s, it was taboo in liberal circles in the United States, Canada, or Western Europe even to suggest that the Balkan wars might be the result of centuries-old ethnic hatreds. That was wicked conservative realism voiced by morally indifferent Republicans such as Brent Scowcroft, and denounced with eloquence by progressive internationalists such as Michael Ignatieff and Samantha Power. I made speeches to this effect myself when I worked for Human Rights Watch – insisting, with Kantian moral certainty, that wars are never ascribable to ancient ethnic hatreds (Yugoslavia), and that there can be no peace without justice (Sierra Leone), and that impunity always rebounds (Chile). The progressive position was that ascribing the Yugoslav wars to ancient ethnic hatreds rather than the manipulations of present-day politicians was an immoral and cynical ploy to avoid getting involved. Today, on the other hand, a card-carrying liberal realist such as the Democratic Party’s Kos Moulitsas can write, “It’s clear that in the Middle East, no one is sick of the fighting. They have centuries of grudges to resolve, and will continue fighting until they can get over them”.
Ha, ha -- that crazy left, always changing its mind! But, look, Samantha Powers, Michael Ignatieff, and "the Democratic Party's Kos Moulitsas" are different people. By contrast, there are only two political parties. Consequently, a bunch of people who are all "liberals" or "Democrats" or what have you are bound to disagree about a bunch of things. For evidence that people are changing their minds, or changing their tunes, or becoming hypocrites, you need to identity actual individuals who changed their minds, not different people disagreeing with each other.
Comments
I should note that the "age-old hatreds" thing is a bunch of crap in the case of Yugoslavia. A bunch of people inexplicably read pseudo-intellectual Robert Kaplan's travelogue Balkan Ghosts as if he had any value as a historian or area expert. Michael Sells' A Bridge Betrayed is, as far as I know, the last word on the issue - a careful exploration of how a number of obscure events long lost in Serbian history were dredged up by opportunists like Milosevic and built into a myth of "age-old hatred" in the service of his drive to power.
Things are to shit now becuase of Milosevic, but the idea that it had to be that way, because of age-old hatred, is simply a reiteration of Milosevic's own propaganda.
As I noted on anothet thraedd, the hatreds of Yugoslaviaare not at all ancient. They derive from events still in living memory: the genocide perpetrated by the Croatian Nazi-allied Ustasche (sp?) and their Bosnian allies against the Serbs in WWII.
Looking over hte post again, I think you miss the biggest false inconsistency.
Israel/Palestine and Yugoslavia are different places.
And whether there are "age-old" hatreds in Israel/Palestine depends on whether you count a century or two as an "age".
Yes the age old hatred thing is bullshit. What I'm surprised about is that Fukuyama would put Brent Scowcroft and especially "Realists" in that camp. Very few of my Realist PS/IR professors in college believed in cultural/historical explanations. Stephen Walt wrote a very influential book revising Neorealist Balance of Power theory and what did he use as his casestudy? Modern Middle Eastern diplomacy!
Back in the Cold War days, the cultural explanations were far more likely to come from the Democratic side. Then, as now, they were a call for respecting foreign cultures and a realization that "transforming" entire societies was very difficult.
And although I don't go back far enough to remember Vietnam, I am positive that it was the relative power/realpolitik aspects of Daddy Bush and Brent Scowcroft that had liberals howling. NOT some psuedo anthropological excuse for foreign policy.
There's other wowzers in the review, to wit:
culpably downplaying the evil that Saddam did.
Who, what, when, and where please.
The left's argument has always been that Saddam was hemmed in and strung up and did not constitute a threat to the US. Not that he was not a bad guy. This guy's implication is typical of the dodge by the tighty-righties who ignore their own culpability in giving Saddam his tools.
If some evil demagogue or other fomented an all-out black/white race war in the United States, would it be correct to say that old ethnic hatreds were involved? Yes, of course, but it wouldn't imply that the race war was inevitable or that it didn't take an evil demagogue to foment one.
I should note that the "age-old hatreds" thing is a bunch of crap in the case of Yugoslavia. A bunch of people inexplicably read pseudo-intellectual Robert Kaplan's travelogue Balkan Ghosts as if he had any value as a historian or area expert.
Robert Kaplan has said (on C-Span) that those who read Balkan Ghosts that way misunderstood him. I haven't read the book myself. In any case, I don't think Kaplan was the only source for the meme.
Who, what, when, and where please.
I'd have to do some research to answer that with regard to 'the Left', which I may do later. Certainly some libertarian opponents of the war, including myself, challenged some of the specific claims made about Saddam's atrocities.
Specifically, I was skeptical of high-end estimates of the murder toll, and I still am. Last I heard it didn't appear the forensice evidence being found in Iraq would come close to supporting the highest numbers.
I also questioned the evidence for some of the more sensational atrocity stories, like the people fed into shredding machines. Another was the tale that some of Saddam's minions carried ID cards identifying them as professional rapists, which struck me as lurid and improbable.
Halabja became a hot controversy among anti-war libertarians, as many jumped enthusiastically on the theory that the Iranians were guilty. I couldn't agree with that, so I found myself uncharacteristically defending the government's position in some fairly intense debates.
It seems to me that some leftists also took such positions, though I don't recall names offhand. Of course it's a matter of opinion whether any of this constitutes 'culpably downplaying'.
"There's other wowzers in the review, to wit:
culpably downplaying the evil that Saddam did.
Who, what, when, and where please.
The left's argument has always been that Saddam was hemmed in and strung up and did not constitute a threat to the US. Not that he was not a bad guy. This guy's implication is typical of the dodge by the tighty-righties who ignore their own culpability in giving Saddam his tools."
Some on the left (and some on the right) say Saddam wasn't much of threat and I'd say that's downplaying him, because it's not recognizing the record of his crimes. Also, I don't believe this guy is a "tighty-righty."
"I made speeches to this effect myself when I worked for Human Rights Watch – insisting, with Kantian moral certainty, that wars are never ascribable to ancient ethnic hatreds (Yugoslavia), and that there can be no peace without justice (Sierra Leone), and that impunity always rebounds (Chile)."
Doesn't sound very conservative. Sounds like "foreign policy as social work" as the Bushies described the Clinton administrations (mixed) record. But that was before 9/11. Get your facts straight before spouting off.
Everybody was arming Saddam's Iraq against revolutionary Iran. The US, France, the Soviet Union, China, etc. Doens't mean it was right.
Of course there are many different lefts, and I agree with Samantha Power more than with Moulitsas. And I'd agree with her more than with conservative James Baker, who said of Bosnia, "we don't have a dog in this fight." Appartently Moulitsas feels the same way: “It’s clear that in the Middle East, no one is sick of the fighting. They have centuries of grudges to resolve, and will continue fighting until they can get over them”.
Some on the left (and some on the right) say Saddam wasn't much of threat and I'd say that's downplaying him, because it's not recognizing the record of his crimes.
Note please. Downplaying Saddam is not "Culpably downplaying", a phrase which brings with it tons of other baggage. The phrase "culpably downplaying" has nothing in it of trying to accurately put the man's evils into focus. "Culpably downplaying" implies guilty knowledge and coy rationalizations. In fact, Saddam wasn't much a threat for obvious reasons: he was sitting on a shell of a country and hemmed in on all sides by the US military. And the worst of his active domestic evil was receding into history. Noting that doesn't emdorse rape, murder, and torture and give it a dangling thumbs up. It simply notes that as a causus belli -- launching into an era when morals get suspended due to chaos and personal danger -- he wasn't a necessary target. Wars are necessary things. Suspending one's morals for optional reasons makes one's moral optional things.
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