Damn it, now I have a big pile of books on the floor, one of which is stuck to the glue board I put out for spiders (see sig) and it's all yours and Planetary_Eulogy's fault.

I didn't read Coup. Maybe I should. On second thought, maybe we should *all* be reading it ... ? :>

Luttwak's thing about air power comes as a result of his trying to be a 'relevant' strategist. It drives one to higher and higher levels of abstraction. More jargon, more maps and operational graphics, more elegant theories. The details as told in muck and bodily fluids don't make for very good working papers or clean PowerPoints.

Kind of a cheap and superficial criticism, I know, but I think it's on target. You could say the same about a lot of so-called defense intellectuals and their output.

Wouldn't that be a cheeky act of subversion?

One of the healthiest developments possible from this whole "Obama's not Israel-centric enough" would be that all Americans ask themselves just what Israel means to them. And be honest about it. It may just bring our relationship with Israel back down to earth, to more realistic dimensions.

My own appraisal of the Israel-U.S. relationship? I only have one country: I am a citizen of the United States, period. I have nowhere to return to, nowhere else to go. Israel isn't important to me. I see it as a reasonably affluent nuclear power chronically in conflict with its neighbors. Constantly, I'm told that's because of the intrasigence and hostility of those neighbors, but I'm old enough to realize that... yeah... it takes two to tango.

That Israel has made such few serious peacemaking efforts attempts over the years is mainly due to the sponsorship and protection it receives from the U.S. - and that's due mainly to its powerful lobby in this country. There would be less enmity, less bloodshed if Israel negotiated - seriously - with Arab nations in the Levant instead of periodically bombing and shooting up their communities.

This can't go on... into eternity. Maybe if the U.S. ran interference a little less, Israel would be spurred to develope new policies.

...Better ones.

Yeah, but why do you hate yourself so much?

Glenn, I love your dogged tenacity, even when it's turned on me.

//I notice you have a very bad habit of claiming that "some liberals believe X" and "some on the Left think Y" without ever bothering to cite a single example.//

I'm not sure why this is a "bad habit." Am I arguing before a Jury or discussing a post in a message board? This is not a court of law. I'm not paid to do this, and have little inclination to search out materials to support this obvious point.

Simply participate in any comments thread about Joe Lieberman, and watch the occasional "Joe Lieberman (I-Israel)" ragefests sprout up.

And of course in these comments threads, we'll see the occasional anti-Semite pop up his head and announce that Jews are behind the Neo Conservative movement, or that Jews control the Bush Administration, or that we invaded Iraq because of secret Jewish financing to help Israel, etc. etc.

All these notions are absurd on their face.

The Bush administration is one of the least Jewish in the past century, but even if there are specific Jews here and there, any act of "Jew counting," to imply thematic conspiracy is as pathetic as any other attempt in history to link hidden Jewish influence to government action, be it in Nazi germany or Pogrom Russia.

This is nothing new to history. Jews are only Jews when the anti-Semite is counting them up to prove the hidden conspiracy. From the right, same deal. Jews are running the liberal anti-Americanism, why just look at that "money changer" George Soros.

It's the same pathetic anti-Semitism, as old as dirt. Nothing new to history, and always with a tragic end.

Then, of course, there's the fact that every time a Jewish republican supports the Iraq War or supports Israel, they're accused of dual loyalty.

Glenn, do I really need to explain this as anti-Semitic? Do Christian republicans face the same dual loyalty accusations? When Christian wingnuts wax opine on Israel's triumphalism, are they labeled as betraying America by the left?

Then why are Jewish politicians, even the ones as odious as Bill Kristol, accused of this?

//What does anything in this post have to do with whether some "on the Left" are anti-semitic? Absolutely nothing. It's just a red herring you always raise, in the same elusive, non-specific way, to make some point that you think it's important to defend.//

It has everything to do with it because it's how the right always exploits a germ of truth and distorts it into destructive policies.

How can you seriously ask me what it has to do with it? Can you really fail to recognize the pattern by now?

They also never explicitly said Saddam was behind 9/11, they simply linked Saddam's many factual atrocities to larger "regime change" issues.

And Saddam was a bad guy.

So from that truth emerges the great lie and distortion. And many Americans follow, because yes, Saddam was a bad guy. So maybe Saddam really was kinda sorta connected to 9/11.

This is the bait n' switch.

They're doing it with Obama in exactly the same way. While our side looks the other way when a very small percentage of liberals rage against Israel as the great evil of the world, the republcians use that to smear Obama by association.

But rather than realize this is a legitimate issue being exploited by craven propagandists, you focus only on the propgandists, and then tell me the issue itself "isn't what's being discussed."

As if you can separate one from the other, Glenn. You can't.

The truth allows the lie. They are inextricably linked. This is how republican propaganda works.

The reason you consistently fail on this issue Glen is because you explicityl fail to acknowledge the very real issue of anti-Semitism on the left as the tool of exploitation by the right, instead focusing on how republicans cravenly distort and badger those who oppose them.

By ignoring the underlying issue, you give fuel to their argument, which is that those on the left look the other way at an embedded anti-Semitic undercurrent couched in polite terminology.

Republican get away with the latter BECAUSE there is truth in the former. It is that germ of truth that allows them to smear Obama with notions of hidden motive.

As to asking me to cite anti-Semitism on the left, it is pure canard. Firstly, there is anti-Semitism everywhere, but all you need to do is google Leo Strauss conspiracy theories to hear all about the grand Jewish conspiracies that a few "leftists" love to impose on the republican party.

I put "leftist" in quote because those people aren't ideoligically a part of any organized movement. But they couch their "politics" in the language of the left. Palestinians are the poor oppressed victims of the grand American-Israeli conspiracy to rule the world, straight out of the Protocols of Zion.

Glenn, it is farcical for you to always demand specific citations when your very raisin d'etre is trafficking in exposing how republicans use dog whistle language and double speak to communicate.

The greatest weakness in all of your arguing, Glenn, is in your "I'm only talking about this specifically" and when anyone puts it into larger context, you use legalese to demand a reduction to only the issues you're discussing. As with most issues in politics, you can't simply denature a moment from its broader historical entanglements.

The NeoCons exploit the very real anti-Israel impulses from many leftists to couch their smears and fictions.

You demand I not address this, and only focus on what you want me to, which is completely disingenous, given your entire criticism of other media figures is their refusal to do the very same thing you're not doing.

Pick a framework. Either I can only discuss the specifics of the issue as defined by you, or don't criticize others for not bringing in larger historical, politicial or intertextual understandings in their own argumentations.