Month: April 2004

Iraq has been a free country for a single year after decades of fascism, mass murder, communal paranoia, hysteria, random violence, and economic collapse. Did we expect the place to become Toledo overnight? The closer we get to transferring power, the more the extremist factions need to prevent a peaceful transition and establish their own power bases for the next phase. The closer we get to a self-governing Arab state, the more terrified Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas and the rest will be that their alternatives – theocratic fascism and medieval economics – will look pathetic in comparison. There are millions of people in Iraq who need us now more than ever. Their future and our future are entwined. Which is why we have to keep our nerve, put down these insurrections with focussed ferocity, and move relentlessly toward self-rule. It may be dark this Friday, but Christians are told that a new day will dawn. Not in three days. But in time. If we keep our nerve.

What is there to say? We have a frigging war on and the major networks all run this? I have nothing to add. Except to say: we have a war on. We used to win them before we engaged in elaborate blame-games as to who was asleep at the wheel when they broke out.

DERBYSHIRE AWARD NOMINEE: “If you still think homosexual “marriage” won’t affect you, think again. Your job may be at stake! Legal recognition of unnatural unions is the ultimate societal affirmation. Once the state approves of homosexual “marriages,” the full weight of the law will be brought down against men and women of faith who believe in Judeo-Christian values.” – Gary Bauer, in his newsletter for his organization, Campaign for Working Families. Actually, you won’t only lose your job, you’ll be forced to sing show-tunes every Sunday. Is there no end to the humiliation?

THE SILENCING OF STERN: All I can say is that if we cannot hear sex and fart jokes on the radio, America is a lesser place. Half a million dollar fine for a single broadcast? Where are we? Tehran?

“I was sitting in therapy describing an in-law I like, and quickly heading for a “but.” “He’s a loving, caring, selfless man — but his politics are all about hatred,” I said. “He’s not educated, and more significant, he’s ignorant — he actually listens to Rush Limbaugh.”
I waited for a “Whoo boy!” or a sympathetic smile, but my shrink just stared at me, expressionless.
“I assume you’re not a Limbaugh fan,” I ventured, assured that this woman, so nuanced in her thinking, couldn’t possibly be a Dittohead. She was so reasonable that I couldn’t imagine her getting off on Rush’s demented tirades. She didn’t seem square enough for his politics, and I was certain no hate radio fan was capable of her intellectual sophistication. Besides, she was an educated urban Jewish professional, and Rush’s audience consisted largely of white suburban males.
She held my gaze a few excruciating seconds longer. “Actually, I am,” she said. My moral compass began spinning wildly. I was suddenly sitting with someone new. The levelheaded sage in whom I’d confided for nearly a year had been replaced by an off-the-rack ideologue.
There were five minutes left in the session, and I felt like running. “Well, this could devolve into a whole political discussion, so I’ll just finish the story,” I rallied.
For the next week, I struggled with an overwhelming sense of betrayal.” – Margot Mifflin, Salon.

BLOG RANKINGS: How knows what to make of them? I used to be hooked on daily traffic readings and then I realized I was going insane. Some of you may have come to that conclusion a long time ago, of course. Anyway, here’s some crack for the weak, as Mickey would say. According to RightwingNews, this blog is the second most influential (in terms of who links to it) and the most popular (according to one unreliable ranking system) on the web. Generally speaking the right still dominates – but the left has all but caught up. That’s a good thing. The more voices the better.

THE BEST CASE: If your mind is in any way open to persuasion on the matter of gay marriage, you really n eed to read Jonathan Rauch’s extraordinary new book, “Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good For Gays, Good for Straights, and Good For America.” It’s calm, clear, relentless and, to my mind, irrefutable.

What will he do now? The internal Shi’a war continues – and it may be the real meaning of what’s now going on in Iraq. Spencer Ackerman explains.

A marine writes home:

Things have been busy here. You know I can’t say much about it. However, I do know two things. One, POTUS has given us the green light to do whatever we needed to do to win this thing so we have that going for us. Two, and my opinion only, this battle is going to have far reaching effects on not only the war here in Iraq but in the overall war on terrorism. We have to be very precise in our application of combat power. We cannot kill a lot of innocent folks (though they are few and far between in Fallujah). There will be no shock and awe. There will be plenty of bloodshed at the lowest levels. This battle is the Marine Corps’ Belleau Wood for this war. 2/1 and 1/5 will be leading the way. We have to find a way to kill the bad guys only. The Fallujahans are fired up and ready for a fight (or so they think). A lot of terrorists and foreign fighters are holed up in Fallujah. It has been a sanctuary for them. If they have not left town they are going to die. I’m hoping they stay and fight.

This way we won’t have to track them down one by one.

This battle is going to be talked about for a long time. The Marine Corps will either reaffirm its place in history as one of the greatest fighting organizations in the world or we will die trying. The Marines are fired up. I’m nervous for them though because I know how much is riding on this fight (the war in Iraq, the view of the war at home, the length of the war on terror and the reputation of the Marine Corps to name a few). However, every time I’ve been nervous during my career about the outcome of events when young Marines were involved they have ALWAYS exceeded my expectations. I’m praying this is one of those times.

Pray for them. This is a critical moment.

Here’s another.

“I’m waiting for the first moron to start calling this violence an Iraqi intifada.” – yours truly, yesterday.

“Shi’ite Intifada Pushes Allies to the Front Lines” – al Jazeera.net, today.

THE PASSION OF THE BUNNY: The best news of this depressing week was the ratings success of South Park’s brutal and brilliant razzing of Mel Gibson. “The Passion of the Jew” gained 4.4 million viewers, the cartoon’s biggest audience since its second season, and the biggest share on cable among 18 – 49 year-olds. Meanwhile, reality in Pennsylvania is beginning to look like South Park. Whipping the Easter Bunny? I thought that only happened in Japan.

Like all of you, I have been trying to make sense of the various reports emerging from Iraq about the escalating violence there. There’s no point in attempting to ignore this or spin it away. It’s a critical moment in the struggle for a new Middle East, which is inextricable from a safe West. The war to depose Saddam, it now seems, has unfolded slowly. The sudden quick victory was followed by a low-intensity war against the remnants of the Saddam regime and elements among the displaced Sunni miniority. Then there was something of a lull – months when the U.S. casualty rate declined and progress seemed to be made. Then the Shiites began resisting the terms of the handover, some Sunnis in Fallujah tried a Mogadishu, and the most radical Shiites, under al Sadr, made their move. I don’t know what to make of al Sadr’s declaration of an alliance with Hamas and Hezbollah or of Debka’s claims that Iran and Syria are implicated in the latest violence. But what I do know is what I learned from Hobbes. The entire enterprise of attempting to bring some kind of normalcy to Iraq can only be accomplished if the coalition forces have a monopoly of violence. Right now, we don’t. At this point, establishing that monopoly is far more important than in any way showing reluctance to take the battle to the enemy. The Sadrists must be confronted and as effectively as possible. If that means more troops, send them. If that means more firepower, get it. In some ways, it seems clear to me that the Sunni hold-outs and the Sadrists were always going to be trouble. Better that they play their card now than after the handover of sovereignty.

THE RISK: The enormous risk, of course, is that such a strategy could actually alienate the mainstream Shiites and make a rational transition to democracy essentially impossible. This is what Sadr is banking on: that the pathologies of the Middle East can be inflamed sufficiently to destroy any semblance of what might be thought of as modern or representative government. (I’m waiting for the first moron to start calling this violence an Iraqi intifada.) The anti-war movement in the West, which has long believed that the Arabs are incapable of representative self-government, will say this proves the entire enterprise is misguided. So will anti-war types on the Tory right. Here’s the argument, put subtly and strongly by Charlie Crain, a Baghdad blogger who deserves more attention:

I don’t think Moqtadr Sadr is what we have to worry about. He’s a nuisance whose movement will probably not survive him, and it seems likely he’ll be dead or in prison by this time next week. The problem is what he represents: a conspiratorial worldview that, without evidence, holds America responsible for every ill that befalls Iraqis, and refuses – not rhetorically, but emotionally and intellectually – to acknowledge the difference between the American occupation and life under Saddam Hussein. The people who follow that line seem to be better organized and more willing to fight than anyone else in the country. Significantly, the same mindset that causes al Hawsa to blame the US for bombing Ashura comes into play when Shi’ites deal with Sunnis, when Sunnis deal with Kurds, and when Kurds deal with Shi’ites. The ethnic divide has been papered over so far, but may be impossible to overcome.

Again, it would be comforting to believe that we blew it – that if we’d done something different everything would have worked out for the best. But it may be that what we’ve got is pretty close to the best we could have expected. I don’t think the invasion was a bad idea, necessarily, but we probably need to lower our expectations of what a free and independent Iraq might look like. This may be an overreaction based on being too close to events. But even though it looks like Sadr has made his play and lost, things have been very tense in Baghdad lately. My friend Howard said an Iraqi crossed the sidewalk to bump into him with his shoulder the other day, and a British journalist here said that, for the first time, he’s considering “tooling up.” You can get a very reliable pistol in Baghdad for about $500.

But the response to this cannot be withdrawal. Military power still matters; and the coalition has the overwhelming advantage. In some ways, perhaps, the war has now entered the most critical phase – more critical than Afghanistan or the war against Saddam. This war is for the future against the past, for representative government against a vicious theocratic dictatorship from the Leninist vanguards of the Sadrists. The president needs to tell the people this. His failure to communicate what is actually going on, why we’re there, what we’re doing, and what the stakes are is the prime current fault of the administration. We need a real speech and a thorough explanation of what is going on. We need an honest, candid, clear war-president. Where is he?

“As always, Andrew, you’ve done a great service in throwing a monkey-wrench into the common understanding of conservatives as necessarily haters of all things environmental by your admission that (horror of horrors!) you don’t drive and that you even advocate a gas tax as part of a solution to the massive budget deficits that show no sign of decreasing. One of the things that’s always surprised me about many supposed conservatives is their refusal to acknowledge what I’ve always believed in, and what strikes me as the essense of classical liberalism, i.e. personal responsibility, which applies to environmental concerns as well. Yes, it is your free choice to drive a Humvee, but with that freedom comes the responsibility to pay for the consequences of your choice: increased dependence on Middle-Eastern oil and increased air pollution. I do have a small car that I use for certain things that would be very difficult to accomplish otherwise, but I choose to live in a central part of my city so that I can ride my bike pretty much wherever I need to go in often less time than it would take to drive. The bicycle is, I’m all with you here, the ultimate form of transportation for us freedom lovers: complete reliance on oneself for getting the thing going, exercise while you go (instead of sitting in a car for hours and then paying to go to a gym to work off your laziness), no need for government registration and infinitely greater freedom in terms of where and when you can go. I don’t necessarily condone the deliberate flouting of traffic rules, but on a bicycle they certainly are a lot more flexible. Conservatives need to stop being hypocrites about this issue and be willing to pay the actual, non-subsidized cost of their gas-guzzling choices.” My feelings entirely. Conservatism should include conserving things, like the environment. Just because the enviro-left is loopy doesn’t mean that taking care of our environment is somehow a bad thing, or that animals don’t deserve better treatment from human beings, that what is now being done to the earth in China isn’t an appalling scandal, or that a higher tax on gas doesn’t make sense. More feedback on the Letters Page.