Why We (Don't) Fight

Why We (Don't) Fight - Sullivan issues a shopping list of everyone's agendas:

For some it's about "war" in general - a newly empowered new age pacifism. For France, it's about ... France, and its eclipse as a power of any significance. France's crisis is deepened by the fact that a successful war against Saddam could also accelerate the end of the Franco-German bloc as the power-house of the European Union.

People in the US, dealing with our byzantine and often self-flagellating State Department, aren't used o living in a nation that acts, openly and brazenly, in its own self-interest. It's interesting to compare our diplomats (the foggy bottom stealth pundits, not appointees like Colin Powell) with those of countries like France, China or Vietnam; nations whose self-interest is waved like the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima.

For Russia, it's about money.

And, I suggest, Putin's desire to set a national diplomatic identity, separate from that of the US.

For the Germans, it's about a new national identity. The Germans have never been able to sustain a moderate polity on their own. They veer from extreme romantic militarism to romantic pacifism. Their current abdication of all strategic responsibility for Europe or the wider world is just another all-too-familiar spasm from German history.

Germany's like one of those guys you knew in high school; used to be a party vegetable, dealt some pot, a couple of illegitimate kids, who got saved at a revival meeting, and is now just a little too ardently born-again; you may like the change, but you wonder if a little moderation wouldn't help.

For the broader anti-war forces in Europe, it's about American uni-polar power - and the need to counteract it, even if it's being put to good use. For still others, especially in the Vatican and France, it's the old Jew-hatred again.

This part scares me. I think he's right. I think there's a lot of ambient anti-semitism that got papered over after the Holocaust, during Vatican II. I think the paper's wearing thin.

For the Democrats, it's about getting back to prescription drugs. For the anti-war left in America, it's really about Bush. The pent-up fury they felt after Florida never found expression or even validation in the wider culture. It was repressed in the first months of a new presidency - and then made irrelevant by 9/11. Finally, they have a chance to demonstrate their hate - which is why so much of the demonstrations' focus has not been on Saddam, Iraq or even war, but on Bush.

Yeah!

I've been wondering when a recognized pundit would pick up on this point, one I've been harping on (of course, far from alone) for a year now; hatred is a serious motivation for many on the Anti-Bush left (note I didn't say "democratic party"; although most Bush-haters are Democrats). The only battle that matters is the one that'll be fought at the polls next fall.

The anti-Bush left knows that a successful war will only strengthen the president further and marginalize them even more - hence their utter desperation and viciousness today. This is their moment; and the demonstrations are their therapy. Meanwhile, a real and actual problem in global security is being addressed.

That's the part they never can quite handle.

Posted by Mitch at March 4, 2003 08:04 AM