The Insurgent and the Aid Worker

Slate is running a well-written piece by Owen West and Phillip Carter defending the actions of the now famous marine in Fallujah who executed an apparently defenseless insurgent. Their arguments are sound, and I agree with them that the case for charging and convicting this marine is far from clear. They move on from there to draw comparisons to brutal killing of Margaret Hassan. Again they reach some valid and important conclusions. Margaret Hassan was a noncombatant aid worker. The man shot by the marine appears to have been an insurgent combatant. The insurgents kill indiscriminately, the U.S. takes care to try and limit civilian deaths. The American soldiers are generally honorable. The insurgents are not.

These are good points. And yet I can't help but feel that something is lost in this discussion. The arguments advanced by Carter and West feel very familiar from the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Palestinians go out and intentionally kill score of civilians. The Israeli military is only trying to engage militants, and if a few civilians are collaterally killed, well they tried their best to avoid it. But at the end of the day, everybody is just as dead as everybody else. And at the end of the day there are more than twice as many dead Palestinians (approximately half of them noncombatants) as there are Israelis, and orders of magnitude more dead Iraqis than Westerners. When some Israeli kid shoots somebody in self defense who turns out to be a noncombatant, surely his action is more morally defensible than the action of a Palestinian suicide bomber. But who sent a scared 18 year-old into a Palestinian neighborhood armed with the most powerful weaponry money can buy? Can Westerners disavow the impact of widespread slaughter of civilians with the defense that our military personnel try to conduct themselves honorably? Is there no moral culpability for manufacturing a situation where it is highly probable that innocent civilians will be gunned down? And isn't it a bit trite to hold comparisons of the honorable conduct of the world's mightiest military against the conduct of desperate rag-tag insurgents? Honor is a luxury afforded by superior firepower. Did we expect them to line up in formation like a Napoleonic army so that we can massacre them with a single daisy cutter? Of course they use stealth and blend in the population. Of course they like to attack soft targets. How could we have expected otherwise?

None of this is to attempt to draw a conclusion that the Iraqi insurgents are morally equivalent to the U.S. occupiers, or even to the Palestinian militants for that matter. Clearly no good would come of the Iraqi insurgents prevailing against the occupation. The U.S., however ham-handed the effort has been, is really trying to create a functional democracy and improve the lot of Iraqis. Ultimately (not passing judgment on the decision to invade in the first place), the U.S. has the right of this conflict. But that's not my point. The point is that it is foolish to view this conflict and actors in the conflict by falling back on these notions of honorable conduct to justify and defend U.S. actions and to prove our moral superiority. These terms miss the point of what is happening on the ground and wall-paper over decisions which predictably lead to the deaths of many innocent civilians. And it causes us to see events in a distinctly different light than they are seen by Iraqis and other arabs. They are painfully aware of what we are not: that we made the choice to put thousands of scared soldiers with itchy trigger fingers into the places where they live, where they work, where their children go to school. Until we can see things from this perspective we will be forever perplexed by how our actions are being interpreted by the Iraqi public.

This perspective sheer hurts us by leaving the U.S. unable to effectively communicate a meaningful response to Iraqis when an event occurs like the killing in Fallujah. The arguments advanced by West and Carter probably resonate strongly with Americans, but, I think, much less so with Iraqis. What they want to hear is that we understand what a burden it is for them to have all these troops wandering around blowing things up, the checkpoints, the nighttime raids, the airstrikes, the mass detentions. They want to know that we feel their pain and are doing everything in our power to put an end to the chaos, give them a functional country, and get the hell out. The point is not that the marine was probably justified in shooting the insurgent, the point is that it's regrettable that the marine had to be there in the first place.

Democrats Learning Yet? Of Course Not...

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle was defeated in his reelection campaign largely because he was torn between the conservative tendencies of his South Dakota constituency and the liberal demands of party leadership. He tried to take a middle line and failed on both counts. How did the Democrats respond to this loss? By nominating another conservative senator from a red state to serve as the new minority leader. Brilliant.

November 2004, Quote of the Month

It's old, but so worthy:

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard."

--H.L. Menken

Just What We Needed

I really don't have the time nor energy to give this a proper response, but this is one of the most absurd and stupid things I've seen on the Washington Post for some time (probably since the last time they ran a Krauthammer column). Why, why, why? Do we need to spend a crapload of money and open up an ugly diplomatic can of worms in order to blow shit up better? Isn't that the only thing we're really, really good at as is? I mean, is this really our problem in the war on terrorism, we can't blow stuff up well enough? So stupid...

The Man of the Hour

Introducing James "If I go down, I'm taking the Republican party with me" Dobson. Leader of the religious right, instigator of the effort to block Arlen Spector from taking over the judiciary committee, crusader against gays everywhere. Democrats need to shine a spotlight on this guy and not take it off until he has driven all moderates from the Republican party or forced Bush to divorce religious right. As long as he sticks to his values, and there is every indication he will, he can only hurt the Republicans.

Had Enough

Let the speculation end, Colin Powell is out. Looks like damned near the entire cabinet is being replaced.

Sometimes People Get A Little Worked Up...

And all I can say to this is: wow.

My Job Here Is Done

Attorney General John Ashcroft announced his resignation today, declaring: "The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved." Whew! Good job! Speculation has Ashcroft planning to end global warming and cure cancer as an encore.

Re: Securing Their Gains

I've heard the claim all too frequently over the last week that President Bush received "the largest number of votes ever received for president," and I am disappointed to see it echoed by Newt in his article. As Josh Marshall notes, John Kerry got the second larges number of votes in history, followed by Ronald Reagan and Al Gore. It has nothing to do with popularity but has everything to do with population. A better measure of "mandate" is the number of electoral votes, and in that department, according to this post (again, Josh Marshall), President Bush obtained the lowest number of those since Woodrow Wilson beat out Chales Evans Hughes (a lifetime member -- dikaia upotheke).

I agree that health care reform presents one of the biggest challenges this country faces on the domestic front, and if Republicans are perceived as making strides that will help in the mid-terms. But health savings accounts alone will accomplish squat. Those who can already afford decent health coverage have the funds to take advantage of such a program, while the rest will be left to fight over the HMO scraps. Only a fundamental restructuring of America's health industry will cause real change -- and that just won't happen under Republican leadership (especially with Frist running things at the Senate).

In my view, the lasting Republican control depends more upon what happens outside the Republican party. The Democrats is adrift so I don't expect much from them until they can straighten up their act. The biggest immediate challenge comes from the growing discontent among fiscal conservatives that may lead to a formation of a viable independent or libertarian candidate in '08.

Some are waiting to see whether President Bush tries to reach out to the moderates to secure a lasting Republican legacy. I predict the only "reaching out" will be with fear -- fear of terrorists and fear of those who are different from the "mainstream" America. That agenda will succeed or fail depending on whether any other party presents a better message. A message of hope rather than despair.

Securing Their Gains

Newt Gingrich has an interesting column in the Washington Post laying out his strategy to extend Republican dominance.

Let the Good Times Roll

Good to see that Bush isn't going soft in his second term. Here and I was worried that reality might start to intrude on his fantasy land...

Oh, the Agony...

God bless the USA.

Experts to Investors: Dump Your Dollars

It has been a while since we've heard anything on this front, but The Christian Science Monitor has an article advising investors to buy up foreign currency, citing higher interest rates and declining dollar values. Here I was worried about foreigners not wanting dollars any more. We may beat them to it.

bin Laden: Honestly, We Don't Really Hate Freedom

Here is a transcript of bin Laden's now infamous speech. Very interesting. Is it just me, or has he been watching Farenheit 9/11 (see the closing lines)?

Dropping A Bomb

British medical journal The Lancet is publishing a report issued by a group of American and Iraqi researchers led by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in which they claim that more than 100,000 civilians have died in Iraq since in the US invasion. This . story . is being . covered . all over . the . place. Prior to this, most media sources have been using iraqbodycount.net as their reference as to how many civilians have been killed. While iraqbodycount only puts the count at 17,000, Scott Lipscomb, an associate professor at Northwestern who works on that project, says that they only count deaths specifically reported on in the media and that they've "always maintained that the actual count must be much higher." The reaction seems to be split between complete skepticism based on the sheer size of the number, and some level of deference to general credibility of Lancet and Johns Hopkins. I'm sure the spinners are already spinning, and the fallout will probably last about until, oh, next Wednesday, at which point nobody will give a crap.

"Just the One-Fingered Victory Salute"

Check it out. (Quicktime)

The Russians Took 'Em!

So says "Mr. Shaw," according to this FT story. "Mr. Shaw" reportedly heads "the Pentagon's international armament and technology trade directorate."

Larry Di Rita, the official Pentagon spokesperson, was none too pleased. “I am unaware of any particular information on that point.... I would be careful about information that has been asserted because I don't know how accurate it might be.”

Good advice, Larry. I have known for some time not to trust anything coming from the Pentagon -- or the Bush administration generally. But it always helps when people get the word out.

Did Anyone Think of Asking the Iraqis What Happened to the Explosives?

Well, AFP did. According to Mohammed al-Sharaa, who (according to AFP) heads the Iraqi science ministry's site-monitoring department, "[i]t is impossible that these materials could have been taken from this site before the regime's fall."

"The officials that were inside this facility [Al-Qaqaa] beforehand confirm that not even a shred of paper left it before the fall and I spoke to them about it and they even issued certified statements to this effect which the US-led coalition was aware of."

Just to be sure you caught that, "which the US-led coalition was aware of."

Now, I don't know whether this guy is a crook or what, but don't you think other outlets should share what the Iraqi government has to say?

(Thanks again for the great coverage, Josh Marshall)

101st Airborne Commander Confirms They Did Not Search Al-Qaqaa

As noted on TPM (Talking Points Memo), NYT reports in this story to be featured in tomorrow's paper that they did not look for any explosives at Al-Qaqaa:

"We happened to stumble on it," he said. "I didn't know what the place was supposed to be. We did not get involved in any of the bunkers. It was not our mission. It was not our focus. We were just stopping there on our way to Baghdad. The plan was to leave that very same day. The plan was not to go in there and start searching. It looked like all the other ammunition supply points we had seen already."
* * *
"I had given instructions, 'Don't mess around with those. It looks like they are bunkers; we're not messing around with those things. That's not what were here for,' " he said. "I thought we would be there for a few hours and move on. We ended up staying overnight."

More on Cirincione in Salon

So I took a closer look at that Salon article I mentioned in the last post, and lo and behold -- Cirincione addresses some of the questions I posed. He contends the administration knew all along that the explosives were there, but they did not do anything about it because of arrogance and because they held a disdain for the IAEA: "The administration didn't like the inspection reports they were getting out of the IAEA before the war, and they were determined to punish and humiliate them." Cirincione continues:

The administration knew it was there. Why didn't they do anything about it? It was arrogance. I think you have to say that this is not incompetence as much as it is arrogance. They simply did not believe that they were going to have an insurgent or terrorist problem after taking the country. Even when the insurgency began, apparently there was no effort to try to go back and secure these materials.

Later in the article, he identifies what to him is the question to ask from this:

A key question here is, Have U.S. officials known all along that these were the explosives that they were dealing with? People need to go back to Bush officials and start asking some hard questions about what kinds of explosives have been used.