I was, in fact, trying to look at things from the viewpoint of our country generally.

And just to clarify -- I am not a troll.  I'm a person under the big Democratic tent who you don't agree with.  And that's fine.

(By the way, I do agree that between now and 2006, Democrats are best not to get sucked into proposing their own plans, but to continue over and over to the place the responsibility on the Administration for coming up with a way out of the Iraq morass.  I just think, politically and strategically, we need to be ready for when they do -- which they will, because they need to politically -- and they annouce some inane "peace with dignity" plan with great pomp and fanfare and aircraft-carrier landings.)

Posted at June 18, 2005 6:33 AM in response to [Update] The News of the Times in Review: A Wedge in Public Opinion

I don't mean to be disrespectful, but you do remember that we were actually attacked on September 11, 2001, by real radical Islamic fundamentalist terrorists who really did try to kill about 50,000 of us, and succeeded in killing almost 3,000 of us?  This is a real phenomenon.  The Bush Administration, whatever its faults, did not make these people up.

Does that justify "restarting the Crusades"?  No.  Does that justify invading Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with that attack?  No.  (Let me repeat that: NO)  But does that justify a military response?  Yes!  WHERE IT IS APPROPRIATE.  As much as it seems like a plot to a movie, Osama bin Laden really did order an attack on the United States from a remote lair in Afghanistan.  He really is at war with us.  And the government of Afghanistan, and before that, the government of Sudan, really did support and harbor him.  And by the way, NATO -- including France and Germany -- really did invoke Article V of the NATO treaty; they really did consider the 9/11 attacks to be an attack on the collective countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Don't misunderstand me -- I don't think we should "take over" Yemen, or Sudan, or Pakistan (or the tri-border area of South America, or equitorial Africa, neither of which, last time I checked, were predominantly nor historically Muslim nor the target of the Crusades).  There are actual governments in many of these places that could actually use some help controlling certain lawless areas within their borders, areas that are destabilizing influences on their countries.  There really are people who are in those places who are trying to figure out how to kill large numbers of us.  That's not an excuse to invade Iraq, or North Korea, or Iran.  It's not an excuse to call Max Cleland unpatriotic, or to cut taxes, or to initimidate the media.  It's also not an excuse to stop funding CDBG's, or education initiatives, or to privatize Social Security.  But you'd better believe it's a reason to consider the use of US Special Forces, Marines, and light infantry, especially in conjunction with our allies.

And don't misunderstand me -- military action is never the only solution, nor always the best solution, nor even always a good solution, and sometimes its a bad and wrong solution.  But lots of diplomacy and investigations and soul-searching and becoming better world citizens (all of which we should do more of) IS NOT ENOUGH TO COMBAT PEOPLE WHO WANT TO KILL YOU.  Iraq may have been a neoconservative fantasy, but we must get our own heads straight.  Iraqi WMD?  False.  9/11 attacks?  Real.  Threat to the US from Saddam Hussein, circa 2003?  False.  Threat to the US from Osama bin Laden, circa 2005?  Real.

Today's conservative America (40 percent of us, by last count) may never vote Democratic, even if we advocated nuking half a dozen countries, but independent voters (the 20 percent we Democrats need to win elections) will never trust us, not four years after a really enormous terrorist attack, if we don't acknowledge this.

Posted at June 17, 2005 1:43 PM in response to [Update] The News of the Times in Review: A Wedge in Public Opinion

Can Democrats capitalize on this wedge by coming at the issue from the right?

Democrats have been, and need to continue to, hammer away on the domestic security tropes: port security, domestic preparedness, chemical plant security, supply chain security, etc.

Internationally, let Rep. "Freedom Fries" Jones (R-NC) and others push the Administration for an Iraq withdrawal timeline, and let the Administration adopt one for political purposes for the 2006 mid-term elections.

Then, hit from the right.  Advocate working with our allies in NATO, the EU, and elsewhere in the world, to ramp up the actual War on Terror by selecting a list of five or ten "hot spots": Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, Indonesia, the tri-border area of South America, Sudan, equitorial Africa, etc.  Real terrorist training areas and lawless failed states.  Re-deploy US Special Forces, Marines, and light infantry (and let the reservists and Guard go home!) to partner with in-country military to take out terrorist training areas and warlords.  NATO, the EU, OSCE, etc., would then come in with peacekeeping and stabilization units to establish civil institutions.  We could even get a UN mandate (but could be ready to proceed without one if the UN is hamstrung, since this position actually occupies the moral high ground).  The main trope: This is what we should have been doing all along in the War on Terror, before the Administration diverted our strength and attention to an unnecessary and unproductive war in Iraq.

Muscular internationalism, tempered by ethical realism, equally balanced between military force and enthusiastic nation-building, working with our allies, aimed at eliminating actual terrorist threats to the US mainland and our allies abroad while building stability and lifting living standards in currently lawless and poverty-striken areas.  (This basically should have been our plan for Afghanistan.)

This seems like something that Democrats from Joe Lieberman to Wesley Clark to Howard Dean to Michael Moore could support.  Could we really do something like this?

Posted at June 17, 2005 9:40 AM in response to [Update] The News of the Times in Review: A Wedge in Public Opinion

Posted at June 16, 2005 7:30 AM in response to Iraq isn't a partisan issue; it's a national security issue

I think that the best proposal for universal health insurance is that put forward by Ted Halstead and Michael Lind in their book, "The Radical Center."  Their proposal (summarized here and described more fully in their book) is for mandatory minimum personal insurance carried by each individual, supplemented by additional insurance provided as a perk or incentive by employers, unions, etc.

Posted at June 14, 2005 11:23 AM in response to Hold That Bandwagon!

Robert Hughes, The Fatal Shore (the establishment of the Australian penal colony)

Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game (Russia and Great Britain's geopolotical chess game in Central Asia during the 19th century)

Henry Kamm, Dragon Ascending (history of Vietnam)

Posted at June 10, 2005 11:05 AM in response to More History Books

Yes, yes, yes, forgot David Halberstam's The Fifties.

Posted at June 9, 2005 11:10 AM in response to History

Since I'm coming to the table late, I'll be adding to what's already been listed rather than breaking new ground.

Best by far, Neil Sheehan's A Bright Shining Lie.  I've never read anything like it.  Second, Bill Bryson's A Brief History of Nearly Everything.  Astounding, profound, and hilarious.

Going back to Vietnam for a minute, several people have mentioned David Maraniss, They Marched Into Sunlight.  I didn't think the battle narrative was as good as Sheehan, David Hackworth's Steel My Soldiers Hearts, or Harold Moore and Joe Galloway's We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young.

A note on WWII, if you liked Stephen Ambrose, Band of Brothers, also read David Kenyon Webster, Parachute Infantry (who was part of E/2-506) and Donald Burgett's books (Currahee, Road to Arnhem, Seven Roads to Hell, and Beyond the Rhine - Burgett was A/1-506).  They are the source for some of the details in the HBO series (e.g. Lt. George Rice, 10th Armored, bringing the 101st ammunition on the way to Bastogne, and the Belgian nurse at Bastogne).

Finally, Peter Hopkirk's The Great Game helps explain prior (and current) maneuverings in Central Asia (he also does a good companion to Rudyard Kipling's Kim).

Posted at June 9, 2005 11:08 AM in response to History

I'm really glad that you posed this question here.  I'm about two-thirds of the way through "The Two-Income Trap," and while I think a lot of it is fascinating, and convincing, I found it discounted people's own choices a bit too much.  The question is, as you've posed it here, about both personal choices and policy choices.

The Washington Post reported last week that half of all mortgages in the District of Columbia last year were interest-only mortgages, as were one-third of all mortgages in Maryland and Virginia.  The impact of this is that housing prices in new communities further away from downtown have skyrocketed.  Even accepting all of the arguments in "The Two-Income Trap" about why people upgrade their housing, there is also the factor that people want bigger, newer houses and are willing to use more risky methods of borrowing to get them, even when they live in fine neighborhoods to begin with.  And our mortgage industry is willing to offer those methods.

(Here's the link -- I apologize that I don't know how to make it prettier: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/27/A R2005052701345.html)

So therefore, it seems like we have to look at both personal choices and policy choices.  I hope that this blog can help do that.  Thank you for posing the question, and I look forward to reading more.

Posted at June 2, 2005 2:19 PM in response to Where does fault lie?