Comments on: Spoiling for a fight?

By: brett

brett — Mon, 01 Mar 2004 18:24:47 +0000

Two half-assed quotes from 2000? That’s your evidence for the proposition that the right is unserious about the war? Wishful thinking at best.

By: Rajeev Advani

Rajeev Advani — Tue, 24 Feb 2004 22:58:46 +0000

You say that Hitchens defected to pro-war because of a good fight? He doubtless enjoys controversy, but your stipulation is more than a bit reductive and insulting. Hitchens has long believed, since the 1989 fatwa on Rushdie, that the left is soft on Islamofascists. What brought him to the prowar side was this, and the fact that his Kurdish friends owed their lives to Bush Sr.—an undeniable fact that forced him to re-examine his position and grapple with one very straightforward question, a question that the hard left (for whom he was writing) ducked: is this war good for the Iraqi people? His answer was in the affirmative. I have further qualms with Robin’s article, regarding the so-called change after 9/11. Nation building has always been acceptable to neoconservatives, who’ve always had a revolutionary doctrine. Yet nation building is still not supported by the realist wing of the conservative establishment—to them it’s more of a temporary adjustment in policy for security concerns. Both ideologies were intact before and after 9/11, only the neocons won the spotlight in the aftermath. And what’s this talk of permanent revolution? The realist wing of the conservative movement wants nothing to do with it, and the hard Wilsonians have set goals in mind to build a stable world. Finally, in regard to Josh Marshall on Orwell moments. This is not one of them? I realize this website is of a very respectable soft left disposition, but is Mr. Marshall not aware of the hard left’s bankrupt worldview post 9/11? Activists Arundhati Roy and Tariq Ali openly call on the world to establish a new economic front against the American occupation troops. They seek to subvert America’s attempts to implant democracy in Iraq, in the name of anti-globalization. And many, many people believe them. Frankly, when so many are taken by this imperial fiction while refusing to take fascism at face value, we are indeed in an Orwellian moment.

By: John Smith

John Smith — Fri, 20 Feb 2004 23:04:34 +0000

What’s the point of being the greatest, most powerful nation in the world and not having an imperial role? Reminds me of those morons in the belligerent countries (and not only the Second Reich) who, at the start of the First World War, welcomed the war as an end to decadence and a chance to practice the higher virtues of bravery, endurance and all that jazz. Do we put Kristol’s rantings down to senility or alcohol – or was he just funning with the assistant prof? Or is this some kind of Mutt and Jeff? Having just refreshed my memory of Bush’s National Security Strategy, it’s amazing how modest and temperate a document it appears by comparison….

By: Grant

Grant — Fri, 20 Feb 2004 20:18:18 +0000

I get the impression that Mrs. Buckley’s approach to sex is too business-like.

By: Henry Farrell

Henry Farrell — Fri, 20 Feb 2004 19:50:51 +0000

Thanks – correction made.

By: Steve Carr

Steve Carr — Fri, 20 Feb 2004 18:29:39 +0000

Corey Robin wrote the Boston Review article, not Robin Green.

By: james

james — Fri, 20 Feb 2004 18:02:32 +0000

Josh Marshall said something great along tose line recently: “These are complex questions, ones not easily reasoned through by the standard nah-nah-nah. But there are some folks who can’t get over their 1939-envy, their hunger for the Orwell moment. But this wasn’t one of them. It never was. And the failure to understand that—whether by deception or myopia or an honest mistake or the simple need for drama that is the curse of intellectuals—has done us real harm.” And your right that politics as antidote to ennui is profoundly unserious and lamentably widespread, in various ideological circles. It’s also terribly tempting.

By: Barry

Barry — Fri, 20 Feb 2004 17:06:32 +0000

It’s part of a larger picture – the right wants to win. They don’t believe in ‘honorable second’, or ‘honorable opposition’. The right also understands the power of the attack. In the recent Bush-AWOL flap, they immediately attacked Max Cleland, after having viciously attacked him during the ‘02 elections. It does help, of course, that the right has far more media access than the left does.