Prostitution of the pen and the dark side of the free market

[fpb]

Four years ago, the government of the French Republic took the lead in refusing to support the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. The French, who had taken a very active and successful part in the first Iraq war, simply did not think that an invasion followed by the occupation of an Arab country was a good idea. That was their prerogative (see under "sovereign state").

(My position was that I loathed Saddam Hussein so much that anyone who wanted to drive him out was fine by me. I would even have supported an Iranian invasion. But I would not have started to insult people who disagreed.)

The idiot part of the American right suddenly made France the bout of all their hatred. Someone spotted a market opportunity, as Americans do (the French do that as well, but when the French do it, that's evil!) and prostituted a certain amount of historical knowledge in the search for a quick buck, producing some sort of tract which rewrote history with the claim that "France have always been our enemy, but they have concealed it under a pretence of friendship".

I would dismiss this intellectually contemptible and factually fraudulent thesis in as many words, and not even bother about it, were it not that one of the finest minds in my f-list seems to have been taken in by it. As it is, I want to ask how you imagine you can trace a consistent attitude of hatred, and what is more, of subtly disguised hatred, in a nation that has, since the foundation of the United States, experienced three royalist constitutions, five republican ones, two bonapartist ones, and one fascist tyranny, and completely boxed the compass in terms of attitudes, views, and alliances. This is the kind of things that rabid anti-Semites postulate about Jews - attitudes consistent across the centuries, constant vicious subtlety in carrying them out, hatred fertile in invention but completely barren of reason. The French ought to be proud: they have been promoted to the rank of Chosen People, next to that other target of unreasoning, blind, stupid, despicable hatred. In case anyone had any doubts, I regard Jew-bashing as a stain on the face of mankind.

No doubt the prostitute or prostitutes who set out on this bit of free enterprise got out of it what they wanted - money, admiting letters from ignorami and fanatics, and the odd spot on TV talk shows; rewards that serious historians get rather less often. But as we are still free people here, I want to use my own freedom of expression, rather less despicably than the prostitute or prostitutes concerned: first, by calling whoredom by its proper name; and second, by stating clearly that there shall be no pity here for such views. The historical slag or slags who sold their integrity for popular success will not be treated as anything but filth, and anyone who takes them seriously is warned that I will do what is in my power to restore them to sanity.

Comments

I'll leave you and <lj user = kulibali> to argue this out

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Only I would never have even thought of making such a statement as: "half- to quarter-civilized African joke-nations which probaly need some recolonization anyway...

Re: I'll leave you and <lj user = kulibali> to argue this out

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Only I would never have even thought of making such a statement as: "half- to quarter-civilized African joke-nations which probaly need some recolonization anyway...

Really? How would you describe them?

"Failed states" is just a more polite way of saying the same thing.

Re: I'll leave you and <lj user = kulibali> to argue this out

[fpb.livejournal.com]

The word "failed states" is commonly used of five states, two of which are not found in Africa: Somalia, Liberia, Zimbabwe, the Palestinian Authority, and Afghanistan. Your application of it to the other forty-plus states of black Africa is unsuitable and irrelevant, and shows little familiarity with the real issues in Africa. If you visited Nigeria or South Africa, you would not feel that you were in a "Quarter-civilized African joke nation" - unless prejudice got in the way.

Re: I'll leave you and <lj user = kulibali> to argue this out

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

The word "failed states" is commonly used of five states, two of which are not found in Africa: Somalia, Liberia, Zimbabwe, the Palestinian Authority, and Afghanistan.

You're ignoring a whole mess of Sub-Saharan African states here, including (offhand) Zimbabwe and Rwanda. Anyway, I never said that Africa was the only home of failed states; simply that it is one of the places they are commonly found. Which is true.

I have no prejudice against black people. I have a lot of prejudice against post-colonials sub-Saharan African states, however, based on the historical examples. They tend to be incredibly violent and sadistic dictatorships, with their origin in atrocious civil wars. This is reality; the idea of sub-Saharan Africa as "just another part of the world" is a comforting fantasy.

Re: I'll leave you and <lj user = kulibali> to argue this out

[dirigibletrance.livejournal.com]

I know a girl from Nigeria that was going to college here in the States for a while. Beautiful girl, and a devout Catholic, and more than a little intelligent.

She had little good to say about her home country. She spent a great deal of time telling me about the problems with local warlords that the government was either unable or unwilling to put down, about fighting between muslims and Christians, about the extreme poverty and lack of education, and about how, in her view, the current government of the country is run by "thugs". She used the word "barbaric" to describe the state of her own country, more than once.

And she lived in the city, where most of the time they had electricity, running water, public transportation, and the internet. I imagine in rural areas, it was even worse.

So, "quarter-civilized", while a rather rough and rude description, may not necessarily be a bad one. At least, for Zona's experience of Nigeria, anyway. (She is back there now, and stuck, due to problems with extending her Student Visa.)

Re: I'll leave you and <lj user = kulibali> to argue this out

[fpb.livejournal.com]

She had little good to say of Nigeria - well, you should hear me about Italy once I get going. The point is that, in spite of all the corruption - and even worse, of the Muslim incubus in the north - Nigeria, especially southern Nigeria, has created a lively society with a considerable amount of economic activity. I cannot see it ever reverting to the barbarity of Liberia, unless of course the Muslims start a major civil war.

Re: I'll leave you and <lj user = kulibali> to argue this out

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

I cannot see it ever reverting to the barbarity of Liberia, unless of course the Muslims start a major civil war.

If we lose the War on Terror, that becomes when the Muslims start a major civil war, with the Muslim faction aided from the outside by the Terrorist States.

Re: I'll leave you and <lj user = kulibali> to argue this out

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Get used to the fact that there is no war to win or to lose. There is a condition that applies across the world, whereas a certain group may at any time sprout violent men for no apparent reason. It is one of the many unpleasant features of human life, or of modern life if you will, like corporate corruption or political incompetence. You cannot put an end to it with any wars, although military campaigns can be one of the many means by which you work to bind, placate, block, or disable this tendency. To think of it in terms of a war is miserably restrictive and sure to fail. Remember the "war on poverty"? The war on terror - or even on Islam - will fail for the same reasons; because just like the poor, the fanatics are always with us. And what is worse, once you formulate the issue in those terms, you encourage your political enemies to point at the inevitable strategic failure of your efforts and conclude that the whole idea of a WoT was a delusion and that there is no problem. We are seeing Nancy Pelosi and some European lefties do so every day of the week. And the point is that the problem is not too small, but too big to be defined as a war. It is a part of life. And we must get used to seeing it as such. The sooner we drop these silly macho and ultimately escapist formulas - "war on crime", "war on poverty", "war on terror", "war on drugs" - the sooner we shall be ready and able to confront crime, poverty, fanaticism and drugs as they really are.

Re: I'll leave you and <lj user = kulibali> to argue this out

[kulibali.livejournal.com]

Heh. If you object to this characterization, then you must accept that France's interference was not justified.

The conflict in Cote d'Ivoire (formerly one of the _most_ civilized nations in sub-saharan Africa) also involved spill-over from the Liberian disaster, financed by blood diamonds and, oh yeah, the French hardwood industry.

Re: I'll leave you and <lj user = kulibali> to argue this out

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Poorly reasoned. A country may suffer from a civil war even without being a "failed state"; and other countries may see fit to intervene in the civil war, on one side or another, or even in order to stop both from fighting. And conversely, a "failed state" may exist for a decade or more, as it did in Somalia, without any serious fighting; and its situation may be resolved, as in both Somalia and Afghanistan, by civil war and/or outside intervention.

Re: I'll leave you and <lj user = kulibali> to argue this out

[kulibali.livejournal.com]

You can't have it both ways.

If other countries "may see fit to intervene", then the US may see fit to invade Iraq (whose war with the Kurds and Shia was only held in check by continuing US presence -- this was one of the points in JHR-114), and France should not criticise, given that it was also engaged in intervention.

If the US invasion was not legitimate (warmongering cowboyism, remember, not just a bad idea), then neither was France's, and France should not criticise.

Re: I'll leave you and <lj user = kulibali> to argue this out

[fpb.livejournal.com]

You really seem determined to put words in my mouth. I never said that the US had no right to intervene in Iraq. To the contrary, I said - check the original post - that I loathed Saddam so much that I would have regarded even an Iranian invasion as preferable to his horrors. What I am against, from beginning to end, is the hypocritical and ignorant American rhetoric on France.

Let me make it quite clear: I loathe people who put words in my mouth. It is the one thing that makes me see red. This is the last warning. Either answer what I wrote, or get out of here.

Re: I'll leave you and <lj user = kulibali> to argue this out

[kulibali.livejournal.com]

I never said that you said the US had no right to intervene. I said earlier, and implied in the my last comment, that _France_ said it.

In general, my entire argument has been: if it was legitimate for France to invade Cote d'Ivoire, then it was hypocritical for France to criticise the US for invading Iraq. Thus those who criticize France for said hypocricy are at least somewhat justified.

In this particular thread, you expressed distaste at the characterization (by another poster) of African countries as "half- to quarter-civilized African joke-nations", etc.

I then said that if such African nations are in fact civilized, then France should not have invaded them.

You then said that one may invade even a civilized nation if necessary.

I responded with a syllogism (note the "if" beginning the two clauses, denoting a counterfactual) that showed that regardless of whether one thinks it might be legitimate to intervene in other countries' affairs or not, French criticism of the US's invasion would be hypocritical.

I have so far responsed exactly and precisely to what you wrote. You have still not addressed my core argument, instead dismissing it as a "red herring".

Re: I'll leave you and <lj user = kulibali> to argue this out

[fpb.livejournal.com]

No they are not. For a start, my recollection is that the insults began on the US side, with Rumsfeld's cretinous distinction between "old Europe" and "new Europe", the "new Europe" being represented, if you please, by Berlusconi. This was not only a deliberate insult to two major allies, delivered in public by a major member of the US administration - the Secretary of State for Defence - it was also quite incredibly uncomprehending. The truth was that even those European governments - Spain, Poland, Britain, Italy - which did originally support the American initiative, did so because it was an American intiative. I mean that it would have occurred to no Pole, Italian, Spaniard or Briton that their governments, were they led only by their own perceptions and interests, would have even began to think of invading any Arab state. In the eyes of everyone, this was an American war; therefore, to insult France and Germany for being too gutless and decadent to fight it was not only stupid, it was an affront to their sovereignty. It was the master calling the slave lazy and stupid for not jumping at the master's command. I recall being utterly astonished that Rumsfeld kept his job after that outburst - and for three disastrous years after. And I would like it pointed out to me where Chirac ever made a statement half as demeaning towards America as Rumsfeld's was towards France and Germany. And Rumsfeld's statement, being unpunished, set the tone; from then on, in the American right, it was open season on France. So France retaliated; I would have been surprised had they not.

What is more, the French and European objection was not necessarily to war as such. It was to the notion of invading and occupying an Arab country. As everyone knows, all western secret services, certainly including the French and German ones, were convinced that Saddam did have weapons of mass destruction. Their point was simply that to invade and occupy an Arab country was to ask for trouble. And I remember saying, at the time, that the Americans will only succeed in this war if, within a year from victory, they will have withdrawn from Iraq; otherwise, I said, their whole army of occupation will become nothing but the biggest body of hostages in recorded history, there to be assaulted and murdered by the locals. When I saw the incredibly fumbling early steps of the occupation, I expected the worst - at least, the worst I could imagine (even my imagination did not stretch to monsters hideous enough to repeatedly massacre their own fellow-countrymen merely in order to make the occupation harder for the enemy). So tell me I was wrong; tell me that Bush did not go into this military adventure with criminal light-headedness; tell me that he did not deserve, whether or not Chirac applied it to him, the epithet of a warmongering, empty-headed space cadet. There is no evidence whatever that the Americans had any plan at all for the after-Saddam. And just exactly because the French have some considerable experience of intervention in foreign countries, they ought to have been listened to in this. Their intervention in Africa is always to support existing government or to put specific and clearly identified parties in power. This may be hypocritical, but it is less criminally inept than to march into an Arab country and expect a finished democratic government to drop from heaven.

Re: I'll leave you and <lj user = kulibali> to argue this out

[kulibali.livejournal.com]

The insults began in the fall of 2002, after France made it clear that it would veto any Security Council resolution, while holding the rights to Iraqi oil. Cui bono?

If Rumsfeld's words were insulting, what were Chirac's, when he said that England, Poland, Denmark, Romania, Georgia, Czech Republic, Latvia, Albania, Lithuania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Estonia, Macedonia, Moldova, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Spain, Hungary, Norway, Portugal, Iceland, and, oh yes, Italy, "missed a good opportunity to sit down and shut up."

As an aside, you will note that much of my personal revulsion towards French hypocricy in foreign policy stems from their economic support of Charles Taylor in Liberia (which informs and supports my opinion of their stance on the Iraq war), a point I've raised here several times without response.

On the question of the forseen or actual difficulty of the invasion, indeed I will tell you flatly that you were wrong. Bush invaded Iraq as part of a multifaceted global military, economic and humanitarian strategy (again I suggest you read Kaplan's _Imperial Grunts_, to start), which has been elucidated time and again by him and his administration. As for Iraq in particular, there were 23 separate counts in Joint House Resolution 114, 17 UN Security Council resolutions, several of them authorizing military action, one broken treaty from 1991, and _six months_ of diplomatic wrangling with France, Germany, Russia & China. Hardly light-headed. Do you really think that Saddam would have stayed quiescent once the sanctions were down, given his history of repeatedly attacking his own citizens as well as his neighbors? You are concerned about American military "hostages"; what about the 30,000/year of his own people that Saddam killed, according to Human Rights Watch? Bush himself repeatedly said, in his 2003 State of the Union address and elsewhere, said that the road would be long and difficult.

As you will know, the US has some small prior experience with invading countries and imposing democracy on them. Just because the process has been difficult and fraught with error and difficulty so far does not mean the goal is not worth trying for! Don't make the perfect the enemy of the good.

The American occupation of Japan lasted almost 7 years, until April 28, 1952, and American troops are there to this day. The American, British and French occupation of West Germany lasted four to ten years, depending on your definitions, and American troops are there to this day. I'll bet you a (Canadian) dollar that the situation in Iraq will be much different in 2013 than it is today.

Re: I'll leave you and <lj user = kulibali> to argue this out

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Here you fall into sheer rhetoric, and I think you realize what you are doing. Umpteen-squinchy UN resolutions do not add up to one plan, and I insist that American actions on the ground show that they had no idea what they meant to do with a nation that was anyway going to be infinitely more difficult to administer than Germany or Japan. Nor does the precedent of Germany and Japan, whether or not it proves any ability on the part of those who took part in it, prove much of anything - it was sixty years ago. Its protagonists, you may have noticed, are all dead.

Re: I'll leave you and <lj user = kulibali> to argue this out

[fpb.livejournal.com]

England, Poland, Denmark, Romania, Georgia, Czech Republic, Latvia, Albania, Lithuania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Estonia, Macedonia, Moldova, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Spain, Hungary, Norway, Portugal, Iceland, and, oh yes, Italy...
Not a single one of whose public opinions favoured intervention. This was strictly a matter of political leaderships following the Americans, and, in most countries that matter (the presence of Bulgaria or Moldova in the field does not offer anyone much of anything), being punished for this. The Tory Blur has been forced out of his seat by his own party, who fear disaster at the next elections because of the immense unpopularity of the war (not improved by the recent humiliating display in the face of Iran); Aznar and Berlusconi are gone; it is only in Poland, and strictly for internal reasons, that a more pro-American government is in the saddle. Indeed, this may be said of the war: that without it the odious and incompetent Prodi and Zapatero governments, with their viciously divisive policies, would never have reached power. They will probably - please God! - lose the next elections, but that will not make Iraq any more popular in Italy or Spain.

Re: I'll leave you and <lj user = kulibali> to argue this out

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

What is more, the French and European objection was not necessarily to war as such. It was to the notion of invading and occupying an Arab country. As everyone knows, all western secret services, certainly including the French and German ones, were convinced that Saddam did have weapons of mass destruction. Their point was simply that to invade and occupy an Arab country was to ask for trouble.

Why should Arab countries be granted special passes on account of their "Arabness?" Given the demonstrated military incompetence of the Arabs, I would argue the opposite -- and I think that Dubya's "Bring it on" was one of his few intelligent statements; it laid down a gauntlet that so far has resulted in a lot of Arab terrorists who might have hit New York or London and Paris leaving their bones sprayed into a lot of other Arabs, keeping the dying in dar al Islam -- where it BELONGS.

Re: I'll leave you and <lj user = kulibali> to argue this out

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Because, invade one, and you will have to invade them all. And square or compel the rest of the Muslim world. Arab borders are porous, and it takes no effort at all for mujaheddeen and suicide bombers to cross them. Japan or Germany could be handled in isolation, having a cohesive and clearly recognizable population or culture: the borders between Arab nations, on the other hand, are almost entirely artificial.

Quelling the Infection

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Because, invade one, and you will have to invade them all.

Then ... given your assumption ... we should invade them all, and make the experience so unpleasant for them that the next time one Arab country is tempted to come to the defense of an Arab aggressor receiving its just punishment, the leadership thinks "Hmm, nope, I remember the last time we did this and we lost twenty years of economic development, we'll sit this one out.

But I find your assumption not borne out by history. Historically, Arab countries have repeatedly been defeated in isolation, with no or few other Arab states coming to their defense. Right now, in Iraq, our problems are with Syria (Arab) and Iran (Aryan), while Jordan (Arab) and Egypt (Arab), to take two examples, are not only not helping the rebels but are actively helping suppress attempts to aid them. In the Arab-Israeli Wars, non-frontline Arab states generally delivered only token and ineffectual aid to the Arab side: in some of the wars, no aid at all.

In Afghanistan, we do indeed have a problem with an "ally" actually providing sanctuary for Al Qaeda and the Taliban -- but that ally is Pakistan, an Aryan (not Arab) country. Indeed, one of the just critiques of the Iraq Campaign is that we should have finished off the Taliban first, and if we had not been involved in Iraq we could have exerted far more pressure on Pakistan to deny sanctuary to the foe.

Arab borders are porous, and it takes no effort at all for mujaheddeen and suicide bombers to cross them.

Neutral Arab states should act to capture and imprison such malefactors: those states which do not should be considered as our next targets. I see no problem with widening a war against those who believe that they can claim neutrality while aiding our enemies ... though, as I mentioned, that's a smaller problem than you're implying.

I think that the much-dreaded fanatical fury of the Arabs, and of Islam as a whole, is a gigantic bluff, with just enough reality behind it to cow the timorous. In fact the "fanatical" Arabs have been easy meat in both conventional and guerilla wafare, and even as terrorists mostly ineffectual, save against their own civilian populations. So far in Iraq we have taken very light losses and inflicted horrendous losses upon the enemy: and every young Terrorist killed in Iraq is a virus no longer able to spread.

Think of the US Armed Forces as the planet's white blood cells :)