In Slate's Iraq war dialogue, Terror and Liberalism author Paul Berman has some tough words for George Bush -- and a tough question for Democrats.
[T]otalitarian movements can ultimately be defeated only in the realm of ideas. Millions of people have to be persuaded to change their ideas. Not forced—persuaded. Which is to say, someone has to go out there and try to persuade people.On this point, which happens to be the most important point of all, Bush has failed us almost totally. It is pretty outrageous. His failure to take up these matters ought to be seen as a calamity. But then, who has been making up for this terrible failure of his? Who has taken up the burden to wage a really extensive war of ideas, a war of TV networks, radio programs, lectures, books, magazines, and everything else? I don't mean something small—I mean a massive campaign.
I think the political right is incapable of waging such a war, by virtue of its own militaristic and isolationist instincts. The neocons do sometimes talk about a war of ideas, but, on these matters, neoconservatism is all talk, no action. So, then, this should be the business of people on the left side of the spectrum. But where are the Democrats, on these matters? The left? This is truly a problem, and nobody seems to be doing very much about it, not on a grand scale, anyway.
Berman's right -- perhaps tragically so. As a group, we Democrats haven't truly begun to reckon with the challenge of 9-11, and the price of that abdication, for us and for the world, has already been high. Very high.
In truth, the great and terrible conflicts of the last century were, as Bob Dole once nastily and quite correctly put it, "Democrat wars." As this one must be, if we're to win it.
UPDATE: Jesus, already an angry email from an anti-war Dem who thinks I'm calling her a fifth columnist. For the record, I'm not. In fact, if you want to know what I think of people who do call Democrats fifth columnists, click here.
UPDATE 2: More in the comments.
Posted by Jack O'Toole on January 15, 2004 01:17 AMI'm not quite sure how to respond to your post. Are you implying that fundamentalist Islam is "totalitarian", and that liberalism must confront it? Or are you saying that somehow the opposition to overthrowing Saddam was an irresponsible failure to stop "totalitarianism"? In both cases, I fail to see how they qualify as truely totalitarian cultures. The former is feudal and the latter was authoritarian. The latter was also not a threat to U.S. national security requiring military action.
And what's the connection between the supposed failure of Democrats to "reckon with the challenge of 9-11" and the Carnegie Endowment report on Iraq you link to under "Very high." What are you implying? That if Democrats had just gone along with Bush somehow the invasion would not have been necessary?
Posted by: Mithras on January 15, 2004 02:32 AMMithras --
Fair questions all, and it's my fault for trying to write a short post about a big idea.
1) Yes, I do think that radical Islam is a totalitarian ideology. And since Berman makes that case better than I could in his Slate post, I'll simply link to it again, and ask you to give the whole thing a read.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2093620/entry/2093925/
2) I linked to the Carnegie report because it demonstrates just how easy it is for the current administration to get away with deceiving the public when our side isn't really in the fight. While I (reluctantly) favored the war in Iraq for reasons similar to Tom Friedman's, I don't think the administration's falsehoods were acceptable, nor do I believe that those who opposed it were irresponsible. (It was a *very* close call, and reasonable people could disagree.) On the other hand, I *do* think that the Democratic party has, by and large, failed so far to offer a comprehensive and viable alternative to the neocon analysis of the post-9-11 world. (Compare what we've heard from Democrats to date with the Democratic response to the challenges posed by the Soviet Union in the 1940s. Frankly, there is no comparison.)
3) There's just no getting around the fact that we're facing an enemy who would use nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons against our citizens if he could, and that the American people are quite rightly looking for far more than better police work and a quickie war in Afghanistan in response. And as long as their choices boil down to that or GWB's short-sighted but aggressive approach, I'm afraid they'll choose the latter.
Hope that clears some of it up. If not, feel free to "push back" again, and I'll try to do better.
Posted by: Jack O'Toole on January 15, 2004 04:15 AM