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"The stream of Time, irresistible, ever moving, carries off and bears away all things that come to birth and plunges them into utter darkness, both deeds of no account and deeds which are mighty and worthy of commemoration. . .Nevertheless, the science of History is a great bulwark against the stream of Time; in a way it checks this irresistible flood, it holds in a tight grasp whatever it can seize floating on the surface and will not allow it to slip away into the depths of Oblivion. "
- Anna Comnena (1083-1153), The Alexiad
"I have taken all knowledge to be my province."
- Francis Bacon, 1592
U.S. aid to survivors of the catastrophic Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, including the largest American military operation in southern Asia since the Vietnam War, could help restore some U.S. prestige in the Muslim world that has been lost in Iraq.
But U.S. political leaders and analysts caution that Americans should not over-trumpet the American role, or risk a backlash.
"Our image will improve because of the efforts we're making, as long as no one knows about them."
Now, that's not what he meant, and a reflection on it shows it's a good point - as long as it doesn't seem like we're doing what we're doing for political gain and just to display ourselves, then people might think better of us. It's a good point and would probably apply in most circumstances, for most countries. But it won't for us.
Before I get to why, I want to make it clear that it doesn't change how much help we are and should be giving. Because we're not giving it to enhance our image around the world. But our image won't be enhanced, regardless. That's the point I'm making.
To refute that is necessarily a political act that will require highlighting rather than downplaying our role in the relief effort. So we're pushed into the usual "heads, anti-Americanism wins or tails, the U.S. loses" position. That is, either we can step back and let our actions speak for us, which means not confronting the anti-American propaganda machine, in which case we're painted as Uncle Scrooge, or we can refute it by talking up all we've actually done, in which case we'll look like braggarts patting ourselves on the back and expecting to be thanked for it, which will also be resented. In either case, we're not going to get this "image enhancement" effect the AP suggests might be out there waiting for us if we're just more quiet about how much we're helping.
It's a good point in general - it just isn't going to apply in our case, and we shouldn't be surprised. If the world worked that way, then rather than being resented in the Moslem world we'd be recognized as the country that pressed the world to help the Bosnian Moslems, pressed the world to help the Albanian Kosovar Moslems, helped the Kuwatis, helped the Afghanis against soviet occupation, and helped free Afghanistan and Iraq from despotism that they deplore. But that isn't how it turned out then, and it won't now.
A story on the reactions of Iraqis to the prison atrocity, saying opinion is divided. Victor Davis Hanson on the strange war being waged:
So our enemies realize that the struggle, lost on the battlefield, can yet be won with images and rhetoric offered up to alter the mentality and erode the will of an affluent, leisured and consensual West. They grasp that we are not so much worried about being convicted of being illiberal as having the charge even raised in the first place.
The one caveat they have learned? Do not provoke us too dramatically to bring on an open shooting war, in which the Arab Street hysteria, empty threats on spec, and silly fatwas nos. 1 through 1,000 mean nothing against the U.S. Marines and Cobra gunships. Instead, their modus operandi is to push all the way up to war now provoking, now backing down, sometimes threatening, sometimes weeping the key being to see the struggle in the long duration as a war of attrition, if you will, rather than a brief contest of annihilation.
These rules of the strategy of exhaustion are complex, and yet have been nearly mastered by the radicals of the Middle East. First, shock the sensibilities of a Western society into utter despair at facing primordial enemies from the Dark Ages. The decapitation of a Daniel Pearl; the probing of charred bodies with sticks, whether in Iran in 1980 or Fallujah in 2004; the promise of torturing Japanese hostages all this is designed to make the Western suburbanite change channels and head to the patio, mumbling either, "How can we fight such barbarians" or better yet "Why would we wish to?"
If, on occasion, an exasperated and furious West sinks to the same level renegade prisoner guards gratuitously humiliating or torturing naked Iraqi prisoners on tape all the better, as proof that the elevated pretensions of Western decency and humanity are but a sham. A single violation of civility, a momentary lapse in humanism and in the new world of Western cultural relativism and moral equivalence, presto, the West loses its carefully carved-out moral high ground as it engages not merely in much needed self-critique and scrutiny, but reaches a feeding frenzy that evolves to outright cultural cannibalism.
For someone in a coffee-house in Brussels the idea that Bush apologizes for a dozen or so prison guards makes him the same as or worse than Saddam and his sons shooting prisoners for sport moral equivalence lapped up by the state-controlled and censored Arab media that is largely responsible for the collective Middle East absence of rage over the exploding, decapitating, and incinerating of Western civilians in its midst.
Key here is our own acceptance of such moral asymmetries. Storming the Church of the Nativity is a misdemeanor in the Western press; shelling a minaret full of shooters is a felony. Blowing up Westerners in Saudi Arabia or Jordan is de rigueur; asking Muslims to take off their scarves while in French schools is a casus belli. If Afghanistan has roads, a benevolent man as president, and al Qaedists on the run, call it a failure because Mr. Karzai has not been able, FDR-like, to tour the countryside in a convertible limousine waving to crowds.
Since the journalistic priesthood insists that context is everything, let's get some context. The investigation into these abuses was long and well-underway before CBS's 60 Minutes II broke the story. In fact, it was the U.S. military that really broke the story by putting out a press release.
In January, the U.S. Central Command announced, "An investigation has been initiated into reported incidents of detainee abuse at a Coalition Forces detention facility." Other investigations were well underway by the time CBS ran its story.
Some "cover up" when you're scooping the press in reporting the issue. Here's a little "yah, what I said":
Lost is the fact that in America torturers get punished, while in the Arab world they get promotions.
Not just the Arab world, though. Parts of Africa and Asia (North Korea, Burma, China) promote such people instead of punishing them. And then there is this good point:
Now before you get all pious with table-thumping sermons about the glories of the First Amendment and the need to publish news without fear and all that, consider a few facts.
In 1994, ten Belgian peacekeepers were horribly mutilated alive (castrated, their Achilles tendons slashed, etc.) in Rwanda. The full extent of the barbarity wasn't disclosed for a long time for fear of reprisals.
Just a month ago, television news networks agonized about how much they should show of the butchery of Americans in Fallujah. They opted for very, very little.
Within 48 hours of the 9/11 attacks, the major news networks and leading newspapers were settling on a policy to stop showing images of victims leaping to their death from the World Trade Center. NBC ran one clip of a man plunging to his death, and then admitted it was a mistake. An NBC News v.p. told the New York Times, "Once it was on, we decided not to use it again. It's stunning photography, I understand that, but we felt the image was disturbing."
In fact, post-9/11 coverage illuminates an interesting cultural cleavage in the media. When shocking images might stir Americans to favor war, the Serious Journalists show great restraint. When those images have the opposite effect, the Ted Koppels let it fly.
In 2002, Salon.com the left-wing web magazine ran a finger-wagging story full of condescending quotes and observations about how America was too obsessed with 9/11. The author, Michelle Goldberg (no relation), wrote that the appetite for documentaries about the attacks "suggests a voyeuristic impulse cloaked in patriotic piety."
Maybe what stoked America's appetite wasn't pious voyeurism but the decision of the networks to withhold the footage in the first place?
Regardless, now Salon asks another question. The lead story by Eric Boehlert on May 6 asks: "The media are finally showing the war in its full horror. What took them so long?"
That's a fair, if slightly creepy, question. But it underscores my point: The media decide which images are too disturbing, too sensational, too dangerous all of the time. Ms. Goldberg, for example, spoke for the establishment media when she declared that the Danny Pearl murder-video was "too sickening to broadcast even once."
"I'm all for the ongoing insistence on showing those prison images as long as the media begins showing the World Trade Centers being immolated again. When was the last time we saw those? Think we'll see them again, even once, on the mainstream media before November? No, that kind of visceral shock wouldn't serve the left's agenda." We also need to see the full scope of the murder of Daniel Pearl, the corpses outside Fallujah, and the severed hands and bodies of those murdered by suicide bombers. Those victims deserve no more privacy than the victims of abuse at Abu Ghraib. And they can no longer be humiliated, because they're dead.
And of course there will be no apologies forthcoming from those who did such things to Americans. Indeed, there is pride. But that's the difference between the "Great Satan" and its enemies. We are ashamed of the things they take pride in.
"The United States is perplexed and dismayed by the decision to put forward Sudan -- a country that massacres its own African citizens -- for election to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights," said U.S. representative Sichan Siv before storming out of a U.N. conference hall before the vote. "With credible reports continuing to come out of Sudan regarding the most serious human rights violations in Darfur, Sudan's membership on the commission threatens to undermine not only its work, but its very credibility."
But of course nothing undermines the credibility of the fine institutions of the international community, only U.S. credibility suffers for engaging in high-handed behavior like this, failing to accept that standards vary - one for the U.S., another for everyone else. The presence of the government of Sudan as a member of the UN Human Rights Commission perfectly embodies what the UN is all about.
I think I agree with Rakhiir, Japan is a bit odd, but in interesting ways.
I think there's an affinity between America and Japan, not because we are identical nations but because there is something about the differences that each other finds fascinating. There seems to be far more interest in Japanese cultural products in America, from games to cartoons to movies, than there is in, say, French or German stuff, even though more Americans are of French or German background than are of Japanese ancestry. It's not just current international differences, either, and it's not because our culture is more closely related to Japans than to French or German culture.
That's why the false dichotomy critics of a transformative foreign policy are off-base. We don't have to make other countries into a copy of America to be on good terms with them. Nor do they have to agree with us on everything. The Japanese have their own way of doing things and while there might be some things we could learn from them, I wouldn't want to do everything their way either. There are possibly things they could learn from us, but that does not imply they will do it our way - when they modernized, industrialized, and democratized, they did not have to Americanize. There is a whole literature in Japan rubbishing American civilization but also a whole set of cultural product admiring it, too. There is variety in Japan just as there is variety in America, but that variety is not a mirror image.
In University I took a course in Japanese politics & society. I wouldn't want us to copy their political system, but nor do I expect them to adopt ours. I think ours is superior, and no doubt the Japanese believe theirs is. A difference of opinion does not lead to antagonisms, however, unless one side insists upon imposing their methods on the other. Arguably, we imposed upon Japan. Actually, inarguably: they were defeated in WWII, and our proconsul, heading up the American occupation, told them what their Constitution would be. They live under it to this day.
This Constitution does not, however, transform Japan into a second, inferior, copy of America - not culturally, and not even politically. It reflected a study of Japan and what would work best in Japan. It has been adapted in practice by the Japanese. No doubt there are some things about how the political system works in Japan that the people criticize, the same way Americans often grouse about how things work (or not) here.
We don't have to Americanize Iraq or the Middle East or the world, and we shouldn't try. That is not our goal and that is not what is intended. If our policy works, and if we win the larger war aimed at eliminating the causes of Islamic terror, we will not be creating a host of mini-Americas. There is nationalism in Japan, sometimes expressed in some of that literature I mentioned above, and sometimes it is ugly no country or people are perfect. But (knock on wood) it does not express itself in unhealthy ways. But were not out to create utopia, either. We cant do so at home nor do we try to do so abroad. Indeed, utopianism is one of the most destructive forces in history, causing untold misery while simultaneously precluding realistic ambitions from being attained.
America is an odd country, too, but a great force for good in the world - without trying to make everyone like America, though that is often charged by people in the very countries that have benefited from our transformative impulse without having been transformed into America.
Democrats, in particular John Kerry, fault Bush for failing to listen to "our allies" and for alienating "our allies". By "our allies", they really mean France. They certainly don't mean Britain.
Well it's interesting that Democrats would want us to be more accomodating to French foreign policy and consult with them. The results would be something like this:
But the killing continued even after the RPF took control of the capital Kigali - thanks to a belated, U.N.-authorized intervention by French troops. One of the most cynical and immoral acts of the 20th century, this French intervention ("Operation Turquoise") was actually on behalf of the Hutu murderers in the "Interhamwe" militia and the (French trained and equipped) Rwandan army.
The French troops created a "safe area" where the old Hutu government retained control - and there the slaughter of Tutsis continued under the noses of the so-called peacekeepers until July.
I agree entirely with this observation:
Which makes it all the more sickening that the American Left and much of European opinion now hold France up as the bulwark of international law, multilateralism and morality in international politics.
Well, Europe has ratified it. But because it was always intended as a means of hobbling the American economy, they're enthusiasm and confidence in implementing it themselves is rather underwhelming. Don't buy into the hype about how they'd love to implement it, but, gosh, not enough countries (read = U.S.) have signed on so they just can't.
That's what we call Bovine Fecal Matter. Since it involves policy changes at home, if they really thought those changes were a good idea, they would implement them regardless of whether the treaty had passed some threshold or not. Indeed, they would need no treaty. The Kyoto Protocol Fixation only shows that it's not about solving the ostensible problem, it's about imposing things on others.
Read the story, and remember it the next time someone lectures us about Kyoto.
again. Also worth checking out is this piece in the Economist on rethinking our basing patterns for the new era.
Note that such re-deployments aren't just, or even primarily, about evening the score with countries that tweeked us. It's an overdo shift from Cold War era patterns of base positioning to one more useful to us in the current era. After all, the change of basing in Japan has nothing to do with their attitude towards us over Iraq - Japan has sent soldiers to support the effort there. But if Kerry is elected, do you think this will proceed?
Christopher Hitchens on upsetting the Mullahs and Joshua Muravchik on the upset global elite fighting to defend the authoritah of unaccountable international institutions so the gravy train will keep rolling along. If Soros was sincere about open society, he'd be training his guns in the other direction.
Not to neglect the Hitchens piece, which is a good argument for gay marriage and points out that hetro marriages are so destabilizing to society that God had to include a Commandment about them.
Speaking of unusual arguments, here is another, declaring The Passion pro-Israel. Here's the reason:
In fact, Jewish activists should embrace "The Passion." After all, if Jesus was divinely sent to die for mankind, then the high priest Caiaphas was God's instrument. If Jesus was just another rebel from the Galilee, well, no harm, no foul.
Besides, there is a pro-Israeli message in Gibson's movie.
Lately, Yasser Arafat has taken to declaring that the original inhabitants of Israel were Palestinians. But there are no Palestinians in Gibson's Jerusalem, just as there were none in the Gospels. Jesus and his disciples are as Israeli as Ariel Sharon.
The Arabs are still 600 miles and 600 years from the Holy Land.
If the Anti-Defamation League were smart, it would stop bugging Mel Gibson for an apology and ask instead for a couple hundred copies of the movie.
(Emphasis added).
If you haven't read it, a must-read post on Bush's "War Base" and its disaffection. I've begun to think that Bush has at least a 50-50 chance of losing, even though electing Kerry would be a near disaster internationally, putting us back to about a 1998 foreign policy at best. But if a Kerry-Soros foreign policy is your idea of an acceptable international vision, go ahead, don't vote Bush.
Reform MPs are showing some fight, resigning and doing so with some rhetorical fire:
In a speech on behalf of fellow lawmakers - carried live on state radio - Mohsen Mirdamadi spoke of an "ugly body of dictatorship" in Iran.
Iran's political system has tetered on the brink of political crisis as disgust with the Ayatollahs who dominate the Guardian Council has grown. Last summer's protests seemed for a time like they might precipitate change, now there is this. I wouldn't think it can go on like this much longer.
Apologies for the lack of posting today, it's been somewhat busy.
I've been meaning to write a post on the earthquake in Iran which claimed so many lives, but I never can find the right words when it comes to things like that, so I'm left with saying that if you can help, do, and of course all my sympathies for the victims and their families.
I mentioned that for some people, it's one thing to be a ruthless bloodthursty despot, but the real sin is to be unfashionable - for example, here when discussing in the update how titles like "Maximum Leader" or "President for Life" are a big turn-off, unacceptable in the socially aware salons of Paris. Well, so is being an unkempt President hiding in a filthy hole in some rural (rural!) backwater. Lileks writes:
Right now the TV is playing a hastily assembled documentary of Saddam’s rise to power – it’s mostly clips of the butcher in tailored suits, smiling, at ease, in power. The suits always seem to blind certain people. They see the suits, they assume the best. They want to sign treaties, make contracts, lend money. Yes, yes, he is a hard man, but it is a hard part of the world, no? One must deal with someone. Saddam was said to have studied Stalin, and in one respect he trumped his idol. Stalin’s smile never reached his eyes. He was always looking around to see who on his team was smiling more than he was, or wasn’t smiling enough. But sometimes Saddam actually had a genuine smile. And why not? He had his people under his heel, and a good portion of the West in his pocket. The American presidents, they came and went. Granted, so did their bombs. But no American president knew what it was like to grow up poor in Tikrit. No American president had ever shot a man – soft hands, they had. They had big sticks, but big sticks taxed the arms of weak men, and they always laid them down eventually.
Hence the grin; hence the big wide open toothy grin. Top of the world, ma. Top of the world.
Many have noted that the sight of Saddam looking like Nick Nolte’s mugshot will have a harsh effect on our old seething friend, the Arab Street. They will see him looking like a piss-soaked bum with matted hair and bags under his eyes that look like Kathy Bates’ bosom, and they’ll see the Proud Example brought low, the man who had stood up to America humbled and unmanned. (That always makes me wonder how many fellow Arabs a man can kill before that crime exceeds the virtue of Standing Up to America. Half a million? One? Two?) What struck me was his expression when the doctor poked around in his maw for a suicide pill – he had the standard reflex familiar to anyone who’s been in a dentist’s chair. The intimacy of the act makes you look away. You look up; you endure; you disengage until it’s over. Saddam humiliated himself. A big bald Yank stuck a stick in his mouth and he couldn’t even look him in the eye.
Well, that's just uncool. No wonder the French are now willing to wash their hands of debt incurred by such a man.
By the way, no link to Lileks' post. If your policy is going to be something along these lines:
Something new Monday through Friday all month long! The bleat returns in January.
(No archives - skip a day, and it's gone.)
Then there's no point linking to it, is there? This point was also good, though:
I’ve read all the nutball far-left sites worrying about the worrisome worries – does this help Dub? Was it all faked? Surely America will see that the man paraded before the cameras was a soy-based simulacrum cooked up in the Halliburton labs? It’s amusing to troll the fevered swamps, but nothing they say matters in the end.
commit[ed] African countries to setting and policing standards of good governance across the continent, respecting human rights and working for peace and poverty reduction in return for increased aid, private investment and a reduction of trade barriers by rich countries.
But right from the start, Robert Mughabe's behavior in Zimbabwe was a test of this commitment, which they have persistently failed while simultaneously expecting that the aid and investment be given as if they had followed through on this. Then they blame everything on racism.
Well, it's the same old cycle. So NEPAD gets an F: same attitude in a new package, and Africa no better off than before. Sorry, guys, but no one's going to invest much in your countries until you actually start following through with these commitments, not just talking about them and expecting a reward for platitudes without follow through and action.
You're not France, you know; getting praise for platitudes sans action only works for the French.
Update: Plus, with all the money my friends in Africa are offering me nearly every day, we're talking millions here, tens of millions, even, it doesn't really seem like they need an influx of cash. They seem to have more than they know what to do with. I just got the following lucrative offer from a friend in South Africa that I didn't even know I had:
It is my great pleasure to write you this letter on
behalf of my colleagues. I got your information from a
colleague in the chamber of commerce in my country
while searching for a reliable partner to assist in
this proposal. I have decided to seek a confidential
co-operation with you in execution of a deal hereunder
for the benefit of all parties, and hope you will keep
it confidential because of the nature of this
business. Within the Department of Mining Resources
where I work as the Director of Project
Implementation, with co-operation of two other top
officials, we have in our possession, an overdue
payment in US funds.
The said funds represent certain percentage of the
contract value executed on behalf of my Ministry by a
foreign contracting firm, which we the officials
over-invoiced to the amount of US$26.5M. (Twenty - Six
Million Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars).
Though the actual contract cost has been paid to the
original contractor, leaving the excess balance
unclaimed.
The Government of the Republic of South Africa believe
that private investment in general, and foreign direct
investment in particular, are the real engines for
sustainable economic development, for which reason it
has continued to encouraged investment in the key
growth-oriented sector of Mining with sincere
determination to pay foreign contractors
all debts owed to them, so as to continue to enjoy
close relationship, and mutually beneficial
co-operation with foreign governments and
non-governmental financial agencies. As a result we
included our bills for approvals with the co-operation
of some officials at the Department of Finance and the
Reserve Bank of South Africa (RBSA). We are seeking
your assistance to be the beneficiary of the unclaimed
funds, since we are not allowed to operate foreign
account. The changing of beneficiary's information/
details and other forms of documentation upon
application for claim to reflect the contract money
and its approvals will be secured on behalf of your
company or your self.
I have the authority of my colleagues involved to
propose that, should you be willing to assist us in
this transaction your share as compensation will be
20% while my colleagues and I shall receive 70%, and
the balance of 10% shall be used to reimburse all
expenditures, taxes and miscellaneous expenses so
incurred. It does not matter whether or not your
company does contract projects of the nature described
here. The assumption is that your company won the
major contract and subcontracted it to other
companies. More often than not, big trading companies
and firms of unrelated fields win major contracts, and
subcontract to more specialized firms for execution.
This business itself is 100% safe, provided you treat
it with utmost confidentiality. Also your
specialization is not a hindrance to the successful
execution of this mutual beneficiary transaction.
Please kindly notify me for further details if you are
interested or not in this proposal by emailing me at
my above email
Regards,
ENGR.STEVE TUTU
So I'm thinking that, when it comes to money, they have more than they know what to do with.
Recently I contacted a group called A.N.S.W.E.R. COALITION which organizes marches.
After having introduced myself and explained to them the situation in Iran (after 4 phone calls and messages) I was told that they won't help the Iranian activists and their friends in organizing marches against the Islamic Republic as they're afraid the Iranian student movement might be run by IMPERIALIST!!!!!
They claimed to be "intelligent" and very well informed though essentially they had NO IDEA what on earth I was talking about. They were not only unaware of the crimes committed by the Islamic Republic, they had never even heard that an organized group of hoodlums, called the BADR Brigade, trained by the KGB and Palestinians, armed and bankrolled by the Islamic Republic's ruling theocrats, were infiltrating Iraq to run a muck in killing American soldiers and destroy the future of Iraq! When I explained that the people of Iran are acting on their own but that encouragement from the PEOPLE of the west was crucial in holding anti-Islamic Republic demonstrations etc. (that's all I had asked them for: help in organizing demonstrations) the woman basically said that they won't help because their cause was to eradicate Imperialism!
I explained that Iranian oil was being pilfered by member nations of the EU and other countries such as Japan, at which she replied: since we don't live in Europe or Japan, I cannot help! I guess imperialism is concentrated only in the U.S.!!!!! AND that Mullahs can't be "Imperialists!"
I've heard A.N.S.W.E.R. refer to itself as "International A.N.S.W.E.R." I guess they should take "International" out and just say "U.S. A.N.S.W.E.R." or better yet simply rename themselves appropriately ("Act Now to Stop America and Justify Repression Elsewhere" might work better for them).
I then explained that Hossein Khomeini (Khomeini's grandson) is now one of the biggest opponents of the Mullacracy in Iran...She told me that he was probably being bought by Americans!!! In other words, she was convinced that there could be no dissent among the Mullahs themselves!!!!!
I told her about my father and other political prisoners in Iran (not to mention the number of people stoned to death, hung, assassinated, raped...), she thought for a moment and said that my father is probably a dissident and that the Islamic Republic was possibly justified in putting him in prison!!!!! I don't know, but doesn't that seem oxymoronic coming from someone working at an "activist/protestor" organization?????
Such Heroes. Talk about support for styfling of dissent. But None Dare Call them America Haters.
What is an ally? Were NATO brothers like France and Germany allies — whose U.N. performances made China's seem friendly? Is Greece an ally — whose mass anti-American demonstrations were larger than those in Cairo or Damascus? Perhap it's Mexico, which opposed our efforts in Iraq and exports 1-2 million of its own people illegally across the border as a means to prevent much-needed radical reform at home. In this context, the current meaning of "ally" too often reads as a state benefiting from American friendship that in turn expresses its thanks by gratuitous expressions of hostility in times of crisis.
That may be a harsh way of putting it, and claiming that China seemed more friendly is a little bit of rhetorical excess. But otherwise that describes reality.
What is the United Nations? It cannot stop slaughter in Liberia, as it did not in Rwanda or Serbia. It asks the United States to preempt in Liberia to prevent chaos — but not in Iraq, when our security and the world's stability were in far greater danger. The only time many of its members ever approve of the idea of democracy is when voting in the General Assembly; horrific regimes like Libya, Syria, and Iran sometimes chair committees on humane causes. France claims it is a powerful nation worthy of a veto on the Security Council, but it is also a mere one state in a new European Union that as yet has no collective voice at the U.N. A better definition for the current body is something like the following: an international organization where Western liberal states seek to ingratiate themselves with tyrannies, theocracies, and tribes — appeasement winning accolades of justice, while principles earn slanders of racism, colonialism, and imperialism.
People might claim that's rhetorical excess - but this time it isn't; it just accurately describes a reality that is rife with excess. The part about Korea in the paragraph that follows seems to go too far and generalize from the behavior of some Koreans. But this paragraph is pretty apt:
We should also accept the notion that neutrals are not allies, and thus should not pillory them for their triangulation. We are angry at France only because it is a duplicitous ally; once we cease seeing it as a close friend, we will be no more angry with it than we are with Sweden or New Zealand — which both have at times expressed their anti-Americanism, and expect nothing from us should they find themselves in crises. Germany's behavior now grates on us, but only because we expect it to be a Britain — rather than a Belgium, to which it is far more closely attuned. We should never be angry with Canada, simply because we should never expect anything from it — inasmuch as it has long ago decided to emulate the European Union model. Let us respect its status as a neutral and pacifistic state that neither wishes nor deserves cooperation with the United States in defense matters.
A lot of people in America, for political reasons, like to talk about "our allies" where they mean not Britain or Australia, but neutral or even antagonistic countries. It's important to recognize realities - that there are nations that we can trade with and conduct business with, but which are not allies in any meaningful sense. This is also very true:
Most Americans would rather give 600 tanks to Australia than sell one to Cairo; or prefer to work closely with the democracy in India than with the dictatorship in Pakistan. . .
At least it describes my attitude accurately. We may need to work with Pakistan's dictatorship for now, but we shouldn't confuse that with alliance and friendship. While America's relationship with India has been strained over the years, I see far more potential in relations with them.
This too seems sound:
Because Europe uses the United Nations to restrain American initiatives, it is precisely there we also must quietly turn, with principled reforms rather than bluster and invective. As part of a broader initiative with democratic India, we need to insist on the latter's membership in the Security Council, along with Japan. France should share its veto with the entire European Union. And any nation that wishes to enjoy a vote in the General Assembly must first prove that its own citizens enjoy the same privilege at home.
Future military alliances should not be predicated on large bases, which ultimately encourage insidious relationships, where the dependent party resents the troops, chafes at paternalism, and develops a naive view of the world.
The Miracle on Ice was one of the events marking a turning point that brought America out of one of the most humiliating periods of our history (the '70s) and revived our spirit and our belief in ourselves and what we can accomplish. Ave atque Vale Herb Brooks.
God has smiled upon you, this day,
The fate of a nation, in your hands.
And bless-ed be the children,
who fight with all our bravery,
'til only the righteous stand.
They may cut your dick in half,
and serve it to a pig,
and though it hurts you laugh,
and you dance a dickless jig!
But that's the way it goes,
in War you get shat upon!
Though you die, 'La Resistance' lives on.
The song of course is from SP:BLU (script; interestingly, even Satan didn't believe Saddam would change, but apparently many of our more Leftish Democrats are more gullible).
People living in Free Market Democracies that loathe those societies often believe they're doing a brave thing when they protest and dissent. But songs like the above, which are humor in our experience, are lived experience for dissidents in many countries, including Iran.
I've muttered about this before, but during the handover of Hong Kong to Britain, many commentators were saying that everything would be alright because the Chinese government wouldn't want to "kill the goose that laid the golden egg" - a formulation that does not adress whether or not their is an understanding on their part of what keeps the goose alive in the first place, and that if they knew what it took to make the goose not only live but prosper then they (the clique governing China) wouldn't have been Communists in the first place.
No one thought they'd go in with tanks and roll over the place, but there would be a bit by bit rollback over time, and that's what we're seeing.
By the by, I never said France was "evil", either. I just think it's time to recognize France's behavior for what it is - something Armed Liberal himself points out in his post rebutting those who don't see France as a ally: that they aren't.
But the problem is, when the French make assertions (or protestations, because usually they do it when they claim to be "hurt" that we aren't treating them like the "friend they are") of solid alliance with America, a lot of people (interestingly, most of them are Democrats - so one might think Armed Liberal, who does recognize that France is not an ally of America - would be at least as interested in disabusing fellow Democrats of such a notion as otherwise) buy into that. Mainly because they don't know the details of French international behavior and policy (such as the fact that Mitterand, before he died, said France was "in a war" with the U.S. - I have the full quote at home and I'll dig it out tonight. He said that in '99, by the way, when supposedly everything was all swell and chummy, before Bush ruined it all. Clinton and Mitterand, we Americans usually believe, got along well and had a lot in common - not as much as Clinton and Blair, but were friends. Not really the case).
Correcting such misimpressions is fundamental to a clear-eyed democratic debate on American foreign policy and which other countries we can believe really are interested in what's good for us ("us" in the broad sense of "we and them, both. The Western Alliance centered around the U.S. but not consisting exclusively of it").
France is not one of those countries. Similarly, Chirac (and previous French leaders) often claim to be acting on high principle rather than out of French interest. It is, in my opinion, very fair for Trent, Joe, Stephen, and others to pull the curtain back - at least as fair as those who tend to point to how we have not always lived up to high principles, but then suggest that we would be better advised to listen to France - because of selective invocation of historical examples. Essentially, pointing to where we may have gone off the track, but not making mention of French involvement in things. Take yesterday's BBC World Newshour report. Judy Swallow(s) (I bet she does!) was anchoring, and they were discussing Iran's nuclear program. For no other reason than to take jabs at America, she invoked Iraq's nuclear program in '91, discovered by the inspectors to be in an advanced state, and it's program in the early '80s, in "an even more advanced state - of course that was at the time when America and Saddam were best friends", and mentioned Israel's bombing of the reactor. No mention that her hero, Chirac, and her hero nation, France, was actually much closer to Saddam both then, in '91, and now, than America was, and that the reactor in question was one built by the French in a deal forged by Chirac.
Things like that skew the debate badly, in my opinion. Similarly, debate within the EU itself is often very badly skewed because it rests on presumptions that, say, "Euroskeptics" are acting on narrow national(istic) interest (which is thus illegitimate), but those involved in EU integration are just selflessly principled, acting out of concern for the General Will. That's simply untrue, and it's very fair to create blog entries that point this out, and that, indeed, many of those involved in the project of EU integration have a certain axe to grind and it's an axe that American policy should take into account because it's overtly counter to America - so that, for example, we might want to think again about our long, long policy of encouraging EU integration unquestioningly, supporting it as if it was in our interest (which has been, for decades, our policy, at the same time, for decades, those involved in the project have made no secret of their antipathy to America, in numerous forums over the years, as I've blogged about in too many posts to link to atm. Just keep scrolling and enter the archives is about the best I can say).
Is this evil? Illegitimate? No. But America and Americans don't have to pretend it's friendly and be copacetic about it, either. If it's legitimate for France to act as France does, it's at least as legitimate for Americans to react as is appropriate to what French policy actually is, rather than what they claim it to be when speaking to an American audience (they are rather more candid at home and in European publications, which is why I have linked to articles in the Financial Times as much as I have over the last year or so).
Indeed, in a number of posts I have mentioned that alliances don't last forever and some of this is inevitable. But it's also why high-sounding things like invocations of "the international community" and "our allies" are nice generalizations but once one looks closer to the details it often involves people trying to get their own interests, counter to ours (often directly opposed to ours), rather than our own. Fair enough (I've also discussed how these tactics are used precisely because they appeal to Americans, and one doesn't see some of these arguments invoked against other countries because those who employ them know that what appeals to Americans - Wilsonian-sounding phrases {masking realpolitik substance} - won't work on most other countries). All this is fair, but it's also fair for us to look behind the platitudes and not be easy marks, patsies to be gulled by every grifter who comes along to sell us their snake oil.
Armed Liberal points out that France is a bureaucratic state. Naturally France is interested in, say, building the EU in that image (its image) - it's been quite successful (in no small part because these forms are at least somewhat familiar to most Continental European powers). However, it might not be something that Britain would or should be interested in swallowing whole. Indeed, I argue on theoretical, principled grounds, that perhaps France (and other Continental European countries) might want to think again. But they wants it, they gots it - it's the encroaching it on others that is more problematic (this is a great, if I do say so myself, post to refer to on this matter). Furthermore, there are definate pitfalls here. Also, in that the French enthusiasm for a big, strong EU is certainly an understandable ambition. However, it's probably not one we Americans should encourage or look fondly at (again, see the vast expanse below this post for reasons why, not just hysterical "anti-French" stuff - that would be an unfair characterization - but argumentation and examples laid out with reasons).
Look at it this way: for many, many centuries, it has been the ambition of Continental European powers to unify Europe under their leadership (France tried that under Napoleon III and somewhat less pathetically but vastly more destructively during the French Revolution and during the reign of the original Corsican Napoleon). The maritime power(s), first Britain and then America, with their own traditions and principles of government, have - until now at least -recognized that such a thing would be very much counter to their interests.
It's fair to point out that France's current foreign policy is well in line with these traditions (though, thankfully, much less militant - if much more passive-aggressive - about it). Why is it then untoward for us to recognize our historical interests are not in line with that and indeed that this is a threat to those interests? Especially when one looks at not only the clear intent of their policy but what they say when they think Americans aren't likely to be paying attention.
Indeed, it's as good a time as any to have a policy debate on the subject. Armed Liberal may quibble over the details of some people's interpretations and analysis. But it's fairly clear from his post that he is in broad agreement with the fact that France (for example) is not and perhaps hasn't been for some time (perhaps since the end of the Great War) an ally of the U.S. One of his quibbles, though, seems to be that some of us are trying to do what little we can to get the American people to recognize that (it'd be nice if most elected Democrats recognized, or openly said if they privately know, that France is not an ally, rather than castigating the current Administration for failing to treat France as an ally).
In the end, I essentially agree with what Armed Liberal wrote in that post. I just think that it should be more widely recognized that this has some significant policy implications for Americans, and we need to start thinking them through as we're entering a significant new era of foreign policy for us.
By the by, I'm planning (actually, I've been planning but am only now getting around to) a extensive post on the sort of foreign policy I think we should have for the 21st century, which I hope to make this weekend (and will have some historical discussion and the like, regarding some commonly held myths about American foreign policy, for those interested in that kind of thing).
Update: Forgive me the nasty dig at Judy Swallow(s) (I bet she does!) - it's the only such I allow myself anymore. But she earned it. She's easily the worst of BBC's Radio News anchors - no mean feat that, either.
Here's that Mitterand quote:
"France does not know it, but we are at war with America. Yes, a permanent war, a vital war, a war without death."
(As quoted in the Spring '99 issue of The National Interest. The article, "Britain's Atlantic Option - and America's Stake", by Conrad Black, is not available online).
Well, France may not know it (far be it from me to quibble with the great Mitterand, even though I tend to take that assertion with a large dose of salt), but its elites are certainly going at it hammer-and-tongs.
A Paris court last night halted publication of a book by a former investigating magistrate that claims France is institutionally corrupt.
The book by Eva Joly, who uncovered political and financial corruption at the Elf oil company, is the first by a judge to have been blocked by the French courts.
The stay is only "temporary", but the precedent it establishes is. . .telling.
Arnaud Montebourg, a Socialist MP, said she should be given the Legion d'Honneur rather than be attacked for her honesty.
Mme Joly, 57, said the French establishment was one of the most rotten in Europe. "It is a country of networks that don't like to be challenged."
In Liberia, efforts are being made to negotiate a cease-fire, to suspend the horrible situation there. I can understand why, and even sympathize with those who suggest that the U.S. should get more involved in negotiating such a cease-fire, as we did the last time this level of violence broke out (and I supported our involvement then).
However, such a cease-fire would certainly involve leaving the opposing sides in place, leaving Charles Taylor in Monrovia. It's hard to say that would be a solution. The only result would be to once again delay the confrontation. It would mean that the current humanitarian crisis in Liberia would abate, but it wouldn't go away - indeed, it would be prolonged, and the disorder would continue over an extended period only to flare up in another (or in a series of) episode of violent clashes.
Sometimes the most humane thing that can be done is to let these things play themselves out - let one side win and the other be defeated (and Charles Taylor driven into exile or tried and hung for his crimes). A cease fire is not an end of the conflict (as we see on a great scale elsewhere. It just puts it off. As for the idea that "well, if there's a cease-fire, then perhaps peace will break out and everyone will embrace each other like long-lost brothers leading to hugs all around and a happy ending" - well, that's not the history of at least this particular conflict. It's time to let one side defeat the other.
And speaking of that other conflict with it's cease-fires, how come no amount of suicide attacks on Israel by Palestinians are ever "a threat to the peace process", but when Israel strikes back, it's characterized this way:
There are fears that the attack will trigger more violence, and that the implementation of a new US-backed peace plan will be undermined by the raid.
Yah - I mean, it's one thing for Palestinians to kill a few Jews (I mean, that's par for the course and almost understandable to your typical Beeb type), but Jews fighting back? Why, the peace-plan might be undermined! The story goes on, in a way that would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic:
Speaking from his hospital bed, Mr Rantissi [the injured Hamas warlord] vowed revenge, saying Hamas would continue the fight against Israel until every last "Zionist" was gone.
"We will maintain our jihad (holy war) and resistance until we kick out every single criminal Zionist from our land," he told the pan-Arab broadcaster al-Jazeera by telephone.
So in other words: no change from yesterday's Hamas position.
According to this report (via clueless), several of Our Greek Allies, have seen fit to bring accusations of Crimes Against Humanity before the International Criminal Court:
The group felt an "ethical and juristic responsibility" to seek action from the new International Criminal Court, a statement said.
So, after all the evidence of what the Ba'ath National Socialist party's thugs did - the evidence of widespread torture, the mass graves that were uncovered, the many, many missing, someone's fina
