Friday, August 22, 2014

Idle Speculation versus the Certainty of History

Even in the administration of justice where there is more brainpower outside the field of the sciences than anywhere else, you find that every issue is litigated with equal fervor on both sides. And this is because in the law, there is something called the doctrine, and something called the jurisprudence.

The doctrine comprises the philosophical principles through which an issue is viewed. Consider for example the issue of capital punishment. Someone may write a book to say that the practice is a good thing to have in a society, whereas someone else may write a book to say it is a bad thing to have. Well, both books become part of the doctrine on capital punishment.

As to the jurisprudence that is related to an issue, it comprises all previous cases which are similar or close to it. And the reason why the defense lawyers and prosecutors invoke such cases in a trial is because they know that the judge will want to adjudicate with fairness. This means that someone who committed an infraction today should be judged and sentenced the same as someone who committed a similar infraction or something close to it in previous years.

Still, with all these provisions to guide the litigating lawyers and the presiding judges as to how they should think about a case and how they should proceed, you find that opposing jurists, even judges presiding over the same case, will tend to see things from different angles. They will argue the case from opposite points of view, and they will adjudicate it differently.

This being true in a court of law, you have an identical setup in the court of public opinion. There too, you have what amounts to a doctrine and what amounts to a jurisprudence on almost every subject. And we have a published case that illustrates these points perfectly. It was written by Philip Terzian under the title: “When the U.S. Abdicates, Disaster Usually Follows” and the subtitle: “John McCain was mocked in 2008 when he said U.S. troops might stay for years in Iraq. He looks better now.” It was published on August 22, 2014 in the Wall Street Journal.

Terzian began the article by giving his argument a human face. It is that of John McCain who was mocked more than 6 years ago for suggesting that American troops may have to be stationed in Iraq for as long as a hundred years, says Terzian. And he points out that current events in the Middle East are proving that in retrospect, John McCain was correct. To explain all that, Terzian plays the role of lawyer and presents his case using both a doctrine of his choosing and several old precedents.

The doctrine he chose to discuss “was that the American people were war-weary.” And he counters that argument by saying: “The truth is that at any given time the American people were weary (or wary) of war.” He says they were in 1864, in 1942 and in 1949 when situations similar to today's presented themselves. Still, Abraham Lincoln was re-elected long ago, America entered the Second World War more recently, and “American troops were dispatched to Europe, where they remain 65 years later.”

And so he draws the conclusion that: “The duty of political leaders in perilous times is to lead, not follow, public opinion.” To do otherwise, he goes on to say, would be “dereliction of historic duty.” What Terzian does not do is say that under Lyndon Johnson, “the leaders” of America fabricated the Gulf of Tonkin incident, and got America involved knee deep in the Vietnam War where it suffered a humiliating defeat. Later, the same sort of leaders fabricated evidence to the effect that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and got America involved knee deep in the Iraq War, a misadventure that spawned the current situation for which Terzian wants to see America get involved yet again.

As to the jurisprudence, Terzian says that “the departure of federal troops from the Reconstruction South paved the way for Jim Crow,” and that the American exit from Europe after 1918 led to World War II. He goes on to say that “It might even be argued that American troops in Haiti, Nicaragua and interwar China did more good than harm.” He then admits “It is impossible to predict Iraq's future and … Syria's.” To end his presentation, he asks the question: “Which is more wearisome: The resolve to sustain our burden of leadership, or the prospect of a world in chaos and uncertainty?”

The trouble with this kind of argument is that it duplicates what fiction writers do when they ask the question: What if history had turned out differently? Opposed to that, there is what historians do which is to tell how history did turn out. Thus, the uncertainty resides in what the fiction writers say; whereas the certainty resides in what the historians say.

The fact remains that nobody can tell what would have happened had American troops remained in Europe after 1918, or withdrawn from Haiti, Nicaragua and interwar China. Opposed to that, the historians do tell what happened in Vietnam and in Iraq 2.

Terzian asked a question to which the answer is that it is less wearisome to go with the certainty of the historian than go with the speculation of the fiction writer.

Thank you Philip Terzian for your entertaining piece; you may send it to Hollywood where they might consider it for a B movie project. But keep America's nose out of world affairs.