Yet again the notion of "limited" humanitarian intervention raises its ugly head. This is an instrument for those who believe in war as a means of imposing our values on other people. It is also a notion that is a part of the Democratic Party but it is one that we must resist. It was the humanitarian war democrats that supported war against Iraq. Go back and read Friedman from about 2002 for a reminder of that. If we were not bogged down in Iraq this would provide the political support urging us to go to war in Darfur, as some fools are doing today. It would not be that difficult to see a future crises where the US would feel compelled to intervene humanitarianly in Ukraine, Georgia and the Baltic states. This is just justification for a bloated US military and the perpetual wars that this monster needs to justify its existence.

It will not happen over night but we should all work to excise that ugly beast from our tent. I can see why many progressives are taking serious issue with Tod's idea of a big tent.

The Ned Lamont campaign was a good way to stake out (sorry) the boundaries of the tent--leaving Lieberman on the outside, where he belonged and belongs.

While talking about, as Todd said, staking out the boundaries of the tent -- a while back I kinda got off on a rampage when after Representative Jane Harman popped into the Cafe here to drop her story about her then trip to the Middle East.

The following was in response to a former cafe member who had the audacity to call me a "hack and troll" after he asked me what my problem was with Harman.

This exhibits as good an example of what I personally do not need as "representation" coming from within the Democratic tent.

Here's my response (please recall this was originally posted on March 5, 2006):

======= begin March 5, 2006 comment ========

Maybe you ought to run over here UPDATE 2006: The View from the Graves and see what's bugging me about the stance of Ms. Harman and her ilk. Did you go read it Nick? I doubt it. Now currently there's been an additional 363 deaths of US troops doing as she said, "the honorable thing" since her original post on September 30 of last year... When reach September 30 this year you can add about 350 to 400 soldiers to that death count.

Iraqi Coalition Casualty Count

The Blue Dog Coalition

Meet the Press September 12, 2006

MR. RUSSERT:  Congressman Harman, do you regret not having raised more reservations?

REP. HARMAN:  Well, I wish I’d been a lot smarter in those briefings about the legal underpinnings of the program. That was not discussed in the briefings. The briefings were about the operational details of the program and only in the last briefing because I requested it ahead—this was after the president had disclosed the existence of the program—did we spend an hour on the process, which was a very valuable discussion. The vice president and others were there. But remember, we go into those briefings alone, we have no ability to consult staff, we have no ability to consult constitutional experts or legal experts on the history of FISA. Since the program has been disclosed, I—and I think all of us, at least I have become a lot smarter about all that, and now that I have read the legislative history of FISA, which was enacted in 1978 on a bipartisan basis to cure the abuses of the Nixon era that had preceded it, I understand that it is the exclusive way that we can eavesdrop on Americans in America.

======= end March 5, 2006 comment ========

No more bullshitting, and half-truth representation is needed ... I don't see where leaving Harman outside the boundries of the tent would cause any negative impact.

Carry on ... My rehash of my rant is done.

~OGD~

Professor, I hear what are saying and to a point agree fully.  Supporters of the Democratic Party are fighters.  We are willing to lose battles to win the wars.  Unfortunately far too infrequently the politicians we support refuse to fight a losing battle in order to win the war.  We feel betrayed and sold out at times.  We are expected to compromise our core beliefs, to ensure electoral success, and get sold down the river, for example, to Free Traders and corporate interests.  We were told during the 90's by Democratic Party leaders that NAFTA would benefit American workers.  We "went along with the program" and look how that worked out for the average American worker.  I am damned tired of compromising my core positions for politicians who say "trust us, we'll do the right thing" and end up pulling the rug out from underneath us when they don't.  Damn, I feel like Charlie Brown trying to kick a football and ending up on my ass again after Lucy pulls the ball away for the umpteenth time. 

I am all for a big tent...but not as big a tent as some of the politicos want.  I am tired of being made a fool out of by politicians who claim to share my values despite what they say and do.  Speaking for myself, this is where I am drawing my line.  And I'll never stop fighting for what I believe in even though I feel the battles I am fighting are being lost at least partly because of the D's quest to find the almighty "middle".  The tent is probably too big.  Instead of expanding it more we need to tell people right now there is more than enough room in it for them.

My home when I am not ranting here...

Ahh yes....NickDoe.....how have we gotten along without him?

Alphonse ( Al ) Kada
Iranians are fighting the Americans in Iraq so they don't have to fight them on the streets of Tehran

In a winner take all election system as exists in the United States you will not have rigid ideological parties, but relatively broad based parties that seek victory. In France or Israel to name two countries with relatively narrow parties that have to create larger tents in order to form governing coalitions. The notion that there is a prevailing ideology in the United States that can shape a political party is rather ludicrous. To craft such parties would be to shift the ideological fights from the parties to the government.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

It strikes a lightly dissonant note within my cognation scale to see your use of this terminology. It's not because I disagree with your description of the term. In fact that would seem to offer a ray of hope for my inclusion in the Democratic Party, as a Friend of Liberty. (The verdict is still out on this. A very good measurement can easily be assessed online for both The Senate and The House of Representatives)

The dissonance is caused by my own past usage of the term in ravening depictions of contemporary conservatism and/or The Republican Party. I mention it because this depiction can in no way be considered a positive, and presently flows along these lines:

Come one, come all to the three ring show under The Big Circus Tent of Republican Inclusiveness, where out on the midway can be seen, neoconnivers pitching their snake-oil under Son-of-Bush labeling to the rubes as an all-n-one curative. The main center ring event under The Big Circus Tent is the Pachyderm's Ballet, a tale of unparalleled illusionary wonderment, entirely implemented with nothing more than smoke and mirrors, and leaves the audience secure without the knowledge:

The Republican Party Has Become
The Party of Nothing for Everybody.

The term 'Big Tent' offers easy methods of negative allusions.

One thing I got from the post is that sometimes it's chastening to think we don't know everything.  Last time, he excerpted from the book some priorities to accomplish, and everyone jumped all over him for not having any principles.  So here he quotes a rather nice discursus on the foundations of American government.  I presume there are even other things somewhere else in the book.  

John 

http://www.haberarts.com/

Artappraiser,

From Todd:

"I think of movements as energy and parties as vehicles. You elect a party that you don't have to identify with but which you need, if only to pressure. The party isn't your family, your church, or your sect. It's not a warm band of brothers and sisters. It's an immense contraption in a sprawling and nonrevolutionary country, even if it harbors populists of various stripes. Movements get somewhere when there is a party they can pressure. Labor got somewhere with FDR, not Hoover; the civil rights movement, with Kennedy and Johnson; defenders of limited humanitarian intervention, with Clinton, not Bush. The politics we need is not politics that thunders against the powers that be and then ducks into retirement. It's an active politics that understands both the necessity and the limits of parties."

So Sharpton, as leader of a movement (I know, I know, but stay with me on this one) says to ride the donkey (the political party), he's indicating that if it stops, he'll look at another (political party) that may take him and his movement further.

While you and I may differ on a specific issue, I would feel comfortable being in the same tent with you. I would say the same for Kucinich, Testor and Feingold based on the positions that they have taken (and that they don't try to weasel-word their way through). Could we really say the same for someone like Jon Kyl?

I guess I'm probably so disillusioned that I'd settle for a big tent that gets it 50% right than one that just goes along with any damn fool idea like the Dems have been doing so far. The FISA-so-I-can-go-home is the one that did it for me. 

Alphonse ( Al ) Kada
Iranians are fighting the Americans in Iraq so they don't have to fight them on the streets of Tehran

But what do we do about Amy?

In light of Todd's suggestion that we welcome humanitarian war advocacy in our big tent, I just came across a good Friedman quote advocating such.

"if NATO's only strength is that it can bomb forever, then it has to get every ounce out of that. Let's at least have a real air war. The idea that people are still holding rock concerts in Belgrade, or going out for Sunday merry-go-round rides, while their fellow Serbs are 'cleansing' Kosovo, is outrageous. It should be lights out in Belgrade: every power grid, water pipe, bridge, road and war-related factory has to be targeted."

He added: "Like it or not, we are at war with the Serbian nation (the Serbs certainly think so), and the stakes have to be very clear: Every week you ravage Kosovo is another decade we will set your country back by pulverizing you. You want 1950? We can do 1950. You want 1389? We can do 1389 too...."

This has the same punch as his 'suck on this' article for war with Iraq. It has been my position here on a number of other threads that the Serbian War precedent (and humanitarian war in general) helped prepare the American people to go to war in Iraq. It is interesting that the same cheerleader that got us into that mess were leading the war chants in 1999.

Excellent post Daniel. This is not a parliamentary democracy and it has obvious implications. I'm not sure, however, if it's completely accurate to label as ludicrous the notion that there is a prevailing American ideology that can shape a political party. I think it is more accurate to recognize currents in the form of beliefs or values or principles, at least some of which are ideological and relatively constant, that can shape the parameters of a party tent. I also think it is fair to say that seeking to define those parameters with precision is a futile and ultimately counterproductive exercise.

Bruce

Big difference between "limited humanitarian intervention" and Iraq. 

And Iraq was not originally sold to the American people as a humanitarian intervention -- would never have worked if they had, IMO.  It was sold as "They have big scary WMD!"   The emphasis on humanitarian stuff came after the war had already been started, and as it became more and more difficult to deny that there were no WMD.

The mere fact that idiots have invoked principles in an idiotic way should not preclude sane people from talking about the same principles.  

I mean, these guys talk a lot about "freedom" and "democracy" too -- often in ways that seem to have little connection to actual freedom and democracy.  I'm not about to hand those principles over for their exclusive use as a result of that, though.

They once did the wink and nod thing - messaged moderate and delivered liberal. Now they message moderate and deliver conservative.

Look at what's happened since the 2006 election. Didn't we think they were going to at least TRY to get us out of Iraq? Did we give them a majority so they could vote with the Republicans and let the Republicans win every vote?

Here's a nice little primer that Todd Gitlin wrote for Mother Jones after the 2004 presidential dust (slime?) settled....

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2005/01/12_401.html

-----------

I'm tired of the "Big Tent" analogy.

I think the Democratic Party currently lives in a Big Condo, where we don't have to mow the lawn. It's got a well meaning homeowners' association trying to make rules .. but not too many.

The ones in the tent are the disenfranchised 50% (at least) who don't bother to vote.

I'd wager they haven't read many blogs lately. And they sure won't be reading the prof's book or this comment.

What's always puzzled me about that great, untapped, silent majority is they have never embraced the Democratic Party (and vice-versa?).

As a life-long Liberal (and its sure nice to hear and say the L word, isn't it?) who grew up in a Philly suburb, I've always felt the Dems have been fighting for the have-nots, whether they wanted us to or not.

So, while we try to pastuerize our party without homogenizing it, I would suggest our ultimate goal should be to connect with the non-political factions that have lots of power...if they would wake-up and embrace it.

Why should we want to be "in the mainstream." Do we think that America's forefathers were people who worried about being in the mainstream?

I think a better approach -- a more Democractic one -- is to point out that being in the mainstream usually means being unimaginative and weak minded.

When did conformism become the coin of the realm anyway?

Where in the world does ANYONE get, that God Gave You a Free Dominion?
please explain?

You all need serious help.
well,,, Anyone believing in FreeDUMB needs serious help!
I CAN HELP!
(Then, maybe NOT?)
YOU CHOOSE!
Email me.

The term used at the time was "ethnic cleansing" not genocide,the difference being that rather than exterminating people the Serbs were terrorizing them to drive them out of a particular area of land, creating a large refugee population.

And of course, ethnic cleansing is now going on in Iraq.

Also wrong. There was no ethnic cleansing going on in Kosovo prior to our attack against Serbia.

The more I read of the posts in this thread, the less I understand what they are about. I feel like I have walked in on the middle of a talk where various answers are being given, but where I never heard the questions. There are a lot of vague abstract terms being thrown around and a number of pronouns of indecipherable reference. I'm having trouble getting a grip on things. For example:

Partly to get my mind around the Bush emergency and partly to shore up my morale, I felt the need for a comprehensible history—not a detailed chronology but a conceptual one.

A comprehensive conceptual history of what?

Part of what was driving me was the need to get Bush right—not just to slime him, but to figure out how he did it.

How he did what?

With that, also, came the question: How did we get rolled for so long? Some dumb mistakes, or was it in our political nature to lose?

Who are "we"? Whose nature is being talked about about when Todd refers to "our" political nature?

... the stunning career of the recent conservative movement, its advantages, its conception of leadership, all against a background of liberal failings.

Is that who "we" are? Liberals?

I saw MoveOn, the Dean campaign and the emerging netroots, blogosphere, whatever, as the rumblings of a new and indispensable force, carrying the movement spirit (younger, activist, energetic, amateur) into the Democratic Party (older, compromising, staid, professional).

A force for what? A movement of what kind? In what direction?

The real question is what we do with what we have and who we reach out and expand to include.

Again, who is "we"? Progressives? Netrooters? Democrats? And "included" in what? And how is it up to us to determine who is included in whatever it is they are to be included in?

And the opportunity is more likely to be there if we both fight for things that matter and educate/organize/mobilize and turn out people to vote for the candidates and the issues that are of concern to us.

Again, who is "we"? Of concern to whom?

Finally what does it matter what we say about how big a tent Democrats should have? What practical consequences will it have if we agree or disagree with this position? Candidates will do what they have to do to get sufficient votes and attract sufficient donations to win. The party's nomineee will pitch the tent as broadly as they feel the have to pitch it.

There was no ethnic cleansing going on in Kosovo prior to our attack against Serbia.

Sure seemed like it.

Was the massacre in Srebrenica just target practice with Muslims getting in the way?

The extermination of a culture through displacement of people or other means is often referred to as genocide, I think appropriately so.

Best, Terry

As long as I can remember there have always been many groups pushing and fighting for their cause in the Democratic Party. It has resulted in a verity of cabinet appointments to reflect the concerns of these groups when Democrats are in power.

In past Democratic Administrations there has been the presentation of most of the "cake" of gifts for supporting the election to the powerful and the rest has been spread out as crumbs to the other supporters.

This was especially true at the FCC and other regulatory agencies that controlled public assets with value to the large corporations. The crumbs could be had by the small companies by being nimble as they were not dedicated to anyone as the large pieces of the cake were. The small companies typical could survive on this and grow.

The Republicans give the whole "cake" to the supporters with nothing to any citizen who did not come though with large amounts of money or support. In the support category read the media for its propaganda that passes for news. In fact today in the agencies the political appointees have stripped the building of assets and when the owners, we the public, get a true tally of the looting it will make Sherman’s march through the south seem only a marshmallow party!

The conditions of today are such that the differing smaller interests of the Democratic Party and the general citizenry are on the edge of falling off the cliff if not already fallen into the sea. It is not a typical election cycle that will be demanded as we are being eaten alive by the free reign given these monopolistic acting corporations. Look at the interest rates charged by credit card companies; gas prices controlled by industry and the list could go on and on.

There is no patients for this. The Democratic Politicians are seeming to do business as usual. When they vote for the credit card industries needs with the bankruptcy legislation it is intolerable for everyone in the country and looks to their supporters as it really is, the sell out to the same corporations that the Republicans are controlled by.

There is no patience left for business as usual because there is no margin left in the financial situations of a majority of the citizens of the country.

This big tent cannot be like anything of the past, the county cannot not survive it.

-----------------------------------------------
Today, are we searching for I deals or Ideals?
-Thinking

Terry you are very confused about what and when happened in the build up to our war against Serbia. Srebrenica was not an issue in 1999, go back and brush up on your facts. BTW, I am bringing this up because it is my experience that when closely questioned, many of the liberals and progressives that supported war against Serbia are remarkably ignorant about what actually happened there. I suspect Todd falls into that category as well.

Furthermore, I think the "surge" has been a pulic relations success even if it hasn't been successful in Iraq. A lot of Democrats I talk to who have been against the war from the beginning are feeling uneasy about withdrawal. And I share the uneasiness.

What are you uneasy about? 

We are at war!  There are no easy positions to take.   People will die no matter what. 

As to making the argument -- how do I make it?  My Congressman and both Senators voted against it in 2002 but Wellstone died, and Klobuchar votes like a Republican.  I do everything I know how to do to make the argument but it's for sure pushing a rock up the hill when you can't get politicians to believe that you will back them if they take a difficult stand. 

My metro newspaper makes the arguments.  It writes editorials on how Bush is trying to gut the SCHIP program.  It writes stories on the bridges collapsing.  It prints stories on how Bush wants to spend more money in Iraq instead.  The news is out there.  The people are out there.  Why won't the Congress take up the ball and lead?  Why won't the Democrat in the Senate from my state read the newspaper?  Read her e-mail? 

Don't be uneasy.  Believe that we can make the hard choices and do the hard work if we do it together instead of just going along with the Republicans.

That's probably not all that hard to do.  You're in New York, He's in New York--what's the price of a local call?  When you find out, come back and tell us.  <grin></grin>

aMike

tankard, I presume you understand cause and affect. If so, then let me say that Srebrnica was not a factor in the the US attack on Serbia in 1999. Of course it was an issue in earlier aspects of the dissolution of Yugoslavia. It was important in the Bosnian civil war and influenced events in 1995. However, Serbia itself was not a factor in 1995 and the issue was over in 1999. As I have been pointing out most of you that are responding here have very little understanding of what was going on. You my friends were simply wrapped up in the war hysteria at that time and responded then, as today, with unthinking emotion.

Serbia itself was not a factor in 1995 and the issue was over in 1999.

Some one ought to tell those fools at Google News, that they need to adjust their algorithms, as they seem to have little understanding also.

If the focus is widened into the past just a few months, there was the decision of the World Court on Srebrenica. to claim it was not an issue in 1999 or since is exceedingly disingenuous. Serbia wasn't convicted of Genocide for Srebrenica in 1995, but they were found to have committed 2 Counts of violating the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

• The Guardian - February 27, 2007
• Serbia condemned for Srebrenica despite acquittal on genocide charge
• Ian Traynor in Zagreb

The world court yesterday acquitted the state of Serbia of responsibility for genocide in neighbouring Bosnia in the mid-1990s.

But in an unparalleled case concluded at the Peace Palace in The Hague, the UN's supreme judicial authority delivered a damning verdict on Serbia's role in the 1992-95 war, finding that Belgrade did nothing to prevent what the court described as an act of genocide at Srebrenica in 1995 despite its close links with and support for the Bosnian Serb military.

The Serbian authorities stood by as almost 8,000 Bosnian Muslim males were massacred by the Bosnian Serb military at Srebrenica in July 1995 despite the full knowledge that mass murder was likely, the court found. Serbia had also failed to honour its international duty to apprehend those charged with genocide.

The court ordered Serbia to arrest General Ratko Mladic, the architect of the massacre, who, as a result of yesterday's decision, will almost certainly be found guilty of genocide if put on trial at the war crimes tribunal, also in The Hague.

[. . .]

"Serbia has violated the obligation to prevent genocide, under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, in respect of the genocide that occurred in Srebrenica in July 1995," the decision stated. "Serbia has violated its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide by having failed to transfer Ratko Mladic, indicted for genocide and complicity in genocide, for trial."

And Please do no hit me with the three monkey assertion, because for a couple of months prior to the Serbian bombing, I'd been visting Radio B92's website almost daily. Granted it was one source, and slanted, but it was Serbian News, and it was because of Radio B92's news that I was opposed to the conflict against Serbia, not because Milosevic wasn't a killer, but because it looked as if Serbia was in the process of taking him down themselves for his thieving from the Serbian People, his homicidal attitudes, and for just being an all around nationalistic bootstomping tyrant. Milosevic shut down Radio B92 first day into the bombing campaign under "National Security" predicates. I have since had the good fortune of getting to know several Serbian Immigrants. Two who were military conscripts at the time of the bombing. The younger ones all seem to be very anti-Milosevich, although two of the older ones are not, and spew hatred at the mention of anything Islamic, as well as Clinton, which seems just a bit hypocritical since they obviously could not immigrate to America fast enough after the Serbian conflict. It was also a bad war because we were taking sides against Serbia with parties who were nearly, if not just as evil as Milosevic. There were no government entities with clean hands there.

B92 has now expanded into a major Serbian Independent broadcaster, branching into television. They still seem to offer a good spectrum of news. Some of their recent offerings are germane here:

• B92 - 6 September 2007
  40,000 missing in Yugoslav wars
  
  Statistics show there were 40,000 people in all listed as missing after the wars in the former Yugoslavia.
  
  The Director of relations with the International Commission for Missing Persons (ICMP), Jeffrey Buenger, told the Beta news agency that after many years of identification work on some 40,000 missing persons – of whom 30,000 are from Bosnia-Herzegovina - there were about 17,000 people still unaccounted for.
  
  
• B92 - 5 September 2007
  Milosevic'-era customs chief on trial
  
  The trial of former Customs Chief Mihalj Kertes is set to begin today in Belgrade's Special Organized Crime Court.
  
  According to an indictment brought on March 13, Kertes was named as a member of an organized crime group headed by former Yugoslav and Serbian president, Slobodan Milosevic', together with Jovan Zebic', the former deputy prime minister, finance minister and national bank deputy governor during the Milosevic' regime, and the former Deputy Prime Minister Nikola Šainovic',
  
  The group has been charged with "abuse of power and smuggling millions of dollars of state money from Serbia to Cyprus in the 1990s."
  
  Milosevic' and Zebic' have since passed away, and legal proceedings against them have been adjourned, while Šainovic' is currently standing trial in the Hague accused of 1999 war crimes committed in Kosovo.
  
  
• B92 - 5 September 2007
  Hague judges visit sites in Bosnia
  
  Judges Moloto, Harhoff and Lattanzi, hearing the case against Rasim Delic', will visit the sites in central Bosnia this week.
  The locations are said to be relevant for the proceedings against the former commander of the Bosnian Army Main Staff.
  
  
• B92 News 4 September 2007
  Haradinaj trial focuses on Radonjic' Lake
  
  The Hague prosecution continued its case against Ramush Haradinaj, Idriz Balaj and Lahi Brahimaj Monday.
  
  The trial resumed with the of a crime scene technician with the Serbian police (MUP).
  
  In September 1998, he recorded on video the bodies of Albanians, Serbs and Roma in and around the Radonjic' Lake canal.
  
  He testified about the manner in which he made the video recordings, shown several times in the course of the trial, as Witness 64, with image and voice distortion as protective measures.
  
  In a brief examination in chief, the witness confirmed the accuracy of the statement he had given to the OTP investigators in June 2006 and amended in August 2007. He said he reached the Radonjic' Lake on September 12, 1998, and made recordings on that day and the days that followed.
  
  
• B92 News - 3 September 2007
  "Bosnia covered up war crimes"
  
  An association of families of Bosnian war victims claims the Bosnian authorities have sought to obscure war crimes.
  
  The Republic of Srpska (RS) Association of the Families of War Victims said it had evidence that Muslim military and civilian authorities had covered up war crimes committed against Bosnian Serbs in 1995 in the Ozren and Vozuc(a areas.
  
  
• B92 News 4 September 2007
  War crimes indictee tops Kosovo party list
  
  Alliance for the Future of Kosovo will have Ramush Haradinaj as its leader in the coming elections.
  
  A party official said Tuesday in Pristina that Haradinaj "will be allowed to participate" in the November 17 vote, despite the fact he is currently incarcerated in a Hague Tribunal detention cell.
  
  
• B92 Blog, Lucy Moore, "The ICTY: Justice in a box"