Fighting the Wrong War
Happy Friday.
The Roberts nomination is a foregone conclusion. There is little to say: it is a smart, Machiavellian choice that presents itself as a reasonable compromise putting a staunch "conservative pragmatist" on the Court thereby paving the way to put a staunch "conservative ideologue" on the Court when Rehnquist vacates.
There is other, perhaps more severe, news from Washington. Last week every Republican Senator voted against a Democratic amendment to allocate $1 billion for mass-transit security. During that same time period, the current administration spent a $1 billion in Iraq fighting a war that fails to combat terrorism (it promotes it), fails to advance our national interest (it weakens it), and fails to protect our citizenry (it increases the threat).
This rate of spending will total a trillion dollars by the time the troops are allowed to return home, in 2010 or 2012 (Rumsfield's estimate).
In Bush's Folly, the author imagines the impact of spending a trillion dollars fighting a real war on terrorism by: implementing security measures at home, developing technologies to escape reliance on foreign oil, purchasing "loose" nuclear weapons being sold on the black market, and campaigning to win the "ideas, hearts and minds, both within Islam and outside it." (Tony Blair's pragmatic, thoughtful reaction to the first London bombings.)
There is a forgotten war going on. Tens of thousands have died and many more will perish before it is "over," five to seven years from now. Unfortunately, it is the wrong war.
The Roberts nomination is a foregone conclusion. There is little to say: it is a smart, Machiavellian choice that presents itself as a reasonable compromise putting a staunch "conservative pragmatist" on the Court thereby paving the way to put a staunch "conservative ideologue" on the Court when Rehnquist vacates.
There is other, perhaps more severe, news from Washington. Last week every Republican Senator voted against a Democratic amendment to allocate $1 billion for mass-transit security. During that same time period, the current administration spent a $1 billion in Iraq fighting a war that fails to combat terrorism (it promotes it), fails to advance our national interest (it weakens it), and fails to protect our citizenry (it increases the threat).
This rate of spending will total a trillion dollars by the time the troops are allowed to return home, in 2010 or 2012 (Rumsfield's estimate).
In Bush's Folly, the author imagines the impact of spending a trillion dollars fighting a real war on terrorism by: implementing security measures at home, developing technologies to escape reliance on foreign oil, purchasing "loose" nuclear weapons being sold on the black market, and campaigning to win the "ideas, hearts and minds, both within Islam and outside it." (Tony Blair's pragmatic, thoughtful reaction to the first London bombings.)
There is a forgotten war going on. Tens of thousands have died and many more will perish before it is "over," five to seven years from now. Unfortunately, it is the wrong war.
posted by Happy Friday | 6:26 AM
1 Comments:
You have linked to an article requiring a subscription to Atlantic. Congrats! Advertisers your second week up. Well done.
One question regarding your post: you refer to the selection of Roberts as "Macchiavelian." Had Bush nominated an arch-conservative dogmatist, you'd have said the selection was "arrogant," reflective of an administration out-of-touch with the mainstream. Had he tabbed a conservative from a minority group or a woman, you'd have called the choice "cynical." W and his administration -- odious though they may be -- are republicans; they're gonna pick a conservative justice, at least in the sense the media and politicos define the term. Who do you want to see him pick? Judge Scheindlin?
Luckily, the Dems seem to be showing uncharacteristic grit and cajones, ever-so-slightly pushing Bush into a position where he expects a battle -- including all the ugly PR and untoward revelations of accosted interns, nannies paid-under the table, 28 year-old legal briefs showing radical disrespect for established legal precedent, not to mention Joe Biden's hair plugs on national TV -- if he picks a Scalia type.
All-in-all, Roberts may be about as good as we're gonna get.
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