cherry picking for fun and profit

by liberal japonicus

This Robert D. Kaplan interview by the New Statesman (sorry, it's a youtube, but you can get Kaplan's general gist from this or this) was burbling along with a frothy blend of might makes right when we get to this at the 12:03 mark. After explaning that the Middle East is blowing up because the US is no longer a dominant power, he says:

let's look at the Middle East for for the past even before October 7th 2023 the real problem in the Middle East is that it was the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and there's been no solution found to that collapse ..

I wish he would have really drilled down and explained that it was that damn idiot Hannibal and his elephants who ruined life for everyone. Discuss.

Comments

[Snarki, child of Loki]

Hannibal was much further west along the African coast, not a predecessor of the Ottomans.

Now, Alexander the Great? Yeah, he got distracted by the "Afghanistan" stuff, and tots blew off succession planning, so everything fell apart when he died.

[liberal japonicus]

I wasn’t thinking of predecessors, more like how far can you go back.

[bobbyp]

I was going to mention the eastern Roman Empire, but I see that is small beer.

[hairshirthedonist]

Enmebaragesi knew how to get things done!

[wj]

Enmebaragesi knew how to get things done!

When you reign for 900 years, you have a lot more opportunities.

[Pro Bono]

If the Ptolemaics and the Seleucids had maintained stable borders, Antiochus wouldn't have tried to suppress Judaism, the Maccabean revolt would never have happened, the Jews would have been gradually Hellenized, and Israel today would be a quite different place.

So yes, it's Alexander's fault.

[Tony P.]

Invent monotheism. Add evangelism. Claim finality. Stir in a small cauldron. Done.

--TP

[Donald]

Wonder what sort of problems we’d have if we hadn’t genocided/mated with the Denisovans, Neanderthals and hobbits?

There were Neanderthals in Israel. That would throw a monkey wrench into everything if they came back ( perhaps having been abducted by Paleolithic aliens) and reclaimed their homeland.

[wj]

I think the critical point is not monotheism and evangelism so much as universality. That is, the problem arises when you insist that your god(s) are the only ones, and everybody must follow only them.

Being monotheistic, but being OK with other people being polytheists -- not a problem. Being polytheists, but OK with others following other god(s) -- also not a problem. Trying to persuade others to follow your religion -- not a problem either.

[Pro Bono]

I disagree. The problem is when a people supposes that its religion entitles it to treat unbelievers as lesser beings.

[Hartmut]

Well, were those Jewish Neanderthals or Cainites?

The whole trouble started with cyanobacteria hiding under the unsuspicious alias of blue-green algae before they started to kill everyone else with that poison gas O2 and then (so I am told) turned the whole planet into a snowball trying to kill the few lifeforms that escaped the chemical warfare. And they got away with it.

[Donald]

I have nothing to say about bacteria- on bacteria violence. Still not sure what to make of the symbiotic perversion, when those damn eukaryotes came on the scene. If borders had been properly enforced the mitochondria and the chloroplasts never would have been allowed in. Probably one of those work permit things. H1-B1 sounds like something a micro biologist would know about.

[Tony P.]

Many Jews were Hellenized before Joe and Mary had their kid. The earliest Christians were Jews Hellenized enough to write their epistles and gospels in Greek.

The god of Abraham didn't help matters by sticking all the oil under the lands he would someday cede to the followers of Mohamed.

--TP

[russell]

The problem is when a people supposes that its religion entitles it to treat unbelievers as lesser beings.

I could be mistaken, but I think that was wj's point. Apologies if your post was not a reply to wj's.

Re: Neanderthals - apparently I have a higher-than-average percent of Neanderthal DNA. Still not a lot - 3 or 4% IIRC, according to that thing National Geographic had going a few years ago - but high end of average for modern humans.

I take perverse pride in this. My wife says it explains a lot, and I have not asked her to elaborate.

[wj]

My wife says it explains a lot, and I have not asked her to elaborate.

Perhaps you should. I seem to recall that there is some evidence that Neanderthals were actually more intelligent that homo sapiens. Less capable in some respects, perhaps, but more intelligent. (And that would explain a lot, now, wouldn't it?)

[russell]

I don't think she's seeing it as explaining above-average intelligence...

:)

[liberal japonicus]

Could she be suggesting you have a better sense of rhythm? If so, that's a pretty interesting line of attack.

[Pro Bono]

I think that was wj's point...

Yes, I was replying to wj - this point.
...the problem arises when you insist that your god(s) are the only ones, and everybody must follow only them.

Orthodox Judaism accepts converts only with reluctance. It doesn't want everyone to follow the religion.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

russell, try
"it's a neanderthal thing. You wouldn't understand."

Grunts optional.

[novakant]

My wife says it explains a lot, and I have not asked her to elaborate.

For me it would be lack of hand-eye coordination ... :) I hit back by pointing at her complete lack of sense of orientation. Though, I suppose both abilities were quite essential for survival back then.

It seems the extinction of the Neanderthals might have been due to other factors:

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2022/october/neanderthal-extinction-maybe-caused-sex-not-fighting.html

[novakant]

I meant: sense of direction

[nous]

Could she be suggesting you have a better sense of rhythm? If so, that's a pretty interesting line of attack.

So russell, like Ringo, is a Caveman?

[CharlesWT]

Re: Neanderthals - apparently I have a higher-than-average percent of Neanderthal DNA.

russell

[russell]

LOL y'all. :)

[hairshirthedonist]

I hear drummers like hanging out with musicians.

[novakant]

Regarding the point of the OP, here's a quote from the video (12:34 ff.):

The middle east has been on its own, without great powers to oversee the situation, so to speak, and that has led to warfare, tremendous warfare.

I mean, really? He's not even trying to hide it.

Wikipedia tells me that:

Kaplan writes that he suffered from clinical depression due to the loss of American and Iraqi lives he believed his support for the Iraq War indirectly caused.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_D._Kaplan#Support_for_the_Iraq_War

But a tiger doesn't its stripes: a neocolonial attitude and racism cloaked in cultural terms, i.e. white supremacy for polite society, seems almost impossible to change.

All these former neocons like Applebaum, Boot, Bolton etc., who now want to sound like reformed characters in the face of Trump, never really took the opportunity of the disaster that was the Iraq war to actually see the error of their ways and learn from it. They just carry on with slightly different rhetoric.

The only one I can think of, who has really had a change of heart, is Peter Beinart.

/rant over

[novakant]

"doesn't change its stripes"

It seems that I am incapable of writing a post without some sort of error in it, lol.

[wj]

It seems that I am incapable of writing a post without some sort of error in it, lol.

Consistency is reputed to be a virtue.

Personally, every trip I take is tense until I figure out what is the (fortunately only one) thing I forgot to pack.

[Michael Cain]

Personally, every trip I take is tense until I figure out what is the (fortunately only one) thing I forgot to pack.

Travel around the US got much less stressful after I convinced my wife that except for a tiny number of things, anything she forgot to pack could be corrected with a charge card and a Target (or smaller shops taking the place of Target departments).

One of the tests of that theory was the time she forgot to pack the dress for the one evening of fancy dining and dancing on the trip. The (somewhat isolated) resort had a very nice women's wear shop. After making her parade past me in a number of different dresses, I picked one. She was sure it was the wrong choice. After an evening of compliments, she admitted she was wrong and I was right.

One of the stories that I have to add to the collection I'm writing for my kids and grand-kids is picking the wedding dress for the woman from Georgia that was living in the graduate dorm at the U of Texas. She didn't take any of the women on the grad floor shopping with her; she took me and my gay roommate. It was probably a scandal at the wedding dress shop for years. A dainty pink-and-white shop; Bill dressed sharp, but dark as always; me in boots, jeans, and a t-shirt. Ordering the shop staff around to get the right dress. We got a letter from her after her wedding. Something like, "My mom and all the rest of the female relatives loved the dress, and complimented the friends who helped me choose it. Please accept my apology for not correcting their belief that those friends were women."

[CharlesWT]

Michael & Friends :)

[Snarki, child of Loki]

Best episode of "Queer Eye for the Straight Bride" EVAR!

[GftNC]

Michael, you are indeed a man of many and mysterious talents.

[Donald]

Beinart has two posts now on the need for accountability in our society, referring specifically to the interviews with Blinken and Sullivan where they use Orwellian language about Gaza.

We need a news media that actually presses government officials when they lie about genocide.

If you want to read the transcript rather than watch the video, scroll down a bit.

https://peterbeinart.substack.com/p/jake-sullivans-mental-prison-a-sequel

https://peterbeinart.substack.com/p/jake-sullivans-mental-prison-a-sequel

[Donald]

I copied the Sullivan piece twice. Here is the Blinken one.

https://peterbeinart.substack.com/p/antony-blinkens-mental-prison

[Donald]

Oh, one other point. I agree with novakant above. Beinart really believes in liberal values. Applebaum and many other pundits only believe in them when our enemies like Putin trample on them and have essentially nothing to say when an ally is guilty. It is rather odd, because Applebaum is very critical of Trump and the reason is supposed to be that Trump tramples on liberal values. I think the problem former neocons have with him is that on foreign policy he is a loose cannon, incoherent and self- contradictory, not someone you can trust no matter what view you take.

[russell]

Not really a fan of Beinart, but basically agree with his point that Blinken et al are in a kind of mental prison. Because of the positions they occupy, they are not free (or are less free) to speak candidly about the situations they are responsible for. They have to justify this to themselves in order to continue to think of themselves as decent human beings. So what they can allow themselves to see or think become limited.

It's a kind of blindness. And it is, I think, a common phenomenon among people in positions of power or privilege, of whatever type.

And, I agree that it is the responsibility of journalists (among many others) to counter that by challenging that.

Unfortunately, at least in the US and probably elsewhere, many of the folks who we might expect to do the work of challenging privileged points of view are themselves caught up in the same dynamic. Whether because of their need to retain access to powerful people, or due to limitations placed by the financial interests of their employers.

So we need something to fill that gap. Or, really, a lot of things to fill that gap, because it's a big gap.

[Donald]

According to the Israeli press,Trump’s envoy is pressuring Netanyahu to accept a ceasefire and it seems to be working. Of course it is too soon to tell if it will come about but at the moment it looks closer than it has before.

https://archive.ph/Iiexh#selection-1299.20-1299.114

And it makes sense. Trump is very pro Israel but he also wants to be seen as the one who can make a deal. He has no loyalty to anyone and doesn’t like Bibi and recently approvingly cited a Jeffrey Sachs video where Sachs said Bibi was trying to drag the US into war with Iran. So he might be willing to pressure Netanyahu for real, something Biden had no interest in doing.

Rightwing Israelis see this as a betrayal by Trump. I hope they are right.

In the long run I would expect to see Trump go back to his usual support for the Israeli right but it would be nice if his ego led him to do something good in this case.

[Donald]

I think this is a good summary of the situation, with speculation about how it might go if the ceasefire happens.

( Basically, Israel will likely still keep expanding.)

https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/trump-israel-hamas-gaza-ceasefire-deal

[Hartmut]

I stay cynical. Once there are no more hostages to free, Bibi will likely renege on any deal or guarantees.

[Donald]

You are probabky correct. I just saw another secondhand cite from the Israeli press ( I haven’t seen an English translation) which said that Trump agreed to let Netanyahu restart the war later, which has been Netanyahu’s position all along.

I would expect that one way or another, the Israeli right will get what it wants and nether Democrats nor Republicans will give up their “ ironclad” support for Israel.

[Donald]

Using this as an open thread. So here is a thread reader. I will post the link to the article in my next post.

Notice Jack Lew’s notion ( he is Biden’s Israel ambassador) that killing children isn’t so bad if they are the children of Hamas terrorists. I am sure he would deny thinking that if challenged on it, but his statement accidentally showed what he subconsciously thought.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1879639764376461374.html

[Donald]

Here is the article that Murphy wrote. The Lew comment was in a TinesofIsrael interview.

https://www.propublica.org/article/biden-blinken-state-department-israel-gaza-human-rights-horrors

Biden had an interview with Lawrence O’Donnell last night where he says Netanyahu defended carpet bombing on the grounds that we did it in WW2 and that Hamas hides under hospitals and schools and churches. ( Biden said churches. There is at least one in Gaza that Israel attacked). Biden came pretty close to defending that line of reasoning.

Overall Biden seems to think he did a good job and the war turned out well since Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran are weakened, He pretty clearly thinks it will all turn out fine if we can just create a Palestinian state.

He and Blinken are psychopaths. He reminds me of Russians who defended the Ukraine War and at the same time talked about their brotherly feelings towards Ukranians. There is some weird psychological twist to people who think they can slaughter civilians and commit war crimes and then make it all better at the end.