A contribution from a reader:



There's more at Democracy Means You (but beware: a lot of it is much cruder than my sense of humor can handle.)

I nominate Pandagon for the Emperor's Clothes Award, for saying something that is both obvious and wise.

UPDATE: And the second nominee for the Emperor's Clothes Award is...

Ted Barlow wrote the definitive analysis of the politics behind the Mike Taylor "hairdresser" ad, perfectly capturing the game-playing and hypocrisy on both sides. But as I read Ted's analysis the other day, I kept thinking that the controversy over the ad had more to do with psychology than politics, that the ways in which people viewed that ad were infinitely more complex and revealing than could be captured by resorting to simple political divisions, and that understanding the ad required the skills of a novelist, not a political analyst. I was close. It required the skills a memoirist.

Since I've been harping on the subject of unintended consequences lately, it's important to note, now that final results are in, that the Pakistani elections turned out even worse, from an American point of view, than expected. Musharraf's party won 77 out of 272 seats in the National Assembly. Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party came in second with 63 seats. A coalition of six Islamist parties was third, with 45 seats (their previous record was nine). It will be difficult for Musharraf to govern without the support of the fundamentalists.

It's also important to note that the religious parties did not do so well only because of anti-American sentiment in Pakistan, but also because Musharraf managed to keep the two best known opposition leaders -- former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif -- from contesting the race, thereby giving a stronger "opposition" roll to the religious parties. He also required candidates for the national assembly to hold college degrees, but made an exception for candidates from religious parties, whose madrassa certificates were deemed adequate -- thereby eliminating much of the liberal, democratic opposition, and, again, leaving the fanatics to fill their places. Musharraf's anti-democratic moves will cost the United States as much as it costs the people of Pakistan.

Fortunately, the Islamist parties are not expected to have much effect on foreign policy. They will however, influence social policy, including, possibly, being able to block reforms of the madrassas. The schools have been breeding grounds for religious extremism, and the failure to reform them will only increase the reach and power of the religious parties in the future.

And the Islamist parties' strong showing could have a more immediate effect on American operations in Pakistan. The parties were strongest in the area bordering Afghanistan, where the United States is currently hunting the remaining forces of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. In Baluchistan, they won a governing role in the provincial assembly. In the Northwest Frontier, they will form the first Islamic provincial government in Pakistan's history. The parties have called for the removal of US troops from Pakistan, and their roles in the local governments will surely make the job of US forces in the area harder.

Dwight Meredith has an excellent piece up on how a stupid and thoughtless comment can spark an unintended reaction. Actions have consequences -- something to keep in mind as we rush, apparently without much thought or planning, off to war.

In 1963, The Deputy, a play by Rolf Hochhuth, charged Pope Pius XII with complicity in the Holocaust, because of his failure to openly condemn the genocide. Hochhuth suggested that not only was the Church silent, but that Pius was engaged in a cynical display of realpolitik -- concerned only with the well-being of the Church. According to Hannah Arendt, shortly before his death, Pope John XXIII was shown a copy of the play and asked what the Church ought to do against this slander. The Pope replied, "Do against it? What can you do against the truth?"

The simple and profound decency of that answer has always seemed to me the essence of who "the good pope" was. And Arendt's anecdote keeps coming to mind as I read these two news items:

* Republicans and Democrats in Congress agreed on the terms of an independent commission to investigate the Sept. 11 attacks, but the White House raised last minute objections that some officials saw as an attempt to kill the commission entirely.

* Intelligence sources told the LA Times that senior Bush administration officials -- particularly Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz -- are pressuring CIA analysts to shape their assessments of the Iraqi threat in order to help the administration build its case for war.

Combined with this administration's previous attempts to control history and science, these two items feel like part of a pattern -- the Bush administration has found a cynical answer to the pope's question. What can you do against the truth? Crush it.

Likely U-Turn by Prosecutors in 1989 Attack

Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney, said in an interview yesteday that he hasn't made up his mind yet about the Central Park jogger case, but that the findings of the inquiry into the case so far support Matias Reyes' statement that he alone attacked the young woman in Central Park in 1989, and that the five teenagers convicted of the crime had nothing to do with it.

"If the facts require us to consent, we're going to do that. We won't hesitate," Morgenthau said.

No comment -- except to note and praise the increasingly rare, and therefore all the more precious, honesty and decency in those two simple sentences.

Liberal Oasis has an inspiring piece on the good fight liberals put up in opposing war with Iraq, and the positive effect of that fight -- including letting the Democrats know how we feel, and that we will put our money and votes behind those feelings.

I just had a personal experience with the connection between representatives' votes and voter support. Yesterday morning, my Congresswoman voted against the resolution. This is a mixed-bag district of farmers, cowboys, students, and tree-huggers. I'm sure it wasn't an easy decision for her. In the afternoon, I got a postcard asking for precinct walkers for her next weekend. It's on the calendar. I'll be there.

CalPundit explains the connection between investing in girls’ education and fighting terrorism.

A few days ago, writing about the dangers of invading Iraq, I mentioned the possibility of an invasion increasing the popularity of fundamentalists -- and thus the instability -- in the Middle East. I got a couple of e-mails telling me that was an absurd thing to worry about. First, the same thing could have been said (and was said) before the "regime change" in Afghanistan. Second, "the street" didn't erupt then and it’s not going to happen now. And third, why do liberals worry so much about making Arabs mad or hurting their feelings?

That there will be consequences to pay for an action is not necessarily an argument against that action. To bring the issue up is simply to say, "Weigh the consequences and decide if the proposed action is worth the cost."

This is part of the cost. Religious parties have never done well in Pakistani elections, and Pakistanis’ have always cited this failure as proof of the lack of support for fundamentalism in the country. In yesterday’s elections, pro-Taliban religious parties, campaigning on an anti-American platform, won as many as 30 seats in the National Assembly (their previous record was 9). They won’t be able to force out Musharraf, but they may force him to re-think some pro-American policies and thereby complicate the battle against al-Qaeda. The fundamentalist parties are committed to kicking American troops and F.B.I. agents out of Pakistan.

In and of itself, that's not an argument for or against any action. It is an argument for recognizing the consequences of actions.

Sometimes liberals try too hard to be fair. In an otherwise good piece on the danger of focusing blame on a single monster, Nicholas Kristof notes the $23.8 billion worth of contracts that Dick Cheney’s old company, Halliburton, had with Iraq in 1998 and 1999, and even draws the obvious conclusion that Cheney "was in effect helping shore up" Saddam Hussein’s regime just three years ago. Yet Kristof insists that Cheney’s actions are "not evidence of scandalous conduct or egregious misjudgment," nor are they "sleazy."

Pardon me? If helping out a murderous thug doesn’t qualify as sleaze, I can’t imagine what kind of conduct would.

The United States’ entire history with Saddam – which Kristof also takes note of – has been sleazy, from providing satellite intelligence to Iraq, knowing it would be used to target Iranian soldiers with chemical weapons, to shipping several strains of anthrax to Iraq. But it’s part of a long – not morally justifiable, but certainly well-established – tradition of feeding and stroking our monster to get him to attack the other monster. It’s difficult to criticize one party, one administration, or any individual for participating in that, because it’s such a deeply rooted tradition. For a very long time we have counted on Calibans to do the dirty work.

But Cheney’s business deals take sleaze to a new level. I would not justify using one monster to go after another, but many people consider this reasonable behavior. Just the way the real world operates. Sometimes security requires you to cut moral corners. But coddling a monster to make a buck? Is there anyone who would not be appalled by that? And this is 1999 we’re talking about. After the Gulf War. After the attempted genocide of the Kurds. After Saddam Hussein tried to kill George Bush’s dad.

Doesn’t Bush ever look at Cheney and think, "This creep did business with the thug who tried to kill my dad."

A little of the moral clarity Bush is so fond of is called for here: doing business with genocidal maniacs is sleazy. And that’s putting it diplomatically.

It's not unusual for writers to pin the blame for some of the president's more dubious ideas on his religious beliefs, to paint him as a religious fanatic who takes faith a little too seriously. How about an alternate thesis? He doesn't take it seriously enough.

Statements by Religious Groups on Iraq

With few exceptions, leaders of religious groups nearly unanimously oppose military intervention in Iraq.

Samples of Christian opinion on war with Iraq:

As Christian religious leaders responsible for millions of U.S. citizens we expect our government to reflect the morals and values we hold dear pursuing peace, not war; working with the community of nations, not overthrowing governments by force; respecting international law and treaties while holding in high regard all human life. -- Churches for Middle East Peace

We respectfully urge you to step back from the brink of war and help lead the world to act together to fashion an effective global response to Iraq's threats that conforms with traditional moral limits on the use of military force. -- United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

There is no question that President Hussein's demonstrated behavior leaves any thoughtful person horrified by his treatment of his own citizens and the citizen's of Iraq's neighboring countries. However, ours has been historically a church seeking peace, justice, and reconciliation. Even as we acknowledge the need for military action as a means of self-defense demanded by highly unusual circumstances, our primary allegiance is to what we understand the basics of the Gospel of Jesus Christ require of us -- grace, mercy, peace, justice, and love. -- United Methodist Church Council of Bishops

I believe it is wrong for the United States to seek to overthrow the regime of Saddam Hussein with military action. Morally, I oppose it because I know a war with Iraq will have great consequences for the people of Iraq, who have already suffered through years of war and economic sanctions. I do not believe such a war can be justified under the historic principles of "just war." Further, I believe it is detrimental to U.S. interests to take unilateral military action against Iraq when there is already strong international support for weapons inspections, and when it is apparent that most other world governments oppose military action. -- Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

The wisdom of our own Christian faith, as well as other religious traditions, teaches us to demonstrate the greatest prudence and caution when the lethal force of war is contemplated. We believe that writings on Just War are particularly helpful to our nation's ongoing deliberations. As we search for those responsible for the attacks of September 11, we must encourage such discernment that keeps our society civilized and free. -- Episcopal Church House of Bishops

Latest tally of phone calls to the office of Senator Dianne Feinstein regarding a unilateral attack on Iraq:

In favor: 597

Opposed: 24,169

My mother-in-law was born in 1920 in a small town in southern Italy. When she turned six, her family had no intention of sending her to school, but then her father found out there was a law he couldn't get around. If he wanted a hunting license, he had to prove his school-aged child was actually enrolled in school. The desire to hunt was stronger than the belief that education was wasted on girls. My mother-in-law got to learn how to read.

A little bit, anyway. Unfortunately, the Italian government of that time, although generally quite fond of enforcing laws (the definitive Italian comment on the era being that everything was either required or forbidden), didn't see fit to enforce that one. When my mother-in-law's father realized that once he had the license, no one would check up on his daughter's education anymore, she was pulled out of school and sent to work in the fields. She had one year of school.

Amazingly enough, she can read a newspaper. At the end of the day (never the beginning, the beginning is for work, what's the matter with you?), she'll sit down on a kitchen chair, with her feet up on another kitchen chair, and read the headlines. Out loud -- she never picked up the skill of reading to herself.

She still smiles when she mentions the year she went to school.

The law had changed by the time my husband was a child in that same town. Legally, you had to attend school until you turned ten. The year my husband turned ten, he was apprenticed to a barber-tailor, although he was allowed to finish out the school year while he worked. At the end of the year, he would have to quit school and work full time. But that year, they changed the law, raising the age at which you could drop out of school to fourteen. My husband's family was furious. My husband was thrilled.

At fifteen, he immigrated with his family to New Jersey. Different law. He was back in school.

Not knowing a word of English, he struggled to understand what was going on in most classes. (Since American schools were years behind Italian schools in math, and the "language" was the same, he breezed through those.) But little by little he learned enough English to keep up. Not thrive, not stand out, just keep up.

He had a counselor who realized that "keeping up" after only a year in a country where you don't know the language is a pretty impressive accomplishment. The counselor pressured my husband to go to college. His family was against it. That was not the way it was done. Immigrants worked. The children of immigrants got to go to college. Maybe.

But the counselor pushed, and my husband -- who knows why, I can think of a thousand explanations -- stood up to his family and went. And kept going until he had his doctorate. He writes articles and books -- in Italian and English -- that his mother can't read. But she likes seeing his name in print.

Let's just say I believe passionately in the value of education and I know that getting it often turns on small things. And once it starts, it's hard to stop. And it changes you, makes you stronger, in ways that have little to do with the facts and skills you officially learn.

And so this story almost makes me almost cry with joy. Twenty years ago, a family in Pakistan started a school for girls. They were told they were "opening the gates of hell," that it was wrong to educate girls. But a few dozen families sent their daughters anyway. Interestingly enough, those first students were mostly the children of servants, who had little to lose. Many of the students today are orphans or the children of drug addicts.

Twenty years later, those first students hold the best-paying jobs in town. Some have gone on to college and work as teachers and health care workers. The teachers inspire another generation of young women. They don't just teach math and reading. They teach girls about religion -- about "their rights as women under the Koran," including the fact that when their fathers tell them who to marry, they have the right to say no. The health care workers teach women about family planning, breast feeding and vaccinations -- in a country in which one in 10 women dies in childbirth, and one in five children dies before reaching age 5. A nearby health clinic, which treats 300 women every month, says it could not operate without the skills of the women educated at that girls school.

Seeing what has happened, surrounding villages have opened dozens of new schools in recent years. The teachers come from the first school.

Educate a few girls, and sometimes the whole world cracks open and changes for the better and in ways no secular or religious tyrant can stop.

Zobaida Jalal, the founder of that school twenty years ago, is now the education minister of Pakistan. Last year, President Bush pledged hundreds of millions of dollars in American assistance to Pakistan's education effort. If he carries through on that promise, and helps give women in Pakistan the knowledge and economic power they need to stand up for themselves, it may be the best money spent in the "war on terrorism." Women able to fight for schools, clinics, and libraries strike harder and more effectively at the conditions that create terrorism than any army can.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHN

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Let me see if I've got this straight: The head of the CIA says that Saddam Hussein won't use his weapons of mass destruction unless we attack him. And the solution to that is to attack?

Is it just me, or is there something a little odd about that plan?

Proof of intelligent life in the universe:

Lean Left on the politics of oil and the dangers of empire.

Groupthink Central on prospects for justice and peace in the Middle East.

A Skeptical Blog on the Republican Party's hostility toward science.

Like just about everybody, I've collected a fair number of odd googles. (My favorites are "Jack Nicholson breaks wind" and "risking retaliation by opening up a beauty salon"). But what I find really odd is how many people are asking questions that are way beyond the scope of any search engine. Among the more elusive questions that have brought seekers to this site (alas, in vain):

Why do muslim men prefer women with sleek hair?

Why date men with small penises?

Who hates the us? who loves us?

Do you have insight about moral values spirituality and interests of african american women?

At what moment does the soul leave the body?

Buddha what happen if one tells white lie for getting a job?

With apologies to Smokey Robinson...
I Second That Emotion

History is more or less bunk. -- Henry Ford

I missed the president's speech last night. If I tried to watch television in the early evening, my daughter would want to watch too, and I didn't think it was a good idea to let the president tell a little girl who can't sleep without her closet door shut and the light on in the hall that a monster was trying to get her. It's bad enough that he keeps telling me that story.

But reading the coverage in the NY Times this morning, I'm struck by one obvious thing -- the president chooses his historical analogies rather badly:

The president likened the threat the country faces today from Iraq to the Cuban missile crisis, which unfolded exactly 40 years ago this month. The comparison was intended, his aides acknowledged, to give the confrontation a sense of urgency and to explain why the United States could wait only weeks or months to disarm the Iraqi leader.

Isn't that analogy far more likely to remind people that John Kennedy, faced with a real nuclear threat, not the possibility of a future one, did not demand "regime change" in the Soviet Union, or even in Cuba, but simply insisted that the Soviets get the missiles out?

The president's Stalin analogy is equally problematic:

He called Mr. Hussein a dictator, "a student of Stalin" and a murderer, and most important described no solution other than Mr. Hussein's permanent removal from office that would end the confrontation.

Saddam Hussein can probably match Stalin's evil -- qualitatively if not quantitatively. But besides reminding us all that alliances with evil are not a new phenomenon, doesn't the analogy also remind everyone of the success of deterrence in dealing with the Soviet threat?

Or is the president working on the assumption that most Americans share Henry Ford's contempt for history?

UPDATE: Hesiod digs deeper into the oddness of the Cuban Missile Cris analogy.

Two articles dealing with the United States' somewhat schizophrenic relationship with the UN:

The Guardian on the history of U.S. efforts to thwart UN weapons inspections in Iraq.

The Christian Science Monitor on the history of the no-strike zones, and the military campaign against Iraq that has been going on for more than a decade, enforcing UN resolutions -- whether the UN likes it or not.

My Salon subscription will be expiring any day now, and I'm on-again off-again about renewing it. But today I'm on. Eric Boehlert has a terrific piece comparing Bush's tactics in pushing the tax cut last year to his tactics in pushing for war with Iraq this year. The techniques:

* Shifting rationales (What exactly was the tax cut supposed to accomplish? And what exactly is the purpose of this war?)

* Misinformation (Lies, to those of us with smaller vocabularies) (Did you hear the joke about the $1,600 dollar tax cut the average family was going to get? How about the one about the aluminum tubes on their way to Iraq?)

* Panaceas (I'd just call it snake oil, but what do I know?) (Buy my tax cut and all your economic problems will be solved. One bullet and Iraq will be a democratic paradise.)

* Fear (The economy is falling! The economy is falling! no wait, make that The Arabs are coming! The Arabs are coming!)

* Politics That one probably goes without saying, doesn't it?

In my blogburst letter (below), I said that our representatives need to start asking hard questions. If they can't think of any, Hesiod has a few suggestions.

This letter was written as a contribution to The Open Letters BlogBurst opposing war with Iraq. You will find many more writers concerned about the impending war by following the link. By publishing and linking these letters, we hope to encourage anyone opposed to war to write to newspapers and/or their representatives expressing their opinions. This is still a democracy. Your voice matters.

An open letter to Congresswoman Lois Capps, and Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein
I am very concerned about the rush to war with Iraq and I strongly oppose the resolution authorizing the president to wage that war.

I have been a Democrat all my life, but lately I have been wondering why. We have come to a moment in our history when the very essence of who we are as a country is at risk. Will we be a democracy or an empire? A country that believes in the rule of law and respects other nations' rights, or the toughest gunslinger on the planet? Will we wage war only after careful consideration by Congress, or on presidents' whims? At such a crucial time, and with so many urgent matters to deal with, the Democratic Party -- with the exception of a few brave dissenters like Dennis Kucinich and Robert Byrd -- has fallen silent.

That silence does not reflect the best history of our party. The first presidential candidate I campaigned for, before I was old enough to vote, was Robert Kennedy. If Robert Kennedy were still in the Senate today, he would not be silent. He would not stop asking questions until he got straight answers. That's the opposition party's job. Robert Kennedy is gone. You need to ask his tough and peace-loving questions.

You will be voting this week on a war powers resolution authorizing President Bush to attack Iraq. This is not a simple declaration of war. It gives the president the right to attack countries that have not attacked us and have not even threatened to do so. It gives the president the power to launch an attack without demonstrating that he has exhausted all other possibilities.

This is un-American. Tyrants overthrow regimes because they believe they should be overthrown, and they answer to no one. Presidents, in democracies, do not send a single citizen into battle until they have demonstrated the need to do so, and responded to citizens' questions. So far, all we have heard from this administration are intimations of secret evidence and demonization of anyone who questions them. That is not the way a democracy works.

Pre-emptive attack is also contrary to our moral code. The U.S. war on al Qaeda and other terrorist groups has received wide-spread support from American religious leaders because it is clearly a necessary and "just" war. There is no such support for an attack on Iraq. The World Council of Churches' central committee called on the United States "to desist from any military threats against Iraq" and urged U.S. allies "to resist pressure to join in preemptive military strikes against a sovereign state under the pretext of the 'war on terrorism.' " The public policy office of the 8.3 million-member United Methodist Church issued a statement opposing military action as "reckless." In a letter drafted by the 60-member administrative committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Rev. Wilton D. Gregory wrote, "Given the precedents and risks involved, we find it difficult to justify extending the war on terrorism to Iraq, absent clear and adequate evidence of Iraqi involvement in the attacks of September 11th or of an imminent attack of a grave nature." Religious leaders are not military experts, but as Gerard Powers, director of the office of international justice and peace at the Catholic bishops conference, noted, given the cost in lives we -- and innocent Iraqis -- face, legislators simply must "think through the moral dimension of using military force."

Not only is a policy of pre-emptive attack un-American and immoral, it is also dangerous. The president and vice-president have argued that we need to attack immediately, because the threat of Saddam Hussein's weapons will only increase with time. They have argued that the cost of inaction may be enormous.

The problem is, the cost of rash and unilateral action may be worse. We could leave Saddam with nothing to lose, and no reason for restraint in launching whatever weapons he has. Many military analysts fear that we will undercut our war on al Qaeda, both by diluting our efforts and by destroying our relationships with countries whose co-operation we need. Establishing the principal that any country can attack another if it feels threatened makes the world a more dangerous place.

Perhaps most threatening of all, we risk de-stabilizing the entire Middle East, which could lead to the downfall of already unpopular governments such as that of Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan. If the thought of a tyrant like Saddam possessing nuclear weapons is worrisome, the thought of such weapons in the hands of the kind of people who might replace Musharraf is terrifying.

In no way do I minimize the threat that Saddam Hussein poses. The truth is no one knows exactly what weapons Saddam possesses, nor how close he is to nuclear capacity. President Bush is right to be worried about that ignorance. The status quo is unacceptable. But he is wrong to believe that our fear of what we don't know gives us the right to attack and overthrow governments. There are alternatives to war. We need to work with the UN to eliminate the weapons Saddam possesses and destroy his capacity to build new ones, including a nuclear arsenal. We need to pressure the UN to make sure its inspections are complete, and that there are enforcement mechanisms in place if Iraq does not comply.

And above all, we need to keep asking tough and peace-preferring questions.

The Slacktivist has evidence that Ashcroft is a four-letter word.

A NY Times editorial this morning makes the important point that if we care about democracy in the Middle East, the most effective strategy is not overthrowing tyrannical thugs and installing "democratic" governments (otherwise known as more compliant dictators), but looking for signs of liberalization that we can encourage and for instances where our condemnation and political and economic pressure can stop abuses and stimulate reform. Matthew Yglesias adds Iran to the list of places where the seeds of democracy need our support -- and I couldn't agree more.

Talk Left has several fascinating pieces today -- on the Portland suspects, the Seattle man charged with providing material support to al Qaeda, and on FBI surveillance of Muslim men -- all of which suggest that there is reason to be suspicious of trumpeted law enforcement "successes" in finding potential terrorists in the US. The people arrested have been hustlers. bumbling petty criminals, and wannabes, not dedicated and disciplined terrorists. That worries civil libertarians -- as it should -- because, as Jeralyn points out, "we are moving towards prosecuting beliefs and thoughts instead of actions." We don't prosecute thought crime, or even stupid statements, in America. We never used to, anyway.

From Afghanistan to Iraq (continued from yesterday)
The most powerful argument for attacking Iraq now, and eliminating the threat of Saddam Hussein, is that the cost of inaction, or even hesitation, could be too great. It is difficult not to be cynical about that argument. If George Bush had evidence that there really was an immediate threat, surely he would offer more then fear-mongering rhetoric, and so far, that's all we've heard. And it is hard to trust people who demonize anyone who asks questions. The inevitable follow-up question is: what are they hiding? Moreover, the Bush administration's history of deception and exploitation of fear does not make anyone who has been paying attention inclined to take their word for anything.

Still, sometimes the boy cries wolf, and there really is a wolf. The moral of Aesop's fable, after all, is not that lying is bad, but that it is dangerous, because we may not believe the habitual liar when we ought to. As a former chief of the CIA's Near East division, who dismissed the threat and insisted Saddam could be deterred, told Josh Marshall, "If I'm wrong, I'm wrong bigtime."

The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that anyone who is absolutely sure of his opinion -- pro-war or anti-war -- is wrong. There are too many unknowns, and the consequences of being wrong are too great -- on both sides. And if that is the case, the only reasonable response is caution.

And the cautious approach is to drop the rash notion of regime change and focus on inspections and disarmament. No one knows how close Saddam Hussein is to being able to build a nuclear weapon, and that is an area of ignorance the world can't be comfortable with. But making sure the inspections are real, not show, requires us to work with the UN and make our case honestly, without bullying tactics or contemptuous dismissals of other points of view. Unfortunately, the Bush administration has shown no capacity to work that way. As has been the case so often with this administration, there is an important, maybe even urgent, job to be done, and their arrogance and deceit make it far less likely that it will be accomplished.

Dick Cheney argued that if we don't know, we need to attack and eliminate any risk, because the threat will only increase over time. It's a seductive argument -- fear is a great seducer -- but it pretends that there are no risks involved in action. The families of soldiers sent to Iraq will tell you that there are some very real risks, and Iraqi citizens will echo that argument. We risk, as well, leaving Saddam with nothing to lose, and no reason for restraint in launching whatever weapons he has -- most likely at Israel. We risk undercutting our war on al-Qaeda, both by diluting our efforts and by destroying our relationships with countries whose co-operation we need. We risk establishing the principal that any country can attack another if it feels threatened. Give the vice-president his due: leaving Saddam Hussein in power is a risk. But attacking him could easily prove an even greater risk.

And I haven't yet mentioned the biggest risks of all. By attacking Iraq -- especially if we arrogantly go it alone -- we'll feed the fires of anti-American sentiment in the Middle East, and increase the likelihood of governments in the region collapsing and being replaced by religious fanatics. Conservatives often brush aside that argument by noting that the governments of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan are not worthy of our support anyway -- and I don't know anyone who would disagree. But if the thought of a tyrant like Saddam possessing nuclear weapons is worrisome, the thought of such weapons in the hands of the kind of people who might replace Musharraf is terrifying. Better a weapon in the hands of an evil man afraid of dying than in the hands of a zealot with his eye on Paradise.

And there are still more dangers. As James Fallows recently discussed in The Atlantic, a post-Saddam Iraq would be so chaotic it would make Afghanistan look easily governable in comparison. The US would have to make Iraq virtually, in Fallows' words, "the fifty-first state." We could not allow Iraq, with its arsenal, to become the kind of failed state that made Afghanistan a home for the Taliban and al-Qaeda. But keeping it from doing so would require international support and a commitment to nation-building that dwarfs anything in our history, including the occupation of Japan.

That's a commitment that ought to give us pause and force some serious thinking, no matter who is president. But in Afghanistan, Bush demonstrated that he does not consider the commitment to re-building a part of his war strategy. If Karzai's government fails and Afghanistan falls back into anarchy, we face a threatening situation, but it is nothing compared to the situation we would face if Bush were to abandon Iraq after an invasion the way he has abandoned Afghanistan.

I see two ways of dealing with the problem of Iraqi weapons, and I'm not optimistic about either one. Focusing on inspections and disarmament (which I support) requires a president with a commitment to international law, to building consensus, to carefully, reasonably, and honestly making his case. We do not have that kind of president. We have the kind who says, we want your support, and if we don't get it, the hell with you, we'll do what we want.

The second course of action -- attack Iraq, take out Saddam, and install a new government -- seems to me not only immoral and contrary to the spirit of everything this country has ever stood for, but a far more dangerous option to boot. But beyond that, it would have no possibility of "succeeding," as Fallows' article demonstrates, without international co-operation and a commitment to nation-building -- two things that Bush has shown nothing but contempt for.

In essence, neither action -- the reasonable nor the outrageous -- can accomplish anything unless Congress finds its conscience, its courage, and its voice and reins in George Bush. Giving him the powers he is asking for only feeds the idea that he doesn't need to explain or justify his actions, the he has no need for compromise. It tells him that he is a law unto himself, and that is the last thing we should be telling George Bush. His arrogance, disregard for the Constitution, and contempt for international law are putting us all at risk. And it has to stop.

I'm still working on the second part of the piece on Iraq and Afghanistan that I posted yesterday. It should be up this afternoon (evening if you're way over on the right coast). In the meantime:

* Read Senator Byrd's speech opposing the resolution authorizing the President to use whatever force he deems necessary in Iraq or elsewhere.

* Write your letter for the Open Letters BlogBurst

* Write a check to Bill McBride. Think how good you are going to feel on election day when Jeb Bush loses.

From Afghanistan to Iraq
On the day the bombing of Afghanistan began, I told my husband that George Bush would turn out to be a better president than we could have hoped for. That was an odd statement because up until that moment I'd been unimpressed by any of his actions (not to mention scared to death by his first day's performance, and scared again by how few people were willing to admit that his unsteady demeanor disturbed them.) His highly praised National Cathedral speech would have been good, if it had not contained the threat of our wrath. Maybe it was my prissy Catholic schoolgirl sense of propriety or maybe something deeper, but I was horrified by the vow "to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil" issued in a cathedral. You do not plan for war under the gaze of the prince of peace. To do so seemed to me thoughtless at best, bordering on blasphemy. His similarly praised address to Congress was full of mindless platitudes unworthy of a mature man, let alone a president.

And then the bombing began, and with the bombs yellow food packets rained, and when I read about it in the morning paper, I said out loud, "Oh my God, he gets it." George Bush, to my shock and delight, seemed to understand that he needed to both smash and build, that one could not succeed without the other.

I remember reading polls at the time indicating that ninety-some percent of Americans supported the war, and I thought that if a pollster asked me, I'd count myself in with that enormous majority, even though I was fairly certain that the war I thought essential was not the same war the majority of Americans backed, and probably not the same war George Bush intended to fight.

Talking to friends and neighbors, chatting with other parents in front of school as we waited for children to exit, even in the mommy gatherings at the edges of little girls' pink and yellow birthday parties, all I heard was a need for vengeance -- get them, kill them, show them they can't hurt us and get away with it -- that left me feeling sad and lonely, because I don't believe in vengeance, and could not say so.

I assumed that even though Bush was willing to exploit that sentiment (and, in fact, clearly shared it), he, or at least his advisors, understood that the real need was not setting an example, but destroying the means of attack: smashing training camps, seizing plans, killing or capturing leaders (or putting them on the run -- I'd be perfectly comfortable with Rumsfeld's assertion that if they're running, they're not planning, except that I'm not sure that, having apparently settled into Pakistan, they really are running any more, and I'm not convinced we Americans have a long enough attention span to keep them running.) And that was -- and remains -- a war I'm more than willing to support.

But while I was confident in Bush and Company's ability to run a war, I had less confidence in their ability to create and nurture the conditions for peace. And if they didn't accomplish both those tasks, any success they had in one area wouldn't amount to much.

The little yellow food packets were a symbol to me -- for a short time at least -- that there was a good chance that Bush understood the enormous human needs in Afghanistan, and recognized that meeting those needs was at least half the war effort. It was a token, of course -- but a good one. I took it as a promise that food, doctors, and medical supplies would be coming as soon as possible. And this time we wouldn't abandon the Afghans, because this time we understood how intimately our interests were mingled with theirs.

That afternoon I discovered I was wrong. When I went to pick up my daughter at school, everyone was talking about the food. Not the bombing, the food. What a wonderful gesture. They have to love us for doing something like that. Americans are the most generous people in the world. I remember trying to say, "Well, sort of, I mean, it's just a beginning, of courseÉ" and then realizing that no one heard me, because it wasn't a beginning. Everyone I talked to believed that the job was done, those little packets were all that was needed.

The essence of democracy -- whatever most people believe is true. Or all that counts anyway. George Bush obviously understood something about the American psyche that had whizzed right past my Catholic schoolgirl innocence: people in Afghanistan did not matter; what mattered was being able to tell ourselves that we are loved -- even by people we are bombing.

When Doctors Without Borders asked the administration to stop dropping the food because they were putting people's lives at risk, and making humanitarian workers' jobs harder in the long run, Bush didn't respond, and they kept dropping the food. What concerned DWB -- helping suffering people -- was irrelevant, and the issues they raised were not even worth responding to.

And if there was an implied promise to the people of Afghanistan in those packets, it has long since been broken.

The cynicism Bush displayed in manipulating humanitarian concerns (along with a similar cynicism in the exploitation of a genuine concern for women's basic human rights) and the failure to follow through in stabilizing the government of Afghanistan, continued to trouble me as I tried to decide whether or not to support war with Iraq.

And not just the cynicism. Competence is an issue as well. My initial doubts about their ability to build proved well-founded. And it turned out they weren't even all that good in the area I assumed they'd excel at -- waging war. In June, the CIA and FBI suggested that the war may have increased the threat of terrorism by scattering attackers across a wider geographical area. They were better at smashing than building, but not good enough at either.

I continue to support a war on al-Qaeda, but I have very little faith in Bush's ability to wage it. In the long run, his cynicism, his deceit, his unquestioning faith in raw power, his sense that the U.S. is above the law, his refusal to listen to or co-operate with other countries, all make things worse instead of better.

And all of that is rumbling around in the back of my head whenever I think about Iraq. (To be continued)

I'm not sure how Dwight Meredith manages to be so good day after day after day, but today he makes the case for disarmament, not regime change -- and makes it well. It's a must-read for anyone still trying to decide, or not settled comfortably in a decision.

Skippy on the cost of war (in dollars) and with a reminder that time is running out.

Further thoughts on Clinton's speech

There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein's regime poses a threat to his people, his neighbours and the world at large because of his biological and chemical weapons and his nuclear programme.

Of course there's doubt. Plenty of it. The evidence that's been offered so far is not convincing. There's also, however, a real possibility that the threat exists. The need to find out is real; the need to destroy hasn't been established yet.

In December of 1998 after the inspectors were kicked outÉ

You know better than that, Mr. Clinton.

I agree with many Republicans and Democrats in America and many here in Britain who want to go through the United Nations to bring the weight of world opinion together, to bring us all together, to offer one more chance to the inspections.

I'm with you on that one, although I'm not certain we've got the same reasons for wanting the UN involved. I think going through international channels re-establishes the principal that there isn't one law for the powerful and another for the powerless. In and of itself, that's a good thing. Having to go through the UN also slows Bush down, and that's also a good thing. Anything that forces him to articulate and justify his actions increases the possibility that sanity will prevail.

The United Nations should scrap the 1998 restrictions and call for a complete and unrestricted set of inspections with a new resolution.

I'm not sure. The question is, what's more important -- time or perfect conditions. I can see both sides on that one.

The prospect of a resolution actually offers us the chance to integrate the world, to make the United Nations a more meaningful, more powerful, more effective institution.

I have no idea what you mean by "integrate the world," but put me down for the more powerful and effective UN.

... today Saddam Hussein has all the incentive in the world not to use or give these weapons away but with certain defeat he would have all the incentive to do just that.

That's the fundamental argument for continuing to rely on deterrence.

Weighing the risks and making the calls are what we elect leaders to do, and I can tell you that as an American, and a citizen of the world, I am glad that Tony Blair will be central to weighing the risks and making the call.

If he'd only stop making promises of "evidence" that he can't deliverÉ

Now, let me just say a couple of other things. This is a delicate matter but I think this whole Iraq issue is made more difficult for some of you because of the differences you have with the Conservatives in America over other matters, over the criminal court and the Kyoto treaty and the comprehensive test ban treaty. I don't agree with that either, plus I disagree with them on nearly everything, on budget policy, tax policy, on education policy. On education policy, on environmental policy, on health care policy. I have a world of disagreements with them. But, we cannot lose sight of the bigger issue.

So, I'm supposed to overlook the fact that over and over they've demonstrated that they care about nothing but raw power, and assume that a belief that no rules should apply to the United States will have no bearing on a war with Iraq? Don't you think previous conduct might be somewhat relevant?

An excerpt from Bill Clinton's speech on Iraq:

There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein's regime poses a threat to his people, his neighbours and the world at large because of his biological and chemical weapons and his nuclear programme. They admitted to vast stores of biological and chemical stocks in 1995. In 1998, as the prime minister's speech a few days ago made clear,. even more were documented. But I think it is also important to remember that Britain and the United States made real progress with our international allies through the UN with the inspection programme in the 1990s. The inspectors discovered and destroyed far more weapons of mass destruction and constituent parts with the inspection programme than were destroyed in the Gulf War, far more, including 40,000 chemical weapons, 100,000 gallons of chemicals used to make weapons, 48 missiles, 30 armed warheads and a massive biological weapons facility equipped to produce anthrax and other bio-weapons. In other words the inspections were working even when he was trying to thwart them.

In December of 1998 after the inspectors were kicked out along with the support of Prime Minister Blair and the British military we launched Operation Desert Fox for four days. An air assault on those weapons of mass destruction, the air defence and regime protection forces. This campaign had scores of targets and successfully degraded both the conventional and non-conventional arsenal. It diminished Iraq's threat to the region and it demonstrated the price to be paid for violating the security council's resolutions. It was the right thing to do, and it is one reason why I still believe we had to stay at this business until we get all those biological and chemical weapons out of there.

What has happened in the last four years? No inspectors, a fresh opportunity to rebuild the biological and chemical weapons programme and to try and develop some sort of nuclear capacity. Because of the sanctions Saddam Hussein is much weaker militarily than he was in 1990, while we are stronger, but that probably has given him even more incentive to try and amass weapons of mass destruction. I agree with many Republicans and Democrats in America and many here in Britain who want to go through the United Nations to bring the weight of world opinion together, to bring us all together, too offer one more chance to the inspections.

President Bush and Secretary Powell say they want a UN resolution too and are willing to give the inspectors another chance. Saddam Hussein, as usual, is bobbing and weaving. We should call his bluff. The United Nations should scrap the 1998 restrictions and call for a complete and unrestricted set of inspections with a new resolution. If the inspections go forward, and I hope they will, perhaps we can avoid a conflict. In any case the world ought to show up and say we meant it in 1991 when we said this man should not have a biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programme. And we can do that through the UN. The prospect of a resolution actually offers us the chance to integrate the world, to make the United Nations a more meaningful, more powerful, more effective institution. And that's why I appreciate what the prime minister is trying to do, in trying to bring America and the rest of the world to a common position. If he was not there to do this I doubt if anyone else could, so I am very very grateful.

If the inspections go forward I believe we should still work for a regime change in Iraq in non-military ways, through support of the Iraqi opposition and in trying to strengthen it. Iraq has not always been a tyrannical dictatorship. Saddam Hussein was once a part of a government which came to power through more legitimate means.

The west has a lot to answer for in Iraq. Before the Gulf War when Saddam Hussein gassed the Kurds and the Iranians there was hardly a peep in the west because he was in Iran. Evidence has now come to light that in the early 1980s the United States may have even supplied him with the materials necessary to start the bio-weapons programme. And in the Gulf War the Shi'ites in the south-east of Iraq were urged to rise up and then were cruelly abandoned to their fate as he came in and killed large numbers of them, drained the marshes and largely destroyed their culture and way of life. We cannot walk away from them or the proved evidence that they are capable of self-government and entitled to a decent life. We do not necessarily have to go to war to give it to them, but we cannot forget that we are not blameless in the misery under which they suffer and we must continue to support them.

This is a difficult issue. Military action should always be a last resort, for three reasons; because today Saddam Hussein has all the incentive in the world not to use or give these weapons away but with certain defeat he would have all the incentive to do just that. Because a pre-emptive action today, however well justified, may come back with unwelcome consequences in the future. And because I have done this, I have ordered these kinds of actions. I do not care how precise your bombs and your weapons are, when you set them off innocent people will die.

Weighing the risks and making the calls are what we elect leaders to do, and I can tell you that as an American, and a citizen of the world, I am glad that Tony Blair will be central to weighing the risks and making the call. For the moment the rest of us should support his efforts in the United Nations and until they fail we do not have to cross bridges we would prefer not to cross.

Now, let me just say a couple of other things. This is a delicate matter but I think this whole Iraq issue is made more difficult for some of you because of the differences you have with the Conservatives in America over other matters, over the criminal court and the Kyoto treaty and the comprehensive test ban treaty. I don't agree with that either, plus I disagree with them on nearly everything, on budget policy, tax policy, on education policy. On education policy, on environmental policy, on health care policy. I have a world of disagreements with them. But, we cannot lose sight of the bigger issue. To build the world we want America will have to be involved and the best likelihood comes when America and Britain, when America and Europe are working together.

I don't necessarily agree with everything Bill Clinton had to say (I don't necessarily disagree either -- I'm still thinking about it), but I posted this section, which represents most of his thoughts on Iraq, because I thought it included a great deal of interest. Clinton's support for the U.S. insistence on dropping the UN's 1998 restrictions and pushing for a new resolution, while simultaneously insisting on the need to go through international channels, and recognizing the danger of pre-emptive action is so much more reasonable and moderate than anything you'll hear from the current administration, that it sounds glorious in comparison. One of the most worrisome aspects of the threatened war is that Bush refuses to make the case. Clinton would have done so, but Bush believes that the most powerful country in the world doesn't owe anyone a reason or an explanation. That's not leadership, that's bullying.

I'm also pleased that Clinton mentioned America's ignoble past involvement with Iraq. I'm sure conservatives will jump on it -- how dare he criticize his country? But I think it helps clear the air when an American politician -- even one whose career has moved into the past tense -- acknowledges our role in this mess. I have an deep-seated Catholic faith in the importance of confession. You can't solve a problem until you've acknowledged your part in creating it.

Worth reading:
The Christian Science Monitor reports on the war dissenters in Congress.

The BBC on where other countries stand on Iraq

Bush's Iraq Stance Hints at a Bid to Settle Old Score

The C.I.A. refuses to provide Congress with a report on its role in an American campaign against Iraq. Congressional leaders accused the administration of not providing the information out of fear of revealing divisions among the State Department, C.I.A., Pentagon and other agencies over the Bush administration's Iraq strategy.

The Vatican renewed its opposition to war in Iraq yesterday.

Why Nelson Mandela is angry

Gershom Gorenberg argues that Bush's rush to war could create dangers for Israel.

Bill Clinton's speech to the British Labour Party conference in Blackpool.

Jay Bookman on the lure of empire.

The rush to war is an old joke.

Jeff Cooper has an eloquent piece on patriotism and dissent.

Things are getting too serious. Mad Kane goes back to the '60s for a little inspiration: Don't think twice, let's just fight.

A word from the wise (and experienced)
In a message dated Wed, 2 Oct 2002 6:53:08 PM Eastern Standard Time, LiberalOasis writes:

I was just reading about your hesitancy to pen your own letter as part of the blogburst. Having spent a little time in Congress sifting through constituent letters, here's a suggestion to make it less stressful. The Hill staffers don't pick through the nuances of each letter, especially when they get so many on a particular issue. For the most part, the letters just get put into two piles, pro and con. The staff will tally it up, so their boss which know generally how his/her constituents are feeling. And then the appropriate form letters (there will likely be a letter for the pros and on for the cons) will be sent to the constituents. So all you really need to do is write one or two sentences telling the congressperson what you want him/her to do. I wouldn't worry about the why.

ÉÉÉÉÉÉ

Good point. I wouldn't my struggling over the issue to make anyone hesitant to write a letter under the illusion that it has to be perfectly argued in deathless prose to be convincing. I may yet end up at Stop The Rush To War In Iraq as I try to figure out what to actually send my congresswoman. I want to make sense of things for myself, and the "need" to write a letter pushes me to do that. But even if I don't arrive at a conclusion I'm entirely comfortable with (or language I'm particularly pleased with), I'll still send the letter. Better a form letter than no letter.

Some things that concern me about the threat of war with Iraq (a constantly growing list)

* I can't figure out what the goal is, and, more than that, I don't think I'm supposed to be able to figure it out. I think the ambiguity is part of the point. The stated goal and rationale: Saddam has weapons of mass destruction and will soon acquire nuclear weapons, which he could either give to al-Qaeda or use to threaten American allies and dominate the Middle East. Put aside the fact that Tony Blair presented a dossier of evidence trying to prove that and defense experts were somewhat less than impressed, and the suspicions that if Saddam were an immediate threat to his neighbors, his neighbors would probably be the first to recognize that fact. I'm still left wondering why, if your goal is to find and eliminate weapons, and insure against the possibility of building them in the future -- reasonable, even urgent, goals -- you would go out of your way to undercut everyone who is working toward that goal, and more than that, make it very clear that you're not the least bit interested in "just" finding and eliminating weapons. The whole situation looks less like a problem with no solution but war, than it does like a planned war desperately afraid of having its rationale pulled out from under it.

* If Saddam "could" get nuclear weapons in the future, where would the materials come from? What unguarded source or nasty salesman? And why don't we seem to be the least bit concerned with plugging those holes?

* Of course there's always what I have come to think of as the Martha and the Vandellas argument: Iraqis will throw off their chains and start dancing in the streets. Saddam is a threat to his own people, and we will do them an enormous favor by getting rid of him and creating a democracy. If I can forget for a moment that I'm old enough to remember Vietnam and get the willies when people start talking about installing democracies, that's an argument I actually have some sympathy with. Maybe I'm the quintessential na•ve American (forget the maybe, there's no doubt about it) but I don't completely write off the reverse domino theory -- the notion that democracy in the Middle East could spread. I think genuine democracy is a compelling idea, and if there were a real possibility of Saddam being replaced by a democratic leader, I might find the idea seductive. And, to be honest, IÕm as offended by liberals who blithely say "Well, there are lots of bad leaders in the world, and we can't get rid of all of them," as I am by conservatives who say, "There will always be civilian casualties, and nothing can be done about it." (There's a horrible truth in both those statements, but something cracks in your soul when you can dismiss suffering and death so casually). But there is no possibility of replacing Saddam with a democrat. No one is making plans for it. No one cares about it. No one seems to have the slightest interest in the idea, except as a secondary reason for war.

*If we want to nurture the conditions for creating a democracy in the Muslim world, we might want to start with Afghanistan instead of abandoning Afghanistan.

* By the way, what ever happened to that tall guy with the scraggly beard whose name George Bush seems to have forgotten? Because he scared the hell out of me, and still does, and I wonder what he's going to be up to while we're off fighting a new war.

* I have lived nearly half a century in a democracy. I'd like to continue to do so. I'd like my children to do so. that means a country where the president consults with congress and congress is not afraid to ask questions.

* Oil. War and oil are not a trustworthy mix.

* I went to Berkeley in the '70s, and used to laugh at people who said America (excuse me, Amerikkka) was an imperialist country. I want to continue to be able to laugh at those people.

* When George Bush says he has the right to attack a country because he knows what it will do in the future, I want to yell, "You're not God!"

* If Saddam has nothing to lose, what is going to stop him from launching whatever he's got at Israel? What will stop Israel from retaliating? (I'm not even going to think past that pointÉ)

* I don't want to undercut the UN. I want the still shaky idea that there are rules of conduct that apply to everyone to grow, not shrink. This administration has done everything in its power to assert the notion that rules are for the powerless, the powerful make their own rules. This war feels like the culmination of that philosophy. When we rejected the Kyoto Protocol, fought the International Criminal Court, opposed the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, I could still say, calmly, "This decision is damaging on many levels." At this point the contempt for international law has gone so far that I want to yell, "Enough already. Stop."

* When I think of all the people I've ever met who are absolutely certain of their beliefs and who dismiss anyone who disagrees with them as either stupid or evil, I find their opinions less trustworthy than those of people who question and ponder and listen. I don't trust blind and unquestioning faith.

* They lie. Is anyone but me old enough to remember the words "credibility gap?"

I was typing up some notes I scribbled this morning about things that concerned me about war with Iraq, went to the New York Times to double check a fact, and discovered that things are moving a lot faster than my ability to keep up with them. I've only skimmed the article, but doesn't the word "deal" usually suggest that both sides give a little? I'm hoping when I read the article more carefully that there will be some small sign of compromise in the Bush administration's position. But a quick reading doesn't leave much room for hope.

Briefly, and without comment, I just want to call attention to a thoughtful, layered piece by Ampersand on right-wing anti-Semitism, left-wing anti-Semitism, and the importance of not letting the real meaning of the word be gobbled up by partisans on either side. I'm certain it will be the most sensible and intelligent thing you read in any weblog today.

I think this flash video sums up a lot of my unease about the threat of war, and the reason I don't really feel like trying to make sense of the "issues." I am not by nature a cynical or mistrustful person, and yet it is impossible to avoid the bone-weary feeling that the whole point of the war itself is to make us all forget the real issues, to make us too afraid to think and act.

The power of prayer
"Those of us in Sacramento have been seeing images five or six times a day of people fasting, praying, sitting around the Capitol. I think it's been effective. It has kept his toes to the fire." -- Barbara O'Connor, Institute for the Study of Politics and Media

I was going to try to write exclusively about Iraq this week, but I just can't skip over news this good. Gray Davis has signed the bill to give farmworkers the right to mandatory mediation -- a tool they desperately needed to get around growers' stalling techniques. Since 1975, farmworkers have voted for UFW representation at 428 companies, but only 158 have signed contracts. Under the new rules, a mediator will be able to propose the terms of a binding contract if the two sides can't agree after 30 days of mediation.

I was always going to vote for Davis -- there was no alternative. But doing so just got a lot easier.

Like a growing number of people, I've committed myself to writing a letter next Monday as part of the Open Letters BlogBurst, in which bloggers (or anyone else who wants to join in) write letters to the editor, or to their representatives in congress, opposing war with Iraq, and also post those letters on their blogs. (If you don't have a blog, but still want to participate, Ampersand will provide space for your letter.)

I hesitated a day before agreeing to participate, not because I disagree in any way with the purpose, but because -- well, I'm not that kind of writer. I poke at ideas and prod them and turn them upside down. A simple statement of "this is what I think" comes hard to me.

Of course I could always turn to a site like Stop The Rush To War, which will practically write the letter for you after you click a few buttons. But I have a bizarre, old-fashioned prejudice in favor of choosing my own words and stumbling over my own ideas -- and so, thanks kindly, but no.

I haven't written anything about Iraq, at least not directly. I think the reason I haven't done so -- even though I have strong concerns about it -- is that taking part in that debate seems to require me to line up all my reasons for opposing the war and be ready with rebuttals of anyone else's argument. The job needs a good lawyer, no poets or mommies need apply. That's certainly the tone of the "debate" (such as it is):

Hey, I can take down your "Iraqi agent in Prague" nonsense without breaking into a sweat.

Your Brent Scowcroft op-ed doesn't stand a chance against my Dick Cheney speech.

Take that, Scott Ridder.

(It's like fifth grade: When the boys start slinging rocks, I run for cover -- noticing that there are a lot of girls over here with me on the sidelines, and wondering if they, too, are uncomfortable with this game.)

That's the nature of debate, I suppose. My evidence against your evidence. My ad hominem beats your post hoc. And yet somehow, at the moment, all that flying, banging, whizzing evidence (and lack of it) feels oddly irrelevant.

A few weeks ago, Ted Barlow did an intriguing chart, comparing a potential Iraqi war with the war in Vietnam. It was well done. And if you're trying to work your way through the issues, it's a useful place to begin. But what I liked most about Ted's chart was its honesty and modesty (both qualities being in short supply on the Web). Honesty, because he was clearly taking reasons for supporting a war and reasons for opposing them seriously, not swatting any of them away. Modesty, because he didn't rank the reasons, but set the undeniably and universally important ("A nuclear-armed Saddam is a serious threat to the US and allies.") next to the personal ("My brother in the army could be called to fight in Iraq.")

I trust a person who recognizes and is willing to admit that "my brother is in the army" is as valid a factor in a decision as "Saddam Hussein could obtain nuclear weapons," and doesn't apologize for that.

I have an 18-year-old son. When I was his age, questions about the Vietnam War had passed from "should you support it" to "nobody is in favor of this stupid war, but how the hell do we get out?" And yet young men continued to go, including a good chunk of the boys I graduated from high school with. Nobody believed in it. Maybe in 1964 boys went off with dreams of fighting for their country, I don't know. But in 1971, I didn't know any boys who went off to save us all from the Communists. The went because they had no better offers, because there was college money waiting for them at the end, and because they were immortal and there were never going to be any costs to pay.

I'm not young enough anymore to believe there are no costs, although strangely, George Bush -- who is several years older than I am -- seems to be.

Today I know no one who is likely to die in an Iraqi war. Unless the need for troops grows beyond anything I can imagine, my son isn't likely to be drafted. But as a mother now, I know the fragility and irreplaceable value of eighteen-year-old boys. All of them -- not just my son. And ironically now, more than in 1971, my reaction to the threat of war is, "You'd better have a damn good reason to risk even one of their lives." An eighteen-year-old boy's life is more precious to me than it was when I was eighteen. The first time I read about the death of a teenage boy in Iraq, I'm going to realize it could have been my son. I'm going to take it personally.

Is it obvious yet why I haven't written anything about Iraq?

I could make you a nice, neat list of reasons to support the war and reasons to oppose it, with evidence supporting and rebutting each of those reasons, along with URLs, so you could follow up the arguments yourself. Inspired by Ted's chart, I tried for quite a while to keep a chart of my own, taking note of each new "reason" introduced into the mix, until I finally realized that as important as it was to evaluate how great and how immediate a threat Saddam Hussein is, it really didn't touch on my own concerns about the war.

I'm confused -- if that's not already obvious. Not about whether or not to oppose the war. I admit I was confused about that for awhile, or at least more than willing to be persuaded to support it, but at some point hesitation slipped over into opposition. And the truth is I can't put my finger on exactly when or how or why that happened. And I assume that before I write a nice, neat, organized, perfectly spelled letter to my congresswoman, I need to figure out why I am so worried about this war and be able to put it into words.

Yesterday, I decided that I would spend this week writing about Iraq, expressing the nagging little doubts as much as the places I feel certain of what I believe, contradicting myself again and again -- thinking out loud at the computer, working through chaos and confusion, and hoping to arrive, eventually, at a place where I can make some solid statements that I honestly believe.

The problem with debates is that they are in the control of people who are very sure. And sometimes I suspect the people who are unsure, the people who are debating things inside their own heads, are actually closer to the truth and to what's important than the people who are absolutely sure of their opinions.

Writing about confusion and doubt is hard, and I'm tempted to hit delete, and go on to another, easier topic. But it is something I have to figure out. And I've generally found that if you write through confusion, there's some sense, some meaning at the end.

Artists vs. Techies III: Where do scientists fit in?

First, I don't know that it is correct to characterize computer usage/programming as science. In my opinion, it has more in common with fine arts (you're using a tool to create something). Learning C+ and trying to understand quantum mechanics or modern physics aren't all that similar. I'm also not sure if your remarks were confined deliberately to engineering (as opposed to chemistry or physics or biology, which are very different) or it was shorthand for "science." Because again, I think the mindset is going to be different. "I need to make something useful by a deadline" is a very different starting point from "why is DNA based on furanose sugars instead of pyranose" -- the former probably has a flowchart describing how to proceed (I would imagine that building a workable bridge isn't terribly mysterious, for example); the latter is a different sort of question. What is the real question, the testable question? Or at least, what do we think is the testable question? Is "furanose based nucleic acid chains have a particular melting temperature " a satisfactory answer? Is the geometry of the chains important? Maybe the reason is chance and a six-membered ring would work as well. Regardless, you're not done until you've made some of the pyranose material, probably via chemistry you had to invent, and run an experiment or two, which you also had to invent. This is a better representation, I think, of science.

Also, scientists love good writers. Science is a story. A good lecture/paper should have a plot. I have to care about why you did what you did, after all. And I won't care if I'm asleep or bored. "1000 reactions I ran" is a boring talk, even if they all worked, hell especially if they all worked. A good talk will have a certain amount of drama -- this step in the synthesis was really tricky/gave us an unexpected byproduct/led us away from our initial goal. It has to have a conclusion. It has to provide a why not just a how.

As for arrogance, I think one difference might be that the sciences have right answers, or at least wrong ones. "Why did Rembrandt do so many self portraits" can't really be answered definitively. He was a narcissist might be a perfectly adequate answer, who knows. "No definite answer" might translate to "well then, I'm right" in certain minds, especially aggressive ones. Or the lack of a clear answer one way or the other might just be irritating, which manifests as frustration disguised as anger. Just a guess.

-- Brian

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Thanks for the response, Brian. Your thoughts are very interesting and challenging.

First, yes, I was referring specifically to engineers (and threw in business majors later when I realized that I saw some of the same mindset in them), and no, I didn't mean that as "shorthand" for science (I try to be more precise about language than that, although God knows I don't always succeed.) I think -- and this came out more in the letters I got, I'm not sure if you read them -- that scientists and humanists actually have a great deal in common. It's not a common interest that either one often recognizes, and it defies stereotypes. We're still stuck in that "brainy" scientist vs. "emotional" artist notion. (Artists and humanists often get lumped together, and though there are people -- like me -- who straddle the two, they can be quite different, as different as biologists and engineers. I know there's an enormous difference in my mental processes between when I am thinking like a humanist/academic and when I'm thinking like an artist.) But the fact is, education in both lab science and humanities involves learning to think at least as much as it does acquiring a given set of facts.

One of the letter writers, who taught history, mentioned that some of his best students were biology majors. I didn't get many science majors when I was teaching. The few I had were pre-med, but pre-med majors tended to be among my better students, although they were often frustrated by the fact that they didn't get easy A's -- they assumed humanities classes were easier than science classes and therefore an A ought to be automatic. (My response was, "You're acing Chem 1A and struggling for a B in Humanities 1A. Do you think you might want to revise that thesis about 'easy' humanities classes?") Nevertheless, many of them had an appreciation of alternate ways of approaching things that I suspect their science studies had nurtured. Or perhaps it was an innate interest in different ways of approaching problems that led them to study science. I find, even today, as I write on this site, that some of my most interesting and thoughtful letters come from scientists. They appreciate the way I think. I appreciate the way they think. (Although I'm not sure they understand how hard I have to work to understand some of the things they tell me. But I do make the effort, because it always turns out to be worthwhile once the mental effort is done.)

It's interesting to me, though, that so many people seem to have misread what I said in that way. I think the science vs. the arts clash is so firm in people's heads that they see that, even when it's not there. It's an old problem: People quickly plug into the story they think they know and have a hard time even perceiving that the story has changed.

My problem was with the emphasis on technical education, which I think does not ask students to look at things from many points of view, or re-think assumptions. It's a time-consuming and difficult education, without being a challenging one.

As for the idea that humanities doesn't have "wrong" answers -- I think that's a little bit of a cliche. It's true up to a point, but humanities aren't as relativistic as most non-humanists think. "Why did Rembrandt paint so many self-portraits?" isn't the kind of question I'd expect an art historian to ask. I have only a minor in art history, so don't expect a sophisticated analysis, but I can give you some indication of the kinds of things art historians would consider.

My interest is more in Italian art, so I'll switch from Rembrandt to questions that fascinated me when I was studying medieval Italian art: Giotto began painting in the early 14th century using techniques that we associate with the Renaissance -- perspective, convincing use of space, three-dimensionality, greater attention to natural detail, close observation of facial expression, individualized faces, etc. And yet no one continued with Giotto's work. The art of the 14th century, after Giotto, appears to be simply a reworking of medieval themes, styles and iconography? Why? Why did the Renaissance "begin" with Giotto and then stop -- with no artist picking up on his innovations for another hundred years?

How do you answer a question like that? I think people without strong backgrounds in humanities think that art historians sit around throwing out any answer that comes to mind -- maybe fourteenth century artists just weren't very talented -- and since this is "squishy" liberal arts, anything goes and all answers are equal. But that's silly. First you have to look at the works created in the fourteenth century and decide if it is true that artistic development went on hold after Giotto. It's a testable thesis. And when you look closely -- and looking closely at a painting is something you have to be taught how to do -- you see that, despite first appearances, it did not. No one truly captured the spirit Giotto began, but artists used some of his innovations here and there. It's provable. You can point to the influence. So now you've got new questions. Why did artist's pick up some innovations and not others? And why, when artists clearly caught on to some of the new techniques, were they not able to build on that understanding? Why did they use them for different, more conservative purposes?

Once again, you're forced back on the work, and there are answers that are definitely "wrong." Answers that just won't hold.

I could go on and on about this, and the questions get more and more complicated. They involve history (social changes wrought by the Black Plague may have played a role, for instance) as much as unfathomables. Does "progress" in the arts come in spurts, with geniuses emerging that no one can understand for generations? That's a possibility, and a "testable" one (you'd have to look at a broad span of when and under what circumstances enormous changes have taken place in art) but there are better, simpler explanations. Just like in science -- there are explanations that cover what's known better than other explanations. And, just as in science, answered questions don't settle things forever. They just lead to newer questions.

I won't dwell on this any more -- even though I'd love to -- because I doubt many people find Trecento painting or the Bubonic Plague as fascinating as I do. But I hope you see how similar, in many ways, science and humanites are.

I realize that in technical fields you have to "test" whether something works, but, as you suggest, "how do I get this to work" is a fairly limited question compared to the kinds of questions scientists and humanists ask. I love your idea that "science is a story" and believe it absolutely because the description you give of putting together a good science lecture/paper sounds very much like the way I think when I'm putting together a story.

And that, really, was what I was trying to get at. The old science vs. the arts division isn't terribly useful. What we do is different, but not as different as the stereotype would have it. But people with straight technical and practical educations -- and nothing more -- are the new piece of the puzzle. And I think what they study asks very little of them as complete human beings, or as thinkers. That worries me. Especially because I see them more and more defining the way we as a society view things.

The current administration is composed mostly of MBAs, not engineers. And yet I notice enormous similarities between the way they speak and perceive things and the way my old engineering students thought and perceived. I just have a hunch that there is some connection between that simplistic mode of thought and the "practical" education they received.

-- Jeanne

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Eh, the Rembrandt question is one I remember being frustrating in an art history class I took. Frustrating because I was coming at it from a studio art perspective -- most of my free electives were drawing or painting classes. "Why do a self-portrait" is a very different question to the painter/drawer than to the non "artist." Or at least, it seemed that way to me. Why would I do a self portrait? I want to play with technique with no worries/expectations about how it should turn out. I got funny looks when I argued that particular point with the non-painter/non-drawer art historian in one class. And "the no wrong answers" is probably confined to studio arts, where you don't want to squash the next Shiele or Pollack or Picasso. "Did you mean/want to do that" is often the way the question is phrased. Also, you look at art in a different way in a drawing class than in an appreciation class, I think.

-- Brian

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I'm really surprised by the Rembrandt question. I can't remember ever hearing such a silly and unanswerable question posed in a humanities class of any kind. You characterize the class you took as an "appreciation" class, and I wonder if that had anything to do with it. Every university has its set of classes that exist for the sole purpose of getting people through their general education requirements as painlessly and mindlessly as possible. Usually they're not very good, and they sometimes confirm the silliest cliches about the field.

One of the classes I took to get through my science requirement in college, for instance, was an Introduction to Astronomy that simply asked me to memorize an enormous number of facts, all of which I forgot as soon as the class was over. If I hadn't known better already, the class wouldn't have served much purpose except to confirm a popular notion of science: that it's simply a huge body of facts, and that great scientists are "smart" because they know more of those facts than the rest of us dummies. Here was one of the few science classes many liberal arts majors would take, and it "taught" a hackneyed and utterly false notion of science. I suspect your "art appreciation" class might have served the same purpose.

But you raise another issue as well, and that is the difference between people who "do" art and people who study it. And you're right, people who write about the arts can be mind-bogglingly off-base about how they're produced, and about the kinds of questions artists ask themselves. But I think that's beyond the scope of what I've been talking about.

If there's a "no wrong answers" approach in studio classes, however, I doubt it has anything to do with not wanting to squash budding artists. Condescension probably has more to do with it -- a belief that "these fools will never be real artists, so just let them be." I took a couple of drawing classes too, and was encouraged by my teachers, and, believe me, no one could mistake me for the next Picasso. But once you get into "real" art practice classes, it's a different matter. I don't know anything about studio art classes beyond the basic level, but writer's workshops -- which you have to be selected for, based on a portfolio of your work, and everyone assumes that you are seriously trying to become a writer -- are famously brutal. You go back week after week to have your heart torn out and roasted, and your work savaged. I can not imagine a writer's workshop -- and I'm not talking about lower division or community "creative writing" classes -- in which anyone gave a damn about the writers' feelings, or believed that there were "no wrong answers."

-- Jeanne

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"The repression of women [is] everywhere and always wrong." -- George Bush

There was a strange little article in Tuesday's Washington Post. Fourteen Afghan women met with George Bush, Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell in the kind of gathering usually reserved for "the most powerful foreign visitors."

Okay, I'm impressed. I was under the impression that women had been virtually shut out of the Afghan government. That there were fourteen Afghan women who had achieved positions high enough to be considered "powerful foreign visitors" was news to me. Good news.

But ordinarily, powerful foreign visitors have names. These women apparently left theirs at home. At least the Post did not consider them worth mentioning. And my instinct tells me the president did not christen them with any cute little nicknames either, because this is probably the last time he will see them. They weren't ministers of this or that, but students "selected to receive computer training."

Granted, computer training for Afghan women is a wonderful thing. And I think in the long run we get back far more than we give when we bring foreign students to the United States.

But most foreign students don't get the same champagne and snacks as Pootie-poot. And these women obviously weren't in Washington to discuss their ideas for strengthening women's rights in Afghanistan. They were there to have their pictures taken. They were there so George Bush could say something like "women must play prominent roles."

Women, you know, they just love it when you tell them sweet lies.

I'd be a little more impressed if one of the women at that meeting had been Sima Samar, the minister of women's affairs under the interim government who was forced from her position last June because of death threats. Samar would make it harder for Bush to pat himself on the back, but she would have plenty to tell him about what still needs to be done.

If he was interested.

I'm not the first (and I'm sure I won't be the last) to note the hypocrisy in the world's most powerful Deke trying to pass himself off as a feminist. In fact, Katherine Viner had a good piece in last Saturday's Guardian called Feminism As Imperialism, not only noting Bush's hypocrisy, but tracing its historical roots back to Lord Cromer, the British consul general in Egypt from 1883 to 1907, who loudly condemned the way Islam treated women, and yet was a founding member of the Men's League for Opposing Women's Suffrage.

For Cromer, as for Bush, women's rights were only an issue when they provided an excuse for attacking "less civilized" people. That doesn't mean the abuses of women are not real, but it does mean that their "champions" are phonies, and it means the issue will be dropped as soon as it's no longer needed. Cromer raised school fees in Egypt (keeping girls out) and discouraged the training of female doctors. Bush has turned his back while warlords with a history of using rape as a weapon of war run Afghanistan, and he didn't say a word on behalf of Sima Samar.

Viner makes a good case that there's more than hypocrisy at issue. By stealing feminist language and yoking it to oppression, in the long run men like Cromer and Bush make women's lives harder, because they discredit feminism, and leave women struggling for their rights without a language in which to describe their struggle. When feminism is used as an excuse to bomb a country, it's hard to be a feminist.