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Steven Pinker, the Harvard psychologist, and Joshua S. Goldstein, a professor emeritus of international relations at the American University, wrote an Op-Ed piece in last Sunday’s Times entitled “War Really Is Going out of Style,” NYT, 12/17/11). For Pinker, the Op-Ed piece seems to be an extension of the argument that he makes in his recently published The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. The three reasons that Pinker and Goldstein give for the decline of war are 1) political 2) economic and 3)social. In terms of political boundaries, no one is really the winner. “Since shortly after World War II, virtually no borders have changed by force,” Pinker and Goldstein argue. Further, economic hegemony has been more effective than geographic invasion. “Today, wealth comes from trade, and war only hurts,” they continue. Lastly on the social front mankind has evolved. “Brutal customs that were commonplace for millennia have been largely abolished: cannibalism, human sacrifice, heretic-burning chattel slavery, punitive mutilation, sadistic executions.” The natural extension of Pinker and Goldstein’s argument is that benevolence has become naturally selective and that mankind has found a better way of dealing with its aggressive impulses, by making love not war to re-invoke the 60’s. The explosion of pornography might evidence the latter, if the majority of sites weren’t so involved with conquest and submission on an ontogenic basis. Not to be judgmental about playful sex, but the sex on Kink.com makes water boarding seem like a sport. The question is, are Pinker and Goldstein talking about the two new planets discovered orbiting the star Kepler 20 reported by Dennis Overbye in the Times (“Two Earth-Sized Planets Are Discovered, “ NYT, 12/20/11)? Do we occupy the same planet as these two eggheads ? They sound like Voltaire's Pangloss, whose reaction to a succession of brutalities, “all’s for the best in the best of all possible worlds," takes aim at another egghead named Leibnitz. What about the brutalities perpetrated by the Janjaweed militia in thee Sudan, the brutal dictatorship of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, whose fortunes are again on the rise due to a windfall from the country's diamond industry? OK Qaddafi was toppled in Libya and Mubarak in Egypt, but even the reports of Qaddafi’s brutal capture create suspicion about the prospects for peace in that troubled land and the recent accounts of the Egyptian military’s sexual humiliations of women protestors seem to show throw doubt on the old adage that “every cloud has a silver lining.” Make no mistake the lining of Mubarak regime was a military that controlled the economy of the country. We need turn no further than troubled Afghanistan if we want evidence of the fact that age old customs die slowly. Let the women with severed noses and burned faces testify to the progress of the human race. As for our so-called more advanced Western societies, who walked off with the shekels at MF Global and what made such a sterling institution as Goldman Sachs bet against the collateralized debt obligations it was offering its customers? And what about hazing at FAMU where the drum majors now must bang the drum slowly in mourning for a hard working 26 year old who was beaten to death? Go up to the South Bronx and watch the promoters of cock fights placing razors in the beaks of their contenders and then tell us about mankind tempering its aggressive instincts as two hapless birds run around with heads cut off. Happy Holidays!
The dramatic Times headline on the morning following Osama bin Laden’s “termination with extreme prejudice,” to use CIA terminology, reads, “Bin Laden Killed by U.S. Forces in Pakistan, Obama Says, Declaring Justice Has Been Done” (NYT, 5/2/11). It’s an interesting choice of words, since the headline might have emphasized the internecine implications of where Bin Laden was found, who exactly performed the attacks, and in what company the now-deceased terrorist leader found himself in his last moments on earth. For instance, Hiroshima conjures the now iconic image of the Enola Gay and its pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets. Historic actions beg the question of how they were performed and who performed them. Surely the Bin Laden operation, which if nothing else will ensure Obama’s reelection, has implications beyond the fact that “justice has been done,” which is the broadest stroke with which this complicated, world-historical action can be painted. One wonders what would have happened if the generals' plot against Hitler had succeeded—would the tides of war have changed? It was widely thought that the toppling of Saddam Hussein would free Iraq, but the outcome of that maneuver has been far more complex, and tragic. If Qaddafi had been killed in the attack that killed his youngest son, Saif al-Arab, would Libya’s divisive opposition have suddenly become united, mobilized and energized in the common purpose of creating a democratic society? That question may soon be answered, as will the net effects of the destruction of Bin Laden on the terror network he controlled. In the meantime, mercantilism is always a good barometer. Will Toyota now open a dealership in Wajiristan?
What does the deposed strongman say to the upstart revolutionary? “My electrodes, my electrodes, my kingdom for a pair of electrodes to attach to your testicles.” Laurent Gbagbo is the latest of the recent crop of despots whose reigns have been cut short by popular unrest, foreign intervention, or both. Hopefully Qaddafi will follow. Robert Mugabe remains steadfast, as does Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus and the entire Kim Jong-il Jung dynasty, whose plans for succession are a constant source of curiosity among western intelligence services. Idi Amin Dada and Papa Doc Duvalier were their forebears, along with Romania’s Ceauşescu and, long before him, Stalin, Hitler and Caligula. Gbagbo, it turns out, was a darling of the American right, with Glenn Beck, Pat Robertson and Republican James M. Inhofe, who belongs to both the powerful Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, among his fans (“A Strongman Found Support in Prominent U.S. Conservatives,” NYT, 4/12/11). The Times commented that Inoufe “visited Ivory Coast nine times and knew Mr. Gbagbo and his wife Simone.” Gbagbo, according to the Times, participated in the National Prayer Breakfast, which is run by the Fellowship, “a secretive evangelical Christian organization.” Gbagbo was apparently preferred over his rival Alassane Ouattara, who happens to be a Muslim. Still, the picture of Laurent and Simone that graced the front page of the Times on Tuesday was almost touching. One moment they lived in a luxurious villa, defying election results and international delegations, seemingly implacable in their resolve to refute the forces of progress; the next they were heavily guarded in a hotel room. Aristotle defined tragedy as the fall of a once great man. There is no doubt Gbagbo has fallen. But with genocidal murder and the repression of a population at the top of his resume, one would need a broader definition than Aristotle’s to understand the tragic path of destruction sown by Gbagbo and his ilk.
The Times International Page ran a small story about Qaddafi writing a second personal note to Obama “urging him to stop NATO’s airstrikes” (“Qaddafi Writes to Obama, Urging End to Airstrikes,” NYT, 4/7/11). Times reporters David D. Kirkpatrick and Kareem Fahim don’t specify whether the letter was an e- or s-mail, but they do describe the Libyan leader as resorting to outright flattery to get what he wants. “You will always remain our son whatever happened,” Qaddafi wrote. “We Endeavor and hope that you will gain victory in the new election campaigne.” As if Barack Obama were so weak willed and needy that he would buy this obvious bullshit! Addressing Obama as “Mr. Our dear son, Excellency, Baraka Hussein Abu Oumama,” Qaddafi resorts to a bit of noblesse oblige, conferring a title on his newly appointed vassal. And then he goes the Polonius route, only it’s not “neither a borrower nor a lender be,” but “As you know too well democracy and building of civil society cannot be achieved by means of missiles and aircraft, or by backing armed members of Al-Qaeda in Benghazi.” When you think about it, it’s kind of sweet of Qaddafi to buddy up to Obama and treat him like the Libyan version of a good ole boy, but Qaddafi’s point about the fireworks is debatable. Firstly, Qaddafi forgets the words of H. Rap Brown, who prophetically said, “Violence is as American as cherry pie.” Secondly, since Qaddafi himself has extensive experience as a tyrant, he should know that missiles and aircraft are not mutually exclusive of civil society. The missiles and aircraft are like the appetizer at a state dinner. First you have your shrimp cocktail (the missiles and aircraft), then you get your steak, pheasant or whatever main dish is tantamount to the building of civil society.
Admittedly there is a lot wrong in the world. The Republicans are doing everything they can to shut down the federal government while blaming the Democrats for their intractability (“Budget Stances Harden as Deadline Nears for Shutdown,” NYT, 4/5/11). Qaddafi is hard to eradicate and the ragtag Libyan rebels lack cohesion or identity. Efforts to cool the defective Fukushima Daiichi reactor threaten to sow the seeds of further problems (“U.S. Sees Array of New Threats at Japan’s Nuclear Plant,” NYT, 4/5/11). Yemen is a mess, the Sudan is worse and Somalia is a breeding ground for pirates. But in a front-page story in Wednesday’s Times (“Ivory Coast Leader Swayed by Force as He Considers Exit,” NYT, 4/6/11), writers Adam Nossiter and Scott Sayare produced a first paragraph that reads thus: “Holed up in a bunkers under his residence, Ivory Coast’s strongman, Laurent Gbagbo, negotiated the terms of his potential surrender on Tuesday, as opposition forces closed in, his generals called on their forces to lay down their arms and French and United Nations negotiators demanded that he officially renounce control of his country.” Here we have a case of journalistic double indemnity: an overly long sentence that also happens to be a run-on. It’s actually refreshing to find such a blunder in the paper of record (a blunder that could easily have been corrected by the paper’s copy editors had they simply killed the comma after “Tuesday,” replacing it with a period and capitalizing “as.” Are we to assume that editors at the Times have been so overwhelmed by the deteriorating condition of our planet, an old battered warship now wobbling perilously through the solar system, that they have forgotten the basics of grammar? In a more activist society, there might have been protests against the Times similar to those in Kandahar against the burning of the Koran by a preacher in Florida, but the error produced no such outrage amongst grammatical fundamentalists.
Are we seeing a replay of the Bosnia situation in the dilatory behavior of the Obama administration in imposing a no fly zone, or worse a replay of George H.W. Bush’s reticence to topple Saddam Hussein during the first Iraq war (despite the mandate he had in defending Kuwait), only to leave the U.S. to pursue a Johnny-come-lately policy that resulted in the loss of more lives 13 years later? Admittedly, the politics of intervention are complex. You are constantly shaking hands with the devil. We armed what is now the Taliban against the Russians, only to find our own weapons turned against us. Qaddafi is now using his huge lode of hard currency—piled up from oil sales to Western democracies—to hire mercenaries. If we are to opt for the no-fly zone, then perhaps we will realize that, contrary to those officials who the Times recently described as fearing “a backlash against the United States for meddling in what is a homegrown political movement” (“Obama Seeks a Course of Pragmatism in the Middle East,” NYT, 3/10/11), the U.S. will gain the moral credibility it has all but lost in its policy of supporting a host of repressive monarchies and self-appointed generalissimos for no other reason than to safeguard its oil interests. To complicate matters further, the latter is a source of renewed concern, particularly in light of the anti-nuclear-energy drive that is bound to result from the Japanese tragedy. We came late to Bosnia (“After the Vultures: Holbrooke’s Bosnia Peace Came Too Late,” Foreign Affairs, May/June 1998), but if we hadn’t come at all, the genocide would have continued beyond the devastation of Sarejevo and Srebranica. Looking at it on a country-by-country basis, Bosnia is an example of an intervention that paid off. The bad guys (Milosevic and Karadzic) were routed and eventually tried at the ICC, we didn’t end up with “dirty hands” (to invoke Sartre’s famous existential play) and for the most part everyone lived happily ever after.
