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September 25, 2003 BUSH AT THE UN....Clifford May argues in NRO that Bush's speech to the UN was just fine. He "stuck to his guns," you see. Jonathan Gradowski isn't impressed:
Indeed, there's the rub. But then, I don't think George Bush has ever really had to interview for a job in quite the same way as the rest of us. Maybe that's the difference. Posted by Kevin Drum at September 25, 2003 10:24 AM | TrackBackComments
I still don't know what NRO is. Are they the lib-cum-neocon pub, or the always-neocon-before-it-was-cool pub? I need a program to tell the players. Posted by: squiddy at September 25, 2003 10:27 AM | PERMALINKMaybe it is more accurate to state that it is pointless to draw an analogy between a job interview and an address to an international body that contains a substantial number of actors which have goals entirely at odds with the addressor's. Posted by: Will Allen at September 25, 2003 10:33 AM | PERMALINKhttp://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/25/international/middleeast/25WEAP.html Draft Report Said to Cite No Success in Iraq Arms Hunt An early draft of an interim report by the American leading the hunt for banned weapons in Iraq says his team has not found any of the unconventional weapons cited by the Bush administration as a principal reason for going to war, federal officials with knowledge of the findings said today.... Posted by: Jenn at September 25, 2003 10:38 AM | PERMALINKNRO is the doting child of William Buckley, who still regrets there was a civil rights movement in America. "Shame on Martin Luther King!" NRO is an attack hackery of the radical right. Sort of FAUX squared. Hickery hackery NRO. Yuch. Posted by: Ari at September 25, 2003 10:42 AM | PERMALINKReuters - 9/25/03 Concern over security led the United Nations to announce it was scaling back its international staff, dealing a fresh blow to U.S. claims the situation was under control in Iraq. U.N. offices in Baghdad have twice come under attack. Posted by: Jenn at September 25, 2003 10:45 AM | PERMALINKI think its a bad analogy. Bush wasn;t going before the UN hoping to be hired to do something, he was looking for help on his project. I like this one better: You need to move. You ask a few friends to help you move, but you tell them you're too late to rent a truck, so you just want to try and pile everything into and onto everybody's cars (couches, washer/dryer, everything). You're friends realize there's no way this will work and suggest maybe waiting a week to do it when you can get a truck. You get indignant and proceed to lecture them and say the only reason they're saying this is because they have ulterior motives: they just want to make your life difficult and they're in cahoots with the landlord. You tell them they're just your "old friends" and you'll just rely on your "new friends." They of course tell you to blow it out of your ass. Well halfway through moving day, you realize maybe they had a point. It's pretty hard to strap a dresser to the top of a hatchback, and your new friends just aren't that helpful. So you decide to see if you're old friends might reconsider and halp out. So you call them up, but instead of being gracious and admit that maybe they had a point, you "stick to your guns." You let them know that even though they were dicks before, you're now going to give them the opportunity to do their duty and help you out. After all, they do have this responsibility to the world to help you move. But they still better let you call the shots and keep their mouths shut as to tactics. Now, if you're an "old friend," how are you going to respond? Posted by: Doug-E-Fresh at September 25, 2003 10:46 AM | PERMALINKExcellent, Doug-E-Fresh, excellent. You don't 'stick to your guns' when you are asking (nay, begging) someone for help. Particularly when you told that someone to piss off previously. Matter of fact, any sane human being would probably realize they have to apologize, or at the very least make some kind of concession. That the Pres did not indicates to me that he is either not serious about wanting help from the UN, or insane. Posted by: Timothy Klein at September 25, 2003 10:57 AM | PERMALINKWill: Generally speaking, if you're in the position of wanting something from someone, regardless of what it is and who they are, adopting an in-your-face attitude is a bad idea. Especially when you don't really have any leverage on your side, and they know it. Doug: that's a good analogy too. But Jon's works too. Posted by: Kevin Drum at September 25, 2003 10:58 AM | PERMALINKHey, I have (had) that friend. He's an ass. Good riddance. Posted by: sidereal at September 25, 2003 10:58 AM | PERMALINKThe first US draft resolution was a Rumsfeld policy in Powell clothing, which kind of gets to the difficulty Bush had in putting a speech together: he is personally too shallow and ill-informed to determine a policy that requires strategic decision-making and tradeoffs, and the person who is supposed to therefore see to it that policies are made, Condoleeza Rice, has been exposed as a hack, and the people who actually could make decisions and make policy, Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell, don't agree with each other on almost anything. And so we get more foolishness from the backbone administration. At this point, he'd have been better off not making a speech to the UN than making the one he did. Posted by: howard at September 25, 2003 11:04 AM | PERMALINKThe better analogy is offering yet another chance for total fuck-ups to redeem themselves. Bush is Major League Baseball and the UN is the baseball player trying to come back from his 10th drug suspension. "Look, you've messed up before. You have Syria on the Security Council. You have Libya heading up the Commission on Human Rights. You've failed peacekeeping missions in Bosnia, Africa and elsewhere around the world. You did nothing to stop the systematic slaughter of hundreds of thousands in places like Iraq and Rwanda. You've sat back and allowed Robert Mugabe to attempt to engage in ethnic cleansing in Zimbabwe. BUT....we're willing to give you another chance. We'll let you help, but we're not going to make you the highest paid player or allow you run the team after we did all the hard work." Proceed with the insults. Posted by: Jay Caruso at September 25, 2003 11:12 AM | PERMALINKSorry, Kevin, they're all bad analogies, in that they assume a commonality of interests and good will. In the international arena there is no basis for such an assumption. The U.N. is a collection of civilized actors, some less civilized actors, and outright thugs, thieves and murderers. What one says in an public address to such a disparate body is far less important than what one says in private to the individual actors. How much help does the U.S. need vis-a-vis Iraq? Hard to say, because it is difficult to really understand what the current conditions in Iraq are, even if one is on the scene, to say nothing of what can be gleaned from our vantage points. Those who hate Bush or opposed this war tend to paint the picture as pessimistically as possible, and those who support Bush or supported this war tend to paint the picture as optimistically as possible. Everything that the Bush Administration does is viewed through these prisms. Personally, I tend think that the effects, pro or con, of such events as Bush's latest address to the U.N. are hugely overblown. Posted by: Will Allen at September 25, 2003 11:17 AM | PERMALINKJay, what is Major League Baseball's motivation to let somebody "redeem themselves" in your analogy? Do they realize they don't have any credibility without that player? And are you saying the UN has no credibility without being able to play in the US's league? That the UN can only be relevant if the US "forgives" them? And don't say "altruism," because foreign policy is never about altruism. Posted by: Doug-E-Fresh at September 25, 2003 11:19 AM | PERMALINKDoug, what I am saying is that the United States has nothing to apoligize for and that if the UN's past is any indication, giving them everything they WANT with regard to their role in a post-war Iraq, would be a big f**king mistake. Posted by: Jay Caruso at September 25, 2003 11:26 AM | PERMALINKBoth Jay and the Bush administration would do well to remember the
old adage that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
Insults and threats can sometimes be necessary when confronting enemies.
They are almost never useful when trying to persuade friends. And the
nations that matter (for money, and troops) really are our traditional
allies. Too bad. Marc Posted by: Marc at September 25, 2003 11:33 AM | PERMALINKWill, it is, in fact, not hard to say how much help the US needs vis-a-vis Iraq: we need billions and billions of dollars of help. The official ballpark reconstruction estimate is $75B. It's an open question whether the first $20B of that amount, which is part of the $87B, will even get through Congress. It's an extremely open question whether the next $55B can get through Congress, even should the first $20B get through. It's an especially extremely open question if these amounts will get through Congress as long as the backbone administration refuses to either cut other spending or increase taxes to pay for them. So that problem is perfectly clear without having to spend any time worrying about what the precise conditions on the ground are. This said, it is also not hard to know something of the conditions on the ground: General Abizaid, who is, after all, there, wants troops from large Muslim population countries. The CBO has said, and no one has challenged, that we are not currently in the position to maintain our troops levels beyond March. The odds of "training" enough Iraqi security and military folks to reduce the troop need by March are somewhere between slim and none. So it's not hard to guess that we need more bodies, although that's just a touch more speculative than the question of needing more money. Posted by: howard at September 25, 2003 11:46 AM | PERMALINKJay Caruso - I think you are under a misapprehension regarding how the UN operates. The UN cannot send troops to (for example) stop ethnic cleansing in Rwanda. The UN can only ask the member nations to send troops, and coordinate the effort. The reason Rwanda was allowed to proceed is because the member countries, including the U.S. did not want to send troops. Kofi Annan asked and asked them, but no dice. Posted by: Emma Anne at September 25, 2003 11:47 AM | PERMALINKActually, Jay, we have several things to apologize for: calling the UN "irrelevant," when we clearly no longer believe such a thing, calling our traditional NATO allies "Old Europe" in a disparaging way, exaggerating the nature of the Iraqi WMD threat. We didn't have to literally apologize, of course - very few nations do that, and especially on matters of policy. But neither did we have to act as though the history we all lived through 6-12 months ago didn't happen. Posted by: howard at September 25, 2003 11:49 AM | PERMALINKBush is Major League Baseball and the UN is the baseball player trying to come back from his 10th drug suspension. Well, there's nothing wrong with that analogy. At least, nothing apart from the fact that it's EXACTLY FUCKING BACKWARDS. (Confidential to Kevin: two pieces of HTML this comments window needs to read in future — underlining and header-size type. Both would have come in hella handy just now. I know a lot of conservapuppets seem to think I'll be impressed enough with BIG BOLD LETTERS to swallow the complete mother-damned God-fucking lies written in them; maybe if I give them the truth in BIG BOLD LETTERS, they'll be inclined to take it seriously for once?) Posted by: Tuxedo Slack at September 25, 2003 11:49 AM | PERMALINKOn the other hand, Jay was exactly on the money when he said this: The better analogy is offering yet another chance for total fuck-ups to redeem themselves. The problem is, the fuck-up in question never takes the opportunity to redeem himself, preferring to have Poppy's rich friends bail him out (or simply never having it occur to him that he could do anything else). Posted by: Tuxedo Slack at September 25, 2003 11:52 AM | PERMALINKJay Caruso: "You did nothing to stop the systematic slaughter of hundreds of thousands in places like Iraq and Rwanda." How is this the fault of the UN? The only force the UN has is that provided by its member states. Its most powerful, well-armed member state did not want to contribute troops to Rwanda, and pretty much allowed the Iraqi regime to slaughter revolting Iraqis after the leader of that member state called for a revolution. The US took the lead on none of your examples. It's not like Iraq was the latest in a string of humanitarian missions that the US undertook without UN support. Posted by: Brian at September 25, 2003 12:02 PM | PERMALINKhoward, if a trend cannot continue, then it won't. 75 billion in a 2 trillion dollar budget really isn't a huge amount, if the activity is deemed important, and if the activity is not deemed important, then the debate is pointless. If the 75 billion is needed it will be obtained, in one way or another, and whatever Bush said in a public address to the U.N. will have practically zero impact. This is a tempest in a teapot. Posted by: Will Allen at September 25, 2003 12:04 PM | PERMALINKEmma, I don't want to turn this into a debate about Rwanda, but you're off on several points. First of all, Kofi Annan wasn't even the Secretary General of the UN at the time. Boutros Boutros-Ghali was. In addition, an independent inquiry conducted concluded that the UN did indeed fail with regard to Rwanda. In addition, there were peacekeeping troops there (UNIMAR), but many were pulled out when Belgium withdrew from the mission after 10 of their peacekeepers were killed. How quickly would they start reducing peacekeeping forces in Iraq if they took casualties? Posted by: Jay Caruso at September 25, 2003 12:05 PM | PERMALINKThe US took the lead on none of your examples. Yet this time they did and you seem to be faulting them for it. In addition, not only did we not supply troops, but we (we as in Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright, and Warren Christopher) were instrumental in preventing other countries from not sending troops. It was the Canadian commander of the UN forces there that said just a few thousand would have saved thousands of lives. Posted by: Jay Caruso at September 25, 2003 12:11 PM | PERMALINKHe didn't get a harumph from France. Give the president a harumph. Le harunph. Posted by: daryl at September 25, 2003 12:12 PM | PERMALINK"...were instrumental in preventing other countries from not sending troops." Sorry the above should have read: "...were instrumental in preventing other countries from sending troops." Posted by: Jay Caruso at September 25, 2003 12:14 PM | PERMALINKThe U.S. finds it is the proud owner of a very sour Iraqi lemon: Crossed Wires Deprived Iraqis of Electric Power (Washington Post) BAGHDAD -- When grease-stained technicians at the Baghdad South power plant needed spare parts recently, they first submitted a written request to Bechtel Corp., the engineering firm given more than $1 billion in U.S. government contracts to fix Iraq's decrepit infrastructure. Then they went to the junkyard. ... Read the whole article, which goes into detail about how Iraq's aged and pilfered infrastructure is basically unfixable. We haven't even begun to fund the total cost for reconstruction yet. Posted by: David W. at September 25, 2003 12:14 PM | PERMALINK"Yet this time they did and you seem to be faulting them for it." Slight difference being that the other instances didn't have most of the world saying that what we were about to do was not justified. As you well know. Not anti-war, anti-this-war. Posted by: brian at September 25, 2003 12:15 PM | PERMALINK"Sticking to your guns" in this instance is an effective illustration of Emerson's comment that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. Posted by: Randy Paul at September 25, 2003 12:15 PM | PERMALINKDoug, what I am saying is that the United States has nothing to apoligize for Other countries beg to differ. The US can feel free to ignore this, but don't expect them to kick in and support your illegal invasion if you do. Posted by: a Phoenician in a time of Romans at September 25, 2003 12:29 PM | PERMALINKI must say that I find it amusing that the right-wing finds it so outrageous that no one stopped the genocide in Rwanda. It's a recently developed outrage, that I date back to about August 2002. Anyway, you all got the analogies wrong. Here's a more accurate one. GWB is a homeowner, belonging to a a homeowner's association. He notices that his nextdoor neighbor has a tree threatening to topple onto GWB's property. Outraged, GWB proposes to his homeowner's association that he simply move into the nextdoor neighbor's house and takeover the property. The homeowner's association objects, saying, "You just can't go and take over someone's house!" GWB responds by arguing, "But you and I know that my neighbor has been killing children in his backyard, and the neighborhood association has warned him in the past to stop. But he hasn't. Therefore the only was to respond is for me to move into my neighbor's house now." The home association responds, "But just because your neighbor kills people doesn't negate basic property law." GWB rebuts: "But basic property law allows me to take his house if there's a tree threatening to fall into my property. Fuck you all anyway. You're irrelevant." So GWB takes over the house, and lo and behold, discovers that he doesn't have enough money to pay the property taxes of both his properties. On top of that, he discovers that what everyone thought was a tree was actually a telephone pole attached firmly to the property. GWB needs help paying the property taxes, and says "I was right to take over my neighbor's house. You were wrong. So help me pay my taxes." Now that's the analogy. Posted by: Amitava Mazumdar at September 25, 2003 12:43 PM | PERMALINKI know I'm not brillian with analogies, but these are real stinkers. Job Interview: This might be analagous if it weren't for the fact that the US pays most of the UN budget and is most of the UN's military force. Moving Day: I was willing to go with this one, until you said 'wait a week'. Ha. If we are using this analogy the discussion is more like: "We understand that you are living in a house between rat-infested neighbors and that you are worried your children are going to get rabies if they get bitten. BUT, are you sure you need to move this year? What if you just asked the Rat Kings politely to control their rats? That couch looks heavy. How about you lock your doors real tight? No, no, you can't use poison, I would have to call SPCA on you. Hey those traps are mean, you can't KILL rats. That isn't nice. You really haven't given the rat-infested neighbors much warning. They aren't catching the rats and putting them in your house when you aren't looking! They would never do that! Oh. Well what do you expect, you have a much nicer house than them......" Posted by: Sebastian Holsclaw at September 25, 2003 12:48 PM | PERMALINKAri: NRO (Or NRODT) "regrets there was a civil rights movement"? I suppose you can, er, provide links to where they've said that? Phoenician: Other countries may, indeed, feel the US needs to apologise to them. But does that make it so? If such a need is based on overinflated egos (Chirac, anyone?) or senses of national pride, does that mean an American apology is appropriate? (And if so, would you think the reverse true if American pride and ego demanded an apology?) Brian: Is "most of the world" an authority, when there's strong argument that "most of their" reasons for opposing US action are not especially either moral or legal, but concern to hobble the US for either home-political or self-aggrandising gain (Chirac, part 2)? Was "most of the world" an authority under the Soviet and Red Chinese boot? And if not, why is it now, under local autocrats? Tuxedo: If he's backwards, why not tell us how rather than name-call "conservapuppets" and rant in bold caps? Lastly, Howard: What's wrong with disparaging France and Germany as "old Europe"? By which I mean, sure, tehy didn't like it, but 1) is it incorrect? and 2) does it matter, at the time, given the policies at the time of Schroder and Chirac? Sometimes calling a spade a spade is, while unpleasant to the spade (if it has pretensions of being an "hand-operated earth-moving equipage"), helpful. And, well, remember the context of hte UN's "irrelevance". The UN is absolutely irrelevant to US national security measures. The UN is not necessarily irrelevant to minor policing, building infrastructure, or writing constitutions. Though, considering their abilities to write a liberal (not leftist) constitution or "human rights declaration" from experience, maybe they should be encouraged to avoid the latter. Posted by: Sigivald at September 25, 2003 12:50 PM | PERMALINKSebastian writes: "This might be analagous if it weren't for the fact that the US pays most of the UN budget" Except when they withhold payment. Posted by: Jon H at September 25, 2003 01:00 PM | PERMALINKSebastian writes: "We understand that you are living in a house between rat-infested neighbors and that you are worried your children are going to get rabies if they get bitten. BUT, are you sure you need to move this year? What if you just asked the Rat Kings politely to control their rats?" What rats, Sebastian? There are no rats. The rats you seek come from other places. Posted by: Jon H at September 25, 2003 01:05 PM | PERMALINKIf the invasion was "illegal", what made it so, and what would make it legal? I don't see a lot of people who claim that the Iraq invasion was "illegal" also claim that Clinton's military campaigns in Kosovo and Bosnia were illegal. On the contrary, quite a few of those people are now trying to get the top military commander of the Kosovo campaign elected president. Posted by: Fredrik Nyman at September 25, 2003 02:04 PM | PERMALINKWill Allen, you are right about "unsustainability," but you don't seem to have correctly grasped what is unsustainable, namely, the backbone administration's endless deficits. Comparing $75B to the size of the American economy is meaningless; what it should be compared to is the size of the deficit and the programs that aren't being funded, the $94B, for instance, that the Hart-Rudman commission recommended spending on first responders and hardening targets, or the $50-$60B it would have cost this year to solve all state budget deficits for one year and not have state spending cuts and tax hikes coming right as we want to grow employment. You asked what do we need? The answer remains, we need money, and if you think this money has to be spent, you are completely wrong. All around the world we see a deficit in infrastructure investment, including here in America. The idea that we "must" spend $75B (which, i agree with another poster, probably understates the true costs, but which is the number the White House has put about) is simply wrong. Look at how poorly the $87B request is doing in the polls, and that primarily pays for soldiers. Sigivald, "old Europe" is a meaningless piece of blather (what? have i been wrong all these years? you mean that there never used to be poland and lithuania, where my people are from?) that is intended to insult. The utility of calling a "spade" a "spade" in any given setting can be debated, but first it would be helpful that it is actually a "spade" that we are talking about. Posted by: howard at September 25, 2003 02:15 PM | PERMALINKDraft Report Said to Cite No Success in Iraq Arms Hunt The keywords here being "Judith" and "Miller", Jenn. I wouldn't trust anything this media ho says, even if I want it to be true. Wait for confirmation from more reliable sources. Judith Miller is no more reliable than the Moonie Times or the Moonie wire service. Posted by: exgop at September 25, 2003 02:39 PM | PERMALINKThe bottom line is that we went to the UN wanting something. If you want something, you are not in the driver's seat: the other party is. You either play nice with that other party or you don't get what you're asking for, which seems to be precisely what's going to happen here. If Bush was not prepared to play nice, to suck up, and yes, to apologize, then he shouldn't even have gone. The speech was a complete waste of time and it accomplished nothing except to cement Bush's image in the minds of the member nations. George Bush should have followed his own advice: "If we are an arrogant nation, they will resent us; but if we're a humble nation, but strong, they'll welcome us." Posted by: PaulB at September 25, 2003 02:58 PM | PERMALINKhoward, I was comparing the 75 billion to the size of the total U.S. budget, not the U.S. economy. $75 billion in a $2 trillion is not a huge sum. If the money for Iraq is deemed important, then the money will be found. If it is decided that other items are more important, then the money will not be found. The U.S. is sufficiently wealthy to pay for Iraq without foreign assistance, it is just a matter of whether elected representatives choose to do so. Frankly, it may be advantageous that outside help is not gained, for that "help" may from parties that do not share our goals. As to PaulB's remarks, when involved with negotiations with a large number of actors, the worst thing one can do is to "play nice", for it is a near certainty that some of those actors desire to see you skinned alive. What is said in public is superfluous to where the real negotiations take place, in private, where rewards are proffered to some actors, penalties are threatened to others, or both simulteaneously to the same actor. The U.S., as the largest economic and military power on earth, has considerable ability to do both, and what is said in a public address to the U.N. is not nearly as important as that reality. Posted by: Will Allen at September 25, 2003 03:51 PM | PERMALINKWill, who is this "it" that will decide about the money? The answer is that "it" is Congress, and Congress is showing every sign of not being happy about the $20B downpayment. I don't really care if you're discussing the size of the economy or the budget or anything else: $75B is a lot of money for Congress to authorize to rebuild the infrastructure of Iraq. It would be a helluva lot easier for Congress to swallow if we were only paying, say, 1/3 or 1/2 of that amount: that's what we need from others without question. The fact is, we cannot afford another $75B hit against the budget over the next several years, and even if we could afford $75B, there are many other claimants for that same sum of money. You're kidding yourself if you think otherwise. Posted by: howard at September 25, 2003 03:57 PM | PERMALINKWill, nice theory. The trouble is that if you don't make nice publicly, the back room negotiating becomes an order of magnitude more difficult. Public perception matters, both for the diplomats themselves and for the citizens of the affected countries. If a Schroeder, for example, has to go back to Germany to sell his people on why he's providing 5,000 troops and several billion dollars to Bush, he'd have a much easier time if Bush had expressed the appropriate humility that Bush himself had espoused as a candidate. This UN appearance was a complete waste of time. He may get his UN resolution, but as for any meaningful support? I'd bet not. Posted by: PaulB at September 25, 2003 04:15 PM | PERMALINKhoward, Congress may not be happy about any number of things. So what? Ultimately, they will stick their fingers in the wind, and cast their votes. If the electorate disapproves of funding Iraq operations with enough intensity, then the funding will not occur. Would it help to get funding from other sources? That depends on what needs to be given in return. The content of Bush's U.N. address is trivial compared to other factors in determining whether such assistance is gained, or whether it is worthwhile to gain such assistance. Finally, if you think that 75 billion today is an "unaffordable", it is you who engaging in self-deception, historically speaking. Posted by: Will Allen at September 25, 2003 04:27 PM | PERMALINKWill, i have no idea what you mean by "historically speaking." What i mean is that we have a structural fiscal deficit whose size is at a danger point, and that the continued irresponsible spending by the backbone administration (why only today, our brave leader assured us we could "afford" the medicare drug benefit, too) is unsustainable. So what "history" are you looking at. As for Congress, well, at least you're getting there instead of in total denial. You said, way back when, what do we need from anyone else. I answered, putting aside all issues about troop levels or legitimacy or anything else, we need money. If you don't think it would make one helluva lot of difference when congress puts its finger in the air if we knew that a very large percentage of the money was coming from elsewhere, you continue to kid yourself. If you haven't acquainted yourself with the polling data, most stunningly the CBS poll data a few days ago that showed the public 3-1 against the $87B, which, after all, includes $57B for the troops in iraq, $11B for afghanistan, and only $20B of the $75B for reconstruction, then you need to. Posted by: howard at September 25, 2003 04:43 PM | PERMALINKpaulb., if you wish to adhere to the belief that sucking up and apologizing is the best way to set the stage for multi-party negotiating, when many of the parties desire your failure, well, it's a free country. It strikes me as rather naive. I tend to think it would have been preferable that no address be made, but I think the entire matter is overblown. Posted by: Will Allen at September 25, 2003 04:48 PM | PERMALINKI suspect that Paul doesn't believe that many parties in the UN want our failure. Posted by: Sebastian Holsclaw at September 25, 2003 05:21 PM | PERMALINKAs I said howard, if something is unsustainable, then it won't continue. We don't need money from other parties. We need to decide what we wish to spend money on. Personally, I could trim 250-500 billion from the Federal Budget without breaking stride, and no, it wouldn't result in anyone starving in the streets. The only credit I'll give to the Bush Administration on the spending issue is that I suspect that it is sandbagging on the prescription drug benefit, and when push comes to shove, it won't expend any capital to see it through, thus allowing it die in conference, with everyone poiting fingers at each other. Finally, if budget deficits are the overriding policy issues, then expanding entitlements is a far more serious misstep than cutting taxes, since it has been far easier to raise taxes than it has been to shrink entitlements, once they have been established. Posted by: Will Allen at September 25, 2003 05:28 PM | PERMALINKPersonally, I could trim 250-500 billion from the Federal Budget without breaking stride Let's hear it then. Where? Posted by: Thumb at September 25, 2003 06:30 PM | PERMALINKWill is making a rather famous claim here: of course "he" (or you, or I) could come up with a list of $250B - $500B of spending to be cut; the problem is always them. There is no constiuency for cutting spending in washington unless there is concerted leadership by the president, and there is precisely zero chance that george bush is willing to undertake cutting $250B - $500B in spending; he's not even willing to undertake cutting $87B in spending. Which takes us to where Will and I, by now, are talking past each other. He seems to agree that if there is no political will to spend the dollars on Iraqi reconstruction, they won't be spent (I think that's what he's saying). In that sense, he and i agree. But we started this because of his asking what do we need others for, and he still hasn't answered why it isn't way likelier - if we had, as in '91, an international consensus that was willing to pay the freight or a great deal of the freight - that we'd put up our share. Without the reconstruction dollars, it is the official, considered opinion of the backbone administration that we will fail in iraq (see the briefing document that's been making the media rounds); given that belief, i should think how we're going to fund it (and whether we're going to fund it) are matters of some moment, justifying making a real effort to involve other countries. Posted by: howard at September 25, 2003 06:45 PM | PERMALINKYes, howard, and it would also be nice if gold poured from the heavens. To focus on what would be nice to have, without focusing on what it would cost, is pointless. The analogy with 91, like most of the analogies in this thread, is also pointless. The effort in 91 was to reacquire the status quo ante, and considerable financial support was available because many, many parties (notably the Saudis) favored the status quo ante. That is why Hussein (regrettably) wan't removed. Now, the goal is rapid, revolutionary change. Not suprisingly, many parties are opposed to rapid, revolutionary change. Soliciting the support of parties which do not share your goals is not likely to be fruitful, for they are likely to sabotage your efforts in return for such support. If the American people decide that achieving rapid, revolutionary, change in the middle east is not essential, then it will not happen, and what George Bush said in an address to the U.N. is trivial . If they decide that it is essential, then what George Bush said in an address to the U.N. is still trivial. No, the U.S. doesn't "need" financial assistance. It has to decide whether it wants a revolution. Posted by: Will Allen at September 25, 2003 07:17 PM | PERMALINKWill, this entire last set of remarks strikes me as wishful thinking of the most extreme kind: that "revolution" is the appropriate term for iraq; that the american public has any interest in this "revolution;" that we can and should "fund" this revolution on our own; that other nations could not possibly want a positive outcome in iraq; that the participation of other nations towards a positive outcome in iraq is something to be shunned. Or, to put it simply, if the question for iraq is framed: should we fund a "revolution" on our own, then the public will answer no, as will congress, and this entire affair will leave us worse off than when we started. Posted by: howard at September 25, 2003 08:27 PM | PERMALINKWill Allen: if something is unsustainable, then it won't continue This is a tautology, and doesn't add much to the debate. The question is, at what point does the funding of Iraq become unsustainable? And are we talking about the $87 bil being politically unsustainable, or financially unsustainable? The real issue here is this: we have to spend a bunch of money in Iraq, or risk watching it fail. Assuming we can still achieve our stated goals in Iraq, wouldn't it be better to have some of that cost carried by other nations? I doubt seriously that the GWB speach made today did anything to help secure some funds or troops. It may not have done incredible harm, either. Will may be right in saying it is overblown. But I would be very surprised if the French or Germans would be willing to jump in and help us unless the US makes at least some form of apology for our behaviour before the war. They may let us get away with a private one, but I would be surprised. This is what GWB missed a chance at doing today. But I also suspect that GWB thinks the UN will not give money and troops without compromising his mission in Iraq (his opinion, not mine). In which case, I wonder why the hell is even bothering. Does he really believe he can insult the UN (or France and Germany, et al.) into giving us money, even if it is against their interests? Posted by: Timothy Klein at September 25, 2003 10:09 PM | PERMALINK"But I would be very surprised if the French or Germans would be willing to jump in and help us unless the US makes at least some form of apology for our behaviour before the war." I would be surprised if the French and Germans would be willing to give us help if George Bush crawled naked on his knees from Washington DC to the UN building. The French and Germans did not, and do not want to see change in the Middle East. Posted by: Sebastian Holsclaw at September 25, 2003 11:57 PM | PERMALINKMr.Klein, my major point was that the U.N. affair was trivial, so I guess we are largely in agreement. 87 billion is not financially unsustainable for this nation, and whether it is politically so has almost nothing to do what George Bush did or did not say at the U.N. Foreign Aid in general tends to be very unpopular among the electorate, according to polling, and yet 15 to 20 billion of it gets funded every year. The French government contains substantial elements which see any U.S. success as a failure for the French. Such a government is not likely to be a source of great help, and it is counterproductive to be issuing public apologies to international bodies that have such governments as members. Personally, I think it might have been better to not go at all, but ultimately I don't think it makes much difference. If one is possessed of the notion that Bush is destroying the world, then one tends to inflate everything Bush does to maximum importance. I think this is the phenomena being observed here. Howard, you seem to be possessed of the assumption that all democratic nations share the same goals, and perceive their interests identically. They do not. This isn't to say that they necessarily are always at odds, which would be another baseless assumption. Finally, if going from a totalitarian regime to some sort of republican form of government does not qualify as revolutionary change, then we must have different dictionaries, and if one thinks that the status quo ante in the middle east was an acceptable state of affairs, then we have different views as to what is an acceptable state of affairs. Posted by: Will Allen at September 26, 2003 07:46 AM | PERMALINKWill, please: a.) of course democratic nations can disagree with each other, just as people within a given democratic nation can diagree. Speaking personally, for instance, a government led by george bush, dick cheney, and tom delay is not a government with which i'm going to agree very often, and quite frankly, there are many initiatives of theirs that i expected to fail and am sadly watching failing. b.) that said, the idea that france and germany (and, for that matter, russia and china) want to see a disaster in iraq is self-deceptive thinking that may make you and sebastian feel good (the old chest-pounding moral clarity that has done so much good for us) but that doesn't make it a fact. A breakdown in iraq, which i regard as a distinctly possible outcome of this adventure, serves no one's interests other than those of al qaeda; c.) replacing a totalitarian government with a democratic government is just exactly that; a revolution would have been if the iraqi people rose up and overthrew saddam and replaced him with a democratic government. Calling our regime-change incursion a revolution is a romantic projection of radical rightists; d.) ah, the old simplistic dichotomy: if i think the status quo ante in the middle east is "acceptable," i must be a wrong thinker and should be re-educated. I can only guess, Will, that you are young, because no one with experience of life thinks that we can possibly change every "unacceptable" situation into "acceptable." As you noted about seeking funding (and other support) from others, it's a matter of costs and benefits. The best case scenario for Iraq is that we will spend $200B (that we don't have) and hundreds of American dead, thousands wounded, in order to end up with something possibly as good as Turkey. This is not an example that will lead too many people to think that marching through the middle east shouting "regime change" and "you're with us or against us" is going to be a very effective policy in increasing the national security of the united states. Posted by: howard at September 26, 2003 08:49 AM | PERMALINKWill wrote: "paulb., if you wish to adhere to the belief that sucking up and apologizing is the best way to set the stage for multi-party negotiating" Let's just say that you and I have differing ideas about diplomacy. This was not a diplomatic speech intended to get results. Accordingly, it will get none. Sebastian wrote: "I suspect that Paul doesn't believe that many parties in the UN want our failure." Entirely irrelevant, Sebastian, but nice attack. Let me know when you have something of substance to add. Posted by: PaulB at September 26, 2003 10:08 AM | PERMALINKhoward, apparently you speak a different language than I do. A revolution does not simply pertain to a narrowly defined type of political or military action, it pertains to rapid, dramatic, change. Thus, a shift from a totalitarian to republican form of government is accurately desribed as revolutionary change. As much as you seek to avoid logical realities, a status quo is either tolerable or intolerable. There is no middle ground, although what defines tolerability depends on what alternatives are available. Military alliance with Stalin was tolerable because the alternative was allowing Hitler to prevail. Allowing the North Korean Commmunists to retain power in 1953 was tolerable because the alternative was a prolonged land war with China. You believe that the status quo ante in the Middle East was tolerable, because you think the alternatives were worse. Why are you unable to simply, forthrightly, acknowledge this? I do not believe it was tolerable, nor do I believe even a slow change in the status quo was tolerable. This belief stems from another belief; that the Middle East as was constituted provided a substantially greater than 50% chance that within the next 10 years a war of annihilation would erupt between the U.S. and the Islamic world. The U.S. would prevail in such an encounter, and it would prevail in an overwhelming fashion. The slaughter, however, would be enormous, perhaps exceeding that of WWII's. I find such a risk intolerable, therefore I advocate taking other large risks to rapidly change the status quo, and to guarantee a rapid change in the status quo in geopolitics nearly always means waging war. If the war helps destroy the pardigm by which various thugs and tyrants, some nominally described as "friends", control the world's most vital natural resource, thereby giving them the means to fund entities which seek mass slaughter, then the war will have been successful. True, the people of the region, if given the choice to control their destinies, may throw their lot in with the mass murderers among them, and the war of annihilation will procede anyways. The people of the region must be given a choice, however. Iraq is but the first piece in the puzzle, and it may be a unique piece in terms of tactics, but it is a vital piece, given the West's economic dependence on oil. Of course, you disagree with this analysis, as is your right. It would be preferable, however, if you would put forth a rationale as to why my description of the status quo is in error, instead of pretending that there is some middle ground where one can denounce the status quo, while being unable or unwilling to put forth a means by which to change it with sufficient rapidity. Posted by: Will Allen at September 26, 2003 10:25 AM | PERMALINKWill, we've gone quite far afield from the original point of discussion, but what the hell, i'm game for one more round, even with someone who debates in such a polite way as to merely accuse anyone who disagrees with him of lacking logic. Issue I: The 50% likelihood and inevitability of a war of annihilation between the US and the islamic world in the next 10 years. I think, in all sincerity, that you are in the grip of a fantasy here. I don't even begin to know how to respond beyond this, because we aren't dealing with empirical evidence on something like this. Somehow, you believe that the aspirations of Osama Bin Laden have every likelihood of turning into fact. I don't. Issue II: on the spectrum of acceptable and unacceptable. To say, as you do, that acceptable and unacceptable constitue a binary condition whose further resolution is driven by the alternatives is to say that acceptable and unacceptable aren't a binary condition after all, which is exactly my point. Ask anyone involved in a problematic marriage and you'll learn all you need to know about the many degrees of acceptability and unacceptability that really exist. Issue III: If it makes you feel better, or that you are striking a blow for logic, or something, yes, i'm none too crazy about the status quo in the Middle East. I'm none too crazy about the status quo in many parts of Africa, South America, Asia, Europe, and North America as well. Does that make you feel better? Issue IV: The only thing we do seem to agree about is that at any given moment, the choice of action is based on the alternatives available before us. Given a choice between the status quo in the middle east and an unaffordable march through the middle east, overthrowing every leader and recreating every state while chanting "moral clarity," I will accept the status quo. Fortunately, our choices do not have to be that limited. Issue V: To take us back to the original point, if I did believe that marching through the Middle East, overthrowing every leader and recreating every state while chanting "moral clarity" did make sense, i would want to do so with every ally i could muster (hell, we even found it within ourselves to ally with the soviet union against the nazis). And if no one wanted to be our ally for such an adventure, i would at least be willing to consider the possibility that maybe i'm the crazy one. Posted by: howard at September 26, 2003 01:19 PM | PERMALINKWell unless one is willing to take steps to end the status quo, the status quo is tolerable. There is no middle ground. You may detest your spouse with every fiber of your being, but as long as you don't seek a divorce, it is logically unavoidable that you find your marriage tolerable. As I said, we view the status quo ante differently, which is why you
find the status quo ante tolerable. Motivated people with access to
sufficient resources are usually, given sufficient time, able to obtain
the technology they desire to possess. Al Queda, and other associated
entities certainly possess a high degree of motivation, and as long as
the Middle East in governed by those who wish to lend support to such
murderous entities, for a variety of reasons, it is likely that those
murderous entities will have the resources by which to eventually obtain
the technology they desire to execute their murderous designs. When
they do ( and such a raving right winger as Warren Buffett, whose
primary business is risk assessment, has stated that a nuclear attack on
American soil is a near certainty), I assure you, all voices of
moderation will be swept away, and a slaughter will ensue, the likes the
world has never before witnessed. I find such a state of affairs to be
intolerable, therefore I support taking large risks to rapidly end that
state of affairs, with the intention of seperating those murderous
entities from the region's mineral wealth, thus greatly reducing the
risk. As stated above, the people of the region, when given the option,
may choose to continue to support those entities. If so, what I fear
most will happen anyway. It is essential, however, that those people be
afforded a choice. Will, just to try and bring this to closure, i guess we're going to have to say that as far as i can tell, there is no practical difference whatsoever between your definition and mine of tolerable and intolerable - people find ways of coping with situations until they can't. They describe these variations with a handy part of speech called an adverb, the use of which helps provide a nuance that you seem to accept in practice but deny in theory. Now, the threat of atomic weaponry (i think maybe we've gotten to your bottom line). I think a war of annihilation directed at the despotic and/or dictatorial states of the middle east is a great way to increase the likelihood of a terrorist atomic weapon attack on the u.s. and therefore i reject it as a policy choice (i seem to recall that you are a baseball fan, will, so let me use the analogy of why sacrifice bunts with a man on first and none out is a poor choice: because the stats show that you are more likely to score a run with a runner on first and none out than to score a run with a runner on second and one out. In short, it worsens the situation. of course, the hippocratic oath long ago would have pointed this out). buffett did make a correct insurance judgement: the chances are high that someone, at some moment, will be able to smuggle an atomic device into america and explode it. But what he did not do was suggest that it would be a middle eastern terrorist who would do it, what he did not suggest was a full-scale invasion of the middle east, remaking governments (you want to call them revolutions? go ahead, be my guest, what do i care?) on the way, and what he certainly doesn't believe is that the way to limit the threat of nuclear weapons proliferation is through an aggressively unilateral series of pre-emptive invasions and regime changes. (We might also note that there is no specialty in terrorism either in the middle east or in undemocratic countries, as terrorist experiences in america, japan, and western europe should make clear.) Churchill, by the way, was a well-read, well-informed man who would never have confused the threat of al qaeda with the threat of the nazis. Posted by: howard at September 26, 2003 04:39 PM | PERMALINKhoward, you have erected a series of strawmen here. I am not advocating a war of annihilation, I am predicting it will happen when a nuclear device is detonated on American soil. I seek to avoid such a war, which is why I wish to see the most dangerous entities (defined by previously demonstrating a willingness and ability to slaughter in massive numbers) seperated from the resources required to achieve those ends. The only way to do that is to effect rapid, revolutionary, change in the middle east, for lacking such change the murderous entities will continue to have the resources required. The second strawman erected is where you assert that I have proposed a series of pre-emptive invasions. I did no such thing. I supported one invasion. It is ironic that so many from your position accuse the opposing side of a lack of nuance, when it is people from your position that most often assume that if Iraq is changed by pre-emptive invasion, it logically follows that the same tactic is to be employed against other states. Also, I already have stated that the populations of the middle east, if given the opportunity to govern themselves may choose to throw their lot in with their most murderous elements, in which case a slaughter will ensue. If a people desire war, then they will get war. We won't know until they are given the opportunity to choose, will we? Finally, you haven't the slightest notion as to how Churchill would have viewed this situation, and it is a particularly useless form of argument to pretend otherwise. Churchill did not live in an age when the technology of destruction was on the verge of being so ubiquitous that a small, well funded, group of people,without an industrial base,had within their grasp the ability to slaughter millions. We do. Posted by: Will Allen at September 26, 2003 05:41 PM | PERMALINKonline casinos | casino bonus | casino directory | high roller casinos | casinos Posted by: doi at May 23, 2004 10:45 AM | PERMALINKAdult Upskirt - Amateur Freedom - Amateur University - Anal Passions - First Time Auditions - - Boy Toy Live - Teen Boyz 2000 - Horny Homemaker - Black Foxes - Teen Tempationz - Slam That Ass - Bad Girls Club - Balloon Bang Posted by: Free xxx galleries at June 22, 2004 12:05 AM | PERMALINKAll Internal - Ass Traffic - Midwest Mandy - Interracial Action - Hot Latina Girls - The Big Swallow - Barefoot Confidential - Vanilla Teens Black Cream - Old Sexy Sluts - Lingerie Hotties - Fresh Teen Panties - First Time Fellas - shemale sex pics - older women sex Posted by: please bang my wife at June 30, 2004 09:07 AM | PERMALINK
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