Not So Threatening Storm

OMG... the almighty w0zz was wrong about a political matter???

damn you, crazy moderate no-wing nut!

Well, it's not so much a political matter as a lying matter. I made the mistake of trusting Colin Powell's judgement of the intelligence presented to him.

What?

Who won American Idol?

The "Friends" season is over!

NOW what the hell are we suppose to do distract us from all this other reality (i mean fiction?)??

So Wozz, does this mean any of your ambiguous yet detailed diatribe from last week has shifted at all? Have you still seen the light behind some of what the PNAC guys are doing?

(now to intentionally stir the pot a bit)
As for being a moderate no-wing nut... this in my opinion is such an easy, pussy thing to be. You get to sit around talking about EVERYONES shortcomings, quoting people that are talking about what's wrong with a piece of a certain party.. whimp shit. Guanubian, while I do enjoy his stuff, seems to fall into this same trap. By declaring yourself a "reformed liberal" you end up standing on some imaginary "clear thinking pedistal" looking down upon the entire world, free from all those pitfalls. Lame. You can be proud to be a liberal and not automatically agree with everything every liberal says.

But to stand on the side and say, "I think that attacking Iraq was the right thing to do, but they're not doing it right." is just lame. That's like saying, "If I had a royal flush I could have won that last hand of poker." but you still suck at poker, and you have no royal flush.

Well, the PNAC agenda and the WMD's were two seperate things. The WMD's were needed to make the war "more" legitimate in the eyes of international law. I still think modernizing the Middle East is a worthy goal, I'm just not sure we should have tried to do this on our own, a fear which was shoved to the side due to the 'threat' posed by Iraq's WMD's and France's obstinate insistence that force would never be used - which is just as irrational as the opposite position. If you're accusing me of being a moderate no-winger, then you're sitting too far off to one wing ;) There's a reason the Democrat's try and appeal to the right and the Republicans to the left. They're trying to meet in the middle, which is where a good portion of the country sits.

About the only position of mine you might not call liberal would be my position on the use of force to reform the Middle East, and its my contention that this seems out of step because "liberal" has lost its way. FDR was a Democrat.

The only regret I have with this lack of WMD's is the effect it is going to have on the world's perception of American actions in the Middle East. To undertake the unspoken re-making of the Middle East, we should really have the whole world behind us. The fact that we don't is indicative of how screwed up the diplomatic front (or lack thereof) became - not indicative of the goal being unworthy. If this was Bill Clinton's idea (as it was in Bosnia/Kosovo) NO one would be complaining (well, except the Republicans).

And having said all of this, it isn't going to win a vote for Bush from me. His domestic agenda is not just stupidly dangerous, its deliberately dangerous, in the hope of sealing the deal for the Republicans for the next decade, and failing that, to break the bank so their successors will have an uphill battle.

Thats my position. If the only way to be a liberal is to buy into the Party Line (is that the Democratic or Green party line?) then count me out. I consider myself a liberal, but thats the result of my considered positions not the cause of them.

well john, it must feel great to be the only one out of all of us that isn't "lame."

YOU ARE SO COOL

John was being intentionally provocative to spark more discussion. I appreciate the effort. He is cool.

I was kidding meg. I have spoken to Wozz previously about wanting to spark more heated discussion on some of these topics. I love the blog comments. I want us to do lots of them. They are important to me in forming my own opinions. Could you have done better about replying to my spiel about being a no-wing than sarcastically calling me lame? :) ( 'nother poke there... double smiley)
I'm still hoping for a poke back from Guanubian. ;)

Actually, I just wrote whole thing that was long and biting, but in a clouded moment I spawned a new browser window in mozilla to grab a reference, it used my currently spawned window used for my blog comments, and it ate my whole piece. Who's the fool here?

(intentionally provacative text to follow)

Wozz, I agree with you 100% as far as a modern and free middle east would be wonderful. I believe this. I really beieve this would be wonderful. But it's like believeing in Peter Pan. Neverland is also wonderful.

My objection comes with the reality of the situation. I don't think Iraq is going to just become a western democracy, nor do I think that the dominos will fall in the reigion. Do you? Idealic revolution is always wonderful. Is that what you are believing in here? Are other nations going to just change? With sanctions? Name a nation that has changed due to sanctions. Cuba?

I don't agree with you on one point. Being a liberal is NOT adopting the current popular liberal line, or the green party line. I'm not a droid. Right now, especially, they don't speak for me. They're lost and scared and scattered. I'm still I am a liberal.

It seems we didn't have the intelligence we were told about regarding WMD, that is not clear but nearly so. The truth seems to be that we want middle east revolution.

So we're in a half-assed attempt at something and fantasy ideals are wonderful, they're just not real. SO IT IS A MISTAKE.

My stance: Our big mistake: being the example of democracy while ignoring global democracy. We're alone now, and we're not holding a royal flush (reference to previous post) and Neverland is a long way from Bagdad.

Ouch.. that's almost unreadable. Sorry Meg. :) ('nother poke damn it!)

OK Yankee Doodle Dandy!

I like the prodding for more discussion as long as it's not insulting anyone personally. Don't want anyone's po' lil feelin's gettin hurt now!

I'm all for defense and security, but I disagree with you on having to use force to reform the middle east. Well, at least not without the rest of the world behind us, and certainly not for ficticious or bureaucratic reasons. Aggression just doesn't seem like the wisest idea in the age of WMD's, and I'd rather avoid it if at all possible.

I don't want to hurt feelings either. Sorry if I offended anyone. I should have more clearly stated my intentional trouble making.

Peace, love and patchouli oil to you all.

The way I see it, Bush and friends were hell-bent on going into Iraq for *whatever* reason they personally have. They publically proclaimed WMD as the reason, they 'privately' proclaimed the Domino theory was the reason, and there probably is a whole other set of reasons that isn't being discussed at all.

In any case, *we are already there*, and calling it a mistake doesn't change the fact that we are. It won't change the worlds perception of us one bit. And it will absolutely make us less safe. We have to succeed at this rebuilding effort for our own safety. Leaving the mess behind will be giving Iraq to the Iranian hardliners in a handbasket, strengthening them with a brand new population of fervent Shiites to whip into a violent religious froth and weaking the liberalizing elements which are making VERY slow progerss in Iranian society today. And then we'll be in much worse shape than we were before with Hussein.

It is in all of our best interests to see this effort succeed. There is no alternative *at this point* that won't leave us less safe than we already are.

Wolfowitz made an important point in an interview the other day:

Our troops are leaving Saudi.

This is huge. Consider it the first step on a LONG road to withdrawel.

Oh, and BTW - John-Paul, aka Guanubian, doesn't read the comments over here I don't believe. He's still looking at the old site over on Salon. At some point in the near future I'm going to go ahead and try and point that over here, but for the time being, if you want to argue with him you'll have to do it over there, or on his site ;)

I agree with all of this Wozz. I see no way out of this now, I also see no way to win. Let's hope there is a way to do one of those.

If we manage to actually get a reasonably liberal democracy in place in Iraq within 5 years, I would consider it an overall win. Unfortunately, I don't think we're going to be able to do it by ourselves, since at this point there isn't much incentive for the world to help out and plenty to see us fail. And even if we do succeed we'll get no credit since the world (let alone American) attention spans aren't that long.

Agreed.

Hey, look at the size of this thread!

Well as I've said before on this subject: We're in there now, it doesn't matter what the reasons were for the war except to use them to get rid of Bush in 2004.

So here we are in the role of nation building, and so far I give it a big fat F. Looting still goes on, and there still is a good chunk of Iraq w/out food and water.

It's been just about a month now, and if we really want to do this nation building thing right, we better shore up our humanitarian aid, because right now we look horribly bad in taking so much time to get it to the Iraqi people.

Yes, it's only been a month, but the people who are watching this play out, do not care. They want results, and they want them now. The more we drag our feet on getting basic services restored, the worse we look, and the less likely the chance is of us installing some sort of government based on democracy.

Once again, yes it is a logistal nightmare, but no excuses. It doesn't matter. Either fix the humanitarian problems or we will fail, miserably.

This is offtopic: Matt, move your blog already. I want to see what Pagano's opnions are also, but I am not gonna cross-post and read two blogs of the same thing every day, too much work. It's obvious he's not gonna move his blog, so be the example!

You started this community so you damn well better lead by example, and right now you're a traitor! :)

Hey Wob!

You're right about this. With all the money spent on this thing thus far why not have a FLOOD of aid and public works such as the world has never seen? The important part of the operation is now. We all knew we'd win the war, but why can't we get the lights on and actually make things better for the people than they were more quickly. Our smart bombs were not supposed to bust up infastructure after all.. right?

We need to get every damn NGO and the UN in there like crazy. We need everyone with food, water, electricity and a job.

After all, establishing a win here depends on what happens now. This is what is important, now. Why can't Bush throw a ton of money and global dimplomacy at this and be honest and tell the american people that this is what is realistically what it will take? I think we've all forgotten that Iraq was supposed to just hug and become autonomous and pro-american by now anyway.

I wonder. Can anyone estimate, at full production, how many U.S. dollars per day oil export can generate per capita in Iraq? I wonder if it's $3/person or something like $50. This could be how our admin plans to do it.

As for "Stuff from Wozz" moving, I think that would be great. Ideally he'd bring his audience over here and not lose it. I'd like to see all of our blogs become more read and for there to be more dialog in the comments section. I've managed to pull in 40 visitors a day on average over the last 4 days by working at it a bit, but that won't last. I don't know how to rise to popularity. Is this something we could all work on? I'll post a blog entry as a posting place for ideas and comments on trying to do this.

John: This is exactly how I feel. While I'm not that keen on our foreign policy of strike first, ask questions later, and the whole theory of if one middle east country goes democratic, the others will fall, aka the domino effect, that doesn't mean I don't support a full reconstruction effort of Iraq.

For the domino effect to even have a chance to work, we have to take care of the public works and humanitarian aid RIGHT NOW. The faster we do this, the better we look, and the greater the chance this rebuilding has a chance of succeeding. Right now Iraq has the medias full attention and we should be using that to the fullest extent to show that we are delivering. In a few months, Iraq will be old news, the media will have moved on, and it will be too late to show that we delivered on the humanitarian aid and public works repair.

THE TIME IS NOW. And right now, we are FAILING.

"I'm still hoping for a poke back from Guanubian. ;)"

Yes, I am late to the party. Hopefully the following poke back will suffice:

"For a measure of how much the Left has learned from the Iraq war, match the intensity of its current focus on the lack of conclusive evidence of WMDs against its concern with the numerous mass graves that have been uncovered." (on my blog today)

I will take this up more seriously tomorrow, as it's too late to continue right now.

This is where it's at:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/06/04/nyt.friedman/index.html

"Once the war was over and I saw the mass graves and the true extent of Saddam's genocidal evil, my view was that Mr. Bush did not need to find any W.M.D.'s to justify the war for me. I still feel that way. But I have to admit that I've always been fighting my own war in Iraq. Mr. Bush took the country into his war. And if it turns out that he fabricated the evidence for his war (which I wouldn't conclude yet), that would badly damage America and be a very serious matter.

But my ultimate point is this: Finding Iraq's W.M.D.'s is necessary to preserve the credibility of the Bush team, the neocons, Tony Blair and the C.I.A. But rebuilding Iraq is necessary to win the war. I won't feel one whit more secure if we find Saddam's W.M.D.'s, because I never felt he would use them on us. But I will feel terribly insecure if we fail to put Iraq onto a progressive path. Because if that doesn't happen, the terrorism bubble will reinflate and bad things will follow. Mr. Bush's credibility rides on finding W.M.D.'s, but America's future, and the future of the Mideast, rides on our building a different Iraq. We must not forget that."

[emphasis added]

Hrm, it wouldn't let me bold things. Maybe I should turn on HTML in comments. In any case, here's what I was highlighting:

"Mr. Bush took the country into his war. And if it turns out that he fabricated the evidence for his war (which I wouldn't conclude yet), that would badly damage America and be a very serious matter."

"Mr. Bush's credibility rides on finding W.M.D.'s, but America's future, and the future of the Mideast, rides on our building a different Iraq. We must not forget that.""

(Parry!)

The last temptation is the greatest treason;
To do the right thing for the wrong reason.
--T.S. Eliot, The Murder In The Cathedral

Wozz, Guano, I agree 100%. The link to CNN is spot-on in my opinion, as are the similar words typed by Wozz in his last two entries to this thread. The important thing now is to make things really work out well somehow. I’m not convinced it’s going to though. There are serious problems in coaxing a nation that was carved manually, and which encompasses three groups of people with histories of not enjoying each other’s company. We don’t have a great reputation for following though with things like this.

Iraq had a ruthless and terrible regime in power for a long time. Mass graves are clear evidence of this, but life was probably pretty orderly and decent for many of the people there. I’m not defending the regime, I’m pointing out a problem in making a new modernized nation. Things will need to be decent and orderly in short order or all of the people who did not fall on the bad side of the old regime are going be very unhappy.

So, I agree. I am now wondering what exactly is being reconstructed.

I still don’t know how many $/capita full blown oil export could bring in. I think that this is an important number to be aware of. I’ve failed at coming up with anything reputable.

Guano: My previous post poke at you was in reference to so called “no-wings” spending too much time finding things to pick on from a position that can float freely and waffle due to non-alignment to any ideology. (poke  ) You chose a pop-liberal bash to answer this? I’m a liberal, but I also think that my popular party line is presently lost in the woods. I think that the simple truth is that truth cannot win an election against a reality TV episode of the president talking about the need to fight terror. They’re falling and grabbing at any weak vine the passes them.

I don’t actually think that yourself or Wozz do this toooo much, I was just poking.

As a liberal, western Buddhist, in control, what I’d do is as follows:
- Strengthen homeland security seriously.
- Change the administration drastically in the next election.
- Globally announce a plan that we’re going to have a very different foreign policy.
- Remove most aid to foreign governments and replace it with a massive NGO based plan, carefully managed, but funneled through the UN, hitting the people that really need it directly.
- Pull troops out of many nations, close bases.
- Drop embargo against Cuba.
- Use the new global economy fully to help nations that support human rights in a big way, ignore ones that don’t. But still, NGO the hell out of the have-not’s in the oppressed countries.
- Stop tying to manage governments, and spend all of that money playing the good guy. Be the good guy, no matter what happens. Turn to the UN when things get bad, and they probably will. Do nothing autonomously.
- Respect the cultures of people above all else. Let them know that if their kids are listening to Eminem they are free to hate it and ban it if they want.
(more along those lines)

Is this a flawed position? Could we use a carrot instead of a stick? This ideology wasn’t presented in a polished fashion (it’s past my bedtime) .

Preaching,
Non Prophet

dumb question time: what's an NGO?

NGO = "Non Governmental Organization". Like UNICEF or NAMBLA.

NGO = "Non Governmental Organization". Like UNICEF or NAMBLA.

Heh. NAMBLA.

In response to your list John, what is the "very different foreign policy"? What does it seek to accomplish?

How would it stop the Saddam Hussein's of the world from dropping their people in plastic shredders?

What happens when Iran decides to seize Middle Eastern oil fields?

What happens when North Korea invades South Korea?

Not being snarky, but want to see how these problems would be addressed.

I'm not preaching isolationism, I'm preaching non unilateralism.

Basically, we would not take it upon ourselves to try to fix everything in a unilateral way. We would use our influence to help steer a global democracy where action on injustice would be handled through the global community. Europe would be forced to pick up some of the slack, as would China. I think that continuing to be the lone trubadours of global justice will eventually be our downfall. It discredits the UN and makes us more enemys than friends.

Do you know that over 70% of the people in Turkey and Russia are very concerned about the United States invading them?

Kinda ugly if you think about it eh? Lot's of people would die perhaps, but I think that as a non threatening, modern, global community was built up nations would be happy to join.

North Korea invades South Korea: We preach what we think is the right thing to do in front of a global democracy, like the UN, and then once we've spoken our piece we respect whatever decision has been made, but continue whatever dialog we think is important.

Other global crisis could be handled in the same fashion.

I agree that Saddam getting booted is a wonderful thing from a human rights perspective. I don't think that the administration gives a shit about opressed people though. Do you? Because of this I don't think that we will continue to do "the right things for the wrong reasons."

Turkey oppresses, tortures and murders it's Kurds as well. We have offered them billions though.

Once again, to make things clear, I'm not preaching becoming uninvolved in global politics. I'm preaching doing it differently.

oh, sorry.

The "very different forgeign policy" consists of the things listed below that, most of the rest of the list.

and...

It seeks to accomplish a gradual shift to a behavior that is more tightly aligned with consistent principles and integrity, therein, causing the world to view us as more respectful and righteous, while at the same time forcing the global community to help take on the worlds problems.

A few comments.

Where did you get that 70% figure? I've heard of that figure in various Muslim countries, but not in Turkey or Russia.

How would you deal with France's absolute insistence that there was no need for force in Iraq - effectively ruling out ever enforcing UN resolutions. This was the point that made unilateral action OK in my book.

Turkey's Kurd-murdering (sounds like turd-burgling) is in direct response to Kurdish terrorist actions in the 70's and 80's. The PKK was notorious in its day. Most of this is in the past however. Recent tensions have risen over the fears of a Kurdistan arising, but Turkey isn't taking it out on their local population, they're massing at the border waiting to invade Iraqi Kurdistan.

The over 70% figure came from a poll I saw the other night on (groan) Hardball. It was a ?PEM? poll. I'll try to find a reference on that.

here's an unrelated one:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0%2C12271%2C856482%2C00.html

I don't think that Turkey's government fears invasion.. the poll was based on public opinion.

As far as France goes. I would have liked it if we did not come out as strongly as we did, forcing them to make a stand, and built a coalition in a global democratic (as opposed to global dictator) manner. France didn't believe that Iraq was what we described as an imminent threat. Do you think they were? We didn't argue human rights as justification because it wouldn't have worked. Why do you think it wouldn't have worked? We argued axis of evil terrorism.

I think going around righting the worlds wrongs with military action is going to get us in very costly trouble for as long as we choose to persue such a venture.

My answer to how we should have dealt with France is that if we couldn't make a compelling argument in front of a global democracy we shouldn't have gone it almost alone. If we didn't put forth untimatums they would have probably followed world opinion more closely. I think their stand was partially based on a lack of respect that they were feeling from our administration and a need to be wield global power.

I think we're in agreement on the real reasons we went there (regional revolution). I think we both agree that a brutal dictator removed from power is a good thing.

point:
Our last two wars have been to put down regimes that we have trained and supported in the past. Why is this? We helped train Bin Laden for christ's sake. We need a drastically different approach to foreign policy. One that isn't at all what our enemys claim we are.

Admittedly and intentionally I have taken a tough to defend stance here. I decided to hang my own ass out in my protagonisticism. :) I'm not sure I find anything fundamentally wrong with it as of yet, but yes, it's chock full of holes in reality.

We are the worlds richest, monster economy, super power. Can't we play nice, be honest to the world, or at least our own people, and respectful to everyone? Will we win the love of "our world" if we don't?

Why exactly did we fail so miserably in building a coalition for our efforts in Iraq, even if it does turn out to have been a just cause?

John,

Thanks for your thorough comments. I myself am quite tired, so I may not be too coherent. But I'll try.

In sum, with respect to WMDs: I am not convinced that any duplicity more sinister than that deployed daily by activists took place. That is to say, when activists choose to parrot "science" they find in a report on global warming in the Guardian rather than the Wall Street Journal, they are simply advancing "facts" that support their cause. It is dishonest to choose the Guardian if you are aware that it is a tendentious piece of shit, but most people don't think twice about it. On a more level playing field -- that of choosing between one set of government intelligence versus another -- either choice is valid, and it's a no-brainer what set the Bush administration would put faith in.

Bush, Blair and others perhaps mistakenly felt they needed to highlight the WMD facet over other reasons for going into Iraq. This seemed like a good strategy to me too. I did not believe that the American public, let alone the world, could be sold on the war by exposing them to a soporific arabesque of regional reconstruction theory. People, including commentators no less illustrious than Thomas Friedman, claim otherwise, that we should have promulgated the bigger picture. But hindsight is 20/20 and moreover I think they are wrong. If this had been tried, I think people's minds would have glazed over and France/Germany would have been terribly empowered.

How is it "pop-liberal" to point out that the Left is more interested in leveraging the WMD propaganda victory than acknowledging the relentlessly mounting evidence of the Baath regime's world-class atrocities? I am sincerely disgusted by it, and I honestly see it as evidence that the Left, chronically unconcerned with Saddam's evil before the war, hasn't learned a thing since.

Viz a viz unilateralism: I think one of the lessons of the Iraq war is we don't need to worry any more about being multilateral. That's hardly a rocket science observation, but America is interesting like that. America can prove overwhelmingly that it is the baddest kid on the block, and then it gets stricken with an anxious sense of noblesse oblige that inures it to empirical lessons (and even sets it down foolhardy diplomatic paths -- e.g., our recapitulation of the Oslo failure in the new Roadmap to Repeated History). People clamored about the dangers of unilateralism in the lead-up to war; now the UN and France and Germany are struggling to figure out how to get a piece of the action. Those fears were overblown and I believe they will only become increasingly irrelevant.

This isn't to say there should be no international cooperation. But I do think we need to reevaluate our international relationships dramatically.

I agree with your desire to strengthen homeland security, although unlike some of my "hawkish" brethren, I don't much care for some of the Ashcroft shenanigans. I also agree that the embargo on Cuba should be dropped. It is vestigial, and I can't think of a better rebuttal to Castro and his idiotic supporters -- those who believe that his form of Communism will be The One, Matrix-like -- than to let Cuba fail without interference. I like the talk of leveraging global capital to lessen the gap between First and Third Worlds, using capitalism to fulfill the pipe dreams of supranational socialists.

I'm not sure that changing the administration drastically is a good idea -- although you weren't too specific in how you would change it. All of what Bush has undertaken is long term, and the thought of an administration coming to power that would roll back the PNAC vision is frightening. This is not just because I believe PNAC's vision is correct, but because to abandon it half way through would be to exacerbate the failure predicted by its critics on the Left.

Believe it or not, I share your trepidation about the fitness of the Bush Administration to pull off the rebuilding effort. I haven't written them off, of course. But they seem weirdly abrupt in their tendency to change course radically when they encounter trouble, and furthermore they are really stingy with information. If they need to be replaced to see this through, I'd rather they were not replaced "drastically". I would seek out more compassionate and focussed ideological brethren. Who that would be, I honestly don't know.

Finally, don't worry about the poke. If that's the worst you have to say about me, I'm relieved.

about the 70% -
According to the pew polls (people-press.org) It shows Turkey is 35% VERY worried about potential u.s. military threat, and 36% "Somewhat" worried.
So, combined that's 71% "worried" ?

And Russia is 43% Very (wow.) 28% somewhat.

Oh, I forgot to respond to Kurds in Turkey.

http://www.bullatomsci.org/issues/1999/ma99/ma99mckiernan.html

There has been progress, but much more recently than you might think. Here is a link to an article talking about how display of Kurdish music and culture has recently been made legal in Turkey.

"Following the quasi-recognition of the Kurdish language by the authorities, and the ground-breaking step of legalizing language courses and broadcasts in Kurdish, the Kurdish music industry is reportedly experiencing a boom.

Not so long ago Turkey dealt with anyone supporting Kurdish culture by charging them with separatist propaganda and throwing them into jail. "

http://home.cogeco.ca/~konews/23-10-02-reforms-music-kurdish-ears.html