Obsidian Wings

"I was 21 years old and kind of a jerk."

by Jacob Davies

This is why I read Matthew Yglesias, even though he was wrong about the Iraq war:

I was 21 years old and kind of a jerk. Being for the war was a way to simultaneously be a free-thinking dissident in the context of a college campus and also be on the side of the country’s power elite. My observation is that this kind of fake-dissident posture is one that always has a lot of appeal to people. The point is that this wasn’t really a series of erroneous judgments about Iraq, it was a series of erroneous judgments about how to think about the world and who deserves to be taken seriously and under which circumstances.

Compare and contrast to Megan McArdle:

The people who were right can (and will) rewrite their memories of what they believed to show themselves in the most attractive light; they will come to honestly believe that they were more prescient than they were. This is not some attack on people who were against the war: I was wrong, they were right... They will also quite possibly simply be wrong about how they got it right; correct analysis often operates at a subconscious as well as a conscious level.

Unlike the people who were right, there is a central fact stopping [those who were wrong] from flattering themselves too much: things are blowing up in Iraq and people are dying. Thus they will have to look for some coherent explanation. To be sure, many of those explanations are wan and self-serving--"I trusted too much." But others of them aren't. And the honest ones are vastly more interesting than listening to a parade of people say "Well, obviously, I'm a genius, and also, not mean."

Weekend Baby Blogging and Open Thread

by Jacob Davies

What was I saying about no crawling? Yeah, that didn't last. Crawling, standing... nothing is safe any more.

I'm not saying everyone should go have a baby right now... but I am saying this is the most fun I've ever had.

Anyway, an open thread.

Serve the Servants

by Eric Martin

Andrew Bacevich has an interesting piece on the the ways in which the military has asserted itself in recent decades, and become somewhat independent of civilian leadership, despite the illusion of civilian control maintained for popular consumption.  Along the way, he makes a good point about the selective outrage concerning leaks:

...With President Obama agonizing over what to do about Afghanistan, The Washington Post offered for general consumption the military’s preferred approach, the so-called McChrystal Plan. Devised by General Stanley McChrystal, who had been appointed by Obama to command allied forces in Afghanistan, the plan called for a surge of U.S. troops and the full-fledged application of counterinsurgency doctrine—an approach that necessarily implied a much longer and more costly war.

The effect of this leak, almost surely engineered by some still unidentified military officer, was to hijack the entire policy review process, circumscribing the choices available to the commander-in-chief. Rushing to the nearest available microphone, members of Congress (mostly Republicans) announced that it was Obama’s duty to give the field commander whatever he wanted. McChrystal himself made the point explicitly. During a speech in London, he categorically rejected the notion that any alternative to his strategy even existed: It was do it his way or lose the war. The role left to the president was not to decide, but simply to affirm.

The leaking of the McChrystal Plan constituted a direct assault on civilian control. At the time, however, that fact passed all but unnoticed. Few of those today raising a hue-and-cry about PFC Bradley Manning, the accused WikiLeak-er, bothered to protest. The documents that Manning allegedly made public are said to endanger the lives of American troops and their Afghan comrades. Yet, a year ago, no one complained about the McChrystal leaker providing Osama bin Laden and the Taliban leadership with a detailed blueprint of exactly how the United States and its allies were going to prosecute their war.

The absence of any serious complaint reflected the fact that, in Washington—especially in the press corps—military leaks aimed at subverting or circumscribing civilian authority are accepted as standard fare. It’s part of the way Washington works.

True enough.  Although Petraeus has replaced McChrystal, plus ca change:

Within the past week, complaints dribbling out of Petraeus’s headquarters in Kabul—duly reported by an accommodating press—indicate growing military unhappiness with the July 2011 pullout date. Now, Petraeus himself has begun to weigh in directly. This past weekend, he launched his own media campaign, offering his “narrative” of ongoing events. Unlike the ham-handed McChrystal, who chose a foreign capital as his soapbox, Petraeus sat for a carefully orchestrated series of interviews with The New York Times, The Washington Post, and NBC’s “Meet the Press,” each of which gratefully passed along the general’s view of things.

In the course of sitting for these interviews, Petraeus placed down a marker, one best captured by the headline in the Times dispatch: “Petraeus Opposes a Rapid Pullout in Afghanistan.” Or, as The Daily Beast put it, adding a twist of hyperbole, Petraeus told “David Gregory that he has the right to delay Obama's 2011 pull-out target for troops in Afghanistan." A bit over the top, but you get the drift. [...]

At the center of [the Afghan policy] battle will be a very political general, skilled at using the press and with friends aplenty on Capitol Hill, especially among Republicans. To have a chance of winning reelection in 2012, Obama needs to demonstrate progress in shutting down the war. Yet it is now becoming increasingly apparent the general Obama has placed in charge of that war entertains a different view.

One, but not both, will have his way. Between now and July 2011, when it comes to civilian control, even the folks in Peoria will have a chance to learn what the civics books leave out.

This is going to get ugly, unless either Obama is in full agreement with Petraeus, or he knuckles under without much of a fight.

To Know Him Is to Love Him

by Eric Martin

The more information that emerges about the Cordoba Initiative, and its leaders, the more absurd the opposition to the Park51 project, and the vitriol directed at Imam Faisal Adul Rauf becomes. 

First, it was revealed that Rauf and his wife are dedicated to promoting women's rights, and melding modernity with Islam from an interfaith framework - speaking out, repeatedly, against terrorism and violence and in favor of cross-denominational cooperation.  

Then, several observers pointed out that Rauf's message was deemed so appealing by the Bush administration that he was tapped as a goodwill ambassador to the Muslim world post-9/11.

Most recently, via Adam Serwer, is an excerpt of Imam Faisal Adul Rauf speaking at Daniel Pearl's funeral (where he was an invited participant): 

We are here to assert the Islamic conviction of the moral equivalency of our Abrahamic faiths. If to be a Jew means to say with all one's heart, mind and soul Shma` Yisrael, Adonai Elohenu Adonai Ahad; hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One, not only today I am a Jew, I have always been one, Mr. Pearl.

If to be a Christian is to love the Lord our God with all of my heart, mind and soul, and to love for my fellow human being what I love for myself, then not only am I a Christian, but I have always been one Mr. Pearl.

And I am here to inform you, with the full authority of the Quranic texts and the practice of the Prophet Muhammad, that to say La ilaha illallah Muhammadun rasulullah is no different.

It expresses the same theological and ethical principles and values. [...]

We intercede with You that You place us on the path of righteousness and direct us towards actions done in fulfillment of the commandment taught by Your Great Prophets and Messengers Moses, the Messiah Jesus son of Mary, and Muhammad, which is to love our fellow humans as we love ourselves. Help us O Lord, in courage and commitment, in reducing ethnic and religious hatred, strife and violence, to build the kingdom of heaven on earth.

This is the man that the GOP, Newt Gingrich in particular, is smearing as a "radical Islamist."  Somehow, allowing this man's organization to build a community center a few blocks away from the World Trade Center is an insult to the families of 9/11 victims and a "victory lap" for al-Qaeda. 

Or something.

Scotching the Detectives

by Eric Martin

Matt Yglesias, merciful soul that he is, looks past Howard Dean's disappointing statements on the Park51 project and, instead, praises Dean's courage and prescience during the run-up to the war in Iraq.  Quoting Dean:

My question is, why not use our information to help the UN disarm Iraq without war?

Secretary Powell’s recent presentation at the UN showed the extent to which we have Iraq under an audio and visual microscope. Given that, I was impressed not by the vastness of evidence presented by the Secretary, but rather by its sketchiness. He said there would be no smoking gun, and there was none.

At the same time, it seems to me we are in possession of information that would be very helpful to UN inspectors. For example, if we know Iraqi scientists are being detained at an Iraqi guesthouse, why not surround the building and knock on the door?

If we think a facility is being used for biological weapons, why not send the inspectors to check it out?

And if we believe terrorists – especially if they are terrorists linked to al Qaeda – have set up a poison and explosives training center in Northern Iraq, outside Saddam Hussein’s control, why haven’t we verified that information and destroyed that camp?

Yglesias adds:

Faced with the threat of invasion, Saddam Hussein was largely knuckling under to demands for inspections. The UN weapons inspectors were saying they found instances of Iraqi non-compliance with UN resolutions, but could not find evidence of active weapons programs. The US government insisted that it had such evidence. But instead of sharing everything we allegedly had with UNMOVIC and the IAEA so they could check it out, the governments of the US, UK, Spain, Australia, and a few others (Poland!) insisted on leaping ahead into a war.

One quibble with Matt's statement: we actually did share our intelligence with UNMOVIC and the IAEA - it's just that those groups couldn't find anything based on our tips.  From way back in 2003:

Hans Blix told the BBC that his teams followed up US and British leads at suspected sites across Iraq, but found nothing when they got there. [...] 

In a BBC interview...Mr Blix said he had been disappointed with the tip-offs provided by British and US intelligence.

"Only in three of those cases did we find anything at all, and in none of these cases were there any weapons of mass destruction, and that shook me a bit, I must say."

He said UN inspectors had been promised the best information available.

"I thought - my God, if this is the best intelligence they have and we find nothing, what about the rest?"

This of course should have set off multiple alarms, and in a sense it did.  Bush promptly yanked the inspectors and proceeded with the invasion. 

And Bush's gambit was successful in a sense: Many years later, it is "conventional wisdom" that "everybody" thought Saddam had WMD.  That would be "everybody" except the actual inspectors on the ground in Iraq hunting down the hottest leads provided by US and British intel.  Just those folks - but what did they know!

But I suppose that revisionist history is better than another resilient meme: that we went to war because Saddam didn't let inspectors back in.  Mitt Romney echoes this misinformation in a response during one of the GOP Presidential Debates in 2007 to a question asking: knowing what he knows now, was it a mistake to invade Iraq?:

Well, the question is, kind of, a non sequitur, if you will. What I mean by that -- or a null set -- that is that if you're saying let's turn back the clock and Saddam Hussein had open[ed] up his country to IAEA inspectors and they'd come in and they'd found that there were no weapons of mass destruction, had Saddam Hussein therefore not violated United Nations resolutions, we wouldn't be in the conflict we're in. But he didn't do those things, and we knew what we knew at the point we made the decision to get in.

If only!
 

Sharif, We Don't Like Him

by Eric Martin

Glenn Greenwald makes an interesting observation:

The New York Times, in June, detailed that proposed mosques in multiple locales in New York City -- far away from the Sacred, Hallowed Space of Ground Zero -- are provoking similar backlashes.  Two weeks ago, Yahoo News reported on similar incidents from around the country.  These are the real sentiments at the heart of this controversy.

That certainly calls into question the notion that opposition to the Park51 community center is rooted in sentimentalities surrounding the 9/11 attacks (as irrational and ill-supported as those sentimentalities may be).

There is something bigger than that.  Something very ugly spreading in this country - an anti-Muslim bias that is likely gaining succor from the anxiety that arises in tough economic times.  But that is not all.  

The Republican Party (with commendable exceptions such as Grover Norquist and Ted Olson - whose wife was killed on 9/11), aided by its major media apparatus, is actively and deliberately whipping up bigotry, hate and anger - pitting Americans against Americans - for little more than electoral gain.

This suggests two conclusions about the Republican Party, and much (though not all) of the larger conservative movement:

First, using bigotry for electoral gain is an acceptable practice. See, also, The Southern Strategy and Gay Marriage.

Second, there is far less concern for crafting effective counterterrorism policy and preserving national security than advertised.  While the GOP, and conservative pundits, might talk more bombastically about national security issues than others, and might display a greater willingness to start wars than their peers, in truth, they are willing to greatly compromise our domestic (and foreign) defenses to terrorist attacks in order to pursue a strategy of demonizing a subset of American citizens for the short term goal of gaining more votes in the next handful of election cycles.

Ali Soufan is more right than I'd like him to be:

The furor over the proposed Islamic cultural center and mosque near Ground Zero makes me think back to one of the most important lessons I learned from al Qaeda terrorists I interrogated--that they have a warped view of America. To them--and this they get from Osama Bin Laden's rhetoric--the U.S. is a country at war with Islam and Muslims, and so they had a duty to fight us.

While I was serving on the frontlines I found that this distorted view of America was common among ordinary Muslims too, and it was only by correcting this image did we encourage locals to help our investigations and turn against al Qaeda. Our efforts were helped by public statements, like from President Bush in the days after 9/11, declaring that America was at war with al Qaeda and not with Islam. I was in Sana, Yemen, on that day, and I remember our military and law enforcement group feeling encouraged that our leadership understood how to frame our battle.

But while we started off on the right note in dealing with the Muslim world, our leadership soon demonstrated that they failed to understand that our war against al Qaeda was not just a military fight, but an asymmetrical battle for the proverbial hearts and minds of Muslims across the world too. We should have been highlighting that al Qaeda has killed thousands of Muslims and blown up dozens of mosques around the world. But instead we failed to appreciate the importance of rebutting al Qaeda's propaganda and of turning ordinary Muslims against the terror network.

When we eventually did this, we had great successes. As commander in Iraq Gen. Petraeus reached out to local Sunni groups and convinced them that al Qaeda was their enemy and America their friend. That led to a remarkable turnaround in our fortunes in Iraq. He is now trying to do the same in Afghanistan. Just this weekend Meet the Pressreported that when Gen. Petraeus learned that the Taliban attacked a mosque near the border with Pakistan, he ordered it to be publicized among the local population.

There are many reasons for supporting the Muslim community's right to build a cultural center and mosque on private property, not least of all the First Amendment of the Constitution guaranteeing freedom of religion. But from a national security perspective, our leaders need to understand that no one is likely to be happier with the opposition to building a mosque than Osama Bin Laden. His next video script has just written itself.

The potential damage to our national security is not only to our work abroad, but at home too. Today in America we are facing an increased threat of homegrown terrorism. While Bin Laden couldn't find a single American-Muslim to be part of the 9/11 plot, today, thanks to mixture of poor (and even harmful) leadership within the American-Muslim community and failed strategies from our government in dealing with the threat, some young Muslims are finding themselves increasingly isolated and marginalized--and are becoming easy prey for radicals.

When demagogues appear to be equating Islam with terrorism, it's making young Muslims unsure about their place in the country. It bolsters the message that radicalizers are selling: That the war is against Islam, and Muslims are not welcome in America. As a Muslim-American, I know that isn't true. Whatever some rabble-raising politicians say about one mosque doesn't trump what America really stands for--the values enshrined by our constitution that guarantee equality and freedom for all, whatever your race, religion or creed.

Young American-Muslims need to focus on comments by leaders like Mayor Bloomberg, whose stand on the issue exemplifies the very best in American leadership: educating people and standing up for the values of our Constitution, rather than playing on fear and ignorance.

It is because of the principles enshrined in our constitution that thousands of American-Muslims, like Americans from all races and religions, volunteer to serve our country in the military, intelligence and law enforcement communities. The Pledge of Allegiance, ending "one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all," is a constant reminder that America is worth fighting for.

Do read the rest.

Standing up for the Park51 project is not only the right thing to do in terms of defending the Constitution, expressing solidarity with our fellow citizens that are being unfairly targeted and garnering greater inclusiveness in general, but it is an absolute imperative in the fight against extremism.

And the Republican Party is almost uniformly against it. And its opposition is manifesting in ways that are as vile as they are counterproductive in terms of keeping us safe. 

That's really quite remarkable.  The GOP is willing to risk American lives in order to sow hatred and bigotry for a short term boost to electoral prospects.  Wow.

Adult Supervision Required

by Jacob Davies

I'm looking at this Cordoba House business and I really cannot endorse the United States as guarantor of global freedom* if we're going to run things this way. Aren't there some aliens that can step in or something?

This is the stupidest thing since Terri Schiavo, and that was really, really stupid. You can't run a country like a webcomic or a reality TV show. Religious building projects across the nation are not subject to popular veto by television referendum - thank god, because that would make for some seriously boring viewing. There's an Islamic Center literally on my block here in Alameda, I think it's kitty-corner from a Chinese Episcopalian church. So what? Should I make a national scandal over it? I think that would make it awkward when I walk past to buy some milk at the corner store.

I couldn't give a rat's ass if they build a mosque at ground zero, or don't, or build a giant statue of bin Laden dropping his pants, or whatever the hell they want to do. This is America. You can do any damn stupid thing you want as long as you're in compliance with local zoning. And doubly so when it's on Tuesdays. And triply so when it's about religion. Why is it anyone else's business in the first place?

Also, if Harry Reid & Nancy Pelosi are listening:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

POP QUIZ:

Question 1: Are you a member of the United States Congress?
YES [X]    NO [ ]

Question 2: Should you have ANY OPINION AT ALL on what religious practices do or do not take place in a particular building in Lower Manhattan?
YES [ ]    NO [X]

It's not hard!

What is wrong with people?

* This is offered somewhat ironically, okay?

Fake Headlines, Believe Them, Come Back

by Eric Martin

Ah, remember the days when Jake Tapper, Ruth Marcus and a host of others rushed to the aid of poor little Fox News when the White House suggested that the network served more as a GOP surrogate than a, well, fair and balanced news organization? 

Well, Fox News has put its money where its mouth is:

With Republicans hoping to recapture a number of statehouses in November, the media conglomerate headed by Rupert Murdoch is inserting itself into the races in bold fashion with a $1 million donation to the Republican Governors Association.

The contribution from Mr. Murdoch’s News Corporation, which owns Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post and other news outlets, is one of the biggest ever given by a media organization, campaign finance experts said.

Democrats seized on the donation as evidence of the News Corporation’s conservative leanings, with Media Matters for America, a liberal group that has tangled often with the company, calling it “an appendage of the Republican Party.”

At the time, an incredulous and indignant Tapper asked White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs: "How [is Fox] any different from, say...ABC. MSNBC. Univision. I mean how are they any different?"

Jake: See above.

You Mean Hoover Wasn't Right?

by Eric Martin

As with Ireland's attempt to tighten their belts out of a recession, so, too, does Greece suffer the fate of Hoovernomics:

The austerity measures that were supposed to fix Greece's problems are dragging down the country's economy. Stores are closing, tax revenues are falling and unemployment has hit an unbelievable 70 percent in some places. Frustrated workers are threatening to strike back.

Luckily, President Obama pushed for a stimulus instead of doing what most Republicans were calling for at the onset of the recession: imposing austerity measures at a time of sagging demand (also known as "what Herbert Hoover did to spur on the Great Depression").

Unfortunately, Obama didn't push for a sufficiently large enough stimulus - as measured by his own financial advisors applying the applicable formulas (at least, the competent ones, with the likes of Larry Summers badly miscalculating for no discernibly rational reason, and Rahm Emanuel applying a political lens to counsel for a lower number regardless of the math).

Further weakening the effort, a self-styled group of "moderates" in the Senate pared back the already-too-small stimulus package - cutting, of all things, aid to the States, which money was badly needed and is used, among other things, to keep teachers, firefighters and police officers on the job.

Speaking of the States, at a time when reduced tax revenue sent many budgets plunging into the red, and due to the mandates of State laws that require balanced budgets, States needed more, not less, aid from the federal government just to tread water - or, rather, not cut services and jobs too deeply.  Due to the economic downturn, and absent a sufficient injection of aid from the Federal government, States cut back massively on spending, largely wiping out the stimulative effect of the already-too-small stimulus.

Put simply, while there was an injection of stimulus from the Federal government, on the State level, there was a massive contraction, leaving only a slight net stimulus - certainly too small to counteract the considerable recessionary effects.  So while the federal government was engaged in a Keynesian effort to gin up demand, there were, to paraphrase Atrios, 50 Little Hoovers implementing austerity measures at precisely the worst time in terms of economic cycles.

On an international level, at the most recent G20 conference, world leaders were almost all doing the Hoover Shuffle in calling for extreme austerity measures in response to a global economic slump, with Obama the lone voice of reason in terms of asserting the need to put off budgetary discipline until the world economy was on firmer footing such that the contraction would not pose a risk.  He deserves credit for at least trying to talk Europe down from the ledge, not that his efforts were entirely successful, which doesn't bode well for the world economy.

On a national level, the conundrum this country now faces is that we need another stimulus bill - one designed to make up for the initial deficiency in terms of dollar amount, as well as the austerity measures put into effect on the State level.  Politically, though, that will be a very hard sell - with Republicans, now that they are out of power, attacking any and all spending measures as wasteful pork.  Keynes be damned. 

Which is what Paul Krugman was trying to call attention to at the time of the stimulus fight.  While we might not be heading down the exact paths traveled by Greece and Ireland, we're not exactly going in the opposite direction either.

Post Twentieth Century Stress Disorder

by Jacob Davies

The twentieth century kicks off with the wizard invention of the concentration camp by the British in South Africa, who are engaged in a battle over Lebensraum with a bunch of Dutch guys, neither side having the slightest interest in the brown people previously occupying the area except as a sort of irritating natural resource to be strip-mined where possible. Whatever the original intent of the British, the key features of the concentration camp rapidly assert themselves, which is to say once you have a whole lot of annoying people gathered in one place and prevented from wandering around by barbed wire and guns, you can make them significantly less annoying to you by sort of, well, accidentally forgetting to feed them.

That's just a warm up though; we quickly go to the War to End All Wars That Doesn't, in which approximately one kerbillion soldiers from every civilized nation on the planet are ordered into an unremarkable area of France about the size of Vermont to die by various exciting means including being crushed by tanks, shot, stabbed, starved, bludgeoned, blown up, diseased, machine-gunned, and having the occasional bomb dropped on their heads in an amateurish fashion (they get better at this later). This accomplishes absolutely nothing for anyone and ends only when the Americans get tired of Germans randomly blowing up their stuff.

Everybody learns a Valuable Lesson about the Importance of Peace, which they all put into action in the same way: a determined effort to ensure that this time they will be the ones with the biggest guns, goddammit. Russia has a proletariat revolution which scares the crap out of all the moneybags businessmen in the rest of the world, which just goes to show that their imaginations were a bit limited at the time, since they could have treated them like China today, i.e. a giant source of cheap labor for foreign corporations under a government that doesn't tolerate any silly talk about worker's rights because, hello, you live in a socialist paradise - haven't you read the newspaper today?