# Posted 8:18 AM by Taylor Owen  

ZAKARIA: Last summer I went on a fascinating trip to the Kurdish Region of northern Iraq. I have been fairly derelict in writing about it. Not due to lack of things to say though, as the "other Iraq" (as Kurds so want it to be called), is a fascinating part of the world that will undoubtedly remain at the center of great political turmoil in the coming decade. I will try to write more about the trip over the holidays, but below is a short piece in the Walrus that my close friend Emily Paddon and I wrote about our truly wild last night in Erbil:

Rattle and Hum

ERBIL — It is the eighth day of our sponsored junket of “The Other Iraq” (a.k.a. Kurdistan), during which we have ridden the roller coasters at a new mountaintop theme park, been paraded through tony shopping malls, and met with the region’s political, media, and academic leaders. Dusk finds us in the Kurdish capital, exploring an 8,000-year-old citadel where Alexander the Great is said to have once clashed with the Persians, when our cellphone rings. “Would you like to come over for a European drinking party?” a familiar voice asks. It is Zakaria, the Kurdish rock star–cum–nation builder to whom we were introduced days ago. Our flight to Jordan departs at 3 a.m. from the modernized Erbil International Airport, but we can’t resist. “Bring your bags,” the voice commands.

No stranger to late-night escapes, Zakaria snuck out of his family home in a less prosperous Erbil at 4 a.m. fifteen or so years ago. Fleeing persecution under Saddam Hussein, the teenage piano prodigy made his way to Sweden, where he scraped by as a backup singer in local bands. Eventually, he started writing his own music, a blend of traditional Kurdish marching rhythms and pop genres that became anthemic to Kurds around the world.

He returned to the Kurdistan Region after the fall of Baghdad in 2003 with big plans to help rebuild his homeland. Many Iraqi Kurds, along with brothers in Turkey, Syria, and Iran, grew up dreaming of a sovereign state, but their nationalist ambitions have been somewhat tempered by Kurds’ rising fortune in post-Saddam Iraq. They now control much of Iraq’s oil (if you include the contested Kirkuk region) and are friendly toward the United States. Iraq’s president and foreign minister, both Kurds, ensure that Kurdish concerns are on the national agenda.

Zakaria, who arrived on the scene with plenty of investment capital, has been party to this progress. He swiftly rose to the upper echelons of the establishment, befriending the Barzanis, Kurdistan’s ruling family, and brought international visibility to the cause. It’s rumoured that when George W. Bush visited Iraq, he met with Zakaria, who has become the primary symbol of Kurdish nationalism. As one native explained, “Imagine if you were Irish, and Bono was the Pope.”

We are soon whisked off in a convoy of four white SUVs without licence plates to meet Zakaria at Naz City, a luxury complex he built with help from the Barzanis, on the edge of Erbil, to lure members of the wealthy and educated Kurdish diaspora back home. The development consists of seven high-rise apartment buildings, an underground garage with 1,100 parking spots, an outdoor gym, two tennis courts, a swimming pool, and a twenty-four-hour security system Zakaria claims to have designed himself.

A couple of guards usher our cars from the darkness of the countryside into the electrified compound through pastel peach–coloured gates. While Naz is said to be 80 percent full — housing seven ministers, 112 members of parliament, and fifty-six university professors — we don’t see a soul until we are greeted by Zakaria’s manager at the entrance to one of the high-rises.

He informs us that the evening’s festivities will take place in the building’s model penthouse. We are given a perfunctory buyer’s tour: master bedroom with mountain view, “children’s office,” and a cavernous living room with black pleather couches lining the walls. “Did you expect to see anything like this in Iraq?” he asks hopefully. It is a question we’ve been asked continually during our time in Kurdistan, and, once again, we affirm that we did not.

Zakaria is late. We sit silently on one of the couches and stare at the steaming Kurdish barbecue prepared by his mother. When the star finally arrives, he offers us drinks from a bar stocked with Black Label, Champagne, and Chablis, and calls for his humidor. Cocky but cool, he tells us he is going to build a “medical city” adjacent to Naz, and similar compounds in the Kurdish cities of Sulemania and Dohuk. He says he’s also financing large-scale construction projects in Baghdad. If the Kurds and Arabs are ever to get along, he explains, someone needs to start building bridges.

We lose track of him when he heads off to mingle to the tune of his last album with other guests who’ve been trickling in. There’s the head of security for Erbil, the president of the Kurdistan Student Union (a breeding ground for political fervour), and a high-ranking member of the Kurdish Democratic Party — not to mention the heavily armed, Peshmerga-trained bodyguards who have protected Zakaria night and day ever since Kurdish forces discovered a death list during a raid on an Islamic terrorist group; Zakaria was listed fourth.

Near midnight, the bodyguards gather and lock arms, circling the room in a traditional Kurdish dance. Zakaria, perched on the bar, Cohiba in mouth, bellows his own name. “Zakaria!” his men holler back. He raises his hands in triumph and cries out again. Unlike Zakaria, the guards haven’t been drinking, but they are nevertheless whipped into a frenzy, kicking higher and shouting louder. The call-and-response escalates until the din surely echoes through the compound.

As our departure time approaches, we are forced into the fray to make inquiries; we need a ride to the airport. But Zakaria wants his European drinking party to continue. He pulls a cellphone from the pocket of his Italian suit and spouts a stream of Kurdish before turning back to us. “Don’t look so worried,” he says with a sly smile. “I’m holding your plane.” (3) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:17 AM by Taylor Owen  

MI: Last week, a friend at Prospect Magazine asked for a run down of what was happening in Canadian politics, and in particular, how Ignatieff, the magazine's intellectual zeitgeist, was suddenly leader of the Liberal Party. Below is what they posted:

One Step Closer to an Obama-Ignatieff Continent

Somewhere, Samantha Power is smiling. Yesterday, while she was working on Obama’s State Department transition, her predecessor as the head of Harvard University’s Carr Centre for Human Rights (now run by adventurer-cum-Prospect-writer Rory Stewart), and fellow journalist-turned-academic, clinched the nomination for the Liberal Party of Canada.

Michael Ignatieff’s victory comes at a time of great turmoil in Canadian politics. Despite huge enthusiasm for Obama—over 70 per cent of Canadians supported him—the country oddly re-elected a prime minister, Stephen Harper, who in temperament, ideology and style is Obama’s antithesis. But Harper might have reason to take pause; having dismissed the coming recession during the election, he is now faced with holding together a minority government facing a crashing economy and a volatile political mess. And so enters Michael Ignatieff. But it wasn’t supposed to happen this way.

Instead of a hoped-for delegated convention win next May, Ignatieff yesterday was acclaimed leader amidst a rather unlikely flurry of parliamentary drama. On November 27th, a mere six weeks after the election and to fierce criticism, finance minister Jim Flaherty released an unwise economic statement—one which played politics in lieu of addressing the country’s economic woes.

In particular, he announced plans to cancel public party financing. In so doing he created a unity of protest that the Canadian left itself rarely manages, driving the leftist NDP, the Separatist Bloc Quebecois and the centrist Liberals into each others’ arms. They formed a coalition, under the leadership of the lame duck Liberal party leader, Stephane Dion. Their plan was to bring down the government.

Having grossly underestimated the opposition reaction, Prime Minister Harper was forced to ask the Governor General (an unelected figure, appointed by Queen Elizabeth) for a short term reprieve in the form of an archaic “prorogation” of Parliament. With this granted, and faced with a budget vote and potential election in January, the Liberal party decided its leisurely six month leadership election might usefully be slightly sped up. Indeed, they broke into something of a sweat.

This was all good news for Iganiteff. The author and writer had the edge in every measure of support, from caucus to party brass to general membership. His two competitors—the much younger Dominique Leblanc and his old college roommate and ex premier on Ontario, Bob Rae—saw the writing on the wall, and gracefully stepped aside.

Which brings us back to Samantha Power. At around the same time she began working in Obama’s Senate office, Ignatieff was making his first moves into Canadian politics. Both seemed drawn to politics, after years of writing and talking about it. After a rousing and flirtatious speech to the 2005 liberal party convention, Ignatieff then returned formally to run in 2006, expecting to sit as an MP in Paul Martin’s government, and maybe get a chance at leadership. But the Liberals lost that election, and he was thrown into a leadership race far sooner than expected.

It was during this leadership race that I became personally involved, as part of a policy team of Canadians around the world. (I’m currently doing a PhD at Oxford). We mucked in policy discussions during the campaign, and were a part of something that was quite unique to Canadian politics—genuine excitement, at the prospect of a different kind of politics. That’ll teach us. Ignatieff lost on the last ballot.

After a troubled tenure as leader, and a disappointing loss to Harper this November, liberal leader Dion agreed to step down, and called a leadership race. Ignatieff was the immediate front-runner. Our team reformed, far bigger now. The race was meant to end at a delegated convention in May. But, then, events intervened.

Ignatieff can be the first transformational Canadian leader in a generation. He is an intellect, internationally respected and, perhaps most importantly, he has a sophisticated and articulate knowledge of, and belief in, liberalism. What’s more, he is emerging politically along-side a US administration with which he shares ties and ideological and policy sensibilities. Both his and Power’s long play from academia to politics seem to have proved successful.

When Ignatieff first ran for Canadian politics, his critics dismissed him as an arriviste outsider, prone to stumbles and missteps: Iggy the egghead. Better head back to your Harvard seminars and your London dinner parties, they said. At the time Michael was quoted as saying that he was “less naive than I appear.” So it would seem. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:20 AM by Taylor Owen  

OUTED: Porter, Obamacon. (2) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:16 AM by Taylor Owen  

APRES CA, LE DELUGE: Before Obama’s 2004 convention speech, I remember reading a story about the black guy from Chicago who was going to run for the Senate. I can’t remember where, or even what the piece said, but I do clearly remember taking notice. He sounded different, and intriguing.

At his convention speech, he first sounded the themes that would resonate four years later. It appeared as if he was also wise. And an exceptional orator. After he won his Senate seat, I heard the story of how he approached Samantha Power, and how she took leave to join his Senate office. Seemed he was a good judge of character.

I then listened to his first book, and his second, both read by him. His voice was oddly soothing, his prose at times beautiful. He was a good writer. And had a vision. By this time it was clear he was going to run for president, and against a Clinton none-the-less. Audacious. What's more, he was going to be the first serious post-boomer candidate. He was now going to speak to my generation – in their voice, to their issues, using their tools, in their language.

And he did. Not surprisingly, he captured the support of a new political generation. He did this not simply because he was a great orator, but because of what he said. It’s difficult to explain how refreshing it was to listen to his speech on race. To a generation that had grown up in the age of political spin, Clinton and Bush embodied it, the manner in which Obama responded to this moment of political turmoil was more telling than any. He treated the public as adults. He responded with intelligence and emotion, and in a way that quite literally overcame one of the deepest divides in American history – that of race.

This was more than mere words. It reflected his temperament. And it is this above all else that I find remarkable about him. He is calm and deliberative, thoughtful and humble. Traits rarely found in politics.

During his campaign, I began thinking about what this phenomena meant for Canada. Many of the political realities driving Obama’s rise are not analogous, and many of the calls for a Canadian Obama were as demagogic as they were ironic (given that most doing the calling had spent the better part of the past 8 years smugly mocking the US). But one thing is comparable - the fate of the left, and the arc of progressive politics over the past century.

The reality in both America and Canada, is that many aspects of the Left, and the politics which have come to embody it, simply do not resonate with my generation. Obama, more than anything else, was to me the first to give voice to a new emerging political spectrum. One not governed by left versus right, but by a different governing philosophy, free from the confines of ideology and identity politics. With Dave, I wrote an article on this, and we are working on a book.

So all of this makes my reaction to his win all the more odd. The night was emotional, certainly. The weight and responsibility, the fear even, that was clear in his acceptance speech - alone on that long stage - demonstrated the admirable and inspiring marks of his temperament. But the most striking moment for me was after the speech, when he was standing behind the glass wall, looking out at the crowd. He wore the burden that he would from that moment bare. As has been said of Lincoln, Obama perhaps more than anyone since, at that moment, truly knew the melancholy loneliness of the Presidency that awaited him. And like Lincoln, he will likely be a great president. If Lincoln’s challenge was to unite America, Obama’s will surely be to tackle global divisions. A burden if there ever was one.

What I didn’t feel on the night of the election, however, was overjoyed. In fact I was put off by much of the emotion on display. Much of it felt superficial. Like liberals who had righteously mocked Bush, for so long and with such vigor, staking claim to their superiority, much of the election night melodrama felt more in the service of solidifying an identity. But Obama is supposed to move us beyond identity politics. Similarly, those warning of the dangers of inflated expectations, never themselves really understood what people, beyond the fanatics, saw in him.

And so on the day after, I was deflated. Partly I suppose because I was not a part of it. I am not American. I do not believe that America can save the world. I do not believe in American exceptionalism, even if I believe Obama is himself exceptional, and I do. Partly also because it reflected on the relative smallness of the only politics in which I can honestly participate. I will never vote for a great American president. Nor do I think Canadian politics should aspire to Presidential greatness. Some of these are selfish, obviously, but politics always to a degree is. Some of it is a questioning of how to make a impact, and how not to get caught up in the ephemeral sweep of day to day politiquing.

With these thoughts in mind, I haven’t talked very much about the election in a couple of days. I have been reading a lot of commentary though. A couple pieces are of note.

First, I have been re-reading Ta-Nehisi Coates’ blog posts from the past couple of weeks. In a way, this was the first election where blogs as a journalistic medium have been truly on display. And one of the ways in which they can be so powerful, is that they allow an honest author’s emotion to come through. Voice is able to literally sit on the surface of their writing. There is perhaps no other writer who better demonstrates this than Ta-Nehisi.

Amongst all the spin and the trite political commentary, his writing has been grounding. And re-reading his at times poetic posts, has reminded me what it is about politics that can, at times, be so thoroughly engaging. I would single out a post or two, but I don’t think that does him justice. His blog needs to read, as all good blogs should, like a flowing narrative. This is the very power of the medium.

If you want a wonderful few hours – start about a month ago, and read his posts and watch the videos. It will help differentiate your honest emotions about this election from the guilty superficial ones, the ones reinforcing your identity politics, the ones you convince yourself you should feel, rather than those you truly do.

Second, and I think I can stop on this, is a paragraph by Ezra Klein which I found particularly striking in its clarity. Ezra is a fierce partisan whom one would expect to be rejoicing in a historic win. Instead, he cautions:

My basic emotion is relief. The skill of an Obama administration has yet to be proven. The structure of our government will prove a more able opponent of change than John McCain. But for the first time in years, I have the basic sense that it's going to be okay. Not great, necessarily. And certainly not perfect. But okay. The country will be led by decent, competent people who fret over the right things and employ the tools of the state for recognizable ends. They may not fully succeed. But then, maybe they will. At the least, they will try. And if they fail in their most ambitious goals, maybe they will simply make things somewhat better. After the constant anxiety and uncertainty of the last eight years, maybe that's enough.

And if I really think about it, coming out of my bizarre post election mood, that is how I also feel. That things will be good. That the right combination of intentions, skill and temperament are now in place, and that we can begin to have an honest discussion about how to address some real challenges. We can do so out of the confines of rigid ideology and all the bluster that come with it. We can start seeing America for what it really is, rather than the caricature that has emerged. And we can do so recognizing that the world is now very different than the place in which many became stuck in their worldviews, in their certainties, in their divisions. Above all, I suppose, this is a relief. (5) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:19 AM by Taylor Owen  

THE MAKING OF A MONSTER: A close friend, Erin Baines, has a truly amazing article in last weekend's Globe. I have been hearing details of this story for a year or so now, and have been enthralled. You will not hear a better case, or read a better story, that so dramatically displays the challenges, hypocrisies and frustrations of international justice.

Through her work in Northern Uganda, Erin learned that Domic Ongwen, one of five leaders in Joseph Kony's rebel movement indicted by the ICC for war crimes, had actually been abducted as a child soldier. This means that he is, as Erin and Stephanie Nolan describe, "the first person to be charged with the same war crimes that were committed against him." Read the whole remarkable piece - if this lead doesn't grab you, you have no soul:

GULU, Uganda — From the time he was a tiny child, his parents coached him: Use a fake name. Say you are from the west. Lie about your family.

If ever the rebels get you, they told him, make sure they don't know where your family is – or none of us will ever be safe again.

The rebels did get him, when he was 10 years old. And when they snatched him, walking home from school on a red dirt Ugandan road, green grass high above his head on either side, he did as he had been told: He lied and said his name was Dominic Ongwen.

And so it is by that name that he now stands indicted for seven counts of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The rest is here. (1) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:37 AM by Taylor Owen  

NEO-PROGRESSIVISM: Several months ago the Literary Review of Canada put a request for articles about the rise of Obama and what it means for politics in general and in Canada specifically. Mine and Dave's proposal won out and is the lead essay in this month's edition of the LRC.

The essay explores how the Left has been killing progressive politics. Those on the right have always been clear about their disdain for progressivism and their desire to rollback its success and dismantle its institutions. On the left however, a equally strong conservatism has emerged. Fearful that any debate, or worse reform, will threaten successes of the past century many progressives have become anti-change. It is a more subtle conservatism, but it has helped create a political environment within the left and centre left defined by silence and stagnation.

But change is afoot. A new generation are challenging old assumptions and exploring ways of adapting the progressive agenda to the 21st century. It is these same people – the neo-progressives – that helped Obama to the top of the democratic party. This new generation of progressives can, and will, similarly reshape Canadian politics.

The full article is available here.

Labels: Neo-progressivism, Obama

(3) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:53 AM by Taylor Owen  

OBAMA-BIDEN (REDUX): Just a quick note to mention brag that I called Obama-Biden online FIVE MONTHS ago, and to those that have to put up with me in person, in the FALL of 2007.

Needless to say, I'm excited about the pick. Of course, Biden is as good as it gets on foreign policy. As Arbinder pointed out this morning, world leaders call him for advice. But more than this, the fact that Obama has chosen a fun, very smart, no-bullshit running mate confirms his character. No more Edwards' or Liebermans. Two direct, real, honest candidates who have both bucked the traps of superficiality that riddle partisan politics. Bring it on. (12) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:03 AM by Patrick Porter  

POST-HEROIC? I’ve always been a little uneasy with the notion that we in the West wage post-heroic war because we live in post-heroic societies.

The argument goes like this: several converging influences have made traditional heroic world views redundant. Western societies that don’t live in almost a permanent state of emergency (like, say, Israel) are increasingly distant from the military.

They live in times of affluence and material plenty without precedent. They are very casualty averse.

Demographically, they don’t breed much anymore, certainly within Europe. A self-absorbed pursuit of longevity and wealth preoccupies them. This might even encourage them to view their family differently to most previous societies. Instead of an asset that can protect, feed and prolong the family, the state increasingly plays that role, and the child is an adored person. Crude as it is, fewer children may encourage people to value the lives of their single child more highly.

Post-heroic people are distant from the military profession and its values of self-sacrifice, the subordination of the individual to the group, and the necessity of violence. Civil society and its military protectors are increasingly distant species.

At the same time, the grim realities of warfare are visible in popular media. War can no longer be easily mythologised and romanticized. Iconic images of screaming naked Vietnamese girls, or torturers at Abu Ghraib, taint whatever high rhetoric our leaders direct at conflict. The collective memory of greater horrors of war, from the Holocaust to Hiroshima, is strong. Conversely, as we take our most precious heritage of political freedom for granted, a sense that our ancestors fought wars to safeguard values and institutions is increasingly weak.

Indeed, it is this marriage of the television age, the scars of Vietnam and material wealth that erodes the heroic ethos. The intelligentsia and tertiary-educated elites who emerged out of this era now apply a high, almost perfectionist standard to how their own states wage war. Impossible levels of restraint are expected of an activity that should be notorious for being inherently volatile and twisted by human fallibility.

With the decline of religion and the debellicisation of society, we no longer worship God or revere war. It is now celebrity, non-violent, inoffensive and vapidly commercial, that attracts our devotion.

Hence the way we prefer to fight wars: low-casualty (or even bloodless for our own side, like Kosovo in 1999); a preoccupation with force protection over risk-taking heroism; a preference for air power-driven strategies over ground operations; an obsession with media-management and public relations; no conscription, compulsion and hardly any mobilization of broader society (the Marines are at war, America is at the mall); and a judicialisation of warfare, so that some victims of malpractice in our expeditionary wars are given a hearing and compensated.

But it’s important to make a distinction: we don’t exactly live in post-heroic societies. Yet some of our leaders think we do.

Its true that civilians are more distant from the military. Its true that we enjoy unprecedented levels of comfort and peace. Its true that our mass media does make great moral demands of our war-making. But the appetite for heroism is not dead.

Opinion polls provide little evidence for the stereotype of the self-absorbed, casualty averse West. The ‘Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA)’ from the University of Maryland studied poll data following all combat deaths in the 1990s. After deaths in Somalia in 1993, all the polls taken in the succeeding week showed only a minority favouring withdrawal, with majorities favouring sending even more American troops in response to the killings. After the 1996 terrorist bombing in Saudi Arabia, a Newsweek poll found 55% respondents believing America should retain its military presence there despite the deaths. The American public actually favours tougher responses following casualties.

Or picture this: on the morning of the 50th anniversary of the Gallipoli campaign, in 1965, Australian visitors to the site amounted to a couple of lonely hippies. In 2005, at the 90th anniversary, it was so overcrowded with Oz visitors that the authorities had to build reinforced structures to accommodate them all. Australia’s national creation myth, of a baptism of former penal colonies into nationhood, had revived. When it came to war commemoration, it was the rebellious, anti-authoritarian 60’s that proved to be the aberration.

One final measure: there are lots of silly things about this article. But it makes one very telling point. Our world of popular entertainment, despite all of the social patterns above, reflects not a post-heroic culture but a lasting attachment to primordial ideas about heroism, evil and moral struggle:

“The Dark Knight,” then, is a conservative movie about the war on terror. And like another such film, last year’s “300,” “The Dark Knight” is making a fortune depicting the values and necessities that the Bush administration cannot seem to articulate for beans.

Conversely, time after time, left-wing films about the war on terror — films like “In The Valley of Elah,” “Rendition” and “Redacted” — which preach moral equivalence and advocate surrender, that disrespect the military and their mission, that seem unable to distinguish the difference between America and Islamo-fascism, have bombed more spectacularly than Operation Shock and Awe.’”

Having seen some of these leftist films, I’m not sure that they do advocate surrender or disrespect the military tout court. In fact, it’s a healthy sign of Western self-criticism that these films can be made in a time of war.

But they are antiwar films of disillusionment that treat soldiers mostly as victims rather than agents, focus wholly on American atrocities rather than heroism, and do not at any point even acknowledge the broader legitimacy of America’s conflict against radical Islam. And they aren’t cinematically bad films. But they have done badly. More heroically triumphant films have prospered.

So in three major areas: public reactions to military setbacks, public attitudes to commemoration, and the depiction of war in film, we don’t straightforwardly see a post-heroic zeitgeist.

What seems to be happening is something more complex: policymakers reckon on a post-heroic society, and then their policies are interpreted as evidence of the existence of post-heroic society. They look at the Iranian hostage crisis that brought down Jimmy Carter, the Vietnam war that tore apart the Democrats, and the failure of George Bush senior to win an election even after his victory in the Gulf, and conclude that their populations are allergic to sacrifice beyond any minimum.

But just because Bill Clinton went for high altitude bombing and no bodybags, or George Bush asks Americans to keep shopping while a small fraction of society does the fighting, doesn’t mean that they have accurately read the psychology of their people. We may not all be heroic (Good Lord, the author certainly is not) but even rich, secluded and childless peoples can still revere heroism in their own, strange, 21st century way. (12) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:18 PM by Taylor Owen  

CRI DE COEUR : Giles Coren's letter to the Times' copy editors, sent to and published in the Guardian:

Chaps,

I am mightily pissed off. I have addressed this to Owen, Amanda and Ben because I don't know who i am supposed to be pissed off with (i'm assuming owen, but i filed to amanda and ben so it's only fair), and also to Tony, who wasn't here - if he had been I'm guessing it wouldn't have happened.

I don't really like people tinkering with my copy for the sake of tinkering. I do not enjoy the suggestion that you have a better ear or eye for how I want my words to read than I do. Owen, we discussed your turning three of my long sentences into six short ones in a single piece, and how that wasn't going to happen anymore, so I'm really hoping it wasn't you that fucked up my review on saturday.

It was the final sentence. Final sentences are very, very important. A piece builds to them, they are the little jingle that the reader takes with him into the weekend.

I wrote: "I can't think of a nicer place to sit this spring over a glass of rosé and watch the boys and girls in the street outside smiling gaily to each other, and wondering where to go for a nosh."

It appeared as: "I can't think of a nicer place to sit this spring over a glass of rosé and watch the boys and girls in the street outside smiling gaily to each other, and wondering where to go for nosh."

There is no length issue. This is someone thinking "I'll just remove this indefinite article because Coren is an illiterate cunt and i know best".

Well, you fucking don't.

This was shit, shit sub-editing for three reasons.

1) 'Nosh', as I'm sure you fluent Yiddish speakers know, is a noun formed from a bastardisation of the German 'naschen'. It is a verb, and can be construed into two distinct nouns. One, 'nosh', means simply 'food'. You have decided that this is what i meant and removed the 'a'. I am insulted enough that you think you have a better ear for English than me. But a better ear for Yiddish? I doubt it. Because the other noun, 'nosh' means "a session of eating" - in this sense you might think of its dual valency as being similar to that of 'scoff'. you can go for a scoff. or you can buy some scoff. the sentence you left me with is shit, and is not what i meant. Why would you change a sentnece aso that it meant something i didn't mean? I don't know, but you risk doing it every time you change something. And the way you avoid this kind of fuck up is by not changing a word of my copy without asking me, okay? it's easy. Not. A. Word. Ever.

2) I will now explain why your error is even more shit than it looks. You see, i was making a joke. I do that sometimes. I have set up the street as "sexually-charged". I have described the shenanigans across the road at G.A.Y.. I have used the word 'gaily' as a gentle nudge. And "looking for a nosh" has a secondary meaning of looking for a blowjob. Not specifically gay, for this is soho, and there are plenty of girls there who take money for noshing boys. "looking for nosh" does not have that ambiguity. the joke is gone. I only wrote that sodding paragraph to make that joke. And you've fucking stripped it out like a pissed Irish plasterer restoring a renaissance fresco and thinking jesus looks shit with a bear so plastering over it. You might as well have removed the whole paragraph. I mean, fucking christ, don't you read the copy?

3) And worst of all. Dumbest, deafest, shittest of all, you have removed the unstressed 'a' so that the stress that should have fallen on "nosh" is lost, and my piece ends on an unstressed syllable. When you're winding up a piece of prose, metre is crucial. Can't you hear? Can't you hear that it is wrong? It's not fucking rocket science. It's fucking pre-GCSE scansion. I have written 350 restaurant reviews for The Times and i have never ended on an unstressed syllable. Fuck. fuck, fuck, fuck.

I am sorry if this looks petty (last time i mailed a Times sub about the change of a single word i got in all sorts of trouble) but i care deeply about my work and i hate to have it fucked up by shit subbing. I have been away, you've been subbing joe and hugo and maybe they just file and fuck off and think "hey ho, it's tomorrow's fish and chips" - well, not me. I woke up at three in the morning on sunday and fucking lay there, furious, for two hours. weird, maybe. but that's how it is.

It strips me of all confidence in writing for the magazine. No exaggeration. i've got a review to write this morning and i really don't feel like doing it, for fear that some nuance is going to be removed from the final line, the pay-off, and i'm going to have another weekend ruined for me.

I've been writing for The Times for 15 years and i have never asked this before - i have never asked it of anyone i have written for - but I must insist, from now on, that i am sent a proof of every review i do, in pdf format, so i can check it for fuck-ups. and i must be sent it in good time in case changes are needed. It is the only way i can carry on in the job.

And, just out of interest, I'd like whoever made that change to email me and tell me why. Tell me the exact reasoning which led you to remove that word from my copy.

Right,
Sorry to go on. Anger, real steaming fucking anger can make a man verbose.
All the best
Giles

h/t David Akin (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:39 AM by Patrick Porter  

THE SCENE IS BERLIN, but this reflects Europe's general reaction to an American Presidential candidate who backs wiretapping and bombing targets within a volatile, nuclear state.

This reinforces the view that politics is often not about the content of policy. It is about who you want to conduct that policy.

Dismantling civil liberties is not necessarily an unpopular move in Europe (viz. widespread surveillance and preventive detention), and a tough stance on Al Qaeda is not an electoral liability, as the recent election of solidly Atlanticist governments proves.

But I would guess that Europeans are drawn to Obama more because of his overarching symbolic status (what he seems to represent) than his stance on specific issues. His fame as the unifying, visionary progressive overrides his increasingly centre/centre-right policy positions.

True, many of those in the crowd may not know in detail about Obama's record on policy. But given that their enthusiasm is likely to be based on Obama's image and brand, the fact that he is the 'anti-Bush', and the celebrity vibe around the occasion, we may doubt whether they would change their mind if they knew more about his record.

Obama is a skilful exponent of images. He deliberately plays to the affectionate memory of John F. Kennedy, the charismatic and youthful man of the future.

But he is like Kennedy in less obvious ways. His global brand may be one of cosmopolitan multilateralism, where the United States restores itself as a good international citizen. But like Kennedy the Cold Warrior, beneath that aura there is not only a political opportunist, but a hawk who is willing to outflank his enemies to the right.

A few years ago, Robert Kagan argued that America and Europe were drifting apart into different moral worlds, where power and weakness respectively gave both sharply different outlooks on force, diplomacy and world order. But a President Obama may reveal that things are trickier and more interesting than that. (1) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:17 AM by Patrick Porter  

IT AIN'T OVER: This from Michael Yon seems rather premature:

‘The war continues to abate in Iraq. Violence is still present, but, of course, Iraq was a relatively violent place long before Coalition forces moved in. I would go so far as to say that barring any major and unexpected developments (like an Israeli air strike on Iran and the retaliations that would follow), a fair-minded person could say with reasonable certainty that the war has ended. A new and better nation is growing legs. What’s left is messy politics that likely will be punctuated by low-level violence and the occasional spectacular attack. Yet, the will of the Iraqi people has changed, and the Iraqi military has dramatically improved, so those spectacular attacks are diminishing along with the regular violence. Now it’s time to rebuild the country, and create a pluralistic, stable and peaceful Iraq. That will be long, hard work. But by my estimation, the Iraq War is over. We won. Which means the Iraqi people won.’

Now, lets get a few things clear: General Petraeus should be richly decorated for his work in Northern Iraq; Al Qaeda in Iraq has been battered, discredited itself and alienated old allies and many Muslims, the shape of things to come; people who are invested emotionally and politically in the certainty of defeat in Iraq need to pay attention to what is happening; and the new Iraqi state is showing signs of great strengthening in its capacity to keep order, a process tied to us getting out. This is about more than one’s opinion of Bush and the wicked ‘neocons’, its about a vital cause, and folk who would rather Iraq go up in flames than America succeed need to take a more reflective view.

But can we stop the continual, round-the-clock declarations of victory and defeat? Because of a momentary realignment of forces in the Sunni triangle, the restraint of Sadr and the lull in violence, we should resist the urge to announce finality of any kind. There are too many unknowns: various Shia groups may simply be waiting out the savaging of Al Qaeda and the departure of the US. The new US allies, a coalition of gangsters, tribal leaders and opportunists, as well as a widespread revolt by former Sunni supremacists, may not see this phase as the last battle before the new federal democracy springs into life. They may see it as the latest tactical phase in which the US funds and arms them to battle AQ before they turn their violent attention elsewhere. And if we have ‘won’ overall, and a new Iraq can be salvaged, that is an extraordinary achievement by the US military, but it still tastes of ashes. Iraq has been a tragedy.

Secondly, notice how Afghanistan is now being redefined as the ‘hard’ war and Iraq as the ‘doable war’:

‘ I wish I could say the same for Afghanistan. But that war we clearly are losing: I am preparing to go there and see the situation for myself. My friends and contacts who have a good understanding of Afghanistan are, to a man, pessimistic about the current situation. Interestingly, however, every one of them believes that Afghanistan can be turned into a success. They all say we need to change our approach, but in the long-term Afghanistan can stand on its own. The sources range from four-stars to civilians from the United States, Great Britain and other places. A couple years ago, some of these sources believed that defeat was imminent in Iraq. They were nearly right about Iraq, although some of them knew far less about Iraq than they do about Afghanistan. But it’s clear that hard days are ahead in Afghanistan. We just lost nine of our soldiers in a single firefight, where the enemy entered a base and nearly overran it.’

One of the problems with fighting two wars in tandem is that we are drawn to evaluate each via a spurious comparison. When Iraq was collapsing into horrific communal violence, Afghanistan was touted as the ‘winnable’ war, despite the profound and wildly unfavourable conditions in which it is being fought. An unwieldy coalition, many of whom have little stomach for the effort, fighting in difficult terrain to prop up a weak and corrupt central state against insurgents who have sanctuary over the frontier and can regenerate themselves, amongst survivalist Afghans who know that the turbaned jihadists will always return. How was that ever conceived as the realistic war? Because Iraq looked worse.

My money is still on a cruder skepticism: This isn’t World War Two. The surge is not Okinawa. It ain’t over. (6) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:38 PM by Patrick Porter  

BETWEEN THE STRATEGIC AND THE HEROIC: Either this sort of thing gives you a lump in your throat, or it doesn’t.

Two thoughts come to mind when watching this film (or for me, anyway). First, that we are moved by brave and unyielding soldier-politicians of the likes of Churchill, Roosevelt or even the white-haired veteran, John McCain. A little defiance against the enemies of liberal society, against those who delight in the weakening of America and all it stands for, is uplifting. Like Lincoln, McCain has staked his election campaign on a firm belief in victory, a word deeply unfashionable in the post-modern discourse of war studies. To his credit, McCain also believes in preserving something to defend, committing to shutting down the disgrace of Guantanamo. The spirit of his advertisement is not only one of granite belief and determination. It is that heroism sometimes entails persistence against ridiculous odds. In recommitting Americans morally to a cause that may be unlikely to succeed, heroism cuts against calculated common sense. If Winston Churchill said ‘Never give in, never give in…except to convictions of honour or good sense’, the part of our instincts that loves heroism pays little heed to Churchill’s ‘good sense’ caveat.

Yet in being part of ‘war studies’, we insist and tell our students that war must be approached strategically and cautiously, as an exceedingly unpredictable and dangerous instrument. Take national security policy and Iraq. There are very good arguments for believing that we need to limit and tighten the conditions in which we would commit ground forces anywhere. A war of 2 billion US dollars a week is hardly sustainable. And there are too many dead people. Even if Iraq becomes an Arab Switzerland tomorrow, or even if Afghanistan became a gentle Islamic Republic with the Taliban routed, the large-scale military occupations in those countries have resulted in crises on the flanks, in the menace of nuclear theocracies in Tehran and Islamabad. Sure, we didn’t ‘make’ the Iranian leadership say what it says, but having troops stationed on either side of a paranoid regime has mobilised it, stifled domestic dissent, and accelerated its quest for nuclear capability. Politics in Pakistan is unquestionably radicalised by the war raging on its frontier. Like Austria-Hungary in 1914-1918, we could start with a war against an underground terrorist movement, and end with war against powerful states.

In other words, we can be caught between two instincts, the heroic and the strategic. So in Iraq, American and local forces have struck hard against Al Qaeda, in offensives that mark a staggering shift in the struggle. Building on a bottom-up revolt by former Sunni insurgents and tribes and powers who have learnt to hate AQ’s brutality (not to mention its competition for crime markets), the coalition has pulverised the tv beheaders and amputating thugs. In a virtuous cycle, their atrocities have alienated Muslims everywhere, even their own old allies. Then reduced to ineffectual and sporadic violence, they are further discredited. They look worse than bad. They look weak. Iraqis are tired of the violent onslaught on their civil society, their constitutional government is holding on and getting stronger, and violence is being lowered. Under General Petraeus, the US has helped drive a heroic turnaround, with unbelievably brave people creating a critical space in which some now talk of victory. As Margaret Thatcher might say, ‘just rejoice.’

Yet the strategist in us never ‘just rejoices.’ We recall that triumphalism is often premature. That these gains may be reversed and snuffed out by new waves of ethnic cleansing and sectarian killings, by AQ’s ability to regenerate itself in new training camps. Even in the best-case scenario, if AQI is decisively beaten, the newly empowered northern tribes are flush with weapons, cash and experience, and may turn this new strength against other Iraqis. The dream of a stable federal democracy, freed by new alliances of Americans and Arabs, may go the way of the confidence that was building amongst US troops who were steadily mastering the art of counterinsurgency in Vietnam, circa 1969.

This is one of the real problems faced by the ‘big story’ of the war on terror, which was then rebranded as the Long War, and lately, the Global Counterinsurgency. It is based on the view of a long-term, complex and shifting struggle, where we won’t have the clarity of victory and defeat. Yet politically, and as humans, many people haven’t lost their instinct for the climactic language of heroism. There remains something down in our gut where we can’t only think in terms of pure strategy. The leader who announces that this war, unlike those of our grandfathers, will not be settled by a formal surrender and a fixed terminus, is the same man who declares combat operations over against a banner saying ‘Mission Accomplished.’ (2) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:59 PM by Taylor Owen  

BARNETT-FIREFOX MASHUP: Taking it to a new level of geek-out, Dave Eaves combines geopolitics with open source in what is a very cool post. He compares firefox 3 download pledges with Barnett's Functioning Core and the Non-Integrated Gap countries. It appears as if there is a relatively strong negative correlation between Non-Integrated countries and pledged downloads. More interesting are a couple of more detailed observations:

Non-Integrated Gap countries with the most pledges are Iran, Turkey, Venezuela, Peru, and Indonesia – interesting list. Seems to suggest that many of the countries the US tries to isolate are actually the most connected.

According to my Mozilla friends Poland (yes, Poland) was the first to hit the 100K pledge mark. Many new Core countries are adopting Open Source en mass to avoid paying for expensive Microsoft software. Open source may be offering them a cheap way to increase connectivity and integrate with the core faster, and on their terms. Fantastic outcome.

As Dave notes, it would be useful to actually model this, and it requires data scaled by pop and host of controls. But its pretty cool nonetheless. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:15 PM by Patrick Porter  

ITS AU REVOIR rather than goodbye, I suspect, for the Clinton comeback kids. Hillary will remain a significant force in politics, and the memory of Richard Nixon is a permanent reminder that events can bring defeated and jaded figures back to the top.

But we can be delighted that Hillary has lost the nomination. Its the end of this campaign with its many obnoxious postures, its self-pity and self-absorption (the Clintons have suffered for us and we owe them); the word-game parsing dishonesty (misspoke, the bogus 'experience'); the tedious double-standards (at times weeping and wounded to appeal to our emotions, but at other times taunting her enemies that they 'can't take the heat'); the cheap, off-the-shelf gender dodge (opposition to Hillary is sexist and personal); the convenient rewriting of history over Iraq (Bush was obsessed with Iraq, Iraq was foisted on us by a small cabal, Hillary was only in principle in favour, no really); the selective appeals to democracy (count every vote, but the Republicans should just stand aside and not contest the next election); the vacuous identity politics (grand-dad with his gun, small town family village folksy values, I have the white vote); and of course the beetroot-faced, shrill anger of Bill, the guy whose presidency I think did a lot of good who ran as the fresh outsider, now reduced to a backfiring rambler sermonising on experience and the virtues of the political establishment.

Obama and McCain have their flaws. Obama can get a trifle pompous at times (can't we all?), remains a bit vague on policy detail, and is a bit inclined to overrate rhetorical uplift and portray the US as a sinful nation that can atone for its sins through him.

For his part, McCain is slightly mad and intemperate, given to flirting with the evangelical hard-right and is really a Hawkish Democrat (or rather, embodies some of the best things the Republicans used to be).

But each of these guys is someone who seems to want to do something with public office. This distinguishes them from Hillary, who, on the whole, stood for the empty pursuit of power for its own sake. The lust for power may run in their veins. After all, something must keep them going through this drawn-out, exhausting run. But the presidency for them is also a means to an end, not an end in itself.

There is talk that both nominees will have extended, free-flowing debates. There may even be an outside chance that the US will be gifted a substantive conversation that doesn't insult its peoples' intelligence. Having just got back from Austin, Texas, where I was lucky enough to meet people from across the spectrum, from liberal Democrat humanists to staunch conservative Roman Catholic Republicans, its clear that there is something really great (and very polite!) about the American people, and they deserve some serious discussion about serious things.

As Hillary makes her way to the exit, hopefully not to run for VP, lets hope Obama and McCain can inject some style and gravitas into the political space that opens in her wake. (1) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:11 AM by Patrick Porter  

AMATEUR HOUR: I just posted this at my other blogsite, and thought it might be of interest to our readers here:

In public and professional debate, the overriding issue in domestic terrorism is ‘why they dun it?’

We can debate motive forever. But we can now make a more modest point with confidence: most budding extremists aren’t very good at it. Clearly there are still scary exceptions and moments where luck, skill and creativity can result in a spectacular attack.

But more common are things like this:

Saeed Ghafoor said he was going to bomb Europe’s largest shopping complex using three cars containing gas canister explosives. But when questioned further, he said Bluewater was in Exeter, the Old Bailey heard. When told it was in Kent, Ghafoor said he had not “finalised” his plans.’

Or this:

Mr Reilly was arrested after the explosion at 1250 BST on Thursday in the Giraffe restaurant in the £230m shopping development, which is one of Exeter’s main attractions. CCTV footage taken from a nearby camera appears to show him emerging from the cafe with blood pouring down his face before his arrest. No-one else was hurt in the explosion at the restaurant, which was busy at the time and is popular with families.

Why? Not knowing a lot about the internal technicalities of terrorism, I’ll suggest three reasons and see if readers want to kick them around.

First, state paranoia. 9/11 and 7/7 got the authorities’ attention. With all the abuses and incompetence and heavy-handedness that came with it, its now a much harder environment to operate it.

Second: its harder than it looks. Mohammed Atta, a highly talented engineering student with a cool focus and meticulous ways, is atypical. Most seem to be flustered, clumsy and indiscrete.

Third: We must be getting decent human intelligence from somewhere. One thing we are learning quickly is that Al Qaeda and its affiliates and imitators are fast alienating Muslims everywhere. This is known about Iraq, but could it also be happening here? Muslims were among the victims of the 7/7 atrocity. They don’t want to be persecuted at airports or harassed for downloading from the web. But neither do they want to be blown up by co-religionists.

Widening the focus to broader questions of international relations, the modern nation-state still seems fairly resilient. For all the talk of fifth generation warfare, cyberwar and super-empowerment of small groups of radicals, visiting mayhem on the streets and shops and trains of First World states is still difficult to do, takes training, patience and skill that the internet alone can’t teach, and on the rare moment when it does succeed, can backfire.

As Rod Liddle chuckles,

I suppose that many years hence the terrible destruction of the twin towers will still be lodged in our minds, the image of the buildings crumpling, the video of Osama Bin Laden sniggering in his cave. But a similarly iconic image would be of the moron Richard Reid trying desperately to set his training shoe on fire on a plane, having forgotten to bring a lighter. They are either extraordinarily useless or Allah has got it in for them.

The trick for terrorism studies, it seems, is to explain exactly why this is the case, and propose policies and measures to sustain this success of counter-terrorism. In the meantime, the rest of us can empty rooms and bore listeners with talk of root causes, alienation and social decay. (2) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:38 AM by Patrick Porter  

GOD IN THE DOCK: I have just read Christopher Hitchens' fierce atheist manifesto, God is not Great: How Religion poisons everything.

Hitch's other works, especially on Orwell, have been great reading and rich, provocative stuff. But though passionate, this one is at times a sloppy polemic.

And it reflects a disturbing tendency amongst some of the 'new atheists' (such as Richard Dawkins), of sounding a little too cocksure, a little too self-congratulatory, and just a touch militant. Ironically, these are things they claim to dislike in godly folk.

I'm not going to challenge Hitchens' overarching theological (or anti-theological) case. Those who want a sophisticated debate between him and various divines and other authority figures can flick over to Youtube.

Instead, I'll just note three factual problems:

the Church of England did not take part in the Crusades, given that it didn't exist during the Crusades(page 17),(unless he means in the sense that the Church of England claims to be the unbroken continuation with the true Catholic faith, but given that Hitchens rejects all beliefs like this, he can't then use it as counsel for the prosecution);

In 1929, when Benito Mussolini signed the official treaty with the Vatican, he had not just 'barely seized power', given that he launched a coup d'etat in 1922 and had consolidated a dictatorship by 1925 (p.235);

the Tamil Tigers, who frequently resorted to suicide bombing and helped refine the technique, may be full of Hindus (p.199), but it is a revolutionary Marxist-Leninist movement, an unmentioned fact that rather spoils Hitchens' claim that suicide bombing is essentially a religious phenomenon.

Most of us make factual errors, being mere mammals. But most of us aren't accusing everyone with a different cosmology of being dangerous, delusional or annoying. If we are to pursue a 'New Enlightenment', as the Hitch calls it, then we are also entitled to hold atheist secularists to the same standards of care with the facts.

In his review of Richard Dawkins' 'The God Delusion', Terry Eagleton caught something of this contradiction (hat-tip, Rob Saunders!):

The mainstream theology I have just outlined may well not be true; but anyone who holds it is in my view to be respected, whereas Dawkins considers that no religious belief, anytime or anywhere, is worthy of any respect whatsoever. This, one might note, is the opinion of a man deeply averse to dogmatism.

(4) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:00 PM by Patrick Porter  

WHEN TRYING TO STIR UP CLASS ANTAGONISM to win an election, a strategy that is not guaranteed to work, don't taunt your foe with young activists dressed in top hats and tails, or painting your opponent as an overprivileged toff, when one of the activists in fancy dress comes from a public school, and when your own candidate has a six acre property.

New Labour in Britain won successive elections partly because it rose above the divisive rhetoric of class war and the old militancy of the unionised left. Desperate to turn back the momentum building against it, this latest by-election signals the dangers of resurrecting this old, and empty, politics. (1) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:23 PM by Patrick Porter  

SO WHO WILL WIN? This election season has had so many false predictions. About a year ago, the argument was how much Hillary would beat Romney or Guliani by.

I had a pet-theory about the resilience of the American political establishment, which seemed to explain why a Gore could pummel a Bill Bradley, a Bush Jr. hammer a McCain, or a Hillary whack an Obama.

Too bad about the last case. On the other hand, Hillary has shown great resilience, and a willingness to say or do just about anything, posing as the earthed woman of the common folk while lending herself millions, portraying Obama who grew up on foodstamps as an aloof elitist.

Obama succeeded in mobilising not only a vast amount of money and active supporters, but attracted support from the elite and establishment echelons of the Democratic Party, in a way making himself part of the establishment.

So where from here? Consider some countervailing trends:

First, the Republicans seem tired. As Dan Schnur notes:

It’s hard to remember what an unknown quantity George W. Bush was to Republican true believers in 1999, what with his lineage, his history of working with Democrats in Texas and his fondness for talking about compassionate conservatism.

But after years of watching congressional Republicans play Wile E. Coyote to Bill Clinton’s Road Runner, the G.O.P. faithful were hungry again. So they took a flyer on the scion of the Bush they had turned away from less than a decade earlier.

As for the Democrats, eight years of power took the edge off their hunger to a point where just enough of them decided that Al Gore wasn’t sufficiently liberal and that the luxury of a vote for Ralph Nader was an indulgence they could afford.

(hat-tip, Mark Meredith!)

The Republicans have been smart enough to pick the one candidate with the ability to stand as a critically independent man who is most certainly not George Bush Junior in new clothes.

But this may not be enough. There seems to be a broad, continual revolt underway against Republican misrule. Even McCain may not be able to distance himself from Bush and Bush's legacy sufficiently to counter this angry force. He also has the hard task of balancing his 'reach across the aisle' moderation with his tendency to coddle elements of the hard-core Christian right at times.

On the other hand, Obama's coalition may be more fragile than we realise. He needs a constituency of blue collar older voters, and he needs the Democrats to mobilise and unite behind him to secure middle America.

There is the obvious problem of some voters just refusing to vote for a black man, as well as the damage that was done when it turned out that the man standing for a post-racial American society had spent too much time with a cleric who spouted toxic bigotry and lies. Obama has repudiated this now, and McCain claims he won't use it, but the subject is going to come up.

This election is difficult to predict, not only because of the particular combination of candidates, but because its hard to generalise about American society from a distance.

But at least we might be spared the prospect, as Mitt Romney called it, of Bill Clinton in the White House with nothing to do. (1) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:12 PM by Patrick Porter  

TALKING HISTORY IN THE GULF: Barak Obama argues that it isn't appeasement to talk. He's absolutely right. Appeasement is a precise policy of purchasing peace for one's own interests and accommodating a dangerous state by sacrificing the interests of another.

So Chamberlain talking with Hitler wasn't appeasement, but abandoning Czechoslovakia in the hope that it would satiate Hitler's territorial desires was.

Obama talking to Tehran wouldn't be appeasement unless he deliberately abandoned an allied country in some fundamental way.

Obama is not an appeaser. For better or worse, he believes in the transforming power of dialogue.

But as K.T. McFarland argues, dialogue, no matter how eloquent, lacks power if there is no pre-existing leverage:

"Strong countries and strong Presidents talk to their adversaries," said Obama. "That's what Kennedy did with Khrushchev. That's what Reagan did with Gorbachev. That's what Nixon did with Mao."

Not so fast. I was in both the Nixon and Reagan administrations, and I can attest that those Presidents understood the danger of prematurely forcing top-level meetings without sufficient preconditions.

Neither Richard Nixon nor Ronald Reagan would sit down for face-to-face meetings with their counterparts in enemy nations until America hadsome realistic - and playable - bargaining chips. They recognized that negotiating without leverage isn't negotiating, it's begging.

McFarland doesn't in principle oppose talks with Tehran. But he argues that favourable talks are a result of careful prior strategy, the result rather than the cause of prudent statecraft.

However, despite the extraordinary efforts of Petraues and the US-led coalition in the past year, we are still in something of a strategic hell. In the sense that its hard to imagine building up enough leverage to realign the Gulf through talks with Iran without more years of steady progress, in a war we can hardly afford.

So the policy options seem to be: do talks, but with the risk that they are premature and lack leverage, or wait, grit our teeth and hang tight in Iraq, with the hope that this will strengthen America's hand.

My instinct is for the latter, but we haven't got that long. A war of $2 billion a week is hardly sustainable. (3) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:27 AM by Taylor Owen  

OPED IN EMBASSY MAG: Dave and I have the following piece in this week's Embassy. It is in part based on research I have done on the US bombing of Cambodia with Ben Kiernan, an overview of which can be read in this Walrus article.


Embassy, May 7th, 2008
Afghanistan Another Iraq? Try Another Cambodia

Of the many complexities to emerge from our mission in Afghanistan, one is particularly troublesome. Almost one-third of the Taliban recently interviewed by a Canadian newspaper claimed that at least one family member had died in aerial bombings in recent years, and many described themselves as fighting to defend Afghan villagers from air strikes by foreign troops.

This should come as no surprise. Last year, the UN reported that over 1,500 civilian were killed in Afghanistan. In the first half 2007, this casualty rate had increased by 50 per cent. The NGO community and NATO remain at odds over who is accountable for a majority of these deaths.

What is indisputable, however, is that air sorties have increased dramatically. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, sorties doubled from 6,495 in 2004 to 12,775 in 2007. More critically, aircraft today are 30 times more likely to drop their payloads than in 2004.

Civilian deaths are a moral tragedy. Equally importantly, however, they represent a critical strategic blunder. It has long been known that civilian casualties benefit insurgencies, who recruit fighters with emotional pleas. While an airstrike in a village may kill a senior Taliban, even a single civilian casualty can turn the community against the coalition for a generation.

This presents military commanders with an immensely challenging dilemma: Accept greater casualties in a media environment where any and all are scrutinized, or use counterproductive tactics that will weaken the enemy in the moment, but strengthen him over the long term.

While the choice is almost impossibly difficult, it is not new. Surprisingly, the case of U.S. air strikes in Cambodia offers a chilling parallel.

Between 1964 and 1973, the U.S. dropped over 2.7 million tonnes of munitions on Cambodia, making it potentially the most bombed country in history.

While the scale is shocking, the strategic costs were devastating. Over the course of the bombing period, the Khmer Rouge insurgency grew from an impotent force of 5,000 rural fighters to an army of over 200,000, capable of defeating a U.S.-backed government.

Recent research has shown a direct connection between casualties caused by the bombings and the rise of the insurgency.

Because Lon Nol, Cambodia's president at the time, supported the U.S. air war, the bombing of Cambodian villages and the significant civilian casualties it caused provided ideal recruitment rhetoric for the insurgent Khmer Rouge.

As civilian casualties grew, the Khmer Rouge shifted their rhetoric from that of a Maoist agrarian revolution to anti-imperialist populism.

This change in strategy achieved stunning results. As one survivor explained:

"Every time after there had been bombing, they would take the people to see the craters.... Terrified and half-crazy, the people were ready to believe what they were told.... It was because of their dissatisfaction with the bombing that they kept on co-operating with the Khmer Rouge, joining up with the Khmer Rouge, sending their children off to go with them."

Compare this to what one Taliban fighter explained to a Globe and Mail researcher: "The non-Muslims are unjust and have killed our people and children by bombing them, and that's why I started jihad against them. They have killed hundreds of our people, and that's why I want to fight against them."

The coalition risks repeating the same mistakes, and like the Khmer Rouge 30 years ago, the Taliban are capitalizing on its misguided tactics.

Amazingly, in Cambodia, American administration knew of the strategic costs of the bombing. The CIA's Directorate of Operations reported during the war that the Khmer Rouge were "using damage caused by B-52 strikes as the main theme of their propaganda." Yet blinded by grandeurs of military might, the sorties continued.

The Khmer Rouge forced the U.S. out of Phnom Penh, took over the country, and the rest is a tragic history.

We know our tactics in Afghanistan have a similar effect. Civilian casualties drive a generation into the hands of an insurgency we are there to oppose.

Initially Canada deployed without Leopard tanks and CF-18s with the goal of prioritizing personal engagement and precision over brute military might. Today, however, our allies' tactics—and increasingly our own—do not adequately reflect strategic costs incurred by civilian causalities. In addition, Canada has not allied itself with other NATO members—particularly the British—to reign in the coalition's counterproductive use of aerial bombings.

Cambodia offers a powerful example of aerial warfare run amok. What is Canada doing to ensure we don't relive the failures of the past? (1) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:06 AM by Taylor Owen  

COULD IT BE THE END?



...or maybe it's just a flesh wound...

(3) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:21 AM by Patrick Porter  

THE CITY THAT BURNS: Hitler, it seems, had visions of destroying New York, unleashing firestorms with suicide missions.

And this as early as 1937. Previously, I had thought this had come much later:

As Germany’s defeat loomed during the final months of World War II, Adolf Hitler increasingly lapsed into delusional fits of fantasy. Albert Speer, in his prison writings, recounts an episode in which a maniacal Hitler “pictured for himself and for us the destruction of New York in a hurricane of fire.” The Nazi fuehrer described skyscrapers turning into “gigantic burning torches, collapsing upon one another, the glow of the exploding city illuminating the dark sky.”

I don’t know whether it exists, but there should be a study of the different ways the destruction of New York has been imagined by its haters.

It figures in Ian Baruma and Avishai Margalit’s Occidentalism, which shows that the city was loathed as the embodiment of debauched materialism and cosmopolitanism, and Judaic conspiracy.

Sayyid Qutb, intellectual father of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and heavily influential on Al Qaeda, went to New York in 1948, and saw it this way.

After 9/11, Bin Laden bragged that ‘Those awesome symbolic towers that speak of liberty, human rights, and humanity have been destroyed. They have gone up in smoke.’

The Twin Towers, of course were likened by some evangelist visionaries as analogues to the Tower of Babel.

There is an undertone of this, a secularized version, in some of the wilder wings of environmentalism and their reactionary nostalgia for a utopian pre-industrial past, where vast tidal waves are unleashed on New York by Mother Earth as payback for the vandalism of the planet.

It also crops up in more petty ways. When New York suffered an electricity blackout in 2003, a snide Oxford man of the far left told me he was glad, because consumerist New Yorkers could feel the pain of Iraqis. New York wasn’t the first city I imagined being a stranger to collective suffering. (And there’s that violent hate of consumerism again).

So there you go. Nazis, jihadists, eco-warriors, evangelists and the far left can all find something in the metropolis to hate, one of the more ironic signs of its greatness. (3) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:52 AM by Ariel David Adesnik  

OXBLOG MEGA-SUPER-UPDATE SPECTACULAR: It's hard to live up to a headline like that, but I think I've got a pretty decent story to tell. I've mentioned in passing that I've been travelling abroad for the past few months. Well, that was a euphemism. I was in Iraq, working as an analyst for the Coalition's counter-IED task force.

That wasn't a secret per se, but I was instructed not to blog about my job until I got home from Iraq. When people ask what exactly I was doing in Iraq, I like to say that if I told them I'd have to kill them. Sadly, that just isn't true. I won't go into it right now, but the broad contours of my work had to do with some pretty general questions about the insurgency that lots of people are asking.

I got home from Iraq three weeks ago. Forty-eight hours later, I started working as a full-time volunteer on the foreign policy and national security staff for McCain 2008. I've taken a leave of absence from day job so that I can work a lot more hours for a lot less pay. (Just more proof that I'm an irrational, impractical, delusional ideologue.)

Now let me toss out my third hand grenade: I'm getting married. I proposed to Susanna six days after coming home from Iraq. We hope to get married some time in the spring of 2009. I don't recall off-hand if I ever mentioned Susanna by name on OxBlog. I've generally tried to separate my personal life from my blogging. But this is just too big and too exciting (at least for me).

So, lots of big changes in my life, none of them conducive to frequent blogging. (Some of you may be quite thankful for that.) In Iraq, I could blog, but I was almost always too tired after work. Now I'm too tired and I can't go around expressing political opinions because being part of a campaign means having some discipline. I hope I can work something out where I can blog as part of the campaign, but that's up in the air for the moment.

Now to close on another random note. I'm writing this post sitting next to a window with a panoramic view of downtown Seoul. I made a commitment almost six months ago to do several days of research in South Korea. From the little I've seen, Seoul is an amazing city and I hope to come back when I have time to enjoy it.

To say the least, my life isn't boring these days. (17) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:11 PM by Patrick Porter  

SPECIAL RELATIONSHIPS, BLOOD TIES: In Prime Minister Gordon Brown's recent US visit, we can see the peculiar dynamics of the Anglo-American relationship at work.

This piece in the Times in particular tells us a lot about the anxieties that accompany the British/American alliance.

On the one hand, we see the competitive desire to prove that Britain is most special in America's constellation, even more than Atlanticist Sarkozy (who only got to speak to the President rather than all three candidates!) and Oz Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (who only, gasp, got a phone conversation).

The alliance with the US means that Britain can play Greece to America's Rome, and is first in a strong field of contenders for that role.

And we also get a glimpse of what the British alliance delivers the US: a sense of mystical pedigree and ancestral prestige. Thus the New England Historic Genealogical Society has found that Obama is a distant relative of Winston Churchill, himself part American, and the embodiment of Anglo-American kinship, shared burdens and world mission.

Obama's claim to a blood tie is actually more than an eager identification with Churchill. It is an American presidential tradition, but with a twist. On the accession of a new American President, there is the publication of their genealogy as it relates to the English monarchy.

Thus George Bush senior was announced as a distant relative of Queen Elizabeth II by the director of 'Burke's Peerage', and Burke's Presidential Families of the United States links Lincoln to Edward I, Washington to Henry III, and Teddy Roosevelt to Robert III, King of Scots.

Obama, wittingly or not, has updated this tradition, tracing his blood ties to an aristocrat, but one of democratic politics.

For her part, Hillary has more prosaically found a Welsh ancestor. She also discovered Jewish ancestry some years ago during a public dispute over her views on Palestine, and in a moment of real excitement, remembered in New Zealand that she was named after Edmund Hillary, who conquered Everest some six years after she was born.

But the factual truth of these claims is less interesting than what motivates them, which is a kind of compact. The US offers access to power, Britain offers the mystique of old-world prestige. And history is pressed into action to serve both.

NB: For more on this blood-tracing and much else besides, see the Hitch's Blood, Class and Empire. (1) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:20 AM by Patrick Porter  

CLINGING TO GUNS AND RELIGION: There doesn't seem anything intrinsically offensive in Obama's remarks about the political ecology of small towns. But it might be empirically wrong.

Getting fired up about wedge issues at election time might not be what struggling folk from small towns do more than others.

According to Larry Bartels, it is college-educated urbanites who are far more attached to social issues when it comes to their voting behaviour:

Small-town people of modest means and limited education are not fixated on cultural issues. Rather, it is affluent, college-educated people living in cities and suburbs who are most exercised by guns and religion. In contemporary American politics, social issues are the opiate of the elites.

Moreover, it is Ivy-League educated Presidential candidates, both Hillary and Obama, who see small-town America in this distorting way. Hillary by pandering to it, and Obama by despairing of it. (4) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:10 AM by Taylor Owen  

WOW. JUST WOW: Bill Clinton in Pennsylvania yesterday.

"I think there is a big reason there's an age difference in a lot of these polls," he said. "Because once you've reached a certain age, you won't sit there and listen to somebody tell you there's really no difference between what happened in the Bush years and the Clinton years; that there's not much difference in how small-town Pennsylvania fared when I was president, and in this decade."

I just finished listening to an abridged version of Clinton's autobiography (I just couldn't commit to the full thing). There are two things that are glaringly clear. First, it's all the evil "far right's" fault. Everything. It is never Clinton's fault. Second, and more relevant here, is that in 1992, Clinton was running a VERY similar campaign to Obama. Had Hillary been in the race, there is no doubt that he would be have mocked her as the establishment candidate. He would have been right, and he would have won. He would have done so using words, which he was at one point pretty good at. And he would have argued that a new generation was ready to have a turn in Washington. Sound familiar?

One more point. Is it really a smart idea to start attacking a whole new generation getting engaged in politics? Like Obama or not, bringing in millions of new voters is an undeniably positive result of his candidacy. Telling them they are naive, waving your wise ex-presidential finger at them, is just demeaning.

HRC: "No you can't. No you can't."

Labels: Bill Clinton

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# Posted 10:00 AM by Taylor Owen  

OBAMA-BIDEN: I know I have mentioned this before, but after yesterday's prosecutorial performance, it is worth repeating that aside from the pesky Delaware issue, Biden would make a great Obama VP.

Labels: Obama

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# Posted 9:08 AM by Taylor Owen  

2001 IS A DATE, NOT A GOAL: Patrick Travers and I have an oped, here, and below, in the Star today on the recent NATO summit in Bucharest. The background is that Prime Minister Harper was seeking the additional 1000 troops that were part of the conditionality that Parliament place on the extension of the mission to 2011. Also, the Manley Panel, was our Iraq Study Group.

2011 is a date, not a goal
Reinforcements are welcome but do not address Manley's sweeping critique
Apr 05, 2008
Patrick Travers
Taylor Owen

Prime Minister Stephen Harper told reporters in Bucharest that the French troop commitment to Afghanistan represents a "significant and historic re-engagement." The truth is somewhat less dramatic, particularly when measured against the Manley panel's comprehensive and wide-ranging recommendations.

Certainly, the injection of additional resources is good news. It frees American forces to offer more assistance and provides a badly needed show of unity within NATO. But these relatively minor additional resources must be seen in context.

Although allied support will shore up flagging Canadian capacity, the overall mission remains under-resourced. The contributions pledged in Bucharest do not meet the 10,000 troops demanded by ISAF commander Gen. Daniel McNeill before the summit. Even counting the Afghan National Army, there are still fewer forces available than the minimum levels experts identify as necessary for successful peacebuilding operations.

More importantly, the government's success in Bucharest was largely due to a careful reframing of the Manley report. While the panel did emphasize the need for additional troops and helicopter support, it also went much further.

The critiques were sweeping: too many civilian casualties, incoherent counter-narcotics policies, widespread corruption in Afghan institutions, insufficient diplomatic effort, failure to communicate the mission to Canadians, poor interdepartmental co-ordination, and a lack of civilian participation and oversight. Our strategy, as well as our capacity, is flawed.

The report emphasized this point explicitly when it identified "harmful shortcomings in the NATO/ISAF counter-insurgency campaign" caused by "inadequate co-ordination between military and civilian programs for security, stabilization, reconstruction and development." The conclusion that "these and other deficiencies reflect serious failures of strategic direction" could hardly be clearer.

Luckily, the panel provided a blueprint. Its recommendations were rooted in the principles of "3D" or "whole-of-government" peacebuilding. Three successive governments have claimed that they are implementing this new approach to rebuilding failed states, but reality has yet to match the rhetoric. In particular, four challenges still need to be addressed.

First, co-ordinated and comprehensive policy-making demands exceptional clarity. Diplomats, humanitarians and defence experts may view the same issues in strikingly different terms. If we are asking them to work together, as we are, we must provide them with clear goals. For Canada in Afghanistan, this has been lacking from the start and the decision to extend the current mission does little to solve the problem.

Second, much of the Canadian debate about our role in Afghanistan has omitted the international context. We are a modest contributor in a 35-member coalition. Success or failure in Afghanistan depends crucially on the actions of our allies. In this sense, it is hard to see the benefit of an arbitrary extension to 2011. If the international effort to stabilize Afghanistan lasts longer, as it almost certainly will, then we need to be clear about what both Canada and ISAF expects to accomplish in next three years. Our commitment has to be viewed in the context of the larger strategy.

Third, peacebuilding demands balance. According to the Manley panel, "for best effect, all three components of the strategy – military, diplomatic and development – need to reinforce each other."

Not only has this not happened, but the degree of integration has also been difficult to determine from outside observation. The government has consistently failed to provide the verifiable information, clear benchmarks, and concrete timelines to necessary to judge Canada's mission accurately.

Fourth, strategy begins in Ottawa. Harper has taken steps to improve co-ordination between the departments contributing to the mission, but old habits remain. The Manley report underscored that new and more creative solutions are needed for this bureaucratic deadlock.

Other countries, such as the U.K., may provide an example. They have explored alternate means of encouraging departments to work together when managing complex peacebuilding missions. This may be a rare instance of bureaucratic turf battles mattering deeply both for Canadians and for the success of the mission.

Neither the political compromise that extended our involvement in Afghanistan nor recent developments in Bucharest address these challenges. If we are to avoid finding ourselves in the same position in 2011, a more comprehensive re-engagement is needed.

The Manley panel should have sparked a full and informed public discussion of these issues. Instead, the opportunity was largely lost in political manoeuvring. It is past time we had that debate. Otherwise, we are condemning Canada's mission to reliving its past.

Patrick Travers is a doctoral student at the University of Oxford. Taylor Owen is a Trudeau Scholar at the University of Oxford and an Action Canada Fellow.

Labels: Afghanistan, Canadian Foreign Policy, NATO

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# Posted 5:17 PM by Taylor Owen  

OBAMA'S RACE SPEECH: I haven't read through all the commentary on Obama's race speech yet, but I did watch it, and believe that above all else, the style he exhibited goes to the core of his candidacy. He speaks about issues, controversial issues, with a political voice that hasn't been heard before. He transcends old ideological, ethnic, religious and historical divides. This voice is not just new to the US, but internationally. This is why so many people in Canada and Europe, for example, are watching him in a way they don't even look at their own leaders. I can't express the number of times I have been asked in Canada who will be "our Obama". Same in the UK.

It is also worth mentioning that the voice evident in the speech clearly shows the unique positionally that he is able to hold. Ferraro was right - Obama could not have given this speech if he were white. Nor could he if he were a boomer - white, black, or female. Neither of the Clinton's could have given this speech. This, however, does not in any way diminish the force of him giving it. As Andrew has said, it simply adds context to the historical moment/opportunity that surrounds his candidacy.

In any case, despite his religious exuberance and US patriotism (I am an atheist Canadian), I basically agree with Andrew's post on the speech, some of which is below:

I do want to say that this searing, nuanced, gut-wrenching, loyal, and deeply, deeply Christian speech is the most honest speech on race in America in my adult lifetime. It is a speech we have all been waiting for for a generation. Its ability to embrace both the legitimate fears and resentments of whites and the understandable anger and dashed hopes of many blacks was, in my view, unique in recent American history...

I have never felt more convinced that this man's candidacy - not this man, his candidacy - and what he can bring us to achieve - is an historic opportunity. This was a testing; and he did not merely pass it by uttering safe bromides. He addressed the intimate, painful love he has for an imperfect and sometimes embittered man. And how that love enables him to see that man's faults and pain as well as his promise...

Bill Clinton once said that everything bad in America can be rectified by what is good in America. He was right - and Obama takes that to a new level. And does it with the deepest darkest wound in this country's history.

Labels: Obama

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# Posted 7:46 PM by Taylor Owen  

NOTHING BUT CLASS:

Labels: Samantha Power

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# Posted 6:51 PM by Taylor Owen  

MATH VS HOPE: Some quick answers to David's questions:

1. Why shouldn't they go to the candidate who emerges with the largest popular vote?

I agree, I don’t think there is clear reason, other than the fact that the nominee is chosen by delegates, rather than a straight popular ballot. I suppose that means something. Bush would probably think so. I also believe that even if you count Michigan and Florida, which is looking increasingly unlikely to happen, Obama is ahead in the pop. vote.

2. From day one, Obama's message has been that he is a bringer of change who can unite the entire country, not just the Democratic Party. Thus, would an emphasis on the math actually do more to hurt his campaign than to help?

Well, a couple of things. First, I don’t see how these are necessarily mutually exclusive. Second, I think the message of the campaign can be transmitted in many ways. Obama himself would obviously not be on the stump mixing math with hope, delegates with change. His surrogates could certainly do fair amount to get that point across though.

3. Is it "absolutely ridiculous" for her to argue that she is better vetted?

OK, this might be a bit strong. First, though, her claim assumed that the "vast right-wing conspiracy" is done "vetting" her. That the current silence is due to the right being out of ammo, as opposed to her primary opponent trying to run a relatively clean campaign. Second, what is certainly “absolutely ridiculous” is her claim that she is fully vetted, but then to call any reference to the issues for which she was critiqued off limits, or worse still, Starr-ian. She can’t have it both ways.

4. What I want to know is, is one set of arguments intrinsically more persuasive to Democratic superdelegates? Or is only way forward to forget about which argument is better and just see who polls better against McCain?

In the end, I am not sure if it will ever come down to solely who is better positioned against McCain. If Obama is ahead in delegates, popular vote, and states won going into the convention, then it is hard to see Hillary to becoming the nominee. If they split any of these, or, I suppose, if Hillary has some real momentum coming out of the final few states, then the super delegates will decide based on the McCain factor. This, despite Clinton’s experience messaging, I think actually favors Obama. He polls better against McCain, puts more swing states into play, and Hillary is far more vulnerable on her Iraq vote than she implies.

Plus, what could be better for Oxblog than an Obama-McCain general? Surely that has to factor into our analysis?

PS - In a thorough post on the same topic, Jonathan Chait argues that while there may be nothing illegitimate about a super delegate decided outcome, with the math strongly against her, Clinton's only path to the nomination will not be a pretty affair. (2) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:47 AM by Taylor Owen  

SAMANTHA POWER: I am disappointed that Power has stepped down from the Obama campaign. She was more than a mere Obama policy adviser, she was his liberal internationalist Condi. She is also someone for whom I have a tremendous amount of respect, not to mention a fair dose of envy. It was her early engagement with Obama following his Senate win that first made me think that he might be something different. Her subsequent involvement with the presidential campaign helped further solidified my support.

I perhaps admire her most for her willingness to jump into the political world from her safe and successful academic career. She clearly did it because she felt passionately for his candidacy, an emotional engagement that is too often lost in the ivory tower. I think it is safe to say, that she found this position somewhat awkward. You simply cannot speak in the same way as a partisan that you can as a scholar. It is a different public positionally.

The following interview on BBC's Hardtalk only confirms this. You can tell that she is uncomfortable in the partisan role, but shows admirably how an academic can engage in politics in a meaningful way. This is precisely the type of political discourse I think we need more of.

It is also no coincidence that she has had a similar career to Michael Ignatieff (someone for whom I also have a great deal of respect), who has likewise attempted to bridge this academic-political divide. It is not a comfortable place to be, but I respect those of all political stripes who try with integrity. I hope her experience does not dissuade others from taking the leap.

ps. thoughts on David's queries to follow asap...

Labels: Samantha Powers

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# Posted 7:37 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

PIGS FLY, HELL FROZEN OVER, OXBLOG LOVES MAUREEN DOWD: As our wise founder once observed, Maureen Dowd has authentic talent as an observer of political battles that are intensely personal. Thus, she tries to reduce every issue to something personal. At this moment in Democratic politics, Dowd's approach is fully appropriate. She writes:

With Obama saying the hour is upon us to elect a black man and Hillary saying the hour is upon us to elect a woman, the Democratic primary has become the ultimate nightmare of liberal identity politics. All the victimizations go tripping over each other and colliding, a competition of historical guilts.

People will have to choose which of America’s sins are greater, and which stain will have to be removed first...

And meanwhile, the conventional white man sits on the Republican side and enjoys the spectacle of the Democrats’ identity pileup and victim lock.

Perhaps the Democrats can solve their problems by drafting a black woman candidate at the convention in Denver. I hear Cynthia McKinney is looking for a job. Or maybe Condi?

Labels: Maureen Dowd

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