The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
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    Broder Begs for War; Braverman Demands Peace; Walt Describes US Iran Policy

    By we are stardust on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 10:37am |

    In yesterday’s Oct. 31, 2010 Washington Post, David Broder, ‘The Dean of the Washington Press Corps’ takes a plunge into dementia by asserting than Obama has ‘done all he can do’ for the economy, but growth and jobs are lagging.  (I'll leave all of that alone for now.)  Broder then parrots some idiotic cliches about ‘the market going where it will go’ and contends that ‘economists’ are struggling to understand the current dilemma (no; many economists know what steps need to be taken, but they don’t work for this administration).  But Broder has a plan:

    In 2011 and 20012, Obama should take the fight to Iran, ‘orchestrating a fight with the Mullahs’.  He thinks that the Right will approve of this, and gain him votes.  He sees that War with Iran with would be just the ticket the nation needs as a road to economic recovery.  He cites World War II as proof that war stimulates the economy, and that war brought us out of the Great Depression.

    One might conclude that his mind has grown thick with clouds and thickets of branches; his editors at the Wapo might have urged him to see his physician for some tests for beginning ALZ or other forms of dementia.  It’s the only thing I can imagine that has caused to him to forget the past two decades at a minimum.  But instead, they printed his column!

    Perhaps he really has forgotten the many wars we have sponsored, and are still engaged in.  Perhaps he hasn’t heard that the US is on a permanent war footing, and that defense industries manufacture most of the products still Made in America. 

    Broder cites Iran as ‘the greatest threat to the world in the young century’; perhaps he hadsn’t read much about already nuclear Pakistan in danger of political meltdown, and its deteriorating relationship with already nuclear India since the Pakistani Intelligence Service recently admitted being involved in the bombings of Mumbai.  We can list more recent events that he appears to have forgotten.

    But dear god in heaven: how morally bankrupt can a suggestion be?  ‘Start a war to save the economy’ is only spoken at think tanks like AEI and PNAC, isn’t it?  And in those organizations, the benefactors are those who profit directly from contract war, resource grabs, etc.  Broder thinks another war would be a good election strategy for Obama.

     Who will call him out, or take him to his doctor?  Who will call out WaPo for printing this hideous dreck?  If there were ever a time for cooler heads to prevail about Iran, it’s now. 

    …………………………………………………………………………………………………………

     In other news, The Guardian, UK reports that Cabinet Minister Avishay Braverman says that the Labour Party may walk out if Netenyahu fails to aggressively engage in peace talks with the Palestinians, and that the future of the State is dependent on it. 

    The author indicates that the center-right Kadima Party has already claimed it would not enter a coalition government alongside Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beitianu party.  It is Lieberman, you will remember, who has been urging a law that new citizens take a loyalty oath to Israel as ‘a Jewish State’.  Braverman thinks that it’s a ‘stupid suggestion’, ‘meaningless’, and designed to antagonize Palestinians.

    He lists the steps and conditions he believes should be bases for peace talks.

    ........................................................................................................

    Writing for Foreign Policy Magazine, Stephen Walt describes the Clinton/Obama Iran policy as inconsistent, at least:

    “I can't figure out who is actually directing U.S. policy toward Iran, but what's striking (and depressing) about it is how utterly unimaginative it seems to be. Ever since last year's presidential election, the United States has been stuck with a policy that might be termed "Bush-lite." We continue to ramp up sanctions that most people know won't work, and we take steps that are likely to reinforce Iranian suspicions and strengthen the clerical regime's hold on power. 

    To succeed, a foreign-policy initiative needs to have a clear and achievable objective. The strategy also needs to be internally consistent, so that certain policy steps don't undermine others. The latter requirement is especially important when you are trying to unwind a "spiral" of exaggerated hostility, which is the problem we face with Iran. Given the deep-seated animosity on both sides, any sign of inconsistency on our part will be viewed in the worst possible light by Iran. Indeed, a combination of friendly and threatening gestures may be worse than the latter alone because tentative acts of accommodation will be seen as a trick and will reinforce the idea that the other side is irredeemably deceitful and can never be trusted.”

    Read more here.

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Comments

    I was just commenting about how Broder's views were in sync with the Neocons and Benito Musolinni when my browser went down.

    Anyhow, thanks for your post. As I was saying, why stop with b o m b i n g Iran, aren't there more convenient targets?

    The ugly truth is that action in Iran would re-ignite the blood lust of white males enough to get Obama relected.

    (I was buzzed once by a black Crown Victoria after sending an innocuous email (actually it was a poem about my mother's demise) while in the vicinty of our infamous luxuriating family, and I've been looking over my shoulder ever since.)


    by Oxy Mora on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 11:11am

    This from Broder made me think he was envisioning some major ground war, I swear:

    "And as tensions rise and we accelerate preparations for war, the economy will improve."

     Maybe he envisioned the thrill of GI boots trampling along, and saw women rolling bandages, paper and metal drives, rationing,  or something.  It really sounds like ALZ; it just can't be considered rational.  Can it?  The only other calls have been for tactical nuclear strikes on the (at least allegedly known) underground nuclear facilities.


    by we are stardust on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 11:45am

    Does the 9/11 changed everything doctrine now include the necessity of starting a new war "to save the world" to be re-elected? 


    by NCD on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 11:39am

    Sigh.  Maybe.  The ever-illustrious WSJ reports that the PNET (?) bomb pacakages have 'added urgency' to Obama's increased use of drone strikes in Yemen.  The government in Yemen has been able to plausibly deny the incursions, while accepting billions in aid since it's all been done under the auspices of CIA/JSOC.

    Christ; talk about letting a shadow military run things for us!   The Yemen Times reported that 47 civilians, I believe, were killed in one such drone strike; the newspaper didn't seem to know of more, but outside sources claimed at the time there were.  Murky.  Illegal. 


    by we are stardust on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 11:56am

    Here is a quote I was looking for when I was rudely interrupted from, or frum, an infamous Italian politician of the WWII era.

    "It is humiliating to remain with our hands folded while others write history. It matters little who wins. To make a people great it is necessary to send them into battle even if you have to kick them in the pants. And this is what I shall do."


    by Oxy Mora on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 12:17pm

    Seems Benito also said, "Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power."  Hmmmm. 


    by we are stardust on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 12:25pm

    As Cheny said, that crap from the "Old Europe" is just not relevant today.


    by Oxy Mora on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 12:31pm

    Several years ago I realized that I didn't actually know what the word "Fascism" meant. I did a little searching and one thing I came up with was a description, though it is not a definition of Fascism, of the characteristics of a Fascist State. Probably everyone has seen it. The list is compiled from the common characteristics of governments that are almost universally accepted as being Fascist States.


    http://www.rense.com/general37/fascism.htm


    It is depressing how many of those characteristics are such a strong element of our government's, and of significant segments of our society's, policy and action. I finally heard a rationale that explained how it could honestly be claimed that the US was not a Fascist state. The reason is that a true Fascist State  proudly embraces those values as the "right" philosophical foundation of its national government, and therefore justifies them and their results.
     The US has always claimed different values so we aren't Fascists no matter what we do.

     Oh Say Can You See, By The Dawns Early Light....


    by A Guy Called LULU on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 12:48pm

    This is what "serious" and "respectable" punditry has come to. Open warmongering.


    by Doctor Cleveland on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 11:39am

    And not only open warmongering, but warmongering as a re-election strategy!  I swear the boon to the economy was a secondary thought.  "Serious and respectable"; sort of insane, isn't it?  Oh; right: batshit insane.


    by we are stardust on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 12:16pm

    And war spending is inflationary, which is better than teetering on the brink of deflation. I think we're getting somewhere


    by Oxy Mora on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 12:21pm

    Nah; we're already about as geared up for war as we can be, aren't we?  Besides, Bernanke's about to announce a bit of Quantitative Easing after the Board meets Wednesday.  Oh; except all 500 billion seems to be targeted to go to the Banks!  He thinks 'nudging a little inflation' will be just the ticket...can't wait, myself....


    by we are stardust on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 12:28pm

    Buy bonds with 50% allocation and invest all the rest in Asian and other emerging market funds.


    by Oxy Mora on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 12:38pm

    tsk tsk tsk. See, posts like this just go to show why the far left has become irrelevant. REALISM, baby, we need some REALISM! or BRODERISM. which is pretty much the same. For, from a Broderist perspective, on the one hand we have a casually corrupt party, and on the other hand we have a certifiably sociopathic party. So the only SERIOUS COMPROMISE FOR GROWNUP REALISTS lies somewhere between the two - that is, somewhere in the general sphere of ...  'totally insane'. In this case there is a party that refuses to stimulate the economy by means other than throwing money at big corporations of some sort, and another party that pretty much only wants the first party to fail in whatever they want to do. WITH ONE EXCEPTION: the only thing the second party wants, wishes, and pines for, more than the failure of the first party, is ...WAR.

    ANY WAR, ANYWHERE.

    Thusly, the one deal that can be made here is ... TADAAA:

         WAR-RELATED CORPORATE CORRUPTION!!

    The first party gets its Corporate goodies, and the second party gets its war. Win, win. Yeah, so it involves killing a few million foreigners, as well as general mayhem and destruction. And it does nothing for middle-class incomes. But all in the name of a good cause - corporate profits. And kickin' ass. And BI-PARTISANSHIP!!! See, that's realism.

    Incredibly insane, of course, but in the land of the brainless, the half-wit is king... or something.

    Moral of the story? The left needs to stop demanding 'rational' or 'consistent' policy. If it wants to become relevant once again it must learn how to join da stoopid. or da crazee. one of the two.


    by Obey on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 11:46am

    So glad to see you on fire today, Pug!  And so on-target; my only quibble is that war IS big, corporate business, too.  And doesn't it seem that the neo-Liberals seem to believe that GDP growth and a strong-looking Wall Street will trickle down to save a few jobs?  My thing is: is they want to pretend all this is rational, why aren't they letting us have requiring us to have the Good Drugs wwe were promised in all the dystopian novels?  I.e.:Stardust on Soma Makes No Waves.  Ya see?  I can be a 'pragmatic-realist' with enough seratonin-uptake inhibitors or amnesiacs (valium, Xanax)....


    by we are stardust on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 12:07pm

    And Xanac can also have the opposite effect, making one paranoid,  so even better.


    by Oxy Mora on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 12:27pm

    I used to rant on web-sites. 

    Now Obey does it for me. 

    Thanks, Pug.

    Seconded.


    by quinn esq on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 12:22pm

    I've had a few private email exchanges with Broder over the years, none since 2003.  One question I asked him was if there has ever been a war or military intervention the US has engaged in that he has opposed?  He did not respond to that question.  For years he chided as hopelessly softheaded liberals those who were trying to tell him what a venal character Cheney had become as VP.  It took a book by Barton Gellman (The Angler), a peer of his at the Post I believe, to get him to acknowledge that some of Cheney's conduct was out of line.  With the admiration he had consistently shown Cheney over many years, my best guess take is that Cheney was a treasured inside source he chose to handle in print with kid gloves.   

    Broder has long maintained that one cannot fit the ideological inclinations of reporters inside of a thimble.  His ideology is a combination of:

    *insiderism for its own sake.  He would, I strongly suspect, agree with the view of some in Washington that the only people who really have a right to an opinion are the people who were in the rooms when the decisions were argued out and made; and

    *a rigid preaching to Democrats of the need for "bipartisanship", accompanied by a studied obliviousness to the consequences of the tried and true GOP strategy of saying no to everything and blocking whatever they can and then getting away with blaming the Democrats for a lack of bipartisanship.  The GOP has been aided in getting away with this strategy for decades now for many reasons, one of them being the willingness of opinion leaders like Broder to let the GOP skate on this.  He, I think, is one who probably was overly sensitive to charges of liberal media bias.  He's been badly taken in and used over the years.  

    The references to possible creeping Alzheimer's I could really do without, we are stardust.  You don't need any of that to make your point.


    by AmericanDreamer on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 11:55am

    Sorry if you're offended by the ALZ reference, Dreamer, but I am dead serious.  This is cloud-cuckoo territory, and reminds me of the frequent meltdowns of Papa Bush and Ronald Reagan. 


    by we are stardust on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 12:19pm

    Yes, it is cloud cuckoo territory.  One hardly has to have creeping Alzheimer's disease to be in cloud cuckoo territory, though.  And obviously not all who have it are in such territory, though they are subject to assumptions or presuppositions that they are.  I don't want to belabor the point.  Peace.  Broder has gone off the deep end, yes. 


    by AmericanDreamer on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 12:27pm

    I thought Broder was dead; turns out he is a stumbling mumbling dead.

    Yeah, an all out war with Iran with stimulate the economy in a manner much better than the two wars we are already in. What???

    Non compos mentis. ha


    by Richard Day on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 12:07pm

    Non compos pants either, I'll bet.


    by quinn esq on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 12:21pm

    non campos cajones, either! (I'm assuming he hasn't been in touch with his local recruiter to sign up and put his own "stimulus package" on the line, eh?)


    by SleepinJeezus on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 1:17pm

    Wait a minute, Mr. Broder! Europe is suffering in this recession, also. Couldn't we just declare war against one another and help each other out? Fuck the Middle East! Let them brown people find their own goddam economic stimulus!

    Signed,

    Buck Turgidson


    by SleepinJeezus on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 12:25pm

    LOL!  "A guy could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff!"  Thanks, Jeezus; I guess laughing is one of the rational responses to Teh Crazee...


    by we are stardust on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 12:37pm

    Like the cinematic gem you cite, I am in stitches over this comment so

    I hereby render unto Sleepin the Dayly Comment of the Day Award for this here Dagblog Site, given to all of him from all of me.

    haahahahah

     


    by Richard Day on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 12:36pm

    I would second that but my typing is probably too damned slow.


    by Oxy Mora on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 12:45pm

    Thanks for this, DDay! I am deeply honored!

    And thanks for pointing all this out in the blog, stardust! I really gotta' believe that Stanley Kubrick is alive and well, ghost-writing Broder's stuff for him while Broder is away on vacation at the PNAC Asylum and Amusement Park. Christ, the guy even looks like his make-up is done by a mortician. Are you sure he ain't just a Halloween prank?


    by SleepinJeezus on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 12:48pm

    Not one bit sure, Jeezus.  In fact, the more I read about current economic and foreclosure non-strategies and war, the oft'-used statement "Ya just couldn't make shit like this up" is becoming almost useless through overuse.

    If I had an extra tenner burning a hole in my pockets-es, I would, however, buy into your PNAC Asylum and Amusement Park.  Sure hope Friedman is there, too!


    by we are stardust on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 1:13pm

    On last report, Friedman is waiting another 90 days to see how things work out before making a commitment to attend.


    by SleepinJeezus on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 1:21pm

    How to guage the distance of lightning: Count one friedman unit, two friedman units, three friedman units...Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzap!


    by we are stardust on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 1:40pm

    Sheesh, who doesn't remember that Afghanistan war boom and that Iraq war boom?  Oh yeah, nobody.  Because they didn't happen.


    by Michael Maiello on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 12:39pm

    Er...don't look now, but it's pretty clear that the boons happened for the people invested in war and the defense and private contractors that bring us war everlasting.


    by we are stardust on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 12:57pm

    They get the boon in the form of bucks but when they get the boom boom boom of bombs they get their stimulous and then they get a boner. Its a win win.


    by A Guy Called LULU on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 1:07pm

    And Lulu goes to the scatalogical impetus for war!  LOL!


    by we are stardust on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 1:29pm

    Larison: "There isn’t much to add to the chorus of laughter that has greeted David Broder’s silly column advocating war with Iran as a means of economic stimulus."


    by Donal on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 3:45pm

    Thanks for the link, Donal.  I wouldn't quibble with much except some of the fifth paragraph.  I hope most Americans find his column ridiculous; I haven't had time to look around today, and found this Lynch piece:

    http://lynch.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/10/31/the_strange_path_of_bomb_iran_for_votes_talking_point


    by we are stardust on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 10:35pm

    Most commenters have moved on (wasn't there some kind of election yesterday?) but I just have to remark that Broder's column is too stupid even to qualify as cynical:

    With strong Republican support in Congress for challenging Iran's ambition to become a nuclear power, (Obama) can spend much of 2011 and 2012 orchestrating a showdown with the mullahs. ... And as tensions rise and we accelerate preparations for war, the economy will improve. I am not suggesting, of course, that the president incite a war to get reelected.

    Of course not, David. Only a madman would propose such a thing. Really, it's time the Post's HR people sat this guy down to discuss the generous retirement package that's available to him. Seriously. "Hideous dreck" indeed, stardust.


    by acanuck on Wed, 11/03/2010 - 3:08pm