You've met the Fox News Democrats. Now meet the Wall Street Journal Democrats. Hint: sometimes they're the very same people. See if you can match them.
1. Senator Joe Lieberman, please step up:
It's time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be the commander in chief for three more critical years and that in matters of war we undermine presidential credibility at our nation's peril (November, 2005).
2. Marty Peretz, Editor in Chief, The New Republic:
We have been here before. Left-wing Democrats are once again fielding single-issue "peace candidates," and the one in Connecticut, like several in the 1970s, is a middle-aged patrician, seeking office de haut en bas, and almost entirely because he can. It's really quite remarkable how someone like Ned Lamont, from the stock of Morgan partner Thomas Lamont and that most high-born American Stalinist, Corliss Lamont, still sends a chill of "having arrived" up the spines of his suburban supporters simply by asking them to support him. Superficially, one may think of those who thought they were already middle class just by being enthusiasts of Franklin Roosevelt, who descended from the Hudson River Dutch aristocracy. But when FDR ran for, and was elected, president in 1932, he had already been a state senator, assistant secretary of the Navy and governor of New York. He had demonstrated abilities (August, 2006).
3. Lanny Davis, former Special Council to President Clinton, and former frat brother of President Bush, and currently serving on President Bush's "privacy board", along side Ted Olson, anti-Clinton lawyer extraordinaire:
My brief and unhappy experience with the hate and vitriol of bloggers on the liberal side of the aisle comes from the last several months I spent campaigning for a longtime friend, Joe Lieberman (August, 2006).
Meet the Wall Street Journal Democrats. Same as the Fox News Democrats.
Are you a Democrat who hates Democrats and democracy generally? Don't just do Fox News. The Wall Street Journal is soliciting essays for use as potential op-ed columns. Our rich, conservative Republican readership especially enjoys reading opinion pieces by Democrats criticizing other Democrats. Note: competitive entries must really savage other Democrats, especially close to election time.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Monday, August 07, 2006
Sharing the Despair
Bilmon has been getting some grief for what some feel is his overly-pessimistic tone, in posts like these for example. And I think Bilmon's wrong to downplay the impact a Democratic executive, a branch or two of Congress and Democratic appointments to the courts could have in at least helping to slow the march towards American theocracy and authoritarianism, at least for a time while we hope saner minds prevail.
But I have to admit I've been sharing the Whiskey Bar's mood these days. Take for example, Joe Lieberman, and his enablers in the press and pundit world. I've tried to downplay Lamont's prospects tomorrow, but even I'd forgotten just what a real cancer on the body politic Joe Lieberman is until I read these essays by Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone. And the truly sad thing is, Lieberman is probably not even the worst of the bunch. And maybe Lamont will prove no better over time, should he win tomorrow. As Bilmon points out, Lamont at the very least share's Lieberman's and the conventional U.S. view on the Lebanon-Israel conflict. So how different he'd be relative to the general level of silliness that's going on now concerning U.S. and the neocon's posturing towards Syria and Iran, and their defense of presidential signing statements and NSA wiretaps, etc, I don't know.
But along side of the problem presented by corruption and hypocrisy in Congress, it also seems to be the case that the fever pitch being worked up by neo conservative agitators in Washington and by their supporters in right-wing evangelical pulpits is, despite the abundance of counteracting evidence shining brightly from the Fiasco in Iraq, if anything only increasing.
And although I felt it necessary to slightly poo-pah Glenn Greenwald's essay on neo-conservatism and realignment a few weeks ago, basically everything that's gone on since then has only buttressed his view that a new alignment hinging on neo-conservative international politics is driving and shaping our national politics, subverting at least for a time, even the hot-button domestic issues like abortion, gay rights, etc that have been so prominent even throughout the first years of the Iraqi excapade.
Thus it has been highly ironic to hear from Joe Lieberman and his supporters the complaint that Democrats shouldn't oppose Lieberman based on his vote for the Iraq war. While this canard has been dispensed with by other commentators, I think Digby's post here on the nature of the opposition to Joe Lieberman probably captures it as well as any:
"This article lays out all the gripes that Connecticut, a liberal state, has against old Joe and it's quite an indictment. But what it comes down to is that he's always tried to have it both ways. He rhetorically reinforces all the destructive GOP memes, hedges his bets on important votes and even though (like most politicians) he generally votes with the party he's effectively working for the other side a good part of the time. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that being a member of the minority party in the Senate for most of his career means that he's had a lot of free votes that don't mean diddly.
Rhetoric, on the other hand, is one of the few powers a minority party has as it tries to persuade the country to come over to their side and put the opposition on the spot. Helping the majority make its case is one of the most destructive things Joe does. Democratic partisans have been complaining about it for years and so apparently have his constituents."
Lieberman and the DLC aside, though, I've actually been far less concerned about the saber rattling concerning Iran than seemingly many other commentators have. My reasoning has been that despite all the talk and apprehension about pre-emptive wars and one-percent doctrines, and bellicose threats from the likes of Newt Gingrish, Bill Kristol and Max Boot, the neo-conservative administration basically had one military-force card to play, and that was in Iraq. If the neo-cons really thought Iran was a serious threat, they could have continued with the containment of Iraq and mobilized for Iran instead (or North Korea). But they didn't.
In any event, Iran and North Korea are not countries that, it seems to me, are going to be persuaded or changed by air power alone--substantial ground forces would need to be committed for any plan to invade Iran, and I don't see that happening, since a draft would be needed to provide the forces for such a misadventure.
But now I'm not sure if there isn't more to worry about. More than a few evangelical leaders with mass followings--and contacts at the White House--are sounding apocalyptic warnings about Iran, and the general level of "debate" has been such that I wonder if there hasn't been a point of no return already crossed. In that case, some sort of military action, however limited to air attacks it might be, and however unsuccessful those attacks might be, would seem to be necessary to let off the steam being generated by the press and the president's party's fan base.
And of course, rising gas prices are probably not going to relieve the tension clouding the war talk either.
So, I'm not optimistic about the future, even if Democrats take one or both branches of Congress this fall. The mess that's already been created, the expectations that have been built up around the "global war on terrorism" and "world war III/IV/V" will need considerable political skill to navigate, and I'm not reassured that the Democratic leadership and intelligencia is equiped to handle it. Considering that some faux Democrats are more aligned with the Republican neo-cons than their reputed party, my lack of faith is even more understandable.
But I have to admit I've been sharing the Whiskey Bar's mood these days. Take for example, Joe Lieberman, and his enablers in the press and pundit world. I've tried to downplay Lamont's prospects tomorrow, but even I'd forgotten just what a real cancer on the body politic Joe Lieberman is until I read these essays by Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone. And the truly sad thing is, Lieberman is probably not even the worst of the bunch. And maybe Lamont will prove no better over time, should he win tomorrow. As Bilmon points out, Lamont at the very least share's Lieberman's and the conventional U.S. view on the Lebanon-Israel conflict. So how different he'd be relative to the general level of silliness that's going on now concerning U.S. and the neocon's posturing towards Syria and Iran, and their defense of presidential signing statements and NSA wiretaps, etc, I don't know.
But along side of the problem presented by corruption and hypocrisy in Congress, it also seems to be the case that the fever pitch being worked up by neo conservative agitators in Washington and by their supporters in right-wing evangelical pulpits is, despite the abundance of counteracting evidence shining brightly from the Fiasco in Iraq, if anything only increasing.
And although I felt it necessary to slightly poo-pah Glenn Greenwald's essay on neo-conservatism and realignment a few weeks ago, basically everything that's gone on since then has only buttressed his view that a new alignment hinging on neo-conservative international politics is driving and shaping our national politics, subverting at least for a time, even the hot-button domestic issues like abortion, gay rights, etc that have been so prominent even throughout the first years of the Iraqi excapade.
Thus it has been highly ironic to hear from Joe Lieberman and his supporters the complaint that Democrats shouldn't oppose Lieberman based on his vote for the Iraq war. While this canard has been dispensed with by other commentators, I think Digby's post here on the nature of the opposition to Joe Lieberman probably captures it as well as any:
"This article lays out all the gripes that Connecticut, a liberal state, has against old Joe and it's quite an indictment. But what it comes down to is that he's always tried to have it both ways. He rhetorically reinforces all the destructive GOP memes, hedges his bets on important votes and even though (like most politicians) he generally votes with the party he's effectively working for the other side a good part of the time. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that being a member of the minority party in the Senate for most of his career means that he's had a lot of free votes that don't mean diddly.
Rhetoric, on the other hand, is one of the few powers a minority party has as it tries to persuade the country to come over to their side and put the opposition on the spot. Helping the majority make its case is one of the most destructive things Joe does. Democratic partisans have been complaining about it for years and so apparently have his constituents."
Lieberman and the DLC aside, though, I've actually been far less concerned about the saber rattling concerning Iran than seemingly many other commentators have. My reasoning has been that despite all the talk and apprehension about pre-emptive wars and one-percent doctrines, and bellicose threats from the likes of Newt Gingrish, Bill Kristol and Max Boot, the neo-conservative administration basically had one military-force card to play, and that was in Iraq. If the neo-cons really thought Iran was a serious threat, they could have continued with the containment of Iraq and mobilized for Iran instead (or North Korea). But they didn't.
In any event, Iran and North Korea are not countries that, it seems to me, are going to be persuaded or changed by air power alone--substantial ground forces would need to be committed for any plan to invade Iran, and I don't see that happening, since a draft would be needed to provide the forces for such a misadventure.
But now I'm not sure if there isn't more to worry about. More than a few evangelical leaders with mass followings--and contacts at the White House--are sounding apocalyptic warnings about Iran, and the general level of "debate" has been such that I wonder if there hasn't been a point of no return already crossed. In that case, some sort of military action, however limited to air attacks it might be, and however unsuccessful those attacks might be, would seem to be necessary to let off the steam being generated by the press and the president's party's fan base.
And of course, rising gas prices are probably not going to relieve the tension clouding the war talk either.
So, I'm not optimistic about the future, even if Democrats take one or both branches of Congress this fall. The mess that's already been created, the expectations that have been built up around the "global war on terrorism" and "world war III/IV/V" will need considerable political skill to navigate, and I'm not reassured that the Democratic leadership and intelligencia is equiped to handle it. Considering that some faux Democrats are more aligned with the Republican neo-cons than their reputed party, my lack of faith is even more understandable.
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Amateur Hour
Does anybody know what's going on here?
Or here?
If you do, please send your resume to the White House.
The situation in the Levant, in particular, is especially disturbing and just flat out bizarre. CNN recently reported on new attacks in the south of Beirut in areas the reporter believed had not been forewarned with leaflets from the IAF and in which no Hezbollah institutions appear to reside. The Israeli attacks would be almost cartoonish if not for the misery and devastation they're causing. The Israeli air attacks remind me of one of those Bugs Bunny skits where Yosemite Sam or Wiley Coyote is coming up with all the Acme weapons of mass destruction to pound Bugs with but inevitably only ends up blowing himself up. Or someone trying to kill a fly in the house with a baseball bat.
I really don't get it. Neither apparently do Bilmon or The Belgravia Dispatch, a thoughtful conservative who's urging Rumseld be fired and replaced with Richard Armitage.
Or here?
If you do, please send your resume to the White House.
The situation in the Levant, in particular, is especially disturbing and just flat out bizarre. CNN recently reported on new attacks in the south of Beirut in areas the reporter believed had not been forewarned with leaflets from the IAF and in which no Hezbollah institutions appear to reside. The Israeli attacks would be almost cartoonish if not for the misery and devastation they're causing. The Israeli air attacks remind me of one of those Bugs Bunny skits where Yosemite Sam or Wiley Coyote is coming up with all the Acme weapons of mass destruction to pound Bugs with but inevitably only ends up blowing himself up. Or someone trying to kill a fly in the house with a baseball bat.
I really don't get it. Neither apparently do Bilmon or The Belgravia Dispatch, a thoughtful conservative who's urging Rumseld be fired and replaced with Richard Armitage.
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Cuba, Castro, and Democracy Now!
I usually enjoy Amy Goodman's Democracy Now! newscasts. Locally, Democracy Now! airs at 8 am and 6 pm on WPFW 89.3. It's an important, alternative source of news in this age of conglomerized, cookie cutter, big business media. Some of the stuff on Democracy Now can be a bit obscure, but in a way that's the point--focusing on individual cases of government abuse in far away lands that aren't named Aruba. They give more attention to Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky than I think is necessary or useful, but other than that, I generally appreciate the show's commentary and that of their guests.
But this morning was just beyond the pale. They had a report concerning Fidel Castro, who's been in the news these last few days because of his health.
The report started off describing "President Castro's" condition and (temporary) transference of power to his brother. Goodman continually refers to the "president of Cuba" and "President Castro", seeming to forget that Castro is dictator, a term Goodman readily ascribes to Castro's predecessor, Batista, who was overthrown by Castro's forces (including Che Guevara) in 1959. Castro has never been elected or stood for re-election. Nor does he apparently take criticism, much less official challenges, very well.
The show was slated to have the "President of the Cuban National Assembly" on, as if this body was a real legislative actor in Cuba, as well as an interview with Peter Bourne, the author of an apparently sympathetic biography of Castro, and a clip from what sounds like a hagiographic movie: Fidel: The Untold Story. Here's the transcript of the movie, and here's the transcript of the interview with the "President of the Cuban National Assembly".
This is just terrible stuff. Yes, talking to someone in Cuba, particularly someone presumably among it's "leadership" is important and unique, but to act as if Cuba's government is just some oppressed, legitimate governing democracy is just nuts. You don't have to favor the almost 50 year U.S. policy of exclusion and embargo. I certainly don't. I'd like to see the embargo ended, it's not a rational or humane policy; it's just pandering to a very small slice of the electorate. And given that short-sighted, prejudiced policy, I wouldn't be surprised that Cuban officials, and probably much of the country's people don't like the U.S. much.
But from what we know of Cuba, the government is a one-man autocracy where information is tightly controlled and state run, there is no self criticism of the government or its dictator, and in which there are no meaningful elections and no political rights; dissidents are imprisoned or worse. That Goodman and Gonzalez (her cohost) didn't feel obliged to confront a representative from Cuba's repressive government on these matters is appalling. That Goodman would also use the interview to give Alarcon (the president of the national assembly) a platform to criticize U.S. actions (or lack thereof in Lebanon) is similarly ridiculous.
Democracy Now! has an admirable record of supporting freedom and democracy across the globe, and speaking on behalf of oppressed minorities, but on Cuba they seem to be either silent or outright supportive of a repressive, albeit left-wing, dictatorship. Right wingers deserve scorn for simultaneously demanding that the nation fight for "freedom and democracy" in the Middle East and against Communist countries while lovingly appeasing right wing dictatorships. But we on the "left" don't need to mimic the right wing's hypocrisies by giving left wing dictators a pass.
But this morning was just beyond the pale. They had a report concerning Fidel Castro, who's been in the news these last few days because of his health.
The report started off describing "President Castro's" condition and (temporary) transference of power to his brother. Goodman continually refers to the "president of Cuba" and "President Castro", seeming to forget that Castro is dictator, a term Goodman readily ascribes to Castro's predecessor, Batista, who was overthrown by Castro's forces (including Che Guevara) in 1959. Castro has never been elected or stood for re-election. Nor does he apparently take criticism, much less official challenges, very well.
The show was slated to have the "President of the Cuban National Assembly" on, as if this body was a real legislative actor in Cuba, as well as an interview with Peter Bourne, the author of an apparently sympathetic biography of Castro, and a clip from what sounds like a hagiographic movie: Fidel: The Untold Story. Here's the transcript of the movie, and here's the transcript of the interview with the "President of the Cuban National Assembly".
This is just terrible stuff. Yes, talking to someone in Cuba, particularly someone presumably among it's "leadership" is important and unique, but to act as if Cuba's government is just some oppressed, legitimate governing democracy is just nuts. You don't have to favor the almost 50 year U.S. policy of exclusion and embargo. I certainly don't. I'd like to see the embargo ended, it's not a rational or humane policy; it's just pandering to a very small slice of the electorate. And given that short-sighted, prejudiced policy, I wouldn't be surprised that Cuban officials, and probably much of the country's people don't like the U.S. much.
But from what we know of Cuba, the government is a one-man autocracy where information is tightly controlled and state run, there is no self criticism of the government or its dictator, and in which there are no meaningful elections and no political rights; dissidents are imprisoned or worse. That Goodman and Gonzalez (her cohost) didn't feel obliged to confront a representative from Cuba's repressive government on these matters is appalling. That Goodman would also use the interview to give Alarcon (the president of the national assembly) a platform to criticize U.S. actions (or lack thereof in Lebanon) is similarly ridiculous.
Democracy Now! has an admirable record of supporting freedom and democracy across the globe, and speaking on behalf of oppressed minorities, but on Cuba they seem to be either silent or outright supportive of a repressive, albeit left-wing, dictatorship. Right wingers deserve scorn for simultaneously demanding that the nation fight for "freedom and democracy" in the Middle East and against Communist countries while lovingly appeasing right wing dictatorships. But we on the "left" don't need to mimic the right wing's hypocrisies by giving left wing dictators a pass.
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Sunday, Bloody Sunday
From CNN:
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Sunday again demanded an immediate halt to violence between Israel and Hezbollah, condemning an Israeli airstrike that killed more than 50 people.
He told the Security Council he was "deeply dismayed" that his previous calls for a cease-fire had gone unheeded.
At an emergency meeting of the council called to address the killings, Annan said the region was growing impatient that U.N.'s most powerful body had yet to issue any meaningful response after three weeks of war in Lebanon.
"We meet at a moment of extreme gravity first and foremost for the people of the Middle East, but also for the authority of this organization and especially this council," Annan told reporters before heading into the meeting.
"Action is needed now before many more children, women and men become casualties of a conflict over which they have no control."
Annan told reporters during a news conference that the 15 members "are aware that if we don't handle it right, it could lead to further escalation and could spread."
Qatar later circulated a draft statement on behalf of Arab nations meant to address Annan's concerns.
It would call for an immediate cease-fire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon and condemn the "loss of civilian lives in the town of Qana due to the deliberate targeting" by Israel. It would also seek an international investigation "into the Israeli massacre."
Yet the sharply worded draft had virtually no chance of being accepted by the full council for the same reason that the council has been able to do little up until now.
The United States has so far refused to back Annan's call for a cease-fire, and U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said the United States does not want any condemnation of the attack.
He repeated the American insistence that any statement must address what the U.S. says is the root cause of the conflict -- Hezbollah's continued grip on southern Lebanon and its attacks on Israel.
(snip)
In the three weeks since fighting began, the Security Council's only response has been a weak statement expressing shock and distress at Israel's bombing of a U.N. post on the Lebanon border Tuesday that killed four unarmed military observers.
The Unite States, Israel's chief ally, is primarily responsible because of its refusal to agree to seek a cease-fire.
In unusually frank terms, Annan said the council risked undermining its own authority if it does not do something.
The concern was underscored by attacks on the U.N. headquarters in Beirut earlier Sunday, when protesters angry about the Qana attack smashed windows and hurled stones, he said.
"People have noticed its failure to act firmly and quickly during this crisis," Annan said. "I am deeply dismayed that my earlier calls for the immediate cessation of hostilities were not heeded, with the result that innocent life continues to be taken and innocent civilians continue to suffer."
Lebanese special envoy Nouhad Mahoud echoed those complaints.
"Israel is committing atrocities against humanity," Mahoud said. "The fact that such massacres are yet ... to be taken up by resolutions of this august council, condemning an Israeli airstrike that killed at least 54 people . . . does not mean that the truth is to remain hidden."
UN authority? Hmmm. When have we heard that before? Oh yeah:
The conduct of the Iraqi regime is a threat to the authority of the United Nations, and a threat to peace. Iraq has answered a decade of U.N. demands with a decade of defiance. All the world now faces a test, and the United Nations a difficult and defining moment. Are Security Council resolutions to be honored and enforced, or cast aside without consequence? Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding, or will it be irrelevant?
The United States helped found the United Nations. We want the United Nations to be effective, and respectful, and successful. We want the resolutions of the world's most important multilateral body to be enforced. And right now those resolutions are being unilaterally subverted by the Iraqi regime. Our partnership of nations can meet the test before us, by making clear what we now expect of the Iraqi regime.
UN authority good. Glad we have that straight.
Meanwhile, before you think disarming Hezbollah is a necessary and sufficient condition of a cease-fire, read Matt.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Sunday again demanded an immediate halt to violence between Israel and Hezbollah, condemning an Israeli airstrike that killed more than 50 people.
He told the Security Council he was "deeply dismayed" that his previous calls for a cease-fire had gone unheeded.
At an emergency meeting of the council called to address the killings, Annan said the region was growing impatient that U.N.'s most powerful body had yet to issue any meaningful response after three weeks of war in Lebanon.
"We meet at a moment of extreme gravity first and foremost for the people of the Middle East, but also for the authority of this organization and especially this council," Annan told reporters before heading into the meeting.
"Action is needed now before many more children, women and men become casualties of a conflict over which they have no control."
Annan told reporters during a news conference that the 15 members "are aware that if we don't handle it right, it could lead to further escalation and could spread."
Qatar later circulated a draft statement on behalf of Arab nations meant to address Annan's concerns.
It would call for an immediate cease-fire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon and condemn the "loss of civilian lives in the town of Qana due to the deliberate targeting" by Israel. It would also seek an international investigation "into the Israeli massacre."
Yet the sharply worded draft had virtually no chance of being accepted by the full council for the same reason that the council has been able to do little up until now.
The United States has so far refused to back Annan's call for a cease-fire, and U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said the United States does not want any condemnation of the attack.
He repeated the American insistence that any statement must address what the U.S. says is the root cause of the conflict -- Hezbollah's continued grip on southern Lebanon and its attacks on Israel.
(snip)
In the three weeks since fighting began, the Security Council's only response has been a weak statement expressing shock and distress at Israel's bombing of a U.N. post on the Lebanon border Tuesday that killed four unarmed military observers.
The Unite States, Israel's chief ally, is primarily responsible because of its refusal to agree to seek a cease-fire.
In unusually frank terms, Annan said the council risked undermining its own authority if it does not do something.
The concern was underscored by attacks on the U.N. headquarters in Beirut earlier Sunday, when protesters angry about the Qana attack smashed windows and hurled stones, he said.
"People have noticed its failure to act firmly and quickly during this crisis," Annan said. "I am deeply dismayed that my earlier calls for the immediate cessation of hostilities were not heeded, with the result that innocent life continues to be taken and innocent civilians continue to suffer."
Lebanese special envoy Nouhad Mahoud echoed those complaints.
"Israel is committing atrocities against humanity," Mahoud said. "The fact that such massacres are yet ... to be taken up by resolutions of this august council, condemning an Israeli airstrike that killed at least 54 people . . . does not mean that the truth is to remain hidden."
UN authority? Hmmm. When have we heard that before? Oh yeah:
The conduct of the Iraqi regime is a threat to the authority of the United Nations, and a threat to peace. Iraq has answered a decade of U.N. demands with a decade of defiance. All the world now faces a test, and the United Nations a difficult and defining moment. Are Security Council resolutions to be honored and enforced, or cast aside without consequence? Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding, or will it be irrelevant?
The United States helped found the United Nations. We want the United Nations to be effective, and respectful, and successful. We want the resolutions of the world's most important multilateral body to be enforced. And right now those resolutions are being unilaterally subverted by the Iraqi regime. Our partnership of nations can meet the test before us, by making clear what we now expect of the Iraqi regime.
UN authority good. Glad we have that straight.
Meanwhile, before you think disarming Hezbollah is a necessary and sufficient condition of a cease-fire, read Matt.
A Voice in the Wilderness
From today's NYT.
Although I disagree with conservative evangelicals over most of these issues, the morally relativistic militarism and rabid nationalism is perhaps the most disturbing of these items. I appreciate this pastor's courage. There's a lot of pressure on pastors to build their memberships, which in turn, is an incentive to pander to conservative ideologues. But as this article shows, not all of the flock are Republicans and at least some appear tired of conservative bullying.
Although I disagree with conservative evangelicals over most of these issues, the morally relativistic militarism and rabid nationalism is perhaps the most disturbing of these items. I appreciate this pastor's courage. There's a lot of pressure on pastors to build their memberships, which in turn, is an incentive to pander to conservative ideologues. But as this article shows, not all of the flock are Republicans and at least some appear tired of conservative bullying.
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Late Bloomer
I've always been a bit of a late bloomer, missing the trendy trends, getting all geeky interested in something just as the public turns to something more exciting.
Take the Iraq war. I tried to read Cobra II, and did manage to get through the first 100 pages or so, but until recently, I'd stayed away from books about the war and the administration's foreign policy. Then I read The One Percent Doctrine and State of War. This week I began reading The Assassin's Gate, and although I probably won't get to it for at least another week, I also picked up Fiasco today.
But as it turns out, just as I'm finally getting around to reading about The War to Save American Civilization, Glenn Greenwald is noticing that The War That Was Once So Very Very Important, Even to the Point of Ostracizing, Threatening, and Terrorizing American Opponents of America's Holy War In Mesopotamia is getting about as much coverage now as a National Hockey League playoff series:
"And having insisted for years that the fate of the free world and American security hangs in the balance in Iraq, they now just want to forget about the whole thing, pretend it never happened, and shut their eyes to the disaster they created and which they so plainly cannot control.
It isn't just that our occupation of this imploding country is being ignored by the media. What is so striking is the way which Iraq is now being talked about. It is purely surreal how the primary challenge to Sen. Lieberman is described -- in a way that is intended to be dismissive, to belittle it -- as all stemming from just one little, tiny disagreement: Iraq. Gosh, Sen. Lieberman is such a great Senator -- he votes the right way on the environment and everything -- and all he did was make one little mistake -- Iraq -- and now everyone is turning on him. That is so irrational and mean and unfair.
It is the proponents of this invasion who have insisted that Iraq is the centerpiece of American national security, that it is the primary front in the war on terror, that failure is not an option, etc. etc. They used their militaristic posture in Iraq -- and the "appeasing weakness" of opponents of the invasion -- to win two consecutive national elections. And now that the extent of the damage they created is too glaring to be denied, they want to walk away from it all, insist that it's unfair to hold them accountable for it, and hope that the media moves on to more interesting and exciting adventures than the plodding, depressing collapse of Iraq."
As we say around these here Internets, read the whole thing.
Actually I'd been noticing this trend for awhile, most of all from the neo-cons themselves, bored with the shockless follow-through to the Shock and Awe of March 2003. The neo-cons had some time ago turned aside from Iraq towards Iran and Syria. The Iraq war was boring them. What was next?
But the conflict in Lebanon has both enabled a shift of attention away from Iraq while affirming the neo-con's new Iran-Syria mission. Mindful of this change in national priorities and popular obsession, I also picked up a book on Iran, just to stay ahead of the curve.
Take the Iraq war. I tried to read Cobra II, and did manage to get through the first 100 pages or so, but until recently, I'd stayed away from books about the war and the administration's foreign policy. Then I read The One Percent Doctrine and State of War. This week I began reading The Assassin's Gate, and although I probably won't get to it for at least another week, I also picked up Fiasco today.
But as it turns out, just as I'm finally getting around to reading about The War to Save American Civilization, Glenn Greenwald is noticing that The War That Was Once So Very Very Important, Even to the Point of Ostracizing, Threatening, and Terrorizing American Opponents of America's Holy War In Mesopotamia is getting about as much coverage now as a National Hockey League playoff series:
"And having insisted for years that the fate of the free world and American security hangs in the balance in Iraq, they now just want to forget about the whole thing, pretend it never happened, and shut their eyes to the disaster they created and which they so plainly cannot control.
It isn't just that our occupation of this imploding country is being ignored by the media. What is so striking is the way which Iraq is now being talked about. It is purely surreal how the primary challenge to Sen. Lieberman is described -- in a way that is intended to be dismissive, to belittle it -- as all stemming from just one little, tiny disagreement: Iraq. Gosh, Sen. Lieberman is such a great Senator -- he votes the right way on the environment and everything -- and all he did was make one little mistake -- Iraq -- and now everyone is turning on him. That is so irrational and mean and unfair.
It is the proponents of this invasion who have insisted that Iraq is the centerpiece of American national security, that it is the primary front in the war on terror, that failure is not an option, etc. etc. They used their militaristic posture in Iraq -- and the "appeasing weakness" of opponents of the invasion -- to win two consecutive national elections. And now that the extent of the damage they created is too glaring to be denied, they want to walk away from it all, insist that it's unfair to hold them accountable for it, and hope that the media moves on to more interesting and exciting adventures than the plodding, depressing collapse of Iraq."
As we say around these here Internets, read the whole thing.
Actually I'd been noticing this trend for awhile, most of all from the neo-cons themselves, bored with the shockless follow-through to the Shock and Awe of March 2003. The neo-cons had some time ago turned aside from Iraq towards Iran and Syria. The Iraq war was boring them. What was next?
But the conflict in Lebanon has both enabled a shift of attention away from Iraq while affirming the neo-con's new Iran-Syria mission. Mindful of this change in national priorities and popular obsession, I also picked up a book on Iran, just to stay ahead of the curve.
Friday, July 28, 2006
We're All Defeatists Now
Billmon very rightly gives David Frum the business for now recognizing the Fiasco in Iraq due to internal opposition and external support for insurgents, both factors Frum, Perle and others sought to dismiss prior to the invasion.
But there was another aspect of Frum's NRO post that bears further attention.
To take back the capital from the militias that now terrorize it will take thousands, not hundreds, of American plus tens of thousands of Iraqis. No sector in Iraq can spare the loss of so many forces (our current troubles in Anbar date back to the decision in 2004 to shift troops from Anbar to the siege of Fallujah - when they returned, they discovered that every pro-US informant and ally in the province had been murdered, usually horribly and publicly). So a real plan for success in Baghdad will have to be built upon additional troops from out of area, potentially raising US troop levels back up to the 150,000 or so of late 2005.
Manifestly, neither the administration nor the Congress will contemplate such a move.
(snip)
Averting such a fate means fighting to win Baghdad. But if the president decides against such a fight - either because it would be too bloody or too politically costly or even because he doubts that the US can ultimately succeed - then we need a backup plan.
(snip)
This is not, as some American commentators argue, because the Iraqis refuse to fight for their country. Thousands of brave Iraqis, civil and military, have laid down their lives fighting or working for a secure and democratic Iraq. But Iraq has powerful enemies, inside and out. To date, the US has fought only a limited war against those enemies. Iran understands that the war in Iraq is a regional war. Syria understands it too. Only the US has tried to pretend that the war zone stops at the international border.
(snip)
As I said, we may need a backup plan.
(snip)
It's a second best. First best is to win. But that will take more commitment than the administration was prepared to offer yesterday. If we forfeit the best outcome, and refuse to plan for * second best *, we stand in very grave danger of ending up with the worst.
The gist of Frum's column is that the U.S. has not committed to go all out, to wage war unleashed. Since the U.S., both its president and worst of all, its feckless masses, have no stomach for real war, we'll have to settle for second best; Frum is posing as the conservative of conscience making for posterity's purpose a statement asserting we're only losing because of the great lack of Will. Of course this "fighting the war with one arm tied behind our backs" refrain on the part of conservatives isn't unique or new. You can find much of the same talk in Ralph Peters' and Shelby Steele's laments about not sufficiently exterminating the enemy.
And in a sense I think these conservatives are right, at least about one thing that's gone ignored in the neo-con utopian nightmare these last few years: war is messy, nasty business and should only be fought if one is willing to commit genocide, sparing neither man, woman, child, aged or animal. There's another type of war, a war of very specific, limited aims, and likewise conducted with brute, efficient and terrifying force--the type of war believed in by former Secretary Powell and most other realists.
But the neo-con vision and the Bush presumption was that neither type of war was needed in Iraq and neither paradigm accurately reflected American ability and Iraqi hopes for liberation. The war would be short, successful and received gladly by the country's oppressed masses. Collateral damage would be minimal. And in the war's early days, there was much to support this expectation.
But the ethnic and religious fissures that many critics of the war warned about prior to the invasion soon came to the fore, as did a predictable lawlessness and chaos as the American forces, lacking anything like a post-war plan, failed to secure the peace.
With three years of escalating violence and instability, some conservatives are falling back on the argument that if we had only really sacked the country and completely destroyed it would the war have been successfull, seemingly forgetting the liberating aspirations war was supposed to bring for the country's inhabitants. Some of these conservatives are cranky now either because they think America is being dishonored by the quagmire or because they want to move onto other, better wars.
Of course, other conservatives, as I've suggested, might not be at all displeased by the course of events in Iraq. Just the birth pang of a new Middle East, just the sort of creative chaos needed to ensure American hegemony.
But there was another aspect of Frum's NRO post that bears further attention.
To take back the capital from the militias that now terrorize it will take thousands, not hundreds, of American plus tens of thousands of Iraqis. No sector in Iraq can spare the loss of so many forces (our current troubles in Anbar date back to the decision in 2004 to shift troops from Anbar to the siege of Fallujah - when they returned, they discovered that every pro-US informant and ally in the province had been murdered, usually horribly and publicly). So a real plan for success in Baghdad will have to be built upon additional troops from out of area, potentially raising US troop levels back up to the 150,000 or so of late 2005.
Manifestly, neither the administration nor the Congress will contemplate such a move.
(snip)
Averting such a fate means fighting to win Baghdad. But if the president decides against such a fight - either because it would be too bloody or too politically costly or even because he doubts that the US can ultimately succeed - then we need a backup plan.
(snip)
This is not, as some American commentators argue, because the Iraqis refuse to fight for their country. Thousands of brave Iraqis, civil and military, have laid down their lives fighting or working for a secure and democratic Iraq. But Iraq has powerful enemies, inside and out. To date, the US has fought only a limited war against those enemies. Iran understands that the war in Iraq is a regional war. Syria understands it too. Only the US has tried to pretend that the war zone stops at the international border.
(snip)
As I said, we may need a backup plan.
(snip)
It's a second best. First best is to win. But that will take more commitment than the administration was prepared to offer yesterday. If we forfeit the best outcome, and refuse to plan for * second best *, we stand in very grave danger of ending up with the worst.
The gist of Frum's column is that the U.S. has not committed to go all out, to wage war unleashed. Since the U.S., both its president and worst of all, its feckless masses, have no stomach for real war, we'll have to settle for second best; Frum is posing as the conservative of conscience making for posterity's purpose a statement asserting we're only losing because of the great lack of Will. Of course this "fighting the war with one arm tied behind our backs" refrain on the part of conservatives isn't unique or new. You can find much of the same talk in Ralph Peters' and Shelby Steele's laments about not sufficiently exterminating the enemy.
And in a sense I think these conservatives are right, at least about one thing that's gone ignored in the neo-con utopian nightmare these last few years: war is messy, nasty business and should only be fought if one is willing to commit genocide, sparing neither man, woman, child, aged or animal. There's another type of war, a war of very specific, limited aims, and likewise conducted with brute, efficient and terrifying force--the type of war believed in by former Secretary Powell and most other realists.
But the neo-con vision and the Bush presumption was that neither type of war was needed in Iraq and neither paradigm accurately reflected American ability and Iraqi hopes for liberation. The war would be short, successful and received gladly by the country's oppressed masses. Collateral damage would be minimal. And in the war's early days, there was much to support this expectation.
But the ethnic and religious fissures that many critics of the war warned about prior to the invasion soon came to the fore, as did a predictable lawlessness and chaos as the American forces, lacking anything like a post-war plan, failed to secure the peace.
With three years of escalating violence and instability, some conservatives are falling back on the argument that if we had only really sacked the country and completely destroyed it would the war have been successfull, seemingly forgetting the liberating aspirations war was supposed to bring for the country's inhabitants. Some of these conservatives are cranky now either because they think America is being dishonored by the quagmire or because they want to move onto other, better wars.
Of course, other conservatives, as I've suggested, might not be at all displeased by the course of events in Iraq. Just the birth pang of a new Middle East, just the sort of creative chaos needed to ensure American hegemony.
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Time for another "Truth Tour"
Hey, I know they canceled that gal's trip to Israel, but isn't it time to send these guys back to Baghdad?
Not a Good Sign
From Steve Gilliard:
Israeli troops wave captured Hezbollah and Lebanese national flags as they cross the border into Lebanon Thursday July 27, 2006.
Considering this war/skirmish/conflict was supposed to be just about Hezbollah, the waving of a captured Lebanonese flag doesn't strike me as useful, appropriate, or good PR across the Arab world.
"The Israeli official line is that they are only fighting Hizbullah and that the huge number of civilian casualties is an accident. But why are they bombing the regular Lebanese army north of Beirut if their real enemy is Hizbullah, a southern Shiite paramilitary? Why are they bombing radio relay stations?
Note that the only way this conflict can end is for the Lebanese state to be strengthened so that it has a hope of dealing with Hizbullah. Uh, these actions are not, like, strengthening the Lebanese state."
From the start it was obvious that Israel's stated claim to be waging war on Hezbollah, and only on Hezbollah, and the West's adjunct claim that appearances to the contrary, supporting Israel's bombing of Beirut was actually good for Lebanon and in the service and for the benefit of that country's budding Cedar Revolution was fiction.
But as the conflict expands to officially welcome in opposition to the Lebanese army and the Lebanese government, not to mention the resurrecting of Al Qaeda, who also wants a place at the table, and add to this toxic stew the rantings and fervor of people like this, it's hard to say or see how this gets resolved in some rational, peaceful manner.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Nice UN Observation Post You Have There
--Be a shame if something happened to it.
After the IDF bombed a clearly marked UN observer post, killing four of its personnel, you might be forgiven for agreeing with Kofi Annan that Israel either has lousy aim, lacks adequate military intelligence, or targeted the observation post deliberately.
But have no fear, two of our U.S. Senators were already briefed with the applicable talking points (from Larry King Live):
KING: We'll start with Senator Allen, what do you make about these two observers killed and the apparent anger of Kofi Annan toward Israel?
SEN. GEORGE ALLEN (R), VIRGINIA: Well, it's unfortunate. I don't think that Israel wants to hit the U.N. What they're trying to hit is Hezbollah. They're trying to degrade them, pound them, and make sure that they're not attacking and they're protecting themselves.
So, I'm sure they'll find out what happened. But Israel has a right to defend itself and now they have these latest threats that they're going to be launching missiles further into Israel.Kofi Annan's statements I think are unduly harsh. It would be nice if the United Nations actually showed such resolve and anger and determination in actually enforcing Security Council Resolution 1559, which has as its purpose the removal of Hezbollah or disarming the militias along the Israeli-Lebanon border.
KING: Senator Bayh, is this then, do you consider this a casualty of war?
SEN. EVAN BAYH (D), INDIANA: Unfortunately so, Larry. I simply don't believe that the Israelis would intentionally kill U.N. observers. I'd be interested to know what Mr. Annan, what facts he has at his disposal that lead him to that assertion but until I see such facts I simply don't believe it.
And, I think George was right. We have to remember who was responsible for this. It was the Hezbollah that attacked across an internationally recognized boundary, killed soldiers, took others captive.
All this violence and tragedy flows from that act, so we have to focus on bringing Hezbollah under control, disarming them, getting a force in there that can keep them from reconstituting themselves. And then ultimately, Larry, we have to look at Iran because they're in the background of all of this. And, I think Kofi Annan would be better advised to focus upon the role that Iran has played and just think how bad things would be if Iran had nuclear weapons right now. So, this is a tragedy but we got to remember who's really to blame.
"Israel has a right to defend itself..."
"U.N. Resolution 1559"
"Hezbollah...terrorists..."
"Iran...Syria"
"Islamic fascism..."
"terrorists..."
"Iran...nuclear..."
"1559"
"UN-bad"
"Israel-good"
"Syria"
"terrorists"
rinse and repeat.
Juan Cole suggests a reason why the IDF might have "accidently" targeted the UN observers:
"The Israelis denied that they hit the base deliberately, but Kofi would know. Why do it? When you have in mind war crimes, it is better not to have neutral observers in the region."
The "accidental" bombing of the UN observation post also sounds eerily familiar to this.
Glenn Greenwald is more cautious than I am in accepting Annan's "apparently deliberate" claim:
"(5) Oddly, the very pro-Israel New York Sun says that the Israel-U.N. incident "could prove a turning point in Israel's war to rid its northern border of Hezbollah." I don't see why that would be the case. Almost every war has incidents of this sort. The U.S. bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, killed a group of Canadian troops in Afghanistan in an F-16 strike, and shot missiles at media offices in Baghdad. Incidents of this type are not uncommon.
Additionally, it was somewhat surprising that Kofi Annan would so quickly and impulsively make such serious accusations against Israel -- namely, that the bombing of the U.N. observation post was "deliberate," rather than accidental. That may well be the case, but it may very well not be, and it is hard to see how Annan could know that already."
On a 2008 note, I'm a little distressed to hear Evan Bayh employing the same saber-rattling on Iran as the administration and its neo-con supporters. I don't know if his stand here is based on a genuine fear of Iran's capabilities and intentions, or if he's posturing for a national campaign, or both. Of course, it's often the case that candidates and prospective candidates sound more alarmist or beligerent before entering office. Bill Clinton, for instance, campaigned against the first President Bush's "soft on China" policy but ultimately adopted much of the same policy once in office; the current President Bush likewise criticized his predecessor's "nation-building" efforts while going on to become among the most nation-building of presidents in Iraq.
But a harsh stance towards Iran could come back to bite Bayh, and other Democratic contenders, if they ultimately are not prepared to put up or shut up when it comes to exercising force against Tehran.
After the IDF bombed a clearly marked UN observer post, killing four of its personnel, you might be forgiven for agreeing with Kofi Annan that Israel either has lousy aim, lacks adequate military intelligence, or targeted the observation post deliberately.
But have no fear, two of our U.S. Senators were already briefed with the applicable talking points (from Larry King Live):
KING: We'll start with Senator Allen, what do you make about these two observers killed and the apparent anger of Kofi Annan toward Israel?
SEN. GEORGE ALLEN (R), VIRGINIA: Well, it's unfortunate. I don't think that Israel wants to hit the U.N. What they're trying to hit is Hezbollah. They're trying to degrade them, pound them, and make sure that they're not attacking and they're protecting themselves.
So, I'm sure they'll find out what happened. But Israel has a right to defend itself and now they have these latest threats that they're going to be launching missiles further into Israel.Kofi Annan's statements I think are unduly harsh. It would be nice if the United Nations actually showed such resolve and anger and determination in actually enforcing Security Council Resolution 1559, which has as its purpose the removal of Hezbollah or disarming the militias along the Israeli-Lebanon border.
KING: Senator Bayh, is this then, do you consider this a casualty of war?
SEN. EVAN BAYH (D), INDIANA: Unfortunately so, Larry. I simply don't believe that the Israelis would intentionally kill U.N. observers. I'd be interested to know what Mr. Annan, what facts he has at his disposal that lead him to that assertion but until I see such facts I simply don't believe it.
And, I think George was right. We have to remember who was responsible for this. It was the Hezbollah that attacked across an internationally recognized boundary, killed soldiers, took others captive.
All this violence and tragedy flows from that act, so we have to focus on bringing Hezbollah under control, disarming them, getting a force in there that can keep them from reconstituting themselves. And then ultimately, Larry, we have to look at Iran because they're in the background of all of this. And, I think Kofi Annan would be better advised to focus upon the role that Iran has played and just think how bad things would be if Iran had nuclear weapons right now. So, this is a tragedy but we got to remember who's really to blame.
"Israel has a right to defend itself..."
"U.N. Resolution 1559"
"Hezbollah...terrorists..."
"Iran...Syria"
"Islamic fascism..."
"terrorists..."
"Iran...nuclear..."
"1559"
"UN-bad"
"Israel-good"
"Syria"
"terrorists"
rinse and repeat.
Juan Cole suggests a reason why the IDF might have "accidently" targeted the UN observers:
"The Israelis denied that they hit the base deliberately, but Kofi would know. Why do it? When you have in mind war crimes, it is better not to have neutral observers in the region."
The "accidental" bombing of the UN observation post also sounds eerily familiar to this.
Glenn Greenwald is more cautious than I am in accepting Annan's "apparently deliberate" claim:
"(5) Oddly, the very pro-Israel New York Sun says that the Israel-U.N. incident "could prove a turning point in Israel's war to rid its northern border of Hezbollah." I don't see why that would be the case. Almost every war has incidents of this sort. The U.S. bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, killed a group of Canadian troops in Afghanistan in an F-16 strike, and shot missiles at media offices in Baghdad. Incidents of this type are not uncommon.
Additionally, it was somewhat surprising that Kofi Annan would so quickly and impulsively make such serious accusations against Israel -- namely, that the bombing of the U.N. observation post was "deliberate," rather than accidental. That may well be the case, but it may very well not be, and it is hard to see how Annan could know that already."
On a 2008 note, I'm a little distressed to hear Evan Bayh employing the same saber-rattling on Iran as the administration and its neo-con supporters. I don't know if his stand here is based on a genuine fear of Iran's capabilities and intentions, or if he's posturing for a national campaign, or both. Of course, it's often the case that candidates and prospective candidates sound more alarmist or beligerent before entering office. Bill Clinton, for instance, campaigned against the first President Bush's "soft on China" policy but ultimately adopted much of the same policy once in office; the current President Bush likewise criticized his predecessor's "nation-building" efforts while going on to become among the most nation-building of presidents in Iraq.
But a harsh stance towards Iran could come back to bite Bayh, and other Democratic contenders, if they ultimately are not prepared to put up or shut up when it comes to exercising force against Tehran.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Now, Back to the Oil
Today's NYT:
...But Iran's ability to rebuff the West on these matters has only increased as oil prices have risen from about $27 a barrel at the start of the Iraq war, to $65 a barrel in the spring as tensions rose over Iran's nuclear program, to $75 on Monday as the conflict continued in Lebanon.
Indeed, according to Cambridge Energy Research Associates, each $5 increase in oil prices translates into $85 million a week for Iran's bank account, emboldening its leaders and making whatever aid it supplies to Hezbollah easier to finance even as the crisis threatens to spread.
(snip)
New oil money has given not only Iran but also Russia more resources to resist Western pressure. As he played host to the Group of 8 summit meeting in St. Petersburg last week, President Vladimir V. Putin was able to swat away criticism from President Bush about Russian domestic and foreign policies.
He boasted, in fact, that Russia's oil, natural gas and nuclear energy capacities made it the biggest energy player in the world.
Months before the summit meeting, Russia was hoping to use the final communique to endorse its approach on energy, in which the state basically controls the oil sector. The Bush administration joined with Europe to block such an endorsement, American officials say.
But energy remains a major American irritant with Russia and by extension China.
The Bush administration has stepped up its efforts to support pipelines that would carry oil and natural gas to the West, bypassing Russian territory.
Russia, in turn, has pressured Central Asian countries to oppose American energy projects and the use of the area for military bases.
To do that, Russia has joined with China to mobilize a five-year-old group called the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, whose members include several Central Asian countries. The Defense Department is even worried that the group could move from its focus on energy to become a military alliance to rival NATO.
Many American analysts say energy issues are driving Russia and China into each other's arms politically, and that if anything American policies are accelerating the trend.
Meanwhile, the new oil politics are rearranging the international playing board, not simply giving Iran latitude in the Middle East but allowing Venezuela, for another example, to try to blunt Washington's influence in Latin America.
"We are seeing a radical change in how countries like Russia, Iran and Venezuela on the supply side, and China and India on the demand side, bring the world marketplace to bear on foreign policy," said Carlos Pascual, a former top aide to Ms. Rice and now foreign policy studies director at the Brookings Institution.
"I don't think any of us have done a terribly good job of thinking through how far behind the eight ball we are on these issues," he said.
So, our support of Israel's aggression in the Middle East, our invasion and stymied occupation of Iraq, and our sabber-rattling towards Iran have helped drive up the price of oil, which in turn has increased the wealth of our new supposed worst enemy, Iran. Meanwhile, Russia and China have forged an economic-energy pact, and Russian in particular, is reviving its opposition to American hegemony throughout Asia by encouraging resistance to sponsoring American military bases and forcing the U.S. to hope for an oil-gas pipeline that bypasses Russia. And if each $5/barrel increase in oil prices results in an extra $85 million/week for Tehran, than the increase in oil prices from approximately $25/barrel before the Iraq invasion to $75 now means that we've enriched Iran by approximately $75-$25 = $50, and $50 is 10-$5's meaning that 10*$85 million = $850 million/week, or about $45 billion/year. That may be chump change, or the price of one year's estate tax revenue here. But it probably helps out a lot over there.
And, oh yeah, a former top aide to Secretary Rice says we haven't done a terribly good job of thinking through these issues. Ya think?
But General Kristol and our American Mullahs still want us to attack Iran, and Syria while we're in the neighborhood.
...But Iran's ability to rebuff the West on these matters has only increased as oil prices have risen from about $27 a barrel at the start of the Iraq war, to $65 a barrel in the spring as tensions rose over Iran's nuclear program, to $75 on Monday as the conflict continued in Lebanon.
Indeed, according to Cambridge Energy Research Associates, each $5 increase in oil prices translates into $85 million a week for Iran's bank account, emboldening its leaders and making whatever aid it supplies to Hezbollah easier to finance even as the crisis threatens to spread.
(snip)
New oil money has given not only Iran but also Russia more resources to resist Western pressure. As he played host to the Group of 8 summit meeting in St. Petersburg last week, President Vladimir V. Putin was able to swat away criticism from President Bush about Russian domestic and foreign policies.
He boasted, in fact, that Russia's oil, natural gas and nuclear energy capacities made it the biggest energy player in the world.
Months before the summit meeting, Russia was hoping to use the final communique to endorse its approach on energy, in which the state basically controls the oil sector. The Bush administration joined with Europe to block such an endorsement, American officials say.
But energy remains a major American irritant with Russia and by extension China.
The Bush administration has stepped up its efforts to support pipelines that would carry oil and natural gas to the West, bypassing Russian territory.
Russia, in turn, has pressured Central Asian countries to oppose American energy projects and the use of the area for military bases.
To do that, Russia has joined with China to mobilize a five-year-old group called the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, whose members include several Central Asian countries. The Defense Department is even worried that the group could move from its focus on energy to become a military alliance to rival NATO.
Many American analysts say energy issues are driving Russia and China into each other's arms politically, and that if anything American policies are accelerating the trend.
Meanwhile, the new oil politics are rearranging the international playing board, not simply giving Iran latitude in the Middle East but allowing Venezuela, for another example, to try to blunt Washington's influence in Latin America.
"We are seeing a radical change in how countries like Russia, Iran and Venezuela on the supply side, and China and India on the demand side, bring the world marketplace to bear on foreign policy," said Carlos Pascual, a former top aide to Ms. Rice and now foreign policy studies director at the Brookings Institution.
"I don't think any of us have done a terribly good job of thinking through how far behind the eight ball we are on these issues," he said.
So, our support of Israel's aggression in the Middle East, our invasion and stymied occupation of Iraq, and our sabber-rattling towards Iran have helped drive up the price of oil, which in turn has increased the wealth of our new supposed worst enemy, Iran. Meanwhile, Russia and China have forged an economic-energy pact, and Russian in particular, is reviving its opposition to American hegemony throughout Asia by encouraging resistance to sponsoring American military bases and forcing the U.S. to hope for an oil-gas pipeline that bypasses Russia. And if each $5/barrel increase in oil prices results in an extra $85 million/week for Tehran, than the increase in oil prices from approximately $25/barrel before the Iraq invasion to $75 now means that we've enriched Iran by approximately $75-$25 = $50, and $50 is 10-$5's meaning that 10*$85 million = $850 million/week, or about $45 billion/year. That may be chump change, or the price of one year's estate tax revenue here. But it probably helps out a lot over there.
And, oh yeah, a former top aide to Secretary Rice says we haven't done a terribly good job of thinking through these issues. Ya think?
But General Kristol and our American Mullahs still want us to attack Iran, and Syria while we're in the neighborhood.
From Our Mullahs to Your Mullahs
On the heels of my post yesterday about the connections between neo-conservative foreign policy and American megachurch evangelicalism, TAPPED tells us that some of our leading teevee mullahs are lobbying Washington to attack Iran for reasons that, as Sarah Posner has documented, stem from a toxic brew of end-times biblical literalism and apocalyptic forecasting.
So, you know, just in case you thought sanity or reason might prevail relative to the latest Middle East crisis, well, it doesn't look good.
So, you know, just in case you thought sanity or reason might prevail relative to the latest Middle East crisis, well, it doesn't look good.
Monday, July 24, 2006
Megachurch Evangelicalism and Neo-Conservative Foreign Policy
I'm sure someone's made this connection in one form another before, like maybe this guy, and this other guy.
But it still seems to me an unholy merger that warrants continued investigation, like an onion constantly peeled back to show yet additional gradations. For one thing, both megachurch evangelicalism and neo-conservative politics are heavily oriented around the nation of Israel, the former for its presumed role in bible prophecy leading to the rapture and return of Christ, the latter for other reasons, mostly geopolitical. So in regards to Israel, both movements have the same goal--the preservation of the Jewish state and the destruction of its infidel neighbors.
And both emerged at around the same time, in the late 1970's, as reactions against cultural liberalism and realist detente politics. And both represent significant breakages from the traditional Republican coalition and thought. Once upon a time, it was the mainline Protestant churches, Episcopalian, Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, etc, that made up the Republican elite and its core northern support. Now, mainline Protestantism is in decline, replaced by megachurch evangelicalism, and political Christianity is more rooted in the south and west than in the north.
Meanwhile, neo-conservative politics got its start in the late 1970's as the Reagan/Kilpatrick wing of Republicanism, which desired a more beligerent posture towards the Soviet Union and an end to the realist policy of detente and arms control led driven by Nixon-Ford-Kissenger. George H.W. Bush, General Scowcroft and Colin Powell resurrected a realist foreign policy vision as the U.S. entered the post-Cold War era. The election of Bill Clinton brought with it a more internationalist and humanitarian tweaking to the old realism, an adaptation that provided a ready target for discontented conservatives anxious to flex America's newly buffed muscles now that the other bully on the beach--Soviet Russia--had been vanquished.
But there is a sense in which megachurch evangelicalism and neo-conservative foreign policy are marketably different. The former seeks domestic authoritarianism, a destruction of the Constitutional wall between church and state, and a hyper-invasive posture towards privacy rights, lifestyle issues, and personal morality and religiosity.
But where megachurch evangelicalism demands hyper-order and control in the homeland, neo-conservative foreign policy advocates international disorder and chaos abroad. The old Republican realism of Nixon and Kissinger aimed for world order and a balance of power. In a word, stability. The new neo-conservatism of Gringrich and Kristol wants no order and relishes, if not purposely orchestrates, global instability. That's the only conclusion I can draw from the administration's Iraq strategery and its latest policy, or lack thereof, on Israel, Palestine and Lebanon.
There's a well known anecdote from Secretary of State George C. Marshall's visit with Stalin in the Soviet Union just before the formulation and announcement of the Marshall Plan. During the visit, Marshall was appalled to realize that Stalin didn't care about the reconstruction of Europe or the fate of the nations and peoples so ravaged by the war. Rather, Stalin appeared indifferent, if not pleased, by conditions of the countries borderin his own. The better, no doubt, to ensure the Soviet dictator he wouldn't be enduring any more invasions from the west.
The current neo-conservative foreign policy elite seem to share a similar mindset. Splinter the enemy, exploit the divisions, or attempt to exploit the divisions between Sunni and Shia Muslims, decapitate regimes deemed unfriendly to American power, and reap the benefits of countries left in turmoil or cowed into obesience. As I've mentioned before, the civil war in Iraq works for neo-conservatives for at least two reasons. One, it reduces Iraq's future opposition to U.S. middle east policy by causing the state to war against itself. Two, the continued chaos aids the neo-conservative story about the middle east and the global war on terror by providing an example of another situation where America is seemingly interested in promoting democracy but is hindered by terrorist opponents.
This latter point was made by Newt Gringrich on C-Span yesterday. For the Newter, the bloodshed there is indicative of the enemies we face and justifies continued American beligerence and war-mongering. That's the beauty of the neo-conservative foreign policy nightmare. There are no circumstances that don't reaffirm and justify its ambitions. If a friendly democracy is created in Iraq (or Iran or Syria) than the effort was worth it. On the other hand, if as a result the state disintegrates into sectarian violence, than that proves how dangerous and anti-American the area's peoples are, which in turn, reaffirms and justifies the American initiative.
I also seems clear to me that Newt Gringrich is emerging as the neo-conservative's leading political spokesman. Although out of office, his re-emergence in the last few months and his adoption of the neo-conservative war agenda gives the neo-con establishment a fresh, new believer, ready to take up the banner when George W. vacates the WH in two years. And it wouldn't surprise me if Gringrich both runs in 2008 and wins the nomination. He's the only True Believer among the prospective contenders who also brings an articulate nightmarish vision, unlike others, such as George Allen, who while being sufficiently ideological, I think lacks the charisma necessary for winning the presidency. Then again, who knows. Maybe someone like Allen would be the perfect, pliable Bush replacement, while Gringrich and Kristol procede with the real work of influencing public opinion and manipulating the bureaucracy to extend America's power across the globe and to destabilize our enemies, both real and imagined.
But it still seems to me an unholy merger that warrants continued investigation, like an onion constantly peeled back to show yet additional gradations. For one thing, both megachurch evangelicalism and neo-conservative politics are heavily oriented around the nation of Israel, the former for its presumed role in bible prophecy leading to the rapture and return of Christ, the latter for other reasons, mostly geopolitical. So in regards to Israel, both movements have the same goal--the preservation of the Jewish state and the destruction of its infidel neighbors.
And both emerged at around the same time, in the late 1970's, as reactions against cultural liberalism and realist detente politics. And both represent significant breakages from the traditional Republican coalition and thought. Once upon a time, it was the mainline Protestant churches, Episcopalian, Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, etc, that made up the Republican elite and its core northern support. Now, mainline Protestantism is in decline, replaced by megachurch evangelicalism, and political Christianity is more rooted in the south and west than in the north.
Meanwhile, neo-conservative politics got its start in the late 1970's as the Reagan/Kilpatrick wing of Republicanism, which desired a more beligerent posture towards the Soviet Union and an end to the realist policy of detente and arms control led driven by Nixon-Ford-Kissenger. George H.W. Bush, General Scowcroft and Colin Powell resurrected a realist foreign policy vision as the U.S. entered the post-Cold War era. The election of Bill Clinton brought with it a more internationalist and humanitarian tweaking to the old realism, an adaptation that provided a ready target for discontented conservatives anxious to flex America's newly buffed muscles now that the other bully on the beach--Soviet Russia--had been vanquished.
But there is a sense in which megachurch evangelicalism and neo-conservative foreign policy are marketably different. The former seeks domestic authoritarianism, a destruction of the Constitutional wall between church and state, and a hyper-invasive posture towards privacy rights, lifestyle issues, and personal morality and religiosity.
But where megachurch evangelicalism demands hyper-order and control in the homeland, neo-conservative foreign policy advocates international disorder and chaos abroad. The old Republican realism of Nixon and Kissinger aimed for world order and a balance of power. In a word, stability. The new neo-conservatism of Gringrich and Kristol wants no order and relishes, if not purposely orchestrates, global instability. That's the only conclusion I can draw from the administration's Iraq strategery and its latest policy, or lack thereof, on Israel, Palestine and Lebanon.
There's a well known anecdote from Secretary of State George C. Marshall's visit with Stalin in the Soviet Union just before the formulation and announcement of the Marshall Plan. During the visit, Marshall was appalled to realize that Stalin didn't care about the reconstruction of Europe or the fate of the nations and peoples so ravaged by the war. Rather, Stalin appeared indifferent, if not pleased, by conditions of the countries borderin his own. The better, no doubt, to ensure the Soviet dictator he wouldn't be enduring any more invasions from the west.
The current neo-conservative foreign policy elite seem to share a similar mindset. Splinter the enemy, exploit the divisions, or attempt to exploit the divisions between Sunni and Shia Muslims, decapitate regimes deemed unfriendly to American power, and reap the benefits of countries left in turmoil or cowed into obesience. As I've mentioned before, the civil war in Iraq works for neo-conservatives for at least two reasons. One, it reduces Iraq's future opposition to U.S. middle east policy by causing the state to war against itself. Two, the continued chaos aids the neo-conservative story about the middle east and the global war on terror by providing an example of another situation where America is seemingly interested in promoting democracy but is hindered by terrorist opponents.
This latter point was made by Newt Gringrich on C-Span yesterday. For the Newter, the bloodshed there is indicative of the enemies we face and justifies continued American beligerence and war-mongering. That's the beauty of the neo-conservative foreign policy nightmare. There are no circumstances that don't reaffirm and justify its ambitions. If a friendly democracy is created in Iraq (or Iran or Syria) than the effort was worth it. On the other hand, if as a result the state disintegrates into sectarian violence, than that proves how dangerous and anti-American the area's peoples are, which in turn, reaffirms and justifies the American initiative.
I also seems clear to me that Newt Gringrich is emerging as the neo-conservative's leading political spokesman. Although out of office, his re-emergence in the last few months and his adoption of the neo-conservative war agenda gives the neo-con establishment a fresh, new believer, ready to take up the banner when George W. vacates the WH in two years. And it wouldn't surprise me if Gringrich both runs in 2008 and wins the nomination. He's the only True Believer among the prospective contenders who also brings an articulate nightmarish vision, unlike others, such as George Allen, who while being sufficiently ideological, I think lacks the charisma necessary for winning the presidency. Then again, who knows. Maybe someone like Allen would be the perfect, pliable Bush replacement, while Gringrich and Kristol procede with the real work of influencing public opinion and manipulating the bureaucracy to extend America's power across the globe and to destabilize our enemies, both real and imagined.
Saturday, July 22, 2006
Random Thoughts on Israel-Lebanon
1. Cease-fire. There's a lot of all-or-nothing talk regarding a cease-fire. Israel and its patron--us--say no cease-fire because...well...that would only help the Hezbollah terrorists who've "provoked" the current crisis. But why not call for a cease-fire concerning Beirut and all points central and north in Lebanon? There's justification for Israel to combat Hezbollah in the south of Lebanon, where their power base is and from where they're launching rocket attacks into northern Israel. So why is the notion of a cease-fire being talked about as if it has to be a total cease-fire or none at all?
2. Disproportionate force. The Israeli bombing of Beirut has been way over the top, outrageous and immoral. There's anywhere between 500,000 and 1 million refugees and dislocated persons as a result, not to mention hundreds of civilians already dead from the attacks.
3. Forcing a crisis. The motive of Israel's over-reaching seems to be to provoke an international crisis. Israel probably thinks that absent a crisis of monumental proportions, Hezbollah would never be disarmed per the United Nations Security Council resolution 1559 and for the lasting peace of the Lebanon-Israel border generally.
4. The Bush-Rice response to the Israeli attacks has been despicable. Digby says Rice's They've put all the blame on Hezbollah, and talked about the group's attacks on northern Israel as if no broader, more destructive attacks on Lebanon were being conducted by Israel. Hezbollah did "start" the current series of events by kidnapping the Israeli soldiers. But the rocket attacks into northern Israel didn't start until after the knee-jerk air attacks on Beirut by Israel.
4a. Digby says: "The Bush administration are monsters. That is not hyperbole. There can be no other explanation as to why the secretary of state, the person in charge of American diplomacy, would be so crude and stupid... Jesus. They don't even know how to fake it anymore. Isn't it at least smart to pretend you care about the dying children?"
4b. What Glenn Greenwald says.
5. Media coverage. I generally only watch CNN and for the most part, it's coverage (except for Lou Dobbs) has been OK; they've paid attention to the refugee crisis and to the Israeli destruction of Beirut generally. They continue to raise the question of Israeli's disproportionate response. But the Bush administration and most American pundits have been tone deaf to the consequences of Israel's actions.
6. Lasting peace. I referenced Richard Cohen's op-ed yesterday in which the Wash Post columnist alluded to Israel's 1948 creation and location in the midst of Arab Muslims having been a mistake. I don't know if that is true. As I mentioned, Egypt and Jordan have ultimately established peaceful relations with Israel, so it doesn't strike me as completely impossible for the surrounding governments to peacefully accomodate the Jewish state. But lasting peace won't be possible if Israel destroys Lebanon and scatters half or more of it's four million people. And the damage has probably already been done now, regardless of whether an eventual cease-fire and international force in southern Lebanon is agreed to.
7. Long term implications. Although Egypt, Jordan, and even Saudi Arabia's governments have issued official statements condemning Hezbollah, I can't help but think that the response on the Arab Street is and in the future will be, anything but further inflammation against Israel. I doubt any of us living well in the U.S. have any sense of what it's like to be living as most Arabs live in the Middle East. We had two skyscrappers and 3,000 people killed and we freaked out. Arab countries have the rough equivalent of 911 on an almost continual basis. If you think the nationalist response from Americans after 911 was significant, take that reaction to the nth power for a sense of how humiliated most Arabs probably feel, given the poverty most Arabs live under and how little their governments represent their aspirations (Bush is largely right on this point although the new "democracy" in Iraq he has helped create does not appear to be either stabile or supportive of our Israeli friends).
7a. James Wolcott says we're complicit in our government's contribution to the massacre in Lebanon, not to mention the civil war in Iraq. And he's right. I don't know if World War III has started, but I can see our unapologetic defense of Israel's savagery causing many of us who gave the administration a pass on Iraq to start taking to the streets and withdrawing our support and discontinuing our enabling of our society for sanctioning this new war.
2. Disproportionate force. The Israeli bombing of Beirut has been way over the top, outrageous and immoral. There's anywhere between 500,000 and 1 million refugees and dislocated persons as a result, not to mention hundreds of civilians already dead from the attacks.
3. Forcing a crisis. The motive of Israel's over-reaching seems to be to provoke an international crisis. Israel probably thinks that absent a crisis of monumental proportions, Hezbollah would never be disarmed per the United Nations Security Council resolution 1559 and for the lasting peace of the Lebanon-Israel border generally.
4. The Bush-Rice response to the Israeli attacks has been despicable. Digby says Rice's They've put all the blame on Hezbollah, and talked about the group's attacks on northern Israel as if no broader, more destructive attacks on Lebanon were being conducted by Israel. Hezbollah did "start" the current series of events by kidnapping the Israeli soldiers. But the rocket attacks into northern Israel didn't start until after the knee-jerk air attacks on Beirut by Israel.
4a. Digby says: "The Bush administration are monsters. That is not hyperbole. There can be no other explanation as to why the secretary of state, the person in charge of American diplomacy, would be so crude and stupid... Jesus. They don't even know how to fake it anymore. Isn't it at least smart to pretend you care about the dying children?"
4b. What Glenn Greenwald says.
5. Media coverage. I generally only watch CNN and for the most part, it's coverage (except for Lou Dobbs) has been OK; they've paid attention to the refugee crisis and to the Israeli destruction of Beirut generally. They continue to raise the question of Israeli's disproportionate response. But the Bush administration and most American pundits have been tone deaf to the consequences of Israel's actions.
6. Lasting peace. I referenced Richard Cohen's op-ed yesterday in which the Wash Post columnist alluded to Israel's 1948 creation and location in the midst of Arab Muslims having been a mistake. I don't know if that is true. As I mentioned, Egypt and Jordan have ultimately established peaceful relations with Israel, so it doesn't strike me as completely impossible for the surrounding governments to peacefully accomodate the Jewish state. But lasting peace won't be possible if Israel destroys Lebanon and scatters half or more of it's four million people. And the damage has probably already been done now, regardless of whether an eventual cease-fire and international force in southern Lebanon is agreed to.
7. Long term implications. Although Egypt, Jordan, and even Saudi Arabia's governments have issued official statements condemning Hezbollah, I can't help but think that the response on the Arab Street is and in the future will be, anything but further inflammation against Israel. I doubt any of us living well in the U.S. have any sense of what it's like to be living as most Arabs live in the Middle East. We had two skyscrappers and 3,000 people killed and we freaked out. Arab countries have the rough equivalent of 911 on an almost continual basis. If you think the nationalist response from Americans after 911 was significant, take that reaction to the nth power for a sense of how humiliated most Arabs probably feel, given the poverty most Arabs live under and how little their governments represent their aspirations (Bush is largely right on this point although the new "democracy" in Iraq he has helped create does not appear to be either stabile or supportive of our Israeli friends).
7a. James Wolcott says we're complicit in our government's contribution to the massacre in Lebanon, not to mention the civil war in Iraq. And he's right. I don't know if World War III has started, but I can see our unapologetic defense of Israel's savagery causing many of us who gave the administration a pass on Iraq to start taking to the streets and withdrawing our support and discontinuing our enabling of our society for sanctioning this new war.
8. If you don't know this already, Juan Cole is the preminent Middle Eastern commenter around these parts. Go read up. He's generally pro-Arab and pro-Palestinian. But if you want the Israeli view point, you can get that on just about any cable network.
Friday, July 21, 2006
Organized Disorganization
Just finished reading State of War by James Risen, the author who neo-conservative scold, William Bennett, said belongs behind bars for...well I'm not really sure; obstensibly because Risen's reporting on the CIA's secret overseas prisons and NSA's massive domestic surveillance program damaged "national security", but most likely because Risen's reporting sheds light on, and deigns to criticize, the Republican administration and its foreign policy. And that's downright illegal and unAmerican. Anyway, if Bennett says the guy's reporting warrants inprisonment, than you just gotta go out and get the book, don't you?
I read State of War on the heels of reading most of the way through The One Percent Doctrine, a more recent book that covers much of the same ground, the war on terra through the frame of the CIA, although Risen's book comes across as more critical, particularly of Tenet, who was apparently the primary source for One Percent Doctrine.
I'll probably have more to say about both books in future posts, but one thing that stands out from them, and Cobra II as well, is (a) just how poorly the Iraq invasion was planned and (2) the planning, or lack thereof, was so bad, it couldn't have been by accident.
Cobra II's authors write about how uninterested the Pentagon was in identifying, much less securing, the supposed sites of Iraq's WMD in the lead up to the war, to prevent those arms and materials from ending up in the hands of foreign jihadists or would-be-insurgents. Risen notes the lack of Arabic speakers in the CIA, kind of a surprising one would think when invading two Middle Eastern countries.
When I read these accounts and see the chaos and killing Iraq, I can't help but think that while an Iraqi civil war might not have been the war architect's plan or hope, there's a sense that how Iraq has played out isn't necessarily counter to the neo-con's vision of global affairs.
I wrote a week or two back about different foreign policy perspectives including neoconservatism. One thing about neoconservatism that I probably didn't emphasize is that orientation's comfort level with instability and chaos. But the administration's response, or again, lack thereof, amidst the most recent Middle East explosion in Lebanon just reinforces the idea that the neocons would just assume see the Middle East, except Israel, meltdown. That would seem to carry over to the neo-con's call to bomb/invade Syria and Iran. That we presently lack the troops needed for such a mission, and that our Iraq debacle should be an object lesson, a negative object lesson, for planners wanting to bomb/invade any more Middle Eastern countries is beside the point. In the world of Bill Kristol, and the neocons still spread throughout the administration and reporting the "news" at Fox, any instability in the Middle East caused by our bombing and destruction is either irrelevant or actually beneficial, to the degree that it weakens ours, or Israel's, opponents.
For an administration "creating its own reality", there's little need to play by the old rules, or any rules at all. All of which would have been largely irrelevant had it not been for 911, which was absolutely fortuitous for the neocons spreading throughout the administration. As Ron Suskind notes in The One Percent Doctrine, 911 not only gave the neocon defense establishment a perfect opening to invade Iraq and expand executive power, but created, or at the very least, reinforced, in the mind of the president the idea that any past historical evidence, practice, or practicioners (including his father) were unreliable or inapplicable for the crisis posed by global terrorism, meaning that the administration insulated itself to an even greater degree in its decision-making than it probably would have anyway.
A final inference I draw from State of War is that the administration's governmental neglect extends beyond the most obvious domestic linkages to FEMA and the Mine Safety and Health Administrations of the executive branch, but even to foreign policy agencies including the CIA and the State Department. Both were regarded by the neocons in exile as subversive and insufficiently political. And while State was initially awarded to the administration's most distinguished member, Colin Powell, the General was all but shut out of the major decision making process and he and his successor, Condi Rice were barreled over by an aggressive Rumsfeld Pentagon.
And the latter, while dominating the foreign policy decision-making has made clear it's disdain, both before hand and afterwards, for "nation-building". The result has been a narrow circle of insulated decision-makers in Washington, playing hit and run over the Middle East, with little regard for diplomacy or for reconstructing the desecrated society's they leave in their wake. Afghanistan, the first point of entry, is over-run with heroin growers, Iraq is awash in blood, and Lebanon has all but been destroyed. Think the "west" will include in its strategy for "peace" the healing of Beirut? Not likely. Syria and Iran await.
I read State of War on the heels of reading most of the way through The One Percent Doctrine, a more recent book that covers much of the same ground, the war on terra through the frame of the CIA, although Risen's book comes across as more critical, particularly of Tenet, who was apparently the primary source for One Percent Doctrine.
I'll probably have more to say about both books in future posts, but one thing that stands out from them, and Cobra II as well, is (a) just how poorly the Iraq invasion was planned and (2) the planning, or lack thereof, was so bad, it couldn't have been by accident.
Cobra II's authors write about how uninterested the Pentagon was in identifying, much less securing, the supposed sites of Iraq's WMD in the lead up to the war, to prevent those arms and materials from ending up in the hands of foreign jihadists or would-be-insurgents. Risen notes the lack of Arabic speakers in the CIA, kind of a surprising one would think when invading two Middle Eastern countries.
When I read these accounts and see the chaos and killing Iraq, I can't help but think that while an Iraqi civil war might not have been the war architect's plan or hope, there's a sense that how Iraq has played out isn't necessarily counter to the neo-con's vision of global affairs.
I wrote a week or two back about different foreign policy perspectives including neoconservatism. One thing about neoconservatism that I probably didn't emphasize is that orientation's comfort level with instability and chaos. But the administration's response, or again, lack thereof, amidst the most recent Middle East explosion in Lebanon just reinforces the idea that the neocons would just assume see the Middle East, except Israel, meltdown. That would seem to carry over to the neo-con's call to bomb/invade Syria and Iran. That we presently lack the troops needed for such a mission, and that our Iraq debacle should be an object lesson, a negative object lesson, for planners wanting to bomb/invade any more Middle Eastern countries is beside the point. In the world of Bill Kristol, and the neocons still spread throughout the administration and reporting the "news" at Fox, any instability in the Middle East caused by our bombing and destruction is either irrelevant or actually beneficial, to the degree that it weakens ours, or Israel's, opponents.
For an administration "creating its own reality", there's little need to play by the old rules, or any rules at all. All of which would have been largely irrelevant had it not been for 911, which was absolutely fortuitous for the neocons spreading throughout the administration. As Ron Suskind notes in The One Percent Doctrine, 911 not only gave the neocon defense establishment a perfect opening to invade Iraq and expand executive power, but created, or at the very least, reinforced, in the mind of the president the idea that any past historical evidence, practice, or practicioners (including his father) were unreliable or inapplicable for the crisis posed by global terrorism, meaning that the administration insulated itself to an even greater degree in its decision-making than it probably would have anyway.
A final inference I draw from State of War is that the administration's governmental neglect extends beyond the most obvious domestic linkages to FEMA and the Mine Safety and Health Administrations of the executive branch, but even to foreign policy agencies including the CIA and the State Department. Both were regarded by the neocons in exile as subversive and insufficiently political. And while State was initially awarded to the administration's most distinguished member, Colin Powell, the General was all but shut out of the major decision making process and he and his successor, Condi Rice were barreled over by an aggressive Rumsfeld Pentagon.
And the latter, while dominating the foreign policy decision-making has made clear it's disdain, both before hand and afterwards, for "nation-building". The result has been a narrow circle of insulated decision-makers in Washington, playing hit and run over the Middle East, with little regard for diplomacy or for reconstructing the desecrated society's they leave in their wake. Afghanistan, the first point of entry, is over-run with heroin growers, Iraq is awash in blood, and Lebanon has all but been destroyed. Think the "west" will include in its strategy for "peace" the healing of Beirut? Not likely. Syria and Iran await.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Dimwits
This Wash Post editorial is about the dumbest thing I've read yet on the latest Middle East conflict:
In other words, the current warfare in Lebanon, Gaza and Israel stems not from Israel's occupation of Arab lands or its holding of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners, but from a blatant bid by Iran and Syria and their allies in Hamas and Hezbollah to stop the creation of a democratic Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza and the parallel consolidation of a democracy in Lebanon.
So, Hamas, which surprisingly won control over the Palestinian Authority in recent elections, is trying "to stop the creation of a democratic Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza..."? That makes no sense. Same with Hezbollah. They're trying "to stop...the parallel consolidation of a democracy in Lebanon"? What does that mean? Now, I doubt Hamas and Hezbollah care anything about democracy, liberal or otherwise. But to suggest that Hamas and Hezbollah--spurred on by their patrons in Syria and Iran of course--are deliberately self-sabotaging their own societies strikes me as pretty way off the mark.
Richard Cohen, of all people, may be closer to the truth when he suggests here that the latest outbreak of violence between Israel and its neighbors has an air of historical determinism about it:
The greatest mistake Israel could make at the moment is to forget that Israel itself is a mistake. It is an honest mistake, a well-intentioned mistake, a mistake for which no one is culpable, but the idea of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims (and some Christians) has produced a century of warfare and terrorism of the sort we are seeing now. Israel fights Hezbollah in the north and Hamas in the south, but its most formidable enemy is history itself.
At the same time, Egypt and Jordan, which have previously and unsuccessfully warred against Israel, have more or less come around to Israel's regional presence (and hegemony) and have established peace and normal diplomatic relations with it. That there are still forces within both nominally friendly and officially unfriendly countries, however, suggests that the conflict remains largely intractible and highly complex.
The latter is perhaps why the Bush administration has taken a reserved posture on the conflict and in contrast to its GWOT and Operation Iraqi Freedom days, recognizes an ambiguity here that is either not amenable to simplistic black and white depictions or in any event, presents conditions that do not lend easily lend themselves to simple, dramatic solutions or modes of intervention.
All of which is to say the world of puritanical neo-conservatism is not happy with the Bush administration's words and actions so far. Seemingly unaware of ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, the neo-con machinery is geering up for another war or wars for someone else's children to fight. Even normally moral absolutionist commentators such as George Will are at the breaking point with his movement's ideologues:
The administration, justly criticized for its Iraq premises and their execution, is suddenly receiving some criticism so untethered from reality as to defy caricature. The national, ethnic and religious dynamics of the Middle East are opaque to most people, but to the Weekly Standard -- voice of a spectacularly misnamed radicalism, "neoconservatism" -- everything is crystal clear: Iran is the key to everything .
"No Islamic Republic of Iran, no Hezbollah. No Islamic Republic of Iran, no one to prop up the Assad regime in Syria. No Iranian support for Syria . . ." You get the drift. So, the Weekly Standard says:
"We might consider countering this act of Iranian aggression with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Why wait? Does anyone think a nuclear Iran can be contained? That the current regime will negotiate in good faith? It would be easier to act sooner rather than later. Yes, there would be repercussions -- and they would be healthy ones, showing a strong America that has rejected further appeasement."
"Why wait?" Perhaps because the U.S. military has enough on its plate in the deteriorating wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which both border Iran. And perhaps because containment, although of uncertain success, did work against Stalin and his successors, and might be preferable to a war against a nation much larger and more formidable than Iraq. And if Bashar Assad's regime does not fall after the Weekly Standard's hoped-for third war, with Iran, does the magazine hope for a fourth?
As for the "healthy" repercussions that the Weekly Standard is so eager to experience from yet another war: One envies that publication's powers of prophecy but wishes it had exercised them on the nation's behalf before all of the surprises -- all of them unpleasant -- that Iraq has inflicted. And regarding the "appeasement" that the Weekly Standard decries: Does the magazine really wish the administration had heeded its earlier (Dec. 20, 2004) editorial advocating war with yet another nation -- the bombing of Syria?
In other words, the current warfare in Lebanon, Gaza and Israel stems not from Israel's occupation of Arab lands or its holding of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners, but from a blatant bid by Iran and Syria and their allies in Hamas and Hezbollah to stop the creation of a democratic Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza and the parallel consolidation of a democracy in Lebanon.
So, Hamas, which surprisingly won control over the Palestinian Authority in recent elections, is trying "to stop the creation of a democratic Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza..."? That makes no sense. Same with Hezbollah. They're trying "to stop...the parallel consolidation of a democracy in Lebanon"? What does that mean? Now, I doubt Hamas and Hezbollah care anything about democracy, liberal or otherwise. But to suggest that Hamas and Hezbollah--spurred on by their patrons in Syria and Iran of course--are deliberately self-sabotaging their own societies strikes me as pretty way off the mark.
Richard Cohen, of all people, may be closer to the truth when he suggests here that the latest outbreak of violence between Israel and its neighbors has an air of historical determinism about it:
The greatest mistake Israel could make at the moment is to forget that Israel itself is a mistake. It is an honest mistake, a well-intentioned mistake, a mistake for which no one is culpable, but the idea of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims (and some Christians) has produced a century of warfare and terrorism of the sort we are seeing now. Israel fights Hezbollah in the north and Hamas in the south, but its most formidable enemy is history itself.
At the same time, Egypt and Jordan, which have previously and unsuccessfully warred against Israel, have more or less come around to Israel's regional presence (and hegemony) and have established peace and normal diplomatic relations with it. That there are still forces within both nominally friendly and officially unfriendly countries, however, suggests that the conflict remains largely intractible and highly complex.
The latter is perhaps why the Bush administration has taken a reserved posture on the conflict and in contrast to its GWOT and Operation Iraqi Freedom days, recognizes an ambiguity here that is either not amenable to simplistic black and white depictions or in any event, presents conditions that do not lend easily lend themselves to simple, dramatic solutions or modes of intervention.
All of which is to say the world of puritanical neo-conservatism is not happy with the Bush administration's words and actions so far. Seemingly unaware of ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, the neo-con machinery is geering up for another war or wars for someone else's children to fight. Even normally moral absolutionist commentators such as George Will are at the breaking point with his movement's ideologues:
The administration, justly criticized for its Iraq premises and their execution, is suddenly receiving some criticism so untethered from reality as to defy caricature. The national, ethnic and religious dynamics of the Middle East are opaque to most people, but to the Weekly Standard -- voice of a spectacularly misnamed radicalism, "neoconservatism" -- everything is crystal clear: Iran is the key to everything .
"No Islamic Republic of Iran, no Hezbollah. No Islamic Republic of Iran, no one to prop up the Assad regime in Syria. No Iranian support for Syria . . ." You get the drift. So, the Weekly Standard says:
"We might consider countering this act of Iranian aggression with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Why wait? Does anyone think a nuclear Iran can be contained? That the current regime will negotiate in good faith? It would be easier to act sooner rather than later. Yes, there would be repercussions -- and they would be healthy ones, showing a strong America that has rejected further appeasement."
"Why wait?" Perhaps because the U.S. military has enough on its plate in the deteriorating wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which both border Iran. And perhaps because containment, although of uncertain success, did work against Stalin and his successors, and might be preferable to a war against a nation much larger and more formidable than Iraq. And if Bashar Assad's regime does not fall after the Weekly Standard's hoped-for third war, with Iran, does the magazine hope for a fourth?
As for the "healthy" repercussions that the Weekly Standard is so eager to experience from yet another war: One envies that publication's powers of prophecy but wishes it had exercised them on the nation's behalf before all of the surprises -- all of them unpleasant -- that Iraq has inflicted. And regarding the "appeasement" that the Weekly Standard decries: Does the magazine really wish the administration had heeded its earlier (Dec. 20, 2004) editorial advocating war with yet another nation -- the bombing of Syria?
Friday, July 14, 2006
33
In the course of this fine summer day, you might want to take a look at a very special list, a list of the most despicable members of the House of Representatives. If you weren't sure who the worst members were, this list should clarify things for you.
These 33 Republicans voted against renewing the Voting Rights Act yesterday. At least they were honest. But even the anti-immigrant J.D. Hayworth and anti-gay Marilyn Musgrave voted aye. But for the Republican 33, renewing the VRA was just too much for their tender sensibilities.
Some of the 33 have gone so far as to post explanations for their noes on their House websites. Let's let Georgia Rep Charlie Norwood, a no vote, explain:
That is the contention of HR 9, as it ravages the rights of the innocent, whose only offense is in their place of dwelling.
I can partially understand Rep Norwood's interest in removing the stigma of federal oversight of voting in his state, the desire to put his state on the same plain with the majority of U.S. states that can institute minor changes in voting procedures and district outlines without an OK from the Federal Justice Department.
But "ravages the rights of the innocent"? Me thinks the Congressman doth protest too much.
In the meantime, if states like Georgia decide to stop trying to pass bogus photo ID requirements for voting, and to discontinue the tired rhetoric from conservatives about how much a threat voting fraud by (black and poor) individuals is, maybe the next 25 years will be sufficient to demonstrate Charlie's state has changed.
And maybe when the VRA comes up for reauthorization again, Charlie Norwood's no vote, along with those of his 32 companions, will be remembered for the bigotry it is, and regretted accordingly.
These 33 Republicans voted against renewing the Voting Rights Act yesterday. At least they were honest. But even the anti-immigrant J.D. Hayworth and anti-gay Marilyn Musgrave voted aye. But for the Republican 33, renewing the VRA was just too much for their tender sensibilities.
Some of the 33 have gone so far as to post explanations for their noes on their House websites. Let's let Georgia Rep Charlie Norwood, a no vote, explain:
That is the contention of HR 9, as it ravages the rights of the innocent, whose only offense is in their place of dwelling.
I can partially understand Rep Norwood's interest in removing the stigma of federal oversight of voting in his state, the desire to put his state on the same plain with the majority of U.S. states that can institute minor changes in voting procedures and district outlines without an OK from the Federal Justice Department.
But "ravages the rights of the innocent"? Me thinks the Congressman doth protest too much.
In the meantime, if states like Georgia decide to stop trying to pass bogus photo ID requirements for voting, and to discontinue the tired rhetoric from conservatives about how much a threat voting fraud by (black and poor) individuals is, maybe the next 25 years will be sufficient to demonstrate Charlie's state has changed.
And maybe when the VRA comes up for reauthorization again, Charlie Norwood's no vote, along with those of his 32 companions, will be remembered for the bigotry it is, and regretted accordingly.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Neo-Conservativism and Realignment
Glenn Greenwald theorizes that the opposition to Joe Lieberman by grassroots Democrats is rooted in the latter's opposition to the former's embrace of the administration's "neo-conservatism." Moreover, Greenwald suggests the Connecticut primary battle is indicative of a realignment away from the old conservative-liberal axis and towards a neo-conservative vs. non-neo-conservative dimension. Greenwald believes the Iraq war has been the primary dividing line between Lieberman and the Lamont forces, and that in a broader sense, the nation's new primary default line lies over Iraq as well, Iraq as a symbol of neoconservative politics. As evidence, Greenwald offers the opposition by some Republicans to Bush's and the neo-conservative's foreign policies, in Iraq and elsewhere, the opposition to Lieberman by Democrats despite Lieberman's liberal voting record on domestic issues, and by the support among neo-conservative members of the press--like David Brooks--for the Democratic Lieberman.
I think there is some basis for Greenwald's conclusions. Iraq certainly is the dividing line of our time, as it was in 2002 and 2004. With the exception of last year's Katrina, the Iraq war has dominated the national debate and news coverage since 2002. And one of the effects of Iraq has been to make strange bedfellows in Congress, as conservative Walter Jones of NC and liberal Dennis Kucinich of Ohio appear together calling for a withdrawal from Iraq of U.S. military forces.
But I suspect Greenwald is making too much out of a national--or even regional--neoconservative versus non-neoconservative split where the issue of Iraq is concerned.
In the first place, I agree with Ezra that the basis for the Democratic grassroots opposition to Lieberman is not primarily the war, but Lieberman's vocal opposition to the war's opponents. As Ezra notes, other Democratic Senators up for re-election this year supported the war and have not faced the wrath of the Democratic Internets.
In the second place, I'm not sure that the Iraq war continues to be the exemplary of a neoconservative foreign policy. Only one Republican voted for the Levin Amendment last month, which makes me think that most Republicans still support the administration in Iraq. But I'm not sure that makes these Republicans neocons in the purest sense of the word, nor do I think it makes neocons out of the other five Democratic Senators that voted against Levin. This is the point I think the AltHippo is making as well.
Which raises the question of what exactly a neocon is.
Neo-conservatism, in my understanding, is a foreign policy perspective that prefers the use of military force, or at least the threat of military force, over diplomacy or as the primary piece of diplomacy; unilateral action rather than cooperation with international institutions; that obstensibly targets un-Democratic regimes; and that most ardently promotes American Exceptionalism.
Neo-conservatism contrasts with foreign policy Realism which: generally aims for world stability as opposed to world democracy; is more inclined to work cooperatively with other nations and institutional bodies; is less inclined to rely on military force as a means of diplomacy and is even less reluctant to apply it except in conditions that are of a last resort and which promise swift victory and a clean exit strategy.
A third foreign policy perspective is Isolationism, which shares with neo-conservatism an anti-international organizational stance, a willingness to use force, and American Exceptionalism, but is like the Realists more guarded about applying military force to limited circumstances and generally not concerned with the internal politics of other nations.
A fourth foreign policy perspective I would call Humanistic-Developmental. This foreign policy aims to ensure human rights across the globe and promote the economic and political development of third world countries, primarily through the auspices of international action. There are some similarities between this view and the obstensible support for democracy favored by neo-conservatives, but unlike the latter, the former are less inclined to act unilaterally or favor the use of force in most situations.
Most people probably at one point or another could be in any of these four camps at any particular time, and each might be relevant at any particular period. But most Democrats are probably either Realists or Humanistic-Developmentalists. Meanwhile, most Republicans are spread out over the first three categories, although the neo-con wing of the Republican Party has dominated under Bush II and importantly, since 911, in contrast to the Realism that occured from Nixon to Bush I.
In any event, my sense is that despite the declaration of One Percent Doctrines, pre-emptive wars, and calls from among the neocon dead-enders at the Weekly Standard and in Rupert Murdoch's media affiliates for extending the Iraq war to Iran, North Korea, and other countries throughout the Middle East, the neocon foreign policy agenda is finished, at least as it concerns overt military action in the next two years. Militarily, the neocon agenda is probably dead period. It may live on in anti-UN propaganda and American Exceptionalism rhetoric, but as an action plan, neoconservativism lacks the genuine popular support necessary for carrying out its ambitions. And by genuine popular support, I mean enough boots on the ground to wage global, eternal war.
Neoconservatism could possibly take its ball and go home, and revert to a Pat Buchanan-Tom Tancredo anti-immigration centered Isolationism, but the Republican Party's business base probably won't let that happen, and progressives that share neoconservatism's anti-globalism, won't buy into the anti-immigrant program. So it's probably a bit soon and too much of a stretch to see Iraq or neoconservativism as a realigning force. Yet.
I think there is some basis for Greenwald's conclusions. Iraq certainly is the dividing line of our time, as it was in 2002 and 2004. With the exception of last year's Katrina, the Iraq war has dominated the national debate and news coverage since 2002. And one of the effects of Iraq has been to make strange bedfellows in Congress, as conservative Walter Jones of NC and liberal Dennis Kucinich of Ohio appear together calling for a withdrawal from Iraq of U.S. military forces.
But I suspect Greenwald is making too much out of a national--or even regional--neoconservative versus non-neoconservative split where the issue of Iraq is concerned.
In the first place, I agree with Ezra that the basis for the Democratic grassroots opposition to Lieberman is not primarily the war, but Lieberman's vocal opposition to the war's opponents. As Ezra notes, other Democratic Senators up for re-election this year supported the war and have not faced the wrath of the Democratic Internets.
In the second place, I'm not sure that the Iraq war continues to be the exemplary of a neoconservative foreign policy. Only one Republican voted for the Levin Amendment last month, which makes me think that most Republicans still support the administration in Iraq. But I'm not sure that makes these Republicans neocons in the purest sense of the word, nor do I think it makes neocons out of the other five Democratic Senators that voted against Levin. This is the point I think the AltHippo is making as well.
Which raises the question of what exactly a neocon is.
Neo-conservatism, in my understanding, is a foreign policy perspective that prefers the use of military force, or at least the threat of military force, over diplomacy or as the primary piece of diplomacy; unilateral action rather than cooperation with international institutions; that obstensibly targets un-Democratic regimes; and that most ardently promotes American Exceptionalism.
Neo-conservatism contrasts with foreign policy Realism which: generally aims for world stability as opposed to world democracy; is more inclined to work cooperatively with other nations and institutional bodies; is less inclined to rely on military force as a means of diplomacy and is even less reluctant to apply it except in conditions that are of a last resort and which promise swift victory and a clean exit strategy.
A third foreign policy perspective is Isolationism, which shares with neo-conservatism an anti-international organizational stance, a willingness to use force, and American Exceptionalism, but is like the Realists more guarded about applying military force to limited circumstances and generally not concerned with the internal politics of other nations.
A fourth foreign policy perspective I would call Humanistic-Developmental. This foreign policy aims to ensure human rights across the globe and promote the economic and political development of third world countries, primarily through the auspices of international action. There are some similarities between this view and the obstensible support for democracy favored by neo-conservatives, but unlike the latter, the former are less inclined to act unilaterally or favor the use of force in most situations.
Most people probably at one point or another could be in any of these four camps at any particular time, and each might be relevant at any particular period. But most Democrats are probably either Realists or Humanistic-Developmentalists. Meanwhile, most Republicans are spread out over the first three categories, although the neo-con wing of the Republican Party has dominated under Bush II and importantly, since 911, in contrast to the Realism that occured from Nixon to Bush I.
In any event, my sense is that despite the declaration of One Percent Doctrines, pre-emptive wars, and calls from among the neocon dead-enders at the Weekly Standard and in Rupert Murdoch's media affiliates for extending the Iraq war to Iran, North Korea, and other countries throughout the Middle East, the neocon foreign policy agenda is finished, at least as it concerns overt military action in the next two years. Militarily, the neocon agenda is probably dead period. It may live on in anti-UN propaganda and American Exceptionalism rhetoric, but as an action plan, neoconservativism lacks the genuine popular support necessary for carrying out its ambitions. And by genuine popular support, I mean enough boots on the ground to wage global, eternal war.
Neoconservatism could possibly take its ball and go home, and revert to a Pat Buchanan-Tom Tancredo anti-immigration centered Isolationism, but the Republican Party's business base probably won't let that happen, and progressives that share neoconservatism's anti-globalism, won't buy into the anti-immigrant program. So it's probably a bit soon and too much of a stretch to see Iraq or neoconservativism as a realigning force. Yet.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Conservative Moral Relativism: When it's White, it's Right
What's an Iraqi Life Worth?
By Andrew J. Bacevich
Sunday, July 9, 2006; B01
In Iraq, lives differ in value -- and so do deaths. In this disparity lies an important reason why the United States has botched this war.
Last November in Haditha , a squad of Marines, outraged at the loss of a comrade, is said to have run amok, avenging his death by killing two dozen innocent bystanders. And in March, U.S. soldiers in Mahmudiyah allegedly raped a young Iraqi woman and killed her along with three of her relatives -- an apparently premeditated crime for which one former U.S. soldier has been charged . These incidents are among at least five recent cases of Iraqi civilian deaths that have triggered investigations of U.S. military personnel. If the allegations prove true, Haditha and Mahmudiyah will deservedly take their place alongside Sand Creek, Samar and My Lai in the unhappy catalogue of atrocities committed by American troops.
But recall a more recent incident, in Samarra . On May 30, U.S. soldiers manning a checkpoint there opened fire on a speeding vehicle that either did not see or failed to heed their command to stop. Two women in the vehicle were shot dead. One of them, Nahiba Husayif Jassim, 35, was pregnant. The baby was also killed. The driver, Jassim's brother, had been rushing her to a hospital to give birth. No one tried to cover up the incident: U.S. military representatives issued expressions of regret.
In all likelihood, we will be learning more about Haditha and Mahmudiyah for months to come, whereas the Samarra story has already been filed away and largely forgotten. And that's the problem.
The killing at the Samarra checkpoint was not an atrocity; most likely it was an accident, a mistake. Yet plenty of evidence suggests that in Iraq such mistakes have occurred routinely, with moral and political consequences that have been too long ignored. Indeed, conscious motivation is beside the point: Any action resulting in Iraqi civilian deaths, however inadvertent, undermines the Bush administration's narrative of liberation, and swells the ranks of those resisting the U.S. presence.
Gen. Tommy Franks, who commanded U.S. forces when they entered Iraq more than three years ago, famously declared: "We don't do body counts." Franks was speaking in code. What he meant was this: The U.S. military has learned the lessons of Vietnam -- where body counts became a principal, and much derided, public measure of success -- and it has no intention of repeating that experience. Franks was not going to be one of those generals re-fighting the last war.
Unfortunately, Franks and other senior commanders had not so much learned from Vietnam as forgotten it. This disdain for counting bodies, especially those of Iraqi civilians killed in the course of U.S. operations, is among the reasons why U.S. forces find themselves in another quagmire. It's not that the United States has an aversion to all body counts. We tally every U.S. service member who falls in Iraq, and rightly so. But only in recent months have military leaders finally begun to count -- for internal use only -- some of the very large number of Iraqi noncombatants whom American bullets and bombs have killed.
Through the war's first three years, any Iraqi venturing too close to an American convoy or checkpoint was likely to come under fire. Thousands of these "escalation of force" episodes occurred. Now, Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq, has begun to recognize the hidden cost of such an approach. "People who were on the fence or supported us" in the past "have in fact decided to strike out against us," he recently acknowledged.
In the early days of the insurgency, some U.S. commanders appeared oblivious to the possibility that excessive force might produce a backlash. They counted on the iron fist to create an atmosphere conducive to good behavior. The idea was not to distinguish between "good" and "bad" Iraqis, but to induce compliance through intimidation.
"You have to understand the Arab mind," one company commander told the New York Times, displaying all the self-assurance of Douglas MacArthur discoursing on Orientals in 1945. "The only thing they understand is force -- force, pride and saving face." Far from representing the views of a few underlings, such notions penetrated into the upper echelons of the American command. In their book "Cobra II," Michael R. Gordon and Gen. Bernard E. Trainor offer this ugly comment from a senior officer: "The only thing these sand niggers understand is force and I'm about to introduce them to it."
Such crass language, redolent with racist, ethnocentric connotations, speaks volumes. These characterizations, like the use of "gooks" during the Vietnam War, dehumanize the Iraqis and in doing so tacitly permit the otherwise impermissible. Thus, Abu Ghraib and Haditha -- and too many regretted deaths, such as that of Nahiba Husayif Jassim.
As the war enters its fourth year, how many innocent Iraqis have died at American hands, not as a result of Haditha-like massacres but because of accidents and errors? The military doesn't know and, until recently, has publicly professed no interest in knowing. Estimates range considerably, but the number almost certainly runs in the tens of thousands. Even granting the common antiwar bias of those who track the Iraqi death toll -- and granting, too, that the insurgents have far more blood on their hands -- there is no question that the number of Iraqi noncombatants killed by U.S. forces exceeds by an order of magnitude the number of U.S. troops killed in hostile action, which is now more than 2,000.
Who bears responsibility for these Iraqi deaths? The young soldiers pulling the triggers? The commanders who establish rules of engagement that privilege "force protection" over any obligation to protect innocent life? The intellectually bankrupt policymakers who sent U.S. forces into Iraq in the first place and now see no choice but to press on? The culture that, to put it mildly, has sought neither to understand nor to empathize with people in the Arab or Islamic worlds?
There are no easy answers, but one at least ought to acknowledge that in launching a war advertised as a high-minded expression of U.S. idealism, we have waded into a swamp of moral ambiguity. To assert that "stuff happens," as Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is wont to do whenever events go awry, simply does not suffice.
Moral questions aside, the toll of Iraqi noncombatant casualties has widespread political implications. Misdirected violence alienates those we are claiming to protect. It plays into the hands of the insurgents, advancing their cause and undercutting our own. It fatally undermines the campaign to win hearts and minds, suggesting to Iraqis and Americans alike that Iraqi civilians -- and perhaps Arabs and Muslims more generally -- are expendable. Certainly, Nahiba Husayif Jassim's death helped clarify her brother's perspective on the war. "God take revenge on the Americans and those who brought them here," he declared after the incident. "They have no regard for our lives."
He was being unfair, of course. It's not that we have no regard for Iraqi lives; it's just that we have much less regard for them. The current reparations policy -- the payment offered in those instances in which U.S. forces do own up to killing an Iraq civilian -- makes the point. The insurance payout to the beneficiaries of an American soldier who dies in the line of duty is $400,000, while in the eyes of the U.S. government, a dead Iraqi civilian is reportedly worth up to $2,500 in condolence payments -- about the price of a decent plasma-screen TV.
For all the talk of Iraq being a sovereign nation, foreign occupiers are the ones deciding what an Iraqi life is worth. And although President Bush has remarked in a different context that "every human life is a precious gift of matchless value," our actions in Iraq continue to convey the impression that civilian lives aren't worth all that much.
That impression urgently needs to change. To start, the Pentagon must get over its aversion to counting all bodies. It needs to measure in painstaking detail -- and publicly -- the mayhem we are causing as a byproduct of what we call liberation. To do otherwise, to shrug off the death of Nahiba Husayif Jassim as just one of those things that happens in war, only reinforces the impression that Americans view Iraqis as less than fully human. Unless we demonstrate by our actions that we value their lives as much as the lives of our own troops, our failure is certain.
----
When they aren't celebrating our "liberation" of Iraq, the U.S. press, military spokespersons, leading public officials, and representatives from the 101st fighting keyboarders routinely disparage the actual people of Iraq and people across the Middle East more generally. There's been next to no coverage or concern about the number and extent of Iraqi civilian deaths on account of the war and occupation. In the absence of Iraq's attacking either ourselves or any of its neighbors, our invasion and occupation was and is immoral. But no one of any prominence or distinction has really said this. Maybe Michael Moore or Cindy Sheehan has, but we know what the press thinks of them. Even most of the Democrats who supported the war initially and have now expressed regret for their vote, do so primarily from the standpoint that the invasion and occupation were "botched" and mishandled, not for the war's moral implications.
The American nationalism displayed by our press, public officials, and members of the public is moral relativism personified and exemplified. Of course our supposedly Christian clerics and the equally dubious "pro-life" forces they command have been largely silent at best on the war's carnage, or worse, they've acted as the administration's and "country's" apologists.
As Chris Rock jokes about White America's slavery, bootlegging and war-waging history, "When it's White, it's Right". Civilian deaths in Iraq? "We don't do body counts...especially those of sand niggers".
By Andrew J. Bacevich
Sunday, July 9, 2006; B01
In Iraq, lives differ in value -- and so do deaths. In this disparity lies an important reason why the United States has botched this war.
Last November in Haditha , a squad of Marines, outraged at the loss of a comrade, is said to have run amok, avenging his death by killing two dozen innocent bystanders. And in March, U.S. soldiers in Mahmudiyah allegedly raped a young Iraqi woman and killed her along with three of her relatives -- an apparently premeditated crime for which one former U.S. soldier has been charged . These incidents are among at least five recent cases of Iraqi civilian deaths that have triggered investigations of U.S. military personnel. If the allegations prove true, Haditha and Mahmudiyah will deservedly take their place alongside Sand Creek, Samar and My Lai in the unhappy catalogue of atrocities committed by American troops.
But recall a more recent incident, in Samarra . On May 30, U.S. soldiers manning a checkpoint there opened fire on a speeding vehicle that either did not see or failed to heed their command to stop. Two women in the vehicle were shot dead. One of them, Nahiba Husayif Jassim, 35, was pregnant. The baby was also killed. The driver, Jassim's brother, had been rushing her to a hospital to give birth. No one tried to cover up the incident: U.S. military representatives issued expressions of regret.
In all likelihood, we will be learning more about Haditha and Mahmudiyah for months to come, whereas the Samarra story has already been filed away and largely forgotten. And that's the problem.
The killing at the Samarra checkpoint was not an atrocity; most likely it was an accident, a mistake. Yet plenty of evidence suggests that in Iraq such mistakes have occurred routinely, with moral and political consequences that have been too long ignored. Indeed, conscious motivation is beside the point: Any action resulting in Iraqi civilian deaths, however inadvertent, undermines the Bush administration's narrative of liberation, and swells the ranks of those resisting the U.S. presence.
Gen. Tommy Franks, who commanded U.S. forces when they entered Iraq more than three years ago, famously declared: "We don't do body counts." Franks was speaking in code. What he meant was this: The U.S. military has learned the lessons of Vietnam -- where body counts became a principal, and much derided, public measure of success -- and it has no intention of repeating that experience. Franks was not going to be one of those generals re-fighting the last war.
Unfortunately, Franks and other senior commanders had not so much learned from Vietnam as forgotten it. This disdain for counting bodies, especially those of Iraqi civilians killed in the course of U.S. operations, is among the reasons why U.S. forces find themselves in another quagmire. It's not that the United States has an aversion to all body counts. We tally every U.S. service member who falls in Iraq, and rightly so. But only in recent months have military leaders finally begun to count -- for internal use only -- some of the very large number of Iraqi noncombatants whom American bullets and bombs have killed.
Through the war's first three years, any Iraqi venturing too close to an American convoy or checkpoint was likely to come under fire. Thousands of these "escalation of force" episodes occurred. Now, Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq, has begun to recognize the hidden cost of such an approach. "People who were on the fence or supported us" in the past "have in fact decided to strike out against us," he recently acknowledged.
In the early days of the insurgency, some U.S. commanders appeared oblivious to the possibility that excessive force might produce a backlash. They counted on the iron fist to create an atmosphere conducive to good behavior. The idea was not to distinguish between "good" and "bad" Iraqis, but to induce compliance through intimidation.
"You have to understand the Arab mind," one company commander told the New York Times, displaying all the self-assurance of Douglas MacArthur discoursing on Orientals in 1945. "The only thing they understand is force -- force, pride and saving face." Far from representing the views of a few underlings, such notions penetrated into the upper echelons of the American command. In their book "Cobra II," Michael R. Gordon and Gen. Bernard E. Trainor offer this ugly comment from a senior officer: "The only thing these sand niggers understand is force and I'm about to introduce them to it."
Such crass language, redolent with racist, ethnocentric connotations, speaks volumes. These characterizations, like the use of "gooks" during the Vietnam War, dehumanize the Iraqis and in doing so tacitly permit the otherwise impermissible. Thus, Abu Ghraib and Haditha -- and too many regretted deaths, such as that of Nahiba Husayif Jassim.
As the war enters its fourth year, how many innocent Iraqis have died at American hands, not as a result of Haditha-like massacres but because of accidents and errors? The military doesn't know and, until recently, has publicly professed no interest in knowing. Estimates range considerably, but the number almost certainly runs in the tens of thousands. Even granting the common antiwar bias of those who track the Iraqi death toll -- and granting, too, that the insurgents have far more blood on their hands -- there is no question that the number of Iraqi noncombatants killed by U.S. forces exceeds by an order of magnitude the number of U.S. troops killed in hostile action, which is now more than 2,000.
Who bears responsibility for these Iraqi deaths? The young soldiers pulling the triggers? The commanders who establish rules of engagement that privilege "force protection" over any obligation to protect innocent life? The intellectually bankrupt policymakers who sent U.S. forces into Iraq in the first place and now see no choice but to press on? The culture that, to put it mildly, has sought neither to understand nor to empathize with people in the Arab or Islamic worlds?
There are no easy answers, but one at least ought to acknowledge that in launching a war advertised as a high-minded expression of U.S. idealism, we have waded into a swamp of moral ambiguity. To assert that "stuff happens," as Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is wont to do whenever events go awry, simply does not suffice.
Moral questions aside, the toll of Iraqi noncombatant casualties has widespread political implications. Misdirected violence alienates those we are claiming to protect. It plays into the hands of the insurgents, advancing their cause and undercutting our own. It fatally undermines the campaign to win hearts and minds, suggesting to Iraqis and Americans alike that Iraqi civilians -- and perhaps Arabs and Muslims more generally -- are expendable. Certainly, Nahiba Husayif Jassim's death helped clarify her brother's perspective on the war. "God take revenge on the Americans and those who brought them here," he declared after the incident. "They have no regard for our lives."
He was being unfair, of course. It's not that we have no regard for Iraqi lives; it's just that we have much less regard for them. The current reparations policy -- the payment offered in those instances in which U.S. forces do own up to killing an Iraq civilian -- makes the point. The insurance payout to the beneficiaries of an American soldier who dies in the line of duty is $400,000, while in the eyes of the U.S. government, a dead Iraqi civilian is reportedly worth up to $2,500 in condolence payments -- about the price of a decent plasma-screen TV.
For all the talk of Iraq being a sovereign nation, foreign occupiers are the ones deciding what an Iraqi life is worth. And although President Bush has remarked in a different context that "every human life is a precious gift of matchless value," our actions in Iraq continue to convey the impression that civilian lives aren't worth all that much.
That impression urgently needs to change. To start, the Pentagon must get over its aversion to counting all bodies. It needs to measure in painstaking detail -- and publicly -- the mayhem we are causing as a byproduct of what we call liberation. To do otherwise, to shrug off the death of Nahiba Husayif Jassim as just one of those things that happens in war, only reinforces the impression that Americans view Iraqis as less than fully human. Unless we demonstrate by our actions that we value their lives as much as the lives of our own troops, our failure is certain.
----
When they aren't celebrating our "liberation" of Iraq, the U.S. press, military spokespersons, leading public officials, and representatives from the 101st fighting keyboarders routinely disparage the actual people of Iraq and people across the Middle East more generally. There's been next to no coverage or concern about the number and extent of Iraqi civilian deaths on account of the war and occupation. In the absence of Iraq's attacking either ourselves or any of its neighbors, our invasion and occupation was and is immoral. But no one of any prominence or distinction has really said this. Maybe Michael Moore or Cindy Sheehan has, but we know what the press thinks of them. Even most of the Democrats who supported the war initially and have now expressed regret for their vote, do so primarily from the standpoint that the invasion and occupation were "botched" and mishandled, not for the war's moral implications.
The American nationalism displayed by our press, public officials, and members of the public is moral relativism personified and exemplified. Of course our supposedly Christian clerics and the equally dubious "pro-life" forces they command have been largely silent at best on the war's carnage, or worse, they've acted as the administration's and "country's" apologists.
As Chris Rock jokes about White America's slavery, bootlegging and war-waging history, "When it's White, it's Right". Civilian deaths in Iraq? "We don't do body counts...especially those of sand niggers".
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