Speaking of Mindless Attacks…

By Daniel Larison • December 17, 2012, 1:06 AM

Justin Raimondo is annoyed by accurate descriptions:

Hagel opposed the Iraq war when it wasn’t cool for Republicans to do so. He opposed the Afghan “surge” when even some alleged anti-interventionists supported that futile war. And while one insufferably priggish anti-interventionist, writing for a major conservative magazine, has described him as a “thoroughly conventional and hawkish internationalist,” this is laughable. Bill Kristol knows this, which is why he and his gang have gotten out the long knives.

I am the “insufferably priggish anti-interventionist” Raimondo is attacking here. Apparently, it’s insufferable to describe politicians correctly, instead of gushing over them when they get one or two things right. It’s priggish to pay attention to what politicians do when they are in office. All of this can get in the way of the latest bout of misguided hero-worship.

Hagel has been a conventional and hawkish internationalist during most of his public career. That happens to be the truth, whether Raimondo likes it or not. He is the chairman of the board of directors for the Atlantic Council, for pity’s sake. Obama has likewise been a conventional and hawkish internationalist. Kristol et al. have had their knives out for him for five years. Neoconservative hostility to someone does not mean that he isn’t firmly ensconced in the bipartisan foreign policy consensus. It means that neoconservatives are intolerant of any foreign policy views that do not align closely with their own. They target moderate Republican internationalists and liberal internationalists with the same ferocity that they attack everyone else.

I don’t dismiss Hagel as “just another Washington warmonger.” As I just wrote in the previous post, Hagel has been vindicated in his opposition to the “surge” in Iraq and the escalation in Afghanistan. One has to be exceptionally obtuse to miss that I have been making arguments in support of Hagel for the last few days. There is someone out there wasting time obsessing over “sectarian criticisms of past errors,” but I’m not the one doing it.

Posted in foreign policy, politics. Tagged Afghanistan, Chuck Hagel, Iraq, Iraq war, Justin Raimondo.

23 Responses to Speaking of Mindless Attacks…

dSquib says:

December 17, 2012 at 1:54 am

Raimondo is weird sometimes.

Usually convincing as the detached, analytical libertarian, but not always. He was as fooled by the attacks on Obama as “soft” during the 2008 election, as somehow proving something substantial about the man’s peaceable bonafides. Being not as much of a hawk as Hillary Clinton or John McCain is enough for Bill Kristol. He doesn’t “know” anything. All these attacks prove is hawkish factions will attack ferociously to merely keep the Overton Window two axis points closer to them.
Daniel Larison says:

December 17, 2012 at 2:03 am

“All these attacks prove is hawkish factions will attack ferociously to merely keep the Overton Window two axis points closer to them.”

Yes, exactly right.
Clint says:

December 17, 2012 at 8:32 am

“If [Hagel] was taking a policy role, we’d have real concerns,” Ira Forman, the Obama campaign’s Jewish Outreach Director and the former executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, told The Weekly Standard when Hagel was appointed to the intelligence board.

In 2007, when Hagel flirted with a presidential run, the NJDC blasted his credentials on Israel in a fact sheet, noting, among other items, that in 2006, Hagel was “one of only 12 Senators who refused to write the EU asking them to declare Hezbollah a terrorist organization.”
Justin Raimondo says:

December 17, 2012 at 8:34 am

Hagel has gotten more than “one or two things right,” as both I and, ironically, Bill Kristol, have pointed out. It took real courage for him to refuse to sign on to those endless AIPAC letters: it took real courage for him to stand up against a Republican president and tell it like it was and is; and it took real character for him to refuse to endorse Romney and abandon the GOP. And now, if he is actually nominated, it will take real courage for him to endure the slings and arrows of the Israel lobby, which is quite clearly out to destroy him the way they tried (and failed) to destroy Pat Buchanan.

You cite his affiliation with the Atlantic Council as if it is some kind of black mark, but never say why this is so. You just say “for pity’s sake” in that condescending tone: not very convincing. And, yes, you do indeed write him off as just another Washington warmonger, or else what does “hawkish” mean? He isn’t “hawkish”: his first inclination is to refrain from military action, which is why we have the ridiculous “is he a pacifist?” meme you accurately critique.

Sure, you’ve been “defending” him for the past few days against unfair attacks by the neocons, but what has this defense consisted of? Ho-hum assertions that he isn’t all that, as they say, and really nothing for anyone to get too excited about.

When Congress is regularly imposing draconian sanctions on the Iranian people — sanctions that kill, I would remind you — and a prominent politician such as Hagel refuses to sign on to the demonization campaign, that is neither “conventional” nor “hawkish.” You can dredge up his support for the Kosovo war all you want, but this only underscores your stubborn refusal to recognize that people can change.

What’s missing from your current analysis — and your past refusal to give him the credit he is due — is the passion with which he has been opposing the War Party, both in office and out. It speaks, I think, to his sincerity — a characteristic one doesn’t find in many politicians.

I fear, however, that my points are lost on you for two reasons:

1) Like all pundits (including myself, btw), you are so concerned with rationalizing what you’ve already written that new facts are powerless to modify your views. (I, for one, didn’t know how disdainful he has been of the Israel lobby), and

2) Unlike you, my main concern isn’t contemplating my own rightness (although I must admit I do enjoy such indulgence): In short, my interest in these issues isn’t purely literary, it isn’t just an intellectual exercise in which I get to show off my erudition:it is building an actual political movement to end interventionism, and dismantle the Empire, so Americans can avoid the fate of the Brits and the Romans and get on with the business of living.
CJ says:

December 17, 2012 at 8:48 am

It’s ok Daniel; you’re OUR insufferably priggish anti-interventionist.
Daniel Larison says:

December 17, 2012 at 9:12 am

“my main concern…is building an actual political movement to end interventionism, and dismantle the Empire.”

That must be why you waste your time complaining about my descriptions of Hagel.
Justin Raimondo says:

December 17, 2012 at 9:17 am

It’s not a waste of time. TAC is the one voice of anti-interventionism on the right. If and when Hagel is nominated, its readers and supporters should be contacting their Senators in support of his confirmation — because you can bet his opponents will be active in trying to torpedo his nomination. Your “ho hum, he’s nothing special” attitude discourages such activism in this particular case — and, more generally, your unreasonable pessimism is paralyzing in a broader sense.
Daniel Larison says:

December 17, 2012 at 9:36 am

It’s a waste of time in this instance because I agree with you that Hagel should be confirmed. Our readers should contact their Senators to support him. Overselling Hagel’s virtues is a disservice to our readers, and it leads them to expect more than he or anyone else can possibly deliver in a Cabinet position.
Justin Raimondo says:

December 17, 2012 at 9:47 am

Ah, that’s what I was waiting for: an actual endorsement and an exhortation to action. It was like pulling teeth, but hey — not a waste of time.
Daniel Larison says:

December 17, 2012 at 9:50 am

So you wasted all of this time to get me to do something I would have done anyway once Hagel was actually nominated. Good work.
Justin Raimondo says:

December 17, 2012 at 10:07 am

I corrected the record, which, as far as Hagel is concerned, you misrepresented. And I made what I consider an important point: that optimism in our mutual cause is justified, in spite of what you believe is man’s “fallen” nature — a view you’ve expressed in the past.

I think you’re taking my criticism of your position far too personally — but then again, I’ve often done the same myself.
Daniel Larison says:

December 17, 2012 at 10:25 am

I didn’t misrepresent Hagel’s record. I have acknowledged some of the positive things in his record without forgetting what he did earlier while in office. It has been a balanced assessment, and one that has been overall favorable to Hagel. You don’t like that I called him a conventional and hawkish internationalist, but that’s what he has been for most of his career. I don’t take the criticism personally. I consider the criticism to be useless and distracting.
Greg T. says:

December 17, 2012 at 10:31 am

Hagel is neither the monster Kristol and the Weekly Standard crowd say,or the hero Raimondo and others pretend. His record is pretty interventionist,and frankly he is too internationalist for my tastes. I would vote for his confirmation but with no excitement.
Darth Thulhu says:

December 17, 2012 at 10:37 am

@Raimondo: If you don’t wish people to take your criticisms intensely personally, it would be advisable to refrain from pointless ad hominem broadsides like “insufferably priggish”.

When you apologize to Mr. Larison for starting the childish behavior, you will be in a better position to ask him to acknowledge any subsequent behavior on his part.
Justin Raimondo says:

December 17, 2012 at 10:53 am

Darth Thulhu? Hmmmmm….
Justin Raimondo says:

December 17, 2012 at 10:55 am

You misrepresented by omission, leaving out his votes against sanctions, and his on the record disdain for the Israel lobby.
Daniel Larison says:

December 17, 2012 at 11:03 am

These are two things that have been among the most widely-publicized since the report of his likely nomination. I didn’t mention them in my posts because I didn’t think they needed to be repeated. I acknowledged that he was wary of attacking Iran and noted his criticism of the 2006 Lebanon war. The post responding to Troy took for granted that Hagel had been critical of the lobby, since I was citing Miller’s comments regarding Hagel’s quote. So, no, I didn’t misrepresent his record.
James Canning says:

December 17, 2012 at 1:07 pm

Hagel deserves credit for opposing the “surge” in Afghanistan, which squandered hundreds of billions of dollars.
James Canning says:

December 17, 2012 at 1:09 pm

I agree that Hagel should receive support from those who post on this site.
Bob Jones says:

December 17, 2012 at 6:34 pm

Daniel and Justin,

Thank you both for an entertaining few minutes reading your squabbling back and forth. It is always refreshing to see people honestly expressing their thoughts, even when it takes a somewhat childish turn, as you have both done today.
William Dalton says:

December 17, 2012 at 11:31 pm

I have been an ardent fan, both of TAC and your column, and of Antiwar.com and the writings of Justin Raimondo. Today I read his column on Chuck Hagel and found this:

“One has to wonder, also, by what standard Hagel is to be judged as “thoroughly hawkish.” Unlike Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), who has been busy distancing himself from the alleged “radicalism” of his father, voting for Iran sanctions, and getting in Jennifer Rubin’s good graces, Hagel opposed Iran sanctions and refused to kowtow to the Israel lobby. Yet Senator Paul is being pushed as the Great White Hope of the libertarian/anti-interventionist movement on the right, while Hagel is disdained by the American Conservative’s resident foreign policy “expert” as just another Washington warmonger. Go figure.”

For me, the world was suddenly turned on its head. Justin, who like others in the Lew Rockwell pantheon, is generally wary of any departure from libertarian orthodoxy (as defined in the Mises Institute), comes to the defense of Chuck Hagel against criticism of insufficient purity and consistency in his anti-war record by the typically latitudinarian TAC. And points out, as other TAC writers have done, that Rand Paul has been disappointing in comparison.

Gentlemen, let us remember the tide of events in America’s recent history which brought us together, remember what must be accomplished if our Constitutional Republic is to survive, and remember, as Pat Buchanan early advised us, that dismantling the American Empire is central to that task. Let us not be dismayed that our representatives may, from time to time, engage in tactical departures from the path we would like to see them tread, but encourage them, again and again, to greater fidelity and remind them of our grateful devotion for the wounds they have suffered on our behalf. We must hang together, good sirs, or, as Ben Franklin once warned our founders, we shall surely hang separately.
The Judgment of Paris says:

December 18, 2012 at 1:13 am

Cut it out. Both of you. Behaving like the indispensable men many of us consider you to be.
Tex Tradd says:

December 18, 2012 at 1:41 am

This is actually a pretty interesting debate between two of our most insightful minds on the paleo Right.

Many of us are quite capable of projecting more good sense onto Hagel than is deserved. Dr. Larison makes a typically rigorous case for why Hagel’s record reflects more of the internationalism and hawkishness of DC consensus-heads, rather than what us non-interventionist anti-Empire types wish for.

I can only wish Mr. Raimondo, whose years of work and passion for the antiwar and anti-Empire cause is so very inspiring and apathy-curing, could have engaged this worthwhile debate in less prickly and insulting tones. Yet such strong personalities are needed to pull America back from the dangerous ways of the interventionists and hawks.

Gentlemen, I saw Ron Paul give a speech to thousands of fired-up college aged people last spring who want a Republic, not an Empire . Our time may yet come. Your respective efforts are making an impact. We must discuss our inevitable differences with as much respect as possible.