Friday, August 15, 2008

Fukuyama in error again...

First in "The End of History and Last Man" he argued that liberal capitalist democracies are the end of history (neglecting the compulsory sine wave of stupidity in humans), then he argued in 1998 that Iraq was the most serious danger we faced since the Cold War, then he argued that the successful invasion was the beginning of trouble, and now he argues that it wasn't worth it.

Well, if Iraq is taken as a isolated incident I guess we could have that argument. I argue that there is a war of civilizations going on, and in fact it is a worldwide religious war of variable intensity depending on place and time, and that Iraq is Guadalcanal. It is the place where the war forks either one way or the other.

There's a piece off the board.

If Iraq can make it as a democratic state, and satisfy the aspirations of it's people IN THIS WORLD, leaving them with fulfilling lives here, while they pray and prepare for the next, without the necessity to kill us in order to make the world Dar al Islam, not only was it worth it, but it will have saved an unimaginable number of lives.

Imagine, if you will, what the world would have made in 1937, of a Winston Churchill who would have, as PM in 1936 carried his military rejection of the German reassertion of its sovereignty in the Rhineland into a military conquest and occupation of Germany.

It would have been the full justification of those who said WSC was the apotheosis of colonial, imperialist war mongering (something the German Foreign Ministry, and Goebbels always claimed). We would never have found out what would be OUR alternate history, and for all we know, he would be a minor aberration in a peaceful period. There would be (Zinn and Judt and Foner like) books written about the golden age which would have ensued had Germany just been allowed to pursue her destiny rather than be crushed by imperial Britain and her lackeys, the French. There's just one thing...he would have been right to invade, conquer and occupy Germany and as WE know save 45,000,000 lives.

I don't know what dangers a Saddam freed from his sanctions (as would certainly have happened) would have exposed us all to in the free world, but we can be sure the world would not be more stable.

More, seen in the context of this worldwide religious war being waged against us, and against our nature, the ultimate success of this effort proves to the takfiri sunni freaks and their allies in function the khomeinist freaks that we WILL come, we WILL act and we WILL plant the germ of THEIR destruction and it WILL succeed because men want to be free, and to see their children have better lives then they did in THIS world.

The alternative to that solution is just, in the end, to kill a hell of a lot of people.

I'd rather not.

Mr. Fukuyama must isolate Iraq an an experience, and individual war to make his case, but Iraq, like Israel really turns out to be just one campaign in a much larger experience.

Fukuyama:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain says he was right in supporting the surge and that Democrat Barack Obama was wrong in opposing it. On this tactical issue I grant that Sen. McCain was right. But Sen. Obama was right on the much more important strategic question of whether the war itself was a prudent policy, and here Mr. McCain remains as wrong as ever.

Mr. Obama does not share McCain's instinctive reliance on hard power as the primary instrument for dealing with messy questions of terrorism and proliferation in the broader Middle East. This is one reason I support him for president.

Indeed, I can think of no democrat who can afford to say out loud that he believes :

"I think we are in a war against Islamic extremism, and I think that war is worldwide" John McCain

There are many reasons to vote against Mr. Obama, as we are well aware, but this is a brobdingnagian reason to vote FOR Mr. McCain

This gap on this observation is one of the issues which divides us all. Geroge Bush failed to even attempt to make this case. Had he done so and been convincing, no democrat would today be able to sy the stupid things they do about the most important issue in our lives, and Mr. Fukuyama would have to think harder about the parameters encompassing the meta structure of his arguments.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

well said

Pastorius said...

Yes, nice post, Epa. But, could you give me one reason why we ought to trusth Obama's reasons for not using hard power in the case of our war against Islamofscism?

Given what we knew at the outset of the war, the Iraq was was the right thing to do.

Our execution in the aftermath, for instance, allowing the Iraqis to instill Sharia into their constitution, has been awful.

And now, we find ourselves in a stituation with Iran which it would seem to me ONLY hard power can solve.

Do you have other ideas?

Pastorius said...

It would be interesting to hear a debate between Hungington and Fukuyama.

Damien said...

Epaminondas,

Unfortunately, even if Bush made the case that we are at war with Islamic Fascism in the most convincing manner possible, I'm not sure it would convince any liberal. Look at how Geert Wilders is being treated in his native Netherlands.

Epaminondas said...

Soft power??

Can anyone look at history and think that peace is the natural state of this species?

Soft power is the cat's paw of military force. That's why even Japan is rapidly expanding it's navy's capabilities. Soft power are merely the words of the blackmail to use force.

Just look at the Russians and what they had to say about Poland. They don't even bother with soft words.

It's all about force. Military, hard power ability to leave no stones on top of each other.

That's why I have come to believe like VDH, that Bismarck had it backwards.

Politics is dictated by the result on the battlefield, or what leaders expect that result to be.


And the american people GET THAT wordlessly. That's precisely why McCain is tied right now.

We thought that a terrorist attack might favor the Repubs, but could anything have been so revealing without wasting American lives as Obama's reaction(s) this past week?

Pastorius said...

Epa,
You and I are in agreement on your central thesis here.

My question is, what does this mean?

"There are many reasons to vote against Mr. Obama, as we are well aware,"

Given that Obama is so inadquate, I can see no reason for anyone who has any more reason floating in their heads to vote for him.