The New Republic

Contemplating the interventions future is far better than considering the interventions past. And so we are subject to the false morality of the former and ignore the reality of the latter. Will we ever learn.

- rayward

June 8, 2012 at 7:33pm

Why the "false morality of the former?"

- arnon1

June 8, 2012 at 8:28pm

"IT IS NOT ONLY because of Houla that an intervention against Assad would be justified. But Kissinger and the other elders who know better than to be stirred by the sight of children with their faces blown away will carry the day." Well said, Leon.

- arnon1

June 8, 2012 at 9:13pm

Children in the inner cities in America have been getting their faces blown off for decades. Should the U.S. Army invade our inner cities? There are just some tragedies that nothing can or should be done about on a cataclysmic scale (and war is cataclysmic at any level). I agree with Kissinger, although Leon is right that H.K. did not live up to his present-day philosophy when he was in power. Would Leon be as concerned about murdered children if they lived outside the Middle East? Why didn't we invade the Soviet Union while Stalin was murdering millions of whole families? Or Red China while Mao was exterminating three generations of families? All U.S. presidents are arrogant. It comes with the job. What we don't want is a president who combines colossal ignorance with supreme arrogance, like G.W. Bush did. I give you the Iraq war, one of the biggest disasters for the U.S. and its soldiers and taxpayers in history. Children are still getting blown up in Iraq. Should we invade it again?

- magboy47.

June 8, 2012 at 10:00pm

magboy47 "Children in the inner cities in America have been getting their faces blown off for decades. Should the U.S. Army invade our inner cities?" What a dumb comment, magboy. Even you could do better.

- arnon1

June 9, 2012 at 12:29am

I live in a very peaceful place, mostly surrounded by elderly hippies and peaceniks. They mutter gloomily about guns, though if they had to call the local sheriff's deputy, and he or she arrived with weapons, and blew away some bad guy (and as peaceful as we are, we still encounter the occasional sociopath/psychopath in our midst) while they might wring their hands and consider themselves victims of PTSD, they would still, in the end, be glad enough that we have warriors in our midst. Humans are dangerous and evil (except for that paragon of kindness and tolerance) who posted the comment before mine, and we must be sheep armed with swords, guns, and nuclear weapons.

- skahn

June 9, 2012 at 12:56am

I have seen no coherent plan for doing anything in Syria that wouldn't most likely make things worse in the short run and bring catastrophic longer term results for American and Israeli interests. Appeals to save the children are simply naieve, and practically beside the point. Children are being killed, tortured, starved, and etc all over the world. Military action should be reserved only for situations in which vital national interests can be served by using it; we have a clear idea of what we want to accomplish and how; the public and their representatives in Congress are fully informed and on board; and we have both a reasonably accurate idea of what comes next and a practical plan for it.

- Robert Powell

June 9, 2012 at 4:26am

LW took his cheap shots at Kissinger. Are we to allow an psychotic extortionist like Assad determine US foreign and military policy? Is the cruelty in Syria more compelling than the cruelty of Arab wars against the Nuba and Darfuris in Sudan? Or the endless violence in eastern Congo? Can we afford to send our fire department everywhere anytime to all points on the globe? Where do LW and his associates at TNR draw the line? We're now extricating ourselves from Iraq and Afghanistan. Some of our international frenemies, such as Russia, would like us to bog down in yet another inconclusive decade(s)-long war in the Middle East.

- amidut

June 9, 2012 at 7:35am

There is a reason why we do not permit vigilantism in civil society. There is a similar reason behind the UN Charter and its rule that war is permitted only in self-defense or when authorized by the Security Council. Henry Kissinger, whom I quite detest, is at least more honest in his history than Wieseltier. The system in which states went to war because they decided to was indeed responsible for the deaths of millions, and it is that system that the UN and the Security Council were intended to put an end to. No one thinks there are no costs. There are costs to our system of justice too. It is ironic that Wieseltier sneers at Obama deciding to assassinate individual identified terrorists who are actually at war with the United States while wishing him to take it upon himself to reorder Syrian society at what would no doubt be the cost of hundreds or thousands of lives with unforeseeable consequences. Amidst the sneering, it should be noted that Obama is not sitting around picking targets off of a list. It is perfectly clear that our security and intelligence apparatus is making the decisions and Obama is reviewing them to make sure that the justification is adequate and the system does not run amok, both in identifying targets and in causing diplomatic and other problems that might not be worth the price. He is also indeed sharing in the moral responsibility rather than simply passing if off to a bureaucracy. Does Wieseltier like the idea of bureaucratic war? Wieseltier's (and TNR's) overall zeal for war is appalling. That it coincides with what they seem to think is Israel's strategic interest should never be forgotten.

- roidubouloi

June 9, 2012 at 7:50am

The UN Charter represents the end of the Westphalian system. Wieseltier is so heedless (or ignorant) of the history that he does not understand that what he advocates is the return to the Westphalian system of absolute state sovereignty and abandonment of the 20th century response to it of collective security. The ironies abound.

- roidubouloi

June 9, 2012 at 7:58am

With all due respect roi, the UN Charter represents a pious wish for the end of the Westphalian system, rather like the EU and associated euro. Good intentions and lofty ideals have their place, but shouldn't be confused with facts on the ground. That said, nice to read you again and we are in substantive agreement about Syria, if perhaps for different reasons. Bob

- Robert Powell

June 9, 2012 at 8:31am

Hi Bob, I think you overstate, but there is no question that the UN falls well short of its aspirations. On the other hand, one might also say of our system of justice that it represents a pious wish. The miscarriages of justice, the inequities, even the refusal to release people who are clearly wrongfully convicted, abound. But we none-the-less do not consider those sufficient reasons for wholesale abandonment of the system of ordered justice in favor of vigilantism. See, e.g. Trayvon Martin. Kissinger's very proper point is that the lack of a world order was not exactly without its costs too. I might find Wieseltier more sympathetic if he displayed any ability whatsoever to consider the entire context and the larger implications and consequences of what he advocates. I don't demand that he reach my conclusion, but, in the absence of some willingness and ability to address these very serious issues, issues that have wracked the world for centuries at enormous human cost, Wieseltier is not to be taken seriously. It is offensive in particular that he thinks there are no moral concerns that weigh against intervention and that people who think it ill-advised might even be as or even more morally cognizant than he.

- roidubouloi

June 9, 2012 at 9:22am

I once referred to Wieseltier as a neo-conservative and was roundly taken to task as a slanderer. So I want to thank him for finally clearing this up. His zeal for engaging Syria militarily exceeds in mindlessness his prior zeal for the Iraq war. Amidut, roi, and Robert Powell pretty much shred LW's case for America's duty to intervene in state sponsored travesties regardless of US interests and long term consequences.

- JackR

June 9, 2012 at 9:27am

Jack R loves labels though they explain very little. "Kissinger does not explain why the Assad regime is a Westphalian necessity, when there is no longer any equilibrium in Syria to preserve." How is Westphalia applicable to the Syria. Certainly form the point of view of Turkey or Lebanon (did Syria ever respect Lebanese independence?) two countries that have experienced the fallout from the slowly disintegrating Syrian regime Westphalia is not an issue. Wieseltier injected some irony in his essay.

- arnon1

June 9, 2012 at 11:28am

roidubouloi "The UN Charter represents the end of the Westphalian system." Nonsense, the UN re-affirmed the nation State which is why it's such a byzantine organization with nation states making alliances against other nation states.... ("first world countries" " "Communist countries" "third world countries" now Muslim countries, African countries, etc. etc. The veto at the security council alone makes a series of powerful states even more powerful by allowing them to veto anti-Westphalian resolutions.

- arnon1

June 9, 2012 at 11:35am

You are incorrect, arnon. Under the Westhphalian "system," each state was regarded as an equal, autonomous actor with a right to go to war or not as it saw fit. A state could make treaties and alliances, and break them, at will, taking into account possible responses of other states as autonomous actors, or not, as it saw fit. As the law of war first evolved, it placed no limits on the legitimacy of war itself, only on the manner in which war could be conducted. Leaving aside the League of Nations, the UN Charter is the first expression of a new law of war that limits the sovereign right of states to go to war to two circumstances, self-defense and authorization by the UNSC. Member states have a duty to abide by UNSC resolutions and the UNSC has power to enforce its resolutions. This is the first modification to the Westphalian system of state autonomy and is the reason why neo-conservatives hate the UN. They, including Wieseltier to all appearances (who I concur with JackR is a neo-con whether or not self-confessed), wish to return to the Westphalian system in which the US would have no obligation to refrain from making war on other states, invading them, or otherwise using its military power as it would. The fact that the UN did not eliminate states or alliances amongst states (they existed prior to the UN, you know) is quite beside the point. It is the first major inroad on the Westphalian system. There were serious reasons for the creation of a world governing body, albeit one with its own constraints and one that did not seek to and does not eliminate international politics. It is not to be abandoned lightly or in the moment as Wieseltier wishes to do. It is not as if the Westphalian system before the UN Charter was without enormous costs to humanity in life and treasure. While there are arguments that can be advanced against the UN system that superseded, while not completely replacing, the Westphalian system (and I would more than likely not find them persuasive as I have not to date), any thoughtful discussion of these matters has to take it into considered account. Wieseltier is either unwilling or unable to do this, or both, and merely scoffs, from a wholly undeserved posture of moral superiority, at the considerations that he ought to be taking into account.

- roidubouloi

June 9, 2012 at 12:32pm

roidubouloi "You are incorrect, arnon. Under the Westhphalian "system,"...." Your are incorrect to read Westphalia treaties as primarily concerned with the rights of independent states to go to war or not as they saw fit. Their main concerns were religious and with bringing the ongoing Christian religious wars to the an end. The affirmations of the rights of individuals nations to act as independent agents was a consequence not the reason of the conference. Westphalia affirmed what was already a fact and is still a fact: independent nations exist. Now, tell me what context would make this comment palatable? “And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union,” he remarked to Richard Nixon in 1973, “it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.”

- arnon1

June 9, 2012 at 1:03pm

I don't see that it is of any importance whether the autonomy and independence of states was the reason for or the consequence of Westphalia. It certainly was not an unintended consequence. Further, contra the impression that Wieseltier wishes to create, Westphalia was a step forward by removing from the realm of the legitimate one of the major causes of war, the interest taken by states in the welfare (as they understood it) of the people of other states. One could argue, correctly, that Westphalia did not anticipate the extent to which independent states, with the aid of modern technology, would than be able to oppress and indeed murder their own populations. One could argue on that basis that the system needed to be modified in light of the reality of the 20th century. But the system WAS modified. The UN Charter comes subsequent to World War II and was the considered response of the world to the enormity of the crimes committed. It is not as if the UN Charter was adopted without the awareness of what had occurred during WWII and could happen again. Wieseltier now wishes to revert to something prior, in which states are not constrained by the UN Charter. Moreover, he wishes the US to take that step unilaterally. That is not exactly trivial given that the people who created the UN system were much closer to the horrors of WWII than we are and were not intemperate in their response. If the UN system is to be abandon in favor of international vigilantism, which might well put us back to the state of affairs not only pre-UN but pre-Westphalia, that is not at all something to be done lightly or for transient purpose. Not least is the enormous price that the US might end up paying if it arrogates unto itself the responsibility of policing the world. It seems not at all understood by such as Wieseltier that one of the major purposes of the largely American authors of the UN system was to avoid just such an outcome. Kissinger's remark is not palatable. It would be an American concern. But that alone does not suffice to argue for American military intervention, something that carries a huge cost, both foreseeable and unforeseeable, including, possibly, the abandonment of an international system the purpose of which is to reduce such cost and particularly to reduce it for the United States. Wieseltier is unable or unwilling to grapple with this. Hence, his comments are not to be taken seriously. His posture of moral superiority is but an expression of his own incapacity, also therefore not to be taken seriously.

- roidubouloi

June 9, 2012 at 1:32pm

"Further, contra the impression that Wieseltier wishes to create, Westphalia was a step forward by removing from the realm of the legitimate one of the major causes of war, the interest taken by states in the welfare (as they understood it) of the people of other states." Wieseltier's irony is lost on you. He was arguing contra Kissinger and used his view of Westphalia. He wasn't arguing for going back to the UN charter or even before Westphalia (whatever that might mean). He pointed out the inadequacy of the Kissingerian view. "The UN Charter comes subsequent to World War II and was the considered response of the world to the enormity of the crimes committed. " This being the case, then we need a new UN charter that takes into account the crimes committed since the adoption of the current UN charter from Biafra to Zimbabwe.

- arnon1

June 9, 2012 at 2:05pm

"Kissinger's remark is not palatable. It would be an American concern. But that alone does not suffice to argue for American military intervention, something that carries a huge cost, both foreseeable and unforeseeable, including, possibly, the abandonment of an international system the purpose of which is to reduce such cost and particularly to reduce it for the United States." Wieseltier doesn't say that this is the only argument for intervention. He is pointing out the irony of someone like Kissinger who did make this remark arguing against intervention. Wieseltier: "Kissinger himself was a master infringer of sovereignty, not least militarily, when he was in power: he has no compunctions about interfering in the domestic affairs of another country for reasons of state." Again, Wieseltier: "IT IS NOT ONLY because of Houla that an intervention against Assad would be justified."

- arnon1

June 9, 2012 at 2:10pm

For the record: For many reasons I am not convinced that America should take out the Assads alone, without a coalition. Moreover the goal of deposing the despot should be the establishment of a democratic State and not a Sunny dominated Islamist one.

- arnon1

June 9, 2012 at 2:14pm

Wieseltier's irony? Yes, it is lost on me. There is none. If Wieseltier is not arguing that the UN Charter be ignored, and that the pre-UN system of restraint in the interference in the internal affairs of states be ignored, then what do you think he is arguing for? Is he just hand-wringing? I admit that is quite possible, but hardly justifies his moral stance. Nor is that irony.ds Arguing against Kissinger per se is not a serious grappling with the implications of unilateral intervention. Kissinger's point, that moral claims are both an historical excuse for war (even perhaps most war), and that admitting them relieves limits on war is not trivial. Yes, we do need something beyond the current UN Charter, but we also need to enforce the UNSC resolutions under the existing charter in order to strengthen the regime of international law. Guess what that means, among other things. US submission to the jurisdiction of the ICC wouldn't be a bad thing either, if we really want to be taken seriously on the inadmissibility of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Doesn't help the case for US humanitarian intervention that we avoid legal jurisdiction over the very crimes that such intervention is meant to stop. The current situation according to experts in international law is that there may be an evolving doctrine of humanitarian intervention, alongside the provisions of the UN Charter. To the extent that such exists, it has been regarded as prudent for it to be a multilateral effort, both to share the burden and to mitigate the contention that this is nothing more than pre-Westphalia intervention by states in the internal affairs of other states ostensibly for moral purposes but far more commonly in their own interests. ' Wieseltier is a particular fan of unilateral intervention that he thinks serve the interests of the United States or Israel. In the absence of multilateral action with at least the passive acceptance of the UNSC, this undermines such international order as we have. It not only calls the legitimacy of international humanitarian law into question but makes it harder to secure multilateral support and cooperation. If other states justly fear that the US exploits international law merely to rid itself of its own enemies, it is difficult if not impossible to gain their cooperation. Likewise, American refusal to support enforcement of UNSC resolutions regarding Israel's violations of international law raise legitimate questions about whether we are committed to a regime of law or merely a disguise for our own exercise of power in our own interest. I think that rule of prudence makes very good sense. The collective judgment not only shares the physical, financial, and political risk, but ensures that states are not easily using humanitarian intervention as an excuse for war. A general US program of intervention to depose despots carries grave risk of creating much worse problems than it solves. So far, the outcomes of our efforts at regime change are not encouraging. We ought therefore not be eager for more.

- roidubouloi

June 9, 2012 at 3:07pm

Rather than being ironic, Wieseltier is being deliberately obtuse, pretending that there is no moral content or purpose to the Westphalian system. Thus, to the extent it exists as incorporated in the UN system, it can blithely be ignored. He fails to address whatsoever the fact that the older Westphalian system has been incorporated in the UN system, a system of positive law, such that one cannot ignore the former without also ignoring the latter.

- roidubouloi

June 9, 2012 at 3:13pm

roidubouloi "Rather than being ironic, Wieseltier is being deliberately obtuse, pretending that there is no moral content or purpose to the Westphalian system." Yes, there is much "moral" content. It stops Christian wars by allowing minority Christian sects the right to pray as they fit in private and for a few dedicated hours in public.

- arnon1

June 9, 2012 at 3:21pm

Leon W.: “Oprah Winfrey commended “Pierre de Chardin” to the graduates of Spelman College and exhorted them to “let excellence be your brand.” Yale University elected to have its commencement addressed by Barbara Walters. Al Sharpton appeared in the pages of The New York Times Book Review, which warmly noted that its reviewer has lost a lot of weight and eats fish twice a week and many vegetables. And Daniel Bell was made responsible for the Iraq war. The latter comedy took place in the wastes of Salon, where it would have stayed if The New York Times had not seen fit to circulate, without challenge, the description of that great American liberal as having “essentially invented the neoconservative movement that would inspire George W. Bush in his disastrous invasion of Iraq.” Must error also be stupid?”

- arnon1

June 9, 2012 at 3:29pm

"Yes, there is much "moral" content. It stops Christian wars by allowing minority Christian sects the right to pray as they fit in private and for a few dedicated hours in public." A very anachronistic point of view given the level of death and destruction caused by religious wars. At least one historian has noted that our modern concept of freedom of religion has its roots less in a philosophical revelation than in European exhaustion by religious war. As the wars were grounded in moral claims, the end of such wars required a comparable moral justification. But then, some people today really like religious wars, with whatever justification they attach to them.

- roidubouloi

June 9, 2012 at 4:21pm

"At least one historian has noted that our modern concept of freedom of religion has its roots less in a philosophical revelation than in European exhaustion by religious war." It's not an either/or and it applied only to Christians. Religious freedom (for Christians) was advocated by some sectarian Christians going back a few centuries. It was the ruling elite of all sides that insisted on total control of religion. A few also extended their notion of toleration to Jews. Bacon's "New Atlantis" Jews enjoy freedom of religion.

- arnon1

June 9, 2012 at 4:40pm

Great thread.

- IggyPop

June 9, 2012 at 5:54pm

That's what I mean by anachronism. Modern ideas are not born full-grown. The Bill of Rights didn't apply to African-Americans either. But eventually people came to see that there was no possibility of principled exclusion. The origin of the idea of freedom of religion may have limited it originally to Christian denominations, but the idea could not be contained in this way. Same with women's suffrage and rights. People in our past made significant moral advances, including the Peace of Westphalia. That it was not the final humanitarian word in international law is a good thing and does not take anything away from the achievement. Time and events rendered the Westphalian system obsolete. As a result, it was consciously superseded by the UN system that is itself an incomplete realization of the idea of enforceable international law. The point, however, is that these are hard won advances and should not be lightly abandoned although they are as yet partial. Based on the history, the alternative is likely worse.

- roidubouloi

June 9, 2012 at 11:12pm

roidubouloi "That's what I mean by anachronism. Modern ideas are not born full-grown." I don't know who you are against. To me the Westphalian treaties merely ratified what was already a fact: the existence of strong nation States. What it also made evident was the obsolescence of the Holy Roman Empire and the whole Religio-political edifice that was in place till then. Same with the UN what it made manifest was the decay of Europe which like Spain's Franco is taking its time dying. The current economic problems there is just another chapter in the ongoing fall of Europe. Last I read Spain is asking for a hundred BBBillion Euros for its BBBanks. UBBBe-fucking-lievable.

- arnon1

June 9, 2012 at 11:58pm

I don't know who you are against. should read I don't know who you are arguing against.

- arnon1

June 9, 2012 at 11:59pm

"From Peace Prize to Paralysis" By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/opinion/sunday/kristof-from-peace-prize-to-paralysis.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print Wieseltier is not the only Democrat critical of Obama. Kristof's criticism of Obama makes Wieseltier's article read like a love letter: "Yet the president is taking prudence to the point of paralysis. I’m generally an admirer of Obama’s foreign policy, but his policies toward both Syria and Sudan increasingly seem lame, ineffective and contrary to American interests and values. Obama has shown himself comfortable projecting power — as in his tripling of American troops in Afghanistan. Yet now we have the spectacle of a Nobel Peace Prize winner in effect helping to protect two of the most odious regimes in the world. Maybe that’s a bit harsh. But days of seeing people bombed and starved here in the Nuba Mountains have left me not only embarrassed by my government’s passivity but outraged by it. The regime of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir is dropping anti-personnel bombs full of ball bearings on farming villages. For one year now, Bashir has sealed off this area in an effort to crush the rebel force, blocking food shipments and emergency aid, so that hundreds of thousands of ordinary Nubans are now living on tree leaves, roots and insects." Read it all

- arnon1

June 10, 2012 at 12:38am

I'm prepared to accept that the UN represents progress, at least potentially, but the actual history since 1945 doesn't permit much enthusiasm for the proposition that it has replaced the nation-state system. The list of wars in this period that didn't fit the "rule" of either being self-defense or UNSC-approved is very long, and includes nearly all of the most destructive ones. As a matter of fact, states still "make treaties and alliances, and break them, at will, taking into account possible responses of other states as autonomous actors, or not, as it (sees) fit." Although theoretically the UN could intervene it almost never does, and the trend is less rather than more, accelerated with every failure to enforce "the rule". Moreover, in the rare instances the rule of the Security Council was actually enforced, the results have been underwhelming, if not appalling. We killed a couple of million people in Korea to restore the status quo ante, which represented a military dictatorship in South Korea, and a totalitarian state in the North that remains the world's largest concentration camp, with nukes. We restored Kuwait to its ruling family, and left Ba'athist Iraq in a position to slaughter tens of thousands who followed GHW Bush's advice to "throw over the dictator" while we watched from the sidelines with an army of half a million men. Over the next twelve years we colluded through the Security Council with Saddam while perhaps a million more innocents were killed by the sanctions regime and the subsequent "oil for fraud" program; and that regime was in active defiance of the ever-lengthening list of "final" UNSC Resolutions, further undermining the already shake legitimacy of that body. This indefensible fiasco led to the even-bigger fiasco of the second invasion. So, in theory, the UN Charter represents progress towards a workable system of international law. In practice, we have very far to go, and it seems to me that the goal is receeding rather than coming closer. R2P was a step in the right direction, but after Libya it will probably be just as hard to invoke, much less enforce, as was any other Resolution authorizing force. Working with the Security Council is an option we should always use, but it cannot be seen as the only option. It's increasingly clear that no one else does.

- Robert Powell

June 10, 2012 at 8:05am

There they go again. TNR obsession with Syria is out of hand. And the obsessive verbascious follow suit. And the UN demonstrates their ineptness and uselessness again and again. But the fetid Galicianer dishonest doesntt miss an opportunity to demonize Israel. There they go again indeed.

- JAIMECHUCH

June 10, 2012 at 8:24am

I keep waiting for Leon while standing on his speaker's box to tell me how many of his children serve in the US military. At the moment I have none, but if I did I would be doubly upset at their death in an intervention into Syria at this moment. This will turn into iraq squared (because all of the groups have learned valuable lessons in resistance to the order that US troops try to impose) without all of the United States' partners having skin in the game (and I know it is not a game, but the phrase best sums up what is needed). At home there is no consensus either. Even now, as Obama tries to kill people who are working to kill us, civil libertarians, most of whom have never even touched a gun, give him a raft full of crap. Obama's actions in this matter have been exactly right. When neither the United States, the United States and its allies, or the opposition in Syria neither unified among themselves or with their allies about what should be done, we cannot put American lives at stake.

- SFergessen

June 10, 2012 at 8:28am

06/10/2012 - 8:28am EDT | SFergessen "I keep waiting for Leon while standing on his speaker's box to tell me how many of his children serve in the US military." Irrelevant. Why should he tell you anything personal. Who are you, Fargessn?

- arnon1

June 10, 2012 at 8:44am

The UN system was quite clearly not even an attempt to replace the nation-state. So it can hardly be faulted for failing to do so. The point is that it established new norms and that those have been at least partially successful, and would be more successful if the main author, the US, worked at it. But we are fitful in our support for the concept which undermines it far more than if Vanuatu is recalcitrant. We cannot rationally expect to have it both ways, ignoring the UN structure when it is inconvenient and then expecting other nations to respect it. Whatever you think of Korea, it can hardly be said to be the responsibility of the UN system. It was a US war fought under the aegis of the UN. We demanded it, we commanded it, and overwhelmingly the military commitment was ours. So, if the success or failure of that war is to be the measure, then one would have to declare not the UN system but the United States system a failure. Is the US a failed undertaking because of all its aspirations that are still not achieved? Maybe. But we would have to have the realistic prospect of replacing it with something better before we just abandoned or overthrew it, wouldn't we? Withal, there are very sound reasons for preferring collective security to unilateral interventions. As I said above, I wouldn't demand that Wieseltier come down my way, but, if we are to take him seriously, he has to demonstrate that he understands these reasons and is capable of addressing them thoughtfully. Frankly, even Henry Kissinger does a better job of connecting the dots than Wieseltier does. Kissinger has a point. Other than the awfulness of it all, Wieseltier doesn't. For myself, I think that US forces have only two uses that are legitimate and prudent: defense of the US and participation in collective security (oddly congruent with the UN Charter, because we Americans wrote the UN Charter) as an extension of our own defense and support for a system that has some hope, however slight, of pacifying the world and making us more secure. I have no moral compunction, none, about standing aside while the rest of the world slaughters itself if neither our own defense nor collective security are engaged. There is not enough American blood in the veins of American children nor enough wealth even in this country to make the world safe. With Sfergessen, I don't feel any need to shed it or spend it in a futile attempt. And I sleep just fine at night with those views, completely undisturbed by Syria (or by Wieseltier).

- roidubouloi

June 10, 2012 at 9:22am

As with Korea, in both Kuwait and Iraq the fault, such as it is, has to be laid at the doorstep of the United States, not the UN. We used the UN for our purposes, and then ignored it for our purposes. If it was badly done, we did it. It is silly to say that our strategic and policy failures are somehow due to the UN system. If anyone runs the show there, it is us. So, it was never within the power or structure of the UN to prevent us from behaving badly.

- roidubouloi

June 10, 2012 at 9:28am

If the Peace of Westphalia meant nothing in human affairs other than a pronouncement that what is is, as arnon says, then what is Wieseltier arguing about or against? A strawman. While saying that we must not be bound by international arrangements conceived and undertaken in 1648, Wieseltier somehow ignores the international arrangements conceived and undertaken in 1945 in the immediate aftermath of WWII. That is why I say he cannot be taken seriously. 1648 is not the relevant point of departure for any argument on this subject.

- roidubouloi

June 10, 2012 at 9:35am

anom: It is relevant because as a country we are far removed from the highest costs of military intervention. My first question when thinking for any military intervention is would I be bitter if I lost a child in a war because the war was not worth it. We can stay at home and sip our chardonnay while a fraction of our nation's youth die or incur life changing injuries.

- SFergessen

June 10, 2012 at 9:39am

I would be bitter at the loss of any American child in a unilateral Syrian intervention. Our children do not owe the Syrians their lives or anything else.

- roidubouloi

June 10, 2012 at 10:10am

roidubouloi "I would be bitter at the loss of any American child in a unilateral Syrian intervention. Our children do not owe the Syrians their lives or anything else." There is no war that is "worth the life of a child," period. Not the civil war, not ww2, not any war. In any case, we are not talking about children, Fregessen. We have a volunteer army and people in their late teens who can vote are not children. (I wonder if Fergessen or Roid, were their children in danger, would think that any one's life is worth the price of their own offspring being saved?) This is a false argument. You measure the morality of war by what you accomplish and the evils you prevent when it's possible to do so.

- arnon1

June 10, 2012 at 12:26pm

No, that is not at all the measure of the morality of war. "Cost-benefit" analysis is surely one but hardly the exclusive consideration. There are also important questions about who is deciding who shall live and who shall die. It is not necessarily my moral decision to make as between third parties which among them shall be sacrificed for what I perceive is the greater good even after the most scrupulous cost-benefit analysis. It is for this reason, among others, that the Vietnam War was immoral. Were cost-benefit analysis the basis for either just were, prudent war, or moral war, we can be sure that every war ever fought was justified in the eyes of those who chose to go to war. The moral answer cannot be based merely on the quality of their cost-benefit analysis. See, e.g., Robert McNamara. The question of who shall be sacrificed for what someone perceives as the greater good also pertains to American soldiers. Regardless of the fact that they are volunteers (although the demographics of just who volunteers and who doesn't should make us very skeptical of that claim), our soldiers are not mercenaries. They serve to defend the United States, their own families and communities and our nation as a whole. They are not a general world gendarmerie. To use them as such is to abuse what I regard as an implicit agreement between our society and its military about the nature of service. That our society is a party to an international compact that limits the justifications for war to self-defense and authorization by the UNSC is also a moral factor. Illegal use of our soldiers is not moral, again no matter how scrupulous someone's cost-benefit analysis. That makes our soldiers agents of war crimes. Were my children in danger, I would not think it at all the obligation of some third parties to sacrifice their lives to save them. It would be my obligation, not theirs. Were all of us at risk, then the mutual commitment we have as members of a common society would impose obligations of mutual aid and shared sacrifice. That does not extend to Syria any more than the Syrian people have some responsibility to sacrifice themselves for our sake. Neither did the Vietnamese have an obligation to sacrifice themselves for our geopolitical interests. As World War II is apparently the gold standard for just war, it should be recalled that we did not go to war to save the Jews, or to save Europe. We went to war to save ourselves making common cause with others, including the Soviets, faced with a common threat.

- roidubouloi

June 10, 2012 at 2:29pm

roidubouloi "No, that is not at all the measure of the morality of war. "Cost-benefit" analysis is surely one but hardly the exclusive consideration." I wasn't doing a cost benefit analysis. I said: "You measure the morality of war by what you accomplish and the evils you prevent when it's possible to do so." This isn't an economic argument. You know your way around an argument based on a narrow reading of legal texts and economic data, outside of that you seem to be at sea. Again, under what conditions do you think another person should give his life to save your child. (Do you have any children, btw, did you or Fergessen serve in the US military?

- arnon1

June 10, 2012 at 3:04pm

You didn't do the cost-benefit analysis, but that is exactly what you propose as the measure of the morality of war, without any consideration of who bears the cost. Not an economic argument? Of course it is. Economics is not ultimately about money, but about welfare. For some purposes, money serves as a useful proxy when trying to discern "what you accomplish" and what welfare, "evils you prevent," you gain. Sometimes not. Then you have to make your judgment about welfare. But it is an economic determination none-the-less. I don't think morality is simply a matter of aggregate welfare even though you demur that the balancing of aggregate welfare is an "economic argument." That is just labelling. No one but me has any obligation to give his or her live to save my children. As members of a common society, we all have obligations to share in the necessary burdens of maintaining that society. Not the same thing at all. Nor does sharing in those burdens mean doing whatever anyone in higher authority orders done. We should have learned that at Nuremburg. I have two children, both young. I did not serve in the US military. I was of draft age and classified 1A during the Vietnam War. I got a high draft number in the lottery, wasn't called, didn't volunteer. To this day, I cannot say what I would have done had I been drafted.

- roidubouloi

June 10, 2012 at 3:30pm

roidubouloi "You didn't do the cost-benefit analysis, but that is exactly what you propose as the measure of the morality of war, without any consideration of who bears the cost." As usual you are arguing against strawmen. "No one but me has any obligation to give his or her live to save my children. As members of a common society, we all have obligations to share in the necessary burdens of maintaining that society." This is an odd answer. No one but you is responsible for the lives of your children but as members of a common society...... To someone like Kristof the but wold include as members of the common human race. Everyone has his own buts... Where does this "common society" start and stop. Does it apply only to people who live on your block, your city, your country? What of a non citizen who is visiting here? Does he or she share in the same obligations as the man who picks up your garbage? I am not sure you are being sincere when you imply that you don't expect anyone else to save the life of your child if he or she were say drowning or trapped in a fire. I do, I expect some passer by to come to his help even at the risk of their life. (Not that it would happen in reality) But then this is how I would react when some child were in danger and needed help.

- arnon1

June 10, 2012 at 4:25pm

"Nor does sharing in those burdens mean doing whatever anyone in higher authority orders done. We should have learned that at Nuremburg." (sic) How does "Nuremberg" come into the argument?

- arnon1

June 10, 2012 at 5:03pm

There is quite a difference between duties to the society as a whole, including military service which then requires doing what is ordered (subject to Nuremburg which is how it comes into the argument), and a general duty to come to the aid of other people at risk to one's own life. There is no such duty personally, and none on the part of our society to come to the aid of other countries at the risk of American lives. Kristof may think so, but I don't see the source of any such obligation. Merely being born? Within our society, we have a shared social life that creates affirmative duties because we rely upon each other and all benefit from that mutual reliance. Toward other societies, we have only the duty not to do them harm. For example, a firefighter has a responsibility to fight fires and rescue people, at considerable risk but not with certain sacrifice of life, because the firefighter has undertaken that duty to society and so cannot shirk when the time comes. Shirking would extract an unacceptable price from society because, had the individual not undertaken the duty, someone else could have and would likely have performed it. That does not mean that the firefighter has a general duty to save lives at risk to himself. He has only the duty to fulfill his firefighting responsibility. I don't think our society has any general responsibility to place the lives of our people at risk to defend other countries and their populations. None. The common society in which we share, and to which military service is rendered, is the United States. The duty of someone in the military is to the United States, not to Syria and not to other countries. Within some limits, the United States government can decide that our national security interest is served by coming to the aid of other countries or their populations, or can enter into collective security arrangements with other countries that then creates a duty, but that is quite different from saying we had an a priori duty to do so. We had no duty to come to the aid of the British in WWII. We did it to protect ourselves. That a Good Samaritan may choose to come to someone else's aid at personal risk does not imply at all that there is a duty to do so. However, we would certainly think it immoral to fail to come to the aid of another at risk of mortal harm at little or no risk to oneself. The main point is that certain duties are owed to society, either because they are obligatory, as when drafted, or because one has volunteered. The execution of that duty may require coming to the aid of a particular person at risk to oneself. That is not the same as a general duty to come to the aid of others at risk to oneself. You made the claim about the morality of war being a simple weighing what can be accomplished. That is not a straw man. It is your claim. I can well understand why you don't want to defend it. However, I don't see that we have any right to put our own soldiers at risk, to risk their lives by invoking their service obligations, to rescue Syrians. Their service is a duty to protect this society in whose military they serve. That rescuing Syrians might under certain circumstances serve to protect us is neither here nor there. That may be easy or difficult to discern, but logically the distinction remains.

- roidubouloi

June 10, 2012 at 6:20pm

It is also one thing for a Good Samaritan to put his or herself at risk. It is quite another to order another to do so because one has that power and authority. The government has a responsibility toward soldiers within its control not to abuse its authority over them. They do not become slaves whose lives are the property of our government by volunteering for military duty. The soldier has obligations to the government, the government has obligations to the soldier. That includes, in my opinion, respecting the implicit terms of service. To my mind, the soldier volunteers to defend and protect the United States, accepting that superiors determine how that is to be done. They do not volunteer to risk their lives for any purpose whatsoever.

- roidubouloi

June 10, 2012 at 6:26pm

roidubouloi "There is quite a difference between duties to the society as a whole, including military service which then requires doing what is ordered (subject to Nuremburg which is how it comes into the argument), and a general duty to come to the aid of other people at risk to one's own life….. Merely being born? Within our society, we have a shared social life that creates affirmative duties because we rely upon each other and all benefit from that mutual reliance. Toward other societies, we have only the duty not to do them harm.” You are repeating what you said before using different phrasing. Who is the “we” that have a “shared social life?” Does the lawyer and his client have a shred social life? What about the lady shopper at Macy’s and the clerk there? And what does mutual reliance mean here? I bring this up because for most of us the people in our “shares society” are as alien as if they lived foreign countries. There is no cohesive social order. For most of us our only social responsibility consists in paying taxes and getting licenses if we wish to drive or hunt. These “duties” are mandated by law. We don’t even live in a society with cohesive family structures. What duties do husband and wife have towards each other? Your so called “duties to society as a whole” as a whole is a fiction. Ironically, when you sign up for military service you do become a member of a cohesive social structure with duties and responsibilities. The armed forces is one of the last social institutions where you are expected to function as a member of a team. Perhaps that explains why the years in which the draft was a fact in our country during most of the cold war citizens did feel some responsibility towards their fellow men which is why they voted to raise taxes at times and for very liberal office seekers like Hubert Humphrey. Ronald Reagan didn’t become President till after the draft was abolished. Even he though while he attacked government he also raised taxes and made compromises for the good of the country. Forty years later when the draft is only a memory very few conservative candidates would act as he did. I bring up the draft because it’s one of those institutions that has had some positive unintended consequences. Take the duty to help people in danger. One must be able to know how to help before they can do so. In the service you get some training which if you so choose you can you use to help. Most citizens haven’t had the training to come to aid of a person in danger even if they wanted to. (Many do not wish to get involved as the famous case of Kitty Genovese who was assaulted in NY shows. There have been many studies of this even with no clear conclusions reached.) Still, thankfully there weren’t many such cases at the time. If citizens develop a sense of responsibility towards others (and you are not born with it) either in one’s family or through one’s religion, or by joining the service then they will be readier to help than those who have been taught that they have no responsibility except to themselves. Furthermore I would argue that those who are ready to help others (family members, neighbors, strangers in their community or country) will not make fine distinctions between their countrymen and people in other countries. The suggestion that we have “duties to the society as a whole because within “our society, we have a shared social life that creates affirmative duties because we rely upon each other and all benefit from that mutual reliance” is hollow because most of us don’t recognize such primary duties. If we did then we would have less trouble recognizing along with Kristof our duties to others as well. I am not surprised that most people feel as you and Fergesson do about our non-responsibility towards others. Had you been in the service and met some of these others you might feel different.

- arnon1

June 10, 2012 at 7:36pm

“To my mind, the soldier volunteers to defend and protect the United States, accepting that superiors determine how that is to be done. They do not volunteer to risk their lives for any purpose whatsoever.” True, except that the soldier does not decide what is and is not in the interest of protecting the US. This is decided by civilian elected officials. Your “any purpose whatsoever” sounds like a comment by someone who has decided all by himself what is and what isn’t in the interest of my country. You didn’t serve you country, I did. You don’t decide this, I don’t decide this. Keep this in mind.

- arnon1

June 10, 2012 at 7:41pm

Duty to society is not at all a fiction. Many of these duties are expressed as laws. And everyone has a duty to obey them, whether they subjectively experience themselves having a duty or not. Others are expressed in the expectations we have for one another of right conduct. Some are highly contested, others are broadly accepted, but the existence of controversy too does not negate the existence of duty. You have a lot of confusion about categories. Should I say that I am not surprised? Well, I am not because you have demonstrated repeatedly on these blogs that you have a very limited and naïve understanding of the sources of law, of all types, and the very purpose of the institution of law. So, on the one hand, you do not see that anyone owes any duty to the society in which they live -- at any level apparently. Yet, somehow, they owe duties to all of humanity, including the duty to lay down their lives if "what is to be accomplished" is greater than the cost. Do you want to tell us how many lives saved that requires? Two? Do I have a moral obligation to lay down my life if two people's lives will be saved thereby? Or is it ten? Or five? What about consumption of wealth? We in this country consume much more than a proportionate share of the world's output. Do we each have a duty to send the portion that exceeds the world average to other countries, or even to other people in the US? If 50 people can be fed on what you consume in excess of your own subsistence, would not there be a greater good in your giving that up to feed them? Or does the duty to die if a greater good will come of it extend only to life and death issues? Frankly, arnon, your position is incoherent. Moral duty apparently has no content other than that when you declare it to exists, it exists and when you don't, it doesn't. And yes, the lawyer and the client have a shared social life because they interact and rely on one another. The lawyer has an ethical duty to serve the client's interests within the bounds of law; the client has a duty to pay the lawyer for his services and not to obtain them without a bona fide good intention to pay or to waste the lawyer's time by misleading. Even the shopper and the sales person have a relationship that imposes certain responsibilities, such as the duty of the salesperson not to mislead the shopper about the available merchandise in order to increase sales. In that case, even though the salesperson may not commit a crime, it would still be unethical to mislead. You don't believe that husbands and wives have duties to each other of care, support, honesty, fidelity? You have a very strange view of morality if you think no one has any duty to anyone else other than a duty to give their own life, even to save strangers. Do you really want to maintain the position that we have a duty to lay down our lives for anyone in the world who may be saved but no other duties to one another?

- roidubouloi

June 10, 2012 at 8:09pm

The fact that elected officials have the responsibility to decide how to deploy the military does not mean that any decision they make is a moral one, even if we never know that they have made an immoral decision. Would it not, for example, be immoral to keep soldiers fighting and dying for the purpose of winning reelection when there is not sufficient military justification? Would such behavior no longer be immoral merely because no one is able to discover this purpose? We can and should discuss the proper uses of the military even if, in particular circumstances, we as individuals are not able to determine whether or not the military as been put to a proper use. It is again a confusion of categories to say that because public officials have the duty and responsibility to decide that therefore anything the decide is necessarily moral or proper. The responsibility to decide does not automatically imply absolute moral discretion.

- roidubouloi

June 10, 2012 at 8:14pm

roidubouloi "Duty to society is not at all a fiction. Many of these duties are expressed as laws." Other than paying taxes, what laws are these? "Others are expressed in the expectations we have for one another of right conduct." Expectations are hardly laws, even social expectations. I am afraid that it is you who are confused. The lawyer may have a duty to his client, and his client has to fulfill his side of the contract by paying his lawyer, but that hardly makes them part of the same society. Would one say that an attorney appointed by a court to serve pro bono someone accused of murder who has no capacity to repay his lawyer considers himself as belonging to the same society as his client. I doubt it. Their association is purely contingent. The lawyer and the judge who appointed him belong to the same society their association is professional. What we have here is not one society but a number of sub-societies each with it's own professional requirements. For the rest you haven't understood what was said to you either by me or by Kristof or by Wieseltier. You are under the illusion that the world your law books write about is actual. It isn't. No wonder you confuse moral sensibilities with cost accounting.

- arnon1

June 10, 2012 at 8:25pm

It is you who confused morality with cost accounting, to which I took exception. You cannot support your argument so now you pretend that you never made it. You are welcome to withdraw it or to attempt to clarify what you meant when you said that the morality of war is a function of what can be accomplished and what evils avoided. There are rather a lot of laws on the books, and legal obligations not even reduced to positive law, other than paying taxes. But for the fact that the lawyer and the client are part of the same society, there could hardly be any mutual obligation of the kinds that do exist. Where do you think their mutual responsibilities come from? The lawyer's ethical obligation is actually a duty to society that is expressed in the concrete case as an obligation to the particular client. Likewise the client's obligation. That is why society enforces them rather than simply leaving everyone to observe such duties as they subjectively wish to observe and ignore the rest. And as for my not understanding Kristof or Wieseltier, that is not an argument. If you want to defend their moral claims, you have to be able to do better than simply assert they are not understood. So far, you have said nothing that even rises to the level of an argument, let alone a persuasive argument.

- roidubouloi

June 10, 2012 at 8:43pm

Roidubouloi “It is you who confused morality with cost accounting, to which I took exception.” What nonsense. I said at the time that I didn’t talk about “cost accounting” which is your unfortunate term. I expect you to come up with savage accusations and retorts to those who don’t agree with you. I didn’t expect you to lie. “You cannot support your argument so now you pretend that you never made it. You are welcome to withdraw it or to attempt to clarify what you meant when you said that the morality of war is a function of what can be accomplished and what evils avoided.” More piffle. “There are rather a lot of laws on the books, and legal obligations not even reduced to positive law, other than paying taxes.” Which are what? I am not allowed to spit on the side walk. That’s what makes us a society beholden to each other. You don’t spit and I don’t spit, tra la la la la. How grand it is to be a social animal. “But for the fact that the lawyer and the client are part of the same society, there could hardly be any mutual obligation of the kinds that do exist. Where do you think their mutual responsibilities come from?” There is no mutual responsibility. The client unless he be Bartleby, wants not to be confined and the lawyer wants to discharge his duties in such a way that he will make a name for himself and get hired by clients who can pay. “The lawyer's ethical obligation is actually a duty to society that is expressed in the concrete case as an obligation to the particular client. Likewise the client's obligation.” How romantic. “That is why society enforces them rather than simply leaving everyone to observe such duties as they subjectively wish to observe and ignore the rest.” Are you still talking about lawyer and client? “And as for my not understanding Kristof or Wieseltier, that is not an argument. If you want to defend their moral claims, you have to be able to do better than simply assert they are not understood. So far, you have said nothing that even rises to the level of an argument, let alone a persuasive argument.” If you can’t see that each of them makes a persuasive case for helping children, women and old people being murdered by their governments I can’t help you.

- arnon1

June 10, 2012 at 9:07pm

There is plenty of reason to help people being murdered. That is not by itself sufficient reason for sending other people to takes lives and risk and lose their lives for that purpose. As for lying, you are so confused that you are unable to observe the meaning of your own argument. When you say that the morality of war is based only on "what you accomplish" without regard to such questions as who pays the price for what is accomplished and who makes decisions about who pays the price, you are indeed making of morality nothing but cost and benefit. The lives lost without their consent or participation are forfeit because you, or someone, discerns that there is sufficient accomplishment. Or maybe I give you too much credit by assuming that you consider the costs of war as well as "what is accomplished." You cannot indeed help me, or anyone else. If you cannot discern in our society any obligations, legal or moral, other than to pay taxes, not to spit on the sidewalk, and to lay down one's life (or follow orders to do so) to save others, you are far too confused about the sources and meaning of morality or law to be of help to anyone.

- roidubouloi

June 10, 2012 at 9:53pm

Roidubouloi “There is plenty of reason to help people being murdered.” Of course there are. “That is not by itself sufficient reason for sending other people to takes lives and risk and lose their lives for that purpose.” Why do you assume that people will lose their lives trying to save people from being murdered? Perhaps we should ask military people to volunteer for such a mission. (Something tells me though that you wouldn’t like that either. It’s not the fact that a soldier might be killed rescuing a Sudanese mother or a Syrian child that bothers the likes of you and Fergessen, et al. You just don’t care enough for these people to want to save them. Your sense of morality is not that different from that of Ron Paul except that he is more honest. The rest of your post is just more piffle. No I don’t sue cost accounting methods to talk about morality. I’d leave that up to you. LAST REPLY TO YOU!

- arnon1

June 10, 2012 at 10:09pm

"sue" in the last sentence should read USE.

- arnon1

June 10, 2012 at 10:10pm

If the killing in Syria could be stopped without either taking lives or sacrificing them, it would be a rather easy decision. Is it really an assumption that military action will result in one, the other or both? Hardly. Sending volunteers would certainly be better, but there is also the small, to you, matter of taking lives, some of them innocent, non-combatant lives as we see in Afghanistan, with a great deal of uncertainty about how many such lives will be lost in the endeavor or what the ultimate outcome may be. Add to that the problem of allowing any nation to make such determinations unilaterally (or is this sort of humanitarian undertaking only for we morally acute Americans?) and the reasons for collective security, as we endeavored to embody in the UNSC, should be quite clear. Who decides does matter given that ostensibly altruistic motivation is easily clouded by self-interest. Not of course for Americans, but for other people who do not share our moral acuity. Something tells me that you don't much care about the lives that may be lost in the Sudan or Syria one way or the other. They are merely the occasion for your display of what you take to be your own morally superior concern for victims. And at no cost. Trained as you are, perhaps you should go and take up arms there, depending of course on what you think you will accomplish.

- roidubouloi

June 10, 2012 at 10:43pm

Last word, Roid. Let them die since to stop the killing will require killing the killers.

- arnon1

June 10, 2012 at 11:43pm

You are quite convinced that you know who the killers are. But maybe you don't: http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/syrian-rebels-responsible-for-houla-massacre/ Syrian Rebels Responsible For Houla Massacre? Doug Mataconis · Saturday, June 9, 2012 John Rosenthal at National Review passes along a report from Germany’s leading daily newspaper that implicates the Syrian rebels in the massacre of some 90 civilians in the city of Houla, a massacre that many in the West have used for a renewed round of denunciations of the Assad regime: [A]ccording to a new report in Germany’s leading daily, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), the Houla massacre was in fact committed by anti-Assad Sunni militants, and the bulk of the victims were member of the Alawi and Shia minorities, which have been largely supportive of Assad. * * * The FAZ report echoes eyewitness accounts collected from refugees from the Houla region by members of the Monastery of St. James in Qara, Syria. According to monastery sources cited by the Dutch Middle East expert Martin Janssen, armed rebels murdered “entire Alawi families” in the village of Taldo in the Houla region.

- roidubouloi

June 11, 2012 at 12:42am

I need to thank you for recommending Wolin's The Seduction Of Unreason, which I read slowly and just finished. It was a like an taking an extension course and I'm better educated for it. I think it's the best critical account of post modernism I've read.

- basman

June 11, 2012 at 2:38pm

"I need to thank you for recommending Wolin's The Seduction Of Unreason, which I read slowly and just finished. It was a like an taking an extension course and I'm better educated for it. I think it's the best critical account of post modernism I've read." You are very welcome, Basman.

- arnon1

June 11, 2012 at 3:35pm

Basman, you recently told me about a kindle single "Harvard Is Burning" by Lee Siegel which I read and enjoyed. I'd like to recommend another Kindle Single which i just read by Dara Horn (a writer I hadn't heard of before): 'The rescuer" http://www.amazon.com/The-Rescuer-Kindle-Single-ebook/dp/B006Y409UW/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1339444047&sr=1-1&keywords=dara+horn It's a moving account of Varian Fry (forget the comparison's to Oscar Schindler). Varian is one of the very few genuine American heroes who took it upon himself to help rescue thousands of artists in Europe in 1940. Horn's account describes in detail why he did it. The State Department didn't want him to succeed so they terminated hie visa and almost got him killed. Varian had a real sense that he belonged to a community (civilization) and he was trying to save its soul. How he got to feel such a commitment to this community is what the books is about. (We are not born with a view and have to acquire it over time most of us never do.)

- arnon1

June 11, 2012 at 3:53pm