MidEast Report

One of the great things about Blogger being free is that I can start up new blogs whenever I feel the need, as I did with this one a few months ago.

I write to find out what I'm thinking, and as I've worked on this blog it's become apparent to me that there is one main question that contains within it a lot of my other questions about the era in which we are living, one main question which really distracts, animates and motivates me:

What is the War?

Events in the Middle East are obviously hugely significant to the answer to that question, so that will continue to be a major focus of the work, but I'm also very interested in the way we in the U.S. are dealing with the reality of this war, and whether many of us even feel that it is a war.

I hope you will join me over there.

posted by Matt Duss @ 9:32 AM 1 comments

REVISIONISM
Ironic that Charles Krauthammer titles this column "Reagan Revisionism," given that he himself is engaged in revisionism of the worst sort, in a column which perfectly exemplifies the ongoing mythologization of Reagan.

In the early '80s, the West experienced a nuclear hysteria -- a sudden panic about imminent nuclear destruction and a mindless demand to "freeze" nuclear weapons. What had changed to bring this on? Reagan had become president. Like George W. Bush today, the U.S. president was seen as a greater threat to peace than was the enemy he was confronting.

The nuclear freeze and the accompanying hysteria are an embarrassment that liberals prefer to forget today. Reagan's critics completely misunderstood the logic and the power of his nuclear posture. He took a very hard line on the Soviets, who had broken the nuclear status quo by placing missiles in Europe. Backed by Margaret Thatcher and Helmut Kohl, Reagan faced the Soviets down -- despite enormous "peace" demonstrations throughout the West, including the largest one to date in U.S. history (New York City, 1982) -- and ultimately forced the Soviets to dismantle the missiles and begin their overall retreat.

The old familiar line: Reagan stared 'em down, scared 'em into surrendering. Good grief. Krauthammer's routine dismissal here of the international peace movement is especially egregious, given that the exchange between Eastern and Western European peace activists and the solidarity that grew from the international nuclear freeze movement laid essential groundwork for the eventual revolutions of 1989.

From Mary Kaldor's essay Who Killed the Cold War:

The role of peace movements in shaking the status quo in Europe seems to have been more or less written out of accounts of the 1980s. In the early 1980s, the peace movement in the West was considerably larger than the movements that eventually toppled the East European regimes. Five million people demonstrated in the capitals of Western Europe in 1981 and 1983. The movement was unprecedented in scale and in its transnational character.

What made the peace movement of the 1980s different from earlier movements was the explicit link between peace, and democracy and human rights. E.P. Thompson, the eminent historian whose writings inspired the new movement, called for a transcontinental movement of citizens. The European Nuclear Disarmament (END) Appeal of 1980, signed by millions of people all over Europe, called on its signatories, who included Vaclav Havel, Olof Palme, and George Konrad, not to "be loyal to East or West, but to each other." From the beginning, this new movement sought links with individual dissidents and groups in Eastern Europe.

Something parallel was happening in Eastern Europe. The period of détente gave rise to new forms of opposition. The most important new movement was Solidarity in Poland. But other groups, like Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia and the Democratic Opposition in Hungary, were also significant. The starting point for Charter 77 was the Helsinki Accords and the commitment to human rights contained in the Final Agreement.

It's important for a couple of reasons to recognize the role played by the peace movement during the Cold War. First as a corrective to the "Reagan defeated the Soviet Empire" myth, which discounts the invaluable work done by non-governmental organizations, and second because it offers something of a blueprint for cultivating reform in the Middle East. Real change won't come from Grand Plans announced Grandly by Grand Men, it will come from cultural and academic exchanges between societies, support for indigenous reform movements, and appeals to international human rights conventions.

Treating Reagan as "victor" in the Cold War both disrespects history and handicaps democratic efforts in the future, as Bush is clearly trying to cast himself as the New Reagan, intending to "win" the War in Terror in the way he imagines Reagan "won" the Cold War, by talking tough and having bigger guns than everyone else. That's not the way it went then, and it won't go that way now. When change does come to the Middle East, it will have been the result of work done and solidarity created by and between thousands of dedicated individuals, most of whose names we'll never know.

Years later, of course, conservatives will claim that George W. Bush should get the credit.

posted by Matt Duss @ 12:16 PM 0 comments

CHALABI
Last week's New Yorker had this piece on Ahmad Chalabi, and I have to say that, after reading it, I almost admire the guy. This man is a veritable Mozart of bullshit. He paid attention in class, learned how the U.S. foreign policy game was played, kissed the right behinds, and knew when to blow sunshine and when to blow smoke. I enjoyed this bit:

Six weeks before the U.S. invasion, in a February 5, 2003, address to the United Nations, Secretary of State Colin Powell—who had initially found the intelligence on W.M.D.s inconclusive—spoke of unnamed eyewitnesses, one of whom had supplied “firsthand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels and rails.” It was, he testified, “one of the most worrisome things that emerges from the thick intelligence file we have on Iraq.”

Bob Drogin and Greg Miller, of the Los Angeles Times, recently reported that the source of this intelligence was an Iraqi defector code-named Curveball, who is allegedly the brother of one of Chalabi’s aides. (Chalabi says that the defector is not related to anyone in his organization.) Curveball is said to have approached German intelligence officials and provided them with detailed maps and descriptions of mobile weapons labs. Curveball neglected to tell German officials that before fleeing Iraq he had been jailed for embezzlement. Moreover, U.S. and U.N. experts searched every corner of Iraq for the mobile labs; all they found were two trucks, whose function is still in dispute. Last January, Cheney cited those trucks as conclusive proof that Iraq had mobile weapons labs, but experts have said that they more likely contained equipment for weather balloons.

By the time I asked Chalabi about Curveball, the defector had become a sore subject. “These are the sorts of reports we are expected to deny?” he asked, his voice rising. “Anonymous reports about anonymous people? No one even knows who this person is! How are we supposed to know?” Chalabi questioned why he was being blamed for defectors’ inaccuracies, when it was the U.S. intelligence community’s job “to check these people out.” He asked, “What would you want us to do? Hush it up when these people tell us these things?”

From this story, the Pentagon's process of "vetting" defectors seems a bit like Navin R. Johnson method for establishing the identity of Mrs. Nussbaum in The Jerk:

CURVEBALL: Saddam has mobile weapons factories. I've seen them firsthand.

WOLFOWITZ: How do we know if we can trust you?

CHALABI: I'll vouch for him.

WOLFOWITZ: Okay, as long as you've got a voucher!

posted by Matt Duss @ 11:45 AM 1 comments

NOW PLAYING: THE MIDDLE EAST REFORM PLAN
(BBC)
(al Jazeera)

An early draft of this plan was apparently "leaked", and it's been well-reported in Arab media

Egypt and Saudi Arabia are against it, calling shenanigans.

Turkey's Abdullah Gul won't support it.

A good suggestion in this Daily Star editorial:

The poster child for US President George W. Bush's regime change-driven agenda in this region is Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, whom the US holds up as an example of a wise change of heart in turning away from developing weapons of mass destruction. Libya has been transformed from an evil and dangerous land for the West to a friendly and responsible polity, and an attractive investment venue. It should also be the place where Bush and his G8 colleagues could most easily and quickly promote democracy in an Arab country, without war, regime change, Congressional resolutions or cooking the books on intelligence evidence. If the US and friends truly seek to promote Arab democracy, they should start in Libya, which has proved amenable to accepting US suggestions on other issues.

Maybe if the U.S. treats Gadhafi really, really well...Ironic that this week we're burying a president who made war with him.

In any case, it's very good to see the Israel/Palestine conflict brought to the fore. Maybe someone in the Bush Administration finally recognize that that is the issue most holding back reform. Leaving aside who hit who first, the I/P conflict is one of the engines of jihadism, and the U.S. has to be seen as taking a less-biased approach before any initiative gets off the ground.

p.s. Here's Bush's Freedom Gap Speech (Warning: Contains confident references to non-existent WMD)

posted by Matt Duss @ 10:11 PM 0 comments

ANOTHER MYSTERY SOLVED
Have you, like me, ever wondered what, exactly, Lionel Richie was chanting during the middle eight of "All Night Long?" I know that you have. Well, friends, wonder no longer. Via retrocrush, here it is:

Tom bo li de say de moi ya
Yeah, jambo jumbo
Way to parti' o we goin'
Oh, jambali
Tom bo li de say de moi ya
Yeah, jambo jumbo!!

posted by Matt Duss @ 9:20 AM 1 comments

TOOTHPASTE THEORY
For those who aren't aware, there is consistently better, more critical coverage of the Israeli occupation to be found in the Israeli press than in the U.S. press. From Yoel Marcus in Haaretz:

There is only one other historical precedent for what Sharon is doing. It was when Charles de Gaulle was summoned home by the party in the hopes that he would keep Algeria under French dominion. Upon his election, he appeared before a roaring crowd of a million French settlers in Algeria, who welcomed him with cheers of "Long live French Algeria." He waved his long, lanky arms and told them: "I understand you!" Then he went back to France and did the opposite of what everyone expected of him, thumbing his nose at his party, the settlers and the far right. Later, when they complained that he had lied to them, he said: "I did understand you, but I did what was good for France."

Where in the mainstream U.S. media would you ever see the (entirely appropriate and instructive) comparison between the Israeli occupation and French colonialism in Algeria?

Sharon has come a long way since he insisted that Israel could not leave settlements like Netzarim and Kfar Darom because "every settlement is critical for our defense." As someone who had the privilege of hearing the details of Sharon's unilateral disengagement plan straight from the horse's mouth four months ago, I believe that despite his checkered past, he is not playing games now. This is not a gimmick or some trick to hang on to his seat, which is safe, in any case, until 2007. We are talking about a mental switch. Sharon has come to the conclusion that there is no future for occupation; that terror cannot be wiped out by force; that in the end, Israel could face a humiliating imposed solution in which it would lose everything.

Marcus is definitely taking a "glass is half-full" view, but I agree that despite whether Sharon is serious about a Palestinian state, and I believe he is not, Sharon has made a significant political conversion from being the hardest of the hardcore settlement builders to recognizing the futility, because of security costs, in maintaining the Gaza settlements. There's really no way for him to go back now and rejoin those who assert that the settlements are morally justified.

posted by Matt Duss @ 9:03 AM 0 comments

REAGAN
I came of political age in the Reagan Era, so he will always occupy a special place in my consciousness, though I'll never mistake this for admiration. He talked a good game about freedom, but supported some of the foulest, most inhumane tyrannies on earth. He raised political dishonesty to incredible new levels with made-up stories of welfare-queens, pollution-causing trees, and tax cuts which actually increase government revenues.

Reagan was right that Communism was a destructive, inhumane ideology that required active opposition. He was not the first to realize this, indeed his opposition to Communism rested on international institutions and agreements that were developed and written by liberal Democrats. This fact will probably not be mentioned as conservatives rend their clothes and pour ashes on their heads.

I recognize that Reagan's strident anti-Communism did, to some extent, give moral support to the Eastern European dissidents who did the real work of defeating Communism. It's also inescapable that his belligerent rhetoric entrenched and empowered Communist hardliners, thus making the work of those dissidents more difficult.

As you prepare to face the "moral clarity" brigades in the coming weeks, don't forget that Reagan illegaly sold arms to terrorists, Iran, and then funneled the proceeds to terrorists, the Nicaraguan Contras. Is that morally clear?

From around the web:

Nick Confessore:

As for Reagan's legacy, it should have been clear then, and is increasingly clear now, that for the most part Reagan the president was more popular than Reaganism the politics.

Eric Alterman:

To me the most astounding thing about Reagan was his ability to convince the many members of the media and much of the country that his fantasies mattered more than reality did. In this regard, I think we can point to his presidency as the moment the country went off the rails in terms of a willingness to address its real problems, rather than the ones we wish we had. The news is more nonsense than normatively significant national problems, and while there has always been some of this, I think with Reagan we hit a tipping point. Listening to Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts wax nostalgically about how wonderful it was that Reagan made stuff up and a bunch of silly journalists had the temerity to (briefly) call him to account, brought back an almost physical wave of nausea as I involuntarily experienced the beginning of the period when facts and truth ceased to matter to their alleged guardians.

Juan Cole:

Reagan's policies thus bequeathed to us the major problems we now have in the world, including a militant Islamist International whose skills were honed in Afghanistan with Reagan's blessing and monetary support; and a proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, which the Reagan administration in some cases actually encouraged behind the scenes for short-term policy reasons. His aggressive foreign policy orientation has been revived and expanded, making the US into a neocolonial power in the Middle East. Reagan's gutting of the unions and attempt to remove social supports for the poor and the middle class has contributed to the creation of an America where most people barely get by while government programs that could help create wealth are destroyed.

Christopher Hitchens:

The fox, as has been pointed out by more than one philosopher, knows many small things, whereas the hedgehog knows one big thing. Ronald Reagan was neither a fox nor a hedgehog. He was as dumb as a stump. He could have had anyone in the world to dinner, any night of the week, but took most of his meals on a White House TV tray. He had no friends, only cronies. His children didn't like him all that much. He met his second wife—the one that you remember—because she needed to get off a Hollywood blacklist and he was the man to see. Year in and year out in Washington, I could not believe that such a man had even been a poor governor of California in a bad year, let alone that such a smart country would put up with such an obvious phony and loon.

Scott Lemieux of Lawyers, Guns, and Money takes apart Andrew Sullivan's claim that Reagan conservatism was somehow less bigoted and intolerant than Bush conservatism.

Meanwhile, in National Review's the Corner, which was always a bit of a Reaganoid circle-jerk when the Gipper was alive, is now shading over into something resembling cyber-group-necrophilia:

Jonah Goldberg:

It's fun and worthwhile to point out that liberals and leftists detested Reagan not too long ago. But what's more important than any gotchyas on their hypocrisy is the fact that many of these folks may now be sincere. The fact that America seems largely united in its admiration for Ronald Reagan is a sign of his success in changing the country. It's funny, today there's this tendency among liberals and not a few conservatives to talk about FDR as if he was this great unifying figure. He was for a majority of people, but he was also one of the most deeply reviled and detested political figures in American history, including among a great many people we would call liberals and leftists today. For good or ill, it's a sign of FDR's success at bending the society to his will that we now think he was some sort of revered demi-god when he was in the Oval Office. It is an astounding tribute to his accomplishments that today -- less than two decades after his profoundly controversial presidency -- a majority of Americans, including the elite, are on roughly the same page about his greatness.

Roughly on the same page, huh? Maybe Goldberg is attempting to pay special tribute to Reagan by presenting his own fantasies as fact. Fitting indeed.

It may be inconvenient for conservatives to remember this, but there was a similar show of decent respect, sentimentality, and nostalgia when Nixon died (or rather, when he was delivered to Hell by the Devil's own personal giant rodent-drawn hell-carriage), but that didn't mean that people didn't still remember Nixon's mendacity and criminality.

One bright side to Reagan's passing is NOONAN! NOONAN! NOONAN! That's right, in the wake of the Gipper's departure, former Reagan speechwriter and All*Star conservative fluffer Peggy Noonan has been making the talk-show rounds, dutifully performing her singular brand of hagiographic fellatio for anyone who asks. This is the moment for which she's been preparing since Reagan left office. I had the distinct pleasure last night of switching back and forth between Peggy on Meet the Press, Peggy on Hardball, and Peggy on C-SPAN! That woman is hilarious.

Here's a great example of Peggy's brand of goofballery, regarding Elian Gonzales (remember him?) and the rumour that the boy had been aided by friendly dolphins as he floated in the sea:

From the beginning it was a story marked by the miraculous. It was a miracle a six-year-old boy survived the storm at sea and floated safely in an inner tube for two days and nights toward shore; a miracle that when he tired and began to slip, the dolphins who surrounded him like a contingent of angels pushed him upward;

And some of us, in our sadness, wonder what Ronald Reagan, our last great president, would have done. I think I know...Mr. Reagan would not have dismissed the story of the dolphins as Christian kitsch, but seen it as possible evidence of the reasonable assumption that God’s creatures had been commanded to protect one of God’s children.

Now, this is funny in two ways. First, there's the admission by Noonan that Reagan would have taken seriously the idea that magical dolphins helped young Elian to stay afloat. Second, there's the assertion by Noonan that this belief in divinely guided Roman Catholic dolphins was a good thing, something that revealed, yet again, Reagan's greatness. Keep it coming, Peg.

posted by Matt Duss @ 12:09 PM 2 comments

WHAT IS THE WAR?
Here's what the White House says.

I enjoyed this, at the very end:

"We are not at war with Muslims. We don't have a beef with Muslims. We want to be friends with Muslims and Muslim children."

Maybe this phrase comes across better in Arabic. In English it sounds a little creepy.

posted by Matt Duss @ 10:15 PM 1 comments

Here's Matt Yglesias with a piece at the Center for American Progress about the current conservative attempt to blame the media for Bush's failures in Iraq. I stared into my crystal ball and spotted this trend a couple weeks ago. Yglesias provides examples.

Responding to Yglesias charge, or rather not responding to the charge itself but taking issue with the historical comparison, National Review's Jonah Goldberg says that Yglesias' reference to Weimar Germany obviously casts conservatives in the role of Nazis, and is therefore out of line. Maybe, maybe not, says I. I used the same phrase in my earlier post, but my immediate reference was not to Weimar Germany, but to Vietnam, and the belief of many supporters of that war that the U.S. was "stabbed in the back" by stoopid hippy protesters aided by an anti-American media.

Also, Goldberg's little hissy fit might be a bit easier to take if professional ex-Leftist David Horowitz hadn't made precisely this charge, using precisely that phrase, a few months ago in a column about Iraq.

posted by Matt Duss @ 6:12 PM 0 comments