We've had a visitor, and he posted a comment I thought warranted a full post. Here it is:
"The path to hell is paved with good intentions. While they wanted to end what they saw as an immoral war and the system that generated it, they went about it in a wholely immoral way. I bet Weather saw the dominating tactics used by governments and their affect, so they decided to try to imitate them. Only they did not see the behind the scenes diplomacy and reconstruction efforts that accompany war and are able to create stable situations out of the chaos of war. I wonder, should we expect people in the countries we have invaded to react any differently to our violence than we have reacted to the Weather Underground's violence?"
Mr. Pasley, my answer to your question is quite simple... NO.
There is absolutely NO reason to think that people in any nation we have fought in (or invaded, if you prefer... but we didn't invade Vietnam, or Korea, or Nazi Germany, or Imperial Japan... at least, not in the manner you mean) that are of the same caliber of mind and morals as Mr. Ayers should react any differently than he did... or than they have, in the case of Iraq and Afghanistan.
I can say that because I really see NO difference between Mr. Ayers and any of the fanatics that are actually responsible for the tens of thousands of civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan due to terrorism and sectarian violence against innocent civilians.
Mr. Ayers has shown a fanatical (there is no other word for it, is there?) adherence to the dream of a communist/socialist society in which ALL people are FORCED to conform to a government-determined and mandated level of success and prosperity, and any that do not conform are to be removed from that society. Prairie Fire made that portion of his personal vision rather clear, I thought.
History shows us that this kind of "utopia" is not only politically impossible to achieve... it goes against the very grains of human nature itself. No parent on Earth could WANT to see their children relegated to the same status (literally, the exact SAME status, from education to job to domicile, to retirement... THAT is socio-economic equality, after all), generation after generation! We WANT our children to have MORE than we do... to work LESS than we do... to travel farther... and socialism in it's purest form CANNOT allow that to happen, to ANYONE. William Ayers doesn't want it to happen to anyone... period. He, and those like him, want all aspects of our lives permanently reduced to the lowest common denominator... not out of spite or for personal gain, but because that is what socialism is, pure and simple. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is the hallmark of the end of every society that has made it a part of it's creed.
Mr. Pasley, I do agree that "Hell is paved with good intentions" (a quote often attributed to Samuel Johnson, but actually from St. Bernard of Clairvoux... quite nice to see a good Catholic quote here at the Bund!)... and I sincerely hope that some of those very same pavers aren't the promises of one Barack H. Obama to his American constituency.
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2 comments:
I think I didn't make myself clear enough in my last post. I wasn't asking whether we should expect people in other countries to respond to our military's violence the same way Weather did. I was saying this: I abhor what the WUO did, just as you seem to. We reacted to their violence with disgust and anger. Should we expect the general public in other countries to react to our military's violence differently than we have reacted to the WUO's violence, given the "collateral damage" (both in human and material terms) our military is inflicting upon them?
I also agree that authoritarian socialism or communism on the left is horrific and totalitarian just as fascism on the right is horrible and totalitarian. Authoritarian governments in general are contrary to freedom and democracy.
If you are even an infrequent visitor to our blog, you would know that I am NOT an apologist for the reasoning behind the US invasion of Iraq… but to better answer your question I feel I must take that role. So, here it goes…
In any kind of military endeavor, one must expect a degree of “collateral damage” in both the terms you describe. This is an inevitable result of the violent nature of warfare, and should NOT be seen an indictment of the US military or its government. I’m sure this is nothing new to you, but it needed to be said, nonetheless.
If we are seeking to address the injustice of this “inevitable fact of war” in regards to the innocents that suffer because of it, we MUST also weigh the simple fact that the “injustice” of a tyrannical regime like Saddam’s was far more “unjust” than anything we could have hoped to bring to the table after the March ’03 invasion. As unfortunate as the deaths of even one or two innocents is in light of the “high and mighty” reasoning of even the most sanctimonious conservatives (like my good friend, Ryan) might be, one cannot deny the simple FACT that since the US invasion of Iraq, 13.8 million women in Iraq voted for the first time in recorded human history, and more than 700 women have run for office (I have no idea how many actually WON the offices they were running for)… an unheard of event when compared to the previous 117 years of Iraqi “self-determination”. For the first time since Saladin, the PEOPLE of Iraq are free to determine, through their own voice and their own vote, the course of their national destiny. The people of Iraq are, right this minute, enjoying more personal freedom and individual liberty than they ever have in the past… and that is a very long national past, too.
So, it seems to me that you are asking if we should expect the general population of Iraq to react to the US invasion in the same manner that you and I react to the actions of the Weather Underground and it’s leaders like William Ayers. If that is, indeed, what you are asking, then I can only answer (again) with a simple NO.
No matter what you think of President Bush (and I do not hold a very high opinion of him myself, either), I find it very hard to believe that a rational human being with even an ounce of common sense could believe that we invaded Iraq with the express intent to FORCE the American ideal onto their society. We did not invade to make Iraq the 51st State of the Union… we invaded to remove the threat (real or imagined) posed by one of the most tyrannical despots the world has seen in the last 200 years, and to allow the 25 million people calling Iraq home to best determine their own future.
NOTHING that the WUO did from 1969 through 1974 (and beyond) was anything other than their murderous and (ultimately) pathetic attempt to FORCE the people of THIS nation to accept THEIR view of how society should function. That is the end game of every “socialist revolution” that has ever been attempted, and is specifically DESIGNED into the Weathermen’s very manifesto… the “violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the eradication of the social system based on profit”. I do not see where you or I would have had any say in what form or manner of government we would have been happy with, had the Weathermen actually managed to defeat the “imperialist American tyrants” they were targeting with their bombs and riots… do you? Where in history do we see a “socialist” movement that doesn’t work to remove the possibility of counter-political views gaining political power, and thus, removing “democracy” from the very equation of society?
Furthermore, I am still waiting for someone from the “anti-war” side of this kind of discussion to show me one scrap of evidence that the US military is responsible for even one tenth of the civilian deaths that the likes of the Badr Brigade, or the Soldiers of Heaven, or the Mahdi Army, or the Ba’athist, or al Zarqawi, or al Sadr have killed INTENTIONALLY since 2005. The Iraqis themselves now admit that militias and provisional armies have killed more than 50,000 civilians in Baghdad ALONE! Are THESE the people you feel we should have left to fill the void after Saddam was removed? Any civilian or innocent non-combatant death as a result of US intervention is a terrible thing… but sometimes the alternative is far, far worse… don’t you agree?
Perhaps I am taking your question further than you intended it to go, and perhaps you do not hold with the view that the US is the “evil” side of the current situation in Iraq. I do not know you, and I haven’t delved far enough into your blog to determine which “camp” you claim to support. I simply said what I felt needed to be said in light of the question you asked.
As a last point, I’d like to state, very clearly, that one can see an extreme in almost any scenario one wishes to view. On the “left” we have Stalin in the USSR, Mao in China, both Kims in Korea… and on the “right” we have Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, and Saddam Hussein. Many people (not you, necessarily) see people like William Ayers as a “man in the middle”, but I would ask those people: “Could you ask the same questions we ask our government NOW of the government that any of the names above ruled? Could we ask the same questions of the government that William Ayers “fought” to build?
Again, I say NO.
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