Father Knows Best
“Even if Hussein were captured and his regime toppled, U.S. forces would still have been confronted with the specter of a military occupation of indefinite duration to pacify the country and sustain a new government in power.
"Removing him from power might well have plunged Iraq into civil war, sucking U.S. forces in to preserve order. Had we elected to march on Baghdad, our forces might still be there."
-- James A. Baker, Secretary of State to GHW Bush; September 1996
February 23rd, 2006 at 9:19 pm
Christ, Jenna’s grandchildren will probably be there.
February 23rd, 2006 at 9:26 pm
This is the most dispiriting moment I can remember since the war started. Despite thinking the war was nuts and the rationales bogus, I had hoped for something coming out of it that could justify the sacrifice by some measure over the long run. I don’t see it. It looks less likely now than ever.
February 23rd, 2006 at 10:22 pm
Is American conservative old school realpolitik the final word on the subject? Should we just go back to unreservedly supporting the bastards who, despite everything, remain our bastards?
Does the Left have a Mideast foriegn policy different in substance from those of James A. Baker or Brent Scowcraft? Where could I find any evidence of such?
February 23rd, 2006 at 10:39 pm
“Should we just go back to unreservedly supporting the bastards who, despite everything, remain our bastards?”
Like the United Arab Emirates ? Or that sheik Bush was holding hands with down in Crawford ? Oh, God no ! We shouldn’t “go back” to any such policies. THAT WOULD BE WRONG !!!!
February 23rd, 2006 at 11:09 pm
ALL IN THE FAMILY
The supposed plot to assassinate papa Bush was mentioned in the days prior to the Iraq invasion by George II as a significant and personal grievance against Hussein.
However, dad who had previously been head of the CIA seemed to have keener insights into Middle Eastern politics; perhaps he did not have Cheney’s hot breath blowing down is neck, a guy who was eager to please Halliburton after receiving a 30 million dollar bonus.
Bush Jr. likes hanging around with a rough crowd—they’re better known as PNAC (Project for The New American Century). Vice President Dick Cheney is a founding member of PNAC, along with Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle. Wolfowitz is the ideological father of the group. Bruce Jackson, a PNAC director, served as a Pentagon official for Ronald Reagan before leaving government service to take a leading position with the weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin.
PNAC gave birth to a new group, The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which met with Condoleezza Rice in order to formulate a plan to “educate” the American populace about the need for war in Iraq. CLI has funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to support the Iraqi National Congress and the Iraqi heir presumptive, Ahmed
Chalabi– he is now the Oil Minister–how convenient.
Chalabi was sentenced in absentia by a Jordanian court in 1992 to 22 years in prison for bank fraud after the collapse of Petra Bank, which he founded in 1977. Chalabi has not set foot in Iraq since 1956, but his Enron-like business credentials apparently make him a good match for the Bush administration’s plans.
Bush Sr. might have thought that these guys were a little too tough for his son to play with; but chances are if junior didn’t hang out with them, he would never have had a shot at that big desk in the Oval Office—Rove is good but not that good. Anyway, below is an excerpt of why the “Old Man†decided not to take the plunge:
Excerpt from “Why We Didn’t Remove Saddam” by George Bush [Sr.] and Brent Scowcroft, Time (2 March 1998):
“While we hoped that popular revolt or coup would topple Saddam, neither the U.S. nor the countries of the region wished to see the breakup of the Iraqi state. We were concerned about the long-term balance of power at the head of the Gulf. Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in “mission creep,” and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well.
Under those circumstances, furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-cold war world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the U.N.’s mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different–and perhaps barren—outcome.â€
February 24th, 2006 at 8:07 am
Evil prevails when good men remain silent. Hussein is a modern day Hitler. Should we have remained silent in opposition to Hitler?
February 24th, 2006 at 9:36 am
False comparison Meade. Hussein had no ability to take over Europe, but perhaps your blind belief doen’t understand details very well? I think so. Standard romantic and classic modes battle. These two will never merge except in disaster.
February 24th, 2006 at 9:46 am
Mr. York:
The ability to take over Europe is not an issue. It is his proven track record of killing innocent people.
February 24th, 2006 at 10:21 am
It is an issue and innocent people are being killed right now, or can’t you see that? The idea is “threat.” When you compare someone with Hitler aside from invoking Godwin it applies to worldwide domination not just a generic killing. Hussein was an enemy to be sure but a deluded buffoon, and definitely a killer in the past but you can’t all of a sudden remember what you chose to ignore 15 years ago in an Oh Wow! moment that created this nightmare.
February 24th, 2006 at 10:39 am
I recommend this book for study about these two clashing schools of thought at play on both sides of the political divide.
http://tinyurl.com/gxc4w
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
February 24th, 2006 at 11:30 am
It is a matter of historical determinism. Democracy and universal values will prevail over middle eastern dictatorship and muslim fundamentalism, just as it did over the totalitarianist regimes of Hitler and Stalin. There will be mistakes, there will be setbacks, but we will prevail, despite the handwringing of doubters and defeatists.
Don’t get me wrong. Abuses such as those uncovered at Abu Ghraib should be strenuously investigated and punished. In spite of them, however, we will prevail. We couldn’t be as bad as the other side, even if we tried.
February 24th, 2006 at 11:46 am
MarkC:
Well said.
February 24th, 2006 at 11:48 am
I recall that the Kissinger-Baker-Scowcroft school was no more popular than the neo-cons are now amongst the left. I’ve never been thrilled with either camp, but it does raise a question about what a decent and realistic foreign policy ought to look like, let alone one that will satisfy the left.
As I’ve gotten a little older, some of the stability based arguments of the old school realists seem at least slightly more persuasive than they used to. They certainly seem appealing in the current context of Iraq. Still I just can’t bring myself to consign whole populations to the jack boot because it is “stable.” Doesn’t seem like there are any easy answers here.
In general during the cold war I think the right vastly overstated the Soviet threat and the left pretty well understated it. Much the same thing seemed to happen with Iraq. But that’s old news now anyway; we’re there and we have a mess. I still wonder where we would be if we had gone in with the numbers that Shinseki advised.
February 24th, 2006 at 11:55 am
The assertion that we will prevail does not address:
* at what cost?
* could it have been done better — not just a little better, but much better?
The outlook, as reg said, is getting bleaker with each passing month.
The Hitler analogy is so shallow it does not even merit a response. If you’re trolling, at least use a little imagination. Exchange a couple of posts, *then* go for Hitler.
February 24th, 2006 at 12:02 pm
MarkC -
These are manly words, worthy of a Bush administration speechwriter. But what if we’ve seriously delayed this pre-determined triumph by prosecuting the war in a criminally negligent manner. Is the game so rigged that our actions don’t even matter? We can’t rely on history’s invisible hand to sweep us to victory; others have been swept into the dustbin waiting for such determining forces to do their work. We actually have to sweat the small stuff and do things right, operating on the assumption that ‘nothing is written’ (as Peter O’Toole said in another desert war classic).
February 24th, 2006 at 12:17 pm
I agree with DanO there are not any easy answers in the split between realpolitik and doing what is right.
The essay I best remember on this topic was by George Kennan…
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/19851201faessay8456/george-f-kennan/morality-and-foreign-policy.html
It’s long, and Kennan always resists making firm conclusions, but here are a few good points:
***
It seems seldom to occur to us that even if a given situation is bad, the alternatives to it might be worse — even though history provides plenty of examples of just this phenomenon. In the eyes of many Americans it is enough for us to indicate the changes that ought, as we see it, to be made. We assume, of course, that the consequences will be benign and happy ones. But this is not always assured. It is, in any case, not we who are going to have to live with those consequences: it is the offending government and its people.
***
The Soviet action in Afghanistan, for example, is condemned, resented and responded to by sanctions. One recalls little of such reaction in the case of the somewhat similar, and apparently no less drastic, action taken by China in Tibet some years ago. The question inevitably arises: is it principle that determines our reaction? Or are there other motives?
***
Our government felt itself justified in setting up facilities for clandestine defensive operations of its own; all available evidence suggests that it has since conducted a number of activities under this heading. As one of those who, at the time, favored the decision to set up such facilities, I regret today, in light of the experience of the intervening years, that the decision was taken. Operations of this nature are not in character for this country. They do not accord with its traditions or with its established procedures of government. The effort to conduct them involves dilemmas and situations of moral ambiguity in which the American statesman is deprived of principled guidance and loses a sense of what is fitting and what is not. Excessive secrecy, duplicity and clandestine skulduggery are simply not our dish — not only because we are incapable of keeping a secret anyway (our commercial media of communication see to that) but, more importantly, because such operations conflict with our own traditional standards and compromise our diplomacy in other areas.
***
It must also be understood that in world affairs, as in personal life, example exerts a greater power than precept. A first step along the path of morality would be the frank recognition of the immense gap between what we dream of doing and what we really have to offer, and a resolve, conceived in all humility, to take ourselves under control and to establish a better relationship between our undertakings and our real capabilities.
February 24th, 2006 at 12:19 pm
OK, can’t resist one more paragraph from Kennan:
In a less than perfect world, where the ideal so obviously lies beyond human reach, it is natural that the avoidance of the worst should often be a more practical undertaking than the achievement of the best, and that some of the strongest imperatives of moral conduct should be ones of a negative rather than a positive nature. The strictures of the Ten Commandments are perhaps the best illustration of this state of affairs. This being the case, it is not surprising that some of the most significant possibilities for the observance of moral considerations in American foreign policy relate to the avoidance of actions that have a negative moral significance, rather than to those from which positive results are to be expected.
February 24th, 2006 at 1:09 pm
I have nothing to add.
February 24th, 2006 at 2:15 pm
“It is a matter of historical determinism” Well and this will happen of its own natural volition without any prodding if this is true. Competing ideas actually compete and eventually the best one wins. The cold war is a case in point. If you expect the other side to just fold up shop because this is predetermined, guess again. They’ll fight it and are. This stems from the same sort of religiosity.
February 24th, 2006 at 4:09 pm
Historical determinism ????
What the fuck ????
February 24th, 2006 at 4:28 pm
Thank you Michael Turmon for the Kennan. I’m probably so far on the path to old-fartdom that they might as well get it over with and just throw the damned dirt in my face, but Kennan and Niebuhr – committed anti-totalitarians inoculated with a sense of complexity and a large dose of old-school cautionary morality and common sense – strike me as two of the most perceptive thinkers on these matters who’ve we’ve ever been blessed with.
February 24th, 2006 at 5:15 pm
Here’s the case for staying in Iraq (no kidding):
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20060306&s=kaplan030606
Funny…but to me it sounded almost exactly like the case for leaving. When “FUBAR” is the essence of the pro-war argument for “friends” of our Iraq policy, one wonders what’s left for the Evil “fifth column” to argue from. It’s been a long and winding road and this kind of advocacy from the “optimists” makes the end appear near.
February 24th, 2006 at 5:19 pm
I know everyone here must at least glance at Huffington Post, but I just saw this over there and my first impulse was to vomit.
* A segment about escalating sectarian violence in Iraq on the February 23 edition of Fox News’ Your World with Neil Cavuto featured onscreen captions that read: ” ‘Upside’ To Civil War?” and “All-Out Civil War in Iraq: Could It Be a Good Thing?”*
Cue the only line left in response to these psychos, short of projectile vomiting: “At long last sir, have you no sense of decency ?”
February 24th, 2006 at 5:23 pm
First Crazy O’Reilly bails…now the Godfather:
http://www.nationalreview.com/buckley/buckley200602241451.asp
February 24th, 2006 at 5:32 pm
MarkC,
“There will be mistakes, there will be setbacks, but we will prevail, despite the handwringing of doubters and defeatists.â€
Your foolish right wing propaganda is obsessed with the syllable ‘ISTS’—if you don’t agree with the continuation of the Iraq war you’re a DEFEATIST; if you don’t agree with free trade and outsourcing you’re a PROTECTIONIST and if you don’t believe in globalization or imperialism you’re an ISOLATIONIST and if you’re really radical you are considered a SADDAMIST–and exactly what are you guys—MILITARISTS; EXPLOITATIONISTS and IMPERIALISTS.
There is nothing wrong with doubt—doubt indicates critical thinking the ability to analyze a situation and determine if notions are logical– a quality that is greatly lacking by right wing ideologues. The mindless following of failed policies can be attributed to either a lack of intelligence or the holding of a large number of shares in Halliburton.
February 24th, 2006 at 8:03 pm
Halliburton is taking the money from Americans not Iraqis. That’s a painful fact for both sides. I’ve not heard anyone but me say it. I’d welcome the quotes of other who have. It doesn’t look like imperialism to me. That would involve absconding with the source county’s dough. Not happening here. We didn’t get the oil and won’t, ever.
February 24th, 2006 at 8:15 pm
Reg,
This is not merely FUBAR, but literally JAAFU (Joint anglo-American Fuck Up).
February 24th, 2006 at 8:43 pm
Mark,
I don’t have the patience to explain for a second time how war profiteers made a bundle from the Iraq War–but I found a news story that you might be able to grasp.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4748292.stm
February 25th, 2006 at 12:02 am
Asked, still unanswered, expressions of hostility and contempt notwithstanding:
“Does the Left have a Mideast foriegn policy different in substance from that of James A. Baker or Brent Scowcraft? Where could I find any evidence of such?”
February 25th, 2006 at 12:46 am
Hostility ? Contempt ?
Poor thing.
Define “the Left” and your question might be answerable and not idiotic. I honestly think your question is framed in such profound ignorance I don’t know whether to send you over to the World Socialist Website, the Institute for Policy Studies, the Council on Foreign Relations or The Brookings Institute in your “quest” for greater knowledge. People like you are so prone to not knowing what the fuck they are talking about, that it’s very hard to take such a question seriously. Frankly, I think my irony above was more than you deserve and pretty much demolished your premise.
February 25th, 2006 at 2:10 am
“Frankly, I think my irony above was more than you deserve and pretty much demolished your premise. ”
Well, I will let others speculate upon what I deserve, as I invite them to applaud your irony and congratulate you for having demolished my premise, but for anyone interested in having a minimally civilized interchange of ideas, without personalized accusations of idiocy or bad faith, I submit that my original question is useful, and remains unanswered.
Everyone already knows that the Left and 60 per cent of America would like a Mideast foriegn policy alternative. Got any?
It might be hard for some to believe, but the world is chock-full of people who don’t go into a rage when they hear ideas with which they don’t agree.
“People like you are so prone to not knowing what the fuck they are talking about, that it’s very hard to take such a question seriously.”
WHAT CIRCLES DO YOU MOVE IN, THAT YOU CONSIDER SUCH A COMMENT PRODUCTIVE?
February 25th, 2006 at 3:43 am
“Historical determinism”?
Wonderful. Now, even the conservatives have latched onto Hegelian Horseshit in order to justify their asinine ideologies and theories.
History is not a straight line forward into some putative “progressive” or “democratic” paradise. Sorry guys, but it just isn’t. And you’ll find that out firsthand, sooner rather than later.
History is more like a wheel or a circle, than a straight line.
Oh, reg. If you thought that the schadenfreude expressed on Fox was disgusting, you should go back and read this cover story from The American Conservative. Pure Machiavellian malevolence.
A more subtle and “nuanced” (not to mention far more influential) version of this same divide and conquer doctrine can be read in this NY Times editorial by Leslie Gelb, head honcho over at CFR:
“The only viable strategy, then, may be to correct (Iraq’s) historical defect and move in stages toward a three-state solution: Kurds in the north, Sunnis in the center and Shiites in the south”
[snip]
“For decades, the United States has worshipped at the altar of a unified Iraqi state. Allowing all three communities within that false state to emerge at least as self-governing regions would be both difficult and dangerous. Washington would have to be very hard-headed and hard-hearted, to engineer this breakup. But such a course is manageable, even necessary, because it would allow us to find Iraq’s future in its denied but natural past.”
Chris Walker’s piece in the Herald newspaper of Scotland is a refreshing change from this self-serving/self-fulfilling “Kurds in the north, Sunnis in the middle, Shias in the south” crap.
February 25th, 2006 at 11:07 am
Sorry Sam, but I think your question was tendentious and based on a remarkably false premise. It was an evasion of the concrete by conjuring dubious abstractions. It implied a set of moral principles underlying Bush’s foreign policy, such as it is, where there are none. Paper thin, rhetorical assertions unhinged from any meaningful reality, posed as some sort of challenge to some vague “Left”. I attempted to break through the fog and you simply posed the same question, ignoring any problems with the premise. That’s when you really started to look stupid in my book and earned “hostilty and contempt”.
February 25th, 2006 at 11:30 am
Triple A – I just scanned that article but I found it somewhat surprising for AmCon. It struck me as sharing some of what I find so problematic with the “neo-cons” – not simply Machiavellian, but presumptuously Machiavellian. Any rational, considered policies that can actually help bolster moderates and isolate extremists in the Muslim world (or “Kansas”, for that matter) is all well and good. But even the kind of strategizing in that article is dubious if for no other reason than that it strikes me as people who believe they understand more than they possibly could assuming too much. Frankly, I think that the “grand strategy” we should pursue first and foremost is to do everything we can to eliminate our imperial imperatives in the Middle East and begin to let chips fall where they may. Between our attachements to oil and Israel, there’s no way in hell we can be perceived as an “honest broker” of anything in that region. Maybe when we aren’t operating from within a largely self-induced box, we might be able to help other people work their way out of theirs. At this point, I doubt it.
February 25th, 2006 at 11:34 am
“But even the kind of strategizing in that article is dubious if for no other reason than that it strikes me as people who believe they understand more than they possibly could assuming too much.”
What the hell kind of a sentence is that ???? Sorry…
February 25th, 2006 at 12:01 pm
So what is the answer? What should be done?And Eleanore I don’t have the patience to explain what imperialism would entail to be true. Again, since this is your dogma. The war profiteers are doing so on American backs using Iraqis as pawns for our money, not theirs. The result seems to be untenable thus far. The bill is real and lasting.
February 25th, 2006 at 12:08 pm
I think the idea that there was little sectarianism in Iraq is absurd. Sure, nothing is in totality, but to imply there are no cultural differences is ludicrous on its face. Hussein created this more than anyone and the trouble doesn’t appear to be generic: it’s one against the other as with Saddam so this kind of pollyannaish lamenting is as flawed as the naivete of Bush and Blair.
February 25th, 2006 at 2:03 pm
An Anglo-Protestant alliance to invade and occupy an Arab-Muslim nation, in the name of democracy, self-determination and 9-11?
What could go wrong?
February 25th, 2006 at 3:06 pm
Absolutely nothing that a reasonably informed, intelligent person could possibly anticipate….
Oh…wait a minute. There was that guy, Howard Dean.
“To this day, the President has not made a case that war against Iraq, now, is necessary to defend American territory, our citizens, our allies, or our essential interests.
The Administration has not explained how a lasting peace, and lasting security, will be achieved in Iraq once Saddam Hussein is toppled…
told over and over again what the risks will be if we do not go to war.
We have been told little about what the risks will be if we do go to war.
If we go to war, I certainly hope the Administration’s assumptions are realized, and the conflict is swift, successful and clean. I certainly hope our armed forces will be welcomed like heroes and liberators in the streets of Baghdad.
I certainly hope Iraq emerges from the war stable, united and democratic.
I certainly hope terrorists around the world conclude it is a mistake to defy America and cease, thereafter, to be terrorists.
It is possible, however, that events could go differently, . . . .
Iraq is a divided country, with Sunni, Shia and Kurdish factions that share both bitter rivalries and access to large quantities of arms.
Anti-American feelings will surely be inflamed among the misguided who choose to see an assault on Iraq as an attack on Islam, or as a means of controlling Iraqi oil.
And last week’s tape by Osama bin Laden tells us that our enemies will seek relentlessly to transform a war into a tool for inspiring and recruiting more terrorists.”
February 25th, 2006 at 6:22 pm
These rivalries didn’t just happen, they’ve been in place for centuries. But we get the blame now. What a blunder.
February 25th, 2006 at 6:45 pm
“ Asked, still unanswered, expressions of hostility and contempt notwithstanding:
Does the Left have a Mideast foriegn policy different in substance from that of James A. Baker or Brent Scowcraft? Where could I find any evidence of such?â€
Samuel,
Don’t you love the demented logic of the right-wing—they point to a terribly failed policy in the Middle East and say, pray tell, how would you do better? Haven’t you heard about the “pooper scooper lawâ€â€”when your dog shits; you must pick up his poop.
Now that your Republican party has made a total mess, they are asking the left for solutions? Well, let me suggest the obvious—GET THE HELL OUT OF IRAQ! Reg is right we will have to let the chips fall and the civil war begin.
We have totally devastated a country so that it looks like one huge landfill; we have taken a secular wealthy nation and turned it into a poor third world county. Did you expect the Iraqis to be grateful and blow thank you kisses for demolishing their country?
And let’s not forget Condi—she needs to cease her insidious plot to prevent other Middle Eastern countries from giving aid to Palestine. Why does our government always resort to the same Machiavellian strategy—when they are not happy with the results of a democratic election they plot and plan to foster discontent among the populace in hopes of destroying the newly elected Hamas government.
Stop threatening Iran—no one in their right mind wants to be embroiled in a situation with Iran over supposed WMD.
We need to show the people of the Middle East that we are not bunch of savage, torturous, money hungry savages that are only concerned with the hegemony of their region.
OUR POLITICAL POLICIES HAVE INSTIGATED AND INFLAMED RELIGIOUS FANATICISM—RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM WILL TAKE GENERATIONS TO AMELIORATE SINCE IT IS BORNE AND BASED ON IRATIONALITY.
February 25th, 2006 at 7:38 pm
On the subject of fueling Iraqi sectarianism and the funding and creation of a Salvador option, I’d all but forgotten about this report by Robert Dreyfuss from the January 2004 issues of The American Prospect.
Dreyfuss, generally one of the best foreign policy analysts in any case, does an excellent job of laying things out in a clear and concise manner.
February 25th, 2006 at 7:52 pm
“we have taken a secular wealthy nation and turned it into a poor third world county.”
Oh please, this is negates most of your legitimate criticism. The place was financial wreck and zoo for the Hussein family and his henchmen. Secular sure, he was a fascist. The only thing was he kept his jackboot on the rest the factions out of the box now. Give me a break.
February 25th, 2006 at 8:01 pm
Salvador option? You know the conspiratorial tone of these things is getting tiresome. Wouldn’t anyone say counterinsurgency teams would be appropriate? This has been reporting lately too so there is no secrecy about it. You live by the sectarian and you die by it. Involving Sunnis will include Saddam’s old crowd. Who better to take care of this problem since they are the ones causing it? Makes sense to me, but that’s not the point of the post. It’s “we’re ever the evil puppetmaster.” It makes me sick.
February 25th, 2006 at 8:19 pm
“The only thing was he kept his jackboot on the rest the factions out of the box now.”
What size jackboot does the U.S. wear–size 12 extra wide?
February 25th, 2006 at 9:01 pm
“we have taken a secular wealthy nation and turned it into a poor third world county”
Eleanore sometimes you stun me into near silence.
You can take the Micheal Moore happy picnics and colorful kites line all you like, but it ain’t gonna change the facts. Those facts, and these are facts whether you agree with the war or not, are that the country was looted by a kleptomaniac dictator who enriched himself at the expense of his subjects. That the problems we see now were always seething under the surface, but were only kept tamped down with the usual tyrant’s tactics which I hardly need to lay out. That Hussein had twice started wars with neighboring countries, both of which, in the end, had a lot to do with the devastation of his country. To strike the small note, need I remind you that the problems with the electricity predated our presence there?
It says nothing at all about one’s position on the war to insist that you not be allowed to get away with painting the idylls of Baghdad without at least a passing reference to the facts.
February 25th, 2006 at 9:46 pm
Not as big as his apparently.
February 25th, 2006 at 11:04 pm
JACKBOOT: SIZE 12 EXTRA WIDE
Choose your poison—what is Iraq now? It’s on the verge of civil war or it will evolve into theocratic dictatorship.
Is your memory so short term that you fail to remember that the CIA put Saddam Hussein in power? Another puppet government that didn’t quite work out the way we had planned?
If we were really concerned with humanitarian needs and not with money we would have used our military to aid in the Sudan nightmare.
“The conflict that broke out in the western region of Darfur in 2003 has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and nearly 2 million displaced; as of late 2005, peacekeeping troops were struggling to stabilize the situation. Sudan also has faced large refugee influxes from neighboring countries, primarily Ethiopia and Chad, and armed conflict, poor transport infrastructure, and lack of government support have chronically obstructed the provision of humanitarian assistance to affected populations.â€
February 25th, 2006 at 11:23 pm
Mr. Reg:
“Sorry Sam, but I think your question [whether the Left actually has a foriegn policy different from that of James A. Baker or Brent Scowcraft] was tendentious and based on a remarkably false premise. It was an evasion of the concrete by conjuring dubious abstractions.”
You are correct that the question was tenditious, but I think you fail to understand the nature of my partisanship. I am neither pro-right nor pro-Republican. I am anti-left and anti-democrat. I look forward to voting Democratic and cheering on sections of the Left in the future, but for right now, most of you truly, truly tenditious leftists and Democrats scare me, precisely because you think that setting out a rationale for a comprehensive foriegn policy is “an evasion of the concrete by conjuring dubious abstractions.”
Our enemies conjure “dubious abstractions,” every day before breakfast, but I haven’t noticed that the Left is willing to grant that the West and the USA have enemies. If you can’t define a problem, how do you propose to solve it? By a string of tenditious arguments, of course, defining Republicans and the Right as the problem, rather than a predictable feature of our free and democratic landscape.
Ms Eleanor:
I could quibble with you on small points but for the sake of argument I concede that the USA is an imperial power and that the USA, in all of its imperialistic evil, has grossly mismanaged its Middle Eastern inheritence.
So What?
I’m sorry that I can’t phrase this more politely but I really can’t. I have no doubt that you have the best of intentions, but your arguments (not your blessed, well-meaning existential self, and, please, note the distinction) are racist to the core. You blame everything on white people and miss no opportunity to absolve darker-skinned people of any and every enormity.
As far as I can tell, your entire theory of history is that rich, white male Western Christian conservatives have stymied the natural multi-cultural goodness of all other people on earth.
Have any of you Leftists ever considered the possibility that the free and democratic majorities that have returned the governments of the pro-war USA, the pro-war Great Britian and the pro-war Australia are a natural expression of democratic wisdom over left-wing confusion?
On top of that, add the rise to power of conservatives in Germany and Canada and the imminent rise to power of a conservative in France.
2008: Republican sweep.
February 26th, 2006 at 12:19 am
Stott,
Right-Wing nationalists are winning all over the Middle East, as well.
The liberal democratic values of the enlightenment are hated by these right-wing forces all over the world. European or otherwise.
February 26th, 2006 at 8:20 am
Can anyone remember the last time right-wing nationalists dominated the political world?
February 26th, 2006 at 8:30 am
Sammy,
Before you start blowing your own horn (ahem, not that you’d need any special reason to) I’d like to throw some names at you.
Russia
Belarus
Ukraine (nope, the “Orange Revolution” didn’t turn out how you’d hoped for)
Venezuela
Bolivia
Chile
Argentina
Mexico
Nicaragua
etc.
Next time you and your fellow “right side of history” types get together you might wanna bring up the timeless wisdom of Hervey Keitel and take it to heart:
“Let’s not start suckin’ each others dicks just yet.”
February 26th, 2006 at 8:44 am
Wile E. Coyote, SUPER Genius: “Salvador option? You know the conspiratorial tone of these things is getting tiresome. Wouldn’t anyone say counterinsurgency teams would be appropriate? This has been reporting lately too so there is no secrecy about it. You live by the sectarian and you die by it. Involving Sunnis will include Saddam’s old crowd. Who better to take care of this problem since they are the ones causing it? Makes sense to me, but that’s not the point of the post. It’s “we’re ever the evil puppetmaster.†It makes me sick.”
Forgive me, milord. Your humble liege doth not know his place. Before thou take thine revenge against me or my kin, I beg of you to consider that your humble servant’s small, inferior brain is genetically predisposed to paranoia and conspiracy theories, and that his cognitive thinking skills hath not been sharpened to a fine edge by exposure to that fountainhead of knowledge and wisdom, CNN.
If your liege dare to impose on his lordship, wouldst thou deign to read the work in question by Lord Dreyfuss before issuing forth thine next proclamation?
February 26th, 2006 at 8:52 am
Oh,
Forgot to add to that list
Uruguay
Paraguay
Brasil
Malaysia
Sri Lanka
(and soon enough) Nepal
February 26th, 2006 at 9:33 am
I think you’re sucking your own in circular thought. Your thinking on this state of world affairs is inferior, and don’t try to ram that 19th century crap down a biologist’s throat. Straw man. It assumes that eugenics was successful and nothing changed. The trouble with you Mr. A-AA is nothing in your head HAS changed. You only cite historical events support your victimization trip. It cultural relativism and moralisim and nothing more.
I don’t think democracy will work is such a backward anachronistic worldview. But I think there is a sizable section of Iraq that would like it to. What they want is the killing to stop. Unfortunately local radicals and visitors like Zarqawi won’t let that happen. How does this fit in to your tired freedom fighter against the jackbooted US selective amnesiac history?
“Is your memory so short term that you fail to remember that the CIA put Saddam Hussein in power?”
Please. No such thing ever happened. He rose on his own and helped to kill his predecessor, after a Saudi ran the place. He was homegrown. Local boy makes “good.” You can’t be this clueless and work in a library.
February 26th, 2006 at 9:40 am
I read the piece. It outlined a know strategy which apparently you you and to some extent Dreyfuss this is an indication of our sinister stringpulling. I don’t think it is. To conspiracists who already have their conclusion as outlined and guided by AlJezeera in their special Iraq section any effort will be suspect and support the conclusion. We need to get out of there for this very reason. Iraqis are incapable of functioning on their own in fighting these factions because they are the factions. We are going backwards in this effort, time to watch them swim or sink.
February 26th, 2006 at 9:50 am
“You blame everything on white people and miss no opportunity to absolve darker-skinned people of any and every enormity.”
I think this is the general reductionist meme. It’s unfortunate, but this is what lies beneath the argument. Looking at everything in this frame the West loses the battle for betterment every time. Yet there is never any self-reflection by those making this overgeneralization fallacy.
February 26th, 2006 at 10:49 am
Wile E. Coyote, SUPER Genius: “cultural relativism”
Forgive my impudence, milord but I was under the impression that culture is but a flight of fancy in the mind of primitive men with anachronistic ideas; that, in fact, culture doth not exist.
Indeed, “trained biologists” with unusually high quotients of intellect (oh, vanity, sweet vanity) all seem to agree on this matter.
Wherefore, then, “cultural relativism”? Can such a thing be, when there is no such thing as “culture?” Surely not.
Wile E. Coyote, SUPER Genius: “your victimization trip”
“It’s “we’re ever the evil puppetmaster.†It makes me sick.”
“These rivalries didn’t just happen, they’ve been in place for centuries. But we get the blame now. What a blunder.”
Indeed. It seems that milord hath decreed that simpering self-pity is to be his provence alone.
February 26th, 2006 at 12:00 pm
Samuel Stott -
Many (most?) Dems argued that fighting in Afghanistann was justified, as was chasing down OBL, strengthening security etc, and that fighting in Iraq would be counterproductive. Why does this not qualify as a policy? Because, it can’t be accompanied by MarkC’s marching songs? This approach seems as sound as the one Repubs have taken (I understand you’re not a Repub, you merely vote for them and bark at Dems). In fact, it seems a far sight more sound. It’s true — some on the left underestimate the threat to the U. S., for various reasons and due to certain ingrained biases. Most however, are quite aware of the threat’s severity and probably have a better fix on its dimensions than Bush and Co do.
February 26th, 2006 at 12:42 pm
No, reason is mine, culture is your reality. Just keep papering the walls. You’ll find it limiting though. Evets states my position on this whole thing, lost in the sea of personal insults. It still stands.
February 26th, 2006 at 3:20 pm
Have any of you Leftists ever considered the possibility that the free and democratic majorities that have returned the governments of the pro-war USA, the pro-war Great Britian and the pro-war Australia are a natural expression of democratic wisdom over left-wing confusion?
Mr. Stott,
In the case of the US it was fear-mongering, a contemptible smear campaign by chickenhawks against a decorated veteran and a weak opposition, in the case of Great Britain, it was an incredibly inept opposition (a win by piss-poor margins) and in the case of Australia, it was the combination of an inept opposition and a good economy.
You’re committing the most basic of logical errors.
February 26th, 2006 at 4:08 pm
And as an add-on to Randy Paul’s comment to Stott….go read the Conyers report and get back to me.
February 26th, 2006 at 6:40 pm
Sam…you can sputter about it all you want, but your question was based on a fundamentally false premise and therefore doesn’t make much sense to me as a departure for any serious discussion.
On the larger question, such as it is, I think you want easy answers and nostrums where such simplifications of extreme complexity are dangerous. If you really wanted an answer to the question of alternative approaches to foreign policy, a little research on your part would yield a lot. Do you really expect a comprehensive answer in blog comments ?? Seems silly.
February 26th, 2006 at 6:51 pm
“I could quibble with you on small points but for the sake of argument I concede that the USA is an imperial power and that the USA, in all of its imperialistic evil, has grossly mismanaged its Middle Eastern inheritance.â€
Sam,
I don’t remember going to those legal proceedings when the U.S. was told that it inherited the Middle East—perhaps you, Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld were there.
No one is disputing that we have enemies, of course we do, just like the bully who beats and teases all the weaker kids—he has some enemies too. So how do you stop alienating the world—by not playing Roman Emperor games with the planet!
We were told three months before we invaded Iraq by Tariq Aziz, the deputy prime minister that the allegations about weapons of mass destruction were not true and that Iraq destroyed all its chemical and biological weapons after the first Gulf War.
Has anyone ever considered that the reason we invaded Iraq was because we “actually†new they had no WMDS and were really NOT a threat.
In Norman Solomon’s book “War Made Easy,†he states: “Our leaders never lie to us—unless you mean lying by omission, lying with statistics, lying via unsupported claims, or lying with purposeful obfuscation, misleading statements, and successions of little write lies. Citizens make decisions based on information from presidents, pundits, and their colleagues in government and the news media. Often these esteemed public figures claim to have special knowledge. Our trust may be essential to their plans, but it is unwarranted.â€
And has to your claims that I am a racist who is against White Christian Males who want to dominate the world— they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
February 27th, 2006 at 5:03 am
Dan O: “I recall that the Kissinger-Baker-Scowcroft school was no more popular than the neo-cons are now amongst the left. I’ve never been thrilled with either camp, but it does raise a question about what a decent and realistic foreign policy ought to look like, let alone one that will satisfy the left.”
If the invasion of Iraq had been conducted with wide international backing, perhaps under the auspices of the UN, opposition on the left would have been minimal, as it was over Afghanistan and Kosovo. What the left is looking for in a foreign policy is internationalism, as an innoculation against imperialism.
FWIW, if the Iraq war hadn’t happened, then through the combination of a vocal liberation movement within and widespread international disquiet without, I suspect the left would be quite up for an invasion of Iran at the moment. Iraq was the wrong war at the wrong time with the wrong leaders.
Samuel Stott: “Have any of you Leftists ever considered the possibility that the free and democratic majorities that have returned the governments of the pro-war USA, the pro-war Great Britian and the pro-war Australia are a natural expression of democratic wisdom over left-wing confusion?”
In both the US and the UK, voters had a choice of two pro-war parties or candidates (Kerry was as pro-war as Bush, the Tories as pro-war as Labour). Only in Australia was there an actual choice, and that has to be balanced against the result in Spain (where the pro-war government was ejected – in both cases, this result was more to do with the economy than with Iraq). Meanwhile, Blair is now a lame-duck Prime Minister finding it impossible to get any controversial legislation through Parliament, and after the elections this fall Bush will probably be a lame-duck President. They survive in office, but the electorate ensures that they can’t actually do anything.
Samuel Stott: “On top of that, add the rise to power of conservatives in Germany and Canada and the imminent rise to power of a conservative in France.”
France already has a Conservative President, and it’s likely that his successor will be a Socialist; the new Conservative leaders in Germany and Canada have risen to office, but they certainly haven’t risen to power – Merkel is simply continuing Schroeder’s policies while the Canadian guy isn’t likely to last more than a year.
Samuel Stott: “2008: Republican sweep.”
Maybe, but they won’t be Bush Republicans. The neo-cons are a dying breed.
February 28th, 2006 at 11:28 pm
Ms. Eleanor:
In reply to yours:
“I don’t remember going to those legal proceedings when the U.S. was told that it inherited the Middle East—perhaps you, Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld were there.”
Terrific point! Let me set you straight. There are no legal proceedings about which nation-states get to inherit anything, because there is no global court, because there is no global democracy, because there is no global order, uncontested by anything except force of arms. Those of you who regret this fact may or may not be among the deluded who equally regret the fact that the Western democracies beat the dirty Nazis and the dirty Commies in short order.
But please, if you enjoy your life, as I do, underneath this precious umbrella of democracy and freedom and freedom of speech and habeas corpus, have the decency to acknowledge that most people in the world have none of these.
For instance,
Abbas-Ali Abadani points out that all of the following countries (his list, not mine) have returned governments that are less than approving of the US of A:
Russia
Belarus
Ukraine
Bolivia
Chile
Argentina
Mexico
Nicaragua
Belarus is a facist state; Chile is a functional democracy that elected a socialist, (and of course, there is no conflict between socialism and democracy, pace half of Europe.)
As for the rest of this list:
God help you if you get arrested under any of these governments. They are not democracies, are they?
Let me explain:
Freedom of Speech: Good.
Lack of Freedom of Speech: Bad.
Habeus Corpus: Good.
Lack of Habeus Corpus: Bad.
Democracy, defined as free and uncontested elections: Good.
Lack of Democracy, defined as lack of free and uncontested elections: Bad.
Or let me explain it another way:
Together facing the new totalitarianism
After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new totalitarian global threat: Islamism.
We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.
The recent events, which occurred after the publication of drawings of Muhammed in European newspapers, have revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values. This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field. It is not a clash of civilisations nor an antagonism of West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats.
Like all totalitarianisms, Islamism is nurtured by fears and frustrations. The hate preachers bet on these feelings in order to form battalions destined to impose a liberticidal and unegalitarian world. But we clearly and firmly state: nothing, not even despair, justifies the choice of obscurantism, totalitarianism and hatred. Islamism is a reactionary ideology which kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present. Its success can only lead to a world of domination: man’s domination of woman, the Islamists’ domination of all the others. To counter this, we must assure universal rights to oppressed or discriminated people.
We reject « cultural relativism », which consists in accepting that men and women of Muslim culture should be deprived of the right to equality, freedom and secular values in the name of respect for cultures and traditions. We refuse to renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused of “Islamophobiaâ€, an unfortunate concept which confuses criticism of Islam as a religion with stigmatisation of its believers.
We plead for the universality of freedom of expression, so that a critical spirit may be exercised on all continents, against all abuses and all dogmas.
We appeal to democrats and free spirits of all countries that our century should be one of Enlightenment, not of obscurantism.
12 signatures
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Chahla Chafiq
Caroline Fourest
Bernard-Henri Lévy
Irshad Manji
Mehdi Mozaffari
Maryam Namazie
Taslima Nasreen
Salman Rushdie
Antoine Sfeir
Philippe Val
Ibn Warraq
0
When the US
Reg says:
“On the larger question, such as it is, I think you want easy answers and nostrums where such simplifications of extreme complexity are dangerous. ”
Exactly correct Reg, and I apologize for not answering all my equally other effective critics in detail, but I don’t write so good nor fast and I have to keep a roof over my head, by working, like all of us.
You are exactly right. I want “easy answers,” though I disagree with you that I want “nostrums.”
Here is what I want:
I want all people to
March 1st, 2006 at 9:21 am
And? When you compare Islamism to the other totalitarian forms in history it lends too much credit to a small group of radicals. I’m tired of hearing about Germany, Japan and Russia. There are nation states. No Islamic country has the ability to gain entrance to this club. Sorry. It’s ad populum hyberbole. The threat is much smaller, still a threat but not in this league. This is the mistake conservatives make. Leftists, deny any, and reverse on the West instead. Both are false.
March 2nd, 2006 at 9:56 pm
Mr. Mark York says:
“When you compare Islamism to the other totalitarian forms in history it lends too much credit to a small group of radicals.”
Small group of radicals? I don’t call the governments of Syria, Iran and Saudi Arab and the populations they control with their guns and with their boot-heels a small nor insignificant group. You never have and never will hear me argue that these governments and the populations they control are deficient in intelligence nor capability.
Further, you will never hear me argue that there is any Muslim-majority country that is an open and clear democracy, because none are.
The Left can’t say nor accept these simple words: Islam has a problem, and the free and democratic world has a problem with Islam. Not only that, but the Left won’t defend their millions of progressive Muslim brothers and sisters, because the Left has abandoned the Enlightenment and the Rights of Man for a smelly, congealed mass of multi-cultural and anti-”Orientalist” pottage.
Specifically, you are wrong on two counts.
1. The logic of technological advance and assymetrical warfare is ineluctable: In the years to come it will become easier and easier for small numbers of people to kill exponentially larger numbers of people. The theoretical prospect of London or Paris or Tokyo or New York going up in a mushroom cloud is not seriously open to debate.
Those of you who scoff at the prospect of such enormities need to consider further enormities. If you deplore the aftermath of 9/11, try to wrap your minds around the aftermath of a nuclear strike on a free and democratic —and notice the lack of scare quotes– world capitol.
2. While you are at it, try to imagine a world in which deluded though well-intentioned advocates for world peace take a pass on defending full and equal rights for women and gays and heretics and blasphemers, and freedom of speech, and freedom of the press, and any other freedom you can name.
March 3rd, 2006 at 1:04 pm
They are incapable of any such sanctioned action against the West. they would be crushed like bugs, that’s why it’s a small bunch of radicals as I’ve said. Yours is the hysteria. They’ve got a ton of internal trouble bu the shieks and other leaders, with the exception of Iran, aren’t adcocating overthrowing the US like Japan and Germany. It isn’t possible.
March 3rd, 2006 at 6:53 pm
What would the world wealthiest dictator want with a washed-up, brain-dead continent lost in the narcissistic self-pleasure unable to find reason to live even in the face of barbaric dhimmitude?
Saddam was determined to conquer oil-rich Arabia, not suicidal Europe. He, along with the United Nations, assisted Islam’s invasion of Europe and North America. Funny thing is, neither Saddam nor Islamists needed armies to wage war all they had to do was riot over a cartoon by using our free press to conquer.
Saddam is gone unfortunately the Islamists are not.
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