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.

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.