Memo to Andrea Mitchell

Watching Morning Joe and commenting on PM Maliki’s interview with Der Spiegel where he endorsed essentially Obama’s withdrawal plan and then after CENTCOM put the pressure on, they half-walked it back (and then walked back their walk back), Mitchell described how Maliki’s office said there was a translation issue with the magazine.  All true, until Mitchell referred to the language in question as “Iraqi”.

Someone tell her Iraqi is not a language.  Rather the people of Iraq speak A-R-A-B-I-C.  Just like people from the United States don’t speak American but English.

Before the Thunder…Madness

With The Dark Knight behind, two summer movies left I’m looking forward to: Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder.

If you haven’t seen the mockumentary preview of Tropic Thunder (called Rain of Darkness) check it out. Classic.

If you are an absolute Apocalypse Now nutbar like myself (i.e. you’ve Conrad’s book, watched both versions of Apocalypse Now [extended re-release and original and the film about the filming of the film] you’ll catch the immediate reference to the documentary Heart of Darkness. If not, enjoy:

The Legal Frame of the War on Terror

Benjamin Wittes from the Brookings Institute has a new book out called Law and the Long War. As one of my bizarre little quirks I like to go to the local chain bookstore (here in Canada called Chapters) and read intros and conclusions–and if they are good, then scan the main arguments/policies–of new texts.

Yesterday I checked out Inside Egypt by John Bradley (brilliant book, more on that one in a separate post) and Wittes.

Wittes’ work is well thought out, bipartisan (in the best sense of sustainable for the long run regardless of which party is in charge, akin to the policy of containment during the Cold War), taking seriously both civil liberties and the exigencies of the conflict, critiquing both current deadlocked camps. In other words, it has sadly zero chance I would bet of ever getting implemented.

Wittes’ Brookings page is here with links to a number of articles of his on the subject. The central argument of the text is that what is needed is a Legislative Lens to this issue contra the Republicans (who have relied exclusively on executive power/privilege) and liberals/Democrats/libertarians who have countered with the Courts.

As Justice Scalia said in the Hamdan case, the failure is on the part of Congress. It’s Congress’ job to set this frame and guide this policy. The executive can not be trusted with no check on power–see the Bush administration, torture, indefinite detention, rendition, black hole sites, and the rest. The Supreme Court has repeatedly undercut their efforts on Secret Tribunals, allowing prisoners in Gitmo to use DC courts. But they have not and can not enforce such measures. SCOTUS is not built to deal with this issue. And as Wittes correctly (and rather bravely in the face of our current fundamentalist so-called originalist legal discourse) points out, the Constitution gives no real clarity on this point. Hence the structural inability of SCOTUS to be anything other than a check. But not the signer as it were.

Contra (Bushian) conservatives, he criticizes the administration for indefinite detention, lack of legal rationale other than the indefinite extension of war powers (nearly a decade into this thing). Contra the left, he does think that they need to more carefully consider that this War is not the same as previous ones and automatic de facto assumption of simply fitting into the previous legal structures/rationale is not necessarily the best option.

Check out this article outlining a Tribunal Courts (a la the right) with massive oversight and defendant rights historically granted in the common law tradition (a la the left/center).

The rest of the book lays out some sane policies on how this legislative umbrella should look: detention, surveillance, terror courts (some really sharp points on that front) and the like.

But even with any possible disagreements as to the exact nature of the legislation on any/all of these specific issues, I don’t think minus those who simply wanted unchecked/authoritarian powers for the presidency (The Mitt Romneys, Dick Cheneys, and Hugh Hewitts of the world) consensus should be built around the notion that it is Congress that must solve this lack of a legal framework in the Long War.

Here is a video Wittes with similar counter-consensus smarts on reforming judicial nominations:

Discussion of The Dark Side

Deep food for thought (and tragic reflection) in this video.  Particularly the first 30 minutes or so.  Jane Mayer author of the new scorcher author of The Dark Side interviewed at New America by Steve Clemons. Mayer chronicles the legal minds (particularly the odious David Addington) behind the Bush Presidency’s legitimation of torture.  As she states they think of themselves as not breaking the law but rather “have their own interpretation of it.”  One that points to a unitary executive branch, dismisses all considerations of treaties/international opinion/law and even went so far as to contemplate (thankfully never enacted) trying to override the Supreme Court.  And at the very least (which is to say far too much) sees any perceived diminution of executive power/privilege by the Congress as simply to be ignored.  Otherwise known as breaking the law.  The myopia and weird re-fighting of the Ford administration battles (fears of Congressional overreach) in the post 9/11 is scary that these humans could be so ignorant and have such power.

Cheney of course resides at the heart of the dark side.  The phrase is his own.  Mayer talks about how the VP’s Office (Addington was the VP’s lawyer now Chief of Staff since Scotter Libby got in legal trouble) ran the show.  Bush she says keeps falling out of frame.  And the information he got was vetted/edited by the VP’s office.

Of the top priorities of an Obama administration, of which there are too many too count after the adolescents who’ve been mismanaging the state for the last eight years, one of which has to be to ferret out this cancer–torture, secrecy, signing statements.  Some disinfectant is needed.  We’ll see.  It’s awfully tempting once one has the reins of power to convince oneself that one will use them for good.  [That is of course the entire story of The Dark Side[.

Rory Stewart on Afghanistan

Rory Stewart, author of two brilliant texts, The Place in Between and The Prince of the Marshes. Stewart (bio here) a British Foreign Officer spent years in Afghanistan in reconstruction and then deputy Gov. of a Southern Iraq Province.

Stewart has a must-read op-ed in Time. It raises again the specter of Afghanistan becoming Obama’s Iraq (or Vietnam). Here’s hoping someone in their camp reads this.

Stewart (speaking from on the ground experience/knowledge) states that NATO/US should not send more troops to Afghanistan. The Soviet experience, the British experience (19th-20th c.) even all the way back to Alexander the Great. Afghans are fiercely anti-occupation and the NATO force sadly in the last years has gone (like in Iraq) from being seen as a liberator to an occupier.

The country in other words has to come to its own political future and choices. Stewart points towards what can be done by the West.

RS:

A smarter strategy would focus on two elements: more effective aid and a more limited military objective.

On the former:

We should focus on meeting the Afghan government’s request for more investment in agricultural irrigation, energy and roads. And we should increase our support to the most effective departments, such as education, health and rural development; they are good for the reputation of the Afghan state and the West. Creating more educated, healthier women and men and better transport, communications and electrical infrastructure may be only part of the story, but they are essential for Afghanistan’s economic future.

On the latter:

Our military strategy, meanwhile, should focus on counterterrorism — not counterinsurgency. Our presence has so far prevented al-Qaeda from establishing training camps in Afghanistan. We must continue to prevent it from doing so. But our troops should not try to hold territory or chase the Taliban around rural areas. We should also use our presence to steer Afghanistan away from civil war and provide some opportunity for the Afghans themselves to create a more humane, well-governed and prosperous country. This policy would require far fewer troops over the next 20 years, and they would probably be predominantly special forces and intelligence operatives.

This would fit with Obama’s overall focus on destroying al-Qaeda and his publicly expressed realism and understanding of having to work with bad/less than ideal actors in less than ideal circumstances. He has also talked (following his mentor on these issues Joe Biden) about increasing aid to Pakistan for civil society predicated on certain other political measures. A similar move could be done in Afghanistan rather than Obama’s (to date) seemingly more open-ended blank check promises to the Afghan government. Though it should be noted that Obmaa criticized President Karzai in his latest speech.

This Stewartian vision pushes directly against Petraeus–assuming Petraeus as Cent Com Commander will push for some modified version of his COIN doctrine in Afghanistan. [That assumption may be prove to be false. Either A)Petraeus only continues to focus on Iraq as his baby or B)He realizes somehow that what worked in Iraq won't work in Afghanistan].

Update I:  Per this story of Obama’s trip to Kabul and the security deterioration there, there may be a way to split the difference if (and this is undoubtedly a Big If) the increase in troops to Afghanistan is based on a very short term horizon then transiting to the kind of vision Stewart lays out.  Alternatively of course it could just entangle them in further and lead to a longer, bloodier stalemate.

Looking Whose Coming to the Foreign Policy Dinner

Story here from the NyTimes. Bush now is negotiating a “time horizon” for withdrawal from Iraq. But it’s not a timetable, I promise (fingers crossed behind the back).

The Pentagon is looking to send more troops to Afghanistan. And rumors (which is all they are at this point) of opening a diplomatic “presence” in Iran (don’t call it a consulate).

In other words, without really wanting to, Bush is heading to Obama’s foreign policy.  Reality it appears intruded on his fantasies for the region.  A little late and kicking and screaming but the momentum and direction is clear (minus an Israeli attack on Iran).

A Reverse Sidney Poitier.

This leaves McCain even more isolated and radical in his thinking. His only homey at this point is John Bolton. And craptastic Romney on his VP-whoring circuit. It will be fascinating to see what Johnny does with this–come out and blast the President? Say that we need to keep those troops in there so we can win faster so we can withdrawal faster? Or just say this was the view he had all along (i.e. the old bald faced lie).

McCain can bluster on the trail all he wants, but the first day in office were he elected (Dear Krishna No) the Pentagon would sit down and have an adult talk with the Commander and let him know that his campaign promises and strategies in both Iraq and Afghanistan are unfeasible. They can not be undertaken with the current state of rotations, numbers of troops, etc.

And for all this talk for so long about how Obama was this naif more and more folk keep jumping on the wagon.

Bending of the Knee

One of John McCain’s compadres went and shot his mouth off (this is happening all too frequently with the disorganized debacle that is the McCain campaign). This time, resident jackass Bud Day (you’ll remember him as one of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a sterling organization to be sure) opened up his yap and stupid came rolling out. And I quote the good Colonel:

“The Muslims have said either we kneel or they’re going to kill us.”

Colonel Bud Day added: “I don’t intend to kneel and I don’t advocate to anybody that we kneel, and John doesn’t advocate to anybody that we kneel.”

First off, who in Allah’s name are “The Muslims?” There are only like a billion of them. Obviously this guy isn’t thinking and this isn’t a rational statement, but it gets to the larger point of the stupidity of the “War of Civilizations” mindset so common on the right.

As Bob Wright has said so many times, it’s not that there is such a war or battle. It is that by continuing to talk, believe, and act based on the premise of one, you can end up with a self-fulfilling prophecy.  More darkly put, consciously or otherwise, the hardline right needs this kind of fight (big wars don’t look looming on the horizon no matter how much McCain talks smack about Russia and China), the Soviet Union is dead, and they need a unified theory of evil incarnate–the neocons especially as this is part of Strauss’ theory of the Noble Lie.

In this same line was the documentary (and that’s me being generous calling it a documentary) Fitna by Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders (another resident jackass this time from across the pond). Watching that disaster was like someone taking a cheese grater to my skull.

In said sorry excuse for a film, Wilders just puts up passages from the Koran advocating violence and the like interspersed with images of Muslim terrorists (or is terrorists who are Muslim?) killing people or calling for blood, etc.  Decontextualized, free floating–truly postmodern s–t.

All of which only works (following the Wright self-fulfilling thesis) to further validate that the al-Qaeda/jihadi vision is in fact THE (as in the One and Only) correct reading of the Quran/practice of Islam.  That’s their exegesis of the book in a nutshell.  Random quotations, no history, assumed obvious meaning, one world myth of given bs.

From a purely tactical standpoint, how more ignorant can one get? The whole point is to undercut your enemy and separate them from the host population (something they are doing very well themselves by killing Muslim civilians thank you very much) not unite them.

What Day has done is plainly state that John McCain’s candidacy is about destroying Islam. Now I don’t actually think McCain wants to do that, but you see it doesn’t matter. That’s the whole point. The perception is the reality on this one.  At least, McCain is making clear he’s not opposed to people thinking he is conflating “Islamic extremism” rather easily with Islam per se and Muslims in toto.

And since McCain is a Christian it will be seen as yet more proof that the so-called War on Terror is really a Second Crusade, with the Christians coming back to finish job.  Again that it isn’t “actually” this doesn’t matter.   To think otherwise is to fail to understand the basic law of cause and effect.

Of course I know that Day is just some redneck moron and his views are basically meaningless. Which is to say it wouldn’t matter except for the fact of how this will play elsewhere. How does that come across in other environs? How does that (to again invoke the Wright thesis) not play perfectly into the hands of conspiracy minded fools around the world? That America, to quote a Pastor whose endorsed McCain (and McCain hasn’t repudiated so far as I know), was created to destroy Islam.

There is no such thing as Islam, the one and only version of it. Not the moderate version, not the jihadi-herretical view, not the orthodox (whoever defines that).  Just like there is no one anything.  Hence the best play is to undermine the pathological ones and at least do no harm to the healthy (healthier) ones.  But for the love of God don’t undermine them and strengthen the virus.

The Dark Knight

OMFG! See this film. A masterpiece. Nolan’s magnum opus. The old canard that the sequel is always inferior to the original–shattered forever. Ledger is a revelation.

Antiphonal Praise

 

Today’s Antiphon from the Rite for Evening Prayer (Anglican Prayer):

Alleluia. The Spirit of the Lord renews the face of the earth: Come let us adore him. Alleluia.

The Spirit of the Lord, blowing where it will, renews not only the face of the earth but the faces on the earth, the faces of the earth.  This is worthy of adoration. 

There is renewal of that which has been forgotten and should never have been.  Renewal of that which is held in oppression when the yoke is lifted and that which was enslaved returns to its pristine natural vigor.  There is renewal as new creation, re-newing everything that was prior to the truly new. 

Christian Ethics and the spiritual/religious path more broadly conceived should fundamentally be about renewal and re-creation.  It is too often about power, prestige, and place.  Far too often concerned not with renewal–which may mean letting things die a natural death so others can take its place–but rather with conservation (in the negative sense).   Holding on past time. 

But renewal without adoration becomes too easily the false idolatrous spirit of progressivism and worse revolutionary fervor and worse still violence.  Change for change’s sake, meeting the new boss whose the same as the old boss, is no answer, no virtue, religious or otherwise. 

It is the Spirit of that Lord that renews.  Not our self-centered limited-view initiatives.  Only our action guided by the Spirit, in concert with the Spirit, only that renews the face of the earth and the faces, the children of the earth. 

Else we begin to glorify/adore ourselves, our false masks and bent images. 

We shout Alleluia even before this confession that the Spirit renews because we see and feel it before the words arrive.  And afterwards out of thanks.  If the Spirit did not renew, there would be no hope.  No possibility for redemption, liberation, or sanctification. 

Come all of us, let us adore together. 

integral as cross-paradigmatic

One of the central arguments of post-metaphysical integral philosophy is that there is not one world but rather worlds (lifeworlds) brought forth by subjects in relationship who undertake social practices.  As a result much of the conflict in discourse/life involves two people both correct in their relative positions–but unable to see each other positions–and therefore assuming their position-viewpoint to be true for all of reality (what is called The Myth of the Given).  On this point, Wilber:

The point is simply that, in principle, cross-paradigmatic judgments are possible because there is not simply one world against which paradigms compete for dominance, a kind of king-of-the-hill battle that tosses all losers on the garbage dump, because there are no losers. There is not one world over which all paradigms are fighting for supremacy, but many worlds brought forth by different paradigms, worlds that can be eye-witnessed by the same subjects if they submit to the discipline of the paradigms required to enact those worlds. And while “the” world cannot contain many worlds, awareness can. And because we already know that are in fact many worlds, it follows that we already are standing in an awareness that has cross-paradigmatic capacity, a capacity that can eventuate in metatheoretical overview, such as the one offered by AQAL.⁶

These three regulative principles–nonexclusion, enfoldment, enactment–are principles that were reverse engineered, if you will, from the fact that numerous different and seemingly “conflicting” paradigms are already being competently practiced all over the world; and thus the question is not, and never has been, which is right and which is wrong, but how can all of them already be arising in a Kosmos? These three principles are some of the items that need to be already operating in the universe in order for so many paradigms to already be arising, and the only really interesting question is how can all of those extraordinary practices already be arising in any universe?

In the footnote to #6, KW further comments:

 It is not necessary that the horizons of different paradigms are reproduced identically in all subjects undergoing the discipline, only that the subjects themselves can agree on certain broad similarities, a topic that is central to Excerpt C, subheading “A History of We’s.”

In fact, as Ricoeur points out what is communicated publicly in conversation & dialogue is never my inner personal experience but rather the public meaning of that experience. So even Wilber’s point is that you and don’t have to have the exact same experience/worldspace when reading his quotation (though the three strands still apply–take up the practice, i.e. read the thing, the event/meaning is disclosed [if you get it], and whether you get it is checked via discourse with the knowledge community].  All that has to happen is we have a more or less similar (mutually recognizably so) sets of intuitions/experiences regarding the above.   

And the reason that this not absolutely identical but roughly overlapping sets of horizons is all that is necessary is because the world is not pre-set.  Returning to the earlier quotation, there is not “the/one world.” 

If philosophy is a meditation on being-in-the-world, I find this attitude one of grace.  There is a deep relaxation involved in: A)seeing that much of what we initially term as conflict is really underneath sign of relative health (people are clueing in to their own experience, already in practice, if unconscious in large measure) which means we don’t have to enforce some one truth on all beings and B)not needing to have the “exact same experience” and fretting over the exact nature of the exact nature but rather focusing more space and attention to learn to articulate clearly and listen attentively and find creative ways of interacting with both our similar (roughly) worldspaces and the differences, different qualities/nuances we each feel/experience within them.