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Pearson digs in

By Ingolf Eide - posted Wednesday, 23 January 2008


Let’s consider two examples of his technique.

In the first, he extols Major Mori’s efforts on behalf of David Hicks as well as those of his colleague, Charles Swift, in bringing the case of bin Laden’s bodyguard, Hamdan, to the US Supreme Court. He then goes on to conclude:

Those who hold up Mori as a hero can’t ignore that Mori’s commander-in-chief at the end of the day, is his country’s president, the reviled George W. Bush.

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I was astounded at the chutzpah of this statement. Or is it possible, unlikely though it seems, that Pearson isn't aware of the full background? In any case, we should indeed praise Mori and Swift, and to some degree the system that allowed them, whatever its reservations, to proceed so vigorously. We can also praise the Supreme Court for hearing Hamdan’s case, although our enthusiasm ought to be tempered by the knowledge that the Court has so far been somewhat ambivalent in its willingness to deal with these fundamental issues. To claim any credit in these matters for President Bush, however, is to be absurd.

Had Bush and his administration had their way, what few avenues of effective appeal still survive would have been long gone. They have been resolutely obstructionist, have gamed and abused the court systems within the US and have sought, wherever possible, to arrogate power to themselves at the cost of the other two branches of government. Pearson is either being terribly disingenuous or needs to do some serious study. The move towards an imperial presidency has been underway for many decades but the Bush administration, far more than any other, has accelerated the pace and shown a brutal disregard for both convention and the checks and balances that have so far guarded America.

Pearson (does he sense the slippery slope at the edge of his argument?) insists that he “wants to make it crystal clear” that he is “not seeking to defend the policy and strategic decisions of Bush and John Howard and their respective governments” and that those “who oppose their policies [may] be enemies in many senses of the word, but they are not enemies in the same sense as violent extremists”. That he felt this latter point needed to be made says a good deal about the swamp into which he’s been led by his line of argument.

As for the second example, consider this statement:

I believe that in the struggle against terror - and in many other contexts - we can and should divide the world according to a dichotomous rule: on the one hand the community of states characterised by liberal democracy and the rule of law, on the other, those who would prosecute their ideological, political and religious agendas outside the parameters of democracy and law.

Again, on the face of it, all well and good, if a little pompous. There’s only one problem. If we are “the community of states characterised by … the rule of law”, how is it then that we invaded Iraq, entirely unprovoked and against the wishes of many, if not most, of the world’s liberal democratic nations, and that the US is now considering bombing Iran, to take but two examples? Is this not acting more like the “other” he so derides? I fear our use of phrases such as liberal democracy, rule of law and freedom has, at times, post 9-11, veered perilously close to becoming Orwellian. They can all too easily become mere banners to march under, fig leaves with which to cover our nakedness.

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What is most vital is surely to guard our own traditions from inner corruption, not to conjure up ghostly fears about fifth columns. Here too, Pearson tries to walk both sides of the track by dissociating himself from the specific policy disasters that have characterised the last five years, and by emphasising that internal criticism is vital. Only, though, once his dichotomous winnowing process is complete. It’s hard not to wonder what purpose is served by Pearson’s continual emphasis on the need to distinguish between us and them when the population of those in the West who don’t entirely accept this distinction (if only viscerally) is trivial.

Finally, a brief look at the third thread of his argument. Pearson claims, again and again, that there’s little point in considering serious changes in policy towards the Muslim world because it won’t make much difference anyway, because the more extreme Muslim beliefs in regard to the West are irrational and rooted in perceptions of “Western and Zionist conspiracy”.

Those who read his piece searching for evidence to back up this remarkable claim will do so in vain. There is some truth to it, of course, as indeed there is to most of Pearson’s arguments. What he fails to consider, unfortunately, is the process by which Muslim views become extreme in the first place. That Muslim perceptions of the West (and of the US in particular) have steadily and profoundly worsened in the wake of the Iraq invasion, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, America’s support for the extensive Israeli bombing of Lebanon last year, the growing belligerence directed at Iran and so on ad nauseam, is of no account, it seems.

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First published at Club Troppo on November 12, 2007.



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About the Author

Ingolf Eide is a contributor to the blog Conversations at Stanley Park.

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