Re: [Marxism] Juan Cole feedback

[<g.maclennan@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I thought this comment was interesting too.  I monitor Cole's 
blog carefully and I am indebted to him for all the info he 
provides.  But he is a liberal and he does vacillate and 
evade. That is what he terms "ambiguity".  

Part of him wants to come in from the cold.  He wants to be 
the expert that the govt listens to.  But the attitude of the 
Bush Administration seems to be that when you can knock down 
the door who needs a key?  The American military still 
believes it is all powerful and that subtlety is not 
required. So at the moment the neo-conservatives' crudity 
suffices for policy.  That offends Cole's carefully acquired 
expertise in Arabic and his mandarin consciousness.

There is also the Jeffersonian liberal part of Cole that is 
horrified by the murder, the slaughter, the torture and the 
violation of the norms of bourgeois justice.

But long ago I heard the Irish Revolutionary Jerry Lawless 
speak and he said that liberals always capitulate to the 
armed right. So again Cole vacillates.  This takes the form 
of saying and half believing that something can be rescued 
from the Iraq disaster.  This surfaces in the argumnet that 
the US army should stay in the country.

Then of course there is the patriotic aspect of his 
politics.  For instance he has said that if he were a young 
man he would have volunteered to fight in Afghanistan.  That 
seemingly is the "good war", while the Iraq adventure is the 
bad war.

But a final thought.  I agree with Jamesâ comment on the role 
of ambiguity in academic analysis.  But truly I felt 
embarrassed for Cole.  He had been caught out by Louâs high 
seriousness and commitment to the truth.  The irony is that 
if academic values exist and I still like to think they do, 
they were so much more in evidence in Louâs critique than in 
Coleâs evasions.

regards

Gary
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