What Price Freedom?

It took me almost a week, but I did get around to reading Michael Ignatieff's essay on Jefferson's dream of spreading democracy to the rest of the world and how its playing out in the world we all live in.

It's a good piece and lays out the historical context for the issues we are facing today in Iraq and beyond.

Cetainly all of you who commented passionately on my VC of the Week post this week should take the time to read this.

Ignatieff doesn't come out on either side of the debate and points out that America is having a hard time with the issue.

Me too.

Comments

[steve]

Ignatieff is always a a really smart thoughtful balanced writer. But I'd argue that, in the NYTimes magazine piece, he leaves out one large item: 9/11.

If you believe that a small band of extreme zealots perpetrated 9/11, then you can worry endlessly about the history and political philosophy behind the Iraq war. If on the other hand, you believe that Al-Qaeda's role in 9/11 is secondary to Al Qaeda's role as the tip of the iceberg of radical Islamic fundamentalism -- a global, mortal threat to anyone considered by such radicals as "infidels" -- then you, like the Bush administration, see the war in Iraq as a larger strategy of finding a sensible battleground on which to try to reverse that tide.

In other words, waging war in Iraq may be fueled by Jeffersonian ideals but only because they serve an even larger purpose -- one that is about realism, pragmatism. This is about the West versus radical Islam. When the USA finally decided to battle Hitler (as a factual matter, which we did ostensibly only because he declared war in support of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor!) we didn't wring our hands because we didnt roll the tanks directly into Germany. We fought in North Africa initially, because that was a practical place to start. Ditto Iraq. This is understandably very hard for many people to grasp, as radical Islam isn't a nation state like Nazi Germany. But if 9/11 is any indication, it is just as philosophically and strategically determined to slaughter us.

[jackson]

The world of Jefferson is very far removed. It would not have been possible for him to concieve of the intracacies of our struggle. Besides, watch who you worship, Jefferson was also a slave owning hypocrite. As for WWII, again, different animal, once we cut off the head of fascism, it died, that is not the case here. You can't win minds with death, you can only subjugate, and it's the economic version of that subjugation, which the Uninted States has engaged in since '45, that has them pissed off to begin with.

[jackson]

The world of Jefferson is very far removed. It would not have been possible for him to concieve of the intracacies of our struggle. Besides, watch who you worship, Jefferson was also a slave owning hypocrite. As for WWII, again, different animal, once we cut off the head of fascism, it died, that is not the case here. You can't win minds with death, you can only subjugate, and it's the economic version of that subjugation, which the Uninted States has engaged in since '45, that has them pissed off to begin with.

[Claudiu Dumitrescu]

I am running a bpo & web center in Bucharest, Romania. We are also offering IT consulting for Romania. Our prices are so cheap that many of our customers can consider we are working for free. Maybe your blog can advertise our services to a new potential customer.
Have a nice day! Claudiu, ROMsourcing.com