From Bush’s big speech:

Victory will not look like the ones our fathers and grandfathers achieved. There will be no surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship.

Can we please stop comparing the Iraq war or the war on terror to World War II now? It’s still pissing me off.

Daily Kos: Who’s Divided Now? That’s Right – Republicans.

Just a quick note to add on to my “turnabout is fair play” theme.

Since I mentioned him earlier, I thought I’d link to this. This guy has always fascinated me.

A stickler for the Constitution, Mr. Goldwater refused to join the Republicans of the New Right during the 1980s when they began to press for legislation that would limit the authority of the federal courts to curb organized prayer in public schools or to order busing for school integration. He opposed busing and he backed prayer in schools, Mr. Goldwater said, but he thought it a dangerous breach of the separation of powers for Congress to be telling the courts what to do.

Mr. Goldwater’s political philosophy also included a strong military posture, a deep mistrust of the Soviet Union and a conviction that increasing the scope of government programs was not the way to solve social problems.

In all, he served 30 years in the Senate, but he was out of office for four years after losing his bid for the presidency, and he was in a political limbo for almost 10 years after that defeat. He reemerged during the Watergate crisis of the early 1970s.

Then, the bluntness and candor that had so often damaged Mr. Goldwater’s presidential campaign a decade earlier and his outspoken and harsh criticism of Nixon’s failure to deal with the growing Watergate scandal were among the vital ingredients of his political renaissance.

The president, he contended, had shown “a tendency to dibble and dabble and argue on very nebulous grounds like executive privilege and confidentiality when all the American people wanted to know was the truth.”

The Blog Cenk Uygur: The White House Threatens to Ignore Congress The Huffington Post

This has been bouncing around in my brain for a while–the following seem to be common premises of contemporary thought on the “right”:

Premise #1: It is unpatriotic, if not outright treasonous, to impede the President’s ability to protect the nation in a time of war.
Premise #2: Criticism of the President impedes his ability to protect the nation.
Premise #3: The nation is currently in a state of war.
Conclusion: Criticism of the President in a time of war is unpatriotic, if not outright treasonous.

Now, I personally think all three premises are debatable, but for this little exercise, let’s take everything as true.

Let’s change it up a little:

Premise #1: It is unpatriotic, if not outright treasonous, to impede the President’s ability to protect the nation in a time of war.
Premise #2: Impeachment of the President impedes his ability to protect the nation.
Premise #3: The nation has been in a state of war with Al Qaeda since 1996.
Conclusion: Impeachment of the President in a time of war is unpatriotic, if not outright treasonous.

I still don’t agree with #1, #2 could be taken as a matter of common sense, and #3 is pretty much a matter of record. So see, Republicans are even less patriotic than Democrats! Or something like that.

So what’s my point? Hell if I know. I guess I just want to stop the name-calling that is still going on, even in 2007. Nobody did enough to prevent 9/11 or to deal with the aftermath, neither Clinton nor Bush, so let’s move on. The Bush administration keeps saying something to the effect that “9/11 changed everything,” but no one ever asks them to elaborate on that point. What exactly changed after 9/11, other than our smug sense of security, and how does it justify such radical changes in the balance of power between the branches of government? If the terrorists hate our freedoms, how does one justify radically changing the nature and applicability of those freedoms?

Since I already brought up Bill Clinton…in for a penny, in for a pound. So all you administration-supporting, Iraq-war-supporting folk out there, imagine all the acts taken to broaden executive authority in the wake of 9/11…taken to broaden executive authority in the wake of the 1998 embassy bombings.

Unitary executive with the authority to override acts of Congress…what if Bill Clinton did it?

Executive with the authority to intercept phone transmissions without any resort to FISA courts or other oversight…what if Bill Clinton did it?

Authority solely vested in the executive to determine who is and is not an enemy combatant…what if Bill Clinton did it?

Just a thought.

Seriously, though, ask yourself if, in 1998, you would have been okay with that.

I don’t think you would have.

So why is it okay now?

Please, tell me I’m wrong, then tell me why I’m wrong. Convince me. I dare you.

“When the President takes measures incompatible with the expressed or implied will of Congress, his power is at its lowest ebb, for then he can rely only upon his own constitutional powers minus any constitutional powers of Congress over the matter. Courts can sustain exclusive presidential control in such a case only by disabling the Congress from acting upon the subject. Presidential claim to a power at once so conclusive and preclusive must be scrutinized with caution, for what is at stake is the equilibrium established by our constitutional system.” Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co., et al v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 637-38 (1952, J. Jackson, concurring)

From the Washington Post:

Thirty-one-year-old Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) is not a large man, standing perhaps 5 feet 3 inches tall in thick soles. But he packed a whole lot of chutzpah when he walked into the House TV gallery yesterday to demand that the new Democratic majority give the new Republican minority all the rights that Republicans had denied Democrats for years.

“The bill we offer today, the minority bill of rights, is crafted based on the exact text that then-Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi submitted in 2004 to then-Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert,” declared McHenry, with 10 Republican colleagues arrayed around him. “We’re submitting this minority bill of rights, which will ensure that all sides are protected, that fairness and openness is in fact granted by the new
majority.”

Omitted from McHenry’s plea for fairness was the fact that the GOP had ignored Pelosi’s 2004 request — while routinely engaging in the procedural maneuvers that her plan would have corrected. Was the gentleman from North Carolina asking Democrats to do as he says, not as he did?

“Look, I’m a junior member,” young McHenry protested. “I’m not beholden to what former congresses did.”

Anne Kornblut of the New York Times asked McHenry if his complaint might come across as whining.

“I’m not whining,” he whined.

You know, I have all kinds of doubts about what’s going to get accomplished in the new Congress, but this is just fun, really.

You know, I usually hold with the maxim that what’s reprehensible for the goose is reprehensible for the gander, but the whining coming out of right-wing circles about the new Democrat plan for the House, I must admit, makes me smile. See, now that the Dems are coming into power, all those poor downtrodden Repubs want us to know how poor and downtrodden they are. Oh, the horror! Hear the hew and cry! Mourn for the poor Republicans who must now endure what they dished out for so long! See, Repubs can say one thing and do another, but they can’t abide any slight deviation from the exact wording of whatever Nancy Pelosi originally said about whatever.

That said, I give the Democrats until February or so to do as many victory dances as they want, then they damn well better start getting something done. Of course, it would be easier for them to “get something done” if they do exactly what Bush tells them to do. Ah, to live in interesting times…

I received an e-mail with the article linked below recently, asking for my thoughts/opinions, etc.

You might want to read the post before reading on. I responded via e-mail immediately after reading the article–this was prior to Saddam Hussein’s execution, although I doubt my analysis and opinions will have changed much. I welcome comments, opinions, and dissent (provided you can dissent without ad hominem attacks). Here goes:

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Where the hell do I start??? Many of the facts about WWII are wrong (although not the important ones). The segue to the war on terror is clunky, to be polite about it.

Furthermore, as so often happens with pro-WOT and war in Iraq arguments, it collapses very quickly under its own contradictions: specifically, if the WOT and WWII are equivalent in their importance for world civilization, then isn’t it criminally negligent for us to not be pouring in the same resources to the WOT as we did in WWII??? I am referring to the figures of $12T spent in WWII versus $160B so far in Iraq. If Iraq is so important, then why aren’t we doing more? Why isn’t everyone, and I mean everyone, being encouraged to do their part? How the hell (I am trying to avoid bad language here) is WWII-era rationing relevant to Bush’s admonition to keep buying things? Why aren’t we rationing gasoline, steel, iron, nylon, Teflon, rubber, and every other freaking resource in short supply so that our troops in the field can have enough? If this is such an epic battle for our very way of life…well, I can think of dozens more questions, none of which are answered in this article. Do not give me any bullshit (sorry, I’m weak) about how the American people lack the will to fight the war or see it through—a people can really only be as strong as their leaders, and no one is encouraging anyone to sacrifice anything. The very definition of “winning” has changed repeatedly over the past 3½ years.

None of this addresses the historical questions, really. But the argument is just so freaking BAD.

A few historical points:
– Between 1 and 2 million people died in 6 months during the siege of Stalingrad, the single worst battle in human history. Nearly a million Russians died in the siege of Leningrad, which lasted over 2 years. Overall, Russia lost over 20 million people. More people died on the German-Soviet front than in the entire rest of the war combined.
– I don’t know about 1928, but in my opinion WWII was a rematch of WWI, although the war never really ended. Russia fought a civil war from 1917 until at least 1922. Italy fought at least two wars in Ethiopia (and used chemical weapons) in the 20’s and 30’s. Italy turned fascist in 1922, when Mussolini was elected. Germany had to wait 11 more years. The Spanish Civil War was basically a warm-up for the German-Soviet war. You could argue that the war in Asia started in 1905 in the Russo-Japanese War, the first time an Asian nation defeated a European power using modern weaponry.
– He’s right about the U.S. military in 1941—we ranked just behind Portugal in terms of the size of our military. Yes, Portugal had a bigger military.

My real problem with this article is that the conclusions do not actually come from the facts, fabrications, exaggerations, and misstatements contained therein. Also, the most glaring difference between WWII and Iraq is ignored: the issue of the nation-state. Germany and Japan were nation-states. Regardless of national borders, the “German people” and the “Japanese people” have existed as distinct entities for centuries if not millennia. What nation-state are we fighting now? Iraq was cobbled together from three Ottoman provinces with no historical connection to one another. It consists of Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, Assyrians, and several other little-known ethnic groups. Kurds exist as a nation if not a state—they are spread between Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and Iran. The Arabs of Iraq are divided between Sunni and Shiite—the only analogy even close might be the Catholics and Protestants of Northern Ireland or the Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo. There is no historical “Iraqi people” the way there are Kurds, Turks, Persians, French, Italians, Japanese, etc. The only thing holding Iraq together was Saddam Hussein’s iron fist (to use a cliché). Yes, he was a tyrant and a monster and the world is better off without him in the long run, but much like Yugoslavia after communism, no one ever seems to have wondered what would happen to the “Iraqi people” after he was gone. No one could appeal to their national pride because that was not where the social structure is based. People turned to their sects, tribes, groups, whatever you call them. This is completely different from WWII, where there was really no question that “Germany” and “Japan” would continue to exist after their armies were defeated.

Back to the issue of conclusions and premises, let me paste a few select quotes:

“If the Inquisition wins, then the Wahhabis, the Jihadis, will control the Middle East, the OPEC oil, and the US, European, and Asian economies. The techno-industrial economies will be at the mercy of OPEC — not an OPEC dominated by the educated, rational Saudis of today, but an OPEC dominated by the Jihadis. You want gas in your car? You want heating oil next winter? You want the dollar to be worth anything? You better hope the Jihad, the Muslim Inquisition, loses, and the Islamic Reformation wins.”

A fair point, but he confuses goals with abilities. There will always be someone who wants to re-impose the caliphate, destroy American, or whatever. Al Qaeda has nothing on Nazi Germany in terms of its ability to do lasting damage to the global economy or Western culture.

“We have to help the Reformation win, and to do that we have to fight the Inquisition, i.e., the Wahhabi movement, the Jihad, Al Qaeda and the Islamic terrorist movements. We have to do it somewhere. And we can’t do it everywhere at once. We have created a focal point for the battle at a time and place of our choosing……..in Iraq.”

What was wrong with Afghanistan? The “Jihadists” weren’t in Iraq until we left the door open.

“Whether Saddam Hussein was directly involved in 9/11 or not, it is undisputed that Saddam has been actively supporting the terrorist movement for decades.”

No it’s not.

“We created a battle, a confrontation, a flash point, with Islamic terrorism in Iraq. We have focused the battle. We are killing bad people, and the ones we get there we won’t have to get here.”

This assumes that there is a finite number of “Jihadists,” and if we just kill enough of them, they will fade away. He himself acknowledges, though, that this is an ideology we are fighting. Al Qaeda has no national boundaries and no particular ethnic component. Nazism was a distinctly German ideology, and Japanese imperialism was entirely focused on Japan. Once their armies had surrendered, they really were extinguished as a force anyone needed to worry about. Not so with al Qaeda—anyone, anywhere can be a member. “Killing bad guys” isn’t enough. We didn’t win the Cold War by killing communists; we won it by discrediting the ideology and offering people living under communism a preferable alternative.

“We also have a good shot at creating a democratic, peaceful Iraq, which will be a catalyst for democratic change in the rest of the Middle East, and an outpost for a stabilizing American military presence in the Middle East for as long as it is needed.”

How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How?

I will keep asking until one of these jackasses at least attempts an answer. It is not enough to say it. We will not achieve democracy in Iraq with the Power of Intention. I don’t know how much clearer I can make that point. Fuck!

“The Iraq war has, so far, cost the US about $160 billion,which is roughly what 9/11 cost New York. It has also cost about 2,200 American lives, which is roughly 2/3 of the 3,000 lives that the Jihad snuffed on 9/11. But the cost of not fighting and winning W.W.II would have been unimaginably greater — a world dominated by German and Japanese Nazism.”

I refer the reader to my above comments about the complete lack of sacrifice asked of us in the WOT. Now shut up and go shopping.

“This is not 60 minute TV shows, and 2 hour movies in which everything comes out okay. The real world is not like that. It is messy, uncertain, and sometimes bloody and ugly. Always has been, and probably always will be.”

So they won’t be greeting us as liberators after all? Why did the administration say they would, if the world is really so bloody and messy? Everybody knows this, really, but they also tend to believe their leaders—why else would people willingly go to war throughout history? Is this writer admitting the administration lied through their teeth?

“Americans who oppose the liberation of Iraq are coming down on the side of their own worst enemy.”

Horseshit. Bullshit. Crap. I’m referring to this sentence—nothing ad hominem here, as I don’t know who the writer is. “Opposing the liberation of Iraq” really means opposing letting Bush do whatever he wants. Perhaps it was a bad idea to go into Iraq in the first place, but that milk is spilt. No one who supports the war has any actual counterarguments to criticisms of the war plan, so they accuse critics of wanting to retreat, or “cut and run” as the case may be. It is of course legitimate to wonder if the current plan of attack (to the extent that it exists) is wise or sound. He makes the comparison to Normandy on D-Day. Yes, more Americans died in a single day than have died in the whole Iraq war (I’m not actually sure if it’s true, but let’s go with it). Is he saying D-Day was a bad idea, or that we should quit whining about Iraq because it could be worse? I’m not sure. What I am sure of is this: D-Day was an elaborately crafted plan requiring the cooperation of multiple countries and multiple generals, with a whole hell of a lot of luck thrown in. It could have been a disaster, but it was necessary in order to win the war—meaning drive across Europe to Berlin and stop Germany’s war machine. Every life lost was part of a larger goal, with some of the best military minds working around the clock to plan and adapt.

How is D-Day similar to Iraq? I can’t think of a single way. Sure, we drove into Iraq and took out Iraq’s war machine, much the same way that Nazi Germany took out Belgium’s (sorry, Belgium). Now what? Where is the equivalent of the Marshall Plan for Iraq?

Finally, notice how his argument eventually comes down to criticism of Americans who oppose the war? Didn’t the article start as a brief dissertation on the lesser-known features of American history, then become a call to arms for the WOT?

The simple truth is, there are no honest arguments for why the war in Iraq should continue the way it has. Not. A. Single. One. There are many excellent arguments about the threat posed by al Qaeda, and about what must be done to fight it. As this writer himself says, however, this is primarily a war of ideas and ideas generally cannot be defeated by bombs. Nazi Germany collapsed not only because the Soviet army overran Berlin, but because Hitler proved not to be the savior of the German people that he had claimed to be. Perhaps the most significant act in Japan’s surrender was for the emperor to admit that he was not a god. Communism promised a worker’s paradise here on earth, but the people of eastern Europe only received poverty and repression. There are still Nazis, communists, and arrogant Japanese around, but none of them constitute a global threat. All of these ideologies were proven wrong, and that is what destroyed them.

“Jihadism,” as far as I know, promises an epic showdown with the West, among other things. I say we shouldn’t prove them right.