Back from Toronto.  I’ve come across Fisk’s latest on the Armenian genocide.  I also see that Turkey has recalled their ambassador over the House committee vote.  Look for my next column for more discussion of all this. 

Update: Can I just say how genuinely weird it is that everyoneatTheWashington Note is effectively taking the White House’s side in this dispute, while I support officially recognizing a genocide?  There is also a notion out there that the right way to handle Turkey is to give in to its demands over this, as if it is the proper behaviour of a government to enable its ally in one of its most self-damaging policies.  There is nothing “pro-Turkish” in encouraging the worst sort of behaviour in our ally, especially if you think that Turkey should be implementing the changes that will make it acceptable to the European Union.  I think Turkish entry would be a mistake by the EU, but if I supported Turkey’s bid I wouldn’t be backing them when they’re in the wrong over something that will definitely undermine their bid.  Turkey’s denialism is self-destructive and harmful to their own stated long-term goals, so it is simply amazing that they are willing to take things this far.

Chris Roach makes an excellent point here:

I would be sympathetic with complaints against this Congressional Resolution if they were lodged by consistent realists, who adopt an across-the-board policy rejecting interference with other nations’ internal affairs. But the defenders of Turkey’s right to live in a world without criticism are normal, run-of-the-mill western politicians–these, the same people that piously utter “never again” at the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C.  In Turkey’s defense, the Madeline Albrights and Cyrus Vances of the world are standing shoulder to shoulder.

My next column will be on the Armenian genocide resolution and the debate surrounding it, so I won’t pre-empt myself with more commentary before I go to Toronto.  However, James Bovard makes many of the right points:

It’s a helluva thing when a war on terror supposedly requires the U.S. Congress to pretend that genocide didn’t occur.  Bush’s assertion that “we all deeply regret the tragic suffering of the Armenian people” is a lie.   Most people either don’t know or don’t care about the carnage.  And Bush apparently wants to keep it that way.

Here we go:

A congressional panel approved a resolution calling for the U.S. to designate the World War I-era killings of 1.5 million Armenians as genocide, amid warnings that the measure would harm relations with Turkey.

Yglesias refers to a section on Habsburg history in the second part of Paul Schroeder’s article on Iraq in TAC as an “annoying detour,” which I suppose it might be for some people, were it not for the fact that the “annoying detour” was a central part of explaining Prof. Schroeder’s key insights into the essential flaws of the Iraq war.  Here is Prof. Schroeder:

Austria’s leaders were convinced that it was defending not just itself but the rights of all of Europe against international outlaws and that every decent government in Europe, understanding this and appreciating their stand, would support them even if it led to war. This moral hubris, the absolute value they assigned to Austria’s just cause, closed their minds not merely to political and strategic realities but also to competing moral values and judgments. Many Europeans understood Austria’s grievances but placed a higher value on peace, recognized other rights besides historic and legal ones, and understood the necessity and inevitability of change.

The same three strategic errors—a refusal to recognize when a position has become untenable, a reliance on military victory and power to achieve unattainable ends, and moral hubris leading to political and strategic miscalculation—have also brought the U.S. into its current mess in Iraq. 

It might also be worth noting at this point that Prof. Schroder is a modern European history professor who probably has relevant insights into lessons from the history of defunct empires.  Those would be some of those “annoying detours” Yglesias mentioned.

Do Ron Paul and Barack Obama draw support from the same kinds of independent voters?  The Blogometer’s  Conn Carroll says maybe, and John Tabin correctly says that they probably don’t.  As a more or less independent voter who has contributed to Ron Paul’s campaign and regularly criticises Obama, I would have thought it would be obvious that this is impossible, but then my preferences are also hardly representative of most “independents.”  Sure, superficially Obama and Paul might seem to offer some similar themes, and both did oppose the Iraq war, but Obama is essentially an interventionist at home and abroad and Paul is diametrically opposed to both.  One invokes JFK, the other invokes Robert Taft.  Obama thinks everything on earth is tied to our national security; Paul thinks that there are very few things overseas that are tied to our national security.  (Incidentally, it never ceases to amaze me how the former view is usually considered sane and sober, while the latter view is deemed irresponsible, when the reverse is true.)  Someone would be drawn to both candidates at the same time probably only if he didn’t follow the candidates’ policy positions very closely.

A conservatism that warns against utopianism and calls for cultural sensitivity is useful. When it begins to question the importance or existence of moral ideals in politics and foreign policy, it is far less attractive. ~Michael Gerson

In other words, conservatism is acceptable to Gerson when it doesn’t get in the way of projects that he supports, but becomes annoying when it points out the moral bankruptcy of the policies he endorses.  I am sick to death of the idea that apostles of aggression and warmongering have some claim to representing “moral ideals in politics and foreign policy.”  Theirs is a fundamentally immoral position through and through, and their pose–and it is a pose–of moral superiority is the most infuriating of all.  It isn’t a question of idealism vs. pragmatism, but one of corruption vs. decency.  Gerson is a happy apologist for the former.

Gerson self-righteously writes:

It demands activism against sexual slavery, against honor killings, against genital mutilation and against the execution of children, out of the admittedly philosophic conviction that human beings are created in God’s image and should not be oppressed or mutilated.

What of the conviction that human beings should not be slain in wars of aggression, nor children ripped to shreds by cluster bombs (the “execution of children” is perhaps less abhorrent when the children are Lebanese or Iraqi), nor ancient communities uprooted and decimated by fanatics unleashed by ignorant meddlers?  The victims of Mr. Gerson’s preferred policies are no less the children of God.  Let him justify, if he can, the strange calculus by which he trades their lives and dignity for his abstract commitment to human dignity.

Gerson burbles still more:

Without a firm moral conviction that independence is superior to servitude, that freedom is superior to slavery, that the weak deserve special care and protection, the habit of conservatism is radically incomplete.

Yes, independence is superior to servitude, which is why conservatives deeply resent the immoral infringement on the sovereignty of other nations.  The weak deserve special care and protection, which is why the Machtpolitik of hegemony is abhorrent to us.  The only thing worse than the arrogance of power is the presumption that the possession of that power gives one a right to dominate the affairs of other peoples.  A “moral vision” is necessary, and it is high time that Gerson and his allies acquired one that did not involve the shedding of other people’s blood.

Has it occurred to anyone that Bill Kristol is extremely aware of the role he plays in public life, and that he calls for military action against Burma not because he is a war-mad kook but because he wants to broaden our sense of what we can realistically accomplish there? ~Reihan

I have to say that it had not occurred to me, but let’s consider the idea.  First of all, would military action of any kind accomplish anything except to exacerbate and worsen the situation for the people of Burma?  I don’t think so.  Second of all, does this sound like the voice of someone concerned about “broadening our sense” of what can be realistically accomplished:

But given our weak history of pressuring China on anything, and the number of excuses there will be for not making this a priority, no one should hold his breath waiting for real consequences to follow for China [bold mine-DL].

This takes for granted that “real consequences” ought to follow for China, as if China is the pupeteer and the junta its easily controlled toy.  Those who have real expertise in the area claim that this is incorrect, and that Beijing does not have the kind of control that Sinophobes attribute to the Chinese government.  Given Kristol’s longstanding enthusiasm for antagonising China, I suppose I can’t say that I am surprised, but how does hoping vaguely for threatening China with undefined “consequences” broaden anything good?

Kristol continues:

Couldn’t we tell the generals who are ordering and the soldiers who are carrying out this crackdown that they are being watched, that their names are being recorded — and that the day will come when there will be plenty of evidence to hold them personally accountable for their deeds?

Yes, we could, but Kristol knows as well as I do that this would be so much bluster unless Washington were prepared to carry out the kind of intervention needed to apprehend those officers.  The “day will come,” no doubt, when they are held accountable–it will be Judgement Day, but likely no sooner.  Such an intervention makes absolutely no sense from the perspective of American interests, but Kristol knows that, too. 

Kristol concludes:

Couldn’t the Bush administration do more to give that just God a helping hand?

The impiety of this sentence speaks for itself.

And of course most bloggers are, um, not sunny and upbeat people, so it’s no surprise that a far more common approach is to ignore the “good” and hound the “bad.” ~Reihan

If I might add a characteristically gloomy and disgruntled addendum, the reason why bloggers ignore the “good” and hound the “bad” is, broadly speaking, the same reason why journalists “fail” to report the “good news” and tend to report the “bad news.”  It’s all very well to encourage people on the right path, but it helps more if you keep them out of the ditch in the first place, and one way of doing that is to warn them off of the advice and counsel of those who have had an impressive record of being (in the opinion of the critic) very wrong.  When error and injustice, or simply stupidity and ignorance, abound, it makes less sense to pat one another on the back in a mutual appreciation society and congratulate each other on our cleverness.  Emphasising the “good” has not been helped by the tendency of people with absolutely awful policy ideas to engage constantly in accentuating the positive (a.k.a., propaganda).   

The reason why someone like, say, Joe Klein earned contempt of the netroots in the beginning is that he consistently advocated and espoused ideas that they regarded as absolutely terrible.  From the perspective of the critic, it is not incumbent on him to make nice to someone who has routinely demonstrated bad judgement, but rather it is the latter’s job to make up for his past errors.  Maybe the person in question is not going to be budged from his views–all the more reason to not waste any time trying positive reinforcement with an implacable opponent.   

Critics aren’t parole officers who are overseeing the target’s rehabilitation.  Indeed, in some sense, most blogger critics are not even trying to win over the target of their scorn (obviously), but are trying to persuade everyone else to stop listening to the person they are ridiculing.  It’s just like heresiology: the goal is not so much to persuade the heresiarch that he has gone astray, since he has already been condemned for his stubborn persistence in error, but to alert everyone else to the danger of the heresiarch’s false teachings.  We don’t read out the Synodikon just to give Nestorios a few posthumous kicks, but to remind the people to steer clear of his mistakes.  On a much more mundane, much less significant level, blogging critics aren’t really concerned with vilifying this or that pundit or journalist–they are trying to warn other readers away from someone whose track record on the issues these critics care about is dreadful. 

P.S. Reihan says at the end of his post:

Because Matt has an ironic sensibility, he understands why this approach fails.

But does it really “fail”?  It doesn’t persuade the target of the criticism, but that was never the purpose of the criticism.  No one engages in polemics as a means of persuasion of the target of the invective.  Polemic is a device for rallying the faithful and demoralising the opposition.  It is a device used to win over the undecided and the uninformed to one’s own side.  The last thing that the polemicist–which is what many bloggers are–wants is to bother with winning over his opponent.  First of all, he doesn’t think it very likely that this will happen, and more to the point the polemicist isn’t even speaking to him (even when he seems to be addressing him directly).  The polemicist speaks to the audience watching the dispute: persuading them is what matters.  To the extent that a Joe Klein (or a Michael O’Hanlon or whoever else) is regarded as less authoritative or worthy of attention by a larger number of people, this method not only has succeeded, but it has achieved exactly what it set out to achieve.

My mother is not an illegal immigrant. ~Sam Brownback