Zany Zinn

Found this book review of Jonathan Schell's The Unconquerable World in today's Globe, with Howard Zinn weighing in against violence (read: war) as a political tool. Here are a couple of excerpts I found particularly odd:

[War as an extention of politics] continues today, with the American invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, billed as a ''war on terrorism,'' but revealed more clearly in the official document ''National Security Strategy of the U.S.A.'' That document declares that the United States must maintain unchallenged military supremacy in the world, and reserve the right to make preemptive strikes on other nations.

Ugh. I shutter to think what the world would look like without the restraining influence of American power. Zinn and Schell see US power as inflicting pain, yet the pain and misery it prevents (and eliminates) is tenfold greater. If neither man wants to follow Clauswitz, then look instead to the Gospel of Luke, "Of those to whom much is given, much is expected." Much is given the US, and refusal to act against evil and terror would not only be dereliction of duty, but a sin of omission.

Violence, he says, "always a mark of human failure and a bringer of sorrow, has now also become dysfunctional as a political instrument. Increasingly, it destroys the ends for which it is employed, killing the user as well as his victim. It has become the path to hell on earth and the end of the earth.''

Ugh. Ugh. Of course, to endorse this is to hate the history of man, and by extension, man himself. Since man is a flawed creature, evil exists and will always exist. Violence has been and will always be perpetrated against the good; the good must defend themselves against perpetual attack. There will never be a day when men will not use violence in some way or another, which is why vigilance is critical. Such sentiments also stroll painfully close to declaring all violence is of the same shade; in other words, since violence is always wrong, vigilantly protecting the good in life is no different than violently committing evil. This is the greatest sin of pacifism, its utterly corrupt (and utterly self-destructive) ammorality beyond the empty phrase "violence is wrong."

It is a mistake, he says, to think that violence conveys power. Nonviolent action can be a greater power, and there is history (much of it overlooked) to demonstrate that. The epic revolutions of modern times - in America, France, and Russia - actually accomplished their goals with little bloodshed and only later became immersed in violence.

This seems contrary to fact. First, considering American Middle East policy over the past 20 years, the obvious failures came not from using or threatening to use violence, but from foreign aid/military aid bribery (are the Saudis listening?) and fruitless diplomatic outreach to undiplomatic, irrational extremists (the PLO for one). Nonviolent action has been a total failure. Second, it takes some rather creative historical accountancy to say those three revolutions were bloodless affairs that only later fell apart (does this mean that American, French, and Russian pacifists orchestrated those revolutions, and only later the nasty violent people took over? Now that is interesting. I've never thought of Sam Adams, Marat, and Lenin as Thoreavians. Perhaps because they weren't.) Let's see:

American Revolution: 10,623 American casualties and an estimated 10,000 British casualties -- now when Zinn says "little bloodshed," does he mean pre-1776 (which would be silly, because without the war to protect the Declaration, there would be no revolution) or post-1776 (also interesting, because this would mean 20,000 casualties is a pittance to Zinn).

French Revolution: Now I can't seem to find any good stats on this, so I'll let Simon Scharra (hardly a drooling right-winger) say it for me: "Before the promise of 1789 could be realized, then, it was necessary to root out Uncitizens.
Thus began the cycle of violence which ended in the smoking obelisk and the forest of guillotines. However much the historian, in a year of celebration, mav be tempted to see that violence as an unpleasant "aspect" of the Revolution which ought not to distract from its accomplishments, it would be jejune to do so. From the very beginning - from the summer of 1789 - violence was the motor of the Revolution."

Russian Revolution: More people had been executed in the first two years of the Revolution than had been executed by the Tsars in the previous 100 years. By far. Between mid-November and December 1919 ALONE 50,000 were shot or hanged just in the Crimea. Bloodless indeed.

I've worn myself out -- there was more, but my fingers are cramping.