A friend forwarded me this article by George Monbiot asking for my commentary (and also hoping that it would cure me of my naive simplisme of backing intervention in Iraq).   He's going to be surprised - I actually agree with much of what the author had to say.    However, like an earlier article by an islamo-fascist warning his fellow thugs that capitalism + democracy will wane their taste for Jihad, I agree with the train of thought but have a 100% different opinion on whether this is a Good or Bad Thing.

It starts:

America Is a Religion

There is no more dangerous notion than that of America the Divine

Oh boy.  And particularly in the PoMo European left-press, imparting the word religion on something is one of the most damning statements possible.  A Westerner who believes strongly in something and doesn't reduce the world to shades of grey is a dangerous construct to guys like this.   Monbiot:

To understand why this failure persists, we must first grasp a reality which has seldom been discussed in print. The United States is no longer just a nation. It is now a religion. Its soldiers have entered Iraq to liberate its people not only from their dictator, their oil and their sovereignty, but also from their darkness. As George Bush told his troops on the day he announced victory, "wherever you go, you carry a message of hope - a message that is ancient and ever new. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, "To the captives, 'come out,' and to those in darkness, 'be free.'"

So American soldiers are no longer merely terrestrial combatants; they have become missionaries. They are no longer simply killing enemies; they are casting out demons. The people who reconstructed the faces of Uday and Qusay Hussein carelessly forgot to restore the pair of little horns on each brow, but the understanding that these were opponents from a different realm was transmitted nonetheless. Like all those who send missionaries abroad, the high priests of America cannot conceive that the infidels might resist through their own free will; if they refuse to convert, it is the work of the devil, in his current guise as the former dictator of Iraq.

I'll give him a little license for hyperbole and point out that Monbiot is simply angry because we have a religion.   He doesn't care too much about the underlying thoughts & ideas of the religion - merely that it exists.   He's alienated by the fact that there are ideas and values that American Foreign Policy feels strongly enough and passionately enough about that we will preemptively do something and risk our lives for it. 

But what is the basis of the American Foreign Policy religion for Iraq that he seems to be so strongly objecting to?   Liberalism + Democracy + Capitalism.  

If you must have a religion - you've gotta admit that this ain't a bad one.   Especially when it comes to foreign policy.  And especially in a region as swampy as the Middle East.  And especially in light of 9/11 (no, Iraq didn't cause 9/11;  but the morass in the region was the root cause of 9/11 - Iraq has the honor of being the first place we drain the swamp).

But, of course, like a good Post Modernist, Monbiot doesn't care about the substance of the belief at all - only whether or not there should be zeal.   (Unless, of course, we're talking about non-Westerners & Islamicists in which case zeal is the litmus test of integrity & legitimacy.)   Monbiot doesn't care about the fact that the vast majority of Iraqi's believe the war was justified as a means of removing Saddam.  He's implicitly casting his lot with the Baathist "dead-enders" whose lives were dedicated towards political infighting for Saddam's largesse and who now find their skills, ahem, inappropriate for the new economic reality.  Their Zeal is Monbiot's prima facie evidence that our Zeal is bad.

Sure Religions have been faulted in the past -- Nazi Germany, Imperialist Japan to use 2 of Monbiot's examples -- but can't he also see evidence of cultural missionizing in US security gaurantees and rebuilding efforts in Western Europe, post war Japan, Korea, and so on?   In those nations, we explicitly crafted national constitutions and imparted social structures to, well, make them more like us.  And we are ALL better off as a result.

If you really want to use messianic tones, I point readers at one of my favorite articles from back in the day by Fukuyama about the nature of US Foreign Policy missionizing.

The sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset, who has spent much of his distinguished career explaining how different the United States is from other developed democracies, is fond of observing that American conservatism is no less exceptional than other American institutions and values.

...The political agenda of American conservatives is no less revolutionary. From the beginning, Americans regarded their values and institutions as embodying universal aspirations that would one day have a significance far beyond the shores of the United States. The Great Seal on the back of the dollar bill bears the inscription novus ordo seclorum--"new order of the ages"--that expresses a very unconservative sentiment with potentially revolutionary consequences. In this view, democracy, constitutional government and the individual rights on which they rest are good not just for North Americans by virtue of their peculiar habits and traditions, but for all people around the world. Hence the United States in its foreign policy has been anything but a status quo power.

...What historian Gordon Wood once labeled the radicalism of the American revolution is still present, expressed today in U.S. promotion of a global economy and in a muscular foreign policy that seeks to shape the world in an American image.

Religious?  Yes.   A Bad Thing?   No.

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