Was I wrong about 'the letter?'
I defended House progressives' call for diplomacy. But they backed down.
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio
Hi folks! Sorry about a second newsletter in a single day — that won’t be my habit — but I didn’t want to wait to weigh in on the topic of the day.
I spend a lot of time worrying about being wrong.
This is for a couple of reasons. First: I'm certain I'm wrong about stuff. I'm human, so I must be. It's just that I probably don't know what stuff I'm wrong about, because if I knew wouldn't I try to be right? Second: I'm a journalist. Being wrong on the facts is bad and potentially catastrophic.
But I'm not sure it's always a helpful trait in opinion writing.
So this morning, I sent out a Substack newsletter defending a letter from the Congressional Progressive Caucus that urged President Biden to pursue a diplomatic end to the war between Russia and Ukraine. It was a heavily conditioned letter, noting that Russia is the aggressor and that Ukraine shouldn't be pressured into accepting terms it doesn't like, but also noting that we don't want the whole thing to blow up into a nuclear war.
This seemed reasonable to me.
I was clearly in the minority.
So much so, that a few hours after I sent out my newsletter, the Congressional Progressive Caucus ... withdrew the letter I defended.
So was I wrong? Possibly. I don't think so, though.1
Or, at least not so wrong that I feel compelled to reverse course.
Here was the central point I made, and I'm going to repeat it here because I think it's important:
There should always be somebody in society shouting for peace, even when warmaking seems overwhelmingly right. Because there will always be voices for war, and often they’ll be the loudest voices. And that calls for “unity” in the face of war are usually a way of trying to shout the peace folks down.
After today, this feels even more true.
The CPC letter was not a shout for peace. It was more like a throat-clearing head nod in favor of trying to achieve peace, when the time and conditions are right. It was barely more than anodyne. And it was still shouted down with cries of "appeasement."
“I have voted for every defense package to Ukraine and stand firmly for Ukraine’s sovereignty,” Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., a letter signer, told The Intercept. “It should not be controversial to say we need to explore every diplomatic avenue to seek a just peace and to end the war, including the engagement of our allies to help with that.”
It shouldn’t be controversial. Instead, it’s all but unmentionable.
Here's the thing: I support America's support of Ukraine -- with some caution, given the stakes involved. I think it's fair not to want things to blow up into a nuclear war, and it's OK to think we should try to avoid that situation! Even given that, I think the Biden Admin has handled the war well.
But I don't like the idea that giving a heavily conditioned statement in favor of diplomacy was beat down so hard. And I worry what it portends for future debates over matters of war and peace in this country. To speak even fleetingly, haltingly of diplomacy in a war in which we're not even among the principal combatants is apparently beyond the pale. Good lord.
There needs to be room to have these discussions. This week proved there isn't.
Apparently there were some process issues with the letter, which fine, but I'm not convinced that is why it was withdrawn.
Thanks for standing on principle in these increasingly unprincipled and cowardly times
My father called me the other night saying how NATO needs to start shooting down Russian planes. I told him, "you know that's World War 3 if that happens, right?"
I don't think people have a clue any more what an actual war means. This isn't Iraq or any of the innumerable other countries that the US has fought since WW2, because none of them had the capability of actually striking back.
So no, you aren't wrong at all. And this is hardly the first time that the progressive caucus has shown its invertebrate-ness.