What is Neoconservatism?

Norman Podhoretz, past editor of Commentary Magazine, is interviewed today over at the Wall Street Journal's Saturday edition. Podhoretz is one of the founders of "neoconservatism," a political label that stirs-up lots of animosities in American politics today, with much talk of a "neocon conspiracy" overtaking the country. But what exactly constitutes neoconservatism? Let's hear it from the interview's opening passages:

Neoconservatism is hard to pin down as discrete political theory; Mr. Podhoretz suggests even that is too strong a term, preferring "tendency." In any case, as a practical matter, it denotes the mentality of those who moved from somewhere on the political left to somewhere on the right, primarily during the late '70s. It had "two ruling passions," according to Mr. Podhoretz. On the one hand, the neocons were repulsed by the countercultural '60s radicalism that came to dominate the American liberal establishment. On the other, they argued for a more assertive, muscular foreign policy (at the time in response to Soviet expansionism).

Podhoretz has not lost his fervent belief in the neoconservative cause, and he breaks cleanly with other (neo)conservatives who have abandoned the American-led democracy project in Iraq:

Mr. Podhoretz is having none of it. "I always knew they didn't like this policy, the Bush doctrine," he says, speaking of increasingly vocal antagonists like George Will and William F. Buckley. "They had doubts about it going in, and not just because it violates in their view conservative principles but, you know, it's hubris, it's Wilsonianism, it goes beyond the limits of power, it's nation-building, and so on. But for reasons of solidarity or because they were not willing to join with the left or the far reaches of the Buchananite right, they were careful, they voiced their doubts only through hints or veiled asides. So when they came, so to speak, out of the antiwar closet, I certainly was not all that surprised. "They've declared defeat, basically," he continues. "What can I say? I think they're wrong. I think Iraq has gone not badly but well, is not a disaster or a crime or a delusion, but what's more is a noble, necessary effort." Mr. Podhoretz attributes the troubles of reconstruction as much to our own irresolution as to what he calls "the recalcitrance and obduracy of the region." "The only reason in my opinion that we're having as much trouble as we're having in Iraq is that we're not getting intelligence. You cannot fight a revanchist insurgency and certainly not one that uses terrorist tactics without good intelligence . . . and you can only get that kind of intelligence by squeezing it out of prisoners. That's all there is to it." Both domestic opposition and the international community, unhappily, are "defining torture down. The things they're calling 'torture' now have never been and have no business being considered torture." He keeps on: "It is an effort to disarm us that's succeeding to a frightening extent. No, it's worse than that. They're trying to make it impossible to fight terrorism. . . . Every weapon that's been developed to protect us from terrorism, and the Iraqis from internal terrorism, is under assault."

Podhoretz's calls the current terror conflict World War IV, after the World Wars and the Cold War of the 20th century. He's laid out his theory in a Commentary article, subsequently expanded, and now expected to be published in book form.

I don't consider myself a neoconservative, although I've had my own ideological transformation since September 11, 2001. I do, however, continue to back the Iraq War (with qualifications), and I have problems with neoconservative arguments favoring a precipitous troop drawdown, as I indicated in this post on Max Boot's recent analysis of U.S. alternatives in Iraq.

Anti-Terrorism and the Democratic Party

I had an appointment yesterday afternoon, and following that my son and I had dinner down in Huntington Beach, at Ruby's Diner on the pier. I therefore haven't had much time to absorb the news and opinion surrounding the liquid-bomb plot broken up Thursday by Scotland Yard. I did read, however, Friday's lead editorial in the Wall Street Journal, which provides a nice synopsis of the relationship between London's successful anti-terror operation and the domestic political debate in the U.S. over American security policy. Here's the introduction:

Americans went to work yesterday to news of another astonishing terror plot against U.S. airlines, only this time the response was grateful relief. British authorities had busted the "very sophisticated" plan "to commit mass murder" and arrested 20-plus British-Pakistani suspects. As we approach the fifth anniversary of 9/11 without another major attack on U.S. soil, now is the right moment to consider the policies that have protected us--and those in public life who have fought those policies nearly every step of the way.

It's not as if the "Islamic fascists"--to borrow President Bush's description yesterday--haven't been trying to hit us. They took more than 50 lives last year in London with the "7/7" subway bombings. There was the catastrophic attack in Madrid the year before that left nearly 200 dead. But there have also been successes. Some have been publicized, such as a foiled plot to poison Britain's food supply with ricin. But undoubtedly many have not, because authorities don't want to compromise sources and methods, or because the would-be terrorists have been captured or killed before they could carry out their plans.

In this case the diabolical scheme was to smuggle innocent-looking liquid explosive components and detonators onto planes. They could then be assembled onboard and exploded, perhaps over cities for maximum horror. Multiply the passenger load of a 747 by, say, 10 airliners, and this attack could have killed more people than 9/11. We don't yet know how the plot was foiled, but surely part of the explanation was crack surveillance work by British authorities.

"This wasn't supposed to happen today," a U.S. official told the Washington Post of the arrests and terror alert. "It was supposed to happen several days from now. We hear the British lost track of one or two guys. They had to move." Meanwhile, British antiterrorism chief Peter Clarke said at a news conference that the plot was foiled because "a large number of people" had been under surveillance, with police monitoring "spending, travel and communications."

Let's emphasize that again: The plot was foiled because a large number of people were under surveillance concerning their spending, travel and communications. Which leads us to wonder if Scotland Yard would have succeeded if the ACLU or the New York Times had first learned the details of such surveillance programs.

Be sure to read the remainder of the article. This piece absolutely hits the bulls-eye on the Democrats' antiwar and anti-security pathologies, seen here in their lock-step opposition to the very policies that are successfullly preventing catastrophic attacks on a scale not seen since September 11, 2001. Numerous commentators on Fox News last night referenced WSJ's quote above lambasting the ACLU and the New York Times for their campaign of hindrance against the the Bush administration's intelligence programs. Daniel Henninger's "Wonderland" article yesterday in WSJ is also noteworthy, arguing that the Dems "knifed" Joe Liebeman Wednesday with their open-armed commitment to Ned Lamont, the victor in Tuesday's Connecticut Democratic senatorial primary.

The Power and Patriotism of "World Trade Center"

My son and I saw "World Trade Center" on Wednesday, the day of the film's national release. This was a remarkable motion picture -- a must-see for every American -- a movie whose immediacy places the viewer virtually inside the film, experiencing up-close-and personal the tragedy and triumph of that September morning in 2001.

The movie's portrayal of the collapse of the Twin Towers -- with its victim's ground-floor view -- was one of the most powerful, unforgettable scenes I've ever seen in film. I think director Oliver Stone set exactly the right tone: violent and intense in the movie's recounting of the disaster, and heartwarming and uplifting in its retelling of the rescues of Sargeant John McLoughlin and Will Jemino. The viewer feels the fear of the police officers as they approach the burning towers, hesitant to enter but utimately resolved on performing their duty. The movie also rightly provides a patriotic look at the choosing-up of sides in the just-initiated war on terror, most clearly through the recounting of Sargeant David Karnes' contribution to the rescue efforts. We, too, want to be there, lending a hand to those whose pain and endurance gives voice to the fine fragility of human existence.

I've read mixed reviews of the film. A triumphalist take on "World Trade Center" was provided in Newsweek's August 7th cover story, "Natural Born Heroes." Reviewer David Anson says "'World Trade Center' celebrates the ties that bind us, the bonds that keep us going, the goodness that stands as a rebuke to the horror of that day."

Anson's review stands in contrast to Kenneth Turan's, the senior film reviewer at the Los Angeles Times. Turan takes exception to the film's straigthforward, meat-and-potatoes, pro-American approach to the terrorist attacks, hoping to see in the film less feel-goodism and more introspection:

It's taken the Hollywood system five years to come up with a major motion picture about what happened at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, but if you think that time was used for thoughtful introspection and careful analysis about the best way to approach those agonizing and unprecedented events, you just don't know Hollywood. What that time has gone into instead is making the story of Sept. 11 fit as closely as possible into the business-as-usual norms of sentimental studio moviemaking. The problem is not so much that "World Trade Center" is an attempt to make a feel-good movie about a ghastly situation, it's that the result feels forced, manufactured and largely — but not entirely — unconvincing. For the reality of what took place on the streets of Lower Manhattan is such an overwhelmingly sad and troubling story that simply re-creating those horrific events, as this film does, guarantees that your work will have moments of power and emotion. A person's heart would have to be made of stone if he or she weren't at least a little affected by the against-all-odds rescue of two Port Authority policemen, played by Nicolas Cage and Michael Peña, from beneath crushing piles of rubble, as their despairing wives, played by Maria Bello and Maggie Gyllenhaal, cry literal tears of joy. What the reality of the World Trade Center gives to a film, it can also take away. Because those events are guaranteed to elicit emotion in a way that is almost Pavlovian, we hold depictions of them to a higher standard. We don't want this story of all stories to devolve into a standard studio scenario, full of uplifting messages about bringing out "the goodness we forgot could exist." But, as directed by Oliver Stone and written by newcomer Andrea Berloff, that is just what we get. In part, this is because "World Trade Center" has been conceived as a memorial, a tribute to those who have fallen and those who survived, and memorials, while necessary and commendable, do not always make for the best drama. But more than this, though the events it depicts are real, questionable choices at key junctures have made "World Trade Center" play more contrived than heartfelt. It is a film that pushes too hard for emotional effects and displays a weakness for easy choices whenever it can.

Read the whole thing. Turan's among the best of the film reviewers working at the big national newspapers. He wrote a perceptive and historically-grounded analysis of "The Passion of the Christ" in 2004, which is the best movie review I've ever read. But he's way off track in his take on "World Trade Center." He lets slip his anti-Bush administration biases, attacking the film's tie-in of the September 11 attacks to the war in Iraq (he says the purported link between 9/11 and Saddam's Iraq is "the big lie," though there's much evidence that shows Saddam's various acitivities in support of Mideast terrorism). Turan needs to occasionally replace his critic's clothing with the garb of the average movie-goer -- the man-on-the-street reviews of this film, seen in the local news coverage of the film's opening, provide a much more apt encapsulation of "World Trade Center's" power and patriotism.

"Can Blogging Derail Your Career?"

The July 28 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education ran an interesting symposium on blogging and academic life, entitled "Can Blogging Derail Your Career?" As a professor of political science, and a (newbie) blogger, I found some of the essays very interesting. The impetus for the symposium was the rejection of historian Juan Cole for a tenured position at Yale University. Cole's a hard-left radical, who spews his nasty, unfiltered views on his page, "Informed Comment." Did blogging kill Cole's chances? The Chronicle asked seven scholar-bloggers to comment on Cole's predicament, answering whether blogging and high-powered academics can coexist.

These are brief but informative articles. I liked Ann Althouse's entry, where she lays out her theory on what motivates an academic to share her thoughts via weblog:

What are we to make of the blogging professor? I'm not talking about professors who look upon blogging as a new way to project their scholarship into the world and who assiduously protect their reputations by writing every post in an academic style. I'm talking about those of us who are inspired by this writing format, who find ourselves drawn into new ways of thinking and communicating with the world.

If you veer away from purely scholarly writing and engage in polemic or satire or elliptical snark about controversial subject matter, you may very well win a widespread audience and feel highly gratified by this response, but then you will also be motivating some people to oppose you, perhaps quite viciously, and you will be generating the material they can use to try to bring you down. The very fact that you're a professor is leverage: This person purports to be a scholar, but look how he writes!

Successful blog writing is sharp and clear. Controversial opinions will look quite stark. You lay it on the line, and you mean to startle readers and make your opponents mad. Academic writing is temperate and swathed in verbiage. It creates a comfortable environment for academics and wards off casual readers. In the blogosphere, you're newly exposed, and it's a rough arena, where you have far less control over what happens to you. That's part of what makes blogging empowering and, often, great fun. But it's a big risk, and of course, it risks your career.

Althouse writes a cool blog at Althouse, naturally, and her comments got me to thinking about why I blog. Probably the most important reason follows from the axiom that readers are writers: I've been reading a few key blogs regularly for at least a couple years now, and it turns out this year I got the itch to get in the game. It took me a little while to get up to speed, but I'm locked-in now as a blogophile -- it's fun and addicting, and I can see it improving my teaching, especially in that I hope to use my blog posts as part of students' writing assignments each semester.

More importantly, though, Burkean Reflections is the expressive outlet to which Althouse refers: I enjoy providing informed commentary on the things I read and on my life encounters. There are lots of blogging styles, and mine is from a tenured-perspective -- academic (with lots of bibliographic references), professional, and serious (although some commenters have found some humor here and there). I'm a "linker" too, a term coined by Betsy Newmark to describe a blogger who likes mostly to link rather than write full-blown original essays (but one who's not against throwing-in lengthy flourishes of commentary now and then). I've also tried to emulate the style of fellow political scientist Daniel Drezner -- a veteran blogger and symposium participant here -- whose posts can be found on his weblog, www.danieldrezner.com/blog.

In sum, I'm enjoying the blog ride so far, and thanks go out to my emerging readership for riding along.

Time for a Troop Drawdown in Iraq?

Max Boot published a provocative commentary on Iraq strategy in yesterday's Los Angeles Times. Remarking on the dire deterioration of basic security in the country over the last few months, Boot first lays out two alternatives for the Bush administration: troop escalation (by at least 35,000 more soldiers) or a complete withdrawal from the country. Neither option is without pitfalls or opposition:

But there's another course short of withdrawal: reducing U.S. forces from today's level of 130,000 to under 50,000 and changing their focus from conducting combat operations to assisting Iraqi forces. The money saved from downsizing the U.S. presence could be used to better train and equip more Iraqi units. A smaller U.S. commitment also would be more sustainable over the long term. This is the option favored within the U.S. Special Forces community, in which the dominant view is that most American soldiers in Iraq, with their scant knowledge of the local language and customs, are more of a hindrance than a help to the counterinsurgency effort. Make no mistake: This is a high-risk strategy. The drawdown of U.S. troops could catalyze the Iraqis into getting their own house in order, or it could lead to a more rapid and violent disintegration of the rickety structure that now exists. Which path should we take? My preference remains deploying more soldiers, not fewer. A couple of divisions in Baghdad, if skillfully led, might be able to replicate the success that Col. H.R. McMaster's 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment had in pacifying the western city of Tall Afar, where the troops-to-civilians ratio was 10 times higher than in Baghdad today. But at this point, I am also open to a substantial reduction in troop numbers because the current strategy just isn't working. Bush needs to do something radical to shake up a deteriorating status quo if we are to have any hope of averting the worst American military defeat since Vietnam.

Note how Boot is essentially proposing the "Iraqization" of Iraq -- a plan holding an uncomfortable resemblance to the "Vietnamization" strategy of phased withdrawal in Vietnam in the late-1960s, a policy ultimately unsuccessful in weening South Vietnam off its American security dependence. Also, noteworthy is the tone of concession by Boot to the possibility of an American defeat in Iraq. For a staunch neoconservative such as he, it's a tough admission to say it's a failed war and let's get out.

I would note that we've been in Iraq just three years, and election year politics certainly has a lot to do with neoconservative suggestions for a cut-and-run. I've disagreed with much the administration has done in the Iraq War, not the least of which was the initial Rumsfeld plan of going light on troops and heavy on technology (we need both). Nevertheless, I credit President Bush for his stiffness against poll-driven pressures for an early witdrawal. Iraq needs a modicum of security before U.S. troops can come home. How long will that take? Who knows? But the U.S. needs to agree on the right course and avoid a precipitous drawdown that threatens the honorable -- and fledgling -- Iraqi democracy we helped build.

For a strategy for succes in Iraq built around a new, robust counterinsurgency plan, see Andrew Krepinovich's article, "How to Win in Iraq," published in the September/October 2005 issue of Foreign Affairs.

The Lamont Victory and the Lieberman Resurrection

The big political news today is obviously Ned Lamont's victory in the Connecticut Democratic primary over three-term incumbent Joseph Lieberman. I've posted previously about the contest, for example, on Lamont's surprising ascendency and on the implications of the race for the future of the Democratic Party. Now with the primary over observers and strategists will be picking through the results to find meaning for the national political landscape.

Over at The Nation, John Nichols indicates that Lamont's win reflects the candidate's true representation of core Democratic party principles:

How did Lamont succeed where others – including 2004 presidential contender and current Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean -- failed? Not by simply expressing opposition to the war, nor even by expressing frustration with Lieberman's refusal to question even the most misguided of Bush administration foreign policies.

Lamont won by doing something most national Democrats have failed to do over the past several election cycles. He put the war in perspective, telling voters that the $250 million a day that is shifted from the U.S. Treasury into a failed fight in Iraq and the deep pockets of defense contractors like Halliburton could be better used to pay for education and health care at home and smart foreign aid programs abroad.

The Lamont message was always a far more sophisticated one than most of the national media coverage of the campaign suggested. The challenger rarely spoke just about Iraq, but instead invited voters to join in a broader discussion of foreign policy, American interests and American values. And he never allowed the war debate to be isolated from the debate about how an America that was not bogged down in Iraq might better spend its resources.

Mocking the rhetoric of the Bush administration and Lieberman regarding Iraq, Lamont said on Tuesday night: "Stay the course -- that's not a winning strategy in Iraq and it's not a winning strategy for America." He meant what he was saying. Just as Lamont wants to "[fix] George Bush's failed foreign policy," he also wants to fix failed domestic policies that have produced what he correctly refers to as a "broken" health care system and an education system that leaves too many children behind. And he recognizes the linkages between failures abroad and failures at home.

Connecticut Democrats rewarded that recognition by handing the Senate nomination to Lamont in a historic primary vote.

National Democratic party leaders and strategists, who have had such a hard time figuring out their message going into this fall's House and Senate elections, would be wise to take a lesson from the campaign that Ned Lamont waged, and the result it produced.

It's still months until the November general election, of course, and Lieberman today filed his papers with the Connecticut Secretary of State's office to run as an independent. Political consultant Dick Morris, who helped Bill Clinton develop his "triangulation" strategy in the mid-1990s, argues in today's New York Post that Lieberman is poised for success in the fall:

Those who would consign Lieberman to the dustbin of history need to realize that the Democratic primary in Connecticut is an affair that could be conducted in a good sized phone booth. About 140,000 people voted for Lamont. But the state saw 1,575,000 votes cast in the general election of 2004. Assume a lower turnout in 2006 (an off year), say 1 million votes, that still leaves 860,000 that can vote for Lieberman.

The Connecticut incumbent can, of course, count on the roughly 130,000 who backed him yesterday (aside from a few party regulars who might find it necessary to fall into line and endorse the nominee).

Then, with the Republican plagued by reports of huge gambling debts, Lieberman will strongly attract independent and GOP voters, plus moderate Democrats who weren't energized enough by the Lamont challenge to vote in the primaries.

In the general election, Lieberman can paint Lamont (a former client of mine) as the rich, light-weight dilettante he is (heir to the fortune of J.P. Morgan's partner) and can focus on the broad range of his legislative agenda. After all, Lieberman has taken the lead on issues ranging from campaign-finance reform to tobacco regulation to corporate-governance reform to tough action against terrorism to the battle against global warming. He'll look better and better, while Lamont will look like a one-issue challenger who is out of his league.

Freed of the confines of the Democratic primary, Lieberman can now appeal to independents, Republicans and mainstream Democrats who were not sufficiently motivated to participate in the primary, he can win.

A big winner in all of this, lest we forget, is Daily Kos and the netroots. Kos staked enormous effort and reputation in the battle against Lieberman, and they've been vindicated, as this Time Magazine article suggests. The signposts for the fall campaign are now more clear than any time since the Bilbray victory in San Diego's 50th congressional district in June, with the message that congressional incumbents with significant antiwar elements among their constituents have something to worry about.

The Surprising Effectiveness of Hezbollah

Sunday's Los Angeles Times reported that a large number of Israeli soldiers have expressed frustration at the progress of Israel's military incursion in Lebanon:

With Israel's offensive dragging into its fourth week, many of these soldiers say they are encountering in Hezbollah an enemy more formidable than any they have fought in recent years. And to hear some of them describe it, the ground war is not going quite as they expected. It is a slow, tough slog that has failed to stop Hezbollah rocket fire from scorching northern Israel. They expressed frustration that Hezbollah fighters mingled with the civilian population, making them harder to find and root out....Overall, they said, they found Hezbollah to be a much more effective fighting force than the Palestinian militants they were more accustomed to confronting. With the Palestinians, the fight is usually more of a policing operation in familiar territory, involving occupation and arrests with the occasional airstrike, the soldiers said, not the wholesale armored offensive required against Hezbollah.

The distress articulated among frontline fighters is one of the reasons for the growing unease over the war in Israeli public opinion. According to last Saturday's Washington Post, national support has declined since the early days of the conflict, when Hezbollah's unprovoked aggression initiated a dramatic rallying effect among the populace:

After an extraordinary national surge of unanimity during the first days of the conflict, public support is starting to fray, with some of the nation's most influential voices criticizing political leaders and Israel Defense Forces generals for military strategies they say have failed to protect Israeli citizens. They blame Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz for trying to lull citizens into a false sense of security, fault generals for relying too heavily on air power to destroy Hezbollah rocket launchers, and worry that Israeli troops may not have been prepared to defeat a force far tougher than Palestinian fighters. "The public should demand of the political echelon: Stop or reduce the Katyusha rocket fire," the popular daily newspaper Ma'ariv wrote Friday. "Do what you should have done two weeks ago. . . . Bang on the table in front of the white-faced IDF officers, and demand more proposals; think and think again. . . . The time for patience has passed. You have an army, use it, or go for a cease-fire." The behind-the-scenes disagreements between the generals and the politicians, and among competing branches of the military, are becoming part of the public debate.

The collapse of national will is to be expected amid the international outcry over the carnage and dramatic loss of life, both military and civilian. But the Israeli military's lack of progress is probably the main reason for a drop-off in support, as the public tends to back military deployments when it looks like objectives are being met (the basic military strategy for the engagement was flawed from the start, so that didn't help matters).

As momentum builds internationally for the impostition of a cease-fire, it becomes increasingly important for Israel to strike a devasting blow to Hezbollah's capabilities, otherwise the Shiite terrorist organization may be substantially strengthened by the conflict, as John Lee Anderson argued in the August 8th edition of The New Yorker:

The past two weeks have represented a return to first principles for Hezbollah, which was founded in the early eighties, after Israel invaded Lebanon. The group became known internationally when it was accused of bombing the United States Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, killing two hundred and forty-one American servicemen; that was followed by attacks on Israeli targets around the world. In Lebanon, Hezbollah draws support, in the Shiite community and beyond, for its role in driving the Israeli occupation forces out of the country in 2000. Since then, Hezbollah has presented itself as a political party, gaining two posts in the Lebanese cabinet and fourteen seats in the parliament. But, rather than disarming, it bolstered its military capacity, with Iranian and Syrian help. Now that it is under siege, the contradictions of its position—as part of the Lebanese state, but also as a clandestine body that subverts it—are plainer than ever.... Even if Israel manages to dislodge Hezbollah’s fighters, [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah will likely remain the most powerful politician in the country, in part because the chaos of the last weeks has exposed the weakness of the government. Most of the Lebanese analysts I spoke with said they believed that Hezbollah had, on its own terms, been significantly strengthened by the conflict.

See my earlier post on the consequences of a Hezbollah victory for more information.

Joseph Lieberman and the Lamont Ascendency

Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman is facing the primary election challenge of his life in Connecticut today. Lieberman's foe is political newcomer Ned Lamont, a Connecticut businessman with a deep pedigree in New England patrician society, but little political experience. There are huge national political implications arising from the contest, for both parties, whether Lamont wins the race or not. Over at today's OpinionJournal.com, Brendan Miniter provides some background to the historic importance of the election:

In one of the most watched races of the year, Connecticut Democrats head to the polls today to decide whether to endorse Sen. Joe Lieberman for a fourth term or to nominate antiwar candidate and political neophyte Ned Lamont. Unless Sen. Lieberman turns in a stunningly large victory, the outcome will hardly matter. Even if he falls short at the ballot box, Mr. Lamont has already succeeded at changing the political landscape on the left. Anyone who expects to get anywhere within the Democratic Party will now have to give the antiwar wing its due. The party of George McGovern is back.

If this were just Connecticut, maybe Democrats would get away with seeing the rise of Mr. Lamont and the downfall of a former vice presidential nominee as a fluke within a big-tent party. Perhaps then former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, outgoing Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack or New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson would inspire the party to embrace policies that can win over middle-of-the-road or even Republican voters. Perhaps Bill Clinton's "third way" Democrats would still get a hearing. Perhaps Democrat Will Marshall wouldn't have to be out hawking a book--"With All Our Might"--that aims to prove that Democrats can be strong on national defense too. But it's not just Connecticut.

Democrats with national aspirations have been noticeably unwilling to come to Sen. Lieberman's defense. None of those expected to make a bid for their party's 2008 presidential nomination showed up in the Nutmeg State to stump for the beleaguered senator. John Kerry, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, Mark Warner, Tom Vilsack, Bill Richardson -- all steered clear. Bill Clinton did come out for a campaign appearance with Mr. Lieberman, but Al Gore refused even to endorse the man he put on his ticket six years ago....

In 1968 antiwar activists rioted outside of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in part because the party refused to adopt, as part of its platform, a plan for withdrawal from Vietnam. Democrats nominated Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who went on to be defeated by Richard Nixon. Four years later the antiwar activists had made it inside the walls of the party and nominated George McGovern, whom Nixon crushed in the 1972 landslide. Today, amid another insurgent war, there is again a withdrawal plan on the table, and Democratic hopefuls will again be forced to decide between retreating from a foreign war and drawing fire from the most active members of their party. Antiwar activists are again a potent political force within the Democratic ranks, and this time it didn't take riots on national television to put them there.

Of course, this is President Bush's fault. In the past three election cycles -- in 2000, 2002 and most notably for his re-election in 2004 -- the president put the Republicans on top by running a get-out-the-vote campaign. In 2004 Mr. Bush even managed to win with a record turnout, proving to both political parties that getting their voters to the polls was more important than winning over supporters of the other party. By freeing the parties from hunting for votes across the aisle, Mr. Bush has inadvertently increased both the power and the stature of the most active wings of the two parties. Ironically for Mr. Bush, the net result is the rise in recent years of antiwar activists on the left and anti-illegal-immigrant activists on the right -- neither of which serves his political goals.

Nonetheless in the coming years we're likely to see more of the brand of politics practiced by the Club for Growth: political groups targeting members of their own party who stray too close to the political center. For the club that has meant funding conservative challengers to tax-hiking Republicans, such as Rhode Island's Sen. Lincoln Chafee. For Mr. Lieberman, it means facing a credible, self-financed antiwar candidate in Mr. Lamont.

The big prize is, of course, the White House. And unfortunately for Mrs. Clinton, a polarized political field may complicate her expected presidential bid in 2008. She's spent the past six years playing both sides of the aisle and has quietly amassed a reputation as a workhorse senator. She also voted for the war, but has spent much of the past three years distancing herself from the Bush administration's war policies and has largely avoided criticism on the left. The question now is, in a polarized political environment, can Mrs. Clinton make it through the Democratic primaries without being pulled too far to the left to be able to win the general election? For a party more interested in turnout than the mass appeal that a Sen. Lieberman might bring, will it matter?

Take a look at the whole thing, as I've omitted a couple of paragraphs from the middle of the essay. In yesterday's Wall Street Journal, Martin Peretz, the Editor-in-Chief at The New Republic, spoke of Lamont's political rise as "the Lamont ascendency." Indeed, Sunday's Los Angeles Times ran a front-page article on Lieberman's challenger entitled, "Lamont Went From Zero to Favorite in 7 Months." With the race now down to the wire, one last-minute polling report found Lamont holding a 51-45 lead going into Tuesday's contest, a statistical tie actually, but nevertheless a margin leaning clearly away from Lieberman, a three-term Senate incumbent. Stay tuned -- the future of the Democratic Party is at stake.

Iraq and the Rise of Shiite Hegemony in the Mideast

Last Friday's Wall Street Journal ran an interesting article on Vali Nasr, a political scientist and Middle East expert at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California. The article, "Rising Academic Sees Sectarian Split Inflaming Mideast," is available online only to subscribers (which is not good, because WSJ's front page stories are routinely among the best published in journalism, but remain inaccessible to bloggers behind the subscription firewall).

That said, this piece is particularly worth citing here, as Nasr's thesis is having significant influence within the Bush administration. Here's a quote from the article:

Mr. Nasr's analysis begins with the idea that the removal of Saddam Hussein in Iraq has transformed the Mideast, but not in the ways promised by President Bush. By replacing Iraq's Sunni-led dictatorship with an elected government dominated by the country's Shiite majority, the U.S. destroyed the Sunni wall that had contained the restless Shiite power to the east, Iran. The clerical regime in Tehran was immediately strengthened.

This power shift, Mr. Nasr argues, has reopened an ancient fault line between Shiites and Sunnis that crosses the entire region. The schism dates back to the prophet Muhammed's death in 632, when his companions -- the forebears of the Sunnis -- chose Muhammmed's close friend and father-in-law, Abu Bakr, to suceed him and become Islam's first caliph. Shiites believe Muhammed's son-in-law, Ali, was more deserving.

Nasr's analysis continues with the notion that the Shiite-Sunni split will have growing significance throughout the Middle East in coming years. Events in Iraq are emboldening Shiites living in Sunni-dominated regimes throughout the region -- from Lebanon, Pakistan, to Saudia Arabia -- firing aspirations for a pan-Shiite revival, bolstered by the leadership of Iran, the Mideast's top Shiite power.

For the Bush administration, the policy implications of the analysis suggest increased diplomatic engagement with Tehran. In Iraq, the removal of Saddam has increased the Iranian intelligence and security presence in the country, and the Sunni insurgency is deepening ties among Iraqi Shiites and the Iranian regime. This situation gives Iran leverage in creating a lasting political and constitutional settlement in Iraq, and it presents Tehran with the opportunity to improve ties to the United States, perhaps by helping to broker negotiations between Iraq's Shiite and Sunni factions in exchange for security guarantees from Washington.

Nasr's full thesis can be found in his recent article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs. Overall, I find the idea of a U.S.-Iran diplomatic renewal -- emerging out developments in Iraq -- an interesting thesis. I nevertheless remain skeptical of the idea of giving Iran more say in Iraqi politics -- particularly since Iran's long-term objectives include Mideast regional domination, destabilization and weakening of the Iraqi democracy, and the destruction of Israel. The U.S. may, unfortunately (though I hope not), find a Tehran gambit more attractive, as we continue with the long, hard job of building democracy in Iraq, amid continuing casualties and growing doubts about the ultimate success of the operation in American public opinion.

Hiroshima in History: The 61st Anniversary of the Dawn of the Nuclear Age

Today's the 61st anniversary of the U.S. nuclear attack on Hiroshima, the first of two nuclear strikes on Japan designed to end the War in the Pacific. The two strikes marked the opening of the atomic age, and the Japanese case is the only historical example of the use of nuclear weapons. It's no surprise, then, that the bombing of Hiroshima has been surrounded by controversy since 1945.

There is some consensus, however, that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima shortened the war and saved lives. As the U.S. military's island-hopping campaign in the Pacific progressed toward Japan in the first half of 1945, military planners took pause at the loss of life at Okinawa, where over 12,000 American and 110,000 Japanese troops died, plus the loss of an estimated 150,000 civilians. U.S. officials expected a mainland invasion of Japan to be fiercely resisted, by military and civlians alike, fighting "to the last man." Expected casualties were estimated at upwards of 250,000 U.S. soldiers and a total of 1 million people in all (Source: Carolyn Rhodes, Pivotal Decisions: Selected Cases in Twentieth-Century International Politics, 2000).

In an essay published last July, on the eve of Hiroshima's 60th anniversary, Richard Frank, the author of a respected history of the Guadalcanal campaign, published a commentary piece in the San Fancisco Chronicle defending the decision to drop the bomb on Japan:

What if the United States had chosen not to use atomic weapons against Japan in 1945?

Americans typically believe that an invasion of Japan would have been the consequence, but four other possibilities have been raised: a diplomatic settlement; Soviet intervention in the Pacific theater; continuing war with dire effects on millions of Asians trapped in Japan's empire; and a new strategic bombing directive.

Contrary to wishful theories, no realistic prospect existed for a diplomatic settlement. The American aim of unconditional surrender was not just a slogan. It constituted the keystone to the enduring peace that followed. It provided the legal authority for the occupation of Japan and the ensuing fundamental renovation of Japanese society.

Japan's leaders opposed unconditional surrender precisely because they understood it meant the extinction of the old order dominated by the militarists and their consorts. That old order had started a war that killed more than 17 million people -- most of them Asian noncombatants. The strongest evidence that compromise remained out of reach is that even when the Japanese government finally issued its first real surrender offer on Aug. 10, 1945, it still demanded that the United States guarantee that substantial power would remain in the hands of the emperor.

Read the whole story. Frank argues that the bombing of Hiroshima saved millions of lives, as Japan faced imminent famine had the U.S. plan for conventional bombing of the Japanese railway system been effected:

Had the war continued for two weeks or perhaps only a few days, the destruction of the rail system would have brought about the mass famine that probably would have prompted the Japanese to capitulate. But this also means that Japanese would have died by the millions.

What history without Hiroshima illustrates is that there was no alternative happy ending to the Pacific War. When realistic consideration is given to the alternatives, atomic bombs stand as the worst way to have ended the war -- except all the others.

The nuclear devastation of Japan in 1945 fed strong demands historically for the non-use (and even the abolition) of nuclear weapons. For my previous post on the difficulties in halting the spread of nuclear weapons, which includes a discussion of the rise of U.S. nuclear primacy and the collapse of mutual assured destruction, click here. For my post on the implications of the Battle of Midway for the direction of the Pacific War, click here.

Banana Republic? Cuba After Castro

With the news of Fidel Castro's intestinal surgery, and the "temporary" shift in power to Castro's brother Raul, the extremely important question is: Now what? The Cuban power transition was big news across the media on Wednesday, with the story of Raul's accession, for example, analyzed in this article from the Washington Post.

An intriguing initial answer to where Cuba's going is offered in this story from the August 14th edition of Business Week. The story's author, Frederik Balfour, visited the country in July, and he's able to offer a breezy but professional account of what might lie in store for the Carribean dictatorship, indicating that he's skeptical there'll be much change:

I wasn't in Cuba on assignment. I was on vacation and told few people about my job as a correspondent for BusinessWeek in Hong Kong. Let's be clear: Although you don't see a lot of cops, and those you do see are unfailingly polite, Cuba is still a police state, and people are afraid to speak their minds, especially to foreigners. For that reason, nearly everyone I spoke with requested anonymity.

Although I left Cuba before Castro announced his illness, I saw little evidence that the country is poised for any significant change. Cuba appears to be frozen in time, with the same empty storefronts, crumbling Colonial-era buildings, and ancient Chevys, Buicks, and Chryslers everywhere. The antique jalopies operate mainly as taxis, often carrying 10 passengers at a time. But since taxis are a luxury for most Cubans and even bicycles are difficult to come by, buses are the most common mode of transport. Cuba's buses are notoriously unreliable, with waits of an hour or more common. Once a bus arrives, it's likely to be a converted 18-wheeler jam-packed with passengers.

This is a country of extreme scarcity. Even basic items such as shampoo and soap are untold luxuries sold only in special shops requiring hard currency or a local scrip called the CUC. That's why enterprising Cubans park themselves outside five-star hotels panhandling for toiletries that can be resold on the black market. Others supplement their official salaries of perhaps $15 per month selling whatever they can. Many families keep their front doors open, using their living rooms as storefronts hawking everything from second-hand shoes to spare parts for various machines to meat and vegetables.

Some are tapping into the tourist trade. While Americans are forbidden to visit, citizens of most other countries are welcome to do so (I'm Canadian), and last year 2.3 million tourists came through. That has created opportunities for people such as the couple I stayed with in Havana. Both former lawyers, they quit their jobs and converted their two-bedroom apartment into a guest house, charging $25 per night. Even after paying a big chunk of that to the government, they are very well off by Cuban standards.

To be fair, Cuba boasts excellent social services. The country's free education and health care are the envy of its Caribbean and Latin American neighbors. Castro has sent hundreds of doctors and teachers to Venezuela, which in turn has helped keep Cuba afloat with cheap oil. Of the dozens of developing countries I've visited, nowhere does the divide between the haves and the have-nots appear to be so narrow, though that's largely because almost everyone is a have-not.

No matter what he thinks, Castro won't outlast the elephant. And just about every Cuban I met hopes his departure will lead to more haves than have-nots.

Whatever happens, I certainly hope no one takes seriously the calls heard this week for Cuba to become the 51st state of the union.

Be sure to take a look at the article's photograph slide show.

Can the U.N. Keep the Peace in Lebanon?

Friday's Wall Street Journal ran a great piece on the U.N.'s peacekeeping record by Jonathan Tepperman, who's a deputy managing editory at Foreign Affairs. Tepperman notes that as governmental demands for a new U.N. intervention increase -- following the deaths of four peacekeepers in Israel's Lebanon offensive in July -- few observers are mentioning the unsuccessful track record of many previous U.N. peacekeeping missions. According to Tepperman:

The politicians should be careful what they wish for. Unifil was only the U.N.'s most recent star-crossed foray into Middle East peacemaking. Since 1948, the U.N. has stepped into the Arab-Israeli maelstrom five times. But few of these efforts have paid off. Unless it takes a radically different shape, a new intervention could well make matters worse, not just for the parties on the ground, but for the U.N. itself.

Understanding what not to do next time requires figuring out what's gone wrong in the past. Start with Unifil. Created in 1978 during Lebanon's long civil war and charged with helping to restore peace and security, monitor Israel's withdrawal, and extend Beirut's "effective authority" in the country's south, Unifil proved unable to do any of these things. It took 12 more years to stop the civil war, and after Israel pulled out of southern Lebanon in 2000, the blue helmets stood by impotently as Hezbollah dug in, launched cross-border raids (once even disguised as U.N. troops), and stockpiled the missiles that now rain down nightly on Haifa.

Part of the problem was size: Unifil numbered 6,000 troops when it was created but had dwindled to 2,000 more recently, and thus never had nearly enough manpower to cover its area of operations. Nor did it have the guns, intelligence or air support to give it any chance of disarming Hezbollah. Moreover, its anemic mandate relied on all parties to comply with the U.N.'s dictates. When they refused, the peacekeepers lacked the authority to do much more than watch. And, sadly, to die; the mission suffered 257 fatalities over the last three decades.

As for the U.N.'s earlier missions in the region, they might have suffered fewer casualties but they were scarcely more successful. The most infamous was the U.N. Expeditionary Force, created in 1956 to act as a buffer between Israel and Egypt after the Suez War. The idea was to separate hostile troops and prevent a resumption of combat. But when Nasser decided to invade Israel in 1967, UNEF, which served at the sufferance of Cairo, rushed to oblige by scrambling out of the way. U.N. Secretary General U Thant didn't even bother to inform the Security Council before yanking out the mission.

To be fair, even more unilateral attempts at peacemaking in the area haven't done much better. In 1982, the U.S. led a four-nation force (with France, Italy and the U.K.) into Lebanon to try to stop the fighting, but these troops were also hastily pulled out the next year, after Hezbollah suicide bombers killed 241 U.S. Marines and 56 French paratroopers. This tragic record points to several key lessons that the U.N., especially the permanent members of the Security Council--who would have to authorize any new mission--must heed now before stepping once more into the breach.

Be sure to read the whole thing. Tepperman indicates that if a new U.N. peacekeeping force were to be deployed, it would need to be large (with several divisions of crack troops), equipped with heavy weapons and intelligence capabilities, and backed with air and artillery support. Moreover, the U.N. force would need aggressive rules of engagement under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter, allowing U.N. forces to hunt down Hezbollah and preventing a precipitous withdrawal of the contingent. Tepperman also notes that member states need to be ready to sustain casualties.

The scholarly literature on the U.N. is virtually endless, though one point of agreement among academics and practitioners deals with the differences in types of U.N. peace operations. "Peacekeeping" as traditionally understood entails the separation of opposing combatants, usually joined by diplomatic efforts to end hostilities and create a lasting settlement.

"Peace-enforcement," on the other hand, entails the identification of an aggressor and the joining together of U.N. member states to collectively oppose the breach of international security through the use of force. The classic cases of U.N peace-enforcement operations are Korea in 1950 and the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait in 1990 (Source: Bruce Russett et al., World Politics: A Menu for Choice, 2006). So far, though, the case of Hezbollah's aggression against Israel has not generated international calls to act vigorously against the threat from the Shiite terrorist organization.

For a recent book arguing that the United Nations actually fosters global instability, see Dore Gold, Tower of Babel: How the United Nations Has Fueled Global Chaos (2004).

"Grief and Sacrifice": The Death of Phillip Baucus and the Cliche of Congressional Chickenhawks

Marine Corps Corporal Phillip Baucus, the nephew of Democratic Senator Max Baucus of Montana, was killed during combat operations last week in Iraq. His death has rekindled some attention to the patterns of military service among the families of Members of Congress.

In recent American politics, one of the more reprehensible attacks on the Bush administration and Congress has been the "chicken hawk" argument, denouncing public officials who send middle-Americans boys to war but who don't send their own. This thesis received vocal airplay in Michael Moore's film "Fahrenheit 9/11," the political documentary of the Bush administration's post-September 11 foreign policy (and a movie Christopher Hitchens argued was symtomatic of all that is wrong with the left in American politics).

But the chicken hawk attack is really just a nasty stereotype used by opponents of the war to cast aspersion on the legitimacy of government officials sending soldiers off to fight. It's an attack, of course, that gains only limited support from the historical record, as this New York Times article on the congressional grief following Corporal Baucus' death indicates:

Since the Vietnam War era, it has been common to say that wars are begun by powerful men whose sons stay home, while the sons of men and women with calluses on their hands and dirt under their nails cross oceans to fight, and perhaps to die.

In his scathing 2004 documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11,” Michael Moore said that only one of the 535 members of Congress had an enlisted son in Iraq. He was referring to Senator Tim Johnson, Democrat of South Dakota, whose son Brooks served with the Army in Bosnia, Kosovo, South Korea and Afghanistan as well as Iraq before coming home.

Mr. Moore’s assertion may have been true at the time, especially since he referred to enlisted troops as opposed to officers. But the recent words of the senior senator from Montana, a Democrat who voted to authorize military force in Iraq, showed how grief can invade the halls of Congress as well as the living rooms of Main Street.

And while the cliché about who goes to war and who does not holds some truth, there have always been notable exceptions, on Capitol Hill as elsewhere.

Lt. Sam Bond of the Marines has just returned from Iraq “much to his father’s relief,” as an aide to the father put it on Wednesday. Lieutenant Bond saw combat in Fallujah. His relieved father is Senator Christopher S. Bond, Republican of Missouri.

Another relieved father is Representative Duncan Hunter, a Republican of California who heads the House Armed Services Committee and who served in the Army in Vietnam. His son, Lt. Duncan Duane Hunter, served two tours in Iraq with the Marines.

Alan Wilson, the oldest son of Representative Joe Wilson, spent a year in Iraq as a captain in the Army National Guard. The congressman, a South Carolina Republican, also has a son who graduated from United States Naval Academy, another in the Army National Guard and still another who will join the R.O.T.C. when he enters Clemson University this fall, Kim Olive, an aide to Mr. Wilson, said Wednesday.

Lt. Perry Akin served a year in Iraq as a combat engineer in the Marines, returning to the United States last fall. His father is Representative Todd Akin, Republican of Missouri.

And Maj. William Bunning, an Air Force electronics-warfare officer who is one of nine children of Senator Jim Bunning, Republican of Kentucky, served in Afghanistan as well as in the first Persian Gulf war.

During World War II, Senator Leverett Saltonstall, Republican of Massachusetts; Gov. Herbert Lehman of New York, a Democrat; Joseph P. Kennedy, the former ambassador to Britain; and Harry Hopkins, one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s closest advisers, had a son die in the war.

A White House aide, who requested anonymity because his information was preliminary, said Wednesday that he knew of no top Bush administration official who had a relative who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

For generations, it has been common for the children of generals and admirals to follow their parents into service. That was true for Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, whose father and grandfather were admirals.

Mr. McCain, who was a Navy pilot in the Vietnam War and spent more than five years as a prisoner of the North Vietnamese after being shot down, has been a strong supporter of the Iraq campaign. The choice, he has said, is simple: “Withdrawal and fail, or commit and succeed.”

Mr. McCain’s youngest son, Jimmy, who is 18, has just joined the Marine Corps. “I’m obviously very proud of my son,” the senator told Time magazine, “but also understandably a little nervous.”

For my earlier post citing Jeff Jacoby's thrashing of the chicken hawk argument, click here. My condolences go out to the wife and family of Corporal Baucus.

U.S. Majority Backs Israel in Mideast War

The newest Los Angeles Times poll found a majority of Americans backing Israel in its weeks-long conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Here's an excerpt:

The poll found that nearly three in five respondents — 59% — backed Israel in the dispute that has now lasted more than three weeks, leaving hundreds dead and aligning much of the world in disagreement with the United States and Israel over whether to pursue an immediate cease-fire.
President Bush has resisted such an agreement until Hezbollah is disarmed and an international peacekeeping force can be assembled, a position that is generally in line with public sentiment in the United States, according to the survey. Of respondents, 13% backed an immediate cease-fire, while 45% said the United States should work toward both sides accepting an international peacekeeping force.

"I feel badly for Israel. They don't run around looking for trouble, but they are constantly being harassed and attacked by Hezbollah," said Rick Poleck, 54, of Huntingdon, Pa., a poll respondent."

Suppose this was Mexico and they were lobbing missiles into the United States. How long would we put up with that?" asked Poleck, a Republican who works as an engineer for a rural electric facility. "How do you defeat a terrorist enemy without [people] getting hurt?"

The poll found that 43% said Israel's bombing campaign was justified but not excessively harsh, while 16% described the response as justified but excessive. Fewer than one in three respondents — 28% — said the response to Hezbollah was unjustified.

Although the poll was not designed to track day-to-day changes in public opinion, the sample size each day was large enough to reflect shifting attitudes toward events in the region and the increasingly aggressive moves by the Bush administration to secure an agreement through the United Nations.

On the first day of polling, a plurality of respondents — 46% — said the United States should not get involved in the conflict. But that changed over the course of the violent weekend, with far more backing the idea of the United States working toward a peace deal.

"I know that there's really nothing you can do with Hezbollah, but if the United States doesn't do anything, the whole Middle East is going to blow up," said poll respondent Pauline Fantroy, 68, a retired nurse who lives in New York City.

"Something has to be done," said Fantroy, a Democrat. "I would get them all in a room and bat their heads against a wall like two little kids."

The survey also found the public relatively unconcerned about potiential threats to civil liberties, arising, for example, out of the government's international bank monitoring program or through the National Security Agency's tracking of phone calls and e-mails.

Additionally, the results found President Bush with a 40 percent approval rating, and 50 percent of those polled approved of Bush's leadership in the global war on terror (results that place Bush closer to historical averages for second-term presidents, casting doubts, at least for now, on the claim made by many that Bush will go down as the worst president in history) .

Be sure to read the entire article. The results from this poll are a bit more reassuring than those from last week's New York Times poll, which showed rising isolationist tendencies regarding America's role in world affairs.

The Terror War and the Justification for Torture

Jerome Slater's a university research scholar at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He's published an important article, "Tragic Choices in the War on Terrorism: Should We Try to Regulate Torture?," in the summer 2006 issue of Political Science Quarterly.

Examining the controversy surrounding the use of torture in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay, he uses moral philosophy to argue -- in defense of national security -- that the ongoing global terror conflict creates a threat environment so grave it warrants permanent exclusion from norms prohibiting torture, according to just war doctrines, and that the goal for the United States should be to create a legal and institutional regime for the use and control of torture practices.

Slater lays out a careful review of the debate on torture, for example, discussing theoretical and philosophical positions favoring an absolute prohibition on torture, as well as just war theory's position that torture may be justified as an "exceptional circumstance" overriding moral norms against the use of violent coercion to attain political and military intelligence. After an exhaustive analysis of the debate, Slater makes the case that the use of torture is morally allowable.

Here's the core of his main argument, drawn from the article's conclusion:

If we are to succeed in the war against terrorism, we surely must do much more than defend ourselves against terrorist attacks. The broader task is to do whatever can be reasonably and legitimately done to address the causes of terrorism, as well as the motivations of terrorists to target the United States. In my view, such measures must include great changes in American foreign policy—a far more balanced policy in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, for example, as well as a general policy of military noninterventionism, except in those few cases in which truly vital national interests are at stake. Meanwhile, though, we need to prevent attacks on American cities.

In attempting to do so, we confront a terrible dilemma. On the one hand, of course torture violates a central moral command of any civilized society; as a number of recent writers have emphasized—as if there were contrary views that needed refuting—torture is evil, antithetical to the values for which America stands, and destructive of the souls of the torturer as well as the ortured. Similarly, it has often been said that the war on terrorism is a war to preserve American values, so that if we resort to torture “the terrorists will have won,” and the like.

On the other hand, the rhetoric does not do justice to the complexity of the problem and it will not do to simply dwell on the undoubted horrors of torture without consideration of the even greater horrors entailed in the mass murder of innocents. The crisis is unprecedented, the stakes are catastrophically high, and values are in conflict. Self-defense and the protection of innocent lives are also important values, and the terrorists will have “won” even more decisively if they succeed in destroying cities, the national economy, and possibly, the entire fabric of liberal democracy. Indeed, it should be regarded as instructive that it is not merely the United States but also some of the most civilized European liberal democracies that have evidently found it necessary to sometimes effectively condone or at least acquiesce in the torture of terrorist suspects.

Put differently, so long as the threat of large-scale terrorist attacks against innocents is taken seriously, as it must be, it is neither practicable nor morally persuasive to absolutely prohibit the physical coercion or even outright torture of captured terrorist plotters—undoubtedly evils, but lesser evils than preventable mass murder. In any case, although the torture issue is still debatable today, assuredly the next major attack on the United States—or perhaps Europe—will make it moot. At that point, the only room for practical choice will be between controlled and uncontrolled torture—if we are lucky. Far better, then, to avoid easy rhetoric and think through the issue while we still have the luxury of doing so.

Needless to say, Slater's argument, no matter how well defended analytically, will be anathema to human rights and civil liberties groups, and even more so to those America-bashers who view the United States as the source of evil in the world.

"The Military History of 9/11": The NORAD Tapes

Tuesday's Nightline ran a breathtaking program on the September issue of Vanity Fair, with its exclusive story entitled "The September 11 NORAD Tapes." NORAD refers to North American Aerospace Defense Command, the military air defense organization responsible for protecting the North American homeland from attack throughout much of the Cold War.

NORAD was woefully unprepared for the fateful events of September 2001. As reported by Vanity Fair reporter Michael Bronner, the main military air traffic control personnel at the Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS), located at Griffis Air Force Base, Rome, New York, were overwhelmed with surprise and confusion upon receipt of the first information of a hijacked plane out of Boston's Logan International Airport:

The story of what happened in that room, and when, has never been fully told, but is arguably more important in terms of understanding America's military capabilities that day than anything happening simultaneously on Air Force One or in the Pentagon, the White House, or NORAD's impregnable headquarters, deep within Cheyenne Mountain, in Colorado. It's a story that was intentionally obscured, some members of the 9/11 commission believe, by military higher-ups and members of the Bush administration who spoke to the press, and later the commission itself, in order to downplay the extent of the confusion and miscommunication flying through the ranks of the government.

The truth, however, is all on tape.

Through the heat of the attack the wheels of what were, perhaps, some of the more modern pieces of equipment in the room—four Dictaphone multi-channel reel-to-reel tape recorders mounted on a rack in a corner of the operations floor—spun impassively, recording every radio channel, with time stamps.

The recordings are fascinating and chilling. A mix of staccato bursts of military code; urgent, overlapping voices; the tense crackle of radio traffic from fighter pilots in the air; commanders' orders piercing through a mounting din; and candid moments of emotion as the breadth of the attacks becomes clearer.

For the NEADS crew, 9/11 was not a story of four hijacked airplanes, but one of a heated chase after more than a dozen potential hijackings—some real, some phantom—that emerged from the turbulence of misinformation that spiked in the first 100 minutes of the attack and continued well into the afternoon and evening. At one point, in the span of a single mad minute, one hears Nasypany struggling to parse reports of four separate hijackings at once. What emerges from the barrage of what Nasypany dubs "bad poop" flying at his troops from all directions is a picture of remarkable composure. Snap decisions more often than not turn out to be the right ones as commanders kick-start the dormant military machine. It is the fog and friction of war live—the authentic military history of 9/11.

"The real story is actually better than the one we told," a NORAD general admitted to 9/11-commission staffers when confronted with evidence from the tapes that contradicted his original testimony. And so it seems.

Subpoenaed by the commission during its investigation, the recordings have never been played publicly beyond a handful of sound bites presented during the commission's hearings. Last September, as part of my research for the film United 93, on which I was an associate producer, I requested copies from the Pentagon. I was played snippets, but told my chances of hearing the full recordings were nonexistent. So it was a surprise, to say the least, when a military public-affairs officer e-mailed me, a full seven months later, saying she'd been cleared, finally, to provide them.

"The signing of the Declaration of Independence took less coordination," she wrote.

I would ultimately get three CDs with huge digital "wav file" recordings of the various channels in each section of the operations floor, 30-some hours of material in full, covering six and a half hours of real time. The first disc, which arrived by mail, was decorated with blue sky and fluffy white clouds and was labeled, in the playful Apple Chancery font, "Northeast Air Defense Sector—DAT Audio Files—11 Sep 2001."

Bronner's article offers some interesting insights and revelations:

***The U.S. military's air traffic defense system was woefully obsolete by the time of the terrorist attacks, and in fact military air control personnel then routinely relied on civilian air traffic control systems for flight information, as civilian systems were vastly superior to those of the armed forces.

*** The utter helplessness of the military personnel at NEADS at the loss of the Flight 11's "beacon code" (the onboard transmission signal sent to facilitate tracking of the aircraft), which had been intentionally deactivated by the plane's terrorist hijackers.

*** The shock of the two American F-15 fighter pilots -- completely unaware that an attack had occured -- whose jets were scrambled from the ground to find, intercept, and escort to the ground Flight 11, at the smoke billowing off the towers of the World Trade Center. (One of the pilots remarked later: "Obviously, anybody watching CNN had a better idea of what was going on. We were not told anything. It was to the point where we were flying supersonic towards New York and the controller came on and said, 'A second airplane has hit the World Trade Center.' … My first thought was 'What happened to American 11?'")

*** And the premature considerations by Major Kevin Nasypany, NEADS's mission-crew commander, regarding the use of force to bring down the passenger planes (military action that could be authorized only by President Bush).

Much of this story is familiar to those who have read "We Have Some Planes," the gripping first chapter of "The 9/11 Commission Report." The immediacy of the taped transcripts, however, brings the story incredibly close to home, and imparts an incredulity at the disastrous unpreparedness of America's defense systems. (To be fair, though, virtually no one, whether inside or outside of government or the military, envisioned an air attack on the U.S. using hijacked passenger jetliners.)

When asked about defense readiness for an attack on the Nightline episode, Thomas Kean, a former Governor of New Jersey, and the Chair of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, said the U.S. had in essence no military defense of the homeland on September 11 -- that the only successful defense of American institutions that day was civilian, composed of the heroes aboard Flight 93, who communicated with loved ones by cellular telephone, to mount an attempted takeover of the jet, which utlimately crashed in an open field in Pennsylvania, likely sparing the White House or the Congress from a fiery disaster.

I'll take some of these thoughts with me next week, when I attend the opening of "World Trade Center," the new Oliver Stone motion picture on the attacks and rescue operations at Ground Zero (and the topic of Newsweek's lead story this week).

The Battle of Midway in Cinema and History

I watched "Midway" yesterday afternoon on Cinemax. My Mom took me to see this film in its theatrical release back in 1976. I think Mom fell asleep halfway through, or that might have been when we saw "The Battle of Britain" or "A Bridge Too Far" (it might be the latter, but it's hard to remember, as my Mom took me to a lot of war movies back then).

The motion picture's got an all-star cast, including not just James Coburn, Glenn Ford, Charlton Heston, Hal Holbrook, and Pat Morita, but up-and-comers like Erik Estrada and Tom Selleck. The film's background story involving Heston's "Captain Garth" and his son's romance with a Japanese American was a bit corny, but nevertheless interesting in its portrayal of anti-Japanese sentiment in the U.S. following Pearl Harbor. The film's got an accurate historical account of the strategic run-up to the engagement, although the battle-scene cinematography was flawed by the use of combat footage not authentic to the carrier fighters in use in 1942. I found the battle scenes riveting in any case, especially the first couple waves of the American bomb and torpedo assualt on the Japanese aircraft carrier group -- unassisted by the cover of fighter aircraft -- in which American pilots sustained heavy losses.

Historically, however, the Battle of Midway is considered significant in the development of naval warfare, and was widely seen as the turning-point of the Pacific War. As R.A.C. Parker remarks in his book, "The Second World War," the Midway engagement, along with the Battle of Coral Sea, was the first naval battle in which the combatants fought each other from beyond the horizon, never seeing enemy ships or exchanging gunfire.

Second, as Richard Overy notes in his book, "Why The Allies Won," the Battle of Midway was America's Trafalgar. Japan thereafter had no chance of threatening the Western United States and the Western Allies' sea-lines of communication in the Pacific. As Overy notes:

Midway did not end the war in the Pacific, but threw Japan to the defensive, and allowed the United States to divert men and materials to the German war. Over the next three years [Admiral Chester] Nimitz and [General Douglas] MacArthur wore down Japanese resitance island by island, from Guadalcanal to Okinawa, against fierce, suicidal defence. Japan's fleet was decimated, her merchant shipping obliterated. When bases near enough to Japan's home islands could be secured, a relentless aerial bombardment of her cities eroded what economic strength remained. Without Coral Sea and Midway this bitter erosion of Japanese fighting power would have been both longer and more costly. The United States might have well had to fall back on California as its front line in the Pacific. Midway was won by the narrowest of margins -- ten bombs in ten minutes -- but was not an accidental victory. It was rooted in sound intelligence and the effective deployment of air power at sea for which the United Startes navy had prepared for twenty years. Victory in the mid-Pacific was the first leg in the long haul back to Allied command of the sea.

An Israeli Defeat? The Ugly Consequences of an Hezbollah Victory

As the 2006 Mideast War grinds on, there's speculation here and there of the possibility and consequences of an Israeli defeat. Today's lead editorial at the Wall Street Journal looks at the turn in world opinion against Israel's campaign against Hezbollah, and reiterates the point that the bomb attacks haven't done much to weaken the Shiite terrorist organization:

The question is what now. One temptation for the Bush Administration, which is under fire from most Arab leaders including Iraq's, will be to rein in Israel quickly. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been talking about pushing a cease-fire through the U.N. later this week, although the timetable seems to have been pushed back. One of the ideas is that a multinational force would then help Lebanon's government disarm Hezbollah.

But moving too soon, and with Hezbollah still powerful, risks replaying the disastrous scenario that unfolded in August 1982. That's when civilian casualties related to attacks on PLO strongholds in Beirut led the Reagan Administration to demand a halt to the fighting. The resulting events--insertion of multinational forces, the Marine barracks bombing, and U.S. withdrawal--are still cited by the likes of Osama bin Laden as evidence the civilized world has no stomach for a hard fight.

A premature cease-fire now would allow Hezbollah to claim a victory over Israel and emerge as a stronger regional power. Even a best-case scenario would probably see Israel again fighting Hezbollah--at a time of Hezbollah's choosing and as the dominant force in a future Lebanese government. There could also be trouble for Israel with other neighbors, since Israel would have forfeited the aura of military invincibility that has kept it relatively safe for decades in such a rough neighborhood.

Leaders in Tehran and Damascus would also conclude that employing terrorist proxies works. Iran could roll ahead with its bomb program knowing that Europe and the U.S. can be easily intimidated. Lebanon's fledgling democracy would be another casualty. President Bush's entire vision for the Middle East would suffer a severe setback if the current fighting ends with Hezbollah still a credible military force.

Israel does not deliberately target civilians, much less children. They were hit in Qana because Hezbollah operates near civilians to use them as a shield and to exploit such tragedies as to turn world opinion against Israel. Hezbollah has been the consistent and flagrant violator of international law throughout this conflict--deliberately targeting Israeli civilians with shrapnel-filled missiles, fighting out of uniform, and hiding among Lebanese civilians and helpless U.N. peacekeepers.

If these and other tactics remind you of al Qaeda and the insurgents in Iraq, they should. They are the reality of today's asymmetrical terrorist methods, and their success in Lebanon will only mean the further spread of those methods against others in the Mideast and beyond.

The editorial continues by advising the adminstration to push Israel to finish the job against Hezbollah, even if that means escalating to a full-blown ground invasion in Lebanon. Bret Stephens, also in today's Wall Street Journal, declares flatly that "Israel Is Losing This War." Over at the New York Times, on the other hand, the editors argue that in the face of increasing civilian casualties, and with the likelihood of 10-14 more days of fighting needed to neutralize Hezbollah rocket strongholds, the U.S. should push Jerusalem to accept a cease-fire as U.N. diplomacy proceeds.