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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
Saturday, March 20, 2004
Iraqi Politics & Economy
Tons of good developments continue. Not much really to add to Wolfowitz's piece, just check it out.
More evidence of the ties that bind between Saddam & al-Qaeda, in a report by Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough:
We have obtained a document discovered in Iraq from the files of the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS). The report provides new evidence of links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
The 1993 document, in Arabic, bears the logo of the Iraqi intelligence agency and is labeled "top secret" on each of its 20 pages.
The report is a list of IIS agents who are described as "collaborators."
On page 14, the report states that among the collaborators is "the Saudi Osama bin Laden."
The document states that bin Laden is a "Saudi businessman and is in charge of the Saudi opposition in Afghanistan."
"And he is in good relationship with our section in Syria," the document states, under the signature "Jabar."
Those of us who've paid even slight attention to the European press since Sept. 11th have noticed they favor stories that take it as a given that the Bush Administration has used those events to silence criticism - that's why you never hear from guys like Bill Moyers, Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Paul Krugman, Al Gore, or Bob Scheer etc. anymore, and why Democrats like Kerry are afraid to say anything even mildly critical of the Administration.
Europe is immune to such things, of course. But Trent Telenko sends in this story:
Police arrested a leading investigative journalist yesterday on the orders of the European Union, seizing his computers, address books and archive of files in a move that stunned Euro-MPs.
Read the whole thing. Trent comments that it's another example that "[t]here is a reason why European papers and other media are stuck in an anti-American group think. Anyone in the media who points out the emperor has no cloths gets visited by the authorities."
Back when I was a student and had nothin' to do and lots of time to do it in, I used to watch C-SPAN a lot. I still catch what I can. Happy 25th and many more!
His next trip down, a reporter and a camera crew were allowed to follow along on skis — just in time to see Mr. Kerry taken out by one of the Secret Service men, who had inadvertently moved into his path, sending him into the snow.
When asked about the mishap a moment later, he said sharply, "I don't fall down," then used an expletive to describe the agent who "knocked me over."
That's Presidential! Swearing about the people sworn to give their life to protect yours. No wonder the media are swooning over Kerry in pieces like Halbfinger's!
The other interesting thing is the statement "I don't fall down". I'll have to remember how to spell "hauteur". It seems like it will be on display a lot over the next little while. Your choice as to whether that is measured in months, or years.
Meanwhile, while Kerry's hitting the slopes and cussing about his security escort, Bush gave a speech on the war on terror. More on that later, perhaps, but it was a good one and again it probably won't get the attention it deserves.
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?
Norwegian soldiers serving with NATO peacekeeping forces in Kosovo were among those injured in one of the bloodiest days of unrest since the end of the Kosovo war in 1999. Twenty Norwegians were hurt in rioting and violence that left at least 10 dead and hundreds injured.
Fighting broke out in every major city in the province between Serbs and Albanians. Ethnic Albanians blamed Serbs for the drownings of two children, and set Serb homes, churches and cars on fire.
If Sunni and Shi'ite Iraqis were fighting in every major city in Iraq, you can bet your sweet fundament there'd be constant news updates and people would be saying the whole Iraq operation was circling the bowl.
I guess this is just normal daily life in the Balkans, though. Translation: not news. But what does this also show? That the Iraq situation is already going better than the Kossovo effort. There have been numerous events in Iraq that could have precipitated similar unrest, but none have.
Update: Sarcasm doesn't always translate well on the web. I wasn't serious that this is "just normal daily life" in the Balkans. Just that it isn't being treated as "newsworthy" - buried in the papers, and I haven't heard a mention on tv. . .
Maybe these are the foreign leaders Kerry was talking about:
Norway's Labour Party is joining other European social democrats in linking up with the Democrats in the US. The goal is to be prepared with common strategies if a majority of them on both sides of the Atlantic come back to power.
A group of European social democrats, led by former British Foreign Minister Robin Cook, met last week with several top Democratic politicians and party officials. They included US senators Hilary [sic] Clinton and Joseph Biden.
Not too surprising and nothing insidious about it. So what's on the agenda?:
Espen Barth Eide, who led the Norwegian delegation, said the group met "understanding" that "economic globalization must be accompanied by political globalization."
Nothing wrong with people advocating their beliefs, or people opposing them. This is a gathering of the Transnational Progressives, working on coordinating their common political strategy. That's all fine. But those of us who don't share that agenda should take note, and see what the choices are in this election. It will certainly affect how the war is prosecuted - or even if it is prosecuted.
But not their own facts. That's the saying, at least, but apparently it's not a motto at the NYT.
I was going to let this stand on its own at Darren Kaplan's blog without additional commentary here. After all: what else is new? When I read that my reaction was "in other words, no change". But then I slept on it. Lets read the Public Editor's response:
The New York Times magazine -- like most magazines -- presents opinion and controversy. Its standards of objective analysis are far less stringent than those of our news columns. This passage would be out of place in the newspaper. But it is not out of place in the magazine.
(Emphasis added). Note here that the same principle (using that word very loosely) applies with respect to the newspaper's editorial page; the newspaper's Public Editor has said as much (and Instapundit posted it).
Which brings me to the phrase "objective analysis". Can it really be termed such? It seems quite clear that the NYT policy for its opinion/analysis writers is to allow them to shape the facts to fit their opinions. External reality and factual accuracy is secondary to promoting the right message, supporting the right ideology. Of course I've written here before many times on the Left's rationalizations for lying in support of their cause, most recently in commenting on a TNR piece whose author stated relatively openly that he didn't mind Kerry's demagogy as long as it got him elected.
We've also had a lot of discussion in the past on the origins of the perspective that factual accuracy and objective reality takes a back seat to promoting the ideological vision of the Left. I still maintain that this is something that is embedded by nature in the humanities, but this attitude does go back a long time, to the Sophists if not before. It's the principle expounded by O'Brien in Nineteen Eighty-Four: reality is fungible, ideological belief shapes facts, not the other way around.
But most people don't go for it, at least when they know what is going on. This kind of thing only works when it's done on the sly. That's why the NYT's "objective analysis" writers invoke invented facts, or at least massaged ones, in the first place, then using them as the basis for saying Bush or America is deceptive and hypocritical. But I wonder how effective these pieces would be if the NYT mag & NYT editorial page published a disclaimer along the lines of the Public Editor's response to Darren's mail above every such piece they publish. Something along the lines of:
Note: The New York Times' standards of factual accuracy are far less stringent in our opinion and analysis pieces than in our news reports
Of course, that would send a chill up the spine of anyone who knows just how. . .accurate. . .their news reports tend to be when it comes to telling the story straight. Their motto seems to be "everyone's entitled to their own opinion, but we're also entitled to our own facts".
One obvious observation: if Bush invoked Sept. 11th against his political opponents in a way that even slightly approached the way Kerry regularly does, the national press would blow a gasket that would make their shocked huffing and puffing over the Bush commercial look blase by comparison.
Alert Reader Daniel Aronstein picked out something that's been overlooked in Kerry's speech yesterday. Daniel Aronstein highlighted this bit:
And we were misled in very specific terms about the evidence that we were showed within those briefings to the Congress of the United States.
and wrote in his e-mail that Kerry should be expected to specify exactly what he means. This is another example of his loose insinuations, along the lines of the "foreign leaders support me, but I won't tell you which ones" - making it fair for me to guess: Kim Jong Il? Bashar Assad? Robert Mugabe? Fidel Castro? Hugo Chavez? All of the above?
When it comes to making reckless charges, the press seems to be happy to let Democrats get away with them without asking them to back 'em up. It's about time someone held them as accountable as people were held when they tossed out things about Clinton and were. . .reluctant. . .to back them up with facts. If Kerry was mislead in specific ways, lets here what they were.
Here's a good piece on the weapons of our enemies and how we're defeating them. William Safire has a piece on the UN's Blood-for-Oil program. WSJ's editorial board has more, suggesting a Congressional investigation since the UN can't be trusted to conduct one. Certainly details are stacking up as to why those who opposed the war had the position they did.
M. Simon wrote, in an e-mail titled "America Will Stand Alone", the following:
The time is coming where America will stand alone (Israel and possibly Australia will be at our side).
Europe will drift with the flow of bombs.
Then will come a time when they wake up and the only thing they will be able to do to get themselves out of their poor position will be mass murder.
They fail to see that their future is Israel's present.
So sad.
I just hope and pray that America is strong enough. This is 1914 to 1988 all over again. Evidently there is much unshed innocent blood in the world.
My friend LTB and I were having an ICQ conversation along similar lines the other day. I hope it doesn't end up that way, but I think it will. For some, Kerry and others of like-mind, being in a position like Churchill's Britain found itself in during 1940 means something's wrong with you. It's always better to have allies than not, but it's not always possible and if it's a choice between undertaking a war that needs to be fought or standing down, I know what I think we should do.
But things may not be that grim. Nelson Ascher thinks they aren't. I'll have more along these lines in a article I hope to write later.
So, in case you hadn't noticed, there's a political campaign in the U.S. this year. Hard to believe, I know, since we've all - especially those who don't live in the States - been told repeatedly about the totalitarian regime that Bush-Cheney-Halliburton has imposed on America. But we're going to have an election, and the campaign is going to be more competitive than it was in Putin's Russia. Indeed, if anything the media, including state media like PBS and NPR, are far more supportive of the challenger than of the current government. I know this will come as a surprise to those who have heard so much about how Bush was suppressing dissent and stifling the expression of views that differed from his, but it's true.
The question for me, though, is how closely to follow the day to day mutterings of Kerry and his supporters, especially those who say the things that he doesn't mind being thrown out there but doesn't want to get tarred with for uttering himself. This is a site that focuses on current events that catch my attention, and has focused on the war. Like it or not, the outcome of the campaign will certainly affect the course of the war. I've mentioned on numerous occasions that the greatest obstacle to our victory isn't what the other side does; it's what we do - or don't do - and how we respond to things.
The two candidates represent clear and distinct options on the war. They represent clear alternatives in fighting it. Neither of them represents the Romano Prodi vision: that's not Kerry's position on the war and those of us who are on the other side should recognize that. But the way he would fight the war is clearly different from how Bush will. The way he will fight the campaign is clearly different not only from how he would fight the war, but from what he says. Indeed, it is the clearest example of projection on public display today.
The question for me is how extensively to cover the day-to-day utterances of each side. I'm still trying to resist making this just another partisan site, shilling for "our side" and slamming the "other side". To be sure, there's little left to lose on that score. Indeed, with the Democrats and their standard bearer taking a position on the war that I disagree with and I believe would set us back to the '90s, when "war" was rhetorical and it was really treated as a law enforcement matter, they've made the choice easy. I disagree with that method not because I'm a Republican. I'm siding with Bush and against the Democrats because I disagree with that approach to the war. That's the approach favored by continental Europe, but it's not an approach that will solve the problem.
This blog's primary focus will remain the war and winning it. I will continue to blog about other things, the same way I always have. The election will certainly be one of those things. Right now it seems the country is fairly evenly divided. It's not entirely divided along partisan lines - there are Democrats, there are Liberals, who advocate a version of the "forward strategy of freedom" and indeed some who say they were for it before Bush was, and some of these fault Bush not for being too aggressive and innovative in his foreign policy, but for not doing enough and certainly the "allies" that object to what we've done so far would - will - recoil from anything more. This is the Tom Friedman/Paul Berman wing of things. Not that they want to let on that they support Bush, but the point is there are Liberals who believe we should have an active foreign policy aimed at transforming the Arab World. Certainly, too, there are Republicans and conservatives who question the wisdom of such a policy and prefer a don't-rock-the-boat stance aimed at stability and alliance networking.
So the partisan and ideological lines are not clean. But the choice is, because we have two candidates. Neither are perfect embodiments of the vision of either side, in no small part because there are as many different views of exactly what that vision entails as there are vocal proponents advocating it. But one stands closer to the ideal of one side, the other closer to the ideal of the other. The choice is thus clear, and it'll be gut-check time for those who prefer a different approach on other issues and have trouble pulling a lever for the candidate who they wouldn't normally side with: just how big a priority is the war for you?
In some ways, the division is not just on methods of pursuing the war. But even on that last question: just how big a priority is the war? Kerry clearly embodies a view that it isn't the most significant priority of our time. Look at what he's been saying in speeches and statements recently: the other day I heard a clip where he referred to Bush's mentioning of the difference between him and Kerry on security matters as Bush "trying to change the subject from the economy and health care" because "Bush doesn't have a policy". That's an indication that, to Kerry, the matters of war, security, and defense are not a priority when it comes to the debate on which direction the country should take. They're just a distraction to him.
This is not just one man's view. This is the position of one of the two clear choices. Listen carefully when they speak, Kerry, Dean, Gore, and the rest of them. This is where it helps to go beyond just the transcript, and actually listen to what is said and how it is said. Where is the intensity, the fire? Is it when they speak about the terrorists who have attacked this country? Or is it when they speak of their partisan political opponents at home? Remember, it was Howard Dean who reminded the Democratic candidates who the real enemy here was. None of them disagreed when he said it was Bush.
Is Kerry so different? Well, when an audience member at one of his "Town Hallish" gatherings asked him a pointed but legitimate question, what was Kerry's response? The response of a man who claims to want to be President of all the people, not divide them? To question whether the man was a Republican or not. Is Kerry aiming to be President of all Americans? Or does he see two Americas: Democrats and evil people who do not have to be responded to respectfully, on the substance of a question? And, as Cheney put it, Kerry "speaks as if only the nations opposing America deserve his respect". The references this Man Who Would Be President makes to the nations that support us are overtly insulting. Yet he says, and some people parrot, that he would rebuild our diplomacy and rally allies to us. How? By treating enemies as friends and friends as contemptable? Perhaps he does think he's running for President of France.
Now, if you take the pulse of Kerry and examine his tone and see where his intensity is - is it when he talks about our foreign enemies or his domestic opponents - do the same when it comes to Bush. Where's the fire and intensity when it comes to Bush? When it comes to Bush, I would say he is clearly more incensed at the "evil-doers" who kill innocents than with Democrats. Indeed, unlike the Democrats, when he speaks of "evil-doers", he does not mean his domestic political opponents.
This is not a new observation for me, born of a sudden during the election campaign. It's an observation I've made several times going back to nearly the inception of this blog, when it was hosted on blogspot. That is, the Democrats and Liberals objected to Bush's Manichean tone, his rhetoric of evil invoked against the Islamofascist enemy not because they think that sort of language is always out of bounds, but because they believe it should be reserved for use against Republicans and conservatives.
There's another point I've been making for a long time as well. That is that some here at home, for their own ideological purposes which are different from those of the terrorist and have been examined in previous posts, act as if they were the propaganda arm of the other side. This is where we get to Dean. While helping the Kerry campaign on a conference call with reporters, Dean said:
Dean referred to the videotape when asked whether he was linking US troops in Iraq to the deaths in Spain.
"That was what they said in the tape," Dean said. "They made that connection, I'm simply repeating it."
So Dean sees himself not only as an advocate for Kerry, but spokesman for the terrorists - at least if he thinks that will help defeat, not America's foreign enemies, but Bush: the Democrat's domestic enemies. I've written about the implications of this attitude before, extensively and repeatedly. The Of Course You Know, This Means War post is one I really recommend if you haven't read it already. While part of the country sees itself as being at war with an enemy that would gladly kill us all if it couldn't convert us or conquer us, another part is at war with the rest of us. As a result, they will have to be combated, rhetorically and ideologically, so that we can continue to fight the war itself.
I see no reason now to revise my views on any of those things. They are being confirmed in this campaign so far, not refuted. The choice is clear.
So last week I temped in an office, working at a computer. Though the internet access wasn't so great, it had some and I was able to blog a bit. Today and perhaps through the rest of the week I'll be working outdoors (at Crow Canyon). Should be nice weather, but any posting I'll be doing today will come late, if at all. Till then check out this piece by Anne Applebaum on the impact of Spain:
The military uselessness of allies in general, and Europeans in particular, is now a cornerstone of American political discourse, and a Spanish withdrawal from Iraq will only reinforce it.
The trouble comes, of course, when we get around to talking about the psychological effects of the Spanish election. By that I don't just mean the boost it offers al Qaeda. This is serious, but I don't really expect the Spanish to stop searching for al Qaeda operatives or cooperating with U.S. intelligence. No, what worries me far more is what the change of government in Spain does to what I call the ideological war on terrorism. . .
Spain's announcement that it intends, in effect, to abandon the fragile "new European" coalition in Iraq is a blow to the notion of a unified West, and a great boost for those German and French politicians who have long dreamed of creating a Europe that is not a partner of the United States but a political and economic rival.
(Emphasis added). Check out the whole piece. But I'd like to highlight this as well:
In part, though, this is the payback not for the war in Iraq but for the way it was launched and sold, or not sold, to Europeans. Before the war, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell did not travel the continent, explaining why it should be fought, despite the fact that this was not blindingly obvious, either here or there.
Many say that in part that's because Powell seemed to prefer to bask in the attention of being seen as a "dissenting voice" within the Administration to promoting the policy. But conclusions like that ignore the fact that, well, Powell seems to not like to travel. He's one of the more stay-at-home Secretaries of State we've had in recent memory, prefering to send deputies and undersecretaries to make the case abroad, not just on Iraq but a whole range of issues. But the fact is a visit from the Secretary of State makes more of an impact.
Applebaum makes a number of other good points. Like I said, check out the whole thing.
It was bad enough to wake up last week to nearly two hundred dead and hundreds more injured in Spain. Developments since then have been disheartening at best. While there is heartening progress in Iraq, Europeans are more committed than ever in describing it as a disaster and accepting al-Qaeda's premise that the solution to terrorism is to give in to their demands. Yet again they demonstrate they are like the Bourbons, having forgotten nothing and learned nothing from history.
European allies like Spain throwing in the towel will no doubt give heart to elements here that want us to do the same and treat terrorism as a law enforcement matter. Whether they will prevail remains in doubt. But clearly Europeans are now in more danger than ever, not less. Are you more likely to discourage a behavior by showing it works, or encourage it? What conclusions are al-Qaeda and its sympathizers likely to take from this? That the attack had an impact, and that impact was not to fill Spain with resolve to continue moving forward, and not to fill Europe with resolve to stand up to them.
No, the impact was to cause Spain to pull back and Europe to speak of negotiation and dialogue, and clearly take the attitude that the solution to the problem is not standing up to those who commit terror, but rethinking the policies that offend them. The remarks of the President of the European Commission to that effect are now famous around the world and certainly will be noted by Osama bin Laden and his ilk. Are the Terror Masters likely to be discouraged, or heartened by words like this:
It is clear that using force is not the answer to resolving the conflict with terrorists
That's the view at the top in Europe, despite the fact that blaming the attack on Spain's siding with the U.S. on Iraq doesn't explain threats against France, which did everything they could to preserve Saddam's regime. Chirac's solution is to call for a "dialogue of cultures" rather than an effort to fight terror and regimes that sponsor and support it.
This is a further sign, if any were needed, of the "continental drift" that draws America and Europe further and further apart, and the Islamist Radicals are happy to exploit the gaps. The response of Europeans to Jihadist lamentations over the loss of Andalusia (Spain) and collapse of Ottoman power in Europe and use that as a rationale for attacks to undo these reverses and restore a Moslem Caliphate? To increasingly believe that Americans aim at world domination. And they say we're the ones detached from reality.
Reaction continues to pour fourth. Edward Luttwak proves you can be against the Iraq war without blaming the U.S. for the attack on Spain or rationalizing it:
Even those who view the Iraq war as a strategic error for the United States — and I'm one of them — cannot take seriously the Zapateros of Europe, who seem bent on validating the crudest caricatures of "old European" cowardly decadence. It was an act of colossal irresponsibility for the Socialists and the Spanish news media to excoriate the Aznar government for asserting that ETA, the Basque separatist movement, was probably behind the attacks.
Regarding the argument that "our support for America mean we deserved to be beaten", an argument akin to the old "she asked for it" argument, Luttwak writes:
Whatever their motivation, the Socialists' argument was fundamentally flawed. Osama bin Laden and other Islamists had identified Spain as a priority target years before the Iraq war. Under Muslim law, no land conquered by Islam may legitimately come under non-Muslim rule. For the fanatics, Spain is still Al Andalus of the Middle Ages, which must be re-claimed for Islam by immigration and intimidation. Even if the bombs were placed by Islamists, the idea that Spain was attacked solely because of Mr. Aznar's support for the Iraq war is simply wrong.
As an aside, I'm a big fan of Luttwak because he wrote this.
A lot of people are making the same point the Washington Post editorial team does, but that doesn't mean its wrong:
it's hard not to be concerned about how the message was likely received outside the country, by the leaders of al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist organizations. Before the bombing, the Popular Party was favored to win comfortably; after the devastating attack, and an al Qaeda statement saying its intent was to punish Spain for its role in Iraq, the election was swept by the opposition -- and its leader immediately pledged to withdraw Spanish troops and cool relations with Washington. The rash response by Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Spain's prime minister-elect, will probably convince the extremists that their attempt to sway Spanish policy with mass murder succeeded brilliantly. . .
Mr. Zapatero could not be expected to alter his view that the original decision to invade Iraq was wrong. But the reaction of Spain, and Europe, to this massive and shocking attack on its soil is crucial -- as is its response to the continuing challenge in Iraq. The two are inextricably linked: Whatever the prewar situation, al Qaeda's tactics now have made explicit the connection between the continuing fight in Iraq and the overall war on terrorism. Mr. Zapatero said his first priority would be to fight terrorism. Yet rather than declare that the terrorists would not achieve their stated aim in slaughtering 200 Spanish civilians, he reiterated his intention to pull out from Iraq in less equivocal terms than before the election.
The incoming prime minister declared the Iraq occupation "a disaster" -- yet he didn't explain how withdrawing troops would improve the situation.
There is this story on efforts to explore keeping Spanish troops there under a NATO umbrella. That depends on the French, though. Robert Kagan writes on the reaction of the Europeans in general, and it's not looking like a reaction filled with resolve - except for the resolve to bail:
In the coming days and weeks, Europeans will close ranks with Spain and express common European solidarity against al Qaeda terrorism. But there is a real danger that many Europeans will not extend the solidarity across the Atlantic. Some may argue, at least implicitly, that separation from the United States is one effective, nonviolent defense against future terrorist attacks.
He goes further:
The incoming Spanish government has declared its intention to move away from the United States and back to the "core of Europe," meaning France and Germany. Presumably Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder will welcome their new ally in Old Europe. But presumably they also know that dissociation from the United States in the wake of the Madrid bombings will be a disaster for Europe. If the United States cannot fight al Qaeda without Europe's help, it is equally true that Europe can't fight al Qaeda without the United States.
But, statements to the contrary notwithstanding, it's far from clear that Europe has any intention of fighting al-Qaeda. Here's the European response, in a Reuters report:
The European Union (news - web sites) appeared to back away Tuesday from calls for new institutions to fight terrorism after the Madrid bombings, stressing instead the need to implement agreed measures and share information. . .
The executive European Commission (news - web sites) played down the idea of appointing a single EU counter-terrorism Czar, urging member states to adopt and apply legislation already on the table and make their police and intelligence services cooperate.
Law enforcement officials said when EU ministers hold emergency security talks Friday, they should focus on bolstering existing, practical cooperation, rather than get distracted by calls for new bodies. . .
EU Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Antonio Vitorino urged member states to make better use of the EU's police agency Europol to pool intelligence and Eurojust, created last year to boost cooperation between national judicial authorities.
Europe's not about fighting a war on terror - they just plan on sending in the police after an attack to arrest those directly responsible for murdering their people. Their attitude is further driven home in this piece:
If ever there was a time for European leaders to trade talk for action, last week was it. So it tells you something about the solemnity with which the war on terrorism is perceived in some quarters that Germany's first reaction to what may yet prove the deadliest terror attack in European history was to renounce action, and then call for talk.
"I believe we need a conference of EU interior ministers as quickly as possible," announced the German interior minister, Otto Schily. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder seconded Schily, pledging not to beef up security, and vowing to reject new anti-terror laws. Instead, he offered the European version of that silly Democratic slogan: anti-terrorism is largely a police action. He then promised "hard punishment" for terrorists. That way, presumably, once those terrorists have finished butchering yet another swath of humanity, they'll be really, really sorry.
A case study of reactions to 3/11. Lets look at Australia, at two pieces in particular.
The editorial in The Australian blamed, well, the terrorists for the terror attacks. They see the terrorists & their supporters as the enemy. The editorial starts off this way:
THE terrorist murders in Madrid have but one message for all Australians: we must stand firm against those who wish us harm for no reason other than their hatred for our way of life. It now seems likely the Madrid bombs were the work of Islamic terrorists linked to Osama bin Laden and his al-Qa'ida terror network. As Prime Minister John Howard has warned, there is every reason to fear these madmen will try to kill Australians, either at home or abroad. It is a danger we must confront. There is no other path that would end the terrorists' dream of slaughter.
Those who say we have brought the threat upon ourselves, and that renouncing the war against Saddam Hussein and abandoning the US alliance would take us off the target list, ignore the lessons of history, and defy commonsense.
Speaking on behalf of that position, or rather arguing that the U.S. (not just evilBush) is the enemy, is this piece in the Sidney Morning Herald. The SMH apparently paid Margo Kingston for a column, but Gabriel Kolko wrote this one. Sweet gig if you can get it, eh Margo? Well, Kolko says nothing Kingston wouldn't have written if Margo wasn't having a lazy day.
Many people get their underwear in a bunch and become all offended when anyone suggests that there are some on the Left who are effectively on the other side, seeing America and not the terrorists as their enemy. But when they do so, they are distracting attention from pieces like Kingston-Kolko's that they publish and parrot. One thing to be noted by its absence is there is only the most fleeting and non-judgemental reference to Radical Islamic terror. The U.S. is responsible for what happened in Spain. Indeed, the reference to the Madrid bombings is invariably in passive voice, to omit the perpetrators. For example, here is the first reference:
But the events in Spain over the past days, from the massive deadly explosions in Madrid to the defeat of the ruling party because it supported the Iraq war despite overwhelming public opposition to doing so, have greatly raised the costs to its allies of following Washington's lead.
The bombings - explosions in Spain - treated either as a act of nature (no bombers mentioned, al-Qaeda never mentioned) or as being caused by the United States, the consequence of Spain's friendship with the Great Satan. That’s actually the al-Qaeda position. Without mentioning the enemy we face and describing it as the editorial in The Australian does, Kingston-Kolko makes the point that those who were our allies in the fight against Communism, which they earlier lament the passing of because it contained the U.S. in their view, are not our allies now in the current conflict:
So long as the future is to a large degree - to paraphrase Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld - "unknowable," it is not to the national interest of its traditional allies to perpetuate the relationships created from 1945 to 1990.
That's true and I've mentioned myself that America cannot rely on former allies, or alliance structures created to deal with the last crisis rather than this one, because the interests of countries like France are on the other side, joining with Oligarchical China to intimidate Democratic Taiwan for example, and engaging in transfer of military technology to them. None of this upsets Kingston-Kolko: as during the Cold War, they identify more with ruthless dictatorships, as long as they are foes of the U.S.
Make no mistake. This isn't just opposition to Bush, or Republicans, or Neoconservatives, or even just conservatives. This is open opposition to the U.S., seeing America as the enemy. On the prospect of a Democratic Administration, they put it thusly:
To be critical of Bush is scarcely justification for wishful thinking about Kerry. Since 1947, the foreign policies of the Democrats and Republicans have been essentially consensual on crucial issues - "bipartisan" as both parties phrase it - but they often utilise quite different rhetoric.
Critics of the existing foreign or domestic order will not take over Washington this November. As dangerous as it is, Bush's reelection may be a lesser evil because he is much more likely to continue the destruction of the alliance system that is so crucial to American power. One does not have to believe that the worse the better but we have to consider candidly the foreign policy consequences of a renewal of Bush's mandate.
They want to see Bush, not Kerry, elected not because they wish America and its allies well, but because they want America to suffer setbacks and be hampered and opposed. Whether their belief that this will be the outcome is true or not, note that it is not based on a friendly attitude.
It's not the despots and Islamic radicals they want to see contained - it is America. When people like myself, or Andrew Sullivan, or Steven Den Beste say that, we get accused of hyperbole and distorting what the Left wants. But here it is in print in a major Australian newspaper. As Glenn Reynolds would say: they're not just anti-war. They're on the other side.
Continuing the series of posts that began here then continued here with some reflections on India, there is this piece by David Shaffer on blaming India for job losses. Indeed, sometimes it seems like people are singing the Blame Canada song with the word "Canada" struck out and "India" written in in crayon.
Also, listening to the Chicken Littles trying to whip Americans into a frenzy of hysteria, you'd think the country was deindustrializing at a rapid pace, all due to outsourcing. Well, actually industrial production continues to go up - and has been going up sharply. The tech sector is rebounding from the overhang of the '90s.
Manufacturing jobs are down, but manufacturing production is up, so what gives? "We're losing all our industry to India" can't be the answer. No, the "culprit" is large productivity gains in manufacturing and technology. Normally, increasing productivity is not considered a sign of economic decline - quite the contrary. As this Washington Times editorial by Donald Lambro puts it:
Manufacturers have been reducing payrolls, in middle management and on the production line, because they have found ways to produce more goods at far less cost, boosting profits for further expansion and fatter investor and worker pension dividends.
Ok, but what about jobs? People need employment, after all. I certainly know that. Well, as Noam Scheiber put it in the TNR piece linked to here says, that will come. Of course, in the meantime Noam wants Kerry to demagogue the issue to gain power, but that aspect of things was covered in that post. The problem is that lying to people to defeat Bush also whips them into a frenzy against the fer'ners who are stealing their jobs. Usually Liberals claim to be against jingoistic demonization of foreigners for political advantage, distinguishing themselves from the likes of Pat Buchanan on those matters.
I guess there's less difference between them and him than they want people to believe.
But the Washington Times puts the choice this way:
So how can we create more manufacturing jobs? Mr. Bush says we do it by expanding the economic pie — by cutting taxes on workers and on businesses, expanding free-trade agreements to open more markets to made-in-America products and commodities, and reducing federal regulations that heap huge costs on everything we buy and make us less competitive.
Mr. Kerry's prescription for manufacturing doesn't seem based on expanding anything. Instead, he calls for increased regulations (which levy higher costs of their own) and wants to punish businesses that find ways to reduce their costs.
In many cases his plans would kill even more jobs. Economics reporter Amy Goldstein, writing in The Washington Post, says Mr. Kerry's "central proposals to stem the flow of U.S. jobs overseas are relatively modest."
Now, TNR is generally considered a thoughtful, straightforward mag by people - including me - especially in comparison to the "Moonie-owned" Washington Times. But which treats this matter with more seriousness and candor?
*My best Mr. Garrison imitation* Ok, class, pay attention. Check out this piece in the Washington Times. Now, here's your homework assignment - the following essay questions:
If Putin is so naturally popular, why did he feel it necessary to repress media outlets not favorable to him? Does habit explain it all?
The article postulates that Putin would clearly win a fair election. That being the case, why did he behave in a manner similar to Iran's Mullahs, though more subtle, in culling all parties and candidates that might possibly rival him?
Is democracy healthier? Would Russia be better off or worse off if it wasn't ruled by a strongman?
The Washington Times characterizes it this way:
All the same time, the Russian people appear to welcome Mr. Putin's competence, despite his occasional heavyhandedness.
Well, they say potato, I say potahto. Last December I put it this way:
Titles like "Maximum Leader", "Generalissimo", and "President for Life" are unfashionable, and the global elite don't mind undemocratic, but unfashionable is right out.
This time, the Washington Times sides with the global elite.
On the other hand, the Washington Times published this piece by Jack Kelly on milestones of progress in Iraq. Check it out.
On Sunday I linked to a FT piece by Phillip Bobbit. It has many good aspects, which I'll get to. But Bobbit makes a glaring misconception when it comes to the "Forward Strategy of Freedom". Bobbit calls this "liberal imperialism" and seems to believe that it involves simply sending in American troops everywhere that democratic institutions do not exist. Bobbit writes:
by focusing on the internal life of disparate societies it neglects to establish whether their transformation is compatible with the strategic interests of the US or of their own peoples, as they see it. As such, it is a recipe for civil war in many countries, and for the systematic grinding down of the American military that, while it fights wars commendably, is at a loss in dealing with civilians directly.
However, here Bobbit and other critics of Bush's strategy are more simple-minded than the Administration that is often accused of being just that. Administration officials have made it very clear that their policy is not as uniform as Bobbit portrays. Much of their efforts are aimed at persuading countries to enact democratizing reforms. They have certainly shown a willingness to work with undemocratic regimes, such as Musharaf's Pakistan, if it's in America's strategic interest to do so.
However, they are going to push for democratization where it matters, and the Bush Administration has candidly accepted what many critics of American foreign policy over the years have said, especially Liberal critics: that working with undemocratic regimes is a short-term stopgap and to really resolve many of the problems that we confront internationally, including terrorism, promoting democratic accountability and the rule of law will ultimately be better for us than simply accepting and working with the status quo. Would America and the world be more secure from terrorism if Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria and Iran were democracies instead of dictatorships - two of a fundamentalist Islamic sort that promote the export of violence, and three of which directly support terrorism either openly or covertly? If Bobbit's point that a nation has a right to intervene to promote changes when another nation's policies threaten its security is correct, then certainly it applies here.
But there are many ways of promoting democratic reforms, not all of which - even most of which - will involve military action. The Bush Administration recognizes that in the policies it has designed to promote this goal, it is odd that Bobbit has not heard of them or studied the issue enough to be aware of them. I am sure that if he had he would have written this section differently. Bobbit flatters the FT's readers in recognizing that the EU attempts such non-military methods of suasion when it comes to potential members:
It is notable that the EU has been able to induce regimes with very oppressive human rights records to voluntarily change their laws and practices as a condition of admission to the single market - a classic market state manoeuvre.
But for some reason fails to mention America's efforts, on a broader scale that indeed the EU is not very helpful regarding, to induce such voluntary changes in many regions. This is also a key aspect of the reformations I suggested the U.S. enact with respect to international institutions (More here and here). These are aimed at changing the incentives - rather than treating any government as essentially the same, so that Qaddafi's Libya or Assad's Syria can be seen as having as much legitimacy on the UN's Human Rights Commission as a democratic state that respects the rule of law and liberty, members would be treated differently and thus induced to change. Surly Libya's Qaddafi seems to have a much better understanding of Bush's policy position than Bobbit does, as he recognized that relinquishing the WMD activities that the U.S. sees as a threat to global security would mean the marines would not go to the shores of Tripoli again. The simple fact is the Greater Middle East Initiative was not the blunt instrument Bobbit implies it was. If it were as mindlessly interventionist as Bobbit's piece suggests, the Bush Administration would not have backed off in the face of regional resistance as much as they did - more than they should have.
However, as I said, there are many good things about Bobbit's article. For one thing he recognized a point I emphasized in the beginning of my America's 21st Century Foreign Policy series. Bobbit puts it this way, writing:
In the past half-century, the US has undertaken to provide three types of collective goods that the world wants. It has underwritten the security of potential rivals - Japan-Korea, Germany and her neighbours - when they faced the Soviet challenge; it provided the legal framework for the society of nation states to universalise international law and human rights; it managed the superpower confrontation to keep the cold war cold. . .
A world without American leadership would be a world that is far more violent and far less free, and poorer than it would otherwise be. As long as the US provides precious collective goods - building coalitions and acting globally through regional co-operation, implementing anti-missile, anti-proliferation and pro-environmental regimes, organising humanitarian intervention and sharing information about terrorism - there will remain an important demand for US leadership. That demand will be volitional not coerced. That is the point. It will call upon an emerging market state, in a society of such states, not an empire.
Bobbit's European - and many American - readers benefit from being reminded of that fact. They also benefit from his rebuttals of the idea that America is an Empire. He only fails on that point when he says Bush's policies are moving it in that direction, and that failure is based on his misunderstanding and misreading of Bush's policy and the "Forward Strategy of Freedom".
But Bobbit is also accurate on what the U.S. finds so troublesome about certain international institutions and agreements, such as the land mines treaty or the ICC. He correctly points out that the advocates of these agreements often emphasize process while ignoring the results or the goals. On the land mines treaty, Bobbit writes:
But is it wise to apply this agreement to the 38th parallel that separates North from South Korea? That is virtually the only place where the US has deployed landmines - in a no-man's land where a dangerous and unpredictable regime has put a million heavily armed troops within miles of the South Korean capital. There are 17,000 US troops on that border. They could not be protected from such a huge North Korean force without mines. Would it really be a step towards peace on the peninsula to remove this barrier?
and on the ICC he says:
Why not try him before a permanent rather than ad hoc tribunal? Because the latter is authorised by the UN Security Council where the US has a veto. Why is that important? Are we trying to shield war crimes? Are we afraid that some new American adventure will be the subject of a prosecution? Of course we are. But not because it is US policy to commit war crimes; rather we don't want the ambitions of a special prosecutor without accountability to any political body - recall Kenneth Starr? - to add to the substantial burdens of intervention, tipping the balance against intervention in marginal theatres. And, as long as the society of states depends upon American soldiers to protect human rights in Kosovo, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Somalia, Panama, Haiti and elsewhere, that community shouldn't want this either.
Both are excellent points - of course I agree, they are points I've made myself in the past - but often overlooked by those who believe a treaty, any treaty, is a step forward in international peace and security, when often they aren't. One has to look at the affects on the ground, in detail, in specific instances. It is of course also important to recognize that the regimes that one would most want limited in these areas typically ignore them. Few sane people have as much concern about a country governed by Tony Blair having access to nukes as they do a country ruled by Kim Jong Il. But the latter showed that no agreement was going to bind him.
This is not to say the Spanish Socialist Party is somehow in league with al-Qaeda. But it is clear that one of the things the Islamic Radicals want to do is exploit divisions in the West. Last week, before the bombing, Aznar's Popular Party was expected to win the election. In it's aftermath, they were defeated and the Socialists came to power a platform of distancing themselves from the U.S. and throwing in the towel in Iraq. They will move from the camp of U.S. allies into that of the French on these issues.
I've written before on the growing divisions between America and Continental Europe before, but instead of referring you to posts of mine, let me send you to a recent series by the Buggy Professor, start here and work your way up to his post, written yesterday, on the Spanish election result. The key point he makes in this context is counter to the often-expressed idea that there may be differences between governments but that doesn't mean disagreement with the people. One often hears this in "oh, yes I disagree with the policies of the American government, but I like Americans just fine" and variants (fill in country name here). His point is that in some ways the trans-Atlantic Alliance may seem ok, he wrote earlier on bandwagoning to the U.S., but the underlying difference in popular attitudes would eventually be expressed in policy as a result of elections. Like the one we saw in Spain yesterday, which is a jumping off of the bandwagon.
I want to note something here for my American readers, too. Especially since it may be a surprise to them. The bloggosphere and blog readers are a different breed, so we've seen and felt a lot of identification, sympathy, and feelings of fellowship for the people of Spain since last week. But look out across the rest of the country - there isn't that depth of feeling. Sure, there is sympathy, but not really a deeply held feeling that we're all in the same boat. People see it as tragic but there is not a "Sept. 11th" feeling. The reaction to Europe's 3/11 is almost identical to European reaction to America's 9/11. It's just more evidence, I think, that we're drifting in different directions and that common bond has faded. Not for everyone, for sure: just as there are a significant number of Europeans who "got" Sept. 11th, there are Americans who "get" 3/11. But if you don't notice the generally different reactions, you're missing something critical.
The other thing to note is that the reactions are very different. They have similarities that mask that difference. The European reaction to 3/11 is as deep as America’s to 9/11. But do they feel they are at war? Is there not only sorrow, but anger? Not in the sense of a desire for revenge, but a desire to insure that “never again”, to eliminate this menace? Or do they still believe that terrorism, like the weather, is just something you have to live with, there is no way to “end” it?
Two problems with Financial Times pieces exist. First is that ever since last Fall when I zinged 'em on denouncing America and praising Ba'athism in back-to-back days, they've taken their Opinion & Analysis section off the "free" side and rendered it difficult to blog, because non-subscribers won't be able to read the pieces for themselves.
The second is that even the good stuff that they do make available is only freeware for a couple days, max, before being consigned into the "subscriber only" archives. So when they put up a piece like today's long piece by Phillip Bobbit, which really deserves to be widely read and carefully analyzed, it's usually something that can "pass blogosphere muster" now, but it's availability is ephemeral.
I've decided to make this post a Mirror for this article, and I'll get back to it later. It has many good points and some areas where I'm going to quibble with Bobbit. But check it out in its entirety first.
Better Than an Empire By Phillip Bobbit
Financial Times, March 12 2004
It has long been fashionable to describe the American state as neo-imperialist; indeed this was a staple of leftwing criticism of US policies during the cold war. These criticisms usually reflected mercantilist economics (the wealth of one society depends on the poverty of another) married to a Marxist perspective (civil and military structures are driven primarily or even exclusively by economic motives). This had a certain logic to it: if the US was waging a global battle against communism, wasn't it trying to determine by force the civil life of other, independent states - such as Chile, or Nicaragua or Cuba - and wasn't that the very definition of empire? If the Soviet Union was, in President Reagan's terms, an "evil empire", perhaps it made sense to say that, whatever the proper epithet, America was an empire too - the "other empire".
There is, of course, still some of this sort of thing around. American political critic Noam Chomsky is not getting any younger, but his progeny can still be found at rallies and on panels at conferences. The end of the cold war, for them, only simplified matters. The apex of power is empire. There were two superpowers, one the enemy (the US), one an embarrassment best not mentioned (the Soviet Union); now there is only one superpower. Superpower is as powerful as it gets. Ergo, we have an empire to contend with and, even worse, one that is unchecked.
But the changes in the world since 1990 have not, in fact, made it simpler. We now see descriptions of the American empire from both right and left, and the neo-colonialist tincture of these descriptions has largely vanished. On the left, the depictions are still meant to alarm and to rally; but so, too, on the right. And, more tellingly, there is a large neo-conservative group that makes these charges not to distress, but to inspire.
Examples fall roughly in two groups. The first focuses only on the external strategic dimension of imperial power and tends to identify sheer power with empire. On this view, when an American government doesn't need the assistance of others to have its way, it will inevitably tend towards an imperial role. This group includes neo-conservatives who simply want the US to appreciate its new role and take advantage of it, as well as liberals who deplore the Bush administration's disdain for the international institutions that replaced 19th century imperialism. Call this polyglot group the "Othellos", for they are divided between heroic undertakings and embarrassed apprehension.
A second group, however, recognises the internal legal dimension of imperialism, the control of the civil life of the subject society. This group includes left critics who see the US use of force in Afghanistan and Iraq as a new deceptive version of imperialism's mission civilisatrice, liberals who actually endorse such a role, and conservative writers who fear imperial overstretch. Call them "Prosperos", some who would reform their Calibans and others who would just like to get back to Milan.
Othellos, though they include persons and movements that are often hostile to one another, are united by their attention to American power. Aggressive Othellos do not simply describe American policy as imperialistic; they strongly urge that the US forthrightly adopt an imperial paradigm as a way of maintaining US pre-eminence and quelling threats to peace worldwide. "Dust off your pith helmets" might be their slogan, recalling the glorious days of the 19th century British empire and suggesting that that global role be inherited by Washington. It is not territory so much as particular policies that they seek abroad: the renunciation of weapons of mass destruction, co-operation in the war on terrorism, the provision of sites for foreign military bases and peaceful external relations that renounce violence. These military objectives are accompanied by economic ones: open markets, sound fiscal and monetary policies and support for free trade.
The duties of establishing world order devolve on the US, in part, from the weakness of other states that might assist in these burdens and in part from America's unique strength. The US accounts for 38 per cent of all military spending, as much as the next 11 countries combined; Nato and Japan, taken together, account for about 27 per cent. By 2006 the US defence budget will equal that of all the other countries in the world together. Last year, just the increase in US defence spending was almost as large as Britain's entire defence budget and three-quarters that of China. And yet, as a percentage of US gross domestic product, defence spending is smaller today than it was a decade ago, and about half of its cold-war high.
These figures reflect a related economic dominance. The US economy in 2000 was equal in size to that of the next four national economies - Japan, Germany, France and Britain - combined. Or to put it differently: the US economy was larger than the combined economies of all the other permanent members of the UN Security Council. Thus America has the power to match the desires of the heroic Othello.
Against this, other Othellos - call them chagrined rather than aggressive - insist that all states, whatever their power, must be bound by the rule of law. For imperial Rome, international law was actually only the agreed-upon protocols between the Empire and Barbarians; the international law of which we are heirs today is not really the descendant of the Roman empire, despite our use of Latin phrases. Rather, it is the legacy of the modern state and the result of inter-state relations. It is this reversion to an imperial indifference to law that so grates on many critics of US policy. In a Roman mood, John Bolton, US under-secretary of state, wrote that, "There may be good and sufficient reasons to abide by the provisions of a treaty, and in most cases one would expect to do so because of the mutuality of benefi
