A Running Diary of Thought

This site made possible by:

 

the skeptic Goes on Vacation!

Will Return on March 24th

posted at 2:47 PM |

 

Regional Talks? No Talks? Private Talks? Loud Talks?--ah, Screw It!

Robert Greene makes a good case for upping the level of importance of the North Korean crisis. He, like Power, cites the U.S.'s inconsistency as being the cause of global grumblings.

But, as the skeptic has previously pointed out, consistency is difficult--even if it's not overrated.

P.S. Has anyone seen a really good article about what the U.S. position toward N. Korea should be? Talk loud or not at all? At what point do we give up this charade of waiting for the regional powers to weigh in?

P.P.S. A friend suggested we pull all of our troops out of South Korea, let Japan nuclearize, and watch the North and South come together. A little too optimistic, no?

posted at 3:51 PM |

 
Notable: An interesting TNR article from Drezner suggests that the "democracy won't be easy" crowd needs to refine their arguments... And, it's worth reading, because this is what Bush and the neo-conservative crowd are pushing for:

If a democratic transition were to succeed in Iraq, then Syria, suddenly surrounded by established democracies (Israel and Turkey) and emerging democracies (Iraq and Jordan), might start to feel nervous as well. Combine democratization in the Fertile Crescent with the continued liberalization of Morocco, Bahrain, and Qatar, and suddenly the neocon vision of a fourth wave of democratization spreading across the Middle East begins to look plausible.

posted at 3:33 PM |

 
Hersh Watch, Day 2: This looks to be the beginning of a serious brawl. Hersh is taking to the streets against the administration (note: exaggeration). Perle is taking to the British courts against The New Yorker (note: yes, British courts).

posted at 2:47 PM |

 

Politics At Its Finest!

This story has just too much in it to pass up. So Chief Justice William Rehnquist's daughter is the Health and Human Services inspector general. And she is responsible for an audit that shows that Florida owes the federal government $500 million. "She initially postponed the audit at the request of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's office during his 2002 re-election campaign." (skeptic’s bold)

And there is that pesky matter of her possession of a government handgun in her office. Not to mention:

Insiders have also complained about 19 senior-level staff changes since Rehnquist took over, including the departure of all six deputy inspectors general. All were due to involuntary retirement and reassignments, Grassley said, adding that five of the six former deputies had 30 years or more of experience apiece.

Will she be forced to resign? Conveniently, last week she announced she was leaving to "spend more time with her family." Now that's compassionate conservatism!

Okay, let's think about this another way. She weasles her way into a federal bureaucracy, dismisses people in a way that makes it seem like she wants to cover something up, delays a report that would reimburse the federal government a half-a-billion dollars, keeps a 9 mm handgun in her desk, and hangs targets on her office walls?

Sounds to me like she's the closest thing American bureaucracy has to a terrorist, frankly.

posted at 2:06 PM |

 

the skeptic Admits: the skeptic Reads The Weekly Standard

the skeptic must admit he's been somewhat embarrassed about his not-so-publicized interest in The Weekly Standard. It had not, until today, appeared in the links section in the left column. Only subtly, under one of the David Brooks links had it found its way onto the page. But this article has helped the skeptic come out of his metaphorical closet.

Yes, it's neo-conservative. But it's intelligent (sometimes). And it's influential (sometimes). Nation Columnist Eric Alterman says, "The magazine speaks directly to and for power. Anybody who wants to know what this administration is thinking and what they plan to do has to read this magazine."

Slate writer David Plotz says, "The Weekly Standard is hugely influential in policy making, much more so than any other magazine. What they are doing seems to sway what is going on in the administration. This has become a good and important war, in part because of what they have written." (both quotes feature skeptic's bold)

Think of it this way: It's the Nation and Harper's versus the National Review; The New Republic versus The Weekly Standard. Is the skeptic the only one who derives a lot of pleasure out of these match-ups? Probably.

posted at 2:09 PM |

 

The End of the Magazine

Or, How the skeptic Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Internet!

the skeptic sympathizes with David Shaw in lamenting the rise of "the laddie formula" in various magazines. Then again, is Rolling Stone or GQ really the place where people would turn to for long, informative essays? the skeptic finds it sad that these magazines won't even try to find compelling authors able to hold anyone's attention to for more than 30 seconds. But also feels it was somewhat inevitable.

Yet there are still a lot of fine publications out there, where you can get more than your fill of info. Subscribe to the Atlantic, Harper's (if you can stand it), the New York Review of Books, The Weekly Standard, The New Yorker, The New Republic, and the Economist. Then get the Times or Wall Street Journal. It's more info than even the skeptic can handle...

As for Shaw's absurd claim that the Internet can't provide stories with "context, perspective, nuance and subtlety," it only means he doesn't know where to look. (Starting point: the various links on the left-hand side of this page will provide you with many hours of material to read. It is certainly impossible to read all of the information on these sites in a day, much less a week. The Atlantic's extensive archive alone should prove to be many years' worth of reading.)

While the skeptic is not optimistic about the future of glossy mags, the Internet is the medium that best allows writers to write as much as they want, and readers to read as much as they want. the skeptic just hopes the writers will get satisfactorily recompensed. (this one certainly isn't....)

posted at 1:56 PM |

 
Poetry is Crap: At least the blurbers are. The American people won't be fooled into judging a poetry book by its cover. No, they're far too intelligent for that.

But can they resist the blurb? Even if they can't make sense of it?

posted at 1:25 PM |

 

New Yorker Journalist is a Fifth Column-ist!

Richard Perle, one of the nation's top military advisors, accuses Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker of being "the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist, frankly."

Why? Because Hersh wrote an article that pointed out the ugly fact that Perle stands to gain quite considerably from a military build-up. Which happens to be against a federal Code of Conduct. Damn terrorists! Invading our magazines, constituting a fifth column...

P.S. Okay, so Hersh is a reporter, not a columnist. But would you resist the pun?

posted at 12:16 PM |

 

How to Create a More Humane Foreign Policy

What Happens When Security Concerns Trump Human Rights?

Ralph Peters is a military intellectual. This means that he has come up through the ranks since enlisting as a private in the army in 1976. As he climbed to lieutenant colonel in 1998, he wrote novels and essays. He has two published volumes of work: Beyond Terror and Fighting for the Future.

So, having established his credibility, let's look at his ideas.

There are certainly times when we desire stability in international politics, but in the underdeveloped world an obsession with stability means preserving failure and worse. Overvaluing stability is a heritage of the Cold War, over the course of which we rationalized our support of some very cruel regimes and we deposed elected governments we didn't like. You could justify it in terms of the greater struggle. But you can't justify it now. (skeptic’s bold)

Okay, the skeptic will play his game. Let's turn to Samantha Power's March 3rd article in The New Republic, which criticizes the Bush Administration’s approach to war.

She says Al Qaeda is operating in more than 60 countries. And "strong states fighting asymmetric threats ... need weak states to help them out, and such strong, needy states benefit enormously from enforceable rules of the road." In other words, security seems like a pretty strong justification for maintaining ties to less-than-ideal partners. (Isn't this the entire basis of the UN?)

Perhaps the U.S. should try to distance itself from leaders who don’t advocate human rights. Perhaps the U.S. should try to pressure leaders into being more democratic and more open. But compromising national security in the name of foreign goodwill is a tough sell to any country.

For example, Let’s take the previously mentioned case of Pakistan. This is, essentially, a case where U.S. foreign policy is held hostage. Pursuing the “war on terror” (the police action against Al Qaeda) requires Pakistan’s assistance.

Less U.S. support for Pakistan would likely translate to less assistance in rounding up Al Qaeda, which could mean fewer victories and more losses.

If the U.S. helped push Musharraf to restore democracy, is it wrong to assume that the new democratically elected government would necessarily be less helpful? Probably not.

The U.S. is heavily reliant on Musharraf to help fight the war, which is sad because it might actually be in the U.S.'s short-term interest to ally with a repressive military government instead of advocating democracy (or pushing to peacefully resolve the dispute over Kashmir).

In the short-term, it’s hard to rationalize trading your security for some level of democracy/human rights. And that’s why the U.S. has had a tough time making those decisions. But in the long run, supporting repressive governments only hurts the U.S.

But Sovereignty is All We Have

Peters is right to point out the foolishness of defending state sovereignty, a "legacy of czars, emperors, kaisers, and kings." But what he misses is that that's the only game in town.

The world has yet to figure out a better system for ensuring peace and stability. And having the U.S. become the world’s global cop isn’t a very reassuring idea.

the skeptic is all for scaling back a leader's right to sovereignty. But how far do you want to take this? Outside of gross human rights violations, when does a leader lose his right to sovereignty? It's easy to talk about in platitudes, but tough to deal with in specifics.

Consistency, which Power longs for, is a tough deal. Because what does a country do when it needs to address an immediate security concern? It's held hostage.

If the U.S. takes a hard-line with Musharraf, then what? No help on the Al Qaeda problem. And only the potential to exacerbate that whole “nuclear crisis” thing. So instead, the U.S. is forced to deal with Pakistan, and Musharraf. Taking the short-term benefits in spite of the long-term costs.

There may be some degree of balancing that can be done. But it's easier said than done. Going on TV and criticizing Musharraf for amending the Constitution, could seriously dampen relations, making the only Pakistani who wants to cooperate with the U.S. unwilling to do so.

Most liberals support a more multilateral U.S. foreign policy with a greater emphasis on human rights. But how should the U.S. balance these concerns? At what point should human rights factor into strategic decisions? At what point do we criticize leaders that have no domestic legitimacy?

Power offers real suggestions for integrating human rights concerns into the larger picture of American foreign policy. Her prescription:

Historical reckoning: a mea culpa for “crimes committed, sponsored, or permitted by the U.S.” Power cites Clinton’s apology to Rwanda after his own failure to act during the genocidal extermination of 800,000 people.

The result? “[M]any Rwandans today can recite the apology verbatim. … In anticipation of another Clinton visit last fall, the Rwandans repaved the road connecting the airport with Clinton’s hotel. Since his trip, Rwandans have begun calling it Clinton Boulevard.”

Individual acts like these can, in the long run, do much to improve America’s perception abroad. (Maybe we’ll wait for Kissinger to kick the bucket before dealing with the ‘70s…)

Consider human rights in every policy decision: Weigh the costs and benefits of every foreign policy decision in terms of human consequences. Every photo op, aid package, treaty signing. At least talking about human rights increases the likelihood that something will be done about them.

Cease gratuitous unilateralism: Don’t trash international law; bend it to your purpose. Use international institutions to push countries to act in ways that their short-term interests might otherwise not allow.

Words and tone matter: Stop the stupid talk that goes over well with Middle America, and consider using talk that doesn’t go over terribly in the Middle East.

A good start, certainly….

posted at 12:17 AM |