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A Timeline of the Russian-Georgian War

[digg-reddit-me]I’ve refrained from writing about the Georgia crisis until now, because although I have had an interest in Russia, and had been sensing a growing wariness about Russia among the rarified field of foreign policy experts, I did not have an immediate sense of what was going on in that conflict.

Although it was clear that Russia was increasingly attempting to dominate it’s near-abroad, the timing of the conflict seemed to indicate that it was Georgian President Saakashvili who had most to gain.

In my discussions with others about the matter, there seems to be a great deal of confusion – and narratives and counter-narratives driven by propaganda have dominated these discussions.  So, as a preliminary step, and for backwards refences, I am constructing here a timeline of events and a list of the players.

The Players

Georgia has been part of various Russian empires since the 1800s. After Communists took over in 1917, Georgia declared independence. By 1921, the Soviet Union had attacked and subjugated it again. As the Soviet Union began to crumble in 1989, Georgia again began to push for independence. This led to the massacre of Georgian citizens by the Soviet army at an unauthorized but peaceful demonstration. By 1991, Georgia was again independent. But ethnic tensions soon led to two civil wars taking place – with Russians supporting the forces that opposed the central Georgian government in both places.

One of the civil wars took place in Abkhazia, where Russian supported the minority Abhkaz who sought to ethnically cleanse their part of the country. A 1989 census reveals that just under half of the country’s population was ethnically Georgian (239,872) and under 20% was Abkhaz (93,267). Fourteen years later, The Abkhaz made up over 40% of the population with only a small rise in total population (94,606) while ethnic Georgians now accounted for just over 20% of the population (45,952). The Georgian population in Abkazia decreased by almost 200,000 over this time. Of course, these statistics do not tell the entire story. The Abkhaz minority had opposed the Georgian attempt to achieve indedependence from Russia and both sides had used ethnicly directed violence in the civil war in the early 1990s. See the Human Rights Watch report on the conflict. (PDF). Russian peacekeepers have been deployed in Abkhazia since the end of the violence.

The other Georgian civil war took place in South Ossetia. South Ossetia has been considered part of Georgia for some time – and was incorporated into the Russian empire as part of Georgia in 1801, and was part of Georgia when it declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1917 and 1991. However, in both instances, the South Ossetians opposed breaking from the Soviet Union – and took up arms with the support of the Russians against the central Georgian government.  The Soviet Union’s most prominent leader, Josef Stalin, was, in fact, from the country of Georgia, and an ethnic Ossetian. When Georgia declared independence, the South Ossetians opposed this and boycotted elections. After Georgia established it’s independence, a civil war broke out with some 25,000 ethnic Georgians fleeing the region with ethnic violence being used by both sides. By 1992, a peacekeeping force led by the Russians, but including both Ossetians and Georgians was able to enforce a peace agreement. There was relative peace in South Ossetia until 2004 when tensions began to mount. The Russians had continued to build up their peacekeeping force in the region, and had been supplying the South Ossetian army with large caches of weapons. They had allowed free reign to various criminal gangs operating out of South Ossetia (including one that attempted to sell nuclear materials to a joint US/Georgian sting operation.)

Russia considered the American alliance with Georgia (as well as American alliances with Estonia, Latvia, Lithuiania, Ukraine, Poland, Kazakhstan, and other former Soviet colonies) to be a regional challenge to Russian dominance. When America and Europe recognized the independence of Kosovo (a part of Serbia, a traditional ally of Russia), Putin declared that he would begin to push for independence for the two disputed regions in Georgia. Russia – with it’s peacekeepers in each region and supply of arms to local militias and militaries – already exercised de facto control over these regions. Moreover, inundated with a mountain of cash from it’s sale of oil and natural gas, Russia has begun to act more assertively in international affairs.

America saw the small democracy of Georgia as a natural ally. America supplied arms and training to the Georgia military. Since the Rose Revolution of 2003 in which the current president, Mikheil Saakashvili, took power, America has grown closer to Georgia and recently pushed it’s membership in NATO. Aside from it’s democracy, Georgia is also seen as useful from the American perspective because it can be used as a counter to increasing Russian influence in the region.

A Timeline

From 2004 to 2008, tensions between Russia and Georgia mount.

  • The Ukranian Orange Revolution and the Georgian Rose Revolution, both of which involved attempts to steal elections by the more pro-Russian force being turned back by peaceful and mass demonstrations of the public, take place. Russia is not happy.
  • The Russian government accused the Georgians of supporting rebel Chechens in the Second Chechen war, though the evidence is inconclusive.
  • Russia also opposed Saakashvili’s efforts to crack down on seperatism in Georgia. Shortly after taking power in the Rose Revolution, Saakashvili began to pressure the autocratic leader of the independent region of Adjara to resign and allow the central government a greater role in the region. Under great pressure from internal demonstrations and international pressure, Adjara’s leader resigned and fled to Moscow before he was indicted on various charges of embezzlement, misuse of office, and murder. Adjara maintains it’s autonomous status, but is becoming further integrated into the Georgian polity. Russia had sided with Adjara’s leader during the conflict and had wanted to maintain a military base in the region. So this further escalated tensions. Russia is not happy.
  • Georgia began a military build-up in the regions outside of Abhkaz and South Ossetia. Russia continues to increase it’s peacekeeping force and to arm those opposed to the central Georgian government. Neither side is happy.
  • Georgia pushed for and America supported Georgia’s bid to become a member of NATO, a military alliance originally created to oppose the Soviet Union.  Russia is not happy.
  • Russia’s power and wealth is increasing as it has become Europe’s main source of natural gas and a major exporter of oil. Russia is happy and more powerful.

August 8, 2007: Georgia claimed that a Russian jet violated it’s airspace and fired a missile, which did not explode. American and European countries urged both countries to ratchet down the rhetoric.

In March 2008, things began to escalate. America recognized Kosovo as an independent nation. Kosovo was part of Serbia, a traditional Russian ally, and the Russian opposed the independence of Kosovo. Russia threatened to take steps to escalate the situation in South Ossetia and Abhkazia.

Later in March, Russia took diplomatic steps to further the process of recognizing these two regions as independent states.

In April 2008, the Georgian government accused the Russians of shooting down an unmanned drone in Georgian airspace. Russia denied this. A United Nations report later backs up the Georgian version of events. The rhetoric escalates on both sides as they both accuse the other of attempting to escalate the conflict.

May 2008 sees Russia inceasing it’s peacekeeping force in Abhkazia. Seperatists in Abhkazia claim to have shot down Georgian drones operating over Abhkazia. Georgia denied having any drones operating there. (The Georgians are probably lying about this.)

In July 2008, Russian fighter jets flew over South Ossetia, into Georgian airspace. Moscow claimed it violated Georgia’s territory in order to “cool heads” in Georgia’s capitol. Georgia withdrew it’s ambassador to Moscow in protest.

Meanwhile, mixed messages are being sent. The United States continued to express strong support of Georgia and Saakashvili in public and to caution him in private to avoid taking any steps to escalate the situation. At the same time, Russia’s peacekeepers are allowing various criminal gangs to operate out of South Ossetia, and periodic attacks by Ossetian seperatists into Georgia are overlooked.

August 1, 2008: Fighting between Georgian and South Ossetian forces breaks out. Georgia accuses the South Ossetians of shelling nearby Georgian villages. The seperatists deny this.

August 5, 2008: As ethnic South Ossetians begin to evacuate into Russia, the Russian ambassador declares that Russia will defend South Ossetia against Georgia.

August 7, 2008: Georgian President Saakashvili orders a ceasefire, but fighting still intensifies. Later in the day, in a televised address, he orders Georgian forces to remove what he calls the “criminal regime” in South Ossetia.

August 8, 2008: Russian troops storm South Ossetia with massive force pushing back the Georgians, and launching attacks deep into Georgia to entirely destroy it’s military infrastructure. Russia claims that Georgia had killed thousands of Ossetians in an effort to ethnically cleanse the region. Human Righs Watch is unable to find any evidence of this, finding only 45 civilian deaths in South Ossetia. However, they find massive evidence of ethnically motivated attacks on ethnic Georgian villages in South Ossetia and widespread looting by seperatists.

August 9, 2008: Russian-backed seperatists in Abkhazia launch an attack on the region still controlled by ethnic Georgians who wish to remain part of Georgia.

August 10, 2008: The Russians move SS-21 medium-range ballistic missile launchers into South Ossetia, weapons which could potentially be nuclear.

August 11, 2008: Russians deploy paratroopers in Abhkazia to raid Georgia proper.

August 13, 2008: Georgia withdraws all of it’s forces from the disputed territories. Despite a ceasefire order by the Kremlin, Russian forces occupy the country’s main highway and attacks the city of Gori, splitting the nation in two.

Human Rights Watch issues a report documenting the burning and looting of ethnic Georgian villages as well as the restraint of the Georgian army in South Ossetia.

August 15, 2008: Human Rights Watch reports that Russia used cluster bombs on the civilian population of Georgia.

August 16, 2008: Russians occupy the Georgian port city of Poti and several other strategic positions within the nation and advance within 34 miles of the Georgian capitol of Tblisi. The Associated Press reports that ethnic Georgians in South Ossetia have been drafted as forced laborers under guard by Russian and South Ossetian troops.

August 17, 2008: The Russian President Medvedev announces that Russian troops will begin to pull out of the undisputed territory of Georgia on Monday.

Edit: August 18, 2008: In a report meant to sum up the human rights violations in this conflict to date, Human Rights Watch reports that the Georgians’ used “indiscriminate force during their assault on Tskhinvali and neighboring villages on August 7-8, [caused] numerous civilian casualties and extensive destruction.” The report mainly describes:

Russian military’s use of indiscriminate force and its seemingly targeted attacks on civilians, including on a civilian convoy. The deliberate use of force against civilians or civilian objects is a war crime. Human Rights Watch has also confirmed the Russian military’s use of cluster bombs in two towns in Georgia.

Ian Traynor of Britain’s The Guardian and Michael Dobbs in the Washington Post each had insightful columns this weekend analyzing the conflict with clarity.

Dobbs summarizes the war:

Saakashvili’s decision to gamble everything on a lightning grab for Tskhinvali brings to mind the comment of the 19th-century French statesman Talleyrand: “It was worse than a crime, it was a mistake.”

Michael Walzer in the liberal Dissent magazine also has a good piece.

But the single most important insight came in a column by this blog’s nemesis, Paul Krugman, last Friday:

By itself, as I said, the war in Georgia isn’t that big a deal economically. But it does mark the end of the Pax Americana — the era in which the United States more or less maintained a monopoly on the use of military force. And that raises some real questions about the future of globalization. [My emphasis.]

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A President for Our Dangerous Times

[digg-reddit-me]In dangerous times, we cannot let the larger issues out of sight:

The day to day grind of this campaign – months and months of fights over demographics, over gaffes, over lobbyists, over media bias – has distracted most of us from the essential issues at stake.

The essential choice we face is whether or not our country is going in the right direction.

There is an economic component to this – which will rightfully take up much of the country’s attention in the next few months, and between McCain and Obama, the economic differences are stark.

Perhaps more important is the question of whether or not America should embrace it’s current role as an imperial power, as a neo-empire. McCain clearly accepts this view. One of his foreign policy advisors has explicitly accepted the American empire. Another McCain advisor explained how McCain is planning on creating a League of Democracies to destroy the United Nations and marginalize Russia, quite possibly provoking a new Cold War ((N. B. Fareed Zakaria is not an Obama surrogate as this YouTube video claims but a journalist for Newsweek with his own show in PBS.)) . McCain has said that withdrawing from Iraq – which is what the Iraqi prime minister is requesting of us – would be a surrender to our enemies. (He still doesn’t seem to have noticed that many of our enemies are warring amongst themselves – Sunni extremists, Shia extremists, Al Qaeda, Iranian factions.) At the same time, he has threatened war with Iran while claiming it is naive to consider meeting with any Iranian leaders. (McCain never mentions the candlelight vigils in Tehran after September 11 or Iran’s efforts to come to a comprehensive settlement of all issues between America and Iran immediatly afterwards that were ignored using the same justification McCain now uses to avoid dealing with Iran.) Instead, he jokes “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran…)

As Andrew Sullivan wrote:

After the last eight years, we simply cannot risk a continuation of the same reckless, belligerent, argument-losing, ideological and deceptive foreign policy of [the Bush administration.] From his knee-jerk Cold War posture over Georgia to his Rovian campaign tactics, McCain is simply too close to this disastrous record to contemplate… McCain’s trigger-happy temperament, shallow understanding of the complexities and passion for military force as the answer to everything is the bigger risk. He is a recipe for more, wider and far more destructive warfare.

As the conservative curmudgeon George Will explained, invoking Barack Obama’s historic candidacy as a marker:

[I]t illustrates history’s essential promise, which is not serenity – that progress is inevitable – but possibility, which is enough: Things have not always been as they are.

In other words, we can change. We were not always an empire, and we need not always be an empire. We were not always at war, and we do not need to remain at war. Barack Obama will not change anything overnight (we will not all be given bicycles) – because that is not the type of leader he is. He is not a revolutionary urging us to storm the barricades. He is an imperfect leader. He is a sensible pragmatist who believes we are in a unique moment in history in which we have an opportunity to establish meaningful changes by reforming our political, economic, and governmental processes.

The alternative is stark. While I have long been an admirer of John McCain – because he stood up to the President on torture, tax cuts, swiftboating, and global warming – he lost my vote some time ago. He has fought this campaign without honor – ever since his campaign went bankrupt and he began to repudiate every stand he took that hurt him with the Republican base (including on torture, tax cuts, and now apparently, swiftboating.)

In the end, as dire as our economic strength is, this election will be remembered as the the moment when America decided if it was going to remain an empire, or if instead we would return to the best of our traditions, and take our place as a leader in the world community.

In these dangerous times, one candidate poses too great of a risk, and the American people cannot afford to allow a party which has undermined our national security at every turn to remain in power.

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Quasi-Defending the Windfall Profits Tax

[digg-reddit-me]A friend of mine wrote to me yesterday regarding his concern about the windfall profits tax that Obama is current proposing for oil companies.  He explained that that the very idea of this tax attacks the very essence of capitalism.

And while I see his point, and am wary of political actions that involves scapegoating any isolated source, I don’t share his feelings on the subject.  The reason is simply this: the oil companies have been bad actors for some time – as he acknowledges; they have taken steps to ensure that Americans never developed alternative fuels, and have decided more recently to pocket much of the profit instead of investing it in developing alternate fuels.  Rather than leading the way in helping to free America from it’s reliance on oil – which not only is driving global climate change, causing pollution, propping up anti-American and tyrannical forces around the world from Russia to the Arab world, and creating the most massive transfer of wealth in the history of humankind – Big Oil has worked to ensure the system stays as it is.

Throughout American history, presidents have attacked and modified the basic foundations of capitalism when they felt it was necessary to protect essential American institutions and values.  Abraham Lincoln liberated the property of millions of Southern plantation owners; Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Harry Truman created systems of wage and price controls; private property was regularly and promiscuously confiscated by the government to make way for railroads and highways and now anything that will generate higher tax revenues; tariffs and subsidies have always distorted capitalism – as did regulation, once it became commonplace.

What we see in the history of America and capitalism is a constant balancing act – between free market forces and the forces that wish to preserve an ordered society.  Capitalism – by it’s nature – is exploitative.  Unregulated capitalism is what drove America’s growth through the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s – as workers were abused, killed, and entirely exploited – living in shanty-towns like slaves – as big corporations bought Congressmen by the dozen and forced through laws benefiting them – all of this for the benefit of a wealthy few.  This was capitalism.  And then in the 1950s, with the top marginal tax rate set over 90% and the gap between the rich and the poor narrower than ever, with unions representing 36% of workers, that too was capitalism.  Both the bustling city of Alexander Hamilton and the idyllic country farm of Thomas Jefferson were capitalistic.  For all the talk of “creeping socialism” over the past half-century, the only time America came close was the direct result of the inaction of Herbert Hoover and the overcompensation by Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  And at no point was America ever purely capitalistic.

Civil liberties, once given away, are extremely difficult to get back; executive power, once taken, is rarely relinquished; but American-style capitalism has proved to be a canny system, surviving under even the most stringent regulations and fighting it’s way back until, as before, it’s excesses trigger a response.

Under this understanding, I can accept the idea of a windfall profits tax.

The government has always been intruded in the economy.  During the late 1800s, the government fought for and protected the interests of the rich against the poor and anyone else (although this period comes closest to demonstrating what a laissez-faire system would produce); during the 1950s and 1960s, the government protected the middle class; by the late 1960s and 1970s, the government had shifted it’s focus to the poor.  Today, the government has once again shifted to the protection of the rich – while maintaining some of the programs that protected the middle class and the poor.  The Financial Times of London observed just a few weeks ago that while the government let homeowners in default fail by the thousands, they could not let any big corporations fail and that by privatizing profits and socializing losses, the American government is practicing socialism for the rich.  Is a windfall profits tax any greater of an intrusion into the market, an undermining of capitalism, than the attitude that if you become big enough, the government will not let you fail – and while you can keep your profits, your losses will be socialized?

What Obama is specifically proposing is to give a $1,000 emergency energy rebate to consumers – a tax cut for individuals – paid for by this windfall profits tax.  With many of our national economic woes directly tied to the oil industry which is making more profit than at any time in history – this seems just in this instance, even if it is flawed in theory.

I’m not crazy about the idea – but I do see it as an appropriate punishment for big oil – who, though their poor stewardship of a national security asset, have endangered our way of life.  Thus far, for their bad behavior, they have been rewarded with the greatest profits of any corporation in history.

While I see that this windfall profits tax could set a bad precedent – I do think it can be justified in this instance.

The real conversation here – and the real reason for this proposal by Obama – is not about economic policy, but about politics.  John McCain recently reversed his position on offshore drilling to take the popular position that we should open up those few areas designated to be preserved for drilling.  This will not affect oil prices for at least seven years – and distracts us from the real problem at hand – a disastrous national addiction to oil.  But the politics was too good for McCain to pass it up – and now he is using this cudgel of offshore drilling to club Obama.

Obama’s response to this is his proposal for a windfall profits tax.

As Kevin Drum sees the politics of this:

As a one-off, this probably doesn’t have much impact, but if it’s a harbinger of things to come — and I assume it is — it holds huge promise. It’s just like McCain’s legendary series of flip-flops: on an individual basis they don’t matter too much, but when you put them together into a coherent narrative they make a powerful story. After all, pretty much every McCain flip flop has a single source — changing his position to be more acceptable to the anti-tax, big business, Christian conservative base of the Republican Party

I don’t know if any of this will make my friend feel any better.  But it is a position I can accept.  As a policy, I don’t think it’s the best idea – and I don’t think it helps solve any problems.  But as politics – which is the only way to understand it – it is pitch-perfect for the times.

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Quote of the Day

Liberty grows from the ground – it cannot be dropped from the air by an unmanned drone.

David Cameron, Conservative Party leader in Great Britain on September 11, 2006.

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Setting America Up to Fail

[digg-reddit-me]Putting aside the controversy over whether the New York Times should have published John McCain’s op-ed piece – his piece itself illustrates the lose-lose strategy McCain is putting forward.

This line in particular from his unpublished op-ed struck me:

…if we don’t win the war, our enemies will.

What interests me about both McCain’s and Obama’s positions is that both have stuck to their general idea about what the next step would be despite the changing situation on the ground.

McCain was in favor of troops staying longer in Iraq when things were bad and getting worse; now that things are improving, he is still in favor of keeping our forces there.  Obama was in favor of pulling out of Iraq while the situation was deteriorating; and now that the situation is improving, he still is in favor of ending the occupation.  McCain’s editorial tries to hit Obama on this point, unconvincingly in light of McCain’s own seeming intransigence.

But it isn’t entirely accurate to call Obama’s and McCain’s fixed goals in spite of the changing circumstances “intransigence”.  The crux of the disagreement between the candidates is not the contrast that McCain sets up in his op-ed:

I have also said that any draw-downs must be based on a realistic assessment of conditions on the ground, not on an artificial timetable crafted for domestic political reasons.

Rather, the crux of their disagreement is about the wisdom of the Iraq adventure and the overall strategy of establishing some kind of neo-empire in the Middle East.  McCain believes that the Iraq War was necessary and strategically sound – and that although he may not call it an empire or neo-empire – he believes America must have an established military presence in the Middle East as a matter of policy.  Obama is suspicious of this view – believing that any form of imperial influence exerted over the Middle East will cause a backlash greater than the benefits – and he specifically pointed out before the war, and has kept pointing out, that the Iraq adventure was strategically “dumb” and that it was benefited our enemies in the Middle East even as it has undermined our friends.  By taking out Iraq, we removed Iran’s regional foil – and we set up an Iraqi regime that has become a regional ally of Iran.

There are two competing sets of suppositions here:

First:

  • If our invasion of Iraq was ill-conceived.
  • If the invasion of Iraq was the right decision but poorly executed.

Second:

  • If our continued presence there continues to create problems both for our military and for the Iraqi government.
  • If our continued presence could help stabilize the country.

On the first question, the country and the world have overwhelmingly come to believe the first option.

On the second, the answer is less clear. What is clear is that:

  • We do not have enough of a military presence to stabilize the entire country – only relatively small portions of it.
  • We have been acting as a buffer between some of the ethnic groups composing Iraq (even as our invasion and the aftermath hypercharged tensions between the groups.)
  • We are degrading our entire military and investing exorbitant amounts of money in the the country (at a time when our government is testing the limits of the world’s tolerance for our fiscal insolvency.)
  • We are inspiring more extremists than we are killing – as even Don Rumsfeld admitted.
  • Our presence in Iraq has made us more vulnerable to Iran and less able to take any necessary actions against Iran.

These commonly accepted facts demonstrate our short-term tactical limits and our tactical utility – but most of all, they demonstrate that our long-term strategy is underming our position.  From the Iraqi perspective, Maliki clearly thinks that it is best for Iraq if America leaves as soon as possible.  Analyzing what we know about Iraq leads to the same conclusion.

The only possible long-term salvation that could come from this debacle is if Iraq becomes an American-friendly, stable democracy.  Which is possible, but not the most likely conclusion based on the facts as they are now.  It is a possiblity based on a desperate hope.  But even this long-term possibility would necessitate that we demonstrate that we are intent to leave Iraq as soon as possible – and certainly as soon as we are asked.

McCain – by focusing on our short-term tactical successes (and ignoring our tactical limits and our strategic errors) – is bringing America down the wrong path – and setting us up to fail.  By saying, “if we don’t win the war, our enemies will,” McCain is attempting to impose a framework on Iraq that does not apply.  The Iraqis themselves defeated Al Qaeda and the extremists after they became tired of their extremism – with our troops playing a supporting role.  One of our primary functions in Iraq is preventing a civil war between the Iraqi ethnic groups.

The question is: Is McCain himself so deluded as to see Iraq as simply a battle between us and our enemies – like World War II – or is he merely using this framework to allow him to use Iraq as a political weapon and to paint his opponent as a “weak-kneed liberal”?

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A Liberal Defends George W. Bush’s Legacy

Or, how George W. Bush has been just awful enough

[Photo by schani licensed under the Creative Commons and found here.]

[digg-reddit-me]Many liberals argue that George W. Bush’s presidency has been an unmitigated disaster; most libertarians see George W. Bush as the worst thing to happen to America since our government interned hundreds of thousands of Americans purely based on race and expanded government involvement in the economy at the same time. Even many conservatives now see George Bush’s tenure as a series of betrayals. The past eight years have been a dark time – with the specter of terrorism hanging over our lives – with an economy that has only benefited the elites – with America’s standing and influence in the world dropping precipitously – and with a government flailing about in attempts to prevent the next attack, attempts that have primarily succeeded in undermining our inherent liberties.

There is clearly a broad consensus that the Bush presidency has been a failure. A recent poll of historians recently ranked George W. Bush’s presidency as the worst in history; late last year, The Atlantic ran a cover story asking what lessons we can learn from Bush’s failed presidency; the American people have given George W. Bush the lowest approval ratings for a president since polls have been taken; and recent news reports have shown that over three quarters of Americans believe our country is on the wrong track. The consensus clearly is that Bush’s presidency has failed. It’s true that a number of conservatives have tried to defend Bush – Ross Douthat for example pointed out that Bush’s disasters do not rival the catastrophes of Civil War or Great Depression yet. But even the group considered the architect of many of Bush’s policies – the neo-conservatives, have begun to argue – as have failed ideologues again and again throughout history – that it was not that their ideas that failed – rather their ideas were never truly tried. Bush must know he is in trouble when even the neoconservatives are attacking him as weak and ineffective – or to use the term they use, “liberal”.

Having a somewhat contrary nature, I’m not so sure this almost universal consensus is true.

While I do see Bush’s presidency as a disaster, I believe a kind of redemption can be found in this disaster because Bush’s presidency: (a) could have been much worse; and (b) has created a unique historical opportunity.

My postulate is that George W. Bush’s presidency has been just bad enough to avoid destroying the core institutions that form the backbone of our society while creating a virtuous backlash that will strengthen these institutions in the long term. Bush has abused his power just enough, and aggravated festering issues just enough, and presided over a decline that was so sudden that he has created near ideal conditions to move the country in a positive direction.

Throughout history, the price of radicalism has been steep and the chances of reversing deep-seated trends has been long. Conservatives who opposed the social welfare programs of the New Deal tried and failed for a generation to rollback the programs that Franklin Delano Rooselvelt instituted in the wake of a Republican-abetted disaster. Unsuccessful and marginalized, these conservatives finally settled on a strategy of indirection. They called this strategy “starve-the-beast.” Seeing that they could not win by attacking the institutions of the New Deal directly, they decided to deliberately increase government spending to irresponsible levels while cutting taxes – which would leave no choice for a hypothetical future administration but to raise taxes massively or to reduce the size of government. ((What else but this strategy could explain Ronald Reagan’s and George W. Bush’s massive deficit spending?)) These conservatives realized that the only way to achieve the ends they sought was to create a set of circumstances that proved their opponents wrong, to discredit, through their actions, the basis of liberalism and create a virtuous backlash against excessive governance. They had seen that effective change throughout history had only occurred when the reigning ideology was proved bankrupt by circumstances. These conservatives believed that if they could undermine the credibility of government enough, their ideology would be the only alternative.

Unfortunately for these conservatives, whatever George W. Bush’s intentions were, his administration has been the most effective proponent of liberalism in modern times – as it demonstrated the bankruptcy of contemporary conservatism, undermined the credibility of the Republican Party, and created precisely opposite virtuous backlash than which they intended.

Bush’s effectiveness in advancing the goals he stood against comes has taken several interrelated forms:

  • Theoretical extremism: Although Bush has asserted virtually unlimited power – to torture, to detain anyone without charges, to engage in military action and wiretap without congressional approval – he has been relatively modest in his use of what he asserts are near unlimited powers. This has allowed significant forces to grow in opposition to this power grab without the widespread societal chaos that would have arisen out of a president fully exerting the powers he has claimed. (If Bush used the powers he asserts are his on a greater scale in America, our society would clearly be a totalitarian one. Instead, we remain a fragile liberal democracy until either Bush’s assertions of power are repudiated or are fully asserted.)
  • Overuse of a single method: Karl Rove directed three national campaigns – using national security, patriotism, and September 11 as partisan tools to bludgeon the Democrats. In each successive election dominated by these themes though, they lost effectiveness until 2006 when finally, they ceased being the controlling factor as the people – fooled for some of the time – handed an historic loss to the Republican Party. (If Karl Rove hadn’t used these themes so promiscously and shamelessly, more people might have put stock in the current smear campaign and fear-mongering being used against Obama and the Democrats.)
  • Exacerbating existing conditions: Bush has accelerated a number of longstanding trends: towards domestic inequality and the stratification of Americans into a class-like system; towards the decline in America’s power in the world; towards the government’s fiscal insolvency; towards the expansion of executive power; and towards the increase in the price of oil. This acceleration has exacerbated these issues so as to make them more noticeable.
    A lobster will not realize it is being cooked if it placed in a pot of water at room temperature and gradually boiled to death. In the same way, many Americans did not realize the dangers and the extent of the changes to American society that have been ongoing since at least the 1970s. The Bush administration – in a number of areas – raised the temperature fast enough and carelessly enough that many people have begun to notice. (If the price of oil had increased more regularly, people would be less worried about how it would be affecting them – and less attention would be paid to the largest transfer of wealth in human history that is currently taking place. If Iraq hadn’t demonstrated the limits to American power, it might have taken much longer for policy-makers to realize that we no longer live in a unipolar world.)
  • Suddenness: The suddenness of America’s decline in relevancy has led to a widespread desire for America to re-assume some leadership role with the next president – a desire reflected most significantly in the worldwide and domestic support for Barack Obama.

Bush has – in almost every respect – pointed America in the direction it needs to go. He has demonstrated what not to do. It is hard to imagine the libertarian or the progressive movements achieving their widespread support and strength if not for Bush’s presidency.

This election cycle has already demonstrated the strength of two responses to the Bush administration’s legacy – the libertarian response as embodied in the unlikely success of Ron Paul and the progressive response as embodied in the progressive netroots which powered Obama’s campaign. As a card-carrying civil libertarian and a lifelong progressive, Barack Obama has an opportunity to synthesize these two competing movements – to create a rough political consensus of the next steps we need to take. (I’ve written before both about how the libertarian movement and liberalism seem to be converging and about how Obama represents some part of this.) However, Obama’s vote for the FISA Amendments Act was a poor start to the creation of this alliance – as he took a position in defiance of both of these movements.

In a very real sense George W. Bush’s legacy depends on how well the next president is able to capitalize on the opportunity given to him – in this campaign and in his potential presidency. The final judgment on Bush will not be knowable when he leaves office. Rather, some years later we will be able to make a definitive judgment – after we see how intractable the problems he leaves for his successor are and when we see what precedents the next president will reject and which he will build upon. Bush may be forgiven for his disrespect for the Constitution if the next president repudiates these precedents. (After all, Washington was forgiven for Hamilton’s army; Lincoln was forgiven for becoming a tyrant for several weeks; and FDR was forgiven for trying to pack the Supreme Court.)

But while I argue that Bush’s primary legacy is that of a uniter-not-a-divider whose presidency set America on a better path, this rosy evaluation of Bush’s legacy still leaves three areas uncovered – areas in which Bush created unique problems rather than exacerbating existing ones: Iraq, the War on Terror, and global climate change.

Complications

Iraq

It is hard to imagine another president invading Iraq under the circumstances that George W. Bush did. The many American and the far more Iraqi dead that resulted from this foolish gamble, this dumb war, will surely burden his soul and must undermine any positive legacy he leaves behind. Even assuming the best of intentions, the Iraq war has proved to be a strategic blunder that has empowered Iran, destabilized the region, inspired more extremism, degraded our military, and only achieved the removal of minor antagonist. Making this strategic error worse was the hubris and idiocy that dogged every step of the occupation. Although our alliance of convenience with the Sunni extremists who were fighting us just a few months ago has helped to stabilize Iraq and even given the recent show of independence by the Iraqi president in his call for us to set a firm date of withdrawl, Iraq still has a long way to go before we can get out of this quagmire. Until we get out, the Iraq war will continue to eat our resources, undermine our global position, and strengthen our enemies.

The War on Terror

Domestically, the Bush administration has done virtually nothing to harden potential targets of terrorism – allowing the use of the funds appropriated for this purpose to be pissed away on pork barrel spending. The main steps it has taken within America seem designed primarily to expand executive power rather than to achieve any particular goals related to terrorism – asserting the power to crush the testicles of a potential terrorist’s child, to detain individuals without charges for indefinite periods of time, to torture, and to ignore any laws that limit the president’s power. Abroad, the Bush administration squandered our best opportunity to destroy Al Qaeda when it began to shift resources to Iraq and away from those who attacked us. The nexus of world terrorism shifted as a result of the War on Terror from the center of Afghanistan to the lawless areas of the Afghani-Pakistani border – where Chechnyan islamists, the remants of Al Qaeda and the Taliban, veterans of the Zaraqawi’s Iraqi campaign, and other terrorists from around the world are now working together and with greater freedom than at any time since the attacks on September 11. The successes we have had in the War on Terror seem largely to be the fruits of our failures – as the islamist ideology has proven to be an unattractive one once it begins to rule any territory.

Global Climate Change

It is hard to imagine another president ignoring the growing signs and consensus of global climate change so steadfastly. The eight years the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gases has wasted ignoring the problem – despite the near universal consensus of the scientific community – have made more drastic steps necessary to correct the problem before it is too late. What other president – with a legacy on climate change such as this – would have bragged at a recent G8 summit about being the “world’s biggest polluter“?

Conclusions

Lincoln Chafee, the Republican Senator from Rhode Island, observed upon first meeting Bush that Bush did not seem up to the job of being president. The past several years have proved this observation prescient. I cannot argue that Bush’s actions have been wise, although I do generally think that they have been well-intentioned. ((I know there are many who disagree.)) But while George W. Bush and his administration have committed petty crimes, war crimes, and constitutional violations, attacked liberties, advocated the preemptive surrender of American values, usurped independent branches of the government for partisan ends, and caused the injury and death of thousands of Americans citizens and citizens of the world – it is Bush who created this moment – this moment for renewal that has traditionally been what sets America apart.

While Ron Paul believed we needed a revoliution to begin to reverse the growing encroachment of government (even if that required the exploitation of poisonous racial resentments) – all we really needed was George W. Bush.

If America truly is a great nation – and in order to redeem the vision of the Constitution of the Founding Fathers, of that great address of Abraham Lincoln, of the square deal of Teddy Roosevelt and the four freedoms of his cousin, of the city on the hill that an old Hollywood actor once invoked – we must take advantage of this opportunity. The American moment is now – as all of us, feeling the fierce urgency of now, must work to restore the America that we grew up believing in – to restore the ideal and to form a more perfect union. Throughout the dark times in American history, Americans have believed and fought for this idea of America – to make this idea a reality and to protect this idea from the encroachments of tyranny and totalitarianism.

Change doesn’t come easy – but the greatest legacy of George W. Bush is that he has made it easier – and given us this opportunity to create a more perfect union. There will be obstacles and compomises in the days ahead – but (yes) we can achieve real change. Bush, more than anyone, deserves responsibility for that.

Categories
Election 2008 National Security Obama Politics

Why Obama’s FISA Vote Shouldn’t Disillusion You

[digg-reddit-me]I agree with those such as Glenn Greenwald who are criticizing Obama over this issue. But my argument against those who have been disillusioned by this is several-fold:

  1. If you thought Obama was not a pragmatist who “attempts to find a rational common ground on controversial issues”, then you weren’t paying attention. Obama is not and has never been an ideologue – he is a mainstream politician.
  2. Obama promised to filibuster one provision which he still opposes, and voted against. He only changed the extent to which he would support opposition against it.
  3. The rhetoric about the “shredding of the Constitution” is over-the-top. The FISA bill – which Obama saw as flawed but better than the status quo, and which he never said he would oppose – strikes a balance between liberty and security. You can disagree with the balance – but to paint the issue as black-and-white is to misunderstand the issues in a basic sense. There are quite a number of issues which many of these same Obama supporters agree with that also would seem to violate core freedoms and the Constitution. For example, Obama supports gun control despite the right to bear arms; Obama supports campaign finance legislation despite it’s burdens on free speech; Obama supports a national education policy despite the tenth amendment. All of these require a balance between liberty and the Constitution on one hand and progressive goals on the other. In a similar way, the FISA debate is the balance between the fourth amendment on one hand and national security on the other. We can disagree where that line should be drawn – but the rhetoric of both the right and left ignores the FACT that neither side is taking a pure stand. Both are arguing for a particular balance.
  4. Much of the disillusionment stems from a hope that many people had that Obama would somehow make things right and undo the Bush years. But Obama is not some messiah – he is a politician, a cautious and pragmatic one. The hope that I have is not that Obama will fix things himself – but that he will take steps to allow those concerned to engage with power. Obama will not himself be able to accomplish what a strong movement will – but he will be able to magnify the power of the movement as he takes steps to ensure government accountability. We are the change we are waiting for.
  5. Obama is just another politician. But he is an uncommonly good one, an uncommonly thoughtful one, and an unusually astute one. He is a candidate worth supporting – and one who can achieve some real change with our support.
Categories
Election 2008 National Security Obama Politics The Opinionsphere

Barack Obama, FISA, and Telecom Immunity

As I posted previously – there has been a lot of anger by a significant subset of Obama supporters at his reversal on how he would oppose the telecom immunity provision in the FISA bill.

As part of the group that is the center of much of this protest – “Senator Obama – Please Vote NO on Telecom Immunity – Get FISA Right“ – I have had a front-row seat to observe the raw feelings of the most disappointed supporters.  I argued in my previous post that many of these supporters had lost perspective – as they abandoned Obama over a position that was a rather minor element in his campaign.

But one thing my response missed – and most of the angry Obama supporters missed – is precisely what Obama changed his mind about.

Obama – through a spokesperson – had promised to support a filibuster of any law that would give the telecommunications companies immunity from civil liability for their actions relating to the warrantless wiretapping program:

To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies

Throughout his campaign, this promise was reiterated.

In February, Obama voted to strip away the provision that gave the telecoms immunity from the FISA bill – but the amendment failed to garner sufficient votes to override a presidential veto.

As the FISA bill came up for a vote this July, Obama announced that he had changed his mind about the degree to which he would oppose telecom immunity.  Yesterday, he voted for an amendment that would strip the immunity provisions from the FISA bill, but voted to pass the bill even though the amendment failed to get the required support.

In other words, while he still agrees with the position that the telecom companies should not get immunity, he has made a tactical decision that the costs of opposing the full measure were not worth the benefits.

Many who have expressed disagreement with Obama have talked about how he has changed his mind about defending the Constitution, how he is now agreeing to eviserate the Fourth Amendment, etcetera and so on.  They argue against the full FISA law itself – as well as the telecom immunity provision.  But although Obama has said that he sees the law as flawed, he did not commit himself to opposing it.

Most of those who are disillusioned by Obama’s vote don’t seem be interested in the subtlties.  They speak in terms of betrayal, in terms of being with-us-or-against-us, and they judge Obama harshly by an ideological purity scale.  But if any of these people had evaluated Obama seriously before – they would have seen that he was not the ideological purist they claim he was.

As Gail Collins put it in an insightful column today (an unusual event for her):

But if you look at the political fights he’s picked throughout his political career, the main theme is not any ideology. It’s that he hates stupidity. “I don’t oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war,” he said in 2002 in his big speech against the invasion of Iraq. He did not, you will notice, say he was against unilateral military action or pre-emptive attacks or nation-building. He was antidumb.

Most of the things Obama’s taken heat for saying this summer fall into these two familiar patterns — attempts to find a rational common ground on controversial issues and dumb-avoidance.

On the common-ground front, he’s called for giving more federal money to religious groups that run social programs, but only if the services they offer are secular. People can have guns for hunting and protection, but we should crack down on unscrupulous gun sellers. Putting some restrictions on the government’s ability to wiretap is better than nothing, even though he would rather have gone further.

Dumb-avoidance would include his opposing the gas-tax holiday, backtracking on the anti-Nafta pandering he did during the primary and acknowledging that if one is planning to go all the way to Iraq to talk to the generals, one should actually pay attention to what the generals say.

Touching both bases are Obama’s positions that 1) if people are going to ask him every day why he’s not wearing a flag pin, it’s easier to just wear the pin, for heaven’s sake, and 2) there’s nothing to be gained by getting into a fight over whether the death penalty can be imposed on child rapists.

I’ll take this opportunity to point out that Collins is misleading about how she uses the death penalty example as Obama indicated he was in favor of the death penalty for child rapists before the recent Supreme Court decision in The Audacity of Hope.

But her basic point is right.

Categories
Election 2008 McCain National Security Obama Politics

The Military Chooses Obama

Daniel Miessler asks:

If McCain is the military guy – why are members of the military giving far more than to Obama than McCain?

Categories
Domestic issues Election 2008 McCain National Security Obama Politics Reflections The War on Terrorism

Why I Am Still Supporting Barack Obama After His Vote For Telecom Immunity

[digg-reddit-me]Feelings are running high among us Obama supporters who also are strongly opposed to telecom immunity and the current FISA bill.

As the New York Times noted this weekend, the largest and most quickly growing group in Barack Obama’s social network was “Senator Obama – Please Vote NO on Telecom Immunity – Get FISA Right“.  I had joined the group a few days before the article had come out because I, like many others, felt strongly about this issue.  I still do.  And I believe Barack Obama took the wrong position.

But what has astounded me in the past few days has been the overwrought emotionalism that – from my perspective – has caused many of Obama’s supporters to lose perspective on this issue.  Here’s a sample of some of the sentiments that have been sent out to all of the members of the “Get FISA Right” group in the past few hours, since Obama voted in support of the bill:

“A dream died today!”

“Obama just lost my vote!!!”

“As we are about to throw out the 4th amendment shall we redefine the Bill of Rights as the first 9 amendments, or should we just leave a blank between 3 and 5 as the 13th floor is left out in high rise buildings.”

“I think we finally got to see the side of Obama we all deep down, thought was there. Another money grubbing lawyer going along with the pack; saying one thing doing another.”

“Please stop giving your hard earned money to this fraud!”

“Today, the Constitution will be shredded at the hands of Democrats and Barack Obama. I no longer believe that voting makes a difference. I am completely dispirited. Obama’s talk of change is a sham.”

“I find myself today looking for Ralph Nader’s campaign website.”

Perhaps more honest than these sentiments, one writer started with this caveat:

“At this very moment, this is how I FEEL. It does not mean it is how I will follow through, merely how I feel…”

He then unleashed a tirade.  But at least he could see that he had lost some sense of perspective.

Glenn Greenwald, probably the foremost expert on this topic, one of the most influential opponents of this bill, who has been tirelessly pushing this issue through his blog and through guest appearances on radio shows was able to keep perspective when Obama first announced his turn-around on this issue:

There is no question, at least to me, that having Obama beat McCain is vitally important. But so, too, is the way that victory is achieved and what Obama advocates and espouses along the way.

The overheated rhetoric by these passionate supporters lends credence to the scoffing of the right-wingers who have insisted that Barack Obama’s support is weak because the young are naive and credulous and easily marginalized.

Truly – how many people supported Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, Joe Biden, Bill Richardson, John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich, and Mike Gravel because of his position on telecom immunity?  Far fewer than are now peevishly demanding refunds for their donations.  This is an important issue – but it is far from the only issue.

Those of us who have been involved with politics before know that no matter how great the individual, you should never place your faith in a politician.  A knowledge of history teaches us that every great person is still limited by their times.  Abraham Lincoln – perhaps our greatest president – was vilified by the abolitionists of his day for being too pragmatic, for compromising too easily, for not sticking to his principles.  In the end, Lincoln’s greatness came not from the fact that he stood on principle and defeated his adversaries – but that he skillfully managed our nation through a great crisis and took every opportunity he thought prudent to achieve the ends he sought. But it was the people and the battles that created the opportunities.  Lincoln was only a great leader because during that long, hard war, we became a great people, willing to die for the fragile idea of freedom.

Barack Obama is not Abraham Lincoln, and we are not in a civil war.  But we do face a very real crisis of identity and very real threats from at home and abroad.  What we need to remember – as citizens – is that Obama is not and cannot be our savior.  What Obama’s campaign has always been about is us.  Unlike Hillary Clinton or John McCain or any other candidate, Obama’s campaign was about the movement that was supporting him.  Which is why both Clinton’s and McCain’s campaigns have focused their attacks on Obama’s supporters as well as the candidate himself.  For the past few weeks, McCain has been trying to put a wedge between Obama and his supporters – based on the theory that if he can paint Obama as “just another politician,” the youth vote that has been expected to throw the last few elections to the Democrats will forget to show up, again.

Obama is another politician.  An uncommonly good one.  An uncommonly thoughtful one.  An unusually astute one.  But like very person, and like every politician, he has made a mistake and voted for an awful bill.

I still support Obama.  And so should you. Winning this election is not about Obama – but about the movement.  If we do not become a great people, then neither Obama nor any other politician can become a great president.

Obama has spoken positively about how this movement should put pressure on him and every other politician to do the right thing – and with his campaign he has created and with his presidency he has promised to create more of the tools to do just that.  No one will get every issue right – but the core reason to support Obama, as Lawrence Lessig has argued, is because he supports reforming the process to allow citizens to truly engage with power – by making the government more transparent and more accountable.  He also happens to be on the right side of most of these issues – supporting increased transparency in Washington, restoring habeas corpus, ending our neo-empire in the Middle East, opposing wars of choice, net neutrality, and many other issues.

For those who have declared that the “dream” died today – stop dreaming about Barack Obama and start working to get our nation back on the right track.  Electing Barack Obama is only the first step, as today’s events have proven.

I am disappointed in him.  And I think criticism is warranted.  But temper tantrums rarely do anyone any good.

This disappointment will not diminish one iota my determination to have Barack Obama elected the next President of the United States of America. This is our moment.  Let’s not let momentary disappointment lead to a disengagement with politics.