Back in 04, I wound up in an interesting inter-blog fight with the commenting community over at Little Green Footballs. I’d said:
I’ve met Charles, and he’s a liberal who was shocked by 9/11 into reading Arab media, and shocked by what he saw there. I really do think he’s provided a service in opening that up to wider discussion, and I think he’s damaged the service that he does by allowing his comments to be as bile-filled as they are.
551 comments ensued, some of them thoughtful, lots of them not. I’ve held a pretty consistent view that the tone of Charles’ comments damage the message he’s trying to get out, and that the place where Charles’ commenters tend to be (we’re at war with Islam now) is the end point I’m trying hard to avoid getting to.
Kevin Drum is another blogger I’ve met and am personally fond of, and someone I have a great deal of respect for. Sadly, his comments are as bad – or I really think, worse, than Charles’.
Why worse, you ask?Well, first, because we’re not talking about a random website started by a musician/web designer (who became an aspiring media mogul later on) and a bunch of people who have gravitated to him; instead, we’re talking about the web presence – in fact, the home page of the web presence – of one of the leading partisan magazines in the country. Don’t believe me? Ask them:
Who Reads The Washington Monthly?
Time says our magazine is “must reading at the White House and on Capitol Hill,” and and The Washington Post says our magazine is “setting off the Beltway buzzmeter.” Even the conservative Weekly Standard calls us “smart.” If you subscribe, you’ll join people like Tom Brokaw, Dick Cheney, Tom Daschle, Jimmy Carter, Joe Klein, Ellen Goodman, and thousands of others who want the inside stories weeks or months before they appear in the mainstream media. That’s why James Carville says, “If you only get one magazine subscription this year, buy The Washington Monthly. If you’re getting another, buy two.”
This week, guest blogger Steve Waldman riffed off of an interesting question about the antipathy liberals seem to have for the religious – actually an important question to anyone who’s serious about seeing liberal values get greater political traction – and things go just nuts. A few examples:
McAristotle:
You need a SacRete enema, dude, is what you need.
Bob
Posted by: rmck1 on March 13, 2006 at 2:53 AM | PERMALINKFunny thing is, I could care less what Mr. Waldman writes or says. I go to church every day, I confess my sins every day. But what I really want out of life is to find some man who can take my entire arm up his ass. I want him to feel my armpit hair making his perineum raw. That is all I want from my Christian life.
Posted by: dms on March 13, 2006 at 3:29 AM | PERMALINKHuh. A firestorm of commentary for the latest post, already 218!
Having grown up in the South, I have to say that there’s nothing elitist or really even that intellectual about a distaste for evangelism. In the South, /if you are a thinking, rational person/, you think, no, *know* yourself to be surrounded by people that believe in flat earth and relative Gravity (heavier things fall faster) and literal Biblical inerrancy. Pinheads. Many Southerners are nice people, many of them are walking talking /real/ humble Christians. BUT. A greater proportion of them live an unexamined life. The classic Southern credo is: “The Bible says it, I believe it and that settles it”. Facts and those that present them are often seen as credulous tools of Satan or some such.
But there is *nothing* that makes an aversion towards this or an hostility for it elitist or intellectual. We should exile all of these benighted souls to a walled compound where the reality of their illusions could build up so that the insanity of it would become apparent….oh right, they’ve walled themselves already…in the South and South Dakota…….isn’t it wonderful how the South is a Garden of Eden of brotherly love, racial harmony, loving family life with no child going hungry or uneducated, no women is abused?
Yeah, I’m hostile to evangelism. I’ve seen it, I grew up with it, and it’s not Christian, it’s not moral and it’s stump dumb and proud of it.
Posted by: Stewart Dean on March 13, 2006 at 9:46 AM | PERMALINKAnother liberal-baiting, self-congratulating, troll’s rant on the front page. Fucking precious.
Posted by: Doc on March 13, 2006 at 11:13 AM | PERMALINK
And it goes on (I dipped into the discussion, and I don’t think they like me very much there)
Look, there are a certain number of fruitbats whose political allegiances probably pretty much follow an inverted Gaussian curve (lots on the ends, few in the middle). The newsworthy points raised here are two:
First, it explains why it is that as unhappy with Bush as the voting populace may be, the Democrats can’t put 06 into the bank. Because when average voters see this kind of thing – as they saw it when the Deaniacs invaded Iowa – they go “Holy Crap!” and vote for someone else.
Second, and this is a bigger concern for me – that the Democratic position is self-limiting, because it repels everyone who’s not a True Believer. As one of the commenters noted:
16pct of the Kerry vote is nearly 8pct of the electoral vote. Try winning without it. We’re tired of God-baiting, people like steve waldman here are a clear and present danger to our republic. they use the language of our enemies to try and obtain power withing our party. They try to split the religious among us from the non-religious. They try Exploit both halves against each-other so that they can rules us both. People like this are not interested in helping us, they are interested in power and dividing us to obtain that power. Be wary, there is no magic bullet. Democrats aren’t hostile to faith, we’re hostile to people who think they own the light and the truth in this world. Waldman is one of those, if we do not bow and give them their way on everything they threaten to make us second class citizens. Following people like this will leave this country shattered and broken.
Posted by: SoulLight on March 13, 2006 at 9:01 AM |
PERMALINK
This isn’t exactly an inviting stance to someone who doesn’t already agree.
Unfortunately, the LGF community mindset – in which the presumption is that we’re at war, and the only question is how fast the rest of the country will realize it – is more contagious, and to an extent more dangerous.
It’s contagious because every time the Islamists do something evil, some small percent of the people in the West go “fuck it” and start calculating blast patterns over Mecca.
That means that unless my peers on the left can get their act together – which is, given where we’re starting from, a damn tall order – at some point the folks standing on Charles’ side of the room are going to be a big enough constituency to start driving the political decisionmaking. You think the world doesn’t like us much now? Wait ‘till later…
A.L.,
It’s not as static as you think. By the time the American people go the full “Andrew Jackson”, they won’t be the only ones, and the Arabs will already be doing that to each other. It’s their civil war after all.
The real American grand strategy for the Arabs is called “salvage and destroy” – the Wilsonians will save those who can be saved, and the Jacksonians will destroy those who can’t – those who survive their own kind anyway.
IMO there will be a long-term (20-40 years) American military presence of about 200,000 – 250,000 troops, etc, along the south side of the Persian Gulf which will start in no more than five years. It might not be 200-250k immediately, but it will ramp up to that within a few years.
And it will administer a manual attitude adjustment to the thoroughly psychotic Arab tribal culture in that culture’s heartland.
You wrote: “Unfortunately, the LGF community mindset – in which the presumption is that we’re at war, and the only question is how fast the rest of the country will realize it – is more contagious, and to an extent more dangerous.”
How are we not at war? Osama bin Laden declared war in 1998, nobody noticed, and three years later September 11. There are many people out there who want to kill us, punish us for various things (e.g. the fall of the Ottoman Empire) and eventually force us to live under Sharia.
How to go about fighting this war can cause reasonable people to have differences of opinion. But yes we are most definitely at war.
Maybe I’ve been reading LGF too muchl
AL — the world doesn’t like us because we embody change.
Americans are not the same as in 1984, or 1968, or 1965 (think how much we changed in three years), or 1955, or 1945. Change comes most rapidly to America and American society, and whenever the rate of change accelerates, we as Americans tend to prosper. Because we depend on change.
Other societies do not like change at all, because they can not adapt to it without destroying their social structure. Hence their hatred for change embodied in America. This has nothing to do with what we do or don’t do in the Middle East. Or any place else. But tons for embracing and extending change, even if it’s not invented here.
Democratic thinkers, pundits, politicians (with the possible exception of James Carville) and folks like Drum are savagely resistant to change, and thus caught in a death-spiral of more and more true believers drinking the Kool Aide.
Charles folks at least embody the change. I was always afraid that Bush would wrong by half-measures and too much PC (far from war monger he’s Mr. Milquetoast) and thus the “rubble doesn’t make trouble” folks ala John Derbyshire would gain traction. Forget for a moment LGF. When NRO folks like Andrew McCarthy, Derb, and Jim Geraghty all to one extent or another embrace the “to Hell with them Hawks” position, the groundswell of the national political movement is to me, clear.
Bush’s poll numbers are dropping, not because people are embracing Russ Feingold’s move to censure Bush for listening in to Al Qaeda, or want a release of the Gitmo prisoners, or anything like that. But because Bush hasn’t been tough and hard enough on the Muslims all over the world burning our flags, threatening us with death, and gaining nukes (Iran) and threatening to nuke us.
The word has changed, and changed decisively, to a threat of nukes on our cities from failing states, not the Soviet Behemoth triggered by a mistake or brinkmanship. Dems by not recognizing this change and responding to it, have made themselves as useless as buggy whips and corsets.
Carl O:
Wars have definite beginnings and definite ends, and are marked by consistent armed action. At least, this is the popular conception of a war. The war in Iraq was over in three weeks. We now have a struggle against an insurgency and a terrorist problem. It’s not a war anymore, more like violent nation-building.
I don’t think it matters that Osama declared war. We don’t need to dignify him with war combatant status. Overall, in my view, by calling this struggle against Islamic-fascism a “war on terror” Bush has confused people, since everyone agrees the most important actions will not take place on the battlefield. There is an armed component, absolutely, but we’re really in a hearts-and-minds, democracy promotion campaign here.
This confusing ambiguity about this “war on terror” ultimately serves to undermine American confidence in the effort about Islamic-fascism. Better to call it a global struggle or something like that.
It was reading the comments at Kevin’s old blog that drove me away from the Democratic party. I just couldn’t see trying to talk to those folks, it was clear I wasn’t “one of them.” I don’t read LGF much either. I much prefer the company I find at blogs like this one.
I think the comments at Little Green Footballs (link) are a problem. There are too many thoughtless, sometimes uncivil and even nasty remarks.
I share the perspective common at Little Green Footballs that the clash of civilisations is already here. (And so, rather than worrying about starting it, I worry about how it will go if only one side – not ours – recognises it and fights.) This follows from my opinion on what makes the hate speech in the mosque attractive to the guy standing at the door. I think Islam, including the example of the Prophet (pbuh), primes you to be receptive that sort of stuff. That implies a large potential for serious conflict. Starting at latest with the establishment of the Iranian theocracy on 12 February 1979, this potential has materialised concretely in well-funded, institutionalised, armed and globally networked hatred.
(I also agree with David Warren’s key point in his very important and prescient post Wrestling With Islam (link) , that Muslims have retained in full force the concept of “the infidel” – with the implication that what happens to infidels does not matter and that only Muslim grievances really count – and that therefore this clash is not likely to end well. When you deal with a culture that believes for solid theological and cultural reasons that only its endlessly multiplying grievances must be addresses and redressed with tribute, cringing and blood, the road leads to resistance or submission, not to a modus vivendi pleasing to all.)
But, too often, at Little Green Footballs, where’s the value added in the comment? Masses of angry and often sarcastic “me too” remarks are not worth reading through, they just create a poor impression.
This matters because Little Green Footballs matters. Charles Johnson is providing a lot of important information other people don’t want to look at. It’s hard to be well informed about what’s really happening in the world without reading Little Green Footballs. (Though Jihad Watch (link) and Dhimmi Watch (link) help.)
By contrast, I know of no reason why anybody would need to read Kevin Drum. (link). I stopped doing so long ago, and I haven’t heard of a blockbuster like Charles’ “throbbing memo” that would make me revise that decision. Therefore, let the commenters there rave in peace. It’s not an issue.
Therefore I would suggest focusing on the problems of the part of the blogsphere that shouldn’t just be written off. (Except that Little Green Footballs has come in for plenty of attention here already.)
Nothing I’ve said should be taken as slamming everyone at LGF. I post there myself occasionally, and I’ve generally found my fellow posters nice, friendly, and sometimes very helpful and informative. It’s just that the signal to noise ratio is less than ideal, and there are from time to time posts that don’t reflect credit on anyone.
I don’t think Charles has any bad intentions in managing his comments either. But handling comments deftly is a gift, and not everybody has every gift. Dennis the Peasant (link) caught Charles in a prejudicial misstep (link) recently as well. These things happen. Even Homer nods, and none of us are on Homer’s level.
A.L. says:
“I dipped into the discussion, and I don’t think they like me very much there”
Ya think?
Here’s a quote from a comment on that thread:
I would never tolerate such crap in commentary on my blog — but Kevin (even when he’s around) simply has too much commentary to moderate. Kind of like Charles.
A.L.,
With a good editor you might actually see your own correct thinking. Look at the problem you have identified:
the presumption is that we’re at war, and the only question is how fast the rest of the country will realize it because every time the Islamists do something evil, some small percent of the people in the West go “f * c k it” and start calculating blast patterns over Mecca.
and it is cumulative and relatively one way.
What is the solution? One is that the Democrats might admit that we are at war. Then the response would be – how do we manage the war in a way that avoids nuking Mecca?
Look up : Wretchard Three Conjectures
Start here:
http://belmontclub. bl*gspot.com/2003_09_01_belmontclub_archive.
html#106401071003484059
I’d put in the link correctly but the spam filter doesn’t like blogsp*t
Just out of idle curiosity, why do we need to avoid nuking Mecca?
I have thought for a year or two now that the only way the Middle East and the West will be able to co-exist is if Muslims renounce the Koran. They’ve got to give up the parts about killing infidels and apostasy and child brides of 9 being OK, or there is simply no way that we can ever treat them as fellow human beings.
Increasingly, given their pig-headedness over those silly cartoons, however, I don’t see that ever happening. So if we’re going to have a clash of civilizations then it seems to me that we’d better be prepared to wipe that one off the face of the earth like the infection it is … and that includes their big black rock.
Whew, talk about revisiting old battlefields.
“This is my favorite.”:http://windsofchange.net/archives/004817.php#c212 It’s just so thoughtful.
I don’t comment much at LGF anymore, though I still read it. The threads are too huge now to manage any kind of discussion. At the time that this crosstalk took place, 400 comment threads were very rare. Now they’re all that big.
Charles Johnson has a definite focus and he has pursued it with indefatigable determination, and I’m glad he has. I never worried about it being “dangerous”, because if anything I read is dangerous to me, then the danger is in myself, not in the author. (I read Georges Sorel’s Reflections on Violence, and yet made no attempt to overthrow the European oligarchic pigs.) And I do others the courtesy of mostly assuming that they are no easier to brainwash than I am. If they are, then they’re going to wind up chasing UFOs anyway, so what can I do about it?
So I guess Charles won’t win any awards for “balance”. Not everything is balanced, and not everything should be. To think so is the error of moral equivalence and multi-culti nihilism. It’s up to the reader to judge for himself.
On the comments, I can’t think of anything to say that I haven’t said a hundred times over the past four years. Needless to say, I don’t blame Kevin Drum for all the stuff in his comments, no more than I blame Charles. Nor do I blame even poor old Kos for the pathology that trails in his wake.
Don’t tell me they “set the tone”. They’re writers, they’re not everybody’s Mommy and Daddy.
_You think the world doesn’t like us much now? Wait ‘till later_
Americans are mostly an enjoyable bunch of people. Americans treat us in a trustworthy manner if we treat them the same. We respect America and see it as a good place to visit. Some of the things America does exasperates us and we don’t like them. But even with all that exasperation we trust you, respect you and enjoy your company.
But now your saying that you want our relationship to be more than that, you want us to like you. Well of course there is heaps of stuff you could do better. And we all think you could improve your image and you can start by kissing our feet. We’ll like you if you do that…we won’t respect you or even trust you (because we think feet kissing is just crazy)…, but we sure will like you.
NahnCee,
I’d like to avoid nuking mecca because it would be a classy thing to do. Besides I always like out smarting an enemy to bludgeoning them. It is so much more efficient. Even better is converting an enemy to an ally.
But hey – if we need at some point to make Mecca glow in the dark I’m all for it. Look up cloudy mushroom soup in LGF comments.
AL:
“I dipped into the discussion, and I don’t think they like me very much there.”
Well, except for one choice quote from a crazy, I think “ignored” would be a better way to describe your response “over there”.
Do you interpret this to mean “they don’t like me”? You sound like a little baby.
Your posts over there have all the charm and insight of a rabid weasel. You think you’re going to illicit a serious response when you “dip into” the thread wearing the false mantle of a “Blog Prophet” come to save the local barbarians from certain electoral Hell?
What a pretentious ass. In fact, I’d say your little act was greeted with an admirable display of tolerance and civility (except for the one exception noted).
What’s clear is that you’re simply out of your league. Lucky you have this little place to come home to so you can get the hug you so desparately need.
Wizener, this isn’t Kos, LGF, or Political Animal; we expect our guests to make arguments a whole lot more than they call names. If you want to argue my points, step up and let’s do it. If you’re going to call names, go someplace else. In fact, I’ll make it simple – the next time one of your comments is as insulting as this one, you’re gone.
Feel free to disagree, even heatedly with me or anyone else here. Stop descending into content-free insult. You got this one in, you won’t get another.
A.L.
“I have thought for a year or two now that the only way the Middle East and the West will be able to co-exist is if Muslims renounce the Koran.”
In the history of religion, what evidence leads you to believe that ‘nuking’ Mecca would do anything more than harden Islamic beliefs? Martyrdom is the brick and mortar of religion. Heck, they _crucified_ the founder of one particular church and all it did was tear down the mightiest empire in the world and spread to every corner of the Earth. Within a day of the bomb falling the inevitable destruction of Mecca would be found in some Koranic text as a sign of the impending triumph of Islam. Ideas need to be challenged with reason and education.
AL
I dont get your political analysis. If Kossacks drive people from the Dem party, why does it follow theyd become LGFers? Seems to me theyd just join the GOP, and having been moderate enough to be Dems in the first place, theyd support sane GOPers, like McCain. Now that may not be the best result from your or my POV, but I hardly think it leads to nukes over Mecca.
This is more an aspect of online communities than it is of the mindset of a party. The ability to build an online community of like-minded (aka group thinking) activist types only emboldens this type of behavior. The anonymous nature of the net itself adds fuel to the fire, for people can spout off unhinged and really let their flags fly without repercussion in their personal lives.
I can almost assure you that the same kooks on either side of the political spectrum would be holding their tongues in public if they were given a platform to make their comments (barring a Moveon meetup or a Freeper convention).
Having been a massive lurker on many a net based forum for close to 10 years now, I’ve seen this kind of online echo chamber reach a fever pitch over the last few years as the major parties, via proxies, have pumped money and effort into the “netroots”.
I think the larger issue is that to many who inhabit online discussion forums and groups, they allow themselves to get the impression that everyone feels like they do, this of course is reinforced because they inhabit only the areas that reinforce their worldview and rarely if ever step outside of it to get a differing opinion. Thats why when someone posits a differing groupthink view (ie the Religion issue for Drums site) the zealots go off unhinged and attack. The same can be said for the “Chris Mathews Boycott” or any number of right leaning attacks on Conservatives who have spoken out on Bush’s failed policies.
I fear that this will continue to be the trend for the foreseeable future. As most voters are not political/blogging junkies they will be rarely exposed to the nasty invective that inhabits both sides of the aisle. Remember in the view of the political zealot there is no such thing as “bi-partisan”.
Well, AL, here’s your chance to prove that you deserve anything other than simple scorn.
Your pal Kevin Drum has a post up right now that echoes precisely what I was asking from you in a recent thread.
“REPUBLICANS AND NATIONAL SECURITY….”:http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_03/008419.php
“So without minimizing the need for Democrats to get their national security house in order, can I ask just what the Republican national security strategy is these days? Seriously. The Bush Doctrine is pretty much in tatters — even W himself doesn’t seem to be up for any further preemptive military adventures at the moment — and aside from “staying the course” in Iraq and conducting an almost comically muddled and contradictory public diplomacy campaign, what exactly is it that Republicans think we should be doing? Aside from talking tough?
You may recall that you posted a few throwaway paragraphs from Bush’s speeches and left it at that, in response to my similar question posed after reading your 16,000th post bashing the Democrats on National Security.
I’ll give you a chance to write about this either here or there before reproducing my challenge to you in their comments.
Seems like a good opportunity to prove your worth to the discourse, and justify your Neocon support for Bush and Iraq. (Please do make sure not to conflate anti-terrorism with the War in Iraq. Clearly there’s more to it than that.) Count me as skeptical that you can rise to this challenge.
Wizener, f**k off; I’m not your pet. If you want to raise an issue, do it. But I’m not – nor is anyone else participating in these forums – under any obligation to engage you or anyone else on demand. That’s nothing like the kind of dialog and debate I’m interested in creating – and have successfully created for a number of years – here on this site.
Since I can’t help myself, I’ll suggest as a side comment that by setting the stage as “Please do make sure not to conflate anti-terrorism with the War in Iraq.” meaning that the core arguments are – accouding to your Rules of Engagement, off bounds.
I’ll deal with my response to Kevin and his points in my own time. I’ll engage you when you start making arguments rather than petulant demands. If you’d like to reframe your comment into such an argument, feel free and I may well respond.
A.L.
Wow, I simply explain that it’s hard to stay informed without reading LGF (ROTFLMAO!) and that we need to find a way to dea with radical islam that doesn’t include Nuking Mecca, and everyone looks at me funny!
What gives?
And just one point.
In a post commenting on the potty mouth commenters at other blogs, don’t you think you should refrain from telling others to F@%K OFF?
“Please do make sure not to conflate anti-terrorism with the War in Iraq.” meaning that the core arguments are – accouding to your Rules of Engagement, off bounds.”
Too true. The counter question that comes to mind is what would Al-Zarqawi be up to in the world today if he wasnt out fighting our troops in Iraq? Where would all the jihadis we’ve killed or captured in Iraq be (and to play your game please dont tell me theyd be peaceably sitting home in Syria or Algeria smoking hashish and praising Allah)? There can be no real question that _significant_ terrorist resources in general and AQ resources in particular have gone to causing trouble in Iraq. To date they have yielded questionable results while loses have been significant. What exactly has Al Qaeda achieved in the last 4 years aside from bare survival?
You ask what else Bush has accomplished? Afghanistan comes to mind. The alliance forged (welded is more like it) with Musharaff is perhaps the most overlooked and important peice of diplomacy in the Bush record. Lebannon. The isolation of Syria. Not to mention the little fact that we havent suffered a major terrorist attack since 911.
Its simply foolish to discount the Bush Doctrine at this point in time- wishful thinking i would say. The book on Iran isnt written yet… nor is Iraq for that matter. The problem here is that Bush has set in motion a long term process. Doctrines dont come to fruition in a month or a year. Yet the opposition demands instant gratification. As much as Wiz and his ilk long to declare defeat and fly their Mission Abandoned banners that is not going to happen and Bush’s strategy will ultimately have to be viewed in a decades long prism. Not days and months like the current news cycles.
To accuse Bush and his supporters of being as idealess as the left (an interesting ground to start a fight on i might add) is kinda like accusing a farmer that just cleared and sowed his fields of being lazy. Especially hypcrotical when you’ve been sitting in the shade telling him he is digging all wrong the whole time.
Liberalhawk –
The issue (why it is that I worry that driving people from the Democratic Party leads to the growth of the “LGF” – it’s not completely fair to that community, hence the quotes – ‘Nuke Mecca’ argument) is that there are only a few positions on the scale coherent and stable enough to persist and grow. ‘Surrender and pay tribute/reparations’ is one (although a small one, thankfully), ‘Nuke Mecca’ is another, and ‘hide behind our nukes’ is still another.
Note that there’s no reason one of those couldn;t become the GOP position – in fact, I’d guess that the GOP might get driven into that position if it’s can’t figure out an articulable position to take in a post-Iraq world.
The conventional GOP is wrestling with whether they can stick with Bush’s original position in light of the bad color it’s current in – through a mixture of real problems, bad leadership, and bad reporting – and my guess is that unless they come up with a new, clear position they will wind up in (forgive the pun) a nuclear one.
A.L.
Davebo, the issue isn’t that someone is a “potty mouth” or not – I certainly am, as my 9 year old frequently reminds me (I point out that I’m a bad example). The issue is whether people will make arguments or call names.
This place ought to be about making arguments, and I try hard to see that it stays tilted in that direction.
A.L.
Nahncee,
> Just out of idle curiosity, why do we need to avoid nuking Mecca?
Is this an LGF thread? Annihilating a large civilian population (Mecca) because some sub-fraction of individuals among them intend to actively conquer/enslave us via random terror is actually more evil than their goals, and they’re insanely evil. Tactically, hastening Wretchard’s second conjecture (a genocidal war against Islam, even the parts that are compatible with modernity) doesn’t actually help. This is like dealing with a cockroach infestation by torching the adjacent neighborhood – it’ll kill and piss off a lot of people you barely know, and probably won’t work. Immoral and ineffective.
Look, none of us here has any real power (save perhaps the power to infulence…) but perhaps you’re unaware of the pro-American Kurds, or the tolerant secularism of the Turks, or the beer drinking/go-go dancing Indonesians, or the yearning for freedom of the Iranian people (all Muslims, and all under attack by the same Islamic extremism that threatens us). These guys are largely compatible with modernity, have great actionable intelligence and (unlike the US intel services) have met the enemy face to face, and understand both the specific religious framework of their motivations, and fourth generation warfare intimately. Why would you want them as enemies? There’s a smarter way to play this than setting the world aflame (e.g., backing the right Iranians, leaning harder on extremist imams, seeing the neocon plan through, maybe a lot of South American Cold War style horror). Ugly work, but orders of magnitude better than a full scale civilizational clash, and one that may leave us intact at the end, as well.
Still trying to overthrow the Jordanian monarchy?
But is this an affirmation of the infamous “flypaper strategy”?
Also I suppose it’s in poor taste to point out that the DOD sought permission to “take out” Al-Zarqawi on 3 seperate occassions only to have the NSC refuse on the grounds that killing him would hurt the propaganda campaign underway to sell the Iraq war to America.
“Still trying to overthrow the Jordanian monarchy?”
And preventing that isnt in the US interest? You sure you want to chalk up protecting America’s safest ally in the region from Al Qaeda takeover to GW Bush?
“But is this an affirmation of the infamous “flypaper strategy”?”
Except that Zarqawi was a spider already lurking in that web. Is it better to have him running around Iraq with Delta Force hunting him and half the population wanting him dead or plotting unmolested under Hussien’s aegis?
“Also I suppose it’s in poor taste to point out that the DOD sought permission to “take out” Al-Zarqawi on 3 seperate occassions only to have the NSC refuse on the grounds that killing him would hurt the propaganda campaign underway to sell the Iraq war to America.”
Something tells me that is your personal spin on that issue. I somehow find it hard to believe we’re going to find a tape of an NSC member voicing that sentiment. Seems to me if SF could have snatched up an AQ member in Iraq it would have stregthened the argument that… well there were AQ members in Iraq.
Davebo (#26) –
That’s interesting news to me; can you point me at a source?
A.L.
AL, this is an interesting and informative post regarding two excellent websites that I read daily, one right after the other. I must have missed your 2004 episode with LGF, so I didn’t know that part of your histories; I am surprised at the animosity that apparently exists between your sites.
I really appreciate LGF’s posts and emphasis on many topics MSM and others choose to ignore (or just miss, as in “clueless”), but I seldom comment or read the comments for the same reasons mentioned in the comments above (#6 said it very well). My point is that I do not read LGF or WOC for the comments.
There are several reasons I read and enjoy WOC, probably because WOC has several contributors. AL, I enjoy your posts not because I agree with you on every issue but because you exhibit an honesty and thoughtfulness on matters of national security, unlike most other liberals I know. I also appreciate your disposition and willingness to discuss serious issues rationally. I don’t see how you can remain a liberal with this mindset, but that is your burden, not mine. The fact that you even see current national security issues as being serious is something that eludes most other liberals; you give me hope that somehow other liberals will possibly, eventually also come around to your point of view.
I believe Davebo is refering to an WSJ piece http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB109866031609354178-email,00.html
“The Pentagon drew up detailed plans in June 2002, giving the administration a series of options for a military strike on the camp Mr. Zarqawi was running then in remote northeastern Iraq, according to generals who were involved directly in planning the attack and several former White House staffers. They said the camp, near the town of Khurmal, was known to contain Mr. Zarqawi and his supporters as well as al Qaeda fighters, all of whom had fled from Afghanistan. Intelligence indicated the camp was training recruits and making poisons for attacks against the West.
. . .
But the raid on Mr. Zarqawi didn’t take place. Months passed with no approval of the plan from the White House, until word came down just weeks before the March 19, 2003, start of the Iraq war that Mr. Bush had rejected any strike on the camp until after an official outbreak of hostilities with Iraq. Ultimately, the camp was hit just after the invasion of Iraq began.”
I’m going to assume that this is what Davebo is refering too, if not then I apologize in advance.
But as I’ve noticed in his “analysis” he fails to take into proper context what is being discussed on top of that the “facts” presented are somewhat questionable. I could prattle on for some time about the issues that could arise from a strike in Iraq and what it would have meant during the inspection process that had just re-started and during the UN negotiations. Just how does anyone expect an air-strike during this time period to reflect upon the goodwill of Bush who was attempting to not be a “unliateralist” on Iraq. Especialy after the harping by the left on allowing the inspections to go forward, etc. A real catch22 if you ask me.
E.T. – I’ve got no animosity toward Kevin or Charles; I read LGF – as I read Poltical Animal – almost daily.
But I’m genuinely saddened because when I do read those sites, I think of what they might be at the same time I’m appreciating what they are.
A.L.
I believe some asked for a source on my Zarqawi NSC claim?
Here you go
Frankly I’m amazed you weren’t aware of it.
Gabriel,
What “context” (since quotation marks seems to be a mark of derision here) am I missing here? Also what “facts” of the case do you find questionable?
For instance, are you claiming that Security Council member Roger Cressey is a liar?
“Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi’s operation was airtight, but the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam.”
/editorializing citing nameless military officials.
“For instance, are you claiming that Security Council member Roger Cressey is a liar?”
Please show me the quote where Cressey said Zarqawi was _deliberately_ left alone in order to be another piece of evidence against Hussein. That is _not_ what he said. He said _”People were more obsessed with developing the coalition to overthrow Saddam”_. You are editorializing that the adminstration did that by leaving Zarqawi alone as causes belli- Gabriels interpretation that in fact he was not attacked because it would split our coallition to attack _anywhere_ in Iraq is just if not more valid.
Secondly, that was _his interpretation_ of what was happening. That is not official policy which is what you suggested. I think Gabriel laid out quite nicely the reasons the administration might not spring this operation. You’re claiming they left Zarqawi there to gin up evidence against Saddam and there is no direct evidence of that, only spin.
Davebo,
Cressey’s characterization is not a fact. Its an opinion.
Davebo et al-
Actually, this is an interesting “fork” in history – we can kind of trace a place where policy shifted from one branch (cruise missles) to another (invasion). I’m gonna dig a bit and see if there’s a post there.
Davebo – sepcifically, I think that the conflict (and I haven’t thought this through fully yet) was between those who thought invasion was the only way to keep these camps from being set up, and advocated a change from the Clinton policy of pinpoint strikes – and those who thought that policy was a good one and wanted to continue it.
The former could well have seen an attack in Iraq at a crucial diplomatic junction as undermining the efforts to create a coalition – don’t know, but will rummage around a bit and see what I get.
A.L.
“I suggested no such thing. I seriously doubt there is an “official policy” of allowing Zarqawi to live in order to gin up support for the war.
But boy, you sure seem to have backed away from this in a hurry.”
POT MEET KETTLE
_”the DOD sought permission to “take out” Al-Zarqawi on 3 seperate occassions only to have the NSC refuse on the grounds that killing him would hurt the propaganda campaign underway to sell the Iraq war to America.”_
Does not “on the grounds” constitute ‘official policy’?!
SQPR
Yes it is, and he isn’t the only one who holds that opinion either. You could add Retired Gen. John M. Keane.
And while Gabriel rightly points out that such a strike could have been detrimental to our coalition building, it certainly didn’t stop us from striking several other targets in the run up to war under the guise of patrolling the no fly zone. And I am referring to the period before the air strikes in preparation for the invasion.
Of course theres also the fact that when originally questioned about why the attack was denied, the administration denied that any plans for an attack ever existed.
I quess we’d have to call that a “misunderstanding” because well, we don’t want to go calling someone a liar. Even if they did lie.
I’d claim that Cressey was out of the loop for one given that he wasn’t on the NSC at the time of this article, or at the time of the scuttled attacks were being proposed. So his first hand knowledge of the inner decision process is questionable to say the least.
http://www.marketaccess.org/bio_cressey.asp
From November 1999 to November 2001, Mr. Cressey served as Director for Transnational Threats on the National Security Council staff, where he was responsible for coordination and implementation of US counterterrorism policy.
Mark,
No, “on the grounds” does not imply “official policy”.
The NSC could decide to have corn fritters for lunch, but that wouldn’t make it their “official policy”.
And of course, the NSC isn’t a policy making group. Officially or otherwise.
Well AL, I’d say the easiest way to prevent these camps from being set up would have been to quietly through indirect channels notify Iraq that the no fly zone would not be patrolled for a few weeks and Saddam could have taken out the camps himself.
Unfortunately as it turns out, the US was providing security for the camps against Hussein. I’m not saying that protecting the Kurds and maintaining both the southern and northern no fly zone was a bad idea, just that it did have some unfortunate consequences.
Davebo – another interesting question (that probably won’t ever get answered) – did the ‘no-fly’ zone protect groups like Z’s or was their growth there a side-effect.
This could turn into an interesting collective research project….
A.L.
“No, “on the grounds” does not imply “official policy”.
The NSC could decide to have corn fritters for lunch, but that wouldn’t make it their “official policy”.”
So let me get this straight: DOD goes to NSC to ask permission to hit Zarqawi. NSC denies it- according to you- ‘on the grounds’ etc, and hence the DOD cannot and does not carry out the initiative. The organization with the authority to authorize the strike denies it for a given reason and that is not official policy? Interesting argument. But besides being inane it is also circular. If it wasnt official policy how exactly is it then an indictment of the Bush administrations, er, policy?
AL
Is there really any difference between the two?
I mean, what other reasons for the side effect could there be? I seriously doubt they chose that region because of local talent in chemical weapons manufacturing!
Mark,
Again, the NSC has absolutely no authority to authorize military strikes, or anything else for that matter. They merely exist to advise the administration.
“Again, the NSC has absolutely no authority to authorize military strikes, or anything else for that matter. They merely exist to advise the administration. ”
In that case what was your point?
Davebo:
Somewhat of an aside, and not to play “target the source” but wasn’t Cressley an acolyte of Clarkes?
He certainly has an uncanny ability to determine events that he wasn’t privy too:
I sense a pattern here. I usually don’t like to play games with source citation, or kill the messenger, but if you’re going to pull out obscure information and pass it off as conventional wisdom, or somehow a “gotcha” then you’re going to have to do better than this.
Well, it would seem you’ve done it. Shall we toss General Keane under the bus next?
Let’s just put aside the reasons why the decision was made since I think we’ll never be able to reach an “iron clad” conclusion and just settle on something we can all agree on.
It wasn’t the best decision.
Mark,
My point was made in the original post. Since then you’ve been delving into minutia and totally unrelated “maybe’s” so I can understand how you might lose track.
Wasn’t this a post about blog comments?
“My point was made in the original post. Since then you’ve been delving into minutia and totally unrelated “maybe’s” so I can understand how you might lose track.”
Er, actually i’ve been trying to figure out exactly the charge you laid, but you seem to be trying to figure that out yourself as we go along. What seemed a stunning indictment to you up the thread seems to have devolved into the usual nonspecific mud slung at this administration. So be it.
I would just note for future reference: if you are trying to leave the reader with the strong implication of wrongdoing without actually leveling the charge (and hence providing the evidence) do it like the MSM. The article you sited to start all this was masterful. Sure sucked you in.
“Wasn’t this a post about blog comments?”
Fair enough, but we both know the game. Leave a charge unchallenged and it becomes a fact.
Did it ever occur to you that I was not trying to implicate wrong doing at all but rather point out what I felt was a poor decision?
And that perhaps, just perhaps, that’s why I didn’t level a charge???
Geez!
And you do realize your IQ drops 30 points every time you use the phrase “emmessemm” right?
Folks, let’s drop the Iraq history comments for a bit and hold on until tonight…I’ll get a post up as a ‘cooperative research’ project and see where that takes us. Back to comments and communities…
A.L.
AL in your reply to Liberal Hawks comment you point out the LGF/nuke mecca meme succeeds because it is coherent and stable. It achieves this by defining the enemy as Islam, using factual references to attacks by Islamists. The other concrete memes of ‘Surrender and pay tribute/reparations’ and ‘hide behind our nukes’ are variations that define worldwide American villany as the enemy and each anti-American attack reinforces these adherents self belief. With a defined enemy an end to the conflict becomes possible. If either Islam or America is forced to retreat from conflict then the war is over.
Compare these to the Bush strategy naming ‘terror’ the enemy. An impossibile war offering no hope of victory, only an eternal conflict. How do you even begin to fight ‘terror’? The best America can hope for under this strategy is that the real enemies of America remain too weak to strike hard whilst America chases shadows.
unaha –
I think you’ve identified one of the flaws in Bush’s presentation. I’ve been highly critical of his inability to ‘sell’ the war since it began; remember that in the intiial round it was a war on ‘terror’ and then morphed into a war on ‘Islamist terrorists’.
Bush’s great success was – in my controversial view – that he acted, and did so in what I think was the right way. His greatest failure was that he ignored the need to bring the public along, and that he was – to his credit – trying so hard not to make this a civilizational clash that he neglected to really talk clearly to us – the public – about what it is we’re trying to do. I do think there are policy docs that support his goals, but the step from policy to publicity has been a disaster.
A.L.
A.L.,
That would be fascinating if true:
Do you have any sources for this, or is that, as of now, just a feeling based on various sources that you can’t put a finger on yet? Not that I’d blame you for the latter – I do that all the time myself – but I’d like to investigate your point if possible.
My personal opinion is that Bush hasn’t tried to build popular support for the war on terror because he doesn’t try to build “popular” support for anything, rather he tries to sell things, when he does at all, to specific “constituencies”/interest groups. I feel he is a classic big government Republican for whom the American people as an entity do not exist.
But if you have contrary information on this point, as opposed to a contrary opinion, I’d love to see it.
Tom, how in the world would I prove a negative?
I’m not aware of a ‘campaign’ by President Bush to sell the WoT to the general public; he makes policy speeches, releases papers, but there has been no push in the sense that modern marketing or poliical campaigns have a push.
I’d think that if there had been one, I’d have noticed…
A.L.
A.L.,
I meant Bush’s motive in not trying to keep up public support for the war on terror, not that he has failed to do so. You indicated that his motive was “trying so hard not to make this a civilizational clash”, and my question is what evidence you have for that. Again, I’m not being critical here.
Ahh- makes more sense. I think there were some comments after 9/11 about the time he was visiting mosques, I’ll go see if I can find them.
A.L.
The time i most agreed with Bush is when the War on Terror mutated breifly into a fight to bring democracy and freedom to the Middle East (I liked that one), but then it mutated to the Struggle Against Violent Extremism and then returned to being an eternal war against terror.
I liked that one because it had a goal, objectives and defined an enemy. It was possible to achieve, even if it is very difficult. However then Bush walked hand in hand across the Whitehouse lawn with the dictator of the most repressive country in the region and that workable plan was dead and buried.
#9 from NahnCee: “Just out of idle curiosity, why do we need to avoid nuking Mecca?”
#25 from GeneThug: “Is this an LGF thread? Annihilating a large civilian population (Mecca)…”
Mecca is a location not a population. It would be possible to give everybody a month to get out, then make a radioactive crater of it.
I would not be in favour of doing this.
I’m just pointing out that “Nuke Mecca!” may mean “remove this landmark” or it may mean “let’s kill lots of civilians”, and it’s not clear without some clarifying statement which the speaker means, or whether they are just angry and frustrated with no real idea in mind.
A comment thread where lots of people are saying “Nuke Mecca!” or things like it and nobody is trying to clear up what is actually meant is a good indication that comments at that site have become useless.
Maybe this should be a pseudo-Godwin rule, the No-Nuking Mecca rule: first person to suggest nuking Mecca without being willing to say what they are actually proposing loses. (With or without warning? Aiming for long-term uninhabitability or just not leaving one stone atop another? In response to what, or to achieve what? Not every question asked needs to be answered, and people don’t have to get into the details of nukes and half-lives, but you should say if asked broadly what you are proposing.)
#59 from Armed Liberal: “Ahh- makes more sense. I think there were some comments after 9/11 about the time he was visiting mosques, I’ll go see if I can find them.”
I am looking too, starting here. (link)
George W. Bush pushed very emotional buttons, hard, but nothing every took off with the public, not enough to build on.
In saying, before the rubble of the World Trade Centre had cooled, that Islam was a religion of peace being “hijacked” by a tiny number of not-really-religious extremists on the fringe, George W. Bush was pushing the most emotional, painful button possible.
I am looking for this speech.
George W. Bush was putting the Muslim world, certainly Muslim moderates, in the heroes of Flight 93. They were our own blood, they were being hijacked – now! – and we had to save them, to fight for them as they were fighting to beat the hijackers (and save us). It seemed that moderate Islam was supposed to roar: “Let’s roll!” and back it up with action.
This extremely manipulative and emotive line has not been accepted in the long run, not because George W. Bush was remiss in running it up the flagpole, but because Islam has not acted like the Flight 93 heroes did.
Between guys like Todd Beamer and Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, King of Saudi Arabia, I trust guys like Todd Beamer, and I see no real similarity. But George W. Bush is hand-holding sweethearts with Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, and he really can’t see how anyone could have an honourable reason that they could explain in public (that is, one other than blind bigotry) for trusting Great Britain with American ports but not the United Arab Emirates.
George W. Bush has a line, and he has presented it, but the American public is not following him in this line, and the reception is so poor that it’s like people hadn’t heard him at all, as though he hadn’t spoken.
David,
>Mecca is a location not a population. It would be possible to give everybody a month to get out, then make a radioactive crater of it.
What planet are you from? Cities are generally widely accepted as being population centers – I think your pedantry is specious.
> or whether they are just angry and frustrated with no real idea in mind.
That seems like a safe bet. Still, megadeath scale random mass murder as the West’s response to kilodeath scale random mass murder is very disappointing – we should be smarter than our enemy, not merely more mindlessly violent. (as an on-topic aside, Democratic credibility on defense is undermined by a similarly obvious lack of thoughtfulness on the subject, as anyone old enough to remember the Dukakis tank photo, or seriously tried to resolve the goals of transnational progressivism and national defense should find evident).
I also agree with your proposal of a Godwin’s law re:Mecca Nukage – as an attempt to end rational discussion, it sure worked on me. Johnson’s Law, anyone? (No disrespect to Charles, though – his tone is remarkably even given LGF’s content, which speaks for itself).
Genethug, I think Charles Johnson (who i vastly admire) is much like another visionary in my pantheon–Sir Richard. 🙂
they both see things with laser guided clarity that the rest of us mortals find fuzzy. Sure, their clear vision and bruesque manner does not earn them many friends, but they are nearly always right.
btw, you should drop by gene expression– razib is holding a contest for the best genetics rap.
my entry is “In da Genes” to the tune of Young Jeezy’s “In da Hood”.
you would be great, you’re naturally “thuggish”.
lol.
Gene,
May I suggest a read of Wretchard’s Three Conjectures
#25 Gene — there are no moderate Muslims. That’s a myth. Turkey is under the sway of Islamists who made Mein Kampf the bestseller and gobble up the worst anti-Semitic and Anti-American garbage such as Valley of the Wolves. Female reporters are attacked by mobs for not being in the Chador. The Kurds depend on us for protection so they will have to follow our line or be destroyed by the Turks, Iranians, Syrians, and Iraqi Sunnis. The Indonesians are sliding into Wahhabism and the center of JI which after Al Qaeda seems the most active and deadly Islamic terror organization. Muslims in Indonesia beheaded three Catholic Schoolgirls, to the reaction of … quite approval of most of the Indonesian Muslim society. No one even thought it worth protesting about.
Muslims have made it very clear what they want: “Islam will dominate” runs one sign held up in NYC during the Cartoon Jihad demonstrations. Wafa Sultan has so many death threats she can’t even count, and that’s in THIS country.
Islam by it’s very nature is incompatible with freedom, liberty, and the American Way of Life. Muslims demand world-wide implementation of Sharia; even in Denmark or the US. The only question is will you fight for your liberty, or submit?
That’s it. You might argue what the most effective means of fighting is: the Bush Admin trying to CHANGE Islam in the heart of the Arab world; “rubble doesn’t make trouble” from Derbyshire etc. or the “hide behind the nukes” strategy of Atrios. But trying to avoid this fight is impossible because Muslims have decided “no, we can’t all just get along,” with apologies to Rodney King. As one said, “we are not fighting to get anything from you. You submit or we slaughter.” Every new event brings new demands from Muslims, and new evidence that Islam simply cannot co-exist with other faiths or belief systems. Huntington’s “bloody borders of Islam” is well put.
Everything has changed. Reps by and large seem to sense this unavoidable fight with Al Qaeda, note the unhappiness with Bush not being “tough enough” in polls; Dems are arguing about … not eavesdropping on Al Qaeda.
Urgh, Turkey. About to link to a piece that makes a reasonable case that “Turkey is well along the path of ceasing to be a secular state in the Attaturk mold.”:http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,90796,00.html NOT reassuring.
btw, armed, you might be interested in this old lgf comment thread that we were discussing at gnxp.
Dr. David Deutsch, godless capitalist, steve sailer? pretty distinguished bunch of commenters, no?
heh, the rest of you bloggers can just eat your hearts out.
😉
matoko –
Thanks for the tip – I like gnxp, though I find razib’s erudition a bit intimidating at times. My pantheon includes Norman Borlaug, Colonel Stanislav Petrov (rtd), and Louie Pasteur – all of whom have saved over a billion lives each, directly. Now that’s making a difference.
M. Simon – Thank you for the suggestion, but as I referenced Wretchard’s second conjecture in comment #25 of this thread, I’m fairly familiar with the Three Conjectures, and share both Wretchard’s Concern and AL’s (best articulated, IMO in his essay Fear http://www.armedliberal.com/archives/000140.html).
Wretchard’s third conjecture is that the War on Terror may be Islam’s final chance to survive its own premodern contradictions (and perhaps the West’s last chance to avoid becoming their mirrored opposite). Of course we’re capable of nuclear genocide – the goal of any moral actor discussing US foreign policy, (which we have limited influence over) is to avoid it if alternatives are possible. In this sense, the “Nuke Mecca” crowd is just a tragic counterpart of the “Death to America” Islamozombies. Mindless calls to violence by people who should know better, but don’t.
Jim,
> there are no moderate Muslims… Islam by it’s very nature is incompatible with freedom, liberty, and the American Way of Life… The only question is will you fight for your liberty, or submit?
Take a deep breath. I don’t think your opinions should go unanswered on a blog that posts Hatewatch.
Islam is not monolithic, and has produced the Subud and the Faylasef communities as well as the Salafist/Qutbists. ~8 million Muslim-Americans co-exist with freedom, liberty and the American way of life, in direct contradiction of your claims. Many Muslim-Americans are tolerant (a good metric for tolerance is the rates of honor killing rates and interfaith marriage rates, by the by) and some aren’t, and the tolerant modernist Muslims (which you don’t believe exist) aren’t any problem at all, and are in fact our natural allies (since they’re viewed as apostates by the Islamic extremists), unless the Nuke Mecca crowd decides to make them into enemies, which I would argue is tactically stupid, as we already have plenty enemies enough. Moderate Muslims and sects that are/were compatible with Modernity have been hunted and killed for apostasy for centuries, and rather than support them in their attempts to reform Islam, or at least survive the current extremist purges (a struggle that both Judaism and Christianity had to undergo, fwiw). You would prefer to believe that they don’t exist, I would argue that they should be effectively utilized to reform/divide/neuter Islamism, and here our opinions differ.
> You might argue what the most effective means of fighting is
And here we agree. The pertinent question is how we will fight. Can we win without becoming worse than our enemy? Can the West pacify/modernize/neutralize Islam as effectively as Christianity has been in Europe (or communism globally) without the massive body counts those conflicts involved? How can we best assist our ideological allies within the sectarian war(s) within Islam, or can we help at all? These are discussions worth having, and I’m glad they can happen here at WoC, as they certainly don’t seem possible at LGF.
As an aside, do you actually know any Muslims, or do you get all of your information from the net/MSM? I could be wrong, but there’s a systemic bias in your post that suggests a lack of direct experience. A Pakistani or Indonesian or Turkish national can tell you a lot more about what’s going on in their countries than secondary sources. I sure enjoyed Iranian Girl’s postings here back in the day…
genethug, you might like my blog then– i am no where near as erudite as the Khan. 🙂
armed, isn’t it just a bit strange that you are still talking about the same things you spoke of two years ago?
i really think you should move on. 😉
hmmm…i have several posts on moderate muslims on my blog, but i can’t link it because of the blogspot problem.
here, we can go “thru dean.”:http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1142285209.shtml
matoko –
What, quit when I’m so close to victory? <g>
Seriously, there are two issues that matter to me; figuring out how to deal with the Islamist world without nuking it, and figuring out how to get a useful Demcoratic Party back into power.
When I accomplish either one of those, I may move on to harder things…
A.L.
Matoko
> genethug, you might like my blog then–
Thanks for the link – interesting stuff. The memetic engineering/warfare angle reminds me of Jinderella’s work. You’re quite correct that we suck at it. The world has been brainwashed on gory, lurid anti-Americanism for at least two generations – often, as in the case of Egypt, directly by their government (via by the state controlled media) in order to distract the population from their governments’ failures and refocus the frustration/anger of their populace. MEMRI and LGF have been helpful in making us aware of their messages, but aside from Voice of America I know of little memetic countermeasures (and our pop media products are far too easy to convert into counter-US propaganda. What would an illiterate but pious rural peasant from any of the ‘Stans conclude after watching, say, our music videos or daytime television?). Winning the war of ideas? We aren’t even fighting in it!
Consequently, many in the Middle East have been ‘inoculated’ against Western concepts of Freedom/Gender Equality (redefined as licentiousness, rape, porn, exploitation, etc.) and Democracy (aka anarchy and barely disguised oppression), making the obvious classical liberal tropes a hard sell.
> all i seem to be able to do is be frustrated about how simple it is to manipulate peoples’ belief systems for evil, while no one seems interested in doing it for good.
Word. A Pakistani friend once told me that in his neck of the world, the absence of a defined religious authority (coupled with no freedom of expression) made it all too easy for the most extreme/nutty fundamentalists to seize the mantle of Muslim authenticity and simply declare anyone who would protest takfir. Similarly, if/when a politician gets elected on the Kill ‘Em All platform here, he’ll push the shiny, Christmas/ candy apple red button to thunderous applause. Still, as a rabbi I read once blogged, “This is the best of all worlds, as there is so much good to be done here!”
> i am no where near as erudite as the Khan.
The Khan is in a league of his own. I’ve dabbled in population analysis, but as a mere wetwork (molecular/paternity/forensic) geneticist, I tend to shy from commenting amongst them radical high-g mathemagicians!
Joe, please do. I’d love to see some informed discussion on this. To my mind, Turkey is more or less on the fence right now. If it falls over into the “Mad Mullah” camp, it will be a huge loss to all of us.
OK, here’s something to back up what I said in post #62.
George W. Bush’s many unreserved laudatory statements about Islam from 11 September, 2001 on are well known. “September 17, 2001: “Islam is Peace” Says President” (link).
Basically, this meant suppressing any thought of religious antagonism.
“September 19, 2001: Remarks by the President At Photo Opportunity with House and Senate Leadership” (link)
Q Sir, you’ve been stressing that this is not a war against Islam. However, there are some around the world who view the coming battle along religious lines. I’m wondering how worried you are that some view this as a holy war. And are declarations of jihad at all affecting U.S. plans
THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate that question. First of all, it is so important for my fellow Americans, as well as everybody in the world to understand that America will hold those evil-doers accountable. We don’t view this as a war of religion, in any way, shape or form. As a matter of fact, Islam preaches peace. The Muslim faith is a peaceful faith. And there are millions of good Americans who practice the Muslim faith who love their country as much as I love the country, who salute the flag as strongly as I salute the flag.
And for those who try to pit religion against religion, our great nation will stand up and reject that kind of thought. We won’t allow that to creep into the consciousness of the world. We’re going to lead the world to fight for freedom, and we’ll have Muslim and Jew and Christian side-by-side with us.
So in achieving this aim, “We won’t allow that to creep into the consciousness of the world.” how’s George W. Bush doing? Has his steady persistence buried that thought globally, or is it creeping in?
I think he’s not doing too well.
I think that George W. Bush initiated an endurance contest, essentially. He was going to keep repeating the line that Islam is peace, and this would outlast the shocks of 11 September, 2001.
Perhaps that would have worked if Muslims globally had acted as George W. Bush said that they do, and if 11 September, 2001 had been the last piece of evidence for Islam’s violent supremacism and hatred of our freedom. But Muslims don’t act the way George W. Bush said that they do. Islam doesn’t mean peace, and this fact is even more stubborn than he is.
So the discussion eventually moved on, without George W. Bush. He insisted that this thought would not be allowed into people’s heads, but people will think what they like or what seems to them to be true, whether the American President forbids them to or not.
The forbidden thought came creeping in.
Opps! My post #62 should have referred to Crown prince Abdullah at Crawford, as the caption says “hand in hand for oil”. (link)
It’s hard to see that picture and not think of Brokeback Mountain (2005). George is handsome enough to be Ennis Del Mar. I don’t think Prince Abdullah looks as pretty as Jack Twist though. And I suspect any love might be one-sided, all on George’s side.