July 19, 2005

The problem is that they felt good about it.

Spiegel interviews the novelist Ian McEwan about London, 7/7, Iraq, and, incidentally, his novel Saturday.

Excerpts:

What keeps getting forgotten here is that the people committing massacres in Iraq right now belong to al-Qaida. We're witnessing a civil war that's taking place in Islam. The most breathtaking statement was the one of al-Qaida claiming responsibility for the London bombings saying it was in return for the massacre in Iraq. But the massacres in Iraq now are being conducted by al-Qaida against Muslims.

I also think it's extraordinary the way in which we get morally selective in our outrages. When there was a rumor that someone at Guantanamo Bay had flushed a Koran down the lavatory, the pages in The Guardian almost caught fire with outrage, but only months before the Taliban had set fire to a mosque and destroyed 300 ancient Korans...

I never thought that in the run up to the war we were discussing simply the difference between war and peace. We were discussing the difference between war and continued torture and genocide and abuse of human rights by a fascist state. I missed any sense of that complexity in the peace camp. I certainly had the feeling that whatever the strong moral arguments were for deposing Saddam, the Americans would not be good nation-builders. But I had a moral problem with this view among the 2 million protesters that you should leave Saddam in power in a fascist state with 27 million Iraqis under him. The problem is that they felt good about it. I thought they should have opposed the war but also felt bad about it.

(via Bookslut.)

Posted by Dr. Frank at July 19, 2005 04:48 PM | TrackBack
Comments

As for the discrepencies in moral outrage, I think it's obvious. I don't want people performing outrageous acts on my behalf. Of course people are or at least should be outraged by anything Al Qaida or the Taliban does, but with US government actions, I'm supposed to have a say.

As far as leaving the Iraqi citizens under Sadam's regime. Is he saying that the peaceniks simply lacked compassion? I think its just a matter of people feeling that there was no way the benefits of regime change would exceed the costs of blood, money and political capitol. We're seeing that now. The Bush administration understood that; that's why the case for war was never based on liberation. That was just a happy side-effect. If the benefits of liberation exceeded the costs, you'd see a lot more regime change, and given the prohibitive nature of the Iraqi campaign, I doubt that it would be the place to start.

Posted by: josh at July 19, 2005 05:29 PM

Amen, brother.

Posted by: Mike H at July 19, 2005 05:31 PM

That "Amen" was in reference to the excerpts BTW. Not that I think Josh is wrong. But I also don't think McEwan was suggesting that the "peacniks simply lacked compassion". I think he meant that the peacniks lacked a broader vision of what is deserving of outrage. And liberation is quite a happy side-effect indeed.

Posted by: Mike H at July 19, 2005 05:49 PM

Well put, Josh. I also want to look at the first sentence in that excerpt: "What keeps getting forgotten here is that the people committing massacres in Iraq right now belong to al-Qaida. " Some of them must belong to AQ, although it's not clear to me if that means that they're part of an actual organization or simply adhere to certain extremist precepts. But one of the disastrous consequences of the occupation has been that the US has set up a situation where lots of people who otherwise don't agree with AQ or even necessarily wahabbi theology are motivated to join an insurgency simply because they want the US out. The assertion that everyone who's setting off bombs in Iraq is AQ is particularly damaging because it seems to fit into the totally unfounded assertions of Iraq's participation in 9/11 or alliance with bin Laden.

And to the extent that there is a civil war in Islam, guess what the US occupation has done? It's made anyone who opposes the most extremist, violent elements risk looking like a collaborator with what is very widely seen as an illegitimate occupation.

Lastly, no one should forget that bin Laden and Saddam once worked closely with/for the US. They were our clients. The American left has questioned and fought against these sort of "our SOB" relationships for decades, and I think continues to ask which of our current allies is likely to become Public Enemy #1 10 or 20 years from now. I personally think that the neo-con program both increases hostility to the US in the short and medium term, and encourages us to form alliances of convenience with unstable/dangerous regimes (e.g. Musharraf) that can replicate this disastrous dynamic in the long term.

Posted by: Nick at July 19, 2005 05:58 PM

It has been long believed that WWIII would be fought because of religion or race, the speculation had been that it'd be black vs white, Asia vs the West or Islam vs Hebrew. It is looking more and more like it'll be Islam vs the West so both parties were correct. I hate to go Hitler on anybody but wiping out Islam is looking more attractive on a daily basis.

Posted by: Zaphod at July 19, 2005 06:13 PM

Zaphod, I am not a Muslim, but take it from me:

It is not possible for "The West" to "wipe out" "Islam" (whatever that actually means) without destroying Israel, the Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, most of the Middle East, and democracy / civil society / life as we know it everywhere else in the world, assuming it survives.

Don't you think that's a big price to pay to take out an enemy whom you are not even certain is, in fact, an enemy?

Posted by: Aryamehr University at July 19, 2005 06:30 PM

I'm certain they're the enemy, not Bush and Blair as you'd have us believe, AU.

Posted by: Zaphod at July 19, 2005 07:25 PM

I don't believe that Islam, as a religion, is reponsible for current atrocities like the 9/11 attacks, Beslan, Bali, attacks against Iraqi civilians, Islamist slaughter of Buddhists in Thailand, the Islamist genocide in the Sudan, Arab slavery in Africa, etc. The influence of Wahhabism, and the political belief that everyone should live under Saudi/Talban style Shariah law, is responsible for these atrocities. And the Arab Ba'thists offer them some help now and then.

In Uganda, there's a group called the Lord's Resistance Army. They believe that their actions are based on the 10 Commandments. They also murder and enslave the women and children of the tribes they destroy. Their Lord's Resistance Army has about as much to do with the Bible as the genocidal Wahhabis have to do with Islam.

That said, as Mark Steyn famously said, the Arab armies combined "make Belgium look butch."

The Arab/Islamist armies combined aren't worth one nuke. They're hardly worth our missiles. Denmark & France could probably deal with the lot of them. It would be a sad trouncing of a lame opponent, but it would not be the end of the world as we know it.

Posted by: mary at July 19, 2005 11:16 PM

I think the view that the anti-war camp "felt good about it" is rather misrepresentative, actually.

If you go back to the major debate about beginning the current Iraq offensive, it was that the U.N., not the U.S., should be acting on Iraq. To brush aside the amount of protest that was directed at the unilateralist approach (and a unilateralist approach sold on a falsified premise of a nuclear threat, at that) is simply disingenuous.

Posted by: Wes at July 20, 2005 01:16 AM

Okay... in light of Zaphod's comments, perhaps more should be done to make people know that the great majority of Muslims are peaceful people. I thought that was obvious.

Zaphod, seriously, all kidding aside, you do kind of sound like Hitler when you say that shit. It's like saying all Christains should be wiped out because ogf those nuts that firebomb abortion clinic.

Posted by: Melody Chest at July 20, 2005 02:38 AM

''''That said, as Mark Steyn famously said, the Arab armies combined "make Belgium look butch." '''''

Mary, FYI, 75-80% of Muslims are not Arabs.

Posted by: Aryamehr University at July 20, 2005 02:54 AM

> Lastly, no one should forget that bin Laden and
> Saddam once worked closely with/for the US. They
> were our clients

A remarkably ignorant statement, made even moreso by the utter confidence with which it's fobbed off. While bin Laden did fight in Afghanistan during Soviet occupation, there's no evidence the CIA had any communication with him, let alone even knew he was. (See CNN terrorism expert Peter Bergen on this point.) And while it's tragically true that the US provided some limited logistical assistance to Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war, the statement rather occludes the far more active alliances and trading relations Saddam had with, well, basically the entire world-- most of his army was a product of China and Russian arms sales, and the WMD he actually used on the Iranians and Kurds was provided by the Germans and French. Look at this chart, and tell me if it suggests a "close" relationship:

http://www.command-post.org/archives/002978.html

Posted by: W. James Au at July 20, 2005 09:38 AM

"Mary, FYI, 75-80% of Muslims are not Arabs"

I said "Arab/Islamist armies" but the point is, the current Arab/Islamist strategy of brutality, making outrageous threats, then whining about humiliation and weakness can only work for a short time. This was always their strategy, it never worked before, so why should it work now?

Posted by: mary at July 20, 2005 02:12 PM

W James Au:

You are underestimating the extent of British and American involvement in aiding, supporting, and, in some cases, creating the very regimes and organizations which are now alleged to be problems created by the centuries old religious philosophy of Islam.

Here's something that came out on Reuters only a few hours ago:

London mayor says West fueled Islamic radicalism

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050720/ts_nm/security_britain_mayor_dc_1;_ylt=ApMwQ4JK32jWq1vyYU1omku9Q5gv;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

"You've just had 80 years of Western intervention into predominantly Arab lands because of a Western need for oil. We've propped up unsavory governments, we've overthrown ones that we didn't consider sympathetic," Livingstone said.

And:

"If you have been under foreign occupation, and denied the right to vote, denied the right to run your own affairs, often denied the right to work, for three generations, I suspect if it had happened here in England, we would have produced a lot of suicide bombers ourselves," he said on Wednesday.

Posted by: Aryamehr University at July 20, 2005 05:27 PM
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