James Wolcott has an interesting post on the frequent bashing of imaginary beasts among liberal foreign policy commentators:
Jonathan Schwarz at A Tiny Revolution takes note of how even liberal-minded bright lights cast aspersions on pacifism and its inhibiting sway, conflating it with non-interventionism. After quoting from Matt Yglesias’s new book Heads in the Sand–”In a world where one conservative author’s proposed response to Islamic violence is to “invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity” and a non-trivial number of people are committed to blanket pacifism, the middle ground turns out to be an extraordinarily broad patch of terrain” (Yglesias), Schwarz retorts:
To begin with, the ritualized execration of the Dirty Fucking Hippies is gross. But what’s worse is that it’s completely untrue that “a non-trivial number of people are committed to blanket pacifism.” Or at least it is if words have any meaning.
What interests me is how the faintest whiff or whisper of the pacifist creed rides the nerves of even those not clanking around in Victor Davis Hanson Roman Centurion armor on Halloween.
I would only say that, after a while, certain things cease to be interesting. Yglesias is predictably faithful to the liberal “internationalist” template, as anyone who has read his blog for any length of time knows. He and his type are emblematic of a new generation of Michael Kinsleys, self-styled liberal “contrarians” who decry the excesses of flagrant “unilateralism” or, if they dare be honest, “imperialism”, but are always sure to balance out their criticism with a reciprocal blasting of the “pacifist” strawman. It’s the same high moderation horse that irritates me so thoroughly about many critics of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, etc., who constantly blast away at an imaginary “blinkered worldview which places religion at the root of all the world’s evils.” Just like even avowed atheists like Michael Ruse frequently dangle unkind things they’ve said about the demon Richard to prove that they’re not some Stalinist hell bent on annihilating religious people, liberal “internationalists” can be found offering their support of, e.g., NATO’s blitzing of Belgrade to prove that they’re not some faggot Chomsky/Zinn/Zunes fanboi and really do occasionally approve of militarism when the appropriate sounding rationalizations are feasible.
After some discussion of Nicholson Baker’s recent revision treatise on World War II, Wolcott hits on this insight:
No, the smallest squeak or spark of pacifism must be stamped out, not to preserve the honor of the Good War or Winston Churchill (could Churchill’s standing be any higher?), but to ensure that present and future wars can be waged with full-throated bluster and fist-clenched resolve. Not even imaginary opposition must be allowed to impede and tarnish our glorious mission!
Which is pretty much exactly right, although I would prefer that more commentators on this topic point out that it is hardly an exclusive trait of the punditocracy (as seems implicit in Wolcott’s comments). What is at the root of America’s militarist consensus is the violent colonialist mindset of the American people, for whom, even in “war-weary” times, 4000 dead uniformed and armed military personnel is seen as far more of a tragedy than a few hundred thousand (at least) dead Iraqi civilians. Until broader cultural changes happen in America, bullshit like this is going to continue indefinitely. Electoral success on the part of the Democrats won’t change shit, what must be done is to fiercely oppose the flagrant apologetics for America’s expansionist past. Only when the left stops bending over backwards to accommodate nationalist vanity will anything change.
