Conservatism and the Iraq War
To my mind, a statement like "supporting the war is not a conservative position..." simply doesn't jibe with the history of American conservatism. To me, today's "traditional conservative" draws his genesis from the likes of Russell Kirk and Buckley, through Goldwater (aka, "Mr. Conservative"), to Reagan.
I disagree. William Buckley represents that part of the conservative wing going back to the days of Taft isolationism that has expressed strong skepticism of international unilateralism and interventionism generally and to the Iraq war in particular, in distinction to, say, Norman Podhoretz, who represents the neo-conservative wing and would have us bomb Iran tomorrow.
Literally, a conservative is one who wishes to conserve the resources, ideals, and respect of the nation. These seems to an inherent contradiction to public policies and actions that consumes resources, besmearches our ideals, and erodes the regard of the world towards the United States. Conservatives also understand that countries enter wars, not armies, and that an army without the support of its citizenry will fail. It is these axioms that suggest to me that there is nothing "conservative" about the Iraq war.
Given the assumptions of the time (2003), I can easily see "traditional conservatives" supporting this war. In fact, I think most of whom I would identify as true conservatives did. And I am confident that this war, at its outset, would have been applauded and supported by the "plankholders" of the modern conservative movement, were they alive.
I'm not so confident. I suppose you could go back to our founding fathers for a definitive opinion on this subject, who cautioned us in getting involved in foreign entanglements. The assumption that the expenditure of US blood and treasure to conserve our own freedoms may have had warrant, assuming that the "assumptions of the time" had merit. But the did not and do not, and nor were those assumptions the prevailing assumptions. Subsequent investigations have since demonstrated that these assumptions were not just based on the lack of evidence or bad evidence but out-right lies.
The fact that only a limited segment of our population has been asked to bear the burden of this war and that the adminsitration saw fit to disclose the identify of a CIA operative in time of war suggests to me that this was a war that was conducted for political reasons rather than in the defense of our national interests
The conservative metaphysic, as I understand it, is that truth is not releative-- it is rooted in what is real. The ethos of the Bush administration is one of dishonesty that extends not just to foreign affirs, but to science, tax, and other policies-- spin, selective or false evidence, manipulation of public sentiment, and propaganda-- an embrace of passion rather than reality. These are at least to me scarcely conservative ideals, and largely accounts for the erosion of Bush's support from conservatives.
I disagree. William Buckley represents that part of the conservative wing going back to the days of Taft isolationism that has expressed strong skepticism of international unilateralism and interventionism generally and to the Iraq war in particular, in distinction to, say, Norman Podhoretz, who represents the neo-conservative wing and would have us bomb Iran tomorrow.
Literally, a conservative is one who wishes to conserve the resources, ideals, and respect of the nation. These seems to an inherent contradiction to public policies and actions that consumes resources, besmearches our ideals, and erodes the regard of the world towards the United States. Conservatives also understand that countries enter wars, not armies, and that an army without the support of its citizenry will fail. It is these axioms that suggest to me that there is nothing "conservative" about the Iraq war.
Given the assumptions of the time (2003), I can easily see "traditional conservatives" supporting this war. In fact, I think most of whom I would identify as true conservatives did. And I am confident that this war, at its outset, would have been applauded and supported by the "plankholders" of the modern conservative movement, were they alive.
I'm not so confident. I suppose you could go back to our founding fathers for a definitive opinion on this subject, who cautioned us in getting involved in foreign entanglements. The assumption that the expenditure of US blood and treasure to conserve our own freedoms may have had warrant, assuming that the "assumptions of the time" had merit. But the did not and do not, and nor were those assumptions the prevailing assumptions. Subsequent investigations have since demonstrated that these assumptions were not just based on the lack of evidence or bad evidence but out-right lies.
The fact that only a limited segment of our population has been asked to bear the burden of this war and that the adminsitration saw fit to disclose the identify of a CIA operative in time of war suggests to me that this was a war that was conducted for political reasons rather than in the defense of our national interests
The conservative metaphysic, as I understand it, is that truth is not releative-- it is rooted in what is real. The ethos of the Bush administration is one of dishonesty that extends not just to foreign affirs, but to science, tax, and other policies-- spin, selective or false evidence, manipulation of public sentiment, and propaganda-- an embrace of passion rather than reality. These are at least to me scarcely conservative ideals, and largely accounts for the erosion of Bush's support from conservatives.
Labels: Iraq
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8:41 PM
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