Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 19 Editor's Choice: 1
-
Kamiya can't admit he's wrong
[Read the article: Blood and betrayal]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Gary Kamiya's review of Robert Fisk's new book is a partial mea culpa for Kamiya's own misguided support of the U.S. post-9/11 misadventures in the Middle East. But he still can't let go completely. Like many liberals who should have known better, even though he now admits the war went horribly wrong, Kamiya uses the excuse that it could have or should have gone right, if only the U.S. had pursued a more competent policy.
Of course, when making this argument, Kamiya ignores what he himself writes just a few sentances earlier when presenting Fisk's perspective. The U.S. went into Iraq and Afghanistan for all the wrong reasons. And so, no matter how "competent" we might have been in managing the post-invasion process, the final outcome was and is inevitable. Israel, unlike the U.S. was quite competent in its management of the West Bank and Gaza after the 1967 war. That didn't change the outcome one little bit.
Ironically, Kamiya and liberals like him echo the extreme right's arguments about the war in Vietnam. If only we had managed the Vietnam war competently, we could have won, they claim. Does Kamiya believe that as well? If not, what is the difference? That the Vietnam war was run by Democrats and the Iraq war by Republicans?
Fisk's central point is that intentions do matter. Fisk was dead on about this war from the beginning. Kamiya wasn't. Why should any reasonable person listen to Kamiya's historical analysis over Fisk's? It is Kamiya's ideology (and ego) that get's in his way. Fisk discarded those long ago, and lets people and events tell the true story. That is why Fisk is one of the few remaining great and true journalists.
-
Why "Liberals" will always lose
[Read the article: The war on "Munich"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Michelle Goldberg, a Salon writer whom I always enjoy reading, exemplifies in this piece why so-called "Liberals" will always lose out to the "Conservative" pundits. In short, they let the "Conservatives" frame the debate and then they argue on the margins. "Liberal" writers end up sounding whiney and defensive, quibbling about issues of little importance, sounding morally wishy-washy, and all the while avoiding the real issues.
The frame in this case is "beleagured, morally righteous Israeli victims versus heartless terrorist Palestinian/Arab murderers." The marginal issue is whether revenge by the "poor Israeli victims" is justified or whether it somehow "corrupts their pure innocence." Accept the Manichean frame, and you sound like a quibbling wimp when you talk about moral corruption.
The real story is far more complex. Let's start with the fact that the need of the Jews to escape European persecution eventually led to a tragic loss of their homes by the indigenous population of Palestine. The Palestinians paid the price for the crimes of others. And so began a cycle of revenge and counter-revenge -- let's not forget that the current Prime Minister of Israel, who is proclaimed "a man of peace," early on in his army career, knowingly blew up houses filled with Palestinean woman and children in Qibiya, an horrific act of cold terror (not to speak of his role in the bloody atrocities at Sabra and Shatilla later in his career, for which he was roundly condemned by an Israeli investigative commission). Abu Mazen, his Palestinean counterpart, was the man who funded the Munich attack.
Yes actions can also be symbols, and it certainly is symbolic that the Palestinians decided to display to the world their own sense of victimhood on the soil of the land where the sins against the Jews were perpetrated. The story of the Munich attack, the intentions of the Palestinean kidnappers (which was not to murder the Israeli athletes but to dramatically call attention to the Palestinean cause through a spectacular kidnapping), the botched German "rescue" (which actually did lead to the murder of the athletes) is told far better in the documentary "One Day in September." It not moral relativism to point out that both sides in this farcical tragedy see themselves as victims and use their victimhood to justify murder. The moral relativists are those who justify their own sides murders while condemning the murders of the other side.
The core lesson ignored in the trivial debate, is that wallowing in victimhood and indulging in revenge just leads to more victimization and more senseless killing. The irony is that many people in Israel and Palestine understand this far more acutely and discuss it far more intelligently then their counterparts in the U.S. And looking at political trends there, it seems the majority of people on both sides have finally tired of the cycle of death and revenge.
By contrast, the level of political discourse in this country is pathetically trivial. Which is precisely why I put "Liberal" and "Conservatives" in quotes. These labels are more akin to sports team affiliations then any serious political position. And lack of serious political discussion is leading this country down a path of disaster.