5.25.09

May 25, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Holidays, In Memoriam | Leave a Comment 

 

The tradition of a day of remembrance for those who died on both sides in the Civil War —known as Decoration Day— began in the late 1860s.  In 1882 the name was changed to Memorial Day and the fallen of other wars were also honored.  In 1971 President Nixon declared Memorial Day —the last Monday in May— a federal holiday.  This early 20th Century (circa 1906-11) postcard image of Columbia at Arlington National Cemetery is by the prolific period illustrative artist C. Chapman.

Featured Articles — May 25, 2009

May 25, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes From Home And Abroad:

No more sunshine in North Korea By Simon Tisdall, The Guardian
There are three explanations for North Korea’s nuclear test today, none of them palatable.

State of Paralysis By Paul Krugman, The New York Times
California, it has long been claimed, is where the future happens first. But is that still true? If it is, God help America.

Openness for Thee, but Not for Me By Stephen F. Hayes, The Weekly Standard
“Iran for president promising transparency, and I meant what I said. And that is why, whenever possible, my administration will make information available to the American people so that they can make informed judgments and hold us accountable.”

A UN war-crimes tribunal targets free speech By Judith Miller, City Journal
In many respects, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia is a groundbreaking institution. Founded in The Hague by the United Nations 16 years ago to prosecute perpetrators of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity during the brutal civil war in the Balkans, the ICTY was the first war-crimes panel to be created since the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals some 60 years ago.

Loose Lips Sink a Presidency

May 24, 2009 by David Emig | Filed Under News media, Watergate | 1 Comment 

Read how overhearing a lunch conversation could have broken the Watergate story, kept Woodward and Bernstein cub reporters, and allowed Deep Throat to be only a bad skin flick.

Laughing Matters

May 24, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, Bush Administration, Comedy | Leave a Comment 

According to the old saying, many a true word is spoken in jest. 

In many cases, only some true words are spoken in jest.

In all cases, jest is a matter of taste and few jests are really all that funny.

In the case of SNL’s cold open last night, some words were true, most jests fell flat, and the whole thing was delivered without any particular spirit, conviction, or sense of timing, while being badly read off cue cards.

Featured Articles — May 24, 2009

May 24, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes From Home And Abroad:

Obama gets By Cheney By Michael Goodwin, New York Daily News
It was a tale of two speeches. One was clear, direct and powerful. Barack Obama gave the other speech.

They May Not Want The Bomb By Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek
Everything you know about Iran is wrong, or at least more complicated than you think. Take the bomb. The regime wants to be a nuclear power but could well be happy with a peaceful civilian program (which could make the challenge it poses more complex).

Senate GOP: Not so fast on Court pick By Mike Allen, Politico
Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee are resisting President Barack Obama’s call for a swift confirmation of his choice for Supreme Court, opening a rift between the parties even before the nominee has even been named.

Arabs vs. Iranians By Reuel Marc Gerecht, The Weekly Standard
Americans like to think big in foreign policy, so they yearn to settle the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation. Both Democrats and Republicans have repeatedly tried to rally the region’s denizens for a “comprehensive settlement” and thereby transform the Middle East. George W. Bush’s desire to change the region’s politics by establishing a democracy in Iraq actually seems more timid, invested with fewer questionable assumptions, than the proposition that a settlement of the 60-year-old Israeli-Palestinian imbroglio will fundamentally change America’s standing among Muslims.

No Magic Bullet on Iran By David Ignatius, Washington Post
When U.S. and Israeli officials say that “all options are on the table” for stopping Iran from gaining nuclear weapons, that’s usually taken to mean aerial bombardment of Iranian nuclear sites at Natanz and other locations.

General Ray Ordierno Was Right About Iraq By Ralph Peter, New York Post
This Memorial Day Weekend, between the hotdogs and the potato salad, pause to remember the immense sacrifices those in uniform made to defend our freedom.

California Split

May 23, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, California politics, U.S. History | 1 Comment 

The title of this post comes from one of Robert Altman’s less-remembered films (albeit one somewhat more entertaining than, say, Quintet or whatever that futuristic one with Paul Newman was called). Anyway, it seems fitting to borrow it when discussing a blogpost by Martin Hutchinson which has caused some stir in online circles in recent days.

The post proposes solving the Golden State’s myriad problems by dividing it into four separate states. The southernmost would comprise the San Diego area, Orange County, and the Imperial Valley. Greater Los Angeles (that is to say, LA city and county, plus the coastline going up to around Santa Barbara) would be another state. The third state would comprise the Bay Area up to Sonoma, Silicon Valley, the corridor up to Sacramento, and Santa Cruz County. The northernmost part would include the remainder of the state.

This is hardly the first time such notions have been tossed around. In 1860, after the efforts of Southern sympathizers to break off California and Oregon from the Union were frustrated, there was talk of trying to split the southern half of the state from the northern one, but this came to nothing.

And for eight weeks in the fall of 1941, citizens of California’s northernmost counties, in cooperation with some of the residents of Oregon’s southwestern region, participated in rallies calling for the establishment of a separate State of Jefferson. This movement managed to gain national press at the beginning of December, but was promptly forgotten when bulletins arrived about Pearl Harbor, though in recent years several dozen websites have celebrated the movement and called for a reexamination of this particular secession proposal.

Hutchinson’s post is rather sketchy about just how this four-way split would be put into action. The legislative approach he outlines is of questionable constitutionality.

(Indeed, the one state in the USA which definitely has the legal authority to subdivide itself is Texas. The treaty that brought the Texan Republic into the Union in 1845 specified that the state could subdivide itself into as many as five states if it chose. In 1915 there was a movement afoot to have the westernmost part of the Lone Star State break away with El Paso as the capital, and from time to time the residents of the Panhandle or the Gulf Coast mutter in similar style.)

One has to wonder if blogposts like this one make Governor Schwarzenegger nostalgic for the days when the Predator was all he had to worry about.

Susan Jacoby’s Notes From The Middle Ground

May 23, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under Book Review, Cold War, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | 2 Comments 

Yesterday David Chambers, whose grandfather Whittaker Chambers was one of the two primary figures in the case that brought Richard Nixon to the notice of the whole nation and then the world, reviewed Susan Jacoby’s Alger Hiss And The Battle For History in the Washington Times. Mr. Chambers makes its clear that, to put it mildly, he is far from impressed by Ms. Jacoby’s thesis that Hiss’s actions of the 1930s and 1940s, and subsequent perjury when testifying about them, was less significant than the rise of the anti-communist right that she believes the negative publicity surrounding Hiss helped to further, to the country’s detriment. Here’s one passage from the review, which notes Ms. Jacoby’s less-than-thorough research on the case:

Perhaps strangest is this book’s omission of new findings by another recent Yale publication. “Spies” (May 2009) opens with the bold chapter title, “Alger Hiss: Case Closed.” It claims to seal the coffin (if not bury the grave plot) on Mr. Hiss’ guilt. Nothing from “Spies” appears in Ms. Jacoby’s book. According to “Spies” co-author Harvey Klehr, Yale’s editor Jonathan Brent offered her access to the book’s new findings. Apparently, Ms. Jacoby took a pass.

Overall, it is distressing to read this book. Clearly, Ms. Jacoby prizes secular, liberal intellectualism. Yet her book is compromised by the very type of bias she claims to despise in her intellectual opposites.

Annals Of The Obama Administration

May 23, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Annals of the Obama Administration | Leave a Comment 

 

The President gave the commencement address on Friday at the Naval Academy in Annapolis.  He then shook hands with each of the 1,036 graduates of the Class of 2009.  Among them was Ensign John S. McCain IV, the youngest son of Senator John McCain.   The President could be seen saying, “God bless you,” as Jack McCain turned to walk off the stage.

TNN Weekly Weekend Reward

May 23, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Weekly Weekend Reward | Leave a Comment 

The Reward for this Memorial Day weekend is one of John Hiatt’s many perfect songs (as opposed to his mostly merely great ones).  

“My Thunderbird” is a track on his no less perfect 2005 album Master of Disaster.  

He makes ‘em that way.

 

My Thunderbird, my Thunderbird
Put your head on my shoulder
Don’t say a word
We’ll cut across town in my Thunderbird

There’s a burial ground
Beneath a cattle herd
Mr. Henry Ford’s building me a Thunderbird

My Thunderbird, my Thunderbird
Put your head on my shoulder
Don’t say a word
We’ll cut across the county in my Thunderbird

We’re from Pennsylvania
Welsh men of words
My daddy drove a DeSoto
I drive a Thunderbird

My Thunderbird, my Thunderbird
She’s the voice of the future
Baby, have you heard
Tomorrow’s taken wing on my Thunderbird

Got electric windows
Tilt away wheel
Slide across the bucket seat
For that sexy leather feel of

My Thunderbird, my Thunderbird
Put your head on my shoulder
Don’t say a word
We’ll cut across town in my Thunderbird

From the old Volkswagen
Back to the Model T
A lot of men died
Just so you could ride with me in

My Thunderbird, my Thunderbird
She drives like a dream
Baby rest assured
It don’t get any better than a Thunderbird

My daddy was a salesman
My brother was too
I would sell anything
Just to try to stay with you

But not my Thunderbird
No not my Thunderbird
Willy Loman’s saying something
I can’t hear a word
I’m going too fast in my Thunderbird

They make ‘em that way

Featured Articles — May 23, 2009

May 23, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes From Home And Abroad:

The Gordian knot of Guantánamo Bay By Christopher Caldwell, Financial Times
Barack Obama is popular and trusted far more than his Republican rivals on all issues, including fighting terrorism. Yet he and Dick Cheney, the former vice-president, are locked in a public battle on terrorism policy and Mr Obama is losing. Sixty per cent of Americans say they are following this battle closely.

Friendly Fire at the White House By Michael Isikoff, Newsweek
Fending off criticism from human-rights and civil-rights groups at a private White House meeting Wednesday, a frustrated President Obama complained about the “mess” he’d been left by his predecessor.

Up From Poverty By Carl Schramm, Claremont Review Of Books
For most of recorded history, economic growth was static. For centuries, the global economy grew, according to our best estimates, less than half a percentage point annually. Famous displays of wealth, such as the extravagances of the French Court, reflected the concentrating of wealth by duress within a stagnant economic system-not evidence of an economic system that knew how to make new wealth.

Against Gitmo By Max Boot, National Review
It’s been fun these past few weeks to watch President Obama and the Democrats twist and squirm over the issue of Guantanamo. After spending years scoring cheap political points at the Bush administration’s expense, they are now finding that it’s not so easy to close the detention facility after all.

The U.S.-India Moment By Alyssa Ayres, The Wall Street Journal
The return of the Congress Party-led coalition to power in New Delhi opens the door for the Obama administration to forge a more ambitious agenda with India than either Presidents Clinton or Bush envisioned. But Washington must act quickly lest the moment vanishes.

An Auspicious Trial Balloon: Launched And Aloft

May 22, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics | Leave a Comment 

Paul Bedard, in today’s update of US News‘  ”Washington Whispers” releases what may be soon looked back on as the first serious Liz Cheney trial balloon. (At least as serious as anything can be in US News — which increasingly raises the old if-a-tree-falls-in-the-forest question.)

But remember where you heard it first.

The hottest Republican property out there isn’t former Vice President Dick Cheney but his daughter  Liz, who has taken to the airwaves to defend her dad and the whole Bush administration on national security and Guantánamo Bay issues. Liz Cheney, who followed the former veep’s hard-hitting speech criticizing President Obama’s policies with a CNN appearance, is becoming so popular in conservative circles that some want her to run for office. “She’s awesome. Everyone wants her to run,” said a close friend.

But others say that she is unlikely to run for office now because she is raising five young children, helping to write her father’s book, and working on other major conservative projects. “She’s a chip off the block!” said a longtime friend.

A forceful defender of the administration and her dad, Liz Cheney has been appearing on TV with greater regularity. She brings to the screen a combination of her dad’s steely focus and her mom’s  softer touch. “It’s a two-fer. She comes off a bit better than he does sometimes,” a conservative consultant said.

Some supporters want her to continue in her role and suggested to Whispers a battle plan for the coming year:

“She could start with a major speech on national security,” said one. “Heritage” [the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank] could have her in for a big speech on national security. C-SPAN would cover it for sure.” After that she could set up shop in one of the think tanks and build a base of support and knowledge that would put her in position to take a major position in a future Republican administration. She is a former Bush State Department aide, and some people are even suggesting that she consider doing more military policy so that she could take the policy under secretary’s position in a Republican administration when her children are older. Clearly, those supporters are looking past a two-term Obama administration.

General Myers: We Need To Use All Elements Of National Power

May 22, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Afghanistan, Afpak, Military, National Security | 3 Comments 

The Former Chairman of The Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force General Richard B. Myers was at the Nixon Library Wednesday to discuss his new book Eyes On The Horizon: Serving On The Front Lines Of National Security. He also gave us some time for an exclusive interview that TNN readers will find interesting; among other items, the General discusses the “global insurgency” waged against America and its allies, the strategies we need to apply to fight it, and the ethical questions surrounding them, including a take on the current controversy over interrogation and detainment policy:

Everything Newsweek Is Old Again

May 22, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Lifestyle, Media, News media | 1 Comment 

In The New Republic, Michael Kinsley, who knows his way around a magazine, dissects the underwhelming new Newsweek.

In his editor’s letter–one of many traditional newsmagazine features that have survived the scythe of change–Jon Meacham says, “We are not pretending to be your guide through the chaos of the Information Age,” which concedes a lot of ground from the get-go. Why not at least pretend? Why else would people pick it up, let alone subscribe? The newsmags face a choice. Actually, they’ve faced it since long before the Internet. Should they try to provide a complete picture of what happened last week? Or should they stop worrying about that and hope to find appeal in trends, service pieces, fine writing, muckraking exposes, provocative argument, and other traditional non-news magazine fare? Whenever they have an existential crisis–and this is not the first–they always make the wrong choice.

Meacham–a very smart and thoughtful guy, which in my experience is not necessarily true of all newsmagazine editors (all two, that is)–actually says that his model is “the great monthlies of old” like Harper’s and Esquire. He says the building blocks of the new Newsweek will be “two kinds of stories”: the “reported narrative” and “the argued essay.” So what’s wrong with that? Well, to start, those grand old monthlies at their primes had a smaller paying readership than Newsweek has at its supposed nadir. So duplicating their greatness could be a pyrrhic victory. Furthermore, while it’s not impossible to get readers by peddling sheer enjoyment, it’s a lot easier to peddle necessity, or at least usefulness: You need this magazine to sort out the world for you and to make sure you haven’t missed anything. In short, you need it to be your guide through the chaos, as Meacham so eloquently describes what he intends to avoid. And when something like the Internet comes along to make the chaos even more chaotic, you need your trusty guide more, not less. Possibly the dumbest slogan ever for a newsmag was one used briefly by Time a few years ago: “Make time for Time.” Make time for Time? Who has that kind of time? If you can convince people that reading Time will save them time, then you may have a deal.

Night At The Supermax

May 22, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Bush Administration, History, National Archives, National Security, Obama administration, Presidents, Terrorism, Vice President Biden, War on Terror | 1 Comment 

When Harry Truman was whistle-stopping his way into political history en route to his upset of Thomas Dewey in the 1948 presidential election, he used many set pieces again and again from the back of his train. And they always worked. One example was to accuse the Republicans of misleading the American people. Harry said that the GOP lived by the philosophy, “If you can’t convince them; confuse them.”

I wonder what Truman would make of his distant Democratic successor in the White House. Would the man known for his plain talking sign off on President Obama’s brand new method of communication – one that would impress even George Orwell?

It might be best called transcendent-speak – the art of talking above-it-all.

Our president describes things like abortion and his approach to national security in language that defines the new administration as kind of “hovering-yet-right-in-the-middle,” with just about everyone else described as finger-pointing partisans and fear-mongering extremists.

Barack Obama’s recent speech about national security, delivered against the backdrop of all things historic and constitutional, was a case in point. By now, we all know that while Mr. Obama was speechifying at the National Archives, former Vice President Dick Cheney was weighing in with an address of his own at the American Enterprise Institute. It was split-screen heaven for policy junkies. I am now waiting for someone to YouTube some sound bites from both men, with the music of “Dueling Banjoes” from the movie Deliverance playing. This analogy works on several levels.

Mr. Cheney, by the way, won that one on points. And don’t even get me started on how well he’d do against Joe “da-bunker’s-dis-way” Biden.

Digging through all the rhetoric in President Obama’s speech – trying to separate wood, hay, and stubble, from yet more wood, hay, and stubble, I found one true thing. He said: “My single most important responsibility as President is to keep the American people safe.” He indicated that it is always on his mind (cue Willie Nelson song here).

Understanding responsibility and accepting responsibility are, however, two very different things. I find myself hoping against hope that he is not telling us everything – that deep down he gets it, or that he has his fingers crossed, or something. I want to believe that Mr. Obama is as much of a realist as most presidents quickly become on matters of national security (Jimmy Carter doesn’t count, of course). I am praying that he holds a few tough trump cards in reserve. But, let’s say I have my doubts.

You see, the president has a hard time even really talking about the enemy we are supposed to be vigilant against. He refers almost vaguely to “an extremist ideology” and talks about the high-tech threat from “a handful of terrorists.” And he says, in an effort to show how full his presidential-plate is, we are fighting two – count ‘em – two wars.

Two wars? Were we fighting two wars from 1941 to 1945? Or were the European and Pacific theaters possibly somehow related by a toxic affinity? When Italy was against us, were we then fighting three wars?

Of course not – there may have been several fronts, but it was the same war. And the leaders back then didn’t have a problem with naming the ideology. Roosevelt railed against the Nazis. Though Mr. Churchill talked about “Narzees” – raising the possibility that there was yet one more war, if you count it all that way.

In fairness, Mr. Obama did mention our historical success in overpowering “the iron fist of fascism,” even though in order to actually win, in those now long gone days, required a fist of our own – as opposed to an outstretched hand. But when he talked about us being “indeed at war with al Qaeda and its affiliates,” I found myself thinking: “Affiliates? Affiliates?”

That’s it. Out with the war on terror, in with a war on those pesky “affiliates.”

Mr. Obama again defended his position on the closure of the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay. He reminded us of his oft-used assertion that, “the existence of Guantanamo likely created more terrorists around the world than it ever detained.” It’s a cool line, but impossible to prove.

“If you can’t convince them; confuse them.”

One of the president’s great ideas would be to send many of the current Gitmo detainees to one of our “federal, supermax prisons.” But if his goal is to see that these misunderstood men escape unpleasant confines, anyone who knows anything about Gitmo and the federal prison system will tell you that conditions and treatment are worse in a supermax facility than at Gitmo. How will this play when the “affiliates” find out how bad the new home is and then use the new conditions as a recruitment tool. Where next?

People who have been to Gitmo tell me that the detainees there are treated better than anyone in our federal system. In fact, some tell me that those bad guys have it better than many of our nation’s fighting heroes in Iraq and Afghanistan!

The biggest irony of all as Mr. Obama’s policies evolve, is that he is apparently acknowledging that some of the more dangerous detainees may have to be held indefinitely. So much for absolute principles – there is some wiggle room after all. But of course, it’s all part of the “mess” he inherited.

On the flipside, Mr. Cheney seemed to speak with a good deal more of the “common sense” the guy on the other side of the screen (presumably, the left side) talked about. He said: “In my long experience in Washington, few matters have inspired so much contrived indignation and phony moralizing as the interrogation methods applied to a few captured terrorists.” He decried what he described as, “Recklessness cloaked in righteousness.”

This week, the Senate voted to deny $80 million for the closure of Gitmo. There is also legislation in the pipeline with wide support that would require a “threat assessment” for all of the remaining 240 detainees before any other decision about their future is made.

As for President Obama, he calls opposition to his approach fearmongering. He says that some are using, “words that are calculated to scare people rather than educate them.” And he adds, “Bear in mind the following fact: Nobody has ever escaped from one of our federal ‘supermax’ prisons, which hold hundreds of convicted terrorists.”

He’s right. But the insertion of new and dangerous terrorists, complete with some of the structural changes that would be needed to create the image that these men will not be treated badly, raise the possibility of rendering the facilities a little more vulnerable. Not to mention the idea that some of the terrorists might be treated better than the other inmates because of political considerations, might just create, shall we say, unrest on the part of the all the regular criminals. In other words, it could all lead to a really bad night at the supermax.

Fearmonger – that’s an interesting term. It’s all the rage these days, like pandemic. The word, “monger,” means “a dealer in a specific commodity.” One can be a fishmonger, for example. Of course, using the suffix with fear is designed to create the idea that someone is spreading something destructive, even devilish.

Was it fearmongering when the government had us all freaked out a few weeks ago about the swine flu? Most of us would say “no.” Disease is serious stuff and we are wise to take heed to warnings and wisdom.

I suggest that a little fear in a dangerous world is quite wise. The problem, as I see it, is not fearmongering, but rather, pipe-dream-mongering. Americans should not be paralyzed by fear, but we should be concerned enough to know that we are not even close to being out of the terror-filled woods. When there is a toxic virus, you don’t send those infected to school with the other kids. When it comes to terrorist detainees, Gitmo is their home.

There’s no place like home.

Featured Articles — May 22, 2009

May 22, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes From Home And Abroad:

Obama’s Deeds Vindicate Bush By Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post
If hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue, then the flip-flops on previously denounced anti-terror measures are the homage that Barack Obama pays to George Bush. Within 125 days, Obama has adopted with only minor modifications huge swaths of the entire, allegedly lawless Bush program.

Obama Faces Pitfalls With ‘Surgical’ Tack on Detainees By Peter Baker, The New York Times
As President Obama defends his national security strategy, he faces a daunting challenge. He must convince the country that it is in safe hands despite warnings to the contrary from the right, and at the same time persuade the skeptical left that it is enough to amend his predecessor’s approach rather than abandon it.

Send Him Back to the Bunker! By Fred Kaplan, Slate
This morning’s back-to-back speeches on torture and terrorism—first by President Barack Obama, then by the former vice president—could have been an opportunity to weigh competing arguments, examine their premises, and chart an agenda for a serious debate.

The Gitmo Myth and the Torture Canard By Arthur Herman, Commentary Magazine
On January 21, 2009, President Barack Obama issued his first executive order: He was closing the detention center at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba and calling a halt to the military commissions created in late 2001 to try terrorist suspects detained there. Like the startling opening chord of a Beethoven symphony, Obama’s action was intended to herald a new tone in America’s “war on terror” and a restoration of America’s moral standing.

Identity Politics And Sotomayor By Stuart Taylor, National Journal
The judge’s thinking is representative of the Democratic Party’s powerful identity-politics wing.

Those Who Make Us Say ‘Oh!’ By Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal
More than most nations, America has been, from its start, a hero-loving place. Maybe part of the reason is that at our founding we were a Protestant nation and not a Catholic one, and so we made “saints” of civil and political figures. George Washington was our first national hero, known everywhere, famous to children.

Barack Obama is giving Iran the time it needs to build a nuclear bomb By Con Coughlin, UK Telegraph
The President’s approach ignores the urgent threat of the regime’s weapons programme.

The ‘peace deal’ was just Step One in a broad Taliban agenda. What’s next? By Adam Khan, Macleans
Two months ago, Bashir Hussein was hoping that a peace deal between the Taliban and the provincial government in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) would finally bring an end to the violence that has plagued the Swat Valley for the past two years.

Cohen: Obama Is The New Nixon

May 21, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under International Affairs | Leave a Comment 

Though I still disagree with this comparison,  I nevertheless think the argument that the New York Times‘ Roger Cohen poses on the fruits of having a less ideological foreign policy is worth a look:

Vietnam teaches several lessons, the first of which is that the United States can have normal relations with countries whose political systems and ideologies it rejects. That is as true of Cuba and Iran today as it was of Vietnam or China. For all America’s painful histories with Cuba and Iran, they do not include a war within living memory.

In the Shanghai communiqué of February 27, 1972, which announced the breakthrough between the United States and Communist China after 24 years of non-communication, Richard Nixon and Zhou Enlai concluded:

“There are essential differences between China and the United States in their social systems and foreign policies. However, the two sides agreed that countries, regardless of their social systems, should conduct their relations on the principles of respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states, nonaggression against other states, noninterference in the internal affairs of other states, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence.”

That same spirit fostered the restoration of full U.S. diplomatic relations with Vietnam in 1995. It was lost in the bullying zealotry of the Bush years.

Now Obama has returned to “mutual respect” in exploring whether the cold war’s hangover in Havana can be overcome and the 30-year impasse with Tehran. The president’s motto might be: “Give me facts.” I applaud it.

“Fidel Is Entrenched”

May 21, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Cuba, Latin America | Leave a Comment 

That means the Island nation has no immediate intention of reconciling the 50 year rift with their northern neighbors:

When Fidel became ill in mid-2006, Raúl took over as interim president and hinted that some degree of economic liberalization was on the way. (He officially succeeded Fidel in February 2008.) The Raúl-led government introduced a raft of small reforms — such as beginning to decentralize agriculture and allowing Cubans to purchase various consumer electronic products — that had a meager economic impact but raised expectations on the island. As Daniel Erikson, a scholar at the Inter-American Dialogue think tank, writes in his new book, The Cuba Wars, Raúl unleashed a relatively robust debate about possible economic reforms, which the Communist youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde characterized as a “revolution within the revolution.” Now Fidel has effectively squashed that revolution and Raúl has dialed back his reform talk.

Koh: American Exceptionalism As Unconstitutional

May 21, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under International Affairs, Supreme Court | Leave a Comment 

Jennifer Rubin has this about the nomination of Harold Koh as chief  State Department legal adviser and his view that America has an unconstitutional “distinctive rights culture”:

The Supreme Court, in Koh’s view, should import international law to erode what Koh disparages as America’s “distinctive rights culture” (this is a bad thing in Koh’s view). In Koh’s vision the Supreme Court should invent new rights and apply treaties — even those not ratified by the U.S. — to override domestic law. While this may seem remarkable, even unbelievable, in its extremism, Koh’s ample scholarship clearly supports this summary.

Hating On Rummy

May 21, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Bush Administration, Military | Leave a Comment 

As former Vice President Dick Cheney squares off against the Obama administration, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has up to this point been holding his powder as his critics have skewered him for what they believe is the arrogant, stubborn and authoritarian manner that lead to the mismanagement of the Iraq War. Interestingly enough at the Nixon Libary last night, Bush’s first appointment as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the retired (and very non-partisan) General Richard Myers spoke glowingly of the previous Pentagon chief. According to Myers, Rumsfeld was the most intellectually curious official in cabinet meetings, pressing the rock-ribbed President to see all sides of an issue before any weight was thrown behind key national security decisions. Ben Domenech of The New Ledger similarly deflects against the effigial and very anti-intellectual opinions on Rumsfeld, and contrasts the SECDEF with the dense critics who hold them:

Since leaving office, Rumsfeld infamy has only grown in most corners of the mainstream press — he makes a very natural target, and he has mostly stayed quiet even when his former allies were using him as a scapegoat. But other stories show a more complex picture. I was surprised by reports that have appeared in recent years detailing how the SECDEF expressed significant doubts about the invasion of Iraq — as someone who opposed the Iraq war (I believed then as now that Iran, not Iraq, poses a greater threat), I never thought that Secretary Rumsfeld and I would have any real agreement on the matter. Now writing his memoirs, Rumsfeld’s office today is clothed with signed photographs, images, and awards from a lifelong career spent in the arena, stretching all the way back to photos taken with Ike during his first Congressional campaign, signed pictures of great men of the ages, of soldiers and citizens he’s met along the way.

The walls are full of these pictures and tokens. But of images like the ones Draper features, there are none. There is one reminder that you could call spiritual, however: burned scraps from the plane that struck the Pentagon on 9/11, unavoidable and out in front. If you want to know how Rumsfeld expresses his personal motivations, you need look no further.

Investing In Defeat?

May 21, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Middle East | Leave a Comment 

Laura Rozen of Foreign Policy reports that Vice President Joe Biden might be visiting Beirut in advance of next June’s elections. According to Rozen such a visit would show a signal of support to the Lebanese government, but Lebanese scholar Andew Exum expresses some uncertainty about investing in a government which includes Hezbollah as a part of its ruling coalition:

“I think there is probably some realism that March 14 could end up in the minority in the new government,” said Andrew Exum, a Lebanon expert and fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “So we’re seeing the [Obama] administration trying to reposition itself and talk about investing in institutions in Lebanon — specifically in the Lebanese armed forces. And I think there is an understanding in the administration that it’s going to be a tough sell to Congress and to our friends in Israel why we should invest in the Lebanese armed forces when Hezbollah is in the ruling coalition in Lebanon. Having said that, the election could still go either way and the vice president’s trip there much like Secretary of State Clinton’s understated visit expressed support for our allies, but not to the degree where we are throwing drafts at the March 8 coalition,” which includes Hezbollah.

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