Friday Freefly 08- Defeatist Dems could push Lieberman over the line

Posted By Uncle Jimbo

Update: Mary Katharine Ham is funning Suess-style with her Ham Nation today and also envious of our Bacardi sponsorship. I will see what I can do for her.

The Freefly looks at the increasingly open attacks by the leaders of the Democratic party on our foreign policy and warfighting efforts. They wrongly assume they can actively undermine our cause by making common cause with our enemies. Their intentions become irrelevant once their actions directly benefit our enemies and amount to handing them a victory. We can only hope that their disgraceful political weaseling finally pushes Joe Lieberman over the edge, Do it Joe!

The Uncle J video channel is here

The CNN gig is a go and I film a segment for This Week at War about Jessica Lynch, Pat Tillman and hero-making today at lunch. The second bit of the Freefly was on this topic and I posted it yesterday.

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Comments

[Synova]

I think that in a tradition that doesn't have open and vigorous dissent in government, it's highly likely that the simple fact that Reid (or anyone else) is *allowed* to speak against the president is probably interpreted as proof that he is powerful enough that he can't be dragged out back and shot. And, necessarily, that the administration isn't *able* to do it. That the president is weak.

Take the same action and transpose it to an Iranian setting (for example) and what would it mean if someone in a similar position in the government expressed similar dissatisfaction with Whatshisface?

I've always wondered why the supposed cultural sophisticates can't seem to get that.

In some ways, who cares what the bad guys think. In other ways, our allies come from the same sort of culture and history, and it does matter what they think.

[Herkeng]

Folks, I like Joe and think for a Politician he is OK. The thing about Joe is that he sees the threat, goes to the briefings and realizes what is at stake for our republic. He sees it is bigger than just politics, he sees the slaughter and the chaos of the Iraqi future. The guy is actually doing what the other Politicos should be doing. As for him siding with the Republicans I cannot see it. He is more than a one issue guy, other than Iraq there are huge gaps between him and the Repub. on numerous issues.
What bothers me is the Republicans had 2 defect in the Senate: Hagel (Nebraska) and Smith (Oregon). Why would Joe leave being an Independent and go to a party which can't rally their own? Especially on this issue?
Since he beat the Nutroots golden boy in the last election. The Donks can't stand him. They stabbed him in the back and the posters at the Daily KOS hate (that's putting it lightly) him as much as Bush. If I were Joe I would stay where I am at. He can legislate for his constituents and not compromise principles by kowtowing to either party. The party of fools or the party of cowardly lions.
Lieberman actually is in the position of power. Both sides need him.

Herkeng (USAF Ret)
Theresa's Bro

[Cave Bear]

I have to agree with Herkeng. Leiberman's been around for a long time, and where he stands on the various issues is no secret. He's smart enough to see through the Dim and LSM dezinformatsia about the war, and knows what needs to be done. Fine.

But he's still a politician, and ANY pol's first order of business is getting re-elected. And given where he's from, he knows full well that the idiots in Conneticut would never re-elect him if he jumped to the Repub side.

[Ledger1]

I got to agree with Cave Bear – but Joe should switch anyway and take the moral high ground.

[kate]

Joe could switch as I imagine he's increasingly disgusted by the radicalization of the Democrats.

However, would the hideous Hagel ensure his hero status with the looney left by switching also. Just a thought.

[tom]

but but but, like the potus, your foreign policy is an abject failure..

and lookie here, this guy isn't even a politician--

BAGHDAD - An active duty U.S. Army officer warns the United States faces the prospect of defeat in
Iraq, blaming American generals for failing to prepare their forces for an insurgency and misleading Congress about the situation here.

"For reasons that are not yet clear, America's general officer corps underestimated the strength of the enemy, overestimated the capabilities of Iraq's government and security forces, and failed to provide Congress with an accurate assessment of security conditions in Iraq," Lt. Col. Paul Yingling said in the article published Friday in the Armed Forces Journal.

[Rita]

I like Joe, and he believes in being tough on our enemies. Joe will not switch sides, because he is a democrat, but he is a tough one with a backbone. I have to say that both sides of the politcal aisle are absolutely a bunch of power hungry morons who would sell their mothers down the river. What happened to the JFK Democrat? That is what the Democratic Party should steer towards, not the Party of Assclowns with jellyfish backbones. Get off your high horse and stop pointing fingers; they all have issues with foreign policy, and they all have been flip floppers and have no agenda, and love to wave the white flag. Enough of all of them, I am totally disgusted in our politicans from both sides. Stop playing party lines, stop being politically correct and be the one to step forward with something new. Bunch of rich morons in the House and Senate, most deserve no respect and certainly not my vote.

[arch]

Cave Bear:

I agree the he is unlikely to switch to the Republican party not because he could not get elected if he did, but because he knows the base of the Republican party is conservative and he is a liberal. At best he would be viewed as a RINO. Also, he's five years from reelection if he decides to run. In the last CT election, the GOP and Independents elected Lieberman and creamed the ultra liberal Democrat Ned Lamont.

Personally, I like him where he is. It would be great to have a majority in the Senate, but with a presidential veto and a Dem majority of 50 plus lieberman, they know they can't win this fight. With Joe voting with the Dems on liberal issues, his strong and well reasoned support for the war is all the more compelling.

BTW, anyone who has not read Senator Lieberman's speech on the withdrawal plan should do so.

[bthun]

"Joe could switch as I imagine he's increasingly disgusted by the radicalization of the Democrats."

But Herkeng and Cave Bear have the sense of it. Joe is in the catbird seat. He understands his position and is probably in the best position to exercise his power.

Herkeng, to add to what you said, "Why would Joe leave being an Independent and go to a party which can't rally their own? " that is the question.

I make a serious attempt to stay away from slinging stones at most folks on most occasions, but it seems to me that on the issues that used to define the GOP,
limited govt.(in scope/regulation, in spending and in tax matters), individual responsibility, law & order, the common defense, and maturity, many in the GOP have lost their way.

I can not help but compare and contrast the current pack of GOP leadership with those politico's of bygone days like LBJ. Love him or hate him, he did not tolerate anything less that 100% unity and loyalty from the donks on policy when he was a donk leader and POTUS. Well at least until he was so worn down from his war that he lost all his political power.

Drillanwr mentions in another thread: ”On another important note, it's been months since (D) Sen. Tim Johnson's unfortunate stroke. G-d bless him. However, I think it is high damn time the Republicans demand an independent medical report on him to determine if he is mentally coherent enough to retain his Senate seat. Under normal "boring" conditions in this country we might be able to let him slide a bit more. However, we are at war ... in Iraq and within the government where the democrats are trying a coup on the President. Johnson's seat can NOT remain vacant.”

Agreed. Sen. Johnson is one of one hundred people given the responsibility to represent the people of this nation (S.D.'s interest, but...) and to legislate for this nation. This is an important issue which should be addressed if by none other than those S.D. folks he was elected to represent.

If he is on the road to a recovery which will allow him to return to the Senate, then could not a timeframe be projected? If you can delineate an end-point for an on-going hot conflict, can you not do the same for the recovery prospects of a stroke patient? An independent medical examination ought to be considered essential in the near future.

BTW: where do I get the MILspec engineering drawings for cats? I’d like to build a tiger that will heel & sic in order to address the vagabonds wandering around my property in the wee hours. No shots, no noise, no carcass.

[Ymarsakar]

If Joe switches, he'll have to take Grim with him.

[Theresa, MSgt (ret), USAF]

Well said Herkeng (baby brother hehehe).

[Ymarsakar]

I blog posted this link before.

Fall of Western Civilization

But I'm doing it again because of what JImbo said there at the end, about the US safeguarding sea transport, which still carries the bulk of trade.

Specialization

Ward-Perkins also cites the example of a Syrian village that thrived in rocky country whose soil was good only for growing olive trees. This village sustained a ridiculously high population for many, many years -- a population that was far higher than could be supported from the agricultural yields of that area.

So what were they living on? Trade. They grew their olives and shipped the oil abroad. Apparently their oil was so highly regarded throughout the Mediterranean that it enabled them to import almost all the food and wine they required to sustain their population.

They had specialized. It worked very well for them -- until the whole system of trade broke down and there was no way for them to get their goods out to their potential markets. Either it was no longer safe enough to transport their oil and sell it profitably, or the markets had dried up because of the crash of the economy elsewhere. Whatever the immediate cause, the result was predictable: Without the revenues to let them import food, the population crashed back to the very low levels that could be sustained by the miserable local farming.

The Roman Army

What people overlooked was that everything depended on the Roman Army. The army wasn't carrying the goods, it wasn't even actively protecting the trade. The army was mostly stationed at the border, while the economy boomed in an empire so safe that none of the cities had walls. But the economic system that offered so much prosperity could only last as long as merchants could trust in the safety of the goods they transported, and as long as people could remain in place to do their work instead of having to flee barbarian invaders.

It was a robust system. Ward-Perkins points out that there were lots of crises over the years, from plague to invasions to civil wars, and none of them brought the system down, except for local crashes from which the economy soon recovered.

But it takes time and space to recover -- years, and the presence of nearby robust economies that can help restore the area that was hard hit.

When you have crash after crash in close succession, and the nearby economic centers are also just as beleaguered as you, there is neither time nor space for recovery.

So when the Roman Army got caught up in civil wars ("If that legion can make their general emperor, we can make our general emperor!") so that it was distracted and weakened, the emperors began the horribly self-destructive policy of buying off the bad guys on their borders.

It seemed like a good idea at the time, of course. You give the barbarians a lot of money and they go away. It saves lives.

Except that they run out of the money and now they know how to get more. If you crush the barbarian army in battle, they think twice before coming back. If you pay them for showing up and threatening you, and you don't kill any of them, then coming back and threatening you again will be very popular with the barbarian footsoldiers. You'll see them a lot more.

But money isn't infinite -- the barbarian invaders shrink the tax base as they interfere with trade, both directly ("Let's loot this city so they'll know we're serious!") and indirectly ("The barbarians are coming! Let's leave our city and run away to someplace safe!").

So the emperors took to giving them land. They settled the Alans here, the Ostrogoths there. Of course, the land they settled them on was already occupied, so the Germans came in as overlords -- essentially, they became the new tax collectors, only they kept the taxes for themselves.

Thus the government was now giving away its tax base. Meanwhile, the Germans were lousy governors. They knew about taking taxes -- but their taxation wasn't the usual corrupt system of the Romans, it was much more direct and brutal. In many places it was indistinguishable from looting. They took so much that the people didn't have enough left to allow them to buy quality goods from abroad. So they were removed from the empire-wide trading system.

Also, the Germans did not understand or accept the burden that had been borne by the Roman Army in the areas they now occupied. They did not maintain public safety. Newly impoverished people and other tribes of invaders harassed merchants so that through large swathes of the empire, it simply wasn't profitable to ship things anymore. Either brigands or barbarians would seize your trade goods along the way, or there'd be nobody with money to buy your goods when they reached their destination.

The robust Roman economic system could absorb a little of this, but not a lot, and not for long.

In the Crash, You Fall Farther

In Britannia, the crash was sudden and complete. Within just a couple of decades, the population had crashed -- and peasants were using miserable lumpen homemade pots, badly fired, easily broken, ugly. This was true even though Britannia had recently had pottery-making centers that did work so good it was exported; now those pottery works were shut down.

Here's the shocker: Before the Romans ever invaded, Britannia, despite its battling tribes and kingdoms, had maintained a robust economy. It was a wealthy land, by Celtic standards, with strong cultural influence across the Channel in Gaul.

But when the Roman system collapsed in Britannia, the level of the culture fell far below what had existed prior to the Roman conquest. Not only could they not recover to Roman levels, they couldn't even restore the old British system. It was all gone.

This was partly because the Germans that invaded Britain came in greater numbers and tended to enslave or slaughter or drive out the local population -- the Anglo-Saxons weren't coming to take over Roman Britain's existing system, they were coming to take their land and live on it as Germans.

It was partly due to the fact that while the Anglo-Saxons were attacking in the south and east, the Irish were attacking from the west and the Picts from the north. There was simply nowhere to hide long enough to recover.

But what the British experienced all at once, the rest of the Western empire experienced only a little more gradually. Pockets of prosperity remained in Gaul and eastern Spain -- partly because for many years Africa remained safe and prosperous. It provided the cushion that allowed Italy and southern Gaul and eastern Spain to recover from the economic shocks that had hit them.

Then came a new wave of Germans and wiped out the cushion. The Vandals swept across the strait of Gibraltar and conquered north Africa. They may not have been worse than any of the other barbarian invaders -- but they had a worse effect, because without Africa's peaceful production and trade and tax base, there was simply no way for Roman Italy to sustain the costs of empire.

Then the Franks swept into Gaul and the Lombards into Italy and it was over. The invaders might pretend that what they ruled over was still "Roman" and "imperial," but it wasn't. Every region had to live on what it produced itself. The new kings might occasionally mint some coins to prove they were as good as the emperors they had replaced, but in fact coins did not circulate and a local barter economy prevailed in most areas.

Here and there you'd have a small economic recovery, and of course there were artisans -- for a while at least -- who could still practice the old crafts at a high level. But who could afford to pay for them? It took a powerful economy and the taxes of a huge empire to fund vast public works like aqueducts and irrigation systems and networks of roads.

What remained called itself Roman and showed only gradual decline in the quality of its goods; and if you're a determined multiculturalist, you could claim that this wasn't a "fall" into "dark ages," it was merely a "cultural transformation" or "evolution" that was just as "valid" as what went before.

Try telling that to the people living in a village where there had once been a city. The people now making their own lousy little pots down by the river, where once they had been able to buy excellent ones from traders who came through all the time. The people who once were free citizens of Rome and now found themselves serfs, bound to the land as if they were slaves, and forced to serve barbarian chiefs masquerading as "kings" but unable even to speak Latin or read.

The record is clear: It was a dark age by any rational measure, and it took a thousand years to bring the economy back to the level it had been at under the protection of the Roman Army.

Is This a General Principle?

Ward-Perkins's analysis of the fall of Rome is piercing and explains the evidence better than any of the competing stories. But that doesn't mean there are any general principles here for us to learn from. We have no vast hordes of barbarians waiting to invade and take over. (Quiet, you who think Mexicans are the barbarian invasion. They're just another wave of immigrants.)

My point is that the US won't fall because of legions fighting barbarians. So long as their supply lines remain intact and something like Stalingrad doesn't occur. Which, via Fallujah, doesn't seem likely given that the USMC cannot even be quagmired in urban Combat as was the popular contention, both civilian and military, would occur. MOUT isn't easy, but it was far less diastrous than many feared for the US military. In point of fact, our problems in Iraq isn't that we kick down doors and aren't able to arrest terrorists or find ourselves in ambushes, our problem is that we're too good at it, so good that the terrorists melt away when we're in the neighborhood and then come back for the children after we leave.

So the US will not fall because our legions are fighting too much against outside enemies. A military becomes better, more professional, and blooded when given campaigns of conquest. No garrison troops are those.

But if you read the article or just the quoted portion I provided, you see how the United States can fall if we fall into factionalistic fighting, which Reid wants and is doing, and when our military is unable to project force and security over the world. The sea lanes are just ONE of many areas which if US power is weakened, will be disrupted. And if you disrupt world wide trade now... given globalization... then do you see how terrorism can truly win over the supposed might of the West?

Do you not find it ironic that the servants of entropy always talk about how economic problems are at the heart of terrorism, yet everything they do is an attempt to bankrupt the world wide economy? From taxes, to tariffs on overseas export of manufacturing jobs, to attempts to make the World Bank and UN more corrupt... all of these suck wealth out of people and prevent prosperity from being achieved.

Wealth matters. But economic security through military force and stability, matters even more than wealth, because military force is what sustains wealth. The Left would have you believe that the military industrial complex is a parasite that provides nothing back, that if you can cut back on it all, then peace and prosperity will reign, because LOOK at how much pork money you now have to spend on vote bribing? Reid's bills are not attempts to stop the war because of some kind of "principled position", he wants to benefit personally.

The servants of entropy cannot sustain security or economic trade networks. Because entropy isn't about building things of lasting worth, of good value. Entropy is about making things that are hot, into something colder, and about making things that are cold, into something hotter, by transfering energy from hot places to cold places. mediocrity. equality. fraternity. It is not about winning. It is not about rising up above your fellows, to Reid.

Time unmakes all things. All good things have an end. These are the effects of entropy. As time goes on, things rust if not maintained. Buildings decay and fall. People die and events are no longer remembered.

People like Reid accelerate the decay. Whether because of percieved personal awards or because of promises from our enemies, or just because they don't like progress. Human progress.

Terrorists are not enemies to humanity because they use violence as the USMC uses violence. No, terrorists are enemies of humanity because they by working with factors like Reid, can destabilize the whole of human civilization and bring on another Dark Age. Wasting countless generations of progress, sweat, tears, blood, and sacrifice. You think Reid will feel any regret at that, so long as he gets what he wants?

[Kougar]

What is entropy Ymar?

[Ymarsakar]

Sala weighs in

Michael Pillsbury, a former Pentagon official and specialist on China, stated in recent testimony to a congressional commission that China's military has produced public writings advocating "covert deployment of a sophisticated anti-satellite weapon system to be used against the United States in a surprise manner without warning."

"In my view, even a small-scale anti-satellite attack in a crisis against 50 U.S. satellites — assuming a mix of targeted military reconnaissance, navigation satellites and communication satellites — could have a catastrophic effect not only on U.S. military forces, but on the U.S. civilian economy," Mr. Pillsbury said in recent testimony to the U.S. China Economic Security Review Commission.
Mr. Pillsbury called for the Pentagon to establish a dialogue with Chinese military specialists who have written about the anti-satellite weapons, noting that for the past decade the Chinese have refused to give visiting military or defense specialists access to the ASAT weapons developers.

Mr. Pillsbury said tighter U.S. export controls on China might "impede China's potential acquisition of anti-satellite systems."

The historical trends are not inevitable, so long as our leaders see them and attempt to resist them.

Given an attack on sats to be a bad thing on world wide economic progress, why would China do it? Because they thought they could benefit militarily. And why would they think they could do that with the might of the US military? If they saw us beaten and insulated by our withdrawal from Iraq. If the deaths of Iraqi civilians can have such an affect on American foreign policy, how about the threat and actuality of US economic destabilization, surely China can make a good deal out of that....

Many people realized after 9/11 that the world was connected closer together and faster, via means of both coms and transport. But what are the greater implications? That a failure in Iraq has no effect on the US at home? That what the US does here has no effect on Syria, iran, or Saudi Arabia? That what Reid says in his plush palaces, has no effect on American troops fighting thousands of miles away? Maybe I'm the dense one or maybe people are just naturally retarded, but it seems that learning from past mistakes is not the cookie cutter deal it was made out to be. "A Failure of Imagination" some folks called 9/11. A failure of foresight, of connecting the dots.

People don't want to connect the dots. I would expect them to not want to do that. Because if they did, they would realize that America is riding the tiger. You cannot get off, you would be eaten. You either ride the tiger to its death, and possibly your own, or you get off and die.

The United States is the only thing keeping this world civilized. If it falls to internal weakness, then so falls the rest of the world. A good thing for the nihilists on the Left and the Islamic Jihad. But a very bad thing for good men and women.

The Soviet Union could not collect as much power as the Islamic Jihad because of one thing. Their ideology. Communism, because it excluded a heavenly reward, had to provide a physical one. And that, communism, could not do for long. But the Islamic Jihad, even though they do not have the military might of the Soviets, has something the Communists never had. The promise of a heavenly reward. Their grip on their followers is much more assured and is thus much more global in scope than even the Left wing Communists of the past century.

In Japanese anime, the latest hero always progressively becomes more powerful as he overcomes various challenges. But the thing is, the hero would always be required to face ever more powerful bosses, ever more evil enemies, as his power grew. Because only by defeating someone more power than you, could your power grow. Only by facing a challenge worthy of your honor and skill, could your power grow.

The US has grown soft because we have had not any equals to face, in our latter last century. And the nearest contender, the Soviets, were never directly challenged, and therefore we did not derive any real strength from their fall. As you know with Communists claiming that it was their "dialogue" that defeated the Soviets.

In the 21st century, that no longer applies. Another challenge comes, and this challenge is not the Soviets. Whether it is a challenge equal to our might and skill, beyond our power, or beneath our dignity, is left to the US to decide. And perhaps for history. Make your choice. Reid has made his.

[tom]

Ymar, Iraq was pretty damn stable a few years ago prior to a certain invasion.

[Rita]

Yea tom, stable like any old country run under tyranny; say Hitler and Germany, Stalin and Russia, and the looney in N. Korea. I am not saying that there are no stability problems now, because there are and that is an issue. But, Iraq and "stable" during Saddam's time means "totalotalitarian" kind of stable. Russia is not as stable because of the loss of total control by the government. I would not say "stable" in a good way under Saddam.

[jordan]

The jury's still out on how stable Iraq was under Saddam after the Gulf War. He had to resort to extreme measures to keep revolting people in check. We still don't have good info about Iraq politics during that time because some news outlets (CNN by their own admission) traded access within the country for turning a blind eye in certain key areas for Saddam.

Ymar, on the SLOCs and power projection, we have already created vulnerabilities to them ourselves. Even losing Vietnam, which NVA General Giap said was due to our domestic politics, not military successes or failures, allowed Russia the use of Cam Ranh Bay. Today, China, and possibly Russia have the ability/access to disrupt U.S. use of the Malacca Straits, which the U.S. is heavily dependent on in both peacetime and war.

Giving up Vietnam had more strategic implications than is generally recognized, beyond the loss of prestige and therefore deterrent value of the force, which UJ pinpoints at the end of the freefly video.

[Ymarsakar]

Comment below written by: Kougar

What is entropy Ymar?

Aren't you familiar with the Second Law of Thermodynamics?

[howhurley]

Technically, your point is taken, Kougar. Entropy, as spoken here (and it's a slightly incorrect way to define it) is the random disassociation of matter due to random forces such as loss of energy in a system. I understood what you mean. The UNMAKER.

Even trolls gotta get this, though: Civilizations are held together by fine wires and toothpicks. Add trade as the engine, and everything works out...for a while. I really like Orson Scott Card's missive. We are in a really sensitive time here, folks.

Excellent post, guys.

Scary, huh?

[steveegg]

Regarding Lieberman switching parties, I do have a couple problems with that:

1. Unlike Trent Lott in 2001, the Dhimms were smart enough to ensure that, no matter what happens to the political makeup of the Senate between now and January 2009, they will be in control of the Senate.

2. Then, there's this entire 2000 thing. I think I ranted in an earlier Uncle J thread about that, so I won't rehash here.

As for the "Iraq was stable" canard, it was only "stable" (at least as long as potential enemies of the Ba'athists kept their heads down and mouths shut) so long as the murderous thug Saddam Hussein was alive and in power. Had he died in office (the only way short of invasion he would have left power), it would be far more unstable than it ever has been since April 2003. Of course, that kind of "stability" has a terrible price; by my count, there have been, oh, a few orders of magnitude more bodies killed by Saddam and his Ba'athists. found in mass graves in Iraq than in the former Yugoslavia.

[Ymarsakar]

Entropy, as spoken here (and it's a slightly incorrect way to define it) is the random disassociation of matter due to random forces such as loss of energy in a system.

First Law of Thermodynamics prevents the loss of energy in a closed system. I think you are refering to the loss of useful energy, as in useful for converting to mechanical energy or what civilization calls "work".

[Eric Jette , SantaFe , USA]

"Take the same action and transpose it to an Iranian setting (for example) and what would it mean if someone in a similar position in the government expressed similar dissatisfaction with Whatshisface?" -Synova

Interesting question, and not to detract from the general topic...Entropy = Nuralgia squared...as a function of socialogical probability that some Democrats have their head buried so far up their nether-regions that even the constant twist and jerk method of extraction wouldn't suffice for them to see daylight within this century....Thus we have...The
New Irreconcilables....to success....

But anyways...here's your answer:

Thursday, April 26, 2007

America's Best Weapon is the Iranian People

April 26, 2007
The New Republic
Azar Nafisi

Thinking of the dominant views among American policymakers on Iran, I am reminded of the great Persian poet Jalaledin Rumi's story about a group of people trying to describe an elephant exhibited in a dark room. One felt the elephant's back and claimed that it resembled a great throne. Another, touching its ear, declared it was in fact a huge fan. A third felt its leg and concluded it must be a large pillar.

The Islamic Republic has been with us for almost three decades, yet still it manages to amaze and confuse the experts. In the 1990s, Mohammed Khatami inspired the majority of Western commentators to believe that Iran was on the verge of upheaval. But, while Khatami may have distinguished himself from his predecessors by ushering in a milder version of the Islamic Republic, he was, and remains, very much a part of that system. Today, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has persuaded us that the same system is an imminent menace and must, therefore, be overthrown. Yet, while Ahmadinejad may be more repressive and violent than previous presidents, his reactionary tendencies are fundamentally a sign of the Iranian system's weakness--not its strength.

The problem is that Western pundits are only feeling part of the elephant--the political one--and ignoring the most important part: the Iranian people themselves. If you take the long view of Iranian history and focus on the country's people rather than its rulers, a very different picture emerges: that of an Iranian order in crisis.

Evidence for this proposition is everywhere. A cursory look at Iran's publications and blogs shows that, although some Iranians--for a variety of reasons--support their regime's nuclear ambitions, most are far more interested in trying to redress day-to-day problems like corruption, the struggling economy, rising unemployment, political and social repression, and a general lack of freedom. Few are well-informed about the nuclear program, and most are embarrassed and disturbed by the image of their country in the world. Indeed, Iran's new international isolation and pariah status is deeply unpopular at home, and the fact that the government is emptying its coffers to foment revolution abroad rather than to support the welfare of the Iranian people has turned many of Ahmadinejad's supporters against him. Workers' protests have lately escalated in at least ten cities. Angry union leaders have held the president responsible for the weakening of the economy. In the recent city council elections in Tehran, only two of 13 winners were supporters of Ahmadinejad.

This discontent has seeped upward to high levels of Iranian politics--for instance, members of parliament, who, during Ahmadinejad's presentation of the annual budget last December, noisily protested the worsening economic conditions. There has even been serious talk about impeaching him. Since his election, Iranian hard-liners have openly divided into two opposing factions, creating a great deal of anxiety among conservative leaders who have been trying to mend the breach. Prominent reformist dissenters, such as Ayatollah Montazeri, have accused the government of using the country's considerable resources to meddle in other people's affairs. Even Ahmadinejad has occasionally sounded dispirited. He recently conceded that 28 years of Islamic rule has failed to eliminate liberal elements from Iranian society. Almost 30 years ago, in his prophetic essay "The Power of the Powerless," Václav Havel wrote that "a specter is haunting eastern Europe: the specter of what in the West is called dissent.'" That specter has now moved to Iran.

The fact that neither Khatami nor Ahmadinejad has been able to foster unity--even within the ruling elite--is a good indication of the crisis within the system. For over two decades, the main resistance to that system has come from within Iranian civil society. And it is Iranian civil society that will ultimately prove to be the Achilles heel of the Islamic Regime.

Courtesy Yannis Kontos/PolarisKnowing this, our target must be the Iranian people more than the Iranian government. Openness and freedom are far more likely to come from a change of mindset than from regime change. We must realize that our best weapons against autocracy and terrorism are not military or even diplomatic but ideological and cultural. The fight for Iranian democracy is not simply a political one; in this respect, Iran is very much like communist Eastern Europe and apartheid South Africa. The story of how those countries were liberated reminds us that human rights extend beyond the realm of government. In places where the state has politicized not just the cultural and social arenas but also the most private aspects of citizens' lives, resistance to a repressive system takes on an existential dimension: It is not just a struggle for political rights but also for the right of individual citizens to live the way they choose.

Who in the West will champion these existential rights on behalf of Iranians? No government--no matter how liberal--can devote itself only, or even primarily, to the defense of human rights and personal freedoms abroad, so we must rely on other actors to push the cause of liberty. I am speaking, of course, of nongovernmental organizations. What is needed is for human rights groups, activists, and journalists to take up the cause of the Iranian people. The secular journalist Faraj Sarkuhi, the former revolutionary and dissident Akbar Ganji, and the reformists Emadeddin Baghi and Ramin Jahanbegloo owe their freedom to a great degree to the efforts of organizations like PEN, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Reporters Without Borders, as well as to the attention of journalists throughout the world. In the case of a recent transportation strike--a strike that received little coverage in the U.S. press despite being brutally repressed by the Iranian government--Western labor unions played an important role in the release of the protest's organizers. The progressive women who have staged two demonstrations since the start of Ahmadinejad's presidency are in the midst of a campaign to garner one million signatures demanding equality and justice for women in Iran. U.S. feminist groups should be doing far more to support them in their struggle.

Of course, this is not to say that governments have no part to play. A firm and united stand by the international community on Iranian human rights will send a message to the regime that it cannot bend other countries to its will, while encouraging more moderate and dissatisfied elements within the ruling elite to voice their displeasure.

In taking such a stand, Western governments must carve a path between the extremes of appeasement and belligerence. On the one hand, displays of weakness from the international community--such as the U.N. Human Rights Council's recent decision to stop monitoring Iranian and Uzbek human rights violations, even though executions in Iran are currently on the rise--suggest to Tehran that the West does not care about the fate of Iranian activists. "The council's action amounts to an endorsement of crackdowns on human rights in Iran and Uzbekistan," explained Peggy Hicks, the global advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "It shows utter disregard for the human rights activists who are struggling in these countries."

At the same time, the notion that Iran will be subdued into compliance with a handful of precision-guided missiles is as dangerous and fanciful as the belief that an invaded Iraq would serve as a model of enlightened democracy. Indeed, to attack Iran at this point would be to send a lifeline to the regime's most militaristic elements, which would use an attack as an excuse to quash all domestic dissent.

Meanwhile, military action would damage the credibility of Iranian liberals. From studying the example of Eastern Europe, they have learned that the ends of democratic revolution must be the sum total of the means employed--that an open and democratic society can be reached only through open and demo- cratic methods. Fortunately, we can help them. The most important weapon in the U.S. arsenal is not its military might but its culture. Vigorously defending and promoting those values the United States was long thought to represent--freedom of expression, freedom of movement, freedom of conscience--will do a great deal more than any missile to neutralize Iranian radicals. And, though this wide-ranging task is probably beyond the capability of American politicians, it is not beyond the capability of America.

Azar Nafisi is the director of the Dialogue Project at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced and International Studies and is the author of Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books.

link to original article:

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20070423&s=nafisi042307

[Ymarsakar]

I just noticed what the radio edit thing was for at the end of the vid.

[Herkeng]

Eric
Very insightful post. Those points you stressed are things the Congress-critters need to ponder as the Iranian threat to the region grows. I sure hope that Piglosi and Reed don't go courting Tehran and set the Iranian liberals back 29 years.
But hey, they played into Assads hands, no saying why the should not do the same in Iran.

Herkeng
Theresa's Bro

[Eric Jette , SantaFe , USA]

I don't know Joe well enough to know, but your analysis seemed pretty logical, Herkeng.
What really suprised me was that John McCain didn't make it for the vote, he was off campagning. Perhaps he didn't want to have anything to do with the BS bill and figured if he stayed out of it, he wouldn't get his suit dirty.
Dry cleaning bills are a bitch these days I hear.
Personally, I think to sit on a fence on this issue is to risk political impalement.


Regards,

EJ

[Eric Jette , SantaFe , USA]

BEGINS

FOUR SUSPECTED SECRET CELL TERRORISTS DETAINED

Friday, 27 April 2007
MULTI-NATIONAL FORCE-IRAQ
COMBINED PRESS INFORMATION CENTER
BAGHDAD, Iraq
http://www.mnf-iraq.com
703.270.0320 / 0299

April 27, 2007
Release A070427d

REPLACES Release A070427c

CORRECTION TO PRESS RELEASE A070427c:
FOUR SUSPECTED SECRET CELL TERRORISTS DETAINED

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Coalition Forces detained four suspected terrorists Friday morning during an operation in Sadr City.

The individuals targeted during the raid are suspected members of a secret cell terrorist network known for facilitating the transport of weapons and explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, from Iran to Iraq, as well as bringing militants from Iraq to Iran for terrorist training.

Intelligence reports also indicate the secret cell has ties to a kidnapping network that conducts attacks within Iraq.

“Individuals coming into Iraq from other countries for the purpose of endangering Iraqi civilians and disrupting security won’t be tolerated,” said Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, MNF-I spokesperson. “We will continue to work diligently to rid Iraq of foreign terrorists trying to thwart the development of a stable and peaceful Iraq.”

-30-

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT THE COMBINED PRESS INFORMATION CENTER AT: CPICPRESSDESK@IRAQ.CENTCOM.MIL.This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
FOR THIS PRESS RELEASE AND OTHERS VISIT www.MNF-IRAQ.COM.

ENDS

[Uncle Jimbo]

Yeah the radio edit was for the same thing as in Kid Rock's Cowboy.

Cordially,

Uncle J

[freefly]

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