Current Events on the News - A New Beginning

[phil]

You know one way you could win the war is play their game their way. Take all of the uniforms, dog tags, all identification off of the soldiers and start car bombing Terrorist sites. Start fighting the way that they fight. You would think after winning our independance from England through guerilla warfare and the problems of Vietnam with the guerilla warfare, we would just start employing it.

Which side would you be fighting for then ...

[skvorisdeadsorta]

phil said:

You know one way you could win the war is play their game their way. Take all of the uniforms, dog tags, all identification off of the soldiers and start car bombing Terrorist sites. Start fighting the way that they fight. You would think after winning our independance from England through guerilla warfare and the problems of Vietnam with the guerilla warfare, we would just start employing it.

Which side would you be fighting for then ...

Exactly, Phil. Exactly. I honestly don't think that the people of the Middle East's demands are all that bad. How easy would it be to just leave? Remove our bases and stay out of their buisness. Not Rocket Science.

[Mary]

rocdoc said:

Fuck, you MUST be kidding.
You're not the least bit uncomfortable with the embarassing generalities and untruths in that piece?
Blowhard overpoliticized overgeneralizing with retroactive 20:20 vision where even then they still don't even wish to get it's pieces right.

So apart from a debatable objection to her critique of "shock and awe", what else in the article was an embarrassing generality or untruth?

M

[Mary]

Not only is that article about "more" than Iraq, I don't think it's actually about Iraq at all.

Here's the money shot:

If Operation Iraqi Freedom had not been such an unqualified catastrophe, how long would the public have assented to the programs that accompanied the "war on terror": the legalization of torture, the suspension of habeas corpus, the unauthorized surveillance of law-abiding Americans, the unilateral exercise of executive power, and the Bush team's avowed prerogative to "create our own reality"?

The article is actually about the conduct of the so-called war on terror. Obviously insofar as the administration continues to harbor some delusional belief that we are fighting "terror" by remaining in Iraq, the war in Iraq is implicitly a part of this conduct - but none of the programs identified here have anything to do with Iraq. The point is rather that it is only because of increasing public disillusionment with the administration's gross incompetence in Iraq that the public has becoming willing to question anything else the administration lumps under the increasingly meaningless rubric of the "war on terror". I.e. there is not really a principled critique of these increasingly anti-democratic and dictatorial measures, but just a general irritation with administration fuckups. Gary Kamiya wrote a fantastic article at salon along similar lines - it didn't take up the question of "fascism" but it did argue that Americans did not necessarily vote for Democrats because of any principled objection to the ideological underpinnings of the war on terror, and that if we ever want to pull out of these dark times, we need a thoroughgoing critique of ideology, not just an exasperation with incompetence.

Regarding the use of the term fascism - I take skvor's point about the mistaken over-identification of fascism with nazism. However I also take the article's point about the disturbing applicability of Carl Schmitt to the administration's "state of emergency" justifications for ballooning executive power. I do believe that on this count, Schmitt is by far the most relevant point of comparison, and it so happens that he was associated with the Reich, not Mussolini or Franco. I have read lots of Schmitt, and I also read John Yoo's (the administration's favorite law professor) book on presidential power, and I am hard-pressed to see any substantial difference - except that Schmitt is a lot smarter and a lot more philosophically sophisticated.

M

[Mary]

rocdoc said:

The real question (and a far more challenging one) still should have been 'how long would the public have assented to those programs' if the catastrophe had been furthered to include another couple three four quick WTC/Madrid/London subway-type of attacks...our liberal folk would say 'Never!', correct?

Oh and for the fact that it seems that no sort of panic peddling 'hysterics' could possibly penetrate their limbic systems because they've divined the knowledge that 'No, they're NOT coming after us again. No amount of percieved threat is worth that!'

So far as I can tell, most liberals and lefties would say exactly the opposite: they WILL come after us again. You cannot win a war on terror without removing the conditions that breed terrorism, and it is highly doubtful that this is possible. You can, of course, use intelligence to forestall imminent threats. But I'm tired of the intellectual blackmail involved in these ridiculous tradeoffs, e.g.:

Well gee, would you rather torture one terorrist, or watch a nuclear bomb fall on New York City?

For that matter, I can construct my own ludicrous "would you rather?" scenario:

Would you rather round up and kill every single person whom any Western intelligence agency has ever momenarily suspected of having a connection to a terrorist organization, or watch Western civilization brought to smithereens by a series of devastating nuclear and biological attacks?

Well gee. I guess we better let the killing begin. And why not, under the 'ends justify the means' logic of Bush defenders?

I mean, maybe we should also start throwing every member of a right-wing militia indefinitely into prison as well, in case of another Timothy McVeigh scenario. And perhaps we have to lock away the key for all the environmentalists as well, in case we get another Unabomber on our hands.

Where does this logic stop?

M

[rockysigman]

Hammer to nail, Mary.

I don't think anyone here would dispute the threat of terrorism, but the ends simply do not justify the means, especially since I [don't] see any real reason to think that most of the expansions of executive power will make us the least bit safer from terrorism, and in some cases could even exacerbate the threat. So what is the point? Handing over seemingly unlimited power to one branch of the government and getting nothing back in return (and maybe making things worse) doesn't seem like much of a solution. Nor does accusing people who oppose those programs of appeasing terrorists or not taking the threat seriously.

[strat-0]

Well, I wasn't quite so fond of that article either. Being short on time, I rather skimmed it the first time, and I got a similar impression as Doc -- that there were some sweeping generalizations and half truths or untruths cavalierly thrown around (eg., "...filibuster led by Lott's hero Strom Thurmond"). But, hell, it's an opinion piece; let her opine. Then, after the discussion, I read it again, and most of them kind of slip away like an eel when you try to grab them. Quite expertly written, that article. Rather Buckley-esque in scope and impressiveness, although I don't think Buckley would expect the great unwashed masses of the electorate to have such an enlightened, Jeffersonian type of viewpoint. Hopefully, we elected a few who do.

[kmc]

But come on, the Strom quip is a throwaway. What do you take issue with, strat?

[kmc]

I like my Senator more everyday.

Senator-elect, Bush have unfriendly chat on Iraq

RICHMOND, Virginia (AP) -- Democratic Sen.-elect Jim Webb avoided the receiving line during a recent White House reception for new members of Congress and had a chilly exchange with President Bush over the Iraq war and his Marine son.

"How's your boy?" Webb, in an interview Wednesday, recalled Bush asking during the reception two weeks ago.

"I told him I'd like to get them out of Iraq," Webb said. (Watch how Webb describes the exchangeVideo)

"That's not what I asked. How's your boy?" the president replied, according to Webb.

At that point, Webb said, Bush got a response similar to what reporters and others who had asked Webb about Lance Cpl. Jimmy Webb, 24, have received since the young man left for Iraq around Labor Day: "I told him that was between my boy and me."

Webb, a leading critic of the Iraq war, said that he had avoided the receiving line and photo op with Bush, but that the president found him.

The White House had no comment on the reception. But it did not dispute an account of the exchange in Wednesday's Washington Post.

Webb, a Marine veteran of the Vietnam War and Navy secretary under President Reagan, defeated Virginia Republican Sen. George Allen by 9,329 votes out of 2.37 million cast, giving the Democrats control of both houses of Congress for the first time since 1994.

Webb left the GOP, in part over the Iraq war. He warned against the invasion, and criticized Bush over Iraq during the Senate campaign.

He said he meant no disrespect to the presidency during the reception, but "I've always made a distinction about not speaking personally about my son."

In interviews during the campaign, Webb said it was wrong to elevate the role of one Marine over others. Webb also expressed concern that a high profile could subject a Marine to greater peril.

He wore his son's buff-colored desert boots throughout the campaign, but refused to speak extensively about his son's service or allow it to be used in campaign ads.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

[shin]

rocdoc said:

Yes the 'war''s a fucking disaster. Yes. Given. Absolutely.

[kmc]

I like that his name is Nate. And that the comic is right on.

[rockysigman]

John Bolton has resigned.

Watch those neo-cons fall.

[Galactus]

So the big news is out...Mary Cheney's pregos.

[Thorngrub]

have they checked it's scalp for "⁶⁶⁶" yet ?

[Galactus]

thorny said:

have they checked it's scalp for "⁶⁶⁶" yet ?

It's not born yet but it's clearly immaculate conception.