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October 31, 2003 A PECULIAR KIND OF DISAGREEMENT....Armed Liberal disagrees with the post just below this one. Go read his response and then come back. Here's the funny thing: aside from rhetorical emphasis and some details here and there, it doesn't look to me like we disagree much at all. We both agree we're not in a war of civilizations (although he adds "yet"), we both have some problems with how Bush has handled things, we both think we need to stick it out in Iraq and Afghanistan, we need to reduce our dependence on Mideast oil, etc. etc. I'd argue a few points here and there, but probably nothing really major. So where's the disagreement? What's more, aside from his third point, which is a good idea but would be suicidal for a Democratic candidate to endorse, his platform sounds an awful lot like Wesley Clark's to me. Via email, AL says it was mostly the tone of the post he disliked — I think maybe I used a code word that I wasn't aware of. Frankly, though, the general tone that Michael and Roger and other posters at Winds of Change use regularly is so dismissive and condescending that I'm not really sure what they expect from the rest of us. Comments? Posted by Kevin Drum at October 31, 2003 09:26 PM | TrackBackComments
As far as I can tell, Armed Liberal's beef with you is that he thinks Al Qaeda/Saddam Hussein/Islamofacists are themselves engaged in a 'clash of civilizations' with the U.S. and that we need to recognize this and not hesitate to use force against them. So I guess he thinks you're not taking the threat against us seriously enough, and you think he's taking it too seriously. Just my two cents worth as an innocent bystander being asked to volunteer an opinion. Carry on... Posted by: David W. at October 31, 2003 09:58 PM | PERMALINKI too agree signing on to point three would amount to political sucicide. I too think the settlement policy is bad for Israel and its neighbors. I disagree with Armed Liberal when it comes to the legality of the settlements. Since the West Bank was acquired in the defensive 6 Days War the WB is Israels land legitimatly. The settlements may be counterproductive but they are certainly not illegal. Posted by: Drew at October 31, 2003 10:01 PM | PERMALINKAnd now for Kevin D's enjoyment, here's a biologist's take on the animal blogging thingy: Frogblogging - PZ Meyers http://pharyngula.org/comments/121_0_1_0_C/ Posted by: David W. at October 31, 2003 10:07 PM | PERMALINKHey Kevin, I thought you and the rest of the "I'm a Liberal but"(s) on this site might appreciate reading this recent interview with Satan. Posted by: David Ehrenstein at October 31, 2003 10:11 PM | PERMALINKAs a moderate Republican who voted once for a Democratic presidental candidate, let me mention one thing that (too) a few democrats are beginning to realize: while Kevin and AL might agree on a set of principles -- --NOT MANY OTHER DEMOCRATS WILL SIGN ON TO THE POINTS AL MADE. Except for number 3, of course, as the left pomo liberal crowd wants all the settlements torn down immediately. Kevin himself admits that most of his commenters are more liberal than he is, and I'm betting most of them in the end wouldn't sign on to AL's points (and yes, I looked at all 211 comments in the previous thread). Come primary election day, boys and girls, few of you will vote for the one Democratic presidential candidate who embodies AL's points -- Joe Lieberman. You'll go off with Dean or Clark, and come November Bush will get 61% of the vote and 400 electoral college votes. Then you'll complain about how the Republicans stole this one too and how the masses wouldn't listen to you. Apparently Kevin gets it -- the Democrats need a candidate who can win in November, and to win said candidate pretty much has to be thinking along the same lines as AL's points. But that Democrat can't win the primaries as long as the activist Democrats refuse to face facts. Like it or not, Karl Rove is going to tie y'all to the A.N.S.W.E.R. crowd (you'd do the same if the tables were turned). Democrats need to take steps NOW to ensure that won't work if they want to win in November, and that means articulating a clear long-term plan on security, reconstruction and terrorism. AL offers you a starting point. Posted by: Steve White at October 31, 2003 10:12 PM | PERMALINKDrew, I don't know what AL's take is on the legality of the settlements in general, but I don't think that's what he was talking about. Here is precisely what he said (and this is his "third point" that Kevin referred to): Third, we're going to stop Israel from building new settlements and push them to dismantle existing illegal ones; What AL is describing as illegal are the "outposts," as they're known in Israel. Namely, proto-settlements that are built without the Israeli government's approval, and are thus illegal even under Israeli law. Posted by: Haggai at October 31, 2003 10:14 PM | PERMALINK"Since the West Bank was acquired in the defensive 6 Days War the WB is Israels land legitimatly" And just which international law declares that? Putting aside the debateble notion that the 6 day war was defensive, the Geneva Convention seems quite clear to me, no nation may transfer part of its population into a conquered territory. Posted by: Justinfralook at October 31, 2003 10:16 PM | PERMALINKHaggai- if Al is descriping those "outposts" not authorized by the israeli government I stand corrected. Steve- There is a lot of time between now and the election. Plenty of time for the Democratic canidate to get his Iraq alternative position out. Posted by: Drew at October 31, 2003 10:20 PM | PERMALINKPutting aside the debateble notion that the 6 day war was defensive, the Geneva Convention seems quite clear to me, no nation may transfer part of its population into a conquered territory. The Geneva conventions do prohibit moving population on to "conquered" terriory. The real key here is the word "conquered" if Israel had aquired the WB in a war of aggression the WB would be a conquered territory. Egypt and Syria were readying to attack israel in 1967 so Israel preempted making it a defensive war. Since Israel isn't forcing their citizens to move on to the WB settlements they are not in violation. Posted by: Drew at October 31, 2003 10:27 PM | PERMALINKDrew, I'm afraid I have to disagree with pretty much everything you say there ;) The Geneva Convention does not mention either wars of aggression or forcing any part of its population to transfer. In addition, the west bank was being occupied by Jordan at that time, not Egypt and not Syria. Posted by: Justinfralook at October 31, 2003 10:37 PM | PERMALINKDrew, I suspect that we have a similar view of the settlements in general (not all illegal, but mostly stupid), but this has never been the view of governments around the world, which have always held that they're illegal. Since 1967, Israel has consistently contested the almost universally held view that the settlements are illegal, and simply failed to convince anybody outside the US (which has also usually described them as illegal). On yet another hand, a final agreement that resulted in Israeli annexation of the settlements that are right near the 1967 boundaries, which don't really encompass any concentrated Palestinian population areas, would almost certainly be supported by most of the international community. Almost all accounts of the 2000 Camp David conference reveal that the Palestinians had at least resigned themselves to having to accept that point in principle, so a strict argument about legality or illegality is not even all that relevant to how the issue might be resolved. Posted by: Haggai at October 31, 2003 10:38 PM | PERMALINKJustin, I have to sort of play both sides of the argument here--Jordanian sovereignty over the West Bank between 1948 and 1967 was never recognized internationally. Not even the other Arab states recognized it (only the UK and Pakistan did, for reasons which I'm not sure of). Posted by: Haggai at October 31, 2003 10:40 PM | PERMALINKI say that's Big, Big, Talk from somebody who seems to believe that the U.S.A. will, by rights and resolve, have the last word in whatever fight we might happen to find ourselves in. Ther was once a ex-British Prime Minister, who, (in 1778), having
been kicked upstairs to the the House Of Lords, adressed Parliament with
these words: "My lords, if I were an American as Hagai, I agree with you about Jordan's occupation of the west bank, I don't think they had any more right to it than anyone else, but I don't see how that makes Israel's building of settlements there any less illegal. Posted by: Justinfralook at October 31, 2003 10:47 PM | PERMALINKas i posted over there: some semantic quibbles w/ AL: Terrorism is a tactic, not a movement. politics by other means. if you were an Islamic Fundamentalist, you'd quickly come to the realization that terrorism was your only hope of defeating the west militarily. Terrorism works. The answer is modernization. Crush the Fundamentalists under the wheels of progress. As far as I can tell, their is no Great Fundamentalist Islamic civilization for us to clash with. They aren't a civilization, just a bunch of wackos. They don't threaten our way of life the way communism did, because they don't represent a competing economic system. There's no danger that they're going to win converts in the United States. They threaten our safety, but not democratic capitalism itself. Moreover, it's a battle within the Muslim world, and not with us per se. Because we're only sticking our noses in there ----- But they're sort of platitudinous, if you ask me. Self-evident. It's the how, not the what that people are really battling over. As for Israel, I don't understand why all violence needs to stop for
any political progress can be made. People are dying now anyway, so you
might as well plow ahead. Btw, Kevin, Bush policy, at least on paper, is
that settlements need to go. Really Really OT: The Mighty Mighty Reason Man has a brilliant parody of the Corner over on his blog. Posted by: Drew at October 31, 2003 10:52 PM | PERMALINKThe settlements are legal because the WB was aquired in a defensive war! Israel was going to be attacked by Syria and Egypt. Egypt had already blocked the straits of Titian, etc. Since '48 the WB was in transition because the Arabs refused to accept the partition after WWII, in '67 the WB was under the control of Jordan. Jordan had a defensive pact with Egypt and Syria. Posted by: Drew at October 31, 2003 11:04 PM | PERMALINK"I have to sort of play both sides of the argument here--Jordanian sovereignty over the West Bank between 1948 and 1967 was never recognized internationally." Who was sovereign over the West Bank during that period? Posted by: Sebastian Holsclaw at November 1, 2003 12:40 AM | PERMALINKCouple of points: 1. We ARE in a clash of civilisations, but it's a clash that requires carefully identifying progressive elements of Islamic society and supporting them in their efforts to modernise and bring gender relations out of the 12th century, rather than violently remaking societies as outsiders, or overtly or covertly subverting governments as the principal agents of the subversion. I agree with praktike that much of the animus towards the US has to do with our endless need to interfere in their lives. Meanwhile, the effort to support change in the Islamic world cannot be left predominantly to multi-nationals, as it has been in other parts of the world, because rightly or wrongly (probably rightly) this causes the export of democracy to be seen as mere profiteering - really the export of unlevel playing fields. As far as the terrorists are concerned, after the big hit to al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, it's about policework and building international cooperation on rooting them out. No Islamic state is going to attack the US directly in the forseeable future - us directly attacking them is costly and questionably effective (as per Rumsfeld's memo). A policy of containing and isolating the ones who have ties with terrorist groups is the way to go. And you have to categorise state support of terrorism. Support at the highest levels, ie the Taliban, is pretty simple to deal with. But then there are states who have elements within the government supporting terrorists, like Pakistan; you've got states with wealthy private citizens supporting terrorists, like Saudi Arabia; you've got a state like Iran where there seems to be a major schism in relations with the US and support for terrorists. All need to be dealt with, but in ways that address their particular circumstances. 2. I don't quite get Armed Liberal's pronouncements that "we're going to stop Israel from building new settlements and push them to dismantle existing illegal ones" and "we will make sure that the power of the warlords is checked" in Afghanistan. This sounds like really wishful thinking, not actual predictions of what has any likelihood of happening. Many commenters have pointed out the unlikeliness of the settlement prediction; I'd just point out that with poppy cultivation once again on the rise in Afghanistan, the warlords are already far stronger than they were under the Taliban. 3. Probably the most important point, vis-a-vis this thread - it's not that I disagree with what Armed Liberal and Bush supporters say needs to be done in occupied Iraq, Afghanistan and in terms of terrorism ... it's that I really don't believe Dubya and crew are going to do these things. That's my big problem with the $86 billion to Iraq - not that we shouldn't be fully committed to rebuilding the country having decided (against my wishes) to topple Saddam. Rather that I'm worried a lot of that money is going to line the pockets of Halliburton and the like. The Right these days are masters at framing these debates in such a way that it's their flawed way or you're a blame-America-firsting, soft on terrorism, intellectually dishonest, liberal traitor. Fuck that. Posted by: Damon at November 1, 2003 01:17 AM | PERMALINKYes, the right has done a fine job of pigeonholing us into supposedly believing stuff we don't, and of leaving their flawed, corrupt plan or nothing as a choice. That's the 87 billion to Iraq. Give billions to wasteful, corrupt corporations or don't support the troops. What a choice. I actually do agree with Armed Liberal that we aren't in a war of civilizations yet but we very well could be in the future. I don't agree with all of his points. For example: just how will we turn Iraq into the democratic leader of the Middle East? This thing has so many ways to go very bad for us that it's difficult to see how we get to that bright, sunny future for the democratic Iraq. Perhaps if we're there for the next 20-50 years we can make it happen, but we don't have the stomach for troops dying that long for this purpose. My biggest problem with the invasion of Iraq is that we didn't finish Afghanistan first. Finishing bin Laden and al Quaeda was the first and foremost threat to us, North Korea a close second, and somewhere around 4th or 5th place was Iraq. Something we'd likely to have had to deal with, but not before we finished the first phase of the war on terror in Afghanistan. We've put ourselves in a position where we're barely better off than the Russians were there thanks to having to send half our armed forces to Iraq on what was a war of choice, and a badly timed one. Yes, we're too dependent on oil, and Middle East oil. Nobody wants to do the things to change that; we aren't going to go on a massive conservation kick, we aren't going to promote nuclear power (too bad, that), we aren't going to put enough emphasis on hydrogen production to do anything within 20 years, wind power is a small scale thing we can do but not enough, ditto for solar, biomass, etc. Clean coal is an oxymoron, but because of everything I've just said we're stuck with it (too bad, that). Armed Liberal goes off into LSD land talking about what we're going to stop Isreal from doing. Nothing is what we're going to stop Isreal from doing, unless it wants to stop doing such a thing itself. Our aid is all we have as a stick, and that aid is veto-proof from both houses of congress. So good luck with that idea. We definitely need to expand the military to meet the types of wars and committments the administration has forced us into. But we need peacekeepers, translators, military police, civil affairs, and reconstruction troops rather than more fighting men. A separate branch would be better to do this than to add this mission to the Army, but adding a division or two is likely the best thing we'll get to do. A.L's fifth idea about dealing with Arab countries is a good one, but this will not be a fruitful discussion. We don't have anything but military force to hold over them, and we wont be doing anymore wars of choice at the least until we're done with Iraq and Afghanistan, and everybody knows it. Agreed that the sixth point sounds more like Dilbert than an actual policy that will help hold off the war between civilizations. However, my best guess is we screw this whole thing up big time and 20 years from now (or less) we *are* in a war of civilizations. Not sure why people over at the other blog think Clark would be some spineless jellyfish unable to defend America or something. Sounds to me he'd know better what we can do and what we can't than Prince George has. Posted by: Norman at November 1, 2003 02:13 AM | PERMALINK"Come primary election day, boys and girls, few of you will vote for the one Democratic presidential candidate who embodies AL's points -- Joe Lieberman. You'll go off with Dean or Clark, and come November Bush will get 61% of the vote and 400 electoral college votes. Then you'll complain about how the Republicans stole this one too and how the masses wouldn't listen to you." Hey Drew, come back and talk to us about 6 months from now, when Bush decides that "the war of civilizations" is affecting his poll ratings adversely, and decides to declare victory and pull out of Iraq prematurely. Try really hard to tell me why Bush is so serious about this war when he inconviently forgets to fund the war in Afghanistan for fiscal 2003, for crying out loud. Come back in six months and tell me why Bush is so serious about this war that he picked the wrong fucking enemy. If he were serious about this war, we would still be chasing down Al Queda in Afghanistan and Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, instead of setting up a war in Iraq to make the investment in Halliburton viable. Payback is a bitch, and right now our entire nation is paying off Cheney's debt to his real employer. I have not seen heard or read anything to indicate that Clark or Dean are not serious about our current middle east conflict. But I have seen plenty of evidence to suggest that our current admininstration is more interested in validating its worldview than in protecting our civilization. Posted by: Another Bruce at November 1, 2003 02:49 AM | PERMALINKSounds to me he'd know better what we can do and what we can't than Prince George has #1 in his class at West Point, 1966, degree in History. But I think ideas can come from anywhere, the chief executive's job is decision-making and presentation. Two of W's strong suits, that. Steve:After the massive education campaign launched next fall, informing people that no, the war in Iraq had nothing at all to do with stopping terrorism, it'll be the Dem candidate that gets 60% of the vote. Homeland security is a function, that regardless of what the media or some weak-hearted bloggers say, Democrats do a WHOLE lot better on. I, like most others on the left, was willing to give Bush a "2nd chance", after 9/11. What he did, was basically almost worthless. Because of that, I believe that his pre 9/11 record on terrorism is essential....which is basically call it "Clintonesque" in private and surpress all the information, just so you can get your missle defense on. If the Dem candidate knows what they are doing...and Clark and especially Dean does..(I don't think anybody has noticed but Dean has the fastest rapid response team of all the candidates...which surprised me a lot)..then that point will be pushed long and hard. "Terrorism" is not a winning issue for the GOP in 2004. Posted by: Karmakin at November 1, 2003 03:42 AM | PERMALINKIf you want to understand Armed Liberal's positions, a good starting point is to note that he's not a big fan of liberals. His leftmost boundary of acceptability seems to be to the right of most liberals. When somebody talks about a Democratic candidate having to meet a list of points to cause him to choose the Democrat over Bush, that somebody is not a liberal. He does have a hankering for some better leadership than Bush, but there's a lot of Republicans who do, also.
We're not going to fight much of a ground war in Afghanistan, because the American people aren't committed to it, and because that would play strongly into Al Qaida/the Taliban's strengths. We'll muck about with a few projects, point to selected aspects of the two largest cities, pay the warlords to take down their 'I love OBL' signs, and that's about it. We're not going to turn Iraq into a democracy, or even a semi-liberal, progressive islamic state. Right now the administration's 'best case' scenario is probably to pull out over the next year, install some puppets, and hope that things hold on through November '04. Israel will demolish a few selected outposts of settlements, for photo ops, while building others. And while constructing a wall which seizes Palestinian land and calls that land 'Israeli'. Settlements, with a new name. If the US were to cut aid to Israel somewhat, that'd be a new era in US politics. Everybody here has seen many, many 'libertarians' who spend most of their time bashing leftward, despite talk about libertarians being a 'third way', or not being on the 'left-right axis'. After a few years, I figured out that 90% of these guys were Republicans, using libertarianism as a false flag. Armed Liberal is merely a new twist on that. Posted by: Barry at November 1, 2003 05:00 AM | PERMALINKI'm with Damon, Norman, and Bruce (If I'm remembering their names correctly). I'm sick and tired of hearing how Democrats who don't toe the bush/lieberman line "don't get it" or "don't have a plan". Nothing armed liberal has said is anything that every democrat I've ever talked to has said. Most people think we should have finished the work in afghanistan before starting or Iraq. Most people, when looking at what is going on in iraq think it would be nice if we could stay and fix things but doubt that Bush and his corrupt cronies can do it, and aren't sure that *anyone* can do it when the heisenberg uncertanity principle of military intervention takes over: ie that the longer y ou occupy a country the angrier it gets. Most people I know are against allowing Israel to use illegal settlements to destroy the very possibility of a workable palestinian homeland (and by the way, AL, you will find yourself accused of being some kind of "pomo leftist ANSWER shill" for even advocating something that mild so watch the way you sling those slurs). Anyone who thinks, given his three year record, that Bush and Co--or lieberman--can do the things they are promising to do is just ignoring history and buying the parody of political discourse that we have today. So, yeah, don't blame me if the educated, angry, thoughtful democrats vote for clark or dean on the grounds that 1) they are intelligent, 2) they are non-ideologically driven, 3) they haven't yet been bought, 4) they have lots of ideas about the future and 5) they have a clean slate with the rest of the world that hates us so may be able to reframe the debate and begin international diplomacy again. That is our *only option* at this point. ANything else is voting for a status quo that has been shown already not to work and, frankly, is playing into the hands of the minority of muslims we call the terrorists. They are having a field day in Iraq and Afghanistan thanks to one George (I've got a really, really big stick) Bush.--aimai Posted by: aimai at November 1, 2003 05:02 AM | PERMALINKIt is not a clash of civilizations but the US and Israel against the rest of the world. Posted by: BillM at November 1, 2003 05:02 AM | PERMALINKIt is not a clash of civilizations but the US and Israel against the rest of the world. I'm sure the UK and Australia, who are providing troops in Iraq, and the NATO countries who are providing troops in Afghanistan, would much appreciate your definition. So you think that the British and Australian forces in Iraq are there fighting against the US? You are either mad or very, very ignorant. Posted by: Jesurgislac at November 1, 2003 05:10 AM | PERMALINKOr conscious of the fact that the US supplied/supplies/will supply the overwhelming majority of forces, and that neither Australia nor the UK would have invaded Iraq except as supporters of the US. Afghanistan, is, of course, different - you have obviously forgotten 9/11. Posted by: Barry at November 1, 2003 05:14 AM | PERMALINKJesurgislac: Australia has pulled all it's forces out of Iraq, and polls show British popular opinion is strongly against the war. Do you know of any poll that shows a majority in any country supports the U.S. position? What I don't understand is how anyone can think that Bush is doing a good job on anything / that a Dem would be worse. "Operation Ignore" anyone? Franken? Krugman? Afganistan these days? What am I missing? Posted by: MattB at November 1, 2003 05:37 AM | PERMALINKPS: This story really concerned me. It talks of how members of the Judiciary Committe are going to the 6th circuit looking at Democratic appointed judges. We will be on the brink of a Constiutional crisis if they keep this up. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48920-2003Oct31.html Posted by: Sean at November 1, 2003 05:49 AM | PERMALINKBarry wrote: Or conscious of the fact that the US supplied/supplies/will supply the overwhelming majority of forces, and that neither Australia nor the UK would have invaded Iraq except as supporters of the US. So you agree that BillM is mad or ignorant to claim that this is "the US and Israel against the rest of the world"? Because if it were, presumably there would be only US and Israeli troops in Iraq. Karlsfini: Do you know of any poll that shows a majority in any country supports the U.S. position? So you think that BillM is mad or ignorant too - except you think it's not just that the US isn't receiving support from other countries - we're just imagining the NATO troops in Afghanistan and the British troops in Iraq - but that not even Israel supports the US - it's the US alone against the rest of the world? Guys, this is madness. It's easy to prove that it's not in any way whatsoever "the US and Israel against the rest of the world" - BillM made a nutty statement and I never expected anyone to try and save him. Except maybe Carol in California, because she's mad/ignorant too... Posted by: Jesurgislac at November 1, 2003 05:49 AM | PERMALINKI know of the latest poll in the EU where 60% think Israel is the biggest threat to world peace. An informed citizenry what a contrast to the US Posted by: BillM at November 1, 2003 05:50 AM | PERMALINKOr even the 144 to 4 vote in the UN against the latest wall in Israel. I am sure Figi and Tonga were voting on the US/Israeli side. Posted by: BillM at November 1, 2003 05:54 AM | PERMALINKOkay, BillM: I'm convinced. It wasn't random nuttiness that anyone might be guilty of: you are truly, weirdly, determinedly mad. I'll put you on the shelf with Carol in California. Posted by: Jesurgislac at November 1, 2003 06:05 AM | PERMALINKWhat have I said that is untrue or even approaching madness. Facts are Facts. Please argue on that basis. I suppose it also was only an illusion that the Australian PM was rebuked by his own parliment for lying about the Iraq war. Posted by: BillM at November 1, 2003 06:18 AM | PERMALINK"Because if it were, presumably there would be only US and Israeli troops in Iraq." I hadn't heard that Israeli troops were in Iraq. But other than British troops, the only non-americans in Iraq are modern day Hessians. Posted by: raj at November 1, 2003 06:18 AM | PERMALINKI stopped reading Armed Liberal many months ago, but at that time he was already very close to the clash of civilizations point of view. Around 1990 when the USSR disintigrated there was a flurry of "Who is our next enemy?" opeds from panicky people connected with the military and the intelligence services. The nominees were Islamic fundamentalism, drug lords, and (believe it or not) "ecoterrorists". The possibility of what used to be called "demobilization" after the enemy was defeated was not considered in these op-eds. The tone was, "We have a big military/intelligence establishment; what do we do with it?" The "Islamofascists" won. Up until 9/11 a lot of the same people pushing the clash of civilizations now were playing footsie with Saddam and the Islamic fundamentalists (not only in Afghanistan). I'm an "out" paranoid conspiracy theorist, and you have to wonder whether we weren't just jockeying the suckers into position. The Saudis, the Bin Ladens, and the Afghani Arabs certainly have longstanding close connections to the U.S. And Bin Laden did Bush and the military establishment an enormous favor by allowing them to present their plans as defensive. Everything we're doing now would make more sense if it were defended as an optional, aggressive, imperialist war. (I even called it "proactive" for awhile as a neutral form of "aggressive", just to try to sneak the idea past people). But aggressive war can't be justified in world opinion, U.S. opinion, or international law, so the fog machine is at work full time. One consequence of this is also that the whole debate in the US is confused by the fact that many of the defenders of the Bush-PNAC project know pretty well that the arguments being used publically are not valid, though they're still confident that their *real* arguments are valid. But at the popular level of semi-informed and uninformed public opinion we end up with a lot of hysterical, maddeningly unintelligible, prowar arguments which are not anchored on any actual facts to speak of.
Shorter Zizka: The "clash of civilizations" is just another excuse for a continuation for a government program long beyond the point at which its time has passed. I agree wholeheartedly. And Nato's time has passed, too. One thing that I have never seen mentioned (other than when I mention it) is the fact that Clinton effectively turned Nato from a defensive alliance (defending against the East Block) into an offensive one (in the Balkans) without any re-consideration for the treaty that established Nato. That made clear that Nato was just another government operation looking for a new mission after its old one had passed into history. Posted by: raj at November 1, 2003 06:41 AM | PERMALINKI have to sort of play both sides of the argument here--Jordanian sovereignty over the West Bank between 1948 and 1967 was never recognized internationally." Who was sovereign over the West Bank during that period? In effect, Jordan basically was, but the last sovereign that was recognized by most of the world was the British Mandate over Palestine! Similar to what I mentioned above about the settlements, this is more of a purely legalistic point, since obviously no one ever suggested that the conflict might be resolved by having the British come back in. And Israel's semi-official policy, until the Oslo agreement, was to try to have some of the West Bank become part of Jordan. But as far as who was officially recognized by the world as being sovereign over that territory, there really wasn't anyone since the British Mandate. This does have a bit of significance when contrasted with the Sinai Peninsula, where Egypt got 100% of it back in the Camp David Accords. The difference is that everyone around the world had recognized the Sinai as Egyptian territory before 1967, while the status of the West Bank and Gaza was not so clear cut. Posted by: Haggai at November 1, 2003 07:05 AM | PERMALINKBreaking news: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3233601.stm US to speed up Iraq power transfer - (BBC News) The chief US administrator in Iraq has said he wants to accelerate the handover of authority to Iraqis. Paul Bremer told a news conference in Baghdad he wanted to give Iraqis a "path and a timeline" for the transfer of power from the US-led coalition. He also said the coalition would double the size of the Iraqi Civil Defence Force by next March and accelerate the training of Iraqi soldiers and police. Mr Bremer said he believed Saddam Hussein was still alive and in Iraq. There has been an increase in the number of attacks on US-led troops
in Iraq recently but Mr Bremer said he had no clear indication that
Saddam Hussein was behind them. ... "First, we're not going anywhere in Afghanistan or Iraq until we're done. Afghanistan will not turn into Vermont any time soon, but we will make sure that the power of the warlords is checked, and that it doesn't collapse again. Iraq could be the leader of the Middle east, and we intend to help build it into that;" Both worthy aims with little support here. "Second, we're too dependent on ME oil. We're going to do something about it, both by pushing conservation, expanding alternative energy, and expanding exploration. We're going to build the damn windmills off of Cape Cod;" Most important here is getting realistic on nuclear energy. It is the natural choice for electricity except where geography allows hydropower, as in Washington State. Until liberals accept that, they cannot be considered serious on alternatives to oil. Natural gas is the natural choice for home heating and the price spikes last year are due to the diversion of this resource to electricity generation by a PC-influenced political class.
The Palestinians had their chance in 2000 and blew it because the "Tunisians", what they called Arafat and his cronies after Oslo, have no idea how to run a country. The Wall, if done close to the '67 borders might help but it looks like the pro-settlement segment of the Knesset is winning.
The Army may be too hidebound (see the Kaplan article in Slate) to do this. It may be that the expansion should be of the Marines who really do have a plan for counter-insurgency. They lost no troops after the major combat ops ended.
The Saudis are not our allies and we have to get realistic about their support of radical madrassas in other countries. That is what Rumsfeld was talking about in his memo. "Sixth, we're going to develop security mechanisms based on the theory that fine-grained systems that bring information and communications to the existing public safety community, as well as the public at large are better than huge, centralized bureaucratic solutions;" Government exists to build bureaucracies. I don't know how realistic this is. Airport security is still crummy and unnecessarily clumsy. These are good ideas but the comments above suggest that many are unwilling to debate the details and go off instead on fantasies of Halliburton profits and conspiracies. That may make you fell better but won't win wars or elections. Posted by: Mike K at November 1, 2003 07:51 AM | PERMALINKMy guess is the "cool aid" and "sucker" language ticked somebody off...can't imagine why. Posted by: spc67 at November 1, 2003 08:09 AM | PERMALINK"Most important here is getting realistic on nuclear energy." Realistic? As in what is apparently your view of what is realistic? The chances of that happening are fairly slim until some resolution of what to do, not only with nuclear waste products, but also with radioactive parts from decommissioned nuclear power plants, has been addressed. And Nevada is not the solution. Frankly, the best thing is solar, and THAT hasn't even been developed to the point that it is really practical. Posted by: raj at November 1, 2003 08:09 AM | PERMALINKThe code word is "war of civilizations" and you are way out of line. The people who use it never define it, which is why it's a code. The current usage goes back to a guy at Harvard named Samuel Huntington. There's an appreciation of him by Robert Kaplan somewhere. An earlier meme is "Western Civilization" as an introductory college course, which grew up after WW II. The Harvards had a good text for this, which used to be in most public libraries. It included everything from Fifth Century Athens to the Enlightenment, with some engraftments of Christianity and Judaism. Before that, it had a restricted meaning in English, as in the title of the famous "Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy" by an art critic circa 1890. In that meaning, it's purely descriptive and nothing that anyone would fight for. There's another strain that goes back to a wonderfully nutty tome "The Decline of the West" by Ostwald Spengler. In his viewm, there have only been a handfull of civilizations and they go through stages of a life cycle like a plant flowering or an embryo developing. The book has fold-out charts with elaborate parallels and manifestations of the driving spirit of the culture in various art forms, political movements and stuff. It's high German Idealism, which means baroque bullshit. A later effort is the multivolume study by a guy named Toynbee. It's more in the Anglo intellectual tradition of facts before theories, but he emphasized the importance of a religion for organizing a culture. For scholars like Spengler and Toynbee, there was a real clash of cultures between AD 800 and 1600 involving By comparison, current militant Islamism is small stuff. They have no original technology and no new religious or political message. Compare with Marxism, which attracted some smart people to the theory and took over two of the world's largest countries for 70 years, during much of which it was highly expansionary and looked like the wave of the future. I'm not sure how the neocon use of the term "war of civilizations" fits in, but the agenda associated with it seems to be that we conquor several or all Muslim countries (Clark was shown a list of 7), establish separation of religion and state under friendly governments and otherwise promote "our values". Since there happen to be a lot of Muslim countries, this means that all the spare resources and attention of the US will go into this project for the next few decades. Posted by: Roger Bigod at November 1, 2003 08:39 AM | PERMALINKAnd Bin Laden did Bush and the military establishment an enormous favor by allowing them to present their plans as defensive. As Bush has done them an enormous favor being their poster child for recruitment, for garnering at least secret sympathy throughout the Muslim world, and for fueling digust at America's leadership throughout the world at large. Posted by: ducktape at November 1, 2003 08:42 AM | PERMALINKQuestion for the brain trust: Who are these people? (Simon, Totten, Armed Liberal). I'm aware that their blogs exist, although I don't read them, but are they actually fellas in the know or just more cubicle dwellers with a website and an opinion? Genuine question. Posted by: seanoshaughnessy at November 1, 2003 08:57 AM | PERMALINKA lot of you are having trouble with with this one from the Armed Liberal: "A real war of civilizations, as I have pointed out over and over again, only has one result. We'll be here, they won't." Let me enlighten you. He's talking about about genocide against Arabs and he's not quite sure he's against it. Oh, he's not going to come out and say he's for it, but he "reserves the right" if we can't make the Arabs "see reason". I tried to have a debate with him on this subject last year, after he posted some offensive "jokes" about it ("Daddy, what's an Arab", supposedly uttered after there weren't any) but I gave up when it became clear that he would only twist my words into what he wanted me to say. I'd have to have my own blog to take that one on and I don't have that much time. Also I see no one has commented on Roger Simon's comment (first comment in the thread on Armed Liberal) in which Simon lists "separation of church and state" as the main reason for his support of the clash of civilizations. Go tell it to Bush and his faith-based initiatives. Go tell it to General Boykin. Go tell it to Ann Coulter. "We must destroy separation of church and state in order to save it." Kevin, the Armed Liberal and his ilk are not worth worrying about. While I'd hate for Bush to be reelected, the argument boils down to whether we'd be better served by full-throated opposition to Bush or me-tooism. Since the me-tooists don't offer any proof that their strategy would work (how well did it work in 2002, boys?) I must come down on the other side. The worst possible outcome would be to lose in 2004 after having put up no fight. Posted by: Steve Cohen at November 1, 2003 08:58 AM | PERMALINK"War of civilizations", tracing back to Spengler through Huntington and various others, recalls the century-long attempt of the Germans to spread German culture through war. It didn't work. A century ago German scholarship and science was tops in almost every field, and nowadays German scholars write in English. The analogy to Bush isn't exact, but the recourse to military methods is similiar. Leo Strauss had points in common with his colleague Karl Schmitt, the militarist realist who played footsie with the Nazis without quite being one. The inevitability of war is one of the points. And I'm not saying that Bush and Strauss are/were Nazis. But who cares? -- I've already abolished Godwin's law anyway. Posted by: Zizka at November 1, 2003 09:02 AM | PERMALINK"War of civilizations", tracing back to Spengler through Huntington and various others, recalls the century-long attempt of the Germans to spread German culture through war. It didn't work. Before Bismark militarized the Germans, they produced Bach, Gauss and Goethe. They've never come close since. Now the neocons want to create a state of total, permanent war. Posted by: Roger Bigod at November 1, 2003 09:13 AM | PERMALINKSo where's the disagreement? Wow, all the hawks are in fierce agreement. Go figgure. Posted by: johnx at November 1, 2003 09:43 AM | PERMALINKThe comments about dealing with nuclear waste are fair but there are few proposals on practical solutions. Nevada is the solution for the next century when better alternatives may appear. Solar is OK in some areas; I'm considering solar for an alternative to the Gray Davis electricity prices but it's pretty expensive for the average Joe. It's just not practical for vast areas of the country. France seems to be doing well with nuclear electricity. Posted by: Mike K at November 1, 2003 10:09 AM | PERMALINKI think it depends on how you define "war of civilizations." To me, it means two cultures using force to try to refashion the other's culture in their own image. I don't think this is what the USA should be about, but apparently the Neocons have no compunctions there. Iraqis prefer theocracy more than democracy, according to recent polls; we have no right to force them to become a secular democracy, no more than we had a right to force the Vietnamese. Having said that, I think we are perfectly within our rights to criticize their form of government, their religion, and their culture, if we see things that seem unjust to us. But that isn't the same thing as using our army to force changes on them. We should start criticizing the authoritarian governments like Saudi Arabia, and we should criticize Israel as well as the Palestinians for using violence and trying to intimidate the other side. We shouldn't help them militarily. More than anything I think that would stop attacks on the USA. Posted by: DanM at November 1, 2003 10:23 AM | PERMALINKyeah, "kool-aid" and "schtick", while fun to write, will definitely angry up the blood of their intended targets. Substantively, I think the key policy dispute was your statement that "[I] wasn't wildly opposed to invading Iraq". There is a segment of the Disaffected Liberal community which defines "seriousness" on the War On Terror as "unwavering enthusiasm for the Iraq war". I'm not sure AL is completely in this category, but when you read Michael Totten, you get the feeling that the very notion of opposing the Iraq war, or of thinking it was even a close call, is literally incomprehensible to him. It reminds me a little bit like Jonathan Schell "Fate of the Earth" types, who also liked to bully opponents with taunts that they weren't really "serious" about preventing Nuclear War. Posted by: roublen vesseau at November 1, 2003 10:26 AM | PERMALINKQuoting Barry: If you want to understand Armed Liberal's positions, a good starting point is to note that he's not a big fan of liberals. His leftmost boundary of acceptability seems to be to the right of most liberals. When somebody talks about a Democratic candidate having to meet a list of points to cause him to choose the Democrat over Bush, that somebody is not a liberal. He does have a hankering for some better leadership than Bush, but there's a lot of Republicans who do, also. Second, note that he's not firmly grounded in reality [...] Everybody here has seen many, many 'libertarians' who spend most of their time bashing leftward, despite talk about libertarians being a 'third way', or not being on the 'left-right axis'. After a few years, I figured out that 90% of these guys were Republicans, using libertarianism as a false flag. Armed Liberal is merely a new twist on that. There was a time, back during the mid 1980s when I first registered to vote, up to about 1990, where my views were pretty much along the lines of those that AL has today. I was registered as a Democrat, voted for Al Gore in the 1988 Democratic primary, supported the Sierra Club, supported labor unions, but also was an NRA member, was pro-life/anti-abortion, thought we needed stricter controls on immigration, believed Israel could do no wrong, and supported Contra aid and the invasions of Grenada and Panama. On foreign policy I flipped to the antiwar side after 1990 once it became clear to me how reckless and dangerous the Bush Middle East policy was/is, and I'm probably closer to Dennis Kucinich than even Howard Dean on that issue today. I also eventually came around on abortion and immigration. (I never did flip leftward on guns - they're a civil liberties issue.) But I will say that during the late 1980s with my quirks aside, I really was a liberal at least in my own mind, and saw myself as a sincere liberal Democrat. For this reason I'm not about to second-guess Armed Liberal or accuse him of being a stalking horse for the Republicans. How do we know he's not sincerely a liberal, or at least sees himself that way? I do think he and many of the other "Democrats for Bush" are just wrong on U.S. Middle East policy, especially on Iraq, the level of threat posed by Al Quaeda, and whether we are in some kind of "war of civilizations." If we are in fact in a war of civilizations, the U.S. brought that war upon itself because of our past military interventionism in the Middle East, especially Gulf War I. That cycle of violence is precisely what got the U.S. into the quagmire we are in now, and continuing that cycle of violence poses a long-term threat to the existence of this country. Bush and his supporters have walked right into that trap and they are increasing whatever threat there is to the U.S. for that reason. But I don't doubt their sincerity as Democrats or even liberals. Maybe they'll come to see things the way I have, and maybe they won't. You are, however, completely correct in my experience when it comes
to "Libertarians." There are a few important exceptions, such as the
late Murray Rothbard, and Virginia Postrel, but they are rare. The way
you can tell the difference between a sincere Libertarian, and a
"Libertarian" who is just another Republican, is whether they will often
endorse Democrats over Republicans when faced with a choice between
the two. Rothbard supported Adlai Stevenson and Eugene McCarthy for
President, and Postrel urged people to vote Democratic during the 2002
elections because of the cloning issue. But I stopped paying attention
to most of their kind long ago, whose only problem with the Republicans
is that they think the Repubs aren't extreme right enough. I think Steve Cohen got it right by implying that 'war of civilizations' is code for religious war. I think the Left can oftentimes miss or dismiss this because the Left is by and large culturally secular. But it's pretty straightforward; when somone raises the spectre of a war of civilization, they do not mean the West against the East (we're all buddies now, for the most part), they do not mean Syria against the US (we'd destroy them; substitute any tinpot dictatorship for Syria and same answer), or communism and/or socialism against capitalism and/or democracy. None of the above are relevant conflicts any more, at least not on the war of civilization scale. The only war of civilizations left to be had is a religious one, and using the phrase means exactly that. Now, I agree with AL that the bad guys do think that the world is in the throes of just such a war. But it kind of reminds me of the David Koresh syndrome--from the vantage point of his meglomania, Armegeddon was happening around him. In fact, he insured that it did happen around him. But outside the crazy bubble he lived in, the world as we know it went on its merry way. I suspect that will be the case here too, where fundamentalists on both sides of the war of civilization will create a self-fulfilling prophecy of conflict. The only problem now is that the fundamentalists on our side have their finger on the button. And soon enough that may be true on the other side as well. Posted by: ccobb at November 1, 2003 10:39 AM | PERMALINKOk, this is just silly. Let's take point 1) Even Kucinich has not said "let's abandon Iraq." He has said "get the UN in." And who supplies troops to the UN? Who supplies money? Logistical support? Spy sattelite imagry? WE DO! The issue is that an international force would do a BETTER job rebuilding. Especially if we could STOP giving Bechtel and Halliburton sweet heart deals, and 2) Democrats have been pushing for conservation. Dick Cheney thinks it's just a personal virtue. ::shrug:: 3) Israel is a mess. Bush decided to ignore it for a year cause, well, Clinton was so involved. Of course we gotta pressure the Israelies, they have far more power then the PA, so some movement will have to come from them. 4) The neo-cons in charge of the US armed forces aren't interested in building ground forces. They are interested in "next generation" bull. I think it would actually be far better to add a division of "peacekeeper" type troops. Most people with that training are in the gaurd/reserves. But this is the kind of long range strategic thinking that reasonable people will always have small quibbles with. Outside of Kucinich, no Dem wants to cut military spending. 5) Well, gee wiz, wally, you mean propping up dictators isn't always a good thing? None of us peace and love people have ever said anything about that. (Whether we should go after people like, say, Castro, is a whole different story. I would say that our first responsibility is to first do no harm. For example, selling weapons = bad) 6) Reorganizing intelligence... ummm, I really have no, no, no expertise here. But I know of very few Dems who say "abolish the CIA, let's bring in foreign spies and sell em our shit" The disagreements AL has seem to rather small... or with republicans... or with semantics. Semantics seems to be a poor way to decide the leader of our country. Posted by: Dan at November 1, 2003 10:56 AM | PERMALINKAfter three years there are still a number of intelligent liberals who won't hesitate to project their good intentions onto U.S. foreign policy, as if they had the ear of the President. It's shear lunacy. I wish the so-called liberal hawks would address the fact that Bush is in bed with the funders and supporters of Al Qaeda, and far from taking them to task, he has covered for them from September 12 onward. Posted by: Boronx at November 1, 2003 11:19 AM | PERMALINKI think the tone Armed Liberal might have objected to: "And that's a brand of Kool-Aid I'm not drinking. You'll have to find yourselves another sucker for that particular poison." Suggesting that people who supported the Iraq war were either stupid or evil. The main objection to the 'war of civilization' concept seems to be well articulated by ccobb: "But outside the crazy bubble he lived in, the world as we know it went on its merry way. I suspect that will be the case here too, where fundamentalists on both sides of the war of civilization will create a self-fulfilling prophecy of conflict. The only problem now is that the fundamentalists on our side have their finger on the button. And soon enough that may be true on the other side as well." The problem is that terrorists are not at all content to allow the world to go on its merry way. This can be seen clearly by the current state of a couple of large buildings in New York where the terrorists tried to kill 40,000 people, but we got lucky and they only actually killed about 3,000. 9-11 is significant to the discussion of both the general war and Iraq in particular because it showed that we could no longer afford to just let the Middle East stew in its own juices. Posted by: Sebastian Holsclaw at November 1, 2003 11:57 AM | PERMALINKboronx says: I wish the so-called liberal hawks would address the fact that Bush is in bed with the funders and supporters of Al Qaeda I will if the anti-war crowd will address the fact that leaving Saddam in place even without sanctions would have resulted in more Iraqi deaths than going to war with his regime. Add sanctions and it gets much worse. Don't. I'm not being serious. I'm just using your same tactics to debate you. The whole argument about liberal hawks being somehow guilty because of Bush's misdeeds in other, tangentally related areas, is a head fake. As a tactic it dodges the main issue by introducing a new, less relevant one. On a final note, all too often this sort of debate descends into an argument about whose hands and conscience are cleaner. Rubbish. This is morally difficult terrain for both liberal hawk and dove, and should be treated as such. Posted by: ccobb at November 1, 2003 12:02 PM | PERMALINKSebastian Holsclaw writes: The problem is that terrorists are not at all content to allow the world to go on its merry way. [snip] 9-11 is significant to the discussion of both the general war and Iraq in particular because it showed that we could no longer afford to just let the Middle East stew in its own juices. Agreed. The only irony of course is that some of the most strident religious fundamentalists and political ideologues in the world now have access to the most powerful WMDs known to mankind, mainly because at the moment some of them are running the US government. Posted by: ccobb at November 1, 2003 12:10 PM | PERMALINKA war of civilizations. What a self-important phrase. Nope, it's not a failure of intelligence, or a bunch of criminals on the loose. What's at stake is The Very Future of Mankind Itself. And there really were commies under my bed forty years ago. A danger, yes. A dangerous danger, yes. A war of civilizations? Fear mongering that the Birchers used to specialize in. Posted by: tristero at November 1, 2003 12:35 PM | PERMALINKI will if the anti-war crowd will address the fact that leaving Saddam in place even without sanctions would have resulted in more Iraqi deaths than going to war with his regime. It depends on the time frame. One of the human rights organizations estimated that SH was killing a few hundred Iraqis a year. So the war has killed as many as he might have killed in 10-20 years. If you look at the total number he killed, it was a much more than 1,000 per year, but almost all died in the two wars and the rebellions of the Kurds and Shiites, leading to the large mass graves. But he wasn't going to start a war or conduct a massacre anytime soon. And there was discussion of more selective sanctions that would have been less harsh on the civilians. Posted by: Roger Bigod at November 1, 2003 01:05 PM | PERMALINK9-11 is significant to the discussion of both the general war and Iraq in particular because it showed that we could no longer afford to just let the Middle East stew in its own juices. No case has been made that invading Iraq had any effect on our security against terrorism. Invading every Muslim country in the Middle East won't necessaryily improve the situation. Considering all the destructive possibilities, Kool-Aid seems a very understated metaphor. Posted by: Roger Bigod at November 1, 2003 01:11 PM | PERMALINKAfter a few years, I figured out that 90% of these guys were Republicans, using libertarianism as a false flag ding-ding we have a wiinnner. Posted by: Troy at November 1, 2003 01:41 PM | PERMALINKAfter a few years, I figured out that 90% of these guys were Republicans, using libertarianism as a false Well DUH! Posted by: David Ehrenstein at November 1, 2003 01:53 PM | PERMALINKI'd call myself fairly hawkish, and quite liberal, but I can't understand why anyone would be impressed by Bush's conduct on foreign policy. He did nothing to avenge or respond to the Cole bombing, which took place just three weeks before election day 2000 and clearly was something the new president, not the lame duck, needed to address. Plus, by January 2001, we had bin ladin on videotape bragging about the Cole attack -- but Bush did nothing. Then, after 9/11, he did what anyone would have done - he went after bin ladin in Afghanistan. But he pursued it in such a half assed way, that he not only let bin ladin escape into Pakistan, but he's allowing Omar and the Taliban to rebuild their political presence in Afghanistan. So far, so bad. Then he attacks Iraq, allies and intelligence be damned. The most frustrating thing to me was that a very strong case could have been made in 2002 for ratcheting up the military pressure on Iran -- they were building a nuclear bomb and harboring al qeada, but Bush's advisors have had a hard on for Saddam for a long time, so they used 9/11 as an excuse to pursue their old hobby horse instead of the war on terror. Worst of all, team Bush totally blew it in Iraq -- they ignored all of the lessons of nation building in the Clinton era, and got off to a terrible start. Frankly, it may be too late to fix things now. I could critique Bush's strategy forever -- especially his overly cautious obsession with not repeating the Soviets experience in Afghanistan, and his insufficiently cautious approach that led to repeating that Soviet experience, but doing it in Iraq. Don't results matter to anyone? This guy has repeatedly fumbled the ball -- we need a new quarterback. Posted by: pj at November 1, 2003 02:09 PM | PERMALINKpj: I'm with you. I can't see how anyone thinks Bush has done a good job, unless they are pro-life, Christian Reconstructionist, Likudnik, wealthy, and/or retarded. Posted by: Troy at November 1, 2003 03:16 PM | PERMALINKTroy Troy Troy--by including them on that list you insult the retarded. Posted by: ccobb at November 1, 2003 03:36 PM | PERMALINKBTW, Kevin, the site you linked to at the top of this thread is a fever swamp. Posted by: Roger Bigod at November 1, 2003 03:55 PM | PERMALINK"The only irony of course is that some of the most strident religious fundamentalists and political ideologues in the world now have access to the most powerful WMDs known to mankind, mainly because at the moment some of them are running the US government." Yup, thats right. Some of the MOST strident religious fundamentalists are running the US government. 'Cause I saw Rumsfeld toppling walls onto gay people yesterday. I also saw Wolfowitz stone a rape victim to death the day before that. Posted by: Sebastian Holsclaw at November 1, 2003 04:12 PM | PERMALINKI saw Rumsfeld toppling walls onto gay people yesterday. I also saw Wolfowitz stone a rape victim to death the day before that. "A large number of Americans would do well to recognize that fact. They include the tens of millions of evangelicals, fundamentalists and Pentecostals that form the rank and file of the Christian Coalition, as well as prominent elected representatives like House Majority Leader Richard Armey (R-TX) and House Majority Whip Tom Delay (R-TX)." Do not pretend that Bush Co hasn't hitched its wagon to the wacko christian right -- and that Iraq was a backdoor attack on Israel's enemies. Nevermind. Pretend away. I haven't seen you make a coherent factual statement yet, so I don't see why you should start now. Posted by: Troy at November 1, 2003 04:47 PM | PERMALINKSebastian Holsclaw says: Cause I saw Rumsfeld toppling walls onto gay people yesterday. I also saw Wolfowitz stone a rape victim to death the day before that. Ah, the old debate head fake again--make an argument that doesn't apply. If you reread what I wrote, these two would fall into the second category of the sentence--political ideologues. And rape victim--where the hell did that come from? Are you equating the methods of Christian fundamentalism with Islamic fundamentalism? I'm certainly not. If you are going to discuss someone's fundamentalist beliefs, at least know what they are and how that translates into action. Having been raised that way, and having been an actual Christian missionary for some years, I am arguing the point from experience. But I think I can see John Ashcroft thinking its ok to pick up a rock. And General Boykin might agree. Although maybe not, seeing as Bob Jones University has a moratorium on that kind of thing nowadays. Posted by: ccobb at November 1, 2003 05:06 PM | PERMALINKGo to your favorite blockbusters or hollywood videos favorite store
and rent "divorce iranian style". In this video, you will see that
punishing somebody is as common custom in the middle-east like
sentencing somebody for jail during months or years in the US. You will
also notice that 70 lashes on the back of a guy are common things if
ever a guy lies to the court; on the other side, if ever a woman lies to
the court, she will be sentenced to jail for a few days. These are the
laws in their country and we can't change them. Frenchy says: The US is impotent to be transcended to another civilization. Your government is starting a clash of civilization, and others will have to end it. Sorry pal, but this is where I channel Scoop Jackson and call bullshit. Would you like some freedom fries with that? Posted by: ccobb at November 1, 2003 05:30 PM | PERMALINKUm, let me get this straight. The argument that there aren't Christian ideologues in the Bush government is that Paul Wolfowitz, a JEWISH MAN, isn't one of them? Huh? Hell, isn't Wolfowitz Straussian? Do a little reading: that's about as far from Christian fundamentalism as you can get. As for the rest: this is the president who specifically named Jesus in his inauguration speech, isn't it? This the administration that includes John Ashcroft, isn't it, who was gung-ho on using DoJ resources on abortion supporters until Bin Laden forced his hand? This is the administration with at least one member who considers himself a Christian soldier going off to fight the heathens, isn't it? Face it- the "war of civilizations" referred to by conservatives is one between two different kinds of theocracy. The one that is relevant is the war between secular governance and theocracy. At this point, it looks like the bad guys are winning. Posted by: Demosthenes at November 1, 2003 05:33 PM | PERMALINKFeelings sorry is not enough, tell the reason of you own Demosthenes says: Hell, isn't Wolfowitz Straussian? Amen. On a thread above I mentioned "an extremist anti-democratic
ideology," but chickened out on calling it Straussian, trying to avoid
the tin-foil hat brigade. Thanks for having the cajones to give it its
true name. Talking about the Wolf, Wolfowitz is jewish and he said on iraqi TV: "we won't pull out of Iraq". Frenchy says: Feelings sorry is not enough, tell the reason of you own French, I'm getting all sorts of clues that english is not your first language. (Where did I get that idea, you ask?) So I'll make it easy on you: Désolé, mais ceci est quand je feins pour être l'ancien politicien Scoop Jackson et pour dire que ce que vous avez juste dit est la merde. Voulez vous aiment des fritures de liberté avec cela? C'est ce que nous des Américains appelons sarcasme. Capiche? Posted by: ccobb at November 1, 2003 05:54 PM | PERMALINKWhat does your personnal comment have to do with Scoop Jackson (D)? Freedom fries so? I am not the intolerant fascist one in here :)
Originally the american turn off against the ICC is nothing new, I'd
say the problems of the ICC, is not only a republican problem, it is an
american problem. It started in 1998, even before the ratification when
Clinton wanted the US to be exempt from war crimes, crimes against
Humanity and genocides. Frenchy: It was my way of saying that the world can denigrate our democracy however it wants, including you, but even liberals like myself will defend it. Like most liberals, I believe that BushCo is leading our country seriously astray. But if push comes to shove and OBL and AL Quaeda strike us again and kill more of our citizens, then I support striking back. Hard. Posted by: ccobb at November 1, 2003 06:30 PM | PERMALINKBuddy I do too, but with Iraq I have second thoughts honestly. The lack of logic shown in this discussion is breathtaking: surely, it is those who believe that the threat from radical Islam has been minimized who should most long for Bush's ouster, given the incompetence he and his minions have shown in meeting it. Posted by: Hozee at November 1, 2003 10:01 PM | PERMALINKThe whole argument about liberal hawks being somehow guilty because of Bush's misdeeds in other, tangentally related areas, is a head fake. I'm addressing what I think is the central problem: Liberal Hawks, and Conservative Hawks both operate under the assumption that Bush's motives are honroable, or at worst cravenly political. But he has never failed to put the priorities of his terrorist loving friends ahead of his nation's. This point is central in understanding where we are two years after 9/11/01, and where we are likely to go. How is it that bare months after his countrymen attacked us killing thousands, using funds funneled to them by his cousins, Prince Abdulla went to Crawford TX to make *demands* instead of ammends, and Bush kissed his *ss? Posted by: Boronx at November 2, 2003 02:12 AM | PERMALINKI wish I could side with my liberal antiwar friends on this, but the truth is we're on course to wipe out Muslim civilization. We've been complacent about the big reasons for this, Israel and the place of the US in the world (oil). A real anti-clash person has to be ready to accept change on both those things, and extra hard work. It's easy to be a participant in an expanding economy, you just produce. When the cold war ended, the US became leader of the world. We just have to become wiser about leading the world or we will lose the leadership position. Wisom is much harder to gain than wealth. It takes more risks and more work. And I don't think the US needs to throw Israel over the side, or institute mandatory solar cars. Bush's greatest mistake was sitting back while the Road Map was trashed. That was probably the moment that the Big Reform-the-Middle-East Plan started to disintegrate. He hasn't been nailed on it because liberals and the peacenik groups aren't really committed to peace, and have in some sense thrown up their hands for the Arabs. This is essentially where the liberal hawks are. They could I suppose be led in a different direction but it would be mighty uncomfortable. I guess my greatest problem with Kevin is his post implies that if the US changes nothing, the clash of civs will not happen. No the status quo determines that the clash will happen. Just as the same guys set up Gulf War 2 back at the end of Gulf War 1. It will be destiny unless you change the ground rules. If you don't propose a change, then everybody understands that you're not going to protect them. "Ah, the old debate head fake again--make an argument that doesn't apply. If you reread what I wrote, these two would fall into the second category of the sentence--political ideologues. And rape victim--where the hell did that come from? Are you equating the methods of Christian fundamentalism with Islamic fundamentalism? I'm certainly not." My response was to: "The only irony of course is that some of the most strident religious fundamentalists and political ideologues in the world now have access to the most powerful WMDs known to mankind, mainly because at the moment some of them are running the US government." Are you backing away from that now? Would you care to identify 'some of the most strident relgious fundamentalists' who are 'running the US government'? Or do you prefer to merely imply your prejudices? Posted by: Sebastian Holsclaw at November 2, 2003 07:10 PM | PERMALINKI see most people on this thread are afraid that George Bush is a
Christian fundamentalist. According to recent polls, 90% of America is
Christian, and us atheists only make up a small percentage. Everyone
here seems to hate Ashcroft, yet let's not forget that Presidential
candidate Edwards co wrote the Patriot Act. Is he a Christian
fundamentalist too? Furthermore, liberals continue to be upset that the
US has a relationship with the Saudis. So am I, but I realize that it
is not a new relationship. It goes back through Clinton, Bush, Reagan,
Carter, etc. It goes back several decades. Edwards on the Patriot Act: He was pleased, until he found out that people hate it. Now he doesn't even mention that he voted for it. "Face it- the "war of civilizations" referred to by conservatives is one between two different kinds of theocracy. The one that is relevant is the war between secular governance and theocracy. At this point, it looks like the bad guys are winning." No, face it. You are an idiot. President Bush, like a lot of Christians, and a lot of liberals seem to be convinced that Islam is a religion of peace. We aren't living under a theocracy, no matter how delusional you are. If you want to know how a theocracy is go to SA. Furthermore, India is not a theocracy, nor is it secular. Your false dichotomoy sums up the irrational fears of liberals who fear christian fundamentalism.
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