Month: June 2005

Still haven’t received any emails making a calm case for why this is either impossible or a bad idea. I’m eager to be better informed. This made some sense:

Perhaps the reason for not using the military to secure the Syrian border has something to do with a particular sensitivity to the somewhat widely held belief that the US has its military eyes on Damascus. Perhaps it would not look great to be amassing our forces on that border if our notion is not a military incursion therein. It would force the Syrians to deploy forces to their own border and would result in a rather dicey stand-off, I think.

Anything to put Damascus on edge seems like a good idea to me. And we could tell them we’d withdraw the troops if they policed their side. Any military experts or strategists out there who can help me flesh out the pros and cons?

COURT SPECULATION: Just passing this along. Some of you have asked who I’d like on the court. The answer is that I don’t have the time to investigate the paper trails of everyone who could be nominated. My general view is that presidents should be given wide lee-way in getting whom they want. I supported Bork and Thomas (although I believed everything Anita Hill said). Still, I’d prefer an economic and social libertarian, rather than some natural law theocon. Obviously.

One of the more loathesome pieces of far-left propaganda recently was the pseudo-documentary, put out, of course, by the BBC, describing the war on terror as a battle between one renegade intellectual, Leo Strauss, and Sayyid Qutb, father of Islamo-fascism. It’s called “The Power of Nightmares.” Mercifully, a sane liberal, Peter Bergen, has helped expose it. Clive Davis explains.

Last night was another extraordinary moment in the civil rights movement of our time. After eight provinces had already guaranteed equal treatment under the law for gay couples, the national parliament voted for full marriage rights for gay Canadians. Spain will soon follow. By Christmas, Britain will have full marriage rights under the rubric of “civil partnerships”. (The only difference between CPs and CMs is a one-year waiting period for citizenship for the foreign partner of a gay Brit.) Meanwhile, the U.S. president backs an amendment stripping gay couples of all protections for their relationships and dozens of states have barred even domestic partnerships for couples whose main sin is wanting to settle down and commit to each other for life. When I came to America twenty-one years ago next month, I found a country brimming with freedoms and openness with respect to emotional and sexual orientation; it was a revelation coming from a far-more repressed Britain, and one reason I couldn’t bring myself to leave. In two decades, the reverse is true. We have made enormous gains (there have been close to a thousand marriages in Provincetown since last summer), but the logic of gay dignity and equality has somehow been blocked in many places here, while flourishing in the rest of the free world. One instrument in the majority support for gay couples settling down in Canada was a documentary, “Tying the Knot,” that was broadcast on national television twice before the parliamentary vote. PBS is too cowed by the religious right to show the documentary here. But it’s a powerful film, and you can buy it here. I recommend it highly – especially for those who think that gay couples somehow don’t face real hardship and cruelty because of their lack of legal protections, especially poorer couples in rural areas.

A NEW RATIONALE: Swift Report has discovered a new reason for the war in Iraq, as explained by president Bush.

Did regular Church-going and meticulous lawn-monitoring help prevent more grotesque murders? Why did Dennis Rader stop killing? Some interesting reflections here.

It was useful to be reminded of why we’re there. The war was partly a defensive action against the possibility of Jihadists’ getting a hold of Saddam’s WMDs; it was partly finishing off a job that was started over a decade previously; and it was partly a deep, strategic response to 9/11, born from the belief that if we didn’t reverse decades of support for autocracy in the Middle East, we would get more 9/11s, and Iraq was as good a place as any to start. The president was right to reiterate all this. The speech was also important simply as a statement of resolve. Resolve matters in wartime and Bush’s obstinacy is an asset, not a liability, all things considered. Alas, when it came to explaining how our strategy in Iraq has worked, is working and will succeed, the speech was alarmingly short on persuasiveness. Around the edges of the president’s demeanor and rhetoric, I sensed a little panic. The speech had nothing – nothing – new, except an implicit rebuke to the unhinged bluster of Dick “last throes” Cheney. I do think that the following, however, was pretty striking:

To complete the mission, we will prevent al-Qaida and other foreign terrorists from turning Iraq into what Afghanistan was under the Taliban – a safe haven from which they could launch attacks on America and our friends. And the best way to complete the mission is to help Iraqis build a free nation that can govern itself, sustain itself, and defend itself.

The inference here is clear. The U.S. intervention, and its ill-planned, under-manned, haphazard execution, has made Iraq more of a terrorist threat than it might otherwise have been. I say “might,” because an eventually unconstrained Saddam could well have become such a menace. But the president here outlined the case of the war critics: that this war may have made matters worse; that Iraq could become another Taliban-Afghanistan; and that is now why we can’t afford to lose. I don’t believe that fully. I think that by 9/11, the threat was already too far gone to be deterred by half-measures. What dismays me is that the Iraq war has been such a “half-measure.” It was never conducted with the kind of massive force and meticulous planning that would have forestalled such a dangerous possibility. But, look, these are fights over the past. There is too much at stake to rehash them endlessly. What matters now is winning. And so let me suggest something concrete for those of us who want to win.

WHY CAN’T WE SEAL THE SYRIAN BORDER? That’s the essential question. It seems we have made some progress with the Sunni minority; it seems that a silent Iraqi majority wants a new democracy; it also seems that many of the worst suicide attacks are clearly coming from foreign Jihadists. Almost all these jihadists are coming from the Syrian border. It seems obvious that one of our principal tasks right now is therefore to secure that border. The question is: why can’t we? The answer is: we don’t have enough troops. But the president again reiterated the formual last night that he doesn’t set troop levels; and the commanders say we have enough. So we have to ask him again and again: if we have enough troops, why isn’t the border secure? How many extra troops would it take to secure it? These would not be occupying the country as such, and so wouldn’t fall into the category of prolonging the occupation. They would obviously be defending Iraq from foreign terrorists. Could a combination of such troops and surveillance technology drastically cut down the number of infiltrators? It seems clear we cannot afford to reposition troops in the country to the border, so where can we find the additional men? Wouldn’t this be an ideal task for the U.N., or for NATO or even for other Arab forces? Or could we find another 30,000 or so from elsewhere in the world? Instead of going round and round on the troop level question, let’s get specific and ask why the border cannot be sealed. We may even get a specific answer. I’m just trying to be constructive here.

“When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: ‘If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.’ It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” – Steve Jobs, in an unusually good and moving commencement address.

“On the very same page you praise Senators Santorum and Durbin for co-sponsoring legislation banning puppy mills, you also lash out at House Republicans who have warned MLB on allowing a Soros-sponsored group to buy the Nationals. I don’t understand why the House Republicans are being “nosy” while Santorum and Durbin are praiseworthy. Sure, banning puppy mills sounds like a nice idea. But is it really a job for Congress? If Pennsylvania has a big puppy mill problem, then why can’t the Pennsylvania legislature solve it? Do we really need a national solution to this problem? Can’t imagine that we do. Seems like you’ve been sipping from the same tank of federalism-hypocrisy that those in Congress have been feasting on for years (you know, federalism is great when your side wins).” Fair point. I’d rather the states dealt with this rather than the federal government. But I’m impressed when two ideologically opposed senators can agree on something. It’s a little antacid for the current atmosphere in Washington.

“I think it’s also important for the president to lay out a timetable as to how long they will be involved and when they will be withdrawn.” – Governor George W. Bush, June 5, 1999, on the troops deployed to Kosovo under president Clinton. I should say I disagreed with Bush then and I disagree with his critics on a timetable now. Kosovo worked because of military force and perseverance. For all our mistakes, perseverance in Iraq – and no timetable for withdrawal – is our only responsible option now. I just hope the president tonight outlines a credible strategy for victory; and begins to re-shuffle the team that brought us into the current mess.

Here’s a story on the full context of those hideous Phelps protesters at a military funeral. The fallen hero wasn’t gay; but some on the far religious right believe that 9/11 was a legitimate rebuke to America’s toleration of homosexuality; and so they picket these funerals out of some kind of deranged fanaticism. I like this detail, though:

On the corner of a narrow street lined with Colonial-era buildings, the Kansas contingent tried shouting its anti-homosexual message at mourners who overflowed from the church. But every time demonstrators spoke out, the 14-man Boston Police Department bagpipe band broke into thunderous sound. “I thought that was cool,” said Day Newburg, 34, who stood outside the church with her husband, mother-in-law and 2-year-old daughter. “Those bagpipers drowned them right out.”

Best use of public funds in a long time. Small factoid: Phelps is a Democrat. But his loyalties are to the fringes of the religious right.

Hitch delivers a spot-on retort to those who claim or seem to claim that those of us who are not actually in uniform or who do not have sons to send into battle are somehow illegitimate as commentators or supporters or critics of the effort. The whole ploy is ludicrous. We have a volunteer army, that is directed, as it should be, by civilians. The military is answerable to people who have no military experience, because it is answerable – and should be accountable – to a civilian democracy. This isn’t Burma or Cuba. The rest is cheap shots.