[Peace-discuss] Raimondo more credible than flacks for the Democrats

[C. G. Estabrook]

Bob can't attack Raimondo's exposure of the "liberals rally[ing] 'round Obama's 
war," because Raimondo is obviously correct.  So he has to claim that Raimondo 
is not a "real journalist."  --CGE


Morton K. Brussel wrote:
> I think it unfortunate and unjust to say that Naiman is "swallowing …the 
> liberal pro-war camel". What is the evidence?
> 
> There is little doubt that Iraq antiwar groups/organizations have been 
> split on the AfPac invasions/occupations. Peace-Action and UFPJ have 
> been pretty consistently against the moves by the Obama administration 
> on that issue, among others. Even /The Nation/.
> 
> For some reason, some perversely are prone to condemn the whole "antiwar 
> movement " for reasons not clear to me, except perhaps because of 
> frustration for being unable to stop, or even slow, the course of war 
> and empire. Due to conspiracy? Lack of militancy? Fatigue? Lack of money 
> and organization? It is difficult to know what the originally anti-war 
> public is thinking now, despite all the mainstream fear-mongering about 
> Al Quaeda. The polls seem ambiguous. I would guess that outfits like 
> Move-On and other fellow travelers for more military action in 
> Afghanistan/Pakistan are losing adherents, and are worried; hence the 
> effort of the administration's friends to roll out new propaganda 
> campaigns.  
> 
> It is also understandable, if deplorable, that so many are hesitant to 
> criticize Obama, given their support for him in the election, and their 
> relief that the Bush regime is, in many respects,  over. 
> 
> --mkb
> 
> On Apr 10, 2009, at 4:30 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> 
>> You're purposely straining at the Peace Action gnat to cover your 
>> swallowing of
>> the liberal pro-war camel.  Peace Action's behavior was a small 
>> sidelight to
>> what Raimondo was writing about: you choose to ignore his point, for 
>> obvious reasons.
>>
>> Discussing "antiwar groups [who] are not toeing the 
>> Afghanistan-is-a-war-of-necessity line," he mentions first Peace 
>> Action, and says (accurately) that they are "not making a whole lot of 
>> noise about this." That's true: not even many readers of this list 
>> knew what Peace Action's position was.
>>
>> It's a sign of desperation to try to charge Raimondo with not doing 
>> "any investigation before he writes" -- because, of course, you can't 
>> refute what he says about CAP, etc.  As anyone who reads his frequent 
>> columns knows, his accounts are consistently more trustworthy than 
>> those of liberal war-supporters who cry up the administration's 
>> "encouraging signals ... with respect to Afghanistan and Pakistan." 
>>  Right.
>>
>> I don't in fact share an ideological position with Raimondo, as you 
>> well know
>> (not that it matters).  But his account is more accurate than that of, 
>> say, those who supported the Democrats' war-funding bills.  We used to 
>> speak of "labor-fakers," who claimed to support labor and didn't. Now 
>> I suppose we should speak of "peace-fakers."  --CGE
>>
>>
>> Robert Naiman wrote:
>>> You wrote:
>>>> Peace Action does seem to be an honorable exception to the sordid record
>>>> that Raimondo describes.  But his comment on Peace Action seems strictly
>>>> accurate, if not fulsome.  It's quite true that "Peace Action is not
>>>> making a whole lot of noise about this, in spite of the issue’s relative
>>>> importance. They are confining their opposition to an online petition."
>>>> Some "accusation."
>>> But Peace Action is not "confining their opposition to an online 
>>> petition,"
>>> and anyone that bothered to talk to any of the national organizations 
>>> working
>>> on Afghanistan would know that. That's my point - you can't trust what
>>> Raimondo writes, because he clearly doesn't do any investigation 
>>> before he
>>> writes. You seem to judge him according to whether what he says 
>>> conforms with
>>> your ideological predispositions, not according to whether what he 
>>> writes is
>>> true.
>>> On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 12:58 PM, C. G. Estabrook 
>>> <galliher at illinois.edu <mailto:galliher at illinois.edu>>
>>> wrote:
>>>> I suppose Raimondo is here denied the title "real journalist" because of
>>>> his inability to find those oh-so-hard-to-see "encouraging signals" from
>>>> the administration "with respect to Afghanistan and Pakistan."  He sees
>>>> instead what is the case -- Obama's policy is "more aggressive and 
>>>> violent
>>>> than Bush's," as Chomsky points out.
>>>> As a principled rather than merely "pragmatic" opponent of the war,
>>>> Raimondo is certainly right to say, "I am truly at a loss to 
>>>> describe, in
>>>> suitably pungent terms, the contempt in which I hold the 
>>>> 'progressive' wing
>>>> of the War Party, which is now enjoying its moment in the sun. These 
>>>> people
>>>> have no principles: it's all about power at the court of King Obama, and
>>>> these court policy wonks are good for nothing but apologias for the 
>>>> king's
>>>> wars."
>>>> Propagandists for power like MoveOn and outright fakes like the 
>>>> well-funded
>>>> Astroturf campaign "Americans Against Escalation in Iraq" have been 
>>>> around
>>>> for a while.  The craven failure of "real journalists" to expose the
>>>> nature of these front groups has been a great help in the Democrats' 
>>>> (and
>>>> Obama's) co-option of the anti-war movement -- while they remain in fact
>>>> quite pro-war.  Honest journalists might have pointed out what was
>>>> happening -- as Raimondo did.
>>>> Peace Action does seem to be an honorable exception to the sordid 
>>>> record that Raimondo describes.  But his comment on Peace Action 
>>>> seems strictly accurate, if not fulsome.  It's quite true that 
>>>> "Peace Action is not making
>>>> a whole lot of noise about this, in spite of the issue’s relative 
>>>> importance. They are confining their opposition to an online petition."
>>>> Some "accusation."
>>>> It's also true but perhaps irrelevant to Raimondo's critique that 
>>>> Peace Action proposes "ending the Iraq and Afghanistan occupations, 
>>>> preventing a war on Iran, abolishing nuclear weapons and reducing 
>>>> the military budget." His target is the soi-disant liberal groups 
>>>> who don't hold those positions.
>>>> Springing to the defense of "Peace Action," which was not condemned, 
>>>> is perhaps a way of avoiding the accuracy of Raimondo's expose of 
>>>> the liberal groups -- which so many "real journalists" continue to do.
>>>> Chomsky says that when he wrote bout math, mathematicians wanted to 
>>>> know if
>>>> he got the right answer; when he wrote about history, historians 
>>>> wanted to
>>>> know where he got his degree. Similarly, when you write about
>>>> 'progressive' warmongers, you're told you're not a "real journalist"...
>>>> --CGE
>>>> Robert Naiman wrote:
>>>>> PKM is too nice to point out that a real journalist would have 
>>>>> investigated before making this accusation against Peace Action.
>>>>> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: paul kawika martin 
>>>>> [Peace Action] Date: Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 11:37 AM Subject: 
>>>>> ‘Progressive’ Warmongers
>>>>> I appreciate Mr. Raimondo writing about the left's response to 
>>>>> Afghanistan. He states "Peace Action is not making a whole lot of noise
>>>>> about this, in spite of the issue’s relative importance. They are
>>>>> confining their opposition to an online petition."  I can see why one
>>>>> might say that with a cursory look at our website.  We don't 
>>>>> necessarily
>>>>> publicize all of our work for various reasons.  For over 50 years Peace
>>>>> Action has been opposing U.S. imperialism at nearly every turn despite
>>>>> that the abolition of nuclear weapons was our founding issue.  While we
>>>>> are not necessarily a pacifist organization, historically we have 
>>>>> opposed
>>>>> military action in places where others were silent such as Vietnam and
>>>>> the Balkans.  Peace Action was one of the few organizations to
>>>>> vociferously oppose invading Afghanistan in the first place. Since 
>>>>> then,
>>>>> we have continued to raise our voice on the issue, perhaps not as 
>>>>> much as
>>>>> we would have liked, as working to stop and end the occupation of Iraq,
>>>>> prevent a war on Iran, thwart new nuclear weapons and reacting to a 
>>>>> plethora of insane Bush policies has consumed scarce resources. 
>>>>>  Some of our activists and colleagues have been to Afghanistan, 
>>>>> have offices on
>>>>> the ground and plan to go again to talk about the plight of Afghans and
>>>>> to push for nonmilitary solutions. Being in the heart of the beast in
>>>>> Washington, DC, this year Peace Action's national office has, with help
>>>>> from other organizations, put together a list of nearly 60 leaders, and
>>>>> held a meeting with 33 of them, to share resources and strategize the
>>>>> best ways to change Afghanistan policy.  We have reached out to
>>>>> conservative groups that agree with us like The CATO Institute.  We
>>>>> organized 20 organizations to send a letter to congress asking them to
>>>>> sign former presidential candidate, Rep. Ron Paul's (D-TX), letter to
>>>>> President Obama asking him to reconsider escalation in Afghanistan.  15
>>>>> Representatives signed the letter. We have been pressuring congress to
>>>>> oppose the occupation; to go to Afghanistan and talk to diverse Afghan
>>>>> voices and NGOs other than those pushed by the administration, the
>>>>> Pentagon, the Dept. of State and the Afghan government; to ask the 
>>>>> right
>>>>> questions in hearings with the right witnesses; to stop or investigate
>>>>> Air and Predator drone strikes and night raids that tend to kill and
>>>>> traumatize innocent civilians; and provide more funding for 
>>>>> Afghan-led humanitarian and development aid and for demining of the 
>>>>> United States' and others' land mines and cluster munitions. Our 
>>>>> affiliates and other
>>>>> local groups have been pressuring congress too.  Additionally, they 
>>>>> have
>>>>> been protesting, holding vigils and educating the public on 
>>>>> Afghanistan.
>>>>> Our largest and most powerful affiliate, Peace Action West, has been
>>>>> working with Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films, who recently returned
>>>>> from Afghanistan, to speak out against escalation, pressure 
>>>>> congress for
>>>>> serious public hearings with progressive voices, publicize segments of
>>>>> his upcoming documentary -- Rethink Afghanistan -- and organizing
>>>>> grassroots groups in the west. Last Saturday, on the anniversary of 
>>>>> MLK's
>>>>> Riverside church speech against the Vietnam war and his assassination,
>>>>> United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) organized a 10,000 person --
>>>>> including Peace Action members and affiliates -- march against the 
>>>>> war in
>>>>> Afghanistan and for more money at as well as other issues that 
>>>>> surrounded
>>>>> the NY stock exchange. As I write, Peace Action affiliates and chapters
>>>>> and members of UFPJ are meeting with Members of Congress in their
>>>>> district, during this congressional break, to demand an end to the
>>>>> Afghanistan war and other issues.  This is part of coordinated days of
>>>>> actions going on now from the 6th to the 9th.  A good web search 
>>>>> will find that Peace Action, our affiliates and colleagues have 
>>>>> been in numerous newspapers, on radio and TV shows, speaking out 
>>>>> against
>>>>> occupation and escalation, including countless mentions in The Nation.
>>>>> And yes, we also have a petition, which you can find here: 
>>>>> http://www.Peace-Action.org.  Raimondo is right the petition is not a
>>>>> whole lot of noise, but perhaps the above rises above a whisper.  I
>>>>> certainly know many progressives who have been or have become 
>>>>> against the
>>>>> occupation of Afghanistan.  I think as public opinion continues to sway
>>>>> on the issue, we will see other groups follow our lead.  We welcome 
>>>>> other
>>>>> organizations to join us as we are up against great resources.  My 
>>>>> guess
>>>>> is that the budget of all the military bands dwarfs that of the peace
>>>>> movement an perhaps other progressive movements.  I look  forward to
>>>>> working with others on Peace Action's main priorities for this year:
>>>>> ending the Iraq and Afghanistan occupations, preventing a war on Iran,
>>>>> abolishing nuclear weapons and reducing the military budget.
>>>>> [responding to:]
>>>>> http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2009/04/07/progressive-warmongers/
>>>>> ‘Progressive’ Warmongers
>>>>> Liberals rally 'round Obama's war
>>>>> by Justin Raimondo, April 08, 2009 Email This | Print This | Share 
>>>>> This |
>>>>> Comment
>>>>> As President Barack Obama launches a military effort that promises 
>>>>> to dwarf the Bush administration’s Iraqi adventure in scope and 
>>>>> intensity,
>>>>> the "progressive" community is rallying around their commander in chief
>>>>> as obediently and reflexively as the neocon-dominated GOP did when we
>>>>> invaded Iraq. As John Stauber points out over at the Center for 
>>>>> Media and
>>>>> Democracy Web site, the takeover of the antiwar movement by the
>>>>> Obamaites is nearly complete. He cites MoveOn.org as a prime but 
>>>>> not sole
>>>>> example:
>>>>> "MoveOn built its list by organizing vigils and ads for peace and 
>>>>> by then
>>>>> supporting Obama for president; today it operates as a full-time 
>>>>> cheerleader supporting Obama’s policy agenda. Some of us saw this
>>>>> unfolding years ago. Others are probably shocked watching their peace
>>>>> candidate escalating a war and sounding so much like the previous
>>>>> administration in his rationale for doing so."
>>>>> Picking up on this in The Nation, John Nichols avers that several 
>>>>> antiwar
>>>>> groups arenot toeing the Afghanistan-is-a-war-of-necessity line,
>>>>> including Peace Action, United for Peace and Justice, and the American
>>>>> Friends Service Committee, yet there is less to this than meets the 
>>>>> eye.
>>>>> Naturally, the Friends, being pacifists, are going to oppose the Afghan
>>>>> "surge" and the provocative incursions into Pakistan: no surprise 
>>>>> there.
>>>>> Peace Action is not making a whole lot of noise about this, in spite of
>>>>> the issue’s relative importance. They are confining their opposition to
>>>>> an online petition. As for UFPJ, their alleged opposition to 
>>>>> Obama’s war
>>>>> is couched in all kinds of contingencies and ambiguous formulations.
>>>>> Their most recent public pronouncement, calling for local actions 
>>>>> against
>>>>> the Af-Pak offensive, praises Obama for "good statements on increasing
>>>>> diplomacy and economic aid to Afghanistan and Pakistan." Really? So 
>>>>> far,
>>>>> this "diplomacy" consists of unsuccessfully finagling the Europeans and
>>>>> Canada toincrease their "contributions" to the Afghan front – and 
>>>>> selling
>>>>> the American people on an escalation of the conflict.
>>>>> Although energized and given a local presence nationwide by a 
>>>>> significant
>>>>> pacifist and youth contingent, UFPJ is organizationally dominated 
>>>>> by current and former members of the Communist Party, USA, and allied
>>>>> organizations, and you have toremember that Afghanistan is a bit of a
>>>>> sore spot for them. That’s because the Kremlinpreceded us in our 
>>>>> folly of
>>>>> attempting to tame the wild warrior tribes of the Hindu Kush and was
>>>>> soundly defeated.
>>>>> The Soviet Union did its level best in trying to accomplish what a 
>>>>> number
>>>>> of liberal think-tanks with ambitious agendas are today busily
>>>>> concerning themselves with solving the problem of constructing a 
>>>>> working
>>>>> central government, centered in Kabul, which would improve the lot 
>>>>> of the
>>>>> average Afghan, liberate women from their legally and socially
>>>>> subordinate role, eliminate the drug trade, and provide a minimal 
>>>>> amount
>>>>> of security outside the confines of Kabul – in short, the very same
>>>>> goalsenunciated by the Bush administration and now the Obama
>>>>> administration. The Kremlin failed miserably in achieving its 
>>>>> objectives,
>>>>> and there is little reason to believe the Americans will have better
>>>>> luck.
>>>>> In retrospect, the Soviet decision to invade and create a puppet 
>>>>> government propped up by the Red Army was arguably a fatal error, one
>>>>> that delivered the final crushing blow to a system already moribund and
>>>>> brittle enough to break. The domestic consequences inside the Soviet
>>>>> Union – the blowback, if you will – sounded the death knell of the
>>>>> Communist system and revealed the Kremlin’s ramshackle empire in 
>>>>> all its
>>>>> military and moral bankruptcy.
>>>>> What is to prevent the U.S. from courting a similar fate, at a time 
>>>>> when our economy is melting down and the domestic crisis makes such 
>>>>> grandiose "nation-building" schemes seem like bubble-think at its 
>>>>> most hubristic?
>>>>> That’s where the pro-war progressive think-tanks come in: their role is
>>>>> to forge a new pro-war consensus, one that commits us to a 
>>>>> long-range "nation-building" strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan. 
>>>>> These are the Center for a New American Security, explicitly set up 
>>>>> as home base for
>>>>> the "national security Democrats" who make up the party’s hawkish
>>>>> faction; Brookings; and, last but not least, the Center for American
>>>>> Progress, which was an oasis of skepticism when Team Bush was
>>>>> "liberating" Iraq, and a major critic of the occupation. Now the
>>>>> leadership of CAP is making joint appearances with the neocons over at
>>>>> the newly christened Foreign Policy Initiative and issuing lengthy 
>>>>> white
>>>>> papers outlining their Ten Year Plan [.pdf] for the military occupation
>>>>> of Afghanistan.
>>>>> Not only that, but they are moving to the front lines in a battle 
>>>>> against
>>>>> Obama’s antiwar opponents, with the Nichols piece – which merely
>>>>> reported growing opposition to Obama’s war on the Left – eliciting a
>>>>> testy response from CAP honchoLawrence Korb and one of his 
>>>>> apparatchiks.
>>>>> In it, the CAPsters aver, wearily, that none of this is new – the
>>>>> "schism" within the "progressive community" over Afghanistan is
>>>>> "long-standing" – and they remind their audience that the release of
>>>>> CAP’s latest apologia for occupying Afghanistan is hardly
>>>>> precedent-setting. After all, their two previous reports supported
>>>>> precisely the same position, which was taken upby Obama during the 2008
>>>>> campaign: Iraq was the wrong war, Afghanistan is the "right" war, 
>>>>> and the
>>>>> Bush administration diverted vital resources away from the latter to
>>>>> fight the former. Now that Obama is doing what he said he’d do all 
>>>>> along
>>>>> – escalating and extending the Long War on the Afghan front – CAP 
>>>>> is supporting him. It’s as simple as that.
>>>>> Still, it’s perhaps perplexing to those who followed the debate 
>>>>> over the Iraq war to see CAP in the vanguard of the War Party. Or, 
>>>>> as Korb & Co.
>>>>> put it:
>>>>> "Given our organization’s (and our personal) long-standing 
>>>>> assertion that
>>>>> a U.S. military withdrawal from the war in Iraq was and is a 
>>>>> necessary precondition for Iraq’s competing parties to find a 
>>>>> stable power-sharing equilibrium, perhaps it comes as a surprise to 
>>>>> some that we would ‘now’ call for such a renewed U.S. military, 
>>>>> economic, and political commitment
>>>>> to the war in Afghanistan."
>>>>> Well, yes, now that you mention it, this cheerleading for Obama’s 
>>>>> war is
>>>>> a bit of a turnaround for CAP and the Washington "progressive" 
>>>>> community.
>>>>> Their Stalinesque about-face – which recalls the disciplined hypocrisy
>>>>> of Communist cadre who were just as fervently antiwar in the moments
>>>>> before Hitler invaded Russia as they were pro-war every moment since –
>>>>> requires some explanation. Korb, however, is not very forthcoming. He
>>>>> does little to refute objections to the occupation of Afghanistan, 
>>>>> which
>>>>> would seem to reflect the very same critique leveled at Bush’s conquest
>>>>> of Iraq. Yet we get relatively little out of him, except the bland
>>>>> assertion that "Afghanistan is not Iraq." Not convinced yet? Well then,
>>>>> listen to this: "Unlike the war in Iraq, which was always a war of
>>>>> choice, Afghanistan was and still is a war of necessity."
>>>>> There, that ought to quiet any qualms about embarking on a 10-year or
>>>>> more military occupation and a hideously expensive "nation-building"
>>>>> effort in a country that has defied would-be occupiers for most of its
>>>>> history.
>>>>> One searches in vain for a reasoned rationale for the Afghan 
>>>>> escalation, or even a halfway plausible justification for lurching 
>>>>> into Pakistan,
>>>>> either in Korb’s brief and dismissive piece for The Nation or in CAP’s
>>>>> latest [pdf.] 40-plus page defense of the administration’s war 
>>>>> plans. The
>>>>> latter is long on sober assessments of how difficult it will be to
>>>>> double-talk the American people into supporting another futile 
>>>>> crusade on
>>>>> the Asian landmass, and it has plenty of colorful graphics, 
>>>>> including one
>>>>> showing how much they want the U.S. troop presence to increase over the
>>>>> next few years. Yet this "war of necessity" concept is never explained
>>>>> beyond mere reiteration, although there are a few subtle hints. At one
>>>>> point, the CAP document, "Sustainable Security in Afghanistan," 
>>>>> declares:
>>>>> "Al-Qaeda poses a clear and present danger to American interests 
>>>>> and its allies throughout the world and must be dealt with by using 
>>>>> all the instruments in our national security arsenal in an 
>>>>> integrated manner. The
>>>>> terrorist organization’s deep historical roots in Afghanistan and 
>>>>> its neighbor Pakistan place it at the center of an ‘arc of 
>>>>> instability’ through South and Central Asia and the greater Middle 
>>>>> East that requires
>>>>> a sustained international response."
>>>>> If al-Qaeda has "deep historical roots" in Afghanistan and 
>>>>> Pakistan, then
>>>>> they run far deeper in, say, Saudi Arabia – where most of the 9/11 
>>>>> hijackers were from. If we go by Korbian logic, that merits a U.S.
>>>>> invasion and decade-long military occupation of the Kingdom.
>>>>> Is it something in the water in Washington, or is it just the
>>>>> water-cooler in CAP’s D.C. offices?
>>>>> Yes, by all means, let us examine the "deep historical roots" of
>>>>> al-Qaeda, which originated in what Korb obliquely refers to as "the
>>>>> anti-Soviet campaign." Thiscampaign was conducted by the U.S. 
>>>>> government,
>>>>> which armed, aided, and gave open political support to the Afghan
>>>>> "mujahedin," who were feted at the Reagan White House. Supplied with
>>>>> Stinger missiles and other weaponry, which enabled them to drive 
>>>>> the Red
>>>>> Army out, al-Qaeda developed as an international jihadist network 
>>>>> in the
>>>>> course of this struggle, which later turned on its principal 
>>>>> sponsor and
>>>>> enabler. None of this, of course, is mentioned by the authors of 
>>>>> the CAP
>>>>> report.
>>>>> Shorn of sanctimony and partisan rhetoric, what the advocates of 
>>>>> Obama’s war are saying is that Afghanistan and Pakistan are Osama 
>>>>> bin Laden’s
>>>>> home turf, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks give us the right to 
>>>>> militarily
>>>>> occupy the country, in perpetuity if necessary, in order to prevent a
>>>>> repeat.
>>>>> This argument lacks all proportion and belies the Obamaites’ 
>>>>> appeals to "pragmatism" and "realism" as the alleged hallmarks of 
>>>>> the new administration. Beneath the unemotional language of 
>>>>> faux-expertise – the technical analyses of troop strength and 
>>>>> abstruse discussions of counterinsurgency doctrine – a dark 
>>>>> undercurrent of primordialism flows through the "progressive" case 
>>>>> for a 10-year war in the wilds of Central Asia. The unspoken but 
>>>>> painfully obvious motive for Obama’s war is simply
>>>>> satisfying the desire of the American people for revenge.
>>>>> It is certainly not about preventing another 9/11. The biggest and 
>>>>> deadliest terrorist attack in our history was for the most part plotted
>>>>> and carried out here in the U.S., right under the noses of the FBI, the
>>>>> CIA, and all the "anti-terrorist" agencies and initiatives that had 
>>>>> been
>>>>> created during the Clinton years. Earlier, it was plotted inHamburg,
>>>>> Germany, and Malaysia, and the plot advanced further still in a small
>>>>> town in south Florida.
>>>>> Having concluded that another terrorist attack on U.S. soil is for 
>>>>> all intents and purposes practically inevitable, the U.S. 
>>>>> government during
>>>>> the Bush era decided to take up an offensive strategy, to go after 
>>>>> the terrorist leadership in their "safe havens." The Obamaites, 
>>>>> likewise
>>>>> disdaining a defensive strategy, have continued this policy, albeit 
>>>>> with
>>>>> a simple switch in locations and the application of greater resources.
>>>>> They have furthermore determined – without making public any supporting
>>>>> evidence – that these alleged terrorist sanctuaries are located in
>>>>> Afghanistan and Pakistan. The president has even broadly hinted that
>>>>> Osama bin Laden himself is in Pakistan’s tribal area. One presumes 
>>>>> we are
>>>>> supposed to take this on faith: after all, the U.S. government would
>>>>> never lie to us, or exaggerate the known facts – would they?
>>>>> The CAP report is mostly a rehash of liberal interventionist 
>>>>> bromides, paeans to multilateralism (which ring particularly hollow 
>>>>> in view of
>>>>> Obama’s recent failure to get more than a measly 5,000 European troops
>>>>> out of NATO), and pious pledges to build clinics, schools, and walk
>>>>> little old ladies across crowded streets even as our soulless armies of
>>>>> drones wreak death and devastation.
>>>>> This use of robots to do our dirty work recalls the bombing of the 
>>>>> former
>>>>> Yugoslavia, during which American pilots dropped their deadly 
>>>>> payloads from a height of 20,000 feet. Sure, it made for somewhat 
>>>>> dicey accuracy,
>>>>> but better Serbian "collateral damage" than American casualties. 
>>>>> The same
>>>>> lesson applies to the Af-Pak war: better a lot of dead Pakistanis 
>>>>> than a
>>>>> few downed American pilots. The U.S. death toll is already rising 
>>>>> rapidly
>>>>> enough, and the shooting down of an American pilot over Pakistani
>>>>> territory would surely draw unwelcome attention on the home front, as
>>>>> well as cause an international incident. We can’t have that.
>>>>> I am truly at a loss to describe, in suitably pungent terms, the 
>>>>> contempt
>>>>> in which I hold the "progressive" wing of the War Party, which is 
>>>>> now enjoying its moment in the sun. These people have no 
>>>>> principles: it’s all
>>>>> about power at the court of King Obama, and these court policy 
>>>>> wonks are
>>>>> good for nothing but apologias for the king’s wars.
>>>>> They are, however, good for an occasional laugh. I had to guffaw 
>>>>> when I read the phrase "arc of instability." This is supposed to be 
>>>>> a reason –
>>>>> nay, the reason – for a military and political campaign scheduled to
>>>>> continue for at least the next 10 years. Well, then, let’s take a good
>>>>> look at this "arc," which, we are told, extends "through South and
>>>>> Central Asia and the greater Middle East." From the shores of 
>>>>> Lebanon to
>>>>> the mountain ranges of Afghanistan, and most places in between, 
>>>>> that "arc
>>>>> of instability" defines the geographical extent of U.S. intervention in
>>>>> the region from the end of World War II to the present. If any single
>>>>> factor contributed to the instability permeating this arc, then it 
>>>>> is the
>>>>> one constant factor in the equation, which has been the U.S. 
>>>>> presence and
>>>>> efforts to dominate the region.
>>>>> What is Korb’s – and CAP’s – solution to the problem of regional 
>>>>> instability? Why, more of the same. This will lead, as it has in the
>>>>> past, to more blowback and an increase in the support and 
>>>>> capabilities of
>>>>> the worldwide Islamist insurgency we are pledged to defeat.
>>>>> ...
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