Democracy and Spain (or, Throwing the Bastards Out)

OK, so in the last couple days I’ve seen a lot of chest-beating about how the recent Spanish election is the worst setback to the effort against terrorism since … well, pretty much anything. This troubles me.

I agree that it’s definitely a bad thing if al-Qaeda gains encouragement from a perceived victory and perceived influence over world affairs. And there’s certainly a case to be made that Zapatero’s policies announced so far aren’t helping.

However, a lot of the rhetoric comes perilously close to saying that in the aftermath of a terrorist attack, it is wrong (or at least an act of moral cowardice) to vote against the incumbent. And that bugs the crap out of me. It smells of “you can have any color you want, as long as it’s black”. I’m not fully versed in Spanish politics, but I can think of several reasons I would be displeased with the PP if I were a Spaniard, none of which have to do with rolling over in hopes al-Qaeda would leave us alone.

Voters are fickle and aggravating. They do weird things, and they do stupid things. But it’s theirs to do. The right result in an election is the one which earned the most support; any other attitude leads to stances usually associated with the bad guys in this particular fight. Save the moral judgements for the policies that come after. Call Zapatero worse than a Frenchman if you want. But we’ve got to respect the right to throw the bastards out.

Originally published on LiveJournal


I’ve been thinking a lot about our presence in Iraq lately, and the … vigorous debate over the meaning and purpose of that presence. One sees, on the hawkish side of things, a common conceit that critics of administration policy want, deep down, for us to lose in the Middle East and get our asses kicked back across the Atlantic.

I’ve been thinking about that, and this is my feeling.

I want us to win in Iraq. I want to see a liberal democracy in place there, I want Iraq to overcome the challenge of unifying multiple ethnic and sectarian differences in a diverse state that Iraqis can be proud of, and I want that new state to be a stabilizing and improving influence throughout the region. I want us to help Afghanistan and Liberia to similar successes.

I also want it to be remembered that the Bush administration has done a damn poor job with this noble crusade — that they have, at various points, completely neglected to fund followup efforts in Afghanistan, sold out our Kurdish allies for Turkish help which wasn’t even forthcoming, inflated evidence, deliberately antagonized allies, wreaked havoc on what few international institutions we have, based a chaotic excuse for a reconstruction plan on the say-so of some berserk think tanks citing Iraqi exiles with glaring biases and vested interests, and throughout it all kept the American people in the dark, without ever even acknowledging the fact that the American public has an interest and a right to know what its government is doing and plans to do.

These are not always easy positions to reconcile. It’s hard to know how to feel when the government persists in doing the right thing the wrong way. We’re the goddamn United States of America. We can do better than this.

Originally published on LiveJournal

(Ed. note 5/29/21: Even more than the rest of my writings about Iraq, this is embarrassingly neoliberal in retrospect, but I feel like intellectual honesty demands its preservation.  It was 2003, I was an Ivy-League-educated 27-year-old, failures of perspective were perhaps predictable.)

Crackpot Historical Theory #38

This morning I was musing on the fact that American foreign policy is often overshadowed by an almost visceral fear of an Other, who is considered to be uncivilized, unpredictable, and dangerous, if not outright evil. This Other is usually defined ethnically — the Red Menace, the Yellow Peril, the Muslim Fanatic (yes, two of the three are technically philosophies or religions, but the popular construction of them usually came down to Slavs and Arabs).

It struck me that during the modern era, a major (perhaps the major) way that we have incorporated the Other into the Us is through war. By struggling with an enemy to the utmost, we somehow come to accept them. So WWI brought Germany into the fold (during that war, we called Germans “Huns” and other things which implies a barbarian horde, as opposed to WWII’s “Jerries”. This also explains in part why we interned Japanese and not Germans; Germany had already become part of Us, if a part with which we had serious conflicts). WWII brought in Southern Europe and, to a certain extent, Japan. The Cold War brought in the Russians and other Slavs. Korea and Vietnam didn’t work on this level, I think because those wars were not followed through to the bitter end. On a mythic level, they never ended.

So I wonder if this war we’re in now, a war fought to the collapse of one side unlike Gulf War I, will be sufficient to bring the Arab world into the American Us.

On a side note, this theory also explains why we never get along with the French: we haven’t fought against them since before independence.

Originally published on LiveJournal

Rebuilding America’s Defenses

So this morning I was reading William Safire rant about how France and Turkey will pay, I tell you, pay, and I was reminded of something I intended to note a while ago.

Recently I read “Rebuilding America’s Defenses”, a 2000 defense review which has been cited as the neocons’ blueprint to world domination. It isn’t, really; it’s a right-leaning defense review, and doesn’t really provide any evidence (well, new evidence, anyway) that the neocons are tyrants in the making. It does, however, suggest that Rumsfeld may be a cleverer SOB than I realized.

See, one of the points that the document makes (and, I think, validly) is that our troop disposition is obsolete. A massive buildup in Germany makes sense if you expect to fight in Germany and Poland, or maybe as far south as Czechoslovakia. It doesn’t make sense when most of your recent and projected deployments are in the Balkans and the Middle East; in the post-Cold War world, bases in southeastern Europe would make much more sense.

Now we return to the period just before the war, when, among other appalling lapses of tact, Rumsfeld threatened to “punish Germany” by withdrawing our military presence and the massive economic force it represents.

At the time, it seemed petulant and dumb. It’s stupid to make major national security decisions in order to spite sovereign allied nations because they don’t jump to when the Oval Office says hop. But if you were looking to move those troops southeast in the first place, taking advantage of a diplomatic break to do things which would have caused a diplomatic crisis anyway seems a pretty clever thing to do.

It also makes you think that Bulgaria standing with the US and UK during the Security Council flap might be about more than a matter of principle.

And it makes me wonder what else Rumsfeld might be up to with some of the other seemingly boneheaded things he’s said.

day one

For a while yesterday, I was becoming qualifiedly pro-war. I think that once hostilities have started, the best outcome I can hope for as an internationalist American is a short war with as few casualties as possible and a just peace, and I think that working to put forward that position is more realistic — and ultimately more helpful — than taking a flat anti-war position after there are already troops on the ground.

I’m having trouble sustaining this position while watching news footage of what we’re doing to Baghdad. It looks like half the city is on fire. It’s like the Oakland firestorm and 9/11 rolled into one with anti-aircraft fire and no end in sight. And it’s distinctly different watching these things when I know that the people causing them are acting on my behalf.

Maybe it’ll emerge that everything I’m seeing is a legitimate military target and everyone who’s dying is a combatant, but right now I feel like maybe I should be up in San Francisco pissing off commuters with the rest.

Originally published on LiveJournal

Why Republican Wars Don’t Help the Economy

OK, so I promised by implication that I would eventually explain my theory that only wars run by Democrats can help the US economy. So here we go.

Before I begin, I should note that this is not particularly an argument for or against the war du jour; do not take it as such. Well, I suppose it would be something of a refutation of the argument that invading Iraq will fix the economy, but no one seems to be seriously arguing that.

So the issue is the interplay between taxes, government spending, and deficits. To briefly and simplistically review the macroeconomics: low taxes are good for the economy, because when people have more money, they spend more and invest more. Government spending is good for the economy because it either employs contractors, pays vendors, or puts money into the hands of consumers which they can then spend. Deficits are bad for the economy, because they flood the debt market, raising interest rates and making it harder to raise capital. We have big economic arguments about these things because people can’t agree on which one of the three is best to address in times of trouble. Democrats tend to favor government spending, as that’s what they tend to be big on anyway; Republicans call for tax cuts, as that’s their metier.

Now, war is a boon to the economy (aside from the labor shortage thing I discussed before) mainly as a source of government spending. War materiel needs purchasing; someone needs to be employed to supply it.

When Democrats get involved in a war, they usually have brought on line all the government spending that is politically feasible at that time. A war induces them to put more resources into the one area of government expenditure they tend to underfund, and opens the door to higher levels of spending than would usually be possible. Thus, war allows a Democratic administration to do even more of what they’re good at, economy-booster-wise.

A Republican administration, however, is usually very far from exhausting its possible spending venues when war breaks out, and generally defense is well-funded under Republicans anyway. Extra appropriations are not as great. Essentially, a war compels a Republican administration to start employing a Democratic strategy, but they don’t like it and aren’t good at it. The conflict of policy between small government and big guns leads to deficit spending rather than raised taxes. Debt, unfortunately, is harder to reverse than a tax hike.

At the end of the day, Democrats are just better than Republicans at spending money. If it was possible to win wars by cutting taxes, no doubt Republican wars would all trigger booms.

Originally published on LiveJournal

The Saga of Bush Bush’s Son

I was talking with my friend Noah Nelson last night about world affairs, and it occurred to me that the current state of international law is not unlike that of medieval Iceland. That is, there is law, with very precise and complicated provisions, but no enforcement. The only punishment that could be imposed on those Icelanders who refused to submit to the law was outlawry (which basically means that it’s not illegal to kill you).

There’s an incident in Njal’s Saga, however, when a particularly rich, powerful, and popular Icelander decides not to go into exile as he was ordered, and becomes an outlaw. However, he’s so powerful no one dares to harm him, though his outlawry effectively excludes him from civil society.

It’s a very perplexing culture — sneaky lawyer tricks go hand in hand with men throwing axes into the backs of their enemies’ heads — but I begin to think it sheds valuable light on the state of international affairs.

Originally published on LiveJournal

A modest proposal

So I have a solution to our Iraq difficulty. I propose a president swap. I think it would be a win-win proposition.

Saddam Hussein can’t do that much damage in two years, not with a Republican-controlled Congress. And he’d get to say, for the record, that he finally got hold of some nukes (we’d have to make part of the deal that Colin Powell gets to hold the nuclear football or some such). In 2005, he retires having been the most powerful leader in the world, albeit not especially effectual. Good for him.

Meanwhile, Dubya gets more oil at his disposal than he ever dreamed, and you know that deep down he’d be happier in a dictatorial state without pesky checks and balances. He can settle down to enjoy a lifetime of petty tyranny, having been the most powerful leader in the world. Good for him.

Now we just need to get Tony Blair and Kim Jong Il to switch up, and we’re golden.

Originally published on LiveJournal