Month: March 2010

Yes, we've heard that before. And in one obvious sense, it's absurd – no innocent deserves to be blown up in a subway train because of his government's policies -  and in another obvious sense, it's common sense. Many terror groups are in some ways motivated by the acts of governments, especially in foreign policy. This latter fact – Bin Laden blamed US troops in Saudi Arabia and Jihadism gains recruits by torture in Iraq or the pulverization of Gaza – is essential to good counter-terrorism policy. Defuse, defang and destroy. The first two were sadly lacking under Bush-Cheney. Not so much under Obama. But look who's saying it now:

BENNETT: The Russians will be tougher than most countries on this stuff, right?

KRISTOL: Yeah, they’ve been pretty brutal in Chechnya and in some ways have brought this, I’ve got to say, on themselves. But, you know, the trouble is that people use legitimate grievances and of course become — a fair number of Chechens went to Afghanistan to fight against us and the Chechnyans were treated just horribly, have been treated horribly by the Russians. But obviously that’s no excuse for being a suicide bomber. 

Grant Gallicho notes a remarkable continuity in the leadership of the cult that has now disowned its founder:

According to some of the testimonies given to the apostolic visitors in recent months, some in this group knew about the founder’s double life, about the carnal acts he performed with many of his seminarians over the span of decades, about his lovers, his children, his drug use. But in spite of that, a fortress was built around Maciel in defense of his virtues, devotion to him was fostered among his followers, all of them unaware of the truth, his talents were emphasized, even among the upper hierarchy of the Church. This exaltation of the figure of the founder was so effective that even today it inspires the sense of belonging to the Legion among many of its priests and religious.

Surely we can all assent to the notion that a Christian militia of the type now accused of planning domestic terrorism is not Christian. This is why I call them Christianist. Anyone planning to murder innocents by way of IEDs cannot plausibly call himself or herself a follower of Jesus of Nazareth.

May we also assume that every single one of these terror suspects is innocent until proven guilty, and shouldn't be seized as enemy combatants and tortured until they confess? Will even Andy McCarthy concede that? Or not?

A reader writes:

You quote from Obama’s AIPAC speech when he declares that Israel should “refrain from building new settlements–as it agreed to with the Bush administration at Annapolis,” and then make the claim that Obama meant “no new building over the 1967 line.”  There are several problems with such an assumption.  To begin with, “building new settlements” has never meant building with in already-constructed settlements – again another nuance which you have neglected to address.  Netanyahu – not Olmert, or any Prime Minister before him, for that matter – has ensured that no new settlements have been constructed. 

The debate during the Obama administration has always concerned Israel’s right to facilitate “natural growth” in existing settlements rather than construction of new ones.  Obama’s reference to previous agreements with President Bush only confirm this.  Bush’s 2004 letter of understanding with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon promised to take “existing realities” into account when discussing a final peace treaty, a clear reference to settlements near the green line which would be incorporated into Israel proper in exchange for other parcels of land.

Lastly, it’s disappointing to see that you neglected to address explicitly perhaps the most controversial insinuation in the Rozen article – namely, that Dennis Ross is guilty of dual loyalty, though Dennis McDonough vociferously denied the charge himself.  One would assume that Ross is hardly acting as a double agent when he warns Obama of what is politically feasible and realistic to achieve vis-a-vis Netanyahu’s government and Israel’s political situation, but is merely advice as to the extent of American power in the region.  I’m sure the President himself values such analysis; otherwise, Ross would be off the team.  To suggest that Ross is an “agent against change” not only misconstrues his role within the administration, it only contributes to the dangerous and frankly silly notion that he is a double agent advocating for another government’s interests. 

Mario Loyola does us all a favor by pointing out the real position of the Israeli government and the pro-Israel lobby in Washington:

We need to step back and realize that it is simply inconceivable, after what has happened in the last ten years, that any Israeli government will allow a truly sovereign state to arise in the West Bank.

As Netanyahu admitted Monday, given the consequences of Israel’s withdrawal from south Lebanon and from the Gaza strip, Israel simply cannot and will not risk the rise of a terrorist state in the West Bank, just a few miles from all of its major urban centers, and walking distance from the heart of Jerusalem. The Gaza disengagement definitively proved that Israel cannot risk disengagement from the West Bank. Until the Palestinians fix the political problems of their own society, there is nothing the U.S. can do to underwrite the risk of a two-state solution.

Once you realize that Israel has no intention whatever of accepting a two-state solution, whatever the Israeli leadership says, the tensions between the US and Israel are much more explicable.

Jill Lepore takes aim at marriage counseling:

Up to eighty per cent of therapists practice couples therapy. Today, something like forty per cent of would-be husbands and wives receive premarital counselling, often pastoral, and millions of married couples seek therapy. Doubtless, many receive a great deal of help, expert and caring. Nevertheless, a 1995 Consumer Reports survey ranked marriage counsellors last, among providers of mental-health services, in achieving results.

And, as Rebecca L. Davis observes in an astute, engaging, and disturbing history, “More Perfect Unions: The American Search for Marital Bliss” (Harvard; $29.95), the rise of couples counselling has both coincided with and contributed to a larger shift in American life: heightened expectations for marriage as a means of self-expression and personal fulfillment. That would seem to make for an endlessly exploitable clientele, especially given that there’s not much profit in pointing out that some things—like the unglamorous and blessed ordinariness of buttering the toast every morning for someone you’re terribly fond of—just don’t get any better. Not everything admits of improvement.

Iceland, which banned prostitution last year, does the same for strip clubs. Tracy Clark-Flory furrows her brow:

What most impresses the Guardian's Julie Bindel is that "the Nordic state is the first country in the world to ban stripping and lapdancing for feminist, rather than religious, reasons." There is no question that Iceland has impressive feminist cred — nearly half of its lawmakers are ladies — but, forgive me, I'm hesitant to announce it the word's most "feminist" and "female-friendly" country in response to a law prohibiting women from voluntarily taking off their clothes for money. It may not be a religiously motivated move, but it sure is a dogmatic one.

Jill Filipovic also has misgivings:

Stripping, for better or worse, is one of the better-paid jobs that low-skilled (and hey, sometimes high-skilled) female workers can get.

And no, it’s not a sustainable career, and it’s a job that traffics in discrimination — it’s primarily for the young, the thin, the able-bodied, etc, and once you don’t fit into that framework it’s no longer an option. But it does offer paid work that can be significantly less unpleasant than a lot of other jobs. […] I’d be willing to bet that most strippers strip because it pays pretty well. Removing that option, even if it does send A Message, doesn’t seem like a great victory to me.

Andrew Exum's thoughts:

One of the criticisms you often hear of U.S. policy-makers in the Oslo era is not so much that they were too sensitive to Israeli concerns but that they were hyper-sensitive to Israeli politics while not paying anything resembling the same level of attention to Palestinian politics. So they were conscious of how the decisions of an Israeli prime minister might play on the streets of Tel Aviv but not as aware how a decision by Arafat might play out on the streets of Ramallah. I heard Rob Malley make this point at a talk at AUB in 2008, in fact. (A lecture which, miracle of the internets, you can watch here.) Being sensitive to the political realities facing an Israeli prime minister, as Ross allegedly is, is no bad thing in and of itself. But one should remember that another people, with an entirely separate political reality, live on the other side of the Green Line. And a lesson learned from the 1990s is that you should pay close to equal attention to the dynamics of their political discourse if you hope to create an enduring peace.