the liberal hawk

Why Bunker Busters Are A Bad Idea...With One Caveat

2005-02-11T08:24:00.000-08:00

The Administration has long talked of creating a new class of nuclear weapons, so-called "bunker busters," referring to these bombs' ability to sink deep into the earth and destroy fortified bunkers. Bunker-busters are no-doubt intended for Iran and North Korea: they are designed to take out those countries' deeply buried, fortified nuclear and command bunkers.

Will the Administration continue to push for these weapons? Absolutely.

I confess that the idea of more powerful bombs, to be used for this strategic purpose, sounds like an inherently good one to this hawk. However, as is often the case, the Administration is not giving sufficient weight to the politics surrounding the situation.

One of the most powerful charges consistently leveled against the United States is the charge of hypocricy. In the past I have cautioned against letting our country's actions be dictated by the beliefs or prejudices of others. In this case I withhold that caution because in this case their charges are valid. (That is why they are powerful.) We do in fact have a long history of hypocricy, whether in our support of dictatorships or in our belief that certain countries deserve nuclear weapons while others don't.

Unlike people on the non-hawkish Left, I believe that our past actions were largely justified, or at the very least were open to honest debate. We did what we had to do in order to defeat Communism. Sometimes we overstepped, or understepped, but that is always the case with such things. (Hindsight, hindsight.) Unfortunately though, none of our previous justifications matter now: right or wrong, our history makes us highly vulnerable from a PR standpoint.

Also, we have entered a new paradigm, in part because of 9/11 and in part because of the Bush Administration's own policies. In order to succeed in our attempts to win freedom and liberty for the un-free world, we must raise the bar of our own actions. We must recognize that "realist" tactics (such as the development of these weapons) may no longer be useful. Ironically, the Bush Administration does recognize this more than almost anyone else: hence its policies and its much-criticized, "overly-idealistic" rhetoric. I believe the Administration's policy towards these "bunker-busters" represents a hold-over from its "realist" intellectual past (I believe this is particularly true of Rumsfeld, Cheney and Rice). Many conservatives and hawks are blinded on this issue, because to deny any new weaponry for the U.S. carries the distinct whiff of old-school liberal peacenikism.

Personally, while I think we have an excellent moral case for tolerating the possession of nuclear weapons by free democracies while not tolerating their possession by dictatorships (the basic, if unspoken premise of our nuclear policy), our moral imperative does not extend to creating a new class of nuclear weapons at the same time that we are encouraging moderate countries like Japan and Brazil not to develop any nuclear weapons at all. Nor can we ignore the shrill and effective cries of hypocricy that will echo across the Arab media if we pursue this plan. Substantiated accusations of that sort will be very detrimental to our goals there, far more detrimental than the commonly transmitted ones of the unsubstantiated variety.

I do have one caveat: if these bombs are truly necessary, which is to say, if they're ultimately going to save thousands or even millions of lives, then obviously we must have them. In the end I know I'm not qualified to judge that. But if that is true, then we must do everything possible to minimize the political cost of developing them. Therefore, if we do move forward the program should be tied to the phase-out of some other class of nuclear weapons, or to a widely publicized, unilateral reduction in the size of our general nuclear arsenal. We still have far more of these weapons than we need for any reasonable deterrent. Reagan's buildup was never about covering a necessary range of targets, it was about bankrupting the USSR. The number of weapons that we still possess is yet another hold-over of Cold-War military thinking that conservatives and liberal hawks should be willing to set aside anyway.

Finally, we must also be more certain that bunker-busters will be effective. I have seen nothing to convince me of this as yet, and our track record is bad. We created (an embarrassingly ineffective) missile defense system, and the Russians immediately announced they were building a new missile to counter not just what we possessed now, but to counter what we were aiming to create. (They will sell that missile, too, make no mistake.) The same sort of counter-reaction will likely occur with regard to bunker-busters. North Korea will simply build its bunkers even deeper, and in the meantime America will have weakened its credibility of the issue of non-proliferation. In an age of terrorism, when even the best-intentioned country could suffer an information leak or theft, not just to another country, but to Al Quaeda, further proliferation of any kind is not in our national security interest, nor is anything that promotes it.

More on Social Security

2005-02-09T09:12:00.000-08:00

In addition to the Newsweek article on Social Security, I like this, from Robert Samuelson.

It's not so much the idea of reform I object to, assuming it is in fact required, I object to the dishonest and ineffective way the Bush Administration is proposing to go about it.

Great Analysis of Social Security in Newsweek

2005-02-08T19:39:00.000-08:00

This is a must read on Social Security.

Powerline Going After Taxes in AEI

2005-02-08T09:00:00.000-08:00

Be afraid, be very afraid. AEI online has published a 'power'ful essay by the Powerline guys, in which they put forth a clear attack on the progressivism in even REAGAN'S AND BUSH'S tax CUTS. These guys are hardcore. And they attack Bush's Social Security plan for what it will do to the amount of PAYROLL taxes ordinary Americans pay out. Read it here.

Unfortunately, they out themselves on a bit of sophistry. Look at this, they write: "In 2002 (the last year for which complete IRS data are available), the top 1 percent of U.S. taxpayers paid 34 percent of all personal income taxes."

Ooh, scary. Well, we're all familiar with that one.

Income taxes, they said, note. But then, later, they talk about how poorer people often pay more PAYROLL taxes while making their point about what Bush's privatization/owership plans will do to poorer people's sense of ownership:

"The result is that nearly 80 percent of Americans now pay more in payroll taxes (supposedly earmarked for Social Security and Medicare, but in practice co-mingled with all other federal revenues) than they do in income taxes"

So, guys, your figure on income taxes seems (pretty conveniently) to exclude those payroll taxes.... For the sake of the axe you're currently grinding, those taxes may not matter, but as a matter of practicality and principle, they do.

Social Security is our Gettysburg

2005-02-05T09:34:00.000-08:00

Matt has a nice journalistic post at Progressive Nation:

Take a look.

But Matt, while you note the Soc.Sec. Administration's growth estimates and the CBO's growth estimates, you fail to note that using the President's OWN growth numbers -- the ones he uses to estimate the effect his tax cuts will have -- there will NEVER be a point at which Social Security's trusts are exhausted.... Ah the irony, the sweet, sweet irony.

Chin Up, Mark Brown

2005-02-02T09:02:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, Mark Brown of the Chicago Sun Times speculated in an essay: "What if Bush has been right all along?" This man is no conservative, no neocon, no liberal hawk. But he has naturally been attacked for his thoughts. He has responded with this excellent piece. A good man.

We must always try to assimilate new information and change our opinions if need be. My support for this war was not always as strong as it became last fall. Mine began to grow when I realized that Bush believed, honestly, that he was spreading democracy and freedom. It grew further when I realized he was too stubborn to back down; one of my great fears for this invasion was that the political will would not exist to see it through. When the war began I believed, as did many, that Bush had begun it on a perfect timeline to propel him to reelection. Perhaps so, but then he stuck with it even when it became hugely difficult and unpopular -- and he got reelected anyway. Also, the more I read about Sistani, the more I realized that he is like a latter-day George Washington, not a new Khomeini. He is savvy, political, and has the best interests of his country at heart. I started reading Iraqi bloggers who were pro-occupation, and I started analyzing the what, where and why of the insurgency. I started looking at the opinions of those who most opposed the invasion, and at their conflicting interests. I came to the conclusion that this could actually work.

I'm also from Montana, so I don't have the natural aversion to cowboy swagger that many liberals do.

Finally I thought, what if we really do lose?

Regardless of why we started this, if we lose this battle in Iraq -- it still could happen, even after the election -- then millions of lunatics who believe that the Holocaust never happened (much of the Muslim world), that the United States has become a paper tiger (much of the whole world), that Islam justifies mass-murder (a sizable chunk of the Muslim world), that the use of force is never justified (a massive chunk of the Western world), and that democracy is a cultural rather than a universal notion (another massive chunk of the Western world) would be thrilled. All very bad things. No one's vindication would be worth that price: not Michael Moore's, not Jimmy Carter's, and certainly not mine.

As to the hatred that this war has generated towards Bush, and towards America, I do not think it is a good argument against the war itself. Hatred is rarely justified. Ambrose Bierce put it this way in The Devil's Dictionary:

HATRED, n.
A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's superiority.

He might also have added definitions in less common usage:

A feeling caused when one's deepest assumptions begin to conflict with reality.

Occasioned by the success of one's enemies.

The Sober Tomorrow

2005-02-01T09:15:00.000-08:00

No, to my friends who have asked: I'm not turning into a Bush supporter. I admire him on this issue and think that most liberals are wrong about it. Kos' response to the election was to post an old article from the Times talking about an election in Vietnam, which preceded failure. Nuts. The absurdity of Senator Kennedy's bleating about setting a timeline for removing our troops was highlighted today when Ghazi Al Yawar called it nonsense to think troops could be removed from Iraq in the near future. It is nonsense.

I also agree with Jonah Goldberg, who wrote yesterday that too many mistakes have been made for those who favored and/or have defended this invasion to gloat. (Though in my euphoria I gloated anyway, a little.) Things have not gone perfectly. For example, the press is correct to point out that the Bush Administration did not initially want this constitution to be written by elected Iraqis, and that Sistani forced it on them. Unfortunately, this same press failed to note that fact during the previous six weeks, which it spent agitating for those elections to be (impossibly) postponed. Let the record show that as well.

Those who have been most negative about Iraq will increasingly spin the election like this: "This was a referendum which showed that the Iraqis want to get American troops out of there. Therefore, we were right all along." This refrain will grow stronger the more successful Iraq becomes. However, that reasoning is based on the canard that Americans actually want to stay in Iraq and control it forever. Even in the days when Bremer tried to appoint people to write the Iraqi constitution no one who understands the politics of military deployment, or the politics of the Shia in Iraq, thought such a thing could really happen.

More crucially though, the election never would have happened if American troops had not gone, and stayed. Period. The Iraqis, even if no one else does, will know that.

Moving forward, Democrats should not be focused on attacking President Bush about Iraq. It was the wrong position 18 months ago and is even more wrong now. The damage the anti-war Democrats are doing to the causes of protecting Social Security, labor rights, gay rights, women's rights and others will take twenty years to undo, if it is ever undone. President Bush will use the moral momentum gained from Iraq to push through his conservative judges, his misguided privatization plan, and his partisan attacks on trial lawyers. And, because he will, short of a catastrophe, increasingly be proved a SAGE (yes, a sage) on Iraq, the ability of Democrats to defend the things they are actually right about will be weakened, severely. But my Party just does not get it. As Kos and Senators Reid and Boxer, and Representative Pelosi show, it continues to march over the cliff....

I Must Confess, I'm Tempted to Gloat...

2005-01-30T20:01:00.000-08:00

I can't deny it; I'm tempted to gloat. It's too early to tell where this will all lead, but right now it looks like 60% of the Iraqis have voted...despite being threatened with death and being told by many (by you know who) that the elections had been foisted on them by America and/or meant nothing. That turnout, if it holds up, should shame Americans and Europeans. I dare anyone not to get a lump in his/her throat while looking at those proud Iraqis holding up their ink-stained thumbs. Rarely if ever have I felt so proud of my country, or of another country: Iraq. This is an affirmation of our common humanity, and those liberals and paleoconservatives who refused to forsee this are living in a dream-world: an unrealistic, nightmare dream. Already on the news, I see those who opposed the war, and who called for withdrawal, or who said "wrong-war at the wrong time," hedging their bets and trying to spin this, trying to say that if things had been carried out in their way everything would have turned out even better. Wrong. Dead wrong. If they had been in charge it never would have happened. Everyone, years from now, should know that what they say is desperate spin, and is more apparently wrong now than it will seem ten or fifty years from now. Freedom reigns, and must be fought for. Those who opposed it, those who called the Iraq vote meaningless or who sided with those who call America the Great Satan, or imperialist, or evil, are 100% misguided. I pity them. In the classic film, Casablanca, Captain Renault famously said, "We mustn't underestimate American blundering; I was with them in 1918 when they blundered into Berlin...." How true. God bless Iraq and God bless America. I hope with all my heart that we realize the hope we feel today.

Boston.com Echoing Kennedy

2005-01-28T12:46:00.000-08:00

Today : "The American face that most Iraqis see is brute force kicking in the door, and the American presence has become part of the problem, not the solution." We shall see.

Senator Kennedy, Shut Up!

2005-01-28T12:07:00.000-08:00

Senator Kennedy is trying to make the argument that the US military presence is now part of the problem in Iraq. While I grant that our 3:00am housecalls, the kicking down of doors and the shackling of Sunni daughters don't endear us in Falluja, the merit of Senator Kennedy's argument escapes me. Does he honestly believe that things will settle down if we leave Iraq? If we leave, the insurgents will do exactly what they've been threatening to do in their leaflets: they'll slaughter anyone who has had the courage to stand up for Iraqi democracy and human rights. There are real people in Iraq, who truly believe that Iraq can become a democracy. If we leave, they die. And even if we simply say that we are leaving in six months, or in 2006 as he says, we will similarly seal their fate and the fate of this operation. The insurgents will know that their campaign to make the US sick of this war has worked. They will wait until we are gone, and then they will wreck all hell.

Bottom line: we'd all like to leave Iraq. I'd love to have our troops come home tomorrow and see no one else killed....I'd also love it if it rained ice cream tomorrow on my way to work. We must leave Iraq when the job is done, and not before; failure is not an option.

Quote of the Day: "At last Friday's prayers in Diwaniyah, a preacher from the Al-Fadeela party said voting 'is a national moral duty, and not doing it would waste the chance for coming generations to a better future.' It is in America's national security interests to have preachers in Iraq saying this, rather than what the government holy men pray for in Iran. Absent these elections, the prayers in Diwaniyah likely would resemble those in Iran." This is Daniel Henninger in Opinion Journal. If you want to ready the whole piece, go here.

My conversation with an Al-Jazeera reporter.

2005-01-27T08:52:00.000-08:00

Below, in its entirety, I have posted a conversation I had with an Al Jazeera reporter who writes for that organization's English language website. This conversation took place before Arafat's death last year, as you can see from the dates of the emails. The first email below is my final reply to him, which received no answer. The bottom email is my initial complaint on the Al Jazeera website. You will see intelligence in his posts, but also a lot of nonsense that I thought I should share. For example, why is it that so many Muslims and arabs simultaneously deny the Holocaust yet revel in calling Israelis Nazi's? Why don't they see the contradiction in that? Nobody knows. Below you will see Holocaust denial, the assertion that Israel brings suicide bombings on itself, and the assertion that what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians is a "holocaust," despite the fact that in the last twenty years the Palestinian population has exploded. Read it and weep. This is an educated reporter who speaks English and works for the most widely-read news source in the Arab world. PS -- if I've got any of my history wrong, below, or you don't like my interpretations, my apologies.

--- On Sun 11/07, < BLACKED OUT> wrote:

From: [mailto: BLACKED OUT]
To: BLACKED OUT
Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 10:27:17 -0500
Subject: Re: {Spam?} Re: Feedback on:

Do you ever sleep?! :-) I don't think I could ever convince you that America is a friend, nor would I try. My only desire is to convince you that there are two sides to the story. That it is not all black-and-white, good-and-evil, yes-and-no. I do not think it is fair for you to write off our actions with Milosevic because they doesn't match your preconceived opinion of our attitude towards muslims. We had no other reason to go there but to save those people. Admittedly, Blair was the instigator of that, not Clinton, but we provided the firepower, and we saved many muslim lives.

There is reason in what you say too, with regards to the suffering of your people and America's involvement. In fact what I'm about to say will anger you even more! The real truth is that for the past 55 years (certainly up until Clinton's presidency anyway) the United States people had almost zero knowledge or interest in arabs or muslims. All of our energy was focused on the Soviets; we supported the Afghans because they were against the Soviets, we (and western Europe) blindly supported the Israelis financially and militarily because they were capitalist democrats and were allied against the Soviets, the same with the puppet-dictatorships of Latin America (anti-Soviet), we supported the Saudis because they were anti-Soviet (and for oil), that is why we fought the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and why we supported Taiwan. That is the lens through which Americans view the second half of the twentieth-century, that was our conflict and our main story. Your peoples were peripheral, hardly noticed (like much of Africa today); we were much more concerned by the fact that the Soviets had thousands of nuclear missiles aimed at our cities. Iran, also, was allied with the Soviets, whereas Saddam was not: that is the story behind our support of Saddam as well. And so I think we did disregard the arab and muslim peoples, not because we were evil, but for the same reason that Al-Jazeera disregards genocide in Darfur while putting every dead Palestinian child on television: it is not the focus, not the main storyline being followed. We were not capable of doing two things at once.

We have no inherent reason to support jews over muslims. But as the Cold War with the Soviets was winding down, what happened? There was the first World Trade Center bombing, the suicide bombers in Israel, the Iranian fatwa against Salman Rushdie for writing a stupid book, the Libyan bombing of Pan Am flight 101, it goes on and on. These were the experiences through which muslims and arabs were first brought to the forefront of a whole generation of America's minds, and most Americans had no clue why it was all happening. Americans still thought of themselves as the good-guys for defeating communism and the Soviets. Unlike Europe, I might add, we did not have a long colonial history in muslim and arab lands and therefore had less knowledge of your culture. You just looked like a bunch of nutcases to us. Every time we heard about muslims or arabs it was because they were calling us the Great Satan, or bombing somebody, or declaring a extremist fatwa.

You casually throw around words like Israeli apartheid. Well, how did the South African blacks get rid of apartheid? -- let's review the history: at the beginning they were very violent, even Nelson Mandela, and had little or no support. Then they completely rejected violence and followed the peaceful model of the Indians and the American blacks, and mobilized a huge amount of support across the whole world, including in America, which boycotted South African companies and brought pressure to bear; and look were they are now. I can understand why the Palestinians do not want to die like sheep, but I'm sure neither did the South African blacks. I simply see no way for there to be a Palestinian state until Palestinians do this same thing, regardless of the risks and the seeming loss of face and pride.

Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 10:19:28 +0200
From: NAME BLACKED OUT
[ Add to Address Book | Block Address | Report as Spam ]
To:

Subject: Re: {Spam?} Re: Feedback on:

My Friend, your words have some reasonability, but they are those of an a distant ear-witness....Mine are those of who are in the middle of the fray...

Suicide bombings are often made inevitable...When peole are pushed to the corner, forced into a situation where they have to die either as meek sheep at the slaughter house or suicide bombers ...they choose the latter..

It is unfair and immoral to push the Palestinians to the edge of despair and then complain about suicide bombers?

The Palestinians tried the US, the UN, the Security council, the EU, the International Court at the Haigue, etc...and Israel defied them all...

When Israel destroyed the Jenin refugee camp, Israel wouldn't even allow a UN fact finding mission to come to the West Bank to see things...

and always the US followed suit...adopting the Israeli position, blindly, brashly and often glibly.

I disagree with you on Iraq...the Iraqi people were to hungry, too weak, too decimated, too malnutrition to rise up against the criminal dictator, America's former ally, yet the US maintained the sanctions..killing hundreds of thousands of children...

That was a genocide...and Mr.so Albright said "if it is good for America, it is worth it."

I don't think the American intervention in Bosnian and Kosovo...was for moral reasons...unless American morality is inconsistent....

Look, how the US is financing Israeli building of settlements on occupied territories, saying nothing about Israeli apartheid, launching a witch hunt against Islamic charities ....forcing hundreds of thousands to go hungry...I see things which you don't see...

America may look wonderful to me...as Germany looked wonderful to many.

But to me it is an evil country....America is the author of 55 years of suffering, misery, roadblocks, checkpoints, home demolitions, land confiscation, and massacre....

America prevented justice from the Palestinians...

America embraced Israeli Nazism without any consideration for us...as if we are not human beings...

America is our tormentor.

NAME BLACKED OUT
----- Original Message -----
From: BLACKED OUT
To: BLACKED OUT
Sent: Sunday, November 07, 2004 5:41 AM
Subject: Re: {Spam?} Re: Feedback on:

Where was the expediency in standing up to Milosevic? We got no territory out of it, we got no oil, no money, we certainly don't seem to have gotten any credit.... France, Germany and Russia all opposed it, they wanted to just let Milosevic go ahead with the killing, didn't want to interfere. Would you prefer if we had done nothing...? Where was the expediency?

Also, it was not America alone, but rather the UN that imposed the sanctions on Iraq for ten years. All the countries voted for it I think, including Syria even. And if Saddam hadn't spent all his oil money on palaces and silly statues the Iraqi children would have had plenty of food. That was what the UN Oil-For-Food program was eventually set up to fix, and Saddam even siphoned the money off of that. But has America really killed more Muslims and Arabs than any other country, when it was Saddam who invaded Iran and initiated a war that lasted almost a decade, in which millions died on each side? Have we killed more than the Soviets (whom we fought for fifty years) killed when they invaded Afghanistan, and whose mujahadeen we armed with the Stinger missiles that allowed them to win that war against the Soviets?

I don't expect you to leave your home, and I don't expect you to commit collective suicide. I think you have a very good case, and you have been harmed by the Israelis. But I am only speaking honestly, not trying to fool you or mislead you, when I say that you do not help your case with the insane suicide bombers, or by even excusing them, or by calling them inevitable, or by calling Israelis Nazis. It undermines your credibility, and your cause, because it is shrill and simplistic. And if there were no terror, then the Israelis would not be able to shout about it all the time, there would be nothing to distract from their actions. It is also, empirically from a military standpoint, not a war that the Palestinians can win, which it makes it seem as though they already are in the process of committing collective suicide.

--- On Sat 11/06, BLACKED OUT < BLACKED OUT > wrote:

From: BLACKED OUT [mailto: BLACKED OUT ]
To: BLACKED OUT
Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 05:24:49 +0200
Subject: Re: {Spam?} Re: Feedback on:

Ethnic cleansing, wherever it happens, is a crime against humanity. America didn't stand up against milosevic...for moral reasons, but for expediency...America slaughtered more Arabs and Muslims than any other country...One million Iraqi children in ten years and 100,000 IRaqis, mostly women and children in the past 18 months...

So, what do you suggest...Leave our country...? Die a quiet death..? Commit collective suicide...so that the US media would give us a certificate of good conduct?

Israel believes it controls America ...and America adopts the same Israeli policy in every thing...

And Israel says : No to the one state solution, no to the two-state solution...and whenever we rise up, Israel shouts 'terror..terror..terror..and you poeple beleive it...

BLACKED OUT

----- Original Message -----

From: BLACKED OUT

To: BLACKED OUT

Sent: Saturday, November 06, 2004 11:57 PM

Subject: {Spam?} Re: Feedback on:

Suicide bombings are in no way made inevitable by Israel, that's a shirking of responsibility. Look, I don't think Israel is by any means blameless. They do a lot of very very bad stuff, and as you say many Israeli jews acknowledge that. But that's exactly the point: every time I hear an Israeli talk or read what they write it is all about how both sides are to blame, how sad it all is, how angry they are with extremist jews as well as with extremist Palestinians. And on the other hand whenever I listen to Palestinians and other arabs it is ALL Israel's fault, Israelis are Nazis, devils, demons, etc, etc. Who do you think will come across sounding more sane to me? And more credible?

As to ethnic cleansing.... What do you think of the arab militias and their ethnic cleansing in Darfur, Sudan? Is that just a myth simply because it makes you uncomfortable? How come arabs and muslims aren't upset about that, and constantly pasting that all over Al Jazeera? Is it because black Africans don't matter to you? Do the jews come and rape thousands of your women and slaughter entire villages at a time as has happened in Sudan? Do you really equate pushing people off of land with killing them? How come nothing is ever said of how Britain and America were the only countries in the world with the balls to stand up to Milosevic and stop the mass-murder of thousands of muslims in the former Yugoslavia? (My best friend went there and took pictures of that and worked on the team that put Milosevic behind bars.)

If Israeli soldiers shoot Palestian children, which I grant is possible, and is certainly beneath contempt, then it is even more of a pity that Palestinians keep sending suicide bombers to kill Israeli children, thereby diluting news coverage of the Palestinian children being killed.

The two sides can keep blaming each other forever, but there is no point. Peace w ill only come in one of two ways: either one side kills everyone on the other side; or both sides a cknowledge their wrongs. If you think that option one is a good one, and that the Israelis should all be killed or driven off, then you're no better than what you say they are.

As to the Holocaust, you've sort of indicated you don't believe in it. Let me ask you this. Do you honestly believe that in the aftermath of WWII, amid the devastation of Germany, while everything was in chaos and there were no clear lines of communication, a bunch of jews spread out over thousands of square miles somehow organized an elaborate scam that has managed to fool hundreds of millions of Europeans and Americans for fifty years, including milions of Germans who hated jews and had no reason to believe anything they said? Do you think we're that stupid? Do you think that people's stories haven't been checked, that hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people's grandparents and uncles and parents and children aren't indeed missing? Do you think the jews killed them themselves so they could have an excuse to steal Palestinian land and move back to Isreal? If you do, don't you think that's a little insane? Don't you think that European Christians, who have been killing jews for a thousand years, have every incentive to cover up a Holocaust rather than embrace it?

--- On Sat 11/06, BLACKED OUT < BLACKED OUT > wrote:

From: BLACKED OUT [mailto: BLACKED OUT ]
To: BLACKED OUT
Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 20:43:10 +0200
Subject: {Spam?} Re: Feedback on:

What Israel is doing is far worse than what the British did in India..here it is ethnic cleansing...it is slow-motion genocide...In India, all the British wanted was to maintain their colonial interests...Here the Jews want to exterminate non-Jews or at least expel them...this is why Israel is destroying our towns and village in order to obliterate us from this land.

I don't know about the holocaust...(you can read my article ...[about zionists lying about the holocaust]by BLACKED OUT

Suicide bombings are unwise and counterproductive...but they are made inevitable by Israel.

Non-violence is a good idea, but i doubt it would work with Israel..Israel is not Britain although Palestinians may very well act like the Indians...

I saw Israeli soldiers shoot children demonstrating peacefully...

BLACKED OUT

----- Original Message -----

From: BLACKED OUT

To: BLACKED OUT

Sent: Saturday, November 06, 2004 7:16 PM

Subject: Re: Feedback on:

Well, BLACKED OUT , I welcome this dialogue, I'd love for you to respond to me after reading this all the way through. Incidentally though, I find this habit of calling Israelis Nazis very silly, especially since most of the people who do it also deny that the Nazis did the worst thing they are accused of -- namely trying to kill all the jews in the Holocaust. If that is so, what is the rhetorical point to be made by constantly labeling Israelis and jews as Nazis?

Regarding suicide bombings, they are a response to Israeli actions, but a response is not the same as a logical outcome. Only the Palestinians are responsible for the particular tactic they have chosen to respond with. (A stupid tactic, for the reasons I outlined in my first email.) To also extend the point I started to make, the British did things in India far worse than what the jews have done, yet the Hindus responded with non-violent marches and protests. When the British would kill them, there was no one to condemn but the British. And that is a large part of why the Hindus got their country back. If they had instituted suicide bombings agaist the British, I think people would have been a lot more willing to watch the British slaughter them. Similarly in America the blacks who were not granted proper voting rights did not respond by killing a bunch of white people. They eventually responded with Martin Luther King, and his non-violent marches in Alabama, which made the nation see with moral clarity that what it was doing was wrong. If King had bombed people instead he would have been imprisoned or killed and the goals of black people would not have been achieved.

Is there some enormous masculine Arab pride that prevents them from making this response? Because I don't think the failure is in Islam. Islam as I understand it means submission --submission before Allah, throu gh which one achieves peace and happiness. So one would think that muslims would understand that the same thing holds true on earth: submission is the most powerful weapon. If a million Palestinians staged a peaceful march into East Jerusalem, no weapons, no bombs, just signs and songs and pleas, the Israelis would have no choice but to grant their demands. The Israelis' only other option would be to kill thousands of them at once and risk total global condemnation. But it won't happen. And as long as the Palestinians remain violent the Israelis can excuse their responses. Unfortunately the Palestinians seem to be too filled with pride and anger to realize this.

Only when a Palestinian leader arises who understands these things will the solution be found, and even then -- as I think any honest person can agree -- the possibility is quite strong that the more radical and hateful elements among the Palestinians will simply kill that leader, just as extremist and hateful jews killed their own leader, Rabin: the Israeli leader who understood these things better than any other. It is all very sad. But blaming everything on the jews and calling them Nazis is not the solution.

--- On Thu 11/04, BLACKED OUT < BLACKED OUT > wrote:

From: BLACKED OUT [mailto: BLACKED OUT ]
To: BLACKED OUT
Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 06:38:27 +0200
Subject: Re: Feedback on: "Palestinians angered by Bush win" from BLACKED OUT , USA

yes, you are right...but Israel and the US can't push the Palestinians to
the edge of a holocaust and then...complain about suicide bombings...

Suicide bombings, which I condemn, are the outcome of Jewish Nazism....

All honest people should acknowledge this fact as many Israeli Jews have.

BLACKED OUT
----- Original Message -----
From:
To: ; ;< BR>
Sent: Friday, November 05, 2004 12:08 AM
Subject: Feedback on: "Palestinians angered by Bush win" from BLACKED OUT, USA

> RE: Palestinians Angered by Bush Win
>
> Hey, message to all uncomprehending Palestinian: maybe if you stopped
strapping bombs on 15-year-olds and blowing up old ladies on buses we'd take
you more seriously! Most Americans were at least open to being
pro-Palestine or were openly pro-Palestinian before the suicide bombings
started, but now, not at all. It has been HORRIBLE for your public
relations. How can you possibly not see how we link it to what Osama and
his crew did? You expect us to look the other way, to excuse it? How can
you expect us to sympathize when the Israeli Army accidentally shoots a
Palestian civilian, when the Palestinians are DELIBERATELY trying all the
time to kill Israeli civilians?? And in your society that sort of killing
is encouraged, celebrated! In Israel, soldiers or settlers who deliberately
kill Palestinians are NOT held up as martyrs; they are punished to the full
extent of the law. Until you punish your murderers to the full extent of
the law you will get no sympathy, and you deserve none. If, instead of
Arafat, a Gandhi h ad arisen forty years ago among you and led peaceful
protests, the cruel tactics (and they are cruel) of the Israeli Army would
have stood out in stark relief, the moral choice would have been clear, and
you would have a state today already. Instead you chose a hateful,
vindictive guerilla war that you can never win. You exist at the whim of
the Israelis, and if they wanted to, if they were truly as evil as you think
they are, they could and would wipe you out in a day. You're not the first
people in the history of the world to be displaced by a more powerful
people. Do what all the others have done; suck it up and make the best of
it instead of whining about fifty-year-old grudges. We're sick of listening
to it.

Good news and bad today: a mini-roundup.

2005-01-26T13:46:00.000-08:00

Hitchens still has the faith. Obviously none of us knows how this will all turn out, but in his Slate article today he lays out some reasons for hope. I'm not sure about Chalabi, personally, but so it goes. Of course, we have actually heard recently from Sadr, but although he is not supporting the elections he is obviously not officially boycotting them either.

Ms. Albright is not so sanguine. In USA Today she lays out what we're all worried about, if we have a brain and a conscience. The only thing remotely interesting about her op-ed is that she's the one saying it. I do not personally believe that the Bush Administration plans to try to cut-and-run after the election. They have nothing to lose by staying, since Bush is going to be a lame duck and Cheney won't be running in 2008. Better to do the whole thing right, I think. And that is based on my judgement of their characters as well. Of course, if they do cut-and-run, they will undoubtedly do it in the manner she lays out, and try to lay blame in exactly those places. Frankly though, some of the blame will belong there, though Albright would never admit it. No one is blameless in this.

On to Jonah Goldberg's townhall article today. He always sounds like he's preaching, not even to the converted, but to people who were born into the faith. Here's the end of his piece on Zarqawi and voting. "Given that choice (democracy or Zarqawi/Saddam's thugs), who can doubt the Iraqis will vote with their hearts and ballots for what's behind Curtain No. 1." You know what? -- of course just about anyone reading an article on townhall.com can't doubt it. And who cares? But any reasonable human being who knows that this issue is more complicated, and that among other things people are afraid of getting blown up when they walk towards Curtain No. 1, can doubt it. He's correct about Bin Laden's original reasons for hating America, and he's right to direct people to MEMRI, which is a very valuable organization.

There is of course much more, but that's all I have time for. I was sad to hear about the helicopter that crashed today, killing 31 soldiers. Predictably, the media is calling it the bloodiest day since March 2003, with the clear implication that it indicates a worsening of the situation. But, sad as it is for all of us, it in fact represents only one event, and one that as of this writing may yet turn out to have been an accident.

Quote of the Day -- this is Alice Miles in the Times Online, talking about the upcoming Iraq vote: "People will risk their lives going to the polls in areas of Iraq this weekend, and some parts of the media — in other countries as well as in ours, I assume — have already written off those efforts as worthless, the elections as fatally flawed. What blinkered arrogance." If you want to read the whole article, go here.

Why am I doing this?

2005-01-25T15:31:00.000-08:00

Hello, I'm a liberal. I support abortion rights, gay marriage, most environmental regulations, euthanasia, I oppose the President's ideas for "reforming" of social security, and I love French wine.

I am also a hawk. How hawkish? I despise liberal rhetoric about Iraq, do not believe that the President deliberately mislead America into that war, and do not believe that the European solution to terrorism (I know, what solution?) is valid. The UN is a joke. The foreign policy ideas of the left are bankrupt. Multiculturalism and pluralism cannot trump fascism, whether that fascism is state-sponsored or religion-sponsored. For two years liberals in my own country, as well as in much of Europe and elsewhere, have sacrificed their own interests due to their irrational hatred of one man's cowboy swagger. It should stop.

I do not honestly believe I would have initiated the Iraq war, but during its course my support for it has only strengthened. My respect for the President has grown. I believe the project in Iraq will turn out to be fairly successful in the long run, largely because President Bush (who I did not vote for, full disclosure) will never be intimidated into leaving before it does -- no matter how loud the sophisticated groans get.

These days, "thoughtful" opposition to the Iraq war often presents itself as criticism of the way in which it has been conducted. Even many liberal hawks have lost their faith and now concentrate on stategic errors which, they are quite sure, they themselves would not also have committed. But what can possibly be the point of all of these sober op-eds and TV-appearances, other than one of vindication, bitterness, or face-saving? Do we really want to talk about bad decisions? The Allies lost tens of thousands of troops at Okinawa, the Battle of the Bulge, and in the other battles of WWII, thousands from friendly fire or because of abject incompetence on the part of our generals. But we won anyway. Or do we want to talk about poor equipment? Our soldiers have never had all of the equipment they needed, from Valley Forge on forward to Baghdad. They manage, and we always try to serve them better next time.

The fact is, that unless one means to take war effectively off the table as a foreign policy option, one cannot predicate one's continuing support for a war on how it goes once it has been started. That idea represents a slippery slope, but everything in life is a slippery slope: deal with it. Most of this country supported the Iraq War right before it started. An even larger majority supported it after the fall of Baghdad. Those who supported it then and who don't support it now are short-sighted, thin-skinned, or both. Regardless of why we went to Iraq, or the mistakes that have been made there, we have an obligation to see it through.

Sure, to cover their butts in the face of a massive intelligence failure, the Bush Administration has had to say that this war was about freedom and democracy all along, and not about WMDs. And the way they have made that case has been smarmy and dishonest. But my point is this: they should not have had to resort to those tactics at all. All of the wars that America has won (indeed, that any country has won) have been packed with terrible decisions and massive intelligence failures. But we would not have won any of them if we had chickened out when the going got tough or when it looked like we would lose. I believe that this war will be won, too. The only way that it won't be won is if the naysayers prompt a withdrawal before we have a chance to win it.

I have started this blog in order to try, in some small way, to help point liberalism on a new path. I was heavily inspired by Mr. Beinart's piece in the Washington Post in December 2004, but also by the thoughts of Andrew Sullivan, Tom Friedman, Christopher Hitchens and Fareed Zakaria. I hope I'm not simply regurgitating. My blog is for anyone who identifies him/herself as liberal, but who wants the Democratic Party to return to the muscular foreign policy of JFK, Truman and FDR, among others. If you believe those things, you're a liberal hawk. The only way you and I can win this debate is by standing up to our liberal friends and announcing what (as you know) is an extremely unpopular viewpoint at this point in time.

In the process, we must not go the way of the neoconservatives a generation ago, no matter how hard we are pushed away by other liberals, even if we are called traitors by them and embraced by our conservative friends. While these conservative friends might like for us to switch sides, for the sake of our votes if for nothing else, they -- and our whole country -- would be much better served if we can turn the tide against the isolationism (and yet simultaneous hatred of America), glorification of the third-world, excuses for terrorism, appeasement of religious fascism, and even the anti-Semitism that all seem to be growing on the Left. I believe it is crucial that we fight this battle because I do not believe that the larger battle against terrorism can be effectively fought by America -- and by the rest of the world -- until this smaller battle has been won.