Author: Andrew Sullivan

David Rothkopf sounds like a politician:

We need a new international understanding on these issues, one that will produce a coalition of nations that will strictly enforce a ban on aid to countries that abuse women — and one that will introduce sanctions on those countries until they comply with what must be the most basic entry-level rules for participating in global society.

Sure, that will work. I mean: please. Could we get any more utpoian? Norm Geras, meanwhile, takes issue with my response to a supporter of the war in Afghanistan:

No one who undertakes some putative good or the combating of some evil is thereby obligated to take on an impossible burden of doing good and combating every evil. Otherwise, we couldn't do anything without being called on to do everything – which is a practical reductio ad absurdum. When Andrew supported the interventions in Afghanistan and then Iraq, this type of argument was put by some of those who were opposed. Why Afghanistan or Iraq and not North Korea, Burma, Zimbabwe as well? Because there's only so much one can do (even if 'one' is a powerful country). This is not to criticize him for having changed his mind on certain things. It is only to say that a style of argument that was no good then is still no good. Also: between 'on the cheap' and 'a century of neo-imperialism', there are intermediate possibilities.

I'm not sure there are, actually, unless Norm means the kind of hands-off counter-terrorism that seems the only realistic option in Af-Pak. I did support these wars in part because of the evil of the enemy, Saddam and the Taliban. But I have learned my lesson. It is not enough for the enemy to be evil, or even dangerous. We must be able to do something about it that is within our capacity and skills and budget. Building nations in Iraq and Afghanistan fails this sniff-test, and the experience of the past decade proves it.

Jeffrey Goldberg and countless others have cited the peaceful and constructive Muslim faith and organization of Feisal Abdul Rauf. He may be surprised to find that National Review regards him thus:

He presents himself as a peacemaking Islamic Gandhi, but he is in fact an apologist for the terrorist outfit Hamas, which he refuses even to identify as a terrorist organization… The fact that an apologist for terrorists and an associate of terrorist-allied organizations is proceeding with this provocation is indecent.

They repeat the lie that only Americans were killed on 9/11, and ignore the Muslims who were murdered on that day and indeed the Muslims who bear the brunt of Islamist terrorism worldwide. They make no mention of freedom of religion. And they propose a boycott:

No contractor, construction company, or building-trades union that accepts a dime of the Cordoba Initiative’s money should be given a free pass—nobody who sells them so much as a nail, or a hammer to drive it in with. This is an occasion for boycotts and vigorous protests — and, above all, for bringing down a well-deserved shower of shame upon those involved with this project, and on those politicians who have meekly gone along with it. It is an indecent proposal and an intentional provocation.

I am actually heartsick about this. That the official right is now engaged in exactly the kind of thing that empowers Islamism, alienates moderate Muslims and betrays core American values is a deep sign of the cultural and moral rot we face. Dorothy Rabinowitz asserts that there is no need to restate America's commitment to religious liberty, while arguing that, in this case, it doesn't stand. Her case – in which "demagoguery" is now the work of those defending American values and in which "piety" means resisting bigotry – is a study in how the right came to embrace torture, a dictatorial presidency and now, restrictions on minority religions rather than the inheritance of the West.

They are the unwitting allies of the Jihadists; and they want a war with an entire religion. It may even win an election or two, I suppose. Hey, the gays are getting mainstream.

Weigel responds to the Levi-Bristol break-up by shaming the media:

Why assume that [Sarah] Palin was behind [the Levi-Bristol engagement], cleaning up a problem before a possible 2012 run? It’s because the alternative, truer explanation is dull. Palin as tabloid joke is a story for 2008. The story for 2010 is that she’s a master plotter, a recruiter of grizzlies, whose book sales and TV deals prove that she’s outsmarted everyone.

This theory doesn’t have many takers inside of Alaska, where Palin’s celebrity and national designs are frowned upon by people who wanted her to serve out her term. But outside of Alaska, Palin has had so much success with a memoir and a Facebook account that we assume she’s about to outsmart everyone in some other way. In this case, the assumption was that Palin thinks so far ahead that the idea of a Bristol-Levi shotgun wedding, something treated as a joke when rumored in 2008, became an example of Machiavellian strategy and media manipulation. Well, now we know—Palin cannot actually force her child into a loveless marriage to fix a political problem.

I cannot quite fathom through the intricacies of this saga. But it does seem I was wrong to worry that the Bristol-Levi reunion was a function of Palinite political hardball. Dave is right about the banality of all this in the end. What I fear he is wrong about is this deranged person's ability to appeal to the identity politics of the right in such a way that she can barge through the door of the GOP nomination. She is the Jesse Jackson of the right. But he was never a former vice-presidential candidate when he did so well in the 1988 primaries. And the rural white right is far more powerful within the GOP than the urban black left ever was for the Democrats.

Ross keeps plugging along:

…the obvious goal for conservative policymakers should be to come up with policy alternatives that enhance mobility and opportunity without requiring us to spend far, far more public dollars than we spend right now.

I think such policy alternatives exist. They include a tax reform that makes the tax code more pro-growth and more pro-family, an assault on corporate welfare and subsidies for the rich, a move to a more means-tested entitlement system, an immigration policy that tilts away from mass low-skilled migration and emphasizes recruitment instead, a continuation of the push for public-school deregulation that the Obama administration has embraced, and other more modest proposals.

Count me in. But who among today’s Republican leaders is even interested in this? Bashing Muslims and illegals is more their, er, cup of tea.

This is a debate we have to have, not just because of the relative decline of America's economic power but because of its accelerating bankruptcy, and the desperate need to find budget savings if we are not going to get the massive Bush tax hike that's been pending since 2001. And yet questioning the value of being a global hegemon doesn't seem to enter into the mindset of those in the pundit-version of the military-industrial complex. Maybe they are too close to it to see the mounting contradictions. Or maybe these arguments are too telling to be countered, rather than just ignored. But the case for American retrenchment is both fiscal and prudential. Christopher Preble:

Some scholars, however, questioned the logic of hegemonic stability theory from the very beginning. A number continue to do so today. They advance arguments diametrically at odds with the primacist consensus. Trade routes need not be policed by a single dominant power; the international economy is complex and resilient. Supply disruptions are likely to be temporary, and the costs of mitigating their effects should be borne by those who stand to lose — or gain — the most. Islamic extremists are scary, but hardly comparable to the threat posed by a globe-straddling Soviet Union armed with thousands of nuclear weapons. It is frankly absurd that we spend more today to fight Osama bin Laden and his tiny band of murderous thugs than we spent to face down Joseph Stalin and Chairman Mao. Many factors have contributed to the dramatic decline in the number of wars between nation-states; it is unrealistic to expect that a new spasm of global conflict would erupt if the United States were to modestly refocus its efforts, draw down its military power, and call on other countries to play a larger role in their own defense, and in the security of their respective regions.

But while there are credible alternatives to the United States serving in its current dual role as world policeman / armed social worker, the foreign policy establishment in Washington has no interest in exploring them. The people here have grown accustomed to living at the center of the earth, and indeed, of the universe. The tangible benefits of all this military spending flow disproportionately to this tiny corner of the United States while the schlubs in fly-over country pick up the tab.

The latest in GOP derangement.

An important new study came out today. It's from the Journal of the American Medical Association about the deep and unethical involvement of CIA doctors and psychiatrists in pioneering torture techniques for the Bush-Cheney administration. Money quote:

The CIA Office of Medical Services

* purported to subject some techniques to "medical limitations," but those claimed limitations imposed no constraint on use of torture, e.g., allowing weight loss up to serious malnutrition, noise up to level of permanent hearing damage, exposure to cold water right up to development of hypothermia, shackling in upright sitting or horizontal position for 48 hours (and longer with medical monitoring);

* placed no medical limitations at all on the use of isolation, hooding, walling, cramped confinement or stress positions except in some cases avoidance of aggravation of pre-existing injury;

* ignored medical and other literature on effects of these forms of torture, and instead cited sources like NIH web site, wilderness manuals and WHO guidelines.

* recognized dangers of certain enhanced methods but nevertheless approved them, e.g., that waterboarding risks drowning, aspiration pneumonia, and laryngospasm; sleep deprivation can degrade cognitive performance, lead to visual disturbances and reduce immune competence acutely; prolonged standing can induce dependent edeme, increased risk for DVT, cellulitis.

These individuals need to be stripped of their medical licenses and prosecuted under the Geneva Conventions. Fat chance under Obama.

Enjoy.

Claire Berlinski tries to find a way out.

"And these programs that you mentioned — that Obama has going with Reid and Pelosi pushing them forward — are all entitlement programs built to make government our God. And that’s really what’s happening in this country is a violation of the First Commandment. We have become a country entrenched in idolatry, and that idolatry is the dependency upon our government. We’re supposed to depend upon God for our protection and our provision and for our daily bread, not for our government," – Sharron Angle, where the tea-party and the Chistianist right meet.