In the tradition of Halifax and his admirers (e.g. Butterfield, Oakeshott, et al.), this blog is dedicated to the politics of skepticism (or anti-ideological politics, or even unprincipled politics, if you prefer).
10 November 2008
quote for the day
Nothing can compensate for our stay in this country... And all Poland is not worth one drop of the blood which we are shedding for it. Talleyrand (1807)
4 comments:
Anonymous
said...
I'm not sure what the point is of this quote. Is it a veiled reference to Iraq? Is it opposition to all military intervention?
It is a not-so-veiled reference to the American misadventure in Iraq, but it certainly does not suggest an opposition to all military action. It is meant to convey my opposition to a military intervention justified in terms of democratizing the Middle East (or any other intervention based upon such puerile ideological considerations), and carried out in a particularly cack-handed way (Talleyrand again, 'This is worse than a crime, it's a blunder').
After all, Talleyrand was not a pacifist but a realist. The quote occured after the Battle of Eylau, when Talleyrand decided (correctly) that the costs of continuing the French advances into Eastern Europe (uncivilized territory) were not worth the gains to be made (which he believed were insubstantial).
The intervention was only justified as a democratizing mission ex post facto. The original casus belli was Saddam's refusal to verifiably dismantle his WMD capacity. A pretty good casus, in my view - even for non-ideologues, because we all have to live before we can philosophize...
I would agree that, had there been a reasonable probability that WMDs capable of doing the US harm were in place or were being quickly developed, a reasonable casus belli would have existed. However, I never believed that the Bush Administration was being honest about their real reasons, and Mr. Wolfowitz confirmed my suspicions when he admitted that the Administration was always committed to an invasion and that the WMD justification was merely a handy excuse.
In any case, the invasion was initially extremely successful, and it was only the attempt to impose a western-style government which has failed. If the US had marched out as soon as they marched in, then they might have been chastised by the international community and by idealists in the US, but not by me.
I don't belong to any club or group. I don't fish, cook, dance, endorse books, sign books, co-sign declarations, eat oysters,...go to church, go to analysts, or take part in demonstrations. V. Nabokov
4 comments:
I'm not sure what the point is of this quote. Is it a veiled reference to Iraq? Is it opposition to all military intervention?
It is a not-so-veiled reference to the American misadventure in Iraq, but it certainly does not suggest an opposition to all military action. It is meant to convey my opposition to a military intervention justified in terms of democratizing the Middle East (or any other intervention based upon such puerile ideological considerations), and carried out in a particularly cack-handed way (Talleyrand again, 'This is worse than a crime, it's a blunder').
After all, Talleyrand was not a pacifist but a realist. The quote occured after the Battle of Eylau, when Talleyrand decided (correctly) that the costs of continuing the French advances into Eastern Europe (uncivilized territory) were not worth the gains to be made (which he believed were insubstantial).
The intervention was only justified as a democratizing mission ex post facto. The original casus belli was Saddam's refusal to verifiably dismantle his WMD capacity. A pretty good casus, in my view - even for non-ideologues, because we all have to live before we can philosophize...
I would agree that, had there been a reasonable probability that WMDs capable of doing the US harm were in place or were being quickly developed, a reasonable casus belli would have existed. However, I never believed that the Bush Administration was being honest about their real reasons, and Mr. Wolfowitz confirmed my suspicions when he admitted that the Administration was always committed to an invasion and that the WMD justification was merely a handy excuse.
In any case, the invasion was initially extremely successful, and it was only the attempt to impose a western-style government which has failed. If the US had marched out as soon as they marched in, then they might have been chastised by the international community and by idealists in the US, but not by me.
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