Frank Miller’s Geostrategic Theory
Lee on Dec 22 2008 at 10:28 am | Filed under: Culture, Foreign affairs, Military Matters
Frank Lovece sat down with Frank Miller for Newsday to discuss his upcoming film The Spirit. Toward the end of it Lovece asked Miller about remarks he’d made in 2007 in support of the Iraq War, and offered him an opportunity to clarify/retract. Miller was unapologetic:
Miller: When the U.S. was attacked at Pearl Harbor, we didn’t just declare war on Japan, we declared war on Germany. It was an international fascist effort. And so when I said that the attack on Iraq made sense, it was the same way we had to attack not just Afghanistan. Instead we had to attack the center of Islamofascism.
(Newsday)
Miller has previously cited the writings of Victor Davis Hanson as an influence on his political thought, and thus it’s unsurprising that the geostrategic aspects of the war would be a determinative factor in his views (less seriously, we might also observe that in his compositional art, negative spatial relationships come rather naturally to Miller as illustrator). Not that most opponents of the Iraq War reading the above remarks are typically conversant enough in the historical military geography of the region to understand what Miller’s driving at. Indeed, you can almost hear the protest foreshadowed by : “But Saddam didn’t order 9-11!”.
But Miller like Hanson, understands that to confront the jihad, one must deal with the political situation in the Middle East as a region. And the geographic heart of that region is and has always been Iraq, with her unobstructed land invasion routes to Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, and Turkey. She is little more than a long open border for every significant player in the drama. A vital possession, if you wish to affect the economic, military, political and even religious patterns of the region in some way, either physically or conceptually. So, good for Miller for stating these terms all the same. It’s a brave argument to make in the present environment.
As a supplemental note, in revealed that his “Holy Terror Batman!” graphic novel –which features the Dark Knight fighting Al Qaeda and other Islamic fundamentalists– is nearly complete. Given his previously critical social commentary on the United States –particularly the caustic anti-Americanism of Give Me Liberty (1992)– and the film version of 300 excluded, this book would likely be his first explicit political commentary as a neoconservative. It’ll be interesting to see how Hollywood cronfronts the project.
Sphere: Related Content15 Responses to “Frank Miller’s Geostrategic Theory”
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Miller needs to understand that there is a huge difference between attacking Germany and attacking Iraq. There was genocide occurring in Germany. We should never attack a country for what they believe in because frankly, by forcing democracy on them we are acting like dictators of the world. The only reasons for war should be if we were attacked or if there is a humanitarian crisis (i.e. the Halocaust.)
Miraj,
The holocaust had nothing at all to do with us declaring war on and attacking Germany.
[...] by the politics of its creator. Yet, Miller (who, though many don’t know it, is a pretty open neoconservative) seems to make it impossible for me to ignore as he transforms Eisner’s pragmatic optimism to [...]
The only reasons for war should be if we were attacked or if there is a humanitarian crisis (i.e. the Halocaust.)
Uh, Saddam had in fact caused multiple humanitarian crisis in Iraq and the region. However, besides that, we need to fight for other reasons. Consider the Cold War, where we chose to fight some battles (Korea, Vietnam, El Salvador) and not fight others (Hungary). In the end we won, by fighting the communists and putting as much pressure on them as we could.
Evil has to be fought, and sometimes we need to fight it even when we are not being attacked and genocide isn’t ongoing.
Ceding iniative to the bad guys is a plan–for failure.
The US declared war on both Japan and Germany because those countries were in a sworn alliance and a genuine military threat to Western democracies.
Saddam Hussein, as unpleasant as he was, was no more capable of threatening Western civilisation than Robert Mugabe or Fidel Castro, and had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11, Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida or the Taliban.
Oliver,
Germany couldn’t invade England, let alone become a serious threat to the US. Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor was essentially suicide, it was based upon the hope that the US lacked the will to fight–otherwise the essential logic of economics dictated sure defeat for Japan.
Germany and Japan were a more serious conventional military threat than Saddam’s Iraq, it is true, but just like Iraq, neither was capable of defeating the US.
Saddam’s Iraq was a rouge state in the center of the Middle East. Removing Saddam and replacing him with a democratic and sane government has the potential to stablize the region and transform Iraq from a potential terrorist sponser into an ally on the war on Islamic terror.
“a democratic and sane government has the potential to stablize the region”
“a potential terrorist sponser”
An equivocal NeoConservative?! What next — a vegetarian great white shark? A Tsavo maneater volunteering at a hospice?
PS: Learn to spell.
PPS: Saddam Hussein had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11, Osama bin Laden — who, incidentally, remains at liberty despite having personally ordered the murder of 3000 Americans — al-Qaida or the Taliban.
Frank Miller is the Ann Coulter of comics, a hateful, scaremongering hack who’s been on the slide since Hard Boiled in the early 90s.
Goodbye.
PPS: Saddam Hussein had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11, Osama bin Laden — who, incidentally, remains at liberty despite having personally ordered the murder of 3000 Americans — al-Qaida or the Taliban.
Yes, and so what. The problem we face with Islamic terrrorism isn’t limited to bin Laden and al Qaida. President Bush put in place a big picture approach to dealing with the problem.
At this point, bin Laden is essentially irrelevent. Islamic terror remains, and we must adopt a wider response than just a hunt for al Qaida.
What’s the left’s plan to deal with the problem? As far as I can tell, the left simply wants to play pretend.
Actually, Frank Lovece does understand the war in Iraq as well as anyone else who reads two to three newspapers a day and follows current events professionally as a journalist. And like the vast majority of Americans, I still do not believe we have the right to unilaterally topple a sovereign state whose religion and politics we don’t agree with. Ironically, I also don’t think the Bush administration believes that either, or it would not have made up falsehoods about weapons of mass destruction. If the administration truly beieved its actions were justifiable, there would have been no need to lie.
9/11 happened on my island — on my home. With no cell phone service, clogged-up landlines, and essentially no transportation, I had to ensure my kids were safe and gather them from their separate schools. Islamic fundamentalism and terror is no abstraction in my life, or the lives of my Manhattan neighbors. We follow it. And you’d be hard-pressed to find any of us who don’t oppose the war the Iraq, or who don’t feel bin Laden should have been the priority target, and not Saddam Hussein.
That said, hey … the fact I was able to cover as much ground as I did with Miller in the 17 minutes allotted was a feat in itself !
Couple of typos above. Forgive me … it’s 3:26 a.m.
After your first sentence: Wow, that was awfully presumptuous of me to have written.
After your second sentence: Fortunately I was entirely correct in the presumption.
After your third sentence: I was actually too charitable in it.
After your fourth sentence: Pressing submit in disgust.
Ah, yes. And that’s exactly the kind of reasoned, intelligent response I expected to get.
You know, Ann Coulter really isn’t a role model.
Good speaking with you.
One should never expect more in return than they’re prepared to give, Mr. Lovece. You can certainly come on here and post fatuous ideological bunk like “Bush lied”, or claim the vanity of “how dare you accuse me of not understanding what I clearly do not understand”. I won’t delete it. But what you cannot do Mr. Lovece, is then demand the charity of reason, after having so abused it yourself. That is offensive, and any reply will be curt and mocking, as it was and is.
Miller: When the U.S. was attacked at Pearl Harbor, we didn’t just declare war on Japan, we declared war on Germany.
It’s worth pointing out, particularly for purposes of comparison with OIF, that Germany declared war on the US three days after Pearl Harbor and prior to Roosevelt’s request for Congress to declare war on Germany in 1941.
Four days after Pearl Harbor, it was, actually.
That squared away, I’ll add that I saw the invasion of Iraq in 2003 as a plausible and morally justifiable step in the war against Islamic terrorists. It was by no means taken “unilaterally” by Bush over mere cultural and political disagreement. Nor did Bush advance lies as a means to justify it.