Two days ago, I took neoconservative Seth Mandel to task for recommending wars to prevent other wars. I said that wars to prevent other wars made no real sense. A pre-emptive war, like the U.S. attack on Iraq in 2003, is such a war. Today Steve Candidus sent me an e-mail informing me of the interesting fact that Otto von Bismarck said the same thing emphatically, calling it “colossal stupidity”. But then colossal stupidity does characterize neoconservative positions. A bit of research turned up what Bismarck said (and by the way he said a number of sage things):
“Would you not have been inclined very much to send for a physician in the first place and let him find out, how I with my long experience in politics could commit the colossal stupidity of […] telling you: It is possible that in some years we might be attacked; to pre-empt that, let us overrun our neighbors and smash them before they have fully recovered [from the war of 1870/71] – in a way [commit] suicide from fear of death)”
Herman Kahn summarized it by saying preventive war is like committing suicide for fear of death.
Contrast Bismarck’s reluctance to launch a pre-emptive attack on neighboring France with the U.S. enthusiasm for launching such wars, thinking that it’s seriously threatened by some remote nation without a navy or an air force and lacking an effective army, that its power will win the day, that it is removing threats, and that it’s going to remake whole societies and countries in something resembling its image. This is colossal stupidity squared. And short of wars to prevent wars, there is the U.S. policy of intentionally antagonizing such huge nations as Russia and China. This is colossal stupidity of its own kind.
The fervent degree of self-righteousness exhibited by U.S. leaders in their crusades is blind religiosity. Their banner is American exceptionalism. They all but claim a covenant with God to wield the swords that will tame the savage lands and convert the world into a promised land.
1:50 pm on November 8, 2014
