OBL Superstar
Beyond the administration’s comic-book caricatures of Al Qaeda—dumbed down enough so that even your average blow-dried congressman can memorize them between golf rounds—there are actually two or three reporters who have a nuanced and profound understanding of Osama Bin Laden.
Peter Bergen, who interviewed OBL and 1997 and is now the author of Holy War, Inc. and The Osama Bin Laden I Know is himself interviewed in the current American Prospect. And the dialogue with him makes for some very uncomfortable reading. As usual I recommend you read the entire piece. But her are some excerpts that really kept me up thinking:
Bin Laden’s tapes are the most widely distributed political tapes in history. So the notion that bin Laden doesn’t have any operational command over al-Qaeda is just nonsense. And his speeches persuade people: He now has a 65 percent approval rating in Pakistan. This charisma is due in part to a great back story. He’s a billionaire who could have been partying in St. Tropez, but instead he went off to fight the Soviets. That shouldn’t be misunderestimated, as the president might say. So bin Laden is still now giving broad, strategic guidance to jihadists. He’s pumping up the base. It’s still “al-Qaeda the organization,” and not just “al-Qaeda the ideology” that makes a difference.
Bergen had not only opposed the war in Iraq but had speculated publicly in 2002 that it would be “too stupid” a thing for the White House to do. Right on the premise. Wrong on the prediction. When asked by The Prospect, then, how the war in Iraq has changed Osama’s strategic view, this was Bergen’s answer:
Whether or not you agree with the war, one thing’s clear: The Iraq war greatly aggravated terrorism, and it will go on for decades whatever the United States does. Even if it breaks up into lots of little civil wars, it’s going to be an effective training ground for militants. There’s an analogy with something Zbigniew Brzezinski [who was President Carter’s National Security adviser], once said. He was asked in 1998 about his support for the Afghan mujahideen, and famously replied: What’s more important, “some stirred-up Moslems” or the end of the Cold War? What’s happening now is that war in Iraq is a similar sort of gamble. We just don’t know now whether democracy will come to the Middle East, which is the final goal. And we don’t know whether it’ll be worth it in the end. And even if we win democracy, there can still be bad outcomes in the long-term. President Bush has said that it’s better to fight the terrorists in Baghdad than in Boston. But this is a very short-term view. And it wrongly assumes that there is a finite supply of terrorists. A lot of people have told me that 9-11 was a tactical success for bin Laden, but a strategic failure. It was clearly against Islam, and he lost the support of a lot of people, even his son Omar, so it was counterproductive for him in the end. But now Iraq has been what he hoped Afghanistan would be.
What one deduces from Bergen is this: our current national political debate doesn’t begin to address the reality we confront and the reality we have created. The administration’s insistence that Iraq was always and remains key to the War On Terror is clearly bunk. The pro-peace position – that our troubles end as soon as we withdraw from Iraq and pay reparations presumably may, indeed, be a necessary first step. But how we deal with a seething nuclear-armed Pakistan, what we do about mullahs with nukes, how we stem the metastasizing patterns of Jihadism, are effectively ignored by both “sides.”
January 22nd, 2006 at 7:33 pm
Good one, Marc. (They usually are, but this really needed to be said.)
January 22nd, 2006 at 7:41 pm
Let me just “cavil” on one thing - “The pro-peace position – that our troubles end as soon as we withdraw from Iraq and pay reparations”. Most of the stuff I read that is critical of the war is much closer to this position you articulate that the blundering and shift of focus to Iraq has created worse problems for us, not that there’s some Pollyanna was of turning back the clock on mis-steps and missed opportunities. Maybe there are some naively pacifist folk who I am not tuned into - I’m sure there are - but the “mainstream” anti-war position is generally founded on the assumption that this war - combined with some mistakes made in Afghanistan and the massive shift of resources to Iraq has made the long term problem that much harder to tackle.
January 22nd, 2006 at 8:41 pm
I’m no pacifist but geez, pick your fights wisely is my motto. Bergen is correct, then and now, and frankly so was I. Taliban? You bet I was for getting them, but this was a negative from the word go. McCain still defends it though. We’re better off with Saddam gone he says. I just don’t buy it based on the evidence.
January 22nd, 2006 at 11:31 pm
gutwrenchingly ironic to read Bergen’s updated p.o.v in this interview.
It really IS difficult to engage in the victory-or-else debate with the dually unrealistic, if not embarassing viewpoints offered in the black/white/right/left.
To completely withdraw would be in essence, pulling a new orleans on the pottery barn. But some think we should take it into Iran and onwards — exactly what the “enemy” dreams of.
We’ve been better off with Saddam for nearly four years now, and the U.S. doesn’t seem to be much better off for it, not to mention Iraq. Hussein had the power back on a year or so after Gulf War I (the schwarzkopf shuffle).
Some 22% of Americans STILL think Saddam played a part in 9/11 (Harris, via F. Rich).
How many people do you think realize that Iran has 3x the population of Iraq, Western tv and hundreds of thousands of bloggers. Not to mention the fact that it would most likely be years and years before their nukes would even make it as far West as the Dead Sea.
I think we really better just cut the crap and start making friends again or we’ll really be screwed. Cuz it is all about the oil, right?
January 23rd, 2006 at 12:02 am
I have a lot of respect for Bergen, but I get the sense that he’s trying to preserve a narrative, not adjust to new facts on the ground. Support for bin Laden in the Muslim world has been *dropping* since the invasion of Saddam’s Iraq, substanially in many areas. It’s gone up slightly only in Jordan and Pakistan, but this Pew survey was taken last year before Zarqawi’s attack on two hotels in Amman which mostly killed Palestinians at a wedding party– now, surely, only in Pakistan does he have a solid base.
http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?PageID=814
The Muslim publics surveyed hold mixed views of Osama bin Laden. In Lebanon, only 2% report even some confidence in the Al Qaeda leader and in Turkey only 7% do so. In Morocco, just 26% now say they have a lot or some confidence in bin Laden, down from 49% two years ago.
In Indonesia, the public is now about evenly split with 35% saying they place at least some confidence in bin Laden and 37% saying they have little or none, a major loss of confidence from the 58% to 36% split recorded in May 2003. Among Indonesians, confidence in the Al Qaeda leader is lower among older citizens but is higher among the more affluent. Among those ages 18-34, 39% express a lot or some confidence in bin Laden compared with less than a third of those 35 and over. However, while only 32% of people in the bottom income tier have confidence in bin Laden, 37% of middle-income and 42% of higher-income people do so.
In only two countries, Pakistan and Jordan, has support for the Al Qaeda leader increased. In Pakistan, slightly more than half now place a lot or some confidence in bin Laden, an increase from the 45% who said so in 2003. Among Pakistanis, gender is a significant dividing line with nearly two-in-three men (65%) reporting a lot or some confidence in bin Laden, compared with 36% of women.
In Jordan, support for bin Laden has risen slightly, although the percentage saying they have a lot of confidence in him has declined to 25% from 38% in May 2003. In Jordan, both age and income patterns are the reverse of those in Indonesia: Confidence in bin Laden rises among older age groups – 56% of those under age 35 trust bin Laden compared with 64% of their older countrymen – and falls (as does support for terrorism generally) among higher income groups – 67% of the lowest-income Jordanians have confidence in bin Laden, compared with 63% of those with middle incomes and 47% of the highest income group.
In Turkey and Lebanon, the numbers expressing any degree of confidence in bin Laden are too low to reveal any significant demographic variations.
January 23rd, 2006 at 2:15 am
Off topic, but am I the only one who’s having problems with accessing this site?
At first, starting a few days ago, it was during the middle of the day and early afternoon that I couldn’t really download the front page of the site in full.
Now I’m even having prolbems doing so overnights and early morning.
Home, work, friend’s house… doesn’t matter my location or what computer I’m using.
Is it just that the site is getting so much traffic that it can’t handle the load and has slowed down to a crawl? Or is there some other problem?
Marc?
January 23rd, 2006 at 9:47 am
What is Bin Laden’s poll numbers among Bush’s friends in Saudi Arabia and other nations run by Arab monarchs?
How much do the Saudi’s and other Arab royals give to Pakistan?
January 23rd, 2006 at 9:56 am
Good post, WJA. I thought of the same survey as I was reading Bergen. It seems that Al-Qaeda is certainly less popular now worldwide than before. This goes against the common refrain that the Iraq war has inflamed Muslims worldwide and strengthened Bin Laden’s hand. To Bergen’s credit he does mention some of this at the end of the interview, but I think that PEW survey deserves more attention. More terrorists may have been created in Jordan and Pakistan, and certainly more have been able to refine their methods in Iraq, but it is also true that the pool of potential terrorists seems to have shrunk globally, largely due to the Muslim world’s increased exposure to the repulsive ways of the jihadists.
January 23rd, 2006 at 11:20 am
“This goes against the common refrain that the Iraq war has inflamed Muslims worldwide and strengthened Bin Laden’s hand.”
I think that by focusing on that PEW poll and trying to torture good news out of it, you are playing Pollyanna and not recognizing that bobbling of bin Laden’s polling numbers as regards “confidence” in him doesn’t erase the fact that the Iraq war has “inflamed Muslims worldwide”…
As for the “good news” that the bin Laden enjoys his biggest support in Jordan and Pakistan…Jordan ? Pakistan ? Aren’t those two of the countries in the Middle East we are MOST dependent upon for cooperation in the “war on terror”. Also, with the “spread of democracy” in the Middle East empowering Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Iran’s closest allies (who ironically reside among the Iraqi majority we’ve liberated) - and knowing that if “democracy” spread to Pakistan and Jordan we’d be truly screwed twelve different ways - I really am amazed at any latent triumphalism of the “hawks” as regards the BushCo strategy for the Middle East. Frankly, the policies of the “cabal” are so caked in rhetoric, I’m not sure if there is any coherence underlying it, other than a gambler’s confidence (maybe adding a dash of the oilman’s sense of entitlement, the Beltway denizen’s hubris, the ideologues’ zeal, the Born Again’s certitude and the political operative’s dishonesty) - other than what they deem necessary to muster for domestic political advantage. This is the least competent administration at the level of global strategy in my memory - and the only one that routinely spins their “strategy” in order to divide the country against itself rather than to unite it. That alone is a profound failure - and undoubtedly in the long run it will prove both the most damaging and the most telling.
January 23rd, 2006 at 1:03 pm
“I think that by focusing on that PEW poll and trying to torture good news out of it, you are playing Pollyanna and not recognizing that bobbling of bin Laden’s polling numbers as regards “confidence” in him doesn’t erase the fact that the Iraq war has “inflamed Muslims worldwide”…”
Okay, I should have been more clear. The Iraq war may have helped to ‘inflame’ muslims globally (though they do seem to tend to be in a state of perpetual spontaneous combustion anyway), but that doesn’t mean that our government has run them over to the other side. This is a claim that I often hear made, and I would like to know the basis for it. I’m quite willing to accept that Muslims all over the world are angered by Bush’s actions, but where is the evidence that they have vowed jihad as a result? It’s just not that clear to me that generations of new terrorists have been born out of this Iraq war. The PEW poll at least attempts to understand what current Muslim attitudes are before it makes a statement about Islamism being on the decline.
Also, the survey is certainly not all good news, but I don’t think that good news needs to be ‘tortured out’ of the survey. If what it reports is true, there is some obvious good news there. Pakistan and Jordan are the nations we depend on most in the WOT precisely because of their standings in the polls. That’s where AlQaeda is. They were there before 9/11, and they’re still there. Meanwhile, the rest of the Muslim world seems to be coming around a bit.
As for Islamists coming to power on the ‘wave of democratic change in the Middle East’. A part of me thinks that wouldn’t be such a bad thing (as long as no nukes get set off), because if you look at the countries where the Islamists have been in power, you will also find a Muslim public that realizes that it can be pretty miserable living under Taliban rule. In Indonesia, that is precisely what happened. The Islamists swept into office in elections, and the public got tired of their beard-measuring act pretty quickly. Now, they have been removed from office, and their popularity has suffered. Discredited.
You are certainly right that this is a very incompetent administration generally, and especially at the level of global strategy. I do believe that the Iraq War has hurt the effort against terrorism, but for OTHER reasons, and not for the baseless one that Bush has driven Muslims into the waiting arms of BinLaden.
January 23rd, 2006 at 1:38 pm
“Off topic, but am I the only one who’s having problems with accessing this site?”
No, you are not the only one. I can still get the pages to load though– I just have to wait dialup-worthy lengths of time for it to happen.
January 23rd, 2006 at 2:28 pm
Iraq is key to “The War Over Oil.”
January 23rd, 2006 at 2:47 pm
Anybody know why these nations were excluded or am I missing something:
Oman
Qatar
Saudi Arabia
United Arab Emirates
Bahrain
Kuwait
January 23rd, 2006 at 2:54 pm
“Pakistan and Jordan are the nations we depend on most in the WOT precisely because of their standings in the polls.”
I think that’s a leap that’s not warranted by logic. Pakistan obviously has greatest proximity to the bin Laden organization, but that’s because of it’s very porous, difficult-to-control border with Afghanistan and, as I understand it, tribal connections, not because the general Pakistani population is prone to be sympathetic to al Qaeda. There are probably more of the original al Qaeda and their Taliban allies still in outlying areas of Afghanistan than Pakistan, although I could be wrong about this impression as regards al Qaeda. As for Jordan, it has historically been one of the countries closest to the U.S. and fairly reliable in diplomacy - which is why I assumed it is one of the countries we can, to some degree, rely on in for assistance. I thought Syria and Iran were the major havens for terrorism in the Middle East - or at least that’s the narrative. If Jordan actually tops the list with Pakistan, we’re in even worse trouble than I thought.
Also, I don’t think we have to drive large majorities into “the waiting arms of bin Laden”. Offering an incentive to a relatively small minority of extremists - i.e. some thousands of disaffected young males looking for a cause to wrap their lives around (or throw them away for) - to heed the ultra-Islamists, assume the worst about the U.S. and to up the ante is plenty nuff to give me the shivers. You seem to admit yourself that this is one likely result of the war. One other thing on these polls - I’m wondering what the curve has been over the last four and a half years. My sense is that the invasion of Iraq pushed the crazy Islamists polls up and that the more egregious of the in-country terrorism against Iraqi civilians attributed to “foreign fighters” pushed it down. I’m wondering if it’s higher or lower today than in the wake of 9/11 among Muslims. That would seem to be the standard by which to judge the “public opinion” impact of the Iraq war. Also, the biggest issue with me isn’t people’s opinion of bin Laden, it’s their eagerness or reluctance to view the U.S. as a potential ally or a potential enemy. We should be worried about how we’re perceived more than “confidence” in bin Laden. I doubt this has changed much since the invasion and that’s it’s much worse than it was right after 9/11. Impressions…pulled out of my butt, if you will. Perfectly happy to revise them on the basis of hard evidence.
January 23rd, 2006 at 4:20 pm
Osama bin Laden was a favored ally of the CIA, which for a time tried to foment a full-fledged jihad between Islamic extremists and the Soviets. Bin Laden and many of the mujahideen had been trained and funded by the CIA over the course of a decade-long occupation.
Qaeda is a highly decentralized international organization. According to Jane’s Intelligence Review, al Qaeda is a “conglomerate of quasi-independent Islamic terrorist cells in countries spread across at least 26 countries, including Algeria, Morocco, Turkey, Egypt, Syria, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Burma, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Indonesia, Kenya, Tanzania, Azerbaijan, Dagestan, Uganda, Ethiopia, Syria, Tunisia, Bahrain, Yemen, Bosnia as well as the West Bank [and China].”
OBL provides inspiration and a cohesive ideological center for the organization; he is not involved in day-to-day operations.
According to an intelligence source quoted by Simon Reeve in his book “The New Jackals,” “Going after bin Laden to stop terror is like going after the Colonel to attack KFC.” And going into Iraq under the FALSE pretense of fighting terrorism is as logical as thinking KFC is healthy and nutritious.
Like Sears and Roebuck, Binney and Smith, Horn and Hardart, and Barnes and Noble, the Bush and Bin Laden families are a long standing business team that has been involved in various dubious joint ventures in the Middle East and around the world since the 1950s.
And contrary to Saudi propaganda, the Bin Laden family never disinherited or otherwise excommunicated Osama from their midst—TRUTH IS SO MUCH MORE STRANGER THAN FICTION.
January 23rd, 2006 at 4:27 pm
Abbas–you are not alone, I also had trouble accessing this site. Let’s not get too paranoid and think that “data mining” surveillance is slowing up the machinery.
January 23rd, 2006 at 4:29 pm
> it’s much worse than it was right after 9/11
Actually, the Pew poll speaks to that, as well: support for suicide bombings that target Americans in Iraq has been *dropping*:
http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?PageID=814
Down from 70% to 49% in Jordan, and from 46% to 29% in Pakistan. Also notable is that while the US is still mostly seen unfavorably in the Muslim world, favorable opinion has been *increasing* among Muslim youth:
http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?PageID=811
The United States is viewed more favorably by people under age 35 than by older people in Morocco, Lebanon, Pakistan and Turkey. As America’s image has improved in Morocco over the past year, more young people are giving the U.S. favorable marks (53%) than Moroccans ages 35 and older (45%). A similar generational gap is seen in Lebanon, where the percentage rating the U.S. favorably has increased from 27% to 42% since 2003. (The pattern recurs in Jordan, but the differences by age are not statistically significant.) A sizable generational difference is also seen in both Pakistan and Turkey, where overall views of America remain predominantly negative, with younger people 10-to-12 points more likely to give a favorable rating than their seniors.
January 23rd, 2006 at 5:16 pm
Guys,
This is an interesting story—not directly related to OBL—but definitely related to the disaster, known as Bush’s Iraq War.
More details emerge on Col. Ted Westhusing’s “suiciding” in Iraq. Days before his supposed suicide by a “self-inflicted” gunshot wound in a Camp Dublin, Iraq trailer, West Point Honor Board member and Iraqi police and security forces trainer Col. Ted Westhusing reported in e-mail to the United States that “terrible things were going on Iraq.”
He also said he hoped he would make it back to the United States alive. Westhusing had three weeks left on his tour of duty in Iraq when he allegedly shot himself in June 2005.
Informed sources report that Westhusing was prepared to blow the whistle on fraud involving US Investigations Services (USIS), a Carlyle Group company, when he died. [See Jan. 14 story below]. He had also discovered links between USIS principals and clandestine events involving the Iran-Contra scandal of the Reagan-Bush I administrations.
Westhusing has also linked USIS to the illegal killing and torture of Iraqis. USIS personnel whom Westhusing was investigating had the keys to his trailer. In addition, Westhusing’s personal bodyguard was given a leave of absence shortly before the colonel’s death.
January 23rd, 2006 at 5:24 pm
Well sort of. Declining support for the bombings in Iraq by people who have virtually nothing to do with them in the first place so caveat emptor. I see you left out bin Laden as a world leader. Those numbers are off the chart favorable to bin Laden which is the focus of this thread. Not a lot of hope there yet, but maybe some day.
January 23rd, 2006 at 6:19 pm
Not too surprisingly, I wrote something that made no sense. I meant that Pakistan was most important because of it’s geographical proximity to the roots and branches of al Qaeda, “not because the general Pakistani population is prone to be sympathetic to al Qaeda.”
January 23rd, 2006 at 7:27 pm
> I see you left out bin Laden as a world leader.
> Those numbers are off the chart favorable to bin
> Laden which is the focus of this thread.
No, those were already posted eariler up in the thread. They have dropped substantially in most of the Muslim world since the Iraq war.
January 23rd, 2006 at 7:38 pm
WJA - maybe I’m stupid, but I don’t see the chronology I questioned in those PEW statistics. It shows variations from the nearly three years since the Iraq war began, but it doesn’t show that I can tell how the war itself impacted opinion. Without that background, the arguments being made from these facts are meaningless as regards the impact of the war itself. The issue isn’t simply “since the Iraq war began”, but before and after the war began if you want to assess the war’s impact on Muslim opinion.
January 23rd, 2006 at 7:51 pm
Pew Global Attitudes Project–Co-Chairs, International Advisory Board Madeleine Albright, Principal, Albright Group LLC, Washington, DC
John Danforth, Partner, Bryan Cave LLP, St. Louis, MO.
Statistics are not very reliable—statistical models can be shaped to form any subjective conclusion.
What can be gleaned from these figures is that Jews are the least liked religious group in the Middle East and Asia. Well if you play the “bad cop” for the U.S., chances are you’ll not be the most popular kid in the neighborhood.
This is an excerpt from Peter Bergen’s book: “So I sat down with Osama in his tent underground. I told him, “Everybody is against this idea. Why are you here? Don’t you know that this is very dangerous?” He said, “We came to be in the front.” I said, “No, we did not come to be in the front. We came to [act as supporters of the] Afghans.” I told him, “Every drop of blood bleeds here in this place. God will ask you about it in the Hereafter. Everybody saying this is wrong, so Osama, please leave the place right now.” Everybody was hearing our argument; our voices become hard. I was really very angry; this is our first time to be like this. I told him, “Look, you will leave the place or I will never see you again.” He told me, “Do whatever you want.” So I left.
As far as I am concerned, it’s not really important whether we have the inside scoop on how OBL thinks; because at this point he has taken on a mythological quality that transcends reality; he has become an inspirational figure.
What is important is that TERRORISM WILL NEVER END, HAS LONG AS PEOPLE ARE MARGINALIZED AND EXPLOTIED. Other leaders will always surface; the Islamic militant movement is self-sustaining.
What is unfortunate is that chaos provides the rationale for continued occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan. So it in a really sad convoluted way, terrorism creates the raison d’etre for an indefinite military presence.
January 23rd, 2006 at 8:11 pm
Re: *What can be gleaned from these figures is that Jews are the least liked religious group in the Middle East and Asia. Well if you play the “bad cop” for the U.S., chances are you’ll not be the most popular kid in the neighborhood.*
I have to say, that’s not even a good oversimplification. The question of Arabs’ and other Middle Easterners extreme negative attitudes toward “the Jews” isn’t rooted in Israel playing “bad cop” for the U.S. There’s a longstanding regional problem that is among the thorniest in the world which has nothing inherent to do with the United States (which not to say that historically it doesn’t have anything to do with the United States.) But I’d say that, more accurately, a hell of a lot of anti-U.S. sentiment in the Middle East is rooted in our trying to play “good cop” for the Israelis.
January 23rd, 2006 at 8:25 pm
“No, those were already posted eariler up in the thread. They have dropped substantially in most of the Muslim world since the Iraq war. ”
No according to that Pew study they haven’t. Try again.
January 23rd, 2006 at 8:28 pm
Yes Eleanore. That’s what I gleaned from the big picture at PEW. And we know who is associated with Israel don’t we? It renders other inroads into muslim land moot it would seem.
WJA is wishing upon a study here.
January 23rd, 2006 at 8:57 pm
Ever since Truman’s support of the birth of Israel in 1948, U.S. relations have favored its aggressive policies, even at the expense of U.S. interests in the region.
Much of this was encouraged in the name of a secure Jewish homeland — something which few U.S. politicians dared to criticize — but behind the public facade there existed a world where the CIA became dependent on Mossad for intelligence, Israel’s economy became dependent on profits from arms transfers, and policy itself was exercised through proxy wars.
It is especially helpful in understanding the influence of the Israeli arms industry, which operates on a revolving-door basis with various elements of Israel’s intelligence community and has been all too eager to supply many of the world’s tyrants.
So the dark underside of the U.S.-Israeli relationship, is that the former provides the rhetoric, but the latter gets all the action.
January 24th, 2006 at 9:00 am
C’mon. The reason for extreme sentiment against “the Jews” in the Middle East isn’t because of its connections to the U.S. If anything, the reverse is true - much of the anti-U.S. sentiment is because of it’s connections to Israel. There’s a rather huge problem on the table there - the countering claims of Israeli and Palestinian nationhood, the nearly century-old struggle over the land itself, an enormous amount of delusion and self-serving bad faith on both the Arab and Israeli sides and a backlog of specific grievances that are now deeply imbedded in the debate - that is fundamentally not about the U.S. or its interests in the Middle East. IMHO, if they get conflated, it’s more because we’re aiding Israel rather than vice versa.
January 24th, 2006 at 9:54 am
Anti-Jewish sentiment is the baseline in the Middle East and has been since tribal days. As an ally and supplier, which we should be, the arab and sufi world can conflate that with their conspiratorial protocols. Getting beyond that is the problem.
January 24th, 2006 at 7:53 pm
I just want to point out one word in Marc’s original post.
“Reparations.”
What I’d like to point out is, if the Democrats want to ever win an election again, DO NOT EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER USE THE WORD ‘REPARATIONS’ FOR THE LOVE OF GOD ON A STICK.
First of all, to the extent that it has any meaning to most folks at all, it comes from the absolute Looney Tunes idea of slavery reparations, in which you take money from people whose ancestors were peasants in Poland in 1865 and give it to people whose ancestors were slaves in Mississippi in 1865. Any idea that puts a larcenous glint in the eye of Al Sharpton is a net loser for the Democratic party, got that? That’s not even getting into the dubious substantive merits of the idea (if we want to talk about a group that got screwed and left out of the white man’s prosperity, let’s talk about taking money from blacks AND whites in America and giving it to Indians, huh?), just pure electoral politics. You want the next vote on a Republican president’s SC nominee to win on a straight party line vote 73-27, then you push reparations…
…And so that’s the politically advantageous term Marc uses for taking away the practical help Iraqis need and mostly want from us, and instead pouring money into the country with no responsibility for how it gets spent. Because, hey, we broke it! It was a country that worked so well before we screwed it up! It had an Olympic team (penalty for losing, torture) and hospitals (no electricity, but hospitals!) and it only invaded its neighbors about once a decade. Who do we send the checks to, Marc? Ahmed Chalabi? The local office of Al-Qaeda in Iraq? Or do we just toss it out of an airplane?
It’s really revealing that this strikes anyone on the Left as a solution. Write a check and split, don’t call us we’ll call you. That’s how you solve knocking up your kid’s nanny in Bel Air but it is not exactly a practical, effective approach to geopolitics.
January 24th, 2006 at 8:25 pm
“What I’d like to point out is, if the Democrats want to ever win an election again, DO NOT EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER USE THE WORD ‘REPARATIONS’ FOR THE LOVE OF GOD ON A STICK.”
Fuck no…call them “reconstruction funds” - and make sure plenty of it goes to your friends.
January 25th, 2006 at 10:34 am
John McC - interesting Tom Friedman column on this today…
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Kim…
Lookks like your page was heavily hit by spam…
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Kim…
Lookks like your page was heavily hit by spam…
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Kim…
Lookks like your page was heavily hit by spam…
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Kim…
Lookks like your page was heavily hit by spam…
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