War and the Marginalization of Political Thought

In a process without precedent, America has been, for more than a year, walking slowly…toward an optional war. Optional, that is, in the sense that although it is a defensible choice, it is a choice. War has not been unambiguously thrust upon us, as in 1861 by secession, or in 1917 by unrestricted submarine warfare, or in 1941 by surprise attack, or by aggression across international borders as in June 1950 or August 1990. Yet the left cannot mount a critique [of the coming Iraq war] that rises above rock lyrics and name-calling.

~ George Will, Jan. 23, 2003

Even well-read men like George Will can marginalize opponents and disregard opposing arguments.

Will characterizes opponents of his pro-war argument with the old stand-by metaphor, “the Left.” This term, along with its counterpart, “the Right,” is perfectly fine and useful as long as one knows what ideological group one is referring to.

But network news, cable television, radio (i.e. Rush Limbaugh), and many print and Internet sources seem to think that political ideologies work only along a two-dimensional line. Hence, whoever is against war is on “the Left,” and whoever is for war is on “the Right.” Other political issues are similarly polarized.

Thus anyone who offers a viewpoint different than the two standard viewpoints gets pushed to the edges of this two-dimensional line with the appropriate metaphors: “left-wing,” “right-wing,” “extreme right,” and “extreme left.” These terms become pejoratives. “Centrists” and “moderates,” ostensibly friendly to both Left and Right (e.g. any Senator willing to change political parties in exchange for a committee chair), are given geometric terms placing them safely in the middle of the line.

Now this shallow way of thinking about politics omits the many and varied types of political thought abounding in the country. It also disregards the possibility that “the Left” and libertarians, or “the Right” and Trotskyites, could agree on one particular issue. And in the case of the coming war, it ignores the many well thought-out critiques of Bush's war against Iraq by disparate parties, parties including libertarians, paleoconservatives, and Christian just-war adherents.

Some of their arguments against Will's above statement might follow thusly:

George Will thrusts upon us, as examples of unmitigated necessity for going to war, the “unambiguous” wars fought by the United States. Nevermind that those wars were in fact choices made by calculating politicians. Or that, except for the Civil War, those wars were fought far from our own continent.

One arguable rule for fighting war is that the only unavoidable wars occur when one's homeland is being invaded. This leaves World War II, from Will's examples, as perhaps the only necessary American war. However, even the necessity for it is historically debatable.

Even singular, deadly events – such as the sinking of the munitions-carrying Lusitania in 1915 – offer an ambiguous choice for war. Otherwise, the '79 Iranian hostage crisis, the '83 Beirut embassy bombing, the '93 WTC bombing, and the almost inexhaustible list of terrorist attacks in the last twenty years should have unambiguously caused declarations of war. And since the US bombed the Chinese embassy in '99, perhaps China had an unambiguous reason for declaring war on us.

Besides, since the United States have soldiers stationed in countries throughout the world – even, for example, in Germany where there is no threat whatsoever – choosing pre-emptive war only expands the empire instead of addressing the threat to our borders and our homeland from nihilistic terrorist organizations.

We would be wise to follow George Washington's advice in his Farewell Address, that we should exclude “permanent antipathies against particular Nations and passionate attachments for others.” Because, as Washington said, “the Nation which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave.” This lesson of neutrality towards other nations should have been learned when we helped Saddam to power and provided him aid in the 1980's.

Such basic arguments, even among the Left, are hard to find in mainstream media.

Who we ought to pay attention to now is not George Will, but George Orwell. Orwell can warn us of current threats: of the Thought-Police (e.g., political correctness), governmental brain-washing, and threats to individual liberties (in his novel, 1984), of the inevitable corruption of leaders through power in government (in his novella, Animal Farm), and of the concealment and degradation of political thought by propaganda and other purposely unclear language (in his essay, “Politics and the English Language”).

Maybe more importantly, unlike the current pro-war Right, Orwell had the guts to fight in a war he backed ideologically. He was shot in the neck and nearly killed in the Spanish Civil War while fighting against Franco's regime, although he found out that the Stalinists he was fighting with had no love for non-Communists like himself. His non-fiction account, Homage to Catalonia, should be, in Will's phrase, “thrust upon,” war advocates. 

Will George Will, as Orwell did, participate in a war he advocates? Will he serve in some capacity, even non-militarily, as Thomas Jefferson served as an ambassador to France during the Revolutionary War?

 Will is calling for a war in which perhaps half of the fighting will involve high-altitude bombing. Perhaps he should be offered the chance to fly the plane that releases the bomb that misses its target and destroys an Iraqi neighborhood.  That way, he can say he participated.

And he might find out that shrugging off anti-war arguments from non-Left sources is suicidally shortsighted.

January 28, 2003