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Exporting Democracy, Revising Torture: The Complex Missions of Michael Ignatieff

In his fatal attraction to the style of instant journalism, Michael Ignatieff frivolously mixes history and propaganda, argues Mariano Aguirre.

Tools of argument

Michael Ignatieff has been useful to the US government as it has tried to promote democracy in the middle east. He brings to this unofficial job a special, double-edged approach: he provides conservative arguments to the liberal audience and liberal alibis to the conservatives.

… the United States has the duty to promote “the universal birthright of mankind” because “if the American project of encouraging freedom fails, there may be no one else available with the resourcefulness and energy, even the self-deception, necessary for the task”. Europe and Canada, according to Ignatieff, enjoy the freedom to criticise the United States, but they are not willing to assist Washington in its complex task. …

These are dangerous arguments, based on the one hand on the assumption that one Nation or Volk has the almost divine mission to impose a vision of the world, and on the other, that the rest of the world is either weak or corrupt, and must be redeemed by the Chosen One. An echo of the past resounds around Europe. …

… in the end he shares the US government’s vision of the violent and compulsory promotion of democracy, the war against terrorism and the use of instruments, for example torture, which are apparently in need of a revisionist treatment. …


Ignatieff … is the director of a prestigious academic human-rights centre, a skilful writer known for advocating a humanitarian intervention in the Balkan wars, …

in much of his work he begins by describing what is wrong with his subject (the war, imperialism, violations of human rights, the lack of universal health coverage in the US … ) and then pauses to say “and yet, and yet”. With that he turns to a counter-argument which lifts us up from puny thoughts into the heaven of higher values.

Too many victims in Iraq? They are dying for the future of democracy and the global war against terrorism. The US has no universal health and education coverage? It’s a sign that the Democratic Ideal is in crisis because there are too many models of democracy. And so the readers feel smaller and smaller as they see that their silly opposition to the war in Iraq or support for a multilateral democratic system is nothing more than a failure to grasp extraordinary missions and glorious fates. …

His texts end with the same message: we are in a war against terrorism and for the promotion of democracy, and the United States must take the lead because the Europeans and the Canadians are selfish.

… he supported the attack on Iraq, arguing that “a preventive war” was “honest”. He believed at first that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, but when the WMD did not appear he wrote: “I never thought that the key question was what weapons Hussein actually possessed, but rather what intentions he had.”… So this last-resort war was a war to combat intentions.…

In article after article he has established a sort of rational framework for democratisation by force and also for the revision of our understanding of human rights.

Terrorism is the key issue for him. In his latest article he says: “It’s terrorism that has joined together the freedom of strangers and the national interest of the United States.” Although the September 11th Commission established that there was no connection between the tragedy of the World Trade Center and the government of Saddam Hussein, Ignatieff, like Bush, is still promoting the theory.

He is absolutely in favour of the principles and the defence of human rights, and yet, and yet, … His proposal … is that “the issue then becomes not whether torture can be prevented, but whether it can be regulated”. He goes even further, and seems to like the idea that when the police need to torture a suspect they could apply to a judge for a “torture warrant” that would specify the individual being tortured and set limits to the type and duration of pain allowed …

www.opendemocracy.net/democracy-americanpower/jefferson_2679.jsp

Note: Ignatieff recently won a seat in parliament representing Etobicoke Lakeshore. His campaign website indicates that he supports recent and planned massive increases in military spending, the occupation of Afghanistan and Canada’s policing role in Haiti.

posted by Annamarie at 10:54 PM