Empire as Virtue

  

Empire as Virtue

Peter Schultz

 

                  The following passage is from a book entitled The Rule of Empires, by Timothy H. Parsons.

 

                  “This reading of history ignores the essential characteristic of empire: the permanent rule and exploitation of a defeated people by a conquering power. By their very nature, empires can never be – and never were – humane, liberal, or tolerant. Would-be Caesars throughout history sought glory, land, and, most importantly, plunder. The true nature of empire was more obvious in pre-modern times when it was unnecessary to disguise such base motives. In recent centuries, however, imperial conquerors have tried to hide their naked self-interest by promising to rule for the good of their subjects. This was and always will be a cynical and hypocritical canard. Empire has never been more than naked self-interest masquerading as virtue.” [4]

 

                  A question: What if, in fact, empire is or reflects virtue? That is, so far from being “naked self-interest masquerading as virtue,” empire is virtue itself. Which is what makes it so appealing. Human beings, universally, want to be virtuous, perhaps more than anything else. And in their quest to be virtuous, they seek to dominate, to rule, and to seek glory by ameliorating the human condition politically.

 

                  Insofar as this is the case, the issue is or should be virtue, not empire. If, as Parsons so aptly argues and illustrates, empires have been, are, and will be intolerable to their subjects because violently oppressive, then virtue should be investigated. A politics of virtue, e.g., politics as soul craft as so many espouse might have consequences that will not be, that cannot be “humane, liberal, or tolerant.” Perhaps the crafting of souls, making our souls the best possible as Socrates recommended, should not and cannot be done politically. Good persons and good citizens are, for all practical purposes, distant, even conflicting phenomena, always.

Defeat

  

Defeat

Peter Schultz

 

                  The following are reflections spurred by a reading of D. Michael Shafer’s book, Deadly Paradigms: The Failure of US Counterinsurgency Policy.

 

                  As Shafer summarizes the realist explanation of US involvement in Vietnam, “Communist expansion threatened Vietnam; if Vietnam fell … other countries would … follow; this would damage America’s security and credibility as an ally. Thus, the United States had to stand in Vietnam.” [240-41]

 

                  Yes, the problem was Communist expansion, but it was not simply because it threatened Vietnam, but also and more importantly because it threatened the established elites who were governing the United States. It might even expose “the myth of invincibility,” as Dean Rusk put it, which was the basis of the claim to rule by those elites.

 

                  As one senior official put it: “We must avoid harmful appearances which will affect judgments by … other nations regarding the US … power, resolve and competence to deal with their problems…. It is essential – however badly [Southeast Asia] may go … - that the US … kept [ its] promises, been tough, taken risks, gotten bloodied, and hurt [and been hurt by] the enemy very badly.” [241] Getting bloodied, getting US troops killed, being hurt badly by the enemy demonstrated that US elites deserved to rule.

 

                  Take note: the primary goal was to “avoid harmful appearances,” not necessarily or primarily winning the war. And to avoid such appearances, it was necessary for the US to engage in a “War of Liberation … [which was] costly, dangerous, and doomed to failure.” [Dean Rusk, 241] To maintain and fortify their claim to rule, US elites had to show resolve, not quit, even or especially because the war was “costly, dangerous, and doomed to failure.”

 

So, ironically, what happened in Vietnam was not nearly as important as what happened in the United States; that is, what US elites were willing to do to maintain and fortify their claims to rule, even or especially to the point of undertaking futile policies. That counterinsurgency policies were not successful was not, in the final analysis, a sufficient reason to abandon them. In fact, as things went from bad to worse in Vietnam, the ruling elites would double down on such policies as a way of proving their bona fides.

Duplicitous Politics: The Heart of Darkness

  

Duplicitous Politics: Heart of Darkness

Peter Schultz

 

                  Duplicity is intrinsic to government and politics and one of the best illustrations of this was the Obama administration and its targeted assassinations program. The following is from Jeremy Scahill’s book, Dirty Wars.

 

                  “President Obama’s credentials as a popular, liberal Democrat and constitutional lawyer who pledged to end the excesses of the Bush war machine [was] of tremendous value in selling [his presidency].”

 

                  And now for the facts: “A year into his presidency, Obama and his … team were fully committed to the process of assassinations against terror suspects and other ‘militants.’ Unlike … Bush, who delegated decisions of assassinations, … Obama personally signed off on most strikes…. Tuesday afternoons [were] dubbed ‘Terror Tuesdays’ [when] targets would be ‘nominated’ for spots on the kill list…. This secret ‘nominations’ process was the invention of the Obama administration…. In essence the kill list became a form of ‘pre-crime’ justice in which individuals were considered fair game if they met certain life patterns of suspected terrorists…. Their potential to commit future acts could be a justification for killing them…. In Yemen, Obama authorized the JSOC to hit targets even if the mission planners did not know the identities of those they were bombing. Such strikes were labeled Terrorist Attack Disruption Strikes, or TADs.” [351-352, emphasis added]

 

                  Duplicity is absolutely essential in politics in order to disguise the violence, the injustice, the inhumanity that is intrinsic to politics and government. And it is worthwhile to underline just how pervasive this duplicity is, including as it does here Obama’s claim to be a liberal Democrat who as such was committed to distinguishing himself from his predecessors, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, et. al. So, even our most basic political categories like “liberal” and “Democrat” are duplicitous, serving to hide the collusion between what are conventionally known as our “two political parties.” That there are two political parties is a fantasy constructed to hide the true character of our politics.

 

                  Joesph Conrad wrote an excellent novel, The Heart of Darkness. But, in the final analysis, he did not get to the actual heart of civilization’s darkness, which is only visible when it becomes clear that the “Kurtz’s” of the world are no longer outliers, rogue actors but are, in fact, in charge of the asylum. We have, it seems, reached that point.

Obama's Duplicity

  

Obama’s Duplicity

Peter Schultz

 

                  “Obama campaigned on the idea that Bush had drained resources in Iraq that should have been used to fight al Qaeda. ‘They [Bush and McCain] took their eye off the people who were responsible for 9/11,…al Qaeda.’ The new president pledged to rearrange US priorities to Afghanistan….” [Dirty Wars, 237]

 

                  Clever. While apparently criticizing Bush and McCain, Obama is endorsing the war on terror. His is not even a criticism that cuts very deeply. They spent too much in Iraq, which doesn’t mean the war and occupation was a mistake. Obama allows people to think he is opposing Bush and McCain when, in fact, he is endorsing their war on terror and even, up to a point, their invasion and occupation of Iraq. His endorsement is hidden behind a very mild critique of Bush and McCain and their actions. So, Obama is actually colluding with Bush and McCain with regard to the war on terror, even with regard to the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

 

                  Duplicity: the coin of the realm used to hide colluding political parties.

The Ambiguity of Moral Virtue

  

The Ambiguity of Moral Virtue

Peter Schultz

 

                  As noted in the book, Patriotic Betrayal, there was a time in the United States when “neutrality [was viewed] as ‘immoral and short-sighted.,’ by both liberal and conservative Cold Warriors.” [145]

 

                  Now, if we grant that neutrality is, actually, immoral or amoral, as thought by “both liberal and conservative Cold Warriors,” then these Cold Warriors were, in fact, moral human beings. But this means that these moral human beings accepted and embraced war, both cold and hot.

 

                  A question occurs to me: Isn’t this a good argument on behalf of immorality insofar as it is pacifistic, insofar as it points toward peace or peaceful coexistence, and not to war? Ironically, it would appear that immoral human beings are less warlike than moral human beings. Put differently, courageous human beings are more warlike than cowardly human beings. So, what’s so great about courage?

 

                  In other words, courage – and moral virtue generally – has ambiguous consequences, just as does cowardice and immorality generally. So, what’s needed? Intellectual virtue: that is, the capacity to discern when courage makes more sense than cowardice and when cowardice – e.g. “appeasement” – makes more sense than courage. The fact that neutrality was immoral was not necessarily an argument against it, at least not during the Cold War. And the fact that the Cold Warriors were moral need not lead to their endorsement or the endorsement of the Cold War itself. Ironically, at times, a little immorality goes a long way.

Patriotic Betrayal #2

  

Patriotic Betrayal #2

Peter Schultz

 

                  According to Leonard Bebchick, one of members of the National Student Association who knew of the CIA’s connections with that organization, he and his cohorts were realists.

 

                  “We were not starry-eyed idealists; we were all pretty hardened people, all political types who had a realistic assessment of what the world was about, and yet we felt we were doing God’s work.” [136]

 

                  Leaving aside the claim that it was or is realistic to think of yourselves as “doing God’s work,” Bebchick’s claim that he and his cohorts had “a realistic assessment of what the world was about” is open to challenge. In his reality, the world was experiencing a war against communism, a war that was divinely inspired, a war unlike other wars.

 

However, this was not so. The world was experiencing just another war that was, like all other wars, politics by other means. Just more politics not fundamentally different than politics as it had appeared throughout human history. And, so, while war had a role to play in this political drama, it would not be decisive in its resolution.

 

                  It would not be decisive because political conflicts can only be resolved politically, via compromises, negotiations, and diplomacy. Why? Because defeated nations are not vanquished nations. So, the defeated must be “dealt with.” As Aristotle indicated in his Politics, democratic factions, aristocratic factions, oligarchic factions, even despotic factions are permanent features of the human condition because humans are political animals. Hence, all political disputes must be resolved, insofar as they can be, politically. And all those resolutions will lack finality or permanence. “Regime change,” which Americans take to be uncommon, carefully constructed events, are intrinsic to political life, happening continually and even haphazardly. Regime changes make political life look like a madhouse.

 

                  American elites do not understand this and, so, they repeatedly fail because they do not know what they should be doing. They seek the impossible, vanquishment and the elimination of political conflicts. Given the political character of the human condition, institutions like the CIA are or become despotic. Despotism and despotic institutions are appealing because they claim to be able to eliminate political conflicts and, hence, the need for politics. But ironically, despotisms do not eliminate conflict, they feed them. So, as its history demonstrates, the CIA feeds conflict and it cannot resolve them. To rely on the CIA to achieve peace is madness. And insofar as the CIA is victorious, prevails, that victory contains the seeds of its own destruction.

Patriotic Betrayal

  

Patriotic Betrayal

Peter Schultz

 

                  A few remarks about some passages in Karen M. Paget’s book, Patriotic Betrayal, which is about the CIA’s covert attempt to control the NSA, the National Student Association during the Cold War.

 

                  Among the leaders of the NSA, there was a “naïve faith … that American know-how could replace politics.” This phenomenon is common among Americans because the real naivete is the American conviction that its embrace of know-how isn’t political.

 

                  As the “students” involved with the NSA sought to recruit students from other parts of the world, they concluded that Asian students, for example, were “prone to agitation.” They concluded that “Asian students needed to move beyond the ‘outmoded tactics’ used during independence movements, when their ‘major purpose was to create havoc and unrest for the Western powers….” They had to learn “to work with the Western powers.” [124]

 

                  So, American “students” were not prone to agitation.  Why not? Because Americans focus on acquiring expertise, achieving success, being ambitious, rather than being political. But this is a political choice or a choice with significant political implications. It may be said that it is as political as the choice to adopt tactics that are used to create havoc and unrest. It might best be called bourgeois politics.

 

                  The Asians adopted such tactics because their purpose was independence and, so, “their energy could be redirected” only by changing that purpose; for example, by giving up the pursuit for independence for the sake of “work[ing] with the West.” The Americans did not understand that working with the West was a substitute for, a replacement, a subversion of the drive for independence. So, their energies could only be successfully redirected if they gave up their drive for independence. Although the Americans did not understand this, those seeking independence did know it, which is why they distrusted Americans as much as they did. Working with the West is, obviously, a political agenda and not one the agitating students were prepared to embrace. They wanted their independence. In fact, advocating for American know-how, advocating against agitation are just covers for opposition to genuine independence. As such, they were bound to fail, at least absent despotic repression.

 

                  Beyond the students, even American elites are guilty of the same ignorance. LBJ, at one point in Vietnam war, offered to build a Vietnamese Great Society if they would end the war. What he did not know, at least not sufficiently, is that the Vietnamese did not want a Great Society. They wanted a unified, independent Vietnam. And they also knew, what LBJ did not, that an American sponsored Great Society would not accomplish those goals. Surprisingly, perhaps, the Vietnamese understood the situation better than LBJ did, which may help explain why they won the war. Ignorance is not always bliss.