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Monday, August 29, 2005

VDH Watch 9: Vic insults The Blue Voice

Well, actually he didn't mention us. But in this post, he's responding to some of his critics: The Paranoid Style: Iraq: Where socialists and anarchists join in with racialists and paleocons by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online 08/26/05.

And he leaves us out completely! That's what I mean by insulting us.

Then again, he's mostly trying to dig up items that sound kooky. So maybe it's more of a compliment than an insult.

What Vic seems to be doing in this one is responding the the criticism recently made by Harold Meyerson (see VDH Watch 7), which seems to have particularly stung him. His response to Meyerson is essentially as follows:

1. Meyerson is a socialist.

2. He's a lot like some guy with a Russian web site that Vic thinks is an anarchist and who is so obscure even his own mamma probably has never heard of him.

3. He's also like some obscure racist who seems to think the Parthenon was built during the Dark Ages, because that guy says he's against the Iraq War, too.

4. And he's also like some other goofy rightwinger that Vic came across at the LewRockwell.com site.

Well, we've got pictures of labor unions and stuff on the site here at The Blue Voice. Nothing gives good Republicans the heebie-jeebies more than labor unions. So why didn't he include us? We feel neglected.

It used to be that this sort of thing was known as "redbaiting." But that was when "red" stood for Communists instead of the Republican Party. And I guess associating someone with the two ultra-right types could be called "brown-baiting", brown having been the color for Hitler's Nazi Party.

The main idea he is trying to convey, of course, is that critics of the Iraq War (and of Victor Davis Hanson!) are paranoid and bigoted and just generally sinister people who Real Americans should stay away from. He does take some time to respond, not very well, to Meyerson's use of the idea that the Iraq War increased Muslim hostility to the US. Vic says that they hated us so much anyway that who can tell?

He starts off quoting some of the rightwingers' favorites quotes attributed to Cindy Sheehan by the Republican echo chamber. Joe Conason nailed this particular schtick of the prowar crowd very well:

Baiting a bereaved mother as a traitor ought to be beneath even [David] Horowitz, but when he's desperate he can stoop quite low. The notion that the Iraqi insurgents or al-Qaida terrorists require "encouragement" from Sheehan or anyone else is idiotic. If Horowitz and [Charles] Krauthammer were paying attention, they would understand that our troops are suffering, the war is going badly and the insurgents are doing their worst because the U.S. government is run by incompetents - and not because of a protesting mother.

It may be true that Sheehan has made intemperate and foolish remarks about various topics, from American support for Israel to the personality of the president. She is politically inexperienced and in deep pain. (Christopher Hitchens and G. Gordon Liddy have called her "anti-Semitic," which in itself is mildly comical owing to their own spotty records. Hitchens once made a fool of himself defending Hitler-loving historian David Irving, and of course the fascistic Liddy is known not only for his professed admiration of the Third Reich but for his devotion to the late Richard Nixon, who sullied the Oval Office with his obscene sputterings about Jews.)Nobody sane is looking to her as a political philosopher or an expert on Mideast policy. (Ugly acts of desperation by Joe Conason Salon 08/19/05)

The real problem for Vic and the admirers of wars of liberation and the purging power of violence (when wielded by Republican presidents, that is) is that antiwar sentiment is strong, widespread and growing. Since those who are questioning the Iraq War in a serious way are over 60% of the American people by now, the movement probably can't grow numerically much more. After all, the overt support for the war is pretty much down to the most hardcore Republicans already. And even some of them are starting to have trouble feigning enthusiasm. But the movement can grow in intensity. And it's influence on Congress badly needs to grow.

But Vic does touch on something that probably deserves more thought among war critics. Critics and opponents of the Iraq War come from various places on the prewar political spectrum. Some war opponents would consider themselves pacifists or radical in some general sense. Others are liberal or independents. And others are conservatives ranging from "foreign policy realist" types to old-line isolationists to libertarians to those who call themselves libertarians but are really far-right authoritarians.

Some war critics are actually supporters of the war and of Bush's policies. One of the most influential critics of the Iraq War has been Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Cordesman supported the invasion of Iraq and supports Bush's "stay the course" policy. But his writing on the war has been well-informed and realistic, meaning that he discusses the huge problems confronting the US in Iraq is a reality-based and pragmatic way that is simply not possible for those determined to defend the Party line.

It's hard to generalize about what this means. Other than that it makes Vic's guilt-by-association argument silly.

People who are actually using their minds instead of reciting the Republican Party line can make distinctions among different kinds of war opponents.

I regularly consult the Justin Raimondo's Antiwar.com site, which features a wide variety of articles by war critics. Raimondo seems to be a genuine libertarian, and I've found his articles to be well worth reading. But I also know that he sometimes sounds like he's coming close to a Jewish-conspiracy theory about the Iraq War. And he is very explicit in condemning the liberal-internationalist viewpoint, which is what most Democrats embrace in some form or other. This article is a good example of one that I found to be a useful analysis, even though he's coming from a very different overall view of foreign policy than mine: The War Party Unhinged Antiwar.com 08/29/05. See this article for some of his critique of liberal internationalism: Iraq: The Democrats Are Just As Bad Antiwar.com 08/26/05

On the other hand, I think that the neo-Confederate LewRockwell.com site runs antiwar articles mainly for marketing purposes, to make itself look like a libertarian group when really they are admirers of Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy. Far-right groups that reject the American form of democracy often oppose the war because they are so radically opposed to not just the current administration but to the government itself. In the case of the neo-Confederates, well, they really do hate America.

Still, I have sometimes referred people to articles on the war that appeared at LewRockwell.com that I think actually have something good to say. But I make it a point warn them that it's a neo-Confederate site, whereas I don't normally feel the need to attach a warning to referrals at Antiwar.com. Those who have seen my daily posts about Confederate "Heritage" Month in April of 2004 and 2005 at Old Hickory's Weblog won't be surprised that I am particularly inclined to warn people about the LewRockwell.com crowd.

[For other installments, see Index to the VDH Watch.]

posted at 3:30:00 PM by Bruce Miller

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