Does anyone, other than right-wing hacks, think Obama was “convinced he could end the hostility of the Iranian mullahs, Islamist terrorists, the leaders of China and Russia, and the likes of Hugo Chavez”? Certainly no one who ever listened to what he said, as opposed to caricatures thereof. What utter bollocks. http://bit.ly/9gQthD
That is what they call “moving the goalposts”. If the party in office is having some success, then the opposition party needs to redefine success as something more difficult to prevent the party in office claiming credit for doing a good job, and increasing their chance of staying in office beyond the next election.
The Republicans are also doing this on the economic front, by trying to convince people that Obama’s stimulus package failed by citing poor economic numbers (namely high unemployment). Naturally, Obama’s people counter with how much worse things would have been without the stimulus.
I’m not trying to pick one side or the other, just citing that this pattern is S.O.P. in American politics. The quote you pulled was a particularly egregious example!
The left did the same thing with Bush. If there was a successful election in Iraq, then it wasn’t really successful because the turnout was X instead of Y. If the economy was running well it wasn’t running well enough because whatever statistic was high enough.
There is nothing wrong with that – I think it is part of the job of the “loyal opposition” to try and point out where the president is doing a bad job. It is up to us (the voters) to figure out who is the most full of shit.
Today, Michael Barone was the most full of shit.
Hmmm, tell me again the candidate who said, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for!”?
Obama threw Honduras under the bus to curry favor with Chavez; he canceled missile defense plans in Poland and curtailed missile defense in general to assuage the Russians; he campaigned on opening direct dialogue with Iran and North Korea; and his administration repeatedly echoed the familiar trope that Israeli “settlements” and general meanness to the Palestinians is what is holding back peace in the Middle East.
I think Barone hit the nail on the head. Even “right-wing hacks” are right every once in a while — especially when it comes to diagnosing the errors of an administration that has veered left-liberal, with the only surprise being how fast it has alienated the public (after Obama was elected, most of us figured 2010 would be a stepping stone to closing the gap on the Dems, not shape up to become a pro-GOP washout).
Totally taking the bait – I’ve actually been thinking a bit lately that Obama’s position on the Palestinian question is closer to America’s interest than Bush’s or the traditional neo-con position. Just a quick aside: one reason I have a bit of sympathy for Sandy’s “we need no military” argument is that, while we certainly need some military, the danger of a huge military is the implicit need to use it, whether we need to or not. One could argue that influences in Israel put them in the same position.
But back to the Palestinians: a minor rationale for the tolerance of settlements in the West Bank, plus (more dramatically) the huge asymetric response in Gaza in late 2008 is the intolerability of violations such as the constant Qassam rocket attacks into southern Israel. Were a contrarian to point out that those rockets have claimed 8 civilian Israeli lives in 8 years, the neo-con cabal would accuse them of spinelessness or worse. I’m not particularly interested in that argument.
The neocons are philosophically correct – absolutely so – in saying that Democracy is the Only Answer. Indeed, if the great Israel experiment is still existing in 500 years, I think most folks would say that Gaza/West Bank have to be modern democratic states in order for Israelis and Palestinians to survive side by side for a half-millenium; probably Gaza/West Bank have to have been Democratic for as much as the last 400 of those 500 years. A Gaza state in its current despair, 500 years hence, will likely have access to the kind of scary ordnance that might allow a kid on a bus to annihilate Israel. So Gaza circa 2500 can probably not look like Gaza 2010 and have Israel be thriving. I think everyone mostly agrees with that.
The issue is what has to happen to get there. Democratic reform is not simple, it requires time and institutions and infrastructure, political, legal, cultural, financial, etc. Gaza today is a heck of a long way from the infrastructure necessary to allow it to live in peace as a modern state next to Israel.
Making matters worse is that Gaza’s Arab neighbors aren’t particuarly interested in helping them develop. Palestinians are the dregs of the Arab world, considering that Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran etc. cannot fight a conventional war with Israel without getting their asses kicked, a despairing Gaza is a great anti-Israeli proxy for them. So Gaza’s Arab neighbors don’t want the Palestinians to make progress.
While America also has a strong interest in long-term Gaza development, we are historically deferential to Israel. Beyond us there’s not really another country in a position to see to Gaza making the development journey necessary for its, and Israel’s, survival. Which leaves you with the following:
-Military actions like Israel’s in Gaza in late 2008 fundamentally destroy infrastructure – of all types.
-Gaza enfranchisement is essential to Israel’s long-term survival.
-No country having the ability to effect change in Gaza is interested in helping lead that change, (outside of, perhaps, Israel).
-The road to development will be uneven and difficult for Gaza. There will be fits and starts…and lots of Qassam rockets between here and there.
-If we accept the Neocon position that Israel has the obligation for asymetric military activity against Gaza in response to Qassam rockets, then eventually Gaza, Israel…and maybe also the US, are undoubtedly f*****.
I’m suspicious of the possibility that neocons throw out a commitment to democracy because a) its ideologically correct and b) it throws people off the scent of military hegemony. Are neocons concerned about what will lead to Israel’s long-term stability and well-being in the region, or are they more concerned with stoking vengeance paranoia, for political and economic/military industrial gain?
To be clear, I don’t follow this that closely, so you could say, well what about the (whatever) protocol, isn’t Obama wrong about that? And I’d be like, don’t know dude. Just making the argument that Obama’s position on the Palestinian question is not as philosophically obviously wrong for me as your characterization makes it seem.
Jazz, I’ve read more confusing, internally inconsistent, non-ideological babel than what’s found in your comment, I’m just not quite sure when….
Just a quick aside: one reason I have a bit of sympathy for Sandy’s “we need no military” argument is that, while we certainly need some military, the danger of a huge military is the implicit need to use it, whether we need to or not.
Yeah, and how many nuclear wars did we start with that massive nuclear arsenal of ours during the Cold War? Oh that’s right, zero. Logic fail #1.
Were a contrarian to point out that those rockets have claimed 8 civilian Israeli lives in 8 years, the neo-con cabal would accuse them of spinelessness or worse.
Yeah, so I suppose if I roll down the streets shooting an AK-47 into the air recklessly, but only kill 8 people in 8 years, it’s not a big deal, and society is not justified in throwing my ass in jail for life. Logic fail #2.
And how you conclude that rockets fired into Israel have any bearing on religious settlements deep in the heart of the West Bank is Logic fail #3. The religious outposts have to be removed, however, the world also has to be reasonable and respect that natural metropolitan growth patterns that cross the pre-1967 border are NOT “settlements” — they are SUBURBS.
Are neocons concerned about what will lead to Israel’s long-term stability and well-being in the region, or are they more concerned with stoking vengeance paranoia, for political and economic/military industrial gain?
So let me get this straight, conservatives (because 99% of the conservatives who matter are “neo-cons*”) don’t really believe in democracy, just in military hegemony and stoking war between Jews and Arabs? Because it makes us rich? Come again: fomenting conflict in a region of the world on which we depend heavily for vital energy resources controlled in large part by a people hostile to our values is prescriptive for our good economic well-being? Now that’s an epic logic fail.
Overall, it’s apparent you know zilch about the roots and patterns of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the 1930s, Arabs rioted because Jews were legally purchasing Arab lands and putting them to productive use, creating wealth and anchoring a Jewish community in their ancient homeland. During WWII, Arabs sided with Hitler in hopes the alliance would successfully drive the Jews out of Israel. In 1948, the Arabs rejected a peace plan that more or less equally divided the area now known as Israel between Arabs and Jews, with Jerusalem as an independent, international city. When the Jews reacted to this snub by declaring themselves a state anyway, the surrounding Arab countries invaded. Many Arabs left their homes, expecting a quick victory and restoration upon the Jews being expelled. It never happened, and the de facto border created by the ceasefire was a product of military reality on the ground — not alignment of cities, geography, and population. When Israel conquered and controlled the West Bank, Sinai, and Gaza in the Seven Days War of 1967 (and held onto them after the Yom Kippur War), a combination of humanism and religious zionism stoked a policy of both settling the captured lands with Jews, and expending vast amounts of resources to educate and uplift the Palestinian peoples in the misguided hope that this would create a lasting peace between the two peoples. Israel eventually gave Sinai back to Egypt as part of a peace deal (they wanted nothing to do with Gaza); Jordan, which also eventually made peace with Israel, nonetheless had little interest in taking back all or part of the West Bank. In the mean time, the Palestinian Liberation Organization successfully used a relatively lawless Lebanon as a base to launch terrorist attacks against Israelis and Jews around the world, stoking a civil war in the process and inviting an invasion by Israel to restore some semblance of non-chaos. By the time Israel got control of that situation, out-of-control birthrates by Muslim Palestinians fostered unrest, and with the foreign meddling of the PLO along with the sympathy of the Western elite, the first intifada began. That long struggle led Israel to the conclusion that their efforts to “civilize” the Palestinians had failed, that their occupation of Palestinian territories was not conducive to order, and that “land for peace” was the way out (Oslo accords). Yet the more Israel gave away, the firmer Arafat held his ground on the two intransigent issues of 1. East Jerusalem (read: the Old City) as the Palestinian capital (read: Arab control over Jewish access to the Wailing Wall); and the “Right of Return” — that is, the destruction of Israel by the influx of Palestinians and a Muslim demographic destiny. When talks reached a relative stalemate, the Palestinians miscalculated, using the minor provocation of Ariel Sharon touring the Temple Mount as an excuse to begin the Second Intifada. Israelis reacted harshly and overwhelmingly to the annihilation of their vision that peace was actually possible, and turned to a string of leaders who have concluded that Israelis are best: A. treating Palestinian terrorists harshly, and B. getting Jews the hell out of territories dominated by Palestinians so as to reduce the military burden on Israel to protect them. Beyond that, Israel has largely decided that Palestine is up to the Palestinians to figure out, and Israelis are done trying to negotiate with them.
During this same sixty-year arc, Muslims slaughtered Muslims in Algeria; Egypt firmed its status as a despotic, inflexible regime; Iran was overtaken by Shiite zealots; Iraq turned totalitarian and fought neighboring Iran to a standstill, invaded its southern neighbor, and gassed its Shiite and Kurdish population; Afghanistan descended into the barbaric rule of Islamic fundamentalist zealots; Somalia descended into a non-state full of lawless warlords and pirates; and war and terrorism broke out in places in seemingly random places like southern Thailand and southern Philippines, East Timor, Albania / Kosovo, and Chechnya.
And according to Jazz, somehow, all of this is due to the military hegemony of the Jews.
Nice one!
*Wait, I forgot, we have to use the term “neo-con”, because we need to make clear to distinguish traditional, isolationist, realpolitik lines of conservative thinking from that strain of modern conservatism developed by Israel-servicing, traitorous American Jews and swallowed whole by unthinking, backward, ignoramus evangelicals!
Jazz, you’ve officially rationalized yourself off into the deep-end. Enjoy your swim. Try not to drown in the muck you’re spewing.
Yeah Jazz, everyone knows throwing out terms like Neo-Con is only something done by those Socialist, America-hating, brainwashed, Obamabots!
Aside from the Jew-baiting, let me tackle this equally invidious idea that “military hegemony” is the root of our ills. “Hegemony” is a nonsensical word created by leftists to paper over their illogical belief that technological dominance and size are key indicators of how “evil” a military is. The key to maintaining law, order, and peace is and has always been predicated on the ability of the natural authority to demonstrate dominant force. This is true in civilian settings as well. Ergo, you don’t hear sane people arguing, “There are too many cops roaming New York City; the danger of a large police force is the implicit need to use it.”
I suppose we could withdraw our troops from places like Germany, Qatar, and South Korea, as well as mothball our expensive C-17s, F-22s, and aircraft carriers. But then tell me, what’s to stop the Atlantic from turning into the coasts of Somalia writ large? France?!? And Iran, Russia, and China will take advantage of the new vacuum of power to, well, behave? Not bloody likely!
Clearly you have little use for the study of history, statesmanship, and the real, very ugly side of human nature. Your sentiment boils down to the old bumper sticker hack-saying about how much better the world would be if we had bake sales for bombers instead of schools, and is about as intellectually coherent.
Not to mention, after we mothball our C-17s and aircraft carriers, I’d love to know who’s going to deliver medical relief and supplies in a timely manner to places like Haiti after an earthquake, or Indonesia after a tsunami.
And according to Jazz, somehow, all of this is due to the military hegemony of the Jews.
Andrew, the trollishness of that assertion is simply breathtaking. It beggars belief that you can point to a place where I have ever said anything that even – remotely – suggests the conclusion you blithely draw above. Do you have a button on your computer labelled “hyperbole” for posts such as #4 above?
Do you dispute that Israel cannot remain whole 500 years out with Gaza still flailing about, under Israeli blockade? Do you believe that any other Arab state, or other global actor, is interested in or capable of helping facilitate the type of development in Gaza necessary for long-term Israeli security? Do you believe that bombing actions such as Israel’s in Gaza in late 2008 help lead to the conditions in Gaza necessary for Israel’s security, or are they rather antagonistic to Israel’s long-term interests?
Having made the above three arguments, I figured you would fire back with something like: “Well, the Gazans are hopeless anyway”, or perhaps you would have said something like “You can bomb the crap out of Gaza and still have them develop, perhaps like post-WWII Germany”, (because maybe there’s some sort of Marshall Plan in the works for them?), or perhaps you could have just said “Turn Gaza into a parking lot, f*** em”.
Any of these responses would have been interesting, perhaps, and led to a reasonable discussion. More so than the ad-hominems, hyper-defensiveness around terminology like “neo con”…and utter lack of argument on the topic at hand.
Given your extensive knowledge of the Middle East, what is the best thing for Israel in re: Gaza for their long-term security? Other than calling me names?
And one other thing – I admit to legitimate curiosity on this point –
You seem to infer that I was suggesting something normative regarding the need for Israel to take the high road re: Gaza rocket attacks. But I said nothing of the sort; I simply argued that the high road is a necessary pre-requisite for Israel’s long-term survival. There’s no moral judgment there on any of the actors.
You bristled quite a bit at the suggestion of a moral judgment, which admittedly seemed a bit odd, but you left the main question unanswered: can Israel continue to play the tit-for-tat game of “Hamas Qassam rockets-Israeli Massive response-Hamas Qassam rockets-Israeli Massive response-etc etc etc” and sustain their well-being long-term?
I say no, but not because I hate Israel – I just think that Gaza is a cancer that must be dealt with, either way (i.e. death ~ parking lot or cure ~ democratic state). What’s your take on that? I mean straight up, ex the ad hominems.
You already hinted at it: Paving Gaza and relocating its residents to a caring, generous Arab host with lots of oil.
The bottom line is, Gazans have themselves to blame. Israel used to let them come into Israel to work, but then they’d blow themselves up and ruin it for everyone. Then they decided to launch rockets instead. Fortunately they don’t have easy access to the kinds of weapon guidance systems as their Hezbollah friends so up in Bekaa Valley (but according to Jazz, who has apparently adopted my basketball defense motto from when I was a kid, Hey, no blood, no foul!). In any case, Israel is not to blame for the fact that Gazans insist on making so much trouble that not even Egypt will let them cross the border into Sinai.
Sometimes accepting the status quo of people senselessly killing each other in foreign lands is a more correct solution than trying to impose some hare-brained ideological solution that doesn’t take into account the fact that, for whatever reasons, humans often choose to define their existence through misery:
Okay, I am not actually this cyncical — I do hold out hope that someday there can be peace. But trying to impose peace on Gaza from without is impossible; the Palestinians must discover the answer within themselves. Until then, we’re better off letting Israel and Gaza keep throwing sand in each other’s face in their desolate sandbox.
the Palestinians must discover the answer within themselves
Full disclosure: I’m not sure they can. I may be way too pessimistic, but who in the Muslim world will they look to as examples for enlightenment and social progress? Is it not inherently ironic to use the words “Muslim world” and “social progress” in the same sentence?
IMHO, a nuke could devastate an entire region of the US, and given the fact that our institutions of freedom are now so ingrained in our DNA, I think there’s a good chance that the survivors would relatively quickly re-establish institutions of democratic life (law, commerce, etc). Left to their own devices, I’m not sanguine that the Palestinians in Gaza could get there in 1000 years.
But, for me, that’s the catch-22 Israel faces. On the one hand, Gaza might be utterly hopeless. On the other, fledgling social institutions in Gaza are probably more damaged by heavy artillery than comparable, stronger ones in the US would be. So what should Israel do? Its a very tricky situation, and the clock is ticking to the day when the Palestinian terrorist on a Tel Aviv bus can do grave, catastrophic damage to the entire state of Israel.
Which, getting back to the original post, is why I think Obama – generally – may not be totally off base in taking a relatively more harsh approach with Israeli hawks. This is also slightly offtopic, but if nothing else I like Obama’s approach because it flies in the face of emotion – most Christians (read: the people who hold the G-8’s resources) hold a special place in their hearts for Israel, and everyone on the planet – really except for the residents therein – hates the Palestinians.
When faced with a tricky situation like what to do about Gaza, where every emotion pulls us toward the simple solution (bomb the hell out of the Gazans), perhaps its good to have a guy like Obama if for no other reason than to make us question what….just…feels….so…right………
Finally, one other other thing – when I wrote that stuff about neocons stoking revenge paranoia, it would have been more appropriate to write something like
“Some individuals probably exploit the emotional bias toward heavy action against the hated Palestinians in Gaza for their own personal or political gain, which actions are arguably against the long-term interests of Israel”.
That sentence would have been more accurate, but I am a sucker – especially stream of consciousness – for writing words like “neocons stoking revenge paranoia”. No offense intended; I just can’t help myself.
Until my late 30’s, I was a very strong supporter of the Palestinians. In my youth I represented them in International Model United Nations, made several visits to the PLO consulate in London and in college I joined the Palestinian Cultural Club. I still believe the Palestinians were given a raw deal by the British especially and by the Zionists.
However in the past 15 years the Palestinian leadership has shown itself to be unwilling to work for a lasting peace. I suspect this is largely due to the influence of Iran.
Israel absolutely has the right to preserve itself. At some point this may include de-populating Gaza one way or another. I still have hopes that the West Bank may one day accept peace and co-existence.
However soon all this will seem inconsequential. I firmly believe that Israel will attack Iran’s nuclear facilities within the next 18 months.