Month: October 2009

Joe Klein reacts to the Telegraph scoop:

Well, that may explain a few things. A certain amount of overcompensation, for starters. I mean, in the annals of self-hating Jewry, this really makes David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel–so accused by Bibi Netanyahu–look like pikers. In any case, we await  Ahmadi-Nejad's verdict on all this.  Perhaps he'll revise his views about the Holocaust (though I doubt it). But if things get too embarrassing for him in Iran, he now has a backup plan–since his mother was, presumably Jewish too, there's a place for him in the country he calls the Zionist Entity. Shalom, Mahmoud!

Juan Cole shrugs:

The revelation in Iran doesn't change anything; Ahmadinejad does not make his critiques of Israel with reference to his own heritage but on the basis of a radical interpretation of Khomeinist ideology. The latter in its full form is only a little over 40 years old, so for everyone in Ahmadinejad's age cohort, it is an adopted ideology for those who adhere to it, not an inherited one.

Not an Onion headline.

I finally managed to write the column. It tries to sum up the somewhat scattered thoughts and arguments on the Dish as best I can:

Here are some of the factors we do not fully understand right now. Pakistan’s military is on the verge of a large offensive against the Taliban. We don’t know what the outcome of that will be. The election in Afghanistan is unresolved, with serious and credible allegations of fraud and the possibility of a run-off or any number of unforeseen developments. Again, we do not know the outcome of that. Iraq, still home to almost 130,000 US troops, is far from stable and could descend into sectarian anarchy when the US leaves. There are some encouraging signs there — especially Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s inclusion of Sunni groups in his new coalition and an apparent resurgence of national unity as a theme in the current campaign. If Iraqis are finally ready to leave the past behind, if the bloody chaos of the worst years has shifted that national psyche, that would indeed be miraculous. Bloody civil wars can do that (it was true of the English civil war and the 30 years’ war): they can finally persuade a population that compromise really is better than the alternative. Once the general population believes that, and there is a halfway credible national government willing to support them, a pivot can occur. We may not be there in Iraq, but it would be insane, after the immense sacrifice and carnage of the past few years, to dismiss the possibility that disaster could be avoided. Of course, anyone boldly predicting triumph in Iraq needs his head examined.

The truth is: we do not know the outcome of that either, and since the US has limited resources, and has already pummelled the troops beyond what most mortals could tolerate, Obama should be cautious about overextension in very volatile regions. Shifting a large number of troops out of Iraq and into Afghanistan is a risk to Iraq and potentially a disastrous strategic call.

So what to do? In a moment of immense unpredictability and fluidity, it seems that muddling through for a while may be an unsatisfying but sensible option. Marc Lynch, as shrewd a foreign policy analyst as exists in Washington, put the case very well last week:

“Why choose between escalation or withdrawal at exactly the time when the political picture is at its least clear? Why not maintain a lousy Afghan government which doesn’t quite fall, keep the Taliban on the ropes without defeating it, cut deals where we can and try to figure out a strategy to deal with the Pakistan part, which all the smart set agrees is the real issue these days? Why not focus on applying the improved counterinsurgency tactics with available resources right now instead of focusing on more troops? If the American core objective in Afghanistan is to prevent its re-emergence as an Al-Qaeda safe haven, or to prevent the Taliban from taking Kabul, those seem to be manageable at lower troop levels.”

In other words, meticulously prepare for either the McChrystal counterinsurgency surge or a more low-key counterterrorism campaign. But right now, hold on to see what emerges after the results of the imminent Pakistani military campaign in Waziristan and after we know more about the post-election position in Afghanistan.

The full column is here.

David Kilcullen, among the best military strategists out there, lays it out:

Only a legitimately elected Afghan president can enact reforms, so at the very least we need to see a genuine run-off election or an emergency national council, called a loya jirga, before winter. Once a legitimate president emerges, we need to see immediate action from him on a publicly announced reform program, developed in consultation with Afghan society and enforced by international monitors.

[…]

If we see no genuine progress on such steps toward government responsibility, the United States should “Afghanize,” draw down troops and prepare to mitigate the inevitable humanitarian disaster that will come when the Kabul government falls to the Taliban — which, in the absence of reform, it eventually and deservedly will.

Ackerman parses Kilcullen's and the Galbraith's articles.

Grim news of the latest battle.

A pretty important development. You know, the paper with the boobs on page 3.

Peter W. Galbraith, former overseer of Afghanistan's elections for the UN, who was fired because he wanted actions taken against the election fraud that occurred has a devastating piece in the WaPo. Money quote:

Afghanistan's presidential election, held Aug. 20, should have been a milestone in the country's transition from 30 years of war to stability and democracy. Instead, it was just the opposite. As many as 30 percent of Karzai's votes were fraudulent, and lesser fraud was committed on behalf of other candidates. In several provinces, including Kandahar, four to 10 times as many votes were recorded as voters actually cast. The fraud has handed the Taliban its greatest strategic victory in eight years of fighting the United States and its Afghan partners.

Read it all. The entire counter-insurgency option is premised on a credible government to fight counter-insurgency for. We just lost one. This matters – and makes the choice all the more excruciating, and a swifter exit much more reasonable.

Scientific American:

In sum, the authors suggest that, because love activates a long-term perspective that elicits global processing, it should also promote creativity and impede analytic thinking. In contrast, inasmuch as sex activates a short-term perspective that elicits local processing, it should also promote analytic thinking and impede creative thinking.

I know this is tangential to this broader argument, but if fucking has made me more analytic, it seems to me to be defeating one of its core purposes.

I have had sex out of love and it's an amazing, wonderful, transformative thing. At its height, it is the most overwhelming thing I have ever experienced. I have also had sex in my life largely as a way to escape this fucking brain in my head, that won't stop constantly analyzing and thinking. I have had sex for these reasons as well – so I can gain a few blissful moments when I do not think at all. The relief of this is indescribable and, for me at least, an element of mental and psychological health.

I recall one marathon twelve-hour session of passion many years ago now. It was only afterwards that I realized I had barely had a single trace of an analytic thought for the longest period I could then remember. I was never happier. As I finally collapsed into my lover's arms with the final orgasm that drained every last drop of desire or need from my body and soul, I understood for the first time why the French call coming "le petit mort". It can be the emptying of self entirely. Which is why sex is so close at times to the presence of the divine, and reflects and incarnates God in ways few other things can so easily. We are more animal and more divine in sex than in any other activity.

The ordeal of consciousness is at times oppressive. To leave that consciousness and yet stay so vividly alive is one of sex's great wonders. Love is deeper than that; friendship is deeper still. But I know nothing that God has given us – save psilocybin – that gives us this divine, if fleeting, parole from a vale of tears.

Macy Halford quotes one of Byron's letters to his friend and clergyman Francis Hodgson "trying to convince the Reverend of the ridiculousness of religion." From September 13, 1811:

God would have made His will known without books, considering how very few could read them when Jesus of Nazareth lived, had it been His pleasure to ratify any peculiar mode of worship. As to your immortality, if people are to live, why die? And our carcases, which are to rise again, are they worth raising? I hope, if mine is, that I shall have a better pair of legs that I have moved on these two-and-twenty years, or I shall be sadly behind in the squeeze into Paradise.

Steve Mirsky digs into the science:

A part of the answer may lie in what’s called implicit social cognition, which involves the deep-rooted assumptions we all carry around and even act on without realizing it. Harvard University psychologist Mahzarin Banaji is a leader in implicit social cognition research. She excavates the hidden beliefs people hold by measuring how fast they make value judgments when shown a rapid-fire succession of stimuli, such as photographs of faces.

At a talk she gave in October 2008 to a group of science journalists, Banaji discussed research she did with Thierry Devos, now at San Diego State University, that examined bias against Asians. They found that volunteers linked white Americans more strongly than Asian-Americans with, well, America. Banaji and Devos then decided to do what even they thought was a “bizarre” study: they had people gauge the “American-ness” of famous Asian-Americans, such as Connie Chung and tennis player Michael Chang, versus European whites, such as Hugh Grant.

The study found that white Europeans are more “American” than are nonwhite Americans in most minds.