When asked to tell us what we actually need to do, rather than tell us what we all need to believe, ideologues on the Far Left and Far Right are uncharacteristically silent.
Both Nancy Pelosi and Ron Paul want the U.S. to get out of Iraq. Granted, their reasoning differs. Pelosi, who believes that Iraq is a “situation to be managed,” not an actual war, withholds her support to discredit the Bush Administration and thus help her political party at the ballot box. Paul’s opposition is based on his belief that the Iraq invasion is an unconstitutional exercise of power, in addition to being the wrong policy in the first place.
Both the Paul and Pelosi camps embrace the same four-word prescription we’ve heard over and over to give concrete political meaning to their beliefs: “Get out of Iraq”. When I noted in an earlier essay (“Whose Crazier, the Far Left or the Far Right?”) that the bottom line for the ideological Right and ideological Left is identical regarding the issue of Iraq, I was told that their underlying motivations mattered, and therein lay the difference.
Okay. If the reason why Leftist ideologues want to “Get out of Iraq” is different than the reason why Right-minded ideologues want to “Get out of Iraq” — and this difference indeed matters — then let’s look at the practical policy prescriptions each offers, and the practical political consequences of each path. The proof should be in this pudding; that is, assuming that the pudding actually exists after all is said and done.
But first, let’s examine their respective reasoning and motivations.
First the Uber-Left: Once you cut through all the “Bush Lied People Died” rhetoric and point out that Bill Clinton and most of the top Democrat party leadership held identical beliefs to Bush about the existence of Iraqi WMD and the need for “regime change,” it all comes down to a simple formula. Bush is for it, so I’m against it. Or, in a slightly different version of the same basic motivation, if Bush will benefit from it politically, then I’m opposed to it philosophically.
The Uber-Right is a bit more complicated in its underlying rationale and motivations. To avoid the charge that I’m just goading this discussion by mischaracterizing their views, I’ll concede that these folks have, in their minds, a well-crafted, internally consistent, highly principled reason for wanting to get out of Iraq now.
This now brings us back to the pudding. These motivations — for either the Left or Right — may be important to those who hold these beliefs, but the question on the table isn’t why the U.S. should get out of Iraq, but rather how the U.S. (assuming it should) get out of Iraq?
We’ll leave the should we stay or should we leave question aside for the moment so as not to distract from this debate. For discussion purposes let's assume that the ideological Left and Right have prevailed, and the slogan “get out of Iraq” is now the ultimate policy objective. So, how exactly do we do this? The focus is on how to translate this slogan into actual policy so something tangible can be accomplished. At this point it doesn’t really matter whether we’re doing it because we hate Bush, or because we believe that the Iraq war is unconstitutional. We have over 160,000 American troops in Iraq, plus equipment and support staff. How do we pull them all out “now?”
I first posed this little challenge in my essay of several months ago, “How to Fix a Problem.” Instead of endlessly quoting one’s favorite philosophy or philosopher, how about using that philosophical foundation to guide us through answers to some real world problems? I received one answer in the comment section when I asked for a practical application of the political theory this individual was touting to the situation in Iraq. It bears repeating because it’s a perfect illustration of the centerpiece of this essay. The “practical” policy guidance I was given was, simply, “Get out of Iraq.”
The author of this policy bristled when I pointed out that saying that we need to “get out of Iraq” isn’t a policy prescription, it’s simply political rhetoric. This prompted the following reply: “Why is saying we need to get out of Iraq not a policy prescription? Because you don’t agree with it? That is exactly what we need to do. Get out.”
Okay — get out . . . when? Tomorrow? In six months? In six years? In 60+ years like the occupation of Germany? What does “get out” mean? Every American soldier and civilian tomorrow, in 6 months, six years, etc.? Do some people stay behind? Who, and how many? What about the Iraqis who supported us? Do we leave them to die? Believe they won’t die and leave them anyway? Take some/all of them with us and give them asylum? And when we leave, do we run, walk, or sneak away to send a signal to our enemies that we’re sorry, determined, or contrite for being there in the first place? And will any or all of this convince our enemies — whether they are pre- or post-Iraq invasion bad guys — not kill any more U.S. citizens, or do we need to do other things in conjunction with “get out?” You know, minor, unimportant details like this.
“Get out” is a slogan, just as “we shouldn’t have gotten in in the first place” is a slogan. Each may be a philosophically-inspired slogan, but neither is a blueprint for making policy except in the most generous sense. It’s like counseling a depressed person to “be happy,” or a poor person to “get rich,” or a person who did X not to do X in the first place. On a high level it may be very sound advice. On a practical level it’s just mindless prattle, unless a prescription to achieve those goals accompanies the high-minded rhetoric. It makes the person uttering the phrase feel good about themselves, and renews that mystical bond with the philosophers of the past. But it doesn’t do a damn thing to make that wish into a reality, or further, deal with the reality that accompanies that wish.
This is the emptiness of much of what passes for intelligent political discourse when the object is to see how many of your favorite philosopher’s adages you can memorize, rather than applying the principles they articulate to identifying and solving contemporary social, economic and political problems. Either the people offering these platitudes as policy are incapable of translating their principles into real world actions, or they are fully aware of how odious some of those actions will be if they let those principles actually dictate policy. Either way they continue to engage in a political debate that can have no actual consequence, therefore no actual conclusion, because every issue they cite, every pronouncement they make, is simply an abstract philosophical point. Since it is not meant to address any tangible issues, it’s just an abstract mental diversion. Whoever has the better reading list or megaphone wins, even if the principles they embrace have no real-world application.
Philosophy can guide an action, but policy based on philosophy requires more than a reference to Aristotle or Rousseau. Saying that we need to “get out of Iraq” isn't a policy prescription. It’s simply more rhetoric. If philosophy is to have meaningful substance, it must provide practical guidance for actions based on the principles it embraces. Just citing the principles and walking away from further discussion does nothing except contribute to a genuine man-made global warming crisis by pumping more hot air into the atmosphere.
But you’re not likely to see any real policy options discussed by these proponents, because when the curtain is stripped away these people have no answers, just complaints. They have no policies, just philosophies that must remain at an abstract level for fear of exposing what the actual policies arising from this worldview might be. That is, assuming there are any practical lessons to be drawn from their philosophizing in the first place.
I’ll end this essay with a little prediction. Rather than addressing the hows, whys, and wherefores of unilaterally pulling out of Iraq immediately, over time, or only when the combat ceases, those who base their objection to the Iraq war on philosophical grounds will:
(A) Focus on why we shouldn’t have gone into Iraq in the first place, without addressing the practical issues regarding a US withdrawal, or
(B) Define “practical” policy matters as the pursuit of a proper philosophical position, or
(C) Contend that the practical details and consequences of an arbitrary US withdrawal are somebody else’s issue to address, or
(D) Refuse to concede that any concrete practical issues need to be addressed at all! “Get out now” is all the practical guidance one needs. The rest (like what happens to the population that supported us, and whether or not our enemies will be emboldened by cutting and running), are just insignificant details not worthy of further discussion.
The “trap” (as this approach has been characterized) of seeing whether the ultra Left or Right’s worldview bears any resemblance to reality has now been laid.
I am waiting (and hoping) to be proven wrong about what I’ve said above, so an actual conversation can begin. I hold out absolutely no hope that the ideologues of the Left will offer anything constructive until Bush is safely out of office, and can be given no credit for any success in Iraq.
As for the ideologues of the Right, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see if an actual discussion develops, or we get, once again, some variation of the four options above.
“… my policy prescription is to get out now. I thought this was pretty unambiguous.”
*** This is a slogan, not a policy.
1. Orderly withdrawal or retreat? There’s a difference. Pre-stabililized Iraqi government or just anytime?
2. Leave equipment behind, destroy it, or take months to bring it out? [And if it takes months, what do you do to protect yourself: fire only after shot at, or seek out the bad guys first to keep the troops safe?]
3. Take tens of thousands of Iraqi sympathizers with us, or leave them behind to fend for themselves? How do they get assimilated into the US society?
4. What signal does “get out now” send to Al Qaeda, other Middle Easter countries whose oil we need, the Chinese, the Russians, our allies, etc.?
5. Will “get out now” make the US safer? By what logic does one believe that “get out now” after a successful surge will mean no more terrorist threats to Americans, no impact on our ability to secure the necessary foreign resources we need at a fair price, etc.?
This is so patently obvious to anyone who says they have a “policy” that one wonders why it’s necessary to keep stating the obvious.
If “get of now” is all one needs to say to articulate the policy details and evaluate their implications, then I’ve got some additional “policies” to share.
The Economy: “Don’t allow a recession to happen.” “Sell commodities and products at fair market prices.” [No need to discuss appropriate levels of government spending, specific monetary policy, specific tax policy, etc.]
Domestic Social Policy: “Stop doing things to hurt the nation.” “Don’t allow special interests to have too much influence.” [No need to discuss freedom of speech limitations, the impact of civil rights set-asides, the current structure of state, local and national government, the exact definition of a “special interest”, etc.]
Electoral politics: “Hold fair elections.” “Don’t allow dead people to vote”. [No need to discuss ID cards, voter registration laws, the influence of political machines, etc.]
Slogans are not policies, no matter how many times they are repeated. Policies involve general goals that give rise to specific actions. “Get out now” is a general goal, since “now” is an abstract concept, not a tangible guidepost.
I just finished an email to a friend of mine in the UK who was asking about our presidential primaries, and I was telling him about Obama. I said that he gives great speeches about lofty principles, but from a policy standpoint his comments are utterly devoid of substance. It was then the thought struck me.
Dan is our Obama.
Phil,
I’ll let Dan answer your questions for himself if he chooses (and, if you’ll read his earlier posts more carefully, you’ll see that he has already answered some of them), but I wonder if you would demand that I provide you with specific details and logistics if I said, “We should give the surge a chance to work.” Dan is expressing what he believes to be the proper goal of American foreign policy. You’re demanding that he produce a policy paper. Average citizens must be allowed to form opinions with imperfect knowledge of all the details of implementation. You’re applying a rule to Dan that you wouldn’t apply to someone who agreed with you, and that you probably wouldn’t even apply to yourself.
Phil, you are absolutely incapable of not playing games. Get out ASAP means get out ASAP. By safely, I mean the safety of our troops. I wouldn’t leave any equipment that we didn’t have to leave. How did we get out of Vietnam? But this is all just silly. You are just demanding minute details so you can keep up your charade that I’m not providing real answers. As I said above, I’m not asking you to map out troop movements for victory.
“Will “get out now” make the US safer?”
ABSOLUTELY!!! Our disengagement from the region would make us vastly safer.
What would YOU DO big talker? Stay 5 years? Stay 10 years? How would you define victory in Iraq? How do you plan to legitimize the current government in the eyes of the people? How do you intend to prevent sectarian violence once we leave? (BTW, the “Al Qaeda” that is in Iraq now has very little if any relationship to the Al Qaeda that pulled off 9/11.) Would you attack Iran? Syria? Saudi Arabia? Pakistan? Where are all your answers? Although you are not an empty suit. You are a stuffed suit?
So I guess interventionist neocons can blunder us into any war they want, and then it suddenly becomes the prerogative of the non-interventionists paleocons to figure out how to get us out. That must be a nice gig. Never have to take responsibility for your own mistakes and demand someone else fix them.
If you don’t like my policy, which you clearly don’t, then argue against the policy. Tell us why interventionism is grand. But your semantic game playing is just tiresome.
Rather than dick around, I hereby pledge not to engage in “philosophy” in my reasoning. Therefore Phil will be forced to respond with an actual argument. If he can’t, he’s clearly incapable. Deal?
Leaving totally aside the fact that any ‘philosophical’ objections to the continuation of war by the left tends towards horror at the needless loss of life and the destruction of an entire country’s civilization rather than ‘Bush is for it, so I’m against it,’ as if the desires of such a runty loser were of consequence to anyone in the body politic at this point (unless, of course, his desire to engage Iran pans out).
No, Phil issued the challenge to solve the STRATEGIC (not tactical) withdrawal from Iraq.
Well, first it would be helpful to list some strategic reasons for staying. Why should we maintain troops there? Let’s be frank here and acknowledge that reason number uno for trying to maintain civil order and infrastructure (such as it is) is to protect the flow of oil (such as it is) and maintain an close enough relationship to whoever ends up with the most power there to reap some kind of access to that oil.
At this point, it’s tough to say if having some sort of guaranteed access to however much oil they have is even worth it in real terms to the security of the United States, as opposed to perhaps, someday, helping some oil related companies make profit, but we’ll assume for the sake of argument that the secure access to Iraqi oil is still worth all the men and treasure we’ve spent so far and will spend in the foreseeable future (and that’s being generous. One could just as easily deem from the evidence at hand that the only purpose of the war was to send as much un-accounted-for cash as possible into the hands of contractors, but we’ll go with ‘access to oil’ because then Phil has something to argue for).
There are no WMD’s on Iraqi soil that we need to worry about ‘falling into the hands of terrorists’ so propping up a puppet government is not a security issue for us. The terrerists are now too busy fighting us and each other there to fight us here, so lets just take ourselves out of the equation and shore up our actual homeland security, like, here in the homeland. There is clearly no longer any means for anyone in Iraq to build a scawwy weapon capable of actually doing any real damage to our soil for a looooog long time. In addition, in the interim since the beginning of this war, the American people witnessed the destruction of entire city by the weather – a subway bomb is not going to send us into quite the same panic. Chris Matthews will wet himself, but the rest of America will have a little perspective.
Not to mention our utter in-ability to find any Iraqi politician, religious leader or neighborhood gangster dumber than the smartest Bush Administration representative. How do I know that? Because they keep taking our money, giving us nothing in return, AND SO WE GIVE THEM MORE MONEY!
“Bringing democracy to the middle east” is clearly a non-starter, and I for one see no indication that any investment in that area has, or will ever pay off. After 5 years, I want some return on investment. We’re getting nothing. Time to cut our losses on that front. So lets not lie and say we have to fix what we broke. We tried. We bought the glue. They stole it. We bought more, we started gluing, they broke it again and took the glue. Enough.
So our strategic goals in staying are:
1) Protect oil production from sabotage (if that).
2) Maintain a diplomatic relationship with whoever attains whatever power is possible, so we can stay close to that oil.
3) To save face, provide a secure neutral zone in Baghdad (Green Zone) for the parties in Iraq who can act in good faith have a place to do so.
Our strategic goals in leaving are:
1) get as many American soldiers off Iraqi soil ASAP at minimal loss of American life and limb
2) as cheaply as possible
3) find a minimal security footprint that still achieves above goals.
At this point I imagine everyone is screaming “we can’t just let the region dissolve into chaos!”? First of all, the point has already been conceded (by Phil) that this is not a consideration. No one in the US (including me, for instance) has any idea how the ‘fall’ of Falluja to this or that Muslim sect will affect the price of corn in Iowa. Regional ethnic cleansing is already a fact of life, so really all we can do is hold the Green Zone in Bagdad as a secure place for the Iraqi’s to realize they need a functioning government. And the Airport. And that’s it. Let’s quit holding the hand’s of the Iraqi people, and let them figure it out for themselves.
Second, if there are grander strategic issues, surely those issues involve players besides Iraq. If the Saudis, Iranians, Syrians or Israeli’s have an interest in maintaining civil order for the sake of order in the craphole that is now Iraq, than lets get them to start putting up some dough. Let the refugees go live in those shiny new cities they’re building in Dubai. Or at least let them build them.
So the first tactical move is to privatize the war. Ramp down the military budget, pull our boys out of all the provinces. If the regional players decide it’s in their best interests that Americans continue providing security, let ‘em hire Blackwater. As long as Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Kuwait pick up the tab, they can buy as many weapons and pay as many private solders as they want, just get if off of my dime.
Re-construction? Again, we already paid for that. If the money got stolen, or if it got bombed again, this time someone has to PAY this time to fix it. It’s lose-win from the point of view of Republicans and conservatives: they still got us into an un-winable war and are responsible for our loss, but at least Blackwater and Halliburton can still earn a profit. I mean, if we can’t have ‘socialized’ medicine, why should we have socialized war?
The bottom line is the bottom line – I’d think a conservative would recognize that. Saudi Arabia is not a poor country. Kuwait has money. If Iraq has oil, she can find a way to finance a way out. If the infrastructure for that oil is destroyed, and ceases to funtion, then they starve. I see no reason why we should rebuild a failing structure in a country that doesn’t want it. And I’m pretty sure America is tired of paying.
I confess I don’t know, exactly, what get’s Phil so bothered by some of the responses (disclosure: didn’t really read many of the comments) since he conceded that “Get out of Iraq” point as a given beginning to the exercise. In other words, that IS a strategic goal in and of itself, one that already assumes that the continued loss of American life and treasure is no longer worth any potential future gain. All that is left after that strategic decision has been made, really, is tell the generals to do it. Neither I, nor any of our potential next Presidents, are military tacticians, capable of determining an actual timetable that takes into account the security of our soldiers and personnel, so demanding that we provide it is dishonest. In reality, by conceding “Get out of Iraq, ASAP” as a given in his argument, he has already conceded the strategic rationale for doing so.
Phil goes on and on (and on and on and on) about how “Get out of Iraq” isn’t a policy prescription, but it’s not really clear what he wants. Strategic troop movements down to the last man along with a timeline and projected casualty count? Or just political slogans that allow the idea to be sold to conservatives that can’t take another defeat at war? The American people, by a good majority, decided a couple of years ago now that this is something we need to do – ASAP – all we’re waiting for is a President who will call the Generals and tell them to get our boys out. The specter of “Vietnam,” or rather, any defeat the American people acknowledge and any blame they place long term, WILL fall upon those who wrongly urged-on and prosecuted this war. Bush managed to kick the can down the road, but that’s still not a reason to stay.
“he conceded that “Get out of Iraq” point as a given beginning to the exercise. In other words, that IS a strategic goal in and of itself, one that already assumes that the continued loss of American life and treasure is no longer worth any potential future gain. All that is left after that strategic decision has been made, really, is tell the generals to do it.”
If only we executed wars by “telling the generals to do it” in the first place… but I don’t want to launch into a mile long tirade with no bearing on the discussion (hint hint). “The generals” need more specific instructions than “get everybody out”. That’s like telling company executives “sell more product”. Like I said, you can excuse yourself from the responsibility for making direct strategic and/or “tactical”, (or probably more accurately “logistical”), decisions, but don’t then turn around and piss and moan because the people who actually DO have to make real decisions won’t “just do it”.
Oh, and saying, “Oh yeah! Well defend prolonging our involvement in Iraq!” when you’re presented with a hypothetical situation where that point has already been conceded is a dodge. This is just an exercise that asks, “Assuming you’ve won the ideological debate – assuming that no one is contesting whether or not you were right about the war – what would you do to affect the result you desire”.
All that having been said, I think Dan has answered Phil’s questions, at least by implication. His policy prescription is to instruct “the generals” to remove all of our troops and equipment from Iraq starting today, at any expense, by any means, completely disregarding whatever impact it will have on the region, US national interests, US national security, international security, diplomatic relations, global markets, or any other consequence whatsoever. The validity of doing so is arguable, but not at all necessary to answer the question posed. Being such an unbelievably simple (some might argue simplistic) answer to such a question, I can’t believe Dan hasn’t just said exactly that. The question is relatively simple; the answer shouldn’t be an argumentative rambling diatribe about corporate fat cats and war profiteering.
Katzen: “Dan is expressing what he believes to be the proper goal of American foreign policy. You’re demanding that he produce a policy paper. Average citizens must be allowed to form opinions with imperfect knowledge of all the details of implementation. You’re applying a rule to Dan that you wouldn’t apply to someone who agreed with you, and that you probably wouldn’t even apply to yourself.”
*** Katzen. This isn’t about opinions. Everyone has opinions. It’s about formulating an actual, real-world policy that attempts to address an actual, real world issue. This requires one to address some of the implications that go along with the slogan/goal/opinion.
Dan says that his policy is “Get out now.” That’s all we need to know. Just withdraw from Iraq. In doing so it’s not necessary to consider any of the other real-world implications Get out now” produces.
Okay, so here’s the counter policy. “Stay in and win.” No need to consider anything more than that. You now have a Dan-inspired 100% complete “policy”. I’ve told you everything you need to know, addressed every policy detail and policy implication, and answered every objection Dan has voiced.
This, of course, is pure sophistry. No one is asking the Empty Suits for a position paper. What I am asking for is some practical guidance that paleoconservatism, in Dan’s case, will give to “Get out now”, insofar as addressing (or even seriously acknowledging) the real-world implications of the slogans he spouts.
Otherwise, you have to accept “Stay in and win” as the complete argument for the opposite point of view. This is how morons debate, not people of substance.
Dan/Obama:
Stay in and win. There’s all you need to know to disapprove your thesis.
Defeat our enemy, don’t spend any more money on the war than we need to, and don’t take on any more challenges than we have to.
Will “Stay in and win” make us safer? ABSOLUTELY. I back this statement up with the same level of analysis you provided in making yours. If “Stay in and win” is the policy,” then by definition it will make us safer.
Like every empty suit, you are incapable of thinking past your own slogans. You announce a goal, and think that that’s all there is to it.
Dan: “If you don’t like my policy, which you clearly don’t, then argue against the policy.”
I realize that reading comprehension is not your strong suit. The essay said that for purposes of discussion, we’ll agree in 2008 that “Get out now” is the policy objective. You’re now in charge of US foreign policy, so tell us how this is done, and address the implications of your decisions.
You can’t because you personally are not capable of that level of thought. No one is asking for a white paper, but we’d at least like to know if you recognize the real-world implication of a “Get out now” policy, and see if you have any concept of how to factor those implications into real world activities.
You said you could do this for US immigration policy 4 months ago, but haven’t. So I’m not holding out any real hope that you’ll actually do more than sloganeer about Iraq.
In the meantime, just “stay in and win”. That should answer all your questions.
Chasm:
I’m embarrassed for the people who profess to be True Conservatives. I challenged both the Right and Left to actually address the implications of “Get out now”. It’s taken someone on the Left to attempt to put some flesh on that slogan and have a real discussion.
I don’t agree with everything you said, but I certainly credit you with a reasonable effort to make your policy real. You don’t really qualify for the prize, though, because the challenge was to the empty suits. You and I have locked horns in the past, but you’ve always attempted to justify your beliefs by relating them to the real world. An empty suit is someone who never gets beyond the slogan in offering political analysis. Unfortunately, this is not a sole problem of the Code-Pink Left. The fringe Right can’t think past their own slogans either.
The objective of this exercise isn’t to suppress disagreement, so I wasn’t looking for a defense of the US policy in Iraq. There will always be legitimate disagreement over actual policy prescriptions. This is the arena in which the real world operates. We can debate whether your assessment of Syria, Saudi Arabia, etc is correct or not. But unlike the Empty Suits on the Right, at least you’ve attempted to relate what you believe to the world as it presently functions.
In short, you’ve begun with a political philosophy, and then used that philosophy to set a broad objective “Get out ASAP”, and THEN attempted to address some of the real-world issues associated with this objective so we can debate whether it’s a good or bad idea in practical terms.
It’s embarrassing that someone on the Left would have to point out to the Empty Suiters on the right how actions and decisions actually play out in the real world.
Chasm:
I’ll leave it up to you if you want to take up the challenge and flesh out a couple of key questions your first effort overlooked.
Your analysis was a decent effort to do what the Far Right wouldn’t — namely, acknowledge some of the strategic issues associated with the US involvement in Iraq. However, it still relied a bit too much on knocking down one policy goal with another policy goal (we need to get out because Middle East democracy is a non-starter, etc.).
The main focus is to think geo-politically. Forget “motives” for the moment, and focus on effects. How will a US withdrawal from Iraq be perceived by America’s friends and enemies if it is thought to be:
1. The result of “loosing” the war? [will it embolden our enemies and weaken support from our friends in other important areas (economics and world trade, defense, etc.)?]
2. A precipitous withdrawal even after we won? [will it signal our enemies that they can still win after they lose --- just wait until we leave then start the fight again? Note: This precipitous withdrawal is without regard to whether the institutional foundations have been secured to keep the existing Iraqi government/security forces from collapsing]
3. Will Al Quada be less inclined or more inclined to attack US interests overseas or domestically if 1 or 2 above happens? This calls for more than an opinion. It calls for an analysis of the motivations of Islamic radicalism.
4. How will the Russians and Chinese view us if we do 1 or 2 above? What are the implications here for the US domestically and internationally.
5. The same question as #4, only focusing on our allies.
It doesn’t matter why we got into Iraq in the first place. It may have been a good decision or a bad one. We are there, and there are global implications for staying or leaving.
If we are to move beyond slogans, then we need to address the action in the real world. Otherwise, I just say “Stay in and win” to your “Get out ASAP”, and there’s no more to the discussion than that.
None of what I’ve asked here is more than I would have asked any first year grad student to do who took a course in political science.
If debate in the IC is just about expressing opinions, then we can all go to the Huffington Post and simply spout off instead. Intelligent discussion requires more than abstract sloganeering. Chasm at least took a shot at doing something substantively where the idealogues on the Right simply punted the question.
“You can’t because you personally are not capable of that level of thought.”
Oh please. This coming from Rainman Phil, who slept through his political theory class and had to be instructed by a novice that the “conservatism” he is peddling is, in fact, a form of liberalism.
As I said above, you are question begging. You do not believe get out now and practice principled non-intervention is an adequate answer. So nothing I can say will satisfy you that I have addressed all your concerns. Why, for example, am I supposed to give a rat’s behind what China or Russia would think about our withdrawal? This is a perfect example of the relentless need of the security/warfare state crowd to have an Enemy (with a capital E). Once people stop buying the Islamomeanie menace, then we will be fear mongered about the Chinese and/or the Russians. The stage for this is already being set. Note the feigned outrage of the neocons to Putin being named Time’s Man of the Year. “How could they name Putin, he is an evil autocrat with sinister designs?” Can you folks never relax? I highly suspect Russia and China would be very relieved to hear we are no longer interested in policing a part of the World that is much closer to them than to us. In fact, there is much to be gained from us trying to improve our relationship with Russia, instead of demonize them. Oil and they have influence with Iran and some other Middle Eastern countries that we don’t. (Russia and China basically got together and said they would not tolerate a US attack on Iran, meaning they see us as a threat to their interests in the region. So they would see our withdrawal as a positive development.)
Patrick, I am not saying get out of Iraq regardless of the consequences. I think getting out of Iraq and practicing non-intervention would have wonderful consequences. For one, we could slash taxes since we would no longer be paying huge sums to maintain a benevolent empire. We could divert resources currently being used overseas to secure our own border. Animosity towards the US would diminish greatly.
Sedonaman, I did not say that War was not a proper response to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Of course we should have responded with War. What I said was that FDR deliberately agitated for an attack, which is true. Now while War was an appropriate response, I do not think that means that the ultimate goal of that War had to be the unconditional surrender of Japan.
Obama: Repeating a slogan is not a policy prescription. If it was, “Stay in and win” would end the discussion.
Thinking (instead of sloganeering) is hard. Don’t be so tough on yourself for not having what it takes to do more than offer opinions.
Phil,
“This isn’t about opinions. Everyone has opinions. It’s about formulating an actual, real-world policy that attempts to address an actual, real world issue.”
And Dan does this. He has said quite clearly that he would address the “actual real world issue” of the war in Iraq by withdrawing our troops as rapidly as safety will permit. The fact that you have follow-up questions does not mean that he has not made a policy proposal on the issue he has chosen to address–unless you believe that nothing Dan says is a policy proposal if it does not contain an exhaustive discussion of the most intimate details such that you are left with no questions. This, I submit, is ridiculous. I have never read anything you’ve written on any political issue that addressed every concern relevant to that issue, nor would I ever expect to.
If Dan says, “The United States should withdraw its troops from Iraq,” the proper response is “Won’t that signal weakness to our enemies and friends alike.” The proper response is not, “That’s not a real policy proposal.” Actually, it is. It may be a bad one. It may leave several questions unaddressed. But it is, nonetheless, a policy proposal.
Again, I think you should re-read Dan’s posts. You will see that he has answered some of your questions already.
Dan Phillips:
“I did not say that War was not a proper response to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Of course we should have responded with War.”
I see. Your concept of appeasement ends somewhere between the Rape of Nanking and the attack on Pearl Harbor.
“What I said was that FDR deliberately agitated for an attack, which is true.”
This conspiracy theory is just that – a theory that has been repeated so often it is now accepted as true … and without proof, especially by liberals who have a constant need to deride their own country. Why? Because liberals are hostile to authority (father) figures, and country is the ultimate father figure. (See Feser here http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=092006B and Baker here http://www.orgonomy.org/article_terrorism_trueliberal.html ).
Since the U.S. was attacked by the Japanese and not vice versa, there has to be a way around concluding that the Japanese are aggressors (bad) and instead viewing them as the underdog (good) to an evil American empire (bad) … Aha! FDR made them do it! That’s it!
“Dan … has said quite clearly that he would address the ‘actual real world issue’ of the war in Iraq by withdrawing our troops as rapidly as safety will permit. The fact that you have follow-up questions does not mean that he has not made a policy proposal on the issue he has chosen to address–unless you believe that nothing.”
*** Katzen: What is the difference between “Get out Now” and “Stay in and Win?” They’re both slogans, not policies.
You say that Dan’s sloganeering doesn’t require “exhaustive discussion” to make it a real policy. Would you say that “Stay in and win” requires no further discussion either? The policy is obvious. We “stay”, and we “win”. Everything else is just a detail.
You set up a straw man argument by saying that Dan must address “every” conceivable “intimate detail”. How about settling for some surface ones, say the 5 questions I posed to Chasm? These are the true implications of a Get Out Now policy. (We’ll leave aside the fate of the Iraqis who helped us because Dan feels no need to comment on people outside his tribe, even ones potentially placed in danger by US government actions).
If it’s not necessary to address the implications of a US withdrawal from Iraq, then it shouldn’t be necessary to further discuss the implications of “Stay in and Win”. Since we’re in Iraq now, Stay In is the default position, so it automatically wins the moron debate. One slogan is just as good as another.
As for the “consequences” Dan has provided, Patrick did a pretty good summary of what Dan actually proposes. But let’s not stop there. Let’s let Dan speak for himself. Here’s what he just said above:
Dan: “ I think getting out of Iraq and practicing non-intervention would have wonderful consequences.”
*** I think they would not be wonderful. That’s my opinion. But opinion is not policy analysis.
Dan: “For one, we could slash taxes since we would no longer be paying huge sums to maintain a benevolent empire.”
*** Oooh, the first sign of an actual “consequence”. The day we withdraw from Iraq we’ll all get a tax refund. The more we withdraw from the rest of the world, the higher that tax refund. This is true because the only thing that causes taxes to increase or decrease is the US military budget. Entitlements, social spending, which party is in power, etc, have nothing to do with this analysis.
Dan: “We could divert resources currently being used overseas to secure our own border. Animosity towards the US would diminish greatly.”
*** Ok, we would strengthen our border to defend against people who no longer wish us any harm because we got out of Iraq. Forget about the fact that this is a self-contradictory opinion. Where’s any thought about the goals and objectives of radical Islam? Will Osama and the boys now love us if we withdraw from the Middle East, or will it embolden them to spread jihad more aggressively. Is the only reason for jihad the US presence in Iraq and Saudi Arabia — if we weren’t there, would these folks just love to co-exist with Infidels whose very presence is an insult to their religion? And how would the Russians or Chinese act against our interests if they perceived weakness?
You know, minor little details like this which are not important to the sloganeering empty suits.
Let’s go back to the original point of this essay: Saying that we need to “get out of Iraq” isn’t a policy prescription. It’s simply more rhetoric. If philosophy is to have meaningful substance, it must provide practical guidance for actions based on the principles it embraces. Just citing the principles and walking away from further discussion does nothing except contribute to a genuine man-made global warming crisis by pumping more hot air into the atmosphere. But you’re not likely to see any real policy options discussed by these proponents, because when the curtain is stripped away these people have no answers, just complaints. They have no policies, just philosophies that must remain at an abstract level …”
I have read what Dan said. It’s rhetoric, not policy prescription. Policy is about more than philosophy and opinions. It’s about the real consequences of real actions in the real world (ergo, my constant reference to policy “prescription”, not “policy goals”).
If you believe that what Dan has proposed is a solid policy prescription, then you must accept that “Stay in and Win” is an equally solid, coherent, comprehensive world view.
And if you do, I’ve got a bridge you might be interested in!
Take care, Phil.
1. The result of “loosing” the war? [will it embolden our enemies and weaken support from our friends in other important areas (economics and world trade, defense, etc.)?]
** Part of the problem of falling into the dichotomy of ‘win-lose’ is that our definitions of national interest and security become muddled through the simplification. We have already ‘won’ in the sense that our strategic goals were met: we deposed Saddam, and ensured that there were no WMD’s available for use by our enemies. The goals of “winning hearts and minds” and “bringing democracy to the middle east” were never anything but rhetoric, offered to invest the American people with a noble cause.
So as far as “emboldening” our enemies, I can hardly think of anything more emboldening than seeing our great nation’s army pinned down and stretched thin. Pretty much all of our allies have already had enough and pulled support out, I don’t see any international scorn being heaped on Britain or Spain for supporting us, then giving up, so I don’t see how or why our allies would punish us at this point. Sure, some might complain that we left a mess, but the damage to our reputation has already been done, I don’t see how cutting losses makes matters worse between us and the international community. Who knows, engaging in diplomacy with Iran, Saudi Arabia etc to smooth out and exit strategy might even improve our standing.
We must realize that we have become boxed in by our own moral expectations. We only assume we are responsible for “breaking it” because after WWII we helped our enemies rebuild, and returned sovereignty. Pre-20th century, this wouldn’t even be a worry. Had we been Romans, with a similarly warrior mentality as a country, we would have just seized the oil as our own, put the people under our rule and called it a day.
The simple fact that we returned Iraq to Iraqi’s fulfills our moral goals, and by completing that transition and then staying out of Iraqi affairs (transparently) will at least convince our friends and enemies alike that we are not set on world domination by force.
2. A precipitous withdrawal even after we won? [will it signal our enemies that they can still win after they lose — just wait until we leave then start the fight again? Note: This precipitous withdrawal is without regard to whether the institutional foundations have been secured to keep the existing Iraqi government/security forces from collapsing]
Which enemies are we talking about whose country we might invade in the future and who then would be able to just ‘wait us out?’ This is only an issue if you think that we should be turning Iraq into a colony, and have therefore failed. We’ve already handed over sovereignty. And what do you mean by ‘again?’ The ethnic clashes and violence in Iraq are ongoing – we may be helping to secure peace in some key areas, and those areas may indeed regress to violence if we leave, but if so, then the underlying problems aren’t’ being solved even as we stay. Conservatives are always going on bout ‘responsibility’ and go apoplectic at the thought of welfare, so why are we holding the Iraqi’s hands? People want to live normal lives, and with us gone, the pressure to solve things will be on the people of Iraq to work out. It’s their country, let them deal with it.
And as I said before, if Iran and Saudi Arabia perceive a security threat from the now lawless state of Iraq, than they can either invade themselves and fight it out (and let international scorn fall to them) or hire Blackwater to provide security.
3. Will Al Quada be less inclined or more inclined to attack US interests overseas or domestically if 1 or 2 above happens? This calls for more than an opinion. It calls for an analysis of the motivations of Islamic radicalism.
Such an analysis would have been more valuable before we invaded, but you knew that. Since I am not an expert, and don’t really want to spend the time to become one, I have to sort of punt this question.
But my first question is, why would they more inclined? After all, our ill-conceived adventure had pretty much fulfilled Osama Bin Ladin’s wildest fantasies already – quagmire, loss of international prestige, humiliated by torture and rights violations, army stretched thin and de-moralized, oil at %100, and the US deep in debt and falling into economic malaise. It seems to me that pulling back, re-building our army and projecting the ability to actually hunt down and kill those that would (or do) attack us would be more of a deterrent. Focusing like a laser beam on hunting OBL and killing him would do more towards this end than braking our army in a foreign land.
Unlike Republicans, neither I, nor I believe, the American people at large, are as scared of these people as we once were. As I said, loosing an entire American city due to the weather and incompetent government response has forced a little perspective on the American people. I think our domestic security is better now than it was then, and I think it could be even better still were we not wasting resources (like our entire army) on a silly occupation.
4. How will the Russians and Chinese view us if we do 1 or 2 above? What are the implications here for the US domestically and internationally.
As opposed to what? How they view us now? Are you kidding? The Russians have been laughing at us since day one – and plotting ways to fill the power vacuum left by our international humiliation. The two people who have benefited most from our folly after OBL would be, in my mind, Putin and Chavez. Would China stop buying our debt just because we left a hole in Iraq? Unlikely.
No one on the right seemed to give 2 nickels about world opinion when we went in, so why whine “what will they think?” now?
5. The same question as #4, only focusing on our allies.
Our allies benefit from a strong, prosperous and stable USA. As long as we waste $13 Billion A WEEK on this quagmire, we aren’t doing anyone any favors. They have other problems too, and with us out of Iraq, perhaps we can all get back to solving some of them – together.
“Where’s any thought about the goals and objectives of radical Islam? Will Osama and the boys now love us if we withdraw from the Middle East, or will it embolden them to spread jihad more aggressively. Is the only reason for jihad the US presence in Iraq and Saudi Arabia — if we weren’t there, would these folks just love to co-exist with Infidels whose very presence is an insult to their religion?”
I’m sorry, but I just don’t piss my pants when I think about Muslim jihad and the spread of Islam. Perhaps it’s because I live in California, land of liberals and atheists, where the thought that some religious ideology could actually force converts through violence is absurd (this is also why it took us so long to see the Dominionist threat, but that’s an essay for another day).
But as for “OBL and his boys,” no one said we should stop hunting them. In fact, by leaving Iraq, perhaps we could get back to finishing that bit of business, and show the world that we do, actually, have the ability to punish those who do us harm.
‘Radical’ Islam, that which would try and destroy western civilization and impose Islamic Law on the world, is, like Communism before it, a bankrupt political ideology. The oppression of freedom that it entails is a sure-fire loser in the long run, and while it may cause some social problems where it intersects with western modes, those are the fires we need to watch. Any right-wing commenter who worries that the US will one-day fall under Sharia, has no faith in the American people or her glorious democracy. That is an insult and should be shouted down as such.
Would you convert to Islam and demand your wife wear a burkka just because some religious nuts detonated a bomb on Main Street? I didn’t think so. Everyone should grow some balls and stop demonizing our fellow countrymen – THAT is what weakens us. Remember “together we stand, divided we fall?” GW Bush has done more to divide us as a country than anyone in the world – so who’s the real enemy?
Well Chasm, so much for any hope that the Left can analyze rather than pontificate.
I have a longer post which address your questions – I already hit “submit,” It just hasn’t come through yet.
“This is true because the only thing that causes taxes to increase or decrease is the US military budget. Entitlements, social spending, which party is in power, etc, have nothing to do with this analysis.”
Good grief, Phil, talk about a straw man. As a Constitutionalist I clearly do not support Entitlements and social spending, and you know it. You have scolded me in the past for my doctrinaire Constitutionalist position as not realistic.
“Ok, we would strengthen our border to defend against people who no longer wish us any harm because we got out of Iraq. Forget about the fact that this is a self-contradictory opinion.”
I wasn’t referring to defending our border from terrorist although that would be one result. I was referring to halting the illegal immigrant invasion.
>I have a longer post which address your questions – I already hit “submit,” It just hasn’t come through yet.
Ok, I’ll hold off any further comment until it comes through.
OK, I’m violating the rules by sending this again (with slight revisions)… Please forgive me.
“1. The result of “loosing” the war? [will it embolden our enemies and weaken support from our friends in other important areas (economics and world trade, defense, etc.)?]”
** Part of the problem of falling into the dichotomy of ‘win-lose’ is that our definitions of national interest and security become muddled through the simplification. We have already ‘won’ in the sense that our strategic goals were met: we deposed Saddam, and ensured that there were no WMD’s available for use by our enemies. The goals of “winning hearts and minds” and “bringing democracy to the middle east” were never anything but rhetoric, offered to invest the American people with a noble cause.
So as far as “emboldening” our enemies, I can hardly think of anything more emboldening than seeing our great nation’s army pinned down and stretched thin. Pretty much all of our allies have already had enough and pulled support out, I don’t see any international scorn being heaped on Britain or Spain for supporting us, then giving up, so I don’t see how or why our allies would punish us at this point. Sure, some might complain that we left a mess, but the damage to our reputation has already been done, I don’t see how cutting losses makes matters worse between us and the international community. Who knows, engaging in diplomacy with Iran, Saudi Arabia etc to smooth out and exit strategy might even improve our standing. And the cutting of troops hasn’t resulted in MORE bombings in Madrid and London from radicals determined to take advantage of those countries show of ‘weakness’ so really, where does the evidence for this talking point come from?
We must realize that we have become boxed in by our own moral expectations. We only assume we are responsible for “breaking it” because after WWII we helped our enemies rebuild, and returned sovereignty. Pre-20th century, this wouldn’t even be a worry. Had we been Romans, with a similarly warrior mentality as a country, we would have just seized the oil as our own, put the people under our rule and called it a day.
The simple fact that we returned Iraq to Iraqi’s fulfills our moral goals, and by completing that transition and then staying out of Iraqi affairs (transparently) will at least convince our friends and enemies alike that we are not set on world domination by force.
“2. A precipitous withdrawal even after we won? [will it signal our enemies that they can still win after they lose — just wait until we leave then start the fight again? Note: This precipitous withdrawal is without regard to whether the institutional foundations have been secured to keep the existing Iraqi government/security forces from collapsing]”
** Which enemies are we talking about whose country we might invade in the future and who then would be able to just ‘wait us out?’ This is only an issue if you think that we should be turning Iraq into a colony, and have therefore failed. We’ve already handed over sovereignty. And what do you mean by ‘again?’ The ethnic clashes and violence in Iraq are ongoing – we may be helping to secure peace in some key areas, and those areas may indeed regress to violence if we leave, but if so, then the underlying problems aren’t’ being solved even as we stay. Conservatives are always going on bout ‘responsibility’ and go apoplectic at the thought of welfare, so why are we holding the Iraqi’s hands? People want to live normal lives, and with us gone, the pressure to solve things will be on the people of Iraq to work out. It’s their country, let them deal with it.
And as I said before, if Iran and Saudi Arabia perceive a security threat from the now lawless state of Iraq, than they can either invade themselves and fight it out (and let international scorn fall to them) or hire Blackwater to provide security.
3. Will Al Quada be less inclined or more inclined to attack US interests overseas or domestically if 1 or 2 above happens? This calls for more than an opinion. It calls for an analysis of the motivations of Islamic radicalism.
Such an analysis would have been more valuable before we invaded, but you knew that. Since I am not an expert, and don’t really want to spend the time to become one, I have to sort of punt this question.
But my first question is, why would they more inclined? After all, our ill-conceived adventure had pretty much fulfilled Osama Bin Ladin’s wildest fantasies already – quagmire, loss of international prestige, humiliated by torture and rights violations, army stretched thin and de-moralized, oil at %100, and the US deep in debt and falling into economic malaise. It seems to me that pulling back, re-building our army and projecting the ability to actually hunt down and kill those that would (or do) attack us would be more of a deterrent. Focusing like a laser beam on hunting OBL and killing him would do more towards this end than braking our army in a foreign land.
Unlike Republicans, neither I, nor I believe, the American people at large, are as scared of these people as we once were. As I said, loosing an entire American city due to the weather and incompetent government response has forced a little perspective on the American people. I think our domestic security is better now than it was then, and I think it could be even better still were we not wasting resources (like our entire army) on a silly occupation.
4. How will the Russians and Chinese view us if we do 1 or 2 above? What are the implications here for the US domestically and internationally.
As opposed to what? How they view us now? Are you kidding? The Russians have been laughing at us since day one – and plotting ways to fill the power vacuum left by our international humiliation. The two people who have benefited most from our folly after OBL would be, in my mind, Putin and Chavez. Would China stop buying our debt just because we left a hole in Iraq? Unlikely.
No one on the right seemed to give 2 nickels about world opinion when we went in, so why whine “what will they think?” now?
5. The same question as #4, only focusing on our allies.
Our allies benefit from a strong, prosperous and stable USA. As long as we waste $13 Billion A WEEK on this quagmire, we aren’t doing anyone any favors. They have other problems too, and with us out of Iraq, perhaps we can all get back to solving some of them – together.
Chasm:
Your post still hasn’t appeared. When it does, I hope you don’t conflate “success” with “effort” like you do in your radical Islam rant.
No one is arguing that Islamo fascists will be successful in achieving their goals. [They may think they will be, but that doesn’t mean those goals are realistic].
Having said this, a group of deluded religious fanatics can still do a lot of harm to innocent people (i.e. “effort”.) I’m not concerned that they will succeed in forcibly converting my family to Islam. I’m concerned that following a slogan (“Get out Now”) with no real thought as to the full range of consequences attached to a precipitous withdrawal, will embolden our enemies.
Even bankrupt political ideologies can be extremely dangerous, particularly when we aren’t willing to recognize that it presents any actual danger.
If you are basing your assessment of the threat of Islamo fascism on a belief that a similar bankrupt ideology (Communism) is a “sure fire loser”, you’re committing a logical fallacy. Just because an ideology failed, doesn’t mean it’s harmless. Equating the end of Communism in Russia and eastern Europe with a belief that since it collapsed, it was never really a threat, ignores the slaughter of indigenous Russians under Stalin, the oppression of eastern Europe, and the fact that Communism remains alive and kicking in China, which has become increasingly hostile toward American interests.
Phil,
I think we need a definition of policy. Mine is something like Thomas R. Dye’s: “Whatever governments choose to do or not to do.” What you are demanding from Dan is a policy with details. He refuses, rightly, to give you details when he is unsure what they should be. I assume you also refrain from specifiying details of policies you favor when you are unsure of them.
For instance, I recall a conversation you and I had a while ago about abortion. Your position was that abortion should be illegal. When I asked you if you thought mothers who have abortions and doctors who perform them should be tried for first-degree murder, you didn’t want to answer. You told me that you just want more people to recognize the murderous nature of abortion. Now, your position raises all kinds of questions: What do we do with mothers who have abortions? What do we do with abortion doctors? How do we convince people that abortion is murder? What are we going to do about teenage crack addicts who are going to give birth to a child who, if it lives, will live a life of suffering? But notice that I didn’t follow up our discussion with an article calling pro-lifers a bunch of empty suits who have no “practical,” “real world” policies.
“Stay in and win” absolutely is a policy. It’s not very specific. It contains no details. And the first follow-up question has to be “What does it mean to win.” But it does meet the minimum metaphysical requirements of a “policy.”
One difference between “Stay in and win” and “Get out now”: Some, like Dan, would argue that “winning” is physically impossible. No one would argue that an American military withdrawal from Iraq is physically impossible. I assume “now” to mean “as soon as possible,” because Dan’s actual position is “So my plan pretty much is “just come home” in a safe and orderly manner.”
Still no sign of my post… but to address your point, there isn’t any real way to assess the “full range of consequences attached to a precipitous withdrawal.” We can only guess, and the record of the people (and I mean politicians and ‘experts,’ I’m not indicting present company) who are are peddling this particular line of thought is pretty discredited, so I would not put allot of weight on the scare-mongering.
What does ‘embolden our enemies’ even mean, especially in the context of American interests? Iraq may be a hotbed of violence, but it’s pretty clear they’re busy hating on each other and have neither the will nor the means to ‘follow us home.’
Deluded fanatics sure can do allot of harm, but don’t we seem a bit too much like the Eye of Sauron in ‘Return of the King’ – focused intently on our imperialistic endeavor far away while the enemy sneaks up from behind? As many people point out, if anything ‘emboldens’ anyone to kick a giant, it’s when he’s down, stretched thin and broke.
Hunting OBL relentlessly to the ends of the Earth until we displayed his head on a pike WOULD have been one way to ensure potential terrorists think twice about attacking us again (dis-emboldening?), but that horse has left the building.
Why do conservatives insist on focusing on the subjective analysis of our enemies ONLY when they want to not stop warring? Why does the ‘message’ a withdrawal sends to our enemies even enter into it? What about our subjective analysis? In particular, does this occupation really do ANYTHING to keep an enemy that wants to attack us right now on our soil from doing so? Does it even make sense to imagine a scenario where an AQ cell, living quietly and accumulating the means to create some spectacular carnage in some American city tomorrow is thinking, “gee, maybe we should wait until the US Military leaves Iraq before we blow this sucker up – cus, I really don’t feel emboldened enough to do damage until the world knows that they have left the middle east in defeat.” Of course not, that’s totally ridicules.
So the flip side of your formulation is to prove that by staying in Iraq forever and a day, spending 700+ young American lives and 250 Billion dollars a year, the ‘terrorists’ are too un-emboldened to hit us now.
Interesting… my post(s) have arrived (I double posted, sorry), and shuffled themselvse into the timeline. You’ll have to scroll up to read it. The edited one is now #70.
Katzen: “we need a definition of policy. Mine is something like Thomas R. Dye’s: “Whatever governments choose to do or not to do.” What you are demanding from Dan is a policy with details. He refuses, rightly, to give you details when he is unsure what they should be. I assume you also refrain from specifying details of policies you favor when you are unsure of them.”
*** Katzen, you’ve zeroed in on the point. This essay is not about policy goals (i.e. what general objectives governments wish to pursue). It’s about policy “prescriptions” (i.e. what programs/activities/actual specific decisions we want to see to implement that policy, and the positive and/or negative consequences attached to them.)
I contend that the classic empty suit cannot think beyond policy goals, which I deride as slogans. Get out Now; Lower Taxes; End Immigration; Stimulate the Economy, etc. These are generalized goals/objectives/slogans. They tell you what you want to accomplish, but have nothing of substance to say about HOW to accomplish the goals. And significantly, by avoiding this issue, they aren’t forced to deal with the real world consequences of their proposed actions which may expose some of the silliness or superficiality of that slogan.
I posed the challenge to those who get their policy goals from a particular political philosophy (in Dan’s case Paleoconservatism) to do more than sloganeer about abstract goals. If Paleoconservatism is to have any real meaning for the real world, it should provide the basis for addressing some of these details. If it can’t move beyond the abstract, it’s just rhetoric.
“End Abortion” is another broad goal. Your reference to our past conversation is incomplete. I said the goal of ending abortion should arise through “education”, not legislative fiat. Once the country understands that abortion takes an innocent human life I believe that Roe v. Wade will be overturned. [The Supreme Court has a demonstrated history of responding to clear political/social trends within the country]. That will return the decision to the states. Those states that outlaw abortion will presumably attach penalties to those involved in abortions. This will be decided as a part of the political process via the state legislatures. That outcome could be anything from a misdemeanor for the doctor only, doctor and woman, doctor, woman and those others involved, to a charge of manslaughter or murder.
Since my objection to abortion is on moral grounds, my “philosophy” is not focused on what exact legal penalty will be attached to the action, just that the action be abandoned because people understand it’s no longer the right thing to do. I don’t have a legal opinion about what judicial penalty should be involved for slavery either, but I view slavery as the same kind of harm to innocent life as I do abortion.
If I proposed ending abortion as part of a legal/political philosophy, you’d have every right to press me for details to justify my beliefs and address the consequences arising from it. I used morality as my philosophical basis, and wrote 60,000 words defending my point of view (“What kind of car would Jesus Drive to take his girlfriend to an abortion clinic?), then debated Jim Carmine, then debated Raymond Ingles. I dealt with all the “consequences” by addressing all types of abortion, including rape and incest. And I dealt with the consequences of viewing abortion strictly through legal or religious teachings. I didn’t simply say “End Abortion” and walk away from the details of how to do it, and what this process involved.
“Stay in and win” is an abstract policy goal, just like “Get out Now” is. As a specific guide for specific action, it’s political rhetoric. If all we’re going to do at IC is swap slogans, like I said before, we might as well just write for the Daily Kos or Huffington Post.
You shouldn’t have to assume what “winning” means, any more than what “now” means; and you certainly shouldn’t have to ask metaphysical questions to understand what the policy prescription is. Maybe I’m jaded because I’ve spent a lot of my adult life addressing real issues (how to make payroll; how to build the product cost-effectively; how to get Legislation X passed; what does it mean if Legislation X is passed, etc.). When my partners and I discussed our cash situation, we did more than say “meet payroll”. And when my political clients wanted to pursue a policy, they demanded more than “it should become law.”
The devil is in the details. And be very suspicious of anyone who lives their life guided by a particular philosophy, and wants the nation to follow that same path, but can’t actually tell you about the pros/cons and other details associated with achieving their goals.
Think about it this way: consider an potential enemy, a boy born in Iraq on the first day of war in 2003. Today, he is almost 5 years old and is beginning to put the pieces of his world together. As this boy grows, and sees the damage and violence around him, he learns that this was caused ‘by the Americans.’ Now, when he gets to about 15 (in ten years), under which scenario would you say he would be more ‘emboldened’ to join some jihad group and make war on the US:
1) after the American’s retreated to securing Baghdad starting after his 6th birthday, things got violent for awhile, and it took several more years for people to start demanding the central government start fixing things and working together, but for the last couple of years things have been relatively stable. The country is still a mess and life is hard, but there are no American troops in the streets. The Americans have clearly not been meddling in Iraqi internal affairs, and none of the current problems of the people can be directly blamed on an American presence. Sure, the Americans caused allot of suffering by taking out Saddam, but they are mostly gone now.
2) At 15 years into the American occupation, things have gotten a bit better after most Sunni and Shiite areas have self-cleansed. The overall security situation is roughly the same as the above example, with the difference being that American troops – 100,000 of them – still patrol the streets and run occasional operations against ‘insurgents.’ The government in Baghdad is hated by everyone, especially since American influence is still detected in internal affairs, and there is discontent over what is perceived as oil stealing by the Americans (whether true or not).
Which scenario is more likely to produce the anti-American jihadist?
Katzen, you are banging your head against the wall. Once Phil gets a certain script in his head, he has a great deal of difficulty deviating from it.
Phil, note my reply at #68 which was hung up in the queue for a while also.
Chasm:
I saw you delayed post. I give you credit for doing more than simply saying “get out”, and then alluding to some intangible good things that will happen as a result while denying any possible negative effects.
Your reasoning is perfectly consistent with your philosophy as I’ve seen you express it before. You’ve focused on the morality/immorality of US foreign policy as you identify the term “moral”, and from that perspective you made a reasonable effort to address some pros and cons associated with “getting out”.
I disagree with your philosophy, and I question some of your observations, but I acknowledge (as I did before) that you are not an empty suit. You’re just wrong.
As one example, I don’t think you’ve given enough weight to what Islamo fascism is all about, and how they would perceive a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq. Your “get out” advice was the same when we first attacked Iraq, as it was when terrorism was at it’s height inside Iraq, as it is post-surge. A precipitous withdrawal would be seen differently by our enemies, and the world as a whole, for each of these circumstances, and the impact would be different for each event. Withdrawing immediately after Saddam fell and leaving Iraq in chaos is different than withdrawing when the enemy is inflicting a higher number of casualties, than withdrawing after a successful surge just to get out, than withdrawing many (but not all) troops after a period of stabilization.
Each provides a different “lesson” as the US is tested internationally by established nations, and each provides a different lesson for stateless terrorists. Only if you assume that the world is essentially a benevolent place does this not matter. We spy on our friends (as they spy on us), jockey for economic advantage with our allies, etc. Any sign of weakness is exploited. In the same vein, we’re in a constant state of competition and defense with our enemies (state and stateless).
In short, the world is a lot more complex and inter-related than your analysis suggests. Your analysis doesn’t fully reflect this complexity, so we disagree about the implications of your policy. But like I said earlier, at least you have the guts to state your case instead of simply repeat a slogan.
“I wasn’t referring to defending our border from terrorist although that would be one result.”
*** Why do we need to “defend our borders from terrorists” if cutting and running from Iraq will end terrorism, as you suggested?
“I was referring to halting the illegal immigrant invasion.”
*** Wow! After four months, Dan has finally weighed in on the immigration issue. According to paleoconservative philosophy, the proper course of action is to “halt” it. Fantastic! No more details are needed.
“Why do we need to “defend our borders from terrorists” if cutting and running from Iraq will end terrorism, as you suggested?”
Do your arms get tired building all your straw men? I never said leaving Iraq would “end terrorism.” I said it would make us safer. It would make terrorism less likely. No terrorists bombs going off in Switzerland the last time I checked. I am not sure anything will “end” terrorism. But I sure know that fighting wars against Muslims in far off countries won’t end it. (Nice use of the boilerplate “cutting and running” cliché, BTW. Hannity. Limbaugh et al must be very proud of you.)
Phil, I agree with your statement that disengaging at different parts of they cycle produce different impressions, etc. You are correct that I have advocated withdrawal from day one – but mostly because I was personally disgusted in the operation and felt, and still feel, no moral obligation to ‘fix things.’
Interestingly, the dynamic was precisely reversed as we entered Afganistan in 2002. While a bit dubious at invading sovereignty to take out a segment of the population – as opposed to just hunting OBL, we decided to take out the Taliban too to deter that entity – I supported that endeavor with the important caveat that we “do the right thing and help re-build whatever we destroy.”
Iraq was then, is now and always will be a war of choice. Nothing will change that. The ‘surge’ has failed it’s stated objective (to give the central government time to get footing), our troop levels CANNOT be sustained much longer without breaking our military preparedness. Whatever ill will or negative world reaction has already occurred, and leaving tomorrow won’t make it worse.
What I tried to do in my original post was at least try and figure out what strategic value we might salvage out of this adventure, and more importantly, try and shift the focus from whatever theoretical negatives might accrue from withdrawing and toward figuring out what really is in our national interest.
I’m much more interested in what we, Americans, get out of either staying or leaving than I am whether we hand some imagined enemy a rhetorical victory. Sticks and stones and all that…
Rather than debate what ‘messages’ are sent by leaving now, I’d rather you focused more on actual strategic interests from OUR point of view. Do we really, from a strategic national interest POV, need permanent military bases in Iraq? Why? For the oil? If so, how does THAT play on the Arab street, how does THAT undercut our standing in the world, and how does THAT motivate my now 5 year-old Iraqi boy to behave ten years hence?
So, you think the way to defend against Islamic fascism is to become another Switzerland? The Swiss who use their neutrality to profit from German atrocities against the Jews by looting the money banked there, who sidle up to any country regardless of what atrocities they commit? That’s your model for the United States?
Oh, and just for the heck of it, here’s a little something on “no terrorist bombs in Switzerland”. Feel free to now condemn the use of my time to actually fact-check your commentary.
In Neutral Switzerland, A Rising Radicalism
Islamic Extremists Newly Seen as Threat
By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, July 20, 2006
BERN, Switzerland — For centuries, this Alpine nation has successfully relied on a strict policy of political neutrality to insulate it from the wars, invasions and revolutions that have raged outside its borders. These days, a new threat has emerged: one from within.
As they have elsewhere in Europe, Islamic radicals are making inroads in Switzerland. Last month, Swiss officials announced the arrests of a dozen suspects who allegedly conspired to shoot down an Israeli airliner flying from Geneva to Tel Aviv. In a related case, a North African man has been charged with organizing a plot from Swiss soil to blow up the Spanish supreme court in Madrid.
For years, even after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, Swiss officials assumed that their country was one of the last places Islamic radicals would look to attack. Long considered a slice of neutral territory in a world full of conflicts, Switzerland trades on its status as home to the International Committee of the Red Cross and other diplomatic institutions.
As the global jihad movement becomes more decentralized and fragmented, however, Swiss security officials are warning that their country could become a target.
In an intelligence report completed in May, the Swiss Federal Police reversed previous assessments that the domestic risk of terrorism was nearly nonexistent. The report concluded that Switzerland had become “a jihadi field of operation” and predicted that terrorist attacks were “an increasing possibility.”
“It would be dishonest to say that these groups are ready to act in Europe but that Switzerland is an island and that these groups could not be active in Switzerland, too,” Jean-Luc Vez, director of the federal police, said in an interview here in the Swiss capital. “It is very, very important for us to say this to the Swiss politicians and the Swiss people.”
The changes in Switzerland mirror those in other smaller European nations that, until recently, didn’t see themselves as likely targets for Islamic terrorists.
Chasm: I give you a lot of credit for attempting to put some flesh on the policy goal you advocate. I think you did a reasonably good job of making your case, though I disagree with it as I indicated in my earlier response. The good thing is that through this type of exchange ideas can be vetted, and if there are actual policy answers, they will reveal themselves. Relying on slogans as a substitute will not.
Again, it is a great embarrassment for the Conservative side that the guy who sets himself up as the man who can explain Paleoconservatism cannot get beyond mouthing slogans, while someone from the Left has the guts to put his philosophy to the test and try and deal with the complexities of the issue. The only saving grace for my side is that while you and I haven’t agreed on much in previous posts, you don’t fit the empty suit stereotype this essay was about. So I would expect a serious effort from you.
The issue on the table today isn’t whether we agree or disagree on what to do about Iraq, but whether the policies one proposed — particularly those that are purported to arise from a political philosophy — can ever make it past a slogan and deal with real-world issues.
Take care, Phil
Are you directing that to me? Now whose building straw men? Who said anything about being neutral, like Switzerland? Invading Afghanistan is not very Swiss, I said I supported that, what does blind neutrality have to with anything? The Swiss won a pass from WWII with their claims of neutrality, but who is letting us take a pass on anything? We’ve not gotten into self-defense or immigration policy as part of this debate, and I’m wondering how it’s relevant to the strategic issue of leaving Iraq? Please don’t accuse me of being a pacifist, Islam-coddling isolationist – not only is it inflammatory, but it’s a characterization that seems irrelevant to our discussion.
I have tried to analyze potential pitfalls to the premise “Lets get out now,” especially with regards to your myopic insistence in knowing how this move might be perceived by our ‘enemies,’ and what I believe is that it’s more important to act in OUR OWN interests than to act in fear of what others might do. We are the United States of America, not Switzerland, and whatever some other state, be they friend or foe, decided to do to us, we can handle.
I mean, if Switzerland is such a hotbed of Islamofacist activity, maybe we should invade.
Read post #76 and tell me which scenario really produces fewer jihadi’s in the future.
Thanks for the discussion, Phil, have a happy Martin Luther King Day.
Any problem that Switzerland has with Muslims is a result of their immigration policies not a lack of war making. A rightist nationalist party did well in the last election there for this reason, but I am sure you would condemn them as “racists.”
I was specifically referring to Switzerland’s policy of neutrality and non-entanglement. Not in NATO, not in the EU, and until recently not in the UN. Joining the UN was, of course, a mistake.
Opps. I see the Switzerland post was not directed at me. Disregard previous post (which at this juncture, has not cleared filter), and continue having a nice MLK holiday.
Cheers
Phil:
Yea, I’m an old guy of 62, born October 1945 right on the cusp between The Greatest Generation and the Boomer Generation. Thus, I speak with personal gravitas on all events from pre-WWI to today.
Again, I contest your use of the word ‘abstract’ to characterize the political opinions of those on the far left and right. I prefer ‘utopian’, perhaps ‘ideological’, or maybe even ‘superficial’.
Sure, ‘abstract’ is to ‘concrete’ as ‘utopian’ is to ‘pragmatic’, but ‘concrete’ and ‘pragmatic’ are close synonyms while ‘abstract’ and ‘utopian’ are not.
My hobby is politics. I’ve spent nearly the last 10 years posting on political forums arguing with folks like Dan. My posts probably number in the high thousands. While I’m still doing research on what makes folks him Dan tick, I would not use the word ‘abstract’ to characterize their thinking. What would I use? Other words. As I said, I’m still researching.
However, they are anti-rational. Not irrational, but anti-rational. Anti-fact and anti-history, too. They always argue from the top down, the ‘top’ being their ideology. On the ideological spectrum, the closer they approach the end points, the more utopian their ideology becomes.
You and I (I think it’s fair to say our POV is pretty well synched) see things from both the top down and bottom up. We believe just as strongly in our ideology as Dan does, but we insist that our ideology be vetted and affirmed by facts, reality, and history.
To be more precise, it is anti-rational to not vet and affirms one’s ideology in the real world. Neither the utopian Marxist nor the utopian Libertarian does so. They see themselves as visionaries with a unshakeable faith not only in themselves but also on their ability to impose their vision on the real world. If the real world contradicts their ideology, it’s the real world that needs changing.
For example, Marxism has never worked anywhere, yet utopian Marxists still insist that Marxism has never received a good trial despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The same holds for Libertarianism.
Anyway, I hope you see where I’m coming from. It would be ultra-cool if we could meet in the middle somewhere.
“Any problem that Switzerland has with Muslims is a result of their immigration policies”
As yes, that pesky immigration issue Dan is bursting with ideas to express, but still can’t find the time to do so after 4 months because he’s too busy endlessly restating his slogans while telling us he’s too busy to actually follow up on his September 2007 comment announcing his intention to do so.
Live Free — very well said!
I used the term “abstract” in a general sense since words like “utopian” and “superficial” tend to be fighting words, and I didn’t want to distract from the main point that policy slogans are not policy prescriptions. But it’s a small point.
Your comments about utopian Marxists is right on target too. I knew a lot of those folks back in Chicago. Capitalist systems were always analyzed on the basis of how they operated in practice. Marxist ideology was never evaluated by societies that professed to be following Marxist or socialist ideology. Thus Russia, China, Cuba, etc could have recognized flaws, but not detract at all from Marxist ideology; while any flaws in the US system were a clear cut sign of the political and social bankruptcy of capitalist ideology.
Dan:
All that I am saying is conservative philosophy 101.
Yes, but only in the etheral realm you inhabit, or in the Pre-WWII era which happened many, many paradigm shifts ago.
I toyed with Libertarianism but found it lacking. Still, about the only function Libertarians are willing to cede to gov’t is defense. In this modern world, Dan, defending the US requires interventionism.
I am not a big government Wilsonian liberal (with Jacobin and Trotskyite leanings) who thinks it is America’s job to crusade around the world making it safe for democracy.
Reagan was not a Wilsonian liberal, either, yet he practiced foreign interventionism on a scale exceeded only by Wilson and FDR during the 2 world wars.
Here’s a thought for you to chew on: Reality is, and facts are. The reality is that the world is a global world. Conservatism must respond to globalization. As a nation, we must accept and respond to the fact that secular transnationalists are lusting to diminish our sovereignty, our Constitution, and our American Dream and replace it with what the EU has become: A pastiche of former nation-states controlled essentially by Brussels bureaucrats and extra-national legalists.
We’re at war with the EU and UN, Dan. We’re facing the biggest threat we’ve ever faced. Yet, you counsel that we withdraw from the world.
No, Dan. We must engage the world. Our invasion or Iraq was a finger in the eye to the secular transnationalists. The fact that we’ve won the war in Iraq means that we stand a much better chance of winning the war against our real enemies.
Phil:
‘Abstract’ it is, then, with sub-categories; eg, academics and naifs, too.
Re Marxism. The topic for your 1st IC article was Global Warming. Perusing it and your follow-on article, I found no references to the underlying Marxist bent of Global Warming advocates. Just a thought.
Another random thought. We just escaped the San Francisco Bay area. Now, the bay area is ringed by hills. In the east bay, there are 3 parallel sets of hills. These hills create narrow corridors, essentially tailor-making the bay area for BART light rail. Yet, BART had operating revenues in 2006 of $275 million and operating expenses of $573 million, yielding a net loss of $298 million. 2006 was not atypical. Since the get-go, BART’s operating expenses have been about double their operating revenues. In Marxist paradises, though, does it matter?
LiveFree:
Have a look at my observations about the Natural Resource Defense Council in my Global Warming article. I didn’t draw out the Marxist connection (again, as an education piece, that tends to be an inflammatory charge that diverts focus from the overall point I was making.) But I did try to illustrate the anti-American and quasi-socialistic mindset of the GW advocates.
Regarding rail, when I was SVP of the Greater Dallas Chamber of Commerce in the 1980s, it was my job to get business support for the construction of a light rail system. I conducted a private study of my own on the logic and economics of the proposal and found it to be way off. [Unlike SF, there are no natural boundaries in Dallas. Spend 25 years building a system that goes north, and by then the population center will have moved east, west or south].
My analysis split my board of directors, half of whom formed an anti-light rail committee. I had the curious experience of appearing before local and state legislative committees to “sell” the light rail concept as part of my official duties, and in doing so answer the charges I had made against that system in the white paper I created! So, I touted the advantages when asked to support it, and listed the deficiencies when asked to oppose it.
The driving force in Dallas wasn’t Marxist utopianism, but capitalistic greed. A lot of land owners wanted to both sell their land for the rail system, and then develop the adjoining land for commercial purposes once the system was operational. A bus system made more economic sense, but wasn’t as sexy (or as fruitful for the landowners). So, DART continues to operate at a deficit today with half empty trains and near empty feeder busses.
Marxists aren’t the only ones who like to feed at the public trough.
Damn, Phil, have you been everywhere and done everything? ‘pears so.
Very interesting about DART, particularly your role. The decision to build DART, it seems, was not based on sound economics, but city-level earmark politics. How unusual.
As is the stimulus package and the ¾’s of a point Fed rate cut. I’m not a guru on economics, but it seems this incipient recession was mainly caused by fed’l deficit spending and too-easy credit, yet the solution touted even by staunch conservatives like Larry Kudlow is more overspending and easier credit. You and I lived through the stagflation of the 70s. Fortunately, stagflation is like riding a bike; we’ll pedal our way through it.
Sorry for this discontinuity, but the December 2007 CBO report based upon the IRS’ 2005 tax statistics proves that Reagan’s and Bush’s tax cuts have made the income tax more progressive.
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/88xx/doc8885/Appendix_tables_toc.xls
Ogle Table2A, and sub-table Effective Individual Income Tax Rates. To summarize, below are the effective income tax rates for 1979 and 2005:
· Lowest quintile: -0.5, -11.3
· Second quintile: 4.8, -2.8
· Middle quintile: 8.2, 2.4
· Fourth quintile: 10.6, 5.5
· Highest quintile: 15.8, 15.5
The poor and middle class need to pay their ‘fair share’ of income taxes.
OK, you win. I overuse incendiary words like ‘Marxist’. ‘Abstract’ has great merit.
Take care.
Live Free —
Re: my economic analyses, I always rely on others to crunch the numbers for me (particularly my MBA brother). That kind of detail is beyond me. What I am pretty good at is relating the outcome of this effort to the social and political dynamics of the society in which it operates. This is how the numbers end up talking to me.
The income tax system in this country went off the deep end a long time ago as entitlements replaced personal responsibility. I’m not really sure how to fix it anymore (vs. just try to stem the hemmorage). My only concern nowadays is to keep my own tax obligation as low as I can. There’s something really wrong when I end up paying more taxes in 2007 than I earned in total income in 2001.
Take care, Phil
Phil, LFOD, sedonaman, et al,
Phil, you really need to read this. I know you hate links. (I have never quite understood why. I would think it would be evidence of me trying to back up my opinions.) The “reporter” Gordon in this article is just like you. He just assumes that continued indefinite occupation is the only reasonable and “serious” options so anyone who believes otherwise is by definition unserious. (How convenient.) Try and be a little introspective and see if you don’t see a little of yourself in him.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/01/20/gordon/index.html
And here is an article on how hopeless the political situation is in Iraq? LFOD, were you being serious when you declared the War in Iraq to be won?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/18/AR2008011802873.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
I really do hope y’all read this. Here is a small excerpt.
“Presumably Kagan and his comrades would have us believe that recent events vindicate the prophets who in 2002-03 were promoting preventive war as a key instrument of U.S. policy. By shifting the conversation to tactics, they seek to divert attention from flagrant failures of basic strategy. Yet what exactly has the surge wrought? In substantive terms, the answer is: not much.”
Shifting the conversation to tactics. Hhmm … sounds familiar.
“I know you hate links. (I have never quite understood why.”
** I use links myself, on occasion. What I object to is people who are incapable of forming a coherent thought themselves, and rely on a plethora of links to make their points for them.
“and rely on a plethora of links to make their points for them”
Some of us call that research. I’m sure you did a little of that when he wrote your dissertation didn’t you, or did you just pontificate off the top of your head?
I combined research with actual thought to produce an “original contribution to knowledge” (the requirement for receiving a Ph.D.). Therein lies the difference.
There’s no challenge debating someone incapable of understanding the difference between “research” as a substitute for critical thought, and analytical thought that uses research to illustrate and supplement critical thinking.
Pre-school lessons are over for now. Sedona and Live Free, feel free to continue Dan’s education on the fundamentals of critical thought. I’m through with explaining the obvious to the incapable.
Dan,
I’m LFDF, not LFOD. ‘LFDF’ is an acronym for “Last f—ing dude fighting”.
Bacevich’s article is interesting. From whence does he come?
Researching his background, he was a Colonel in the Army, a former commander of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, Rumsfeld’s deemphasis of 3000-tank armies just might have stuck in Bacevich’s craw.
His primary thesis? From a link:
http://www.cceia.org/resources/to_be_read/932.html
The germinal insight for his book came to him as he reflected on developments in the years after “the Soviet Union effectively called off the Cold War.”
Although it was expected [after the Cold War] that America’s military supremacy would make it unnecessary to go to war to pursue America’s objectives, that expectation proved, according to Bacevich, to be a mere “pipe dream,” and American diplomacy has become more and more a military diplomacy, a diplomacy of force.
If you start from the premise that military force is anathema, then Iraq is a quagmire.
An interesting article, but some words extracted from his article; Fabulist, myth, miracles, hallowed, facile, prophets, flagrant, dysfunction, scant, fiction, Katrina, ineptitude, paralyzing, rampant, abandoning, irrelevance, shredded, dismal, irretrievably, fantasy, failure, masterstroke, feckless, lavish, cul-de-sac, blinkered, wishful, bullying, myth-making, adrift, & egregious.
Let’s call the article for what it is: An ideological screed, more rhetoric than substance.