RE: [Marxism] Slight tinge of conscience in warmongering blogs

["www.leninology. blogspot.com" <leninology@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Gary MacLennan wrote:

> Why do these disgust me so? 

Well, regarding Harry's Place, we are not unable to "quantify the level of 
sacrifice made by Iraqis"
 (and let's please not call it a "sacrifice made by Iraqis" as if they had any 
choice in the matter, as 
if this intervention was conducted with their interests in mind and their 
enthusiastic invitation). We 
can perfectly well quantify it, since we have been presented with an 
extensively peer-reviewed 
epidemiological report conducted according to the best practise in the field, 
widely praised by those
 in the know, and which no one has meaningfully laid a glove on yet. The author 
of the HP Sauce post
 does try, simply by collating the various comments of someone else at another 
blog, which I would
 reluctantly suggest is a new low in didactic hygeine.

Geras, meanwhile, is saying that he would not voice opposition to a war that he 
knew would result in
 the cataclysm that has now befallen Iraq, that is now demonstrably worse on 
every index than the
 tyranny that it dislodged. That is to say, he would have done nothing, raised 
not a finger or even
 modulated a breath, to prevent what he could foresee would be a terrifying 
nightmare. And he is 
actually rather unhappy about those of us who would, and did.

Geras is evasive, moreover, on the question of the Lancet report. He 
acknowledges that he refused
 to say a word about the first report, because 1) "I lack the statistical 
competence to be able to judge
 these reports"; 2) "I don't know how - morally, humanly - to deal in 
calculations that say that n deaths
 (where n is a very large number) are an acceptable price to pay for some 
putatively desirable end result";
 3) "I'm put off by expressions of scepticism of a form to suggest that while 
600,000?+ deaths is not a
 credible figure there is some lower, though still very high, figure about 
which supporters of the war could
 feel relaxed." Geras did not refuse to comment on the HRW finding that Saddam 
had killed and 'disappeared'
 290,000, even though I am certain that the findings are as far outside of his 
competence to professionally
 assess as they are mine. The fact of being statistically incompetent doesn't 
exempt one from confronting the
 possibility that the figure is accurate, and from considering what those who 
are statistically competent have 
to say on the matter. One is obliged to make distinctions in matters that 
extend well beyond one's professional 
expertise every day, and Geras does so. Further, there evidently must be a 
moral distinction to be had in the 
number of deaths for Geras - implicitly, this is so, since his phrase is that 
"too many" have died. Morally, humanly, 
Geras finds that he cannot make such a distinction, but he already has. The 
distinction did not arise at 100,000 
or thereabouts, we can say, because that did not provoke this bout of despair.
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