July 28, 2006
John Podhoretz endorses genocide
John Podhoretz fears that we may be too civilized to win asymmetric conflicts, and proposes (behind the poltroonish veil of the question mark) that we become somewhat less civilized. If his prose means anything, it means that we erred in not slaughtering as many "Sunni males between 15 and 35" as possible after we conquered Iraq.
There is a technical term for that approach to war-fighting. It's called "genocide," and it's punishable by death.
Greg Djerijian is appropriately disgusted.
Aside from his moral mistake, Podhoretz makes a fundamental strategic mistake: he likens the current fight against the movements of violently politicized Islam — Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda — and the states that support them — notably Iran and Syria — as if it were the same sort of civilization-threating conflict as World War II or the Cold War. In this regard, John Derbyshire's unapologetically racist contempt for the people he refers to in public as living in "worthless countries" (and no doubt refers to in private as "wogs") gives him clearer vision, though no greater moral elevation.
Our civilization is not at risk. To think so reflects cowardice. To persuade others that we are at risk is to spread cowardice. Podhoretz's tough-guy persona hides either a man too terrified to think like a civilized human being or a man who hopes to terrify his fellow-citizens into supporting policies he favors for other reasons. He'd make a good teller of scary stories around a Boy Scout campfire. As a strategic thinker, he'd have to improve a lot to be contemptible.
If I wished something awful happened to Podhoretz in a hypothetical, would that mean that I was not a bad person, even if I were wrong to wish it?
Good lord. That kind of 9th grade rhetorical debate goofiness (I won't call it a tactic) gives me gas. He's done better in the past, but, well, I suppose even a comedian needs decent source material.
Posted by: fishbane at July 28, 2006 10:47 PMPodhoretz is pushing further along the line that Shelby Steele advocated in the WSJ this May.
Posted by: Quiddity at July 28, 2006 11:29 PMThe mention of Gregory Djerejian post is somewhat problematic. He properly abhors Podhoretz's call for genocide while he sides with Sternhell's Haaretz op-ed piece. Sternhell is a wise man, but his piece ignores the major moral issue behind the Israel/ Hezbollah war. Isolation of Hezbollah is fine, as Sternhell suggests, but how do you do it without bridge destruction?
Opposing genocide is easy. Destroying Hezbollah camps residing on the 12th floor of an apartment house with destroying the house is less easy. We may be civilized but our public discourse is still quite primitive, and at times, uncivilized.
Posted by: koshem at July 28, 2006 11:34 PMThe arguments for genocide - American, British, German - are always the same.
1. "We" are the culmination of all that is good, true, and beautiful.
2.The unspeakably low, immoral, and wicked Other must be destroyed before it is "too late"...
3. The hour is already late....
4. In the course of defending the good, true and beautiful, we must be merciless, cruel, blah blah
Here is what Hitler said,
"If anyone reproaches me and asks why I did not resort to the regular courts of justice, then all I can say is this: In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the German people, and thereby I became supreme judge of the German people"
- Adolf Hitler (in Shirer's Rise and Fall of the 3rd Reich)
I disagree: the contemplation of genocide suggests that our civiliation is indeed at risk.
Posted by: BroD at July 29, 2006 06:06 AMOf course, if you read JP's father's screed on WW IV, you realize that he does think "our cvilization" is at risk--by equating it to Israel. (Not trying to derail the thread, just provide some context.)
Posted by: DCA at July 29, 2006 07:55 AM"Could World War II have been won by Britain and the United States if the two countries did not have it in them to firebomb Dresden and nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki?"
Not to be picky, but I was under the impression the use of atomic weapons was more of a pre-cold war stunt than necessary for victory over Japan. In fact I was taught that Japan was ready to surrender before the bombs. Also, I thought Dresden was bombed because it was an industrial center, not to prevent it's citizens from rising against incoming allied armies.
Posted by: Brendan at July 29, 2006 09:25 AMgosh, those tactics have woirked so well in the past to promote peace and harmony. I believe that's why the Sunni's and Shia's are in opposition, as a result of centuries of slaughter of each other.
Posted by: Mike Kelley at July 29, 2006 10:28 AMJohn was the apostle especially loved by Christ. Jonathan was King Saul's son.
I don't think I ever met a Jew named "John". I assumed you had mistakenly written Pod's first name down wrong. Us Jews name our kids "Jonathan", a very different person.
No wonder the JPod is so hopelessly confused.
I've never met a Jew named John,
I never hope to see one,
But I can tell you anyhow,
I'd rather flee than meet one.
It sounds like Podhoretz is in the same camp as the great war criminals Sherman and Grant the Butcher.
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