Comments on: Warbloggers and Fallujah

By: Tom Doyle

Tom Doyle — Wed, 15 Sep 2004 06:46:43 +0000

“Did anyone ask Atrios to clarify?” That’s a good point. I wouldn’t draw any hard and fast conclusions about atrios’ intent without pointing out the problematic words and asking if he would provide support for the claim or perhaps revise his terminology. That said, I may be missing something, but I read the Post article and I don’t see anything that strongly suggests the attack on Falluja was primarily or substantially motivated by domestic (US) politics. Since the beginning, US tactics in Iraq have been brutal, viscious, exactly the opposite of US doctrine about how to deal with the local population. Kicking down doors, trashing houses, dragging people off, torturing them is wrong in itself, and it also guarentees bitter, long term opposition. Thus, I’m not surprised that the local commander thought the Falluja operation was a bad idea. Yet it seems consistent with the entire US approach in Iraq. One might speculate as to why the US has operated in this manner. I won’t. In my view, it is ethically problematic to claim, directly or by implication, that desecrating remains, public executions, etc justify or excuse different but no less legally condemnable actions by US troops or their allies. I disagree with those who express such claims, be they warbloggers or not.

By: plato_451

plato_451 — Wed, 15 Sep 2004 03:32:54 +0000

Did anyone ask Atrios to clarify?

By: Zizka

Zizka — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 23:28:07 +0000

I suspect that Henry is insufficiently informed about the viciousness of the American right and the degree to which Bush’s policy decisions are decided by the political imperative of keeping his demented “core constituency” on board. I got all philosophical about, but I actually do not think that Atrios’ statement was factually misleading. I took the opportunity to argue some general points, as I did with the Moore movie, but in this case I think that Atrios’ statement was more accurate than Henry realizes.

By: Dan

Dan — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 22:26:10 +0000

[**2nd try… first try: “Your comment could not be submitted due to questionable content: h-o-m-e-f-r-o”... What on earth?] 2 pence… The warbloggers’ outrage == synecdochic stand-in for the overwrought, self-aware outrage of the hawk right. It could be argued that eliding the distinction lays bare certain assumptions re: the right tout court and that these assumptions are unfair. But this misses the point, that being the political rather than military purposes behind the move into Fallujah… in order, yes, to answer the outrage fueled on the home front by an alarmist reaction rather than to deal with the reality on the ground in Iraq. To attribute cause to a handful of warbloggers is a rhetorical touch that suggests that even the outsized outrage of a handful of insignificant noisemakers can lead to significantly catastrophic consequences. Atrios: “I really try to stay away from criticizing military tactics here, but the idea that they’re sending kids in to kill and be killed for some red meat for the teevee pisses me off.”

By: Scott McArthur

Scott McArthur — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 20:31:36 +0000

Isn’t Atrios just saying that Bush took his queues from the right wing mob? Isn’t that why Bush ordered “heads to roll” in Falluja?

By: abb1

abb1 — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 09:59:19 +0000

…cast some sort of slur… I don’t think ‘slur’ is the right word here. Those “some warbloggers” wouldn’t take it as an insult or unfair accusation. Attack on Fallujah is what they wanted, asked for and still demanding and clamoring for. It’s nothing at all like accusing the peace protesters of being traitors, this is more like saying that the peace protesters have been effective in preventing or ending a war, which is not ‘slur’ because the peace protesters wouldn’t mind being credited. Clearly he does exaggerate “some warbloggers’” role here, or, rather, singles them out as representing jingoistic tendency in the US, but it certainly isn’t ‘slur’.

By: Zizka

Zizka — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 04:38:09 +0000

I try, Bob.

By: bob mcmanus

bob mcmanus — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 04:27:22 +0000

“partisan advocacy” zizka had a great post on the different ways the two parties handle issue advocacy on a local level, with Republicans having an advantage by nationalizing their resources. I hope it is still there at Seeing the Forest. Since my main objection to Republicans is based on an amorality in partisan advocacy, I may be in trouble here. I would answer by saying that it started with Nixon….that beyond the crimes and misdemeanors, Republicans also should have had huge problems with Nixon’s policies(wage-price controls, anyone?). Yet they remained worshipful. So I decided then that Republicans invested an irrational amount of emotion in the individual, whereas Democrats put more into policies. Reagan repeatedly raised taxes, yet they worship Reagan to this day. And God only knows what they see in the present bum. There were policy problems, but I don’t think the base ever liked Bush I. But I am not so sure you can achieve the proper level of partisan fervor, enough to get policy accomplishments, without that hagiography. Have Democrats been successful since Kennedy? Dems may lack the authoritarianism required for true hackery.

By: david

david — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 03:55:12 +0000

David Neiwart has an especially good Reynoldsism up today, I see. Feel the ooze when you get to the “rather a lot” modifying “credibility.”

By: david

david — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 03:18:50 +0000

Not to beat the horse you just killed, though beating a dead horse does seem to be the medium’s optimal use… but you said earlier: “Atrios seems to be (a) stating that they were the main parties responsible, and (b) not hedging his claim with any of the provisoes about causal fuzziness etc that you state here.” Pretty much, in my reading, is a hedge about causal fuzziness. It wouldn’t work for Reynolds, cause he lies about what other people say, so the hedging just makes him slimier. Here, the hedge is put in to make it clear that the statement is not meant to be read literally, but metaphorically, or synechdochally, or metonymically, I can never really tell the difference. Just saying.

By: Henry

Henry — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 03:08:28 +0000

Sorry – should have made it clear – I’m not responding to any more of the comments saying that Atrios didn’t cast some sort of slur (since I’m not going to convince the skeptics, nor vice-versa). The other more general argument over whether or not bloggers should be partisan advocates is interesting – and I’ll probably work up a blog post on it in a day or two, once I get my thoughts straight.

By: s_bethy

s_bethy — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 02:47:33 +0000

Pretty much.

By: Zizka

Zizka — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 02:23:08 +0000

Exit Henry stage right.

By: Zizka

Zizka — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 02:19:55 +0000

I have claimed the right to work as a partisan political advocate, the way lawyers, salespersons, and diplomats work as advocates. I make the best case for my point of view. One part of that is not doing the other guy’s work for him. When the case against the Killian memos becomes irrefutable, I will admit that. My position from the beginning has been that the Killian memos were in no way necessary to our case. On the other hand, they do help, and I was not going to agree to the first triumphant refutation, and I was right in that because most of the first triumphant refuataion was wrong. The grounds of argument are different now than they were even a day ago. (The whole story is just barely five days old.) Obviously the other side was going to claim, prematurely but loudly, that that the memos were refuted. And obviously, and quite reasonably, I was going to look at their refutation and see if it was any good. And it wasn’t. There’s a real anti-democratic undercurrent to the idea that political advocates, as such, are illegitimate, whereas commercial and professional advocates are fine. And in fact, this suspicion of political advocacy comes from the fact that political arguments are more or less by definition at the margins of the political order and basically unpoliced, while at the same time the stakes are high. Democracies cannot do without partisan political advocates. And the left needs more (and more partisan) advocates, not the reverse. Societies rules by a consensus of reasonable men are not democracies.

By: Henry

Henry — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 02:08:45 +0000

So all Glenn Reynolds has to do from now on is to say “pretty much” in front of everything and he’s scot-free? I’m not going to respond to any more of these comments – it doesn’t look to me as though it’s a very useful debate for either side.