Debate Deja Vu

Anybody who was at the 2003 Harvard Debate Tournament in Congress will find this blog post by Professor Bainbridge strangely familiar...

Points for New York

In another victory for Marriage equality advocates, a New York State Court has mandated that state marriage codes allow for gay marriages. The case, Hernandez v. Robles, thus joins Castle v. State (Washington, discussed here), Anderson v. Sims (also Washington, discussed here), and of course the famous Goodridge v. Department of Public Health (Massachusetts) case in favor of marriage equality. On the other side, we have Morrison v. Sadler (Indiana, discussed here), Wilson v. Ake (US District Court [Middle District of Florida], discussed here), and In re Kandu and Kandu (US Bankruptcy Court, discussed here). All have important things to say about the topic, and with the exception of Morrison I thought all were reasonably well-written and argued.

I was again pleased with the quality of this decision. It did a good job dismantling the purported reasoning behind the discriminatory principles of the current marriage code. In an ironic twist, the court noted that one of the plaintiffs parents were barred via anti-miscegenation were themselves barred from marrying in 1966. They moved to California, the first state to allow interracial marriage. Now, the circle has closed, with the son striking his own blow for marriage equality. And best of all, the decision added to the litany of analysis which proves that gay equality advocates actually show more respect for the institution of marriage than anyone else:

"As a society, we recognize that the decision of whether and whom to marry is life-transforming. It is a unique expression of a private bond and profound love between a couple, and a life dream shared by many in our culture. It is also society's most significant public proclamation of commitment to another person for life. With marriage comes not only legal and financial benefits, but also the supportive community of family and friends who witness and celebrate a couple's devotion to one another, at the time of their wedding, and through the anniversaries that follow. Simply put, marriage is viewed by society as the utmost expression of a couple’s commitment and love. Plaintiffs may now seek this ultimate expression through a civil marriage."

Though, as Orin Kerr points out, this decision will undoubtedly be stayed and latter resolved by the Court of Appeals in that state, it is still undoubtedly a positive sign. Good luck and many blessings to all the couples involved.

"Little Eichmanns," Meet Little Goebbel

I'm jumping in a little late here, but I just wanted to add two cents to Colorado Professor Ward Churchill--err, commentary?--on the 9/11 attacks. In the midst of a vicious attack on all things Western that attempts to justify the assault, he refers to the victims in the WTC as "little Eichmanns." He has already resigned as department chair, and the university is considering firing him. If they do take that action, Connelly promises to sue. Eugene Volokh has a superb summary of the events and what should result; I highly encourage you to consult it. I am inclined to agree with Volokh, Mr. Churchill should not be fired, but can certainly be removed from his chairmanship. Barring professional misconduct (which speech, repulsive as it may be, does not rise to), a tenured professor should not be removed simply because we disagree with his views.

The opinion I'm interested in hearing, however, is Richard Delgado's. For those of you who don't know, Delgado (along with his longtime collaborator, Jean Stefancic) is one of the founders of Critical Race Theory. More important for our purposes, he is a Law Professor at the University of Colorado, and he is the author of "Must We Defend the Nazis?: Hate Speech, Pornography, and the New First Amendment." Thus, unlike much of the traditional American left (e.g., the ACLUites and there ilk), Delgado is not uncomfortable with censoring someone for "hate speech." However, the question is whether or not the same rule will apply to speech coming from the radical left instead of the radical right. Michael W. McConnell has accused Post-Modernist scholars of hypocrisy in this regard:

"For the most part, with some exceptions, post-modernists in the legal and political arenas have treated the debunking of liberal neutrality as an opportunity for partisanship in the service of a controversial vision of liberation. As one academic commentator on post-modernism has observed:

"Many [post-modernists] are political activists and political advocates. They adopt positive political positions based on explicitly stated values and goals. They move from deconstruction and reconstruction to construction, despite the intellectual logical contradiction involved in denying modern foundations and then positing one's own vision as in some ways 'better.'"

Thus, while multi-culturalism and political correctness may seem to be logically incompatible positions, they often are found in the same people. The logical path seems to be as follows: If there is no objective standard of truth, there is no need to worry that opposing viewpoints might have something important to say; and since there is no basis for persuasion by the intrinsic merit of argument, all that is left is the exercise of power. So the post-modernist advocate pleads for openmindedness to various points of view (multi-culturalism) when out of power and suppresses dissent (political correctness) when in power.

This is the phenomenon of selective multi-culturalism: boundless tolerance and respect for some voices, and ruthless suppression of others." ["God is Dead and We Have Killed Him": Freedom of Religion in the Post-Modern Age, 1993 B.Y.U L. Rev. 163, 186-87

I'm not sure I'm that cynical about it. Delgado is a writer who has greatly influenced me (though I far from agree with everything he writes), and I certainly hope he would apply his standards to the left as well as the right.

Defending Detainees

My post on the In Re Guatanamo Bay Detainees decision has generated a spirited debate with Eben Flood in the comments section. I'll give an expanded defense for why I think it is right to give these detainees rights here, and respond to Eben's points along the way.

Eben's key argument is an analogy to the SS in WWII: should we have given each and everyone of them hearings? The example is apples and oranges, however. For the ones we tried for crimes, we DID give them lawyers and a trial (Nuremberg anyone?). But even that is too simple a way of looking at it, because as he noted, we caught them in a theater of war, bearing arms and wearing the uniform of a belligerent. There was no dispute that they were POWs on either side. For the gitmo detainees, that analogy is not parallel. We didn't capture all of them in a theater of war (some of the petitioners in the above case were caught as far away as in sub-saharan Africa and Southeast Europe), they weren't wearing uniforms, they might not have been armed, and there certainly isn't agreement that they were even belligerents at all.

This distinction is codified in international law. As I noted earlier, the relevant portion of the Geneva Conventions states:

"Should any doubt arise as to whether persons, having committed a belligerent act and having fallen into the hands of the enemy, belong to any of the categories enumerated in Article 4, such persons shall enjoy the protection of the present Convention until such time as their status has been determined by a competent tribunal." [Article 5, Paragraph 2, 3rd Geneva Convention, emphasis added]

With the SS officer, there is "no doubt," with the Gitmo detainees there is. That is critical.

Meanwhile, the assertion that we should treat enemy belligerents the same as how we want our own soldiers to be treated is rather odd from those seeking to justify Guantanamo, considering that we'd demand our soldiers receive the POW protection we're denying to the Gitmo detainees. Furthermore, if an enemy plucked an American citizen off the streets and accused him of being a spy (or combatant, or plotting an attack, or whatever), we'd at the very least demand they present some evidence to prove the assertion. This is the parallel of what we're doing to many of the Gitmo detainees, since they were picked up without any corroborating evidence to prove they were in any way a combatant. There is a threshold issue to pass here: before we can treat their combatants the way we want our combatants to be treated, we first must show they are actually combatants.

US law is clear on this as well. Eben argues that Reid only applies to US citizens, and he is right. However, I think it is self-evident that Reid + Plyer v. Doe = Al-Odah v. US. If a) the rights of US citizens are still applicable in any place under US jurisdiction and b) non-citizens at least share the same fundamental rights as citizens then c) non-citizens under US jurisdiction still possess fundamental rights. And what could be more fundamental than the freedom of person, freedom from arbitrary detention? If there is one right that might more important than all others, it is that the government can not throw you into prison without any explanation or hope for redress. That right dates back to the Magna Carta and is deeply embedded in American law.

I suppose one might argue that since al-Qaeda won't abide by any of the above rules, we are under no obligation to abide by them either. That's a very dangerous position to hold. The US, being a liberal democrat state, agrees to abide by certain standards. It has moral legitimacy because it will not utilize any tactic to achieve its ends. Just because al-Qaeda flies planes into our buildings does not mean we can do the same to them. Just because they deliberately target civilians in an attempt to shatter our morale does not mean we can do likewise. Morality often means fighting with one hand tied behind your back, but that disability also is why our fight is worth fighting in the first place. Terrorists need to be punished--and harshly. But as Stanford Law Professor Jenny Martinez argues, "Holding military commission trials that do not afford basic due process is...like saying that the best way to deter street crime is by subjecting street criminals to kangaroo courts. The necessary deterrence ought to be provided by the ultimate punishment imposed, not by the process itself." I have no problem fighting terrorism. But let's make sure it's the terrorists we're actually fighting first. As the Court said in United States v. Robel: "It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of those liberties...which make the defense of the nation worthwhile." [389 U.S. 258, 264 (1967)]

State of the Union

I promised myself I wouldn't watch. I did anyway. And of course, it was a painful experience that made me want to scream. As usual, Wonkette gives a better summary than I ever could. However, since the blogosphere is all about redundancy, I'll give me thoughts anyway!

Bush clearly is a Superhuman. After promising to cut 150 vague, unspecified federal programs to pay for it, he then promised to a) spend more money on a variety of pet programs b) make his old tax cuts permanent c) give new tax cuts (you and I both know that's what it means to "simplify" the tax code to Republicans) and d) halve the deficit. It's for the children. Or some such BS. Speaking as one of the "next generation," I could do without this particular endowment of debt, thank you very much.

Bush hit new peaks of dishonesty when talking about his plan for Social Security privitization (or "private accounts," or "personal accounts," or whatever tagline we're on right now). First of all, he can't say it "will" earn more than the current plan. It might, but it might not. I was alive in 2001, I know markets can go down as well as up. Second, he implies that gradually implementing the plan will somehow make it cost less. Why this is so, I don't know. For starters, there is only so slowly you can implement a plan that only allows investment of 4% of payroll taxes. But beyond that, Bush's logic is internally inconsistent. If the Social Security problem is getting worse, not better, putting off the costs will just mean we take a greater income hit when the system is more desperately in need of funds. And considering our financial state, I don't know where we're expected to come up with the $1 trillion or so we need to pay for this, gradual or not. Why are we calling this a "solution," again? Bush also refers to a bunch of safeguards he'll have that will prevent people from getting soaked by Wall Street. I'd have to see the specifics to comment, but this sounds like rhetoric to me. I don't see how it's possible to both let people invest their own money (and say the government will "never touch it") and still manipulate those investments so they always come out as a profit. Oh, and speaking of not letting the government touch your Social Security money, well, considering that Bush blatantly raided the Trust Fund across his entire first term, it appears irony is alive and kicking after all.

Moving to Social Issues. I, like Wonkette, was pleased to note that Bush wishes to protect the "most vulnerable" by codifying discrimination against homosexuals into our constitution. I know that Bush is disingenious when it comes to protecting the weak, but its rare to actually see the contradiction unfold within a sentence of the original proposition. Kudos on that.

Lest I sound entirely negative, I did like Bush's words on immigration reform. Many of the specific microinitiatives sounded very good at first glance, in fact the expansion of Health Savings Accounts was the only one that raised an eyebrow. And his rhetoric on Foreign Policy remains appealing, even if I've long since lost hope that Bush will actually do any of the things he'll say he does. The problem with Bush really isn't in his words anymore (though there is that too!), but rather in the fact that his actions bear NO relation to the rhetoric. That makes it kind of hard to take these sorts of speeches seriously.

Ethically Unbalanced

Former Czech President Vaclav Havel rips into the EU for its ethically unconscionable decision to blacklist human rights and democracy activists from parties held at its embassies in Cuba (link: Volokh). It is one of the most poignant pieces I've read in a long while. Highlights:

"I can hardly think of a better way for the EU to dishonor the noble ideals of freedom, equality and human rights that the Union espouses -- indeed, principles that it reiterates in its constitutional agreement. To protect European corporations' profits from their Havana hotels, the Union will cease inviting open-minded people to EU embassies, and we will deduce who they are from the expression on the face of the dictator and his associates. It is hard to imagine a more shameful deal.

Cuba's dissidents will, of course, happily do without Western cocktail parties and polite conversation at receptions. This persecution will admittedly aggravate their difficult struggle, but they will naturally survive it. The question is whether the EU will survive it.

Today, the EU is dancing to Fidel Castro's tune. That means that tomorrow it could bid for contracts to build missile bases on the coast of the People's Republic of China. The following day it could allow its decisions on Chechnya to be dictated by Russian President Vladimir Putin's advisors. Then, for some unknown reason, it could make its assistance to Africa conditional on fraternal ties with the worst African dictators.

Where will it end? The release of Milosevic? Denying a visa to Russian human-rights activist Sergey Kovalyov? An apology to Saddam Hussein? The opening of peace talks with al Qaeda?

Coexistence with dictators

It is suicidal for the EU to draw on Europe's worst political traditions, the common denominator of which is the idea that evil must be appeased and that the best way to achieve peace is through indifference to the freedom of others.

Amen. The EU has a lot of balls (or more accurately, a tragic lacking in them) in making this proclamation, and Mr. Havel is right to call them out on it.

One good way for the EU to make amends is to make an effort to stop the atrocities in the Darfur region of Sudan. Strategy Page recommends they set up a no-fly zone to end Sudanese air strikes on defenseless African villages. This wouldn't require too much investment (bases could be set up in neighboring Chad), but it doesn't appear that the EU or UN has the willpower to see it out (surprise, surprise). As usual, when the choice is between political inaction and saving lives, we can depend on the world to take the path of least resistance (Hurray! They've filed a report!).

The National Review has argued that UN-recommended gun control standards are at least partially to blame for the genocide, since they prevented blacks from defending themselves against Janjaweed raids (Again, hat-tip to Volokh). Not getting into the general merits of gun control on the theory level, it is definitely true that gun control is only feasible when there is an alternative, professional, non-oppressive entity able to provide security. When none such group exists--or worse yet, the group nominally in charge of security is actively facilitating or participating in the atrocities--then gun control cannot work and acts to enable the oppressors. Since the UN is at least partially responsible for irresponsibly promligating gun control statutes to locations where they don't make sense, they have a corresponding obligation to correct their error where it has led to a genocide (as in Darfur). Will they? Of course not, because the UN never actually does anything.

Another Gitmo Ruling

In another major ruling on Guantanomo Bay, a US district court has ruled in In Re Guantanamo Detainee Cases (creative name!) that detainees, even those that are not being charged with war crimes, still have the right to challange their designation as "enemy combatants" in the Courts. The district judge (who, interestingly, served as Chief Judge on the FISA Court) specifically held that the Combat Status Review Tribunals (CSRT) were not adequate in securing the rights of detainees.

The Court gives an example of testimony by one of the detainees (not one in the case) that aptly illustrates the bind that the prisoners are put in. It's too long to type in manually (the opinion was scanned, so I can't copy and paste), but you can find it at pages 46-48. Essentially, the government was asking the detainee if he knew any al-Qaeda, and he said he didn't think so, but he'd be happy to tell of his relationship with any specific person the Court had in mind. The Court refused to name any names, at which point the detainee asked how he could refute charges when he couldn't even see the point of reference from which the charges were being made.

The opinion also specifically blasts the lack of attorney's to represent the detainees. They get a "Personal Representative," but s/he isn't a lawyer and is obliged to reveal any inculpatory evidence he hears to the tribunal. As a result, "there is inherent risk and little corresponding benefit should the detainee choose to use the services of the personal representative." Furthermore, the proceedings allow evidence contained by way of torture to be admitted, another area in which the Court found fault. Finally, the Court blasted the Bush administration for its overly broad definition of "enemy combatant," which the government admitted could be applied to a person who taught English to the child of an al-Qaeda member.

I'll conclude with a particularly compelling passage from Reid v. Covert, cited by the Court.

At the beginning we reject the idea that when the United States acts against citizens abroad it can do so free of the Bill of Rights. The United States is entirely a creature of the Constitution. Its power and authority have no other source. It can only act in accordance with all the limitations imposed by the Constitution. When the Government reaches out to punish a citizen who is abroad, the shield which the Bill of Rights and other parts of the Constitution provide to protect his life and liberty should not be stripped away just because he happens to be in another land. This is not a novel concept. To the contrary, it is as old as government.

A Journey of a Thousand Miles...

A heartfelt congratulations to the nation of Iraq for holding an election that, by virtually all accounts, appears to have been a resounding success (Daniel Drezner does a good job summing up preliminary coverage). It is quite obvious that this is a major victory against the insurgency, and all those who want to see a stable, and successful Iraq should applaud it.

However, our job is nowhere near done. The most important aspect of a democracy is not the first election, but the second, because that will show if government's will voluntarily cede power. Spencer Ackerman notes that "we've already seen a day of tremendous possibility, high Iraqi expectations, and hope that finally the accumulated wounds of 30 years of tyranny were ready for healing. It came on June 28 with the transfer of sovereignty, and by the next month it was squandered." There is a lot of potential behind these elections, but with expectations so high there is a lot of room to fall as well. And of course, assuming that the UIA wins the election (either outright or via coalition), we still have to deal with the Sistani/Sadr brawl which looks like it might be developing.

All of this notwithstanding, this was a historic day. We should all congratulate the Iraqi people on conducting what appears to have been a free, fair, and relatively violence-free voting process. May their democratic future be bright.

After All, It's Only Genocide

Sorry for the paucity of blogging as of late. I've been inundated with work, and it doesn't look like it's going to let up. I'm going to the Model UN conference at McGill University this weekend, so I'll be gone from Thursday until Sunday. I don't know if I'll have internet access up there, so I might not be posting again until Monday. Anyway, back to the matter at hand.

I've been chewing on this article (link: Andrew Sullivan) for a few days now. To sum it up briefly:

Iqbal Sacranie, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, has written to Charles Clarke, the home secretary, saying the body will not attend the [commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz] unless it includes the "holocaust" of the Palestinian intifada.

Obviously, on a visceral level I'm infuriated that anyone would have the gall to compare the intifada with the holocaust. Anyone who engages in moral relativism at that level of myopia is ethically bankrupt, and deserved to be labeled as such.

However, I think it also is reflective of a deeper problem. The term "genocide" has become cheap. People toss it around carelessly, and on the flip side, the recognition of a legitimate ongoing genocide doesn't even provoke a reaction. Genocide is defined as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such." When Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, he intended it to refer to the most horrific crime imaginable. Genocide was something that was supposed to force states to overcome their hesitance in intervening in other nation's affairs. It was the one crime that couldn't be excused by cries of "sovereignty." Because of the US' love affair with sovereignty, we didn't ratify and implement the Genocide Convention until 1989.

In 1994, Bill Clinton issued an order to the State Department warning them not to use the term "genocide" in reference to the ongoing atrocities in Rwanda. Clinton knew that the term "genocide" put both the moral and legal burden on the US to act, and after the Somalia debacle, that was the last thing he wanted. This was a morally abominable choice, to be sure, but at least we then recognized that genocide actually meant something. And Clinton absolved himself, in part, by intervening in Kosovo to stop the slaughter of ethnic Albanians there.

Fast-forward to today. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell has explicitly labeled the situation in Sudan a genocide. The US response? Nothing. The EU? Nothing. The UN? Nothing. Nothing could have done more damage than nothing. Whereas in 1994 we feared our obligation to stop genocide, in 2004 we act as if we don't have one at all. Genocide simply doesn't have the gravitas to motivate America to action anymore.

A corrupt bargain has been struck by the left and the right, probably without each party knowing it. The left gets to label each and every conflict in which a civilian dies as "genocide" (of course, drawing no distinction between unfortunate collateral damage and "intent to destroy"). The right gets to completely ignore the issue, regardless of whether the genocide claim is warranted or not. And of course, people keep dying. Dictators become emboldened. Ethnic hatreds rage unchecked. And "never again" happens again, and again, and again.

Who's Ready to Rumble?

The players continue to set up for the grand finale, with Ayatollah Ali Sistani's United Iraqi Alliance dropping its campaign promise to seek an immediate deadline for American troop withdrawal. Instead, its platform now claims "the Iraq we want is capable of protecting its borders and security without depending on foreign forces."

I consider this a positive expression of realism from the party most likely to come out on top in the upcoming elections. I'm skeptical that any Iraqi government, with the troop strength currently available, will be able to quell the insurgency. US troops are still essential for a stable Iraq. But the Iraq'd blog warns us of the potential pitfalls:

If the Alliance has run on any issues at all--and not just on its connections to Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani--it's run on the promise to negotiate a U.S. troop withdrawal. Banners at Shia mosques read "Elections Are the Ideal Way to Expel the Occupier from Iraq." It may be that the Alliance, once elected, can persuade an anti-occupation Shia populace that a pullout can only occur after Iraqi capabilities exist. (And perhaps it'll seek to fill the capabilities gap with Shia militiamen.) Perhaps loyalty to Sistani can indeed trump the desire to be rid of a foreign presence. But the Alliance should be very prepared for Moqtada Al Sadr to exploit the issue to the hilt. Get ready for some serious inter-Shia tensions, right at the beginning of an elected transitional government that will have no shortage of difficulty writing a constitution and dealing with Sunni disaffection.

Keeping the Faith

The Bull-Moose Blog hits the nail right on the head with this post. Frustrated though us liberals may be that the Bush administration refused to put its money where its mouth is, operates through a flawed prism when evaluating US foreign policy, and generally spits on the Democrats at every opportunity, we cannot let our anger cloud our reason. The Democratic foreign policy has been and must continue to be one that emphasizes the rights of mankind, the importance of democracy, and the willingness of the United States to fight for both of them. As the Bull-Moose puts it:

Idealistic rhetoric without practical deeds is vacant utopianism. Progressives, however, should not cede democratic idealism because Bush embraces it. They should not become left wing versions of Bret Scowcroft and Pat Buchanan. Rather, people of the left should connect with the progressive internationalist tradition of Truman and JFK which promoted freedom abroad based on practical deeds and economic justice at home.

Above all, progressives should not permit their justified spite of the Bushies to lead them to abandon a proud tradition of liberal internationalism.

Another Step Back

Following in the wake of a federal court's decision to uphold the Defense of Marriage Act, the great state of Indiana has given us another step backwards in the fight for equality. In Morrison v. Sadler, an Indiana Court of Appeals has upheld that state's own Defense of Marriage Act. Unlike the other two recent DOMA cases, Wilson v. Ake (the federal court case) or In re Kandu and Kandu (the bankruptcy court case), however, this case is logically atrocious. The case frames its discussion thus:

"We begin by noting one of the Plaintiffs' overarching arguments, namely their claim that recognizing same-sex marriage would not directly harm the traditional institution of opposite-sex marriage and the State's interest in marital procreation. We conclude the Plaintiffs' claim that recognizing same-sex marriage or unions will not harm the institution of opposite-sex marriage is not dispositive of the constitutional issue before this court. The key question in our view is whether the recognition of same-sex marriage would promote all of the same state interests that opposite-sex marriage does, including the interest in marital procreation. If it would not, then limiting the institution of marriage to opposite-sex couples is rational and acceptable under Article 1, § 23 of the Indiana Constitution."

This framework is wholly illogical. No one group is particularly likely to satisfy the entire array of "state interests" outlined by Indiana. This is especially so considering the manner in which the court defines the state's interest, which seems tailor made to exclude homosexuals. The court emphasized that it is far easier for heterosexual couples to have children, and therefore the risk of them doing it without considering the situation fully is far greater. Marriage thus offers an incentive for these groups to stay together. Homosexual couples don't need that incentive because "those persons wanting to have children by assisted reproduction or adoption are, by necessity, heavily invested, financially and emotionally, in those processes." However, there are many responsible heterosexual couples who need no such incentive to stay together, they are not "promot[ing] all of the...state interests" either. When the state endeavors to prevent a certain group from receiving a benefit (especially when it is "similarly situated," as hetero- and homosexual couples who might desire children are), it must at the very least show why the restriction is based on some legitimate interest. The state has no interest in denying the benefits of marriage to homosexual couples who might, now or in the future, wish to raise children. But by recasting the standard as whether homosexual couples could meet every single situation the state may have had in mind when drafting its marriage laws, the court manages to dodge this obvious point of justice in order to justify its discriminatory practices. As Michigan Law Professor Catherine Mackinnon notes:

"[T]o require that one be the same as those who set the standard—those which one is already socially defined as different from—simply means that...equality is conceptually designed never to be achieved. Those who most need equal treatment will be the least similar, socially, to those whose situation sets the standard against which one’s entitlement to be equally treated is measured."

Furthermore, the standard, as articulated, is a motivator for bad behavior. The argument of the court is essentially that heterosexuals deserve special privileges because without them they are more likely to abandon their children. This, once again, raises Oxblog's question: which side is really degrading marriage? Indiana is prohibiting homosexual couples from getting married not in spite of the fact, but because of the fact that they are more likely to stay together and support any children that are the product of their relationship. Heterosexual couples are afforded the privileges of marriage apparently because of their tendency to philander and break up relations at the drop of the hat (though the national divorce rate seems to suggest they can do that even with the "stabilizing" influence of marriage).

Finally, the court's argument fails on its own terms, because it mischaracterizes how the state's interest in promoting familial stability is achieved. If a couple gets married, and then divorces the next day, the state has not achieved its goal of a stable family. The point isn't entering the relationship (indeed, any time two people decide together to either have a child or have sexual intercourse, they have entered a "relationship"), it's maintaining the relationship. And once one gets past the threshold of entering the relationship, the likelihood of the relationship staying together is not much different for hetero- and homosexual couples. Indeed, the social stigma that is implicit in legal codes that categorically refuse to recognize the value or worth of homosexual couples staying together could easily act as an incentive for them to break up. This would suggest that Indiana is actually hampering its own objective by restricted same-sex marriage. If Indiana is concluding that, without proper incentives, couples with (or expecting) children are at risk of breaking up, then it needs to equally provide a remedy to all in that situation, not just some.

Fall into the Gap

One of the core themes behind my statecentrism critique and my "Left Cross" article was the gap between Bush's (and the Republican Party's) rhetoric and his policies. Bush says he's serious about conducting the war on terrorism, but he constantly is making political decisions that severely undermine the fight. To liberals such as myself who support the rhetorical goals Bush outlines, this is maddening. It forces us to toe a very narrow (nuanced?) line, where we support the same goals Bush says he supports, but protest the way he goes about doing them. Politically, it's brilliant, because liberals don't have any credibility on the matter and nobody would even consider questioning a neo-conservatives commitment to fighting a war. So Bush happily continues to chirp away at the refrain of war, strength, and sacrifice, all the while never being held accountable by anyone for totally ignoring those very values in the real world.

Bush's inauguration speech was a tragic continuation of this theme. As he has so often in the past, Bush spoke at length and emphatically about the need to spread freedom, democracy, and human rights around the world. Noble sentiments, and ones that I wholeheartedly agree with. The problem, as The New Republic's Ryan Lizza points out, is that Bush has expressed zero interest in doing any of these things. Sure, he's taken strides towards installing democratic regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan--and he should applauded for doing so. But that isn't the real test of ones commitment to principle. As Lizza notes:

"It takes no courage to call for a democratic revolution in the public squares of one's enemies. It's easy to call for the overthrow of the mullahs in Iran or the lunatic in North Korea. The real test of Bush's sincerity "to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture" is whether he is willing to demand reform from America's autocratic allies. Unfortunately, despite the rhetoric, on Bush's watch America's relationship with tyrants has grown closer."

The US simply doesn't have the credibility to lecture Cuba on human rights when it is busy feeding honey-soaked praise to Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Russia, as well as silently cooperating with China, Uzbekistan, Egypt, Oman, Qatar, The United Arab Emirates, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. Indeed, almost a quarter of the countries labeled "not free" by Freedom House are official US allies in the war on terror. It is positively Orwellian, and it is enough to make someone like me physically ill.

The gap between rhetoric and reality can only last for so long before it triggers brutal consequences. I argued in a previous post that:

"the perception, however frail, that the world does care, at some level, about the plight of the global periphery and will work to alleviate it [is one of the key factors preventing the poor from exploding in anti-western/anti-American rage]. International institutions such as the UN, where the lowliest nations stand as equals with the US, Britain, and other powers, have done much to convince the global poor that they too are members of the world community, and as such they will be cared and provided for. If the US is seen as abandoning what--to the rest of the world--is a solemn commitment to work for the betterment of mankind, a sense of betrayal will quickly emerge, likely to be followed by resentment and hatred."

More immediately, the rhetoric/reality gap is having a real negative impact on our efforts to rebuild Iraq.

"...Iraqi mistrust of US democratization efforts isn't because of any hostility on the part of the Iraqi's to democracy per se. It speaks volumes about the character of the Iraqi people that the most powerful national figure, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, is also a committed democrat. Rather, the mistrust stems from a mistrust of motives, Iraqi's know (from personal experience and from basic observation of their neighbors) that the US has been perfectly willing to subvert democratic institutions and install friendly dictators when it serves American economic and realist interests to do so. Furthermore, the US has usually coached these actions in the same pro-liberal, pro-democratic rhetoric that we hear from the Bush administration today (cite: Chile, Vietnam). Hence, Iraqi's are understandably paranoid that President Bush's committment to liberalization is a facade, and every misstep and misstatement by the US occupying regime only amplifies these fears. Worse yet, US tolerance and praise of other dictatorships (in Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere), compounds the problem."

The gap is quickly expanding into a chasm, with the vast majority of the oppressed people of the world caught on the wrong side. I pray that the US will change course, but it will never happen unless the media and the people are willing to call Bush out on the hypocrisy of advocating for freedom without acting on it.

The Grand Finale

Well, we're coming down to the Iraqi election wire. And there are some interesting developments. As many of you know, one of the key factors that unites all of Iraq together is the desire to see the US leave. The problem, of course, is that is about the only thing that unites Iraq, and the odds of the central government being strong enough to contain those divisions is slim. So basically, if US troops leave, then the country collapses into civil war with no way to stabilize it. On the other hand, if US troops don't leave, the new government is automatically discredited and the country collapses into civil war anyway. Lovely options.

However, today Iraq'd reports that while establishment candidate Iyad Allawi has now jumped on the US withdrawal bandwagon, the front-running United Iraqi Alliance has begun to dilute its calls for a withdrawal. As the UIA gets closer to victory, it is starting to realize that immediate withdrawal of US troops would be catastrophic. However, if it is seen as breaking from the anti-occupation line, its support amongst the population could collapse.

Now here's where it gets interesting. The head of the UIA is Ayatollah Ali Sistani, probably the most respected and influential man in Iraq. If anybody can hold the country together while negotiating a reasonable US departure time, it is him. However, as Iraq'd notes, firebrand cleric Moqtada al-Sadr stands ready to exploit any mistakes made by Sistani. Al-Sadr also has significant support, especially in the slums, and he will certainly gain some at Sistani's expense if Sistani is seen as not sufficiently anti-occupation. So the stage is set for a royal rumble between two of Iraq's biggest players. Can Sistani hold off al-Sadr for long enough to get the US out? It will be a battle for the epics, with Iraq's future on the line. Count me as a Sistani supporter.

Federal Court Upholds DOMA

The US District Court for the Middle District of Florida has upheld the Defense of Marriage Act in Wilson v. Ake. Technically the first decision on DOMA's constitutionality was In Re Kandu and Kandu, but that was a Bankruptcy Court case and thus has no precedential value. Like Kandu, the opinion is quite well-written and supported. It made very few new findings of law, instead making clear arguments based on precedent that showed why its hands were tied.

One of the cases in which the Court relied upon (in order to reject the plaintiff's "rational basis" objection) was Lofton v. Department of Children and Family Services, (en banc rehearing denied). Since the ruling was by the 11th circuit court of appeals, and this district court is bound to that precedent, the court rightly said it could not go against Lofton, and I don't dispute that. I just want to take this time to reiterate my objection to that case, which I think was legally shoddy and logically incoherent. Had Lofton gone the other way, then I think the Court could have easily rejected the federal government's rational basis defense (whether it would have is another question).

Meanwhile, Oxblog makes a great point with regards to why allowing gay marriage is a Conservative position. Drawing from the text of the majority opinion in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health (the Massachusetts gay marriage case), we get quotes like this:

"[C]ivil marriage enhances the "welfare of the community." It is a "social institution of the highest importance." Civil marriage anchors an ordered society by encouraging stable relationships over transient ones. It is central to the way the Commonwealth identifies individuals, provides for the orderly distribution of property, ensures that children and adults are cared for and supported whenever possible from private rather than public funds, and tracks important epidemiological and demographic data.

Marriage also bestows enormous private and social advantages on those who choose to marry. Civil marriage is at once a deeply personal commitment to another human being and a highly public celebration of the ideals of mutuality, companionship, intimacy, fidelity, and family. "It is an association that promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not commercial or social projects.""

Compare the dissent:

"The marriage statutes do not disqualify individuals on the basis of sexual orientation from entering into marriage. All individuals, with certain exceptions not relevant here, are free to marry. Whether an individual chooses not to marry because of sexual orientation or any other reason should be of no concern to the court."

As Oxblog correctly asks: "tell me again, which side is trivializing marriage?"

Statecentrism and the War on Terror

In a recent post I referred to statecentrism as one of the primary blindspots the Bush administration has when conducting the war on terror. There are others, listed here, which have nothing to do with statecentrism. However, since many people seized on this particular aspect of my attack for challenge, I will explain and defend why I think statecentrism is a poor model for fighting the war on terror, and why an alternative (call it "terrorcentric") method would work better.

First, let's define what statecentrism is. A statecentric worldview is one that looks at problems (at least foreign policy problems) through the prism of sovereign states. As it relates to terror, it means we take out a map, look at the nations of the world, ask ourselves "which ones support terrorists," and the blow them (the terror harboring states) to hell. Mark Schulman explains it in this manner:

Terrorists do not exist in a stateless vacuum. In each state in which they have refuse, there are two other actors: the people, some of whom are sympathetic to the terrorists and some who are not; and the government, which may (1) actively support, (2) condone, (3) actively oppose, or (4) be unable to oppose the terrorists. While the terrorists may welcome death and have little or no physical assets, at least some of the general population prefers life to death and the government does have an infrastructure that it is responsible for protecting.

The objective of a deterrence policy -- more precisely, a warning that the U.S. will respond with a nuclear attack on targets of our choosing, including Islam's holy sites -- should be to cause ordinary people and governments to fear the consequences if terrorists explode one or more nuclear weapons on our soil. By making the nuclear second strike doctrine public, it would hopefully have enough credibility to alter the behavior of people and governments. The specter of devastation should be an incentive for both people and governments to stop supporting terrorists and for governments to root them out. The less fanatical of the terrorists, recognizing these changes, may decide to pursue other, less deadly, activities.

When I say I "critique" statecentrism, it does not mean that I think we should ignore states entirely. What it means is that we should recast the lens. In my worldview, we look at where the terrorists are. After that, we examine what, if any, relation the terrorists have to the states they inhabit. Is the state supporting them, or fighting them, or indifferent to them, or some variation thereof? In some cases, a terrorcentric and statecentric mindset will yield the same result. If I examine Iran as a state, I will quickly note that it supports terrorism. If I'm looking for terrorists, I will quickly note that they gain support and aid from Iran. So even though the methodology is different, the result is the same. To use Mark's taxonomy, Iran is a "1" state (actively supports terror), but if we can credibly threaten to annihilate them, that will go a long way to ending their support for terror. That option makes sense from either the terrorcentric or statecentric worldview.

But let's take another example, Somalia. Contrary to Mark's suggestion, Somalia is a perfect example of terrorists existing in a "stateless vacuum," because there isn't really a "state" in Somalia. Ideologically, the statecentric viewpoint discounts the terror threat of Somalia since there isn't state support. This, once again, misstates the threat, because al-Qaeda can operate just fine in Somalia, and they can still base attacks on American interests from Somalia, regardless of whether the state is assisting or not. Pragmatically, the statecentric approach also cannot deal with Somalia. We can't threaten the central government to stop harboring terrorists, because one doesn't exactly exist. Mark's "deterrence" policy utterly collapses in this situation, because there is not an entity that is even capable of responding to a US threat, let alone act on it. If followed to its logical conclusion, the statecentric threat, as applied to Somalia, would go over something like this:

Bush: Alright, Somalia. You got to stop harboring the evildoers, or else we're going to have to send a message.
Somalia: [silence]
Bush: Nuke 'em.

Is anyone really being deterred here? Deterrence rests on motivating good behavior over bad behavior. It presumes a choice on the part of the regional actors as to whether they are acting "good" or "bad." In regions with failed states, the people, at least as represented by the "state," aren't capable of making that choice.

Another problem with statecentrism is it misplaces priorities. The quote by Professor Drezner in my last post elucidates. The US was faced with a comparative choice: either neutralize a state, which supports terrorists (Iran); or neutralize a non-state actor who supports terrorists (A.Q. Khan). They chose the former. However, ironically, Schulman's own analysis demonstrates why it is the latter that is far more threatening. The reason is simple: we can deter Iran rather easily. If they touch us, or if there fingerprints are on someone who does touch us, we can bomb them off the face of the earth. They know it, and we know it, and it doesn't take a big shift in US policy to drive that point home (nor does it require Pakistan's support in any way). Shadowy nuclear proliferation networks, outside the guidance of states, by contrast, cannot be deterred by conventional means. We can't bomb them out of existence. They aren't geographically fixed, they emphasize small players, they are, well, shadowy. Opportunities to shut them down are far, far, rarer than opportunities to deter nation-states. Terrorcentrism would look at what's more likely to enable terror, and act that way, which sometimes means attacking (or threatening to attack states) and sometimes doesn't. It's in the latter case where the Bush administration is offbase.

The third advantage of terrorcentrism is that it prevents us from getting bogged down in protracted, distracting military campaigns. If we invade, oh, Iraq, we're stuck there for awhile until we rebuild what we've broken. The hundreds of thousands of troops necessary to do that are now occupied, and can't be used to trackdown actual terrorists. Sure, we'll bag some in the host country that we're in the middle of rebuilding. But gunning terrorists in the Philippines, or Sudan? Forget about it. In his comment on my original post, Randomscrub argues that this is the best case scenario considering the logistical problems of going after terrorists in a more ad hoc manner. I disagree. The use of light and special forces operations, targeted bombing campaigns, and other more focused endeavors all can accomplish tasks with far lower resource allocations than full-fledged military invasions. Sure, it raises sovereignty implications, but can we all agree that at this point sovereignty has been shot to hell regardless of what policy we choose? Randomscrub's objection is legitimate, but the alternative isn't any better: we simply don't have enough troops to invade every single country that harbors terrorists. So since we're going to have to implement my lightweight options at least partially (or alternatively, ignore terrorists outside of Iraq and Afghanistan entirely), we might as well use it whenever it's most effective. Furthermore, even when we do hit the "jackpot" ("hey, this state is linked to terror and we have the troops to take it out!"), statecentrism skews our tactical and strategic perception on the ground. In Afghanistan, for example, we took out the "state" (the Taliban) quite effectively. We were much less effective in taking out the "terrorists" themselves, many of whom escaped to Pakistan and elsewhere. This doesn't mean that Afghanistan wasn't a "success," but it does require us to look more critically at what "success" means. From a statecentric view, we "won" in Afghanistan because we replaced a terror-supporting state with a terror-fighting state (sort of). From a terrorcentric view, it's more complicated than that, because many of the terrorists are still at large and can still plan attacks on the US and the world.

The point, again, isn't to ignore states, it's to focus on terror. Terror sometimes operates within the context of state support, and sometimes not. The organizations of terror have gotten very good at using non-state entities, markets, and practices to aid their cause. Beyond residing in failed states, they also use international finance, smuggling networks, informal trade, and the internet to facilitate their cause. None of these problems can be deterred simply by looking to states, and any practice that tries to address them solely by way of states is doomed to failure from the start. Looking at the problem holistically, at what is most likely to destroy terrorism, requires us to think outside the statecentric box. Sometimes, focusing on states will work just fine. Often it won't, and the Bush administration's failure to realize that is hopelessly crippling our efforts against terror.

Southern Rumble

Alabama and Mississippi seem determined to wage a battle to death on which can forestall joining the 20th century for the longest period of time (we'll work on getting them to century 21 later).

In Alabama's corner, Legal Fiction provides a reminder of former Chief Justice Roy Moore's lawless antics while on the Alabama Supreme Court. To the state's credit, the judges kicked Moore out of office for ignoring a federal court order to take down his two-ton statue of the 10 commandments. To their immense detriment, the voters then elected Moore protege Tom Parker to the court, who ran explicitly on a 10 commandments platform. Judges who run based on ignoring the law? Sounds like judicial activism to me...

Of course, reckless disrespect for the constitution isn't the only thing that Parker had going for him. He also is a neo-confederate with links to several racist groups, including the Council for Conservative Citizens and the neo-secessionist League of the South.

And that isn't the only way Alabama reminds us that they hate black people! They also voted down a state constitutional amendment that would have stricken language in the constitution that mandated segregated schools, poll taxes, and asserted there was no right to a public education. Because 1954, 2004...what's the difference? But let's give a big hand to the Christian Coalition of Alabama, without whose opposition the amendment almost certainly would have passed. Way to spread Jesus' word!

In the face of all this, Mississippi has a tough task, and I admit they don't quite seem up to it. Their ace-in-hole is their celebration of Martin Luther King day, or should I say Martin Luther King/Robert E. Lee day (hat tip: The Moderate Voice). Because what is more logical than grouping together the greatest civil rights leader of our times, and the general who led the army which sought to preserve the enslavement of black people. It just makes sense.

So far, that's all I've found for Mississippi, which obviously doesn't hold a candle to the Alabamian antics. However, there's still plenty of time to come back! The title is still out there for the taking!

Central Values and Conservative Blindspots

Thought at the Meridian has written a post delving into the justification and rationale behind centrism (link: American Future. I agree with much of what TATM says. Like him, I am liberal on social issues but would be considered more "conservative" on foreign policy (I put in the quotations marks because I don't consider my position conservative at all, see here for details). This in particular was quite eloquent:

"Being centrist means to not want to buy the whole package of either Left or Right. It means being more concerned about issues than ideological consistency. A centrist position can hold strong principles, but it tries not to get tied down by stale ideologies...

Some people sneer at the centrist position. It is often said to be the viewpoint of the willy-nilly, wishy-washy and undecided. I strongly disagree with this view. I think that many people today don't want to, like I said, buy a whole ready-made package deal of leftist or rightist ideas. Many people hold leftist views on some issues, and rightist views on others. There is nothing strange or weak about this position. On the contrary, it takes careful consideration on every separate issue. I, for my own part, am more to the left when it comes to social justice-issues, but more to the right when it comes to foreign policy and the war on terror.

Instead of going to the extremes of the political scale, i. e. to the left or to the right, I prefer to go deeper into the centre. To delve down to the roots of things. A radically democratic view, if you like. Most centrists also have an instinctive dislike of political extremes and the all-too political, which is why so many centrists also are antitotalitarian, i. e. they combat extremism whatever shape it takes, be it Fascism, Nazism, Communism or Islamofascism."

The only quarrel I have with his otherwise excellent post is that he seems to only implicate the left for weakness in the war on terror (to his credit, he also takes a swipe at the isolationist right, but it is much smaller). He writes:

Today we face a new totalitarian threat: Islamofascism. This has not yet dawned upon the Left. Or rather, there is the Reactionary Left to whom it will never dawn, as they do not wish to know. Instead, they will try to support totalitarianism in opposition to "Western" or perhaps more commonly "US imperialism." Then there is the Liberal Left, who has turned out to be even more naive than I expected it to be, indirectly supporting tyrants and dictators, believing that "violence will only make things worse." The political quietism and pacifism of the Liberal Left, and the openly totalitarian and anti-democratic ideals of the Reactionary Left will risk undermining our Western democratic way of life if we don't start acting against these forces as well as against Islamofascism itself. So far, a great part of the Right has seemed to understand the totalitarian threat we're up against, except of course for the rabid, far-right "America first" isolationists who, like the Islamofascists, think that America is rotting from the inside because of the "decadence" going on there.

However, the right's ideological blindspots are as harmful to the war on terror as the left. First of all, the right still is stuck in its cold war glory days; it refuses to break out of the statecentric model which targets the "host states" of terror (Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran) rather than the terrorists themselves (al-Qaeda et. al.). I fleshed the point out in an earlier post:

In off-blog conversations about the Bush administration, I've argued that this presidency has, more than any Democrat, viewed the war on terror through a pre-9/11 mentality that emphasizes the importance of states rather than the non-state actors (IE: Al-Qaeda) that actually threaten us. In both Sudan and Afghanistan, terrorist groups have shown that they can survive and thrive without a supporting state structure (both of those countries had, at best, anemic central governments not in control of the whole country). Hence, the policy of attacking states rather than attacking terrorists is counterproductive, as Al-Qaeda can just "stick and move," dodging recrimination as we get bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan and whatever other states we decide to intervene in.

Daniel Drezner sees this same problem at work in US policy towards Iran. After linking to an article which claimed that the US was trading the extrication of A.Q. Khan (the mastermind of Pakistan's blackmarket nuke trading ring) for support in any military action against Iran, Drezner notes:

"If this is true, it suggests the administration really believes that the threat posed by nuclear-armed states is greater than the threat posed by a black market proliferation network that could sell to states and non-state actors alike."

That's a very, very, scary thought, and shows a deep misunderstanding of the type of threat we face.

I listed off a plethora of other obstacles within conservative politics and ideology that prevent them from prosecuting the war on terror effectively. They get no political benefit from doing it, as the public sees them as strong on defense regardless of the particular policy stances they take. And ideologically, Conservative belief in free market principles and the inability of government to affect social change both hamper American efforts to defend our country and to defeat the root causes of terror, respectively. Looking over Bush's foreign policy and homeland security record, I see this pattern written all over. A lot of talk, a few high-profile initiatives, precious little substantive action at the detail level. And while it may be subtler, it isn't taking the threat of islamofascism any more seriously than the hard left.

Defending Friedman

Powerline approvingly links to Tom Friedman's latest column on Iraq. He, Powerline, and I all agree that the problems in the Arab world stem from corrupt, autocratic governments that deny freedom to their people. Hence, the US actions which have sought to change that situation--in Somalia, in Kuwait, in Afghanistan, and yes, in Iraq, are laudable. But Powerline is in despair: Why, they ask, why does Mr. Friedman still seek to blame President Bush for the problems we face?

Powerline thinks the only answer can be Friedman's partisan loyalty to the Democratic party. As usual, I'll have to let slide the audacity of Powerline accusing anyone of partisanship (and their usual defense, "they're the media, they're supposed to be objective!" doesn't fly here. Friedman's an editorialist, he can say whatever he wants), and just address the claim on it's merits.

Now, everyone at the table here apparently agrees that bringing Democracy to the Middle East is the only way to provide longterm solvency to the problem. The question is--is President Bush furthering that goal? Friedman says no, and I concur. Let's start with the obvious. Something has gone awry in Iraq. We weren't greeted with flowers, democracy didn't just sprout up like magic, and a few "dead-enders" has morphed into a large and growing insurgency. Something has gone wrong.

Now, this war is the Bush administration's baby. They orchastrated it, they set the policies, and they ran the operations. The responsibilty for what has happened rests squarely on their shoulders. Now, there are two conclusions one can draw from this. The first is that the Bush administration, somewhere along the line, screwed up. Badly. One can quibble about the details (Was it disbanding the army? Or focusing too much on mystical WMDs? Or not bringing enough troops? Or not lining up world support? Or refusing to secure the country in the invasion's aftermath? Or...etc), but obviously the Bush administration did something wrong, or else the situation wouldn't be what it is today. The second conclusion is that the Bush administration did everything right. That, in turn, suggests that the current chaos and mayham is the best case scenario that could have ever come out of Iraq. If that is the position Powerline wants to take, that's fine, but it would suggest to me that perhaps their favored policy option--invading countries to depose hostile and tyrannical leaders--isn't the panacea they've made it out to be. And if Iraq is the best we can do, then Powerline and I must part ways--I cannot reasonably support actions whose best case outcome is modern-day Iraq.

But Bush's flaws go beyond specific any policy faults we might find. Contrary to Powerline's assertion, Bush hasn't adopted the same view as Friedman as to the root causes of anti-American hatred. Friedman says that the hatred stems from autocratic tyrannies which shunt simmering resentment, poverty, and misery into generic hate for the infidel. Bush, by contrast, has argued that they "hate us for our freedoms." These are hugely different arguments. Bush argues that the cultures clash and there is no commonality, Friedman argues that the commonality has been suppressed and that causes the clash. Friedman's allows for eventual inclusion, Bush's stance is constantly alienating.

Sure, some of Bush's statements have (laudably) emphasized that the Arab world is perfectly capable of embracing Western values and democracy. However, his metaphilosophy mistakenly divides the world into pure good and pure evil. In the Arab world, that means the terrorists (evil, unable to be reconciled) and the rest (good, shafting under the oppressive regime of the terrorists). That is far too simplistic. For many (I might even daresay most) of the Arab world, terrorist sympathies grow in those who would otherwise be most receptive to American ideals. These are people who feel the US has abandoned them, that the US doesn't care about Muslims or worse, is actively hostile to them. As Friedman notes, this view is badly misplaced, but Bush's "us vs. them" rhetoric exacerbates the situation by reinforcing the notion that the US will never address any of the grievances, some of them legitimate, held by the Arab world against America.

You Cannot Be Serious

Way back in the glory days of the election season, I wrote a short post explaining to Glenn Reynolds and Jonah Goldberg that the reason we weren't focusing on toppling the Iranian regime is because we were--well, a bit distracted at the moment by that other "I" country in the region.

But, ask, and ye shall receive. CNN reports that the US is gearing up to possibly attack Iran. Because when one war isn't enough, two are just right...

Don't get me wrong, I'm fully aware of the danger Iran poses to the United States. In fact, I'd argue that they are more dangerous than Iraq ever was--or had the potential to be. However, as Donald Rumsfeld so aptly reminds us, "you go to war with the army you have, not the one you wish you had." And we don't have an army anymore, or at least not one that isn't tied up in current combat environments. There simply aren't enough troops left in our reserve to launch ANOTHER front in the war on terror (hell, there are barely enough troops to win the war we're conducting now).

Frankly, I don't think this is going to happen. Even Kos is skeptical. But still, with the old neo-cons still running the ballgame, you gotta wonder if they might just be serious.