Letters to the Editor
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Sometimes you got to wonder if this guy is crosseyed
Glenn Reynolds had no problem misinterpreting Josh Marshall, and this piece which has been taken down, and is no longer available. I thought it interesting how he can misinterpret so casually.
March 19, 2003
JOSH MARSHALL IS WORRIED that we won't kill enough Iraqis to ensure a stable postwar environment:
Not only did millions of Japanese and Germans die in World War II, but U.S. and British aerial bombing of major Japanese and German cities alone killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in what is now delicately termed “collateral damage.” And that’s not even counting the carnage caused by the atomic bombs we. dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the final days of the war against Japan. . . .
Violence, death and destruction on such a massive scale have a profound conditioning effect on the psyches of individuals. And the same applies to whole nations. Japan and Germany weren’t just ‘defeated’ or ‘occupied,’ they were crushed — not just their armies, but their civilian populations too. This led to a sort of national humiliation and a transformative willingness to embrace defeat and change.
True defeat changes people and nations too. The fact that our subsequent occupation turned out to be so benign was extremely important. But part of that importance was the contrast between how much these populations had suffered during the war and how much better things got for them after we took over.
And thus our problem. If everything goes according to plan, the loss of civilian life in Iraq will be minimal.
AND MORE: Dan Riehl thinks my reading of Marshall was excessively generous. "Marshall was invoking Nagasaki and Hiroshima as examples of how to win a war ... and the hearts and minds which are left. But, as Reynolds duly noted, he was criticizing Bush's plan, not necessarily advocating mass death." Yes, Marshall -- as I noted -- wasn't calling for more deaths, but rather expressing the worry that a war that didn't involve massive casualties or damage wouldn't have enough of a psychological effect to produce peace. That Marshall reads this as a claim that he was calling for more deaths is, well, not surprising since he applies similar misreading to my stuff.
Then Glenn Reynolds tries to dissemble Duncan Black here:
February 05, 2006
ATRIOS FOR SECRETARY OF STATE:
Certainly an Iran-with-nukes could blow the hell out of a city or two, but an Iran that did such a thing would pretty much cease to exist. It isn't mutually assured destruction, it's you fuck with us a little bit and YOU NO LONGER LIVE BITCHES!
Perhaps we could put this in a demarche?
How many ways can you twist something to suit a perverted view?
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Oh, The Irony
Do these neocon retards understand just how they come off when using German as it relates to slaughter on a mass scale?
And when the subject is neocons, their apologists and lackeys can't be far behind, which surely accounts for shooter and its rhetorical gimmicks-wanting others to answer its question before it does
"This is interesting stuff, let's hear about the ideal governing arrangement."
The "ideal governing arrangement" is the neocons views & candidates being repudiated by the voters with every election, with such permanent public loathing-ala the kind felt by most people regarding Wis. Sen Joe McCarthy-that the same neocons who still support the Iraq occupation and escalation know they'll never have their blood-drenched hands on the levers of political power ever again
Kinda like what happened with the November 2006 elections actually
And if the US troops are still bogged down in Iraq come election day 2008, look for the GOP to suffer an even worse political massacre than the Little Big Horn the party went through on Nov 7th, 2006
So, shooter, your POV and rhetoric still the same mindless parroting of the most easily debunked neocon talking points?
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How Long Can U-Tenn Tolerate This?
"Let's not mince words here. Reynolds is advocating genocide. I firmly believe in the principle of academic freedom, and in erring on the side of permissiveness in this area. But there plainly are limits, and if advocacy of genocide dozen't cross that line I don't know what does. --thomas c"
Tolerate what? Perhaps you are unaware that East Tennessee, and UT at Knoxville in particular, are centers of war loving right wing thought. I bet the "good doctor" cribs most of his work from students in his classes.
I once heard a student recommend (in an Education class for God's sake) that we should kill all Arabs so Israel could be safe --- way back in 1973. His Bible told him it was the right thing to do.
I expect that the University of Tennessee is proud to have Dr. Reynolds on staff.
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High RWA vs RWA
I think you need to make the distinction, and it's a big difference, between the two. Jonathan Hoag makes a good point with "authoritarian follower" which is Shooter. Compare that to Col. Pat Lang, who is an RWA, like Altemeyer, (well, not like Altemeyer) but who warned about drinking the kool-aid years ago. The man is not a follower. He's more of a leader.
http://www.mepc.org/journal_vol11/0406_lang.asp
Gen. Powell and others drank the kool-aid. Col. Lang never did. He's no Stan Goff, that doesn't mean he is a High RWA or SDO.
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fascism
We are experiencing true beginnings of fascism in this country. Bush and Cheney are not the first ones who had those tendencies, but they have achieved the most success so far, and their time is not yet up. The historical examples suggest that, although the nation seems to be waking up, we are by no means out of danger (of experiencing a full-scale fascist period).
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Does everything justify genocide now?
Used to be the theory of the ubermensch justified genocide. Now the theory of the untermensch does. Do Glenn Reynolds and Michael Ledeen realize that the "wealthy, secular" people in Iraq are not in Iraq anymore? They are hanging out in refugee camps or overseas, Darrell Issa and Nancy Pelosi might have even seen some of them when touring Syria, where the markets are safer than Indiana.
Tell me the destruction of the "new nation, conceived in liberty" by these monsters is reversable. I need to know.