Are You Sure About That? - Matthew writes

One, as I've said before, a person of my generation got to watch a dreary catalogue of events in the nineties whereby there was much human suffering owing to American failure to use force (Rwanda), delay in the use of force (Bosnia), or hesitancy to expose our soldiers to risk (Kosovo). This created a predisposition toward "hawkishness" as a generic position.

Now on the raw facts of the matter, I'm inclined to give him one out of three only. The thing with Kosovo is that we were fed what I would call lies and the more charitable might prefer to call overestimates about just how bad things were there. The claimed "100,000" dead Kosovar civilians pre-war shrank to a few thousand dead, including combatants on both sides, of all causes including our own bombing, after the war. It was a nasty insurgency/counter-insurgency fight between a tinpot tyranny on one side and a terroristic nationalist underground on the other, with an awful lot of civilians caught in the middle. There is no doubt that the Yugoslav government committed atrocities - Matthew Hogan convinced me beyond doubt that Racak was a real massacre, for instance - but in scale nothing about the Kosovo campaign stuck out from any number of asymmetrical conflicts around the globe. You could swap Kosovo out of the list and swap in any place from Sri Lanka to Nigeria. The fact that you could shows either just how much proponents of humanitarian intervention are willing to bite off, or just how arbitrarily foreign conflicts end up on the nation's official pity list. Kosovo was, until our own bombing campaign created a massive refugee stream, a much smaller conflict than Bosnia, let alone Rwanda.

Ah, Rwanda. I still get mad when people talk shit about that slaughter. As I've said before, Rwanda made me an isolationist, so I won't reproduce the reasons here. Instead, I want to talk about something else, the notion that the US could have done much good there militarily while the genocide was going on. The claim strikes me as unproven and dubious on its face. The logistics of moving enough troops to Central Africa in time to stop the slaughter any faster than the Tutsi resistance stopped it themselves are pretty daunting. It's not a country where we'd have had much detailed intelligence. Perhaps the Belgians and French would have shared, but the Belgians and French showed a disturbing willingness to shelter the malefactors. "Using force" would have meant plopping US troops over a matter of weeks into the middle of a situation they understood only partially. "Shoot the short ones and spare the tall ones" doesn't really make it as a mission briefing, especially since the butchers themselves were wont to kill fellow shorties who lacked the requisite bloodlust.

And, guess what! The genocide is over, but the slaughter continues, somewhere just beyond the edges of your newspaper. "Using force" would have meant wading into - yes - a quagmire.

Could we have stopped the actual genocide any faster than the Tutsi resistance itself did? I have my doubts. As it is, the resistance fought what was called at the time one of the most impressive light infantry campaigns of the modern era. (I can't find a link. I remember the analysis in the dead-tree Washington Post.)

That leaves Bosnia. I don't subscribe to the reverse "Serbs all good, Bosniaks all bad" typology that a lot of paleos do. I ached for intervention all through the 90s - I even wrote two anguished poems about our inaction that will never see the light of day. Now I'm glad we didn't intervene, and regret only that we kept teasing the Muslim-led government into thinking we cared about them more than we did. But I think that, philosophical differences aside, Bosnia presents the most likely scenario for early US intervention minimizing future bloodshed.

Maybe. Or maybe intervening before the combatants themselves were exhausted would have involved us in one more guerrilla war. Maybe Serb terrorists start blowing up American buildings and setting off truck bombs next to our convoys. Maybe not. I'm far less certain that, considered purely from the local perspective, US intervention would have led to as much chaos as we've fostered in Mesopotamia. But it's a real risk we would have run.

In a way, enthusiasts of humanitarian intervention suffer the same blind spots as the neohawks, which is not surprising, since the neohawks are humanitarian interventionists of a kind, so long as the sun is shining and the locals smile at our tanks - they think it's all too easy. How? Partly by ignoring possible complications; partly by assuming that we must know what's going on in all these strange places and, for that reason, folks there see things the same way we do. There is also, at the core of the interventionist impulse, a condescension toward the Other. Assuming that the malefactors will essentially melt before us (viz. Somalia) is assuming that they are not serious people. Pulling a Paglia for a second and quoting myself:

But one could only imagine the warlords not objecting to this, and violently, if one somehow couldn't imagine that these swarthy foreigners took themselves and their own ambitions seriously. One had to believe either that the warlords were attempting to shoot and starve their enemies into submission by mistake, and would be grateful when shown the error of their ways, or that they had made the decision to try to shoot and starve their way to power lightly, and that once US attention turned like the gaze of a stern yet kindly parent upon these errant children, they would cast their little eyes down, mutter "Sorry, mom," and go play right. In US perceptions, the warlords could have been idiots, children or cowards. What US policy could not have been based on was a sober appreciation that the US was setting itself against serious, adult power brokers who cared more for their own plans than American ones.

I wrote that about Somalia, but it applies to the dynamic of every "humanitarian" intervention on offer. In some cases, the folks we're setting ourselves against may indeed knuckle under, or, if they're Haitian, wait for us to get bored and leave. But we can't count on it. Even when we can get there in time, assuming we want to.

Stuck in the Middle with Mail - Mr. Mesolibertarianism, Matthew Hogan, weighs in on the Topic of the Moment. No, not vintage typewriters!

1. National Greatness Conservatism and neoconservatism may not be the same thing, but are close enough not to be a great difference as far as I can tell. Explain, if not. Use one sheet of paper, do not write on back, no stray marks or textbooks.

2. What makes the neocons tick is the belief in America as world ruler and the American government with a right-man's burden to absorb the costs, moral and material, thereto.

3. The specific agenda for going into Iraq WAS neoconservative, let's not mince words. The driving enabling emotional force was however as Diana points out a public generic stomp-the-Arabs post 9/11.

4. The neoconservatives rode that; and yes being an articulate force with an answer at a time of Administration fears as well as American ones, their agenda dominated. Not oil, and to the next issue ... not Israel. They have the access and coherence to affect top level decisions.

5. There is a Likud and Israel fetish (a sort of "Mini-me" concept) among neoconservatives that is undeniable. And neoconservatism was nurtured extensively among a relatively small group of largely Jewish intellectuals. How important that is is a second question. The fact is that the neocons are generally not mere cyphers for Israel and Likud despite a solicitousness, a like-mindedness, and passionate attachment that often rises to the ridiculous. That mindless pro-Israel feelings may have factored into their calculation is no doubt probable, but not all succumb, as Wolfowitz exhibits with his absence of knee jerk anti-Islamic or anti-Palestinian sentiment. The paleocons dwell, for reasons simplistic and yes, worse, on the Israel connection. But the neocons are not a cabal (who uses that word?), rather an identifiable and rather open group of public figures.

6. OTOH, not being able to talk about the pro-Israel fetish of the neconservatives and how it may affect thinking and action on key national security players is likely to promote anti-semitism. Politically correct calls for silence nurture whispers of resentment. To say that the neocons are doing the distorted Iraq war thing for Israel, or primarily so, is nevertheless flat out wrong and likely appeals to and may come from bigotry. However it is not inherently anti-semitic. For someone to say that people are acting out of their personal and ideological attachments and biases is to e merely accuse them of acting in accord with normal human nature's tendencies, to downplay it is ironically to suggest a non-humanity to them.

7. The paleos and far lefties share more than an extreme position on hte proverbial spectrum. Both tend to be nationalists of sorts, the paleos in a obvious way, the counterpunchies in the sense of deciding that this or that group are all bad or all good according to the ideological positioning of the moment. (paleolibs, like antiwar.com do that too, the Serbs are all good and deserving of all our love for example, though at least now however they've taken down the no-massacre-at Srebenica crap on the site). For now for the coutnerpunchies the Israelis in their eyes are all bad, in great part because they are so close to and identified with America, in good part because many have seen the uglier side of Israel cutting their teeth on that part of the left, and in some part because some of the lefties with their group think and paranoia of perceived elites just dont like Jews either.

Meanwhile, Diana Moon responds, mostly to Justin Raimondo's e-mail printed here yesterday, and Leonard Dickens offers an anarchist perspective.

Me? I know I'm dragging this out, but I've got a ten-mile run tomorrow morning.

Stuck in the Middle with You - Sunday I referred to both Justin Raimondo and Diana Moon, which brought some critical comments from - Justin Raimondo and Diana Moon! If I were more fatuous I'd tell you that this proves I must be doing something right, but these situations never prove anything of the sort. Diana's response came in the form of yonder blog item which you should go read. Really. We'll be coming back to this stuff. She corrects some misinterpretations of mine about what she was trying to say and raises new issues. Justin's response came in the form of an e-mail:

I realize calling me "nuts" will put you in good stead with the libertarian Beltway crowd, but your argument that "neoconservatives were not the decision-makers" evades the crucial point that "decision-makers" make decisions based on information passed to them by their subordinates: the neocons, in firm control of the second-tier national security bureaucracy, made sure that Laurie Mylroie, and not the CIA, had the President's ear. Cheney and Rumsfeld are not neocons, but the former has certainly ensconced them in his office as his Praetorian Guard, and Rummy bought into the neocons' agenda circa 1998.

Your diagnosis of my mental condition is also contradicted by your own post, which posits that the real culprit is "national greatness conservatism" as an idea. But what can this mean, other than the neoconservatives?

Ideas rule the world, and it is the neoconservative idea that brought us to where we are today. I don't see how anyone can dispute that and still retain a modicum of intellectual honest.

We'll come back to this too! It involves wading into some logical, rhetorical and ethical swamps and it's probably going to take me several items to come close to explaining myself, and I'll probably wrong-foot it along the way.

The Wrong Way to Remake Hogan's Heroes - Remember how higher-ups in the Stalag system were always threatening their subordinates with transfers to the Russian front?? Now the Army has caught Colonel Klink Envy:

Hundreds of soldiers from the 3rd Brigade Combat Team were presented with that message and a re-enlistment form in a series of assemblies last week, two soldiers who spoke on condition of anonymity told the newspaper.

"They said if you refuse to re-enlist with the 3rd Brigade, we'll send you down to the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, which is going to Iraq for a year, and you can stay with them, or we'll send you to Korea, or to Fort Riley (in Kansas) where they're going to Iraq," said one of the soldiers, a sergeant.

The second soldier, an enlisted man, echoed that view: "They told us if we don't re-enlist, then we'd have to be reassigned. And where we're most needed is in units that are going back to Iraq in the next couple of months. So if you think you're getting out, you're not."

I have an Army source, nameless for now, who has confirmed to me directly that he attended one of these assemblies and got the "offer" described:

The story was true. I was offered the option to re-enlist (or extend) until 2007, or face going to an Iraq-bound unit.

The hell of it is, it's a transparently bad deal, since, with an official unofficial Iraqi "involvement" of six years now on schedule, your chances of being sent back to Iraq multiple times over the three years of your new commitment approach certainty anyway.

But let's not bury the lede here. THE ARMY BRASS THREATENS SOLDIERS WITH DEPLOYMENTS TO IRAQ. What more would you like to know about troop morale, how the people actually enmeshed in the situation view it, and all the "good news" from over there that we're just not getting.

Helpful Hints - Remember the famous "Skippy's list" of things not to do in the army? Ginmar's CO has provided a Ginmar-specific update. Excerpts:

8. Omit the phrase, "Both sucks and blows, sir," when encouraged to speak frankly by a colonel.

9. Speaking frankly is not something that I will, ever, ever, ever have to worry about.

10. Keep in mind that the higher ranks probably have different definitions of 'frank' than I do.

11. No, it's not going to help to ask if I ask them, "Well, how frank, sir?"

12. Just because we've got new Marines does not mean I can tease them.

Some Things Aren't That Complicated - Matthew Yglesias has picked up something, at least, attending all those Reason get-togethers. This inspires the best rhetorical question of all time from Matthew Barganier. The whole thing got kicked off when Will Wilkinson applied a thousand syllogisms where a belly laugh would have sufficed.

That Would've Been COOL! - The Independent Institute's Ivan Eland asks "Have 1,000 U.S. Souls Died for Oil?" I ask, would it be too much to ask of a war for oil that we actually get some? Like I've been saying since, oh, October 2001, whatever else war is, it's a massive government program. If we invaded Greenland for the ice the place would melt underneath our boots.

Too tired to do mailbag tonight. Can we please wait until Thursday? Thank you.

Don't Let the Door Hit Your Ignorant, Nanny-State Ass on Your Way Out - The ten-year-old "assault weapon ban," aka the ban against guns that look scary expires today. I happened to see the ABC News segment on the law's passing and it was nearly as bad as most major-media gun reporting. They "balanced" gun restriction activists bemoaning the fact that it wasn't being replaced with a stronger law with gun shop owners and shooters agreeing that there might be an initial spike in demand. Not one word of opposition to the law. They finished the camera segment with a target range shooter saying that, yeah, he'll probably buy one of those soon. They allowed him to seem pleasant and friendly enough, which was nice of them, but what they could have done was, you know, ask "How come?" and let him answer.

To their credit, mind you, they followed with Peter Jennings giving a breakdown of who the market for such guns would be: target shooters and ex-police and military who used versions of them in their old jobs. Shine, perishing republic.

I only regret that the law didn't expire in time to save John Kerry from jail.

Some Typing Required -Let's face it. Topics come up in which you have only a cursory interest, and you form your judgment on the basis of the opinions you hold about the people who DO care enough to look into it. As to the famous Killian memos, when Little Green Footballs crowed that they were obvious forgeries, it meant nothing to me. But when BruceR of Flit says it, I consider the case closed in the absence of some serious proof the other way.

I will say that the "surround" accompanying these memos appears to be every bit as dodgy as Saddam Hussein's order form for Nigerien yellowcake. How did everybody manage to switch sides so smoothly without colliding in mid-leap?

Flypaper Theory Snares Another Victim - This time it's Gregg Easterbrook. I like the aphorism from one of Joshua Marshall's readers:

this 'fly paper' thesis is like saying we're going to build one super dirty hospital where we can fight the germs on our own terms.

UPDATE: On rereading Easterbrook's closing paragraph, the really sad part jumps out at me: he thought of this all on his own. He seems completely oblivious to the fact that this particular pipe dream started tickling drowsy hawkish brains last year. Finally, a thought, he writes, managing only one accurate word in three.

Don't Be a Blockhead! - Write for the money. If you're a student or untenured junior faculty member, you can enter the Independent Institute's Olive W. Garvey essay contest. This year's theme:

"The great aim of the struggle for liberty has been equality before the law." - F.A. Hayek

Since I am untenured faculty in the school of my second thoughts, I figure I must be eligible to enter both contests.

Tomorrow: Mailbag. Plus Arrival one week late. Tonight: sleep!

Never Let it Be Said . . . that there aren't antisemites who bitch about neoconservative influence. Take Kevin MacDonald, to whose existence I was hipped by Diana Moon. What distinguishes MacDonald from other neocon critics is his eagerness to tie not just ideology but also praxis specifically to Jewish identity, to call it part of a tradition of Jewish manipulation of gentile societies. This stands in sharp distinction from other critics of neoconservatism. It's reassuring to note that googling the major right-wing peacenik sites for MacDonald's name results in either no references or critical ones. (See Lew Rockwell.com, Antiwar.com and The American Conservative.)

Me, I think it's nuts to say (Justin Raimondo) "the neocons did it," let alone (NOT Justin Raimondo) "the neocons did it because they're Jews." Our foreign policy took the turn it did in the last three years because of powerful red-state gentiles, chiefly George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. Neoconservatives, gentile or Jewish, are blue-staters by residence and habits of mind. Card-carrying neocons were not the decision-makers.

Nor do I accept what appears to be Diana's thesis, that the sole contribution of neoconservative intellectuals to the war effort has been to provide the poetry of democratic rhetoric to the prose of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld's push to dominate the oil patch. Surely holding important sub-cabinet positions and publishing the political magazines that get shipped by the boxful to the White House each week get you some influence.

In any case, my concern is not with the neoconservatives as individuals so much as with "national greatness conservatism" as an idea. I doubt there's a neocon who doesn't cleave to some version of national greatness conservatism, but it has the backing of important non-neos too - like crony capitalists Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. "Benevolent hegemony" is, in the end just more of the will "to command and to give orders as to what is to be done." Because Americans are human, it can't reliably be benevolent, and once the bills come due it won't even be hegemony.

Nevertheless, I think Diana's piece makes some important points about attitudes among the vox pop. And it has some intriguing resonances with Juan Cole's Grand Theory:

What was in it for Cheney? I don't think it was a matter of money. At least I hope it wasn't. Cheney sold half his Halliburton stock options in 2000 for $5 million, and it is hard to imagine a man taking his country to war to increase the other half in value by a few million.

I suspect it is political. Not all corporations make money on war. Some actually lose money. But Halliburton, Bechtel and a few other components of the military industrial complex do benefit from war. Strengthening that sector of the American economy strengthens the political Right. Turning the republic into a praetorian state would permanently yield profits for the military industrial complex in such a way as to create a permanent Republican dominance of all the branches of the U.S. government.

In other words, it's a way to spend government money to entrench yourself politically. Democrats tend to play this game with social programs, contemporary Republicans prefer to buy weapons. I remember Chuck Yeager doing a pro-Repubilcan campaign commercial in either 1988 or 1992 admonishing the viewer that When you hear someone calling for defense cuts, that means jobs. In Reagan days, though, Republicans were warier about having actual major wars with all the toys they were buying. Something important has changed since then. It's either the power of ideas ("national greatness"), or simple change in circumstances: with the fall of the Soviet Union, we intervene more promiscuously for the same reason dogs lick their balls (link not work safe, but maybe this post isn't either).

The third thing is, of course, the terrorist atrocities in New York and Washington three years ago. Government officials need to be seen to be "doing something," and a war, wherever, is something. And there's a public demand that something be done, too, and if you can scare the public into thinking some decaying autocracy is going to gas them to death, they'll be all for a war there. Some people never got over the fear the September Massacres occasioned. Not all of them run warblogs.

Anyway, I had a point back there somewhere. But it's late.