Pre-empting the Future

A headline from a few weeks ago still causes me to shake my head in disbelief. It was as follows: “'Pre-emptive strike' policy is revisited.” Now, that policy is, as everyone should know, the one invented by the Bush administration on the spot, in order to justify the invasion of Iraq – the idea being, do unto them before they do unto us. Of course, the capability of Iraq to “do unto us” was exaggerated by a factor of... oh, a few thousand or so. When we have one nuke for every hundred or so Iraqis, and our “ally”, Israel, has a hundred nukes for every one Iraqi... well, it's stretching things a bit to accuse Iraq of being on the verge of attacking us and declaring all-out war. But nonetheless, that was one of the major justifications, if not the only one, for our invasion.

We can see that, for one thing, the “pre-emptive strike” policy blatantly violates traditional Catholic teachings about “just war”. And it also – as if we cared! -- violates standards set down by the U.N., the Geneva Convention, and any number of treaties. What it really means is if “we” think that someone is fixing to attack us, we have the right to attack them just as if they really had attacked us... 'cause if we waited, it would be too late. Or something. Somehow, I don't think it would have been all that risky to wait for an Iraqi attack on American soil (if they can't reliably reach Tel Aviv with a Scud, how're they gonna get to New York City?)... but that objection was answered by our leaders' pointing to all the “smoking guns” linking Iraq to the 9/11 attacks. You know, the same smoking guns that were to mysteriously disappear, along with all the WMDs, once we got over there and had a look around. It was at that point that the invasion became all about freedom for the Iraqi people – although freedom from what, or to what, was never made clear. They certainly don't seem much freer now than they did then; after all, their country is occupied by a foreign power now, and it wasn't before. Plus, the Christians in Iraq have all been driven out – so you certainly can't claim they're any freer. So I honestly don't know what it adds up to.

But here's the real point. You take a policy that was obviously illegal, according to international law... unjust... immoral... and self-serving... and which was always represented as the brainstorm of one brainless president. Now why wouldn't a policy like that be declared null and void – automatically and without qualification – by the new president on the first day of his term? Why does it have to be “revisited” as though we were talking about a Constitutional amendment? Well, that's because there is a process, familiar to all of us by now, by which any policy – foreign or domestic – that increases government power, erodes the rights of the citizenry, or enables us to act more unilaterally and arbitrarily on the world stage, is very difficult to relinquish... not only by the people who came up with it, but by their successors, even if of the other party. For example: We know, historically, that Democrats and liberals set up a massive welfare state during the New Deal era. But was that socialist infrastructure dismantled by the Republican and relatively conservative administrations of, say, Eisenhower, Nixon, or Reagan? Not on your life – because once in place, it was virtually impossible to dislodge... and that, in turn, was because it produced certain habits of thought and behavior among the citizenry... certain expectations, and a certain helplessness. So ending any of those programs or shutting down the agencies charged with their implementation would have been politically suicidal and would have caused much more distress than simply not allowing the programs to get started in the first place. Think of it like heroin, or crack cocaine -- which is easier, to not start or to break the habit? It's the same with all forms of entitlement. Socialism actually works on the moral and psychological makeup of individuals; it is not just a custom, habit, or "system" of society. Why were the countries that emerged from the breakup of the Soviet Republic so slow, in many cases, to adjust to their new-found freedom? It wasn't a systemic problem so much as the aggregate of individual habits and attitudes -- the first and foremost being helplessness and apathy.

That's on the domestic policy side – but what about the military, and our massive defense spending, even in (relative) peacetime, that rivals what we used to spend on world wars? You wouldn't think that the Democrats/liberals would have any problem cutting those programs back to the bone, would you? But no – the same sorts of problems occur in that sector as well. To begin with, the defense establishment is, first and foremost, a jobs program – and Democrats/liberals are all about jobs for everyone, without a whole lot of concern as to what sorts of jobs we're talking about. And then it turns out that – behold! -- the arms makers contribute just as much to Democrats' campaigns as they do to Republicans'. And – the dirty little secret of the Democrats is that they enjoy being “war presidents” every bit as much, if not more, than the Republicans do, since it helps fulfill their fantasies of remaking the world in their own image (not to mention, it makes them look like something other than wimpy eggheads).

Thus, the bottom-line difference between the two major parties when it comes to both domestic and foreign (military mostly) policy is negligible. What does differ, of course, is the rhetoric – the rationalizations, excuses, and mealy-mouthings that accompany their ill-starred ideas. When it comes to the welfare state, the Republicans are “compassionate conservatives” -- a phrase that never fails to get a laugh from the left-leaning press (i.e., the vast bulk thereof). And when it comes to war, all the Democrats are trying to do -- or so they say -- is make the world safe for democracy – or insure human rights – or eliminate racism, sexism, and homophobia – or eliminate “hate”... you know, all the same things they do on the domestic front, but without quite as much reliance on armed force. They will assure you, time and again, that they hate war... but armed force is occasionally necessary to "back up" their noble humanitarian plans for other countries.

So this is why parties seldom do away with things originated by the other party; there is too much pressure to keep them in place, and little or none to get rid of them. A politician may campaign against the other party, the other candidate, and maybe against some of the other party's ideas, but he will very seldom campaign against _things_ – the tools the party in power uses – and will, less often than one might expect, campaign seriously against policies, unless those policies are politically marginal to begin with – i.e. they have more symbolic than real value to the majority of the voters. So in the case of pre-emptive strike policy, even if Obama and the Democrats found it distasteful as long as it was being wielded by Republicans, now that it's in their hands they are developing strange new respect for it and all of its implications – and all of the power it grants. So they decide they'd better hang onto it, because who knows, they might need it someday. What if homophobia erupts in Haiti? Or sexism in Swaziland? Or racism in Rwanda? (No problem – everyone there is black. That's why it's such a peaceful place.)

But then, why is the administration talking about revisiting the policy at all? Why not just carry on and say nothing? Well, because they feel they owe some of their loony, left-wing, peacenik supporters – you know, the usual gaggle of useful idiots – a nod. And I suppose they're trying to get us out of the doghouse with the U.N., because... well, because those third-world dictators really know how to throw a party, that's why. (Did you ever stop to reflect that a good third of the GNP of some of those places goes to support their embassy in Washington? But it's a good investment.) In any case, it is interesting to consider some of the lame things that are being said on the matter. Like for example, the world is “more complex” than it was back in 2002. Now this is something that only a Democrat or a liberal would be crazy enough to say. What, pray tell, has made the world that much more complex between then and now? Did 9/11 make it more complex, or did it just show everyone how complex it actually was? I mean, granted, when you have a president like George W. Bush – who's baffled when the folks working the checkout line at Whole Foods say “paper or plastic?” -- it seems like the world is a simple place because its only the simpletons who are dealing with it. But honestly, lets admit that all of this “complexity” has only become obvious since Inauguration Day 2009. And the complexity premise is essential to liberal thinking because it is symbiotic with the stance of relativism – and that is the slippery, spongy rock upon which all liberal thinking – and, therefore, politics and policy – is founded. Liberal politics is, in effect, the everyday expression of the relativistic premise – about not only society and economics but about humanity in general... which is why the pre-emptive strike policy in the hands of a liberal is like a shotgun in the hands of a small child. It is a policy based on absolutist thinking (even if totally wrong) and has no place in a highly-relativist administration whose key personnel have already shown a startling indifference toward what are considered traditional, or even “American”, values -- not to mention toward our survival as at least a semi-functioning republic.

Plus, hey, wasn't Obama just awarded the Nobel Peace Prize as a sort of incentive – as a way of declaring the U.S. “most improved” because it had elected a candidate who was, supposedly, opposed to impulsive and arbitrary wars? So what's he doing pouring more money and personnel into two of the most impulsive and arbitrary wars we've ever fought, hmmm? And when do they turn around and take back his prize? Oh wait – for a moment there I forgot some of the other blockheads who've received the same prize. I guess we can't expect any help from that quarter.

Plus, the policy is being reviewed as part of the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review (“of strategy, force structure and weapons programs”). Wouldn't do to rush this process, would it? You see how the administration ducks responsibility here? Once a policy like this is locked in place, it can only be “revisited” every four years. Can't be helped, that's just the way it is. It's funny how they can revisit things like the “death tax”, and taxpayer-funded abortions and stem-cell research, every other week if they want to, but something like this – that involves invading other countries – is sacrosanct except for that rare, once-in-an-administration window. Do you think Bush waited four years to put the policy in place? But Obama is using the glacier-like pace of change in the Defense Department as a cover for his unwillingness to part company with this very large spiked club.

Well, we'll see. Maybe Obama & Co. won't have any “felt need” to pre-emptively strike anyone for a while. But one can't help but think of Iran, and all of the run-up to an invasion of that country that was going on during the waning days of the Bush administration. Are you telling me that this idea has been completely swept off the table by the Obamaites? I can't imagine. I suspect that Iran is still considered Job One on the current pre-emptive strike roster (now that Sarah Palin, who wanted to go to war with Russia over Georgia, has become a private citizen again), and that it wouldn't take that much of an excuse to set the wheels in motion – especially with Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, with all of her Valkyrie-like fantasies. (She gets the lead chariot, and is followed in close order by Janet Reno and Nancy Pelosi. Yeah... I can't get that picture out of my head either. Sorry.)

And another factor that minimizes the outrage that people might experience over our overseas follies is that there is no longer a “peace dividend” -- in fact there hasn't been one since, I guess, the post-World War II era. We're in a war, we're out, we're back in – it doesn't alter the level of “defense” spending one iota. This notion, so dear to hard-core liberals, that “if only” we weren't fighting in Iraq, or Afghanistan, or wherever, we could rebuild our infrastructure, and improve our schools and hospitals, and fund more subversive art, and eliminate “hate”, etc. -- that's all just a pipe dream. It doesn't cost much less to support the troops in Fort Swampy than in Fallujah... and besides, the average citizen feels no pain, because he's not being forced to give anything up (unlike, again, World War II). The budgeting process for defense is a straight line many decades into the future – this is an operating assumption on the part of defense budget planners. No one ever thinks to factor in whether we're at war or not, because it doesn't matter. If we are, then a few “line items” go up, and a few others go down. If we're not, the reverse happens. And you'll notice our foreign policy is carefully calibrated so that all of our wars these days are about the same size... and we can make a smooth transition from one to the other. You think this is an accident? We will not be fighting another world war very soon, if ever – although one might think that a war on Islam qualifies... but as long as we don't call it that we can get away with it. No, a steady diet of war is on our plate from here on out, because that is what pleases most of the people most of the time – especially those in power. It's just another one of those undeclared, if not hidden, taxes that would otherwise be more difficult to collect; why, we have to “defend America”, and anyone who objects is downright patriotic – a traitor, even! So once the terms are defined in that way, it's difficult to find anyone – even a single politician on Capitol Hill (except for Ron Paul, of course -- and maybe Dennis Kucinich on a good day) who will stand up and object. So yes, all have drunk deeply of the draught of war... and all “policy” questions are rendered trivial once that commitment is made. It will not end until the nation ends... and may, in fact, accelerate that end (in a way an intelligent leader might find paradoxical – but none of our leaders is intelligent enough to achieve that insight).