The Liberal Defence of Murder by Richard Seymour

Author:Richard Seymour
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Verso Books
Published: 2014-04-15T04:00:00+00:00

One outstanding critic of the Iraq war from the Left was Christopher Hitchens. The cynicism of America’s various ‘tilts’ in the Gulf region did not dispose him well to the claim that it was now a force for humanitarianism and international order: a ‘Metternich of Arabia’ followed by a ‘freemasonry’ of ‘shady oilmen’ was the more likely reality. America’s furtive realpolitik had encouraged Saddam in his worst days, and backed the Iranian regime at the same time in order to maintain a ‘balance’. Hitchens pointed out that America’s ‘signals’ to the Iraqi regime through April Glaspie had encouraged Hussein to believe that he would be welcome to Kuwait (Glaspie later claimed that they had not expected him to take all of Kuwait), and suggested that a ‘tilt’ towards the Saudi regime, with a protective ‘net of bases and garrisons’ thrown over it, could have its own destabilizing potential. US policy was undermining democratic and secular forces, which would necessitate further wars. Hitchens would have none of the Churchillian rhetoric either: ‘beware always of the Munich/Churchill rhetoric, as of the ignorant opportunists who make use of it’. About liberals who ‘pronounced themselves co-belligerents’, preferring ‘imperialism to fascism’, he suggested: ‘Now with a ruined Iraq and a strengthened Saddam – not to mention a strengthened Al-Saud and Al-Sabah – we no longer have to choose between imperialism and fascism’.69 Writing of atrocities committed against fleeing Iraqi troops, he looked forward to ‘the editions of Sesame Street and other special programming in place of cartoon fare in which American children will have the turkey shoot explained to them’. The new world order, as Bush had dubbed it, inaugurated a period of

direct engagement and permanent physical presence. Moments like this are traditionally marked by some condign lesson being meted out to the locals. The fantastic, exemplary bloodletting that took place after the ostensible issue of the conflict had been decided was in that tradition. I can hardly wait for the parades.70

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