by far it is to be found at Max's blog today, by Max himself:
---- Peter: Can I coin the term "blahg"? I find their proliferation incredibly annoying. From Kaus, to Sullivan, to Alterman, ad nauseum, I find the phenomenon to be both solipisitic and narcissistic. E-lists can be populated with bores and cranks but at least there's a dialogue going on. The only worthwhile blahg I've come across is rabbitt blog http://www.tinylittlepenis.com/ because of the uniqueness of the writer. I'm 32 so it's not like I'm an old crank who doesn't understand "the kids" and longs for the old days. Although I did find the cell phone phenomenon grating also. Anyway, onwards to Max's blahg... -- Sunday, October 20, 2002
HONORABLE MEN ON THE ROAD TO HELL. An explanation of the Bush Administration's ambitions in the Middle East and South Asia need not resort to speculation about conspiracies, electoral party politics, payoffs, revenge, or an interest in manipulating the price of oil. All of this is the stuff of agitational efforts, but it derives from arguments that are not very strong.
For purposes of dispassionate analysis, we should assume that they are all honorable men. This forces us to look first at their stated rationales, and second for the underlying political-economic factors in play. I would rather confront the best case for an Iraqi invasion, rather than flimsy ones.
[finally someone, somewhere...]
[clip]
In either case, the Iraqi mission makes sense as a first step in a process to control the entire region. What could be wrong with the first internationalist view summarized above? Only that it's a formula for mass death and economic calamity. The project embodies all the systemic defects of Wilsonian imperialism: subjugation of peoples who will resist with force, the inevitable corruption of the enterprise by narrower self-seeking interests, and the intrinsic incapacity to construct the idealized democratic societies held before us as goals.
[well, doesn't look like Max understands the best arguments. I think it is definitely possible it will all go bad, especially if Saddam gasses Israel and Israel nukes Iraq. However, it is also very probable that the continued rule of the Ba'ath Party would spell "mass death and economic calamity."] [clip]
So far Osama Bin Ladin's strategy seems to be working out pretty well. Maybe we haven't given him enough credit. By launching attacks on the U.S., it looked as though he envisioned the U.S. getting bogged down in Afghanistan just as the Russians did two decades ago. The U.S. has certainly been forced to commit some resources to Afghanistan indefinitely. But OBL was never an Afghani nationalist. He is an Islamist internationalist. Maybe he envisioned attacks on the U.S. from widely dispersed points, all the while offering few targets for retaliation. Maybe he reasoned that in an effort to assert itself (as the Russians did in a relatively small-scale way, in Afghanistan), the U.S. would overreach and be forced to withdraw to a position of less power that what it began with.
[Hah! Yeah I'm sure Islamists everywhere are grateful to Osama. All he did was piss off the hyperpower and unite Jews and Christians against Muslims. Big deal. His dream of the resurgence of the Caliphate seems even farther off than before. My view is that because of the war on Al Qaeda, the US doesn't want to dick around and spend money on protecting the Kurds and policing Saddam. So, you take that piece off the chessboard, and install a more democratic, sane regime - more sane and democratic than the clients in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan who gave us Al Qaeda - it costs you less and then you can really pressure Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to democratize and focus resources on hunting down Al Qaeda. As I've said before, Osama should have just waited until his theocratic fascists in Pakistan took over the state and its nuclear weapons. That would have been the "smart" and "well thought out" thing to do.]
The sniper case in D.C. is a good example of how it works. One or two people have tied up a huge amount of law enforcement resources and otherwise disrupted all sorts of ordinary community activities. The more you have, the more you have to lose. By terrorist standards, the sniper is just a pinprick. Welcome to assymmetric warfare.
[So what? We're supposed to give in to the sniper? Say "okay you are God. Have fun."? No, you track down the fucker, throw him jail and give him some medication.]
Even allowing for good intentions, especially in light of the terrorist threat, the Iraqi venture is a gigantic exercise in overreaching. A bridge too far on a grand scale. It's the well-intentioned who are most dangerous.
[Why oh why I am skeptical of these grand pronouncements? Oh I remember why. It's because I've heard all this self-righteous crap before. Before the war on the Taliban. The well-intentioned are in general more dangerous? Baloney. ]
Peter