Month: October 2009

The latest poll shows a 52 – 43 percent majority for allowing gay Mainers to keep their marriages recognized by the state, as the state legislature voted.

"While we fight against anti-LGBT initiatives in multiple states, we must also act NOW to push our federal agenda to its tipping point – or we could miss this window. Click below and help us raise $200,000 to capitalize on this moment," – mass email from Joe Solmonese this morning.

"This window"? That's a bit of a shift from "give them till 2017". So maybe the outrage has gotten to them. Or maybe they're just out to coopt the march for their own fundraising again. But one more small, but revealing, thing. The latest Solmonese quote that got the gay blogosphere up in arms in the last few days deserves some unpacking. Here it is:

[P]erhaps the crowd at the dinner last night was a little bit more politically aware and had a better sense of maybe, you know, what's at stake and what needs to be done.

The phrase "what's at stake" is what interests me here. At stake for whom?

It seems clear to me that Joe has been told by his paymasters that the Democrats don't want to bollix the whole thing up again the way they think Clinton did in 1993. (Yes, they're still living 16 years ago in their traumatized psyches). What's "at stake," in other words, is a generational opportunity for the Democrats to get health insurance reform, climate change legislation, a reorientation of America's place in the world, etc etc. You can almost hear his bosses telling him: "We're with you, but there's too much at stake here to risk it on the gays right now. Hang in."

Now I'm not exactly shocked by a political party's leadership telling one of its constituencies that it should wait its turn and that issues other than civil rights are important – to gays as well. It's an argument that many gays would agree with. What I do have a problem with is the leader of HRC telling gays to back the Democrats on the Democrats' terms, rather than ours'. I think that's far too cozy a relationship between an advocacy group and a political party.

It means, essentially, that Solmonese and HRC represent the DNC's monopolistic control of the gay rights movement. This makes it not a civil rights movement but a partisan faction, waiting for its turn. A huge amount of the fault lies with the GOP whose deep homophobia has made the ability of gays to leverage anything against the Democrats almost impossible.

But it seems to me that the head of HRC should be representing the gays to the DNC, not the DNC to the gays. And unusual for someone so trained in Clintonian soundbites to suddenly blurt out the truth.

A reader writes:

Look: no one is for nation building. In the past, realists recognized the national interest at stake in our supporting deeply flawed governments against communist revolutions. The belief was that Communist revolutions were bad for us and bad for the people who suffered in their wake. The hope was that by resisting them and applying pressure, these societies might evolve overtime into something better.

This meant supporting some pretty nasty guys who tortured and killed people. Not a great choice but it’s the very essence of realism which expresses Henry K’s mordant witticism “it has the advantage of being true”. In other words, it was good for us (so we thought) and also good for them. You are correct that conservatives usually opposed these initiatives but supported wars once engaged – sort of the other way round with the liberals.

Clinton brought the notion back into service after the cold war ended in Somalia when he escalated the mission from relief to nation building. There was no national interest explained at the time – only the humanitarian one that unless we stopped Adid, the famine would start again after we left. You make the call.

9/11 linked for the first time the idea of nation building directly to national interest. People like Tom Friedman and you analyzed the threat and came to the conclusion that so long as the Arab/Persian/Muslim world remained mired in various forms of undemocratic governance that were good enough for cold war realist purposes, it would fuel the Islamic radicalism that now threatened us at home and that if we had a hope of defending against it in the long term it would be by providing counter examples – societies that did not waste and torture their human capital, you reasoned, would be less likely to make more Mohammed Attas.

So instead of stability we decided on the Nietzschean exhortation ‘further into disorder’. This idea may be wrong but the alternative is the REAL conservative view expressed by people like John Derbyshire, namely, leave them alone and if they hurt us bomb them to smithereens, invade if you must, kill them all and then go home like we did in WW2. Do you have the fortitude for that? And even if you do, the WW2 model doesn’t work with Pakistan or Iran or NK which, unlike Mexico (yet), have nuclear weapons.

The only refuge left for you is the Biden one – convince yourself that our interests are being served by stand-off surgical strikes and small applications of troops. That will allow you to support the president, argue resources should be applied at home and feel good about yourself. Until the next attack that is…

My regular reader and emailer makes some very solid points here about the last decade or so, and it’s really helpful to remember how many of us have drifted over the years, reassessed and re-reassessed. I don’t think we should flee these shifts – because they reflected good faith judgments at the time rendered inoperable by time and experience. But we should keep examining them, to make sure we haven’t changed our minds for reasons other than the hard evidence and sober scrutiny. Righteous emotion blinded some of us for a while to the limits of American power; but in these mercifully less fraught moments (and they may not last), we may have a chance at cooler reasoning.

For the record, I opposed intervention in Somalia. I opposed it in Darfur. And my view of the “further into disorder” argument has been chastened deeply by time. The Iraq war demands we learn its lessons. We do not have enough data yet, but I remain skeptical that Iraq is in any way stable yet, given the entropic forces within; but the US has done its best after doing its worst. And that is some opportunity for departure and leeway for delay. Obama has wisely kept his options open here.

My issue with Afghanistan is: what is the relationship between means and ends here? I fear another One Percent Doctrine syndrome in which what is actually a minor threat in the grand scheme of things becomes an obsession purely because that’s where the threat came from in the first place. Yes, it came from there. But remember what “it” was: 19 guys with box-cutters together with our advanced, free society. What we have to be unafraid to ask is:

How will continuing to occupy Afghanistan help foil another such nineteen? Even if we still believe that democratization is the best antidote to Islamism in the long run, we have to decide if this is the place worth using to make that point. Obama might, in other words, be making a reverse image of the Bush mistake: taking his focus off Iraq (which might still conceivably work) while pouring resources into Afghanistan (which could take decades of patience, money and lives).

My reader assumes a cynical pro-Obama spin from yours truly. That’s just the way he is. I’m genuinely trying to figure out the best way forward here, and right now, muddling through in Afghanistan before major withdrawal seems the sanest option on the table. The total corruption of the Karzai government and the fact that Americans have been fighting there for almost as long as the Vietnam War already: these tip the scales.

Maybe there are operational details that I do not know of that will shift minds in the White House toward the maximal McChrystal ramp-up. But it is also perfectly legitimate to ask if the country can or will tolerate another decade of young Americans dying over there for an abstract idea no longer clearly or obviously related to national defense. This is not just a matter of the Democratic base. I have no doubt at all that the GOP base will turn on the Afghan war with more passion if it continues to go south under Obama. In fact, I see the potential of a Ron Paul argument beginning to return the GOP to its Taftian roots if the quagmire deepens. Only a Democratic Rove would use this war to split the GOP still further – and now we have a president strong enough to withstand such foul cynicism.

My last refuge in this situation is actually to do what we realistically can, but to recognize the limits of what we simply cannot do. There is no ultimate solution for Islamist terrorism until it blows itself out. A quarter of the world is Muslim and, although we should help, this is their struggle, not ours’. We do not have the power to do much more – which is anathema to the neocons, but true nonetheless. But to give the neocons their due, to have initiated one fledgling and still extremely fragile democracy in the heart of the Arab world is surely enough to satisfy the attempt to leverage democracy in the very long run against Islamism. In the meantime, we need to be totally, ruthlessly rational in discerning where the actual threat is, and not walking into any more traps.

The awful truth is: We have to live with the constant threat of Islamist terror or perish trying to exterminate it everywhere. This is a practical decision and I do not claim to speak with the kind of knowledge that military experts do or that the Obama cabinet is now wrestling with. But this is a political call as much as a military one. I fear a mismatch between means and ends, I fear complacency on Iraq, and I fear the dashing of impossible expectations yet again.

Under those circumstances, how do you look into the eyes of the mother of a lost soldier and tell her it was worth a try?

(Photo: Spc. Matthew King of Lompoc, California, who has been without a shower since July 4 of this year, rubs his face in a below ground bunker October 6, 2009 in Forward Operating Base Zerok in Paktika province, Afghanistan. Conditions are harsh for the soldiers of the 3-509 US Army’s 25th Infantry Division and their Afghan Army counterparts at the Zerok field base near the border with Pakistan. The troops stationed at the base frequently patrol the adjacent mountains on foot and endure frequent attacks by militants, as well as living without showers or laundry for months. By Chris Hondros/Getty.)

The NYT:

Saudi Arabia is trying to enlist other oil-producing countries to support a provocative idea: if wealthy countries reduce their oil consumption to combat global warming, they should pay compensation to oil producers.

This is, of course, somewhat encouraging. It means the Saudis have a tiny feeling the West might finally get its act together and wean itself off their oil, and all the imperial weight it carries. I sure hope they're right.

(Hat tip: Massie)

The Iranian parliament plans to cut energy and food subsidies over the next five years. NIAC smells something fishy:

While attempts to reduce subsidies were made in the past, the government was met with an infuriated Iranian citizenry that took to rioting and protesting. […] This event can be seen as maneuvering in advance of proposed refined petroleum sanctions that could be levied in the event that Iran does not cooperate in the multilateral talks with the p5+1. If the sanctions were to pass and be put into place, it would give the regime the perfect “scapegoat” to catalyze its subsidy removal by blaming Western powers, thereby quelling any serious protest to the action.

Tea-partiers hound brave, manning-up Lindsey Graham with a plunger. Red State is stocking up on rock salt for Snowe.

Sarah Palin facebooks birthday wishes to the Iron Lady. Did Bill Kristol remind her? The branding continues …

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Queer and Loathing in D.C.
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

Jon Stewart busts Fox News bad on their non-coverage of a march of around 75,000. This is not just an ideological problem for them; it’s a news problem. What happened last weekend in DC was a great story – large and colorful protests, a big fight between the grassroots of the gay movement and its DNC bosses, a presidential speech. Where was Fox? Some will say it’s pure ideology. They just ignore stories that do not fit their GOP base audience. The speeches at the march were so emphatic on the core message of equality and the marchers so obviously regular Americans of all stripes, shapes and colors, perhaps Fox simply did not know how to fit the images into the notion that the gay rights movement is some bunch of evil freaks trying to destroy the family. But there’s another possibility.

They didn’t even know it was going on. When you have no openly gay people on air, when the gay people on staff are unable or unwilling to challenge an editorial line, you slowly seal yourself off from America. If it’s true that the MSM were awfully slow and reluctant to cover the Tea Partiers, FNC was woefully blind to this story. If they didn’t like Jon Stewart’s winning lob over the net last night, they shouldn’t set him up so easily.

Here's Bob's case for urgent decisive action and Jim's response:

If he or others can really establish that a decision right this minute about Afghanistan is indispensable — that this is a moment comparable to the Cuban Missile Crisis etc — then, OK. (For a contrary argument, see this.) Otherwise, everything I've learned about politics indicates that impatience is almost always destructive, that especially when it comes to military commitments it's crucial to think and think again, and that a president should be less afraid of being "inconsistent" than of making a big mistake.

The fact that two of the smartest, sincerest people around can disagree on this is testament to the difficulty of the decision. Maybe it's post-Bush syndrome, but I'm much more skeptical of dramatic presidential decidership than I used to be. In an equation as complex as this one, prudence dictates caution and a weighing of all the possible factors. Since they all keep changing, this can paralyze. But I don't think Obama will let this drift for ever. And there's an element to Bob's argument that I just don't buy:

Obama must capture the toughness and competence that Bush displayed as a war leader at the end of his term. Otherwise, in the coming months, the Democrats may be seen as having lost a war.

I don't think the debate here should be about the politics of the thing or the appearance of wobbliness or the perception of toughness. It's high time the US conducted its foreign policy according to its own sober analysis of its self-interest rather than the need to be "tough" or to "save face" or to back up allies who will end up more alienated if we dig ourselves more deeply in to the Afghan ditch. Of course, the US is wobbly.

After eight years in Afghanistan, the American people are being told by the Pentagon that the only way forward is a massive increase in manpower and resources. Even if you think the Iraq surge was a success, the expense and risk and long-term wisdom of the same strategy in the vastness of Afghanistan is highly dubious – especially after a fraudulent election. (I am still on the fence about the Iraq surge because we simply don't yet know if it has actually succeeded in doing what it was supposed to do: facilitating a unified, functioning democratic Iraq which won't revert to sectarianism and dictatorship in the absence of vast numbers of US troops. In so far as it helped the US save face while we walked and then ran for the exits, it worked. But that's not toughness and competence. It was just the least worst option worth trying before we gave up entirely.)

Far, far better to mull this over and decide to get out of a hopeless situation than to carry on a doomed mission that will, in fact, kill Obama's presidency (and a lot of young Americans) and advance US security by an indefinable amount. The more I mull this over, the more I think we should get out as swiftly as can be done responsibly. If we take a p.r. hit, if al Qaeda claims victory, so be it. America should define victory on America's terms, not be yanked around by a bunch of braggart Jihadists. It was a necessary war in the first place; eight years later, it's not so clear. Unless it's very, very clear, the Powell doctrine should return.

There's a reason for the Vietnam Syndrome: Vietnam. Only this time, the US is flat broke and the war is even more unpopular at home and intractable on the ground.

Daniel Gross reminds conservatives labeling the stimulus a failure that most of the money hasn't been spent yet:

[N]early eight months after its passage, a large majority of the stimulus has yet to start impacting the economy—as was the plan. And as was also the plan, the most visible parts of the stimulus are only taking effect now and will remain active through 2010. As you drive around town, it's difficult to visualize tax rebates or aid to states—the fast-acting components of the stimulus. But as I drive around my town today, I can see workers laboring at a $4 million, stimulus-backed road project that is just getting started and will run through the spring of 2011…the debate over whether the stimulus worked will ultimately be settled in 2012—as voters go to the polls and economists crunch the 2011 data. Until then, we should avoid jumping to rash conclusions.