Deifying the Military.

I'v been thinking about the self-priming nature of military involvment.

The simplest expression of it is "they shall not have died in vain" but the process is actually more complex than that.

The longer version is that because the act of becoming a soldier and engaging in warfare involves trading in the moral codes that guide people within their civilizations for a different set that allows for random killing and dehumanizing certain groups, a protective shell is set up to prevent the remorse that such behavior would normally elicit. The protective shell, of course includes all the pomp and circumstance that we use to honor the fallen and the increased stature (and trust) that we place in veterans but the same shell creates taboos that prevent us from discussing warfare rationally. It simply can't be done without someone invoking the spectre of "dishonering the troops"

The tragic result is of course that the possibility of reconsidering bad moves or disengaging from a conflict that has not been emphatically "won" becomes exceedingly difficult.

And as seen from the outside, the behavior that results seems quite insane

Too good not to quote

President McCain, however, can be expected to blaze new trails of American hubris. He is a "national greatness conservative" which can be described as a lethal combination of neoconservatism and Kissingerian realism (in McCains case, with the temperament of Frank Sinatra on too much coffee and nicotine.)



Digby

Taking back Patriotism!

"Patriotism" is a word that has suffered severe abuse of late. While it used to mean love of one's country, it is rapidly being twisted to mean love of the military and blind acceptance of the staus quo.

I happen to consider myself patriotic. I love my Country deeply. I particularly love the fact that I am free to point out when I think my Country is acting in an immoral manner and needs to change course.

People who don't understand this and instead use "patriotism" as a code word to enforce conformity sadden me.

Sorry, that's just the way I feel.

An Open Letter to Ana Marie Cox....

AMC,
I appreciate your efforts and your honesty. Now here's my concern. It is well known that a major part of the sales effort behind the Iraq war involved repeatedly using Saddam Hussein and OBL's name (or Al Qaeda) in the same sentence so that the association was burned into the public awareness even though there were no statements you could point to where the connection was directly asserted and therefore could be pointed out as a lie.

You just used the phrase "He is for a muscular use of American power" which is sort of misleading because we all know that "muscular" in that context is a euphemism for "explosive".

So now we have the candidate repeatedly asserting that the Iranians are assisting Al Qaeda in Iraq knowing full well that A: Al Qaeda is just a brand name and the group in Iraq bears little connection to the terrorists who actually attacked us and B: They are NOT being aided by Iran.

Perhaps you can begin to appreciate my concern when the Candidate for CiC is using sloppy language in order to justify as you put it a "muscular" posture. We've already been down this road and the consensus opinion is that it sucks.

My other concern is that for McCain's sloppy language and deliberate conflation of different enemies to succeed, it is necessary that the public continue to be misled. This is where you come in. JK has already gone on record noting that McCain is being dishonest but the coverage surrounding the candidtae continues to be complicit in the effort to mislead.

Did I mention that Scherer just fell for the oldest trick in the book by diseminating a damaging video link accompanied by the public apology for the link.

The public needs to know the truth of what's happening in Iraq and you guys need to stop helping the candidates lie about it.

And I mean that in the nicest way possible.....

Ahh... the core assumption.

The U.S. should not -- and has no right to -- invade, bomb and occupy

Mine appears to be a minority position but I have never been able to figure out why the moral calculus that regards murder as a capital offense suddenly changes if the victim isn't a US citizen.

Even conceding that the world doesn't make sense on that basis, there's still a very carefully thought out doctrine (ratified by the USA after WWII) which states that war is only justified in self defense and that agressively attacking a country that isn't directly threatening you is criminal. (In the case of Nuremburg, it too was regarded as a Capital crime.)

So what has changed? Why does every moral calculation one could bring to bear on the subject suddeny become irrelevant when the actor in question is the US military?

What distresses me even more is the degree to which even asking such questions is treated as a taboo. The energy that has gone into the denunciation of anyone willing to ask those questions as "America haters" is directly proportional to the degree to which there are no good answers. While the cone of acceptability is shifting ever so slightly, I couldn't help but notice that Obama felt it necessary to make sure that he understands that ourt enemy is "Islamic extremism" as if that phrase actually means anything.

If Freedom is to mean anything at all, it has to mean the Freedom to question whether we are in fact wearing the white hats.

Among things I find infuriating....

www.whitehouse.gov

Instead of providing liability protection to companies that did their patriotic duty, House leaders would establish a commission to examine intelligence activities in the past that helped protect the country from further attacks after 9/11.

The damage thats being done to the concept of patriotism by this gross misuse of the term hurts me deeply.

I was totally unaware that my Patriotic duty included violating the law, trampling the Bill of Rights and underrmining the Constitutional separation of powers necessary to preserve Freedom.

But if Dana Perino said so, I guess it must be true!

Re: Obama

In response to: The Post-Fairytale Fairytale


When I compare my own attitudes to those of the archtypical "average American" I'm tempted to just throw up my hands and hang it up.

But for whatever reason, I'm finding that I'm actually enthusiastic about "the least of three evils." Perhaps I'm just hopeful over what the success of Obama's message would say about that archtypical "average American" mentioned above.

Re: Misplaced trust

I think one of the fundemental problems is people have this odd belief that physical authority somehow imparts moral authority.

While the requirements to become a policeman (for instance) include a modicum of intelligence and the lack of a criminal past, they obviously aren't insurmountable.

Likewise, the NSA and our intelligence agencies are staffed with people who A: like the idea of being spies and B: have passed whatever requirments are set up. But they're only people. There is nothing in particular that prevents them from being bored, superstitious, excessively curious or just plain stupid. And human nature itself suggests that the less supervision or accountability there is, the more likely for abuse to turn up.

The amount of covering up already going on suggests that bad behavior has already taken place but the sad fact is that if what's already taken place doesn't come to light, then the activity that eventually WILL cause the house of cards to tumble will probably be something more appalling than I have the imagination to even consider

Posted at the nam.org website:

The activists want to undermine the legitimate surveillance of foreign communications through litigation

You not only have no basis for that statement, but it borders on slanderous. All the "activists" that I am familiar with are motivated by the desire that the traditional rule of law extend to the executive branch and that any needed modifications to the FISA law are provided for by the normal political process that the Constitution requires.

The Bush administration's brazen desregard for not only the FISA law but also the Presidential Records Act and his declared intention to ignore any other portion of any statute which purports to regulate his own behavior or freedom to act, is more than adequate motivation for anyone who cares to see that the Constitutional balance of power is maintained.

The accusation that the EFF is motivated by either financial reward or the desire to inhibit intelligence collection is not only dishonest, but it undermines any legitimate arguments you would care to advance in defense of the current NSA program or the President's conduct.

Re: John McCain and Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia

The NYT included this paragraph in their story:

An insurgent group operating in Iraq, called Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, is actually a homegrown Sunni Arab extremist group that American intelligence agencies have concluded is foreign led. The extent of its links to Osama bin Laden’s network is not clear. Some leaders of the group have sworn allegiance to Mr. bin Laden, but the precise links and extent of affiliation are unknown, and it was created after the American invasion.

Now if only we could get them to lead with THAT paragraph the next one would write itself as in "John McCain used potential supporter's ignorance over this basic fact in order to level a baseless charge against Barack Obama, thus opening himself to charges of stupidity or dishonesty or both."

There is some difference

In response to:

Glenn Greenwald

Let me preface by stating that contrary to being naive, stating that he'd be willing to go after OBL in Pakistan and then experiencing the backlash was precisely what drew me to Obama's campaign.

Quoting something I posted elsewhere:

Hunting OBL in Pakistan" was Obama "Emperor's New Clothes" moment. He actually had the audacity to state the obvious and the shocked gasps of the King's court are still resonating....

I think the only thing he might be criticized for is staing bluntly what's been happening quietly.

Having said that though, I will note that much of what Obama is being criticized for isn't that he'd express willingness to go after OBL, it's that he's willing to bypass one of our favored dictators in order to do so.

When McCain spouts off one-liners about bombing Iran or Syria. at least he's referring to nations that are presumtive enemies (at least among the Republican base).

Pakistan (like Saudi Arabia) on the other hand has a purported "ally" in power and is hence off limits. That this is precisely why Al Qeada considers those countries safe haven is not only lost in the debate, it is absolutely taboo to discuss.

At this point I'm ready to promote this as Dirks' addendum to Occam's razor.

"If there are two competing explanations for an event and one calls for someone being surprisingly brilliant and the other calls for them to be incredibly stupid - stupidity wins every time."

Always nice to make the main page

....www.time-blog.com/swampland/

UPDATE: Commenter Paul Dirks wants to know:

So are the Union officials responding to their membership or attempting to guide them? I'd be interested in how the people who WEREN'T undecided fell

Sometimes the jokes just write themselves

went out to microphones set up on the Capitol steps, and accused the Democrats of a political stunt.

Politico

If this quote is accurate

Clinton dismisses weekend losses

Clinton argued that caucuses are "primarily dominated by activists" and that "they don't represent the electorate, we know that."
then shame on Hillary.....

Activist:

Someone who cares sufficently about the issues to actually participate in the political process in a meaningful manner.

compare

The Electorate:

Someone who only shows up at the polls on election day and pulls the lever for whoever makes them feel better based on what Wolf Blitzer told them the other night.

How the hell did we ever allow "activist" to become an epithet.

And shame on Hillary for using the term in that manner. Lets see how well she'll fare without her own set of "activists"

Be vewy vewy afwaid......

http://www.infragard.net/

I'm not sure who's more paranoid. The people who feel the desire to join or the one's who get creeped out by the organization's existence.

It does seem like a bedwetter's dream come true!

I'm reminded of the Jr Detective cards you used to be able to send in for from the back of cereal boxes. Only instead of decoder ring, you get access to an FBI maintained VPN. How cool is that?!!

Reacting to Romney's concession...

I disagree with Senator McCain on a number of issues, as you know. But I agree with him on doing whatever it takes to be successful in Iraq, on finding and executing Osama bin Laden, and on eliminating Al Qaeda and terror

Hmmm.....

Al Qaeda in Iraq didn't exist before the invasion.

And Al Qaeda in Pakistan appears to have agreed to a cease-fire with the government of President Pervez Musharraf.

And Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell is doing his best to make sure that we're experiencing terror.

I guess the Republicans are running on a platform of "change" after all!

Re: Signing statements

I can't speak for anyone but myself, but to me, the fact that Bush is derailing the Constitutional checks and balances that were put in place to prevent executive abuse and overreach is worse and more alarming than most of the particulars of his particular abuses.

And to make matters worse, much of it appears to be due to simple laziness. In particular, when it became clear that the Poindexter-led TIPS program wasn't going to pass muster, he simply ordered it in place anyway. That this has evolved into the current FISA controversy is unfortunate, but the sad fact is, that if he had pushed for the reforms contained in the August bill back when he needed them, retroactive immunity wouldn't even be necessary let alone a deal-breaker.

Surge....

Can we please acknowlege that the "Surge"(tm) was a marketing ploy aimed at placating Americans into accepting permanent bases in Iraq and as such, it has worked like magic.

The President has just released a signing statement asserting the power to ignore even "the power of the purse" the Constitution grants to Congress and is systematically dismantling the Constitution in order to expand our Imperial presence in the Middle East. In the meantime the two leading Republican candidates are busy spinning whether or not they are both fully on board with the notion that Iraq is ours to permanently control.

It's nice that journalists experiencing a new willingness to call out lies when they see them, but they seem to be complicit in totally ignoring how far the baseline of our debates have moved into territory that would have been unthinkable just ten years ago.

Re: Mukasey's radical views of Presidential supremacy.

The only comfort I get from any of this mess is from the vision of the founders of this Country pointing at our current situation and intoning "I told you so!"

If it weren't inherent in the nature of certain personality types to seize power at every opportunity and if it weren't inherent in other types to reflexively avoid conflict, then there would have been no need to create three branches of government to be set against each other and there would have been no need to create a bill of rights to guarantee freedom for minority viewpoints in the face of a potentially tyranical majority.

The founders thought hard, and debated carefully about how best to counter the natural tendency toward despotism that they saw around them.

It's a shame that it took only 230 years for the whole thing to come crashing down, but its unfortunately not all that surprising.