Trent-chant Commentary
Just when I thought I had this war-blogger thing figured out, 2nd generation neocon John Podhoretz comes along to explain what's really going on in cybersville. Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy and, you know, powerful, ha ha ha…
i had some similar thoughts when reading krugman this morning as he credits talking points for much of the damage to lott.
It's too soon for Krugman to be clapping Marshall on the back about this. If Lott doesn't resign as majority leader, then the blogosphere is just a heat sink to dissipate anger about business-as-usual.
Also, I kind of hate to see Marshall moving up the food chain, since he supports invading Iraq.
this is the book that convinced marshall (and a few other people) that we gotta go in... very persuasive, recommended, scary.
That's always the way of it. Some pointy-headed CIA analyst convinces a mushy liberal columnist that "we gotta go in" and the next thing you know kids are being converted into ground round.
Before I buy it and/or read it:
Will he convince me that Saddam has weapons capable of hitting a US city?
Does he explain why if it's so important for Saddam to be taken out, we have to do it, as opposed to say, Israel?
Apparently his argument is that Saddam is "undeterrable." That's obvious hooey because he's been deterred for the last ten years. "Yeah, but I mean undeterrable any minute now."
the threat isn't weapons hitting a us city, it's hitting the saudi oilfields.
israel couldn't "do it" even if we/they wanted because it takes a lot of heavy armor and troops -- you have to occupy. of course if israel invaded iraq all the other arab countries would jump in, etc etc
Deterrence won't stop a nuclear-armed saddam from retaking kuwait and to stop him from going after saudi too we'd have to nuke bagdhad PLUS risk the destruction of the oilfields (not the underlying oil, of course, but the wells, refineries, etc).
The gist is, deal with saddam now, or deal with him later, armed with nukes, and holding them to the head of the world economy. I think it should probably take a nuke about 2 or 3 minutes to get from southern iraq to northern saudi arabia, right?
Do you believe any of this, or are you just paraphrasing? I thought you opposed the invasion!
i'm flipping back.
So will we soon be seeing a tourbus and dmtree page called "Rockstars for the War"?
In the last Gulf War, the Official Scare Story was that Saddam wanted to annex the Saudi oilfields. Now he wants to nuke them? Who's going to extract the oil from the irradiated rubble? I know, I should read the book, but let me guess: Kurd slave laborers in lead-lined suits?
i think the idea was that he would bomb the oil fields for spite just to wreck the world economy if he was about to be taken out, or that he would use it as a threat to keep his enemies at bay. that feeds into pollacks notion that hes undeterrable as opposed to say the russians who were apparently more rational and cared about whether they lived. and i think the idea is that he would be able to deter us once he had nuclear weapons which is why they say we have to go in before he develops them. somehow this only applies to saddam and not north korea. apparently some axises are more evil than others.
I can't help thinking down the road 10 or 20 years. What happens when everybody has super powerful nano (or whatever) weapons? We're going to stop everybody? What about when you can whip up something in your kitchen sink that will eat a hole in the planet? This is similar to the line of thought that got Bill Joy so worked up a couple years ago.
I think some people in or behind this administration are wondering about this too, and I speculate that their answer to the question is: we've got to completely lock the world down right now! Total information awareness. If this needs to include mind implants or mind control rays or putting everyone inside some safe matrix like reality simulation or any other horrible distopian sci-fi idea then so be it. Whatever works to save the world!
Sounds noble, in a weird way, but it won't work. You can't get control of such a complex system by applying more force. What we should be doing is making friends. Leading by example. Raising everyone's standard of living. Genuinely trying to make the world better for everyone (arabs, blacks, jews, christians, women, the poor, the uneducated, the mean, the greedy, the beautiful, the ugly all alike...)
We're all going to need to police ourselves and our neighbors in these dangerous times. But people won't be proxies for the evil one world globo cop US government if they sense that this government isn't really acting in their interests. We get help now by bribing people, but that only works because it's still relatively hard for someone to get a hold of really dangerous weapons. As soon as the bar is lowered, then our strong arm tactics will cease to work. We're going to get bit in the ass. Hard.
I agree with Jim that we need to set a better example. A visitor from space would look at our own country and say: "How can you justify keeping a sizeable percentage of your minority population in concentration camps?" To which we would say, "Those aren't camps, silly, those are prisons." To which the alien would say: "What was the crime so many of your minority population has committed?" "You know, they took drugs and stuff. They got high." "And what do they do in prison?" "You know, make license plates, answer phones for the DMV [true!], stuff like that." "And this is not slave labor?"
Anyway, you get my drift.
And I know this sounds terrible, but I don't give a flying fig if Saddam nukes the Saudi oilfields. As long as Americans have plenty of warning to evacuate. If our Intel tells us he's building ICBM missile silos so he can hit the US, then--and only then--will it be OK for us to tell the Israelis to "let rip." (God knows, we oughta get some return all the money we've paid them.) But for us to be invading? As Paddy Chayefsky would say: "Madness. Virulent madness."
I realize this is all academic, as I go to the laundry and see a B-2 bomber pilot being fawningly interviewed on Fox News, with the caption "Target Iraq" at the bottom of the screen. Canada's looking better and better.
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Just when I thought I had this war-blogger thing figured out, 2nd generation neocon John Podhoretz comes along to explain what's really going on in cybersville. Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy and, you know, powerful, ha ha ha…
- alex 12-13-2002 11:59 pm
i had some similar thoughts when reading krugman this morning as he credits talking points for much of the damage to lott.
- dave 12-14-2002 12:07 am [add a comment]
It's too soon for Krugman to be clapping Marshall on the back about this. If Lott doesn't resign as majority leader, then the blogosphere is just a heat sink to dissipate anger about business-as-usual.
Also, I kind of hate to see Marshall moving up the food chain, since he supports invading Iraq.
- tom moody 12-14-2002 12:25 am [add a comment]
this is the book that convinced marshall (and a few other people) that we gotta go in... very persuasive, recommended, scary.
- big jimmy 12-17-2002 10:58 am [add a comment]
That's always the way of it. Some pointy-headed CIA analyst convinces a mushy liberal columnist that "we gotta go in" and the next thing you know kids are being converted into ground round.
Before I buy it and/or read it:
Will he convince me that Saddam has weapons capable of hitting a US city?
Does he explain why if it's so important for Saddam to be taken out, we have to do it, as opposed to say, Israel?
Apparently his argument is that Saddam is "undeterrable." That's obvious hooey because he's been deterred for the last ten years. "Yeah, but I mean undeterrable any minute now."
- tom moody 12-17-2002 5:51 pm [add a comment]
the threat isn't weapons hitting a us city, it's hitting the saudi oilfields.
israel couldn't "do it" even if we/they wanted because it takes a lot of heavy armor and troops -- you have to occupy. of course if israel invaded iraq all the other arab countries would jump in, etc etc
Deterrence won't stop a nuclear-armed saddam from retaking kuwait and to stop him from going after saudi too we'd have to nuke bagdhad PLUS risk the destruction of the oilfields (not the underlying oil, of course, but the wells, refineries, etc).
The gist is, deal with saddam now, or deal with him later, armed with nukes, and holding them to the head of the world economy. I think it should probably take a nuke about 2 or 3 minutes to get from southern iraq to northern saudi arabia, right?
- big jimmy 12-19-2002 11:36 am [add a comment]
Do you believe any of this, or are you just paraphrasing? I thought you opposed the invasion!
- tom moody 12-19-2002 7:31 pm [add a comment]
i'm flipping back.
- big jimmy 12-21-2002 4:02 am [add a comment]
So will we soon be seeing a tourbus and dmtree page called "Rockstars for the War"?
In the last Gulf War, the Official Scare Story was that Saddam wanted to annex the Saudi oilfields. Now he wants to nuke them? Who's going to extract the oil from the irradiated rubble? I know, I should read the book, but let me guess: Kurd slave laborers in lead-lined suits?
- tom moody 12-21-2002 8:59 pm [add a comment]
i think the idea was that he would bomb the oil fields for spite just to wreck the world economy if he was about to be taken out, or that he would use it as a threat to keep his enemies at bay. that feeds into pollacks notion that hes undeterrable as opposed to say the russians who were apparently more rational and cared about whether they lived. and i think the idea is that he would be able to deter us once he had nuclear weapons which is why they say we have to go in before he develops them. somehow this only applies to saddam and not north korea. apparently some axises are more evil than others.
- dave 12-21-2002 9:22 pm [add a comment]
I can't help thinking down the road 10 or 20 years. What happens when everybody has super powerful nano (or whatever) weapons? We're going to stop everybody? What about when you can whip up something in your kitchen sink that will eat a hole in the planet? This is similar to the line of thought that got Bill Joy so worked up a couple years ago.
I think some people in or behind this administration are wondering about this too, and I speculate that their answer to the question is: we've got to completely lock the world down right now! Total information awareness. If this needs to include mind implants or mind control rays or putting everyone inside some safe matrix like reality simulation or any other horrible distopian sci-fi idea then so be it. Whatever works to save the world!
Sounds noble, in a weird way, but it won't work. You can't get control of such a complex system by applying more force. What we should be doing is making friends. Leading by example. Raising everyone's standard of living. Genuinely trying to make the world better for everyone (arabs, blacks, jews, christians, women, the poor, the uneducated, the mean, the greedy, the beautiful, the ugly all alike...)
We're all going to need to police ourselves and our neighbors in these dangerous times. But people won't be proxies for the evil one world globo cop US government if they sense that this government isn't really acting in their interests. We get help now by bribing people, but that only works because it's still relatively hard for someone to get a hold of really dangerous weapons. As soon as the bar is lowered, then our strong arm tactics will cease to work. We're going to get bit in the ass. Hard.
- jim 12-21-2002 9:39 pm [add a comment]
i guess its a race as to whether technology will save us or enslave us.
- dave 12-21-2002 10:21 pm [add a comment]
I agree with Jim that we need to set a better example. A visitor from space would look at our own country and say: "How can you justify keeping a sizeable percentage of your minority population in concentration camps?" To which we would say, "Those aren't camps, silly, those are prisons." To which the alien would say: "What was the crime so many of your minority population has committed?" "You know, they took drugs and stuff. They got high." "And what do they do in prison?" "You know, make license plates, answer phones for the DMV [true!], stuff like that." "And this is not slave labor?"
Anyway, you get my drift.
And I know this sounds terrible, but I don't give a flying fig if Saddam nukes the Saudi oilfields. As long as Americans have plenty of warning to evacuate. If our Intel tells us he's building ICBM missile silos so he can hit the US, then--and only then--will it be OK for us to tell the Israelis to "let rip." (God knows, we oughta get some return all the money we've paid them.) But for us to be invading? As Paddy Chayefsky would say: "Madness. Virulent madness."
I realize this is all academic, as I go to the laundry and see a B-2 bomber pilot being fawningly interviewed on Fox News, with the caption "Target Iraq" at the bottom of the screen. Canada's looking better and better.
- tom moody 12-22-2002 12:20 am [add a comment]