In the comments to the post on Juan Cole below, I got pretty seriously dinged by commenters Abu Frank and Aaron.
The points I intended to make in my post (and think I did, but readers will have to judge) were two:
First, that Cole’s characterization of the ITM brothers as ‘outside the Iraqi mainstream’ and Riverbend as representative of the majority of Iraqi opinion weren’t nearly supported by the data in the survey he cited.
Second, that for him to have had an acknowledge relationship with the murdered sailor, Lt. Kylan Jones-Hoffman, and then to have used his death to make a sweeping political point without also acknowledging that relationship was in my view callous and inhumane.
Let’s go the first point first, since I think it’s pretty easy to establish.Here’s what Cole said in the post I challenged:
I drew attention to Martini Republic’s questions about the independence of IraqTheModel without actually expressing any opinion myself one way or another, except to say that they are out of the Iraqi mainstream.
He’s also said:
…the views of the brothers are celebrated in the right-leaning weblogging world of the US, even though opinion polling shows that their views are far out of the mainstream of Iraqi opinion. It notes that their choice of internet service provider, in Abilene, Texas, is rather suspicious, and wonders whether they are getting some extra support from certain quarters.
Contrast all this to the young woman computer systems analyst in Baghdad, Riverbend, who is in her views closer to the Iraqi opinion polls, especially with regard to Sunni Arabs, but who is not being feted in Washington, DC.
So let’s go to the polls themselves.
This is the latest IRI poll of public opinion in Iraq, with data as recent as October 4. It also tracks time series back to April.
Here’s what it says about the attitudes about the election (which the ITM brothers are wildly supportive of). 85.5% of the people (as of late Sept – early Oct) intend to vote:
Here’s Riverbend on voting:
“Most people I’ve talked to aren’t going to go to elections. It’s simply too dangerous and there’s a sense that nothing is going to be achieved anyway.”
Here’s what the poll says about the impacts of violence on the average Iraqi – note that the losses include death, injury, or financial loss. I wish it had allowed for breakout by category. But amazingly, 77.5 of the people polled had not been affected or had anyone in their family in any meaningful way (including financial loss, and to the 4th degree of separation) by violence:
Here’s Riverbend on violence:
“We have 9/11’s on a monthly basis. Each and every Iraqi person who dies with a bullet, a missile, a grenade, under torture, accidentally- they all have families and friends and people who care. The number of Iraqis dead since March 2003 is by now at least eight times the number of people who died in the World Trade Center. They had their last words, and their last thoughts as their worlds came down around them, too. I’ve attended more wakes and funerals this last year, than I’ve attended my whole life. The process of mourning and the hollow words of comfort have become much too familiar and automatic.”
So back to my assertion – who’s more typical, based on the IRI data, of the Iraqi people’s attitudes? Riverbend or the ITM brothers? I’ll suggest that Riverbend – Dr. Cole’s favorite – is in fact out of the mainstream, as set out in the polls, when it comes to her attitudes toward the election, her perception of the impact and level of violence on the average Iraqi, and in her disdain for the IP government.
Check out the whole Powerpoint deck for yourself, and see what you think. But here’s on final slide. 64.5% of the Iraqis polled think their life will be better a year from today.
The second point, because it’s subjective, is going to be impossible to prove. But I’ll explain my own views briefly, and I hope that you’ll understand why my reaction to what Dr. Cole did was so negative – and why it would have been strongly negative even if he’d used the death of Kylan Jones-Hoffman to support a political point I agree with.
Basically, the trick in political thinking is to remember that it’s about people. Many – even most – of us tend to get caught up in our ideas about what society is or should be, and fixate on that idealized notion. reality, of course, is messy and complex and seldom fits those ideals. So we try to nudge it a bit.
That’s what people do; but the difficult part is to look through the idealized notions at the real individuals we’re talking about. For me, a lot of it comes to the notion of empathy and acceptance; if you’ve read my writing for a while, you’ll know that I push commenters and others I interact with to deal with each other with respect and some level of humane concern, and that when that gets denied – when we forget that the people we are talking to and dealing with are human and instead assign them to some abstract ideal category – friend, foe, or example – I think we lose something incredibly important both in ourselves and in our thinking about political issues.
I’m very aware of Cole’s earlier writings when he heard about Jones-Hoffman’s death. How hard would it have been to add a clause to his later post making the point he’d already made?
Now, it’s a legitimate criticism of my point that I’m busting Cole hard over what could have been a simple slip in composition – a hastily-written post leading to a neglected point. That may be, but I’ll suggest that when we write in haste what we really expose is what’s at the top of our attention – and what was at the top of Cole’s attention was his desire to tie Jones-Hoffman’s death to US policy.
That moves Cole pretty far outside the locus of what I value – in opponents or supporters of my own positions. And that, simply, is the basic empathy and understanding that the large political forces we talk about have real, human impacts on people we know and on people we don’t and never will.
Does that mean we should be paralyzed by the desire to ‘first, do no harm’? No, because the reality is that as a consequence of new policies people are harmed as they are by keeping things as they are.
But it means that I don’t only mourn the deaths of people on my side. And that I will continue to work hard to recognize that even the people I think are deeply wrong are human.
Given the lack of objective evidence to support his views, Cole’s charge against ITM is very harsh. He identifies ITM as part of “the phenomenon of . . . blog agents provocateurs secretly working for a particular group or goal and deliberately attempting to spread disinformation.” The views are paranoid, the method is guilt by association and the writing style is innuendo. This is not merely slopply writing, it is an attempt to limit challenges to one’s authority.
I’ve seen Iraqi opinion polls (sorry don’t have URLs — if I’d been sensible I’d have blogged them at the time) which portray the US forces in a negative light, with most Iraqis seeing them as “occupiers” rather than “liberators”, and with large numbers of Iraqis (c.50%) regarding attacks on them to be always or sometimes justified.
These views are more similar to Riverbend’s than to IraqTheModel’s.
I note that the IRI poll doesn’t even ask these sorts of questions. I guess they didn’t want to know the answers.
Having said all that, Riverbend is also different from the average iraqi view in many ways. (As we should expect and individual to be; also we should expect individuals (in any country) whose hobby is blogging about politics to be different from the average viewpoint in that country).
Riverbend is, as I understand her, a pan-Iraqi nationalist who wants to see US forces out of Iraq. That’s why she thinks that Sistani should have spoken out about the assault on Fallujah.
I suspect many Iraqi Shia are more ambivalent about the Fallujah occupation — they don’t like the insurgents because they kill Iraqis, they don’t want the Sunnis to be running the country again, they don’t like the Wahhabis/Salafis who are influentual among the Sunni Arab insurgency, and if smashing Fallujah is the price to be paid for destroying the insurgency, and returning Iraq to a lower level of violence, many think its a price worth paying.
A couple of other things from the IRI Sept-Oct survey: Of those Iraqis who feel that Iraq is moving in the wrong direction (between 31% and 45% over the period from May to September) only 16.7% blamed the “Presence of occupation forces”. An overwhelming 62.6% blamed the “Poor security situation.”
Compare that to Juan Cole – that self-styled barometer of the Iraqi mainstream – to whom US intervention is the root of all evil.
On the question of how to improve the poor security situation, by far the most popular answer (33.7%) is “Strengthen the IP (International Presence)”. Only 10.7% call for “Decreased Presence or Visibility of MNFI”. Again, compare and contrast with Cole.
On the question of who is most responsible for poor conditions in general, 33.4% blame the MNFI, while 32.1% blame “Foreign Terrorists” and another 8.1% blame “Armed Supporters of the Former Regime”. Iraqis distinguish between the MNFI and the United States (a distinction utterly lost on the likes of Cole) as only a tiny 1.5% blame “The United States”, while 5.3% blame “Ourselves”.
Worst of all (IMO) for the alarmist, disaster-loving Cole: 68.8% of Iraqis in the survey said that civil war was not realistic, while a further 14.8% said it was unlikely. Only 7.8% said it was “Imminent”.
Of that tiny 7.8% most (34%) thought that civil war would result from “Interference by neighboring states” (Iran being the favorite) while only 17.3% thought it would result from “Interference by non-neighboring states” (the US or Israel).
Now, brace yourself for the esteemed Professor Cole’s interpretation:
Yikes and exclamation points! Cole, who accuses IRI of “spinning”, doesn’t tell us that only 7.8% of Iraqis believe a civil war will happen, and only 17.3% of those think it will be caused by a non-neighboring state. Out of that fraction of a fraction of a fraction, 2/3 blame the US. Great suspicion? We should have such favorable numbers in Canada!
Cole also takes delight in the fact that slightly more Iraqis blame the MNFI than Foreign Terrorists for the general poor conditions (not just the poor security situation, as he claims). He ignores the fact that only 1.5% blamed “The United States”.
In high-crime areas, some people blame the criminals, and some people blame the cops. Just because you blame the cops for not arresting enough criminals doesn’t mean you’re on the criminal’s side.
Since expressing views outside of the Iraqi mainstream is (according to Cole) cause for suspicion, at this point we must ask: Who is paying Cole to lie about Iraq, how much are they paying him, and is any of it “Oil for Food” money that needs to be handed over to Iraq immediately?
You see, Phil, coaltion troops are indeed occupiers, so it is not strange that most Iraqis see them that way. Most Iraqis want the occupiers to leave. Eventually. Most Iraqis also want the coalition occupiers to stay until the security situation is stabilized.
Riverbend is typical of 10% of Iraqis. The Baathists, the criminals, the jihadis. Most Iraqis want to get rid of those three groups permanently, before the coalition occupiers leave.
Fallujah was handled with kid gloves, Phil, compared to what the Kurds and Shias would have liked to have done to the snakeden. Coalition troops are holding off a civil war, at least keeping a lid on it. The civil war may actually already be going on.
Bill Funt: “Riverbend is typical of 10% of Iraqis.”
Unfortunately, she is also typical of 90% of American academic leftheads. No wonder Cole thinks she’s a f—g burning bush.
The warm fuzzy feeling is obviously mutual, since Cole is prominently linked on her blog. It’s hard to tell who is aping who.
“large numbers of Iraqis (c.50%) regarding attacks on them to be always or sometimes justified.”
50% is half. So if half the Iraqis agree with Riverbend, the other half don’t, and are better represented by the Fadhil Bros. In this case “large numbers” does not equal a majority.
Also, this statistic conflates “always” and “sometimes.” Two very different responses, which should have each gotten its own percentage.
Armed Liberal,
Good post.
I do not however agree with you, and I do think you’ve been
1) grossly unfair to Professor Cole over the Jones-Huffman killing,
2) wrong in your method, but possibly not in your conclusion, about Cole and the IRI poll business.
In both instances I think that you have, in addition, been disingenuous.
Here’s why:
1) Cole & the Jones-Huffman affair
This issue was brought up by your post here. In it, you made the claim that Dr. Cole, in a post on his blog on 12 December 2004, was unusually cruel in his treatment of Huffman’s death because he had made no mention of the fact that he had known Huffman through correspondence on the Iraq war. This post on December 12 was essentially Dr. Cole’s report that Huffman’s murderer had been found guilty and convicted by an Iraqi court. (If you click through Cole’s link, by the way, one finds that this was quite a notable achievement – it is the first criminal conviction by the Iraqi court of an Iraqi for a crime against an American.)
By not mentioning his correspondence with Huffman (in that one post), you claim that Cole has dehumanized him, and was using him as a “token in his ideological game”.
However, as Abu Frank and I pointed out, you were seriously wrong. Dr. Cole had posted on Huffman before and on at least THREE prior occasions, in separate posts, had expressed his empathy for the young man who had been killed. Not only does this disprove your allegation that Cole was only using him as a “token in his ideological game”, it is also remarkable for it clearly shows Cole felt quite deeply about this young fellow’s death – many people will not repeatedly write of someone whom they have known only through correspondence (which I believe was the extent of their acquaintance).
The post on 12 December 2004 was made when news of the conviction of Huffman’s killer broke, and in it Cole wrote just on that subject. Your contention that Cole is cruel in his failure to mention their old emails – in a post about the criminal trial and conviction of the killer – is simply absurd, especially when it becomes clear Cole had expressed remorse many times.
Now, I would have been prepared to accept that this was merely a factual mistake on your part – that you did not know of Cole’s prior postings on Huffman. This may be expected if someone was merely looking at Cole’s posts as opportunities to pick little snippets here and there in order to hurl mud at him.
But what moved me away from this conclusion, and I admit disgusted and upset me, was the fact that you linked to one of Cole’s previous posts expressing remorse for Huffman’s death. Ie. you KNEW that the charges you were making were false.
This is – yes, disgusting – in a way that is truly ironic: in doing what you did, you were displaying for your readers that, instead of Cole, it was you who was guilty of the very thing you had falsely accused Cole of. You knowingly engaged in dishonesty, and used bits of Cole’s writing to paint a poor picture of him in line with your ideological prejudices.
In your defense that you make here, there is sadly nothing that addresses the real issue.
– your contention that the trick in “political thinking” is to remember that it is about people is patently ludicrous when one realizes that it was Cole who did remember, repeatedly, Huffman’s humanity. It was you who forgot Cole’s – Nazi-like totalitarian murderer, is he, Armed Liberal?
– your contention that it wouldn’t have been “hard” for Cole to include a point about their old correspondence when Cole was writing about the conviction about the killer is absurd. When I write about my father’s academic work I have not always felt it necessary to detail matters important in themselves but not immediately relevant to criticism of his oeuvre – like how he taught me to ride a bicycle when I was young, for example. This does not mean that every time I don’t tell stories about this I am being inhuman – especially since I’ve told those stories before, when it was relevant to tell them.
No, your defence falls short, and it is regrettable that you persist in making those charges – and they were very harsh words you used, Armed Liberal, I’m surprised you didn’t apologize for them no matter what your defence.
The fact of the matter is one person’s conduct in this whole sorry affair has been discouragingly ungentlemanly and uncommendable – and it is not Dr. Cole’s, Abu Frank’s, or mine, Mr. Danziger. It’s yours – and I hope that even if you’re not man enough to own up to it publicly on your blog, you feel some remorse privately in your heart.
2) The IRI poll issue and Dr. Cole
I find in this second issue that your comments were less objectionable – mainly because it is possible you made an honest mistake.
As I pointed out to the ever-dense Glen Wishard here, the main point that we were discussing (or at least, my objection to your post) is not so much what precisely the Iraqi’s feel.
It was your use of an outdated IRI poll to imply that Dr. Cole was a liar or, less likely, a careless propagandist who hadn’t gotten his lines right.
Nothing in your defence on this thread addresses that point, and once more, your disinclination to apologize for an error is regrettable. Your move to deflect that criticism in the manner you’ve done has a name, Armed Liberal. It’s called shifting the goalposts.
Now, as to the matter of who – Dr. Cole, Riverbend, you, Wishard or someone else – is most right about what the Iraqis feel, that’s a tough call. I don’t know the answer to that, and, although you may not realize it, neither do you.
The first and most important point to remember in this extended discussion is that the source all of you are using is seriously biased, a point I haven’t seen you or Wishard acknowledge.
The IRI = International Republican Institute. It is a Republican party affiliated organization, surely not a nonbiased source – something any sensible person should be able to see even if they were Republicans. Now, biased organizations (biased to particular ideologies and beliefs) can produce good data, I’m not denying that. But for obvious reasons I don’t think this poll is at all unbiased.
As Abu Frank pointed out, a long criticism of this poll has been written by, yes, Dr. Cole. I think before any one of you goes any further in singing the tune that Cole is bonkers and the majority of Iraqis share your own positions, you and Wishard need to directly address those criticisms. Now, I don’t read Riverbend, nor ITM. I really don’t care which blogger most “legitimately” represents the majority view – they are both Iraqi bloggers with their own voices. I do think it’s important for unbiased data to be gathered, and that Iraq heals from this mess that Mr. Bush has landed them in sooner rather than later.
And lastly, I do think it’s painfully clear that you, Mr. Danziger, owe someone an apology.
Post scriptum: I do not have the time to engage the other commenters here, in particular Glen Wishard, over the details of the IRI poll. I would state however that it’s amusing that Mr. Wishard persists in his vein. On the other thread, I just looked briefly into some of his claims on the IRI results, and even that brief look disclosed that he was bullshitting. For example, about Question #7 (slide #23 on the power point) Glen made the claim that only 1.5% of Iraqis blame the United States for their ‘current difficult conditions’. I pointed out that this was absurdly disingenuous – the third leading attribution was “All the above” at 12% (which includes the US), and far more importantly, the leading cause is “Multi-National Forces – Iraq”. Very sadly, the MNFI are blamed even more than the terrorists are.
Glen never acknowledged that, and here repeats his claim, making the assertion that the Iraqis distinguish between MNFI and the US. Well, duh. In a poll, you are given multiple choices – the Iraqis weren’t allowed to state spontaneously who they thought was most culpable. Of the choices allowed, they had to choose between MNFI and the country, USA. It is not at all unreasonable to see why people will go for the most accurate representation of their views – the MNFI are the visible military arm executing the political will of the US government, over 90% of which I believe consists of US soldiers. The USA by contrast is a country, most of whom are innocent of direct military action in the war leading to the Iraqis’ “difficult conditions”, and half of whom oppose the actions of their government. And this, on an IRI poll. It is laughable that Wishard actually thinks this is some sort of plus point for his view.
Glen, the Iraqis do not object to the MNFI on account of the 8 Japanese soldiers in the force. You need to start being honest in your analyses.
Aaron, no one has insulted you and if you’re oging to post thing like “the ever-dense Glen Wishard” this is gonna be a short conversation.
I’ll make three relatively simple points:
1) my response to Professor Cole’s use of the IRI polling data was based on the simple fact that the data he presented didn’t say what he said it did. We don’t have an easy time understanding what’s going on in American society based on polling data, much less Iraqi society, so I’m wary of making hard statements about social trends there based on polling.
But his claim that Riverbend was closer to the Iraqi mainstream based on the IRI data was risable.
2) I was aware of, and cited his earler posts about Lt. Jones-Hoffman. That’s was I was and am pissed off at what he wrote afterward. I don’t assume that everyone reading any of my posts has read everything I wrote, and I don;t think Professor Cole does either. When there are important points to make, you either refer back to earlier work or restate them. My claim is that Professor Cole didn’t think his earlier relationship was important enough to comment on, and that’s what I think was wrong.
3) I frequently back down from positions where I’m shown to be wrong. But you’re a long way from doing that here, and at this point, I’m dubious that this will happen.
May I also suggest, in addition to backing away from calling names, that you try and move your rhetoric toward a conversation with the rest of us and away from the soapbox?
These are damn important issues, we ought to be having a discussion of them, and I’m not too interested in having a discussion among people who agree on everything. But it’s got to be a discussion, and not speeches to the balcony that go past each other.
A.L.
‘Aaron’ is hardly in a position to accuse others of misrepresentation. He professes to believe that U.S. forces are “over 90%” of MNFI, when they are actually under 86%, that there are only “8” Japanese soldiers in Iraq, when there are 550, and that Iraqis couldn’t possibly object to the presence of these Japanese soldiers, when the Japanese government has been threatened with multiple car-bombings if they don’t withdraw them. (All this from a Wikipedia entry, which conveniently summarizes information easily findable via Google.)
So why should we believe anything else ‘Aaron’ says? And why can’t he provide something more in the way of ID? I’m not asking for a real name, but just plain ‘Aaron’ and a random fake-looking e-mail address hardly suffice to distinguish him from all the other anonymous Aarons on the web — or to prove that he’s not a Juan Cole sock puppet.
Dr. W… out commenters don’t need to provide ID. Credibility is, of course, another matter.
Dr W,
Joe handled the ID question, the Credibility isssue is handled by this line from our Aaron:
“and that Iraq heals from this mess that Mr. Bush has landed them in sooner rather than later.”
you certainly need nothing else to place his opinions in the proper framework.
If anything, AL, you are treating professor cole much too gently. A 2by4 on the side of the head might be more efficacious. ;^}
AL,
You clearly sin by omission here. I’ts pretty hypocritical to fault Cole for using Jones-Huffman as a token in a political game, citing only one particular post of Cole’s, while failing to mention that Cole was VERY distraught about the Jones-Huffman’s death when it happened, and dealt with it in other polls.
That’s YOU playing games, in order to make a point, which is the same thing you accuse Cole of.
I’m sorry, but in Aaron’s #1 point, “grossly unfair to Professor Cole over the Jones-Huffman killing”, Aaron is clearly correct.
I have no doubt that you have the courage and humility to own up to this mistake. I’ve seen you do so in other mistaken posts. If you can’t, I’m going to ascribe the deficiency as a type of “righteous blindness”. In this case, I can only insist that you remember “let he who is without sin, cast the first stone”, and as much as possible, look frankly and introspectively at your possible blindness in this particular (and again, only this particular) matter.
Armed Liberal:
Re: Cole and Jones-Huffman
You say:
bq. I was aware of, and cited his earler posts about Lt. Jones-Hoffman. That’s was I was and am pissed off at what he wrote afterward. I don’t assume that everyone reading any of my posts has read everything I wrote, and I don;t think Professor Cole does either. When there are important points to make, you either refer back to earlier work or restate them…
AL, Cole stated it three times in prior posts. In the one post you are criticizing, Cole was breaking the news of the killer’s conviction, ie. that was a short post about a new development, he was not reporting Huffman’s death in that post, or speaking principally about Huffman. He was speaking about Huffman’s killer. For the life of me, I can’t see how you can seriously mean that Cole is heartless because he didn’t for a fourth time, express his deep regret for the boy’s death. I honestly find it bizzare, completely… I almost don’t know how to say this… Please don’t take this as some sort of personal insult, but I for the life of me cannot understand how you can’t see that, and why you persist in this mockery.
But ok, let’s do it this way. Let’s say that, hypothetically, we all imagine conceding that what you are saying is reasonable: ie. because Cole did not refer to the fact that he and Huffman once wrote letters to each other in the one post he made breaking news of the killer’s conviction, let us assume that this is evidence that Cole is indeed a heartless fellow who used Huffman as a “token” to further his arguments.
Would you at least concede that, for this, comparing Dr. Cole to a totalitarian monster who runs death camps ala the Nazis is… I don’t know, insert a suitable word here, I was about to type ‘monstrous absurdity’, but Dr. Weevil and the hostile crowd here will claim that this automatically disqualifies everything I have to say. But I think you understand what I’m trying to make clear – certainly you’re sharp enough from what I’ve seen that this must be child’s play for you.
Re: the IRI poll and Cole et al
This matter is fast becoming less and less well defined. The only point I have repeatedly made about this addressed you original post: it was wrong of you to suggest that Cole was disingenuous in the manner that you did. If you want to further dissect the IRI poll itself, there is much to do – as I indicated, a good start will be for you to critique Cole’s objections in the article he wrote at antiwar. However, I would make clear that this has nothing to do with my objection to your post on the matter – the only reason I’ve been discussing this with you at all.
You have so far not responded to that objection.
Your final words greatly resonate with me. Like most people in the West, I think the Iraq war has been a tremendously important moment in history, and it has divided opinion like few other things have. In this time, I’ve noticed that the polarization of views has been so deep that frequently even reasonable people find it difficult to engage the “other side”. I can half understand this: for many people, their own position must seem so naturally obvious that they cannot quite believe that good, reasonable men and women could hold the opposite view on the other side. This sense of surprise is sometimes a barrier to dialogue.
It is especially in this regard that I have been disappointed with your overall conclusion: that your criticism of Cole in these two areas has been completely unobjectionable. It is very hard to meet these days a conservative pro-war voice who is not a wingnut, and likewise a liberal what-on-earth-are-you-doing-to-Iraq-Mr.Bush voice who is not also too stridently shrill. You are (usually) neither, as far as I’ve seen, and that is all the more reason that your stance here on Dr. Cole saddens me.
Aaron: “As I pointed out to the ever-dense Glen Wishard …”
Aaron has a point here. This is the second time in this discussion that I’ve been called a liar (first by Abu Frank, now by Aaron) for pointing out things that seemed to me to be obvious and easily checked. In both cases, the explanation of why I’m a liar was so boring and convoluted (and buried in so much dense prose) that I gave up trying to understand it. So I must be dense, on top of being a liar.
That being the case, Aaron, I don’t expect you to believe me when I point out to you that the “International Republican Institute” is not part of the US Republican Party. Other organizations not affliated with the US Republican Party include the Irish Republican Army and the former Iraqi Republican Guard. Also, although the guillotine is also known as “The Republican Razor”, it was actually invented by the French.
You can look it up, but I swear to God I’m telling the truth this time. Ha ha ha …
Aaron: “As I pointed out to the ever-dense Glen Wishard …”
Aaron has a point here. This is the second time in this discussion that I’ve been called a liar (first by Abu Frank, now by Aaron) for pointing out things that seemed to me to be obvious and easily checked. In both cases, the explanation of why I’m a liar was so boring and convoluted (and buried in so much dense prose) that I gave up trying to understand it. So I must be dense, on top of being a liar.
That being the case, Aaron, I don’t expect you to believe me when I point out to you that the “International Republican Institute” is not part of the US Republican Party. Other organizations not affliated with the US Republican Party include the Irish Republican Army and the former Iraqi Republican Guard. Also, although the guillotine is also known as “The Republican Razor”, it was actually invented by the French.
You can look it up, but I swear to God I’m telling the truth this time. Ha ha ha …
JC said:
bq. You clearly sin by omission here. I’ts pretty hypocritical to fault Cole for using Jones-Huffman as a token in a political game, citing only one particular post of Cole’s, while failing to mention that Cole was VERY distraught about the Jones-Huffman’s death when it happened, and dealt with it in other polls.
Thank you, JC. That’s what I’ve been trying to say, all too ineffectively.
Dr. Weevil,
Your profound insight is much appreciated.
Yes, by saying “I believe the MNFI was over 90% US”, I am completely mistaken. You say “86%” is the true figure, and I can completely see how this invalidates any argument I’ve made. In fact, with such a profound, huge discrepancy, the actual argument I made has completely lost its merits. I have been inexcusably, off-the-charts wrong.
This is also true of the Japanese troops number. I had read somewhere recently, the Times I think, that one nation in the coalition was wrongly cited by Bush as having so and so number of troops in Iraq when they had to all intents and purposes only 8 left. I could have sworn this was Japan, but evidently not, as your eminence has so thoughtfully pointed out.
Again, by attacking an example meant to illustrate the point that the MNFI is overwhelmingly US, you have completely invalidated the argument I was making to Glen Wishard. Which is that when the most highly cited “cause of difficult conditions” is the US dominated MNFI, it is rather ridiculous to point at the 1.5% who chose “USA” instead and claim that Iraqis don’t harbor resentment of American activity in Iraq. I can see how thoroughly you have addressed my argument. The honesty of your approach is greatly to be encouraged.
Lastly, I apologize for using my real first name, Aaron, when posting here. I should instead have thought up of something else, such as Dr. Profound. This would immediately have granted me credibility, and most importantly, the arguments that I make will naturally become more credible, since arguments rest not on the strength of their premises, postulates, and reasoning, but crucially, on the handle used by the poster.
Also, it is inexcusable that I use an obviously fake email because I can’t stand spam. This is a sin that has completely removed my credibility. Espcially since all the posters on this board have legitimate business contacting me via personal email. It also completely doesn’t matter that I painstakingly wrote the precise email addy in each of my posts to make clear that I am the same Aaron. After all, these are the things on which the strength of an argument truly rests – email addys and usernames. And this is, after all, the real reason all of us are here: to compare emails and usernames, not to engage in a discussion about trivial matters like the Iraq war.
By showing us the truly important things to do – choosing fake userames, not our real names, and real emails, not fake ones – you have advanced the discussion by light years.
I thank you.
Dr. W… out commenters don’t need to provide ID. Credibility is, of course, another matter.
Mr. Katzman,
What are you saying? I’d appreciate straight talk. If you mean I am not credible, come right out and say it, and enumerate you reasons. I’ll respond as best I can.
Glenn,
My objection to your posts has mainly been one thing: Your misuse of the data collected by IRI for their question #7, slide #23. I have explained here (see post-script) and here (see bolded sentence) why I think your interpretation is wrong (and why, by your constant repetition of it without acknowledging the objections made, you are being disingenuous to your readers).
I am not calling you a liar (that is to say, someone who is habitually dishonest), but I am saying that your claim re: q#7 in the IRI poll is false, and it is not commendable that you have repeated that claim on two threads without either showing those who objected why their argument is incorrect, or acknowledging that you are indeed mistaken.
AL seems to think I have wronged you by calling you dense. This clearly could be so. I am sorry.
The tone of my responses to each person here has been determined considerably by how they engage in the discussion themselves. In the old thread you mocked Abu Frank and I when you entered it, despite neither of us not having even addressed you before. I responded – simply to the facts. You ignored it. Then came on here, and proceeded to continue in (what I hold to be) a disingenuous argument. Hence, “dense”. This merely explains things, it doesn’t excuse them. As I said, I’m sorry.
RE: your claims about IRI, I am not sure whether you seriously believe what you just wrote, or are being absurdly deceptive. Come on. The IRI website has a history section. Founded by Reagan. Current Chair McCain. Members Eagleburger (Bush I SoS), Scowcroft, Jean Kirkpatrick (Reagan era ambassador and AEI fellow), etc, etc. For goodness sake read the newsletters. If there were more captivating depictions of Laura Bush it’d be a paid advert. I know they claim to be “non-partisan” – just as the Center for American Progess claims the same thing. Would you say the CAP is not biased in favor of the Dems?
Don’t be absurd, Glen. Claiming that the IRI is as non-Republican as the IRA is an example of what seems to be the classic Wishard move. Just like “only 1.5% of Iraqis say USA is the cause of their present difficulties”.
You won’t convince anyone except your fellow ideologues if you “argue” like that.
A.L. – Sorry about the double post. I seem to be too dense to use the commenting system correctly today.
#15 JC – It seems to me that liberals like A.L. and Jeff Jarvis are angrier at Juan Cole than anybody. Angrier than me, anyway. The original discussion focused on MEMRI’s unfortunate threat to sue Cole and U of M, where I thought A.L. was taking a position that was partly motivated by anger.
That said, I want to point out that it was Cole that brought up Jones-Huffman’s death and juxtaposed it with another tired attack on Israel. This generated enough reaction that Cole felt he needed to post a “clarification” on his blog.
I can’t fault A.L. for calling him on it, though you may disagree with some aspect of it. Cole’s grief is his own business, but Cole’s preposterous views on Israel and Iraq are our business, and (like B.T.O said) we will take care of business.
I realize up above that at the end of my last sentence, should have typed “posts” instead of “polls”. Ah well…
Glen,
I actually don’t disagree with anything in your last post, really. However, there’s a lot lumped together in your last comment, as there were a lot of issues under discussion. .
a. MEMRI threatening to sue Cole.
b. Cole claiming intimidation, threatening to sue back.
c. Cole’s mentioning of Jones-Huffman’s death, in the same breath with US policy positions in Israel, mainly because this was part of what Jones-Huffman’s assassin testified. (Murderer testified that Jones-Huffman “looked Jewish”.)
d. Cole’s referencing the aspersions on IraqtheModels bloggers.
e. Cole claiming that IraqtheModel is outside of the mainstream, and Armed Liberal disputing this.
f. AL’s various castigations of point B through E above.
g. AL’s castigation of Cole because of heartlessness, in not mentioning the fact that Cole and Jones-Huffman had a correspondence.
Points A through F are up for discussion and debate. As you say, “Cole’s preposterous views on Israel and Iraq are our business” – I would agree, and this is open to debate.
Point G is where Armed Liberal, clearly, stepped over the line.
Aaron: “Your misuse of the data collected by IRI for their question #7 …”
Sigh. Here is the exact wording of question #7: “Thinking about the difficult situation in Iraq currently, whether in terms of security, the economy or living conditions, who – in your view – is most to blame?”
MNFI – 33.4%
Foreign Terrorists – 32.1%
Combination of all listed factors – 12.2%
Armed Supporters of the Former Regime – 8.1%
Ourselves – 5.3%
United States – 1.5%
I’m not the one who misuses this data – it’s Cole, when he yelps: “More Iraqis blamed the US and its allies in Iraq for the current poor security situation than blamed foreign terrorists! And they were four times more likely to blame the US & coalition than to blame armed elements of the former regime!”
Cole wants us to think that Iraqis are more afraid of the Coalition than they are of terrorists and Baathists, and they they would be happiest if we would just go away. That makes sense to Cole, who like to indulge in Leftist Leisure Class fantasies about jack-booted Marines slaughtering innocent Iraqi Untermenschen for the fun of it.
I point out that Iraqis blame the authorities and the anti-authorities for their general woes (which include problems with electricity and sanitation) in about equal numbers, which makes Iraqis much like people anywhere else. In fact, they might be more reasonable than Americans, given all the people I’ve heard griping about increased airport security. As I said before, blaming the police for high crime rates doesn’t mean that you’re in favor of crime.
So I do not view these numbers as cause for defeatist alarm. And my interpretation is supported by the answers to questions #1a-b and #9, which give context to Iraqi views of the occupation. You can argue with my interpretation, but anybody can look at the freaking numbers.
You question the IRI’s credibility. Well, it was Cole who cited the IRI, to suit his own purposes. Attack them all you want, but don’t try to have it both ways and then say “Well, duh!” to me.
Aaron:
Please do not misconstrue my point. It took me less than 10 minutes with Google to find that your “facts” were wrong, and most of that was spent adding up the totals for the various national contingents in Iraq. You should have spent those 10 minutes yourself before writing your comment. If you want to participate in a virtual seminar with grownups, you need to act like a grownup and not expect others to do your homework for you. It doesn’t matter whether your pseudo-facts were essential load-bearing structural beams in the edifice of your argument, or mere ornamental facade. If you make stuff up, no one will believe you, and no one should believe you, on major points or minor.
As for your name, I don’t care whether you give a blog address (you can start one for free, you know), your full name, or a distinctive fake name such as “Aaron in Topeka” (or wherever you live), or “Triple-A Aaaron” or “Aaron the Aarogant” or any of 10,000+ other possibilities. It’s basic courtesy to let other readers know whether the “Aaron” they are reading here is or is not the same as the “Aaron” whose comments they read on some other thread, and the bare name does not suffice. Given the tone of your last few messages, you might want to use “Aaron Schneermeister”.
Does anyone still suspect that Riverbend is a fake?
The bitter and personal edge so evident in many of these comments does the posters no credit as far as the actual questions under discussion. As remarked on earlier in this thread…ironically.
A.L., I agree in this case with the point made by Abu Frank, Aaron, and JC “(#24, point g),”:http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/006055.php#c24 that you have not gone beyond your anger in accusing Cole of heartlessness with respect to his posts on Jones-Huffman’s murder. Is there a case to be made? A retraction to be offered?
FWIW, I find the tone of much of Cole’s writing to be one of arrogance, and his argumentation to be one-sided and often misleading…but that’s not what’s at issue here.
Glen,
You’re indulging in goalpost shifting. This is what you said about question #7, slide #23:
bq. To the question (#7) of who is most to blame for the current difficult situation in general, “The United States” was the least popular answer (a teensy 1.5%). (here)
and, after I pointed out that this was an amusing distortion of the data, you adjusted your claims to this:
bq. On the question of who is most responsible for poor conditions in general, 33.4% blame the MNFI, while 32.1% blame “Foreign Terrorists” and another 8.1% blame “Armed Supporters of the Former Regime”. Iraqis distinguish between the MNFI and the United States (a distinction utterly lost on the likes of Cole) as only a tiny 1.5% blame “The United States”, while 5.3% blame “Ourselves”.
This is slightly better, but suffers from a similarly intemperate interpretation of the data in line with your political leanings. I pointed out why here. To wit:
On a poll, respondents have to choose responses from preset multiple chhoice answers. They do not respond spontaneously. On this poll, respondents who might have felt that the US led invasion of Iraq was the source of their problems had two choices open to them: the MNFI, which is the military force they see everyday, the direct, visible force responsible for the present changes in Iraq (for better or worse), or “the US”, a country half of whose people opposed Bush’s decisions. It is not hard to see why most Iraqis, when asked, would choose MNFI as an important source of their troubles.
It is therefore disingenuous of you to suggest that only a “tiny, teensy 1.5%” of Iraqis oppose American actions in Iraq. For goodness sake, they’re blaming the army, 90% of which is American! Surely you can see the significance of that? If a poll had been taken of the Vietnamese 30 years ago, and 1.5% blamed “the US” while 33% blamed “US military forces”, how would you intepret that hypothetical situation? “Only a teensy 1.5% blamed the US”?
So, yes, you are “the one misusing the data”; Cole’s use of it is also inaccurate although less so than yours. The claim that four times as many Iraqis blame MNFi compared to the former regime is true, but the other one that “more Iraqis blame the MNFI than the terrorists” is highly misleading. It suffers from the same problem as your manglings: while on the surface it appears true, it does not show the real picture. The MNFI and the terrorists are blamed in virtually equal numbers.
bq. A.L., I agree in this case with the point made by Abu Frank, Aaron, and JC (#24, point g), that you have not gone beyond your anger in accusing Cole of heartlessness with respect to his posts on Jones-Huffman’s murder. Is there a case to be made? A retraction to be offered?
I think the anger some of us have felt in this thread has made it less productive. For my part, I did not realize how I might have been coming across to AL until I reread my first post here (#8). I should have stopped after the fifth paragraph under Jones-Huffman, and I regret not doing so. In the earlier threads, things were much calmer.
As someone who has lost family to totalitarian monstrosities, the shock of seeing a plainly thoughtful fellow repeatedly call an academic that, for (what I believe to be) false reasons, was too much.
I shouldn’t have come here. Anyway, all the best for a great blog and productive future discussions.
Aaron, re:
Dr. W… out commenters don’t need to provide ID. Credibility is, of course, another matter.
My meaning was straightforward. Making an issue out of another commenter’s identity and demanding that they authenticate themselves is out of bounds here, unless there’s some kind of extenuating circumstance that makes it intensely relevant. That wasn’t so in your case, and I thought the demands were harassment. So Ipointed out that there’s no requirement for it.
In contrast, credibility is something that we all do have to provide for ourselves, in any discussion. You can go after someone’s credibility here, and indeed that ought to be the focus rather than ID.
I’ll add that I “argued at some length with Armed Liberal re: Cole’s totalitarian status”:http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/006026.php#c14 in the related entry “On Ordinary Men”. Like Aaron I believe that term has a very specific meaning, and has some very important distinguishing features that make totalitarianism a unique evil (Glen W. actually nailed the keys in his “politicism” post). It’s quite possible to be a hater (like the Klan) or a political murderer (like Augusto Pinochet) without being a totalitarian. Cole could still be one, mind, but it hasn’t been shown yet as far as I’m concerned.
Finally, for the record I think if we’re interpreting the Iraqi poll I’d make MNFI = U.S. Forces for purposes of argument.
RE: the heated disagreement – nobody’s being nefarious here, it’s just a badly worded question because it introduces error and misattribution 2 ways (if you poll an area where non-US soldiers are stationed, for instance, vs. people who see U.S. forces and think of them as MNFI, and both are a bit confounding). You’re each arguing for an interpretation that removes one source of potential error, but the way it’s set up we can’t remove both. My take: Iraq is an allied endeavour, and if we’re taking the Iraqi pulse re: overall optimism and responsibility, then the dividing line should be drawn around “the allies” rather than just America.
In a less formal “poll”, I have to say I was heartened by the “Shi’ite reactions chronicled in the recent Washington Post article”:http://iraqpundit.blogspot.com/2004/12/impact.html about the latest bombings. Impressive.
Ill add that Aaron, you’re quite welcome here. Arguments sometimes become heated, or rough-and-tumble. As you can see, we generally sort them out eventually.
I don’t mind rough-and-tumble – heck, my country’s national sport is hockey. But after we’ve beaten each other up on the rink, we generally line up and shake hands at the end, and it all comes out all right (Canadians Eric Gagne & Larry Walker introduced this little tradition at the end of the 2004 Cardinals-Dodgers baseball playoff series).
Finally, sorry about losing members of your family to totalitarianism. The nature of those systems means that the circumstances around that can be a uniquely painful thing.
#30: “I shouldn’t have come here.”:http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/006055.php#c30
Aaron, there are plenty of comments sections that serve as echo chambers (port and starboard both), and plenty others are the online equivalents of food fights. Joe Katzman to his great credit has been trying for something different here, as have A.L., Dan Darling, Robin Burk, and the other posters.
I don’t agree with a lot of what you have written, but. You have a gift for speaking clearly. You reference your sources. You address the arguments at hand. And you entertain the possiblity of having made mistakes.
As you can see, as ill-disposed as I am towards Cole, I find your arguments persuasive. So (n=1), your efforts aren’t wholly wasted.
So I hope not coming by here isn’t an early New Year’s resolution, or at least not one that you won’t consider breaking.
Aaron,
FWIW, I appreciate your commenting on this site. It is invaluable for you to expose the near-hysterical reaction that, for whatever reason, Juan Cole incites in Armed Liberal. As you so honestly (and painfully) make clear, for AL to go over the line and call Cole “totalitarian” is quite the heinous comparison.
You’ll find it’s true in many over-the-top conservatives – no sense of gradations between liberals, leftists, totalitarians.
It’s the same thing for over-the-top liberals, when George Bush is called “fascist”. For my own point of view, there are definitely disturbing things that the Bush administration has allowed to happen, (the never-ending revelations of torture by US forces for one, I feel is deeply shameful to the nation.) But George Bush, at this point, is FAR from being a fascist.
Easy slurs like “totalitarian” and “fascist” or “Nazi” simply stop thought, and contribute relatively little to the discussion.
I think there is some internet law that the first person to compare someone to Hitler or Stalin, or to a fascist or totalitarian, is the first one to lose the argument.
Armed Liberal clearly lost the argument here.
“Harrassment”? “demanded”? I merely suggested that Aaron might win more friends if he gave us some way of recognizing him on different threads. If I’m arguing with an ‘Aaron’ or a ‘Fred’, I like to be able to know whether I can quote or refer to something he said on another thread without worrying about whether it was actually written by someone else with the same name. Fred gives what looks like a real e-mail address, which makes it easy to check, Aaron doesn’t. I find the latter mildly, but only mildly, rude.
What I find inexcusable is the fact that Aaron makes up statistics because he’s too lazy to do the minimal work needed to get them right in the first place, gets all sneery and contemptuous when he’s corrected, and then (this is the inexcusable part) repeats one of the false ones as if it were true. In comment 29 he writes “For goodness sake, they’re blaming the army, 90% of which is American!” Has he already forgotten that the number is less than 86%, or does he not care? If he really thinks there’s no difference between 86% and 90%, he could have clearly implied so by adding a single word (“almost 90%”) or even a single character (“~90%”). Not doing so makes him something I find hard to distinguish from a liar.
Of course, the difference between 86-14 and 90-10 is actually quite substantial. Ask a waiter whether he cares if his weekly tips come to less than 10% of the gross or more than 14%. Or ask a high school student on the 100-point grading system if his parents care whether he gets an 85.9% (B) average or something over 90% (A-). If your case is solid, you shouldn’t have to exaggerate it to win an argument.
JC, you’re referring to “Godwin’s Law”, which actually states that as a thread continues, the probability of a reference to the Nazis approaches 100%. The corollary about losing the argument on invocation is a Usenet convention.
With respect to A.L., who has known his share of people who could legitimately be called totalitarian, we did see a strong reaction to Cole’s perceived lack of humanity as well as ethics. Having said that, there is an important point in both A.L.’s reaction and the responses to it.
A.L.’s reaction was “dehumanization of your opponents = totalitarianism”. Actually, it’s the reverse. All totalitarians dehumanize their opponents, and dehumanization is an important precursor to political murder. So expressing alarm when one sees the patterns is justified. As I’ve noted, however, it’s possible to be a dehumnizer and even a political murderer without being totalitarian.
The Right, who is used to the “authoritarian vs. totalitarian” distinction drawn by Jeanne Kirkpartrick and others, tends not to make this mistake… it’s actually a bit of a liberal tic.
To my mind, even a restrained comparison that stopped short of totalitarianism but put Cole on the same plane as the Klan and Milosevic would be serious enough. Sometimes, however, one can legitimately go farther. There’s no shortage of university professors who do subscribe to fully totalitarian ideologies. I’ve met my share, and when some cases are valid, invoking the term does not lose the argument.
The question is whether Cole fits the bill. He may, or he may not… all I’ve said is that I haven’t seen enough evidence to apply that label at this time.
#29 Aaron –
I’ve used up a whole month’s budget of patience on you, and I still have Christmas parties to deal with.
Please take a careful look at my post (#4, paragraph 4) above where I talk about the MNFI numbers. I did not not mention the MNFI in my post in the earlier thread, which I wrote just after I first saw the numbers. Nor did I see your post pointing out my “amusing distortion” until now.
Now please look at my post (#25) which has all the data from question #7, together with my thoughts, which at this point you can take or leave as you wish. Please compare them with the IRI presentation to make sure I didn’t change or omit or distort anything.
Finally, since my underhanded intentions fascinate you so much, I recommend you go back and review all of my comments on Juan Cole since the MEMRI issue, and see for yourself if I’m interested in Juan Cole getting a fair deal or not. Then you can rave on all you want about lies, distortions, “classic Wishard maneuvers”, and goal posts getting moved around. It’s a free country – in fact, it’s a mighty coalition of free countries.
I mentioned earlier that I thought A.L. and Jeff Jarvis (among others) were feeling a great deal of anger towards the (ultimately insignificant) Professor Cole. I think it stems in large part from Cole’s involvement with the ugly, McCarthy-stinking insinuations made against Omar and Mohammed at Iraq the Model.
I can understand that anger. You, Aaron, I don’t understand.
Dr. W… your purpose in asking Aaron was not clear. All I can tell you is how it looked from the outside, without the background you provided.
As for the rest of Dr. Weevil’s post, well, that’s all part of the credibility reaction each reader has, and which none of us can escape.
Folks, I think this thread has far outweighed its usefulness or interest and descended into bickering – for which I have to take a fair chunk of responsibility.
First, let me back down – slightly – I do firmly believe that attitudes which dehumanize the ‘other’ are a critical part of totalitarian thinking.
I believe that Dr. Cole dehumanized Jones-Hoffman, but in truth, didn’t offer conclusive – or even significant – evidence for it. I still believe it, but I ‘get’ the point that it’s neither proven nor, probably, provable and so not a fit subject for discussion.
Next, as to my annoyance with Dr. Cole – it really comes in two parts, and surprisingly isn’t about the fact that his conclusions and beliefs are so far from mine. Lots of people disagree with me (or me them) and I don;pt find it annoying.
But I did get annoyed to have supported him in his SLAPP issue to find that it was pot=kettle; and I hate it when people do the “I’m not saying, I’m just quoting” rhetorical ploy.
Look, if he wants to put on a tinfoil hat and believe that the ITM guys are CIA plants and SoA is a CIA front, so be it. Make the claim and take the consequences.
Or, if you see something, point it out and go – don’t know what to think here, but I’d sure like to know more, and have a dialog with your audience.
What he did was cheap and annoying, and I let myself get more annoyed than the issue was worth.
Back to our regular programming.
A.L.
Josephine Finlay, my wife’s mother, was the most vital, bright and big hearted person I will ever know, a beacon of goodness. She died of liver cancer at 67 because they could not find the source.
Remember Apocalypse Now –
Brando: “Are you an assassin?”
Sheen: “I am a soldier”
Brando: “You are neither. You are an errand boy sent by grocery clerks…”
We are under attack by “Grocery Clerks” who have the power to:
* Get us to raise debt ceilings high enough to destroy our economy.
* Wage wars abusive enough to make the whole world hate us.
* Divide us into blue and red states so we can hate each other better.
* Eliminate honest elections as a means of remedy.
The Nazis and the Commies were easy to beat because we could see them.
You can not beat an enemy that you cannot see.
The American Republic is ending for failure to identify the source of its demise.
It will take the combined wisdom of millions working disjointedly for a long time to reveal who the grocery clerks are. But the greater the threat, the greater the victory.
In 1968, I was in a year long land battle along the Korean DMZ that lead to the release of the Pueblo Crew. Too close to Tet for a second front, this battle was fought and won under a complete news blackout. The conscripts and volunteers who were there will carry to the end of their days sweet recollection of their contribution to this victory of free will over constraint.
Now it’s your turn. Your marching orders are in the 2nd paragraph of the Declaration of Independent…
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably … absolute Despotism,
it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and
to provide new Guards for their future security.
Essentially the Scottish Creed: No one touches me with impunity.**
To avoid messy, it poses a question to the Grocery Clerks – –
Are you ready for messy? We are.
To get ready for the struggle, read Civil Society User Manual … http://www.csum.com
Look at the pictures and think about legal ways to spook the Grocery Clerks.
Dennis H. Klein
Mill Valley, CA 94941
415 381 1750
**According to Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through It.
I am sorry this is late guys.
Joe
Your comment about the problem with q#7 and the poll generally is perceptive (although, in a sign of my growing age and decreasing cognitive ability, I had to reread a few times to get it). I’ve thought similarly. Some of the questions, and perhaps more importantly the answer-choices, are so written that controversy about the result is inevitable.
Incidentally I have also decided to pray for you – the Hockey gods simply must be appeased. There are too many of us desperate for an end to the lock-out that we’re grasping at any sort of excuse to talk about le great game. 🙂
AMac, Yeah, you seem to be right about this site. The main reason I find places on both sides, like Kos on the left and LGF on the right, unpalatable is that the commentators are too sure of themselves, too unwilling to try and understand the other side. In fact, this was actually the reason I opened my mouth here: seeing a nut on LGF call Cole unusual names is as passe as seeing a loony on Kos call Bush Hitler. Seeing it here – although I’m new, it’s not difficult to gain an impression of a blog community with a quick read – was very unsettling, and compelled me to comment.
Finally, thank you for your kind words. I hadn’t made a resolution, I had felt maybe I shouldn’t have commented. But it’s not going to stop me from being a pain next time. 🙂
JC,
I agree with you totally. And yes, I think the torture scandals have been deeply regrettable. Phil Carter recently wrote a (very) long piece in Washington Monthly that was excellent – he showed why the current administration has been having difficulty with the Geneva Conventions, given their conception of the nature of the terrorist threat. FWIW having read both the Conventions/relevant international law and the administration’s defense of Gitmo for example, I am unable to see how we are not directly contravening the Conventions.
PS. Your rule rules.
Glen,
What I’ve tried to show is that your “position” on q#7 slide#23 has not been one stance, but has changed – quite dramatically, over some 4 posts. Your final articulation in post 25 of this thread is the one that comes closest to a fair intepretation (altough it still falls short), but it is not what you started out with nor what I was arguing against. Often in debates, two parties eventually come to a closer position than when they started out, owing to adjustments they have had to make in their positions to meet the valid objections of their opponents. In formal debate between two gracious discussants, such concessions are acknowledged in gentlemanly fashion; in other scenarios, one fellow’s position gradually changes to more reasonable ones until he comes out with “My position has always been this, and its reasonable, and you can take it or leave it as you wish”. This is goalpost shifting. Now, it really doesn’t matter, in the sense that what is important is the eventual position one holds, and courtesy in discussion is always desirable but not always forthcoming; in this respect allow me to say in response only, “you’re most welcome”.
Oh, and Merry Christmas.
AL, We’ve each said what we thought needed to be said. Thank you for your thoughts.
And finally, Dr. Weevil,
This long thread has been painful for some of us; I am glad however that one discussant – you – provided me with much amusement throughout. The person it is often most enjoyable to discuss matters with is the fellow who unwittingly proves your own point for you. Thank you for the laughs.
Been off-line through most of the fun; a few quick observations before this slides off the page.
* No, Glen W., I didn’t call you a liar (backstory here, here, and here). But if you keep this up, I may yet!
* Armed Liberal’s missed a couple of good opportunities to admit the supporting evidence in his second Cole post was largely erroneous. Mildly regrettable but no big deal.
* It is of course good that Armed Liberal now states plainly that the evidence for his original denunciation of Cole as “a true keeper of the totalitarian flame” was neither “conclusive” nor even “substantive” (this thread, comment #39). But since his original accusation, Joe Katzman has joined in, allowing that while “it hasn’t yet been shown” that Cole is a totalitarian, the evidence suffices to denounce him as “a hater”, an antisemite, “unethical”, “loathsome” (On Ordinary Men, comment #14), and comparable to the Ku Klux Klan (this thread, comments #31 and 36). So this matter is not closed.
* Armed Liberal’s “totalitarian flame” charge might have been the ugliest point in terms of personal conduct. But in terms of poisoning public debate, equally bad was his transformation of Cole’s remark on the causes of Jones-Huffman’s murder into a justification of that murder. As far as anything on this thread shows, he still stands behind that slander.