Eccentric Flower talk:201105/Ten Years

DanLyke:

Quiet applause.

-- 20:52, 2 May 2011 (BST)

Corvi:

I too decline to celebrate the death of Bin Laden. I don't think your tone is offensive. I agree with much of your argument (especially the willing relinquishment of civil rights that followed 9/11). I'm also married to a soldier, who has some rather extreme views on the topic, having been over there a couple of times. It is difficult, and there are many things We Do Not Discuss.

-- 21:13, 2 May 2011 (BST)

Columbina:

I bet! Sometimes topics do just have to be roped off like that. For everyone's sake.

-- 21:20, 2 May 2011 (BST)

Iain:

At best, the US will use this as a reason to push back hard on Pakistan and they will roll over and say, "yes, yes, please don't hurt us, whatever you want." Distant second-best would be the US and Pakistan agree to sort of not mention it, relations go to a sort of strained norm, and we get more cooperation from them toward our goals - which may, unfortunately for us, mean tolerating a strong jihadist presence in the northwestern portions of Pakistan (not sure we will be willing to do that). Worst case would be we push hard on Pakistan and it explodes in our faces and we end up at war with them.

I'm pretty sure that the net result, from our point of view, is going to be ... more or less nothing. On the one hand, yes, the fact that bin Laden was in the suburbs of Islamabad will cause many Pakistanis to look askance at their government -- more so than they do already, anyway. In terms of our relationship with Pakistan, neither side can afford to take too much notice. Again, on the one hand, person for whom Pakistan was allegedly helping us search found in suburbs of capital. On the other hand, foreign nation engages in major military operation in suburbs of capital of another sovereign nation with notable loss of life of said suburbanites. There's nothing about either side of that equation that isn't horrendously bad from a diplomatic point of view; about all either side can do is to agree to pretend it never happened. (Seriously, just imagine what would happen if a foreign nation decided, for what everyone would agree were decent reasons, to undertake a similar operation in, say, Georgetown. "Spectacularly ugly" would not begin to describe the reaction.)

Also, I wouldn't count on this getting Obama re-elected, especially if it doesn't lead to a fairly rapid withdrawal from Afghanistan. Somewhere out there, Bush I still mumbles to himself in the night, "But I won a war! In less than a month! Why didn't that get me a second term?" I suspect the fact that food and gas prices are spiking hard, and, for various and sundry reasons, will not soon be coming back down, is going to have more bearing.

EDIT: Strangely appropriate, especially given that it was written weeks ago for publication yesterday.

-- 21:42, 2 May 2011 (BST)

Mel:

I woke up early this morning, and Rob was getting dressed and watching the morning news, and he told me about bin Laden then - and I went back to bed and have been reading since I woke up, and completely forgot about it until now. I'm glad about that. I don't want to know what people have been saying. I'm generally even more cynical than Col is, and my opinion of humanity is bad enough without any further push in that direction.

I used to think that later we would be able to excuse the excesses of the U.S. in this past decade by calling it some sort of post-9/11 hysteria. Only I agree with what Col said above - it's not particularly getting any better, that I can see.

-- 22:41, 2 May 2011 (BST)

Bwinton:

They (you?) only just killed Osama, Mel. I think you can still have hope that some of the post-9/11 insanity will be rolled back. At least until Friday, after which it'll be hopelessly naive to hope for better things once again.

(Just like I'm hoping that my country doesn't make a stupid mistake in today's election. Only I'll get to find out before I go to bed tonight.)

-- 00:30, 3 May 2011 (BST)

Ursula:

I would be interested to read that entry from 2001. I remember seeing it before you deleted it, and I remember thinking that while you were a bit blunt, you hadn't been crazy or cruel at all. Admittedly I wasn't near Ground Zero, but I doubt you said anything all that bad.

Sometimes I think you must run with a very touchy crowd.

-- 06:03, 3 May 2011 (BST)

Columbina:

Iain: For what it's worth, Andrew Sullivan agrees with me:

I love the photo in that item, by the by.

-- 14:41, 3 May 2011 (BST)

Iain:

Sullivan's rather obviously wrong about the debt deal, on purely procedural grounds. If there isn't a notable increase in the debt ceiling in place by the end of July, the US goes into formal default, and it certainly won't be obvious at the end of July that re-election is a slam-dunk. We go into technical default at the end of this month; however, the Treasury can do quite a few extraordinary maneuvers (that later have to be undone) to prevent a real default until the end of July. At that point, the extraordinary measures run out. A debt deal has nothing to do with re-election. Not Obama's, in any event. (And pointing out that Obama prevented another Great Depression and pushed forward our first attempts at universal health care ignores the facts that (1) The actual first economic packages and rescues took place under the Shrub's watch; (2) people LOATHE what had to be done to prevent a depression; (3) people aren't actually all that fond of the health care package, either.)

I don't say that it won't matter to people that bin Laden died at Obama's direction. I do say that it's not the only thing that will matter, and that if they're getting hammered in the pocketbook and aren't getting jobs (and your beloved Economist has something to say about the structural unemployment rate that we're creating for ourselves, I note), that will matter more. The question will then be, can the Republicans find a candidate who can bring ideas to the table that appeal? They don't have to be good ones -- in fact, they're extremely unlikely to be good ones -- they just have to sound good.

If things don't get any worse, or even get just slightly better, then yes, I think he'll be re-elected, although it's likely to be a dogfight all the way. However, it doesn't look like oil is going to stabilize any time soon, and that's going to put inflationary pressure on the economy that the Fed will eventually be forced to respond to. To the extent that they're able, they're not going to allow us to import hyperinflation. And taking steps against inflation will put the brakes on the economy just as effectively as a debt cutting deal will at this point. In fact, we're very likely to get a recession-inducing two-fer!

I'm not sure that making it obvious that we're at war with Pakistan does anybody any favors, especially since we're not literally willing to go to war with them. And while I suspect there really isn't a ... productive, for lack of a better word, response that either country can take, it does seem that silence isn't an option; Congress is now raising questions. Pakistan doesn't have to -- and won't -- respond to Congress, of course. And it's an open question as to how the administration is going to respond; publicly, at least, they're noting that Pakistan is an important ally in the counterterrorism efforts. There's no way to know what's being said privately, but I would imagine that if there's any communication at all at this point, it is, as they say, "frank and forthright." (They're calling each other names. Politely.)

I do think we may allow ourselves to give up on Afghanistan, although we're likely to just casually drop by to lob a few bombs into the hinterlands every now and again. I do wonder if that might have a weird sort of rebound effect, though. After all, if what they suspect is true, we basically wasted up to six years dying in Afghanistan and killing large numbers of Afghanis for no real reason whatsoever. People will want to punish someone, and Our Glorious Shrub isn't there to kick to the curb.

-- 17:25, 3 May 2011 (BST)

Iain:

Oh, my. This is about to get ... interesting, let's say.

How did bin Laden resist Navy SEALs without a weapon?

Weird thing is, according to the first statements made by the administration, it was pretty clear that this was a straight-up execution. Now they seem to be backpedaling and trying to sell the idea that it wasn't intended to be such. I wonder why? Any road, I'm guessing the team was sent in with a "kill or capture" order and they decided on their own that the "capture" part was ... impolitic, let's say.

Granted, this is a sideshow, and probably not a long lasting one, at that. But I do wonder why the question came up, and why the White House is unwilling to simply flat out say, "Yes, we executed the bastard in the field." Given that he had exactly two wounds -- one in the chest and one in the head -- that's pretty clearly what happened.

-- 20:08, 3 May 2011 (BST)

ProfRobert:

I remember that 9/11 post and thinking at the time, "Oh-oh, he doesn't get it. This is going to go badly." *I* was right about that.

I'm not sure what "New Yorkers" you are referring to above. The New Yorkers I knew and saw banded together after the attacks. Brave men and women combed the rubble. Even Giuliani conducted himself with dignity, which must have been extremely difficult. There is no point in my life that I recall the nation being as unified (and constructively so) -- maybe the moon landings, but I was six, so I can't say for sure. There's certainly no point in my life where the world was as unified in their support for the U.S.

And W blew it, and you're right, it did surprise me how he could waste all of that good will. Invading Afghanistan was a necessity -- you let a bully get away with it, he's going to take your lunch money *every* day. And even as horridly bad as Bush was, well, there still hasn't been a successful foreign terrorist attack on U.S. soil since.

It was Iraq and the falsified WMD intelligence that destroyed our credibility in the world. I fully believe Bush knew the evidence was cooked and went forward anyway both to avenge his father -- remember "He tried to kill my Dad"? -- and to supplant him by getting Saddam. Incredibly, he didn't even devote sufficient resources to get the job done right.

Bush was ultimately more successful in getting Americans killed than bin Laden. And he's a war criminal. I didn't foresee any of that, and I'd be surprised if you did (none of that was in your post-9/11 writings).

Finally, as for appearing insane to the world, that's been American policy going back to the Cold War. Remember MAD? It was even a trope right after 9/11; I remember some comedian doing a routine about how stupid are these al Qaeda guys? We kill each other on freeways for *sport.* Ask the Japanese what happened the last time someone bombed us. Of course we are batshit crazy and will come to your home in the middle of night, double-tap your ass and deep-six you off a carrier into the sea. It's what we *do.* (And I have no problem with that, as I've said elsewhere, and so don't need to repeat in detail here.)

-- 22:56, 3 May 2011 (BST)

Bunny42:

You can be excused for not knowing this, given that your news media has constantly treated it as a non-story, but Pakistan is an explosive mess.

Pardon my impudence, but just how do YOU know this, when the rest of us couldn't possibly? A statement like this undermines your credibility. Anybody can say anything they like or believe, but sourcing is essential, if you're going to call the rest of us uninformed.

As for your conclusion that you are Right, I'm reminded of the quip "He's a legend in his own mind." You may very well be right. Or you could be wrong. The important thing is that this is your post, filled with your opinions, which you present as facts. I dunno how you can do that, but feel free to bask in whatever good feeling you derive from such a conclusion. At first, I was a little slack-jawed that you would make such a definitive statement, but then I thought, well, he must have access to obscure, esoteric and mysterious data not available to the rest of us, so maybe he really IS right. I suppose the fact that many of us are not put off by the Can-Do American bravado just proves your point. As Robert said, It's what we *do.* You find that repugnant. I don't happen to. So I guess that makes me Wrong. I can live with that.

-- 03:49, 4 May 2011 (BST)

Columbina:

I read non-US-based news media on a regular basis. In fact, I read more of it from various sources that I do US-based news media. I'm not saying that news from other countries doesn't have biases and faults of its own, but the more I see of the difference, the more I am convinced that US news media is designed to keep the US public in the dark about the actual condition of the world as much as possible.

Bravado is not the problem per se. If Americans weren't egotistical innovators with short attention spans, we probably wouldn't be the nation we are today. It's the idea that we don't have to coexist with the rest of the world or care what they think that pisses me off. Americans tend to operate as if the rest of the world doesn't matter. The one lesson that America really SHOULD have taken from 9/11 - that the rest of the world damned well does matter - they took the wrong way. Rather than ask, "Huh, gee, why do people hate us so much that they'd do something horrible like that," they decided the correct response was 1) slam the doors 2) get out the stompin' shoes.

-- 15:50, 4 May 2011 (BST)

Columbina:

Also, Bunny, yes, I was a little preemptively defensive against both you and Robert. You, because the place where we probably disagree most strongly and irreconcilably is on immigration/border security/national security policy. Robert, because one of the few places he goes ideologically that constantly irritates me, where I feel we have utterly no common ground, is his "to hell with the rest of the world" stance on foreign relations. I can't count the number of times that I've had a conversation with Robert where what I define as coexistence and outreach, he defines as appeasement and cowardice.

I'm willing to say bin Laden deserved to die, although I won't say it as obnoxiously and confrontationally as he did in his journal. Sure, bin Laden deserved to die. But it changes very little, and it doesn't seem to make us any more willing to address the question of why so much of the world hates us so much that it breeds terrorist acts against us, and whether we deserve that hate, and how we can change those conditions. This is the dark corner I think Americans are deliberately refusing to look into.

Now, some people will always hate us simply because we are the biggest target on the block, and it's easy to hate the dominant power. Nothing we can do about that. But a lot of these undercurrents of hate are for real and valid reasons, much of it having to do with a US Middle East (and sometimes Far East) policy that has more or less been designed to make friends in the wrong places for the wrong reasons, and make enemies everywhere else.

-- 15:57, 4 May 2011 (BST)

Iain:

Rather than ask, "Huh, gee, why do people hate us so much that they'd do something horrible like that," they decided the correct response was 1) slam the doors 2) get out the stompin' shoes.

Given the realities of the situation, that was not the proper question. If it was, there would have been a LOT more US-directed terrorism, by people other than religious ideologues or individuals directed by them.

Also, you tend to actually ignore and discount US media more than you should, in some ways. A lot of US media outlets have been fairly clear for quite some time that Pakistan is an unspeakable mess and that we're in a deal with the devil there.

-- 17:14, 4 May 2011 (BST)

ProfRobert:

I agree that we disagree about the coexistence/appeasement debate, but I think the U.S. should operate unilaterally only in the most dire circumstances. We had broad international support for Iraq I and Afghanistan, which we lacked for Iraq II. I recall making the point at the time that, sure when France says don't go to war, you can pretty much ignore it, but when *Germany* says don't go to war -- man, then you sit up and take notice. That said, I supported Iraq II at the time because I thought we actually had a plan and would devote the resources to build a peaceful, responsible post-Saddam society. I was wrong about that, and if you want to say, "I told you so," for my believing for the one and only time in what W was saying and doing, you're entitled to do so. As I said above, I thought Bush would be bad for the country from the outset (remember the Onion piece after his first inauguration that has him saying in his speech, "The long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is over"?), but I never imagined he would be as unrelentingly bad as he actually was.

-- 17:24, 4 May 2011 (BST)

Bunny42:

See, I'm not convinced the whole world hates us enough to fulminate (is that the word I want?) terrorist acts on our shores. Islamic terrorists, of which there are many, do. I think that's who we're fighting, and must, in order to protect our very existence. They are relentless and driven and the personification of evil.

As for the rest of the world, they all seem to be struggling to get here, legally or otherwise, and I frankly don't blame them. We are that enviable, warts and all, (and I'm the first to admit that there are loads of those.) We send untold billions in foreign aid to countries that decry us disdainfully, and I,for one, do not think we should, but it's part of who we are. They badmouth us, but who's the first benefactor to be called when disaster strikes? I'm not surprised that we are laughed at. We're foolish enough to bankrupt ourselves to send aid out of the country. They laugh, but they don't terrorize us. Jihadists handle that. Except for them, I don't much care what anybody else thinks. You can't be egotistical in some things and subservient in others, I don't believe. Of COURSE the rest of the world matters, but not to our detriment. Do you think for a minute that xenophobic Japan cares a whit what we think of them?

I am still chewing over the advisability of withdrawing from Afghanistan, at this point. It is tempting, but I envision the place as a nice little training/plotting ground for further violence. We can't leave it for somebody else to monitor, because nobody would, right? We've already established they all hate us, right? It's a problem.

-- 21:21, 4 May 2011 (BST)

Bunny42:

Okay, I think I meant foment. Brain drain...

-- 21:23, 4 May 2011 (BST)

Joy:

You know what is irritating? I've gotten four busy server signals over the past week+ that I've started checking out the tumblr account. Out of maybe twice that many visits?

The comment system is also yucky, so I don't know that I'll say anything anymore.

-- 20:42, 9 May 2011 (BST)

Columbina:

Yes - their reliability was damned good, but this last week or so they have really dropped the ball. I'm not sure what's up with that and I'm hoping it will pass.

I'm not sure what people dislike about the comments - I mean, you click the button, type your comment, and post it. I do take it as evidence that I'm never going to please people, because I got all kinds of complaints about the comment system here too. I have no idea what people want in that department.

-- 21:29, 9 May 2011 (BST)

Joy:

I almost always hate it when the comments are behind a click. And I get all discombobulated by comments versus reactions versus whatevers.

-- 01:59, 10 May 2011 (BST)

Columbina:

A "reaction" is a trackback - it means that someone mentioned/linked to that post somewhere else that Tumblr knows about. However, Tumblr's trackback system is kinda broken. Technically, all my posts should have at least one reaction (because they all get echoed to Twitter). Reactions can be ignored.

Notes are peculiar to Tumblr. They will always be one of two things 1) someone else on Tumblr "liked" the item 2) someone else on Tumblr reblogged it, possibly with an added comment. Notes are cumulative throughout the ENTIRE paper trail of the item, so if I post something and it has 300 notes, it doesn't mean 300 people found it on MY Tumblr - it means that from the history of its first Tumblr posting, wherever, it has been passed along 300 times, one of them being me.

Comments are the part you are interested in; and the reason you have to click to give them is because the Disqus program that handles it is actually a separate service that has been more or less seamlessly merged in.

-- 03:30, 10 May 2011 (BST)

Bunny42:

Sigh... I miss the salon. This place felt like a conversation among friends, not a comment site. I especially like that one can edit comments after the fact. Ah, well... "You can't please everyone, so you've got to please yourself." Somebody said. If you're happier with Tumblr, then we'll just have to adapt.

-- 15:37, 10 May 2011 (BST)

ProfRobert:

The only thing I don't like about the Comments here is that the site periodically logs me out, yet still lets me type my comment, and then eats it when I click Submit. I have to remember each time to check to see if I'm still logged in.

-- 21:49, 11 May 2011 (BST)