Sanity's 'round here somewhere...I had it yesterday...maybe I need to check the freezer

I hope you didn't leave it in the attic.

"...but I don't have a concrete alternative plan that I'm confident is better than what's happening."

This is a concrete alternative plan to what we currently have that's better than what we have.

It's incremental, but highly important to some of us.

There's a great deal of this sort of thing.

Also, of all blogs to have to point this out at, blogging hardly needs to all be about wonky policy matters.

Hilzoy was a voice of awesome, and I'll be sad to see her go.

I'm enjoying the blogging these days, partly because I'm watching the later stages of the Universal Health Care story arc. Back in my crazy Edwards kid days, passing this thing in 2009 was what I obsessed over. We'll see how it looks in October, but today's events are certainly keeping me optimistic.

Gary, don't get the wrong idea here or anything, but I'm happy to be pwned by you.

So much that was happening was so bad that yelling "Stop it stop it stop it!" was a sensible addition to the public discourse.

Today's hearings on Sotomayor certainly reawakened that impulse in me. But then again, now at least Lindsay Graham and Jeff Sessions are doing their clueless comedy routine as a desperate minority.

So now that the Democrats are in power things are complicated? If something was bad when Bush was doing it it is still bad when Obama is doing it.

But nowadays the government does both good things and bad things, not just bad things.

Shearer has a point. It's actually a lot worse that some of the things that Bush instigated have continued under Obama -- that he's been so poor on the transparency and torture stuff in particular -- because it paves the way for normalization of these things, which diminishes America (and complicates life for us non-Americans) immensely.

Also, if there's anything the Bush years should have demonstrated to people it's that the time to be on deck is before the plane is crashing into the mountain. The Democratic Party still sports an amazing number of corrupt, gutless simps. The Republican Party is if anything even further off the deep end than it ever was.

Unfortunately, the Bush years were also exhausting, since shovelling through the sheer amounts of bullshit produced by the GOP, the "MSM" and the pundit class was like taking on a second job. I can understand why people who did it since 2002 would need to get out. What'd be nice is if other, fresher people stepped in to keep the conversation going.

Wow, bit of a mixed metaphor in 9.2 there. Oh well.

10: No, it's really quite visionary. In the new economy, our planes will have decks! Decks, I tell you!

DS, I think they use the term 'deck' for the part of the plane where you do the steering from. Or at least 'flight deck'.

12: Oh, well, if you wanna get all technical about it, yeah, ruin my stupid joke. Jerk.

12: And it's important for all the passengers to be there so they can say, "Look out for the mountain!!!" And then the airship of state can fly grandly on.

11: A vision of the future.

The airship of state can fly grandly on while the passengers chew the roasted peanuts of economic adversity, read the in-flight magazine of injustice, and drink the stale coffee of international conflict.

Let's hope they don't run out of tiny vodka bottles; I'm going to need some.

The tiny vodka bottles represent special interest group campaign contributions. Skymall is the regular mall, the greenish water in the can is pollution, and the overhead bin is my garage in that both are good places to get something dropped on your head if you don't watch it.

16: And order weird fucking crap from the SkyMall of globalization.

And the unflushed turd in the can is Moby Hick not knowing when to let someone get a word in edgewise.

Skymall does have a lot of random pictures of dogs, which is useful when trying to stop a toddler from thwacking the back of the next seat (representing the G-8).

I should probably sleep.

20: Moby Hick represents the overly friendly person in the seat next to you who really doesn't understand that you just want to be left alone.

Wait, so are the fuckers who bring way-too-big carry-on luggage to avoid the $15 surcharge tax-cheating freeloaders or wise entrepreneurs with business savvy? I'm confused.

ARRR! I WILL ENSNARE THE WHITE MALE BY ENTICING HIM WITH A SKY-MALL OF DELIGHTS

This thread got crazy fast.

I just skipped Bob le Flambeur for Tori Boggs and Razz Ma Tazz, and don't regret it a bit.

I can't decide if it is just my bias to always listen to the experts, but I do feel like as things have become more complicated*, that I have a harder time achieving anything close to mastery over the news stories, and feeling like I have a reasonable opinion on it that I would share with others.

*By complicated, I mean things are actually being done to take steps to remedy all the problems racked up over the years - this seems necessarily more complex than creating the problems in the first place.

Foreign policy wise, Obama isn't that different from Bush, still invested in Iraq and especially Afghanistan, where the war got ramped up as the Iraqi war slowed down. Nothing is done, other than the highly publicised announcement of the closing of Guantanamo Bay, to dismantle the American Gulag put in place during the Clinton/Bush years. As per usual for a Democratic president, Obma talked tough to Israel, which spurred the latter to prove that he didn't own them, nobody owned them by planning an even more outrageously stolen colony project in the West Bank.

Where Obama has made a difference is in understanding diplomacy, in smoothing over relations with unnecessarily insulted countries like Russia or Venezuela. That's important, but he hasn't altered core US foreign policy.

I started reading blogs in the summer of 2002. I'd say my reasons for reading political blogs were similar to Hilzoy's, but more focused on the media. From about 1998-2002, I'd had a general sense, not very clearly articulated to myself, that the media, and the Washington elite more broadly, had gone completely (and somewhat bizarrely) over to the Republicans. to the point of regularly printing quite obvious lies -- following the Clinton impeachment, the horrible coverage of the 2000 campaign, and the blind President-worship after 9/11. Most of the old sources I'd used to get my news in the pre-online era, from the NY Times on down, seemed completely corrupt.

It was really a revelation to come online and see Somerby and Atrios putting these thoughts so directly into words, and it really seemed like there was a movement going on online to preserve a bit of sanity in the darkness. This is about the time when Krugman seemed like a valiant lone warrior surrounded by darkness on all sides.

I still think the media is corrupt, but the liberal blog critique of the media has now gotten extremely old, and it's just not interesting to read what Atrios has to say about the "villagers" for the millionth time, even if the critique remains valid. Also, of course, since the Democrats are in power, the media's obsequiousness towards power now has a slightly more leftward spin, and the liberal bloggers themselves no longer seem like points of light in the darkness. I am glad to see a vigorous online community devoted to pushing the Obama administration to the left, but doing so effectively requires more expertise than just saying "hey, here's another biased NY Times article," so the most interesting political blogs are now put together by experts.

Wow, was 29 ever badly written. Shorter comment: the liberal blog world from about 2002-2005 was basically a support group for people who felt like Washington and the media had gone insane, and that particular kind of support group is now no longer necessary, even if relentless critique of the administration from the left is.

The US is still insane. (The most-active thread before Hilzoy posted her "Giving you the bird" post, was one where people were seriously arguing that dude, just because someone tortured people, that's no reason to prosecute them...) President Obama may not want to be known as the President who condoned torture, but he actively wants to be the President who condones torture. This is not sanity: this is just better than it used to be.

Still. Five years is a stint.

I'm flying to Canada next month: wish I was going in an airship.

Airports represent the future of the West in that they:
1) are governed by a small, unelected and invisible cadre of technocrats
2) are mostly staffed by poorly paid immigrant labour
3) have no real manufacturing industry
4) have a massive and overbearing security infrastructure
5) place immense emphasis on buying unaffordable and ugly positional goods
6) convey a sensation of anomie, exhaustion, disorientation and panic
7) are infested with the acolytes of weird cults

Discuss.

32. If you'd kept that idea to yourself you could have written a briefly fashionable literary novel based on the conceit.

I was really sorry that Hilzoy didn't come to unfoggeDCon 2.0. I really would have liked to have met her.

I agree with the commenters over at Obsidian Wings who say that the madness isn't gone, just covered up a bit, but I was really taken up short by this statement by Patrick Nielsen-Hayden:

You know, if you want to stop blogging, that's fine. Stop.

But the idea that "the madness is over" is the silliest thing I've ever seen you say, and it casts practically everything else I've ever read from you in a new and unwelcome light. I wish I'd never read this post. (emphasis mine)

Says a lot about both of them that they said what they said. Still, god bless Hilzoy, she's done a bunch of good work.

33: well, who says I haven't?

If something was bad when Bush is doing it, it's still bad when Obama's continuing it. Nonetheless, most of the stuff that Obama's doing that still horrifies me seems to be a failure to unwind the Bush shit fast or completely enough -- like, he's not pulling us out of the wars Bush started quickly enough, he's not letting the people Bush locked up under the pretense that they were dangerous out of detention fast enough, and so on. This is all still importantly bad, but having a defensible opinion on what the practicalities are of cleaning up the mess he got left requires more specific knowledge than knowing that it was a bad idea to get into the mess in the first place.

Shorter LB: Everyone sane knows to warn against shitting the bed. Opinions differ on what to do next.

The locus of the madness has changed, the WH is occupied by conventionally opportunistic politicians, and the times are difficult, which makes it hard to see ahead. But the lunatics haven't gone away. They have, as I believe the conventional phrase was in WWII, "withdrawn to previously prepared positions". Won't be over for a long time yet.

This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. It may be the end of the beginning.

One measure of caution, 46% of votes* for McCain/Palin.

*But of course there is massive self-selection, demographic and regional bias in the sample so you can't really do anything with the data.

I concur wholeheartedly with LB's 38.

One of the ironies of Hilzoy's retirement from blogging (which I find as lamentable as the rest of you) is that she managed better than many others the transition from shrill® opposition to Bush to loyal-but honest-critic of President Obama. As Halford points out in 29, many of the indispensible blogs of 2002-2007 have not really succeeded in defining a new raison d'etre. Meanwhile, ObWi seems as relevant as ever.

This is especially apparent when Hilzoy's posts appeared in the Washington Monthly blog next to Steve Benen, who, though he has already earned his spot in heaven in my book, seems mostly to continue on the well-worn path of documenting the atrocities of the GOP, while Hilzoy was articulating a constructive left-liberal critique of the administration.

Hilzoy is surely not unually hard on Obama. Maybe you mean others aren't constructive enough?

Airports are the future

My brother.

I've been saying this for two years-- actually, airports and parking lots. Not quite private, not quite public, but controlled by someone with whom communication is impossible.

32 could be a blog post.

33: To round out the literary novel, ajay will need to find the appropriate allegorical connection to the airside/landside boundary (e.g. the frontier of the "sterile area" in TSA-speak).

One could add to the list in 32:
8. Feature starkly bifurcated facilities for the masses (waiting areas) and the elites (lounges), whereby membership in the elite is itself fraught with insecurity.
9. A superficially expansive set of codified rights for the masses which is nevertheless so shot through with exceptions as to be meaningless, except to members in good standing of the elite, who are generally given favorable treatment regardless of the letter of the law.

I have at times thought of what it would be like to take a perverse tour of the world where you never left airports. Think of the convenience! And somehow I am also thinking it has already been done (filmed?). Maybe write a book on it, The Great Airship Mall or Riding the Aluminum Pigeon.

46.8: And a large number of submasses who never even get anywhere near the place.

47: It has been written! By someone named Greg something. That is all I remember. OK, succumbing to Google . . . Greg Lindsay.

most of the stuff that Obama's doing that still horrifies me seems to be a failure to unwind the Bush shit fast or completely enough -- like, he's not pulling us out of the wars Bush started quickly enough

"Not pulling out fast enough"? Dude, he's not pulling out of Afghanistan at all. He's doubling down there. US bombing of Afghan civilians has dramatically escalated since Obama took office, along with Afghan casualties. This is not a man who's trying to undo Bush's policies, and is just being a little too slow about it. There's a clear continuity between Bush and Obama on foreign policy, on civil liberties, on transparency and accountability, on executive power and lawlessness. This isn't a failure to backtrack quickly enough; this is eagerly following in Bush's footsteps.

45: it was...

I think the concept of "sterile" in terms of security and in terms of disease could be interesting to explore - see the 2003 Sars epidemic, when HK airport staff used third-generation thermal imaging cameras to identify feverish-looking passengers disembarking, and detain them.

44, 46 and 48 make very good points - especially delegation of state authority to unaccountable private organisations which I think is what 44 means. There's also the military undercurrent - you see military transports parked or refuelling at a lot of civvy airports. Then there's the whole uniform-fetish thing.

Interesting fact: if you add up the populations of all the airports and airliners in the world, and the surface areas of all the airports in the world, you find... well, I don't know what you find because I haven't done the research. But if you make a few wild guesses and back-of-the-envelope calculations, the Airport Country is about as big as Iceland and has a population of about 1.5 million.

49: OK, here is a magazine piece by him in 2006, The Rise of the Aerotropolis. There is also this interesting-looking book, Naked Airport: A Cultural History of the World's Most Revolutionary Structure and a bunch of boring academics chime in with Politics at the Airport, "This provocative volume broadens our understanding of the connections among power, space, bureaucracy, and migration while establishing the airport as critical to the study of politics and global life."

Dude, he's not pulling out of Afghanistan at all.

We all saw this, I suppose. We're never getting out, are we?

I would speculate that Obama's Afghanistan strategy bet a lot on a non-hostile government coming to power in Tehran. A more or less non-aligned Iran, willing as they have already shown, to invest in Afghanistan, and given their history of regional ambition wrt that country, would have potentially created a de facto ally in the Shi'a parts of the country which would probably attracted a lot less hostility than western troops.

Which means that they would have had our backs in an informal sense (as well as being distracted from more westerly concerns). That worked out alright, didn't it?

As for Hilzoy, I think it's good that she decided to get out of blogging. Since the American Gulag was handed over from Bush to Obama, there's been a noticeable drop of enthusiasm on her part in covering the worst of its excesses. I'm not sure why she thinks the American war-and-torture state is suddenly sane now; the only change I can see is that a Democrat's in charge. And then of course there was her endorsement of state-sponsored kidnapping back when the Obama administration announced it was going to maintain extraordinary rendition. Glenn Greenwald and others can cover the torture and war crimes beat more effectively at this point.

The blogger I miss the most is Katherine from Obsidian Wings, who of course is probably doing much more useful work as an actual good-guy lawyer in the real world.

I'm not sure I'm awake enough to be as eloquent as I'd like about how much I've valued and looked up to hilzoy's thinking and writing over the years.

So I'm going to bracket out her retirement and go on to the the puzzling and upsetting beliefs expressed by some upthread.

Obama and his appointees have endorsed the idea that people can be indefinitely detained after acquittal. They have duplicitously talked and argued as though Guantanamo is the only prison site the US maintains for terorrism suspects. They have filed court papers and made public statements arguing for degrees of executive privilege and power that go beyond the nearly unimaginable levels the Bush adminstration achieved.*

*IANAL; this is an argument by and for laypeople.

If something was bad when Bush is doing it, it's still bad when Obama's continuing it importantly worse when Obama continues it -- for the creation of precedent (which courts and the public both defer to), for the creation of bipartisan endorsement of madness, and for the fact that we elected a constitituional lawyer who has not even the tiniest excuse for ignorance on civil liberities issues.

Having said all that, are there some wonderful (and wonderfully-different-from-Bush) things happening under this administration? Of course. The surgeon general nominee sounds outstanding, not least because she might actually manage to get Louisiana back on the national radar screen.

But at the end of the day, I couldn't disagree more with the idea that if the country was in crisis 2001-08, it is somehow less threatened now. We're less outraged on a daily basis, yes. Are our core constitutional principles less under siege? See IIR at 50.

50: There's a clear continuity between Bush and Obama on foreign policy, on civil liberties, on transparency and accountability, on executive power and lawlessness.

And that clear continuity - which Hilzoy apparently could not see or would not witness - was the issue I could not agree with Hilzoy on - though I honor her as a fine blogger and I sincerely hope this does turn out to be a sabbatical/gafiation rather than a permanent retirement.

I'd spent nearly five years watching Hilzoy take down the excesses of the Bush administration with a steady hand and clear vision: it was exceedingly disappointing to me that, when those excesses were being carried out by the Obama administration, slightly toned down and more pleasantly slanted, she had little to no interest in taking them at all. I'll miss the Hilzoy who blogged against Bush; I won't miss her support of Obama: I'll miss her sane and funny posts about all sorts of things, not merely US politics.

Her decision to step back from blogging did make me think, and I need to think some more before I write it down...

Policies in Iraq and Afghanistan are different: complete disengagement in the first half of 2009 was never on the table, and is in fact so unrealistic as to amount to a madness of another kind. 'Nothing has changed because the US is still in Iraq' functions for me like 'Sarah Palin is politically very savvy' -- an invitation to read no further.

I'd like to see plenty of things going differently, but I don't think it's at all correct to ascribe the caution with which changes are being made to anything like the madness/hubris that got us here.

53: I have no idea what Obama's Afghan strategy is. I can't, for the life of me, see any significant difference between his strategy and Bush's. I have no idea what the US and NATO are supposed to be accomplishing there, or even what they think they're accomplishing there. The rhetoric about "eliminating safe havens" is insane - is the United States really going to commit itself to occupying every country in the world that could possibly serve as an operating base for any group that might be hostile to it, and to kill anyone that might possibly be hostile to them? What he's doing in Pakistan is even more deranged, and the relative silence and indifference from liberal blogs regarding a growing war that's increasingly destabilizing a nuclear-armed state is crazy. I feel like I felt in 2002 - like I can't tell if this country's gone insane, or if it was always insane and I just never noticed.

Obama and his appointees have endorsed the idea that people can be indefinitely detained after acquittal.

This I think merits some comment. I'm not aware of any endorsement of detention outside the law. Rather, just a recognition that law-of-war detention authority is unaffected by a decision on criminal-law detention authority. Think of what would have happened if one German POW had killed another in a POW camp in Colorado in 1944. So they give the killer a criminal trial, in the regularly constituted civilian court, and the jury finds that he acted in self-defense, and acquits him. Does the defendant get released in Colorado? Does he get sent to Germany right away (even though it's 1944)?

The acquittal on criminal charges of a current law of war prisoner still leaves open the questions about his law of war detention: is there a war, is it still going, was he in it, is he likely to return to it -- and what evidence is there for all of this -- the government bears the burden, and while I'd be hard pressed to say that we'll be able to keep up our current winning record (I think we're over 80% right now), even that depends on some evidentiary* issues.

*Their position on hearsay is perverse and my filings (which are all under seal) say so in increasingly blistering fashion. It's important to beat them on this issue, but, still, if they end up mooting the cases by releasing the prisoners, that's something we have to live with.

58: American foreign policy has always been insane, regardless of which party occupied the White House. We have never been the good guys, except when the other side was so overwhelmingly bad that we got the white hat by default (see WWII, where Joseph fucking Stalin was also one of the good guys). Nobody should be surprised by this. The laudable parts of the Obama era were always going to be domestic politics. On the world stage, we're the same force for imperialism and militarism we have always been. Changing CEOs doesn't change the industry you're in.

Hilzoy's probably stopping blogging for the same reason that nearly everybody who has been blogging since the beginning has stopped: you run out of things to say and feel like you're just repeating yourself and phoning it in.

Even though everything Obama is done is well within what I expected, I find it hard not to feel demoralized. Obama has marked a return to the pre-Bush status quo, so in that sense Hilzoy's right that the madness has died down. We're back to ordinary evil of the Clinton years.

The only thing that amazes me is that I thought this past September would mark the end of the Gilded Age 2.0. But nope, we're still somewhere in the middle. We have to wait for the next finance-driven collapse to have any real chance for reform.

I'm even more demoralized now that apo's first paragraph has pwned me.

55, 59: I should find some time to research a long post on this stuff, because I'm not sure what I'm talking about, and this stuff takes actual effort and brainpower. But my impression is more like Charley's than Witt's -- that on the prisoner detention issues, while there are some explicitly bad legal positions, most of what's been directly said by the administration isn't terrible, the problem is that remedies are moving too slowly.

I could be wrong about this -- I haven't been keeping up with the specifics as much as I should have been. But if anyone's going to set me straight on this point, could you link to or quote what's objectionable?

And what Apo and Walt said. I really don't know what to think about Afghanistan -- I assume our strategy is aimed at setting up some kind of state with actual control over the whole country, rather than a chaotic mess, before we leave. This sounds utopian and implausible to me, but I'm not sure enough to be convinced that we're doing the wrong thing now -- my guess is that we'd be better off dropping it and going home, but I'm not absolutely convinced.

I assume our strategy is aimed at setting up some kind of state with actual control over the whole country, rather than a chaotic mess, before we leave.

I assume our strategy is to have both eastern and western staging grounds for an eventual war with Iran. If we had any intention of leaving Iraq or Afghanistan, the withdrawals would already be underway and we could be completely out of both in six months.

65: Um, we are in the process of withdrawing from Iraq, aren't we? I keep on reading stories about it. It could all be a bait and switch, it could turn back around, I know we should never trust anything until it happens, and all of that. But as of now, that withdrawal does seem to be in motion.

we are in the process of withdrawing from Iraq, aren't we?

We still have 130,000 troops in Iraq. The timeline for withdrawal has gone from 12 months to 16 months to the current deadline of the end of 2011 (30 months). We're in the process of withdrawing from Iraq like Lucy's in the process of holding the ball for Charlie Brown to kick.

66: A lot of it is re-branding which troops are "combat" troops versus other kinds of troops (trainers, I think? Or "support & logistics", something like that), along with an ostensible pullout from the cities that still leaves us, you know, there.

I may be rewriting history, but I don't recall a solid promise of a 12 month timeline -- certainly not since inauguration. And the 16 month timeline was stated as most troops, not all troops, which is compatible with all troops being out at a later time. I'm not trying to be Pollyanna here, but I don't think we've been betrayed yet on this specific issue.

I don't recall a solid promise of a 12 month timeline

Sorry, 16 to 19.

The 'combat mission over by the end of August 2010, and all troops out by the end of 2011' dates were announced in the same speech, so that's not a change of schedule. We (and the Iraqis) could still get fucked over on this one, but we haven't been yet.

That's the kind of thing that makes me shaky about blogging -- I really don't trust Obama on all sorts of stuff, and I'm glad other people don't either. But a lot of what people are unhappy about seems confused to me -- I'm not sure who to rely on for specifics.

Regardless, I'm convinced that what we're watching is the classic good cop/bad cop routine, with Obama playing the good cop. The game is still the same though: as the world's oil reserves run out, we're going to have troops standing on top of as much of it as possible. Click the last map on this page. If we don't also have the Venezuelan invasion plans written up already, I'd be shocked.

I don't quite get the claims above that Obama is pro-torture. While it's infuriating that there seems to be no push to prosecute people for torture, the actual practice of torture has ended, as far as we know. Right?

The timeline for withdrawal has gone from 12 months to 16 months to the current deadline of the end of 2011 (30 months).

The former was a pledge by the Obama campaign alone; the latter timeline reflects a formal agreement negotiated with and approved by the Iraqi government. It's not yet clear that this is a Charlie Brown football situation.

Well, everybody seems to be doing fine here without me. I have been thinking about this, to the degree I can think, for 12 hours and will continue, but I didn't want to mindread or put words into hilzoy's mouth. At least not to start. And I thought a period for encomiums was appropriate.and tolerable. No troll, I. (and Farber visits here.)

Read what hilzoy says, at least in the three quoted paragraphs. Those paragraphs mention neither a broken process (except in a public reason Habermas sense) nor bad outcomes but a vitriolic discourse space as her reason for blogging. And hilzoy chose Obsidian Wings, the famously bipartisan blog.

It was always and only a smarter more sophisticated Broderism.

74: Right, and while I'd have to google some for them, I remember some clear statements repudiating the right to torture. It's not enough, but it's in the right direction.

That said, it seems to me that the madness is over.

The madness has shifted, but it's not over. I predict that before the 2012 elections we will see
(a) More than one assassination attempt on Obama carried out by right wing nutjobs.
(b) A major escalation in harassment and outright violence against abortion clinics
(c) A significant increase in hate crimes against homosexuals and transgendered people, and especially against Latinos/Latinas
(d) A further solidification of the Christianist movement into paranoia, end times hysteria, and demonization of perceived enemies. There will be further construction of Christianist institutions like Liberty University that allow Christianists to completely isolate themselves from the outside world.
(e) Major planned attacks on the scale of Oklahoma City by militia nutjobs, possibly even a successful attack
(f) GOP insiders playing footsie with conspiracy theorists of the birther stripe (not necessarily birthers, but people that nutty)
(g) Other horrible crap I can't yet imagine

What's still in the air is exactly what narrative the right wingers will settle on in their demonization of Obama. Right now they are knocked back on their heels by the election results, but they are experimenting with attacks to see what gets them traction. OggleGate is one of these probing attacks, and it'll be repeated a few times to see if it works. Expect every Obama appearance to be relentlessly scrutinized for evidence of his Scary Black Man Predatory Sexuality.

I expect there will be an attempt to build a narrative of Obama the Anti-Semite, but that's been a little in the background. It's a good route for the right to use because it plays to Christianist philosemitism (which is merely a horrible variant of antisemitism, as it places the Jews on a pedestal for God to annihilate in the end times), and it has the potential to weaken Democratic fund raising from wealthy Jews who have traditionally been reliable donors. I suspect Obama knows this and his choice of Rahm Emmanuel as CoS is partly intended to blunt that line of attack.

The nutjobs aren't gone, they are merely a little disorganized. Soon a set of leaders will arise who can give the movement structure and make it more effective in pursuing a malign agenda. Given enough time they'll have influence in government again, and the cycle will repeat.

No more than 50,000, all MATT and support elements, by August 2010. Combat troops out by August 2010 - during the campaign he said June 2010. All troops out by end 2011 - IIRC he didn't give a deadline on that during the campaign.

apo, would you care to bet that there will be more than 100,000 US troops in Iraq on August 31 2010?

I expect there will be an attempt to build a narrative of Obama the Anti-Semite, but that's been a little in the background.

That will, I think, be hard, given that he's politically as close as any politician is likely to get to the mass of Jewish voters in the US -- he's never going to be short friendly Jewish liberals to cry bullshit! on that issue.

togolosh, depending on your definitions, and how serious an attempt has to be/how far it has to get before being stopped, a), b), d), e) and f) have already happened. I don't know about c).

Narrowly defining the question to the legal positions taken by the administration w/r/t detainees, if Charlie Friggin' Carp, who has been fighting in the trenches on this for years, is giving the administration a modestly caveated benefit of a doubt, I think the rest of us ought to chill.

I'm very much in favor of pressuring the Obama administration from the left. But false equivalencies annoy me. Let's look at some of the major things we might plausibly hope for from the Obama administration:

1. Troop withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan.
2. Universal health care.
3. Cap-and-trade for greenhouse gases.

None of these things are happening as quickly as I would like, and all of them will be hobbled to some extent by compromises, but if (as seems plausible) they all happen, even in a weak form, then the Obama administration will have unambiguously done more good for the world than any other US administration in recent history. This is not to say that bad, even evil, things won't also be done during this administration, and it's no reason to let them get away with doing such things, but I find the Obama-as-Bush-lite talk a bit silly.

81: You are right, but I'm thinking that it'll be sustained and there will be more serious events to come. They aren't going to stop. Perhaps I ought to phrase it in terms of a new baseline level of these horrible things - it's going to be much higher and it's going to have staying power through the to the end of the administration. My predictions are extrapolations. I'd be very interested to hear what other people think is likely to happen, incidentally. Care to play Nostradamus?

80: They'll try, and it will get traction with the Christianists and Neocons at minimum. Just because it's irreconcilable with reality doesn't mean people won't enthusiastically endorse it. This is one of the big lessons I took from the 2002-2005 period.

In a sense, curbing the excesses of the previous executive is not the job of the current one (assuming he's even interested in reducing his own power). That's the job of the other branches of government, and ultimately of the people. Even if Obama did fix things by executive order it wouldn't be permanent in any meaningful way.

That's what makes passing health care this year so important. Progress on cleaning up Bush's mess is going to require a cohesive--and righteously pissed off--congress. Ulp.

apo, would you care to bet that there will be more than 100,000 US troops in Iraq on August 31 2010?

No, that's the sort of reduction they can hit simply by withdrawing from the urban centers. But "no more than 50,000, all MATT and support elements, by August 2010"? I'm not a betting man, but if they hit that benchmark, I'll eat a hatful of crow.

And let's remember that the key to 83.2 and 83.3 is the Senate, not the president.

87: True, but if Obama doesn't stake all of his political capital and credibility on trying to push them through, I'll be furious.

83: Word.

You can quibble about which items belong in positions 4-7 on that list (DADT? Warrantless surveillance? State secrets privilege? Accountability for torture architects?), but I remain confident that we are going to get an awful lot of what we want out of this President, even if it's not all we want ('twas ever thus).

I am prepared to extend a wide latitude for sins of omission (FDR was awfully weak on Civil Rights, for example), less for sins of commission (LBJ and Vietnam).

(b) A major escalation in harassment and outright violence against abortion clinics
(c) A significant increase in hate crimes against homosexuals and transgendered people, and especially against Latinos/Latinas
and the rest...

These actually don't make me cynical; they seem to be the way extremists act out when they start to realize that public sentiment is shifting out from under them and their days are truly numbered.

I may be overly sanguine, but I think DADT and marriage equality are probably in the bag in the next five ten years, maybe sooner. The trend just seems to be going inexorably in that direction, so while pressure and activism are still necessary, I don't think the outcome's really in doubt.

91: Agreed. I'd venture a guess that DADT is in the bag even sooner (before 2012), and states representing at least half the population will have marriage equality by the end your ten year horizon (though the rest may wait a long, long time, analogous to Civil Rights).

Mmm. When I say marriage is in the bag, I was thinking of the majority of states, and at least social acceptance everywhere. Is anyone pushing for a federal law requiring all states to give 'full faith and credit' to same-sex marriages performed outside the state? With that, a couple of holdouts where you couldn't actually get married, but you could be married, wouldn't be too bad.

90.last: I agree but for one thing - the far right went apeshit over Clinton and really looked like they were playing out the script you'd expect from complete marginalization. Then they got their guys into the Presidency, controlling the House and the Senate, and they still have 5 out of 9 Supreme Court Justices sympathetic to at least some of their positions.

I know there's been some pushing for a repeal of DOMA, which would be an important step.

Troop withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan.

How is withdrawal from Afghanistan reasonable to hope for from Obama? He campaigned on an Afghan Surge, and he's given us an Afghan Surge. Nothing he's said or done indicates that he wants to get out of Afghanistan.

I know there's been some pushing for a repeal of DOMA

Who's been pushing for this, and when? The last time Obama mentioned this was in the primaries.

93: To right-thinking people, a federal anti-lynching law seemed like a no-brainer in the 1930s, too, alas.

Karl Rove's genius may have been overestimated, but he wasn't wrong about the degree of passion that gay marriage inflames in broad swathes of the country. We need to wait for a whole generation of people to die before this will change, I fear.

But my impression is more like Charley's than Witt's -- that on the prisoner detention issues, while there are some explicitly bad legal positions, most of what's been directly said by the administration isn't terrible, the problem is that remedies are moving too slowly.

My impression thus far has been far more like Witt's than Charley's -- BUT Charley's expertise in these matters is considerable, and I am heartened to hear that, in his analysis, things aren't half as bad as they've appeared, at least on the detention issue.

97: June 17, 2009:

But this Presidential Memorandum is just a start. Unfortunately, my Administration is not authorized by existing Federal law to provide same-sex couples with the full range of benefits enjoyed by heterosexual married couples. That's why I stand by my long-standing commitment to work with Congress to repeal the so-called Defense of Marriage Act. It's discriminatory, it interferes with States' rights, and it's time we overturned it.

96: This is going to sound like starry-eyed optimism, I get that. But what's making me withhold judgment on Afghanistan is that I don't see, politically, what Obama corruptly gets out of it. I understood why, from a domestic politics point of view, Bush was better off with more wars. But, not because Obama's a good person, but because of the realities of American politics, Obama would be better off, politically, if we weren't at war in Afghanistan. At which point I'm tempted to sit back and say that I'm not sure what's going on, and possibly the troop buildup is a genuine attempt to create conditions that will allow us to leave Afghanistan in fairly a fairly stable state.

It's not that I believe that Obama wouldn't do evil things, it's that I don't see what he gets out of being evil in this specific context.

93: Is anyone pushing for a federal law requiring all states to give 'full faith and credit' to same-sex marriages performed outside the state?

Obama was, right up until... well, January 2009. These days, not so much.

(All you have to do is repeal DOMA, really.)

74: I don't quite get the claims above that Obama is pro-torture.

I said he condones torture, and I stand by that: if Obama is unwilling to have people prosecuted for torturing prisoners or for authorizing torture, he condones it. (Also, we know from direct report by prisoners released from Guantanamo Bay that the torture did not stop at noon 20th January, but continued at least into February: Obama was uninterested in enforcing what he'd claimed to want.)

But, not because Obama's a good person, but because of the realities of American politics, Obama would be better off, politically, if we weren't at war in Afghanistan. At which point I'm tempted to sit back and say that I'm not sure what's going on

Military-Industrial Complex

99: Seriously, I'm not on top of it. But while I've been hearing a lot of "exactly the same" griping, I haven't seen all that much of it in the form of specific complaints about identified statements or policies that I can check. That really doesn't mean that I'm sure everything's okay, but I think at least some of the griping is not well founded.

(Also, we know from direct report by prisoners released from Guantanamo Bay that the torture did not stop at noon 20th January, but continued at least into February: Obama was uninterested in enforcing what he'd claimed to want.)

Okay, see, Jes? This, specifically, is ridiculous. First, I'm not sure what exactly you're relying on, but I'll take your word for it. Second, come on -- you're complaining that it took a couple of weeks after he took office to get control of what was happening at Guantanamo? There are all sorts of other problematic things he's done and not done, but if you're throwing in this kind of complaint as a makeweight, it means that to take the rest of it seriously, I have to go look everything up for myself.

101: LB, how many times has Obama gone on about how the United States is an exceptional country and a unique force for good in the world? You don't think that maybe he's blowing up kids in Afghanistan and Pakistan because maybe, just like George Bush and Bill Clinton and every modern president before him, he thinks he has a right and a duty to do so?

to repeal the so-called Defense of Marriage Act. It's discriminatory, it interferes with States' rights, and it's time we overturned it.

I love the states' rights bit.

As for Obama and torture: Obama has ordered the US torture camp at Bagram Air Base - already twice the size of Guantanamo - to be doubled. And he's insisted that prisoners held there have no rights whatsoever.

107: I like to think that was a fun little dig.

No one in the history of this country has ever actually believed in "states' rights."

LB, how many times has Obama gone on about how the United States is an exceptional country and a unique force for good in the world?

Changing the rhetoric that every president has been expected to engage in for the last 90 years would be as politically risky as changing what the government actually does, and would gain nothing compared to changing what the government actually does.

106: No, I don't. I hate the line about "Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity", but if you change it to "Never attribute to megalomania what can be adequately explained by corrupt self-interest and indifference to the welfare of others", that I can agree with. I don't think any of them thought they had a right and duty to kill kids -- they did it (and 'every modern president' is way oversimplified -- quantitative differences become qualitative at some point) because it was in their political interest to do so.

I believe in 110.

The one issue (and it is a "meta" one) where I am *really* worried about the administration's positions is executive privilege. I guess not a surprise, it really has been a long term trend across many administrations, but it was ratcheted up so far by the power-criminals in the previous administration.

111: This seems to imply that Obama secretly, in his heart of hearts, is opposed to American imperialism and American exceptionalism, while spending his every waking hour to further them because, aw shucks, what can you do, it's politics! Occam's razor would seem to suggest that maybe, just maybe, he really believes this shit. If he didn't believe that the United States shouldn't be dropping hundreds of bombs on Afghan villagers, for example, he could always not drop those bombs - or at least, drop less of them, instead of dropping more and more and more.

115 is kind of adorable.

More seriously, "American imperialism" and "American exceptionalism" are two different things--indeed, different kinds of things. I'm willing to cut almost any politician slack on American exceptionalism, because how else do you get elected?

how many times has Obama gone on about how the United States is an exceptional country and a unique force for good in the world?

The one time I'm aware of that he was explicitly asked about American exceptionalism, he gave a nuanced answer that made it perfectly clear that he doesn't believe anything so simple-minded while still paying the politically necessary lip-service to the concept. But I think the opening, "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism," was pretty much perfect.

I don't have much to say to 96 except what LB said. And I don't expect withdrawal from Afghanistan to be quick, but I expect it to happen by the end of Obama's 8-year term.

I'm really not sure what's being argued here at this point. Obama is killing people, lots and lots of people, in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Indeed, he's ramped up the killing-people operations there from where they were under Bush. I've suggested that this shows no indication that he wants to withdraw from either war - that he has, in fact, escalated these wars. In response, LB says she thinks Obama might withdraw from Afghanistan at some distant, unspecified future point because she fails to see what he gets out of it, while other people are claiming that Obama is only making a big show of being warlike and imperialistic because politics demands it, which doesn't make any sense with the line that LB is taking. So where, in all this, is the Obama who's withdrawing from Afghanistan and Pakistan?

115: His title may be Commander-in-Chief, but there are dozens of layers of bureaucracy and rule between Obama and the people dropping those bombs. Have you read The Forever War by Dexter Filkins (I highly recommend it to anyone)? It makes pretty clear that there are lots of times where even the regional commanders don't know about some of the actions taken by their local heads of troops.

The American military is an enormous machine, and it behaves with a fair amount of autonomy. It somewhat has to; our nation would be poorly served if we always had to appoint a military leader to run it. When the president tries to make a change in the ground level fighting tactics, he's too far removed to get an immediate response and too far removed to properly place strong restrictions. He's more like the supertanker captain twisting a little rudder to make the course start changing.

The madness isn't over. It's just that the proportion of the truly mad has dropped from 50+% to about 46%.

I'm sure everyone has seen the Pew poll saying that 51% of the public disbelieves anthropogenic global climate change, and 68% disbelieves evolution. Those are scary numbers. They indicate that the classic ideal of informed free debate in a democratic society has failed.

Talking about the effect of bloggers on Obama is fine, but there's another major stage: we need more loud voices countering the insanity being endlessly repeated by the Murdoch empire. As someone pointed out above this tend to be boringly repititious, and tiring, and a lot like pushing a rock up a hill. But it's necessary.

Hilzoy was doing that, too, and doing it well. I think I recall her talking about what's wrong with firing US Attorney's for refusing to use their office for partisan political purposes, while all of the "liberal msm" was talking about how CLinton fired all the ADAs, too. That's vital. Someone has to do it, and she did it it well, and I'll miss her.

I've never been a Hilzoy follower, but her rationale is very saddening to me, and almost seems inverse to reality. During the Clinton years it felt like howling into the wind to suggest that free trade was a cover ideology for the expansion of global corporate control, that the sanctions on Iraq were murderous and ineffective, that the Democratic president was quite avidly increasing the power of the carceral state. I had to march around with big ugly puppets to make the point.

The theft of the election stirred up a goodly amount of outrage, and all of a sudden it felt like I could take a break. Indeed, it was impressive how many people were paying attention, even though their anger seemed partly catalyzed by the cultural difference in who was calling the shots -- sort of a "nobody I know voted for him" prejudice.

If Obama makes significant progress on climate change and health care than he'll be a better president than any recent. But he's also the caretaker of a global imperium that feels as if its about to combine the silky insidiousness of Clinton-era globalization with the imperial reach of the Bush years. We could use some angry bloggers, even if most of their audiences just want to love on the president for a while.

And I don't expect withdrawal from Afghanistan to be quick, but I expect it to happen by the end of Obama's 8-year term.

You've got to be kidding. We'll be lucky to be out of Iraq by then.

Keep in mind that there's been no real political movement in America for withdrawal from Afghanistan. The antiwar movement, such as it is, has largely been focused on Iraq. The Democratic party line on Afghanistan is still to recognize it as "the good war" that got wrongfully neglected by Bush. This does not leave much political space for a complete 180 in which a Democratic president, without much pressure from an increasingly absent and anemic antiwar movement, suddenly decides that NATO is picking up its toys and going home because, whoops, turns out it's all a big clusterfuck after all.

This seems to imply that Obama secretly, in his heart of hearts, is opposed to American imperialism and American exceptionalism, while spending his every waking hour to further them because, aw shucks, what can you do, it's politics!

No, it doesn't.

Obama looks to prove himself quite capable of managing American imperialism while avoiding the stupider habits of mind of American exceptionalism.

He's more like the supertanker captain twisting a little rudder to make the course start changing.

For the umpty-zillionth time: it is not the case that Obama ran for president on a pledge to get us out of Afghanistan and it's just taking a little time to get there. It is the case that Obama ran for president on a pledge to put lots and lots more troops into Afghanistan, under the presumption that Afghanistan could be "won" in a way that Iraq could not. All of his actions so far, from increasing troop levels to increasing bombing missions to ordering the expansion at Bagram, indicate that he's following through on the logic of that pledge.

Some great comments above.

The Bush years radicalized me, and helped me see the continuities between his obviously crazy policies and previous versions of them that were more subtle or concealed or accepted. That radicalization is making me more critical of Obama than I otherwise would have been.

I vary between agreeing completely with Apo's 60 and Wrongshore's 122, and thinking that Obama marks a subtle but real shift in U.S. imperialism. He's not taking it head-on, but

Basically,

Re: marriage equality, I just heard about this yesterday.

127 also describes me. Except I would never dangle a basically.

Thank god the basically wasn't dangled until 128. I can resume supporting 127.

whoops, hit post instead of cancelling. Sorry.

I put a lot of stock, maybe too much, in stuff like the way he has ratcheted down the rhetoric on Iran and Russia, and refused to be red-baited out of reaching out to their governments (even under the pressure of the Iran elections). It seems to signal more respect for sovereignty. Afghanistan is a brewing disaster, but at least there is international support.

It's a lot in the perspective. An imperialism that recognizes some legitimacy of the international community of nations is different from crazy claims of total hegemony and moral superiority to everyone else on the planet.

129: If I'm able, I will go to that demonstration. Should be fun.

It is the case that Obama ran for president on a pledge to put lots and lots more troops into Afghanistan, under the presumption that Afghanistan could be "won" in a way that Iraq could not. hundreds of billions poured into Iraq and falling local support of the insurgency due to exhaustion and a semi-respectable government were finally paying off with a small measure of stability, allowing us a small breather to pull back.

I thought you were referring to bombing raids that hit civilians as a particularly poor tactic by Afghanistan forces, not the general decision to pour more troops into the territory in an attempt to stop it from reverting to a series of warlord territories.

Jeez, I'm even a pretty damn pacifistic person, against getting into wars in the first place in virtually all instances, and this stuff doesn't seem utterly outlandish to me. Once a nation's broken with our thumbprints on it, there's a totally different calculus about how to deal with the rebuilding.

128 was a lot better comment than 132. Less is more.

I want Heebie to start posting songs here.

So who writes sensibly about what can be done wrt Afghanistan and Pakistan? The simplest reading is that both countries are poorly internally integrated, and tribal societies near the border have hosted very nasty people in the recent past, perhaps still do. Is "hands off, leave the place to the corrupt local politicians" really right?

A pretty important question of fact is opium production level in Afghanistan and consumption level in Iran. I would love to be able to read informed reporting about either of these.

135: Like posting playlists? Or posting my songs?

119: The thing about what you're saying, that makes it hard for me to buy into it, is that being "warlike" and "imperialistic" is an awfully non-specific motivation. I get what Bush got out of being belligerent, regardless of the target: votes. Obama doesn't seem to me to have the same 'more bombs, more votes' incentive structure Bush had.

So once we take domestic politics out of it, what's the benefit to the US, imperialism-wise, from the war in Afghanistan? The cold war is over, we're not fighting with the USSR over client states; what do we want with Afghanistan other than to end the war with as much stability as possible?

I'm asking seriously -- the fact that this doesn't make sense to me doesn't mean that it wouldn't if it were explained slower and using shorter words.

So once we take domestic politics out of it, what's the benefit to the US, imperialism-wise, from the war in Afghanistan?

It seems like we just continue useless wars out of momentum. I don't expect Obama to pull out of Afghanistan because it costs political capital to make an argument for change, and he'd rather spend his political capital elsewhere.

Well, according to apo, Obama will stay in Iraq because he wants to control its oil supply when the wells start to dry up and the Final Wars begin. And he's going to stay in Afghanistan because...er... pomegranates?

"I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism," was pretty much perfect.

Isn't this, after all, just the national political rhetoric version of "We're all special little snowflakes"?

139: Well, yeah. That sort of thing explains the buildup of forces -- a (probably misguided and counterproductive) attempt to get the country stable so we can leave non-embarrassingly, and then I'd expect us to try to sneak out inconspicuously.

I'm wondering what the imputed thought process is that makes the war in Afghanistan actively a good thing, rather than something that needs to be brought to an end.

what do we want with Afghanistan

Again, last map on this page, then this straight-up geographical map. What we want with Afghanistan is the ability to strike Iran. It's the same thing we want with Iraq, except that Iraq has the added bonus of oil reserves.

101

This is going to sound like starry-eyed optimism, I get that. But what's making me withhold judgment on Afghanistan is that I don't see, politically, what Obama corruptly gets out of it. ...

He defuses attacks from the war party. If the peace party is willing to give him a blank check he has every political incentive to suck up to the war party.

137: your songs! your songs! Anyone can post playlists.

Mmmaybe. I'm not seeing that as self-evidently obvious. If ten years from now, we've invaded Iran, I'll call and apologize for having been insufficiently paranoid.

146 to 143.

The benefit of war, any war, is that it consumes resources that then have to be replenished by the military-industrial complex. Wars are expensive, but that's a feature, not a bug, if you are a military contractor.

One of the things about the relentless outsourcing of the Bush administration is that instead of money going to the military (who have a limited ability to lobby Congress), it goes to private companies who are far less unconstrained in their ability to lobby compared to government institutions. It's not a simple black and white thing, but Halliburton for example, has a far more effective lobbying operation that does the Army National Guard, who would otherwise be doing much of the work done by contractors.

I'm with Shearer's explanation in 144 over Apo's in 143.

I don't think it requires "starry-eyed optimism" to believe that Obama is not interested in invading any new countries.

137, 145: A weekly, original composition drawn from the most engaging Unfogged conversations?

149: Yeah, Shearer's 144 is a restatement of heebie's 139. And it's an explanation for why we haven't dropped our weapons and skedaddled abruptly, which would probably have been the best idea, but not an explanation for why the Obama administration would be actively seeking to keep the wars going, rather than trying to get out of them inconspicuously.

I get what Bush got out of being belligerent, regardless of the target: votes.

What makes you think Obama isn't doing this for votes? Or to put it another way: for fear of losing votes, for fear of being branded as a hippie or a communist or a far-left nut. Remember that for years, Democrats were opposing the Iraq War from a defensive crouch, insisting to anyone who'd listen that even though they were opposing a war, that didn't make them big smelly hippies - they weren't against all wars, after all, they were just against stupid wars. They were more than happy to support good, smart wars like World War II and the Revolution and... oh quick what's another one... Afghanistan! Yeah, they liked that one, too, and in fact the whole problem with Iraq, see, is that it distracted us from Afghanistan, and that if it weren't for this Iraqi quagmire they'd run right over to Afghanistan and win it real good!

This became such a standard formula for antiwar Democrats that no one was much surprised when Obama ran for president on both withdrawal from Iraq and escalation in Afghanistan and Pakistan. And again, everything he's done in office has corresponded neatly with following through on that campaign promise, at least.

151: I mean, I obviously agree that there's an attempt to build up a bit more stability in Afghanistan before leaving. Even a somewhat shady will-they-or-won't-they-leave government with a semi-functioning military helping keep peace will be a better scenario than immediate relapse into the warlordism that once made the country welcome the Taliban. Obama's probably hoping that such a shaky peace can be established through the combined NATO efforts and some serious infrastructure investment in a country that hasn't gotten much resources thus far.

Overall, it doesn't seem like a totally daft idea. And when your nation has already invaded a country, it's not a great idea to just run on out and leave it collapsing behind you. Especially when our name is already mud among large portions of the Muslim world and conspiracy theories about our motivations abound. We're in a shit position, and it's a fairly hard decision as to whether we're better served by taking even more massive lumps on our reputation while leaving yet another anarchic hellhole on this earth, or to lose billions of dollars and potentially thousands of lives in an attempt to bring it to some measure of minor stability/function.

Overeducated, well-meaning blog commenters are a less important constituency for Obama than the various components of the military-industrial complex (including the press). I'd like to believe he represents something other than a more competent imperial manager, but there's no evidence in favor of the hopeful view yet -- and evidence is building that it's just business as usual, just with real grown-ups in charge.

Or what Shearer said in 144.

151

... And it's an explanation for why we haven't dropped our weapons and skedaddled abruptly, which would probably have been the best idea, but not an explanation for why the Obama administration would be actively seeking to keep the wars going, rather than trying to get out of them inconspicuously.

Sure it is, the more people you kill the more points you win with the war party.

but not an explanation for why the Obama administration would be actively seeking to keep the wars going, rather than trying to get out of them inconspicuously.

These two options are reversed in terms of which one is active and which one is passive.

Overeducated, well-meaning blog commenters are a less important constituency for Obama than the various components of the military-industrial complex (including the press).

Except to the extent that the bloggers can shift the ground of the conventional wisdom, of what goes without saying.

The conventional written press is certainly losing influence. I think there's real hope that bloggers can take adherents away from Fox and move them to TPM. And I'll get a pony.

Or to put it another way: for fear of losing votes, for fear of being branded as a hippie or a communist or a far-left nut.

Okay, see, this I get and I can agree with. I will totally accept that he's trying to avoid looking weak, and that he's willing to extend the war in Afghanistan for that reason, and that that's a huge problem (moral and practical).

But politically, he'd still be much better off if there was no war in Afghanistan -- his incentives are to bring it to an end if he can manage to do so without looking bad. The war isn't doing him any good; the problem is that he's afraid that ending it will do him harm.

145: Aw, shucks....OKAY!

I could just start with the next song, (which hasn't been started yet, and so may take a while), unless there a particular song you like? or I could just post the most recent one. Why yes, I'm shameless when it comes to this stuff.

What we want with Afghanistan is the ability to strike Iran.

It's hard (for me, at least) to believe that Obama has "strike Iran" in mind as a serious option, because Obama seems not to be a moron. It's not hard to believe that military leaders and other people advising Obama do, though, or that he gives too much credence to what such people tell him must be done in Afghanistan.

In other words, my impression is that Obama isn't so much imperialist in his own goals as he is insufficiently willing to tell the military leadership to go fuck themselves.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could have serious momentum behind a movement in the US to shrink our military spending by a factor of 10?

I think a lot of this discussion is stemming from a huge misunderstanding of how the politics of war work in this country. The Iraq War was not some simple Republican project. It was a bipartisan affair, with active and enthusiastic cheerleaders on both sides of the aisle. Joe Biden was for the invasion of Iraq. Hillary Clinton was for the invasion of Iraq. So were Rahm Emanuel and Richard Holbrooke and Dennis Ross and a bunch of other people now working in the Obama administration. And the thing is, these people didn't support the war because they were merely cowed into doing so by Rush Limbaugh and Fox News - they supported the war because they thought it was a good idea. Those people are still in the Democratic Party, they're still in positions of major influence, they still run our foreign policy. The War Party wasn't voted out of power with the Republicans.

And the thing is, these people didn't support the war because they were merely cowed into doing so by Rush Limbaugh and Fox News - they supported the war because they thought it was a good idea.

True, but it was very convenient to believe WMD stories, and very un-savvy for politicians not to strut around with their most patriotic feathers out ever, in those years. So the Dems really did support it, but that doesn't mean the same fire is currently lit under their ass in 2009.

It's hard (for me, at least) to believe that Obama has "strike Iran" in mind as a serious option, because Obama seems not to be a moron.

Lots of people who speak eloquently have nevertheless done stupid and evil things. See Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy.

159

But politically, he'd still be much better off if there was no war in Afghanistan -- his incentives are to bring it to an end if he can manage to do so without looking bad. The war isn't doing him any good; the problem is that he's afraid that ending it will do him harm.

There is a problem if he thinks more of the same is the way to end the war.

Obama isn't so much imperialist in his own goals as he is insufficiently willing to tell the military leadership to go fuck themselves.

What's the functional difference there?

156: Sure it is, the more people you kill the more points you win with the war party.

It doesn't work that way, because politics aren't one-dimensional. I haven't done polling on this, but I don't think there are a lot of unconflicted "More killing, please!" fans who are votes who can realistically be picked up by a professorial Democratic president who's pushing for universal health care.

See Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy.

...Lyndon B. Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton. You can argue about LBJ's eloquence, but the point I'm trying to make is that people seem to be arguing that Obama represents not just a break from Republican foreign policy, but Democratic foreign policy as well. Maybe he does, but it sure isn't the safe way to bet and looks more like projection.

166: I think there's a difference. Military leadership doesn't really set policy goals. They wouldn't have an imperialist or oil-driven or profit-driven Grand Plan to structure their actions the way they would if Obama was imperialist- or oil- or profit-driven.

163: Again, there was a sizable faction of Democrats who wanted to invade Iraq - who wanted to do so in the Clinton era, even. Not who felt like there was too much pressure to oppose a war that was already being pushed by Bush and the Republicans, but who had wanted to take out Saddam and install a new government in Iraq for quite a while. Many of them still believe that Iraq is a war that could've been "won" if it had been "done right," and many of them are working for the Obama administration.

The optimistic take on Obama would have it that not only will he not start any new wars, but that he will go out of his way to shut down the wars that he promised to expand. My question is still: what evidence is there for this?

169: Except that, absent a check from the commander-in-chief, the military is (generally) going to default to an imperialist posture--after all, that's what all those shiny new weapons are for. (Blah blah military-industrial complex fishcakes.)

166: That if he sees an opening he can take without too much damage, there's a shot he'll do the right thing? That's a real difference.

162, 163: I'm with Heebie. This is reminding me of a conversation with dsquared a while back, where he was (IIRC) arguing that if Gore had been president, he would just as likely have invaded Iraq. And that seems way, way, way, terribly unlikely. I'd have to look up records for each of the people you named, but I remember Clinton, for example, as clearly having been mau-maued into supporting the war. That doesn't let her off the hook morally -- she's still as responsible as if she really did think it was a great idea -- but it's worth something in terms of predicting what she's likely to do going forward.

The optimistic take on Obama would have it that not only will he not start any new wars, but that he will go out of his way to shut down the wars that he promised to expand.

This would be plenty for me, at this point.

173: I can't follow you there. Better than the alternative, but not plenty.

Obama's hidden agenda is statehood for Afghanistan. We'd get two more swarthy senators, and a big bump in the muslim numbers, and a base for missiles pointed towards the former USSR. Plus a trading base conveniently located in central eurasia. Incorporating the Taliban into domestic politics would make the right wing republicans look like centrists, and put Obama in the position of being the best representative for the progressive democrats.

167: I haven't done polling on this,

Maybe OKCupid asked an indiscriminate killing question.

if Gore had been president, he would just as likely have invaded Iraq. And that seems way, way, way, terribly unlikely

He certainly was in favor of it in 1991.

174: Eh, I was being a smart-ass, partly because I think "the wars he promised to expand" is ill-defined--I assumed IIR was talking about Afghanistan. I do think Obama is going to wind down the war in Iraq, and I do think he wants to end the war in Afghanistan, but by winning it.

172

... That doesn't let her off the hook morally -- she's still as responsible as if she really did think it was a great idea -- but it's worth something in terms of predicting what she's likely to do going forward.

She will go on supporting stupid wars for political reasons?

177: You mean at the time when Iraq had just invaded an ally of ours? You can disagree about the advisability of the first Gulf War, but you've got to acknowledge that there was something going on there that wasn't happening in the 2000's.

180: Just invaded s/b just invaded and was still occupying.

And that seems way, way, way, terribly unlikely.

That doesn't seem unlikely to me at all. Secretary of State Holbrooke, post-9/11, would not have been a pretty sight. Yes, in the real world, Gore came out and opposed the invasion of Iraq, and good for him. But, please note, in the real world he wasn't president. Hell, when Gore was vice-president he endorsed torture and extraordinary rendition. The White House is a foul fucking place.

You mean at the time when Iraq had just invaded an ally of ours?

I do not believe anybody in DC gave a rat's ass who ran Kuwait, Inc.

179: That's a real risk, and one that should disqualify her from office, if we had available better options. But it's one that depends on people who actively want stupid wars being in a position to pressure her into supporting them.

178

... I do think he wants to end the war in Afghanistan, but by winning it.

McCain's position on Iraq.

183: Seriously, previous time Iraq had invaded anybody, the US gave Saddam weapons and shouted "more! more!"

183: That's silly, if we really didn't care, what did we invade for? We cared for self-interested, oil-related reasons, but we cared.

McCain's position on Iraq.

There's a curious tendency for Obama-era progressives to embrace the substance of Bush-era conservatives.

||

Did you guys hear the clip yesterday where Lindsay Graham was chiding Sotomayor something like, "I hope you realize how very lucky you are to live in a context where you can make a comment like [wise Latina woman] and still get on the Supreme Court."

Hearing Sotomayor basically being forced to answer "Thank you sir, may I have another?" to that question made my blood boil.

|>

187: We didn't care for the (imaginary) Kuwaiti babies seized from their incubators and dashed upon the ground. We didn't give a shit about the people of Kuwait, or who governed them, or in what fashion. We cared about their oil, yes, and that was all.

184

... But it's one that depends on people who actively want stupid wars being in a position to pressure her into supporting them.

The war party still appears more vocal than the peace party. And of course it means she is likely to be a "team player" (ala Colin Powell).

189: People have to say and do a lot of uncomfortable, even nasty, things to land a sweet job with lifetime tenure. I look back and shudder when I consider some of the job talks I've given.

189: Whatever. It's infuriating now, yes, but in a few months she'll be on the court, voting more or less the same way Souter would have, and life will go on.

1991 and 2003 are totally not comparable. 1991 was winnable. There's that famous clip of (Rumsfeld? Cheney?) going on about how chaos would break out if you tried to remove Saddam. Gore supporting 1991 invasion doesn't mean he would have invaded Iraq in 2003 whatsoever.

and I do think he wants to end the war in Afghanistan, but by winning it.

Everybody who starts a war wants to do that.

190: Okay, but regardless of the impurity of our motives (and they were certainly impure as the trodden snow), there's a reasonable argument that "No country may invade any other with impunity, and the remaining countries in the world will stop them if they do" is a good rule. Obviously not one we're willing to apply against ourselves, or that we'll enforce unless it suits us, but there's still a real reason to cut down on the number of wars of aggression in the world.

Yes, I know it's one-time lip service. But still infuriating to hear someone who has a free pass to say all sorts of horrible racist things chide someone for making a super-mild point against white people...baby crying...could have said this better...

1991 was winnable.

Winnable in the sense of pushing an expansionist army back into its borders, yes. The fact that we then spent the next 12 years flying bombing missions over Iraq with a large troop deployment on its border, eventually leading to a full-scale invasion and occupation earns that win at least one set of scare quotes.

192: In retrospect, ari wishes he had expressed less enthusiasm for an invasion of Merced.

Winnable in the sense that the media will spin it as having been won.

195: Yep. That's what's going on. What I'm reserving judgment about is (1) I don't know what he's defining as 'winning' for purposes of declaring victory and going home and (2) I don't know what the chances of success of achieving that goal are. It seems within the realm of possibility that he's hoping for something reasonable enough that it's worth a shot, and that he'll give up reasonably quickly if it's not working. That's not so much starry-eyed optimism as a confession that I really don't know what's going on there in any fine-grained sense.

I don't know what he's defining as 'winning'

That should be one big-ass red flag, eight years into the war.

1991 was winnable.

Really? What did we win, then? We got to box up Iraq with a sanctions and bombing regime for a decade, which devastated the country and killed hundreds of thousands of people, and eventually lead liberal hawks to the conclusion that the sanctions regime should be ended, but only when Saddam was overthrown. As far as I can tell, we not only never won the 1991 war, we never ended it.

202: I don't know if you've noticed this, but Obama's been running the war for six months, not eight years. I don't know what he's defining as 'winning'; I am hoping it's something more achievable than the prior administration's goals.

203 -> 200. "Winnable"

198: Those troops in the land of the two holy cities were also part of what radicalized Bin Laden.

"No country may invade any other with impunity, and the remaining countries in the world will stop them if they do" is a good rule.

Given that rule's testing by the first Gulf War and its outcomes, I'd suggest that it's turned out to be a bit of a clusterfuck.

201

... It seems within the realm of possibility that he's hoping for something reasonable enough that it's worth a shot, and that he'll give up reasonably quickly if it's not working. ...

As the saying goes "hope is not a plan". And the more he escalates the harder it is to give up.

208: Right. You may have noticed that I'm not planning our strategy in Afghanistan -- I'm watching it and hoping it's not as fucked up as it appears to be. I think there's a good chance it is fucked up, but I'm not sure of myself.

I don't know what he's defining as 'winning'; I am hoping it's something more achievable than the prior administration's goals.

I don't know what either administration's goals are. We're at war with the Taliban, supposedly, right? Because of 9/11. Only the Taliban never attacked us on 9/11, but I guess they're easier to find than al Qaeda. But how exactly do you "defeat" the Taliban? Are we planning on killing all the Taliban in Afghanistan? In Pakistan? Killing all the Pashtun in Afghanistan and Pakistan? There's no rhyme or reason here, just tactics without strategy, killing without purpose, and a whole lot of killing at that.

189: 197: Yes, that was what specifically prompted my comment #6. Yes, it will all just be water under the bridge after she is confirmed, but yesterday's hearings put me in a deep funk that continues today.

We didn't care for the (imaginary) Kuwaiti babies seized from their incubators and dashed upon the ground. We didn't give a shit about the people of Kuwait, or who governed them, or in what fashion. We cared about their oil, yes, and that was all.

Lots of people who speak eloquently have nevertheless done stupid and evil things. See Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy.

Yes, in the real world, Gore came out and opposed the invasion of Iraq, and good for him. But, please note, in the real world he wasn't president. Hell, when Gore was vice-president he endorsed torture and extraordinary rendition. The White House is a foul fucking place.

You see, you say things like this, seemingly trying to convince people that any human being on earth would become evil once they become President, and simultaneously you are incredibly pissed off that other people aren't incredibly pissed off that the President is doing things that any human being on earth would be doing if they were President.

But how exactly do you "defeat" the Taliban?

Thing is, this does not seem to me to be an obviously unanswerable question -- it's not one that I know the answer to, but it's also not one that I'm sure no one has any productive ideas about. It is not my impression (and again, I want to keep on reiterating my ignorance here) that the Taliban is terribly popular in much of Afghanistan except where it seems preferable to other horrendous alternatives. If there were some way to set up alternatives that weren't horrendous for the population, maybe 'defeating' the Taliban isn't unrealistic. I honestly don't know.

I maintain, as I've maintained before, that the best and simplest foreign policy for America to follow would be just to go away and mind our own damn business and stop killing other people. I recognize that I will never see this in my lifetime - unless of course the country goes truly broke and can no longer afford to keep itself entertained with aircraft carriers and cruise missiles - because we remain, of course, the Holy People's Republic of USA#1!!!, tasked by Jesus to keep the Middle East American until His return, or until our creditors come calling, whichever comes first.

there are two factors that play differently this year than last year, esp.in combination:

i: one is the gradual public accretion of general fed-upness* with war and occupation anywhere ("what's for? what do we gain from it?"); OK this is probably low-level griping ignorable on its own -- there's no draft, improved bodyarmour means the bodycount (on our side) is small compared to vietnam -- BUT

ii: is the state of the economy -- war is *expensive* and the afghan kind of war has few obvious keynesian expansionist benefits; if things at home get tough, then that's cover and reason for pulling imperial horns in somewhat

iii: i too think obama is more imperial caretaker than not, but (i) and (ii) are surely also things he has to take cognisance of

*this is getting quite mainstream in the UK**, judging by newspaper headlines over the last few weeks -- of course it combines with general fed-upness at gordon brown and labour, whose war it is...
**of course moaning is our default setting

There's no rhyme or reason here

Right. Best I can figure, we're at war because that's what America does: it goes to war, and if it finds itself temporarily without a political entity to be at war with, then it starts declaring war against things like poverty or drugs or terror. And of course, nobody wants to be tagged with re-losing Vietnam, therefore we just stay at war.

I really, really want to believe that Obama has some grand strategy for getting out of the Middle East. You have no idea how badly I'd like to believe that. But he hasn't given me anything to hang my hopes on yet.

we remain, of course, the Holy People's Republic of USA#1!!!, tasked by Jesus to keep the Middle East American until His return, or until our creditors come calling, whichever comes first.

Holy shit, you discovered the secret agenda of everyone on this thread who doesn't agree with you! How did you know I thought that about Jesus?

The White House is a foul fucking place.

Politics are bad, mmkay.

It is not my impression (and again, I want to keep on reiterating my ignorance here) that the Taliban is terribly popular in much of Afghanistan except where it seems preferable to other horrendous alternatives.

It's actually my impression that the Taliban is popular in those areas where (1) there is a large Pashtun majority, and especially where (2) we keep killing people.

maybe 'defeating' the Taliban isn't unrealistic

I think IIR's point is that we've already knocked them out of power. Unless we're committed to killing every Taliban member, and every person who might replace them, "defeating" the Taliban is as concrete a goal as winning the War on Drugs.

220: Again with my reiteration of ignorance, but don't they control a bunch of territory? You sound like they've been knocked back to a minor terrorist movement, rather than a significant player in terms of military control of Afghanistan. If you're right about that, which is perfectly possible, I'm very confused.

I remain bemused by some of the criticism of Obama here. It's true that he hasn't engineered a historic, radical, revolutionary reversal in American foreign policy and military posture during the first seven months of his presidency. That said, the fact remains that he's a mainstream successful American politician and to criticize him for that--especially given who his predecessor was--seems a little churlish.

But how exactly do you "defeat" the Taliban?

Offer unlimited immigration rights (plus education through college) to all the women and children in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan?

So, given that United States must remain at endless war, isn't it better to channel that into something relatively less destructive? Somalia and Afghanistan are by this measure excellent wars, as they're contained to areas where there is little left to destroy. If Obama were to invade Western Sahara, I'd call that inspired leadership.

Obama has also stopped doing crazy things (and reversed some crazy things) in domestic environmental policy. To my knowledge, he hasn't arbitrarily overridden the Endangered Species Act even once. This is an improvement.

222: We're criticizing Obama because many of his policies are identical to those of George Bush. I hated them under Bush, and I hate them under Obama. I have no reason to believe that Obama will suddenly reverse these policies, as he's given no indication that he wants to do so - and, indeed, campaigned on a number of them (escalation of the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, for instance). I certainly have no reason to believe Obama's going to change his policies when many on the American left seem to balk at the notion of criticizing him for them.

Somalia and Afghanistan are by this measure excellent wars, as they're contained to areas where there is little left to destroy.

Little left to destroy.

You sound like they've been knocked back to a minor terrorist movement

What I meant was that they are no longer the government of Afghanistan. Since we are unable to eliminate them outright (not being able even to positively identify them much of the time), the best we can do is a never-ending cat-and-mouse game.

This baby is interfering with my valuable commenting-time.

229: Tell me about it. It's hard to believe, but she'll actually get more demanding as she grows.

That said, the fact remains that he's a mainstream successful American politician and to criticize him for that--especially given who his predecessor was--seems a little churlish.

So say you burned with righteous indignation through the Bush years when it came to things like getting out of Iraq, and then when Obama becomes President you suddenly realized how complicated military matters are and that there was really no rush to withdraw. It shouldn't take a lot of self-awareness to realize that your feelings are based much more on tribalism than on genuine principle.

But then 99% of political discussion are more about self-expression than about actually getting anything done. This comment is no exception.

226: That the policies are identical to those of Bush is actually under dispute, no?

Anyway, for me the nub isn't criticizing Obama's policies where we disagree with them. I think it's important to do so. What gets my goat is the implication (which you may not have advanced) that, because some policies are the same, Obama is the same as, or no better than, Bush, and that therefore, for example, Hilzoy is a total sell-out for quitting blogging, or whatever.

(I may have exceeded my comma quota in that last sentence.)

Fight the good fight, but I think it's OK to recognize that things are getting better, and it's OK to take a breather.

(I may have exceeded my comma quota in that last sentence.)

And yet not one emdash.

My sense is that Obama's decision to deploy more troops to Afganistan was a decision made purely on the basis of domestic political considerations, and having made this decision, he is struggling to come up with some kind of rationale for it related to the actual conditions in Afganistan.

Afghanistan! Not Afganistan!

232: Right. That's exactly what I was talking about when I was talking about blogging getting harder.

Criticizing Obama is great, and people should do it whenever. But he's not doing exactly the same thing as Bush, which means that to figure out what's going on, you do have to pick apart the differences. At this point, I do believe we're withdrawing from Iraq on the schedule laid out in Obama's Feb 28, 2009 speech. If he doesn't, that's a serious problem, but just assuming it's not going to happen doesn't get us anywhere; talking about it requires some kind of evidence that he's not living up to the plan.

Since we are unable to eliminate them outright (not being able even to positively identify them much of the time), the best we can do is a never-ending cat-and-mouse game.

This seems likely to me, but not self-evidently obvious. If it's true, there's nothing useful to do but to go home. But I'm not sure enough of the situation to be sure of that.

227: "At least 55 percent of the recorded deaths were attributed to insurgents, 33 percent were caused by international and Afghan forces and 12 percent could not be attributed to any of the warring parties, the report said."

It's very easy to count the deaths from U.S. attacks. We have military groups tasked with doing that, and they have journalists and international watchdogs looking over their shoulders to report the numbers. It's much harder to tell how many deaths are being prevented by total warfare not breaking out in a collapsed country, or whether a government seen as illegitimate by rival tribes would face even worse terrorism without some U.S. military presence right now.

Afghanistan is in a rough place, it's never had the resources dedicated to helping rebuild it that we tried to plow into Iraq. As bad as Iraq may seem, it's a lot better than it was, mostly due to the locals themselves getting sick of warfare and destruction.

In Afghanistan, I'm not so sure that it's productive to call Obama's goal a "war". It's more like a Marshall Plan, if the aid to Europe had required incredibly heavy guard due to all the former German states turning against one another and started blowing up their own civilians and American military at any opportunity. We look back at the post-war rebuilding efforts in Germany and Japan as successes, but that's because those countries made it easy on us when American troops effectively served as occupying forces supporting hastily-assembled local governments. Iraq and Afghanistan have been anything but easy, which makes the ethics of it all clear as mud.

So, given that United States must remain at endless war,

If this is true, might as well write the place off now.

In other politics:

I don't know whether this Commission's report on the financial crisis will end up being important, but the guy they picked to be the chair, Phil Angelides, is great. Makes me think the report itself will be solid.

So say you burned with righteous indignation drank yourself through the Bush years

I assure you, sir; I will not shrink from that mental fight through the Obama years, either. Ideologically, I don't disagree too much with Apo and IRR; practically, since there's very little else I can do anyway except read blogs or attend a rally here or there, I'm inclined to cut the man a little slack through the first year, at least. If I'm not as actively indignant with Obama as much as Bush, it's partly because he didn't start this shit.

As bad as Iraq may seem, it's a lot better than it was

Depending on your baseline, I guess. Better than it was in 2002? 1990?

Really? What did we win, then?

In 1991, Iraqi tanks were in Kuwait, right next to Saudi Arabia. At the time, the Iraqi army was something to fear and there was not much US troop presence in Saudi Arabia. We won a smooth and uninterrupted supply of crude oil in 1992.

Does anyone have sensible policy discussion ofr Afghanistan and Pakistan? Not domestic political analysis, but a suggestion for how those places can be made saner and better by getting a plausible future?

Tom Friedman had a nice piece a few wars ago pointing out that one group of people had far more freedom under Saddam Hussein than they had almost anywhere else in the Middle East: Women. They were especially well off compared to their sisters across the gulf in Saudi. I still have the impression that things have been going backward for that demographic in Iraq since the invasion.

243: This is a good question. The only substantive analysis I'm hearing on this is (if I may summarize) "Nothing we can do will help at all, so we should back all the way off". Which seems plausible to me, but I don't know or understand enough about the alternatives to analyze it in any useful way.

We won a smooth and uninterrupted supply of crude oil in 1992.

In 1990, we bought ~5.5x more oil from Iraq than we did from Kuwait. There isn't any reason to think Iraq annexing Kuwait would have been anything more than a hiccup in our oil supply, nor any reason to think that Saddam had designs on invading Saudi Arabia. His dispute with Kuwait was very specific.

217 is a nonsequitur.

244: Yep. The thing which stands out for me there is that 'Dr. Germ', whatever the hell she actually did for a living, was a woman -- there were women in nationally prominent positions.

A credible case can be made that the military-petroleum complex goaded Iraq into invading Kuwait, so raising the specter of tanks at the Saudi border seems to be begging the question to an extent.

246: Doesn't that undercut your "Kuwait was all about the oil" theory? If there was no reason to think the invasion was going to affect anything we cared about, what was the first Gulf War about?

And of course, introducing our troops to Saudi Arabia gave Osama bin Laden one of his more prominent talking points to gin up support for Al Qaeda, so you have to at least give some consideration to the blowback argument.

emdash:
I think it's OK to recognize that things are getting better, and it's OK to take a breather.

Populuxe:
I'm inclined to cut the man a little slack through the first year, at least.

Just because things are getting better doesn't mean they're getting good.

The more slack you cut the man, the worse he'll do.

To the extent that things got better, it was in large part because no one was cutting the President slack.

Part of the reason that "the White House is a foul place" is that foul people seek it. Another part is that foul people cut its occupants, whether foul or fair, no fucking slack at all. So whether or not you attribute foul motives to the current occupant, if you care about the result, you really can't cut slack.

It's OK for anybody to take a break. It's not OK for everybody to take a break.

242: Better than 2005.

When it comes to assessing Obama's actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, we don't get the luxury of "not invading in the first place" as an option. I was against the Iraq invasion from the beginning. Not so sure that I really had a feeling on the Afghanistan war, at least none that I can recall.

However, we're stuck with countries that were invaded by our previous government. We're also trying to return America and democracy to a state of respectability among average citizens in the poorest countries, and they won't take "Oh, but that was the last guy's fault. We elected a new one, so we're done now." as a good reason for blowing a place to shit then running.

Iraq did somewhat improve from its worst state due to the investment made in its infrastructure, a populace that grew sick as of the increasingly-indiscriminately-violent insurgents as they were of the American occupation, and probably somewhat from stiffer military protection for the inchoate state while it built up homegrown forces. It's approaching a level where we probably can turn tail and everything will go somewhat alright.

That's what gives me the hope that something similar can be achieved in Afghanistan, and it's what Obama talked about during the campaign in terms of moving infrastructure spending and military resources from Iraq to Afghanistan. But none of the options are peachy.

252: There's taking a break, and then there's reserving judgment until you're sure of what's happening.

Doesn't that undercut your "Kuwait was all about the oil" theory?

That's you and IIR's theory, not mine. My personal theory is that we had a whole generation of weaponry that hadn't been tested in real combat conditions, and GHWB went looking for a good test case.

Quick let us mount an international coalition to beat back the invasion of 251 by 206.

Doesn't that undercut your "Kuwait was all about the oil" theory? If there was no reason to think the invasion was going to affect anything we cared about, what was the first Gulf War about?

The war was about the perception of a threat to our oil supply. The Bush family friends in Saudi were worried about Saddam, whether the threat was real or not. Kuwait was viewed as a safer trading partner than Iraq, whether it actually was or not.

any reason to think that Saddam had designs on invading Saudi Arabia.

Is this true? The Saudis paid the US about $25 B in 1992-3 as compensation for the US's helpful support the year before. Then they allowed however many tens of thousands of troops to be stationed in SA, to the considerable internal political discomfort of the rulers there. It may be true that these choices were misguided or whatever, but I would be interested to read why.

Internal political discomfort? I would tend to think that the presence of tens of thousands of what could be views as reliable mercenary forces enhanced the political fortunes, or at least stability, or perhaps survival, of the Saudi royal family.

Sorry as well, 238 was me.

Does anyone have sensible policy discussion for Afghanistan and Pakistan?

I haven't read anything notable lately, which is pretty frustrating. I'll admit that I haven't followed too much of the high-level foreign policy discussion since letting my Foreign Affairs subscription lapse a year ago.

244: I'm almost certain that life's been getting harder for women in post-war Iraq. It also got a lot worse for them in post-revolution Iran, which had democratic elements. If a democratic government gets established in Afghanistan, I'm pretty sure they'll also have atrocious stances on women's rights that only look good compared to the prior regime. Part of the complete bear of these places is that our ideal of a fully democratic process driven by the locals may result in choices that contradict many of our other cultural ideals. And we can't really try to impose yet more of our ideals with being accused of cultural imperialism and vilified even further.

258: If Iraq controlled Kuwait's oil fields, they would have had reserves roughly the same size as SA. This would have greatly changed the economic balance of power in the Middle East.

My personal theory is that we had a whole generation of weaponry that hadn't been tested in real combat conditions, and GHWB went looking for a good test case.

Really? This seems a stretch.

So let me amend me earlier comments: to the Saudis, Iraqis, and Kuwaitis, the first Gulf War was all about oil. To the 1991 US, it really shouldn't have mattered who was controlling the oil, since they were going to sell it to us regardless.

The more slack you cut the man, the worse he'll do.

'Tis true. Don't misunderstand me, I'm not at all suggesting that Greenwald or Maddow or Froomkin or Mayer or anyone one else in a similar position should go easy on Congress or Obama's government. I'm speaking personally as a sometimes internet commenter with little to offer but an opinion on a blog.

Really? This seems a stretch.

Maybe not so much looking for one as had one fall in his lap. We could also go into the psychological implications of GHWB being tagged with the "wimp" label. And of course, nothing has a single, comprehensive explanation. But the official reasons don't stand up well to scrutiny, so it's competing conspiracy turtles all the way down, as far as I can tell.

I don't know whether this Commission's report on the financial crisis will end up being important, but the guy they picked to be the chair, Phil Angelides, is great. Makes me think the report itself will be solid.

Won't matter. Any report will be dismissed by the media as a partisan product when the Republican members refuse to sign on, opting instead for whatever transparent bit of hackery is extruded by Wallison et al. for the minority report.

Also, way back in 180: at the time when Iraq had just invaded an ally of ours?

Kuwait wasn't really an ally prior to the invasion. They were virulently anti-Israel and were probably had the closest relationship with the USSR of any Gulf state.

Part of the complete bear of these places is that our ideal of a fully democratic process driven by the locals may result in choices that contradict many of our other cultural ideals.

Women's rights are not a cultural ideal separate from the democratic process. We are promoting a very shallow notion of democracy if we work for elections, but allow the oppression of large swaths of the population.

were

268: Which is of course part of why so many liberals found our full-throated support for Saudi Arabia and Kuwait somewhat upsetting.

We are promoting a very shallow notion of democracy if ...

I wasn't aware of a serious effort to promote anything but a superficial notion of democracy anywhere, as cover for real policy goals at best. I'm not saying that Americans don't support the idea, but American foreign policy doesn't, as a rule. Except in the press releases.

271: PMP in 260 seemed to imply that we should accept some restriction in women's rights as a part of "fully democratic process driven by locals" in some parts of the world.

Personally, I've never had any illusions that the US was ever interested in promoting democracy.

268: I agree with you, which leads to my sentence directly following that: "And we can't really try to impose yet more of our ideals with being accused of cultural imperialism and vilified even further."

You and I may feel that women's rights are inseparable from democracy and any reasonable justice. Initial votes and party platforms in a number of middle eastern countries where election are allowed have shown a slightly different perspective. Some of the autocratic regimes in the region (Saudi Arabia in particular) also have appalling records on women's and minority rights. Hell, our own original constitution was pretty poor on this when first written.

The more we fight for women's rights and other aspects of modern democracy in an area we occupy, the more we'll be accused of never believing in middle eastern sovereignty. It's a vicious trade-off.

All this invective on Afghanistan seems a bit confused. We got attacked by the de facto Afghan government. The war was duly authorized and endorsed by the UN Security Council. There are real concerns about the morality of the bombing, as well as about the practical prospects for success, and I can see how these can end up as an argument for ending the war. But unless you're a full fledged pacifist, there is no case to be made for saying that the war can't be justified. And even if you are, it still doesn't amount to an argument that this is a manifestation of American imperialism.

I haven't read it, but Sausagely just recommended some article in the Atlantic about Afghanistan strategy.

We got attacked by the de facto Afghan government.

I thought that we got attacked by a terrorist group being openly sheltered by the Afghan government. Pretty close, but different.

We got attacked by the de facto Afghan government.

No. We got attacked by a group of Saudis and Pakistanis who belonged to a transnational terrorist organization that had received shelter from the Afghan government. But they were certainly not the government of Afghanistan, de facto or de jure.

271, 272: Spreading democracy is never a reason that the American government will launch an invasion.

However, if you are an American government or newly-minted military brass who has inherited an occupied country and wants to establish some vague form of semi-stable government that will allow you to pull out, democracy starts to look as good as any alternative. Especially since you might get pilloried in the media for putting up a new strongman (people seem to have gotten the memo finally that our 60s-80s support-this-genocidal-manic-over-that-one tactics didn't work so well), or risk creating a new power that will eventually turn on you (better to have a fractitious democracy split between various religious/tribal groups that never seems to get anything done, let alone get in a position to invade neighbors).

people seem to have gotten the memo finally that our 60s-80s support-this-genocidal-manic-over-that-one tactics didn't work so well

I call optimism.

Ummh, right. And the Cubans didn't get attacked by the US in the Bay of Pigs. We got attacked by a group which functioned as a military and intelligence arm of the Taliban government, as well as being an international terrorist group.

Argh, 278 was me.

We got attacked by a group which functioned as a military and intelligence arm of the Taliban government

I don't think I've ever heard this said before.

282: It's certainly a provocative description of the CIA's Cuban exile army.

I don't think I've ever heard this said before.

That's probably because it's such audaciously ridiculous bullshit that not even the Bush administration attempted to make such a claim.

From the link in 275: the words for cousin and enemy in Pashtu, for instance, are the same

This smells like bullshit.

If you read stuff on pre 9/11 Afghanistan e.g. Ahmed Rashid, it's pretty clear. There were regular military al Qaeda units fighting as part of the Taliban forces in the on going civil war. Al Qaeda also had an intelligence branch which did plenty of 'domestic' work in the war against the Northern Alliance.

285: They also have over 200 words for "Improvised Explosive Device."

Autotune JFK's inauguration.

There were regular military al Qaeda units

Again, I'm not claiming a lot of knowledge here, but this is, if true, news to me.

They also have over 200 words for "Improvised Explosive Device."

The following suggest is obviously wrong for a variety of reasons but . . . hovertext?

Another odd thing in the linked article: "the Taliban's assassination of Benazir Bhutto". Huh? Al Qaeda claimed credit, right?

291: Yeah, I'd thought so.

I suppose the Washington Monthly agrees with teraz kurwa my, then.

291-292: The Pakistani government says the bomber was a member of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which is affiliated with al-Qaeda but not al-Qaeda proper. This is the problem with assigning agency to AQ, though. At this point, it's almost more of an ideology than an organization, and what organization does exist appears mighty fluid and multi-headed (how many AQ 3rd-in-commands have we claimed to have killed now? 50? 100?). See Al-Qaeda in Iraq, for example.

The lumping together of any and all radical Islamic groups has been going on for quite some time, though, and is predictable and probably unavoidable given how little most Americans know about even Canadian politics, much less dozens of countries halfway around the world who don't have the decency to even speak English.

Further to 294, the CIA has tapped Baitullah Mehsud and his network as responsible. Mehsud is leader of ethnic and religious groups in Waziristan including the group that's commonly known as the Pakistani Taliban.

One Al-Qaeda leader did claim responsibility, but that claim hasn't been accepted either in Pakistan or the US.

213

... It is not my impression (and again, I want to keep on reiterating my ignorance here) that the Taliban is terribly popular in much of Afghanistan except where it seems preferable to other horrendous alternatives. ...

Horrendous alternatives like foreign invaders.

Actually it is true that the Taliban is not popular in much of Afghanistan. Similarly the Tamil Tigers were unpopular in much of Sri Lanka. Doesn't mean they are easily defeated.

War War War War War War War War War War War War War War War War War War War War War War War War War War War

It's the economy, people. Get the socio-cultural-economic strusture wrong, and you'll never be able stop the wars. Get the distribution right first.

But we elected an anti-war President who is owned by Goldman-Sachs, didn't we?

Al Qaeda claimed credit, right?

Kinda like when my boss claimed credit for the last brief I filed...

Look at the periods when there was the greatest resistance to the American Empire, grant that it takes some time for the attitudes and interests to change, and realize that the late 60s-70s were a result of twenty plus years of increasing egalitarianism and middleclass empowerment.

While y'all are watching Afghanistan, Obama is creating the neo-liberal structure that will keep America fighting overseas for the rest of your lives.

"creating" the neo-liberal structure?

It's OK for anybody to take a break. It's not OK for everybody to take a break.

Amen.

And I'm glad to see that an actual lawyer, with actually relevant experience, weighed in on the continued-detention-of-acquitted-people issue. I'll look around for the article I read and try to understand why it seemed so much more disturbing to me.

If a democratic government gets established in Afghanistan, I'm pretty sure they'll also have atrocious stances on women's rights that only look good compared to the prior regime. Part of the complete bear of these places is that our ideal of a fully democratic process driven by the locals may result in choices that contradict many of our other cultural ideals. And we can't really try to impose yet more of our ideals with being accused of cultural imperialism and vilified even further.

Although we can a) try to support women's ability to vote in those oh-so-democratic elections, and b) establish schools for girls. It's not impossible to imagine that people whose voices get heard, and who have the literacy to engage with the wider political world, might have some say in which rights they do or do not get to have.

I'm finding myself largely in agreement with apo and Wrongshore in this thread. I know much of the country feels like emdash and pain perdu, but as I was just today reminded, most of the country at the time thought it was wrong and bad and too pushy for MLK Jr. to march illegally in Selma. Just because a large swath of people is always going to urge you to go slower and not make such a fuss is no reason not to make one. The fuss is not going to get you the results, but it's going to move the Overton window of acceptability.

Whoops, "might have some say" should be "might have something to say"

Since the "spreading-democracy" thing is becoming this century's version of manifest destiny, one might want to think twice about adding "liberating-the-women" on to it. I'm thinking stay home, pay attention to our own problems, and be a good global citizen might be a better agenda for the U.S. than any project of liberating any other countries or peoples. I think we've done enough of that for a while.

any project of liberating any other countries or peoples. I think we've done enough of that for a while.

You know, I'm still fine with liberating other countries and peoples, to the extent that we can do it without setting people on fire. Part of being a good global citizen is being involved in what happens with people in other countries -- the fact that dismembering them is a counterproductive means of involvement shouldn't discredit the idea of involvement globally.

"And then of course there was her endorsement of state-sponsored kidnapping back when the Obama administration announced it was going to maintain extraordinary rendition."

This is a falsehood.

I'm as skeptical as anybody of grandiose claims of liberation or instilling democracy. My point, however, was that there is no such thing as democracy without the participation of women. The women might turn around and vote for stuff you or I don't agree with, but if they're not able to participate, you haven't actually instilled democracy.

Wait, Witt, did you just imply in 303 that you, apo, and Wrongshore are marching across the Edmund Pettus bridge while the rest of us whirly-eyed Obamabots are, if not precisely George Wallace, at least members of the local White Citizens Council? So, so awesome.

I'm finding myself largely in agreement with apo and Wrongshore in this thread

Can't IIR get any respect?

No, neb, Witt is Dr. King, apo is James Bevel, and Wrongshore is John Lewis. iir is Jimmie Lee Jackson, martyr to the movement. Does anyone remember poor Jimmie Lee? No, because the preachers stole all the glory. But he was a catalyst nevertheless. History remembers.

Historians remember. Bless you.

309-11: Yikes, I went back and re-read my comment to see if it was as self-aggrandizing as all that. I know we have an analogy ban on this blog for a reason, but, ah, no. I was emphatically setting myself closer to the IIR* perspective than pp's, but that's as far as I was going.

*who neb will note that I affirmed all the way back in comment 55

Nope, it's not personal, neb. It's just that these things are in the historical ether, waiting for historians to pluck them out. That's the job; it's all about the plucking. And the ether. Getting the right balance is the trick.

313: To be clear, I was only kidding around. [air kiss]

Also, Shearer is Pope Paul, dob is Sammy Davis Jr., nosflow is Muhammad Ali, LB is Peter Jennings, and Jimmy Pongo is Chairman Mao.

[air kiss]

Californian.

Too much ether, ari.

I know you aren't in it for personal glory, ari. That's what makes it so special.

Man, I feel like I've been marching forever.

*who neb will note that I affirmed all the way back in comment 55

Mea culpa.

apo is James Bevel

Heh.

320: Every communist must learn that truth goes marching on.

305: PGD, it's people like you who gave us Vietnam Syndrome!

Since we're being all clarificational and all, shouldn't it be "whom"?

That is, to 313/321.

Better just to skirt the question and go with: "People like you gave us Vietnam Syndrome!"

Well.

324 = me

HA. Preëmptive clarification rulez.

325: yes, but I couldn't remember if Witt was one of the people who takes that kind of thing poorly.

330: It's people like you whom gave me pwnformance anxiety.

It would have crushed my tender sensibilities, neb, so good thing.

331: Since when did you become a big girl's blouse about that kind of thing?

Anyway, I'm mildly surprised to read the disagreement in this thread. But I won't go into it at the moment, since all seems peaceful and summer evening-like.

I know you're being facetious, Witt, but I do remember inadvertantly offending Cala, back in the day.

Since when did you become a big girl's blouse about that kind of thing?

I want Witt to think well of me.

So do I, but I don't have a reputation as a little bitch to maintain.

Bitchiness is said in many ways.

Crap, I wrote a long comment, and accidentally closed it, and now all I have is some clipboard stuff to try to recreate it from, probably incoherently.

60: "Hilzoy's probably stopping blogging for the same reason that nearly everybody who has been blogging since the beginning has stopped: you run out of things to say and feel like you're just repeating yourself and phoning it in."

Ahem.

Also, June 24, as well as somewhat earlier, on this:

Sobered by the backlash from civilian casualties, the U.S. military is taking steps to tighten restrictions on the use of air power over Afghanistan.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the new U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, will order U.S. and NATO forces to break away from engagements with militants who are hiding among villagers as part of a comprehensive "tactical directive," a coalition official said Tuesday.

"It will cover all the aspects that can make a difference to improve security for the Afghan people and make the use of force as safe as possible given an enemy that is on purpose trying to cause death to civilians," said Brig. Gen. Richard Blanchette, chief spokesman for NATOs International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.

This evolution reflects an understanding that the Talibans strategy includes intentionally staging attacks that will lead to civilian casualties, he said, while pointing out the directive is the latest of many that show the coalition is a "learning organization."

The order, first reported by the New York Times, amounts to one of the most concrete U.S. efforts to date to protect backcountry Afghans from harm and reverse backsliding public support for the counterinsurgency effort.

"Air power contains the seeds of our own destruction if we do not use it responsibly," Gen. McChrystal told a group of senior officers during a video conference last week, according to the paper. "We can lose this fight."

An unclassified report released by the military conceded that a failure by U.S. forces to follow strict operational procedures in air strikes early last month in western Afghanistans Farah province "likely" caused the death of at least 26 civilians, adding that the actual toll will never be determined.

I find it's helpful, when making assertions, to provide support for them, myself. YMMV.

143: Apo: "What we want with Afghanistan is the ability to strike Iran."

Setting aside that the SOFA specifically forbids us from using Iraq as a base to attack any other country, and setting aside that I see no reason to believe Obama wants a war with Iran (this reminds me a lot of all the people who with no modifiers at all claimed as an absolute fact that Bush would be invading Iran, or at least launching air strikes on Iran, and on the basis that so many of the same people claim that those who were wrong about supporting the war on Iraq should shut up and never be listened to again, tend to, at least, lack credibility in their own version of false claims), I'd note that we already invaded Afghanistan and toppled its government without any need to occupy countries surrounding it. Why Apo or anyone else would think we'd need Afghanistan if we wanted to launch strikes on Iran, I have no idea. We could do it from Turkey, from Guam, and from freaking Missouri.

And why on earth would we want to invade Iran, anyway? Because Iraq worked out so well?

286 is perfectly correct, as should be known to anyone who has read any of the books on the history of what led up to the Afghan war, such as Steve Coll's Ghost Wars. Al Qaeda and the Taliban had become inextricably meshed, down to literal intermarriage of families of leaders. For god's sake, Mullah Omar married Osama bin Laden's eldest daughter. (Admittedly, bin Laden has a lot of kids.) Osama bin Laden reportedly married one of Omar's daughters, although that's always been denied by the Taliban, so who knows?

But the political and military integration of the two prior to our invasion is extremely well documented.

There's whole books and books written about all this history. In 2009, people still don't know the basics about al Qaeda and the Taliban? Read Mullah Omar himself. None of this is remotely news.

Integration:

[...] Al-Qaeda enjoyed the Taliban's protection and a measure of legitimacy as part of their Ministry of Defense, although only Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates recognized the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.

I recommend reading Osama's collected statements and using the search feature on the left sidebart to search for "Taliban" and see what he has to say about them. Start on page 83. Page 86, where he explicitly states that they are not independent from the Taliban, but "the truth of the matter is that we are not here independently, but are here in a State that includes the Commander of The Faithful [....]"

Also, read Coll.

I admire the fact that you're man enough to admit right up front that you're a big whirly-eyed Obamabot, ari.

I find it's helpful, when making assertions, to provide support for them, myself. YMMV.

It would be nice, if you feel the reasonable need to point out that you have provided support and others making presumably contrary assertions have not, if you weren't a dick about it, Gary.

So much for a quiet summer evening.

Ari, you don't have to read the threads outloud.

339: I didn't say anything about being big, Walt. But while you're here, I meant to note, way upthread, that I entirely agree with your 61. In fact, that comment made me want to kiss you deeply. (Take that, Dr. King Witt; all you got was an air kiss.)

Sorry: one of the bits that fell out of the reconstruction of my comment was that that part was in response to quoting some dozen of "inaccessible island rail"'s arguments-by-assertion. I lost track of how many comments iir made, but not a single one bothered to make an argument supported with a single fact or cite. That was what I was replying to in mentioning that I find it helpful to offer support for assertions; in context, I don't think it was particularly dickish, but you couldn't be expected to read the context that I let fall out, so sorry about that.

(Geez, Firefox used to retain text after you accidentally closed and reopened a tab; whatever happened to that?)

Given the dickishness of 340, 344 is admirably measured! Uh, sorry.

343: Ooo. That's gotta sting for Witt.

Christ, now we have to source our assertions? What sort of dystopian nightmare is this? Sourced assertions are a nightmare from which I'm trying to awake.

That's bullshit.

But I have a source for bullshit.

Is it a bull?

Sources, Gary? That's some audaciously ridiculous bullshit, you know.

Indeed, heebie!

308

... My point, however, was that there is no such thing as democracy without the participation of women. ...

So what should we call the form of government the US had in 1900?

353: A half-democracy. Ask a hard one.

Ahem.

You're one of the few, though, Gary, and I admire that. An awful lot of of people have run out of steam.

Setting aside that the SOFA specifically forbids us from using Iraq as a base to attack any other country

The US gov't probably would set it aside if it needed to.

why on earth would we want to invade Iran, anyway?

It doesn't make sense to me, either, Gary, but there's a whole industry of influential people who have spent their entire professional careers advocating for just that, so I'm not much hand-wavey about the prospect.

Anyhow, we can launch air strikes from anywhere, sure, but you have to move troops through land. And maybe it just turned out that we have large invasion forces tasked with potentially endless duties on borders that create a perfect two-front strategy. And I'm not saying that sarcastically; blundering into that position may well have been the case. Now that we're there, though, I don't really trust the intentions of anybody in the US government, my side or not.

So what should we call the form of government the US had in 1900?

Racist misogyno-plutocracy, of course. What do you call it?

353: I don't know, Shearer, but when you find a term feel free to modify it as apporopriate to recognize each additional group that has been granted the franchise since 1781. And others hopefully to be given such in the future.

Meantime, I'm going to be over here in the corner appreciating Gary's tireless dedication.

A democracy by nineteenth century standards - like France pre 1945 or Switzerland pre 1970.

Setting aside that the SOFA specifically forbids us from using Iraq as a base to attack any other country

I'm asking from a position of total ignorance here, but haven't there been other cases in the past where the US had such agreements, and yet used the country (with wink/nod acquiescence of its leadership, and/or with stonefaced US denial that it had happened) anyway?

Granted, it's one thing to send in a small Special Forces team for a brief operation, and another to launch a land war, but am I crazy in thinking there is precedent (sadly predating GWB) for doing this?

I want Witt to think well of me.

And yet you misspell "inadvertently." Tsk, tsk.

I struggled with that, I really did.

A hard one would be the status of England after the Magna Carta. A 0.0005 democracy? A 0.00000000005 democracy? Do we need to break out the scientific notation? A femtodemocracy?

According to Wikipedia, the entire Magna Carta remained in force until 1826, but since then almost the entirety of it has been repealed. I can't decide if the first fact or the second fact is more bizarre.

There's an interview with Lester Bangs where he says that he would suck Lou Reed's dick, for the same reason he would kiss the feet of the authors of the Magna Carta. All I know is that if the author of Metal Machine Music merits a blow job, surely the inventors of habeas corpus merit analingus.

I don't know that it's been "repealed" so much as been subsumed into other legislation that was clearer and broader, at the time when that came into fashion.

All I know is that if the author of Metal Machine Music merits a blow job, surely the inventors of habeas corpus merit analingus.

Shame that this is a bit long for a new mouseover text.

I suppose I'm too literal about these things, but I can't help but think that of course I'd suck Lou Reed's dick, because at the very least then I'd have a great story about blowing Lou Reed. A celebrity has to be pretty damn repulsive not to be worth having sex with for the story.

Well he's a friend and we're so proud of you
Your famous friend, well, I blew him before you,

when you find a term feel free to modify it as apporopriate to recognize each additional group that has been granted the franchise since 1781.

If I had been a bit more up-to-speed on this, I would have won on Jeopardy. Or at least not flamed out so dramatically in Final.

Wrongshore is John Lewis.

Awesome. Can I be John L. Lewis on alternate Thursdays? And can we get a Bayard Rustin up in here?

"'m asking from a position of total ignorance here, but haven't there been other cases in the past where the US had such agreements, and yet used the country (with wink/nod acquiescence of its leadership, and/or with stonefaced US denial that it had happened) anyway?"

The U.S. has certainly engaged in a huge variety of types of covert missions in a huge number of countries, both sometimes with the winking acquiescence of some portion of the leadership, and sometimes totally in secret (at least from the public), to be sure.

And I certainly wasn't maintaining that there are no possible circumstances in which I can imagine the U.S. violating the SOFA, even under Obama (as opposed to, say, he and Biden get killed in 2010, after somehow-or-other (let's say rigged Diebold voting machines), John Boehner ascends to the presidency). I'm just saying that under current, reasonably foreseeable, circumstances, I don't see any reason to think some massive incursion or invasion would take place. I don't see any reason we're going to, say, attack Iran's nuclear facilities any time in the near future, to be specific about the most talked-about scenario. For one thing, their degree of uranium enrichment just isn't all that high as yet.

But more generally, if we want to start listing all the treaties and agreements the U.S. has violated over the past couple of centuries, we'll be here a week.

And, naturally, that whole "secret bombing" of Cambodia and Laos springs to mind.

"They weren't secret. 'Look, Martha, here come the bombs,' I said."

"That's right. He did."

(Cambodia we never actually agreed by treaty was neutral, although Sihanouk asked a bunch of times for a treaty about it, and the full history of that is immensely complicated. In the end both North Vietnam, and the U.S., at different times -- NV in 1967, the U.S. in 1969 -- made unilateral statements recognizing Cambodian neutrality, and both proceeded to completely ignore their declarations, largely on the grounds that the other side was doing it first, and they had to respond, etc. But both sides claimed in public they were respecting that neutrality, and the other side was the only side violating it, etc.)

355: "You're one of the few, though, Gary, and I admire that. An awful lot of of people have run out of steam. "

I hate change. Where's Ogged and Unf, anyway?

An awful lot of of people have run out of steam.

Goddamn steampunk cyborgs.

303: "Let's not equate Obama with Bush" == "Let's keep those colored folks from voting"? Gee, thanks.

I'm reading about the history of various British constitutional provisions. They all have completely bizarre histories. For example. the current office of the Prime Minister started as a seat on a committee that was introduced to prevent any one minister from becoming too powerful. Oops.

372: I apologize again for violating the analogy ban. I used to think it was nonsensical, but there actually are uses to it.

For the record, and not to beat this into the ground, I was trying to say something like:

"Let's not equate Obama with Bush" = "Let's find a less inflammatory way of asking for civil rights."

And to be even more clear, I'm pretty sure that tempermentally, had I been around in 1775-ish, I'd have been a Royalist. So I'm not trying to claim a special moral ground here -- just emphasizing that without the flamethrowers, the measured ones will not get nearly so far in their goals.

356

Racist misogyno-plutocracy, of course. What do you call it?

Better than we can realistically hope for in Afghanistan.

374: Royalist s/b Loyalist. And I doubt very much that you'd have been either. Regardless, I'm done picking on you now.

374: just emphasizing that without the flamethrowers, the measured ones will not get nearly so far in their goals.

Any number of people made the argument in the Sixties that the Black Panthers and other militants had the establishment taking MLK much more seriously. (Which is why I find the idea of the "Overton Window" somewhat less than original.)

I started a follow-on comment to my last one above, but ran out of battery. It's actually pretty important that we beat Obama on his hearsay contentions (OK, I'm sure he has no personal knowledge at all of this -- it's clear enough that the government strategy in the habeas litigation is to stall wherever possible, and resist where stalling isn't possible: they want the IART to be the live forum here, and not the district courts.) A court ruling that he's* full of crap -- and he is -- is way better for American democracy that a voluntary withdrawal of the position, leaving it in the quiver to be brought out later.

The clients, of course, would rather go home than sit in a jail for an extra couple of years while we go through the appeals process, just so we can get our constitutional system straightened out.

On the AQ/Taliban question, they are clearly allied and related, but that doesn't make the act of one the act of the other. And I'm not sure I believe anyone who's principal goal is PR about anything. There were a bunch of different things going on in Afghanistan pre-9/11, and I hear about people in our jail who weren't in either AQ or a T regiment, but weren't shepherds either.

* More properly, "they are." Respondents in the litigation are Obama, Gates, the current commanders of (a) the base and (b) JTF.

I don't think 60.2 is either accurate or fair, as applied in this instance.

"On the AQ/Taliban question, they are clearly allied and related, but that doesn't make the act of one the act of the other. "

Particularly not any more; but in 2001, very closely in many cases. By "inextricably meshed," I meant "intermingled" and "co-dependent" and "intertwined"; these are all different concepts than "identical," of course.

Royalist s/b Loyalist.

If Witt's Japanese, you're in so much trouble.

Better than we can realistically hope for in Afghanistan.

This is not unfair, but the broader point is that if there's anything in our revolutionary system worth exporting, it's popular sovereignty combined with minority protections. And I'm thinking more of the Bill of Rights kind than the procedural obstacle courses, lookin' at you filibuster. If there's a benign way to export democracy, it surely requires a correction to the broadly accepted idea that elections=democracy. (As does labor law.)

Wrongshore: This is not unfair, but the broader point is that if there's anything in our revolutionary system worth exporting, it's popular sovereignty combined with minority protections.

Well, it would be, but what about DOMA and the various other anti-marriage forces? Three Presidents in a row have now upheld as a principle that the majority have a right to withhold a basic civil right from a minority group; hasn't the US just given up on the idea of minority protections at this point?

Most Americans seem to be arguing - given Obama has made clear he no longer supports minority protections for LGBT people - that DOMA will fall only when a majority finally agree they will no longer withhold the basic civil right of marriage from LGBT; not as a matter of principle.

Note to apo, iir and others: if you seriously think that occupying Afghanistan as a stepping stone to invading Iran makes any kind of strategic or logistic sense, you are ignorant of the way these things work. This is a scenario of Red Dawn-like levels of implausibility. Look at a map - and this time not one that just has borders marked, but one that has other things like roads. And mountain ranges.

LizardBreath: Second, come on -- you're complaining that it took a couple of weeks after he took office to get control of what was happening at Guantanamo?

Well, yeah, the President of the United States is real short-handed. Obviously, he just didn't have the staff available to do anything about it until, eh, well...

Seriously, LB, is this an argument? Guantanamo Bay is the most visible rotting eyesore of the US attack on international law and human rights. It's not the worst - the worst we know of is Bagram Airbase, from which even the Red Cross are banned, and which Obama intends to expand so that he can continue to ship extra-judicial prisoners there - but it is the most viisble. There were prisoners on hunger strike in Guantanamo Bay being force-fed daily - by a method that Amnesty International describes as torture - whose force-feedings continued: apparently no one at Guantanamo Bay, neither prisoners nor as far as we know prison staff, that there was anything new to tell the prisoners about what might happen to them now Bush was no longer President.

Apparently Obama regarded the suffering and despair of a few hundred prisoners for whom his administration was now responsible as something that could wait for a while - who really cares, when you're far enough away not to hear the screams, how a helpless prisoner may be suffering? Certainly not your average American, and Obama is evidently no better than any other average American in this respect.

But yeah. If the issue were merely that he didn't care enough about fixing it to do anything about it for a few weeks, I'd say that was an average kind of problem: he's a busy man, and it's not like these kidnap and torture victims are anyone important: if their lawyers try to complain they can always be prosecuted, and the best these victims of Bush criminality deserve is a kangaroo court.

My own government is complicit in this cover-up: I'm not trying to come the moral Brit here. But people have been tortured in Guantanamo Bay. Obama is openly against the torturers and their commanders being investigated and prosecuted. Obama condones torture.

If there's a benign way to export democracy, it surely requires a correction to the broadly accepted idea that elections=democracy.

This. I was afraid I'd end up saying it myself.

According to Wikipedia, the entire Magna Carta remained in force until 1826, but since then almost the entirety of it has been repealed. I can't decide if the first fact or the second fact is more bizarre.

The first. Have you ever read Magna fucking Carta.

If any earl, baron, or other person that holds lands directly of the Crown, for military service, shall die, and at his death his heir shall be of full age and owe a `relief', the heir shall have his inheritance on payment of the ancient scale of `relief'. That is to say, the heir or heirs of an earl shall pay £100 for the entire earl's barony, the heir or heirs of a knight l00s. at most for the entire knight's `fee', and any man that owes less shall pay less, in accordance with the ancient usage of `fees'

Heirs may be given in marriage, but not to someone of lower social standing. Before a marriage takes place, it shall be' made known to the heir's next-of-kin.

If a man dies owing money to Jews, his wife may have her dower and pay nothing towards the debt from it.

Earls and barons shall be fined only by their equals, and in proportion to the gravity of their offence.

All fish-weirs shall be removed from the Thames, the Medway, and throughout the whole of England, except on the sea coast.

All barons who have founded abbeys, and have charters of English kings or ancient tenure as evidence of this, may have guardianship of them when there is no abbot, as is their due.

We will remove completely from their offices the kinsmen of Gerard de Athée, and in future they shall hold no offices in England.

No one shall be arrested or imprisoned on the appeal of a woman for the death of any person except her husband.

383: I've never made the argument that Afghanistan is being occupied as a staging ground for a war with Iran. I've made the argument here, repeatedly, that our war with Afghanistan was immoral under Bush, and continues to be immoral under Obama; that it accomplishes nothing but the slaughter of innocent people and the further radicalization of the region; that Obama promised to escalate that war, and has done so; that there exists no evidence to believe that Barack Obama has a secret plan to withdraw from Afghanistan, as some liberals seem to believe.

I believe that much of the hope surrounding Barack Obama stems from projection and identity politics. And when I say "identity politics" I don't mean "first black president" identity politics, I mean the way in which Barack Obama has been coded as the superficial opposite of everything George Bush was - the well-spoken cosmopolitan college professor versus the oafish hick frat boy. He culturally clicks as "one of us" in a way that Bush clicked with the GOP base as "one of them," and that's lead a lot of liberals to cut Obama way more slack than they ever should have, out of a feeling of cultural solidarity and affinity. So when we hear about him expanding torture camps in Afghanistan and maintaining extraordinary rendition and escalating bombing runs that kill innocent people, we don't react the way we would if Bush had done it - we're inclined to grant a perceived member of our tribe a lot more leeway when it comes to these things.

But of course, Barack Obama isn't a member of our tribe - he's a member of George Bush's tribe, a member of the ruling elite. It's hard to consciously remember this because everything about our society is set up to make us to forget that that particular distinction exists. We're encouraged to identify with the people who rule us, even though they've nothing to do with us, have nothing in common with us and certainly don't have our best intentions at heart.

As for Iran: I believe it's very possible that the Obama administration will bomb Iran, or at least allow Israel to do so (see, for example, Joe Biden's recent comments on this subject). I certainly believe that the antiwar movement - or whatever remains of it - should be as vigilant regarding an attack on Iran today as it was a year or two ago.

you are ignorant of the way these things work

Well, yes. I am.

I believe it's very possible that the Obama administration will bomb Iran, or at least allow Israel to do so

Not quite the same thing, those two. I mean, I believe that Obama will beat Tibetan independence protesters to death, or at least allow China to do so.

But still, these are just the large bases. If it isn't a conscious encirclement strategy, it sure is an uncanny resemblance.

"But of course, Barack Obama isn't a member of our tribe - he's a member of George Bush's tribe, a member of the ruling elite. It's hard to consciously remember this because everything about our society is set up to make us to forget that that particular distinction exists."

I'm curious: have you read Dreams From My Father, or not? If so, do you believe it's all lies, or do you simply believe that he's changed utterly since he wrote it? If so, do you have any narrative to account for such dramatic changes?

Please do understand that I'm not asking this in any sense that I believe Obama is other than a politician, full of compromises, generally uninterested in surrendering executive power, or that I am otherwise not highly critical of him in many ways.

Ditto that I strongly believe that vast amounts of outside pressure will be required upon him, and Congress, to even attempt to accomplish various goals I hope or at least desire to see accomplished.

I just find your statement difficult to reconcile with his account of himself in that book, and thus my questions.

do you simply believe that he's changed utterly since he wrote it?

He did write it before beginning his political career, and I'd think the process of becoming the most powerful person on Earth might well change a person (I have not read the book).

389: I think you're fooled by the fact that the map looks that way because Iran is the only country in the region to avoid having American bases.

I mean, I believe that Obama will beat Tibetan independence protesters to death, or at least allow China to do so.

There's a bit of a difference here, in that (1) the United States does not fund the Chinese military, and (2) the Chinese military does not have to fly over Iraqi airspace, with the permission of the United States, in order to beat Tibetan independence protesters to death.

Apo, the U.S. has approximately 702 overseas military bases in about 130 countries. That's not counting U.S. bases. It's difficult to find a country we're not encircling with our military capabilities.

One could make just as good a case, on this evidence, that we intend to invade Qatar, or Syria, or Turkey, or Russia, but I don't think any of those are likely events, either.

And we simply have no capacity for a ground occupation of Iran. Our Army is little more capable of doing that than we're capable of occupying China or Russia. Iran isn't, of course, at all as large as those two countries, but it's large enough that we couldn't possibly occupy it. Neither can I imagine what we could do by marching a ground force into Iran from Afghanistan. It just makes no military sense whatever. What would they do?

If people want to hypothesize about air strikes and the temporary insertion, for a day or three, of some commando strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities, well, I don't think that's likely, either, but that's a matter of likely or not. What you're suggesting is a matter of either impossible or insane. These are different orders of argument.

Heck, I'd believe that we're going to march from Afghanistan into Islamabad as part of a joint plan with India before I believe we'd try marching into Iran from Afghanistan. That would be more militarily and logistically plausible.

Which is not very much.

First we'd have to conjure up something on the order of 1,000,000 ground troops to even begin to occupy Iran. Even a mission to just "do a regime change" and bug out immediately would take something like another 500,000 ground forces we don't have. We couldn't manage to come up with even another 200,000, or 100,000, without a draft, and several years to train them all.

And we still wouldn't want to drive them in from Afghanistan over land in trucks, tanks, APCs, etc.

If we were just going to hit Iran's nuclear sites, we don't need Afghanistan. So, yes, I'd say that the fact that we invaded Afghanistan was because of September 11th, not a longterm plan to invade Iran.

I would not deny that a greater military capability against Iran was in the heads of those who thought invading Iraq was a great idea. It was.

But:
a) that was when they thought that Iraq would be done with in a matter of months;
b) that was when Iraq was therefore to serve more as an example of "see what we can do?" political threat than as a direct threat of further war;
c) anyone who thinks that threat is now credible is nuts;
d) those guys aren't in charge any more. This truly does make a difference.

In the end, that there's a possibility of the U.S. eventually, under some circumstances, making limited air strikes and some quick insertions of commando teams into Iran, I wouldn't argue. But it would be a matter of being in an out in a couple of weeks at most, and I think the odds of this happening are for now just incredibly weak; very dramatic changes would have to happen, and I don't think such changes are possible in the next two-year window.

That is, specifically, Iran would have to reveal that it's had a secret program that has enabled it to suddenly obtain enough weaponized U235 or plutonium to make a significant number of nuclear weapons, and they'd have to have set off a test of at least one or two, and they'd have to demonstrate that they have missiles of carrying those weapons to, oh, at least Europe, if not that they're ICBMs fully capable of reaching the U.S.

I don't believe *any* of that that's technically possible in the next two years. Eight years, maybe. Six, remotely. But not sooner.

That's setting aside their whole religious prohibition on having nuclear weapons, which would be difficult domestically to back away from, and setting aside that a cost-benefit analysis suggests that they're far better off, as I've written at great length at ObWi several times, getting to the stage that Japan has long been at: having enough enriched fuel, and a design, that would enable them to, within some months, or maybe even weeks, put together some bombs, but not doing so. This would give them all the deterrent they need, and little of the tsuris of actually going all North Korean. It's jut a scenario that makes infinitely more sense to me.

And they show no capability of having enough enriched uranium, let alone plutonium, for nuclear weapons, for several years, despite all the scary talk from those who brought us Saddam Hussein's nuclear program. Neither are there any reasons to believe that even if they had the necessary nuclear material, and the right bomb designs, having bomb designs and making an actual bomb or several bombs is the easy part. Making bombs small enough to fit on missiles is the hard part. And I don't think they're going to get very far trying to sneak large bombers from Iran to -- where? Drop a nuke on Iraq? Blow up Jerusalem? Without us or the Israelis intercepting the bombers?

So absent that threat, why would we be doing the whole strike on Iran thing at all in the first place? Because Paul Wolfowitz is hypnotically controlling Robert Gates? Or what?

"(I have not read the book)."

I really couldn't more highly recommend reading Dreams From My Father to anyone who has any interest in trying to understand Barack Obama.

Also, it's just a goddamn good book from any perspective: insightful, wise, moving, and, as we say in the publishing business, a real page turner. Gary Farber says check it out.

389: I think you're fooled by the fact that the map looks that way because Iran is the only country in the region to avoid having American bases.

What about Turkmenistan? Think of the possibilities. We could have lasers shooting out of the gold rotating Turkmenbashi statue's eyes whenever it's facing Iran!

Even a mission to just "do a regime change" and bug out immediately would take something like another 500,000 ground forces we don't have.

Whatever happened to the good old days, when all it took was one guy, some money, and a willing Shah?

396: Reveal Cheney's double secret CIA program will ya?

394: Gary, I'd be much more sanguine about American policy towards Iran if Obama talked about that country the way you do. But he doesn't. He talks about Iran's attempts to build a nuclear weapon, and "the world's" need to stop this, as though the 2007 NIE had never happened. He continues to trot out the line about "all options on the table."

395: Gary, at the time Dreams From My Father was written, Obama was not yet a state senator, much less president of the United States. This is a bit like saying I'll understand the motives behind the Reagan administration more when I watch "Bedtime for Bonzo."

353
So what should we call the form of government the US had in 1900?

Undemocratic. That's what we should call such a Constitution and legal code being used by some nation in existence today, at least. At the time it would have been called democratic and the lack of enfranchisement for women would have been no obstacle to that.

The meaning of "democracy," like the meanings of "cruel," "marriage" and many other terms, changes as the culture it's being used in changes. In 1792 America was a democracy even though the right to vote didn't extend to white male non-landowners in some states, because it was the only major democracy in the world.

Democratic peace theory is tautological sophistry when stated as an absolute law, but there are merits to the more nuanced forms of it, and one side benefit of the field has been the study of what it actually means to be democratic. Just holding elections aren't enough. What is enough has changed as progress has marched on. Some go as far as to say that a country isn't a democracy until the political party in power has been displaced by challengers in an election; by this logic, the U.S. wasn't a democracy until Thomas Jefferson was inaugurated in 1801, since Washington led the revolution that brought him to power and John Adams was his chosen successor. That definition becomes attractive if you think about all those countries with the same party winning elections uninterrupted for decades, but isn't really useful for evaluating a country in the real world because it relies on a condition that can only be met years after a regime is already in place.

Alternately, one might say that being democratic is an ongoing process, and America in 1900 as regards the role of women was being democratic at least as much as any other nominal democracy and well more so than any country that officially recognized a different form of government, therefore it was a democracy.

400
I'll understand the motives behind the Reagan administration more when I watch "Bedtime for Bonzo."

You seem to think that disproves the case against judging Obama-as-president by reading Dreams of My Father but if anything, I'd say it reinforces it.

(Admittedly, I haven't seen Bedtime for Bonzo and I wasn't paying attention to politics when Reagan was in office, but come on, low-hanging fruit much?)

What about Turkmenistan?

We use a base in Mary, Turkmenistan. Anyhow, to Gary's 394, you're talking about a shorter time period than my (perhaps ill-informed and wrongheaded) conspiracy theory. The only part of Iran you have to occupy is the southwest, and then only once the oil shortages start in earnest, which are still some years off. Troops on the eastern border have uses beyond marching into cities, including embargoes and supply lines. But again, I'm talking out of my hat and do want to have the logical holes pointed out.

I doubt that Iran's nuclear capability is really what's driving most of the invasion-cheerers, just as WMD and democracy wasn't the real impetus for most of the Iraq sword-rattlers. Convenient distractions, though.

400: But if you're talking about 'tribal' affiliation, thinking of that as changing after your late thirties? forty? is odd. As the most powerful person in the world, Obama's loyalties may have shifted; his incentives have certainly changed a lot; relying too much on tribal identification is silly. But he's still born, raised, and lived as an adult as a middle-middle-class multiracial guy who went to excellent schools and became a professional by being an academic superstar. If 'tribal affiliation' means anything, he's not "a member of George Bush's tribe, a member of the ruling elite."

I'm not saying that we should trust him unthinkingly, we really shouldn't, but he's not part of that multigenerational elite of wealth and power that George Bush exemplified. I'm not sure that that's relevant to anything, but it's true.

If 'tribal affiliation' means anything, he's not "a member of George Bush's tribe, a member of the ruling elite."

If the president of the United States isn't part of the ruling elite, who is?

Doesn't "tribal affiliation" have anything to do with personal experiences, literal family members, lifelong network of friends and acquaintances? That doesn't evaporate in a year, or in a decade. Obama's a member of the ruling elite now, but as a matter of personal identity he really is someone who's spent a lot of one-on-one, individual time with people who are really, genuinely, way outside that elite.

Like I keep on saying, that's not everything, and I'm not sure it's much. But it's real, and it's something.

If the president of the United States isn't part of the ruling elite, who is?

The Elders of Zion.

On supporting one's arguments.

Pure coincidence to this thread that I just read this and posted what I did.

"We could have lasers shooting out of the gold rotating Turkmenbashi statue's eyes whenever it's facing Iran!"

Oh, you so tempt me to post links here to some of my past Turkmenbashi posts!

I miss him.

I mean, I'm glad for the people of Turkmenistan that President-For-Life Beloved Leader Saparmurat Turkmenbashi the Great, aka President Saparmyrat Atayevich Niyazov is dead, but, really, their suffering was a small price to pay for my ability to write posts mocking him, don't you think?

I have a picture of the revolving gold statute in this one, by the way.

Ah, the good old days of blogging in 2004.

"This is a bit like saying I'll understand the motives behind the Reagan administration more when I watch 'Bedtime for Bonzo.'"

Except that Bedtime For Bonzo wasn't personally written by Reagan as his autobiography, and filled with endless insights into why he's the person he is, and what made him believe the things he does.

Aside from that, that they're totally different things, indeed, they're exactly the same thing.

If Barack Obama were an actor, and it turned out Bill Ayers wrote his book.

What was that about not arguing from analogy again?

Also, I'm very impressed by your ability to explain what knowledge can and can't be gained from a book you've never read. I wish I could do that.

Probably a non-sequitur by now, but a book about Afghani opium.

apo: He did write it before beginning his political career, and I'd think the process of becoming the most powerful person on Earth might well change a person

Oh yeah.

I do not think that Obama was kidding us all along when he said he was going to support DOMA, or repeal DADT, or - to move on to wider issues - when he claimed to oppose torture.

Just that it's patent he got to be President, and he joined a different tribe. Once upon a time he probably genuinely was a person who cared about constitutional law and civil rights - and basic human rights. But he's now the President of the United States, and all the "givens" of his new tribe are against caring about stuff like that. We can judge Obama by what he does now, better than by what he wrote back when he was a neighborhood kind of constitutional lawyer guy from Chicago.

...oppose DOMA. :-(

Jes?

413 and 414 are me.

We can judge him by "what he does now" in a few years. It's a work in progress barely begun, right now. Right now we should all be assuming the worst and trying to create reality rather than describe it, as Donald Rumsfeld would say.

415: I did not intend to post anonymously. Let alone twice.

In Dreams from My Father, Barack Obama didn't seem to have any interest in extending American imperialism. He seemed a lot more concerned about figuring out his racial identity and in determining what his purpose in life was. And this matters for making sense of American military matters how?

Ronald Reagan was born in a town of a few hundred people before World War I began. His dad was a shoe salesman. Hence, Iran-Contra and supply-side economics.

418: No problem, just confirming your identity (which was clear from content and style, of course.)

I'm not sure I understand iir's overall argument, but on Afghantistan, while all war can probably be cast as immoral, I tend to think, given the 9/11 and the al-Qaeda and the what-not, invading Afghanistan in 2001 was probably necessary, and almost certainly the best of a bad set of possibilities (I remember saying after 9/11 that if we got out of the aftermath without using nuclear weapons on anyone, I'd be happy; such was my optimism). I'm not sure that Obama's current plan for Afghanistan (increased anti-Taliban campaigns on the ground combined with hearts and minds work) will work, but it's probably worth trying. Given how bad things got there after we redirected most of our attention and resources to Iraq, it's worth at least trying to break up Taliban warlordism and control over the opium trade. You don't have to commit to killing every single Taliban fighter to have this work. Yes they can always move on to other areas, but banditry and predation are a considerable step down from having consolidated region to control and terrorize (consider the amount of violence in eastern Congo currently versus the levels four or five years ago during the height of the civil war).

Also this different tribe stuff is nonsense. Yes, of course (as apo says, by defintion), the president is part of the ruling elite. But the American ruling class isn't just one thing. Exploiting its divisions are one of the tools we have for producing useful change, and you have to recognize that those exist to do so.

Now I have to go find out why the Magna Carta was about fish-weirs. I get the feeling I'm going to have a hard time tracking that down.

Jesurgislac:
I understand your impatience and I share it, but did you listen to Obama's June 29th speech? You can argue that he's going about this all wrong, but I don't think you can say that he's publicly abandoned his commitments to equality. As in all things, it's still on him to actually follow through.

422: My off-the-cuff guess is that valuable river fish belonged to the crown, while river traffic was beneficial to the barons: that looks like a remedy for "Goddamnit, we can't get our barges of wool to London because the king's got the river all blocked up to catch sturgeon in his weirs." This is based on no actual historical (or piscatory) knowledge, just where I'd start looking.

it's worth at least trying to break up Taliban warlordism

Does this even make sense? My (limited, so I could easily be wrong) understanding was that mostly the warlords were the guys who we supported against the Russians and/or the ones who filled the power vacuum after Russia left --- who made such a mess of the place in general that the Taliban could uproot them one by one.

Some of those warlords have been whitewashed into government positions now and were part of the "northern alliance", but it's mostly the same jokers....

Three Presidents in a row have now upheld as a principle that the majority have a right to withhold a basic civil right from a minority group; hasn't the US just given up on the idea of minority protections at this point?

My narrative of gay social progress in America is not one in which Presidents Washington through Bush I maintained a posture of benign neglect towards same-sex relations until bad kings Bill, George and Barry clamped down on things. Indeed, it has very little to do with Presidents at all.

405
If the president of the United States isn't part of the ruling elite, who is?

The president of the United States is part of the ruling elite, but the ruling elite isn't a tribal affiliation. At least, not entirely.

Lots of polls have been done over the years about attitudes toward gays, and they all show a similar trend: people have become more gay friendly at the rate of about 1% per year.

The president of the United States is part of the ruling elite,

but an ex-president need not be.

I thought Obama would move cautiously, and he has. Too slowly for my tastes, but then, electing me would be a complete disaster.

The idea that by election someone becomes a member of a different tribe, ex officio, drains meaning from the word. And anyway, I think the more accurate description here is that he's surrounded by members of the other tribe, and is moving slowly in deference. Too slowly, but still in the right direction. The long arc of history, and all that.

Speaking of the long arc, while one can find plenty to fault in the MC, the struggle with the Stuarts, the US Constitution, revamping of the compact in 1868, the New Deal, the Warren Court, etc -- none of these things, and no developments since have brought about utopia -- the point isn't the point, it's the direction of the vector.

I disagree that radicalism always advances the ball in the right direction, because there are backlashes. Each situation is different -- sometimes radicalism works, sometimes it doesn't. You certainly don't want to cripple your own side with excessive attack, because people on the other side get to take advantage of that as well. That is, don't draw a bunch of blood, and then complain that your guy is anemic.

(It's true that to a Labrador retriever, there's no material difference between Bush and Obama -- both can throw a tennis ball into a river, and give a good pat when you bring it back. One hopes, of course, to deal with the world at a more nuanced level than a Lab, but some folks seem to like simplicity.)

but an ex-president need not be.

Or so the Freemasons would have you believe.

Do you consider Jimmy Carter to be part of the ruling elite? They sure don't.

Jimmy Carter came in here, and trashed the place, by trying to encourage morality and planning for the future, and it wasn't his place.

Democracy isn't an on/off switch, but a spectrum of expressions, including the question of the degree to which citizens actually participate, beyond the right to do so. The Magna Carta seems at best to have been a beginning of procedural government, but that's not nothing. I'd describe myself as both a radical (a socialist) and, where possible, a procedural liberal. Procedural government without democracy is just ruling classes taking longer to do what they were going to do in the first place. Democracy with procedural government more often than not winds us up in terror-town.

347:emphasizing that without the flamethrowers, the measured ones will not get nearly so far in their goals
Especially if you goal is to set things on fire.

but did you listen to Obama's June 29th speech?

I read the transcript, and I thought, gosh, you'd never think he's talking to (among others) a man who is about to be dishonorably discharged from the military because Obama can't be arsed to do anything to oppose Don't Ask Don't Tell. About two hundred people (SLDN estimates) have been dishonorably discharged for their sexual orientation since Obama was inaugurated: action from Obama or his administration to protest or prevent this a big round zero.

I thought initially his action to get same-sex partners of federal employees was a way of opposing DOMA, but it turns out it was only a memo effectively supporting the principle of DOMA but suggesting that same-sex partners should get whatever little scraps the US federal government can afford to mete out in difficult t imes like these. Had Obama been concerned about opposing DOMA, the person assigned to write a DoJ brief in support of DOMA (if this were actually necessary) should not have been a man committed to promoting homophobic attitudes -

So whatever sweet stuff he says to the selected leaders of the GLBT communities in the US, plus one soldier about to get the sack, means a big round zero.

Wrongshore: Indeed, it has very little to do with Presidents at all.

Yes, well, I did consider being more nuanced about that, but then I thought: we are specifically discussimg Presidents.

If Obama wants to convince LGBT people he hasn't reneged on his promise of support to them, he shouldn't be making a speech like this at the Gay Pride Night at the White House: he should be making it at the White House National Prayer Breakfast, to the most right-wing Christian audience he can find.

"without"

433: Carter also trashed my favorite rabbit with a paddle.

You certainly don't want to cripple your own side with excessive attack, because people on the other side get to take advantage of that as well. That is, don't draw a bunch of blood, and then complain that your guy is anemic.

This seems almost right, but not exactly. I don't think there's any such thing as attacking "your own side" too much when they're doing the wrong thing. It's about attacking them too indiscriminately -- if your attacks mean anything, then you have to also be looking for areas where praise, or at least non-attack, is deserved. If you're unpleaseable, there's no incentive to try to please you.

The poor bunny used to love swimming, but he hasn't been willing to go into the water since.

Actually, strike that; It doesn't matter what speeches Obama makes - we already know he can make lovely speeches promising all kinds of nice things he's going to do one of these days.

What matters is actual action. And thus far there hasn't been a terrible lot of actual action - and on two pretty solid campaign committments, opposing DOMA and ending DADT, what action there has been has been supportive of discrimination.

LizardBreath: if your attacks mean anything, then you have to also be looking for areas where praise, or at least non-attack, is deserved.

But what I find with Obama is that people seem to think he merits praise for just making nice speeches. Which, I grant you, given who his predecessor was, is something - after the embarassment of Bush and the threat of Palin, a President who actually looks and sounds good on a podium must be a great relief.

But making good speeches about stuff he's going to do one of these days is a countable virtue only as a campaign committment - when he's actually in power, he gets points for following through on his campaign committments, not merely for talking nicely about how someday it's going to the right time to do something about this.

440: I really think you're underestimating the importance of lip service. That doesn't mean you shouldn't be angry about the lack of action, but lip service has a real relationship to the likelihood of future action.

You know, I'm still fine with liberating other countries and peoples, to the extent that we can do it without setting people on fire. Part of being a good global citizen is being involved in what happens with people in other countries

The thing is, there are a whole lot of potentially imperialist assumptions implicit in the belief that you have the capacity or ability to "liberate" other people -- that your way of life is superior to theirs, that you have the capacity to responsibly manage or administer their society, at least temporarily, etc. I think it would be very valuable for us to come up with a way to run "liberation" through some form of international institution/due process as a way of disciplining the implication that we, the U.S., in our awesomeness, have the responsibility to liberate the benighted masses in other countries.

On the women's rights thing in particular, I've heard that used as the preface to the most appallingly prejudiced statements about Islam and Arabs in particular. I can't help thinking to myself that the main action is the anti-Islamic beliefs, not the pro-women ones.

It's like an example thing too. I do have a few vaguely Whiggish beliefs that the arc of history might, sort of, under certain circumstances, bend toward liberation. I think we can provide more genuine aid to that cause by providing a peaceful example of a good society than by hammering other societies for their failures.

Hearing Sotomayor basically being forced to answer "Thank you sir, may I have another?" to that question made my blood boil.

Graham is a sanctimonious dick. But all Sotomayor needs to do is take it for a few days and then she never has to worry about him again.

What matters is actual action. And thus far there hasn't been a terrible lot of actual action - and on two pretty solid campaign committments, opposing DOMA and ending DADT, what action there has been has been supportive of discrimination.

Since both DOMA and DADT have to be repealed by Congress, the President's primary role on both measures *is* providing lip service.

Granted, he could be doing more of that.

444: Hours in the day, right? If he gets universal health care through and does something to help the economy, he might be able to do something about DADT and DOMA. Not that we shouldn't hold him to his promises, but c'mon, the guy's plate is overflowing.

425: some but not all. Gulbuddin Hikmatyar was the ISI's blue eyed boy back in the 80s and is now on the Taliban's side, running round (probably) Baluchistan and hiding out with the Quetta Shura. Rashid Dostum was on the Soviet side, then stuck with Najibullah until 92, then switched sides, then joined the Taliban, then switched again. Ahmed Shah Massud was anti-Soviet (though, being a Tajik, he was never popular with the ISI, and thus missed out on US/Saudi support) and anti-Taliban. Ismail Khan likewise.
Ahmed Rashid is a good start to learn all this stuff, which people really should do before they start holding forth on whether Obama's policy in Afghanistan is feasible or not.

On the women's rights thing in particular, I've heard that used as the preface to the most appallingly prejudiced statements about Islam and Arabs in particular. I can't help thinking to myself that the main action is the anti-Islamic beliefs, not the pro-women ones.

Sometimes, but surely not always?

Generally, for a squishy leftwing liberal, I'm not much with the relativism. Equal legal and political rights regardless of gender or ethnicity? I'm comfortable with wanting to change every society on the planet to that extent. Non-arbitrary and cruel criminal justice? The same. And so on.

I worry about imperialist tactics -- I don't have a whole lot of qualms about the goal of spreading my (conventional leftwing American) conception of human and civil rights worldwide.

LizardBreath: I really think you're underestimating the importance of lip service.

I really think you're overestimating the importance of Obama saying nice things about GLBT equality to an an audience of GLBT people, while doing and saying exactly the opposite when his audience is anyone but GLBT people.

Gabriel: Since both DOMA and DADT have to be repealed by Congress, the President's primary role on both measures *is* providing lip service.

Or signing a couple of executive orders:
- declaring a moratorium on any dishonorable discharges for sexual orientation until a congressional enquiry has established that the US military, unlike the Israeli military or the British military or the Swiss military, to name but three, really cannot function unless GLBT people are forced to serve in the closet.
-And for federal employees, declaring that anyone in a same-sex relationship who is married/civil-unioned, can receive partner benefits as if they were married, even though the federal government does not actually recognize them as married.

But that would actually require a committment to keeping campaign promises to queers. Which Obama doesn't have.

446: Yes, there has been some mixing since then, and I was oversimplifying to the general vector of change, rather than all the specifics (I've read some Rashid's stuff, fwiw, although I don't consider myself to be well informed at all) Obviously many of these guys are very pragmatic about allegiances...

I guess I was just questioning "Taliban warlordism" as any sort of reasonable summary at all.

LizardBreath: Sometimes, but surely not always?

Have you encountered any exceptions?

I realised once I'd finished posting that it is actually plausible I am underestimating the importance / effect of Obama's White House party for LGBT people - given that I'm neither American nor living in the US.

But I can say without doubt that in the UK, that kind of party is not generally a sign that the politicians who give it are committed to GLBT equality, but that they very much want GLBT people to vote for them, and figure this kind of party - which tends to be widely reported in the gay media, and widely ignored in the straight media - is the politically cheapest way of getting votes without having to actually do anything.

450.1: Um, I'd guess that you manage to be very unhappy about the unequal treatment of women in, e.g., Saudi Arabia without being unthinkingly anti-Muslim -- wouldn't that make you an exception?

On the importance of parties and speeches -- it's like calling marijuana a gateway drug: not everyone who smokes dope shoots smack, but most people who try heroin will have tried marijuana first. There's no guarantee that someone who's giving nice speeches is going to do anything useful, but someone who isn't giving nice speeches almost certainly won't. The fact of the nice speeches ups the odds of future useful action substantially.

Or signing a couple of executive orders:
- declaring a moratorium on any dishonorable discharges for sexual orientation until a congressional enquiry has established that the US military, unlike the Israeli military or the British military or the Swiss military, to name but three, really cannot function unless GLBT people are forced to serve in the closet.
-And for federal employees, declaring that anyone in a same-sex relationship who is married/civil-unioned, can receive partner benefits as if they were married, even though the federal government does not actually recognize them as married.

So your suggestions are an executive order refusing to enforce the unambiguous terms of a federal statute until Congress demonstrates to the President's satisfaction that they really meant it, and an executive order announcing that the federal government is going to cross its fingers and pretend that another duly enacted federal statute doesn't really exist?

Those are pretty terrible precedents to set, no matter how noble the intent.

450: That was the first site I found with the full video, but it was pretty widely reported in the straight/mainstream press. The UK may well be ahead of us on this, but setting up an explicit equivalency between Stonewall and the LGBT rights struggle and the civil rights movement, especially from an African-American politician, is by no means boiler-plate here. Again what he does and how he does it are indeed what ultimately matter, and his administration had been pretty damn quiet on LGBT issue up til that speech, but as LB says, the POTUS putting values of equality and support for LGBT families out there really does matter.

So your suggestions are an executive order refusing to enforce the unambiguous terms of a federal statute until Congress demonstrates to the President's satisfaction that they really meant it, and an executive order announcing that the federal government is going to cross its fingers and pretend that another duly enacted federal statute doesn't really exist?

Yes, that would be about it.

Don't Ask Don't Tell was enacted 15 years ago. Obama was elected on the clear understanding that he intended to be rid of it. He's also supposed to be Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. What exactly does that mean, if it doesn't mean he can say "Hey, quit persecuting LGBT soldiers until Congress has a change to take a look at this policy again and decide whether the US military really needs it?"

The second, I admit, is much more of a "Screw YOU, the federal government should put the US Constitution above legislative denial of civil rights to minorities" - since DOMA is patently unConstitutional: it would be a definite defiance of Congress, which obviously Presidents aren't meant to do...

Those are pretty terrible precedents to set, no matter how noble the intent.

Indeed. How horrible it would be if the President of the United States declared that he took seriously the principle that a minority group should not be deprived of civil rights at the whim of the majority: and what a terrible precedent it would set if a Democratic President actually asserted that he was at the very top of the chain of command right down through the military. Why... anything might happen.

since DOMA is patently unConstitutional

Unfortunately (in this instance), the ability to decide that doesn't fall to Obama.

LizardBreath: Sometimes, but surely not always?

Jes: Have you encountered any exceptions?

I got mailings in 1999/2000ish from the
Feminist Majority Foundation, which I am ashamed to admit that I ignored because they seemed like such generically histrionic fundraising letters ("The women of Afghanistan are suffering as NEVER BEFORE! Religious extremists are forcing them to obey terrible and life-threatening edicts!") and because I didn't want to take the time to assess the truth or exaggeration in the claims.

When conservatives started using women's rights as a justification for Afghanistan in late 2001, I mentally granted FMF retroactive credit for having understood and recognized the danger, but I was pretty skeptical that our military action would do much if anything for women's rights. War has a way of shredding everybody's rights.

And since then, the discourse on women in Islamic countries has been so bowdlerized by bad-faith American politicians that my default setting when they start spouting off is to check for my wallet.

All of which is to say, one can be forgiven for thinking that it's always a stalking horse for a bad-faith anti-Islam argument, because it often is. But not quite always.

451: Um, I'd guess that you manage to be very unhappy about the unequal treatment of women in, e.g., Saudi Arabia without being unthinkingly anti-Muslim -- wouldn't that make you an exception?

I manage to be deeply unhappy with how some governments interpret Islam - or indeed Christianity - as an excuse for depriving women of basic civil and human rights - without advocating that we should "liberate" these countries, which is what I thought the point was...?

I mean, I thoroughly oppose the US government's Christianity-is-an-excuse attitude to women's rights. But I feel that an invasion by the feminist armies of righteousness to liberate y'all from your evil Christian overlords would (a) be unforgiveably imperialist, even if you were once a British colony; (b) likely to be unsuccessful even if we had the same degree of military superiority over you as the US did over Iraq.

I have never encountered any exception to the rule that people who think Islamic countries ought to be "liberated" because of how they treat women, are using women's rights as a handy-dandy excuse.

453: as LB says, the POTUS putting values of equality and support for LGBT families out there really does matter.

Fair enough: you and LB are in a much better position to assess that than me.

455: Unfortunately (in this instance), the ability to decide that doesn't fall to Obama.

Anyone who can read can see that DOMA is unConstitutional. Oddly enough, so many Americans seem to think they're not allowed to express an opinion on this until the Supreme Court makes a ruling... but in my country we're allowed to say what we think even if what we think isn't in agreement with the courts.

IANAL but

a) he's commander in chief, but that just means he's top general. The constitution explicitly gives Congress power "To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces". This includes DADT.
b) as 455 says, Obama doesn't get to decide what's unconstitutional. That would be up to the Supreme Court, which has declined to hear any DOMA case yet appealed to it.
All he gets to do, unfortunately, is say in public how stupid he thinks they are - which he has done.

The constitution explicitly gives Congress power "To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces". This includes DADT.

So when Truman ordered that the armed forces de-segregate, he was acting explicitly against the Constitution - only Congress had the power to order the change?

Obama doesn't get to decide what's unconstitutional. That would be up to the Supreme Court, which has declined to hear any DOMA case yet appealed to it.

Wow. What a fascist state, where no one's allowed to say that a law is unConstitutional except the supreme court. I'm so glad I live in a free country where I'm allowed to make any comment I like on what I think of the law. I always thought that being able to point at what the text of the Constitution actually says and note "Hey, what you're doing here is unConstitutional" was supposed to be an advantage of having a written Constitution, but I guess if you're not allowed to do that, you're not, and I won't tempt you into breaking the law... just taunt you a bit.

Oddly enough, so many Americans seem to think they're not allowed to express an opinion on this until the Supreme Court makes a ruling

No they don't.

Oddly enough, so many Americans seem to think they're not allowed to express an opinion on this until the Supreme Court makes a ruling... but in my country we're allowed to say what we think even if what we think isn't in agreement with the courts.

I didn't say no one is allowed to express an opinion. But you want the President to act on his opinion, which is just not allowed, whether the opinion is correct or not.

What a fascist state, where no one's allowed to say that a law is unConstitutional except the supreme court.

Yes they are.

Seriously, no matter how bad DOMA is (and it is, indeed, terrible), don't you see that it would be a bad precedent if the US president could nullify any law passed by the legislature because he thinks it's unconstitutional?

So when Truman ordered that the armed forces de-segregate, he was acting explicitly against the Constitution - only Congress had the power to order the change?

There was no statute requiring the armed forces to be segregated, so Truman could order the change.

Wow. What a fascist state, where no one's allowed to say that a law is unConstitutional except the supreme court.

No. Anyone can say that they believe a law to unconstitutional, but only the courts can find a law to unconstitutional and overturn it. You, and Obama, can make whatever comment on DOMA you like, but it will still be the law of the land.

Obama's perfectly capable of suspending enforcement of DADT. But this whole "no one's allowed" business is silly.

460: I don't think the armed forces were segregated by law when Truman desegregated them -- just by regulation and custom. If I'm right about that, he was in a different position than Obama: a president can promulgate regulations for the armed forces any way he likes so long as they don't contradict laws passed by Congress, which regulations contravening DADT would.

Now, he could do more than he's done, but he's not in Truman's shoes.

What a fascist state, where no one's allowed to say that a law is unConstitutional except the supreme court

No, he's allowed to say it's unconstitutional, he's just not allowed to decide that it is and act as though it is. Just like I'm allowed to say that I own half of Oxfordshire, but I'm not allowed to decide that I do (that would be the land registry) and act as though I do. Come on, you're just deliberately misreading now.

So when Truman ordered that the armed forces de-segregate, he was acting explicitly against the Constitution - only Congress had the power to order the change?

Segregation of the armed forces wasn't compelled by federal law, but by the internal rules of the armed forces, AFAIK. DADT is federal law. Different situations.
Just like Obama, as CinC, would be able to order everyone in the armed forces to wear blue socks, unless there was a federal law mandating black socks only.

Ajay: Obama doesn't get to decide what's unconstitutional. That would be up to the Supreme Court, which has declined to hear any DOMA case yet appealed to it.

Jes:Wow. What a fascist state, where no one's allowed to say that a law is unConstitutional except the supreme court. I'm so glad I live in a free country where I'm allowed to make any comment I like on what I think of the law.

Uh, Jes? I don't think Ajay or anyone else ever suggested that Obama is not allowed to say whether a law is unConstitutional. He is arguing that Obama doesn't have any legal authority to privilege his own reading of the Constitution over that of Congress. I have opinions on loads of legal issues, and I can mouth off all I want about my personal opinions on such things, but actually deciding those issues is the province of the judiciary.

Now there may be an interesting issue as to whether the President's oath to uphold the Constitution authorizes him to refuse to enforce laws that he believes to be unConstitutional where the courts have yet to make a definitive pronouncement. But suggesting that anyone who thinks Obama can't just declare an Act of Congress unConstitutional is many, many miles from "fascist" and, generally speaking, denouncing people who disagree with you as "fascist" is considered by some to be inconsistent with "good faith" argument.

Wow, pwned by everyone.

470: I know I was, you don't have to rub it in.

Now, he could do more than he's done

This is the real issue, not the quibbling about which precise steps he can/can't take, how far he has or hasn't met his promises.

If you're a queer voter who is counting on Obama fulfilling his statements about "LGBT issues", I think it's pretty fair to say you have solid grounds for disappointment. I also think it's clearly too early to claim that he has failed in this.

Wrongshore: No they don't

On the contrary, it's an absolutely kneejerk response: I say DOMA is unConstitutional, Americans respond "but only the Supreme Court can decide that". They don't appear to realize that they still have the power to read the Constitution and decide for themselves.

The Supreme Court may be the only authority that can overthrow DOMA, but if you have the ability to read and the capacity to make decisions, anyone can decide that DOMA is unConstitutional.

Essear, I do in fact recognize that my second solution is much more problematic than my first - simply instructing the federal employers to ignore a law is kinda different from instructing military authorities to hold off on instigating DADT persecutions and discharges while Congress investigates the rationale.

I was having a conversation with a younger friend the other day about the birthday present she'd requested from her mom: she wanted a bottle of absinthe, which her mom absolutely refused to give her ("I'm not giving you liquor for your birthday!"). I suggested that next time she ask her mom to give her heroin... then scale down.

It's the essence of bargaining, f'godsake. Always ask for more than you expect to get. Never try to figure out the bare minimum you might hope for and then ask for that: ask for the most you ever dreamed of and add some padding on top of that.

They don't appear to realize that they still have the power to read the Constitution and decide for themselves.

Christ. This sort of intentional misunderstanding is tired and juvenile when anti-abortion activists do it, and it's tired and juvenile when you do it, Jes.

On the contrary, it's an absolutely kneejerk response: I say DOMA is unConstitutional, Americans respond "but only the Supreme Court can decide that". They don't appear to realize that they still have the power to read the Constitution and decide for themselves.

I think you are misusing the word "decide" here. Anyone can form (and express) an opinion as to whether the DOMA is Constitutional, but only the courts can decide the question. (And I think "courts" is more accurate than "Supreme Court" because the lower courts can, in fact, issue effective rulings, which might of might not be upheld by the high court.)

474: Possibly the problem is, as Di Kotimy suggests, that Americans really don't use "decide" in the same personal way as we use it in British English.

475: Seriously? M-W has 3 definitions of "decide", of which only 1a would seem to apply to your sense of the word "decide": "To settle conclusively all contention or uncertainty"; a court decision is supposed to do that, and is offered as example of usage. 1b is "to make up one's mind about"; 2 is "to influence or determine the outcome of; 3 is "to cause to make or to reach a decision".

I don't think I'm misusing the word "decide" at all when I say that anyone can decide that DOMA is unConstitutional, even if only the courts can settle that decision beyond contention or uncertainty.

And, further, it would be a very bad thing for the president to decide that a law is unconstitutional, and act on that decision, without a decision by the relevant court.

Or, ooh! Maybe he could just issue a signing statement!

Argh. Yes, decide has multiple meanings, and one of them is specifically relevant in a legal context, and if anyone says only the Supreme Court can decide they clearly mean that one. Do we have to sort through every possible misunderstanding at great length, or can we just try to assume people mean the reasonable thing they might mean?

I don't think I'm misusing the word "decide" at all when I say that anyone can decide that DOMA is unConstitutional, even if only the courts can settle that decision beyond contention or uncertainty.

But the relevant sense, if we're talking about what Obama may do as an executive, is the sense Di was using. Obama is obliged to obey the laws passed by Congress until a court decides, in the sense Di explained, that those laws are unconstitutional.

Do we have to sort through every possible misunderstanding at great length

Are you new here?

478: Yeah, this conversation is getting silly. I think we can all agree that Obama has done less for GLBTQ rights than he should have, and that he could have. Jes disagrees with the Americans about how realistically constrained his actions are in our system, but that's a pointless argument.

Possibly the problem is, as Di Kotimy suggests, that Americans really don't use "decide" in the same personal way as we use it in British English.

Bullshit. Try harder, Jes.

I think it's a little disingenuous to focus too much on whether or not Obama can change things with the stroke of a pen or not, and what "decide" means. Surely nobody is going to claim that the actions and priorities of a sitting president won't affect either the way that people in, say, the military will choose to move on DADT, or the time scale of courts taking these issues up.

pwned by 481 basically.

Just like Obama, as CinC,

What on earth does Charles In Charge have to do with anything?

The tension between these comments is funny:

442: I really think you're underestimating the importance of lip service.

189: Hearing Sotomayor basically being forced to answer "Thank you sir, may I have another?" to that question made my blood boil.

Of course the comments are made in different contexts, but the pro- and con- positions with respect to lip service, and the subthread about the value and advisability of 'radicalism' in moving the, er, Overton window, are still interesting.

I'm obviously still catching up with the thread.

485: Obama, the Bringer of (Judith) Light

486: Funny, I don't see those comments as in tension with each other at all -- both are acknowledging the power of lip service, whether for good (Obama giving nice speeches about GLBTQ rights), or bad (Sotomayor being forced to suck up to horrible Republican senators).

488: If 442 is just saying that the power of lip service = the importance of lip service, without making any normative claim as to its goodness in most political circumstances, I retract my thought that there's any tension there.

But I really thought you were generally of the mind that caution and compromise, in the form of lip service if nothing else, was a good thing politically. That's a defensible position, and not unheard of, obviously.

But I really thought you were generally of the mind that caution and compromise, in the form of lip service if nothing else, was a good thing politically.

Well, it's a good thing when necessary. When is that? Depends on the circumstances.

Also, I don't know if this exchange will continue, but I have to make a few phone calls.

I think it's a little disingenuous to focus too much on whether or not Obama can change things with the stroke of a pen or not, and what "decide" means. Surely nobody is going to claim that the actions and priorities of a sitting president won't affect either the way that people in, say, the military will choose to move on DADT, or the time scale of courts taking these issues up.

Absolutely, which is why the "lip service" stuff -- which is to say the actions and priorities of the president -- is important, which is to say that there should be a great deal more of it. But, nonetheless, most of that is going to come in the form of (a) pretty speeches and (b) making the right choices in terms of who gets appointed to the seats where these (legally binding) decisions actually get made.

482: When I try harder, whole continents are destroyed. Try again, Josh.

478: Yes.

490: I took it that one of the complaints of dissatisfied members of the LGBT-and-friends community regarding Obama on DOMA and DADT was that his words were indistinguishable from lip service that might or might not have meant a damn thing.

One assumes that Sotomayor's conciliatory remarks to Graham didn't mean a thing; it's very difficult to tell the difference, in a politician who clearly understands the importance/power of lip service, whether his or her words at any given time mean anything. The down side of engaging in lip service, then, and it's a serious one, is that your allies as well as your opponents may lose faith in your words. Of course this down side may be offset by the obvious up sides.

Eh. I don't need to belabor this. Dan Savage had a nice formulation in an NPR interview a little while back, regarding DOMA and DADT: "President Obama should be very mad at Candidate Obama for saying the things he did."

Note, I do wish this to remain a generalized comment about the political (possibly moral) perils of engaging in lip service -- and to that extent, I'm presumably not offering any real news. Wrt to LGBT issues, I understand completely that Obama has likely found that the expenditure of political capital involved in pushing is outweighed by what he needs to get done in health care reform.

425: alt.fan.taliban.warlord

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Is Kabul the new Perth?

I want to bear your children, JP.

476.2: Yes, seriously. I remain unconvinced that any of those alternative definitions truly apply to an individual's thoughts on the constitutionality of a law.

to make up one's mind about -- as in, to make up one's mind about what to have for lunch: "I decided to have the chicken today." (With the guy who I went on the date with but didn't really want to date and who then didn't respond when I suggested lunch as friends but, in fact, did eventually take me up on the offer and it was lovely, if not at all on point to this discussion... ). An individual is not "making up one's mind about" the constitutionality of a law because an individual really has no choice in the matter. An individual can decide to adopt a particular view, of course.

to influence or determine the outcome of -- as in political or athletic contests: "Indiana could decide the next presidential election." "This field goal attempt could decide this game." Again, us ordinary folks just aren't "deciding" the constitutionality of the law in this sense.

to cause to make or to reach a decision -- as in... Well hell, I'm not sure I know how decide is used in this sense other than maybe, "The capers and olives on the chicken dish decided my lunch order." Still, doesn't apply to constitutionality of laws.

So, yes, seriously. I think you are misusing decide. Though I will allow for the possibility that there is another usage in the British dialect that perhaps I am unfamiliar with.

Though I will allow for the possibility that there is another usage in the British dialect that perhaps I am unfamiliar with.

No, in this instance Jes is using the Willfully Obtuse dialect.

Decide means to kill off all the Dis. But actually, I rather like Di. I'll stay indecisive.

498:

Dont bring me into this one.

496: I want to bear your children

Thanks, I was hoping it would connect with at least one person. To late for bearing, I'll send you a PayPal account for college tuition donations. Become a Platinum Member for as low as $5,000/yr.

And speaking of maps of Afghanistan, these War Rugs are something. And on topic to some of the prior discussion, apparently there is Farsi text on the one in the first link that says "The army of al-Qaeda is leaving Afghanistan".

499: Deicide, on the other hand...

497: I'm afraid you now appear to be returning to the puzzling American assertion that common people are not allowed to look at their own Constitution and their own legislation and decide that this law is not Constitutional. Since you are apparently not saying this out of an assertion that Americans are naturally passive, naturally mentally deficient, or that the US is a fascist state where you are simply not lawfully allowed to think for yourself about the Constitution, I have to conclude that you are simply using "decide" differently from how I'd use it.

498: In my British way, I politely resent that.

499: In that sense, I too plan to be indecisive.

502: I slay the gods...

501. Those war rugs are creepy. A few years back, a vendor brought in a bunch of them to sell in the Pentagon. Themes included 9/11, Soviet helicopters (!), &c. I saw very few people browsing. I don't think they sold many. It was just too weird.

Oh, JP, I hope more than 2 people got your alt.warloard reference. I laughed too.

Oh, JP, I hope more than 2 people got your alt.warloard reference are aware of all internet traditions.

I'm afraid you now appear to be returning to the puzzling American assertion that common people are not allowed to look at their own Constitution and their own legislation and decide that this law is not Constitutional.

No, she doesn't. All she's saying is that anyone can decide for herself that something is true, that a law is unjust, that a law is contrary to the constitution and should be thrown out, but that to decide the law (no "that") is an official power not vested in all citizens.

But yes, "decide that the law is unconstitutional" plainly has both an informal (I believe decisively that it is so) and an official (I have officially determined that this law is unconstitutional, and am empowered to change the official status of that law via such a determination). Similarly, I can decide that someone is guilty of murder, but only the judge's "decision" affects their legal guilt.

504: no creepier than the "art" on the walls on the metro entrance ramp... Jesu that stuff's weird.

509. If it is where I am thinking of, the ramp from 2 to 3 by the credit union...that stuff just got put back up. It is a series of paintings of D-Day (although for some time I thought they were tapestries like Bayeux). I was surprised at how fair it was to the Germans. The propaganda with Montgomery and the other generals I can do without. That weirdest part is how it shows people getting hurt and killed. That is not the usual official celebratory art in this culture.

508 is missing the word "interpretation".

507, 508: Jes is surely trolling by now, or if not, the UK governmental system differs much more greatly from our own than I realized.

Well, shit. Now I am feeling indecisive about all this.

Say I am a school administrator and a law is passed saying I must segregate the boys from the girls and not allow the girls to take any classes other than cooking and sewing and washing windows. I now have to decide whether I am going to follow the law. I can choose to not follow the law based on my opinion that the law is unconstitutional -- or, as Jes would say, I can "decide" that the law is not constitutional and not follow it. Of course, my decision isn't exactly binding on very many people. And if the court decides differently, I'll go to jail or lose my job or something. But yes, ordinary people do sometime make constitutional decisions.

(Yeah, that's right. All Jes ever had to do to convince me was agree with Heebie that she didn't wish me dead.)

I see that the government is defending the constitutionality of DOMA in a case it removed to the CD Cal. Good. I hope they lose, and then the statute can be repealed.

I don't know the judge who has the case, but the Ninth Circuit is probably the best place to be doing this -- one judge has already ruled DOMA unconstitutional in a strange setting. And I kind of like the way Kozinski evaded the question here. He's beloved of a species of winger, but you see how far things have gone when work-arounds like this are required.

But yes, ordinary people do sometime make constitutional decisions.

This seems muddled. As you make clear, you are deciding not to follow a law (i.e., performing an act of civil disobedience) based on what you think is or isn't constitutional. But your decision doesn't affect that law's constitutionality.

508: But yes, "decide that the law is unconstitutional" plainly has both an informal (I believe decisively that it is so) and an official (I have officially determined that this law is unconstitutional, and am empowered to change the official status of that law via such a determination). Similarly, I can decide that someone is guilty of murder, but only the judge's "decision" affects their legal guilt.
512: the UK governmental system differs much more greatly from our own than I realized.

Hrmm. The British parliamentary system is based on an unwritten constitution, so you can (and they have) decided that something was (or should be) unconstitutional and have tried to make it stick (and succeeded sometimes) by declaring a law to be unconstitutional. Since the thing is not written down, it would be hard to tell someone they're wrong about that.

OTOH, in the US, the right to declare things 'unconstitutional' is more or less reserved to the Supreme Court via the effect of a fiat declaration issued by the judiciary. We've had a small war and a few civil disorders while arguing about the subject, and the jurisdictional issue has been more or less settled in favor of the judiciary.

{scratches head} I'm not sure what else there is to say about it.

max
['Blessed are the cheesemakers.']

516: Thanks, Max. I was really trying to determine whether Jes didn't understand how the system here works (quite understandable if so, given that it's not her country), because the British system is entirely different. Thanks.

This seems muddled.

I agree. Maybe I should go take a nap.

have to conclude that you are simply using "decide" differently from how I'd use it.

You seriously can't conceive of a way that the Supreme Court deciding, in a case brought before it, that a law is unconstitutional is different than your average Jane or Joe Citizen saying "I've decided that this law is unconstitutional"? Seriously? I'm having a hard time believing that, hence my notion that you're just being willfully obtuse.

Having determined that all Americans are obtuse, she decides that being obtuse is the only way to communicate with them. This is similar to the process people undergo when they decide to be passive-aggressive.

This is similar to the process people undergo when they decide to be passive-aggressive.

But can people really decide to be passive-aggressive?

425: Oh! Sorry, I get it now. We're using "warlord" in two different but related fashions. Seriously. Soup biscui,t and I think ajay, are using it to describe local people who have achieved leadership status through their military service and by having soldiers or other followers loyal to them. Such folks of course might or might not be Taliban and would also overlap with folks whose authority derived from their position within a clan/lineage. I meant "warlordism" in the sense that we use in African Studies and that Political Scientists often do, meaning a group which has, if not wholly given up on dreams of national control or becoming the legitimate government, mostly resigned themselves to controlling a particular chunk of territory and whatever valuable raw materials they can extract from it by force (think the RUF in Sierra Leone). Such groups don't have to bother with political victory or even local legitimacy in the short or medium term, because they can finance their circumscribed position through sales of diamonds/coltran/opium. In this way Taliban warlordism might be in conflict or alliance with other forms of warlordism derived from earlier conflicts and earlier state-failures in Afghanistan.

So you see this is just like that "many meanings of 'decide'" thing. Except here you don't have to assume that the other person is an idiot to be confused by their usage.

I trust that none of this interferes with Stormcrow's joke.

519: Oh, just shout "Concede! Concede!" and be done with it.

517: because the British system is entirely different. Thanks.

No problem. The British system really is different. ('Two countries divided by a common language.')

518: I agree. Maybe I should go take a nap.

Well, I thought it was fine.

521: But can people really decide to be passive-aggressive?

Sure they can. They just won't admit it.

max
['White minority.']

Yeah that's what I was thinking of, md 20/400.

The color pallet reminds me of perry bible fellowship. And I just understood one of the panels this afternoon! Less messed up than I thought.

516: Since the UK doesn't have a written constitution, it's difficult to imagine what meaning the term "unconstitutional" could have. Do people actually use it there? Are our other Brits sleeping?

You seriously can't conceive of a way that the Supreme Court deciding, in a case brought before it, that a law is unconstitutional is different than your average Jane or Joe Citizen saying "I've decided that this law is unconstitutional"? Seriously?

Of course it's different. I'm right, and the Supreme Court is wrong. Simple.

It's the problem of the three umpires. As we saw with Plessy the Supreme Court can rectify its mistakes after a sufficient number of years, and a sufficient bumber of ordinary Joes manifesting their disagreement.

Anyone who doesn't know the story of the three umpires, stop me before I repeat it again

525. It does look garish. If you ever get out to the CIA, I understand they have some good modern art there.

523: Huh?

Since the UK doesn't have a written constitution, it's difficult to imagine what meaning the term "unconstitutional" could have. Do people actually use it there? Are our other Brits sleeping?

Bright eyed and bushy tailed, thank you, but the thread's dead. No, we never use the term "unconstitutional", although we have a pretty clear idea of what is and what isn't. That's because Parliament can change constitutional law by the same mechanism as any other.

Jes was being totally obtuse upthread: decisions of courts, even in trivial cases, are different to individual decisions the world over, and the use of "decision" is the same. If somebody is charged with a crime and I decide they're guilty and ought to be locked up, it doesn't mean I can lay hold of them and lock them in my cellar. Until a court has decided the issue, they're presumed innocent. But you know that.

Acutely ignoring all the accusations of obtuseness:

This is the kind of "lip service" I recognise as genuinely valuable - a speech Obama made yesterday to the NAACP. Money quote:

But make no mistake: the pain of discrimination is still felt in America. By African-American women paid less for doing the same work as colleagues of a different color and gender. By Latinos made to feel unwelcome in their own country. By Muslim Americans viewed with suspicion for simply kneeling down to pray. By our gay brothers and sisters, still taunted, still attacked, still denied their rights.

On the 45th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, discrimination must not stand. Not on account of color or gender; how you worship or who you love. Prejudice has no place in the United States of America.That's good lip service, that is. (Is it disrespectful that I keep wanting to make blow-job jokes? Or just wildly inappropriate?)

Now this is the kind of HTML error that makes me feel obtuse:

On the 45th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, discrimination must not stand. Not on account of color or gender; how you worship or who you love. Prejudice has no place in the United States of America.

That's good lip service, that is.

Is it disrespectful that I keep wanting to make blow-job jokes? Or just wildly inappropriate?

Neither. Mainly just boring.

533: Thanks! You're the best!