Matt Yglesias has a cute post up on my discussions with Kevin Drum.
Now, Kevin and I have met, and while I think a Venn diagram of our views would overlap by about 85%, we do have some significant differences – we’ve just agreed to have a cross-blog discussion and try to identify and clarify them – but I have found that wherever he & I disagree, our discussions typically come from a point of mutual respect and a genuine belief that each of us means what we say, that we’re entitled to have an opinion, and that our arguments aren’t somehow codes for something else.
That’s not true of everyone participating in these discussions, sadly.
At a dinner at Kevin’s, I met some other bloggers – other than Tom of TBogg, I haven’t retained names – and we had a telling exchange.
Kevin asked me a direct question: “So is it that you buy into the ‘restructuring the Arab world’ justification for the war?” As I started to answer, one of the other bloggers, his voice honeyed with superior knowledge, added “Why in the world did you let yourself get spun so badly by the White House?“
My reply was Mad Dog Stare #2 (a personal favorite) and a simple statement: “Thank you so much for granting me the courtesy of assuming that I may have examined the information and made up my own mind.” He and I didn’t have much to say to each other for the rest of the evening.
Matt (whose post on Michael Totten’s ‘schtick’ lit me up like a Christmas tree – Matthew is, after all, the one who parlayed his blog into a cush media job, which in his own terms means that it’s his blogging that qualifies as ‘schtick’) posts the following. I’ll intersperse my comments.
Kevin Drum’s got himself embroiled in a quagmire-like debate with hawkish liberals or ex-liberal hawks or whatever you want to call them. In response, some things to consider doing before you defect from the Democratic Party:
Well, first of all, I don’t have any plans to defect from the Democratic Party. I may or may not vote the party line; personally, I’ll take each campaign as I see them. But I’ve been critical of the Democratic Party because I think it’s headed off a cliff into electoral oblivion, and I intend to publicly kick it’s ass as hard as I can to do what I can to get it steered in a more successful and productive direction.
Take a deep breath. Look in the mirror. Take another deep breath. Look at some photos of your liberal friends and family. Ask yourself: Do you really believe that they opposed the Iraq War because they wanted Saddam Hussein to stay in power; do you really think they don’t care if your hometown gets destroyed by terrorists?
No, I think they opposed the war because they believe they can have the benefits of modern liberal society without getting their hands dirty. They value moral purity and self-satisfaction above everything else – with the possible exception of creature comfort.
Try reading some actual policy statements put out by Democratic foreign-policy hands, members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and members of the Armed Services Committee. Ask yourself: Do the views expressed therein really sound like the characterizations of them you’ve read on NRO and the hawk blogs?
Actually, I do read the policy statements and talk to people who work within the political and defense establishment. I don’t base my opinions on Instapundit, NRO and Fox News And, believe it or not, I’m actually unhappy with much of what I hear. I’m trying to engage in a broader dialog about what makes me unhappy, in the hopes that I and others like me can have some impact on what the Democratic Party thinks and does.
Look again in the mirror, focusing this time on your hairline and that little space next to your eyes that gets wrinkly when you squint. There’s no easy way to say this, but . . . you’re getting old. I am too. It’s scary, it happens to us all. Ask yourself: Has the left really changed, or am I just that cliched guy who stopped really caring about the poor as I aged?
Tell you what, Matt – you look in the mirror and ask yourself if you’re just another jejune 20-something year old who thinks he knows everything; it’s a painfully familiar condition to me – I used to be one too. Back when I worked in politics and wrote laws and policy. But philosophically, I was uncomfortable with the idea that I could be a part of the political class, and make a damn comfortable upper-middle class living as a policy wonk, staff to an elected, or commentator – all without ever getting my hands dirty in the real world.
I was uncomfortable with the love of power that I saw in my peers, and the lack of wisdom, humility, and openness to have one’s views changed through experience. Sound familiar? It’s OK, you’re smart, and if you’re lucky, you’ll grow out of it.
Take a look at the transcript of the latest White House press conference. Find some other examples where the president had to respond on-the-fly to questions. Ask yourself: Given the perilous international situation, am I really comfortable with the fact that a total moron is president of the United States.
Gosh, Matt, I just love the schoolyard names. Here’s a clue: Bush isn’t a moron. I doubt that he’s even particularly stupid; I’ve met and had business with a fair number of elected officials, and the stupidest one I know (Barbara Boxer – most of the ones I’ve met are Democrats, so there may be a Republican who’se worse) is probably as smart as any of the bloggers I have met to date. One doesn’t get to high elected office in this land by being stupid, stories of Chauncey Gardner aside.
I’ll also add one of the hard truths that came to me several years out of grad school – life isn’t like school, and being smart and clever alone are not decent predictors of future success.
And having been elected, these officials – even Boxer, or my own detested Jackie Goldberg – are worthy of some basic measure of respect by all of us. I may loudly and publicly disagree with Jackie’s policies and politics, I may think that she’s deeply wrong and happily look forward to the end of her term, but I would never suggest that she’s an idiot or a moron, or that the public that elected her are idiots for electing her.
Read this post again. Consider the condescending tone, the cheap psychoanalysis, the refusal to confront your actual arguments. Ask yourself: Isn’t this exactly what I’ve been doing all this time? Just an exercise.
Matt, here’s a proposal. Go through all my stuff on Armed Liberal and Winds of Change. Find me five posts with condescending tone. Find five posts where I psychoanalyze you or any of the liberal Democrats (or even wacky leftists) with whom I disagree. Email me the cites. If we disagree, I’ll let Kevin or Brian Linse act as a referee. Find five, I’ll send you a nice crisp $100.00 bill. I’ll bet I can easily find ten quotes like that from you. I’ll even give you 2-1 odds; I’ll only ask for $50.00 if I do. Are you in?
I’m out here looking for arguments, and I have the habit of allowing that people who say things mean what they say. Perhaps it would be a good thing if you did too.
Here’s a little quote to put all this in a larger perspective. John Schaar was a political theorist, and a staunch member of the New Left – and one of my professors as an undergrad. This is from his essay on ‘The Case for Patriotism’:
“Finally, if political education is to effective it must grow from a spirit of humility on the part of the teachers, and they must overcome the tendencies toward self-righteousness and self-pity which set the tone of youth and student politics in the 1960’s. The teachers must acknowledge common origins and common burdens with the taught, stressing connection and membership, rather than distance and superiority. Only from these roots can trust and hopeful common action grow.”
…it’s something that Matthew hasn’t learned yet, which is a personal problem for him. But it’s something the left in this country hasn’t learned yet, which is a political problem for me and the rest of us.
–
I have now posted my comments on the larger issue on my blog. As for the snide attack on Michael J. Totten, that’s pathetic and not even worthy of discussion. Stick to the issues, Matt. Ad hominems are for the campaign trail.
I think Yglesias’s dismissal of A.L.’s viewpoint (which, as a disaffected Democrat I share) can go a long way to explaining why the Democrats are going to get creamed in 2004.
If these people are the ones who eventually end up running the democratic party, and they don’t change, I don’t think I will ever vote for them in the future. Unless the GOP picks a facist, I just don’t see it happening. Thanks for the post AL.
I really don’t want to see the Party of FDR, Truman and JFK become the party of Wallace. We need two strong parties, if the Dems continue as is we could see a revival of the post Civil War GOP hold on the White House. This just doesn’t look good. Someone needs to take Dean down, and fast.
I also thought that I should mention that both Richard Perle and Victor Davis Hanson are registered Democrats. Whatever happened to the inclusivenes of the Democrat Party?
I forgive Matt for his “schtick” comment. He made it up to me in his own way. Though I am annoyed that it’s become an Internet meme now.
Matt, you could write a post directly countering that meme, since you were the one who started it. It wouldn’t be the worst thing you’ve ever done.
A.L.,
I’ve read some stuff off Kevin Drum’s site, and come to two conclusions–first, a Venn diagram of our views would probably only overlap by 15%, and second, he generally writes from the polite end of the left side of the blogosphere, to his great credit. (His commenters, on the other hand, often do NOT write from the polite end of ANY spectrum.)
I’ve also read stuff by you, Roger L. Simon, and Michael J. Totten that make me think that you are reasonable people, even (well, especially) when we disagree. Based on Matt Yglesias’s post, I’d not be inclined to put him in the same category.
Hi, this is Ladder 25, FDBS. We just had an alarm report from this vicinity…
On a more serious note: anyone out there who read A.L.’s description of the under-35 policy wonks and staffers he met, and believes that staffers of any other political persuasion are much better, is basically deluding themselves.
The hazards A.L. mentions are occupational and generational in origin, not partisan. Which is why suspicion of career political operatives is usually justified.
It’s also entirely fair to call folks on it when they enter a wider public arena of debate and exhibit this syndrome. Though I’m personally a major fan of the “send them out into the real world beyong the public sector/NGO set, and tell them to come back in 10 years,” and salute A.L. for following that path himself.
Uh, with all due respect AL, since I’ve never read you before, uh, actually I find this post to be pretty condescending. (e.g. paragraphs 1, 6, 7, 11, and 15 (not counting quotations)).
(Would you send me $10 cause I could use it.)
Also, I implore you, just say no to using the underline tag, it will make the Internet a safer place.
AL-
So the links on the right-hand side of your blog include:
Lessig – center/left
Talkleft – center/left
Oxblog – conservative
Sullivan – neoconservative/incoherent
Instapundit – conservative
LGF – bunch of racists
Volokh – conservative/libertarian
Den Beste – conservative/libertarian
TechCentralStation – center/libertarian
I assume these are sites you read regularly. I also read some of them from time to time.
Any chance reading these sites so often has pushed you to the right? Your view of where the center is seems skewed to me.
You’re obviously a thoughtful person who makes up on his own mind, but I doubt you’ll claim that you aren’t influenced by what you read. I certainly don’t make that claim about myself.
sorry. techcentral not center.
oh, shit. just realized that this isn’t your blog.
never mind. but whoever’s blog put those links up ain’t no liberal.
Well, praktike, I must say it’s a very typical liberal response. Doesn’t delve into why those people are there, or even wonder about any of it (guess you missed the whole 4 Horsemen thing). Selective quotation rather than an assessment of the whole list. Mischaracterization (I think Oxblog would be surprised). Would rather close your eyes and plug your ears than actually focus on the reality of the hate that Charles (he is not a team blogger, it’s just him) features on his site every day – translated from its original Arabic. Because, of course, that might actually challenge your views and force acknowledgement of a problem. Easier to give him a label and dismiss him, I guess.
The most amusing thing, however, and a fantastic demonstration of A.L’s point, is the quote that couldn’t be made up if we tried:
“Any chance reading these sites so often has pushed you to the right? Your view of where the center is seems skewed to me.”
I would hope you might spend your time occasionally perusing sites that didn’t fit your political biases. You say you do. And if doing so caused you to reassess your views, well, most people would call that “learning” and consider it a good thing. Or is he not allowed to think if doing so lets down the side?
As for the center and A.L.’s position relative to it, I think you’ll find that with respect to the American electorate at large, he’s pretty much right on target. If you find that very far away from your current position…. you may wish to check your political GPS.
Or, you could just wait a year or so for the practicum.
okay, joe. let’s relax a bit here. I think I should have been more careful with my language. Upon reading my post again, I realize how it could have come across as an attack, and for that, I’m sorry.
guess you missed the whole 4 Horsemen thing
Yes i did. what does it mean?
I would hope you might spend your time occasionally perusing sites that didn’t fit your political biases. You say you do. And if doing so caused you to reassess your views, well, most people would call that “learning” and consider it a good thing. Or is he not allowed to think if doing so lets down the side?
Here’s a sampling of sites I read that are not liberal echo chambers:
Drezner
Tacitus
Volokh
Den Beste
WSJ Online
Weekly Standard
Samizdata
Jane Galt
—-
Okay? And I learn a ton from people I initially disagree with. I’ve learned plenty from the folks I mentioned above.
As for the center and A.L.’s position relative to it, I think you’ll find that with respect to the American electorate at large, he’s pretty much right on target. If you find that very far away from your current position…. you may wish to check your political GPS.
You won’t find me saying in my post that I think I’m centrist. I’m not. I’m a liberal, and proud of it.
As for my characterizations of those blogs, they’re obviously simplified, but I don’t think they’re far off-base, with the possible exception of OxBlog. That’s center/left, so I’m sorry about that. Maybe you think these designations are useless.
I didn’t evaluate the other ones because I had never read them.
Regarding LGF, it’s really the commenters I have a problem with, not CJ per se. He doesn’t generally add much of his own commentary. That said, he’s got a post called “Religion of Masked Terrorists” where he snarls at the holiness of the Koran. Islamic Jihad is reprehensible, and their views are abhorrent, but they are not Islam. I don’t think this characterization of Islam itself as a “Religion of Masked Terrorists” is constructive at all.
From this LGF thread:
“Did you even notive how the Islamic Empire bears a striking resemblance to the Klingon Empire? Originally based on the Russians, the Arab world has embraced Klingon Philosophies of Death, honor, hatred, repression and violence.
…and we all know that you just can’t trust a Klingon.”
…
“I figured it was some jihadist who was burning in hell with Allah.”
praktike –
My personal blogroll is at http://www.armedliberal.com – can I suggest you check that out and let me know how I’m doing?
A.L.
Armed Liberal:
I think you’ve nailed today’s liberals with this:
No, I think they opposed the war because they believe they can have the benefits of modern liberal society without getting their hands dirty. They value moral purity and self-satisfaction above everything else – with the possible exception of creature comfort.
I’ve wondered and thought alot about how ‘the progressives’ could take the totally outrageous stands that they do. In talking with my sister-in-law, who could be a model of this type, it came to me.
It’s all about them and it goes beyond ‘moral purity’ to ‘moral superiority’. They’ll oppose the death penalty for the most vicious and heinous of killers, to prove how much they ‘care’. It’s about their feelings and not any result in the real world. As an example, these killers get convicted, sent to prison and while in prison they’ll murder a guy convicted of burglary. Now, the burglar didn’t get the death sentence, but he got death, because the killer didn’t get death.
There is zero thought or consideration for the burglar. Let’s move this up to ultra-macro scale. In their pursuit of moral superiorty, they oppose the Battle for Iraq, implicity support keeping Saddam in power. If you run the numbers, Saddam murdered 5000 Iraqis every month he was in power on average. Their own moral superiority is more important that those murders. Their own moral superiority is more important than the chance of the Iraqi people to get a shot at a normal life. So, America is condemned to the nth degree for what? It’s condemned for whatever is convenient at the moment. During the war after one week, the plan was wrong, it was a quagmire, we couldn’t deal with the sandstorms, we were destroying Baghdad, we were going to face Saddamgrad, etc, etc, tiresomely etc.
America is condemned because it didn’t have perfect foreknowlege. The standard for America is perfection vs no standard for the terrorists. This set up makes the terrorists preferable to America. There is zero thought given to what happens if the terrorists win in Iraq. What’s going to happen there and elsewhere?
Ordinary Iraqis and ordinary Americans get zero consideration, because we don’t meet the standards of moral purity of the progressives. Their feelings are more important than real people, real lives and real deaths.
There, I didn’t use a harsh word. :^)
Hi! I read lots of bløgs, left, right, center with the occasional top and charmed.
I note from experience though, that when I read bløgs from the right, and ask questions or post comments, regrettably too often the result is the that folks from the right tell me that I shouldn’t be reading bløgs I disagree with, and invite me to read elsewhere.
Sad, eh?
Jabba says, “they oppose the Battle for Iraq, implicity support keeping Saddam in power”, ArmedLiberal, I shall leave it to you to better explain to Jabba the logical fallacy in this statement.
AL, I’m from Missouri. Show me you’ve read the position papers of the 4 major Democratic candidates.
Regarding Bush as a moron, I agree that Matt was wrong. My dictionary defines “idiot” as
“A person of profound mental retardation having a mental age below three years and generally being unable to learn connected speech or guard against common dangers. ”
I believe that far more apt and Matt should correct himself.
Tristero:
Keep prattling on about the stupidity of Bush, and how much more in tune with the electorate the Democrats are than the Republicans. Meanwhile, since you’ve given AL an assignment, you might explain to the class the results of the last general election (which typically is seen as a referendum on the effectiveness of the sitting administration) and the thrashing of Davis in California.
Generally speaking, it shows a certain willful ignroance to call someone stupid when they’re taking your money at the poker table.
Also, you might return to the topic at hand, which is how Democrats can morally and/or ethically justify an isolationist policy towards our self-proclaimed enemies. Use the current situation in Iraq to illustrate your response. Bear in mind the murder rate sustained by the former regime, the funding by said regime of suicide bombers in Israel, the strategic position of that regime as it relates to potential friends and avowed enemies, the evolution of delivery systems for terror weapons, the inherent uncertainty of the capabilities of the regime due to it’s continued violation of inspection resolutions (to which it had agreed after being ejected from Kuwait following a naked grab a pan-Arabic hegemony).
Be succinct.
Mark,
You ask me to be succinct. My post was considerably shorter than yours, sir.
I did NOT prattle on about Bush’s stupidity. I said he met the dictionary definition of “idiot.” If you believe he’s just stupid, you’re entitled to your opinion.
The subject at hand is that AL claims to familiarity with Democratic position papers. Prove it.
Finally, “how [can] Democrats … morally and/or ethically justify an isolationist policy towards our self-proclaimed enemies” is merely an offer to play on a tilted playing field.
If you care to reframe the question, I may consider addressing it later today, when I’m back on line.
Your first post wasn’t succinct. It was short and empty of content. There’s a difference.
And I will let my question stand. What we do about Iraq in particular and the problem of fundamentalist aggression against Western culture in general the important discussion, and not whether the President is a chimp.
Praktike,
If you haven’t read the other blogs, and you’re a liberal, I strongly recommend that you check out Amitai Etzioni. He’s the father of a movement called “communitarianism.” You should also check out Hossein Derakhshan, who’s the #1 reason there are so many blogs out there by Iranians.
Given that you are a liberal, however, you might want to use a bit more humility in your assessment of where the center lies.
RE: Charles. As our traffic here increases, I’m beginning to walk a mile in his moccasins. Any blog with heavy traffic will attract wingnuts, probably in a power-law formula. You can either give up your day job to police them, shut comments down, or do your best to keep the idiocy to a dull roar. So – I judge LGF by Charles. LGF has some wingnuts in its comments section, but it also has people who contribute valuable insights and links, and even take on the wingnuts from a principled right-wing position. I can understand why Charles doesn’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
I don’t know what I’ll do if/when Winds of Change.NET reaches that level of traffic. I sure hope I think of something….
RE: Islamic Jihad. I’ll let them know that you’ve excommunicated them by decree. Mohammed himself said something to the effect of Islam is what Muslims do – not a bad yardstick for any religion, actually. I wouldn’t be so quick to say that Islamic Jihad is not Islam – it clearly is, and it happens to be a good representative of the (significant and large) Islamist belief strain within the religion and its sub-sects. “Religion of masked terrorists” isn’t far from the mark for them.
Since you’re a liberal, consider the example of Cortez, a member of the “religion of zealous looters.” He wasn’t a representative of all Christianity (as recent and welcome apologies from the Pope suggest), but there’s no question his views and “conquer/convert/loot” formula were not exactly unusual at the time.
Religions act as political entities, and they can be criticized – even harshly criticized – when they do. Read some of the things your favourite Enlightment figures were saying about the Catholic Church, for instance.
This is an excellent post that sums up very well the shallowness of much feel-good left-leaning politics. (I say this as a pro-War left-leaning progressive myself, no doubt brainwashed by the Bush administration.) Jabba describes this mentality perfectly in his comment above.
I think it goes back to AL’s reference to people making arguments as “codes for something else”. The code is sometimes as simplistic as “peace and love” or “I am such a sensitive person”. The ideological blinders of this type, forcing the cognitive dissonence of messy, “hands fouling” reality, into a pre-set worldview, is no monopoly of the left: strained interpretations of reality to fit a rigid libertarian or rigid anti-globalist (or even rigid “anti-Bush”) worldview that puts everything into neat categories that serve to avoid real analysis about the actual and full implications of the positions they lead to. I don’t actually think that Kevin Drum, or even Mathew Yglesias, are on the whole good examples of this type of rigidity of thought. But Michael Totten and Roger Simon – agree with them or disagree with them – are refreshing counterexamples of liberals willing to place actual principle and thought above rigid ideology and prejudice.
I also second entirely Praktike’s comments above re: the LGF hatefest although I think he’s a bit too charitable to the site and its operator. I find Winds of Change’s link to LGF the most disturbing. The largely pro-American and pro-interventionist Muslims with whom I keep company find LGF extremely offensive, and I think anyone who disagrees might try first putting themselves in their position. I can’t think of any other site that could maintain respectability while stereotyping an entire religious or ethnic group as a bunch of atavistic violent criminals. LGF does have the virtue of collecting a lot of useful information on terrorism and the Israeli Palestinian question and combating anti-Semitic idiocy. It’s too bad that that important mission is undermined by its all too often over-the-top Muslim-bashing. Nuf said on that.
Joe,
Re: LGF, I’d really like to keep an open mind and think that the problem is limited to the wingnuts and not to Charles Johnson. Where I have to differ with you is (i) the generalized anti-Muslim insinuations that characterized some of LGF’s posts themselves, (ii) the fact that CJ carries out “purges” to block dissidents on the left as “PC trolls” while tolerating, usually without comment, the wingnuts you refer to, and (iii) the fact that CJ himself frequently joins the comment section to mock the so-called “PC trolls” while giving the most openly hateful anti-Muslim commentators a free ride.
I was at an Eric Alterman reading where Alterman repeated “Bush is not stupid”, and two guys in the audience yelled at him and walked out. Ah, Berkeley. But Alterman was right: he said Bush was not at all stupid, but he was uninformed, stubborn, and totally incurious. As a result, he can make the wrong decision, refuse to change it, and barely notice the mistaken consequences.
As I wrote at the tail of the previous thread, A.L. and his ilk are writing as if the Democratic Party comprised only Barbara Lee (with her lone and very mistaken vote against the Afghan War) and Dennis Kucinich. That’s not the facts on the ground. I don’t see how, for example,
could possibly be applied to Wesley Clark, and I’m not even one of Clark’s supporters. The problem is that A.L. & co. seem to be analyzing the situation only under the assumption that the Iraq War—not even a theoretical Iraq War after, say, Saddam threw out UN Inspectors again, but the Iraq War as actually conducted by George W. Bush—was and will be a plus for the security of the United States and its inhabitants. If one believes that, I can well see that every Democratic candidate other than Lieberman (possibly also Edwards and Gephardt) is exposing the United States to physical danger and further attack.
The trouble with this analysis is, of course, the initial assumption. For many Americans who support the war, that’s probably a consequence of the extraordinary stream of mistaken claims, claims that the uncharitable might think were lies, about Saddam’s WMD capabilities, and about the ease of conquering, occupying, and reconstructing a democratic Iraq as opposed to a failed state and terrorist haven.
Why don’t you re-run an analysis of the Iraq War, and its prospects for improving the security of the United States, under the assumption that our troops made a wrong turn and landed in Uzbekistan. Our Uzbek ally has a human rights record almost as bad as Saddam. They’re even nominal Muslims. But would we really be any safer? No.
Andrew, your points are exactly the ones that the Democrats should be making. Simply saying “Bush lied” makes an easy-to-print bumper sticker, but shows no signs of getting real traction.
One argument that might make a Democratic canditate look better than Bush (to the part of the electorate that supports the war) would be “The Iraq War was and is a just endeavor, but Bush misled us and miscalculated the costs and mismanaged the aftermath. His heart was in the right place, but the way he proceeded was dishonest and undemocratic.”
Make the Administratin make a case for the war. Make Bush come up with something more sophisticated than “You’re with us or against us.” I think most Americans now have an instictive feeling that we need to take anyone who threatens us seriously now. The Democrat who gets that has a chance to win the election. Democrats who don’t get that will be trumped by “the idiot” and they’ll never figure out why.
So I go back to my initial essay question; how would the Democratic candidates address the problems we face? Until I get an answer from one of them that doesn’t feel like someone blowing smoke up an inappropriate location, I have to vote for the team in place. At least the chimp is taking the problem seriously.
Ah, finally somebody has has my back here. Thanks for smart comments all around.
To Joe, regarding “Religion of Masked Terrorists”:
First, let me clarify what I meant in saying that Islamic Jihad is not Islam. The actions of an extremist minority should not characterize an entire religion as a “religion of masked terrorist.”
Indeed, you have helped me out here. To paraphrase, you said that Catholicism should not be characterized as a “religion of zealous looters” because of the actions of Cortez. I agree. I would go farther in saying that Catholicism is not a religion. Christianity is a relgion, and Catholicism is a sect or church.
The point on which we seem to be disagreeing here is that I believe that a religion is a set of beliefs in service of a higher power, whereas you seem to be believe that a religions are political entities. I agree that people of religious beliefs take political actions, but I believe those political actions have much more to do with what’s going on in the world than what’s part of a core system of beliefs.
Terrorism is not part of any religious doctrine or Credo. It is a tactic used to achieve political ends.
And yes, you could probably dig in the Koran and interpret plenty of passages that suggest that “smiting the infidels” is burnt into the dogma. I maintain you could do the same with the Old Testament or the Torah. I believe these types of appeals are not, fundamentally, creed.
Thanks for suggesting those blogs; I’ll check them out.
And I am sincerely interested in hearing you or someone else define where the center is. So, go for it.
Any readers who still doubt that the current situation in Iraq is not only a mess, but an unanticipated mess, should click here.
Mark, I think you are describing (more or less) the Iraq position of Lieberman, Edwards, and Gephardt. Kucinich’s position is that the war was a mistake and we should bring the troops home now. Dean’s position, which I share, is that the war was a mistake we entered because of an inaccurate (actually, mendacious) Bush PR campaign, but we can’t leave now, we have to find some way of multilateralizing the reconstruction of Iraq in fact as well as in word. The Kerry and Clark positions, as I understand them, are a little more nuanced yet, in between Dean and Lieberman/Edwards/Gephardt, that there were near-term circumstances under which a war might have been appropriate, but that the war as actually conducted by Bush was at the wrong time, and, again, that the planning for the post-Saddam era was botched completely. (The truth is, I don’t see how even pro-war Republicans can deny that the plans for post-war Iraq were vastly overoptimistic: the Administration is countering by deleting its rosy estimates from its web sites.) Clark’s position may be closer to Dean’s; I haven’t really investigated.
So, I think the Democrats have a winner question in, “Do you think GWB is competent to conduct the reconstruction of Iraq”—but like it or not, we’re going to have to argue either (1) but the Iraq War, even the war as planned, timed, and conceived by Bush, was a good idea or (2) the Iraq War, as planned, timed, and conceived by Bush, is on balance detrimental to the national interest and American security. Candidates who believe (or at least argue) possibility (2) face the sorts of charges of cowardice that AL is imputing to his fellow liberals (I think Clark’s uniform is some antidote to this), as well as the difficulty of surmounting the belief fostered by the Administration and its media adjuncts to this day that the war was one of necessity and not of choice. That’s a tall order. However, I prefer this to argument (1), first, because I think it is correct factually; second, because I think we need the stand-up enthusiasm that candidates who support it engender (e.g., Dean) in order to create the structure for victory and last, because I think strategy (1) concedes that although not a competent Administrator, GWB’s bold, audacious (i.e, reckless) acts were correct in vision, indirectly enhancing his popularity and moreover causing voters like A.L. to worry that only about half of the Democratic Party really are patriots.
I wish I knew how to synthesize the successful argument into a bumper sticker.
Andrew and Mark,
You make good pragmatic arguments against the war, and I think that people like Wesley Clark (and even Howard Dean) to some extent share such thinking. A better example might be Madeleine Albright or Hillary Clinton (or even Henry Kissinger).
Where I part company with you is your assumption contra AL (and implicitly Michael Totten, Roger Simon and others) that your views are the ones widely held or expressed among the Democratic Party faithful. While Wesley Clark or Howard Dean may have a sophisticated anti-war analysis, they are in fact preaching to the moral purity/moral simplicity crowd which, as far as I can tell from virtually every discussion I have had with left-leaning friends and family, represents the dominant, majority view of anti-war so called “liberals”. I think it is that very real strain that AL is addressing his comments to (but AL can speak for himself). It is also the strain that is downright dangerous if its thinking were actually to be translated into policy.
You also don’t distinguish well between pre-war and post-war policy rationales and I realize that this is in part intentional (doesn’t fit on a bumper sticker in the putative winning strategy).
As for the “Bush lied” and “we didn’t anticipate this mess” memes, even in the milder less virulent form in which you formulate them, I still don’t find them particularly convincing or relevant. The worst I can say about Bush is that he shop-talked his policy rationales. But then so did Bush I in the Gulf War (“fighting for the freedom of Kuwait”) or Clinton I and II, with Tony Blair, during the no-flight zone wars. Indeed, I have yet to see a president that doesn’t put a bit of spin on his policies. As a whole, I don’t find the Bush evidentiary case that different from the international consensus that had existed for years and was confirmed 15-0 in Resolution 1441. I agree that no one anticipated the exact situation we have today in Iraq. Most anticipated worse. (Far more military and civilian casualties in the main battle, uprisings across the Arab world, massive refugees, Shia and Kurd separatist movements with attendant uprisings, conflict, etc.) Bush should perhaps share some blame for placing reliance on the French upholding their end of the bargain involved in bringing the matter to the UN in the first place.
As for multilateralizing the conflict, I’m all for it, in theory and in theory only. Bush may have been clumsy in ways, but obtaining the support of Spain and Italy in particular (not to mention virtually all of Northern Europe and Eastern Europe) was no small feat. And the pacifist hypocritically moralist posturing of the European populations themselves is only going to get worse over time. Those populations do reflect the simplistic moral purity delusions that AL refers to, only on a much greater scale. The US military, economic and cultural dominance driving those sentiments will (hopefully) not abate in the near (dangerous) future.
I will vote for the Democratic candidate who articulates that understanding with only half of the eloquence of the “idiotic” or “uninformed” Mr. Bush.
gabriel-
I think that any attempts to preach to the reflexive antiwar crowd are a waste of time. I would argue that AL’s comments are best addressed at liberals who aren’t opposed to war per se, just this war.
Actually, Praktike, I too believe religion is a set of beliefs in service of a higher power – or, as Kevin “Big Hominid” Kim more accurately notes: deepest teaching. But organized religion is a political actor, and unless it can somehow escape that fact it must stand accountable like everyone else. You step on the field, the uniform’s gonna get dirty.
We give religions some special legal deference, and deservedly so. The wall between church and state must remain intact in BOTH directions. But that doesn’t translate into ANY immunity in the sphere of commentary or opinion.
“The actions of an extremist minority should not characterize an entire religion as a “religion of masked terrorist.””
No, but it’s entirely fair to say that’s the religion of Islamic Jihad. I’d argue – and have – that IJ’s real religion is a pagan idolatry, worshipping an Baalite-type idol that incarnates hatred and the concept of a community protector-god, with a component of child sacrifice to appease the idol and a Muslim veneer. Stir and serve. Kills thousands.
But that Muslim veneer is not only not denounced, it’s accepted as legit in the overwhelming majority of the ummah, who cheerfully donate to Hamas, Islamic Jihad, et. al.
Sorry, but that’s a problem for Islam as a whole. A religion with significant sects who act and believe this way, and no forces within the religion that seem to check them (let alone a majority who seem to condone them), needs to ask itself the hard questions, not piously wash its hands of responsibility and association.
There’s a Hebrew phrase “hillul ha’shem”… it applies specifically to outwardly devout believers who act (it must be action) in a depraved or unseemly manner, and thereby bring not just a religion – BUT THE NAME OF G-D ITSELF – into disrepute.
So yeah, the problem does in fact reach as high as the religion. And higher still. People like IJ, Hamas et. al. should be the targets of a pan-Islamic jihad (as the Kharijites were before them), not key players in one.
That may or may not be your position at the end of the day. But it’s certainly not an ill-considered one.
And if you pry a bit, you may find this willingness to dissociate responsibility vs. the acknowledgement and insistence that there are larger connections here and a larger problem, is in fact an important part of the fault line dividing A.L., Totten, LaFreniere, and others from many of their liberal associates.
Mr. Lazarus,
You continue to insist that Op. Iraqi Freedom (“OIF”) is “on balance detrimental to [American] national interest and American security.” Yet you have not effectively made your case. In the other thread discussing this issue, I wrote a small response linking to a larger response on why OIF was indeed in the national interests of the United States. Although I admit that it was not extremely extensive or all-encompassing, it accurately presents my case as to why the war was in America’s interest. Perhaps you can address my argument?
For reference:
Andrew: I’m hardly a liberal, but the Iraq war was a smart policy decision. I have written about this before, so let me simply provide a few links.
First, a general post of mine on the benefits and detriments of the war (it is slightly outdated).
Add to the benefits the flypaper theory (hundreds to thousands of terrorists are flocking to Iraq to be slaughtered). In addition, note that democracy in Iraq would be devastating to Al Qaeda – even Osama Bin Laden’s mentor says it is the most dangerous threat to the organization.
joe, that was some food for thought. thanks.
With regards to LGF, there are certainly those who could fall into the racist stereotype. Two in particular come to mind, Camel Prophet and bigel. Both are barely tolerated. In fact, many threads eventually become focused on how Bigel is a defeatist and his “nuke Europe” philosophy is detrimental to the state of Israel. As for Camel Prophet, at least for me, he is just a joke. Few pay him heed. Chrles doesn’t need to get involved, most commentators take care of it for him. As for Charles, as far as I know he has never said anything to the likes of “all muslims are terrorists”, or that all palestinians should be killed. Rather he shows to the world exactly what their culture is all about. Perhaps he paints with too broad a brush, but please point out where something he says is blatantly false, and where he lets it stand.
A.L.:
I took the Political Compass Test, which placed me in the same quadrant is Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky and George Orwell. Then I took the Neocon Quiz and discovered that I was unambiguously a Neocon. Either the tests are lousy, or there are lots of valid political dimensions. (But actually, I thought the Neocon Quiz was pretty poor. I often agreed with parts of all the answers, and could see lots of flaws with the Neocon response. It’s just that, well… you have to choose.
The main difference between George Orwell and those other two nitwits (and between me and most of my “liberal” friends) is just plain old wishful thinking. I understand it perfectly, and it puts them in the kind of moral/ethical bind where they end up supporting totalitarianism. There isn’t any way out that’ll yield to a compromise of some sort. And a complomise must be in the back of Matt’s head, in spite of the innoculation he gave himself with that last bullet point. Irony won’t cut it, though it does dull the edge of the axe a little, after it’s whacked off a limb or two.
The thing that irritates me most about Matt’s own condescension is that he complains about belligerent Liberals’ “psychoanalyzing” of anti-(this)war Liberals, and the idea that we have impugned their motives, is simply this: we aren’t the ones who came up with phrases like “Democrat in Name Only (DINO),” and “the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party” (even though polls show that most Democrats supported the decision to go to war).
And there’s a certain blogger who shall remain nameless (rhymes with pre-bog) blogger whose remarks about Michael Totten make Yglesias’ look quite thoughtful by comparison.
Like AL, I probably agree with Kevin Drum, as well as Matthew Yglesias, on te vast majority of issues. But I’m not following them off this cliff.
Now I’m confused. What’s the cliff?
Is it Dean? If so, I’m starting to agree.
If it’s name-calling, I agree.
Is it not supporting the Iraq war? If so, I don’t agree.
So what’s the cliff?
The cliff, as I see it, is a fundamental lack of seriousness on the part of the Democratic Party’s leadership. (Note I don’t say Democrats generally.) Lack of seriousness is evident in Democrats’ use of so much of their energy in attacks on “the enemy” Bush. It’s evident in corrosive factionalism. It’s evident in careless and destructive rhetoric. It’s what got the party spanked by the electorate in 2002 and it’s what’s likely to get it taken to the woodshed again next year.
All this has little or nothing to do with whether people agree more with their policies or with those of the Republicans. If you’re not serious, people will not be willing to trust you with governance in wartime, even if they like your policies better than the other guy’s: play the factionalist game and you are doomed.
Jeane pretty much hit the nail on the head. I would just add that the cliff isn’t opposing the war by itself (though I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t part of it).
The cliff is, however, offering sanctimonious pronouncements about how you were against the war all along (“unlike my opponents”) in lieu of a better plan for Iraqi reconstruction.
It is also the flat rejection of the party’s own moral principles — as Peter Beinart so eloquently put it recently — by rejecting the president’s earnest attempt at getting serious about Iraqi reconstruction, even resorting to Buchananite rhetoric by making grants vs. loans an issue. It’s demogoguery and it’s bullshit.
Guys sorry not to have participated, but I left at 5:30am for a 480-mile motorcycle ride with friends and just walked in the door 8:30 pm).
I’ve got some work-related stuff to get done by noon tomorrow, and in between, I’ll read the posts and jump in as appropriate.
Ride today was perfect; great roads, no accidents or tickets, good friends. Well-used tires and big smiles all around.
A.L.
I’ve added my middle initial to eliminate any possible confusion with “Armed Liberal”.
Joshua, I read your explanation why the Iraq War was in the national interest. As a corollary of “Hope is not a plan”, I propose “Theoretical benefits may not be realized.” As reasons pro “The war was advantageous to American security” you listed
1. Elimination of the Chemical Weapons threat. Turns out we didn’t need a war for that.
2. The USA takes control of the Iraqi oil reserves for its own benefit: cheap oil, Iraqi withdrawal from OPEC, maintenance of dollars not Euros as currency for oil payments.
3. Establishing military bases in Iraq for leverage and possible use against Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Syria.
4. “Setting an example to the rest of the world.”
Yes, but an example of what? That we intend to plunder other countries’ natural resources for our own benefit? (Needless to say, Iraq’s interests lie in high oil prices.) That we maintain the right to base soldiers against the certain opposition of the host government (assuming the host government was in any way democratic in is formation, and not hand-picked by Washington)? It sounds, to be honest, not so much like introducing “democracy” to the Middle East as reviving the camaraderie of the Warsaw Pact.
I’m skipping straight to your unintentionally ludicrous item 7: “A morale boost for the troops. American forces had been demoralized by the anti-military and inept Clinton administration.” When you said your essay was dated, you weren’t kidding. Tell me again how the 16 dead in the chopper today was a morale boost. (To borrow a word from your leader, you misunderestimated the difficulty of the occupation.)
Events have also overtaken your position—which I believe was shared by the Administration—that the opposition to the war from our European allies was a good thing, in that we would show them, as well as the Arabs, who is the Boss. Times have changed. Now we are begging them for assistance (we can’t pump enough oil out of Iraq to pay for your adventure). In true Bush style, he didn’t apologize for dissing them at the UN, feeding them false “intelligence” information, and insinuating they were cowards (“Freedom Fries”), adopting the attitude “Don’t Applaud, Just Throw Money.” Is it any wonder our pledge drive ended up billions short?
I also think you don’t realize that it would take much, much more than one campaign against Saddam to enforce points 2, 3, and 4, which establish thoroughgoing American colonialism. We would be facing a guerrilla war throughout the Middle East (which we would fight with what army?) and, given the naked immorality of taking the Iraqi oil, with some justification. Although I point out that your essay underestimated the cost of the war by a factor of at least two (probably much more), the real problem is not an arithmetic error in the cost analysis of a realistic strategy, but that the ends themselves are an unattainable fantasy, probably at any price. Bold and audacious is sometimes a synonym for reckless.
Analogues to the flypaper theory were announced regularly to the German people about the Russian Front, the Japanese about their retreat towards the Home Islands, and the French at Dien Bien Phu. They all lost.
that’s the weirdest discussion i’ve seen in a long, long time 🙂
i have a question to the audience. let’s assume -we can assume, right? – that every rational voter in usa comes to the conclusion that bush handled the war really well, and the war was right thing to do. in this case, what would be the winning strategy for democrats? i mean, you cannot go to voters and say: “incumbent president did a great job, but my haircut is better, so vote for me”.
you see where i am leading?
what would be the winning strategy for democrats?
Don’t argue about foreign policy. Or, rather, come up with a way to do an even better job. It shouldn’t be that hard. Argue about the domestic stuff.
I may vote for Bush next year. I don’t know. But if the Democrats had his foreign policy I would back them 100 percent to the hilt.
The Democratic party is in the same shape now as the Republican party was when it was hi-jacked by the extreme right.
Dean, or whoever wins, will almost certainly back Bush more on foreign policy after he gets the nomination. Remember, there are two elections: one for Dem nom between Dem care fanatics; and then the one Dem vs. Bush.
Remember the moral bankruptcy of the Left: the left “won” the argument to get the US out of Vietnam, and the blood of the Killing Fields of Cambodia never touches their pristine hands. Any bleeding caused by the Shah, or any other dictator supported by the US, DOES stick to the US, but those against the US get a free ride on the consequences of the alternatives. The guilt of the Dems will remain a big undiscussed issue, and summer 2004 is still a long ways off.
Great News! All we have to do now is get the media not to scrutinize our compassionate-conserv^H^H^H^H^H^H responsible moderate candidate, and once he’s in office he’ll implement every last bit of our radical far-left agenda.
Hey, it worked for them.
Seriously, the Republican Party didn’t move towards the center. (Ask Sen. Jeffords.) They mobilized the right wing, through the Christian Right movements, through talk radio, through Fox News, and packaged it up nicely.
The unargued (and probably false) premise is that without the liberals’ argument against the Vietnam War, there was some way for us to “win” Vietnam and stop the Khmer Rouge.
The Stab in the Back Theory returns.
tristero –
A legitimate request. Here you go:
Well, these may be stale because they’re from files copied onto my hard drive
(discursive moment – I tend to just copy things of interest – web pages or bookmarks or pdf documents I want to read – into a ‘to read’ subdirectory on my hard drive. The problem, of course, come up in remembering what it was and why I wanted to read it without going through it. Anyone out there have a good solution to that?)
Name the candidate!
Go this page – the page delineating the issues and core policies of the campaign – and find me something on the challenges facing us from Islamist fundamentalism.
(No peeking at the URL!!)
Name the candidate!
I also try and read much of what comes out the the PPI, DLC, and Brookings Institution. If there are some other ones that I ought to look at, I’m wide open to suggestions…
A.L.
No, I think they opposed the war because they believe they can have the benefits of modern liberal society without getting their hands dirty. They value moral purity and self-satisfaction above everything else – with the possible exception of creature comfort.
Maybe I’ll help Matt out by picking the first post that’s condescending. Umm…. if you think it’s unfair to have been spun by Bush, I think it’s a little over the top to think that people who opposed the war thought we couldn’t do it without getting our hands dirty. Fuck, I don’t care about getting our hands dirty, it happened in Kosovo, and Afghanistan. For some of us, more than you let on to, the realization that the administration wasn’t prepared for nation building, and was stretching its case (against a goon; why, why stretch it and lie?) and taking every wack it could at International Institutions made me realize that while I thought there had to be a time of reckoning for Saddam, this was the wrong way.
A.L.; you do get angry and condescending when you get self righteous.
If you get 5 more, which I’m sure won’t be difficult, please send my portion of the $100 to Joe Lieberman’s campaign.
Mark:
Sorry I couldn’t get back to you earlier. Just returned to online.
My first post had two parts. Part one was a challenge:
“Show me you’ve read the position papers of the 4 major Democratic candidates.”
I’m waiting…
Part two was a discussion, complete with a quote from a dictionary, that seemed to indicate that Bush was more an idiot than a moron. If you think otherwise, fine. I won’t argue with you about how stupid Bush is.
Now, let’s demonstrate some familiarity with the views of the Democratic candidates that we are supposed to dismiss.
As to your question, I repeat: please rephrase it. At present, it’s so loaded it’s constipated. I could only approach it with considerable peril as only foul effluvia would result.
“As to your question, I repeat: please rephrase it. At present, it’s so loaded it’s constipated. I could only approach it with considerable peril as only foul effluvia would result.”
Ya know, tristero (I do love that book BTW), I have only so much attention to spend on this stuff, and I prefer to spend it arguing with adults.
You can choose to present yourself as one, or not; I’ll overlook this gratuitously adolescent comment and let you decide whether you want to have an argument with me (in my vocabulary, that’s good – we each make arguments, and in so doing clarify our positions and possibly have our minds changed) or a rant by yourself.
Your call. I’d rather not W.A.S.T.E. my time.
A.L.
Don’t argue about foreign policy. Or, rather, come up with a way to do an even better job. It shouldn’t be that hard. Argue about the domestic stuff.
first is impossible – it is the most burning issue, and every candidate will be dragged into it.
second is even worse – what would be credibility of such claim? it’s not like iraq is indeed a ‘quagmire’- things go relatively well there. maybe you would vote for such a candidate, but it’s hard to see why most voters would.
and what about domestic issues? if economy picks up, what is there to argue about that people really care? partial birth abortions?
in short, are you asking for a candidate “i’ll slightly improve bush policies in iraq, unban PBA, and i have a better haircut”? this is hardly a winning proposition either.
I’d be delighted to argue with you, AL. I suspect we’d learn something. To return to the subject at hand..
I’ve requested something from you but what seemed relatively innocuous to me seems to have risen in your mind – given the fact that you have scrupulously avoided any mention of it – to the level of a risible challenge:
Show me you are familiar with the positions of the 4 leading Democratic candidates by linking, quoting, and criticizing them.
Now, since you know at least some of Mr. P’s writing you certainly know that the last thing anyone would accuse him of is being mature. Unless you think KCUF is the product of a mature imagination. Or Byron the Bulb. Or retelling incredibly lame and ancient jokes (see the opening of V.), or having Mason and Dixon being served hash brownies by Martha Washington. Or, one of my favorites, the name Bo’sun Higgs. Or the spectacular scatology in GR. (Not that Tom’s merely the sum of his silly humor, but neither am I).
But I’m happy to curb my infelicities in the future, provided it is reciprocated. Alas, your question was – and is -loaded and cannot be reasonablly engaged in the nuanced fashion you so urge upon us, your readers.
When you care to respond to my Missouri-ian request and rephrase your question, I’ll be happy to respond.
Maturely.
tristero –
did you miss my earlier comment? I only quoted two of the papers on my hard drive; I can go dig out two more if that really matters.
But I’m trying to frame a discussion with Kevin Drum that will dig into the meat of this issue – an interblog back-and-forth on the deficiencies (and hopefully some ficiencies) in existing or potential Democratic policy. I’d rather spend my time (I have two huge deadlines this week, both sadly on Weds) on that.
Can I suggest that you (or anyone else interested) email me with suggestions for how to frame such a discussion? I think that would be quite an interesting argument that we could all ultimate particpate in and maybe learn from.
A.L.
AL,
I did not see your post with links and quotes before I penned the above. I’ll respond.
“[…] believes that the United States cannot rebuild Iraq alone, and must bring other countries and institutions into this important effort.”
I have no idea. But then I never claimed familiarity, did I? I challenged *you* to show some familiarity. Care to give more context?
As for the other one, alas, you didn’t realize that those were some of the latest ideas that candidate had. Go here and you’ll see he addresses the issue of terrorism:
“”America must stand against dictators and those who harbor and support terrorism. That’s why I stood with this administration’s efforts to dismantle the Taliban in Afghanistan. And that’s why I stood with this administration’s efforts to disarm Saddam Hussein. I believed then, and I believe now: either Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction or components of weapons of mass destruction. ”
And not to put too fine a point on it, but I would argue that the real problem is not “Islamist fundamentalism” -a bit redundant, you mean “extreme Islamism” but that, I would agree, is more a quibble than a substantive disagreement- but rather the worldwide surge in extremist political movements that resort to religion in order to recruit members.
In this country, we have the Christianists (roughly, Robertson to Rudolph, with plenty to add on both sides of the continuum), in Israel the radical extremists who say God told them to settle on the West Bank, and so on. All of these groups have created serious havoc and continue to do so. Check Dave Neiwert’s blog for info on some of the recent Christianist plots that were (just barely) foiled.
(Please don’t think that because I’ve left a particular group out of the list in the previous paragraph that I have any sympathy for one group over any other. A pox on all their houses. I know more about extreme Christianism right now than I do about similar Buddhist movements, but I have no doubt they exist are just as worthy of denunciation. )
This is covered in quite compelling detail in a book called Strong Religions, a summary of the research of the Fundamentalism Project.
As for suggestions, AL, may I offer up Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy? I’m pretty sure you’re familiar with them, but you DID ask…
tristero,
I have to agree that those Jewish settlers are a problem compared with the Palestinians. God just told the Jews where to live. He told the Palestinians who to kill.
Which proves that the settlers are the real problem. If they had a real god they would be out there killing with the rest.
Please be so kind as to explain how Jews living in what may become Palestine is a problem? They ruining the neighborhood or something?
What ever happened to the liberal idea of the brotherhood of men? (I quit being a liberal when I found out that they didn’t mean it. You know like white men and Jews can’t be brothers with the rest.)
Yes. The idea that all unclaimed land (plus some expropriated private land) in the Occupied Territories is for development of luxurious Jewish-only settlements (are Arabs allowed to rent homes there, M. Simon?), whose residents will have the full political and legal rights of a democratic state (actually, better; settlers get significant Israeli tax breaks), while their impoverished neighbors will live under some combination of direct martial law and corrupt collaborationist autonomy, based upon the fact that one group prays in Hebrew and the other in Arabic is totally obnoxious.
Rather than reiterating that the terrorist Palestinians are more wicked on some scale than the settlers, and I am willing to concede this point, why don’t you tell us what you think the political rights of the Palestinians are, and in what forum (i.e., under whose sovereignty) they should exercise them?
OK, Andrew, let’s look at your comments bit by bit.
“The idea that all unclaimed land (plus some expropriated private land)…”
First of all, why not build a house on genuinely unclaimed land? If there was a swamp, or an empty patch of desert that truly nobody in the world laid claim to or wanted for hundreds of years (true of quite a bit of pre-1948 Palestine), then why shouldn’t a few people come along and develop it? Build some houses on it? Drain the swamps and irrigate the land?
Second, land that *was* claimed and legally owned was *bought* by Jews who wanted to develop it and live there, starting as early as the late 1800’s up though to today.
Third, you mention “some expropriated private land.” Are you referring to land Israel won in the 1967 war, and are you implying such land somehow cannot now be owned by Israelis? I guess this means nobody in California, Arizona, or New Mexico really owns their property or homes, since that territory was won by the US in our was with Mexico. Just a bunch of thieving war criminals, those folks in Tucson? Do they deserve to die for where their homes are as well?
Further, you say above, “are Arabs allowed to rent homes there, M. Simon?” Well, Arabs and Jews live side-by-side throughout the Israeli side of 1967 borders, so it’s not that Jews have a problem with Arab neighbors. The reason there aren’t Arabs living in the Israeli “settlements” is that darn problem of security. You see, some Arabs have shown a marked proclivity for strolling into settlement towns and shooting anyone they see there– men, women, sleeping five-year-olds, that sort of thing. Thus, sadly, the settlements have been forced to allow only Jewish residents for safety’s sake. It is indeed a shame that the Jews’ understandable (I would have thought) aversion to being literally killed in their beds has necessitated this separatism. I suppose not offending American Liberal integrational sensibilities is more important than preserving lives.
Speaking of integrational sensibilities, I notice yours only take offense when Jews have separate housing complexes, not when Arabs have separate, you know, *countries*. Around 900,000 Jews were run out of Middle Eastern countries when the UN voted Israel into existence in 1948. They had to flee their homes and property for fear of their lives, and they are not allowed to return. Jews aren’t even allowed to *enter* Saudi Arabia, for example. Where’s all the outrage on these Jews’ and their decendants’ behalf? Where is the anger at the Arabs’ intolerance of those who (how did you put it?) pray in Hebrew instead of Arabic?
To continue. You said, “[the Israeli] residents will have the full political and legal rights of a democratic state (actually, better; settlers get significant Israeli tax breaks), while their impoverished neighbors will live under some combination of direct martial law and corrupt collaborationist autonomy….”
Well, Andrew, if the Palestinians had taken Barak up on his offer three years ago, they’d have have a state of their own as we speak. That offer was, if you’ll recall, all of Gaza, 98% of the West Bank, the eastern half of Jerusalem, and 2% of pre-1967 Israel adjacent to the West Bank in order to make up for the 2% of the West Bank Israel needed to keep for security reasons.
A state, Andrew, free and clear. Barak even offered to dismantel most of the settlements that resided within what was going to be the new Palestinian State.
But, Arafat turned this offer down, and instead of offering some counter-negotiation, decided to start stepping up the shredding of Jewish children at cafes and restaurants. Shrewd.
Sovereignty was *there* for the Palestinians if they’d wanted it, but only if they took it and left Israel alone. That was the deal they were offered. I think the choice they made is pretty illuminating. Sure, they’d like a state of their own, but not as much as they enjoy blaming Jews for not having a state and then killing Jews to avenge their oppression.
Andrew,
“…based upon the fact that one group prays in Hebrew and the other in Arabic is totally obnoxious.”
a) The differences are NOT based upon the fact that one group prays in Hebrew and the other in Arabic.
The differences ARE based on differences in attitude about work, life, responsibility, self-determination, love and self-respect.
The differences ARE further based on goals of their own choosing (“develop our land” vs “kill the Jews”); international relationships (“deal justly with nations which recognize us” vs “kill the Jews and lie about it”); and values chosen by themselves and their leaders (“what does Holy Scripture teach us on this matter?” vs “kill the Jews because we’re told its in the Koran”)
b) It IS “totally obnoxious”. The other Arab states refuse to recognize ‘Palestinians’ as real people and have, for TWO GENERATIONS, kept Palestinians in ‘refugee’ status. This has contributed greatly to a septic, hateful and rabidly intolerant form of hatred, manifesting in them arming and disguising their own children as nail-bombs and then ENJOYING their child’s death as if the child were a ‘martyr’ instead of an unfortunate, misled, manipulated, short-lived idiot!
Please be careful in posting seemingly-supportive props for Palestinians, with embedded assumptions indicating you believe they HAVE political rights while refusing to disavow, in theory and in practice, anti-Jewish violence.
You want a clearer statement of Holy Land rights and responsibilities? Check out policies published by The Universal House of Justice, Haifa, Israel.
Laura and Sharpshooter, let me be blunt. Either you don’t know anything about the legal situation in the territories, or you know and are running a sick joke.
For example, Laura:
1. Can Palestinians put a house-trailer on any site they choose and start a settlement, like Jews? (I realize in theory the Jewish settlers can’t, but in practice they can. Over 100 such “wildcat” settlements are to be recognized soon.) No. The squatters’ rights homesteading you endorse is available only to Jews.
2. By expropriated land, I mean just that: land owned by Arabs that is condemned by eminent domain for settlements, bypass roads, and security zones. You seem to be under the impression that all of the land in countries that lose wars is forfeited to build homes for the winners. This is not the case.
3. Arab citizens of Israel have many more rights than the Palestinians. You evaded my question: if a Palestinian (or for that matter an Israeli Arab citizen) showed up at a vacant settlement property with the asking price, could he move in? No. The idea is comical.
4. While we are at it, Israel is not the United States with the Hebrew alphabet. In particular, Israel does not have an Open Housing Law, and there are very few places where neighborhoods are truly mixed with Arabs and Jews living side by side. An Arab citizen of Israel sued to be allowed to purchase a home in a new town being built in Israel proper, and he won in the Supreme Court. However, the decision was even less popular than the American Pledge of Allegiance, is being reconsidered, and as far as I know, he has never moved in. When new communities or subdivisions are established, the government or quasi-government agencies decide what sort of community it will be: e.g., “national-religious”, “Lubavitcher”, etc. There are, IIRC, only five municipalities in Israel officially classified as “mixed” (yes, Israel does have such official classifications), of which Haifa is the best known.
Sharpshooter: You wrote “The differences ARE based on differences in attitude about work, life, responsibility, self-determination, love and self-respect.” This is no more true than the analogous statement about why (until recently) black South Africans didn’t vote and whites did. The law in the Occupied Territories is written and applied differently to Israelis (and even Jewish tourists) and the stateless Palestinians. If a Jew and a Palestinian get into a fistfight, the former will get a civilian trial, probably before a lenient court. The latter faces a military tribunal, possible detention without trial, and other like punishments. Did you really not know that Palestinians are not Israeli citizens and have very limited legal rights? That is not because of their attitudes towards love and self-respect. It is because, as the Pharaoh remarked of a certain minority group, they are grown so numerous that with citizenship they might outvote us in the Knesset.
Nothing in what I wrote is meant to justify or even excuse the Palestinians’ terror campaign. But neither does that campaign mean the program to dispossess Palestinians of their lands is one with clean hands.
Democratic. Jewish. Occupied Territories. Choose any two of three.
Andrew, you’re apparently fond of that rhetorical strategy so popular today– that is, speaking about the plight of Palestinians and the terrible way they’re treated while utterly ignoring the historical context or the present situation, in which Palestinians are killing or trying to kill Israelis every single day. You speak as if Palestinian hardship exists in a vacuum, because you refuse to even acknowledge all the Jews they kill or the fact that Israelis might need to take some measures in an effort not to be murdered.
It’s a very common strategy these day, Andrew, and a very deceitful one.
You say, “By expropriated land, I mean just that: land owned by Arabs that is condemned by eminent domain for settlements, bypass roads, and security zones. You seem to be under the impression that all of the land in countries that lose wars is forfeited to build homes for the winners. This is not the case.”
Again, like so many others, you mention bypass roads and security checks that the mean old Israelis have built, tearing down Palestinian houses, evidently for no reason at all except that Israelis are just nasty.
But bypass roads had to be built because the Israelis need extra ways to travel when they’re being *shot at* and bombed by Palestinians while driving to work. There are security checks because Palestinians keep carrying *explosive belts8 from the West Bank into Jewish restaurants and cafes. You cannily complain about security checks while blithely, purposely, dishonestly failing to mention what the security is *for*, how the Palestinians have made it necessary by slaughtering Israeli civilians.
You wrote, “You evaded my question: if a Palestinian (or for that matter an Israeli Arab citizen) showed up at a vacant settlement property with the asking price, could he move in? No. The idea is comical.”
And *why* is the idea comical, Andrew? Could it be because too many Palestinians keep *shooting* at the settlers? Why yes! They shoot at Jews by the road, they shoot at Jews at work on farms, and they shoot at Jews in their homes. By whose actions has this separatism become necessary?
You are clearly one of these folks who accusingly points to pictures of Israelis demolishing the homes of a Palestinian suicide bomber’s family while never showing or even looking at the pictures of the dismembered bodies of Jewish children the bomber caused in the first place. Hey, no need to mention the Jews who were killed, or who lost their sight, or who must now live without an arm, or a leg, or a mother. Let’s just talk about those Israelis clamping down on security and destroying Palestinian homes for *no reason* at all that Andrew can think of.
Goodness, Andrew. Talking of Palestinian hardship while never mentioning that it’s in *direct* result of Palestinian *actions* is like saying that the US simply went into Afganistan and rounded up a bunch of innocent men who were simply at work on their farms or painting their houses, all the while being *very* careful *never* to mention 9/11, Al Qaida, OBL, the Taliban, or terrorism.
It would be very, very stupid and more than a little dishonest.
And you *still* didn’t respond to my earlier post in any meaningful way, Andrew. You’re still talking about the “stateless Palestinians” as if this situation were anyone’s fault but their own. They were *offered* a state three years ago. They could have sovereignty *right now* if they’d *wanted* it, and would no longer be subject to Israeli laws at all. But the Palestinians turned down getting a state because taking the offer came with an agreement to leave Israel alone, and that was *not acceptable*. So they decided to really ramp up the wholesale slaughter of Israeli men, women, and children instead.
What does this tell us about the Palestinians’ true aims? Come on, Andrew, what does this say? Let me walk you through it– It means that Israel is *not* responsible for the fact that the Palestinians are stateless, because Israel bent over backwards three years ago to hand them a state on a platter. It means that Palestinians would like a state, but only if there if no Israel next to it. Palestinains textbooks since 1993 (when the PA was established) to this day have pictures of “Palestine” going all the way from the Jordan River to the Red Sea. That is, completely covering Israel, and Israel isn’t on the maps at all. Hmmmm, what can the Palestinains mean by all this? Scratching your head there, Andrew? Yeah, that’s a tough one.
Sarcasm aside, given that the Palestinians won’t take a state from Israel because they refuse to stop killing Jews or even acknowledge Israel’s existence, what is Israel supoosed to do now? According to your suggestions, Andrew, Israelis should stop having so much security, stop preventing shooting and bombings, stop defending themselves from slaughter, and just die like good little Jews. What right do they have to live when there are clearly Palestinians who would prefer them to die?
Empirically, it’s somewhere in that tiny crack of daylight to the right of Zell Miller and the left of Olympia Snowe.
Whoops! meant to say:
PRaktike sez:
“Your view of where the center is seems skewed to me.”
Empirically, it’s somewhere in that tiny crack of daylight to the right of Zell Miller and the left of Olympia Snowe.
Andrew Lazarus sez:
“So, I think the Democrats have a winner question in…”
Sigh. Your party’s already got too damned many “questions” and “concerns.”
As a voter what I want is some *answers* and *plans* already!
And no, “We’re going to use diplomacy to make France and the UN start acting responsibly” is not a plan, at least not in the real world.
When you try diplomacy and it doesn’t work, then what? That’s where all the current candidates fall flat.
Andrew Lazarus asks:
“why don’t you tell us what you think the political rights of the Palestinians are, and in what forum (i.e., under whose sovereignty) they should exercise them?”
After the way they’ve behaved in the last few years, my answers would be “none” and “anywhere they’re lucky enough to find someone who will take them in”. Maybe their good friends the Saudis can give them a homeland in the Empty Quarter.
But ever since I saw them dancing in the streets when the towers came down, I don’t give a care what happens to them.
In answer to Andrew’s question about the “rights” of Palestinians:
The same rights as were given in 1913 to Bulgarians & Turks who found themselves unsatisfied with their position relative to the border after 1913, or Greeks & Turks in a similar situation in 1923. The same rights offered to those unsatisfied with their positioning following the India-Pakistan partition. That’s about, oh, 10 million + examples right there.
The same rights offered to an equal number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands (600,000+, plus their descendents since then) in the period after 1948.
What you see above is the normal procedure for refugees in conflict situations. The Palestinians are very nearly unique, and that is a deliberate decision of the Arab League. Its intention was, and is, Israel’s destruction. Israel must keep that in mind at all times, and act accordingly.
Reminder: the Palestinians were created by the Arab League in the 1960s as a weapon of war, nothing more. Mass expulsions from a number of Arab countries compound the original and continuing refusal to resettle them or even to contribute any substantial sums toward their upkeep via the UN. There seems to be lots of money for the PLO and Hamas, though.
The Palestinians thus remain a weapon of war, one whose ongoing misery is deliberatgely cultivated. It has worked. Polls show that majorities of Palestinians would, even if given a Palestinian state, elect to carry on the war with Israel via suicide terrorism. This is not surprising, given that hatred of Jews and the annihilation of Israel are part of their official educational curriculum.
On the day that the Palestinians (but NOT Israel’s Arab citizens, who should be treated more equally) decide they love a Palestinian state more than they love killing Jews, the Israelis will give them a state under appropriate security conditions – if only to protect the Palestinians from their likely fate at the hands of their Arab brethren (q.v. Jordan, Lebanon, Kuwait).
The polls in Israel are very clear on that score, thus illustrating the differences between the 2 cultures.
But these would be voluntary concessions, not rights. Having captured the lands in war, Israel is entitled to hold them (as America still does with Texas, for example), and does so in part out of strategic necessity given the poor defensive layout of the 1967 borders. It may choose to extend citizenship to some or all inhabitants of those disputed areas, but that is a choice. It may choose to trade those lands away in return for real security later, but that too is a choice.
Until that day comes when having a state is more important to them than murdering Jews, the Palestinians remain non-citizens and assumed combatants. The model is one of Germans in the Sudetenland, pre-WWII. That’s certainly the one the Palestinians are following, and Israel needs to view its decisions in that light as well.
Having said all that…
None of the above negates the legitimate Israeli concerns about the “Jewish/Democratic/Occupation, pick 2 of 3” triangle. But that triangle can’t be discussed without reference to the truth about the underlying situation on the ground, and historical precedent.
Had the ‘Palestinians’ chosen non-violent methods, they would already have a prosperous state. Israel’s Arab neighbours did everything they could to keep them from making that choice, and the Palestinians chose to go along with that program. So here we are. And Israel’s first responsibility is to ensure her security and survival.
How to do that is a difficult question, but we must start with the truth and acknowledge Israel’s right in that regard. Otherwise no dialogue is possible.
Consider: Peace may not be possible without the Palestinians, but it isn’t possible without the Israelis either.
Laura, you are making my point splendidly. If the Israelis didn’t build Jewish-only settlements where they didn’t belong, then they wouldn’t need the access roads. (And, incidentally, those roads were being build at a record pace in the remarkably quiet period before Sept 2000!) I know you find this incredible, but the extremely evil terrorist campaign (which, BTW, has killed at least one friend of mine) doesn’t change the immorality of a calculated plan to dispossess the Palestinians. Netzarim is not a security measure, any more than parachuting women and children onto Omaha Beach would have been a security measure. It’s a clear symbol of the intent to seize every possible inch of Greater Israel for Jewish communities. [Note how the debate has morphed from whether Arab lands have been expropriated into a defense that it is just to do so.]
Joe: the Czechs apologized recently for the Sudeten expulsions, and note that under Western pressure the Latvians let the Russians (many recent arrivals) stay on condition of assimilation. The type of population exchange you suggest does not look like an available option. In any event, I’m very uncomfortable about the settlement program increasing the level of antagonism and violence, so that an eventual expulsion looks like an inevitability. Many people will suspect it was the plan all along (given, for example, that it’s already the explicit program of one party in the Government). I’d also point out that we granted civil rights to the residents of Texas (wait, Texas joined after a period of independence, well, California) who otherwise met the requirements. Menachem Begin, a small-d democrat, actually proposed Israeli citizenship for Palestinians. He was willing to gamble that a peaceful, democratic Greater Israel would remain Jewish, by becoming more attractive to those in Diaspora.
Hey Andrew!
Love how you keep ignoring Laura’s points! Makes you seem very convincing. Much like a kid covering his ears and screeching the same thing over and over again until the adults in the room give in.
Funny how people grow up, get educated, and then keep acting like kids only with bigger words and longer sentences.
Note to posters:
Have you ever noticed that whenever the going gets rough, the isolationists start talking about Israel and Palistine?
Loaded questions? Unfair questions? Oh my, those never come up in political discussions. How could I have been so impolite? Let’s get back to “imminent threat” and “cakewalk” and “clear ties to 9/11”, shall we?
Bear in mind that I admit Lieberman and Edwards have been very consistent (and therefore honorable) in foreign policy stances. And it’s certainly true that an isolationist can be something other than a Democrat. Therefore, I will restate my challenge for those who stood against the second Iraq war, and who now stand for immediate withdrawal from the region.
How [can anyone] … morally and/or ethically justify an isolationist policy towards our self-proclaimed enemies [given the events of the last 3 years]? Use the current situation in Iraq to illustrate your response. Bear in mind the murder rate sustained by the former regime, the funding by said regime of suicide bombers in Israel, the strategic position of that regime as it relates to potential friends and avowed enemies, the evolution of delivery systems for terror weapons, the inherent uncertainty of the capabilities of the regime due to it’s continued violation of inspection resolutions (to which it had agreed after being ejected from Kuwait following a naked grab a pan-Arabic hegemony).
Is it a loaded question? If so, point out where the question is unfair, and difuse it. List where it departs from the facts on the ground or in the record. Should a country other than Iraq be used? You have other options to choose from. If you choose the Palestinians, however, attempt to develop a thesis that doesn’t lead to genocide on either side.
What we want here is a vision of how to deal with a complex problem. The Democratic candidate that does so has a chance to win. If for some reason none can, it’s going to be four more years of Bush. During that time, please enjoy the “idiot v. moron” debate. At least you’ll know you should have won.
Kong, I didn’t respond to Laura’s “points” because I just don’t think they matter to a discussion of the civilian settlements (they do to IDF actions in the territories, but they aren’t under duscussion). Amazing as it may seem, I don’t believe that the (stupid and incorrect) Palestinian position at the Camp David or the Hamas/IJ/Al Aqsa terror campaign have much bearing on the wisdom or morality of the settlement program. For one thing, settlements were expanding at a record pace in the relatively quiet period right before the Camp David talks, which gave rise to a Palestinian belief that the talks were a cover for an annexation and dispossession campaign. Who is ignoring whom?
I gather, although you do not explicitly say so, that you feel the Palestinians of the 21st century should get treated like the American Indians of the 19th, on the basis of their atrocities and stupidities. In that case, are you so surprised they resort to terrorism to stop this plan from coming into effect? I never before thought about the suicide bombing campaign as a modern Ghost Dance. Rather than tell me about the Palestinian rejection of Barak’s (rather ambiguous) plan, tell me, do you have any plan other than violence for bringing Jewish Greater Israel into actuality?
By accident, I did ignore this earlier item. I’m sorry, because it provides a perfect example of the tendency, as with Arab housing rights, to argue from complacency and ignorance.
What do you think the maps in the Israeli textbooks look like? (Warning: I still own a few.)
Mark: I encourage you to look at Hesiod’s comment at the bottom of the thread about “shtik”. It presents an excellent post-Bush plan for Iraq. It isn’t cut-and-run. I am not an isolationist. I think Barbara Lee’s vote against the Afghan War was inane. I just think that the Iraq War is detrimental to American security, certainly now considering irremediably lost opportunities. I think we should have put more effort into the reconstruction of Afghanistan, more pressure on the Saudis and Pakistanis (what about them sealed up pages?), and an active recruitment campaign for Arabic-speaking Americans to join elite covert and special units. But a classical war followed by a classical colonialist occupation of Iraq? Blunder.
funny how it turned into discussion about israel/palestinians out of the blue 🙂 way to distract attention. andrew j. lazarus, your posts are factually wrong on so many points that i am at loss where to start. i don’t know you enough to decide whether it’s ought of antisemitism or brainwashing, and nor do i care much. yes, i have a copy of a latest israeli textbook, and there is palestinian autonomy there as separate entity, while there is no israel anywhere on official maps of palestinian authority. no, settlements were not expanded during quiet time before camp david – they were frozen and dried, per barak’s promise to his voters. no, settlements are not means of land grab – they are means of showing arabs that time is not on their side, and if they hope to procrastinate while killing as many jews as possible, it won’t work. and you still refuse to answer the main question about palestinians walking away from camp david without as much as counter offer. they lies you post are very easily discoverable, and you are only loosing face by perpetuating them.
Consider: Peace may not be possible without the Palestinians, but it isn’t possible without the Israelis either.
Joe, you know that peace is perfectly possible without the Israelis. It’s not the peace you or I would chose, but this is the peace that a lot of people seem to be angling for.
Hey, P, I have a four or five year old textbook. But even your description is revealing: your map shows the “A”, “B”, and “C” zones. Those showed up on road maps (although not the textbooks) probably as a way of showing motorists who did not want to enter the Palestinian Zones how to avoid them. Now, the various zones were supposed to be temporary. There isn’t any sign of the Green Line on your map, is there? You have to buy a non-Israeli map for that.
Here are a few articles on growth of the settlements under Barak. Here is one on the feverish construction of bypass roads. Both are from Ha’aretz before the intifada. That was in five minutes of Googling. Now, let’s see your sources that they were frozen! If you want even more figures, let’s arrange a cash bet on the subject. I don’t post lies.
You mean, if you don’t capitulate to our demands now, next time we will offer you less? And you’re surprised you get bombers as the counteroffer?
Because Arafat is vicious, stupid, frightened of Hamas, and was unable to rid himself of fantasies of possessing all of Mandate Palestine. I still don’t see that as justifying the confiscatory settlement program.