Taylor Marsh – TaylorMarsh.com – News, Opinion and Weblog on Progressive Politics

from the Democratic debate on ABC

Question authority, the blogosphere edition, with a little gender on the side.

The boys are
having quite
a serious
discussion. They’re talking about important topics, serious things,
you know, foreign policy stuff. But if you ask me they’re missing the big picture.
They’re getting all hung up on O’Hanlon and Pollock, bloggers and experts, conventional
wisdom and “Rule of Seriousness,” to quote Mr.
Greenwald who helped kick this one off.

Let us also take note of the bizarre fact that the Rules of Seriousness seem to allow someone to run around talking about attacking, invading, and bombing everyone except for the people who actually attacked us on 9/11. All the Serious People cheered on the invasion of Iraq and talk openly about attacking and bombing Iran and Syria. None of those countries, of course, had anything to do with 9/11, but no matter. The Serious People are free to speak as openly and explicitly as possible about new wars with those nations. But Barack Obama speaks of the possibility of attacking the actual individuals who attacked us on 9/11 if we know where they are and Pakistan leaves them be, and suddenly, he is a terribly Unserious and Naive and Irresponsible person for suggesting such a thing. Apparently, it is very Serious to ponder new wars on a whole list of countries and groups provided they had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks.

Glenn’s got it exactly right here. But then he goes off the mark by pointing
to a foreign policy memo from Samantha Power on behalf of Barack Obama entitled
Conventional
Washington versus the Change We Need, which talks about the “change
we need,” without offering anything perceptively different at all. Just
because Mr. Obama was against the Iraq war before he went to Washington doesn’t
mean he’s prepared to offer the “change we need.” Nothing could offer
more proof than this snippet from Ms. Power’s memo.

Over the last few weeks, Barack Obama has once again taken positions that challenge Washington’s conventional wisdom on foreign policy. And once again, pundits and politicians have leveled charges that are now bankrupt of credibility and devoid of the new ideas that the American people desperately want. (snip) By any measure, this strategy has not worked. Conventional wisdom would have us defer to Musharraf in perpetuity. Barack Obama wants to turn the page. If Musharraf is willing to go after the terrorists and stop the Taliban from using Pakistan as a base of operations, Obama would give him all of the support he needs. But Obama made clear that as President, if he had actionable intelligence about the whereabouts of al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan – and the Pakistanis continued to refuse to act against terrorists known to be behind attacks on American civilians – then he will use highly targeted force to do so.

Someone tell me how this philosophy is the “change we need.” It’s
the same American policy dressed up in new clothes by a candidate originally
against the Iraq war, but who has voted similarly to everyone else when it comes
to Iraq while senator.

Obama can talk tough on Pakistan, but everything revolves around redeployment out of Iraq. Oh,
and the latest hints that the surge is “working.” Oops. There I’ve
done it, mentioned the unmentionable. It’s even worse than if you mention RF. You know, residual forces. Moving on.

O’Hanlon and Pollock set their own
butts to roast by not admitting from the start that their trip to Iraq was a
DoD “the surge is working” tour, which isn’t a minor point. However, the surge may be working,
but we’re only talking military terms here. Think of it this way: whack a mole
with more purpose, but it’s still whack a mole and not the solution.

All the handwringing over the criticism about the surge has come down on bloggers for being — wait for it — like neocons.
After all, neocons ignored “the experts,” which got us into Iraq;
so now progressive bloggers, by ignoring “the experts” who are telling
everyone the surge is working, are proving we don’t know what the hell we’re
talking about, just like what happened to the neocons. Got that? No? This should
help:

The lefty blogosphere, meanwhile, has gotten itself all in a tizzy over the failings of the “foreign policy community.” The funny thing is…hell, I’ll just come out and say it: the netroots’ attitude toward professionals isn’t that different from the neocons’, both being convinced that the very concept of a foreign-policy clerisy is unjustified, anti-democratic and pernicious, and that the remedy is much tighter and more direct control by the principals over their supposed professional agents. How the netroots are like the neocons

But the argument about foreign-policy clerisy is just absurd: “expert or not is
irrelevant, what matters is whether he agrees with them or not.”
Nonsense. People are furious that the Serious Foreign Policy Establishment had
no courage to stand up. To keep their Serious Credentials they went with conventional
wisdom about Saddam being dangerous in order not veer too far off The Foreign
Policy Reservation, be laughed at and lose their mortgage money.

The real question then rises up: Saddam was dangerous, but to whom?

It sure as hell wasn’t America. But that didn’t stop Bush Co. from making that
very point. American foreign policy
is so far away from what’s good for this country that even the Change We Need
Candidates are touting the exact foreign policy we’ve had since WWII.
Insert “all options on the table” here.

For GI Joe’s sake, even Joe Biden wants to send troops into Somalia!

Then you have Mr. Obama talking about change and “turning the page”
while stating simultaneously that he’ll help Musharraf as long as Musharraf
helps us, but if he doesn’t, well, Barack will blow the terrorists to bits,
providing he has “actionable intelligence.”

Has anything gotten us into more trouble over the last years than the preponderance
of or lack thereof “actionable intelligence”?

The problem is not the Serious Foreign Policy Establishment, or the progressive
blogs calling them on monumental blunders, or candidates proclaiming they’re
the real change needed. The fundamental challenge for America and her leaders
is 21st century foreign policy has to take into consideration that we’re in
deep mission creep and have been since the military unleashing of one raging Democrat, Harry Truman, who dropped
nukes to save lives. Repeat that one and ponder here. John F. Kennedy
pulled us bank from the brink for one brief shining moment, but the manifestation
of his dream was not to be. Peace and diplomacy would not get the chance.

There is no doubt we have vital interests around the world. That our military
will remain a vital component to our foreign policy. But in the post Bush era
there simply has to be a new realism in the way we envision our role in the
world and how we engage. It begins with how we deploy our money. Stay engaged, but pull back militarily from South Korea. Using funds for economic outreach and a Middle East Marshall
plan, including education that rivals madrassas especially in Pakistan, will do a lot more good than
muscular rhetoric about incursions into Pakistan to get bin Laden, pass the
bombs to Saudi Arabia, while Congress does nothing. They can’t even pass a resolution
stating that Bush has to come to Congress before blasting Iran.

Edwards can’t even get traction taking on the worst GOP talking point of them all: “the global war on terror.”

Enter the chick. Talk about screwing with Glenn’s “Rules of Seriousness.”
Women can’t even get a place on the Sunday shows, unless you’re a Very Serious Conservative like Kate O’Beirne, a regular on “Meet the Press.”

Clinton in the race adds a whole new dynamic. Women rising in the Serious Foreign
Policy Establishment has the potential to eventually change
our engagement in the world, though I’d say we’re still in the tough Golda – Thatcher mold at this point. See here’s the rub. For any woman to get elected
she’s also got to tap into the vein that runs through American politics, accepting
what has been established by men over two hundred years. For a woman to lead
on her own she first needs to fit in with the boys who created the game. People
have to recognize Clinton’s rhetoric before they’ll let her lead. I know all
about it on my own level, way down here in the blogospheric foreign policy and
military matters world, the girl edition. That doesn’t mean she and
I agree, because we don’t on many things. I was always against Iraq. Clinton
was for it. I knew Saddam was dangerous, but not to this country. Clinton
knew he was dangerous, especially to his neighbors. Not. Our. Problem. Read
again and repeat. Clinton and I have some different ideas about foreign policy,
though when it comes to muscular diplomacy and military issues I give her an A, because she excels on these subjects. She especially understands the military culture, something Bill never
did. Yeah, you read that right.

But before everyone gets their rhetoric in a bunch, this is an analysis not an endorsement.

Still, who knew it would be a girl to lead Democrats on the trust, foreign policy and military plain?

I can hear the blogosphere now: trust Clinton? You’ve got to be kidding. There’s that Rules of Seriousness question again versus change. Remembering Bill Clinton, and coming after Bush, whether people want to face it or not, Hillary Clinton looks like the most fundamental change of all, while bringing to mind a time when America and our president were respected around the world and we respected others.

Clinton also understands that in the immediate post Bush era the world will
be very cautious, even nervous, as they approach the new American president,
whoever he or she may be. It is not a time for the Rules of Seriousness or for
“change we need” for the sake of rhetoric, without considering the
true burden facing America. Before we even get to our biggest challenge, what
is our role in the world?, we first have to tackle the trust issue. It won’t
be easy.

So in the end it’s not so much about “experts,” “super experts” and
the “Rules of Seriousness,” as Greenwald states. It’s about the role
of America in a globalized world where radicalism has taken hold because the
modern era is leaving whole swaths of populations behind because they have no
economic interest of their own, but also something else. Whether people of other countries, cultures and religious beliefs have
the right to craft the country they want and whether we are willing to accept
that it’s none of our business if they do so. It’s simply not our job
to turn other nation’s into little democracies (as if that can be done from
beyond). “Turning the page” means a lot more than is currently being
discussed.

However it all starts with Iraq. It was never about Saddam threatening America, or Iraq being a clear and present danger. Now
it is.

Political reconciliation in Iraq will occur, but not at our insistence or in ways that meet our benchmarks. It will happen on Iraqi terms when the reality on the battlefield is congruent with that in the political sphere. There will be no magnanimous solutions that please every party the way we expect, and there will be winners and losers. The choice we have left is to decide which side we will take. Trying to please every party in the conflict — as we do now — will only ensure we are hated by all in the long run. The War as We Saw It

If candidates want to turn the page, change this country and really offer something progressive, it’s long past time to ask what’s good for America as we engage in a post Bush era. In Iraq, it’s about making sure that when we redeploy what we leave behind won’t come back to haunt us, understanding that it already is.

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