Why Standing Up to the War Lobby is an Ethics Issue

It is difficult to imagine a more important ethics issue than whether or not our Country goes to war.  Combine that issue with government corruption by campaign money and we have an enormous ethical dilemma.

The dilemma is not new.  President Dwight D. Eisenhower had been one of the best generals in American history.  In his 1961 farewell address he described a moneyed “military industrial complex” that could push the United States toward war if the political establishment allowed it.  Through much of his Presidency he was hounded by hawks in Congress and outside lobbying groups who called anyone who even suggested pursuing peace with the U.S.S.R. a “communist” or a “Red sympathizer.” 

It was in this political environment that President Eisenhower ended the Korean War and successfully defused a military confrontation over the Suez Canal, but he also introduced American forces into Vietnam.  That conflict was escalated quickly by his successors Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. Weapons manufacturers made money, foreign policy “experts” urged more defense spending and more troops, and people who disagreed were shouted down.  Some soldiers came back from Vietnam unharmed, others like Senators Chuck Hagel and John McCain were badly wounded, and tens of thousands never came home.  Politicians, including at least two Presidents, lied about our military success, putting the United States on a path toward political corruption culminating, but not ending, with Watergate.  

The war lobby is larger today than in Eisenhower’s day if measured by the amount of money spent by special interests having intense interest in whether the United States goes to war.

Weapons manufacturers spent about $25 million in the last election cycle:

http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/totals.php?cycle=2012&ind=D

Weapons manufacturers make money in peacetime by helping keep us safe, but they make a lot more money if we go to war.

Then there are special interest groups that specialize in particular areas of the world, ranging from Taiwan to the Middle East.  The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), for example, is a hawkish group that does about as good a job representing the interests of Israel as the National Rifle Association does representing gun owners.  AIPAC does not directly contribute to candidates but spends millions of dollars lobbying.  Other groups falling under the general heading “pro-Israel”, however, spent about $12 million in the last election cycle:

http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/totals.php?cycle=2012&ind=Q05

A growing number of pro-Israel groups such as J Street support peaceful resolutions of conflict:

http://act.jstreet.org/sign/hagel_smears/

Still, political expenditures in this category are still weighted very heavily toward the most hawkish positions on the Middle East.

Then there are the dozen or so Washington think tanks and other organizations run by armchair generals who theorize about spreading democracy around the world through military force, even if that approach may exacerbate the “Islamist threat” often used to justify military intervention (fear of militant Islam has replaced fear of communism as the ideological engine driving today’s war lobby). 

Although these groups spend more money on our political system than in Eisenhower’s day, some of their tactics are similar.  People who pursue the possibility of peace are no longer called “communists” or “Red sympathizers,” but they are called “soft on terrorism” or “pro-Muslim” (the latter term is used by people who combine the war lobby with religious bigotry).   People are called “anti-Semitic” if they speak out against lobbying groups pressuring the United States to support all of Israel’s foreign policy positions, even under the most right wing leaders who for over twenty years have frustrated American Presidents of both political parties.

Whether and when there is such a thing as a “just war” is a complex issue, although all but the most committed pacifists acknowledge that going to war is sometimes the right thing to do.   My grandfather organized a nationwide war lobby in 1940 to urge President Roosevelt to side with Britain against Germany in WW II (the group was called “United Leagues for a Declared War” and ran large ads in the New York Times).  Other wars since then have not been so clear in their moral rightness, and Americans have differed sharply over whether they were justified.

What we should be able to agree upon is that decisions about war and peace – and about ways to prevent war such as negotiated solutions in the Middle East -- should be made by political leaders who are responsive to the moral compass and practical concerns of the Country as a whole.  Our political leaders should not just respond to special interests that pour millions of dollars into political campaigns while urging larger military budgets, inflexibility in peace negotiations, unilateral military strikes and other steps toward war.     

The way in which we address the ethical issue of war and peace is closely linked to the way we choose our leaders and the role of money in the process.   President Eisenhower understood that problem, but he did not solve it.   His successors allowed it to get worse.   And it won’t be solved until Americans decide that they have had enough.   See http://represent.us/

Comments

[Dan Abrams]

I am a proud AIPAC supporter because America's unwavering support of Israel is in the interest of America as well as Israel, and is the best thing America can do to facilitate peace in the Middle East. AIPAC has had certain successes not because they have intimidated lawmakers, but because they have persuaded them. Disagree all you want -- the issues are very complex and I am not interested in having that debate here.

What troubles me is your suggestion that people who hold different views than you, and have the temerity to lobby Congress, are somehow ethically impure. It is a cheap form of argument.

[Richard Painter]

It is the money that is the problem, not the ideas, even though I happen to strongly disagree. I wish argument about war and peace were "cheap" but it is not.

Personal attacks in comments on Legal Ethics Forum are cheap, but it costs a lot more to launch a smear campaign or a campaign for war that has substantial influence. Some people have the money and others don't. And that is what is wrong with our political system.

[Monroe Freedman]

Richard,

I'm getting concerned. This is the third time recently that I agree with you completely. And, to avoid any confusion, I'm a strong Zionist, and a contributor to J Street.

[Thomas]

I guess it was cheap to run large ads in the New York Times a long time ago.

[Richard Painter]

Here is a link to one of the 1941 ads:

http://www.befr.ebay.be/itm/NEW-YORK-TIMES-1941-Ad-DECLARATION-WAR-AGAINST-GERMANY-/380198841495

I do not know how much the ad cost. I do know that one of the President’s largest fundraisers and campaign contributors, U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain Joseph P. Kennedy, was on the other side of this issue and indeed sympathetic to Germany. He was one of the many political fundraisers who have had a big influence on U.S. foreign policy over the years.
The problem had only gotten worse.

[Dan Abrams]

Where is the ethics issue? AIPAC and J Street differ mostly on the tactics of how to obtain a sustainable, peaceful two-state solution. Not sure where J Street stands on Iran, but I presume they don't want Iran with a nuclear weapon anymore than AIPAC does. I have never met anybody affiliated with AIPAC who was not serious about peace.

You should not use strawman phrases like "war lobby" and "campaign for war" in order to ethicize a legitimate policy disagreement.

[Richard Painter]

The ethics issue is the enormous amount of money that some groups inject into our political system to support their agendas. These agendas include a military and diplomatic posture in the Middle East that is troublesome under international law, that has caused serious problems for the U.S. with its allies and that many foreign policy experts believe is very harmful to Israel. Nobody sensible wants Iran to get nuclear weapons. What the United States will do about it is a complex question that should be addressed here by political leaders who are responsible to the American people, and not beholden to big money lobbyists.

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

I posted a comment that has not appeared (owing to its length?).

[Dan Abrams]

So who is behaving unethically? Is it the person disagreeing with you who contributes to the lobbying group, the lobbyist who advocates the disagreeable position, the politician who is persuaded by the lobbyist, or all of the above?

Lets acknowledge the obvious. Money and politics will always be close cousins in a free society. People on both sides have a lot of money. George Soros was J street's initial funder, and now they even have Professor Freedman as a contributor!

Can't we just agree to disagree without calling the other side unethical?

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

"People on both sides...." Please, when it comes to the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular, there are not "two sides" in any meaningful sense of that phrase, a problem exacerbated by the mainstream mass media's hegemonic constriction of the parameters of public discourse, as the following titles attest:

•Dunsky, Marda. Pens and Swords: How the American Media Report the Israeli Palestinian Conflict. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008.
•Falk, Richard and Howard Friel. Israel-Palestine on Record: How the New York Times Misreports Conflict in the Middle East. London: Verso, 2007.
•Hafez, Kai, ed. Islam and the West in Mass Media: Fragmented Images in a Globalizing World. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2000.
•Karim, Karim H. Islamic Peril: Media and Global Violence. Montreal: Black Rose Books, 2000.
•Lynch, Marc. Voices of the New Arab Public: Iraq, Al-Jazeera and Middle East Politics Today. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.
•Said, Edward W. Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World. New York: Vintage Books, 1997.
•Sakr, Naomi. Satellite Realms: Transnational Television, Globalization and the Middle East. London: I.B. Tauris, 2002.
•Sakr, Naomi, ed. Arab Media and Political Renewal: Community, Legitimacy and Public Life. London: I.B. Tauris & Co., 2007.
•Shaheen, Jack G. Guilty: Hollywood’s Verdict on Arabs After 9/11. Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press/Interlink, 2008.
•Shaheen, Jack G. Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People. Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press, 2001.

Visit online such sites (the list is merely representative) as Jadaliyya, Middle East Research and Information Project, Al-Jazeera, The Arabist, the International Middle East Media Center, and the Palestinian News Network for a taste of the breadth and depth of ideological framing, distortion, and propaganda.

Why do we hear little or no discussion of Israel's possession of nuclear weapons (and the effects thereof) in either the media or in the context of "Iranophobia" (Haggai Ram)? I suspect not one of the powers-that-be in either the Administration or in Congress have read the chapter on “Israel’s Nuclear Policy,” by Zeev Maoz in his brilliant study, Defending the Holy Land: A Critical Analysis of Israel’s Security and Foreign Policy (University of Michigan Press, 2009 ed.): 301-357.

I had much else to say in a previous comment that failed to appear.

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

In an op-ed at the jurist, Professor Jordan Paust has recently given his academic legal imprimatur to widespread sentiment among the elites in this country (be they from the mass media, think-tanks, or the government) about Iran and its possible (if not highly improbable) development of nuclear weapons in an op-ed at the Jurist. This reply by Dan Joyner, one of our foremost experts on nuclear weapons proliferation and arms control, expresses views that will not gain wide circulation, given the stasis of the ideological status quo both in the mainstream mass media and in the Executive and Legislative branches of government (that 'money' thing applies here to the mass media as well, in this case having to do with the nature of corporate power and the concentration of ownership): http://armscontrollaw.com/2013/01/17/jordan-paust-on-israels-right-of-self-defense-against-iran/

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

By the way, I assembled a list of twenty-five titles for "essential reading" on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (culled from a much larger compilation). These are largely works of scholarship or authored by folks with the requisite expertise of one kind or another. Familiarity with such works will intimately apprise one of the lack of meaningful, let alone significant, discussion in this country on our Middle East foreign policy generally and the aforementioned conflict in particular. I will send along the list to any interested readers.

Incidentally, talk of a "two-state" solution with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict increasingly rings hollow owing to Israel's ongoing construction of "facts on the ground" (the West Bank 'security barrier,' annexation of land in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem through settlements and other means, etc.) that geo-politically eviscerate the possibility of a viable Palestinian state. Hence the increasing relevance of proposals for a bi-national "solution" proffered by Donald Lazare, the late Tony Judt, Virginia Tilley, Saree Makdisi, Helena Cobban, Ali Abunimah, Joel Kovel, among others. See:

•Abunimah, Ali. One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. New York: Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt, 2006.
•Avnery, Uri and Ilan Pappé. “Two States or One State,” A debate sponsored by Gush Shalom (June 11, 2007): http://ilanpappe.com/?p=58
•Cobban, Helena. “Breakout: Hamas and the End of the Two-State Solution,” Boston Review (May/June 2008): http://bostonreview.net/BR33.3/cobban.php
•Hilal, Jamil, ed. Where Now for Palestine? The Demise of the Two-State Solution. London: Zed Books, 2007.
•Judt, Tony. “Israel: The Alternative,” The New York Review of Books, Vol. 50, No, 16 (Oct. 23, 2003): http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16671
•Kovel, Joel. Overcoming Zionism: Creating a Single Democratic State in Israel-Palestine. London: Pluto Press, 2007.
•Lazare, Daniel. “The One-State Solution,” The Nation (Oct. 16, 2003): http://www.thenation.com/doc/20031103/lazare/single
•Makdisi, Saree. Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2008: 281-298.
•Pappé, Ilan. “Blueprint for a One-State Movement: A Troubled History,” in Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappé, Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on Israel’s War Against the Palestinians. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, 2010: 125-144.
•Tilley, Virginia. “The One-State Solution,” London Review of Books, Vol. 25, No. 21 (6 November 2003): http://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n21/virginia-tilley/the-one-state-solution
•Tilley, Virginia. The One State Solution: A Breakthrough for Peace in the Israel-Palestinian Conflict. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2010.

[Monroe Freedman]

Patrick, Your list is unbalanced. And you must realize that a one-state solution means that, with all the Arab\Muslim countries in the world, there would cease to be any Jewish state.

Just as I don't think that rehearsing the Arab fault in the controversy is constructive, I surely don't think that focusing only on Israeli fault (however justified the criticisms are in some respects) is constructive either.

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

[I'm posting my comment in parts, as TypePad will not post it as is.]

Monroe,

The lack of balance you refer to precedes the formation of the list, indeed, it is precisely what the list was intended to address: how often does one find mention, let alone discussion, of a “bi-national” solution in public fora in our society? Moreover, the list should prompt us to consider precisely what has motivated individuals of varying backgrounds (including Jews) who have thought long and hard about this conflict and care deeply for its imminent and just resolution, to put forth such admittedly counter-intuitive proposals. One conspicuous reason comes quickly to mind: the Israelis have throughout the history of the occupation deliberately created geo-political “facts on the ground” that have made mincemeat of the pre-1967 political borders, thereby rendering a viable Palestinian state implausible and therefore increasing the interest in, and attraction of, possible alternatives, even one as “outrageous” (at least in the eyes of many Palestinians) as that proposed by the Palestinian philosopher Sari Nusseibeh in What Is a Palestinian State Worth? (Harvard University Press, 2011). Look at any contemporary political map of Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem (found at several International Humanitarian Law websites or at Jadaliyya) and notice how the Israelis have managed to carve up the territory through colonization and annexation.

Be that as it may, I see no compelling reason why a bi-national state could not give due constitutional recognition to the establishment of Israel as a nation-state designed to assure the collective and individual security and basic human rights of all Jews (religious or not) in which such security and rights are afforded in the first instance through a world order of nation-states. At the same time, such a state could also guarantee the equal citizenship rights of all non-Jews, something denied by a Zionist ethnocracy, whatever its democratic virtues and pretensions. This would go some way toward atoning for the fact that ethnic cleansing was essential to the founding of the state of Israel and the fact that Arabs in Israel remain second-class citizens with attenuated and unequal rights. In any case—and caeteris paribus—demographic trends may mean the state of Israel will one day no longer literally be a “Jewish” state, whatever its legal definition in its Basic Laws.

(continued)

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

Finally, I am interested in attempting to understand the historical nature and contemporary dynamics of this conflict, one which is, after all, fundamentally asymmetrical with regard to the salient political power variables. This needs to be stated owing to the prevailing widespread and recalcitrant states of denial,* the proliferation of ideological propaganda, and the appalling ignorance that continues to shadow treatments of this conflict in our country (and Israel as well). In the words of Sylvain Cypel:

“Although there is certainly denial on both sides of the conflict, it is much more constitutive among the Israelis. To begin with, it does not occur in similar contexts. Politically and physically, the Palestinians are dominated. Their land has been occupied for thirty-nine years [this was published in 2006] in the territories, or they have been second-class citizens in Israel itself for fifty-nine years, and this is not to mention those who are refugees in Arab countries. The Israelis are the dominators: they determine the entire political, legal, and social settings of the daily life they impose on the Palestinians. The denial of that reality, moreover, can be seen most clearly on the Israeli side, where there is a systematic effort to present the conflict in terms of two adversaries in a situation of parity.”

If the predominance of fault(s) or liability lies on the Israeli side of the conflict, this needs to be recognized and dealt with: no just and nonviolent resolution, even one tempered by compassion and forgiveness (and thus beyond ‘retributive justice’), will come about without proper allocation of fault, blame, or responsibility, and corresponding consideration, where possible, of sundry sorts of redress.

Those not familiar with the requisite literature on this conflict might at least read two books, one by a Jew, the other by a Palestinian: Sylvain Cypel’s Walled: Israeli Society at an Impasse (Other Press, 2006), and Saree Makdisi’s Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation (W.W. Norton & Co., 2008). These two works begin the necessary task of expanding the parameters of public discourse beyond that typically found in the mass media, think tanks, and foreign policy discussions.

* On this, in addition to Cypel’s book above, see Stanley Cohen’s States of Denial: Knowing about Atrocities and Suffering (Polity Press, 2001).

[Monroe Freedman]

Patrick, I'm resisting the temptation to engage in a useless exchange of recriminations and counter-recriminations with you, and will only recommend what I have found to be the most balanced treatment of the history of the conflict: Mark Teffler, A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

Thanks for the recommendation Monroe.

I've read and have in my possession Tessler's (overly?) ambitious volume (notice the spelling!).

And for the record, I often enjoy and try to honestly engage in discussion, dialogue, or even vigorous debate with intelocutors, both here and elswhere, online and in everyday life, and only rarely have such exchanges descended to the level of "a useless exchange of recriminations and counter-recriminations." I'm sorry to learn you believe that is a very real danger in our case. Although I realize at this point further elaboration of views takes us far afield from the foci of this blog.

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

erratum: interlocutors

[Monroe Freedman]

The misspelling was occasioned by the fact that I loaned the book to my granddaughter (Jewish) and her husband (Muslim), and he read the name to me on the phone. Thus, the ss's became ff's. How Shakespearean!

[Richard W. Painter]

These are important issues that we need to discuss in a balanced way before we go to war or support an ally in going to war.

It is wrong to try to win such an important debate not through reason but by pouring massive amounts of money into the political system to get what you want. It is wrong for the rest of us to allow our political system to be used in that way.

It is also wrong to call people who disagree with you anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim or any other such slur unless there is clear evidence to support such a charge. That goes for fringe groups that have cast such slurs on Chuck Hagel as well as fringe groups that have cast such slurs on the political leadership of Israel.

Muslims, Jews and Christians can and do live together in peace as neighbors and sometimes within the same families. Our ethical imperative is to help make that happen more often and hatred, terrorism and war happen less often and hopefully not at all.

[Richard W. Painter]

I am not an expert in this field, but I have heard several times that the Tessler book is highly recommended by people who are.

http://books.google.com/books/about/A_History_of_the_Israeli_Palestinian_Con.html?id=3kbU4BIAcrQC

RWP

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

I included the Tessler book in the bibliography I posted online, but have not included it in my top 25 list owing to conceptual and explanatory shortcomings, as well as the fact that it shares, with several similar but rather shorter histories, "a narrowly political narrative that does not seriously consider matters of culture and consciousness; lack of a conceptual framework, which means that the default understanding of the conflict is a moralistic one; and an understated and exceptionalist presentation of the role of the United States in the conflict" (Joel Benin). My online bibliography is found here: http://www.thefacultylounge.org/2012/11/the-israeli-palestinian-conflict-a-reading-list.html

[Dan Abrams]

Professor Painter: Respectfully, your last comment is a strawman. Not even Bill Gates can dictate Middle East policy by writing a check. The reality is that a lot of ethical people support AIPAC because they care deeply about the issues and believe in what AIPAC is advocating. Calling AIPAC or simpatico groups the "war lobby" is no less disgusting than if somebody were to call J Street the "terror lobby"

Again, why can't we agree to disagree without casting ethical aspersions?

[Monroe Freedman]

I agree with Dan on this one.

I think, perhaps, we have said all that's worth saying here on this issue.

[Richard Painter]

We have said all that is worth saying here on the Middle East, perhaps. All of us, however, should take a hard look at the data on campaign finance and lobbying by many interest groups that use money to influence our government:

http://www.opensecrets.org/index.php

Most of these groups will insist that they get what they want because they have the better argument and not because of their money. Some will make the broader point that nobody's money -- and certainly not theirs -- is enough to dictate our foreign policy, our gun laws, our environmental policy, our health care policy, our banking regulations (or lack thereof) or anything else that government does. Most of these groups and their supporters will get offended when other people criticize the way they throw their money around.

For those who believe there is no problem here, Opensecrets and similar sites simply tell us how well our government is working. We can rest assured that government does what is does -- whether regulating or deregulating banks or taking sides in conflicts around the globe -- for the right reasons.

Others of us are concerned that moneyed interests get what they want in Washington not because of the value of their ideas (sometimes they are right and sometimes they are wrong), but because of their money. Indeed, many Americans are increasingly disillusioned – some might even say disgusted -- with the way our government works. The OpenSecrets site provides some data that explains some of the reasons why.

After Citizens United it is clear that the path is wide open – even wider than it was before -- to using money to buy government. These groups have the First Amendment right to do what they do. And the rest of us are at least left with the First Amendment right to say it is wrong.