Al Mayadeen English

  • Ar
  • Es
  • x
Al Mayadeen English

Slogan

  • News
    • Politics
    • Economy
    • Sports
    • Arts&Culture
    • Health
    • Miscellaneous
    • Technology
    • Environment
  • Articles
    • Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Blog
    • Features
  • Videos
    • NewsFeed
    • Video Features
    • Explainers
    • TV
    • Digital Series
  • Infographs
  • In Pictures
  • • LIVE
News
  • Politics
  • Economy
  • Sports
  • Arts&Culture
  • Health
  • Miscellaneous
  • Technology
  • Environment
Articles
  • Opinion
  • Analysis
  • Blog
  • Features
Videos
  • NewsFeed
  • Video Features
  • Explainers
  • TV
  • Digital Series
Infographs
In Pictures
  • Africa
  • Asia
  • Asia-Pacific
  • Europe
  • Latin America
  • MENA
  • Palestine
  • US & Canada
BREAKING
Sheikh Qassem: Our supporters make up more than half of Lebanon's population, and all of these people are united under the banner of protecting Lebanon, its Resistance, its people, and its integrity.
Sheikh Qassem: There will be no phased handing in of our arms. [The Israelis] must first enact the agreement before we start talking about a defensive strategy.
Sheikh Qassem: Be brave in the face of foreign pressures, and we will be by your side in this stance.
Sheikh Qassem: Stripping us of our arms is like stripping us of our very soul, and this will prompt us to show them our might.
Sheikh Qassem: We will not abandon our arms, for they gave us dignity; we will not abandon our arms, for they protect us against our enemy.
Sheikh Qassem: The US efforts we are seeing are aimed at sabotaging Lebanon and constitute a call for sedition.
Sheikh Qassem: If you truly want to establish sovereignty and work for Lebanon’s interests, then stop the aggression.
Sheikh Qassem: The United States, which is meddling in Lebanon, is not trustworthy but rather poses a danger to it.
Sheikh Qassem: The United States is preventing the weapons that protect the homeland.
Sheikh Qassem: The government’s latest decision [on the disarmament of the Resistance] is non-charter-based, and if the government continues down this path, it is not faithful to Lebanon’s sovereignty.

Habermas and the war in Ukraine

  • Atilio A. Boron Atilio A. Boron
  • Source: Al Mayadeen English
  • 24 Jun 2023 23:57
  • 1 Shares
6 Min Read

The prevailing rarefied ideological climate that Germany and most European countries are suffering from today makes a very cautious call for prudence and negotiation a criminal offense that deserves to be punished with ostracism.

  • x
  • Habermas and the war in Ukraine

Jürgen Habermas, undoubtedly the greatest living political philosopher in Europe, has had continuous problems understanding such a crucial sociopolitical phenomenon as wars. Despite this, it is possible to observe in his thought an evolution that, despite some ambiguities, we could describe as positive. There are three milestones in this intellectual trajectory: the First Gulf War, the Iraq War, and finally the Ukrainian War.

In the first, his approach rests on the questionable premise that there are not just wars and that it would be then foolish to try to build an argument to judge the US military aggression against Iraq. But once this question is ignored, the philosopher faces the difficult task of deciding if a war can be justifiable or not. And in the case of the first Gulf War, in 1991, Habermas gave the wrong answer and concluded that the war was justified. First objection: it is unacceptable to throw overboard the issue of just war, which has a long tradition in the history of Western political philosophy. Historical experience shows that the peoples who fought colonialism, Nazism, or the Vietnamese war against the first French and American aggressor or the Palestinians against the Israeli entity are just some of the examples of the just wars fought in history and this, contrary to what Habermas thinks, does not have an ounce of metaphysics. Second mistake: wondering, as the German philosopher does, whether "the victims caused by war are in a justifiable relationship to the evil that one wanted to avoid." These evils, let us remember, were above all the preservation of the existence of the “State of Israel," the liberation of Kuwait, the destruction of the atomic, biological, and chemical weapons that were supposedly in the possession of Saddam Hussein and, eventually, the overthrow of the Iraqi ruler. In response to his own question, Habermas disappoints his readers by saying that "I have no conclusive answer to that," adding, however, that "worse evils than war can occur." Which is it? He doesn't say so, but we should then ask how many millions of Arab lives it would take for the philosopher to change his mind. Let us remember the answer that Madeleine Albright, the former US Secretary of State, gave when asked if the deaths of half a million Iraqi children were "worth it", and she responded yes. At this point, Habermas is aligned with Albright and remains ethically and analytically disarmed, turned —in spite of himself— into a contrived apologist for the new world policeman, the United States, and its Western lackeys.

In the case of the Iraq War (2003-2011), Habermas takes a different position. Perhaps his stance was a reaction to the barbaric attitude of the supposedly progressive poet and essayist Hans Magnus Enzensberger who made public his "triumphant joy" upon learning of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's "totalitarian regime" and lashed out at those who had warned of the disastrous consequences the attack would bring onto Baghdad. Faced with this criminal argument by Enzensberger, Habermas wrote in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that "with this action, the US has destroyed its own credibility as a guarantor of international law, the normative authority of the United States is ruined." He continued his argument by saying that the war against Iraq was illegal on two counts: there was no situation of self-defense (the weapons of mass destruction falsely denounced by Washington did not exist at all in Iraq and there was no evidence to indicate that Hussein was responsible for the 9/11 attacks); and, secondly, because the invasion was not endorsed by the Security Council of the UN. Despite this, his mellifluous criticism of the American adventure ignored a fundamental issue: the disastrous role played by US imperialism in the turbulent international scenario, far from being able to provide the normative and moral authority that Habermas wrongly attributes to it.

Related News

How ‘Human Rights’ became a Western weapon

Why the US is cozying up to Pakistan once more

In the current case, the war in Ukraine, Habermas' position is more critical, although he does not stop sinning from immoderate restraint. But in the increasingly intolerant and authoritarian political climate predominant in Germany, it was enough to publish an article in which Habermas suggested that the German government should promote the opening of negotiations with Moscow - I repeat: negotiations, not an unconditional surrender of Ukraine - for Russophobia and the spirit of the Cold War painstakingly cultivated by the corrupt NATO generals and the opulent European Union bureaucrats, and the German mainstream media and political establishment fiercely reacted by completely removing the voice of the philosopher from the "public space"; that deceitful entity that was the object of long years of Habermasian reflection. Nothing has been heard from him since mid-February, condemned to ostracism for what is apparently an unforgivable sin: his soft criticism of the warmongering that has taken over the German government and is constantly fueled by the US government.

The foregoing has not been said to completely disqualify Habermas' attitude - much more dignified than that of a good part of the European “progressive” or left-wing intelligentsia, won by a nauseating "NATOism" - but to underline that in the prevailing rarefied ideological climate that Germany and most European countries are suffering from today makes a very cautious call for prudence and negotiation (as people as dissimilar as Noam Chomsky and Henry Kissinger have also been sponsoring) a criminal offense that deserves to be punished with ostracism. The "witch hunt" and censorship practiced without anesthesia against those who oppose the war and the crazy military escalation promoted by Washington are growing day by day and claiming more and more victims. Let us remember this teaching of history: within the framework of an increasingly fascistized capitalism, all dissent becomes an unforgivable heresy.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect Al Mayadeen’s editorial stance.
  • United States
  • Ukraine crisis
  • Iraq War
  • Russia
  • war on Iraq
  • US
  • Germany
  • Ukraine
  • Ukraine war
  • Jürgen Habermas
  • Gulf War
Atilio A. Boron

Atilio A. Boron

Sociologist, political scientist, and journalist.

Most Read

All
Declassified: CIA’s covert Ukraine invasion plan

Declassified: CIA’s covert Ukraine invasion plan

  • Opinion
  • 16 Aug 2025
Almost instantly after the Helsinki Accords were signed, organisations sprouted to document purported violations, whose findings were fed to overseas embassies for international amplification. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Zeinab el-Hajj)

How ‘Human Rights’ became a Western weapon

  • Opinion
  • 23 Aug 2025
Palestine will not be liberated by UN reports, but by pursuing a different strategic horizon: one that does not beg for recognition. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Batoul Chamas)

Economy of Genocide: Albanese's report accuses, but doesn't dismantle system

  • Opinion
  • 18 Aug 2025
Those in Occupied Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria – directly affected by Israeli occupation and apartheid – can claim their right to armed struggle under a series of UN resolutions. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Zeinab el-Hajj)

Resistance and regime change in occupied Palestine

  • Opinion
  • 17 Aug 2025

Coverage

All
War on Iran

More from this writer

All
Imperialism exists, and it will continue to generate pain and death everywhere, to destroy the environment, to wage wars, and to sow poverty everywhere. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Batoul Chamas)

Trump and his distant predecessor

Your government, President, is not only bad, irrational, and inefficient because it promotes neither economic growth nor income distribution. It is also immoral. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Ali al-Hadi Shmeiss)

Milei as a Marxist

The irreversible decline of Western supremacy, under the leadership of the United States, will not be a peaceful process. It would be naive to think so. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Zeinab El-Hajj)

The new multipolar world system and the end of an era

Still America first?

Still America first?

Al Mayadeen English

Al Mayadeen is an Arab Independent Media Satellite Channel.

All Rights Reserved

  • x
  • Privacy Policy
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Authors
Android
iOS