The Looney Liberal Chronicles: Chapter 11

 by Phillip Ellis Jackson  

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Those willing to die for the cause of pacifism, rather than “force” their beliefs on anyone else in the face of outside aggression, will always be successful in achieving at least half of their goal.

Chapter 11:  Preemptive Military Action — or — “Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?”

Following the attack on New York and Washington, DC in September 2001, I began a debate about pre-emptive military action (with its sub-theme of pacifism in the face of an obvious threat), with a group of Brazilians with whom I had been corresponding.  

This conversation took place over the weekend of August 24-25, 2002.  It started innocently enough when one member of the group inserted a rather snide side-comment into our discussion about the U.S. “enforcing” the U.N. resolutions on Iraq.  The U.N. sanctions were the vehicle the U.S. was using to formulate an action plan to protect vital U.S. interests worldwide.  Underlying this discussion of strategy and tactics was the real meat of the issue — the principle that the United States could, and should, act preemptively to ward off a very real threat. 

On the one hand, there were those who thought that we should wait until we were attacked again, and following this attack pursue a quasi-legal strategy to establish the courtroom-quality guilt of all parties involved before taking any action.  On the other hand, there were barbarians like me who thought that a pointed gun accompanied by repeated threats was all the “proof” we needed that it was time to defend ourselves.  From a strategic standpoint, if the world thought that swaddling our actions in references to various U.N. resolutions gave us extra credibility, then it was a tactic we were happy to employ.  Absent the cover of the U.N., however, there still remained that pointed gun, and we were not going to wait until we saw smoke wafting from the barrel before the U.S. decided it was time to act.

And so we began our little conversation about what to do about Saddam Hussein. The salient points of this conversation are reproduced below.  The Brazilians’ English was quite remarkable, and I’ve only cleaned up a few misspellings or minor grammatical errors.  Otherwise, their words are exactly as they were written. 

However, a couple of small notes before I begin.  I’ve used letters to identify the individuals making comments rather than their actual names, since like my conversation with Harry, it’s not who they are but what they say that’s important to consider.  All of them were university faculty, students, or well-educated business professionals.  There were multiple emails going back and forth with multiple Brazilians reacting to what was being said. 

I’ve excised out the key passages or individual statements that they made and I reacted to.  These were usually prompted by something I or one of them had said earlier, so these segments shouldn’t be read as continuous thoughts, but rather as statements or proposals built around common themes.  In doing this, I’ve tried to extract the essence of the debate rather than produce anything close to a verbatim transcript.  Still, I think it illustrates the main points as each of us reacted to the other’s opinions.

B: A pre-emptive strike against a nation?  No.  Never.  Even in the face of annihilation.  I would prepare my country and brace for an invasion.  Of course, you may say I’m not a Jew [referring to an earlier discussion about the Israeli-Arab situation].  I can say I’m not a world leader, for which I am very thankful.  Pacifism is a way of living, a way of living which must come from the people and eventually find its way into the government, not the other way around.

Phil: Unless, of course, your pacifism leads to annihilation, at which point there’s no further discussion.  The issue for me is this.  Killing should never be the first choice, but it is a legitimate choice in the face of evil.  You don’t need to wait until you are attacked to defend yourself.  If you do, you play by the bad guy’s rules — which, incidentally, are not “fair” rules.  He’ll violate them whenever he wants if it’s in his own interest.  Thus, while the pacifist is taking the moral high ground and doing things the ‘morally just’ way, the aggressor is simply doing things to win.  Even if, hypothetically, the pacifist succeeds 9 out of 10 times in thwarting an aggressor, when he loses the 10th time the game is completely over.  The pacifist is destroyed, and here will be no “fair fight” to reclaim his interests.

* * *

B: Pre-emptive strikes against nations lead to war, which leads to needless killing of innocent people on all sides.

Phil: No one wants to see innocent people die, but when an aggressor threatens your way of life, you have two choices:

(1) Wait to be attacked, during which innocent people will die.  Or,

(2) Attack him first, during which innocent people will die.

The only way I see out of this dilemma is to surrender to the aggressor, who will come into your country and still kill innocent people as he takes over (if not immediately, then through concentration camps, forced relocation, executions of targeted groups and individuals, rape and plunder, etc.).

So again, I challenge you to look beyond your sentiments.  By basing your actions on “not killing innocent people,” you do not truly avoid this outcome when you renounce a preemptive strike.

* * *

B: A pre-emptive strike against a terrorist cell?  Most assuredly yes.  They’re criminals, and they must be treated as such.

Phil: The world today is quite different than it was when we fought WWII.  Just look at the relationship between the former Afghanistan government and the terrorists.  Both ran the country. 

There is not always a clear line of distinction between terrorists and governments.  Many terrorists say they are independent, but actually act on behalf of a government.  Just look at the whole structure of Middle East terrorism.  Different groups or factions take responsibility for an action, but in fact act on behalf of a state.  The evidence I cite for this is the support and funding by certain Middle East nations for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Libya and the Pan Am/Lockerbie bombing, as well as countless actions by Syria, Iran, the Palestinian Authority and others against Israel.  Your nation-terrorist dichotomy is a distinction without a difference.

* * *

B: You might say, “and what if they hide somewhere in Iraq, or Afghanistan?”  I would gather sufficient and incontrovertible evidence of their responsibility and that of the leaders of said countries, and present it to the Hague.  I would not invade anyone’s country.

Phil: There are people in the world who truly believe that the Jews blew up the World Trade Center despite the evidence, that the U.S. faked the moon landing in 1969, that John F. Kennedy wasn’t killed in 1963 but is living in a wheelchair in the White House basement, and that Elvis is still alive.  Every time we release captured Al-Qaeda documents, Arab TV says they were faked by the CIA.  There is no such thing as “incontrovertible evidence,” because the bad guys don’t play by your rules!  They will lie, cheat, and steal to win while you are behaving in a morally superior way.  You will never “prove” your case against them, and they know it, so by taking this position you have given them a green light to act with no fear of consequences.

* * *

B: If I had information, I would tell my security enforcers to go in there (as long as “there” means “inside my own borders”) and arrest the whole lot.  Arrest, not kill.

Phil: So, let me get this clear.  You will fight terrorism as long as it’s entirely within your borders.  If a terrorist steps one foot into a neighboring country, you won’t react because he has crossed a political boundary.  He can run into your country, fire his weapon, and then run out with impunity.  And I guess he could fire his weapon across your border, and you would instruct your security forces not to respond. And if you did happen to catch him inside your borders, you’d “arrest,” not “kill” him.  But what if they don’t want to be arrested?  Would you use force then, including the possibility of deadly force (i.e exchanging gunfire)? 

I think your proposal is nothing more than wishful thinking.  The terrorists who attacked my country don’t have a “political difference” with the United States.  They want to destroy our way of life.  And they want to destroy your way of life too, as well as that of every non-Islamic country (not to mention certain Islamic countries that don’t practice their particular brand of religion). 

You insist on playing by your so-called moral high ground rules, while they are busy figuring out different ways to kill you.  They are prepared to die killing you, but you are not willing to fight them if it means risking potential injury to innocent life, crossing a political border, or pursuing a military operation (vs. a police action).  They have their fanaticism, you have your morally superior beliefs.  If you win, you’ll treat them with kindness and understanding, and seek to learn why they were so angry with you in the first place.  If they win, they’ll take away your rights, put you in a camp because of your religious or political views, or simply kill you then and there and be done with you. 

In the end, it comes down to a simple question.  Do you believe there are things worth fighting and dying for in the face of aggression?   If you don’t believe your way of life, your freedom of religion, or the lives of your family, friends, or even yourself are worth fighting for, then you’ve staked out a perfectly reasonable position.

* * *

B: Unwillingness to start wars is not cowardice.  It’s a matter of principle.

Phil: And principles are important to guide one’s actions, but they must be grounded in reality.  Otherwise, you risk losing everything to an unprincipled opponent.

* * *

B: It remains my core belief that we can evolve past millennia of selfish behavior and the pursuit of vengeance.  All it takes — and it’s no simple undertaking — is one Power to start believing and act it out first.

Phil: Unless, of course, they are slaughtered and the bad guy wins! 

I think you are confusing “restraint” with “change.”  That is, in the past, some world governments acted preemptively when there was no real threat to their interests.  Think of Hitler annexing the surrounding territories and invading neighboring countries.  There was no evidence of any impending aggression against Germany, no bellicose statements about their weaponry and/or their intention to use it, no explicit or implicit threats against Germany, in short no provocative actions whatsoever. 

A policy that permits this type of unilateral aggression should be changed.  A preemptive action should only be taken when the threat has reached a sufficient level to warrant it — such as ignoring 14 years of UN resolutions, kicking weapons inspectors out of the country in contravention of a previous agreement, using banned weapons against external and internal populations, and professing a desire to build and possess nuclear weapons (which is also in violation of past agreements).  You know I’m speaking about Iraq.  Hell, even France doesn’t deny they’re building weapons of mass destruction.  They just want to pass another resolution instead of enforcing the earlier ones!

Which is a long way of saying that when pre-emption is warranted, it should be appropriate to the threat.  We could eliminate any threat posed by Iraq, Iran, Syria, North Korea or any other nation with our tactical nuclear weapons, but we don’t.  When we act (and I hope we do), it will be in a measured, appropriate way.

A call for unilateral pacifism in a world with even one evil country is a really bad idea!

* * *

B: I think that the stronger the Power is that takes this unilateral lead, the more effective the tactic becomes.  That’s why the U.S. would be the prime candidate.  It has the clout and the means to get other nations to think along the same lines.  Granted, it can become an insanely suicidal choice, one that a whole nation — given its plurality of opinion — would disagree.  That’s why I don’t run for any public office.  I think that before a nation can choose to become truly pacifist in the sense I’ve outlined, all of its people must believe it.  Otherwise it will fail.

Phil:  “All it’s people?” Hell, my wife and I can’t even agree on what to have for dinner, let alone change foreign policy!  This is an unrealistic expectation.  Again I challenge you to understand that your policies are not policies, they are wishes.  A policy must address the reality of the situation it confronts, and make changes within that reality.  It cannot simply wish that reality away, and wish to substitute something else in its place.

* * *

B: Let me make one point clear.  While I don’t believe in aggression, and killing, and resorting to violence as a principle, I recognize that most — in fact all — nations, under the appropriate set of circumstances, do.  A Power does what a Power needs to do in order to grow and develop.

Phil: You’ve conveniently redefined a debate about the use of force against a potential aggressor into a statement about the strong taking from the weak to “grow and develop.”  And, you take no position on this matter, except to “recognize” it.

I’m happy to discuss the colonization of North America by Western Europeans, Admiral Dewey and the Spanish-American War, and the blatant ends-justify-the-means example of the Soviet Union enslaving Eastern Europe after WWII.  But when we do this, I also want to discuss how Brazil treated its native population as it “grew and developed” its own country.

However, the issue on the table isn’t whether governments do, or do not, occasionally resort to violence to further their national interests.  The issue is whether you support a preemptive strike against a hostile foreign power that threatens your country’s national security?

* * *

B: I may be willing to die for the cause of pacifism, but I would not force this choice on anyone else.  So I strive to convince others that Pacifism is a Good Thing.

Phil: I believe that you will be successful in achieving the first half of your goal if you continue to pursue a pacifist policy with no regard for the reality of the world within which you operate.

Though I strongly disagreed with my friend in Brazil, I found his honesty refreshing.  Unlike liberals in the United States, he didn’t try to demonize me for holding a contrary political opinion.  However, things got a little more heated when another party to the conversation chimed in.   Where B waxed philosophical, F wanted to apply the discussion to two hundred years of American history.  I’m always a little suspicious of people who profess their admiration for all things American, but have little regard for America itself.

Anyway, others soon entered the conversation, and we got off the general theme of pacifism/preemptive military action and steered headlong into the subject of nasty old U.S. imperialism against gentle, loving, South American democracies.  Case in point — Salvador Allende’s Chile.

F: Are your points anywhere more ironic than the fact that the U.S. government backed a coup against Allende in Chile — the only Communist leader who came to power in a democratic and free election?

Phil: Well, Hitler was elected too, so your point is? 

You are correct.  It doesn’t matter if the perceived threat to our national interest came to power through a free election.  If we perceive the threat as significant and real, we will act, just as any other country would.  The only difference between the U.S. and another country is our ability to act.  Give any country our power and they will take similar steps to protect their own interests. 

Actually, there is a difference, now that I think of it.  The U.S. has a weapons arsenal that we can use, theoretically, but we don’t.  The only exception is WWII, when we didn’t want to lose 1 million soldiers to finish the war against Japan.  The mountains of Afghanistan could easily have been nuked to kill Bin Laden, but they weren’t.  Just like we could have nuked the Soviet Union from 1945-1949 when we had a monopoly on nuclear weapons, but we didn’t.

The more interesting question, to respond to your observation, is whether Allende was a real threat justifying U.S. action against him.  To answer that question you’d have to place the act in its historical context (the Cold War, Che Guevara/Castro’s attempts to foment revolution in Latin America, etc.).  Once we have this debate, you can determine if it’s “ironic” or not.  Otherwise, your observation is just a facile comment.

* * *

F: . . . anywhere more ironic than the fact that the markets of the East were forced open (at cannon point) by England and the U.S. back in the 1800s?

Phil: Again, my same point as above that the only difference between the U.S. and another country is our ability to act.  It would be interesting to apply this “irony” to the Brazilian government’s history of opening up its internal markets in the face of an indigenous native population that was inconveniently in the way.  You had the power to slaughter and relocate a lot of people, which you did.  Beware of throwing stones at glass houses.

* * *

F: Now I don’t intend to start a smear campaign against the U.S.  Hell, we all love you guys; your movies, music, trends, whatever.  And, may I point out, your founding fathers did have a couple of very interesting ideas (except that Second Amendment thing, but that’s another matter entirely.)

Phil: Hollywood isn’t America, contrary to popular belief.  What you admire about the U.S. is superficial.  What you reject is substantive.  Just curious about one thing, though.  When your settlers were slaughtering and forcibly relocating (er, I mean, “opening up”) the Brazilian interior to plunder its natural resources, did they use guns?  Or, did they just sit down with the native population and politely ask them to go away?

* * *

F: [Your Constitution, minus the second amendment] is so good it stands more or less unmodified today.  But the case is, no-one likes to be at the receiving end of the Big Stick.  So patronize all you like, but don’t think we’ll enjoy it!

Phil: You’re not supposed to enjoy it.  You’re supposed to do it. :-)

* * *

F: What all of us are trying to convey to our neighbors to the North is that “with great power comes even greater responsibility.”  You are on the top now, just like Egypt and Rome once were.  And what did you do to be different from these ancient powers?  You are leaders in scientific research, and you achieved some remarkable successes in most fields of human activity.  But you also interfered in many peoples (countries) lives by telling them what to do, or what to believe in, or how to manage their finances.

Phil: Yeah, we interfered in Germany’s internal affairs from 1941-1945 when we forced them to stop killing Poles, Russians, Frenchmen, Gypsies, Jews, homosexuals, and a bunch of other people.  Germany never attacked us, unlike the Japanese, but we went to war against them anyway.  And when the war was over, we stayed there and told them what to do: disband your Army and rebuild your country for the benefit of the entire population. 

We also told them what to believe (in democracy, racial equality, freedom of expression and religion).  We also managed their finances by giving them (and other European nations) millions in U.S. foreign aid that continues to this day.  And we repeat this abuse with countries all over the world, bringing them freedom and democracy, increasing their standard of living, feeding and educating them.  I’m not sure where to send the apology, but if you’ll provide the address, I’ll provide the stamp.  

Yes, you have stumbled upon an amazing principle of life.  Those with the greatest power have the greatest influence.  But you never pose the related question: how responsible are the powerful in exercising their influence?  There isn’t a country on this planet upon whom the United States couldn’t impose its will.  But we don’t bomb, embargo, or invade everyone who disagrees with us.  Platitudes about power and responsibility are not a substitute for an informed analysis, no matter how lofty they sound.

* * *

F: I’d like to point out again that a Power stands accountable for everything it does, one way or another, sooner or later.  This is not some Christian fable; it’s a damnable fact of life.

Phil: I’m happy to defend U.S. policy towards the rest of the world.  We’ve deposed more dictators, offered more foreign aid, shared more of our technological blessings with underdeveloped countries, and liberated more people from tyranny than the rest of the world combined.  I know a little about Brazilian history, which is why I used the term “slaughter” in describing how you continue to treat your native population.  I’m more than happy to put our 200+ year history of domestic and foreign relations against yours any day, so you might remember my previous admonition about living in “glass houses.” 

It’s easy to criticize the guy on the top when all you rely on is platitudes and slogans.  It’s a little more difficult when you place both parties’ actions in a real world context, and make your judgments accordingly.  The Indians of Brazil might have an interesting take on how “accountable” your government has been in opening up the country to material exploitation, or giving sanctuary to Nazi war criminals.  One man’s accountability is often another man’s repression.

It was about this point that the subject turned inevitably to Iraq.  The U.S. and its allies had not yet begun to enforce the UN resolutions against Saddam Hussein.  France, Russia and Germany — who had secret financial dealings with Iraq in contravention of United Nations mandates — had united with the Democratic Party to block any military action against that brutal regime.  Nevertheless, war looked like an increasingly realistic option.

As usual, it was all the U.S.’s fault.

F: It was the U.S. who armed Saddam Hussein.  It was the U.S. who trained Bin Laden.  It was the U.S. who backed most if not all of the dictatorships in Latin America so they would not align themselves with the Soviet Empire.

Phil: Hell, we backed everyone on the planet who was against the Soviets.  And the Soviets backed everyone on the planet who was against the Americans.  And your point is?   This is called “context,” and it’s how adults look at real world situations, instead of mouthing platitudes and slogans. 

But to take it a step further.  Where you talk about “arming” Saddam in his war against a country that held our people hostage for 444 days, and “training” (I think you meant “arming” again) Bin Laden to fight against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, using your logic we must also conclude the following:

● We sold grain to the Soviet Union, so we must be responsible for their actions.

● We sold space technology to the Chinese, so we must be responsible for their actions.

I could go on and on, but you get the point.  If you’re going to use arming Saddam and Bin Laden (actually, the Mujahideen) as a “fact,” you must put it in context.  We backed Iraq at a time when Iran was openly hostile to the U.S.  Just like we were allies of the Soviets against the Nazis, but supported the Mujahideen against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. 

That, my friend, is how international politics works.  If you want to criticize the U.S. for doing this, then you must now support any “unilateral” actions the U.S. takes in going after Iraq.  By this logic, our previous support was a “mistake” that we now — acting responsibly — are attempting to correct.  I’m prepared to argue this convoluted logic all day unless you want to drop that ‘straw man’ line of attack.

Note:  I should probably explain what a ‘straw man’ argument is.  It’s when you raise a false analogy or over-simplified point to defend your point of view.  The supposed fact is either not put in context, or does not really support your premise, or ignores another relevant fact.

For example, John says that he is against killing people.  However, John kills Mike.  Therefore, you conclude that John is a hypocrite — except you’ve omitted the fact that Mike was trying to kill John, and John killed Mike in self defense.  That’s the context that explains the action.

My personal favorite is the notion that compromise is always better than conflict.  John wants to rape Mary.  Mary doesn’t want be raped by John.  What is the compromise?  Mary volunteers to have sex with John.  A consensus is reached, so there is no conflict.  And to reach it, both people had to compromise (John didn’t rape, and Mary didn’t refuse).  It’s a perfect liberal paradigm.  It allows one to take the moral high ground and oppose violence, support compromise, and have each party give up something in the interest of mutual understanding.  It sounds good in theory, but makes absolutely no sense at all when applied to the real world.  But at least your heart was in the right place, since conflict is to be avoided at all costs, and that’s the most important thing of all.

* * *

F: It takes not a wrong to anger someone, only a perceived wrong.  Alas, evil men like Bin Laden and Saddam are only too clever to turn perceived wrongs into malice-driven ones.

Phil: Ah, the Hallmark Card school of international relations.  The pure, unadulterated pabulum of what you just wrote is mind boggling.
 
I’m a good guy who does good things, but my neighbor thinks I dissed him, so there’s a perceived wrong.  He attacks my family, and threatens to do so again and again.  I now have two choices.  Defend myself against future attacks and turn his perceived wrong into a malice-driven one, or do nothing at all and hope he’ll realize one day that killing my nephew was the wrong thing to do, and we can all share a kumbaya moment. 

I guess there’s also a third option to extend the analogy.  I could always get the neighborhood association to issue him a dozen or so stern warnings, and then refuse to back up any of these with real actions if he continues to threaten me or my family.

This may be the utopia you aspire to, but personally I’m with Woody Allen this time in one of his rare lucid moments.  When presented with the option of opposing Nazis through a devastating op-ed piece in the New York Times, or a swift kick in the pants, Woody chose the latter.  Your opponent might miss the nuanced satire of a really well-written essay, but he’s unlikely to get his signals crossed if the first kick lands directly between his legs.

* * *

F: Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear.  A preemptive strike against a nation is very wrong.  You can’t just invade my home because you think I have lots of guns and have heard me calling you names.

Phil: That’s not my point.  The neighbor doesn’t simply have guns.  And he hasn’t just called you a bad name.  He’s armed and dangerous, he’s threatened to kill you, and the police are miles away.  To make matters worse, the police force is made up of a volunteer committee that has to vote on each and every call it receives before it decides whether to act or not.  Lately, they’ve been writing a lot of warning tickets, but when it comes to action they’ve made few (if any) arrests. 

Now this neighbor who threatens to kill you hasn’t fired a shot, but he’s very bellicose and threatening in his actions, and has killed other neighbors of his in the past.  My question to you is, to do wait until he fires his gun at you too, and then — and only then — react, or do you defend yourself and your family preemptively?

* * *

F: Unfortunately, when you make a preemptive strike against a nation, you will kill innocent people who had nothing to do with the problem.  You’re killing innocent people to protect innocent people.

Phil: Yes. The 3000+ people of the World Trade Center found this out first hand because we didn’t go after Bin Laden and countries like Iraq and Iran in the first place. 

* * *

F: If there was a way to prove in an international court of law that Saddam makes Weapons of Mass Destruction and come up with a plan to remove him straight from the palace . . .

Phil: I can see it now.  The Hague rules that Saddam is in violation of international law, and must surrender power.  He voluntarily submits and is taken into custody to serve out his remaining days in a 10’x10’ cell somewhere in the West. Problem solved.  Crisis averted.

And you really believe this stuff?

I thought this was the end of the debate, but I was wrong.  It was my day to bring the wrath of every Brazilian pacifist down upon me (a somewhat curious mental image, to say the least), as another liberal ideologue took offense at my warmongering answers and entered the fray.

J: Perhaps I am a fool also, and perhaps I am a Liberal sissy, but I do not believe in striking first.  What I do believe in, however, is in the giving of stern warnings and counter intelligence surveillance (which dramatically failed on the eve of 9/11).

Phil: And when the warnings fail, then what?  I have no problem with issuing a warning or two, but not something in the dozens, or even triple digits!  And when the warnings are ignored by the bad guys, and the threat is serious enough, I fall back on the only reasonable option I know to protect myself and my family.  Kill them before they kill me.

Okay.  The Brazilians were getting a little ticked off by now at my unrelenting, unrepentant bloodlust, so they came up with a new approach to show me the error of my ways. 

When history won’t support you, and even Woody Allen seems to be on the other side, it’s time to reach a little deeper into the Rodney King playbook.  So what if I broke a half-dozen laws and refused to follow police instructions once the cops finally pulled me over.  The police didn’t act properly in subduing me while I was resisting arrest.  And if that doesn’t work, argue philosophy.  Not the touchy-feely philosophy of international tribunals, perceived wrongs becoming malice-driven ones, or repeated warnings without the real threat of action to back it up, but the deluxe version of my morality is better than your morality!

F: It’s never just or moral to make a pre-emptive attack.

Phil: What a wonderful, compassionate, morally superior (not to mention politically correct) sentiment.  Tell that to the Jews who were threatened by the Germans in the 1930s.  Would they have been “wrong” to preemptively go after the Germans (as a group of people, since Israel didn’t exist as a nation until 1947) as Hitler and the brown shirts were putting them into the death camps?  Would the Poles have been justified in attacking Germany as it massed troops along its borders in 1939, or should they just be polite (and morally superior) and wait to be killed first before responding?  How about the 3000+ people killed at the World Trade Center?  If we had known that there was an attack being planned by Bin Laden, should we have acted preemptively?

The problem with liberalism transmuted into pacifism is that your moral absolutes leave no room to account for real-world situations.  “Never” means never, and if only one instance refutes it, the absolute position falls.  Of course, you could hedge your bets somewhat by offering reasonable exceptions to your absolute position, but doing this opens the floodgate for other exceptions, and then where does a good pacifist draw the line?  The abortion proponents in my country have a similar problem.  They are compelled to support partial birth abortions (where a viable fetus is partially extracted from the mother's womb and its brains sucked out to kill it, instead of allowing it to be born), because, by their logic, if the state recognizes human life in this incident, why not a fetus one day younger, or one day younger than that, and so on.

And this is why I’ve called your moral absolutism “facile,” which is really nothing more than moral relativism disguised as high principle.  It illustrates everything and nothing, and is meaningless as a practical guide to action.  But it sure makes you feel good to think you’re a better person than us trigger happy, second amendment fascists who can’t wait to invade every country that disagrees with us.

This prompted another voice from the Left to join the chorus about not “rushing” into war against Iraq after 11 years of repeated treaty violations.  I had stoked this fire a bit by sending an email attachment showing the September 3, 1939 headline from The American Statesman newspaper:  “England Declares War” on Germany, with the sub-heading “France Gives Germany More Time.”  What I love about history, particularly with the French, is that the more things change in life, the more they stay the same.

R: The mistake, perhaps, was not to give Hitler a clear and stern warning.

Phil: I’m not following this.  Hitler was a recognizably bad man who telegraphed his anti-Semitic world domination crap long before he invaded Poland.  The Brits and French and everyone else in Europe saw it, but they didn’t want to stand up to a bully, so they put their heads in the sand and wished he would behave properly.  [An interesting parallel with world terrorism today, minus the Brits who learned the lesson that appeasement doesn’t work]. 
While Hitler geared up for war (just like Iraq is gearing up for a nuclear capability), Europe pretended that the threat would simply go away.  The U.S. under Roosevelt and the isolationist Republicans deserves a lot of blame here too, incidentally.

Instead of bombing the crap out of Germany well before 1939 like we should have, your solution is that we should have given Hitler a “stern warning,” and even more time to put his plans into action.  Something like, “don’t cross this line or we’ll get mad.  Okay, don’t cross that line or we’ll really, really get mad.  Okay, don’t cross this new line or I really, really, really mean it this time!”  It sounds like a bad Monty Python sketch, not a coherent foreign policy.

As for me, I’ll opt for defending myself before I’m attacked, instead of waiting to be hit so I can claim the moral superiority in a fight.  Granted, it may subject me to insults and world criticism, but at least I’ll be alive to hear them.  As for you, I’d be happy to let all the bad people know where you live, so you can put your own theory about the proper way to deal with a threat to the test. ;-)

My friend B, the original pacifist-protagonist, gave it one last try, taking up the challenge I’d raised to construct a workable pacifist policy in light of the world as it is today, not as he wished it would be. To his credit he was entirely honest in his assessment, which I found to be a refreshing contrast to my liberal American friends, who concede nothing and deny everything regardless of the evidence at hand.  To quote the great Clint Eastwood, a man has got to know his limitations.

B: You asked me to construct a policy.  Here it is.  From a cold point of view, any war-torn nation led by me stands a very good chance to fail.  Hell, most peaceful nations led by me would have a hard time dealing with bullies, both foreign and domestic.

But that happens only because you asked me to work from the top down.  Unfortunately, as I painfully tried to show, pacifism doesn’t work well this way.  It must come from the people, not the government.  It must be ingrained in everyone’s minds.  It must be the credo and the motto of the Average Joe.  It must begin with you and me; we will work topside slowly, but steadily.

Now, my first impulse was to break out my love beads and launch into a rendition of “We are the World,” or maybe “The Age of Aquarius.”  But I took the moment instead to drive home the basic point that the real world demands real solutions.  The world needs people to dream about “what if” and think lovely thoughts.  We call them poets, and artists, and liberal political science faculty members. 

But protecting these pure-hearted visionaries from the bullies of the world are soldiers, cops, and gun-owning little old ladies who smack the bad men whenever they get too bold.  It allows the high moral values of the gifted class to be expressed frequently and with great passion, chastising those of us who are too coarse to appreciate their superior intellect because we’re overly-preoccupied fighting off the bad guys to keep them at bay.  Somebody has to clean the toilets so the deep thinkers can have a good flush, clearing their minds so they can think great thoughts another day.  And I guess we’re the ones who do it.

And so, it was in this frame of mind that I answered not as a member of the Intelligencia, but as the “Average Joe” who my Brazilian friend one day hopes will see the error of his ways.  If he succeeds in converting me, I’ll stop protecting him from aggression, and lay down my arms as a show of good faith to the terrorists who want to kill me because I worship a different God and let my wife drive a car.  Of course, he may not appreciate my evolution to a higher plane of thinking, since the fanatics who threaten us have no great regard for deep thinkers either, unless they’re devoting their days to figuring out how many homicide bomber’s virgins can dance on the head of a pin.
 
But then again, I don’t think he’ll be in a position to notice one way or another, since quite likely we’ll both be dead.  But we will be morally superior as we rot away in the shallow grave where they dump all the Infidels’ bodies.

Phil: I think you are confusing “pacifism” with something else.  Quakers in my country — the ultimate pacifists — still participated in war as medical personnel.  They, personally, could not take another life, but they recognized that some things were in fact worth fighting and dying for.

You, by contrast, seem to think that pacifism means never fighting (and therefore possibly killing) to defend something of great value; your liberty, your constitution, your family’s personal safety to name only three.

Pacifism is not the automatic surrender to aggression, which is what you and the others have in effect described.  (You will not kill under any circumstances.  Once the bad guy knows this, it’s all over for you).

True pacifism is an effort to find non-violent ways to pursue worthy goals, recognizing that at times a pacifist must support violence to defend the just.  This notion that some things are worth defending (other than your abstract, idealistic principles) is what’s missing from all your arguments.  Like most liberals, you profess to care deeply about others, but you focus only on yourselves.  If protecting a stranger from attack conflicts with feeling good about having a morally superior position, you’ll let the stranger die and keep the self-congratulatory philosophy intact.  Worse, you’ll extend this same notion to members of your own family.  Better to watch my wife being raped and my children eviscerated than risk having someone think I’m not a good person.

Believe it or not, conservatives like myself have values too that we hold dear and won’t compromise.  But they aren’t values borne of self-congratulation or expediency.  We don’t attack everyone who offends us, but we will attack those who mean to harm us. 

I, personally, have never killed anyone, and I hope I never do.  But I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to protect my family, or myself, or even a stranger from a genuine threat, even if it meant taking another person’s life.  I say this because the value system that underlies my thoughts and actions is based on protecting the innocent of the world as it exists today, not setting myself up as someone above the fray whose lofty principles matter more than everything else. 

This defense of the innocent may include preemptive action.  It’s not important to me to prove to others that my actions were justified, as would be the case by waiting for an attack to occur before acting.  My actions are just, or unjust, regardless of what other people think, by virtue of how they reflect or conflict with the core principles that guide them.  And I’ll put my action to protect the innocent up against your inaction to avoid hurting the innocent any day of the week.   Doing something may at times prove harmful, but doing nothing rarely ever proves helpful.

You told me once that a mugger attacked you, and you did not resist.  You were true to your pacifist instincts and principles, and this made you feel good about yourself.  But now consider this.  Had you fought back and defeated your attacker, you could have removed a serious threat to others.  By allowing yourself to be a victim to protect some lofty notion of pacifism, you’ve permitted an evil man to continue doing harm to others.  You’ve put other people in jeopardy, instead of taking action against the cause of this misery. 

Is this what you think pacifism is, giving a free hand to evil so you can claim the moral high ground for your inaction?

Apply this same logic to a nation, and you’ll understand why your brand of pacifism is morally bankrupt for an individual, and suicide for a country.

Look for the next chapter coming soon:  “Nuclear War, And Other Words Bush Can’t Pronounce.”

Looney Liberal Chronicles, The Left Wing

Read more articles by Phillip Ellis Jackson