Month: November 2007

Categories
Foreign Policy Politics The War on Terrorism

Did our foreign policy cause 9/11?

[digg-reddit-me]The frequent reddit commentator amstrdamordeath posed this question:

I’ve often wondered that myself. All of the people who don’t think that American foreign policy caused 9/11. What do you think?

As this issue has been used in the public discourse, there are only two main alternatives (as illustrated in the Republican debate where Ron Paul and Rudy exchanged harsh words over the issue): either our foreign policy caused 9/11 or it is outrageous to say that our foreign policy caused 9/11 – we didn’t deserve to be attacked. Both positions are idiotic. From my response on reddit:

Our foreign policy is what made us a target, but is not what caused 9/11.

Olivier Roy, a French social scientist who has been studying Islam in western societies for the past few decades, believes that the current islamist movement is based on generational factors – as younger Muslims grow up, they are rejecting the hypocrisy of their parents passive response to the power of the West and the comparative decline of Islamic societies. Roy compares this generational phenomenon to the sixties radical movements.

The root cause of 9/11 and the growing support for islamism is not our foreign policy, but the relative economic, technological, and cultural stagnation of Islamic, and specifically, Arab society over the past few centuries. These societies are undergoing a period not dissimilar to Europe’s Dark Ages. At the same time, the power of the West and in the past fifty years, of the Far East has grown exponentially. The knowledge that they lack significant power in the world drives the islamist movement and is the root cause of 9/11.

How does this lead to 9/11? Because many of the leaders of Islamic societies, especially in the Mideast, have been stoking hatred against the West as a distraction from their own illegitimate rule, even as they are being propped up by Western support; because our foreign policy of supporting the status quo in the Mideast (until the Bush administration) was seen as an impediment to a resurgence of Islam; because the relative success of our foreign policy demonstrates our tremendous power over the governments and societies in the region; because we are the dominant world power: these are the reasons why we were targeted on 9/11.

Our foreign policy did not cause 9/11, but caused these strong forces to be directed towards us.

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Categories
Foreign Policy Obama Politics

Tom Friedman, Car Salesman

I like Tom Friedman. Reading his column for the past seven or so years, I have come to believe that he’s a good guy and his column regularly provides genuine insight in a simplified format. Several years ago though, The New Republic perfectly spotted his weakness in a throwaway comment in a larger article* calling Friedman a salesman instead of analyst. It is true that his columns, while providing insights, are weak on analysis. Friedman’s strength is that he will start with a truly interesting concept that reveals something about the situation he is commenting on – but his weakness is that his analysis of that concept is poor, and often diluted by the kind of “pox-on-both-of-their-houses” journalism that in attempting to be objective, ends up creating a false middle ground.

This is precisely the problem with Friedman’s latest column which suggests that Barack Obama should keep Dick Cheney as Vice President. A weird concept which Friedman explains thus:

When negotiating with murderous regimes like Iran’s or Syria’s, you want Tony Soprano by your side, not Big Bird. Mr. Obama’s gift for outreach would be so much more effective with a Dick Cheney standing over his right shoulder, quietly pounding a baseball bat into his palm.

Friedman explains that a President Obama could say something like this to the Iranian regime if Cheney was his Vice President:

“Look, I’m ready to cut a deal with you guys, but I have to tell you, back home, I’ve got Cheney on my back and he is truly craaaaazzzzy. You guys don’t know the half of it. He thinks waterboarding is what you do with your grandchildren at the pool on Sunday. I’m not sure how much longer I can restrain him. So maybe we should have a serious nuke talk, and, if it goes well, we’ll back off regime change.”

It’s not a mind-boggling insight – that there are ways to leverage an unhinged and powerful Vice President in diplomatic talks – but it is a solid insight, and one that is often overlooked- not least it seems by the current administration. Where I see Friedman go off the rails is in his attempt to portray Obama’s Iran policy. He cites Obama’s “inner Jimmy Carter” as part of the reason for making this statement: “Mr. Obama evinces little feel for generating the leverage you’d need to make such diplomacy work.” I can see someone plausibly making this argument – but not without trying to square it with Obama’s comments about being willing to launch attacks against high-value targets in Pakistan, with or without authorization from the Pakistani government. I consider this a distinctly un-Carteresque policy.

Friedman does not want to let the nuanced and balanced approach to foreign policy that Obama has explicitly and repeatedly put forth get in the way of Friedman’s bumper sticker approach to political commentary. Friedman sees a hawkish hawk and a Jimmy-Carter-ish dove when in fact Cheney is a hawk in the most extreme and unhinged sense and Obama is a pragmatist. The superficial case Friedman is trying to make – that we need both Cheneys and Obamas to make progress might be correct. But his subtext – that Cheney represents the hardline position and that Obama represents its opposite is incorrect. In Friedman’s own account, Cheney does not represent so much the hardline position as the specter of an irrational man with his hand on the trigger. Obama, as indicated by his many statements on foreign policy, does not represent the extension of Jimmy Carter’s foreign policy – but of precisely the balanced approach that Friedman seems to be advocating.

The problem is that either (1) Friedman does not know this; or (2) Friedman does not want to appear partisan. Either way, it has turned a potentially interesting column into a distorted bumper sticker view of foreign policy.

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Categories
Election 2008 Foreign Policy Politics The War on Terrorism

And I am Caesar.

[digg-reddit-me]Thanks to Tony for the link.

Update: Thanks to amstrdamordeath for pointing out that this piece was not found in the public record until 2001, and that there are no records of either Caesar or Shakespeare writing or saying it.

Still, it kind of hits you…

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Categories
Election 2008 Foreign Policy Law Morality Politics The War on Terrorism

Vince Flynn & The Preemptive Surrender of American Values

The Constitution

To demonstrate my previous point that:

“[T]he Republican position is this: the terrorists have won. The terrorists’ ideas and actions make America’s liberal democracy irrelevant. We must take what steps are necessary to protect the public safety; civil liberties are only for those who deserve them. Although the President took an oath to defend the Constitution, he now must defend American lives at the expense of this old document.”

Vince Flynn has written a novel he has ironically titled Protect and Defend. (See footnote if you miss the irony.) Apparently, it is now the top fiction bestseller on The New York Times, and the author is going on a promotional tour. Glenn Beck has said that Mitt Rapp, the hero of Flynn’s thriller, makes “Jack Bauer look like a puss”. Here a taste of what the novel is like from an exchange towards the end of chapter 45 during which the President of the United States, the Attorney General, and the hero Mitch Rapp are on a conference call in a crisis situation that perfectly illustrates my point:

“Mitch, [Attorney General] Pete Weber here. We all know you and [CIA Director] Irene are close but you really need to take a few steps back and remember that you took an oath, an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. We all took that oath and that means that none of us is above the law, including you.”

There was a long pause and then in a voice filled with frustration Rapp said, “You have got to be kidding me!”

Rapp’s stark response caused everyone in the room to take a quick look at each other.

“Excuse me?” the attorney general asked defensively.

“The Director of the CIA was just kidnapped and her entire security detail was wiped out and you want to lecture me about an oath and a two hundred year old piece of paper?”

“Our entire country is based on that piece of paper,” Weber responded defensively.

“You may have been thinking about defending a piece of paper when you took your oath but I was thinking about protecting and defending American citizens from the type of shit that just happened. I apologize for my language, Mr. President, but this is ridiculous.” [my italics]

There are so many things to find wrong with this: the fact that Rapp misrepresents entirely the oath of office and mocks the rule of law; the fact that he deems the legal document that is supposed to be a check on his actions irrelevant; or the fact that Dick Cheney and President Bush have been reputed to have made similar statements about the Constitution and about the rule of law.

A contempt for the rule of law

The overwhelming feeling you get from the book is one of complete disregard for law and morality. Throughout the novel – which I have read – no American character ever objects to torture or law-breaking or murder on moral grounds. The only character who in some way thinks about morality is the Iranian intelligence chief who eventually works with the Americans because he knows that what his country is doing is wrong. But as the novel’s hero cuts off a prisoner’s testicles, mutilates dead bodies, and kills a Democratic Party strategist, there is explicitly no remorse. Flynn actually makes a point of saying that Rapp has no remorse or twinges of conscience over these actions. (It is also suggested the hero, acting with the CIA, killed the Vice President in a previous book: the rationale for the murder of the Democratic strategist and Vice President is that they orchestrated a terrorist attack in order to win an election. As Flynn says in the book and interview: too often politicians put their own party’s interest ahead of national security.)

The odd thing about this rejection of laws and constitutions and any traditional sense of morality is that while Flynn portrays his character’s actions as rational, they are clearly driven by visceral feelings more than pragmatism. Again and again, the “liberal” characters suggest that the hero is too emotionally caught up to think straight and do his job rationally – and Rapp admits it. Yet, knowing this, the President of the United States gives Rapp “carte blanche“. Flynn makes it clear that Rapp would do all of these things while not emotionally involved, but, perhaps to keep the audience sympathetic, keeps mentioning how emotional Rapp is. Any time any limit on Rapp’s actions and power is suggested, he reacts viscerally, with one example shown above. The strongest feeling in the novel is a contempt for law and ethics and the rule of law and conscience are considered “niceties” that are only practical in times of peace. If you doubt the current administration shares these feelings, I suggest reading Charlie Savage’s new book Takeover. The fact is that these visceral feelings are informing Republican policy – both in Vince Flynn’s imaginary world and in our own.

This contempt for the rule of law and for conscience, and the policies and actions stemming from this feeling, represent nothing less than the preemptive surrender of American values in order to try to preserve American lives. What ever happened to “Live free or die” or “Give me liberty or give me death!”? Benjamin Franklin warned, “Those who would surrender precious liberty in exchange for a bit of temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Now we have a president, a number of presidential candidates, and a few literary characters who believe liberty is only worth the paper it is protected by, who believe the rule of law does not apply in times of war, and who believe that we are in a war that will be fought for “generations”. If these men and women are right, we have reached the end of the American experiment. If the president is not constrained by the rule of law; if the balance of power between the branches of government is not respected; if the Constitution is merely an “old parchment” (to use Dick Cheney’s dismissive phrase); if the government has the right to torture and imprison and spy on American citizens in violation of Congressionally sanctioned law; if the president assumes tyrannical powers, even if he exercises them judiciously and is allowed to do so, what is left of our nation “conceived in liberty”?

I believe an Obama presidency would take the first steps to restore American values to our government. But no matter who you support, you must realize this election is of historic importance. Yet despite this, many Americans, especially, those of my generation, the post 9/11 generation are disengaged from power. We cannot afford this disengagement, ironic or otherwise, any longer.

A prescription for change

Vote and vote in large numbers and vote even if it doesn’t seem like it makes a difference. Sign up to vote today if you haven’t already. Vote for change. Vote to tackle the issues that matter. Campaign, volunteer, and throw your support behind the candidate you think is the best. Even more, and in addition, we must work in our local communities, on the web, and through our entrepreneurial efforts to start changing our society.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

We must engage with power. We must try to revive this corrupt system. We cannot wait until 2012 for real change. Our moment is now. We cannot let this election slip by. Sometimes, in the midst of trying times, all we have is the audacity of hope and our seemingly insignificant powers as individuals. We cannot decide what obstacles we will face. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.

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Categories
Domestic issues Foreign Policy The War on Terrorism

Eschewing politics

From the New York Times a few weeks ago by Anthony Lewis reviewing Dead Certain and The Terror Presidency, a comment which better defines the Bush administration’s actions and failures than most else:

In an interesting comparison with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s sweeping power in World War II, Goldsmith says Roosevelt relied on persuasion, bargaining, compromise. “The Bush administration has operated on an entirely different concept of power that relies on minimal deliberation, unilateral action and legalistic defense. This approach largely eschews politics: the need to explain, to justify, to convince, to get people on board, to compromise.”

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Categories
Foreign Policy The War on Terrorism

Islamist Terrorism as “a generational phenomenon”

Iranian youthOlivier Roy, a research director at the French National Center for Scientific Research and a lecturer for both the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences and the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, spoke at the Council on Foreign Relations last week. Roy has written a number of works about Islam and secular Western societies and the inherent conflicts between the two.

In his presentation last week entitled “The Future of Radical Islam in Europe”, he made a few comments about Islam that presented the issue in a way I had not thought of it before. Regarding terrorism and islamism, he said:

…for me it’s a generational phenomenon. It’s a youth phenomenon. It’s not the expression of a traditional society. And it’s why — for example, I compare this with the wave of [student unrest] in the West during the ’60s and ’70s.

I am surprised that I never thought of islamism his way before. It certainly makes sense though. It does not make terrorist attacks any less dangerous, but it has profound consequences for dealing with islamism oth tactically and strategically. It also is worth noting that Roy is basing his statements on the French student unrest which was far more destructive and radical than the American equivalent. But in both cases, the young rebelled against their parents’ hypocrisy, some in violent and radical ways. In America though, as well as in other countries, an opposing and slightly younger movement emerged from the same generation opposed to the hypocrisies of both their fellow youth and of their parents. If Roy is correct, we should look out for this counter-movement.

More important though: if the bulk of those men (and theoretically women) whose terrorist threaten America are disaffected youth embracing a self-shattering and self-promoting understanding of religion, doesn’t it flatter them to declare war on them? If our enemies are primarily motivated by our foreign policies or domestic policies, by who we are, or by a desire to purify the world of kafir, our options are stark. But if instead, islamists are primarily young people who are disaffected with the world and, in seeking to lash out, use our foreign and domestic policies and other elements as excuses to attack us because they feel they must attack someone, our strategy must be substantially different.

[digg-reddit-me]Know Thy Enemy

Sun Tzu wrote that one must know one’s enemy in order to ensure your victory over him. This is the fundamental flaw in the War on Terrorism: we do not know our enemy; and worse than mere ignorance, we are confused about who our enemy is. If we examine the problem that confronted us on 9/11, we see two distinct issues that combined on that day to devastating effect:

  • the rise of islamism as a major force in the Muslim world;
  • the magnified power of individuals to take advantage of society’s practices and use our technologies against us.

Neo-conservatives have portrayed our opponents as the Islamic world itself. They have declared the conflict civilizational, as a war that will last generations, as a cancer within the religion of Islam that has affected the majority and infected a large minority. They see opponents driven by an Islamic ideology and determined to create an Islamic caliphate spanning the Middle East. But if Roy is right, then the conflict is instead generational and our opponents are the disaffected youth who, not knowing quite where to direct their anger, direct it at us as the predominant power in the world. He sees the roots of the conflict in a rebellion against the compromise that has dominated the Islamic world of their parents.

Certain leaders from the older generation have ridden to power on this discontent, stoking it and guiding it. But in the end, these youth are more confused than ideologically driven. Our best policy is to do what we can to avoid radicalizing them. In this, our policy so far, has been a disaster. By torturing detainees, invading Iraq, occupying Iraq, reducing civil liberties at home, and propping up dictators around the world, we play into the hands of those leaders who seek to radicalize the young.

I do not mean to play down the serious threat that terrorism poses to our society or even to say that islamist terrorism is somehow less significant. Rather, as Sun Tzu said, we must understand our enemy and determine how best to undermine him. So far, our actions have united our enemies and galvanized the islamist movement. Perhaps it is time to consider that there is something flawed in our original reasoning.

If the current batch of radicalized islamists more closely parallel the the Weathermen or the more radical European terrorist groups of the 1960s than the Nazis and Communists, then we need to re-think our strategy.

A better tactic than trying to transform or wage war on a civilization, would be to undermine the leaders who are attempting to radicalize the disaffected youth. This doesn’t solve all of our problems, but it would be a better approach than our current one.

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Categories
Election 2008 Obama Politics

The Reappearance of Monica Lewinsky

Monica LewinskyAs some of my readers might have noticed, I watch the Drudge Report rather closely. He seems to be trying, again, like everyone else in the media, to be hyping the latest Democratic debate which will be airing tonight. His headline: “VEGAS BABY: WILL BO KO HRC?!” is a ridiculous lead-in to a rather tame New York Times article.

I have the feeling that the Hillary camp’s influence is all over that headline. Barack does not seem to want to deal a knockout blow – but rather with a few jabs to demonstrate that he is the better candidate and would be a better president. He does not want to take down Hillary, but instead, wants people to choose him. However, if everyone expects Senator Obama to take out Senator Clinton in this debate, or even to try – it will be very easy for him to lose the expectations battle and come out as the loser.

The one highlight of the New York Times article though is this gem from Ross K. Baker, a professor of political science at Rutgers University:

“One absolutely devastating accusation that could resonate is that she is gullible — she bought into two false story lines, one from her husband about Monica Lewinsky and one from President Bush about Iraq…”

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Categories
Election 2008 Obama Politics

Drudge Headline: “WOLF WARNED: NO GANGING UP ON HILLARY IN VEGAS!”

Drudge Report Headline on Blitzer

[digg-reddit-me]Hillary is trying the play hard ball and coming across looking like a thug. Who could have predicted that? The full text of the current Drudge headline reads: “WOLF WARNED: NO GANGING UP ON HILLARY IN VEGAS!” The sub headline with a more complete explanation explains:

“CNN's Wolf Blitzer has been warned not to focus Thursday's Dem debate on Hillary. 'This campaign is about issues, not on who we can bring down and destroy,' top Clinton insider explains. 'Blitzer should not go down to the levels of character attack and pull 'a Russert.'' Blitzer is set to moderate debate from Vegas, with questions also being posed by Suzanne Malveaux... Developing..."

Drudge isn’t sourcing this yet, but it passes the “sniff” test in my opinion. And if Hillary’s campaign had done this, I would expect Drudge to break the news. He’s generally very good at the “inside ball” stuff within the press community. All reporters love to leak to Drudge. See a larger version of the image here.

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Categories
Election 2008 Obama Politics

“The fierce urgency of now” and Barack Obama

[digg-reddit-me]The consensus seems to be that Obama made some hay at the Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Iowa. According to every account I have read, he had the best speech and the best audience response and his organization proved it could pack a large auditorium better than any opposing candidate, which would seem to bode well for the upcoming Iowa caucuses. The Des Moines Register’s David Yepsen concluded that “Obama’s superb speech could catapult his bid”.

Some background to illustrate the importance of the Jefferson-Jackson dinner:

The dinner is the Democratic party of Iowa’s main fundraiser which attracts a few thousand of the top activists in the state and most presidential candidates. It was where John Kerry launched his successful come-from-behind victory over Howard Dean after Kerry retooled his campaign. This year’s Jefferson-Jackson dinner was the largest ever, with over 9,000 people packed into the Veterans Memorial Auditorium. Obama had the largest contingent of supporters, followed by Hillary and then Edwards. Each candidate had their moments, but Obama was clearly the star of the show.

Coupled with a strong showing on Meet the Press this Sunday, a number of New Hampshire polls showing Hillary’s support dropping as much as 10 points with Obama gaining almost all of that, and a strong Iowa organization, the stars might aligning for this “skinny kid with a funny name”.

Here’s some excerpts from his speech with the complete video after the jump:

A little less than one year from today you will go into the voting booth and you will select the next President of the United States. Here’s the good news. The name G.W. Bush will not be on the ballot. The name of my cousin Dick Cheney will not be on the ballot. We’ve been trying to hide that for a long time. Everybody has a black sheep in the family. [laughter]

The era of Scooter Libby justice and Brownie incompetence and Karl Rove politics will finally be over. But the question you’re gonna have to ask yourself when you caucus in January and you vote in November is what’s next for America. We are at a defining moment in our history…The promise that so many generations fought for seems like it’s slipping away…we’ve lost faith that our leaders can or will do anything about it.

It is because of those failures that America is listening…we not only have a moment of great challenge, but a moment of great opportunity. We have a chance to bring the American people together, in a new majority…

That’s why telling the American people what we think they want to hear instead of telling the American people what they need to hear just won’t do. Triangulating and poll-driven positions because we’re worried about what Mitt or Rudy might say about us just won’t do…

When I am this party’s nominee, my opponent will not be able to say that I voted for the war in Iraq … And he will not be able to say that I waivered on something as fundamental as whether it is okay for America to torture because it is never okay. That’s why I’m in it!

… I will lead the world to combat the common threats of the 21st century … and I will send once more a message to those yearning faces beyond our shores that says you matter to us, your future is our future, and our moment is now. America, our moment is now.

Our moment is now!

I don’t want to spend the next year or the next four years refighting the same fights that we had in the 1990s. I don’t want to pit red America against blue America. I want to be the President of the United States of America.

And if those Republicans come at me with the same fear-mongering and swift-boating that they usually do, then I will take them head-on. Because I believe the American people are tired of fear, and tired of distractions…we can make this election not about fear, but about the future, and that will not be just a Democratic victory, that will be an American victory, a victory that America needs right now!

I am not in this race to fulfill some longheld ambitions or because I believe it’s somehow owed to me. I never expected to be here. I always knew this journey was improbable. I am running in this race because of of what Dr. King called “the fierce urgency of now.” Because I believe that there’s such a thing as being too late, and that hour is almost upon us.

Complete video after the jump.

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Categories
Life The Web and Technology

The girl with the flower in her hair on the subway

NY Girl of My Dreams

[digg-reddit-me]I’ve been following this story from the beginning. It just seems too perfect to be true. So here’s a timeline of events for those trying to catch up:

  1. Patrick Moberg, web designer, sees a pretty girl on the subway. They make “really good eye contact”. He’s about to speak to her when she gets off the train and out of his life. Camille Hayon, Aussie intern and extra, does not notice anything unusual or Patrick Moberg.
  2. Determined, Moberg, a web designer draws a picture of himself and the girl and posts it online at nygirlofmydreams.com and asks everyone to help him find her.
  3. Social bookmarking sites do their work and tens of thousands of people flood to the site.
  4. The New York Post decides to run a brief story on the incident.
  5. Someone from Blackbook magazine recognizes the girl as one of their interns and outs her as the Moberg’s crush in a piece entitled “Patrick Moberg’s Crush is BlackBook’s Camille Hayton!“
  6. Magazines and newspapers from around the world including Reuters, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Telegraph, and quite a few other Australian and British papers pick up the story.
  7. Moberg posts a conclusion to the story online, saying that they are going to meet, thanking everyone and saying that “Unlike all the romantic comedies and bad pop songs, you’ll have to make up your own ending for this.”
  8. Moberg and Hayton meet for their first date over the weekend and “totally clicked”.
  9. To follow up the date, the happy perhaps-not-quite-couple decide to appear on Good Morning America.

Gawker provides the best summation of the whole Patrick Moberg-Camille Hayton girl-with-the-flower-in-her-hair-on-the-subway story:

They met last night for coffee and “totally clicked,” so, in spite of Patrick’s online avowal that “you’ll have to make up your own ending for this,” they went on national TV this morning to… show the world that you should believe in flowers and rainbows and romance? Or: To raise the profiles of their employers, Vimeo and BlackBook—or their own brands? We’d like to posit that believing the latter theory doesn’t make you a cold-hearted cynic so much as it makes you a sentient human being.

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