In Haec Verba Commentary on Politics, Culture, Religion and the Environment
Tuesday, August 05, 2003
Announcement
With great pleasure I announce today both a beginning and an end. I have joined the American Constitution Society weblog, an experiment made up of ACS members who are dedicated to fostering a progressive vision of the law. ACS recently completed it's first national convention, and I firmly believe this conference will be remembered as a seminal moment in progressive political history. Press coverage of the convention can be found here and here.
Today also marks the end of a great experiment that lasted, albeit intermittently, for more than a year. Maintaining a public weblog that's worth reading is extraordinarily time consuming, and while the debates I've engaged in here with other bloggers, many of them fine legal thinkers and philosophers (see the blogroll), have been thoroughly enjoyable, this site will no longer be active. Thanks to the many thousands of people who have visited this site and participated in this thought experiment.
Am I the only one who finds this story profoundly disturbing? Here's the essence:
CAMP BUSHMASTER, Iraq - In this dry desert world near Najaf, where the Army 5th Corps combat support system sprawls across miles of scabrous dust, there's an oasis of sorts: a 500-gallon pool of pristine, cool water. It belongs to Army chaplain Josh Llano of Houston, who sees the water shortage -- which has kept thousands of filthy soldiers from bathing for weeks -- as an opportunity.
"It's simple. They want water. I have it, as long as they agree to get baptized," he said.
And agree they do. Every day, soldiers take the plunge for the Lord and come up clean for the first time in weeks. "They do appear physically and spiritually cleansed," Llano said.
First, though, the soldiers have to go to one of Llano's hour-and-a-half sermons in his dirt-floor tent. Then the baptism takes an hour of quoting from the Bible. "Regardless of their motives," Llano said, "I get the chance to take them closer to the Lord."
First of all, how is it that this water "belongs" to the chaplain at all? We're fighting in a desert where dehydration is a major problem, and somehow an evangelical chaplain just commandeers 500 gallons of water, presumably trucked in by U.S. forces, for Baptism? Secondly, how can the government permit chaplains to use such coercive means to spread their message? One could argue on church-state grounds that chaplains shouldn't be there at all, but I don't hold that view. I think the armed forces should be permitted to provide chaplains to those soldiers who desire to seek spiritual counseling. I think the presence of religious figures is often consoling to soldiers and may even have a moderating effect on some of the horrors that war can bring out in people.
But I draw the line at this coercive government-sponsored evangelism. Call a spade a spade. Here's a chaplain withholding military supplies, in this case water, from American soldiers unless they agree to a foxhole conversion. That's arrogant and abhorrent behavior. And it cheapens religion. Chaplain Llano deserves to be tossed on the next plane home, if he's not court-marshaled first.
David Greenberg chronicles the value of dissent in wartime in his essay Advice and Dissent: How Anti-war Protest Movements Have Made the U.S. Stronger in this month's Slate. It's a welcome history lesson for those who think quashing speech is "patriotic."
Prof. Jack Balkin writes this week on the government's use and abuse of the material witness statute. Enacted in 1984 to allow the government to detain people "whose testimony is thought to be material to an ongoing criminal investigation for the purpose of testifying before a grand jury or in a criminal trial," the statute was long used sparingly, and then usually only in drug smuggling cases. Now it's apparently being used to indefinitely confine people of Mideastern descent who may or may not ever be called to testify.
"Witness" the case of 38-year-old American citizen and Portland, Oregon, resident Maher Hawash, an Intel Corp. software engineer who has been held for two weeks without being charged with a crime or given access to a judge. Talk Left is also on this story.
In my view, Balkin has it exactly right:
Using the material witness statute to detain people when there is no serious interest in obtaining their testimony for a grand jury or a criminal trial is an abuse of the federal material witness statute. It is important to recognize that this statute may be constitutional on its face and yet it may be unconstitutionally applied if its underlying purposes are abused by overzealous government officials. That is what has been going on in the months following 9/11. The Justice Department needs to stop misusing the statute, and if they will not, Congress needs to amend this statute to prevent these violations of civil liberties. Unfortunately, I fear that this particular abuse of civil liberties is not very high on Congress's agenda, and that the Ashcroft led Justice Department would, if anything, like even more power to detain people indefinitely.
Remember that old quote about liberty and security? The first casualty of a war for freedom abroad can not be freedom at home. It makes no difference that the government is targeting only Arab-Americans. Once the precedent is set, the government, if not checked, will use the same powers in peace time, when security and profiling are not at issue.
Scary-if-true tales of war-related public nuttiness from the Stranger. (thanks to Prof. Cooper) It really doesn't surprise me at all. In my own neighborhood, somebody ripped down a "War is Not the Answer" sign from a guy's front yard and replaced it with a flag. The result? A bunch of us e-mailed the neighbor who promptly procured a bunch more signs for us all to display. Inane? Yep. It's half the reason I'm not blogging much about the war. I've said more than enough on the wisdom of intervention--all that's left to do now is watch and wait. Besides, no one writing about the day-to-day knows a damn thing about the war plan or what's really happening on the ground, so why waste the bandwidth?
Thankfully, it seems to be going well. I just hope the administration wages the coming peace with near as much vigor.
This week I've had a chance to dine with three progressive bloggers, both individually and at the monthly luncheons of the American Constitution Society, which is quickly becoming networking central for left-leaning lawyers. It's been a blast meeting Steph Tai, Sam Heldman, and the author of Bureaucrat by Day. I'm told Gary O'Connor, of Statutory Construction Zone, was there as well. (All have been recently added to the blogroll). Although I've been less regular about posting than I used to be (see archives from 2002), blogging is especially worthwhile when it connects me to such interesting people in my field. A D.C.-area blog event is definitely in order. Interested? Drop me a line.
Those who want skill to use those evidences they have of probabilities; who cannot carry a train of consequences in their heads; nor weigh exactly the preponderancy of contrary proofs and testimonies, making every circumstance its due allowance; may be easily misled to assent to positions that are not probable.
2 John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding bk. IV, ch. XX, § 5, at 299 (J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd. 1961) (1690).
Sometimes it takes the mainstream media a little longer than it should to see the forest for the trees. Witness Terry Neal's column today in the Washington Post:
As the mainstream media obsess over the operational details of the war in Iraq, something ominous is brewing in lands beyond that does not portend well for the United States.
There is a growing sense of outrage in the Arab and Muslim worlds about the Iraq war. Those feelings seem to belie the Bush administration's contention going into the war that all but the most radical elements in the Middle East would embrace America's effort to dislodge Saddam Hussein, and that U.S. soldiers would be viewed as liberators.
In fact, there is scary and disconcerting evidence that Hussein, despised by many Arabs for years, has morphed into a hero for the Arab resistance movement. Such developments have potentially serious ramifications. For once the fighting in Iraq has ended, the United States could be less safe than it was when the war began.
Nice to see Terry finally waking up. Look. There are two fundamental questions that must be asked before embarking on an armed conflict. First is whether we can win. Second is whether we will be safer/better off for having fought. These questions are completely seperate from any substantive justification for the war. In my opinion, we have never sufficiently analyzed the second question, and that is the primary reason why I have opposed the war in Iraq.
The rest of Terry's column is worth reading, but it basically argues (as does this piece by Post reporter Emily Wax) that the war is creating tensions in the Middle East and allying moderates with fundamentalists. We may win the war, but the prospects for a lasting peace--or a safer America--are dim. He writes: At the heart of the U.S. debate was whether the use of force would end up making Americans safer. Three U.S. diplomats resigned in recent months, after voicing concerns about U.S. policy toward Iraq.
"I strongly believe that going to war now will make the world more dangerous, not safer," Mary Wright, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Ulan Bator, Mongolia, said in a letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Fawez Gerges, chair of Middle Eastern Studies and Arab Affairs at Sarah Lawrence College, believes that the war will have the opposite of its intended effect. He believes the war will exacerbate tensions and allow radical forces such as al Qaeda to carry on their unconventional war of terror against America and its allies.
In other words critics say, the war in Iraq is just a battle -- one that America will almost certainly win. But the larger battle -- one for the "hearts and minds" that goes well beyond the borders of Iraq with the world's one billion Muslims, now becomes much more difficult to win.
In a Tuesday interview, Gerges expanded on his point: "The American invasion has alienated most of the moderates, who now appear to be united with the radicals against the United States. In this particular sense, this war is a God send, a gift, to people like Osama bin Laden."
then you need to be reading Josh Marshall. And when you're done with his blog, try the cover story of the new Washington Monthly. I'll have more comments on this later. Suffice it to say for the moment, that one would think the Bush Administration would have enough problems than to threaten war against Syria and Iran too. Or is that the whole idea ... ?
Gary Hart has a blog. I'm not sure what I think about his quixotic run for the presidency (or is it a run for relevance), but given the paucity of original thinking among Democratic candidates, I suppose it can't hurt.
As the battle for Baghdad begins and public opinion in the Middle East is further inflamed, the prevailing view in Washington remains that military victory will fix everything in the end. Two notions drive this view: that the defeat of Saddam Hussein will put the militant forces in the Middle East on the defensive and that the overwhelming exercise of American power will command respect, thus compliance, in the region, even if it doesn't win hearts. Neither is supported by historical trends.
Read the rest. My position has always been that it's not the war itself, but the post-war that will determine whether this exercise has any moral standing or makes the world safer. I continue to believe that the war effort is misguided and that it results from an administration that has misplayed its hand in the Middle East from the minute it took office. The only conceivable basis in my mind for justifying this war is if the peace that follows profoundly remakes Iraq and Middle East, alleviating poverty, spreading democracy, and reducing Arab hatred of America and all things Western. Unfortunately, I have seen no evidence in the prosecution of this war, and I find no comfort in the adminstration's statements on its post-war plans that any such panacea will result.
Why aren't the Democrats making an issue of this? Not even the supply siders can justify Bush's tax cuts. According to the CBO, even the rosiest scenario accounting for new economic growth adds $2.3 trillion to the national debt. War or no war, progressives need to stand up to these kinds of policies and advocate on behalf of economic justice. If ever there's a time we need to maximize revenue, it's now. How this administration thinks it can prosecute a war and hand out tax cuts at the same time is simply beyond me. Democrats have to pound this issue or risk irrelevance in 2004.
I can think of no other senator--and few public officials--in the span of my political life who was so universally regarded for his intellect, his scholarship, and his passion for public service than Daniel Patrick Moynihan. E.J. Dionne's tribute is a fine remembrance.
The tobacco farmer so concerned about declining taxpayer subsidies for his crops that he drove a tractor into the middle of Constitution Gardens and shut down the western half of the national mall for three days has finally surrendered. No word yet on whether he actually had the explosives he claimed to be carrying.
I suppose it is considered a success when law enforcement diffuses situations like this without bloodshed, but my comments below on what this little incident shows about security in the nation's capital still stand. Professor Cooper seems to agree.
Is this really necessary? What happens to those who don't satisfactorily answer our questions? How long will they be detained? From CBS News (via Talk Left):
The FBI is beginning a sweeping wave of 10,000 interrogations of Iraqi nationals in the U.S. to prevent a terrorist attack as war looms on the horizon.
In a sweeping wave of interrogations beginning with the start of war, the bureau will visit over 10,000 Iraqi nationals living in the U.S. including "students," "defectors," "permanent residents," "visitors" and even a few recently-naturalized U.S. citizens.
The bureau is also seeking to expel several more Iraqi diplomats like the two suspected intelligence agents who were kicked out of Baghdad's U.N. delegation in New York arlier this month. Officials will detain all immigrants from 34 suspect countries seeking asylum.
Legal geeks should add to the list of must read law blogs Gary O'Connor's Statutory Construction Zone, which is to my knowledge the only blog that focuses exclusively on the ways federal courts interepret the laws of Congress. Currently, the site covers the U.S. Supreme Court, D.C. Circuit, Federal Circuit, First through Fourth Circuits, and the Seventh Circuit. Each installment includes case summaries, quotations from statutory construction treatises, a law review article recommendation, and a pre-1789 English common law trivia question. The updates are also available in e-mail format—to be e-mailed approximately the 15th and 30th of each month. A link has been added to my blogroll for easy access.
The Washington Post continues its coverage today of the nutty tobacco farmer who for three days now has singlehandedly shut down a major portion of the city in articles (here and here) and an editorial. What's perhaps most disturbing about this story, though, it was it reveals about the city's preparedness for a real terrorist attack. Commutes that normally take 30 minutes stretched to three hours yesterday. The farmer has unwittingly proven how preposterous are the prospects of any kind of city-wide evacuation. As the editorial today makes clear:
Despite the heightened alert status and the existence of regional and local emergency preparedness plans in place since Sept. 11, 2001, one individual, who may or may not pose a real threat to public safety, has demonstrated that federal and local officials do not have adequate escape plans in place for people who need to leave town. And Mr. Watson pulled off his feat in an open park area as the nation's capital was preparing for a possible war, with security supposedly having been tightened near federal buildings and monuments. Not reassuring.
Those of you who live outside D.C. are probably unaware of what's going here. A tobacco farmer drove a tractor he claims is laden with explosives into a pool in Constitution Gardens, which is a adjacent to the national mall and the Vietnam memorial. D.C. police have shut down Constitution Avenue and other major streets in the area and limited access to the Federal Reserve Board and Department of Interior buildings near the site. Traffic here is at a standstill and a major route in and out of the city has been blocked for nearly 24 hours. Why? The guy opposes the tobacco industry lawsuit and complains that limits on subsidies are killing small farmers.
I kid you not. In the middle of a Code Orange situation, 100 officers are engaged in a standoff with a nutty farmer who has a beef with federal tobacco policy. Local columnist Marc Fisher is asking exactly the right question: "The big question right now is, why have the police permitted this man to shut down Constitution Avenue and several federal buildings, simply with his unconfirmed statement that he has some explosives with him?"
Back in law school I argued a moot court problem that looked strikingly similar to this case: Can a public school discipline a student for wearing a t-shirt depicting George Bush and the words "international terrorist"? This debate is coming to a Michigan court near you. The Washington Post piece does a relatively good job framing the constitutional limits of student speech. Thanks to SCOTUSBlog for the link.
This war crowns a period of terrible diplomatic failure, Washington's worst in at least a generation. The Bush administration now presides over unprecedented American military might. What it risks squandering is not America's power, but an essential part of its glory.
When this administration took office just over two years ago, expectations were different. President Bush was a novice in international affairs, while his father had been a master practitioner. But the new president looked to have assembled an experienced national security team. It included Colin Powell and Dick Cheney, who had helped build the multinational coalition that fought the first Persian Gulf war. Condoleezza Rice had helped manage a peaceful end for Europe's cold war divisions. Donald Rumsfeld brought government and international experience stretching back to the Ford administration. This seasoned team was led by a man who had spoken forcefully as a presidential candidate about the need for the United States to wear its power with humility, to reach out to its allies and not be perceived as a bully.
But this did not turn out to be a team of steady veterans. The hubris and mistakes that contributed to America's current isolation began long before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. From the administration's first days, it turned away from internationalism and the concerns of its European allies by abandoning the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and withdrawing America's signature from the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court. Russia was bluntly told to accept America's withdrawal from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty and the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization into the territory of the former Soviet Union. In the Middle East, Washington shortsightedly stepped backed from the worsening spiral of violence between Israel and the Palestinians, ignoring the pleas of Arab, Muslim and European countries. If other nations resist American leadership today, part of the reason lies in this unhappy history.
According to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press blog, Behind the Homefront: "American television networks have begun to pull crews out of Baghdad. As of noon Monday, ABC and NBC had ordered its news reporters out of Baghdad. CNN and CBS still had a modest presence there." And CNN reports that the UN has ordered all staff to evacuate Iraq.
If you're not reading Josh Marshall, you should be. Josh has been one of the most interesting and effective bloggers on the topic of war this year, because, like me, he refused for a long time to commit to a pro- or anti-war position, preferring to skeptically analyze the issue from a position of relative neutrality. His comments on the Bush Administration's diplomatic failures echo my own below, and they do so with punch and eloquence. Here's an excerpt: As each new government turns away from us, the president's allies at home heap new abuse on the new defector, explaining how they've never been good allies to start with, and how this is still more evidence we shouldn't rely on allies in the first place. It's not a policy or even an argument. It's a self-validating feedback loop which always leads to the same conclusion: we were right all along!
I'm not the first to note it, but this summit in the Azores really does capture our diplomatic isolation perfectly. In a certain poetic sense at least this is what's become of our grand Atlantic alliance: not the combined strength of the great north Atlantic democracies, but three men on a tiny fleck in the middle of a great ocean. For Spain, I guess, these are salad days. I'm not sure a leader of Spain has stood so tall on the world stage since Philip II, certainly not since the Spanish Habsburg line ended. Then there's Blair, the Odysseus who's tied himself to our mast.
Our arms have never been stronger. And we're about to show that. But we're gravely diminishing the deeper sources of our power.
Wouldn't it be ironic if the first casualty of the Bush Administration's preemptive policy of regime change is Britain's Tony Blair? Indeed, the prime minister of our staunchest ally finds himself leading a nation that is itself increasingly opposed to military action in Iraq. How did it come to this, that on the eve of President Bush's final ultimatum to Saddam Hussein, we enter imminent military conflict with barely a friend to our name?
I had hoped that war might be avoided by working with the United Nations these past few months. At the very least, I hoped the United Nations would temper the rush to conflict long enough to force the United States to win full allied support prior to invasion, just as we did in 1991. None of this has happened. Instead, the Bush Administration's efforts at diplomacy have been a colossal failure. How else can one describe what has taken place these last few weeks? First we demand a vote and brazenly predict victory. When it is apparent that we don't have the votes to prevail, we belittle our allies and demand a new vote, all the while predicting that the council will fall in line. When that fails, we call off the vote entirely and schedule a press conference to issue our unilateral ultimatum.
The Bush Administration's bungling of diplomacy is beyond belief. At the UN, we dictated a position on regime change and arrogantly demanded that our allies comply even in the face of strong public opposition within their own countries. Our attempt to bully the Security Council into accepting our position on Iraq was widely viewed as an assault on national sovereignty and on the independence of the United Nations itself. Our strongest evidentiary arguments for invasion became subsumed by the arrogance with which we treated our allies.
Forget France, Russia, and China. In our brazen determination to force--not create--a coalition, we have undermined even our best partners, to the point where Tony Blair's hold on power is nearly as tenuous as Saddam Hussein's. All this from the son of the president who in 1991 cobbled together the strongest, most unified military and diplomatic coalition since World War II.
Who would have thought it possible that a nation which a little more than a year ago had the full sympathy and support of the world now stands alone? It is because of the arrogance of this administration that we are here. The New World Order cobbled together by Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton--a world in which communism fell and totalitarian regimes threw open their societies, a world in which the freedom and prosperity of America was the envy of all people--that world is gone.
Tonight President Bush issues his ultimatum, but it comes not as we might have expected from a position of strength. Rather it seems the last desperate measure of a nation that has one by one eliminated its options. We act not "at a time of our choosing," as Bush eloquently put it in September 2001, but because having failed at all diplomatic efforts, having alienated potential partners, we either invade or lose face. Though our military may be strong, our standing in the world is weaker today than at any time in recent memory. That is inexcusable and unacceptable.
America's place in the global community is the first casualty of this war. Whatever happens in Iraq, the future of the world depends on our repairing that breach.
In addition, Fareed Zakaria's stunning Newsweek cover story, The Arrogant Empire, explains in detail how the adminstration failed to win UN support and what lies ahead.
For another more hawkish blogger's perspective on how the arrogance of the Bush team crippled diplomacy, see John Scalzi.
I'll say this for a filibuster--it gets people talking. And when Sen. Robert Byrd gets to talking you know we are in for a history lesson like none other. No one else in the Senate, in my opinion, has the knowledge of history, the command of institutional precedent, and the grounding in classical philosophy that Byrd does. So when Robert Byrd starts talking historically about matters of war and peace, it's worth hearing what he has to say. He begins:
"To contemplate war is to think about the most horrible of human experiences. On this February day, as this nation stands at the brink of battle, every American on some level must be contemplating the horrors of war. Yet, this Chamber is, for the most part, silent -- ominously, dreadfully silent. There is no debate, no discussion, no attempt to lay out for the nation the pros and cons of this particular war. There is nothing.
We stand passively mute in the United States Senate, paralyzed by our own uncertainty, seemingly stunned by the sheer turmoil of events. Only on the editorial pages of our newspapers is there much substantive discussion of the prudence or imprudence of engaging in this particular war. And this is no small conflagration we contemplate. This is no simple attempt to defang a villain. No. This coming battle, if it materializes, represents a turning point in U.S. foreign policy and possibly a turning point in the recent history of the world.
Update your bookmarks--Jeff Cooper has made the switch to moveable type and his new site looks great. It's nice to see the always interesting professor up and blogging again.
Two new recommended law blogs--How Green is My Country is dedicated to two topics close to my heart, environmentalism and the law. And fellow D.C. appellate lawyer Sam Heldman's new site, complete with commentary on judicial nominations issues is well worth reading.
The following is one of the best criticisms of the Anti-War Left I've read in a long time. The title says it all: Why I won't march: A splintered and unfocused left fails to offer alternatives in face of threats to peace. Written by a fellow Leftist, the piece raises a ton of questions that we absolutely must start to address if we are to present a meaningful foreign policy alternative. Here's an excerpt. My comments follow:
I've been asked by many of my friends to march for peace and I've repeatedly turned them down. Am I against peace? Certainly not. But what is the peace movement and what does it want to accomplish other than stopping a U.S. invasion of Iraq?
My problem with the peace movement is that it fails to articulate a counterpolicy in the wake of serious threats to the global order. It is a collection of disparate and incoherent voices that seems to mostly serve as a pretext for criticizing America. The bankruptcy of left-wing foreign policy has to do with its ambivalence toward the threats of Muslim extremism and toward the unsavory options in dealing with those threats.
On the one hand the left espouses equal rights for women, minorities and homosexuals; it lauds free speech and a vibrant independent press as essentials of civil society. The left is a guardian of the separation of church and state and a watchdog of the judicial process. So it finds itself in diametrical opposition to the nature of most Arab societies. But in the wake of this opposition, the left simply sticks its head in the sand rather than confront the reality that as globalization integrates the world order ever closer, we are hurtling toward a clash of civilizations unless the world comes to some sort of agreement on universal values. The left has failed to say that it will not stand for the oppression of women, the vicious repression of human rights and suppression of democratic principles. The only thing it can articulate is a naive and dangerous blame-America-first rhetoric as the root of all problems in the world today.
This hypocrisy is at its zenith in the case of Iraq. For years the left criticized the UN sanctions against Iraq. These sanctions left the Iraqi population debased and demoralized, with dismal health care and a falling standard of living. Though this decay of Iraqi society was due explicitly to Saddam Hussein's exploitation of the sanctions to enrich himself on the lucrative oil black market while he ignored the suffering of his own people, the left called the UN's attempts to contain Hussein genocide. Now, as America moves toward confronting Iraq over its failure to disarm, those same voices from the left praise those sanctions, speaking about them with a degree of reverence as the most intrusive and effective sanctions in history.
There's more and it is worth reading. I think this is an absolutely devastating critique. It's exactly why I, who have attended peace marches before, have not joined any of the protests here in Washington. How can I stand with the Marxist, pro-Palestinian A.N.S.W.E.R. coalition and their ilk (which has been organizing many of the marches), when so much of what they advocate is incoherent if not flatly wrong?
There is such a need for an alternative voice in foreign policy right now, but a reflexive anti-war position is not enough. The Democratic Party and the Left in general must begin to develop a doctine that will guide our foreign policy positions now and in the future. Only then will we have the moral standing to critique America's foreign policy credibly and effectively.
In my view such a doctine must--at a minimum--address the following: The role of international institutions like the UN, NATO, and the World Court; the case for and against preemption in foreign policy; standards for humanitarian intervention; consistency in policy toward despotic regimes; the limits and possibility of shared values in a multicultural, multi-religious world; new policies on nuclear proliferation; the effects of energy policy, natural resource use, famine and religion on international relations and stability; and the desirability of nation-building after conflict.
I don't believe it's possible to decide properly whether to invade Iraq (and what to do afterwards) without mastering these issues. Until we do, our foreign policy will continue to be fractured, unfocused, and inconsistent. That undermines our credibility at home and abroad. The decision to invade Iraq will be made without addressing these issues, and as a result, the outcome is necessarily uncertain. I do not doubt America's military might. When I say the result is uncertain, I speak of the place of such an action in the context of these larger issues. I cannot answer whether and how invasion will advance these goals--and that's what the Left needs to address. I'm not saying that action in Iraq must necessarily wait until we've settled these questions. But think how much more focused and credible our stance would be if we could justify it in this broader context.
Think about today's presentation by Hans Blix. The meaning of it is not at all clear if we do not have a common understanding of what the UN is, what it means when countries violate UN resolutions, and what the penalties for such violations should be. Does the Left believe in international institutions to the extent that it is willing to go to war to enforce its edicts? Does the Left support or oppose continued sanctions on Iraq? It can't be against sanctions on humanitarian grounds and then argue for sanctions when war is imminent. Does the Left support humanitarian military intervention, and if so when is it justified? Should we limit intervention to cases of genocide or is the elimination of despotic regimes a valid justification? Even then, the Left must be consistent. If we support humanitarian military intervention, then we must never again remain silent in the face of a Bosnia or Rwanda.
The Bush administration would have us believe that Iraq is about a madman who is threatening to use weapons of mass destruction against us or his neighbors. If you accept that premise, the case for invasion is clear. If the Left doesn't accept that premise, it needs to start saying why, and the answer has nothing to do with American imperialism, capitalism, or the Palestinians. If the Left can't do that, then it must start putting the coming invasion into the context I've outlined above. The Left's response must not be anti-Americanism, and it must not be inaction. That is the path of marginalization and failure, and it is a path the Left is treading bare.
