Foreign Affairs and Wars Archives
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Well, I'm right about one thing, these days. Josh and I are never going to agree. Says the conservative in his latest post: "Chris, I take it, rejects the clash of civilizations thesis; I do not."
Yup. I'd say that the nub of the thing. I am leery – as I think we all should be – of calling the continuing conflict against random bombings a clash of civilizations. I think such terminology sets one type of civilization – one set of social or cultural mores – above another and I am not sure in this connected, always-on digital age that we can afford to draw such harsh lines. Why harsh? Well, in such clashes one side there is often is an air of virtuous determination that I find dangerous. On both sides. In calling something "evil" you are, by definition, assigning an equally exaggerated sense of virtue to those who opposed it. But this is perhaps the deepest divide between my and Josh's thinking.
I look at the bombings – from New York to London, from Bali to Sharm el Sheick – as part of a inchoate religious war launched by a violent group of Muslims who see their faith as the only one that is true. And I think, as it always has been, that's an excuse; an excuse to be a bomb-loving jerk who takes a sick and horrid pleasure in inflicting pain. The folks who bomb our planes and trains here in the West think of us as evil, that's certainly true. But I think in making that same charge back to them – as actors and believers in their faith – we are affirming their point of view. To treat the "war" on terror as a police action is, for me, then the proper course because it both diminishes the threat by stripping it of its rhetorical virtue while at the same time, taking it and treating it very seriously. (And oh, if you want a look at how that can be done effectively, have a look at the profile of Ray Kelly's NYPD in this week's New Yorker).
The bombings are not a new way of seeking vengence. They are the statements of the outraged, the disenfranchised, the scared the denied, the confused. Like the poor, they are always with us: Ask an English cop about the IRA, a Spaniard about ETA, the Germans about Baader-Meinhoff, the NYPD about the Weather Underground.
Continue reading "Right and Wrong: Talking Back to Trevino"Mon 11:15 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Some of you – you know who you are – would prefer to ignore the "right" hand side of things here at Politics From Left to Right.
For you folks, we've added the talented and smart Mr. Christopher Brauchli, a classic American Liberal who works and lives in Boulder, Colo. Chris' columns can be found here - he usually posts on Thursdays - so I hope you'll look forward to his work.
But back to Josh. He has filed a fine – if just a touch long – defense of his accusing the Spanish of cowardice in his otherwise very fine post on the London bombings earlier this month.
He uses a lot of longer words. And I disagree with him very strongly. I said as much back in March. You can read that here and, from a friend of the site, here.
Josh and I may never agree. The issue here for U.S. citizens isn't really whether the Spain have -- as conservatives and supporters of the Iraqi War insist -- caved into pressure from terrorist. The issue is -- and it one that has not been adequately answered on the Left -- what to do about it.
Clearly, the Right believes in the power of condemnation and ridicule. The Left believes in hand-wringing.
Continue reading "Biting Back"Thu 02:53 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Well Doc Searls has called me on being pessimistic and Ed Cone has said I'm cynical and the New York Times says Bob Novak was Karl Rove's source and Mickey Kaus wonders if Novak's source was New York Times reporter Judith Miller. And Matt Cooper, well, he's telling all and some of that involves Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff Lewis Libby.
Deep breath. Can you say "circle jerk"?
So, as I always do when I worry that my disgust – no, that's not too strong a word -- for politicians shenanigans and the reporters who let them get away with it reaches a new high, I have turned to Jon Stewart, a man who gets away with pointed social commentary by repeatedly – and inaccurately – insisting that he is not serious.
Stewart has not let me down. Wednesday, in doing his take on the White House Press Corps' merciless hounding of Bush Spokesman Scott McClelland, Stewart noted that the usual group had been "replaced by real reporters." As if.
He then went on to have this exchange on Thursday with Newsweek's Michael Isikoff.
"Aren't we already in somewhat of a bad shape," Stewart asked "if the principle reporters are standing on – in terms of confidentiality - is not a powerless person whistle-blowing to blow the cover on a thing but rather protecting people who are going on double secret probation to basically just go 'That guy's wife made him go.' That, to me, seems like, 'Wow, We're already in a difficult position.'Continue reading "The Troubles We've Seen""I understand the reporters' privilege or whatever it is, to stand on principle. But has the press corps been reduced to the point where now all they have to stand on is 'I don't want to loose my access to the White House completely even if all they're spreading is gossip and innuendo?'
"I can answer that question,'' Isikoff dead-panned. "I'd like to do it off the record."
Mon 01:28 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Josh Trevino is still in the U.K. and he's still writing.
Here's his latest post. Another winner.
Let me emphasize again how talented this guy is: Writing is hard. Writing under pressure is harder. Doing it well: That's talent.
UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan has a round up of Brit reaction. It's interesting to contrast his and his countrymen's reactions. The English, long accustom to the IRA and its threats aren't exactly taking the bombings in stride. Who would? But they're not flinching either.
The tone and tenor as Sullivan is serving it up is remarkably different. It is more like the attitude that Californians have about earthquakes: Yes, they happen (we had a little shake very early this morning, if I'm not mistaken). But being prepared – now you know why the Scots police have such lovely riot gear – is a large part of dealing with the problem. Security in Europe is serious business. That is not the case in this country.
Europeans have lived with terrorism pretty steadily since the end of World War II. The IRA in London. The Basques in Spain. The Red Brigade in Italy. The Germans had Baader-Meinhof. They recognize – and Americans don't appreciate this as fully as they should – that the terror never ends. But fear – fear can be put in its place.
Thu 07:56 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Last week, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said it had arrested group of men in Lodi, CA on immigration violations. The men, says the bureau, have ties to terrorists and today, two were charged with lying to federal officials.
Also, today, the New York Times tells the story of a Queens girl who was deported. Why? She's suspected of either support terrorism or being sympathetic to Islamic fundamentalism or, more likely, of just being an American teenager.
The girl in Queens is 16. She was returned to Bagledesh, a country she has not lived in since she was 5 years old and whose language she does not speak. She and her mother – who volunteered to go with the girl, leaving her husband and sons here in the U.S. - must live with relatives.
The Lodi case rests on the interviews the FBI conducted with a 22-year-old American born in Pakistan hauled off a plane in Tokyo because his named showed up on a "watch list" – after the plane took off. Of course, Sen. Ted Kennedy and Rep. John Lewis were on those same lists. But hey, they're not 19-year-olds with funny names.
According to some accounts, the boy's father wore a recording device at the FBI's behest during conversations with three other men – Pakistanis, not U.S. citizens living in Lodi - who were charged last week with immigration violations. The three men, including a father an his 19-year-old son, are in jail in Santa Clara.
See a pattern here? Not a pretty one, huh?
Continue reading "Child Abuse"Fri 12:26 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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There is something really interesting going on with the 9/11 Commission and its members' decision to stick with the group's mission despite its lack of official government funding.
Calling themselves the "9/11 Public Discourse Project," the group is scheduling more public hearings on issues it believes the Bush Administration is neglecting. In other words, they are taking it upon themselves to do work they believe is not being done by the U.S. government.
That, my friends, is one hell of a statement. In almost any other nation, the Discourse Project decision to keep going would be considered a vote of "no confidence" by that nation's senior statesmen. Think that's an exaggeration? Imagine if the Warren Commission, called to investigate the Kennedy Assaination, had kept going because it's members thought its work was still undone. Scary, eh?
Continue reading "Rock, Paper, Scissors"Tue 10:54 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Every once in a while, my friend and editor Micah Sifry and I get into a conversation about the power and influence of networks. Micah, the optimist, is one of those who thinks that a new politics of Liberal engagement is going to spring up from all this knowing one another. I'm more inclined to think that the power that individuals can exercise on networks isn't always a source for what Liberals would define as "good." I'm a lot more convinced that the self-reliance of Libertarianism will triumph.
On Sunday, we got a look at this conversation from another angle when Jeffrey Rosen's "The Unregulated Offensive," appeared in The New York Times Magazine. It's a wonderful – and scary – look at a group of dedicated conservative legal scholars who are working to overturn the theories and supports that justify the existence of almost every U.S. regulatory agency out there, from the Federal Communications Commission to the Environmental Protection Agency. This Libertarian-inspired movement isn't a trivial one; in fact it's cutting-edge legal theory. And it shouldn't be dismissed. It's strength – conscious or not – comes from an increasing common belief on both sides of the political spectrum that government cripples individual's rights. It can't be a coincidence that this belief is rising up at the same time that on-line activity – the ability, say, to IM someone in Beijing – is increasing individual's power to control their economic destiny. I know a little bit about this last part first-hand. You're reading the results.
The two ideas – the increasing interconnectedness of things and the belief that property rights are a personal right guaranteed by law – don’t seem connected at first blush if you don't live in Silicon Valley. But consider this: Tom Friedman, in the appearances I've seen to promote his new book "The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century"
Tue 01:59 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Seems I'm not the only person less than enthused about Tom Friedman's new book. Kevin Drum, who actually read the damn thing, poor guy, says – unbelievably – the Times scribe is less critical in "The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century" than he was in his previous book, "The Lexus and the Olive Tree,". Friedman having drunk Silicon Valley's Kool-Aid for his first cheery look at globalization, came back for more and liked it even better this time.
My pal, Matthew Holt, a U.S. citizen living in Northern California who sounds very much like the Englishman he is, had a response similar to mine when one of his HealthCareBlog readers started gushing about Friedman: Welcome to the party, Tom.
Their correspondence – which includes a few tart insights on book deals and their relationship to the book publishing business – follows. Names have been redacted.
Fri 09:44 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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There's a Tom Friedman-palooza going on out there and as much as Friedman annoys me with his Panglossian take on the effects of globalization, the campaign he's launched to sell his new book "The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century" is important.
It's important because Friedman – who has a decided gift for wrapping up difficult ideas and putting them into pop-speak – is a columnist for the New York Times and he has come to a few basic realizations about the networked society and the global economy. He's spouting them everywhere, from his home paper's Sunday magazine to Tuesday's Jon Stewart show. For these reasons – the publicity roll-out and his Times column – Friedman's got a best-seller on his hands. It'll be an important book, too.
This is going to have a couple of immediate consequences. First, there is no bigger fan of Silicon Valley's entrepreneurial culture that Friedman. Appearing on Charlie Rose's show Tuesday (he was studio-hopping; same suit, same too-short haircut as on Stewart) Friedman carried forth the valley's party line with a fervor I haven't seen from an East Coaster since, oh, since 1999. The valley's way of looking at the world – connected, fast, competitive – has become Friedman's. He's even gone as far as to endorse the tech community's stance on stock options – he's for it. Why? Because in China they don't expense stock options. And, he says, solemnly, this networked stuff is just getting started; the dot.com bust was the end of the beginning.
Sigh.
Continue reading "Tommy's Tune"Thu 03:25 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Two pieces in today's New York Times – both on Paul Wolfowitz's nomination to run the World Bank – serve as reminders that former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina was once on the list for that job.
What happened? No, not sexism. I know that's what you thought I was going to say but Carly lost this one herself. It looks very much like another clash between business and politics.
Carly blabbed. That's what happened. Someone – probably someone who thought she was doing the boss a favor – told the Financial Times that she was up for the gig. That's all it took in a White House that's known for its emphasis on team-playing and discretion, to torpedo her nomination. In business, leaking a done deal – and Fiorina came close, make no mistake – is a great way to get some free press. In politics, where you get all the free press you want (and much you don't) leaking any news before its time is a great way to take the "done" out of the deal. And guess who decides when it's time? Not the nominee, that's for sure. In politics, the employment contract ain't signed until after the press releases go out and debate over qualifications held.
We'll see a nice demonstration of this as Wolfowitz nomination moves forward. The Times Biz section takes a look at the quiet reservations expressed by the bank's European members. On the op-ed page, former Clinton Administration staffer, James Rubin (Mr. Christiane Amanpour to you) is urging Democrats to support Wolfowitz' nomination. He makes some good points that are worth remembering it you're a self-styled "progressive." There's a middle ground here as Rubin nicely points out.
Still the Wolfowitz nomination is going to be tricky; trickier than if Fiornina had gotten the nod. And it's not the political slam dunk that her crashing the World Bank boys club would have provided. Anytime you're being compared to post-Vietnam, pre-Errol Morris Robert McNamara, it's not good and that’s about where Wolfowitz is right now.
Tue 09:58 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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This week's eWeek column is about former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina and the World Bank job she may well get.
It's a great choice. First, it's one more way for the Bush Administration to solidify its support among married, career-minded women and for that alone you have to admire its political shrewdness. The World Bank gig is one of the ultimate Washington power jobs; whoever holds it helps determine economic policy around the globe. Fiorina would be the first woman to run the place. That's a big deal.
Continue reading "Carly's World"Wed 03:46 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Two court decisions today are enough to make you think that, slowly but surely, some kind of reasonableness is returning to civic life.
First, the Supreme Court has ruled that it's unconstitutional to execute children. If you're under 18, says the court in a nice, reasonable follow-up to the ruling on mentally handicapped defendants, you're too young to face the death penalty.
Take that Diane Feinstein. DA Kamala Harris' approach to the death penalty is looking smarter all the time.
The other good news came when a Bush-appointed judge in South Carolina told government lawyers to free Jose Padilla, the "enemy combatant" who has been in jail for three years. The New York Times says the judge in the Padilla case was taking his cues from a similar ruling last year before the Supreme Court.
The Times did a very good series on Padilla late last year. The administration tried very hard to make this wanna-be tough guy sound like a threat to world peace, that's not what the Times found.
This is an interesting background for the Senate fight over judicial appointments. And it's worth remembering that this is how that checks and balances process is supposed to work. Clearly, the administration over-reached.
Tue 01:07 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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One of my oldest and dearest friends, Josh Dratel, has co-edited a book, "The Road to Abu Ghraib," and today he and his co-editor, Karen Greenberg get something to which ever writer aspires: A glowing and long review by The New York Times.
You can read the review here. Then you can buy Josh's Book – a collection of primary source documents that pretty much outlines the thinking that created the ugly images broadcast to the world from Abu Ghraib. It ain't pretty how this happened. We've known that for a while. But here's the evidence.
My friend Josh has been a criminal defense attorney in New York for almost his entire career. Right now, he's one of the civilian attorneys working on the Guantanamo Bay cases. Among other clients, he has represented the men charged with the U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania (much to the chagrin of his and my family who has asked how he can defend terrorists). But he's never gotten confused – unlike the Bush Administration – by terror even though he lives and works in what was once the shadow of the World Trade Center.
It's hardest to defend the liberty of others when they are attacking you. That, of course, is the time when their defense is most necessary.
Tue 10:43 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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A lot of you are showing up here because of the links from Kos et al so I'm to take the liberty of repeating myself. It's nice to spend time talking about ourselves among ourselves but sometimes it's not a bad idea to think about other things.
Saturday was the anniversary of Martin Luther King's birthday. I put this post up last week but reading Andrew Sullivan on Abu Ghariab made me think it might be worth pointing out to a larger audience. I think it's safe to say that if King were alive today, the word "LIberal" would never have become a term of scorn.
Charles Graner, the guy convicted of leading the torture ring at the Iraqi prison says he knew he was violating the Geneva Convention. The man nominated to interpret this nation's laws as its top law enforcement official wouldn't even comment on the matter when asked by the U.S. Senate.
Mon 07:59 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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It's noteworthy that today's paper carries two stories about cruelty and injustice, from two different eras. It is ironic that they should run together just over a week before Martin Luther King's birthday.
One, the Mississippi Burning arrests. It's been more than forty years since three civil rights activists were taking to a wood outside Philadelphia, Miss., and shot dead. Today, a 79-year-old former Ku Klux Klansman is charged with their murder.
Continue reading "His Dream Deferred"Fri 11:49 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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That group of (mainly) East Coast contributors who James Wolcott has (gleefully) dubbed the "Hair Club for Men" got all wound up this past week over a long and thoughtful essay Peter Beinart wrote for the publication he edits, The New Republic.
Beinart's essay said, in essence, what his magazine has been saying for years: Democrats need to move to the middle and get with the rest of the country. They need to jettison – forcibly -- the peace-loving, Hate-America "soft" left represented by the MoveOns and the Michael Moores and become a party that embraces the real world. Democrats – Beinart cites Americans for Democratic Action's WWII anti-communist Liberals -- need change their tune and articulate the need for an aggressive stances toward Islamic fundamentalism. They need to understand that the U.S. role in the world often means it must wage war. And they need to be proud of those things.
Continue reading "Excuse Me Sir, You Forgot Something"Fri 10:32 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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In a nice bit of companion journalism -- they certainly didn’t mean to do it, they’re competitors -- The New Yorker and The Atlantic Monthly get at the heart of what’s wrong with the Bush Administration.
In The Atlantic James Fallows who began his career as a military and defense writer has been consistently good at doing what – before Microsoft, Mort Zuckerman and The Industry Standard – he does best. Explaining strategy, trade-offs and military management in clear tones. Here’s the deal on Iraq and Afghanistan: Two-front wars are almost impossible to manage. It’s not an original insight and Fallows doesn’t belabor the point but the story everyone on the web is reading is, indeed, worth your time. Maybe someone in the John Kerry campaign will wake up, read it and steal a few pointers.
Continue reading "Binocular Vision"Mon 01:08 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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I’m going to sign off for the weekend now. Unless something really dramatic happens, I won’t be back until Monday afternoon. This political season promises to be a busy one. We can all use a little rest.
So here’s some thoughtful political reading for the long three-days of end-of-summer. The New York Times Book Review, which under Sam Tanenhaus has been consistently better and smarter and more critical, asked the prolific Judge Richard Posner, a University of Chicago to review – as a book – the 9/11 Commission report. I’m about half-way through and Posner, not surprisingly, has some interesting and smart things to say. I don’t agree with all he says – so far – but it’s food for thought and I’m all for that wherever I can find it.
Continue reading "Summer Reading"Fri 10:58 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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It’s been a little too easy to make the “white guy” argument when it comes to 9/11 and the “war” on terror. Yes, it does seem as though white guys of a certain age and class were a bit more taken aback by the bombings than others: How could they – really? – to this to us? Don't we run the world?
Well, no, we don't. We can put ourselves in charge but that job comes with its own set of risks and resonsibilities. I’ve written about this; a lot of people who aren't used to the feeling -- they run the world, remember? -- got very scared on Sept. 11, 2001. Some of them are still frightened. And they are covering up their fear of being afraid – truly afraid with bluster, not reasoning, with emotional name calling, not discussion.
Continue reading "Scared Yet? Why Not?"Thu 11:00 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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It’s hard to say which is worse: Evidence that the “intelligence” that’s increased security at the World Bank, the IMF and Citicorp is just a little teeny bit dated. Or the “me-too” headlines the West Coast press is waving around saying, perhaps, maybe, the Bank of America building in San Francisco was also a target.
What? Cailfornians don’t have enough to worry about. Or Al Qaeda is only targeting spectacularly ugly building that should never have been built in the first place? Please. This is another case of West Cost media wanting in on the story and doing anything to get there.
Continue reading "Do Something. Do Anything. Do It Now."Tue 10:15 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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There has been a great deal of talk about whom Democratic nominee John Kerry will pick as his vice president. Who cares? Far more interesting is the talk that Delaware Democrat Sen. Joseph Biden, a long-time member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, might become Kerry’s Secretary of State. Biden, more than any Democrat out there is formulating, in his stop and start way, a sophisticated foreign policy of muscular Liberalism.
Continue reading "Heavy Lifting On the Sidelines"Mon 03:34 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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A slightly more conservative reader has written in to take me to task for my seeming credulity over the New York Times’ headline: Panel Find No Qaeda-Iraq Tie: Describes a Wider Plot for 9/11
Sun 12:18 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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For once, I have very little to add to what it seems is, finally, very obvious. The Bush Administration lied about Iraq and Al Qaeda and Iraqi and its weapons cache. They did it deliberately. And they did it coldly. And they’re not going to stop. Not with $64 million in the bank for a party.
Here are today’s New York Times above-the-fold headlines from, naturally, Left to Right:
GOP Nearing Money Record for Convention
New York Panel Aims to Collect $64 Million
PANEL FINDS NO QAEDA-IRAQ TIE; DESCRIBES A WIDER PLOT FOR 9/11
This is all news, as classically defined by Big Media. But it’s not unexpected. Read all these stories. Read them to the end.
Thu 10:51 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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For the past few days, the web has been alive with analysis comments, discussion, sarcasm and consideration about the “torture memo” written by the U.S. Department of Justice. And whaddyaknow, that memo and the increasing evidence that the thinking it represents spawned a culture of cruelty is changing some minds about this mess we call a “war.”
Continue reading "Paging Hannah Arendt"Tue 09:38 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Let’s say you get invited to your cousin’s wedding way down there in West Texas where the men are men and most of 'em carry guns. And let’s say you and the boys have a few and get kinda excited, this being a wedding and all. And let says someone gets the hair-brained but not exactly original idea to start letting off a few rounds. Nothing too unusual about that.
Continue reading "Let Freedom Ring"Thu 10:02 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Britt Blaser has posted some smart thoughts on terrorism, its purpose and effects, incorporating some observations made by both Jeff Jarvis and Doc Searls. It's worth a read if only because Blaser agrees with me.
Brad DeLong has some observations about White House General Counsel -- and hey, this guy could be going to the Supreme Court -- Alberto Gonzalez and his legal opinions on way to avoid having to comply with the Geneva Convention. Again, worth a read.
Tue 11:32 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Osama Bin Laden is having a pretty good month. He’s a good ways toward showing his supporters that the best-armed, wealthiest, the most politically and economically powerful nation in the world can be reduced to his level.
The stories of the past few weeks – the stories that won’t end – demonstration for all to see that the United States is operating on fear. Fear of fear. Fear of being seen as powerless. Fear of being attacked again. Fear.
Continue reading "Make You Wanna Holler"Mon 12:10 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Having flashed the rude, sexually predatory and patently unattractive side of Western feminism at the world, Pfc. Lynndie England is now retreating into a role that’s easy for all of us – East and West, male and female -- to understand. She’s the plebe, the tool of higher authority.
Continue reading "1,000 Words. More to Come"Thu 01:10 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Here are the scariest three words I’ve heard a journalist utter in some time.
“More to come.”
It’s what The New Yorker’s Sy Hersh, the guy who broke the Iraqi prison torture story said to Charlie Rose Monday night.
On Wednesday morning, The New York Times said 10 deaths Iraqi and Afghani prisoner deaths were under investigation because they may have involved further misconduct. By sundown, the number had increased to 14.
On Monday, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was parsing the difference between “abuse” and “torture.” By Wednesday evening he’d been reprimanded by his commander in chief.
And there’s more to come? I thought we were in trouble back in February. But it's gotten worse. More to come?
This is an administration that doesn’t like to acknowledge indecision, reassessment or reconsideration. Yet, it seems to be actively doing all of those things and doing them quickly. That tells me more and worries me more than Sy Hersh’s throw-away line to Charlie Rose. It sends chills down my spine.
This war was wrong, wrong, wrong. It was a deliberate and conscious and cynical effort that manipulated the emotional need for vengence created by the World Trade Center into an excuse to bomb a menacing but weakened state that just happened to be part of the same culture. It's as if we bombed China in relatiation for Pearl Harbor.
Preying on the shock and fear and anger generated by Sept. 11, the Bush Administration has never told the truth about this war. They lied about Iraq and nuclear weapons. They lied about the biological and other weapons of mass destruction. They lied about the cost of the war. About its "ending" about its purpose. They lied to their allies. They lied to the U.N. Why, oh, why, do we think they’re changing their tactics now?
Oh, there's more to come. Much more.
Thu 09:47 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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How is that the political party that claims to be the party of strength and discipline, the party that points to U.S. military superiority as a patriotic rallying cry – the Republican Party -- isn’t condemning what happened at Abu Gharaib with the vitriol and passion it so deserves? Maybe because even they would find it too hypocritical?
Continue reading "There's Something Happenin' Here"Mon 10:58 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Last night I turned away from the BBC World News for a second – I missed the opening credit – and when I came back I had one of those horrible moments of confusion. No, I thought, this isn’t today’s news from Iraq. These are yesterday’s headline. The TiVo messed up.
Continue reading "Re-runs"Wed 11:13 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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He seems an unlikely apostle, but is it possible that former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean has caught the Cluetrain? Or are we just seeing the return of good, consciously run, government? It’s food for thought.
Today’s New York Times carries a front page story in which a host of critics on both sides of the Congressional aisle, Democrats and Republicans, go after Kean and his 9/11 Commission for being too open.
Continue reading "Open Sesame"Thu 12:47 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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He seems an unlikely apostle, but is it possible that former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean has caught the Cluetrain? Or are we just seeing the return of good, consciously run, government? It’s food for thought.
Today’s New York Times carries a front page story in which a host of critics on both sides of the Congressional aisle, Democrats and Republicans, go after Kean and his 9/11 Commission for being too open.
Continue reading "Open Sesame"Thu 12:47 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Take a few minute, all you folks who have nothing but contempt for politicians to consider the work being done by the 9/11 commission, more formally known as the National Commission On Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.
Think for a minute about what they have managed to accomplish. And yes, some of it was obvious and many of us knew what was going to be said. But with steady pressure, applied privately and publicly, low-key but insistent demands and almost complete lack of name-calling, the group led by former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean has managed to demonstrate two things. One, the Bush Administration was looking in the wrong direction when it came to state-sponsored terrorism (they were looking for a state – states are easy). And two, when it comes to being questioned or challenged, these people are babies. They have to be right. They can never be wrong. It’s hard to say which is more troubling.
Continue reading "Politics Unusual"Fri 11:35 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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For much of the past few months, whenever I have to think about the divisions created and maintained by this country’s invasion of Iraq, I’ve returned, again and again, to the emotions generated by 9/11. It resonates across the country. But the further you get from Manhattan, the lower the echo.
Today, the blogosphere provides even more grist for that mill.
Scott Rosenberg, from right here in San Francisco wrote last week about former national security advisor Richard Clarke’s public apology for 9/11. The apology, says Rosenberg, is long overdue and most welcome.
Continue reading "Continental Divide"Tue 01:13 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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I don’t know who edits the New York Times Saturday op-ed page but there should be some sort of special prize to whomever puts out such a consistently engaging end-of-week wrap up – particularly since Saturday’s papers are the least read.
Today’s pieces on leadership and intelligence – and how one confuses and manipulates the other – are definitely worth reading. (You can, however, skip David Brooks’ shrilly partisan denunciation of former Bush administration security advisor Richard Clarke). Peter Neuman’s piece on how 9/11 was filtered through the Cold War expectations of the Bush Administration is a nicely nonpartisan (Neuman teaches in England, home of John Keegan, the best, and most readable military historian out there). Neuman talks persuasively about the Bush administration’s belief that terrorism must be state-sponsored and how that attitude led to what was clearly a dismissal of growing concerns voiced by folks like Clarke.
Continue reading "Where’s the Big Idea?"Sat 08:29 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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It may be un-American and all but I’m beginning to really like European justice.
First of all, they were right – almost entirely – about Iraq, about the so-called weapons of mass destruction and about the blood thirty, hasty Bush Administration. More and more, as I watch the testimony in Washington before the 9/11 Commission, I am convinced Europeans’ decision to treat terrorism as a crime is the proper course of action since it calls for vigilance, awareness and smart police work instead of military intervention, chest thumping and threats.
Continue reading "Bring it On"Wed 11:50 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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There were a lot of things that didn’t make sense about the initial analysis of what’s going on in Spain, particularly the U.S.-centric take that the country had decided to kow-tow to terrorists by voting in a Socialist government.
Spain has had Socialist governments before. And its experience with ETA, the Basque separatist group, is long and bloody. ETA has been bombing parts of the country for years regardless of who was in power. Ever visited Picasso’s Guernica? In New York’s Museum of Modern Art, it just hung on the wall. At the Reina Sofia, it’s behind more than six inches of special bullet-proof plexiglass, more closely guarded than, well, than almost any other national relic. These people know what it means to be under attack.
Continue reading "The Difference Is In The Details"Wed 11:05 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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There are a number of reasons the Spanish Socialist Party won control of the government. I couldn’t make any sense of what I was reading so I asked a Spanish friend living here in the U.S. Here’s his note with a few edits for clarity:
Spain was tired of despotic [Popular Party] and their arrogant ministers; [José Luis Rodríguez] Zapatero was going up in the polls while [Mariano] Rajoy (the PP candidate) was going down. Of course the bombing contributed to give a wake up call to some people that usually don't vote.
Continue reading "Spanish Politics From A Spaniard"Wed 10:46 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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So far, it doesn’t look or feel like a scandal. And I’m blaming the Democrats. They still can’t decide what to do.
Chief weapons inspector David Kay’s testimony last week has generated some noise but not a lot of heat. Except for John Stewart whose out-the-top comedic outrage was as sad as it was funny.
Kay, former head of the effort to find nuclear and other weapons capable of killing large numbers of people, has said that he doesn’t believe those weapons of mass destruction exist. Various scientists in Iraq were supposed to be making or trying to make such weapons but they were working for a madman and they spent most of their time making him happy and satisfying his delusions, feeding the fantasies of this Middle Eastern Dr. Strangelove.
But no one in this country knew this. Nor did they know that charges made by President Bush that the Iraqi had tried to buy weapons-grade uranium were also untrue. After Sept. 11, no one wanted things to get worse and everyone was scared they would. The one person in Congress who voted against the war – Rep. Barbara Lee from Oakland – was ridiculed although being from California, she probably got off light. So we went off to war. People died. People are still dying.
But life on this side of the world goes on. A few weeks ago, Slate ran one of its on-line forums where a bunch of guys who went to Harvard – oh, wait, one went to Oxford -- typed up their reactions to finding out that the weapons talk was a sham. This was before Kay’s disclosures. In densely pack prose that only served to underscore their intelligence and education, most said they haven’t changed their minds. Saddam was a bad man and needed to be gotten rid of, European objections to the war were nothing more than Liberal colldling and a refusal to face reality; we had to do something to clean up that part of the world. Lives were at stake.
Slate editor Jacob Weisberg made the most sense when he wrote about his deciding the leave the “I can’t believe I’m a hawk” club. Getting rid of Saddam was a noble goal, Weisberg said, but it didn’t justify slanting the facts, which is clearly what the Bush administration has done. And, clearly, the U.S. can’t afford the war. It was a cautious response in the face of some still very angry rhetoric and, well, Liberal caution -- not coddling -- got us into this mess, dammit.
The one person who most adamantly refused to buy the administration’s argument, Howard Dean has a reputation for being a hot-head but, you know, he was right. And if this set of circumstances weren’t so sad – the week Dean starts losing is the week his war stance is justified – it, too, would be amusing. The Dean campaign is badly bungling this opportunity; they’re retreating to caution. The candidate’s skepticism about the war and his demonstrated willingness to stand up to bullies and intimidation within his own party could be used to demonstrate and create a muscular Liberalism that could unite the Democrats and face down the war-mongers on the right. But it’s being frittered away. And, as much as his supporters would like, that cannot be blamed on Big Media and its fascination with Dr. Judy Steinberg’s quiet life in Vermont or Howard Dean’s scream.
Most of the others involved in the Slate debate – some of the smartest political writers going on what used to be called the Left – remain adamant in their refusal to acknowledge that the arguments they espoused were faulty. So does Andrew Sullivan (whose current spate of criticizing the Bush administration ought to make Democrasts everywhere blush). The hawks continue to say
by any means necessary,” citing the Libyan government’s decision to capitulate to Western demands for disarmament as evidence that the Iraqi invasion “worked.”
Maybe. I’m not entirely convinced. Talks about removing sanctions against Libya started early this year, well before the Iraqi invasion. And it’s possible that the sanctions that have been imposed on Libya – sanctions to which Western Europe, including the French, adhered because Quadaffi had attacked them directly – played a role, possibly an important one in their success. There have been a series of stories about bribes Saddam paid officials to breach the embargo against his country. In some respects, sanctions against Iraq were meaningless because other governments – yes, the ones who didn’t want us to go to war – were playing both sides of the fence. But in others -- when it came to weapons programs, in particular, it seems sanctions were very effective. So maybe the circumstances between Libya and Iraq differ only in the ways in which the U.S. managed them and maybe the Libyan approach is the one that should be used more often.
I’m not so sure I’d feel differently about this if I lived on the East Coast and had seen the towers fall or had to drive past the Pentagon with its gaping hole. I don’t think so. But I think that day of terror is driving more of this hawkish thinking that anyone wants to acknowledge. It is splintering this nation’s politics in emotional ways, ways that defy coherent argument or discussion. The Left has degraded its arguments by so much name-calling – the softies v. the hawks – it’s enough to make you weep watching them fall neatly in to the trap set by the right. The idea that this nation can and should lead by moral example in the international arena – and that can mean sending in an army to standing up to bullies as well as engaging in more peaceful efforts – has been the real victim of the Sept. 11 bombings. I don’t think this country is as scared as President Bush wants to think it is – unless, of course, you want to talk about the national debt – but it’s not as confused as the Democrats are, either, seeming unable to parse national defenses against terrorism with a need to wreck havoc in the name of that defense on the other side of the world.
The Bush Administration’s credibility has been dealt what should be a final, stunning blow with Kay’s testimony. And it’s time the conversation about what that means for U.S. foreign policy – a conversation about the ends justifying the means to achieve them and how that thinking took over everywhere – is held. If it's not, we all lose more than an election.
Sun 12:22 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
