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Just Jihad

By John Batchelor on December 11, 2009 at 4:00 PM in Current Affairs

Just War.

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Impossible to walk away from the irony of the American POTUS accepting the peace prize for his aspirations to make peace while ordering the launching of fresh offensives in Afghanistan.

Unironic partisans chose the speech as occasion to praise POTUS. There is also the small matter of the fuss and inconsistency of the anti-war posse over the years.

If POTUS Bush were a war-mongering villain for launching Afghanistan and Iraq, how is it that POTUS Obama is a peace-loving hero for relaunching Afghanistan?

That is politics. The White House speechwriter tried the just war theory to hold together a peace speech about war.

I first struggled with the idea of just war during Vietnam, when I was in college and faced with the Draft. What I remember is that it is a just war if someone else is obliged to fight it, and it is an unjust war if you are obliged to fight it. This makes Afghanistan a just war if you are the White House with a volunteer army.

POTUS Discovers History.

My reading of history is that the winners not only write the history books but also get to rewrite them with what we call revisionism. POTUS was mighty clear that he regarded Iraq as a “stupid” war when he was an Illinois politician running for president.

There look to be plenty of voices in the Progressive part of the Democratic party who aim to say that Afghanistan is a “stupid” war.

POTUS must now not only learn from history but accept that he is powerless in its theater of war. There is no exit from Afghanistan. POTUS Obama has now made the most critical and memorable decision of his presidency.

History is written by the winner, and if POTUS is unsuccessful in conducting the war and explaining his conduct, he will be written and then revised as disappointing if not disastrous. Just war vs just jihad. Not good odds. Bet on the eagle and hope for luck. 

Hitler Again.

POTUS speech referred to the Nazis as evil, yes, and then argued, “A nonviolent movement could not have stopped Hitler’s armies.”

The facts do not support this conclusion. Neville Chamberlain flew to Germany in mid-September 1938 and sat with Hitler at Bertchesgaden. The two of them and a translator. Hitler wanted the Sudetenland. Chamberlain could have told him that any aggression on Prague would mobilize the French, who had 100 divisions. We know now that the German army’s Prussian officer corps was ready to rise up against the Nazis in Berlin and sweep Hitler from the city.

Chamberlain only needed to say, “No, you will not have Sudetenland, and I am calling on the French right after I depart Germany,” and walked away. Nonviolently.

It didn’t happen. Why? Because Chamberlain believed that diplomacy was superior to war, and that concessions were reasonable, and that talk-talk was the only civilized behavior.

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