The Liberal Defence of Murder

by Seymour, Richard

• ISBN13: 9781844678617
• ISBN10: 184467861X
• Edition: 00
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-07-04
• Publisher: VERSO

Summary

A war that has killed more than a million Iraqis was a "humanitarian intervention", the US army is a force for liberation, and the main threat to world peace is posed by Islam. These are the arguments of a host of liberal commentators, including such notable names as Christopher Hitchens, Kanan Makiya, Michael Ignatieff, Paul Berman, and Bernard-Henri Lévy. In this critical intervention, Richard Seymour unearths the history of liberal justifications for empire, showing how savage policies of conquest-including genocide and slavery-have been retailed as charitable missions. From the Cold War to the War on Terror, Seymour argues that colonialist notions of "civilization" and "progress" still shape liberal pro-war discourse, concealing the same bloody realities. In a new afterword, Seymour revisits the debates on liberal imperialism in the era of Obama and in the light of the Afghan and Iraqi debacles.

Author Biography

Richard Seymour lives, works and writes in London. He runs the Lenin’s Tomb website, which comments on the War on Terror, Islamophobia and neoliberalism.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. ix
Prologue: September 11 and Kriegsideologie	p. 1
Forging Old Europe	p. 23
Creating an Imperial Constituency	p. 79
Neocons and Apostates	p. 119
A Courageous Retreat	p. 165
Conclusion: The Apotheosis of Humanitarian Barbarism	p. 217
Afterword to the Paperback Edition	p. 271
Notes	p. 299
Index	p. 385
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.