A J'accuse for CAP, MoveOn Afghanistan Silence

posted by John Nichols on 03/29/2009 @ 2:30pm

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President Obama went on CBS News' "Face the Nation" Sunday to make the case for his great big war in Afghanistan.

The good news is that Obama says, "What I will not do is to simply assume that more troops always results in an improved situation."

The bad news is that Obama is dispatching more troops to a country that has never taken well to occupation.

So where is the MoveOn.org blast condemning the ramping up of an undeclared war and the president's refusal to rule out an even more dramatic expansion of that war to Pakistan? Where is the memo from the Center for American Progress outlining the case against giving the president "a blank check for endless war"?

Don't hold your breath, says John Stauber, executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy and the co-author of Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq and The Best War Ever: Lies, Damned Lies and the Mess in Iraq, two of the most scathing books on the Bush-Cheney administration and its war in Iraq.

In a no-holds-barred critique of groups that earned their reputations as critics of the rush to invade and occupy Iraq, Stauber argues that the Obama administration has effectively co-opted some of the nation's most high-profile anti-war groups.

Here's what Stauber writes in a piece titled: "How Obama Took Over the Peace Movement," which appears on the CMD website:

John Podesta's liberal think tank the Center for American Progress strongly supports Barack Obama's escalation of the US wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is best evidenced by Sustainable Security in Afghanistan, a CAP report by Lawrence J. Korb. Podesta served as the head of Obama's transition team, and CAP's support for Obama's wars is the latest step in a successful co-option of the US peace movement by Obama's political aids and the Democratic Party.

CAP and the five million member liberal lobby group MoveOn were behind Americans Against Escalation in Iraq (AAEI), a coalition that spent tens of millions of dollars using Iraq as a political bludgeon against Republican politicians, while refusing to pressure the Democratic Congress to actually cut off funding for the war. AAEI was operated by two of Barack Obama's top political aids, Steve Hildebrand and Paul Tewes, and by Brad Woodhouse of Americans United for Change and USAction.

Today Woodhouse is Obama's Director of Communications and Research for the Democratic National Committee. He controls the massive email list called Obama for America composed of the many millions of people who gave money and love to the Democratic peace candidate and might be wondering what the heck he is up to in Afghanistan and Pakistan. MoveOn built its list by organizing vigils and ads for peace and by then supporting Obama for president; today it operates as a full-time cheerleader supporting Obama's policy agenda. Some of us saw this unfolding years ago. Others are probably shocked watching their peace candidate escalating a war and sounding so much like the previous administration in his rationale for doing so.

Ouch!

Stauber's piece has circulated widely in recent days, stirring the same sort of dialogue that his previous criticisms of MoveOn inspired.

The truth is that important players in the anti-war movement are speaking out against Obama's Afghanistan buildup.

Peace Action is petitioning Congress to oppose Obama's Afghanistan plan. Peace Action executive director Kevin Martin has compared the president's moves with those of John Kennedy in Vietnam:

"It's a shame President Obama believes he can pursue the same militaristic strategy as his predecessors and produce a different result. While President Obama has made some good statements on increasing diplomacy and economic aid to Afghanistan and Pakistan, the emphasis is clearly on military operations. John F. Kennedy was in a comparable situation when he was elected. He chose to escalate then as well, and the consequences of his decision left our country mired in an unwinnable war."

The Friends Committee on National Legislation, which maintains the largest peace lobby in Washington, says that "more troops won't bring more peace in Afghanistan. Instead, the U.S. should invest in long-term diplomacy and development assistance."

United for Peace and Justice, of which both Peace Action and FCNL are member groups, is organizing coordinated local actions on April 6-9 to pressure Congress to oppose the Afghanistan escalation.

But Stauber's broad point is an important one.

There is significant discomfort with the expansion of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan, and opposition has been expressed by political leaders abroad and at home (including Democrats and Republicans in Congress). This is a time when genuine anti-war groups could be expected to harness that discomfort and build a stronger movement to shift U.S. policy.

As such, it is a time of testing for organizations that came to prominence opposing not just George Bush and Dick Cheney but the wrongheaded war-making of the White House -- no matter which party happened to occupy the Oval Office. And that makes Stauber's J'accuse a particularly stinging one.

Comments (52)

The difference between George Bush in Iraq and Afghanistan is that we actually had a legitimate reason to go into Afghanistan. We aren't there to spread Democracy. Remember those 4,000 Americans who are now buried because of Al Qaeda?

I will oversimplify this. If someone walked into your house and shot your parents dead would you want them walking free? I would hope not. That's an oversimplification but I think it carries some weight.

Posted by Cccomfo1 at 03/29/2009 @ 2:51pm
I can hardly wait to see the responses from the left on this thread.

"Obama confronts world reality-left calls him warmonger and traitor to their support"

Life does have it's sweet moments.

Posted by antisocialist at 03/29/2009 @ 2:58pm
Wait: how many Afghanis perpetrated 9.11?

How many Saudis?

What was al Q/OBL's single demand after 9.11?

A: Get all foreign (i.e. US) troops out of the holy land of Mecca & Medina.

And in less than 6 months, the Bush/Cheney govt did precisely that: total withdrawal, albeit quietly, from Saudi Arabia.

Afghanistan is about the pipeline. How many Afghanis do We the US People have to pay to have killed to ensure that US oil & gas interests get their secured pipeline thru Afghanistan & safely out a Pakistani port ...

Obama is a more than willing captive of these interests, in no way different from a Clinton, a Bush, a McCain ... except in disarming demeanor.

Posted by sloper at 03/29/2009 @ 3:12pm
?????????????????????????????????

still pretty conflicted and ambivalent here.

ooooooo!!!! firefox has a spell check!!!! nice!

Posted by ibbleblibble at 03/29/2009 @ 3:13pm
" John F. Kennedy was in a comparable situation when he was elected. He chose to escalate then as well, and the consequences of his decision left our country mired in an unwinnable war."

As I've said numerous times Vietnam WAS IS and FOREVER more will be the best illustration of the worst of the Demoncrat party and its philosophy of war! 58,000 American dead testify to their effectiveness and lack of resolve resulting in defunding cutting and running!

Thanks mR nIcHolS for bringing that up, except it was not only just winnable, but rather forfeited by the Demoncrats armchair RUINNING the conflict rather than commitment to win!

Now Afganistan is ALL on Obamanation and the Demoncrats once again!

Posted by comancheamerican at 03/29/2009 @ 3:37pm
comanche needs to take Twain's advice that it's better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you're a fool, than open it and remove all doubt.

Posted by erazma at 03/29/2009 @ 4:06pm
MoveOn.org and the Center for American Progress were so successful at helping our president wage a winning campaign that they are still in campaign mode. Now that Barack Obama has been declared the winner, these two organizations are interested to make everything he proposes appear to be a winning proposition, so that he will win the next election.

Mission creep afflicts us all, but I believe it especially afflicts those of us who succeed and who want to continue to succeed at whatever we do, whereby success ITSELF becomes more important than what we CHOOSE to do. At this point, principle quietly leaves the room and opportunism takes its place.

There are indeed free spelling checkers available, as "ibbleblibble" has jubilantly observed, but as I myself have discovered, spell checking by machine is still not as good as spell-checking by dictionary. For example, in haste, I have sometimes written "to" when I meant to write "too." Since both spellings are correct in different contexts, mechanical spelling checkers, which are as oblivious of context as the average political conservative, generally do not catch this error.

Mechanical spelling checkers also will not catch the mistake of spelling the possessive pronoun "its" like the contraction of "it is," that is, "it's." The latest victim of this weakness of the machine compared to the mind seems to have been "commanchenation":

"Life does have it's sweet moments."

The word should have been written "its." When you think about it, the word "its," being a possessive adjective, belongs in the same category as "my," "your," "his," "her," "our," and "their." Just as we do not write "m'y," "you'r," "hi's," "he'r," "ou'r," and "thei'r," we also should not write "it's" when this word is a possessive adjective.

Posted by JakobFabian at 03/29/2009 @ 4:53pm
"If someone walked into your house and shot your parents dead would you want them walking free?"

this is an erroneous analogy, as the 9.11 perpetrators died along with the other 3,000 people.

and i'll add to that by saying: the invasion and occupation of afghanistan was a horrible decision. the taliban can support al qaeda if they choose. after all, we supported al qaeda, too.

Posted by darladoon at 03/29/2009 @ 5:16pm
anyone who wishes to cause harm to the united states may do so, and with plenty of justification.

i don't advocate violence against anyone, but if any one nation deserves to suffer, it is the united states. and if the cause of that suffering emanates from the middle east, we should not be surprised.....after all, we have been bombing, invading, occupying, overtaking, and looting their countries for decades.

Posted by darladoon at 03/29/2009 @ 5:17pm
"looting their countries for decades."

Posted by darladoon at 03/29/2009 @ 5:17pm

Actually, while FDR was on his deathbed ... and subsequently pushed into high gear after his death, I.E. since the neo-con extraordinaire, and traitor, Truman.

Posted by V at 03/29/2009 @ 6:12pm
I feel responsible to return to the topic, because I have veered into spelling, which is extremely trivial by comparison.

Next to the 58,000 US-American servicemen and women who died in Vietnam, and whom "commanchenation" is right to mourn, there were several million dead Vietnamese. This divides the present ethical thinking about the Vietnam War into two camps.

One camp argues that the correct conclusion to draw from the number 58,000 compared to the number 2,000,000 is that the USA was winning the Vietnam War when it was interrupted, thereby depriving us of victory.

The other camp argues that the correct conclusion to draw from the number 58,000 compared to the number 2,000,000 is that the cost of the war was not equal to its purported benefit, which was to forestall the expansion of the Soviet Union.

History, I believe, has vindicated the second camp and not the first. The Soviet Union's investment in Vietnam was minuscule compared to ours. Remaining in Vietnam and fighting until we killed the last Vietnamese would have left us with a wasteland ravaged by Agent Orange and with responsibility for genocide, but it would not have significantly hastened the Soviet Union's demise.

Nothing vindicates, or even seems to vindicate, the first camp's view of history, except for the "Rambo" series of movies, which is, of course, fiction.

Victory in war is never as important as the principle for which it is fought. Pursuing victory after it has become clear that a war's cost exceeds its benefit is immoral. It is the worst example of "mission creep" and the replacement of principle with opportunism.

Posted by JakobFabian at 03/29/2009 @ 6:13pm
Pakistan is nuclear, India is nuclear China is nuclear, Russia is nuclear, Israel is nuclear, North Korea is ? Europe in general is nuclear. Iran is ?. Shouldn't we try talking? Are the warriors protecting themselves if we are attacked again? Some idiot are claiming that the Murrah building was blown by Sadam. McVeigh got the explosives from Iraq.

Posted by julien38 at 03/29/2009 @ 6:37pm
In regard to Afghanistan, I confront emotional barriers as well as ethical problems. This is because I supported this war, or at least failed to oppose it actively, when it began. I therefore feel somewhat co-responsible for it.

My justification for my support, or at least my reticence, back in 2001 was the argument that the Taliban government was so bad that we couldn't possibly make things worse by invading. Eight years and more after the war began, I wonder whether this justification is as valid today as it was then.

"Sloper" may be right. The real objective of the war in Afghanistan may be the natural gas pipeline from the Caucasus to Pakistan. Still, what are we to do about this now?

The most creative solution I can propose is that we might open up the prospect of a pipeline that continues through IRAN rather than through Pakistan, thereby starting up a competition. Maybe this would serve as a carrot, rather than a stick, to influence the behavior of both countries favorably. And if the competition had no clear winner, we could always build TWO pipelines.

We should also co-operate with Russia. With this country, we share a common experience of having invaded Afghanistan and having regretted it later. At the very least, we should be comparing notes.

Posted by JakobFabian at 03/29/2009 @ 6:48pm
I guess what a new president learns soon after taking office is that the options are few. Things are the way they are for a reason, especially in foreign affairs. Our new president had to face the cold reality of the vicious animals we are confronted with which runs against the mindless Bush hatred of the left.

It is hard to tell how much of the denial of the relationship between Afghanistan and Iraq is due to Bush hatred (most I suspect) and some other reason. It seems to be an afflection of the left, exclusively, which makes it extremely suspect. Any whew, it will be interesting to see how the left rationalizes the necessary military effort in Afghanistan with a liberal president.

Posted by pyeatte at 03/29/2009 @ 7:34pm
"It is hard to tell how much of the denial of the relationship between Afghanistan and Iraq is due to Bush hatred (most I suspect) and some other reason."

Trust me, "pyeatte," it's the other reason, namely that Afghanistan and Iraq had hardly anything to do with each other before we invaded first one country and then they other. Now, they have something in common: resentment that we are occupying them.

We don't really hate Bush, and now that he's out of office, I personally have only pity left for the man. The fear is gone.

Posted by JakobFabian at 03/29/2009 @ 7:41pm
elling checkers available, as "ibbleblibble" has jubilantly observed, but as I myself have discovered, spell checking by machine is still not as good as spell-checking by dictionary. For example, in haste, I have sometimes written "to" when I meant to write "too."

Posted by JakobFabian at 03/29/2009 @ 4:53pm

maybe if inglish wurnt so dam stoopid.

Posted by frosty zoom at 03/29/2009 @ 8:15pm
this is an erroneous analogy, as the 9.11 perpetrators died along with the other 3,000 people.

and i'll add to that by saying: the invasion and occupation of afghanistan was a horrible decision. the taliban can support al qaeda if they choose. after all, we supported al qaeda, too.

Posted by darladoon at 03/29/2009 @ 5:16pm

If someone pays someone else to kill your parents is it ok that the person who planned the crime gets away?

Posted by Cccomfo1 at 03/29/2009 @ 8:16pm
"Sloper" may be right. The real objective of the war in Afghanistan may be the natural gas pipeline from the Caucasus to Pakistan. Still, what are we to do about this now? The most creative solution I can propose is that we might open up the prospect of a pipeline that continues through IRAN rather than through Pakistan, thereby starting up a competition. Maybe this would serve as a carrot, rather than a stick, to influence the behavior of both countries favorably. And if the competition had no clear winner, we could always build TWO pipelines. We should also co-operate with Russia. With this country, we share a common experience of having invaded Afghanistan and having regretted it later. At the very least, we should be comparing notes.

Posted by JakobFabian at 03/29/2009 @ 6:48pm

it's about the pipeline, all right.

the u.s. wants india to get it's gas from the caspian and thus avoid the calamity of having iran controlling the flow of energy to the subcontinent.

Posted by frosty zoom at 03/29/2009 @ 8:19pm
and i'll add to that by saying: the invasion and occupation of afghanistan was a horrible decision. the taliban can support al qaeda if they choose. after all, we supported al qaeda, too.

Posted by darladoon at 03/29/2009 @ 5:16pm

and the taliban!

Posted by frosty zoom at 03/29/2009 @ 8:21pm
anyone who wishes to cause harm to the united states may do so, and with plenty of justification.

i don't advocate violence against anyone, but if any one nation deserves to suffer, it is the united states. and if the cause of that suffering emanates from the middle east, we should not be surprised.....after all, we have been bombing, invading, occupying, overtaking, and looting their countries for decades.

Posted by darladoon at 03/29/2009 @ 5:17pm

You probably wouldn't be saying that if it was a family member of yours who died in those towers. You are advocating the deaths of innocent people because of a governments actions and you are at the same time defending the deaths of innocent peoples because of a governments actions. You would LIKE to see the deaths of a US child but not an Afghani child. Is that how I am to interpret it? So basically you are a hypocrite. You realize by living here you advocate everything this country does? You could be somewhere else but you choose to stay here and call for the deaths of innocent Americans. I don't think anyone "deserves to suffer".

I think that is the difference between myself in the center-left and people like you. I respect life, all life. I recognize that some life naturally will be lost in order to protect others. I can answer the question of would you shoot one person to save a million. You on the other hand only respect CERTAIN life. Whether they be innocent or not. It would seem you would like to see and American child die because that child deserves it for being born here.

Posted by Cccomfo1 at 03/29/2009 @ 8:21pm
Obviously, the author is unfamiliar with the recent book "George W. Bush, War Criminal? The Bush Administration's Liability for 269 War Crimes," which is the most scathing indictment of the Iraq war. The propaganda for war is only one of the 269 war crimes, which are documented not only by first- and second-hand accounts but also by citations from the texts of the Geneva Conventions and related international agreements. The editor of "The Nation" has a copy already.

Posted by mikehaas at 03/29/2009 @ 8:21pm
" You are advocating the deaths of innocent people because of a governments actions and you are at the same time defending the deaths of innocent peoples because of a governments actions."

it's apparent that you didn't thoroughly read my post, as i said quite clearly, the following:

"i don't advocate violence against anyone"

ergo, your entire argument is shot to pieces.

"You probably wouldn't be saying that if it was a family member of yours who died in those towers"

yes i would.

Posted by darladoon at 03/29/2009 @ 10:19pm
"I remember the WTC attack in the 80s..."

Maybe you don't remember it as well as you think you do, "pyeatte." That attack took place in 1993.

I bring this up because quite a few villains involved in that crime were caught and duly punished according to the law -- during the Clinton years. There were: Ramsi Yousef (arrested in Pakistan 1995, convicted 1997), Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman (convicted 1996), Eyed Ismoil (convicted 1997) and four others convicted already in 1994.

I won't say that President Clinton did everything right, though. According to Wikipedia, the Sudanese government offered to provide the United States with intelligence information about Osama Bin Laden. (The article does not say what the Sudanese demanded in return.) The Clinton Administration rejected the offer. Its policy -- like the policy of some more recent administrations we could name -- was to use force rather than diplomacy with the Sudanese. Clinton therefore ordered cruise missile strikes against both the Sudan and Afghanistan in August 1998. This was called "Operation Infinite Reach." Unfortunately, these attacks failed to flush out Bin Laden or to weaken Al Qaeda. They may indeed have achieved just the opposite. All we know for certain is that we severely damaged a factory that once provided most of the pharmaceuticals that the Sudanese people needed.

I believe we can indeed learn from mistakes that we have made in the past, just as we can try to emulate our successes. However, we need to look at real history, not the mythological history that paints G. W. Bush as "strong" and Bill Clinton as "weak."

Posted by JakobFabian at 03/29/2009 @ 10:26pm
<i>Posted by darladoon at 03/29/2009 @ 10:19pm </i>

See, "I don't advocate violence against anyone" is less compelling when preceded in the same post by:

<<anyone who wishes to cause harm to the united states may do so, and with plenty of justification. >>

Leaving aside the bizarre underpinnings for the claim itself, I fail to see how this claim is anything less than advocacy of (or at least excusing) violence against innocent Americans.

And, here's the great part. If you buy your premise that violence against America was justified because we did stuff to them, then retaliation against al Qaeda was then justified for the EXACT SAME REASON. Especially since we WEREN'T specifically aiming to kill innocents.

I still fail to understand the case against Afghanistan. One, the police alternative is stupid because you can't have police enforcement in a country that doesn't even have an orderly structure; the same factors that pose a challenge for military forces create an impossible obstacle to a purely police-based solution. Two, al Qaeda was clearly there, as were people who were harboring them. Three, the quagmire argument only works if we're trying to take over the country (like the Russians were); we're not, so the analogy is at best mitigated and at worst irrelevant.

Posted by Thrawn at 03/29/2009 @ 10:33pm
anyone who wishes to cause harm to the united states may do so, and with plenty of justification.

i don't advocate violence against anyone, but if any one nation deserves to suffer, it is the united states. and if the cause of that suffering emanates from the middle east, we should not be surprised.....after all, we have been bombing, invading, occupying, overtaking, and looting their countries for decades.

Posted by darladoon at 03/29/2009 @ 5:17pm | ignore this person | warn this person

The clear unmistakeable voice of a modern day anti-american and traitor obviously proud of it! Sickening to think such fools are allowed to thrive here. Must have really enjoyed 9-11 along with the Islamist!

Posted by comancheamerican at 03/29/2009 @ 10:42pm
"Leaving aside the bizarre underpinnings for the claim itself, I fail to see how this claim is anything less than advocacy of (or at least excusing) violence against innocent Americans."

apparently you have difficulty understanding the distinct difference between:

a) wishing something would happen

b) understanding something may happen

"then retaliation against al Qaeda was then justified for the EXACT SAME REASON"

and? this doesn't diminish my argument in any way. it's just more american exceptionalism, which is always and already the order of the day in american political discourse.

"I still fail to understand the case against Afghanistan. "

but yet you completely understand the current case for it? you make no sense.

Posted by darladoon at 03/29/2009 @ 10:43pm
i don't advocate violence against anyone, but if any one nation deserves to suffer, it is the united states

Posted by darladoon at 03/29/2009 @ 5:17pm

Do you know how many Dominican, Puerto Rican, Jamaican, Haitian, Ukrainian, Salvadoran, Peruvian, Ecuadoran, Guyanese, Trinadian, Italian, Russian, Israeli, Nigerian, Kenyan, Chinese, Korean, Malaysian, Indian, Pakistani, Palestinian, immigrants it takes to keep the day-to-day business going in one high-rise downtown Manhattan office tower? Should these people be mourned in the event of their death, but not protected? ...As our evil nation reaps it's just desserts.

If we are as bad as you say we are, why do they come here? If my Sicilian grandparents were alive, I would ask them.

Posted by gangpapist at 03/29/2009 @ 10:44pm
"The clear unmistakeable voice of a modern day anti-american and traitor obviously proud of it"

why? because i do not except the premise that america is an exceptional country, which only does Good in the world, which only has other people's interests at heart?

Posted by darladoon at 03/29/2009 @ 10:46pm
...Pursuing victory after it has become clear that a war's cost exceeds its benefit is immoral.....

Posted by JakobFabian at 03/29/2009 @ 6:13pm

Big problems w/this stm't!

An ongoing war's cost can be closely approximated ONLY as a matter of the PAST, in terms of money spent and lives lost. One can NEVER know what the ultimate cost is by making projections, though we certainly try, at least for some kinda of an annual `budget' as to costs, but NOT in no. of lives lost or maimed.

To calculate benefits is simply folly. You can take 100 economists of all political stripes, and you'll have 100 different answers.

Even in Iraq, assuming another few years of growing into a decent country, we know there are benefits but NO ONE can quantify that benefits. Hey, btw, you think Hitler did his cost-benefit analysis with each front he opened?

Sorry, just can't be done! Ideals, even bad ones by Adolph, are what drives war, not bean counters!

Posted by Happy at 03/29/2009 @ 10:48pm
"If we are as bad as you say we are, why do they come here?"

this is a meaningless argument.

Posted by darladoon at 03/29/2009 @ 10:48pm
NICHOLS: The bad news is that Obama is dispatching more troops.....

Though I'm neutral on this `good War', at least from fulfilling a campaign promise standpoint, I do give credit to President Obama. Given the huge pile of broken promises made to ALL Americans, those of us who didn't vote for him, needed this one!

As for the anti-war types, give it a rest. You voted for the guy and he was downright John Waynish when it came to Afghanistan AND Pakistan.

One thing for sure, we won't see any mass anti-war demonstrations......this ain't the Johnson years when there was the draft.

Posted by Happy at 03/29/2009 @ 10:57pm
the point that i am trying to convey, with regard to my comments about attacks against the united states, is this: 9.11, although tremendously awful, is not a unique experience for millions of people around the world. though the *type* of experience may be unique (planes flying into buildings; people jumping out of burning buildings; burning buildings collapsing; etc), the mere results (chaos, death, confusion, fear, etc) are the same.

shall we look at the numbers? 3,000 people died on 9.11. how many innocent people have died as the result of our dual invasions? are these deaths ANY DIFFERENT? are certain deaths more justified than others? why are american lives more important than foreign lives (THIS IS A KEY QUESTION)?

Posted by darladoon at 03/29/2009 @ 11:09pm
"Must have really enjoyed 9-11 along with the Islamist!"

btw, you can go to hell for this comment.

Posted by darladoon at 03/29/2009 @ 11:20pm
why are american lives more important than foreign lives (THIS IS A KEY QUESTION)?

Posted by darladoon at 03/29/2009 @ 11:09pm

They aren't. Though, a nationalist sense of "we protect our own" is universal.

If there is a uniqueness to a massacre on American soil, it is that the lives taken are as foreign as they are domestic. If there is one nation best suited to understanding that humanity is humanity, regardless of national origin, it is America. The ethnic heterogeneity of blood spilled at the WTC and by the soldiers who have died trying to spare their relations from same - where else could you find that?

Posted by gangpapist at 03/29/2009 @ 11:41pm
"If there is one nation best suited to understanding that humanity is humanity, regardless of national origin, it is America."

this is american exceptionalism at its best! what exactly causes americans to think they are so special? and even if there *were* more ethnic heterogeneity in manhattan, as opposed to, say, tokyo, does it make a bit of difference? why are 3,000 dead americans more significant than 100,000 dead iraqis?

even so, the exceptionalism continues on....

"The ethnic heterogeneity of blood spilled at the WTC and by the soldiers who have died trying to spare their relations from same - where else could you find that?"

there is about as much "ethnic heterogeneity" in dubai or london as there is in new york. so your point is invalid....

Posted by darladoon at 03/29/2009 @ 11:59pm
"Ideals, even bad ones by Adolph, are what drives war, not bean counters!" said "Happy," and added: "Hey, btw, you think Hitler did his cost-benefit analysis with each front he opened?"

No, I do not believe Hitler did any cost-benefit analysis before he launched his disastrous wars. Indeed, this is one of the reasons, one among many, why we all universally regard this man as bad and his wars as unjustified. I believe cost-benefit analysis will also justify everything about the allies' conduct in the Second World War that was appropriate, and will serve as a rebuke for every mistake that they made.

Cost-benefit analysis is not easy, but we need to do it anyway. We cannot make a moral decision without it.

This analysis works best when we think globally, which is why when I say cost-benefit analysis, what I actually mean is WHOLE-COST ACCOUNTING. This calculus includes important things like "human lives lost," which strangely many economists ignore, preferring to pay attention only to money. This no doubt accounts for the disunity among economists when it comes to moral calculations. Some economists, those of the political right, have not yet decided that human lives matter; they saw and continue to see only prospects for cheap natural gas in the Caucasus and cheap oil in Iraq. The economists of the left are more holistic and therefore more reliable for those of us who are interested in whole-cost accounting.

Posted by JakobFabian at 03/30/2009 @ 12:09am
look, gangpapist (man, that handle sucks), you will never be able to convince anyone that the deaths which resulted on 9.11 are in any way more unique, or should i say, more tragic, than are the deaths of millions of people as the result of US foreign policy over the last 60 years.

and i am in no way trying to justify those deaths on 9.11. i'm just saying, as a black lesbian woman, it's extremely hard to listening to you people talk about how these deaths are somehow the Most Tragic of All Deaths.

Posted by darladoon at 03/30/2009 @ 12:10am
Here's another error that spelling checkers won't catch: The word "allies" in reference to the Second World War should of course be CAPITALIZED; it should appear as "Allies." Please correct my previous posting. Thank you.

Posted by JakobFabian at 03/30/2009 @ 12:12am
Posted by darladoon at 03/30/2009 @ 12:10am: Well darladoon, you are rather quirky to say the least. I will never really understand your pathology nor do I particularly care to. I would be willing to chip in on a one way plane ticket to a country that would be willing to take you - somewhere you may be more in-tune.

Posted by pyeatte at 03/30/2009 @ 12:49am
If we are as bad as you say we are, why do they come here? If my Sicilian grandparents were alive, I would ask them.

Posted by gangpapist at 03/29/2009 @ 10:44pm

americans (whatever that means) are great people, just like people everywhere.

but those pesky greedigarchs (everywhere) always want to muck things up.

u.s. foreign policy is not a product of your actions, nor the millions of other humans that call themselves "americans".

many other governments on earth provide a much more inhospitable living environment than that found in even the muskiest corner of the united states,

and their actions are obviously to be condemned.

see,

your constitution is darn cool and people really appreciate that. so when actions are taken out in the name of the united states

(and not her people)

that are kinda not nice like operation ajax or the pinochet thingy or the saddam deal,

people become puzzled.

it's kinda like if lebron james and vlad the impaler both get caught dog fighting.

you expect it from the count but it is very disappointing to see in the king.

Posted by frosty zoom at 03/30/2009 @ 01:14am
Posted by frosty zoom at 03/30/2009 @ 01:14am

Common ground found, frost. Ortega, Arbenz, Lumumba... were not Stalin. America should have been the sponsor of the post-colonial movement. We were not.

Posted by gangpapist at 03/30/2009 @ 01:35am
Mr Nichols...

Obama's Afghan Plan Could Be Worse

posted by Robert Dreyfuss on 03/27/2009 @ 1:52pm

Posted by Mask at 03/30/2009 @ 08:03am
"I will never really understand your pathology nor do I particularly care to"

that you probably don't understand at least 1/2 of how the world feels about not only white americans, but white people in general.

Posted by darladoon at 03/30/2009 @ 11:28am
it's truly amazing how difficult it is for so many americans, especially white americans (not being racist here), to understand how incredibly naive it is for them to claim that 9.11 was the WORST DAY EVER.

for we black and brown folk, 9.11 (although spectacularly unique in terms of scale) was just another bad day.

and this doesn't even begin to describe how bad it is for afghanis or burmese or iraqis or palestinians or sudanese.

Posted by darladoon at 03/30/2009 @ 11:46am
Posted by snowball666 at 03/30/2009 @ 11:16am : I agree, it is rather annoying that people do not realize that the 93 bombing was an AQ hit that had the aim of knocking one tower down and into the second tower taking it down also. The guy (Yusaf?)who planned and executed that bombing was later arrested in Pakistan by the CIA with the help of Pakistan Intelligence. He was convicted of that crime in Federal Court in NYC and sentenced to life.

Posted by pyeatte at 03/30/2009 @ 1:14pm
Posted by darladoon at 03/30/2009 @ 11:46am

How do Congolese women feel about Congolese men? http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/world/africa/07congo.html

How do Darfurians feel about the janjaweed?

How do Tibetans feel about Chinese?

How do Tutsis feel about Hutus?

How should black Americans feel about what columnist Jason Whitlock (black), termed "the black KKK?"

How do Kurds feel about Arabs?

Ah, but it is the invisible white hand that pulls every trigger, isn't it? Without America, the machines of tribalism and genocide would have no power grid to plug into.

I have a political party for you. They were called the Derg. Perhaps you can resurrect them and proliferate the great works they did in Ethiopia to the world.

Posted by gangpapist at 03/30/2009 @ 1:25pm
that you probably don't understand at least 1/2 of how the world feels about not only white americans, but white people in general.

Posted by darladoon at 03/30/2009 @ 11:28am

Speaking from the perspective of a black male, this statement says plenty about you. You are as racist as everyone you claim to demean. That fact that you had to bring up race is interesting when it had nothing to do with this discussion. I think YOU hate white people in general and therefore you project it onto everyone else.

No one here has at all claimed that American lives are more important than anyone else's. But innocent peoples lives are more important than murderers. The question is do we let every murderer go who kils innocent people? Would you have recommended letting Hitler go because it might have taken innocent lives to stop him?

The question becomes when is war just? My answer is when it will save more innocent lives. I didn't support Iraq because I knew at the time and still know to this day that Saddam was not a threat. Al Qaeda will continue to take innocent lives around the world. Not just Americans but EVERYONE is in danger from Al Qaeda. It has nothing to do with American exceptionalism, it has EVERYTHING to do with not allowing murderers free reign.

You seem to love to boil people down in to stereotypes and generalizations instead of bothering to understand someones perspective. You seem to think of yourself as worldly but if you don't bother to understand even a single other person perspective how can you possibly claim to understand the perspectives of people around the world?

Posted by Cccomfo1 at 03/30/2009 @ 5:08pm
"for we black and brown folk, 9.11 (although spectacularly unique in terms of scale) was just another bad day. "

Posted by darladoon at 03/30/2009 @ 11:46am

I don't who you are talking to but for me, one of those black people, and for much of my family and many of my neighbors and friends 9/11 was one of the worst days in American history. Notice the qualifier, AMERICAN history.

It sounds like you have an unhealthy hate of white people. You seem to speak with a certain amount of approval about the racism incurred by white people around the world. Why?

Posted by Cccomfo1 at 03/30/2009 @ 5:16pm
Posted by snowball666 at 03/30/2009 @ 1:32pm: Omar Abdel-Rahman, the blind sheikh of New York, was arrested on terrorism-related charges in 1995 and was in the loop on the 93 bombing. He is serving life. Ramsi Yusof, after the bombing, was planning a mission that would have blown up 12 airliners over the Pacific in one day. He was assembling the hardware in Manila with his team when the local police broke-up the plot. He escaped to Pakistan where he was captured.

Posted by pyeatte at 03/30/2009 @ 8:43pm
"The other camp argues that the correct conclusion to draw from the number 58,000 compared to the number 2,000,000 is that the cost of the war was not equal to its purported benefit, which was to forestall the expansion of the Soviet Union."

Posted by JakobFabian at 03/29/2009 @ 6:13pm

Of the various and sundry "camps," the two you mentioned are merely the result of propaganda. For a proper understanding, a reading of the congressional record of the pre Vietnam war times is in order, a must in fact.

Then you will come to the truth. The Vietnam War was about rice as a commodity, about market share, period.

Do not take my word for it. Read the words of the Bible belt, ostensibly confederate, agrarian congressmen who sent people to die because the Vietnamese had the audacity to compete with us by selling their rice …

Posted by V at 03/30/2009 @ 10:38pm
Posted by V at 03/30/2009 @ 10:38pm

It will put the use of "agent orange" into perspective as well.

Posted by V at 03/30/2009 @ 10:41pm
"it's about the pipeline, all right.

the u.s. wants india to get it's gas from the caspian and thus avoid the calamity of having iran controlling the flow of energy to the subcontinent."

Posted by frosty zoom at 03/29/2009 @ 8:19pm

Close enough to get half a cookie.

It's about chaos, opening up for these times one of the few available, stable, revenue streams ... money from the resultant drug trade. And, based on the words from the mouths of the Nazi-Communists (neo-cons when glimpsed behind the "conservative" curtain) themselves, destabilization, after Afghanistan, comes Iran, then Russia.

Look at a map, or better, buy a globe.

And did I say chaos?

Posted by V at 03/30/2009 @ 11:07pm