# Posted 11:23 PM by David Adesnik  

BLAIR (THE EVIL ONE): Not Tony. Jayson. Actually, he's not evil. Just ethically challenged. Anyway, Dan Simon provides a persuasive response to CalPundit, with Martin Kimel and Steve Sturm adding some good points as well.

Meanwhile, Boomshock compares the NYT to Le Monde. Sacre bleu!

UPDATE: CalPundit is not taking this all sitting down. He has a new post on Jayson Blair, an editorial on affirmative action and even a post on Oreos. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:07 PM by David Adesnik  

TOTTEN ON A ROLL: The WSJ Online has now republished Michael Totten's provocative post on the downfall of liberal foreign policy as an op-ed with the same name, "Builders and Defenders".

In the blogosphere, the excitement surrounding Totten's ideas continues to thrive. Kieran Healy defends himself from my charge that Healy's original response to Totten avoided the main points of Totten's argument. Kieran says that Totten's description of liberals as "builders" and conservatives as "defenders" is so vague that it could easily be reversed.

Take, for example, this passage from Totten's argument:

The first priority of builders is the immediate surrounding environment, starting with the home and moving outward from there. Next is the community, followed by the city, the region, and the nation. The other side of the world is the lowest of all priorities. “Think globally” but “act locally” is a bumper sticker for the left. That we shouldn’t meddle in other countries if our own needs work is also a liberal idea.

Kieran responds by imagining a similar description applied to conservatives:

Conservatives are oriented to their own back yard. Their view is that if everyone took responsibility for their own problems then we wouldn’t need a nanny state or world government to solve them for us. In this sense Conservatives are Builders...

Conservative builders have little interest in managing the problems of others. As Governor Bush said during the second Presidential debate, “I think what we need to do is convince people who live in the lands they live in to build the nations. Maybe I’m missing something here. I mean, we’re going to have kind of a nation-building corps from America? Absolutely not.”

What Kieran misses entirely is that a tendency to look inward has characterized liberals and conservatives at different points in American history. As my post from yesterday elaborated in considerable detail, American liberalism embraced the outside world from the time of Wilson until the end of the Vietnam war. Then, at the same time that liberals began to turn inward, conservatives began to become preoccupied with events abroad. As for Bush's nod to humility and aversion to nation-building, the President's superficial commitment to such preferences has become apparent in the aftermath of September 11th.

Kieran also stumbles quite a bit when he tries to argues that liberals are "defenders" as well. He presents a hypothetical argument that liberals are

Defenders, always looking out for the rights of the supposedly oppressed, even if those they protect don’t really want to be defended. Looking at international political interventionism from the ill-fated League of Nations to the United Nations to the Marshall Plan to the European Union, we see Liberal thinkers and politicians behind all of these grand schemes — schemes which are anathema to the Conservative way of thinking.

In this case, Kieran is simply distoring Michael's argument. When Michael described conservatives as Defenders, he made it extremely clear that what conservatives defend are themselves, not others. As for the Marshall Plan and the United Nations, what better evidence could there be of liberals being great builders in the decades before Vietnam?

Next up, the Armed Liberal directly challenges my application of history to the present day. But before getting to that, I think it's worth noting that AL said this:

I have to publicly go on record that this is an exciting time for me; I've felt isolated from much of the Democratic party and what passes for liberalism for some time, and am constitutionally incapable of moving to the other side of the aisle. But now, I feel that there is some ferment in the Left both here in the U.S. and in the U.K., and that we're starting a process that could well result in an effective, moral, and progressive vision of the country and the world.

I hope AL is right, but I sense that there are precious few signs of such ferment among the Democratic candidates for 2004.

Moving on, we come to AL main point: that I am wrong to call George W. Bush a Wilsonian. Or as AL puts it:

Uh, sorry?? Wilsonians are typically defined as attempting to enmesh nations in a framework of democracy and the rule of law. Bush?? I'd have to make him as a Jacksonian/Hamiltonian in the Mead framework.

"Mead" refers to Walter Russell Mead, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World.

In Special Providence, Mead argues that there are four traditions that shape American foreign policy: the Hamiltonian, the Jeffersonian, the Jacksonian and the Wilsonian. For a brief definition of the four, see this review of Mead's book by Aaron Frieberg, who is the author of my favorite book on international relations.

When it comes to Special Providence, I am on unsure footing since I haven't read the book. Instead, I have had to rely on essays about the book, such as HW Brands' commentary in The National Interest. [All of NI's archive links are bloggered at the moment, so don't bother clicking through.]

That said, Mead's four categories are grounded in concepts familiar to most students of American foreign policy. So I will be somewhat bold in offering my thoughts about them. Basically, there are two main points I want to make: first, Mead seriously misunderstands Woodrow Wilson and his legacy. Second, there is no such thing as a Jacksonian foreign policy.

Both Mead and the Armed Liberal buy into the common misconceptions that Wilson was a multilateralist dove. As I wrote in my original post,

Today we associate Wilson's name with the naive and tragic multilateralism of the League of Nations. Those who insisted that United States had no right to invade Iraq without a second resolution from the United Nations often found themselves tarred as unrepentant Wilsonians. Yet I would suggest that Wilson would have done exactly what George W. Bush did had he been faced with a similar situation. He would've sought a second resolution but taken decisive action if he found it impossible to secure.

In earlier, unpublished version of my post (which -- believe it or not -- was even longer than the first) I referred to a number of important initiatives which demonstrated that Wilson's was not at all gun shy when it came to using force in order to promote American ideals. Throughout Latin America, Wilson sent in the Marines to impose his version of a democratic order. And strange as it sounds, Wilson was the only president ever to order American forces into combat with Soviet Russia.

While American forces foundered in the snows of Murmansk, their invasion of Russia -- in concert with British, French and White Russian forces -- bring to a light a different side of Wilson than the one associated with the tragic Peace of Versailles. In fact, the invasion was taking place at the exact same time that Wilson was negotiating at Versailles.

Thus, Bush's aggressive foreign policy in no way contradicts my assertion that he is a Wilsonian. It precisely because Bush fights so hard for American ideals that he is a Wilsonian. As I wrote yesterday,

In contast, President Bush has gone far beyond President Reagan in committing himself to democratic principles as the foundation of American foreign policy. While there are definite grounds on which to criticize the President's implementation of such policies, his commitment to promoting democracy in Iraq has consummated the role reversal that began in the Carter-Reagan era. Strange as it sounds, Bush is a Wilsonian.

Want a multilateralist dove? Jimmy Carter's your man.

Armed Liberal, of course, wants nothing to do with Jimmy Carter. AL is a self-proclaimed Jacksonian. What does that mean? I think I'll let AL speak for himself on this one:

First, and foremost we have to sell America...

Our foreign policy has to be based, not just in our mechanistic view of 'doing what's good for America', as one nation among many, but on the notion that we (along with many others) have something to offer the world. And what we have to offer the world – the reason why so many want to come here – is not only our prosperity, but our freedom, our belief in and respect for the individual, and most of all our belief in justice – that everyone is equal before the law, that everyone gets an opportunity, and that if we get it wrong once, we'll work and change and eventually get it right...

We need to make it clear that violence will be met with violence. Because we aren't ashamed to be Americans, we need not be ashamed of defending ourselves nor of taking threats to ourselves or others seriously. Out of a mixture of guilt and passivity, we've tolerated extremism and saber rattling and watched it turn into saber waving.

From where I stand, what AL is describing sound exactly like Wilsoniansim. Now, if AL wants to call that a Jacsksonian approach, I don't really mind. Given that Wilson is so widely misunderstood, it might be better just to take his ideas and attribute them to Jackson.

But that isn't what Walter Mead does. His Jackson is not a principled warrior, but a violent and unthinking nationalist. Mead wrote Special Providence not to glorify the Jacksonian tradition, but to prevent it its resurgence.

Less than one week after September 11th, Mead published an op-ed in the WaPo entitled "Braced for Jacksonian Ruthlessness". In it, he warned that the Jacksonians instinct for brutality might overwhelm the United States as it sought to wage its war on terror. Holding the Jacksonians' bloodlust responsbile for the death of 900,000 Japanese civilians in the Second World War, Mead suggests that

Like Pearl Harbor, last Tuesday's unprovoked sneak attack could rouse one of the great storms of Jacksonian war fever that periodically change both American and world history. And if so, some of Bush's most demanding challenges will come from the tensions between the kind of war many Americans instinctively want to fight and the kind of war forced on us by international realities.

After reading that, you'd be forgiven for confusing Mead with the irresponsible anti-war activists who predicted that 100,000 to 400,000 civilians would be killed as a result of the war in Afghanistan. Even when that prediction turned out to be profoundly wrong, the same activists went ahead and made similar predictions about the war in Iraq.

In the meantime, Mead seems to have gotten his head on straight. In a devastating op-ed in the WaPo this past March, Mead attacked anti-war activists for describing containment as a humane alternative to war. In fact, he argued, sanctions -- which only persist because of Saddam's refusal to disarm -- are responsible for far more deaths than any invasion would cause.

(In addition, it seems Mead is somewhat embarrassed about his initial warnings of a Jacksonian resurgence, since his Sept. 17th op-ed is inexplicably missing from the rather comprehensive list of publications on Mead's CFR homepage. Still, he did go on the record in Sept. 2002 to say that Bush is a Jacksonian.)

The point is that Mead has an entirely different definition of Jacksonianism than the Armed Liberal does. And I think it's safe to say that AL would not describe himself as a Jacksonian if he meant the same thing by it that Mead does. AL, my friend, you are a Wilsonian. Be proud of it! I'm one too and so is George Bush (even if we agree that he has corporate interests a little too close to his heart).

One of the fundamental problems with Mead's book is that it denies any sort of identity to individuals such as AL and myself who believe strength in the service of principle should be the foundation of American foreign policy. By imagining a Jacksonian tradition that is a repository for all violence in the American character, Mead prevents his readers from recognizing that the United States can use force without opening the Pandora's Box of mindless brutality. In fact, the measured use of force in the service of principle is what precisely what has enabled the United States to become the only dominant nation ever to persuade the world's other great powers that (even France) that the preservation of its strength is in their self-interest.

UPDATE: Matt Yglesias provides the ultimate in praise: "I'm not sure that I really disagree with anything David says." The question is, what did I leave out? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:05 PM by David Adesnik  

BEHIND THE MAN: Who are the Democratic candidates turning to for foreign policy advice? The Boston Phoenix lets you know. (Link via Greg's Opinion.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:41 AM by David Adesnik  

GOOGLE DROPS INDYMEDIA and Judith Weiss says it serves them right. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:34 AM by David Adesnik  

CANADA BORING? NO! Dan over at LDLS has the scoop. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:30 AM by David Adesnik  

LITTLE MISS ATTILA tells you everything you wanted to know about American democracy but were afraid to ask. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:55 PM by David Adesnik  

THE LEFT VS. ITSELF: An extremely important debate is taking place right now on the left-hand side of the blogosphere. It begins with this post by Michael Totten, who charges that liberals as a whole suffer from a serious deficiency in their knowledge of foreign affairs. According to Totten,

This is not a partisan point I’m making. I’ve been on the left forever, and I have no reason whatever to shill for the right...

[So] why are liberal intellectuals less interested in the history of foreign countries than conservatives are?...

I‘ve pondered this for a while now, and I think I have part of the answer.

Liberals are builders and conservatives are defenders. Liberals want to build a good and just society. Conservatives defend what is already built and established. This is what the left and the right are for.

I strongly recommend that you read the whole post. Totten's arguments are the result of considerable reflection, as one might expect from a liberal criticizing his own comrades-in-arms. Even so, they have set off a firestorm that has drawn in conservatives as well, including Joe Katzman and Patrick Ruffini.

Before adding my own to cents to this discussion, I think it is important to note that Michael's draws on Gary Farber's response to recent WaPo article by liberal sociologist Todd Gitlin. The first two-thirds of Gitlin's column consist of an attack on conservatives for demonizing the anti-war left. But that is just a set up for the final third, in which Gitlin charges that the left has no foreign policy whatsoever. It is simply anti-Bush.

The Totten and Gitlin arguments complement each other rather well. One is an argument that liberals have a deficient knowledge of foreign affairs while the other states that liberals have no foreign policy.

The most forceful response to Totten's post is from Kieran Healy, who argues that Totten depends far too much on vague generalizations and circular logic. Kieran scores a few points, but in the end he just avoids what Totten has to say.

One of the most interesting responses to Michael's post comes from Matt Yglesias, who agrees with Totten and notes that there a number of former Clinton administration officials who are doing their best to improve the situtation by developing a liberal approach to foreign affairs.

Pre-empting such efforts, I am going to try and define such an approach right here and right now. A critic might object that my self-identification as a centrist will prevent me from empathizing with liberalism well enough to elaborate a compelling liberal approach to foreign affairs. Yet I would counter that the policies I have advocated on this site over the past nine months have a solid foundation in liberal principles. If you disagree, then all I ask is that you hear what I have to say and judge it on its merits.

So where to begin? With history, of course. While a comprehensive discussion of liberalism ought to start with the Founders, I will begin by addressing the misunderstood legacy of Woodrow Wilson. (If you do want to know more about the Founders, consult Louis Hartz's 1952 classic, The Liberal Tradition in America.)

Today we associate Wilson's name with the naive and tragic multilateralism of the League of Nations. Those who insisted that United States had no right to invade Iraq without a second resolution from the United Nations often found themselves tarred as unrepentant Wilsonians. Yet I would suggest that Wilson would have done exactly what George W. Bush did had he been faced with a similar situation. He would've sought a second resolution but taken decisive action if he found it impossible to secure.

Why? If one explores the principles on which Wilson's multilateralism rested, one discovers that the modern-day United Nations is a poor reflection of it. As any compelling liberal foreign policy must be, Wilson's was founded on the idea of protecting individual rights. Having witnessed the horrors of the Great War, Wilson belived that such tragedies could be avoided if governments would only listen to the voice of their citizens.

Anticipating the democratic peace theorists of today, Wilson believed that no democratic government would commit acts of agression against any other. Thus he insisted that the German Empire be replaced by a German republic.

Yet Wilson also recognized that most governments at the time were not democratic and would not become so. Thus, he sought to project democracy onto the international stage by creating the League of Nations. Its purpose was to create a forum for "world opinion", which Wilson believed would be an unfailing opponent of war. While this approach has considerable merit, critics point out that the people of the German Reich overwhelmingly supported war when it was declared in 1914, as did the citizens of most other nations.

Confronted by the United Nations of today, I think that Wilson would conclude that it has done very little to project the democratic spirit onto the international stage. Rather, it is a forum in which semi-authoritarian states such as China and Russia exert a dangerous and disproportionate influence while the protection of individual rights is entrusted to a forum headed by Libya. Ironically, however, the voting public in both the United States and Europe identifies the United Nations as the greatest international expression of the democratic spirit.

In order to understand why the United Nations has become what it is, one has to understand how Franklin Roosevelt's realism altered the institutional design laid out by Wilson in the aftermath of the Great War. While I am no realist, it is hard to disagree with Roosevelt's assessment that no international institution could function without the consent of the great powers, including Soviet Russia. Thus, the Soviet Union had to be given a veto despite its fundamentally illiberal nature.

When Roosevelt died, the reigns of leadership fell to a true heir of Woodrow Wilson, namely Harry Truman. Exactly as Wilson did, Truman believed that American national security was inextricably bound up with the spread of liberal democratic ideas across the globe. Whereas realist critics described the United States as facing a choice between prudence and principle, Truman and Wilson believed that prudence was principle.

One of the little known facts about Truman -- one which I focus on considerably in my doctoral dissertation -- is that he did not abandon his commitment to promoting democracy regardless of how intense the American conflict with the Soviet Union became. Whereas Eisenhower did not hesitate to overthrow the left-leaning but democratic governments of Guatemala and Iran, Truman defended them to the hilt.

Following in Truman's footsteps, John Kennedy implemented a forceful liberal foreign policy that rested on the twin pillars of fighting Communism and promoting democracy. To this day, Latin Americans revere Kennedy for his commitment to an Alliance for Progress that sought to reverse decades of disinterest in the freedom of the Western Hemisphere.

Whereas Johnson remained relatively loyal to Kennedy's approach, Nixon and Kissinger were unabashed advocates of a realist approach to foreign policy that considered no dictator unworthy of an American alliance provided that his brutality was matched by his anti-Communism. And if a democratic nation elected a Communist -- as did Chile -- Nixon and Kissinger had no qualms about supporting a coup d'etat.

Thus, until the end of the Vietnam War, it was not at all had to identify the essence of a liberal approach to foreign policy. It was about the belief that American national security depended on the promotion of democratic principles. In contrast, conservatives found themselves divided between isolationists on the one hand and realists on the other. What united the realists and isolationsts, however, was their commitment to a defensive approach to foreign affairs.

Interestingly, this description of the divide between liberal and conservative approaches to foriegn affairs fits very neatly with Michael Totten's broader generalization that liberals are "builders" whereas conservatives are "defenders". Where Totten goes astary is in his assertion that,

The first priority of builders is the immediate surrounding environment, starting with the home and moving outward from there. Next is the community, followed by the city, the region, and the nation. The other side of the world is the lowest of all priorities. “Think globally” but “act locally” is a bumper sticker for the left...

Defenders, unlike builders, are on the lookout for threats. This is what conservatism is for. In the absence of civil war or revolution, threats exist abroad. Canada isn’t a problem, and Mexico isn’t really either. The biggest threats are on the other side of the world.

While Totten's observation has a certain plausibility when applied to today's partisan politics, that is only because modern liberalism has fallen away so dramatically from the Wilsonian vision, later embraced by Kennedy and Truman. As these great presidents demonstrated time and again, "builders" are no less interested in the world abroad. As Kieran Healy rightly says, only a builder could have come up with the Marshall Plan. (TR Fogey makes a similar point as well.)

So what happened to this compelling and successful liberal vision? Answer: Vietnam. I am extremely surprised that not a single response to Totten's post recognized Vietnam as the event that has done more than any other to shape modern liberal foreign policy (or lack thereof). In addition, almost no one mentioned the liberal approach developed by Jimmy Carter, who explicitly described his anti-interventionist multilateralism as a response to the lessons of Vietnam.

At the same time that Carter was directing the Democratic party away from the aggressive idealism of Kennedy and Truman, Ronald Reagan was busy destorying the realist and isolationist foundations of Republican foreign policy, instead insisting that it, too, must be based on principle. While Reagan often managed to persuade himself that whatever was good for the United States was also consistent with principle, the fact is that he established ideology as the foundation of Republican foreign policy.

Under Clinton, the role reversal of the Carter-Reagan era began to give way to traditional approaches to foreign affairs. When Clinton wanted to bomb Kosovo, Trent Lott responded that he ought to "give peace a chance." In the 2000 campaign, Al Gore vigorously defended the use of force to promote American principles while George Bush called for "humility" and Condi Rice expounded on the virtues of realism.

But times they are a changin'. Few conservatives regretted the absence of humility in George Bush's approach to Iraq. While Democrats tried to avoid the whole issue, critics on the left demonstrated a commitment to multilateralism even stronger than Jimmy Carter's. Carter himself never conditioned his policies on the approval of semi-authoritarian states such as China and Russia. Thus Carter never found himself going against the grain of Wilson's democratic multilateral vision. (Although Jimmy Carter circa 2003 most certainly did.)

In contast, President Bush has gone far beyond President Reagan in committing himself to democratic principles as the foundation of American foreign policy. While there are definite grounds on which to criticize the President's implementation of such policies, his commitment to promoting democracy in Iraq has consummated the role reversal that began in the Carter-Reagan era. Strange as it sounds, Bush is a Wilsonian. And his critics tend to sound like Kissingerian pessimists who fret that intervention in Iraq will promote instability in the Middle East, or even an Arab backlash against the Western world.

As you might have guessed by now, I believe that the foundation of a liberal vision for American foreign policy must entail a return to the Wilsonian vision that animated American liberalism from the First World War until the tragedy of Vietnam. Perhaps the greatest flaw of such a foreign policy is that it does not provide Democratic candiates with a credible means of differentiating their views from that of the current administration.

But over time, that can be done. As Tom Friedman has written,

If Democrats' whole analysis of this war is determined by whether or not it helps Mr. Bush, then they are never going to play the role they must play -- constructive critics of how we rebuild Iraq.

This is such an important moment in U.S. foreign policy. How people view American power is at stake in the outcome in Iraq, and Democrats can't be missing in action. They have to help shape this moment, and not leave it to the Bush Pentagon. But it won't happen if Democrats are sulking in a corner, just trying to point to everything that is going wrong in Iraq, and not offering their ideas for making it better.

Why should Democrats trust the Bush people to win the peace in Iraq the way they won the war? It is clear the Bush team had no coherent postwar plan in place. This administration, with its deep mistrust for diplomacy and diplomats, may be way too ideological and Pentagon-centric for nation-building. We need alternative voices. What is the Democratic view on the proper role of the U.N. or NATO in rebuilding Iraq? How much emphasis do Democrats believe the U.S. should put into the Arab-Israeli peace process to support peace in Iraq? Is a principled and muscular internationalism now the private property of the Republican Party?

In other words, the Democrats will have to establish their Wilsonian credentials by demonstrating that they have better ideas than the GOP does about how to put Wilsonian principles into practice.

Can the Democrats establish such credentials in time for 2004? I don't know. If the Bush Administration's intermittent hostility to nation-building produces an embarrassment in postwar Iraq, the Democrats may have their chance. Still, it will be extremely hard to match the credibility of an President victorious in war.

Ultimately, what the Democrats need is a successful president from their own party who can demonstrate the efficacy of a Wilsonian approach to national security. In that sense, Bill Clinton did his party a tremendous service. But his achievements in Bosnia and Kosovo have now been overshadowed.

The road ahead for liberal foreign policy will be long and difficult. But there is a Wilsonian light at the end of the tunnel.

UPDATE: If you think my response to Totten goes into too much detail, then take a look at Tristero's statistical analysis of it. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:48 AM by David Adesnik  

41 VS. 43: The President has demonstrated that he is an even greater warrior than his father. But is he as good at making peace? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:45 AM by David Adesnik  

SMOKING GUN: Judith Miller isn't exactly Ms. Credibility these days, but she now reports that one of Saddam's mobile weapons labs has been definitively identified. If correct, this will mitigate the weapons inspectos' intense frustration, as described in the WaPo. If not, it's just one more false expectation to be buried along with the rest. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:38 AM by David Adesnik  

MEA CULPA: The New York Times has an extremely long and apologetic article describing the work of Jayson Blair, a Times correspondent who perpetrated massive journalistic fraud. The article opens as follows:

A staff reporter for The New York Times committed frequent acts of journalistic fraud while covering significant news events in recent months, an investigation by Times journalists has found. The widespread fabrication and plagiarism represent a profound betrayal of trust and a low point in the 152-year history of the newspaper.

Even though I am a frequent and fierce critic of the NYT's reporting and commentary, I take no pleasure in reading of this deception. I never have and never will suspect the Times as a whole of distorting or inventing basic facts in order to provide evidence for its preferred point of view.

What I take issue with is the how the Times presents the facts and how it decides which facts are worth presenting. Such decisions are the subject of legitimate controversy. As I see it, there is no connection between what happened with Jayson Blair and what I find objectionable about the Times' coverage.

The New York Times is one of the great institutions of American life and will emerge from this scandal as a stronger paper.

UPDATE: CalPundit covers the racial aspect of the Blair story. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:20 AM by David Adesnik  

RECONSTRUCTION BLUES: The WaPo has another front-page indictment of the occupation, which focuses on the reassignment of senior officials, including the probable departure of Jay Garner.

Inside the paper there's a report on American efforts to start up a broadcast news service for the people Iraq. This definitely sounds like something the US should've planned for in advance. After all, Iran already has a 24-hour pro-Shi'ite television channel in operation which splits its time between criticizing Saddam and criticizing the US.

There are some indications, though, that the United States' lack of planning reflects a definite fear of being perceived as an occupying power. The WaPo reports that

U.S. officials interviewed today said the U.S. presence in Iraq would likely become more assertive in coming weeks. The absence of strong leadership -- Iraqi or American -- is a subject of intense complaint among ordinary Iraqis, who are struggling with a lack of civil order after 35 years of authoritarian rule.

One senior American official in Baghdad said the U.S. team had been so concerned about being seen as an occupying power that officials were overly reluctant to exert their full authority.

"We came in here hands-off," the official said. "There was a bit of ambivalence between being an authority and being authoritarian. We were so concerned about being authoritarian that we didn't exercise authority."

Ironic, huh? But the fact is you just can't have it both ways. If you have soldiers on the ground you are an occupying power. If you try to pretend that you are not, things just get worse and you get blamed for it because, after all, you are the occupying power.

As I've said many times before, occupying forces win respect not by taking a hands-off approach, but by fulfilling their mission to restore basic services and promote a democratic political order. In short, the US occupation will be judged on the basis of what it achieves, not what its critics say during the first months of the occupation.

After all, if the US had been more assertive, the critics would now be saying that they are too assertive. Fact is, an occupying power cannot escape criticism. The euphoria of liberation cannot last. But we can wing enduring respect over time by giving the people of Iraq what they've never had before: freedom. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:15 PM by David Adesnik  

STILL MORE POLARIZATION: Boomshock explains that while the American electorate has not become more polarized, partisan activists have. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:52 PM by David Adesnik  

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ART UPDATED: A couple of days ago I questioned the WaPo's report that investigators have recovered 700 artifacts and 39,400 manuscripts stolen from Iraq's National Museum.

Now, the Times of London is reporting that 700 artifacts and 39,400 manuscripts believed to be missing were actually found in the museum's own vaults.

That's a pretty different story, huh? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:14 PM by Patrick Belton  

WHO'S WHO IN IRAQ: Interested in the unfolding of Iraqi politics, but not sure who's who? Then OxBlog's viewer's guide to Iraqi politics is for you..... This is very much a work in progress, so please e-mail if you have suggestions or improvements....

The INC

The Iraqi National Congress was founded in 1992 in northern Iraq with the support of the two principal Kurdish militias (the KDP and PUK, see below) and several other Sunni, Shi'a, and Christian opposition groups. The meeting resulted in the election of a National Assembly. In March 1995, it attempted to overthrow the Ba'ath regime, but despite initial successes it was crippled by infighting within the opposition, particularly within the Kurdish factions (see below). (See their website.)

Ahmed Chalabi The chair of the INC's executive committee, the 58-year old Chalabi is a secular Shi'a from a prominent banking family. Dr. Chalabi established a government-in-exile in London following the INC's failed uprising in 1995 and the execution of many of the uprising's leaders the subsequent year. Chalabi's support within Iraq appears likely to have been fairly small before the invasion, although Iraqis supportive of the U.S. military offensive have welcomed him, possibly providing him with a natural constituency. Chalabi has been dogged, especially recently, by accusations of financial misdeeds; these stem principally from his 1992 conviction in absentia by a Jordanian court to 22 years in prison for bank fraud (in connection with the Petra Bank he founded in 1977, and which collapsed in 1990), but also from State Department questioning of the INC's accounting practices.

Kanan Makiya A secular professor of Middle Eastern studies at Brandeis and director of a Kurdish genocide project at Harvard, Makiya is popular in the U.S. media and has published broadly, including in TNR Online, and a 1989 book on rights abuses in Iraq, entitled Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq. He directs the Iraq Foundation. (See his PBS profile, Salon's profile of him, some of his publications, and some more of them.)

Free Iraqi Forces About 700 Iraqis (including Dr. Chalabi) were airlifted by the US military on April 6 to the Nasiriya area, in an effort to help stabilize civil affairs in southern Iraq. There is some suspicion that the airlifted Free Iraqi Forces may have included Shi'a Muslims sympathetic or loyal to Shi'a Islamist groups.

Mohammad al-Zubaidi, who was recently forcibly removed as self-appointed mayor of Baghdad, is reported to represent a competitive wing to Chalabi's. Nicknamed "the wolf," he headed an INC intelligence team from exile.

Kurds

Iraq's Kurds have sought autonomy, with varying degrees of intensity, since their incorporation into the Iraqi state as part of the WWI settlement. Encourage to rebel in 1991 shortly after the first Gulf War, the Kurdish rebellion was unsuccessful and led to the exile of over 1.5 million Iraqi Kurdish refugees. The memory of the failed rebellion has seared Kurdish political consciousness and led to some suspicion on their part of the second Gulf War. The two Kurdish factions jointly have 40,000-60,000 soldiers. However, they struggled with each other fiercely in May 1994, over territory, revenues from customs checkpoints, and control over the Irbil-based Kurdish government.

Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) Founded by Mullah Mustafa Barzini, now led by his son Masud Barzani. Barzani's brother Idris was killed while leading Kurdish units against Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. The KDP received backing from Baghdad in its 1994 struggles with the PUK. At the last minute, the KDP pulled out of an INC offensive against Iraqi forces in March 1995, contributing to the offensive's defeat. (See the KDP's website)

Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) Often described as more educated, cosmpolitan, and ideologically to the left than the KDP, Jalal Talabani's PUK split from the KDP in 1965. The PUK had recourse to Iran during its intersectarian struggles with the KDP in 1994. (The PUK's website)

Kurdish Islamist Parties

Islamic Movement of Iraqi Kurdistan (IMIK) The IMIK is led by Shaykh Ali Abd-al Aziz and based in Halabja. It has been aligned with the PUK since 1998.

Ansar al-Islam Ansar al-Islam is led by Mullah Krekar (who maintains his residence in Norway), and has its base in the north. Previously known as Jund al-Islam, it split from the Islamic Movement of Iraqi Kurdistan (IMIK) in 1998 and is suspected of linkages to Al-Qaeda, including giving refuge to Al Qaeda soldiers fleeing the fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Mullah Krekar shares a spiritual mentor, the Palestinian theologian Shaykh Abdullah al-Azzam, with bin Laden. Jordanian Abu Musab Zarqawi, a veteran of Aghanistan who has been linked to Al Qaeda plots to spread ricin in Europe, is reportedly commander of Ansar al-Islam's Arab faction. Ansar's strength is estimated at 8,000 sympathizers and 600 fighters, concentrated in the Khurmal region, where its central base in that city was captured during U.S. operations in Iraq.

Shi'a Islamist Parties

Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) Began in 1982 as an Iranian instrument of influence over Shi'a opposition groups. The Ayatollah Khomeini selected its leader, Ayatollah Muhammad Baqr al-Hakim. Having fled to Iran in 1980 during a crackdown on Shi'a groups in Iraq, he returned publicly to Iraq on May 10. The SCIRI aligned with the INC in the early 1990s, then distanced itself progressively from the umbrella organization in the ensuing decade. Its strength consists of roughly 5,000 fighters in its Badr Corps (some estimates, possibly untrustworthy, place the Badr Corps' strength at twice or three times as large), led by Muhammad Baqr's brother Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim and funded and provided with weapons by Iranian intelligence. (See their website.)

Da'wa Party Aligned with SCIRI, Da'wa was founded in 1957 by another of Ayatollah Khomeini's associates, Ayatollah Mohammad Baqr al Sadr. Baqr Al Sadr was hung in 1980 for fomenting Islamist unrest in Iraq, and attempting to assassinate Tariq Aziz. Hezbollah's founders were strongly influenced by Da'wa, and linked release of U.S. hostages in Lebanon to the release of 17 Da'wa prisoners held by Kuwait for the attempted assassination of the Amir in 1985 and attacks in December 1983 on the U.S. and French embassies in Kuwait City.

Sadr Clan Clan members of the deceased Da'wa leader constitute another important Islamist force in Iraq. One young clan member, Moqtada al-Sadr, has a following that is particularly strong in the Shi'a portions of Baghdad, which renamed their district from "Saddam City" to "Sadr City." His strength is counterbalanced by his comparatively young age (30) and the repercussions from his involvement in the recent assassination of a competing and reformist ayatollah, Grand Ayatollah Abd al-Majid Khoi, on his arrival to Najaf from London.

Ayatollah Sistani Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, a respected reformist Shi'a cleric based in the theological-school city of Najaf, is a potential kingmaker in intra-Shi'a struggles. Like Khoi, he opposes a clerical role in government affairs. The crude attempts of the Sadr clan at intimidating Ayatollah Sistani into aligning with their faction may succeed in pushing Sistani toward the competing SCIRI camp.

Islamic Amal Organization The smaller group Islamic Amal, led by Mohammad Taqi Modarassi, is aligned with SCIRI and has been active in Bahrain as well as Iraq.




Sources: Kenneth Katzman, "Iraq: U.S. Regime Change Efforts and Post-War Governance," CRS Report for Congress, April 23, 2003. PBS has a brief "Who's Who in the Iraqi Opposition." Other sources are linked to in the text. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:11 PM by Patrick Belton  

ON THIS DAY, THE BOOKS BURNED: As the NYT's editorial page points out this morning, totalitarian regimes always begin by targeting their most articulate opponents.

To wit, it was on May 10, 1933 that the Deutsche Studentenschaft der Berliner Hochsculen, a Nazi student group and front at the University of Berlin, burned in the Opernplatz the works of Freud, Marx, Mann, Remarque, Zola, Jack London, and H.G. Wells, as well as (Goebbels's phrase) "the trash and filth of Jewish 'asphalt' literati." And the concentration camp at Dachau would be opened within the week, under SS officer Theodor Eicke's command.

Such villainy did not cease at Nuremberg, but continues wherever there are not democracy and the freedoms of speech, belief, economic opportunity, and physical security. Freedom House documents in its annual global survey the utter lack of these freedoms today in China, Cuba, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, North Korea, Somalia, Eritrea, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan; and despicably, the first six of these are permitted even to sit on the UN's commission charged with monitoring and condemning repressive governments.

And equally with respect to the task of extending these freedoms, and with regard to all those who suffered and continue to suffer their absence: we must never, ever, forget. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:44 AM by David Adesnik  

SETBACK FOR ANTI-SEMITISM: The UK's Association of University Teachers has voted overwhelmingly to reject a boycott of Israeli institutions of higher learning. Advocates of the plan referred to Israel as "today's apartheid regime." (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:36 AM by David Adesnik  

DOUBLE YIKES! Seven nuclear research sites have now been looted. What's missing? Nobody knows. Yikes! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:28 AM by David Adesnik  

OLIVE BRANCH? The US starts to disarm the People's Mujahedeen while the Iranian ambassador to the UN says his government has no interest in developing WMD because

We also understand that developing nuclear arms and other weapons of mass destruction does not enhance Iran's security. That is why it is party to more international disarmament treaties than almost any other country in the region. As for recent complaints by the Bush administration, Iran would have no difficulty showing maximum transparency with regard to its nuclear energy program, provided that reciprocal guarantees for access to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes can be provided by the international community, particularly the United States.

Keep your fingers crossed. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:41 AM by Patrick Belton  

OH HIS PROPHETIC SOUL: The administration wisely takes Daniel Drezner's suggestion and proposes today a U.S.-Middle East free trade area, though it isn't clear yet whether it will be a club of democracies as Daniel suggested. Our favorite Chicagoan exercises right of reply here. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:29 PM by David Adesnik  

POLARIZATION: Boomshock has come up with a raft of statistical evidence to support my comments about political polarization in the US. Much obliged! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:21 PM by David Adesnik  

WHAT BLAIR should've said to Putin. What he actually said. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:14 PM by David Adesnik  

BELGRAVIA DISPATCH IS BACK! Greg brings us Ken Pollack's thoughts on where the weapons are and Noam Chomsky's thoughts on where they aren't. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:59 PM by David Adesnik  

JEWISH NEO-CON STRAUSSIAN CABAL: That's who controls US foreign policy according to the New York Times (aka the Jewish neo-lib Keynesian cabal). The problem is that the Times has no idea what a Straussian is, although Josh Cherniss clearly does. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:35 PM by David Adesnik  

WILL TYSSE (who just finished his exams!) appreciates Maureen Dowd who appreciates Ali G. who is not appreciated by either Naomi Wolf or American neo-Nazis. Got that? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:05 PM by David Adesnik  

HOW'S THE RECONSTRUCTION GOING? I've got no idea. This front-page story in the WaPo says everything is a mess. Another front-pager on Tuesday said the same thing, specifically about southern Iraq. Columnist David Ignatius says that "Postwar reconstruction is pretty much where it was a month ago, as Baghdad was falling -- which is to say, nowhere."

On the other hand, Jay Garner (cited in the WaPo) announced at a press conference that More than half of Baghdad's police force is back on the job, 30 percent of the capital's schools are open and all 12 major hospitals are functioning, he said. About 50 percent of Baghdad's electricity demands are being met, he added, while Basra, the country's second-largest city, has 24-hour-a-day power for the first time in 12 years.In spite of its intense criticism of Garner, the WaPo article doesn't provide any reason to think that Garner's statistics are off-base. It also reports that "predictions of starvation and epidemics have failed to materialize." Not bad.

What might be bad is that Ba'ath party members are returning to high-level positions in the interim government. American officials seem to be doing their best to keep out anyone who committed human rights violations, but I'd prefer to see some indications that the US is getting ready for a comprhensive de-Ba'athification process.

What's definitely bad is that the administration -- well-known for its obsession with secrecy -- seems unwilling to share any of its plans for Iraq with Congress or the public. This is exactly what frustrates even those of us who think the administration is doing a pretty good job so far. How can you give someone the benefit of the doubt if you know they will refuse to admit their mistakes?

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:49 PM by David Adesnik  

I SCREWED UP: Two weeks ago, OxBlog expressed concern about the Bush administration's decision to sign a truce with the terrorist group knows as the Mujahedeen e-Khalq or People's Mujahedeen. However, after reading this story in today's WaPo, I realized that I got everything about the truce wrong.

In my initial post, I described the Mujahedeen as "pro-Iranian", when in fact they are an organization of Iranian exiles devoted to overthrowing the government in Teheran. So how did I manage to get things so precisely wrong? While the primary cause of this fiasco is obviously my own incompetence, I think Kos and Jim Hoagland -- both of whom I cited in my original post -- contributed as well.

Hoagland described the Mujahedeen as

an Iranian exile group with a long record of terrorism, banditry and support and direction by Saddam Hussein's regime. Under the reported terms of the capitulation, the Mujahedeen will stop fighting U.S. forces and be allowed to store much of the artillery and the antiaircraft guns they received from the shattered Iraqi regime.

Sort of makes it seem like they've been fighting the US on Saddam's behalf, huh? Actually, the Mujahedeen pretty much sat out the war and want to work with the US to oust the fundamentalist government in Teheran.

Because of these shared interests, the NYT portrayed the ceasefire as a self-serving and hypocritical willingness to work with terrorists when doing so benefits the United States. But as today's WaPo reports, the President has decided to demand that the Mujahedeen surrender. Why? Because the US officially lists them as terrorists.

According to Kos,

The People's Mujahedeen, an Iranian terrorist organization based in Iraq, is clearly one of the baddies...What should the US do? Eradicate them of course. They are terrorists, after all, and isn't that what we do with terrorists?

Now, I probably should've figured out that an Iranian terrorist organization based in Iraq must be anti-Teheran, not pro-. But I wouldn't've minded a tip from Kos, especially the last section of his post talks about Iranian infiltration of occupied Iraq, which makes it seem like the Mujahedeen are part of the effort.

Finally, it's not even clear that the Mujahedeen are terrorists. According to Patrick Clawson (as cited in the WaPo),

it was "silly to list them as a terrorist group," because they have not attacked U.S. targets since the shah of Iran fell in January 1979. "They are not engaged in terror attacks," he said. "They do armed attacks against Iran."

It seems Clinton put the Mujahedeen on the list in order to show Teheran that the US was not conspiring against. Even so, demanding their surrender is probably a good thing. Anyone who worked that closely with Saddam really can't be trusted.

So, to get the point and sum things up: I goofed. Bad.

UPDATE: Reader AB actually pointed my mistake out to me just after the initial post went up, but I didn't recognize the significance of what he was saying. Bad hair day, huh?
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:15 PM by Patrick Belton  

NOTE TO FRIENDS AND CLASSMATES: Namely, don't go into politics in North Carolina. That is, not unless you are both fond of NASCAR car racing (already going beyond two out of three OxBloggers; David, however, was an young afficionado after finding out at an early age he could set speed records due to the 4th Street-intersecting-11th Street-anomaly in the West Village) , and a better practitioner than North Carolingian Governor Mike Easley - who in an attempt today to impersonate a NASCAR racer, wrecked a racing car against a track wall while driving an estimated 165 mph.

"It was fun for about four or five laps, but the last part wasn't too good," said the Governor, adding "I was pushing and the car was running tight and it got loose on me and I wrecked," apparently attempting to salve his racetrack credibility by substituting competence in racing jargon for competence in the thing itself. Grasping a fading chance to commit yet one final paroxysm of gubernatorial judgment, he autographed the crumpled Chevrolet as it was towed away.
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:56 PM by Patrick Belton  

THE MAJESTY OF THE LAWS: The Lord Chancellor's Department, which overseas the British judiciary, has hired an "image consultant," who suffers from the mild occupational impairment that she is on crack. Ms. Henderson, director of a fashion consultancy, has produced a portfolio of suggested revisions in British judicial attire (currently ignonimously displayed at the bottom of the BBC's website). About 90 percent of the image consultant's suggested "improvements" look like the worst variants of Star Trek uniforms (i.e., think Star Trek: The Motion Picture - one can make these sorts of allusions in internet media), while the remainder resemble 18th century Puritan clerical garb. Ms. Henderson says, among other brilliant things:

The black gown is very threatening while the red is more vibrant, friendly and stands out more. (She also opines that the wig "has to go.")

Heaven forbid that the legal profession would strive to embody virtues other than being fun, friendly, and standing out in a crowd (the last of which I'd actually always naively thought wearing wigs and robes accomplished rather nicely). Here's hoping the natural sense of law's majesty possessed by the British bar and bench will outweigh these efforts at spring fashion remodeling.

UPDATE: Eugene agrees. Kevin likes red.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:24 PM by David Adesnik  

BLOGOSPHERE RE-RUNS: Just about every site except for OxBlog has posted a link to Noam Chomsky's commentary on the Lord of the Rings. However, I didn't have a chance to read it until now because my mind was focused on more important subjects like X-Men and adultery. But now that I have read it -- and laughed a lot in the process -- I think that you should, too!

(And don't forget Part Two. When Part Three shows up I'll link to that as well.)

PLUS: Andrew Sullivan on Hobgoblins. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:56 AM by David Adesnik  

POSITIVE THINKING: Daniel Drezner points to some good news in the Middle East. But the news in Afghanistan is bad, even if Donald Rumsfeld is embarrasingly unwilling to admit it. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:20 PM by Patrick Belton  

A GOOD PUBLIC FACE FOR NATO: Glenn was nice enough to point out this Norwegian blogger's page about Norwegian Minister of Defense Kristin Devold, who is one of the top two contenders to succeed my former boss, the venerable Lord Robertson, as NATO's Secretary-General.

Some of you might unfairly assume we were only talking about Ms. Devold merely because she's gorgeous, blonde, and has been seen in public in skin-tight leather pants emblazoned with American flags. You underestimate us pitiably. Here's an interview in which she describes her work boosting defense spending in Norway and establishing the relationship of Norway (a non-EU member state) with the EU and with the other allies. And her competitor, Portuguese EU commissioner Antonio Vitorino, is here; here's an interview where he discusses fighting organized crime (Vitorino is a former judge on Portugal's Constitutional Court, who appears competent but with less expertise than Ms. Devold in foreign and security affairs; he also appears bespectacled and balding, but that's incidental dicta, as the constitutional lawyers say). So there.

Of course (and even though she may look better than Rummy in tight leather U.S. flag pants), Her Excellency ain't nearly the most beautiful foreign policy hand in my book. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:12 PM by David Adesnik  

BLAME CLINTON: Face it, Patrick. Ever since Monica-gate, American adulterers have had lower standards. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:02 PM by David Adesnik  

LINCOLN PLAWG answers some of the questions I raised about Fallujah.

Just to clarify a bit for those of you who are going to read LP's post: I argued that Shi'ites may not sympathize with the Fallujah victims not just because the victims were Sunnis, but because there are indications that those victims may still support Saddam and the Ba'ath. In fact, the first Falluja protest march apparently began as a celebration of Saddam's birthday. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:49 PM by Patrick Belton  

NOT EXACTLY MATA HARI: Let's just say, for the purposes of argument, that after a long and distinguished career in counterintelligence, you for some reason decided to betray your country, wife, and profession, and commit adultery with a foreign agent. You know, the concept seems somehow unaesthetic to me, but hey, as they say in Brooklyn, de gustibus non est disputandum.... But, not to be petty, why would you pick her?

This is a legitimate question. Jim: we're waiting to hear from you, if you haven't used your one phone call yet..... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:23 PM by David Adesnik  

POKER UPDATE: CBS News seems to have the same as idea as Josh. Alongside this short description of the DIA's deck of cards, there is a pop-up link called "House of Cards" which allows you to scroll through the deck and check the current status of the officials on each card.

It turns out that selling replica decks has become quite a big business over the past few weeks. You can get the details from Forbes. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:06 PM by Patrick Belton  

CITATION INDEX: Exciting news! So Rachel gets interviewed by Voice of America, and I... well, I get to find out that an article I wrote three years ago on migrant child labor is being used as an example of bibliographic citations in a Californian college. Hey, you take your breaks where you can get 'em. (And note to Kev: this is part one of the good coverage of California that you'd been asking for from out here on the east coast....)

A student hit me up for "showing bias because [I make] you feel bad for these children." Also, it's a non-scholarly item, since it wasn't hard to read....

The author of this piece is Patrick Belton.  The publisher is the Peace Review Journal.  It was written in 2000, but the there was so much information.  The information does show bias because it makes you feel bad for these children and get mad at the government for not doing anything.  It then later states how you can avoid all these foods that are picked by children.  So it is biased it's just not as aggressive as other books and articles are.  No advertising here.  The only topic covered is that we are not aware children are working for the food that we eat and how these children's lives are.  It offers information on just one region.  It doesn't go all over the place and not make anything specific.  This is a non-scholarly item because it just doesn't seem too hard to read.  In fact, it's very easy to read.  This is a secondary source because to get this information he had to go out there and talk to these children. 

Thanks, Jessica! Next time I'll be more scholarly, I promise.
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:53 PM by David Adesnik  

"RAIDERS OF THE LOST ART" is the first in a series of posts by Jim Miller which cuts through all of the myth that now surround the looting of Iraq's National Museum. Jim was actually far out ahead of everyone on this one, arguing as early as April 20th that the media were getting the story very, very wrong.

One of the most important points Jim tries to drive home is that much of the looting was done by high-ranking museum officials, rather than those who poured in from the street. Interestingly, there are also indications that some of the missing items were not stolen, but taken in order to protect them from looters and thieves.

(If you want to read all of Jim's posts, start here and work backwards.)

One question that still remains open is just how many items have, in fact, been lost. Yesterday, I posted the Chicago Tribune's suggestion that the number is 38. Today, the WaPo says that 38 "high value" items were missing and that over 700 artifacts have already been returned along with 39,400 manuscripts. That last number doesn't exactly make sense to me. Did someone return them in a truck?

Anyhow, KG aus Deutschland points out that the current list of missing items is far from complete, since so much of the Museum is covered in rubble. Or as DeutschlandRadio puts it,

Man hat noch keinen richtigen Überblick. Man war zwar im Keller des Magazins. Es gibt aber noch keinen Strom, so dass man nur mit Taschenlampen einen ersten Eindruck gewinnen konnte. Die genaue Zahl wird man erst nach einer exakten Inventur feststellen können, und das wird viele Monate dauern.

What? Didn't I tell you that reading German is a prerequisite of visiting OxBlog?

Moving on, the BBC reports that

The looting has been described as "the crime of the century" and the US military has been accused of not doing enough to stop it.

(Thanks to GD for the link.)

For a pretty good defense of the US military, see this post from Jim Miller, which I mentioned above. But how ironic is it that the BBC wants to speculate about this being the "crime of the century"? Surely one of the horrific tortures devised by Saddam & Sons is more worthy of that distinction.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:07 PM by David Adesnik  

X-MEN 2: Haven't seen it yet, but the reviews are pretty impressive. Jacob Levy has put up his thoughts on the film and on the X-Men general. Matt Yglesias liked the movie as well, but has decided to make fun of Jacob Levy for knowing too much about comic books.

Kevin Drum was less enthusiastic, saying the movie was good "if you're partial to that kind of thing." Which is like telling your gay friends they should see the newest Jenna Jameson flick "if they're partial to that kind of thing." But I guess Kevin is partial (to the X-Men, not Jenna), since he was geeky enough to criticize Professor X for having inadequate security systems installed at X-Men headquarters.

One last thing: read the comments attached to Kevin and Matt's posts. My favorite is this one, from Eric, who says:

I don't know where some of you are getting the idea that the X-Men are liberals.

Xavier's school is an exclusive private school. Liberals would put the mutant kids in public schools because it's more egalitarian.

The X-Men are not asking for affirmative action/preferential treatment for their favored minority group; merely that they be treated like other people.

Liberal X-men would be spending their time trying to understand the root causes of anti-mutant sentiment, blaming themselves, rather than fighting against their enemies.

In a liberal version of the first X-Men movie, the UN would have sent inspectors to the Statue of Liberty to successfully disarm Magneto without any violence, rather than having the X-Men attack unilaterally.

The same people who support restrictive laws on guns because guns are dangerous are obviously the same people who support restrictive laws on mutants because mutants are dangerous. The X-Men realize that, like a gun, a mutant power is bad when it is used for bad purposes, but good when it is used for good purposes.

Wolverine is hardly the posterboy for the anti-death penalty movement. And liberals think the EPA should be doing something about second-hand smoke from his cigar.

Actually, I think this all just goes to show that the X-Men are Jewish. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:45 PM by David Adesnik  

LIEBERMAN AHEAD IN OXBLOG POLL: In a recent survey of OxBlog contributors, Joe Lieberman commands a solid 33.3% support rating. This has put him far ahead of all other Democratic primary candidates except for Al Sharpton, who also stands at 33.3%. There is considerable reason to suspect, however, that Sharpton's support reflects a calculated effort by conservative OxBloggers to embarrass the Democratic Party, thus hurting it chances in the November election.

The remaining 33.3% of OxBloggers are undecided.

The critical factor accounting for Lieberman's impressive level of support is his principled dedication to promoting democracy in Iraq. On February 26 -- the same day that President Bush gave his first major address on postwar Iraq -- Lieberman delivered a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in which he described how the United States might go about achieving the objectives that the President would go on to elaborate later that evening.

Highlights of the speech included Lieberman's statement that our commitment to postwar Iraq

need[s] depth because our allies, the Iraqi people and the region need to know that our interest in Iraq and the region is not a fleeting fancy but part of a broad strategic and moral commitment to bring progress and security to the Muslim world.

Lieberman also stands out because of his commitment to rebuilding Afghanistan

where we fought and won a war but have not yet won the peace. As a result, what began as a lesson in the power and precision of the American military has devolved into a cautionary tale of the problems that result from engaging the world too haphazardly, too arrogantly, and too belatedly...

The transitional government's control over the country is now so weak, in fact, that some refer to President Hamid Karzai as the Mayor of Kabul. And non-governmental organizations working in Kabul report that coordination among their donors, the military, U.S.A.I.D., and the U.N. remains badly disorganized.

There does seem to be some concern however that Lieberman has excessive faith in a multilateral approach to the rebuilding of Iraq. As he remarked,

the Administration should begin working with our international allies to name an international civilian administrator—perhaps an experienced government official from an Arab nation—who will guide Iraq in the critical transition period between war's immediate aftermath and Iraqi self-rule.

An Arab official? I guess that would be OK as long as said official had extensive experience working for a democratic government. So does anyone know the name of those eight or so Arabs in the Israeli Knesset?

Speaking of Israel, Lieberman made some insightful remarks about achieving peace in that troubled nation. As he rightly observed,

It's no longer enough for the President to say he supports a democratic Palestine living in peace alongside a secure and sovereign Israel while doing nothing to help produce that outcome on the ground. America must re-engage without delay, expend political capital, and help Israel and responsible Palestinians move beyond the violent and debilitating stalemate that is devastating lives on both sides.

That must start with a 100 percent effort by the Palestinian Authority to stop terrorism against Israelis, and an Israeli commitment to react positively and concretely to such an effort. I believe there are ripening conditions for a very high-level American engagement to help both sides move toward the positive goals each has spoken of.

It's also nice to see that Lieberman has continued to be an outspoken advocate of promoting democracy in Iraq. On CBS' "Face The Nation", Lieberman argued that

one of the things we learned during the '90s in the Balkans, when we set a deadline, is that deadlines are arbitrary and don't make much sense, that the deadline has to be when the mission is completed.

And the mission is completed when real security is achieved and there's an Iraqi government that is stable, that represents the Iraqi people, that is in charge.

Damn right. Now it's time for the rest of the Democratic candidates to step up to the plate. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:16 PM by David Adesnik  

GLOBOPHOBIA: The war is over. How do I know? Not because George Bush says so. But because Oxford's activist cabal has taken down its anti-war posters and replaced them with anti-globalization ones. In case you haven't heard, capitalist-led globalization is destroying the welfare state, taking power out of the hands of elected governments and giving it to multinational corporations.

Actually, it isn't. How do I know? Because OxFriend David Pozen has just published an article in a journal by the name of Parallax which argues very persuasively that welfare states on both sides of the Atlantic have held their own or even expanded despite the competitive pressures of international market integration.

Now, some of you are probably saddened by the thought that your welfare states are going to survive this corporate onslaught. But David says that there's good news for you folks as well. The welfare state will have to adjust to market pressures in order to survive in the coming decades. Which pressures are those, you might ask? I'm not saying. Because if I did, you might just take my word for it instead of reading David's excellent article which explains it all far better than I could. So go read it! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:03 PM by Patrick Belton  

A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Brahms. Mentored by Schumann, on settling in Vienna he was greeted by many as the successor to Beethoven, and in contrast to the more heady romanticism of Wagner and Liszt, his romantic harmonic idiom was always blended with classicism, resulting in fresh and novel uses of the technical forms of counterpoints and variations on a theme. He moved away from the programmatic music of the romantics, toward reviving "absolute" music, existing on its own terms as interplays of sound rather than depiction of a scene or narrative; and wrote brilliantly across genres, from folk lieder inspired by Teutonic pasts with their beautiful marriage of voice and piano, to the finest ecclestical choral music that had been produced since Bach, and to excruciatingly challenging piano work and orchestral concerti and ensemble pieces for most instruments in the repertory.

Humm yourself off to sleep tonight (or this afternoon, for the more slothfully-inclined) with Valse No. 15 (i.e., Lullaby). Not sleeping? That's all right - try the Hungarian Dances, then. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:47 PM by David Adesnik  

GOP GAMBLING HABIT: I don't begrudge Bill Bennett's critics their chance to thrash his just-about-hypocritical gambling habit. In fact, I never liked the guy much myself.

Still, all this criticism does sound sort of petty at a time when there are much more serious issues on the national agenda. Bennett's gambling falls, I think, somewhere below the Gary Condit story on the ladder of importance.

But if you want something to criticize Bennett for, try this: his views on homosexuality are about as sophisticated as Rick Santorum's.

On a related note, Stanely Kurtz isn't happy with the blogosphere's vicious abuse of his sober and reflective thoughts on why homosexuality is a threat to society. In Kurtz's defense, I will say that there really are no signs of hatred or homphobia in his argument. Even so, he can't come up with any arguments to support his points that aren't patently absurd.

What I think this really shows is that there simply is no coherent case to be made for outlawing homosexuality or banning gay marriage. As numerous readers have pointed out, the Supreme Court probably shouldn't strike down sodomy laws by invoking a right to privacy. But not one of those readers actually said that they favor such discriminatory laws. All in all, I have to agree with Andrew Sullivan. Conservative logic supports gay marriage 100%. Only conservative homophobia prevents the GOP from recognizing that. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:11 PM by David Adesnik  

GREAT FISKINGS IN HISTORY: While one often thinks of fisking as a literary form brought into existence by the internet revolution, I have now discovered evidence that fisking was popular even in the age of bricks and mortar. While doing some research for my dissertation, I came across the following article in the March 1st, 1982 issue of Newsweek, entitled "Lyndon B. Reagan on Vietnam":

A reporter at last week's White House news conference asked if there was a "secret CIA plan" for El Salvador like the one to get the United States involved in Vietnam in the 1960s. The President denied there was such a Vietnam plan -- although the CIA did operate secretly there in 1954 -- and then gave his own skewed Vietnam history. Below, what Reagan said, and what really happened.

"If I recall correctly, when France gave up Indochina as a colony, the leading nations of the world met in Geneva in regard to helping those colonies become independent nations. And since North and South Vietnam had been previous to colonization two separate countries, provisions were made that these two countries could by a vote of all their people together decide whether they wanted to be one country or not."

Before French colonization, Vietnam was one country divided into three provinces -- Cochin China in the south, Annam in the center and Tonkin in the north. France reunited Vietnam under Emperor Bao Dai, but much of the country remained loyal to nationalist leader Ho Chi Minh. The 1954 Geneva conference called for a temporary partition of north and south until reunification elections were held two years later.

"And there wasn't anything surreptitious about it, but when Ho Chi Minh refused to participate in such an election and there was provision that the peoples of both countries could cross the border and live in the other country if they wanted to, and when they began leaving by the thousands and thousands from North Vietnam to live in South Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh closed the border and again violated that part of the agreement."

It was South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, after deposing Bao Dai, who refused to partiicipate in the elections. Senior U.S. officials favored delaying the vote because it appeared that Ho Chi Minh would win and that Vietnam wouId be unified under him. In 1954 the CIA began a covert operation to try to destabilize Ho Chi Minh in the north.

"And openly, our country sent military advisers there to help a country which had been a colony have such things as a national-security force, an army if you might say, or a military, ,o defend itself. And they were doing this. I recall correctly, also in civilian clothes, no weapons, until they began being blown up where they lived, in walking down the street by people riding by on bicycles and throwing pipe bombs at them, and then they were permitted to carry side arms or wear uniforms..."

Uniformed American military advisers trained Vietnamese forces in this period. Terrorist attacks against Americans had not yet become a serious problem.

"But it was totally a program until John F. Kennedy, when these attacks and forays became so great, that John F. Kennedy authorized the sending in of a division of marines, and that was the first move toward combat moves in Vietnam..."

President Kennedy did not send ground-combat units to Vietnam. He did authorize "combat support" of Vietnamese troops -- including armed-helicopter and fighter-plane units and, eventually, 19,000 advisers. President Johnson sent the first Marine combat brigade to Vietnam in 1965.

FYI, critics of US involvement in El Salvador constantly compared it to our involvement in Vietnam and insisted that the President had not learned the lessons of that earlier conflict. Well, perhaps not. But who has time to study history when busy fighting Communism? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:42 PM by Patrick Belton  

ANY READERS IN DETROIT?: I'll be heading there for a few days to do research for a piece on Islam in America. Anybody want to put me up? (I'll promise for my part to provide a constant stream of pithy political commentary and amusing odd stories....) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:50 AM by Patrick Belton  

EVERYBODY'S GONE SURFIN': AP reports that MSN's division in Britain is currently developing... an iLoo. This, of course, to be a portable toilet with Hotmail access built in as Microsoft's slight touch of value-addition. Cute closing detail 1: The keyboards, per the article, will be waterproof. Cute closing detail 2: MSN officials are currently planning toilet paper imprinted with web addresses users may not have tried. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:50 PM by David Adesnik  

I WILL BE SO PISSED OFF if this turns out to be true. The Chicago Tribune reports that according to US Marines survey team, only 38 objects -- and not tens of thousands -- are missing from the Iraqi National Museum. (Although a considerable number of "small items not deemed suitable for display" have disappeared.)

Over at WSJ Online, James Taranto points out that while the media were playing up the Museum story, Qusay Hussein was benefitting from the proceeds of some much more serious looting. In fact, he stole so much cash from the Iraqi Central Bank (about $1 billion) in the last days before the war that it took three whole tractor trailers to cart it off.

Now why am I so pissed off? Because I thought the media would've learned a lesson from its premature criticism of the invasion plan. But no, it has decided to go ahead and wreck its credibility even more by showing that it is hunting for American failures rather than reporting the news. While this sort of fiasco may sound like a Republican wet dream, the fact is that we need a credible media because sooner or later something is going to go seriously wrong in Iraq and someone in the US government (possibly a Democrat -- lies, are after all, non-partisan) is going to try and cover it up.

Now let's go back to the Museum for a minute. It turns out that it was, in fact, the victim of serious looting. But those who broke in decided to steal the furniture and desks from the Museum's offices rather than take the antiquities. Huh? Does that mean that despite all their suffering were still too proud to steal what belongs to the people as a whole? Or were the looters so desperate that a chair had more significance in their minds than thousands of cultural artifacts that have no immediate, practical value? I just don't know.

By the way, it also seems that those objects which are missing were probably taken by professional thieves, not looters. So you can't exactly hold the US armed forces responsible that. Still, as a friend pointed at the pub a couple of hours ago, it still might've been a good thing to place some American guards outside the museum. Yeah, that's probably right. Still, grrrr! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:31 PM by David Adesnik  

THE PENTAGON PROPHET: I'm surprised I missed this WaPo profile of Paul Wolfowitz (aka "Wolfivitz") from a few weeks back. One of the most interesting things in the article is its observation:

Wolfowitz's preoccupation -- some say obsession -- with Saddam Hussein goes back to his first stint at the Pentagon, between 1977 and 1980, when he was asked to analyze military threats in the Persian Gulf region, particularly to oil-rich Saudi Arabia. Other officials focused on the threat from Iran, then in the throes of an Islamic revolution, and the Soviet Union. Wolfowitz thought the main threat came from Iraq, and called for the United States to pre-position military equipment in the region for use in a conflict.

A still-secret Pentagon paper Wolfowitz authored in 1979 included the line, "It seems likely that we and Iraq will increasingly be at odds."

Now some of you may be wondering "Just what the hell was Paul Wolfowitz doing at the Pentagon between 1977 and 1980?" Yes, it's true. Wolfowitz worked for Jimmy Carter. In fact he was even a registered Democrat at the time. (Which isn't to say that anyone at the Pentagon was listening to what Wolfowitz had to say.)

Anyway, right now, you're probably thinking to yourself either "Wow! Even Democrats can have great things to say about national security!" or "Anyone who knows that much about national security will eventually wind up becoming a Republican."

As for me, I'd like to think of Wolfowitz's political journey as an indication that your ideas are much more important than your party. Sometimes -- just sometimes -- politics can stop at the water's edge. (But when it does, the media takes over for the Democrats!) Of course, my interpretation is no less self-interested than either of the ones mentioned above, since my career may well depend on having others not care who I voted for in the last election.

The WaPo profile also contains this curious line:

In the Arab world, and much of Europe, Wolfowitz is often talked about as the leading light of a small band of neo-conservative thinkers who have allegedly hijacked U.S. foreign policy and launched it in dangerous new directions.

Uh, what about America, folks? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:42 PM by David Adesnik  

SCOTSMAN TO RULE IRAQ: Some time ago, Josh noted that -- in the space of a single article -- the BBC managed to mock the President's "verbal infelicities" while referring to one of his principal advisers as "Paul Wolfivitz".

Much less offensive and much more amusing is the belief of an NBC stenographer that one of the leading figures in the Iraqi National Congress is a Scotsman by the name of "Connon McKeia". So don't be surprised if the new Iraqi flag turns out to be plaid instead of black, white and red. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:04 PM by Patrick Belton  

RACHEL ON VOICE OF AMERICA: Rachel's interview on Voice of America (transcript), and the Real Audio version. You can read it before Rachel. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:16 PM by David Adesnik  

DOMINOS FALLING? Few ideas have been subjected to as much ridicule as the domino theory, which critics across the political spectrum hold responsible for the United States' most damaging strategic failures during the Cold War. Thus, it should come as no surprise that conservative idealists found themselves subject to a fair amount of ridicule and condescension when they began to propose that promoting democracy in Iraq might set off a reverse domino effect that would bring down one Arab dictatorship after another.

According to Thomas Carothers, the foremost expert, bar none, on democracy promotion on either side of the Atlantic, the reverse domino effect is nothing more than "magical realism, Middle East-style,''

How, [Carothers] wonders, would this chain reaction occur? Arab countries are stuck between autocratic governments and Islamist opposition, he says, and ''our invasion of Iraq isn't going to remove those political forces. They're going to be sitting there the next day.'' The war, which is vastly unpopular in the Arab world, is far more likely to improve the fortunes of the Islamists, he says, and provoke governments to tighten their grip, than to ventilate the region with an Arab spring.

(Carothers cited by George Packer in the NYT Magazine, 3 Mar 2003.)

But now there has begun to emerge the first evidence that a democratic domino effect may be taking place. In a front page story on Jordan's response to the American victory in Iraq, the WaPo reports that

With the Iraq war now over...the Jordanian government is out to restore public support by taking tentative steps toward liberalization, including elections, after freezing political reform in recent years.

As home to millions of Palestinians who are (were?) no less sympathetic to Saddam Hussein than their brethern in the West Bank and Gaza, Jordan was one of the countries that most feared a potential backlash against the US invasion of Iraq. Thus, King Abdullah had no reason to depart from his prior strategy of ruthlessly crushing all opposition to his personal dictatorship.

Now, Abdullah can afford to shoulder some of the risks associated with liberalization. In late April, Abdullah's foriegn minister published an op-ed in the NYT calling on the Arab world to promote reform from within. Given Abdallah's record, I thought it best to denounce the op-ed as an act of monumental chutzpah.

But now it is apparent that the op-ed was part and parcel of a diplomatic offensive designed to persuade the United States that Jordan is following its lead on democracy promotion. Now, don't imagine for a second that Abdullah is willing to let the whims of the electorate determine whether he holds on to the throne or not. What he expects is that American officials -- especially less-than-enthusiastic democracy promoters such as Cheney and Rumsfeld -- will exter no pressure for reform so long as they can plausibly argue that Abdullah is doing more for the democratic cause than his counterparts in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

But that is exactly the wrong approach to take. The fact is that those who take the first steps toward reform on their own are most susceptible to pressure. I don't doubt for a second that realists will oppose this sort of strategy on the grounds that it punishes America's friends while ignoring more dangerous regimes. To be sure, pressuring allied states will entail short-run sacrifices. But in the long-term, there is no such thing as a pro-American dictatorship.

On the bright side, there shouldn't be much of an immediate need to pressure Abdullah, since he may go so far as to implement the same broad reforms that his father, King Hussein, did during the heyday of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in the early- to mid-1990s. At the same time, there is good reason to believe that Abdullah, like his father, will not go further for as long the conflict in the occupied territories goes on.

From the King's perspective, this is a sensible approach. For as long as the intifada rages, the Hashemites have much to fear from radical Palestinian sentiment. The millions of Palestinians in Jordan have not forgotten that its government had made its peace with the hated Israelis. In contrast to other Arab dictators, Abdullah is not entirely cynical when he says that the conflict with Israel is a serious stumbling block in the way of internal reform. As Abdullah told the BBC,

We will always have the fear of what instability will happen between the Israelis and Palestinians looking over our shoulder if we don't solve that problem," Abdullah said in a television interview with the BBC two weeks ago. "Therefore, democratic reforms, economic and social reforms in Jordan will never go the way we want until we solve that problem."

What all this means is that the Bush administration cannot afford to ignore the intimate connection between the Israeli-Palestinian peace process of democracy promotion throughout the Middle East.

Whether the President recognizes this connection or not is hard to tell. He told the United Nations last September that

The people of Iraq can shake off their captivity. They can one day join a democratic Afghanistan and a democratic Palestine, inspiring reforms throughout the Muslim world. These nations can show by their example that honest government, and respect for women, and the great Islamic tradition of learning can triumph in the Middle East and beyond.

But in his February speech on promoting demoracy in Iraq and Palestine, Bush argued that the road to Jeruslem runs through Baghdad -- without suggesting that success in Jerusalem might open the road to democracy elsewhere in the Middle East.

While critics tended to dismiss the argument the Baghdad-to-Jerusalem argument as a transparent justification for war, toppling Saddam Hussein has made it considerably easier for Jordan to become an active supporter of the peace process. If the President is truly committed to democracy promotion throughout the Middle East, he must take advantage of that newfound support -- in Jordan and elsewhere -- to resolve the most enduring the conflict in the Middle East.

It would be a fitting legacy for the 43rd President to become known not just as the greatest warrior in the Middle East, but also its greatest peacemaker. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:23 PM by Patrick Belton  

A REASSURING NOTE TO PARENTS/ADVISOR/RACHEL: Namely, this. Toledo, Ohio resident Don Flickinger received on Saturday an associate's degree from the University of Toledo. Not only is this naturally edifying in and of itself, it's even more interesting considering that Flickeringer has just turned 96, and began taking classes for the associate's degree in 1928. (CNN notes helpfully: "He was the school's oldest graduate.) His idea of celebrating? "At my age," Associate Flickinger noted, "celebrating means getting into bed for a good nap."

At that rate, I should finish up my D.Phil. by, say, at least...oh, 2075. Comforted, Rachel et al? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:57 PM by Patrick Belton  

IRAQI INFO MINISTER TO UK POP STAR: Well, Madonna could do it. (Or "M," rather, as she required her fellow players to call her in her West End debut in Up For Grabs.) And now it looks as though the former Iraqi information minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, is now also going to make the transition from butt of laughter to UK pop icon. That reputable London daily, The Sun, reports that a dance track backed by Les Molloy will soon be released featuring some of al-Sahaf's best lines. And who says UK pop has lost it? (My opinion of The Sun rose substantially after, in my benighted pre-Rachellian days, I went to dinner several times with a former Page 3 girl studying at Oxford.)

(Reportedly, and per the wags at The Sun, he will cover Oasis's "Iraq and Roll Star," Charles and Eddie's "Would I Lie to You," R. Kelly's "I Believe I Can Lie," Public Enemy's "Don't Believe the Hype," And Freddie Mercury's "The Great Pretender.")

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:13 PM by David Adesnik  

KESHER TALK: Judith Weiss of Kesher Talk raises a good point about my post on Iraqi fundamentalism. I wrote that a NYT

article [on fundamentalism] focuses on whether or not Paul Wolfowitz's ideological commitments have led him to assemble a team of secularist democrats who are out of touch with the profoundly religious Iraqi mainstream."

Judith asks

What profoundly religious Iraqi mainstream? I thought Iraq was always more secular and cosmopolitan than Syria, Jordan, Saudi, et al. and was on its way to democracy when the Baathists took over.

I don't know about Iraq ever having been "on its way to democracy", but it is definitely described quite often as one of the more secular Arab states. What is hard to know is what happened to Iraqi society over the past two and half decades, a time when Islamic fundamentalism swept over the Middle East and even that arch-secularist Saddam Hussein began to present himself as a religious figure.

One possibility is that younger Iraqis have become far more religious than their elders. For one perspective on this clash of generations, take a look at this NYT article that Judith sent my way.

Speaking more generally, the highly visible resurgence of Shi'ite devotion suggests that the people of Iraq are thirsting for spiritual liberation as well. But are spiritual liberation and political fundamentalism cut from the same cloth? I don't know and I suspect not. Thus, it may be correct to describe the Iraqi mainstream as "profoundly religious" without suggested that it is also anti-democratic. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:54 PM by Patrick Belton  

DON KAGAN, IN DEFENSE OF FREE SPEECH AT YALE: YalePundits post on Yale junior professor Jim Sleeper, who pounced like a maddog on two Yale freshmen who dared criticize a faculty panel which attacked pro-war students. Professor Sleeper accused the two students of being "dubious Yalies, scenting power," of being "primed to attack professors in public," and of being "wired to interests and agendas that range far beyond what is acknowledged." One of Yale's most splendid moral compasses, Donald Kagan, wrote an unpublished letter to the YDN along with several other members of the faculty to "make it clear" to the students that "they are not alone," and that Yale must be kept a welcoming space for free expression from all points of view, rather than a place where thin-skinned professors publicly and viciously excoriate students who dare to raise questions about the orthodoxies they propound. Well done.
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# Posted 2:45 PM by David Adesnik  

SEARCHING FOR WMD: Zach Mears is also following the missing nukes story. He points out that American oversights on the nuclear front are symptomatic of widespread disarray in our efforts to locate Saddam's WMD.

Frankly, I expected better from an administration that presents itself as focused (like a laser beam?) on national security. While I still expect considerable evidence to turn up, the lack of effort and resources devoted to th search is disturbing. As Jason Zengerle writes in TNR this week, [subscription required]

The Bush administration has been slow to utilize several dozen civilian weapons inspectors, both Americans and foreigners, who were supposed to follow the military teams' initial work with more comprehensive searches. Indeed, many of the would-be inspectors have still not been sent to Iraq. "The [civilian] teams can't operate in a nonpermissive environment without having a protective force around them, and the argument for the last two weeks has been that we don't have enough forces to peel off to provide physical protection," says one person familiar with the civilian inspector program. "They didn't build into the plan the resources to do this, so now their argument for not doing it is that we don't have the resources." And resources, of course, are a reflection of will.

Matt Yglesias wonders whether we can expect the Bush administration to do any better when it comes to democracy promotion, though its hard to tell if he's actually concerned or just waiting for the chance to deliver to an "I told you so." (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:25 PM by Patrick Belton  

DOBRIANSKY VS. CAROTHERS: In this month's Foreign Affairs, Undersecretary of State Paula Dobrainsky defends the administration against Tom Carothers's criticism that the war on terrorism has impelled the Bush administration to seek friendlier relations with many authoritarian regimes for the sake of their cooperation on security measures. Carothers specifically points to China, Central Asia (Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan), Pakistan and Malaysia, and the Arab world (Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Syria, and Yemen) as examples of authoritarian or semi-authoritarian regimes with which the US has sought closer ties and enhanced security cooperation.

Carothers wins this exchange, hands-down. Dobriansky completely ducks Carothers's key criticism, and rather than defending the administration's ongoing attempts to strike a balancing-point between security and democracy promotion, she instead bats down the straw man that Carothers was, she claims, arguing the administration should only support democracy promotion and ignore pressing security exigencies. Carothers rightly takes her to task for this dodge. I've in other contexts (especially Russian policy) been an admirer of her thought and analysis, but with regard to this debate - Dobriansky's done better. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:06 PM by Patrick Belton  

CINCO DE MAYO, PRIMERA PARTE: NYT reports that Hartford, Connecticut now has the greatest percentage of Hispanic residents of any major city north of Florida and east of the Mississippi. While immigration always brings about for any community its particular sets of economic and social challenges, most importantly of all, ¡muchísimos bienvenidos muy cordiales a todos nuestros nuevos vecinos y compadres!"

And this very especially on the Cinco de Mayo - the day when an upstart American republic repulsed at Puebla the undemocratic ambitions of an imperialistic, and French, government. Americans of all nations and languages share important values and democratic traditions - even if at the present moment some governments, such as those in Havana and Caracas, aren't yet as good as their people. Cinco de Mayo reminds us we can never forget the importance of nurturing the hemispheric commercial and political ties which knit us together with our neighbors, and working shoulder to shoulder with them as a hemisphere of democratic American republics which are jointly committed to together promoting democracy, clean and efficient governance, and economic development throughout both our hemisphere and the world.

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# Posted 11:46 AM by Patrick Belton  

RECONSTRUCTING IRAQ WATCH: CNN reports on nine Iraqis, drawn from different parties and ethnic groups, expected to head the interim government. General Garner greeted the arrival of Ambassador Jerry Bremer (short story here, saying "he will get more involved in the political process. I'm doing all of it and don't want to do all of it.") (Purely from a stylistic viewpoint, "don't want to do any of it" would likely have been a much more memorable phrase.) CS Monitor also reports on city council and mayoral elections which took place in the northern city of Mosul. Reuters notes that several candidates withdrew from the election to protest the division of delegates along ethnic lines (Mosul is mainly Arab, with a large Kurdish minority and substantial Assyrian and Turkmen communities); U.S. military officials suggested that they were radical Islamists who wanted to discredit attempts at representative government.

Project for the New American Century releases a statement calling for political support for "staying the course" (which principally consists of a piece in the Weekly Standard by a NY Post Reporter, arguing that the US military presence is much better received in Iraq than most reporting has indicated). Tom Friedman's piece "Our New Baby" (which counterintuitively is not actually about recent happy events in the Friedman household) argues that Democrats are still quietly hoping for the war to turn out to be a disaster, to prevent the president from campaigning for re-election on it and in the meantime using its luster to push a conservative domestic agenda; Friedman calls on Democrats instead to recognize that "we now have a 51st state of 23 million people, and engage in constructive opposition on how we should go about building a democracy there (instead of quietly hoping for a failed effort which will help elect a President Kerry). Both a reporting piece in the WaPo and an analysis article in the LA Times (both via CS Monitor) raise concerns about insufficient U.S. poltiical engagement in Iraq, which has permitted competing religious, tribal, and ethnic forces to instead occupy the political ground.

Larry Kaplan praises U.S. covert assistance to moderate Shia (and to a lesser extent, Sunni) clerics, sensibly hopes for a U.S. presence comparable to that in Germany after World War II, but despairs at signs from DOD that it hopes to withdraw American forces within six months, ceding to a multinational NATO force. Over at the Weekly Standard, three investment hands with mid-east experience attempt to inject new ideas into the rebuilding-Iraq discussion, including a thick sister city initiative (in which US cities would, through means public and private, infuse money and talent into the public schools, hospitals, and pharmacies of their paired ciy), a New Deal-style public works program to get unemployed Iraqis to work, and a (possibly less promising) idea to put the U.S. in charge of funding mosques and training imams, as a way of heading off extremism bankrolled from Tehran or Riyadh. They also note the promising (Bruce Ackerman-meets-Alaska permanent fund) idea of a national oil trust giving each Iraqi citizen a share in the nation's oil and mineral resources, and a stake in the success of the democratic regime. Also over at the Weekly Standard, Agency alum Reuel Marc Gerecht presents a well-written, nuanced essay in which he reminds his readers (who had forgotten their Bernard Lewis) of the long history of influence of western ideas in the Middle East, and argues on that basis that a calm, extended U.S. engagement with Iraq could stand a high chance of profoundly transforming the region - especially in the light of the discrediting of the discrediting of Ba'athist authoritarianism. His conclusion, "we should stay calm and realize that the fiercer this debate, the more profound its repercussions. We shouldn't be talked into accommodations we will certainly regret." (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:28 PM by David Adesnik  

A WAYWARD THOUGHT: In an otherwise excellent editorial, the WaPo observes that

Mr. Bush noted in passing on Thursday that the transition [in Iraq] "will take time," but he has done little to prepare Americans for the large and sustained commitment of U.S. troops and resources that will be needed.

This business about "preparing" the American public has become pretty cliche by now. Yes, it would help for Bush to talk more about the United States' obligation to invest substantial resources -- both political and economic -- in the rebuilding of Iraq.

But the ones who need "preparation" are not America's voters, but rather the foot-dragging opponents of nation-building within the President's own administration. While the President himself has been fairly straightforward about our commitment to rebuilding and promoting democracy in Iraq, Cheney and Rumsfeld have not shown much interest. If they don't speak out, high-ranking officers may well take that as invitation to lobby for a strategic withdrawal before the President's objectives have been fully achieved.

Also more important than persuading the American public is persuading the Republicans on Capitol Hill. They have the sad habit of identifying nation-building as the extension of welfare-state politics rather than a projection of fundamental American values which enhances our national security.

Finally, the President ought to consider lobbying the Democrats on Capitol Hill to ensure bipartisan support for the reconstruction of Iraq. While Democrats tended to support such operations under Clinton, there will be a strong temptation for them to re-enact their successful effort to deprive the President's father of a second term by portraying him as more concerned with the welfare of those abroad than those at home.

If both Democrats and Republicans strongly fall in line behind the President's insistence that we must promote democracy in Iraq, the American public will follow. When both parties reach consensus on foreign affairs, the American public almost always interprets such consensus as an indication of what is clearly in the United States' national interest.

More than any president address, televised or not, the critical determinant of American attitudes toward nation-building will be the tenor of the 2004 campaign. If Republican candidates show pride in the United States effort to promote enduring freedom in Iraq, voters will recognize that the GOP's commitment is serious. If Democrats describe our efforts in Iraq as an extension of the Clinton administration's efforts in Bosnia & Kosovo, voters will recognize that they support reconstruction as well.

Perhaps the more probable scenario is one of silence. Republicans will avoid the issue of reconstruction in order to avoid suggesting that they care more about the people of Iraq than their own constituents. Democrats will avoid the issue as well, figuring that the less attention given to foreign affairs, the better.

Such an outcome would throw the ball back into the adminstration's court. If it were a second Bush administration, it is hard to know what might happen. The bureaucratic struggle would resume, this time without the imperative of re-election hanging over both sides. If it were a Democratic administration, who knows.

Well, at least the WaPo seems committed to keeping the Iraq on the agenda.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:54 PM by David Adesnik  

YIKES! It seems that Iraqi nuclear facilities have been looted and no one knows what was stolen. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:48 PM by David Adesnik  

THE GOOD ISLAMIC STATE: Today, the NYT offers up a long profile of the Iraqi exiles chosen by the Pentagon to advise the occupation government. The article focuses on whether or not Paul Wolfowitz's ideological commitments have led him to assemble a team of secularist democrats who are out of touch with the profoundly religious Iraqi mainstream.

The article itself is well worth reading, even if it is a variation on the classic theme of Americans-impose-their-values-on-other-cultures-they-know-nothing-about. While there is no question that America might be better served by having representative abroad who are more familiar with local cultures, I often wonder whether focusing on this issue so intensely directs journalists' attention away from other trends that may have a greater impact on the future of Iraq.

First and foremost, there seems to be very little attention paid to what exactly 'Islamic fundamentalism' is. Given that most experts identify it as the principal threat to democratic reforms both in Iraq and throughout the Middle East, there should be a wealth of information available about it.

In a recent WaPo poll (one which I criticized heavily on other grounds), respondents were asked "Do you think the United States should or should not allow a fundamentalist Islamic government to be established in Iraq?" 39% percent said 'should', while 47% said 'should not'.

Those respondents who answered 'should' were then asked "What if [a fundamentalist government] wins an open, democratic election? In that case do you think the United States should or should not allow a fundamentalist Islamic government to be established in Iraq?" 50% said 'should', while 46% said 'should not'. In other words, half of those who initially opposed having a fundamentalist government would accept if it were elected.

Those who intially accepted the rise of an Islamic government were asked "What if it demands that all United States forces leave Iraq? In that case do you think the United States should or should not allow a fundamentalist Islamic government to be established in Iraq?" 59% still supported such a government, while 35% did not.

I found these results especially interesting, since I get asked so often how OxDem would react to the establishment of an Islamic fundamentalist government in Baghdad. Unfortunately, I don't have a good answer to this question just yet, since I am still trying to figure certain things out.

First of all, what is the difference between an 'Islamic' and a 'fundamentalist' state? Reading the papers, one gets the sense that a fundamentalist state is one in which the political order is an extension of Islamic law and in which Muslim clerics have a dominant political role. In contrast, an Islamic state may be something like the Christian republics of Europe where there is an official church but its presence is not all that important.

In light of the divisions between Sunni Kurds, Sunni Arabs and Shi'ite Arabs in Iraq, the establishment of an Iraqi government with a token commitment to Islam may be the best way of protecting the rights and privileges of all such groups concerned. Of course, such an outcome depends on the leaders of such groups recognizing that tolerance is in their own self-interest, an outcome one can hardly take for granted.

So let's assume for a moment that a strong 'fundamentalist' impulse gains hold throughout Iraq. Are fundamentalism and democracy mutually exclusive? First of all, I sense that there is no one thing that goes by the name of 'fundamentalism'. For most Americans, fundamentalism refers to beliefs such as those of Hamas and Al Qaeda. But fundamentalism also includes the reigning ideologies in Iran and Saudi Arabia.

While one might say that these four share a certain preference for authoritarian politics, I think it is safe to assume that all four have very distinct theological foundations and particular views of how the church and the state should interact. Moreover, to what degree are such fundamentalists' authoritarian impulses inherent in their beliefs, as opposed to being an extension of their self-interest?

I think this is an especially important question since one often hears that there are nascent political movements throughout the Middle East that are both firmly Islamic and firmly democratic. Does the minimal influence of such groups reflect their repression by dictatorial governments, or is there an uncomfortable tension between their Islamic and democratic views?

One might say that it all comes back to Algeria. Whenever one talks about the prospects for democracy promotion in the Arab world, the first question one gets is "What about Algeria? They had elections. The radicals won and a brutal civil war followed."

It would be interesting to know what Algeria's fundamentalists would have done had the military allowed them to hold the reins of government. Would they have revoked the constitution and imposed an Islamic dictatorship? As critics often say, Islamic democracy is about having "one man, one vote, one time."

One argument that Josh has often made (at the pub, not on OxBlog as far as I know), is that fundamentalists governments can often exploit anti-imperial or anti-Western sentiment to win an initial victory at the polls, but cannot command much support later on if their policies reflect the interests of a radical minority. Thus, the best way to deal with Islamic governments that are "too" Islamic is to give them their and let them fall on their face.

As Josh recognizes, the main challenge to pursuing such a strategy is to ensure that such a government respects the basic political and civil rights of the opposition. While that may not have been possible in Algeria, Iraq is a very different case, given the strong American presence on the ground.

Given how much talk there has been about promoting democracy in Iraq, it wouldn't surprise me if all the major parties pledged to respect the constitution once in office. What may be more important is the degree to which voters demand evidence of politicians' good faith on this issue.

In other words, will Shi'ites vote for a Shi'ite party regardless of its stance on democracy? Or will voters demand credible assurances of a such commitment? Or will multiple Shi'ite parties emerge some of which are committed to democracy rather than others? Will the formation of such parties reflect religious differences between their founders, or political ones?

Unsurprisingly, I don't have answers to these questions. Having taken not one single course on Islam or the Middle East, it is an area I have to learn about by reading the papers. If I had time I would read books, but who has the stamina to do independent research at the same time that one is working on a doctoral thesis? (Don't answer that question.)

I guess what I'm trying to say is that polls which ask whether or not "the United States should or should not allow a fundamentalist Islamic government to be established in Iraq" can only be meaningful in a situation where one assumes that fundamentalism is a monolithic sort of thing. But it isn't. And with any luck, more and more Americans (especially journalists) will begin to recognize that. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:21 PM by David Adesnik  

MORE POLARIZATION: Jeff Hauser has written in to defend the WaPo's characterization of the American electorate as polarized.

To support his point, Jeff points to this op-ed by Bush pollster Matthew Dowd, which observes that presidential approval ratings have become increasingly dependent on voters' partisan identity. Before 1980, the difference between Democratic and Republican approval ratings for any given president tended to hold fast at about 30 percentage points. Since Reagan, the split has grown to 50 points.

The one point on which Dowd is evasive is the role of independent voters, which, according to Dowd, make up 20% of the electorate. I was under the impression that the percentage of independent voters has risen considerably over the past few decades. If so, then the apparent polarization Dowd describes is just a byproduct of the fact that moderate voters now prefer to identify themselves as independent, thus ensuring that a greater uniformity of views within both the Republican and Democratic parties.

If any of you out there know more about this, please drop a line. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:12 AM by Patrick Belton  

SICKENING, SICKENING, SICKENING: Labour MP and Father of the House Tam Dalyell complained of a "cabal of Jewish advisers" which, in his paranoid imaginings, were exercising undue influence over the Prime Minister. Among the putative cabal-players: Lord Levy (the Prime Minister's Middle East envoy, and the only actual Jew on the list); Foreign Secretary Jack Straw (who has a Jewish grandparent), and Peter Mandelson (whose father is Jewish).

In a flimsy denial, Dalyell attempted to make things right by saying that his remarks were not anti-Semitic. Instead, he said, he was simply being ... "candid." Right. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:06 PM by Patrick Belton  

CHALK ONE UP for US intelligence (and in this case, also our sometimes allies in Pakistan's ISI...): An Al Qaeda plan, nearing the operational stage, to fly an airplane into the U.S. consulate in Karachi has just been broken up, as the US follows up on information gained from interrogating the six Al Qaeda members arrested earlier this week in Karachi. Among the crazed killers now off the street: Tawfiq bin Attash (considered the planner of the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole) and Ali Abd Aziz (believed to be the paymaster of the September 11 attacks, and the nephew of Khalid "Best Picture" Sheik Mohammed). (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:50 PM by Patrick Belton  

STUFFING IT: Stuff magazine loses a unique talent (and his mom). This is partially but not entirely due to dwarves. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:58 AM by Patrick Belton  

DO NOT GO QUIETLY: An symbol of pride to New Hampshiremen everywhere, New Hampshire's Old Man of the Mountain slid off to sleep overnight. We wish him pleasant dreams and richly deserved rest. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:13 AM by David Adesnik  

THE OTHER SUPERPOWERS: Anti-war politics may be a necessity for China and Russia, since their armed forces can't seem to get anything to go right these days. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:05 AM by David Adesnik  

CONFUSION: I found nothing to disagree with in this first-rate column by Charles Krauthammer. I find that very disturbing. But does Dr. K really have to sound so vindictive all the time? From the way he writes, you'd think Republicans were a persecuted minority, not the party in charge of the White House and the Capitol. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:55 AM by David Adesnik  

SILVER LINING: The UN has embarrassed itself once again, thanks to the Human Rights Commission's decision to elect Cuba to another three year term of membership. The WaPo recommends that the US try to fight back against such insults by organizing a democratic caucus within the UN that would prevent dictatorships from receiving this sort of moral legitimation.

Sounds like a good idea, but the real challenge may be to get France & Co. to prioritize their democratic values over their crusade to reign in American hegemony. The real silver lining of the Cuba fiasco is that it willl make it that much harder for the UN to get up on its moral high horse and demand a leading role in the transitional government of Iraq. Then again, Castro probably understands better than the US how exactly a totalitarian dictatorship functions... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:31 AM by David Adesnik  

POLLS, POLS, & POLARIZATION: I'm beginning to think that even the WaPo is incapable of reporting intelligently on the results of opinion polls. Take a minute to read this paragraph:

Partisan polarization continues to define views of Bush and the state of the country. Just 32 percent of Democrats said the country is heading in the right direction, compared with 72 percent of Republicans and 55 percent of independents. On Bush, 92 percent of Republicans said they approve of how he is handling his job, compared with 53 percent of Democrats and 68 percent of independents.

Polarization? If a majority of opposition voters and two-thirds of independents approve of how the president is handling his job, you call that 'polarization'? I call that 'unity'.

If the Post wanted to support its argument, it should've shown that fewer Democrats support Bush now than they did 3 months ago or 6 months ago or whenever. And, while I don't know the number for the Clinton era off-hand, I'd very surprised to discover any moment during those eight years at which a majority of Republicans approved of the job he was doing.

Leaving that aside for a moment, let's take a look at the raw data from the poll that the WaPo is describing. Here again, we see that there is much more evidence against polarization than for it.

For example, take a look at the results of question 20, "Who do you trust to do a better job handling [insert issue here]. (Bush) or (the Democrats in Congress)?" The answers aren't all that surprising. Bush has a 70-20 lead on Iraq on the war on terror and a 60-30 lead on defense policy and North Korea. In contrast, the Democrats have significant leads on health care and the enviornment, in addition to slight leads on Social Security and taxes.

What those results mean is that many of the individuals who approve strongly of Bush's foreign policy prefer Democratic approaches to domestic policy. That sort of ability to discrinimate between issue provides compelling evidence against the charge of polarization. If the nation were actually split, voters would line up with their party across the board, instead of defecting on critical issues.

One might even say that issue discrimination is an important sign of healthy democratic politics, since it shows an ability to look past partisan identity and evaluate the policy proposals offered by different parties.

Finally, here's one last thing for those of you who have been following the polls as closely as I have. Two weeks ago, I blasted a WaPo/ABC poll for including the following question:

"How do you feel about the possibility that the United States will get bogged down in a long and costly peacekeeping mission in Iraq - would you say you're very concerned about that, somewhat concerned, not too concerned or not concerned at all?"

Lo and behold, this week's poll included the exact same question again. Who writes these things? Johnny Apple? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:03 AM by David Adesnik  

POKER UPDATE: I guess I'll be taking care of this while Josh is travelling. So here goes: The WaPo reports that three more of the 55 are in custody, bringing the total to 18.

Some Al Qaeda folks have also been apprehended lately. Rumor has it that Bin Laden will turn himself in Rumsfeld lets him be the Ace of Spades instead of Saddam. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:51 PM by Patrick Belton  

RECONSTRUCTING IRAQ WATCH: Writing in Boston Review, Khaled Abou El Fadl attempts to reconcile Islamic jurisprudential traditions with liberal democracy. In the Washington Times, Mark Pomar (president of the International Research and Exchanges Board) highlights issues needing to be addressed early in the democratization process. In NRO, Peter Brookes suggests how to make UN involvement more workable, if it happens. Predictably, Matt and Daniel have been making astute arguments as well (which I'll respond to as soon as the weather becomes less dern gorgeous in DC); they each also provide several additional links.

Many thanks to Zach Mears for his suggestions for these! There have also been other very timely, well-written pieces on the subject this week, but for reasons of spousal humility I can't point out all of them.... :)

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:09 PM by Patrick Belton  

RESULTS IN - GOD (FOR), COUNTRY (FOR), YALE (FOR), GESO (AGAINST): Yale graduate students voted Wednesday to reject unionization. See CNN's and the YDN's stories on democracy at Yale. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:35 AM by Patrick Belton  

ALL ALONE: Wow, I've driven my co-authors away. Guys, I was joking about this! Anyway, Entertainment Weekly paid us a kill fee about the cover.

More seriously, David writes in by back-channel that he has lots to say, as always, but Blogger won't let him. In the meantime, OxBlog is mine, all mine. Mwaaa - hahahahaha.... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:31 AM by Patrick Belton  

I'LL BE YOUR (SCHU)MANN: Brahms's biographer writes in the Guardian about the composer's life-long, wrenching love-affair with Schumann's pianist wife. Schumann was, of course, Brahms's mentor; Brahms was Schumann's discovery and protege. Like Berlin's with Akhmatova, it was a romance of titans, vexing both of their lives, to the end utterly unconsumated. Brahms writes Clara in 1855, "I can do nothing but think of you... What have you done to me? Can't you remove the spell you have cast over me?"

It couldn't be done. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:14 AM by Patrick Belton  

SCHOOL DAYS I: Georgia high school students plan white-only prom (CNN)

SCHOOL DAYS II: (Air Force Academy) Cadet Is Accused of Running Sex Club on Government Computer (NYT)
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:17 AM by Patrick Belton  

IRAQI INTELLECTUALS: For those of you who can get by in French, this piece from Le Monde is a sobering but fascinating glance into what Iraqi (and, more broadly, Arab) intellectuals and academics are saying about the U.S. presence in Iraq. Arab intellectuals' voices are complex, nuanced, and not monolithic, and though they often are obscenely cynical about our motives (and believe we perceive them all as bedouin), they are nonetheless people whom we need to be engaging, listening to, and trying to convince. Despite the breadth of the Iraqi intellectual tradition, which even managed to survive Saddam, theirs is a voice which is sorely lacking in American reportage. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:02 AM by Patrick Belton  

ACADEMIA MEETS SIMPSONS: Several years ago, I remember reading a piece in the Yale Herald in which the student author enthused about a day in the distant future when students would watch episodes of the Simpsons in a library basement while working on term papers on late 20th century U.S. culture. Well, the future is now. The academic papers on the Simpsons range from "Simpson Ethics" to "An Analysis of the Medical Care in the Simpsons" to this one arguing the Simpsons are really Sephardic crypto-Jews. Open question to the academics in the blogosphere: is it too late to change my dissertation topic?

UPDATE: And I've gotten an answer! Ann Haker writes in from LA that, as she puts it, an "honest to goodness talking head" (thanks for putting my professional ambitions so appositely, Ann), CSIS's Anthony Cordesman, came up with a 42-page essay on the lessons Buffy the Vampire Slayer can teach us in a post-9/11 world. (I would insert a comment here that Buffy doesn't rise to the Simpsons-esque level of enduring cultural criticism, but half of the blogosphere seems to watch the show; and I'm two degrees of dating-separation from Buffy - via a New Haven townie - so I'll let her off the hook this time.....)
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:37 AM by Patrick Belton  

A HOPEFUL SIGN?: The WaPo runs a piece on the newly-named head of the interim government in Iraq, Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, a former counterterror chief, foreign service veteran, and Kissinger consulting associate who is known to his friends as "Jerry." Now Lieutenant General Garner's superior, Ambassador Bremer has a background in the State Department and close ties to Kissinger which have both raised some concern about his commitment to building democracy in Iraq - most notably, by our own David (permalink bloggered; his post is from Wednesday at 11:39).

I suggest the first indicators, though few, provide several glimmers of hope. For one, Bremer seems to come to his job with the strongest degree of backing from Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz and former Defense Policy Board chair Richard Perle, who in turn are probably among the most committed proponents of a strong degree of U.S. investiture in a democratic Iraq. Wolfowitz and Perle would likely be more perfunctory in their praise if they did not believe Bremer truly shared their degree of commitment. Second, Amb. Bremer seems to have a much more subtle understanding of foreign affairs than that permitted by academic or professional strands of realism, such as Dr. Kissinger's. For instance, he was arguing for a comprehensive policy to combat terrorist networks and state sponsors as early as 1996, and in the private sector he displayed an acute understanding of issues of economic inequality and unequal gains from globalization within developing nations. Third, Ambassador Bremer will report to the SecDef rather than to State, which is heartening because the concentration of higher-level officials strongly committed to Iraqi democracy seems higher at DOD than in Foggy Bottom. Incidentally, he is also known for being blunt, hawkish, and decisive.

I'm cautiously optimistic. As far as it goes, this much all represents a burst of good news, and after a dispiriting week of hearing from Pentagon sources who are intimately involved in the planning of post-war Iraq that large swaths of DOD, recoiling viscerally from any tasks that could be called nation-building, were pushing to make the U.S. commitment as short and as focused on security issues as possible. Granted, the degree of commitment to building democracy seems higher at the level of the DOD principals than at the more bureaucratic ranks - and with as much of the Pentagon involved in post-Iraq planning as is the case now, my sources' impressions may not actually characterize the whole DOD perfectly. (Everyone's got their own DOD sources. Of course, my DOD sources can beat up your DOD sources....) Although in the end, all will of course depend on how effectively the new proconsular appointee resolves bureaucratic disputes under him and musters U.S. strength to build constituencies for political liberalization and democracy, from the first limited indicators it seems like Amb. Bremer's appointment may actually be a needed step in the right direction. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:28 PM by Patrick Belton  

IT MUST BE THE CIRCUMCISION: Eugene, in the midst of some awfully productive blogging over at Volokh Conspiracy, helpfully points to a study which recently found that Jews have much more sex than every other American religious grouping (hey, it's a mitzvah, after all). More precisely, whereas a heaping 12 percent of all Protestant, Catholic, secular, and other respondents had no sexual partners whatsoever in the preceding year, only a miniscule 3 percent of Jews fall into that category. (There has even been a profusion of articles written about Jewish adult film stars, for that matter - but sorry, no links, this is after all a family blog....)

As for that three percent, well, there's always blogging....
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:21 PM by Patrick Belton  

MAY MORNING!!!!!! Here are some pictures from this year's May Morning at Magdalen College, Oxford (as well as a painting from 1890, and one freelancer's reflections). Some of us have to be there in spirit..... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:07 PM by Patrick Belton  

FREE TRADE! GET YER FREE TRADE!: At a lunch event I was at today, a senior administration official, speaking on background, said that he had "a pretty good idea when and where" a hemispheric agreement inaugurating the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas would be signed. (No promises though about at what point the hemisphere can also expect free beer, free love, or a free lunch. ) The source also said that the administration would be devoting much more attention to security, democratization, and economic development in the hemisphere after the war with Iraq.

Even though we wish the administration would also devote much more attention to Iraq after the war with Iraq, this is good news, if it proves true. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:54 PM by Patrick Belton  

HI to all our readers coming in from googling "rumsfeld saddam kissing pornographic." (We're result number five.) Check your trenchcoats at the door, gentlemen...

UPDATE: Now we're number one! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:42 AM by Patrick Belton  

SOMEBODY LEFT THE BAD-PUN MACHINE RUNNING OVER AT CNN: Thus, we have the worst headline of the day, "Anglers Carp at 'Fish Pain' Theory", and a distant second, "Brits Seek Missing WIMPs of Universe," referring to dark-matter candidate "Weakly Interacting Massive Particles."

Professors Ian Halliday and Neil Spooner say that if successful, their quest will answer one of science's great questions. Perhaps they need a candiblog. (Propogate the meme, propogate the meme....) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:39 AM by David Adesnik  

PLAY BALL! Kevin Drum has taken up the challenge I threw his way a couple of days back. What I wanted to know was whether was still going to defend the importance of a UN role in postwar Iraq even after reading Rachel's incisive criticism of the UN's shortcomings as a nation-builder.

Here's what Kevin had to say:

While Belton lists several knocks against international coalitions, she fails to address their biggest positive: they provide a broad acceptance of the effort that the United States is almost certain to lack on its own.

Now, as I have said to Kevin before, the acceptance of American efforts to rebuild Iraq will depend not on the multilateral validation of such efforts, but rather on their contribution to Iraqi freedom and prosperity. This is a point that firm multilateralists never seem to pick up: America's reputation depends much more on whether its actions promote common values than on whether its actions reflect a UN consensus.

In the short term, America would no doubt win plaudits for granting the UN a considerable role in the governance of postwar Iraq. But if a joint UN-US occupation fails, the US will be the one that takes the blame in Europe and elsewhere. Now, as Kevin acknowledges, giving the UN a considerable role may well jeopardize the success of the transition to democracy. In fact, Kevin goes so far as to admit that there are members of the Security Council who have a strong incentive to see the process fail.

That being the case, the question one has to ask is whether it is better win short-term applause for accommodating the UN, or long-term respect for actually making Iraq a better place to live?

On a related note, I'd like to take some shots at a slightly more theoretical post on the UN that Kevin put up just after his response to Rachel and myself. In it, Kevin answers the question of "why [he] think[s] we should continue to take the United Nations seriously." After all,

The UN does indeed have a lot of problems, some of them inherent in any international organization, but regardless of this there are only a few options for how we can conduct both the war on terrorism and our broader relations with the world.

Those few options for how the US can conduct its foreign policy are basically four: on its own, through bilateral ties, through a better multilateral organization, or through the UN.

In case you couldn't tell, the way Kevin sets up the options, its pretty clear that the UN comes across as the most realistic. But that is only because Kevin has cleverly excluded from his list of options the most viable form of international cooperation: multilateral alliances similar to NATO.

Even if the UN gets sidelined because of the recent Security Council fiasco (which I doubt will happen), the intelligence sharing functions of NATO will continue to play a critical role in fighting the war on terror. Moreover, it doesn't seem that any of the cooperation the US has received from Arab regimes has had anything to do with the UN. In fact, in terms of the actual search for Al Qaeda, the UN really hasn't contributed anything at all.

Aside from its humanitarian functions, I'd be curious to know what Kevin considers to be the UN's contribution to "our broader relations with the world." As I see it, the UN has two main roles. First, to win over European public opinion. The only reason 19 European governments supported the war against Iraq was because the US made a serious effort to secure a resolution authorizing the use of force.

Second, the UN takes care of situations the US wants to stay out of: Bosnia, Kosovo and (earlier on) Cambodia and Somalia. I have to admit, that is quite a useful thing, since the US can't afford to take responsibility for the aftermath of every civil war. For example, if the current war in the Congo ever ends, we'll need the UN to runs things afterward.

In short, we need the UN. But in no way does that mean that we have to work with the United Nations even when doing so would severely damage our interests, as in the case of postwar Iraq. The important thing to avoid is the sort of kneejerk anti-UN sentiment that led Rumsfeld & Co. to recommend that the US not even ask for a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq.

Finally, working with the UN plays an important role in ensuring domestic support for US foreign policy. While Americans may have supported the war even without a second resolution, I seriously doubt they would have done so had the administration not made a compelling case against Iraq at the United Nations. Sensibly, the American public sought UN approval but recognized that such approval is not the be all and end all of the search for international legitimacy.

OK, Kevin, now it's your turn. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:42 PM by Patrick Belton  

CANDIDATE BLOGGERS: Thanks to Kevin S. for this piece in the WaPo on campaignblogs. I'll try multiple variants in search of starting a meme: other candidates are prezblogs (but not accurate, since only one candidate, presumptively, will actually be a U.S. president), hartblogs (etc, except the same applies), spinblogs (but a bit negative for my tastes), and candidateblogs (too many syllables, although reader Jake is partial to "candiblogs").

The piece makes the obvious allusions to earlier significant presidential campaigns in dubbing the absence of Kerry-, Gephardt-, and Edwardsblogs a "blog deficit" and "blogging gap." Other blasts from the past are predictions that this new technology will "eliminate the middleman," in this case television, from the scene in bringing candidates, pundits, and journalists all into blogosphere contact.... (Incidentally, similar predictions were raised for the internet, e-mail, and toaster ovens.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:39 PM by David Adesnik  

CIVILIAN CHIEF APPOINTED FOR IRAQ: The President has appointed L. Paul Bremer, former head of counterterrorism at the State Department, to head the transition authority in Iraq.

Bremer was an assistant to Kissinger during his tenure as Secretary of State and later joined Kissinger Associates after his departure from the State Department. Which brings to mind one simple question: Can this man be trusted? Let's just say that the last person I would appoint to promote democracy in Iraq -- or anywhere -- is someone who was close to Kissinger.

But perhaps Bremer I shouldn't judge Bremer by who his friends are. When it comes to dealing with such folks, I think it's best to follow Ronald Reagan's advice and "trust, but verify". I'll let you all know what I turn up on Bremer. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:28 PM by David Adesnik  

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS: Both Kos and Jim Hoagland have blasted the administration for signing a ceasefire with the People's Mujahedeen, a pro-Iranian terrorist group with 10,000 fighters in Iraq.

Kos' spin on the story is that Bush is going soft on the Mujahedeen because it was the Clinton administration that initially designated them as a terrorist organization. Talk about partisanship going overboard . Hoagland defends the considerably more intelligent hypothesis that the Bush administration's September 10th realism has begun to challenge its more recent commitment to moral clarity.

As Hoagland observers, the State Department is now recommending that the administration come to terms with Qaddafi's Libya. Given the administration's rising comfort level with dictators in Pakistan, Uzbekistan and elsewhere, Qaddafi might just fit in at Foggy Bottom.

As you might have guessed, my ultimate concern when it comes to moral clarity is that this resurgence of faux "realism" will endanger the administration's commitment to promoting democracy in Iraq. So keep your fingers crossed. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:10 PM by David Adesnik  

HMMMM...US soldiers have shot dead two more protesters in Fallujah. At first, reports of the conflict in Fallujah struck me as disturbingly reminiscient of the Palestinian intifada. While such similarities clearly exist, I think it is also important to point out how the situation in Fallujah is fundamentally different from that in the West Bank and Gaza.

When one compares Fallujah to the occupied territories, one implies that the residents of occupied Iraq are no less united in terms of purpose and identity than the Palestinian residents of the West Bank and Gaza. However, with regard to Fallujah, such an implication is dangerously misleading.

As noted before, the Fallujah casualties were Sunnis, not Shi'ites. As the AP noted, Fallujah was, before the invasion, a stronghold of pro-Saddam sentiment.

The significance of this second fact didn't occur to me until I noticed an important difference in the chants of the Sunni protesters in Fallujah and the Shi'ite protesters in Karbala. Whereas the Karbala Shi'ites chanted "No to Saddam...Yes to Islam", the Falljuah Sunnis never indicated any sort of opposition to the old regime.

As such, I have to wonder whether Iraqi Shi'ites will react to the American shootings as an insult to the people of Iraq, or rather a well-deserved punishment for the henchmen of Saddam. In public, Shi'ite leaders will obviously condemn the shootings in order to put American forces on the defensive. But will there be any real outrage at the grassroots level? I don't know.

In contrast, I know for sure that all Israeli attacks provoke uniform Palestinian criticism. One doesn't even have to ask whether a martyr in Nablus is also a martyr in Ramallah. All in all, the best conclusion to draw from the recent incidents in Fallujah may not be that American forces will have to resort to violence, but rather that peaceful co-existence is possible with all those except the remaining partisans of Saddam.


(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:18 PM by Patrick Belton  

NOT MUCH RUSH IN THE WEST OF IRELAND: Irish novelist John McGahern's latest novel, ten years in the making, is now out in the press. It was worth the wait. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:57 PM by Patrick Belton  

THE ROAD MAP GETS UNFOLDED: And the highlights are here. In general, the Palestinians seem happier with it at the moment than the Israelis, with the Foreign Ministry at work on a list of (reportedly 15) changes. Hamas, of course, isn't happy with it either (thus suggesting it can't be all bad), and it sought to demonstrate instantly that it was also not impressed with the swearing-in of a prime minister advocating "political intifada." Israeli intelligence assessment officials have submitted a set of classified recommendations to the government which would help Abu Mazen establish his authority and shore up his position vis a vis Arafat (and Hamas). These recommendations are reported to include a "grace period" of military restraint, while avoiding Israeli official contact with Abu Mazen in the short term or speaking too positively of him (both of which would undermine his legitimacy and permit others to cast him as an Israeli water-carrier). Meanwhile, Israeli army intelligence is skeptical whether the new prime minister will be strong enough politically to fend off power grabs from Arafat or Hamas and Islamic Jihad (thus moving away from the Army's earlier optimism about Abu Mazen, and toward the pessimism which Shin Bet had displayed from the beginning). From outside the country, Tehran seems worried that Syria will respond to U.S. pressure and limit its support for the terrorist organizations; Tehran is reputed to be considering stepping up its level of support to fill the gap.
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:31 PM by Patrick Belton  

HEADLINES THAT MAKE YOU LOOK TWICE: From today's Haaretz, "[Israeli National Football Coach Avraham] Grant Relying on Intelligence to help Israel get win over Cyprus." (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:35 PM by David Adesnik  

"IRAQI PARALLELS TO THE INTIFADA are now complete," according to Kos. Foolish as that statment sounds, I have to admit that I immediately thought of the West Bank and Gaza when reading about the death of a dozen or more civilians during a protest march in Iraq that ended in a firefight between US forces and Sunni gunmen.

Coverage of the incident had all the hallmarks of dispatches from the West Bank and Gaza. The soldiers tell a plausible story but cannot verify it. Friends and relatives of the victims tell a slightly less plausible story interspersed with absurd anti-American remarks), but one that will immediately be believed by those looking for an excuse to resent the occupation forces.

But for the moment, it's important to keep things in perspective. One tragic incident does not an intifada make. Moreover, there are encouraging signs of US-Iraqi cooperation.

But what I would really like to see is a thorough investigation of the shooting at Fallujah. What makes similar incidents in Palestinian areas so maddening is that one hears the same story from both sides over and over again without ever finding out who was right and who was wrong. Now, I generally believe what the Israelis have to say about such incidents, given that Israelihas a powerful opposition press as well as impressive human rights organizations, whereas as the PA has neither. But such arguments tend not to persuade the skeptics.

What the US military needs to do is establish a relationship with the Iraqi public based on total candor. Hatred makes that sort of relationship impossible in the West Bank and Gaza. But the interest of Iraq and the United States are similar enough to make honesty work. While neither the Bush administration nor the US military has a great record on this sort of thing, I think that fear of another intifada may be enough to give the upper hand to common sense. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:15 PM by David Adesnik  

JOHN KERRY, HYPOCRITE: I am still in touch with my inner dove. So today, I'm going to defend Howard Dean, who told Time.com that

"We have to take a different approach [to diplomacy]. We won't always have the strongest military."

No, I'm not going to defend the actual content of his remarks. But I won't criticize it either, since what Dean offered up is nothing more than a vague cliche that implies his support for a more multilateralist foreign policy.

What I am going to do is defend Gov. Dean from the Kerry campaign's offensive suggestion that Dean's comment

"raises serious questions about his capacity to serve as commander in chief...No serious candidate for the presidency has ever before suggested that he would compromise or tolerate an erosion of America's military supremacy."

As Will Saletan points out, Kerry himself used to talk about the inevitability of China's growth to superpower status back in the mid-1990s. So I guess being a "serious candidate" requires a short memory.

But let's say Kerry had said no such thing. Attacking Dean's competence as commander in chief is the stuff of gutter politics. I may strongly criticize Dean, but I don't suggest that his views on military spending make him unfit for office or indicate that he doesn't have America's best interests at heart.

But what makes the Kerry campaign's remarks so disgusting is that, just a few weeks ago, Kerry harshly criticized Republicans for attacking his patriotism after Kerry called for "regime change" in the United States.

While I thought Kerry should have taken back his rather stupid remark, Josh Marshall defended him on the grounds that

"there is only one way to deal with [Republican] bullies: you must fight back against them with at least the ferocity and intensity that they use against you."

But as this most recent attack shows, fighting back with that sort of ferocity just leads to character assassination and hypocrisy.

Kos argues that the Democrats can't start throwing mud at one another if they want to stand a chance in 2004. I agree. In contrast, ByWord is perversely proud of Kerry (his man in 2004) because Kerry is

aggressive and smart - he picks the fights he wants, and then goes out and starts them...

He's playing the Democratic Primary game on a different level than anyone else in it. It really is a pleasure to watch him work.

While I'm not naive enough to say that fighting dirty doesn't work, I think that when one's hypocrisy is as transparent as John Kerry's, it's hard to go all that far in presidential politics. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:01 PM by David Adesnik  

CRY FOR ARGENTINA, DAMMIT! Leading the pack after the first round of Sunday's presidential election is former Argentine President Carlos Menem. A victory for Menem in the second round would be a tragedy of historic proportions. He is a corrupt and megalomaniacal charlatan.

Discosure: I am not a neutral observer of Argentine politics. As I've mentioned before, I spent the past summer as an intern in the Argentine Senate, working for Rodolfo Terragno, one of the few men committed to honest politics in a den of thieves.

Thankfully, there is a good chance that Menem won't win. His negative ratings have been in the 60s or higher for the past fifteen months. The WaPo notes that Menem's opponent, Gov. Nestor Kirchner of Santa Cruz, "has a reputation for running a clean government."

With any luck, the Post will do a little more research on Kirchner before the final balloting next month. Having a reputation for clean government in Argentina is like having a reputation for chastity in a brothel. It's all relative. While Kirchner doesn't seem to have authored the sort of billion dollar scams that earned Menem his reputation, people I talked to in Buenos Aires observed that Kirchner seems to share the difficulty of most Argentine provincial governors in distinguishing between the provincial budget and his personal allowance.

If there is hope for Argentina, it is that its citizens are slowly beginning to recognize that widespread corruption is the primary cause of their suffering. However, they must learn to criticize not only their politicians but also themselves. As a very perceptive friend of mine in the Senate observed, the politicians are of the people, and the politicians will only change when the people change.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:49 PM by Patrick Belton  

IF WE START GETTING INSANE NUMBERS OF HITS...well, I'd be surprised, but nonetheless OxBlog is now proudly Google's first result for "aesthetic neo-cons' nudity."

Note to Entertainment Weekly: if you're still looking for a cover theme for next week..... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:40 AM by Patrick Belton  

NO MORE BOWING and curtseying to the Royal Box by players at Wimbledon's Centre Court (except for the rare occasions royals are actually present). Seems a bit sad, actually, somehow. One of the more important roles of the monarchy and the traditions that surround it seems simply to be to make the country more aesthetic- this along with, and instrumental to, its functions in establishing continuity with Britain's national past, and providing a ceremonial emblem of British statehood who is above politics. Thus it is paradigmatic of Bagehot's "dignified" parts of the state - existing to excite the devotion and loyalty of the people, rather than actually to govern (this latter being the work generally of the Commons - the constitution's "efficient" part). In fact, go read Bagehot's The English Constitution here whenever you have a free evening - his arguments are lively and his style extraordinarily memorable. (Although of course I defer to Josh on constitutional book recs...)

In other sports news (and betcha didn't know neo-cons did sports commentary, eh?), some Iraqis in Najaf utterly decimated a platoon of marines: in soccer, where they defeated a side of combat-boot-clad marines by a score of 7-0. But in true Arab fashion, the Najaf Poets and their supporters were gracious hosts: "They were cheering for the Iraqi side, but they were also rooting for us, because we were getting beaten pretty bad," Major Mark DeVito told Reuters. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:07 AM by Patrick Belton  

MEMRI posts an excellent part one of a two-part political profile of new PA Prime Minister Abu Mazen. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:08 AM by David Adesnik  

THIS WEEK'S SHI'ITE MEME: Via Daniel Drezner. For last week's meme, click here. For OxBlog's comments on last week's meme (which anticipate this week's meme), click here. Don't worry if all those pronouns throw you for a loop. Just read the posts. You'll get it. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:13 PM by David Adesnik  

IN TOUCH WITH MY INNER DOVE: Go figure. Tom Friedman writes one of his most hawkish columns to date, but I'm going to attack it from the left. I actually like most of what Friedman said. But there is one point I have to disagree with. Friedman writes that:

As far as I'm concerned, we do not need to find any weapons of mass destruction to justify this war. That skull [of a political prisoner], and the thousands more that will be unearthed, are enough for me.

Yes and no. If that skull is enough, why didn't a single advocate of war justify it on humanitarian grounds before it happened? Even OxDem's own Josh Chafetz argued that

Democratization itself cannot be enough to justify military action...But I maintain that democracy must always be the outcome of military action, even if it is not the cause. So what, then, is the justification for using force in Iraq? Simply put, it is security.

I agreed with Josh then and I agree with Josh now. Both of us have long believed that the case for humanitarian intervention in Iraq is even stronger than it was in Kosovo. Both of us knew that should Saddam fall, apalling evidence of his brutality would come to light.

But neither the President nor any of his principal advisers ever sought to justify the war on humanitarian grounds. The one context in which the humanitarian issue was raised was in response to anti-war protesters' irresponsible assertion that a war against Saddam would result in hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties. As well he should have, Tony Blair shot back that the brutality of an invasion would pale in comparison to the brutality that the people of Iraq have suffered under Saddam. Yet the Prime Minister did not go on to argue that Saddam's brutality, by itself, justified an invasion.

This apparent contradiction within both Blair's logic and my own illustrates the importance of defining "justification" before asking if it has been found. On the one hand, a justification exists for all those acts that are inherently just. Thus, by virtue of being just, the liberation of Iraq was justified. Yet such a definition of justification fails to grapple with the importance of one's intentions.

In other words, if someone does the right thing for the wrong reason, are they justified? Even without providing a general answer to that question, I think one can apply it to the invasion of Iraq. If, after consulting all the relevant evidence, the President had good reason to believe that Saddam possessed WMD, then it is hard to condemn him for ordering the nation to war even if he turned out to be wrong.

Still, it would be fair for critics of the war -- and even moreso, its supporters -- to distrust the President from now on, given his constant insistence, without reservation, that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Moreover, the case for preemptive war against WMD-armed adversaries would suffer irreparably if the United States turns out to have been wrong about Iraq.

In fact, there is reason to believe that the United States' credibility will be damaged for years to come if it turns out to have been wrong about Iraq. Even on the homefront, voters will wonder whether the government knows what it is talking about when it comes to foreign affairs.

In such a climate of distrust, it will be very hard to either fight the war on terror or achieve any other important objective. If that is the price of not finding Saddam's weapons, then it becomes much harder to say that the war was justified.

Yet considered in isolation, one would still have to say that the war was right. When it comes to justification, one's answer is often a matter of context. There is no question that we should celebrate the liberation of Iraq. But that may be not enough to make it justified.
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:00 PM by Patrick Belton  

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Strictly speaking, talking to the National Enquirer or others of like ilk, in and of itself, is neither illegal nor unethical. Rather, it is akin to drinking water out of a toilet bowl -- dumb, distasteful and, when observed, embarrassing." Salt Lake City Tribune Editor James Shelledy, in a letter to readers apologizing for the fact that two of his staff had dealt with the Enquirer on an article embarrassing to the family of kidnapped teenager Elizabeth Smart (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:04 PM by Patrick Belton  

JUST WHEN I GO AND PRAISE the (wonderful) D.C. International Film Festival....

...which remains an absolutely beautiful, incredible gift to the city's residents and visitors - last night I went down with a lovely Kuwaiti friend and saw a film entitled Guerreros set in Kosovo, which struck me as a Spanish version of Black Hawk Down, centered around bureaucratic cowardice and the disintegration of a military mission into chaotic tragedy.

However, of course then the French would have to go and enter a pornographic film for their entry. I mean, come on: "Marie-Jo and her two loves"? Geesh.... I ask, have you people no shame?

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:35 PM by Patrick Belton  

PATRICK'S FAVORITE HEADLINES OF THE DAY: Brought to you by the OxBlog Information Minister (motto: "where knowledge is power....and I have fairly negligible amounts of either")

via CNN: "Van Gogh, Picasso art found behind public toilet." (Christ, can't they appreciate art in Europe?)

via WashPost: "All-Reality TV Channel Planned" (Nooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!! When are they going to start paying actors again?)

again via WashPost:"Boy Makes Waves in Girls' Lacrosse" (yes, yet another vicious instance of cruel sex discrimination yields....)

and via CS Monitor: In Greece, 'I want to know' means 'I care'. (Incidentally, second graf reveals Greek-American J. Edgar Hoover cared a great deal for most prominent Americans and civil rights leaders during his tenure as FBI chief....) (1) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:00 PM by Patrick Belton  

AXIS OF EVIL, PART "TOO"?: More on Franco-Saddam and Russo-Saddam cooperation is emerging from the remnants of the bombed-out Mukhabarat headquarters. (Regarding the initial nature of all of these reports as they come in, see Josh's excellent caveat above.....)

The British press is reporting that documents being discovered in Baghdad indicate Moscow provided Saddam with lists of assassins available for "hits" in the West. Moscow also provided Saddam with intelligence, it now turns out, on conversations between PM Blair and other Western leaders. In other stories over the weekend, it's also emerging from Iraqi intelligence files that the French foreign ministry kept Saddam informed about every development in American planning to which they had access. (We've covered Russo-Saddam cooperation before here, and Franco-Saddam cooperation recently here.)

The U.S. has long and appropriately adopted a strategy of carrots and sticks in its sometimes cooperative, sometimes competitive relationship with Russia. Fortunately, the U.S. is showing that it will now also respond to France's active alignment with Iraq against the US and UK with the appropriate sticks, and later with carrots as they are earned. As the NYT reports, a White House official told a visiting French official "I have instructions to tell you that our relations have been degraded." And administration officials have indicated their intent to sideline France within NATO and at international conferences.

This response of measured anger is appropriate. As enjoyable as it can regrettably be to bash the government of France when its actions contravene all of the decent norms of mankind, we can never take joy in the treachery of an ally, especially when it is of this magnitude. The utter and complete degradation of the Franco-American alliance, initiated by France, should be recognized by the US by its downgrading of all political (if legal are impracticable) expressions of that alliance - and then restoring these as soon as they are earned. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:05 AM by Patrick Belton  

WOO-HOO!!!! My love, I'm extraordinarily proud of you. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:12 AM by David Adesnik  

SOMEONE NAMED BELTON has a fantastic op-ed in today's WaPo. No, it isn't Patrick. It's his better half. Congratulations, Rachel! (And our condolences to Kevin Drum, who will now have to confront this brilliant argument against letting the UN have a leading role in postwar Iraq.)

And did I mention that Rachel is a founding member of OxDem? We're everywhere! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:13 AM by David Adesnik  

FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES: Nir Rosen, a friend of mine from junior high school is now a correspondent for Time Magazine in Baghdad. You can read his first article here.

Now, some of you might be thinking that this a good thing, since surely David's friends will take an even-handed approach to what is happening in Iraq. Dream on! My friend is one of the most hardcore leftists I have ever met. His mission in Baghdad is to document and expose the inner workings of American imperialism. This is the same guy who insisted that the United States bombed Kosovo in order to expand into the Balkan marketplace.

But whatever you think of Nir, you should know that he is a committed journalist and that nothing will stop him from getting the story. A few years back, he left a comfortable life in DC to head for the wilds of Bosnia. Then he crossed over into Serbia -- still under Milosevic at that time -- and was thrown in jail for meeting with the opposition. So expect some great stories from Baghdad.

Leaving politics aside for a moment, you should know that Nir is a good friend and genuinely nice person. And 99% of that time, that's more important than politics.






(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:14 PM by Patrick Belton  

FOR THOSE OF OUR READERS IN D.C.: If you haven't yet been to any of the films being shown in the International Film Festival....well, there's still plenty of time, and the selection of films from all over the world is absolutely stunning. It's running until May 4th, at various theatres around town and such other venues as the Freedom Embassy (um, I meant....). It's an amazing tribute to the city of Washington, D.C. to have assembled such a fine tribute to international film, and for the 17th consecutive year no less. I'm very impressed - kudos! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:21 PM by Patrick Belton  

BAGHDAD GOV'NUR FALLS: Nothing about this yet in the American press, but the Mexican and British presses are reporting that the US has taken into custody the self-proclaimed mayor of Baghdad, Mohammed Mohsen al-Zubaidi, for blocking US attempts at restoring basic services. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:08 PM by Patrick Belton  

NOW WE PAUSE FOR SOMETHING TRULY IMPORTANT: Namely, in my favorite city of New Orleans, it's the New Orleans Jazz Festival. See their website, named, as usual, www.nojazzfest.com - which stands for New Orleans Jazz Fest, and not the anti-jazz protest movement "NO Jazz Fest!"

All readers who are reading this within at the very least a 50-hour drive to N'Orleans should instantly call in sick for tomorrow, get in their cars, and drive without any further delay to Preservation Hall. The only exceptions we're willing to consider are for currently serving military - for y'all, mais cher go on down to the live webcast on N'Orleans channel WWOZ, and listen to it nonstop for the next several days. Although ya'll'd be missin' out on le gumbo, the oyster po'boys, and all the other delicious Louisiana cuisine. So drive on down and laissez les bontemps roulez....

Now back to your usual diet of politics and foreign affairs.... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:04 PM by David Adesnik  

KISSING COUSINS: Turns out Santorum isn't the only one who thinks a right to privacy protects first cousins' right to marriage. (Thanks to JAT for the link.)

Plus, Andrew Sullivan is still going strong.

UPDATE: Kevin Drum responds to Josh's post on Democratic homophobia. Yes, it exists. But there is no getting around the fact that Democratic politicians are the only ones with a solid record of defending of gay rights. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:02 PM by Patrick Belton  

LITERARY INTERLUDE: Maureen McLane, a prize fellow at Harvard, writes a lovely review of poet Henri Cole's latest work, Middle Earth. In one memorable passage, McLane writes that in Cole's hands metaphor

becomes a dazzling figure for the self that is not identical to itself, the always self-estranged subject, the self amazed by its origins, the distances it has traveled, the desires it has fed, the death it always faces. ''My heart as innocent as Buddha's / . . . I eat sugar like a canary from a grown man's tongue / . . . I cling like a cicada to the latticework of memory.''

Go read the whole thing. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:52 AM by David Adesnik  

SYRIA ISN'T NEXT: PeakTalk was way out in front of the headlines on this one. Last Sunday, Pieter pointed to a little-noticed memo from Donald Rumsfeld which called for regime change in Pyongyang. Pieter then predicted that the memo would put North Korea back in the headlines.

On Friday, we find out the North Koreans have admitted having nuclear weapons. On Saturday, we find out that China is embarrassed and concerned by the North Koreans' unexpected admission. And today we find out that a major interagency brawl over North Korea has been going on in Washington.

Way to go, Pieter!

While this sudden flurry of activity may come as somewhat of a surprise, it makes a lot of sense if you bring Rumsfeld's regime change memo into the picture. Knowing that Rumsfeld had his way with Iraq, the North Koreans saw his most recent regime change memo as the writing on the wall. Hoping to deter the Pentagon, Pyongyang insisted that it had nuclear weapons. And the rest is history.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:54 PM by Patrick Belton  

IRAQ, AL QAEDA, AND FRANCE: CNN just posts this story on documents being found in the headquarters of Saddam's intelligence service which demonstrate that there were meetings taking place between Saddam's government and Al Qaeda. (UPDATE 1: Transcripts of the documents have now been released.)

Also, the Sunday Times is reporting today that France provided Saddam with regular reports on French dealings with American officials - including contents of private transatlantic meetings and classified diplomatic cable traffic. (UPDATE 2: A day later, this link required registration; however, Fox News carried a report by the same Sunday Times correspondent, Matthew Campbell, on Monday.)

You've gotta hand it to France - now that there's no Soviet Union to provide leaked cables and highly classified military information to (as new records show they did during most of the Cold War), it's not easy finding a replacement. Now who will they turn to now that we've taken away their Tikriti playmate? Les pauvres. (1) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:46 PM by Patrick Belton  

SCHASTLIVOI PASHKI to our Russian readership!

Today is Orthodox Easter, so Xristos Voskres to all of you who are celebrating it today - now go enjoy some some cirnaya paska and lamb. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:16 PM by Patrick Belton  

BEING DONE WITH PRESS CONFERENCES FOR THE DAY: Our friend Jeff Hauser poses one of his always provocative questions by pointing out this quote by Josh Marshall, which he presents as a challenge to neo-cons: (This is a quick response, incidentally, written over a hasty pb&j being quickly consumed in the leadup to a birthday party.)

"For intellectuals, however, there is always a temptation to take momentous, morally serious questions and make them out to be slightly more momentous and world-historical than they really are. Call it the Orwellian temptation. George Orwell not only epitomized what an intellectual can and should be. He has also become the symbol of the role the best intellectuals played in those critical mid-century years. Along the way, however, the image he cast--or rather his ghost, or his shade--has also become part of the pornography of intellectuals

First, I should be impelled by a certain requisite amount of humility to disclaim that I, personally, am not an intellectual - but rather, at absolute best, a pseudo-intellectual. However, I do know several intellectuals - for instance, my good friends and coauthors (one of whom also, incidentally, is a scholar-athlete).

Second, I think the answer lies in the recognizing that there are important turning points in intellectual and (more obviously) political history, and intellectuals write to attempt to bring these about, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. They do so by attempting to change the way in which we conceptualize the social and political universe in which we live - and in particular, the extent to which we're willing to view as acceptable particular dimensions of the status quo by which we're surrounded. We tend to categorize portions of the status quo as alternatively problematic or acceptable, and to different degrees, and important shifts in intellectual and the ideational aspects of political history often happen by prominent thinkers (Thomas Paine, Betty Friedan) shifting the ways in which we categorize particular aspects of the status quo - and the relative priority we give to aspects of the status quo we agree are unacceptable. For instance, it is historically largely up to writers and crafters of ideas to fashion competing arguments about which of these are acceptable, or, conversely, problematic - transitions from religiosity to secularism in liberal democracies (less so in the U.S.); the lack of democracy and respect for individual political rights in much of the developing world; or the legal-political protections given to labor migrants across particular international boundaries, such as Mexican nationals laboring in the United States, or Europeans within the Schengen area.

What a Kissingerian realist may claim is acceptable - a lack of democracy in large regions of the world in the service of stability, prioritizing with Goethe order over justice - a neo-con may not, believing that only a foreign policy of democracy promotion truly fulfills both the United States's ethical ideals and secures its long-term security. And changing our categorizations of acceptability versus unacceptability (a postmodernist would have written something along the hideous lines of "un/acceptability" - but, then again, I could live with that since it's on second glance a rather nice disparagement of the UN), in this case about the acceptability of a lack of democracy remaining in large portions of the world, generally can't be done without making strong cases. To impute a questionable "pornographic" or "Orwellian" label to neo-cons for attempting to make what's actually a quite large change in our way of viewing the rest of the world seems to me, somehow, unwarranted. I grant that it would be irresponsible to treat minor political decisions as though the future of the world somehow hung in the balance on its outcome, but conversely, minor political decisions are generally the linchpins for broader pervasive changes in the political moment, when the latter occur (eg, the colonial response to the Stamp Act) - and rhetorical considerations aside, in this case the degree of weight being given to these issue does seem to me to be truly concomitant with the significance of the matter.

There's much more to be said, but friendship duties must temporarily prevail. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:57 PM by David Adesnik  

OUT OF THE DOGHOUSE: Kristof is back off of the unreadable list for now, thanks to yet another OxDem-friendly column as well as fairly reasonable mea culpa admitting that the doves -- himself included -- made extravagantly wrong claims about what might go wrong in the event of war. (Actually, his second mea culpa in the past six months.)

I think I'm going to have to fall back on my original diagnosis of Kristof as a columnist with split-personality disorder. Insightful one day, kneejerk liberal the next. Strangely enough, Kristof accounts for his own bad predictions by saying that they were the work of "[his] my body double while I was on vacation." I figure Dowd and Krugman have actually been writing the columns in question and submitting them as Kristof's work without him knowing about it. Remember, you heard it here first. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:53 PM by David Adesnik  

CHUTZPAH: Jordan's Foreign Minister says all the right things about how Arabs must launch their own indigenous movements for democratic reform. How unfortunate that King Abdallah II has spent the past few years destroying what is left of his father's reforms in order to consolidate his own personal dictatorship. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:41 PM by David Adesnik  

RUMSFELD VS. TEHERAN: From the NYT:

"A vocal minority clamoring to transform Iraq in Iran's image will not be permitted to do so," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "We will not allow the Iraqi people's democratic transition to be hijacked for ? by those who might wish to install another form of dictatorship."

Not bad for the SecDef. All I would've added is something about how only those who participate in the democratic process and win the support of the Iraqi people will have a right to say how Iraq is governed. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:07 PM by David Adesnik  

WHAT FOLLOWS is the transcript of a press conference held by OxBlog Information Minister Mopatrick Saeed Al-Belton on the subject of OxBlog Vice-President-For-Life David Adesnik's remarkable achievements in today's all-Britain karate tournament:

MSaB: Ladies and gentlemen of the press, thank you for coming this afternoon. As expected, I will begin today's briefing with the announcement of excellent news from the front. According to initial reports, David has won a tremendous victory in the first round of the kata event. Thus, I can confidently say that the black belts' ordeal of humiliation has already begun. Are there any questions?

Q: Yes, Mr. Al-Belton, I was wondering if you could let us know who David's opponent in the first round was.

A: I have no interest in embarassing the unfortunate individual who was humbled before David's might. Next?

Q: Mr. Minister, I've just received notice from a reporter embedded at the tournament that David apparently had no opponent in the first round. Could you explain?

A: There is nothing to explain. If the coward was afraid to even show himself in the ring, then let him bear the resultant shame.

Q: According to a confidential source at black belt headquarters, David received a bye in the first round because there were an odd number of participants in the tournament. Do you have any comment on this?

A: I have had enough of your impudence. Let's move on to more important things. We now have a report that in the second round of the kata event, David performed a mighty version of heian shodan.

Q: Having checked the rulebook, I'm fairly sure that this is an elimination round, so wouldn't you agree that the real question is not how well David did, but whether he did better than his opponent?

A: If that were the case, it was only because David wanted to take advantage of the overconfidence of his potential opponents by letting them think that he is not at his strongest.

Q: So basically, you've conceded that David was knocked out of the kata bracket immediately? What can you tell us about his performance in kumite?

A: Don't put words in my mouth. However, because I am gracious enough to share with you as much of the truth as possible, I will let you know about the kumite. It seems that in the kumite event, David has chosen to demonstrate his courage by not accepting a bye in the first round. So there. I have disproven your silly pig-dog notions about his victory in the kata event being gratuitous.

Q: The al-Karateka network has just broadcast a report that David was seen being smacked in the face. Can you verify this?

A: I have no evidence to back up this sort of malfeasant roguish claim. What I can say is that half of the match is over and that David is still bravely holding his own against the blackbelt forces.

Q: Al-Karateka is now reporting that David was hit by a reverse hook kick to the face, thus eliminating him from the tournament. Can you verify this?

A: Don't trust anything you hear from al-Karateka. Because of their slanderous nincompoopery, we have expelled all of their correspondents from OxBlog.

Q: Eyewitness accounts now confirm that David is crumpled on the floor and his face is a bloody mess. Isn't it about time you admit you have no idea what the hell you are talking about?

A: There are oceans of blood all around David! It is the blood of his hegemonistic black belt pig-dog enemies who have futilely sought to oust him from this tournament.

Q: Mr. Minister, why are you stuffing all of your papers into that attache case? And why is your finger on the trigger of your 9mm sidearm? Are you in a rush to get somewhere?

A: I have no more time for any of your knavish skullduggeries! This conference is over.

[OK. So I made up the part about being crumpled on the floor with my face a bloody mess. But the rest is all true. I swear! -ed.] (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:38 AM by Patrick Belton  

LIKE ALLEN DULLES, it will to her great credit be said of Baroness Park that she kept the secrets. Nonetheless, the former principal of Somerville College, Oxford, and humble, brave, dryly self-deprecating MI-6 officer - whose long quiet labor in the service of democracy and the interests of her nation was rewarded with a peerage - most likely still has some interesting vignettes she might share to those of you who care to trek up to her flat on Woodstock Road. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:53 AM by Daniel  

TAKE THAT, RICK. YOU AND YOUR PARTY. Dan Savage on Santorum and the G.O.P. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:46 PM by David Adesnik  

CONFIDENT OF VICTORY: This will be my last post for the night, because early tomorrow morning I will be heading off to Birmingham to participate in the KUGB's annual all-Britain karate tournament. Even though I do not have a record of success in such competition, this time things will be different.

The foundation of my triumph will be my opponents' assumption that I am a spent force. Expecting to meet with negligible resistance, they will soon find themselves caught in a quagmire.

My opponents' initial attacks -- designed to instill "shock and awe" -- will only demonstrate how impotent they are. Unable to recognize their own failure, my opponents will carry on with their conventional battle plan only to find themselves paralyzed by my unconventional strategies of resistance.

As the fight drags on, my opponents will find their own morale flagging because of their initial overconfidence. In contrast, I will find myself strengthened by the moral support of all of those other underrated fighters -- contemptuously referred to as "brown belts" -- who have decided to join the struggle against unipolar black belt hegemony.

For an official announcement of my victory, please visit this site again tomorrow, when OxBlog Information Minister Mopatrick Saeed Al-Belton will have exclusive results from the tournament. While you may be accustomed to visiting other sites for results, I am sure that by now you have had enough of the lies propagated by the mainstream sports media.

Until then... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:15 PM by David Adesnik  

COMMEMORATION: As OxBlog's Australian correspondent reminds me, April 25th marks the anniversary of the day in 1915 on which the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) landed on the shores of Gallipoli. April 25th is now known as ANZAC Day, the day on which Australians commemorate both the tragic loss of life that followed the Gallipoli landing, as well as the sacrifices made by all Australian soldiers since that time. May they rest in peace. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:40 PM by Patrick Belton  

NUDITY, NUDITY, NUDITY: As is OxBlog's long tradition, this post actually is about nudity. More specifically, it's about Dixie Chicks, the relationship of art and politics, and some reflections on the politicized use of the body.

First of all, to begin with what I hope to be the quite obvious: any functioning democracy needs to create flourishing, broad spaces for conceivably quite brutal dissent, with bare-minimal (no pun) strictures imposed on dissenters (like, obviously, that they obey laws and don't become violent, threaten individual liberties, or give support to a foreign intelligence service: but these are, and should be, absolutely minimal strictures applying equally to all citizens regardless of their degree of support for the government in power). Strauss may have pointed out that Socrates and the city will perennially be at cross-purposes, but contemporary liberal democracy has taken the strong stand that the city must give a wide berth in the Forum to all those who would be the day's Socrates. Furthermore, this berth must not merely be legal and political, but also normative and moral: a polity which does not engage its dissenters in civic conversations runs the risk of fragmenting itself into poles which merely shout past each other, the greatest danger of our own republic. As Senator Fulbright put it (disclosure who paid for a large portion of my recent education, and whom I am therefore strongly disposed to think well of), dissent has become an article of faith in democracies. I support in the strongest terms possible performers' rights to criticize the President of the United States in their concerts - although frankly, it may detract from my aesthetic opinion of their art, as at least crassly-politicized art is generally less likely to be any good. And given the foreign venue of the Dixie Chicks' concert in which they criticized the U.S. President, there was something pandering about their comments. However, my response, and I hope yours, would not be to criticize the notion of artistic political protest, but rather to either (1) treat their opus on aesthetic grounds, or (2) to deal with the content of their political arguments, and not their propriety in making them.

We do a fair amount of the latter here, so I'd like to deal with the former for a moment - i.e., the aesthetic dimensions of politicized nudity, a frequent phenomenon in contemporary politicized art. Obviously, the Dixie Chicks' Entertainment Weekly cover had me thinking of Karen Finley, the famous "chocolate smeared woman" whom NEA opponents loved to attack. So I went back and read several interviews with Finley. Her work is confrontational, radical, includes copious amounts of profanity, and intentionally deals indelicately with controversial issues such as rape - and is, unquestionably, art. There's a complex structure of meaning and signification in her work, as clearly comes across in reading through several transcripts of her pieces. (I leave aside entirely for the moment the issue of whether she should receive public funding; frankly, I'm not sure what the role should be of politics, and, through it, popular aesthetic and other value judgments, in funding artists. Without having considered the issue much, I'm inclined to think that public funding for controversial artists represents neither a human right nor an abomination, but instead a public decision through complex layers of political process.) Now I'm not sure that the next time Karen Finley performs in Washington or in New Haven I'll necessarily go see her, but her work undoubtedly qualifies her as an artist - and, after all, I may even go see her in the end.

I'm not sure this is true for the Dixie Chicks, in their recent act of politicized nudity on the cover on Entertainment Weekly. In an attempt to seem profound and artistic, the band members had written on their bodies controversy-laden words like "Dixie Sluts" and "Traitors." The whole episode reminded me, more than anything else, of some of the exhibitionist displays I'd seen on various University of California campuses that attempted to legitimate themselves by pretending to be political, and thence, artistic and profound. Rather than artistic (and intentionally controversy-provoking) nudity like Karen Finley's adventures with chocolate, that of the Dixie Chicks seems rather more a combination of marketing stratagem with pretentious non-statement. After all, nudity is a wonderful way to recover popularity, since, first, people generally like or are at least well-disposed to it, and second, it doesn't force you to engage at all the arguments or opinions that you voiced that had made you unpopular. And writing the words "Dixie Sluts" on their bodies doesn't seem to engage their earlier debate at all, but rather seems only a diversionary tactic that seeks to divert ad hominem criticism of the president into issues of sexuality, and therefore to cover them (ironically) with the veneer of the more respectable feminist cause established by women such as Ms. Finley.

Politicized art is only generally, not necessarily, less valuable aesthetically: the tension seems to be more of an empirical than an essential matter, and it's easy to think of important and beautiful artistic works that have been both political and have endured as noteworthy aesthetic creations. Most of the spiritual repertory goes into this category; so does much folk music out of the labor protest genres, and jazz (such as many pieces by the recently-departed Nina Simone). A general pattern seems to be that the most memorable songs depict the particular in a way that gets at something universal. The duality is inescapable, since either one without the other becomes somewhat vapid and unsturdy. Thus when we hear the evocative words "Go down Moses, way down in Egypt-Land....Tell old Pharoah: Let my people go," we instantly know that they are simultaneously and powerfully about contemporary blacks, the ancient Hebrews, and sadness and the search for freedom as an inescapable part of the human condition. All would-be political artists of our day should take careful note. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:27 AM by Patrick Belton  

WINNER FOR THE "NEVER-BEFORE-SAID SENTENCE CONTEST": From one of our closest friends - "So there I was racing down the stairs in Saddam's palace at the ruins of ancient Babylon on Easter morning when I tripped on the marble and fainted into the arms of a Catholic priest." (true) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:15 AM by Patrick Belton  

LABORATORIES OF DEMOCRACY, sure, but state legislatures come up with really kooky ideas at times. To wit: a "scarlet letter" law in Florida under which, before giving a child up for adoption, mothers were required to publicize their sexual histories in great detail in newspaper ads. Not only did this odd idea also encompass rape victims and underage girls who had been victims of abuse - but the rallying cry for lawmakers in the bill's passage was Baby Emily, a Florida girl put up for adoption in 1992, but whose convicted rapist father contested her adoption. Injustice, sure.

A Florida appellate court struck down the law on Wednesday, the state's lawyers having refused to defend it. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:24 PM by David Adesnik  

'I TOLD YOU SO' FROM THE LEFT: Kos smells blood and is beginning to smile at the though of Bush being impeached if we don't find any WMD. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:14 PM by David Adesnik  

LOOTING: Glenn Reynolds thinks that widespread criticism of American passivity during the chaos is unfair, given certain evidence that the looting may have been well-planned and hard to stop. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:00 PM by David Adesnik  

ADVICE FOR GARNER: Columnist David Broder is blasting Jay Garner for his imperial naivete. Admittedly, even I'm a bit uncomfortable with Garner's statement that

To get [the Iraqis] comfortable with self-government I don't think will take long...Once they're comfortable with it and they realize where they are and what they have, I think they'll take off. I have high hopes for this."

If Garner knew what was best -- both for himself and for the United States -- he would keep his opinions to himself. Especially after its embarrassing failure to predict how the invasion would turn out, the media is looking for an administration official whose naivete and hubris will render him or her vulnerable to humiliation.

Even for those journalists who are not interested taking the administration down a notch, the constant imperative to expose politicians' incompetence will ensure that every sign of things going wrong in Iraq will become a big story. If the occupation authorities insist that things are going well, every thing that goes wrong will become an even bigger story.

A considerable amount of academic literature suggests that journalists measure the significance of world events according to the expectations generated by the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department. This point has really been driven home to me during my research on the Reagan administration's policy on Central America . At this point, having read through five years of headlines, it is has become self-evident that the more a politicians denies that a problem exists, the more likely that any evidence of that problem's existence will become a front-page story.

Consider this example: In 1982, there were approximately 50 US soldiers working as instructors for the armed forces in El Salvador. According to their rules of engagement, these soldiers were permitted to carry sidearms, but not rifles. Such restrictions reflected the Reagan's administration's desire to demonstrate that the presence of 'advisors' was not going to result in an incremental commitment of the kind that (allegedly) led to the American involvement in Vietnam.

After CNN produced footage of US instructors carrying rifles, Reagan ordered an investigation of the incident, which of course made the front page. The next day, when the US Ambassador in El Salvador sent one of the officers home for disregarding his orders, it made the front page again.

The point here is that the newsworthiness of a given event often reflects journalists' expectations much more than it does the events significance. In light of the widespread fear that El Salvador would become another Vietnam, there was no chance that the presence of 50 advisers would grow into the presence of half a million soliders. But because of such fears, the rifle incident became an important one.

So, on the off chance that Gen. Garner or any other occupation officials are reading this post, I'm going to list a few guidelines that may help you avoid bad coverage:

1) Always talk about the complexity of the situation in you are facing. Journalists love nothing more than someone they can portray as having a black-and-white worldview.

2) Always talk about the importance of respecting and learning from foreign cultures. Journalists love nothing more than someone they can portray as an Ugly American.

3) Always talk about the local population's interest in dignity and autonomy. Journalists love nothing more than someone they can portary as an imperial proconsul.

4) Always talk about the United States' less-than-perfect record of promoting reform abroad. Journalists love nothing more than someone they can portray as an ignorant patriot.

5) Never remind journalists of their own mistakes. Journalists hates nothing more than someone who tells them how to do their job.

Just in case it wasn't self-evident, points one through five summarize the worldview that journalists developed in Vietnam and have carried with them ever since. While the original generation of war correspondents has mostly retired, its worldview has become that of the mainstream media establishment. You can't work against it, only around it. The only protection from it is success.

Gen. Garner, I wish you the best. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:23 PM by David Adesnik  

LIONS AND TIGERS AND SHI'ITES, OH MY! On Monday, the WaPo ran a front page headline that read "Officials Argue for Fast U.S. Exit From Iraq." On Wednesday, it ran a front page headline that read "U.S. Planners Surprised by Strength of Iraqi Shiites". Coincidence? I think not.

As one might expect, these stories reflect the input of anonymous "senior officials in the White House and Pentagon" (Mon.) and "Bush administration officials" (Wed). While I firmly support the practice of anonymous quotation, there are times when it becomes problematic. After all, wouldn't it be convenient for those who want the US out of Iraq as fast as possible to play up the intensity and unexpected nature of Shi'ite resentment?

To be fair, there are indications in the text of the WaPo articles that they do not quote the same officials. First of all, the identification of Monday's officials as "senior" is significant. Next comes the fact that the first quotation in the Wednesday article comes from a State Department official, not a White House or Pentagon man.

In addition, that same article observes that "Some administration officials were dazzled by Ahmed Chalabi, the prominent Iraqi exile who is a Shiite and an advocate of a secular democracy." Thanks to the passive voice, it's impossible to tell whether this sentence paraphrases the opinion of "some administration officials" or whether it is a semi-factual observation made by the article's authors. Either way, the firm anti-Chalabi spin on this point suggests that it also has its origins in the State Department.

The important thing, I think, is not to overplay Shi'ite antagonism to the American occupation. Today, the front page of the WaPo tells us that "Iraqi Shiites Grow Uneasy Over U.S. Occupation; Cleric Says Americans Must Leave". Take a closer look at the evidence, though, and you'll see that this story is just a reincarnation of journalists' refusal to believe that Iraqis appreciate their liberation.

According to the Post, an anti-occupation "statement by Abdul Aziz Hakim, one of a variety of clergy vying for power among Shiites in Iraq, was another sign of growing unease among Iraq's 60 percent Shiite majority over U.S. intentions." Strikingly, the WaPo's correspondent don't think to ask whether Hakim is playing up his anti-American stance because he is "vying for power". If memory serves, Middle Eastern politicians occasionally resort to disingenuous anti-Americanism in order to fire up emotions and deflect criticism of their other shortcomings.

In this case, Hakim has good reason to deflect attention from the fact (which the Post duly notes) that he is the brother of SCIRI's Teheran-based leader, Ayatollah Mohammed Bakir Hakim. This is a classic of Middle Eastern politics: hide your own flawed nationalist credentials by attacking the United States. Thus, for the Post to call Hakim's words an indication of "growing unease" among Shi'ites is questionable to say the least.

Thankfully, US officials don't seem prone to rush to conclusions as fast as the media has. As Jay Garner said,

"I think the bulk of the Shia, the majority of the Shia, are very glad they are where they are right now...Two weeks ago they wouldn't have been able to demonstrate."

Exactly. There is every reason to believe that most Iraqi Shi'ites are greatful for their liberation. In fact, many indigenous Shi'ite clerics are open to working with the United States. What we have to watch out for are the ambitious men with friends in Teheran.

One important strategy for winning Shi'ite support has nothing do with religion. It has to do with reconstruction. According to the lede of another front page story in Wednesday's WaPo,

In a milestone of sorts, Baghdadis have begun shooting their automatic rifles in celebration rather than anger as electricity is gradually restored to one neighborhood after another in a darkened city noisy with generators.

If we move fast on the reconstruction front, Iraqis of all denominations will recognize that an American presence serves their own immediate interests, in the short-run and possibly over an extended period of time.

What's also important to recognize is that the United States shares a critical interest even with the most provocative Shi'ites leaders. We want to leave and they want us to leave. Clearly, there is reason to suspect that some Shi'ite leaders want the Americans out so that they can establish their own theocratic dictatorship. That is why, rather than getting defensive when the legitimacy of our presence is challenged, we ought to demand that all those who challenge it specify what they want to replace it with.

If the radical fundamentalists have to admit exactly what it is they are after, I expect they will lose considerable support. In order to make that happen, what the United States has to do is prevent the radicals from assuming the mantle of Iraqi nationalism. But if we don't get defensive and continually remind the people of Iraq that we want to leave as well, it shouldn't be all that hard.

Of course, the way to make clear that we are serious about leaving is not by having "senior administration officials" share their thoughts with WaPo reporters. That kind of diplomacy undercuts American authority by emboldening anti-American politicians without having an impact on Iraqi public opinion. What we need are clear statements from Jay Garner (which we seem to have) and, more importantly, from the President.

UPDATE: Kos misses the anti-Chalabi spin of Wednesday's Post article. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:12 PM by David Adesnik  

PILE ON! The WaPo blasts away at Santorum, with arguments that seem surprisingly familiar. Richard Cohen adds that:

In 2001, 1,393 hate crimes were committed against gay and bisexual Americans -- 14.3 percent of total hate crimes.

That's an important point, because we can't afford to forget that homophobia, just like racism, has real physical victims. Perhaps the most eloquent argument against Santorum's bigotry is simply this: Remember Matthew Shepard.

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:14 PM by Patrick Belton  

BOLSHOI MOLODETS!!!!: Guess who's going to be giving the University of Minnesota's valedictory speech this spring? If you guessed OxBlog's friend David Simon, you're right on the money, even if it is in rubles. So a big shout out and bravina to our friend David!!! And the best thing is, next fall he and his good friend Heidi are both coming here to Oxford and my college, the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, courtesy of some fat dead Zimbabwean benefactor of the New World Order.

He and I made friends by the Coke machine at CFR two summers ago, and not only is he going to be president someday, he's a really sweet guy to boot. (I just had to go and embarass him in front of all his future IR MPhil classmates....) Congrats, David! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:50 PM by Patrick Belton  

SANTORUM WATCH REDUX, OR SIGNS OF THE APOCALYPSE: a CNN headline this morning reads: Polygamists angry at gay link.

I can't even bring myself to make a joke here. Sometimes real life does it for you. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:15 AM by Patrick Belton  

NEEDED A REMINDER THAT CUBA'S GOVERNMENT IS PRETTY DOWNRIGHT EVIL? Feeling tempted to tag along to one of the multiple peregrinations of Yale seniors to Cuba, because, heck, it's slightly illicit and the food and salsa are so darn good there? Then for homework, go and read this.

For those of you who are on a slim diet of clicks in the pre-summer run up (and for those you who aren't, then also check out this and this and this and...), the article (from this morning's WaPo) shows how pervasive the Cuban police state apparatus has become: Cuban domestic intelligence placed agents in the human rights community, and as friends and executive assistants to noted academics suspected of harboring reformist views, and as journalists posing as sympathetic to reformers. When after fifteen years' time, these agents then became presidents of leading human rights organizations (as did Odilia Collazo, Agent Tania to her handlers), confidantes and assistants to leading academics - with access to their files and email passwords (as did Aleida de las Mercedes Godinez, or Agent Vilma), or president of an independent journalists' association with friendships to key reporters (as did Nestor Baguer, Agent Octavio), the Cuban government was able to develop comprehensive information on the most intimate thoughts, musings, or emails of these journalists, human rights organization members, academics, etc. - with the goal of imprisoning the latter for two decades for "subversive activities" (as happened to 75 noble people earlier this month, including some of Cuba's best-known poets, journalists, human rights workers, and professors). Absolutely sickening - this regime is a blight on the hemisphere, and on the democratic aspirations of mankind.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:22 PM by David Adesnik  

VOLOKH ON FOODCRIME: "If meat is murder, then chicken is manslaughter, eggs are kidnapping, and milk is sexual harassment."
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:09 PM by Patrick Belton  

SUSPICIOUS: I just received a letter addressed to me and asking for a $25,000 contribution to the President's re-election campaign. (A year of law school, or dinner. Yeah, why not....)

What's interesting about this is that, not only am I not registered as a Republican, but having just moved into Washington, absolutely no one had my name or address. Being a bad citizen (and not that interested in politics...), I hadn't yet gotten around to registering to vote. And the WaPo and all of my magazine subscriptions (for the oh-so-curious and my stalkers: the Economist, NY and London Reviews of Books, and the New Yorker) are jointly in Rachel's and my name.

However, I had sent my resume to the National Security Council to apply for a position on its staff - even though my chances of getting a job there from a cold letter were between zero and none, given that this administration unlike its predecessor has drawn together an NSC staff generally composed of tenured faculty. However, being from an absurdly wealthy working-class southern family and having married into an equally wealthy dynasty which inhabits a log cabin in Alaska, I just had nothing better to do with those 37 cents. Neither Rachel nor any of my neighbors received the letter.

I'm therefore left, for want of a better explanation, with the conclusion that this administration is making a practice of adding people applying for positions in the administration (including such nominally nonpartisan bodies as the NSC staff) to the White House's political database of potential contributors.

Now, I support much if not most of what this administration has done in foreign policy. But mixing governing and re-elective databases, and sending letters asking for fairly massive donations to people who had applied for foreign policy positions in the administration seems, somehow, slightly crass if not downright unethical. I say this not from any ideological or partisan motivation for attacking the president, but simply from a strong remembrance from my time as a congressional staffer of the strong ethical firewall that had been erected between casework and campaign databases, and in general between government and campaign offices.

Too many more of these letters, and, and, I just might even get around to registering to vote in D.C.!!!! (New Haven, I found out, has kicked me off the rolls - fair enough, since I'm not dead yet.)

UPDATE: A number of readers, including some Republican staffers admirably concerned to make sure that the White House was in compliance with campaign finance laws, have asked me for more information about which precise fundraising push the letter was part of. Our Republican readers particularly wanted to ensure that all this didn't controvene somehow the legislated individual donor limits of $2,000 per campaign cycle.

Now my actual invitation hitched a ride to the Pentagon with Rachel this morning on the dashboard of my car, but I believe it was for this fundraiser - the House and Senate Republicans' presidential dinner on May 21. Dinner tickets are $2,500 each, and tables were the big-ticket item at $25,000 each.

I'm inclined to be fairly confident the organizers' lawyers were probably pretty fastidious on this point (this confidence in the wisdom of campaigns comes in spite of having served on the staff of many of them....), but I'd nevertheless be very interested if anyone could give me a bit more information on the point.
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:42 PM by David Adesnik  

FINGERS CROSSED: Martin Kimel thinks that pointing out media bias plays a critical role in keeping journalists honest. I hope. [Martin's post is the first one for Monday, April 21st.] (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:26 PM by David Adesnik  

STILL TELLING'EM SO: The WSJ's editors are a little late with this one, but their list of absurd predictions is quite impressive. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:06 PM by David Adesnik  

MY THOUGHTS EXACTLY: This is a proud day for Josh, who has been the driving force behind OxBlog ever since it came into being one year ago today. With his razor-sharp logic, fierce commitment to principle and compelling written style, Josh has built OxBlog into a formidable institution. I am proud to be associated with it and profoundly grateful for the generosity Josh has shown by letting me a be a part of it. Happy Blogiversary! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:56 PM by Patrick Belton  

ACTUALLY, I had just been recovering from our massive blogiversary gala ... Thanks to David and Josh, yes, for a great first year, but most importantly for being kind enough to provide me with cover - even though some of you noticed that there was something ever so slightly Irish about the guy "photographed" below.....

More seriously, an ENORMOUS thanks and congratulations to Josh (i.e., OxBlogger 1.0) on your baby blog's one-year birthday!

And to OxBlog: many happy returns of the day! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:53 PM by David Adesnik  

SANTORUM DECORUM: CF writes in to say

I think that Sen. Santorum raises a valid point: if the U.S. Supreme Court finds a new "sexual privacy" right or other emanation under a penumbra that guarantees government non-interference in private sexual matters, how can we avoid applying that to consensual incest or adultery?...At worst, I think, you can accuse [Santorum] of being insufficiently supportive of the rights of gays to have private sexual freedom.

I agree with the first half of CF's argument. Once the Court extends the right to privacy to homosexuals, it will have to extend it to all other forms of consenting sex between adults. Now, since I don't really know anything about constitutional law, I suggest you go read Eugene Volokh's explanation of why this is so. Gene, of course, would like to see the right of privacy extended to all forms of consenting sex. (Gene writes as if he has no personal interest in the matter, but don't you ever wonder about him and Sasha being so close? ;) )

Now, regardless of the fact that Santorum is correct from a legal perspective, that doesn't mean he isn't a homophobe. Consider Santorum's statement (while answering the same quesiton in which he made his constitutional argument) that the constitutional right to privacy

destroys the basic unit of our society because it condones behavior that's antithetical to strong healthy families. Whether it's polygamy, whether it's adultery, where it's sodomy, all of those things, are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family.

How, I ask, is sodomy "antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family"? I know many loving gay parents who have raised wonderful children. Some are married. Some are not. But the important point is that parents' sexual practices have no apparent impact on their children. (And if you consider that state laws often define oral sex as sodomy, I'd have to imagine that the number of loving parents who practice sodomy must number in the millions.)

If Santorum were really worried about those things which "destory the basic unit of our society", he would spend his time worrying about spousal violence, child abuse and divorced parents who renege on child welfare payments. But for some reason, Santorum thinks that having less-than-traditional sexual preferences is a greater threat to one's children than beating them or refusing to buy them food and clothing. You know why? Santorum is a bigot.

Of course, you could have figured that out pretty easily from Santorum's strictly consitutional argument that

if the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything.

Would anyone actually place homosexuality in the same context as incest and adultery if they weren't a bigot? If you or I were to argue against the existence of a right to privacy, we could draw on a wide array of valid arguments, none of which rest on immature fears about a right to privacy resulting in widespread incest or adultery.

Whatever the legal similarities between homosexuality, incest and adultery, the sociological differences are profound. And if one happens to accept a realist approach to the law -- as Jack Balkin recommends in this instance -- social behavior has significant legal ramifications. As Balkin points out, there was a time when Americans thought of pre-marital sex as no less offensive than homosexuality and would have felt comfortable with state regulation of pre-marital behavior. Today, of course, any such regulation would be struck down without a second thought.

As Balkin argues, the most persuasive explanation for the Court's changing attitude is that it accepts social norms as a legitimate source of constitutional interpretation. Thus, the real question isn't whether the protection of gay rights might provide a constitutional foundation for the protection of incest and adultery. The question is whether social acceptance of homosexuality will result in social acceptance of incest and adultery.

As Gene points out, adultery has already become so widespread that the prosecution of adulterers is now unheard of, even if there is no effort underway to legalize such behavior. Once again, if Santorum's real interest were protecting the family, he would be speaking out against the adulterers, not the homosexuals. If anything, Santorum should be arguing that adultery promotes homosexuality and not vice versa. But that kind of logic might undermine the Senator's mindless campaign against gay marriage.

So what about incest? Is there anyone out there who will take advantage of a Court ruling in favor of homosexuality to advance the cause of incest? [Insert West Virginia joke here.] As Dan Simon asks, why do Santorum's critics, OxBlog included,

find it outrageous and offensive that anyone would compare gay sex with (presumably consensual) polygamy, incest and adultery, because the latter are all.....uh, what? Icky and disgusting? Prohibited by the Bible? Just not done, you know, by Our Sort of People?

I admit, of course, that there is no rational case to be made against consensual polygamy, adultery or incest. If it turns out that all sorts of well-adjusted adult siblings (say, Gene and Sasha) have been hiding their love for one another until now, I might be willing to hear them out. But for the moment, incest tends to be associated with predatory and often violent behavior. Polygamy often entails abuse as well. And adultery is almost always associated with deception. Santorum knows that. If he thinks homosexuality belongs in the same category, then he is a bigot.

Now, the fact that Santorum has refused to apologize suggests that he really is a bigot. According to the Senator, "My comments should not be construed in any way as a statement on individual lifestyles." Especially not those lifestyles that "destory the basic unit of society," right? What a hypocrite.

No less absurd is Bill Frist's statement that "Rick is a consistent voice for inclusion and compassion in the Republican Party and in the Senate, and to suggest otherwise is just politics." Of course, the politics here are actually Frist's. He's not a bigot. But sure as hell isn't going to let the Republicans suffer the same sort of embarrassment they did because of Trent Lott.

At the same time, I don't really agree with Rep. Barney Frank's (D-MA) statment that "This kind of gay-bashing is perfectly acceptable in the Republican Party." Acceptable only in the sense that Bill Frist would rather defend Santorum than sacrifice him to Democratic critics such as John Kerry and Howard Dean. I have no doubt that most Republican politicians recognize the right of homosexuals to full and equal protection under the law, even if many of them harbor private doubts about its morality. What there is now is a struggle between those who want to leave the party's gay-bashing rhetoric behind and those embarrassing few like Santorum who just won't let go.

So enough of all this Santorum bashing. Let's remember the nice things he's said about homosexuals. For example:

"In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case might be."

Damn. And I was about to propose to Rover.

UPDATE: Unsurprisingly, Andrew Sullivan is all over Santorum, both on his website and in Salon. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:35 PM by David Adesnik  

CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS? Not exactly. Turns out the 82nd Airborne caught five Ba'ath terrorists and an Al Qaeda operative who had intended to bomb Shi'ite mosques in Karbala. Memo to Rumsfeld: Next time, deploy some of those guys from the 82nd around Paris' synagogues. (Via Instapundit) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:03 PM by David Adesnik  

REAGAN REDUX: While I happen to be reading Alexander Haig's memoirs as part of my research project on the Reagan era, his book is well worth reading for anyone interested in the making of American foreign policy. Above all, there are disturbing parallels between Haig's recollections of divisive debates over foreign policy within the Reagan cabinet and the divisions that have emerged in the current one.

In both cases, such divisions have been played out in the public sphere rather than behind closed doors. As CalPundit points out, the inconsistency of the administration's stated policy on Iraq has reached an unacceptable level.

Of course, such observations are hardly original. And I don't just mean that OxBlog has made the same point before. In December 2000, I was relaxing on the beach in Thailand with CM, an Army Ranger, now stationed at Fort Drum with the 10th Mountain Division. An obsessive reader, CM had his head buried in The Prince while I had my head buried in the sand. Metaphorically, that is.

At one point, CM read out a passage in which Machiavelli describes the situation of a prince who lacks sufficient knowledge of public affairs to personally direct the affairs of his kingdom. Machiavelli notes that such a prince ought to entrust all important decisions to a single adviser, since the presence of multiple advisers would result in arguments that such a prince lacks the ability to resolve.

Of course, CM noted that The Prince's advice stood in direct contrast to the stated position of the Bush campaign, which was that the President-elect would compensate for his deficient knowledge of foreign affairs by surrounding himself with a broad array of expert advisors.

This is not to that history has proven the Italian right and the Texan wrong. In fact, Bush's surprising success as a foreign policy President suggests that old Niccolo may not have the final say on affairs of state. Nonetheless, I think it is fair to say that the internal divisions reported in the press have constantly threatened the integrity of Bush's foreign policy.

While one might argue that this sort of public debate is an admirable model of open deliberation in a democratic context, I think that such an interpretation is simply not tenable in light of the fact that the President's advisors disagree over what the United States' policy is, rather than what it should be. At times, one might even use the term insubordination to describe certain individuals' response to presidential decisions.

While I am most definitely an optimist on certain counts, I don't expect the President to impose any sort of discipline on his subordinates any time soon. The Reagan precedent suggests that such divisions only become worse over time.

In certain instances, a lack of presidential oversight can have dramatic consequences. In Reagan's case, those consequences became known as Iran-Contra. Regardless of whether one considers the actions of Poindexter and North to have been criminal, I think is fair to say that the Reagan administration suffered extensive damage as a result of the President's public admission that he had no idea what his own National Security Advisor was doing.

(Note to Republicans: I hope you don't feel I'm picking on your favorite presidents. As everyone knows, Eisenhower and Nixon were in firm control of their cabinets, while Carter had to confront divisions similar to that of his successor.)

For the moment, I am fairly confident that President Bush has enough control of the Cabinet to ensure that there is no second Iran-Contra. But that doesn't mean that existing divisions are not damaging. Given that there are any number of American adversaries waiting to take advantage of unexpected developments in postwar Iraq, the President would be well advised to discourage such adventurism by demonstrating that his administration cannot be led astray from its stated objectives.

UPDATE: Dan Simon defends the Presidents' mangerial style, at least with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:00 PM by David Adesnik  

ARE THE NEO-CONS FRENCH? In his 1984 memoir, Alexander Haig, the one time Secretary of State to President Reagan, observed that the increasingly successful Republican party

has even attracted a class of intellectuals, called neoconservatives, who used to be liberal Democratic intellectuals and still sound like liberal Democratic intellectuals, as a Frenchman who learns English late in life will typically still sound like a Frenchman when he speaks our language. There are also some real conservatives in the party.

Keep that in mind next time you pick up a copy of The Weekly Standard. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:55 PM by Patrick Belton  

THANKFULLY, SENATOR SANTORUM is garnering some of the condemnation merited by his recent prejudiced remarks which have no place in the polity, and debase the chamber to which he belongs.

HOWEVER, as I remember the modus ponens from a mostly-forgotten class in logic, I now have the permission of one of the most conservative Republicans to do, basically, anything....

If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything.

Clearly the antecedent clause holds (well, okay, more precisely...in 1996 the Court struck down an anti-gay amendment to the Colorado Constitution on equal protection principles, and is considered likely to reverse its 1986 5-4 decision in Bowers v. Hardwick, since only three justices from that ruling remain on the Court), so therefore I (and I assume of course he meant me) now have the right to anything, including...hey, a doctorate from Oxford (and, gee, why not a junior professorship at Yale, just while we're at it) without doing any academic work these days more substantive than blogging. (Hey, wait...no, never mind.)

Of course, Santorum has no credibility whatsoever at the moment to speak about moral issues, so this is all fairly, err, academic. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:06 AM by Patrick Belton  

MANISCHEWITZ WATCH: On the seventh day of Pesach, my true love gave to me....dry, stale, stinking unleavened bread. Mmmm...let's try that again.

So at breakfast this morning, I noticed an extraordinarily skillful bit of marketing by Mr. Manischewitz. I admit - I was in desperate search of reading material, since Berkowitz's virtue book was in hiding somewhere underneath my bed with volume two of We the People - it's a really broad church down there. So I was reduced to reading a cardboard box. Anyway, I'm now the proud owner of a 50 cent coupon for any "Guiltless Gourmet" product. Splendid marketing - by labelling their chicken soup as blissfully guiltless, you're automatically made to feel vaguely guilty about eating all other brands. For instance, at the moment I'm sipping vaguely-guilty coffee and contemplating a moderately-guilty protein shake in an hour or so. That's remarkably skillfully done.

(Okay, I know, it's actually Rabbi Manischewitz - as I read on their history page. But I felt better dissing on a faceless, abstract, corporate "Mr." Manischewitz than a real-life Cincinnatian peddler and shochet from the nineteenth century. And yes, by now you've probably figured out that it was my intention through panning Manischewitz to write them a paean. So there.)

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:24 AM by Patrick Belton  

SHOTS ACROSS THE BOW OF STATE: Newt Gingrich, who currently serves on the Defense Policy Board, will apparently make a speech this morning at AEI to promote State Department reform. (See this story from the morning's WaPo.)

In the past, I've considered criticisms of the State Department here, because like any human institution, the State Department is inherently in continual need of reform. I simply happen, as a foreign policy hand, to know State best. (Incidentally, the idea of institutional sin, which received a compelling formulation in the anthropological assumptions of theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, has been very influential in forming the intellectual worldview of most post-WWII foreign policy realists, from Kennan and Morgenthau to Kissinger).

What's needed, however, are creative ideas about how to reform and revive a human institution that's inescapably in need of continual reform, rather than merely another inning in the traditional Republican pastime of State-bashing. Hopefully the former Speaker will begin a process that will produce such needed creative ideas; we'll be looking on attentively, and eagerly. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:46 AM by Patrick Belton  

PLOV WATCH: The Soros Foundation's brainchild EurasiaNet continues to be an absolutely stellar source of analysis and reportage on Central Asia and the Caucasus. It's definitely worth checking out.

Among pieces it's featured lately - Taliban author Ahmed Rashid warns that Taliban leaders have fled to Pakistan under the secret shelter of sympathetic ISI officers, and are using Pakistan as a base from which to launch operations against Hamid Karzai's government. Switching countries, Tajikistan has been something of a bright spot in the region, even as its economy attempts to recover from devastation, because since the end of its civil war in 1997, the Islamist opposition has been taking part in politics and elections, and apparently moderating greatly as a result, becoming a "normal" political party. However, in an interview, IRP chief Said Abdullo Nuri (whose political opponents charge him with untoward involvement with Iranian intelligence) decries President Imomali Rahmonov's current potentially-destabilizing efforts to amend Tajikistan's constitution to permit him to serve beyond his seven-year term, and join his neighbors in the region's ruler-for-life club.

Finally, this piece analyzes the overlap and divergence in interests between Iran and the New Iraq. Iran worries that a strongly pro-American New Iraq will not develop close relations with it, whereas a fragmenting Iraq will be an irritant to Iran's security situation. Iran's interests lie in seeing Iraq's Shiites, principally Ayatollah Hakim's Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution of Iraq, secure a key role in the new Iraqi politics; Iran will try to provide as much help, in ways both public and quiet, to this party as it can in the coming months. A prominent role for the Islamist party is clearly very much not in the U.S.'s interest; however, a resurgence of the Shi'a theological school in Najaf could conceivably provide a point of reformist theological criticism of Iran's mullahs (as there are signs Qom in Iran slowly may be becoming). (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:50 AM by Patrick Belton  

GETTING MARRIED? EVER? Then check out the Bad Bridesmaids' Dresses Compendium. You'll be glad you did. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:38 AM by Patrick Belton  

WHAT MONTY PYTHON CHARACTER ARE YOU? And I'm not just linking to this only because it told me I was King Arthur. You can be the judge of the quiz's accuracy here:

You are an idealistic king, but not very bright. You hate the French and all those bloody peasants.... You also have the keen ability to distinguish between African and European Swallows.

Idealistic. Not excessively bright. Francophobic. Hmmmmmm..... Naaah. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:17 PM by David Adesnik  

WHAT DID I DO? A reporter made an innocent mistake. Well, not all that innocent. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:06 PM by David Adesnik  

SLIPPERY SLOPE or just too much KY? Atrios is blown away by just how offensive Rick Santorum's views of homosexuality are. Damn right. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:42 PM by David Adesnik  

MATT ON MY SIDE: Whodathunkit? Matt Yglesias agrees with my critcism of Josh Marshall. But Dan Drezner takes Josh's side. Strange days, my friends, strange days. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:39 PM by David Adesnik  

THE LOYAL OPPOSITION: I will be the first to admit that I am a passionate advocate of promoting democracy throughout the Middle East and that passion is not well-known for its contribution to patient and self-critical analysis. In theory, this sort of passion might lend itself to either an overly optimistic or an overly pessimistic frame of mind. (Such pessimism might result from impossibly high expectations for democratic reform, against which all actual reforms appear deficient.)

In practice, I recognize that I am much more of an optimist on this count than a pessimist. Thus, in order to prevent myself from discarding evidence that goes against my expectations, I have decided to appoint a loyal opposition to my optimistic views. I stumbled across this idea just yesterday, while reading the Daily Kos.

In the event that you aren't familiar with Kos, it is a blog firmly rooted in the left wing of Democratic politics. I read it for the first time around four months ago, but quickly lost interest because its approach to Iraq seemed to be motivated by such a visceral hatred for George Bush that its authors became incapable of serious analysis.

Since then, Kos has become a higher being on the left-wing of the blogosphere, right alongside Atrios, Josh Marshall, and CalPundit. Returning after four months, I also sensed that the quality of the site had improved even if its profound resentment of the President and his party is still there.

After reading a number of Kos' posts on the occupation of Iraq, it became evident that its creators (especially Steve Gilliard) are committed to the dual proposition that a democratic Iraq would be a very good thing but that the ignorant cowboys in the White House are to f*** things up. On the face of it, the opposing halves of this dual proposition are logically compatible.

However, it often seems as if Kos is more concerned with showing the world that it is right about Bush than ensuring that the people of Iraq have the sort of government they deserve. Nonetheless, there seems to be a genuine commitment on Kos' part to making sure that the development of Iraq stays front and center on the United States' political agenda.

I very much hope that is the case, since I have decided to appoint Kos, at least temporarily, as the loyal opposition to my own personal optimism. One might say that Kos is my mirror image: passionate about democracy but fundamentally inclined to pessimism. Therefore, it can be expected to focus on exactly those bits of information that an optimist might ignore.

Now, I haven't told the folks over at Kos that they have suddenly had a new set of expectations imposed on their writing. In time, I may decide to send an e-mail their way or post a few messages on their discussion boards. But for now, I don't think that a higher being such as Kos need be concerned about an interest taken in its work by one third of OxBlog. (Of course, if all of you start going over to Kos and leaving messages on its boards, its proprietors may begin to wonder what happened to its readership.)

So for now, let me just comment on a couple of Kos' posts. First up, Kos pulls no punches when saying that the sack of Baghdad was apalling, that the US had ample warning of what was about to happen but still did nothing, and that Rumsfeld's reaction to the riots and looting has shown just how small-minded and ignorant he can be.

Leaving some of Kos' more extreme rhetoric aside, I think one simply has to admit that the administration failed. Moreover, this failure seems to be a direct extension of leading officials' inability to admit that their President has committed them to nation-building and that they cannot persist with their self-defeating efforts to think outside the military box.

Moreover, accusations of failure regarding the sack of Baghdad are far from being the exclusive province of the far left. As Ken Pollack writes,

The looting and lawlessness that continue to prevail in large parts of Iraq were entirely predictable, and almost certainly preventable by the presence of coalition troops charged with keeping the peace. While this may seem like a minor problem, it is one that could have very severe consequences if not quickly resolved.

So if Ken Pollack and Robert Fisk agree, you have to wonder about those who don't. (Note to CalPundit: See, I am capable of reading Robert Fisk with an open mind. But he's still an idiot.)

Moving on, Kos has shown a marked interest in the role that SCIRI (The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq) will play in the reconstruction. In short, it is going to be a very, very dangerous one. While one has to discount some of Kos' pessimism, which often borders on the absurd, the premise here is pretty solid: the heavily-armed friends of Iran's mullah-led dictatorship have the potential to cause a lot of trouble.

It seems that we all have the terrible misfortune to live in interesting times. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:38 PM by Patrick Belton  

IRAQI DEMOCRACY OP-ED WATCH: For now, just a compilation (with responses and analysis to come). Kenneth Pollack argues for a UN role, and a long horizon of international involvement; Michael O'Hanlon and Roberta Cohen see a humanitarian crisis looming; James Steinberg sees Asian support for the Iraq war as one of the untold stories, with important and complex implications for the U.S.'s security relationships with Japan, the two Koreas, and China; Bill Safire writes on France and Russia's blackmailing act over releasing UN sanctions on Iraq (as does IHT's Claudia Rosett), and urges more commitment to tracking down Iraqi financial assets worldwide.

Most significant, perhaps, is this timely piece by noted columnist Matt Spence on lessons to be learned in exporting democracy.

UPDATE: Our friend and blogger Zach Mears writes in to suggest a few additional pieces: a Foreign Affairs essay by Adeed and Karen Dawisha on several Iraqi assets which may facilitate democratization there; Stanley Kurtz on lessons to be drawn from India's experience (and Zach's response); Mark Fineman on rebuilding the police and judicial systems; and Fareed Zakaria on why bringing liberalization to Iraq will require much more commitment than simply bringing democracy (Fareed finds, however, that whiskey and sexy will likely be significantly easier to introduce).
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:13 PM by Patrick Belton  

MAZAL TOV to Kevin for his blog's dazzling new website. Quick question: do the two bodies of water represent (a) the Bay area, (b) the Atlantic and Pacific coasts (possibly with a red sun off in the direction of Japan - very internationally minded), or (c) possibly even the Arabian desert with several islands (oases? lighthouses?) of democracy? In any case, congratulations!

UPDATE: Kevin informs me that you can only see the fabled lovely "second ocean" if you're using a Mac. Others may call it a bug, I say it's yet another instance of enhanced Mac functionality. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:26 PM by Patrick Belton  

WHAM, BAM, SHUKRAN: Okay, so I know that doesn't really rhyme. Our friend, the Hauser Report's Jeff Hauser, just emailed me this troubling piece from the morning's WaPo, on which Josh Marshall has also commented today.

The tenor of the piece is that a number of well-placed officials are already looking for excuses to pull the U.S. out of Iraq as soon as possible, whether or not there's a functioning democracy left there when we leave. The WaPo cites several unnamed officials at the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Aid as expecting to measure their time in Iraq in "months, not years"; in a similar vein, OMB director Mitchell Daniels recently prognosticated that Iraq "will not require sustained aid."

Possible optimistic interpretations? One may be that the WaPo is attempting to generate a public outcry at the start over the possibility of a quick withdrawal, therefore ensuring that the political environment inside the Beltway is strongly in favor of a sustained, honorable commitment to the Iraqi people. Another might be that these numerous statements on background could be trial balloons from the administration, plumbing possible public responses to different levels of post-war commitment. Of course, there's also the more disheartening third possibility, which is that many segments of government and the military are sufficiently unsympathetic to tasks falling under the rubric of "nation-building" that they are already beginning to look for any excuse to leave, irrespective of the consequences for the U.S.'s credibility as a promoter of democracy.

On the good guys' side, it's emerging, are an unlikely coalition of the willing - USAID administrator Andrew Natsios, Under Secretary of Treasury for international affairs John Taylor, former SecDef Schlesinger, and such voices from think-tankery as CFR's Rachel Bronson and RAND's James Dobbins. And there are glimmerings of hope from the highest levels of the administration: President Bush, in a February 26 speech at the American Enterprise Institute, promised "a sustained commitment" and drew the appropriate analogies to the duration of American commitments to Germany and Japan. General Garner, for his part, commented in an interview over the weekend that the United States would persevere until democracy was established.

As, of course, it must. Our international credibility for the foreseeable future hinges on as much, as do the very crucial questions of stability and democratization in the Middle East and Gulf. And God help us if we don't make good on our promises to the Iraqi people:

lisaanon min rutab wayadon min khashab: a tongue of ripe dates and a hand of wood.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:31 AM by Patrick Belton  

IRANIAN JOURNALIST AND BLOGGER ARRESTED: A friend of OxBlog's from North Carolina writes to draw our attention to this tragic story about well-known Iranian writer Sina Motallebi, who was arrested yesterday, apparently for giving interviews to Persian-language radio services outside of Iran. His blog WebGard (now inactive) was among the five most popular Persian-language weblogs.

Blogger Jeff Jarvis is keeping tabs of the story here. Meanwhile, Glenn Reynolds has made the commendable suggestion that we all contact the Iranian mission to the UN to protest Mr. Motallebi's arrest; the mission's email address is iran@un.int. Written letters to your congressional delegation drawing their offices' attention to this would also be very much in order.

UPDATE: I've just put my money where my mouth is and written my congressional delegation - if any of you would like to do the same, please feel free to draw on (or add to) this letter:

Dear Senator:

I am a foreign policy professional in the Washington, D.C. area, and I am writing to you in a personal capacity to express my great concern at the arrest this weekend of Iranian journalist Sina Motallebi for granting interviews to Persian-language radio services outside of Iran.

I would be very grateful if your office could please forward my letter with your own letter of concern to the Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs. I would also be very grateful for any resolution of support for Mr. Motallebi which your office may be willing to introduce in this session of Congress.

With many thanks and all best wishes,

Patrick Belton

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:47 AM by Patrick Belton  

"SEAL" OF APPROVAL: Okay, so even if the Beeb can't do news, at least on occasion it can succeed in being cute.

This morning, the BBC reports on "Andre," a seal stranded in a fresh-water river in Scotland who was eating up several thousand pounds of salmon (hey, can't fault his taste) and causing great concern among the area's professional fishermen. Finding themselves unable to catch the seal, the local fishing authority finally issued him a permit - saying "the least we could do until he is caught, is to make it legal."

An accompanying letter to the seal read "We have decided to issue you with a fishing permit for the season. This will allow you to fish in Loch Lomond and the River Leven. It will also allow you to fish in the River Fruin and the River Endrick."

On second thought, it just occurred to me that it actually isn't the Beeb at all being cute here, but instead it's the bubbling up from less stuffy heights of the irrepressible dry, benevolent British sense of humor that self-important institution so rarely actually embodies....

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:05 PM by David Adesnik  

RUMSFELD VS. REALITY? Daniel Drezner reports. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:56 PM by David Adesnik  

ONE MORE THING to add my very long response to the NYT Magazine: Lt. Col. Bryan McCoy, I am proud of you and your service to our country. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:53 PM by David Adesnik  

BRITISH CINEMA: You know what makes a movie funny? Five shots of Jack Daniels before you go inside! Actually, for Shanghai Knights you don't even need it. A great laugh and a great action flick. A worthy successor to Shanghai Noon.

(Yes, I know it opened in February in the United States. But we're still catching up on this side of the pond.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:33 PM by Patrick Belton  

GLIMMERS OF HOPE: (courtesy A&L Daily) Apparently some signs are now emerging that at least some of the precious holdings of Iraq's National Museum may have escaped looting in a hidden basement vault. See this, and this. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:26 PM by Patrick Belton  

RIP to the Partisan Review - the granddaddy of the New Republic and New York Review of Books, which has now passed into American intellectual and literary history after 68 often glorious years. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:59 AM by David Adesnik  

HACKNEYED STEREOTYPICAL CLICHES: We talk a lot about the media and its biases. We compile evidence and publish indignant criticism. But we don't often ask whether all of this one-sided coverage actually has an impact on its audience. After all, it stands to reason that if we know better than to believe what we read, so does everyone else.

In my academic work, I've come across a fair amount of literature that covers the influence of mainstream media on public opinion. Its conclusions support both sides of the argument. On the one hand, most individuals are fairly resistant to new information that calls into question their established beliefs. If presented with both sides of an argument, most individuals can evaluate their relative merits.

But if presented with only one side of an argument, we are surprisingly susceptible to persuasion. What no one seems to know is exactly how one-sided a source of information has to be in order to become persuasive. By the same token, no one seems to know at point the one-sidedness of an argument becomes so self-evident that it proovkes suspicions of bias.

Naturally, I don't have any answers to these questions. (Although I will recommend my favorite book on the subject, whose title is "Reasoning and Choice: Explorations in Political Psychology".)

So, then, where is this post heading? I'm not sure. My original intent was to comment on the less-than-subtle anti-military prejudice which runs throughout one of the major articles in this week's NYT Magazine. It really p****d me off.

On the other hand, I am beginning to wonder whether such constant criticism of the New York Times serves much of a purpose. If we all know to read the Times critically, what exactly is the point of saying so again and again? That's why I began this post with my comments about assessing the impact of the media rather than just its contents.

But you know what? NYT bashing can be fun. After all, if we don't vent, we'll explode. And maybe one day our backlash against the Times will force it to either raise its standards or to admit that the Washington Post has now become the United States' paper of record. But for the moment, let's talk about 'Good Kills' by Peter Maass.

The table of contents warns us that

To get to Baghdad, the marines of the Third Battalion fought the old-fashioned way — by shooting as many of the enemy as they could. Their victims weren't all soldiers.

So, is this another My Lai? Has the United States lost its moral compass? Let's find out.

Up front, we find out that

The Third Battalion had a consistent strategy as it moved toward Baghdad: kill every fighter who refused to surrender.

Oh, that Third Battalion. Coming up with new and brutal strategies that might offend the sensitivies of ignorant America. Where did this whole idea of killing the enemy come from? Why didn't we learn anything from the Native Americans, who believed that the greatest act of courage in battle is to touch one's enemy without hurting him? Surely that would have brought down the Ba'athist dictatorship as fast as an actual military strike.

Or at least wound the enemy instead of killing him. Aim for the arms and legs. Sure, it might have taken a little longer to get to Baghdad, but think of the moral triumph it would have represnted. Instead of telling us that the invasion had stalled in its second week because of fierce Iraqi resistance, the media should have reminded us of how ineffective the mighty Repubican Guards actually are. Then we could've gone easy on them instead of pursuing this nonsensical strategy of killing them instead.

Moving on, we find out that

The unit's commander, Lt. Col. Bryan McCoy, had a calm bearing that never seemed to waver as he and his troops made their way through Iraq...

When I spoke to him on the southern side of the Diyala bridge soon after the battalion arrived there on the morning of April 6, he was in a serene mood. ''Things are going well,'' he said. ''Really well.''

When Colonel McCoy told you that things were going well, it meant his marines were killing Iraqi fighters.

Now I get it. It is the brutal Col. McCoy who has brainwashed his soldiers into thinking that war involves death. If McCoy had any conscience at all, he never would have said that things were going well. Intead, he would've delivered an agonizing and self-critical appraisal of his personal responsibility for the devastation of Iraqi society.

Later on,

[McCoy] was sitting in the front seat of his Humvee, with an encrypted radio phone to his left ear. He had the sort of done-it-again pride in his voice that you hear from a business executive who is kicking back at the clubhouse as he tells you he beat par again.

You see, what's really disgusting about McCoy is not that he's a killer, but that he is so non-chalant about it. But is it really his fault, or is McCoy's depravity just the byproduct of a capitalist order that fails to differentiate between the ethics of business and the ethics of war?

In the heat of battle, McCoy radio's his commander in order to inform him that

''We're killing them like it's going out of style. They keep reinforcing, these Republican Guards, and we're killing them as they show up. We're running out of ammo.''

Oh my God! A direct quote! Surely this is incontrovertible evidnece of McCoy's brutality. In theory, one might say that McCoy's words are a sort of black humor, a desperate attempt to mask his own fear of dying in a hail of Iraqi bullets. Or worse, a hail of friendly fire. No, no, that is way too far-fetched. McCoy is a killer.

For McCoy

This war was not about hearts and minds or even liberation. Those are amorphous concepts, not rock-hard missions. For Colonel McCoy and the other officers who inflicted heavy casualties on Iraqis and suffered few of their own, this war was about one thing: killing anyone who wished to take up a weapon in defense of Saddam Hussein's regime, even if they were running away.

Though a killer he may be, McCoy is no fool. He sees right through all of the politicians' talk about hearts and minds and liberation. How could violence have anything to do with freedom? As M. Chirac has so often reminded us, war never solves anything.

In an attempt to educate his military hosts about the perils of war, the author of this trenchant essay

suggested to Colonel McCoy one morning that Iraqi civilians might not appreciate the manner in which his marines tended to say hello to the locals with the barrels of their guns raised...

[But] ''They don't have to like us,'' he said. ''Liking has nothing to do with it. You'll never make them like you. I can't make them like me. All we can do is make them respect us and then make sure that they know we're here on their behalf. Making them like us -- Yanks always want to be liked, but it doesn't always work out that way.''

Just like George Bush and the French. If only McCoy had tried to be nice, surely things would've have turned out differently.

Perhaps the greatest moral dilemma facing McCoy and his troops was how to deal with the threat of suicide bombers. How does one tell if an approaching vehicle contains fanatical militia or just desperate civilians who won't stop for warning shots or anything else? After the battle, McCoy's soldiers discovered that innocent men and women had been killed along with the armed militiamen. Lest the Marines fail to recognize the tragic nature of the situation

A journalist came up and said the civilians should not have been shot. There was a silence, and after the journalist walked away, a third marine, Lance Cpl. Santiago Ventura, began talking, angrily.

''How can you tell who's who?'' said Corporal Ventura. He spoke sharply, as though trying to contain his fury. ''You get a soldier in a car with an AK-47 and civilians in the next car. How can you tell? You can't tell.''

Of course, it is always the journalists who have the last word. As the author informs us,

When I visited the kill box down the road from Diyala bridge the morning after the battle, I noticed that the destroyed cars were several hundred yards from the marine positions that fired on them. The marines could have waited a bit longer before firing, and if they had, perhaps the cars would have stopped, or perhaps the marines would have figured out that the cars contained confused civilians. The sniper [from the Third Battalion] knew this. He knew that something tragic had happened at the bridge. And so, as we spoke in Baghdad, he stopped defending the marines' actions and started talking about their intent. He and his fellow marines, he said, had not come to Iraq to drill bullets into women and old men who were just trying to find a safe place.

Finally, the confession. Confronted by the New York Times, even the most hardened soldier cannot fail to recognize that he is a war criminal. Just like Vietnam. We sent American boys overseas to become merciless killers. But there's more:

Collateral damage is far easier to bear for those who are responsible for it from afar -- from the cockpit of a B-1 bomber, from the command center of a Navy destroyer, from the rear positions of artillery crews. These warriors do not see the faces of the mothers and fathers they have killed. They do not see the blood and hear the screams and live with those memories for the rest of their lives. The grunts suffer this. The Third Battalion accomplished its mission of bringing military calamity upon the regime of Saddam Hussein; the statue of Saddam fell just a few minutes after the sniper and I spoke. But the sniper, and many other marines of the Third Battalion, could not feel as joyous as the officers in the rear, the generals in Qatar and the politicians in Washington.

As we all know, bomber pilots, naval officers and artillery crews are far too ignorant to recognize that their actions may result in the death of innocent civilians. Just like innocent civilians in the United States, they remain blissfully unaware about the true nature of war.

But let's not forget the generals in Qatar and the politicians in Washington. They should know better. How dare they be joyous? What they should have done is obvious. They should never have started this war. Then they would have had a right to rejoice.

They could have basked in the praise of the New York Times editorial board while Saddam Hussein went about his business, stockpiling chemical weapons and murdering those who resisted his tyrannical rule. That is the true nature of peace.
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:05 PM by David Adesnik  

THINKING ABOUT A FRAPPUCINO? Think again. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:40 PM by David Adesnik  

FIRST TIME AS TRAGEDY...As Paul Kennedy would have it, the lesson of history is that the United States is foolish to expect that it can transform the Middle East. As Matt Yglesias would have it, the lesson of history is that Paul Kennedy has a habit of making extremely pessimistic predictions that turn out to be extremely wrong. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:37 PM by David Adesnik  

AN ANSWER FOR KEVIN: Revealing quite a bit about the premises on which his wordview rests, Kevin Drum asks

Now, it's true that the UN has its problems, and I certainly know that conservatives just generally despise the UN, but this got me thinking. What exactly do they have against letting the UN have a say in rebuilding the Iraqi government? How would they mess it up? By proposing tax rates that were too progressive?

What's the deal here?

Kev, where do I start? How about with this op-ed from the NYT which explains how the UN Oil-For-Food program is the living embodiment of opacity, bureaucratic incompetence, greed and one-sided politicization? Now, I myself have pointed to some of the problems one might run into if American coporations dominate the reconstruction process. But very, very few those corporations could match the UN bureaucracy vice for vice (except when it comes to greed, of course.)

Even when it comes to opacity, American corporations tend to be far more transparent than the UN, the IMF or the World Bank. And if working on government contracts, it won't be hard at all for the occupation authorities to demand a full accounting of corporate behavior.

In a later post, Kevin raises some other questions about the occupation and the importance of multilateral legitimacy. He writes:

[Fred] Barnes, I think, is absolutely correct that establishing a decent successor state in Iraq is a long process that requires considerable commitment from the United States. If we're serious about it, we'll stay put for a while.

But the critics are also right: a long and substantial occupation by the United States is just begging for trouble. Not only will it leave the unavoidable taint of neo-colonialism, but it also acts as a magnet for terrorist recruiting. The kind of young Arab who leans toward terrorism will almost certainly be easier to recruit if the local al-Qaeda representatives have an occupying force of Americans to point to year after year.

I suspect there's no really good solution to this, but there's an obvious one that could at least help: the United Nations. Or, more to the point, the United Nations with the full backing and commitment of the United States. Properly constituted, a UN force could provide the stability and guidance Iraq needs without the symbolic provocation that the United States military represents.

First of all, let's think about the logic of the terrorist recruitment point. What Kevin is saying is that the simple presence of American armed forces -- regardless of whether they are promoting democracy and rebuilding infrastructure or hijacking the oil industry and installing dictators -- will lead young Iraqis into the arms of Al Qaeda. This argument suggests, as so many backlash arguments do, that Arabs are incapable of evaluating the actual impact of American behavior simply because they have reasonable suspicions about American motives.

The same criticism applies to Kevin's point about the "taint of neo-colonialism". What exactly is neo-colonialism? A temporary occupation whose purpose is political and economic reconstruction, or the installation of a puppet government that will faciliate foreign exploitation of Iraqi natural resources? I think the people of Iraq won't have all that much trouble differentiating the one from the other.

Now what about the UN? The Oil-For-Food program already demonstrates why the United Nations may not be a source of "stability and guidance". But I'd like to provide a few more. First of all, major decisions regarding the occupation will be subject to Security Council approval. Given the drawn out and ultimately failed bargaining process that prevented the emergence of any sort of consensus on the invasion of Iraq, there is every reason to believe that conflicts over occupation policy will be no less intense.

Instead of focusing on the interests of the Iraqi people, the Security Council will approach all decisions in terms of whether they steer Iraq in a pro-American or anti-American direction. Moreover, no one will have serious concerns about what might happen if the occupation fails, since such an event could always be blamed on the other members of the Council. (One might even say that three of the members have an incentive to promote failure, since it would discredit the invasion.)

Now, if only the US and UK run the occupation, it will almost definitely be steered in a pro-American direction. BUT, if the US and UK direct the occupation, their reputations will be invested in its success. Moreover, since the United States and United Kingdom have already defined success as the emergence of a stable and democratic Iraq, their interests are closer to those of the Iraqi people than any of the other Security Council members.

On some issues, there will be considerable conflict. When it comes to awarding contracts, there is no question that an American occupation will favor American corporations, probably unfairly. But that is a small price to pay for an occupation authority with a single-minded commitment to success.

The one serious concern I have is that the US will provide political and economic support to Iraqi political parties that are explicity pro-American, regardless of their merits or shortcomings. But even that sort of misconduct is better than a situation in which each of five powers is searching for proxies who will advance its interests on the playing field of Iraqi politics.

Kevin, I hope can persuade you on this one. If we can establish a bipartisan consensus on the importance of an American-led reconstruction effort, then Gen. Garner & Co. can focus on getting their job done instead of worrying about politics back on Capitol Hill and in Turtle Bay. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:32 AM by Patrick Belton  

ANOTHER OF THE HONORABLE MEN PASSES: Sterling Professor Emeritus Franz Rosenthal passed away this week in Branford. Professor Rosenthal, who fled Berlin after Kristallnacht, then became a U.S. citizen and contributed his skills as an Arabist to his new country and to the OSS during the Second World War.

Returning to the academy - and luckily for Yale, to New Haven - there was no portion of Arabic studies he did not touch, from a monograph on "Humor in Early Islam"(later works dealt with "Gambling in Islam" and "The Herb: Hashish Versus Medieval Muslim Society") to meaty, comprehensively annotated translations of Ibn Khaldun's Muwaddimah and the histories of medieval historian at-Tabari.

Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhirajioon. May Allah give him the reward of his labors.
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# Posted 11:12 AM by David Adesnik  

INTELLIGENT IRAQ: According to a NYT report on Gen. Jay Garner, head of the Coalition's reconstruction effort,

The general appeared confident that, with help from talented Iraqis, he would succeed.

"Arabs are very proud people," he said. "Proud as we are." In particular, the Iraqis are "pretty sophisticated" and have a "lot of wealth, it's just not been shared among them."

"There's an intelligentsia," he added. "The Arabs are great traders, they're organized." He believes, he said, that the Iraqis are "motivated, even though they've lived under a mushroom for 25 years."

Even discounting the inexplicable reference to Saddam as a mushroom, Gen. Garner's remarks seem pretty formulaic and unconvincing. The funny thing is, he knows what he's talking about.

UPDATE: Many of you have written to say that living under a mushroom is best understood as living like a mushroom, i.e. being kept in the dark and fed manure. There is even one former mushroom farmer out there (MD), who can verify that that actually is the best way to raise the fungi in question.
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# Posted 9:21 AM by David Adesnik  

CHILDREN'S PRISON: Reader BG suggested that I link to the following story about Palestinian teenagers in Israeli detention centers. It's a sad story and one well worth reading.

What I take issue with is BG's suggestion that I post this story in order to balance out previous mentions of the children liberated from Iraqi prisons. While I condemn all Israeli violations of Palestinian rights, the suggestion that such violations constitute a parallel to what has happened in Iraq is without any justification whatsoever.

First and foremost, the overcrowding and lack of due process in Israeli jails pales in comparison to the filth and torture of their Iraqi counterparts. There are a hundred other nations whose jail systems should be criticized before one turns to Israeli violations.

Second, there are considerable indications that the teenagers in Israeli prisons are actually guilty of crimes, in contrast to the innocence of the Iraqi 'inmates'.

Finally, one ought to note just how many of the Palestinian detainees are represented by Israeli/Jewish lawyers, many of who represent Israeli human rights organizations that are fiercely critical of the government. Pray tell, where are the Ba'athist lawyers fighting for the welfare of Saddam's prisoners?

Compared to every other Western nation that has found itself or its armed forces besieged by a relentless opponent -- whether the US in Vietnam, the French in Algeria or the British in Kenya & Northern Ireland -- Israel has comported itself in an exemplary manner. Moreover, these other nations almost always encountered such threats overseas, far from the homeland where their fellow countrymen worked and lived.

Only the people of Israel face an existential threat on an everyday basis. And yet their commitment to the principles of democracy and human rights does not waver.

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# Posted 8:37 AM by David Adesnik  

AFGHANISTAN: The good news and the bad news. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:50 PM by David Adesnik  

HEY, I KNOW THOSE GUYS! Take a look at this Daily Standard piece about two lonely anti-Syria protesters at the White House. Both of them were a couple of years behind me in high school and were (still are) good friends with my brother. I may not favor war with Syria, but these guys are definitely entertaining. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:34 PM by Patrick Belton  

A SAD INCIDENT for Harvard this week. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:24 PM by Patrick Belton  

HOMEWORK!!!: (Dissertations don't count, for those of you who were curious.) The Presidential Commission on Bioethics has added to their website a thoughtfully selected electronic bookshelf of selections drawn from classical and modern literature and philosophy, all broadly bearing on bioethics. More precisely, the selections deal, mostly through literature, with the questions of what it means to be a link in a branching chain of generations; to pursue scientific discovery; to search for perfection, excellence, and human flourishing; and to experience vulnerability, suffering, and ageing. It's an excellent set of selections, which bridge Homer, Ovid, Tolstoy, and Richard Feynman - and for those of you somewhat hungrily experiencing bread and/or meat deprivation today and looking for some searching readings to situate it all within, I heartily recommend them. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:52 PM by David Adesnik  

YOU DID NOT TELL ME SO: Josh Marshall thinks that conservatives are getting a little uppity with all of their "I Told You So"s. With tens of thousands of Muslim protesters calling for an end to the occupation, Josh thinks conservatives shouldn't get too smug just yet. Summing up, Josh writes that

Like it or not, the fate of America and Iraq are now fastened together for at least several years. I don't pretend to know how it's going to turn out. But the one thing I think we can be confident of is that none of us are going to emerge from this with our hubris intact.

My guess is that's about as close as TPM is going to come to an admission of how wrong it was about certain aspects of the war. Might it not be more accurate to say that one side of the debate has already had its hubris obliterated, whereas the other will probably take some hard shots over the next couple of months but still look pretty good in hindsight?

Now, if you are a fan of TPM (and I very much, am despite my constant efforts to throw elbows in Josh's ribs. In fact, it is precisely because I have so much respect for TPM's role as the #1 blog on the center-left that I am constantly throwing elbows in its ribs) you should take a careful look at Josh's recent posts on North Korea. He makes a pretty strong case that the US has backed into exactly the kind of bilateral talks that it insisted for so long on avoiding. While Josh thought just a couple of days ago that the Bush administration might have come up with a partial victory by persuading the North Koreans to engage in multilateral talks, that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

What this all means, of course, is that OxBlog (more specifically, David) was very wrong about the administration's handling of the Korean issue and that Josh (Marshall, not Chafetz) was right. See? That wasn't very hard at all... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:38 PM by Patrick Belton  

A BIT OF HUMILITY ON GOOD FRIDAY: I enjoy Joseph Bottum's columns, but I have to take issue with his Weekly Standard piece yesterday where he takes a bit too much pleasure out of a recent churlish, juvenile incident in which Sioux Falls, South Dakota's Catholic bishop wrote to Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle and attempted to order Senator Daschle to stop identifying himself as a Roman Catholic in his congressional biography.

Both Dashle's office and Bishop Robert Carlson's quickly issued statements downplaying the communication as personal correspondence, intimating that the correspondence had leaked. Carlson, however, has been quoted as crusading publicly against Senator Daschle in the past, urging his flock to vote against the senator, and intimating it was sinful to do otherwise.

As is of course his right, both as a citizen and as a religious leader. Religious leaders, like any other citizens, should be able to apply political pressure to elected representatives to attempt to compel them to act according to their own personal ideas of the good. However, to threaten a legislator with excommunication solely because of a disagreement with his voting record confuses religious and political roles to too great an extent. A bishop taking that step is not acting as a cleric-in-the-polity, applying political pressure within the political sphere to bring about, as a citizen and civic leader, political results in keeping with his own religious aspirations. (Religious leaders who act in this way enrich substantially the political conversations of the republic by contributing viewpoints culled from centuries of ethical and philosophical reflection within their traditions. And it is this latter, commendable, prophetic tradition of American religious leaders which has given us Martin Luther King's beautiful writings about nonviolence not as sterile passivity, but as a powerful moral force for social transformation; stirring Catholic encyclicals on the economic needs of the poor; and important ethical contributions to American politics by America's rabbis and imams.) However, Bishop Robert Carlson is acting along a less American and much more medieval model of the relationship of Church to prince, a model in which excommunications were bandied about lightly to compel officials to submit to Rome's (often quite venal) authority at the peril of losing their souls - a far cry from the much more difficult, and American, route of using religious arguments to convince a majority of your fellow citizens to vote with you.

The bishop of Sioux Falls has if he chooses every canonical right to call on United States Senators to stop identifying themselves as Catholics in their official biographies; however, I might suggest to the Catholic bishop of Sioux Falls that he in turn should revise his official biography to stop calling himself a U.S. citizen. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:25 AM by David Adesnik  

CIVILIAN CASUALTIES: Building on my comments and Josh's article in the Daily Standard, Phil Carter has some interesting thoughts about civilian casualties and the future of American military operations.

Also make sure not to miss Phil's excellent post on the upcoming after action review for this war. And finally, make sure to read Phil's comments on American forces' use of body armor as well as the first firefight encountered by the 4th Infantry's 1st "Raider" Brigade, which was Phil's old unit. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:07 AM by David Adesnik