Bill Keller, writing in "Falling In and Out of War" in IHT Global Opinion
engages in some navel-gazing about the role of the media, and the
public media generally, giving due consideration to and evaluating any
case for a war - especially, at the present time, the case being beaten
up for an attack on Iran.
"When you’ve been wrong about something as important as war, as I have, you owe yourself some hard thinking about how to avoid repeating the mistake. And if that’s true for a mere kibitzing columnist, it’s immeasurably more true for those in a position to actually start a war.
So here we are, finally, messily winding down the long war in Afghanistan and simultaneously being goaded toward new military ventures against the regimes in Syria and Iran. Being in the question-asking business, I’ve been pondering this: What are the right questions the president should ask — and we as his employers should ask — when deciding whether going to war is (a) justified and (b) worth it? Here are five, plus two caveats, and some thoughts about how all this applies to the wars before us.
1. HOW IS THIS OUR FIGHT?
It ought to be the first question we ask. Sometimes the answer is obvious. There is a broad agreement that it was in America’s vital national interest in 2001 to go after the homicidal zealots behind the 9/11 attacks on America, and the Afghan regime that hosted them. Whatever you think of how the war was waged or how long it should continue, the going-in was, as the cops say, a righteous shoot.
Often the American stake is not so clear-cut. We may feel an obligation to defend an ally. (Some allies more than others.) We have been known to fight for our economic interests. We intervene in the name of American values, an elastic rubric that can mean anything from halting a genocide to, in George W. Bush’s expansive doctrine, promoting freedom.
Senator John McCain, demanding American air strikes to help rebels topple the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad, adopts the Bush “freedom agenda” rationale: by halting suffering and helping overthrow tyranny, we earn some leverage with the victors, improving the odds that Syria will become less hostile to our interests. For a variety of robust dissents, look no further than the conservative Web site National Review Online. There you find the neocon view that intervention is not about fomenting a Syrian democracy; it is about striking at an Islamist, anti-American cabal centered on Iran. You also find the libertarian view that our national interest is best served by staying out of a situation we can only make worse."
Continue reading here.
"When you’ve been wrong about something as important as war, as I have, you owe yourself some hard thinking about how to avoid repeating the mistake. And if that’s true for a mere kibitzing columnist, it’s immeasurably more true for those in a position to actually start a war.
So here we are, finally, messily winding down the long war in Afghanistan and simultaneously being goaded toward new military ventures against the regimes in Syria and Iran. Being in the question-asking business, I’ve been pondering this: What are the right questions the president should ask — and we as his employers should ask — when deciding whether going to war is (a) justified and (b) worth it? Here are five, plus two caveats, and some thoughts about how all this applies to the wars before us.
1. HOW IS THIS OUR FIGHT?
It ought to be the first question we ask. Sometimes the answer is obvious. There is a broad agreement that it was in America’s vital national interest in 2001 to go after the homicidal zealots behind the 9/11 attacks on America, and the Afghan regime that hosted them. Whatever you think of how the war was waged or how long it should continue, the going-in was, as the cops say, a righteous shoot.
Often the American stake is not so clear-cut. We may feel an obligation to defend an ally. (Some allies more than others.) We have been known to fight for our economic interests. We intervene in the name of American values, an elastic rubric that can mean anything from halting a genocide to, in George W. Bush’s expansive doctrine, promoting freedom.
Senator John McCain, demanding American air strikes to help rebels topple the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad, adopts the Bush “freedom agenda” rationale: by halting suffering and helping overthrow tyranny, we earn some leverage with the victors, improving the odds that Syria will become less hostile to our interests. For a variety of robust dissents, look no further than the conservative Web site National Review Online. There you find the neocon view that intervention is not about fomenting a Syrian democracy; it is about striking at an Islamist, anti-American cabal centered on Iran. You also find the libertarian view that our national interest is best served by staying out of a situation we can only make worse."
Continue reading here.
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