Month: December 2011

With the Free Syrian Army ramps up [NYT] retaliatory attacks against Assad soldiers, Daniel Serwer examines – and dismisses – the West taking their side:

The military options published by the Washington Institute range from the silly to the unpromising.  Humanitarian corridors into Syria’s cities?  Apart from the fact that they don’t appear to be needed, they would impossible to sustain if the regime decided it did not want them. Buffer zones or enclaves along the Turkish border?  That requires suppression of a substantial Syrian air defense system and constant vigilance thereafter, in the air and [on] the ground.  Without it, the buffer zones just become unprotected targets, like the Safe Areas during the Bosnian war.  That’s where you are sure to find your enemies, so that is where you aim.  No-fly zone?  It’s [a] bad joke, since the regime is not using aircraft to repress demonstrations. It would just be the top of the slippery slope to broader intervention.

Robert Farley worries that the FSA might give the Syrian regular army strong incentives to stick with Assad. Issandr El-Amrani and Larbi Sadiki [NYT] look at how two other sub-state armies (Hamas and Hezbollah, respectively) are losing out as a consequence of Assad's violence. The Revolting Syrian flags a chart detailing how the non-violent resistance plans to undercut Assad's rule with strikes and protests. This map shows the distribution of murders in November by province. Here's a funeral protest in Idlib:

In Homs today, these people stage a "wedding ceremony for a gas canister & diesel jerrycan:"

Finally, this little boy's eye won't stop bleeding:

That's how Douthat frames the Gingrich and Paul contest in Iowa. He calls Paul "the kind of conservative that Tea Partiers want to believe themselves to be" and Gingrich "the kind of conservative that liberals believe most Tea Partiers to be." His bottom line:

If the town hall crashers and Washington Mall marchers of 2009 settle on a Medicare Part D-supporting, Freddie Mac-advising, Nancy Pelosi-snuggling Washington insider as their not-Romney standard bearer in 2012, then every liberal who ever sneered at the Tea Party will get to say “I told you so.” If Paul wins the caucuses, on the other hand, the movement will keep its honor – but also deliver the Republican nomination gift-wrapped to Mitt Romney.

A couple weeks back, Nate Silver challenged Douthat's final point: 

[Paul] is the only Republican candidate apart from Mr. Romney (and Jon M. Huntsman Jr., who is not competing in Iowa) to overachieve his national numbers in polls of New Hampshire. A one-two punch of winning Iowa and New Hampshire is not impossible for Mr. Paul, and it is hard to know where Mr. Romney might wind up if the field were scrambled in this way.

The settler movement that has a de facto veto on Netanyahu is flexing its muscles. You want images of youths throwing stones? It's no longer just Palestinians; it's settlers, aided and abetted by the IDF (now being turned on by the settlers as well) and Netanyahu. Haaretz tells it like it is:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quick to condemn what happened yesterday and to convene consultations. But it is a belated and hypocritical response. He and the heads of the military establishment know full that settlers routinely run riot in the West Bank with impunity. Those who did nothing when mosques were torched are now reaping attacks on the army. And those who stay silent now will reap attacks on Jews within Israel.

The government must immediately authorize a forceful and determined operation to stop Jewish terror in the West Bank. It must break the armed militias and impose law and order. For it is not the settlers alone who bear responsibility for the lawlessness: The prime minister and the heads of the military establishment are also responsible.

It's vital to understand what is going on here. We have an axis not between Washington and Jerusalem as a whole, but between US Christianists and Jewish fundamentalists intent on claiming for ever the Biblical lands of Judea and Samaria. They both want permanent annexation and a war on Iran. They control the government in Israel and the major opposition party in the United States. And the two likeliest Republican nominees are far more supportive of a foreign prime minister than their own president. Gingrich's settler enthusiasm and contempt for the Palestinians is bad enough. But in my view, Romney is worse. Tom Friedman rightly notes that Romney

told the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom that he would move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem because “I don’t seek to take actions independent of what our allies think is best, and if Israel’s leaders thought that a move of that nature would be helpful to their efforts, then that’s something I’ll be inclined to do. … I don’t think America should play the role of the leader of the peace process. Instead, we should stand by our ally.”

That’s right. America’s role is to just applaud whatever Israel does, serve as its A.T.M. and shut up. We have no interests of our own. And this guy’s running for president?

He sure is. And his support for a foreign prime minister over his own president is one reason he has a chance. Not because of Jewish voters – but Christianist ones.

(Photo: A Palestinian man inspects damage to a mosque in the West Bank village of Bruqin near Nablus on December 7, 2011 after unknown attackers, believed by Palestinian residents to be Jewish settlers, scrawled anti-Arab graffiti on the walls and tried to set the mosque on fire. By Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP/Getty Images.)

"The immediate adoption of a settlement freeze by Israel, more than any other action, could create the confidence needed for wider participation in these talks," – Ronald Reagan, 1982.

A reader writes:

I'm with the "overreaction" crowd on this ad. If someone posted a warning to people to stay out of Central Park late at night, would that also be "blaming the victim" because a mugger is looking to mug people and we shouldn't place the burden of caution on innocent park strollers? If someone posted a warning on Queens Boulevard warning people to exercise special caution when crossing the street, would that be "blaming the victim" because speeders and red-light crashers are the ones who are breaking the law and we shouldn't put the burden of proper crossing on innocent pedestrians who are obeying the traffic light rules?

Telling people that certain behaviors will get them into trouble at the hands of people who will take advantage of them isn't wrong. It's what your parents try to drum into you before you leave home.

Another takes issue with Copyranter's reaction:

Seriously? "Victim blaming strategy"? Puh-lease.  

The ad makes the argument for personal responsibility in a very powerful way.  Young people tend to think that they are invincible until something really bad happens to them.  Sometimes they need to be hit over the head with the message in a way that makes them pay attention. I feel the need to quote Camille Paglia from "Sex, Art and American Culture: Essays" (1992, p57):

These girls say, "Well, I should be able to get drunk at a fraternity party and go upstairs to a guy's room without anything happening."  And I say, "Oh, really?  And when you drive your car into New York City, do you leave your keys on the hood?"  My point is that if your car is stolen after you do something like that, yes, the police should pursue the thief and he should be punished.  But at the same time, the police – and I – have the right to say to you, "You stupid idiot, what the hell were you thinking?"

A reader on the other side of the spectrum:

A PSA should address a social problem at its origin. An anti-drunk driving ad is aimed at the person getting behind the wheel of the car. Or to the person hosting a party, embarrassed to confront a friend ("friends don't let friends drive drunk"). Both the drunk driver and the party host have a legal liability in their behavior, and can be charged with a crime for their actions. The rape victim has no liability, and indeed is the one hurt by the actions of the aggressor, yet they are the ones told to change their behavior to avoid harm.

The implication is that if only all the women would just stop drinking, rape would end. It's a lie and a cheat. No one runs PSA ads warning pedestrians not to cross streets without checking to see if drivers are intoxicated ("don't cross 'til you see the whites of their eyes!") Nor do they tell men to avoid strip clubs as they are likely to get money stolen.

These ads are directed at TEENAGERS for heaven's sake. Girls are being taught early they are responsible for the bad behavior of the boys. Where are the ads telling boys DON'T RAPE or you'll go to JAIL?

Another:

I think the problem is in the wording of the ad: "She didn't want to do it, but she couldn't say no". This implies she had an obligation to say no and her silence was equivalent to consent. Or possibly it implies that if she had said no, her rapist would have stopped. Either way, it puts the blame on her for not saying no.

What the ad really needs to convey is that it is sometimes dangerous to be impaired because people can take advantage of you. The ad could have said for example, "She tried to stop him, but was too drunk to move", or "She passed out from drinking and was raped". Either way, this wording makes it clear she was the victim of a crime that she was powerless to stop because of her condition. The crime could have been rape, robbery, and assault or something else – it doesn't matter – the point is that we sometimes need to keep our faculties about us to protect ourselves. I think that would be the right message.

Question? askandrew@thedailybeast.com Video archive here.

If you pray. His physical torments are hard to fathom; his spirits and ability to write unchanged. I haven't seen him in a long while, and he is now still in Houston undergoing the effects of brutal chemo, as his luminescent piece in the latest VF reveals. I don't know why, but he is suddenly in my mind and soul constantly these days, and the kindness of a returned email even now takes me aback, given where he is.

He is the greatest advertisement for the existential courage of the atheist I have ever known. And I say that not just from his writing, but from two and a half decades of debate and discussion with him in person. I don't know what else to say: but pray for or think of him today, if you will. He is worthy of a particularly intense form of love.

His column today represents the tip of the spear in Republican Washington's panicked fusillage against someone who was once and will again be the least popular public figure in America. It pounces on Gingrich's classic blow-up this week, when he seemed to criticize the activities of Bain Consulting. It is, indeed, a largely leftist point made by Newt:

“I would just say that if Governor Romney would like to give back all the money he’s earned from bankrupting companies and laying off employees over his years at Bain Capital, that I would be glad to listen to him.”

Compare it with Huckabee's brilliant quip from the last cycle:

“I want to be a president who reminds you of the guy you work with, not the guy who laid you off.”

But Will goes overboard when he defends the sophomoric photograph of Romney and his Bain fellows literally covered in money. The "animal spirits" of capitalism are surely better captured by genuine entrepreneurs, not fabulously rewarded consultants, who exist because weak CEOs need an alibi for firing people. And what Romney is revealing in that photo is pure worship and celebration of money and wealth – and the joys of rubbing it in the face of others.

It's toxic. It's ugly. It's what helps drag conservatism down. You want a way to remind Reagan Democrats that the GOP is not their kind of show any more? The photo will do it. Can you imagine Reagan in that picture? Nah. Only the spoiled children of Reagan.

And not like Charlie Sheen. Julian Lindley-Freeh defends Cameron's veto:

Today Britain has preserved the strategic room of manouevre worthy of one Europe's Big Three and which Germany and France last week tried to deny it. When Berlin emerges from its funk it will realise it has to deal with Britain.  The French are unlikely to make that connection whilst lost in pre-election 'faux' anti-Britishness.  Indeed, a more sober Berlin will realise that a deal with Britain is much more likely to promote the kind of economic reforms and disciplines Germany knows full well Europe needs to compete in this world.  

Aaron Ellis nods:

We are the third largest economy in Europe, as well as the fifth or sixth largest in the world. Hamish McRae of The Independent explains here why Europe needs us as much as we need them in terms of trade. The United Kingdom is also a key member of NATO and the only European country that the French could plausibly cooperate with on defence. The realities of power politics dictate that Great Britain can’t be isolated from Europe: we are too big, too rich, and too powerful for them to exclude us.

For what it's worth, the British people agree with Cameron's use of his veto. Scott Sumner thinks the British actions will prove wise in the end:

Something to cheer up my British readers, as the press is bashing Britain for not blindly signing on to the failed Eurozone policies being promoted on the continent.  Britain was bashed even more viciously in 1931, when they opted out of the failed international gold standard regime.  History has vindicated that “obstructionism” and it will vindicate this obstructionism as well.

(Photo: German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, U.S. President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron talk before the first working session at the Group of 20 [G20] Cannes Summit at the Palais des Festivals on November 3, 2011 in Cannes, France. By Chris Ratcliffe-Pool/Getty Images)

“That’s one of the things that I like about him — because he’s been consistent since he changed his mind,” - Christine O’Donnell, on her endorsement of Mitt Romney.