Cooper Versus Ledeen — 15 Rounds [Updated]
UPDATE: The event announced below already happened this morning. But lucky you, the archive edition of the entire debate/dialogue can be read by clicking here.
We’re going to try to make this a weekly event. We’re offering some fine champagne as a prize for anyone who can come up with the best name for the show. We’ve already rejected Moonbats and Wingnuts.
You’re invited to attend — live– a fifteen round no-holds-barred Blogjam between yours truly and American Enterprise Institute resident scholar Michael Ledeen. Under discussion: Condi, Cheney and Iraq.
The online debate takes place, Wedesday at 12 Noon EST, 9 a.m. Pacific. Just click over to the Pajamas Media homepage and look for the "Marc and Michael Show Blogjam" link. Even if you miss the live event, you will still be able to access the instant replay archived transcipt.
Ledeen is AEI’s heavyweight neo-con puncher who favors a mean right hook. Trained in the Wolfowitz Academy, his favorite ring tactic includes covertly destablizing his opponent and then performing sudden regime change.
Mini-sumo class Cooper was trained in the classic Trotskyo-Bakunin school of boxing that advises confusing the enemy by dividing into five different factions each round. His specialty is a left feint followed by a below-the-belt kick in the cojones.
December 6th, 2005 at 8:24 pm
I’ll be interested to see how deconstruction of the Straussian noble lie fits into the debate.
Let’s get ready to ruuuuuummmbleeee!
December 6th, 2005 at 8:30 pm
Is there somewhere we can get the odds…
Presumably the debate on Cheney is “Incredibly Evil or Just Plain Stupid”.
December 6th, 2005 at 9:12 pm
I think the major question will be whether either condi or cheney has successfully deconstructed trotsky or strauss. or maybe saddam?
December 6th, 2005 at 9:41 pm
Frankly, I’d be surprised if Condi or Cheney has *read* Trotsky or Strauss. Even Seuss might be a sign of critical thought…
December 6th, 2005 at 10:57 pm
Hey, I’m glad you guys are doing this. I thought your mock exchange you linked to a while ago was really well done. Looking forward to it.
December 7th, 2005 at 12:19 am
I think the Iraqi insurgency and Iranian mullahs are deconstructing the Bush administration and the Neocon’s wet dreams.
December 7th, 2005 at 6:54 am
This oughtta be FUN. I’ve sent Ledeen a cojones protector cup… you’ll have to come up with some other move Marc.
December 7th, 2005 at 8:23 am
Get him to throw the punches first round, tire him out, do a lot of shit talking about his mother, then in say the third round go for the head. Good luck.
December 7th, 2005 at 8:50 am
If you show that he is really an agent of the Iranian mullahs, it’s over.
December 7th, 2005 at 9:43 am
I have no talent as a sports commentator, but I thought I’d provide a bit of “color”.
Quote of the day: “(Mussolini) never had enough confidence in the Italian people to permit them a genuine participation in fascism.â€
Michael Ledeen in his book, “Universal Fascism” (ref. via American Conservative mag, 6/30/03)
Trivia of the day: Michael Ledeen is on the board of directors of The Lonestar Steakhouse & Saloon franchise, which includes a full line of “Texas Teasers” on it’s menu.
(And you probably thought I was going to bring up his connections to the illegal arms deals with the Iranians aka “Iran-Contra” , Larry Franklin or “The Italian Job” aka Niger Documents. Well, I said I would provide “color” not “criminal investigation”.)
December 7th, 2005 at 9:56 am
I just rewatched City Lights last night (so great. just so great.) If things are looking grim, get your neck hooked onto the bell rope so everytime he punches you the round ends.
December 7th, 2005 at 10:05 am
Ledeen’s first line, “I was opposed to this war…”, is a weak left feint.
(Where’s Howard Cosell when we need him?)
December 7th, 2005 at 10:14 am
Ledeen’s response to Marc’s first jabs is that we can ignite successful democratic revolutions in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria and Lebanon in a short period of time.
(I think I talked to a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party one time who had a similarly “energized” level of strategic analysis. But he was standing on a street corner selling newspapers and Ledeen’s a neo-con-sultant to the guys who are attempting to govern the most powerful nation on the planet.) Time to run the errands. Marc’s got it in the bag. I’ll check back in when it’s time to call my bookie.
December 7th, 2005 at 10:18 am
Oooops. One last comment and I’m really out of here until they splash the water on “Il Duce” Ledeen. Marc shouldn’t blurt out “Oh goodness!” when he’s in a brawl.
December 7th, 2005 at 10:53 am
LOL@
December 7th, 2005 at 11:07 am
COOPER CLEANS LEDEEN
okay, so not really. It actually did feel like Chaplin and his foe dancing around the ref. Not a lot of good punches. You guys do, however, have a nice repour. I’ll be back for the next one.
December 7th, 2005 at 11:17 am
Not bad……you guys were too easy on each other…..looking forward to next week!
December 7th, 2005 at 11:38 am
Yes, indeed, we alas pulled many of our punches. We need to stay on our feet to keep doing this once a week. So, what a bummer, we’re gonna try to be civil. It sucks.
December 7th, 2005 at 12:06 pm
I sorta missed the insights of LaShawn Barber….
December 7th, 2005 at 12:20 pm
Wow that was weird. What planet is Mr. Ledeen returning to after the bout ?
“The WMDs were there, shut down the CIA, invade everybody faster please, Why Doesn’t The Left Do Something Dammit, most of the left believed in communism, Bush has done everything wrong but anybody who doesn’t see how successful we’ve been doesn’t get it , Iranian & theocratic dominance in Iraq=No Problemo!”
I think I’ll go curl up with my latest issue of Pat’s AmCon like a good communist isolationist…
December 7th, 2005 at 1:35 pm
I read the first three or four posts. Both contestants have the destinct ability to miss the point. Michael failed to make the point that there is a plan: WIN! As for Iraq becomming a magnet of Jihadists: GOOD! Better there than here. Very dissapointing. Marc regurgitating left wing talking points that we have all heard over and over again and Michael failing to muster an answer quickly and succinctly! – you are not battling in front of a CBS news audience.
December 7th, 2005 at 1:40 pm
“As for Iraq becomming a magnet of Jihadists: GOOD! Better there than here.”
Ahhh, the compassion of the prowarriors for the Iraqi people!
December 7th, 2005 at 1:41 pm
By the way…”WIN!” may be a goal. It is NOT a plan. How stupid are you people ????
December 7th, 2005 at 1:45 pm
“there is a plan: WIN! As for Iraq becomming a magnet of Jihadists: GOOD! Better there than here.”
What was that about wingnut talking points? Unfortunately, I suspect your irony was unintentional.
Marc, great job–I look forward to next week’s exchange.
December 7th, 2005 at 1:56 pm
I’d like to see you guys experiment with the format a bit. Maybe try a response timer. You go then he has, I dunno, 5 minutes to reply, then you have 5, etc. Might avoid some of the crossposting which is sort of inevitable in the current format. I don’t know if this would be good or bad, but it might be worth a try. I think with even longer times (10-15 minutes?) it might be more interesting, but you lose the immediacy of course.
I would be llokign for ways to avoid rambling, not that it rambled too much, but Ledeen’s going after the Left was distracting, and that could be a topic in itself. Was good to read though.
December 7th, 2005 at 2:03 pm
Moon-nuts and Wing-bats?
December 7th, 2005 at 2:09 pm
Pillow Fight?
December 7th, 2005 at 2:25 pm
As a ME wingnut, I was actually impressed by Marc Cooper the Moonbat, and how he and Ledeen could see eye to eye towards the end of the debate.
I agree with Ledeen and Cooper that most part of the traditional left has MOVED ENTIRELY to the extreme fascistsic right and has become totally reactionary.
But it was an eye opener for me to see Marc admit to this.
However, Ledeen is wrong to say that these reactionary leftsist are anti-capitalist. THEY ARE NOT. They are actually anti-globalists but not anti-capitalists. They are national social democrats, which makes them pro-capitalist.
Any half-brained leftists that was an anti-capitalist could easily see that the democratization of the ME is a good idea and will be beneficial to their anti-capitalist agenda in the long run. The last thing an anti-capitalist would want is that the debate to revolve around Saddam’s WMD and “feeding ham sandwich in Abu-Ghraib”. This is not debate. But the pro-capitalist reactionary leftists consider that to be genuine debate. I wonder why.
December 7th, 2005 at 2:38 pm
Well that made no sense, Wingnut. And just to let you in on the little secret, the ‘left’ is anti-capitalist by definition. You get a ‘A’ for very original, crazy, wingnutty wankery, though.
December 7th, 2005 at 3:31 pm
“Wingnut” is a typical Little Green Fuckballs retard whose understanding of the world would fill half a thimble.
Marc, I aplogize. I gave you shit about Pajamass Media, but I guess it’s good to have both sides in the debate. (Even though I think these “Islamofascist”-tossing assholes like Johnson are just as racist as Bull Connor and history will judge them just as harshly.)
These debates definitely shows how the right can’t honestly debate the issues. Look at how Ledeen fixates on giving American equipment to the Iraquis. Duhhh…maybe because they’ll sell them to the insurgents who’ll use them on us?
I also like how Ledeen wants to re-fight Reagan’s legacy. “The Left was adrift…”, blah, blah. That’s really what it’s all about to him, that his idealogy “wins”. Just like the “Wingnut” idiot above.
The mountains of dead people are just secondary to them feeling good about their precious fucking ideology. While throwing brickbats at “leftists” for trying to just contain Saddam, no mention of our ally in the GWOT Islom “People Boiler” Karimov.
Also, why don’t you ask Ledeen if his daughter knows where the missing CPA billions are?
December 7th, 2005 at 4:17 pm
Grousing Grey Goatees
December 7th, 2005 at 4:30 pm
Marc — I had an objection to your view that Saddam was “ok” because the killing had stopped on a massive scale. By that view, Apartheid was “ok” because most of the killing was in the past; and you’d have to support the “stable” Apartheid regime over the mass of Africans they ruled as semi slaves.
This is the principal “stability” argument of the Left and I think it just does not hold up. Neither Apartheid nor Pinochet (who’s killing was “mostly in the past”) nor Saddam was “stable.”
What about Saddam made anyone think he was “stable” or “contained?” Was it his continued stipends and protection to Abu Nidal or Abdul Rahman Yassin (last remaining 1993 WTC bombing conspirator) or his alliance with bin Laden (per Clinton’s 1998 indictment of bin Laden) to develop chemical weapons or his hosting of Zarqawi or his kicking out of inspectors in 1998 prompting Desert Fox or his various forbidden missile, nuclear, bio-weapon, or chem-weapon programs which continued on in various prototype forms as the Duelfer Report made clear? Or perhaps it was his public offer of refuge to bin Laden (detailed by Richard Clarke) or his helping bin Laden’s 9/11 Conspirators with 9/11 logistics (the Kuala Lumpur meeting) as detailed in the 9/11 Commission Report?
I agree with Ledeen that Iran was and is a greater danger due to the Nuclear program and the un-relenting state of covert war against us since 1979. The Iranians want: a. the total destruction of Israel by killing all the Israelis; b. destruction of the US so as to force the removal of US influence and power in the Gulf so that Iran can replace us and rule over the region in an extension of the Persian Empire and as the Shia rival to bin Laden as the “Islamic Answer” to modernity. I would have preferred getting rid of the Mullahs but getting rid of Saddam was better than the alternative of nothing further after Afghanistan.
Much of the Left is not ideological per-se; but a hereditary class that is inevitably reactionary and wishes to hold time frozen. The idea that conflict or change can be held at bay is IMHO as futile as the dream of Apartheid forever or Pinochet’s attempt to freeze Chilean Society in 1932 or something. We are going to have conflict with the Mullahs sooner or later, just as we did with Saddam, and have with bin Laden. We can either pick and choose our time and place or give the initiative to the enemy who like the Left wishes to hold society in amber forever.
December 7th, 2005 at 4:31 pm
“Wingnut” is a Josh Marshall creation I believe. It’s appropriate when one has taken flight and left the flight plan at home as Ledeen, Bush et al clearly did in Iraq. Pee wee’s great adventure indeed on others’ dime. Good capitalist’s spend other people’s money while hiding behind a waving flag. It’s age-old.
December 7th, 2005 at 4:35 pm
None of those things Rockford listed happened in any meaningful context. It’ sakin ti he has the weapons and we found them. Completely false.
December 7th, 2005 at 4:54 pm
“________is a heriditary class that is inevitably reactionary and wants to hold time frozen ”
I wish I could poll 1000 reasonably intelligent people who read a newspaper regularly, perhaps have a sub to TNR or Weekly Standard and, say, watch the occasional C-span or the gamut of broadcast news and determine whether ANY of them would fill in that blank with “the Left”. The fixation of crackpot reactionaries on mandating the responsibilities of some “Left” strawmen is, to be frank, more hilarious than anything else.
December 7th, 2005 at 6:58 pm
Rockford: What “Left” are you talking about? What sort of zombie-vampire fantasy is this one? Have you been paying attention at all? The stability claim is a distinctly right (or consensus) one, and the examples are legion. I’ll just mention Indonesia, Iran, Guatemala, Chile and Greece, but the list could go on for some time.
Reactionary? You mean like United Fruit? Like Oliver North? Like Kissinger? You’re just being fatuous now. I suppose if you make the lie big enough people will just be too shocked to respond. Let me try it out: Damn…I can’t think of anything that naked.
December 7th, 2005 at 7:25 pm
Wow, Jimbo
If it’s not “the Global Caliphate”, it’s a resurrected “Persian Empire”. So many booga-boogas lurking underneath your bed.
Here’s some good news for you, though. Your man Netanyahu has promised to strike at Iran if he’s elected.
Oh, but wait. Here’s some sad, sad news for you and your fellow waterboys. Even worse news is that Russia is nobody’s sockpuppet and is not going to bow, grovel and scrape when Caesar starts making demands.
Must be hard for you Rockford. Hard, thankless work carrying all that water.
December 7th, 2005 at 7:56 pm
A couple of items:
1) Thanks for all ur feedback on the blogjam. We are also dissatisfied with the format. Might stick with it a couple of more rounds but will be tweaking and upgrading and CONSIDERING doing it as a video chat stream. Wouldnt that be fun? (Hide ur small children).
2) Rockford, old boy. Im hardly the type to say Saddam was “ok” because he was in a box. In fact I DIDNT say that. I said, roughly, that compared to having Saddam in an ever tighter box with no WMD’s and no invasion, we might be all better off than to have him toppled and to have turned Iraq into a full-time generator of jihadists. Time is gonna prove one notion or another true.
And let’s not be disingenuous. The US co-exists with ALL kinds of tyrants — many of whom have nearly as much as much blood on their hands as Saddam… in some cases much much more.We need go no further that President Bush’s mass arse-kissing in Beijing last week. Or do u think the Chinese Communist dictatorship is “OK” because it contracts out it slave labor sweat shops to American industry?
December 7th, 2005 at 8:42 pm
Marc: “Im hardly the type to say Saddam was “ok†because he was in a box. In fact I DIDNT say that.”
Uhhh, Marc? Response # 13 But Michael, there was NO beheading by these terrorists going on in or from Iraq before the Bush invasion. Saddam was in a box with some rubber bands to keep him entertained and Iraq was hardly a terror foco.
You are also arguing incorectly when you say “But Michael, there was NO beheading by these terrorists going on in or from Iraq before the Bush invasion” because while they may not have been in Iraq, it wasn’t Bush that caused them to spring up… they were present in NY at the twin towers, In Khobar Towers, at the USS Cole, at the embassy’s in africa, and on and on and on.
December 7th, 2005 at 9:08 pm
Still trying to find “Saddam was OK” in the sentence where Marc makes the obviously factual observation that “Saddam was in a box.”
As for the rest of it, it sounds like the “Better we create a theatre where jihadists are killing mostly other Arabs” flypaper theory that lies just behind the thin facade of concern for Iraqis that the prowarriors use as a mask for their wild and crazy schemes. Compassion for the suffering Iraqis indeed. Use them as fodder in our war with al Qaeda. It’s a common thread and it’s pretty damned disgusting.
The truth – the obvious truth – is that the jihadists are having a field day and a much bigger sea to swim in over there with far more targets of opportunity than it would be impossible for them to match anywhere else. There’s no way that al Qaeda could have as many active operatives running loose – in a population that they blend into nearly perfectly – compared to any attempts to infiltrate NY or approach any of our military assets or our embassies and wreaking this much havoc on what has been put forward at this point as America’s primary “front” in the war on terror. Not even close, nor would they have the recruiting angle of U.S. troops trying to establish a government in our image smack dab in the middle of their turf. This argument is, to put it mildly, crazy.
December 7th, 2005 at 9:09 pm
GM.. I dont understand ur point or u dont get mine. Let’s try again. Before the US invasion of Iraq, there were a number of hotspots in the Middle East that were generating jihadist terrorists with the US in its crosshairs. I would challenge you or anyone else, including Dick Cheney, to provide a single piece of evidence that Iraq was one of those incubators.
Now, Iraq is. How did that happen?
December 7th, 2005 at 9:10 pm
“than it would be possible…”
December 7th, 2005 at 9:12 pm
Why no questions about Ledeen’s forgeries in Rome? Or his P2 connection?
December 7th, 2005 at 9:16 pm
I am referring to his alleged role as the forger of the Nigerian documents about WMD that appeared in the whole Plame saga – well covered all over the place. P2 can be googled. And you can also check out two pieces I wrote based on an interview with Ledeen…
http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/cummings05292004/
http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/cummings08302004/
December 7th, 2005 at 9:52 pm
Marc Cooper: “Chinese Communist dictatorship”
Dictatorship it is, indeed. But, “communist?”
Red China hasn’t been “red” in quite a while. Not since the early ’80s, if not earlier.
Most free-market fundamentalists in fact view the Chinese state in a very positive light due to its unparalleled devotion to the “market.”
If it’s communism you seek, look in on Nepal in a few years. It’s already happened in the countryside, just a matter of time before Prachanda’s forces seize state power.
December 8th, 2005 at 1:03 am
Speaking of debates, Noam Chomsky delivered a substancial take down Alan Dershowitz, who was particularly noxious in his behaviour throughout the event. Unreconstructed apologist for Israeli might (GM Roper and Woody…im looking your way) would probably benefit from checking it out http://www.iop.harvard.edu/events_forum_archive.html
December 8th, 2005 at 6:33 am
I thought Marc’s answers were great. I agree with every one of them. Of course I would be compelled to inforn Mr. Ledeen that some of his opinions resembled those of winged creatures of mythic proportions that are factually false and not reflected by reality. Gotta love facts even when opponents refuse to see them. They stand rock solid nonetheless.
December 8th, 2005 at 6:51 am
Marc, it is fairly simple, Iraq is an “incubator” because the US military is there. In Lebanon in the 80′s the US Military was “there” the jihadists or as I prefer, the islamo-fascists blew up the Marine Barracks and the Embassy and a French enclave and the US pulled out; which was a resounding black eye for Reagan and the US Military. The islamo-fascists then precipitated a world war against the US where ever they could find them, in hopes, and this is important, that they could repeat the same blackening of the eye. And for at least two decades it worked, in Nigeria, in Saudi Arabia, in New York (’93 attempt against the twin towers), in the Gulf with the USS Cole.
They struck, we lobbed a few missles and called it victory. It wasn’t. Growing bolder and greater in their belief that they could “win” (a truism is that if a behavior is reinforced, it tends to repeat) they struck at the US Proper on September 11, 2001. This time they miscalculated and Bush and the US struck back in Afghanistan ripping the heart out of the Taliban.
Then, for good or ill (and I know we are on different sides on that question) we took out Saddam – he wasn’t in a box, he may not have had any “stocks of WMD’s” but he was for sure ready to get back into the game. Now, those jihadists, islamo-fascists are gathering there to repeat the Marine Barracks/Khobar Towers fiasco. They cannot do it.
Our presence didn’t grow the terrorists, it gathered them from elsewhere. They have been out there for more than 30 years. Denying that is not only futile, it is contra-historical.
Again, the implication is that the US presence in Iraq is the cause of a growth in terrorism. It isn’t, it has caused them to come from many places. It has caused them to murder their own faithful and it gives pause to those who believe (rightly or wrongly) that it is US perfidity that caused terrorism to increase out of the ground so to speak.
Asking for proof that there was a “terrorist problem” in Iraq during the reign of Saddam, prior to the US removing him is disengenuous at best. Iraq was under the thumb of a monster, one that the mentality of the terrorists would like to have seen stay.
December 8th, 2005 at 7:34 am
Aside from the fact that much of your key argument is false according to people (like the head of our National Intellligence Councl) who supposedly have expertise at tracking these things, the idea that Bush “planned” to draw the terrorists into Iraq and take them on there is obviously counter-factual. If that was their plan, leaving weapons dumps unsecured, among other things, adds to the “criminal negligence” argument made by Larry Diamond, who served under Bremer. Also, the idea that the conduct of the U.S. in Iraq isn’t being used successfully to recruit and add to the ranks of jihadists is just plain nutty (note on usage: the generic “Islamofascists” would include guys like Sadr who we’re now trying to convince to help run the country and blend his militias into the security forces, as well as some of our principal allies in the region like the Saudis).
You guys are pretty much tapped out when you write stuff like the above. It’s not even close to being reality-based.
December 8th, 2005 at 7:45 am
Also, aside from the fact that most experts on terrorism have argued the obvious – that the war in Iraq has increased recruiting and training of terrorists – this argument being made that terrorism is zero sum – i.e. X number of terrorists already exist and it’s our job to get them all together in the smallest space possible so we can kill them rather than that the pool of terrorists and potential recruits isn’t static but can be affected by actual events and strategies – completely ignores historical events like the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan as having had an impact on the ability of the jihadi leadership to recruit, train and mobilize fighters. Frankly, I’m kind of stunned by the paucity of logic and evidence in assertions such as GMR’s. I would really love for him to give us a link to something better than, say, Captain’s Quarters – you know, something from people who’ve actually studied this issue with some degree of rigor and expertise – to back up the unhinged wishful thinking.
December 8th, 2005 at 8:16 am
If G.M is correct, then wouldn’t it be more effective to just park the U.S. Army somewhere away from civilians and wait for the terrorists to come to them? You wouldn’t have to be obvious about it, you could use some type of decoy.
December 8th, 2005 at 9:29 am
“They struck, we lobbed a few missles and called it victory. It wasn’t. Growing bolder and greater in their belief that they could “win†(a truism is that if a behavior is reinforced, it tends to repeat) they struck at the US Proper on September 11, 2001. This time they miscalculated and Bush and the US struck back in Afghanistan ripping the heart out of the Taliban.”
Actually, Zawahiri strongly advised bin Laden to dump the 20-page manifestos and simply appeal to the American cowboy-showdown temptation. “Miscalculated”? If anything, 9/11 worked beautifully — they’ve now got two Jihadi incubators, where they were probably expecting just one (Afghanistan) while hoping for two (add Iraq). Do you think Al Qaeda cared about losing the Taliban, a government that controlled one of the poorest countries on Earth? Bin Laden has made his goals very clear: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, maybe an eventual restoration of the Caliphate. No single battlefield encompasses the whole war, no single stage of the war is the whole story. He’s as much a long-view, big-picture guy as any Marxist-Leninist.
GM, I think you really want to believe that these people are so crazy as to think that a few terror attacks would “defeat America.” That it’s just obsessive-compulsive behavior. That Americans would respond to 9/11 by … well, what? Retreating from New York and Washington? No, 9/11 was a provocation with a strategic goal. You think the leadership of Al Qaeda is so stupid and ignorant as to not have been aware that this administration was well-stocked with Iraq-regime-change partisans? Or that even after the first Gulf War, there was still a residual Vietnam Syndrome (AKA the Powell Doctrine) that had to be dissolved to get the Great Satan onto the battlefield?
They aren’t crazy and they aren’t stupid. Ruthless and zealous, yes. Smart enough to play on the fears of Americans, yes. Well-informed enough to know how to game American democracy, yes. And every time you charicature them as being something less than that, I’m sure they are delighted. After all, being underestimated by one’s opponent is one of the best freebies you can get in any conflict. You’re just giving them a way to play pinball with your head. The more you oversimplify them, the easier it is for them to calculate the trajectories that might be possible with the next flip of the lever.
December 8th, 2005 at 9:53 am
I also think that the idea bin Laden “miscalculated” and assumed that the U.S. wouldn’t come after him in Afghanistan is more of this muddled peanut gallery posh. I’d lay money that he was most surprised by the ineffectual effort at Tora Bora and his apparently rather easy escape from the clutches of the Great Cowboy. It has, in fact, been estimated by some journalists who were there that more Western reporters were on the ground at Tora Bora than U.S. troops – which amounted to a few dozen. The U.S. was mostly doing that “lobbing missles thing” which works so well and outsourcing the job to some of the least trustworthy people on the planet (leaving aside the Bush administration, of course.) But the revisionist history based on partisan talking points will merrily roll along, facts be damned.
December 8th, 2005 at 10:18 am
“The islamo-fascists then precipitated a world war against the US”
This an ad populum puffery. It inflates the power and scope of a small group of radicals to that of a World conquerer. It fails this test on its face.
December 8th, 2005 at 10:55 am
“best name for the show”
Sleepover with Mike and Marc (bring your jammies!)
December 8th, 2005 at 11:46 am
What is blog jam and is it the result of a wargasm?
December 8th, 2005 at 12:07 pm
La Dean was right…
http://www.tnr.com/docprint.mhtml?i=w051205&s=judis120805
December 8th, 2005 at 2:35 pm
On bin Laden. The idea that he is taking the long view, that he is some world-historical actor, that he calculated what the response would be, that we know he wanted incubators of jihadism, that he hoped to get just one incubator, but beyond his wildest hopes got two, just leaves me cold. It’s like you think he is some sort of fiendish Lex Luthor with a crystal ball. Don’t make the mistake of ascribing some great prescience to him. He has stated what he wants and uses splashy terror to try and get it. I don’t think it is any more complicated than that.
The winners of political campaigns are always seen as genuises who executed a brilliant plan that confused the opponents and wowed the voters. The reality is nothing like this. Campaigns are a big chaotic mess. You use tactics that have worked before. You float some themes, put out some ads, take a few polls, knock on some doors, give some speeches, hope something sticks. I can tell you, there are never genuises who followed a master plan. There is some skill and a barge full of luck.
It’s the same with these guys (bin laden et. al.) Let’s not go down the nefarious master-global-plan trail. It’s false AND it serves the Orwellian needs of those who benefit from permanent war. The shadowy mastermind that can be found under every bed is a trope we shoudn’t be signing up for.
December 8th, 2005 at 3:24 pm
Nice post Dan O. I agree with you. That’s all.
December 8th, 2005 at 4:00 pm
Dan O, excellent points. Much of history indeed depends of how well one muddles through after Murphy’s Law strikes. Sometimes things go according to plan, at least for a while; but usually scrambling and improvisation is required, and sometimes plain dumb luck wins the day. Reality is the best check against fantastic conspiracy theories — and that goes for left and right both.
December 8th, 2005 at 6:20 pm
Pajama Partylines
A Fireside Spat with Marc Cooper and Michael Ledeen
or
Un-American bastard v. Facist pig-dog
December 8th, 2005 at 6:55 pm
I think if you want to expand your audience beyond the nattering nabobs of the net, you need to go WWF: Mark The Merciless vs. Mass Destruction Mike. Something like that. And you need costumes. Sound effects after each post would also help.
December 8th, 2005 at 10:49 pm
I think “Creative Destruction Mike” is more appropriate.
December 9th, 2005 at 6:03 am
That’s right, conspiracies are always proven false. The idea that bin Laden and Iraq are capable of coming here and taking our freedom is ludicrous on its face.
December 9th, 2005 at 8:26 am
Triple A – that would be an insult to Joseph Schumpeter.
December 10th, 2005 at 5:32 am
Murphy’s Law undoubtedly strikes Al Qaeda. Who would have thought that they’d be pleading with Zarqawi for money at this point? (If that letter to Zarqawi is to be believed.) But again, to imagine that they couldn’t predict that a wildly successful 9/11 attack would vastly improve the chances of the Bush administration being able to get a mandate to invade Iraq is to imagine that they don’t understand anything about either the Arab world or U.S politics.
To give you an idea of how clever bin Laden is … he’s got kidney disease and requires dialysis frequently, right? Oops, we blew that one.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6765861/
So why did he pretend all these years to need treatment? (He brought two dialysis machines to Afghanistan, one to give to the government, the other supposedly for his personal use. And one of the chances to nab him involved a hospital visit to a country supposedly allied with us.)
Well, pretending to be in total renal failure worked for him any number of ways. He has sympathizers, and those sympathizers might target any government in the region that denied him treatment that could save his life. Furthermore, a ball and chain like dialysis can make his enemies believe that he must be somewhere near his life-support system — when in fact he might be hundreds, even thousands of miles away. Keep him bottled up in Tora Bora long enough, and problem solved, right? The plume from a gas powered generator to run his dialysis machine would show up against the cold mountain air on any infrared scan. Yes, it would — especially if it were placed so as to be a decoy.
The cost of a dialysis machine to a man of his means? Small. What would be the long-term value of a *perception* that he depended on it, given that life as a terrorist organizer is going to involve a number of tight spots? Huge. Was it his idea? Not necessarily. But he apparently knows a good idea when he sees one. Most likely, his second in command, Zawahiri, a trained MD, came up with this one.
December 10th, 2005 at 1:12 pm
Marc: “We’re offering some fine champagne as a prize for anyone who can come up with the best name for the show.”
I, of course, felt no need to read any further past the statement that a contest is offered. Assuming the other guy is conservative, how about “Left Hook and Right Jab” (or, the positions reversed). I’m sure that I can do better with time, but this just came to mind on the spur of the moment and is offered for consideration.
December 10th, 2005 at 8:07 pm
It is quite clear that Bin Laden did not expect to lose Afghanistan, and neither did his hosts, the Taliban (unless you believe he was playing them). He had reason to believe he could nold it, exactgly because he expected the US to simply bomb and run. The US had not put signifacant numbers of ground troops in harms way since Vietnam, which we ran away from. The incidents cited above added to the idea that we did not have the courage to defend ourselves… as the casualties mounted and our responses didn’t.
Ssince he saw the defeat of the USSR in Afganistand, and believed the US to be even less determined, it is highly likely he had no idea of how powerful the combination of high precision weapons (many never before used, such as JDAMs) and special forces could be in driving him out of his terrorist sanctuary. It is likely that he barely escaped Tora Bora due to a mistake in US tactics (using Afghan troops for an important part of the envelopment without appreciating the complexities involved).
Bin Laden is hardly in a better position for having lost Afghanist. He used to have almost an entire country in which to have terrorist camps, plan operations, and house his favorites (and the Arabs lived well by Afghani standards – one reason they were so hated). He had the protection of the Taliban (infiltrated by Al Qaeda enforcers). He was pretty safe (bombing or cruise missile attacks were unlikely to hit him, since his location was almost impossible to determine in that sanctuary).
At the same time, I think it unlikely that the flypaper strategy was planned ahead of time by the US.
War is non-linear as is history, and predicting the outcome is best done with Oija boards (well, all right, that didn’t work so well for the Nazis).
So better to look at the current situation… Bin Laden is hiding somewhere – probably in Waziristan. His couriers are constantly being compromised and his communications intercepted. He cannot use real time communications because of NSA capabilities. He has a huge price on his head, enough for serious private forces to hunt him.
ALso, he is forced to fight in Iraq because Zarqawi has made it into a showcase – Al Qaeda’s loss there would be a major psychological defeat for them (and would deny them even more operational ground).
The primary danger of Al Qaeda is if they acquire serious WMD’s – nuclear explosives, highly contagious bological agents, or perhaps some good dirty bombs. They have publicly claimed religious authority to kill 4,000,000 innocents, and you can bet those will be Americans if they can achieve it.
They want to strike at the US homeland and cause very serious economic damage – which intercepts have made clear is what the believe will cause us to pull out of the middle east and let them get on with building their caliphate. WMD’s as described above are perfect for that goal (although I think if they were used, the US response would be overwhelming and brutal – World War II style). That is the real danger we face, and removing one likely WMD proliferator (Iraq) reduced that probability (plus the side effect of rolling over another proliferator – Libya – along with the resulting vast intelligenge provided by them).
Meanwhile, Iran lurks. Iran has its own agenda, and may use Al Qaeda to carry it out (Hezbollah has a “return address” – Al Qaeda does not).. Iran also wants to control the middle east, and it needs conflict in order to distract its internal dissenters, who are especially troublesome after the examples of democracy in Iraq and now Lebanon.
So Iran, whose leaders are probably not looney Islamofascists, but rather fascists who use the loons, represents a less spectacular but equally dangerous force. Iran is developing IRBM’s that can hit European capitals and has revealed (“oops” – yeah, right) plans for nuclear warheads that can be carried on those missiles. It is continuing its undeniable WMD program, rejecting all attempts to stop it from enriching uranium.
Iran pretty clearly plans to blackmail the feckless Europeans into submission, given its external nuclear threat and Europe’s internal threat from its own Islamofascist citizens (whom I feel compelled to point out are a small minority of the large Muslim population in many European countries).
…
As to the dialysis fantasy … well… come on now… that one is just a bit much. More likely some CIA analyst got the information about the kidney stones (translated it into “kidney problems”), put it together with the purchases of dialysis machines, and made a wrong guess.
As to Osama’s health… they guy has Marfan’s syndrome. His life expectancy isn’t great, dialysis or not.
…
While it is a mistake to underestimate our opponents’ intelligence, they also made the mistake of underestimating our resolve and actual military power. But the left may yet correct that mistake by forcing us to wave the white flag.
December 11th, 2005 at 11:29 am
They were well-aware of our military power and just how limited it can be on the ground in remote territory. So far so good. My source in Afghan says things are going badly, and he’s a reservist who supports both campaigns. I only one. Reality on the ground changed his mind toote suite.
You have no knowledge of Marfans. Lincoln had it though. As long as the borderlands are off limits we’ll never find these guys. That’s the first place I would send the army. Why aren’t they?
December 12th, 2005 at 1:51 am
Bin Laden couldn’t have expected to “lose” Afghanistan because he never HAD Afghanistan. He only had sanctuary and bases there. As for it being a loss — having sanctuary and bases doesn’t give you a battlefield; without battlefields, war can’t continue; and if it can’t continue, there’s no prospect for eventual victory. Afghanistan wasn’t really important in his grander schemes — the real prizes are elsewhere, they always have been and they’ve always said so. The real loss would have been to sit tight, safe in the mountains: loss of time.
John, you’re having trouble seeing America’s erstwhile “Vietnam Syndrome” (or a certain expression of it in the Powell Doctrine) as having been an actual political obstacle to bin Laden’s plans. The usefulness for his plans of ground engagements by Jihadis with American troops should be obvious by now. If there seems to an “unintended consequences” problem, it’s that Zarqawi could be hurting Al Qaeda by focusing attacks on Shi’ites — not just for being “collaborators” but also for being Shi’ites! On the other hand, maybe those attacks help the Al Qaeda cause in one way, while having spokesmen of Al Qaeda decrying the practice helps them in another way. They are under no compulsion to avoid hypocrisy, whenever hypocrisy works for them.
Whatever bin Laden’s reduced circumstances might be right now (it seems he has little or no control over what’s going on in Iraq), just because events are out of his hands at the moment does not mean they aren’t headed in directions that he approves of, and hoped for, with so much help from America.
“They want to strike at the US homeland and cause very serious economic damage – which intercepts have made clear is what the believe will cause us to pull out of the middle east and let them get on with building their caliphate.”
I wonder if you could cite chapter and verse from these intercepts, unambiguously pointing to this conclusion? Which is to say, can you tell me for certain that, IF such a statement is there, that it was not mere radicalizing propaganda, but a sincerely held belief on the part of the leadership? There is never a guarantee that any rally-the-troops message will be devoid of calculated fictions. I can’t imagine a nuclear terror attack on the U.S. having any other effect than to radicalize the American people into foreign adventures on an even grander scale — thus creating more Jihad battlefields, and further radicalizing the populations from which bin Laden hopes to gain more support. I also can’t imagine that Al Qaeda leadership is so stupid as to think otherwise. Economic damage? America was already very economically damaged by the Great Depression the day before Pearl Harbor. But (as Adm. Yamamoto, the planner of Pearl Harbor, predicted) it had more than enough industrial resources to prevail against Japan — a symmetric threat. One nuke, no matter how strategically placed, can’t destroy more than a tiny fraction of the U.S. war machine, and bin Laden — who grew up smack in the middle of evidence of how rich and powerful America is — can hardly be so stupid as to be unacquainted with this fact.
John, you’e always criticizing me for not assuming the worst of the enemy. Yet, when it’s convenient for your argument, you rationalize away such assumptions yourself. You say we’re at war, but always view the enemy as only being concerned with specific battles in specific theaters. It’s a very selective view of the situation, either way.
As for the confusion surrounding bin Laden’s supposed kidney problems, I don’t think the CIA is that sloppy. Perhaps Pakistan’s intelligence community more to do with it?
http://www.namibian.com.na/2002/January/world/023DF0F0B0.html
“Osama bin Laden underwent clandestine kidney dialysis in a Pakistani military hospital the day before members of his al Qaeda network launched attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Pakistani intelligence sources told CBS News in a report aired on Monday.”
This is quite consistent with the theory that bin Laden was overtly faking a need for dialysis (not just leaving things up for speculation), considering that Pakistani intelligence was notorious for their sympathy with the Taliban. On the other hand, maybe even the Pakistanis were being duped — they, too, may have preferred a feeling that bin Laden, if he became a problem for them, was at least a relatively tractable problem — just cut off medical support to areas where he’s taken refuge, and he’s gone, right? You don’t even have to find him to write the death certificate.
You say bin Laden has Marfan Syndrome. I’m sick of doing your homework for you, John. Have you heard of this amazing website, http://www.google.com? It’s all just speculation based largely on physiognomy. The chance that an Arab who has Marfan will look like somewhat like bin Laden may approach 100%, but the chance that an Arab who looks like him has Marfan’s might be less than 2%.
Zawahiri recently put out another video, in which he claimed bin Laden was still alive. He did not, however, produce bin Laden to prove it. Is he dead, possibly of aortic rupture stemming from Marfan Syndrome and the physical stresses of being on the run? Is he alive? Who knows? Either way, however, ambiguity works for them. They certainly know that most people hate ambiguity when it concerns threats, and will tend to assume what they would like to believe. So the only question is whether the choice of belief on the part of various people works for them. Those who sympathize with Al Qaeda will prefer to believe that bin Laden is still alive — a man of Zawahiri’s compassion and integrity wouldn’t lie to them, would he? And that works for Al Qaeda. You, on the other hand, choose to believe that bin Laden has Marfan Syndrome — even though the evidence amounts little more than photographs. Al Qaeda leadership must love that, if he doesn’t have Marfan, because the value of a general underestimate of bin Laden among his enemies is high, for them.
War is politics by violent means. These people are at war, but they are also, practically by that Clausewitzian definition, politicians. And politicians lie and deceive when that’s more useful than the truth, whenever they can get away with it. Furthermore, the second ranking politician in Al Qaeda is a pediatrician, who must have been summoned more than once to the bedside of a child faking an illness. Perhaps summoned even to the home of a beleaguered community leader in Cairo under scrutiny in some scandal, to hear a plea for a physician’s endorsement of some claim that he can’t face the public at the moment because his child is very ill. Zawahiri can hardly be unaware that falsely claiming infirmity has self-serving uses. For him, it may now merely be a matter of employing deception in a Holy Cause. And second nature, after decades of doing it.
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