A Study in Pettiness
Posted by MichaelW on 11 Jun 2007 at 3:27 pm | Tagged as: Notes on the war, Glenn Greenwald's Carnival of Fisking, MichaelW's Page, Foreign affairs, Domestic Politics
Take up your arms, sons and daughters
We will arise from the bunkers
By land, by sea, by dirigible
We’ll leave our tracks untraceable now
- Sons and Daughters, The Decemberists
I see that our dear friend Mona is once again firing shots across our bow. A few weeks ago she tried to (apparently) goad me into an argument, and now she is taking aim at Lance. Specifically, Mona crows that a comment by Michael Ledeen, whom Lance interviewed, is Exhibit A in her never-ending case to prove him a liar:
Michael Ledeen has never, ever advocated a military invasion of Iran. Those (like me) who have claimed he is being coy and that that is and has always been his entire objective, have been pilloried for denigrating the honor of this oh-so-decent man. Calumny most foul, it has been! We do not understand his genius, his wisdom, his commitment to democracy and “peaceful change.”
Last fall, Leeden told the neolibertarian blog, A Second Hand Conjecture, which reverently finds him to be among the most “consistently misrepresented public intellectuals,” my emphasis:
ASHC: You have written that in order to win this war we would need to defeat Syria and Iran. In my reading you explicitly reject major military action against these states. First of all, why are these two states the most important in your mind? Second, why would you caution against an attempt at regime change through military force?
Michael Ledeen: I’ve always said invasion of Iran would be a terrible mistake, and it would demonstrate a failure to design and conduct a rational policy toward Iran.
Mona claims that Ledeen was lying above, as evidenced by his recent statement regarding Sen. Lieberman publicly pondering the efficacy of bombing Iran:
Now, let us look at what Michael Ledeen wrote today about Joe Lieberman’s call to militarily invade Iran, in a post titled Lieberman for Secretary of State, my emphasis:
On Face the Nation, he just called for military strikes against terrorist training camps inside Iran, echoing, ahem, myself lo these several years…Meanwhile, the appeasers over at the State Department, from the spokesman to the secretary herself, are reassuring the world that we’re going to continue our conversations…
So, it is not a “terrible mistake,” or a “failure of rational policy” to bomb Iran after all! Now, Ledeen is one of those who “imagines we are going to invade Iran.”
Because we are blessed with so many intelligent and insightful readers, I am sure that I do not need to point out the rather obvious flaw in Mona’s “evidence.” However, for posterity’s sake, I’ll just note that “bombing Iran” does not equate to “invading Iran.” Indeed, the two actions are not even remotely close. And yet, to Mona, this is evidence of Ledeen’s disingenousness.
Undermining her supposed point even further is that fact that Lieberman did not call for bombing Iran indiscriminately, as a means of curbing Iran’s assistance to terrorists operating in Iraq:
“I think we’ve got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq,” Lieberman said. “And to me, that would include a strike over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers …
“We’ve said so publicly that the Iranians have a base in Iran at which they are training Iraqis who are coming in and killing Americans. By some estimates, they have killed as many as 200 American soldiers,” Lieberman said. “Well, we can tell them we want them to stop that. But if there’s any hope of the Iranians living according to the international rule of law and stopping, for instance, their nuclear weapons development, we can’t just talk to them.”
He added, “If they don’t play by the rules, we’ve got to use our force, and to me, that would include taking military action to stop them from doing what they’re doing.”
Finally, in direct opposition to Mona’s claim that “Joe Lieberman[] call[ed] to militarily invade Iran,” we have this from the horse’s mouth (my emphasis):
Lieberman said much of the action could probably be done by air, although he would leave the strategy to the generals in charge. “I want to make clear I’m not talking about a massive ground invasion of Iran,” Lieberman said.
Hear all the bombs, they fade away
Hear all the bombs, they fade away
- Sons and Daughters, The Decemberists
So, to recap,
IF:
(a) Lieberman is not advocating for an invasion, but
(b) Lieberman is calling for a limited air strikes on operational military targets, and
(c) Michael Ledeen claims to not support a military invasion, but
(d) does approve of Lieberman’s call for air strikes,
THEN:
Neither Lieberman nor Ledeen are advocating nor calling for an invasion of Iran.
ERGO:
Anyone who claims that Michael Ledeen has somehow reversed his position on an invasion of Iran based on the evidence above is either (1) just plain wrong, (2) as mendacious as she claims Ledeen to be, (3) reading-challenged, (4) just plain stupid, or (5) all of the above.
You decide.
To top it all off, Mona chides us here at ASHC with the following:
Ledeen defenders have been played for the worst sort of suckers, and it really is past time to admit it, guys.
Mona’s condescension lost all of its luster for me quite some time ago, but I do find it amusing every now and then. Despite the fact that Mona has no ethos or philosophy of her own, and regardless of her inability to comprehend those whose thoughts she adopts for herself, she has absolutely no problem raining down insults from above upon those she has deemed her intellectual inferiors. Mona imagines herself with a front seat at the oracle, and is bewildered by anyone who does not see what the gods have revealed to her, much less when they do not do so with the same ferocity and conviction.
The problem for Mona is that she is not the great thinker she assumes to be, but instead an egotist posing as an intellectual. She apparently has neither the capacity for original thought, nor the depth to understand the thoughts (much less words) of others. She is an intellectual wasteland devoid of growth or the means of life. So when she takes aim at one of us here at ASHC, I can only be amused at the fact that she seems inexhaustibly possessed of the notion that she has even the slightest effect on anyone who does not share her delusions. I see her much as the windmills must have regarded Don Quixote.
Nevertheless, attack us she will, and I wish her good luck in that endeavor. If someday she happens upon a real argument, I shall be sure to thank whomever she borrowed it from.
P.S. Just for fun, I’ll leave you with two bits of funny:
(1) MONA: “And don’t miss what Greenwald has to say about Lieberman’s deadly insane position.”
Does anyone else recall the grief visited upon Brit Hume for calling Murtha’s ramblings “dotty” and the subsequent vitriol aimed squarely at Lance for pointing out the obvious?
(2) As indicated in the post above, Mona severely misunderstands the definition of “bombing.” As yet more evidence of that fact, this time pertaining to “google-bombing,” see the following:
The guy calling for it should be Secretary of State, says documented liar Ledeen.
Three guesses as to whose name shall forever be associated with “documented liar” on Google thanks to Mona. Come to think of it, you could make three guesses and have all of them be right!
68 Responses to “A Study in Pettiness”
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Surely she can’t be serious about this. Surely you’re leaving out some part of her argument to make her look bad. Surely she’s not this much of a joke?
(and no, I won’t stop calling you Shirley)
In general, I find the argument that we could simply bomb Iran, and then there would be no escalation to be either a naive or mendacious point. Probably the latter for many involved, like Ledeen, who is smart enough to realize that Iran has myriad ways of lashing out at us in Iraq, and in the region more generally speaking. After Iran retaliates, we would not sit idly by, nor could we probably afford to.
I ask in earnest, which of these scenarios sounds more plausible:
We launch a massive bombing campaign to take out Iran’s “terrorist training camps” and other military assets (possibly nuclear infrastructure too) and Iran will…:
1) retaliate by targeting our troops in Iraq via proxy and otherwise (supply lines anyone? Stretching throughout the Shiite south - home of SIIC, Dawa and Sadr?), target oil production and distribution assets in the region, otherwise act against our allies and other interests.
2) do nothing.
If you think the correct answer is number 1, then we would have to escalate our military action in response. That’s how you get sucked into a larger conflict. Our ability to contain such a conflict to match our preferred size depends on the generous cooperation of the other side. Do you think Iran would be feeling magnanimous?
Further, Michael Ledeen has stated on numerous occasions that he would be in favor of taking military action against Iran that goes beyond airstrikes:
For example:
Is hot pursuit to mean via air strikes?
Mona’s schoolyard propaganda for dullards aside, Lieberman’s suggestion is terrible. It would fulfill the wildest fantasies of the Mullahs to have the US physically attack Iran, enabling them to rechannel Iranian public outrage to their cause like nothing else possibly could, and handing them the ulitimate “I told you so.”
If even one shot is to ever be fired in anger at Iran, the only possible good would be from targeting the Mullahs themselves. Any other choice of targets could only produce the most fleeting benfit at best, and at worst would trigger a regional catastrophe.
yours/
peter.
I suppose you are obligated to so depict my post, but we othrwise agree.
Oh, and Michael, if you also do not wish me to comment here, say so and I will respect that.
Eric:
If you believe this to be mendacious, what is the lie? Ledeen has not argued, as far as I know, for an invasion of Iran, although has been calling for agitating the Mullahs and destabilizing the regime for years. Whatsmore, even if we assume that Ledeen has quite openly and unequivocally called for an invasion, the passage cited by Mona is in no way evidence of that assumed fact.
First of all, Iran is already attacking us. Bombing their training camps would be us retaliating. IOW, they are already doing No. 1 above.
Secondly, as for what Iran would do in response, I have no idea. I do think some sort of further escaltion is possible, and maybe even likely. Of course, that would assume that Iran is capable of doing much more than behind the scenes instigation — which may be the case — that the populous will support them (or, alternatively that the Mullahs can keep the people in line), and that forces actively seeking reform inside the country (students) would not destabilize the nation whilst the troops are away. As i say, all of that may be true, but none of that is remotely supportive of the claim that Ledeen is lying.
I wouldn’t think so, but neither is it an invasion.
Peter:
I don’t disagree. I tend to eschew fighting a war (or really much of of anything) by half measures. The proper course with respect to Iran is still an open question in my mind.
However, none of my ost was about the efficacy of Ledeen’s or Lieberman’s preferred course of action. I was merely focusing on whether or not Mona had made any case at all, and offering a retort to the idea that we here at ASHC have somehow been “suckered.”
Mona:
You are free to do and say as you like as far as I’m concerned.
So then, do you reject “mere” airbombing and “not-massive”-but-whatever-ground-troop- invasions the generals endorse? As per Lieberman who is endorsed by Ledeen? We should leave Iran alone, or fully engage in war? Ldeeen’s endorsement of Lieberman’s (disingenuous) statements was an error?
If you believe this to be mendacious, what is the lie?
The lie is that the people that are advocating for “massive aerial bombardment” and “hot pursuit” raids of ground forces know full well what comes next. Unless they are truly naive, and don’t understand this simple cause-effect relationship. But that is hardly a defense that exculpates them.
First of all, Iran is already attacking us. Bombing their training camps would be us retaliating. IOW, they are already doing No. 1 above.
No, if Iran really wanted to set Iraq ablaze, we would know it. For one, Sadr has already sworn to attack us if we attack Iran. And SIIC and Dawa are even CLOSER to Iran than Sadr is. Meanwhile, we consider SIIC and Dawa to be our closest non-Kurdish allies in Iraq!
If you really don’t think Iran and its allies could make things worse for us in Iraq, I’m afraid you haven’t been paying close enough attention. You know that Iraqi government that we are defending at the moment - the one that is supposed to represent the liberal, democratic Iraq that will transform the entire Middle East? Its main coalition members are…get this…SIIC, Dawa and Sadr. Which side would they be on?
Currently, we are facing a Sunni-based insurgency (20% percent of Iraq’s population), with some peripheral skirmishes with Shiite groups. If we were to face the full brunt of the Shiite population (60% of the population - which in reality is more considering the population-detachment of the Kurds), then all would be lost. Those supply lines would be up in smoke. Our troops would face severe shortages and hostile elements everywhere save Kurdistan (which isn’t saying much, because we’re not there anyway).
Military leaders fear this because they know what logistics mean beyond the chest thumping, that is why Gates and Fallon have been strongly opposed. That is why the joint chiefs have been trying to put the brakes on the hotheads.
I was merely focusing on whether or not Mona had made any case at all, and offering a retort to the idea that we here at ASHC have somehow been “suckered.”
While I would not use those words, I do believe it is extremely naive to think that we could conduct a massive aerial bombing campaign against Iran, coupled with “hot pursuit” and other cross border raids with ground troops and not suffer a severe backlash. Even if you don’t consider cross border incursions with ground troops an invasion per se.
We would have to retaliate against that backlash, and in the process, open a second front and probably lose on both due to a strained and overstretched military contending in two hostile lands. Even if our initial incursions with ground troops could avoid being labeled an invasion, what comes next would have a harder time outrunning semantics.
Of course, I guess you and anyone else here is free to think that Ledeen truly believes that we could really strike at Iran that way with relative immunity. But, uh, that doesn’t sound like a particularly informed opinion. And my guess is, Ledeen of all people knows this. But by all means, defend a man who actually has the gall to claim that he never really supported invading Iraq either! (honestly, I know it sounds bizarre, but Ledeen has actually made that claim recently)
Applying a litmus test Mona?
Nice of you to once again miss the point. We have discussed Ledeen’s belief in striking terrorist camps before. That is not what you are claiming, and frankly it has been pointed out so often to you that it qualifies as a lie, plain and simple. So for you to lecture anyone about honesty, especially as you slaver your attention on someone who also lies repeatedly and plainly, such as Greenwald, is pretty rich.
You have claimed Ledeen is uniquely bloodthirsty, a man who wants little more than to kill Muslims and conquer Iran. You have argued vociferously that he wants to remove the Iranian regime militarily. You can argue against the wisdom of hot pursuit, or bombing terrorist training camps, or aiding the pro-democracy movement, or any of the many courses of action he actually advocates if you wish.
However, when you claim he wants mass murder, “oceans of blood” and other things he has expressly disavowed, and justify them by pretty standard responses to attacks by an enemy, whatever their wisdom, it makes you a liar. It is as if I claimed you were a uniquely promiscuous woman and justified it by pointing out you weren’t a virgin. People can feel any way they want about that fact, but I don’t get to claim you are the star of a local brothel by relating the story of your deflowering gussied up as a tale out of a bodice ripper.
I should also point out that you have obviously read little of my beliefs to continue with this “reverence” for Ledeen bit. With all due respect to Michael, I don’t revere him or anyone else when it comes to foreign policy. The people I respect the most I disagree with frequently. That includes Greg Djerejian, Eric Martin (good to hear from you Eric) the man formerly known as Praktike (Blake Hounshell) Brent Scowcroft, Joshua Foust, McQ, Bill Roggio, Richard Holbrooke, Michael Young, Michael Totten,and many others. As Joshua can attest, I don’t believe anybody knows what they are doing in foreign policy, and I don’t think it possible for them to. As Johnny Butter once noted at Eric’s place (to show the long standing nature of this belief I think this was said over three years ago) I am filled with radical Hayekian skepticism when it comes to foreign policy. I can take any given policy or set of policies and rip them full of holes. Funny, some of them work anyway. I can imagine few sets of policies more poorly thought out, more pathetic, or riskier than those which got us into WWII. It turned out alright though. I suggest, as I have to many people trying to reduce our choices to some set of well thought out rules, Stephen Cox’s essay which addresses WWII amongst other topics:
So what I rebel against in your treatment of Ledeen is the lazy assumption that you understand the underlying implications of his policy choices enough to justify saying things which are patently untrue.
As for the actual merits of his policies, most I unequivocally endorse, and I think it is a grave error that all sides of the political spectrum ignore them:
I still stand by that quote from the interview. I believe in those things, and so does Ledeen. I have less confidence in hot pursuit or other methods of pressuring the regime, but that doesn’t mean they are a good idea or a bad one. They are certainly not extreme. What powers, including our European allies, would not strike people openly training and sending fighters to attack their troops? The evidence is almost none of them would resist the urge. Yet we and the British have. Maybe we should congratulate ourselves on our restraint?
I also should note that the “imagining we are going to invade” remark certainly applies to you. We should be in about month six at this point according to your sneeringly confident assertions. Do we get even a little mea culpa and apology to those you so brutally dismissed when we questioned your certainty then? Did you learn a little humility?
That of course isn’t Michael’s point, or mine. It is that you are a liar, a misrepresenter, someone for whom no smear is too extreme if it rallies the troops. Not that we should be surprised, you were no more tolerant, civil or willing to see through the others eyes when you were Hypatia spewing your venom at war opponents. Maybe you see painting people as mass murderers as some kind of way to balance the scales, or atone for your earlier sins. I have no idea, but you have become a disgrace as has your paranoid conspiracy mongering friend the sock puppet.
Your misrepresentation of Michael the other day was especially egregious, frankly it was a lie, and one that painted him as endorsing murdering journalists. That was vile, and unlike Michael, I would just as soon have a real liar such as you and Greenwald not grace our site again. I have had incredibly long and fruitful discussions with Eric, ones where I learned things, Joshua as well, despite our different ways of looking at things. I can say the same of glasnost and Pogue. I don’t mind disagreement. I can’t stand vicious smear artists however, so you do what you wish, but I see little point in discussing things with someone whose only goal is to find a way to paint those she disagrees with in the worst possible light. So, as far as I am concerned stay away until your entire way of conducting your business undergoes a transformation.
Eric,
Call me naive then. I don’t think it is obvious at all that Iran would be more of an obstacle or retaliate with greater ferocity. They might, but that is not a given. Nor are we talking “massive” air campaigns. Hot pursuit operations occur all the time in many consequences without large scale escalations of conflicts. Escalations often occur because of an unwillingness to retaliate.
Still, regardless of whether that policy might make sense or be an inevitable path to disaster, the campaign to paint Ledeen as someone who wishes to conquer the Middle East and murder millions is dishonest. I have read pieces at your place where you have argued for policies, or defend people who argue for policies, that I think will lead to real economic consequences, especially for the poor. I could say it is naive of you to think that the policies you advocate will not have such results (though I personally would not, this is merely illustrative of the leap of logic.)
What I don’t get to claim is that you are not really naive but want those things to happen because you hate the poor and people of color. I don’t then get to make the ridiculous leap that because the policies you choose will in my opinion lead to lower than otherwise standards of living over time (a bad but hardly criminal thing) to claiming you wish to put the poor into bondage and starve most of them. Then, when people point out to me that I am misrepresenting your intentions, I smear them in return by claiming that they defended your desire to starve and enslave the poor (which is what Mona has done to myself, Michael, and many others as well over time. Call it smear by proxy.) Then if we are so lucky as to have a few people follow her links (rarely above 5% of readers do so) and they take the time to read whatever has been written, which from the comments is rarely done, they are reading to find confirmation for her claim, not to evaluate it. A simple, yet effective, technique and one Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter use as well.
I have defended people I can’t stand from her onslaughts because there is a point where you say enough is enough.
Anyway, if I acted in the way described I would expect people to tire of it. Greenwald and Mona are despised by so many people precisely because they constantly engage in such mendacious swill. Sadly the audience for such stuff is surprisingly large, as Hannity and Coulter demonstrate regularly.
Nice to speak with you again Lance. A few thoughts:
Nor are we talking “massive” air campaigns.
Well, consider that in addition to the terrorist training camps, Lieberman and Ledeen have indicated that we would also have to target some of Iran’s military assets and other retaliatory capacity (which we would have to do, and any general that authorized strikes without accounting for Iran’s military assets would be grossly negligent). That’s going to require a slew of sorties. Also, what about the nuke facilities? If you add them to the list of targets, then it would be an exceedingly “massive” air operation. Even without the nuke sites, it would take a lot.
Call me naive then. I don’t think it is obvious at all that Iran would be more of an obstacle or retaliate with greater ferocity. They might, but that is not a given.
No, nothing is a given. But if you ask any military planner worth his or her salt, they’d tell you that you don’t make plans based on best case scenarios and remote possibilities that everything could break your way. Maybe.
Rather, you play the odds, assess the risks and adjust accordingly. Hence, the reluctance on the part of Gates, Fallon and the Joint Chiefs. They know how long and vulnerable those supply lines are, and how close SIIC and Dawa are to Iran. Even the Shiite leader with the most distance between himself and Iran (Moqtada al-Sadr) has pledged to respond with fire. I’d take his word for it, and not act based on the possibility that he’s bluffing.
Still, regardless of whether that policy might make sense or be an inevitable path to disaster, the campaign to paint Ledeen as someone who wishes to conquer the Middle East and murder millions is dishonest.
Keep in mind, this is a man who has openly and repeatedly advocated invading Iraq and attacking Iran, Syria and Pakistan. He would also like take down the Saudi regime.
Again, I’m not sure of the exact language I would use to describe Ledeen, but these sentiments sure gave me pause:
And this:
This doesn’t exactly sound good:
How would we feel about America being cauldronized? Is that a good thing?
Also:
Eric: thank you for marshalling all that. Ledeen and his band of neoconservative brothers and sisters are monsters, and insanely dangerous ones who have been guiding our foreign policy for the last six years. Greenwald (and to a much more modest extent, I) are not prepared to be polite and academic in exposing them.
Greenwald also spends a good deal of time marshaling his evidence of what these people have said and done over the years, and thus revealing their absolute love of war as always the best option. As well as that their predictions and assurances that turn out to be utter crap. Greg Djerejian has come to be just as contemptuous, and even ridicules the great Glenn Reynolds just as Greenwald does, and for most of the same reasons.
Bringing this crew into the total disrepute that must occur if we are not to set the world on fire isn’t a task for the shrinking violet. Michael Ledeen is actually calling Condi Rice an “appeaser.” He completely demonized Brent Scowcroft, and let us also not forget his role as broker in the Iran-Contra sales of arms to IRAN. Elliot Abrams was convicted (then pardoned) for his crimes in the same matter. These people are lawless, and utterly contemptuous of anyone who isn’t as war-hungry as they are. Hell, Norman Podhoretz infamously called Ronald Reagan Neville Chamberlain because Reagan negotiated arms reductions with Gorby.
Ensuring that the astronomically dangerous POV these people promote — and have been in a position to implement — is utterly discredited is the work of a true patriot, and I am proud to do my bit toward that end. If that renders me “widely despised” in some quarters, well, I’ll live with it. And if we succeed, many more people will live.
For example, this is Greg. D’s comment on 6/4 – and it is one of his milder slams at glenn “more rubble, less trouble” Reynolds. One does not reply with politesse to obscenity. I don’t, Greg doesn’t, and neither does Greenwald — whether the target is Michael Ledeen or “Instapundit.”:
True, and I certainly feel in the various policy battles everyone has been working off best case scenarios, so I can’t agree more. Of course, that includes not operating off best case scenarios for not retaliating, which is just as big an issue.
How substantially can Iran escalate? In deciding that consider the degradation of their capabilities due to a well planned response. I don’t see it as cut and dried at all. That being said, I don’t claim to know the best answer there.
If attacking people across a border is an invasion in your mind, fine. However, that doesn’t mean we should just throw every call to invade in that case into the same basket. There are obviously large differences to consider in discussing such things which Mona and the sock with eyes wish to ignore to score more points. Ledeen has also spilled a lot of ink pointing out what he means by attack. I addressed just that with him, and read numerous times how he defines attack, which includes mostly non-military options. As for the house of Saud, I certainly would like to see the Saudi regime disappear.
In Iran’s case the vast majority of his writings stress talking with the Iranian people. Some other quotes that might help understanding his views on what he means by waging war and attack in context:
Obviously he defines invasion differently than you, given his oft repeated claims that invading Iran would be a mistake and a sign of policy failure.
On supporting armed groups within Iran:
At AEI you can read this:
Now, given those are the policies he advocates, how do we read your quotes, which even at face value, divorced from his other work, do not justify Mona’s characterization of him?
First, as a prolific writer Michael is not in my mind required to be always consistent. Things people feel at one point may not reflect their full thoughts over time. The first quote was right after 9/11. That being said, it was not intended then as a call for a large scale military war across the Middle east and invading the entire space. It was a call for a war against the terrorists, and it was not all to be military. Michael cut his teeth during the ’80’s and viewed the struggle against the Soviets as a battle. He didn’t encourage invading to fight that war either, but a combination of things to weaken the regime and encourage internal revolution. He sees the situations as similar in many ways. As for the bold statements:
Bold, and undiplomatic, but it was right after 9/11. However, what is wrong with it as a desire? Shouldn’t they all be treated as criminals? Are they not murderous thugs? Saddam, Mullah Omar, Assad, the governments of Khartoum and Tehran, and others? Between them all the victims of their rule number in the many millions. We went to war and tried to track down far less murderous men from Serbia without deciding that the people advocating the policy were all genocidal blood thirsty maniacs did we not?
Is it wise? Maybe not, but then Ledeen has told us how he wants that accounting to come about, and his template is the Soviet Bloc.
You say it doesn’t sound good, but read the rest of that column, he says how he would do it. The specific policies for destroying those regimes are detailed. In the case of the quote he is discussing Afghanistan. They certainly don’t sound like a call for an invasion to me across the board, instead it is just the kind of things I am talking about. Just after your quote he says this:
I think Ledeen should regret the cauldronized comment myself, but mostly because it obscures what he is talking about. He wants upheaval, stability is not his goal, democratic revolution is. Ledeen may be mistaken, but he believes instability properly supported and encouraged can have a democratic outcome as it did for much of the former Soviet Union. As he said in the column you excerpted just before that, we have not prepared the ground by adequately aiding the democratic forces. If we don’t, having one regime replaced with another dictatorship is the likely outcome.
As for the last quote, he was making the point we love winning the good fight, casualties themselves are not the metric (which Stephen Cox said as well.) We want to win. We were proud once we were roused to fight for democracy and freedom in Europe, at a truly hideous cost. You may not like his style, but his substance emphasizes democratic reform and revolution, and supporting it. He is certainly no dove, and is quite willing to use military force, but he sees its use as a sign of failure when he believes that internal reform or revolution can be fostered. He believes that is the case in most of the Middle East, whether he is right or not is another question.
The same few quotes that you have brought up have been used time and time again to claim he means something that when directly asked he is quite willing to explain. Of course almost all of his writings argue against interpreting his beliefs as being addicted to military action, but a few keep being tossed around.
Even if he had meant them at the time in the way you imply, I wouldn’t be inclined to hold them against him. What matters is what he generally argues for, his detailed position papers, books, etc. not one-off columns. All of us, including you Eric, have put things in ways that we have had to explain, or say reflected ill thought out rhetoric. How do you like it when people say, “no, you meant it exactly the way I claim you did?” However, that happens all the time with public intellectuals such as Ledeen. He can put out twenty papers and a book and have the whole things interpreted in light of a remark such as the cauldronized one above, with no one bothering to really understand his case, but looking for comments out of context which prove he wants to invade Iran today and send its people to the firing squad. I can’t stand that game.
Ledeen of course asks for it in some sense, because he is quite the trash talker. However, that doesn’t excuse Greenwald or Mona doing their typical act and taking reasonable disagreements and turning them into holy crusades against the genocidal devils. They both ridicule people for describing the Saddam’s and Assad’s of the world as mini-Hitlers, but what does it say when they balk at actual mass murderers being described in such terms but have no problem with portraying people such as Ledeen, Glenn Reynolds and other “right-wing” figures as genocidal maniacs?
I suggest that we have lost all perspective if that dichotomy doesn’t strike us as odd.
That is actually mild for Mona, who has claimed Ledeen wants nothing less than “Oceans of blood, ” not is merely endorsing policies which might lead to warfare, he actually is desirous of vast death and destruction. Forget the nonsense that Ledeen has had some great influence on our foreign policy, especially when you consider the rather stringent criticism he has leveled at this administration. Mostly for not being more aggressive in encouraging the internal resistance in Iran.
Rather I suggest we ask ourselves, if we don’t agree with his call for military strikes against the terrorist training camps, and I am certainly willing to question that, why are we not forming common cause with he and others on things we do agree on?
All the emphasis has been on showing how wrong, and more appallingly mass murderers, they are, but what about where they are right? That doesn’t seem to be on the radar at all. That strikes me as evidence most (on all sides, but most egregiously in the case of the Greenwaldians) are more concerned with fighting battles on the areas we don’t agree for domestic reasons, regardless of the outcome and effect in the Middle East. For the Sock Puppet, Mona and their sycophants making sure we know that Ledeen is a real monster matters more than actually fighting the ideological battles with people who hate us more than even the Nazi’s did. Hitler at least believed we could work together, if on his terms, on the European continent. Had Japan not attacked us he probably would have been right. The Soviets certainly could be worked with to some degree while we undermined them. What exactly can we say to the Bin Laden’s of the world? Even Iran who can be worked with to some minor degree have and continue to state that they are at war with us. Not Ledeen though, despite having a slew of policy proposals that at minimum deserve serious discussion he deserves less of a hearing than Assad. I suggest we need to learn the skills of diplomacy at home before we start lecturing Condoleeza Rice.
Sadly, we are supposed to see Assad and the hardline mullahs as amenable to dialogue, but our own domestic opponents can get no quarter, including not just Ledeen, but Glenn Reynolds or anybody who steps across some rhetorical line, even if practically there is not much to it, are to be cast in a worse light than Arafat, Assad and the hardline mullahs in Tehran. That is ridiculous. It is worse than trying to reason with the people who were sure Clinton was preparing us to be overrun by Red China. Pieces of evidence are held up as proof that we can ignore everything else we know about the people. Reynolds hates gays and wants to carpet bomb the Middle East, Walter Williams wishes to turn the entire Middle East into Hiroshima, Michael Wade endorses and praises the murder of journalists and on and on
Mona,
What is the obscenity? Is it that soldiers have died? Nor is Greg being fair in his characterization of Reynold’s views, but that is another discussion. Nor is your sin lacking politeness or decorum. You are a liar and purposely or through some kind of defect cannot tell what the truth is. Worse, your lies are used to spread vicious smears. I have read you describe things we have said here that are not only untrue, but precisely the opposite of what we have argued. Your own comments at the time prove you know what we were arguing, but you want to score points, so it doesn’t matter. You add nothing to this discussion.
As for your apocalyptic rhetoric and Greenwald’s “evidence,” there is a veritable cottage industry around showing how he claims things which upon close inspection turn out often not to even be in the sources he sites, pulled out of context, fancy uses of ellipses, exaggerated and inappropriate meanings and motives attached, etc. The same goes for you.
I laugh at you bringing up Scowcroft, whose beliefs you do not understand anymore than you do your Hayek. I have a great deal of respect for him, and I don’t care if Ledeen dislikes him, that kind of score keeping is for worshipers, such as you for Greenwald. Scowcroft has said some fairly ridiculous things as well, and endorsed some of the most cynical moves in our nations history. I can say something along those lines about everybody. That follows from his view of the role of the state in foreign policy. It isn’t my way of looking at things, but I realize realism is in vogue again. I rarely have to defend them these days as not monstrous, which I have had to do often in the past, even if I disagree. You consort with many a person who claimed they were monsters in decades past, how funny the political ball bounces.
Interesting how he opposes at this point leaving Iraq, has he now been crossed off your oracle list?
Lawless? Maybe so, but if that is true what am I to make of the other people who might rule us? Clinton? Gore? Sandy Berger? I could care less about their illegal acts at this point, but from what I can see that complaint can be leveled at every administration and group of intellectuals in our nations history. Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy and Wilson must certainly frighten you if someone like Ledeen gets your panties in a wad. All contemplated actions or had rhetoric or actually did things that would appall a relative dove like Ledeen. Criticize them or worship them, but are they monsters? Did anything connected to Iran-Contra come close to Kennedy or Roosevelt’s illegal or unconstitutional (at least as we understand them today) acts? It isn’t even close. We have higher standards today some (such as Greg Djerejian) might say, and I am certainly glad we do. However, if so, we cannot claim that those we are holding to these higher standards are evil monsters while lionizing their predecessors. It shows the shallowness of our commitment to these supposed ideals.
You are pathetic. You and Greenwald could at least spend more of your time polluting the political body by proving his case that Glenn Reynolds hates gays rather than the mass murderer angle. At least in that case you aren’t destroying the ability of people to reasonably discuss and debate something important such as the fate of millions in the Middle East. It is easier for us to laugh at you as well about something so petty and silly (and so amusingly and ridiculously untrue. Kind of like reading the old John Birch Society books.)
That you could write that, without the least intention to wax ironical, really indicates all that one needs to be known about your ability to grasp what has actually been going on in terms of our foreign policy in the last 6 years and how pernicious the neocon hegemony and influence have been. Cite my purported misunderstanding of everyone from Scowcroft to Hayek, claim you have piles of evidence that Greenwald and I lie and resort to ellipses or whatever. You have been taken for a total ride, and sadly cannot see it, at all.
It isn’t true, of course, what you accuse me and Glenn of. Greg D. admires Greenwald, and it is mutual. Indeed, Greg has emailed Glenn pieces of data –including, I believe, about Ledeen — that Greenwald has employed in updates. Salon was eager to bring Greenwald on board. Reason writers link to him approvingly, and vice versa. Random House-Crown is publishing his latest book in a few weeks. You know, all because he is so shoddy. Some influential libertarian outlets are interested in him and his book, but I am constrained from saying more about that at this point.
His effectiveness is not going to go away, Lance, just because a few hold-outs who stilll respect neocons, Glenn Reynolds and etc. lob spit balls at him. You are going to have to learn to live with that. The neocon Moment is ending; it but takes the ‘08 election to put that in cement.
If attacking people across a border is an invasion in your mind, fine.
Lance, I didn’t say that. I said he openly adocated invading Iraq. And attacking those three other countries. So that doesn’t have to follow in my mind.
Obviously he defines invasion differently than you, given his oft repeated claims that invading Iran would be a mistake and a sign of policy failure.
Lance, he’s playing a game. The same game he played with Iraq. The man went on and on endlessly about why the Bush administration should invade Iraq. But, oddly enough, he also wrote some things that made it seem as though he didn’t want war. When the war ended, he actually had the stones to claim that he never supported war in Iraq based on those contrary writings. But he was busy whipping up a war fervor with much of his public discourse. He’s doing the same thing with Iran.
Shouldn’t they all be treated as criminals? Are they not murderous thugs? Saddam, Mullah Omar, Assad, the governments of Khartoum and Tehran, and others?
What about our allies in the region? Or do we pick and choose.
The same few quotes that you have brought up have been used time and time again to claim he means something that when directly asked he is quite willing to explain. Of course almost all of his writings argue against interpreting his beliefs as being addicted to military action, but a few keep being tossed around.
It’s a game by someone who is whipping up a war fervor but wants cover. Just keep reminding yourself that this is a man that actually had the stones to deny that he supported the invasion of Iraq.
As for the last quote, he was making the point we love winning the good fight,
That’s not what he said. He said we are war like and we love war. If you change his words, then you can change his meaning. But we shouldn’t do that.
He can put out twenty papers and a book and have the whole things interpreted in light of a remark such as the cauldronized one above, with no one bothering to really understand his case, but looking for comments out of context which prove he wants to invade Iran today and send its people to the firing squad….I can’t stand that game.
Again, who is playing the game, and who is getting played. Lance, for crying out loud, the guy claims he never advocated invading Iraq. Do you not detect the faintest hint of a pattern? Instead, you squint your eyes, tilt your head and say that he deserves a most generous benefit of the doubt - even going as far as to change words around because their meanings didn’t match. Because Ledeen’s an honest sort who deserves such deference. Except for that whole Iraq invasion denialism that bears a remarkable resemblance to the current controversey. Other than that though…
If Ledeen could explain how it is that he didn’t in fact advocate for the invasion of Iraq, I might be persuaded. But otherwise, if it looks like a duck…
Oops.
By this: When the war ended…
I meant: When the war started going south…
One last comment, and I apologize for the serial nature. Ask yourself these questions, and try to be honest with yourself, and open to what your horse sense tells you:
If the US invaded Iran tomorrow, or even started bombing Iran and the conflict escalated into an all out war, do you think Michael Ledeen would be upset?
Do you think he would be frustrated, despondent, clenching his teeth at the “terrible mistake” or “failure” that such a move signified?
You know what I think Lance, and I think you know it too deep down: Ledeen would be pleased as punch.
Mona,
so Greg admires Greenwald, which proves what?
Do you read Greenwald’s critics with any comprehension at all? That kind of, “I have many people who say I am great and I have a book” talk is part of the joke about you two. Do you realize how pathetic paragraphs like that make you and he sound? I could make the same kind of defense of Ann Coulter, the little piece of soiled footwear’s rhetorical soulmate, and it would be just as laughable. Though as far as I know she at least makes a fool of herself under her own name. Yep, lots of people who want to believe the worst about those they disagree with read them both. They both claim over the top evil lurks in the “other sides” heart and legions of people who want to feel morally superior lap it up. Real good company. You know what, she even sells more books, I guess she is even more credible! How childish.
Do you wish to explain why the statement isn’t true? I can name for Roosevelt alone several policy choices and ongoing policies that make anything that has happened under Bush, or Ledeen advocated, seem quite minor. Take the Japanese internment for one. How about our treatment during wartime of German, and especially Japanese soldiers? I could go on, but those two actions alone would have Roosevelt considered a criminal by todays standards in ways that no President since can even be compared approximately, with the exception of those who take exception to the use of firebombing and using atomic weapons against Japan by Truman. I wouldn’t equate those things, but many would. Still, the two policies I mention alone make Ledeen look bad or Bush in comparison? What a joke.
Why don’t you list the four greatest crimes of this administration and let me stack them up against what occurred under Roosevelt, Kennedy and Johnson to pick just three. I’ll list the massacres, the secret bombings, the torture, the brutal treatment of prisoners, domestic spying, illegal wiretapping, Vietnam, the whole ugly mess. Bush and Clinton come off reasonably well in that comparison. Obviously you don’t know your history if you think I had any need for irony.
As for you and the Sock puppets honesty, well his moniker should seal that question. Still, I’ll give you two easy ones that require little in the way of interpretation. You implied Michael Wade commended the views of Charles Johnson, which you characterize as calling for the murder of journalists and as approving of fascism and a host of other sins. That is a pretty sloppy misrepresentation right there, since in fact Michael was arguing those were not his views at all on one particular subject, and you have no evidence that Michael and Charles share much in common at all. Now, you can debate all you want that Michael is wrong, and that Charles Johnson is denying the truth, but to imply that Michael is approving of the views you ascribe to Johnson is a misrepresentation pure and simple. Nor does our one link to LGF make us somehow aligned with him or his readers in some larger sense, though much like with Ron Paul, we often are on any particular point. Yet, Paul we hate and Johnson we are bosom buddies with according to you. I daresay we agree more often with Paul which makes your inclusion of us in your little diatribe a sham.
Now for the Sock Puppet. Does Glenn Reynolds hate gays? Is he a homophobe? Whatever you think of Reynolds generally, are you really going to claim that post of Greenwald’s was somehow honest?
Oh, and if you want to actually debate history rather than your interpretations of what people mean, tendentious readings and your vicious smears, you better come loaded for bear. I suggest the old military strategy of declaring victory and withdrawing. It has generally been your most effective tactic in my experience. Obviously none of us will see it that way, but it is likely to be far less embarrassing.
Eric,
My apologies, I assumed that remark followed from previous discussion above. If he has advocated invading in some more broad sense that I am not aware of, in some policy paper for example, please cite the source. I may even write him and ask him about the inconsistency. However, I know of no such call.
Pick and choose what? I can think of several things you might be alluding to, but Ledeen certainly would include many of our allies as murderous thugs. If we saw these governments fall should anybody weep for them? Why shouldn’t Ledeen wish for their long awaited demise? Why shouldn’t you?
You should explain that to Mona, but in this case he has elaborated on his point. So, we do not have to put the words in house mouth, he has done so himself.
Also, either way it does not justify the argument we are addressing here. If you are just going on for discussions sake, that is fine because I am enjoying it as always with you. However, since that is the genesis of the discussion, can we put to rest the idea that supporting hot pursuit, and bombing terrorist sites, which he has long and consistently stated is an option to consider, is not the same as a blitz to Tehran or evidence of uncovering the hidden agenda of which you speak? Otherwise, if he is a liar, endorsing things which he has openly advocated and never denied is not a lie. The evidence must lie elsewhere.
Can we also agree that neither makes him a genocidal maniac who wants to put most of the people in the Mideast to the sword? That is the argument we were having. You seem to be having a reasonable one, but I want to make sure we are on the same page and you are not claiming your arguments endorse such claims and rid our discussion of the Mona nonsense.
However, if you do believe that the hot pursuit and striking terrorist camps across the border is proof of a lie, that he has denied such things in the past and so we must now call him a liar over this specific thing, then let us keep to that narrow topic. If you believe that he actually cares not for anything but the joy of endless war and the slaughter of innocents because he actually hates Muslims and wants to see them all die, then probably we should keep the discussion narrower still before we get deep into the weeds of subtler distinctions. Those are our main objection objection here. If that is settled we can discuss these other things, such as he really does wish to invade Iran in the grander sense of the word and his game in more detail.
First, please answer the inquiry above, but I will touch on this. I have pointed out before how I think Ledeen would view such a thing. I actually think you might be right there, I just don’t think it means what you think it means. He despises the mullahs, and I have no doubt he would love to go in there and take them out. Frankly, so do I and many Iranians I know who would thrill to the thought. In fact, I have a hard time understanding anyone who would not want it, but wanting it does not make it wise. Ledeen has also said that he does not rule it out as the proper course of action, his judgment says it isn’t the way to go. I suspect if the invasion were decided upon he might switch to supporting its vigorous waging.
I am not sure what that observation proves however, other than if we are going to do it, he would hope it was the right course. He would believe that it was just to attempt to overthrow tyrants. He certainly wouldn’t condemn those who decided upon such a course of action as murderers. He would also say that he would have preferred we had chosen another course, that we had really tried for a democratic internal revolution. This has happened many times in the past, where men who argued for a different policy supported another when war finally broke out.
I, for example, wasn’t in favor of the first Gulf war, but once it was underway I cheered our soldiers on and argued firmly for a vigorous campaign that would remove one of the twentieth centuries most horrid dictators. I would have expected that it might be a long time to stabilize the country. I was thrilled with our victory and dismayed at the realist move to leave him in power and leave those rising up against them to his tender mercies. If we hadn’t, and the war had dragged on I would have expected us to continue it for quite some time, and argued against the early withdrawal.
Did that make my pre-war opposition false? I certainly never would have considered undermining the effort nor claiming the war was unjust, and argued vociferously against those who cast it in the most pernicious light. I would expect no less from Ledeen, though he might surprise both you and I on that matter. We should tread carefully when assuming we can read the hidden areas of men’s souls. Our own biases are too strong to trust in such matters.
My apologies, I assumed that remark followed from previous discussion above. If he has advocated invading in some more broad sense that I am not aware of, in some policy paper for example, please cite the source. I may even write him and ask him about the inconsistency. However, I know of no such call.
Just to be clear here: I said he advocated “invading” Iraq. And “attacking” those three other countries. Although I do believe that Michael Ledeen is smart enough to know that “attacks” often lead to all out “wars.”
Are you asking me for citations to the fact that Ledeen supported the invasion of Iraq? Or were we just in a semantic mix up over invasion vs. attack?
Can we also agree that neither makes him a genocidal maniac who wants to put most of the people in the Mideast to the sword? That is the argument we were having. You seem to be having a reasonable one, but I want to make sure we are on the same page and you are not claiming your arguments endorse such claims and rid our discussion of the Mona nonsense.
Mona is quite capable of speaking for herself. I’m only discussing my arguments for the time being.
However, if you do believe that the hot pursuit and striking terrorist camps across the border is proof of a lie, that he has denied such things in the past and so we must now call him a liar over this specific thing, then let us keep to that narrow topic.
It is exactly this type of parsing that Ledeen is after when he continues to whip up war fervor, while maintaining enough plausible deniability. Again, a point that you haven’t addressed: He did the same thing with the Iraq invasion!!!!
He despises the mullahs, and I have no doubt he would love to go in there and take them out. Frankly, so do I and many Iranians I know who would thrill to the thought.
Most Iranians in Iran, who would have their country set ablaze, would not be so thrilled. But Lance, for Ledeen, it would not be about an “after the fact” cheerleading.
Either way: if you could resolve his position on the Iraq war (zealous advocate beforehand/currently denies he EVER supported the invasion), then I might be inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt on Iran.
Until then, I say: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice….
Lance:
Frist, the reason I recited Greenwald’s CV is because you petulantly and acidly claimed he’s totally discredited, dishonest & etc. No better than Coulter. The entities that find value in his work are not remotely at the level of those who think Ann Coulter is awesome. As for Reynolds and homophobia, I only vaguely recall the comment you are referencing, and seems it was something along the lines of Reynolds being willing to throw gays under the bus for his Bush-approving political agenda. And the intellectual level of most of those who “joke” about me on this subject renders such joking wholly undisturbing to me.
Second, and about the other presidents. I’m no FDR fan, and certainly not one of LBJ’s. Indeed, I just finished reading Robert McNamara’s In Retrospect, about what went so tragically wrong in Vietnam. The lesson is that some people learn no lessons. I think one of the new bloggers at Henley’s sums up nicely why BushCo is so uniquely rancid:
Eric,
I am sorry. Posting late. I thought you wrote Iran, not Iraq. Poor reading while working quickly. As for Iran, Pakistan and Syria, yes he has if you mean limited strikes against camps where people who are attacking our troops are based. That has generally been considered an act of war in the past around the world, and was of course the justification for attacking Afghanistan. In Pakistan’s case, striking the camps across the border seems particularly unexceptional, given that the government of Pakistan has no little to no control over those areas. We would be targeting no military assets of the government at all (except possibly ISI elements playing their double game. So, while possibly unwise, it does seem rather an ordinary, even measured in historical terms, response. Few countries or leaders would be as forbearing as we have been (assuming of course they were engaged in combat in another country in the first place.)
So if he is guilty of being willing to do that, it hardly seems all that exceptional to me.
Exactly, so I just wanted to make sure I was reading you correctly, and that that was not the case you are trying to support, since that is what we were discussing when you brought up your own objections to Ledeen.
As for Ledeen’s game, maybe you are right. Maybe he wants us to invade militarily. Does that make discussing his expressed policies a bad idea? Does that not mean, if we truly care about striking a blow against a terrorist supporting government and giving the Iranian people relief from their murderous state, that we shouldn’t call his bluff then? Shouldn’t we be willing to make common cause with those arguing for the peaceful democratic change option and the full measure of policies he is advocating for? We can all sit around at our keyboards trying to read the tea leaves of what his ultimate goal is, or we could build support for a vigorous campaign to build strike funds, supply communications technology, dissident radio and internet campaigns. Publicly and loudly build support around the world for openly telling the Iranian people we support their efforts and the specific steps we will take to help. Then, as he and others from diverse ideological backgrounds hopefully see some success his military option would be increasingly irrelevant. I think he himself would be pleased as punch, he certainly was happy enough with the collapse of the governments in Eastern Europe without the opportunity to wage war. It doesn’t matter, use him and others on the areas we agree on.
Instead, those who hate the neo-cons, Ledeen and this administration spend their time defeating them, and for many, no smear is too extreme, while the people of Iran still suffer and the Mullahs keep funding terrorists. If everyone spent even one fifth of the time building grass roots support for both the democracy movement in Iran and for our political leaders on both sides of the aisle (and talk about budget friendly) and around the world to support them in their struggles Ledeen’s game, if it is one, would be moot. He also would be in poor shape to argue for such an invasion, as his own words would come back to haunt him, as you claim they have in Iraq.
To me the issue is not Ledeen’s veracity, which seems no worse than most in my experience (though some call me jaded and cynical. I, for one, think it explains my sunny disposition. I expect so little that I am rarely disappointed) but the extreme distortion which obscures issues which should be foremost on our agenda. If Ledden doesn’t really believe in the policies he advocates, that is fine as long as he convinces enough people to actually do many of the policies he advocates. Instead we are all debating his desire to see dead bodies piled high, his secret plan to invade Iran and other matters and ignoring all the rest. I might say no big deal if anybody else was arguing for a concerted effort to give the Iranian people a chance for some increase in their freedom but, outside of vague calls for diplomacy and acknowledging the Mullah’s undesirability, where are they? In fact, the exiles are treated as suspect, as inconvenient and inauthentic. They want action and their motives are portrayed as petty and personal, corrupt or worse. As if that couldn’t be said of any group, yet. Ledeen has an audience, why don’t we engage it and him?
“He started it, he says mean things.” I hear the wordy version of that all the time. Like I said, call his bluff it is one. he has made several moves to show despite his combative rhetoric that he is willing to find allies from all persuasions. His real enemies are the realists who prefer stasis, not those who want change. he doesn’t care if you are a democrat or a liberal if you share his goals, even if you don’t agree with every prescription. As I pointed out before, negotiate with Assad, but not Ledeen?
Lance:
A further point. This is not the writing of an Ann Coulter. It is quintessentially libertarian, legally sound, and a defense of the fundamental constitutional order of the United States of America. Since he didn’t live when FDR was in power, and was in nappies during the Vietnam war, one would not expect him to spend a good deal of time criticizing historical figures; focusing on the present constitutional crisis is sensible, and so that is what he does.
You are clueless Mona, and yes, Greenwald’s propaganda techniques are exactly the type Coulter uses. That you don’t see it that way is not surprising, Coulter would deny she uses his techniques as well, just as Michael Moore doesn’t see himself as analogous to right wing conspiracy theorists and truthers don’t see themselves as analogous to other similar wacko’s either. Huffing about the intellectual level of those who mock you and Greenwald’s constant puffing of his resume, even under aliases, or pointing out how many people think you are great, just illustrates the point all the more.
Typical non responsive answer on the history question. Saying, “he is so worse” is not evidence, it is called assertion, and given just the two things I brought up a laughable one. When has Ledeen advocated anything as awful as the internment? Has Bush? Treatment of prisoners? Massacres? Domestic spying and surveillance? On any of those things can Ledeen or Bush look bad in comparison? No.
The funny things is, I am somewhat of a Roosevelt fan, but I know the truth, and have some perspective.
Instead we are all debating his desire to see dead bodies piled high, his secret plan to invade Iran and other matters and ignoring all the rest.
Look, his overt plan is to send in ground troops and launch a pretty comprehensive set of airstrikes. But we are to act as if Ledeen honestly believes we could militarily attack Iran in such a manner, and that the conflict would end there. Iran would just shrug its collective shoulders and say: Well, you got us there. Good punch! We’ll just be going on our way then.”
In fact, to suggest that Ledeen is too intelligent to think such a thing is to posit a “secret plan to invade Iran.”
To me, it’s not so secret. It’s as simple as A goes to B goes to C.
In fact, Fallon and Gates are opposed to airstrikes because they know that A goes to B goes to C. They’re not opposed because they think Iran won’t respond in a way that would escalate the conflict.
But you would have us believe that Ledeen believes this because he kicks up dust with some disingenuous writings.
The same way he did with Iraq (I note, you still haven’t been able to resolve this conundrum).
Anyway, we’re probably not going to convince each other. You’re entitled to continue thinking that Ledeen is a relative dove because he only advocated incursions with ground forces and a comprehensive campaign of aerial bombardment. And I’m entitled to think Ledeen is clever enough to realize that if he gets his wish, the logical will follow.
I’m content to leave it there. Thanks, as always Lance, for a solid conversation (though feel free to respond, I wasn’t trying to score the last word - though it is in my lawyer’s blood).
And one more thing, Jacob Sullum makes essentially the same points Greenwald does:
But he failed to take any note of FDR or LBJ’s sins. Silly goose. He seems to think Bush is dangerous anyway. (Btw, when FDR wiretapped domestically, it was not against the law. Ditto for LBJ. But I am unaware that either man endorsed or promulgated torture.)
And then there is this, from Sadly, No!. If you think Greenwald is scathing about the fundamental weasel-tude of the supposed “libertarian” Glenn Reynolds, one can find justified smackdowns like this with great frequency, and few do it better than SN.
Whoa! Ignore a thread a few days and it explodes! One might even say that we’ve been … invaded.
I don’t have time to address all of the comments above, but I do want to stress a couple of things:
(1) The topic of this post was how Mona blatantly distorted the words of Lieberman and Ledeen so that she could impugn the character of Ledeen, presumably Lieberman, and make us here at AHSC look like dolts. Needless to say I took exception to her characterization. Even if Ledeen has advocated invading Iran at some other point, and thus he is a liar for saying that he hasn’t, the evidence marshalled by Mona does not support that contention at all.
Personally, I know very little of Ledeen except for Lance’s interview and Mona crusade. If he is a liar, I really don’t care because I carry no water for the man. However, I won’t stand by and allow Mona to denigrate me and my brethren with lies and distortions.
(2) With respect to the points you have raised, Eric, they have absolutely nothing to do with whether or not Ledeen lied in this instance. You claim that he is essentially calling for all-out war with Iran, but that is (a) not an invasion, (b) not something he denies AFAIK, and (c) not indicative of having some secret plan. Why would Ledeen openly call for military operations, inter alia, against Iran, but shy away from calling for an invasion? Especially if, as you say, he openly did so in the case of Iraq? I don’t mean to say that you are necessarily wrong, but nothing you have cited or written above remotely makes the case that Ledeen is being sneaky or secretive. Naive? Perhaps, yes. But one cannot be both naive and devious on the same issue at the same time. Either he doesn’t understand the wider implications and is naive, or he does and is willfully hiding that fact from his readers. Which is it?
(3) Regarding the topic of this now-hijacked thread, I have no idea what the correct action is with respect to Iran, although I am certain that doing nothing is the wrong answer. War by half-measures, as I said above, is not a good idea IMHO, but I’m not sanguine about an all out ground war with Iran (and, most likely, Syria) at this time. I agree with Lieberman and Ledeen that we can’t sit idly by and let Iran get away with the proxy war it is fighting against us. What we should do, however, is not something I’m prepared to answer right now.
(4) Mona: You are embarrassing yourself. Each comment is more shrill than the last, and you haven’t begun to address the topic of the post. I am enjoying your nonsensical ranting, but you may want to take a step back and think for a moment before continuing with this ridiculously petty tirade of yours. When you opine about the intellectual level of you detractors, you should bear in mind that nobody with any sense will ever accuse me of being stupid. That you would do so now is just, well, sad.
Yippee! I got the “S” word lobbed at me — Bush critics everywhere online, Michael, love it when we are derided as shrill, and have begun calling ourselves that and offering it as a compliment to one another. Indeed, I expect the “Shrillitude Awards” to commence at some point.
BTW, I don’t think you are stupid. Note I said “most” of my detractors who “joke” about me are. I have in mind the comments section at PW and the like. (ASHC is light-years ahead of Dan Riehl, Ace, Malkin or even QandO when it comes to writing ability, and analysis of some issues.) Michael Ledeen is a liar, covertly and overtly. That is so well documented by now that only the willfully blind could fail to see it. He has to know, as Eric has pointed out, what it is that his “bombing” and endorsement of Lieberman’s weaselly but-I’d-leave-it to-the-generals-whether-there-should-be-troops-crossing-the- border, means. Because whatever else Michael Ledeen is, he also is not stupid.
Eric,
Hey, I granted that to concentrate on other themes. The point of the post is that Ledeen is not proposing a full scale invasion. That you think it unwise I get, though such things have been done before without widening wars, I am willing to grant that you are likely right to address the point that it is not a sudden conversion. He has long advocated striking the training camps, bases and pursuing those who retreat across borders. That may be stupid, but it is not something he hasn’t srgued for before. That was the claim. It stands as far as I can see as refuted.
That comment was in the context of history, not Iran.
And, being more hawkish than others in many respects hardly means he doesn’t want some things to be tried before that. I am not sure why he wouldn’t prefer an easier path, even if he is quite willing to invade at some future point. Maybe he just likes the idea of killing more than victory, but his history in other democracy movements seems to say that isn’t true. maybe he is tired of it and wants some good old fashioned bloodshed, but that you feel he is dishonest about Iraq doesn’t seem to prove that. The amount of dishonesty about their positions on Iraq seems rather endemic across the board from what I can see. Not many people would be left in the discussion if that is the bar for participation. Maybe they all were bloodthirsty, Mona wanted to bomb the place into the stone age according to her own testimony, but at least she is being honest about that. Though I think it says a lot about her temperament then and now.
I don’t see where he has advocated a comprehensive bombardment, but if he has then that would be a change. I see a call for limited strikes against assets specifically being used to attack us. Once again, maybe a bad idea, but hardly an unusual response. You can choose to connect the dots if you will, but that seems to have led us to believe Saddam must have WMD because in our view his behavior didn’t make sense otherwise. Your logic may not be his logic, even assuming your logic is as airtight as you think it is. Personally, I generally feel that if logic were so clear a guide most of us would agree more often. Unfortunately logic only works that well in controlled circumstances. Instead we get a whole bunch of people arguing that the other is being illogical. I see no evidence that right, left, liberal, conservative or even libertarians are any better at logic, or that even those who are feel the same inputs into their equations can be discovered. So when we logic out what someone else’s real motives are we are treading on very unstable ground. You however may have far more talent for discerning such things than most of our intellectual elite, and certainly far more than I am blessed with.
Who said Bush isn’t dangerous? You voted for him, I didn’t. Maybe I am better at spotting danger than you think. I just see no evidence he is particularly dangerous compared to past leaders who all did dangerous things.
Now we are back to the next non-responsive technique, which is somebody else agrees without actually addressing the point. Can I point out again that Scowcroft doesn’t think we should leave yet since you have praised him so effusively in the past?
That is part of the problem with appeals to authority, sometimes your authority doesn’t work out the way you hoped they would.
I gave you two examples for Roosevelt that all by themselves exceed anything Bush has done or Ledeen advocated, and you can’t address them, unless you meant specifically torture. Well, for your benefit people were tortured, though in most of the cases I doubt the allies considered it torture, though today we surely would (just like most of what the Bush administration is accused of fostering or allowing wouldn’t have been considered torture then, which doesn’t mean it isn’t or that it isn’t awful whatever you want to call it.) I wasn’t talking about that specifically, but about the treatment of prisoners in general. Gitmo is Disney World in comparison. If you want I’ll put up massive documentation of that, along with summary executions, massacres and all kinds of other stuff which occurred while he was Commander in Chief. Or, you can just admit that internment alone makes the point and save us all a lot of typing.
As for wiretapping, it may not have been illegal, but it would not pass Constitutional muster today (and his court packing pretty much gave Roosevelt whatever he wanted on the war) and in general the pervasive use of domestic surveillance was far more extensive. That our leaders didn’t cry out seems like a pretty poor excuse if the various practices were so inherently awful. So I guess if the Republicans had made it all okay legally in your mind it would have been okey dokey? Either way it doesn’t change that they did it, and on a massive scale by todays standards, and with far less concern about procedural safeguards than the Bush administration. Especially with regards to people of Japanese descent, whose travails and constitutional nakedness only begins with internment.
Finally, using Sadly No with me has about as much credibility as me using Rush Limbaugh would to you. Since you seem to be looking for authorities whose views will by sheer force of reputation force me to concede, I suggest I don’t respect anyone enough for that alone to work. I have far more respect for Joshua here (hence my invitation for him to post) and his mere pronouncement on an issue doesn’t make one whit of difference. His evidence and reasoning does. Why this tic about Reynolds has driven you to keep inserting him into this conversation is beyond me, and doesn’t address the dishonesty of Greenwald’s claim he was anti-gay at all. Funny though, when I read that post today, I actually specualted, as I often do, about how it would be misrepresented if a Greenwaldian (or the Great Puppet himself) decided to take aim, and I thought:
Which you have provided the first evidence I have seen that my surmise was correct. Now, how anyone who reads Reynolds could possibly decide that he is actually endorsing censorship, or feel its justified, is a psychological question that I am not qualified to answer. I am sure if he said he was opposed to CAFE standards, but felt that the auto companies had handled reduction emissions technologies badly, and that it should not surprise them that there were calls for regulation, that I would not go running off and claiming he was in favor of them. However, I have seen that when it comes to those who want to make any claim no matter how fanciful, and who want to believe anything about those they disagree with, any interpretation will do. The post is laughable. Reynolds has been outspoken about press freedom, freedom of speech and freedom on the internet in great contradiction to many conservatives and liberals. He may be a bad libertarian, but this isn’t the issue to prove it, nor is gay rights.
Oh and I should have addressed that. Despite his long standing (the puppet calls it cursory) support for many gay rights issues Greenwald read this:
and used it to claim Reynolds was “demonizing gay people.” Uh, do you see any demonizing? If you do you need even more help than I thought. He also wasn’t claiming it was just a strategy, he claimed it reflected Reynolds own true feelings about gays. How he knows that based on taking one quote which doesn’t prove his case, out of context so that his readers unless they clicked through wouldn’t realize the whole thing was pretty supportive of Ford, because that would have undermined the supposed smearing of Ford that Reynolds was party to. It was pathetic. Very Coulteresque.
I can’t prove it, because the Inactivist archives are gone with the ether. But what I said was that immediately post-9/11, I, like many, was in a fury of war fervor (but I don’t think I said I had advocated bombing Iraq “into the stone age.”) Dave Weigel says he was also almost blind with rage and wanting to see bombs and troops smashing and killing. Then we settled down.
Ledeen, however, as I wrote and documented at Inactivist, expressly wants us to maintain the immediately post-9/11 anger level and not settle down. Why do you suppose that is?
Why would Ledeen openly call for military operations, inter alia, against Iran, but shy away from calling for an invasion?
Good question. Can you think of any reasons? Some more good questions:
Why did David Brooks claim that there was no such thing as “neoconservatives”? Why did Joshua Muravchik claim that it was a “canard” to think that neoconservative thought had roots in Leo Strauss and Trotsky? Why did Ledeen himself deny that he supported invading Iraq when he obviously did? This is one of his recent denials:
That is what the man said. Why would he say that when he had said stuff like this in the run-up to the invasion:
Cherished conviction? Desperately needed? Long overdue? Interesting. How overdue is long overdue you might ask. Michael Ledeen would answer:
And this:
The answer has to do with the defenses that you and Lance are providing him now - and a general tendency on the part of neoconservatives to feel uncomfortable with scrutiny and openness. I explain my theory here if interested. Short version:
First, it is better to advocate for policies that are easier for the public to swallow (”just some airstrikes and minor ground incursions, at which point Iran will implode in revolution”) - especially when they will likely get you to the desired end result anyway. With Iraq, all out invasion was already easy to swallow so less need to dissemble. And yet, even with Iraq, we get the post hoc duplicity.
Second, kick up enough dust that you can (with some measure of audacity I admit) later claim that you opposed military action if things go south. That way you can fool enough people into providing cover for you so that you can maintain your credibility and air of sagacity.
Either he doesn’t understand the wider implications and is naive, or he does and is willfully hiding that fact from his readers. Which is it?
The latter. Which I consider devious. Another of Ledeen’s calls to non-militarily measures:
Does someone want to argue that coming to Baghdad, Damascus and Tehran as “liberators” does not imply invasion? If so, I’m sure Ledeen feels eternally grateful.
Yes, and you’ve said the same of Greg D. I haven’t definitively opined on what we should do in Iraq, because I feel my former support for the neocon/Bush position leaves my credibility on such matters in tatters. I tend to think withdrawal is the best option, and I base that on my reading of McNamara’s book, who is in a “been there, done that” position of deep self-recrimination for what he and others failed to face at the time. But I also take what Scowcroft and Greg say as worth considering, because they are not manifestly dangerous warmongers. To my knowledge, tho, Greg thinks the “surge” and its architects are a lethal joke.
Well that is progress Mona. It seems to me that claims about those that advocate staying, which you have made, imply all kinds of awful and terrible things, must be wrong if people you say are not insane warmongers can also believe them.
Could you provide a link? As said, I only vaguely recall that particular discussion. But you said Glenn G. had called Reynolds a homophobe, which strikes me as unlikely since he so seldom uses that epithet. In any event, I’d have to read Glenn G.’s whole post to opine intelligently on the matter.
Says the Rosie O’Donnell of left libertarianism (TM).
I’ll say one thing for you though, you certainly never miss a chance at a cheap shot, do you?
I’m sorry if you feel that way, but I do not find much gravtias in your recent additions. Much as I disagree with Lance, Michael and the others here, they do have a much less superficial analytical standard and more sophisticated prose style. And really, McQ, I’ve seldom seen anything as infantile as that post which you titled with an adolescent play on my name.
“Advocate staying” is not the end of the issue. Staying at what troops levels, with what mission, and for how long? And with what concomitant diplomatic maneuvers accepted or rejected? Or with what enthusiasm for broadening the battlefied outside of Iraq?
Good Mona, we are for once discussing on the same page. Greg wanted (though he may now feel it is impractical, I have been busy and haven’t read much lately) he wants more troops and a stronger commitment to democracy. His problem with the surge is it is too small, which it may well be.
Heh … I figured that was the basis of the cheap shot. I know its tough when you get back what you dish out, Mona, but you, by now, should at least be figuring out that’s how the world works.
Actually Eric, I would argue none of those quotes mean what you think they do, I didn’t realize you were making your claim based on those, but unfortunately we get into a circular problem of logic. If your base assumption is he wanted to invade Iraq, then it is easy to see them in that light, and I am once again naive. I certainly would not claim Ledeen hated the Iraq invasion, he certainly wanted Saddam taken down, but he also warned before hand of why it was dangerous before trying other options. The invasion was coming, at that point Ledeen was arguing what to do next.
We’ll just have to disagree about what he meant, and you are fee to call it cover if you wish. Think I am wrong, but when I read those at the time I didn’t think it meant he had abandoned his former policy prescriptions. I do think he was glad to get on with the conflict. If that meant invasion, then start, don’t wait around. By the way. Could you give me that link. I haven’t read that discussion in a while, and I don’t remember what publication it was in. It might even be in our archives in a comment, I think I brought it up before, but if you have it at your fingertips all the easier. I seem to remember something else in the interview that made my point a bit clearer.
In the end though it doesn’t matter, he is no dove and whether he was honest about that does not mean his policies are all warlike or not deserving of serious and reasoned discussion. Just as while some of Matthew Yglesias’ policy suggestions appall me in their insouciance toward other peoples and our right to bargain with their lives (such as in the Ukraine or Lebanon) I would never attempt to ride him out of serious discussion. Much too bright and too much sense to ignore. Most people seem to me (though obviously they disagree) to believe some ridiculous things about any number of issues, I don’t automatically assume because I feel they are illogical that they don’t sincerely believe them.
You call me naive, but I don’t think so. In fact, I think much of the anger towards our opponents in politics is caused by an excess of naivete. We vastly underestimate our fellow mens capacity for self deception and illogic, and therefore assume that our opponents are dishonest or stupid. We also tend to even more readily discount our own blindness, which is why I have consistently concluded you may be right, but that your certainty is misplaced. Not only about his and others motivations and reasons, but about the outcomes of the policies they promote.
If the current state of affairs in Iraq has chastened many who were overly optimistic about our ability to right that ship following the invasion, it has also allowed a bunch of people to ignore their own failures of prescience by claiming its difficulty proves they knew what was going to happen. Of course reading the actual predictions at the time shows how many things they got very wrong. Pretty much everybody did, with the opponents mistakes having the not inconsiderable virtue of at least having been right that it could end up being a negative. I say this not to claim everybody was just as wrong, but to point out that war opponents only got the big picture approx. right, and some who got the big picture wrong on the pro-invasion side got far more specific events correct. This is not scorekeeping, I only mean, why would we be so sure of the predictability of any outcome by anybody?
Nobody, including myself, has shown any great prescience over time on foreign policy when it comes to discrete events and outcomes. Some bat a bit better than average, but that is it. I’ll pat myself on the back, but only because I took the easy cop-out on what would happen, which happens to be the correct view of how to view outcomes of policy choices. I predicted before the invasion of Iraq was a major topic the types of things that we would see down the road. I had no blog, and in fact only spent a little time online back then. So I can’t quote myself. However, I was in discussion with a friend, a long time liberal, who was of course angered by 9/11 and was ready to strike back. He was also dismayed by the reaction of the academic left (having recently left the academic world of the English Department.) The conversation went something along these lines:
Bush is going to strike back, however, this is going to be a long struggle on many fronts, we are going to make awful mistakes, we will have large failures, we’ll actually lose some battles (I was intending that to be about actual individual military actions) even whole units (which has thankfully not happened, though in the initial invasion there some units in serious danger.) Our troops will do some terrible things (in fact they have exceeded my expectations) and the criticism will be huge in the media, and internationally every time things are difficult, failures and mistakes occur, human rights violations, etc. I am not predicting this because of Bush, I am predicting this because that is the way it always is and always will be. If we invade Iraq and also our campaign in Afghanistan, we will have setbacks. We could even fail and end up leaving and need as a nation to move on. Civil war, more terrorist attacks, all could easily be in our future even if we are eventually successful. Our enemies will strike back. It is not a given that over the short or intermediate term our enemies will not grow more powerful. They will do so if we don’t do anything militarily, but they may if we do so as well. We will do things which shame us, we’ll enact policies we regret (overreact) as well as not enacting some we will wish we should (underreact.)
When the invasion of Iraq came I was hopeful, but also knew any number of outcomes based on variables too large for anyone to process would drive the ups and downs of what happened. Maybe we should have done what Rumsfeld wanted, invade, grab Saddam and bug out. Dare I say if we had and it had descended into chaos we would be criticized for leaving? I can hear Djerejian now, since he was complaining about having someone who wanted that kind of policy in charge of Iraq’s military campaign all along. The chaos was Rumsfeld’s fault, he didn’t have a commitment to democracy! Of course he would have been right, but we would be out?
I say this all just to reiterate, we have no one with a very good track record for prediction, except in the most banal of ways, such as my dark view of history’s lessons. Neither you nor I know that Iran would emerge in a better position and ours worse from such a confrontation. You can think you know that, and of course you could end up right. More likely the outcome would be more ambiguous with everyone arguing that what comes next proves they were right.
Not that it is going to happen anyway. If we do strike the camps, it will be very limited in my opinion, no large scale attacks on Iranian units or military assets. my guess, and I make no claim it is any more than that, is that it has no great consequences for us if we do so. Iran will continue doing what it does. Some minor improvement might occur, though I would expect initially an attempt to up the tempo of operations on their part. The major good, if any comes at all, is the emboldening of the Iranian dissidents. The major bad may be turning the some portion of the population against us in a nationalistic fashion. I don’t think Iran has all that much more mischief they can do, especially if we are willing to strike their camps. Increasing commitments makes them easier targets. Would they be more willing to compromise or less? It seems attacking us leads to wanting to compromise and calls for being mature enough not to respond, does that only work with us?
Anyway, a limited strike of that nature doesn’t seem likely to be all that momentous, except if the regimes real impotence is shown and dissension internally picks up. That, given our feeble efforts to strengthen that opposition seems unlikely as well.
I also would point out we don’t have to let the war widen if we don’t want to. Large actions by Iran would be foolhardy in the extreme, I predict the regime would fall, and we wouldn’t have to even cross the border, small actions are not likely to expand dramatically, they may even decline over time.
McQ, I have never resorted to such childishness when discussing your POV. Ever. And I don’t “dish out” such to others, either. Your blog’s integrity has disintegrated since Jon left. I don’t even read it anymore unless someone links to it for a reason I find worth checking out. Your play on my name is simply emblematic of how the quality has fallen since Jon is no longer around to inspire some decorum and intellectual seriousness.
In all sincerity, the writers here exhibit much more intellectual heft, and it isn’t as if they are part of my fan club. (I believe Michael once called me the Wicked Witch or some such, but he still writes at a level several magnitudes above the recent fare at QandO.)
Wait.
Lance.
Are you seriously saying that this:
That is not advocating for war with Iraq? The “dire need to invade” should have motivated us to do so “yesterday”
But oh, I’m actually opposed to war with Iraq?
Anyway, a link and more excerpts from the interview can be found here. Some additional segments that make Ledeen look even more mendacious:
Sounds like someone who thinks invading Iraq would be a “terrible” mistake and a “failure” of policy.
BTW: That interview was from August 2002. Not exactly the eve of invasion - such that Ledeen had a last minute switch from opposition to advocacy.
Similarly, from September 2002:
Begin the war? Our military power would do the rest?
Sound like fighting words to me. But maybe I’m just misinterpreting what he means by “military power” and “war”?
Wow Eric. I was just writing a response which pointed out that very strategy. Good work, because that is the closest to describing his real approach prior to the war. More later, I have a mortgage to apply for.
Good luck with the mortgage!!!
But let me preempt one thing:
Just because Ledeen had a preferred strategy for launching war with Iraq, does not mean that he did not advocate launching war with Iraq. He had steps he wanted first, but one of those steps was in fact invading Iraq.
To claim he didn’t support the invasion later is, what they call in the business, bull.
Eric, correct me if I’m wrong, but when you wrote:
I think you meant Iran.
Well, in this instance I was actually talking about Iraq. In that he had specific steps he wanted to follow prior to the invasion of Iraq. Though, if the shoe fits…;)
What was so childish about it Mona? I thought it did a great job of parodying your berserker style and the fact that you were irony impaired. All while you were getting your behind smacked by Jeff G and the PWers.
I can’t help it if you take such things personally or aren’t familiar with “The Name Game”.
Frankly I thought I captured you rather well, but your mileage may vary.
Funny, that’s precisely what people have said about Unqualified Offerings since you took up residence there. However, you do at least live up to the name.
Well that’s fair. Puts us in the same boat as far as that goes …. I only see you when you’re over here ranting about something or over at PW denigrating something else.
Rants are a dime a dozen and yours would be overpriced even at that.
You have a serious lack of humor, Mona and that’s evident whenever you appear. The fact that you didn’t understand where the title came from is flat hilarious.
For those who missed the post Mona is whining about, check it out. Tell me this isn’t her in a bag or that she’s not irony impaired. And tell me it isn’t at least somewhat amusing. Also leave it to Mona not to remember who fired the first shot in the short battle (clue: it wasn’t ” the authoritarian, war-mongering, “neo-libertarian” sites”).
Note that when Mona is bitingly sarcastic, well, that’s what it is, by gosh, but when anyone else is and she’s the target, well then it’s “infantile”.
How would you know, Mona? You just got through saying:
“I don’t even read it anymore unless someone links to it for a reason I find worth checking out.”
Is that a lie, or is this a lie?
Hey McQ, we take our praise where we can get it! This is the first time we have been compared favorably to you guys. Let me bask in glory;^)
Well, I’m glad to see this post is living up to its title.
I don’t know, McQ. She may you have you there (although, I have no idea what the wicked witch thing is about). That’s a pretty damning argument, if you ask me. With faint praise anyway.
Which gives me an idea. Maybe we should start a list of quotes on the sidebar. Y’know, “What people are saying about ASHC!” Our first blurb could be:
This has potential.
Heh … well consider the fact that we just caught Mona in a whopper before you get into full basking posture. ;)
Only if you append “Mona, the Rosie O’Donnell of left libertarianism” at the end so readers can get the true picture of the person saying it.
And fair warning Michael … basing your blog’s worth on what Mona considers as “intellectual heft” could really come back and bite you in the @ss pretty quickly. ;)
I’ll get back after I re-read the interview, but at the time I thought of it as he was willing to do it as opposed to nothing. he had his own ideas, but those were not on the table. Now, did he consider it a terrible mistake? That is a fair query, but I do think he thought of it as a failure of policy at the time. He felt we should have used the existing structure of the north and south as no go zones for Saddam’s forces, as safe havens and called upon the rest of the country to rebel. Seems like a pretty shaky plan, but then so was invading, continuing the sanctions and a host of other options. They were all shaky and most had unpleasant courses even if eventually successful.
**I see Eric has beat me to the punch on this, so I am going back and expanding this point. Here is his explanation after the fact which tracks fairly closely with what Eric is saying:
So in discussing Ledeen’s conception of how he views his recommendations retrospectively, he sees this as the core of what he was arguing for, the military option being the next step if necessary. So no, I don’t think at the time he hated the invasion, it just wasn’t the manner he wanted it [Iraq] handled.
***
I don’t feel any individual interview, discussion or other event defines someones views. I don’t know how many such discussions you have taken part in, but often a group setting leads to some making statements you don’t agree with, but do have a relevant point to make. Once again, when the interview was held I read it as Ledeen responding to the question, not necessarily how it was framed. He wanted to win, and advocated a lot of ways to do that, in numerous forums. Finding the ones where it appears as he is in favor of invading because the moderator used the word invade, and the phrase “convinced of the necessity” does not prove that. Why in other forums did he say otherwise? Maybe on that day he was convinced. I don’t know. As I said earlier, his views at any one moment in time don’t define he or anyone else’s views for all time. I do think he is overstating his opposition. My own impression was it was one option amongst many, just not his favorite or first choice. Certainly he had no hand in the policy one way or the other.
If that is the standard for declaring someone a particularly dishonest person, what do I make of the rest of our political and intellectual class? Clinton? Gore? A man who had some of the most warmongering rhetoric about Saddam that we heard from any politician, who emphatically claimed Saddam had WMD and now wishes to act like he never said any of that stuff? Now I am no great fan of Gore, but he is pretty standard issue on this kind of thing. I daresay I can make everybody look bad under that standard.
Let us take Yglesias, who I have a lot of admiration for. On one hand he wants to criticize Kirkpatrick for supporting dictatorships, while he contemplates handing Georgia and the Ukraine to Putin on a silver platter. Hell, just go and read my post on this, but you will notice, I echo some of the same themes about how to judge Yglesias and his inconsistencies (whether merely apparent or real) as I do here with Ledeen.
Here is an example or two of those should you wish to avoid reading the three posts to see that I am consistent as I can be, which is certainly not perfect. From the posts referenced in the post above:
The parts in bold should seem to be familiar themes from this discussion. I should also add sometimes people are just off their own reservation a fairly high percentage of the time. Bad day, caught up with what other people are saying, etc.
In conclusion,
1) Whatever he is, ledeen has not been found to be changing his spots in this instance.
2) The claim of him as a genocidal madman is baseless. He may be one, but no evidence has ever been presented that he is actually desirous of “Oceans of Blood.”
3) He may be overstating his opposition to the invasion of Iraq, but:
a) The vast majority of his writings and statements on actual policies emphasize
non-military options and support for democratic movements. Maybe not the best
policies, but hardly showing a lust for blood, but arguably a naive belief in the
efficacy of supporting democracy either through suasion and money or the
application of military power.
b) None of that proves he wants a large scale war with Iran. If he is so disheartened
by Iraq’s experience that he is crawfishing as you say, why would he want to do
the same thing, especially while Iraq is still going on? I see no change in his policy.
He has been very consistent. If he was on Iraq he isn’t now.
4) None of which means we shouldn’t be working on the things where we agree with Ledeen. Where is the left, libertarians, most of the right for that matter, when it comes to supporting democratic change in Iran? At least Ledeen is doing something, and not just in his columns.
Oh geez, McQ, of course I recognized it — I’m almost 51 and was all hyper-teen when that song was the rage — I just wouldn’t resort to such a silly characterization from my adolescence about. If you think my positions merit such a title and response, well, ok. But I’ve never done that to you, and I even defended you against those who misrepresented your position on the FISA matter, which was an agnostic position. And yes, I stopped reading QandO regularly months ago after being turned of by your additions. But any opportunity to call me a liar now seems mandatory in various enclaves, so go for it.
Some things, you know, are not funny. Death, constitutional corruption and such, being among them. I concede to having no sense of humor where such things are concerned.
What has happened to you is what many bloggers have to deal with: times change, and then they either have to dig in and keep defending the indefensible, or recognize the salient issues are now different and what they have been defending is just wrong. And yes, I think Greenwald runs the same risk of not keeping current with the issues that make him celebrated now; we will see how he deals with that.
But he made a good first step when a month ago or so he took on the prescription drug system, to the horror of many of his liberal, statist readers.
You should have e-mailed me about that post Mona. I have been waiting for him to address a topic libertarians generally care about that doesn’t jibe with the prejudices of his readers.
Also, thanks for being a bit more civil as the discussion wore on. It suits you much better. I almost felt a bit guilty about our fun over your backhanded praise, but you have to admit, Michael’s suggestion was pretty funny.
Of course, I would pick some comment where you call us fans of fascist’s or something to bracket it with. As well as finding some kind thing McQ or Dale has said about us. Anyway, I have enjoyed this thoroughly Eric, and I appreciate your willingness to take the time to get me to see the light.
Well Lance, I don’t think emailing you was a good option, you made that rather plain.
As it happens, the post in queston was 2 mos. ago (my chronology was in error), and I added it as an update here.
Check his archives at the old Blogger UT. See what he said about gun control in Brazil in the first few months of his blogging — I think October of ‘05. But it might be November.
Url didn’t take, it is this: http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2007/04/18/6257
Mona, what you would or wouldn’t have done are really of no interest to me. But it does demonstrate your basic lack of humor.
Speaking of childish, I assume you’ve forgotten all about your unprovoked attack on ” the authoritarian, war-mongering, “neo-libertarian” sites” in all of this, no? If ever there was a non-sequitur in your silly attack, that was it. And, unsurprisingly, it got a response much in the vein of your attack.
And I took up for you when I thought some commenters treated you unfairly as well. That was before you became this arrogant, absolutist, ranting zealot who has chosen to eschew debate and civility for condescension, denigration and dismissal.
The “additions” as you so sweetly characterize them, have probably written all of 10 posts between them since they’ve been at QandO, so I’m not at all sure how they could have possibly “turned [you] off”.
The words I highlighted are yours, not mine … why don’t you try explaining them. If I take them literally, like I assume you meant them when you wrote them, one of the sentences is a lie.
Oh, my … I never figured you for a drama queen. You had inserted yourself in a little blog spat which had all but settled itself quite amicably and, as has become your want, mischaracterized the entire thing and then took the opportunity to launch a broad attack on “the authoritarian, war-mongering, “neo-libertarian” sites” for absolutely no reason other than you could. There was nothing whatsoever about “death, constitutional corruption and such” involved.
Is that so? Well here’s a tip for you Mona - I have absolutely no problem whatsoever defending what I believe in, then or now. What I don’t feel compelled to do is defend it every day in every post I write or in every venue I can reach in one sitting. I actually have a life.
You, otoh, seem quite content with creating caricatures of positions which apparently allow you to then comfortably mischaracterize, marginalize and finally dismiss them. Of course, as wrong as your arguments are, they’re now rote and, to be blunt, boring. That may explain why the only place I catch your act now are on blogs like ACHS and PW, because I certainly don’t seek them out elsewhere. And I’d have probably simply rolled my eyes at this little performance of yours as well had you not made an unprovoked attack on QandO.
OK, McQ. I never targeted your blog specifically when I went after “neo-libertrains.” But yours happens to have the archived repository for the list of that breed, which I assume you are proud of. So where else could I link?
And if what I say is rote and boring, ignore me, and I’ll not just go away, but no one will heed a word I say.
That’s quite contemptious enough for me, Mona and very much in keeping with your new persona as I described it above.
And don’t worry, I will indeed continue to ignore you until I hear about the next unprovoked attack on QandO.
Oh for Chsrst’s sake, McQ, I point out that your blog hosts the repository for the list of “neolibertarian” blogs, and that is why I linked to that repository to identify certain members. That is an example of “unprovoked attack.” Ok, then. Whatever.
Quit playing dumb, will you? You know perfectly well that QandO is more than a site which “hosts the repository” of neolibertarian blogs. Pretending otherwise is as disingenuous as much of the other crap you routinely put out there.
Lance,
You make a sound case as usual. I think we are, alas, at the point where we agree to disagree.
I want to say that I did not mean to say that you were naive, any more than I am. These are opaque matters. We obviously have a disagreement on which way the opaqueness would break should the mists be scattered, but I don’t doubt your intelligence or good faith. If only all my political disagreements were with people that share your perspective.
Maybe I’ve given you a slight reason to doubt Ledeen, and you have given me a slight reason to extend to him the benefit of the doubt. That would possibly be a benefit to us both.
Again, nice speaking with you. I’ll try not to be a stranger around here.
Thanks Eric, I wish every one was as worthwhile to disagree with as you. Anyway, I am interested in your latest music suggestions. Robby is AWOL lately and Joshua’s taste is just way too gay!
If you’re looking for new stuff, I’ve been seriously wearing out my eponymous Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah! record. They have a new one out too, but I only just purchased it so I can’t vouch.
I’d also say that the most recent Shins effort is worth a gander (their previous two albums: also up to snuff)…
If you want some not so very new suggestions, I could dig back over the past handful of years….
One other musical note: loitering around the apt last Saturday night, I caught The Last Waltz and was reminded of our mutual affection for The Band.
Unless my memory is riddled with more holes than I recognize, it was you right? Either way, what a freakin show.
Yeah, we both love The Band. I haven’t heard your other suggestions. I’ll rectify that.
Thanks