Scariest read of the day

Shockingly, it isn't about Yemen (yup- I am going to go one post not talking about Yemen).  Barton Gellman in Time has an up-close and well-reported look at extreme right-wing militias, many of whom think war against the government is both inevitable and desirable.  It is unsettling- you want to think of these guys as toothless (literally and figuratively), but they have weapons, oftentimes a feverish religiosity, and a deep-seated conviction that the government is illegitimate and that they are the representatives of the people's will. 

OK, maybe this is about Yemen.   The parallels with AQAP are pretty striking, anyway. 

Here's a money quote, and a perfect example of cold-blooded sociopathy wrapped in a bogus cloak of Constitutionalism. 

Regardless of what conscience tells them, what chance do would-be armed rebels possibly have of prevailing against the armed might of the U.S.?
One answer comes from former Alabama militia leader Mike Vanderboegh, who wrote an essay that is among the most widely republished on antigovernment extremist sites today. In "What Good Is a Handgun Against an Army?" Vanderboegh says the tactical question is easy: Kill the enemy one soldier at a time. A patriot needs only a "cheap little pistol and the guts to use it," he writes, to shoot a soldier in the head and take his rifle; with a friend, such a man will soon have "a truck full of arms and ammunition." Vanderboegh is hardly a man of action himself, living these days on government disability checks. Even so, when he wrote a blog post in March urging followers to protest the health care bill by breaking windows at Democratic Party offices, they did so across the country.

Anyone else love that this clown lives off the government?

I think it boils down to self-pity, in the end, and a rage against your own impotence.  Regardless of the proximate cause- taxes, the ATF, the scourge of insurance companies no longer being able to deny pre-existing conditions- it is about bored people trying to make something heroic about their lives and being desperate to blame others.  Which I get, and there is certainly a lot of truth in thinking that large and powerful forces don't give a good goddamn about you.  However, that, among other reasons, is why I am a liberal.  For all the massive flaws of elected officials, I trust their response to citizenry a damn sight more than enormous corporations.  It is a bit disgusting and a large part terrifying that there are some people who disguise treason in the cloak of patriotism. 

Apology

In the post two below, I sort of half-jokingly linked to Sarah Palin's Twitter feed.  I apologize to anyone who got sucked into a quagmire of paranoia and self-righteous anger.   Such as this.

Left: how can u "take on" the Tea Party? It's a MOVEMENT...of the people; u "taking on the people"? Did u really not know it's not 1 party? 9:09 AM Sep 21st via Twitter for BlackBerry® 

With all the talk from the Left re: who funds Tea Party Americans, one might point out the Left's "tea party" is Acorn, funded by Fed Govt 7:57 AM Sep 21st via Twitter for BlackBerry® 

These two posts contain 15000 examples of contradiction, ignorance, conspiracy-addled twaddle, and logical impossibilities.  Can you name 7?  

Obama's Decisions

Aaron Zelin has a thoughtful article in FP's The Middle East Channel today.   In it, he essentially asks: what happens if the Obama plan to eradicate AQAP works?   Will they then again look away from Yemen and focus on something else, ignoring the structural challenges that remain?  If they do, Zelin reminds us, we'll be dealing with this again and again.  It will be like those Saw movies: endless sequels that nobody I know wants to see. 

Zelin also brings up this provocative question:

Another issue has to do with the legality of targeting an American citizen. How the Obama administration decides to handle the situation with Anwar al-Awlaki will shed light on the United States' legal policy vis-à-vis the war on terror. Will it lead the United States down a slippery slope that further erodes the rule of law and its legitimacy in the eyes of the international community? Or, will it affirm Obama's statement in his inaugural address: "we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals."

 I would quibble slightly with the wording- I think this will show if Obama wants to lead us back up that slope, since we sprinted and tumbled ass-over-tea-kettle down it the last nine years, to the point where it is hardly shocking that a citizen could be killed extra-judiciously.   There is a case for it, of course- he is at war with the US.  I'm not a legal scholar, though, and am reluctant to sound off half-cocked on this.

There has been some talk of trial, though that brings up another boatload of questions both legal and political.   The Yemeni government might be more amenable to arresting and extraditing al-Awlaki if he can get a fair trial in the US.   I don't like the "kill or ok maybe capture" strategy, especially for someone who is as low-level as al-Awlaki, but it is better than "kill at all costs".  Obama has to be willing to withstand the empurpled bloviating of ignorant senators, commentators, and other slackers for whom nothing less than a "trial" at dawn followed by a noon execution will suffice.   Long term thinking has to be the key.  Zelin's article helps to shape that framework.

Some Dumb Guy

So Pastor Terry Jones, of the weirdly-named Dove World Outreach Church, is going ahead with his plan to host International Burn a Koran Day, which may or may not also feature bobbing for apples.  Fun for the whole family, if you are a family of assholes.   He is going ahead with this despite General Petraeus specifically calling him out, saying it would endanger the troops, which seems pretty indisputable. 

                                                     (Not the Terry Jones from Monty Python)

Strangely, he makes a good point, saying "'We think it's time to turn the tables, and instead of possibly blaming us for what could happen, we put the blame where it belongs — on the people who would do it.'"  There is an element of truth to that- we very rarely say that the people who are rioting over a damn cartoon have responsibility.   It is both misleading and insulting; it takes away agency from people, as if they are children incapable of doing anything other than responding to stimulus.

However, there is a big difference.  This is intentionally enraging people in order to draw attention to yourself.  Of course he has the right to do this (though I don't know if it qualifies as incitement), and should go ahead.  But burning things to make an angry point seems more like something done by those you are protesting.  It is also a little strange that everyone is debating whether or not he should be burning the Quran, instead of saying "this fucking guy wants to burn books."   It is amazing how many steps backward we keep taking, and insane that I am nostalgic for the more pastoral and tolerant right wing of the George Bush era.

Incidentally, props to the Washington Post for being the only publication (that I've seen, though I didn't go very deep) to say they will most likely be burning translations of the Quran.  In Islam, if it isn't in Arabic it isn't the real book, just a shadow thereof.   Of course, there is nothing inherently godly about Arabic, so it is all the same to me, but at least the WaPo knew what they were talking about.  

Radical

Peter King, the Republican congressman from Iowa (not the strange man who talks about coffee when he is supposed to be talking about football) no longer even pretends to believe in the Constitution.  In talking about the arrest of the man suspected of the attempted Times Square bombing- who, despite having a funny name, is an American citizen- King said,

“I hope that [Attorney General Eric] Holder did discuss this with the intelligence community. If they believe they got enough from him, how much more should they get? Did they Mirandize him? I know he’s an American citizen but still,” King told POLITICO.

Really?  "But still"?   Is King really that afraid of these guys?   And, honestly, if eagerly wanting to destroy Constitutional rights doesn't make you an enemy combatant, I don't know what will.

Look, if this guy is guilty, I hope he is prosecuted under the full extent of the law.  We are in bizarre times when the phrase "of the law" is somehow weak and squishy and possibly even traitorous.  Foreign terrorist suspects are a gray area, in which I am on the side of civil courts, for a number of reasons, but I admit there is an argument.   I think what it comes down to is that if the bomber was a Tea Partier, an anarchist, an anti-abortion loon or any kind of traditional American terrorist, we wouldn't be having this debate.  His crime is compounded by the belief behind it, which, while surely not better, is hardly worse than anyone else willing to slaughter for an imagined Kingdom of Heaven.  

Also, Glenn Beck is in favor of Miranda rights for this guy based on his citizenship.  When Beck is more sane than top Republicans (and Joe Lieberman), the swing has officially gone around the bar.

(link thread via Sullivan)

Women in Yemen

Blog friend Haley Sweetland Edwards has a new piece up on Yemeni women.   I really dug this article- it isn't just a recitation of statistics about why Yemen is a terrible (maybe the worst) country for women.  Instead, Haley gets a look on the inside, of women who are off the streets and can relax and talk.  It is a world in which I would never get an entrance, and neither would many journalists.  It is easy, when in Yemen, to see women walk by in the niqab, vanished into an anachronism.   You might shudder, or you might just walk by (and perhaps your inherent liberalism would make you feel bad for condemning the practice, even if you know that your condemnation springs from liberalism). 

Anyway, it is a nuanced piece, and it lets Yemeni women talk.   There are variations in point of view among the women at the bridal shower Haley attends, which may be surprising.

At the bridal shower, opinions were mixed. Faisa Hussein, one of the few women in Yemen with a university education, said Western countries fixate needlessly on the niqab.
“You,” Hussein said in an apparent reference to Western women, “hate us for wearing it. But I wear it because it makes me feel free. When I wear it, I can talk and laugh and eat and smile, and no one looks at me.

Her daughter, though, gets to the uncomfortable reality behind that freedom.

“She’s right. Yemeni women cannot talk, laugh, eat or smile in public, or people will stare at them.”

I don't like the idea of Western countries banning the veil.  I think that is far more trouble than it is worth, and can have the effect of rallying opposition.   But I don't think anyone should pretend that the veil or the niqab or burqa are anything but a subjugation.  Perhaps, through the years, people could find freedom within that subjugation, but they are designed to keep women hidden.  Some say they protect women from men, from their lust and scorn, but that doesn't exactly seem a reason to punish women, does it?

I know this is contentious and probably outside my field.  I'd welcome any comments.  

Giant Babies

I love that the GOP spent all night last night introducing amendments to the health care bill, hoping to send it back to the house (they were successful, but not in any substantive matter).  The finest was Tom Coburn's bill that wouldn't allow sex offenders to get Viagra.   The point, of course, is so that Democrats would vote against it and the Republicans could use that vote in an attack ad ("Senator Levin wants rapists to get boners...Can you trust him with your taxes?")  

I honestly don't know how anyone can see this as anything but the desperate act of petulant brats.  I think this is what happens when you reduce a party to intimidation and snark.  Is anyone defending this?  Did Tom Coburn just realize the bill needed this now, after a year and a half of talking about it?  Or is he just that reflexively dishonest?   Clearly it is the latter.  I really think that he is offended it didn't pass, and will get self-righteous about it. 

Remember that Simpsons' episode, Homerpalooza?  About the rock concert when Homer became a sideshow act?  Anyway, he was walking by two teens who had this conversation in very flat, disaffected voices.

Teen 1: Oh, here comes that cannonball guy, he's cool.
Teen 2: Dude, are you being sarcastic?
Teen 1: I don't even know anymore.

A perfect encapsulation of jaded, reflexive hipsterism.  I think the parallels here are clear.  When the GOP gets outraged over reconciliation or "deem and pass", things they have used before, dozens of times, and very recently, and call it tyranny and the stylings of a banana republic and Chavez-like totalitarianism, you would have to think they know they are being cynical and dishonest.  But I really don't think they even know anymore.  I think this fiery anger, this offended entitlement, is the default mode, so there is no way to tell legitimate offense from ginned-up controversy.

You know, Waq al-Waq was way more informative about Yemen, but never once mentioned The Simpsons. 

Off-topic

There is Yemen stuff below, for those of you who are here for that.  But I was wondering about something earlier, regarding US politics.  Do you think Michelle Bachmann gets jealous of Sarah Palin?  Like, she thinks to herself, "Hey- I'm a moderately attractive, gleefully ignorant, mendacious incendiary theocratic loon too!  Why doesn't anyone think I'm presidential?"

Health care is out of my league- I think I understand the outlines, but I don't write about it at all.  Leave that to Cohn and Klein.  I'd only make a fool of myself writing about it, which doesn't usually stop me, but did.  That said, what a beautiful night it was last night.  I never thought much of Pelosi as a leader, but I was wrong.  Everyone thought it was dead, but passing reform was always the right thing to do, and piecemeal reform would not have worked.   And she didn't let it die. 

Obama, I think, is a singular figure.  When voting for him, I didn't think, well, I am voting for the Democrat.  I was voting for him.  Like every other Democrat, I frequently hate my party.  But yesterday they made me wildly proud to be one, possibly for the first time.   The could have quailed at the outrage and the sanctimonious false piousness being offered them by the Republicans and the media, but they didn't.   They remembered that in 2008 millions went to the polls hoping to make this a more livable, humane country, and they made good on their promise.   I would be shocked if any of them read this- but thank you.

Also, I am a little surprised that when the polls were down, people said the Dems had to listen to them.  Don't we always rip on politicians for obsessively studying the polls?  Weren't the same Republicans who ripped on the Dems for ignoring the people the ones who (rightly) praised George Bush for ignoring popularity to implement the surge?   I am not remotely surprised at the hypocrisy, but am a little surprised I haven't heard that before (which doesn't mean it wasn't said elsewhere).

On a similar note, Mark Lynch has an essay about what this means for the Middle East and the Obama administration's plans.  He judiciously and justly makes both cases, but I am going to quote a paragraph that illustrates why I believe that Barack Obama is the best pol of my lifetime.

The "long game" version is that Obama has a signature method when tackling difficult, long-term objectives, whether health care, Israeli-Palestinian peace or Iran. Obama's method is to lay out an ambitious but realistic final status objective in stark terms and then to let political hardball unfold around those objectives. His most fervent opposition gets more and more outraged, raising the rhetorical pitch until they discredit themselves with key mainstream audiences who recoil from their overheated, apocalyptic and nutty words. And then, just as the Washington DC conventional wisdom declares his ambition dead, they suddenly wake up to the reality that he's won. How'd that happen? The final outcome isn't as pure as many would like, but it's nevertheless a substantial, major achievement against all expectations.

Double-Barrell Right-Wing Watch

We'll start first in Israel, where (via BMK) we see this sickening story from Ha'aretz. 

A right-wing Web site has posted a list with personal details of organizers of the left-wing protests in Sheikh Jarrah.
The details, which have been up for a week, include head shots of the activists, their phone numbers, e-mails, full addresses and pictures of their homes.

Unless there was proof, it would be irresponsible to blame this on the increasingly right-leaning theocratic government of Israel.   However, I believe that the atmosphere the Shas party and people like Avigdor Lieberman are creating helps to incite, and to provide justification for, this kind of teeth-baring internal battles; this hunting for heresies.   This is a silly example, but I think a telling one: the other day, as the girl was getting ready for work, she had on the local news, and they blurbed an interview with one of the Dixie Chicks (who is apparently touring with the Eagles. That is a show which: I will not be at).  Now, I don't care about the Dixie Chicks, and never have.  But it is amazing to think of the anger they provoked by saying they were embarrassed to be from the same state as George Bush.   Do you remember the ferocity those words were met with? 

I think that is what is happening in Israel right now.  The far-right (the creator of the website boasts he was a close associate of Meir Kahane, something most people don't brag about) is emboldened.  Their simmering anger is allowed to come to the surface.  If you aren't for expansion, you aren't a true Israeli.   They have the wild-eyed and violently beatific glow of the righteous.   I would like to think, though, that incidents like this can backfire, and that a society as decent as Israel's will quickly realize the beast in their midst.

Over here, our beast is still going strong.  The Times has a great article about Alan Simpson, Republican from Wyoming, joining a "bipartisan commission for reducing the national debt."  Simpson is being pilloried from the right because he thinks that maybe raising taxes a little might be needed to fix the deficit (along with spending cuts).  I don't find this to be a remotely controversial idea, but it is anathema to the modern right wing (who I will not call conservative- this is radicalism).    The piece is full of great quotes, and Simpson comes across as a grown up, far more than Rush or Grover Norquist, who called him "old and grumpy".  Grover Norquist calling someone grumpy is like me calling someone drunk- a little hypocritical.   Here are some quotes, which were backed up by other grown-ups likes Howard Baker and Pete Domenici.

He trailed off, and then recalled the Reagan years, when the initial deep tax cuts were followed by years of tax increases to reduce deficits smaller than the current ones.
“Reagan didn’t put anything off the table, if he felt it was for the good of the American people to tweak the tax system,” he said.
As for the present, “I don’t believe we ever had a war where we didn’t have a tax to finance the war,” Mr. Simpson added.

That is the thing- Reagan did raise taxes, and he did negotiate with the Soviets, and he wanted arms control.  But today's movement, whose every member claims to idolize Reagan, would find all of this impossible and wrong.   Like in Israel, they are more concerned with punishing heretics and breaking the opposition then in actually getting anything done in the real world.   Conservatism to me is fundamentally an embrace of doubt.  Sadly, the far right here and abroad are blessed with the miracle of certainty. 

Jay and Sarah and Dave and Mitt

So, in direct opposition to my "only pop culture post" below, I am going to go again.  Sarah Palin was on Jay Leno tonight, and Mitt Romney was on Letterman.  And even though I dislike to loathe 75% of that crew, I felt obligated as a fan of late night, and observer of our politics, and- most importantly- as a lazy, lazy man to not get off the couch and instead flip back and forth.

Let's start with Palin on Leno.  Hopefully I will be able to get to her stand-up routine.  I am not drinking tonight, though, so I am unsure I can handle it emotionally.  I'll see if I can get there.  Palin came on, in jeans and some kind of sweater, and had her "hey how ya' doin'?" thing going on.  It was folksy and charming, I guess, if you didn't know what a seething ball of vindictiveness and cognitive-dissonance lay beneath the faux-rusticism.  But she immediately launched into stale responses to boring questions about the media (essentially, and unchallenged: she joined Fox because the mainstream media mixes opinion with reporting.  Straight face on that.) and about what Americans want, and how she is out there looking for common-sense solutions.   It was pablum, but she does deliver pablum with a searing intensity.  It is because she really believes it, I think- she is unable to think beyond derivative nonsense, and that endows her with an integrity that can't be faked, regardless of the morality or heft behind the words.

So it is a commercial- let us jump to the candidate for whom "can't be faked" has no meaning: Mitt "Mitt" Romney.  Him and Dave used the first segment to talk about what it was like to have a famous father, a car executive, and a few other softballs.  Romney was charming, and even funny.  We've seen this before with Dave- first segment is soft, then he goes into politics.  I found myself liking Romney, especially in comparison with Palin.  He told good stories about the beat-up hand-me-down cars that he got, despite (or because of) his father's position, and how he put racing stripes on one of them to be cool. (Dave: "Look out chicks!")  He ended by talking about the airplane attack, with a well-delivered "he broke my hair."  I don't know if he has used this before, but it was new to me, and I actually laughed out loud.  Commercial.

Baradar reaction

Steve Coll thinks that this is very good news.  Money quote.

If, through a combination of pressure and enticement, Pakistan and the United States can draw sections of the Taliban into peaceful negotiations, while incarcerating those who refuse to participate, it will produce a sweeping change in the war. With enough momentum, such a strategy would also increase the incentives for Pakistan and Taliban elements to betray Al Qaeda’s top leaders. It’s been a while since there has been unadulterated good news out of Pakistan. Today there is.

Glenn Beck thinks that we should shoot him in the head, meanwhile.   


"But with these people that are currently running our country, they'll make the troops the bad guys and everything else...shoot him in the head before we all of a sudden release him into, what, primary schools in New York City? What are we gonna do with this guy?"

I guess I hadn't actually thought of that possibility.  I'm glad that I don't have any kids in New York (or anywhere, I guess)- I'd hate for them to go to school with a Taliban leader!   I don't know.  I kind of feel like there is a middle ground between summary execution and outright release.

See, Coll thinks this is good, but Beck doesn't think anything good can come of it, thanks to Obama.  I'm gonna spend some time thinking about which foreign policy expert I trust more, and I'll get back to you.

The Israeli Right

My friend Brett in Israel has tipped me off to a couple of fascinating articles that document the language mechanisms and perhaps the mentality of the extreme right in Israel, an issue that is troubling both for the sake of peace and for the future of a decent, modern, democratic ally.

The first is a disturbing Harretz commentary by Bradley Burston.  In it, he tackles some of the more hideous assaults on law and decency that are becoming more commonplace- flouting court orders, campagins against human rights groups, increasing gender segregation, etc.  His conclusion is that the Israeli right is afraid of peace, and wants only to create the "world's last remaining legally mandated Jewish ghetto."   I think that language might be hyperbolic and create a few extreme ahistorical symmetries for the sake of emotional punch, but I understand the sentiment. 


The picture becomes a little more clear when reading the next article in Coteret, titled (even more provocatively) "Israeli McCarthyism, Circa 2010".   Author Hagai El-Ad quotes Israeli parlimentarians using the language of treason and violence against fellow Israelis who don't particularly like their country's actions in Operation Cast Lead.   Here are a couple of choice samples (all from article, with El-Ad's comments)


MK Zevulun Orlev (Habayit Hayehudi – New National Religious Party) begun with a short introduction to the concept of treason: “My friends the members of the Knesset. Treason was defined as a crime so to prevent soldiers and civilians from providing ammunition to the enemy to destroy Israel. That’s treason…


MK Danny Danon (Likud) presented the concept of truth: “The question is very simple and we will know the answer within a few months. If these organizations did not give false information to the Goldstone Report – then all the fuss is for nothing. I’d be wasting precious time of the Israeli Knesset. But if they indeed passed false information to Israel’s enemies – if they fed them false data – we need to say: enough.”
This suggests the following philosophical question: what is a worse crime – feeding one’s enemies with false data, or with real one? Or, putting the sarcasm aside for a moment: how is MK Danon going to find out if the questions raised with regard to the IDF’s conduct during Cast Lead are true or false, if there won’t be any credible investigation into Cast Lead?

This is indeed scary stuff, but I am of mixed minds about it.  No: let me clarify a bit.  It is frightening and stomach-turning and awful.  What I am ambivalent about is its long-term ramifications.

The language will strike almost any American as the kind of stuff we hear from the American right- the with us or against us mentality, the Michelle Bachmann overdrive to root out traitors, the idea of the last decade that dissent equaled treason (funny how that has disappeared).   And that, weirdly, is why I am not too terribly worried about Israel- countries do go through periods of historical insanity.  It may seem like we are still in one, but I think it is petering out, even if it is not yet dead.  So I feel to take a moment of madness and assume it will destroy a place might be over-reaching, and playing into the idea we have now that every day is the most important one.

But this isn't a call for complacency, either.  I am not totally sold on the above.  Israel is in a strange spot right now- the heroic generation is all but gone, and the new leaders seem to want to simultaneously move forward but also feel the need to show how tough they are.  The younger generation doesn't seem to want to do much with politics or the wearying wars, but to innovate and live their lives.  Into this vacuum steps the worst actors.   Israel is also young and buffeted with enemies.  If America could lose its bearings because of one (obviously enormous, but not catyclismic) strike, a country like Israel, always on the edge of attack, can be more easily pushed over.

However, there have been signs of counter-protests.  A decent and liberal people can only be pushed so far.  But for now, this is a scary trend.  Silly or malicious people in the 2000s liked to say that the neo-cons cared more for Israel than America.  This was nonsense, but it seems what the neo-cons managed to do was provide a vicious template for their Israeli counterparts.