[Peace-discuss] Liberals on the Loose

[David Green]

Interesting comparison between a critical book review of Kenneth Pollack's new book in the NYT (with the usual caveat regarding misguided Israel Lobby assertions at the end) by a writer from the (British) Economist, and Samantha Power's almost comical Democratic propaganda in the New York Review of Books, baldly denying Democratic militarism in the 20th century. While Power must distance herself from Pollack's influence on the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, I suspect that they will both have a place in an Obama-Biden-Harvard School of Government-Brookings Foundation--The New Republic administration.
   
  DG
   
  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/books/review/Rodenbeck-t.html?ref=books&pagewanted=print
   
  The NYT of course has to cover itself by allowing only a Brit to make a comment that is remarkable for the mainstream media:
   
  "Pollack seems oddly unaware of history’s motivating forces. To assert that “what triggers revolutions, civil wars and other internal unrest is psychological factors, particularly feelings of extreme despair,” is plain silly. The Boston Tea Party could not have been prevented by Prozac. Similarly, he ascribes feelings to broad categories of Middle Easterners, devoid of any context or explanation. They are “angry populations” who suffer “inchoate frustration” and “a pathological hatred of the status quo.” We repeatedly hear of “Arab rage at Israel” and “Arab venom for Israel.” Nowhere is there a hint that such attitudes might bear some relation to the plight of the Palestinians, the agony of military defeat or the humiliation of life under Israeli occupation."
   
  http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21670
   
  Just one blatant example from Power:
   
  "Since Vietnam there has never been a more auspicious time for the Democratic Party to establish close relations with the US military. Building on Obama's October 2002 speech explaining his opposition to the war in Iraq, Democrats can continue to argue that Obama and his party will never do what the Republicans have done: send US service members to fight unnecessary wars. He will not stretch the US military and military families to their breaking points by extending tours of duty beyond what is tolerable. He will not order young cadets and reservists to carry out cruel and inhuman acts against foreign detainees and then abandon them when it becomes politically inconvenient, allowing them to be court-martialed while those who authorized the practices take up high-paying jobs at corporate law firms or prestigious teaching posts at top-flight law schools."
   
   

       
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