Daunting questions
O'Brien, David J.
Surely to liberate Kuwait, stabilize the region, secure the world oil supply, and build an international coalition to protect small nations, all are legitimate goals. But will war achieve these...
...But did not the debate amount to placing our fate in the hands of Saddam Hussein (hoping sanctions will "work") or George Bush (enforcing the UN dead- line...
...President Bush took the commendable risk of asking Congress for its support, so it is their war now, and ours...
...And what of the Arab nation, and the great people of Islam...
...Will we accept "self-determination" and "the rights of small nations" even if they are unfriendly...
...Whether we do or not, will Israel be safer...
...among all of us today, and that is not a good thing...
...Who will he in charge...
...Patriotic support for our men and women in the field could be counted on to do the rest...
...their resolution through negotiation is the way to peace...
...And what then will be the lesson of Iraq...
...They stir up bitter memories of past Christian-Jewish relations, as well as hopes for a better future...
...Young men and women appear each night on our television screens, humbling us by their willingness to fight for their counlry and for the moral ideal of resisting tyranny...
...Who does not benefit from a secure oil supply...
...Perhaps the war will end quickly...
...From Richard Nixon's triumph in 1968 through Jimmy Carter's "malaise" speech and Ronald Reagan's revolution, patriotic meaning was not that of Martin Luther King, Jr., or even Robert Kennedy...
...Those who deny it need only try to answer the questions: What is the meaning of our national experience...
...And after visits to Rome, Prague, and Wloclawek last December, that ambivalence has only increased...
...That Americans...
...What happens then...
...What is it that makes us one people...
...The question is whether we are prepared to engage in such negotiation, and compromise our national objectives, in order to build, gradually, with many failures and considerable ambiguity, structures of collective security and intemational coop- eration...
...Are they now, will they ever he, accepted as our brothers and sisters in a single human family...
...That we need only stand tall and be strong and we can bend history our way...
...It pervaded the public debate that preceded the war...
...The choice, as always, is to be made not in war but in politics, in the continuing struggle to define the terms of the policy debate, influence the interpretation of our national symbols, and persuade people to support our cause...
...Once posed that way, the debate's outcome was inevitable...
...ANTI-SEMITISM IN EUROPE CH]ROlq1[C P..wI]81VPt L C]E: TWO STEPS FORWARD...
...That is where the battle must be joined...
...And will war strengthen the UN and build the coalition...
...DAVID J. O'BRIEN DAVID J. O'BRIEN teaches history at Holy Cross College in Worcester, Massachusetts...
...We can end this war in ways that will enforce for a time conformity to our will...
...The new weapons may make all this possible, and perhaps enable us to "solve" other cases of regional instability, like Central America...
...And how far will we go for oil...
...I was part of the International Jewish Committee 86: Commonweal...
...But is that our vision of "new world order," or is it Teddy Roosevelt's "righteous use of superior force...
...presence be needed to intimidate Syria and Iran...
...The alternative would be a peace settlement that embraces mutual security, Palestinian rights, arms sales and regional arms control, a truly multinational peacekeeping force, and stabilization of oil prices through international agreements...
...There is a much higher level of cynicism "No Blood for Oil"--and fatalism, "the decision is made, what can be done...
...His most recent book is Public Catholicism (Macmillan...
...That patriotic idealism, and the wondrous technology now enlisted in the cause of death, can be turned to the service of life and the building of a just and peaceful world...
...Finally there are questions of patriotism...
...he Tiber, Moldau, and Vistula: Even to pronounce the names sets off intense ambivalent feelings within me...
...Will we apply those prin- ciples in the Palestinian case...
...Let there be no mistake about it: advocates of peace and international justice lost the political and cultural debate surrounding Vietnam...
...The administration's ann-twisting of old and new allies to prevent negotiation suggests that the real objective is to destroy Saddam Hussein's regime...
...Far more than the righteous use of superior force, that vision can renew our national spirit, and give purpose and direction to our own lives...
...These are the real issues...
...9 Rome...
...Unconditional surrender, restoration of the ruling family in Kuwait, military occupation of Iraq, enhanced military capability for the Saudis, naval presence in the Gulf, with mobile forces nearby, a formula for regional stability...
...Will a U.S...
...Will the Gulf and the Middle East be more or less stable...
...If there is one thing that distinguishes the opposition to administration policy now from that of the sixties, it is the cooling of that passionate love of country which made the struggle of those days so intense...
...But perhaps all these questions need not be asked...
...But will war achieve these things...
...uniting technology and goodness, are destined to lead the world...
...Sanctions, diplomacy, political maneuvers, an enhanced block- ade, cautious military pressure exercised under UN, not U.S., command, if we had persisted with all these, we might have drawn Germany and Japan into a more responsible role, gradually built a structure for authentic regional cooperation, and ended with strong tools for defending human rights and the indepen- dence of small nations from the Baltic to Tiananmen to South Africa...
...But who defines patriotism...
...For all the contradictions of his rhetoric and the irrationalities and injustices of his policies, Reagan touched a deep moral nerve in American life...
...What would that acceptance require, here and now...
...In that direction lies a new patriotism, that delrmes the meaning of the American people in the building of a single human family capable of protecting human rights and overcoming political and economic oppression without the brutality of war...
Vol. 118 • February 1991 • No. 3
