Many Ron Paul supporters find themselves at odds with the Republican Party over the issue of American involvement in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Like Ron Paul they believe that wars of occupation and nation building are unconstitutional and they cannot understand why Republicans who claim to share their belief in the Constitution support those wars.
They make the same mistake that Ron Paul himself did when he attacked Rudy Giuliani over this issue in the first presidential debate of 2008. They make themselves look anti-Republican and even anti-American because they do not understand the perspective of many traditional Republicans or the basis on which those Republicans find themselves supporting these wars.
Then the battle-lines are drawn up and both sides become entrenched in their ideology without trying to understand each others' perspective. The Ron Paul supporters become convinced that traditional Republicans are a bunch of pro-war "neocons" and more mainstream Republicans get the idea that Ron Paul supporters are radical, anti-American peaceniks, when the truth is that neither perception is even close to accurate.
While there are a small number of Stalinistic, pro-war expansionists in the GOP, their viewpoint is alien to the party and is not shared by most Republicans. Most Republicans who support our current wars do not do so because they are in favor of war or of imperialism, but because they are unquestioningly pro-America. They may believe in a strong national defense, but they do not believe in wars of conquest and occupation. They oppose the anti-war position, not because they like war, but because they dislike those who take issue with the actions of America as a nation no matter what the reason.
They operate from the perspective that our government is good, not because government is good, but because our government is American and America is good. They therefore assume that the actions of our government, including making war, must be good and right actions because they are the actions of an American government.
Despite its inherently irrational nature, this would be an understandable and even excusable position for them to take if the government of the United States were, in fact, the government which we are supposed to have under the Constitution and if the government still followed the principles of the Constitution and the founding fathers. If that were the case and the government entered into a war, then it would be impossible for that war not to be undertaken justly and it would be traitorous to oppose it.
Most Republicans act on the assumption that we still live under a government which operates legitimately and constitutionally and that is the basis for their outrage with those who oppose the government's actions. They are not awakened to how far we have drifted from legitimate, American-style, constitutional government and they are still acting on the mistaken assumption that we have the government which we ought to have and that its actions are legitimate on that basis.
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Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - bks
So are you for continued war in Iraq and Afghanistan or not?
This column is as fine a realization of
wanting to "have your cake and eat it too" as I
have ever seen.
--bks
2 - handyguy
I got a bit dizzy reading this, so many twists and turns of logic [and non-logic].
The left of course is split over Afghanistan as well. I think the president [and any other president hypothetically facing this situation] is in a damned if you do, damned if you don't position.
As usual, he took a thoughtful and thorough approach, and allowed the generals to have the resources they asked for -- while setting a strict time limit on continuing escalation. It was predictable that he was both criticized and praised by some voices, but a number of Republicans did join in the praise, this time.
Dave's article is about a small group of true believers. I don't believe isolationists are a very large political group in the US. They may form a part of the tea partiers, but not monolithically. Isolationism is probably more of a force on the left actually.
At any rate, war is not likely to be a deciding issue in the 2010 elections -- and in 2012 only if there is some major disaster.
3 - roger nowosielski
"war is not likely to be a deciding issue in the 2010 elections -- and in 2012 only if there is some major disaster."
A cynical thing to say, Handy. The matter of war and peace, especially of a just or an unjust war, should take precedence over whoever the fuck wins the next elections.
The issues of life and death, who lives and who dies, surely take precedence over any corrupt political party, be they Democrats or the Republicans. Human life should rule, don't you think so?
4 - handyguy
Both the human and the political effects depend on how the war goes. Nobody knows that yet, not me, not you, not Dave.
5 - zingzing
so now is the time to attack what republicans do because dems are in office? blame the dems for republican doings, and then, at the magical reveal, tell them it was the republicans all along? is that what this is saying? that's some manipulation... are you saying that republicans are easily manipulated?
i have a sneaking suspicion that either dave is severely stoned or someone hacked his account. i can't decide if i agree with any of this because my head is so twisted by it all... but i guess, from a realpolitik kind of angle, it's shrewd, if a bit convoluted.
it's certainly a fucked up picture of the republicans... do you think they really believe that everything america does is good just because it's america doing it? that's downright foolish and totally ignorant. i can't see anyone believing that, especially in this politically polarized time.
seriously, dave... what gives?
6 - Dr Dreadful
and in 2012 only if there is some major disaster.
Ah, yes, Major Gilles François Bétancourt de Zastre, graduate of Saint-Cyr, late of the French Foreign Legion, and one of the most unfairly maligned figures in military history.
In 1895, de Zastre presided over one of the most ignominious episodes in the Legion's history when the fort he was commanding deep in the Libyan Sahara fell to a Berber raiding party.
Outnumbered two to one but superiorly armed, the 150 legionnaires valiantly held the Berbers at bay for a day and a half. Then, shortly after daybreak and after taking severe casualties in a raid on the southern wall, the enemy appeared to retreat over a sand dune. It was at this point that de Zastre, without apparent reason or explanation, ordered the gates of the fort opened. Immediately, several hundred tribesmen who had lain camouflaged in the sand rushed the gates, overwhelmed the guards and massacred every man in the fort.
So spectacular was this defeat that de Zastre's last stand became synonymous with calamity - as in 'the President's administration is shaping up to be a Major de Zastre'.
Then, in 1989, a historian doing research for a souvenir brochure to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille uncovered a file marked 'Top Secret' in a long-forgotten cellar of the Ministry of Defence in Paris. It was a dispatch from de Zastre's commanding officer in Tripoli, General Roulle, and detailed how the two officers had set up a concealed telegraph line and were transmitting messages to each other using a code of Roulle's own devising. Upon closer examination, it transpired that this impenetrable cipher consisted of nothing more than the substitution of the initial letter of each word with 'A'.
Once they'd found the telegraph wire hidden in the sand, it had taken the Berbers about forty-five seconds to tap into it, crack Roulle's code and transmit to de Zastre the message, 'Aave arrived. Aerbers an aetreat. Apen ahe aates. Aill aendezvous an awo ainutes.'
7 - cannonshop
Yeah, it does not fit. I suppose it might fit wherever Dave lives, though. Most of the pro-war conservatives aren't really in favour of 'war', so much as opposed to the enemies we're fighting, or of the belief that once blood is shed, it's got to be finished-and if you're not the winner, then by definition, you've lost.
8 - Dave Nalle
bks: So are you for continued war in Iraq and Afghanistan or not?
Not a relevant or even meaningful question. In fact, just asking that question shows that you kind of miss the point.
handy: Dave's article is about a small group of true believers. I don't believe isolationists are a very large political group in the US. They may form a part of the tea partiers, but not monolithically. Isolationism is probably more of a force on the left actually.
It's not so much about that group of true believers as it is directed at them. And they are more numerous than I think you realize.
Dave
9 - zingzing
"the belief that once blood is shed, it's got to be finished"
of course, it's rarely finished these days. more likely it's abandoned.
"and if you're not the winner, then by definition, you've lost."
all we gain by "winning" is new targets.
10 - Cannonshop
#9 That's because of the fiction that you can somehow 'limit' warfare into 'police actions' that leave the offender operating, Zing.
WAR is horrible, awful, uncomfortable, terrifying, brutal and largely something to be avoided...
but once you're in one, you'd better destroy your enemy or you're going to have to do it all over again, only more horrible, more bloody, more costly, and with greater human suffering than you (and the bystanders in between) suffered before.
Case in point: Iraq. We bowed to international pressure in 1991, and as a result, the regime we left there the first time went out and pulled a genocide, ramped up the oppression and the horror and the atrocities, cut deals with outside powers to fund itself in violation of the 'sanctions' it was allegedly under (and, which we as U.N. signatories were supposed to enforce...) and generally made things even worse than they were before we intervened the first time-then, we wound up going in again-only THIS time, it took a lot longer, was more damaging, and is still going on.
Contrast that with Japan. Once in, largely out now, they're not a threat to anybody, they're prosperous, healthy, relatively safe, and one of the economic powerhouses of the world.
If we fought every conflict like we did the Pacific campaign of WWII, we probably wouldn't have to fight as often as we do, and we sure as hell wouldn't have to repeat the experience every generation.
11 - Mark
The image of Republicans as essentially irrational moralists that underlies this piece is pretty accurate, imo. I appreciate Dave's honesty.
12 - Dave Nalle
I wouldn't call them irrational, Mark, it's just that they are operating on a different set of underlying assumptions.
Dave
13 - roger nowosielski
I do agree with Mark. This is an honest appraisal, Dave.
A question, though. You say,
"They oppose the anti-war position, not because they like war, but because they dislike those who take issue with the actions of America as a nation no matter what the reason."
But that's like saying that America can do no wrong. Does it all come down then to such a simplistic, uncritical position?
Perhaps that's what Mark may have had in mind when he used the term "irrational."
14 - Glenn Contrarian
C-shop -
Do you not remember that the reason George H.W. Bush didn't continue on to Baghdad was because he didn't have a viable exit strategy. From his book A World Transformed:
Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in "mission creep," and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under the circumstances, there was no viable "exit strategy" we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different outcome.
I clearly remember how many of my shipmates were wondering why we didn't continue on to Baghdad. Bush 41's refusal to invade Iraq proper to remove Saddam was almost a form of coitus interruptus on a grand scale as far as the military was concerned.
But the popular thing to do...isn't always the right thing to do. Bush 41 made the right choice, and in retrospect, as wrong as Iran-Contra certainly was, Bush 41 was not that bad a president. At least he had the guts to raise taxes when the economy needed it...and set the stage for boom years we enjoyed under Clinton.
15 - Glenn Contrarian
And C-Shop -
Here's a little something Bush family friend and author Mickey Hershowitz was told by George W. Bush in 1999:
"I'll tell you, he was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999," Herskowitz told [freelance journalist and blogger Russ] Baker. "One of the things he said to me, is 'One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.' And he said, 'My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of (Kuwait) and he wasted it.
"He said, 'If I have a chance to invade Iraq, if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency.' "
This was in 1999, two years before 9/11. So WHY did we really invade Iraq? Hm?
16 - STM
Doc at #6. Lol. You had a couple of cold ones, mate?. I notice the time .. 1023 ... which is what, about 7.23 in your neck of the woods. Just enough to dash from work, straight to a high stool somewhere, and throw a couple of cleansing ales down your neck.
Love it. Either that, or what have you been smoking and where can I get some?
17 - Dr Dreadful
Stan,
Yep, it's amazing how a couple of ales can limber up the creativity muscles. But it was 10.23: since BC partnered up with Technorati, we're now living on their servers in San Francisco, so the timestamp is Pacific Time, not Eastern Time any more.
18 - Cindy
Most Republicans who support our current wars do not do so because they are in favor of war or of imperialism, but because they are unquestioningly pro-America. They may believe in a strong national defense, but they do not believe in wars of conquest and occupation. They oppose the anti-war position, not because they like war, but because they dislike those who take issue with the actions of America as a nation no matter what the reason. (except that they don't ever look at any reasons as they are reactionary robots who have been manufactured by the culture to support the status quo)
Dave, you do realize you are describing the behavior of cult members? Not surprising as that is what most of us are.
19 - Cindy
"Pro-War" Republicans are a danger to humanity and should be marginalized. They're not only irrational, they're nuts.
If I believed in war, these are the people I would wage a war against. The world would be better off without them.
20 - Baronius
Dave, I don't think you account for those of us who believe that the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars were right, but who aren't warmongers.
We liberated Kuwait from a foreign aggressor in 1991. The Iraq War was a continuation of that action. We were attacked by Taliban-supported terrorists in 2001, and responded by aiding in the overthrow of Afghanistan's ruling faction. We gained no wealth or territory by those actions.
I'm not for every war. I oppose wars of aggression, and wars for territory. But the US has been just in its military actions for most of the last 100 years.
21 - Stebro
Dave, I think you are right on the money with this. Ron Paul leads by example and it appears to me that he is more interested in educating the public than in running for office.
I can think of numerous encounters I've had where this explanation clearly applies.
If we really want change in the direction of liberty, I mean to the point of working for it,the long hard slog of changing people's fundamental beliefs has to be addressed. I appreciate your voice.
22 - STM
Doc: "The timestamp is Pacific Time, not Eastern Time".
Fair dinkum. I thought it was because of daylight saving ending here, and possibly beggining over there on the east coast.
Must pay more attention.
I've just eaten a Califrnia orange, BTW, Doc, as they're out of season here at the moment. Well, two actually. I can never eat only one orange.
Probably grown not that far from you I'd reckon in that central valley joint?
Should've had a beer or 10 instead though :)
23 - STM
Small world eh?
PS, you might know my cousins in Nevada.
24 - Dr Dreadful
If you've just eaten a California orange, Stan, it was probably grown within 50 miles of where I live. There are citrus groves everywhere around here, even in people's back gardens.
I even have one on my back patio that I planted a couple of years back. Bastard thing hasn't produced any fruit yet, though. Probably not getting enough sunlight.
25 - Dr Dreadful
you might know my cousins in Nevada
What, those Aussies in Pahrump? Third trailer on the left past the gas station? With the barbie out front?
Yeah, I know 'em.
:-)