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October 15, 2007Enough Denial, PleaseOur moral trajectory over the Bush years could not be better dramatized than it was by a reunion of an elite group of two dozen World War II veterans in Washington this month. They were participants in a top-secret operation to interrogate some 4,000 Nazi prisoners of war. Until now, they have kept silent, but America’s recent record prompted them to talk to The Washington Post. Who cares about torture? They're brown and different looking and the markets are up... Tanya Lokshina, the chairwoman of a Russian human rights organization, the Demos Center for Information and Research, was among those who met with Ms. Rice on Saturday. She said that given the focus on security matters, the meeting with rights campaigners had been mostly symbolic. Oh you bet we have Ms. Secretary. Start with a war of choice based on false premises that has led to tens of thousands of deaths and millions displaced. Throw in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and secret detention centers in Eastern Europe. Look at the banana republicanism evinced by Administration lawyers during midnight sick-bed hospital visits. Think about the hypocrisy of calling for elections in the Palestinian territories and then cutting off aid to the victors, at least as seen from the vantage point of a region vastly skeptical of our democracy-promotion agenda. The list goes on and on. We need to wake up and smell the coffee for heaven's sake. We've lost a huge amount of the moral high ground. And much of the blame lies with Secretary Rice, frankly. As National Security Advisor, she meekly facilitated a dysfunctional foreign policy basically run by a two-pronged cabal centered on Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld. So enough denial and spin. Wouldn't it be nice if someone, at least now and again, had the courage to issue a mea culpa and be honest with themselves, and the nation? No, I don't necessarily expect it now, when say a Condi Rice is still in office. But I don't expect it later either, when she and other former Administration leading lights move on. Instead, memoirs will doubtless chronicle success after success, as per some bizarre alternative universe where a confluence of a myopic world-view, denialism, and self-serving spin have these discredited players portraying their noble service to an Administration stoking the fires of freedom from Rangoon to Havana with unbridled fortitude and vision. No one seems to take responsibility anymore, no one admits error. I mean, how can one take seriously someone who, after all the blunders listed above, bristles emotively saying we have "never lost the moral high ground"? Not even a little? This is not serious. And it is a symptom of insecurity and mediocrity, not strength and leadership. Posted by Gregory at October 15, 2007 06:35 PMComments
You just don't understand that anything is OK as long as the Republican leadership is doing it. Well, except the gay stuff in airport bathrooms. That's still wrong, because it involves sex. But anything in the political or military realm is defensible because it was signed off on by the ALL-POWERFUL, ALL-KNOWING EXECUTIVE BRANCH OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT.* You know, our betters. C'mon, these people have been telling us that they are better than us for the last 7 years, it is our unwillingness to acknowledge this that is the problem.
No torture, maybe, but millions of civilians killed by pattern bombing, artillery barrages and nuclear weapons. Also thousands of executions after the war of enemy soldiers who were mostly Japanese - Germans were mostly spared because they were white. Not to mention the abandoning of millions to the tender mercies of the Reds that included forced repatriations of people who faced certain imprisonment and death.
A couple of observations with respect to a post that deserves more than that. 1. I would imagine the WWII interrogators came from the elite of their day -- they had Ivy League educations and probably well-connected parents. They likely believed that they were gentlemen, and that those they were interrogating were also gentlemen (no matter how miserable the crime). There was likely a presumption that both groups came from roughly the same Western culture. In other words, I think they had it somewhat easier, in terms of staying decent. I wonder whether the results would have been the same, had these individuals been interrogating Japanese prisoners. 2. When it comes to asking that Bush appointees actually notice that they have been doing something wrong, you do ask the impossible. I don't think we are going to have a McNamara in this administration, though we might get a Ramsey Clark or a John Dean (you know -- the type who, by reflex rather than reflection, comes to represent the polar oppositie of what he once stood for). The traits in high demand in the Bush White House are not those found in people who reflect on their mistakes and make public atonement for them. Posted by: Appalled Moderate at October 16, 2007 03:08 PM | Permalink to this comment
"Oh you bet we have Ms. Secretary. Start with a war of choice based on false premises that has led to tens of thousands of deaths and millions displaced. Throw in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and secret detention centers in Eastern Europe" Just who are you insinuating here. It was all of congress that made the decision to go to war not just part of it. You Liberals try to weasel out of your involvment in that decision but, even Hillary and Kerry made that vote to go. Abu Graib was the work of individuals, don't sacrifice and the honor and dignity of all for the mistakes of a few. Guano has held many combatants and some of those that have been released have gone to rejoin and fight, so you are suggesting just let them all go? Your a real Barney Fife aren't you. If we do have those dentention centers around Europe let me ask you a question. Would you be willing the trade the life of one man to save 100? What about 10,000? If I thought that it would save the lives of children and innocent people if I killed some scum bag mixed up in some religious calling, you bet I would arrange the meeting. You pacifist are going to have to start making decisions, and it is you or them. That is the game they are playing. Not to mention you are basing that off of the Russian Human Rights orginization, don't make me laugh. You mean the one that has let all the ethnic clensing go on without so much as a peep for the last 15 years. Yeah, there is some credibility. Listen go sell your socialism somewhere else. Better yet why not move to Russia and join them. That way you will be happy and the rest of us will be happy. Why don't you tell us how you propose to fix all the problems in the world through pacifism. Tell the jihadist that is strapping bombs on their children to go blow up innocent people as the eat, to stop. You are so right why did no one ever think of that before. I have got it ... Everyone in the world stop being mean and killing each other. So is that kind of what you had in mind? Lets see how that works.
If we do have those dentention centers around Europe let me ask you a question. Would you be willing the trade the life of one man to save 100? What about 10,000? If I thought that it would save the lives of children and innocent people if I killed some scum bag mixed up in some religious calling, you bet I would arrange the meeting. You pacifist are going to have to start making decisions, and it is you or them. That is the game they are playing. Yeah yeah yeah. You ignore the real questions -- Which one guy do you "trade"? How do you decide? It's astonishing how right-wingers routinely skate past this simple consideration in their race to appear "tough". GOOD intelligence officers, like good detectives, are less interested in blood on the walls than truth. Posted by: Samuel Glover at October 16, 2007 04:08 PM | Permalink to this comment
AA has a point. Our intelligence officers may have been nothing like the Gestapo et al, but we did plenty of killing of innocent people in WWII. I have no wish to start a WWII flamewar and I kinda think the Germans and the Japanese got what they deserved, but no side came away clean from WWII, we just looked better than the Germans and Japanese because they really went out of their way to be such bastards. Plus, we won. The victors get to define the conflict and their role in it. Posted by: LL at October 16, 2007 04:37 PM | Permalink to this comment
I'll have to remember that last line of LL's, since it meshes so perfectly with what the Nazis themselves used to say: "Winners write history." That particular moral philosophy, you may recall, got rather explicitly bashed at Nuremberg. Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at October 16, 2007 05:38 PM | Permalink to this comment
Whether the US "lost the moral high ground" or not is not for someone like Ms. Rice to define. It is decided by how other international parties think of us. We can claim our pure-hearted morality as loudly as we want, but if no one believes us, it doesn't do us much good, does it? And I would gently tap Ms. Rice on the shoulder and whisper in her ear about the proverbial destination of all those who would claim "good intentions". Posted by: grumpy realist at October 16, 2007 06:17 PM | Permalink to this comment
Let me raise here an awkward point. Leaving aside who her colleagues in the Bush administration have been, and who she reports to, Sec. Rice might well feel more persuaded than most people that the United States occupies the moral high ground as much as it ever did, for an obvious reason. She is black. She is also female. There are many countries in which being one or the other, let alone both, would disqualify one from any substantial professional career, let alone high government office. At one time the United States was such a country, and it isn't any more, which is a pretty remarkable thing. Sec. Rice is a symbol of that as much as any person living, and I wouldn't blame her at all if this influenced her feelings about where America stood from a moral point of view. Most Americans, frankly, take this kind of thing for granted, or at the other extreme treat it as an occasion for a rather shallow kind of self-congratulation, as if the kind of social progress symbolized by the appointment of a black woman as Secretary of State was an achievement of theirs. Rice would have good reason to think about this more seriously, and not just for personal reasons, for what she symbolizes really is important for many Americans, and for many people overseas as well. This is a major reason I am so sorry Condoleezza Rice has not been a successful Secretary of State and was an even less impressive National Security Adviser. For the same reason I was sorry to see Colin Powell fail as he did during President Bush's first term. From my point of view the moral power of a symbol is a fragile thing -- the appointment of a black woman as Secretary of State says one thing about the country, but the service of a Secretary of State who isn't very good at her job says something else. You never want to have your symbolism too far divorced from substance; like a flag separated from its flagpole, people will still look up at the symbol, but won't be able to look up at it for very long.
Please, Russia, the country that pulverized the city of Grozny in order to relive the adventure of the 19th Century. Ironically, Grozny was the fortress city set up by Yermolov during the first
A judgement on the "moral suasiveness" of the United States can't be based on whether the government of this nation had a moral high ground in the past: the instantly calcinated bodies of tens (or hundreds) of thousands Japanese instantly killed by nuclear weapons is a persuasive argument in favor of the thesis that we never had that high ground. And this is clearly not the only example that can be used as a premise in such argument. Nevertheless, it would be clearly naive to say nothing has changed, that it's business as usual. What has changed, is that there is now an entire extra-governmental apparatus associated to a particular political ideology which suppresses the moral conscience of the nation. That apparatus controls a good part of our press and has skillful and well paid public relations component. That apparatus has a wide range of spokepersons, both formal and informal, some even claiming to be journalists (Krauthammer and Bill Kristol for instance) The nation is losing its moral conscience or rather its moral conscience is being intimidated out of existence. The process of regaining it won't happen solely (or even partly) by depositing pieces of paper in a ballot box. Posted by: CSTAR at October 16, 2007 11:18 PM | Permalink to this comment
I wish to God we could deposit pieces of paper in ballot boxes. Had that been the case in 2000 and 2004, we just might have been spared incalculable misery and bloodshed. Posted by: Lynn Lightfoot at October 17, 2007 04:04 AM | Permalink to this comment
I agree with Zathras in that the appointment of Rice to high public office was a positive development, it's just too bad that she hasn't exactly distinguished herself. Not entirely her fault, she "serves at the pleasure of the president," I guess. Maybe for another president she would have really been able to accomplish something, but under Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld, the best diplomat in the world would have found him/herself stymied at every turn. Surely Rice knew this going in. Hers is the first post-Bush tenure book I would be most likely to read. Or at least skim through standing up in the Barnes & Noble. Despite what many Republicans seem to think, most non-Republicans did not want us to fail anywhere, not here and not in Iraq. I assumed we would, because look at who's in charge, but I actually did have a tiny spark of hope that Chimpy and his gang would manage to get something positive out of their various misadventures, if only by accident. Oh well. The good thing about being a skeptic is that if someone succeeds, you're pleasantly surprised and if they fail, you have the consolation of having accurately predicted that failure. Posted by: LL at October 17, 2007 12:12 PM | Permalink to this comment
Add the erosion of civil liberties in the United States to the list of things that drags down our moral high ground. We simply are not the same country we were back in WWII. We're all becoming the "Good Germans" willing to avert our eyes as long as we make our money and don't directly have to sacrifice. The founding fathers are throwing up in their graves. Posted by: Jim at October 17, 2007 03:58 PM | Permalink to this comment
Jim: In the 1940s, we had Jim Crow and Japanese Americans in internment camp and criminal interrogation conducted with rubber hoses and no miranda warnngs. What our government is doing is reprehensible. But it is NOT worse than the 40s. Saying it is devalues the contributions of a lot of brave Americans. But you're right -- the founding fathers probably ARE spinning in their graves. Don't know if it was the constitutional amendment setting up the income tax or the one giving the women the vote that got them all agitated. Posted by: Appalled Moderate at October 17, 2007 04:28 PM | Permalink to this comment
Appalled Moderate: I suspect the constitutional amendment that would most likely upset the Founding Fathers would be the one having the Senate elected directly by the voters instead of the state legislatures. However they would be re-assured by the President still being chosen by the Electoral College instead of directly by the voters and an unelected Federal Judiciary headed by the Supreme Court as keeping the People in check and under control of their "betters"! Appalled Moderate, AA & LL are right, back in the "Good War",* World War II, the USA did do virulent racist acts including Jin Crow Segregation of Blacks and the Internment of Japanese Americans on the basis of their Race & Nationality, "A Jap's a Jap", etec. The US and Britain did firebomb enemy cities killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. It is often forgotten that the deliberate mass killing of civilians from the Air had already become part of Allied War Strategy even before Hiroshima. As for Bruce Moomaw's suggestion that Nuremberg was not an example of Justice by the Victors, I would ask what Soviet Officials have even been tried and convicted for the millions killed by "Good Old Uncle Joe" Stalin** and his Regime. *There is no such thing as a Good War, only those that are Unavoidable, WWII was such a conflict.
While the Germans were bombing Polish cities indiscriminately, and long after the Japanese were bombing cities in China without regard to civilian casualties, the British and French were dropping leaflets (and losing aircraft while doing so) over Germany and promising not to bomb private property. Anyone really sorry that the British--and later the American bombing strategy--changed? It is not the Allies' fault that that their superior technology and production capacity caused the Germans and Japanese to reap what they sowed many times over. People should try not to compare apples and oranges when drawing comparisons between World War II and today, nor should they attempt strained and in-apt historical analogies. If they fight wars, countries should fight them to win. It is just that to "win" in Iraq (and against terrorism), very different--and sometimes counterintuitive--strategies are called for. And thanks to utter ineptitude of the Bush administration, in may not be possible to "win" in Iraq. Posted by: Tom S. at October 18, 2007 01:19 AM | Permalink to this comment
Frank Rich and the Rooskies bloviating on the moral high-ground. Say hello to the perfect storm of leftist rhetoric. I'm telling ya', you can't make this stuff up. As an aside, we are then asked, directed, as a moral imperative to seek chaperonage by the Euros (of all people) to restrain-ah, remedy, sorry-Vlad the impaler. Seems he's drinking the fresh blood of democracy in the quiet of the night as the oligarchs and the ex-politburo boys swoon together in a quiet delight. Not exactly poetry in motion, now, is it.... But back to the Euros. Our chaperones. Weren't they the same gang who, when asked to dissuade Teheran from its ( praise be to Allah) nuke profligacy, looked as much like a diplomatic eunuch as did, well, Jimmy Carter? (Btw, didnt he too win the Nobel Prize....?) So how is it exactly that our joining hands with Sarkozy (et al), whose campaign message for one was to achieve greater immigration controls (code for keep out the bastards, even though his daddy was from Hungary), will give resonance to a perfunctory human rights campaign? Sorry. There's no there, there, to quote whoever said that. But I'd still like to hear the answer as much as a few Ukrainians and Belorussians and Chechens probably would. Frank Rich needs to remind the lady from Russia and those clever chess-playing WW2 vets that any moral seachange will have to get on sans the USA. Regrets. Not even time for a tepid game of ping-pong. Raincheck, please. We're preoccupied at the moment with the non-chess playing antics of Al Qaeda and with men whose vision of the moral high-ground incorporates removing one's head.
I'd say that CSTAR has been writing the single most important and insightful comment on this board in months. Because I do believe aswell that this is exactly what's been happening in the past years. More and more. American citizens grow up indoctrinated that America is The Force of Good (tm) in this world. Who-or whatever opposes America is opposing the Force of Good, and thus quickly earns criticism or even becomes part of The Enemy (tm). When Americans conduct acts of evil - even by the very same religious roots these Good People (tm) adhere to - then, it is rationalized that it's in fact the ruthlessness of the Evil Enemy which is forcing the Good (tm) to do it. Just read reshufflex for a demonstration. And besides, even if "single people" (the next self-lie) commit atrocities, others, particularly the Evil Enemy, are even worse. And shame on whoever has the audacity to point out the Evil committed by the Force of Good, since that's emboldening the enemy. Torturing people? Incarcerating people without legal review? Breaking national and international law at random? And the media is playing Nero, fiddling while Rome is burning, and absolving the remains of the national conscience from really facing any of this. Posted by: Mentar at October 18, 2007 03:32 AM | Permalink to this comment
Reshufflex: "Frank Rich needs to remind the lady from Russia and those clever chess-playing WW2 vets that any moral seachange will have to get on sans the USA. Regrets. Not even time for a tepid game of ping-pong. Raincheck, please. We're preoccupied at the moment with the non-chess playing antics of Al Qaeda and with men whose vision of the moral high-ground incorporates removing one's head." Well, that's certainly a convincing argument: We should torture because it's important to get good intelligence and win the war, even if torture interferes with our getting good intelligence and (in more ways than that) with winning the war. Which, of course, is why all those other American Presidents also legalized it enthusiastically during our previous wars. Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at October 18, 2007 06:24 AM | Permalink to this comment
I think this is a good time to note how Reshufflex suddenly made himself scarce on the thread immediately below, the moment Djerejian pointed out the obvious (that al-Qaeda will establish itself in force only wherever the natives tolerate it, which is Afghanistan and northern Pakistan but, as we now know, very definitely not any part of Iraq). Not to worry, though: I'm sure all those headlines about unnecessary American abuse of Moslems are doing wonders to reduce the number of potential anti-American and anti-Western terrorists scattered across the world Moslem community as a whole, since we all know how cowardly suicide bombers are. Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at October 18, 2007 06:47 AM | Permalink to this comment
Mentar, et al: I think you all might want to consider the fruits of the death of American exceptionalism. It would likely be a Kissinger style realism, unleavened by any concerns for the civil rights of non-Americans, and no domestic controversy at all about securing our substantial economic interests in the world. In other words, we'd act like Russia or China. Not sure all you all out there would be better off. America has never fulfilled its ideals. We have usually tried. And, inside the country, there are always significant voice reminding us of our failures, and eventually getting power and nudging things, however slightly, towards a better path. The tragedy of the Bush administration (Hell, one of many tragedies) is that, on issues of civil rights and foreign policy, we have partied like it's 1953 and taken huge steps back. And, unfortunately, the American people has backed those retrograde steps. We'll do better. I hope it doesn't take 20 years for us to do so. Posted by: Appalled Moderate at October 18, 2007 10:16 AM | Permalink to this comment
Bruce- "Well, that's certainly a convincing argument: " Can we please not again go down the why-we-should-not-torture road? Everyone is well aware of your black and white sentimentalities on the topic and, no, I wasn't justifying it. I was (too clumsily) asking you to see the grand irony of Frank Rich (ad nauseam) and the Russians mocking the US moral direction when, minimally, 1) Rich works for the most preeminent paper in the world that exists de facto by virtue of our moral posture; and 2) it was preeminently the US' moral gravitas toward the Iron Curtain that now allows Ms. Russian Critic to challenge our geopolitical conduct. As to my exiting the lower thread, I thought Greg deserved the final word. Period. I'm in his home, after all. Posted by: reshufflex at October 18, 2007 12:23 PM | Permalink to this comment
the founders had good ideas but wanted to keep their slaves anyway Posted by: katherine Hunter at October 18, 2007 01:30 PM | Permalink to this comment
Appalled Moderate: > I think you all might want to consider the fruits of the death of Why? Why would you feel the need to replace one ugly extremist position with another one? I'm under the impression that America has done alot of good in the world, and in the past it was perfectly able to take its role as leader of the western world WITHOUT the ugly and vile excesses of the recent past. A reversal to the pre-Bush times would be something I hope for. That worked pretty well, not only for America, but for the rest of the world too. > In other words, we'd act like Russia or China. Good question. Right now, I feel that America is fanning the flames in the Middle East, and that Europe is being scorched by the backlash. When America goofs up there, Europe will pay the price aswell. On the other hand, I certainly won't contest that American power has been a boon for the world overall. > America has never fulfilled its ideals. We have usually tried. Where? Where is it? The MSM was basically quiet when most of the blatant misdeeds happened, and they haven't really dealt with them to this very day. President Bush can still dodge the question what constitutes torture for him. Anti-Iran war propaganda is distributed not just over Fox News but over almost every major news outlet, regardless of all the lip service the media gave after the Iraq fiasco never to do the same thing again. It's all merely tongue-flapping. There is no "significant voice". It takes the internet with bloggers and secondary media to keep at least a trace of this voice heard. Why do you guess does Greg sound so exasperated in his note here, hm? > [...] and eventually getting power and nudging things, however Reelecting Bush was already a near-criminal mistake. We'll see what America does next time. > The tragedy of the Bush administration (Hell, one of many Exactly. And in my opinion it is because the very idea of having gone wrong, or of still being wrong is blanked out. Noone is held accountable anyway, so America prefers to fool itself inside a media bubble instead of facing the realities. Pleasant lies are preferred to unpleasant truths. > We'll do better. I hope it doesn't take 20 years for us to do so. I hope you're right. Bush was talking about WW3 today. Posted by: Mentar at October 18, 2007 02:16 PM | Permalink to this comment
R.: "I was (too clumsily) asking you to see the grand irony of Frank Rich (ad nauseam) and the Russians mocking the US moral direction when, minimally, 1) Rich works for the most preeminent paper in the world that exists de facto by virtue of our moral posture; and 2) it was preeminently the US' moral gravitas toward the Iron Curtain that now allows Ms. Russian Critic to challenge our geopolitical conduct. " "Too clumsily" is an understatement, R., given that we didn't win either WW 2 or the Cold War through legalizing torture or getting into a major war on false pretences. (The last time we did the latter, you may recall, was Vietnam, which didn't turn out so well.) Nor am I aware that Rich opposes our involvement in either endeavor. It's interesting to speculate on how well either one would have gone if our current crop of fanatical clunkheads had been running it. As for my "black-and-white sentimentalities" on the subject of torture: well, shucks, R., if you review my previous comments at this site you'll note that I'M the one who's been pushing the idea of a FISA-type Permissible Torture Court (under that name, please, without the phony euphemisms we've been hearing), that would allow a supermajority of judges to permit any interrogation technique up to and including flat-out unambiguous torture if they thought it justified under the emergency circumstances. What I object to is the Bushian philosophy that a single man -- at any point in the chain of command, from a low-level interrogator all the way up to the Oval Office -- should be allowed to decide all on his lonesome what constitutes torture and when it is used. And as for your failing to respond to Djerejian on that previous thread out of sheer politeness: that's a definite first for you, but a misplaced one. By all means let's hear your reasoning on how our continued presence in Iraq is crucial in weakening al-Qaeda, given that we now know that neither the Iraqi Shiites nor the Iraqi Sunnis, if left to themselves, will tolerate it in any large numbers on their territory -- meaning that all the additional Moslem terrorists we've been generating through unnecessary bully-boy tactics will either head off to Afghanistan and north Pakistan (where the locals tolerate them just fine) or disperse themselves in a more rarified, undercover way all over the world. (One hopes that it's a bit better than your earlier reasoning on the subject of the new FISA bill.) Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at October 18, 2007 04:50 PM | Permalink to this comment
Hi Bruce- I cant wade thru your countless non sequiturs, so let me address what seems to be your central, if convoluted, angst. First, you need to get past this notion that Bush has a monopoly on dubious, war-time, executive-branch edicts and, specifically, that he is the unilateral agent for terrorists' jurisprudence and all horrors they face. From the sedition act of 1798, which was underscored by Adams and the Federalists, to Lincoln suspending habeas corpus, to WWilson's "passage" of the 1918 sedition act (reacting to WW1 criticisms), to Roosevelt's notorious internments of Japanese descendents during the second world war, our history is replete with extra-judicial manueverings by our presidents-by congress, and by the judiciary, also. All I won't even discuss the illegalities that were sanctioned by countless presidents-all branches, actually- within the context of our slave and McCarthy eras. So enough already with your Bush-as-Big-Bro' cants. Theyve reached diminishing returns. I send the same message to Frank Rich. That messy history notwithstanding, nor am I aware of any judicial tradition that has yielded to a reign of those presidential excesses, especially when those excesses like torture confront and usurp civil liberties. Look at the brief evolution of FISA if that's your litmus test: what you'll observe if youre paying attention is that from Katz in '67, to the Title 111 requirements, to the Keith decision, and even to the later Church committee findings ( all of which induced FISA)-what you'll observe is rampant executive abuses with an equally attendant congressional and judicial remedy. The balance of power has a way of succeeding. Suggest you read Justice Jackson in Youngstown for some added perspective. The point being, the executive's latitude in moments of national security are too vast and, yep, too often dubious to indict Bush alone as unique in his excesses. You can disagree all you want with his actions but you can't cite the "Bushian philosophy" as being all that extraordinary. Besides, congress has approved nearly every action that he's employed-including the Patriot Act-excepting a few that are reserved for the executive branch but which need to get past the supreme court, anyway, sooner or later. I get to "your" question about AQ and our role in Iraq later.
I should also add that a lot of the new terrorist sympathizers we've been generating through our Unnecessary Roughness strategy (or, "Pick up some crappy little country and throw it against the wall', to quote the immortal Jonah Goldberg) do not agree with al-Qaeda's super-Puritanism that has made it so detested in Sunni Iraq -- which, of course, won't stop them from strapping on those explosive vests or taking those flying lessons. Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at October 18, 2007 09:35 PM | Permalink to this comment
For the record, R., I'm quite aware of this country's various charming little activities in the past, and could indeed add a lot that you haven't mentioned (Andrew Jackson's explicit defiance of the Supreme Court to enable his open genocide of American Indians; Teddy Roosevelt's deliberate coverup of our similar genocide in repressing Aguinalo's Filipino rebellion; and need I mention My Lai et al? Although Lincoln didn't try to shield himself legally from his suspension of habeas corpus, and in fact publicly threw himself on Congress' mercy by stating that it was free to impeach and remove him if it thought his behavior was unacceptable.) But, you know, I kind of think Frank Rich is aware of all those things, too -- and, like me, he doesn't think that it does much to justify GWB's continuation of this great American tradition. Nor does it do much to indicate that Bush's legalization of flat-out torture of POWs (something we HAVEN'T seen before in American history) doesn't (as Rich said) resemble what the Gestapo did, even though we're doing it in tremendously lesser numbers. Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at October 18, 2007 09:43 PM | Permalink to this comment
I may also point out the painfully obvious fact that the Church Committee's investigation, and the resultant passage of FISA, was only made possible because Congress at the time was solidly controlled by the opposition party (as was the Watergate investigation that ultimately led to Nixon's removal). We've just had a little demonstration of what those "congressional remedies" amount to when the same party controls the White House and Congress, or even when it falls narrowly short of controlling Congress. As for "judicial remedies": quite apart from the fact that it's attained near-control of the Supreme Court, we've seen at dreary length how good this administration (and, no doubt, others) can be at stringing out THAT review process for years until they're safely out of office. (Such as -- say -- arranging for no US Attorney to be willing to submit a Congressional complaint to the Court about the White House withholding evidence in an investigation of the partisan appointment of US Attorneys? The Ouroboros Scandal.) All of which, of course, is yet another disastrous consequence of the Framers' bizarre failure to foresee the rise of political parties in the US at all, which by itself defuses a lot of their anti-tyranny precautions. (When the president's absolute right of pardon was criticized by George Mason et al on the grounds that he could use it to stifle investigations into his own illegal activities by pardoning his aides, Madison replied that any president who behaved in such a suspicious way would surely immediately be impeached and removed from office by that Nonpartisan Congress. Surprise, James!) Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at October 18, 2007 09:53 PM | Permalink to this comment
"Wouldn't it be nice if someone, at least now and again, had the courage to issue a mea culpa and be honest with themselves..." Yes it would, Greg, yes it would. Why don't we start with your own sorry history in regard to our getting into Iraq? Oh right, it all would have gone smoothly if only YOU were in charge..... But you're not, so it's perfectly alright to orphan the the policy whose birth you supported. Tralala. Posted by: neill at October 19, 2007 09:52 AM | Permalink to this comment
Well, you know, Neill, it WOULD have gone a lot smoother if Djerejian had been in charge -- although I very much doubt any long-term occupation would have succeeded, since the only way ever to make that happen was to institute a draft and go in with about three times as many troops. But at least a lot of the other egregious mistakes would have been avoided. Let's also keep in mind that Djerejian and a lot of other liberal hawks, including Yours Truly, initially supported the war because we couldn't believe that two supposedly experienced old hands like Cheney and Rumsfeld would be stupid enough to launch a war against a non-existent Iraqi nuclear threat at the same time that very real nuclear threats existed, or were rapidly growing, elsewhere. (Thus Greg's reference to "a war started under false premises".) For that reason, we were willing to support an invasion just to clean out that supposed nuclear program, even if there was no reasonable hope of pacifying and reforming Iraq afterwards and we would have to bail out fast and just leave a sea of bloody chaos behind. The sudden attack of insanity that C. and R. suffered is still the biggest mystery of the Bush Administration, and it's not exactly the sort of thing that even a reaonable guy like Greg can be expected to foresee. Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at October 19, 2007 05:06 PM | Permalink to this comment
BM, stick your 20-20 hindsight -- it gets nobody anywhere. oh, that's right, you don't care about what's REALLY happening out there, you only care about what happens in the ballot box. and are selling your soul to that end. your intellectual dishonesty terrifies me about our future. note: the other side IS a worthy opponent, something you can't seem to wrap that massive brain around ...... therefore our side, Bush, must be unworthy. so let's just grab our ankles.....and shriek to Allah. BM, accept it, you're unfit for a fight to the finish. as is djeredjian, for getting himself into a fight that he doesn't have the will to finish. we all know that OBL, short of being stomped out of existence, CAN finish a fight. you sure don't measure up to him. except maybe when it comes to bloviating.
Don't you just love intelligent arguments? (Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for that reply from Reshufflex, who at least puts up a minimal facade of trying to provide one.) My point, nitwit, was precisely that because Islamofascists (a term which I continue to think has some usefulness) would be cheerfully willing to use nuclear bombs as terrorist weapons against us IF they ever manage to get their hands on them -- and since nuclear terrorism is about 100,000 times more horrendous in its consequences than any other type of possible terrorist attack (even including biological weapons, at least until the genetic-engineering advances of another few decades from now) -- we had damn well better set our priorities accordingly. Any military action on our part that actually harms our chances of reducing the nuclear-terrorism menace (through either military or diplomatic action, or both) is bloody dangerous and counterproductive. And the Iraq invasion -- which was based, as we now know, on the Bush Administration's cretinous overconfidence that we could pacify Iraq and reform it into a pro-Western democracy with a mere handful of troops, and then use it as a base to carry out the same Cakewalk War in Iran -- has harmed our effort in the worldwide struggle against Megaterrorism by disastrously weakening us both militarily AND diplomatically. It hasn't even done anything to reduce the danger of our undergoing NON-nuclear terrorist attacks of the 9-11 variety again -- in fact, it has almost certainly increased that risk as well. Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at October 20, 2007 04:11 AM | Permalink to this comment
Leaving aside the substance (please leave it aside) of his arguments, I continue to be fascinated by the sexual connotations, and innuendos of Neil's arguments. As well as the conjuring up of the images of anal rape, violence, and pep talk quality calls for the 'will to fight' and all that. It has a faux Wagnerian quality to it. Takes me back to my high school days, half time, on the football team. 'you gotta get out there and HIT those guys like you mean....no friggin love taps'. Posted by: jonst at October 20, 2007 11:25 AM | Permalink to this comment
"The Bush administration....has harmed our effort in the worldwide struggle against Megaterrorism by disastrously weakening us both militarily AND diplomatically. It hasn't even done anything to reduce the danger of our undergoing NON-nuclear terrorist attacks of the 9-11 variety again -- in fact, it has almost certainly increased that risk as well."
This war has STRENGTHENED our ability to fight this kind of enemy. Creating a killing field for jihadis in Iraq rather precludes their being involved in an attack here. The jihadi ideology has undergone a precipitous drop in popularity among Muslims worldwide due to their savagery and the revolt against them by muslims in Iraq. Have you seen the polls? GO TEAM GO. WIN TEAM WIN. Posted by: neill at October 20, 2007 12:59 PM | Permalink to this comment
I sure have, Neill. I've also seen the latest poll of Pakistanis ( http://edition.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/09/11/poll.pakistanis/ ), which shows that 46% of them approve of Bin Laden and exactly 9% of them approve of Bush. (The poll was conducted in late August by "Terror-Free Tomorrow", whose board of directors includes McCain, Bill Frist, Slade Gorton, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton.) And the Sept. 10 ABC poll of Iraqis ( http://www.abcnews.go.com/images/US/1043a1IraqWhereThingsStand.pdf , pg. 26 and 29) showing that fully 92% of Sunnis and no less than 35% of SHIITES think that attacks on US soldiers by al Qaeda are "acceptable". (Half of all Shiites think that attacks on US soldiers by Shiite insurgents are acceptable. The Kurds -- as in ABC's two previous polls of Iraq -- remain overwhelmingly pro-American.) As for "creating a killing field for jihadis in Iraq...to preclude their attacking here", we've all heard this "let's make the hospital cafeteria really dirty so the germs will all migrate down there" theory before -- to say nothing of the fact that Neill's next argument actually supports my own line that the Iraqi Sunnis, IF we leave them to themselves, will give al Qaeda the boot. (That same ABC poll -- pg. 30 -- shows that, IF the US pulls out, fully 96% of Iraq's Sunnis would want all foreign al-Qaeda fighters to get lost. They detest al-Qaeda, but they detest us even more.) As for Neill's style: one disadvantage of the fact that Net commentators can use pseudonyms is that you never know when you're dealing with a teenager. In Neill's case, however, I think the answer is pretty obvious.
Bruce, I'd be wary of deducing that Neill is young merely because he seems to exhibit a fascination with references to such things as anal rape -- I seriously think there are a lot of older guys, both gay and straight, that love to talk about that in that fashion, for various reasons -- and even some females. Perhaps he is working out psychosexual issues in such a relatively harmless fashion as typing -- insults in digital format are really quite a harmless outlet for violent desires, other options considered. He might even be doing a satirical version -- maybe he is actually intelligent and well-reasoned, but loves to bate others with farcical front -- I must confess that I can relate to that :) Posted by: Howard Stern at October 20, 2007 05:18 PM | Permalink to this comment
No we didn't torture in Europe; but we trained them in South America and South East ASia. We gave the most ruthless killers
>Creating a killing field for jihadis in Iraq rather precludes their being involved in an attack here. If our "enemy" is as dedicated and fanatic as some claim, why does some of them being involved in a war in Iraq preclude others from being involved in an attack here? Do you REALLY think that *ALL* of the available fanatics have gone to Iraq and there are none are left to be a problem elsewhere? That certainly wasn't the case with bombings in Great Britain. Posted by: Walt Sherrill at October 20, 2007 09:56 PM | Permalink to this comment
Aaah, poor clueless Americans! Not only have they lost the moral high ground, but also the capacity to think for themselves. Pathetic really! Posted by: Gene at October 21, 2007 03:19 AM | Permalink to this comment
http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=248
Please, Neill. I SAID I'd read it before. Encouraging as far as it goes, but it has nothing at all to do with the Iraq War -- or with those other much less encouraging polls I mentioned (the one from Pakistan actually being the most unnerving of the lot). Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at October 21, 2007 05:56 AM | Permalink to this comment
i am traveling overseas on business and have just scrolled through some of the recent comments. just as an fyi, the "greg" commenting in the prior thread wasn't me. when I've had time to comment in this space, as there have been other "greg's" who've shown up now and again, i typically comment as "greg djerejian" (to try to avoid just this type of confusion). Not terribly important in the grand scheme of things, but as I said, just a routine housekeeping type fyi. best, gd p.s. there also appears to be confusion about whether i am putting russia's human rights record on par (or better!) than ours. that's not my point. my point is simply that russian human rights activists told sec. rice we've lost the moral high ground, and i agree our reputation on this score internationally has taken major body-blows these past 5-6 yrs. that's quite different than contending that russia's human rights record is superior to ours. just a quick clarification re: this last...though one can't help wondering whether some were willfully misunderstanding the point on this score, straw-man style... Posted by: greg djerejian at October 21, 2007 01:23 PM | Permalink to this comment
Perhaps to put it in a different form, it is quite unfortunate to find yourself in the position of arguing that The US use of gestapo torture tactics, defended by the Bush Administration with the same philosophy as was used by gestapo war criminals in the trials in Norway in 1948, are not as bad as the use by the Nazis were. Posted by: Striada Helfathi at October 21, 2007 02:13 PM | Permalink to this comment
your intellectual dishonesty terrifies me about our future. A comment in a blog discussion makes you tremble for Western Civilization, neill? That's an impressive sense of proportion you've got going there, ace. Posted by: sglover at October 21, 2007 04:28 PM | Permalink to this comment
BM, If huge jumps in muslim disapproval of al quaeda/takfiri ideology and tactics are not related to -- though they are coincident with -- unquestionably the first widespread popular revolt by sunni muslims against al quaeda/takfiri ideology and tactics, then I'm sure you'll be happy to educate me as to the specifics regarding what is driving the attitude change. Posted by: neill at October 21, 2007 04:50 PM | Permalink to this comment
Well, Neill, it's mostly that al-Qaeda has started blowing up other Moslems -- something which that ABC poll of Iraqi Sunnis showed them virtually unanimously opposed to at the same time that 92% of them approved doing it to US soldiers. All of which just confirms again that al-Qaeda will cut its own throat very nicely in most parts of the Moslem world IF we don't interfere with the process. Our military actions against them should be limited to the one part of the world where this is not true, but where we can nevertheless operate militarily -- namely, Afghanistan. But then, all this just confirms again that our real Number One priority -- by about five orders of magnitude -- is keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of Moslem terrorists of ANY variety. And, yeah, I'm always happy to educate you, although I wish I was more hopeful about your willingness to actually learn anything. Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at October 22, 2007 02:42 AM | Permalink to this comment
I'm less concerned with what they say to a pollster, than what they actually do. they are working WITH us to eradicate al quaeda, and with shia in order to effect a grass-roots reconciliation. Posted by: neill at October 22, 2007 11:06 AM | Permalink to this comment
First, yes (for the moment); second, no. And that makes all the difference in the world. Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at October 22, 2007 05:53 PM | Permalink to this comment
second, yes, actually. it's documented. as to their success, only time will tell. Posted by: neill at October 23, 2007 01:05 PM | Permalink to this comment
Bruce- Bruce- "Don't you just love intelligent arguments? (Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for that reply from Reshufflex, who at least puts up a minimal facade of trying to provide one.)" Satirical efforts on blogs, especially those designed to mark one's polemical territory, are as common as a dog lifting its leg, and about as compelling. But if it makes you feel better, by all means. Lift your leg. On to Iraq. I must say that this chestnut of yours (and that non-Djerejain Greg fellow's) that al Qaeda is fast opting out of points Baghdad and beyond for fear of episodic tribe reprisals-or, more curiously, because they will find themselves and their endearing jihad more welcomed elsewhere-is an entirely novel flirtation with bin Laden's and al Qaeda's raison d'etre. It is equally a flirtation with the truth. Bin Laden sees Iraq as a staging ground, where jihad meets west in his mindless eschatological campaign. Moreover, your secondary idea that bin Ladenism and al Qaeda are all aflutter and fueled particularly by our Iraq presence is to mis-identify the madness and social DNA that drives this breed. There's a history here, pal. It's long and sordid, a tangled web of fanaticism run amok. But before any explanation of (particularly) Well, lookie there. Baathism alone under Hussein, and right around the corner under Assad, has been barking jihadist rhetoric for decades. Surprise, surprise. Secularism was Baghdad my ass. But wait. Lookie yonder. More footprints of the losers. We see next door those ever-loving jihadists in Teheran. You want me to count 'em? Exactly when did our Iraq invasion give birth to that gang? Right. It didnt. Ahmadinejad, his pious pimp with the God role, the clergy, et al, have been busy playing their version of Let's-Return-to-Sharia and Take-out-the-Infidels since circa Muslim Brotherhood, even if the Shah did unfairly hijack the process, install SAVAK, and even if you want to cite our role in his failed rule. Speaking of the Brotherhood, that leads us directly to Egypt and to Saudi Arabia, which was and remains (with a nod the Pakistan) the vortex of jihadist intoxication. Too bad Egypt's efforts to silence that crowd, or Riyadh's half-baked control of the eternally-lobotomized wahhabists, succeeded only in strengthening their extremist, dystopic goals. Not that I'm surprised. I don't support any regime that restrains another with foundational lies, as continues in both countries, if not in all of them over there. And thus a zealot Zawahiri befriends a zealot bin Laden, and we get to witness the focused dementia and terror of identical twins born of different mothers. Talk about the poison being in the water. There's still plenty more warm and fuzzy fanatical history. We don't have time to analyze on a blog, though we should, the subcutaneous inspirations of today's Add to that that their mentors are convincing, articulate and self-righteous enough (for example, Qutb had a western education) in their tunnel vision for one to understand how al Qaeda wasnt born or animated yesterday. Al Qaeda is just an instantiation, an inevitability of restricted vision. Same as racism, same as any -ism. Try to get past the Iraq-invasion-started-all-this theory. Sorry, folks. The neocons arrived in the ninth inning of the culture feud at best. If the C/R crowd did anything, whether by omission or commission, it was to attract the rats in one spot. But I should repeat the central point: bin Laden's jihad transcends Iraq. Like all of god's prophets, he's looking to indoctrinate the planet. Nor is that to say he now wants out of Iraq, as you allude. Not at all. Oh. If only it was as simple as the site of Old Glory , or even Russians in Afghanistan, that boiled their blood. So what about the larger issue-we they are inflamed? Has the BushCo, neocon exceptionalism magically unleashed these jihadists, or is there a meme afloat, a perpetual cancer in their intellectually sleepwalking culture? You bet, brother. The latter. And I say its the face of modernity that haunts them. That stirs the nest. That brings light to an abyss. Sorry that's not original, but I'm buying into the idea and stickin' to it. I'm thinking that the winds of change finally caught up with their troglodyte theatre. Time to exit the cave, boys. Time for rights' and liberties' and reason's influence to do what it always does: it makes men start to think. And women. And then there goes, inevitably, bin Laden's little world of make believe. It's 2007, ladies, not 1207. Deal with it. So if Iraq is the center of anything, it's maybe the center of today's ideological cerebral cortex. I contend that bin Laden knows this; he knows that he's confronting new ideas, individuality, independent thought, egalitarianism-and, worse, he knows his retrograde, extremist ideas are hanging on by a thread. He can indulge salughter until the cows come home, but he can't slaughter the truth. Not forever. And he knows it. So he parades aloud Islam's virtues along with his twisted logic of extremism and hopes the fusion of both will retain his desperate audience. There's room for ignorance always. To be sure, Bin Laden's theme has never been to run or to hide. You and Greg can stop. You sound ridiculous. If al Qaeda is exiting Iraq or playing hopscotch around the globe, it's not because a few native tribesmen in Iraq suddenly put the fear of Allah in them; it's because thy've been exposed, marginalized and because they're getting killed. They are losing. Don't you just hate it when a plan comes together. Religious slaughter ain't all it's cracked up to be when the vox populi ultimately says the other guy's plan is more appealing. Still, it won't be long before bin Laden makes yet another plea for his Caliphate rhetoric to prevail. You know, the extremists unite! clamor. Another video. He's as predictable as he is doomed, now that the minds of men have come alive-and come alive in his own backyard. Posted by: reshufflex at October 23, 2007 01:46 PM | Permalink to this comment
Congrats, Reshufflex. You've just restated my main point, which is that a slowly growing number of Moslems can't stand al-Qaida EXCEPT when it's fighting us, since they (at the current time) dislike us even more. (That ABC poll of Iraqi Sunnis last month? 92% said they approved of A-Q shooting at US troops; but 96% said that, once the US troops were gone, they wanted A-Q to get lost as well. The strategic conclusion, where Iraq is concerned, seems kind of obvious.) Contrary to your fond delusions, I've never thought for a split-second that our problems with Islam are mostly due to our invasion of Iraq; my objections to the latter (along with Djerejian's, and those of most other American opponents of the Iraq War) have been entirely strategic. Bush managed to blow half a trillion dollars and almost 5000 US lives (counting the contractors) while only making things MODERATELY strategically worse for us worldwide than they were, which is hardly a recommendation for his course of action. I've thought from the very beginning that the only long-range strategy to dispose of Islamic theocracy is to give Arabs an actual taste of it to find how much they detest it, and that it's not one bit better as a system of government than the secular tyrannies they're currently saddled with at the moment. They're certainly not going to switch to supporting secular-liberalized society just because a bunch of Infidels try to cram it down their throats. They'll have to find its preferability out the hard way. But, you know, that leaves us with that other little problem beginning with "N": how do we keep them from blowing up civilization during that messy transition period? The latest poll last month of Pakistanis by Terror-Free Tomorrow (which has McCain, Bill Frist, Slade Gorton, Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton on its board of directors: clearly a biased dovish outfit) found 46% of them approving of Bin Laden and exactly 9% approving of Bush. That is, one of the few places where A-Q is still romping with large-scale local public approval also happens to be a nation which already possesses 50 Bombs. And that's not counting Iran. All of which indicates that our continuing military/strategic obsession with Iraq to the exclusion of all else is just a wee bit strategically counterproductive. Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at October 23, 2007 06:37 PM | Permalink to this comment
that needs no follow-up other than to plug Lawrence Wright's terrific Pulitzer-winning "The Looming Tower" for an intimate understanding of the above. Posted by: neill at October 23, 2007 06:49 PM | Permalink to this comment
BM: "I've thought from the very beginning that the only long-range strategy to dispose of Islamic theocracy is to give Arabs an actual taste of it to find how much they detest it, and that it's not one bit better as a system of government than the secular tyrannies they're currently saddled with at the moment. They're certainly not going to switch to supporting secular-liberalized society just because a bunch of Infidels try to cram it down their throats. They'll have to find its preferability out the hard way." Bruce, that's exactly what has been broadcasting to the whole muslim world from the biggest stage possible. Iraq.
No thanks to us -- which was precisely my point. Actually, it's been broadcasting for 28 years from a much bigger stage -- Iran. And one side effect of any US military action against Iran, whether it's justified for other reasons or not, is that the effects on Moslems of that broadcast from Iran of the unattractive aspects of Moslem theocracy will be very seriously blunted (including among Iranians) by a massive revival of the line that the Non-Moslems Are Out To Get Us. Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at October 24, 2007 03:34 AM | Permalink to this comment
wait a sec. if a message is being broadcast from Iraq which is turning muslims across the globe away from extremism, and our invasion/occupation set the stage for it, having spent tons of money, energy and most importantly, blood, we are due a big THANK YOU, thank you. This IS the prime front in the War On Terror, right? We didn't plan for the Anbaris to flip, I grant you. But Bush's surge gave it the impetus to be successful. C'mon, they had like 300 sunni policemen in Anbar in January, and now they have almost 20,000? As much as I know it pains you, give a modicum of credit where credit is due. Posted by: neill at October 24, 2007 04:18 AM | Permalink to this comment
if things continue on this course in Iraq, that will create huge problems for the mullahs in Iran -- and we can just stand by and watch. Why do you think they are so intent on torpedoing us in Iraq? Posted by: neill at October 24, 2007 04:22 AM | Permalink to this comment
Neill, please. The only reason there's any revulsion against al-Qaeda in Iraq is that al-Qaeda got INTO Iraq in the first place, which it hadn't done under Saddam. That revulsion would have happened whenever they got into Iraq, for whatever reason, with or without us. And it sure as hell isn't translating yet into support among Iraq's Sunnis and Shiites for secularized democracy -- they dislike al-Qaeda, but they hate us (and each other) a lot more. My God, one-third of Iraq's SHIITES told ABC's pollsters last month that they thought al-Qaeda attacks on US troops in Iraq were justified (along with the 92% of Iraqi Sunnis who said so). And no, Iraq is obviously not "the prime front in the War on terror". The whole point about the War on Terror is that (1) it mostly isn't a "war" at all, and (2) for that reason it doesn't HAVE any "main fronts", with the partial exception of Afghanistan. Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at October 24, 2007 08:44 AM | Permalink to this comment
Bruce- "I've thought from the very beginning that the only long-range strategy to dispose of Islamic theocracy is to give Arabs an actual taste of it to find how much they detest it, and that it's not one bit better as a system of government than the secular tyrannies they're currently saddled with at the moment. They're certainly not going to switch to supporting secular-liberalized society just because a bunch of Infidels try to cram it down their throats. They'll have to find its preferability out the hard way." Your approach would make sense if there weren't dangerous consequences associated with it. Very dangerous. Witness Iran, its Persian background notwithstanding. As the Iranians discover "an actual taste" of Islamic theocracy, wackos like Ahmadinejad abound and foment the idea of social obliteration. And all the little fellow cultists dance in glee as they achieve providential blessing. The dangers would take an exponential leap were hardcore Islamic theocracy to replicate itself. I'm sorry, Bruce. Your antidote of subtraction by addition stinks. Once a man falls victim to the mindlessness of fanatical religious groupthink-or any groupthink for that matter-he'll indulge atrocity much easier than he'll indulge enlightenment. He has glory in his heart and god in his soul. I give the you the whole of the Islamic world as evidence.
oh that's right, according to obl and zawahiri, it's Al Quaeda's main front. my mistake.... Posted by: neill at October 24, 2007 09:44 AM | Permalink to this comment
something like 80% showed up to vote? if that's not support for democracy, then what do our dreary voting percentages represent? Posted by: neill at October 24, 2007 09:49 AM | Permalink to this comment
more bad news from Iraq, economic dislocation: Taxi driver Ahmed Khalil Baqir used to station himself outside Baghdad's main morgue, waiting for grieving families who went there to claim their relatives’ dead bodies. "I was totally dependent on them for my living," Baqir, a 44-year-old father of four, said." I never thought about picking up people in the street as I was being hired five to eight times a day by these families. But now it is a waste of time to wait there and these days I wait only for about three hours in the morning and I continue my work picking up passengers in the street.” Posted by: neill at October 24, 2007 10:22 AM | Permalink to this comment
Okey-doke, Reshufflex. ARE the Moslems getting fed up with the idea of theocracy or aren't they? Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at October 24, 2007 03:11 PM | Permalink to this comment
Please, Neill. As for that "80% showing up to vote": a pity that the overwhelming majority of them voted for individual Sunni or Shiite factions that expressed no interest at all in compromising for national unity. You'll recall that the turnout was very high in the 1860 Presidential election over here as well -- despite which, for some reason, historians do not regard it as a high watermark in the peaceful development of American democracy. And as for OBL and Zawahiri declaring Iraq "the chief front in the war": shucks, THEY'RE the ones who can't persuade any group of Iraqis to accept their own product anymore. The real problem, as I keep pointing out, dammit, is that Moslems' frequent rejection of al-Qaeda obviously does NOT in any way mean that they're ready yet to accept secularized Western-style democracy. They're certainly not going to accept it just because we try to cram it down their throats forcibly. Or rather, that's one of the two real problems. The other is that the real danger comes overwhelmingly from the possibility of nuclear terrorism, to which Iraq is totally irrelevant.
In connection with all this, an interesting column by Thomas Friedman:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/24/opinion/24friedman.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin . Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at October 24, 2007 03:32 PM | Permalink to this comment
Neill wrote: "something like 80% showed up to vote? if that's not support for democracy, then what do our dreary voting percentages represent?" I would argue that democracy is more than a "show" election every couple of years. (The Soviets mastered that process, and had nearly 100% turnout. Democracy triumphed!) Democracy usualy means that members of the electorate have a say in what's going on, elect people to govern at all levels, and more more than just the equivalent of a national legislature. I haven't seen much democracy in Iraq, yet. Seems as though mot of Iraq is now functioning -- when it's functioning at all -- at the tribal or sectarian level. I don't think that's what Bush and Cheney had in mind when they were advocating the spread of democracy throughout the Middle East. One Hamas victory and we seemed to lose interest in Democracy's spread... Posted by: Walt Sherrill at October 24, 2007 05:44 PM | Permalink to this comment
do you know what you sound like? these people are emerging from DECADES under the brutal fist of a murdering, raping, torturing (I'm talkin real torture here, not the faux kind) police/mafiosi kleptocracy. with little sense of the outside world, and virtually none regarding democracy. How long did Germany, Japan and Korea take? Iraqis will crawl before they walk. Hopefully someone had a little more patience - and wisdom - when YOU were learning to walk. Posted by: neill at October 24, 2007 08:36 PM | Permalink to this comment
Neill, come on. Germany, Japan and Korea never had self-created internal civil wars in the last few centuries (even on occasions when, arguably, they should have had one). Which was why there was virtually no internal violence in the first two during their occupation, and no internal struggle in South Korea during the Korean War -- and why Germany and Japan made the transition to firm democracy within just a few years. The difference is that Iraq -- as George Will says -- was ALWAYS a "fake country", sewed together like a Frankenstein's monster out of blocs who hated each other by Britain when it and France were carving up the Ottoman Empire between their own empires like a wedding cake. (The same reason, by the way, that Lebanon broke away from Syria the moment it got the opportunity during the Nazi occupation of France.) Only dictatorial brute force has EVER held that region together, from the days of the early Ottoman Empire on; Saddam was just the most recent iron fist in the region. Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at October 24, 2007 10:22 PM | Permalink to this comment
And that takes us to the obvious central question: how much blood and treasure should we put into trying to prevent a Sunni/Shiite civil war in Iraq, given that there are no WMDs there and that the argument that al-Qaida could establish a major presence in Iraq without us is poppycock -- but our presence there IS stirring up hatred against us all over the Moslem world, both in Iraq and outside it? Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at October 24, 2007 10:24 PM | Permalink to this comment
Walt- "One Hamas victory and we seemed to lose interest in Democracy's spread..." Cmon, Walt. That's not fair and you know it. Democracy's advance or its success in Iraq need not be measured in absolutes nor against the sublime standard of, say, Jacksonian populism. Not every citizen needs to be proficient in the electoral college. As Neill implies, circumstance and context are important. The poor bastards have been eating dirt over there for decades, save for the Baathist nepotists, so maybe a degree of latitude is in order. For ex., is it at all meaningful to you that infighting has diminished exponentially as the seeds of cooperation and civic participation unfold? And keep in mind that half the populace has been ducking al Qaeda, Iranian, Syrian bullets since year one of Hussein's end. It looks from my angle like significant progress has been made in raw democratic advances, and in such a short period of time. Sure the cops are corrupt, the military dawdles, and the institutions are in disarray. So what. You want to juxtapose those conditions-that finite progress- with our own seminal democracy after four years or after forty? Be my guest. The truth is, we were a stinkin' out-house of a nation until civil rights legislation was passed and until the concept of due process extended to the states. And that's being kind. I wouldnt discount democracy's vibrancy in Iraq so quickly. It's got a decent resume historically in terms of success. Posted by: reshufflex at October 24, 2007 11:10 PM | Permalink to this comment
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