“Sovereignty left”

March 27th, 2007

Michael Bérubé has gone back to blogging at Crooked Timber and as one of his first posts there has written a hit piece on his usual enemies, at the heart of which is his invention of the socalled “Sovereignty left”

In the US, the Z/Counterpunch crew have a symbiotic relation to Berman, Hitchens, et al., just as in the UK the Galloway/Respect crowd have a symbiotic relation to the Eustonites. To this day, each needs the other. And it is in both camps� interest to pretend that Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq were all part of the same enterprise: all three wars were wars of liberation for the Hawks, and all three were exercises in imperialism for the Sovereignty Left. The Hawks wound up agreeing, in whole or in part, with Bush�s premise that Iraq was the next logical front in the War on Terror. And the Sovereignty Left has never quite explained what American empire was established in the Balkans, and they�ve never quite explained why they opposed the Taliban from 1996 to 2001 but opposed the Taliban�s removal after al-Qaeda�s strikes against the US. But both groups share the common goal of aligning supporters of war in Kosovo and Afghanistan with supporters of war in Iraq.

Now this all came about because Bérubé was a bit miffed that he was lumped in with the cruise missile left and the Decentists, that is the people on the left who think the US should be justified to intervene military in other countries in the name of human rights. After all he opposed the War on Iraq, so he couldn’t be part of this group. Oh but wait, the main reason for opposing the war he gives was because “Iraq was a terrible diversion from Afghanistan”; what’s more, he supported the Kosovo war. In other words, he is somebody who thinks the US is justified in using military force to enforce its idea of human rights, at least under some circumstances, yet he doesn’t
want to be identified with people who are slightly more enthusiastic about which cases qualify.

Which he seems to want to invent an “equally bad” counterpart to the Decentists on the left of the debate, which he has christened the “sovereignty left”: the problem is this group does not exist. According to him, this group is terribly concerned about respecting the sovereignty of the countries the US has attacked. But the examples he gives do not actually bear this out. The people he talks about are much more concerned with the effects of such attacks, not with an abstract concept like sovereignty.

There is of course a kernel of truth in his idea: there are people on the left who have consistently opposed any US military intervention, just as there are people on the right who never do. But he seems to think that opposing Kosovo or Afghanistan is self evidently wrong, when there were good reasons to oppose both. Even taking both operations at face value, there is the simple question of whether the goals stated at the time could be reached by military action and whether or not these goals were worth the cost in lives lost and countries damaged. It is possible to differ on these points.

But there are also more fundamental reasons to oppose any socalled humanitarian intervention by the US and/or NATO. The question is whether or not you believe that the US and NATO are forces for good in the world. Despite the impression given by Bérubé, this is not self evident. Here you have the main divide between him and Chomsky, Berman, Cockburn et al: on the whole he believes it is, with some exceptions, while they don’t. None of this has to do with sovereignty, so why pretend it has?

Because the latter is easier to ridicule?

Categories: Sensible Liberals, US politics, War on Iraq

4 Comments

belledame222 March 29th, 2007
eh, i have no love for Cockburn and that bunch, so i’m inclined to be at least somewhat sympathetic to Berube’s take. i’m not sure whether my main beef would be their policy preferences or that i find them to be insufferable jerks.
Michael B�rub� March 29th, 2007
The question is whether or not you believe that the US and NATO are forces for good in the world. Despite the impression given by B�rub�, this is not self evident. Here you have the main divide between him and Chomsky, Berman, Cockburn et al: on the whole he believes it is, with some exceptions, while they don�t.

Fair enough, except for the part about me. See, e.g., the interview in which I call American foreign policy “basically a reign of horror.” And I think for “Berman” you must mean “Herman.”

None of this has to do with sovereignty, so why pretend it has?

Um, well, there was the International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic petition that read, �Jail the real war criminals: the NATO leaders who committed crimes against humanity and against Yugoslav sovereignty and who continue to commit those crimes today�; or the Not in Our Name antiwar petition, which insisted that �peoples and nations have the right to determine their own destiny, free from military coercion by great powers�; or the October 2002 argument that UN inspections in Iraq �represent a fundamental violation of international law and Iraqi sovereignty.� But other than that, no, no one mentioned sovereignty or national destiny.
Martin Wisse March 31st, 2007
None of these examples have anything to do with what you’re talking about in your post of course, but good of you to pretend they have. It’s an improvement on your usual hilarious japes.
Michael B�rub� March 31st, 2007
Martin, I claimed there was such a thing as a Sovereignty Left. In the post above, you replied, “the problem is this group does not exist.” I then provided, just for you, evidence of leftists who appealed to the principle of national sovereignty in their opposition to war in the Balkans, in Afghanistan, and in Iraq. If this does not suffice, please let me know what I can do to meet your exacting standards of intellectual seriousness. Thanks.