{"id":247,"date":"2003-11-12T03:09:03","date_gmt":"2003-11-12T03:09:03","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2006-09-28T12:08:24","modified_gmt":"2006-09-28T12:08:24","slug":"defining_a_liberal_hawks_policies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=247","title":{"rendered":"Defining A Liberal Hawk’s Policies"},"content":{"rendered":"

A little over a week ago, I wrote a series of suggested position statements<\/a> for Democratic hawks.<\/p>\n

Kevin Drum<\/a> and I agreed to have an interblog discussion, which I hope will widen to other blogs; we’ll have a back-and-forth on these and see where we agree, where we disagree, and possibly lay out some ground to all stand on together.<\/p>\n

Here’s what I wrote:<\/p>\n

First, we’re not going anywhere in Afghanistan or Iraq until we’re done. Afghanistan will not turn into Vermont any time soon, but we will make sure that the power of the warlords is checked, and that it doesn’t collapse again. Iraq could be the leader of the Middle east, and we intend to help build it into that;<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Second, we’re too dependent on ME oil. We’re going to do something about it, both by pushing conservation, expanding alternative energy, and expanding exploration. We’re going to build the damn windmills off of Cape Cod;<\/p>\n

Third, we’re going to stop Israel from building new settlements and push them to dismantle existing illegal ones;<\/p>\n

Fourth, we’re going to work to expand the ground-fighting capabilities of our military by adding at least one division to the Army, and looking carefully at the allocation of all our assets to make sure that we have the resources to deal with the kind of wars that we are going to realistically face;<\/p>\n

Fifth, we’re going to sit with the Arab countries we are supporting and make it clear that they cannot buy internal stability by fomenting hate against Jews and the West and still expect our financial and military support. We will also talk about what kinds of support would be forthcoming if they did stop;<\/p>\n

Sixth, we’re going to develop security mechanisms based on the theory that fine-grained systems that bring information and communications to the existing public safety community, as well as the public at large are better than huge, centralized bureaucratic solutions;<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He suggested – and I completely agree – that we add “internationalism” to the list.<\/p>\n

So I’ll add a seventh position as soon as I can come up with one. I’ve been thinking about this issue for about a month and I just keep getting a headache; I’m trying to contain two beliefs that appear contradictory. <\/p>\n

First, that we really do need help on a number of levels – intelligence and law enforcement data needs to be pooled; we need explicit cooperation in monitoring the international traffic in weapons and cash; and, bluntly, we don’t have and won’t soon have the manpower to deal with all the issues that we’re facing. <\/p>\n

Second, our traditional allies don’t necessarily have parallel interests with us in this (or, more accurately, they don’t perceive that they have parallel interests). This means it won’t be easy to both do the things which we believe we need to do and to get help from other countries in doing it.<\/p>\n

So then here’s the question – how do we re-align our interests? In part, I think we don’t, and that some of our alliances forged in the Cold War are dead letters today, and that we simply need to politely acknowledge that and then make new alliances to replace them. And in part, I think that we have to work very damn hard to get what support we can in this arena.<\/p>\n

I do think that what I hear from the mainstream Democratic candidates on this is largely piffle and wishful thinking (and yes, I know I need to explain this).<\/p>\n

The ShrinkLits version is this: To hand Iraqi reconstruction and the conduct of the war over to NATO, or god-forbid, the U.N. is going to be a disaster. The leading NATO countries didn’t want to go, and they certainly won’t want to stay long enough to effect the kind of change we’re discussing. The U.N. … well, just forget the U.N. for now. I’m working on a post about it in my odd moments.<\/p>\n

So on one hand, we need help, and on the other, we’re unlikely to get it. Like I said, I keep getting a headache. But now that I’m publicly committed to taking some kind of position, I’ll just get a big bottle of Excedrin and some tea, sit down, and think it through.<\/p>\n

And meanwhile, I’ll get something up tomorrow on Point One above.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A little over a week ago, I wrote a series of suggested position statements for Democratic hawks. Kevin Drum and I agreed to have an interblog discussion, which I hope will widen to other blogs; we’ll have a back-and-forth on these and see where we agree, where we disagree, and possibly lay out some ground […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}