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Wed. Feb 05, 2003

Remembered Distrust

Remembered Distrust – Lately I’ve found myself a bit angry, and somehow “out of sorts” when I hear certain discussions about Iraq, specifically many of those coming from abroad (and this has nothing to do with Colin Powell’s UN speech, which I unfortunately did not see). Since I’m very confident in my personal position and convictions, I’ve been trying put a finger on the source of this anger, and on whether it’s really even anger. However, you may not want to put your finger there…

I’m going to speak generically here about Europeans, knowing fully well they are nearly as diverse in opinion as the US (evidenced later), a spectrum of individuals, not a monolithic and monochromatic organism. However, that’s the way Americans are often treated (just a bunch of Cowboy Clones), and the way this debate is often framed. So be it. If you’re unfairly splattered with paint from my broad brush, my apologies, but there’s a point.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve heard a lot of comments from European leaders, seen comments within my weblog, heck, comments all over the place that have a distinct tone of condescension and moral superiority. It’s the kind of thing I normally absorb with minimal heating, but lately, it steams me.

There’s a base assumption that the European approach is not merely more evolved than the Neanderthal American approach, it’s a proven course. One Europeans have walked many times. Well, when advice of that type is given in that manner, isn’t it advisable to, shall we say, check their references? Confirm their bonafides? Look at their history?

I know what you’re thinking, I’ve seen this movie before, and there’s first talk of WWII, which then moves to slavery, and finally to genocide against Native Americans. We’re not going there. I’m not even going to invoke Godwin’s Law. These “we were bad but you were worse” history debates quickly degenerate beyond relevancy to the current issue, as it goes further and further back. Before you know it, we’re talking about the actions of men who didn’t even know it was a good idea to bathe more than once per week. If they couldn’t suss that out with their own nose, I’m willing to accept they may have made some serious misjudgments in other areas as well, none of which are relevant to today.

So, let’s just talk about the past decade or so, hmmm? That would constrain the discussion to events that might apply in today’s world.

And when I do that, I zero in on the source of my recent anger. I look for some foundation of success on which Europeans are basing their current advice. And I look. And I look. All the initiatives attempting to bring peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians seem to have American names attached … “Camp David,” “The Mitchell Plan,” etc. Perhaps I’m just getting old and forgetful, but I cannot recall one single European based initiative to bring peace to the Middle East (and a search for “European peace initiative” is notably fruitless). In fact, the Oslo Accords have that name primarily because the participants chose Norway as somewhere they’d be left alone by everyone.

When I look back at the past decade within Europe, well, be thankful these things called weblogs didn’t exist in the early 90’s. I would have been a One Note Johnny, loudly so, and the tune would have been “Genocide is happening again, while Europe does nothing!” Seeing the horrible assaults in Bosnia, at the former site of the Olympics, and recognizing it for what it was, just tore me up terribly. I was furious that no one was doing anything about it. Muslims did not rise up to support their Bosnian brothers and sisters. Jews did not stand up and scream “Never again” at the sight of genocide. And worst of all, Europeans stood by while Bosnian blood was splattered over their lawn furniture, right in their own backyard.

There’s a quarter million deaths on their heads due to complete inaction. And they want to tell me that we’re moving too hastily? I’m not impressed with their track record of patient diplomacy. All it did was generate gravestones. And, in me, a near terminal distrust of their source.

And then it got worse. It was eventually decided that, rather than try to actually stop the killing, the UN would create what they called “safe havens.” I believe there were six of them in Bosnia, places where people could leave their home and go live like a refugee so they wouldn’t be killed.

Except, they didn’t even get that protection. Without firing a shot, the UN handed over those in one safe haven to genocide. From the BBC: “The official Dutch report into the Srebrenica massacre says the Dutch Government and the United Nations must share responsibility for Europe’s worst atrocity since World War II. UN peacekeepers from the Netherlands failed to prevent the killing of thousands of Muslims in the Bosnian town when it was overrun by Serb forces in 1995, at the height of Bosnia’s civil war [...] The United Nations had declared the town a safe area but it fell to the Serbs without the 110-strong UN contingent firing a shot and up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys were then executed.”

“The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague has ruled that the massacre constituted genocide.”

Not only did the UN fail to stop genocide, they actually made it easier, by rounding up Bosnians under the false pretense of offering safety and protection, and then failing to expend one single bullet on their behalf.

And you want me to trust the European/UN approach to conflict resolution?!?

No, sir. You’ve given me no good reason, and several strongly to the contrary. So when people say, “The US going to war? What about the UN going to war?” I have to ask, is that what you really want? Another Bosnia? Simply look at the UN’s track record when it comes to conflict resolution by military means. Simply look at the European’s track record when it comes to conflict resolution by diplomatic means.

Take it from someone who has to deal with them: “When the Europeans demand some sort of veto over American actions, or want us to subordinate our national interest to a UN mandate, they forget that we do not think their track record is too good,’ a senior U.S. diplomat said recently in private. ’The Europeans told us they could win the Balkans wars all on their own. Wrong. They told us that the Russians would never accept National Missile Defense. Wrong. They said the Russians would never swallow NATO enlargement. Wrong. They told us 20 years ago that dtente was the way to deal with what we foolishly called the Evil Empire. Wrong again. They complain about our Farm Bill when they are the world’s biggest subsidizers of their agriculture. The Europeans are not just wrong; they are also hypocrites. They are wrong on Kyoto, wrong on Arafat, wrong on Iraq—so why should we take seriously a single word they say?’ ”

An honest appraisal of those thin records reveals no reason to put any weight behind the advice. In fact, it’s almost a counter-indicator. So when I hear the usually condescending tones of European/UN advice, I wonder, based on what bonafides? Patterned after which diplomatic success? Modeled on what completed peace initiative?

Does the US bat .1000 in these departments? No. But we have precedents and experience. We at least make strong and regular attempts to create an Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and we seem to be the only ones who even try! In the past decade or so, it has largely been our actions … our military actions … that freed the Kuwaiti’s, the Kosovars, and the Afghans. Soon, we’ll add the Iraqi’s to that list.

Where-oh-where is the list of similar European accomplishments? Where have the Europeans brought Arafat and an Israeli leader together, and what oppressed peoples have they freed? All I see is a trail of blood leading to the graves of 250,000 Bosnians, Croatians, and Kosovars, a complete vacuum of Middle East peace initiatives, and a whole lot of talk. Little if any actual action, but much advice.

However, as I said, I’m using a broad brush, and the terms of this debate have been framed by others. There are many in Europe who “get it,” and we hear it more each day. David Aaronovitch in the Observer makes an excellent point: “If leaders must take responsibility for these terrible failures, then so must those who always urge inaction. Over Bosnia, Kosovo and over Afghanistan, voices on both the Left and Right have been consistently raised to object to the use of force. Where these voices have belonged to pacifists, they have my respect, but most often they have belonged to the purely selfish, the pathologically timid, or to those who somehow believed that however bad things were in Country X, the Americans were always worse.”

“I do not believe that George Bush is the manic oil-chimp of caricature. His administration really does have a view that it is necessary to remove Saddam pour dcourager les autres. It will, they have convinced themselves, show resolve, deter state terrorism, discourage proliferation and permit the building of a rare non-tyranny in the Arab world. There is something to be said for all this.”

And then we have Julie Burchill in the Guardian, who at least manages to keep her life long anti-Americanism from blinding her to the right course on Iraq: “I speak as someone who was born and raised to be anti-American; I know that, even in my lifetime, America has behaved monstrously in Latin America, Indo-China and its own southern states. I was against the US because, whenever people sought autonomy, freedom and justice, it was against them. But that narrative is ended now and a new configuration has emerged.”

“The new enemies of America, and of the west in general, believe that these countries promote too much autonomy, freedom and justice. They are the opposite of socialism even more than they are the opposite of capitalism. They are against light, love, life – and to attempt to pass them the baton of enlightenment borne by the likes of Mandela and Guevara is woefully to misunderstand the nature and desires of what Christopher Hitchens (a life-long man of the left) described as ’Islamo-fascism’.”

“When you look back at the common sense and progressiveness of arguments against American intervention in Vietnam, Chile and the like, you can’t help but be struck by the sheer befuddled babyishness of the pro-Saddam apologists.”

Unlike Ms. Burchill, I won’t declare that those who oppose military action against Iraq are “pro-Saddam apologists.” My brush isn’t quite that broad. But I will say to those who speak in tones of condescension about the superiority of the European approach…

....Bullshit.

You’ve got no successes on which you can base your theories, you’ve just got a pile of all-talk-no-action and a quarter million corpses in your backyard. And no real proposal with substance. Or even seriousness. Tom Friedman: “So pardon me if I don’t take seriously all the Euro-whining about the Bush policies toward Iraq — for one very simple reason: It strikes me as deeply unserious. It’s not that there are no serious arguments to be made against war in Iraq. There are plenty. It’s just that so much of what one hears coming from German Chancellor Gerhard Schrder and French President Jacques Chirac are not serious arguments. They are station identification [...] And where this comes from, alas, is weakness. Being weak after being powerful is a terrible thing. It can make you stupid. It can make you reject U.S. policies simply to differentiate yourself from the world’s only superpower. Or, in the case of Mr. Chirac, it can even prompt you to invite Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe — a terrible tyrant — to visit Paris just to spite Tony Blair. Ah, those principled French.”

And now, I’m able to tie it all together a little better in my head. My current anger goes directly back to Bosnia, the glaring failings of the Diplomacy Uber Alles approach, and the hundreds of thousands of lives it cost. I’m incensed at condescending advice from those who allowed genocide to occur again, in their own backyard, in the last decade. I’m triply incensed at those charged with defending them, who instead turned them over to their death rather than fight for what was right.

I do not ever want my safety to be dependent on that source of advice, or on that kind of protection.

And as a closing explanation of why I won’t be responding to any rebuttals in the comments, and could even turn them off for the first time ever, I leave you with Julie Burchill: “So, all in all, and at the risk of being extremely babyish myself, I’d go so far as to say that my argument’s bigger than yours. Of course, you think the same about your side. And we won’t change our minds. Ever. So let’s do each other a favour and agree not to rattle each other’s cages (playpens?) until the whole thing’s over. Free speech and diversity – let’s enjoy it! Even though our brothers and sisters, the suffering, tortured slaves of Saddam, can’t. Yet. Still, soon.”