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Is there a name for chickenhawks of the left? Josh Marshall needs one:
For someone who considers himself in many ways a hawk and who did and does believe in American power as a force for good in the world (most recently in the Balkans)1 it is difficult to describe the depth of the chagrin over watching the unfolding of a story [the Abu Ghraib torture] which reads in many ways like a parody of Chomskian screeds against American villainy.Uh, Josh, how about saying it this way?
[I]t is difficult to describe the depth of the chagrin over watching the unfolding of a story which proves Noam Chomsky absolutely correct.Does a country with two million people in prison and incarceration facilities that inflict great physical and psychological cruelty (23 hour days in solitary, uncontrolled rape, murder, etc etc) have any business appointing itself "policeman of the world"? I don't think so. One doesn't have to "hate America" to think bombing and torturing "for peace" is just crazy.
1. Not everyone agrees that bombing Belgrade and helping to ethnically cleanse Kosovo of Serbs was the right way to handle the situation in the Balkans. Also, it's been known for some time that our "contractors" in Bosnia and other hot spots do morally enlightened things like lease girls for six months at a time.