Talking a Good Game
April 11, 2003
June 25, 2003
September 11, 2003
December 17, 2003
On June 28, 2004, Paul Bremer fled Baghdad and turned over the reins of the Iraqi government to Iyad Allawi. A week before that, Juan Cole wrote a column discussing the issues that would face the new Iraqi government. Over the two week stretch from June 20 to July 3, 2004 at Goldberg's hangout at the Corner, there was not a single post discussing the transfer and what Allawi's government would have to do to succeed. However, there were 28 posts - 2 per day! - that discussed or mentioned Michael Moore.
As he continues to ridicule Juan Cole for actually being an informed source who has largely been right about what he's said for the past several years, Goldberg might want to re-evaluate who's being the blind partisan not interested in success in Iraq.
Goldberg: But that debate is over. The war happened. Now, the protestors can move on or wallow in bitterness. The practical question is, what's next? The Bush administration says it wants what is best for the Iraqi people. The anti-war protestors say they want what is best for the Iraqi people. If the anti-war people are more serious than I generally give them credit for, they will stop whining about U.S. imperialism and start offering constructive support for making Iraq a democratic and prosperous country.
June 25, 2003
Cole: By the way, I gave an interview to AP's Borzou Daragahi in which I said about searching females and domestic space: "Rather than preventing violence, the practice could spark more clashes, said Juan Cole, a history professor and Mideast specialist at the University of Michigan. "Many riots have been set off in colonial history by heavy-handed Western interventions in private life," said Cole." Check out Mr. Daragahi's web site at http://www.borzou.com/. In response to my remarks, posted at Fox News, I received several angry emails from readers insisting that coalition troops were not being heavy handed and that crowd control is not a problem. The bad news is that this incident could be only the beginning.June 27, 2003
Goldberg: Now, there are intelligent anti-Bush arguments out there. The most defensible, and therefore most serious, is that Bush exaggerated one threat or another, particularly the danger from Saddam's nuclear weapons program. It's certainly true that the White House was wrong to place so much credence on forged documents purporting to show Saddam was trying to purchase uranium in Niger.
But the more intelligent the criticisms of Bush become, the less useful they are for scoring cheap political points.
September 11, 2003
Cole: Iraq is actually hostile territory for al-Qaeda, and without Iraqi sympathizers it cannot succeed there. By moving quickly to Iraqi sovereignty and improvement of Iraqi lives, the US may be able to get Iraqis on its side, so that they turn in the foreigners. Certainly, the Shiites already hate al-Qaeda and would help; likewise the Kurds. The problem of mollifying the Sunnis, though, has to be solved to avoid giving al-Qaeda an entrée. The Americans have to put away their free-market fetishism for a while and find ways of creating jobs and pumping money into Iraqi households. We need an FDR in Iraq, not a Ronald Reagan. Of course, the sooner the US soldiers can be withdrawn in favor of less-provocative local or international forces, the better. Getting the Spanish out of Iraq isn't nearly as good a rallying cry for al-Qaeda in the Arab world as getting the Americans and British out.September 12, 2003
The thing to keep in mind is that Sunni Arab nationalists and Baathists and local Sunni radicals are likely to remain far more dangerous to the US in Iraq than al-Qaeda infiltrators, and it would be dangerous to take one's eyes off the former ball.
Goldberg: Early on, President Bush declared that you're either with us or against us in the fight against terror. This sort of thing infuriated the cottage industry that makes a great living sounding intelligent by telling the world everything is so complicated. Columbia University historian Eric Foner declared in the London Review of Books, "I'm not sure which is more frightening: the horror that engulfed New York City or the apocalyptic rhetoric emanating daily from the White House."
Such nonsense was generally kept to the periphery. Most Americans didn't want to hear it. But today one gets the sense that certainty is in increasingly short supply.
December 17, 2003
Cole: Many thanks to Greg Lipman for alerting me to the David Bacon article on labor issues and privatization in Iraq. Bacon alleges that a 1987 anti-union law of the Baath is being enforced by the Coalition Provisional Authority even as it sells off state-owned Iraqi businesses to the highest bidder. Based on his interviews with them, he finds Iraqi workers fearful of the effects of privatization.December 17, 2003
The issue of labor relations has been almost completely ignored by the mainstream US press, except where informal trade unions have intervened in politics forcefully, as in Hilla recently. Although initially some of the Arabic press reported on these issues, such articles have become scarce in that language as well, at least with regard to what is available on the Web. It is a big story, and may be the story that finally decides whether the US wins or fails in Iraq.
Goldberg: Imagine a film - set against the backdrop of a global war on terror - about a dictator who launched vicious wars of aggression for personal gain, causing death and destruction on a massive scale. Imagine a movie where the tyrant uses rape the way the IRS uses audits and where untold hundreds of thousands of citizens are murdered.
Imagine sitting in the theater as the first half of the movie recounts one scene of torture and mutilation after another. Then, enter the good guys. Risking exposure to chemical and biological weapons, they ride in and depose the tyrant, taking extraordinary care to spare the lives of civilians. They free a political prison of hundreds of children. They pull the tyrant from his rat hole and deliver him to justice.
Now that's a feel-good movie.
On June 28, 2004, Paul Bremer fled Baghdad and turned over the reins of the Iraqi government to Iyad Allawi. A week before that, Juan Cole wrote a column discussing the issues that would face the new Iraqi government. Over the two week stretch from June 20 to July 3, 2004 at Goldberg's hangout at the Corner, there was not a single post discussing the transfer and what Allawi's government would have to do to succeed. However, there were 28 posts - 2 per day! - that discussed or mentioned Michael Moore.
As he continues to ridicule Juan Cole for actually being an informed source who has largely been right about what he's said for the past several years, Goldberg might want to re-evaluate who's being the blind partisan not interested in success in Iraq.
posted by thehim at 11:53 AM
<< Home