Why should you come out of the rain?

Josh Marshall writes this pair of paragraphs:
"It's important to note that this theory of the war actually does have a lot to do with stopping terrorism and the generalized instability of region -- but in a way that is almost infinitely more complex than the Saddam-WMD-hand -off-to-al-Qaida idea that the administration pushed in the build-up to the war.

"It's much more complicated, much more complex, and vastly more difficult to achieve. It's not that the main war-hawks didn't believe there were WMD or that rooting them out wouldn't have been a great coup for US national security. But it is almost as if administration war-hawks told the public a vastly simplified, fairy-tale version of the Iraq war's connection to stopping terrorism and justified this benign deception because the story contained a deeper truth, almost in the way we tell children similar stories because their minds aren't advanced enough to grasp or process all the factual details connected to the lessons or messages we're trying to convey. Got all that? Good. "

Well, I must ask: why do we come in out of the rain? Is it because we ought not get wet, or might catch cold? Or is it because lightning can kill you? I think we ought to regard storms as serious things because of the potential of lethal lightning, not the certainty of wet clothes. As Daniel Drezner points out in a review of this article, "States often go to war for a melange of reasons that go beyond self-defense." What we often focus on, however, are the worst case scenarios. The "Saddam-WMD-hand -off-to-al-Qaida" scenario was unlikely but scary, much like getting struck by lightning. The many other reasons Marshal mentions fall more into the certainly of getting wet catagory.

Sometimes we are willing to get wet, but few of us are willing to take the chance, even when remote, of being struck by lightning. It hurts.

The internet is often supposed to mean people reading without boundaries (such as this fare), but I actually spend as much and probabaly more time listening to talk radio via the internet and watching C-Span via the internet than I do reading. The internet, it should be remembered, doesn't just make people talking to people easier, it also makes it easier for consumers of mass media to have greater power of the chocies they make because of the internet. A station need not broadcast in my area for me to hear it, it need only stream on the web. A station that maintains archives of its shows allows me to pick and chose what I listen too with greater ease.

Not been around much. I could blame my classes, I could blame Star Wars Galaxies, but the real culprit is that so many other blogs cover the ground so well.

Former Bundesbank director rips the Eurozone

There is a telling paragraph at Andrew Sullivan's blog, but the whole thing is linked there back to the Telegraph.

BBC ponders the immorality of capitalism. Surprised?

I woke to the BBC's World Service the other night to hear about a new electrification program amidst African poverty. Unlike previous electrification efforts, this one was 1) for profit and 2) not showing signs of abandoning its effort. Previous efforts had been either based on charity or state direction. When priorities changed, the electrification was abandon. Apparently (alert: this is not news to those who have a cursory knowledge of Adam Smith), the profit motive focuses the attention of the electric providers to continue providing electricity. To be more accurate, companies making money by providing a service are less fickle than those who give gifts or the state. The kicker is this: after discussing how the locals were benifiting in no uncertain terms, and how the project dis not appear to be going the way of previous efforts, the corespondant asks the business man if he doesn't feel that it is immoral to make a profit among such poverty. Hmmm, moral would be free failure, but isn't it immoral to actually provide success if you're making a profit at it. This really says so much about the BBC. When failed socialism is better than successful capitalism, the world is upside down. For the record, I'd also say that successful socialism is better than failed capitalism. See, its the success and the failure to meet needs, provide goods and services, and otherwise perform the functions of an economy that are at issue here, not whether they conform your Platonic form of a good economy. I'll add that capitalism and socialism are systems that not only meet needs differently, they also meet different needs.

Athens


Note: Athenians form a league to maintain Greek liberty against the Persians. Eventually the league becomes an empire as smaller members of the league abdicate responsibility to Athens. It leads me to the conclusion that leagues are probabaly best at multi-polar enviroments. In such cases, the members of the leagues change, but the leaders are relatively stable. Its the shifting itself that keeps the league functioning as a league. When the league is stable, because of a bipolar or unipolar enviroment, the leader identifies as a leader, and the league members lose their sense that their contribution makes a difference and cease to be active citizens. As members of the league they become passive and begin to rely on the leadership of the powerful memeber(s).

Hannity and Mailer


Norman Mailer was on Sean Hannity's radio show (frankly, its this or FM radio), and Hannity again demonstrated his ignorance of ideas. Mailer was wrong, but was at least aware of ideas other than his own. Hannity only attacks straw men, probabaly because his view of everyone else is cartoonish. Mailer argued that Bush aimed to "take over the middle east". Hannity scoffed. Take a look at Max Boot's article over at the Weekly Standard's website.


There is only one solution to this problem, and it is called liberal democracy.
Spreading freedom in the Arab world is no easy task, of course, but if democracy could take root in eastern Europe, east Asia and Latin America, there is no theoretical reason why it shouldn't work in the Middle East.
This will ultimately be up to the local people, but America can give them a helping hand, as it has helped other democrats from Poland to the Philippines. [...] The West should heed the eloquent plea issued last week by the Egyptian dissident Saad Eddin Ibrahim to "assist the democratic transformation of the region". The fundamental problem in the Palestinian Authority is the same as in the rest of the Middle East: lack of liberalism. Developing democratic institutions isn't as sexy as pushing a "peace process", but it must be the West's primary emphasis in the region. Sometimes this will involve forcible regime change, as in Iraq. More often, subtler measures are called for.

Boot is not alone. Paul Wolfowitz has been heard to say the same things, as have a slate of Neo-con writers. Now, Mailer's characterization of the project is hostile, but in its essentials, I'd say its based on actual ideas put forward by some members of the administration and their supporters in the press. I will go on record and say that I agree that to defeat terrorism, we must impose liberalism on the middle east. I estimate it will take five decades. If Mailer wants to call that taking over the middle east, I'll shrug. Establishing democracy in Germany and Japan, struggling during the Cold War to free Eastern Europe as well as South Korea and Taiwan, and our fitful attentions in Latin America all took a long time and a huge investment, but have benefited America and the whole world tremendously. Leftists will point out the Vietnam couldn't make the list and that we sometimes supported authortarian regimes. I'd reply that to the extent that Vietnam was a war to bring democracy to Southeast Asia, it was a noble campaign. The fact that it was also a civil war and a war of anti-colonialism made the cost higher than Americans wanted to bear. As such, Johnson probabaly ranks as America's all-time worst president for failing to avoid a war there. On the second point, America allied with Stalin to defeat Hitler. Defeating the Axis couldn't have been done (in any way remotely like it was done) without that deal with the devil. I'm willing to accept that the victory against the Soviets in the Cold War couldn't have happened if America was unwilling to sometimes befriend anti-communist dictators. Obviously America prefered democracies, but getting democracy in the third world often was so comprimised by anti-colonial hostility to the West that what America reasonably feared was another Cuba. America helped topple Batista and got burned, seriously burned. How many more burns like that could America have endured in the Cold War?

In any event. Mailer has to walk away from his interview with Hannity thinking "idiot", and I have to agree. Hannity is obviously unaware (or is unwilling to acknowledge) that neo-cons do favor a long term campaign to topple paternalistic dictatorships and socialist tyrants who for various reasons are compelled to support terrorists and anti-American propaganda. The beauty of the thing today is that until we establish a democracy and it turns into a radical Islamicist state, we really don't have the fear of destablizing the region we had in the Cold War with the Soviets ready to jump on any opportunity.

Falling in the lap of good sources
It just so happens that I had started listening to Hugh Hewitt just before the Robert Scheer stuff about the Lynch rescue came out. So I happily happened upon a forum just before it became a most useful window into the current media bruha.

The Every So Often When I decide to Post Blog is back up and running.

That's the link over to the right, or just click here. My brother has had his rear window shot out. Pictures are on the site. He was also in a life or death struggle with a grandfather clock.

The Museum in Bagdad

As I mentioned below, I have parted ways with the talk radio broadcast locally. One of the areas of cleavage was the looting of the Bagdad museum. Unlike the anti-intellectuals on the airwaves, I took the loss of cultural treasures seriously. I was suspicous of the reports of the damage, and suspected that stolen artifacts would turn up quickly as the looters converted the artifacts into cash. I had been looking out for Victor Davis Hanson's take on the issue, because as a classicist he would not blow off the loss of antiquites. He writes, "the "178,000" destroyed priceless icons are slowly being downsized to a few hundred — and were mostly lost through the complicity of the Baathists themselves." As I had suspected, an inside job. Hanson has it all on this issue, as far as I am concerned. An educated man, an expert in a related field able to comment intelligently on the issue of preservation, and pro-war. Someone in his position is able to make a reasonable attempt to balance competing goods.

Two Months Silent?

Looking at the past two post timestamps, would you be surprised to find out I was student teaching from March 10 to May 9th?

Where to go for decent radio?

When the situation in Iraq started getting serious, I abandon NPR. I had some problems with their one-sided coverage prior, but not so much to drive me away. Indeed, I listened for about a dozen years. News, classical, jazz, Car Talk, What do you know, the whole nine yards. As the foriegn policy news began to become more important, my ability to over-look NPR's slant fell off the table. Part of this is because I am socially liberal, but in economics and foriegn policy, I am recognizably conservative. So, I turned to local AM talk radio. As long as Iraq remained the big story and most of the talk was about the war, I was happy with talk radio. As the talk returns to social issues and the war now only a small part of the talk, I can't stand the talk radio. Rusty Humphries is the most offensive, but Micheal Savage and Sean Hannity are driving me to search for alternatives as well. Humphries, aside from being blind to any reflection what so ever, hasn't the slightest idea what Hegel's dialectic is, and seems to think its all a trick. Ack. He has no idea that conservatives have be able to use Hegel without going through Marx to profitably say something useful. Humphries seems to think that liberals invented the term "neocon" as an attack term, probabaly because, as he says, it might suggest "neo-nazi" in the mind of the listener. Apparently Norman Podhoretz does not exist in Humphries world. Nor Irving Kristol, Gertrude Himmelfarb, or a host of other first generation neocons. Such an embrace of ignorance of Hegel, the history of an important strain on the right, and a host of other topics prevents me from even listening. My social liberalism is a problem on all of these shows, and my statism (moderate though it may be) prevents me from regarding the rabid anti-tax ravings of these fellows as anything but loopy.

I have tried to return to NPR, but found the very first story so slanted - the voting public's rejection of gun control candidates must be an NRA plot - that I quickly abandon that. Fortunatly fate smiled happily on me. James Lileks mentioned his own preference for Hugh Hewitt as an alternative to the "rant-a-thons". Always loved Lileks and happy to follow his lead re Hewitt. Fortunatly I live in a time when streaming LA radio is just as easy as listening to broadcast radio. Listened to a complete show today, and found it a very happy listen. Sensible, intelligent, and not demonstrating any propensity drive me to throw objects at the speakers. Ultimatly I will probabaly have to find another show or two to fill those days I am at home and desirous of talk and commentary (ie when I am awake and not at work).

Update: Humphries has the bizzare idea that posting his ideas on neo-cons is a good idea. See them at NewMax.com.

Federalist Reversal

Unce opon a time, say during the Articles of Confederation, the states had the power to tax effectively and the Congress was left to beg and borrow to meet national needs. This ridiculousness left the Federalists to re-write America's constitution and give the Congress a real taxing power. Somehow, over the past two centuries, the states have lost the power to tax themselves, or so it would appear. Clearly the states which want Federal dollars have no interest in preserving thier raison d'etre. If the Feds begin to perform state functions, like paying for state police, supporting state welfare, or funding education, what exactly do the states do? And let's not forget that with Federal dollars come Federal choices and policies. The states need to figure out why they exist and create the ability to achieve that purpose.

To UN or not to UN, that is the querry

Those who see no reason in taking this second resolution to the UN to get them on the record regarding Iraq have already written the UN off, and probably had done so well before 9/11. Interestingly, many of them are currently demanding that the Republicans demand a vote to end debate in the Senate, despite the fact that they can't get 60 votes to end debate, just to get the Dems on the record. One does not end the prestige of the UN by just ignoring it, one must expose its hypocracy and venality. This require sending this final motion to the UN. The chior may already see the UN as extreamly venal, but its still a widely respected institution beyond the committed multi-lateralists.

Saddam Hussein interprets peace movement as support

The Washington Post reports that the mass peace protests and the obstruction in the Security Council have given Hussein a feeling of greater security. As a result, he has abandon cooperation he had earlier provided or promised to provide. Just more evidence that this dictator only responds to force and threats of same.

Feb 14th's Security Council Meeting at the UN

The public portion of the meeting and Powell's press conderence afterward can be viewed at the UN site.

Given the history of the past 12 years, we can easily speculate on the most probable outcome of a victory of the Franco-Russo-Chinese possition. As the US threat increases against Iraq, Iraq seeks to buy time by complying ever so slightly, by degrees. As the US threat diminishes, Iraq will continue to talk the talk, but the walk will become retrograde, and greater obstacles and problems will arrise for inspectors. Eventually, as has happened twice in the past, the inspectors will abandon their mission. This is the goal of France, who profits by their relationship with Iraq, and is the primary agent of Iraq's exports.

Paul Berman advances his case that Joschka Fischer's New Left backround blinds him to opposing Iraq's dictator in Slate. Ultimatly, Fischer's New Left backround causes him to fear fascism in the US more than he fears its dangers in Iraq. You can see his earlier New Reublic article on Fischer here.

In many ways, Iraq has been the catalyst for a great struggle between the inheritors of the New Left, and the Neoconservatives.

One of the final results of this crisis will be the irrelevance of the UN. Interestingly, it all proves Nixon's concern that the US not withdrawl from Vietnam in a way that makes it look weak, unreliable, and skittish. Likewise his protoge, Alexander Haig's similar arguments in a multitude of places, including Lebanon.

As a final observation, its interesting how many notable figures (not to mention the general consensus) in America opposed getting involved in the war against Hitler prior to Pearl Harbor. I saw Joseph Kennedy on the History Channel not to long ago embrace the name appeasor with regard to Germany.

Hans Blix proves the negative

Amazing. Hans Blix proves the negative case. According to EUobserver, "The issues of anthrax, nerve agent VX and long range missiles are the 'most important problems we are facing,' he added. But he also rejected the claims of US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, that the Iraqi’s had managed to hide weapons from the inspectors." If the Iraqi dictator has not concealed WMD, why are issues of anthrax and VX important? If Iraq has not produced, and have not concealed WMD, where are the anthrax and VX? How can Blix possibly know what Iraq has concealed? If it is concealed, that means we don't know about it. Apparently Blix has trancended the problem of knowing what he does not know. Perhaps he reads the future in copper bowl on a three legged stool. Perhaps he is just an unabashed tool.

Pnemonia

I was supposed to spend the last two weeks of January teaching in a single 4th grade classroom, but the little balls of infection gave me the flu and it turned into Pnemonia. So goes the first week of February. I'm feeling better, though still on antibiotics, and will start teaching again on Monday.

Why Containment can't work in the future the way it worked in the Cold War

Many today suggest that Iraq and North Korea can be contained the way the Soviets were. These people are not physicists. Attempt this simple problem. Imagine a world in which there are two centers of gravity and determine the results. A strait forward Newtonian problem. These centers of gravity, (aka masses) will attract one another with a force equal to the sum of their masses divided by the square of the distance. Easy enough to predict. And where we can predict, we can fashion a managable policy. Now introduce a third object. This is the three-body problem. It took over a century of familiarity with Newton's Theory of Gravity to work out the math for a three body problem. Prediction is much, much harder. Nixon, being a very smart man, was able to do the calculus and go to China. Today proliferation is rampant. The number of countries who have nuclear weapons and act independently has grown considerably. The calculus gets harder and harder to make. It was challenging enough to face off against the Soviet Union when there were just two power blocs. States like Iraq and North Korea are wild cards. Containment would force us into keeping them on the page of every action we took. Just like our whole foriegn policy took the Soviets into account, in many ways perverting our foreign policy (imagine Vietnam without the context of opposing Communism), our foriegn policy would be contorted by the need to maintain containment. We might very well find ourselves in bed with terrible dictators for the sole reason that they are on our side in the question of Iraq or North Korea. We already find ourselves in that sandbox with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, but those are temporary situations. Fixing the problems of Iraq and North Korea permenantly will allow us to pursue the policy we want to pursue, rather than containing ourselves in order to contain the nuclear rogue states.

Why Iraq is a bigger deal than North Korea

War is political. To pursue war just because Korea has powerful weapons is to pursue a policy for military purposes. North Korea is probabaly the second biggest deal for American foriegn policy. Here's why. Because war is a political act, we need to keep in mind the implications on the war for the broader world. Standing up to a Stalinist dictator and disarming him will put the fear of America in the hearts of all Stalinist dictators. That's not a large club. Standing up to an Arab dictator and disarming him will show the Arab world that we cannot be opposed with impunity. Some people fear that the United States will become an empire. The fact is, America became an Empire circa 1945. As such, peoples around the world assume we are heavy handed. That's why when we defend Muslims (Lebanon, Bosnia, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Afghanistan again, Somolia, &c) we get no credit or lasting gratitude. Its why people around the world fear our power and its use, including Europeans. Hence, the best we can hope to do is to appear as a benevolent empire. (An alternative will be considered and rejected below.) But we certainly must appear powerful, or those who oppose us for reasons rational and irrational will feel bold enough to act. Acting in Iraq has a greater audience than acting in North Korea does. Its political potential is vastly greater both in negative and positive terms. By negative, I mean our enemies will fear our power, and by positive, I mean that establishing free societies with democracy and capitalism will be a reward to those who desire to be like us. We should not under-estimate those who want to live under self-determination, politically and economically. They are a huge source of potential good will, mostly when they depend on our power or have very recently benifited from it. Hence, Iraq is the bigger deal.

Timing

Admitedly, Iraq does not pose the kind of time table as North Korea does, at least not in terms of nuclear weapons, which are the only WMD that matter. But we need time to build a coalition against North Korea, and we can't sound bellicose there until we know what China is thinking and doing. Working to get Japan, South Korea, and China on board with a policy of North Korean disarmament is essential. Look for building momentum here despite action in Iraq. The faster we wrap things up in Iraq the easier it is to move non-routine assets to East Asia. We already have substantial forces in South Korea and Okinawa, and frankly, this what they are there for.

An Alternative

I said I would mention an alternative, but I'm also going to reject it. We could go the Carter route and just disarm and be like Europe. But that means we have reverted to our 19th century selves. We hope that things work our well n the world and if they don't we are powerless to do anything. Things could get seriously out of hand in the world before decide its neccesary to re-arm and get involved. Despite the experience of WWI, it took the bombing of Pearl Harbor to get involved in WWII. The fact that Hitler had most of Europe was not going to get us into the world, despite the fact that imagining a Nazi victory in Europe is a very unhappy thing to contemplate. Any yet we would have to contemplate it as a matter of routine, if we disarmed as the esteemed Nobel winning president suggests. In effect, by disarming we would deflect hostility and aggression from ourselves to the poorer nations of the world. This is, in fact some of its appeal to the parochial. The costs to us would be higher in the long run. I also have to ask what kind of moral act is it to sluff this kind of aggression off on those less capable of dealing with it. It may be a price for us to pay, getting inbetween combatants all over the world, but since we are far more able to bear it (17 dead now in Afghanistan) than others, it would be terribly selfish and short-sighted to withdraw ourselves to our own shores and forget about the world as we were better able to do in the 19th century when Britain occupied the role of keeper of the peace.