Always Right

Republicans are never wrong. They've always got people working the angles, so the Democrats can take the blame.



Remember all the Libya war hate from the Republicans? That was an easy position to go on the news and advocate back when the rebels looked like they were about to get thrown into the sea by Qadaffi's mercenaries, wasn't it?



But now that the Libya intervention seems to have worked, the pro-interventionist Republicans get to blame the President for not getting involved soon enough.



I really like how no one in the GOP even acknowledges that there is a difference of opinion within their own party. That's a powerful media strategy, my friends.



Same as it ever was.



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The Iron Throne

I started reading A Game of Thrones based on the online discussions that took place at First Draft during the HBO series' first season. I'll be picking up the second book this week.

Like most good science fiction and fantasy, George R. R. Martin's books go beyond the story on the pages and serve as allegories to our world. Like the best science fiction and fantasty writing, it does this in ways both subtle and sublime, and avoids the hokiness of smacking the reader over the head with some sort of message.

So it isn't a surprise to me that Foreign Policy magazine took a look at the series through the lens of international relations, or that Wired breaks down military strategy.

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The War of When?

Jonathan Rauch at The Dish starts a discussion about who really won the war of 1812. Several emailed comments seem confused. I guess the answer to "who won" depends on who you ask, and everyone's got a claim to fame.

Down in New Orleans, there damn sure ain't no questions.

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The Intervention

Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone is absolutely right to bring up the flip-flop of pro-war right wingers, as they're now turning on international interventions they couldn't get enough of when a Republican was in the White House. Though be assured, now that President Obama has declared that Americans will be drawing down troops in Afganistan, even the newly reenergized isolationist wing of the right will hammer him on tactics as if the tactics of the last 10 years didn't exist.

But this is nothing new. The GOP is able to flip-flop at will over American wars without any reasonable accountability because they are so good at marketing their changing position. Either way they go, they are "on the side of Americans," at least on TV or radio.

They loved Iraq War I, but were split on Somalia before they were against it. The GOP almost completely bailed on the incredibly successful US military involvement in the Balkans, which American political culture rarely references. With that one, they questioned every item of American priority from why we were getting involved to the open ended mission to how much it would cost the US taxpayer. At one point, there was even legislation: the House passed a bill not to fund the Balkans operation, while in the Senate

Another resolution sponsored by a group of Republicans led by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas would support the troops but not the President's decision to send them.

Does that sound like GOP behavior from the last decade? What would have been said about actions like that if Democrats had been the ones taking them? Luckily, we have that answer, and it is maddening to critics and opponents of the Iraq war, the Afganistan engagement, and the whole partisan tone of war politics during the Bush II years. It didn't matter if a position was right or wrong, supportive or non-supportive, or based on tactics alone: if it wasn't part of the GOP talking points, it was WRONG, not only WRONG but AMERICAN-SOLDIER-HATING, FLAG BURNING, TRAITORS SHOULD BE BURNED AT THE STAKE wrong, and that's how every public debate was framed. Taibbi sums up these feelings well:

Six or seven or eight years ago, I seem to remember, anyone who even hinted that not using military force to resolve any foreign policy dispute, no matter how trivial or how imaginary the justification, was to be considered a traitor.

Bill O'Reilly drew a direct line in response to Dick Durbin's equally ridiculous hyperbole (the Democrats and the left, never able to miss an opportunity to make a right-winger's point for them, only encouraged the bad behavior). Or we were led to believe that actually examining the war was akin to surrender. And all this went on for years, every day, every hour on Fox News and Talk Radio.

It even continued into the Obama Presidency, with right-wingers, hawks, and Republicans breathlessly anticipating American military surrender or defeat, now that a Democratic President was in the White House.

Then a funny thing happened. Obama called the right-wing bluff and went all in with the Cheney/McChrystal strategy. Y'all want to keep going in Afganistan? Let's really spool things up there and see what you do.

From a purely tactical standpoint, it still wasn't enough. Not nearly. We simply don't have the manpower or materiel or international support or national popular committment to "win" in Afganistan the way many Americans envision "winning" a war. And that cultural tactical confusion is what's been used by partisan politicians since the first troops showed up there.

But if you're trying to find a political solution to end the war - and I'm talking about here in the United States, not in Afganistan - you have to do some things that change the national conversation on a fundamental level. The President did the only thing he could plausably do considering the political climate: bulk up the forces with as few troops as possible to end this thing as close to our terms and cultural needs as possible. Work away from a goal to acheive a goal. Which is what is happening.

Though, thanks to Bush's strategic blunders of not sending adequate manpower or materiel at the onset, and the recent success against Osama Bin Laden personally, popular opinion has turned to ending the wars sooner rather than later. A financial crisis at home is driving home the point. And now GOP Presidential candidates are starting to use the machinery of right-wing marketing to advocate ending the war and bringing the troops home.

It is hard to call a political opponent out for "surrendering" when your stated positions advocate an even quicker exit - an exit that for a decade has been demonized by the right - when said political opponent is delivering not only on his campaign promises but yours. This gives Obama tremendous political capital in the face of defense contractor interests and neoconservatives that the left was simply unable or unwilling to manufacture on their own accord for the past decade. The national narrative has turned from "when will the Democrats make our brave troops surrender" to "how fast can we bring our brave troops home?"

In 2 years, President Obama has reconfigured the terms of the entire national-security discussion. That's something the liberals and progressives and true believers were wholly unable and unprepared to do for the last decade. Working away from a goal to acheive a goal.

Which brings me to the Libya intervention. US involvement is a huge gamble here. The Administration's going at it without Congressional authorization, and our Consitutional law professor President basically throwing that authorization need back into the faces of Republicans in Congress, is confusing. Why would such a deliberate administration act in such ways? Especially when Obama's stated position on Executive authority is so well known.

The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.

Of course, there are bipartisan internationalist members of the US Senate working to acquire Congressional authorization for the Libya action, even as isolationist Republican and anti-war Democratic members of the US House work to defund it (the old Balkan War trick).

This seems to be the par-for-the-course behavior. Isolationists and anti-war folks will get their voices heard, but the majority will back the Administration and the Libya operation will continue. But this President is despised among the Tea Party wing, who appear unafraid to salt the earth to keep the President in check. Add to that the rage of the anti-warrriors of the Democratic left, and you've got a good sized chunk of the Congress. Even if they aren't successful at defunding the Libya operation, they're going to want revenge for Obama's marginalization of Congress.

This became clear to me when I read the quote from Senator John McCain regarding how such behavior affected the Bush administration, and how it could affect future GOP Presidents.

"We were right to condemn this behavior then, and we would be wrong to practice it now ourselves, simply because a leader of the opposite party occupies the White House," he said. "Someday, a Republican will again occupy the White House, and the President may need to commit U.S. armed forces to hostilities.

"So if my Republican colleagues are indifferent to how their actions would affect this President, I would urge them to think seriously about how a vote to cut off funding for this military operation could come back to haunt a future President when the shoe is on the other foot," he continued.

Think about this politically: Obama has stated a desire for war powers to require more robust Presidential approval. Many Republicans oppose him to the point of distraction. The President could have gone to Congress for the Libya operation (especially when all the GOP folks currently complaining were calling on him to intervene) and recieved Congressional authorization in a heartbeat.

He chose to pick a fight with this Congress over the Executive powers to use the military, in the most in-your-face way possible. If nothing legislatively happens, the status quo remains.

But what if the anti-Obama GOP team up with the anti-war Democrats to propose legislation specifically limiting a President's authority to engage in military adventures? What if they amend the War Powers Act to be more specific, and more in tune with Obama's stated Constitutional beliefs?

That means this President could topple Quadaffi WHILE creating political conditions necessary to legislatively restrain a President's future ability to get the nation into wars BY engaging in a conflict with minimal exposure and cost to American troops by emboldening our NATO allies. This could be some Michael Corleone level plans.

Maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part. But this President has already demonstrated a willingness to work away from a goal to acheive a goal, and an ability to allow American popular opinion to shift of its own accord. We'll see if anything really comes from this, but it sure does make for interesting viewing.

Update: The votes are in, and an big majority of Congress is standing up to the President on Libya. They're even entertaining a notion later that will "defund" American operations, except for search and rescue, intelligence gathering, refueling, and logistical operations. You know, the kind of operations that pretty much define the current US involvement in Libya.

So the mission continues as planned. Anti-Obama Republicans and anti-war Democrats are now working together against American adventurism abroad. Wonder what comes next?

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Other Economies

Not only have American taxpayers been subsidizing their own upper classes for a while now, but, as Jay Bookman at the AJC reminds us, we've been subsidizing a lot of other nations' whole economies, too.

Specifically, America spends a lot of money on defense so Europe doesn't have to.

And, yes, we'll loan friendly foreign powers money and encourage them to buy our old weapons and technology. Yes, this creates a few jobs here and there (and a lot of very wealthy defense contractors). But has anyone really done an intellectually robust, cost-benefit analysis of this relationship?

I think about this when I hear folks talk about how awesome social programs and transit and infrastructure are in Europe. I think about it when I hear folks telling me how competitive those economies are compared to our own. It all comes down to priorities, they explain.

But how would those priorities have changed if those nations didn't have the American people subsidizing their national security?

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All According to Plan

Well, it looks like the best-laid plans of American evangelical exhibitionist fundamentalist Christian-istas have achieved the desired effect.

The ironic thing is that too many Americans will watch the news and see a bunch of Muslims in Afghanistan chanting "Death To America," and think this is A) an unprovoked reaction, and B) representative of Muslims worldwide.

Let's put the truth to it:

1. A professional American Christian congregation Hate Group with non-profit tax status, in order to raise money and get attention for itself, abused our nearly sacred First-Amendment Rights in order to yell "Death to Islam" as loud as it possibly could.

2. Muslims in a place that has been living in stone age conditions since at least 1978, who are under military occupation by troops from nations with mostly Christian populations that have significant political factions and popular cultures that constantly demonize Islam, hear "Death to Islam." Again.

3. Because they have not lived under a constitutional government for some time, and have no experience with ideas like the First Amendment, it is very easy for our legal protection of "Death to Islam" speech to appear like a legal endorsement of "Death to Islam" speech.

4. Many Americans ignore items 1 - 3, and watch the news to see Muslims burning flags, effigies of the President, rioting, and killing UN workers.

5. Many Americans use that to justify their continued xenophobia and religious bigotry, which is far more of a historical and existential threat to America than Muslims or Sharia law will ever be.

All just a part of the plan.

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A Grudging Acceptance

Andrew Sullivan examines the President's words:

The Libyan example was particularly vital because a rare constellation of forces came together to make turning away even harder: European and Arab support for preventing mass murder; UN permission; America's "unique" capabilities; and an imminent massacre in Benghazi.

Obama the Niebuhrian put the moral in realism. Yes, we could not do this everywhere all the time; but we could do this when we did; and that was good enough.

I'll add only a few things. This felt like a tremendous gamble, militarily, internationally, and politically. But I'm not privy to the cards held in the hand of the American President.

While I still believe in the internationalism embodied by the UN, and the good that can be done in the face of humanitarian disaster, even the best of intentions can blow up in your face. I'm still not sold, and we know not what we will reap from the continued entrenchment of a Presidency so imperial that no Congressional approval of any kind is needed before committing troops to an intervention of choice. Today's internationalism is yesterday's tomorrow's war of choice.

Which reminds me, especially as I read Sullivan, how we are still fighting the last war, literally and politically.

Though I grudgingly admit: our alliance has so far prevented a true humanitarian crisis; our alliance has so far been welcomed as liberating; Quaddafi is responsible for more terrorist attacks on NATO members than Saddam Hussien could manufacture in his wildest dreams - and an attack on one is an attack on all; the Arab Spring continues; and this has so far been the most efficient international intervention in memory.

But this chapter of history is not yet in the books. So many things have yet to be resolved, and there ought be no desire to wave a Mission Accomplished banner over the proceedings until we are damn sure it really is over.

I don't have to like the bet to hope the gamble pays off.

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Perpetual War

Up until the Libyan bombing campaign started, there were hosts of right-wingers, neoconservatives, and Republicans using the situation to call out President Obama for "dithering" while people died.

As soon as the bombs started to fall, and especially because France was involved, we've heard nothing but outrage from many of those same people. I try to keep up with the talking points by listening to local right-wing radio, and what I heard yesterday ran like a laundry list of arguements that were previously dismissed in the run-up to the war in Iraq.

Of course, one of the most absurd of these arguments can be found coming out of the mouth of Newt Gingrich, who argues to go to war before he argues against it.

Our topic of discussion here is not the Libyan war itself, but how our politics and culture talk about and respond to it. Mainstream Republicans have a foreign policy elite, and they are the folks who have never met a war they didn't want to start. They have an outsized place at the political table, despite their advocated policies falling flat on their face for the last decade. That's who the GOP Representatives listen to, that's who the next GOP President will listen to, and when they turn the volume up loud enough for long enough (as with Iraq) most of the Democrats go right along with them.

The Democrats. I got an email yesterday from Democracy for America asking me to fill out a survey on how that group should react to the war in Libya. Because they don't already have a position.

The Tea Party is showing its true colors when it comes to interventionism and foreign policy. They will listen to the neocons every single time, and search the world for monsters to destroy. That's not good, considering how many monsters they already see at home.

The hatred for this President is so deep and all-encompassing that these individuals continue to find fault even when Obama is pursuing the policies they themselves propose. If he isn't attacking, he's dithering. If he is attacking, he's doing it wrong. If the UN is involved, he's abandoning American leadership in the world. If the UN isn't involved, he's not able to rally the allies.

And yet, for the 8 years of Bush Wars, we heard that anyone who questioned the "Decider's" decisions were unpatriotic and didn't support the troops. I guess that's why all the pundits on the right, even as they excoriate the President for not going to war sooner going to war whatever the day's critique is, they make sure to mention that they are 100% "behind the troops."

Because saying it is what is important.

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The Libyan Gamble

Libya. WTF? In a nation as polarized as we are, things aren't supposed to be this complicated. You're either Pro-War or you're in with Big Peace. You're either a neocon or a realist. You're either Pro-UN Internationalism or Pro-US Unilateralism. What do you do when your deliberative President reaches a similar conclusion to that of a "decider?" We're supposed to know exactly what to think, which party officials will do what, and which voting blocs will behave in what ways.

Karl Rove isn't supposed to "God Bless" Hillary Clinton.

Adrastos says it well:

[G]ood intentions are NOT sufficient. After watching the Bushies give Wilsonian internationalism a right wing twist, I'm a born again realist in matters of war and peace.

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I *really* hope I'm wrong about this because I'd love to see that murderous brown clad shitbird Gaddafi toppled. But the way they've gone about this gives me the heebie jeebies.

I think this is the biggest gamble America's made in decades. Ousting Gaddafi quickly with the combined might of Allied air-power and United Nations mandate restores badly needed credibility to internationalism. America no longer world policeman? I'm down with that. A big plus would be the preservation of the Arab pro-reform movement sweeping the Middle East. If newly liberated Libyans are cheering in the streets and setting up a post-Gaddafi government, Bahrain and Yemen are more likely to cut some deals at the conference table. And that's all secondary to the elimination of one of the world's last true madmen.

But if Gaddafi wins? Everything falls apart. Internationalism and the United Nations will be worthless. The United States will have sealed the deal in establishing a new era of Great Powers (that is coming quickly anyway but why hurry it along?). Gaddafi will butcher people on state television and no one will be able to do a thing about it. The Arab Reforms stop in their tracks, as dissent is crushed by autocrats who never have to listen to anyone but themselves again, ever.

That's just what happens immediately, and I'm not seeing a middle ground.

How did we get here? Let us count the ways:

Somalia was such a disaster for internationalism that little was done about Rwanda & Burundi, the Sudan, and - of course - Somalia.

The Balkans were the messy win of internationalism at work: proving that thousands dead, genocide, and war crimes in the neighborhood will eventually push the Europeans to clean house and bring America along for the ride.

Afganistan was the base of operations for those who attacked us on September 11th, the USS Cole, and in Kenya and Tanzania; it was an ongoing human-rights disaster; and it was a mess we had no small part in creating. I don't argue about our nation going to war in Afganistan, though I wonder what strategies could have been used to end that war sooner.

Iraq. We've really been in a state of undeclared war with Iraq since 1991, when the triumphant coalition of international allies drove Hussein's armies out of Kuwait. But we never really left. This is the longest-running external armed conflict in US history, and we are now on President #4 trying to end this cycle. The American people are still arguing about the restart of this war in 2003, basically so we have something other than Vietnam to argue about. And we're arguing about it despite the fact that the troops have held together two invasions this most recent invasion and an occupation without a clear strategy from Washington; without the appropriate resources needed to take, hold, and rebuild a nation of millions; and without true international support. That is an amazing accomplishment that is usually ignored when talking about this war.

Because the talking is mostly arguing about why we went to war in the first place. And that argument, based on our intervention in Libya, apparently hasn't been settled or even acknowledged. Which is one of the ways we've gotten to where we are today.

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The Foreign Entanglements

To War! To War! To War! To War!

Hope this turns out better than the last two.

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World Police & the Foreign Entanglements

As wonderful as it would be to remove a tyrant, it is difficult to imagine the United States engaging in another regional conflict when our prior two regional engagements have yet to be concluded successfully. I'm not even talking about all the possible realist and pragmatic obstacles that exist to US intervention in Libya, I'm discussing things from a straight-up resource managment scenario.

If your domestic priority is the subsidization of the uber-wealthy, your nation cannot also pursue unending wars and military conflicts as a foreign priority. At least, your nation cannot do both of these things, and hope to remain solvent.

In America, our governments are slashing funding for medicine, schools, roads, infrastructure, and programs that assist our most vulnerable citizens under the guise of "fiscal responsibility," even while our nation maintains a robust military presence all over the world, and is still engaged in not one but two ongoing wars.

And now, a lot of the same folks who have argued that health care and schools are too expensive want to get us to go in, guns blazing, and rescue a bunch of Libyan rebels who many not really represent the "good guys" we'd like to pretend they are on the evening news.

Which is it, fellas? Are we broke, or do bombs grow on trees?

I will be the first one to say that Quaddafi's continued rule is not in the interests of American foreign policy; nor is it in the interests of human rights and dignity. The best thing would be a cavalry-call of international smackdown to remove the liveried dictator from power and drag his ass before The Hauge.

But there is only so much the United States can do about that based on the resource management skills of our former and current national leaders. The nations of Europe have militaries, as do the nations of Egypt and Saudi Arabia. (Well, I guess our allies the Saudis are too busy putting down the popular demonstrations with their military in another US client state to be bothered by an actual military threat that exists in their region.)

And that's just the resource managment angle. The moral responsibility angle is still out there. Luckily, some real conservatives are specifically examining America's responsibilities in this scenario. Too bad we didn't read more of that back in 2002.

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Intervention Price Tag

Have these people ever seen a military action that they didn't like? After all we've heard from the war yahoos, from our decade in Iraq and Afganistan to the desire to open up a third war against Iran, do they have any credibility left? Especially after they've spent years telling us out of the other sides of their mouths that "debt" is killing our future and that the United States is out of money to pay for schools.

What do you think makes the planes go, fellas? Jet fuel costs hard currency, and munitions don't grow on trees. And don't forget, you've got an American population weary of supporting a decade of war with no end in sight. How is getting involved in an Arab civil war going to benefit the USA?

Not to mention the fact that the Libyan rebels seem to be doing an OK job with this.

Pardon me if I don't see President Obama as weak-kneed or indecisive for not rah-rahing our way to another foreign entanglement. We cannot solve all the world's problems and suffer no prestige hit for the President acting prudently in America's own self interest (finally).

I'm sure there is already some behind-the-scenes stuff going on, and this is just political point scoring on the part of Washington politicians and pundits who need something to talk about for the Sunday papers. I'd rather our President not be goaded into cowboying up and charging in with the cavalry for what would amount to a very, very expensive infomercial on American air-power.

We are already at war in two places. We already have troops stationed around the globe. We pay dearly for all of that. If the world - NATO, the Arab League, the Organization of African Unity, or the United Nations wants to get involved, I will have no problem if our President supports their actions. I have no problem with our nation assisting a shared international burden.

But America, unilaterally? Again? We just can't afford it.

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Torturing Your Way To Freedom

Of course, if this view gains any traction, the neocons and defenders of George W. Bush's Presidential legacy will let us know this was all part of their double-secret plan to bring real democracy and human rights to the Middle East.

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Left-Wing Narratives: The Military Industrial Complex

Was Eisenhower a peacenik, darkly hinting that Pentagon insiders and defense contractors would secretly lead America to war every chance they got?

Probably not. Though his Presidential farewell is often quoted, it is done so for the one line - not the realism, pragmatism, internationalism, context and optimism it beautifully displays. Section IV of the address is where you will find the quote, along with these:

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.
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We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
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The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present--and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

So, I guess if you could simplify the context in which Ike utters the phrase "military-industrial complex," you could simplify the context of his "captive of a scientific-technological elite" quote to undermine both Global Warming and Federal participation in university research.

Those aren't good roads to take for the left-liberal-progressive side of the political aisle. The Slate examination goes further:

As Ledbetter's book shows, Eisenhower had estimable motives too. He feared America might become a "garrison state," as the lingo of the day had it, limiting civil freedoms in the name of one military crisis after another. He resented the skill with which Defense Department brass finagled congressional leaders. Even his obsession with balancing the books, though a product of a pre-Keynesian worldview, had the virtue of keeping him alert to Pentagon bloat. And his warnings about military overreach were couched, it's usually forgotten, in passages insisting on the need for a military of unprecedented size, which Eisenhower called "a vital element in keeping the peace."

Narratives. No matter which side uses them, they dull the wits and focus only on those parts that support a "side" in an argument made today.

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The Third Front

Hey, I know what will get us out of these economic doldrums, fix the deficit and keep Comrade Obama out of office in 2012 - LET'S GO TO WAR WITH IRAN!

After all...

We are in the best shape we will ever be in to deal with attempted Iranian retaliation for our part in assisting an Israeli strike. Our posture to disrupt and protect against terrorist attacks at home and abroad has never been stronger
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The United States outflanks Iran in both Iraq and Afghanistan

These are the same people who claimed we would be welcomed as liberators, find the hidden WMD's in Iraq who have strategized our nation into two wars against 4th or 5th rate powers that have continued for nearly a decade.

War with Iran would be a disaster for the United States of America.

(HT: the Daily Dish, busy fighting the next war instead of refighting the last one.

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The "Center's" Fault

Usually, I expect to see attacks on "centrism" and "moderation" from the left. They don't like the fact that we can't move society to their utopian vision all at once, and they blame us for keeping it from happening.

The right is usually more subtle (counterintuitively enough), moving the goalposts so that "centrism" and "moderation" have now come to mean "baby-killing, terrorist-sympathising, homosexual-agenda style sharia Kenyan anti-colonialism" or whatever, or by taking a consensus idea like "small businesses are important" or "apple pie is delicious" and saying the left is out to destroy that whatever it is because they hate everything good about America.

But I've rarely seen dedicated attacks on centrism from those aspiring to represent reasonable conservatism. Deconstructing Christopher Hitchens' blistering excoriation of Tea Party ideology, Ross Douhat says:

[D]o you know what else has often led to folly, disaster, violence and human misery? The “moderation” and “centrism” of the Western governing class.

He then lists these items as examples of "moderation and centrism in the Western governing class:"

1. The war in Afganistan.
2. The war in Iraq.
3. Medicare Part D.
4. Health Care Reform.
5. The Euro.
6. The Real Estate bubble.
7. The Bailouts.
8. The TSA & Current American Security State.
9. The Obama Tax Deal.

So, basically, everything currently viewed by a significant group of Americans as unpopular is not a product of American political extremes. I would consider this historical revisionism if it wasn't so baldly laughable.

Let's run down the list, shall we?

1. Al Queda operatives attacked us, and we went after them in Afganistan. As we should have done. The initial strategy, employed for nearly six years of war, was constructed by Donald Rumsfeld, an unabashed and now discredited neoconservative who hardly qualifies as anything approaching centrism or moderation.

2. The Iraq War. A dubious foray into faulty intelligence, preemptive war, misadventure and nation building, this was also the brain-child of neoconservatives like Donald Rumsfeld and VP Dick Cheney. Sold alternately as a vengeance response to the September 11th attacks, an search for WMD's, a strike against an imminent threat or just a chance to spread "freedom" around the globe, Democrats in Washington stupidly voted for this war because they were scared what the GOP would say about them in the media if they didn't.

3. Medicare Part D. An insufficient correction to badly administered programs, this is what happens when you attempt to address a problem without actually fixing said problem because doing so would leave you politically vulnerable to elements on the extremes demagouging the issue. Contrary to popular belief, centrism and moderation are not about punting on the hard choices, though they are often confused for that.

4. Health Care Reform. An insufficient correction to suicidally administered systems, this is what happens when you attempt to actually fix a problem with a centrist or moderate solution and then leave yourself politically vulnerable to elements on the extremes to proceed to demagouge the issue. While you expected more political support (that's why you were using a centrist framework, after all) the virulence of the opposition encouraged you to make significant changes to the already insufficient correction that keep it from actually fixing the problem.

5. The Euro is a very centrist idea. Europe wanted to simplify their economic relationships. The economy changed for the worse (because of economic extremists) and that simplification became a liability.

6. The Real Estate Bubble is what happens when economic extremists looking to maufacture Monopoly money legally inadvertently change the economy for the worse.

7. The Bailouts were required from keeping the American, and world, economy from collapsing due to the trillions of dollars in Monopoly money created by item 6. Another insufficient correction to a problem we shouldn't have had in the first place, the bailouts were a highly unpopular decision that had to be made. While saying "no" would have been chathartic, the risk of worldwide economic collapse was too great. I have no problem with this being labeled "centrist" or "moderate," but I have a problem with it being demagouged on the extremes, especially from the right, who had too big a hand in causing the problem the bailouts were intended to correct.

8. The TSA & Current American Security State. Really? This is only howlingly considered a centrist or moderate creation. For 8 years, this apparatus expanded under a right-wing Republican President, cheerled by right-wing punditry, and supported by media scaring the shit out of an already fearful America. For 8 years, we heard only that opposition to the expansion of this apparatus was akin to liberal support of terrorism and hatred for America.

9. The Obama Tax Deal is more bipartisan than centrist or moderate, but it comes close. While an acceptance of political realities put into place over the last 2 years (its main claim to centrism), it represents a "punt" on the difficult decisions that have to be made (bipartisan).

In total, however, that's 5 - 4 in favor of extremists owning these policies, with extremists directly scuttling the former centrist policies (the Euro, Health Care) and extremists directly creating the need for the latter centrist policy (the Bailouts and Obama Tax Deal). Extremists, on both sides and encouraged by their specific media, are causing too many of our problems.

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And This

In refrence to the last election, noting the "issues" candidates campaigned on and analysts told us were important to voters, and in deference to the things voters themselves said was important to them; further recognizing how reverent so many individuals were on Veterans Day - why weren't the two wars America is currently fighting a bigger election issue?

That's a hard question, and they only get harder.

HT B Rox, who has an additional suggestion.

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This

Because sometimes you just have to write down a list of things you think. Cliff sits on his porch on Veterans Day.

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Celebrating Torture

If President Obama were the monster partisan the Big Lie Right likes to make believe he is, George W. Bush would be on trial right now instead of signing autographs on a book tour. That's just the truth.

And if you think hyperbolic, partisan rhetoric is bad now, imagine what would be going on if this Presidential administration (already out to destroy America, your children and apple pie if the right-wing is to be believed) had put the former Presidential administration (just some good ole boys, never meanin' no harm...) under inquiry for torture. Wow. I'd likely be dead in a gutter somewhere, killed trying to stop all the rioting as our nation tore itself to shreds.

Instead, President Obama and his administration refused to hold anyone in the Bush Administration accountable for a regime of torturing prisoners and then destroying the evidence of that behavior. Thusly free of accountablilty, Bush gets to run a victory lap, and admit to our Western allies and the rest of the world that he signed the orders to waterboard prisoners, among other forms of violent information extraction.

Waterboarding is viewed, by most of the Western world, to be torture. At least, it is when our enemies do it. When we beat our enemies at war, we get to prosecute their officials who waterboarded and tortured those under their control, after all.

But we shouldn't let our exceptionalism get into our own heads.

Dahlia Lithwick explains it like this:

The persistent failure to hold anyone accountable at any level for years of state-sanctioned abuse speaks louder than their words. It has taken this issue from a legal question to a matter of personal taste. What we choose to define as torture is now just another policy disagreement, like extending the Bush tax cuts or picking a caterer. This is precisely the kind of sliding-scale ethical guesswork the rule of law should preclude.

Luckily, this is America, and the only reason we think torture is outrageous is when we idealize our own history. It only violates the "idea of America." We only see this as an abberation because, like the Tea Party, we too have a mixed up notion in our heads that what happens these days is "bad" compared to that which has gone before us.

Let me break it down for you: This nation has done worse. Far, far worse. If you think this is the worst this country has done, you need to get over it. Historically speaking, the Sioux and Apache might consider waterboarding a little tickle compared to what they went through. Sherman may not burn in hell for torching Atlanta and Columbia, but he sure will for passing out blankets infected with smallpox to children.

You think "rule of law" precludes "sliding scale ethical guesswork?" You think that's something of an aberration to some great, justice-seeking American nation? Try this: Andrew Jackson, great purveyor of white-man freedom, once told the Supreme Court where to go and what to do with their decisions before he seized all Cherokee lands and property and made them walk from Georgia to Oklahoma, with inadequate food and clothing. Women, children and elderly, no exceptions.

They called this little act of Constitutional dismemberment and ethnic cleansing the "Trail of Tears." In response, an angry nation put Jackson's face on the $20 bill, named no small number of cities after him, and he got a nice statue right there in the middle of New Orleans' French Quarter. He is affectionately known as "Old Hickory" and an "American Lion."

I'll bet I get called "America-hating" just for bringing up those facts.

And while the wounds unsalved with justice fester for far longer than they should, we continue the march forward at such a rapid pace that we are able, as a culture, to forget and scab over those wounds of the past. Same as it ever was. This is just another episode in our nation's long, sordid history of morally repugnant behavior in a world filled with great nations who continually engage in morally repugnant behavior.

At least our nation has a saving grace - a sizeable portion of our population expresses outrage over our moral excesses. Slowly, over time, we try to move away from the evil that is perpetrated in our names. Every once in a while, we bend the long arc of the universe towards justice by appealing to the better angels of our nature. But mostly that arc is flat, and you tend to find Americans bashing someone's head against it. The stakes are high, and this demonstrates how high.

And no, I'm not trying to excuse morally repugnant behavior. I'm trying to put it in perspective. If you want to cut down on such behavior, you have to own the debate and shape the culture before the orders get signed. If you don't want people like George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzalez or John Yoo in charge of foreign and legal policy, you're going to have to do better than Al Gore and John Kerry. Try to shame the American voting population to see things your way at your own risk - they aren't listening.

One of the only reasons we get away with this stuff is because we tend to be on the winning side of things, and that gives us a grand historical luxury that is a cornerstone to our culture. One of the other reasons is that we are a republic, and the people must take responsibility for the actions of their government. Sometimes, the crime is petty enough that the stone throwers will line up (like the Clinton impeachment). Other times, the culture wraps its shame in a false bravado, attempting to justify the unjustifiable, hoping the next generation will get it right where we got it wrong.

While the next generation probably ignores the whole thing, thinking such things could never really happen in America. History repeating, and all that.

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