Every Intervention Needs Exaggeration

By Max Raskin
August 22, 2007
AntiWar

"Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence."- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Though it is surprising the New York Times would run a story remotely critical of the Save Darfur Coalition ("An Atrocity That Needs No Exaggeration"), news of the group's fraudulent account of the death toll raises important questions for antiwar Democrats. Are they against war, or are they just against Republican war? Is it deceit they oppose, or only Tony Snow?

As the Bush administration lied us in to war with Iraq, so too is the Save Darfur Coalition trying to lie us into an invasion of Sudan. Though they may chastise their neoconservative counterparts, those calling for "humanitarian" war are no different from those on the Right trying to export democracy through the barrel of a gun. They both see lies and secrecy as means justified by their Wilsonian ends.

As the Times' Sam Dealey reported, the Save Darfur Coalition has been exaggerating the death toll, putting it around 400,000, when in reality, the highest credible estimates are less than half of that.

The group took these inflated numbers from Dr. John Hagan, whose research has come under fire from the Government Accountability Office. The GAO's panel was comprised of 12 experts on the situation, nine of whom said that Hagan's "source data was unsound and that he failed to disclose his study's limitations." Eleven of the experts had "low" or "very low" confidence in Hagan's research.

he article notes that Hagan himself has revised his estimates sharply downward. Why then would the Coalition use the inflated numbers in their ad campaigns to rally support for intervention?

Although the Times now decries some of the fabrications told by the Bush administration to lie us into the Iraq invasion, they are unwilling to apply the same scrutiny to those calling for intervention in Darfur. Instead of critiquing the Save Darfur Coalition, Dealey lets them slide, treating their lies as a strategic error. Dealey holds that the real problem with lying is the following:

"If 400,000 becomes the de facto benchmark for action, other bloody conflicts around the globe – in Sri Lanka, Colombia, Somalia – seem to pale in comparison.

Ultimately, the inflated claims fuel a death race in which aid and action are based not on facts but on which advocacy group yells the loudest."

Look at what he is saying. The reason we shouldn't lie ourselves into aggressive military action in some parts of the world is because it might hinder our ability to engage in aggressive military action in other parts of the world. Darfur is setting the bar too high – the Coalition is greedily trying to hog all the war. We should give all advocacy groups a chance to play policeman.

When those who favor meddling in Darfur criticize Bush, they are being undeniably hypocritical.

Was Saddam Hussein not a brutal dictator who killed hundreds of thousands? Surely Hussein was responsible for more deaths than have occurred in Darfur. How can one be against invading Iraq but for invading Darfur – couldn't a humanitarian case be made for both wars? For all wars?

But this is the contradiction of the Democratic Party in this country. There is no positive program for peace; it is a reaction against the Right. Had Bill Clinton invaded Iraq, he would have been lauded as a progressive liberator. Was it not Madeleine Albright, Clinton's secretary of state, who said that the deaths of 500,000 children was "worth it"?

When the Bush administration lies us into war it is wrong, yet when the Save Darfur Coalition tries to do the same, they are considered altruists who are a little misguided in their means. But when we start with the precept that America has the right to enforce justice in the world wherever injustice occurs, we are lead to the absurdity (and neocon fantasy) of a global war against China, Russia, and at least 50 other countries.

The lies that bellicose "humanitarians" tell are a necessary instrument in their efforts to police the world. Most Americans do not have a natural urge to go around telling people how to live their lives. The world is too complicated a place to be polarized into good and evil monoliths. Conflicts are nuanced.

Peace and free trade are the only just ways to spread the message of freedom. The Statue of Liberty encompasses this idea – she lifts a beacon of liberty to show the way, not a flame-thrower to impose it. Or as H.L. Mencken put it, "I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone."