History is Happening Now

Rather than respond in the comments section of Ian’s last fascinating post, I want to draw attention to a recent article by Evan Kohlmann, posted at the Counterterrorism Blog, an online collective of counterterrorism experts and scholars.

I tend to find myself skeptical of the articles posted at this site–many of the writers come across as ideologically right-wing, though the quality of analysis varies from author to author–but Kohlmann’s posting is notable because he argues, persuasively in my view, that

the idea that Al-Qaida has any long-term viable future in Iraq—or that Iraq somehow poses more of a terrorism problem than the lawless regions along the Afghan-Pakistani border—which have become a hotbed for terrorist guesthouses and training camps of every shape, size, and variety—plainly ignores the basic facts.

The “basic facts” are that “there is near universal agreement—among senior U.S. military commanders, terrorism experts, Iraqi insurgents, and even former colleagues of Usama Bin Laden—that [a U.S. counterterrorism] campaign should be squarely targeted on Pakistan and Afghanistan, and not the counterproductive occupation of Iraq.”  Kohlmann bolsters this claim with a reported database analysis of “the shifting patterns in propaganda releases by the Taliban in Afghanistan versus Al-Qaida’s “Islamic State of Iraq” (ISI) over approximately a one year period (from April 2007 to July 2008).”

In short: the Taliban is increasingly active, and the ISI is greatly in decline.  The meaning of these statistics is not entirely straightforward, it seems to me, but even if you accept the claim that there is a coherent thing called the “Global War on Terror” (GWOT)–I, for one, do not–you simply can’t make the argument that its center is located in Iraq. 

As a 2005 interview with a “British jihadist” in the (U.K.) Prospect suggests, its center is more plausibly located not in the Middle East or on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, but rather in London.  The U.S. ought to invade Britain if it is serious about conducting a genuine GWOT.

Kohlmann’s analysis glosses quickly over the fact that there was no Iraqi front in the GWOT before the U.S. invaded the country in 2003, though he does quote Richard Clarke as saying of Bush’s decision to invade Iraq:  “It was as if Osama bin Laden, hidden in some high mountain redoubt, were engaging in long-range mind control of George Bush, chanting ‘invade Iraq, you must invade Iraq.’”

More to the point, I am skeptical of those who use the term “war” to describe the difficult work of stopping the diffuse global network of violent ideological fanatics who threaten the U.S. and Europe with terrorism. ((Not to mention Iraqis, Pakistanis, Afghanis, and many others who are far more often than “Westerners” the victims of terrorism.)) Waging war on countries–even “terrorist sanctuary” countries, like Great Britain–seems far less important, to my mind, than securing and destroying every shred of nuclear-bomb-making material on the planet.  Forget the fact that invading Great Britain would kill a great many innocent people, and that regardless of how smoothly it went the occupation would likely increase terrorism against the U.S.

In addition to stopping drastic climate change, preventing nuclear terrorism should be on the top of our collective political priority list.  As many foreign affairs analysts have reported, nuclear terrorism is one of the gravest threats to our freedom, prosperity, and safety.  But calling the effort to prevent such acts a “war” grossly mischaracterizes what we must achieve.  The Pentagon and its army of defense subcontractors are not going to be able to eliminate the risk of nuclear terrorism because, I think, that problem is primarily political–not tactical–in nature. 

To eliminate that risk, we must eliminate nuclear arms on a worldwide scale, no easy task.

A recent public opinion poll has got conservative pundits such as Bill O’Reilly scratching their heads — or at least pretending to scratch their heads.

The Rasmussen survey of 1,000 likely voters asks:

“When it comes to the situation in Iraq, which is the more important goal for the next president to accomplish during his first term…winning the war or getting the troops home?”

The results are: 52% choose “getting the troops home,” 38% say “winning the war,” and 10% say “not sure.”

There’s an obvious way to interpret these results: A slim majority of Americans don’t believe the war in Iraq is worth fighting anymore. I suppose you could say they are willing to accept “defeat” in Iraq, if defeat is defined as what will happen if we don’t “win.”

This view of the war in Iraq isn’t new. Ever since the war in Iraq began, the Democratic Party’s opposition has been based on the idea that the benefits of continuing to fight there just aren’t worth the costs in blood and treasure.

And for more than a year, Barack Obama has been arguing that (a) we need to fight and win the War on Terror, and (b) that we’re not doing an effective job fighting that war against Al Qaeda because we’re spending all our resources fighting an unnecessary war in Iraq. 

Obama’s argument may be winning over most Americans, but it is apparently a wee bit too complicated for O’Reilly and his ilk to comprehend. (Hence, O’Reilly’s head scratching.) In order to understand Obama’s argument at the most basic level, you have to make a distinction between the war in Iraq — which began when the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003 — and the War on Terror — which began when Al Qaeda flew planes into the World Trade Center in September 2001.

Once you’re able to make this distinction, the difference between the presidential candidates is clear: The Bush Administration and its allies, such as John McCain, have argued that the war in Iraq is the central front in the War on Terror. Obama has said that Iraq is not the central front in the War on Terror, and never was.

But O’Reilly doesn’t get it, or pretends he doesn’t get it. Listen to what O’Reilly said on the radio Monday about the new poll:

O’REILLY: (Speaking to caller) I agree with you. It is troubling to me that 52 percent in the Rasmussen poll say “Hey, bring the troops home. We don’t care about winning the War on Terror.” And I’m going, What? What? Do half of my countrymen actually believe — now, I don’t believe that, that they do. I think they, you know, either misread the question, or it was, you know, there’s a lot of push-polling that you can push somebody into a certain answer. Because I don’t know anybody who says, “yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I don’t really care about winning the war on terror. Bring ‘em home.” Now maybe that’s ’cause I live on Long Island, where the attacks on 9-11, I mean, killed thousands in my area. And the sensitivities are way, way up, still, seven years after the fact. Maybe that’s because I live there and I don’t live in Wyoming, a distance away from the actual attack. So maybe I’m not reading the country correctly, but I can’t imagine an American saying, “Oh, you know, we win the war on terror, that’s fine. We don’t, we don’t really care.” I, oh my God. Because these people aren’t going to stop. They’re simply not going to stop. Unless you kill them. And make it physically impossible for them to exist. So that’s the struggle of our time. This recession? The high gas prices, all of that. This is in and out, up and down, all over the place. It’s important. It’s painful. But the terrorism is the struggle of our time. And to have the country going, “oh, you know.” Pretty scary, ladies and gentlemen. I don’t believe it. I would say 30 percent of the country is probably in that zone.

O’Reilly was faced with at least two obvious interpretations of the poll results. One interpretation — the one O’Reilly chose to believe, or pretended to believe — is that a slim majority of Americans are prepared to lose the War on Terror, which means a slim majority of Americans (likely voters, that is), are prepared to accept a future where the terrorists trying to kill us can do so with impunity. (O’Reilly apparently believes 30 percent of the American public is prepared to tolerate this ridiculous, horrifying scenario.)

The other intepretation — the correct interpretation, which was easily understood by those surveyed but somehow slipped through the cracks in O’Reilly’s mind – is that the poll question referred not to the War on Terror, but to the war in Iraq.

So O’Reilly explained how he interpreted the poll, and now we can try to interpret his interpretation. Perhaps O’Reilly honestly did not comprehend the question that was asked in the poll. I suppose it’s possible that he prepared for his radio show Monday morning by sitting at a desk and glancing at talking points written by shoddy researchers who misunderstood the poll and then passed that misunderstanding along to O’Reilly.

Or it could be that O’Reilly understood the poll correctly, but deliberately mischaracterized it because to characterize it accurately would force him to acknowledge the distinction between the war in Iraq and the War on Terror? And once O’Reilly does that, his rationale for staying in Iraq falls apart like a house of cards? Because merely acknowledging this distinction would force O’Reilly to confront the question of whether fighting the war in Iraq is an effective way to fight the War on Terror, and O’Reilly is not prepared to begin talking about this question.

Here’s another interesting conversation between O’Reilly and a caller about the poll:

BOB: I’ve seen all these polls online, and I participate in some of them like this Rasmussen poll. And a lot of times I don’t like the way they ask the question. They’re too black and white. Um, and this particular poll, um, and the information I read, and I put all this together. I’ve gotten to a point and a lot of people I talk to agree with me. We would love to win the war in Iraq, but we’d sure like the troops to come home safe. But we do not, and I do not, believe that we can win this war on terrorism. I don’t believe it’s ever going to be won.

O’REILLY: So what’s you’re solution, then? Not to deal with it?

BOB: Nope. I don’t think you can stop trying. It’s just my belief in the fact that we’re ever going to be effective and it’s ever going to end. I just don’t beleive it.

O’REILLY: Well it’s not going to end, in our lifetime.

BOB: Well–

O’REILLY: You can’t, you’re always going to have suicide bombers, like, you know, in Israel. I mean, that war is never going to end there. You’re always going to have people who want to kill Jews and Americans. I mean, we have to accept that. But, you can keep these people marginalized, and you can keep them from doing a massive amount of harm, which the Bush administration has been able to do. And that is their greatest accomplishment.

According to O’Reilly and his fellow conservatives, the “enemy” in the War on Terror cannot be defeated, so the war can never be won. It is therefore not a ”war” in the way we’ve used the word “war” to describe past conflicts with the British, the Nazis, or even the Soviets. In its new usage, the word “war” merely describes a world where someone somewhere in the world wants to kill Americans.

And yet, while the war can never be won, “winning” the War on Terror must always be considered a top priority, according to the conservative way of thinking.

So here’s a sincere question for any readers out there: What is the relationship between O’Reilly’s view of the War on Terror and his unwillingness to acknowledge a distinction between that war and the war in Iraq? Does O’Reilly think the war in Iraq can be won in our lifetimes? What about the war in Afghanistan? If the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were won, but the War on Terror continued, how would that war manifest itself? In Iran? What would happen if we “won” in Iran? Would it end then?

In The Nation, Christopher Hayes writes an excellent overview of the history of MoveOn, outlining its considerable strength and its limitations.

The organization comes across in this article as an ideologically low-key group, very mainstream, political activism for “non-shouters,” “a service organization that helps people who are busy advocate in politics,” according to Eli Pariser.  “We’re providing something that’s valuable to people and using technology to amplify the quality of the service you can get. It’s not unlike Netflix or Flickr.”

A few highlights:

Before MoveOn pioneered the online petition, just the simple act of gathering 100,000 signatures would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of labor. Now MoveOn sends out e-mail petitions several times a month. Or consider this: to manage its lobbying efforts and programs for its more than 4 million members, the NRA has a staff exceeding 500 and a $15 million, 390,000-square-foot office building in Virginia. MoveOn has a staff of… twenty-three. And no headquarters. Twice a week, a dozen of MoveOn’s staffers call in from around the country for a strategy session. The organization is so committed to the ethos of the virtual office, it has an internal policy that even when staffers are living in the same city they’re prohibited from sharing office space.

And this:

Over ten years the organization has developed a reliably confrontational posture toward the Republicans in power. It’s a necessary feature of an organization that needs to raise money constantly, a rational reaction to the GOP’s debased leadership and the expression of a deep and genuine sentiment among its silent majority members, who have simply had enough. But the frustrations of the past two years with a Democratic Congress struggling to deliver any of the things MoveOn members want have served as a teachable moment. In interviews with nearly two dozen of MoveOn’s regional coordinators, when I asked what they saw as MoveOn’s role in a future Democrat-dominated Washington, they gave without exception the same answer: hold the politicians accountable. “One of their mottoes that really resonates with me is that democracy is not a spectator sport,” says Sandy Tracy, the retired schoolteacher. “Average people have elected their officials and sent them off and let them be. We’re now paying the price for that.”

Indeed, MoveOn members seem much more politically militant than the group’s staff.  MoveOn may thus face a challenge from its own membership if it doesn’t log more victories (on Iraq and other pressing issues) after the Democrats increase their Congressional majority and Obama takes the White House in November, as seems increasingly likely to happen.

More importantly, though, when someone uses “MoveOn” as a term of abuse or disrespect, insinuating that it’s a radical leftists shrill hysterical terrorist-loving America-hating communo-anarcho-fascist organization, you should either laugh at the profound ignorance of that person or politely direct him or her to this article, depending on your mood.

There have recently been a number of cases of salmonella outbreak–more than 1,000, in 41 states–that have been traced back first to tomatoes, now possibly to jalapeno and serrano peppers.  The CDC and FDA call this outbreak “one of the largest in recent memory, and also one of the most complex,” according to the Chicago Tribune.  Dean Acheson, associate FDA commissioner for foods,  is quoted as saying:  “It’s just been a spectacularly complicated and prolonged outbreak.  I don’t have any explanation for it.”  As the FDA continues to explore the mysteries of our food system, the AP reports something that may–just may–give Acheson the explanation he’s looking for.

The AP reports that the food industry lobbied the Bush administration “to limit the paperwork companies would have to keep to help U.S. health investigators quickly trace produce that sickens consumers” and that the White House “also killed a plan to require the industry to maintain electronic tracking records that could be reviewed easily during a crisis to search for an outbreak’s source.”

In other words, the FDA caved in to the industries it is ostensibly designed to regulate.  As Thomas Frank’s forthcoming book, The Wrecking Crew, will no doubt endlessly (and humorously) point out:  this is not an aberration in the functioning of government.  It is rather the governing philosophy of the conservative revolution.  No regulation if possible, industry-created regulation in all other cases.

The AP again:

According to government records reviewed by the AP, business groups met at least 10 times with the White House between March 2003 and March 2004, as the FDA regulations were under debate. Food industry lobbyists successfully blunted proposals using arguments familiar in other regulatory debates: The government’s plans would saddle business with unnecessary and costly regulations.

“The FDA’s strong proposed bioterrorism rules were significantly watered down before they became final,” said Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director at the Washington-based Center for Science in the Public Interest. The private advocacy group obtained the White House meeting records under the Freedom of Information Act and provided them to the AP.

Participants in the meetings included companies and trade groups up and down the food chain, including Altria Group Inc. and Kraft Foods Inc., when Altria was Kraft’s parent; The Kroger Co.; Safeway Inc.; ConAgra Foods Inc.; The Procter & Gamble Co.; the American Forest and Paper Association; the Polystyrene Packaging Council; the Glass Packaging Institute; the Cocoa Merchants’ Association of America; the World Shipping Council; and the Food Marketing Institute.

The Grocery Manufacturers Association spent $2.6 million on lobbing in 2003 and 2004, the period when the FDA rules were under consideration, according to federal lobbying records. The Food Marketing Institute spent $1.7 million during the period. The figures were for all lobbying by the trade groups and on their behalf.

Of course, consistent lovers of the “free market,” and haters of all government regulation, will tell you–my previous post on David Brooks and Stephen J. Dubner comes to mind–that this outbreak of salmonella is nothing to worry about.  It’s either the fault of the people who “chose” to eat poisoned food or perhaps–in a more enlightened vein–part of our corrupted “culture of eating poisoned food.”

Some people, softie liberals and crypto-Stalinists, might get mad at the market for giving us this poisoned food, but in reality the market is merely sending signals to consumers.  We need to reform our corrupted norms–which have fallen to shame since the narcissistic hedonism of the ’60s destroyed America–and train ourselves to assiduously avoid those companies that sell us poisoned food and, meanwhile, to patronize those that don’t.

A market solution to a market problem!

No need for “big government” to regulate the hugely complex food industry.  No need to force nice corporations to spend their hard-earned money in ways that might make us–their customers–safer in a crisis.  Why, that would be tantamount to theft!  Altria, Kraft, Kroger, Safeway, ConAgra, Procter & Gamble, and their friends have our best interests at heart.  They wanted to water down the FDA’s “strong proposed bioterrorism rules” because it might “disrupt the availability of consumers’ favorite foods.”

Let’s not even begin talking about the signals honest-to-god bioterrorism might send to the market.

I strongly encourage every American who cares about protecting this country from another terrorist attack to listen to John Nagl, a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel and Iraq War veteran who served as managing editor of the U.S. Army’s Counterinsurgency Field Manual.

Specifically, I wish I could grab every American voter by the hair (call it tough love) and force him or her to sit down and listen to a recent interview Nagl gave to National Public Radio’s program “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross.  (Just to give you extra incentive to pay attention to what Nagl has to say, you should know Nagl is a West Point graduate, a Rhodes Scholar with a doctorate from Oxford University in international relations, and a veteran of both the 1991 Iraq War — he led a tank platoon – and the current Iraq War.)

Here is what I consider the most crucial excerpt from his July 22 interview:

_________

GROSS: In the introduction to the counterinsurgency manual — and again, you were on the team that wrote and edited the manual — Sarah Sewall writes in that introduction, “counterinsurgency can bring out the worst in the best regular armies. Even when counterinsurgency forces explicity reject insurgent tactics, they often come to imitate them. In particular, the insurgents invisibility often tempts counterinsurgents to erase the all-important distinctions between combatants and non-combatants.” Was that difficult for you and your troops that because you couldn’t tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys, that it was sometimes tempting to just assume the worst and either shoot or arrest or whatever?

NAGL: We rarely assumed the worst and shot, I’m proud to say. I’m sure there were cases where it happened. We did often, I’m afraid, assume the worst and arrest. And I am confident, and I’m embarassed to say this, but I’m confident that it’s true that some of the innocent people we arrested and who lingered in Abu Ghraib and other prisons for long periods of time, um, became disenchanted, became in some cases probably commited to removing the American presence from Iraq because of the way they were treated. And I’m pleased and proud to say that we’ve done a much better job recently of being more precise in our targeting and in whom we arrest, better in the legal procedures that we use to keep them under custody. And in particular, we’ve started practicing what we call “counterinsurgency inside the wire,” which Marine Major General Stone was responsible for this at Abu Ghraib. And his deputy was my old friend Paul Yingling, Lieutenant Colonel Paul Yingling, and Paul is still there doing this. We practiced counterinsurgency by setting up job programs inside the detention facilities, by, um, getting better at releasing the people whom we didn’t have firm evidence on. And so, we’ve learned and adapted as an organization and become better at that important part of counterinsurgency that is treating detainees with respect. This is something H.R. McMaster did when he was in command of the 3rd ACR. When he released people from his detention facility, he set up a program he called “Ask the Customer.” So he asked them how they were treated, and asked them for recommendations on how to do it better, how to perform detention operations better. That’s something we’ve institutionalized now as an Army, as a Marine Corps on the ground in Iraq. And we’ve got Air Force and Navy folks helping us guard these prisons. So it’s a true DOD (Department of Defense) effort, and we’ve gotten far better at something that I don’t think my own organization or all of us at the time, back early in the war did very well, and that is understand that the way you treat the people you detain can influence whether they come back speaking well of you, or shooting at you.

GROSS: And your point is, it’s in our best interest to do that.

NAGL: It is absolutely in our best interest to do that. Every person we convince not to fight against us is somebody else we don’t have to kill, and it’s somebody else who, um, may not kill one of us or more of us. And that’s one of the really frustrating thing about this kind of war: The number of actively commited insurgents fighting against you is actually relatively small. I had a sector of about 60,000 people I was responsible for between Ramadi and Falluja. Of those 60,000, as near as we could tell, about 300 — about one half of one percent of that population — was actively dedicated to killing me and my guys. So everyone matters. And if you can turn one of them, and if you can turn a leader and he brings his ten-man cell with him, you’ve made a huge impact. And even better if he turns hard and he’s willing to tell you who the other cells are and provide you with some of that information. And even better if he’s able to bring a number of cells with him and says, “I’m no longer going to fight against you, Americans. These Al Qaeda guys, these are bad people!”

GROSS: You mentioned that you fear that some of the people you detained ended up in Abu Ghraib.

NAGL: I know they ended up in Abu Ghraib, and some of them should have. And some of them should still be there. Some of them were very very bad people. What I’m afraid of is that, is first that some of them I sent there shouldn’t, I shouldn’t have sent there, or they weren’t treated as well there as they could have been. We weren’t as advanced at our counterinsurgency inside the wire. But I’m also concerned that some of them were released because of problems in the justice system, perhaps starting at my level. Right? We’re making this up as we go along and we didn’t get great training in how to prepare a legal package on an Iraqi detainee. We developed these systems as we went. So I’m concerned both that we imprisoned some of the wrong people and we released some of the people we shouldn’t have released. And we paid the price for that on both sides.

GROSS: At the time that you were in Iraq in 2003 and 2004, did you have any idea what was going on in Abu Ghraib.

NAGL: Not until that was publicly released. What I did know is, we didn’t have a good program for sorting the wheat from the chaff, the bad apples from the good, and that system wasn’t as well developed as it could have been. And, um, we didn’t have a good rehabilitation program for people coming out of Abu Ghraib, so people coming out of Abu Ghraib were at least, were no more opposed to the United States presence in Iraq than they were when they went it. So I didn’t know about the Lyddie England stuff until it was, until everybody, until the world knew about it.

GROSS: And were you still in Iraq then?

NAGL: Yes, I was. It was discouraging.

GROSS: What impact did it have on the ground level? Because, quoting the counterinsurgency manual again, it says abuse of detained persons is an immoral, illegal and unprofessional.

NAGL: Yeah, we felt pretty strongly about that, as a matter of fact, in the manual. And we continue to do so, obviously.

GROSS: Oh, and I can’t remember whether it’s the manual or something that you personally said, but the quote is, “lose moral legitimacy, lose the war.”

NAGL: (joining Gross) “–lose the war.” I think that’s Conrad Crane’s phrase, and that’s exactly right.

______________

We can reasonably expect conservatives to be deeply offended by almost everything Nagl said above. That’s why it’s so important, for the sake of our national security, that we elect a liberal to be the next commander-in-chief. His remarks above are applicable not just to the war in Iraq, but to the overall War on Terror.

David Brooks is a conservative pundit liberals like.  His writing displays an urbane wit and an almost-academic collegiality.  He is also, as his latest column on “the culture of debt” demonstrates, a sort of neoconservative postmodernist.

Says Brooks:  Some people, presumably dogmatic liberals and leftists, blame our growing debt crisis on the fact that “predatory lenders” seduce us with “too-good-to-be-true credit lines and incomprehensible mortgage offers.”  Others, old-school conservatives, fans of “individual choice and responsibility,” blame the debtor for his or her debt problem.  But Brooks, in predictable fashion, discovers an enlightened third way and makes the following miraculous discovery:

Decision-making–whether it’s taking out a loan or deciding whom to marry–isn’t a coldly rational, self-conscious act. Instead, decision-making is a long chain of processes, most of which happen beneath the level of awareness. We absorb a way of perceiving the world from parents and neighbors. We mimic the behavior around us. Only at the end of the process is there self-conscious oversight.

The answer is “culture,” you see.  Why we commit sin is complicated.  We are not perfect totally-in-control moral-economic agents but rather are even sometimes shaped by our environment!  Our problem is that we have turned away from our Puritan roots toward an ethic of hedonistic “retail therapy,” though this debased cultural environment presumably categorically omits government regulation of the credit card industry and corporate practices from that “long chain of processes” that affects borrowing behavior.  The idea that corporations might be held responsible for our cultural environment is unthinkable to Brooks.  No, it’s all the fault of our changing norms.

Brooks doesn’t take the next obvious step in this type of conservative culturalist argument–to claim that our problems can be laid at the feet of feminism, affirmative action, hedonistic anti-war activism, and the like–but you can rest assured that our long slow cultural decline began in the ’60s.  Fear not, though.  This latest market correction will punish “many of those seduced by financial temptations” by helping them to “feel the heat.”  As Brooks tells us:

[S]ocial institutions are trying to re-right the norms. The government is sending some messages. The Treasury and the Fed are trying to stabilize the system while still ensuring that those who made mistakes feel the pain.

In other words, the government is bailing out those institutions that were predatory lenders, but offering tough love to those culturally corrupted borrowers who gave in to temptation because of their debased “norms.”  The former are by definition not part of the “long chain of processes” that led to our problems, the latter are.

I assume then Brooks must agree with the following proposition:  if the police allowed an arms maker to put a loaded machine gun in a public square, then some psycho gives in to “temptation” and uses that gun to kill people, we ought to blame the “culture of murder” whose corrupted norms were part of the “long chain of processes” that caused the shooting spree to happen.  To blame the gun-maker or the police would be crazy-talk!

*

In related news, Stephen J. Dubner tells us on the Feakonomics blog:  “Don’t Throw Away Your Capitalism Just Yet.”  Some people, apparently, are getting a wee bit mad with the market following the subprime crisis–one wonders why!–but we should not be such sissy whiners because “capitalism is inherently turbulent” and “[n]ot only must eggs be broken to make an omelet, but sometimes people may decide they want their omelets made with no eggs at all.”  Creative destruction, all that.  So clever!  By way of evidence of the virtues of capitalism, Dubner compares our current system, which is melting down before our eyes, to centrally-planned Soviet Communism. 

I wish I were making this up, but no, I’m not. 

Dubner apparently cannot imagine any economic system that might lie between totalitarian central planning and unregulated financial markets of the sort that led so many eggs (read: the lives of people) to be broken (read: totally devastatingly destroyed).  No sir, we just don’t have any choice.  We either embrace (totally preventable) human-created financial disasters that swallow whole the lives of the poor, or we have to march everyone off to the gulag.  Do we hold to account those regulators and institutions that helped cause the crisis?  What unthinkable communist nonsense!  Should we “bail out” poorer sectors of our population the way we bail out gigantic financial institutions?  Why, that would lead to what economists call “moral hazard”!

*

This is then what passes for economic wisdom in the New York Times:  capitalism for the poor dolts, socialism for the rich.  Brilliant.  Is there any wonder that when “conservatives” call our “newspaper of record” elitist and out of touch, these accusations resonate at a gut level with many Americans?

Does Republican presidential candidate John McCain secretly want to wage a religious war against Muslims?

I know, I know: it sounds like a crazy question. It sure seemed crazy when it first popped into my head about six months ago. That’s when I discovered that McCain was making a big deal out of the endorsement of Ohio televangelist Rod Parsley. McCain had even called Parsley a “spiritual guide.”

Parsley, whose World Harvest Church in Columbus has a 400-person staff, had said this about America and Islam:

I cannot tell you how important it is that we understand the true nature of Islam, that we see it for what it really is. In fact, I will tell you this: I do not believe our country can truly fulfill its divine purpose until we understand our historical conflict with Islam. I know this statement sounds extreme, but I do not shrink from its implications. The fact is that America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed, and I believe September 11, 2001 was a generational call to arms that we can no longer ignore.

Of course, it would be quite hypocritical for me to assume that John McCain shares the views of his “spiritual guide” Rod Parsley about the relationship between America and Islam. After all, I certainly don’t believe that Barack Obama shares all the views of his ex-pastor, Jeremiah Wright, the ex-Marine and divinity school graduate who famously said those three horrible words, “God Damn America.” And to be fair, McCain has since buckled under pressure from the media and has rejected Parsley’s support.

Setting aside the issue of fairness, it’s just hard to believe that McCain sees Islam itself as the enemy of America. It’s hard to believe that a man smart enough to be a Republican nominee for President of the United States could even consider holding such a delusional, self-destructive view of the world. And it’s hard to believe the Republican Party – which is, after all, the party of Dwight Eisenhower, James Baker and George Bush Sr. – could nominate someone who would believe things about America that wouldn’t even pass the laugh test with the vast majority of the nation’s fifth grade social studies teachers.

On the other hand, John “Straight Talk” McCain wouldn’t call Parsley a “spiritual guide” if he didn’t have at least some rough understanding of what Parsley thinks of America, right? (Although anyone following McCain’s campaign in recent weeks would have to assume the straight-talking McCain died a few years ago. Did you hear McCain said he’d balance the federal budget by the end of his first term in office? Don’t worry: this blog will still be here when you’re done rolling on the floor in laughter.)

Anyway, McCain’s endorsement of Parsley bothered me, but I was ultimately willing to let the question drop. I figured the chances were slim that McCain thinks of the “War on Terror” as a Christian war on Islam.

But the issue surfaced again today while I was listening to a podcast version of The Rachel Maddow Show, which airs daily on Air America radio. The great Ms. Maddow played an excerpt from a recording she’d obtained, a recording of an interview with retired U.S. Air Force Colonel George E. “Bud” Day. I’ll say up front I think Day is an impressive man and I sincerely believe he deserves our respect, just as McCain deserves our respect for his service and sacrifice in the military. According to Wikipedia, Day won the Congressional Medal of Honor, and is “often cited as being the most decorated U.S. serive member since General Douglas MacArthur.”

But there’s no sugar-coating it: Day’s politics are disgusting. In 2004 he was a member of Swift Vets and POWs for Truth, the organization that launched the famous “swift boat” smears attacking 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry’s military record, calling Kerry “the Benedict Arnold of 1971.” The McCain campaign describes Day as an “old friend” of McCain’s, and used Day as a campaign surrogate to rebut retired General Wesley Clark’s recent remark that getting shot down in a fighter plane isn’t a qualification to be president.

Here is what Bud Day had to say recently in a conference call with reporters arranged by the Republican Party of Florida:

People forget out in the press, out in the public, that we are at war. Right now, we don’t have any choice. The Muslims have said either we kneel, or they’re going to kill us. … I don’t intend to kneel and I don’t advocate to anybody that we kneel and John doesn’t advocate to anybody that we kneel.

Once again, McCain is comfortable associating himself with people who want to kill Muslims. So I’m just wondering: Is that what McCain thinks? Does McCain think “the Muslims” are our enemy? It sounds crazy, but it might just explain his ideas about foreign policy, which seem more focused on “winning” wars with Muslims and provoking wars with Muslims than on keeping Americans safe.

I try to imagine how I’d feel if I were a hard-working, law abiding, tax-paying Muslim, and I heard that McCain’s old friends and spiritual guides were telling people we need to kill Muslims. I figure I’d be pretty nervous.

At some point I’m sure McCain will tell us what he really thinks about how to keep America safe, and then I’m sure the American Muslims will be relieved. I’ll be relieved.

I’m waiting…

The right-wing blogosphere is aflame with discussion of the “news” that the NYT has rejected an op-ed by John McCain, which his campaign submitted in response to Obama’s 7/14/08 op-ed.  This is clear proof, “conservative” commentators crow, that the NYT is horribly biased against McCain in particular and Republicans in general.  I’m not really interested in whether the NYT is biased against McCain and Republicans.  I tend to see the mainstream media’s biases in very different terms, but I am willing to grant the NYT’s so-called “bias against conservatives” for the sake of argument.

What I find more interesting is the tacit contradiction in the “conservative” backlash against the Times.

I believe that the NYT should run the McCain op-ed–however unpersuasive it is–because I also believe that the major mainstream media have an obligation to serve the public, an obligation to inform us of the policies of our presidential candidates (major and minor), an obligation to give these candidates direct opportunities to publicly stake out their positions.  However, if you are a “conservative” who believes in the pristine infallible virtue of American “free enterprise”–who argues for the moral superiority of unregulated markets and promotes the nigh-miraculous homeostatic balance of unrestrained capitalism–then you must necessarily also believe that the NYT has no obligation to serve the public.  None at all.

As a free-market “conservative,” you must believe that the New York Times Company (a publicly-traded corporation) has a right to publish pretty much anything it wants in its nineteen newspapers and that consumers and advertisers will “vote with their wallets” by buying or not buying, supporting or not supporting these papers.  On what basis, then, can you complain about the NYT’s “bias”?  On what basis are its editors obligated to be “balanced” or “fair”?  If you make your enraged argument by exploiting the public’s latent sense that newspapers have an obligation to be evenhanded, then you are making your argument by reinforcing an anti-market logic, a nakedly contradictory move.  The most consistent answer you can give is that the NYT indeed has no obligation to do anything (beyond its legal obligation to earn money for its shareholders) and that you are therefore merely trying to damage its reputation as the “newspaper of record.”  A truly weak argument on which to base your furious “conservative” rage, if you ask me.

     Republican presidential candidate John McCain recently wrote an Op-Ed piece for the New York Times about the war in Iraq. The Times’ editors read it and said: Sorry, this isn’t good enough. Try again.

     The Times’ decision to reject McCain’s submission (reported on The Drudge Report) naturally prompted a round of loud complaining by McCain supporters, who apparently think that since the Times published Obama’s Op-Ed, “My Plan for Iraq,” the newspaper is now obligated to print anything McCain writes in response, no matter how meaningless.

     Having read McCain’s proposed Op-Ed, I fully support the New York Times’ decision to send it back for a rewrite. McCain’s Op-Ed isn’t good enough because it doesn’t say anything meaningful about protecting America, nor does it actually respond to the most important and most basic points Obama made in his Op-Ed of July 14. For people like me, who read and understood Obama’s Op-Ed, McCain’s reply is just frustrating spin and empty rhetoric.

      To make my point, I’d like to pull out three simple sentences from Obama’s Op-Ed.

      1. Since the war in Iraq began, “Nearly every threat we face — from Afghanistan to Al Qaeda to Iran — has grown.”

      2. ”Ending the war (in Iraq) is essential to meeting our broader strategic goals, starting in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the Taliban is resurgent and Al Qaeda has a safe haven.”

      3. In originally opposing the war in Iraq, “I believed it was a grave mistake to allow ourselves to be distracted from the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban by invading a country that posed no imminent threat and had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks.”

     Obama’s opposition to the war in Iraq is clearly based on his belief that America should make it a top priority to win the war against Al Qaeda and its ally, the Taliban. (For those of you too lost in a haze of Bushian propoaganda to recall, Al Qaeda is a terrorist group that started the War on Terror when it highjacked airplanes and flew them into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.) 

     Obama’s position on Iraq is also based on his belief that we’re losing ground in this important war against Al Qaeda, in large part because we’re spending almost all our energy — nearly $1 trillion and more than 4,000 American lives so far – on “winning” the war in Iraq. 

    This all makes sense to me. It makes sense to most Americans, including those who read the New York Times and expect to see more than pointless drivel in the Op-Ed section.

     So here are some follow-up questions for McCain if he decides to work on a second draft.

     Won’t America be safer if we defeat Al Qaeda? Shouldn’t that be our top priority? Or is eliminating the threat of Al Qaeda not really all that important compared to ”winning” the war in Iraq? If so, why?

     If our primary goal is to destroy Al Qaeda (thereby demonstrating to our nation’s enemies that attacks against the United States will not go unpunished), is the war in Iraq doing the trick? Or is the war in Iraq merely a “distraction,” siphoning off resources, as Obama says?

     The only reference to Al Qaeda in McCain’s Op-Ed comes when he speculates about about what might happen if Obama withdrew the troops, writing, “The danger is that extremists supported by Al Qaeda and Iran could stage a comeback, as they have in the past when we’ve had too few troops in Iraq.” 

     A “comeback?” What does that mean? What makes “the danger” so dangerous? Why is preventing this “comeback” worth our blood and treasure? Why is it more important than the lives of our volunteer soldiers? 

      The word “comeback” makes it sound like we’re playing football. But this isn’t a game to be won for the sake of winning, for the sake of bragging rights. McCain writes, “I am also dismayed that (Obama) never talks about winning the war — only of ending it. But if we don’t win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president.”

     McCain’s extensive experience with war is often talked about, but his Op-Ed makes him sound like a five-year-old who is just now grasping the concept of conflict. “If we don’t win the war, our enemies will.” What an insight! Thanks, Senator. He writes, “A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us.” Next, he’ll tell us the sky is blue. The point isn’t that Obama and the millions of Americans who support his candidacy want to “lose” the war in Iraq. What we want, above all, is to protect this country.

     McCain’s empty rhetoric may be gratifying for those who care more about the Bush legacy than they care about protecting America. But ordinary Americans (readers of the New York Times, for example) want to know: Is Obama correct? Have the threats to our national security actually worsened since the war began? If so, isn’t this “a triumph” for the terrorists? Isn’t this “a disaster” for us?

      Strangely, disturbingly, McCain’s Op-Ed doesn’t say. In fact, America’s national security seems entirely irrelevant to McCain’s Op-Ed, which focuses almost exclusively on questions of how best to “win the war” in Iraq.

     If Obama is correct — if the threats to our national security have indeed grown since we invaded Iraq in March 2003 – then maybe we should start thinking about changing our strategy to make these threats go away? This is Obama’s fundamental point, and it’s a point McCain is utterly unwilling to discuss in his Op-Ed.

     Unsubstantiated fear has always been the primary tool used by hawks to gin up support for the war in Iraq, and McCain is no different. He tries to frighten his readers with talk of “the danger,” and the “failed state” that might be left behind in Iraq if the U.S. leaves.

     I’m not afraid of losing a war that isn’t worth winning. I’m more afraid of another terrorist attack on the United States. Obama clearly intends to prevent such an attack by bringing the full weight of America’s military might down on Al Qaeda. Obama wants us to stop fighting a war that won’t make us safer so we can fight a war that will make us safer.

     What do you think of that, Senator McCain? (And can you answer in 1,000 words or less, please?)

     Regaring McCain’s Op-Ed, all I can say is nice try. But the Times isn’t going to waste paper on a mindless campaign commercial. Come back when you have a plan to keep us safe.

    – Ian

Today, the NYT continues the mainstream media’s campaign to discredit Obama’s 16 month withdrawal deadline.  In a front-page article (“In Iraq, Mixed Feelings About Obama and His Troop Proposal”), we are informed that the Iraqi military and middle class have “mixed feelings” about Obama.  On the one hand, this credible crew adore Obama the man who for them “is the anti-Bush in almost every way.”  On the other hand, we have this:

“In no way do I favor the occupation of my country,” said Abu Ibrahim, a Western-educated businessman in Baghdad, “but there is a moral obligation on the Americans at this point.”

Like many Iraqis, Mr. Ibrahim sees Mr. Obama favorably, describing him as “much more humane than Bush or McCain.”

“He seems like a nice guy,” Mr. Ibrahim said. But he hoped that Mr. Obama’s statements about a relatively fast pullout were mere campaign talk.

“It’s a very big assumption that just because he wants to pull troops out, he’ll be able to do it,” he said. “The American strategy in the region requires troops to remain in Iraq for a long time.”

The not-so-subtext:  you selfish liberals want a quick withdrawal from Iraq but what you don’t understand is that the people of Iraq (read: middle class and generals) want the US to stay.  Forget the polling statistics (they’re never even hinted at in the article):  we NYT reporters have found a handful of people (“for some Iraqis the American presence remains the backbone of security” ) who gave quotes specifically designed to give the right impression:  leaving on a timeline is irresponsible; staying indefinitely is the only responsible and sane path.  Indeed, we learn that “a few well-educated Iraqis who have traveled abroad say they would not oppose a permanent American military presence,” unlike Obama.  “Some Iraqis,” indeed.

The only acknowledgement that other Iraqis might disagree with the referenced some is this line:  “Despite some fears about such a departure, that stance is not unpopular here.”  Not unpopular?  Let’s rephrase that:  departure is popular.  In fact, very popular.  The other Iraqis hugely overwhelm the some who want us to stay.  Elite, well-heeled, Iraqi professionals may to some degree support a continued US occupation and even permanent military bases, but everyone else unambiguously does not (not to mention what the American people think).

Why is the NYT running this non-story on its front page?  Is this “news” in any conventional sense of the word?  It seems to me instead part of an effort to discredit Obama’s position. The question then becomes:  why is discrediting Obama’s plan so important?

To be honest, I have always been skeptical of Obama’s commitment to withdrawal.  Maybe I’m wrong about this–I desperately hope I am, that I will be proven completely wrong–but I think Obama is quite open to changing his mind about Iraq, and that he might end up “pulling a Nixon,” which is to say, he’ll reverse his position or fudge on the meaning of his original promises.  Let’s remember that Richard Nixon ran unambiguously as an antiwar candidate against “warmongering” Democrats, only to radically increase the bombing of Indochina upon election.  A hint that reversal is a possibility can be gleaned in this Samantha Powers quote:

He [Obama] will, of course, not rely on some plan that he’s crafted as a presidential candidate or a U.S. Senator.

You can’t make a commitment in March 2008 about what circumstances will be like in January of 2009. . . . So to think–it would be the height of ideology to sort of say, ‘Well, I said it, therefore I’m going to impose it on whatever reality greets me.’

Let us assume that I am right about Obama (I hope that I am wrong, but let’s just assume for the sake of argument)… Why would so much ink be spilt condemning a specific 16 month withdrawal deadline when there is clearly so much wiggle room in Obama’s commitment?

This is the problem, I think:  if Obama runs on an unambiguous antiwar platform–which is hugely popular–and then wins, well, then, we who vote for him will have expectations.  Serious expectations.  We will expect nothing less than full withdrawal.

I hypothesize then that the flurry of anti-Timeline op-eds and reaction is not directed so much at Obama–who presumably reserves the right to change his mind, and rightly so, given his obligation to do what he thinks is right, however much I or others might disagree–as much as antiwar readers who support Obama on the assumption that he will do what they hope he’ll do based on his statements:  withdraw from Iraq within 16 months, no bases, no ambiguity.

The tacit goal of this NYT article is to prep we antiwar Obama supporters for the eventual argument that “we simply can’t go,” that unspecified terrible things will happen if we declare our intention to leave, that we will rue the day we set a timeline, that if we don’t obey our great wise leaders and opinion-makers (the same people who got us in the war in the first place) then we will all face total catastrophic destruction, that some Iraqis even want us to stay!  As I have argued many times, we shouldn’t fall for it.  We shouldn’t buy the argument.  If you read the NYT article closely, you’ll see that the assertion of its (front page!) headline stands on the thinnest of reeds and ignores important evidence that would contradict its central insinuation.

A headline based on the facts would read:  “In Iraq, like US, Overwhelming Majority Wants to End Occupation As Soon As Possible.”