The Passion of Kanan Makiya
Dexter Filkins' piece on Kanan Makiya in the NYT Magazine is a must read in the ongoing autopsy of the Iraq catastrophe. It's also a valuable document for an anatomy of intellectual folly--make that human folly--in our time.
Makiya, the courageous, soulful, and gravely misguided Iraqi in exile, wrote two indispensable books about Iraq: one about Saddam Hussein's regime of terror (Republic of Fear), the other about the default of Arab intellectuals (Cruelty and Silence). In the 1990s, he campaigned for American intervention. He was tireless.
He knew that to liberate Iraq he needed a practical champion, and the man he lined up with was Ahmad Chalabi. And playing Trotsky to Chalabi's Lenin, most consequentially after September 11, 2001, the onetime Trotskyist became the public face of an invasion that could now be presented to a panicked America as a kick-start for the dramatic top-to-bottom remaking of the corrupt Arab Middle East.
In this, Kanan Makiya was also deeply, catastrophically, flowers-and-sweets wrong. He was also compelling. I well remember how, at NYU in November 2002, he used his polemical skill to convince George Packer, among others, that the moral case for his go-for-broke expedition into Iraq trumped all the objections raised by myself along with Michael Walzer, Frances Fitzgerald, and Mansour Farhang. (The text of my own talk that night is here.)
Filkins, whose NYT war coverage was remarkable, now gives us glimpses of an agonized Makiya itrying to write his way out of the history that has befallen all of us. He quotes the former Iraqi official Ali Allawi:
“Kanan is a romantic,” Allawi said, seated on the couch. “He thinks in these broad categories. He thinks of democracy, of freedom, in ideological terms rather than in terms of practice and experience and living."
But to say that Makiya is a romantic is not strong enough. The second part of Allawi's quote is more apt. Makiya is an ideologue, a Platonist--that is, a revolutionary. The Idea is what is Real. Serious conservatives from Edmund Burke to Max Weber always knew this substitute of theology for the politics of actual human beings was disastrous. If Makiya is to write something adequate, something more than a self-exoneration, something commensurate with the enormity of recent years, he must ask himself why he didn't know what serious conservatives have been trying to tell that tradition since the days of Rousseau and Hegel.
Makiya "basically thinks that people are decent and good,” Allawi goes on. But it's weirder than that. For also, in the late '90s and into the Bush years, Makiya believed that the Iraqis were internally mangled, morally bent, fatally bent, bent in the way that Hannah Arendt described in her tour de force on totalitarianism--bent by the years of Saddam's Ba'athism. He said this in public and I heard him say it in private more than once.
So the logic of his line of argument, if it had any coherence at all, was essentially this: That these deeply corrupted victims of decades under the Ba'ath regime were going to make a cleansing revolution, and purge themselves, if only the right Lenin/Trotsky/Mandela rode down to them on a white horse. And, by the way, if only the American nation, in its wholehearted generosity, agreed to send the advance party.
Such terrible thinking! This was wishfulness to the point of delusion, and past it.
Not only about Iraq, but also about himself. When one is implicated in a disaster, one is bound to ask how this could have happened. Not only, How could Chalabi be so wrong, but: How could I have been so wrong--about Chalabi, about Cheney and Wolfowitz and Bush, about American power as well as about the Iraqi nation?
Filkins says Makiya has been thinking about Dostoyevsky. An excellent idea! But Dostoyevsky did not think that everyone around him but himself was a jerk.
I remember Makiya saying how moved he was when, after a speech he gave in Washington in the '90s, criticizing the Bush I administration for having failed to march on Baghdad, Paul Wolfowitz came up afterward and told him how right he, Makiiya, was. He was all too impressed by power--Chalabi as future power, Bush and Cheney and Wolfowitz as archdeacons of goodness. I suspect there was an aspect of power-worship in this Iraqi intellectual, as there is in all Trotskyists, and indeed, in many other intellectuals who did not go so far as to light the candle for Lenin.
Makiya was good, America was good, so all would be good in Iraq after Saddam. "We did not know how things were going to turn out," Makiya tells Filkins. But some of us did know, and rather well. We wondered how these broken Iraqis were going to zoom into self-government once they had read the Federalist Papers.
Makiya is, indeed, as Filkins writes, fearless. But he is not brilliant. He did not, as it turns out, know Chalabi. Or Iraq. Or himself.
A lifetime in politics has eroded, even erased almost all my romanticism. I used to love Makiya. I projected my own sort of romantic exile persona onto him. I admired both his Iraq books greatly. But, on Filkins' testimony (not the last word, of course) it sounds as though he does not begin to know the dimensions of the delusions that led him to become the human face of preventive war.
"If only the American electorate had been as wise..."
Truly.
October 7, 2007 5:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
RogerGathman
Gitlin and I read two completely different articles. I read a puff piece for neo-connery much like Roger Cohen's much derided op ed of a couple of days ago. Let's list the atrocities:
1. The casual elevation of the number of Saddam Hussein's victims to one million, a figure that Filkins seems to have put in simply in order to make the number of Iraqi dead, due to the invasion, smaller. It is incredible that both the NYT and the Washington Post, using 'rigorous' standards, can't seem to quote the Lancet Report as the authoritative figure on Iraqi victims, but has no trouble quoting Iraqi exiles whose dishonesty, verbally, financially and politically, is by now so well established that we have little need to prove it. As Chalabi himself said about the lies concerning WMD, who cares so long as it worked?
2. The wonderful bits about how terrible the Ba'athists were for expelling the Jews from Baghdad. Surely this is right, surely this was terrible. It was also terrible that Yemen, Tunisia and Egypt did it. It was so terrible that the fact that Iran hasn't done it, even under the present regime, should, uh, cause us to hesitate when we casually call the Iranian regime Hitlerian. But there is nothing like selective indignation to fill an article with crap.
3. By this time, we should know a couple of things about Chalabi. I don't know where Gitlin gets the idea Filkins reporting from Iraq was extraordianry. Throughout the fall of 2003 and into 2004, it was extraordarily stupid. And there was a reason for that - his, and the NYT reporter crew's, closeness to a thief. Nir Rosen, whose reporting truly has been amazing, went around to Iraqis themselves in 2003, and quickly discovered what the NYT seemingly still hasnt discovered - Chalabi has a reputation as a thief that is spread throughout Iraq. It is little wonder - he stole his millions in a neighboring country, Jordan, leading to a temporary economic collapse in that country. But this is simply ignored by Filkins and his ilk, so pleased to meet such a smooth, americanized, english speaking Iraqi. Really, it is as if we were to believe Robert Vesco or some stray Enron fraud were a liberating figure. However, Filkins record here, like Judith Miller's, is pretty clear: if Chalabi said it, it must be gold.
Here's a typical Filkins analysis, from 13 February, 2005:
"But more than anything, the visit by the American diplomat demonstrated the change in Mr. Chalabi's political fortunes in his native land. Vilified in the United States as the man who fed exaggerated reports of Saddam's weaponry to intelligence agencies, and often listed as one of the most unpopular people in Iraq, Mr. Chalabi is now all but assured a seat in the National Assembly. Over the past several days he has begun maneuvering to become the country's prime minister.
Though he is by most accounts a long shot for the top job, Mr. Chalabi, by quietly assembling an unlikely coalition of Shiite leaders and Islamist outsiders, seems likely to have secured for himself a senior position in the new Iraqi government. As the vote counting nears completion, Mr. Chalabi is in command of one of the largest blocs within the Shiite alliance, which appears certain to head the next government."
Of course, both of those predictions were so wildly off that one has to ask if Filkins has any idea of the Iraq he is supposedly reporting on - it would be like reporting, in February 2004, that Dennis Kucinich has a definite shot to be the President of the U.S. So do I, for that matter - but it is misleading in the extreme. Par for the course for a U.S. press that devoted far more time to explaining the fantasies of people like Chalabi, in 2003 and 2004, then telling us anything about the DAWA party or the Sadrist, so that the election results in Iraq seem to come as a complete surprise to the American media. This is thanks to the blind leading the blind reporting of such as Filkins.
4., And then, of course, there was Filkins soft soaping of what the exiles really did in Iraq in his Makiya profile - their peculation on a truly earthshattering scale, their cosmopolitan lives that just happen to scoot the Makiya types out of the way of any IEDs to a comfortable life in the U.S. - that wonderful, Ba'ath free power which is going to allow all of 20,000 Iraqi refugees in its border next year. Meanwhile, of course, 'fascist, ba'athist' Syria, with a humanity unknown in this country, has made room for a million refugees.
So, I read another retro aren't we liberal hawks so moral article that was a very sick joke. Not Gitlin's piece at all.
October 7, 2007 5:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
"The casual elevation of the number of Saddam Hussein's victims to one million"
Likewise, listing among Saddam's crimes the war with Iran while obscuring his role therein as our proxy.
October 7, 2007 6:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's one thing to fight Britain and the American society, it's quite a different story to fight Saddam or Stalin; nonviolence will kill you.
It's easy the say about "I have a dream" that is was practical and calculating. But how much of it is drawing the target after shooting?
Makiya is not Gandhi or King, but he had a dream. How much is his dream a wish or a nightmare and how much is the Bush junta is an open question.
October 7, 2007 6:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
I suppose that amongst those who agitated for war there must have been some idealists who I'd personally like.
But even the best of them seemed to have claimed the costs of the war would be less than they were. So let's just say the costs would only have been limited to what they are now. Thousands of lives a year (4,000 now?) and hundreds of billions a year (are we at half a trillion?) I mean, if the costs were truly disclosed, would anyone have supported this?
It's an important question, I think. Idealists can make moral cases and it wasn't hard to make a moral case against Saddam Hussein. I remember that my first thought about the war was that it was wrong but also something that "couldn't have happened to a nicer guy." Thing is, that's not how you make policy. America has paid in lives and dollars and both bills are recurring. But even if all the costs stopped right now and, at the same moment, Iraq turned into such a pristine democracy that we looked to it for its example... I wouldn't believe that the war was worth the lives or money.
We were mostly led to war by cynical manipulators. But some smart, idealistic useful idiots supported them.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
October 7, 2007 7:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
jolly,
I always felt it was interesting how Saddam Hussein went from ally for so many years to almost immediate enemy when the Bush family took the White House, first with Poppy, then junior.
All the babble by politicians about the evil Saddam during the Clinton years I chalked up to buying cheap political points by railing against the evil doer du jour.
I don't remember anyone in Congress or the Clinton White House calling for an invasion of Iraq, but then along came Bush Jr.
Iran and Ahmadinejad is simply deja vu all over again.
By the way, allying oneself with Chalabi is like aligning oneself with John Gotti.
October 7, 2007 7:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Gandhi, who were steadfastly nonviolent
Let's don't forget that millions people were killed as eventual result of his nonviolence.
October 7, 2007 8:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
To be fair, Bill Clinton, with some of the best military advisers available, the experience of Somalia (that H.W. Bush left him as a parting gift) and the moral need to intervene in Bosnia (whoch he did, and which I take issue with) had TONS of opportunities to do something about Saddam Hussein. Clinton was no pacifist. But he didn't go after Saddam. Because he knew it wasn't worth the price.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
October 7, 2007 8:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Todd, Atrios just reminded me of something that is more towards your point.
Vaclav Havel supported the Iraq invasion.
I love Havel as an artist, politician, thinker and hero.
He was still wrong about Iraq.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
October 7, 2007 8:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
Reading Filkins' piece, I was struck by the absence of any serious thought (at least by report) on Makiya's part vis-a-vis the real vessel into which he was pouring his hopes--not Chalabi, but Bush.
What part of "commander-in-chief" did he not understand.
Surely a person of Makiya's intellectual accomplishments should recognize a boob when he sees one, let alone a delusional dry drunk boob.
(This in the face of his professed estimte that the whole wretched enterprise stood only a 5% chance of shot at success!)
I am, perhaps unfairly, convinced that Filkins and Makiya touched upon the glaring shortcomings of Incurious George, and the evaluations that ensued were excised by editors seeking to give no offense to the powerful, even in the midst of Götterdämmerung.
October 7, 2007 8:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Disposing of question such as is Makiya brilliant or whether he is a romantic, it seems to me that the interesting and more general question is whether dreaming of an outside intervention in Iraq is a complete illusion or it does make some limited sense.
Let's assume that instead of Bush we had Bill Clinton and instead of Rumsfeld we had David Obey and instead of Pace we had Wesley Clark. Would the intervention in Iraq and the toppling of Saddam look different than Iraq today with our current Junta?
Could we think of coming in, making the changes and leaving right away as having positive results rather than war crimes, civil war and millions of refugees?
My read of Makiya, whom I never heard or read, is of a somewhat unrealistic person. A person who fails to look at history of interventions and history in general. Yet, from the same stock we had Martin Luther King, Ghandi and others.
October 7, 2007 8:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
A different question, the discussion of which might give another kind of insight: what if there were an Iraqi that combined the vision and practicality to unite? What would such a person look like? Figures that immediately come to mind, although very much different people, would be Magsaysay (Phillipines) and Ataturk (Turkey). Massoud, in Afghanistan, is a tantalizing possibility, cut down before he could flourish in a non-combat situation. There are also the spiritual leaders such as Gandhi and Mandela, but who both needed an operational deputy.
Outsiders with such influence are even more rare, Sir Robert Thompson (Malaya) being one such.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
October 7, 2007 9:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
"I always felt it was interesting how Saddam Hussein went from ally for so many years to almost immediate enemy ..."
Moreover, how to deconstruct the strange episode of April Glasspie and the July 25th green light she gave Saddam in his "border dispute" with Kuwait?
(nb:something like our "border dispute" with Mexico in 1848...border disputes, after all, are where the rubber meets the road, as it were.)
I proudly let my Foil Flag Fly (Pace, Jimi...) on this one--I'm quite sure Saddam was set up.
October 7, 2007 9:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
if the costs of Civil War were truly disclosed, would anyone have supported that?
I guess it depends who would it ended, in victory or in defeat.
October 7, 2007 9:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Let's don't forget that millions people were killed as eventual result of his nonviolence."
This formulation is beyond bizarre.
You might as well say that as an eventual result of Jesus' mission thousands were subjected to the tender mercies of Torquemada because their conversions could not be properly certified...
Surely the culpability for the disastrous collapse of a colonial regime lies at the doorstep of the colonizers, not the man who mobilized their ouster. (The more so as the colonizers in their previous suzerainity cultivated the communal tensions that underlay the massacres of 1947-8)
October 7, 2007 9:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Makiya didn't stay away from Bush. He made a marriage of convenience. He was grateful to Bush because Bush would be useful to his project-of-projects, the overthrow of Saddam. Bush found in him a useful ally. In short, he had interests that overwhelmed his values. This is the tragedy of exiles.
Todd Gitlin
October 7, 2007 9:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Todd, my view is that your position, that some wars are good and others are bad, limits your potential in arguing against "bad" wars. The decision on intervention or not becomes simply one of individual judgment which of course varies between people.
Specifically, the war in Afghanistan, which you considered legitimate, according to your judgment is a good war whereas the Iraq war is bad. But how is the war in Afghanistan better than the war in Iraq? Couldn't we substitute Afghanistan for Iraq in this statement of yours without loss of meaning?
Afghanistan is an example of wars that "get out of control and are, after all, hellish."
from a news report:
The presence of 39,700 foreign troops notwithstanding, the situation in Afghanistan is now so difficult that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) faces more restrictions in its work than at any time since it established a permanent presence in the country in 1987 . . ."the (people) worst affected are women and children. The facts are staggering: 60,000 children in Afghanistan are addicted to drugs, and another 100,000 are disabled and otherwise severely affected physically due to prolonged conflicts in the country" . . .Afghanistan, the report continues, ranks 174 out of 178 countries on the UNDP's index of human development; most of what social progress has occurred since 2002 has been confined to the west and north of the country. The surge in the drug trade is such that opium-poppy production is now worth about $3.1 billion, almost half of the country's legal GDP, much of which is used to fuel the insurgency.
So I claim that your denigration of the "Old Left remnants"--count me as one--and your support of some wars but not others limits YOUR potential because it limits the strength of your argument against any war.
And in this sense your final statement--
--can be applied not only to Makiya on Iraq but to yourself on Afghanistan. Todd, all elective wars are bad and if we leave it to judgment to think otherwise, than one person's wish becomes another's delusion, which means that the whole rationale for stopping war is destroyed and all wars are possible.
And please, everyone, regarding Afghanistan, spare me the tired talk about the need to destroy al-Qaeda training facilities [such as?] and consider the current plight of Afghanistan and Afghanis.
ecotourism
WeGoEco.com
October 7, 2007 9:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
In retrospect, Bush appears to have been everyone's useful fool. What a legacy.
October 7, 2007 9:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
jollyroger,
yes, he seems to have missed the elephant in the room. Then again, perhaps he knew enough to stay away from Bush?
October 7, 2007 9:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Eh, not really. I could see people arguing that the Civil War as fought for good reasons, even if the wrong side had won.
The Iraq war is different. It was sold, in terms of lives we'd sacrifice, as a cake walk. Soldiers were expected to die of diabetes from eating the candy thrown at them by the liberated Iraqis. It was also sold to us as costing nothing in terms of dollars. Iraq's oil wealth was supposed to pay for its own reconstruction.
So... we were lied to about the costs in both dollars and lives. How can that be compared to the Civil War? And if a country's leadership lies to its populace about what a war should cost, should that population still pay for that war?
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
October 7, 2007 10:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
It is absurd to associate King and Gandhi, who were steadfastly nonviolent, with defense of a military invasion. The genius of the theory of nonviolence is that, by taking suffering onto him- or herself, the direct actionist seeks to short-circuit the oppressive role of the oppressor and to speak to the deep human inside. Thus the concept of "soul force."
But King and Gandhi were also eminently practical. They calculated--if we do this, they do that, and the following is likely to result. They never departed from reason. They did not gamble wildly on a 5-percent doctrine. Gandhian thinking is altogether different from the notion of overthrowing a horrible government by violence because it would be wonderful if that government didn't exist, but without playing out the if's and then's. There are times to attempt armed overthrow, depending on pragmatic judgments--Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan--but then too, there is no exemption from the need for good judgment. Ever.
Todd Gitlin
October 7, 2007 10:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
The overthrow of the Taliban was fully justified as a matter of self-defense, since they were harboring al-Qaeda. Is there any doubt of it? Do you doubt it, Don? If so, why?
That the Bush gang botched the subsequent occupation does not detract from the justifiability of the invasion. The crucial difference between the Afghanistan and Iraq wars is the difference between defensive and preventive wars.
Todd Gitlin
October 7, 2007 10:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
"perhaps he knew enough to stay away from Bush?"
If only the American electorate had been as wise...
October 7, 2007 10:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
To say that Makiya's problem was that he was a "revolutionary" is, if anything, unfair to revolutionaries. Some revolutionaries have actually been shrewd and calculating individuals, whose revolutionary ideals and ambitions were informed by canny and realistic assessments of actual situation and how best to effect revolutionary change. There are many revolutions that have actually succeeded.
Once again we see this term "secular Shiite". This seems to have been a favorite category of individual for the neoconservatives. I recall Richard Perle in 2003 speaking highly of the secular Shiites as the key to Iraq's future. Yet who are these secular Shiites? One gathers that they were a small charmed circle of highly westernized, elite cosmopolitans and technocrats-in-exile whose understanding of the actual social and political conditions on the ground in their native country was minimal, and who themselves had no grass roots support in the country. All of those not-so-secular Shiites, in Da'wa, in Sciri and in the Sadr movement and Mahdi army, who were organized even before the war, never seem to have signed onto the secular Shiite agenda.
That Ahmed Chalabi could have become "Iraq's Mandela" just seems so inherently preposterous that only the most credulous of ivory tower pigeons could have believed it. Makiya might as well say he expects Alberto Gonzalez to move to Mexico and become Mexico's Che Guevara. Surely Makiya could not have failed to be aware that Chalabi was nothing like Mandela, either in character and background experience, or in the possession of a vast ocean of popular devotion and good will on which to float to power. If he did think Chalabi had that popular support, then he clearly didn't .. um ... get out much. I wonder how many really popular Iraqi leaders Makiya actually knows, or has ever met.
I also didn't realize Mandela was a U. of Chicago technocrat who spent his time in America hobnobbing around with other successful and conservative Chicago alums when he wasn't busy pursuing his life ambition of making piles of money and fleecing the fleeceable. I'm going to have to read another biography of Mandela. I was under the mistaken impression that Mandela was more involved with leading popular resistance movements and guerrilla armies, and going to prison and stuff.
Of course Chalabi also headed an organization called a "national congress." Just like Mandela!
All this said, Makiya is too easy a target. In every bad situation like Saddam's Iraq, there are going to be figures like Makiya, passionate dissident writers who are deeply disgusted with the regime, deeply invested in their cause, filled with idealistic hope for dramatic change, and who use their pens to recruit others to the cause. Politicians, on the other hand, are the people we expect to be masters of calculation and the art of the possible. Similarly, we expect military people and intelligence analysts, whose job it is to make these calculations every day, to be better than at predicting the consequences of actions, and not to pursue every revolution dreamed up by dissident writers.
October 7, 2007 11:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
should that population still pay for that war?
Who else is going to pay?
October 7, 2007 11:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
RogerGathman
Dan, well said. It is hard to imagine a revolutionary more out of touch with the place he was ostensibly wanting to revolutionize than Makiya. Luckily, being an academic revolutionary, he has a nice cushion to fall back on. However, another, unsavory omission in the profile concerns the sheer wealth seized by the exiles who came back into Iraq, piggybacking on American soldiers. Iraqis know that the London real estate held by the Chalabis, the extensive wealth of Allawis extended family, etc. - and the disappearance of about 9 billion dollars in Iraq's money have a pretty close relationship. But heavens! this was all done out of the purest idealism!
October 7, 2007 11:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, nobody. Any bills still due go unpaid.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
October 7, 2007 11:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know, Todd. Al-Qaeda lived there. And the Taliban, which we had supported prior to 9-11 (even though the government sucked and had been harboring Al-Qaeda pre 9/11) was in power. But did the Taliban attack us? This always made me wonder about people like "The American Taliban." Our own government had acknowledged the Taliban as a legitimate government. Maybe we shouldn't have, but we did.
After 9/11, I guess we had to do anything to get Bin Laden. If we had to invade Britain to get him, I'd have been for it. But our invasion of Afghanistan seemed to have very little to do with getting Bin Laden. Bush has long since stopped caring. His advisers seem to have had some other agenda that I can't discern.
Was invading Afghanistant justified? I think I'm with you and willing to say "yes." But not for the reasons we did it and I say it (as you do) with the knowledge that we have a conflicted history in the region.
Sorry for babbling.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
October 7, 2007 12:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
But costs were disclosed, before,
I have another objection; and that is, it is unjust that I should suffer such a penalty. Had I interfered in the manner which I admit, and which I admit has been fairly proved (for I admire the truthfulness and candor of the greater portion of the witnesses who have testified in this case)--had I so interfered in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, the so-called great, or in behalf of any of their friends--either father, mother, brother, sister, wife, or children, or any of that class--and suffered and sacrificed what I have in this interference, it would have been all right; and every man in this court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward rather than punishment.
This court acknowledges, as I suppose, the validity of the law of God. I see a book kissed here which I suppose to be the Bible, or at least the New Testament. That teaches me that all things whatsoever I would that men should do to me, I should do even so to them. It teaches me, further, to "remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them." I endeavored to act up to that instruction. I say I am yet too young to understand that God is any respecter of persons. I believe that to have interfered as I have done--as I have always freely admitted I have done--in behalf of His despised poor was not wrong, but right. Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments--I submit; so let it be done!
Let me say one word further.
I feel entirely satisfied with the treatment I have received on my trial. Considering all the circumstances it has been more generous than I expected. But I feel no consciousness of guilt. I have stated that from the first what was my intention and what was not. I never had any design against the life of any person, nor any disposition to commit treason, or excite slaves to rebel, or make any general insurrection. I never encouraged any man to do so, but always discouraged any idea of that kind.
Let me say also a word in regard to the statements made by some of those connected with me. I her it has been stated by some of them that I have induced them to join me. But the contrary is true. I do not say this to injure them, but as regretting their weakness. There is not one of them but joined me of his own accord, and the greater part of them at their own expense. A number of them I never saw, and never had a word of conversation with till the day they came to me; and that was for the purpose I have stated.
Now I have done.
During the war,
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
And, as a pair of eyes were closed, "now he belongs to the ages."
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
October 7, 2007 12:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
The end part of the Ali Allawi quote, which you used the beginning of, was the most interesting thing in the article for me:
I already knew of Makiya's regret, folly and idealistic naivete from other articles, though to see Filkins do such a piece was a draw right away.
But it's far more interesting to see an Iraqi exile making an argument akin to Samuel P. Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" theory. A westerner saying what Allawi said there might be accused of racism by some.
Also interesting along those lines were his statements before that quote, about fearing that Iraq will have to be a U.S. protectorate for many years, similar to the Phillipines, and that "it was all doomed," because the assumptions were false, not just because of disastrous decisions that followed the assumptions.
I also noted that Filkins reports that his two-hour meeting with Allawi was "a deeply depressing experience." That is a quite amazing statement knowing some of the other ways Filkins has spent a couple of hours over the last few years.
October 7, 2007 12:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bush and Rummy had to clean out those hydroelectric powered, wired, lighted and ventilated caves where up to a thousand terrorists lived (in each cave, we were told there were 'many'), with their stinger missiles, tons of ammo, bedrooms, common rooms, entrances for trucks to drive into.... all buried beyond thermal detection a thousand feet into Tora Bora! cave complex picture from Nov. 2001 ; Rummy transcript Dec. 2001
In Afghanistan we did at least have the Northern Alliance warlords on our side. Kanan Makiya would have credibility if he or his family were ready to join in the battle for democracy on the front lines, along side kids from Iowa and Alabama.
October 7, 2007 1:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
I never thought of Makiya as a revolutionary, but rather as a moralist. As a moralist, he presented passionate moral arguments for a course of action regarding the middle east. To regard moralists, particularly those that argue for action in favor of particular moral choices, as romantics seems to me to be itself a moral cop-out. There are situations in which the efficacy of moral action is limited or non-existent. This is not a profound observation, but it seems easy to forget. God is not on our side or anybody's side. Or alternatively, not all problems have solutions (in mathematical terms, not all problems are well-posed)
October 7, 2007 1:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why do we continue to pick on theologians, as in the shift from ideologue to Platonist to revolutionary to theologian? The fourth member just doesn't belong in that set -- remember that two popes and the Archbishop of Canterbury, a group that probably includes the two most eminent theologians currently active in the Catholic and Protestant traditions, were completely, and outspokenly, right about this war. And even a mediocre theologian knows that faith in the redemptive power of violence is not only intellectually bankrupt it's worshipping a false god.
October 7, 2007 1:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
What is all this criticism of My Ikea about?
Sure, the people of Iraq could have gone directly to the store and bought their furniture. But they shouldn't have to, because it's very hot in Iraq and dusty, too. And the women who buy furniture for their families wear uncomfortable black dresses. They should be able to shop online just like anybody else and get deliveries from FedEx.
I think Ikea should be praised for its consumer friendliness and not criticized.
October 7, 2007 1:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
If we had not supported the Taliban or what became the Taliban against Russia we would not have this problem..... And the cycle keeps on working for the influential and powerful.
We discuss the train wreck but not those who throw the switch. Those who throw the switch are not in any office or employed in any government position.
Behind the curtain powers dream with lusting pipe's fantasy.
Their electronic organs birth the future in folds,
kin of themselves.
-----------------------------------------------
Today, are we searching for I deals or Ideals?
-Thinking
October 7, 2007 2:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Todd,
Obviously I am saying that the US actions in Afghanistan were not justified, and looking at the situation now who can say that the level of suffering that the US has brought to the people in that poor country was justified?
1. AQ and the Taliban were spawned by US actions against the Russians under President Carter, which left a political vacuum in Afghanistan. Were those actions justified?
2. The Taliban and the US had close connections ten years ago, even after the AQ bombings of US facilities in Africa, because the US wanted an oil pipeline. Were those actions justified?
3. The Taliban was birthed and supported by Pakistan, and may be still, while the US has close ties with Pakistan. Are those . . . ?
4. AQ is supported financially by Saudi Arabia. Sections of the 9/11 report dealing with SA have been censored. Justified?
5. President Bush and General Franks have stated that OBL is not an objective, and he is now apparently being protected by Pakistan.
Calling the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan a defensive war implies that the US was attacked by Afghanistan, but that's not true. The US may have been attacked by terrorists based in that country (there is no proof of this) but the 'Bush Doctrine' of attacking any country in which terrorists might originate or be supported is a recipe for disaster, as proven by the ongoing tragedies in Afghanistan and Iraq (supposedly, according to the VP, the home of terrorists). Following the Bush Doctrine universally would lead to similar disasters in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran, Syria and God knows where else. Have we learned nothing about the futility and expense, in lives and treasure, of war?
Leading security experts and spokesmen have stated that the best defense against terrorists is not military action, but effective intelligence and policing, and smarter policies and economic development. In other words, the "Global War on Terror" is a bogus PR term that, defined as the use of military force, keeps the US from real security.
Some thoughts:
Washington, Aug 3, 2007 — Former (Republican) House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Thursday the Bush administration is waging a "phony war" on terrorism, warning that the country is losing ground against the kind of Islamic radicals who attacked the country on Sept. 11, 2001.
A more effective approach, said Gingrich, would begin with a national energy strategy aimed at weaning the country from its reliance on imported oil and some of the regimes that petro-dollars support.
"None of you should believe we are winning this war. There is no evidence that we are winning this war," the ex-Georgian told a group of about 300 students attending a conference for collegiate conservatives.
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/08/03/newt0803.html
General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says that fighting terrorism is a police problem (which means the "Global War on Terror" is a bogus mistake):
"People talk about, 'Are you winning?' First, you have to define: What is winning? And I don't mean to be glib about that. Winning in this war on terrorism is having security in the countries we're trying to help that allows for those governments to function and for their people to function.
"Example. Washington, D.C., has crime, but it has a police force that is able to keep that crime below a level at which the normal citizens can go about their daily jobs and the government can function. That's what you're looking for on the war on terrorism, whether it be Iraq, Afghanistan, or anyplace else."
http://www.defenselink.mil/Transcripts/Transcript.aspx?TranscriptID=3765
"And from a security standpoint, it's a level of security that allows the government to function, to be able to provide services to the people. So does a major city anywhere in the world have crime? Yes. But their police force keeps the crime level below a level at which the people can operate on a daily basis and go about their lives the way they want to. You're not going to eliminate all terrorist acts in Iraq. But security-wise, we can provide enough security so that the government can provide the good governance that's needed so we can move forward with the Iraqi people. "
http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=4004
And Rumsfeld agrees: : "At the present time -- we've used the phrase 'global war against terror,' which I find not perfect. I think that it is really a long struggle, as opposed to a war, which implies armies, navies, air forces and Marines contesting each other. It is irregular, it's asymmetric, and it is not against terrorism per se; it is against these violent extremists who use terrorism, but they also could use other things."
http://www.defenselink.mil/Transcripts/Transcript.aspx?TranscriptID=3823
More from Rummy: " I guess I don't think I would have called it the war on terror. I don't mean to be critical of those who have or did or -- and certainly I've used the phrase frequently. Why do I say that? I say it because the word "war" conjures up World War II more than it does the Cold War, and it creates a level of expectation of victory and an ending within the 30 or 60 minutes of a soap opera. And it isn't going to happen that way.
"Furthermore, it's not a war on terror. Terror is a weapon of choice for extremists who are trying to destabilize regimes and impose their -- in the hands of a small group of clerics, their dark vision on all the people that they can control.
"So 'war on terror' has a problem for me, and I've worked to try to reduce the extent to which that's used, and increase the extent to which we understand it more as a long war or a struggle or a conflict, not against terrorism but against a relatively small number, but terribly dangerous and lethal, violent extremists."
http://www.defenselink.mil/Transcripts/Transcript.aspx?TranscriptID=3824
and Colin Powell--
What is the greatest threat facing us now? People will say it’s terrorism. But are there any terrorists in the world who can change the American way of life or our political system? No. Can they knock down a building? Yes. Can they kill somebody? Yes. But can they change us? No. Only we can change ourselves. So what is the great threat we are facing?
I would approach this differently, in almost Marshall-like terms. What are the great opportunities out there—ones that we can take advantage of? It should not be just about creating alliances to deal with a guy in a cave in Pakistan. It should be about how do we create institutions that keep the world moving down a path of wealth creation, of increasing respect for human rights, creating democratic institutions, and increasing the efficiency and power of market economies? This is perhaps the most effective way to go after terrorists.
http://men.style.com/gq/features/full?id=content_5900&pageNum=3
and, last but not least, President Bush--
They can't stand the thought of a free society in the midst of a part of the world that's just desperate for freedom. These people don't like freedom. You know why? Because it clashes with their ideology. We actually misnamed the war on terror, it ought to be the struggle against ideological extremists who do not believe in free societies who happen to use terror as a weapon to try to shake the conscience of the free world. (Laughter.)
No, that's what they do. They use terror to -- and they use it effectively, because we've got good hearts. We're people of conscience, they aren't. They will cut off a person's head like that, and not even care about it. That's why I tell you, you can't talk sense to them. Maybe some think you can, I don't. I don't think you can negotiate with them.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/08/20040806-1.html
Finally, I re-iterate my main argument with your diary. Claiming that there are good wars and bad wars, and that you know the difference but others don't, is an argument that can be used against you, an argument for any war anywhere.
Todd, are you really against the "Old Left"? or was this just a bit of temporary verbal excess. Are you DLC?
ecotourism
WeGoEco.com
October 7, 2007 3:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Calling the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan a defensive war implies that the US was attacked by Afghanistan, but that's not true"
Thank you!
The obscuring of the fundamentals that distinguish police work from vigilantism is staggering!
The whole reason that war involves states, is because every one on THAT side of some line is in a free fire zone (read Shock and Awe)--whatever their personal innocence.
Even gangbangers express remorse when they shoot up their enemies little sister by mistake, but not us!
If only we could meet the Tony Montana Standard, how much further ahead would we be--he is unwilling to incur "collateral damage" in the form of "women and kids"
That said, there was really little that our Shock and Awe accomplished in practical terms that could not have been done a year earlier if Clarke's plea to re-inforce the last legitimate government remnants (Achmed Shah Massoud and the Northern Alliance) against the Taliban had been undertaken. I believe (without benefit of any deep analysis) that a Unocal pipeline deal was still hanging with the Taliban, and this caused interal stonewalling within the administration.)
We ended up using mostly proxies ANYWAY, but only after we had bombed the shit out of the poor country
October 7, 2007 4:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, the Philippines is an excellent analogy -- Allawi is clearly a very smart guy. It's not such a useful analogy as a matter of political rhetoric for Democrats, because people don't universally recognize the US's involvement there as a mess, and as the source of the country's continuing weakness, dependency, corruption and inability to make democracy work.
"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out." - I.F. Stone
October 7, 2007 4:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think the article is a matter of "targeting" Makiya; the guy is certainly worth a profile, several in fact. Solzhenitsyn is worth a profile, as is Gary Kasparov, impractical dreamers both.
That said, I agree with you. Anyone's views of Makiya should be tempered very sharply with empathy for his moral and intellectual situation. Iraq is his country. Any liberal should pause to imagine an America ruled and ruined for 30 years by a dictatorial right-wing fascist, Democrats and liberals rounded up, tortured and executed, ethnic minority rebellions beaten down with chemical weapons, and oneself in exile, contemplating an invasion by mighty Europe to topple the now decrepit American regime. Where would you stand? Wouldn't you discount the probability that the invasion would be met by a furious Southern-white insurgency, and ultimately deteriorate into civil war between different ethnic and religious militias? If it were your country, wouldn't you pray for the "triumph of hope over experience"?
"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out." - I.F. Stone
October 7, 2007 5:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are we criticizing Makiya for being too unworldly and idealistic, or for being too pragmatic and instrumentalist?
Or perhaps it's actually more complicated: the most dangerous people are unworldly idealists who believe themselves to be acting in a sophisticated and worldly fashion. Naifs who think they're realists. Not a bad description of many of the neocons, for that matter.
"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out." - I.F. Stone
October 7, 2007 5:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Havel (my former president) is an artist and an idealist. He is not a historian and I don't think he knows a whole lot about the Middle East.
Havel also suffers from an ailment that afflicts many post-communist intellectuals. They all grew up and lived in times when the Soviet Union was unquestionably the bad guy. Since the United States always opposed the USSR, these people concluded that the US always has to be the good guy. If only the world was so simple.
October 7, 2007 6:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Didn't the Taliban tell Bush they wanted proof of Osama's hand in 9/11 before they would cooperate? Whether or not the offer was credible I don't know.
Now that' we've overthrown the Taliban do we have a responsibility to keep them from regaining power?
October 7, 2007 7:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've always thought that was obvious. At the time Saddam was saber rattling agsaint Kuwait, Glaspie told Saddam, paraphrase, 'we don't get involved in border disputes in the Middle East', then when Saddam invaded Kuwait, Bush came on national TV and claimed "This aggression will not stand."
I'm sure Saddam did a double take when he saw that.
October 7, 2007 7:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Todd,
you make my point. He stayed away from 99% of what Bush is and joined him for the 1% he agreed with, the overthrow of Saddam.
How is that working out for Makiya?
October 7, 2007 7:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Very helpful debate/discussion. Rogerwg is illuminating. Let me suggest another part of the play. Chalabi, aided by Ajami and supplied with emotional ammo from Makiya played Perle and Wolfowitz. Seen from Cairo the Iraqis played the Neocons and melded their aims with those of the Neocons whose main purpose was Israeli's security. The Neocons objectives were set in 1998. Look at the way Chalabi survives in Baghdad while all around him leaders come and go. How come he is in charge of oil?
Chalabi diddled the US Treasury, conned the Neocons and used Adjami and Makiya. This was a Arab play, written and choreographed by Arabs. Maybe we should look at important things happening outside Washington and New York.
October 7, 2007 8:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Makiya is using Chalabi, Chalabi is using Makiya, Chalabi and Makiya are using Bush, Bush is using them, the neocons are using all of them and they are using the neocons.
Selfish, manipulative, self-important greedy little pigs who want what they want when they want it - it's a mystery why this didn't work.
October 7, 2007 11:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
I read the article and I think I now understand what the term useful idiot was intended to convey. Makiya's moral authority was real -- but he lent it in service to bad men, who used it quite effectively to serve their own purposes, not his. And as it is true for Kanan Makiya, it was also true for myriad other unnatural allies of Bush, Wolfowitz and company, beginning with Tony Blair. At least Makiy shows regret that is palpable and real ("bodies matter"), what many others show is continuing disdain for those who, unlike themselves, were right.
October 8, 2007 12:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hmmm...other agendas, Bush and Cheney are oil men. Could it be the Iraq War is the second oil war? Interesting that Alan Greenspan admitted in an interview that he believes it is true.
I'm very skeptical of expats like this group, who have not lived in Iraq for many years and developed a rosy Western viewpoint about their homeland. They get into a group think mentality with other Iraqi expats, but have only filtered day-to-day knowledge of their country of birth. And the expats too have their own personal agendas and their tribal and sectarian affiliations still color their viewpoints.
Thanks Todd, good article.
October 8, 2007 12:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
yes indeed, but more they were on the ground with their own people, risking themselves against the larger powers, not encouraging the mighty over armed to take over. Innocence does not even cover the case. It's negligence of the highest order.
October 8, 2007 1:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, but you can't do that if you don't have empathy for other people - these people who are culpable of this murdering rampage lack the capacity to put themselves in another person's place and plan accordingly. They didn't look at the Iraqi nation and see people, they looked at the Iraqi nation and saw opportunities for themselves, never once did it occur to them that the first question that should have been asked is "would I like it if the Iraqis were over here?" The second question that would have followed is, "how would I react if the Iraqis were over here?"
October 8, 2007 2:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
Millions weren't killed as a result of Ghandi's non-violence policy, they were killed because they failed to follow his policy of non-violence.
October 8, 2007 2:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
"I've always thought that was obvious"
So it would seem, although they always try to fit me out with a tinfoil beanie when I say so...
(Since you appear to be a kindred spirit, may I inquire as to whether you favor the shiny side in or the shiny side out?)
October 8, 2007 2:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Makiya's position is that no matter how slim the chance is that a democratic government could be installed, it is a moral obligation of the U.S. to risk it even if the odds of failure are far greater than the odds of success.
The counter argument is that if the cost of the risk is too great then the moral obligation is not to take the risk.
An apt analogy would be the burning building - at what point do you stop sending in fire fighters to rescue people because you would lose more fire fighters than you would rescue people? Or do you have the moral obligation to continue the rescue as long as there is even a remote chance that life can be saved?
October 8, 2007 3:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
I will never forget Makiya arguing, before the invsasion, that the US had an obligation to invade even if the chance of success was minute. I concluded then that anyone who advocated war for symbolic reasons alone was a very dangerous thinker. And someone who knew he would be a long way off when the actual fighting took place.
October 8, 2007 3:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm curious to hear what others here think of Atrios's criticism of this piece. I tend to agree with the criticism to some extent, though it's a little hardh.
Thoughts?
October 8, 2007 5:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
RogerGathman
The more you look at that number - a million Iraqis murdered by Saddam - the more you see the true spirit of the neocons shining through. Roger Cohen also cites it, as authoritative, in his column justifying being a liberal hawk today. So I went looking for where it came from, via Google, and slowly it dawned on me: 500,000 deaths are credited to Saddam from the sanctions.
Think about that for a second. The way in which those deaths were totaled used a system inferior, actually, in terms of survey data, to the Lancet survey. But it still used exactly the same methodology. So, we have the NYT - which routinely quotes casualty figures for the Iraqis that are not the Lancet's, but an order of two or three magnitudes below the Lancet survey - printing, without any footnote, a figure for Iraqi casualties under Saddam which could only be justified if the Lancet survey is right. Such malicious bad faith, such double bookkeeping, is all too typical of the Cohens and the Dexter Filkins of this world. This is par for the course in the way Filkins reported from Iraq. Look up his almost delusional reports before the last Iraqi election, when he was sure - this is in 2006 - that Chalabi or Allawi would be the new Iraqi prime minister. His reason had nothing to do with Iraqi reality, and everything to do with the fact that he was living in the Iraqi exile bubble, getting his information, obviously, from people like Chalabi and Kanan Makiya. Anybody who knew anything about popular opinion in Iraq knew this was total nonsense.
Thus, it puzzles me that Gitlin calls Filkins a good reporter on Iraq. The silent moving of those sanction deaths into the Saddam Hussein column (surely the U.S. had something to do with that too), the refusal to use a consistent method to total up casualties, the reporting from Iraq that came from the minority in a minority bubble - it all adds up to the kind of substandard reporting which, alas, has characterised the American media in Iraq. You can't have good reporting from people who are 'on board', and view Iraq in the light of Roger Cohen's 'justified war'. I don't really care if a reporter is pro-war, as long as he does his job fairly. Of the reporters for the major papers, so far, only Tom Ricks and a few of his associates at the Post even come close.
October 8, 2007 5:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think it's too harsh because Gitlin just isn't like that. I think that those of us who have been around TPMCafe for awhile know him a little better than that. He answers our questions, rates our comments, seems to care what we think.
There are people out there that deserve this kind of criticism. I just don't thinK Todd Gitlin is one of them.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
October 8, 2007 5:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Chalabi. Shape shifter extrordinaire.
Where to start?
Perhaps it serves to quote a portion of a 5/2003 Maariv article about Chalabi's MO in seducing Israeli intelligence services into serving his purposes:
"For many years mystery shrouded the reasons the Americans regarded Chalabi so warmly. This was explained by his charisma, his ability to impress and links to powerful people, but the real reason was never made public, until today. Chalabi, so it transpires, was pushed into the Americans' arms by Israeli intelligence.
Chalabi's Israeli link took place 13 years ago. KZ, a Defense Ministry official, revealed details of his first meeting with Chalabi in London this week. "Chalabi immediately projected Middle Eastern warmth. He is very intelligent and surprised me with his great knowledge about us. He knew each of the components of our political gallery, the ministers, the influential MKs, IDF Intelligence and Mossad heads. He also knew about Israel's open and covert relations in the Arab world. Our talk quickly got down to the future relations between Iraq and Jerusalem, after Saddam's fall. Even back then he insisted on drawing up a new political map of the Middle East and announced that Iraq would hoist the banner of democracy."
Chalabi told the Defense Ministry official, KZ, that in Baghdad he had attended the prestigious private school of "Madame Adel," a Jewish woman, and was closely acquainted with the Jewish community. "He was familiar with our customs. When he made his first visit to Israel, we took him on a tour of the Babylon Heritage Center and for meetings with Iraqi Jews. When he saw they retain their customs from Iraq, I saw it was hard for him to contain his emotion."
http://israelbehindthenews.com/Archives/May-06-03.htm
James Woolsey has been Chalabi's champion ever since.
For those who won't read the whole thing: edited to add the fact that Israeli intelligence circles despise Chalabi.
October 8, 2007 6:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Several years ago Tony Blair had to go on TV in the UK to officially apologize for having exaggerated the numbers of Iraqis killed by Saddam, and admit that numbers of 'mass graves' discovered in the hundreds of thousands had in fact been faked. And yet still, here in the gullible US, we go by these faked numbers. Or at least our officials and pundits who can't be bothered to do actual research with a critical or analytical frame of mind still use them. I have no use for dictators or power hungry, murderous egomaniacs wherever they come from, but we have essentially used greatly exaggerated accounts of mass murder to justify real, actual mass murder of the Iraqi population. Truly sad.
October 8, 2007 6:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
I certainly think that Gitlin seems cool, too. Perhaps the the whole George Packer/CFF childlike world of "moral clarity" is so nauseating that there's no way to write about it that isn't aggravating.
October 8, 2007 6:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Indeed. Kuwait was angling their drills to recover oil from under Iraqi territory. We encouraged them. Saddam stated this would not be tolerated. We encouraged him with that statement that the US took "no official position about your border dispute with Kuwait." Beyond being merely predictable, that conflict was kindled, fanned, and fueled by the US playing with other countries like pawns in a game.
October 8, 2007 6:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here's what someone at Escahaton thought:
Hmmm atrios,
I find it a little difficult to put into words just what I feel about your response to the Gitlin article.
What is offensive about a writer reflection on his opinions or examining those of the people he knows or admires?
Really puzzled by the force of your response. Rather peevish, I think
Pete the Butcher | 10.08.07 - 12:39 pm | #
Well I don't find it as difficult as Pete does.
Duncan Black AKA Atrios, a thirty-five year-old economist who happens to have a blog, has "difficulty" with Gitlin because:
1) He's self-important. Bullshit. Todd Gitlin, with whom I often (usually?) disagree is one of the few diarists who responds to comments, not in a dismissive way, but in order to advance the discussion. There's nothing wrong with someone being confident in his views. Duncan Black certainly is.
2) Gitlin perpetuates a narrative concerning intellectuals' contribution to war. Of course he does--he's an intellectual, a university professor, a public speaker and a prolific author. He moves in the world of ideas. When I want to know something about his world Todd Gitlin gives it to me. When I want to know something about the disposition of the fifth fleet or political positions or common news, I'll go elsewhere.
3) He casts "literally every political debate as some Heroic Clash of 1960s Ideological Opponents." Here are Gitlin's last half dozen TPM topics, before this one:
--My Podhoretz Problem--and Ours
--Bulldozer and Big Tent, continued
--Extraterritoriality
--Wesley Clark Warns Against War with Iran
--Bending Over Backward (slamming the NYT)
--Petraeus: "Not Trying to Be Flip"
"Atrios" is "literally" 'way off base.
Atrios is a blogger whose blog gets 100,000 visits a day, they say. I've looked at his blog several times in the past and I've never understood why so many people visit and leave their (mostly inane) comments. Now I understand it less.
Go Todd.
ecotourism
WeGoEco.com
October 8, 2007 6:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Uh, wouldn't it be more precise to call the attack on Afghanistan (which I supported, by the way), a retaliative war and the attack on Iraq a war of aggression? That's how the rest of the world viewed it, no?
"Preventive war" doesn't strike me as a legitimate concept.
October 8, 2007 6:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
"500,000 deaths are credited to Saddam from the sanctions."
I must confess that this bit of bloody book keeping had eluded my notice--I thought it sufficiently bestial that our Secretary of State could cheerfully plunge her arms into a sea of children's blood and pronounce the horror "a price we can bear".
I never realized that at some point we would carry this tally over into Saddam's column to add insult to injury.
Welcome to the City On A Hill...
October 8, 2007 6:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's a good description of Bolsheviks -- and gangsters.
October 8, 2007 7:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Just reread my own comment and wish I hadn't used the word "seems."
Gitlin's cool. And he does care what we think. He's proven it.
You know, if the TPM community is ever to rally around one of our own who's being attacked (and I'm a big Atrios fan, btw) then Gitlin's a good guy for us to defend.
More Todd Gitlin!
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
October 8, 2007 7:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
"(Since you appear to be a kindred spirit, may I inquire as to whether you favor the shiny side in or the shiny side out?)"
jolly, the shiny side of what?
October 8, 2007 8:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Friends, this is obvious. The shiny side is repellent and must be turned inwards because the fear is not that they will control our thoughts by sending signals in, but that they will read our thoughts by receiving what we broadcast. Shiny side in blocks the broadcast of your brain-radio.
Now, be safe you two! Shiny side in!
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
October 8, 2007 8:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Shiny side in blocks the broadcast of your brain-radio."
Uh-oh.
I think I may be in big trouble....I'm turning my beanie inside out as we speak...probably too late for me.... save yourselves...SAVE YOURSELVES!
October 8, 2007 9:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
What does this mean, exactly?
"Makiya is an ideologue, a Platonist-- that is, a revolutionary. The Idea is what is Real. Serious conservatives from Edmund Burke to Max Weber always knew this substitute of theology for the politics of actual human beings was disastrous. If Makiya is to write something adequate, something more than a self-exoneration, something commensurate with the enormity of recent years, he must ask himself why he didn't know what serious conservatives have been trying to tell that tradition since the days of Rousseau and Hegel."
How is being a Platonist equivalent to being a revolutionary?
Just who are "serious conservatives"?
And what have they been trying to tell "that tradition" since Rousseau and Hegel?
Is Todd Gitlin now a fan of Burke? Does he think that written constitutions are bad things and that feudal customs and Pitt's reign of terror were good things because they kept in check "the swinish multitudes"?
Just asking.
October 8, 2007 9:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
I see why you're objecting. Plato was a revolutionary, though. Just not a revolutionary for Democracy. He believed in ideals and thought that anything less than an ideal was a mere shadow of an idea, cast onto the wall of a cave.
Of course, and this has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, Plato also believed that society should be ruled by the enlightened few.
Plato believed that somewhere out there, there is an objective truth. He believed that a few good men could find it. He also believed they should lead us.
I know that you already know everything I've written. It was meant as backstory, please don't take it as an insult to your formidable intelligence (and I added this disclaimer because I've read your posts and comments here and I know I can't lecture you). Still...
Aren't all idealist revolutionaries Platonic in some sense? They believe that a truth is out there and they pursue it, sometimes (almost always) at the cost of other's lives.
In Western philosophy, Plato is the great believer in objective truth and he is also, as the man who claimed that "truth is beauty," the great advocate for pursuing truth even at the cost of other's lives.
In that sense, isn't any revolutionary willing to go to war for their own aims Platonic?
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
October 8, 2007 9:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Don, that is an outstanding job of puncturing the hot air balloon that is our "global war on terrorism", and which featured our "defensive war" against Afghanistan. We cannot be right when we chose war as an instrument of policy in response to a criminal act by a few deranged individuals. Any attempt to justify such a war is doomed to failure. And, by the way, vengeance is never an acceptable justification for a war.
Hoppy in Sacramento
October 8, 2007 9:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
"jolly, the shiny side of what?"
Herewith the definitive research:
On the Effectiveness of Aluminium Foil Helmets:. An Empirical Study ... 1: Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department, MIT. ...
people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/helmet/ - 7k
October 8, 2007 9:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah it should be a simple notion.
We were NOT attacked by Afghanistan.
Indeed, before 9/11 we supported the Taliban government there, in defiance of libera;s in the U.S. who want to know why we were supporting a totalitarian and sexist regime.
The U.S. was pro Taliban before 9/11. Al-Qaeda attacked us. The Taliban sheltered them. But the Taliban, funded by the U.S. was not our enemy.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
October 8, 2007 10:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am only a reader and questioner and am hence a bit taken aback by your complements, though thank you just the same.
I don't understand Plato myself. I do know that he admired beauty and thought that the most beautiful thing of all was a just government -- this from the Symposium.
I also agree that a just government is perhaps one of the most beautiful ideas that can be contemplated.
I agree that Plato (perhaps upset at the execution of Socrates) appears to believe the few should rule. I don't know if he believed in equality or was a revolutionary, I suspect that he did not and was not, but I can't be sure, since I haven't read him in Greek -- among other things.
I think myself that trying to construct a hypothetical just society, however, is a potentially useful exercise and not at all idle "romanticism." Not because it is equivalent to being a "revolutionary," but because of what it can tell us about our selves and our society. What is the alternative, after all? A mindless acceptance of the status quo?
I am as surprised at Todd Gitlin (self-identified as a liberal) for invoking Burke as for putting a hypothetical white hat on Lenin and Trotsky (for whom the ends famously justified the means). Must these be the two polarities from which we must be forced to choose?
I don't know if the French Revolution was a "good thing" -- perhaps it was. I am inclined to think it was, perhaps as a result of having been indoctrinated by my high school French teacher. But I wouldn't put a white hat on Napoleon or Robspierre. I would think they would be examples to avoid at all costs rather than imitate.
Someone who says that if an enterprise has a five percent chance of succeeding and a ninety-five percent chance of failing, it ought to be undertaken because "that's politics" is not a "romantic", but a madman.
October 8, 2007 10:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
I would think more of their "idealism" if they had spent years in prison and/or had lived lives of poverty and asceticism. Had they done so, by the way, they might have earned the respect of the people whose welfare they claimed to be concerned about -- if not of Todd Gitlin, whose respect is reserved for those he considers to be "serious."
It is hard to judge the sincerity of people's words, but the disconnect between what they say and the way they live provides a circumstantial evidence.
October 8, 2007 11:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you for your civility.
Todd Gitlin
October 8, 2007 12:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bless your heart.
IGoEco.
Todd Gitlin
October 8, 2007 12:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
I can't hope to deal with everything you brought up (we could talk Plato for ages) but... you said you were surprised seeing Gitlin referencing Burke... why? Aren't all the thinkers of the past open to all of us, even if they've been identified as left or right?
Liberals and conservatives alike might find things to praise in all of the US founders like Washington, Jefferson, Paine and Edison. I csn even find liberal thoughts in Ayn Rand, if I look.
We all have to feel free to quote.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
October 8, 2007 12:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Atrios is a blogger whose blog gets 100,000 visits a day, they say. I've looked at his blog several times in the past and I've never understood why so many people visit and leave their (mostly inane) comments. Now I understand it less.
A few weeks back I was involved in a debate at Democracy Arsenal, where I know Don frequently comments as well. I can't remember who made the original post, but Atrios apparently read it and made some negative comments about it on his site. Suddenly, this single post at Democracy Arsenal was visited by 30 or 40 members of Atrios's flock. I have to say I was completely underwhelmed by the quality of these comments. I don't read Atrios's blog, so I don't know if these comments were typical of what is posted there. But the visitors seemed like a hive of worker bees, all genetically programmed to produce the same mechanical two sentence rejoinders. I was also struck by how often they used the word "stupid" in their criticisms of the opposing view, despite the fact that few of these commenters stood out as towers of intellect. The user names at the bottom of the comments were all different, but the comments themselves seemed interchangeable. The word "dittohead" comes to mind.
October 8, 2007 1:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
When I was in the military, in another life, I had a boss from Georgia (I'm a Yankee) who referred to the little people who pop up every now and then, and disrupt the proper flow of life, as "piss-ants". Wonderfully descriptive.
Unfortunately the marvelous internet, with all the new ways to communicate, with all the instant "bullshit filters" that enable us to correct someone immediately, or post a different view, have also brought us some instant heroes of the blogger variety who have somehow developed a following that's, as they say, a mile wide and an inch deep.
Bloggers like Kos, Atrios and Yglesias come to mind. These few, faithfully supported by their "dittohead" followers, have become legends in their own mind, as opposed to Gitlin, who actually earned his right to be criticized, as some of us did, in the trenches of hard work, over many years.
We shouldn't abide their crap.
Piss-ants.
October 8, 2007 1:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
More relevant then passions of years past:
The Passions of Nouri al-Maliki
David Corn
...after former Iraqi Judge Radhi al-Radhi testified in Congress* about the rampant corruption within the Iraqi government, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki struck back. On Saturday, Maliki, who weeks ago forced out Radhi as Iraq's anticorruption chief, announced his government will prosecute Radhi for smuggling documents, for libeling Maliki, and for engaging in corruption himself....Radhi's work and integrity has been endorsed by a number of U.S. officials who worked with him, including Stuart Bowen the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.... there is no reason for the Bush administration to be supporting the Maliki government and asking American soldiers to die for it.
* Radhi testimony: Thirty-one employees have been killed as well as at least twelve family members. In a number of cases, my staff and their relatives have been kidnapped or detained and tortured prior to being killed.
October 8, 2007 1:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
The whole idea that the US is fated to "support" a cohort of foreigners called a "government", which requires a large loss of life, in a far-off place in which we have economic and/or strategic interests I thought was disreputed in Vietnam, but apparently not. Bush, who avoided that particular exercise in stupidity, has said that we should have supported it longer, which gives us a clue about this one. The Dems think it's a hot idea too, so they're no help.
Now corruption, to Texas good old boys, is not a crime unless you actually get caught by someone who can do something about it. So don't hold that against them. Everybody understands that you have to take care of your friends; that's what friends are for.
ecotourism
WeGoEco.com
October 8, 2007 2:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Liberals and conservatives alike might find things to praise in all of the US founders like Washington, Jefferson, Paine and Edison. I csn even find liberal thoughts in Ayn Rand, if I look."
I don't mean to be argumentative --but -- though you and I may do so, I don't think it is true that conservatives find things to praise in Tom Paine (Leaving Edison out, for the nonce, as perhaps a misprint).
I can find things to praise in Burke, but I vastly prefer Rousseau, who believed in the equality of man and the importance of knowledge and education, and continues to be pilloried for it. Besides, he was a music lover, like Atrios.
And as far as Atrios goes, his was the first blog I ever read and the people who comment there still make me laugh. There is much to praise in him and them.
October 8, 2007 3:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am disheartened to be reading this line of argument. Nancy Pelosi and NY Gov Spitzer have posted on Kos. Are you saying they are "ditto heads"?
October 9, 2007 12:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
You can count me out on that one, sports fan. Just something about making blogs into "teams" really really bugs me, especially the ones with alpha male leaders and a bunch of dittoheads beneath each post telling the leader how brilliant he is once again. Maybe it's cause I'm a "girl"? (Paging Katha Pollitt?) :-)
More seriously, you might be amazed to know how many lurkers are discouraged from posting something on a topic that they know a lot about because they aren't interested in diving into a "community" where everyone seems to know each others' name and stick up for some people and attack others. It's like going to a new school as a kid, and, as an adult they chose not to. I was just reading a comment yesterday on another forum that said basically the same as I heard many times as a moderator--this person said they just finally got the courage to sign up after over a year of lurking, previously not feeling up to the rigors of being a member of the league/club.
October 9, 2007 2:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks anyway for trying to interpret this mysterious coded passage. It still seems to me incoherent though. As does your interpretation of it, to tell the truth.
I don't quite understand what someone who endorsed a project with a 95 percent chance of disastrous failure needs to learn from Burke and Weber. Or how this is the fault -- as you seem to be implying -- of Rousseau, Hegel, or Plato.
I'd like to be let in on the secret.
As I see it he needed to learn rather that one and one make two and that up is not down.
October 9, 2007 5:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Commenters are bad all over, except possibly here, but in fairness to the people who swarmed you at Democracy Arsenal, some of the posts over there are truly comical. If you use the word "serious" repeatedly without even an ounce of irony, then you deserve to be mocked.
The Atriots do a good job of taking the p**s out of people, even if they themselves are not always as well-informed as they might be. One doesn't have to be a foreign policy expert to ridicule anyone who uses the word "serious" five times in a defense of Marshall Whitman.
October 9, 2007 7:04 AM | Reply | Permalink