For What It's Worth

Cheney gets worse every time. This time, torture.

2006-10-29T13:30:00.000-08:00

Dick Cheney was rather clear about the administration's attitude towards torture: "Would you agree a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?" Scott Hennen of WDAY in Fargo, N.D., asked Cheney on Tuesday. "Well, it's a no-brainer for me." Officials tried to distinguish the VP's remarks from waterboarding, but no interpretation, including the literal, could be taken to mean anything but torture.

Because no one ever truly knows, this posture means that anyone suspected of knowing--a determination made by the White House--gets the treatment. Torture, then, is an accepted policy norm, an expression of its political values, no different from tax policy.

Torture is antithetical to universal liberal values-- inherent value of human life, individual agency, personal security, liberty. It is wrong on its own accord. Arguments against it do not need to rely on its lack of value as an interrogation technique--people will say anything if you torture them--or the lack of limits on its use, or how it damages America's standing in the world, and America's, or anyone's, ability to promote the aforementioned liberal values.

The use of torture compromises the value of American democracy because it violates the values on which our political system has been built, on which the rights we cherish were adopted, and on which Civil Rights leaders, feminists, and others have fought for progress.

A range of voices, including Republicans, Democrats and other critics, have made a similar case before. However, Cheney's recent remarks show how little he, and the administration really care about the sanctity of sacred liberal values.

Iraqis get a bad deal from new American policies

2006-10-22T09:15:00.000-07:00

The recent indications that the Bush administration will begin to set benchmarks for the Iraqi government to assume a functional role in providing security in Iraq should be seen as a cheap trick to:

1) display adaptability: rather than blindly "staying the course," a refrain that has lost much of its political capital lately, the announcements by Rumsfield and Bush's meetings with generals "show" how the administration is willing to do what it takes to succeed in Iraq (except have sufficient troops, resources or a plan up to now). James Baker's Iraq Study Group report will come out soon and Bush & Co. would prefer not to be caught flat-footed.

2)provide cover for failed US policy: though the ultimate goal of the Iraq enterprise has been downgraded from a free and democratic Middle East to a free and democratic Iraq to an Iraq with a functioning government, this latest twist puts the onus on Iraq to provide all of those things. So much for the United States' obligation to enable a better Iraq --personal security, democracy, development--after Saddam. Conveniently, the buck has been passed to a government that does not have the resources to confront militias and whose police engage in wanton murders.
In this way, Bush's promises not to undermine Prime Minister Maliki are vacuous and therefore perfunctory. The administration has set the Iraqi government up to fail--and allow Bush to say "we've done everything we can but the elected government of Iraq is not holding up its end of the bargain. "

There are numerous indicators that life in Iraq is worse now, as a result of American policy than it was under Saddam. This was no easy task. Indeed there have been elections, but torture, civilian death, destruction, and fear have only increased since 2003 and the most recent trends and policies do not indicate any relief soon.

Good Things the United States Could Do Now

2006-10-10T05:21:00.000-07:00

The United States could announce that it will contribute 0.7% of its GNP to foreign aid. In 1970, rich countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development at the United Nations (Resolution 2626) to give 0.7% of their GNP as aid to the developing countries. According to the OECD, in 2005 the United States gave .22% of its GNP.

There are numerous arguments against this. It is argued that foreign aid does not work. Some note that America gives more in absolute terms that any other country. Others add that with Americans giving more privately to international causes, the security protections afforded to smaller, poorer nations, and American investment abroad, more rigorous foreign aid assistance is not mandatory. In addition, the American public believes the United States already gives much more than it actually does.
Even if these reasons for not increasing American foreign aid are true, however, more aid is still worthwhile.
Global good will, in as much as it can be a product of “being right” or “fighting the good fight” or “trying to do good” is not concerned with the rational calculus noted above. Individual charity does not get counted in a nation's aid assistance and that is the way it is. In Saudi Arabia, people do not care that an American security umbrella provides a measure of protection, nor is public opinion in Spain, France or Germany influenced by such security and its economic implications very much either.
The prize of global good will is worth far more than the cost of increasing foreign aid. If security is so important, would it not be worth it to have allies willing to confront North Korea? Deal effectively with Iran? Assistance in Iraq? Global faith in America’s good intentions would have direct implications for these situations.
Increased foreign aid is a relatively simple, concrete, measurable step that moves the United States beyond rhetoric, or even well intentioned but complicated policy changes.

The United Staes could also begin to transfer aid from Egypt to the Palestinian Authority.

Egypt receives some $2 billion dollars in combined American military and economic aid. According to Congressional testimony of Michelle Dunne of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,

When the U.S.-Egyptian relationship blossomed in the mid 1970s, President Sadat had a clear and compelling vision of where he wanted to take his country: peace with Israel, military cooperation with the United States, and economic liberalization and development. It was in support of this idea that the United States extended a large assistance package and the two countries built a broad and deep relationship.

Today, though, this relationship is not worth the trouble. Where the regional stability America covets resides in a viable Palestinian state, Egypt is a perfect case study of American support for unsavory, abusive governments in exchange for allegiance, itself a source of resentment. Money from Egypt could be offered to Palestinians via a progressive set of conditions, beginning with humanitarian assistance that bypasses Hamas. Demonstrated increases in financial assistance and visible reserves could help entice a Hamas recognition of Israel. Sustained, massive financial support, on the order of that which it provides Israel, would evince a genuine American desire for peaceful resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Egypt could earn American assistance with independently verified democratic progress on issues like elections, civil society, judicial independence and the like, as indicated by the annual UNDP Arab Human Development Report.

Democracy can help understand international affairs

2006-10-01T15:11:00.001-07:00

As problematic as the neoconservative understanding of world affairs as an eternal conflict between liberal democracy and evil is, it can still help us in certain circumstances. When China and Russia, for example, stymie efforts at intervention in Darfur, it is doing so in part because of its own illiberal politics. American calls to action, as ineffectual as they have been, have been driven by the nation's own liberal values.

The eradication of terrorism my the militant promotion of democracy is a different story though.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: The People's Champ as Crowned by Bush

2006-09-19T20:14:00.000-07:00

Mahmoud, at the UN, taking a "vacation from his vacation" to Cuba and Venezuela to cavort with remnants of the Third World took the opportunity to formally accept Bush's offer of the Crown of the People's Champ. Among other things, he called the US a bully and called for UN reform to put more power in the hands of the General Assembly. There are far more in the world that identify with Ahmadinejad’s discourse of oppression at the hands of Security Council bullies that with Bush's farsical promises to "continue" to support Middle Eastern democratization and moderate Islam.

Iran supports terrorism--Hezbollah, the social/terror organization. Iran is also pursuing its interests in Iraq. Candidates must also pass government review before they can run for election. I'd also watch my back if I was prone to speaking my mind in Iran. Iran would also find a great deal to do with a nuclear weapon or the capacity to produce one. Its illegitimate, sometimes oppressive government condones the purposeful killing of civilians.

Somehow though, Ahmadinejad can seem to speak for the world by claiming the democratic mandate of the General Assembly vis a vis the veto power of Security Council members. This is really a way to get prevent the IAEA or UN peacekeepers interference within nations, in contexts of nuclear research or gross human rights violations.

It shouldn't be difficult to get world opinion on your side when you're in opposition to the governments of Zimbabwe, North Korea, Syria, Belarus, Sudan and the like, but Bush has done just that. With clumsy diplomacy, disdain for the sensibilities of others and dismissal of limits of American power, America is in fact the bully. Half baked (Iraq) and inconsistent/nonexistent (Egypt, Saudi Arabia) policies of promoting democracy, self-imposed exemptions from treaties and highly visible instances of human rights violations make America seem exceptional not in the type of moral power in wields, but rather in the large quantity it has and degree to which it covets more. It isn't so much that America's character is worse than Zimbabwe or North Korea--it is that it is the same, except America is so much more powerful, making its bullying and threatening that much more substantial (there is only so much a small power can threaten to do).

When Ahmadinejad gets on his global soap box, he can speak about empowering the nations of the General Assembly without regard for their treatment of their people. The US is left not only voiceless in the promotion of decent governance, it is also left in the cold when it needs allies, within or outside the auspices of the UN, to solve pressing threats to security and other interests.

More of the same...

2006-08-21T20:36:00.000-07:00

For today’s commentary, I have planned a lengthy digression on today’s Washington Post report on an emerging Eastern European presence in Japanese sumo wrestling. But I digress.

Rather, the thoughts of President Bush, as expressed in his news conference this morning, will do. Basically, Bush repeated standard “withdrawal will embolden terrorists” line, adding a bit of personal agitation and a somewhat ironic nod to American standing in the world and history. To the later point he said, “Leaving before the job would be done would send a message that America really is no longer engaged, nor cares about the form of governments in the Middle East.” The President had nothing to say about the war itself causing harm to American prestige and moral standing.

Democrats again only got it half right, correctly identifying miserable strategic vision in Iraq but only offering policy prescriptions that revealed their own ignorance---Kerry, Pelosi and others calling for implementing “the political solution the generals say is needed” (Kerry) and responsible redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq that begins this year” (Pelosi). Apparently, concepts of “failed states” and “ethnic cleansing” are of little consequence to them, for reasons of American security (that is, failed state=lots and lots of terrorists and higher gas prices) or human rights.

Even if the United States may not be able to cultivate a functioning democratic state in Iraq with any expediency, it can impede total collapse. First among things that need to happen is an increase in troops—perhaps Arab troops, maybe from the Gulf region where the effects of a failed Iraq would be felt most acutly (the Iran would not be too please by such a strategic gain for the Arab gulf), aided by Western logistics and support systems, under the auspices of the United Nations? Sufficient American troops cannot be sustained in the current American political environment. Second, a formal identification of a grand counterinsurgency strategy and tactics is required. As per a number of recent books, the United States did not have a plan following the fall of Saddam’s regime and the military improvised with what it knew: kill people and break things. Arab troops have a distinct comparative advantage in the knowledge and skills necessary for counterinsurgency warfare which relies in a large part on trust, respect, and legitimacy built upon knowledge of local language and cultural sensitiveness. America and its troops have lost this sort of social capital and cannot get it back.

Also, it would be a good idea to have a permanent American peacekeeping/governance building type force, distinct from the Pentagon’s war machine. Under the State Department’s Office of Reconstruction? Read more about a similar idea here, from the New York Times:

August 21, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor
Killing Won’t Win This War
By TERENCE J. DALY
San Francisco
THREE years into the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, everyone from slicksleeved privates fighting for survival in Ramadi to the echelons above reality at the Pentagon still believes that eliminating insurgents will eliminate the insurgency. They are wrong.

There is a difference between killing insurgents and fighting an insurgency. In three years, the Sunni insurgency has grown from nothing into a force that threatens our national objective of establishing and maintaining a free, independent and united Iraq. During that time, we have fought insurgents with airstrikes, artillery, the courage and tactical excellence of our forces, and new technology worth billions of dollars. We are further from our goal than we were when we started.

Counterinsurgency is about gaining control of the population, not killing or detaining enemy fighters. A properly planned counterinsurgency campaign moves the population, by stages, from reluctant acceptance of the counterinsurgent force to, ideally, full support.
American soldiers deride “winning hearts and minds” as the equivalent of sitting around a campfire singing “Kumbaya.” But in fact it is a sophisticated, multifaceted, even ruthless struggle to wrest control of a population from cunning and often brutal foes. The counterinsurgent must be ready and able to kill insurgents — lots of them — but as a means, not an end.

Counterinsurgency is work better suited to a police force than a military one. Military forces — by tradition, organization, equipment and training — are best at killing people and breaking things. Police organizations, on the other hand, operate with minimum force. They know their job can’t be done from miles away by technology. They are accustomed to face-to-face contact with their adversaries, and they know how to draw street-level information and support from the populace. The police don’t threaten the governments they work under, because they don’t have the firepower to stage coups.

The United States needs a professional police organization specifically for creating and keeping public order in cooperation with American or foreign troops during international peacekeeping operations. It must be able to help the military control indigenous populations in failing states like Haiti or during insurgencies like the one in Falluja.

The force should include light armored cavalry and air cavalry paramilitary patrol units to deal with armed guerillas, as well as linguistically trained and culturally attuned experts for developing and running informants. It should be skilled and professional at screening and debriefing detainees, and at conducting public information and psychological operations. It must be completely transportable by air and accustomed to working effectively with American and local military forces.

Bureaucratic ownership of this force will doubtless be controversial. Because the mission of international peacekeeping entails dealing mostly with civilians, the force would ideally be a civilian organization. But no civilian department is currently structured in a way that seems suitable.

At least initially, the force would most likely fall under the Department of Defense. The establishing legislation should include a fire wall, however, to guard against the tendency of paramilitary units to evolve into pure warriors with berets, boots and bangles.
Crucial to the success of this force is that the American people thoroughly discuss and understand the organization and its mission. Only by having this discussion can we avoid the example of the Phoenix Program in Vietnam, which combined the Vietnamese National Police with American advisers to root the Viet Cong shadow government out of rural villages. The Phoenix Program was highly effective; because it was supposed to be secret, however, the program was not explained to the American people, and it became impossible to refute charges of torture and assassination. Without the support of the American people, the program lost momentum and died.

The legislation establishing the police force should firmly anchor it in respect for human rights. Its mission will be to advance American ideals of justice and freedom under the law, and it must do so by example as well as word. That will be both difficult and critical in a place like Iraq, where it would have to wrest control of the population from insurgents who regard beheading hostages with chain saws as acceptable.

Stringent population control measures like curfews, random searches, mandatory presentation of identity documents, searches of businesses and residences without warrants and preventive detention would be standing operating procedure. For such measures to be acceptable to the public, they must be based on solid legal ground and enforced fairly, transparently and impartially.

The police are used to functioning within legal restraints. Our armed forces, however, are used to obeying only the laws of war and the United States Uniform Code of Military Justice. Soldiers and marines are trained to respond to force with massive force. To expect them to switch overnight to using force only as permitted by a foreign legal code, enforced and reviewed by foreign magistrates and judges, is quite unrealistic. It could also threaten their survival the next time they have to fight a conventional enemy.

Forcing the round peg of our military, which has no equal in speed, firepower, maneuver and shock action, into the square hole of international law enforcement and population control isn’t working. We need a peacekeeping force to complement our war-fighters, and we need to start building it now.

Terence J. Daly is a retired military intelligence officer and counterinsurgency specialist who served in Vietnam as a province-level adviser.

Count to 10 slowly before you do that...

2006-08-01T20:20:00.000-07:00

From the New York Times:

Sean McCormack, a State Department spokesman, made it clear on Tuesday that the United States would take an active role in shaping events on the island if the Cuban leader dies. “The United States and the American people will do everything that we can to stand by the Cuban people in their aspirations for a democracy,” he said.
President Bush said Monday, before Mr. Castro’s illness was announced, that the United States policy would be to undermine Raúl Castro’s rise to power. “We are actively working for change in Cuba,” he said, “not simply waiting for change.”

...uh, me thinks you should hold your horses.

Not only do American critics of post '59 Cuba like to describe the place as Castro's little project ready to democratize upon his death, but they also like to think that they have a role in fomenting this transition. Both charges are baseless and as with many other things in his administration, Bush's view is really, really, really baseless.

Basically, in my time in Cuba it was readily apparent that American delusions of combating political oppression in Cuba (sanctions, assassination attempts, etc.) only strengthened the regime, compelling its evolution from a one-man show, if it ever was one, to a national expression of anti-imperialism. There are a bunch of guys who get thrown in jail and a bunch of other guys who really, really want to leave, but they can't. There is also a whole bunch of guys who like Communism, like Cuba and don't like US domination. Sorry CIA, State Department and the rest of the federal government, the "but what have we done lately?" defense doesn't cut it here.

Even if there was some coherent logic that made room for external support for the development of a truly democratic Cuba, this support would require a level of tact, empathy and local knowledge that has yet to be displayed in any context from this administration. (The closest thing is the American ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, but he don't get no respect from the big guys in Washington...)

Where is Europe?

2006-07-25T08:04:00.000-07:00

All of us lefty, hippie, Europhile types "know" that US foreign policy is nothing more than pernicious imperialism whose evil is sometimes compounded by its puppet master Israal. Clearly then, American forces should have no role (even NATO is said to be "too American") in the international force proposed to provide security along the Israel-Lebanon border in order to compel Israel to stop its bombardment of Lebanon. This is a job for good countries without vested interests in the region. I don't know...like European ones. Unfortunatley they've all excused themselves. Way to go.

Even if Europe's problem isn't one of cojones but of manpower and other individual, legitimate concerns, the current crisis presents an excellent example of a situation in which a European Rapid Reaction Force (ERRF) could play a useful role. Squeamish European publics have been hesitant (some might say "wussy") to commit the resources to produce a useful force that they only associate with violence, destruction and colonialism, but today in Lebanon the consequences of not even having the option of sending troops to a combat zone without the baggage of a soft UN mandate-- orthe lengthy political gymnastics necessary for a robust one-- is unavoidable.

Europe's fickleness is also manifest in its inability to commit anything significant to the UN's call for $150 million in aid. Hey, at least the Americans have pledged $30 million. It is the least we could do after allowing this to happen.

Rice gets savvy points for going to Beirut. Too bad she didn't really get anywhere. She would have gotten lots of points for leveling some substantive criticism for Israel’s misguided, inappropriate and inhumane conduct. Instead she just made even more clear (Clearer than bunker buster bomb rush delivery? I'm not so sure, but maybe.) that the US condones such behavior. Maybe that is why a US force would be seen as an extension of Israel...

The Events are in the Saddle

2006-07-23T19:19:00.000-07:00

“The events are in the saddle and ride mankind,” Under Secretary of State George Ball once said about US involvement in Vietnam, quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson. Since revelations in May of evidence of the murder of two dozen civilians by US marines in Haditha, Iraq, pundits, civilian leadership and the military have all been in a state of, shall we say, “shock and awe,” ignorant of the lessons of Ball’s trenchant analysis. Repeatedly, we hear outrage and condemnation of these “few bad apples.” Commentators and officials wonder aloud if the deaths will compromise America’s efforts in Iraq, its standing in the world and its other national interests. Such malfeasance is not unprecedented though, (See: Abu Graib and other cases of prisoner abuse around the world). William Kristol of The Weekly Standard has had perhaps the most sober analysis of the situation, describing such human rights violations, if indeed they have occurred, as inherent to war. (This is of course ironic—and scary—for Kristol, neoconservative par excellence, has been a prominent agitator for regime change in Iraq for over a decade.)
I have no doubt that the vast majority of the US military is comprised of “good apples” or that the Hardball talking heads really wants to see the US bring universal democratic and human rights to Iraq. In the end though, these heartfelt concerns are misguided. As the US indulges in narcissistic, morally-gratifying patriotism based in faith in an omnipotent America, uniquely able to do good in the world, the basic flaws in America’s mission are ignored—with disastrous consequence for those the mission is supposed to serve.
The American exercise of hegemony in Iraq (whether history will describe this as “benevolent” has yet to be determined, though with civil war raging, it is increasingly less likely) to effect change in a region encompassing Morocco, Lebananon, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, is predicated on the existence of a single entity to receive American efforts, often referred to as “the broader Middle East.” However, the social, cultural and political variance within the “broader Middle East” is enough to make the notion of a “broader Middle East” inherently sketchy. This inconvenient fact, along with disregard for the motivations for threats to American interests mandated the construction of a “broader Middle East” as essentially flawed and in need of American charity, was integral to the case for Operation Iraqi Freedom. Once ignited in Iraq, Bush said in his second inaugural address, the “untamed fire of freedom [fueled by its universal appeal] will reach the darkest corners of our world.”
There is no room in this logic for opposition, since enemies of the United States would have to be enemies of the universal values of democracy and the human rights protected therein. However, while oppressed societies of Iraq and the rest of the region are to be helped by American intervention, elements of these societies also tenaciously combat American policy. Standard war ethics—embodied in the Marine Corp motto “no worse enemy, no better friend”—are no help either, for the friend and enemy appear to be, and according the politics of this war, are, the same. The US mission cannot help but embody the infamous and paradoxical Vietnam mandate to “destroy the village in order to save it.” Bill Kristol is correct to say that human rights violations are inherent to war, but there is more: the very definition of America’s enemies in Iraq essentially condones the murder of civilians.
American officials and media choose to ignore the disconnect between stated American, universal, values and the effective endorsement of their violation. Discourse centers around the conduct “a few bad apples” on one day a few months ago in Iraq, rather than the enabling and ultimately responsible policy and the support for it found in a public opinion informed by popular media. On June 6, for example, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer was incredulous that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Malaki would condemn atrocities committed by US troops and then have the gall to assert that such misconduct was commonplace.

I was pretty surprised, this coming from a man who is prime minister largely because of the United States and the U.S. loss in lives, the invasion, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the hundreds of billions of dollars we've spent to try to establish a democracy there. And here, he's lecturing the United States about U.S. military misconduct.

Wolf could not be bothered to explore the potential veracity of Prime Minister Malaki’s statement, as the suggestion that human rights abuses are widespread implies that America’s morally “good” foreign policy is flawed, and America itself is fallible.
As John J. Mearsheimer, renowned theorist of international relations from the University of Chicago said in June at the At U.S. Naval War College,

Every time I look at the situation in Iraq today, I think of Vietnam, and I think of The Plague (by Albert Camus), and I just don't think there's very much we can do at this point. It is just out of our hands. There are forces that we don't have control over that are at play, and will determine the outcome of this one. I understand that's very hard for Americans to understand, because Americans believe that they can shape the world in their interests.

Or, as George Ball might have said, “The events are in the saddle.” And now there's nothing America can do about it.

Democracy, neocons, liberals

2006-07-22T10:01:00.000-07:00

“I have no interest in diplomacy for the sake of returning Lebanon and Israel to the status quo ante,” Rice said Friday. This is well and good enough. The Bush administration has been all about changing the "status quo" in the Middle East. Out with the terrorists, in with the "moderates" who are just itching to be liberal and democratic. Dismantle Hezbollah, whose rockets threaten and kill Israeli civilians and replace them with Lebanese forces.

That's not a problem--if progress was being made in that direction. Facilitation of Israel's destruction of Lebanon (diplomatically and materially, as the US has expedited munitions shipments for its ally) is wholly unrelated to the destruction of the threat emanating from Hezbollah's rockets. Holding the Lebanese government to account for the actions of Hezbollah has meant destroying civilian targets and has resulted in a humanitarian crisis that will only get worse, given the indifference of its perpetrators.

In this indifference one may distinguish from the democracy promoting liberals and neoconservatives. The liberal internationalists advocate for the use of American power, in all its forms, for good. Intervention to stop genocide, funding to address public health crises fall under this rubric, as does democracy promotion. After all, some liberals did support the invasion of Iraq, for some believed that it was reasonable to expect a liberal democracy to emerge from Bush's invasion, the benefits of which would outweigh the costs of war. Others who would have liked to see a democratic Iraq (me) did not think that a) the administration's strategy was at all likely to produce one and b) that the costs inherent to the strategy were far to high. Neoconservatives, though, were interested in the democratization of Iraq in as much as it would serve American interests in the region. There was little regard to costs--only success. (Of course, the costs, by which I mean death and destruction, are intimately related to the success of an American imported democracy.)

Though second term foreign policy has modified a number of neoconservative tenants (namely an unqualified faith in the unilateral use of American military power) to change foreign societies) the Bush's absolutist worldview has not and his administration has reverted to a very neoconservative fashion, substituting Israeli military might (though this is only a partial substitution, given American military supplies and money). Though neoconservative thought places unmitigated importance on the liberal values and human rights as practiced in a liberal democracy, and the necessity to spread these values or succumb to anti-liberal terrorists, the respect for these values disappears in its assessment of Israel's war on Lebanon. The efficacy of Israel's military strategy to crush Hezbollah terror is not questioned; its consequences for the human values, the uniquely moral protection of which justify its existence, do not matter. For neoconservatives and Bush, it is an existential battle for liberalism, relegating immediate concerns for humanity to peripheral importance.

Liberals however, are concerned with liberal values and human rights for their own sake. Democratic governance may be uniquely qualified to run a just society, but humanitarian consequences can, and do, take precedence over the "justified-because-we're-acting-on-behalf-of-a-liberal-democracy" indiscriminant destruction of Israeli air raids. The use of force is not so much disproportionate--if Israel bombed Hezbollah rocket storage sites 50 times, I would not care--but inappropriate: the humanitarian crisis caused by Israel's military is not related to the defense of their country or the destruction of Hezbollah. For these reason, Israel's war, though "aimed" at ending terrorism and the reach of anti-liberal Iran and Syria, is unjustifiable from a liberal perspective.

It Says "Shit" in the Newspaper

2006-07-17T11:09:00.000-07:00

Actually, President Bush said "shit."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2006/07/17/AR2006071700187.html

And no, Mr. Bush, the irony is that you don't seem to understand that you still seem to think that all world problems are reducible to the actions of a discrete set of "bad guys." Syria is not innocent, but there is real local support for Hezbollah without which it would not exist. These motivations have everything to do with Israel, its military, the prisoners it holds, and its settlements.

An appropriately mandated international peacekeeping force will hold more leverage with Hezbollah but Israel isn't one to acquiesce to international pressure. The Americans are the only allies that really count in Jerusalem.

2006-07-17T07:13:00.000-07:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/17/world/middleeast/17arab.html All the Arab countries that are faulting Hezbollah get cash, money and wh...wholesale military equipment from the US. Everyone in the Arab world knows this. Popular concerns about Iran will be secondary.

Behold, a blog

2006-07-16T21:35:00.000-07:00

Alright....here goes. The title of this blog is not just an incomplete sentence, but the title of an old Buffalo Springfield song. I once saw Neil Young play an acoustic concert when I was about 12. I think I cried because he wasn't very good.

Anyway....let's talk about freedom and stuff.

I hope I don't make any ridiculous factual and/or spelling errors. (Note: the spell check built into this blog does not recognize "blog.")

Everyone is Being Stupid and I am Sad

For observers of the Middle East, the past week has been a depressing display of death and violence that threatens to postpone sustainable Middle East peace indefinitely. On June 25, an Israeli soldier was abducted from Gaza by Palestinian militants, including members of Hamas. On July 12, Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers on the Israel-Lebanon border. Israel has responded with strikes on Palestinian Authority buildings, including Foreign Ministry offices, a number of homes Israel believed hosted Hamas meetings and power stations. In Lebanon, targets have included the Beirut civilian airport, a number of port cities, highways and suburban Beirut, where Hezbollah has its headquarters. Hezbollah and Palestinian militants have both sought the release of prisoneers held by Israel in exchange for the captured soldiers; Israel says that to acquiesce to such demands would only encourage more kidnappings. Instead, Israel aims to destroy Hamas and Hezbollah.
Though its stated aims are justified, IsraelÂs methods arecontemptiblee. Aside from the plain collective punishment of the destruction of power plants and bridges, because both Hezbollah and Hamas exist interspersed among civilians, any military attempts at their destruction cannot help but destroy the surrounding society. Israeli arguments that residents of Gaza and Lebanon will hold their governments accountable for the destruction of their societyÂrather than the nation whose army is dropping the bombsÂand compel the dismantling of Hamas and Hezbollah is (far) more fantasy than reality.
A more cogent explanation for IsraelÂs response is its designs to forgo negotiations to unilaterally draw its borders. With Hezbollah and Hamas engaging in terrorism and soldier kidnappings while also participatingLebanesenese and Palestinian governments, Israel is left without Ânegotiating partner,Â leaving little choice but to go it alone. Though this logic is somewhat dubious, as the loyalty of militant elements of Hezbollah and Hamas to their political and governing wings is uncertain, IsraelÂs case for unilateralism can be bolstedestabilizeilizing the entirety of Lebanese and Palestinian governments. Hardly stable to begin with, these governments may not be able to withstand IsraelÂs assault.
Hamas and Hezbollah, for their parts, are hardly acting as noble warriors, reluctant but willing to enunsparingunsavory deeds to achieve nationalist ends. HezbollahÂs rockets (Israel claims they are Syrian-made Iranian designs) sit in densely populated areas before they are shot at patently non-military targets like the resort town of Tiberias and the Haifa train station, gorged with commuters on their morning commute. Though local events and conditions are primary motivators, regional dynamics are important as well. Exiled Hamas offiDamascus Damascas, such as Khaled Meshaal, further marginalized with the election of Hamas to the PA government earlier this year, are plenty busy fomenting conflict from abroad. Public distance from military activities suits Hamas politicos as well, allowing them to absolve themselves of responsibility for violence. Syria and Iran, increasingly isolated and Iran facing possible punitive Security Council action, have little to lose in renewed violence. Israeli action can be served as evidence of Western bullying, with Syria and Iran as the vanguards of the struggle against Western and Israeli oppression. While Syrian and Iranian regimes increase their domestic support, international attention turns todestabilizeabilizing policies rather than their own.
Only the United States has a stake in immediate peaceÂBushÂs vision of a stable, democratic Middle East, a desire to keep international pressure on Iran, aversion to increases in oil prices, a distaste for anything that could further incite anti-Americanism in Iraq or even dreams of a flattering paragraph in history textbooks and are all plausible motivesÂand the influence--billions in aid and military equipment-- to effect meaningful change. American officials, though, have been sadly predictable in their public comments regarding the situation. Preferring to cast the conflict in terms of a worldwide war against terrorism, no American has been critical of IsraelÂs escalation. Both President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice asserting IsraelÂs right to defend itself while Âurging restraint.Â In private, reports have surfaced that Rice has been a bit more forward in urging Israeli restraint, only to be successfully rebuffed by Israeli Prime Minister Olmert with a simple Âback off.Â Rice has resisted calls for personal diplomacy. To now, the worldÂs only superpower has been impotent, dithering in the distance as innocent lives are destroyed and another generationÂs hopes for peace literally explode before the worldÂs eyes.