Accommodationists versus 'Warmongers'
by Gabriel Gonzalez
"This dilemma is at the heart of many people's anguished indecision over the wisdom of our action in Iraq. It explains the confusion of normal politics that has part of the right liberating a people from oppression and a part of the left disdaining the action that led to it. It is partly why the conspiracy theories or claims of deceit have such purchase. How much simpler to debate those than to analyse and resolve the conundrum of our world's present state."
-- Tony Blair, March 5, 2004
From where I sit (in Paris, France), this is how I have seen recent developments on the terror front unfold:
- I think there may have been some basis for the "Aznar lied" meme that has been circulating in Europe (and now the U.S.), but it seems a bit to convenient to me as an explanation for the Spanish vote. The Aznar government made it clear by the end of the day of the Madrid bombings that an Islamist lead had been discovered and was competing with the ETA as the likely culprit. Nevertheless, for the following three days, what appeared to be a somewhat fabricated hysteria regarding Aznar's supposed "lies" (in particular in the Spanish Socialist party circles and Spanish press) became a major theme.
- As of Friday and continuing throughout the weekend, the French political/press establishment picked up big time on the "Aznar lied" theme as a major issue in the Spanish elections and the cause of his downfall, rather than the somewhat more obvious (or at least equally plausible) "Al Qaeda has controlled the Spanish elections" theme. Nowhere in the French media - and I have not seen in the Spanish media either, but I don't read it as much – has there even been a suggestion that Al Qaeda or Islamist terrorists have had an effect on the outcome of the Spanish elections, let alone the idea that this would be a major problem for European democracies.
- Also, the French papers yesterday all went with the "Aznar lied" theme. (You can find links to Le Monde's main article – "Spain Punishes State Lying" – and its editorial cartoon as well as Libération's front page headline – "The Price of Lying" – at Merde in France - scroll down a bit.)
- Aznar's misleading the Spanish doesn't seem much more convincing than the "Blair lied about the 45 minutes!" or Bush's-sixteen-word, at least as a comprehensive or even primary explanation for the Spanish vote. Aznar also has suddenly become the third liar in the Azores trio, which seems a bit too convenient. My impression is that it is simply more palatable for the Spanish/French press/political establishment to push the idea that Spain voted to punish a lying manipulating politician rather than face the reality of naked appeasement.
The French establishment is trying to push the idea that there is another way to combat terrorism instead of the war mongering U.S. way. That is reflected in the willful refusal to acknowledge the possibility of the Spanish vote being interpreted as appeasement (which is an awfully big elephant in the room to ignore), a mentality reflected, for example, in Jean-Marie Colombani's editorial (in French) entitled "Hatred and Democracy" in yesterday's Le Monde.
Amazingly, Colombani states that:
"...it would be futile, absurd and cowardly to believe that any one country is more or less protected depending on the orientation of its foreign policy: France is no more sheltered than Spain or Italy. It was moreover targeted (in Karachi) just like Australia (in Bali), Morocco (Casablanca) and now Spain. The territory is one, the target is the same, as seen by Al Qaida. Our societies are easy targets. They are hit in the name of a battle 'against the crusaders and the Jews' on the basis of a supposed oppression which the countries in the Muslim community are supposedly a victim of."
Sounds like a great epiphany. Except that Colombani doesn't draw the logical conclusions from the premises he lays out and there is not even a hint that Spanish (or French) appeasement may not be a good idea (or even exist). Instead, he proceeds with a long winded diatribe against the Bush administration using a series of straw man arguments depicting the Bush administration as engaging in merely a simple-minded bomb-the-hell out them militarism.
Colombani's self-deception is really quite amazing. It is not that the Spanish election should be viewed solely (or even primarily) as reflecting appeasement. But it is hard to see how that issue can seriously be avoided entirely, which Colombani somehow manages. Colombani's ability – and that of the French intellectual/political establishment – to specifically acknowledge and even adopt fully the logical premises of what should be a stand against appeasement - or at least a coherent position addressing the appeasement risk - while refusing to acknowledge that an appeasement issue even arises speaks of a mind-boggling intellectual failure that does not bode well for the ability of Europeans (and the French in particular) to deal seriously and effectively with the international terrorist threat.
Basically, the French propaganda is that the Americans are primitive warmongers and the Spanish have now opted for an "other" model (the French one, of course) for really fighting terrorism through some undefined means that presumably doesn't include American militarism.
I also noticed today that Greece is asking for NATO help in assuring security during the Olympic Games this summer (as well as Victor Davis Hanson's comments on the irony of this).
What tied all of these events together for me was hearing on French radio last night that apparently the terrorist suspects arrested in Spain are part of Zarqawi's group Ansar al Islam. Now, we know that the U.S. bombed the hell out of Ansar al Islam, that the U.S. has (militaristically) been combating Ansar al Islam in Iraq and elsewhere and trying to track down Zarqawi.
What is emerging quickly as a clear pattern here, one that is becoming inescapable, is, on the one hand, the free-riding Europeans adopting accomodationist positions and rationalizations while pretending otherwise, deflecting blame upon the U.S., and decrying U.S. militarism, and, on the other, the U.S. putting up the real force - including the bodies - to actually deal with the problem. If this contrast becomes any starker, it can hardly reflect well on Franco-Belgo-German, and now Spanish, policies towards the WoT and the U.S.'s role in it.
UPDATE: Gabriel Gonzalez has some additional thoughts in the coments section. As do our readers.
This is sort of becoming a dialogue with myself (also known as a "monologue"), but that's okay. I had a couple of more thoughts on all of this:
Andrew Sullivan has an article in the New Republic that rightly condemns the Guardian newspaper for "Moral Nihilism" in an irresponsible editorial resorting to the crudest anti-Americanism in commenting on Zapatero's victory. The Guardian ends its editorial:
The victims of the commuter train bombings in Madrid and the Spaniards who came out of the streets last night surely deserve more than party political responses. Europe too needs to mould a different response to its September 11. Spain has a history which places it at the crossroads of the European and Arab worlds. It understands both traditions. It is a country where once Jew, Muslim and Christian lived together. An international conference, to bridge the divide between Muslim and Christian communities, should be one first step. But there are many others. We need to take the fight against terror out of America's hands. We need to get beyond the them and us, the good guys and the bad guys, and seek a genuinely collective response. Europe should seize the moment that America failed to grasp.
Sullivan of course ridicules this thinking:
The stunning aspect of this boilerplate is how utterly empty it is. The only constructive suggestion the Guardian proffers is an "international conference." No this is not, apparently, self-parody. While hundreds lie dead, the most important thing is to stick on your lapel name-labels, hurry down to the nearest Marriott lobby, and have a seminar. Above all, after an atrocity of this scale, it is vital that the perpetrators of such evil not "be hunted down and smoked out of their lairs." Heaven forbid such an action. That would be the American way, after all.
It occurred to me reading this that the mentality and language used by the Guardian here, and reflected widely throughout the European press/political establishment, parallels quite closely in both outer form as well as sheer vacuity the alter-globalization movement's approach to modernization, trade and economics: that is to say, a complete flight into delusional thinking, reactionary nostalgia and romanticism, as part of a basic unwillingness to come to terms with reality.
Sullivan is right to point out the complete lack of seriousness (or content) in the Guardian's "alter-globalist" approach to terrorism, and that same empty elevation of pure fantasy and form - characterized mostly by an intense expression of resentment of the U.S. - over substance of any kind is present in virtually all of the "alter" talk about a "new" approach to terrorism, including in Colombani's article and statements by Zapatero himself.
Now, it is one thing to have alter-globalist fantasies about how to deal with the discomfort of modernity (or post-modernity) infecting "social forums" condemning U.S. imperialism, Zionist oppression and promoting organic farming and an "other" world. It is quite another to have such thinking serve as the basis for international security policy.
"Delusional thinking" is exactly the right term. I suggest you read Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions. His definition of "paradigm" seems to apply here.
I wonder what it'll take to wake people up from their delusional thinking. it sure is taking longer than usual this go around . . .
"the mentality and language used by the Guardian here, and reflected widely throughout the European press/political establishment, parallels quite closely in both outer form as well as sheer vacuity the alter-globalization movement's approach to modernization, trade and economics. . . "
And which demographic is overwhelmingly represented in the anti-globo movement?
The blame in Spain falls mainly on the young and stupid.
The Spanish government was not alone in prematurely blaming ETA - The U.N. unanimously approved a resolution condemning ETA the day after the bombing. It may have been a reasonable assumption since there recently had been other thwarted attacks by ETA and the explosives used were the same as used by ETA, but why don’t we hear the “U.N. LIED!!”.
As you said, the opposition immediately began spinning this for political gain and since it’s already a given in Europe that “BUSH LIED!!", it isn’t much of a stretch to conclude politicians close to America also lied. Perhaps if John Kerry were to call Bush a liar...
Lola,
Many of the people who "don't get it" never will. The target of their hatred is America and the West, and they want to see it destroyed. They are no more rational about this than al-Qaeda is. That won't change. But that isn't the whole population on the Left, either.
In the near term? Nothing short of a couple of western cities disappearing under a nuclear cloud (Indian or Israeli cities would not count, they aren't real people to these folks). Or a very serious and contagious engineered plague.
A constant set of terrorist attacks similar to the 1970s in frequency and the 21st century in lethality could also cause doubts and switches, but it would be a buildup rather than a break and would probably be connected to a medium term possibility...
...The genesis and success of an ideological conservatism in Europe rooted in social sciences and structured criticism of leftist ideology, rather than technocratic managerialism or quasi-romantic nostalgia. In short, a European neoconservatism.
You may find this odd, but France actually many of the prerequisite conditions for birthing a movement like that. Still, recall that the shift in the USA took 30 years, and that was up against a less dug-in elitism.
Short of stuff like that, nothing much that I can think of. That's the real lesson of Madrid, and the implications of that are scary.
Sabine Herold is perhaps the new face of the French "right". She represents a neo-libertarianism in French politics that is quite similar in many ways to the neo-conservative movement. The question is, when will they gain enough power as a movement to challenge the existing social order? And will it be done quickly enough to escape the demographic time bomb that threatens France.
Joe,
I think that's right. I would add:
1. The issue in France (and much of Europe) is less a matter of left vs. right than extremism or radicalism (left - right - maybe even center) borne of an inability or unwillingness to properly understand or deal with reality: ie, the actual nature of threats, challenges, and practical realistic solutions to face them. Comments on U.S. culpability for terrorist attacks in Madrid by the far right National Front and far left Communist Revolutionary League (as well as Lutte Ouvrière) are virtually interchangeable. Sadly, they are also largely interchangeable with the "main stream" political parties and politico-media establishment.
I do agree that the Left tends to be intrinsically less "moored" and that reform can only come from "neo-liberal" forces such as Libérté-j'écris ton nom, which strikes me as maybe slightly "conservative" but mostly centrist and pragmatically (not fanatically) libertarian.
2. I was surprised not by the Madrid attacks, but by the reaction to them in two respects.
First, given the virtual unavoidability of terrorist attacks of increasing scale and the real risk of truly catastrophic terrorism that has been evident ever since 9/11, I am surprised at the extent of the reaction and panic at an attack that frankly should not have been unexpected and certainly was not "catastrophic". I would have anticipated worse by now.
Second, like you, I agree that the idea that the Europeans were going to start having epiphanies left and right after a few hundred, or even thousand, dead, was a huge "mis-under-estimate" of the extent of the disease. I would not be surprised to see the Europeans continue to blame America (and the Jews) increasingly in the course of several fairly sizeable terrorist incidents. The likely scenario for a reversal would seem to involve a number of major attacks and rather than an across the board change of heart, I think that there will be a greater political polarization with a numerically substantial and more radicalized anti-western left continuing to blame U.S. imperialism, third world oppression, blah blah blah. I actually think a similar polarization is likely in the U.S.
Gabriel,
You can't defend those who won't defend themselves. The Continental West Europeans actually take it one step farther...they actively hinder American self-defense. All we can do is ‘achieve safe distance’ until reality comes crashing in on their collective heads.
On the up-side, Spain's collapse of popular will is going to bring down the E.U. Spain has just made Europe the soft target for Al Qaeda to strike compared to the USA. The Spanish Socialists are going to play footsie with Al Qaeda like good Dhimmini and be a base of operations to strike through out the E.U. The up-shot will be that the E.U.'s "internal borders" will become real national borders again after enough terror bombings.
The collapse of the E.U. will bring all the Europeans back to the USA because we are the only ones who can take the war to the terrorists everywhere.
All Bush has to do is nothing while people scream at him to do something. He's good at that.
Al Qaeda will strike somewhere and like all terrorists they go for soft targets first.
This is war and better those attacks happen in Europe than the USA.
Le Monde's editorial this afternoon.
In France, even if you had read the press widely for the past week, this could well be the first time that anyone might have even remotely intimated to you the obviously far-fetched, anglo-saxon, propagandistic notion that Al Qaida may have affected the Spanish election.
Translation
A Despicable Thesis
LE MONDE | 17.03.04 | 15h39 • UPDATED
17.03.04 | 17h09
An argument is growing on the day after the defeat of the Popular Party: fear of terrorism determined the vote of Spaniards in favor of José Luiz Rodriguez Zapatero against the firmness of José Maria Aznar. It is taken up by the anglo-saxon press, italian government circles, and U.S. officials who are not all members of the Bush administration.
According to this analysis, Al-Qaida is said to have "determined" Sunday's vote and obtained a tactical victory thanks to the massacre of March 11. Madrid 2004 is said to be synoymous with a new Munich. The Spaniards preferred Zapateror to Aznar just as the English, in the 1930s in the facte of the Nazi peril, had "preferred Chamberlain to Churchil", writes the Wall Street Journal.
Such an argument does not withstand scrutiny. First, it shows a terrible disdain towards the Spanish, who live daily with the threat of terror...
(...)
Contrary to what some would have us believe, the Spanish voted against Mr. Aznar and his Popular Party not out of fear, but out of anger. They could not tolerate their government, and the president above all, lying to them. Trying to manipulate their votes in putting all of the responsibility for the attacks on the ETA even though the government already had elements pointing to an Islamic trail. Such manipulation of the news, coupled with pressure on the major media, stirred up the memory of other lies, about the presence of arms of mass destruction in Iraq, for example, concerning which Mr. Aznar refused to provide an explanation. It revived the opposition to the commitment to Iraq which, in other circumstances, would certainly not have had the same electoral consequences.
The Spanish Right was therefore beaten by itself, by recourse to methods over which, unfortunately, it does not have a monopoly.
Good citation Gabriel- the State Dept's review of the Euro press picked Figaro's op ed also as epitomizing the leftist reaction to the election critique in the US, UK, and Eastern Europe.
Two notes:
First, see how the victimhood status is neatly applied to the Spanish electorate. Figaro makes the Spanish press out to be a state run propaganda operation reminiscent of Franco's regime.
Second, notice how the Aznar screw up on ETA morphs obtusely into a variation on the Bush (or insert Blair or Aznar or Cheyney, etc) Lied motif. No matter what Aznar says now, it's irrelevant. But this does not mean that Aznar, Bush, or Blair haven't been explaining away their policies during the past year. Figaro is merely seeking to turn political disagreement into "Lies". I believe such logic is generally denoted as blatantly ideo-logical.
Tom,
You know if the Democrats made Bush's actual record the issue, I might consider voting against that record. But it's increasingly becoming a contest between Bush's lying and the Democrats' lying about Bush's lying, and I have to agree that turning political disagreements into charges of lying is not very becoming.
Anyway, I should say in fairness to the French press that the Figaro has now made a couple of concessions to reality in the form of editorials from this morning (Wednesday) arguing explicitly for a more muscular approach by Europe to the WoT as well as pointing out the danger of the perception that Al Qaeda has determined the outcome of the Spanish election. I wonder why Le Monde felt the need to look for an "Anglo-Saxon" plot overseas when they could have just looked across town.
And by the way, the triple giveaway for intellectual dishonesty in a French context is when you see charges of lying and manipulation of the press, coupled with the ever-handy "anglo-saxon" conspiracy...
I've got a question for the Spanish government. Lets say they capture most of the people involved in the attacks, try them, and convict, sentencing them to life in prison. What happens if al Quaeda then says- " release them all, or we will attack again". I think that this answer will reveal Spain's true place in the WOT.
Phil- It's a Police/Judicial Matter. When the crime is committed Inspector Clouseauz will be dispatched forthwith.
There is no delusion on the left or socialist side - only self-interest. Their solution is "aid and more aid" delivered by various bleeding heart bodies who pocket two thirds of it, while the conditions and the dependence deteriorate and grow, and so ad infinitum. Always remember to ask one question whenever you look for anyone's motivation: "Who profits, and how !"
There is no delusion on the left or socialist side - only self-interest. Their solution is "aid and more aid" delivered by various bleeding heart bodies who pocket two thirds of it, while the conditions and the dependence deteriorate and grow, and so ad infinitum. Always remember to ask one question whenever you look for anyone's motivation: "Who profits, and how !"
best