Victor Davis Hanson v. Ronald Edsforth

The Dartmouth Review ^ | February 11, 2005 | Nathaniel Ward

[quidnunc]

On February 8, 2005, Victor Davis Hanson participated in a debate at Dartmouth College. This is The Dartmouth Review’s analysis of that debate.

During a debate Tuesday punctuated with evidence from both antiquity and current events, classicist Victor Davis Hanson mounted a vigorous defense of the war in Iraq, while Dartmouth History Professor Ronald Edsforth countered that all preemptive wars, especially in the case of Iraq, fall outside the “just war tradition.”

Focusing on Iraq as the best contemporary example of a war fought for noble ends, Hanson, a fellow at the Hoover Institution, suggested that the war’s rationale remains valid today. The Bush Administration and the Congress, he said, had in 2002 an “everything and the kitchen sink” rationale for conflict, but sought for political reasons to give more weight to Iraq’s apparent weapons of mass destruction than other rationales. While W.M.D.s have yet to be found, Hanson argued that the weapons “still remain a valid reason then and now.”

Wars like that in Iraq have moral goals, he continued. The nations of the Middle East, for various reasons, including Cold War oil politics, have never been exposed to Enlightenment ideas of equality and liberty, and he said they even view Western faith in such ideals a weakness. Accordingly, he said, it is only right that the West stop propping up authoritarian leaders in the region, as it did during the Cold War, and to do what should have been done there long ago: foster freedom.

[quidnunc]

FYI

[msnimje]

Why is it the left is so willing to let entire populations of people suffer under brutal dictators while we have the means and the will to help liberate them?

[Andy from Beaverton]

I'm sure Hanson knocked him out.

[clee1]

“just war tradition.”

JUST DAMN!

“just war tradition” my azz!

WAR is rarely "just". It is "just" vitally necessary in some cases.

These pie-in-the-sky ivory tower academics really give me a case of the redazz.

[Billthedrill]

"Just war" was always a bit of theoretical mumbo-jumbo that justified good people's bad feelings about worse actions. If the outcome is 25 million human beings freed then I'm willing to examine the theory in light of it instead of the other way around.

[vbmoneyspender]

while Dartmouth History Professor Ronald Edsforth countered that all preemptive wars, especially in the case of Iraq, fall outside the “just war tradition.

It is simply a false premise to argue that the war in Iraq was a pre-emptive war. Up until when Bush decided to end Hussein's provocations once and for all, Hussein was routinely firing missiles at our pilots. Responding to those attacks as Bush did can in no way be labelled a 'preemptive' war. Basically, what the leftists are arguing when they say that the war against Hussein was pre-emptive in nature is that anytime the United States chooses to defends itself against repeated attacks, then the U.S. is wrong to do so because the United States is so powerful that it can afford to be attacked over and over and over and over again without doing anything to eliminate the source of the attacks.

[Outraged]

In addition, Hanson said the wars of the twentieth century were “done with the intention of saving lives.” “War alone” was often the only option. More people were killed off the battlefield in the last hundred years—by the likes of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao—than perished in the wars fought to stop those dictators. These wars, he continued, were by no means multilateral; indeed, the only multilateral action undertaken in 1941 was the decision by European powers from Spain to Hungary to Germany to invade the Soviet Union.

Yet the people who support this "peace activist" rhetoric, albeit with more overt anti-American trenchancy, are the first to defend Stalin, seek to understand Mao, and idolize Che Guevera...Edsforth is just churching up the same tired anti-war chants..."no blood for oil"..."Bush is a fascist"..."military industrial complex"...only masking his true evil intent of a world-wide dictatorship helmed by the most corrupt and wicked world body ever devised in the name of secular socialism.

What makes me think Edsforth has a dog-eared copy of the Communist Manifesto not far from his remote control?

Marxism just hasn't been implemented effectively yet, right Mr. Edsforth?...One more time, historical perspective be damned, right Mr. Edsforth?...Or should I say, Mssr. Edsforth?

[Outraged]

The world sees “war as a legacy of the imperialist era,” he added.

Mssr. Edsforth?...How does the "world" come to their conclusions? Would you imagine their impressions come forth from a spontaneous, well-thought, investigative process...or, would you imagine that perhaps the lying left-wing American press, and their socialist propagandists world-wide, not to mention the state controlled media sources who brainwash their people, have been intentionally misleading their people in order to do damage to our President and our Country?

The latter is my conclusion, well-thought, investigative and sober.

[opinionator]

Works by Ronald Edsforth

1. The New Deal: America's Response to the Great Depression (Problems in American History)
2. Popular Culture and Political Change in Modern America (Suny Series in Popular Culture and Political Change)
3. Autowork (Suny Series in American Labor History)
4. Class Conflict and Cultural Consensus: The Making of a Mass Consumer Society in Flint, Michigan (Class and Culture)

Works by Victor Davis Hanson

1. The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece
2. Between War and Peace : Lessons from Afghanistan to Iraq
3. Why the West Has Won: Nine Landmark Battles in the Brutal History of Western Victory
4. The Soul of Battle : From Ancient Times to the Present Day, How Three Great Liberators VanquishedTyranny
5. Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece
6. The Wars of the Ancient Greeks
7. The Landmark Thucydides : A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War
8. Ripples of Battle : How Wars of the Past Still Determine How We Fight, How We Live, and How We Think
9. Carnage and Culture : Landmark Battles in the Rise to Western Power
10. Hoplites: The Classical Greek Battle Experience

[marktwain]

It is simply a false premise to argue that the war in Iraq was a pre-emptive war. Up until when Bush decided to end Hussein's provocations once and for all, Hussein was routinely firing missiles at our pilots. Responding to those attacks as Bush did can in no way be labelled a 'preemptive' war. Basically, what the leftists are arguing when they say that the war against Hussein was pre-emptive in nature is that anytime the United States chooses to defends itself against repeated attacks, then the U.S. is wrong to do so because the United States is so powerful that it can afford to be attacked over and over and over and over again without doing anything to eliminate the source of the attacks.

Excellent point! This is one of the more common fallacies that the left relies on in its "arguments". You have to be alert and careful not to let them get away with setting the assumptions for the debate. Challenge their assumptions!

This is what the Old Media would never do, because they agreed with the false assumptions.

[mo]

"Why is it the left is so willing to let entire populations of people suffer under brutal dictators while we have the means and the will to help liberate them?"....IMHO they represent the primitive mindset that has kept most of the world physically, mentally, and economically subjugated since the dawn of time....those for whom the concept of freedom is seen as a threat, rather than an opportunity.

[Tolik]

    Victor Davis Hanson Ping ! 

       Let me know if you want in or out

[alfa6]

Busy Fellow today, thanks

Regards

alfa6 ;>}

[MEG33]

Bump to enjoy later

[spodefly]

BTTT

[metesky]

Edsforth proposed that the human race has learned the dangers of war, especially after the blood-soaked twentieth century. “Evolution [of human behavior] is a fact,” he said. “It didn’t stop back in ancient times… We are capable of learning as humans and changing our environment in such a way that that which we abhor is less and less likely.” Indeed, he suggested that American foreign policy has over the past several decades been a reactionary effort to “turn back the clock” to the systems of the past. “We should lead the world in creating this new environment,” he said, “and not stand as a roadblock before its creation.”

Who is more rational, more believable, the man who thinks that human nature has changed because we have modern gadgets and clean clothes or the man who seeks to learn from the past and reconcile it with future actions.

[dennisw]

Why is it the left is so willing to let entire populations of people suffer under brutal dictators while we have the means and the will to help liberate them?

It has to do with the communist theme of "national self determination". Which the commies violated many times and still do

[wizr]

Thanks for the pings.

[lainde]

bttt