Senator Clinton Assails G.O.P. at Fund-Raiser:
Some remarks by Hillary Clinton at a fund raiser in New York:
"There has never been an administration, I don't believe in our history, more intent upon consolidating and abusing power to further their own agenda," Mrs. Clinton told the gathering.
"I know it's frustrating for many of you, it's frustrating for me. Why can't the Democrats do more to stop them?" she continued to growing applause. "I can tell you this: It's very hard to stop people who have no shame about what they're doing. It is very hard to tell people that they are making decisions that will undermine our checks and balances and constitutional system of government who don't care. It is very hard to stop people who have never been acquainted with the truth."
In some of her sharpest language, Mrs. Clinton said that abetting Republicans was a Washington press corps that has become a pale imitation of the Watergate-era reporters who are being celebrated amid the identification of the Washington Post source, Deep Throat.
"It's shocking when you see how easily they fold in the media today," Mrs. Clinton said, again to strong applause. "They don't stand their ground. If they're criticized by the White House, they just fall apart."
"I mean, c'mon, toughen up, guys, it's only our Constitution and country at stake."
Monday, June 06, 2005
Laziness in the Media
“The problem of …liberal/conservative bias (in the news media) is a red herring. The real bias is toward laziness, toward entertainment, toward confrontation, toward that which will drive the ratings. The real story is this incredible laziness. It seems like the whole institution has lost its way.”
David Javerbaum
Head writer for “The Daily Show”
Quoted in The Holmes Report
Monday, May 30, 2005
David Javerbaum
Head writer for “The Daily Show”
Quoted in The Holmes Report
Monday, May 30, 2005
Sunday, June 05, 2005
The Big Picture
I just wish the journalists would think for themselves for once. Okay, I know I shouldn't paint all the journalists with one brush, but you know what I mean. Once they get on a line of thought, you can't get them off of it. One line of thought, or premise, has been that we need to counter the insurgents' attacks with attacks of our own. So we level Fallujah and defeat Sadr's forces in Najaf. We mount an offensive against the insurgents near the Syrian border, and go after them in Samarra, Baghdad, and any number of other cities. We find their weapons caches and their hideouts, we capture their leaders, and we round up suspects to bring them in for what we used to call questioning, a euphemism for torture. None of it worked. The more we tried to limit the insurgents' ability to fight, the worse the insurgency became.
Another broad effort has been the transfer of sovereignty. The reasoning is that if the Iraqis see that they're running the show, they won't have any reason to resist the occupation any more. We want to bring democracy to the country, after all, and democracy means self-rule. So we have a formal transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqis at the end of June a year ago. We have elections at the end of January this year. The Iraqis will form a government and write a constitution. Most of all, we've been training Iraqi infantry and police forces to achieve the military and security objectives we haven't been able to achieve. Instead of more order, we see the beginnings of a civil war as the insurgents attack the poorly trained Iraqi forces. We have tried to reconstitute Iraq's armed forces for almost two years now, and it hasn't worked.
Civil reconstruction has been a third broad area of effort. No one even pretends that progress in this area is a goal anymore. Courts, schools, health facilities, pipelines, water purification plants, sewage treatment plants, oil refineries, electirical power plants, roads, civil service functions, garbage pickup, distribution of electrical power, all the things that make civil society run well: all these things are on hold until order is restored. Ask any Iraqi or American official when that will be, and their truthful answer is, "We're working on it." Press for another answer, and they'll say, "It could take years."
But here's something the journalists who write about Iraq have missed. No matter what the insurgents do, they've succeeded as long as they tie American troops down in Iraq. Yes, the Iraqi insurgents want to push the Americans out as soon as they can. That's their aim: get rid of the occupiers. The foreign fighters in Iraq must recognize that having American troops in Iraq is a bonanza for them. They can kill Americans there much more readily than they can kill them anywhere else. They know that while Americans fight in Iraq, they can't fight elsewhere. Al Qaeda knows that while we are in Iraq, they are winning, no matter how the battle goes from day to day.
So that's the problem with the goals we've laid out. That's the problem with our strategy. The car bombs could stop tomorrow. All the other attacks: sniping, roadside bombs, hit and run ambushes, mortar attacks, every sort of skirmish and sabotage, all the assassinations and kidnappings, all these could stop suddenly, and we would still be losing as long as we remain there. We have enormous resources committed there, and while they're tied up in Iraq they're unavailable for fighting anywhere else. We've had to pull forces from other parts of the world just to maintain a force of 135,000 in Iraq. When we do finally leave Iraq, will anyone here at home want to send our young men and women out again to fight Al Qaeda elsewhere? Will we have any motivation at all to fight the war we should be fighting? No, we'll be so happy that the war in Iraq is over, we'll have forgotten about the war we should have been fighting, the war we would have fought had we not gone into Iraq.
That's getting ahead of things, though, because the prospects for getting out of Iraq soon are nil. Supporters of the war there say that we don't bear any opportunity cost for committing our resources there. That is, they say, we are fighting the right war, for the right reasons, for the right goals. They maintain that when we leave Iraq, we won't need to fight elsewhere. Iraqi democracy will be established, and as it spreads throughout the region, to Saudi Arabia and Syria and even to Iran, Al Qaeda will have nowhere to hide. In the open air of free societies Al Qaeda will wither and dry up. No one will want to fight for Al Qaeda when the benefits of Western democracy and free enterprise are all around. That's the Wolfowitz cure. That's the democracy cures all ills strategy.
But who, in or out of our government, has made a convincing case that creating a democracy in Iraq will bring about the defeat of Al Qaeda? Why couldn't Al Qaeda operate just as effectively in an open, democratic society as it does in a closed one? The planning and execution of the 9/11 attacks showed that Al Qaeda could operate equally effectively in Afghanistan, Germany, and the United States. We say that we have Al Qaeda on the run in Afghanistan and Pakistan, that we are pressing them hard in Iraq, but where's the evidence that we have reduced its ability to fight? Who believes that a quiet Iraq will mean defeat of the organization that attacked the World Trade Center? The scary thing now, two years into the Iraqi war, is that people don't even care any more how we're doing in the fight against Al Qaeda. They just want to be done with fighting, period.
So how can we counter the prevailing premise? How can we keep the big picture in front of us? The big picture is so different from the main line of thought we see in coverage of the war. Take for example the prevailing line of thought that existed while Reagan was president. Then most people thought that we had to reach an accommodation with the Soviets. The United States and the Soviet Union had to live on the same globe, and the only way to avoid a nuclear holocaust was to work things out with them. We didn't say nasty things about them, and we tried to find ways to cooperate. Least of all, we didn't want to provoke them. We had managed to survive the Cold War for more than a quarter century, and we should keep on keeping on.
Well, Reagan comes along and says about the Soviet Union, "These are bad guys and they're going to lose." Look what they've done, he would say. He even said, "How's this for a strategy: we win and they lose." You can't get much more blunt than that. Then he achieved his aim, using military force and diplomacy adroitly to force the Soviet Union into conceding Eastern Europe shortly after Reagan left office. No one thought he could do it until it happened. When it did happen, people said that he must have been right after all.
We're in a similar conceptual situation with Iraq. Everyone thinks that the only way we can succeed there is to bring democracy to the people while we train a new armed force capable of containing the insurgents. How often have you heard this one: "Whatever you think of the war, we're committed now, and we have to see the job through." How often have you heard: "We can't leave now. There'd be chaos and a civil war." Well let me tell you that the civil war has already started. Everyone all over the world has concluded correctly that we can't do anything to stop it. Everyone knows the limits of our strength, the extent of our weakness.
So the conceptual box we're in won't allow anyone to say that we have to get out of there as soon as we can. Even the most vocal opponents of the war concede that we have to stay there long enough to hand security responsibilities over to the Iraqis, and that, people say, will take at least until the end of 2006. Well, when we come to the end of 2006, come back to read this essay, and ask yourself if we've achieved any of the goals that the conventional wisdom has set out for us. Ask if we've reduced the level of violence, turned over responsibility to the Iraqis, or made advances in the area of civil reconstruction. Even if we have made progress in any of these areas, we'll have failed if we're still tied down in Iraq, still fighting people who weren't even our enemies until we made them so.
The conceptual box we're in won't allow anyone to say what Reagan said in 1980: "We win and they lose." People think that if we pull out, we lose. We'll have failed, they say, and that outcome is not acceptable. Everyone will see that we lost, that we can't stick it out. But it's not true. The only way to win this war is to leave this battlefield and correct our mistake. The sure way to lose the war is to stick it out in Iraq. The sure way to grant our enemies just what they want is to stay in Iraq and bleed ourselves there. We've gone down the wrong path there. We have to turn back if we want to win, because at the end of this path lies futility, defeat, humiliation, and a total loss of confidence in ourselves. These things will happen not because we couldn't win, but because we couldn't lose. We couldn't lose our self-certainty and conviction that we've done the right thing, that we've set out on the right course. Remember, if we win the war in Iraq by sticking it out, we'll lose the war against Al Qaeda that we should have been fighting.
One of my favorite passages from the New Testament is a quotation from Jesus: "For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even that which he has will be taken away." The first part of the passage applies to the United States during its period of world leadership. The United States and its leaders had vision, optimism, practicality, judgment, good intentions, wisdom, faith, and hope. As promised, the country had everything a human society could want, in abundance. Now all the signs indicate that since 9/11, the United States and its leaders do not have any of these things. It has not vision but blindness, not optimism but discouragement, not practicality but utopianism, not judgment but thick-headed self-righteousness, not good intentions but selfishness, not wisdom but stupidity, not faith but gullibility, not hope but fear. As a result, everything that it has will be taken away. It has already begun to happen.
I said before November 2004 that if we didn't replace our leadership, we would not recover from the mistake our president made when he went to war in Iraq. We didn't replace him, but I don't want to believe that it's too late. I still think that some solution has to present itself, some way out has to appear. "Way will open," the Quakers say. But where? And how? I don't know if faith will answer those questions.
Making reference to the box we're in, Leslie recalled a moment during the debates last fall when Bush asked Kerry, "So are you saying that our troops in Iraq have died in vain?" At a time when no one can say anything against our troops, Kerry was stymied. "He had him," Leslie observed. I replied right away that Howard Dean would have responded differently. He would have come back at Bush directly:
"Yes, Mr. President, you're right. Those troops died in vain. They died in vain in a war you started. They died in vain in a war they should not be fighting, and you put them there. You're responsible for these useless deaths, and their futile sacrifice is on your head. These young men and women, so willing to give everything for their country, trusted you. Their parents and brothers and sisters trusted you. Their wives and children trusted you. The whole country looked to you after the September 11 attacks to lead us back from that dreadful loss. And what did you do? You sent our armed forces into a useless war, justified it with obvious, self-serving dishonesty, and refused to admit your mistake after everyone else could see the truth about what you had done.
"And you try to charge me with defeatism and with not supporting our troops? Mr. President, those troops took an oath to protect our Constitution. That means they promised to serve their commander in chief, and they trusted you to lead them well. Do you know what you did, Mr. President? You betrayed them. You asked them to do something that you wouldn't do yourself when it was your turn to serve, and you asked them to do it for dishonest reasons. So I need to ask you, Mr. President: When are you going to support our troops? When are you going to send them to fight our real enemies, rather than false enemies that you cooked up because you had a grudge against Saddam Hussein? You've misled the citizens of this great country much too long now. If you can't admit that you've done something wrong, shut your mouth and go home."
But the Democratic party thought that Howard Dean couldn't win against George Bush. They thought that John Kerry was a more effective fighter, more electable. Well, hindsight got 'em on that one. Kerry hardly talked about the war in his campaign until the fall, and even then he only raised his criticisms in a few speeches. He spent so much time, overall, trying to answer Bush's question: Why did you vote for the war? After Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, it seemed that his campaign was worried: criticism of the war might come across as unpatriotic. On the contrary, Kerry's criticism of the war in Iraq was patriotic, just as his stand against the war in Vietnam was an example of courageous patriotism. Unlike his anti-war activities in the 1970s, though, Kerry in 2004 acted too hesitantly. As a result his opposition to the Iraq war appeared unfounded and equivocal. Dean would not have been such a reluctant critic.
That's enough for this one. I've built up these thoughts for so long. Then when the dam opens, too much water goes down the spillway. Consequently I have an essay that's longer than anyone wants to read. But, it all counts toward the book I want to write. Ugly War is already nearly book length. If I add these other essays to the existing long essay, we'll be ready to publish. But it's hard to see who would want to read it. Mostly now I think these writings are of historical interest. Students of this time can see that some people could see what was happening, as it happened. We didn't have to wait for it to be over before we could see what a big mistake we had made. We could see that this war was a mistake before it was launched, and what a bad course of action it was as it unfolded. But seeing the truth about the war hasn't made people willing to do the necessary and right thing: redeploy our forces to fight the people who attacked us.
Goodnight, now.
Another broad effort has been the transfer of sovereignty. The reasoning is that if the Iraqis see that they're running the show, they won't have any reason to resist the occupation any more. We want to bring democracy to the country, after all, and democracy means self-rule. So we have a formal transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqis at the end of June a year ago. We have elections at the end of January this year. The Iraqis will form a government and write a constitution. Most of all, we've been training Iraqi infantry and police forces to achieve the military and security objectives we haven't been able to achieve. Instead of more order, we see the beginnings of a civil war as the insurgents attack the poorly trained Iraqi forces. We have tried to reconstitute Iraq's armed forces for almost two years now, and it hasn't worked.
Civil reconstruction has been a third broad area of effort. No one even pretends that progress in this area is a goal anymore. Courts, schools, health facilities, pipelines, water purification plants, sewage treatment plants, oil refineries, electirical power plants, roads, civil service functions, garbage pickup, distribution of electrical power, all the things that make civil society run well: all these things are on hold until order is restored. Ask any Iraqi or American official when that will be, and their truthful answer is, "We're working on it." Press for another answer, and they'll say, "It could take years."
But here's something the journalists who write about Iraq have missed. No matter what the insurgents do, they've succeeded as long as they tie American troops down in Iraq. Yes, the Iraqi insurgents want to push the Americans out as soon as they can. That's their aim: get rid of the occupiers. The foreign fighters in Iraq must recognize that having American troops in Iraq is a bonanza for them. They can kill Americans there much more readily than they can kill them anywhere else. They know that while Americans fight in Iraq, they can't fight elsewhere. Al Qaeda knows that while we are in Iraq, they are winning, no matter how the battle goes from day to day.
So that's the problem with the goals we've laid out. That's the problem with our strategy. The car bombs could stop tomorrow. All the other attacks: sniping, roadside bombs, hit and run ambushes, mortar attacks, every sort of skirmish and sabotage, all the assassinations and kidnappings, all these could stop suddenly, and we would still be losing as long as we remain there. We have enormous resources committed there, and while they're tied up in Iraq they're unavailable for fighting anywhere else. We've had to pull forces from other parts of the world just to maintain a force of 135,000 in Iraq. When we do finally leave Iraq, will anyone here at home want to send our young men and women out again to fight Al Qaeda elsewhere? Will we have any motivation at all to fight the war we should be fighting? No, we'll be so happy that the war in Iraq is over, we'll have forgotten about the war we should have been fighting, the war we would have fought had we not gone into Iraq.
That's getting ahead of things, though, because the prospects for getting out of Iraq soon are nil. Supporters of the war there say that we don't bear any opportunity cost for committing our resources there. That is, they say, we are fighting the right war, for the right reasons, for the right goals. They maintain that when we leave Iraq, we won't need to fight elsewhere. Iraqi democracy will be established, and as it spreads throughout the region, to Saudi Arabia and Syria and even to Iran, Al Qaeda will have nowhere to hide. In the open air of free societies Al Qaeda will wither and dry up. No one will want to fight for Al Qaeda when the benefits of Western democracy and free enterprise are all around. That's the Wolfowitz cure. That's the democracy cures all ills strategy.
But who, in or out of our government, has made a convincing case that creating a democracy in Iraq will bring about the defeat of Al Qaeda? Why couldn't Al Qaeda operate just as effectively in an open, democratic society as it does in a closed one? The planning and execution of the 9/11 attacks showed that Al Qaeda could operate equally effectively in Afghanistan, Germany, and the United States. We say that we have Al Qaeda on the run in Afghanistan and Pakistan, that we are pressing them hard in Iraq, but where's the evidence that we have reduced its ability to fight? Who believes that a quiet Iraq will mean defeat of the organization that attacked the World Trade Center? The scary thing now, two years into the Iraqi war, is that people don't even care any more how we're doing in the fight against Al Qaeda. They just want to be done with fighting, period.
So how can we counter the prevailing premise? How can we keep the big picture in front of us? The big picture is so different from the main line of thought we see in coverage of the war. Take for example the prevailing line of thought that existed while Reagan was president. Then most people thought that we had to reach an accommodation with the Soviets. The United States and the Soviet Union had to live on the same globe, and the only way to avoid a nuclear holocaust was to work things out with them. We didn't say nasty things about them, and we tried to find ways to cooperate. Least of all, we didn't want to provoke them. We had managed to survive the Cold War for more than a quarter century, and we should keep on keeping on.
Well, Reagan comes along and says about the Soviet Union, "These are bad guys and they're going to lose." Look what they've done, he would say. He even said, "How's this for a strategy: we win and they lose." You can't get much more blunt than that. Then he achieved his aim, using military force and diplomacy adroitly to force the Soviet Union into conceding Eastern Europe shortly after Reagan left office. No one thought he could do it until it happened. When it did happen, people said that he must have been right after all.
We're in a similar conceptual situation with Iraq. Everyone thinks that the only way we can succeed there is to bring democracy to the people while we train a new armed force capable of containing the insurgents. How often have you heard this one: "Whatever you think of the war, we're committed now, and we have to see the job through." How often have you heard: "We can't leave now. There'd be chaos and a civil war." Well let me tell you that the civil war has already started. Everyone all over the world has concluded correctly that we can't do anything to stop it. Everyone knows the limits of our strength, the extent of our weakness.
So the conceptual box we're in won't allow anyone to say that we have to get out of there as soon as we can. Even the most vocal opponents of the war concede that we have to stay there long enough to hand security responsibilities over to the Iraqis, and that, people say, will take at least until the end of 2006. Well, when we come to the end of 2006, come back to read this essay, and ask yourself if we've achieved any of the goals that the conventional wisdom has set out for us. Ask if we've reduced the level of violence, turned over responsibility to the Iraqis, or made advances in the area of civil reconstruction. Even if we have made progress in any of these areas, we'll have failed if we're still tied down in Iraq, still fighting people who weren't even our enemies until we made them so.
The conceptual box we're in won't allow anyone to say what Reagan said in 1980: "We win and they lose." People think that if we pull out, we lose. We'll have failed, they say, and that outcome is not acceptable. Everyone will see that we lost, that we can't stick it out. But it's not true. The only way to win this war is to leave this battlefield and correct our mistake. The sure way to lose the war is to stick it out in Iraq. The sure way to grant our enemies just what they want is to stay in Iraq and bleed ourselves there. We've gone down the wrong path there. We have to turn back if we want to win, because at the end of this path lies futility, defeat, humiliation, and a total loss of confidence in ourselves. These things will happen not because we couldn't win, but because we couldn't lose. We couldn't lose our self-certainty and conviction that we've done the right thing, that we've set out on the right course. Remember, if we win the war in Iraq by sticking it out, we'll lose the war against Al Qaeda that we should have been fighting.
One of my favorite passages from the New Testament is a quotation from Jesus: "For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even that which he has will be taken away." The first part of the passage applies to the United States during its period of world leadership. The United States and its leaders had vision, optimism, practicality, judgment, good intentions, wisdom, faith, and hope. As promised, the country had everything a human society could want, in abundance. Now all the signs indicate that since 9/11, the United States and its leaders do not have any of these things. It has not vision but blindness, not optimism but discouragement, not practicality but utopianism, not judgment but thick-headed self-righteousness, not good intentions but selfishness, not wisdom but stupidity, not faith but gullibility, not hope but fear. As a result, everything that it has will be taken away. It has already begun to happen.
I said before November 2004 that if we didn't replace our leadership, we would not recover from the mistake our president made when he went to war in Iraq. We didn't replace him, but I don't want to believe that it's too late. I still think that some solution has to present itself, some way out has to appear. "Way will open," the Quakers say. But where? And how? I don't know if faith will answer those questions.
Making reference to the box we're in, Leslie recalled a moment during the debates last fall when Bush asked Kerry, "So are you saying that our troops in Iraq have died in vain?" At a time when no one can say anything against our troops, Kerry was stymied. "He had him," Leslie observed. I replied right away that Howard Dean would have responded differently. He would have come back at Bush directly:
"Yes, Mr. President, you're right. Those troops died in vain. They died in vain in a war you started. They died in vain in a war they should not be fighting, and you put them there. You're responsible for these useless deaths, and their futile sacrifice is on your head. These young men and women, so willing to give everything for their country, trusted you. Their parents and brothers and sisters trusted you. Their wives and children trusted you. The whole country looked to you after the September 11 attacks to lead us back from that dreadful loss. And what did you do? You sent our armed forces into a useless war, justified it with obvious, self-serving dishonesty, and refused to admit your mistake after everyone else could see the truth about what you had done.
"And you try to charge me with defeatism and with not supporting our troops? Mr. President, those troops took an oath to protect our Constitution. That means they promised to serve their commander in chief, and they trusted you to lead them well. Do you know what you did, Mr. President? You betrayed them. You asked them to do something that you wouldn't do yourself when it was your turn to serve, and you asked them to do it for dishonest reasons. So I need to ask you, Mr. President: When are you going to support our troops? When are you going to send them to fight our real enemies, rather than false enemies that you cooked up because you had a grudge against Saddam Hussein? You've misled the citizens of this great country much too long now. If you can't admit that you've done something wrong, shut your mouth and go home."
But the Democratic party thought that Howard Dean couldn't win against George Bush. They thought that John Kerry was a more effective fighter, more electable. Well, hindsight got 'em on that one. Kerry hardly talked about the war in his campaign until the fall, and even then he only raised his criticisms in a few speeches. He spent so much time, overall, trying to answer Bush's question: Why did you vote for the war? After Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, it seemed that his campaign was worried: criticism of the war might come across as unpatriotic. On the contrary, Kerry's criticism of the war in Iraq was patriotic, just as his stand against the war in Vietnam was an example of courageous patriotism. Unlike his anti-war activities in the 1970s, though, Kerry in 2004 acted too hesitantly. As a result his opposition to the Iraq war appeared unfounded and equivocal. Dean would not have been such a reluctant critic.
That's enough for this one. I've built up these thoughts for so long. Then when the dam opens, too much water goes down the spillway. Consequently I have an essay that's longer than anyone wants to read. But, it all counts toward the book I want to write. Ugly War is already nearly book length. If I add these other essays to the existing long essay, we'll be ready to publish. But it's hard to see who would want to read it. Mostly now I think these writings are of historical interest. Students of this time can see that some people could see what was happening, as it happened. We didn't have to wait for it to be over before we could see what a big mistake we had made. We could see that this war was a mistake before it was launched, and what a bad course of action it was as it unfolded. But seeing the truth about the war hasn't made people willing to do the necessary and right thing: redeploy our forces to fight the people who attacked us.
Goodnight, now.
Saturday, June 04, 2005
Is Persuasion Dead? - Matt Miller
Is Persuasion Dead? - New York Times:
"But beyond this, the gap between the cartoon of public life that the press and political establishment often serve up and the pragmatic open-mindedness of most Americans explains why so many people tune out - and how we might get them to tune back in. Alienation is the only intelligent response to a political culture that insults our intelligence.
The resurrection of persuasion will not be easy. Politicians who've learned to survive in an unforgiving environment may not feel safe with a less scripted style. Mass media outlets where heat has always sold more than light may not believe that creatively engaging on substance can expand their audience. But if you believe that meeting our collective challenges requires greater collective understanding, we've got to persuade these folks to try.
I'm guessing Ann Coulter isn't sweating this stuff. God willing, there's something else keeping her up nights. In the meantime, like Sisyphus, those who seek a better public life have to keep rolling the rock uphill. If you've read this far, maybe you're up for the climb, too. "
"But beyond this, the gap between the cartoon of public life that the press and political establishment often serve up and the pragmatic open-mindedness of most Americans explains why so many people tune out - and how we might get them to tune back in. Alienation is the only intelligent response to a political culture that insults our intelligence.
The resurrection of persuasion will not be easy. Politicians who've learned to survive in an unforgiving environment may not feel safe with a less scripted style. Mass media outlets where heat has always sold more than light may not believe that creatively engaging on substance can expand their audience. But if you believe that meeting our collective challenges requires greater collective understanding, we've got to persuade these folks to try.
I'm guessing Ann Coulter isn't sweating this stuff. God willing, there's something else keeping her up nights. In the meantime, like Sisyphus, those who seek a better public life have to keep rolling the rock uphill. If you've read this far, maybe you're up for the climb, too. "
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Bush Says Abuse Charges by Rights Group Are "Absurd"
Bush Says Abuse Charges by Rights Group Are "Absurd"
Here is the latest report from the White House:
President Bush called a human rights report "absurd" for criticizing the United States' detention of terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and said Tuesday the allegations were made by "people who hate America."
"It's absurd. It's an absurd allegation. The United States is a country that promotes freedom around the world," Bush said of the Amnesty International report that compared Guantanamo to a Soviet-era gulag.
After all of Bush's distortions and dishonesty, what source is more credible at this point: Amnesty International or the president? Has anyone ever said before that Amnesty International hates America? How often have we used Amnesty International's reports to criticize and pressure other countries?
Does the president now say, speaking for our country, that Amnesty International hates us and all those other countries, too? Is Amnesty International just another propaganda tool? Well, Bush says, it used to be for us and now it's against us, so it must be an enemy.
Japan recently said, after the demonstrations in Beijing and elsewhere, that China is a scary country. When is someone going to say that this is a scary president? Well, I've said it. When is someone important going to say it? When is someone going to believe it?
Here is the latest report from the White House:
President Bush called a human rights report "absurd" for criticizing the United States' detention of terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and said Tuesday the allegations were made by "people who hate America."
"It's absurd. It's an absurd allegation. The United States is a country that promotes freedom around the world," Bush said of the Amnesty International report that compared Guantanamo to a Soviet-era gulag.
After all of Bush's distortions and dishonesty, what source is more credible at this point: Amnesty International or the president? Has anyone ever said before that Amnesty International hates America? How often have we used Amnesty International's reports to criticize and pressure other countries?
Does the president now say, speaking for our country, that Amnesty International hates us and all those other countries, too? Is Amnesty International just another propaganda tool? Well, Bush says, it used to be for us and now it's against us, so it must be an enemy.
Japan recently said, after the demonstrations in Beijing and elsewhere, that China is a scary country. When is someone going to say that this is a scary president? Well, I've said it. When is someone important going to say it? When is someone going to believe it?
Blog for America: Memorial Day Note from Jim Dean
Blog for America:
"I hate war, as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity." - Dwight David Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States
"I hate war, as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity." - Dwight David Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States
Monday, May 30, 2005
America, a Symbol of . . . - Bob Herbert
America, a Symbol of . . . - New York Times:
From Herbert's article:
William Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA, said in an interview last week that it's important to keep in mind how policies formulated at the highest levels of government led inexorably to the abusive treatment of prisoners. "The critical point is the deliberateness of this policy," he said. "The president gave the green light. The secretary of defense issued the rules. The Justice Department provided the rationale. And the C.I.A. tried to cover it up."
In the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, most of the world was ready to stand with the U.S. in a legitimate fight against terrorists. But the Bush administration, in its lust for war with Iraq and its willingness to jettison every semblance of due process while employing scandalously inhumane practices against detainees, blew that opportunity.
In much of the world, the image of the U.S. under Mr. Bush has morphed from an idealized champion of liberty to a heavily armed thug in camouflage fatigues. America is increasingly being seen as a dangerously arrogant military power that is due for a comeuppance. It will take a lot more than Karen Hughes to turn that around.
From Herbert's article:
William Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA, said in an interview last week that it's important to keep in mind how policies formulated at the highest levels of government led inexorably to the abusive treatment of prisoners. "The critical point is the deliberateness of this policy," he said. "The president gave the green light. The secretary of defense issued the rules. The Justice Department provided the rationale. And the C.I.A. tried to cover it up."
In the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, most of the world was ready to stand with the U.S. in a legitimate fight against terrorists. But the Bush administration, in its lust for war with Iraq and its willingness to jettison every semblance of due process while employing scandalously inhumane practices against detainees, blew that opportunity.
In much of the world, the image of the U.S. under Mr. Bush has morphed from an idealized champion of liberty to a heavily armed thug in camouflage fatigues. America is increasingly being seen as a dangerously arrogant military power that is due for a comeuppance. It will take a lot more than Karen Hughes to turn that around.
Saturday, May 28, 2005
Ground Zero Is So Over - New York Times
Ground Zero Is So Over - New York Times: "But there is another, national narrative here, too. Bothered as New Yorkers may be by what Charles Schumer has termed the 'culture of inertia' surrounding ground zero, that stagnation may accurately reflect most of America's view about the war on terror that began with the slaughter of more than 2,700 at the World Trade Center almost four years ago. Though the vacant site is a poor memorial for those who died there, it's an all too apt symbol for a war on which the country is turning its back."
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
Listen to My Wife - Matt Miller
Listen to My Wife - New York Times:
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world," wrote George Bernard Shaw. "The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world," wrote George Bernard Shaw. "The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
Monday, May 23, 2005
Democracy and Occupation, and the Last Battle
The standard line is that the car bombs and the rest of the insurgency are directed toward preventing the establishment of democracy in Iraq. Why isn't it possible that the main reason is the reason the insurgents give: to end the occupation? We won't acknowledge that motive, though, because it would lay bare the obvious choice: defeat the insurgency, which we've proven we cannot do, or get out. Because we can't face that choice, we say that we're there to help Iraq form a democracy and train its own security forces. You tell me if state-building under these circumstances is something we want to pour our blood into.
Mark this prediction: historians will say that the Iraq war, not 9/11, was the turning point, the point where our decline began. Rather, the two events together form the pivotal point in the history of our leadership. September 11, that obscene attack, created conditions ideal for leadership: the whole world, except for our declared enemies, ready to follow us and work with us. With the Iraq war, we turned against the world, told the people ready to help us that we didn't want their help, that we would pursue an illegal war rather than the one they wanted to help us fight. Remember that Muslims too wanted to help us fight the war against radical Islam. Not any more.
We can't even recruit Americans to fight anymore. Would you have predicted, back in the fall of 2001, that we couldn't maintain an all volunteer force in 2005 because no one wanted to join? Do you remember the sense of patriotism and unity that existed during that fall? Everyone wanted to do what they could. Now the Iraq war has destroyed our unity, and a mother rightly says, "Why should I send my boys to die in Baghdad?" Who's going to join the army when the whole community says, "Don't do it"?
So our government can't lead the country any longer, and the country can't lead the world. By their fruits you shall know them. I know incompetence and dishonesty when I see it. What this administration is good at is making people think they know what they're doing. That's the purpose of propaganda: to deceive, distort, dissimulate and altogether degrade discourse the point where people who try to say the truth are squashed by the true believers. True believers are people who truly believe, not people who believe in the truth.
A long time ago, C. S. Lewis wrote a parable about evil in The Last Battle. An ape named Shift dressed up a donkey to look like Aslan, God's spirit on earth, and people believed him. He told the citizens of Narnia to give him power, to do all sorts of bad things, and when people asked him why, he replied, "Because Aslan says so." The people believed him. Only a civil war, the last battle, deposed Shift and his donkey.
Now ask if Karl Rove doesn't have the cleverness of Shift, and if George Bush doesn't look like a donkey to you. He comes in the name of God and he acts like a fucking donkey. I'm not making fun of his big ears here. I also have to say that he has political skills and shrewdness that far exceed the donkey's in The Last Battle. But in the end, he doesn't know what he's doing: he's a callow rich guy who never outgrew his prodigal past, who never acquired the jugdment necessary to lead a great nation. You can see the results: a nation destroyed, and a world at war with itself. When you think about 9/11, when you read about the latest car bomb in Baghdad, note the distance we've descended in the last three years. Remember you've only seen the beginning of this, the last battle.
How's that for an apocalyptic vision, those of you who believe we're in the end times?
Mark this prediction: historians will say that the Iraq war, not 9/11, was the turning point, the point where our decline began. Rather, the two events together form the pivotal point in the history of our leadership. September 11, that obscene attack, created conditions ideal for leadership: the whole world, except for our declared enemies, ready to follow us and work with us. With the Iraq war, we turned against the world, told the people ready to help us that we didn't want their help, that we would pursue an illegal war rather than the one they wanted to help us fight. Remember that Muslims too wanted to help us fight the war against radical Islam. Not any more.
We can't even recruit Americans to fight anymore. Would you have predicted, back in the fall of 2001, that we couldn't maintain an all volunteer force in 2005 because no one wanted to join? Do you remember the sense of patriotism and unity that existed during that fall? Everyone wanted to do what they could. Now the Iraq war has destroyed our unity, and a mother rightly says, "Why should I send my boys to die in Baghdad?" Who's going to join the army when the whole community says, "Don't do it"?
So our government can't lead the country any longer, and the country can't lead the world. By their fruits you shall know them. I know incompetence and dishonesty when I see it. What this administration is good at is making people think they know what they're doing. That's the purpose of propaganda: to deceive, distort, dissimulate and altogether degrade discourse the point where people who try to say the truth are squashed by the true believers. True believers are people who truly believe, not people who believe in the truth.
A long time ago, C. S. Lewis wrote a parable about evil in The Last Battle. An ape named Shift dressed up a donkey to look like Aslan, God's spirit on earth, and people believed him. He told the citizens of Narnia to give him power, to do all sorts of bad things, and when people asked him why, he replied, "Because Aslan says so." The people believed him. Only a civil war, the last battle, deposed Shift and his donkey.
Now ask if Karl Rove doesn't have the cleverness of Shift, and if George Bush doesn't look like a donkey to you. He comes in the name of God and he acts like a fucking donkey. I'm not making fun of his big ears here. I also have to say that he has political skills and shrewdness that far exceed the donkey's in The Last Battle. But in the end, he doesn't know what he's doing: he's a callow rich guy who never outgrew his prodigal past, who never acquired the jugdment necessary to lead a great nation. You can see the results: a nation destroyed, and a world at war with itself. When you think about 9/11, when you read about the latest car bomb in Baghdad, note the distance we've descended in the last three years. Remember you've only seen the beginning of this, the last battle.
How's that for an apocalyptic vision, those of you who believe we're in the end times?
Sunday, May 22, 2005
How Many More...?
How many more signs do we need before we see that this effort in Iraq is a failure? How many more things do we have to try there before we try the only right thing: get out?
And where are the voices of leaders who are willing to tell the truth about what we've done? Since the election and the inauguration, Bush's critics have not been as vocal as they were during the campaign. No one among the opposition can imagine that such an endorsement of poor leadership could occur. Someone has to tell the truth: the war is a crime, the torture that we've used against our prisoners is a crime, and the people responsible have to pay.
We say that crime does not pay, but what happens to that belief when leaders who commit crimes are reelected? I said in a past article that people are scared - that explains why we follow someone like Bush. But there could be more involved than that. It could be that 9/11 so hurt our national pride, that we were ready to punish anybody for it. Somebody had to pay for the World Trade Center attack, for the 3,000 lives lost there, and Hussein was the easy target. People were ready to follow someone who had the guts to go after him.
But guts don't make a man moral, and neither does Bush's profession of belief in God. His leadership is a reminder that there's no connection between religious faith and honesty. There's also no discernible connection between family background and competence. In Bush we have a leader who has politics in his blood, and a strong, supporting faith in his heart. Yet he is the most dishonest and incompetent leader we've had in my lifetime. Perhaps he's just evil, but I'm not willing to say that yet. The historians who write the history of our times will say it.
Time to sign off tonight. Send your e-mail to steveng AT TechWritePublishing.com. I'd like to print your letter in the TLJ journal.
And where are the voices of leaders who are willing to tell the truth about what we've done? Since the election and the inauguration, Bush's critics have not been as vocal as they were during the campaign. No one among the opposition can imagine that such an endorsement of poor leadership could occur. Someone has to tell the truth: the war is a crime, the torture that we've used against our prisoners is a crime, and the people responsible have to pay.
We say that crime does not pay, but what happens to that belief when leaders who commit crimes are reelected? I said in a past article that people are scared - that explains why we follow someone like Bush. But there could be more involved than that. It could be that 9/11 so hurt our national pride, that we were ready to punish anybody for it. Somebody had to pay for the World Trade Center attack, for the 3,000 lives lost there, and Hussein was the easy target. People were ready to follow someone who had the guts to go after him.
But guts don't make a man moral, and neither does Bush's profession of belief in God. His leadership is a reminder that there's no connection between religious faith and honesty. There's also no discernible connection between family background and competence. In Bush we have a leader who has politics in his blood, and a strong, supporting faith in his heart. Yet he is the most dishonest and incompetent leader we've had in my lifetime. Perhaps he's just evil, but I'm not willing to say that yet. The historians who write the history of our times will say it.
Time to sign off tonight. Send your e-mail to steveng AT TechWritePublishing.com. I'd like to print your letter in the TLJ journal.
Reagan's Voice
Here's a quotation about Reagan from one of Lou Cannon's books. Cannon quotes a gentleman named Roger Rosenblatt about how Reagan sounded to people: "His voice was his great gift. It was a voice, wrote Roger Rosenblatt, which 'recedes at the right moments, turning mellow at points of intensity so as to win you over by intimacy.... He likes his voice, treats it like a guest. He makes you part of the hospitality.'"
Saturday, May 21, 2005
Neither Fools Nor Cowards: The Wall Street Journal
"The nation that will insist upon drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking by cowards."
- Sir William Francis Butler, quoted by Eliot Cohen
- Sir William Francis Butler, quoted by Eliot Cohen
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Springtime
In those vernal seasons of the year, when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against Nature not to go out." - John Milton
Human Greatness
"What is a great man who has made his mark upon history? Every time, if we think far enough, he is a man who has looked through the confusion of the moment and has seen the moral issue involved; he is a man who has refused to have his sense of justice distorted; he has listened to his conscience until his conscience becomes a trumpet call to like-minded men, so that they gather about him and together, with mutual purpose and mutual aid, they make a new period in history." - Jane Addams
Monday, May 09, 2005
Laura Bush's Mission Accomplished - Frank Rich
Laura Bush's Mission Accomplished - New York Times: "Infotainment has reached a new level of ubiquity in an era in which 'reality' television and reality have become so blurred that it's hard to know if ABC News's special investigating 'American Idol' last week was real journalism about a fake show or fake journalism about a real show or whether anyone knows the difference - or cares. "
Saturday, May 07, 2005
'Assassination Vacation,' by Sarah Vowell - The New York Times - Book Review - New York Times
'Assassination Vacation,' by Sarah Vowell - The New York Times - Book Review - New York Times: "Vowell attributes what she calls ''this whole morbid assassination death trip'' to, in part, her anger at the current president and his policies, particularly the war in Iraq -- to which she draws a parallel with McKinley's elective attack on Spain. (This isn't just a lefty reflex: Karl Rove is also said to be fond of McKinley-Bush parallels.) Her ''simmering rage'' at the president alarms her:
''If I can summon this much bitterness toward a presidential human being, I can sort of, kind of see how this amount of bile or more, teaming up with disappointment, unemployment, delusions of grandeur and mental illness, could prompt a crazier narcissistic creep to buy one of this country's widely available handguns. Not that I, I repeat, condone that. Like Lincoln, I would like to believe the ballot is stronger than the bullet. Then again, he said that before he got shot.'' "
''If I can summon this much bitterness toward a presidential human being, I can sort of, kind of see how this amount of bile or more, teaming up with disappointment, unemployment, delusions of grandeur and mental illness, could prompt a crazier narcissistic creep to buy one of this country's widely available handguns. Not that I, I repeat, condone that. Like Lincoln, I would like to believe the ballot is stronger than the bullet. Then again, he said that before he got shot.'' "
The One Thing We Haven't Tried
We've tried a lot of things now, and they haven't worked. The one thing we haven't tried is getting out.
Thursday, May 05, 2005
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
War, What Is It Good For?
Back in the sixties we say, back in the sixties. We had another war then, and without a doubt that war colors our thinking about this one. The lyrics of one anti-war song went, "War, hoough, what is it good for? Absolutely nothin'." The refrain is memorable because it's delivered so forcefully. Whenever I heard it, I thought that war is good for some things - some over-simplification is evident here. But in fact this war in Iraq is good for absolutely nothin'. Good men are dying over there, and it's all for nothing.
We need an answer to the question, "Why don't we disengage our troops from the fighting in Iraq right now?" President Bush says that we have work there left to do: hard, nation-building work. You might remember what President Bush said about committing our armed forces to nation-building in his campaign against Al Gore in 2000. He was right then and he's wrong now.
What nation-building goals do we have in Iraq that we've made demonstrable progress toward? Turning over sovereignty and holding an election don't really count as progress when you've started a civil war you can't do anything about. By all the measures that count with normal people, we have not done any of the things we said we were going to do, except get rid of Saddam Hussein, which we did in the first three weeks. Two years later, we've caused a lot of unnecessary deaths, among our own armed forces and among the people of Iraq. We've accomplished some other things, too, most of it in line with the position that this war was wrong from the start.
So we keep asking, "How could people have voted for the leader who started this war?" "People are scared," the answer comes back, and it seems to be true. You talk to people about the war, and it doesn't seem as if they've analyzed it much. People trust their president. Their thinking actually goes beyond trust: they feel that in wartime, they owe the president their support. People don't believe the president could make a mistake this huge. Many Germans suffered a lot of deprivations during the Second World War, but they didn't understand that their nation's leader had made huge mistakes until the Russian forces rolled into Berlin. When China takes over Taiwan and we're the only member of the United Nations to speak against it, do you think people will know that we've made a mistake here? I'm doubtful.
I talked with a colleague over lunch not long ago, and repeated the argument I made in Ugly War and elsewhere. China was destined to take over world leadership from us eventually, but I didn't think it would happen during my lifetime. Now people will be shocked at how fast it can happen. My colleague said without hesitation, "It already has." I didn't think anyone thought that! He explained what signs we have that the transition has occurred:
(1) Ability to force others to do what they might not otherwise do, or to prevent them from doing what they'd like to do.
(2) Ability to prevent others from interfering with your plans.
(3) Ability to get others to go along with you, to support you in your goals.
By all three of these measures, China is doing better in world leadership than we are. We just don't recognize it yet.
I want to finish with a story from this Sunday's worship service at my church. I came late, and noted a young soldier at the rail in the front during communion. He was so well turned out for the occasion: perfect haircut, uniform perfectly pressed, boots as shiny as could be. He was so young, so handsome and sincere. I admired him. When I returned to my seat after communion, my thoughts went to him, and I became sentimental. My eyes teared up. Why? That's what happens when feelings you've repressed come out. Part of it is patriotism, that's for sure. But it's patriotism mixed with such sadness that we've sent our young men over to Iraq to be killed and maimed day after day, and it's for nothing. What a waste. We've asked them to do a job that is not theirs to do. They signed up to serve in order to protect us, and they're not doing that over there.
After the service, I told someone I know in the congregation about my thoughts on seeing the young man in uniform. My friend said that earlier in the service, he received two rounds of applause from all the people there. It turns out that the soldier does serve in Iraq, and that he's home on leave. He'll return to his unit over there soon. He's the nephew of one of the church members. All the people there that morning rightly regarded him as a hero, and they wanted him to know they appreciate what he's doing. I told my friend about my thoughts after communion, how sad it made me to think what this war has done to our armed forces. I told him I'd been in the Navy; he had served in the army reserves. When he understood that my sadness grew from opposition to the war, he looked away, clearly a bit uncomfortable. "Whatever you think about the war," he said, "you have to appreciate what our soldiers are doing over there." Naturally I agreed readily.
But now I need to return to memories of the sixties, and the war we fought then. Why does that war cast such a long shadow? Because we lost it? Because we lost so many soldiers there? Because it took so long to recover from its effects? We don't want to think that we've become involved in another war that's pointless, pointless in light of our best and true interests. Reagan said about Vietnam that in truth ours was a noble cause, and the anti-war people in the seventies gasped. How can this man say such things? Well, he was right in a way, just as our cause in Iraq is a noble one. But a noble cause - good intent - doesn't make something right. It doesn't mean we should do it. Human action doesn't translate like that.
The reasons you have for undertaking an action don't tell the whole story. The moral content of an action encompasses much more than that. It encompasses more than the actual consequences of the action, too. These two areas, intentions and consequences, are the beginning of moral reasoning, not the end. When we clap for a soldier home on leave, or cry, that's good. But don't send that young man so far away from his family to fight a war we shouldn't fight.
We need an answer to the question, "Why don't we disengage our troops from the fighting in Iraq right now?" President Bush says that we have work there left to do: hard, nation-building work. You might remember what President Bush said about committing our armed forces to nation-building in his campaign against Al Gore in 2000. He was right then and he's wrong now.
What nation-building goals do we have in Iraq that we've made demonstrable progress toward? Turning over sovereignty and holding an election don't really count as progress when you've started a civil war you can't do anything about. By all the measures that count with normal people, we have not done any of the things we said we were going to do, except get rid of Saddam Hussein, which we did in the first three weeks. Two years later, we've caused a lot of unnecessary deaths, among our own armed forces and among the people of Iraq. We've accomplished some other things, too, most of it in line with the position that this war was wrong from the start.
So we keep asking, "How could people have voted for the leader who started this war?" "People are scared," the answer comes back, and it seems to be true. You talk to people about the war, and it doesn't seem as if they've analyzed it much. People trust their president. Their thinking actually goes beyond trust: they feel that in wartime, they owe the president their support. People don't believe the president could make a mistake this huge. Many Germans suffered a lot of deprivations during the Second World War, but they didn't understand that their nation's leader had made huge mistakes until the Russian forces rolled into Berlin. When China takes over Taiwan and we're the only member of the United Nations to speak against it, do you think people will know that we've made a mistake here? I'm doubtful.
I talked with a colleague over lunch not long ago, and repeated the argument I made in Ugly War and elsewhere. China was destined to take over world leadership from us eventually, but I didn't think it would happen during my lifetime. Now people will be shocked at how fast it can happen. My colleague said without hesitation, "It already has." I didn't think anyone thought that! He explained what signs we have that the transition has occurred:
(1) Ability to force others to do what they might not otherwise do, or to prevent them from doing what they'd like to do.
(2) Ability to prevent others from interfering with your plans.
(3) Ability to get others to go along with you, to support you in your goals.
By all three of these measures, China is doing better in world leadership than we are. We just don't recognize it yet.
I want to finish with a story from this Sunday's worship service at my church. I came late, and noted a young soldier at the rail in the front during communion. He was so well turned out for the occasion: perfect haircut, uniform perfectly pressed, boots as shiny as could be. He was so young, so handsome and sincere. I admired him. When I returned to my seat after communion, my thoughts went to him, and I became sentimental. My eyes teared up. Why? That's what happens when feelings you've repressed come out. Part of it is patriotism, that's for sure. But it's patriotism mixed with such sadness that we've sent our young men over to Iraq to be killed and maimed day after day, and it's for nothing. What a waste. We've asked them to do a job that is not theirs to do. They signed up to serve in order to protect us, and they're not doing that over there.
After the service, I told someone I know in the congregation about my thoughts on seeing the young man in uniform. My friend said that earlier in the service, he received two rounds of applause from all the people there. It turns out that the soldier does serve in Iraq, and that he's home on leave. He'll return to his unit over there soon. He's the nephew of one of the church members. All the people there that morning rightly regarded him as a hero, and they wanted him to know they appreciate what he's doing. I told my friend about my thoughts after communion, how sad it made me to think what this war has done to our armed forces. I told him I'd been in the Navy; he had served in the army reserves. When he understood that my sadness grew from opposition to the war, he looked away, clearly a bit uncomfortable. "Whatever you think about the war," he said, "you have to appreciate what our soldiers are doing over there." Naturally I agreed readily.
But now I need to return to memories of the sixties, and the war we fought then. Why does that war cast such a long shadow? Because we lost it? Because we lost so many soldiers there? Because it took so long to recover from its effects? We don't want to think that we've become involved in another war that's pointless, pointless in light of our best and true interests. Reagan said about Vietnam that in truth ours was a noble cause, and the anti-war people in the seventies gasped. How can this man say such things? Well, he was right in a way, just as our cause in Iraq is a noble one. But a noble cause - good intent - doesn't make something right. It doesn't mean we should do it. Human action doesn't translate like that.
The reasons you have for undertaking an action don't tell the whole story. The moral content of an action encompasses much more than that. It encompasses more than the actual consequences of the action, too. These two areas, intentions and consequences, are the beginning of moral reasoning, not the end. When we clap for a soldier home on leave, or cry, that's good. But don't send that young man so far away from his family to fight a war we shouldn't fight.
Dowd: All That Glistens Is Gold
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: All That Glistens Is Gold: "Shakespeare's lesson from 'The Merchant of Venice': 'Gilded tombs do worms infold.'"
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Kristof: Day 113 of the President's Silence
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Day 113 of the President's Silence: "President Kennedy: 'The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality.'"
Monday, May 02, 2005
Saturday, April 30, 2005
The Lion at the Gate by Steven Hayward
The Lion at the Gate by Steven Hayward:
"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
President Reagan, at the Brandenburg Gate,
West Berlin, June 12, 1987
Most of his senior aides didn't want him to say it. Indeed, they tried repeatedly to talk him out of it. You'll embarrass your host, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. You''ll anger and provoke Mikhail Gorbachev, with whom you've just started making progress on arms control. You'll whip up false hope among East Germans - for surely the Berlin Wall isn't coming down any time soon. Besides, Germans have grown used to the Wall. The ultimate reason: You'll look na�ve and foolish, Mr. President.
"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
President Reagan, at the Brandenburg Gate,
West Berlin, June 12, 1987
Most of his senior aides didn't want him to say it. Indeed, they tried repeatedly to talk him out of it. You'll embarrass your host, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. You''ll anger and provoke Mikhail Gorbachev, with whom you've just started making progress on arms control. You'll whip up false hope among East Germans - for surely the Berlin Wall isn't coming down any time soon. Besides, Germans have grown used to the Wall. The ultimate reason: You'll look na�ve and foolish, Mr. President.
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Saturday, April 23, 2005
Here are some links of interest to readers of The Last Jeffersonian:A Tribute to President Ronald Reagan
Character Above All - Essay by Peggy Noonan
Ronald Reagan - 75 Links
Character Above All - Essay by Peggy Noonan
Ronald Reagan - 75 Links
Rich: A High-Tech Lynching in Prime Time
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: A High-Tech Lynching in Prime Time: "While Sinclair Lewis wrote that Gantry, his hypocritical evangelical preacher, 'was born to be a senator,' we now have senators who are born to be Gantrys. "
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
The American Thinker
If you like to find thoughtful discourse on the web, try this site: The American Thinker. Here is the site introduction on The American Thinker's home page:
The American Thinker is devoted to the thoughtful exploration of issues of importance to Americans. Contributors are accomplished in fields beyond journalism, and animated to write for the general public out of concern for the complex and morally significant questions on the national agenda.
There is no limit to the topics appearing on The American Thinker. National security in all its dimensions, strategic, economic, diplomatic, and military is emphasized. The right to exist, and the survival of the State of Israel are of great importance to us. Business, science, technology, medicine, management, and economics in their practical and ethical dimensions are also emphasized, as is the state of American culture.
The American Thinker is devoted to the thoughtful exploration of issues of importance to Americans. Contributors are accomplished in fields beyond journalism, and animated to write for the general public out of concern for the complex and morally significant questions on the national agenda.
There is no limit to the topics appearing on The American Thinker. National security in all its dimensions, strategic, economic, diplomatic, and military is emphasized. The right to exist, and the survival of the State of Israel are of great importance to us. Business, science, technology, medicine, management, and economics in their practical and ethical dimensions are also emphasized, as is the state of American culture.
Monday, April 18, 2005
Success
"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a little bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
View from Lebanon
"Politics is a contact sport."
- Publisher of an English language newspaper in Lebanon.
- Publisher of an English language newspaper in Lebanon.
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Scale of International Morality
We're all so happy that Bush was right about promoting democracy in the Middle East. He was right to go to war, because look what a lot of good resulted.
On the scale of international morality, only one thing is worse than massacring thousands of your own civilians. That's what Hussein did. Worse than preying on people in your own country is massacring thousands of civilians in another country. That's what Bush did.
He said he did it for good reasons, and so far a lot of people have believed him. The Iraqis themselves are grateful that Bush rid them of Hussein, and only the most militant Iraqis would say that Bush is a tyrant. But we shouldn't forget about the crime he committed. He attacked another country without provocation: a weaker country that did not threaten us. Since Germany did it to Belgium in 1914, in the Great War that marked the advent of modern atrocities, we have regarded such attacks as crimes.
We aren't the first country to commit this crime, and we aren't the first country in a dominant position to do it. We could be the first democracy ever to have done it, though.
Americans don't do things like that. Not for any reason.
On the scale of international morality, only one thing is worse than massacring thousands of your own civilians. That's what Hussein did. Worse than preying on people in your own country is massacring thousands of civilians in another country. That's what Bush did.
He said he did it for good reasons, and so far a lot of people have believed him. The Iraqis themselves are grateful that Bush rid them of Hussein, and only the most militant Iraqis would say that Bush is a tyrant. But we shouldn't forget about the crime he committed. He attacked another country without provocation: a weaker country that did not threaten us. Since Germany did it to Belgium in 1914, in the Great War that marked the advent of modern atrocities, we have regarded such attacks as crimes.
We aren't the first country to commit this crime, and we aren't the first country in a dominant position to do it. We could be the first democracy ever to have done it, though.
Americans don't do things like that. Not for any reason.
Ronald Reagan's Biggest Mistake: Response from Sam Goldman
Like you, I remember the Reagan years and the Ford years before them. Your facts may, indeed, be correct, but whatever went on inside Reagan's mind, I doubt that Jack Kemp was included in the ganglia.
As I see it, he had NO CHOICE but Bush. As you say, Ford was a long shot and reluctant. It never would have worked any more than any president taking a lower leadership role, even in a company. The case of JQ Adams is different as he went to the legislative branch---we may yet see Bill Clinton there, no?
Jack Kemp was on a conservative tear, particularly on abortion. The women's groups were, and are, quite strong and there is little chance that he'd have escaped lacerating attacks; those, then, rub off an Reagan and his charm and good looks go down the drain along with millions of female votes, along with men who viewed, and still do, the abortion issue as important.
Barry Goldwater? Too old.
Any senator? None were outstanding and California, to the rest of the country, still had a taint of Nixon as being kooky, almost criminal. RR needed a mid-west or eastern person.
Bush's qualities on paper are admirable. Like George McGovern, he has a weak-sounding voice, but fighter-pilots aren't weak, nor are oil-men in the patch, nor are Maine sailors.
The fact that W came along is a quirk of history. The fact that Albert Gore eschewed the support of Bill Clinton ranks as the stupidest act in American campaign history. He deserved to have lost, even with my vote in his pocket. I blame Gore for W, not RR and not GF.
Bring back Bill, I say.
All the best,
Sam
As I see it, he had NO CHOICE but Bush. As you say, Ford was a long shot and reluctant. It never would have worked any more than any president taking a lower leadership role, even in a company. The case of JQ Adams is different as he went to the legislative branch---we may yet see Bill Clinton there, no?
Jack Kemp was on a conservative tear, particularly on abortion. The women's groups were, and are, quite strong and there is little chance that he'd have escaped lacerating attacks; those, then, rub off an Reagan and his charm and good looks go down the drain along with millions of female votes, along with men who viewed, and still do, the abortion issue as important.
Barry Goldwater? Too old.
Any senator? None were outstanding and California, to the rest of the country, still had a taint of Nixon as being kooky, almost criminal. RR needed a mid-west or eastern person.
Bush's qualities on paper are admirable. Like George McGovern, he has a weak-sounding voice, but fighter-pilots aren't weak, nor are oil-men in the patch, nor are Maine sailors.
The fact that W came along is a quirk of history. The fact that Albert Gore eschewed the support of Bill Clinton ranks as the stupidest act in American campaign history. He deserved to have lost, even with my vote in his pocket. I blame Gore for W, not RR and not GF.
Bring back Bill, I say.
All the best,
Sam
Ronald Reagan's Biggest Mistake
Most people would say that Iran-Contra was Ronald Reagan's biggest mistake. Certainly from the limited perspective of his own administration, and of Reagan's own goals, it was that. From the longer perspective of American political history, though, Reagan's biggest mistake was his selection of George Bush as his running mate in Detroit at the 1980 Republican National Convention.
We can't lay at Reagan's door all the bad consequences of this decision. No one would expect him to see what would happen a generation later because he put George Bush on the ticket that year. In the summer of 1980, Reagan wasn't even sure he could unseat a sitting president. His main concern was to select someone who could help him win. So let me tell you how this choice turned out wrong, how for want of a vice-presidential nominee, the republic was lost.
The usual story is that Reagan and Ford talked about a Dream Ticket in 1980, a former president and a popular candidate teaming up to make the Republican ticket unbeatable. Then the talks failed when Ford suggested something like a co-presidency. Reagan didn't like the sound of that, so in the middle of the convention he turned to George Bush, his strongest opponent in the primaries. Gerald Ford had overreached, the story went, and Reagan chose a natural alternate when he couldn't agree to Ford's terms.
That version tells part of the story, but it overlooks some interesting nuances. Those nuances explain why Reagan, usually so astute about things political, made a decision that he might not have made if he had spent more time on it. As it turned out, his choice of a running mate was more consequential than he might have guessed at the time.
Anne Edwards recently published a book called The Reagans: Portrait of a Marriage. She takes us to the spring of 1980, when Reagan is wrapping up the delegates he'll need to gain the his party's nomination at the Republican National Convention in August. Reagan first approaches Ford about the vice-presidency in March 1980, five months before the convention. "Will you help the Republican party out and be my running mate?" Reagan asks.
They'd mended their fences from the 1976 battle for the Republican presidential nomination, but Ford politely turned Reagan down. Vice-president isn't a role you take on readily after you've been president. Reagan, however, isn't one to take no for an answer, especially if he sees any possibility at all of success. He asks Ford to reconsider, and asks him again, until Ford agrees to talk about it. These talks become intense during the convention in Detroit, Michigan. Then Ford goes on live television...
The interview with former President Ford is part of CBS's broadcast from the convention hall. Walter Cronkite asks Ford about his role as vice-president. Ford answers in a way that seems to put him on an equal footing with Reagan. That raises doubts for Reagan, so he places a phone call to Ford's room in the hotel. Reagan presses Ford's representative for an answer. No more complications and negotiations - and I need your answer in three minutes! Ford doesn't come through with a positive reply within the time limit, so Reagan calls George Bush. Bush accepts immediately. The next thing you know, they are out on the convention floor together, a happy pair waving to the delegates!
We can see now that Ford really didn't want to accept. You can't fault him for thinking, "I would only do it if..." For Reagan, the negotiations with Ford were too public and too drawn out. He wanted to bring them to a quick end. He had to, because the convention was going to be over in a couple of days, and the delegates weren't going to wait around while he and Ford figured things out!
Problem was, Reagan's negotiations with Ford displaced the normal selection process, a process that takes quite a range of vice-presidential candidates into account. When the talks with Ford didn't produce an agreement, Reagan didn't have an alternate other than Bush ready to go out on the floor with him. He couldn't start the usual sounding out, vetting and selection process at that late hour.
Bush was a safe candidate. He was there in Detroit. Reagan could be confident that he would say yes. He had a lifelong record of service in the Navy, in the Republican party, and in the federal executive branch. The voters knew him. He was from the big state of Texas, and from the Northeastern establishment. So Bush had a lot to recommend him, even though Reagan thought that he was weak.
Reagan's opinion of Bush improved over the next eight years, but at the time he didn't respect his running mate that much. Reagan's assessment arose from their famous encounter at the high school gym in Nashua, New Hampshire, where Reagan stirred the audience when he declaimed, "I paid for this microphone!" Bush had not behaved with courage and grace during that episode, and Reagan observed it. But George Bush had all those other things to recommend him, so Reagan put him on the ticket.
I thought Reagan's selection of Bush was a mistake well before W. ran and won in 2000. Reagan needed a true believer like Jack Kemp on his side. It's not that Kemp or anyone else would have helped Reagan do a better job during his eight years in office. Bush himself served well as vice-president, and we know that the formal powers of the office are pretty limited to begin with. Bush did what Reagan asked him to do.
Bush turned out to be a poor choice because his role as vice-president made him Reagan's natural successor in 1988, and Bush was not a good successor for Reagan. In politics, though, you don't think about succession to an office you haven't even won yet. In 1980, Reagan and his team focused their energies on defeating an incumbent president. Their concentration would have been misplaced if they had been thinking about succession eight years down the line.
So I'm going to leave the rest of the analysis up in the air here. Part two comes next month. If I don't come through in February with some more remarks about Reagan's Republican successors, please catch me on it. You have a right to know!
We can't lay at Reagan's door all the bad consequences of this decision. No one would expect him to see what would happen a generation later because he put George Bush on the ticket that year. In the summer of 1980, Reagan wasn't even sure he could unseat a sitting president. His main concern was to select someone who could help him win. So let me tell you how this choice turned out wrong, how for want of a vice-presidential nominee, the republic was lost.
The usual story is that Reagan and Ford talked about a Dream Ticket in 1980, a former president and a popular candidate teaming up to make the Republican ticket unbeatable. Then the talks failed when Ford suggested something like a co-presidency. Reagan didn't like the sound of that, so in the middle of the convention he turned to George Bush, his strongest opponent in the primaries. Gerald Ford had overreached, the story went, and Reagan chose a natural alternate when he couldn't agree to Ford's terms.
That version tells part of the story, but it overlooks some interesting nuances. Those nuances explain why Reagan, usually so astute about things political, made a decision that he might not have made if he had spent more time on it. As it turned out, his choice of a running mate was more consequential than he might have guessed at the time.
Anne Edwards recently published a book called The Reagans: Portrait of a Marriage. She takes us to the spring of 1980, when Reagan is wrapping up the delegates he'll need to gain the his party's nomination at the Republican National Convention in August. Reagan first approaches Ford about the vice-presidency in March 1980, five months before the convention. "Will you help the Republican party out and be my running mate?" Reagan asks.
They'd mended their fences from the 1976 battle for the Republican presidential nomination, but Ford politely turned Reagan down. Vice-president isn't a role you take on readily after you've been president. Reagan, however, isn't one to take no for an answer, especially if he sees any possibility at all of success. He asks Ford to reconsider, and asks him again, until Ford agrees to talk about it. These talks become intense during the convention in Detroit, Michigan. Then Ford goes on live television...
The interview with former President Ford is part of CBS's broadcast from the convention hall. Walter Cronkite asks Ford about his role as vice-president. Ford answers in a way that seems to put him on an equal footing with Reagan. That raises doubts for Reagan, so he places a phone call to Ford's room in the hotel. Reagan presses Ford's representative for an answer. No more complications and negotiations - and I need your answer in three minutes! Ford doesn't come through with a positive reply within the time limit, so Reagan calls George Bush. Bush accepts immediately. The next thing you know, they are out on the convention floor together, a happy pair waving to the delegates!
We can see now that Ford really didn't want to accept. You can't fault him for thinking, "I would only do it if..." For Reagan, the negotiations with Ford were too public and too drawn out. He wanted to bring them to a quick end. He had to, because the convention was going to be over in a couple of days, and the delegates weren't going to wait around while he and Ford figured things out!
Problem was, Reagan's negotiations with Ford displaced the normal selection process, a process that takes quite a range of vice-presidential candidates into account. When the talks with Ford didn't produce an agreement, Reagan didn't have an alternate other than Bush ready to go out on the floor with him. He couldn't start the usual sounding out, vetting and selection process at that late hour.
Bush was a safe candidate. He was there in Detroit. Reagan could be confident that he would say yes. He had a lifelong record of service in the Navy, in the Republican party, and in the federal executive branch. The voters knew him. He was from the big state of Texas, and from the Northeastern establishment. So Bush had a lot to recommend him, even though Reagan thought that he was weak.
Reagan's opinion of Bush improved over the next eight years, but at the time he didn't respect his running mate that much. Reagan's assessment arose from their famous encounter at the high school gym in Nashua, New Hampshire, where Reagan stirred the audience when he declaimed, "I paid for this microphone!" Bush had not behaved with courage and grace during that episode, and Reagan observed it. But George Bush had all those other things to recommend him, so Reagan put him on the ticket.
I thought Reagan's selection of Bush was a mistake well before W. ran and won in 2000. Reagan needed a true believer like Jack Kemp on his side. It's not that Kemp or anyone else would have helped Reagan do a better job during his eight years in office. Bush himself served well as vice-president, and we know that the formal powers of the office are pretty limited to begin with. Bush did what Reagan asked him to do.
Bush turned out to be a poor choice because his role as vice-president made him Reagan's natural successor in 1988, and Bush was not a good successor for Reagan. In politics, though, you don't think about succession to an office you haven't even won yet. In 1980, Reagan and his team focused their energies on defeating an incumbent president. Their concentration would have been misplaced if they had been thinking about succession eight years down the line.
So I'm going to leave the rest of the analysis up in the air here. Part two comes next month. If I don't come through in February with some more remarks about Reagan's Republican successors, please catch me on it. You have a right to know!
Saturday, March 26, 2005
Jonathan Gurwitz: Two years later, does U.S. still belong in Iraq?
Jonathan Gurwitz: Two years later, does U.S. still belong in Iraq?
Web Posted: 03/20/2005 12:00 AM CST
San Antonio Express-News
A question is popping up around the globe as the topic of cocktail conversations. Even in countries where cocktails aren't served as a matter of religious propriety, people are incredulously asking, "Could George W. Bush be right?"
Youssef Ibrahim, a former Middle East correspondent for the New York Times, now head of a consulting firm in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, writing in the Washington Post:
"Regardless of Bush's intentions — which many Arabs and Muslims still view with suspicion — the U.S. president and his neoconservative crowd are helping to spawn a spirit of reform and a new vigor to confront dynastic dictatorships and other assorted ills.
"It's enough for someone like me, who has felt that Bush's attitude toward the Mideast has been all wrong, to wonder whether his idea of setting the Muslim house in order is right."
Columnist Richard Gwyn, a Bush and Iraq war critic, writing in the Toronto Star:
"Here it is time to set down in type the most difficult sentence in the English language. That sentence is short and simple. It is this: Bush was right.
"President George W. Bush wasn't right to invade Iraq. His justifications for doing so were (almost all of them) either frivolous, in comparison to the scale of the venture, or were outright fraudulent.
"Having conquered Iraq and deposed Saddam Hussein, Bush and his officials and generals then made every blunder that could be imagined by an occupying power, adding several original ones of their own.
"But on the defining, fundamental question, Bush was right."
Journalist Claus Christian Malzahn writing for Der Spiegel Online:
"When Reagan stood before the Brandenburg Gate and the Berlin Wall and demanded that Gorbachev 'tear down this wall,' he was lampooned the next day on the editorial pages. He is a dreamer, wrote commentators.
"When the voter turnout in Iraq recently exceeded that of many Western nations, the chorus of critique from Iraq alarmists was, at least for a couple of days, quieted. Just as quiet as the chorus of Germany experts on the night of Nov. 9, 1989, when the Wall fell. Just a thought for Old Europe to chew on. Bush might be right, just like Reagan was then."
From Casablanca to Kabul, people who were supposedly genetically predisposed to suffer despotism in silence are suddenly sounding the chorus of freedom.
If this groundswell for democratic change is causing Arab, Canadian and European critics to feel somewhat conflicted about Bush, it's giving bitter-enders on the American left — some of whom are still replaying the past two presidential elections — and cynics on the right a case of cognitive dissonance.
Bush, after all, is supposedly an evangelical simpleton and a tool of oil-producing, Arab autocrats or Zionist imperialists, depending upon the source.
But such ideological fantasies are now running headlong into a brick wall of historical facts. And so the critics must decide.
Are they on the side of millions of Afghans and Iraqis breaking the chains of despotism, Lebanese shaking off the occupation of a dictatorship, Egyptians asserting their political liberty and women across the Middle East claiming their basic human rights?
Or to ensure that nothing positive accrues to the despised Bush and to fulfill the Cassandra-like prophesies about the war in Iraq, are they on the side of homicidal religious fanatics, human rights criminals, racists and sexists?
To pose the question this way is a mistake. It borrows from Bush’s principle, “You’re either with us or you’re against us.” Where is the voice that says, “An aggressive war is wrong, period.”? It doesn’t matter what comes out of the war: it’s just wrong. Reagan himself held to three simple moral principles that he learned from his mom: Everything happens for a reason. God has a plan for you, for all of us. Everything works out for the best in the end. I believe those things, and if I believe them I have to acknowledge that they apply to big things like the war in Iraq. But the war itself is evil, and should not have happened. We can see, sixty years later, that the Holocaust and World War II had many good outcomes, but they were evil and they never should have happened. The Crucifixion, which we remember this Good Friday, had an unbelievably good outcome for all of us, but it was an evil act and it never should have happened. No one can justify it. The same reasoning applies to our aggressive war in Iraq. No amount of good consequences can ever justify evil acts. Period.
Supporters of the Bush Doctrine would be wrong to declare as democratic faits accomplis the astounding developments in the Middle East. The likelihood is great that events in the region will more closely resemble Tiananmen Square than the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Far more wrong, however, are administration opponents, blinded by ideological zeal, who are unwilling to grant any credit to Bush for these astounding developments, recognize the American military's role in shattering the Middle Eastern mantle of oppression or cheer the brave people of the region risking their lives to transform their moribund societies.
Web Posted: 03/20/2005 12:00 AM CST
San Antonio Express-News
A question is popping up around the globe as the topic of cocktail conversations. Even in countries where cocktails aren't served as a matter of religious propriety, people are incredulously asking, "Could George W. Bush be right?"
Youssef Ibrahim, a former Middle East correspondent for the New York Times, now head of a consulting firm in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, writing in the Washington Post:
"Regardless of Bush's intentions — which many Arabs and Muslims still view with suspicion — the U.S. president and his neoconservative crowd are helping to spawn a spirit of reform and a new vigor to confront dynastic dictatorships and other assorted ills.
"It's enough for someone like me, who has felt that Bush's attitude toward the Mideast has been all wrong, to wonder whether his idea of setting the Muslim house in order is right."
Columnist Richard Gwyn, a Bush and Iraq war critic, writing in the Toronto Star:
"Here it is time to set down in type the most difficult sentence in the English language. That sentence is short and simple. It is this: Bush was right.
"President George W. Bush wasn't right to invade Iraq. His justifications for doing so were (almost all of them) either frivolous, in comparison to the scale of the venture, or were outright fraudulent.
"Having conquered Iraq and deposed Saddam Hussein, Bush and his officials and generals then made every blunder that could be imagined by an occupying power, adding several original ones of their own.
"But on the defining, fundamental question, Bush was right."
Journalist Claus Christian Malzahn writing for Der Spiegel Online:
"When Reagan stood before the Brandenburg Gate and the Berlin Wall and demanded that Gorbachev 'tear down this wall,' he was lampooned the next day on the editorial pages. He is a dreamer, wrote commentators.
"When the voter turnout in Iraq recently exceeded that of many Western nations, the chorus of critique from Iraq alarmists was, at least for a couple of days, quieted. Just as quiet as the chorus of Germany experts on the night of Nov. 9, 1989, when the Wall fell. Just a thought for Old Europe to chew on. Bush might be right, just like Reagan was then."
From Casablanca to Kabul, people who were supposedly genetically predisposed to suffer despotism in silence are suddenly sounding the chorus of freedom.
If this groundswell for democratic change is causing Arab, Canadian and European critics to feel somewhat conflicted about Bush, it's giving bitter-enders on the American left — some of whom are still replaying the past two presidential elections — and cynics on the right a case of cognitive dissonance.
Bush, after all, is supposedly an evangelical simpleton and a tool of oil-producing, Arab autocrats or Zionist imperialists, depending upon the source.
But such ideological fantasies are now running headlong into a brick wall of historical facts. And so the critics must decide.
Are they on the side of millions of Afghans and Iraqis breaking the chains of despotism, Lebanese shaking off the occupation of a dictatorship, Egyptians asserting their political liberty and women across the Middle East claiming their basic human rights?
Or to ensure that nothing positive accrues to the despised Bush and to fulfill the Cassandra-like prophesies about the war in Iraq, are they on the side of homicidal religious fanatics, human rights criminals, racists and sexists?
To pose the question this way is a mistake. It borrows from Bush’s principle, “You’re either with us or you’re against us.” Where is the voice that says, “An aggressive war is wrong, period.”? It doesn’t matter what comes out of the war: it’s just wrong. Reagan himself held to three simple moral principles that he learned from his mom: Everything happens for a reason. God has a plan for you, for all of us. Everything works out for the best in the end. I believe those things, and if I believe them I have to acknowledge that they apply to big things like the war in Iraq. But the war itself is evil, and should not have happened. We can see, sixty years later, that the Holocaust and World War II had many good outcomes, but they were evil and they never should have happened. The Crucifixion, which we remember this Good Friday, had an unbelievably good outcome for all of us, but it was an evil act and it never should have happened. No one can justify it. The same reasoning applies to our aggressive war in Iraq. No amount of good consequences can ever justify evil acts. Period.
Supporters of the Bush Doctrine would be wrong to declare as democratic faits accomplis the astounding developments in the Middle East. The likelihood is great that events in the region will more closely resemble Tiananmen Square than the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Far more wrong, however, are administration opponents, blinded by ideological zeal, who are unwilling to grant any credit to Bush for these astounding developments, recognize the American military's role in shattering the Middle Eastern mantle of oppression or cheer the brave people of the region risking their lives to transform their moribund societies.
Monday, March 14, 2005
From Mark Twain
"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect."
- Mark Twain
- Mark Twain
Saturday, March 05, 2005
The Ronald Reagan We All Knew
"Ronald Reagan has a genius for American occasions. He is a Prospero of American memories, a magician who carries a bright, ideal America like a holograph in his mind and projects its image in the air.... Reagan, master illusionist, is himself a kind of American dream. Looking at his genial, crinkly face prompts a sense of wonder: How does he pull it off?" - Time, July 1986
Drug Wars
Who thinks we would have any more drug crimes were we to decriminalize drugs?
Why do we treat drugs and alcohol differently?
Why should we care if someone wants to take drugs, as long as they don't operate a car or other dangerous equipment while under the influence?
What does liberty mean if government can control what I put into my own body?
Why do we treat drugs and alcohol differently?
Why should we care if someone wants to take drugs, as long as they don't operate a car or other dangerous equipment while under the influence?
What does liberty mean if government can control what I put into my own body?
Friday, March 04, 2005
A New Political Party (Part II)
A New Political Party (Part II)
I wanted to report on some follow-up to A New Political Party, dated February 25, 2005. I checked out the American Reform Party on Google, and found http://americanreform.org. A gentleman active in that organization sent me a link for the New Frontier Coalition (NFC) at http://newfrontiercoalition.org. Here is my note to the gentleman who sent the link:
_________________________________________
Thanks for the link to the NFC site. Here are some quick thoughts after checking out the site and reading your recent correspondence.
The preamble to the NFC constitution is well-worded - more in response to that below. I think that the word coalition, as in New Frontier Coalition or in the ARP Coalition Committee, accurately describes the efforts under way now. I don't think it’s a good word to include in the name of a new third party that registers with the FEC. It implies that the individual parties maintain their identities within the coalition. If we had a parliamentary, proportional representation system like the Europeans or the Israelis, coalitions work fine. Our system doesn't work that way, so a new third party has to have unity built into its name. I don't think people will eagerly vote for a coalition in our system. What starts as a coalition has to coalesce into an organization that can field candidates and win votes.
I think almost half of the electorate is not happy with the existing two parties. Polls have put the independent vote at almost forty percent for some time, but my instinct tells me it's somewhat higher than that. Lincoln and Clinton won the White House with a little over forty percent of the popular vote. A new coalition needs to put together an organization that can win electoral votes in enough states to be credible. The Republicans nominated Fremont in 1856, and took the presidency only four years later. It could happen again.
Before the 2000 election, I wrote an article called "Where Are Candidates People Want?" I thought both candidates were poor at the time, and I don't believe I was the only one. A couple of weeks ago, the same thoughts were there: the two political parties are failing in one of their main jobs, which is to find candidates for office that people actually want. Fifty to sixty percent of the voters count themselves Democrat or Republican. They're happy enough, but the remaining forty to fifty percent are not happy at all with the choice they have on election day. Efforts to unite this group have to be successful.
Every unhappy voter has his or her reasons for dissatisfaction. For me, the war in Iraq gives special urgency to our situation. I wrote about the war a great deal in 2004 (see http://thelastjeffersonian.com/ugly_war.pdf), and the outcome of the November election made me see that we are truly in trouble. I do not want to see us lose our position of leadership in the world, and it's happening right in front of us. The effort to form a coalition is the only practical avenue out. The NFC preamble, with its tone of frustration and urgency, speaks to the mood that many have after the 2004 election.
To appeal to history once more: After one of his many unsuccessful races in the mid-1850s, Lincoln figured he was through with politics, and went back to his law practice. Then the Missouri Compromise came along, with its prospect of slavery in the new territories in the west. This proposal motivated Lincoln to become involved in politics again, and we know what happened after that. The war in Iraq is an event of similar magnitude. It has to motivate people to act, to do something after spending quite a while off the field. Like many, I've grumbled and complained about the two parties for a long time, but I didn't think I could do much about it. The efforts underway to form a new coalition give people like me a lot of hope, and a lot of reason to act.
That's enough for now. I'd like to post this message to the entire group, but it's long and I'm still pretty new. You are welcome to post it when you reply if you'd like. Perhaps it can give others encouragement, as your messages have encouraged me.
Steve
P.S. I agree with your remarks about the Libertarian Party. It is reasonably well organized, state by state, but its members' mental framework is that of a party that will always be small by comparison with others. They would not feel comfortable as part of a large coalition. A third party like the one you've described has to have an outlook that is as inclusive as possible.
I wanted to report on some follow-up to A New Political Party, dated February 25, 2005. I checked out the American Reform Party on Google, and found http://americanreform.org. A gentleman active in that organization sent me a link for the New Frontier Coalition (NFC) at http://newfrontiercoalition.org. Here is my note to the gentleman who sent the link:
_________________________________________
Thanks for the link to the NFC site. Here are some quick thoughts after checking out the site and reading your recent correspondence.
The preamble to the NFC constitution is well-worded - more in response to that below. I think that the word coalition, as in New Frontier Coalition or in the ARP Coalition Committee, accurately describes the efforts under way now. I don't think it’s a good word to include in the name of a new third party that registers with the FEC. It implies that the individual parties maintain their identities within the coalition. If we had a parliamentary, proportional representation system like the Europeans or the Israelis, coalitions work fine. Our system doesn't work that way, so a new third party has to have unity built into its name. I don't think people will eagerly vote for a coalition in our system. What starts as a coalition has to coalesce into an organization that can field candidates and win votes.
I think almost half of the electorate is not happy with the existing two parties. Polls have put the independent vote at almost forty percent for some time, but my instinct tells me it's somewhat higher than that. Lincoln and Clinton won the White House with a little over forty percent of the popular vote. A new coalition needs to put together an organization that can win electoral votes in enough states to be credible. The Republicans nominated Fremont in 1856, and took the presidency only four years later. It could happen again.
Before the 2000 election, I wrote an article called "Where Are Candidates People Want?" I thought both candidates were poor at the time, and I don't believe I was the only one. A couple of weeks ago, the same thoughts were there: the two political parties are failing in one of their main jobs, which is to find candidates for office that people actually want. Fifty to sixty percent of the voters count themselves Democrat or Republican. They're happy enough, but the remaining forty to fifty percent are not happy at all with the choice they have on election day. Efforts to unite this group have to be successful.
Every unhappy voter has his or her reasons for dissatisfaction. For me, the war in Iraq gives special urgency to our situation. I wrote about the war a great deal in 2004 (see http://thelastjeffersonian.com/ugly_war.pdf), and the outcome of the November election made me see that we are truly in trouble. I do not want to see us lose our position of leadership in the world, and it's happening right in front of us. The effort to form a coalition is the only practical avenue out. The NFC preamble, with its tone of frustration and urgency, speaks to the mood that many have after the 2004 election.
To appeal to history once more: After one of his many unsuccessful races in the mid-1850s, Lincoln figured he was through with politics, and went back to his law practice. Then the Missouri Compromise came along, with its prospect of slavery in the new territories in the west. This proposal motivated Lincoln to become involved in politics again, and we know what happened after that. The war in Iraq is an event of similar magnitude. It has to motivate people to act, to do something after spending quite a while off the field. Like many, I've grumbled and complained about the two parties for a long time, but I didn't think I could do much about it. The efforts underway to form a new coalition give people like me a lot of hope, and a lot of reason to act.
That's enough for now. I'd like to post this message to the entire group, but it's long and I'm still pretty new. You are welcome to post it when you reply if you'd like. Perhaps it can give others encouragement, as your messages have encouraged me.
Steve
P.S. I agree with your remarks about the Libertarian Party. It is reasonably well organized, state by state, but its members' mental framework is that of a party that will always be small by comparison with others. They would not feel comfortable as part of a large coalition. A third party like the one you've described has to have an outlook that is as inclusive as possible.
Thursday, March 03, 2005
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Get Out Now
I used to be an intellectual. Now I'm just mad.
I thought of that tonight as I was reading about the events in Lebanon today. Scott McClellan or somebody like him said we have to be cautious about the resignation of the government there. The departure of the previous, pro-Syrian government is no guarantee, he said, that we'll see free or fair elections in the van. And who are we to commenting on whether another country has free or fair elections? Look at the election we've just been through. Would anyone call that a free election? Or was it a herd of scared voters stampeded by propaganda into voting for a war criminal? I don't want to think that it could be true, but right now I don't have any other explanation. I just cannot think how people could have voted for someone who committed the acts that Bush committed. I said something like that to Leslie, and she replied, "People are scared." That seems to be all that one can say.
So much of the reasoning about this war has been consequentialist. It'll all be worth it, we say, if we can bring about peace and democracy in the Middle East. It'll all be worth it - all the blood and grief - if we can bring democracy and freedom to the whole region. I say no, no, no. Stop measuring things in the balance. We can't bring out the scales of international justice here, to offset bad causes with good outcomes. We can't excuse ourselves by pointing to the good we did. There are some things you just don't do, no matter what. You don't shoot someone in the back, you don't sleep with your neighbor's wife, you don't falsely defame someone to protect yourself, and you don't attack another country that hasn't threatened you. To say that the war in Iraq is okay as long as we achieve a good outcome there is like saying that the Nazi holocaust was okay because the state of Israel could never have been created otherwise. The Jewish homeland became possible because Hitler tried to wipe out all of the Jews in Europe. No one says the holocaust was worth it because it gave birth to Israel.
All the commentators now say that whatever you think of the war, the act is done now and we have to make the best of it. We have to stick it out. Well, yes, we do have to make the best of it, but the second point about sticking it out does not follow from the first. The commentators take for granted, without bothering to argue the point, that the way to make the best of of Iraq is to stay in Iraq. What makes us think that we are having a salutary effect there? What makes us think, when almost everyone there hates us, that we can help them? It's a universal rule of human relations that you can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped. Why shouldn't this principle apply to nations as well? The Iraqis don't want our help. Even our puppets are happy to carry on their affairs without us. What can we do there?
The conventional answer is that we have to stay in Iraq until we have trained sufficient security forces to maintain peace and order in the land. We have to be patient, people say. Give the Iraqis time and they will develop security forces with the training, morale, discipline, leadership, equipment, information and power to defeat the insurgency and its criminal allies.
Now give that answer a second thought. We have 150,000 soldiers in Iraq: the best equipped, most committed, most highly trained and powerful force in the history of warfare. No one questions the quality of their leadership. Everyone comments on how their morale holds up despite the terrible circumstances of their duty. Their ability to gather information and locate enemy leaders and stores has improved. Yet this force is clearly unable to disarm its foe. If we can't disarm the insurgency with 150,000 troops, why do we think that 100,000 Iraqis can do it? The Iraqi force won't have the armor, the heavy weaponry, or the air power that we do. The insurgency has exploited our vulnerabilities, and Iraqi vulnerabilities, with skill and resolve. Why do we think the Iraqis will succeed where we have failed? Why do we think that we can train them to do what we can't do ourselves?
Now give the be patient answer a third thought. The enemy says that they will continue to attack Iraqi security forces as long as they act in concert with the American occupation forces. People say that if we leave Iraq a civil war could develop, but a civil war has already developed because of our presence there. The insurgents have directed their attacks against Iraqis who fight on our side. Suppose we left and the insurgents had no occupation to fight against. Would they continue to kill Iraqis? Would suicide bombers continue to drive their cars into the middle of large crowds of recruits to blow them up? We don't know. But the logic of this question is clear. There's a chance that the civil war in Iraq would take a different course were we to withdraw. And we can't know what would happen were we to withdraw unless we actually do it.
People say that we have to stay in Iraq three to five years, that we have to be ready to lose as many soldiers there as we lost civilians on September 11, 2001. Do the people who say that actually believe that at the end of five years of occupation, we'll have a situation in Iraq that's much better than it is now? Time is not on our side here, yet people say be patient. Don't rush to get out of there - no timetables for withdrawal. But what evidence do we have that thirty-six more months and 1,500 more lives will bring the outcome we want? Who can point to a process or a set of conditions that indicates progress toward our goal? Any rational analyst of this war can see that our presence in Iraq is the key catalyst for the violence there. The dynamics of the war will change when we are gone. We don't know how they'll change, but we do know that things won't stay the same if we leave.
That brings me to a last point. Consequentialist reasoning in this situation focuses on what we can do for the Iraqis, and by their example what we can do for the entire region. The argument to outcomes says that if we can spawn democracy throughout the Middle East and South Asia, we can defeat Al Qaeda. Even if you believe that argument, even if you believe that we are fighting our enemies in Iraq so we don't have to fight them here, we have more direct ways to accomplish the same goal. The visionary argument says that if we bring democracy to the entire region, we can drain the fundamentalist swamp and get rid of the murderous alligators that threaten us. Our experience with that kind of operation indicates that even if you do obliterate the swamp, the alligators just go somewhere else, like the golf courses.
We have to attack Al Qaeda directly. We have to act against our enemy in collaboration with other countries, in collaboration with other groups. We have to concentrate on the tasks right in front of us. The visionaries offer up an appealing goal - security for the West if we can make the whole Middle East safe for democracy - but the vision is illusory. We will lose our position of leadership in the world if we follow their path. In fact, we already have lost it.
I thought of that tonight as I was reading about the events in Lebanon today. Scott McClellan or somebody like him said we have to be cautious about the resignation of the government there. The departure of the previous, pro-Syrian government is no guarantee, he said, that we'll see free or fair elections in the van. And who are we to commenting on whether another country has free or fair elections? Look at the election we've just been through. Would anyone call that a free election? Or was it a herd of scared voters stampeded by propaganda into voting for a war criminal? I don't want to think that it could be true, but right now I don't have any other explanation. I just cannot think how people could have voted for someone who committed the acts that Bush committed. I said something like that to Leslie, and she replied, "People are scared." That seems to be all that one can say.
So much of the reasoning about this war has been consequentialist. It'll all be worth it, we say, if we can bring about peace and democracy in the Middle East. It'll all be worth it - all the blood and grief - if we can bring democracy and freedom to the whole region. I say no, no, no. Stop measuring things in the balance. We can't bring out the scales of international justice here, to offset bad causes with good outcomes. We can't excuse ourselves by pointing to the good we did. There are some things you just don't do, no matter what. You don't shoot someone in the back, you don't sleep with your neighbor's wife, you don't falsely defame someone to protect yourself, and you don't attack another country that hasn't threatened you. To say that the war in Iraq is okay as long as we achieve a good outcome there is like saying that the Nazi holocaust was okay because the state of Israel could never have been created otherwise. The Jewish homeland became possible because Hitler tried to wipe out all of the Jews in Europe. No one says the holocaust was worth it because it gave birth to Israel.
All the commentators now say that whatever you think of the war, the act is done now and we have to make the best of it. We have to stick it out. Well, yes, we do have to make the best of it, but the second point about sticking it out does not follow from the first. The commentators take for granted, without bothering to argue the point, that the way to make the best of of Iraq is to stay in Iraq. What makes us think that we are having a salutary effect there? What makes us think, when almost everyone there hates us, that we can help them? It's a universal rule of human relations that you can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped. Why shouldn't this principle apply to nations as well? The Iraqis don't want our help. Even our puppets are happy to carry on their affairs without us. What can we do there?
The conventional answer is that we have to stay in Iraq until we have trained sufficient security forces to maintain peace and order in the land. We have to be patient, people say. Give the Iraqis time and they will develop security forces with the training, morale, discipline, leadership, equipment, information and power to defeat the insurgency and its criminal allies.
Now give that answer a second thought. We have 150,000 soldiers in Iraq: the best equipped, most committed, most highly trained and powerful force in the history of warfare. No one questions the quality of their leadership. Everyone comments on how their morale holds up despite the terrible circumstances of their duty. Their ability to gather information and locate enemy leaders and stores has improved. Yet this force is clearly unable to disarm its foe. If we can't disarm the insurgency with 150,000 troops, why do we think that 100,000 Iraqis can do it? The Iraqi force won't have the armor, the heavy weaponry, or the air power that we do. The insurgency has exploited our vulnerabilities, and Iraqi vulnerabilities, with skill and resolve. Why do we think the Iraqis will succeed where we have failed? Why do we think that we can train them to do what we can't do ourselves?
Now give the be patient answer a third thought. The enemy says that they will continue to attack Iraqi security forces as long as they act in concert with the American occupation forces. People say that if we leave Iraq a civil war could develop, but a civil war has already developed because of our presence there. The insurgents have directed their attacks against Iraqis who fight on our side. Suppose we left and the insurgents had no occupation to fight against. Would they continue to kill Iraqis? Would suicide bombers continue to drive their cars into the middle of large crowds of recruits to blow them up? We don't know. But the logic of this question is clear. There's a chance that the civil war in Iraq would take a different course were we to withdraw. And we can't know what would happen were we to withdraw unless we actually do it.
People say that we have to stay in Iraq three to five years, that we have to be ready to lose as many soldiers there as we lost civilians on September 11, 2001. Do the people who say that actually believe that at the end of five years of occupation, we'll have a situation in Iraq that's much better than it is now? Time is not on our side here, yet people say be patient. Don't rush to get out of there - no timetables for withdrawal. But what evidence do we have that thirty-six more months and 1,500 more lives will bring the outcome we want? Who can point to a process or a set of conditions that indicates progress toward our goal? Any rational analyst of this war can see that our presence in Iraq is the key catalyst for the violence there. The dynamics of the war will change when we are gone. We don't know how they'll change, but we do know that things won't stay the same if we leave.
That brings me to a last point. Consequentialist reasoning in this situation focuses on what we can do for the Iraqis, and by their example what we can do for the entire region. The argument to outcomes says that if we can spawn democracy throughout the Middle East and South Asia, we can defeat Al Qaeda. Even if you believe that argument, even if you believe that we are fighting our enemies in Iraq so we don't have to fight them here, we have more direct ways to accomplish the same goal. The visionary argument says that if we bring democracy to the entire region, we can drain the fundamentalist swamp and get rid of the murderous alligators that threaten us. Our experience with that kind of operation indicates that even if you do obliterate the swamp, the alligators just go somewhere else, like the golf courses.
We have to attack Al Qaeda directly. We have to act against our enemy in collaboration with other countries, in collaboration with other groups. We have to concentrate on the tasks right in front of us. The visionaries offer up an appealing goal - security for the West if we can make the whole Middle East safe for democracy - but the vision is illusory. We will lose our position of leadership in the world if we follow their path. In fact, we already have lost it.
Sunday, February 27, 2005
Saturday, February 26, 2005
Dowd: W.'s Stiletto Democracy
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: W.'s Stiletto Democracy:
"It was remarkable to see President Bush lecture Vladimir Putin on the importance of checks and balances in a democratic society."
"It was remarkable to see President Bush lecture Vladimir Putin on the importance of checks and balances in a democratic society."
Friday, February 25, 2005
A New Political Party
I feel like Fiver. Doesn't anyone else see it? "It's coming, it's coming," he said, and no one believed him. Bigwig made fun of him. Hazel was the only one who had faith in his brother's prescience. But the things I'm predicting will take years. It takes a long time for an empire to fall. But once it starts, it can happen fast, as we saw with the Soviet empire fifteen years ago. Why don't people see that when the time comes, ours can fall quickly, too?
Where can our country find wise leadership? The parties don't produce particularly good candidates for the presidency, and that's one of their main jobs. Our system for selecting presidential candidates is broken. I don't see a good way to fix it, except to form a new party. Do you remember Ross Perot? He started a new party. But he wasn't an institution builder, and the American Reform party didn't take hold. The Reform party split up over the Buchanan nomination in the 90s. So we don't have any known alternatives, now.
Who would support the Reform party, were it to re-form? Perot supporters (20% of the voters in 1992). Ventura supporters. Deaniacs. Libertarians, perhaps. All disaffected independents who need someone to vote for.
Who would not be in the party? Evangelicals. MoveOn.org supporters. Democrats and Republicans who are happy with the way their party is going. That's about half of the electorate. The job of a new party is to recruit the other half.
How did the Republican party get started? Did it just coalesce, or did it result from a number of key people doing a lot of hard work? The interesting thing is, I don't remember that Lincoln engaged in much party-building work himself. It just coalesced around him as the election of 1860 approached. Who did the institution building in that case? The Reform party coalesced around Perot in 1992, but it didn't last. Did the Republican party last because the Civil War, and the years before and after the war, were such extraordinary times?
Where can our country find wise leadership? The parties don't produce particularly good candidates for the presidency, and that's one of their main jobs. Our system for selecting presidential candidates is broken. I don't see a good way to fix it, except to form a new party. Do you remember Ross Perot? He started a new party. But he wasn't an institution builder, and the American Reform party didn't take hold. The Reform party split up over the Buchanan nomination in the 90s. So we don't have any known alternatives, now.
Who would support the Reform party, were it to re-form? Perot supporters (20% of the voters in 1992). Ventura supporters. Deaniacs. Libertarians, perhaps. All disaffected independents who need someone to vote for.
Who would not be in the party? Evangelicals. MoveOn.org supporters. Democrats and Republicans who are happy with the way their party is going. That's about half of the electorate. The job of a new party is to recruit the other half.
How did the Republican party get started? Did it just coalesce, or did it result from a number of key people doing a lot of hard work? The interesting thing is, I don't remember that Lincoln engaged in much party-building work himself. It just coalesced around him as the election of 1860 approached. Who did the institution building in that case? The Reform party coalesced around Perot in 1992, but it didn't last. Did the Republican party last because the Civil War, and the years before and after the war, were such extraordinary times?
Thursday, February 24, 2005
Bush, Putin, and Thucydides
The news this week has been all about Bush telling Putin that he's backsliding on democracy, and he'd better shape up. What a singular privilege, to be lectured about democracy from a man like Bush. What must Putin be thinking as he endures this kind of thing? It's as if Hitler were to lecture FDR and Churchill about anti-semitism in the United States and Britain. Putin has a war criminal sitting in front of him, sanctimoniously telling him that his leadership of Russia is undemocratic.
What's Bush going to tell Putin next? That he shouldn't make war in Chechnya? That he shouldn't use propaganda to destroy people's reputations? That he shouldn't be dishonest in his dealings with the people of Russia? Putin should just walk out on this man, tell this glad-hander that the rest of the world has had enough of him.
Every day, we show the whole world how weak we really are. We show that we can't protect our soldiers from roadside bombs. We show that we send our brave men into battle with no realistic or legitimate purpose. We show that we can't manage to secure the highway from the Baghdad airport to the city. We can't even secure the main thoroughfare in the city itself. But we can destroy a city, Fallujah, with heavy armor and air power, and claim that we have reduced the enemy's ability to fight. Who believes that?
Our enemies can also observe what we have to do to deploy 150,000 soldiers to Iraq. We have to reduce our forces in Korea. We have to place extraordinary demands on our reserves and our national guard. We have to rotate divisions in and out to give our men and women some time away from the horrible conditions there. It's clear that we can't deploy 150,000 soldiers elsewhere while we are involved with state-building in Iraq.
Meantime, our enemies grow stronger by the day. Someday soon, our enemies and our rivals will say, "Your time is up. We'll struggle against you. And we'll fight you if we have to." And they'll treat us the way we have treated them. Others don't respect us anymore. Respect is offered to a leader, and we don't lead. Others fear us. As Thucydides showed us in his parable of self-destruction, the History of the Pelopponesian War: when states fear a great power, as the Greek city-states feared Athens, the smaller states will find a way to unite against the great power to destroy it. As it turned out, Athens destroyed itself by going abroad to fight an unnecessary war in Sicily. After that campaign, Athens never regained its strength.
Athens lost its position of leadership when it began to act like a bully and a predator. Strength flowed away from it after that, just as strength flows away from a leader who shows himself to be weak. Yes, it takes some time to muster the courage that a challenge requires. It takes some time to muster counter-vailing strength. But it doesn't take that much time, and the challenge is coming soon. When it comes, we will look around for people to help us, and no one will be there.
What's Bush going to tell Putin next? That he shouldn't make war in Chechnya? That he shouldn't use propaganda to destroy people's reputations? That he shouldn't be dishonest in his dealings with the people of Russia? Putin should just walk out on this man, tell this glad-hander that the rest of the world has had enough of him.
Every day, we show the whole world how weak we really are. We show that we can't protect our soldiers from roadside bombs. We show that we send our brave men into battle with no realistic or legitimate purpose. We show that we can't manage to secure the highway from the Baghdad airport to the city. We can't even secure the main thoroughfare in the city itself. But we can destroy a city, Fallujah, with heavy armor and air power, and claim that we have reduced the enemy's ability to fight. Who believes that?
Our enemies can also observe what we have to do to deploy 150,000 soldiers to Iraq. We have to reduce our forces in Korea. We have to place extraordinary demands on our reserves and our national guard. We have to rotate divisions in and out to give our men and women some time away from the horrible conditions there. It's clear that we can't deploy 150,000 soldiers elsewhere while we are involved with state-building in Iraq.
Meantime, our enemies grow stronger by the day. Someday soon, our enemies and our rivals will say, "Your time is up. We'll struggle against you. And we'll fight you if we have to." And they'll treat us the way we have treated them. Others don't respect us anymore. Respect is offered to a leader, and we don't lead. Others fear us. As Thucydides showed us in his parable of self-destruction, the History of the Pelopponesian War: when states fear a great power, as the Greek city-states feared Athens, the smaller states will find a way to unite against the great power to destroy it. As it turned out, Athens destroyed itself by going abroad to fight an unnecessary war in Sicily. After that campaign, Athens never regained its strength.
Athens lost its position of leadership when it began to act like a bully and a predator. Strength flowed away from it after that, just as strength flows away from a leader who shows himself to be weak. Yes, it takes some time to muster the courage that a challenge requires. It takes some time to muster counter-vailing strength. But it doesn't take that much time, and the challenge is coming soon. When it comes, we will look around for people to help us, and no one will be there.
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Krugman: Wag-the-Dog Protection
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Wag-the-Dog Protection:
"So it's important to point out that Mr. Bush, for all his posturing, has done a very bad job of protecting the nation - and to make that point now, rather than in the heat of the next foreign crisis. The fact is that Mr. Bush, while willing to go to war on weak evidence, hasn't taken the task of protecting America from terrorists at all seriously."
"So it's important to point out that Mr. Bush, for all his posturing, has done a very bad job of protecting the nation - and to make that point now, rather than in the heat of the next foreign crisis. The fact is that Mr. Bush, while willing to go to war on weak evidence, hasn't taken the task of protecting America from terrorists at all seriously."
OpinionJournal - Peggy Noonan
OpinionJournal - Peggy Noonan
The Blogs Must Be Crazy: Or maybe the MSM is just suffering from freedom envy.
The Blogs Must Be Crazy: Or maybe the MSM is just suffering from freedom envy.
NYT: Hunter S. Thompson, Outlaw Journalist, Is Dead at 67
The New York Times > Books > Hunter S. Thompson, Outlaw Journalist, Is Dead at 67:
"Yet his early work presaged some of the fundamental changes that have rocked journalism today. Mr. Thompson's approach in many ways mirrors the style of modern-day bloggers, those self-styled social commentators who blend news, opinion and personal experience on Internet postings. Like bloggers, Mr. Thompson built his case for the state of America around the framework of his personal views and opinions."
"Yet his early work presaged some of the fundamental changes that have rocked journalism today. Mr. Thompson's approach in many ways mirrors the style of modern-day bloggers, those self-styled social commentators who blend news, opinion and personal experience on Internet postings. Like bloggers, Mr. Thompson built his case for the state of America around the framework of his personal views and opinions."
Monday, February 21, 2005
Herbert: Iraq, Then and Now
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Iraq, Then and Now:
"So tell me again. What was this war about? In terms of the fight against terror, the war in Iraq has been a big loss. We've energized the enemy. We've wasted the talents of the many men and women who have fought bravely and tenaciously in Iraq. Thousands upon thousands of American men and women have lost arms or legs, or been paralyzed or blinded or horribly burned or killed in this ill-advised war. A wiser administration would have avoided that carnage and marshaled instead a more robust effort against Al Qaeda, which remains a deadly threat to America."
"So tell me again. What was this war about? In terms of the fight against terror, the war in Iraq has been a big loss. We've energized the enemy. We've wasted the talents of the many men and women who have fought bravely and tenaciously in Iraq. Thousands upon thousands of American men and women have lost arms or legs, or been paralyzed or blinded or horribly burned or killed in this ill-advised war. A wiser administration would have avoided that carnage and marshaled instead a more robust effort against Al Qaeda, which remains a deadly threat to America."
Friday, February 18, 2005
Herbert: Our Friends, the Torturers
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Our Friends, the Torturers
"Extraordinary rendition is antithetical to everything Americans are supposed to believe in. It violates American law. It violates international law. And it is a profound violation of our own most fundamental moral imperative - that there are limits to the way we treat other human beings, even in a time of war and great fear."
"Extraordinary rendition is antithetical to everything Americans are supposed to believe in. It violates American law. It violates international law. And it is a profound violation of our own most fundamental moral imperative - that there are limits to the way we treat other human beings, even in a time of war and great fear."
Sunday, February 13, 2005
David Mamet on Arthur Miller: Attention Must Be Paid
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Contributor: Attention Must Be Paid:
"One service more we dare to ask -
Pray for us, heroes, pray,
That when Fate lays on us our task
We do not shame the day."
"One service more we dare to ask -
Pray for us, heroes, pray,
That when Fate lays on us our task
We do not shame the day."
Friday, February 11, 2005
Herbert: Torture, American Style
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Torture, American Style
Maher Arar is a 34-year-old native of Syria who emigrated to Canada as a teenager. On Sept. 26, 2002, as he was returning from a family vacation in Tunisia, he was seized by American authorities at Kennedy Airport in New York, where he was in the process of changing planes...
Jettisoning the rule of law to permit such acts of evil as kidnapping and torture is not a defensible policy for a civilized nation. It's wrong. And nothing good can come from it.
Maher Arar is a 34-year-old native of Syria who emigrated to Canada as a teenager. On Sept. 26, 2002, as he was returning from a family vacation in Tunisia, he was seized by American authorities at Kennedy Airport in New York, where he was in the process of changing planes...
Jettisoning the rule of law to permit such acts of evil as kidnapping and torture is not a defensible policy for a civilized nation. It's wrong. And nothing good can come from it.
Monday, February 07, 2005
Jeff Wilson | 02/06/2005 | Celebrating the late Ronald Reagan on his 94th birthday
AP Wire | 02/06/2005 |
Celebrating the late Ronald Reagan on his 94th birthday: "Celebrating the late Ronald Reagan on his 94th birthday
JEFF WILSON
Associated Press
SIMI VALLEY, Calif. - The Gipper was celebrated during a Sunday gathering of loyalists on Ronald Wilson Reagan's 94th birthday, the first posthumous anniversary of his birth."
Celebrating the late Ronald Reagan on his 94th birthday: "Celebrating the late Ronald Reagan on his 94th birthday
JEFF WILSON
Associated Press
SIMI VALLEY, Calif. - The Gipper was celebrated during a Sunday gathering of loyalists on Ronald Wilson Reagan's 94th birthday, the first posthumous anniversary of his birth."
Sunday, January 30, 2005
Tom Wolfe: The Doctrine That Never Died
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Contributor: The Doctrine That Never Died
Ah, yes, a missile. On the day in November 1961, when the Air Force achieved the first successful silo launching of an intercontinental ballistic missile, the SM-80, the Western Hemisphere part of the Monroe Doctrine ceased to mean anything at all - while the ideas behind it began to mean everything in the world.
At bottom, the notion of a sanctified Western Hemisphere depended upon its separation from the rest of the world by two vast oceans, making intrusions of any sort obvious. The ICBM's - soon the Soviet Union and other countries had theirs - shrank the world in a military sense. Then long-range jet aircraft, satellite telephones, television and the Internet all, in turn, did the job socially and commercially. By Mr. Bush's Inauguration Day, the Hemi in Hemisphere had long since vanished, leaving the Monroe Doctrine with - what? - nothing but a single sphere ... which is to say, the entire world.
For the mission - the messianic mission! - has never shrunk in the slightest ... which brings us back to the pretty preambles and the solemn rhetorical throat-clearing ... the parts always omitted from the textbooks as superfluous. "America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one," President Bush said. He added, "From the day of our founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the maker of heaven and earth."
David Gelernter, the scientist and writer, argues that "Americanism" is a fundamentally religious notion shared by an incredibly varied population from every part of the globe and every conceivable background, all of whom feel that they have arrived, as Ronald Reagan put it, at a "shining city upon a hill." God knows how many of them just might agree with President Bush - and Theodore Roosevelt - that it is America's destiny and duty to bring that salvation to all mankind.
Ah, yes, a missile. On the day in November 1961, when the Air Force achieved the first successful silo launching of an intercontinental ballistic missile, the SM-80, the Western Hemisphere part of the Monroe Doctrine ceased to mean anything at all - while the ideas behind it began to mean everything in the world.
At bottom, the notion of a sanctified Western Hemisphere depended upon its separation from the rest of the world by two vast oceans, making intrusions of any sort obvious. The ICBM's - soon the Soviet Union and other countries had theirs - shrank the world in a military sense. Then long-range jet aircraft, satellite telephones, television and the Internet all, in turn, did the job socially and commercially. By Mr. Bush's Inauguration Day, the Hemi in Hemisphere had long since vanished, leaving the Monroe Doctrine with - what? - nothing but a single sphere ... which is to say, the entire world.
For the mission - the messianic mission! - has never shrunk in the slightest ... which brings us back to the pretty preambles and the solemn rhetorical throat-clearing ... the parts always omitted from the textbooks as superfluous. "America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one," President Bush said. He added, "From the day of our founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the maker of heaven and earth."
David Gelernter, the scientist and writer, argues that "Americanism" is a fundamentally religious notion shared by an incredibly varied population from every part of the globe and every conceivable background, all of whom feel that they have arrived, as Ronald Reagan put it, at a "shining city upon a hill." God knows how many of them just might agree with President Bush - and Theodore Roosevelt - that it is America's destiny and duty to bring that salvation to all mankind.
Thursday, January 27, 2005
Frank Rich: Forget Armor. All You Need Is Love
The New York Times > Arts > Frank Rich: Forget Armor. All You Need Is Love:
"JAN. 30 is here at last, and the light is at the end of the tunnel, again. By my estimate, Iraq's election day is the fifth time that American troops have been almost on their way home from an about-to-be pacified Iraq. The four other incipient V-I days were the liberation of Baghdad (April 9, 2003), President Bush's declaration that 'major combat operations have ended' (May 1, 2003), the arrest of Saddam Hussein (Dec. 14, 2003) and the handover of sovereignty to our puppet of choice, Ayad Allawi (June 28, 2004). And this isn't even counting the two 'decisive' battles for our nouveau Tet, Falluja. Iraq is Vietnam on speed - the false endings of that tragic decade re-enacted and compressed in jump cuts, a quagmire retooled for the MTV attention span. "
"JAN. 30 is here at last, and the light is at the end of the tunnel, again. By my estimate, Iraq's election day is the fifth time that American troops have been almost on their way home from an about-to-be pacified Iraq. The four other incipient V-I days were the liberation of Baghdad (April 9, 2003), President Bush's declaration that 'major combat operations have ended' (May 1, 2003), the arrest of Saddam Hussein (Dec. 14, 2003) and the handover of sovereignty to our puppet of choice, Ayad Allawi (June 28, 2004). And this isn't even counting the two 'decisive' battles for our nouveau Tet, Falluja. Iraq is Vietnam on speed - the false endings of that tragic decade re-enacted and compressed in jump cuts, a quagmire retooled for the MTV attention span. "
NYT: Washington Memo: Communicator in Chief Keeps the Focus on Iraq Positive
The New York Times > Washington > Washington Memo: Communicator in Chief Keeps the Focus on Iraq Positive:
Mr. Bush instead focused on his long-term goal of "ending tyranny in our world," and then cast the Iraqi election coming Sunday as part of a march of freedom around the globe. He said that if he had told the reporters in the room a few years before that the Iraqi people would be voting, "'you would look at me like some of you still look at me, with a kind of blank expression."
"You know, it is amazing, first of all, they're having a vote at all," Mr. Bush said in response to the first question, about whether he expected a big turnout in the Iraqi election. "A couple of years ago, people would have been puzzled by someone saying that the Iraqis will be given a chance to vote."
Puzzled is right. Because if you had said a few years ago that the Iraqis would be voting, we would say that could happen only one way. That could happen only if a country like us went in and conquered Iraq, and then we held elections because that is what you do when you bring freedom and democracy to people.
Mr. Bush instead focused on his long-term goal of "ending tyranny in our world," and then cast the Iraqi election coming Sunday as part of a march of freedom around the globe. He said that if he had told the reporters in the room a few years before that the Iraqi people would be voting, "'you would look at me like some of you still look at me, with a kind of blank expression."
"You know, it is amazing, first of all, they're having a vote at all," Mr. Bush said in response to the first question, about whether he expected a big turnout in the Iraqi election. "A couple of years ago, people would have been puzzled by someone saying that the Iraqis will be given a chance to vote."
Puzzled is right. Because if you had said a few years ago that the Iraqis would be voting, we would say that could happen only one way. That could happen only if a country like us went in and conquered Iraq, and then we held elections because that is what you do when you bring freedom and democracy to people.
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
What Would It Take?
So historians are going to judge Bush favorably for overthrowing Hussein and bringing democracy and freedom to the Middle East. We'll see. He will be judged the worst president in the history of the United States because he is a war criminal. Historians have rated other presidents poorly because they have allowed corruption on their watch. No president in our history has ever committed out and out aggression, as this one has. No president has ever asked our brave soldiers to die in order to conquer and occupy another country. No president has ever killed thousands and thousands of innocent civilians on the flimsy argument that he knew what was good for them.
The famous saying from the Vietnam war was, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." Now, after Fallujah, Najaf, Samarrah, and Baghdad itself, we have to say, "We had to destroy the country in order to save it." Nothing Bush says is trustworthy. Nothing he does now can restore our good reputation. Nothing but a change of leadership can do that, and we have rehired this broken down, dishonest, self-righteous and short-sighted man for another four years. My son wondered on the phone tonight whether Bush is well-intentioned but short-sighted, or just plain evil. I reminded him that my wife and his mother clearly thinks it's the latter. My son commented that it's probably somewhere in between.
I am past wondering about the man's motives, his make-up or his character. I just want him out of there. All you have to do is look at his actions, and the results of those actions, to see that he is a disaster. No person who understands our place of leadership in the world could approve of what he has done. No person who understands the proper grounds for a just war could think that this war is justified. And no person who understands the war we should be fighting against Al Qaeda can think that this war is worthwhile. The war in Iraq can only bring one bad consequence after another.
My wife was talking with my dad on the phone the other night. She asked, her voice rising a bit as it always does when addressing this subject, "What would it take for the Christian right to renounce Bush?" What could he do that he hasn't already done? He has invaded a country and wreaked untold damage as a result. Well, I thought I'd take this somewhat sarcastic question seriously. What would it take? I heard an evangelical leader on the radio today speak favorably of Bush, because Bush professes Jesus as his savior. What would Bush have to do to turn this leader's opinion around? What if he shot his mother in public? Would that do it? What if he began to imprison people like me for sedition? Would that do it? I had to conclude that the only unforgivable act, the only thing Bush could do to reverse the evangelicals' admiration for him, would be blasphemy. If Bush were to renounce Jesus as his savior, if he were to declare that Jesus was the Satan's emissary on earth, then the evangelicals might reconsider. Otherwise, they would overlook all of his acts, no matter how bad. They would find some reason to excuse his bad judgment, some grounds for approving of his policies. They already have.
If a Democrat like Kerry had gone to war in the Middle East on the same grounds cited by Bush, do you suppose the evangelical Christians would have approved of his action? Hardly. They might likely have called him the anti-Christ, and cited Revelation to prove that the war was another sign of the end times. Bush can do no wrong in their eyes. He speaks their language, and that's all that matters. Bush is sure that he is doing God's will, and they're sure that he is, too. But Bush's blindness, the atrocious consequences of his bad judgment, will make the country lose its preeminent position in the world. And Bush's supporters will blame Bush's enemies for the fall, not Bush himself. They'll blame traitors like me for not giving him the backing he needed during the country's hour of crisis. No matter how bad the results of Bush's actions, they won't see that he has done anything wrong. He can't do wrong, because he is God's instrument on earth.
In four years, other countries will pity the United States almost as much as they fear it. Well that's an exaggeration. It'll take longer than that. But it's going to be hard to watch China rise and the United States fall. I thought it would happen after I was dead, but it's going to happen while I'm around to see it. And March 19, 2003, is the date the process began. That's the date the war started, and that's the date that historians will look at when they analyze the actions of the worst president the United States ever had.
The famous saying from the Vietnam war was, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." Now, after Fallujah, Najaf, Samarrah, and Baghdad itself, we have to say, "We had to destroy the country in order to save it." Nothing Bush says is trustworthy. Nothing he does now can restore our good reputation. Nothing but a change of leadership can do that, and we have rehired this broken down, dishonest, self-righteous and short-sighted man for another four years. My son wondered on the phone tonight whether Bush is well-intentioned but short-sighted, or just plain evil. I reminded him that my wife and his mother clearly thinks it's the latter. My son commented that it's probably somewhere in between.
I am past wondering about the man's motives, his make-up or his character. I just want him out of there. All you have to do is look at his actions, and the results of those actions, to see that he is a disaster. No person who understands our place of leadership in the world could approve of what he has done. No person who understands the proper grounds for a just war could think that this war is justified. And no person who understands the war we should be fighting against Al Qaeda can think that this war is worthwhile. The war in Iraq can only bring one bad consequence after another.
My wife was talking with my dad on the phone the other night. She asked, her voice rising a bit as it always does when addressing this subject, "What would it take for the Christian right to renounce Bush?" What could he do that he hasn't already done? He has invaded a country and wreaked untold damage as a result. Well, I thought I'd take this somewhat sarcastic question seriously. What would it take? I heard an evangelical leader on the radio today speak favorably of Bush, because Bush professes Jesus as his savior. What would Bush have to do to turn this leader's opinion around? What if he shot his mother in public? Would that do it? What if he began to imprison people like me for sedition? Would that do it? I had to conclude that the only unforgivable act, the only thing Bush could do to reverse the evangelicals' admiration for him, would be blasphemy. If Bush were to renounce Jesus as his savior, if he were to declare that Jesus was the Satan's emissary on earth, then the evangelicals might reconsider. Otherwise, they would overlook all of his acts, no matter how bad. They would find some reason to excuse his bad judgment, some grounds for approving of his policies. They already have.
If a Democrat like Kerry had gone to war in the Middle East on the same grounds cited by Bush, do you suppose the evangelical Christians would have approved of his action? Hardly. They might likely have called him the anti-Christ, and cited Revelation to prove that the war was another sign of the end times. Bush can do no wrong in their eyes. He speaks their language, and that's all that matters. Bush is sure that he is doing God's will, and they're sure that he is, too. But Bush's blindness, the atrocious consequences of his bad judgment, will make the country lose its preeminent position in the world. And Bush's supporters will blame Bush's enemies for the fall, not Bush himself. They'll blame traitors like me for not giving him the backing he needed during the country's hour of crisis. No matter how bad the results of Bush's actions, they won't see that he has done anything wrong. He can't do wrong, because he is God's instrument on earth.
In four years, other countries will pity the United States almost as much as they fear it. Well that's an exaggeration. It'll take longer than that. But it's going to be hard to watch China rise and the United States fall. I thought it would happen after I was dead, but it's going to happen while I'm around to see it. And March 19, 2003, is the date the process began. That's the date the war started, and that's the date that historians will look at when they analyze the actions of the worst president the United States ever had.
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
The New York Times: At Senate Hearing, Rice Cites Progress in Training Iraq Forces
The New York Times > Washington > Foreign Relations: At Senate Hearing, Rice Cites Progress in Training Iraq Forces:
"The theme of Ms. Rice's opening statement was that history would favorably judge the Bush administration's struggle to expand freedom, particularly in the Muslim world, just as President Harry S. Truman is hailed by historians for laying the foundation of defeating Communism after World War II."
"The theme of Ms. Rice's opening statement was that history would favorably judge the Bush administration's struggle to expand freedom, particularly in the Muslim world, just as President Harry S. Truman is hailed by historians for laying the foundation of defeating Communism after World War II."
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Safire: Character Is Destiny
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Character Is Destiny
The British historian D. W. Brogan wrote 60 years ago that the unique achievement of Americans to form a continental nation - without sacrificing liberty or efficiency - led to the temper of the pioneer, the gambler and the booster: "the religion of economic and political optimism."
History has shown that U.S. optimism has not been misplaced. But what of reports of global griping at America's superpower arrogance - at our government's triumphalism? Has our character been warped by victories in three world wars?
Call me a chauvinist unilateralist, but I believe America's human and economic sacrifices for the advance of freedom abroad show our personal, political and national character to be stronger and better than ever. This moral advance will be more widely appreciated as an Islamic version of democracy takes root. (What's triumphalism without a triumph?)
It is that growing strength of national character - more than our individual genius or political leadership or military power - that ensures the future success of America and brightens the light of liberty's torch.
The British historian D. W. Brogan wrote 60 years ago that the unique achievement of Americans to form a continental nation - without sacrificing liberty or efficiency - led to the temper of the pioneer, the gambler and the booster: "the religion of economic and political optimism."
History has shown that U.S. optimism has not been misplaced. But what of reports of global griping at America's superpower arrogance - at our government's triumphalism? Has our character been warped by victories in three world wars?
Call me a chauvinist unilateralist, but I believe America's human and economic sacrifices for the advance of freedom abroad show our personal, political and national character to be stronger and better than ever. This moral advance will be more widely appreciated as an Islamic version of democracy takes root. (What's triumphalism without a triumph?)
It is that growing strength of national character - more than our individual genius or political leadership or military power - that ensures the future success of America and brightens the light of liberty's torch.
Saturday, January 08, 2005
Dow: Defining Victory Down
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Defining Victory Down
It's good to remember how our civil war started: with an election. The immediate cause of the war was Lincoln's election in 1860. South Carolina and the other states of the confederacy would not have seceded it Douglas or Buchanan had been elected. Scowcroft argues the same thing about Iraq: the election may be the last event before civil conflict gets much worse.
It's good to remember how our civil war started: with an election. The immediate cause of the war was Lincoln's election in 1860. South Carolina and the other states of the confederacy would not have seceded it Douglas or Buchanan had been elected. Scowcroft argues the same thing about Iraq: the election may be the last event before civil conflict gets much worse.
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
The New York Times > International > International Special > Powell, in Indonesia, Describes Scenes of Devastation
The New York Times > International > International Special > Powell, in Indonesia, Describes Scenes of Devastation
Not in this article, but in one published the day before, Powell said that he hopes our aid to Indonesia and other countries hit by the tsunamis would improve our image with the Muslim world. What would we have said if Goebbels had gone around on a good will tour after Czechoslovakia, saying that he hoped German aid would improve the Nazi's image in Eastern Europe? What would Churchill have said? I don't want to say that Powell is like Goebbels, or that Bush is like Hitler. I do want to say that the invasion of Iraq is a crime on the same scale as Hitler's move into the Sudetenland. Of course we'd like to improve our image. Every warlord and thug wants to have a good image with the people. But when will someone acknowledge that we are criminals here, that what we have done is a crime? Good people and good countries have reputations that stand on their own. Only people and countries who have done horrible things have to think about brushing up their images.
Not in this article, but in one published the day before, Powell said that he hopes our aid to Indonesia and other countries hit by the tsunamis would improve our image with the Muslim world. What would we have said if Goebbels had gone around on a good will tour after Czechoslovakia, saying that he hoped German aid would improve the Nazi's image in Eastern Europe? What would Churchill have said? I don't want to say that Powell is like Goebbels, or that Bush is like Hitler. I do want to say that the invasion of Iraq is a crime on the same scale as Hitler's move into the Sudetenland. Of course we'd like to improve our image. Every warlord and thug wants to have a good image with the people. But when will someone acknowledge that we are criminals here, that what we have done is a crime? Good people and good countries have reputations that stand on their own. Only people and countries who have done horrible things have to think about brushing up their images.
