The Right Enemies
Even though I’d generally prefer not to appoint another Republican to Defense ceteris paribus, I’m now entirely convinced that he’s the best of the viable choices. By the way, did Jennifer Rubin actually take over for Fred Hiatt?
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I love the implication that what we really need is a SecDef who will move policy rightward from Obama’s current policy. How is that even possible?
How is that even possible?
Weren’t you listening during the Romney campaign?
I mean, jeez, are you really claiming that Obama represents the rightmost possible positon on defense? Or did you think we were talking about the Hitler Administration rather than the Obama Adminstration?
But drones!
There are security guards in Iraq! Obviously, there’s no legitimate reason to have a security force at an embassy.
And drones!
It is hard to imagine what Romney could do that Obama isn’t already doing, but it sure wouldn’t be for lack of trying, and Romney would find ways to spend lots more money doing it.
I’m not sure if Romney would have represented a turn to the right so much as a turn to incoherence and incompetence.
Bomb Iran.
Build the missile defense bases in Eastern Europe.
Bomb Syria.
Another $300 billion per year for DoD.
Resume torture.
It isn’t even slightly difficult to imagine what Romney would do that Obama isn’t doing.
Put terrorism suspects into indefinite military detention instead of trying them as criminals.
Double Guantanamo.
All of these things – except, I think, bombing Syria – are promises he made in the 2008 or 2012 campaigns.
As opposed to leaving the Guantanamo Gulag as it is.
What a choice!
Whose position is that?
Certainly not Obama’s.
I don’t care about positions. I care about results. The result is this: the Gulag is still open.
No, you care about trolling.
Go whine to your mommy.
Oh, gotcha. It’s not enough to have the right positions, you have to magically make them into reality.
Every time Scott makes a Green Lantern post, people bitch and moan, but here it is.
Then you no doubt laud Barack Obama for ending the Iraq War, and haven’t written a word about chained CPI.
And, of course, you have absolutely no interest in the progressive movement.
Not to mention, you don’t have a word of criticism for Obama signing the NDAA, because it hasn’t resulted in a single person being detained.
After all, you don’t care about positions, only results, amirite?
As opposed to leaving the Guantanamo Gulag as it is.
If Obama had really wanted to close Guantanamo, he would have defied Congress and done it anyway, rigth?
People give George Bush too much grief over Social Security privatization. What harm did it ever do?
I don’t care about positions; I care about results.
What the Bush years taught us is that’s absolutely terrible for a President to defy the law and political norms – as long as he supports things that I oppose.
To be perhaps overly fair to our troll, I don’t think, legally, there’s anything actually stopping Obama to order the guards at Guantanamo to open all the gates, unchain the detainees, and then step aside.
(Someone correct me if I’m wrong about this, by the way. Given that the guys at Gitmo haven’t been arrested, and its the position of the US government they aren’t POWs either, I don’t think there’s a legal barrier to just releasing them.)
But the practical and political fallout would be immense. Probably ‘impeachment’ immense. There’s an argument to be made that releasing people whom the Congress has determined will never, ever get the trials they ought to be entitled to might be the morally correct thing to do, but the consequences are so unknowable and frightening even I would think twice about it.
Maybe there’s an argument to be made. I consider indefinite detention to be the greatest rights violation perpetrated by the federal government since maybe Japanese internment. (Am I missing something in between? Seems quite possible.) But I don’t know that releasing guys like KSM—guys who are dangerous and who we know would be convicted in civilian courts if Congress would get out of the way—is a morally acceptable option, given the likely consequences.
I would argue that the continuing terror-enforced apartheid regime we had going on until the 70s or so counts.
And you can’t fob that off on the states, either. The feds were complicit in their inaction if nothing else.
Thank you Joe From Lowell… what do the kidz say, “Quoted for Truth!!”?
(take the quoting part as read)
I won’t argue about the use of the term “apartheid” this time, but I will say that this wasn’t conducted by the federal government.
Bomb Iran? That is just one of many more extreme positions Romney took.
Wow, didn’t quite mean to set off this firestorm. A very poorly worded comment on my part. It’s not that things couldn’t possibly be worse, but really, within the realm of defense policy options realistically on the table right now, in what way is Obama taking a particularly “left” position? He’s not advocating any drastic cuts that I’m aware of. He’s not advocating any particular limitations on the use of force, indeed has expanded certain options — yes drones. I really didn’t mean it as ZOMG Obama is HITLER or really even a criticism. It just seems to me that Obama has not taken any particularly “lefty” approach to defense issues.
No Glenn, your comment was fine. Troll just going all extremist on us.
Obama’s foreign policy is hardly to the Left. It’s correctly disturbing that Republicans want it to go “farther” to the Right.
No argument with that. He’s on the left wing of the rough consensus that exists in Washington, but that makes him a center-left liberal at most.
The point we were all making is that it is very, very easy to imagine how one could move rightward from a center-left foreign policy.
Really! It amazes me when people say stuff like this. Obama may be well to the right of my comfort zone on most issues, but the GOP is worse and generally much worse on every issue.
Heck, the median Democrat in Washington is probably worse than most of the results (word emphasized per Rob Obama has managed to achieve.
I don’t think you’ll find many energetic people in the left blogosphere who aren’t to the left not only of the American political consensus but also to the left of the Obama administration; that doesn’t mean we have to be willfully stupid.
And what would that even mean?
Were you born in 2009?
If so, I think you should cut him/her some slack.
I dunno, I think Hagel’s probably the least bad of the people Obama’s likely to nominate (even if I’d prefer someone who wasn’t on the board of Chevron.) He’s spoken sanely about Iran and about downsizing the military. If you could name a likely nominee who, say, opposed the war in Iraq, I’m all ears.
I’m pretty sure, though, that his stupid “Jewish lobby” comment will sink him, since even his buddy John McCain has criticized him for it. AIPAC wins again.
Rubin really unearthed a smoking gun:
Hippie peacenik!
Smoking gun? That’s a pretty loose use of metaphor there. Better be careful…..
Hey Loomis!
Did you see that Channel 6 called you out on the news last night? No context at all, of course.
They even included a quotation from the URI presdident, which he obviously got from The Weasel’s Book of Word Salad.
I saw one of the channels, can’t remember which one. Maybe channel 10. Local television news is just pathetic in the best of times.
Local television news does an Excellent job with reporting fire trucks at burning houses.
Mario Hilario is gunning for you?
Well, especially in our little corrupt corner of the world in RI. And especially for those of us who lived near Boston and enjoyed WCVB/5 in its glory days, late 70s until the mid 90s.
U.R.I. Professor Calls For Death of Local News Personalities!
More on this to come.
But hey, you can say you know the state’s most notorious professor. So that’s….something?
I haven’t been following the episode; didn’t realize till recently how serious it’s gotten. You have my support, my sympathies — a little of my envy.
The honorable civil liberties activist, Wayne LaPierre, is going to be on MTP this weekend.
If MTP knew how to be interesting, they’d have Erik on at the same time.
Oh good, so Wayne LaPierre gets to go on TV and say whatever he wants while MTP “moderates” him.
Wish that show employed actual fact checkers, would make it much more fun.
Malaclypse, that’s first time anyone’s every said anything that made me actually consider watching Meet the Press. That would be outstanding.
Pike heads
Pike Heads
Roly poly pike heads?
It’s weird to find a Vietnam vet who isn’t gung-ho about going to war…
I mean, most of these people calling for war with Iran served in active wars, right?
Fixed that for you.
Wonder if Hagel knows Bacevich. As long as we are going with Republicans for the DOD might as well get the decent ones.
I was thinking about Bacevich. Though this quote might not be so helpful for him, in comparing Bush v. Obama re Afghanistan:
“Who is more deserving of contempt? The commander-in-chief who sends young Americans to die for a cause, however misguided, in which he sincerely believes? Or the commander-in-chief who sends young Americans to die for a cause in which he manifestly does not believe and yet refuses to forsake?”
Harsh, and I’d say unfair. Everything Obama has ever said or done indicates he did or does believe that he was doing the right thing by continuing the war in Afghanistan. This may be a stupid belief, but it appears a sincerely held stupid belief.
This seems like a “Green Lantern” type of argument if I’m using it right.
The President could indeed order the end of the Afghanistan operation immediately. However, he is a political figure. He would take immense political pain for that decision, as Republicans filled the airwaves with how weak and pathetic he was for surrendering to those brown people!
I personally think Obama would leave Afghanistan today if he felt it was politically safe, but unfortunately Americans elect a lot of people who don’t feel that way.
That’s not a question of inability, but of political expedience. Not a Green Lantern argument; simply an illustration of the profiles in lack of courage that rise to positions of political power.
Uh….basing your criticism on the President’s “lack of courage” is the definition of the Green Lantern argument.
No. the Green Lantern argument is that “anything can be accomplished with enough sheer will”.
Surely you’re not going to argue that CINCUS has no input on the deployment of US military personnel? It’s not a question of an impossible task that would be possible given enough will, it’s a question of an unpopular task that no one wants to be responsible for.
No, it’s not. Assuming Obama has the power to do so, it’s not a Green Lantern argument.
…and, therefore, the failure to accomplish anything can be explained by not manning up. The drama in the movie is about whether the hero’s will can overcome his fear. You wrote “No,” and then agreed with what I said.
Surely not. I’m just pointing out that you still don’t understand what the Green Lantern theory is.
Bomb, bomb Iran
Agreed. If Obama puts up any sort of a fight for Hagel or someone better, he will be on the quick path to proving me wrong about the meaningless of the election.
I’m just disturbed that one of the more left candidates for SecDef is apparently a Republican?
I don’t know much about Kerry’s foreign policy though.
Hagel is almost certainly more skeptical about America’s role in the world than any Democrat Obama might plausibly appoint.
Fuck, why not just nominate Bacevich himself? Or Rachel Maddow for that matter? I’d love to watch those confirmation hearings.
I think that just reveals what many of us have pointed out is generally a long standing (going back to Eisenhower or Truman) bipartisan consensus on defense and security issues. I don’t like it and want to change it, but this is not generally a partisan issue, except for the extremists on the right.
We wouldn’t need to worry about any killer comets or Mayan Apocalypses, if Kristol, Rubin, or Hiatt are ever right at all – let alone on the same day.
How would we be able to tell?
+10
First Bill Kristol, and now this.
Isn’t it funny how Democrats who break from their party to the right, like Lieberman, are lauded for being bipartisan centrists, while Republicans who break from their party by moving left, like Hagel, are radicals?
That’s not quite right. People like Olympia Snowe and John McCain are lauded as bipartisan centrists, too.
The problem with Hagel is that he dissents from the bipartisan very serious people consensus on foreign policy.
John McCain broke to the left?
Did you skip 2008? I guess we could just view pre-2008 McCain.
He certainly did in 2000-2004 or thereabouts. And that’s when he really built his rep.
Everyone views pre-2008 John McCain.
He’s been riding campaign finance reform, normalization with Vietnam, and his callout of Pat Robertson for years.
…and nobody remembers how close he was to Charles Keating.
And that was his goal when he got behind campaign finance reform.
If you look back at McCain’s political life, two postulates explain basically his entire political career:
1. A willingness to do or say anything necessary to become POTUS;
2. A bitterness toward those he views as preventing him from becoming POTUS.
The bitterness manifested itself against Bush, but has been stronger against Obama b/c Obama took away his last shot.
Yup this is exactly right.
This makes sense. I liked McCain before 2008, but I didn’t exactly follow him closely at all.
I just saw he seemed to generally oppose Bush, but didn’t realize he was just doing it out of spite.
The problem with McCain is that his positions are generally calculated to oppose the person who has pissed him off most recently.
And since McCain is the political equivalent of the guy behind you in traffic who curses and pounds on his horn within a Placnk’s time of the light turning green…
This (and everything everyone else has been saying) is all true, but it remains the case that McCain got tons of good press for his breaks with conservative orthodoxy (motivated, certainly, by spite) in the early 2000s.
Look at John McCain’s voting record, not the crap that comes out of his mouth. Campaign finance reform may have been the only bipartisian thing he ever did, and half the reason was to try to get the stink of Charles Keating off.
While it’s certainly true that McCain’s moderation was more perceived than real, he really did take a sharp left turn after Bush beat him, and then gradually turned right again starting in 2004. My understanding is that this is not mere perception, but can be seen in his voting record.
This was, obviously, primarily out of spite rather than true belief. But it was real, and it was in this period that McCain became the darling of the press.
Hagel, again, isn’t derided as a radical because he’s an iconoclastic Republican. He’s derided because his views on foreign policy are the opposite of those of the Very Serious People who praise centrists for breaking with their party.
Jen-Jen is off the rails in praise of Boehner’s Plan B Kung Fu.
I interpret her glee as a sure sign the president is about to make their year even worse than anyone thought possible. Meritocracy, the other white meat.
I was impressed that, in a discussion about a fiscal deadline on January 1 that automatically raises taxes, Rubin said that “the Obama administration has no Plan B.”
It’s called “waiting.”
Is she somebody’s kid?
How did she get that gig?
Oh, I missed the part at the end where she says that “the Senate Dems will actually have to vote on something.”
Because in Rubin’s Constitution, each house must vote on bills passed by the other.
Huh? What? Sorry, I was too busy staring a picture of Mitt Romney’s hair to hear you.
They picked her up as a sop to wingnut rage in the aftermath of Weigelgate, iirc.
This got me curious. Glenn Reynolds was still mentioning “Journolist” on his site as recently as Dec. 12, 2012.
That’s just pathetic. What’s next, “Greek columns?”
I hope so. The more they talk about their bizarre obsessions from five years ago, the less they have in common with sane voters…
Secretary of Defense Bill Ayers lolololo
I used to tease wingnuts by asking, “So, what cabinet position do you think Bill Ayers will get? His professional background suggests Secretary of Education, but I understand he’s also done some work at the Pentagon.”
OK, but why her? She’s an idiot.
Were they trying to get back and the flying monkeys by making them look bad?
After the number of conservative bloggers they went through (Box Turtle Ben?) and the lessons the Post learned, I imagine the vetting process is tougher than it used to be, and the pool of candidates much, much smaller.
Rubin won’t give them any trouble because all she does is pass along RNC talking points, right? Rubin seems unusual even among Republican pundits in her extreme devotion to the powers that be within the party. Is there any pundit more likely to give a tongue bath to uninspiring establishment figures like Mitt Romney and John Boehner?
A lack of Plan B on the part of her mother, one assumes?
That’s more like “Plan A”.
Obama doesn’t have to reveal his “Plan B” because Plan A is working just fine, a thing that Rubin is incapable of admitting.
But she claims that Obama and his officials are “apoplectic!”
In a piece that quotes absolutely none of them.
She did, however, make up for that by inserting a fictional quote, thereby demonstrating dialogue skills that could easily get her a job writing Ayn Rand fan sequels if this whole journamalism thing doesn’t work out.
Well, if they’re really apoplectic, you can’t really quote them.
I’m trying to picture Barack Obama apoplectic.
It isn’t working. He strikes me as the type who would get quiet and dangerous when he’s angry.
The idea that a black man who became apoplectic with rage when he faced a professional setback could become President of the United States is pretty naive.
Jennifer Rubin has always been the voice inside Fred Hiatt’s head.
More importantly, and only slightly OT (propaganda, right?) — Did anyone note that Glenn Greenwald and Diane Feinstein today agreed on something? (pause as universe falls off axis; resume) RE Zero Dark Thirty: There’s fiction, and then there’s inventing a fake incident to prove the exact opposite of the truth.
http://thecelebritycafe.com/feature/2012/12/senators-john-mccain-dianne-feinstein-carl-levin-criticize-kathryn-bigelow-s-zero-da
And Glenn Greenwald also signed on to the Crooked Timber letter, saying, “Never did I think I’d be supporting Eric Loomis about anything. . . .”
I feel like that deserves a once over, once this whole spirit of comity thing goes away.
I never thought I’d be writing to the Editors of Crooked Timber, until…
The slash fiction just writes itself.
We should start hyping Grover Norquist for SecDef until Republicans start bashing him!
This plan can’t possibly fail.
LMAO
For a brief moment, I wondered if Boehner had something clever up his sleeve, but it disappeared when I read Rubin’s many blogposts about his brilliant strategy that has left Obama boxed in and hamstrung. I am looking forward to a post, after plam B blows up in his face and he’s deposed, to Rubin explaining how it was a terrible idea all along.
I get why conservative thinkers praise conservative ideas. I REALLY don’t understand why she is flacking for such horrible strategic decisions so soon after her election coverage made her a laughing stock.
Grifters gotta get paid
Conservative thinkers am like military intelligence. Take two Oxicontin and see the doc in the morning.
The difference between Obama and the GOP on foreign policy?
Obama is competent American hyper-imperialism.
The GOP is incompetent American hyper-imperialism.
I’m not sure which is worse quite frankly.
Counting the dead is a measure.
Obama may in fact lead to more dead over the long term–competent hyper-imperialism props up the US hyperpower superstructure of inverted totalitarianism much longer than the incompetent kind.
And only God knows what opening the pandora’s box of drone warfare will lead to. Just wait until China gets drones (and they will). And then terrorist groups (and they will, too, eventually).
Drones require air superiority first, unless they can act like fighters and take evasive actions, right? or are these drones also stealthy, with extremely small radar cross-section?
Did not know we bothered with that, given air superiority.
I can see drones operated by China and terrorists (barely) over Afghanistan and outlands of Pakistan. Over Iraq or Iran, not to mention Israel or Saudi Arabia, no.
TomDispatch.com has a great sci-fi series on the coming drone wars. You should read it, it’s scarily realistic to what could be coming.
As long as we’re dwelling in the realm of science fiction, we might as well start practicing our womp rat targeting skills. That exhaust port is only two meters wide.
We can practice in Beggar’s Canyon.
I’m not laughing at you. I’m…uh…ok, I’m laughing at you.
Awesome.
You should read this if you think it’s a laughing matter.
You’re right; that’ fucking hilarious.
Anyone who wants a good laugh should click this troll’s links.
i read it (well, as much as i could, before i slouched from boredom), i was less than whelmed.
no doubt mr. englehart is a nice man, who means well. unfortunately, that doesn’t translate into him knowing what he’s talking about, he clearly doesn’t.
Juan Cole, the brilliant expert on Middle Eastern culture and politics, treats Englehart as his go-to guy on military affairs.
It’s frustrating.
Whatever happened to the Scary EMP Threat?
Newt is on holiday vacation. He’ll be back when the bills come in.
Really? “Hyper-imperialism?” “US hyperpower superstructure of inverted totalitarianism?”
I very much hope that is intended as hyperbole, because not a single part of it is true. Maybe you should take a good hard look about what actual imperialism looked like before you go crediting the U.S. with some sort of hyper-efficient form of it.
You don’t think the US is a hyper-imperialist power? Or even an imperialist power really?
Imperialist? I tend to think not, but there’s a legitimate debate to be had there which really comes down to the definition of imperialism.
Hyper-imperialist? Uh, no, absolutely not. If you can’t see the difference in kind between the type of even plain old garden variety imperialism of the 19th and early 20th centuries and what the U.S. does, I really don’t know what to say.
Right because the USA can do no wrong right? Face it it’s an imperialist power. You might want to examine some of your white privilege.
Where did I claim that the U.S. could do no wrong? The U.S. does plenty wrong, but there’s a ton of daylight between doing things wrong and being the HYPERIMPERIALIST UBEREVIL.
Also, why do I have to be white?
You might want to examine the history of the Belgian Congo.
Good question; he really should have stuck to some other revolutionary chic jargon, like “bourgeois.” Harder to go wrong with that line.
I do not think that there is any rel question that the US, or any other first world country, is neo-imperialist. That goes with the territory and has been clearly demonstrated in our interventionist (at the military, political, and economic levels) foreign policy since WW II.
I would add that I do not think that the US is exceptional in that regard in any way. Pre-War Japan and Britain, for example, were much more so.
Britain was serious about being, y’know, an empire, while the US pushed economic and military hegemony but never actually copped to imperial designs.
We’ve now handed much of that role to corporate groups.
That is pretty much the distinction between classical imperialist and neo-imperialist.
Although “neo-imperialist” isn’t a very useful term, ince it tend to mean, “what the US does.”
Seriously if you don’t think the USA is a hyper-imperialist power dominating the whole world you might want to start examining some of your privilege because its blinding you to obvious facts.
I’m not entirely sure you could sound more like a first-year IR major who just had their first eye-opening look at the evils of U.S. hegemony. Examining my privilege? Seriously.
You don’t advance the debate on any of this by using that kind of rhetoric.
“I’m not entirely sure you could sound more like a first-year IR major who just had their first eye-opening look at the evils of U.S. hegemony.”
Heh, I was just going to say that it sounds like someone just had their Chomsky cherry popped.
I think you are mixing up your cliches. I wouldn’t recommend pulling out the ‘examine your privilege’ line in a debate about foreign policy.
“Open the box?”
Yeah, because if Obama hadn’t personally invented drone warfare, it would never have existed.
The one that results in more dead people is the worse one.
Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it.
I’m assuming you meant “Iran” not “Iraq”, but I don’t see how you can put that blood on his hand.
Did you see those people who died during Sandy? WHY DIDN’T OBAMA SAVE THEM!? DAMN IMPERIALIST!
If Iran determines that spending money on their military is more important then saving their kids, blood is on their hands. We’re not way morally obligated to support them with external economics.
Did you see people are starving in Darfur and dying? Obama refuses to give them enough free food!
I am referring not only to Obama in particular but Democratic administrations in general. They show little more regard for non-American human life than Republican ones do in the end. They’re all worthless wogs anyway, right?
There’s such a thing as “Democratic administrations in general?”
LBJ, Barack Obama. Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton
Same-same.
On foreign policy matters pretty much which is my entire point.
Right. Lyndon Johnson’s foreign policy and Jimmy Carter’s are virtually indistinguishable.
Hell, even Jimmy Carter’s foreign policies – plural – don’t look alike.
i think your point, such as it is, is twirling down the drain. what year are you, sophomore?
you’ve probably just learned, to your shock and dismay, that your primary/secondary school american history textbooks kind of, well, sugarcoated things just a wee bit. oh, and the civil war? it was about slavery, period.
Even if you just want to measure it in terms of dead Americans, Obama’s Drone Wars will lead to more 9/11s, not less. More bin Ladens, not fewer.
The history of the last 13 years has been that Obama has killed people by the dozen, while the Bush Administration killed them by the tens (or maybe hundreds) of thousands. You really can’t see the difference?
By the dozens? Really are you that fucking blind? The number of dead Palestinians alone from his continued support of the Zionist entity and dead children in Iran from all his sanctions say otherwise.
And the sheer number of pancakes he’s gone through – that’s up into the hundreds already.
Sheesh, rea, are you really that fucking blind?
You should remember that you started out with a comparison. Which alternate president would slow deaths in Palestine down?
The…. Zionist entity?
I would say if you want people to take you seriously, you should probably refer to Israel by its name. It isn’t going anywhere, no matter what you may prefer.
The troll is trying to impersonate leftists, but all he can do is impersonate the National Review Online version of a leftist.
Poking the troll can be cathartic on occasion. Even if he’s a terrible one.
Zionist entity? For reals? You revealed yourself a bit there buddy
That “examine your white privilege” bit is what did it for me.
what zionist entity?
You are familiar with the war in Afghanistan and Obama’s escalations there, yes?
So where are they?
Isn’t it funny how virtually all of al Qaeda comes from countries that the United States has never used military force against, while virtually none of them come from Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, or other countries that been the subject of American military force?
You said you care about results. Obviously not.
Because it’s easier to get a passport from Saudi Arabia or Egypt than it is from Iran or Iraq is pretty much why.
But they’re all Muslims. And when Muslims are killed, all Muslims will be enraged. The colonial borders drawn by the European occupiers have no relevance. They’re all part of the Ummah.
Straight from the ass of a guy who has certainly never tried to get a passport from any of them.
They all look the same, too.
This is shockingly sad. They’re all “Muslims”?
That’s more insensitive then I can imagine. Do you think they’re one big group?
I’ve got bad news, they’re hardly united. I severely doubt Muslims express much solidarity with the other sects.
Have you seen the poll numbers on drone attacks in Arab and Muslim countries (including those where they’re not occurring?)
I’m always (slightly) surprised when liberals deny that American violence often leads to anti-American violence. It’s like denying that punching someone in a bar often leads to someone punching back.
Where at the AQ members created by American violence? Yemen, for one place, where the AQAP is growing on the strength of new recruits and supporters radicalized by drone strikes.
When I say American violence, I use the term broadly to include American military presence and violence committed by US ally-tyrants, because they’ve also shown to inspire anti-American violence.
The United States will be dealing with blowback from Terror War till long after we’re all dead.
Thus proving all Muslims are just the same people?
I don’t contest the drone strikes are bad policy, but they’re better than full-blown war and not “hyper-imperialistic” if even “imperialistic” at all.
Once again, the initial troll was just about a comparison.
I’m always (slightly) surprised when liberals deny that American violence often leads to anti-American violence.
Who did that here?
Seriously.
I didn’t even do that.
I stated – a position very strongly supported by the available evidence – that American military action* does not lead to anti-American terrorism.
*which is not the same thing as the miznerian term “American violence,” which apparently encompasses violence by other countries against their own citizens, even when the United States opposes it.
Wow. Mizner just got trolled by a fake liberal troll who went ahead and posted that all Muslims are the same.
I will admit a bit of Poe’s law here that “Rob” tripped into, but once you get to this:
You should really realize that you’re either dealing with a fake troll or an idiot, and you shouldn’t try to defend either one. Even if they are cutting and pasting other things that you might agree with.
Could I see some of that “evidence”?
Because there’s copious evidence that drone strikes have created terrorists in Pakistan and Yemen, and AQ in Iraq is, of course, a creation of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. There’s also testimony from terrorists saying they were motivated by U.S military action. Even the dead bete noir Anwar Al Awaki, by all accounts, joined AQ because of American military action abroad.
Yeah, sure, I agreed the “all Muslims are the same.”
No, I pointed out the obvious: that killing lots of in a predominantly Muslim country might not do wonders for your image in others. Hell, I loathed the U.S. government because of its invasion of Iraq; imagine what people in the region thought.
Again?
I’m gone through this with you many times before, and you’ve even agreed with it.
Don’t you remember? I went through an exhaustive list of the al Qaeda figures you carried out terrorist attacks against the US, and the al Qaeda leadership, and virtually none of them came from countries that had ever been on the receiving end of American military action. They were all, furthermore, from countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia that were undemocratic American allies.
You agreed with this, David – your exact words were “That sounds about right.”
You don’t remember this? You brought up the idea of “American military presence,” and I gave the counterexample of Turkey, where we have a large military presence but there is virtually no anti-American terrorism. Do you need me to go back and find the thread?
No, there’s not. There’s copious evidence that the strikes have created military resistance, but there have been approximately zero terrorist attacks carried out by Yemenis and Pakistanis against the United States since the drone strikes began. I think you’re playing fast and loose with the definition of “terrorism,” and that is not a good thing. There were, btw, Yemenis involved in 9/11, and the people who bombed the USS Cole were Yemenis – both of which took place well before there was any American military action aimed at Yemen, while Yemen was an American ally.
“Of course” is doing an awful lot of work in that sentence, because most of AQI consists of either foreign jihadis who were already anti-American terrorists (and who, once again, came from countries that were not subject to American military action), and the Iraqi component was engaging in military resistance during the occupation, and melted away when that occupation ended.
…was an American, from a country that hasn’t been subject to American military action since the 1860s.
Once again, as you have already agreed, there is a very strong negative correlation between countries that have been subject to American military action, and the countries of origin of anti-American terrorists, while there is a strong positive correlation between Muslim countries that are undemocratic American allies and the countries of origin of anti-American terrorists.
C’mon, you must remember that discussion. I brought up Abdulmutallab, and pointed out that he was from Nigeria. Ring a bell?
Also, david, while I absolutely believe that all of the accounts you’ve allowed yourself to read about Anwar al-Awlaki indicate that he turned to terrorism because of war, there are plenty of accounts indicating otherwise.
But that’s the point: you need not come from the targeted country to be radicalized by American violence, but in the case of Yemen and Pakistan, it helps if you do.
I don’t disagree that people have been “radicalized.” The issue being disputed, however, is more narrow than that – “creating terrorists.” The people who took up arms to resist the occupation of Iraq were “radicalized,” but they weren’t planting bombs in Times Square.
But even setting that aside, the observation that people can be “radicalized” by violence in other countries would be fine if we were talking about the sources of terrorism being evenly spread, but we’re not. We’re talking about there being a strong negative correlation between countries we’ve waged war in and the countries of origin of terrorists, and a strong positive correlation between countries we’ve never used force against and the countries of origin of terrorists. Claiming that country-of-origin could explain the lack of a pattern, but there is a pattern, and it’s a pattern that very strongly rebuts the connection between terrorism and warfare.
Obviously the turnaround time for terrorism can be years, if not decades, so the fact that family members of drone victim in Pakistan haven’t set off a bomb in the U.S. hardly proves anything. What we do know is drone strikes are strengthening AQ in Yemen and elsewhere.
But this is semi-interesting:
Much of the “military resistance” is put up by AQ. But you seem to be saying that AQ in these places pose not threat to U.S. national security. I’m largely inclined to agree, so perhaps you can join me in calling for end of the war against groups that focused on more local concerns.
True enough. We invaded Iraq in 1992, carried out occasional bombing campaigns while keeping it under tight sanctions for over a decade, then invaded again nine and a half years ago, and then occupied it until a year ago.
Iraqis are almost entirely absent from the rolls of al Qaeda, and from the rolls of those who have carried out terrorist attacks against the United States. We first invaded Afghanistan eleven years ago, and Afghans are similarly absent. Meanwhile, we have decades of al Qaeda attacks and organization to look at, and they are dominated by Saudis, Egyptians, Kuwaitis, and residents of other Gulf states.
I submit that this is rather stronger evidence than your reasoning that maybe there’s an effect that hasn’t shown up yet.
Well, no. What we do know is that they have helped the recruiting efforts of al Qaeda-affiliated groups that are waging their own local wars. What we also know is that those strikes are decimating al Qaeda’s leadership and operational capabilities for international terrorist strikes. Looking at their overall significance, al Qaeda is a great deal less capable today than they were at the end of the Bush administration.
I fear I have been gravely misunderstand. I am not saying any such thing. Rather, I am disputing your claim that drone strikes make that threat worse.
While we’re noting own-goals, however – when, exactly, did you start using warnings about the threat of terrorism to argue for your preferred policies? You sneer at anyone else who does that.
not unlike the jews, actually:
what the fanatics from both sides have just never quite figured out is, if they just did nothing, their enemies would implode.
and rob, your facade is melting. would you like some nice pancakes with that? perhaps a bit of maple syrup too?
In other words, you want it both ways: you want a war on terror to combat terrorism and at the same time deny that AQ gaining in strength threatens Americans.
Why would bin Laden, Zawahiri, or Khalid Sheik Mohammed need passports (you mean visas) to the United States? The high correlation between al Qaeda and American allies, and the strong negative correlation between al Qaeda and countries that American enemies, extends all the way through the ranks.
Try again.
Nice racist theory, but answering a question about why there are vast differences between various groups of Muslims by asserting that they’re all the same is stupid even for a Gates of Vienna sock puppet like you.
But they’re all Muslims. And when Muslims are killed, all Muslims will be enraged. The colonial borders drawn by the European occupiers have no relevance.
You don’t know much about Islam, do you? Sunnis vs Shiites, or Sufis vs Wahabbis, mean nothing to you? Not to mention the Alawites, or the Turks . . .
Here in Pennsyltucky, we have many Ahmadi Muslims, with a mosque, a section of highway to keep tidy, and a ladies’ committee that helps with volunteer fire company fundraisers and the like.
Here in Grand Rapids, there are two mosques (the Bosnians don’t go to the same mosque as the Arabs) within a mile of my house. Just ordinary people . . .
Staying in Iraq: incompetent hyperimperialism.
Leaving Iraq: competent hyperimperialism.
Leaving Afghanistan: competent hyperimperialism.
Staying in Afghanistan: incompetent hyperimperialism.
Opposing Iraq War: competent hyperimperialism.
Supporting Iraq War: exactly the same thing as opposing the Iraq War, except less competent.
There are still thousands of mercenary troops in Iraq, and if you think we’re leaving Afghanistan anytime soon I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.
Leaving Iraq: Competent Hyper-Imperialism
Buying a Car: Incompetent hyper-imperialism
Buying An Escalade: Compentent Hyper-Imperialism
Saving a Bunch on Car Insurance: Priceless.
But how expensive is the bridge he mentioned having for sale?
This is important.
Funny how those “mercenary troops” don’t actually engage in any fighting. Or patrolling. But you’re right – why would anyone believe that there should be security guards at an embassy? Wake up, sheeple!
Ah, the good old days of 2009. Thanks for the walk down memory lane.
We’ll be there as long as the oil is there. Which is why, to this day, there are thousands of US servicemen and women in Libya.
So apparently nothing that anyone can do is not “hyper”imperalist?
Oh whoops. I thought that was true Rob.
OT, but Pike-Gate Isreal http://americanpowerblog.blogspot.com/2012/03/erik-loomis-university-of-rhode-island.html#
“Loomis is not speaking metaphorically when he calls for a “decades-long fight to the death” against conservatives.”
OMFG.
Man, that quote has loosed its moorings so badly it comes with its own pancake recipe.
That’s some top shelf Donalde styled crazy
We on the right know what to do: “Be Breitbart.”
Cthulhu cannot love me enough for this to actually be real.
I certainly encourage him to “be Breitbart, give that the donkey fucker is dead and mouldering.
Exactly. Snort up and keel over!
See, the beautiful part is that, if I had to come up with one person with worse anger management problems than Breitbart, Donalde is one if the few who could sink to the occasion.
Be Breitbart, Donalde, be Breitbart.
I must sadly shake my head at this display of violent rhetoric here.
Yes, Andy Breitbart, a man who once flipped off a protest against child soldiers because he just hated protesters that much.
I always smile reading one of those posts, imagining some dentist putting a kid through college after Donalde grinds all the enamel off his teeth.
I don’t think there’s a legal barrier to just releasing them.
I would think we would have a legal obligation to provide some means of safe transit. Would it be legal just to let them die of exposure and lack of food? Realistically, I doubt everyone in there would want to just risk it all like Harold and Kumar leaving Gitmo. A few of them probably are unfit for travel without assistance. This would all require some funding, I’d think, funding Congress would refuse to provide.
Maybe they can do some “sponsor an accused terrorist” commercials, like the ones for the starving African children?
I’m sure that will raise some funds.
Actually, if they ran them in Peshawar….
Can somebody please tell me..is HW Brands American Collossus (sic) worth geting (sic) or can they recommend something else about that era..hope this isnt off topic
Speaking of Republicans, Scott, I was wondering if you had seen these:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/fox-news-chiefs-failed-attempt-to-enlist-petraeus-as-presidential-candidate/2012/12/03/15fdcea8-3d77-11e2-a2d9-822f58ac9fd5_story.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/20/bernstein-murdoch-ailes-petreaus-presidency#start-of-comments
…and what your thoughts are on this.
P.S. You have my dream job. I was seriously considering going for a history Ph.D. but I have doubts about jobs afterward. :(
Jumping around some of the above I don’t really care about the Republic in the Pentagon thing – big deal. If his Republican-ness can get him in and he remains a sane voice on Iraq – rather than the group think bombing must happen vice grip that has consumed DC – that is great. Be honest no well established lefty or Democrat with the same record will get nominated.
LGM has always been at war with Crooked Timber.
Liberal icon Alan Dershowitz weighs in:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/336259/hagel-wrong-man-alan-m-dershowitz