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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
Friday, February 20, 2004
On the Road
I'll be on the road for a week starting today and concluding late next Saturday. Internet access will be limited at best. I hope to write some stuff off-line and find a means to post at the odd time and in the odd place. They'll be of the essay sort, re-writes of posts and the exciting conclusion (or at least continuation) of the "America's 21st Century Foreign Policy" series. I also hope to have an anouncement of sorts about my future plans when I get back or soon after.
If by chance I'm not able to post, I hope you'll all come back when I'm back.
A Memri piece on how Saddam's well-oiled bribery machine worked. No blood for oil! Unless it benefits lapdogs of Saddam!
Dave at The Waterglass on fighting the war, and how Bush - but not his opponents - get it.
An open letter to John Kerry - and by extension, many of us - by the Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran.
Allah is still mourning the loss of his favorite American political figure.
Check 'em out.
Update: Some comments on Dave's post linked to above.
I think the post overall is very good and indeed the criminal analogy does have another point to it. In the debates on how to reduce crime, some argue that tough enforcement to show that crime isn't to be tolerated is important and they argue that reducing crime benefits the poor because poor neighborhoods are most adversely affected by crime, gangs, drug markets, &tc - reducing crime and locking up the criminals will improve the ability of these neighborhoods to prosper and make them more livable. Others argue that, ok, sure, lock up the criminal, but that's only a stopgap: You won't solve the crime problem until you deal with the underlying causes of crime, which are social and created by neglect of the larger society and the actions of those who disenfranchise the people living in these neighborhoods.
Obviously we're getting a version of that debate writ large in the terror war, with some of us believing the first thing to do is to work to eliminate the terrorists and that will help improve things and set up the conditions where other policies can enable prosperity to take root, but none of this will work until and unless the criminal enterprises (be they non-state or state in origin, with thugs running states cooperating with the terror networks and making progress impossible), while others would do the reverse: offer aid, modification of our policies, &tc up front and hope that would dissipate the anger that leads people to "lash out" against us.
The dividing lines aren't that stark all the time, at least not in public rhetoric. But the attitudinal divide is clear.
Here's something I wish I had time to blog about - the current situation in Iran and the ongoing crisis of the Mullahcracy (Mullarchy?). This deserves a lot more attention than I've been able to give it over the last several weeks.
We're sending a small military security team to Haiti to assess the security of our embassy. Will there be more to follow, and if so will they be sent to try and clean things up (in Haiti?) or to head off the French. Of course, any intervention aimed at really fixing Haiti's political problems would have to be a long-term commitment.
Today modern Trudeaupian Canada, being semi-French, is a semi-detached member of the Anglosphere. A year ago public opinion in English Canada was more or less as pro-war as Britain and Australia. Over 60% of Canadians outside Quebec supported American action against Saddam. But French Canada was overwhelmingly antiwar. The only difference between the "conscription crisis" of World War II and the antiwar sentiment re Iraq is that this time around Quebec's position decided Canada's. The "Francization" of the political culture has ensured that the entire country has been relocated to the rue des Pussies.
Unfortunately, true, and will be as long as the Canadian Liberal Party is in power. That is, it will be true for a very long time.
Finally, check out this review of the movie Midway, an oldie but a goodie.
Check out this Atlantic Monthly piece by Robert Kaplan on the American soldier in Mongolia. Another example of how America's best envoys are often its soldiers.
For those of us who have been following the proposal to involve Special Forces more directly in Intel work, here is an update:
In all, the new spy training will enable more Green Berets to enter countries undercover to survey urban or rural settings and set up networks of informants, missions normally executed by CIA paramilitaries. There are also plans to put them under diplomatic cover at U.S. embassies abroad, according to military sources.
Fort Bragg, N.C., home to U.S. Army Special Operations Command, opened an intelligence-training school in 1986 for a select few Green Berets. They would in turn train other A-Team members in intelligence techniques.
Now, the Army is quietly opening a second intelligence training center at Fort Lewis, Wash., near Tacoma, home to the 1st Special Forces Group.
"You're not supposed to know what they do," said a military source of the planned training site. "They say it's an advanced intelligence course. It's kind of like the 'Farm' in Virginia," referring to the CIA training center for the clandestine service.
With two schools, the Army will at least double the number of intelligence-savvy Green Berets and broaden their skills in intelligence collection and preparing the battle space.
Which is all to the good. Many people have emphasized the Intel side of this war and the clandestine nature of the operations that are conducted in fighting it. Boosting our capabilities in this area is, well, long overdo really. But it's a good that institutional resistance is being overcome.
This week Andrew Sullivan invited readers to send in their most harrowing tales of Lefty repression (for lack of a better word) of conservatives and/or Republicans on University campuses. I do have to agree with one reader who wrote in to say that "cherry picking" the worst examples may be unfair. My experiences & observations on the University of Wisconsin (Madison) campus wasn't bad as far as this goes. However, when the dynamic was in play, it was always from one end of the political spectrum.
I am concerned about University hiring practices, and any harassment of students for their politics being at variance with that of the professorate is too much. I was at the University of Wisconsin from the early to mid '90s and perhaps things have changed since then. Over the years I took a large number of classes, and by and large and for the most part they were just classes. That is, the professor may have been Liberal and this may have come out in small ways, but I would not say the class was politicized and I didn't notice people being treated differently or graded differently because of either their politics of the professor's. Perhaps it didn't bother me much because, at the time, I was Liberal myself, but even looking back on things now I think the vast majority of the courses I took were fine. Of course, this is somewhat self-selective, because I'm talking about courses I was interested in, and these tended to be on subjects that weren't havens of PC. I will say that all the courses I took in the English Department were more infused with PC/Multicultural themes than other courses tended to be. But even there I don't recall a professor or TA treating people differently or grading them differently based on the political content of opinions they expressed in discussion of books and the like. That is, even back then when I was a Liberal, I was never into multiculturalism nor did I have any sympathy for socialism or social democracy. So most classes weren't the stuff of horror stories of mistreatment at the hands of a ideological professorate. Their politics was there, did influence how they taught, and IMO the UW would have benefited from having a wider range of opinion among the professorate than it did (from my experience). But these were not ideologues stamping out any hint of conservative or Republican thought among their students.
Here are some examples of the worst behavior in classes I took, and by and large you'll see that the "worst" wasn't that bad.
A Philosophy course taught by an unabashed Marxist. He was so Left that he slammed Rawls for having insufficient concern for the least well off in society and in my opinion misrepresented, in the lecture, Rawls' position to make it seem unacceptable as an alternative to Marxism for those interested in organizing society in a way that benefits everyone. That's just one example of how he disparaged (though in mild ways) the philosophers we studied who were not Marxists. However, class discussions were very good and he was respectful of the points of view that students expressed and no one's grade suffered if they disagreed with him.
A sociology course on America taught by Joel Rogers, who I mention by name because people who are really into American politics of the Left may be familiar with him, his writings, and his efforts to start a Social-Democratic third party a few years back. He was a good professor but the entire course was organized to persuade people of his political position and win them to his point of view, in the selection and presentation of readings and through the lectures. He was very anti-business, anti-individual, and in favor of corporatism & socialism. But again, he took questions in class and discussed/debated the points students (including myself) made respectfully and I am not aware of anyone who had their grade lowered or was disrespected for disagreeing with him. Indeed, in lecture he encouraged people to raise questions and if anything was more likely to involve those he knew would disagree.
A political science course with the usual works written by those with, shall we say, a less than positive view of conservatism and even American's political system as assigned readings. Of course, Theodor Adorno's The Authoritarian Personality was one of the assigned books. I somewhat "subversively" (I felt) applied Adorno's theory to Fidel Castro's Cuba in my term paper for the course. I got an A on the paper, hardly a sign of political repression on campus.
A course on American politics taught by John Witte involving some free wheeling classroom discussion. He was a good professor, but when I say "free wheeling" it included letting a claque of "progressive" students ridicule, with extreme derision, the views of a more conservative student to the point where the latter would be in or near tears. He didn't intercede to stop it. One of my own proudest moments in my school years was one day having enough and turning in my seat to tell them off, to the effect that it's one thing to disagree, but ridicule and contempt wasn't called for. But other than that it was a good course and well taught.
A Senior Seminar on the Spanish Civil War taught by Stanley Payne that at one point had a couple aging warhorses from the Abraham Lincoln Brigade come in to talk to the class. They mainly wanted to re-fight the Cold War - on the Soviet side. One of the "on topic" points they made was their grievance that when Germany invaded the Soviet Union with Franco's support, Britain & America didn't immediately treat Spain as an enemy power. . .without any reference to what the consequences of pushing Spain fully into the arms of Germany at that stage would have been: The closing of the Straits of Gibraltar, cutting off British forces in North Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Far East. But while some might see their presence in the class as an intrusion of politics, this was an opportunity to hear and talk to people who lived the experience. The class itself was anti-Fascist and anti-Franco in tone (who isn't?) and had a bit more sympathy for the Left. But the professor held no brief for the Soviets and if I would have to guess at his politics - telling in and of itself of a lack of intent to indoctrinate - I would say he was a moderate Liberal. Certainly he was not opposed to criticizing the Spanish Left's behavior in the run up to the war itself.
Now we get to the two "worst cases". Interestingly enough, both courses that I took to fulfill "Ethnic Studies" requirements. This itself was telling, because there were many courses that one might objectively think could fulfill an Ethnic Studies requirement but which were not given such a designation, while there were some courses that were not obviously "Ethnic" in content that would fulfill the requirement. The dividing line seemed to be politics: the "Ethnic Studies" courses were Multicultural classes, with all that implies.
The African Storyteller, a course on African literature from ancient folktales to, for example, Things Fall Apart (which was pretty good). The course itself was fine, but whenever we moved from one period to another it would start out with a lecture/harangue on how grand African civilization was and how bad European civilization was. The professor didn't mind imperialism and conquest or large standing armies and indeed used them as points to recommend this or that non-European civilization, but everything about Western Civilization was disparaged in the usual multiculturalist terms. Slavery was, of course, referenced. How did the professor deal with the Arab or inter-African slave trade? By minimizing it. I don't remember a reference to it. Professor Scheub was a good professor of literature, though, and overall the course was very good and, again, I don't remember anyone suffering for their politics.
The last was the worst. It was an Ethnic Studies course in Latin American history. Among other books, of course I, Rigoberta Menchu was one of the assigned texts. This was before the extent of falsification within the book was known, or at least widely publicized. But there is materiel in the book on the lives of pre-Columbian Indians that was, to put it mildly, fantasy. I mentioned that in my paper on the book. During discussion section the TA mentioned that in a previous course someone had doubted the book's accuracy, saying so in a tone that made it unmistakable she thought that was absurd, that the book was unimpeachable. She then, looking at me, asked if any of us had any doubts about Rigoberta's truthfulness. I chose to keep mum. My term paper for the course was on the conquest of the Aztec Empire, and among other things I mentioned that Montezuma's poor leadership was one of the factors contributing to the Conquistador’s success. You'd have thought I insulted someone's sainted mother: A big, red screed was scrawled over my paper to the effect of Montezuma's impeccability and that the Spanish account we read credited him as a great leader. Well, I had used a post-Conquest Nahuatal account (also assigned in the class) that didn't think much of Montezuma's wartime leadership as well as my own (informed) analysis. The Conquistadors were impressed by Montezuma's court, his regal bearing, and by his hospitality towards them. That's not the same as war leadership, and the Spanish accounts had every reason to build up Montezuma in order to make their own accomplishment seem that much greater: See, look what we overcame to win? Those who followed Montezuma were usurpers in Spanish eyes and didn't count. But the Aztecs put up a better fight after Montezuma but were crippled by his decisions. In any event, I got a C- on that paper and didn't do well in that course. It's the only course I took at the UW where I can say my grade suffered because of political correctness.
So of all the courses I took, these were the worst and most weren't bad at all. Indeed, I'd take the majority of them again and I'd recommend them, and the professors, to others. It's only in a couple cases where things edged up to the line, and only in the last example was the line clearly crossed, in my opinion. However. . .but. . .
One pattern does form, and that is that however mild or extreme the example might be, it is almost invariably from the Left. I never encountered a situation where a professor or class was slanted even in a mild way to the Right. Even the course I took on conservative Political Philosophy was taught by a Liberal professor: One that was very good and did not let her politics unduly influence the course, but never the less, this is telling. What's the problem? Maybe it's not indoctrination as such at the University level. Not in my own experience, at least. Perhaps that's the case elsewhere or things have gotten worse. Certainly there are more harrowing tales out there.
The problem is that the professors, however good they may be, are heavily weighted towards one side of the political spectrum. An intellectual endeavor, and certainly students, could benefit from a wider range of viewpoints. Certainly it might shatter the close-mindedness and ignorance that is on display in some of the worst examples, such as the recent Duke University thing, that some professors display because they apparently haven't had much experience with people who don't share their world view or one similar to it. Does that mean there should be Affirmative Action for conservatives? No.
It would be nice to see more conservatives on campus, though, in teaching positions, and not just because that's what I'd like to end up doing.
I'm home today getting ready for a family thing that was scheduled a long time ago that will take me out of town for about a week and a half. I should have a substantive post up (on Universities &tc) a little bit later, once I get it written.
That’s what Moxie argues. I get her point because I think America is better off with two healthy parties, and I've been arguing that. But, I donno. Edwards is clearly the least-worst of the Democrats left in the field.
But I think that reveals a lot, as does the fate of Joe Lieberman who was the only Democrat in the field who was arguably serious on the war. His constituency? Less than ten percent of the Democratic electorate. To me, this is important: One elects not just one man, but the people he will appoint to key positions and the political constituencies that he will listen to and pay attention to. If Lieberman had done better, it would have been a sign that there was a basis for believing the Democratic Party would take this serious. But he didn’t. What’s Edwards’ position on the war? Maybe it’s not too bad, but it’s his third, fourth, or fifth priority. Nowhere near the top, and that’s the same for the coterie he would bring in with him.
I understand that’s not Moxie’s point, that Moxie accepts this but wants the least-worst Democrat to win the nomination and then hope that Bush wins but have the least unacceptable alternative in office if he does not. But I suppose I really have become what I never wanted or intended to become, a partisan hack. ‘Cause I can’t go there.
For better or worse I believe the Democrats won't reform themselves and become a viable alternative until after they're soundly beaten. But, on the other hand, here are some arguments on Edwards' behalf.
Making no claim that it is somehow "wrong" to draw contrasts with your opponent or point out facts about their political positions/history that voters won't like, I hereby assert that the Democrats, not the Republicans, are superior at negative campaigns.
"What?" you're saying, "Everybody knows that the Republicans run dirty, negative campaigns to drag down their opponents by using wedge issues to divide voters from the Democrat they should vote for"
Exactly. Any fool can run a negative campaign. But it takes special skill for the Democrats and their supporters, like the NAACP, to run the sort of campaigns they have and maintain a "clean" reputation. Or maybe special dispensation rather than special skill. The worst that is ever said in the press about Democratic negative campaigning is that "both sides do it". For the last several months, the Democratic candidates have been saying scathing things about President Bush and Republicans in general. At every debate that I've seen, a question has been directed at the leading Democratic candidate on the subject of negative campaigns. However, it has always gone something like this:
Newsperson Panelist: "As you know, the Wascally Wepublicans are just waiting to unleash a torrent of negative campaign tactics against you, if you win the nomination, what will you do about it?
Candidate: You know, Tom, I want to run a positive campaign on the issues of how Bush decieved us and ruined the economy and denies people the drugs they need to live. I'm going to run a positive campaign about how Republicans are selfish, have turned this into a third-world country filled once again with Hooverville shantytowns and are enriching their Enron buddies while starving the troops of funds, and Nixon got us into Vietnam, how there are two Americas: one with fat Republicans in stovepipe hats conspiring over Trusts while putting the other America, of workers, to the wall and sicking their Pinkertons on them, and how you can’t trust Bush. That’s my positive vision for America, the one I want to campaign on. But I'm ready for the Republican’s negative hit-job campaign of character assassination and lies like when they'll try to point out I voted against funding the troops or say I want to raise taxes just because I do want to raise taxes, and I'll fight back when it comes.
Panelist: Thank you
Post-debate Analyst: That was a very good answer [John Kerry/Howard Dean/Fill in Candidate Here] gave on how they're running a positive campaign but will fight back when the Republicans say mean things about him.
This seems to have reached a new level of surreal absurdity this year. But reader Eric Kiernen, responding to this post writes, via e-mail, that:
I actually saw the debate, I'm 40, so I must have been around 13 at the time. too lazy to do the math, but I was a teenager. What was strange about the remark was how it got played in the media. I can't remember who Dole was debating ( maybe Bentsen).
It was Mondale
But the democrat made some sort of really insulting remarks/comments which basically accused the republicans of war-mongering. It was absolutely a ludicrous series of comments, and then Dole fired back with his "let's count up who started the wars" comment. I thought it was absolutely correct, and a nice response to a pretty stupid statement, which I can't remember exactly all this time later. The next day in the media, it got reported as dole accusing the democrats of starting all the wars.
I don't remember the debate, I can fully believe that Mondale would characterize things like that. I still think that the Dole quip about "Democrat Wars" was crass. But it's interesting that is remembered but not the assertions about Warmongering Republicans. That's pretty much de rigur, which is why the Democrats are superior at negative campaigning: they get a pass when they do it, which makes it more effective, while the Republicans get called on anything - however true - that is even a hint negative. Only partisan Republicans and conservatives, such as myself, make a point of Democratic antics on this score. The broader media reacts to negative campaigning by Democrats by asking them "what will you do when the Republicans start being mean to poor, innocent, nice you?"
I'm on my lunchbreak atm and dashed to the library to check my mail and figured I'd move this up to the top of the que again.
A reader has requested I allow more comments, so here's an open comments thread. Feel free to comment on any topic I've discussed on the site.
Regarding Mispellings: responding to Dave's comment here, sorry about the mispellings. I try to catch them. Some of them are malaprops. For example, yesterday for a long time the "WaPo SOTU" Post was up as "WaPo SOTA". I always make that error, but it wasn't a mispelling, it was a malaprop. I'm more used to typing the acronym "SOTA" (State of the Art) than "SOTU" (State of the Union), and it was automatic. Took me awhile to catch it.
Some are typos (because I do type fairly fast). Others - many - are out-and-out mispellings. I'm sorry about that, I am a terrible speller and spell-check doesn't catch everything. I'll try and work on it.
Responding to this post, M. Simon sends, via e-mail, links to this article and this post on the subject of a speech by a Europen MP, Ilka Schroeder, "The European Union, Israel, and Palestinian Terrorism", making the point that the EU's support for the Palestinians is part of a "hidden war" with the U.S. Read them both.
Richard Heddleson writes, via e-mail, to point out Steven Den Beste's post today and asks if I've been "hangin' round" him, that is, if I'm having the same problem.
Not really, at the moment. I think I could write, if
I had my mind right, boy. (Said in my best Strouther Martin voice, which admittedly isn't very great).
I wasn't so tired after work (see previous posts).
I want to write but I've been mentally distracted - for a bit now, actually. Preceding the job situation and now I'm physically exhausted on top of that and unable to keep on top of "kewl" things to link to and post about as much as I might otherwise.
Really good essay posts started dropping off here last fall. By "really good" I mean by what I thought of as good, and by dropping off I mean there were fewer of them. That relates to the mentally distracted aspect of things and just means I do need to get out of here and now am on the right track (by "hear" I do not mean "this blog", I mean my physical location). It means that when I posted that I discovered I didn't mind losing my job, I'm not just whistling Dixie. But there is a hard road ahead and it has created more mental distraction (and more than a bit of anxiety), and now there's physical exhaustion from the work I'm currently doing to pay bills on top of that, which is very labor intensive.
The two things in combination are death for posting. If it was just the one - say, the physical without the mental distraction - I'd probably be able to generate more, 'cause my mind would be working on stuff to write all day long. There would still be the problem of finding "topical source materiel", but that would be bridged. Instead my mind is thinking about all these other things: Where shall I go, what shall I do? I have ideas (which I'm not posting explicitly yet, and thanks to those who are helping). But I keep wondering. So far at least. I also keep regretting paths I could have taken years ago - something that isn't very wise: We all screw up, make mistakes in life. Obsessing over them doesn't help much in going forward. Learning from them does, but not obsessing over them. I'm trying to get out of that phase (and, again, thanks for people who have written helpfully). If the quality of writing is down here lately, it is more because of the mental distraction & physical exhaustion than due to burnout. Tired people just aren't as likely to write well as well-rested people are.
It's not the same as "burnout", though. Burnout, to me, would be having time, having access to "source materiel" and the time to read it, but not having it generate anything worth writing. I'm not saying one problem is ok and the other isn't, just that they're different. I have gone through periods of burnout and stopgap posting, myself. But that's not my problem at the moment, as you can see from the volume of this response to a simple mail. I have written some long responses to mails recently, but not nearly all of them have been “posting materiel”.
Indeed, I really want to write. No doubt so does Steven, but my reasons are slightly different. He's retired (lucky). This is the closest I have, at the moment, to being able to do what I want to do with my life and make the contribution I'd like to make and think I have an aptitude for. Perhaps I'm fooling myself, but as I've written, I think my aptitudes are scholarly-oriented, academic. Maybe in the end I won't have a career doing it (teaching, think-tanking, and the like) and it will remain more of a hobby. Maybe. In any event, such energy as I have has at least partially been diverted to looking into my future – where to go and what to do. That takes time and effort too, you know. So if I’m not blogging as much that is part of the reason.
But in either case, the most valuable thing I've done in the last several years, to me and I hope to others in the sense of making some sort of contribution, has been through this forum. If I'm going to do anything of value, either for "just myself" or by way of contributing something, I think it will be with my mind, my thoughts. That does mean that, as I said, right now this is the closest I can come to doing what I want to do, what I think I may be good at, and what I need to practice at to develop whatever talents I have. Sometimes my posts are pretty raw, sometimes fairly tangled. Improving means practice and putting effort into something. This includes reading up on subjects and trying to impart what you've learned & thought about them to others.
Ultimately I'll need teachers, professors, the whole works. I'll need to advance my education. Right now, this is what I have and if I could I'd devote more, not less, time to reading up on things and then writing about them. You have no idea how it makes me feel that I can't. I'm not one of those people who expects to get rich. I'm not really disappointed living modestly - which, unfortunately, is one thing that kept me where I am so long. Well, I'm rambling now and this blog is becoming one thing I never intended it to become: an autobiographical blog.
Lastly, I do hope Steven Den Beste comes back from his break in full-form, writing away. Clueless is one of my own favorite blogs.
In any case, if folks have ever wondered why few people who work at manual labor are bloggers, it probably has less to do with intelligence or interest in the world than simply fatigue. By the end of the day I'm so tired. I can't keep up with the news, keep up with what's going on...
Guy Rodin writes, via e-mail, as follows:
Absolutely correct. After coming back from a day crawling under cars, all I want to do is have a shower, eat, surf a little and go to bed.
Randolph Addison writes, via e-mail, as follows:
As though this is somehow important or enlightening, I'll agree wholeheartedly. My main job is completely white collar (i.e., network administration and semiconductor fabrication). In the past two months, however, I have worked closely with our part-time industrial electrician to install conduit, electrical panels, transformers, etc., and I have never been so tired. This also coincides with my being in probably the best physical shape in my life (those Power 90 exercise routines are really fantastic).
When I get home (after an average workday of 11-12 hours of pretty much constant work), I have enough energy to brush the teeth, check for any amazing news (e.g., capture of Saddam), and then I get to bed. Everything else is non-vital--even eating, I've found.
Yah, I know the feeling. Right now I'm reading mail & blogging rather than eating, 'cause I know I'll be too tired later. But I also know I've gotta eat or it'll only be worse tomorrow.
Last week I linked to Peggy Noonan's call for "Bush Re-election Paragraphs". Jeff at Caerdroia wrote one but I've avoided reading it for now (my link here is based on trackback) while I pondered what I would say. So here's mine:
George Bush: Providing clear leadership in a challenging world. Defending America by promoting liberty and agressively pursuing terror networks and those who support them. Promoting economic vitality by lowering the burden on investing and working in America. George Bush: Defending American values at home and abroad.
That's my paragraph. Pithy, punchy sentences saying what Bush is about and drawing a contrast by implication rather than directly. Of course, that will never work.
Update: Now I've read Jeff's too and it's pretty good though somewhat different and includes pointed barbs at the failings of the other side. Direct ones, that is, rather than implied ones.
From the lecture given as recipient of AEI's Irving Kristol Award (well deserved, I might add):
[W]e are unlike Rome, unlike Britain and France and Spain and the other classical empires of modern times, in that we do not hunger for territory. The use of the word “empire” in the American context is ridiculous. It is absurd to apply the word to a people whose first instinct upon arriving on anyone’s soil is to demand an exit strategy. I can assure you that when the Romans went into Gaul and the British into India, they were not looking for exit strategies. They were looking for entry strategies.
Check out the whole thing.
Not to toot my own horn too much, but I made some similar points in my as yet incomplete "America's 21st Century Foreign Policy" series (Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, and Part V). Of course, he puts it much better and my writing is influenced by people like Krauthammer and he is more comprehensive. Like I said, check it out. No, really: read the whole thing. I'm resisting the temptation to quote more from it 'cause I think it should be read in full.
I'm not old enough to remember, though I was alive when it was said, but Bob Dole's quip about "Democrat Wars" during a debate in the '76 election campaign has gone down in the history of politics as a revealing moment of ignominy (rightly so - it was a crass and stupid remark).
So what to make of Kerry's repeated references to the Vietnam War as "Nixon's Vietnam War", repeated again in tonight's Democratic debate in Wisconsin?
Obviously, not so much. Different strokes for different folks, I guess. Depending on political affiliation. Kerry also described anti-Communist efforts in the '80s as "Reagan's illegal war" in Central America. I'm not sure the people of Nicaragua agree with the disdain and contempt that Democrats still have for efforts on behalf of liberty, freedom, and democracy. But that's not really in the same league as describing Vietnam as "Nixon's war", which is ahistorical to the point of Orwellian Newspeak. Either that or Kerry means that his position on whether to support a war or not depends not on the merits or demerits of the policy, but purely partisanship based on whether the occupant of the White House has a "D" or an "R" behind their name.
Via Glenn Reynolds we find this piece by Christopher Caldwell examining aspects of European anti-Americanism. This paragraph is particularly insightful on the changing shape of support for vs opposition to America:
In its diplomacy, as in its military strategy, the United States is discovering that it has a very shaky idea of who its real friends are. In the old days, it was very clear where the instinctive pro- Americans, or "Atlanticists" were to be found. They made up most of the Christian Democratic parties everywhere, and an influential right-wing rump of the Socialist parties in Germany, Scandinavia and Britain. And some of today's pro-Americans are still on the right: Germany's CDU still backs America, as do the British Tories, although not unanimously, and particularly not when Labour is in power. Beyond them, though, today's Atlanticists are an unfamiliar mix of New Labour (in its British and Dutch variants), continental human-rights activists (particularly in France), Eastern European ex-dissidents and post-cold war parties of the right (in Spain and Italy). It would be surprising if America's future foreign policy did not take some account of which Europeans like it, and which don't.
It's important to remember that the politics of other countries are no more static than ours. That seems like an obvious insight, but many people don't take that into account and tend to assume the deck chairs are fixed when it comes to the political players in various countries.
I've been particularly disappointed in some of the British Tories. I guess I've gotten over my disapointment with Chirac, but folks will remember that when he first became President, people predicted there would be warmer relations between France & America as a result because Chirac was perceived as more friendly to and less suspicious of America. It hasn't worked out that way.
I find this to be telling, too:
"The roots of European social democracy are anti-communist," says MacShane. "European social democracy has far more in common with American values, including the war on terrorism, than with any other ideology." The European left should never feel embarrassed about siding with the US, provided the US is a progressive force, MacShane thinks. In the 1980s, they should have remarked (but mostly they didn't) that Ronald Reagan was, by many measures, tougher on South Africa than Europeans were.
Well, I remember the '80s political situation, and European Social Democratic Parties hardly covered themselves in anti-Communist glory at the time. They should have, but many of them had forgotten their own anti-Communist roots and preferred to engage in varieties of Ostpolitik that often saw American anti-Communism as the problem and sometimes verged on blaming America for the Cold War. So we get to this section that Glenn quoted:
Europe's problem, as Bruckner sees it, is not that it has drifted too far to the left - for the left-right concept is one that he considers "totally discredited". Nor is Europe's problem simply anti-Americanism.
"Anti-Americanism can only be very ambivalent," he says, "where American culture sets the tone. The French are voting for America - in the market place - all the time." Rather, Bruckner says, "our great problem as Europeans is that we want to exit from history. Sometime after 1989, we developed the belief that barbarism could be refuted intellectually." Here, he makes clear, he is speaking primarily of France and Germany, not the UK.
I think that in large swaths of European opinion this started to be the mindset before 1989. It would be unfair to overestimate this: parties embodying that position did not win power in Germany or Britain during the '80s. But public opinion surveys of Europeans on key Cold War issues during the '80s arguably reflected that attitude: against military programs ("militarism"), against assertive stances in negotiations with the Soviet Union, in favor of the West taking unilateral steps to demilitarize and offer concessions in order to demonstrate goodwill, reduce tensions, and assuage Soviet suspicions that were presumed to be grounded in legitimate fears of our intentions.
After 1989 the attitudes this was based on flourished and became the dominant mindset of political opinion-leaders in Europe, expressing itself in the new context of the '90s until it reached it's currentl form in this century. But the roots are fairly deep. They're also understandable, given European experience with destructive wars. However, there seems to be a dichotomy in that the older generations that more directly experienced these conflicts seem to have more affinity for America than the younger generations that did not.
Of course, just as the chairs on the deck aren't static, everything isn't moving only in one direction (against the U.S.):
This implosion of Italy's party system may be laying the groundwork for a more durable pro-Americanism than the old Christian Democrats could offer - and, not for the first time, it could be pioneering a new trend in Europe. After all, Italy has been the only one of the EU's six founder nations to offer the US its steady support for the past two years.
As for the "more durable pro-Americanism", I'm tempted to say I'll believe it when I see it. But we will see. There certainly is some level of re-thinking and a number of European commentators warning against the pitfalls of anti-Americanism.
In Britain, Mark Leonard, director of the Blairite Foreign Policy Centre, says there is a new strain of Atlanticism which is "revolutionary rather than status-quo". This new strain attracts a certain number of Conservatives - Leonard names the Times columnist, Michael Gove, and the MP Michael Portillo - who believe in "a neo-conservative idea of democracy".
It's too bad that Portillo has a reputation as the "Tory Tony Blair" - that is, giving off a vibe of opportunism. If it wasn't for that, he might be CP Leader today.
Then there is this observation:
Israel is central to the ideological divide over Atlanticism. Much attention has been given on both sides of the Atlantic to the rising tide of anti-Semitism in many European countries, especially France. Less focus has been given to pro-Israeli movements and initiatives. Claude Goasguen says: "There are about a hundred pro- Israel people in the National Assembly, and it's among them that Atlanticists can be recruited."
That may be true, but the overall tone of politics in Europe on the subject of Israel is quite different than in America, and it certainly causes friction and division whenever policies that touch on the Middle East become the central issue. It's hard to overestimate the degree to which that affected European positions on the Iraq war, for example. Then there is the EU, and again it's hard to underestimate the role European integration played in the same discussions:
As European integration comes to revolve increasingly around foreign-policy questions - from defence, to the Turkish candidacy for membership - hard and unavoidable decisions present themselves. Politicians on both right and left feel that Atlanticism has become a zero-sum game: they cannot take a firm stand in favour of the United States (through bilateral agreements, for instance) without endangering the European project.
In large part this is a reflection of politics in Europe itself over integration. American policy has been to encourage European integration - almost without reference or recognition of the possible downside affect it could have on Europe's relations with the U.S.
But political debates in Europe on the extent to which they should cooperate with America are often posed, by pro-EU integrationists, as binary: Either Europe will "stand together" and have its own policy - which cannot be the same as America's - or be "bullied" by America. This they do more for internal reasons revolving around what they would like the EU to become - an integrated entity with a single foreign policy - than outright hostility to America. It's "domestic politics", perhaps at its worst. Invoking the need, or creating a perceived need, to be able to stand up to America, not be bullied by America, have their own distinct foreign policy, is a tool rather than an end in itself. A tool to push for consensus and, in effect, browbeat (bully) countries into accepting a uniform European position on these issues. To put it cruely and perhaps unfairly, this bundling of rods together with an axe in the middle has less to do with anti-Americanism per se and more to do with the vision of a United Europe directed by those who know best how to set its course, rather than letting nations go off making their own decisions separately, which is weakness. UNITY IS STRENGTH. So agreeing with America is described as subservience, while subservience to policy set by Brussels even if you don't agree with it is not:
France's Senator Francois- Poncet thinks Blair's stance is a dangerous one to imitate in the first place: "The British think they are in a better position by being largely subservient to the Americans," he remarks. "I would say that they wildly overstate their influence."
Again it is worth remembering that the people like Francois-Poncet who see the EU in such terms are not having things entirely their own way - which may explain the intemperate nature of their rhetoric which is a result of their frustration in the face of real differences of opinion on such things as the Draft EU Constitution which was their means of imposing this by mandate. Caldwell writes that:
The point, however, is that Britain is more important in Europe because it is now becoming evident that dealing with America and dealing with the EU are not separate issues. As Gianni Bonvicini of Italy's Institute for International Affairs put it, "There is an increasing feeling that the Europe relationship can't be monopolistic. It can't mean giving up other relationships."
So there are grounds for real optimism. Here, too:
Transatlantic ties are now shifting to different bases, but the bases still exist. Henry Kissinger is correct to say that the new generation of Europeans is not automatically pro-American. But neither need it be automatically anti-American. And others tend to miss the present Europe-wide unease about the European project. In the wake of December's Brussels summit, this unease has reached its highest level since the Maastricht agreement. The gloom arises, in part, from the failure at Brussels to find a constitutional voting formula acceptable to both the large countries (particularly Germany and France) and the medium-sized ones (particularly Poland and Spain.) But it also rests on the inability over the past year to find a common European voice on foreign policy, and specifically on the US.
I'd say that's a good thing, not a bad thing. Assertions of a "common foreign policy" always involved more bullying & browbeating than any American Administration - including this one - has ever imposed on the nations of Europe. If George Bush or even Donald Rumsfeld had ever said some of the intemperate, outrageous things that Chirac and his cronies did with respect to countries that refused to toe the line, well we'd never hear the end of it.
Then there is this:
It is with such considerations in mind that Devon Cross, an American philanthropist whose career has included service on the Pentagon's Defence Policy Board, showed up in London in January. Cross hopes to start an NGO that will link American policy-makers and strategists with European journalists and publics - and, she hopes, promote a better understanding of how American foreign- policy thinking works and what the American government is trying to do. While she is a longtime friend of Donald Rumsfeld, and might be called a neo-conservative in the US, Cross says she will make it a priority to bring to London the widest possible variety of foreign- policy voices, from Bush Republicans (she has invited the under secretary of defence, Paul Wolfowitz, to participate) to Clinton Democrats (such as the former CIA director James Woolsey) to the human-rights activists of the Democratic left (who cluster around the Freedom House Foundation and American organised labour). This varied coalition is what Americans naturally think of when they think of the political constituency for their foreign policy. But it is not what Europeans think of.
And that is just the point, according to Cross. Her view - that America is losing the battle for the world's hearts and minds by neglecting "public diplomacy", of the sort that its government, foundations and labour unions carried out throughout the cold war - is held quite widely in the US.
(Emphasis added) Which has been one of my arguments over the last year or so, too. We need to do a much better job at this, and I do think that "non-governmental" efforts, such as the one Cross is organizing, are of vital importance and more likely to make an impact than government or Administration efforts will, if only because of the natural inclination people have to distrust any government statement as propaganda, no matter who is making the statement or how eloquent it is. That said, I still think we should bring back the United States Information Agency.
