Friday Guitar Blogging

Marc Ribot.

Terrorists And Freedom Fighters

This is contemptible:

Dozens of Palestinian students from the youth division of Fatah, the mainstream party led by President Mahmoud Abbas, gathered here on Thursday to dedicate a public square to the memory of a woman who in 1978 helped carry out the deadliest terrorist attack in Israel’s history. [...]

The woman being honored, Dalal Mughrabi, was the 19-year-old leader of a Palestinian squad that sailed from Lebanon and landed on a beach between Haifa and Tel Aviv. They killed an American photojournalist, hijacked a bus and commandeered another, embarking on a bloody rampage that left 38 Israeli civilians dead, 13 of them children, according to official Israeli figures. Ms. Mughrabi and several other attackers were killed.

To Israelis, hailing Ms. Mughrabi as a heroine and a martyr is an act that glorifies terrorism.

Indeed it does.

But, of course, so does this (from 2006):

[Israeli] rightwingers, including Binyamin Netanyahu, the former Prime Minister, are commemorating the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, the headquarters of British rule, that killed 92 people and helped to drive the British from Palestine.

They have erected a plaque outside the restored building, and are holding a two-day seminar with speeches and a tour of the hotel by one of the Jewish resistance fighters involved in the attack.

The controversy over the plaque and the two-day celebration of the bombing, sponsored by Irgun veterans and the right-wing Menachem Begin Heritage Centre, goes to the heart of the debate over the use of political violence in the Middle East. Yesterday Mr Netanyahu argued in a speech celebrating the attack that the Irgun were governed by morals, unlike fighters from groups such as Hamas.

“It’s very important to make the distinction between terror groups and freedom fighters, and between terror action and legitimate military action,” he said. “Imagine that Hamas or Hezbollah would call the military headquarters in Tel Aviv and say, ‘We have placed a bomb and we are asking you to evacuate the area’.”

Yes, imagine they did that -- does anyone think it would make a lick of difference? That Israel wouldn't still treat it as terrorism? That Israel wouldn't raise a fuss when the Palestinians honored the attack with a plaque and a celebration fifty years later?

As for the "Irgun weren't terrorists, they were freedom fighters" nonsense, it's worth pointing out that the World Zionist Congress thought differently. In December 1946 the organization voted to strongly condemn the terrorist activities in Palestine and "the shedding of innocent blood as a means of political warfare" by the terrorist groups Irgun and the Stern Gang. But I guess Bibi's coming from a different place...

Will Obama Hand the Cheneys - And Al Qaeda - A Victory?

The Washington Post reports that "President Obama's advisers are nearing a recommendation that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, be prosecuted in a military tribunal," reversing Attorney General Holder's plan to try him in civilian court:

Marine Col. Jeffrey Colwell, acting chief defense counsel at the Defense Department's Office of Military Commissions, said it would be a "sad day for the rule of law" if Obama decides not to proceed with a federal trial. "I thought the decision where to put people on trial -- whether federal court or military commissions -- was based on what was right, not what is politically advantageous," Colwell said.

When he announced his decision to close Guantanamo Bay prison, President Obama said this:

"This is me following through on not just a commitment I made during the campaign, but I think an understanding that dates back to our Founding Fathers, that we are willing to observe core standards of conduct, not just when it's easy, but also when it's hard."

If the Obama administration abandons its effort to try Khalid Sheikh Muhammad in civilian court, it would represent a significant capitulation by President Obama to his political enemies, and a betrayal of his supporters who took seriously his promises to bring America's anti-terrorism policies back within bounds of the law.

It will also represent a significant propaganda victory for Al Qaeda, who crave the status and recognition that treating them as "soldiers" in a "war" bestows, and would love to be able to show the world that Obama, just like Bush and Cheney, will cast American principles aside when faced with a threat.

President Obama should understand by now that no matter how much he reaches out his hand to his neoconservative critics, they will never unclench their fists. They'll just look for a new place to strike. The president's struggle to cultivate bipartisanship is admirable. But a bipartisan consensus in favor of fashioning a new legal framework for dealing with an age-old problem -- terrorism -- is worse than worthless, it's an admission to Al Qaeda, and to world, that our existing insitutions aren't strong enough to deal with it, and that we'll abandon our core values when it gets hard.

Cross-posted from Wonk Room.

Friday Guitar Blogging

DeWayne "Blackbyrd" McKnight (money at 3:07)

What Next In Iran?

I recommend Juan Cole's analysis of yesterday's Revolution Day demonstrations in Iran, which the government seems to have had well in hand. Internet access was shut down, preventing pro-reform demonstrators from employing the real-time protest strategies they'd developed over the past months, and security services were out in force to intimidate, beat and arrest the anti-government crowds that did gather.

I have to disagree, though, with Cole's suggestion that the regime "checkmated the Green dissidents." Check, more like. It was clearly a discouraging setback for the Greens, who appeared to have some momentum coming out of the Ashura demonstrations that they were not able to capitalize on yesterday, but it's a long game. I think the Greens continue to represent a credible challenge to the system, but I don't know of anyone, apart from the usual neocon hallucinators, who says that the Islamic Republic is in imminent danger of collapse. Based on statements both from movement leaders and street activists, I think the Greens themselves understand that this process is going to take a while, and has a range of possible outcomes, and so should we.

As for the best policy on Iran going forward, on Wednesday I did a bloggingheads with Eli Lake of the Washington Times, we discussed this among other things. I described my view that the "realism" versus "regime change" narrative that seems to have taken hold among some in Washington is not productive, and the Obama administration should perhaps take a page from the Cold War (the actual Cold War, not the comic book version that conservatives peddle) and continue to seek some accommodation with the Iranian regime over its nuclear program (and keep the onus on the regime through continuing engagement), but which also puts human rights solidly on the agenda.


As I note, based on past U.S. treatment of Middle East peoples as disposable instruments in the maintenance of regional power balances (aiding both sides in the staggeringly destructive Iran-Iraq War, for example) Iranian democrats have a lot of reason to believe that the U.S. would sell them out in favor of a chance to resolve the nuclear impasse with the regime. I hope the Obama administration will make it clear that we won't.

Even though I'm skeptical for a number for reasons that a nuclear deal is still possible, understanding that domestic Iranian nuclear enrichment is broadly supported by the Iranian public, even the Greens, I think it's worth considering offering an explicit recognition of Iran's right to peaceful domestic enrichment, as opposed to the implicit recognition of already-enriched uranium contained in the Tehran Research Reactor deal. But rather than presenting this as simply an attempt to sweeten the pot, it should be accompanied by a demand that Iran commit to abide by its international human rights obligations, and the creation of some sort of verification regime along the lines of Helsinki Watch. This won't provide the soothing satisfaction of an Iranian capitulation, but it could possibly bring Iran's nuclear program under control, while also helping to create space for Iranian reformers to continue their work.

(Cross-posted from Wonk Room)

Friday Guitar Blogging

Bill Frisell.

Glenn Beck: Drunk Driving The Express Bus To Clown Town

Yesterday on Glenn Beck's Wild-Eyed Hysteria Hour, the Tearful One managed to pack an unusually impressive amount of incoherent stupidity into one rant about Iran. "This week Iran successfully launched a rocket into space," Beck informed us. "The media yawned. The only thing they found interesting about the launch was that the rocket had a rat, two turtles and a worm on board. But they don't look any further than that":

But technically, if Iran can send a missile up into space and have it explode, it could shut down our electronics; that would do more damage to us than any conventional bomb ever could. Imagine the chaos if an EMP [electro-magnetic pulse] bomb took all of our computers, phones, TVs, lights and flipped them off? America would be out of business.

"Imagining" the effects of an Iranian EMP attack is exactly what you're going to have to do, because there's not a credible national security expert alive who thinks that this sort of attack is even remotely feasible. You have to love how Beck throws "technically" in there, as if to indicate that he has some idea what he's talking about, but there's a rather enormous "technical" chasm between "send a missile up into space and have it explode" and "shut down our electronics." It's like saying "technically, if Iran has lasers, they can blow us up with their Iranian Death Star." Well, yes, maybe, someday, theoretically. Not any time soon. Certainly not before Glenn Beck has scared himself into a stroke.

Turning to a video clip of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad praying to God to "hasten the arrival of Imam al-Mahdi," Beck asks "'Hasten the return of Imam al-Mahdi' -- what's he talking about?" Glenn Beck is going to tell us!

He's talking about the 12th Imam. He's a "Twelver." What is that? If journalists weren't so busy trying to land jobs with the Obama administration (14 to be exact), they'd look into that.

The "Twelvers" believe that the Mahdi, or 12th Imam, will soon return. This is end times, stuff. They are different than most Muslims because they believe that the return needs to be hastened. It's not a good idea to hasten the return of the Chosen One, because to do that, the world has to be in chaos, carnage and even genocide — so the Messiah comes and brings peace.

"Twelvers" are so dangerous that at one point the Ayatollah Khomeini banned them.

While it's true that Twelver eschatology describes the return of the Mahdi, most Twelvers (like most Christians who believe similar things about a returning Messiah and an End of Days) do not believe that it is their duty to trigger it. It’s also true that Ahmadinejad, a pious conservative Shia Muslim, lards his speeches with references to the return of the Hidden Imam, so much so that he was chastised by several Iranian clerics, who told him he “would be better off concentrating on Iran’s social problems…than indulging in such mystical rhetoric.” There is, of course, no evidence whatsoever that Iranian policy is guided by a strategy to hasten the Twelfth Imam’s return.

The idea that "Twelvers" are some sort of secretive, extreme apocalyptic sect is patent nonsense. If Beck, or anyone at Fox, would bother to Google "Twelvers," they'd learn very quickly that Twelvers are, in fact, the largest sect of Shi'ism. The idea that "Ayatollah Khomeini banned them" is rather confounding, given that Ayatollah Khomeini was a Twelver, as are all the leading ayatollahs in the world, including those serving as religious guides for the Iranian pro-democracy movement.

This isn't the first time Beck has authoritatively delivered these complete, and easily disprovable, non-facts about Twelver Shi'ism to his audience. The last time, to my knowledge, was last September. What this tells us, as if we didn't know already, is that neither Beck nor anyone who works at Fox News really gives a damn whether it's true or not. The point is it's scary.

Skilled entertainer that his, Beck saves the very best for last:

By the way, do you know what "Iran" means in Farsi? Aryan.

Actually, the Farsi word for Iran is "Iran." But still, it's derived from "Aryan," so... whoa dude. Now that I think about it, it's actually pretty crazy how Ahmadinejad caused historians in the 1700's to adapt the Sanskrit word arya to denote a subset of Indo-European languages and peoples, and then caused French racialist Arthur de Gobineau to steal the term in the 1850's for his goofy theory of a master "white" race, and then caused the Nazis to weave that nonsense into their ideology, and then caused Reza Shah Pahlavi to decide as part of his modernization program that he wanted people to use the term "Iran" instead of "Persia" so that later, decades after the Pahlavi dynasty had been overthrown by the Islamic revolution, Ahmadinejad would get to run a country whose name really means "Hitlerland."

This is what can happen when you treat Jonah Goldberg as a serious historian.

Friday Guitar Blogging

Billy Gibbons.

Narratives Matter

In an uncharacteristically obtuse response to Adam Serwer's article on how the GOP seems intent on unlearning hard-won lessons about the importance of countering extremists narratives, Spencer Ackerman writes:

“Narrative” and “Framing” have always struck me as intelligence-insulting bullshit. The use of euphemism is a flashing light on the road to Error. First off, al-Qaeda fucked itself terminally by — as Adam notes — the thousands of Muslims it kills without pity, mercy or explanation. It was probably fucked from the start: it wants to create a Caliphate that stretches from Spain to Indonesia. I can cite about five different Doctor Doom storylines that are more plausible outcomes for world domination. (One of them involves the Negative Zone.)

But anyway. The U.S. approach to al-Qaeda’s “narrative” should be to point and laugh. I’m serious. Ridicule is a powerful tool, particularly when aimed at conspiracy theorists. I believe in taking al-Qaeda’s capabilities and its plans seriously and its lunacy about the way the world works not even remotely seriously. The only significant aspect of that sort of crap is the fact that among some people it has social currency. That needs to be confronted.

I don't think that "narrative" and "framing" are euphemisms, any more than "negative externalities" is a euphemism for "bad consequences of your choices that you don't have to bear the cost of but others do." I suppose one could to take the position that all social science terms are, to some extent, euphemistic, but I don't really see the point in insisting that everyone write these things out in long hand.

The second graf I totally agree with. But here Spencer basically acknowledges that Al Qaeda's narrative needs to be confronted, through mockery or otherwise. So I'm not sure what the original disagreement is. If it's just a recognition that we shouldn't put as much effort in combating Al Qaeda's narrative as we should in just making sure we don't do things that strengthen it, while leaving space for them to screw themselves, then fine, but that still requires a recognition that narratives matter.

Related, some comments on the state of Al Qaeda's narrative from Steve Coll in his recent testimony before the House Armed Services Committee.

UPDATE: Spencer responds:

Matt Duss defends “narrative” as a useful concept and I don’t really know why. Maybe there’s something I’m missing here, but I really do think actions speak louder than framing.

I don't disagree, but I do think that what speaks even louder than actions are actions placed within an effective narrative frame. We all agree that not kidnapping and torturing Muslims while trying to communicate that we are not at war with all Muslims is far better than kidnapping and torturing Muslims while trying to communicate that we are not at war with all Muslims. But even when we've stopped kidnapping and torturing Muslims, it's still important to try to communicate that we are not at war with all Muslims, because extremists are sure as hell still trying to communicate to all Muslims that we are.

'Team B' Revisionism

I think Yglesias did a good job knocking back David Frum's bizarre claim that the Team B hawks were right about the Soviet threat, but the fact that Frum thinks he can get away with such an assertion helps explain why some conservatives have been calling for a Team B revival, this time "to reassess the threat the U.S. faces from Islamic terrorist networks":

"The Team B concept has been successful in previous administrations when fresh eyes were needed to provide the commander in chief with objective information to make informed policy decisions," Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va. wrote in a letter to President Obama on Tuesday. "I believe it can work now, too."

By June 1976, the middle rounds of the Cold War, the Soviet Union had exceeded the U.S. in several key weapons categories, leading an alarmed CIA director, George H.W. Bush, to create "Team B," which included a number of future aides in the Reagan administration. Among them, a young arms control officer named Paul Wolfowitz and a former Pentagon official named William Van Cleave.

"We were all known as the so-called hawkish element of that time, but we let the conclusions stand on their own," Van Cleave told Fox News. [...]

"Team B got it right," said Frank Gaffney, founder and president of the Center for Security Policy and a Defense official in the Reagan administration

This is, to use a political science term, just plain nuts. As Fred Kaplan wrote in 2004, "In retrospect, the Team B report (which has since been declassified) turns out to have been wrong on nearly every point." Or, as Larry Korb wrote, Team B was right about only one thing:

The CIA estimate was indeed flawed. In 1989, the agency published an internal review of the threat assessments from 1974 to 1986. The report concluded that the Soviet threat had been "substantially overestimated" every year. In 1978, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence found that the selection of Team B members yielded a flawed composition of political views and biases. Consequently, the Team B analysis was deemed a gross exaggeration and completely inaccurate.

So the CIA had "substantially overestimated" the Soviet threat. The Team B assessment, on the other hand, was simply a work of science fiction. Or, to be more specific, a work of political advocacy, with the authors deriving conclusions of Soviet capabilities from their own apocalyptic beliefs about the Soviet ideology, and then using those deeply flawed conclusions to justify more defense spending and more foreign policy adventurism. Which is precisely what they would like to do again in regard to the threat of Islamic extremism.

I should also highlight this from Yglesias:

Incidentally, the whole [Team B] report is full of amusing accusations that the CIA has erred in its analysis of the Soviets by engaging in “mirror-imaging”—basically assuming that the Soviet state is prudent and risk-averse—by not recognizing the Russians’ inherent and insatiable thirst for conquest.

In December, I attended a screening of the pro-missile defense documentary "33 Minutes" (which warns of the nuclear missile threat of countries like Iran, which has neither nuclear weapons nor missiles capable of delivering them) hosted by the neoconservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies. During the post-film discussion, I suggested to FDD president Cliff May that the film had failed to demonstrate either that any nuclear weapons state would be inclined to give away to terrorists a weapon in which it had invested considerable resources and borne considerable international opprobrium to develop, or that a state like Iran would use a nuclear weapon itself, given the huge consequences to a regime that has placed the highest premium in self-preservation.

May responded -- I kid you not -- that unlike during the Cold War, where we were dealing with a rational enemy that could be deterred, it's unclear that the Iranians are likewise rational. Furthermore, May said, there was a real danger of "mirror-imaging," of assuming that our Iranian enemies think like we do.

Just in case you wondered how deep the revisionism goes.

Cross-posted from Wonk Room.

Friday Guitar Blogging

Yes, Jimmy Page. Because I've been mainlining Zeppelin lately.

He's With Us On Everything But The Dusty Antique Orientalism

Responding to Matt Yglesias' response to Marty Peretz's latest bout of Tourette's, Jonathan Chait writes:

[M]y basic view is that the Islamic world today is not unlike the Christian world before the enlightenment (a time, of course, when Islam was more tolerant and advanced than Christendom.) It is a culture where notions of liberalism and religious tolerance are largely foreign -- where even the most liberal mass movement that can be found, the Green movement in Iran, has to make its case in religious terms in order to have any chance at legitimacy. I would not blame the mass of Muslims for al Qaeda's terrorism any more than I'd blame the average medieval Christian for the Crusades. Still, an illiberal, non-secular culture like this is far more capable of producing, or even merely accepting, violence against non-believers qua non-believers.

A lot of liberals have an unfortunate tendency to brand as racist any analysis that holds one culture above another. But there's nothing inherently racial in believing that the illiberal culture that dominates the Muslim world is a key source of the problem, just as it wouldn't be racial make a sweeping indictment of pre-Enlightenment European culture.

First, whatever the unfortunate tendencies of "a lot of liberals", context matters. Marty Peretz is, as he has demonstrated time and again, a racist. Statements asserting the inherent superiority of one culture over another and advocating a "harsh view of Islam", while they may only qualify as regrettably inane when expressed by others, have to be seen in that context.

As to the more general point, there's no question that Islamic faith currently encompasses some deeply objectionable trends. It also encompasses a number of trends that are rigorously and admirably working to elevate human freedom. Asserting a single "Islamic" "world" "culture" is a pretty clear sign that one hasn't really bothered to do the work.

Even understanding that Iran's Green movement makes its case in terms of political rights, why should the fact that the Green movement "has to make its case in religious terms in order to have any chance at legitimacy" count against it? Iran is a fairly deeply religious society, and we shouldn't be surprised that any Iranian political movement should deploy religious themes in making its case.

Such things are not unheard of here in the West:

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

Also, Pac-Man Totally Turned Me Off Eating Ghosts

I'd like to endorse Spencer's criticisms of David Hajdu's argument that Rock Band will result in the extinction of rock bands, but I can't, because based upon my own experience, I know the article to be accurate.

Specifically, I used to play a lot of Kung Fu Master as a kid, and I'm quite sure that this is what caused me to never learn kung fu. Likewise, hours spent at Contra clearly dissuaded me from joining the special forces to fight aliens in Central America.

UPDATE: More evidence for Hajdu's thesis:


Notice how playing the video game utterly drained the enthusiasm from the normally ebullient J Mascis. I can't imagine the herculean effort it must have taken for him to later pull himself together to put out one of the best albums of 2009.

As Seen At Target

Friday Guitar Blogging

Brownie McGhee (with Sonny Terry)

Unlearning What We've Learned Since 9/11

In the hyper-charged atmosphere following the 9/11 attacks, anyone who suggested that U.S. policies or behavior played any -- any -- part in the spread of extremism was denounced for "blaming America" or "excusing terrorism" or some such. The Terrorists hated us for who we are, we were told, and that was that, and any further attempt to understand the conditions that produced terrorism was strictly for hippies and appeasers.

In the intervening years, though, and especially with the implementation of counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq, that view has been largely discredited. Not only is it no longer seen as "excusing terrorism" to try and understand what activates and motivates extremists, or to explore whether and what U.S. policies and behavior have played a part in that, it's seen as necessary for U.S. national security.

In the wake of the failed Christmas attack, though, and the discussion over what motivated Umar Farouk Abdulmutalab to become a violent jihadist, a few neoconservatives seem to have been emboldened to exhume some of this "they only hate us for our freedom" nonsense that so many Americans, Iraqis and others died to debunk over the past years. Sounding this tired note last night on Fox News, Charles Krauthammer scoffed at Al Qaeda's grievances, saying, "These are excuses and not actual grievances":

KRAUTHAMMER: When you hear Gibbs talk about Guantanamo as a recruiting tool, this is what we hear over and over again, I mean it's as if he knows no history at all. The list of grievances that Al Qaeda has is endless and replenishing. [...]

The reason the war is on is because Al-Qaeda hates our way of life, our independence, our tolerance, our respect of women and the threat it poses to the fanatical kind of Islam that they are advocating.

Apparently, General David Petraeus is also one of those who Krauthammer thinks "knows no history at all." Here's what Petraus said about Gitmo last May:

PETRAEUS: Gitmo has caused us problems, there’s no question about it. I oversee a region in which the existence of Gitmo has indeed been used by the enemy against us. We have not been without missteps or mistakes in our activities since 9/11. And again, Gitmo is a lingering reminder for the use of some in that regard.

It's really hard to believe that we even still need to have this debate. The point, again, is not whether Charles Krauthammer buys Al Qaeda's grievances, or whether he thinks that they're merely "excuses," it's whether the next guy that Al Qaeda tries to recruit as a suicide bomber buys them. And it's simply no longer a matter of serious debate that a significant number of potential recruits buys Guantanamo as a grievance.

Then here's Hugh Hewitt and Victor Davis Hanson:

Tales Of The Obtuse

The Weekly Standard's John Noonan might want to think about thinking out loud less:

[W]ould Obama have doubled-down in Afghanistan if Petraeus' Iraq pacification hadn't succeeded beyond expectation? Where would our Afghanistan strategy be if General Petraeus hadn't provided a perfect case-study for effective prosecution of a tough counter-insurgency?

Could Iraq have saved Afghanistan?

Yes, wouldn't be ironic if the triage strategy that was employed to contain the catastrophe created by the Iraq invasion was also employed in Afghanistan to contain the catastrophe created by the Iraq invasion?

The more appropriate question, at least for those interested in avoiding situations where massively costly counterinsurgency efforts are required to salvage incompetently managed wars, is: Where would our Afghanistan strategy be if we hadn't diverted U.S. attention, expertise, and resources from Afghanistan to Iraq in the first place? Would we even have to have one? Would we currently be preparing to triple the number of U.S. troops there in the space of a year?