Reprehensable and Crazy? Sounds Good to Me!

It seems that when Tom Tancredo got asked about the fact that the State Department called his plan to bomb Mecca and Medina to deter terrorism "reprehensable" and "absolutely crazy" he came up with this reply:

"Yes," Tancredo answered. "The State Department -- boy, when they start complaining about things I say, I feel a lot better about the things I say, I'll tell you right now."

It's striking to recall how recently it was that this sort of "if the knowledgeable professionals at the State Department think it's a bad idea, it must be the right thing to do" mentality was conventional wisdom among conservatives and liberal hawks -- "Arabists" was a term of derision to indicate people without the vision and idealism necessary to give us a horrifying bloodbath in Iraq and call it democracy.

Comments

When did it stop being conventional wisdom for conservatives?

Posted by Gabriel | August 5, 2007 7:22 PM

"Arabists" was a term of derision to indicate people without the vision and idealism necessary to give us a horrifying bloodbath in Iraq and call it democracy.

"Arabist" as a pejorative has a much longer history than that.

It's not as if some part of the country went suddenly crazy. I think most of the constituent parts of this Administration's craziness have been around for a long time.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | August 5, 2007 7:27 PM

Apparently, the Pakistani National Assembly is going to pass a resolution declaring Tom Tancredo mentally ill:

http://watchingamerica.com/paktribune000029.shtml

Posted by Josh G. | August 5, 2007 7:46 PM

The British woman (Gertrude Bell, a notable 'arabist') who played a key role in 'drawing the lines on the map' to create (out of whole cloth) the state of Iraq, is still being talked about today.

from link:

Some excerpts from Bell's letters:

March 14, 1920: It's a problem here how to get into touch with the Shiahs, not the tribal people in the country; we're on intimate terms with all of them, but the grimly devout citizens of the holy towns and more especially the leaders of religious opinion, the Mujtahids, who can loose and bind with a word by authority which rests on an intimate acquaintance with accumulated knowledge entirely irrelevant to human affairs and worthless in any branch of human activity. There they sit in an atmosphere which reeks of antiquity and is so thick with the dust of ages that you can't see through it -- nor can they. And for the most part they are very hostile to us, a feeling we can't alter…There's a group of these worthies in Kadhimain, the holy city, 8 miles from Baghdad, bitterly pan-Islamic, anti-British…Chief among them are a family called Sadr, possibly more distinguished for religious learning than any other family in the whole Shiah world…. I went yesterday [to visit them] accompanied by an advanced Shiah of Baghdad whom I knew well.

Yes, what goes around, comes around...

Too bad none of the neo-cons or Bushies had read mideast history (at Oxford or elsewhere) before they decided Chalabi was their man.

Posted by JimPortlandOR | August 5, 2007 7:59 PM

McCarthyism again. He pushed the China experts out of the State department in the 50s.

Posted by anon | August 5, 2007 8:12 PM

Just as "Orientalist" became a term of derision for the Arabists on the academic left with the publication of Edward Said's book in 1978. The handful of American Arabists/Orientalists who actually understood the Arabs got hammered between the neocons on the right and the deconstructionists on the left, with bad results for America.

Posted by Steve Sailer | August 5, 2007 8:34 PM

Again, Sailer with this Edward Said bashing. I wouldn't trust Sailer with a recipe for boiling water, but I'm supposed to believe he has this deep understanding of the academy and Edward Said's place within it? Baloney.

And, by the by, calling Said a deconstructionist is just absurd.

Posted by Freddie | August 5, 2007 8:40 PM

Matt, your spelling is truly reprehensable. Get FF2— it'll underline your numerous boo-boos in red. Either that or hire a sexy proofreader.

PS: I'm available ;) ...

Posted by Gregorio | August 5, 2007 8:43 PM

Of course it's absurd. But what is deconstructionism if it is not the warm embrace of absurdity? How dare you, Freddie, try to place limits on that study of discourse whose purpose is to deny the very possibility of limitation? Bwahaha! Nothing can refute that which by it's very definition refutes refutation!!!

Posted by Gordon Lightfoot | August 5, 2007 8:47 PM

What was ol' Tom Tan saying about the State Dept. when they were telling us about the immediate dangers of Saddam?

I doubt he was oh boying them then.

Posted by Gee Doubleyou | August 5, 2007 9:31 PM

Matt's alluding to fellow Atlantic author Robert D. Kaplan, who wrote "The Arabists: The Romance of an American Elite," which gave rise to the notion that not being a bloodthirsty warmonger was treason.

I admit I too was totally suckered by Kaplan's military-worshipping travelogues. Big mistake

Here's a review by Andrew Bacevich:

http://www.metafilter.com/47351/Kaplans-Imperial-Grunts#1132104

Posted by chris | August 5, 2007 9:31 PM

I've been trying to post something under 'earmarks' all day and getting this message. . .
----------------
Thank you for commenting.

Your comment has been received and held for approval by the blog owner.
-----------------
. . .which I've gotten before and there's never been an "approval" by his majesty. No posting, ever. And these are informative postings, not blasphemous.

Has anyone else experienced this?
This is . . . not nice. What's going on?

Posted by Don Bacon | August 5, 2007 10:59 PM

I've gotten that when I've tried to post a link.

Posted by Ed Marshall | August 5, 2007 11:05 PM

Matthew wrote:

give us a horrifying bloodbath in Iraq and call it democracy.

This is a great line --"give us a bloodbath and call it a democracy".

A great update on "give us a desolation and call it peace". You should use it again.

Posted by Ikram | August 5, 2007 11:09 PM

What Edward Said (as well as many unsung others) rightly criticized certain "Orientalists" or "Arabists" was for their horrendously wrong and usually fact-free analyses of 'Oriental' life, politics, and culture.

The opposite of that is to either find better, less imperially blinded intellectuals -- this is what actually happened in academia, where now you have to do real research on the Middle East and not just spin whatever intellectual yarns trip your fancy.

That right wing maniacs used criticisms of the existing foolishness to then urge the adoption of complete unrealism is NOT the fault of those who made logical and empirical critiques of previously wrong actors.

You don't insist that the same wrong people are suddenly correct because some vastly wronger set of people are installed in their place.

If a British imperial official in the style of Lord Lugard whose policies managed better in British West Africa were replaced by some neo-Khan style nut, it suddenly doesn't make the imperial lunacies of a Lugard correct -- it just makes them better than the freaks who replaced them.

Posted by El Cid | August 5, 2007 11:09 PM

You mean Arabists like Eddy, that brokered the treaty with King Saud in '45, which accepted we
give them 'our steel' and use their oil, but not
touch their Wahhabi faith" Subsequent agreements
that made US corporations subject to the boycott
of Israel, hand maidens to their network of Madrassas, zakat institutions like "Blessed Relief", Holy Land, and other foundations. This
is not altogether an American problem; The Brits
through Gertrude Bell,& Percy Cox, did design Iraq along the 3 vilayet formula, but left the likes of AbderRahman Al Ghailani; the head of the
Baghdad religious guild as first prime minister; which was ironic considering the 'thawra' or uprising was mostly along Shia lines. Ghailani's son returned the favor, by organizing the "Golden
Square' fascists that took power in April '41, pledging allegiance to Hitler, Mussolini, and their emissary, Haj Amin Husseini; Arafat's uncle. The sad result of this was that the shut out Shia majority, found itself moving toward
the radical edges of Iraqi politics, first Communism, and after a time,Mohammed Sadr's quietist Shiaism. In Felix Arabia, was the greatest blunder, thanks to Philby Sr. and Cox again; the Brits supported the likes of King Ibn Abdulazziz over the Hashemites, who were the actual guardians of the shrine. Even more ironic since King Saud didn't lift a finger to help the Brits in that region. As for Col. Bacevich, one recalls he was really a expert in Latin America
where he came to prominence; as a junior officer, who thought we should 'abandon the Salvadoran army' since it showed, no prospects of defeating the enemy. That was more than 20 years ago; he was shortsided then.

Posted by narciso | August 5, 2007 11:11 PM

i'm sure marty peretz would endorse tom tancredo's plan.

Posted by john | August 5, 2007 11:15 PM

Tancredo was doing the same reckless open public talk that Obama engaged in with his advocacy to invade Pakistan without warning and permission of the Paks in order to achieve conquest of the NorthWest Territories (37% of Pakistans landmass) so he could play "terrorist leader whack-a-mole".

Both men said foolish things that contained partial truths that their lack of judgement and experience in dealing with the world obscured.

Yes, if we knew where Binnie and and leaders of the other 60 Islamic Jihad "tip of the spear" combat groups besides AQ were exactly, and Muslim countries wouldn't take them out or arrest them, or otherwise defied and endangered us or our allies - we would start an escalating confrontation that ends in War, like with Iraq - or simmers, like with the Paks. But you don't just blurt out that your end plan is invasion and possible nuclear war with Pakistan if they don't submit to our wishes.

Similarly, Tancredo was stating the "end state obvious consequences" of American action in the face of danger.

The Cold War Logic is grim but obvious:

1. At the height of the Cold War, the Soviets likely would have nuked DC, New York, and other critical US assets if they could get away with it and achieve global Communist control. Similarly, we wished to end Communism everywhere and expended hundreds of thousands of lives - our own or proxies - to thwart them. And built a military capable of destroying them....But not at the price of losing our cities to destroy Soviet ones. Nor did the Russians, or later the Chinese, seek their own eradication.

2. So by being willing to destroy centers of Soviet or Chinese civilization to save non-communist civ, we protected our cities from the enemy because they knew the consequences. There is no argument of "innocence and Geneva protections" as determined by lawyers in black robes when cities are nuked and bioplague is unleashed. Rules are gone. Only the logic of "if you do this" you collectively will get worse.

3. Tancredo applied that to the Islamoids. But like Obama, stupidly failed to keep it ambiguous in warning Islamoids and reassuring his audience that whatever Muslims do to infidels we can do far worse to them. He gave specific targets. He should have just kept it as "if Muslims use WMD on infidel populations the retaliation will be swift and absolutely devestating to their countries involved and to their civilization." - An answer Hillary, Joe Biden, Dodd, Romney, McCain, and it appears Giuliani from his long education into the nature of the threat from radicalized Islamic peoples - are wise enough to know thoroughly, now.

Muslims are a mix on this. Some are stupid enough to believe they can get away with nuking Moscow, London, Beijing, or LA by using terrorist "tip of Allah's spear" as plausible deniability proxies and the power of the Western Left will thwart military retaliation in favor of law enforcement or a "precision bomb that is careful to be only used when the terrorists wife and kids are out of the house" in response to millions od infidels dead and burning in a Muslim WMD attack.

Other Muslims are smart enough to know that all the Geneva and Human rights crap goes away when nukes are used on infidels or Jihadis start a biowar. The lawyers in black robes will shut up and the Left will crumble like tissue paper rather than be seen as an Islamist 5th column if the non-Muslim world believes they face an existiential threat. In that context, Mecca and Medina, along with key Muslim cities like Cairo, Riyadh, Peshewar, Jedda, Tehran - would be considered for inclusion or rejection on a counterstrike list prepared by NATO, Russia, Or China's leaders following Muslim attack with WMD on their people.

That is just the straight truth, and it is in our interest, without going the reckless naive route followed by Obama and Tancredo, to educate more Muslims and Lefties in the realities. The day Muslims use WMD is the day the rest of the world deems eradication of some Muslim cities and centers of their Civ as morally acceptable to deter, even permanently end, their ability to conquer or engage in aggression outside the Ummah.

Indeed, OBL was educated enough to veto KSM's proposal to crash the two planes intended for the WTC into nuclear power plants in New York and New Jersey instead. OBL said in a videotape that he rejected the proposal because it would be bad publicity and that it would provoke a "without limits" US response that would endanger "believers" needlessly.

Posted by Chris Ford | August 5, 2007 11:20 PM

Does your family or even dogs like you, Ford?

Posted by Ed Marshall | August 5, 2007 11:40 PM

This is why so many Americans are moving to Canada and Mexico, among other places. The hate is getting too thick for some to bear.

Posted by Don Bacon | August 6, 2007 12:31 AM

Does your family or even dogs like you, Ford?
Posted by Ed Marshall

Of course they do, so did a majority of my hometown voters in the 90s.

Then again, we have few Lefties, traitors, and radical Muslims where I live. You wouldn't like it here, Marshall, but then again my dog wouldn't like you. So I guess that's a fair trade.

Posted by CHris Ford | August 6, 2007 1:44 AM

This is the whole problem with Weapons of Mass Destruction. They've been so thoroughly weaved into the discourse regarding national security that even though they've never been used by Islamic extremists (Saddam was an evil dictator, not an evil terrorist) guys like Chris Ford here talk as if the WMD threat is somehow more than theoretical. It's not, and basing an entire national security strategy on something really scary sounding but highly improbable is absurd. I think tossing around the idea that terrorists are going to unleash biological warfare of a kind that even the US and Russia aren't capable of is giving way too much credit to the organizational capabilities of terrorists. Make no mistake about it, there isn't a chance in hell that Osama's cronies are going to turn around tomorrow and unleash a species ending pandemic. They aren't going to build their own nuclear bomb, and it seems that states have been pretty good so far at keeping their nukes out of terrorist hands. The production of chemical agents is far simpler, but chemical weapons aren't really more deadly than good old fashioned bombs, and their effective deployment requires a certain level of technical finesse even to get them to that level. The threat of WMD's has been hyped way out of proportion.

The most irritating feature of this hype is the way it demonstrates a peculiar relationship between war mongering Chris Ford types and war mongering Osama Bin Laden types. They need each other. The truth is, the common, over the counter twinkie has done more harm to the well being of the citizens of our glorious republic than the combined efforts of all the terrorists in the world. 9/11 was bad, but it was also a fluke-an interesting demonstration of the maximum amount of damage a group of men armed with box cutters could wreak upon a country. It wasn't even close to being the sort of civilization ending tragedy that chest thumping right wing nutjobs have tried to make it out to be. Osama Bin Laden digs the notion of a "Clash of Civilizations" just as much as any neoconservative, because it is an indicator that his enemies are taking him as seriously as he takes himself. He doesn't deserve the credit, not the least of which because the fear is what he set out to manufacture to begin with.

Of course it serves the interests of jingoistic assholes too, so on the this matter, the rabid set on both sides have a common cause. These movements feed off one another, to the great misfortune of a large number of innocent people. If you think of the phenomenon as merely a clash of ideologies, you'd be missing something more fundamental-it's not about religion, or freedom, or justice-it's really about about filling the streets with the blood of the enemy. These guys just want to see people die. If all the terrorists in the world put down their arms tomorrow and agreed to pursue peaceful democratic means to achieve their political ends, it would break Mr. Ford's heart right in two, because then he wouldn't have his justification for imagining with delight the systematic annihilation of 1.2 billion people.

Posted by Gordon Lightfoot | August 6, 2007 3:51 AM

Huh, so all those times that Bush emphasized that the US is not at war with all Muslims, he was talking to people like Chris Ford. And Chris Ford, for the only time in his life, wasn't listening.

Watching him salivate in every other thread over the prospect of millions of dead Muslims turns my stomach. It's becoming really difficult to read Matt's comments with this wannabe genocidaire polluting things.

Is it me, or have the trolls grown much more distasteful in the last few weeks? At this point, I long for Al and his mere talking-point double-speak.

Posted by DivGuy | August 6, 2007 6:28 AM

Seriously, it's reprehensIble. Gregorio knows.

Posted by Cerro | August 6, 2007 6:34 AM

So, if a US city is attacked with WMD, and the evidence shows that the terrorists were Christian, we ought to nuke Rome, right?

Posted by rea | August 6, 2007 7:25 AM

Of course they do, so did a majority of my hometown voters in the 90s.

Typical...such talk is the hallmark of 'big dick, small pond' council members. Y'know, the type that gets pulled over for speeding through a residential neighborhood, then pulls the 'don't you know who I am' schtick. Whatever.

Then again, we have few Lefties, traitors, and radical Muslims where I live.

You forgot Mexicans! It's that sort of sloppy invective that's got you looking back on your 'political career' like a former high school quarterback.

Posted by EpicureanQuaker | August 6, 2007 7:58 AM

Chris Ford's comments make me sick.

Posted by dob | August 6, 2007 11:09 AM

Is it just me or does Tom Tancredo look-- and talk-- like a cross between James Traficant and Johnny Sac from the Sopranos?

Posted by Gregorio | August 6, 2007 1:08 PM