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@ossobuco,

Interesting piece by Dennis Ross where he makes a differentiation between Islamic entities, regardless of geography or whether Sunni or Shiite. The differentiation he makes is between those who see culture/nationality as their fundamental identifier and bond, or whether they put faith in that place. http://nyti.ms/1pXflur

At least, it seems to me to be a valuable differentiation as the serious crazy appears to emanate from the latter crowd. And the US has its own version of the thing in the surprisingly influential theocratic contingent on the right, so we have that more proximate model to compare.

But I'm really too untutored in the mid-east Muslim world to know for sure if this is as valuable as it appears.

1 Reply

@georgeob1,

Quote:

I think your data is badly exaggerated

Then go with this one http://wapo.st/1qKkf33

but whether the actual number is 742 or 611 or 514, that doesn't make much of a real world difference. The fact is that the US has a military footprint unlike anyone else in spread around the world. That's an empirical matter. The US may have more extra-national military bases now than everyone else combined.

The more debatable claim I made has to do with the function of this military spread (and intel activities, I should add), which I said was most fundamentally concerned with forwarding US corporate interests. Do you seriously question my claim here?

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@george

Have you done any reading on what Jullian Assange is up to? Whether you answer is "yes" or "no, not really", let me know what you've read and/or what is your take at this point in time?

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Absolute must-read from Jon Chait on the resurgence of neoconservatism http://nym.ag/1qKvCYJ Aside from the greater piece here, note the very bright observation I've italicized...

Quote:

Rather, neoconservatism is an especially virulent strain of hawkishness that fetishizes simplistic absolutism. The neoconservative response to ISIS displays several distinct qualities:

1. The use of the term “serious” as a bludgeon. “The American Enterprise Institute is one of those places where serious matters receive serious attention, and that’s the spirit that brings me here this morning,” announced Cheney. Ted Cruz, who has positioned himself as the most vocal spokesman for neoconservatism among the party’s presidential field, calls Obama’s approach “fundamentally unserious.” Jennifer Rubin, the neoconservative pundit, assails “Obama’s consistent unseriousness about the Islamic state.” Charles Krauthammer asserts, “The question is his seriousness.”

The constant repetition of this word is not coincidental. Its purpose is to present absolutism as a substitute for thought.

1 Reply

@blatham,

blatham wrote:

. The more debatable claim I made has to do with the function of this military spread (and intel activities, I should add), which I said was most fundamentally concerned with forwarding US corporate interests. Do you seriously question my claim here?

I think my main point is that the number of major "bases" with significant operational potential is far less than usually quoted (I've been to most of them). Moreover the reasons for their existence are far more varied than you implied. Many are tied to significant, long-term treaty obligations, such as those with NATO and South Korea for example. There were also others that met your description, at least in part. The Subic Bay, Clark Air Force Base complex in the Philippines is an example. However, interestingly they have invited us back, probably because of anxiety about China.

I think it is a gross and somewhat paranoid exaggeration to describe our motives as serving (only or primarily) our corporate interests. We do have valid national interests that go well beyond that, and meeting them likely does benefit American corporations as well as the people who work for them and those who consume their products and services as well. In short there's some truth in the phrase, but it is essentially deceptive.

The lessons of History (and many other fields as well) are usually detectable only in retrospect. Knowing what actually happened solves a lot of otherwise intractable mysteries, and forecasting what will happen in the future is almost always a speculative game.

We probably have wasted resources and entangled ourselves unnecessarily in the problems of others in our interventions around the world. History reveals that nearly all dominant powers have done that. History also shows that dominant powers that don't do that, soon cease to be dominant, and that, in either case, rivals eventually step up to confront them. Nothing lasts, and there are no permanent solutions to anything.

The examples of excessive action or harmful action on the part of mostly benign powers are as common as are other examples of no action in the face of conditions that in retrospect appear to have demanded it. Chamberlain's "Peace in our time" is an example. Sometimes it's hard to know the difference in advance.

In the Middle east we're clearly dealing with a distemper in the Islamic world that has been growing for a long time, and I am convinced the root causes are (1) in some unresolved contradictions and conflicts within a Moslem world that never quite resolved the coexistence of secular governments and religious rule, though there were exceptions in part of their History among the Moguls of India and the Sassanid's of Persia (though both eventually descended into intolerance), and (2) in the consequences of a European colonialism that for the better part of two centuries ruled virtually nearly every Moslem in the world. The United States didn't create that problem, and our actions have served to improve it in some areas and make it worse in others. It remains a problem and it remains in our national interest to solve or contain it.

Our President's statement the other day that ISIS is not Islam and not a state either was supremely stupid and deceptive. It loudly calls itself both and is on its way to physical possession and power - the ultimate foundations for "recognition" as a state. It is not all of Islam, but it certainly does represent an important, nearly permanent component of Islamism that has existed for centuries. He announces his determination to destroy it by rendering it manageable through a struggle that is not a war and with allies who are not a coalition. Quite a trick that.

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@blatham,

blatham wrote:

@george

Have you done any reading on what Jullian Assange is up to? Whether you answer is "yes" or "no, not really", let me know what you've read and/or what is your take at this point in time?

No, my knowledge of him is mostly superficial. Is he still holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London? I think he's a fairly weird and probably dangerous guy who has done us some real harm. His choice of friends and sponsors doesn't inspire much confidence either.

I think the rationalizations he uses for spilling the secrets of (mostly western governments) have some merit, though he appears to use them cynically and in a very self-serving manner. Governments are generally venal and subject to overreaching their powers, but undisciplined and unaccountable revolutionaries can be worse.

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@blatham,

Just pulled that up to read.

1 Reply

@blatham,

blatham wrote:

Absolute must-read from Jon Chait on the resurgence of neoconservatism http

I read it and found it an interesting but somewhat forced bit of mockery of the author's political opponents. A lot of "isms" are resurging out there, including "progressivism", and progressives too have their characteristic traits, words, phrases and unstated assumptions. One could write an article about that too, but even I wouldn't find it very interesting.

Cruz is a fairly easy target, as is, for example, Elizabeth Warren, an unusually blonde, disadvantaged Cherokee who used her status to great advantage.

The use of "serious" is a bit overdone as the author stated, but the examples he cited are not all without merit. There are many concerned rational people out there who appear to believe that the current administration has not dealt in a serious and timely way with a number of important foreign issues, and that the results of that have added to the difficulties we face in the world. Indeed critics strongly suggest that the current administration has dealt with many of these matters solely through the lens of their domestic political agenda (ISIS as the JV, etc.) to our very serious detriment. That indeed involves an important element of unseriousness in governing.

The President also often appears oddly detached from his responsibilities as head of the Executive branch of our government, evading any responsibilities for things for which he is responsible by claiming that no one told him about it. To my mind that is the essence of feckless irresponsibility. He blamed others for the laughably inept roll out of his signature ACA Health Care Exchanges, and recently blamed the Pentagon for not yet presenting him with a plan of action. Hell, they're constantly making such plans and they respond to the demands the President and his national security team put on them. When did he ask for a plan is the relevant question? It's pretty well known that there's little love lost between the White House and the Pentagon, and that the attrition of senior officers who express any disagreement or concern has been very high in the last few years. I think Hillary's "What difference does it make?" response to Congressional questions concerning her Department's repeated refusals to upgrade security in Benghazi spoke volumes about the pervasive irresponsibility that infests this Administration. I fire deputies who evade responsibility for events under their control or offer me excuses like that.

I'll readily agree that conservative critics of the administration waste no effort in putting forward their complaints and criticisms, and that similar exaggeration and mockery are a common tools for them. I believe that is equally true on the other side, and that the article you cited illustrated that point very well.

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@ossobuco,

Read it. Tend to agree..

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@georgeob1,

Quote:

I read it and found it an interesting but somewhat forced bit of mockery of the author's political opponents. A lot of "isms" are resurging out there, including "progressivism", and progressives too have their characteristic traits, words, phrases and unstated assumptions.

If you could drop the tribal rah rah and the constant formation of an equivalence, it would do wonders for our conversations, george. Chait or I or others (including those on the right, most commonly at The American Conservative) who voice critiques of neoconservatives don't do so because the speakers are Republican. We do so because neoconservatism is a distinct ideology which is extreme (outside the traditions of American conservatism) and which is absolutist. As the PNAC documents explicitly demonstrate, neoconservatism holds that the US must achieve and maintain absolute domination over all other nations and any other entity which might arise to challenge that domination. The UN, Nato, international agreements and treaties, etc, have validity or usefulness only so far as they facilitate US dominance - there is no other consideration of equal import. None.

There is no hesitation to start wars in this crowd. The stance is one where constant war is a necessity, for if that expression or stance falters, then the fearfulness of the US's military may falter and dominance will be threatened. And to justify this, it is necessary to create, in the minds of citizens and politicians, an overwhelmingly fearful world where threats are everywhere and existential.

Recall the "They want to institute Sharia Law in America!" fear-mongering that went on a few years ago at Fox and broadly across right wing media. The utter insanity of this notion is a perfect demonstration of how citizens are being trained to be stupid. Just imagine how utterly impossible it would be to institute Sharia Law just in the bowling alleys of America, just in that small and insignificant sliver of the land. Or just in Middle Eastern restaurants.

I doubt you will, george, but for anyone who wishes to learn about neoconservatism, it's modern manifestations and its philosophical underpinnings, a fine place to start is Shadia Drury from the University of Regina.

But to be honest, I'm a little dubious that many people choose to take the time to read and study much. That's worse than a pity. And now I'm going to end this one and give you something to read on Assange's project.

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Quote:

Julian Assange and the Computer Conspiracy; “To destroy this invisible government”

“To radically shift regime behavior we must think clearly and boldly for if we have learned anything, it is that regimes do not want to be changed. We must think beyond those who have gone before us, and discover technological changes that embolden us with ways to act in which our forebears could not. Firstly we must understand what aspect of government or neocorporatist behavior we wish to change or remove. Secondly we must develop a way of thinking about this behavior that is strong enough carry us through the mire of politically distorted language, and into a position of clarity. Finally must use these insights to inspire within us and others a course of ennobling, and effective action.”

Julian Assange, “State and Terrorist Conspiracies”

The piece of writing (via) which that quote introduces is intellectually substantial, but not all that difficult to read, so you might as well take a look at it yourself. Most of the news media seems to be losing their minds over Wikileaks without actually reading these essays, even though he describes the function and aims of an organization like Wikileaks in pretty straightforward terms. But, to summarize, he begins by describing a state like the US as essentially an authoritarian conspiracy, and then reasons that the practical strategy for combating that conspiracy is to degrade its ability to conspire, to hinder its ability to “think” as a conspiratorial mind. The metaphor of a computing network is mostly implicit, but utterly crucial: he seeks to oppose the power of the state by treating it like a computer and tossing sand in its diodes.

He begins by positing that conspiracy and authoritarianism go hand in hand, arguing that since authoritarianism produces resistance to itself — to the extent that its authoritarianism becomes generally known — it can only continue to exist and function by preventing its intentions (the authorship of its authority?) from being generally known. It inevitably becomes, he argues, a conspiracy:

Authoritarian regimes give rise to forces which oppose them by pushing against the individual and collective will to freedom, truth and self realization. Plans which assist authoritarian rule, once discovered, induce resistance. Hence these plans are concealed by successful authoritarian powers. This is enough to define their behavior as conspiratorial.

The problem this creates for the government conspiracy then becomes the organizational problem it must solve: if the conspiracy must operate in secrecy, how is it to communicate, plan, make decisions, discipline itself, and transform itself to meet new challenges? The answer is: by controlling information flows. After all, if the organization has goals that can be articulated, articulating them openly exposes them to resistance. But at the same time, failing to articulate those goals to itself deprives the organization of its ability to process and advance them. Somewhere in the middle, for the authoritarian conspiracy, is the right balance of authority and conspiracy.

His model for imagining the conspiracy, then, is not at all the cliché that people mean when they sneer at someone for being a “conspiracy theorist.” After all, most the “conspiracies” we’re familiar with are pure fantasies, and because the “Elders of Zion” or James Bond’s SPECTRE have never existed, their nonexistence becomes a cudgel for beating on people that would ever use the term or the concept. For Assange, by contrast, a conspiracy is something fairly banal, simply any network of associates who act in concert by hiding their concerted association from outsiders, an authority that proceeds by preventing its activities from being visible enough to provoke counter-reaction. It might be something as dramatic as a loose coalition of conspirators working to start a war with Iraq/n, or it might simply be the banal, everyday deceptions and conspiracies of normal diplomatic procedure.

That's a portion. The writer here is Aaron Bady who blogs under the name zunguzungu. He's a doctoral student in California. http://bit.ly/1qLhAWE

1 Reply

@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

blatham wrote:

Absolute must-read from Jon Chait on the resurgence of neoconservatism http

There are many concerned rational people out there who appear to believe that the current administration has not dealt in a serious and timely way with a number of important foreign issues, and that the results of that have added to the difficulties we face in the world.

Well...the previous administration DID deal with a number of important foreign issues in a "serious and timely" way, George...

...and the results of that have had an almost devastating effect on our country and the world.

For the most part, many concerned, rational people think we are much worse off for what they did...than for what Obama has done.

I am reminded of a bumper sticker that often applies:

DON'T JUST DO SOMETHING...SIT THERE!

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@Frank Apisa,

That's handy you've arrived. As a further on Wikileaks (Assange, personally, is an irrelevancy. What his released data demonstrate about how power actually works is what is relevant). Same with Snowden.

Think of the matter this way. Snowden gets bludgeoned for snuggling in with the Ruskies (george tosses in a bit of sly innuendo re Assange and his "friends" above). The goddamn Ruskies! Even now those goddamn Ruskies are invading the Ukraine and there's all that crap in Chechnya too. That goddamn Ruskie regime is starting to look like the old USSR and they still have nukes and DANGER DANGER DANGER because they are bad guys and who the hell would snuggle in with people like that?!

And Snowden is all comfy in his lower middle class apartment somewhere on the outskirts of Moscow and he's got like a TV and internet and probably a stove and venetian blinds and everything! Snuggled in with the Ruskies. It's profane!

What is NOT profane, what is seriously peachy and proper is to be found in the very swankest hotels and residential areas of Moscow where Exxon Mobil executives and staffs reside as they continue their on-going cooperative efforts with the wonderful Russian politicians and businessmen who are, under multi-billion dollar contracts, working to extract petroleum from the Kara Sea and elsewhere, so that billions and billions can flow to those wonderful Russian power centers. This is sacred.

If anyone might sense my abiding disgust at the upside ******* downness of all this and at the propagandist framing of news and issues which set citizens to thinking in this way, then I can hardly fault that's reader's perspicacity.

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@blatham,

blatham wrote:

That's handy you've arrived. As a further on Wikileaks (Assange, personally, is an irrelevancy. What his released data demonstrate about how power actually works is what is relevant). Same with Snowden.

Think of the matter this way. Snowden gets bludgeoned for snuggling in with the Ruskies (george tosses in a bit of sly innuendo re Assange and his "friends" above). The goddamn Ruskies! Even now those goddamn Ruskies are invading the Ukraine and there's all that crap in Chechnya too. That goddamn Ruskie regime is starting to look like the old USSR and they still have nukes and DANGER DANGER DANGER because they are bad guys and who the hell would snuggle in with people like that?!

And Snowden is all comfy in his lower middle class apartment somewhere on the outskirts of Moscow and he's got like a TV and internet and probably a stove and venetian blinds and everything! Snuggled in with the Ruskies. It's profane!

What is NOT profane, what is seriously peachy and proper is to be found in the very swankest hotels and residential areas of Moscow where Exxon Mobil executives and staffs reside as they continue their on-going cooperative efforts with the wonderful Russian politicians and businessmen who are, under multi-billion dollar contracts, working to extract petroleum from the Kara Sea and elsewhere, so that billions and billions can flow to those wonderful Russian power centers. This is sacred.

If anyone might sense my abiding disgust at the upside ******* downness of all this and at the propagandist framing of news and issues which set citizens to thinking in this way, then I can hardly fault that's reader's perspicacity.

Ending that extended thought with the word "perspicacity" was a brilliant move, Bernie.

Snowden moving to Russia where (apparently) he enjoys more personal freedom and privacy...and a less intrusive government than he found in the US...is more questionable.

1 Reply

@Frank Apisa,

I doubt anyone would argue that the Russian government is less intrusive than the US government. And I expect he's monitored pretty closely while he's there in movement and in communications. But if he remained within the grasp of the US, he would be incarcerated immediately and possibly held in the manner of Manning. His project of transparency would be effected drastically.

But in any case, I'm going to decamp for a bit as I have some books to read and the temptation to yak here is not conducive to that goal. Just for a while. Love you guys.

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@blatham,

Well I see a lot of merit in that, Perhaps we should bring Julian over here and let him dig into the e-mail records of the IRS. He will likely find a few interesting things.

I agree that the power of mass information systems, particularly in the hands of government creates new, sometimes dangerous possibilities for governments of any political persuasion. Despite all of his rhetoric about transparency and openness, the current President has shown himself to be at least equally as secretive and a good deal more more authoritarian than his predecessors . Moreover he has done very little to actually deliver on his promises in these areas. The NSA is still expanding and the "total information awareness" proposals of the Bush Administration and Admiral Poindexter (remember him?) have come to fruition under the Obama Administration. The Prison facility at Guantanamo is still operating.; etc.

That said, I'm not persuaded that empowering autonomous revolutionaries is the best way to deal with that situation. I doubt the French Revolutionaries understood just what they were getting when Robespierre took power. Despite all its obvious flaws, our political process enables us to avoid dangerous excesses.

You again have faulted me for noting that the human natures and behaviors of people on both sides of most issues are generally similar. I find your presumptions in this area to be more than a little absolutist (to use a word and concept you appear to favor) and unrealistic. Is is really necessary to believe that (say) neo-conservatives are all fanatic , stupid, conspiratorial, lunatic rednecks, while progressives are all right-thinking, educated folks who read a lot and think serious thoughts? Those are all tiresome, mostly meaningless labels that obscure the real issues being debated.

I don't want to live in an ant hill of someone else's design and creation in which I am subject to a lot of even well-intended rules designed to meet someone else's view of what is good for me. I am aware that most such systems and designs fail badly of their own internal contradictions and unforeseen side effects. However, even in the extremely unlikely possibility that one of them actually worked to achieve its ends with tolerable side effects, I would still prefer my own autonomy in as many areas of my life as I and we can get without creating chaos.

Do you really believe "the movement right" is any more focused on its goals and energetic in planning how to get there than are the "progressive" advocates of ever more government regulation and oversight of our lives??? I find very little difference in their behaviors and attitudes towards their political opponents. Both are self-absorbed; inclined for fault the good intentions and motives of their political opponents; and adept in seeing evil conspiracies afoot in their actions.

I've spent a lot of my time in education and the knowledge business (some of it wasted) and came to understand that the human motivations and limitations of scientists, esteemed professors of this and that, and all the rest were generally no different from those of the janitors who cleaned up their dusty offices. The main difference was that the academic types generally had an overdeveloped sense of their self-importance and mostly shared the illusion that thinking about something and actually doing it were more or less the same thing. Nothing could be farther from the truth, and the janitors knew that very well. There's an old saw of uncertain authorship, sometimes attributed to Henry Kissinger that goes .... "Academic disputes fought so bitterly and persistently precisely because the stakes are so low." Progressives look a lot like that to me.

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@blatham,

blatham wrote:

Think of the matter this way. Snowden gets bludgeoned for snuggling in with the Ruskies (george tosses in a bit of sly innuendo re Assange and his "friends" above). The goddamn Ruskies! Even now those goddamn Ruskies are invading the Ukraine and there's all that crap in Chechnya too. That goddamn Ruskie regime is starting to look like the old USSR and they still have nukes and DANGER DANGER DANGER because they are bad guys and who the hell would snuggle in with people like that?!

And Snowden is all comfy in his lower middle class apartment somewhere on the outskirts of Moscow and he's got like a TV and internet and probably a stove and venetian blinds and everything! Snuggled in with the Ruskies. It's profane!

What is NOT profane, what is seriously peachy and proper is to be found in the very swankest hotels and residential areas of Moscow where Exxon Mobil executives and staffs reside as they continue their on-going cooperative efforts with the wonderful Russian politicians and businessmen who are, under multi-billion dollar contracts, working to extract petroleum from the Kara Sea and elsewhere, so that billions and billions can flow to those wonderful Russian power centers. This is sacred.

If anyone might sense my abiding disgust at the upside ******* downness of all this and at the propagandist framing of news and issues which set citizens to thinking in this way, then I can hardly fault that's reader's perspicacity.

Calm yourself !

Snowden and Assange broke the laws that governed their actions in places where they took them, I doubt that you would argue they should be exempt from the prescribed enforcement just because of the supposed virtue of their intent. Perhaps I am wrong in this.

Both fled to escape legal jurisdiction into the arms of governments variously hostile to those that sought to prosecute them, and both found succor, protected by the same legal structure that sought to prosecute them.

Your mocking use of the term "Ruskies" belies the fact that Putin, by his own self-description, is another Nicholas I who seeks to restore the hegemony of the former Russian Empire over Ukraine, the Baltic Countries and the Caucasus - in obvious opposition to the desires of the affected people. This is not the deranged imagining of wrong-headed conservatives: it is happening visibly before our eyes. I think you know that.

Your maudlin contrast of Snowden's presumed "lower middle class Venetian blinds" with the assumed classy Moscow hotel diggs of the EXON executives working to carry out the exploration/extraction of Kara sea and Siberian petroleum, was both overdrawn and irrelevant, -- mere distraction intended to find an emotional out led for some, unacknowledged, unnamed frustration of yours. Indeed I suspect the EXON folks live a lot better in Dallas than they do in Moscow (where the food is generally tasteless and lousy).

Retreat to your mountain, and read your books . When you have had your fill, you can come back like some self-proclaimed Zarasthrustra to tell us all about it. A bit melodramatic don't you think ?

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Putin and Nicholas I is a very apt comparison.

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@Frank Apisa,

Frank Apisa wrote:

Well...the previous administration DID deal with a number of important foreign issues in a "serious and timely" way, George...

...and the results of that have had an almost devastating effect on our country and the world.

For the most part, many concerned, rational people think we are much worse off for what they did...than for what Obama has done.

I am reminded of a bumper sticker that often applies:

DON'T JUST DO SOMETHING...SIT THERE!

I agree, you have point there. The lessons of history, just like the dynamics of any highly nonlinear system are detectable only in retrospect. Moreover, history, and all such systems, don't reveal their alternatives. We have a fairly complete knowledge of the bad side and after effects of the 1990 Gulf War, and the folly of our inept wiping out of all the institutions in the Iraqi government following our military victory in the second war against Saddam Hussein. However, we don't really know what might have happened had we not acted. Now we have to think twice about just what might be the lessons from it that are applicable to our new situation. Unfortunately, there's more questions there than reliable answers for us all.

I don't fault Obama's caution in getting directly involved in all this, but I do fault his unnecessary lack of principal in outlining our objectives and intent. The needed alternative to overactive leadership is not no leadership at all. He has unnecessarily reduced our influence in the world and behaved in a way that is getting him (and us) the contempt of those who wish us no good at all. That is stupid and dangerous,

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

Putin and Nicholas I is a very apt comparison.

Thank you. Even in what we know of their personal motivations towards the rest of Europe, their apparent visions of Russia, and authoritarian behaviors there are some uncanny (to me at least) similarities.

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