History Professor and author Joseph J. Ellis has an Op-Ed in The New York Times yesterday in which he points out what I consider to be one of the most important and under-recognized truths about the way in which we view the threat of terrorism:
My first question: where does Sept. 11 rank in the grand sweep of American history as a threat to national security? By my calculations it does not make the top tier of the list, which requires the threat to pose a serious challenge to the survival of the American republic.
Here is my version of the top tier: the War for Independence, where defeat meant no United States of America; the War of 1812, when the national capital was burned to the ground; the Civil War, which threatened the survival of the Union; World War II, which represented a totalitarian threat to democracy and capitalism; the cold war, most specifically the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, which made nuclear annihilation a distinct possibility.
Sept. 11 does not rise to that level of threat because, while it places lives and lifestyles at risk, it does not threaten the survival of the American republic, even though the terrorists would like us to believe so.
All of this seems obvious at this point. The total number of Americans killed by Islamic terrorists in the last 5 years -- or 10 years -- or 20 years -- or ever -- is roughly 3,500, the same number of deaths by suicide which occur in this country every month. This is the overarching threat around which we are constructing our entire foreign policy, changing the basic principles of our government, and fundamentally altering both our behavior in the world and the way in which we are perceived.
And yet, one almost never hears anyone arguing that the terrorism threat, like any other threat, should be viewed in perspective and subjected to rational risk-benefit assessments. That's because opinions about terrorism are the new form of political correctness, and even hinting that this threat is not the all-consuming, existential danger to our Republic which the Bush followers, fear-mongerers and hysterics among us have relentlessly and shrilly insisted that it is, will subject one to all sorts of accusations concerning one's patriotism and even mental health.
Professor Ellis makes another important point: that even with regard to the genuinely existential threats in our nation's history, the extreme abridgment of liberties we embraced in response to those threats have almost always come to be viewed -- retrospectively and by consensus -- as excessive and unwarranted:
My list of precedents for the Patriot Act and government wiretapping of American citizens would include the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798, which allowed the federal government to close newspapers and deport foreigners during the "quasi-war" with France; the denial of habeas corpus during the Civil War, which permitted the pre-emptive arrest of suspected Southern sympathizers; the Red Scare of 1919, which emboldened the attorney general to round up leftist critics in the wake of the Russian Revolution; the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, which was justified on the grounds that their ancestry made them potential threats to national security; the McCarthy scare of the early 1950's, which used cold war anxieties to pursue a witch hunt against putative Communists in government, universities and the film industry.
In retrospect, none of these domestic responses to perceived national security threats looks justifiable. Every history textbook I know describes them as lamentable, excessive, even embarrassing. Some very distinguished American presidents, including John Adams, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt, succumbed to quite genuine and widespread popular fears. No historian or biographer has argued that these were their finest hours.
Most people this side of Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter recognize that those reactions were excessive and nowhere near justified by the actual threat which was posed. And yet we don't seem to be able to apply those lessons to the threat of terrorism, which is causing us to engage in all sorts of extreme measures based on the warped notion that the terrorism threat is -- to use George Bush's formulation -- an "unprecedented danger."
The cause of this irrationality, this inability to view the terrorism threat with any perspective, is not a mystery. Terrorists like Al Qaeda deliberately stage attacks which are designed to instill fear in the population far beyond what is warranted by the actual threat-level posed by the terrorists. That's the defining tactic and objective of terrorists. Fortunately for the terrorists, in the United States, Al Qaeda has a powerful ally in this goal: the Bush Administration, which for four years has, along with Al Qeada, worked ceaselessly to instill in Americans an overarching and excessive fear of terrorism.
There are all sorts of serious threats which America faces, including the threat of overreacting to threats. As Professor Ellis concludes:
What Patrick Henry once called "the lamp of experience" needs to be brought into the shadowy space in which we have all been living since Sept. 11. My tentative conclusion is that the light it sheds exposes the ghosts and goblins of our traumatized imaginations. It is completely understandable that those who lost loved ones on that date will carry emotional scars for the remainder of their lives. But it defies reason and experience to make Sept. 11 the defining influence on our foreign and domestic policy. History suggests that we have faced greater challenges and triumphed, and that overreaction is a greater danger than complacency.
It would be a good start to at least arrive at the point where we can have this discussion openly and rationally -- without the discussion being drowned out by manipulative emotional appeals and cheap and cynical smears. That there is even an Op-Ed in a major American newspaper with the words "terrorism" and "perspective" in the same sentence is something we haven't seen for four years, and it is an encouraging first step.
UPDATE: Digby has a somewhat different explanation as to how and why the Administration has been able to squeeze so much political mileage from 9/11 and the terrorism threat. Digby argues that the country derives an emotional and psychological high from the televised drama and war dances which we've been fed for the last four years. Needless to say, it's a post worth reading.
UPDATE II: Jonah Goldberg has a piercing and insightful response to this post over at The Corner:
IT'S JUST A NUMBERS GAME
[Jonah Goldberg]
Glenn Greenwald says terrorism is no big deal.
There are, I suppose, several substantive grounds on which to disagree with the views I expressed concerning how the threat of terrorism ought to be assessed, but unsurprisingly, Jonah can't find any of them, so he opts instead for his characteristically sloppy, lazy, food-stained, vapid shorthand. Poor Bill Buckley. Sometimes it's just best to take what you've created and burn it down to the ground when you're done with it so that others can't come along and mar your creation.
God you're going to get it for this post. Not that you care. But I'm just saying, nothing drives the Bushies more insane than when you tell them that Terrorism is not the be all and end all around which the world revolves.
ReplyDeleteThey have had great success selling this lie, and they guard it with more vicousness than anything else.
http://www.csicop.org/si/2002-09/9-
ReplyDelete11.html
Human beings might be expected to value each life, and each death, equally. We each face numerous hazards-war, disease, homicide, accidents, natural disasters-before succumbing to "natural" death. Some premature deaths shock us far more than others. Contrasting with the 2,800 fatalities in the World Trade Center (WTC) on September 11, 2001 (9/11), we barely remember the 20,000 Indian earthquake victims earlier in 2001. Here, we argue that the disproportionate reaction to 9/11 was as damaging as the direct destruction of lives and property. Americans can mitigate future terrorism by learning to respond more objectively to future malicious acts. We do not question the visceral fears and responsible precautions taken during the hours and days following 9/11, when there might have been even worse attacks. But, as the first anniversary of 9/11 approaches, our nation's priorities remain radically torqued toward homeland defense and fighting terrorism at the expense of objectively greater societal needs.
We do not question the visceral fears and responsible precautions taken during the hours and days following 9/11, when there might have been even worse attacks.
ReplyDeleteI accept that there are added elements to the 9/11 attacks which merit its being judged by metrics beyond just the number of people killed - I recognize the economic harm from the destruction of our buildings and interruption of our commerce; the symbolic and psychological harm from a landmark like the WTC and a government building like the Pentagon being attacked; and the possibility that even a single future attack could be much, much more destructive.
Nonetheless, perspective is still required for this threat like it is for all others. It's possible that the icecaps could melt and flood all of our coastal cities. That seems to be at least equally daunting a threat as even the worst case scenarios from terrorism, yet nobody wants to build huge sea walls or give up cars.
With every other threat, we engage in a risk-benefit analysis and take reasonable precautions. With terrorism, we engage in hysterical fear-mongering and have structured almost all parts of our government and our country to accomodate that threat.
Did you read the article I gave a link for, Glenn? Its saying just that. Risk-benefit would show that our response to terrorism has been disproportionate to the objective threat.
ReplyDeleteThe authors were writing in 2002, so you can forgive them for overlooking the additional facts that the "war on terror" to date has been ineffective and, in actuality, has exacerbated the problem rather than reduced it.
While I agree with the major point of this post (a rational discussion including a reasonable risk assessment is worthwhile) and I also agree with the secondary point (the current climate blows the real risk out of proportion), let me take a devil's advocate position to see where it takes us.
ReplyDeleteComparing how many people have already died from terrorism against other threats (e.g. car accidents) is not the right way to assess this threat. What makes terrorism (since 9/11) such a profound concern is its asymmetric nature. Namely a small band of terrorists can cause deaths (and property damage) far beyond what we envisioned before 9/11.
The archetypical example, of course, is what happens if a terrorist group builds or otherwise obtains a nuclear bomb.
First of all, what is the genuine probability that this can happen? It certainly seem's within the realm of possibility.
Then, what is the probablity that this group would actually detonate it? Well, I'd like to think that even the most extreme group would hesitate to actually do this. (I'm sure some people will call me naive for even asking this - I'll be judged to be among those who "just don't get it"). So let's assume this to be 100%. Meaning any group that goes to the trouble of obtaining a nuclear bomb will be willing to detonate it.
Then we have to assess the probability that they will be able to smuggle it into the country undetected (assuming it was built outside the country). I consider this to be the least of their problems.
So, the bottom line, is where will we be if a terrorist group actually detonates a nuclear bomb and destroys a major American city? This is really the threat we should be considering.
And this threat is significant enough, in my opinion, for some pretty serious measures.
But then we have to ask ourselves the question, in order to reduce this threat in a material way, is it necessary for the government to engage in illegal wiretapping or long term detention of citizens without charging them with crimes?
In my opinion, the answer is no simply bcause there is very little evidence that the government's use of these measures adds to our security or reduces the risks in any meaningful way.
-devoman
"And yet, one almost never hears anyone arguing that the terrorism threat, like any other threat, should be viewed in perspective and subjected to rational risk-benefit assessments."
ReplyDeleteSeems to me I've read it countless times on on blogs. Goodness knows I've written such countless times on blogs.
Perhaps by "almost anyone" you mean "on major newspaper Op-Ed pages" or "Senators and other national politicians," or some similar formulation.
I've responded to your kind comment on my blog, by the way.
I thought about blogging the Ellis piece when I read it last night, but I figured it was redundant since it's been said so many times, and since I've said the same so many times. Honest.
V.I Lenin: "The purpose of terrorism is to create terror."
ReplyDeleteFear creates instability, weakness, stupid decisions in the target system. The terrorist's greatest ally becomes the forces of irrational reaction within the target itself.
It's a psychological weapon, obviously, and the only way to combat it is with pyschological strength. Attacking Afghanistan with overwhelming moral authority and international support: good. Lashing out at irrelevant targets, screaming hysterically about how afraid everyone needs to be all the time and madly scrambling to identify internal enemies: not so much.
We know what happened. Behind the scenes, within days of 9/11 itself, the nutcases were already on the march. 9/11 was everything they'd been dreaming of. "Only a Pearl Harbor-type event" could authorize their Cunning Plan, and here it was. Such a lovely gift on so many levels, domestic as well as geopolitical. Surely this was the chance to Save America and Save the World. "Our grandchildren will write songs in praise of us!"
No question about it. Bin Laden knew what he was doing.
HG - I couldn't get the link to work because the second part was on the next line, but I just realized that and read it. It's a great article. In addition to those factors for why we over-fear terrorism, I would add the fear-mongering which our government has relentlessly engaged in. But all of those factors the article cites are certainly accurate, and it's impressive that they were able to articulate this risk-benefit argument even back in 2002, when the climate was quite unreceptive to things of that sort, to put it mildly.
ReplyDeleteDevoman - I agree with much of what you wrote. I actually don't doubt that there are terrorists who would not hesitate to use the most destructive weapons possible against us. The question, as you point out, is the likelihood of their success. And as you (and the Op-Ed) also point out, the measures we have taken (invading Iraq, illegal eavesdropping, Guantanamo) seem quite disconnected from the goals of preventing those dangers and, in some cases, clearly seem to be quite counter-productive.
expecting people to respond to the threat of terrorism rationally is naive. Everyone saw 9/11 happening on their TVs not in some history book. And with Bush constantly removing the scab the wound will not heal. For once in its history, America does not have an answer to a threat and that is scaring the crap out of people.
ReplyDeleteSometimes even I cringe when U.S. officials put too much emphasis on "the war on terror". I do not disagree with the analysis or the tactics being used, but they should not publicly give terrorists credit for being "scary".
ReplyDeleteAl Gore is now lecturing Canadians on "global warming" just days after they elected a conservative PM. Is Mr. Gore really concerned about an increased threat of arctic glaciers melting, or is he lashing out at voters after a humiliating liberal defeat?
Here's Mr. Gore on Terrorism January 16, 2006:
"the threat of additional terror strikes is real and the concerted efforts by terrorists to acquire weapons of mass destruction does indeed create a real imperative to exercise the powers of the Executive Branch with swiftness and agility"
So, where does Al Gore's warning fit in here? And what is the Democrat's plan on finding terrorists within the U.S., if not comprehensive domestic surveillance?
I heard the word 'context' on FOX News a few weeks ago. Twice. Perhaps sanity is finally prevailing a little at a time.
ReplyDeleteBtw Glenn, you probably noticed but in case anyone missed it, your DeWine scoop figured prominently in the lead editorial in the NYTimes today. Uncredited, which is actually a good sign I think. Marks it as an accepted and important data point in the debate--congratulations yet again.
ReplyDeleteAnd what is the Democrat's plan on finding terrorists within the U.S., if not comprehensive domestic surveillance?
ReplyDeleteI know Rove's line is "the Dems don't want us to spy on al Quaeda!" but I thought even the righties had been doing a pretty good job of carrying on an honest discussion of what's really at stake on this forum. Let's try to keep that standard mkay?
The problem is not that Bush wants to spy on al Quaeda operatives within the US. The problem is that he claims the authority to do so without judicial oversight or legal restraint of any kind--an assertion that has implications for presidential power and civil liberties that reach far beyond the immediate situation. This is a real concern to many on the RIGHT as well as the left. Notably William Safire, Bob Barr and many others. Rove's talking points may serve Bush's political interests but they do little to advance the actual concern under discussion.
The Democratic campaign plan for ‘o6 (and ’08) is becoming more clear. 1) Pump the NSA “scandal” for all it’s worth: either we uncover some innocent victims to justify it or we have an excellent example of the “excesses” that the Republicans have used to seize and retain power. The big problem is our (Democrats’) credibility on national security. OK, let’s help the mountain come to Mohammed. Let’s characterize the Republicans as fraidy cats, or, better yet, let’s accuse them of using warm, cuddly terrorism that doesn’t frighten us in the least to do terrible things with our government. They have cried “Wolf”! Oh sure, we have to lock our doors at night, but beyond that we shouldn’t worry. Wait for it.....”the only fear we have to fear is fear itself!”. It worked in 1932 and it will work now.
ReplyDeleteI know we promised Ted he could have one, but I think an op-ed in the NYT is a better kick-off. The liberal faithfull will jump on board as they realize that this is the way to beat the Republicans at their own game.
Next, we spin all the “traitorous” acts and attitudes as being really “keeping our cool” and remaining “unruffled” as the Republicans “overreacted”. Why, their terror is exactly what the terrorists wanted them to feel. Get it? We didn’t fall for it. We kept the same calm, reasonable attitudes we had before 9/11. They are a bunch of babies; getting all scared of a highly unlikely nuclear blast. We are the real brave ones. We spit at their....no, that is too much like Bahgdad Bob. Forget that. Anyway, it just plays itself from that point on. Just keep calling them sissies.
When it really gets going we can strongly hint that THEY are the real threat to our safety and security, not the terrorists. Oh Jeez guys, this will work!
Just keep calling them sissies. When it really gets going we can strongly hint that THEY are the real threat to our safety and security, not the terrorists. Oh Jeez guys, this will work!
ReplyDeleteDoes seem to have rather struck a nerve, yes.
I have been saying this since literally the evening of 9/11. For some odd reason, starting the evening of 9/11, my friends began calling me wanting to discuss the attacks. I guess since I was only a few years removed from a 6 year stint in the U.S. Marine Corps (none of them had ever served) they believed I would have some sort of insight as to what our Military reaction would be this "act of war" perpetrated against us.
ReplyDeleteMy friends were rather surprised when I equated the attacks to a "bloody nose". Now don't get me wrong here. I was furious. I thought about all of those innocent folks that had died. I thought about their families and asked myself, "what if it was my Dad that had been trapped on one of those top floors when the building came down?" I went through all of the normal emotional contortions and ultimately wanted blood also but I tried to explain to my friends that really, in the grand scheme of things (thinking historically), these attacks, while heinous and deserving of a disproportionate response, ultimately did not threaten our national existence or our way of life.
I still believe this. It is apparent to anyone who is paying attention that President Bush and the rest of the neo-cons are simply using 9/11, in the most abhorrent way possible, to keep us afraid - thereby giving themselves an avenue to push their agenda. It sickens me that they are so short sighted and evil (IMO) and it sickens me that my countrymen are taking so long to find their spine. It is tragic.
Ellis' Op-Ed misses one key element of the administration's response to the 9/11 attack, and that is George W. Bush's and Dick Cheney's deep emotional investment in tall hard phallus-shaped objects. The attack was all about symbolism.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing to fear is fear itself and those that preach it!
ReplyDeleteGiven all this, opposing the president's policies following the State of the Union Address should be easy. All you need is a well known Democrat that would be taken seriously on national television...
ReplyDeleteThe current fearful overraction is akin to other chimeric doomsday prognostications such as the fundamentalist doctrine of hell. Irrational and most unattractive.
ReplyDeleteIt is my view that terrorism of the epistemic variety is much more deadly as it reaches so far and deep--through time and psyche.
Btw, you are doing very important work here, Glenn.
vox populi
I agree with Prof Ellis's op-ed, and with Glenn's post. However, it is a very tricky issue to simultaneously convince the American public that the threat of terrorism needs to be placed in perspective, and also to persuade them that those making that argument will, nevertheless, take the threat seriously and, if in power, would zealously work to keep the nation secure.
ReplyDeleteThe spectacle of 9/11 is seared into the national memory. The extensive disruption that followed in its wake, that is not something anyone wants to live through again, and there are many ways we could again be sent into paralyzing panic -- e.g., horrors like releasing a small pox virus that has been bred to be resistant to all known inoculations. Prior to 9/11, there had been many terrorism experts writing scholarly articles in academic journals and for think tanks, and they were essentially voices crying in the wilderness -- not sufficiently heeded by either party or the Executive or Legislative branches of national govt. (But these voices were in high demand as talking heads in the weeks and months after 9/11.)The threat was under-appreciated for decades.
Now, it is over-appreciated. But I know that when I have said that, in other venues, I have been accused of "not believing we are really at war." At this point, I guess I don't . The "war" metaphor is harmful. Having deposed the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, we are back to the same status as we were before 9/11 in terms of the threat -- it should be taken seriously, far more than it was, but it never demanded the exigencies of martial law or other war-time measures. It certainly does not justify a lawless Executive for the next several decades.
Technically, your observation that the Republicans' use of the 9/11 disaster has been overblown and/or misguided is unquestionably on the mark. (Although I don't think your original essay gave sufficient weight to the notion that 9/11 was a potential harbinger of vastly more terrible attacks to come.)
ReplyDeleteRhetorically, as a means of introducing some sanity into the political discussion, it's DOA.
There are some very intelligent and PROFOUNDLY confused folks out there who have bought into the 'war on terror' worldview. The meme that 'it's not so bad' is NOT going to convince THEM, much less draw in your average unsophisticated Fox news fan.
Not long ago, someone I know -- an extremely sharp, highly accomplished professional with whom I've shared the occasional intellectual discussion over the years -- lent me a copy of a book by Thom Hartmann (the one about how the 'corporation' with its quasi-citizen status was undermining American democracy) ... pretty radical stuff.
So I was taken aback recently when my friend started spouting the Bush line ... we were in Iraq because of 9/11 ... the mass media is heavily biased towards liberals ... the killing of a couple thousand by terrorists is something that clearly elicited a gut-level response (understandably), but the prospect of millions or billions dying in our lifetimes because of the impact of global warming did not elicit much concern even on a theoretical level.
If my friend were an idiot, or a jerk, or a rabid fundamentalist, or Chicago school free market devotee, I could just write it off. But to the best of my knowledge, none of those things apply, and from our past discussions I would have thought that we were on the same page in regards to a lot of basic sociopolitical issues.
I think the core issue here is that the 9/11 impact goes far beyond the grisly tally of lives lost and damage done. Many -- most? -- Americans felt it as a direct assault on their identity as Americans. Telling them 'don't be so afraid' is NOT going to work.
What might work is telling them -- repeatedly -- that the Republicans are also launching an attack on their identity as Americans ... in ways, one that's even more insidiuous. Showing that the Bushistas are corruptly underming our fundamental American freedoms in an ineffectual and counterproductive 'war on terror' should resonate with at least some folks who would otherwise identify with the Republican agenda.
Maybe there's a Photoshopper out there who can iconize the bedwetters approach to trading liberty for security, say a picture of Jonah Goldberg ready for battle, his loins girded with Depends...
ReplyDeletePropagandee
Showing that the Bushistas are corruptly underming our fundamental American freedoms in an ineffectual and counterproductive 'war on terror' should resonate with at least some folks who would otherwise identify with the Republican agenda.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, Glenn, exactly what you've been doing.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteballgame writes: Telling them 'don't be so afraid' is NOT going to work.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely. Won't work, and is a diagram for political disaster.
And this sort of crap from one of the anons here: Maybe there's a Photoshopper out there who can iconize the bedwetters approach to trading liberty for security, say a picture of Jonah Goldberg ready for battle, his loins girded with Depends...
Will be a gift of great proportion to the GOP. (Not that I'm a Jonah fan, I'm not.)
terrorism and it's labels to current events;
ReplyDeletea question please?
why do we assume the WTC incident was done by terrorists? The video and photos that have been recorded show different things to different people. A very few, but persistent people in our government are trying to make this clear to us, the 911 Commission knows and have made some statements that are either being ignored, or not believed. The buildings were imploded, is there any doubt about this? Is there any doubt that there are video images of an explosion prior to where the plane is about to hit on the second tower? A third tower was imploded that wasn't hit. (guess someone got nervous and made a small mistake) The planes don't appear to be the same ones that took off from the airports earlier that day. Why wouldn't we get to see an in depth documentary by our "news" organizations about the facts surrounding an event that appears to be changing every aspect to our lives?
Sorry, if you assume that a terrorist event occurred, you are willing to release the government to acting as they do today. Our apathy and gullibility are what caused this. Today we talk about the aftermath and give up on the actual facts. Only a few years later, the actions of our government appear to be leading to the evolution of something other than a republic. We appear to show a total lack of interest in the finding out what really happened. FDR knew he only needed to wait and the war would come home. Either our government knew that war was coming home, or they assisted. The evidence shows the latter to be the most likely.
We know our government knew about the hijackers, their "supposed" leader and how his family is related directly to the oil, OPEC and the family in the WH, do you need the explanation of Occam's Razor? A few people have made trillions in oil money in the last few years due to what certainly seems like a conspiracy to profit from the war. (not like this is anything new, lest it be forgotten)
When will the unwashed masses ever be told the truth, or even a small part of it? As long as we don't appear to care, the answer is never. As long as we have nothing but war as a commodity, it will be used to secure all that is desired. When you print money that has no value, you have to force the recipient to accept it. When you write a check you can't cash, you need to take a gun to the bank with you. That is what we expect of the world, is it not?
So let us stop acting naive. The people in power are moving us toward a different kind of government that we have been used to. It appears pretty clear that all of those in power are doing so, not just some. If "some" were concerned about this, they would have acted. They have not. We are still building permanent military bases in the regions of conflict, still undermining the governments of all of these countries to force them to accept both our bad checks and worthless money. We call countries bad and do business as usual with them because they can't be cowed by force. An obvious double standard, like so much of the rest of what we see.
Welcome to the feel good world of fantasy. You know something is wrong, but there is so much to take in that you can't sort it all out. We are willing to accept that this is about personalities and little differences that we see in the press. It appears to only be about profit and control. Stop being silly and enjoy yourselves. All of our government is willing to kill you to maintain the status quo. They have done it so many times before that when push comes, they will do it again. deja vu to you.
Telling them 'don't be so afraid' is NOT going to work.
ReplyDeleteI understand this sentiment (and Hypatia's), but I don't agree with it entirely.
People don't like to think of themsevles as scared and driven by fear. In our culture, being weak that way is a bad thing. Our culture values bravery and calmness in the face of threats. And the character of our country - at least as it's widely perceived by Americans - has always been that we stand up to threats with courage and resolve and we don't turn into hysterical basket cases begging our government to protect us by taking away our liberties ad changing the basic principles that has defined America and made it great.
I believe that - especially as 9/11 fades into the distance and more and more Americans have come to distrust George Bush - Americans will be receptive to the message that this Government has been manipulating them with fear-mongering and that they are playing games with terrorism for political gain - including by exploiting 9/11 to justify radical parts of their agenda which they've been wanting to do long before 9/11 -- and that they have not been serious or effective about fighting terrorism.
Having said all that, I don't only write things on my blog which I think are good political selling points. I write things that I see and believe, regardless of whether it should be featured in a DNC commercial.
Nonetheless, unlike a lot of people, I actually have confidence in the ability of Americans to see things and to come to recognize what is going on. It may not happen quickly or all at once -- they are prone to being propagandized -- but I believe it will happen. I don't see most Americans as a bunch of drooling imbeciles forever susceptible to rank propaganda. Some of them are that, but most aren't, and I think Americans have a deeply instilled set of values which will resist assaults on our liberties.
That could be naive idealism or whatever. But for anyone who doesn't believe that, I'd ask what you're doing participating in any of these conversations or activities if you've really given up all hope because you think Americans are just vapid idiots who can't see past their own noses.
hypatia:
ReplyDeleteWould you settle for a picture of Ben Franklin saying:
"Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither?"
Or would that also be "a gift of great proportion to the GOP?"
Propagandee
At some point some dweeb with a laser pointer and a Power Point presentation will offer some raw numbers for "security" fetishists to consider.
ReplyDeleteAutomobile accidents, suicides, cancers, and stupidity are the big killers in America, but they don't get you votes.
Fear gets people's attention and their votes, even as what our leaders do with all that fear gets no results. We are so busy taking care of everyone else, we can't take care of ourselves.
Our current leaders are fools and worse. We fail to see the good that can be done with others, we only see the danger from others. So in our leaders obsessions we are endangered.
They (whoever "they" morph to be) will always be out to get us. If we stopped looking at ourselves in the mirror quivering with fear, a whole other world might appear before us.
Our leaders with their small minds have diminished a great people. We deserve better.
propagandee writes:
ReplyDeleteWould you settle for a picture of Ben Franklin saying:
"Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither?"
Or would that also be "a gift of great proportion to the GOP?"
That would be an excellent marketing tactic, provided however, that those seen to be making it are not perceived as using the Founders' rhetoric cynically and opportunistically, when they otherwise think Howard Zinn* accurately captures the founding and the Founders.
I'm a libertarian, not a woman of the left. Other intelligent people who abhor the religious right and much of what its standard bearers/elected officials in the contemporary GOP are doing, are Democrats, libertarians or independents who voted for Bush almost exclusively for reasons of national security. They are revolted by a Moveon.org approach to America and national security, and will simply tune out any message that is perceived to be coming mostly from that quarter; they will not buy that such types are born again patriots, no matter if Patrick Henry is suddenly prominent in the ads.
The tension between effectively fighting terrorism and civil liberties is a deeply serious issue, and needs attention from serious people. I fall far on the side of preserving civil liberties, and know that others of my ideological persuasion can be made to understand that we are moving too far in the other direction, if the argument is properly presented.
*I use David Horowitz sites carefully -- he is not always reliable -- but in this instance that link is accurate.
I think television has incresed the perception of the threat from terrorism. Many people saw the World Trade Center fall in real time (i.e. on TV) and the video as been replayed and replayed. Very few saw (for example) the attack on Pearl Harbor ofr the burining of D.C. in the War of 1812.
ReplyDeleteIt isn't so much an over-reaction as it is the wrong reaction. That is, anti-BinLadenism (islamo-fascism is a silly term) or anti-Salafiism is essentially a hearts-and-minds campaign, like it or not.
ReplyDeleteLarge scale military force, it seems to me, was necessary to clean out the Afghan sanctuaries and destroy Al Qaeda infrastructure. The result is that terrorism is now completely covert - there are no declared Al Qaeda offices anywhere.
We simply cannot use the Marines to deal with a covert, global terrorist movement. We don't have enough Marines or enough clear targets. The only effective response is collective security. This was obvious from the start. The Bush administration is addicted to unilateralism, and this is exactly the wrong policy.
Police and intelligence work, coupled with selective covert attacks on harder targets, is the way to win. That is, the much maligned policy in Pakistan is the way to go. It would be better if we coupled this precise use of force with a much more aggressive campaign to win over Muslims by showing that we want to improve their lives. The democracy theme is a good one, but the chicken-in-every-pot is also a good one, and liable to have a more immediate impact. Bribes? Sure, why not? It may be more effective and less costly than bombs. What do we call our aid to Egypt?
The political problem is that Americans prefer simple solutions, solutions that correlate to the huge security expenditures we have made post WWII, and our selective memory of our history. Real leaders actually educate the public, bring the people along. Demagogues simply pour the kerosene on.
Glenn,
ReplyDeleteYou wrote: "It would be a good start to at least arrive at the point where we can have this discussion openly and rationally -- without the discussion being drowned out by manipulative emotional appeals and cheap and cynical smears."
I heartily agree, of course. But let's not lose sight of the other side's objective. What we've seen is not some irrational, wimpy act of fear caused by the 9/11 attacks. What we're seeing is a bold, cynical, naked move for power by BushCo and the exploitation of the tragedy by ruthless politicians.
The Bush Administration and their right-wing amen corner are not nervous nellies who hide under their covers at night. They're doing what they're doing to assert power pure and simple and to use the 9/11 tragedy to steamroll the Democrats and the media to make the United States a one-party country.
Shame on the Democrats, shame on the media, and shame on the rest of us for letting that happen.
Steve Gilliard noted on his blog that "New Yorkers do not dwell on 9/11. We have moved on and we are pissed at the way our tragedy has been coopted by Bush and the GOP . . . . " One could only hope that the rest of America would wake up to what's happening too.
I hope Professor Ellis' courageous piece spurs others to action. For when Americans finally start to put 9/11into perspective, it will be the beginning of the end of this reckless administration's naked grab for power.
Anonymous and co.
ReplyDeleteYou guys love to misquote Ben Franklin. He did not say "Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither"
Franklin, 1755:
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
essential liberty.
Well...I see that part of the problem is not that people are *too stupid* to realize these ways they may be being manipulated as the issue, but it's more use of Language in how this is done.
ReplyDeleteI read an NY Times Op-Ed by Ted Koppel reframing the "What's wrong with the MSM" -- but slipping casually into his piece the entire "The Media is Liberal" canard in the process.
I'd almost like to reformulate the goals and ideas away from the notion that these are "liberal" proposals and from Democrats...to something more along the Lines of progressive ideas, pro-active proposals and reformulate the DNC all together as a NEW *Something* party.
These neo-radicals in our government and the GOP (and these are RADICALs - make no mistake) have co-opted the *conservative* language to create their spin, and it needs a counter-language to overcome and delete the negatives associated with the demonization of *liberal* as a word and concept.
It is clear we need not just new ideas but a new way to express them - or it's to be continually to be mocked as *liberals* and allow the issues to be framed by these neo-radicals. To all our detriment.
"...they will not buy that such types are born again patriots, no matter if Patrick Henry is suddenly prominent in the ads"
ReplyDeleteAnd here again is the rub. How are they not patriots exactly? Because they disagree with you? Because they believe that at least one of the products of a government, that is ostensibly "of the people and by the people", is meeting the needs of the people? Because they recognize that America and Americans do not have a monopoly on the moral high ground of the world? Look around you - we don't and never really have been able to claim such. You and your ilk have your own mental death grip on the definition of "patriot".
I think Zinn is pretty much on the money. I don't mind MoveOn.org and what they are attempting to do. This must mean I am not very intelligent and am not now, nor have I ever been a patriot. What a joke. I am so sick and tired of this arrogance. It would not be in my nature to call you to the carpet as unpatriotic but perhaps I should. I fought in the first Gulf War and love my country. I want it to become all it is capable of becoming. How about you? Do you have your support the troops ribbon firmly planted on the ass end of your car?
"...David Horowitz... -- he is not always reliable -- but in this instance that link is accurate."
Horse shit. That is his opinion (read smear) of Zinn. Yours too apparently. That is fine - that is your prerogative but opinion does not equal accuracy.
You sure aren't going to like this then. This guy was just an ignorant hick. What would he possibly know about wars or the motivations for them? Right?
http://lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
Oh..and BTW Glenn - time to get to your template update. *wink*
ReplyDeleteWhat code do we need to use for links?
ReplyDeleteClick on my initials for the web page.
I think Zinn is pretty much on the money. I don't mind MoveOn.org and what they are attempting to do.
ReplyDeleteYes, and there are plenty more where you come from, here and elsewhere. I decline to debate whether Zinn is "pretty much on the money," because anyone who thinks that is operating from premeses so different from my own that it would be a futile exercise.
Rather, I am simply insisting that large sectors of the intelligent body politic will not be receptive to any "patriotism" campaign from people who hold the views you do. That's a fact.
William Safire said this right after 9/11.
ReplyDeleteI cited him in trying to get people to understand that the Bush Administration was using fear to grab power.
Four years later, with very few exceptions, that article and its companion read like a time traveler wrote them.
No one listened then. No one will listen now. Sanity is not on the agenda. Hubris, having determined to destroy, must destroy itself.
Steve:
ReplyDeletePolitically speaking, I think the Democrats will do ok if the 2006 elections are a referendum on who will do a better job at "comprehensive domestic surveillance."
The Democrats will not do okay until we have fair elections again. It doesn't matter what they say nor who they run. Bush was not really elected in 2000, nor in 2004, nor did they come by their Senate majority honestly in 2002.
If you're not with me on this by now, I'm not going to be able to convince you. But it bears repeating that millions of informed Americans and, indeed, hundreds of millions of peope worldwide, just don't buy the storyline.
Fly:
ReplyDeleteThanks for the complete, accurate quote from my friend Ben.
I was probably influenced by the Cliff Notes version emblazoned on the banner unfurled by some Georgetown law students during Alberto Torquemada Gonzalez's lame attempt to defend the NSA's warrantless wiretaps last week.
To the larger point, I think it would be a good move for the Dems to quote the Founding Fathers as much as possible on this issue, lest everything they say be virtually attributed to MoveOn.org, George Soros or Michael Moore.
Let's make a list. Here's three more entries. attributed to James Madison:
"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
"If unrestrained by external check and balances, a person or a group of persons will tyranize over the others".
"No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
No Photoshop required.
Propagandee
Hypathia,
ReplyDeleteHave you acually read any Zinn, or just the Horowitz screed? Speaking of so called patriotism, did you know the Zinn was a bombardier in the Airforce.
"I decline to debate whether Zinn is "pretty much on the money," because anyone who thinks that is operating from premeses so different from my own that it would be a futile exercise."
ReplyDeleteIf you decline to debate it then do not bring it up. You have brought him into this twice now.
"Rather, I am simply insisting that large sectors of the intelligent body politic will not be receptive to any "patriotism" campaign from people who hold the views you do. That's a fact."
Insist all you like but you should speak for yourself rather than for large groups of independent thinkers over whom you have no control and are afraid you can not convince.
Your contention that *intelligent* members of the body politic will not be receptive to a patriotism campaign from people such as myself is factually incorrect and astoundingly arrogant. I know you would like this to be the case as you fundamentally believe that people who hold, what you perceive to be, my views are both unintelligent and unpatriotic but there are *intelligent* members of the body politic that are quite receptive to the truth. You seem to be confusing truth with patriotism and ideology.
And here I thought it was the liberal "intellectual elites" ruining this country. The corporate media must have been mistaken as, apparently, no such group exists.
You were correct about one thing though - we might as well not *converse* from this point forward. It is indeed an exercise in futility.
The meme that we're the calm, rational ones acting out of a true American tradition of competence and sanity is incredibly powerful. I've been arguing for it on various blogs for over a year now, and I'm glad to see it's finally getting some currency.
ReplyDeleteBut there's a little dab of spit we can add to this ball that will give an extra-wicked spin.
Lakoff, as most of us know, pointed out that the Republicans are the "daddy party" -- the party of manhood and vigor, contrasted against the weak, emotional "mommy party" of the Democrats.
Psychologist Stephen Ducat, in his excellent "Wimp Factor" book that came out around the same time Lakoff's "Elephant" book did, took this argument even one step further. All forms of conservatism, he argues persuasively, are fueled by what he calls "anxious masculinity." He clearly demonstrates how the Republicans have cashed in over the past 25 years by artfully manipulating the fears and bucking up the "manhood" of economically and socially nervous American men.
This the core meme at the heart of everything else they do. -- and it's why the most effective attacks from our quarter now will be the ones aimed directly at undercutting its percieved truth. If we destroy the GOP's "manhood' myth -- and all we have to do is point out that they're acting like wimps and crybabies and traitors to the cool, calm legacy of John Wayne -- the whole archetypal edifice they're built on will implode.
So let's seize on this rational, reasonable, keeping-it-all-in proportion idea, and get it on out there. But always, always, let's make sure it's coupled with the idea that WE are the ones who are truly representative of American masculine prowess. WE are George Washington and Robert E. Lee and FDR and (insert your favorite American male icon of grace under fire here). WE aren't gutless crybabies who give up their rights at the first sign of trouble; we're the ones who are going to go out like Gary Cooper and do what it takes to make it right.
The white working classes flocked to the GOP, against their better interests, because the party promised to give them their balls back in the face of low pay, uppity women, and encroaching minorities. We've got a real chance here to offer that formerly Democratic base a new version of the story -- this time, restoring grace and honor to the image of American manhood, and inviting them to behave in ways that carry our proudest traditions forward.
You want to talk about values? This, my friends, is where it starts.
I really think that the members of the reality-based community should start, conversationally and in print (and on the web), calling this what it really is.
ReplyDeleteAnd the Pentagon and the Administration, until GWB stopped them, gave it its proper name: GSAVE: the Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism.
It is global: our enemies reach into most corners of the world. It is a struggle certainly, but well short of something that is best addressed with what we think of as war, like the major combat operations going into Iraq. (What sort of force bagged Khalid Shiek Mohammed?) Its is against not just extemism, but against those who commit violent acts in pursuit of extremism.
Besides being far more accurate (and less apocalyptic), this relabeling also has the virtue of coming out of the administration itself. They can't easily repudiate their own words, and the view of their own members that sought to put a more realistic label on what we are doing.
Also, GSAVE implies the need for the softer assertions of power and influence. While continuing to pursue the real bad guys, why not also fund Islamabad Tech to compete with the schools where all they learn is to recite the Koran by heart?
"...opinions about terrorism are the new form of political correctness"
ReplyDeleteBrilliant!
About Howard Zinn: Yes, I have read him. I am a liberally educated individual and encountered his writing in several classes as an undergraduate.
ReplyDeleteFurther, I am aware he served bravely in WWII. Many Marxists did, as it was considered a good war after Hitler had the gall to attack the Soviet Motherland. The day Hitler violated the pact he had with Stalin, American Communists and fellow-travelers immediately reversed their "peace" campaign and wholeheartedly endorsed the war, and many enlisted.
Finally, I again am stating that appeals to patriotism from adherents of the Zinn theory of United States history will not be taken seriously by many intelligent people. Deal with it.
“I don't only write things on my blog which I think are good political selling points. I write things that I see and believe, regardless of whether it should be featured in a DNC commercial.”
ReplyDeleteMr. Greenwald. This is not about me and it isn’t about you either, really. There is a truth here and that is what I want to discuss. It is not a truth I have earned, but one which I adopted from Neo-neocon because it precisely answered a question that I had evolved over a long period of time. If asked, I would say that liberals, as a group, are the best educated, brightest and well-advantaged people in our society. Ignoring their politics, they contribute most of what makes our society as great as it is. Yes, conservatives do the heavy work, but the creative part....
So why are they so goddamned stupid in their current political behavior (including comments on this blog)?
Neo-neocon explained it for me. She is currently writing a series of articles on her blog explaining how she came to migrate from being a liberal to being – well, not a conservative, but a neo-conservative. A key for her was applying her NYT, MSM, etc. information and predictions to actual events as they transpired. Contrasting what her usual liberal sources were representing to be reality to what her independent sources were reporting as reality was the spark that motivated her to make the conversion. That is the good news. Liberals can change.
The bad news is that it took her many hours and a major effort to make the change. Most liberals don’t have the time – never mind the inclination. It is so damned convenient to hang in the liberal bubble. It is so consistent (dissenting voices are quickly shouted down) and simple that one can have the illusion of being a totally free thinker, wander around, go from this liberal vision to that one and never know (as Mr. Greenwald obviously does not) that one is destined end up sounding like a DNC commercial in any event. Unless one seriously takes in and thinks about information outside the bubble.
For most liberals there is zero motivation to even attempt to break out of the liberal cocoon. All your friends are there and those outside it are ostracized. Who wants that?
Well sure, in theory liberals want to be in on the straight poop. The problem, if you want to look at it that way, is that there just isn’t time to do it on one’s own. One must rely on hired proxies to do the hard work and then write the op-eds so that one can stay up to date with a minimum of effort. Many liberals spend no time at all on politics except to adopt the slogans and buzzwords that allow them to appear informed.
Why is that a problem? They vote! The current liberal agenda is simply wrong in the real world. And it may get us all killed. Other than that we could just wait for it to adjust to reality in its own good time, one book or treatise at a time, without disturbing any fundraising efforts or re-election plans or tenure tracks or social occasions or luncheons, sabbaticals or bar mitzvahs.
That reality is why liberals’ current efforts to disguise the donkey as a war-horse creates such anxiety in the folks who just barely swayed the last presidential election. Here we are met with the spectacle of a Hypatia who is upset that we are violating terrorists’ Constitutional rights! Now, I once went through infantryman basic training and I cannot imagine giving an enemy his Miranda rights (does he speak my language?) before attempting to kill him. Do liberals understand that in real life (right now) it is necessary to kill enemies? Really. Dead. No appeal. Viciously. Violently. No alternative. I’m referring to real life America. Yes, we can hope and plan for a better time. Count the dead as far back as you want, we have to kill enemies to keep America. Hello liberals!
Get some help. Read Neo-neocon.
This is off topic, but I was wondering:
ReplyDeleteDo Republicans favor eliminationism in regards to Democrats? The rhetoric on that side of the aisle seems to say so. What will be the ultimate political goal of the Republican party? To bring the country into dictatorship?
"About Howard Zinn: Yes, I have read him. I am a liberally educated individual...
ReplyDeletelol
I just had to share this brilliant comment from bombshelterman (courtesy ThinkProgress.org):
ReplyDeleteThere hate us becase of our “freedoms”. By removing these “freedoms” from the American people ‘they’ will not hate us near as much. GW is a real genius and you people just do not get it!
RH, allow me to amuse you further. Marxists were warmongers during WWII, but only after Stalin and Hitler parted ways, and you can read a fascinating examination of how the "progressive" glitterati chained themselves to a revolting and slavish adoration of Joseph Stalin here. (This article is from Reason magazine, a respectable enterprise and one that frequently parts company with David Horowitz.)
ReplyDeleteA quote from one of the more illustrious of Zinn's fellow Marxists who thought WWII was the Lord's work:
Lillian Hellman, who, when Hitler attacks the USSR in September of 1939, actually did cry out, "The motherland has been invaded."
War record or no, Howard Zinn's anti-American propaganda is repugnant, and no one who endorses it ought to be taken seriously when they mouth the words of the nation's Founders -- and many won't take you seriously.
Propaganda? Zinn's approach to history from the point of view of common citizens (and slaves, and women, and non-landowners) was a needed antidote to the typical (in my view much MORE propagandistic) fare, and he's been imitated by a generation of historians.
ReplyDeleteAlso I like Lillian Hellman. I like Pete Seeger, too.
Not to mention Howard Zinn...
Haptia or whatever,
ReplyDeleteanti-American What the sam hain does this mean? Maybe you could use some of that liberal education to explain this term to one of the unwashed (although I did bathe Saturday) masses. Does it mean some one is against American cars? Does it mean some one is against a particular American government? Does it mean some one is against NY City?
And, who gets to choose what is pro or anti-American?
By the way, I hate Florida, not the people in Florida, just don't like it there. Does this make me anti-American since Florida is one of the 50?
thanx
notherbob,
ReplyDeletedon't look now, but there's something sneaking up behind you...BOO!
It's called sanity and America sure needs her now.
Speaking for one who left your so-called conservative cadre, seriously, what special access do you have to un-bubblicious information processing? Please do share.
As for a liberal view of the world that may get us killed--do you mean as opposed to the neo-con war profiteering version that actually is killing many this very minute around the globe?
and one more thing....
ReplyDeletenotherbob,
What part of your post excuses the President's law-breaking again? What part of your superior (so superior it is invisible) argument would you apply to a president other than Bush?
Carrie wrote, "People *like* being afraid, is the thing." I agree, but I disagree with her reason for this phenomenon. It's not that they are crazy. It is our culture. We live in, for lack of a better term a "celebrity culture" where we feel like we know people we have never met, and form very concrete judgments about them from the carefully managed impressions we are given over the TV. This same dynamic causes us to overreact to events of little or no personal significance. I don't refer to empathy for the victims, but the feeling of seeing it on the TV and wanting so much for it to affect our lives, too.
ReplyDelete"Rather, I am simply insisting that large sectors of the intelligent body politic will not be receptive to any "patriotism" campaign from people who hold the views you do. That's a fact."
ReplyDeleteYou're right. Unfortunately, there are a $hitload of closed-minded Americans out there, both intelligent and not so intelligent.
hypatia wrote in part:
ReplyDeleteA quote from one of the more illustrious of Zinn's fellow Marxists who thought WWII was the Lord's work:
Lillian Hellman, who, when Hitler attacks the USSR in September of 1939, actually did cry out, "The motherland has been invaded."
===
Actually, there was a non-aggression pact in place between the USSR & Germany in September 1939. They were on the same side then, and remained so until Hitler decided the time was ripe for an Eastern Front war. (The actual attack on Russia came in late June 1941.) Hitler felt that the war on the Western Front was essentially won, save for mopping up, and was impatient to make the push into Russia & the eventual acquisition of valuable lebenstraum. I know about Godwin but every time I think of what Bush did, manufacturing an excuse to attack Iraq since things were pretty much finished up in Afghanistan & he was impatient to move into Iraq before the UN managed to spoil his thirst for oil, I am vividly reminded of an earlier fascist.
An example of bubblicious information appeared in this very thread. I cannot tell you how many liberal commenters I have seen [mis] quote the Ben Franklin quote the Fly correctly states above. Now, it may be OK to change it so that it is snappier and supports a liberal point better. To do so and still attempt to carry the endorsement of Ben Franklin is a form of misinformation that appears often in the liberal cocoon. Modo is famous for it. Hey, I don’t have to put together a story...just read outside the cocoon. I don’t have to quote a source – they are legion. Smell the coffee. If liberalism is the better way, it needs informed people to cut through the fund-raising and special interest crap and offer swing voters something that is truthful and that an outsider familiar with the real world can relate to.
ReplyDeleteAnd Saluki, opinions differ on the “law breaking” of the President. The issue is still under consideration. Getting one’s information only from those single-mindedly committed to replacing the President’s party and needing a “scandal” to do so is not a “superior” fact-finding method.
I agree with the point Mr. Greenwald made about being so bent up over terrorism and that we shouldn't simply change our principles upon foreign policy and our government's behavior because of it.
ReplyDeleteI think the reason why 9/11 has seared into the American consciousness is because it probably was the first significant attack on American soil by a foreign adversary since the War of 1812.
I am a bed-wetter in the sense that I shake with fear in the what if al Qaida is able to deploy and detonate an atomic bomb. But, the recent bombing of Pakistan where we killed civilians as we killed al Qaida members has helped me form an opinion on it.
If this is a war, then expect casualties, and if you you use this rationale to accept the death of the Pakistan civilians during the bombing, then don't be naive enough to believe that our side won't experience civilian deaths too. That is war too.
Once you get past this, then how serious is the threat of al Qaida to our way of life?
Are they a foreign army large enough and strong enough to march on Washington and turn the Washington Memorial into a mosque? The over insistent fixation on
"the unprecedented danger of terrorism" is simply a gut reaction to the hope that no more civilians will die. The way George Bush continually plays it out, you'd think he was a knee-jerk liberal.
I am reminded of an episode of M*A*S*H* where Hawkeye is so beat up over the death of a soldier who he couldn't save and Maclean Stevenson's character comes over and says (sic), "They teach us two things at officer training school. One is that young men die in war. The second is that doctors can't change number one."
The same applies for Presidents who approve bombing missions where unintentional civilian casualties occur.
The existential threat is entirely to the pReznit's leisure presidency, which is surrounded by an image completely at odds with his personal ability and will to live up to it.
ReplyDeleteThe desire to maintain the image is shared, for differing reasons, by groups who capitalize politically, financially and in self esteem from maintaining the integrity of that (shared) image.
Critics and dissent are what terrify this group more than Osama &al. The majority of the public who doubt the spin now (ludicrously) qualify as terrorists. Rational people who wonder why more resources and effort haven't gone to bringing actual terrorists to justice haven't had George Bush's life of escaping failure after failure and living a lifelong lie. Nor have they uncritically accepted their superiority to [insert marginalized group] based on nothing more than vanishing social convention that increasingly no longer apply. So for him and his fans, it really is an existential threat. Millions of chickenhawk cowards are terrified that the extent to which they have been and continue to be scared will be exposed.
Alternative ways of making your excellent point:
ReplyDeleteYa shouldn't start OD'ing on steroids just 'cause ya've been punched in the nose by a bully. Even if the bully seems very scary.
The cure's worse than the disease.
Frying pan-fire phenomenon.
zhkora writes:
ReplyDeleteActually, there was a non-aggression pact in place between the USSR & Germany in September 1939.
True -- the author erred in not identifying the date as 1941. That was when the Communist Lillian Hellman declared that her Motherland (the Stalinist hellhole of the Soviet Union) had been attacked, and she and the other Marxists all turned, overnight, from "peace" activists into warmongers.
newbie writes: Also I like Lillian Hellman. I like Pete Seeger, too.
Not to mention Howard Zinn..
Of course you do. These Stalinists are the ideological forebears -- the honored ancestors -- for many on the left.
"How many terrorist deaths are "acceptable" in your view ?
ReplyDeleteJust a cost of doing business ?"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawman_argument
I have to take issue with your response to Goldberg's link to your post. You seem to think that it represents the best argument he can come up with, when in fact it wasn't even an attempt at argument. He was just pointing out to Corner readers that your post existed, without comment.
ReplyDeleteBlogging, I have noticed, has several kinds of posts. Some offer original insights, some offer commentary on other posts, and some are just repositories for links, making articles and information available to readers who may not find it otherwise. Jonah's post was this latter type, and it seems either blind or mean-spirited to conflate it with one of the other types, then judge it as such. Failure to make the distinction between these different kinds of posts is like wondering why newspaper editorials insert the author's opinions, or why the lifestyles page doesn't offer more hard news. You have overlooked a fundamental type of classification in blogging, and shame on you for doing so to score cheap partisan points.
Also, you seem to suggest that Jonah's summary, besides being too short, was also somehow an inaccurate characterization. Reading your post, it seems to me that you do think terrorism is "no big deal," and I would be interested to hear precisely how you believe this is an inaccurate assessment.
Mr Greenwald, I live in NYC and you forgot that the WTC was attacked twice.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the American public has been so deluded by the propaganda of appeasement that they really believe the world is full of 'peace, love and understanding'.
Personally, I cannot help but FEEL that you want people in NYC to die simply so you can have something to interesting in your life to talk about.
You might have written this post on Sept 10, 2001, discussing the irrationality of obsessing over terrorist attacks that kill only a few dozen at a time.
ReplyDeleteThe terrorists, using very simple means, raised the bar on Sept 11. Now committed Leftists such as you discuss the irrationality of worrying about terrorist attacks that only kill a few thousand people at a time.
If Leftists like the ones posting here get their way, maybe the terrorists will be able to raise the bar even higher.
lol
ReplyDeletethanks for all the amusing posts guys.
from posts about how 911 wasn't really a terrorist attack to posts about how bush REALLY wasn't elected in 2000 and 2004 because large swaths of the world 'don't buy it'.
This has been an outstanding example of why your side of the aisle continues to decay and will not regain power in the near future. (but as Americans have somehow LOST the right to vote
Have fun continuing down the road to irrelevance!
notherbob2,
ReplyDelete"If asked, I would say that liberals, as a group, are the best educated, brightest and well-advantaged people in our society. Ignoring their politics, they contribute most of what makes our society as great as it is."
That is a good point to ad to this discussion, however I disagree in large part.
Liberals are working overtime not to improve their party platform or to build a consensus on a *plan* (hello, what is your plan anyway?) rather, most of their effort goes toward maintaining self serving myths, i.e. they are "the best educated, brightest and well-advantaged people". Take that a step further and add the Hollywood liberal component "they contribute most of what makes our society as great as it is" and that brings the illusion full circle. Many undecided voters are probably swayed not because Democrats have better ideas or better candidates, but simply because they want to be viewed by their liberal peers as being “smart and cool” like them.
Part of the myth building game plan is to constantly portray others as having inferior minds, justifying further efforts to undermine their ideas. This may help explain the tendency here to misquote historical references. Perhaps some liberals feel safe doing so because they are indeed thinking they live in a "protective bubble" where no one would dare challenge their intellect. Here we even have comments suggesting that terrorism is just a case of mind over matter (if you don't mind, it won't matter) problem solved, liberal style.
Take a look at Sen. Kerry's campaign during '04 where he was posturing in front of the TV cameras instead of giving meaningful answers after being presented as an intellectual giant. Look at both Sen. Kerry and Mr. Gore making speeches from Switzerland and the Sundance film festival of all places. Mr. Gore used the opportunity not to discuss America, but to lecture Canadian voters, as if they care. What about Sen. Kennedy trying to match wits with Judge Alito? Wasn’t that a pathetic scene? If that's not enough, consider Howard Dean the DNC Chairman with his cartoon character personality. Aren’t these prominent Democrats all a little out of touch?
By the way, I have learned to expect some typically condescending responses here. Go ahead if it makes you feel better, I'll understand...
He was just pointing out to Corner readers that your post existed, without comment.
ReplyDeleteJonah most certainly did comment about the post, and his comment was that I think terrorism is "no big deal." There is a difference - I'd say a whole world of a difference - between believing that terrorism is not an unprecedented, existential, all-consuming threat, and thinking that it's "no big deal." Basic logic makes clear that to reject the former is not to embrace the latter.
Personally, I cannot help but FEEL that you want people in NYC to die simply so you can have something to interesting in your life to talk about.
Both my office and my home were in Manhattan on 9/11, as was I. I lived in Manhattan for 14 years beginning in 1991 and still live there part-time. The idea that I secretly want NYC to be attacked is beyond stupid, really, but I am responding nonetheless because I think this is not an uncommon view.
Most people I know who live in Manhattan frequently have the thought when they pass through Times Square that Times Square would be an ideal place for a terrorist attack - it is incredibly dense with people, it has great symbolic value, and it is one of the economic hubs of the city.
Times Square has that name because it happens to be where The New York Times is located. Whenever I hear people accusing the Times or "liberals" - many of whom live in places which are likely to be attacked -- of trying to aid the terrorists or make attacks more likely, I can't help but think that it is the most asinine argument ever, and yet we hear it so much, including from the Administration and its many followers.
It is always entertaining, in a grim and perverse sort of way, to listen to people who live in places where a terrorist attack is extremely unlikely accuse those who live in high-risk places of being on the side of terrorists or wanting attacks to occur.
That's not to say that people in NYC or DC have any greater credibility when talking about terrorism policies; they don't. But basic common sense, if not minimal standards of decency, ought to at least preclude the accusation that those people are doing what they can to purposely get themselves and their families blown up.
Silly questionmark...
ReplyDeleteOf course I noticed Goldberg's summation. I noted as much in the last paragraph of my post. Obviously he doesn't approve of this article. But I am still interested to know what part of his summation people disapprove of. Where he calls the post a Numbers Game? "The total number of Americans killed by Islamic terrorists in the last 5 years -- or 10 years -- or 20 years -- or ever -- is roughly 3,500, the same number of deaths by suicide which occur in this country every month." Where he says GG thinks terrorism is no big deal? He thinks it is a small deal, obviously, but not enough to warrant any kind of forceful counteraction.
So what, besides brevity, is the fault of Goldberg's summary, keeping in mind that it was meant merely to describe a link?
Glenn -
ReplyDeleteIf there is one thing that a history of Leftism demonstrates, it's the fact that what you want is often not what you get.
So no, Leftists don't want to get killed by terrorists. What they do want is to enact the policies that will likely lead to this end. Conservatives such as myself take particularly umbrage at this, because it means we are also much more likely to be killed by terrorists, regardless of whether we work near Times Square.
How sad the author of this blog must be.
ReplyDeleteA simple question: when did the tables get turned? When did America's left abandon it's principals and adopt the methods for which they routinely excoriated the left?
here we have a pseudo intellectual down playing the impact of 9/11 because, in his misguided opinion, not enough people died to make this a big deal.
It's this cold calculation that the left always complained about that this individual uses to justify inaction. It is sad to see a once promising political movement so lose it's way. simply sad.
No, the left's objection to fighting terror stems from two inescapable truths. First is that to much of the left damage to "Amerika" in any form is to be welcomed. Random slaughter of Americans is not something objectionable, according to left. After all, we deserve this for all our past transgressions.
next, the left dislikes the war on terror because it distracts the American public from the left's myriad of chicken little issues. It is very hard to convince people that the sky is falling when airplanes are flying out of it and into skyscrapers.
So the left is doing what this blog so amply illustrates: gnawing on old bones and waiting for the day when topic one in America is the ongoing process of extracting money from productive people so it can be given to non productive people.
yes, the left finds the war on terror quite unsettling.
ain't that a bitch?
Skip
Another interesting POV: who gets killed by terror attacks.
ReplyDeleteNow our gracious host proclaims that those of us who don't live in NYC must accept his point of view because he's at higher risk than others.
We saw the same nonsense during the cold war. It was always interesting to note that those idiotic "nuclear free zones" were high value targets for the soviets.
but I'm certain that the good old boys in the politburro decided to redirect their arsenal once they knew that NYC and Boston had been declared nuclear free zones by the pansy leftists that lived there. yeah, right.
It makes no objective difference where one lives in America, the policy (or to be more accurate the lack of policy) that the left demands will simply increase the risk to everybody.
As I stated before the left has a hard time with the entire security issue because it demands that they find ways to protect something they hate: America.
Glenn, here's my problem with your post and the point made by Ellis...what if, instead of airplanes, a nuclear bomb had been delivered into the heart of NYC?
ReplyDeleteInconceivable, you may say...but then, prior to 9/11, could anyone have conceived of the two tallest buildings in America being felled by commercial airliners?
You may recall a fair amount of recrimination following 9/11 - how could this happen? On whose watch? Why didn't we prevent it?
If you were president, would you want to be known as the leader who allowed the terrorist nuke to explode in America?
It would seem to me that such a threat justifies extreme vigilance...
Glenn,
ReplyDeleteTwo things, the short one first.
As far as Jonah's "response" went, all he did was to post a link and a short teaser regarding your own post. Your snide and dismissive and intellectually lazy (pretending that the post was some attmept to respond to you, rather than simply direct readership to your comments) response does you no favors. A cheap shot at best.
Second thing - let's talk real sloppy. Sloppy is when historians forget that the nature of their business requires hindsight. The War on Terror is going on now, so it's difficult for any historian to easily compare and contrast current events with past ones, because all of the salient details simply haven't come out. This is highly sloppy on the part of any historian. Now, any historian can provide some perspective on events as they occur, and certainly can prognosticate or choose sides based on personal views, but speaking authoritatively as to the importance or criticality of a particular historical conflict, while that conflict is occurring, is risky at best, and silly at worst.
We don't know, for example, how close any terrorist organizations have come to obtaining, say a suitcase nuke or unaccounted for nuclear material from the former USSR. We don't know whether any of the nuclear research or other information from Pakistan found it's way to Afghanistan during the Taliban rule. We don't know what happend to the WMDs in Iraq, how they were disposed of, if they were disposed of at all. We don't know the full level of how closely Al Queda is tied with Iran, which is dilligently working on obtaining a nuclear weapon.
We also don't have a complete handle on the influence of radical Islam, or even a more general Islamicist view point in the Muslim world. This is important given the changing demographics in Europe, and the potential threat to democratic rule that those changes might bring should an increasing body of immigrants reject democracy for sectarian authoritarian rule.
Now, there's no guarantee any of these dangers will come to pass, but neither can they easily be ruled out. Extending the War on Terror to non-radical Islamic agents, by minimizing the threat that terror brings to Western stability and solvency, one minimizes also the potential response to such threats as well.
"The argument is laid out pretty carefully." qm
ReplyDeleteWhat is it about the numbers or argument which you think is carefully laid out?
Leaving your dislike of the POTUS, where does your analysis consider opinions by leaders, such as Lee Hamilton who stated that a nuclear detonation in a major U.S. is very likely in his lifetime?
ReplyDeleteand so question mark is today's comment monitor, insuring that all comments meet some ill defined but quite exacting standard.
ReplyDeleteYou quote simply supports my thesis, that the author of this piece firmly believes that he has greater insight which derives directly from his perceived greater risk.
To which I respond: pish tosh.
If a government is planning some repression, one of the most effective things I'd think it could do would be to anticipate the public rebellion, and remove the infrastructure for any organized opposition in advance.
ReplyDeleteOur plans for parts of the world including the middle east may or may not fit this statement, but if we are anticipating an increasing global hegemony which will lead to mass popular resistance, then a 'war on terrorism' now is an effective way to prevent the development of that resistance later.
Putting that nugget to consider aside, the message in this article that the issue of middle eastern terror should simply be compared to other casualty statistics is not reasonable. It's the risk, not the history, that's on the table. The major fears, of course, are along the lines of someone who would use a nuclear weapon in a US city getting ahold of one. There is no such huge upside risk for, say, car accident casualties compared to terrorism.
Having said that, the article is correct to question the use of terrorism by the government as well: it can be argued that terrorism is the 'threat of the day' used for pushing other agendas, that terrorism fits into the problem of the public overreacting to a threat, that terrorism prevents the rational formation of a policy of how to treat hundreds of millions of people in the middle east by making all of them 'potential terrorists' in the eyes of many Americans - and to an extent, a self fulfilling prophecy as the people resist being treated as such.
But I don't think it's helpful to raise these issues with such a fallacy as compating the *history* of terrorst casualties to other areas using apples and oranges.
If anything, it risks the legitimate arguments being dismissed as well as people assume that all of the opposition is similarly flawed.
The 'terrorist threat' should receive the rational analyis the article calls for, which may well end up in the middle between the 'only 3,500 casualties' historical view and the government hype.
What nugget are we to ponder Craig?
ReplyDeleteAre we to expend synaptic energy thinking about your theory that America intends a global hegemony?
and if you beleive that America does intend to achieve this exalted state, kindly tell us to what purpose?
"It's the risk, not the history, that's on the table. The major fears, of course, are along the lines of someone who would use a nuclear weapon in a US city getting ahold of one. There is no such huge upside risk for, say, car accident casualties compared to terrorism."
ReplyDeleteThis is a pretty good analysis, IMO, and is really just a more refined calculation that GG began.
The problem with the current strategy, however is that it is both creating a bigger pool of potential actors in a catastrophic attack:
http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20060118-050321-6448r )
and failing to address domestic prophylactic measures which would make such an attack harder
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/05/AR2005120500097.html.
Sorry, for some reason that link came through as incomplete. Hopefully this is better:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/05/AR2005120500097.html
If terrorists were satisfied with stopping at 3,000 or 30,000, perhaps we could ignore them, but who believes that to be true? Wait for them get nukes and WWII will look like a sandbox spat in comparison.
ReplyDeleteSurrendering to terrorism after 9/11 — a turning point for humanity, not just for the U.S. — would be to announce our concession to those in Islam who wish you, me and all our friends and families to burn in flaming death and are actively working toward that end.
I'd rather fight than surrender. Why wouldn't you?
Okay, mark:
ReplyDelete(1) Turn off 24 and step away from the television set. It's not a documentary.
(2) Where has Mr. Greenwald asserted that he would not wish America to be protected from terrorist attack? I suspect that his response as President to "bin Laden determined to attack inside United States" would not have been a month of golfing and clearing brush.
(3) You must not have been born yet, but the US used to have a massive arsenal of nuclear ICBMs pointed at its cities, yet the President was still expected to obey the laws of the United States. Yet now, thanks to suitcase nukes, we must scream, wet our beds, and scrap the rule of law?
But, oh, what's become of leftists, that now they avidly root for the destruction of America by defending its ideals?
Oh, and griffin:
I'd rather fight than surrender. Why wouldn't you?
Tell your strawman that Dorothy says hi. Then crawl back under your bed, and dream feverishly about how Islamofascists could kill every single American with their death bombs! Then see #3 above.
Jeebus, a link from NRO, and suddenly all the terrified bedwetters are in here flinging false dichotomies like they're going out of style.
--mds
OK “Anonymous”, re-fold the flag, get your foot off the chair and take off that borrowed military uniform. It’s fund to play militant defender of America, isn’t it? You can also put down that copy of “clever things liberals say to conservatives”. It is customary to claim to be on the side of the angels when trying to get your guys elected, but you have overdone it here. There is one crucial difference between the two sides of this argument that is not getting enough play here. Let’s use your example, for fairness. Before he took two months off to play golf and indulge in photo-ops he put his political future on the line to do what he thought was right. Hey, disagree, scream, howl, move for impeachment, whatever you think is appropriate. The buck stopped there. Contrast this behavior with your side (and it is abundantly clear that you have a side [and it’s not the angels]). Your only major leader to have the guts to stand up against your wacko base (well Hillary did, sort of, before weaseling out) and you threaten to run him out of the party for standing for something. I trust your kind to speak eloquently about defending our ideals; actually defending them? Not so much.
ReplyDeleteBy your "reasoning" Pearl Harbor should have counted for nothing. After all, 2100 people were killed, fewer than on 9/11. Big deal. So America shouldn't have overreacted. There should have been no war, and really who cares if the Japanese created their coprosperity sphere. Why should anyone care if the caliphate is created in the Middle East? So missles get fired at one another, who cares? Only a few people will die. Who cares?
ReplyDeleteI'm not particularly surprised you are a lawyer. The laws of the United States are quite screwed up because of the "reasoning" of dullards such as yourself.
"Your only major leader to have the guts to stand up against your wacko base (well Hillary did, sort of, before weaseling out) and you threaten to run him out of the party for standing for something."
ReplyDeleteAs opposed to the way your side treats such lily-livered appeaseniks as Brent Scowcroft, Anthony Zinni, and James Webb.
Please stop. You're embarrassing yourself
An anonymous said:
ReplyDelete"You must not have been born yet, but the US used to have a massive arsenal of nuclear ICBMs pointed at its cities, yet the President was still expected to obey the laws of the United States. Yet now, thanks to suitcase nukes, we must scream, wet our beds, and scrap the rule of law?
But, oh, what's become of leftists, that now they avidly root for the destruction of America by defending its ideals?"
(1) The rule of law hasn't been scrapped (talk about straw men and false dichotomies) since the law is beholden to the Constitution and since every Presidential administration has held that the FISA law and court does not have the Constitutional authority to prevent them from wire taps for the sake of national security, etc. The Clinton Administration was one of these.
(2)The "screaming" and "bed-wetting" has come vfrom the left, who see even the most rudimentary legal efforts, most of which are already applied to racketeering laws designed to fight organized crime (and, if you're on the left, certain elements of the anti-abortion lobby), as an affront to their civil liberties, despite the fact that the Supreme Court has yet to invalidate the Patriot Act.
(3)I remember a whole lot of rhetorical bedwetting regarding MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) adn most of it from the same crowd that spent all their time explaining how the Soviets were good guys at heart and not our true enemies (as those would be corporations and Republicans).
Yet, in the current environment, where a great deal of nuclear material is unaccounted for, and where radicals who have demonstrated no compunction whatsoever about mass-murder and suicide, the very real danger of a nuclear weapon being used on a populated city draws shrugs of perplexion and incongrous cries of "bed-wetters". The danger is far greater now because those who would use such weapons cannot easily be attacked or identified. During the Cold War, MAD worked under the premise that if anyone started anything, there was nothing to gain, and the Soviets (and Chinese) understood that. The current enemy does not. It's not a matter of if they'll use these weapons, because they have deomnstrated that they will. It's a matter of whether they will get them and in some people's view, when.
All your posturing and name-calling can't obscure the fact that you don't really have much of an argument, beyond the sneaking suspicion that George Bush is eyeballing that time you checked out The Diary of Anais Nin on your Library record.
"Yet, in the current environment, where a great deal of nuclear material is unaccounted for, and where radicals who have demonstrated no compunction whatsoever about mass-murder and suicide, the very real danger of a nuclear weapon being used on a populated city draws shrugs of perplexion and incongrous cries of "bed-wetters". The danger is far greater now because those who would use such weapons cannot easily be attacked or identified. During the Cold War, MAD worked under the premise that if anyone started anything, there was nothing to gain, and the Soviets (and Chinese) understood that. The current enemy does not. It's not a matter of if they'll use these weapons, because they have deomnstrated that they will. It's a matter of whether they will get them and in some people's view, when."
ReplyDeleteSorry to piss on your tirade, but what about the two links I posted above indicating that the current strategy is promoting terrorist footsoldier recruitment and that the current crowd gets a lot of Ds and Fs on homeland security? I would think that's not a good program for dealing with that *very real danger*.
What is the point of discussing GG post in the frame that Goldberg and some of the right are trying to push?
ReplyDeleteExistential threat or no threat at all is a false dicothomy that even a child could point, and that is as far as the discussion should go on that frame.
since every Presidential administration has held that the FISA law and court does not have the Constitutional authority to prevent them from wire taps for the sake of national security, etc. The Clinton Administration was one of these.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the Clinton administration argued (correctly) that FISA did not apply to physical searches, and then in 1995 President Clinton signed into law a modification of FISA to cover physical searches. Yet people continue to argue the repeatedly-debunked assertion that "all these Presidents" asserted the authority to bypass FISA. They can assert anything they want - NOT ONE of them brought it to the Supreme Court. FISA is still on the books. The administration has asserted that they don't have to follow FISA. Therefore, they are violating a federal law.
I remember a whole lot of rhetorical bedwetting regarding MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) adn most of it from the same crowd that spent all their time explaining how the Soviets were good guys at heart and not our true enemies (as those would be corporations and Republicans).
Really? Wow, all those prominent Democratic politicians out there at the height of the Cold War, saying the Soviets were good guys, and at the same time they were completely terrified and wetting their beds? And besides, there was no real threat, because of MAD. So I guess the Soviets were harmless, weren't they? Because they'd never dare actually use their missiles. I just wonder what President Reagan spent all that money for, then. Or why we still need Star Wars ICBM defense. Meanwhile, securing our ports from attack remains a #1 priority of this administration, if "#1 priority" means "cutting funding for port security." No wonder there were so many poor grades on the 9/11 Commission's report card. But the "bedwetters" of the left think that civil rights, the Constitution, and the laws of the nation are more important than the illusion of safety. Yeah, what scaredy-cats we are.
despite the fact that the Supreme Court has yet to invalidate the Patriot Act.
Wait, I thought it was the Executive Branch that invalidates laws. And what difference does the Patriot Act make, anyway? The President has an inherent authority to do whatever he wishes as long as he says it's to protect the country.
So, tell me what limits do exist on Presidential power? This Executive Branch has openly declared that they have been violating an existing federal law, and will continue to do so, all while rejecting further amendments to FISA.
Yet "the left" are the true bedwetters, because they think that a President declaring that he can ignore his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed is actually wrong. Man, if only grand jury testimony about a blowjob were involved, then we'd really have a problem. But violating a portion of the federal code headlined "War and National Security" is a harmless peccadillo.
--mds
Anonymous, Anonymous and Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteI thought of the Pearl Harbor attack and the Cuban Missile Crisis in this context too. No one was killed when Kruschov and Kennedy exchanged threats over the course of a few weeks.
Under the theories presented here, why wouldn't readers assume that both leaders used the missile crisis as a ploy to instill fear thus aggregating political power?
What about Pearl Harbor. Shall readers also assume that the headlines of the day were planted by President Truman to instill fear, in order to gain control of atomic weapons?
Two insane power grabs! Duck and cover, seek a fallout shelter when you here the alarms go off good citizens! Better yet, dig a bomb shelter in your own back yard!
Ooops, not so fast they were both Democrats. Sorry, let me correct that. Truman and Kennedy, two courageous leaders that defended our nation, while not scaring one single citizen even though they were gambling with atomic or hydrogen bombs.
And H.L. Mencken,
"the current strategy is promoting terrorist footsoldier recruitment"
Gee, you wouldn't want to see any of these guys stick their heads up out of their spider holes where they might get shot at.
And --mds,
How about trying to find any terror cells that may presently be within the U.S. Don't you consider that to be a top priority?
Let's compare the terrorists threat to something more akin to it: crime.
ReplyDeleteInstead of using a comparison to auto fatalities or some such, let's compare the reaction of Americans to the terror threat to the reaction of Americans to crime. both terror and crime are perteptrated by people who want what's bad for decent law abiding citizens. In both cases the vast majority of americans will have no interaction with criminals. yet we work hard to reduce crime.
Using the "logic" that's been posted here, we simply should not bother. We should take resources applied to law enforcement, incarceration and the like and throw it down the same rat hole with war on poverty funding, right?
I mean very few of us are victims of crime, and the ones that are will simply have to suck it up because we have to strike a balance between security and the rights of the criminals.
that's sense of this debate.
Frankly I've yet to encounter a righteously indignant American liberal who could convince me that all this blather is anything more than selective indignation.
Talk about sore losers, my goodness. the left lost several elections and now they want to share their death wish with the rest of us.
No thanks.
skip
Jeebus, a link from NRO, and suddenly all the terrified bedwetters are in here flinging false dichotomies like they're going out of style.
ReplyDeleteYeah, really, I was thinking the same thing. I've only been reading this blog for a couple weeks so I'm hardly part of the "community", but the difference between these comments and those of most posts hit me in the face. How many commenter here seem to believe that, as questionmark put it, the only possible responses are "no big deal" or "greatest threat ever"? A dozen? More?
It's not just false dichotomies, either. I especially liked notherbob2 complaining about how Hypatia has concerns about Constitutional rights. Yup, she's one of the flaming lefties around here, all right!
I also appreciate the people claiming that Greenwald wants to see New York City get nuked, not knowing that he lived there in September 2001. And then they accuse him of declaring that only those with victim status can have an opinion, even though his comment explicitly said the reverse.
And of course, there are the people accusing Greenwald of... pretty much anything that pops into their heads, really, because he called Goldberg's link a response.
The Ugly American's blog was interesting, but when I found two indisputably obvious errors of fact and/or logic in the first half, I didn't feel obligated to take the rest seriously.
If you were president, would you want to be known as the leader who allowed the terrorist nuke to explode in America?
Well, I wouldn't, but Bush seems downright proud to have presided over 9/11, so I assume he would. I guess he's just weird that way.
I realize I shouldn't stereotype based on blog comments for a dozen reasons, but sometimes I can't help it.
These are the people that the words "Bushbot" and "ditto-head" were invented for. Vague, gratuitious insults are counterproductive, but you couldn't ask for a more apt description of these people. I can see their thought process now... "This guy must be saying only people involved with something can have an opinion on it, just like all those eeevil Marxists with who keep shouting chickenhawk!" Because reading the very next sentence and seeing where Greenwald says the reverse would have been too much work.
"Using the "logic" that's been posted here, we simply should not bother. We should take resources applied to law enforcement, incarceration and the like and throw it down the same rat hole with war on poverty funding, right?"
ReplyDeleteActually, using the "logic" that's been posted here, at least by me, I would actually have preferred that we took the resources allocated to the rat hole we created in Iraq and focussed them ON THOSE WHO ACTUALLY ATTACKED US ON 9/11, instead of chasing Bush's white whale.
As I and another poster mentioned, it also might be better used to secure ports and dangerous facilities here; it also wouldn't be the gift that keeps on giving to Bin Laden, namely the Iraq quagmire.
Iraq wasn't the 'Central Front in the War on Terror' until we made it so:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_09/004766.php
Or maybe I'm just not up on what the justification of the month is for that idiotic blunder. Maybe you are, the Fly. Hello, McFly? Anybody home?
http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20060118-050321-6448r )
And --mds,
ReplyDeleteHow about trying to find any terror cells that may presently be within the U.S. Don't you consider that to be a top priority?
Sure. Good thing FISA allows for the wiretapping of terror cells within the U.S., with oversight from another branch of government. Now, deliberately violating federal law because one can't be bothered to fill out paperwork---that's a different matter. And if the "probable cause" for a FISA warrant was too onerous, well, there was always Senator DeWine's attempt to lower the standard. Oh, wait, that was rejected by the DoJ. I thought they wanted to protect us?
Yo, skip,
Frankly I've yet to encounter a righteously indignant American liberal who could convince me that all this blather is anything more than selective indignation.
Take it up with former Congressman Barr, or Senator Hagel, or Bruce Fein, or Paul Craig Roberts, or Hypatia, for that matter. None of those people is even remotely a "liberal," yet they seem to have a bit of indignation about the President openly flouting a federal statute. Even if he's unilaterally declared it unconstitutional without actual judicial review.
--mds
You liberals still just don't *get it*.
ReplyDeletehttp://fafblog.blogspot.com/2006/01/q-our-omnipotent-president-q.html
"And Saluki, opinions differ on the “law breaking” of the President. The issue is still under consideration. Getting one’s information only from those single-mindedly committed to replacing the President’s party and needing a “scandal” to do so is not a “superior” fact-finding method."
ReplyDeleteOK, then run this through your walnut-sized brain:
http://www.danieldrezner.com/archives/002551.html
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18650
Glenn sure is getting a lot of support for a line of thinking that many, many people, including many anti-war liberals, have noted is fallacious.
ReplyDeleteJust one example is provided by Jim Emerson, the quite liberal blogger on rogerebert.suntimes.com, here: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artic le?AID=/20051130/SCANNERS/51130004
In the month of December, 1941, many, many more Americans died of [flu/auto accidents/heart disease/etc. etc. etc.] than died at Pearl Harbor. Does this mean Roosevelt should have put "Fighting World War II" in a list of priorities organized by the number of fatalities?
My God. We just get through describing liberals living in the cocoon and reading only cocoon sources and sincerely believing that their cocoon sources are the final word on any given issue and we have Anonymous serving as the Poster Person. The two sources you cite add precisely nothing to the conversation. They are part of the claque that was lined up to launch this campaign. Yes, they MIGHT be right, but they are there to provide the “fill” that liberals rely on. There is nothing definitive there; only inuendo and concern. Plus, you try to get me to believe that Harvard has hired a Conservative. HAH! That is why liberals don’t cut it outside the cocoon – people outside don’t read this stuff and accept it out of hand. You would have to do much better than this stuff to add something to this conversation. Give me someone who cut it with the White House saying something like this. Yes, I know, the cabal got rid of all non-kool-aid-drinkers. Ho hum.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the difference? Would it matter if James Madison, John Adams and Alexander Hamilton themselves said it was illegal?
ReplyDeleteI mean, next to President Koresh's service as Congress, President and Supreme Court, their opinions would mean nothing.
The first post-modern presidency.
I agree terrorism threat is exagerated.
ReplyDeleteI propose that the first step back to sanity would be for Congress to repeal or terminate the war powers act that gave the administration the carte blanch to go to war in the first place.
"The Ugly American's blog was interesting, but when I found two indisputably obvious errors of fact and/or logic in the first half, I didn't feel obligated to take the rest seriously.
ReplyDeleteand just what were those errors Cyrus?
Glad you found it interesting 8)."
Your post said "Oh that’s right Glenn already answered. The possibility of Mass suicide is a far more dangerous threat than an organized world wide network of terrorists who have publicly and repeatedly stated their objectives are..." But Glenn did not say anything of the kind. Even if you do misinterpret him as saying that we shouldn't worry about terrorism at all because of the numbers game, which as others have pointed out is false, he never said a word about mass suicide.
Your post also said "True and on 9/11 the two tallest buildings in the world came crashing down." They were the tallest buildings in the world at a brief point in their history, but in 2001 that honor went to some tower in Taiwan, I think. The Twin Towers were numbers 5 and 6 when they fell. I don't know if what you wrote was casual hyperbole or something you specifically thought was true, and if so I don't know if it was because of an honest mistake, mindless jingoism or some other reason. But if I'm looking for facts or just informed opinion, any one those hurts your case.
And as I said, those were just the first two that jumped out at me before I read the rest with half an eye, as it were.
Am I nitpicking? Being unfair? Too judgemental? Um, obviously. So what? Life isn't fair. If you want to write for a like-minded audience then you can get away with a lot. But if you want to sway people not predisposed to agree with you, avoid simple mistakes that reveal your own biases and lack of care for the facts.
H.L. Mencken,
ReplyDelete"Maybe you are, the Fly. Hello, McFly? Anybody home?"
In case anyone is unaware, here are a few facts about Saddam Hussein for you to run through your "walnut-sized" brains:
1) He signed an agreement after the first gulf war, whereby he agreed to cease all hostilities, then a few years later he ordered the IAEA / UNSCOM inspectors out of the country at the point of a gun. Meanwhile, he also ordered his military to attempt to shoot down American aircraft that were enforcing the UN "No Fly Zone". This went on for over TEN YEARS following the first war.
2) He is also the guy that brought Zarqawi into Iraq in the first place, for medical treatment in the 1990's, and later allowed him to set up shop in northern Iraq where terrorists continued experimenting with chemical weapons after getting booted out of Afghanistan.
3) He is also the guy that awarded $25,000 benefit checks to the surviving family members of Palestinian human bombs that successfully attacked Israeli civilians. "In all, Iraq paid more than $35 million to Palestinians during the uprising. Families of suicide bombers would receive $25,000 each."
And here is President Bush himself quoting leading Democrats on Iraq a few months back:
"President Bush addresses critics. Excerpts from November 14, 2005 speech:
Reasonable people can disagree about the conduct of the war – but it is irresponsible for Democrats to now claim that we misled them and the American people.
Let me give you quotes from three senior Democrats: First, quote, 'There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons.' End quote. Here’s another one, quote, 'The war against terrorism will not be finished as long as [Saddam Hussein] is in power.' End quote. And here’s the way another Democratic leader summed it up, quote, 'Saddam Hussein, in effect, has thumbed his nose at the world community. And I think that the President's approaching this in the right fashion.'"
Note that this was news from almost three months ago. Let me guess, someone will now complain that it's not fair for the president to quote Democrats. You should be paying closer attention, President Bush said years ago that our goal would be to eliminate both terrorists, and state sponsors of terrorism.
Mrs. Robinson,
ReplyDeleteHere's a quote from "rational" Ted Kennedy on the senate floor January 30, 2006:
"What's the next business? What's the next measure on the calender? Asbestos? Isn't that interesting." -- "If you are looking for someone that's going to be a friend of the disabled, it's not going to be Judge Alito."
Here's Kennedy, setting aside all other legislation including "asbestos" intended to help people ill with asbestos related disease, and instead there he is screaming about a filibuster on Judge Alito.
Is this leading Democrat really representative of the will of the people?
Watch the video for yourself here.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fly offers, obviously for comic relief, a mix of mythology and absurd justifications for the colossal f*ck-up that Bush has engineered in Iraq.
ReplyDeleteNo, sorry, Saddam didn't kick any inspectors out at the point of a gun, they were withdrawn in advance of a bombing campaign done because inadequate access had been granted to the inspectors. But your story would be interesting if it was true.
As far as the others, the whole point is that Saddam, according to Condoliar Rice and Colin Powell themselves, was 'in a box' and unable to project power.
So the fact is that Bush, 'Pearl Harbor event' in hand, manipulated the situation, using one of the right wing's favorite weapons, fear, took his eye off the real threat in order to settle some score he obviously had a hard-on for for years. And when respectable experts from Scowcroft to Zinni to Clark to Webb ad infinitum state the obviously immense size of the f*ck-up, they're subjected to attacks which range from dismissive to accusations of treason.
Now that reality has slapped you in the face, feel free to return to the comfort of the alternate universe inhabited by Stephen Hayes, Richard Perle, Doug Feith and other purveyors of fantasy.
I forgot to add that, of course, the reason it's a colossal f*ck-up is not because of all the complications and collateral problems predicted beforehand by people who actually know what the hell they're talking about. It's a colossal f*ck-up because the anti-war liberals didn't clap loud enough.
ReplyDeletePeople killing themselves is one thing; people who kill themselves and try to take whomever they can with them is another. People who can't tell the difference between the two should be kept as far away from the reins of power as possible.
ReplyDeleteOh, and that elitist, we're-so-much-smarter-than-they-are thing is a real turn-off.
People killing themselves is one thing; people who kill themselves and try to take whomever they can with them is another. People who can't tell the difference between the two should be kept as far away from the reins of power as possible.
ReplyDeleteOh, and that elitist, we're-so-much-smarter-than-they-are thing is a real turn-off.
People saying "the threat of terrorism should be ignored" is one thing, people saying "the threat of terrorism is exagerrated to the point of hysteria for the purposes of manipulating those dumb enough to believe it" is another. People who can't tell the difference between the two should be kept as far away from the reins of power as possible.
Oh, and that fake-populist, we're-the-only-real-Americans thing is a real turn-off.
H.L. Mencken,
ReplyDeleteThere is a long history of all of this available online, that is if you are interested in reading about what actually happened.
Acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations,
1. Condemns the decision by Iraq of 31 October 1998 to cease cooperation with the Special Commission as a flagrant violation of resolution 687 (1991) and other relevant resolutions;
United Nations.
UN vehicles were bombed and tires slashed; and shots were fired over the heads of inspectors as a team photographed Iraq's secret uranium enrichment equipment.
Disarming Iraq.
By the way it's facts that are missing in many of these comments. More volume will only make this obvious to a wider audience.
Cyrus,
ReplyDelete...and that "copying what somebody else posted and plugigng in your worn out phrases" thing shows a hilarious lack of indepedednt thought and originality.
hey, Cyrus,
ReplyDeleteBonus points for finding the deliberate misspellings in the previous post!
Cyrus,
ReplyDeleteStill waiting for the "I know you are but what am I?" to put me in my place!
Fly, your embellishment of the story about terminated inspections notwithstanding, my account of events is still the accurate one (the inspectors were withdrawn in advance of an allied bombing campaign), and none of that is near a justification for launching an all-out war. None of it. In fact, inspectors were BACK in the country in 2002, finding nothing remotely resembling a casus belli.
ReplyDeleteThe ironic thing is, up until Bush decided to get his war on (a war we've now discovered Bush had decided on far earlier), he had actually done the right thing by threatening enough to get the inspectors back in there. For a while, I actually thought he knew what he was doing and was being honest about the Congressional authorization not being a vote for war but a vote to keep the peace.
Moreover, if you're going to use UN resolutions as your justification for war, then it's up to the UN to declare that Iraq was in serious enough violation to warrant war. Unless, of course, our security was genuinely threatened, which it obviously wasn't.
Bush, like most bullies, wanted to show he was tough by beating up somebody he knew he could beat up. Now he's in the clink, and broke, and his muscle (armed forces) are deteriorating rapidly (that is, assuming you believe the radical left-wing Pentagon: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-01-24-army-study_x.htm )
ReplyDeleteH.L. Mencken,
ReplyDeleteI think you are misunderstanding my point. The U.S. stopped short of Baghdad the first time by agreement with Hussein. In addition to breaking numerous UNSC Resolutions since 1991, Hussein broke the original 1991 cease fire agreement many times over, justifying a resumption of the original 1991 war on that basis alone.
I won't bother commenting on your add on post because you don't seem to be making a specific point. I do have a suggestion for you though. If you are sincerely interested in the capabilities of the US military, try taking a look at defenselink.mil instead of USA Today.
I did not misconstrue, or misrepresent what Glenn said. I simply pointed out the absurdity of his comparison with an absurd conclusion.
ReplyDeleteRidiculous. You absolutely did misinterpret what Greenwald said. I didn't make any guesses about why, but you wrote "The possibility of Mass suicide is a far more dangerous threat than an organized world wide network of terrorists who have publicly and repeatedly stated their objectives are..." He didn't say that, or anything to that effect. As erika said in the very first comment, "Terrorism is not the be all and end all around which the world revolves." No matter what comparison Greenwald had used to make that point, someone would have seized on it to claim Greenwald is supporting the terrorists or something equally stupid.
I do appreciate your honesty Cyrus and hope you recognize how your comments are more of a reflection on your bias and not mine.
Thank you for your kind counsel. I so appreciate your efforts to educate me and improve my political awareness, my friend.
Even with his evident bias, his selective use of figures and loose adherence to the truth he does argue his points well for the most part.
I attempt to do the same.
It shows.
Aside from the fact that there were other reasons we didn't go to Baghdad*, show me where the UN authorized further full-scale war. Also show me how it is in our, the Iraqis or anybody else we care about's interest to do what we did; being angry at him and wanting to show off your big member doesn't count.
ReplyDeleteMoreover, whatever violations Saddam committed were not left unaddressed. They were bombed, heavily. The truth you find hard to swallow is that Saddam WAS disarmed.
But I really admire your ability to point to UN resolutions as justifications for a certain course, as in Gulf War I, the stopping before Baghdad, and Saddam's 'serious' violations of the UN hostilities settlement, but dismiss UN authority (or lack thereof) for this war. That really shows your *versatility*.
And as for your point about the status of the military, please don't insult my intelligence by pointing to propaganda. Lordy, like they're going to post $shit about falling recruitment, overdeployments, strained supply lines and general anarchy in the theater on their website. Save it for one of Dear Leader's supporters-only rally.
*From George W. Bush's A WORLD TRANSFORMED: "I firmly believed we should not march into Baghdad ... To occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab world against us and make a broken tyrant, into a latter-day Arab hero ...While we hoped that popular revolt or coup would topple Saddam, neither the U.S. nor the countries of the region wished to see the breakup of the Iraqi state. We were concerned about the long-term balance of power at the head of the Gulf. Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in "mission creep," and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under those circumstances, furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-cold war world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the U.N.'s mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different--and perhaps barren--outcome...assigning young soldiers to a fruitless hunt for a securely entrenched dictator and condemning them to fight in what would be an unwinnable urban guerrilla war."
The point is that the course Bush has chosen is not only illegal and immoral, but according to most experts on terrorism (whose interview I posted above and you apparently didn't read) has actually promoted terrorism and made us less safe. Why is it exactly that after 2003, the State Department no longer posts statistics about terrorism on its website?
H.L. Mencken,
ReplyDelete"show me where the UN authorized further full-scale war"
Unfortunately, you don't seem to be willing to expend the effort to review the history of Iraq and the UNSC yourself, and are implying that only UN authorization can make "full-scale war" legal, which in fact is untrue.
Nonetheless, the U.S. went forward with "full-scale war" only after many years of diplomacy and dozens of UNSC Resolutions which, as the numerous Resolutions themselves attest to, Saddam Hussein ignored, resulting in the following authorization for "full-scale war".
If you like, feel free to view UNSC resolution 678 dated 29 November 1990 which states:
"Acting under Chapter VII of the Charter [the UNSC],
1. Demands that Iraq comply fully with resolution 660 (1990) and all subsequent relevant resolutions, and decides, while maintaining all it's decisions, to allow Iraq one final opportunity, as a pause of goodwill, to do so;
2. Authorizes Member States co-operating with the Government of Kuwait, unless Iraq on or before 15 January 1991 fully implements, as set forth in paragraph 1 above, the above-mentioned resolutions, to use all necessary means to uphold and implement resolution 660 (1990) and all subsequent relevant resolutions and to restore international peace and security in the area;"
Please note the phrase "all necessary means to uphold and implement resolution 660 (1990) and all subsequent relevant resolutions and to restore international peace and security in the area".
If you are suggesting that UNSC Resolutions 660, 678 and "all subsequent relevant resolutions" have expired or somehow no longer apply, I would encourage you to read them again.
For others reading these comments allow me to also point out that the book you are referring to was written by George H.W. Bush, the former president, and not George W. Bush, the current president.