"The difficulty with the position of absolute pacifism is that it makes the pacifist morally responsible for the evils that an intelligent use of force may sometimes prevent."
--Sidney Hook, Out of Step, 1987
Out of Iraq! Into Darfur!
"The difficulty with absoulute millitarism is that it makes the millitarist morally responsable for the evils the unintelligent use of force may sometimes prevent, but more often causes."
Pacifism may be dangerous, but the philosophy that got us into Iraq- that the millitary can and should do all to prevent suffering in this world is equally if not more so.
HeHe,
Whatever one thinks about the decision to go to war with Iraq (and my own opinion has changed a couple of times), it is obviously true that the aim of the war was not "to prevent suffering in this world." That is a liberal cause. And whatever liberal tendencies Bush has, that's not one of them.
This initial justification (which I supported) was to prevent Iraq from proliferating WMD to terrorists. Faulty intelligence, just war theory etc. notwithstanding, that policy was aimed at national security.
Even when the Bush administration changed its tune to win an election (a pragmatic change that was justifiable, in my opinion), the new aim was not primarily democracy for democracy's sake, but democracy as a means to pacify the Muslim threat. Again, a policy aimed at national security.
Ralph there were many motivations/causes for the war.
But it is undeniable that one of the central motivations professed by the administation was to bring democracy, not only to Iraq, but to the entire Arab world.
Your claim that we persued this democracy for national security reasons has much validity. But if you look at the writings of many PNAC planners, especially Wolfowitz, it is clear the they believed the US had a messanic duty to spread democracy thoughout the world. They certaily believed democracy would enhance US national security (a dubious claim in and of itself) but they also believed in the US's DUTY to the unfree world to make it free.
You are right that this idea is originally a liberal one, (along Wilsonian lines really) but the neoconsevatives have been on record for years as promoting it and changing it, really, to include using millitary force to affect change.
The story of the Bush administration is how true conservatives were replaced in foreign policy by neoconsrvatives and in domestic policy by "compassionate" (aka Big Goverment) conservatives.
I am certainly not a pacifist, but I do not see how the pacifist is responsible for not acting when someone commits evil. It is not surprising that a communist turned democratic socialist like Hook would believe in such ideas of collective guilt.
There are of course, rational and just uses of force to be used, but I can't think of too many (or for that matter, any) times the US military has used them.
There is a kernel of truth is Hook's line, but I don't think it's really worth repeating. More often than not, it is the type of quote to be used to say "Every American was responsible for the Holocaust, because we didn't enter WWII early enough, we were responsible for Rawanda and Sudan for not intervening, and it is the American government's duty to prevent any sort of evil committed by every single hitler of the month anywhere in the world forever."
Hook actually addresses collective guilt elsewhere in Out of Step: "It is pathological to feel guilt for the misdeeds of our ancestors or virtue because we are the descendants of the victims of the ancestors of others." I like to think that Hook's quote--the worth repeating one--refers to a guy who walks away when someone smacks a woman, or something like that. But perhaps he intended it to apply, say, to America's failure to intervene militarily in Ethiopia during its famine (which occured around the time Hook wrote the book)--accusing us of complicity in something alien to us. If he did, then I understand your point, Marcus, but lacking context--even lacking context after I re-viewed the text--I can't take issue with his statement.
