Last week, a few days before the election, I spoke with the irrascible Gore Vidal.
We're living in the "United States of Amnesia", he said. Here's the full interview.
This entry was posted
on Friday, November 5th, 2004 at 12:00 am and is filed under Main.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.
73 Responses to “My Chat With Gore Vidal: ‘U.S. Of Amnesia’”
GORE VIDAL: “None of that! We go. They want us out of there — the longer we stay, the more they’re going to kill us, and the more they will be killed. And the more outrages they will perpetrate on us here at home. Get out. No more adventures. Forget about our friends in the Middle East who want us to attack Iran and Syria. Forget them. Tell them to get lost.”
Um, I spewed coffee all over my keyboard when I read that. Vidal has a fit of honesty, perhaps. Do our friends in the Middle East want us there or do they want to kill us? 9/11 was an “outrage”? Wow.
GORE VIDAL: “When the Soviet Union folded and we stopped the war on communism, we pretended we had won it. We didn’t. We lost it. And the Russians lost it too. We were both broke, and we both gave up.”
Well, I was there before and during the time the SU “folded”, and I can compare the SU to the USA around that time. The SU was certainly broke and broken down and no doubt about it, but to say that we were broke too?! What the heck?! Their military budget was probably close to 50% while ours was 5-6%, plus the relative standard of living was simply not comparable. Wow. That’s “basic unreality”, Mr. Vidal.
Gee, we really do have friends in the Middle East who want us to attack liberate Iran… how about the Hossein Khomeini, the son of the Ayatollah?
In this interview he says:
He refers as a matter of course to the work of the coalition forces in Iraq as a “liberation.” He would prefer, he says, to live in Tehran, but he cannot consider doing so until there has been “liberation” in Iran also. … I asked him what he would like to see happen, and his reply this time was very terse and did not require any Quranic scriptural authority or explication. The best outcome, he thought, would be a very swift and immediate American invasion of Iran. … “Bring in the 82nd Airborne.”
I really hate that use of “us” by Vidal. He has contempt for the average American, contempt that, if the average American were even aware of him, would be returned in kind.
I’m kind of surprised by your excitement about Gore Vidal really, but not only for the reason that Eric, a right winger and right on on in his comment, cites. Gore Vidal is also an enthusiast about conspriacy theories,something that you condemn those who disagree with you as being addicted to [a false charge, at least in my case, or Michael Moore for that matter who cites public documents to bolster his arguments). Why the appeal of Gore Vidal? I’ve always found him to be entertaining, especially with his odd affection for conspiracy theorists.
I’m not at all certain I would consider factions in the Middle East who would like to use our young people as their shock troops “friends”. Call me old fashioned. It’s just that the memory of Ahmed Chalabi, who played us for hundreds of millions of dollars and spoonfed false intelligence to his friends in Pentagon circles, is still fresh in my mind. It’s a bitter memory. Nor is it evident that the Iranian population would respond as gleefully to an airborne assault as gleefully as certain exiles. Don’t ask me why. I just have a hunch.
Also, I thought Obsidian was privy to some plan to liberate Iran in just four years without a war. Surely young Kohmeini can wait that long…
As for Vidal, in general the guy makes me crazy listening to him when he spouts politics. He combines certain insights with elitist venom and conspiratorial nonsense.
Perhaps Gore should stick to appearances on Da Ali G show because anything more, uh, strenuous, really reveals how out of shape he is, mentally. Interpol? An arrest warrant for OBL? We made up Afghanistan’s involvement? Does he have a shred of sympathy for Afghani women? Iraq and the rest of our mideast ventures are pure idiocy on our part but those statements of his are embarrassing. Is he on pills? Perhaps he should be. Actually, even this much time on that gasbag is a waste.
“An arrest warrant for OBL? We made up Afghanistan’s involvement?”
On that he’s not off base actually, though most liberals dread acknowledging it:
“George Bush, the man whose prime campaign plank has been his ability to wage war on terror, could have had Osama bin Laden’s head handed to him on a platter on his very first day in office, and the offer held good until February 2 of 2002. This is the charge leveled by an Afghan American who had been retained by the US government as an intermediary between the Taliban and both the Clinton and Bush administrations.”
I know people will claim the source of this is Cockburn, but sorry folks, Cockburn is not the Afghani in question. Nor is he the first to break this story. It came from a corporate news organ known as CBS, whose anchor as I recall told the president that he would be happy to go anywhere ordered by the ‘commander in chief’…
He is smart and witty, undeniably, and often full of insight. He is also much more inclined to be friendly with conspiracy theorists than a Michael Moore or Noam Chomsky. Thus I wonder about the differential treatment that Vidal receives.
“Thus I wonder about the differential treatment that Vidal receives.”
Because he’s classy, and understated, as opposed to shrill and confrontational.
Plus he’s getting up there in years.
What was that line from Chinatown? “Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough.” Add to that conspiracy theorists.
“Because he’s classy, and understated, as opposed to shrill and confrontational.”
Chomsky is certainly those, although he might be too softspoken if anything. But that’s part of the way he approaches discourse in any event.
Moore, compared with most of the better known rightwing hype artists [say coulter, hannity, savage...] is plenty classy [just from the wrong class of course and too friendly with the wrong class]. The confrontational business, not really. actually if you see him interviewed by CNN, which happens once in a blue moon, you’ll notice he’s actually pretty laid back, reasonable. I think of the recent interview with Anderson Cooper, where Cooper was quite combative and Moore just responded with a pretty laid back and disarming tone…
Chomsky is too academic and lacks the wit to play a significant role in popular public discourse.
You’re right that Moore is much more laid back in interviews, but his more recent work is much more shrill and confrontational than it used to be. Roger and Me and TV Nation were a hoot, but his more recent stuff (Bowling for Columbine and Farenheit 9/11) struck me as incoherent and worse boring and kind of unfunny. I nearly fell asleep about 2/3 of the way through f 9/11, and I don’t think that was the intended response.
“Chomsky is too academic and lacks the wit to play a significant role in popular public discourse.”
If it were Chomsky’s being academic that explained his not being a presence in the media discourse, I’d agree. On the other hand, Chomsky’s books sell as well or even better than Vidal’s I’d venture. No?
” Farenheit 9/11) struck me as incoherent and worse boring and kind of unfunny.”
I dunno, it got a pretty positive response from most audiences, and by now we know it’s a canard to claim that his audience was merely ‘clapping seals’. And I found many of the early criticisms to turn out to be astoundingly bogus ones. For example, when I finally watched it a month ago, I was amazed to find that the criticims that he ‘blew’ his chance to make a good film when he ‘carried on like an adolescent making wisecracks’…were unfounded, that he wasn’t making little wisecracks, harsh criticisms, yes, childish wisecracks, no. I found the ending most effective also, especially the sections with the Marine who refused to go back to Iraq if called on to go back and the sections with Linda Linscomb. Actually most effective, speaking of shrill and lacking class, was the extreme rightwing lady who attacked Linscomb on camera claiming she was a ‘fake’, she didn’t really have a son who died, ….
That ending was actually done very well, and his statement about the soldiers being working class and always called upon to die for their country business at the end…sorry, but that WAS actually quite eloquent and disarming.
“Bush and Cheney have other fish to fry. They are oil and gas men, and they wanted those oil reserves in Iraq — the second biggest in the world. They wanted to be well-placed in that part of the world. As soon as Cheney got to Washington, he ordered a study wanting to know how much time do we have? How much oil do we have? He was told, by 2020, pretty much, it will be over with. We will run out. It will be over. And then there’s chaos.”
If you consider Greg Palast to be a “conspiracy theorist,” Marc, what on Earth does that make Gore Vidal?
“If you consider Greg Palast to be a “conspiracy theorist,” Marc, what on Earth does that make Gore Vidal?”
Yes, I’ve asked this question too. It’s rather odd, because Vidal is much more into embracing far whackier conspiracy theories than Palast any day of the week. I mean what was it with that plane being blown out of the sky by the Navy anyhow?
This may come as a shock to some of you but I speak to and even interview all sorts of people I disagree with including Gore Vidal who is– quite obviously– immersed in some conspiracy theories. Toss in my radio show and I do about 10 interviews a week. People can hear them and read them and reach their own conclusions. Im glad u were smart enough to notice where Vidal goes off the tracks. I have also reviewed Vidal’s books including in the L.A. Times and have been very clear about where he’s wrong.
That said, there is no comparison to be made between Vidal — who has written dozens of brilliant novels and scores of elegant and penetrating essays– and an intellectual pipsqueak like Greg Palast. The latter is merely a clever huckster who has found a profitable niche among naive leftists.
Steve.. cherish ur posts here. U are close to the moment when you will become a fading memory.
It is odd, I do recall challenging Vidal’s conspiracy orientation, I don’t recall saying Vidal was not a person with an impressive publishing or intellectual resume.
“Bush and Cheney have other fish to fry. They are oil and gas men, and they wanted those oil reserves in Iraq — the second biggest in the world. They wanted to be well-placed in that part of the world. As soon as Cheney got to Washington, he ordered a study wanting to know how much time do we have? How much oil do we have? He was told, by 2020, pretty much, it will be over with. We will run out. It will be over. And then there’s chaos.”
This administration is less inscrutable as it is simply complex. The major actors have converging goals, but different motivations. The “blood for oil” charge does have some merit with respect to Cheney, who like Rumsfeld is an old fashioned realist hawk (of Nixon era vintage) and has little concern about a democratic outcome in Iraq, but the neoconservatives in the administration, including Bush and Rice (who are both converts to the neoconservative cult) have decidedly different motivations.
However badly Mr. Bush has prosecuted the war in Iraq, and however his deeds have failed to match his high minded rhetoric about mideast democracy, he and the other neocons (including Wolfowitz and Feith) genuinely believe that transforming the political, economic, and cultural landscape of the Arab world is the key to ending the threat of radical Islamism. We can dither about whether this strategy will succeed or fail, whether it is moral or immoral, and whether it is worth the cost in lives, liberties, and dollars, but opponents of this president would be wise not to underestimate his commitment to this vision.
“However badly Mr. Bush has prosecuted the war in Iraq, and however his deeds have failed to match his high minded rhetoric about mideast democracy, he and the other neocons (including Wolfowitz and Feith) genuinely believe that transforming the political, economic, and cultural landscape of the Arab world is the key to ending the threat of radical Islamism.”
Possibly, as an ideological posture that is their character, but the driving force is invariably making the world friendlier for privatization. and to that end, their not that different from Thomas Friedman really. I’ve never felt that the neocons represent much more than an aggressive and emboldened Friedman.
“Possibly, as an ideological posture that is their character, but the driving force is invariably making the world friendlier for privatization. and to that end, their not that different from Thomas Friedman really. I’ve never felt that the neocons represent much more than an aggressive and emboldened Friedman.”
Corporatism in the neoconservative project is peripheral to them, a kind of canned filler for the serious and difficult task of economic reformation that is a part of every major experiment in nation building. It doesn’t particularly interest this crowd, even as it plays a role in their overall vision.
As far as Friedman is concerned, he is a liberal hawk, not a neoconservative, and while both share the goal of radically transforming the political landscape of the Arab world, the neocons emphasize state sponsorship of terrorism (which is mostly a canard) and the liberal hawks know better (even if one disagrees with their vision this point is to their credit.)
Have you ever considered that the war in Iraq was actually fought as part of the war on terror?
The blood for oil is so silly. If we want Iraqi oil, all we had to do was buy it. Furthermore, since oil is fungible, we wouldn’t have to get it from Iraq. I’d love to know how you have such ccertainty that Rumsfeld has little concern about a democratic outcome.
I am glad to see that you recognize one of the important reasons of the war – to push Democracy in the middle east in an attempt to reduce Islamist terrorism. Furthermore, I doubt if anyone serious thinks they know whether the experiment will work or not.
As for how Bush prosecuted the war, a reading of military history is needed. Every war is a catastrophe, with huge mistakes. It is the nature of taking tens or hundreds of thousands of human beings, with millions of pieces of equipment, and going up against an opponent also very complex. The Civil War, WW-II, Korea and Vietnam all had horrible errors. The tendency for mistakes is not just on our side – in Vietnam the Tet Offensive of 1968 was a catastrophic mistake for Giap, for which he was (quietly) demoted. Even the invasion of Panama had a significant tactical mistake that cost several SEALS their lives. Churchill was responsible for a campaign that cost 500,000 unexpected casualties and also failed completely (Gallipoli). Somebody commented that it may not be possible to wage war given modern communications technology [and the impatience and lack of historical knowledge of the populace]. So I think it is easy to have 20-20 hindsight and find problems in any way.
Regarding the Iraq campaign (it is just one campaign in the war(, there were all sorts of contingency plans that weren’t needed – such as dealing with massive civilian flight from Baghdad with chemical weapons exposure. What they didn’t have plans for was a pre-panned insurgency. What would have happened if France hadn’t threatened Turkey with blocking of their EU membership if they let the 4ID through? (note: they are blocking it anyway – never trust the French).
“Have you ever considered that the war in Iraq was actually fought as part of the war on terror?”
You didn’t read what I was saying very carefully. I wasn’t suggesting that the war in Iraq was a “diversion from the war on terror” as the liberal internationalists suggests, but in the minds of the neoconservatives and liberal hawks the first act in a potentially multi-decade drama to transform the political, economic, and cultural landscape of the Arab world. The possibility of WMDs and links with al Qaeda (the latter of which was certifiably bunk, the former of which seemed to have some merit) provided the neocons with the cover for launching this war, but for neocons it was never really about the potential threat of Saddam’s alleged WMDs. It was about “planting the seeds of democracy in the Arab world.”
The reason that there has been so much confusion about the motives for the war is that the Bush administration couldn’t have been up front about their true motives, and as I mentioned those motives depend upon who you’re talking about. For Cheney – a vintage realist hawk – it was genuinely about enriching himself and his corporate cronies. For Rumsfeld, another vintage realist hawk, it was about testing out his pet theories of postmodern warfare. For Bush, Rice, Wolfowitz, Feith and the other neocons it was about transforming the political landscape of the region.
“It doesn’t particularly interest this crowd, even as it plays a role in their overall vision.”
Not sure about that, look at Bremer’s well thought out plan for privatizing almost everything under the sun in Iraq and letting foreign companies ship home 100% of profits tax free…They think about this stuff a lot more than they let on in their rhetoric.
“The blood for oil is so silly. If we want Iraqi oil, all we had to do was buy it. Furthermore, since oil is fungible, we wouldn’t have to get it from Iraq. I’d love to know how you have such ccertainty that Rumsfeld has little concern about a democratic outcome.”
Blood for oil alone is silly, as many on the left such as Chomsky, Klare, or Henwood have pointed out. But to deny its role outright is just as silly. No less than the rightwing Karen Kwiatowski has stated that the neocons were very nervous about the sanctions lifting when it was discovered that Sodom was no longer producing “WMD”s and the US would be way back in line after Europe for contracts once sanctions were no longer enforceable.
I’d say she has a point at least, one that can’t just be wished away as leftist fantasy.
I would add that the real debate we ought to have been having all along is whether this whole neoconservative project is vital to the national interest, and worth the cost in lives, liberties (at home), and dollars. America, you’ll note, can’t afford her current domestic and foreign policy commitments, let alone a multi-decade, many-trillion dollar nation building project in the mideast. How long will our Chinese banker friends go on funding our empire?
Of course, the primary opposition party (I heard they’re called the Democrats, though I’m really note sure), insisted on making this lame argument about how Iraq-was-a-diversion-from-the-real-war-on-terror and feeding us the glories of empire-lite. If Kerry wanted to win he needed to be a liberal hawk (see that piece in slate for more about that – it wasn’t the values canard, as many seem to now think), but if he wanted to lose with a little more dignity, and shed a little more light (rather than heat) on America’s national interest, he should’ve run as a Taftean or liberal isolationsist.
“Not sure about that, look at Bremer’s well thought out plan for privatizing almost everything under the sun in Iraq and letting foreign companies ship home 100% of profits tax free…They think about this stuff a lot more than they let on in their rhetoric.”
Every Serious Imperialist needs an economic program. FDR exported new deal social democracy to Japan, Germany, and generally the western-aligned developing world (wherein many countries saw impressive and equitable economic gains in the mid twentieth century…go read about Burma under U Nu in the 50s), but it wasn’t all about economics for FDR, Truman, and the early Wilsonian Democratic cold warriors, anymore than its all about economics for the neocons. They’re antimated primarily by notions of “national greatness” and 9/11 was the chance they’ve been waiting for since the end of the cold war.
We are in some agreement. I think the neocons (and others – I am not a neocon but not a paleocon either) saw Iraq as the first place to implant Democracy. I doubt it is a multi-trillion project, but if it actually succeeds in squelching islamist terrorism, it would be worth it. Think of the cost of a nuclear weapon detonating in Manhattan, or in LA when the winds are right to spread the fallout across a lot of the city. 9-11 cost at least $1 trillion. A nuke would cost a hell of a lot more, and would probably scare the population into demanding who knows what retaliation and internal things like national ID ccards, roving roadblocks, and other stuff,
As to our abilities, our defense budget as a percent of GDP is tiny even now compared to history. We could increase it easily, even without cutting some of the overgrowth of social programs, or cutting the FDA so it has fewer than one employee per farmer. Of course, I would be in favor a drastic cuts in social spending.
There were a lot of motives raised, not just WMDs. The democracy view was certainly in the awareness of those of us reading conservative journals. Liberation from a tyrant was spoken of. Not mentioned was the need to make an example of a rogue nation – for the edification of Iran and North Korea. Also not mentioned was putting a wedge between Iran and Syria, important because Hezbollah is in Syrian controlled Lebanon. I find it ironic that many on the left do not cheer a liberation of a people from a very nasty fascism and say that things would be better if we had left Iraq alone. I don’t know how many here say that, but it would seem to mean that the Republican party has become the anti-fascist party in the real world.
As to your WMD/Al Qaeda comment. I disagree. There was every reason to suppose the presence of WMDs (as I think you agree). Add to that the threat of Al Qaeda acquiring those from Iraq at some point. There were ties between Saddam and Al Qaeda, and all Al Qaeda would have needed was enough money. There was no inherent reason to believe that Saddam would not deal with AL Quaeda, and this is strong evidence that the ties were stronger. Also, his scientists/engineers might cut deals on their own. Daniel Kay, the guy who found no WMDs also said that he felt Iraq had been more dangerous than we thought before the invasion. The reason is that Iraq maintained the capability to produce WMD’s (Anthrax, nerve agents) and could have turned it on quickly, produce some agent and sold it for big bucks to Al Qaeda. On top of that, internal controls had broken down, so the scientists coould get away with it.
Nobody I know of believe that Iraq had an active nuclear program before the war, but it could have acquired it quickly from the Khan/Libya axis. There were other reasons to take Iraq: human rights; demonstration to rogue nation leaders (Khadaffi finally decided to give up his WMD plans, and rattedon his partners, after Saddam was pulled from his hole – the association of Libya’s behavior with Saddam’s capture is from Silvio Berlusconi).
Ken, you assert without the slightest bit of proof that Cheney was about enriching himself. The challenge is to you to support this bit of nonsense.
As to privatisation, conservatives believe that almost all economic activity should be privatised, under the right set of laws to keep things from getting out of hands. So when we try to help a country, we encourage the end of state economic enterprises, because they don’t work.
Overall, this means that the subject is complex. There is no simple explanation for why we went to war. There was a reason to boil it down to an emphasis on WMDs: some idiot decided we should have UN approval (legally, we didn’t need it), and WMDs are a good way to get that approval. Since everone in the world, for good reasons, thought that there were WMDs ready to use, it also made great sense.
It has really been the demagogueing by the Democrats on the WMD issue that has confused many people. Everyone says faulty intelligence, and yet I challenge anyone to show how our intelligence agencies could have known.
As to Ken’s comment about imperialism, he’s nuts if it is applied to the US. Our last imperialist act was in the Phillipines about 100 years ago, and we late voluntarily gave freedum to that county. The US is just not imperialist – it’s not in our nature.
Now let me move away from the he’s right/ you’re wrong sort of thing.
Can we agree that proliferation, especially of nuclear weapons and contagious biological pathogens, is a real problem that must be dealt with, because the Islamofascist organizations might use those weapons against us or other 1st world countries, and we simply cannot keep them out of our country with any high degree of certainty?
I made the point about neoconservative Wilsonian idealism, not Steve.
You live in fiscal la la land. In less than four short years, 77 million baby boomers will begin retiring, and collecting entitlement benefits. The projected social security shortfall is ten trillion dollars. The projected medicare shortfall is between 52 and 60 trillion dollars. No one knows how large the hole for medicaid will be, although it is projected to be in the tens of trillions as well.
The generation that will bear the brunt of these costs is generation x, which is less than half the size of the boomers. As it stands, gen xers like myself will see permanent triple digit tax increases to pay for the boomers’ entitlement benefits, let alone a multi decade, multi trillion dollar war on terror.
Asian bankers our currently subsidizing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and a portion of our domestic spending and only do so because we allow them to manipulate the value of their currencies against the dollar, artificially decreasing the values of goods produced in Asian countries, and keeping Asian markets closed to American goods and services.
With outsourcing accelerating every year, this dynamic will only hold for so long, and we are within probably a few years of a major debt crisis, and a potential collapse of the dollar. America is going bankrupt my friend, and at some point we will be forced to choose between empire and entitlements, and just like the Europeans in the middle of the twentieth century, I predict Americans will choose the latter.
I agree with you about nuclear proliferation generally. Too bad the Bush administration cut the budget for helping to secure Russian sites, and is giving Pakistan and North Korea a free ride. According the intelligence estimates, Iran was much closer to having nuclear weapons than Iraq was in 2003. Why didn’t we invade Iran instead of Iraq if that was the crucial issue?
On the question of WMDS in Iraq, you’re right to the extent that we couldn’t have known whether Saddam possessed biological or chemical weapons, but neither keeps me up at night. As we learned with the anthrax attacks, they’re extremely difficult to deploy effectively. And with respect to any potential nuclear threat that might have someday been posed by Saddam – nuclear weapons are difficult to develop in secret, and particularly when you’re under 24 hour surveillance with potentially perpetual inspections on the ground.
On the question of links with al Qaeda, this is just simply false, and it frightens me that any reasonably intelligent person could still belive this nonsense.
On the question of empire, you’re delusional if you believe that America in 2004 is not an empire. We have more than 700 bases around the world. We police much of the world’s airspace and oceans. Since the beginning of the cold war, we have staged coups, influenced elections, and continue to dominate virtually every international political and economic institution. Our culture is ubiquitous, and our corporations operate freely on just about every continent. We meddle in the affairs of sovereign states, and invade countries whether they directly threaten us or not. We are an empire in everything but name. Even the folks at the Weekly Standard admit it, and believe it is a good thing. I don’t.
Robert Taft was right. Stay out of other peoples’ business and they’ll generally leave you alone. Start behaving like an empire and folks will start treating you like one.
And on the subject of Cheney. Like nearly all conservative hawks of his generation, Cheney is a realist rather than idealist hawk. (The neoconservatives are Wilsonian idealists and nearly all boomers.) Realist hawks by definition tend to see American interests in narrow strategic and economic terms, and securing a plentiful and western-friendly source of oil in a world of increasing demand and decreasing supply is (without some major program for energy independence) certainly a part of America’s narrow economic self-interest. while Cheney may have believed (wrongly) that Saddam was a threat to American national security, he also had the oil fields in mind:
“…That was why I was stunned to read the press release put out by the public interest group Judicial Watch on July 17, 2003. This organization, along with the Sierra Club, had argued that both the membership of the Energy Task Force chaired by Vice-President Cheney and the proceedings of its meetings should be made public and had sought the information under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) since April 19, 2001. The Vice President had vigorously opposed this opening up of its activities and so a lawsuit was filed. On March 5, 2002 the US District Judge ordered the government to produce the documents, which was finally done by the Commerce Department just recently.
The Judicial Watch press release states that these released documents “contain a map of Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, as well as 2 charts detailing Iraqi oil and gas projects, and “Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts.” The documents, which are dated March 2001, are available on the Internet at: http://www.JudicialWatch.org.”"
“The original FOIA case was initiated (before 9/11 and before the ratcheting up of the attack on Iraq) because of more domestic concerns, specifically suspicions that the membership of the Energy Task Force may have included people such as Ken Lay of Enron Corporation who may have been in a position to exercise undue influence over government energy policy at the expense of the public interest.”
I would add between the neoconservatives and their crude Maoist notions of perpetual revolution and Orwellian ideas of endless war, and the realist hawks with their narrow and mostly immoral notions of the national interest, I prefer the latter. (Of course I’d prefer neither but if I had to choose, I’d choose Cheney’s war to Bush’s.) If we’re going to go invading foreign countries, I’d rather it be for oil and to set up some pro-American puppet regime than to spend years on some keystone crusade to westernize the Arab world, at a staggering cost in lives, dollars, and liberties.
Boys.. these are very very long and very hermetic “conversations” your having with each other which make it extremely difficult for other readers to join in. Cut it way way back or take it to private email.
“There was every reason to suppose the presence of WMDs (as I think you agree). Add to that the threat of Al Qaeda acquiring those from Iraq at some point. There were ties between Saddam and Al Qaeda, and all Al Qaeda would have needed was enough money.”
I’ll gladly keep it short. I’m impressed actually by the civility of this recent exchange. In a nutshell, no, at the time the WMD hype was strongest, I never fell for it, I believed, given the evidence, that it was merely a weak pretext much like past claims that Sodom was on the verge of invading Saudi Arabia:
“Boys.. these are very very long and very hermetic “conversations” your having with each other which make it extremely difficult for other readers to join in. Cut it way way back or take it to private email.”
Thank you Marc. I was wholly uninterested in having this conversation, and I remain wholly uninterinterested in having this conversation, but long, detailed posts aimed at me tend to generate a response.
OT – Kevin Drum has published an interesting electoral map of the 1860 election. It matches the current one rather remarkably, with one obvius twist. The strongholds of Lincoln’s Republicans were the exact opposite of what they are today. So much for the “party of Honest Abe” and their emporers’ new clothes.
Just a note for the “values” crowd and GOP triumphalists who bleat smugly about the “out-of-touch” Democrats. Frankly, the regions that are solidly and predictably Democratic are clearly the regions that generate the most wealth and real progress for America. They are the places that invariably, outside of the Beltway Bubba Bubble, actually lead the country and move America forward – economically, technologically, and yes, culturally. (On that last one, just ask your kids.) Since these regions also generally have lower divorce and teen pregnancy rates than the bulk of the red states, one might also infer they provide a pretty damn good moral example as well.
“Thank you Marc. I was wholly uninterested in having this conversation, and I remain wholly uninterinterested in having this conversation, but long, detailed posts aimed at me tend to generate a response.”
D’accord. I’ll note that my responses to Ken have been short and to the point.
Well, a number were pointed at me, so I feel a need to respond.
Saddam did indeed have ties with Al Qaeda. There were weak – sort of a “keep in touch” kind of tie. The point is not that the ties make a sale of WMDs inevitable, but that that there was no hostility. I was amazed at the naivette shown when it was thought Saddam did have WMDs (chem and bio) – people claimed that Al Qaeda could never get hold of them. That is simply not true, as David Kay said. The big prize is nukes, and that would be harder to get.
As to the status of Iraq’s program for nukes, you have to look at the whole picture – the production of fissile material (the only obstacle) went international, with the special centrifuges being produced in Malaysia and sold on the black market. Given Iraqi expertise, the purchase of enough centrigues would have resulted in weapons grade uranium – all you need for a small nuke. The destruction of that black market (we hope) ended that possibility – Iraq would have had to spend more time developing nukes.
Blood for Oil – the problem with this theory, again, is the fungibility of oil. It simply makes no sense to grab a country for its oil, unless you are going to try to make a profit by selling it.
Since the US did not grab the country and there is no guarantee that Iraq will remain friendly to us, the theory should die.
Some here have expanded the definition of imperialism, apparently. Having lots of military bases around the world does not make one imperialist. The destruction of very bad regimes likewise.
I would add that the real debate we ought to have been having all along is whether this whole neoconservative project is vital to the national interest, and worth the cost in lives, liberties (at home), and dollars. America, you’ll note, can’t afford her current domestic and foreign policy commitments, let alone a multi-decade, many-trillion dollar nation building project in the mideast. How long will our Chinese banker friends go on funding our empire?
I think this is a valid debate. The critical question is whether this project is likely to reduce the danger of WMD terrorism in the future. Ultimately that will depend on what happens in Korea and Iran, in terms of proliferation, Pakistan and Russia in terms of protection of existing arms, and whether the policy (and related ones) reduce the production of terrorists.
We have always had the ability to stop nuclear construction, through the use of our nuclear weapons or overt threats forcing real inspection. We don’t do that because the use of those weapons would kill too many innocents, and would potentially seriously damage our international standing.
As to whether the “neocon project” is worth it. You have to propose an alternative with regard to WMD terrorism, before that discussion becomes an issue. The question is: how do you prevent Islamofascists from detonating nuclear weapons in our cities. Answer that, and everyone will listen. But to trade off protection of that with financial considerations is, to me, very dangerous folly. Look at the financial situation in WW-II when looking at it today.
One comment on bioweapons. They can be very dangerous. The Anthrax was clearly deployed as a warning. A terrorist with it could have been in a high rise in NYC and simply shaken the powder out the window, and the casualties would have been vastly higher. And this Anthrax was only partly weaponized – it had military grade spore dispersal, but it lacked easy-to-add antibiotic resistance.
There are deadlier pathogens – smallpox, for example, believed to be illegally possessed by North Korea (and, ironically, France). Smallpox is highly contagious, unlike Anthrax (Anthrax, of course, is contagious, but in human infection situations, not very.) Smallpox + Interleukin IV is expected to be 100% deadly, even too those vaccinated, and contagious. Genetically engineered flu (or H5N1 tweaked for human transmission) could be even worse.
My daughter has worked in BL-3 labs and is a genetic engineer. She thinks the genetic engineering above could be done for $100,000 and a few thousand a month.
Al Qaeda and Saddam were not enemies. Wherever did you get that idea? Zarqawi, who is Al Qaeda, ran an organization (Ansar al Islam) in NE Iraq and had significant medical care in Baghdad. If you are an enemy of Saddam, the only medical care you get is embalming. There are plenty of other ties. Another example:the guy who handled the arrangements for the Al Qaeda meetin in Malaysia where 9-11 was planned was an Iraq diplomat… stuff like that.
But going for ties isn’t interesting, since the whole issue was about potential. Saddam and Al Qaeda were both opportunistic. If Saddam had something to sell, and AQ wanted to buy it, then it would happen. Saddam hated America, and one way of getting back at us would be to hand something nasty to AQ on the condition it be used in the US.
Saddam was probably the most reckless guy in the region. After all, he tried to kill GHW Bush. Either he was a supreme analyst of Bill Clinton, which I doubt, or he risked a massive war just to try and kill an ex-president. Saddam attacked Iran, and nearly lost. His 1991 invasion was based on terrible miscalculation.
If you have an enemy, rational actions by him are what you want.
I noticed God has been posting here, so I thought I’d add my two cents.
I was never much of a reader, but as far as Gore Vidal goes, I liked that one about the sex change. Strangely titillating. And that thing he did with Buckley at the 68 convention. Canned, but funny as hell, no?
About this election. Now I’m not God or anything, but if you ask me the Republicans should be crapping their pants. This thing has 1964 written all over it, only with the roles reversed.
The silent majority is pro choice, and they’re all trending Democrat. We’re gonna get our asses handed to us in 2008.
The “pro-choice silent majority” is nonsense. Nobody makes a much noice as pro-Choicers.
It is entirely possible that we Republicans will get it handed to us in 2008. I’m not foolish enough to believe that we have seen a sea change in the populace. But I doubt it will be about Choice/Life dichotomy. After all, this was the year for that, with a potentially large number of justices to be appointed.
However, there isn’t the slightest reason we should be “crapping our pants” right now. We just won a historic victory, in the Presidency and both houses of congress. Hardly scary for us. I was glad to help, being part of the Vietnam Veteran’s effort to expose the real Vietnam/post-Vietnam John Kerry. The only reason I’m not at the victory party right now is I’m 3000 miles away from it.
Those of us who were treated like crap by you guys are feeling much better, finally.
“After all, this was the year for that, with a potentially large number of justices to be appointed.”
That’s what I’m talking about. You hand the courts the courts to the fruit loops down there in bible country and the people turn against you. This one’s gonna overplay his hand.
I knew his father when he over at Langley. A good man, not the sharpest tool in the shed, but steady. The son is just a disaster in the making though. We’ve all seen this picture before, and the ending ain’t pretty.
He shoud’ve never quit drinking. What does he think he’s doing over there in Iraq? Those Arabs are a lot prouder, and a whole lot more clever than he thinks.
And you oughta lighten up John. The Republicans are losing their sense of humor, and living on a diet of lies and anger, just like all those angry young long hairs back in the sixties, and the Democrats up on the hill then. The tables really have turned.
You lose your sense of humor, and you lose the country.
” I was glad to help, being part of the Vietnam Veteran’s effort to expose the real Vietnam/post-Vietnam John Kerry. ”
you guys just made stuff up, not least of which was the target of the antiwar movement of which Kerry was a part was the soldiers, when it was clear as day the target was the politicians responsible for the war. Kerry’s biggest mistake, a major miscalculation, was not sitting down on major TV networks and refuting each charge point by point. He listened to his consultants, mistake 1. Mistake 2, he’s become, in an ironic sense, more like Moore than Kerry. He is far more afraid now to challenge the war machine than he was in 1971. Thus his inability to stand up for what he rightly did 30 years ago. True antiwar Vets like the Veterans for Peace, Jerry Lembcke, etc. don’t run away from the true history of a movement of tens of thousands of vets involved in various forms of opposition to the Vietnam War, from WW2 vets to Vietnam Vets returning from the war. If Kerry stood by what he did, he could have dealt with the SBoat problem easily, much like he dealt with Oneill on the Cavett show handily.
So Kerry’s boatmates just made things up ? And the U.S. Navy just passes out phony medals. Sounds like the ravings of a man very much out of touch with reality and with little respect for veterans and our military institutions.
Any dead-enders’ vendetta against people who opposed the Vietnam war at this late date is, quite frankly, not just the product of historical amnesia but of rank obsessions intent on exploiting long-buried emotions. It is a selfish, dishonest propaganda campaign designed to recklessly and opportunistically divide the country for partisan gain. Nothing more and nothing less.
You’re a despicable and not particulary well man, Mr. Moore. My advice to anyone here who’s interested in preserving a shred of civil, relevant discourse would be to ignore this guy. What kind of liberal wimpishness and wasted tolerance would give this member of one of Karl Rove’s goon squads a platform or seriously entertain debate with him. This is a man who has equated Seymour Hersh and CBS with the terrorist Zarqawi in writings on his website. What more needs to be said about his judgement, morals or kinship with veracity ?
I have never seen a better arguement for federalism and the continuation of the electoral college then your “comments”.
So honestly here is the deal..please just post a link, I have started a 501c3 that is going to accept donations to help you establish you own website. 78% of readers including those who are morally bankrupt will donate.
I personally am willing to pull money from my daughter’s college fund if you two will just shut up.
Incidentally, we are not worried about either of you having too many hits although obviously we will have to pay for a site with lots of terabyte.
I have never seen a better argument for blue state secession than you and the rest of the dumb, immoral, backward, bigoted, right-wing cretins on this site.
Go to hell. I’m certain there’s a nice piece of real estate waiting for you there.
I agree with Ken. General Sherman should’ve finished the job while he had the chance. Don’t know if Leslie is a male neandrathal or a female one, but I hazard to say that primitive and stupid comes in all genders.
“I’ll one up ya. If you and all the rest of dumbass right-wing pricks on this website agree to leave the country and never return, I’ll sell my house and my cars you folks can spread it amongst yourselves.”
I’ll contribute as well. As far as destinations are concerned, I think these individuals might find themselves most at home in Islamic countries. Perhaps Saudi Arabia or Egypt. They seem to share each others’ values: rabid sexism, patriarchy, homophobia, and religious fanatacism. I for one can’t understand why the right in this country and the Islamo fascists hate each other so much. They have more in common than they have differences.
John and steve.. all good things come to an end. your closed interminable dialogue has driven away ALL other commenters. I decree this thread ended here. Post any more on it and I will lock you both out.
In the future.. like starting tonite– dial it way way back or that’s it. Use email. Last warning.. for real.
Email is unsatisfactory. But if I could post a link, which the spam filter prevents, then it would be easy to move off to a blog I run just for the purpose of overflow.
I take it from you comment that if I see rank falsehoods on you blog, I’m supposed to ignore them if they aren’t exactly on topic?
Anonymous writes, “With the exception of GM, the rest of the Limbaugh rubbish in these parts should be taken out with the trash.”
I don’t know whether to be offended or not. I listen to Limbaugh when I get a chance, I also listen to NPR on occasion. I post what I think and think about what I post. I am unabashedly conservative and revel in the title. I have some views which many consider “liberal” but are actually quite moral in nature (not objecting to gay marriage/civil unions for example).
What IS different about me is primarily I don’t respond to the scurrolous attacks on conservatives by the idiotic left, you know, the left that thinks we are all wing-nuts. The left that thinks that conservatives have an IQ just south of a garden slug. The left that thinks we represent a fundamentalist/fascist ideology in which we all want to bash in liberal heads with a bible. I see those remarks, they hurt, they are primarily stupid and secondarily evidence of not thinking through the issues.
Marc once said it best. “keep it civil and respect[ful].”
I need to respond to myself. I should not have said “idiotic left.” I should have said “the left that doesn’t think much of anyone on the right side of center.”
But of course GM, liberals suffer even worse stereotypes in spades – in fact this election was all about them. And the very term liberal has been effectively bashed to the point that our very own politicians are scared to even use it. (Which is, admittedly, quite lame). But I don’t think “bible-thumper” or “theocrat” is very strong language to use against someone who’s calling you a baby killer because you don’t want to go back to the days when the women who (inevitably) have abortions sought them in back alleys. Also, I don’t know how to tell you this, but if you’re pro-marriage among gays, you are a liberal on one of the most inflamed issues between liberals and the right and a lot of your comrades are giving you funny looks behind your back. (And no offense but we don’t need a crossover conservative to explain to us that it’s actually quite a moral position. We knew that already, just like we know it about the rest of the liberal agenda.)
Another of the ironies of present-day liberalsism – aside from us being even more pro-marriage than the religious right by wanting to expand the pool of eligibles – is that even we know Keynesianism has its limits and its become our role to become the only actual existing deficit hawks in the wake of Reaganism’s “bankrupt the Democrats’ piggy bank” plan and Bush’s know-nothing “tax-cuts-uber-alles come-rain-or-come-shine” phony baloney.
One of the outrageous ironies of present-day conservatism is that they’ve sent American troops to a foreign land who are now subject to orders from that country’s (unelected) prime minister on where and when they can attack the guys who are shooting at them and where and when they can’t. Perhaps that’s a political necessity under given conditions, but it sounds an awful lot like some GOP charicature of “Kerryism”.
In my liberal opinion – even given the now obvious fact that the Iraq invasion had virtually nothing to do with any rational definition of U.S. national security – that it’s taken this long to decide to do whatever it takes to kill the bad guys is another example of the dishonesty and incompetence of our “mission accomplished” leadership – the way these decisions are being made is an example of having been backed into exactly one of those strategic corners one should never, ever let oneself get stuck in and which, contrary to protestations of our pro-war friends, was entirely predictable. The wishful “liberal” assumption that “we” would be loved precluded an effective strategy to deal with reality – reality being, if you’re not loved, make damned sure you’re feared. (Also, don’t just leave thousands and thousands of weapons and bombs lying around in hostile territory, but then that’s so patently dumb you wouldn’t imagine you’d even have to tell the alleged adults in charge of this operation it might be a problem.)
Reg writes, “But of course GM, liberals suffer even worse stereotypes in spades.”
Worse? Equally? I’d buy the latter but not the former. And that is precisely what I’m talking about with my last sentence. We (all of us) have to pull back from the “fear and loathing” that is rampant in our political discourse. As far as being a crossover liberal, you really don’t know me well enough to make that statement. I used that example to show that not all of us have a “monolithic” message any more than you do. Further, there is much of the “liberal” positon that to me is not “moral.” But, I’ll leave that for a later post.
I called you a crossover conservative, not a crossover liberal – and obviously on that one issue (the only one I’m aware of that you brought up.)
I’d really like to hear about the “immorality” of the liberal ideology, ’cause I’ve got a rather large beef with conservative ideology on the morals question as well. And this is one reason why a lot of this reaching out is bogus, because I’m no more going to trash my concerns about the moral values reflected in the political arena than you are going to trash yours. But later…I’m over my quota.
I just wanted to say that I found your site via Goolge and I am glad I did. Keep up the good work and I will make sure to bookmark you for when I have more free time away from the books. Thanks again!
November 5th, 2004 at 12:20 am
GORE VIDAL: “None of that! We go. They want us out of there — the longer we stay, the more they’re going to kill us, and the more they will be killed. And the more outrages they will perpetrate on us here at home. Get out. No more adventures. Forget about our friends in the Middle East who want us to attack Iran and Syria. Forget them. Tell them to get lost.”
Um, I spewed coffee all over my keyboard when I read that. Vidal has a fit of honesty, perhaps. Do our friends in the Middle East want us there or do they want to kill us? 9/11 was an “outrage”? Wow.
GORE VIDAL: “When the Soviet Union folded and we stopped the war on communism, we pretended we had won it. We didn’t. We lost it. And the Russians lost it too. We were both broke, and we both gave up.”
Well, I was there before and during the time the SU “folded”, and I can compare the SU to the USA around that time. The SU was certainly broke and broken down and no doubt about it, but to say that we were broke too?! What the heck?! Their military budget was probably close to 50% while ours was 5-6%, plus the relative standard of living was simply not comparable. Wow. That’s “basic unreality”, Mr. Vidal.
November 5th, 2004 at 12:32 am
Gee, we really do have friends in the Middle East who want us to attack liberate Iran… how about the Hossein Khomeini, the son of the Ayatollah?
In this interview he says:
He refers as a matter of course to the work of the coalition forces in Iraq as a “liberation.” He would prefer, he says, to live in Tehran, but he cannot consider doing so until there has been “liberation” in Iran also. … I asked him what he would like to see happen, and his reply this time was very terse and did not require any Quranic scriptural authority or explication. The best outcome, he thought, would be a very swift and immediate American invasion of Iran. … “Bring in the 82nd Airborne.”
November 5th, 2004 at 12:33 am
Sorry, interview is here http://slate.msn.com/id/2089329/
November 5th, 2004 at 5:55 am
I really hate that use of “us” by Vidal. He has contempt for the average American, contempt that, if the average American were even aware of him, would be returned in kind.
November 5th, 2004 at 7:15 am
I’m kind of surprised by your excitement about Gore Vidal really, but not only for the reason that Eric, a right winger and right on on in his comment, cites. Gore Vidal is also an enthusiast about conspriacy theories,something that you condemn those who disagree with you as being addicted to [a false charge, at least in my case, or Michael Moore for that matter who cites public documents to bolster his arguments). Why the appeal of Gore Vidal? I’ve always found him to be entertaining, especially with his odd affection for conspiracy theorists.
November 5th, 2004 at 7:43 am
I’m not at all certain I would consider factions in the Middle East who would like to use our young people as their shock troops “friends”. Call me old fashioned. It’s just that the memory of Ahmed Chalabi, who played us for hundreds of millions of dollars and spoonfed false intelligence to his friends in Pentagon circles, is still fresh in my mind. It’s a bitter memory. Nor is it evident that the Iranian population would respond as gleefully to an airborne assault as gleefully as certain exiles. Don’t ask me why. I just have a hunch.
Also, I thought Obsidian was privy to some plan to liberate Iran in just four years without a war. Surely young Kohmeini can wait that long…
As for Vidal, in general the guy makes me crazy listening to him when he spouts politics. He combines certain insights with elitist venom and conspiratorial nonsense.
November 5th, 2004 at 7:45 am
scratch one of those “as gleefully”s.
November 5th, 2004 at 8:18 am
Wasn’t Gore Vidal pushing the whole ‘navy shot down the plane off of long island’ conspiracy theory? that one was always especially wierd in my book.
November 5th, 2004 at 11:25 am
Perhaps Gore should stick to appearances on Da Ali G show because anything more, uh, strenuous, really reveals how out of shape he is, mentally. Interpol? An arrest warrant for OBL? We made up Afghanistan’s involvement? Does he have a shred of sympathy for Afghani women? Iraq and the rest of our mideast ventures are pure idiocy on our part but those statements of his are embarrassing. Is he on pills? Perhaps he should be. Actually, even this much time on that gasbag is a waste.
November 5th, 2004 at 11:38 am
“An arrest warrant for OBL? We made up Afghanistan’s involvement?”
On that he’s not off base actually, though most liberals dread acknowledging it:
“George Bush, the man whose prime campaign plank has been his ability to wage war on terror, could have had Osama bin Laden’s head handed to him on a platter on his very first day in office, and the offer held good until February 2 of 2002. This is the charge leveled by an Afghan American who had been retained by the US government as an intermediary between the Taliban and both the Clinton and Bush administrations.”
http://counterpunch.org/cockburn11012004.html
I know people will claim the source of this is Cockburn, but sorry folks, Cockburn is not the Afghani in question. Nor is he the first to break this story. It came from a corporate news organ known as CBS, whose anchor as I recall told the president that he would be happy to go anywhere ordered by the ‘commander in chief’…
November 5th, 2004 at 12:45 pm
There is not a smarter of wittier critic of American empire than Gore Vidal. The man is a national treasure.
PS Those early reports of the youth vote not turning out were wrong. My prediction was right:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041105/ap_on_el_ge/young_voters_1
PPS A charismatic economic populist Democrat wins an historic landslide victory in 08. The good money is on Edwards:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041105/ap_on_el_pr/edwards_future
November 5th, 2004 at 1:31 pm
He is smart and witty, undeniably, and often full of insight. He is also much more inclined to be friendly with conspiracy theorists than a Michael Moore or Noam Chomsky. Thus I wonder about the differential treatment that Vidal receives.
November 5th, 2004 at 1:37 pm
“Thus I wonder about the differential treatment that Vidal receives.”
Because he’s classy, and understated, as opposed to shrill and confrontational.
Plus he’s getting up there in years.
What was that line from Chinatown? “Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough.” Add to that conspiracy theorists.
November 5th, 2004 at 1:53 pm
“Because he’s classy, and understated, as opposed to shrill and confrontational.”
Chomsky is certainly those, although he might be too softspoken if anything. But that’s part of the way he approaches discourse in any event.
Moore, compared with most of the better known rightwing hype artists [say coulter, hannity, savage...] is plenty classy [just from the wrong class of course and too friendly with the wrong class]. The confrontational business, not really. actually if you see him interviewed by CNN, which happens once in a blue moon, you’ll notice he’s actually pretty laid back, reasonable. I think of the recent interview with Anderson Cooper, where Cooper was quite combative and Moore just responded with a pretty laid back and disarming tone…
November 5th, 2004 at 2:00 pm
Chomsky is too academic and lacks the wit to play a significant role in popular public discourse.
You’re right that Moore is much more laid back in interviews, but his more recent work is much more shrill and confrontational than it used to be. Roger and Me and TV Nation were a hoot, but his more recent stuff (Bowling for Columbine and Farenheit 9/11) struck me as incoherent and worse boring and kind of unfunny. I nearly fell asleep about 2/3 of the way through f 9/11, and I don’t think that was the intended response.
November 5th, 2004 at 2:26 pm
“Chomsky is too academic and lacks the wit to play a significant role in popular public discourse.”
If it were Chomsky’s being academic that explained his not being a presence in the media discourse, I’d agree. On the other hand, Chomsky’s books sell as well or even better than Vidal’s I’d venture. No?
” Farenheit 9/11) struck me as incoherent and worse boring and kind of unfunny.”
I dunno, it got a pretty positive response from most audiences, and by now we know it’s a canard to claim that his audience was merely ‘clapping seals’. And I found many of the early criticisms to turn out to be astoundingly bogus ones. For example, when I finally watched it a month ago, I was amazed to find that the criticims that he ‘blew’ his chance to make a good film when he ‘carried on like an adolescent making wisecracks’…were unfounded, that he wasn’t making little wisecracks, harsh criticisms, yes, childish wisecracks, no. I found the ending most effective also, especially the sections with the Marine who refused to go back to Iraq if called on to go back and the sections with Linda Linscomb. Actually most effective, speaking of shrill and lacking class, was the extreme rightwing lady who attacked Linscomb on camera claiming she was a ‘fake’, she didn’t really have a son who died, ….
That ending was actually done very well, and his statement about the soldiers being working class and always called upon to die for their country business at the end…sorry, but that WAS actually quite eloquent and disarming.
November 5th, 2004 at 5:46 pm
“Bush and Cheney have other fish to fry. They are oil and gas men, and they wanted those oil reserves in Iraq — the second biggest in the world. They wanted to be well-placed in that part of the world. As soon as Cheney got to Washington, he ordered a study wanting to know how much time do we have? How much oil do we have? He was told, by 2020, pretty much, it will be over with. We will run out. It will be over. And then there’s chaos.”
If you consider Greg Palast to be a “conspiracy theorist,” Marc, what on Earth does that make Gore Vidal?
November 5th, 2004 at 6:26 pm
“If you consider Greg Palast to be a “conspiracy theorist,” Marc, what on Earth does that make Gore Vidal?”
Yes, I’ve asked this question too. It’s rather odd, because Vidal is much more into embracing far whackier conspiracy theories than Palast any day of the week. I mean what was it with that plane being blown out of the sky by the Navy anyhow?
November 5th, 2004 at 6:28 pm
And can you imagine if Michael Moore or Noam Chomsky were into such wierd theories?
http://www.popmatters.com/books/reviews/i/into-the-buzzsaw.shtml
November 5th, 2004 at 6:36 pm
This may come as a shock to some of you but I speak to and even interview all sorts of people I disagree with including Gore Vidal who is– quite obviously– immersed in some conspiracy theories. Toss in my radio show and I do about 10 interviews a week. People can hear them and read them and reach their own conclusions. Im glad u were smart enough to notice where Vidal goes off the tracks. I have also reviewed Vidal’s books including in the L.A. Times and have been very clear about where he’s wrong.
That said, there is no comparison to be made between Vidal — who has written dozens of brilliant novels and scores of elegant and penetrating essays– and an intellectual pipsqueak like Greg Palast. The latter is merely a clever huckster who has found a profitable niche among naive leftists.
Steve.. cherish ur posts here. U are close to the moment when you will become a fading memory.
November 5th, 2004 at 8:22 pm
It is odd, I do recall challenging Vidal’s conspiracy orientation, I don’t recall saying Vidal was not a person with an impressive publishing or intellectual resume.
November 5th, 2004 at 8:51 pm
“Bush and Cheney have other fish to fry. They are oil and gas men, and they wanted those oil reserves in Iraq — the second biggest in the world. They wanted to be well-placed in that part of the world. As soon as Cheney got to Washington, he ordered a study wanting to know how much time do we have? How much oil do we have? He was told, by 2020, pretty much, it will be over with. We will run out. It will be over. And then there’s chaos.”
This administration is less inscrutable as it is simply complex. The major actors have converging goals, but different motivations. The “blood for oil” charge does have some merit with respect to Cheney, who like Rumsfeld is an old fashioned realist hawk (of Nixon era vintage) and has little concern about a democratic outcome in Iraq, but the neoconservatives in the administration, including Bush and Rice (who are both converts to the neoconservative cult) have decidedly different motivations.
However badly Mr. Bush has prosecuted the war in Iraq, and however his deeds have failed to match his high minded rhetoric about mideast democracy, he and the other neocons (including Wolfowitz and Feith) genuinely believe that transforming the political, economic, and cultural landscape of the Arab world is the key to ending the threat of radical Islamism. We can dither about whether this strategy will succeed or fail, whether it is moral or immoral, and whether it is worth the cost in lives, liberties, and dollars, but opponents of this president would be wise not to underestimate his commitment to this vision.
November 5th, 2004 at 9:28 pm
“However badly Mr. Bush has prosecuted the war in Iraq, and however his deeds have failed to match his high minded rhetoric about mideast democracy, he and the other neocons (including Wolfowitz and Feith) genuinely believe that transforming the political, economic, and cultural landscape of the Arab world is the key to ending the threat of radical Islamism.”
Possibly, as an ideological posture that is their character, but the driving force is invariably making the world friendlier for privatization. and to that end, their not that different from Thomas Friedman really. I’ve never felt that the neocons represent much more than an aggressive and emboldened Friedman.
November 5th, 2004 at 9:37 pm
“Possibly, as an ideological posture that is their character, but the driving force is invariably making the world friendlier for privatization. and to that end, their not that different from Thomas Friedman really. I’ve never felt that the neocons represent much more than an aggressive and emboldened Friedman.”
Corporatism in the neoconservative project is peripheral to them, a kind of canned filler for the serious and difficult task of economic reformation that is a part of every major experiment in nation building. It doesn’t particularly interest this crowd, even as it plays a role in their overall vision.
As far as Friedman is concerned, he is a liberal hawk, not a neoconservative, and while both share the goal of radically transforming the political landscape of the Arab world, the neocons emphasize state sponsorship of terrorism (which is mostly a canard) and the liberal hawks know better (even if one disagrees with their vision this point is to their credit.)
November 5th, 2004 at 9:39 pm
Ken,
Have you ever considered that the war in Iraq was actually fought as part of the war on terror?
The blood for oil is so silly. If we want Iraqi oil, all we had to do was buy it. Furthermore, since oil is fungible, we wouldn’t have to get it from Iraq. I’d love to know how you have such ccertainty that Rumsfeld has little concern about a democratic outcome.
I am glad to see that you recognize one of the important reasons of the war – to push Democracy in the middle east in an attempt to reduce Islamist terrorism. Furthermore, I doubt if anyone serious thinks they know whether the experiment will work or not.
As for how Bush prosecuted the war, a reading of military history is needed. Every war is a catastrophe, with huge mistakes. It is the nature of taking tens or hundreds of thousands of human beings, with millions of pieces of equipment, and going up against an opponent also very complex. The Civil War, WW-II, Korea and Vietnam all had horrible errors. The tendency for mistakes is not just on our side – in Vietnam the Tet Offensive of 1968 was a catastrophic mistake for Giap, for which he was (quietly) demoted. Even the invasion of Panama had a significant tactical mistake that cost several SEALS their lives. Churchill was responsible for a campaign that cost 500,000 unexpected casualties and also failed completely (Gallipoli). Somebody commented that it may not be possible to wage war given modern communications technology [and the impatience and lack of historical knowledge of the populace]. So I think it is easy to have 20-20 hindsight and find problems in any way.
Regarding the Iraq campaign (it is just one campaign in the war(, there were all sorts of contingency plans that weren’t needed – such as dealing with massive civilian flight from Baghdad with chemical weapons exposure. What they didn’t have plans for was a pre-panned insurgency. What would have happened if France hadn’t threatened Turkey with blocking of their EU membership if they let the 4ID through? (note: they are blocking it anyway – never trust the French).
November 5th, 2004 at 9:56 pm
“Have you ever considered that the war in Iraq was actually fought as part of the war on terror?”
You didn’t read what I was saying very carefully. I wasn’t suggesting that the war in Iraq was a “diversion from the war on terror” as the liberal internationalists suggests, but in the minds of the neoconservatives and liberal hawks the first act in a potentially multi-decade drama to transform the political, economic, and cultural landscape of the Arab world. The possibility of WMDs and links with al Qaeda (the latter of which was certifiably bunk, the former of which seemed to have some merit) provided the neocons with the cover for launching this war, but for neocons it was never really about the potential threat of Saddam’s alleged WMDs. It was about “planting the seeds of democracy in the Arab world.”
The reason that there has been so much confusion about the motives for the war is that the Bush administration couldn’t have been up front about their true motives, and as I mentioned those motives depend upon who you’re talking about. For Cheney – a vintage realist hawk – it was genuinely about enriching himself and his corporate cronies. For Rumsfeld, another vintage realist hawk, it was about testing out his pet theories of postmodern warfare. For Bush, Rice, Wolfowitz, Feith and the other neocons it was about transforming the political landscape of the region.
November 5th, 2004 at 9:59 pm
“It doesn’t particularly interest this crowd, even as it plays a role in their overall vision.”
Not sure about that, look at Bremer’s well thought out plan for privatizing almost everything under the sun in Iraq and letting foreign companies ship home 100% of profits tax free…They think about this stuff a lot more than they let on in their rhetoric.
November 5th, 2004 at 10:01 pm
“The blood for oil is so silly. If we want Iraqi oil, all we had to do was buy it. Furthermore, since oil is fungible, we wouldn’t have to get it from Iraq. I’d love to know how you have such ccertainty that Rumsfeld has little concern about a democratic outcome.”
Blood for oil alone is silly, as many on the left such as Chomsky, Klare, or Henwood have pointed out. But to deny its role outright is just as silly. No less than the rightwing Karen Kwiatowski has stated that the neocons were very nervous about the sanctions lifting when it was discovered that Sodom was no longer producing “WMD”s and the US would be way back in line after Europe for contracts once sanctions were no longer enforceable.
I’d say she has a point at least, one that can’t just be wished away as leftist fantasy.
November 5th, 2004 at 10:04 pm
John,
I would add that the real debate we ought to have been having all along is whether this whole neoconservative project is vital to the national interest, and worth the cost in lives, liberties (at home), and dollars. America, you’ll note, can’t afford her current domestic and foreign policy commitments, let alone a multi-decade, many-trillion dollar nation building project in the mideast. How long will our Chinese banker friends go on funding our empire?
Of course, the primary opposition party (I heard they’re called the Democrats, though I’m really note sure), insisted on making this lame argument about how Iraq-was-a-diversion-from-the-real-war-on-terror and feeding us the glories of empire-lite. If Kerry wanted to win he needed to be a liberal hawk (see that piece in slate for more about that – it wasn’t the values canard, as many seem to now think), but if he wanted to lose with a little more dignity, and shed a little more light (rather than heat) on America’s national interest, he should’ve run as a Taftean or liberal isolationsist.
November 5th, 2004 at 10:10 pm
“Not sure about that, look at Bremer’s well thought out plan for privatizing almost everything under the sun in Iraq and letting foreign companies ship home 100% of profits tax free…They think about this stuff a lot more than they let on in their rhetoric.”
Every Serious Imperialist needs an economic program. FDR exported new deal social democracy to Japan, Germany, and generally the western-aligned developing world (wherein many countries saw impressive and equitable economic gains in the mid twentieth century…go read about Burma under U Nu in the 50s), but it wasn’t all about economics for FDR, Truman, and the early Wilsonian Democratic cold warriors, anymore than its all about economics for the neocons. They’re antimated primarily by notions of “national greatness” and 9/11 was the chance they’ve been waiting for since the end of the cold war.
November 5th, 2004 at 11:52 pm
Steve,
We are in some agreement. I think the neocons (and others – I am not a neocon but not a paleocon either) saw Iraq as the first place to implant Democracy. I doubt it is a multi-trillion project, but if it actually succeeds in squelching islamist terrorism, it would be worth it. Think of the cost of a nuclear weapon detonating in Manhattan, or in LA when the winds are right to spread the fallout across a lot of the city. 9-11 cost at least $1 trillion. A nuke would cost a hell of a lot more, and would probably scare the population into demanding who knows what retaliation and internal things like national ID ccards, roving roadblocks, and other stuff,
As to our abilities, our defense budget as a percent of GDP is tiny even now compared to history. We could increase it easily, even without cutting some of the overgrowth of social programs, or cutting the FDA so it has fewer than one employee per farmer. Of course, I would be in favor a drastic cuts in social spending.
There were a lot of motives raised, not just WMDs. The democracy view was certainly in the awareness of those of us reading conservative journals. Liberation from a tyrant was spoken of. Not mentioned was the need to make an example of a rogue nation – for the edification of Iran and North Korea. Also not mentioned was putting a wedge between Iran and Syria, important because Hezbollah is in Syrian controlled Lebanon. I find it ironic that many on the left do not cheer a liberation of a people from a very nasty fascism and say that things would be better if we had left Iraq alone. I don’t know how many here say that, but it would seem to mean that the Republican party has become the anti-fascist party in the real world.
As to your WMD/Al Qaeda comment. I disagree. There was every reason to suppose the presence of WMDs (as I think you agree). Add to that the threat of Al Qaeda acquiring those from Iraq at some point. There were ties between Saddam and Al Qaeda, and all Al Qaeda would have needed was enough money. There was no inherent reason to believe that Saddam would not deal with AL Quaeda, and this is strong evidence that the ties were stronger. Also, his scientists/engineers might cut deals on their own. Daniel Kay, the guy who found no WMDs also said that he felt Iraq had been more dangerous than we thought before the invasion. The reason is that Iraq maintained the capability to produce WMD’s (Anthrax, nerve agents) and could have turned it on quickly, produce some agent and sold it for big bucks to Al Qaeda. On top of that, internal controls had broken down, so the scientists coould get away with it.
Nobody I know of believe that Iraq had an active nuclear program before the war, but it could have acquired it quickly from the Khan/Libya axis. There were other reasons to take Iraq: human rights; demonstration to rogue nation leaders (Khadaffi finally decided to give up his WMD plans, and rattedon his partners, after Saddam was pulled from his hole – the association of Libya’s behavior with Saddam’s capture is from Silvio Berlusconi).
Ken, you assert without the slightest bit of proof that Cheney was about enriching himself. The challenge is to you to support this bit of nonsense.
As to privatisation, conservatives believe that almost all economic activity should be privatised, under the right set of laws to keep things from getting out of hands. So when we try to help a country, we encourage the end of state economic enterprises, because they don’t work.
Overall, this means that the subject is complex. There is no simple explanation for why we went to war. There was a reason to boil it down to an emphasis on WMDs: some idiot decided we should have UN approval (legally, we didn’t need it), and WMDs are a good way to get that approval. Since everone in the world, for good reasons, thought that there were WMDs ready to use, it also made great sense.
It has really been the demagogueing by the Democrats on the WMD issue that has confused many people. Everyone says faulty intelligence, and yet I challenge anyone to show how our intelligence agencies could have known.
As to Ken’s comment about imperialism, he’s nuts if it is applied to the US. Our last imperialist act was in the Phillipines about 100 years ago, and we late voluntarily gave freedum to that county. The US is just not imperialist – it’s not in our nature.
Now let me move away from the he’s right/ you’re wrong sort of thing.
Can we agree that proliferation, especially of nuclear weapons and contagious biological pathogens, is a real problem that must be dealt with, because the Islamofascist organizations might use those weapons against us or other 1st world countries, and we simply cannot keep them out of our country with any high degree of certainty?
November 6th, 2004 at 12:12 am
oops.. I mean, of course, David Kay, not Daniel Kay
November 6th, 2004 at 12:37 am
John,
I made the point about neoconservative Wilsonian idealism, not Steve.
You live in fiscal la la land. In less than four short years, 77 million baby boomers will begin retiring, and collecting entitlement benefits. The projected social security shortfall is ten trillion dollars. The projected medicare shortfall is between 52 and 60 trillion dollars. No one knows how large the hole for medicaid will be, although it is projected to be in the tens of trillions as well.
The generation that will bear the brunt of these costs is generation x, which is less than half the size of the boomers. As it stands, gen xers like myself will see permanent triple digit tax increases to pay for the boomers’ entitlement benefits, let alone a multi decade, multi trillion dollar war on terror.
Asian bankers our currently subsidizing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and a portion of our domestic spending and only do so because we allow them to manipulate the value of their currencies against the dollar, artificially decreasing the values of goods produced in Asian countries, and keeping Asian markets closed to American goods and services.
With outsourcing accelerating every year, this dynamic will only hold for so long, and we are within probably a few years of a major debt crisis, and a potential collapse of the dollar. America is going bankrupt my friend, and at some point we will be forced to choose between empire and entitlements, and just like the Europeans in the middle of the twentieth century, I predict Americans will choose the latter.
I agree with you about nuclear proliferation generally. Too bad the Bush administration cut the budget for helping to secure Russian sites, and is giving Pakistan and North Korea a free ride. According the intelligence estimates, Iran was much closer to having nuclear weapons than Iraq was in 2003. Why didn’t we invade Iran instead of Iraq if that was the crucial issue?
On the question of WMDS in Iraq, you’re right to the extent that we couldn’t have known whether Saddam possessed biological or chemical weapons, but neither keeps me up at night. As we learned with the anthrax attacks, they’re extremely difficult to deploy effectively. And with respect to any potential nuclear threat that might have someday been posed by Saddam – nuclear weapons are difficult to develop in secret, and particularly when you’re under 24 hour surveillance with potentially perpetual inspections on the ground.
On the question of links with al Qaeda, this is just simply false, and it frightens me that any reasonably intelligent person could still belive this nonsense.
On the question of empire, you’re delusional if you believe that America in 2004 is not an empire. We have more than 700 bases around the world. We police much of the world’s airspace and oceans. Since the beginning of the cold war, we have staged coups, influenced elections, and continue to dominate virtually every international political and economic institution. Our culture is ubiquitous, and our corporations operate freely on just about every continent. We meddle in the affairs of sovereign states, and invade countries whether they directly threaten us or not. We are an empire in everything but name. Even the folks at the Weekly Standard admit it, and believe it is a good thing. I don’t.
Robert Taft was right. Stay out of other peoples’ business and they’ll generally leave you alone. Start behaving like an empire and folks will start treating you like one.
November 6th, 2004 at 12:55 am
And on the subject of Cheney. Like nearly all conservative hawks of his generation, Cheney is a realist rather than idealist hawk. (The neoconservatives are Wilsonian idealists and nearly all boomers.) Realist hawks by definition tend to see American interests in narrow strategic and economic terms, and securing a plentiful and western-friendly source of oil in a world of increasing demand and decreasing supply is (without some major program for energy independence) certainly a part of America’s narrow economic self-interest. while Cheney may have believed (wrongly) that Saddam was a threat to American national security, he also had the oil fields in mind:
“…That was why I was stunned to read the press release put out by the public interest group Judicial Watch on July 17, 2003. This organization, along with the Sierra Club, had argued that both the membership of the Energy Task Force chaired by Vice-President Cheney and the proceedings of its meetings should be made public and had sought the information under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) since April 19, 2001. The Vice President had vigorously opposed this opening up of its activities and so a lawsuit was filed. On March 5, 2002 the US District Judge ordered the government to produce the documents, which was finally done by the Commerce Department just recently.
The Judicial Watch press release states that these released documents “contain a map of Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, as well as 2 charts detailing Iraqi oil and gas projects, and “Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts.” The documents, which are dated March 2001, are available on the Internet at: http://www.JudicialWatch.org.”"
“The original FOIA case was initiated (before 9/11 and before the ratcheting up of the attack on Iraq) because of more domestic concerns, specifically suspicions that the membership of the Energy Task Force may have included people such as Ken Lay of Enron Corporation who may have been in a position to exercise undue influence over government energy policy at the expense of the public interest.”
November 6th, 2004 at 1:07 am
John,
I would add between the neoconservatives and their crude Maoist notions of perpetual revolution and Orwellian ideas of endless war, and the realist hawks with their narrow and mostly immoral notions of the national interest, I prefer the latter. (Of course I’d prefer neither but if I had to choose, I’d choose Cheney’s war to Bush’s.) If we’re going to go invading foreign countries, I’d rather it be for oil and to set up some pro-American puppet regime than to spend years on some keystone crusade to westernize the Arab world, at a staggering cost in lives, dollars, and liberties.
November 6th, 2004 at 1:48 am
Boys.. these are very very long and very hermetic “conversations” your having with each other which make it extremely difficult for other readers to join in. Cut it way way back or take it to private email.
November 6th, 2004 at 6:25 am
“There was every reason to suppose the presence of WMDs (as I think you agree). Add to that the threat of Al Qaeda acquiring those from Iraq at some point. There were ties between Saddam and Al Qaeda, and all Al Qaeda would have needed was enough money.”
I’ll gladly keep it short. I’m impressed actually by the civility of this recent exchange. In a nutshell, no, at the time the WMD hype was strongest, I never fell for it, I believed, given the evidence, that it was merely a weak pretext much like past claims that Sodom was on the verge of invading Saudi Arabia:
http://traprockpeace.org/iraqweapons.html
November 6th, 2004 at 10:46 am
“Boys.. these are very very long and very hermetic “conversations” your having with each other which make it extremely difficult for other readers to join in. Cut it way way back or take it to private email.”
Thank you Marc. I was wholly uninterested in having this conversation, and I remain wholly uninterinterested in having this conversation, but long, detailed posts aimed at me tend to generate a response.
November 6th, 2004 at 10:58 am
OT – Kevin Drum has published an interesting electoral map of the 1860 election. It matches the current one rather remarkably, with one obvius twist. The strongholds of Lincoln’s Republicans were the exact opposite of what they are today. So much for the “party of Honest Abe” and their emporers’ new clothes.
Just a note for the “values” crowd and GOP triumphalists who bleat smugly about the “out-of-touch” Democrats. Frankly, the regions that are solidly and predictably Democratic are clearly the regions that generate the most wealth and real progress for America. They are the places that invariably, outside of the Beltway Bubba Bubble, actually lead the country and move America forward – economically, technologically, and yes, culturally. (On that last one, just ask your kids.) Since these regions also generally have lower divorce and teen pregnancy rates than the bulk of the red states, one might also infer they provide a pretty damn good moral example as well.
November 6th, 2004 at 1:36 pm
“Thank you Marc. I was wholly uninterested in having this conversation, and I remain wholly uninterinterested in having this conversation, but long, detailed posts aimed at me tend to generate a response.”
D’accord. I’ll note that my responses to Ken have been short and to the point.
November 6th, 2004 at 2:14 pm
Well, a number were pointed at me, so I feel a need to respond.
Saddam did indeed have ties with Al Qaeda. There were weak – sort of a “keep in touch” kind of tie. The point is not that the ties make a sale of WMDs inevitable, but that that there was no hostility. I was amazed at the naivette shown when it was thought Saddam did have WMDs (chem and bio) – people claimed that Al Qaeda could never get hold of them. That is simply not true, as David Kay said. The big prize is nukes, and that would be harder to get.
As to the status of Iraq’s program for nukes, you have to look at the whole picture – the production of fissile material (the only obstacle) went international, with the special centrifuges being produced in Malaysia and sold on the black market. Given Iraqi expertise, the purchase of enough centrigues would have resulted in weapons grade uranium – all you need for a small nuke. The destruction of that black market (we hope) ended that possibility – Iraq would have had to spend more time developing nukes.
November 6th, 2004 at 2:17 pm
Blood for Oil – the problem with this theory, again, is the fungibility of oil. It simply makes no sense to grab a country for its oil, unless you are going to try to make a profit by selling it.
Since the US did not grab the country and there is no guarantee that Iraq will remain friendly to us, the theory should die.
Some here have expanded the definition of imperialism, apparently. Having lots of military bases around the world does not make one imperialist. The destruction of very bad regimes likewise.
November 6th, 2004 at 2:20 pm
OT (somewhat?) but a must read. Chomsky: America’s Dumbest Intellectual http://www.city-journal.org/html/12_3_urbanities-americas_dumbe.html
November 6th, 2004 at 2:24 pm
Ken sats:
I would add that the real debate we ought to have been having all along is whether this whole neoconservative project is vital to the national interest, and worth the cost in lives, liberties (at home), and dollars. America, you’ll note, can’t afford her current domestic and foreign policy commitments, let alone a multi-decade, many-trillion dollar nation building project in the mideast. How long will our Chinese banker friends go on funding our empire?
I think this is a valid debate. The critical question is whether this project is likely to reduce the danger of WMD terrorism in the future. Ultimately that will depend on what happens in Korea and Iran, in terms of proliferation, Pakistan and Russia in terms of protection of existing arms, and whether the policy (and related ones) reduce the production of terrorists.
We have always had the ability to stop nuclear construction, through the use of our nuclear weapons or overt threats forcing real inspection. We don’t do that because the use of those weapons would kill too many innocents, and would potentially seriously damage our international standing.
As to whether the “neocon project” is worth it. You have to propose an alternative with regard to WMD terrorism, before that discussion becomes an issue. The question is: how do you prevent Islamofascists from detonating nuclear weapons in our cities. Answer that, and everyone will listen. But to trade off protection of that with financial considerations is, to me, very dangerous folly. Look at the financial situation in WW-II when looking at it today.
November 6th, 2004 at 2:24 pm
“Saddam did indeed have ties with Al Qaeda. There were weak – sort of a “keep in touch” kind of tie.”
Not even close, they were enemies.
” but a must read. Chomsky:”
Not really, just a smear job based on someone’s misinterpretation or reinterpretation of Chomsky’s writings. Not terribly serious critique I’m afraid.
November 6th, 2004 at 2:34 pm
Ken,
One comment on bioweapons. They can be very dangerous. The Anthrax was clearly deployed as a warning. A terrorist with it could have been in a high rise in NYC and simply shaken the powder out the window, and the casualties would have been vastly higher. And this Anthrax was only partly weaponized – it had military grade spore dispersal, but it lacked easy-to-add antibiotic resistance.
There are deadlier pathogens – smallpox, for example, believed to be illegally possessed by North Korea (and, ironically, France). Smallpox is highly contagious, unlike Anthrax (Anthrax, of course, is contagious, but in human infection situations, not very.) Smallpox + Interleukin IV is expected to be 100% deadly, even too those vaccinated, and contagious. Genetically engineered flu (or H5N1 tweaked for human transmission) could be even worse.
My daughter has worked in BL-3 labs and is a genetic engineer. She thinks the genetic engineering above could be done for $100,000 and a few thousand a month.
Now do you sleep poorly?
November 6th, 2004 at 2:42 pm
Steve,
Al Qaeda and Saddam were not enemies. Wherever did you get that idea? Zarqawi, who is Al Qaeda, ran an organization (Ansar al Islam) in NE Iraq and had significant medical care in Baghdad. If you are an enemy of Saddam, the only medical care you get is embalming. There are plenty of other ties. Another example:the guy who handled the arrangements for the Al Qaeda meetin in Malaysia where 9-11 was planned was an Iraq diplomat… stuff like that.
But going for ties isn’t interesting, since the whole issue was about potential. Saddam and Al Qaeda were both opportunistic. If Saddam had something to sell, and AQ wanted to buy it, then it would happen. Saddam hated America, and one way of getting back at us would be to hand something nasty to AQ on the condition it be used in the US.
Saddam was probably the most reckless guy in the region. After all, he tried to kill GHW Bush. Either he was a supreme analyst of Bill Clinton, which I doubt, or he risked a massive war just to try and kill an ex-president. Saddam attacked Iran, and nearly lost. His 1991 invasion was based on terrible miscalculation.
If you have an enemy, rational actions by him are what you want.
November 6th, 2004 at 2:44 pm
Marc,
For me, the responses are short.
But I really don’t understand the issue. We are discussing current affairs, and in places even approaching left/right agreement.
Can’t people just skip it if they have another subject?
Oh, and as far as I know, the spam filter is still misbehaving.
November 6th, 2004 at 3:38 pm
” Al Qaeda and Saddam were not enemies. Wherever did you get that idea?”
Juan Cole.
November 6th, 2004 at 3:39 pm
My sympathies.
November 6th, 2004 at 4:58 pm
Ya can’t find a better expert on the topic of Iraq these days than Cole. No sympathy needed.
November 6th, 2004 at 6:18 pm
I noticed God has been posting here, so I thought I’d add my two cents.
I was never much of a reader, but as far as Gore Vidal goes, I liked that one about the sex change. Strangely titillating. And that thing he did with Buckley at the 68 convention. Canned, but funny as hell, no?
About this election. Now I’m not God or anything, but if you ask me the Republicans should be crapping their pants. This thing has 1964 written all over it, only with the roles reversed.
The silent majority is pro choice, and they’re all trending Democrat. We’re gonna get our asses handed to us in 2008.
Mark my word.
November 6th, 2004 at 7:07 pm
The “pro-choice silent majority” is nonsense. Nobody makes a much noice as pro-Choicers.
It is entirely possible that we Republicans will get it handed to us in 2008. I’m not foolish enough to believe that we have seen a sea change in the populace. But I doubt it will be about Choice/Life dichotomy. After all, this was the year for that, with a potentially large number of justices to be appointed.
However, there isn’t the slightest reason we should be “crapping our pants” right now. We just won a historic victory, in the Presidency and both houses of congress. Hardly scary for us. I was glad to help, being part of the Vietnam Veteran’s effort to expose the real Vietnam/post-Vietnam John Kerry. The only reason I’m not at the victory party right now is I’m 3000 miles away from it.
Those of us who were treated like crap by you guys are feeling much better, finally.
November 6th, 2004 at 7:18 pm
“After all, this was the year for that, with a potentially large number of justices to be appointed.”
That’s what I’m talking about. You hand the courts the courts to the fruit loops down there in bible country and the people turn against you. This one’s gonna overplay his hand.
I knew his father when he over at Langley. A good man, not the sharpest tool in the shed, but steady. The son is just a disaster in the making though. We’ve all seen this picture before, and the ending ain’t pretty.
He shoud’ve never quit drinking. What does he think he’s doing over there in Iraq? Those Arabs are a lot prouder, and a whole lot more clever than he thinks.
And you oughta lighten up John. The Republicans are losing their sense of humor, and living on a diet of lies and anger, just like all those angry young long hairs back in the sixties, and the Democrats up on the hill then. The tables really have turned.
You lose your sense of humor, and you lose the country.
November 6th, 2004 at 7:22 pm
” I was glad to help, being part of the Vietnam Veteran’s effort to expose the real Vietnam/post-Vietnam John Kerry. ”
you guys just made stuff up, not least of which was the target of the antiwar movement of which Kerry was a part was the soldiers, when it was clear as day the target was the politicians responsible for the war. Kerry’s biggest mistake, a major miscalculation, was not sitting down on major TV networks and refuting each charge point by point. He listened to his consultants, mistake 1. Mistake 2, he’s become, in an ironic sense, more like Moore than Kerry. He is far more afraid now to challenge the war machine than he was in 1971. Thus his inability to stand up for what he rightly did 30 years ago. True antiwar Vets like the Veterans for Peace, Jerry Lembcke, etc. don’t run away from the true history of a movement of tens of thousands of vets involved in various forms of opposition to the Vietnam War, from WW2 vets to Vietnam Vets returning from the war. If Kerry stood by what he did, he could have dealt with the SBoat problem easily, much like he dealt with Oneill on the Cavett show handily.
November 6th, 2004 at 7:33 pm
“you guys just made stuff up, not least of which was the target of the antiwar movement of which Kerry was a part was the soldiers”
You are correct Steve, and they will be punished accordingly.
Did I mention that Bin Laden won too? It wasn’t just France and the Saudis.
November 6th, 2004 at 8:37 pm
“There are lots of funny Republicans.”
Yes John. I like that O’Rourke. A real character. And Tom Wolfe.
But if you can’t laugh at your own side, you’re in trouble. The Daily Show is a riot.
And Marc, do you see what its come to now? Dead presidents and supernatural beings posting on your blog.
November 7th, 2004 at 10:08 am
So Kerry’s boatmates just made things up ? And the U.S. Navy just passes out phony medals. Sounds like the ravings of a man very much out of touch with reality and with little respect for veterans and our military institutions.
Any dead-enders’ vendetta against people who opposed the Vietnam war at this late date is, quite frankly, not just the product of historical amnesia but of rank obsessions intent on exploiting long-buried emotions. It is a selfish, dishonest propaganda campaign designed to recklessly and opportunistically divide the country for partisan gain. Nothing more and nothing less.
You’re a despicable and not particulary well man, Mr. Moore. My advice to anyone here who’s interested in preserving a shred of civil, relevant discourse would be to ignore this guy. What kind of liberal wimpishness and wasted tolerance would give this member of one of Karl Rove’s goon squads a platform or seriously entertain debate with him. This is a man who has equated Seymour Hersh and CBS with the terrorist Zarqawi in writings on his website. What more needs to be said about his judgement, morals or kinship with veracity ?
When is enough, enough ????
November 7th, 2004 at 10:53 am
Dear Steve and unfornately Ken;
I have never seen a better arguement for federalism and the continuation of the electoral college then your “comments”.
So honestly here is the deal..please just post a link, I have started a 501c3 that is going to accept donations to help you establish you own website. 78% of readers including those who are morally bankrupt will donate.
I personally am willing to pull money from my daughter’s college fund if you two will just shut up.
Incidentally, we are not worried about either of you having too many hits although obviously we will have to pay for a site with lots of terabyte.
November 7th, 2004 at 11:28 am
Leslie,
I have never seen a better argument for blue state secession than you and the rest of the dumb, immoral, backward, bigoted, right-wing cretins on this site.
Go to hell. I’m certain there’s a nice piece of real estate waiting for you there.
November 7th, 2004 at 11:32 am
I agree with Ken. General Sherman should’ve finished the job while he had the chance. Don’t know if Leslie is a male neandrathal or a female one, but I hazard to say that primitive and stupid comes in all genders.
November 7th, 2004 at 12:31 pm
With the exception of GM, the rest of the Limbaugh rubbish in these parts should be taken out with the trash.
November 7th, 2004 at 12:45 pm
“I’ll one up ya. If you and all the rest of dumbass right-wing pricks on this website agree to leave the country and never return, I’ll sell my house and my cars you folks can spread it amongst yourselves.”
I’ll contribute as well. As far as destinations are concerned, I think these individuals might find themselves most at home in Islamic countries. Perhaps Saudi Arabia or Egypt. They seem to share each others’ values: rabid sexism, patriarchy, homophobia, and religious fanatacism. I for one can’t understand why the right in this country and the Islamo fascists hate each other so much. They have more in common than they have differences.
November 7th, 2004 at 10:42 pm
John and steve.. all good things come to an end. your closed interminable dialogue has driven away ALL other commenters. I decree this thread ended here. Post any more on it and I will lock you both out.
In the future.. like starting tonite– dial it way way back or that’s it. Use email. Last warning.. for real.
November 7th, 2004 at 11:27 pm
Email is unsatisfactory. But if I could post a link, which the spam filter prevents, then it would be easy to move off to a blog I run just for the purpose of overflow.
I take it from you comment that if I see rank falsehoods on you blog, I’m supposed to ignore them if they aren’t exactly on topic?
November 8th, 2004 at 5:49 am
Anonymous writes, “With the exception of GM, the rest of the Limbaugh rubbish in these parts should be taken out with the trash.”
I don’t know whether to be offended or not. I listen to Limbaugh when I get a chance, I also listen to NPR on occasion. I post what I think and think about what I post. I am unabashedly conservative and revel in the title. I have some views which many consider “liberal” but are actually quite moral in nature (not objecting to gay marriage/civil unions for example).
What IS different about me is primarily I don’t respond to the scurrolous attacks on conservatives by the idiotic left, you know, the left that thinks we are all wing-nuts. The left that thinks that conservatives have an IQ just south of a garden slug. The left that thinks we represent a fundamentalist/fascist ideology in which we all want to bash in liberal heads with a bible. I see those remarks, they hurt, they are primarily stupid and secondarily evidence of not thinking through the issues.
Marc once said it best. “keep it civil and respect[ful].”
November 8th, 2004 at 6:50 am
I need to respond to myself. I should not have said “idiotic left.” I should have said “the left that doesn’t think much of anyone on the right side of center.”
November 8th, 2004 at 7:05 am
Who’s this Rush Limbaugh guy? I don’t listen to talk radio. Never have.
November 8th, 2004 at 9:11 am
But of course GM, liberals suffer even worse stereotypes in spades – in fact this election was all about them. And the very term liberal has been effectively bashed to the point that our very own politicians are scared to even use it. (Which is, admittedly, quite lame). But I don’t think “bible-thumper” or “theocrat” is very strong language to use against someone who’s calling you a baby killer because you don’t want to go back to the days when the women who (inevitably) have abortions sought them in back alleys. Also, I don’t know how to tell you this, but if you’re pro-marriage among gays, you are a liberal on one of the most inflamed issues between liberals and the right and a lot of your comrades are giving you funny looks behind your back. (And no offense but we don’t need a crossover conservative to explain to us that it’s actually quite a moral position. We knew that already, just like we know it about the rest of the liberal agenda.)
Another of the ironies of present-day liberalsism – aside from us being even more pro-marriage than the religious right by wanting to expand the pool of eligibles – is that even we know Keynesianism has its limits and its become our role to become the only actual existing deficit hawks in the wake of Reaganism’s “bankrupt the Democrats’ piggy bank” plan and Bush’s know-nothing “tax-cuts-uber-alles come-rain-or-come-shine” phony baloney.
One of the outrageous ironies of present-day conservatism is that they’ve sent American troops to a foreign land who are now subject to orders from that country’s (unelected) prime minister on where and when they can attack the guys who are shooting at them and where and when they can’t. Perhaps that’s a political necessity under given conditions, but it sounds an awful lot like some GOP charicature of “Kerryism”.
In my liberal opinion – even given the now obvious fact that the Iraq invasion had virtually nothing to do with any rational definition of U.S. national security – that it’s taken this long to decide to do whatever it takes to kill the bad guys is another example of the dishonesty and incompetence of our “mission accomplished” leadership – the way these decisions are being made is an example of having been backed into exactly one of those strategic corners one should never, ever let oneself get stuck in and which, contrary to protestations of our pro-war friends, was entirely predictable. The wishful “liberal” assumption that “we” would be loved precluded an effective strategy to deal with reality – reality being, if you’re not loved, make damned sure you’re feared. (Also, don’t just leave thousands and thousands of weapons and bombs lying around in hostile territory, but then that’s so patently dumb you wouldn’t imagine you’d even have to tell the alleged adults in charge of this operation it might be a problem.)
November 8th, 2004 at 1:12 pm
Reg writes, “But of course GM, liberals suffer even worse stereotypes in spades.”
Worse? Equally? I’d buy the latter but not the former. And that is precisely what I’m talking about with my last sentence. We (all of us) have to pull back from the “fear and loathing” that is rampant in our political discourse. As far as being a crossover liberal, you really don’t know me well enough to make that statement. I used that example to show that not all of us have a “monolithic” message any more than you do. Further, there is much of the “liberal” positon that to me is not “moral.” But, I’ll leave that for a later post.
November 8th, 2004 at 1:12 pm
Sorry, didn’t mean for the above to be anonymous.
November 8th, 2004 at 3:23 pm
I called you a crossover conservative, not a crossover liberal – and obviously on that one issue (the only one I’m aware of that you brought up.)
I’d really like to hear about the “immorality” of the liberal ideology, ’cause I’ve got a rather large beef with conservative ideology on the morals question as well. And this is one reason why a lot of this reaching out is bogus, because I’m no more going to trash my concerns about the moral values reflected in the political arena than you are going to trash yours. But later…I’m over my quota.
February 4th, 2010 at 2:57 am
I just wanted to say that I found your site via Goolge and I am glad I did. Keep up the good work and I will make sure to bookmark you for when I have more free time away from the books. Thanks again!