Author: Gordon

Lileks

The same people who accuse America of coddling dictators are sputtering with bilious fury because we actually deposed one.

As usual, read it all.

Action or Reaction?

An article in the Guardian asserts that 9/11 was simply a convenient casus belli in a pre-existing plan for attacking Afghanistan and Iraq in order to secure . . . wait for it . . . oil reserves, with the ultimate goal being American world domination. (Hat tip: Jamie Zawinski)

Unfortunately, the article assumes its conclusion; one can explain the factors cited by the article just as well from the Den Besteian view as the American Empire one:

Let’s take some of the points raised in the article:

  • The existence of a plan focusing on America’s dominance in the coming century is hardly evidence of Imperial intent, but rather an indication of some thought being put into maintaining and strengthening the existing state of affairs! The plan includes discussion of military action in the Middle East precisely because that is the most strategically important area of the next few years.
  • What would the media have said if President Bush had announced on September 10, 2001 that he was ordering the evacuation of Manhattan and Washington DC because the administration had credible evidence that Islamic extremists were planning to hijack airliners and crash them into buildings there? Witness the extravagent outcry over WMD in Iraq. What exactly would the Guardian have done in such a case?
  • A reluctance to quickly do away with Bin Laden is quite practical, if one is waging a long war essentially over ideology. If Bin Laden had been shown to be killed early on, there would have been pressure to end the war too soon. It is important to convince the other side that they’re beaten.
  • And the argument that keeps on going, and going, and going: it’s all about OIL. All I have to say is: if the US is going to so much effort to not only conquer, but reubild and recivilize entire nations in the Middle East just for the sake of a few cariboo in Alaska, the world is stranger than either Idiotarian or Anti- can imagine.

The entire article relies on some all-too-common memes: that the US is unjustified in its manifest opinion that its way of life — that is, (classical) liberal values — are a good thing not only for the US, but the rest of the world. For those who believe this, the American use of its pre-eminent world position to spread its values is a bad thing.

Second, the old standby that motives must be pure and singular. Of course the motives and aims in the “War on Terror” are a mixture of both humanitarian and (classical) liberal values and national, economic and geopolitical interests. A president who tried to focus on one issue would be dangerously narrow — a fault often attributed to President Bush, even as his motives for the war are criticised for being too complex. The argument is obviously fallacious; it is simply a facile rationalization put forward to cover up straightforward anti-americanism.

Update: More on this from Mark Steyn.