Month: September 2006

We are now reduced to parsing whether links to other reviews is part of my own commentary. A reader writes:

Argh, stop it!! Everytime I see that guy on tv I can’t turn it off fast enough, but you are really arguing in bad faith here. The fact is, you had far too many references to and posts about his book without reading it. Everything else is beside the point. If anyone wrote about your book over and over again without reading it you’d be pissed. And you’d be right.

If you think that mentioning other reviews of a book approvingly or otherwise is itself commentary on the contents of a book, then Ponnuru and Goldberg and my reader are correct. I don’t see it that way; and don’t see a blog that way. I went out of my way to reserve comment on Ponnuru’s book, while criticizing its inflammatory title and Coulter cover-blurb. (I should say that any book that has Ann Coulter’s advance blurb on its cover is demanding not to be taken seriously.) My minor point is that, unlike Mark Steyn who actually quoted a passage from a book he hasn’t read to make a point about its general thesis, I have restricted myself to criticizing the title and blurb of a book, which in themselves bespeak a partisanship and extremism that make me reluctant to read any of it. Yes, I’ve linked to other commentary, but again, I think readers can tell the difference between linking to other reviews and writing my own. Still, the split hairs are getting mighty thin. I guess I should now vow never to mention the book again. With any luck, Ponnuru will return the favor with respect to mine.

Good for the Pentagon brass. They know that their own established, constitutional procedures for trying terror suspects are the best way to bring the perpetrators of 9/11 to justice. They know that Bush’s ad hoc, unconstitutional and illegal "tribunals" will only reverberate to al Qaeda’s propaganda advantage. They don’t want the bill that the White House has sent to the Congress. The three key Republican senators on the armed services committee are expressing reservations as well: McCain, Warner and Graham. But this detail from an AP story struck me as remarkable:

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said he wants a vote on the bill by the end of the month and will likely decide Friday morning when the bill should reach the floor. House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, has promised a vote on the administration’s measure there during the week of Sept. 18 …

A leadership aide said Warner, McCain and Graham were given "24 hours to think their position over," indicating a possibility the bill could be routed around the Armed Services Committee and placed directly on the Senate floor.

I would say Frist should be a little careful here. I’d also say this suggests that the White House is deadly serious in maintaining its breach of the Geneva Conventions – and cementing it in law.

The MSM hasn’t shown many military funerals in the war on terror, and some images of the human toll have been blocked by the Pentagon. Below is a funeral service for 11 navy Seals who died in Afghanistan. Here’s their remarkable story. Five years after that day in September, it’s worth honoring those who volunteered to risk their lives to defend us from it ever happening again.

He claims I have indeed criticized the contents of his book, while not reading it. He links to three posts, all of which merely cite others‘ views, mainly fellow conservatives John Derbyshire and theocon Mark Stricherz. His own links disprove his argument.

New Haven, Connecticut, 11.17 am.

A reader writes:

I must confess that I simply do not have the foggiest idea as to what you think should be done about Iran. You say things like "the threat is real" and "we have to fight and not accomodate" and "negotiating with fascists is a mug’s game"…

When has the policy of refusing to negotiate, or even talk, to someone you strongly disagree with ever actually worked? Cuba? North Korea?

Do you really think that Osama and Ahmadinejad are playing the same game? Osama is the real deal, and has attacked us, and should be tracked down and destroyed.  There is no disagreement anywhere with that (just the strange lack of action on the part of the Bush administration).

But Iran has a street address. It’s a real place with real power players and real people that want to hold on to what they have. Of course, Ahmadinejad runs at the mouth. He’s playing his game at home and in the region. I really don’t see his talk as that much different from "axis of evil" and "Islamo-fascism" talk from our leaders (also playing to the home folks). Why are you so convinced that Ahmadinejad wants to commit suicide?

And if you were in charge of Iran, wouldn’t you want nuclear weapons? Pakistan is next door … Israel is down the street … the Bush people clearly want to get rid of you. And you have two clear examples … Iraq and North Korea. Which approach do you follow? And why should you give up your key negotiating position (no nukes) before starting to talk?

I don’t buy the idea that everyone is so different from each other, at least not in basic motives. Comfort, power, meaning, respect … these are things everyone cherishes the world over. Why assume that these are not key to Iran’s leaders as well.

What do you want to do? Go bomb Iran? That doesn’t seem like it will play out very well, now does it? Attack it with troops? Please. Put sanctions in place?  They are already there almost as much as they will be, and China and Russia just aren’t going to play along.

The ONLY thing to do is to shut up and start the hard and very complicated set of negotiations with these people. It would have been a lot easier before all the noise making, but we are where we are, so you do what you can.

I take the reader’s point. Our Iraq policy was, I thought, the best Iran policy. But the Iraq policy has become a fiasco. A military attack on Iran in the near future strikes me as extremely risky and potentially devastating. But negotiation with Savonarolas is equally insane. Maybe aggressive containment is all we have left for now. Practically speaking, I’d pour many more troops into Iraq, especially Baghdad, ratchet up the diplomatic isolation of Iran, encourage the domestic unrest in that country, and wait till we have a functioning executive branch in Washington. What other sane options do we have?

Jack Balkin writes about a scenario in which president Bush’s proposed definition of torture is adopted by al Qaeda. It’s a classic.

You’ve also managed to destroy your best ally, Tony Blair. My own conservative friends in London – those most inclined to be pro-American – report an intense distancing from the U.S. among Tories, let alone the other more liberal parties. Perhaps more significant in terms of our progress in the battle for moderate Muslims is that this administration (along with a clumsy EU) seems to have managed to push the Turks into moving away from the U.S. as well. When you’ve lost Britain and Turkey, things are not looking so good.

(Photo: Empics/Landov.)

Here’s the key to the current GOP base:

"There are some people, and I’m one of them, that believe George Bush was placed where he is by the Lord," Tomanio said. "I don’t care how he governs, I will support him. I’m a Republican through and through."

For the first time, one of the major parties is, at its core, a religious organization.

Who ya gonna believe? Bush or the military? Here’s the president yesterday:

I can say that questioning the detainees in this program has given us information that has saved innocent lives by helping us stop new attacks — here in the United States and across the world. Today, I’m going to share with you some of the examples provided by our intelligence community of how this program has saved lives; why it remains vital to the security of the United States, and our friends and allies; and why it deserves the support of the United States Congress and the American people.

And here’s Lt. Gen. John Kimmons, the Army deputy chief of staff for intelligence, also yesterday:

"No good intelligence is going to come from abusive practices. I think history tells us that. I think the empirical evidence of the past five years, hard years, tells us that." He argued that "any piece of intelligence which is obtained under duress through the use of abusive techniques would be of questionable credibility." And Kimmons conceded that bad P.R. about abuse could work against the United States in the war on terror. "It would do more harm than good when it inevitably became known that abusive practices were used," Kimmons said. "We can’t afford to go there."

The military JAGs are united in believing that the military justice system can easily cope with al Qaeda. Moreover, the fairness of the system will ensure that al Qaeda’s worst will be publicly tried and the world will trust the process. If they are tried under Bush’s rules, no one will trust the trial, we will forgo a massive propaganda victory in the war, and the p.r. coup goes to the enemy. How much will this president sacrifice in this war to save his own disgraced face?