FWIW

The NY Times was no doubt guilty of poor reporting, bought into the WMD story and the need to disarm Hussein, but for the record, the editorial page was against the Bush administrations march to war w/o international support or giving further diplomacy a go.

http://tinyurl.com/a6geqx

http://tinyurl.com/75pnxc

http://tinyurl.com/9b7lox

http://tinyurl.com/a6lx7s

If you want to read just one,

Saying No to War

If it comes down to a question of yes or no to invasion without broad international support, our answer is no.

http://tinyurl.com/9np5hp

Read Juan Cole on Olmert's Invincible Power Over Bush:

http://www.juancole.com/2009/01/israeli-pm-ehud-olmert-claims-to-be.html

Où sont les pals, les grils, les entonnoirs de cuir?

Plenty of blame to go around. Maybe if we broke out of the mindset that violence (or threats) solves problems rather than creates them (with rare exception) then maybe we'd stop believing in the phony myth of American exceptionalism and treat people not as children who need enlightening but as humans who've been on the blue ball organized into working societies a whole lot longer than us.

I think that's exactly right.

I wonder, though, if even that "rare exception" needs to get wiped out too, so that the advocacy of violence will have no place at all to hide.

Usually, the sacred "exception" is Nazi Germany. While extinguishing the Reich certainly stopped many horrible crimes in progress, it's simplistic to say it "solved" them. Shooting a burglar doesn't address his drug use or the reasons for it, it just ends it, just as imprisoning him only moves it to another venue. And it creates other problems. Sometimes the overall effect is beneficial, but there are always downsides to using violence as a solution---even to the legitimized state violence we accept as part of the "rule of law."

Germany probably suffered from 2 main problems that Hitler himself appeared to solve: (1) crippling sanctions/crippled economy (2) physical/psychological insecurity vis-à-vis Russia and Britain. What "solved" those problems---temporarily---was the Marshall Plan and the US Army and the comfortable SOFA that keeps it there. Not defeating the Wehrmacht---that simply allowed those real solutions to be put in place.

In the final analysis, Germany's problems still aren't permanently solved. In the same way, even violence in self-defense only "solves" the immediate problem of fending off your attacker.

So, let's not mince words. I don't consider myself a pacifist, but let's face up to the facts that are before us. Violence always creates at least as many problems as it solves.

(If there's an exception to this, it's in the value of periodic, small foreign adventures that fail completely, kill everyone who volunteered for them, and remind the rest of us to never do it again.)

That's a good point and I know it's just a generic factual read that you have offered for us. But, the NYT saying that they didn't support the invasion without UN approval is kind of like George Bush saying "We don't torture". It's that dishonest Except, of course, some of the op/ed writers of the NYT were articulate and sincere in what they wrote.

But the NYT can't be credible just because they made one or two "official" stances for "No Invasion" and expect that to be taken as their back up plan when they are busted for having had not only large amounts of lust for war propaganda on their op/ed pages, but even on their above the fold head line pages.

some of those men imprisoned in Guantanamo without benefit of judge/jury. The favoured place to hide America's embarrassment is Europe although the prisoners come from such divergent places as north-west China and Yemen. It's the USA that created this mess and it's the new President's job to do the honourable thing and provide a home for those prisoners that cannot be charged for lack of evidence but cannot be deported to their country of origin. One of the most important to be charged (excluding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) was another "high value" prisoner Osama bin Laden's former driver. Whether he had been exceeding the speed limit or was d.u.i isn't clear. The charges have been undermined by the admission of State-sponsored torture or by practices deemed to be cruel and unnatural punishment.

Guantanamo is one of the worst legacies of the Bush Administration but Bush was elected by the American people twice, whether you're willing to be reminded of that or not. He will certainly have a chapter, at the very least, in American history. He was not elected in any European country with a parliamentary democracy and it's highly unlikely that he would have been if he'd sought election. Obama has a huge mountain to climb but there's a belief "Cometh the hour, cometh the man". The next twelve months will show whether Obama is that man. He shilly-shallied a lot when interviewd by George Stephonopoulos but we'll find out soon enough whether he's made of straw or not.

I don't know what you're on to, but it doesn't sound healthy:

Where are the stakes, the grills, the leather funnels?

NYT and the war: True, but with better reporting we can only hope that the editor would have had a stronger reason to be truly anti-war.

"I don't know if I'd attribute all blame to Pres. Bush for 9/11"

Well you can't can you?

They were going to get him to fly one of the jets and kill two birds with one stone as it were, but he'd flunked so many flying sessions with the National Guard his skill set wasn't up too much. So they gave the job to the heavy drinking, coke snorting party boy Mohamed Atta who had at least done a few hours in, - a Cessna.

Yeah, that Holder piece was exactly the genteel, understanding, and forgiving GG we all know and love. Let's go to the transcript, shall we?

GG: The bulk of what I've read about and from Holder suggests, with a couple of ultimately marginal exceptions, that this appointment would be a very positive step.

Very big of GG, I'd say.

But what, you may ask, were those "couple of ultimately marginal exceptions"? Here's one:

HOLDER: One of the things we clearly want to do with these prisoners is to have an ability to interrogate them and find out what their future plans might be, where other cells are located; under the Geneva Convention that you are really limited in the amount of information that you can elicit from people.

It seems to me that given the way in which they have conducted themselves, however, that they are not, in fact, people entitled to the protection of the Geneva Convention. They are not prisoners of war. If, for instance, Mohammed Atta had survived the attack on the World Trade Center, would we now be calling him a prisoner of war? I think not. Should Zacarias Moussaoui be called a prisoner of war? Again, I think not.

Like GG said, a minor deviation. Maybe Holder misspoke b/c, you know, people will do that, just as GG says ALL the time.

And Wolf Blitzer's grueling interrogation must have extracted this from the AG nominee:

BLITZER: As opposed to John Walker, these are not U.S. citizens. There may be a few British citizens there, but what happens to these guys? Are they just going to stay at Guantanamo Bay forever?

HOLDER: Interesting question. It seems to me you can think of these people as combatants and we are in the middle of a war, and it seems to me that you could probably say, looking at precedent, that you are going to detain these people until war is over, if that is ultimately what we wanted to do.

I think you have a basis for saying that. We had the Vietnam War, we had World War II, people were captured during the course of that war were not repatriated until the conclusion of the conflict. So, it's possible they could be there for an extended period of time.

Well, that doesn't sound too good. Luckily, GG provides the mitigation (as he is wont to do):

Holder's remarks came before there were any reports of the extremism and abuse that the Bush administration was planning. As that became more apparent, and as the emotional impact of 9/11 receded, Holder clearly changed his views on these topics and reversed himself rather thoroughly. It's true that these early positions evinced some poor judgment and instincts, and everyone can decide for themselves how much weight to give that in light of his subsequent strong and eloquent advocacy on behalf of Constitutional protections and the rule of law.

How forgiving! So understanding! Just the GG we love reading, as he parses PE Obama's punctuation.

Now GG does note this little gem:

some absurdly harsh views Holder has previously expressed regarding punishment for marijuana distribution and mandatory minimum sentences, but unfortunately, inane support for the "War on Drugs" is -- for now -- about as absolute an orthodoxy as it gets in the Washington establishment.

There you have it. Orthodoxy. Beltway. Nothing to be done. Boy, reality is tough but, you know, you just have to buck up and make the best of things. So Greenwaldian!

Now we'll get the hard-hitting stuff, I'm sure:

All of this is preliminary. It's possible -- even likely -- that more facts will emerge that further shape the assessment of the choice of Holder, one way or the other. He should be asked about his views of holding Bush officials accountable for lawbreaking. He was undoubtedly involved with polices at the Clinton DOJ that many civil libertarians will oppose. Some of those early post-9/11 comments are definitely disturbing. And one can never really know what someone will do with power until they wield it. But on balance -- particularly in light of what he was saying regarding the most extreme Constitutional and executive power abuses of the last eight years and, more importantly, how he was saying it -- this choice, as a preliminary matter, seems like a step in the right direction.

Now mind you, those emergent facts will have to emerge elsewhere because GG has bigger fish to fry, you understand, like whether Obama should be spending time picking out a puppy for his daughters when there are people rotting in GITMO b/c they aren't people (oops!), or rotting in American prisons because of prohibitionist drug warriors like Holder (oops!).

Oh, and of course there's Columbine and Elian Gonzalez and Waco and Mark Rich and attacking the attorney-client privilege and . . . Well, what a few foibles among friends?

Besides, GG knows (and, therefore, so do we all) that there is only one thing that really matters in an AG:

It's Holder's independence -- his "distance" -- which very well might be his most attractive attribute. Holder isn't some long-time friend and associate of Barack Obama's from Chicago. They only met for the first time four years ago.

Got that? Holder's OK because he's not really connected to . . . well, that Obama guy again.

Now why does this bother me? It's because I think pure ideologues are just lost sheep, like religious zealots. They mean no harm even when they cause plenty. But hypocritical, self-promoting ideologues, no, that's where I exhaust my supply of compassion, understanding, and forgiveness. My better self, I suppose you'd say. Or -- based upon the foregoing amnesty and pardon of Mr. Holder's "marginal exceptions" -- one might call it my Greenwaldian self.

Have a nice day.