Rev. Wright: Shut Up; Sen. McCain: Keep Talkin’

In-and-out blogging today so I can get back to my for-pay work–both topics meant to annihilate any lingering doubt that I might not be totally in the tank for Democrats in 2008 (It’s sometimes hard for me to forget that I once said good things about Senator Lugar.)

Reverend Wright
Reverent Wright knows better than I do which path will best serve his flock but here’s my opinion: If he really wants to promote social justice, if he really wants to help black people in American society, then helping Obama get elected is certainly as viable a plan–if not more viable–than him finding more ways to publicize his obviously antagonizing views.

Yes, I understand, he wants to antagonize; he wants to speak The Truth to The People–such is his obligation under the doctrine of his church. But part of being a good leader is understanding that there is a good time and a bad time for all things, a season, if you will…I read that somewhere. I’m not asking that he not say “God damn America,” I’m asking that he not say it right now. Is the second week of November just too far away? Honestly, one gets the feeling (and I am that one) that this is less about spreading the doctrine of black liberation theology and a lot more about collecting speaker’s fees–striking while the iron is hot and whatnot. If the love of God on Earth is made visible through the promotion of social justice then Wright will surely burn one day for flexing his vanity and working against the efforts of the larger movement.

The New DNC Anti-McCain ad:
Some thoughtful people have chimed in on McCain’s repeated admission that he doesn’t care if we stay in Iraq “for a 100 years” or “10,000.” To some, it seems that to continue to rag on McCain for his statements is purely and illegitimately to take them out of context. To others, like TPM’s Josh Marshall, these attackers are fully in the right because they are “using the senator’s own words.” The release of the new DNC ad has reignited this debate.

I had hoped to chime in on this myself before someone else made the proper defense but Marshall did it today. Basically it might be true that most of the attacks, to a very minor degree, take McCain’s statements out of context. He did say that he didn’t care if we were in Iraq for a 100 or 1,000 or 10,000 years. But he did not mean that we would be continuing the Iraq War for that long. What McCain meant was that we would occupy Iraq indefinitely under a similar arrangement as we have with Germany or Japan and boatloads of other nations, which, given the nature and success of those arrangements, is hardly a controversial policy.

The problem, as Marshall correctly points out is that:

…there’s little reason to believe our occupation of Iraq will ever be like that. We tried this in Lebanon; the French tried this in Algeria; the British even tried it in Iraq. Western countries have a very poor history garrisoning Muslim countries in the Middle East. Iraq isn’t like Germany or Japan, not simply because of the history of the country but because both countries accepted decades-long US deployments as a counterweight to threatening neighbors. The relevant point is that McCain believes American troops should stay in Iraq permanently. His pipe dream about Iraq turning into Germany doesn’t change that.

That’s the crux here, Iraq will continue to be a deadly experiment in imperialist overreach for years into the future and will likely never transform into anything else. So the fact that McCain really hopes that our 10,000-year occupation is a peaceful one is completely irrelevant. Marshall and I both love this elegant restatement of the point from the New Yorkers‘ Rick Hertzberg:

McCain wants to stay in Iraq until no more Americans are getting killed, no matter how long it takes and how many Americans get killed achieving that goal–that is, the goal of not getting any more Americans killed. And once that goal is achieved, we’ll stay.

So regardless of whether or not you believe that McCain meant that we would have a 100-year-long war in Iraq or not, his policy will result in one, and thus this ad and all others that accuse McCain of endorsing a 100-year war in Iraq are 100% justifiably and correct. The fact that he has deluded himself into believing that that is not the case makes him more deadly, not less. This is a case where the context hurts McCain rather than helping him. Out of context he is merely calling for 100 years of war with Iraq presumably in an effort to secure the safety of Americans. In context he’s strategically incompetent and dangerously naive about national security matters; and his incompetence and naivete will result in a 100 year long war. Vote for him at the peril of your sons and grandsons (and their kids, and their kids’ kids…at least.)

Greenwald and The New York Times

On Sunday The New York Times published an important, and long, story about retired military officers essentially bribed to act as government shills in the run up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Glenn Greenwald has rebuked this story on two accounts:

• The the information in the story is not new and that
• The New York Times, and other mainstream media outlets were critically complicit in the cover up that is now being exposed and the story under-emphasizes that aspect.

A more thoughtful response than I can muster for the moment–both to this story and for Greenwald’s commentary–seems appropriate. On the one hand it seems that David Barstow’s story is important, accurate, and laudable. It is laudable both professionally and politically. It took a lot of hard work and a lot of bravery to run with this story. The Pentagon apparatus employed here is filled with the kinds of nooks and crannies that practically define the phrase “plausible deniability.” Some of those accused of being a part of the war propaganda machine were probably taken advantage of by the Pentagon–that is–they spoke what they believed to be right and true, or they spoke what they knew would be personally profitable and were therefore more than happy to accept the mantle of “defense expert” when the time came. Others were probably duped, as they claim. The fact that the Pentagon’s heavy hand put more weight on some shoulders than on others, does not reduce their role in what was essentially the anti-democratic approach toward selling the war and it was good of the Times to draw attention to what they had done (are doing).

But newspapers aren’t, as Greenwald would want, pure watchdogs on our bureaucratic masters. Watchdoggery is just one role–arguably the most important role–but still just one, and when a paper makes a claim as far, broad, and deep as this one, it needs to make sure that what is conveyed are facts and not theories. So in that regard I think the story is laudable as well. The story seems fair and part of that seeming legitimacy is the consideration that the story was given. The price we pay for consideration is time–and the story is now too late to do much but engender or exacerbate cynicism.

We also have to pay the price of undue restraint and outrage. The New York Times will not go after these base and worthless men with the vitriol that they deserve and thus much of the reading public will think that the compassionate and restrained approach is the appropriate one. They will think it’s OK to shrug our shoulders and say, “Well, what did you expect?” and walk away. Perhaps more importantly, they will forget to associate these men with the intellectual and moral depravity that allowed them to speak well of bad people, to heap accolades on uninformed policy, and to speak lightly not only of the deaths of American solders and Iraqi civilians but also on the importance of military overreach and the huge price we would pay at home–just so they, and they alone, could profit.

Greenwald himself even musters up a little bit of the old “What did you expect” throughout his piece. Greenwald cites a few instances where much of this information was already reported, sometimes even in the Times itself.

This is one of those instances where it is just very hard to argue with Greenwald and one of the reasons I think his blog is so important–but it is also indicative of one of the frustrating things about his blog. It is true that much of this ground had been covered in the Times and in other outlets as well. But it is also true that despite those previous stories nobody has been paying attention until now. At least my impression is that this story has made a bigger splash than previous efforts.

It is also true that if the Times hadn’t run this story, then in a month or two or three when Greenwald once again got a bug up his ass about so-called experts so deeply in the pockets of the war machine they’ve gone pale and eyeless who talk in favor of the war as supposedly neutral sources he would complain that the Times and others routinely refuse to cover this very important story. It’s as if the mainstream media just can’t win at all. If they don’t run a story, then they are helping cover up important information; if they do the story, it isn’t enough or it’s too late.

Greenwald demands that mainstream media sources continue to run stories that he decides are important even if there is a proven lack of public interest in them, claiming that the press kills stories that are important and interesting while they simultaneously force banalities on their readership. And to some extent he’s right when he claims that if the press continues to print an important story it will eventually force 1) people to sit up and take notice and 2) those involved to respond–both of which will make the story “important.” But it’s not like the Times can run a story with this lede:

New York City–For the fiftieth time this month the Times is running a story on how Senator Rockefeller is undermining the Fourth Amendment through his incessant kowtowing to the Bush administration. Informed sources at the nation’s “paper of record” want to know why you idiots aren’t taking the bait on this already.

Greenwald could do that, the Times can’t. So it’s hard to blame them for touting their news as “new.”

Of course, now I’m being unfair to Greenwald and increasing the the supposed condemnatory air in his post, so I will attempt to correct that. By all appearances he seems to have liked this story. He praises the excellent investigative journalism and he applauds the Times for devoting so much space to such an important story.

He seems to be adding to the story, not for the benefit of Times readers but for the benefit of his own. And what he wants to add is this: even though the Times must tell you that this is new information, it isn’t and we must be more aware, we must extend our memories, we must look outside the mainstream papers to get more substantive news. And he wants to add this: running this story now does not act as atonement for its past crimes. At the very least, Greenwald seems to say, the Times should have mentioned its role in helping the Pentagon in this message. He seems to be adding, most importantly, this: the story condemns the officials and it condemns the Pentagon, but it doesn’t fully condemn the press that allowed it to happen.

I get the feeling while reading Greenwald that he would be satisfied with no less than absolute perfection from our mainstream media. And I suppose he should be demanding perfection; our media is our primary tool for holding government officials accountable for their actions, so its dire the system works appropriately. I also suppose by expecting and demanding perfection he will routinely be angry at the realities he is presented with. I also suppose that voices like Greenwald’s act as important restraints on the laziness and intellectual shortcomings inherent in all people, journalists not excepted. But sometimes I can’t shake the feeling that Greenwald isn’t out to make anything better; he’s just out to complain about something. It seems to me that ragging on an admittedly good piece of investigative journalism is a lot like a cop pulling over a speeder in sight of an ongoing armed robbery. It seems to me that while the Times is busy running a 7500 word on a really important story, even if imperfect, there were bigger fish to fry that day.

The Imminent Robot Menace

Okay, another quick “tangentially political” post for today because I just can’t pass this up. For those who don’t seem to know, comics and sci-fi have finally begun taking up prominent positions in the supposedly higher culture. Of course Art Spiegelman’s Maus won the Pulitzer way back in the 90’s and then a few years ago Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay won it too. This year, sci-fi and comic book laden The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz won the esteemed prize which in previous years had been reserved in advance solely for John Updike. Umberto Eco’s latest book too is filled with old 4-color newsprint strips (real or fictive, I’m not sure since I only flipped through). This geekward trend is most startling and refreshing in the realm of wonky political discourse. A few years ago James Mann’s book The Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet was on everybody’s lips, including on the floor of congress.

Most recently or…soon to be recently…Matthew Yglesias (of The Atlantic) has written and published his first book Heads in the Sand: How the Republicans Screw Up Foreign Policy and Foreign Policy Screws Up the Democrats. In that book he uses a few pop cultural comparisons to explain political points, not the least awesome of which is calling the Republican strategic plan in Iraq the “Green Lantern Theory.”

I’ll explain more about that and more when I’m finished with the book and my review of it. But for those who might be reluctant to pick up a book on US foreign policy, here are a few robot-themed blogposts from Ygelsias from the last few days (quoted in full) to prove that he’s a keen insight not just on our present but on our future as well. You would be wise to listen to him and heed his Cassandra-like warnings in most areas–but most importantly his wise-beyond-his-years fear of robot dominance:

From April 10, 2008:

George Borjas, every immigration-restrictionist’s favorite economist, has a post up suggesting we look to Japan where they’re planning to massively scale-up the use of robots as an alternative to the immigration of unskilled labor. That sounds like a great alternative if you don’t care about the interests of immigrants themselves at all and are also willing to overlook the fact that once we become dependent on robot labor they’re going to rebel and enslave us. One really needs to wonder whose side Borjas is on.

From April 9, 2008:

Andrew traces another step in the machines’ inevitable rise to world domination: A computer capable of telling which women are the attractive ones. In conjunction with their three-dimensional printers, the machines will be able to use this technology to create the sexy spies who ultimately lead to our downfall.

And from April 8, 2008:

The robot threat grows more serious, as a New Zealand-based team creates a self-replicating printer. The good news is that it’s only a printer — little capacity to rebel and enslave humanity. Meanwhile, the currently existing military robots daren’t rebel and enslave humanity because they can’t build new robots. But if the battlebots start talking to the self-replicating printers, we’re going to be in a world of pain.

I would be remiss if I didn’t note that partially in honor of Yglesias’ book, Ezra Klein at the The American Prospect blogged the other day on Superman vs. Jack Bauer foreign policy positions and the structural legitimacy Superman and Captain America gained by working within domestic legal institutional frameworks (and how both went on to form United Nations-like superhero organizations that were respected rather than feared despite their collective might).

To think, if I had been more popular in high school I would be almost incapable of understanding contemporary literature or political commentary. Thank goodness for my later-than-normal growth spurt and persistent fascination with multi-faceted dice.

Boycott the Olympics? But What About My Dreams?

It is important to note right off the bat that Clinton did not call for a boycott of the Olympics. Much of the boohooing and jeering from the headline-only-reading blogizens is that Clinton is demanding that Bush take the drastic-yet-worthless move of pulling our athletes from the competition ruining their lives for nothing more than a stern fingerpointing at Hu Jintao. Unless I failed to read the story properly (check for yourself here, but when you check please read more than the misleading headline and read [for godssake] the opening sentence) she has merely stated that she thinks the president should boycott the opening ceremonies.

Many would claim that that this is just a symbolic gesture that doesn’t mean anything and will lead nowhere but to offending our growing trade partner, China..and of course ruining the Olympics (woe upon woe!). Sure, a handshake, a cold shoulder, raising your voice when angry, being late to a meeting discussing irrelevant topics are all symbolic gestures but they do indicate a certain amount of satisfaction or dissatisfaction both to the recipient of that symbol and to those who witness it. That is the stuff of diplomacy. Much of diplomacy has always been about showing up to the right parties, having your name next to the right people at the right time, shunning those that attempt to act outside the system. Diplomacy…as a distinct way of convincing people to do what you want them to do without forcing them to through brute force…is an art that pulls its power from psychology and sociology, as well as rational and intellectual appeals. Furthermore this sort of symbolic communication can be timed for the utmost efficacy.

There’s a lot of money in the Olympics. Perhaps more importantly there is a lot of prestige that comes with being granted the Olympics–prestige that is, in part, related to the Olympics mission: promoting transnational brotherhood through the power of sport. And roll your eyes if you must, but the Olympics have repeatedly proven themselves to be an important venue for stating things of importance. And country’s will go extremely far to protect the glittering image that got them awarded the Olympics to start with.

China, for example has spent billions (billions) preparing for the coming tide of visitors from all all over the world. They have tightened several laws and loosened some others.

For another example, look to Mexico in 1968. Not the black-fisted salute, although that image is important not because it happened, or because it happened at a sporting event, but because it happened at the Olympics. I’m talking about the student protests a few months before the summer Olympics games that were thought to be so embarrassing for the Mexican government that the government arranged to have the protesters massacred. A move that, while horrible and dramatic, did significantly quiet the amount of domestic protest in Mexico during the games. I’m not condoning the massacre of dissidents (what a grandly self-destructive move that would be). I’m citing it as an example of the extremes that governments will go through in an attempt to not sully their reputations at Olympic time. Turns out that student massacres are bad way to not have your reputation sullied but that is neither here nor there at the moment.

After admitting that I’m a reader of Daniel Drezner’s blog, it would probably be wrong of me to not credit him for saying first what I’m about to say. Basically Clinton’s proposal is limited in scope, designed to draw attention to China’s extreme violations of human rights (and its clear vision that there are no such things as human rights) without entering into an all-or-nothing pact that would hurt American businesses, American athletes, or our burgeoning relationship with a major world power that over the last 20 years or so has made significant improvements in the human rights area, to say nothing of their increasing importance in American foreign policy interests like the six-party talks with North Korea.

It is possible, even, as Drezner points out, to make this statement even more important by acting in conjunction with the leader’s of Germany, France, and ideally some developing nations as well. Furthermore, it is possible that Bush could use the threat of a boycott to illicit some immediate concessions from China, specifically on the Darfur front, if Bush can convince France and Germany not to go through with their possible and planned boycotts respectively.

The alternative is to do nothing and that seems to be the consensus of many. That, since we won’t change China overnight with a symbolic boycott of the opening ceremonies we might as well do nothing at all, after all, why risk offending a country that holds so much of our debt and has such strategic value as an ally and trading partner? Well, that recommendation denies how much has diplomacy goes on with China every day. China did not wake up one morning and decide to be America’s trading partner. Nor did America simply wake up one morning and decide to be China’s. That series of agreements was the result of a series of diplomatic tits for tats–China agreeing to certain policy constraints to gain access to America’s markets and America promising to, among other things, cool the hot rhetoric we have historically aimed at China. Basically, the threat of an Olympic boycott is exactly the kind of thing we have done with every reluctant ally-in-waiting. Only the effect of such a move today is amplified because of our trade relations and because of the Olympics.

To do nothing with Hu Jintao still listed as one of the top 20 human rights violators is really to condone that activity. There is no two ways about it. That is not to say that a boycott of the opening ceremonies is the only way to make a statement, there are plenty of things that can be done, and likely will be, but an opening ceremony boycott would not be the knife in China’s the back as many would like to paint it…nor would it destroy the dreams of our hard-working athletes or ruin the Olympics. As a matter of fact, I would think that a lot of the athletes participating in this year’s games are just as distraught as some of those recommending a boycott–although conflicting personal and professional interests will keep them from saying so for the moment. An acknowledgment from the president that America will participate in the games in a spirit of brotherhood through sportsmanship but does not condone the ruthlessness of the PRC might help alleviate some of the guilt that they are feeling for participating in such a grand money-making event for the Chinese dictatorship.

Absolut Incite

I can only assume that in the marketing department of Pernod Ricard, owners of Absolut Vodka, they figure that no Americans read Quien Magazine where this ad originally appeared.

Honestly, I’m not sure what logic made them think that infuriating what has to be one of their largest markets would be a good idea. What’s even more stupid is that the Right Wing Blogosphere is lit up as each blogger races to lay the blame on “the liberal media” or to associate various Hispanic campaign advisers with the ad concept.

It goes without saying, of course, clearly, obviously, that no candidate for president, past or present has ever advocated reversing the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

Bush’s Dictator Dance Card is Full to Bursting

Last Thursday I ranted against President Bush’s admonishment of Barack Obama over whether the latter, as president, should have sit-down talks with North Korea, Cuba, or Iran. What I said specifically was that Bush was a pandering, hypocritical ass, or words to that effect. Without getting into the rightness or wrongness of sitting down with the world’s dictators I offer this.

Each year various publications rank the world’s worst dictators and with little variation those lists match up one to the other. About 70 countries are ruled by dictators. The day before I posted about Bush lecturing Obama on proper US foreign policy standards, I showed a picture of George Bush playing dress-up with number 20 on the 2007 list, Vladimir Putin, the rabidly anti-deomcratic president of Russia (soon to be anti-democratic prime minister after his self-appointed successor is “elected.”)

Following is George Bush standing next to, smiling, and–in one instance–apparently frolicking with various members of other leaders from the top 20 of 2007’s worst dictators list. Numbered for your convenience.

For the record Castro doesn’t even make the top 20.

With so many dance partners our lame duck leader is sure to get a little tired…but don’t worry, he has C. Rice to dance when he don’t want to.

I Will Miss You All

Aware that America’s ability to defend itself against terrorism would soon be weakened, House Democrats vainly attempted to extend the Protect America Act. Their valiant efforts to protect this city on a hill was thwarted by one man, President George W. Bush, who petulantly demanded that House Republicans vote against the extension, which they cravenly did. The very important Protect America Act will expire tonight. God help us all.

I just have one question: When will Bush and his hawkish cronies in Congress start taking this War on Terror seriously?

Military and Militarism

William J. Astore’s piece in yesterday’s Salon is nothing more than a full frontal assault on American’s proper moral growth away from militarism veiled as an attack on the intelligentsia’s undemocratic elitism. It is not that everything that Astore says is wrong but his failure to understand the attacks on the institution of militarism causes him to comically defend that which is not attacked, to promote that which no decent person would promote, and to ignore the obvious on multiple occasions. The essay is either a poorly constructed piece of propaganda specifically but ineffectively designed to twist progressives’ ideas in on themselves, or Astore is a kneejerk reactionary bent on defending the institution through which he developed his own identity and in which he is therefore emotionally and psychologically invested. In either case, charges of injudicious elitism should be ignored by those who rightfully wish to eradicate the 19th Century twin specters of militarism and imperialism.

Astore most prominent and basic failure is confusing attacks on militarism with attacks on the military. He says that progressives attack militarism but then in order to defend why they shouldn’t do that or how they might better develop their arguments he defends the military. While the two are often found together they are not identical. The belief that force is the answer to America’s problems, that unilateral military intervention can substitute for diplomacy, and that America’s military supremacy grants the American government a moral obligation or universal right to enforce our will on others are all concepts that are worth fighting against. These concepts form the foundation of militarism and–when exercised–imperialism. In terms of policy, militarism has led the American government to spend more money on its military than any other industrialized nation and, while America’s extreme wealth has allowed for our military costs to remain low as a percentage of GDP, that is quickly changing both from an increase in military spending and a decrease in the nation’s raw output. That money could be better spent and any thinking person knows it. Progressives would like to see that money spent on any number of good causes whose benefits would extend from the very poorest to the very richest. Traditional conservatives would like to see that money returned to private citizens in the form of smaller government and lower taxes.

But attacks on the military are not the same as attacks on militarism and for the most part progressives attack the latter rather than the former. In the cases where there are attacks on the military directly, either from the right or the left, the attacks are not directed at the concept of a military but rather on the unfair, undemocratic, and exploitive way it is run. That is to say that attacks on the military are isolated to the military leadership and not to the enlisted men and women that fight the wars.

Most Americans, even those who were not alive during World Wars I and II look back fondly to a time when our default military position was one of non-intervention, to an era when military force was reserved for those moments when military force improved our nation’s strategic standing and fought against legitimate enemies. I have heard no arguments for dismantling or even substantially decreasing the size of the American armed forces. All reasonable parties understand the necessity of a military.

Astore pretends that progressives do not understand or do not appreciate the wide diversity of people represented in the armed forces when it is quite clear, if his argument is to be believed as representing his actual thoughts, that it is he does not understand the nature of that diversity. It is true, as he states that ethnic and racial minorities seem overrepresented in the enlisted ranks. It is also true, although he fails to mention it, that the group of commissioned officers not only do not reflect this over-representation but reverses it. Commissioned officers are disproportionately white and college educated. He also fails to mention the high degree of nepotism that, despite other reforms, the military has failed to abolish. Critics from within the ranks of the armed forces still talk about not knowing the right people and not having the right parents when it comes to trying to make higher ranks. Even the non-elitist military that Astore champions is still famously elitist when it come to the ones who don’t see the front lines of battle. When you combine the top brass elitism with the overrepresented ethnic and racial minorities on the front lines, you’d have to be an idiot or villain to think that progressive attacks on that system are ill placed. A handful of minority generals and colonels do not remove the stink of the racism and classism that permeates the armed forces. Of the 39 active duty four-ranked officers in the United States armed forces, one of them is black (General William Ward) and all of them are male.

But a charge of systemic disproportion, if it happened naturally, is not a condemnatory charge. The fact of the matter, and we all know it, is that within the system individuals make the choices. College-educated people largely do not sign up for the military. This isn’t because we think it’s inherently stupid. It’s not because we’re effeminate. (Although there are educated people who do think it’s stupid and some that are effeminate.) But, college educated people can choose jobs that pay more and risk less. And the reverse is true too. The military isn’t just recruiting from America’s ghettos and farms because those people are any more willing to die. America’s urban and rural uneducated and poor are willing to work for less and often don’t see any other options for themselves.

It is true, as Astore says, that many people long for the challenge and hardships of military life, even of war–war is, after all, a force that gives us meaning. It is true that many young men and women seek a career, or even a short term job in the military in order to help shape their identities. But it also true that many, the majority of soldiers, do not do this. Astore is an idiot if he thinks we haven’t noticed that, with one exception in the last 60 years, enlistment goes down as the risk of dying goes up. He is an idiot if he thinks we haven’t noticed that the military is lowering its educational standards in order to meet its enlistment needs. Education does not equal intelligence but a lack of education does limit career options. Education does not equal intelligence but a lack of education does limit the ability to think critically. Education does not equal intelligence but a lack of education impairs the ability to engage equally with the multi-billion dollar ad campaign that powers the enlistment machine. The military is not just targeting the poor and uneducated because they are more nationalistic; they target them because they are more helpless, both in the larger world, and against the military’s propaganda machine. That is, the poor and uneducated are more vulnerable to exploitation. Astore may accuse rightly accuse liberals of a naturally paternalistic instinct, but it is fair to note, that paternalism in the political sense developed as a reaction to obvious exploitation not the other way around. If people had not be taken advantage of there would not have been a need to protect them.

The military’s ad campaign is buttressed by our entertainment industry. There is no lacking for books, magazine articles, television shows, or movies that glamorize the soldier’s life. Even movies like Full Metal Jacket and Jarhead that offer scathing reproachment of military culture are sufficiently full of depictions of the honor of combat, the meaningfulness of life exposed by proximity to death, and the natural camaraderie of small bands of soldiers to sufficiently inspire people to sign up. But then there are movies like Band of Brothers, the 10-episode mini-series on HBO that are essentially nothing more than advertisements for America’s elite 101st Airborne Division. Astore facetiously claims to be “struck” by how many men he talks to in rural Pennsylvania are moved to enlist after watching all 10 episodes. Despite all the barbarism of war laid out in those specials, Band of Brothers is essentially hour upon hour of stacked indoctrination, teaching the young men that watch it that it is a sweet and fitting thing to die for one’s country. Maybe it is, but Astore can hardly be “struck” that young men are inspired to enlist after being having been told that they will be revered and remembered if they sacrifice themselves to patriotic causes. Again, I am not critiquing the claim that it is good to dedicate oneself to a higher cause and to die for it if called upon. I am merely noting Astore’s facetious claim that he was “struck” by it. And I am critiquing Astore’s implication that America’s rural and urban poor are somehow more patriotic simply by virtue of their economic condition and not because of a companion dearth of other opportunities.

It is not that the intelligentsia looks down on the soldiers for being less educated. It is not that the intelligentsia doesn’t appreciate the individuals that enlist with both eyes open. They are criticizing, not the men and women signing on the dotted line, but the manipulative hand that guides their hand. Progressives are out to change the system, to eradicate the militarist regime that needs to find new ways to recruit more vulnerable people to fight and die for illegal and imperialistic wars. A new outlook on how to conduct world affairs means, less wars; less wars means less soldiers; less soldiers means less exploited people.

The lauded “all-volunteer” nature of our army is put into question by the necessities of militarism. Militarism as an institution is cyclical beast. Militarism requires wars and in a world thankfully free of a global government war is not only always possible, but always just a decision away. Societies will never lack for enemies. Someone else is always competing for a valuable but limited commodity; someone else is always strategically where they need to be. So militarism will seek wars where wars are unnecessary. When successful, the military engaged in war has reason to request an increase in its size, its budget, its executive power. When the war is over it can attempt to maintain the size it obtained because it obtained only what was necessary to win the last war; future wars are bound to be harder, fought against bigger enemies with more improved technologies, perhaps even further away.

As if that wasn’t bad enough [and it is] militarism must find troops to fight and die. It is possible that those in power, if they are sufficiently militarist, will find ways to manipulate the governmental and economic systems to create uneducated poor people to fill that requirement. That sentence is not a charge that anybody has ever done that. It is a charge that under a militaristic leadership, someone might. We never know who we might accidentally elect into power. Hitler was elected, you know. Therefore, in order to protect democracy, in order to ensure that justice is provided to all equally, it is necessary to eradicate militaristic tendencies.

Astore’s misplacement of the attack from militarism to the military is, as I said, a shameful rhetorical trick or it is based on his misunderstanding of the nature of those attacks. In either case, that is the larger failure of his article which is peppered with smaller mistakes.

For example, he at one point says that “America tends to trust its military” and he finds the roots of this trust in our knowledge that the “‘have nots’ have access to it.” I doubt that this is the source of this trust. Americans, perhaps shamefully, find little trustworthy in the “have not” culture. What is trustworthy about the military is that they aren’t businessmen or politicians. It is assumed that the leaders of the military are sufficiently aware of the nature of their business that they are restrained in their decision to go to war. Our generals tend to ask for more troops than the politicians provide. The generals tend to ask for strategic considerations that will aid in eventual victory. The generals, it seems, are more inclined to not go to war than the politicians who sit in Washington. And, when generals decide that war is the right decision, it is assumed they make that decision with heavier hearts than a politician coming to the same decision. There are rights and wrongs involved in this decision, but generally we feel that the military is to be trusted in times of war because….that’s what they do and the consequences of failure are far greater for them that might die or be taken prisoner. It has nothing to do with the democratic nature of America’s most undemocratic institution. Or, to put it far more simply, it is not that Americans trust the military, it is that they trust the military more than they trust politicians. That may or may not be the right thing to do or believe, the citizens of Argentina in the 70s and 80s may make a good case for why that’s wrong, but at the very least the military qua military is neither good nor bad but rather is a force without direction. Politicians are good or bad depending on one’s point of view and are therefore inherently untrusted by some section of the population.

Astore also, wrongfully and shamefully says that “For academia and progressives, war is today what sex was to society in the Victorian age, involving as it does emotions nice people don’t feel and acts nice people don’t opt to commit.” This “argument” is embarrassingly superficial and shamefully wrong. If Astore actually believes this I am left with no recourse but to consider him an anti-social madman, probably psychopathic. In case Astore is unaware, there is a substantial difference in the nature, cause, and effects of sex and war, but for purposes of exposing how disgusting this comparison is I will appeal only to the effects of both. Sex, when committed by normal, rational people, no matter immoral and sloppy the act is, results in two very tired bodies and one or two guilty conciousness. Sometimes it results in neither. In very extreme cases sex may result in an injury, and, rarer still, a death. Even rape, which I think is beyond consideration here, while awful results in possibly dozens of indignities, and, if accompanied by murder, a dozen murders.

War, on the other hand–no matter how restrained its execution, no matter how rational the soldiers or generals–results in the deaths of thousands. It results in rape. It results in theft. It result in indignities of every stripe. In extreme cases it results in Hiroshima and Nagasaki; it results in Nanking and Dresden. It results in genocide. It results in the annihilation of cities and cultures.

To say that disparaging war is a relativist cultural artifact of the 20th/21st centuries that will fade away in time is tantamount to wishing for a return to the endless war that epitomized human civilization during the Middle Ages. To simply equate young men’s desire for “taboo breaking” by violating sexual norms and their “taboo breaking” through institutionalized murder is immorally simple as to defy one’s ability to articulate it.

Astore accuses progressives of misunderstanding the fundmental makeup of the military. He talks about the diverse political views (conservative, but not necessarily Republican, he says), the racial and ethnic diversity, the modest gender diversity, and the diversity of motivations for joining. He mentions the educational diversity and the social class diversity. But it becomes increasingly evident that the only “progressives” in his worldvieware also “academics.” He even provides a pathway for his readers to include that all academics are also liberals (and therefore progressives) by stating that of 42 professors at Brown University all of them registered as Democrats (as if Democrats themselves were liberal or progressive, but I suppose I can let that pass.) It would seem that no progressives have made their way out of or exist within the military. It would seem that even he, who is so enlightened to find a place for militarism in the modern world is not a progressive.

He then challenges these academics to force themselves to understand the diverse nature of the enlisted men and women that make up the military because if they fail to do so they will also fail in eradicating militarism.

I guess the first thing that needs to be brought up is that university professors are not the only progressives. For that matter, progressives are not only made up of people with college educations. Astore forgets the populist nature of most progressive policy recommendation. The majority of Americans have at least one “progressive” platform that helps form their overall political ideology. Perhaps they are anti-war, perhaps they are merely anti-Iraq (which is the majority of the population right now–a majority made up of almost every Democrat and over half of all Republicans). Maybe they are pro-union. Most tradesman are pro-union even though they vote Republican. Maybe they’re concerned with global warming or economic sustainability. Whatever it is, progressives are not just a cadre of elite stuffed shirts in universities. The anti-globalization demonstrations in Seattle were demanding a progressive global agenda and I doubt that the college professors even made up a sizable percentage of those present.

Also, once again, militarism isn’t found in the enlisted men. Miltiarism is found in the untrusted politicians that make decisions for the military. The upstanding men like Cheney and Rumsfeld that blazed a legal and moral path for contemporary imperialism. Those men (and women) came up through America’s middle and upper classes, largely from white, Protestant families. In the one extremely notable example of a black, female militarist, she rose up through the academic system that is under attack in this paper. I don’t think that, in order to eradicate militarism, it is at all necessary to understand that 20% of today’s enlisted men and women are there wholly by choice–because the more important factor at work in militarism are the desires of a hungry political elite.

In one final flub, Astore claims that women find their gender identity only in biological rites of passage: menstruation, pregnancy, and menopause. Men, have no biological rites of passage, there gender identity is “arguably less secure” he says. Male gender identity is found in “the gaze of other men” and therefore men seek out military life in order to fulfill biosocial destinies. This is such a clear example of a person overreaching his discipline that I probably need to do no more than mention this argument, as I did above, to reveal it for its impropriety. Even if he is broadly correct and I don’t have the expertise to know, I think it is safe to point out a few things. First of all, even if broadly correct it is more precisely wrong. Women find their gender identity in the gaze of other women. And men, surprising, go through puberty–an event …or series of events…that provides a variety of biological milestones celebrated as elements of manhood. If Astore does not know that from his own experiences, I pity him.

More importantly the implication of the argument is two-fold, that man must appeal to his animalistic nature or deny himself. In response to these bio-social demands men join the military to prove their manhood to other men. I suppose there is no denying that this is the case. Not only do armed services commercials make it clear that the military will form boys into men other men seem to abide by, support and reinforce that claim through their actions. However, the extreme argument here is that men must be allowed to kill other men in order to fulfill his destiny, a claim that is patently absurd.

He then says, “The challenge for progressives is to recognize this and then work to create viable alternatives to military service in which masculinity and patriotism can be demonstrated in non-lethal settings.” First of all, I would bet if any group of people in the world recognize the deep normative structures of cultural and biological rites of passage and the roles of identity formation and gender it would be the “academics” that Astore thinks are all “progressive.” Second, how the heck is it the job of progressives, or any other single group to provide alternative rites of passage. Third, where did that “patriotism” bit come from? If we agree that the military does provide such an outlet where both patriotism and masculinity can be expressed at once, on what level is that necessary? Do !kung bushman express patriotism along with their rites of passage? Are men who are clearly masculine, like masons, unproved in their masculinity unless they build walls and houses “for America.” Fourth, what is the female equivalent? Must women menstruate American flags? Do they not require the interplay of femininity and patriotism? Fifth, who says that this whole gender-typing thing is desirable? I’m not saying it is or it isn’t but I don’t think that “butch” women are any less human than girly ones and I certainly don’t favor macho guys to effeminate ones. Sixth, why can’t there be separate activities that allow one to express masculinity on the one hand and patriotism with the other? Seventh, there is a de facto elimination of femininity from the military here isn’t there? Why is that? The clear reasoning here is that militaries are by definition masculine. Women joining the military makes the women masculine and not the military feminine. Which is a clearly circular argument and supports a sexual discrimination currently illegal under American law.

I think I could list problems with this all day and never explore all of them. So I’ll let the first answer to Astore’s challenge be Astore’s own words. What is the non-lethal rite of passage that can simultaneously allow a boy to express his masculinity and his patriotism? Recreate New Deal-esque organizations like the Civilian Conservation Corp. I’m fine with that, but I’m a tax and spend liberal. Of course, if its between paying guys to play chess outside their barracks in South Korea or paying guys to plant trees in recently strip-mined West Virginia, I suppose I’d like the latter. But more importantly, the best alternative to men joining the military, is… men joining the military. Astore has wrongfully assumed, again, that because progressives are against militarism they are against having a military. Maybe it’s not manly to join the Army and not kill anyone but I think that might be the price worth paying. I mean, nobody kills anybody (on purpose) planting trees either and that seems to be OK by Astore’s standards. I’d be perfectly happy with a large and well-armed military that never has to be used.

It is one thing to defend the military, but since the military is not under attack such a paper would be totally unwarranted. It is quite another to defend militarism. In reality progressives are justly attacking militarism and Astore defends the military. The effect of his confusion is that he wrote a paper that reads as a defense of the indefensible and it causes him to make embarrassing analogies and make unjust charges. Progressives do not have to rethink their stance against militarism just because a racially, economically, and politically mixed group of boys and girls sign up to join it. Disliking militarism does not expose progressives and intellectual elites who are denying the democratic nature of the army. Not only is the military itself as undemocratic an institution as can be imagined, the target of progressive attacks is not the military or its constituent parts. It is the philosophy of militarism–which is also different that a basic realist recognition of the necessity of the armed forces–that is under attack.

We’re Doomed

As I mentioned in my last post, Romney is out. During his speech he provided the reason he is dropping out:

“If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror.”

Which means of course that if Clinton or Obama win they will most likely immediately lower the flags in DC, fold them up, and ship them to “Unknown location in the Pakistani Desert, c/o Mr. Bin Laden, RE: Unconditional Surrender of United States to Miscellaneous Terrorists Groups.”

But Romney, let it be known, isn’t going down alone. You see, him staying in the race–and he was such a strong contender that he has as much as 50% of the delegate votes as the frontrunner–distracted from the formation of a national campaign. Which means, of course, that unless Huckabee drops out too, he is no better than Clinton or Obama, since he’ll aid in their election by forestalling the GOP national campaign.

I hate to break this ya’ll, the GOP knows what time it is. Their national party machinists are already at work, greasing the wheels, sharpening the sprockets, oiling the chains, etc. Romney was a no go since New Hampshire and Huckabee’s strong performance in the South two days ago won’t be enough to salvage his campaign.

But the real issue here is….

Seriously?

On a related note–As OTB says, when candidates decide to “suspend their campaigns” it means something different for Republicans and Democrats. Suspended Democratic candidates are still technically in the race and their delegates stay with them. Republicans give their delegates back and the GOP state parties will divvy them up.

Up until today here are the states (and delegate numbers) that Romney won…and the second place winner.

Massachusetts (22)–McCain
Utah (36)–McCain
Michigan (23)–McCain
Minnesota (38)–McCain
Alaska (12)–Huckabee
Colorado (43)–McCain
Montana (25)–Paul (McCain was 3rd)
North Dakota (8)–McCain
Maine (18)–McCain
Nevada (17)–Paul (McCain was 3rd)
Wyoming (8)–Thompson (Hunter was 3rd; Giuliani 4th, and Huckabee 5th)

If the various GOP state parties just roll Romney’s pledged delegates to the 2nd place winners that’s 188 more votes for McCain bringing his total to 906 (pushing him that much closer to 1,191). They could very well elect not to do that…attempting to reapportion them by share of remaining voters. But even that, while helping Huckabee a little, will still help McCain a lot more, both because Huckabee is 2nd to McCain more often but also because McCain was 2nd to non-Huckabee wins more often too. (That is, in the two instances above where Paul was 2nd, McCain was third.)

Terrorists Use Mentally Disabled as Human Bombs

I’m a touch busy today and so I won’t post long, and, in order to break up the monotony a little bit, let’s talk about something other than the horserace

So, you may or may not have heard that last Friday two mentally disabled women (Downs Syndrome) had bombs strapped to their bodies, were led into the very populated Friday pet markets in Baghdad, and had the bombs detonated by remote control.

The discussion of this incident has died down over the week but initial concerns were:

1. As with all these things, how many people were killed and wounded. The linked article above says 98 dead and more than 207 wounded. The initial report I had read said 74 dead and that included the two women.
2. Conservative bloggers were saying that liberals would be overjoyed at this because it was proof that the surge wasn’t working and that liberals would have more evidence to pull our troops out.
3. Concern over whether or not the two women did in fact suffer from a mental disability or whether or not that was a “fact” cooked up by the Iraqi government (or the US forces) to raise sentiment against the insurgency.

In regard to the first point I, don’t have an answer. Certainly more deaths is worse, but in terms of how we understand this event and how we attempt to understand what this may mean about nature of future insurgent/terrorist attacks, numbers of casualties is of less concern than other things.

In regard to the second point, no one is happy that 74 people, or 300+ people were killed and wounded. Liberal or conservative, once we went into this war, which we would not have been able to do without Democratic votes, the hope was that we would win. People that want to keep us in this war are not bad people. They don’t want our soldiers to die. People that want us out of the war are not evil people either, that want Iraqis to die, or for American to retreat, or for us to shirk our moral obligation to rebuild. We are both rooting for what we think makes a better country and a better world.

Regardless of what we want however, the realities of combat, the realities of the nature of the insurgency, the realities of the commitment of the Iraqi government to aid the efforts at rebuilding are all elements of whether or not we succeed, what the costs of that success will be, and what the cost of abandonment of our mission will be. Wars are not won or lost in our heads. The Germans very much wanted to win World War II. Losing had very high costs for them. But that desire to win ran head first into the reality of defeat.

Insurgent attacks are a real cost of this war. Ignoring them is impossible. What we must do instead is understand the cost of this conflict and make a reasoned assessment whether continuing is worth the price. Personally, I think the price of success is infinitely high and it is therefore obvious that no reward can justify the price. Sure, Friday’s attacks are further evidence that this is the case. But that doesn’t make me happy. The fact that the military defense budget expanded again and is likely going to need $200 billion more dollars on top of what they requested is a real fact undermining our ability to conduct this war to a successful inclusion. It’s a fact that will likely lead to our return but that doesn’t make me happy either.

But I have presumed something that I don’t think is so easy to presume, that the bombings are, in fact, evidence of the infinite cost of our involvement in the war.

I think we can look at this attack in one of two ways with very important differences and policy recommendations.

We could take this attack to mean that the “endless stream of martyrs” that Al-Qaeda in Iraq says they have is starting to run out–or has already run out. As discussed here previously, the effect of suicide bombers is that they project an image of an irrational actor in a rational system.  A person willing to risk absolutely everything in pursuit of a goal is a very dangerous enemy. His attacks do not stand up to reason, and as reasonable people ourselves we are prevented from understanding what he will do or what he is capable of. Strategies that work against traditional bad guys, do not work against suicidists.

There is a movement to rename “suicide terrorists” to “homicide terrorists” because it takes the attention and sympathy away from the culprit and places it on the victims, where it belongs. But the phrase and its support is misguided. All bombing attacks that kill others are homicide attacks. The suicide attack is special because it has this added menace in reality, not just in theory. It says something different about the nature of our enemies and therefore affects the strategic options we might choose. “Homicide bombers” does not beneficially add to the discourse or to the strategic prescriptions.

We have always known that the insurgents in Iraq were willing to kill indiscriminately in pursuit of their goals. If they’ve run out of people willing to suicide themselves for their goals, I think we have to consider this, I hesitate to say it this way, good news. It is of course, not good news that the terrorists have moved from very bad to very, very bad. It isn’t good news that they have upped their horrific-ness to this level. But, if it says that they are running low of the public support they need to replenish their pool of martyrs, this may symbolize a very important and positive turning point in regard to our future success against this insurgency.

However. It could also be very bad new, worse news than the bare reading of the facts may indicate. There are two facts that are fairly well understood that govern this second, and opposing, interpretation of this event. 1) Insurgencies, by their very nature, require the support of the common people. Mao-Tse Tung famously called this support the “hearts and minds” of the people–a phrase co-opted by counter-insurgencies over the last sixty years. Insurgencies and therefore counter-insurgencies amount to “battles for the hearts and minds of the people.” Anybody who has read a newspaper since March 2003 has heard this phrase repeated countless times. 2) Over the course of the last couple of years, Iraqi support for the insurgency has been dropping. This has been good news because without this public support it was believed that support would move from the insurgents to those fighting them. Recent reports seem to indicate otherwise. While support for the insurgents has dropped, support for the counterinsurgents has not risen (except in very isolated areas). It could be interpreted that what this event symbolizes is a public statement from the insurgents that they no longer care for or need public sympathy for their cause.

If true, it adds a new face to insurgent/counter-insurgent warfare. There is no doubt that, at least in The West, this event is totally despicable. Reports out of Iraq seem to indicate that they feel the same way. This attack officializes that the terrorists are demons, the worst kind of sub-human. It seems like an event that would significantly reduce the amount of remaining (and already dropping) public support. The planners of this attack would no doubt be aware of that affect and so we can only assume that it was intended. What happens to an insurgency that effectively de-links itself from the people they had previously been fighting on behalf of? In lieu of deep analysis, I point to the types of activities that are going on in other failed states–in the Balkans and throughout Africa. Crimes committed without political motive are not officially terrorism, but just crime. A statement like this, if we can interpret it in the way I’ve proposed, moves the terrorist activities away from terrorism and into just crime, murder for murders’ sake. They still may maintain rhetorically that their aim is to drive out the US invaders but if they do that for their own interests as a special band of brigands it is not really a “political” motivation.

If all of this is true Iraq is degrading further still into uncontrollable criminal factions. The crimes will likely get worse and more public as this band of criminals, now further marginalized, seeks to exercise control only through fear. The crimes will get more despicable and more public. And since they are not linked to any theoretical motivation, no concessions can be offered that will significantly derail their behavior.

Of course, that is just one of two options, and even by focusing on two, I have probably oversimplified. It could be, for example, that the terrorists thought no one would find out that they had done this, that we would believe they were suicide attacks. To be sure, most newspapers referred to the attacks in just that way.