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January 17, 2003
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Gone mad?
John LeCarre's article "The United States of America has gone mad" is an animated (but nonetheless mostly accurate) indictment of the current administration:
"The religious cant that will send American troops into battle is perhaps the most sickening aspect of this surreal war-to-be. Bush has an arm-lock on God. And God has very particular political opinions. God appointed America to save the world in any way that suits America. God appointed Israel to be the nexus of America's Middle Eastern policy, and anyone who wants to mess with that idea is a) anti-Semitic, b) anti-American, c) with the enemy, and d) a terrorist."It also complements the interview with Jürgen Habermas that I read recently in The Nation quite well:
"At that time (NATO's Kosovo intervention in 1999), one could already see characteristic national differences in the modes of justification. In Continental Europe, proponents of intervention took pains to shore up rather weak arguments from international law by pointing out that the action was intended to promote what they saw as the transition from a soft international law toward a fully implemented human rights regime, whereas both US and British advocates remained in their tradition of liberal nationalism. They did not appeal to 'principles' of a future cosmopolitan order but were satisfied to enforce their demand for international recognition of what they perceived to be the universalistic force of their own national 'values.'"