Let's Hear It for Amoral Isolationists!
Neocons and some liberal hawks allege two main things about people like me who are skeptical about military interventionism as a foreign policy tool.
1. We don't care about the threat and abuses of Muslim intolerance and repression overseas and even in Europe. This was the late Christopher Hitchens' argument. Here's my answer: Of course we care about it but doubt that military engagement is going to positively impact that, and in fact may exacerbate it, allowing fundamentalists to poses as defenders against Western aggression. I am concerned with arenas in which I can make a difference, which is why I work in the fields of religious pluralism, dialogue, and education for global citizenship. As for Muslims in the US, the wisest course is to embrace and encourage them to be full participants in social and civic affairs. This is not foolproof, of course: see the Marathon bombers. But we all need to feel we have a stake in the success of our country, which is why I found it odd that so many "patriots" on the right are secessionists.
2. We advocate an "isolationism" that allows "bad guys" to get away with aggression and violence. This is the slur lobbed at Rand Paul, who doubts, as I do, whether we could ever create a flourishing democracy in Iraq via military occupation, which we already tried. Neocon arguments are usually built on scare tactics. Let me just say that the threat of terrorism never was and never will be the same as the threats faced during the Cold War, much less the build up to WWII. Enough with the Neville Chamberlain "appeasement" analogies. And enough with the What Would Ronald Reagan Do? line of argument. But for the record, what Reagan did was negotiate with enemies and terrorists.
The best writing on this subject is from Daniel Larison at the American Conservative. I'm a self-described liberal, but I agree with everything he says, perhaps because we align with the much-maligned Realist foreign policy point of view. It was through Larison that I discovered the Realist website War on the Rocks, which recently featured this devastating takedown of Rick Perry's recent, ill-informed Washington Post op ed on foreign policy.
OK, enough. I'll go back to sticking pins in my Dick Cheney voodoo doll now.
1. We don't care about the threat and abuses of Muslim intolerance and repression overseas and even in Europe. This was the late Christopher Hitchens' argument. Here's my answer: Of course we care about it but doubt that military engagement is going to positively impact that, and in fact may exacerbate it, allowing fundamentalists to poses as defenders against Western aggression. I am concerned with arenas in which I can make a difference, which is why I work in the fields of religious pluralism, dialogue, and education for global citizenship. As for Muslims in the US, the wisest course is to embrace and encourage them to be full participants in social and civic affairs. This is not foolproof, of course: see the Marathon bombers. But we all need to feel we have a stake in the success of our country, which is why I found it odd that so many "patriots" on the right are secessionists.
2. We advocate an "isolationism" that allows "bad guys" to get away with aggression and violence. This is the slur lobbed at Rand Paul, who doubts, as I do, whether we could ever create a flourishing democracy in Iraq via military occupation, which we already tried. Neocon arguments are usually built on scare tactics. Let me just say that the threat of terrorism never was and never will be the same as the threats faced during the Cold War, much less the build up to WWII. Enough with the Neville Chamberlain "appeasement" analogies. And enough with the What Would Ronald Reagan Do? line of argument. But for the record, what Reagan did was negotiate with enemies and terrorists.
The best writing on this subject is from Daniel Larison at the American Conservative. I'm a self-described liberal, but I agree with everything he says, perhaps because we align with the much-maligned Realist foreign policy point of view. It was through Larison that I discovered the Realist website War on the Rocks, which recently featured this devastating takedown of Rick Perry's recent, ill-informed Washington Post op ed on foreign policy.
OK, enough. I'll go back to sticking pins in my Dick Cheney voodoo doll now.
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