The PenOpticon

I felt compelled to blog the last few entries on Israel’s “incursion” into Lebanon because it struck me that bombing a country into oblivion and killing hundreds of people is an absurd response to Hezbollah’s kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers. In addition to the human toll, I’m also saddened by the environmental implications of this war — by the waste of energy and resources that will be needed to rebuild Lebanon and by a growing suspicion that part of Israel’s strategy is to secure water resources such as Lebanon’s Litani River.

So, although I have my peculiar opinions, I’m a rank amateur at this. I find it too easy to fall into the trap of trying to appropriate an “authoritative” voice of a pundit or analyst. What I really mean to say is just too obvious, I guess: simply that war is such an ugly, repugnant thing, it is difficult to believe we still have ‘em. I believe violence and war really are “the last refuge of the incompetent”, as Robert Heinlein used to say. It’s interesting that “civilized” nations seem to have more than their fair share. But such things are easy to say, aren’t they? Especially for someone who has never experienced the real thing.

So I’ll defer to better expressed opinions and information at antiwar.com.  As harsh as his words are, much of what Paul Craig Roberts writes in “The Shame of Being an American” rings true to me and applies equally well to Canada, the UK and Australia and any other country giving Israel a free pass to use terror tactics to subdue the people living in southern Lebanon.

Gwynne Dyer’s piece in the June 12 Toronto Star, Same War, Different Players, is a concise but cogent analysis of the military and political state of affairs in Afghanistan. As Dyer notes, the Afghani’s have borne many invasions and occupations over the past two centuries and have had to learn to “ambush, harass and bleed the foreigners for as long as it takes” in order to survive. Now Hamid Karzai has started to negotiate with various warlords and may soon (according to Dyer) begin talks with what is left of the Taliban. In spite of the West’s (one hopes) best intentions, Afghanistan will most likely end up with some form of power-sharing arrangement that is more in keeping with the actual culture(s) of the region. Perhaps this new arrangement will be based on a democratic framework. Perhaps not. As Dyer dryly concludes: “There is time for lots of killing yet. But Afghanistan stands a reasonable chance of sorting itself out once the Western armies leave.

Dyer’s argument resonates with me because he is essentially suggesting that we might all be better off obeying the “Prime Directive”, and, it is probably true that leaving people to their own devices to work things out for themselves is often be the best policy. Before the era of instantaneous communication, that was the way the world worked. A fifth century Mongolian would never know if there was a war or a famine among the Aztecs of Central America. Vikings would have been blissfully unaware of the plight of Polynesian islanders. When it comes to war, famine and all other geopolitical “bad things”, does instant communication always mean we must bear instantaneous moral responsibility? That’s a hard one, is it not?

Of course, the Prime Directive is a slippery concept. It can look like an attractive option for those on the outside of Afghanistan or the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It can appear to be an utterly immoral option from the perspective of those who have rockets whistling over their heads and bulldozers ripping up their homes. Things get even more slippery when you realize that some external powers have already interfered by providing some combination of weapons, personnel, etc.

As much as I admire Dyer’s argument, it is hard to imagine that Middle East hotspots will be quickly defused after the withdrawal of “Western armies. I’d much rather imagine a global, cowardly retreat of all armies. Perhaps on a global scale, the applied use of cowardice will bring about the end of most of the world’s armies. (Ha!) Wouldn’t that be a grand thing?

[July 16 - Today at least 8 7 Canadians were killed during Israel's bombing of Lebanon. It's all too easy to forget there are thousands of foreign nationals living in that country. It is depressing to think that Stephen Harper actually mimed Bush's exact words about Israel's right to defend itself. As others have pointed out, every bomb Israel drops may as well be emblazoned with a big "Hiya, from Uncle Sam!". Hezbollah and other militant groups will not forget the country that has been bankrolling Israel's military escapades.]

The cover story of the June’ issue of Harper’s belongs to Art Spiegelman. The Pulitzer prizing-winning cartoonist casts a critical over the Danish “cartoon war” — a debacle which resulted in more than a hundred deaths, more than 800 injuries and too many “F” words: fires Fatwahs, editorial firings and the fettering of free speech — not to mention an expensive boycott of Danish products throughout much of the Arab world. As Spiegelman so dryly put it:

I’m sure the Danish cartoonists involved would all agree that it was a mistake to enter the “Draw the Prophet and win a prize” talent contest, but they at least managed to demonstrate the capacity of cartoons to bring urgent issues into high relief.

Spiegelman takes time to rap the knuckles of North American newspapers, both for refusing to run any of the infamous cartoons and for not drawing more attention to the fact that al Jazeera and other non-U.S. television networks regularly broadcast images of torture. He complains that many college students have seen neither the Danish cartoons nor the torture imagery that is being broadcast outside of North America.

The meat of the article, however, consists of a detailed — and somewhat raucous — critique of the offending material. Of course, this provides an excuse to republish the actual cartoons (though they are not exactly hard to find on the net) and leads to Spiegelman’s biggest complaint: most of the cartoons have nothing to say and are pedestrian in their execution. The cartoons do not “speak truth to power”, but simply “afflict the afflicted” — just like traditional hate literature.

Spiegelman is clear in his view that jarring — and offensive — cartoons have an important role to play in the world, but at the same time he argues they should not be taken too seriously. His astute deconstruction of the Jyllands-Posten cartoons should be enough to rob them of any sting they may have had. Although, not a signatory of the “MANIFESTO: Together facing the new totalitarianism“, Spiegelman’s critique is an elegant, peaceful illustration of how that group hopes to defuse the “totalitarian global threat: Islamism”.