Letters to the Editor
shaunnarine
Published Letters: 106 Editor's Choice: 20
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response to garry owen
[Read the article: How low can Bush go?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Dear Garry,
Thanks for your comments. I must respectfully disagree with almost everything that you said, however. And I certainly stand by everything that I said and my depiction of the top brass in the US military as "spineless". I also certainly believe that the modern military is trained to "slaughter people wholesale". Allow me to explain my position.
First, my comments were mostly directed at the top officials who were willing to ostracize and isolate General Taguba. Taguba seems to be a man who did his job well and who believed that his uniform made him part of an endeavour to defend and uphold "higher principles". His colleagues, who participated in his ruination, apparently were more concerned with their own careers to uphold anything higher than their self-interest. If one wishes to put a more positive spin on their conduct, maybe they were angry at Taguba for, in their eyes, damaging the US military. But, given what it is that Taguba exposed, that would be an even sadder explanation of their conduct. So, yes, the miltary men who acted in this way were, in my view, cowards. What exactly they are supposed to represent is unclear to me, at least. Even if, as you suggest, the military is placed in the difficult position of obeying its civilian masters, does that explain or excuse the treatment of Taguba?
You allude to the physical courage of the some of the top people in the US military. I agree that physical courage is important and I respect that. But many people, of many different character, possess physical courage. What is different and, in this instance, more important is moral courage - the courage to have integrity. Again, I question the moral courage of the American military establishment, which is willing to hang one of its outstanding officers out to dry because he broke -apparently - some twisted code of silence. Was Taguba expected to cover up Abu Ghraib? If so, then, as Taguba says in the Hersh article, he belonged to a "mafia".
Militaries are designed to kill people. The modern military is designed to slaughter people wholesale. This has been the story of the military in the 20th century and with the introduction of industrialized war. I don't know how this is even open to debate. American marines (and other soldiers) are indoctrinated into their new professions screaming "kill I will". And then they go out and do it.
Militaries might be a necessary evil, but they are still an evil. They may be needed to defend a state but, in my opinion, the US military has not defended the US since World War II. Before then, and certainly since, the role of the US military had/has been to enforce American access to wealth and resources from around the world. Thomas Friedman, in "The Lexus and the Olive Tree" says as much: the US military is the enforcement arm of globalization. There is no noble purpose here. There is no defensive purpose. It's about maintaining a position of dominance in the world that perpetuates American power and wealth. Maybe any other country in a similar position would do the same, but let's not ennoble something that is, inherently, about domination.
This may be the nature of most militaries the world over, but it still does not make the existence of militaries anything other than unfortunate. I am not American. My observation in visiting the US (which I have done often) is that it is an amazingly militarized society. Indeed, I have not seen so many uniforms outside of the occasional police state that I happen to visit. In my view, the military in the US is accorded far greater respect and deference than is healthy or advisable in a democratic society.
Sincerely,
Shaun Narine
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didn't plato support democracy?
[Read the article: That hot new neoconservative philosopher named Plato]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Dear Editor,
I find Prof. Blackburn's interpretation of Plato and the various responses that it has elicited to be truly fascinating. It's been quite a while since I read Plato, and I certainly am nowhere near to being a scholar of the man. However, what I was taught about "The Republic" - by a Straussian - was that Plato never intended for the ideal city that he outlined to be seen as a reality. As you go further into "The Republic" the various prescriptions that Socrates offers become more and more fantastic and impossible to achieve, with the ultimate fantasy being the idea that Philosophers, these perfect, introspective people, could ever also be kings. As Prof. Blackburn says, the city is a fantasy - it's really a metaphor for the individual human being and the kind of life and thought that an individual should have, but it cannot and was never meant to be a serious statement of the ideal political organization.
Instead, of the various alternatives to the Republic that Socrates considers, democracy, with all of its dangers and weaknesses, is still the best of a bad lot. After all, it's only in a democracy that someone like Socrates is able to say what he does and get away with it - at least for a time.
This isn't to say that many of the neoconservatives have not appropriated their reading of Plato for their own purposes, but this may say little about what Plato actually intended and it may even be, to some degree, a misreading of Strauss. And, in my experience, not all Straussians are alike. Indeed, about the only thing that they agree on is that there are hidden meanings in the words of the great philosophers - meanings that often needed to be hidden, given the political times in which many of these people lived. But how to interpret those messages is certainly open to debate.
Again, though, a fascinating discussion.
Sincerely,
Shaun Narine