Does Joe Lieberman expect us to believe that he cares about “our allies in the Fatah Palestinian movement”?  Of course not.  This is simply more anti-Syrian posturing.

It’s magical, this Surge; no matter what happens, the evidence demonstrates that the Surge is working. It can’t fail! Any behavior taken by anyone in Iraq is a positive by-product of the Surge. I mean, sure, the Surge hasn’t dented American casualty rates or Iraqi casualty rates for the country as a whole, but that also is evidence that it’s working; the enemy is clearly desperate, which is why he’s attacking us. ~Robert Farley

Via Yglesias

In fairness to the pathological Bush-supporters, the only way to maintain support for Mr. Bush’s War and the latest security plan (a.k.a., “surge”) has to be to engage in such creative “adaptation” to changing circumstances.  If these folks had ever been disturbed by evidence from the lowly realm of the senses (a.k.a., “reality”), they would have dropped Mr. Bush and his war years ago (as have so many attuned to the inner workings of the “reality-based community”). 

The “surge” must be working at all times, because otherwise it might be time to reconsider support for the war, which might mean that support for the war was misguided in the first place, and it would also mean that Mr. Bush, the great leader (as roughly 75% of Republicans still regard him), had erred catastrophically and then persisted in his error.  The true believers know that this latter idea is impossible, because they know that Mr. Bush is good and wise and decent, etc.  They know this because they have to believe it, since otherwise that would mean that they have been backing an impressive liar and criminal buffoon.  Never underestimate the power of denial.

It’s also worth remembering that the “increasing number of attacks and casualties is proof that the enemy feels deeply threatened by the establishment of democracy” spin has been tried before, back in the days of Cheney’s “last throes” remarks in ’05.  You almost have to admire the suppleness of war propaganda.  We have not only always been at war with Eastasia (or Westasia, in our case), but we have always been winning, though occasionally suffering massive setbacks that some traitors might call “defeat,” which is really just another name for victory if viewed from the proper party perspective.

Make this yet another reason to oppose the ugliness of modernisation.

Via Mosaics

There’s no telling what you will discover in the world of foreign blogs.  For instance, here is a striking post from a Syrian blog (via a link at George Ajjan’s blog) that revealed to me the existence of the Arabian oryx, a creature that I normally associate only with Africa and one that I honestly didn’t know existed. 

What else do you not know about Syria?

Holy Week has come to a bright and joyful end, and I am attempting to catch up on the latest controversies. 

Most notable of these was the argument that has broken out over Nancy Pelosi’s much-discussed visit to Syria.  When cornerned about the propriety of the visit, Nancy immediately backtracked by using the one get-out-of-jail free card any American politician has in taking potentially explosive steps in the Near East: she claimed she was doing it to help Israel.  Boggle as the mind may at the, er, audacity of such a claim (which the Israelis publicly repudiated), she made it, but she also made it in a typically grandiose, overreaching Pelosian way by talking about roads to Damascus and peace in Israel with much the same stupefying carelessness that the Krauthammers of the world talked about the “road to Jerusalem” going through Baghdad.  Granted, Pelosi has not come to bring the sword, but rather talking points, on her sentimental journey to the city once known for its fine sword metal, but she wields even these with such blithe indifference to their unrealistic nature that it can only trouble a realist or any critic of Bush-style foreign policy.  It cannot end up doing any good, and it will probably do harm, if perhaps only in undermining efforts to conclude the Iraq war by lending credibility to those who say that opponents of the war are lacking in sagacity and prudence when it comes to handling hostile or potentially hostile governments. 

Now I am certainly not one of the outraged breast-beaters who think that Pelosi has committed some heinous transgression, but neither am I quite so hopeful that this trip to Syria was actually evidence of anything like a coherent “alternative” foreign policy–not that there was much danger of the Democratic leadership providing one.  I do not share the faith of the presidential cultists who think that the branches of government are profoundly unequal (they believe this about foreign policy in particular), but like everything else the Democratic House has done in the last three months I find that I would be supremely disappointed in their actions if I had ever expected anything but flim-flam and empty rhetoric, which is mostly all they have managed.  The problem is not, as Unity ’08 centrists would have it, that there is too much divergence, but far too much convergence, especially in foreign policy.  The problem, as usual, is not that the Democrats are undermining Mr. Bush’s policies and sending contradictory signals to the world, but that they are expressly at great pains to not do either of these things–but have still managed to do so despite every effort not to.  So they have bungled twice over.  Most of them do not fundamentally disagree with anything Mr. Bush has done, but only disagree with the timing, the methods or other elements of the execution, which means that all they have left is posing and putting on shows of calculated defiance that achieve nothing.  As Tom Lantos said in defense of the visit:

In USA Today, he [Lantos] noted that she “publicly declared that she supports the administration’s goals regarding Syria.”  

Whatever those goals are (it is hard to tell with this crowd what the intended goals are), the Democratic leaders insist that they are supporting them.  Yet the only justification for what they are doing would be if they had strong objections to those goals and believed those goals to be directly contrary to the national interest.  Short of that, they are just mucking about like a bunch of high-powered tourists.

There is nothing especially wrong with Pelosi going to Syria, nor is there even anything wrong with the Speaker attempting to reclaim an appropriately robust role for Congress in the making of foreign policy, but as with everything else she has done so far the Speaker has achieved nothing while pretending to have radically changed everything.  Most of those who complain about Pelosi trying to run her own foreign policy are not usually moved by constitutional scruples, but find any hint of dissent from the standard line about the perfidy of Syria, for example, to be intolerable.  Actually going there and treating the Syrian government as a more or less legitimate government with which we have formal diplomatic relations are far worse things than dissent in this view, and so there is a lot of loose talk about treachery and illegality.  If Pelosi’s venture represented something concrete in terms of advancing a new Syria policy and beginning a brokering of an Israel-Syria peace, it might have real merit and deserve the strong defense Dr. Trifkovic has given it.  Certainly, detaching Syria from Iran is highly desirable if it can be done, and it probably can be done, but it seems unclear at this time how Pelosi going to Damascus has made it more likely rather than less.  Arguably, she has done more to set back the development of some understanding with Syria with her little display than anyone else has in months, because it gives the appearance that Pelosi is now taking control of U.S. foreign policy, when in fact she controls very little and knows she controls very little.  It is empty grandstanding for the folks back home–watch as I tweak George Bush’s nose over Near East policy, she might as well be saying.  Basically, she is to diplomacy what Chuck Hagel is to war: someone who likes the sound of his own voice and the cachet of being labeled a dissenter or rebel or “maverick,” while actually doing nothing to merit those labels. 

Therefore, Dr. Fleming makes a good deal of sense when he writes:

The best that one can say about Pelosi’s trip is that it is inconsequential. The worst is that it reveals a self-important woman who puts party politics above the American interest.

This latter point seems to be on target.  It fits into Pelosi’s preference for taking symbolic action rather than doing anything substantive.  At least she didn’t say that she was putting the Speaker’s gavel in the hands of Syrian children!  The Armenian genocide resolution is a good example of a symbolic move (which I happen to agree with) that does nothing except formally state what every honest, informed person already knows (the Ottoman government organised and carried out a genocide against the Armenians, and that this was very bad), but which will inevitably worsen relations with Ankara, committed as it is to official denialism.  Within its first four months, Pelosi’s speakership could be defined generally as one that meddles inconclusively in foreign affairs while also managing to create a diplomatic nightmare with Ankara for purely constituent-driven and ethnic lobby reasons.

I find myself increasingly torn over the genocide resolution, since it is undeniable that the genocide occurred and that the Ottoman government was behind the planning and execution of it (particularly the CUP triumvirs), while it is equally clear that American-Turkish relations will become terrible if this resolution is passed.  If there were ever any arguments advanced against the resolution that were also capable of acknowledging the profound evil of the genocide and the ongoing complicity of the Turkish state and the early National Movement in the denial of the Ottomans’ responsibility, they might be quite compelling.  Since every Realpolitik argument I have seen treats the genocide as a sort of historical curiosity (as if it were an episode about which everyone’s opinion is equally valid), I am inclined to regard realist arguments against the resolution to be rather sickening in their indifference to the truth.  There is also something to be said for resisting moral blackmail from people who put Hrant Dink on trial and who still pretend that the near-extermination of Anatolia’s Armenian population was some sort of unfortunate accident.  Were the victims not Christians, and were the perpetrators not Muslims, and were the denialists not “good” secular and “democratic” Muslims, it seems to me that we would have no problem roundly condemning both the past crimes of the state and the ongoing suppression of free speech needed to maintain the cloak of ignorance and deceit that the current government actively weaves to obscure these crimes from view.  If only to resist moral blackmail from genocide deniers and to fight the profound misunderstanding of Ottoman Turkey as some land of tolerance and peaceful coexistence, the House should pass the genocide resolution.  That does not mean that Pelosi’s foreign policy bungling is generally a good idea, but it can occasionally and accidentally come to the right conclusion (even if not necessarily for the right reasons).    

Update: Read the smart exchange unfolding over at Chronicles‘ website in response to the articles by Dr. Fleming and Dr. Trifkovic.  Dr. Fleming also has pointed us to the interesting blog of Chronicles’ contributor George Ajjan, who has any number of thoughtful posts on matters Near Eastern (plus an intriguing post about Easter in Senegal among the Maronites there).

CHRIST IS RISEN FROM THE DEAD,
TRAMPLING DOWN DEATH BY DEATH,
AND UPON THOSE IN THE TOMBS
BESTOWING LIFE!

CHRISTOS VOSKRESE IZ MERTVIKH,
SMERTIYU SMERT POPRAV
I SUSCHIM VO GROBEKH
ZHIVOT DAROVAV!

CHRISTOS ANESTI EK NEKRON
THANATO THANATON PATISAS,
KAI TOIS EN TOIS MNEMASI
ZOEN KARISAMENOS!

Let God arise, and his enemies be scattered: and let those that hate him flee before his face.

A sacred Pascha has been revealed to us today, a new and holy Pascha, a mystic Pascha, an all-venerable Pascha, a Pascha that is Christ the Redeemer, an unblemished Pascha, a great Pascha, a Pascha of the faithful, a Pascha that has opened for us the gates of Paradise, a Pascha that makes all the faithful holy.

As smoke vanishes, so let them vanish, as wax melts at the presence of fire.

Come from that sight, you women, bearers of good tidings, and say to Zion, ‘Receive from us the good tidings of joy, of Christ’s Resurrection. Exult, dance and be glad, Jerusalem, for you have seen Christ the King like a bridegroom coming from the grave.

So shall the wicked perish at the presence of God; and let the just be glad.

The myrrh-bearing women at deep dawn came to the grave of the giver of life. They found an Angel sitting on the stone, and he addressed them and said, ‘Why do you seek the living with the dead? Why do you mourn the incorruptible as though he were in corruption? Go, proclaim it to his Disciples.

This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

A Pascha of delight, Pascha, the Lord’s Pascha, an all-venerable Pascha has dawned for us, Pascha. Let us embrace one another with joy. O Pascha, ransom from sorrow! Today Christ shone forth from a tomb as from a bridal chamber, and filled the women with joy, saying, ‘Proclaim it to the Apostles’.

Two weeks after proclaiming that neoliberalism is dead, David Brooks has said that he is a neoliberal. ~Mickey Kaus

Kaus refers to these twocolumns by Brooks, in which he has determined that both neoliberalism and small-government conservatism are finished and things of the past (even assuming that the latter even existed in some practical way).  In the course of declaring small-government conservatism finished, however, he does end up saying things that sound like a sort of “Republicrat”-cum-neoliberal platform.  Quoth Kaus on Brooks: “He’s Bill Clinton.”  That seems to me to be a far more damning indictment of Brooks than anything Sullivan could dream up about Christianists and authoritarian welfarism (or whatever it is he thinks is going on).

Just try listening to Newt Gingrich as he butchers the Spanish language with one of the worst Yanqui accents you have ever heard.  If you can endure more than a minute, you are truly heroic.  As someone who has an appreciation for foreign languages properly spoken, and who strives to avoid hideously bad accents like this, I think Hispanics should regard this little display as far more insulting than any loose talk about ghettoes that prompted this painful speech.  This display of horribly pronounced Spanish might convince all Hispanics that they should accept English as the official language of the United States, if only to make sure that they do not have to suffer more Anglo politicians attempting (and failing) to speak their language properly.

On the bright side, at least he didn’t cite Castro and talk about how inspiring a commie slogan was!

Dissents make the spaces between the two sides larger than they need to be and paper over the fundamental agreements. And while some of my favorite writing happens in dissent, it sure is exhausting when it’s all you read. ~Dahlia Lithwick

Someone will really have to point out to me the society in which dissidents are on the rampage and the chokehold of dreary centrism has been broken, because it certainly isn’t in America.  From my perspective, it is the fundamental agreements between the two parties and the two broad ideological camps that drive me up the wall, because the artificial imposition of the stale centrist consensus on the entire population is deadening and generally bad for participatory government and good government.  I don’t deny these fundamental agreements between the two “sides,” nor do I deny that party and pundit elites on both “sides” basically share 85-90% of their worldview.  These things are the problem.  To some small extent, if they have any positive value, progressive blogs and blogs like this one are part of the solution. 

This is not simply the old, “we want a choice, not an echo” logic, but it is the view that in a representative government it is actually legitimate to demand representation for all those tens of millions of people routinely ignored or given the shaft by the consensus elite.  It is actually legitimate to highlight and stress political differences between groups of people who have fundamentally different views.  This is not evidence of “dangerous polarisation,” but the basic functioning of political representation and expression.  The reason why there is a “politics of disdain” is that the political and chattering classes have had special disdain for us and people like us (i.e., people who have strong articulated, informed political views); we disdain what passes for government in this country because those in government have nothing but disdain for the real interests of the American people as we understand those interests. 

Of course, persuasion is desirable, and reasonableness is desirable, but the least persuasive arguments are those that engage in “on the one hand, on the other hand” hemming and hawing and the least reasonable arguments are usually those that insist that “the truth is always somewhere in the middle.”  Often the truth isn’t in the “middle,” at least not as the “middle” of our politics is currently defined (in favour of war and corporations, against borders, the Constitution, the family and American labour, among other things).  There is probably a good reason why some strong progressives and some traditional conservatives find themselves in agreement about certain vital policy questions and also find that they are not ashamed to acknowledge this agreement.  Their deep commitments to their respective worldviews give them a sense of certainty about who they are and what they believe.  This gives them the freedom to face up to new economic, political or social realities with some greater clarity than that possessed by those whose commitments are less secure and much more confused and have to be shored up through constant ideological posing about how much they hate Hillary Clinton or how much they fear the coming of the Christianists.  The dissidents at the relative margins are not the ones who need to indulge in displays of anger and hatred–it is the marginally conservative and marginally liberal people at the center who must overcompensate for their own milquetoastery by making the bashing of people on one “side” proof of their bona fides as a member of the other “side.”     

Perhaps we could follow Dahlia Lithwick’s advice and start bringing people together to write co-authored, “balanced” posts in the blogosphere as well.  Just think of it: Jessica Valenti and Ann Althouse would be writing about feminism together; Amanda Marcotte and I could pen an article on Christian theology; Justin Raimondo and Michael Ledeen could write about the war.  Oh, wait, that might not be very practical, since all of these people have wildly different views of the world grounded in actual arguments and experiences.  Some of these arguments are better than others, but to want to actively blur the differences between them and bring together political opponents to engage in self-conscious Broderism is not just strange but actually destructive of real political discourse.  It is this sort of stifling miasma that people go to the blogosphere to flee, and no wonder!  Maybe the blogosphere actually expresses widely diverging political views that consensus journalism and commentary actively tries to suppress, and these consensus pundits and journalists do this so that people will be conned into believing that the extreme poles of acceptable discourse range all the way from Jonah Goldberg to E.J. Dionne.  That idea is not only wrong and insulting, but it is likely to make some of us a bit, well, angry.