Are you trying to provoke me?
Allow me to seize, unfairly, on a throwaway line in your post because I think it is representative of a larger error. What, precisely, is the evidence that Dick Cheney is *selfish*? Clearly, he made a fricking mint at Haliburton, but he didn't take that job until he was over fifty years old. A man capable of becoming White House chief of staff at the age of 34 could have found surer means to wealth than serving as congressman from Wyoming for 10 years.
Provoke you? This is the least partisan political post in a long time. And I'm feeling so generous that I'll admit that "selfish" isn't the best word for what I was trying to say, which wasn't so much about personal enrichment as the desire to protect and advance the narrow interests of one's own clan or clique (thinking of, for example, the energy commission).
Anyway, he said "is," not "has always been..." (runs)
Ack. Before Flown Bones opens a can of whup-ass on me, he said "are."
It's a peculiar picture of human motivation, Matt, wherein a man acquires selfishness at the age of 55. Selfishness is just such an easy (and tired) accusation against the right, that I am always eager to stamp it out. Ogged's clarification helps. But again, I suspect it is inaccurate. Cheney (like most American politicians, I think) appears to be more significantly motivated by the impulse of duty than most of us in this fallen world.
And while I hope we all agree that the imaginative sympathy this post strives for is the exact opposite of partisanship, it's wrong to assume the "Cheney view" must be needs be a dark one The world just *is* full of threatening, evil actors. Denying this isn't optimism, it's insanity.
Optimism is the belief that one could ultimately defeat those evil actors, prevent them from acquiring power, or stop them from coming to be. In that regard, this adminstration seems notably light-hearted. Didn't we just hear the first Hegelian inaugural address? You can't get more sunny than that!
Wait a sec, baa. You can be selfish for things other than money, surely. Especially when, as a Republican Chief of Staff at 34, you know that you own an option to work for a million dollar salary whenever you choose to exercise the option in the future. That kind of financial security would make it easy to be selfish for power, and the various perquisites that come with it, in the early years.
Cheney troubles me, in some ways, much more than anyone else in the Administration. When I lived in DC ('lo those many years...), he was often held up by Republicans I respected as a model of what a thoughtful conservative should be like - because he was thoughtful. He still comes off that way in debates. But the policies this Administration has pursued are so stupid, along any number of vectors, and his power is held to be so great, that I feel like we are forced to chose between a Cheney who is now crazy from isolation or a Cheney who is, to put it kindly, dark.
Ogged, the problem I have with your sort of analysis is that it is impossible for me (as it was on 9/12) to treat as credible the belief that I or anyone I love (or like or hate or know) has much to fear from radical Islamists. For cripes sake, this whole thing is motivated by a plan that involved (I'm guessing) 30 crazy people and a half million dollars in capital. Making the US safe by getting rid of all but 29 crazy people doesn't strike me as a workable plan.
I'll happily concede that Cheney must be crazy ambitious and driven. If selfish means "hungry for power" then almost every (successful) politician would be appropriately characterized as selfish. The idea that Cheney is to s significant degree motivated by money, or by a desire to do right by the oil industry, however, seems to me batty.
SCMT, may I suggest that one resolution to the smart Cheney, dumb policies problem is possibility that the policies are not, in fact, dumb. I am hard pressed to see how the Afghanistan campaign can be shoe-horned into the "dumb policy" box.
The world just *is* full of threatening, evil actors. Denying this isn't optimism, it's insanity.
Granted. The question is whether that's all it is, or can be.
Can I draw a distinction between what I take to be Cheney's views and the policy of the administration? This is all speculative anyway; just a way to understand views of the world. Bush's messianism (to pick a complimentary term out of the hat) is very much opposed to what I take to be Cheney's "realism." And it was Bush's vision, I think we'll all agree, that appealed to liberals who supported the war in Iraq. There's still some very very small flickering part of me that likes Bush's sense that he'll just fix what's broken, and set everyone free. In practice, that really is an insane project, but the motivation is more congenial to me than Cheney's "make it safe."
baa, this is a bit of a tired rehash, but you've come up with one non-dumb policy, and it was a policy that virtually everyone but Michael Moore came up with too, and it was arguably significantly screwed up in the execution (because of lack of troop commitment, we didn't get Osama, and we didn't do a great job of establishing control outside of Kabul). On the other hand, we have a number of policies that look pretty dumb--complete failure to plan for the occupation of Iraq beyond "give Chalabi the keys" was not smart no matter what your view of the merits of the invasion as such. But I'm well aware that I can't expect to convince you of anything in this area.
I vaguely remember Brad DeLong having something about the change in Cheney's behavior between when he was Ford's Chief of Staff and now, but I can't find it.
baa -
I'll piggy-back on Matt and amend my comment to "policies...are either trivial or so stupid...." If whether we'd elected GWB or my shoe (my right shoe out of deference to you) makes no difference to a pursued policy, that policy is trivial; we were going to Afghanistan no matter what. An Administration that holds sacrosanct the right to drive an SUV (Cheney, IRRC) but not a citizen's right to a trial (Cheney's big on the imperial Prez) scares the hell out of me.
As to Cheney being no different in ambition (and thus selfishness) than any successful person...I buy that. Maybe the "selfishness" characterization reflects to what end he would use the power; e.g., Clinton liked power for its own sake, but if he was going to use it, it would be for generally agreeable purposes (I wouldn't wholeheartedly subscribe to this description of Clinton, yada, yada).
The problem with this charitable interpretatino of Cheney's paranoia is that it fails to account for his actions between January and September 10, 2001. (you know, the terrorism task force that never met)
Well, it could be that 9/11 focused his attention. I don't mean that in an excessively mean way--most of us started paying more attention to terrorism then.
Most of us weren't leading the government's highest profile anti-terrorist task force.
You do understand that I don't mean to be mounting a very spirited defense.
Ogged,
The world just *is* full of threatening, evil actors. Denying this isn't optimism, it's insanity.
Granted. The question is whether that's all it is, or can be.
I think there are two questions here, and distinguishing them can help to show how the realism and idealism you personalize as "Bush-ism" and "Cheney-ism" can be complementary. Here is the common starting point. The world is filled with evil people; it is a theatre of vice; force is needed to secure decent people. One question one could ask is "can the world ever be otherwise?" To this, the realist/Cheney-ite answers in the negative. Evil will always be part of our world, and force will always be needed to restrain it. A second question one could ask is: "Is the world only, or primarily, a theatre of vice." This proposition will be rejected by the optimist/Bush-ite. The world is also a place where good people live, seek freedom, and build communities that cooperate. These positions do not seem to exclude each other, and both seem active in the ideology driving administration policy.
Matt/SCMT
It will not surprise either of you that I am skeptical of both prongs of the unified Bush-is-an-unmitigated-bozo argument. I don't think regime change in Afghanistan would have been pursued by any administration, nor would the tactical choices (special ops + airpower + bribery) been unicversal. Perhaps it strains your credulity, but I also don't think the conduct of the Iraq invasion can be categorized as a bungled fiasco. There have been homeruns and strikeouts from the administration, to be sure, but I really have no idea of how to judge "batting average," much less compare it to expectation. I don't think anyone else knows either. Indeed, the very fact that no consensus opinion exists on Afghanistan seems to confirm this. The flip side of "arguably significantly screwed up in the execution" is "arguably a significant success in execution."
Can we agree that success takes the form of an Iraq where a) the regime is pro-American, b) there is secure public order, c) citizens enjoy more political freedom than in any other Arab state, and d) a, b, and c do not require a garrison of 100,000 US troops and have not involved the wholesale slaughter of the Sunni minority . We may never know if someone else could have done it better, but if a-d hold in 2008, it will look like success to me.
These positions do not seem to exclude each other, and both seem active in the ideology driving administration policy.
That, and the last sentence of my post, seem to express very similar thoughts.
As for success, you really ought to include some calculation of the number of Iraqis killed, no? You can't really dismiss them with the unknowability of counterfactuals. And, the fact is that we do have some ways to judge both the seriousness of intent and execution of the Iraq strategy--remember Fallows's "Blind Into Baghdad?"
Well, back in the '80s, we had a, b, and d, and it didn't cost a quarter billion dollars, completely destroying a nation's infrastructure, and prematurely ending tens of thousands of lives. I don't think I can be convinced that achieving c (if, indeed it is achieved) was worth the costs, and we'll see whether a, b, or d can be recovered. I have my doubts.
baa,
That looks pretty fair--but I will continue to hold that if success is attained, it will have been attained through luck. The planning for the occupation, in my view, was performed in such a negligent manner that actual success would not exculpate those who did it. I don't expect us to reach agreement on this, though.
Oh, actually, I wouldn't even demand (a) for success.
Insofar as I accept "smart Cheney dumb policy" I don't think this proves Cheney is evil anyway--Wolfowitz is smart and I am fairly sure not evil in the way proposed, and I don't like his policies much either.
We do have ways to judge, true. But the "batting average" question is a really tough one. And of course, harm to Iraqis is a huge determinant -- my reference to the safety of Sunnis should have been more inclusive. It's very, very hard to balance the harm of civilian casualties against the benefits of removing Saddam's regime. I imagine we all recall that horrible picture of the boy who lost arms and legs as a result of coalition bombing. This is what war is: atrocity upon atrocity. I have no calculus to offer for determing how many events like that need to happen before removing Saddam seems like a poor exchange. The best I can think is that we ask Iraqis, but if it's your loved one who was killed, no end will ever justify that loss.
Baa:
Surprisingly, I remain surprised by Bush's support among folk like yourself. Especially because my irritation sounds to me like a fairly conservative Establishment position. To wit: "Shut up, you utopian fantasist and try to live in the real world." (Shorter SCMTim: "Get a job, hippie.")
The claim that a different Administration wouldn't have pursued regime change in Afghanistan, after the Taliban refused to hand over the man held responsible for 3000 US deaths, strikes me as similar to a claim that only FDR would have fought Japan after Pearl Harbor. As to tactics in Afghanistan - our military is so superior that I assume that you, I, and the commenter who leaves the funniest comment could have "led" our military to victory in Afghanistan. If you mean establishing a functioning democracy there - I might buy that, but, deep down inside, I don't really care if there's a democracy in Afghanistan. (I'd credit Bush with at least a double in Afghanistan to date; if the regime remains stable for 5 years after we leave, a home run; if said stable regime is a democracy a grand slam. But all in AAA game).
Iraq - I disagree so deeply with all of it, on largely pragmatic grounds, that any place where we join debate is leagues past the point where we parted paths. I now try to think of the war as a useless boondoggle, like a bridge from NY to London: strong odds against success, pointless, and likely to result in deaths; it's too painful to treat as a real policy. I will say that I find it weirdly hippy-dippy that we've deployed men and treasure on a massive military welfare program for non-citizens. (I'm waiting for conservatives to split over whether such exercises only create a "culture of dependence" in groups wanting freedom in other countries.) I'd be really happy for Iraqis if they got (a)-(c), but I can't see as it makes much difference to me directly. (As to 2008 - you think it's success if they get two years of democracy without us?)
I find a statement like this, by Sullivan (via Wolcott), laughable: "…without [Bush], …terror would still have the initiative, and hope would be dim." "Hope would be dim?" WTF? We are the strongest country on earth by a long shot; if we can't address 9/11 type problems without getting weak in knees and a little bit crazy, then …I dunno, something really bad. I want someone to explain to me how Bush's policy differs from a desire for a utopian world where everyone's in a democracy and therefore everyone's relatively happy? Wouldn't you expect this to be seen on the side of VW Microbus, but not in a Republican SOTU? The idea that there's no way to judge success or not, so why bother trying - whatever happened to "You can't manage it if you can't measure it." Particularly when this (Iraq) is an action of choice - relying on your ideals when your hand is forced is fine, but otherwise, I want a plan.
The Bush Administration is the most topsy-turvy thing I've ever experienced. And I want the spinning to stop.
Baa -
I just reread what I wrote above. It's a bit ranty and incoherent, particularly at the end. Sorry about that; I'm still coming to terms with the fact that the Dem leadership (Reid and Pelosi) have all the charisma of dirt.
SCMT,
it seems you're getting around to something I (and I'm sure many pther people) have been thinking: the Bush administration acts an awful lot like a really dumb liberal, and it seems at times that the Left and the Right have completely switched position from 8 years ago (not just on international issues, but on the domestic front, too). But the reason is, of course, we recognize that the Administration is really dumb.
On the international front, the dumb "leftie" idea is the huge, "humanitarian" war with a 6 figure casulty number. Jesus H Christ. And WHAT has this war accomplished? I don't buy what Bush said in the SOTU that it's accomplished, which was two things. 1) Flypaper strategy, and 2) spearhead into the mid-east. The first is nigh-impossible to prove or disprove, I suppose, but, based on what I know, I don't buy it. As to 2, there's no guarantee of this. Iraq doesn't want an army base, but, more importatly, was war in Iraq the to go about 2? I would have been in favor of other options.
So, first thing, I don't think Iraq has accomplished a damn thing for the US. Has it been a net good for the Iraq people? First off, I still know next to nothing about life in Iraq pre-war. The only thing I've heard are that there were political prisoners and lots of informants and you couldn't criticize the government. That sucks. It's not the worst of all possible worlds. War just about is. Again, I do not believe War was not the answer to the problem. Besides the obvious problems (living in fear, death, casulties, lack of resources, stress, stirred up hatred, loss of property), are many enduring issues that will have to be dealt with for years to come, many of them psychological, many of them structural.
Second, baa seems to be setting the bar pretty low. He talks of a "batting average," as if all he demands is that the number of good things exceed the number of bad things. I'm harsher. I want the number of major bad things to be just about nonexistant. Instead they've been rather overabundant. It drives me mad that I don't seen any accountability. (definatly a very laid-back hippie value)
Going back to baa's only-Bush-would-have-gone-to-Afghanistan position, this is just ludicrous. I just checked a Gallup poll from October 2001; 88% support for the War in Afghanistan. I do believe that it is unlikely that another President would have flubbed the war so badly. Was security established? No. Was the humanitarian effort coordinated well? No. Was the Taliban extinguished? No. Were adequate resources provided to do the job right? No.
No worries about tone, SCMT. If it's any consolation democratic house members I know find Pelosi personally impressive.
I doubt futher discussion is going to be helpful. So let me pose this question to the group: what would count to you as evidence that the war in Iraq was a good idea. Can any set of future events make you think this? Or could nothing do this beyond pie-in-the-sky scenarios. My view is: Iraq was a problem with few good options, of which invasion was the best. Humanitarian catastrophe, or the devolution of Iraq into anarchy, or significant reverses to US interest could make me reverse that judgment.
color me genuinely confused: with the benefit of hindsight, why was Iraq a problem?