Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal (2004)

"The FT describes this as "the most stinging rebuke ever to a British government by its foreign policy establishment"

This is the same "establishment" that advised Neville Chamberlayne. They're just a bunch of pacifist, lefty, appeasers.

NO ONE OF THAT ILK HAS EVER BEEN RIGHT ABOUT ANYTHING... EVER! ESPECIALLY IN MATTERS OF WAR AND PEACE.

Adrian

This makes me think of a running joke contributed to the "Car Talk" radio program by a listener concerning its hosts Tom and Ray Magliozzi. It posed the question: is it possible for two people who don't know what they're talking about to know even less than one. Tony Blair is clearly much more intelligent than our "war president" and he would be wise to distinguish himself, by distancing himself, from the real fool in charge, our beloved president.

"The FT is hardly a radical rag, given to frequent rants...."

Wingnut response: We can't possibly refute the argument, so let's attack the source. Let's try: "They once voted Democrat." No, wait that won't work, they're British. Let's try: "They once voted Labour!" No, wait, they support the Tories. Hey, I know, let's compare them to Neville Chamberlain! Nevermind the irrelevance. Nevermind that the FT editors were probably not even alive in 1938. Nevermind that FT would have supported Churchill in 1938. Let's just say: "This is the same 'establishment' that advised Neville Chamberlayne [make sure to misspell the name in a symbolic gesture of loyalty to our Dear Leader]. They're just a bunch of pacifist, lefty, appeasers."

Yeah, that's the ticket! That'll confuse the issue!

The Guardian's story on the diplomats' letter has a wonderful remark in the first paragraph:

"Attempts to liken the diplomats' letter to the open attack against Margaret Thatcher's policies signed by 364 economists in 1980 are wide of the mark. Economists are forever promoting their views in public."

( http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/cgi-bin/mt_2004/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=723 )

Adrian-- have you stopped to figure out how old anyone would have to be now to have been a member of the British establishment in 1939--
let alone having stayed in power through WW II?

Cann't you come up with anything better than that.

I know, these are the same people that told Kerry they wanted him to win the election.
Don't you think you would get a lot further with that claim.

Beware the British establishment at your peril.

It brought down Margaret Thatcher, arguably it brought down Harold Wilson.

As you say this is not America. Britain is fundamentally a far more centralised nation. It is as if the President were elected by the Congress, and the entire civil service, military and policy apparatus all derived from the 7 Ivy League universities.

"Yeah, that's the ticket! That'll confuse the issue!

Posted by Wingnut"

No smart lefty ever wants to admit that a prior failure of his philosophy or his candidates has anything to do, whatsoever, with today's situation because they all realize that their philosophy has never ever benn right about anything.

Please show me an example from history where a pacifistic restrained policy has been effective against a determined and evil enemy.

Adrian

PS I know you guys don't believe in evil, just humour me on this one.

Adrian

"No smart lefty ever wants to admit that a prior failure of his philosophy or his candidates has anything to do, whatsoever, with today's situation because they all realize that their philosophy has never ever benn right about anything."

I believe that the technical term for what Adrian is doing is 'Freudian projection'.

There are actually 8 Ivy League universities.

None of you lefty academic geniuses has yet shown me an example from history where a pacifistic restrained policy has been effective against a determined and evil enemy.

THIS IS SIMPLY BECAUSE THERE IS NONE. You lefties should leave foreign policy to the grownups.

Adrian

>You lefties should leave foreign policy to the grownups.

Yeah. Grownups kill better, more often, and without remorse.

Go find some nice warnography and have a nice wargasm.

Apologies for having posted a link to this comments section. The appropriate link is http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,3604,1204710,00.html.

Adrian wrote, "Please show me an example from history where a pacifistic restrained policy has been effective against a determined and evil enemy."

What a setup, Adrian! If someone gives you an example, you'll simply protest that the enemy was evidently either not sufficiently "determined" or sufficiently "evil" or both, so the example would not apply. And, by the way, when did you stop beating your wife?

Adrian, setting aside the "determined and evil enemy" rhetoric for a moment, perhaps it is up to you to demonstrate first that Saddam Hussein was, in fact, a real threat to the US (without quoting from the Bush administration).

I'll bite: The Cold War. Clue: it was cold.

And was the British FP establishment really united behind old Neville in 1938? (I honestly have no idea.) I seem to remember from that Lukacs book Five Days In London that Neville himself had reconsidered his policy within a few months after Munich. -- less time than has elapsed since the beginning of this war.

"What a setup, Adrian! If someone gives you an example, you'll simply protest that the enemy was evidently either not sufficiently "determined" or sufficiently "evil" or both, so the example would not apply...
Posted by Handy Fuse"

Can't you try? I'll give you a hint. I'm looking for enemies like Sadaam, Osama, Ho Chi, Adolf, Hirohito, Josef, Sulemein, etc.

Adrian

"I'll bite: The Cold War. Clue: it was cold."

Not to the poor souls murdered by the Commies. Hint: The Commies murdered more than twice the number of people murdered by the Nazis and Imperial Japanese.

I wonder why the lefty media never refers to that sad fact.

Adrian

If Adrian whozit examines David Kay's report on the Iraq weapons, (s)he will find an example of an effective policy that was relatively pacifistic and restrained. That is, the weapons of interest were dismantled and not restored or retained.

(this provides an alternative form of wiggling away for Adrian, since the policy may not have been sufficiently pacifistic or restrained to pass muster)

But I'm curious about this "Sulemein" business...please elaborate.

It is not now just a matter of "a letter 52 former ambassadors and international officials have written to Tony Blair telling him he is damaging UK (and western) interests by backing George W. Bush's misguided policies in the Middle East." Others have started to rake over Tony Blair's record as prime minister.

There was his early enthusiasm on becoming PM in 1997 for Britain to sign up to the Euro to be "at the heart of Europe". Fortunately, we have so far managed to avoid becoming entangled with the flagging economic performance of the Eurozone, which has achieved higher rates of both inflation and unemployment than Britain as well as slower GDP growth since launch of the Euro in January 1999. But then in February 1998, more than a 150 German professors of economics wrote an open letter to the Financial Times urging the German government to postpone engagement in European monetary union: http://www.internetional.se/9802brdpr.htm

At Britain's last general election in 2001, Tony Blair was committed to the reform of the public services. Not much has come of that despite a massive increase in government spending on the public services:

"Since Labour was elected in 1997, total public spending has risen almost 50% to £459 billion. But the research found the taxpayer, hit by a series of stealth taxes, had not received value for money. Much of the cash had been swallowed up by an inefficient bureaucracy and inflation-busting pay rises for civil servants." - from:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8122-1088598,00.html

"TONY BLAIR’S pledge to improve Britain’s public services has been dealt a blow by a leaked cabinet document that shows their efficiency has collapsed since he took power. The government has pumped extra tens of billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money into the NHS, schools and police forces but the confidential memo reveals that productivity in the public sector has slumped by 10% since 1997." - from: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8122-1088597,00.html

Last week, he announced a dramatic U-turn on having a national referendum before Britain signs up to a new Constitution for the European Union after he and cabinet ministers had been telling us for many months that the proposed Constitution was just a "tidying-up" exercise so a referendum wasn't appropriate. The relevant insight into the merits of the Constitution is this recent assessment in the Financial Times by Sam Brittan, doyen of economic columnists in Britain and brother of Leon Brittan, who was Vice-President of the European Commission 1989-93: http://www.samuelbrittan.co.uk/text183_p.html

The interesting thing is that all sorts of other people have also popped up to register their opposition to the Constitution who are not remotely connected with the usual band of suspect Eurosceptics:

"Mr Blair faces further embarrassment today when his former economics adviser says he would vote against any new EU constitution that 'remotely' resembled the current draft. Derek Scott said: 'If the referendum is on a constitution that looks remotely like the one in December, I think that not only I but a great many British people will be voting against it.'" - from: http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=515023

One especially persuasive reason for being cautious about ever closer integration in Europe is the growing cost burden on business of the seemingly unending stream of new regulatory legislation in Europe:

"Figures released today by the British Chambers of Commerce reveal that the cost to businesses of regulations introduced since 1997 has rocketed to £30bn, a rise of 46 per cent. In 2003 British business was faced with the bill for an extra £9bn." - from: http://www.chamberonline.co.uk/cmn/viewdoc.jsp?cat=all&docid=BEP1_pressrel_0000063093

Another reason for caution is that last year, the European Court of Auditors refused to endorse the Commission's accounts for the ninth year in succession through to 2002, which didn't altogether surprise those who closely follow European news: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3279675.stm

Last summer, reports surfaced of large scale fraud in connection with Eurostat, the European Commission's statistical service, lack of diligence on the part of OLAF, the Commission's anti-fraud office, and of insider trading based on prior knowledge of grain prices posted for the Common Agricultural Policy. Readers here may recall that in March 1999, all the Commissioners resigned following an adverse report by an expert panel into fraud, nepotism and maladministration in the Commission.

On his record as prime minister, Tony Blair appears to have a remarkable talent for making deeply flawed political judgements on major issues.

Brad,

You've been cutting back on your weeding.

Blair's is an interesting case. There is obviously more anti-war feeling in the Uk than in the US. There have been massive demonstrations against the war. There are prominent members of the elite who are vocal in their criticisms. Yet no-one (except perhaps Michael Howard) believes that Blair will not be reelected.

Largely this is because Blair leads a party nominally on the left (in practice, too, on many issues, actually on the left). There were a million people demonstrated against the war. Perhaps thousands of them will consider voting for the Conservatives. More will vote for the Liberal Democrats. Others will sit, glumly, on their hands. Some will, despite the war, vote Labour.

So, despite these reports, it may well be that George Bush will lose office before Tony Blair.

"Beware the British establishment at your peril.
It brought down Margaret Thatcher, arguably it brought down Harold Wilson."

Thatcher and Wilson both, in different ways, lost power because they lost popular support. The fact that this manifests itself in different ways in the US and UK systems does not change that fact. The idea that 'the establishment' did for Thatcher is an extraordinary reading of the events which led her own supporters to lose confidence in her ability to lead them to victory in another election.

And the UK is not (or has not been) a federal nation, so in some senses of course it is more centralised. But in the short term, every British prime minister is more exposed to fluctuations of public and political opinion than any American president.

Adrian,

You're shifting topic. Vastly.

The point is that the British (those horrible lefties, from your point of view) are upset that they are being treated as a client states instead of as allies. When they see the US acting badly in Iraq, they don't have any influence to modify what the US does, yet they are still expected to front up with troops.

Since no-one is seriously advocating complete pacifism against terrorists, why should any of us defend such a position?

The British FP people you are criticizing advocate careful, restrained, targetted use of violence. They think what the US is doing in Iraq is like a dentist with a Sledge-Hammer, and they'd prefer to an alliance that acts like a surgeon with a scalpel. Calling such people pacifists shows either desperate ignorance on your part (have you never met a real pacifist?), or a deliberate attempt to confuse the issue.

The British didn't edge towards peace over Northern Ireland by invading Dublin, or by sending SAS special forces teams into the US to kill those rich Americans who were funding the Provo IRA. Defusing a terrorist movement requires a very careful balance between violence and restraint.

meno

God knows, I don't like Blair at all, but the diplomats' letter didn't offer any constructive solutions and the signatories didn't include every, or even most, senior British Middle East diplomats. The Times and the Telegraph both blew the letter and its signatories off in their Comment and Editorial pages. Says the Telegraph in a splendid piece of British condescension:

"But even more impressive is the list of those who didn't add their names – no former heads of the diplomatic service, or ex-ambassadors to Washington and Brussels. The signatories include 15 "Sirs", but no "Lords". Even some of the best-known Arabists are missing"

The FT is fairly conservative economically, but not particularly conservative socially or when it comes to foreign policy. They have always been far more sceptical of the war in Iraq than the Times or the Telegraph. The diplomats' letter will be forgotten in a few days, unlike the mess over a European constitution or Blair's poor performance on public services.

The best part about the Internet is how I learn new things every day. For example, today I learned that Neville Chamberlain, former head of the Tory party, was a leftist.

Considering that Iraq only exists because of British foreign policy, I'd say irony is piquant (or the self-unawareness complete).

So Patrick rematerializes, with an utterly ridiculous irrelevancy? Way to go! Iraq exists because Britain and France carved up the Ottoman Empire like a piece of cake way back yonder in 1920, during which it was just a wee bit difficult to foresee the present-day problems resulting from it. Presumably he's saying that the Brits of the time (including Churchill, by the way) should have been (A) clairvoyant in the way they divided it, or (B) willing to reconstitute the Ottoman Empire as a single unified entity hostile to both Britain and France? (It should also be noted, of course, that their major critic at the time was Woodrow Wilson, who wanted -- roll of drums -- a separate Kurdistan. On that point he was correct, and our current gang of governing idiots are wrong.)

I will say, though, that Patrick spells a lot better than Adrian, and does manage to think somewhat better, too. This, however, is not difficult. Er, Adrian, those British foreign-policy professionals are hardly recommending that the West run home militarily and hide under the bed in the confrontation with Islamic Fascism. (Neither did Chamberlain think that about Hitler, for that matter -- he just made the strategic misjudgment of giving the SOB one last chance too many to avoid war altogether. When Hitler passed it up by invading Poland, Chamberlain immediately declared war on him.)What these Brits are saying -- like ever so many of us War Liberals (and a rapidly growing number of American War Conservatives) is that the Bush Administration has disastrously bungled its strategy so far and, in the process, bled off a huge amount of the US military strength that we are going to need very quickly elsewhere. Starting, I imagine, in Iran, and maybe in North Korea.

PJ - The signatories to the letter included Britain's former ambassador to the United Nations:

"One of the UK diplomats who signed a letter to the British prime minister on Middle East policy says he thinks it may have changed the political situation. Sir Crispin Tickell, formerly British ambassador to the United Nations, was speaking to BBC News Online.

"He said he and the 51 other signatories had acted because they were dismayed at the conduct of policy." - from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3664037.stm

It was entirely predictable that every effort would be made to label and smear the signatories.

How does Blair keep from going crazy, from having to put up with this guy? See below. (punch line at end)

U.S. Warplane Fires on Fallujah Targets

April 28, 2004

Guerrilla attacks broke out in at least three neighborhoods of Fallujah that had been relatively quiet during the past three days... U.S. response intensified: when a Marine was wounded, warplanes dropped 10 laser-guided bombs — most of them 500-pound bombs but at least one 1,000 pound — on buildings that were the source of guerrilla fire, Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne said.

At least twice, AC-130 gunships opened up on guerrilla positions with their heavy cannons.

Throughout the day, the sound of each battle was heard — the rattle of gunfire and the thud of mortars — then came the noise that often marked Marine strikes to put an end to the fight: heavy explosions, raising flames and palls of smoke.

Guerrillas fired on a train station just outside the city's northern edge, prompting a battle in the Golan neighborhood, an insurgent bastion. Fighting also erupted on the northeast, southeast and in the center of the city.

The extent of the battle was difficult to gauge. Witnesses reported at least 25 buildings wrecked by fighting. Hospitals only counted 10 wounded Iraqis, but ambulances could not reach areas where fighting was going on, and residents reported large numbers of dead and wounded.

... President Bush ... said ****"MOST OF FALLUJAH IS RETUNRING TO NORMAL."****

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=1&u=/ap/20040429/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_34

(note asterisks and caps added by ed. of this comment)

RETURNING

I don't want to misquote the President.

"None of you lefty academic geniuses has yet shown me an example from history where a pacifistic restrained policy has been effective against a determined and evil enemy."

I agree. We should have nuked Cuba when we had the chance back in 1962.

Dear Adrian,
A successful but pacifist policy against an evil and determined empire is of course the Christian martyrs who not only took on Rome, but ultimately consumed it such that a Pope reigns two thousand years after the fall of the mighty caesars. So do you think we can give Jesus a chance? Peace.

Gandhi. Mandela.

Gandhi and Mandela are hardly relevant to dealing with the likes of Saddam (and Mandela, like George Washington, was hardly hesitant about favoring armed force if that's what it took to liberate his country) -- but then Adrian's idiotic analogy was hardly relevant to the new British war critics, either. (Not a peep from him, I see, about the "Greeks to Our Romans" thread below in which Max Hastings -- military expert, former editor of the Daily Telegraph, and enthusiastic internationalist hawk -- compares Bush to a drunken motorcycle rider with a helpless Blair stuck in his sidecar, and refers with bloodcurdling accuracy to Bush's "vacuous grin and impregnable moral conceit". There will always be an England, or at least there will apparently always be an England which loves lethally pointed quips about politicians. Let me add that if the Roman Empire had actually been led by the likes of Bush, Hannibal could probably have conquered it with one elephant.)

Afterthought on Patrick: if he's going to attack the Brits of 1920 for their idiotic failure to foresee the exact military problems of 2004, I do wish he'd comment a bit on the way that the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations -- including Rumsfeld and Powell, in particular -- sucked up enthusiastically to Saddam while he was commiting genocide AFTER the end of the Iran-Iraq War, until the exact moment when he stabbed them in the back by invading Kuwait.

As a confirmed anglophobe, I find the letter devastating to the PM. Blair obviously thought he had taken the measure of Mr. Bush -- an unintellectual boob -- and supposed (big mistake) that he could influence the boob and his boobocrats. He made a huge mistake, for himself and for Britain. He confirmed the suspicion in France and to a lesser extent in Germany (and obviously now in Spain) that Britain is not trustworthy when it comes to Europe. At the same time, he got nothing for his support, which was vital to selling the war to the American public. He got conned. The professional politicians in Britain are perfectly aware of this, and so is most of the labour party. The surprising thing is that he hasn't got canned for this miserable performance.

He thought he was better than he is. It's a human mistake, but nonetheless a mistake. And this was is costly to Britain. If it weren't for the utter incomopetence and ideological asininity of the British Conservative Party, he would be out by now.

A "tough guy" like Adrian (or Bush) would have probably gone Doug MacArthur/Curtis Lemay during the Cold War and caused a disaster which would make WWII look like a little league game. We're fortunate that we had wiser leaders back then, and that the challenges we face under our current leadership are relatively minor.

Oh, FYI, we won the Cold War with only two real flareups. We didn't have to invade Russia and China to do so.

And regarding our coziness with Saddam 20 years ago, he was the lesser of the two evils compared to the Iranian Shiite theocracy, which really was a supporter of terrorism against the US. Since he was at least semi-rational, he's probably still preferable to the Islamists who are likely to wind up controlling Iraq, thanks to Bush's folly (if you disagree with that prognostication, give it a few years and see).

Another stimulating conversation with Patrick and Adrian. I could kick myself for having missed it. Certainly if they weren't here nothing interesting would be said; we'd just have one of our usual Marxist-Leninist circle jerks, led by Comrade DeLong. They really keep us on our toes!

"Afterthought on Patrick: if he's going to attack the Brits of 1920 for their idiotic failure to foresee the exact military problems of 2004, I do wish he'd comment a bit on the way that the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations -- including Rumsfeld and Powell, in particular -- sucked up enthusiastically to Saddam while he was commiting genocide AFTER the end of the Iran-Iraq War, until the exact moment when he stabbed them in the back by invading Kuwait."

And I would like to see how he would joke his way out of contemporary US support for the Talibans (and the CIA training of Bin Laden). Now, that was foresight! Surely, Pakistan is a much better regime than Iraq was/is, and it has no hostile intentions whatsoever towards its neighbours, and no nuclear weapons either. They're not religious fanatics and they treat their women like ladies. That's right, they're our best friends, those who are hosting Bin Laden. Now, I am not advocating attacking them (how pacifist of mine!) because I'd like to keep that snake pit tighly closed. But applying neo-conservative thinking at face value, they should be our primary target. Or should it be other best friends Saudi Arabia, but only after it has guarenteed Dear Leader's reelection?

"And regarding our coziness with Saddam 20 years ago, he was the lesser of the two evils compared to the Iranian Shiite theocracy, which really was a supporter of terrorism against the US. Since he was at least semi-rational, he's probably still preferable to the Islamists who are likely to wind up controlling Iraq, thanks to Bush's folly (if you disagree with that prognostication, give it a few years and see)."

Indeed. Osama "Dead or Alive" Bin Laden could have never dreamed of a sweater victory. You want me to cut my hand, uh? Look at how strong and bold I am: I am cutting off my whole arm! Yeaaaah!

To RPS: one can make a case for holding our noses very tightly and reluctantly siding with Al Capone over Torqumada during the Iran-Iraq War -- after all, we sided with Stalin over Hitler. But, as Peter Galbraith points out in his absolutely superb NY Review of Books article on the need to partition Iraq, that still leaves absolutely no excuse for our refusing to utter a single word of criticism of Saddam AFTER that war had ended and he was still enthusiasticlly gassing Kurds and Shiites by the hundreds of thousands. Morality aside, how the hell did that make us look to the rest of the Moslem world (and particularly to the Kurds and Shiites)?

P.S. but then again rps, it would have made a wee little more sense to give weapons to only one side. Ask this to who is in charge of building up secret files on us... By the way, can someone tell me how to get off that stupid must-body-search-three-times-before-boarding-a-plane list? It's annoying especially when you are flying alone with your 2 year old, who does not understand why she has to be seperated from her daddy... And if you're reading this, could you please speed up my overseas mail. Six weeks + for a Easter bunny is a bit over the top, don't you think? Sure, Paul Krugman's Great Unraveling was travelling along, but this is still a free country, right? %-7

Notwithstanding mounting evidence, it would be incorrect IMO to believe that America has a monopoly among the liberal-democracies on reversion to Byzantine tendencies among its leading politicians.

"Health Secretary John Reid said [today] he had no doubts about Mr Blair's intention to stay in Downing Street, 'God and the electorate willing'." - from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3668425.stm

"Born in Lanarkshire in 1947, John Reid comes from Catholic mining stock. His father was a postman and his mother a factory worker, but he broke away from his roots thanks to hard work and a good education. This culminated in a doctorate in economic history at Stirling University: a well-informed and sometimes brilliant analyst, Dr Reid is no dim central belt machine politician.

"He joined the Communist party in 1973, leaving it to become a professional Labour party activist with close links to Neil Kinnock [who was Labour Party leader 1983-92 and is presently Vice-president of the European Commission]. He reaped his reward in 1987 when he won the ultrasafe seat of Motherwell North (now Hamilton North and Bellshill). He voted for Tony Blair as party leader in 1994 and by the end of that year was deputy spokesman on defence." - from: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/profiles/story/0,9396,459854,00.html

When Dr Reid, in his capacity as Labour Party chairman in 2002, was asked for comment on the donation to the Party of UKP 100,000 by the publisher of pornographic magazines, he replied: "If you are asking if we are going to sit in moral judgment, in political judgment, on those who wish to contribute to the Labour party, then the answer to that is no." - from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2357617.stm

News about the donor can be found here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/1984083.stm

By other reports, it seems that the donor has recently switched his political allegiance from the Labour Party to the Conservative Party.

Jean-Phillipe- to the sort of people who vet you, the combination of a girls name, with a misspelled boy's name is obvious signs of a stupid terrorist, appart from changing your name, which would be sad, you are stuck!

"PJ - The signatories to the letter included Britain's former ambassador to the United Nations"

Your point being? The former ambassador to a mostly powerless, wasteful and apparently partly criminal talking shop hardly compares in importance with an ambassador to Washington or Brussels or a head of the diplomatic service.

[Yes I know Brussels is wasteful and partly criminal too, but it is not powerless unfortunately].

British policy in the Middle East will change not one iota because of this letter, and not only because it doesn't contain any constructive suggestions. It has convinced only the already convinced. As I have said before, I don't like Bliar at all, but there have been more effective attacks on his Iraq policy, particularly by Robin Cook and Clare Short.

I'm sort of wondering whether it is more likely that Labour finally ousts Blair, or that the Tories add a little Ameriskepticism to their Euroskepticism & start advocating a "Britain First" policy (ideally with some Asian faces doing some of the advocating) - something which from this distance looks like it could work, or at least work as well as Toryism is working now, electorally speaking.

This thread is a perfect example of why you lefties are wrong about everything.

You readily accept other lefty's malicious characterizations of conservatives as facts and then use those MCs as data points in simple causal chains to PROVE YOUR POINTS.

Unfortunately, this silliness damages us all because it works on the great unwashed allowing you simpletons to gain power in democracies, while there is, demonstrably, absolutely no relation between this lefty "analysis" and reality.

As an aside, I apologize to the Junior College graduates on this blog who like to point out my occasional spelling errors. Please direct your limited intellectual resources to pressuring Prof. Delong to add a spell checker to his wonderful opus.

Adrian the Wise

Now here's a fine example of conservative analysis:

http://www.catsprn.com/cowboys.htmfine

Adrian, TIC

Dumb, Dumbest
Now’s a time to make sense — at minimum.

By William F. Buckley Jr.

In l962 Michael Di Salle was running for governor of Ohio. It was a season in which U.S. officials were calling out an alarm against possible air attacks. Governor Rockefeller came close to writing into the New York State building code a requirement that new houses have individual bomb shelters, and he led the way by constructing a shelter in his own home and office. There was the problem of the huge expense of public bomb shelters. The Republican candidate in Ohio promised a $100 million program to provide these shelters if he was elected.

Democratic contender Mike Di Salle, something of a humorist, called a press conference. He would announce his own program for bomb shelters which would cost the state a mere $5,000. The press met him eagerly, and he explained what he would do. Namely construct two huge arrows at $2,500 each, visible high in the air. One, pointing northwest in neon lights would be labeled DETROIT. The second, pointing west, would be labeled CHICAGO. Why would bombers pause over Cleveland?

That lesson in nice, reductionist, idiomatic thought brings to mind the current impasse. It is vividly introduced by the April 26 headline on the front page of the New York Times: "MILITANTS IN EUROPE OPENLY CALL/ FOR JIHAD AND THE RULE OF ISLAM." The lengthy dispatch speaks of young Arab militants, beginning with one representative group in Luton, England. Some of its members are quoted: "They say they would like to see Prime Minister Tony Blair dead or deposed and an Islamic flag hanging outside No. 10 Downing Street."

They go on, like other Muslim militants quoted in the story, to "swear allegiance to Osama bin Laden and his goal of toppling Western democracies to establish an Islamic superstate under Shariah law.... They call the Sept. 11 hijackers the 'Magnificent 19.'" An Islamic leader in Hamburg is quoted: "My impression is that Muslims have become more and more angry against the United States."

These are not playboys of the kind who merely talk about terrorism. One of the Muslim clerics quoted in the story is accused of having coached Richard Reid, the Brit who boarded a trans-Atlantic flight carrying explosives in one of his shoes. One knot of Muslim extremists, last March, was intercepted with 1,200 pounds of ammonium nitrate. Five of these Pakistani-Britons have been charged with trying to build a terrorist bomb.

Over the weekend, a commentator for National Public Radio spoke of the bombs here and there exploded over the last decade, one of them in the basement of the Twin Towers, another alongside the destroyer USS Cole. In order to fight terrorists, the analyst said, "you have to fight them." For instance, we might have invaded Afghanistan, the al Qaeda headquarters: but that would not have been permitted by Congress. A second way would have been an intense economic blockade. This, however, would have been ineffective in the absence of international cooperation, which was not forthcoming. Finally, an intense security screening of young Arabs would have been appropriate, but this would not have been sanctioned by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The story quotes British authorities who say that laws to protect religious expression and civil liberties have the effect of limiting what they can do to interfere with seditious speech. The British are left with the weapon of deportation. "Though the British home secretary, David Blunkett, has sought to strip Abu Hamza of his British citizenship and deport him, the legal battle has dragged on for years while Abu Hamza keeps calling down the wrath of God."

Over here, you're not supposed to single people out for scrutiny on the basis of ethnic background. Ann Coulter, in her recent book Treason, illustrated the point. "In early December 2001, 60 Minutes host Steve Kroft interviewed [Transportation Secretary Norman] Mineta about his approach to securing the airlines from terrorist attack. Kroft observed that of twenty-two men currently on the FBI's most-wanted list, 'all but one of them has complexion listed as olive. They all have dark hair and brown eyes. And more than half of them have the name Mohammed.' Thus, he asked Mineta if airport security should give more scrutiny to someone named Mohammed — 'just going down a passenger manifest list: Bob, Paul, John, Frank, Steven, Mohammed.' The secretary of transportation said, 'No.' In fact, Mineta was mystified by Kroft's question, asking him, 'Why should Mohammed be singled out?'"

Such edging out of sensible action, for fear of offending the protocols of political correctness, shows its face again in the problem the British have in distinguishing freedom of religion from seditious recruitment. The Brits are hardly alone: We have been kicking the case of Zacarias Moussaoui up and down the judicial corridors for more than two years. Prosecutors think he was the 20th man of what became the 19-man team that executed 9/11.

The languor of the law that protects minorities and minority opinion can be beautiful. It can also be plain dumb, as when old ladies are forced to pull off their shoes at airport security, when the arrows are out there clearly pointing at Detroit and Chicago.

PJ - "Your point being? The former ambassador to a mostly powerless, wasteful and apparently partly criminal talking shop [ie the United Nations] hardly compares in importance with an ambassador to Washington or Brussels or a head of the diplomatic service."

But that is not how Tony Blair regarded the United Nations and that is surely what counted in making the appointment to Britain's ambassador.

In a keynote speech to the Chicago Economic Club in April 1999, Tony Blair said: " . . If we want a world ruled by law and by international co-operation then we have to support the UN as its central pillar. . . " - from: http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?cp=4&kaid=128&subid=187&contentid=829

Which only goes to show.

Bob - the diplomat in question was NOT appointed by Tony Blair - he was appointed by Margaret Thatcher in 1987. Margaret Thatcher had even less time for international institutions (except NATO) than I do.

I also think that Blair has paid lip-service to the UN, as long as it does what he wants. Words cost nothing. But if he really respected it, surely he wouldn't have gone to war when he didn't get the second resolution through? Why go to the bother of tabling a second resolution if you don't need it, but then if you need it, why go to war anyway? Blair only needed the UN to give legitimacy to his actions.

Anyway, I stand by my main point - there are no REALLY important ex-diplomats in the list.

I agree enthusiastically with Buckley on this point, Adrian. Now tell me: what does it have to do with Iraq?

As for Moussaoui: the problem there -- as Dahlia Lithwick has been describing in detail in her "Slate" column over the last few days (and as has been pointed out in a bit less detail by literally every other newspaper) is that the White House is arguing, with a straight face, that the president should have ABSOLUTE dictatorial power to throw anyone he names in the clink with no double-check WHATSOEVER on whether he is violating their appropriate rights. For as long as "we are at war", anyway -- although this particular war hasn't been officially declared, and although (as Sandra O'Connor took pains to point out while questioning the government's lawyer two days ago) there is no conceivable end to our "war" against terrorism. So, Adrian: are you and Buckley saying merely that we have to come up with new legal mechanisms to cope with our nightmarish new problem (which is very defensible), or are you agreeing with Bush that the President should be allowed to throw anyone he chooses permanently in the clink just on his own say-so from now on? And will you be as enthusiastic about his use of those powers when the President is a Democrat?

Pprobably pointless addendum: I didn't graduate from a "junior college". I graduated from UC-Santa Cruz (B.A. with honors in political science). And, yeah, DeLong also spells much better than you do.

Adrian "You readily accept other lefty's malicious characterizations of conservatives as facts and then use those MCs as data points in simple causal chains to PROVE YOUR POINTS."

Several people gave substantial answers to your arguments that weren't just "malicious characterizations." You wanted someone to give an example of a time when a restrained policy succeeded against an evil opponent and several people did. What are you whining about? Isn't it really because you're obviously wrong but don't want to admit it? And what does the abuse of Western religious tolerance by terrorists have to do with our bungled Iraq policy?

Bruce M - Saddam was still a counterweight to Iran after the war ended, just as South Korea is still a counterweight to North Korea 50 years after the Korean War. As for Saddam's slaughter of civilians, it was repugnant, but the US has never really had much interest in that kind of thing. Unless, of course, we're characterizing an enemy we were going to fight anyway as a bad guy.

Washington Post editorial tonight:

"The proper course for the Supreme Court is to reaffirm that an American who takes up arms against this country may be detained as an enemy combatant but must be given a chance to contest the designation, with timely access to counsel. It is not acceptable that a president can pluck people from the street, designate them enemy combatants and hold them forever with no judicial review."

Amen!

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