‘Standing Tall’ on Hostages

The critical comments made by neo-conservative Norman Podhoretz regarding the Reagan Administration’s handling of the Beirut hostage situation, (Editorial Pages, June 26), provide an excellent example of the latent fascist tendencies underlying much of the New Right’s ideology. Although I am no fan of Ronald Reagan, who has not shrunk from practicing his own brand of state-sponsored terrorism in Central America, I applaud his restraint from military actions that might have endangered hostages’ lives.

Podhoretz makes several damning statements. To begin with he defines the New Rights’ view about the state by saying that “. . . standing tall, if it means anything, means being ready to risk life itself in defense of national honor.” Whose life? Not the life of Norman Podhoretz, but the lives of innocent victims.

This jingoism finds its echo in the works of Heinrich von Treitschke and Adolf Hitler, where the individual was subsumed into the nation-persona, the mystical volk which was locked in an evolutionary death struggle with other “races.” In this case, Podhoretz forgets that the United States has a tradition of respecting the individual. One wonders if Podhoretz would be so bloodthirsty if the hostages had included members of his family or loved ones.

Podhoretz continues by declaring that Reagan “. . . by putting the safety of the hostages above all other values . . . is embracing what Aristotle and Nietzsche have derided as the morality of the slave.” Again the favorite imagery of the New Right: respect for life is weakness, negotiation is surrender.

It is no coincidence that the mythic figure of John Rambo, seen in packed movie houses across an America frustrated and puzzled by the complexities of a hostile world, bears resemblance to Nietzsche’s Ubermensch. It is this mentality that once called for “iron youth,” derided treaties as “scraps of paper,” and sought a “place in the sun” in the two most destructive wars of the 20th-Century.

As the topper, Podhoretz concludes that Reagan is wrong by trying to equate “. . . the deliberate murder of civilians with the collateral and inadvertent damage to civilians that may result from a military action against a military target.” One can almost see Soviet and Salvadoran air force pilots nodding agreement with Podhoretz as they “inadvertently” bomb Afghan and Salvadoran villages, maiming and killing thousands of civilians.

The point of all this is not that Reagan is to be admired for his retreat from breast-beating hypocrisy about “standing tall” to a sober view of the realities and limits of power, but that those Americans who long for tough-guy militaristic solutions should be aware of the costs. The price will be paid not only in innocent lives, for real war is not as “clean” as the selective mayhem of Hollywood’s Rambo, but also in a metamorphosis of values. For in their simplistic solutions, intolerance, and aggressiveness with the lives of others, neo-conservatives like Podhoretz would shape America into a society that becomes a mirror of all that it professes to hate.

Calling for toughness has become mixed with hidden admiration for Soviet methods, who, the thinking goes, must be doing something right since their citizens are never held hostage. Is this what we really want?

JAMES VIGIL JR.

San Gabriel