Sweet Iraq panel from the NYT. It's got Richard Perle and Danielle Pletka and Frederick Kagan and Paul Bremer. That's four out of the nine slots! Plus you've got Ken Pollack, and what Spencer Ackerman describes as "non-liberal members of the reality-based community like Paul Eaton and Anthony Cordesman and Nate Fick." Representing American liberalism in even the liberal New York Times is Anne-Marie Slaughter all by her lonesome -- can't let too many hippies congregate on one op-ed page.
« Good To Know | Main | "Windfall" Profits »
Fair and Balanced
04 May 2008 11:28 pm
Comments (49)
The odd thing is, I think they assume, correctly, their readership will just swallow this whole.
Fixed.
For the 1,000th time, 95% of the population of the United States, including most "progressives," and including most readers of the New York Times, are fully in favor of our imperial foreign policy.
Perhaps the Justices at the Nuremberg hearings should have been Himmler, Bormann, and Mengele.
Where's Max Boot at?
Look, from about the point at which Bill Kristol got his Op-Ed slot---presumably to balance out David Brooks!---it's been pretty obvious that the NYT had basically contracted out its Week in Review and Sunday Book Review sections to the Weekly Standard. By an absolutely remarkably coincidence, this happened soon after some lesser neocon was put in charge of the NYT WiR and SBR.
It's a little like some old Fairy Tale. You let just one of the little elves into your home, and when you're not looking, he quietly opens the door and lets all his little friends in as well.
This is pretty much the same way the neocons took over Brookings, Carnegie, CFR, and all the other "liberal establishment" organizations as well.
These people aren't fit to be cat food. Especially Pletka, whose verbal arguments consist of nothing more than abuse, intimidation, and proof by emphatic assertion.
The real irony here is that, as bad as the Bush administration is, the neocons have been frozen out in the second term. If The Monster somehow is elected president, the Democratic neocons will take over our foriegn policy, whereas if McCain is elected, the most radical of the Republican neocons will take over. In either case, our foreign policy will get even more horrifically bad. Kind of frightening that the only people holding back Armageddon right now are the people on the Bush team. I mean, they too are war criminals, of course, and deserve to be tried and executed as such, but at least they aren't starting WW III, which is what the neocons want.
Is Anne-Marie Slaughter even considered a "liberal"? She's what, a "Truman Democrat" and a major "liberal interventionist"?
LarryM: I have news for you - the war on Iran is on. Bush signed a secret "finding" six weeks ago to expand major covert operations in Iran, including funding the M.E.K. and Jundallah terrorist groups.
Yes, WWIII is about to be started, even if it doesn't involve Russia and China (and it will involve China, since they'll dump the US dollar in retaliation for being cut off from Iranian oil and gas.)
For the 1,000th time, 95% of the population of the United States, including most "progressives," and including most readers of the New York Times, are fully in favor of our imperial foreign policy.
This is either wrong, or parsed well passed the point of meaningfulness.
Our imperial foreign policy is embodied in the Iraq war, which is incredibly unpopular. The people on this panel support stay-the-course, the American people don't.
It is certainly true that everyday Americans, for the most part, are not opposed to a wide variety of imperial actions and dispositions, but in that they are hardly different from, say, Matthew Yglesias on Kosovo and trade, or Barack Obama on Israel.
This NYT panel, though, quite clearly and demonstrably does not reflect the beliefs of interests of Americans. It reflects an elite discourse which is far more pro-imperial than the national mood.
Bush signed a secret "finding" six weeks ago
Huh? Look, I know this is just a comment section, but how about a reference?
Finding or not, and I wouldn't put it past them but haven't seen any evidence of it, covert operations are one thing, starting a shooting war (in this case, initially a bombing campaign, but escalating) is another. And, given that the "crazy" rulers of Iran are, compared to the United States foreign policy establishment, men of sense and restraint, covert operations won't escalate to a shooting war.
That being said, none of us are really privy to the inner workings of the Bush administration, and tea leaf reading is always a challenge. My sense is that the current crew, while happy to step up the pressure, doesn't want a shooting war to break out. The danger would be if the simpleton in command gets frustrated and listens to Cheney, instead of Gates/Rice, since it is pretty clear that if it was up to Cheney, the bombs would have started dropping months ago.
all by her loathsome?
'Bush signed a secret "finding" six weeks ago' Huh? Look, I know this is just a comment section, but how about a reference?
This allegation came from Andrew Cockburn. I haven't seen it anywhere else.
http://www.counterpunch.org/andrew05022008.html
Kagan, Pletka, Perle, Pollack.
America was safer when the Jewish experts on TV and print were Drs. Joyce Brothers, Ruth Westheimer, Dear Abby and her sister Ann Landers. These new Jewish experts get our soldiers killed in wars for the security of Israel.
The mention of Max Boot above reminded me of the byline in a Boot column yesterday that the increased number of deaths of American soldiers in April 2008 is a clear sign of success.
I've had my suspicions that the New York Times had been "infiltrated" some time ago, but this is simply ridiculous.
Del: I can't tell if you're joking or not, but I hardly see what being Jewish has to do with this. Even if it is a joke, it's hardly an appropriate one.
That's interesting. The Counterpunch article mentions the moving up of the departure date of a ship from San Diego, and the local channels did cover the event today, announcing that the ship is going to middle east to help in the fight against terrorism.
I am going to buy me some OIH and XLE tomorrow.
I forgot to add:
Okay, so for anyone who considers themselves "progressive," shouldn't there be some concerted effort to demonstrate to the Times that this is unacceptable? What other major newspapers could be read as an "activist" alternative? Why aren't more people speaking out critically against the Times, like in major progressive newspapers such as In These Times are The Nation, or even in blogs?
It seems that while the Times has become increasingly more ideological in their compliance with the fabricated discourse of right-wing Ananke, no one seems to be doing much about it. There is something inherently wrong about that.
You people just don't get it. Denial runs deep.
Try this:
United States is drawing up plans to strike on Iranian insurgency camp
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3868063.ece
Now try thinking about it. WHY would the United States ANNOUNCE - and they know this stuff leaks to media like the Times - an attack on an Iranian "insurgent camp"?
Because they know this is bogus. This is for public consumption.
This is to JUSTIFY starting a war with Iran.
Period. Nothing else.
Bush and Cheney have absolutely NO downside to starting a war with Iran this year. It will cost Bush and Cheney and their oil company and military-industrial complex cronies absolutely nothing to do this. It will give McCain and the Republicans a "war bounce" and do nothing but cause confusion for the Democrats since both Clinton and Obama are hawks on Iran. It will tie the hands of the incoming administration no matter who it is.
They couldn't do this in 2006, as I expected they would, because by now the war might (undoubtedly would) have gone badly and would cost them the Presidency in 2008.
This year, they have no such worries. They can start the war, knowing they will dominate the political scene for another four years at best, and hobble the Democrats even if they don't win the Presidency - all the while their cronies are raking in the taxpayer dough.
But let's even assume that all Bush does is merely bomb one Iranian camp. And let's say all the Iranians do in response is ratchet up support for Sadr or somebody else in Iraq to target US troops. What makes anybody think this won't lead to further escalation?
Are you people going to wake up? Do you really think all this crap from Petraeus, Bush, Cheney, Mullen, Gates, and Rice about Iran is just TALK? Did you think all this shit from this crew about Iraq back in 2002 was just TALK?
Have you learned nothing from the Iraq war?
Get a fucking clue. The Iran war is ON. How it will be started is not clear. THAT it WILL be started is a given.
And even if Bush and Cheney don't start it, does anybody here really believe MCCAIN WON'T? Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran McCain?
How about "obliterate Iran" Clinton?
Or "Iran is a threat and we need severe sanctions" Obama?
Christ, you people believe in the Tooth Fairy as well, no doubt.
I take it as a sign of growing common sense at the NYT. After all, the "progressives" as represented by Matt and most of the posters here don't have anything useful to contribute to a discussion of military affairs in general, and our decades-long involvement in Iraq in particular.
If what you want is gibberish and propaganda, there's plenty to choose from, starting with links to lunatic fringe outfits like "counterpunch" and "antiwar.com" as cited here by The Incredible Hack.
Anne-Marie Slaughter was in favour of the US invasion of Iraq - and even wrote that it was legal, given that international legality is determined by international practice. She's rowed back from that particular position now, and has produced a book The Idea that is America: Keeping Faith with Our Values in a Dangerous World which is - as the title suggests - strong on American self-congratulation and doesn't really accomodate the fact that US policies in the Middle East has regularly been based on the values of militarism, oil rents, and sneering at the Palestinian arabs. With those values, we have truly kept faith in recent years.
I can certainly see A-M Slaughter in an administration that authorises or enables, oh so reluctantly, a US attack on Iran.
Robert Powell,
If they wanted a conservative only forum though, they should label it as such. Attempting to appear 'bipartisan' is ridiculous.
Powell, why don't you just fuck off? Not three people here outside of Chris Ford, Al and Fred give a fuck what a paid propagandist like you thinks about Iraq.
You're not even a joke here. At least I'm amusing to some people.
R.S. Hack: so when a year, two years, from now there is still no open war with Iran, are we going to hear from you?
If a surgeon loses several patients on the operating table because of malpractice he'll lose his license and certainly not be asked by the NYT to offer his expertise in medical affairs in an Op-ed. Most of these clowns are demonstrably incompetent and shdn't get space in the local Pennysaver let alone the NYT.
It's a clear sign of the intellectual maturity and "common sense" of a publication such as the New York Times that it lets an extremely limited range of viewpoints be published on subjects of great public import, particularly in selecting precisely those who match the publication's own record of disastrous mismanagement, exposed incompetence and shoddy journalism.
Where's Max Boot at?
Victor Davis Hanson is pissed that you left him out!!
otto:
I presume you know that Glennzilla ripped A.M. Slaughter a new one a few weeks ago. IIRC, either she didn't answer his emails when he wrote her questioning her change of heart, or she brushed his questions aside. Needless to say, the take down was one of the best I've seen in a while.
Hack,
Look, I'm entirely convinced that that freak Cheney would drop the bombs immediately given his druthers. And the election of Clinton or McCain would make war inevitable (but probably not if Obama is elected, despite some of his rhetoric, for reasons I don't have the time or the inclination to go into).
But I think there is a significant body of evidence that:
(1) Gates and Rice, while being war criminals with no moral qualms against attacking Iran, correctly believe that such an act wouldn't be prudent. And
(2) Cheney's influence during the second term has declined almost to nothing.
I'm more confident about the second point than the first, and even on the second point it is always possible that Bush will start listening to Cheney again, possibly when he perceives Gates'/Rice's polices not working, possibly even during one of his bouts of drinking.
Bush signed a secret finding 4 weeks ago that lets cats wear underwear.
This allegation came from Andrew Cockburn.
Yeah, Baby. The gold standard of secret findings exposers.
Bill Keller got his job right after the NYTimes published his pro-war OpEd in their pages.
This is just a continuation of that mindset.
The GIANT demonstration and march against the war in New York in Feb. of 2003 was IGNORED by the Times.
Anyone who believes that the news coverage of the Times is anything but Republican-leaning is probably in the market to buy
a New York bridge.
But having all those Neocons who were so wrong about everything claiming to have anything of value to say....was just a slap in the face to Times readers.
Bill Keller got his job right after the NYTimes published his pro-war OpEd in their pages.
This is just a continuation of that mindset.
The GIANT demonstration and march against the war in New York in Feb. of 2003 was IGNORED by the Times.
Anyone who believes that the news coverage of the Times is anything but Republican-leaning is probably in the market to buy
a New York bridge.
But having all those Neocons who were so wrong about everything claiming to have anything of value to say....was just a slap in the face to the Times' readers.
Bill,
This is hilarious:
there is still no open war with Iran
So you mock RSH for saying we will go to war with Iran because...we are already in a secret war that just hasn't become an open war yet?
Brilliant takedown.
So you mock RSH for saying we will go to war with Iran because...we are already in a secret war that just hasn't become an open war yet?
Well, yes. Cold wars don't always become open wars. There is a huge difference between the current situation, a horrible as it is, and open war, which would IMO escalate to the point where tens of millions would be dead in the middle east, the world economy would be in tatters, and the United States an international pariah in sharp decline.
Matt W.
It isn't the same panel, they subbed in Fred Kagan for Robert Kagan. So it isn't the same panel, it just has the exact same intellectual consistency (and that description may be more generous than required) of the previous one.
Del at 1:47 am.
That comment is anti-semitic. Jews are the ethnic group with the highest percentage of people against the war.
Don't blame "Jews" because a few assholes have disastrously influenced policy.
On September 26, 2002, an advertisement appeared on the op-ed page of the New York Times, signed and paid for by 33 scholars of international relations. It was titled:
WAR WITH IRAQ IS NOT IN AMERICA'S NATIONAL INTEREST
You can see the text at:
http://www.bear-left.com/archive/2002/0926oped.html
This is what the ad actually looked like:
http://mearsheimer.uchicago.edu/pdfs/P0012.pdf
Since the calamity has unfolded, we continue to hear from the same talking heads - some of whom have turned against the war. But we do not hear from the original opponents. Why not? How can we take any "Iraq panel" seriously which completely ignores those who got it right from the beginning. Matt and the rest of the blogosphere should be demanding that we hear from these people:
Robert J. Art - Brandeis University
Richard K. Betts - Columbia University
Dale C. Copeland - University of Virginia
Michael C. Desch - University of Kentucky
Sumit Ganguly - University of Texas
Charles L. Glaser - University of Chicago
Alexander L. George - Stanford University
Richard K. Herrmann - Ohio State University
George C. Herring - University of Kentucky
Robert Jervis - Columbia University
Chaim Kaufmann - Lehigh University
Carl Kaysen - MIT
Elizabeth Kier - University of Washington
Deborah Larson - UCLA
Jack S. Levy - Rutgers University
Peter Liberman - Queens College
John J. Mearsheimer - University of Chicago
Steven E. Miller - Harvard University
Charles C. Moskos - Northwestern University
Robert A. Pape - University of Chicago
Barry R. Posen - MIT
Robert Powell - UC—Berkeley
George H. Quester - University of Maryland
Richard Rosecrance - UCLA
Thomas C. Schelling - University of Maryland
Randall L. Schweller - Ohio State University
Glenn H. Snyder - University of North Carolina
Jack L. Snyder - Columbia University
Shibley Telhami - University of Maryland
Stephen van Evera - MIT
Stephen M. Walt - Harvard University
Kenneth N. Waltz - Columbia University
Cindy Williams - MIT
Picking up on that ad, and Martin's note that those names never feature in panels, Chris Lydon interviewed some of the signatories last October in a series entitled 'They Got It Right'.
If they had been stock-pickers applying the same diligence, foresight and clarity to the market that they applied to Iraq five years ago, by now they’d be managing big portfolios. They might be hedge-fund trillionaires. But in the curious marketplace of foreign-policy ideas, the signers here are today mostly obscure, unthanked scholars, whose advice hasn’t yet been heard by the general public.
No-one ever lost a job, or got a pay cut, for advocating more war in the Very Serious world of American foreign policy.
Here is the post by Glenn Greenwald on Anne Marie Slaughter referenced by 'Joe Klein's conscience' at 8:33 am above. It appeared at the time she was one of the crowd of usual suspects in the NYT opinionorama on the fifth anniversary of the official invasion, but was actually occasioned by a separate and more defensive piece by Slaughter.
How efficient and cost-effective for the Times editors to get the same crowd to do a second piece to use on the fifth anniversary of 'Mission Accomplished'. The Kagan substitution is the finishing touch that moves the whole sorry performance into the realm of self-parody.
Here is the post by Glenn Greenwald on Anne Marie Slaughter referenced by 'Joe Klein's conscience' at 8:33 am above. It appeared at the time she was one of the crowd of usual suspects in the NYT opinionorama on the fifth anniversary of the official invasion, but was actually occasioned by a separate and more defensive piece by Slaughter.
How efficient and cost-effective for the Times editors to get the same crowd to do a second piece to use on the fifth anniversary of 'Mission Accomplished'. The Kagan substitution is the finishing touch that moves the whole sorry performance into the realm of self-parody.
It isn't the same panel, they subbed in Fred Kagan for Robert Kagan.
Oh, well, that's very different then.
To paraphrase Henry Ford, the New York Times will give you any foreign policy you want, as long as its neoconservatism.
Del wrote: "Kagan, Pletka, Perle, Pollack.
America was safer when the Jewish experts on TV and print were Drs. Joyce Brothers, Ruth Westheimer, Dear Abby and her sister Ann Landers. These new Jewish experts get our soldiers killed in wars for the security of Israel.
________________________________________
Upper West writes: "That comment is anti-semitic. Jews are the ethnic group with the highest percentage of people against the war.
Don't blame "Jews" because a few assholes have disastrously influenced policy."
------------------------------------
I think del overstates a little by saying that the war in iraq is being fought for the security of israel, but the truth is that all the neocons who argued for the invasion did so because they invisioned an outcome where iraq would be pro-israel.
i think upper west overstates when he thinks del's comment was aimed at"ALL" jews. but those "assholes" who "disastrously influenced policy" are all jewish. wolfowitz, libby, feith, perle.
i'm currently reading "They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons" by Jacob Heilbrunn who argues that the story of the neocons is inseparable from the great historical drama of Jewish assimilation. Decisively shaped by the immigrant exerience and the trauma of the Holocaust, they became an insurgent counter-establishment that challenged the old WASP foreign policy elite.
the original neocons attended college at a time where there were strict jewish quotas and academic anti-semitism. they felt total animosity towards the wasps they blamed for this.
it carried over to a lifelong disdane for the policies of the state department which they viewed as being a wasp stronghold.
pseudonymous in nc,
I am not sure that it is a good idea for people to listen to 'They Got It Right'. I tried to listen to them again and began to cry - and then got a terrific headache from pounding my head against the wall.
"I am a one issue guy and that issue is Israel."
-Haim Saban, an Israeli-American media-mogul, one of the biggest contributors to the campaigns of pro-Israel politicans in the U.S. and has been described by a New York Times reporter as a "tireless cheerleader for Israel." In 2002 he pledged $13 million to found the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution."
Saban's alleged Democratic leaning Brookings Inst pushed for the Iraq war. If Saban is a "one isue guy," then we must assume that his issue of Israel was behind his backing of the Iraq war.
Jewish-Americans are not on the outside looking in anymore. They have joined the WASPs as the elite in the leadership of our nation. American journalists should address the Jewish rise to elitism and it's affect on United States foreign policy, especially our ME policy.
And if you think that Israel and it's well being were not a part of Kagan, Pletka, Perle, and Pollack's Iraq war thinking, I have a bridge to sell you. American soldiers are dying because of foreign policies influenced by Israel-First bureacrats.
It isn't the same panel, they subbed in Fred Kagan for Robert Kagan.
Oh thanks.
...you know, that makes it even more insulting to the readers. "We need a new voice for this panel... I know! Let's invite a different Kagan!"
LarryM: "2) Cheney's influence during the second term has declined almost to nothing."
Based on what evidence?
Cheney just made a tour of the Middle East. Why do you think Maliki started his crackdown on Sadr right after that visit?
Cheney's influence has not wavered one bit. The only reason the US hasn't attacked Iran by now is that Cheney was trying to get Israel to do it, and Israel balked because they don't want to be blamed for it (even though they support it).
So Cheney had to come up with something better than the "nuclear weapons" angle, since the NIE shot that down.
So that was when the whole "Iran is killing US soldiers in Iraq" meme was dusted off, updated and enhanced. That's the meme being pushed now by EVERYBODY - Bush, Cheney, Petraeus, Rice, Gates, Mullen - EVERYBODY. Read the news from the last two weeks.
If you think Bush isn't intending to attack Iran, you just aren't paying attention to the rhetoric upswing or the military movements.
Again, there is absolute NO downside to Bush doing this now. None.
--The odd thing is, I think they assume, correctly, their readership will just swallow this whole.
Am I really the only person who canceled their NYTimes subscription over crap like this? Every now and then, when I get tempted to resubscribe to get the latest Movie gossip, they'll do something shameless like give Kristol a column.
| 
Heads in the Sand
And they wonder why the circulation is going down. As the newspapers keep kicking their first audience in the face - the generally liberal leaning readership - to please the second audience - the wheeler dealers and the governing elite - the first audience, justly, deserts them. What awful fucks. The odd thing is, I think they assume their readership will just swallow this whole.
Posted by roger | May 4, 2008 11:39 PM