Brad, that would be 1936, not 2036.

Adam8 (unjustly banned and slandered by autocratic RawStory.com Politburo)

Not enough eggnog. Thanks, Adam.

Happy Holidays to all. And to all a good night...

Best wishes to all you BradLanders out there from lovely (if bereft) Prague. May the New Year be kind to us all!

Much love to all Bradblogdinians from Lasagna.

The ongoing conversations, interactions, information, truth seeking, conflict, conflict resolution, and everything else here mean so much more to me than I am capable of expressing in a little pretending-that-the-baby-Jesus-has-something-to-do-with-the-return-of-the-light salutation.

Love really is the answer. And that's where the story of the baby Jesus and I agree,

love,
Dave

Havel's quote could be the slogan for Occupy.

It's Christmas here, but sub-freezing temperatures are not preventing people from demonstrating against rigged elections in another part of the world.

"But we are a peaceful force – we won't do that, for now. But if these crooks and thieves continue to try to cheat us, to try to lie and steal from us, we will take [what's rightfully ours] by ourselves."

"Work for something because it is good, not just because it has a chance to succeed." - Vaclav Havel, 1936-2011

I wonder if that was the sentiment that inspired Havel to support the Iraq War?

http://www.aei.org/artic...united-we-stand-article/

Parke Bostrom @ 6 said:

I wonder if that was the sentiment that inspired Havel to support the Iraq War?

Which part of that Jan 2003 pre-Iraq War statement you linked to signals Havel's "support [for] the Iraq War"? The part where they called for the matter to be handled by the UN? Here for example:

We Europeans have since reiterated our backing for Resolution 1441, our wish to pursue the U.N. route, and our support for the Security Council at the Prague NATO Summit and the Copenhagen European Council.

As I recall, the US decided NOT to take "the UN route" and decided to go it alone.

The Czech involvement eventually (after Havel's departure from office), months after the March invasion, in December of '03, amounted to some 80 support personnel w a peak of 300 at one point.

Why would you attempt to rewrite history, on Christmas of all days, and just days after Havel's death, Parke? You might as well write that we went to war over WMD and aluminum tubes to avoid the possibility of a mushroom cloud.

Correcting a typo in Parke Bostrom's link.

The attacks of Sept. 11 showed just how far terrorists the Carlyle Group--the enemies of our common values--are prepared to go to destroy them.

Brad @7--

This is one of those rare instances, Brad, where I think you are fairly wide of the mark.

That link provided by Parke @6 does read like standard issue U.S. propaganda.

1. conflates 9/11 with Iraq

2. invokes the heroic help of Americans in overcoming past evils(nazism/communism) and then alludes to "Iraq's... peristent attempts to threaten world security."

3. is full of the standard catch phrases which served to create the Iraq-as-evil-empire meme, ie--"battle against terrorism", "proliferation of weapons of mass destruction", "unwavering determination"...."on the part of all countries for whom freedom is precious."

4. asserts that the Iraqi regime and its weapons of mass destruction represent a clear threat to world security.

5. puts the onus on Saddam for making the prospect of war an unwelcome necessity.

6. misrepresents the anti-war position of the UN weapons inspectors.

7. says that we have no quarrel with the suffering Iraqi people.

8. Singles out Iraq for violation of UN resolutions(arguable on its face)with absolutely no mention of other(like Israel's) violations that we completely endorse.

All that reads like boilerplate propaganda for the war to me.

I think Parke's point is not without merit.

I have to agree with David and Parke here. Havel was much loved here, mainly for his moral courage and his opposition to oppression. But I always found his foreign policy unacceptably bellicose. He hated the Russians and couldn't resist poking the big bear in the eye with a stick whenever he got a chance, and he often blindly marched to the NATO brass band. He was a great man, but he was far from perfect, and his position on the war was always a problem for me. He was also grossly remiss in allowing Klaus and Meciar to partition the country, in direct violation of the constitution, when in fact it was his constitutional duty to have them arrested - instead he resigned as president and slunk away. Oh well...

David & Czaragorn (& Parke) -

While, as David suggests, the letter Parke cited may "read like standard issue U.S. propaganda," one has to put it into the proper historical context before using it to support the notion that Havel "support[ed] the Iraq War".

That letter was written in Jan 2003, as there were seriously mounting drumbeats by U.S. to go to war in Iraq, along with a great deal of benefit-of-the-doubt by much of the world given to U.S. concerns about Iraq in light of the recent 9/11 attacks.

With the U.S. clearly on the war path then, there were many allies of U.S., such as the Czech Republic (and even those who weren't normally allies) who saw the way the winds were blowing, but who tried to make sure that if it was to blow, it would blow via a legally overseeable U.N. effort. In fact, such an effort was seen by many as the only way to avoid war at that point.

That's the historical context of the moment in which that Jan '03 letter cited by Parke, in the days prior to the U.S.' virtually unilateral attack on Iraq, was written and issued.

Allies like the Czech Republic, and others, were trying to walk a fine line of supporting their benefactor (the U.S.) after the beating we'd taken on 9/11, even while doing all they could to keep the most-likely-inevitable war under some kind of legal, international structure, if it had to happen.

I am, of course, no expert in Czech/Havel foreign policy at the time, will happily defer to those like Czaragorn who were living there throughout, and should note that I'm not attempting to paint an inaccurate hagiography of Havel. If there are other documents which more clearly paint a picture of Havel "support[ing] the Iraq War," I'm happy to review them and concede the point if in fact that's what he did.

But to point to the doc that Parke did as evidence of Havel's "support [of] the Iraq War" is, as I wrote previously, a rewrite of history.

It's no more accurate to point to that document, whether it echoed similar U.S. talking points of the day or not, than it would be to point to Bill Clinton's call for "regime change" in Iraq during his administration (as was his declared U.S. policy) as evidence to support the idea that Clinton "support[ed] the Iraq War". That's what the Bush/Cheney cabal did, of course, but it was historically both inaccurate and dishonest.

In lieu of additional info to buttress Parke's claims here about Havel, I suggest the same is true about those assertions as well, and I stand by my original response to his comment.

Brad,
It doesn't appear to me to be a rewrite of history. In September of 2002 he's quoted as supporting pre-emptive military action.

http://en.wikipedia.org/...ions_on_invasion_of_Iraq

Havel endorses U.S. line on Iraq
Bruce I. Konviser, The Washington Times

PRAGUE--Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is a menace to his neighbors and pre-emptive military action may be warranted against him, Czech President Vaclav Havel said in an interview ahead of a visit to Washington beginning today.

This highly flattering aljazeera piece by Mark Levine offers some thoughts as to how Havel may have arrived at conclusions regarding the U.S Iraq invasion that would seem at odds with his previous positions.(near end of article)

http://www.aljazeera.com...2011122511152322875.html

A few more thoughts on the matter at this link.

http://www.theamericanco...9/vaclav-havel-and-iraq/

My apologies for not knowing how to format things more clearly. In comment #12 the short paragraph that starts with the Prague quote from Havel is from the Washington Times. The next little paragraph is from me.

{ED NOTE: Fixed the formatting for ya there, David. To indent a graph like that, just use (blockquote) before and (/blockquote) at the end of the text to be quoted, but use the pointy greater-than/less-than brackets to enclose the words, rather than rounded parens. Or just use the "b-quote" tool button above the comment text field and go from there. - BF}

David Lasagna @ 12:

Again, I'm not claiming to know what Havel's ultimate position was or wasn't, but the statements being attributed to him as proof that he "support[ed] the Iraq War" do not make the case, as far as I'm concerned.

For example, the (far-Right) Washington Times article you quote from Sep 2002 (6 months or so before the actual invasion), describes that Havel believed Saddam was "a menace to his neighbors" and that "pre-emptive military action may be warranted against him."

Those are both positions that I, for example, might have agreed with at that point in time. (Note: "may be warranted" is a far cry from "warranted".) And that is if we take the WashTimes article at face value to be accurate. (Given their history, they are due no such benefit of the doubt.)

Losing track of the nuance in that pre-war run-up serves to the benefit of the neo-cons who would very much like to re-write the history of what happened. (That's the same crew, for example, who likes to say "the intelligence was wrong", where there was as much or more intelligence that was spot on the money, but purposely ignored by those who didn't wish to see the "no evidence of WMD" intelligence.)

There were many, and I'd put myself among them, who tried to give the benefit of the doubt in the shadow of 9/11. I continued to do that, I would say, all the way up until Hans Blix made his presentation to the UN, along with his plea for more time. At that point, when he made it clear that the UN had been allowed to inspect pretty much everything they had wanted to, in the time they were given (contrary to the since-prevailing myth that "Saddam wasn't allowing inspectors in"), and that he needed another 60 to 90 days to make a conclusive case one way or anothe --- but the U.S. would not allow that, and decided to go it alone --- I then appreciated that something was definitely amiss in the Admin's argument.

Presuming there were others like me, one could easily then have made a case that sounded much like the US propaganda up to that point, but then opposed the war as it came about thereafter --- not by virtue of UN resolutions, but by virtue of the Bush/Cheney administration deciding to go it on their own after the UN had said "no!"

One more nuance that must be considered here when trying to put Havel's thinking into accurate historic perspective/context --- even if we stipulate (and so far, I don't) --- as Parke asserted, that Havel "support[ed] the Iraq War". That nuance is well-noted in the American Conservative link you offered, discussing the basis of the Jan 2003 letter from Havel and the other Euro-leaders:

Perhaps because of some misguided sense of gratitude to the United States, Havel was one of the first leaders in central and eastern Europe to align himself with Bush’s folly. One of the perverse side-effects of the first two rounds of NATO expansion was to create an unhealthy eagerness on the part of the new members to fall in line behind U.S. policy, no matter how foolish or far removed from their own interests it may have been, and in this Havel was no different.

That was among the points I was alluding to in my previous response, concerning the necessity of U.S. allies to show support for their "benefactors" in appearing to support U.S. policy at that moment in time. It does not, by any means, in and of itself, offer definitive proof that any of the leaders who signed on to that letter, in the months prior to the showdown at the UN, actually "support[ed] the Iraq War" which came later.

Running rough-shod over the historical context and nuance in play at that point in time does not serve to benefit the historical truth, even if it does serve those who would like to re-write it to their benefit.

Brad - you make some good points, especially that last. As I said, Mr. Havel was a truly wonderful man and a great historical leader and shaper of human events. But of course he was human, and nobody's ever perfect. His natural bellicosity was a big minus, at least as far as I'm concerned, but then I'm a pacifist at heart. His eager acceptance of a U$ radar station in the Czech Republic which would trigger missile launches from Poland, a strategy that was clearly aimed at Russia (although the U$ insisted that it was aimed at Iran, Poland somehow being a superior location to that of, say, NATO ally Turkey), was a bridge too far in my view. But it was far from the only bridge he crossed that I would not have, bear baiting being his greatest transgression in my view.

All that said, I loved the man - I had the great thrill of watching as he was filmed as he and his wife (Dasha) staged a "routine" shopping trip to my local market for the film Citizen Havel. The world has definitely lost a great person.

Dear Brad,

(As I've said before I'm not great at internet searching.) Most of the references I keep finding on Havel's attitude towards the Iraq War go back to that same quote from the Washington Times. Another quote that keeps coming up--"I think it's not by chance that the idea of confronting evil may have found more support in those countries that have had a recent experience with totalitarian systems compared with other European countries that haven't had the same sort of recent experience....The Czech experience with Munich, with appeasement, with yielding to evil, with demanding more and more evidence that Hitler was truly evil that may be one reason that we look at things differently than some others....It's a matter of the functioning of the world's immune system, whether the world can deal with such a case of extreme evil before it is too late."--seems to come from a New Yorker article by Nick Gillespie called--Havel on Iraq--but unfortunately I can't access/find it.

You keep saying the evidence presented here is far from conclusive proof that Havel was actually pro-Iraq War.

What I'm saying--

1. everything that can I CAN find sure sounds pro-war to me.

2. I don't believe I'm smarter than you but maybe because I'm older I was not giving the benefit of the doubt after 9/11 that you say you were and that you think others(like Havel) may have been. To me the run-up to the Iraq War from the government and media all sounded like the same old bullshit, the same old lies as before most every war. That's the mindset(that it's the same old bullshit) I project onto Havel that I would have expected/hoped he would have had, especially from what I'd read of him and his words before 2003.

3. For instance--for me there is a tremendous disconnect between these words of his---By breaking the rules of the game, he has disrupted the game as such. He has exposed it as mere game. He has shattered the world of appearances, the fundamental pillar of the system. He has upset the power structure by tearing part what holds it together. He has demonstrated that living a lie is living a lie... He has said the emperor is naked. And because the emperor is in fact naked, something extremely dangerous has happened... He has enabled everyone to peer behind the curtain. He has shown everyone that it is possible to live within the truth."

---and the words of that group letter. That group letter, I believe, is a strong example of exactly the opposite of Havel's notion of "living the truth".

In addition,Tony Blair was one of the co-signers to that letter. The Downing Street Memos had happened months before. At the very least Tony Blair among those signatories must have known that that letter was pure posturing. Your version, it seems, requires Havel to not be a part of that posturing.

4. Maybe, but I'll say again--everything that has been presented as any sort of evidence of Havel's thoughts on war with Iraq seem quite consistent with our government's views on the matter.

5. I'm saying that as great as Havel was, and he was heroic in my view, everything I've been able to find so far supports the notion that he had a blind spot on the subject of Iraq.

If that's riding rough-shod over historical context and nuance then at least one of us must be riding side-saddle on a horse of a different color.

BF--thanks for the coaching on improving my formatting. You are not the first person to think I would have a clue as to what those sorts of instructions mean. I must somehow, inadvertently, despite my best efforts, be misrepresenting how computer illiterate I am.

I WILL find someone to translate your instructions.

Thanks again.

David Lasagna said:

In addition,Tony Blair was one of the co-signers to that letter. The Downing Street Memos had happened months before. At the very least Tony Blair among those signatories must have known that that letter was pure posturing. Your version, it seems, requires Havel to not be a part of that posturing.

Depends, I guess, on what you mean by "posturing", but yes, most such public letters are meant to posture publicly for one position or another. Particularly in the world of international diplomacy.

Nonetheless, when support of the UN process (Resolution 1441) to hold Saddam accountable was made (by most, not the U.S., at the time) I believe it was an effort to avoid war, not support it. Had Saddam met the requirements of 1441 as the letter writers were calling for (and, as it turns out, he actually did, as Blix tried to warn at the time), there would have been no need for the war.

You'll note that in the end, the UN did not call for an invasion of Iraq. They followed their own mandates as per Resolution 1441 which Havel and the other co-signers of that letter, were calling for.

Again, he may well have supported George W. Bush's near-unilateral, not-UN-sanctioned invasion of Iraq. I'm just unaware of the evidence to support that assertion, and nothing I've seen from you and others to date amounts to such evidence, even as it leaves plenty to speculate upon.