[L]iberal hawks -- individuals who are left-wing on domestic policy but frequently support the use of American military power to intervene in conflicts around the world -- have been enormously influential in the Democratic coalition since the 1990s, when the Bill Clinton and the centrist Democratic Leadership Coalition consciously remade the party in an effort to jettison its soft-on-defense image. Politically, these liberal hawks have been represented by Madeleine Albright, Joe Biden, Al Gore and Joe Lieberman, among other Democratic Party heavyweights.
If you said, "Wait a second! None of those 'liberal hawks' is actually a liberal!" then congradulaitons! You just won yourselelf a ceegar! And if you're lucky, it even won't explode!
That sentence comes from "Will the liberal hawks fly again?" a piece in Salon's "War Room" by Jordan Smith, and while it struggles to maintain some critical distance, that sentence is a dead give-away that ultimately it fails. Indeed, what it does, mostly, is simply provide us with a recycling of cliches from the hippy-bashing corporate wing of the Democratic Party as a prelude to the push to invade Iran. Which is not to say that Smith is pushing this himself. It's just that his piece lacks the necessary critical distance.
For example, he goes on to discuss
intellectual liberal hawks, who play an essential role in providing the moral and literary arguments and ideas for the movement.... The list of such liberal hawks would include journalists George Packer, Jonathan Chait, Jeffrey Goldberg and Anne Applebaum; professors Jeffrey Herf and Richard Just; and writers Michael O'Hanlon, Paul Berman and Leon Wieseltier. Many of them write for the New Republic, the closest thing liberal hawks have to a shared outlet.
He does not note that the New Republic has supported a rightwing foreign policy since it backed Reagan's illegal wars in Central American in the 1980s. To call this crowd any sort of "liberal" is deprive the term of all meaning.
But he doesn't just fail to accurately situate these figures and their (dwindling) institutional base. He also gives them free reign to repeat their tired posturing. First, the corporate-whores-as-brave-independent-thinkers meme:
On October the 28th, 2009, Jon had the good sense to invite two guests who favor (get this) a peaceful, non-violent, diplomatic approach to the middle east problem. No harm in a little civil discussion, huh?
We knew the "what" waterboarding. Now we know the "why" and now we know the "when." When? The Senate Armed Services Committee report: the Bush administration started planning torture before the memos authorizing it, before there were detainees to torture.
Why? Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld insisted interrogators had missed something, because no prisoner had yet confirmed any operational link between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. We tortured to backfill for a phony war and a nonexistent Iraq-al Qaeda connection.
And Dick Cheney still thinks he is the victim.
That's it in a nutshell, folks. Torture wasn't supposed to save us from a ticking time-bomb. Heck "24" was barely starting its first season. Torture was supposed to get al Qaeda operatives to fess up to a non-existent link with Iraq, so we could have the war the neo-cons had been itching for for years, instead of this unwanted distraction by bin Laden and friends. Others--such as Ron Suskind on Rachel Maddow the same day--have made the same argument, and have explicated recent revelations in more detail-as Countdown itself did in the body of the program-but Olberman's introduction was blunt, powerful and to the point.
Which makes it that much easier to graft it onto a larger narrative, one in which even Iraq was only supposed to be a minor opening act, and in which terrorism played a role so tiny it wasn't even a speaking part. The real enemies were China, any other rising regional power, futuristic weapons deployed by persons unknown, and the American people, who would never spring for such extravagant military spending without benefit of a new Pearl Harbor. This was the future foreseen by the neocon think-tank Project for a New American Century (PNAC) in its September 2000 report, "Rebuilding America's Defenses".
The Israeli propaganda blitz around their attack on Gaza has been greeted with uncharacteristic skepticism by the American public and even by some of the mainstream US press. Even the Jewish American community is uneasy about this one, in a way perhaps unparalelled since the 1982 Israeli attack on Lebanon and siege of Beirut. Jews for Peace in Los Angeles are actively protesting the Gaza atrocities, and newspaper articles from around the US on local protests held this weekend often mention mixed Arab-American and Jewish-American rallies.
If it is true that Americans are greeting Israeli talking points with more criticism this time, is it because we have been intensively exposed for the past 8 years to precisely this sort of mental manipulation by Bush-Cheney and their stable of Neoconservatives?
Let's take some of the basic techniques of propaganda practiced by Bush and compare them to those deployed by the Israeli leadership in the past 8 days.
Well, of course, Jaun had no difficulty at all drawing parallels between the neocon propaganda and what's going on now in Israel vis-a-vis Gaza. But the important point is rather the flip side: not that an expert critic can see all these connections, but that even a wannabee dittohead can't avoid them. They can just feel their unspoken 5-0, 40-love advantage slipping away. The fate awaiting them all is that of Martin Indyk in the Democracy Now!interchange with Norman Finklestein that I wrote about earlier this week.
But that's only the tip of the iceberg. Because, you see, I've got a little secret to share with you all: Empires Fall.
After the Iraq fiasco, the key to continuing neocon power was two-fold: First, disappearing the disaster. Second disappearing the neocons themselves. The disaster was disappeared by a series of rationalizations and redefinitions, the most important of which was the replacement of the original rationale--9/11, WMDs and all that--with goal of "democratization" (which the US originally had no interest in), and the replacement of all else with the mantra, "the surge is working." Disappearing the neocons involved a rather extensive chameleon act, a key part of which was the erasure of their fingerprints all over everything in sight.
This is where we get the common bit of hegemonic narrative used to excuse the Iraq War, the claim that "everyone" believed the intelligence that Saddam had WMDs. This narrative is not just false, it's a textbook case of how hegemonic discourse makes it virtually impossible to think straight about anything. There's an old adage that if you ask the wrong questions, you can't get the right answers. Hegemonic discourse works best by making sure that nothing but wrong questions get asked.
By implicitly making the question, "did everyone believe Saddam had WMDs?"--and not even asking it, but simply asserting an answer, every question we ought to be asking is summarily swept off the table. And the chance of making a truly fundamental break with the neocon direction is substantially weakened. Following this narrative's indicated line, no one asks what we were doing attacking bin Laden's worst ideological enemy--or even Iran's. Much less what we're doing destabilizing an ethnically fragmented state in the middle of an already unstable region. Or why we chose to invade Iraq--which would surely inflame Arab opinion against us, while bolstering support for the terrorists who attacked us--rather than take advantage of an opening to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict, which no less than Colin Powell called promising. Looked at from any sort of sane geopolitical perspective, the invasion of Iraq was just plain nuts--so nuts that some have concluded that a permanently destabilized Middle East was precisely the point. I don't believe that, as it does not comport with previous neocon doctrine. Still, neocons love military conflict so much that even they seem to have forgotten what was supposed to be their original game-plan. Then there was the point-by-point abandonment of the Powell Doctrine--all the supposed lessons of Vietnam thrown out the window at the same time. And, of course, the two big ones. First, the little big one: (1) Why was Bush so obsessed about invading Iraq, and why was he so wrong? Then the big big one: (2) What the hell happened to going after those who attacked us on 9/11?
These are just some of the things we're not supposed to think about when encountering the narrative about "everyone" believing the intelligence that Saddam had WMDs. Okay, you might ask, then who didn't believe it? Well, how about the neocons in/and the Bush Administration itself, for starters?
Last week, the day before Christmas, Digby took note of an eager wanker (Frank Harvey, pimped by Kelly McParland) making the argument that if Gore had been President instead of Bush, we would have had the exact same clusterfuck, because (a) the neocons had nothing to do with it, that's just a conspiracy theory! (b) invading Iraq was inevitable and (c) Al Gore had all sorts of hawkish attitudes, towards Iraq in particular, so, case closed!
Digby, of course, cheats by quoting Al Gore in opposition to the Iraq War;
Most importantly, we know what Gore actually did, which was speak out against the war at the time. And he did it at a time when it was widely expected that he would run for president in 2004. On September 23, 2002, when the Bush administration was rolling out its new production [in] earnest, Gore gave a speech before the Commonwealth Club of California that began with this:
Like all Americans I have been wrestling with the question of what our country needs to do to defend itself from the kind of intense, focused and enabled hatred that brought about September 11th, and which at this
moment must be presumed to be gathering force for yet another attack. I'm speaking today in an effort to recommend a specific course of action for our country which I believe would be preferable to the course recommended by President Bush. Specifically, I am deeply concerned that the policy we are presently following with respect to Iraq has the potential to seriously damage our ability to win the war against terrorism and to weaken our ability to lead the world in this new century.
It's a totally devasting take down, of course. But it doesn't even touch some of the rest of the malarky, specifically the claim that the neocons couldn't a dunnit, cuz their power is just a conspiracy theory. Why even bother after Digby's utterly demolished this putz? Because we have to hold the neocons accountable, in order to understand some of the root assumptions that lead us astry. Otherwise, we cannot possibly avoid "going through all these things twice." We will only have more or less similar variations.
Bottom Line: We need to play the "blame game." That's conservative speak for when the "personal responsibility" card gets played on them. It's the only way to get the sort of sweeping change we so desperately need.
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird (cont) Wallace Stevens4
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
This is my second installment in this series, exploring six different ways of looking at John McCain's recent meddling in the Georgian/Russian conflict-as well as their affairs leading up to it. For reference, all six ways are presented in Part 1.
This part deals with The Republican's "October Surprise". Named for a long-suspected, and now virtually certain clandestine plot by the 1980 Reagan/Bush campaign to prevent the release of American hostages by Iran prior to the 1980 election, thus ensuring Jimmy Carter's defeat.
A similar effort by Richard Nixon, to sabotage the 1968 Paris Peace Talks, and prevent the election of Hubert Humphrey, has been solidly confirmed. Thus, deliberate interference in foreign affairs by the McCain campaign would be part of an established pattern of GOP lawlessness in manipulating the outcome of presidential elections, and there is increasing reason to think that McCain's campaign--or at least individuals associated with it--played a role in precipitating this crisis. They have certainly involving themselves in trying to keep it alive, and even escalate it. Details on the flip.
In order to fully grasp what he's up too, there are five analytical frameworks that are particularly helpful to employ. I'm going to write about them more extensively this weekend.
In the last few days--as the confrontation between Georgia and Russia has flared-the McCain campaign has visibly slipped into wildly dangerous territory. The "McSame" label clearly no longer applies-McCain would not be like Bush's third term, he'd be much more like Cheney, completely unleashed.
Over at TPM, the temperamentally restrained Josh Marshall has been writing about this quite alot. For example:
Dangerous and Unstable
I know I've made this point in various ways in several posts over the last day or so. But watching John McCain speak about the Georgian crisis in the video below should deeply worry anyone interested in a sane US foreign policy -- or the safety of their children....
The people that are pulling McCain's strings are the people who want to push us into a new Cold War with the Russians -- and ironically and a bit improbably with the Chinese too....
McCain is going out of his way to cast this as a replay of 1938 and 1939. Is it really in our interest to get into a renewed Cold War with Russia right now? ....
It's sort of funny when he's just an unhinged senator. But think for a moment where we'd be if this man were president right now, as he may well be in six months. This man takes the counsel of the people who got us into the Iraq War. On foreign policy, he is in league with the people who were so extreme they've now largely been kicked out of the Bush administration. People like John Bolton and others like him.
It's beyond Obama or political strategy or dinging McCain on this or that policy.
This man is simply too dangerous and unstable to be president. People need to wake up and get a look of the preview he's giving us of a McCain presidency. [Emphasis added]
In order to fully grasp what he's up too, there are five analytical frameworks that are particularly helpful to employ. I'm going to write about them more extensively this weekend. But this is unfolding now and it deserves a lot sharper attention than it's been getting so far. So a brief summary of the five frameworks is on the flip.
The news that Iraq is enjoying a record budget surplus while the US creaks under the weight of record deficits is fueling calls for Iraq to use those costs to pay for its own rebuilding efforts, a politically posthumous vindication of Iraq war architect Paul Wolfowitz's belief that the war could be fought "on the cheap," and Iraq could pay for the country that we (that's us, America) wrecked with its own money. It's all bullshit, of course--a way to justify abrogating responsibility for the damage we've caused.
The Democracy Now! piece was particularly strong, as it was set up by some clips that are-of course-better heard than read in transcript. Russert badgering Obama about Farrakhan, for example. And McCain proudly embracing Hagee. Then, in the interview itself, Amy strated right off, asking Sarah just who this Hagee fellow is:
SARAH POSNER: Well, his church has been around since the early 1970s. He actually started it after a previous church went out of business, so to speak, after he divorced his first wife. And he has built this church that he has now, Cornerstone Church, to 19,000 members.
Hagee preaches the Prosperity Gospel, which essentially says that God wants believers to be rich, that you-believers can call riches into existence for themselves through their faith, and that you get rich by tithing to your pastor ten percent of your income, what Hagee calls your "first fruits," meaning pay him your tithe before you pay the rent, before you make the car payment.
Gosh! Divorced first wife? Prosperity Gospel? Is this a match made in Heaven or what? And you thought BushCo had made parody obsolete! The M$M doesn't like to talk about McCain's first mariage and divorce, you see. It makes him look like Newt Gingrich. Heck, it almost makes Gingrish look good!
I think Chris made a big mistake here. The big mistake was relegating this to "quick hit" status. This is Big News! And, in fact, the bigger we make it, the better.
Moment Of Truth
First, there's what McCain actually said--which was astonishingly arrogant, even for him: "Anyone who worries about how long we're in Iraq does not understand the military." Given how worried the military itself is, the arrogance level is positively Bushy.
Second, there's the profound significance of dramatically deep-sixing the Iraq blurring strategy.
The Iraq blurring strategy was a no-brainer way of getting the GOP off the hook for 7 years or so of mass insanity, a way of folding the neocon delusion back into the warm embrace of the post-WWII bipartisan consensus, as if nothing had ever really happened. And the Democrats--rather than trying to stop the GOP from pulling it off--virtually begged them to do it, as Chris noted last September 10 in "Republican Ability To Blur On Iraq in 2008 Becoming More Likely".
Of course, there was one fatal flaw in Chris's otherwise brilliant analysis. It's like the old joke, "How many person-centered therapists does it take to change a lightbulb?" Answer: "Only one. But the light-bulb really has to want to change."
The GOP is no such light-bulb.
The only GOP candidate to even consider repudiating Bush was the paleocon isolationist (and crypto-racist) Ron Paul. And while Paul did much more than merely consider repudiating Bush, the intensity of his opposition merely served to underscore how completely the rest of the GOP had utterly abandoned the traditional conservative position. The Neocons may have engineered us into Iraq, but once we were there, the entire conservative establishment was committed to staying--if for no other reason than to avoid admitting that the DFHs were right all along... just like we were about Vietnam.
With McCain as their nominee, the GOP is now stuck to Iraq like a fly caught in superglue--with all the disastrous implications that entails. So with that in mind, I'd like to go back and take a closer look at what McCain said, and what an utterly devastating line of attack it opens up--particularly for Barack Obama.
It's not just about winning the 2008 election. It's about restoring the sort of trust that Democrats enjoyed in the aftermath of World War II--trust in their military stewardship and their foreign policy judgment, as well as their treatment of veterans and those still in uniform.
American public opinion regarding the state of the nation today, depending on who you are talking to, can range from "Could be better", to "In dire straits", or "On the brink of tyranny". In any case, it is not usually good. What ever the case, there are plenty of reasons for the doom and gloom. Take your pick; from 9/11 to our having a President who has abandoned the Rule of Law and burdened future generations with incalculable debt. To most we, as a country, have lost our way. To others, finally the opportunity for America to strike her enemies came, real or perceived, and we took it.
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