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Belligerati Salman Rushdie had a

Belligerati

Salman Rushdie had a good piece in Saturday's Guardian:

As John Lloyd wrote in the New Statesman recently, "Much of the intellectual left in Europe cleaves to a view of America as the largest danger in the modern world." But in Afghanistan the Taliban, perhaps the cruellest regime on earth, had permitted the country to be hijacked by a parasitic terror organisation dedicated to the overthrow of western civilisation.

The cleansing of those stables by the United States deserves a far better press than it is getting. Sadly, cheap slogans and ad hominem sneers have long passed for reasoned argument in the British papers. This doesn't much matter, except in so far as it is part of a wider portrayal of the United States as a vengeful nation bent on war and hot for foreign blood.

It does matter to deconstruct that caricature, because it's important for the world outside the United States to understand with what sober gravity Americans, young and old, liberal and conservative, have been thinking and feeling their way through personal tragedy and global crisis.

In the coming confrontation with Iraq, Rushdie proclaims the desirability of maintaining the "high ground" by avoiding contact with unsavory "warlords" and dealing only with those with unsullied democratic credentials:

I can't speak for the others, but my own view is pretty straightforward. If America gets into bed with scumbags, it loses the moral high ground, and once that ground is lost, the argument is lost with it.

I think the argument for getting rid of Saddam is iron-clad whatever the circumstances, but he's right that ultimately "America's national interest can only lie in the advancement of the cause of freedom and justice." The problem is that this kind of talk often masks an agenda for inaction. Absolute moral purity, scumbag-free beds-- these are nice when you can get 'em. But they're in short supply as a general rule, particularly in the middle east.

The most common argument in Britain against taking action in Afghanistan, hammered relentlessly in the British press, was that the Northern Alliance was "just as bad" as the Taleban. (Some columnists, like George Monbiot, ventured even further down the road of rhetorical excess, asserting that America herself was j.a.b.a.t.b.) I don't think there can be any doubt that the "cause of freedom and justice" was furthered by the Afganistan campaign, even if there were unsavory elements involved. Protecting America from attack by terrorists armed with weapons of mass destruction and denying psychotic thugs like Saddam the means to threaten our allies with nuclear annihilation are likewise crucial ingredients in any "freedom and justice" recipe. The worst-case scenario (American inaction allows Saddam to acquire a functional nuke) is not acceptable and must be prevented. I have no idea whether there is a scumbag-free solution to this problem. It would be nice. But it's a secondary consideration.

Posted by Dr. Frank at March 26, 2002 11:49 AM | TrackBack