David definitely has his eyes open, and sees right through the COD nonsense.  It would be fascinating to see your answer to the last comment of David's - just how would your COD deal with the backwardness of our country?  And, it certainly is backwardness that causes us to continue to revel in state murders of felons and our God-given rights to burn as much fuel as we want. 

Hoppy in Sacramento

yeah, at the core should be the people, family, etc... and not politics since it keeps the heart of corruption ticking.

You forgot that it also means leadership and influence.
I think you touched on a root problem with the defining view of the left.
To people who lean heavily left, ANY leadership is a bad thing.
To some people Power = Evil
Don't take my word for it, look at the posts from people on this site who think our President has too much power.

There is an anti-authority bent in this country that feels obligated to knock down anyone they view as powerful. Look at how the media handles celebrity. We love to see the alpha male embarrassed and demeaned. We love scandal.
It makes us feel better about ourselves. It makes the powerless feel safe.

I don't think I will get any argument here that too much power is a bad thing. That is why communism or any other variety of dictatorship is harmful. We have lost our sense that there should be a balance though. We want our leaders to be our country's mascots. Direct democracy is a disaster. Just look at California. There are two extremes to every issue, and they are virtually always bad places to be.

Leaders need power to be effective. Cutting them down to size and limiting their power turns them into Gulliver and us into Lilliputians.

There is such a thing as a benign hegemon. America may be the closest thing to that ideal in history. We are the only empire in history to be more concerned with an exit strategy than with gaining anything for ourselves.

There is such a thing as a benign hegemon. America may be the closest thing to that ideal in history. We are the only empire in history to be more concerned with an exit strategy than with gaining anything for ourselves.

This liberal is not at all against our President having the appropriate powers that are specified in the Constitution. Our government doesn't function well if the President gives up those powers. My problem with the Republicans is their attempts to expand those powers far beyond anything outlined in the Constitution, and at the expense of the Legislative and Judicial branches of our government.

Hoppy in Sacramento

David Rieff seems to be onto something most relevant here:

At the very least, a sien qua non of such a bargain would seem to me to be US acquiescence in the various issues about which there IS consensus in other democratic countries: eg Kyoto, the death penalty, etc.. That seems to me to be a nonstarter politically in this country.

Also if one could say that Kyoto as such is a thing of the past, the focus on environmentalist issues and, specifically, on Climate Change is an area where there really is more of a difference between the United States and other democracies than between democracies and non-democracies. And this issue is high on the agenda (except in the U.S.), so it would really be a challenge. The same thing can probably be said for Civil Rights matters, including torture and death penalties.

Many democracies may be mature for a Concert of Democracies, in fact one may see the European Union as a more localized variant of similar kind, but the idea of a global institution is dead until also the United States is mature enough. The democracy within the United States must be elevated to global standards, and the nation must get used to respecting at least other democratic nations.

/Tuomas

One can expect that barring some insane initiatives or utter obnoxiousness, USA has sufficient heft that we can achieve what we want. Thus starting a talk on a Concert on Democracies with our security concerns (that are in turn connected with some insane initiatives and utter obnoxiousness) and the "benign hegemon" theory is launching the project on a wrong foot.

Perhaps Princeton Project is a mirror image of Straussian neo-cons. A bunch of lily-livered do-goodniks pretends to posess "necessary toughness" etc. to launch the most harmless and benign initiative one can imagine. (Neo-cons chief concerns, by the way of contrast, are spreading democracy, painting schools etc.)

While Americans are frequently praised by their politicians as "the most generous nation", apparently one has to promise to be a boorish bully in the foreign policy to have "credibility". And even them some will try to sniff dreaded "evenhandedness" and other traits not worthy of the last remaining superpower.

For all my carping lately, somehow, looking at John, Anne-Marie, Rachel etc. I do not see hegemons. And when they do not strive for "credibility", they sound suspiciously sane, even, dare I say, evenhanded.

However, after our recent imperialist experiments, credibility would require to state in no uncertain terms what decive breaks with failed policies are planned.

Not that I've ever considered myself a leftist, but I've known a few that seemed to be under the mistaken impression that a pinko like Martin Luther King Jr. showed some leadership.

I agree that there has been a loss of sense of balance -- chiefly in the White House.

Have you told the California Legislature to go home, because they've been replaced by direct democracy? Do you understand the term, or that the most common instantiations, which only scale to a limited size, are in New England towns?

Don't take my word for it, look at the posts from people on this site who think our President has too much power.

We are the only empire in history to be more concerned with an exit strategy than with gaining anything for ourselves.

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

With all due respect Howard, I think you are arguing just to argue here. You are too smart to deny that in these cases (and others) presidents made decisions based on A) the number of U.S. casualties and B) How the American public would react to that loss.

Not that A is a bad thing. I think we all want our president to factor that into his decisions. But if that was his chief concern, the military has no purpose. They are brave because they volunteer to put themselves in harm's way. If we keep them out of harm's way, especially because a president is worried about short term dips in poll numbers, that is equally dangerous if not more so.

"If you are going to commit troops, give them the authority to defend themselves, and give them an achievable mission."

You just noted the other option that Reagan had. That option puts more soldiers at risk, and he had already "suffered" from public outrage. He could not win the public back easily by getting "bogged down" in Lebanon, so he cut his losses. I think you know that, too.

"Perhaps because the Arab forces would not go beyond Kuwait, and would not support the Western forces going to Baghdad?"

i.e. only American forces would be killed in battle. The decision wasn't about right or wrong, it was about being popular. It was about being popular with the rest of the world and it was about being popular at home. Bush I knew that after toppling Saddam, putting the pieces together would be difficult and messy and he didn't want to do it. It had nothing to do with right or wrong. He had wildly popular support and he didn't want to risk blowing it by thinking long term about Middle East dynamics. If he toppled Saddam, maybe it would have taken 10 or 12 years to rebuild the country. That would put us somewhere around 2003.

"A damn fool response by Administration officials, not especially affected by public opinion any more"

So then why? Because they decided at the last minute that a few hundred Haitians with pistols and rocks and glass bottles could defeat our Marines? Come on, Howard, get real.

"Yes, I know that other things were mentioned, but that was the spin."

I agree with you on this. There was an article in the NY Times before the war started (I can't remember who wrote it) in which the writer said going in was a bad idea becuase Bush listed TOO MANY reasons for invading Iraq. I think he counted 17 reasons. I bet if you asked that writer in 2006 why we went to war he would trot out the response of the well trained herd and say, "WMD".
It is funny how history, even from 3 years ago can be compeltely erased and re-written. in 1984, Big Brother controlled the media, in this case, Big Brother is the media and Eastasia is the administration.

With all due respect Howard, I think you are arguing just to argue here. You are too smart to deny that in these cases (and others) presidents made decisions based on A) the number of U.S. casualties and B) How the American public would react to that loss.

You just noted the other option that Reagan had. That option puts more soldiers at risk, and he had already "suffered" from public outrage. He could not win the public back easily by getting "bogged down" in Lebanon, so he cut his losses. I think you know that, too.

[Referring to Gulf War I] i.e. only American forces would be killed in battle.

It had nothing to do with right or wrong. He had wildly popular support and he didn't want to risk blowing it by thinking long term about Middle East dynamics.

I wrote, "A damn fool response by Administration officials, not especially affected by public opinion any more", to which you responded,
"So then why? Because they decided at the last minute that a few hundred Haitians with pistols and rocks and glass bottles could defeat our Marines? Come on, Howard, get real."

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

I recognize that this will not appeal to your binary view of the world, but there are those that have no special hostility to Israel -- but also do not see it as exceptional or more deserving of military support than countries with which the US is in a mutual defense pact.

Mind you, I have less of a brief for the Palestinians. As far as rights to return, I'd just as soon see a start with the Five Nations, the Cherokee, and my Apache friends. No?

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Ah, so it was the British and the Jordanians first drove the Palestinians out of the West Bank...and anyone who has any concern about the suffering palestinians simply "wishes Israel ill"??? BAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHA!!!!!

Sorry, "Daniel Greenbaum" but even Israeli historians now admit that Israel is BUILT on ethnic cleansing.

Read ISRAELI historian Benny Morris' account yourself:

According to your findings, how many acts of Israeli massacre were perpetrated in 1948?

"Twenty-four. In some cases four or five people were executed, in others the numbers were 70, 80, 100. There was also a great deal of arbitrary killing. Two old men are spotted walking in a field - they are shot. A woman is found in an abandoned village - she is shot. There are cases such as the village of Dawayima [in the Hebron region], in which a column entered the village with all guns blazing and killed anything that moved.

"The worst cases were Saliha (70-80 killed), Deir Yassin (100-110), Lod (250), Dawayima (hundreds) and perhaps Abu Shusha (70). There is no unequivocal proof of a large-scale massacre at Tantura, but war crimes were perpetrated there. At Jaffa there was a massacre about which nothing had been known until now. The same at Arab al Muwassi, in the north. About half of the acts of massacre were part of Operation Hiram [in the north, in October 1948]: at Safsaf, Saliha, Jish, Eilaboun, Arab al Muwasi, Deir al Asad, Majdal Krum, Sasa. In Operation Hiram there was a unusually high concentration of executions of people against a wall or next to a well in an orderly fashion.

"That can't be chance. It's a pattern. Apparently, various officers who took part in the operation understood that the expulsion order they received permitted them to do these deeds in order to encourage the population to take to the roads. The fact is that no one was punished for these acts of murder. Ben-Gurion silenced the matter. He covered up for the officers who did the massacres."

What you are telling me here, as though by the way, is that in Operation Hiram there was a comprehensive and explicit expulsion order. Is that right?

"Yes. One of the revelations in the book is that on October 31, 1948, the commander of the Northern Front, Moshe Carmel, issued an order in writing to his units to expedite the removal of the Arab population. Carmel took this action immediately after a visit by Ben-Gurion to the Northern Command in Nazareth. There is no doubt in my mind that this order originated with Ben-Gurion. Just as the expulsion order for the city of Lod, which was signed by Yitzhak Rabin, was issued immediately after Ben-Gurion visited the headquarters of Operation Dani [July 1948]."

Are you saying that Ben-Gurion was personally responsible for a deliberate and systematic policy of mass expulsion?

"From April 1948, Ben-Gurion is projecting a message of transfer. There is no explicit order of his in writing, there is no orderly comprehensive policy, but there is an atmosphere of [population] transfer. The transfer idea is in the air. The entire leadership understands that this is the idea. The officer corps understands what is required of them. Under Ben-Gurion, a consensus of transfer is created."

Ben-Gurion was a "transferist"?

"Of course. Ben-Gurion was a transferist. He understood that there could be no Jewish state with a large and hostile Arab minority in its midst. There would be no such state. It would not be able to exist."

I don't hear you condemning him.

"Ben-Gurion was right. If he had not done what he did, a state would not have come into being. That has to be clear. It is impossible to evade it. Without the uprooting of the Palestinians, a Jewish state would not have arisen here."

When ethnic cleansing is justified

Benny Morris, for decades you have been researching the dark side of Zionism. You are an expert on the atrocities of 1948. In the end, do you in effect justify all this? Are you an advocate of the transfer of 1948?

"There is no justification for acts of rape. There is no justification for acts of massacre. Those are war crimes. But in certain conditions, expulsion is not a war crime. I don't think that the expulsions of 1948 were war crimes. You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs. You have to dirty your hands."

No.
Here's a test, Howard.
Do you know who the Inde took "their" land from?
After the Inde return, do you know who will make the claim that the Inde were imperialist colonizers who stole their land?

How about the Five Nations?
Do you know who's land they stole?

Benny Morris is a strange character. He seems to be claiming that the ethnic cleansing is a good thing and that it should be repeated once more. Given that, he may have even a motive to exagerate.

I would make the case that back in 1948 ethnic cleansing, however lamentable, was a standard practice. Germans were cleared from Poland and Czech lands, Ukrainians from Poland, Poles from Ukraine, Muslim from India, Hindus from Pakistan.

Afterwards, this practice stopped, with few roundly comdemned exceptions. Similarly, the practice of having colonies with population that has no political rights is gone. (There are still teritories in which inhabitants share the lack of political rights with the dominant nationality, but even then the principle of equal rights is observed.)

One does not have to be a moral relativist to believe in progress. A corollary of progress, to me, is that we judge people in a way consistent with their contemporary stage of progress. Having slaves now is despicable, 200 years ago? Mere hypocrisy.

Daniel, I think that one group who question the US/Israel relationship are in the arms business - in the US firms like Raytheon, Northrup Gruman, General Atomics etc, all of whom Israel has edged out of lucrative arms deals on the international markets. I think arms exports earn Israel a significant amount of income - Maybe 4.5 billion when the figures come in for this year. Yet what is the US taxpayer's contribution to Israel's profitable arms industry? It's very complex - but it boils down to a subsidized industry. i.e. a welfare program. This aid is also wonderfully obfuscated so we can have terrific arguments about the figures and draw no solid conclusions. The numbers are tricky - since 1992 the loan guarantees offered by the US average 2 billion, for example. But traditionally nearly all these loans have be forgiven, which makes them in a de facto sense another form of subsidy.

Is this good for Israel? I don't think so, because this welfare builds a false economy in the country, and an economy that is only protected from crises at the pleasure of the US. As a client state (as opposed to an independent state) Israel is subject to the most severe diplomatic pressure from the US, and its soveriegn powers are subsequently greatly diminished.

Neoboho

Thanks to the unique defense deals between the US and Israel, the DOD has unprecedented say in who and what contracts Israel can make and/or fulfill, even when they are "legitmate". A case in point are the instructions to Israel to cancel deals with Venezuela because that country is now considered a threat to the US.

I understand given your post about Dafur that your view is not binary but unitary. We sit by and wring our hands while large numbers of people die in Dafur and how many other places.

I do oppose the murder of millions of Jews. If that makes me a binary view of the world I can live with that. The U.S. may guarantee Israel ultimately existence but it is hardly fights for Israel. Given that Isreal is in the Kurdish region of Iraq it may be the other way around.

This is not much different that providing a nuclear umbrella for Japan and Germany. The U.S. also Kuwait and the Treat of Westphalia against Iraq.

I do agree with you that those who oppose Israeli settlements ought to get out of the American settlements first.

My apologies to you for losing my cool. My view may be binary but this site in unrelentingly anti-Israel and anti-Semitic. That is just the way it is. I should not have taken it out on you.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

You are joined in your perception that "this site" and by extension the left-leaning Dems are anti-Israel and anti-semitic by the Israeli experts being polled by Haaretz DC correspondent Shmuel Rosner on how each presidential candidate rates on the question of how good they would be for Israel.

While not so free with the sweeping generalizations you favor, they consistantly rate Obama at the bottom because of who they perceive supports him.

There are influential Christian Evangelicals who proudly proclaim they are Israel Firsters. Radio talkie Janet Parshall is one example who has stated that she would take the Israeli side over the Amercian one in case of a conflict between the two countries.

If she has been denounced as a traitor during one of her appearances as a cable teevee partisan commentator, I have yet to hear about it.

That is at best disingenuous. First most Jews even the huge majority of orthodox Jews support the State o Israel. As one of Haaretz' columnists, one who is perfectly willng to accomodate the Palestinians, has refer to the Jews you reference as "worse than Satan." To keep leaning on this group that lives in Jerusalem under Israeli protection is just intelllectually dishonest.

I am waiting for anyone at this site who critcizes Isreali policy in a balanced fashion in the way that other countries are criticized. However, holding Israel to perfection and ignoring the Arabs' own role in their dilemna is one of the definitions of being anti-Israel.

It is not about giving Israel or Ireland special treatment it is about keeping Jews from being murdered and Catholics of Ireland from being oppressed by their Protestant Irish brethern.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Sorry Haas you don't know what you are talking about. You allow your anti-Israeli and anti-Semitism and the ability to cut and paste get the better of you.

As part of the 1948 War King Abullah made a deal with the British to take the West Bank for Jordan. The British wanted to make up for the bases they were losing in Palestine. One Jordan took the West Bank, how did you think Jordan owned the West Bank until 1967, the other Arab States left the already defeated Palestinians and took what was desired by them.

What Morris, Schlaim, and Ben-Ami, who have yet to have eviquvalent Arab records all agree on is that the Palestinians never recovered from the 1936-1939 Uprising absolutely crushed by the British. The Palestinians launched the war against the Zionists in the face of U.N. Partion. The Zionists were much more ready for the war than the Palestinians and they defeated them with indirect help from the Arabs. As part of the war refugees were caused. Bad things happend as part of this war like every war.

So yes, in 1967 when Jordan went to war against Israel they owned the West Bank because with the help of the British they took it. Had King Hussein listened to the Israelis and stayed out of the war perhaps Jordan would still own the West Bank or they would have allowed a Palestinian State. The latter seems doubtful as the Jordanians drove the Palestinians out of Jordan into Lebanon slaughtering a fair amount of Palestinians and giving rise to the Black September Group.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

My point is to further illustrate that there are Americans (Kay Arthur is another) who have no compunction against declaring allegiance to Israel without repurcussions from those within or without their own ranks. This would not be the case within the activist Jewish American community.

You are indeed pardoned for your lack of interest in Christian Evangelical agendas for Israel and her enemies in the region. They and their supporters within some Israeli and American policy circles certainly would applaud the indifference. The lessons of AIPAC's low-profile influence have been noted, are being applied in DC and elsewhere and are supported by members of the Knesset and other influential Israelis. The later groups are important in convincing skeptical Jews that the theologies of Armageddon and conversion are no longer operative within the Evangelical communities that support Israeli dominance no matter what.

The last thing they want is publicity beyond their targeted audiences. Focus on their main stance that all Palestian territories are Israel's by divine right may be perceived as undue influence on American foreign policy objectives.

Pity the Congressional staffers who will, if things go as planned, be besieged by a new fired-up lobbying group.