Especially when they are bearing gifts. George Will pens an approving and quote-rich column about Peter Beinert’s new book, *The Good Fight: Why Liberals — and Only Liberals — Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again.* Beinert, in Will’s fawning presentation, rejects the progressive label in favor of believe it or not “liberal.” But this is liberal in a new sense: the hawkish anti-terror liberal, not the Saddam-loving, Bin Laden-excusing Michael Moore style liberal:
>But while excoriating the Bush administration for perhaps “creating exactly the condition the conservatives have long feared: An America without the will to fight,” Beinart’s most important contribution is to confront the doughface liberals who rejoice about the weakening of that will. Reading liberals who seem to think they “have no enemies more threatening, or more illiberal, than George W. Bush,” Beinart worries that Deaniac liberals are taking over the Democratic Party much as McGovernite liberals did after 1968. He discerns the “patronizing quality” of many liberals’ support for John Kerry in 2004: They “weren’t supporting Kerry because he had served in Vietnam. They were supporting him because they believed other, more hawkish, voters would support him because he had served in Vietnam.”
It’s fun to question people’s motives, but it’s impolite to confuse the motives imputed to them. So while many liberals may perhaps share the satisfaction of having been right about Iraq and Afghanistan from the very beginning, this does not mean (1) that they are gleeful over the damage that has been done to America, and more perniciously, (2) that they brought it about or desired it. The current weakening of America’s standing in the world was one of the arguments *against* silly saber rattling and thinly justified foreign misadventures, not the desired outcome. Taking them to task for having been right all along, as is the current fashion among those who were wrong all along, is like blaming mathematics for your inability to add.
One final point, the oft repeated meme that liberals disdain military service has never been borne out by the facts. A simple survey of leading democrats (vs. Republicans) who actually served their country should dispel this view.
Since this is a weblog devoted to critical thinking, perhaps can you identify what is wrong with this supporting statement: “Many liberals may perhaps share the satisfaction of having been right about Iraq and Afghanistan from the very beginning”?
Keep in mind Afghanistan appears to be massively improved and the fate of Iraq is very much hanging in the balance.
Kind regards
Jonathan
Gentle reader. Thanks for the comment.
But I think nothing is wrong with the statement you mention.
Here’s the context (missing from your question) of the quote:
>But while excoriating the Bush administration for perhaps “creating exactly the condition the conservatives have long feared: An America without the will to fight,” Beinart’s most important contribution is to confront the doughface liberals who rejoice about the weakening of that will.
Second, it’s not controversial that Iraq has been a disaster (though of course time has not ended–it may one day turn around but it will never be true that we were greeted as liberators) and Afghanistan has nearly been abandoned (the Taliban have returned, the warlords rule everything outside of Kabul, and Osama bin Laden is still on the loose).
Regards
jc
Dear JC,
About Iraq, you are right that the coalition were never greeted as liberators but it is much too early to say whether what has been attempted there will succeed or fail.
For this reason alone the “Liberals” mentioned in the post cannot have been right as the question is not settled.
This is doubly true of Afghanistan. The worlds most ungovernable country has improved massively since the days of Taliban rule. It is now a democracy, the situation for women if much better, the economy is better and the civil war is over.
What remains is a Taliban insurgency that is being battled by a very broad international alliance. Afghanistan has not been abandoned at all.
On CNN the other day (all we get here in Serbia is CNN and BBC World) Peter Bergen (author of Holy War Inc.) said that Afghanistan is incomparably better today than it was under the Taliban (and he was there).
This appears to be the consensus.
So those “Liberals” need to check their glee and admit that in both countries it remains to be seen who was right or wrong.
Kind regards
Jonathan
Dear Jonathan,
I’m afraid you’ve missed the point of the original post. It does not (1) claim liberals actually are gleeful at their perception of events in Iraq and Afghanistan or (2) that their assessment is correct (though it’s largely correct about Iraq). Afghanistan, as you point out, is another much more complicated matter.
In any case, the original post was critical of those who accuse liberals of being gleeful over being right (if they are) that Iraq would turn out to be disasterous. Just because it has turned out to be a disaster, doesn’t mean those who predicted this are happy with that result. That is a confusion I accused George Will of making.
Thanks for your participation,
jc
Harper’s Magazine had a good piece on Republican / Conservative promulgation of the “stab in the back” myth which is always at the ready to blame liberals for defeat — on account of their defeatism! Republicans / Conservatives have been using this tactic since McCarthy. They managed to rewrite the history of the Vietnam War as a failure of liberal will. And they’re in the rpocess of rewriting the Mess in Iraq the same way.
Dear JC,
I fully agree with the point of the post.
Thank you for a fine blog.
Kind regards,
Jonathan
Afghanistan indeed “vastly improved”, and nothing more than its opium industry. It also became so liberal that a convert to Christianity was spared death penalty for apostasy (the court had found him insane). Moreover, this federation of narco-fiefs is democratic: one Kalashnikov, one vote. In the meantime, we teach the natives the arts of mild torture than only rarely ends with an innocent inmate being beaten to pulp.
In Iraq it seems that the government we support did not take this training to heart, applying torture in a rather wholesale fashion, as well as ubiquitous death squads. There is a chance that the situation will evolve to resemble Algeria, but that actually could happen under Saddam as well.