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Cultivating Xenophobia

How dangerously stupid and misleading is Fox News?  Radley tells us.

Oh, For God's Sake!

Don't tell me we're going to get into bed with friggin' Turkmenbashi now!  For the love of God!

Via Registan.

Terrorism "Experts"

Rami Khouri has an interesting article up at TomPaine.com:

Nearly four years since the United States declared war on terror, I would humbly like to declare a little war in return. My war is on the quality of news and analysis on terrorism that the American public receives through its mainstream mass media. In my 35 years of professional engagement with the American, European and Arab mass media, never have I encountered the strange and dangerous phenomenon of the "terrorism expert" that is proliferating through the American media. It is time to knock these phonies off their horses and run the rascals out of town.

[...]

Faced with the terrible and murderous challenge of terrorism's global criminal threat, the Bush administration and American political culture as a whole have opted to respond with that peculiarly American combination of foreign policy-making principles: bravado, entertainment, kicking ass, feel-good sentimentality, flag-waving patriotism and 'aw-shucks' amazement at the consistent capacity of foreigners—especially in the Arab and Islamic world—to behave according to the atavistic violence that defines them and their politics, history, religion and culture.

[...]

There are several things seriously wrong with most of the "terrorism experts" whom I have seen and heard on American television and radio. Their main weakness is that they operate in the realm of the speculative rather than the factual. The bulk of their analyses are total guesswork, and usually wrong; yet even that is flawed because—and this is weakness number 2—their guesswork is ideologically defined by the prevalent White House script of the day.

Weakness number 3 is that, as far as I can tell, the vast majority of these experts have little direct knowledge of the Arab-Asian societies they are analyzing. One giveaway of that problem is that they routinely mispronounce most of the names of people, places and organizations of which they are supposed to be experts.

[...]

The terrorism experts' inability or unwillingness to probe the full range of issues that lead to terror leaves them at best as rather pathetic entertainers. At worst, they contribute to the deadly cycle of ignorance, intellectual superficiality, disdain for facts, and simplistic one-dimensionalism that defines much of the public communication between Americans and Middle Easterners. This increasingly promotes the anger, hatred, revenge, racism and violence that engulf more and more bewildered Americans, Arabs and Asians.

Most of these "terrorism experts" are no such thing, and their dangerous charade should be brought to a merciful end. They represent a strange new school of intellectual buffoonery and sociopolitical amusement, in a mainstream American communications and political culture where the prized criteria for success are kicking ass, making the public feel good, and defining the terror problem as the criminal manifestation of aberrant Arab, Asian and Islamic cultures. I have yet to hear an American "terrorism expert" who dares to suggest that terror at its primary level is the predictable consequence of a tragic cycle of modern history whose principal culprits include the terrorists and their societies, as well as foreign actors like the United States, Israel, the former European colonial powers, the Soviet Union and a few other rascals here and there.

The Decline and Fall of Christopher Hitchens

I believe poor Mr. Hitchens' mind has finally given under to years and years of abuse, having consumed the world's most odious ideologies, copious amounts of intoxicants, and angry, bellicose secularism.  Hitch now rises to the occasion to defend the failed war in Iraq, opening with a helpful reminder that America is a better country than Baathist Iraq.  (Goodness, how could I have forgotten such a thing?)

Then, in order to recapitulate the case, he uses patently false claims - and I mean patently false, not likely false, as in "a better Iraq will change the Middle East."  The first page is mostly just trying to shake his head to clear the demons, but by the second page we come to some sentences that resemble argument.  To wit:

I am one of those who believe, uncynically, that Osama bin Laden did us all a service (and holy war a great disservice) by his mad decision to assault the American homeland four years ago. Had he not made this world-historical mistake, we would have been able to add a Talibanized and nuclear-armed Pakistan to our list of the threats we failed to recognize in time. (This threat still exists, but it is no longer so casually overlooked.)

Bonus points for the nauseatingly trite reference to Hegel.  Now, it's unclear exactly what it is he's trying to think here.  That Musharraf would have been deposed, or that Musharraf would have continued to play footsie with the Taliban?  Because, at what point, or what transpires that yields a "Talibanized and nuclear-armed Pakistan"?  Or, more importantly, what does any of this have to do with invading and occupying Iraq?

He goes on to include poor Leon Klinghoffer as one justification.  (I imagine even Mr. Klinghoffer didn't know his own importance when he was murdered!)  I propose a version of Godwin's Law that dictates when Iraq war supporters are reduced to invoking the Achille Lauro, the debate must end.  Unfortunately, Hitch can't see his way to the door.

Hitchens then charges the bull: Why, after all, if the case is shut, is the White House reduced to platitudes, and, frankly, bullshit about why we're there?

I do in fact know the answer to this question. So deep and bitter is the split within official Washington, most especially between the Defense Department and the CIA, that any claim made by the former has been undermined by leaks from the latter. (The latter being those who maintained, with a combination of dogmatism and cowardice not seen since Lincoln had to fire General McClellan, that Saddam Hussein was both a "secular" actor and--this is the really rich bit--a rational and calculating one.)

There's no cure for that illusion, but the resulting bureaucratic chaos and unease has cornered the president into his current fallback upon platitude and hollowness. It has also induced him to give hostages to fortune. The claim that if we fight fundamentalism "over there" we won't have to confront it "over here" is not just a standing invitation for disproof by the next suicide-maniac in London or Chicago, but a coded appeal to provincial and isolationist opinion in the United States. Surely the elementary lesson of the grim anniversary that will shortly be upon us is that American civilians are as near to the front line as American soldiers.

So it's left to Christopher to fabricates from whole cloth a bedraggled Top 10 list why (beyond his professed fealty to the Kurds, not the United States) we were right to decide to pour our national power and international credibility down the Iraqi drain.  One feels as though he's wrestling with Laurie Mylroie even reading these claims.  I offer a few brief objections, leaving the rest for the reader to sort out:

(1) The overthrow of Talibanism and Baathism, and the exposure of many highly suggestive links between the two elements of this Hitler-Stalin pact. Abu Musab al Zarqawi, who moved from Afghanistan to Iraq before the coalition intervention, has even gone to the trouble of naming his organization al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

Now, again, this Hitler-Stalin business really bears some explaining, which unfortunately we don't get.  Which is Hitler and which is Stalin?  And which pieces of evidence have emerged?  Now, of course, Zarqawi was operating, pre-invasion, in Christopher's beloved Kurdistan, not in Iraq proper.  If Saddam had charged in under the no-fly zones, we know what would have happened.  And, incidentally, Ansar al-Islam only changed its name and professed loyalty to bin Laden under occupation.

(2) The subsequent capitulation of Qaddafi's Libya in point of weapons of mass destruction--a capitulation that was offered not to Kofi Annan or the E.U. but to Blair and Bush.

This claim at least bears a kernel of truth in it, but has been so blown up by the pro-war faction that it's taken on an importance of its own.  For a rundown of how Qaddafi had been trying to come back into the world community, this Alan Bock piece offers a good bit of evidence that the Iraq war contributed to Libya's stepped up efforts to re-enter the world community, but hardly precipitated it on its own.

(3) The consequent unmasking of the A.Q. Khan network for the illicit transfer of nuclear technology to Libya, Iran, and North Korea.

Is it out of line to wonder where the connection between the invasion and occupation of Iraq and the exposure of A.Q. Khan lies?  Suggestions welcomed.

(4) The agreement by the United Nations that its own reform is necessary and overdue, and the unmasking of a quasi-criminal network within its elite.

Next.

(5) The craven admission by President Chirac and Chancellor Schröder, when confronted with irrefutable evidence of cheating and concealment, respecting solemn treaties, on the part of Iran, that not even this will alter their commitment to neutralism. (One had already suspected as much in the Iraqi case.)

Next.

(6) The ability to certify Iraq as actually disarmed, rather than accept the word of a psychopathic autocrat.

He had no arms, the inspectors had verified as much, and had we not telegraphed our decision to attack Saddam, the inspectors could have stayed.

(7) The immense gains made by the largest stateless minority in the region--the Kurds--and the spread of this example to other states.

Ahh, the Kurds.

(8) The related encouragement of democratic and civil society movements in Egypt, Syria, and most notably Lebanon, which has regained a version of its autonomy.

Part post hoc ergo propter hoc, part "umm, the conditions in Egypt justify the war?"

(9) The violent and ignominious death of thousands of bin Ladenist infiltrators into Iraq and Afghanistan, and the real prospect of greatly enlarging this number.

Ahh, the flypaper emerges.  So maybe if we stay indefinitely, and keep killing them as they come, they'll dry up.  I sense we're right around the corner from that point.  Or the tunnel, or something.

(10) The training and hardening of many thousands of American servicemen and women in a battle against the forces of nihilism and absolutism, which training and hardening will surely be of great use in future combat.

Now, by this logic, we could probably just have saved a lot of money by taking violent American criminals, training them in IEDs and insurgency, and held this whole morbid little exercise in Montana or something.  No need to terrorize the poor Iraqis, is there?  Keep this "training and hardening" project at home, instead of outsourcing it?

Good lord, why did I just waste my time doing that?

Update: For kicks, popped over to Powerline to confirm a suspicion.  Lo and behold, Deacon heralds it as "a brilliant essay."

Friday Zingers

I just got an email of some of the late night zingers on POTUS's vacation, some of which I thought I'd share:

"As you know, President Bush is taking 5 weeks off. It's like he's still in the National Guard."
--Jay Leno

"President Bush is vacationing in Crawford, Texas. He will be vacationing for five weeks. That's a long time. I don't think he has an exit strategy for his vacation either."
--David Letterman

"Now is a great time for President Bush to go on vacation because Iraq is pretty much under control. But a White House spokesman said Bush is using his vacation to reconnect with regular people. So you know what that means -- he's drinking again."
--David Letterman

"President Bush is on a five-week vacation. From what? President Bush, before he went on vacation, he signed a bill that will extend daylight savings another month. He said it proves we're winning the war on darkness"
--David Letterman

"President Bush talked tough today. He said he's not backing out, he's staying the course for as long as it takes. He's in it for the long haul.  Not Iraq -- his 5-week vacation."
--Jay Leno

"A lot of people are every critical of President Bush for taking the entire month of August off for his vacation. But his staff points out, there's nothing at the White House he can't do at the ranch because the ranch is fully equipped. It's got the treadmill, the weight room, the jogging path, the big screen TV, they get Nickelodeon. It's got everything he would do."
--Jay Leno

I don't know, but if you ask me, the whole 5 weeks of vacation thing sounds sorta, well, French.

"The strategic cooperative partnership has entered a new stage."

There's your quote from Sergei Ivanov, defense minister of Russia, commenting on growing Sino-Russian cooperation in the wake of "Peace Mission 2005," a joint Sino-Russian military exercise in the Yellow Sea, which involved amphibious landings, long-range bombers, and fighter planes, which were ostensibly involved in, uhh, a fictitious stabilization mission under a UN mandate.  (After all, that type of battle sure sounds like a stabilization mission, right?)

At a certain point, the neocons and human rights zealots are going to have to recognize that we've pushed Russia into the arms of China by incessantly carping about Putinism (remember Anne Applebaum's howler about a "new Iron Curtain"?) and by destabilizing Central Asia, which Russia views as well within its sphere of influence and which China views as its "soft underbelly."  As the Russian press put it:

''The exercises are the logical continuation of the first signs of cooperation between Russia and China in the struggle against 'orange revolutions,' separatism and the dominant influence of the U.S. in the Euroasiatic sphere."

The funny thing is, China and Russia were always uncomfortable with the US presence in Central Asia, but it seems to me that Kyrgyzstan was what really pushed us off the cliff.  Russia and China realized that we weren't playing by the rules, and instability on the border of strategic regions like Central Asia just isn't optional for either country.  We'd be unpleased about instability in Mexico -- or hell, look at how we've viewed Cuba over the past 40 years.

In an unironic comment about China's growing naval power, the new commander of the Pacific fleet, Admiral Gary Roughhead, proffered this query:

"What do [the Chinese] see as the intended use of that navy?  Clearly, the Chinese are developing a very capable modern military, especially the navy."  If that navy "is to ensure the free flow of commerce, that would not be surprising," he said, nodding toward the sea lanes in the South China and East China seas through which pass the oil and raw materials that feed China's expanding economy, not to mention its soaring exports.

The admiral added, however: "What if the intent is not purely to defend the sea lanes?" He left the question open.

Any Chinese diplomat worth his salt would shoot back immediately with a similar question about the US military.  At a time when we're conducting foreign policy as we are, this type of question is going to appear absurd to any non-American observer.

Again, you can overplay the extent or implications of Sino-Russian cooperation, but suffice to say that it's heating up, and it's enough to make you squirm just a little.

Update: Uhhh...?  Squirm a little more.

QOTD, The Liberals Are Coming Around Edition

Plumer:

"Arab perceptions of the United States" probably didn't make it into the prewar briefing room—certainly not the ones where the hawks predicted flowers and candy. Ignorance like this is exactly why we never should have gone in. On the other hand, let's not pretend these sort of "misunderstandings" are just a Bush administration problem, limited to people named Feith or Rumsfeld or Wolfowitz. For a fun exercise sometime, read the 1995 Dayton Accords, negotiated in part by Richard Holbrooke and Gen. Wesley Clark. It's hard to decide which administration was more delusional and clueless about the region it was dealing with, Clinton's or Bush's. As it happened, the fallout from the mess in the Balkans turned out to be less severe than that in Iraq, but chalking the difference up to competence seems like a dangerous mistake. Assume that all American governments will intervene abroad with breathtaking ignorance in tow.

You apply that kind of reasoning to domestic policy as well as foreign policy, you've really got something.

The Perils of Drink-Soaked Internationalism

What happens, sometimes, is that you end up supporting the deployment of the US military on behalf of a group of non-US citizens, and then admitting it openly:

“It’s a matter of solidarity with the Iraqi and Kurdish opposition to Saddam, and trying to turn American policy in their favor,” said [Christopher] Hitchens. “I’m on their side, win or lose …. I could never publish an article saying, ‘Come to think of it, we never should have done this,’ because I could never look them in the face …. So, no, I don’t have any second thoughts.”

Hat tip: Laura Rozen.

Woops!

Rich Lowry lets one slip over at The Corner:

without a deadline and us pushing it, nothing would ever happen in Iraq.

Hm, if he thinks that about the Constitution, I could think of a few other issue areas we could apply that logic to...

Graf of the Day

The real defeatists today are not those protesting the war. The real defeatists are those in power and their silent supporters in the opposition party who are reduced to repeating "Stay the course" even when the course, whatever it now is, is light years away from the one originally undertaken. The truth is we're way off course. We've stumbled into a hornet's nest. We've weakened ourselves at home and in the world. We are less secure today than before this war began.

- Gary Hart