From: "Tobin Nellhaus" <nellhaus-AT-gis.net> Subject: Re: BHA:International law a subset of critical morality (DP Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1999 20:15:23 -0400 Folks-- It doesn't particularly bother me that people disagree with me on NATO's intervention--people have disagreements on this list all the time, what else is new. But Carrol's half-call for a "cease and desist" order from the moderator, John Game's half-threat to unsubscribe over it (and depicting support on this one issue as wholesale redescriptions of U.S. imperialism), and this notion that raising the topic was a mistake, are I think over-reactions. Until these most recent posts, the discussion had I think been conducted far more temperately and patiently than many others that we've had. Carrol, you especially should be ashamed of yourself: now, finally, I too must wonder--is diversity of opinion allowed here or not? I respect the anti-NATO position quite deeply, and have come to my own opinion neither comfortably nor easily. It's certainly not my normal stance, and I may yet be swayed by counter-arguments when they are offered. But it seems some of you have read my comments as though I gave *unqualified* support for NATO, when I said both times that I have my criticisms, and that I definitely would prefer some other body (most likely, the UN) to have undertaken this intervention. Even so, I feel strongly that *someone* needed to intervene. I'm not thrilled that it was NATO, but no-one else seemed to be willing, and the most practical hope now is that reservations and criticisms both within the U.S. and (especially) internationally will help to make NATO act a little more responsibly than it might otherwise. But let's not oversimplify either the situation in Yugoslavia or the players in it. Carrol wrote: > For 55 years, without a single exception, every U.S. intervention > outside its own borders, economic, political or military, has resulted > in death, destruction and (usually permament) misery for the area > concerned. Every military action by *other* nations which the U.S. > has supported directly or indirectly has resulted in death, destruction, > and misery. This is sort of a truism, since military intervention by *anyone* leads to death, destruction and misery. Has the U.S. usually been on the wrong side of the struggles? Decidedly, yes. But are there really *no* exceptions of any sort? At least on the political level, it seems to me that the U.S. played a part (whatever the size) in fostering the (obviously still tentative) peace in Northern Ireland, in the still-holding peace between Israel and Egypt, and in occasionally dragging Israeli leaders into negotiations with the Palestinians--not to mention trying to get Milosevic to negotiate. Are these examples of pure, selfless good? No. But on the whole, I think it's better these events happened than not, and if the U.S. helped any of them to occur, then we as critics should take a fuller, more complex, and more nuanced view of it. I'm also not particularly swayed by Carrol's criticism of NATO in terms of a "criminal attack ... on a sovereign state." Serbia's attack on Kosovo is somehow not the same thing, or somehow less criminal? And are sovereign states such a holy thing? If so, then an intervention by the UN would be criminal as well. Indeed, by these lights the Allies' war against Nazi Germany was also a "criminal attack on a sovereign state," and the Soviet Union became a thug for U.S. imperialism when (eventually) it worked with the Western powers against Germany. Frankly, there's ample cause for thinking that notions of national sovereignty helped create the Serbian campaigns in the first place. As I see it, we're living in a thoroughly international milieu, and the sovereignty of nations needs to be moderated by forms of international governance, and ultimately supplanted by a democratic order with a completely different structure. But in the here and now, if we're going to pay more than lip-service to the notion of human rights, at some point we must allow someone to intervene against its violations. This brings me to Howard's quotation of Chomsky: > Noam Chomsky offered a simple analogy at Columbia last Friday. > Suppose you walk out the door and you see one person > committing a crime on another. He proposed these alternatives: > you can try to seek help, you can do nothing, or you can spray the > scene with an AK-47, killing the criminal, the victim and > bystanders as well, claiming you could not do nothing. A pretty analogy, but is it really suitable? Individuals and nation-states are not the same thing. More to the point, precisely who is it to whom we (whoever "we" are) should turn for help? If the UN won't step in, what next? And aren't there more alternatives than these three, including varied types of force? Not only is Chomsky's analogy simple, it's simplistic. I do think NATO misjudged Serbia's and Milosevic's responses to attack, put Yugoslavia's internal critics (particularly in Montenegro) in an untenable position, and thoroughly screwed up by not anticipating that Serbia would (again!) attempt a fait accompli by driving out Albanians, creating a flood of refugees. But to cast NATO's bombing campaign, which everyone (including the Serbs) knows focuses on military targets, as somehow more brutal or reprehensible than driving half a million people from their homes, destroying their villages, massacreing people by the dozens, and conducting a policy of rape ... come on, people, what *are* you thinking? Do you seriously prefer such activities to continue than to have NATO step in? If so, then John G's friend's comment needs to be turned toward yourselves: so much philosophy promoting human emancipation, yet so little care for real humans beings. As I asked in my initial post on this issue, what exactly do you--any of you--think should be done (or have been done) instead? You want to oppose the hegemony of the U.S.? Good, so do I. So should all socialists. But the left has had *decades* of attempting analysis and politics by simplistic sloganeering, "you're either completely with us or completely against us," "no nuances." And those decades have demonstrated that this approach *doesn't work*. It generates bad politics and bad analyses (and that *is* a philosophical issue, BTW). Further, it is deeply tied to purism, which allows people a gratifying sense of self-righteousness or even personal holiness (admittedly, no small thing!)--but if we're so committed to and blinded by purism that we can't see the complexities of real societies and consequently cannot respond to specific events at all adequately, then if capitalism detroys the world, *we* will share in the blame. If we've learned anything on this list, it's the catastrophic failure of reductive analyses. And so I also think Carrol and John M are quite wrong to say that the issue shouldn't have been raised on this list. Quite the reverse: if critical realism is to develop a viable ethical component (and not what some people jeeringly call "Socialism with a Happy Face"), it must cut its teeth on exactly this sort of troubling situation, and prove that its philosophical complexities are worth more than the paper they're printed on by giving us a sophisticated understanding of events and our options. I think it can, and I welcome this occasion for making a start. Really, I'd *appreciate* being proven wrong--I'd be much happier if I could withdraw my support for NATO's intervention. Once again: I'm far from enthusiastic that it was NATO intervening, and easily acknowledge the reasons for the opposing point of view. Indeed, I may come to rue my support, grudging as it is. If the outcome really is awful, I'll have to bear a degree of ethical responsibility; it's a chance that at this point I feel I have to take. However, let's not kid ourselves: that knife cuts both ways. You who oppose intervention must, in principle, bear an ethical responsibility for not stopping the Serbs' vicious campaign of "ethnic cleansing." I say "in principle," because NATO has relieved you from actually having to take that responsibility. And bearing no real responsibility, your blanket criticism costs you nothing, while providing you with an opportunity to crow about your righteousness before the Evil Empire America. Consequently, you *personally* benefit from NATO's intervention. Which makes you as complicit in its actions as anyone. Do I exaggerate? Yes, of course I do--though there's at least a grain of truth to what I say. But my underlying point (and the reason I freely *announce* that I was exaggerating) is this: moral purity is no-one's preserve. So it's important to recognize each other as intelligent people faced with a complex world in which there are extremely few simple answers. More specifically, let's respond with real arguments about this specific situation, not with aghast outrage that anyone on the left could possibly hold an opinion differing from your own, indignation based on dogmatic generalizations, or hasty withdrawals of the question itself. And let's not let ourselves off the hook too easily. Thanks, T. --- Tobin Nellhaus nellhaus-AT-gis.net "Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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