Here’s what we have this afternoon:
- Private Sector Adds 67,000 Jobs (WSJ) — OK, that sounds really good — ultimately, we obviously prefer that to more stimulus spending on gummint. But the rest of the report is mixed, and confusing (to me, anyway).
- Gates Sketches Afghan Combat Timeline (WSJ) — “(H)e envisions two or three more years of combat operations in Afghanistan before the U.S. transitions to an advisory role, a mission likely to last years more…”
- Odierno: We’re leaving Iraq a better country (WashPost) — But, the general said in an interview on his way out of the country, “It’s going to be three to five years post-2011 before we really understand where Iraq is going and how successful we’ve actually been in pushing Iraq forward.”
- Radical Islam is world’s greatest threat – Tony Blair (BBC) — I put it on my front because — well, because it has my man Tony in it. “He made the remark in a BBC interview marking the publication of his memoirs.” Tony always knew how to work the media.
- Earl Weakens But Still Packs Punch As It Heads North (NPR) — Hardly a hurricane any more, from the sound of it. We who remember Hugo scoff at Category 1…
- Haley criticizes Sanford, port situation (P&C) — “I want to bite the hand that feeds me; I want to bite that hand so badly…“
Something that doesn’t quite make my top six, but which I want to pass on in case it would help: Sheriff’s Department seeks help on missing teen (thestate.com).
Related Posts
The jobs report is confusing, but it should be music to Doug’s ears–private sector jobs increased, while government jobs decreased (although most of the loss there was attributable to finishing the Census.)
Here is an interesting commentary on the Iranian situation against the “domino” effect idea of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. Let’s hope we don’t wander into any more dangerous situations based on a faulty view of the politics of the region. This one could end up far more serious than the last one if we don’t take care.
Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com (which has now been incorporated into the NY Times site) has just issued his first overview of all the gubernatorial races. He projects Haley a 55-44 winner, gives Sheheen only about a 10% chance of winning. He expects GOP to emerge with 30 governorships overall. I’m hanging onto this sentence in his post, however: “Gubernatorial races, especially open races, are often quite dynamic until the last hours of the campaign. Thus, most Democrats who are now trailing have a chance to come back.”
Gubernatorial races, especially open races, are often quite dynamic until the last hours of the campaign. Thus, most Democrats who are now trailing have a chance to come back.
sorry hit the paste button twice there. guess I just really wanted to read those sentences again…
(this is a little long – asking for forgiveness up front)
@Herb, the “domino” effect idea did not work in the past because America and our allies promised countries who would have chosen a nuclear weapon path otherwise, that we would be there to protect them in case of aggression by their less stable neighbors. In the past, rogue nations were cautious about pursuing nuclear weapons because they understood the consequences if they were successful in their pursuit.
As much as critics dislike the truth of the matter, Saddam Hussein was trying to develop a nuclear weapon program and did indeed possess in inordinate amount of yellow cake, an ingredient necessary to develop and build a nuclear weapon. Consider the implications of a future with someone who would not hesitate to use any weapon on hand being in control of a nuclear device.
There were checks and balances, preventing proliferation of nuclear weapons and they worked. Even if the methods were, by choice, intimidation and threats, sometimes, they are necessary to maintain a sense of order and balance when it comes to possession of weaponry capable of such massive destruction.
Sadly, that cannot be said with any conviction considering comments and actions of the current administration. Although Obama enjoys a high personal approval rating in Europe and around the world, he is viewed as being weak when it comes to his willingness to stand firm and publically state to nations like Iran what the consequences will be if they develop a nuclear weapon. Not some vague references to unknown sanctions but actual actions and mean it when he says it. Instead, he will depend upon Israel to do the dirty work and then turn around and lambast them for their actions. Like it or not, our allies no longer trust or believe they can depend on America in a time of crisis if it involves the necessity of military action or intervention.
For those who will use the additional 30,000 troop concession as an indication of Obama’s tough side, it is a fool’s mission. He did it because he was put in a box after he campaigned on the issue of Afghanistan being the “real war” of importance, not Iraq. He agonized over the surge tactic and went against the actual number of troops requested by the military commanders.
I do not believe in and am not in favor of war at all. It is the last hope of fools who cannot reach an agreement or a position of trust between hostile countries. It is a waste of human lives that can never have a value placed on the loss.
Yet, we have to live with one simple fact of life. There are still Hitler’s, Stalin’s, Hussein’s, and other dictators who are willing to shed the blood of their own people and others to achieve a demented and destructive personal goal of domination and conquest. There are still pre-WWII type Germanys developing under the radar, out of sight, and can present a potential danger, equivalent to the horrors we have seen and read about in the long history of the world.
There must be at least one reliable and dependable country to stand against or be a deterrent to despotic aggression. If not America, then who?
Bart, these are admittedly complicated matters. But the fact remains that the U.S. relies far too much on force and build up of military arsenal to achieve its ends. There are wiser ways to deal with these issues (a military response is one of those, but not they only one), but they get lost in the simplistic slogans and linear thinking of Western powers. The little bit of reading I have done, and relationships I have been privileged to develop tell me that we have little clue how to relate to these peoples of honor-shame cultures, which are very much different than our own. If we are going to determine policy in these countries, we had better understand with whom we are dealing, but I don’t see much evidence of that.
The U.S. cannot produce proper statesmen to deal with foreign policy, because if they try negotiate wisely, they get villified by a populace at home that understands little of the issues involved, but only wants a quick fix.
I’m afraid that we still see the world with a black and white imagined clarity, and we think we’re wearing the white hats. They’ve gotten a little dirty, however.
P.S. The Hitler comparison is tiresome, and, please pardon my seeming cynicism, for I do not mean this personally–an easy one that demands little thinking or understanding of complex issues. Once it is used, further discussion is pointless.
Yet, we have to live with one simple fact of life. There are still Hitler’s, Stalin’s, Hussein’s, and other dictators who are willing to shed the blood of their own people and others to achieve a demented and destructive personal goal of domination and conquest.
-Bart
Add George W. Bush to the list.
Seriously Bart, no one still believes Saddam Hussein was within 20 years of devleoping a nuclear weapon. If you think the invasion of Iraq was justified at least use reasoning that’s factual. Bush used that big fat lie as an excuse to invade Iraq and snatch the oil wealth from them.
Sigh. I know that arguing with y’all is pointless. The cognitive barrier is too huge. Y’all have decided to perceive things a certain way, no matter what evidence is presented to you. I’ll just quote my main man Tony Blair:
It’s worth quoting what Tony Blair says right before the quote you cited, Brad: “I am convinced we have a huge opportunity for engagement with the new emerging and emerged powers in the world, particularly China, if we approach that task with confidence, not fear.” I agree with him wholeheartedly.
Sadly, though, I think the dominant theme of today’s politics in America is fear-based. Nicholas Kristof touched on this the other day:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/opinion/05kristof.html?src=me&ref=general
From the passages I read in the link you offered, it sounds like those sentences about being apologetic etc. were more about a general loss of confidence in some of the strengths of Western liberal democracies, and I think people of different political stripes can still agree with that. But if you (or Blair) meant to link that to specifically military ventures…well, let’s just say that if aliens arrived at this planet and observed that one of its nations had 400,000 troops stationed around the planet (more than all other countries’ armies combined) and spent nearly half of the world’s total military expenditures, in whatever language these space aliens would speak to each other they would certainly not call that nation either “feeble” or “inhibited.”
As for Iraq, as Secretary Gates says, “how it all weighs in the balance remains to be seen.”
The cognitive barrier is too huge.
No, I would dare to disagree. Your presuppositions seem to be different from mine. Allow me just to try and filter out what I perceive are at least some of your presuppositions:
1) All the world would benefit greatly if every country were ruled by a democracy like ours, in which the right and freedom of the individual is the highest good.
2) All the rest of the world needs our way of life and our values, enforced, if need be, by military means.
3) If we try hard enough to enforce them, we will succeed. We need to really have a sense of mission and purpose to export them.
4) George Bush and Tony Blair both had a deep understanding of how to accomplish these goals.
A short reply to each of these:
1) In many countries and cultures of the world, the individual is defined by the extended family or clan. The clan head is the de facto leader. Trying to establish a government by means of a sum total of votes by individuals can be an exercise in futility. Of course the results can be propped up by outside influence (and money), but once that power is removed, the traditional clan heads will fill the vacuum. It might work, of course, if it were perceived that the Western culture of individual freedom (= highest value) were seen to be advantageous, but the jump in readily available porn, the destruction of traditional extended families, and all that comes with Western culture, only serves to enrage those who are in positions of influence (heads of families).
2) There were ways to approach S.Hussein short of war, but we do not know how to do it. The key is using properly acceptable intermediaries, something we have never learned.
3) Trying harder in the wrong way usually doesn’t help. Being practically handicapped, my first inclination when the bolt or screw won’t turn is to go get the hammer. I have broken more than a few things that way. Applying “shock and awe” awed a lot of people who like the fireworks, that’s true. But I’m not sure it accomplished really what was needed, and it hurt a lot of people, including the displacement of more than 100,000 Iraqi Christians, to name but only one sad result.
4) I don’t share Bud’s view of Bush, but neither am I wearing any rosy colored glasses when it comes to ours and Britain’s colonial foreign policy past. Britain created the modern country of Iraq, with the usual colonial insight of ignoring family and clan structures and drawing arbitrary boundaries.
I’m having trouble seeing military intervention, however needed it might be in some cases, as the essential core of an “optimistic view of human history,” in Tony Blair’s words. And Brad, you have a positive view of some people and issues (often involving the military) that to some of us also seems not very responsive to contrary evidence. So, there are different perspectives — an unwillingness to view the evidence as you do is not the same as being impervious to evidence.
The problem is entirely cognitive. We’re dealing with highly complex issues here, and if someone veers in a different direction on the way he or perceives a single element along the way, we end up on different planets.
For instance, Herb just shocked me by actually setting up straw men — and setting them up in a neat row, 1 through 4, in order to knock them down.
But the straw men, to me, are not accurate descriptions of reality. Therefore the edifice that Herb constructs, in good faith, veers off significantly from the reality that I perceive.
And Phillip — I think you come closest to being on the same wavelength that I’m on here, but not quite. Which is MY fault, not yours, or anyone else’s who isn’t understanding me. It’s just sort of in the nature of blogging to put something out for the consideration of others that you post for your own reasons, but fail to explain the reasons, because, well, we all have lives.
MY reason for quoting that bit about “too apologetic, too feeble, too inhibited, too imbued with doubt and too lacking in mission” was that I thought it a good, calm way to respond to two things: Herb saying, in his mild way, that our white hats have gotten “a little dirty,” and Bud’s far more extreme assertion that W. should be on the same list with Hitler.
Folks, Tony Blair is a smart man. He doesn’t look at things in simplistic ways. He sees ALL the arguments and objections. (And he’s certainly smart enough to know that the world is not divided into white hats and black hats.) And he’s saying that, when all is considered, there comes a point at which you DO believe in liberal democracy, and you do believe in fundamental human rights, and you stand up to the various forms of fascism and/or medievalism that are the sworn foes of modern liberalism.
And as I’ve written many, many times, such standing up takes many forms — diplomatic, economic, humanitarian and, yes, military. You use all the tools you have, always striving in every way to use them consistently with the cause that you serve.
That’s what I think Tony means with regard to China, and to many other things. In a sense, it applies to his views on the economy, where he would not let the Keynesians undermine liberal markets with statism.
@bud & Herb
Apparently, both of you have a difficult time with simple comprehension.
“…I do not believe in and am not in favor of war at all. It is the last hope of fools who cannot reach an agreement or a position of trust between hostile countries. It is a waste of human lives that can never have a value placed on the loss…”
“….Yet, we have to live with one simple fact of life. There are still Hitler’s, Stalin’s, Hussein’s, and other dictators who are willing to shed the blood of their own people and others to achieve a demented and destructive personal goal of domination and conquest…”
If neither of you can understand the point of what I was trying to get across, then neither of you will ever listen to anything other than your own personal beliefs and convictions.
@ bud, I never said he had a program, I only made the point he was TRYING to start one and speculate what the world would be like if he had succeeded.
And, when you placed George W. Bush in the same cagegory as Hitler, Stalin, and Hussein, you lost any and all credibility as one who is willing to be reasonable. The comment was uncalled for and totally objectionable. Bush made mistakes and I have never backed down on criticizing him.
@ Herb, I resent your comment and do take it as a personal insult.
“…P.S. The Hitler comparison is tiresome, and, please pardon my seeming cynicism, for I do not mean this personally–an easy one that demands little thinking or understanding of complex issues. Once it is used, further discussion is pointless…”
How else am I to interpret your comments, even with your inept attempt at deflection?
If anything, your comment points out one simple fact when it comes to trying to make a point with a liberal. YOU CAN’T.
OK, everybody take a deep breath at this point. I think we’re all trying to communicate, in our own ways. We just aren’t succeeding spectacularly…
To move away from the military-intervention side of things, on which we all have passionate feelings…over towards the economic side to which Brad alluded, that was in many ways the most interesting part of the WSJ excerpt. In his diagnoses of the economic crisis, his opinions on going forward, he seemed to have gone way beyond “New” Labour-ism, in fact it’s hard to see how anything he said would be disputed by Cameron or the Conservatives. Is that the sound of a guy out of public life and now racking up the big bucks as a private citizen and consultant? Certainly sounded much closer to Cameron than to Gordon Brown.
The cognitive barrier seems to be somewhat large.
Bart, isn’t there a name for the use of the Hitler comparison? I forget what it is, but my point is, that all discussion stops at that point. After all, if someone is is an Adolf who is responsible for the deaths of 60 million people in the end, then it doesn’t really get any worse. If we are in the business of removing ruthless dictators, there are a few more we should remove in order to be consistent. Hussein wasn’t even the worst. Let’s get going, since we must be relied upon to intervene in every conflict.
Tony Blair may be a smart man. He just hasn’t lived in the M.E. Many of those who lived there, and who lived there at the time (Westerners who know the culture) were crying out for someone to stop the mad rush to war. They thought there were alternatives. But then they, too, must be ‘liberals’ who cannot grasp anything. (I’m not sure what a ‘liberal’ is, but apparently it is some kind of ideological leprosy so that those of us who have it can be conveniently ignored as incurable.)
It is peculiar, however, that the only people who seem to know anything at all about how to conduct foreign policy are hard-line Americans and Tony Blair. The rest of the world, is apparently suffering from cognitive impairment. We are not just straw men, we have straw heads.
But is there possibly something wrong with this picture?
OK, I’ve reread my comment, and since comments have a way of staying there forever, I must at least attempt to qualify what I’ve written and the attempt at irony (hopefully not to be misunderstood as sarcasm), however poorly done. In other words, I do respect others with whom I disagree.
All I am trying to say is that I know people who understand the Middle East extremely well. They were and are not convinced that war was a necessity, and they are not necessarily pacifists. Nor can they simply be labeled as ‘liberal’ (whatever that is) since they would be considered as ‘conservative’ (whatever that is) on a host of other issues.
I know that Bart and Brad hold to their convictions with utter sincerity, and maybe they are right. But I also know a host of other people who hold the opposite convictions, and these have a right to be heard. I do not believe that they have a cognitive barrier of any kind; they simply have a lot more information to process.
We’re dealing with highly complex issues here.
-Brad
No we’re not. Now I’ll take that deep breath before I proceed any further debunking this nonsense.
Bart, the Hitler comparison was uncalled for. But so was bringing it up in the first place. Hussein was not the threat that Hitler was. Both comparisons are inaccurate.
There is an old saying that goes something like this: All complex problems have simple solutions that are wrong. I would add “bud’s” corollary: All simple situations can be made into problems with complicated solutions that are wrong.
Iraq was not particularly complicated in the run-up to the war. What we had was a nation run by a despot who had been cruel to some of his people. Most of the most offensive cruelty was done during the time when Iraq was our ally in our struggle with Iran. After the 1991 Iraq war Iraq’s potential as a military threat was waning and to some extent his cruelty toward his own people was moderating. So he was not much of a threat to anyone. This really wasn’t a complicated situation. It really called for a continuation of the successful strategies first used by Bush Sr. and later Clinton.
But this relatively simple situation was over analyzed to the point where it seemed complicated. That false complexity made Iraq much more menacing than it actually was. I believe that was intentional on the part of the Bush, Jr. administration. The neocons at the time wanted to make Iraq seem dangerous but the only way to do so was to make it also seem complicated. The simple, and accurate, representation of Iraq would never do to achieve their goal, a war with Iraq.
In the aftermath of 9-11 the gullible press corp bought into this twisted view of Iraq. With the press corp willing to act as stenographers to the Bush propaganda machine the stage was set to set the wheels in motion to move the nation in the direction of war. This war was nothing more than an attempt to secure the oil wealth in Iraq and to avenge Bush Sr’s honor. Once the inspectors began to uncover the truth the Bush administration was forced to act quickly before the window shut on their diabolical scheme.
Thus the hasty invasion with the inevitable disasterous result. And although the carnage never rose to the epic status of a world war the relative carnage rendered to the hapless people of Iraq was nevertheless extensive. Same for our young men and women and the US Treasury.
The lesson to be learned from all of this is clear: Do not allow the government to make a simple situation into a complex one. That’s the easiest way to get duped into making a huge mistake. Hopefully we can learn from this.
Again with the cognitive dissonance!
It’s like Bud and I were on entirely different planets — possibly in parallel, but not very closely parallel, universes — between 1991 and 2003.
That would explain it.
I’m glad we’ve come up with a satisfactory explanation…
I watched Colin Powell’s presentation to the U.N. that led to the Iraq invasion. It was a complete fabrication. Selective intelligence combined with a military industrial complex that was all revved up with nowhere to go… It was Cheney goading Bush to be a man.
Cheap shot alert!!!
It’s like Bud and I were on different planets.
Brad
Maybe in the late 90s Brad was stuck in Uranus.
again, to bring it back to Blair’s book…another interesting thing in the excerpts I’ve seen is his characterization of Cheney as pretty ready to go to war with almost everybody. Not that that is particularly surprising, but—and it’s hard to say this—maybe W stood up more to Cheney than we realized…maybe we have Bush (and certainly Condi Rice in the 2nd term) to thank for staving off the Cheney wing’s desire for more wars.
Amplifying Bud’s point, we went to Iraq not because it was a difficult problem, but because it was an easy target in comparison to Afghanistan (or Iran). (only the military conquest, not the rebuilding—because they weren’t concerned with that). The neocons needed a winnable war to send a message, A) to terrorists and rogue nations worldwide, and B) for domestic political consumption to end, once and for all, the “Vietnam syndrome,” as I mentioned on another thread.
@Herb – I think you were trying to reference Godwin’s Law. Maybe you should read more about it – just to refresh your interpretation of it. I think the usage of the three villains was in the proper context and well within the rules of Godwin’s Law. That is, unless Iraq under Saddam Hussein was not a totalitarian state and he did not engage in acts of genocide against his own people. But, as bud tried to point out, in his later years, he “mellowed” out. A “paper tiger”, prowling the world stage with no teeth or claws. Try that one on the families of his victims in his “early years of indiscriminate acts of mayhem, murder, and torture”.
And, I did work in the ME during a time when tensions were running very high and the region was ready to explode over the Camp David peace accord reached between Israel and Egypt. At one point, everything Egyptian or connected to Anwar Sadat was no longer acceptable. Hell, they even changed the name of several streets and edifices that were named after or for anyone or anything Egyptian. The cries for his death were broadcast on television. Did spend a lot of time exploring and learning from the citizens of the region.
Suffice it to say, I am not blind to their side of the situation and do have a modicum of understanding of how another person from a different culture will view the same historical event in an entirely different light. What is heroic to one may be interpreted as an act of terrorism and cowardice by another, depending on which from which side you are viewing the event. While America shed tears and was angered over the 9/11 attacks, Muslims in some countries were celebrating and dancing in the streets. If I were a radical Muslim, on 9/11, I may have joined the celebration too.
We conservatives are capable of analytical thought and our congnitive skills are no less nor greater than what a liberal is capable of.
Hardeharhar, Bud. You remind me of my old friend Dennis Boone, who back in the 80s (at the time that one of our droid probes was discovering such things among the outer planets) took it upon himself to bring a shy, retiring young female copy editor out of her shell by periodically yelling across the newsroom to her by name, “Yo, _____! Did you hear? They found rings around Uranus!”
Interestingly, Phillip and I are not so far apart at this point. His stated reasons the neocons wanted to go into Iraq come closer to describing my own thoughts at the time than anything any of my antiwar interlocutors have stated to date. He just left out, along with the part about it being easier and sending a signal to other tyrants (including Qaddafi, who got the message immediately), about how Iraq was a natural target because we had all the justification we needed, thanks to Saddam defying international sanctions and restrictions (including shooting at our planes enforcing the no-fly zone, and trying to kill Bush pere) for the past 12 years.
The difference, of course, between Bush and me was that I believed deeply in the nation-building part. I think Bush sort of did in theory; he just seemed to think it would happen by wishful thinking.
But you’re also right that Bush had been resisting the aims of Cheney et al. since early on. If you read Woodward’s book “Bush At War,” about the initial Afghanistan campaign in 2001, all through that period Bush was adamantly resisting the constant recommendation that we also go to war with Saddam. He didn’t change his mind until later.
Phillip, maybe the neocons wanted to send the other despots a message but that was just a minor goal. What they really wanted was the oil. Otherwise they could have just attacked some other despot. But they didn’t invade Libya or Cuba. Instead they chose an oil-rich country that seemed like an easy mark. Take out the oil and the whole episode makes no sense. Does anyone seriously believe we would have invaded Iraq if it’s main economic asset was sugarcain or mopeds?
National Review contributor John Derbyshire published a book recently calls “We Are Doomed” (subtitle “Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism”) that has a very interesting chapter on the Iraq War. Derbyshire supported the war initially as a punitive mission but reversed his position when he saw how Bush carried out the mission.
“These expeditions and debates will seem pretty academic five or ten years from now. By that time, the United States will be so obviously broke, there will be no question of our sallying out on trillion dollar adventures to democratize other people. The trillion dollars won’t be there. In point of fact, they weren’t there when we marched into Iraq in 2003. America’s been broke for quite a while. We just haven’t been noticing.”
Derbyshire says the U.S. only has three options for “dealing with Third World rat-holes like Iraq: nuke ’em, bribe ’em, or leave ’em alone”. So we didn’t nuke them and we didn’t leave them alone. That left our current model: bribe them. Take billions and billions of dollars out of the U.S. economy to prop up a government that will probably not see 2020. The Kurds will secede, the Sunnis will try to take over, and the Iranians and Saudis will do whatever they can to make a mess of the whole thing.
How many U.S. jobs could have been created with the money spent on Iraq? How much of a real threat was Iraq to the U.S.?
It remains to be seen whether one can really build a nation with a military force. Dynamite is excellent stuff for tearing things down; it appears to me to be very inadequate for putting them back together.
Actually, while I’m not going to say it’s the same thing, tearing down in order to build up is an old military model. The military has done it millions of times, successfully, with individual recruits.
But whether the analogy works or not, I’m glad you bring that up. Bud says we invaded Iraq because of the oil, which is one of the least probable arguments of the antiwar folks.
As I’ve said many times before, in order to understand that this was NOT about oil, just look at the stark differences between this and something that WAS about oil — the 1991 Gulf War. Sure, that was about stopping aggression, etc. But it was also about protecting Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, because why? You got it.
It was about preserving the status quo. That was always our policy before 9/11. Keep the despots in power or whatever else you have to do to maintain the status quo and keep the oil flowing. This was not a BAD thing to do, by the way. The global economy rather depended on it.
But Bush pere didn’t follow Saddam to Baghdad (even though that would have been the PERFECT time to do it, when we had a MUCH larger force in-theater than we did in 2003 and could have smothered any insurgency) because he didn’t want to upset the delicate status quo. It wouldn’t have been, to use the phrase Dana Carvey had such fun with, prudent.
The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was about saying to hell with that. 9/11 had shown that the status quo in the ME was extremely dangerous to us. Things needed to change. And where better to start changing it than by taking down such an obviously illegitimate regime? No matter what sort of ramifications that had throughout the oil-producing region.
Sure, you can say the reason we give a damn about the Mideast at all is the oil. (And Israel.) But as Mideast conflicts go, this one was less about the oil than usual. A war about oil would be about avoiding the upsetting of apple carts. As Herb says, this was about tearing down. And that produces opportunity, but also tremendous risk — more risk than is good for business.
We conservatives are capable of analytical thought and our congnitive skills are no less nor greater than what a liberal is capable of.
.
Did I say you weren’t? I’m glad you are comfortable with the label ‘conservative’, though. I hate labels. I like to hold to positions because I think they are true, not because they conform to somebody’s label. That puts me all over the map, depending on the issue.
I’m glad that you are an experienced person in the Middle East. I trust that you also note the repercussions of an action in one region on the population of another. It’s the honor/shame thing again. I’d love to meet sometime and talk more about it. I think the Iraq war was an entirely different situation from the Palestinian conflict, though, and quite possibly been avoided. Hussein could have been manipulated into a compliance that could have been useful to both sides. We Americans always operate, however, from a WWII mindset (hence my frustration with the Hitler comparison): let,s bomb them to smithereens, and then create a happy ending. The world, I think, is somewhat more complex than that.
An interesting aside on the Sadat thing though was the rage that was caused by Jimmy Carter insisting on giving Sadat’s wife a hug during the Camp David media conference. By doing so, she was making a statement of being a loose woman. It was an unnecessary breach of protocol, and may seem like a small point, but small things can be greatly significant. Carter wasn’t much good at cross-cultural stuff anyway, such as insisting on speaking on a first-name basis with German chancellor Helmut Schmidt. For Germans, first names are only used with personal friends.
Jimmy couldn’t help it; he was lusting in his heart.
Just as I couldn’t help making that bad, old joke…
The Middle East is all about oil (at least for the last hundred years). And religion (for ages). And a social structure completely different from our own (from the end of the Crusades).
If we could put the relatively small stuff aside, the West and the Middle East could overcome the religious differences issue. After all, the three religions born in the region share much more in common than either group seems to want to acknowledge.
Oil is simply an economic transaction; and while those kinds of conflicts have lead to many a war throughout history, economics doesn’t engender societal hatred.
However, as anyone who has been to the Middle East would most likely agree, it is the last which is the most intractable problem that we Westerners cannot seem to grasp. They are different from us and generally want to remain that way – and most important, they feel threatened by our world outlook. The different social/political constructions – our two polar-opposite societies – are structurally at odds. Like the voices in this thread and their cognitive dissonances, the larger cultural clashes between West and Middle East are just not going to go away.
In my view, the fundamental clash is between those cultures who value modernity and those who do not. “Radical Islam” is the ultimate strain of Conservatism. We, as a society predicated on Liberalism, will always be at odds with feudalism.
Yeah, as a fan of Arthurian legend (and in fact, some of my worldview that Bud objects to is kinda based in knight errantry, the idea of going questing after wrongs to right and dragons to slay), I’ve always thought it sad that folks say “medieval” like it’s a bad thing.
But these jokers we call Islamists certainly give it a bad name.
And the irony is, Islam was so relatively enlightened back in those days (by modern standards of tolerance).
Medieval was great, possibly if you were at least a yeoman or better. The serfs, not so much.
Brad: “9/11 had shown that the status quo in the ME was extremely dangerous to us. Things needed to change.” Absolutely. I think this is a view that people of many political persuasions in the US could agree with, and DID agree with.
But then you go on to ask: “And where better to start changing it than by taking down such an obviously illegitimate regime?”
Uh, just about anywhere else. The idea that “things need to change” and therefore doing just doing something, anything, would be a proper course of action, well that’s just no way to run foreign policy or military/geopolitical strategy.
The need for things to change was undisputed. The remedy, completely nonsensical. The two big problems we faced were Islamic fundamentalist fanatics and the overall larger question, the failure to come to a solution for the Israeli-Palestinian problem. Of all the problems and threats the world faced in 2002, the weakened Saddam was way down the list.
I’ve certainly written much on the blog over the years about the moral cost, the tragedy of lives lost, both Iraqi and American. Without minimizing the suffering this has all caused (and REALLY, Brad, is the overall Middle East situation any LESS dangerous to us or the world in 2010 than it was in 2002 pre-Iraq war?), the overall thoughts going through my mind about the Iraq venture as we draw down to 50,000 “support” troops are more about this thought: what a stupid, dumb, ill-advised strategic move it was to pursue that particular war. For everybody’s sake in the region and here in the US, I hope I’m proven wrong but the jury seems like it’s going to be out on this for years and years.
Well said, Phillip. I pretty much agree, though perhaps with less surety, but your last sentence also echoes that.
Phillip, I think a lot of Americans share your view on this. And you articulated it extremely well. We just need to learn from this as a nation. I’m not sure we can given the extremely militaristic nation we have become. I think you can even argue that much of our economic woes are partly the result of the $3 trillion price tag we spent on the war.