Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal (2004)

It's really kind of a hoot to watch the Left battering Bush for not making a unilateral preemptive military attack on Afghanistan prior to 9/11.

*I* would have called it al Qaeda related program activities.

In fact I did.

Thanks for improving my prose, but aren't you undermining your credibility ? How can you reconcile these two versions of what Waldmann said ? Is their one standard of honesty for godawfully brilliant bloggers and another for other Americans ?

Tbrosz: My wife who is definitely a leftist, definitely advocated invading Afganistan long before 9/11. This was an expression of her militant feminism.

I would have wimped out.

But no one would object to sending a nice hellfire Bin Laden's way. Notice no one objected to sending Clinton serving an arrest warrent with 60 cruise missiles.

Unilateral preemptive strike? Throsz, are you unaware of the attacks on two US embassies and the attack on the USS Cole?

Robert: It is to the credit of the American feminist movement that they were bringing the plight of the women in Afghanistan to our attention long before 9/11.

Steven: It's Bush they're leaning on for not "doing something." Not the administration that was in power during those attacks. Go figure.

However, even with that history of attacks, had either Clinton or Bush gone in to topple the Taliban prior to 9/11, the United Nations would never have gone along with it in a million years, the peaceniks would have gone ballistic, and America would be in the same doghouse with the "Important" Europeans (France and Germany) as we are now. You can't win.

One thing that Clarke liked about Clinton was that Clinton *would* retaliate. Reagan never retaliated for Beirut, or for the kidnap-murder of the CIA's Beirut chief (although he did retaliate for Berlin). Bush 1 never retaliated for Pan Am 103.

Clinton left the decision of where and how to retaliate for the Cole to Bush 2, remembering how Bush 1 had gone into Somalia and left it to Clinton to figure out how to get out of Somalia. And when Bush 2 didn't retaliate for the Cole, that was the first of the things that set Clarke off...

As Clarke pointed out, there was no political will in this country, either on Congress or on Main Street, to invade Afghanistan pre-9/11. Hell, Clinton got verbally crucified as a "Wag the Dog" president simply for firing the cruise missiles.

But that's conveniently forgotten by the accusers.

Clinton "retaliated" once to no effect with the cruise missile strikes and spun his wheels afterward. Clarke's "Delenda" proposal, in various forms, sat on the shelf in the Clinton White House for *two years*. Someday, probably after the election, someone will have to explain to me why 24 months of Clinton not taking a series of steps was wise statesmanship, while Bush taking 8 months to finally put that same series of step into motion was a dereliction of duty.
Also, to say Clinton generously refrained from retaliating against the Cole because of not wanting to leave a Somalia mess for Bush 2 makes no sense. How are airstrikes, presumably the form retaliation would have taken, akin to occupying a Third World country with 20,000 trops?

Brad writes: "And when Bush 2 didn't retaliate for the Cole, that was the first of the things that set Clarke off..."

Also, demoting his position so he dealt with deputies, which added layers of bureaucracy and months of delays to the process of getting anything done.

Not exactly a design for rapid response.

RD, Clinton has not been President for three years now. That's THREE YEARS. Bill Clinton is no longer sitting in the Oval Office. Bill Clinton is no longer flying in Air Force One. That dude in the Oval Office and flying in Air Force One is some dude named George W. Bush, dig? And George W. Bush went into Afghanistan with guns blazing, and, uhm... no Osama. Where's Osama, RD? Let me get this straight, George W. Bush has had thousands of troops chasing their shadows around the countryside for two years and still no Osama, and that's William Jefferson Clinton's fault... uhm... how?

But I forget: Where Harry S. Truman had a sign on his desk that said "The Buck Stops Here", George W. Bush has a sign on desk with an arrow pointing to Clinton's office in New York City that says "The Buck Stops Over There".

Blaming Clinton for the fact that we don't have Osama in custody and available for flaying alive at the site of the former World Trade Center towers is like blaming Mayor Rudy Guiliano for the budget deficit in California. He ain't even in the same city anymore, dude!

= BadTux the "gosh, these people DO know who's currently the President, right?" Penguin

Excuse me, but the argument by Brad Delong and others is that Clinton's anti-terrorism policy was maniestly superior to Bush's, presumably with the implication that we might have averted the attacks or at least made much more progress if Bush had just stuck with Clinton's approach. If true, its highly relevant to evaluating Bush's policies. I don't think it is true. If you've got evidence the other way, produce it. Libs can't denounce Bush's falling away from the Golden Age of Clinton's anti-terror programs, and then spin around and say "but he's not president anymore!" when somebody points out the manifest stagnation of Clinton's efforts against Al-Quada during his last two years in office.

Am wondering why multiple officials have trotted out the "armed the Predator drone" line. Does this mean that Clinton had these drones tracking bin-Laden but Bush stopped this.

Clarke and others wanted a way to act on the intelligence at the moment it was obtained, rather than after a delay which might mean that OBL or his henchment were no longer where the intelligence placed them. They found out that the Air Force was undertaking a program to arm predator drones, which gave them the solution to their problem. The Air Force was willing to accelerate the program, but then the CIA and the DOD had a fight over who WOULDN'T operate the armed drones. Apparently the CIA was worried that if they killed OBL, their agents would be targets of al Queda. Clarke felt they already were targets and weren't likely to be in more danger through use of the drones. But apparently bureaucratic infighting delayed the use of the armed drones.

bashar writes: "Am wondering why multiple officials have trotted out the "armed the Predator drone" line. Does this mean that Clinton had these drones tracking bin-Laden but Bush stopped this."

Clinton had drones in Afghanistan that weren't armed. We could watch, but that's all.

The drones were grounded for winter in late 2000, but when Bush took over, they weren't relaunched until after 9/11.

http://www.nctimes.net/news/2003/20030625/60625.html

tbrosz, dude, you want to at least paraphrase the lead from the National Review article. It sounds fresher that way.

My wife is a credit to the Italian femminist movement.

Clarke explains how he thinks Clinton administration policy was better than Bush administration policy.

Remember he was a registered Republican in 2000 when the transition took place. He says he got most of what he asked for from Clinton and delay delay delay from Bush.

He also says the Clinton white house preassure on the FBI and CIA directors for results in 1999 might have had something to do with blocking the planned milenium assault and that a similar approach by Bush might possibly have prevented 9/11.

Now when discussing Clinton and Bush, I am perfectly willing to consider it an exercise is recent history because I think that after Clarke's performance yesterday, Bush might possibly be history

she can spelll to

I think I see a trend emerging. The old chestnut, "It's all Clinton's fault!", seems to be in the decline, while the new spin point, "Even Clinton couldn't have done better!", is in the ascent.

Forget about attacking Afghanistan. Forget about attacking Al Qaeda. Nineteen hijackers were here taking flight training and lifting weights and getting ready, apparently for several years.

The fact is that both Clinton and Bush administrations had essentially the same homeland defense policy prior to 9-11, which is to say no policy at all. That is what is sad and what gets lost in these bizarre commission hearings. Amazing.

I've figured it out! Action Item's secret identity is none other than...

George W. Bush!

(See the link in my name for more information on him)

It all fits! Quoting from the article:

"Well, let's look at the facts. Let's look at the action we took. This President took action immediately upon coming into office to develop a comprehensive strategy to eliminate al Qaeda."

Yep, he sure did, instead of actually doing something about it, it got buried in forward-looking task-oriented meetings. Just like the businessman he claims he is.

(For the record, I didn't particularly like Clinton as a president, but held my nose and voted for him twice because he didn't stink as much as the competition.)

Well, it's kind of hard to blame Clinton for being a lame duck on the various sorts of issues that would have required support from congress -- at least tacit support if not an outright vote authorizing use of force over 90 days -- when he was, during those final years, busy being crucified by that self-same congress.

All of Clinton's political capital had been well and truly used up by the time his last 24 months in office rolled around.

Stopping the millenium bombing attacks on LAX speaks volumes for the Clinton approach. I remember warnings about potential attacks that the press did not take seriously. The Clinton administration wisely put border patrol and other assets on alert. It paid off when a border patrol agent intercepted the bomber at the Can border.

Also, retalitation does not always require spectacular cruise missile explosions. Many of the people involved in terrorist bombings were arrested and brought to justice by the Clinton adminitration. Many of them are still in jail for their crimes as we speak.

Before 911, there was a lot of chatter, but the Bush administration never passed this info along to the public or the airlines or border agents to step up their level of alert.

Overall, Bush does not think that bin Laden is that important. If he did, he would have devoted more resources to shutting him down. The attacks on our embassies and the Cole could have been campaign issues but they were not. In any new administration, the agenda gets changed. However, the Bush administration has a high degree of inflexibility. They seem to have a long term strategy that is based on ideology. They seem focused on the long term strategy and ignore short term "distractions". What if their ideology is not correct? We will be committed to a strategy that eventually will fail and leave us worse off because the small problems add up over time if left to fester.

You guys on this blog will KNOW NOTHING until you start listening with respect to those of us who have a different point of view.

Since I studied David Hume's ENQUIRY CONCERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 40 years ago in Freshman Humanities at MIT, I've been studying how the Limitations of Human Understanding Affect Political Thought and Discourse

The more educated we get the more we seek to reduce our understanding of this complex world of ours to clearly understood, easily articulated rule-based models. The problem with this tendency is that we tend to confuse the picture of the hamburger on the menu with the actual hamburger and then proceed to build our theories based on this shaky foundation while selecting only the data points that are consistent with our theoretical constructs.

The first major limitation and source for error stems from the geometric truth that we can only see what we’re looking at. Let’s look at this from another angle. This simple phrase beautifully leads us to the geometric aspect of human understanding that is implicit in our language. Another angle, point of view and perspective all refer to the geometric truth that what you see depends on what you’re looking at; or, how “the point of view” from which you look at something absolutely determines how it appears to you. There is no element of right or wrong in many matters, there is only perspective.

Once you tease out the different points of view of debaters and can see what they are actually looking at, you then have a good chance of integrating their two separate views into a three dimensional whole. Then it would be much easier to figure out what to do about it. Then you can at least hope to resolve the matter to the satisfaction of both sides. This results in people talking to each other instead of at each other. Debate then becomes enquiry.

Can you imagine people proudly saying, “I’m a man of the oblique”, or ‘I’m a woman of the acute?” Yet how absurd is it when we hear a politician braying “I’m a man of the left”, or “I’m a woman of the right,” or referring to opponents as “Left Wing Pinkos” or ‘Right Wing Extremists.”

The nearby Prof. Allan Bloom quote refers to the differences between the Jew Shylock and the Catholic Antonio in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. Such differences go a long way towards explaining the inhuman treatment of humans by humans throughout our history. I sincerely hope that a more bilateral wisdom will help such people find common ground and respect for each other.

"To do away with their hostility, the beliefs of each would have to be done away with – those beliefs which go from the very depths to the heights of their souls. In other words, their being would have to be changed, for men are constituted most essentially by their understanding of the most important things.

Allan Bloom, Giants and Dwarfs"

It is a geometrically absolute truth that commitment to the rightness or wrongness of a point of view precludes understanding. Understanding requires at least two points of view and even more depending on the dimensionality of the problem. Hence, there is need to take a broad perspective; or to say “let’s look at this from another angle.”

The second major limitation and source for error is that we tend to substitute simple causal chains for what can better be described as multiple inter-related causal feedback loops. Reasoning based in simple causal chains results in clear cut, easily understood direct explanations of the relationships of the matter at hand that are always wrong.

Most scientifically conducted investigations, though often presented as data points that produce straight lines when graphed as in the nearby figure, are, in reality, merely simplifications of the cloud of actually measured data points that merely suggest a straight line but don’t actually form a straight line. This means, of course, that there are any numbers of other causes to each individual data point’s location beyond the two we’re graphing.

The next level of Democracy will never be attained until the actual practitioners of politics behave in a manner consistent with these intuitively obvious characteristics of human understanding.

As a small first step in reaching the shared (I hope) goal of improving the functioning of our democracy and thus the lives of our fellow citizens - I invite you to enquire with me into the best ways to confront the many problems that face our nation and our planet. I further invite you to seek out and engage anyone else you know who has a different perspective from you.

REMEMBER, YOU HAVE NO HOPE OF ACCURATE UNDERSTANDING UNLESS YOU CAN FIND A WAY TO AGREE WITH SOMEONE WITH AN OPPOSITE POINT-OF-VIEW. AND, THERE ARE NO VALID REMEDIES WITHOUT WIDESPREAD AGREEMENT.

Favorite line in Government briefings: "We are taking action to ...." Translated, this means we have't done diddly but we've thought about it. Sadly, I know how this works from personal experience. Oh, yeh and: "We are planning to..."

I think this is a lost cause, but here goes:

Adrian, most of the people on this blog realize that humans tend to filter out facts that do not conform to their ideologies; most of the people on this blog are open-minded; therefore, most of the people on this blog would love to hear from those with different points of view. People with different points of view are extremely valuable: they see things that we miss due to our human tendency to filter out facts that don't fit our world-view.

What people on this blog don't like is dogmatic, ill-informed posturing and name-calling. When you yell at us that we KNOW NOTHING, we conclude that you are a troll who should be ignored.

Why are we worrying about were the finances for 9/11 came from? The American Taxpayer financed the operation. The US paid the Taliban 23 Million to destroy their Poppy Crop in March of 2001. Really, You cannot make it up, how stupid America is.

Plan Columbia is no better and I cannot wait to see the outcome of this stupidity.

"What people on this blog don't like is dogmatic, ill-informed posturing and name-calling. When you yell at us that we KNOW NOTHING, we conclude that you are a troll who should be ignored.

Posted by joe"

Typical lefty strategy. Insult the person with a different point of view. I am smart enough to recognize that the posters on this blog all look at the world from the same point of view and therefore generally agree on everything.

You mistakenly think your agreement validates your understanding. WRONG. You understand nothing 'til you can get agreement from a person with a different point of view.

You guys are wrong on the most important matters and you are very successful at convincing each other that you're right. Please try and convince me on some policy matter (NOT SOME HE SAID SHE SAID PARTISAN BLATHER).

Also, I would be better mannered if you posters stopped calling people with a different point of view LIERS, IDIOTS, TROLLS and expressing a misbegotten idea that "you" are somehow smarter than "us."

Adrian

Adrian,

I did not intend to insult you. I sincerely apologize that you took what I said as an insult. What I meant to do was to explain my reaction, and I suspect the reaction of others, to being informed, in capital letters, that we KNOW NOTHING.

"Adrian,

I did not intend to insult you. I sincerely apologize that you took what I said as an insult...

Posted by joe"

Thank you. Apology accepted.

I apologize for saying you "know nothing." But I hope you agree that convincing people who agree with you is meaningless. I found this out personally when I couldn't stand the hubris on Free Republic.

I'd suggest that a more focused, more Socratic style dialog would allow more meaningful enqiry between disparate points of view rather than posting massive texts copied from "sources."

I find ex nihilo dialog among informed participants to be more interesting than slogging through massive boiler plate references.

I look forward to enquiring into policy matters with you.

Adrian

Adrian,

"Typical lefty strategy. Insult the person with a different point of view. I am smart enough to recognize that the posters on this blog all look at the world from the same point of view and therefore generally agree on everything."

Well, then, I'm afraid I'd have to question how "smart" you are. One of the reasons I read this blog is that everyone doesn't "generally agree on everything"; blogs that are just cheering sections on either side are much less interesting. I'm not saying that "all points of view" are represented, but the fact that you seem to see no difference at all in these viewpoints makes me less inclined to accept you as an authority speaking out against oversimpifying opposing points of view.

"Please try and convince me on some policy matter (NOT SOME HE SAID SHE SAID PARTISAN BLATHER)."

I think that it is incumbent upon you, as someone who clearly disagrees with most of the opinions posted here, to begin that process. Thus far in this thread, you have expressed no opinion on policy matters, instead declaring (in capital letters, no less) that the people you disagree with are manifestly wrong, without referring to any specific statement. If you would care to make a statement of where you disagree on some policy matter, I would be willing to try to debate it with you.

Welcome back from Freepville, Adrian! Given that you didn't like convincing people that agreed with you, I think you'll find ample opportunity to have disagreements here, where oppositional ideas are tolerated, if not encouraged.

Socratic dialogues are all well and good, but without referencing facts, all political, economic, and historical discussions are mere speculation. And random posters speculating on topics with which they are not well versed are flamed here with extreme prejudice.

Let's get back to basics, shall we?:

- The money and ideology came from Saudi Arabia.
- The Taliban were supported with money and logistics from the Pakistani secret services [Pakistan was arming and supporting the Taliban because they wanted to counter Iranian influence in Afghanistan - but that's another story].

All everyone talks about is how to kill Al Queda and/or Taliban soldiers. The pool of potential Al Queda recruits consists of tens of millions of angry muslim young men. They will never run out of soldiers no matter how many we kill. The only way to win is to cut off the money, destroy or at least neutralize the ideology (wahabism) and clean out the mess that is Pakistan.

I would have hoped that a blog run by an economist would have a better grasp of the economics and ideological underpinnings of Islamic terrorism.

"I'd suggest that a more focused, more Socratic style dialog..."

Would that include a post-prandial hemlock and the cock for Aesculapius, too? As Flounder said in Animal House, "Oh, boy, this is gonna be great."

Step back from Clarke's book and the 9/11 commission and evaluate our security situation TODAY.

Clarke's revelations aside, there is a powerful and persuasive case to be made that the United States is now more vulnerable to attack at home and abroad under President Bush’s guidance. Bush’s wartime leadership has left America’s military overstretched, its network of alliances weakened, its credibility diminished, its international appeal in tatters and homeland defense in chaos. While the U.S. is bogged down in Iraq and an undersized American force hunts for Bin Laden, the Madrid bombings show Al Qaeda is still capable of delivering lethal blows. And all the while, festering threats and conflicts in Israel, North Korea, Taiwan, remain on a short fuse.

For more on why America is less safe today under President Bush's so-called "steady leadership", see:

"Are We More Secure Now Than Four Years Ago?"
http://www.perrspectives.com/articles/art_secure01.htm

I have read that soon after his usurpation, Bush removed the cruise-missle-armed submarines on patrol off Pakistan that were waiting for chances to attack Al Qaeda. I have also read that Bush ended the effort Clinton had initiated to get Saudi Arabia to shut off terrorist funding sources. I hoped the 9/11 commission would raise these points.

As could be said to any of us point-sources in this universe of non-simultaneity: Adrian Spidle, you are partly right, partly wrong.

(1) THREAT: Both Clinton and Bush were/are presidents during an evolving awareness of a new kind of threat source, and they both took actions both apt and inept.

(2) BELIEF: The idea of promoting freedom, security, prosperity for all peoples is gol-durnnit a good idea, I donut kare wot some o’ yous might be sayin!

(3) PSYCHOLOGY: (A.) The conservative idea that we need only to show a lone strong hand, a sturdy will, in an era of small groups with big weapons, is self-deceptive lunacy. In fact we need to stand with all of our allies together, to show the possible recruits to terrorism that there is a community of peaceful nations that use diplomacy to settle their differences. [This must be in tandem with programs of small secret special forces to rout out existing terror cells.] (B.) The idea that Muslim terrorists are frustrated in their poverty and destitution, and need only the prospects of a better life to see the error of their horrifying ways, is majorly bananas. This is the Wall Street Journal editorial view of human psychology: everybody just really wants to be a trader! It is hard to tell whether the U.S. establishment actually believes this, or is just promoting it as propaganda so that the public is distracted from Israel and the Palestinians. In fact Osama and crew are rich, and many of the bombers have been well educated with good job prospects. The main and overriding issue of the Muslim terrorists, as almost every moderate Muslim quoted has said, is Israel and the Palestinians, and after that, secularism invading their homelands.

(4) POLICY (CURRENT): (A.) Bush’s decision to disengage from the Israeli-Palestinian peace process was stupid and ignorant. Sorry to use such harsh words. He should be bounced out on his derriere for that one alone. Even if there isn’t a real solution on the horizon, you have to keep them talking, keep knocking their heads together. This gives people hope. This is how it is done. (B.) The idea of invading Iraq more-or-less unilaterally (we have Britain and a few minor players, but so what) in the face of opposition from major allies, under a questionable interpretation of international law, with a rolling series of half-phony justifications for domestic consumption, with a ballsy attitude that we could finesse the “minor” turmoils that “might” result--all of this is a misjudgement of astounding proportion. The spooks new it, the Pentagon new it, the few politicians with brains knew it, the Democrats naturally latched onto it, and now the Republicans are getting uneasy.

(5) FUTURE: Pakistan, Afganistan, Iraq, Israel-Palestine are getting more violent daily. Our armed forces are overstretched; the conservative hubris that we could manage it all, has been coclusively refuted. We are inciting terrorism: it’s a tactical setback. We need the rest of our allies, and they distrust Bush’s judgement and his words. He has to leave, for the benefit of getting on with our foreign policy, of getting the U.S. back to being believable.

(6) POLITICS: The Establishment understands all of this, and Clarke has put himself up as another link in the chain. After all is said and done, maybe even after the 9/11 commission gives its final results, Bush is being manuevered into having to answer the question: what WAS the policy? If it was “carrots and sticks” to the Taliban, so they’d give up Osama and give us a gas pipeline, then the headline is going to read: “Bush Gave $43 Million to the Taliban Three Months Before 9/11.” Lead sentence: “Since money is fungible, did Bush get suckered into paying for the 9/11 operation?” That is a headline he is hoping to avoid, one of the headlines this whole process is leading to...

(7) PHILOSOPHY: Hume made it very clear that agreement does, in fact, partly validate understanding. We are all prone to this.

Now you have thrown out a challenge and I have laid out some basics. Keep your missives short, to the point, and unclouded by ego, because there are other things to do...

> It's really kind of a hoot to watch the Left battering Bush for not making a unilateral preemptive military attack on Afghanistan prior to 9/11.

Or would be, I suppose, if that was really the criticism aimed at Bush rather than a strawman of his rightwing backers.

Clarke's claim is that the Clinton administration treated terrorism as its top security priority and that the Bush administration did not. Bush's advisers deny this, but the record suggests otherwise. They sure didn't have much to say publicly about terrorism at the time. They had more to say, as I recall, about Cold War hobbyhorses such as missile defense, and Ashcroft unlike his predecessor seemed to think that McDonald's sweepstakes tampering was the top priority for his department (http://www.cnn.com/2001/LAW/08/21/monopoly.arrests/)

That's enough reason to "batter" Bush in light of 9/11. It's an extraordinarily weak comeback to say, "Well, nothing he could have done would have been effective anyway and he would never had the political means to invade Iraq... so he was right to ignore terrorism as a serious issue and pursue his preferred policy issues." The Bush administration should have been expending a lot of effort looking for some way to address an emerging terrorism problem. Clinton had been expending this effort (according to Clarke).

All that effort might not have prevented 9/11 (or a couple of lucky tips might have caught it in time). But it is still legitimate to fault Bush for not even trying as hard as he should have.

Freudian slip. Wow. I meant "invade Afghanistan" in my posting above.

Luke,

If you are running for office somewhere, let me know. Great Stuff.

I still think it's the Oil and every country needs it. We need a policy that uses our remaining reserves to finance a sustainable world economy that is not based on this commodity.

"3) PSYCHOLOGY: (A.) The conservative idea that we need only to show a lone strong hand, a sturdy will, in an era of small groups with big weapons, is self-deceptive lunacy. In fact we need to stand with all of our allies together, to show the possible recruits to terrorism that there is a community of peaceful nations that use diplomacy to settle their differences.

Lee"

GREAT POINTS, my friend. However, you said so much that I am forced to choose one little point to discuss, and that is the above.

During the Constitutional Convention in 1789 no one was allowed to bring up any "ideas" unless they could support their ideas with examples from the fullness of history. I beieve this was very wise as there would be no real world examples from which to judge said ideas. Therefore I ask you:

CAN YOU GIVE ME ANY EXAMPLES FROM HISTORY WHERE A RUTHLESS AND VIOLENT ADVERSARY (Al Qaeda, Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany, Communist North Korea, Napoleon, Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Shapur the Great, Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, Darius, Xerxes, etc.) HAS BEEN DETERRED BY DIPLOMACY?

Adrian

As I recall, Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany were removed as threats by ALLIANCES. Standing together with our allies is about diplomacy insofar as it makes it possible to have an alliance. Once the alliance exists, more can be achieved...including military action if necessary.

"As I recall, Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany were removed as threats by ALLIANCES. "

Come on. I can't think of any war that didn't have alliances. The Iraq War certainly involved many allies on our side.

Please, you have to do better than that.

Adrian

ADRIAN IT MAY BE THAT I AGREE WITH YOU ABOUT SOME THINGS AND IT MAY BE THAT YOU HAVE SAID SOME THINGS THAT AREN'T **STUPID!! STUPID!! STUPID!!** -- BUT I'LL NEVER KNOW, NOR WILL YOU, BECAUSE I

tend not to read long posts with a lot of all-caps, especially if they call me stupid and say I am wrong about everything.

My message for today: Bush is running against Kerry, not Clinton. Kerry is not Clinton. Bush has to defend what he has done on its own terms, not just by saying that Clinton was just as bad or worse. Kerry can defend Clinton if he wants to, but he doesn't have to. Two different guys.

The ferocity of the Republican counterattack is because Bush only has about four issues to run on -- gay marriage, abortion, tax cuts, and national security. He has to score a LOT of points on national security, and Clarke is capable of keeping that from happening.

"My message for today: Bush is running against Kerry, not Clinton. Kerry is not Clinton. Bush has to defend what he has done on its own terms, not just by saying that Clinton was just as bad or worse. Kerry can defend Clinton if he wants to, but he doesn't have to. Two different guys...

Posted by Zizka"

Wrong again my friend, but nice try. This election is not between two candidates, but rather between two Parties with very different philosophies and records in Foreign Policy and Domestic policy.

The Libertarians, Greens and Naderites aren't responsible for Clinton but the Democrats definitely are.

Adrian

Adrian, there is no example from history about a cross-border enemy of this sort, with devastating weaponry. All of those you cited had standing armies that had to hold large formations in order to be functional. Also, none of them were able to recruit to themselves, nearly automatically, from a general populace in opposition to an outside situation that was unjust, or perceived to be unjust.
You question has to do with military strategy and tactics, which must go from what can be known from history, and move forward into new situations where history no longer applies.

"You question has to do with military strategy and tactics, which must go from what can be known from history, and move forward into new situations where history no longer applies.

Posted by Lee A"

Great answer, but not quite true. POST WW2 TWENTIETH CENTURY COMMUNISM might be a better example.

Democratic Capitalism beat Communism militarily - Greece, Korea, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Granada; economically by out producing them; and politically by Reagan with his bellicose leadership and military build up.

True we haven't completely won that conflict yet and that bodes ill for our war against terrorism.

Please note France did not help in that war.

Adrian

Adrian, are you saying that Bush does not have to run on his own record?

Since Clinton's record seems to have been somewhat better than Bush's on counter-terrorism, it shouldn't really hurt Kerry to run on it. However, what we're really talking about here is the cartoon politics believed in by the Republican core constituency: "Republicans Tough, Democrats Wimpy". Clarke's testimony seriously damages that belief, or would do so except that a lot of the Republican core are flat-earthers whose beliefs are immune to fact.

Which of these things is different than the others (5 points): "Al Qaeda, Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany, Communist North Korea, Napoleon, Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Shapur the Great, Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, Darius, Xerxes."

On the general philosophical questions you keep raising, let's postpone the dialogue stuff until late November. We're having an election around here, and a lot of what we say is oriented toward that. Elections aren't dialogues, but they're part of what makes democracy work. As I keep saying, if you don't want to play basketball, get off the court. And you might also dispense with the snide, highminded digs at people who are playing the political game.

"I didn't know that action meant sending a plan back for 8 months of discussion and revision. I would have called that: 'al Qaeda-related action activities.'"

According to Richard Clarke in August 2002, there was no plan.

But what Colin Powell and Geo. W. Bush did in Feb. 2001--write a letter to Pakistan's leader informing him that there were going to big changes in our policy toward the Taliban--was action. A journey of a thousand miles....

Adrian,

I'm channelling Marcus Tullius here ...

"You are letting your side down with bad use of logic. By the crude and, I think, ill-chosen rhetorical device of asking of ruthless and violent adversaries that were deterred by diplomacy, you have neglected the reply that the question thus has no purpose, as any enemy that could be deterred can be said to be neither ruthless not violent, and thus not fall under the ambit of your question.

Clearly, this reply will weaken your argument."

OK, that episode's over.

Me, I'll quietly comment that the 16thyC Catholic policy regarding the Calvinists (small ruthless group, inclined to use terrorism, operating out of mountain bases, coherent ideology hmmmmmm) was greatly harmed by too great a reliance on the sword, not enough diplomatic activity to ensure people stayed on the correct side of the ledger, and an unwillingness to confront the issue that many people of goodwill were worried about the anti-Calvinist campaign being a cloak for the establishment of Hapsburg hegemony over Europe.

Adrian, you are going to have to be clearer. Communism is an example of what? Certainly not the same thing as Al Qaeda. The first was state-based, with large guerilla movements, often aided by state funding. Muslim terrorism not so, or at least not in the same way; in some places it survives due to the weakness of states, e.g. Afganistan, western Pakistan. Rich Saudis may have sent it money, but that does not make it state-sponsored. Indeed state sponsorship of terrorists would be suicidal, given our long ability to bomb capitals with impunity. [In this sense, the current idea that Syria is hiding Saddam's weapons (if you can imagine Saddam handing his weapons off to an enemy) is ridiculous: Israel or the U.S. could make short work of it, with almost no military downside.] The idea that Muslim terrorism is state-sponsored was more of a fiction to promote the invasion of Iraq.

Also, Reagan's bellicosity, and the Carter-Reagan military buildup, did little to end communism. It was forty years of U.S. bipartisan containment, a long and difficult slog. And France was part of the alliance. If you must continue to need to think in terms of a single factor, it would be the fact that Gorbachev was the first apparatchik to come up through the system after Krushchev's secret liberalization speech in '56 or '57. There was no freedom of press in the Soviet Union, but by the mid-70's they were all talking openly to each other and even ridiculing the failures of their system. This was aided by a fairly decent educational system. I'm told cab drivers in Moscow knew more than most Americans about what was going on in the world. Gorbachev's gutsy glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) did not come out of thin air, but out of long and hard thought and observation through dangerous decades before. He is not given credit for this, perhaps because perestroika itself was a failure. Reagan's actual contribution--and he is rarely given credit for this--was that Gorbachev liked him personally, and trusted him. He also, funnily enough, was enamoured of American movies, and liked to hear about the movie stars.

Under other circumstances, which we needn't bother to conjure, bellicose leadership and military buildup might have steeled the Soviets to retrench, and redouble their efforts to survive.

Also, to be precise, "Democratic Capitalism" cannot beat anything militarily; that can only be done by properly applied, superior military force. Also, we did not win in Vietnam.

This conversation may not continue if you are not serious about the study of history. You will start by refraining from repeating received opinions about it.

Also, Reagan's bellicosity, and the Carter-Reagan military buildup, did little to end communism."

Well, you're right about Jimmy--over our inordinate fear of Communism--Carter. But not Reagan. The latter fundamentally re-oriented U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union, and was severely criticized at the time for so doing by both Democrats like Carter and Mondale, and by Republicans like Kissinger.

The hysterical left feared Reagan would get us into a nuclear war. The right feared loss of business deals like the natural gas pipeline from Russia to western Europe. My bet is that Geo. W. Bush's approach to terrorism emulates Reagan's toward the USSR.

" It was forty years of U.S. bipartisan containment, a long and difficult slog. And France was part of the alliance."

Off and on. Who can forget LBJ's classic line to DeGaulle upon being informed that he wanted all American troops out of France immediately: "The dead ones too?"

" If you must continue to need to think in terms of a single factor, it would be the fact that Gorbachev was the first apparatchik to come up through the system after Krushchev's secret liberalization speech in '56 or '57. "

Well, Gorbachev owed his ascent to power to Reagan. The Politburo elected him precisely because they felt they needed a more vigorous leadership to measure up with Ronbo. But he wasn't up to it.

Patrick, your last point's a good one. But also, the Politburo had just been through a line of hardcore fogies dying off fast--that generation was just disappearing. I haven't found any histories specifically analyzing, from Russian insiders, the policy play behind Gorbachev's precise moment of ascension.

With your first point, I still kind of doubt it. Reorientating U.S. policy toward the Soviets might not have helped in another era--Krushchev's, say. I remember that there was an ex-Soviet general who told the U.S. press in mid-90's (I don't have the reference) that our military buildup did make them wonder whether they could sustain a response. Whether the man was quoting an observation from an old Soviet policy paper, or just currying favor to get a U.S. book deal, was unclear. Or whether his comment was simply invented by the U.S. press...

Of course it takes two to tango. Reagan turned out to be essential for the process as it happened. He was like the very last key that opens the very last lock. But it may have been more for who he was, than what he did.

So I was careful to say, in response to Adrian, not that Reagan did nothing, but little. The reason being, it looks like change was coming anyhow. Thought experiment: imagine Gorbachev came to power but Reagan never did: would he have still pursued glasnost and perestroika, (which I think was just in the cards anyway), moving the Soviets, no doubt more slowly, into a strongman social democracy rather similar to what they have today, perhaps with less open thievery? Gorby's still alive, so I guess we can ask him his old intent, and present opinion...

The larger point is, beyond the eternal truth that we must maintain a strong military, that lessons from the Old Cold War on how to deal, now, with porous-border terrorists who can access mass-kill weapons, are not as conclusive as some would hope. It is going to take a subtler, nimbler, more flexible policy, and maybe we don't have it yet.

Bush might argue that he was searching for this new policy, but 9/11 preempts any other judgment of him. Richard Clarke’s extraordinary testimony, plus the facts of the actual carrot-and-stick policy they were pursuing with the Taliban, plus the unexplained fact that their response to the unprecedented threat spike in summer 2001 was standard-to-substandard, makes Bush look feckless.

Meanwhile Bush’s Iraq policy, considered separately, will always be faulted because--given that Saddam could not have been able to reconstitute his WMD programs for years to a decade, and his present link to terrorists was specious--there really was lots of time to plan things better.

Now that it’s done, I’ll bet every Democrat in the foregn policy establishment agrees with every Republican that we should stay in Iraq to make it work. Now the problem is that decision is being taken out of our hands by angry Iraqis, at least partly due to our bad psychology and poor planning of many things. So it comes back to inept, again.

"not that Reagan did nothing, but little. The reason being, it looks like change was coming anyhow.'

Absolutely wrong. Reagan completely transformed policy toward the Soviet Union. Henry Kissinger famously admitted he'd given up trying to do anything but negotiate the "second best position" possible for the U.S. vis a vis the Soviet Union.

Reagan confronted them diplomatically, militarily, and financially. He stalled their natural gas pipeline deal (and eventually only half of it got built), put an end to easy financing of their imports, convinced the King of Saudi Arabia to open his oil spigot which denied revenues that otherwise the USSR would have received for their petroleum, added costs to their military in dealing with counterinsurgencies in central America and Africa, and aggressively pushed Poland to relent toward Solidarity.

He even psyched out Gorbachev in their first meeting in wintertime Switzerland by bounding down the stairs of the villa to meet him with a handshake, dressed in a business suit. Gorby had a thick Russian coat and hat.

Patrick, I meant change within the Soviet Union. The American public's ignorance notwithstanding, it now appears that there were things happening on the inside. Do you believe that Reagan's policy would have mattered in another era of Soviet leadership? Reagan fired torpedoes when their ship was already sinking, and their younger leaders were already aware of the failure of that system. I think he should be credited instead--as you note in the story of him bounding down the steps--for being absolutely charming. That did the trick.

No cause is so right that one cannot find a fool following it.

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