I returned from a family reunion in a place that had no email (I learned to survive) and found some very thoughtful responses to an excerpt of my book posted here at TPMCafe.  Here with regrets are my delayed answers. Naturally, most of those who posted commentaries did not read the book itself; hence I must briefly repeat here some points I made there in much greater detail.

I was asked where I plan to find the troops to stop the genocide in Darfur “because you did not call for the withdrawal of the troops from Iraq.” I was one of the sixty intellectuals who signed The Letter from America justifying the invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11 but when the same group supported the invasion of Iraq, I opposed the invasion and did not sign that letter. In my book From Empire to Community, published early in 2004, I warned that Iraq will turn into a Vietnam. (My only mistake is that it is worse; this time dominoes will fall when the US removes its troops). I strongly hold that we should never have been there in the first place and should get out as soon as possible, after turning over security to the local communities, as Senator Biden suggested.

Troops in Darfur ought to be a combination of units from the African Union and other nations, including ours, operating in accordance with United Nations resolutions.

I am sad to see that some people, instead of engaging with a view they disagree with, would rather silence me. This has been tried by Nixon (I am honored to have been on his enemy list), the FBI (for details, see My Brother’s Keeper) and others. It is unlikely to succeed.

As to the suggestion that I call for a return to realism, if by that one means giving up fantasies that we can transform countries overnight from the Stone Age into civil societies and democracies, I surely favor realism. Yet if by that one means realpolitik, where oil, bombs, and power are vitally important but values are for the birds, then count me out. In the book I show the great importance of acting legitimately and the key role of values in providing social order, security included.

I surely differ from those who argue that security is not based on values. All civil societies (and quite a few other ones) treat the taking of life as a much more serious offense that practically any other crime. This reflects that high value we grant to life and its protection, i.e. security, over other values.

The argument that there has been no increase in anti-social behavior in newly liberated nations simply flies in the face of tons of data. See Parts IV of the book Security First.

I am sorry to see that Bed D claims that I hold, as a Communitarian, the belief that the individual should be “sublimated” by the community. I have dedicated two books and numerous articles and postings to arguing otherwise. My position is that individual rights are sacred; communities have profound needs, e.g. protecting the environment. We must work out the tension between the rights and community needs, without allowing one side to trump the other.

I much agree with Gilbert Wesley Purdy. We never did truly try to democratize Iraq. Nor Afghanistan, for that matter. However, even if democratization had been truly attempted, it is not something foreign powers can rush along. Even in Germany and Japan, in which conditions were much more favorable than in the Middle East, it took nearly a decade, huge investments of money and political effort, and still democratization was achieved only after security was established and consolidated.

Here is some of my relevant text, from Part I of Security First:

“In both countries (Iraq and Afghanistan), much of the democratization was disingenuous; details follow. One may hence argue that if genuine democratization would have taken place, security would have followed. It is difficult to disprove hypotheticals. However, even if those areas in which Iraqis and Afghans were left to follow their own lights, they hardly laid the foundations for secure democracy.

The main thrust of democratization followed these contours: America placed leaders in charge or in positions of power who were widely viewed as puppets. In Iraq, the first major politician the United States promoted was Ahmad Chalabi, whom many distrusted as a stooge and an expatriate seeking to capitalize on Saddam’s expulsion. American “advisers” were appointed to shadow the various Iraqi ministers, and these advisers controlled the funds provided by the United States and its allies, the main source of revenue of these ministries. Thus they in effect had veto power on many decisions by the elected government. The increasing application of “tough love in Baghdad”—what the Wall Street Journal termed America’s blunt intrusion into Iraqi politics—shows the extent to which U.S. political leaders were unsatisfied with leaving political choices to the Iraqis. As in Afghanistan, United States Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad has worked diligently to impose America’s vision of Iraq’s future government on Prime Minister Nouri Kamel al-Maliki and other top officials. Indeed, on several occasions Maliki tried to maintain his standing by claiming that he was not America’s man in Iraq and by demanding the various raids by the Iraqi and American forces be first cleared by him. But to little avail.

In Kabul, where Khalilzad served as ambassador until his June 2005 transfer to Iraq, he incurred the enmity of local politicians through what was seen as excessive micromanagement of Karzai’s policies. In 2005 Karzai publicly clashed with President Bush, when Bush demanded greater efforts in the eradication of poppies, the source of much of the world’s heroin. After initially demurring, saying that he preferred an “Afghan solution” to the problem, Karzai acquiesced. And when he appointed the religious conservative Faisal Ahmad Shinwari to head the Afghan Supreme Court in April 2006, Western diplomats objected on the grounds that he had insufficient respect for or knowledge of international law.

The constitutions which the United States has promoted in both countries do not adequately reflect the beliefs and habits of large segments of both societies. Thus Article 7 of the Afghan Constitution binds the county to observe the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, many of whose tenets flatly contradict the precepts of traditional Afghan laws. For instance, although women in most parts of Afghanistan have been at best second-class citizens since time immemorial, the constitution asserted their inalienable equality with men and positively mandates their participation in politics.

In the early days of Bremer’s administration, he frequently vetoed Iraqi requests for an elected constituent assembly and for local elections. Rebuffing calls from Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani, Bremer instead turned to an “opaque, convoluted process” whereby the constitution would be written by a handpicked group of Iraqis, the Coalition’s “Iraqi Governing Council,” rather than by an elected body, which might well have composed a constitution significantly less to American like—and less liberal. Moreover, as the Council did work to craft a constitution, its progress was often slowed by Bremer himself, who objected to language that elevated Islam as the source of legislation and established Iraq as an Islamic state.”

As to the issues raised by nuclear weapons, I will return to those some other day. Have a cool summer and security first.