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Just Jihad

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

Just War.

OB-FB415_11obam_D_20091210080555.jpg

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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From the blog for my syndicated radio show. Check NoQuarterUSA.net on Sunday for news on Larry Johnson’s regular weekly appearance on my Sunday night “experts panel.”

  • westexan

    Obama bringing up the nazis is the same old kettle calling the pot black.

    • ziggy

      There’s some rational basis for a pot/kettle comparison?

      • Donna Brazile

        Don’t you know what it means? Geesh!

        Stop the implying fest!

        • ziggy

          I know exactly what the pot/kettle comparison means and implies in this instance. I consider the comparison a total crock.

          • Donna Brazile

            A crock pot?

            • Patrick Henry

              LOL Donna…Thats a Comical Crock Pot…

    • Bronwyn’s Harbor

      I’m just grateful to John Batchelor for getting the history straight.

      btw, I am enthralled by Batchelor’s writing and by his brilliant memory for history. We are all the richer for his posts.

  • candymarl

    Mr. Batchelor has a real point here. The anti-war folks were up in arms under GWB. Very few are in the streets over Obama’s war escalation. I’ve even read articles where war is now good by the same writers that were outraged just a few years ago. Some of these are the same so-called liberals and progressives that protested under GWB.

    My how things change. Mike Moore needs IMHO to buy a clue.

    • ziggy

      People were primarily up in arms because of George W’s determination to invade and occupy Iraq–a nation that hadn’t attacked us and had little potential for doing so–while neglecting the real objectives of the war on terror in Afghanistan. Essentially we removed one of Iran’s chief security concerns at the cost of 4,369 American lives and 708 billion American dollars.

      Is going after Al Qaeda where they’re actually operating from suddenly a bad idea, just because Obama is doing it? Does anyone really think the rising count of Al Qaeda leaders eliminated from their command and planning structure is an unfortunate development?

      There’s an exit from Afghansitan: The effective destruction of Al Qaeda. That alone defines “winning the war in Afghanistan”.

  • jbjd

    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.

    Indeed, ‘armed’ with the potential of a guaranteed alliance with France against Germany, he could even have tiptoed with impunity past the SS officers assembled there, wearing the Star of David around his neck, and a yarmulke on his head. No violence; no conflict; no threats. Of course, if he had actually prefaced such an exit with a promise to ‘call on the French right after he departed Germany,’ he would have looked like an incompetent ass. Because Prime Minister Deladier of France was present at that same Munich Conference, along with Mussolini of Italy, and signed off on that agreement to let the Germans take the Sudetenland.

    http://web.jjay.cuny.edu/~jobrien/reference/ob66.html

    • Smart-Jazz-Just Me

      Well said…..

  • Docelder

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

    In other words “Bush=bad” has run it’s course. Suddenly, Hitler is bad. Well, only because he can’t bring himself to say radical Islam is bad. Or, he won’t talk about a modern day axis of evil. He won’t go there.

    • Ginger Snaps Back

      Yeah, pretty much. I agree.

    • lark

      True. But there is a then what is not said. And I take that what he meant is that ‘then’ non-violence and non-violent movements where not aided by science. Because then science was pretty much ‘innocent’ and idealistic – a venture of conscientious adventurers. So, then the new meaning would say that that ‘non-violence and non-violent movements’ today have science on their side and science for all that matters is a practical endeavor that favors the endowments for which it operates on. Nobel, science.

      My take is always the same, I always see the same thing. My take is that all of them understand what he is talking about. He is talking about control. Because science today is about control. Then violence is what is ‘out-of-control.’ And peace is what is ‘in control.’ So that if Obama is warring for ‘control’ of those ‘out-of-control,’ then he is a peace-maker. In that sense so are the Ayatollahs in Iran peacemakers if they can put their youth under control, etc. etc. Chavez would be too a potential Nobel laureate.

  • Tricia

    NPR just said that this is a speech Bush 2 could have delievered–this one better written, perhaps but the sentiments the same.

  • Five Thirty

    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?

    It is a lot easier getting into a war than getting out of it. And it was GW Bush (and all who supported that decision) that got us into it. It is extremely difficult for anyone in the Executive now to get us out of it.

  • Hot Librarian

    Dont know about France but in 1936 Britain did not have the military to threaten .

    There is a view that Chamberlain bought them time to beef up . in fact there was such a concerted effort after his visit.

    But until churchil convinced the war cabinet , britain was preparing just to defend themselves . Unfortunately there was a high level view that Britain could make a self preserving deal with germany right up till 1939.

    Needs to be remembered that British monarchs were close relations to pre -Germany only renouncing titles to Hanover in 1914.

  • Smart-Jazz-Just Me

    “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.”

    We know now…..

    I wonder how many politicians and military officers of today just wish for another “after the fact” chance or attempt to rewrite history or to clarify a point as Batchelor is now doing practicing himself.

    No matter what Chamberlain believed about diplomacy he was 100% Pure British and if he had even an inkling that part of the German Officer Corp was ready to revolt his position I am sure would have been different. One can point to many WWII mission that could, have should have, been done differently.

    But of course there is more to this story that Batchelor is leading with and yes Chamberlain made his mistakes, but he was not in a good power position either and Briton was not really ready for war.

    But as far as Afghanistan goes. Jus ad bellum? Eights years later? With the expansion into the Philippines and especially Iraq?

    What part of the reasonable hope for success clause am I missing here?

    Face facts we blew the Just War Theory (and I highlight the word THEORY) in Afghanistan when we went nation building in Iraq and let mission creep become our strategy in Afghanistan.

    Now we bought it and its ours to fix. Morally we owe the people of Afghanistan some form of security and working government.

  • N. Lee

    Obama makes me ill.