What's with this meme that the hawks have to get back in the good graces of the netroots.  By that I assume you mean above the DKos community narrowly and more broadly the activist base in general.  But the idea that policy wonks should follow the lead of the activist base seems crazy to me, even in purely electoral terms.  In every political movement the majority of the activists are going to be the most ideologically extreme and rigid.  That's equally true of the Repubs. As it happens these days the Repubs are a lot further out on the extreme than the dems, but the activist base is even further out there. There is a need for enforcers but by and large the more intelligent right wing Repubs understand that they need the moderates in order not to alienate the centrist voters.  And I'm not just talking about supporting them electoraly in blue areas.  They also accept that their moderates are going to occasionally say things they can't stand whether it is on stem cell research, foreign policy, the environment, or gay rights or whatever.  The adults in the party, no matter how extreme, just grit their teeth and bear it when a McCain or a Lugar sounds off on FP or a Schwarzenegger or Giuliani does the same on gay rights.  Then they parade them in front of the country at their convention.  They make sure they toe their line in their speech, but they aren't stupid.  They know the networks will talk about the moderates' pro choice, pro gay rights views.  That's what they want.  It reassures the centrists.  The adults in the Dem left need to learn to do the same.

First of all I've seen plenty of meaculpas from supporters of the war. Slate had a compilation. TNR did too.  Not all had changed their minds but plenty had. Same goes for the pro-war liberals in the blogosphere whether Mark Kleimann or Belle Waring or Chris Bertram. On the other hand I haven't seen any Afghanistan from the 'it's all about pipelines' or 'it'll make us as evil as bin Laden' crowd over at Nation or Move On.  But maybe I've missed them just as you seem to have overlooked the hawk's admissions of error.  

A wider debate on Iraq - sure that would have been a very good thing. On Afghanistan - why? Unless  you simply mean how we go about it - maybe though I do recall debate over that.  But not if you mean a debate on whether to go to war.  To me that is like saying we need more of a debate on whether we need to invade Iran now.  No we don't need a debate - it's obvious we don't and I find it difficult to take seriously anyone fantasizing about a war with Iran.  In the same way I really don't want people who were against the idea of invading Afghanistan having real political influence anymore than I like the fact that James Dobson or Grover Norquist have influence over domestic policy.  I see their opinions as equally loony and, if enacted, dangerous to America's well being.  (And as for Atrios he's the opposite I remember one week when he had one post explaining how he's not interested in the views of anyone who supported the Iraq war and a couple days later slamming a liberal hawk who said the same about those who opposed Afghanistan.)

And there we reach the real problem.  People on the hard left see the liberal hawk viewpoint the way all liberals saw Volokh's bloodlust post - as completely beyond the pale. Like Volokh on that issue liberal hawks who have changed their mind on Iraq have done so on purely pragmatic grounds, not because they view the idea of war to spread democracy as inherently wrong and that just doesn't cut it with the leftists.  

I remember a debate in the early day's of Laura Rozen's blog, back when she had comments.  She's definately no fan of the neo-cons but she is a hawk - she voted for Dole as a protest over Bosnia and Rwanda.  She approvingly quoted an extract from Holbrooke talking about the need for liberals to embrace a 'muscular internationalism.'  A commenter blew up saying that's just neo-conservatism lite.  Laura demured but admitted the obvious truth - there is some overlap - and then added, so what.

For the purposes of the necessary FP debate we do need to let bygones be bygones - on both Iraq and Afghanistan.  But in the end that won't help much in reaching a coherent Dem consensus. Either we'll paper over the divisions or we'll have one group feeling as alienated as the secularist Republicans.

in order to avoid the "michael moore liberal" trap, might I suggest you frame your debate as realist vs. whateverlabelitistoday? the DLC folks tend to label their opposition as "soft peaceniks", and I really don't think that's necessarily the case.

ps- can anyone find a quote of moveon or michael moore opposing Afghanistan?

Moot is an autoantonym like fast, overlook, clip, cleave, comprise, etc.  

Everything is "Moot" when it comes To Iraq, except for the single settled issue (amongst the sane, veracious and ethical) that we should never have been there.  That to oppose this war is both humane and patriotic.

We have destroyed an extant culture, killed and maimed an incredible number of people, and done ourselves grevious wounds physically, morally and economically.

First, I do not mean Kos, narrowly. As a matter of fact, while I love Kos, I think many Kossacks are too far to the left on issues of IR/MA.

And you also said this: " the idea that policy wonks should follow the lead of the activist base seems crazy to me, even in purely electoral terms."

Hell no I don't want policy people following up what the net-roots crazies demand. What I think they should do, and I really should have made this more clear in my post, is that the policy wonks should be more inclusive with some of the net-roots people who know IR/MA issues. Seriously, Wes Clarks candidacy was a huge opportunity for them. I seriously considered working for the Clark campign, going so far as to attend some organizational meetings. I can't tell you how many people there were a.) internet active, b.) moderate Republicans and c.) didn't like the New Republic-DLC crowd.

There is a huge pool of people out there who are very similar in issues of IR/MA like us, here at The Agonist. And the DC insiders need to take advantage of us. Not shun us. And I think they do to a certain extent. I'm talking about guys like me and Stirling who have deeply held tough-minded but contrarian views about IR/MA issues.

That's the kind of stuff that irritates me.    

that I will be happy to retract and apologize for my view about mea-culpas. Just show me some links and I will be happy to. However, with regards to The New Republic: not a chance. They are still a part of the problem, like Ed Kilgore said: "with the more abrasive argument of Peter Beinart . . . ." I do not like, and I doubt I ever will, much of what TNR stands for.

You said: " I really don't want people who were against the idea of invading Afghanistan having real political influence "

I agree 100%. I should have been more clear in my post about Atrios' quote. I was for the Afghanistan war. It was just and necessary. I only wish Bush would have handled that one more skillfully and multilaterally, instead of aggravating Europe by basically going it alone. But, as I have stated ad nauseum, we should have stopped with conventional military action after Afghanistan.

You said: " People on the hard left see the liberal hawk viewpoint the way all liberals saw Volokh's bloodlust post - as completely beyond the pale."

I'm of two minds about this. Yeah, some on the hard left see Iraq and IR/MA that way. But, I think there are a lot who don't too. I don't think, after 9/11 that ALL on the hard left can be characterized that way.

Finally, I think what I really wanted to convey in my post is that there is still a lot of sidelining of people who were and are anti-Iraq by the DLC-TNR-Insider crowd and it pisses me off. It ain't the other way around. The Dems can't afford to let foreign policy be in the hands of a crowd that is still to deferential to the President. It is a recipe for disaster.

But I have hope that things are turning around. If guys like Matthew Yglesias and gals like Laura Rozen are our future then I think we will be ok.

http://www.davekopel.org/Terror/Fiftysix-Deceits-in-Fahrenheit-911.htm#Proposed_Unocal_Pipeline_in_A
fghanistan

...

Three days after September 11, Moore demanded that no military action be taken against Afghanistan:

"Declare war?" War against whom? One guy in the desert whom we can never seem to find? Are our leaders telling us that the most powerful country on earth cannot dispose of one sick evil f---wad of a guy? Because if that is what you are telling us, then we are truly screwed. If you are unable to take out this lone ZZ Top wannabe, what on earth would you do for us if we were attacked by a nation of millions? For chrissakes, call the Israelis and have them do that thing they do when they want to get their man! We pay them enough billions each year, I am SURE they would be happy to accommodate your request....

But do not declare war and massacre more innocents. After bin Laden's previous act of terror, our last elected president went and bombed what he said was "bin Laden's camp" in Afghanistan -- but instead just killed civilians.

Michael Moore, "War on Whom?" AlterNet, Sept. 14, 2001.

The next day he wrote:

Trust me, they are talking politics night and day, and those discussions involve sending our kids off to fight some invisible enemy and to indiscriminately bomb Afghans or whoever they think will make us Americans feel good.

...I fear we will soon be in a war that will do NOTHING to protect us from the next terrorist attack.

"Mike's Message," Sept. 15, 2001. Although Moore vehemently opposed the Afghanistan War, Fahrenheit criticizes Bush for not putting more troops into Afghanistan sooner.

...

[Moore response: none.]

Here are links to what I would have done afterwards.

And Marek, I'll answer your questions soon.

And also, for the record, Moore was a foolish to not support Afghanistan. It was a just and necessary war in every way.  

I was wondering where that came from. here's the original texts, if your interested.

9/15/01

9/14/01

whatever happened to bin Laden?

After 9-11, I was positive that he was a dead man. Someone messes with the US, (LIKE THAT?), should have had his clock cleaned, his ass kicked, the mother fucker should have been made a stain...and yet, we are discussing Hussein and Iraq.

That's how they failed us.

First of all I don't think we're particularly far apart on FP even though I dropped off the Iraq fence on the other side (and ended up regretting it).

For an optimistic counter to my pessimism on this issue I'd say that the Dem left underestimates just how much most Dem mods, including most of the DLC/TNR crowd, hate Bush with a passion.  Read New Donkey or Jon Chait - you don't get much 'let's all work together' type attitude these days. I also think you have a point about much of the Dem left. Post 9/11 many do recognize the need for a strong security policy  On DKos for example Armando and Meteor Blades are people the hawks can have reasonable discussions with.  Markos himself I see as someone like Peter Beinart.  It's not his actual policy views which are problematic but his hostility and abrasiveness to the opposite side in the debate.

...dropped off the fence and regretted it, why exactly is it that you dropped off the fence and why did you come to regret it? Maybe it's my bias speaking, but having been on the same fence (and probably I'm really still up there), it seems to me that exploring the whys and wherefores of that fence sitting are productive, particularly in figuring out how issues should be framed and expressed to a political constituency that I tend to think is: a) non-trivial in numbers, and b) feels itself to be without a home. [There are four major parties that I could plausibly vote for, and I can't find a political home (voting instead for the Greens because even if they're not viable, they at least make sense) - I can only imagine what it's like with two parties!]

More important than anything, I suspect, is how does this apply to political discussions as to how military force should be used in the coming post-Iraq period?

the BBC series, The Power of Nightmares. If you can get a copy of it (maybe the library or somewhere online) I would highly suggest you do so. It goes a long way towards answering your question about Bin Laden.

 please read the links I provided.

they seem rather prescient in hindsight.

dKosopedia has transcripts of Power of Nightmares.

and a question to the group.

Given the objectives of the Afghanistan mission and its current outcome, is it a success?

(apologies for going off topic)

The Power of Nightmares.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/video1037.htm

Part's 2 and 3 available there too. Very worth watching, very revealing and much recommended. The quality is not so great at this link but the only other place to get it is Torrent or via emule.

Caribtigger

DK, why don't you write up a diary about why you think the Afghan war was inappropriate or unjust or jsut why you think it should have been opposed. I'll debate with you, but please, and I am really trying to be polite here, don't toss out some links and say: read this. I am horribly busy trying to a.) run this website b.) maintain a marriage c.) rasie a kid d.) run a business e.) start a new one and f.) keep up with my already overwhelming amount of reading material which includes but is not limited to the following:

The New Yorker, every week.

The New York Review of Books (bi-weekly)

Foreign Affairs (quarterly)

The National Interest (quarterly)

The New York Times (daily)

The following blogs:

War and Piece, Political Animal, Daily Kos, Liberals Against Terrorism, TPM, Atrios, Digby, Bopnews.com, James Wolcott, Steve Clemons, Steve Gilliard, Nanobot, Siter's Talk, Cobb, Al-Muhajabah's Islamic blogs and others when the ocassion warrants plus . . .  

. . . the following websties: Morgan Stanley research, LRB.co.uk, Economist, Jamestown Foundation, MosNews, Stratfor, The Nation, Bill Gross, Watching America, Forex, The Richebacher Letter, and finally . . .

. . . the two books I am currently reading: Conspiracy Of Fools (about Enron), and Philip Roth, The Plot Against America (for pleasure).

As you can tell, I never watch TV (waste of time IMHO).

I am a little constrained when it comes to time. So, like I said, write up a diary and we can debate, I will be very happy to do so, and even elevate it to the Front Page if it garners enough interest by other Agonistas.

I just don't have the time to read through multiple and quite long posts of Michael Moore's conspiracy theories for the golden nuggets he does (I admit it), on ocassion, provide.

explained all this in detail a month or two ago in response to a question from dk. Brief summary - why I ended up backing it - humanitarian intervention argument and the belief that if Bush f...ed it up he'd be politically dead in 2004 and therefore he'd probably do a decent job.  Why I regret it - because given the information I knew then I should have known the admin would do a horrible job.

...my apologies. I will search through your comments and dig up your previous thoughts. Didn't mean to re-drag stuff out of you 'cause I wasn't paying attention.

I have to say I supported the war until about three weeks from its start, I, like you, shared many of the same ideas about it but just realized shortly before that Bush was lying about WMD and was likely to really screw it up. I was prescient but not prescient enough.  

reading it then. Nobody ever believed me when I would say it, tho, so it's interesting to see you say it. :-)

it did take a while. I wish it hadn't. And I wish more progressives that supported the war like Drum, Marshall, Yglesias (although I think he finally did end up opposing it but I don;t know for sure) would have done so earlier. If you got back through the pre-war archives here: http://agonist.org/archives/archives you'll see how it evolved. I really didn't get a grip on it until this post http://scoop.agonist.org/archives/000683.html when I really started to weigh things in the balance that I realized Iraq was going to be a clusterfuck of monumental proportions. Even then Ihad a fear for urban/guerilla warfare (although I never thought it would be as bad as it is now). So, yeah, it was a long drawn out process. And it was really hard to stand up and say I was opposed because of guys like Yglesias, Drum and Marshall. I figured whatever credibility I had with them would disappear and it largely did (for this reason and others). But that is alright. I know where I stand, however, as you can probably tell, I am still a little peeved by it.

Actually, the reason I started surfing blogs is that I was horrified by the Pre-Emptive Doctrine the minute I saw it plastered across the front page of the newspaper, and earlier, when the Bushies said "you do not try to sell things in August". After following the 9/11 story closely, I instinctively was horrified, I didn't care if Saddam has WMD's or not, I thought it was absolutely the wrong way to go. So I wanted to understand why people did not see this too, and the only liberals that I found that seriously discussed anything except dumb anti-Bush rants devoid of any nuance or a sort of totally love-peace-harmony-pacifist line were you guys that were supportive of invading Iraq.

This mystified me. I didn't see why we couldn't just go on with the no fly zone et. al. and keep working on Afghanistan and Pakistan and al Qaeda. I wanted to understand your thought, thought it would help me. Didn't make a wit of sense to me then.

And I must admit, still doesn't today, the theory that America needs to show a "strong side". (Even Teddy R said carry the big stick, he didn't say wield it. Though I must admit what he said and what he did were two different things. :-))

Marek's hawkishness I understand much more, though I don't agree with it. It is mainly a humanitarian impulse that I see there.

go on with the no-fly zone policy. First, it was costing a fortune. Second, we were loosing critical Arab support for it. If you remember at the time (before 9/11) even Colin Powell was about "smart sanctions" and other various ways of keeping Hussein encircled and out of trouble. Problem was, as Ken Pollack indicated in his book, the Arab states in the region were growing weary of the no-fly zone policy, especially the Saudis but also the Jordanians, Syrians and Turks. Now, they all had their own interests in ending the policy--i.e. oil and money. But, the no-fly zone policy could not have been maintained forever. Powell, at least, was looking for a way out, although Treas. Sec. O'Neil has indicated the rest of the neo-cons were looking for a way in. Context, as you always say, is critical here. Something was going to change, before 9/11, something had to give. And we all know what happened after 9/11. The Iraq hawks became ascendant.

Had 9/11 not happened, there might not be any UN sanctions and no no-fly zones left. Remember, our image was also taking a horrible beating internationally for the sanctions as well.  

Just for infotainment purposes, please:

I saw it as Saddam was 65 yrs. old or some such. I saw that there had already been quite a few attempts against his rule.

Saddam would be gone in couple decades, if not sooner. Has/wants WMD's. So what?  Whoever takes over has/wants WMD's. (And whoever takes over now eventually will want WMD's.) Would also want sanctions lifted eventually. What changes by knocking him out?

Meanwhile other dictators have/want WMD's and you are busy, not watching them.

He already had much more international and Arab disapproval than most dictators. A huge coalition had stood up to him crossing the border with Kuwait, reactively, to defend internationally agreed-upon principles.

The IAEA obviously had a willingness to continue playing cat-and-mouse with him, with interim "cease-fires," granted. I saw that as all a game, played out over time.

As to the no-fly-zone costing us a fortune, often staying out of all-out-war does cost a fortune. Everyone always thinks all-out war is going to solve something, all they usually get is unintended blow-back that costs far more.

I much prefer America be reactive rather than pro-active in foreign policy. Save your pro-active policies for trade, like good old George Washington advised.

Half-way measures work better, you can tinker with them over time, they are reality-based. They accept that you cannot predict the future. Pre-emptive invasion/war is a Manichean solution. Saddam pushed the Manchiean response by crossing the border of Kuwait. We did same by crossing border of Iraq without physical provocation.

We didn't do a huge invasion of Afghanistan and we didn't do a huge invasion of Kosovo.

Osama didn't/doesn't like the tinkering of the West in the Arab world. He wants to force a war. By going to war with Saddam, you are doing what Osama desires. And the supreme irony is that Osama hates Saddam.

A mini-rant on the general here (So please scuse if wording is not formed too well!)

Diplomacy constantly having to be adjusted, international police work, intel, covert ops, peace-keeping, pinpoint attacks, lobbing missiles as warnings, they are expensive. So is all-out war, much more blood with the treasure. Mistakes are made with the former, worse mistakes often made with the latter.

I think this is the crucial difference with some of us who disagree that some kind of "grand foreign policy" works. Many of you see the bad side of the other less ideological options too often and not the good side. (Perhaps it's because things happening without being out in the open seem anti-democratic? Well, I submit that foreign policy via vox populi is dangerous too, the latter is basically what wars pander to. The key to that problem: being able to trust your oversight committees on what the White House is doing.)

Bad guys will always come up with new games to subvert your goals, they won't play by any morality-based or any-other-way-based foreign policy rules you chose, things will not turn out how you planned, and they will turn up where you least expect it. You cannot predict the future.

It's the change thing, change is the only constant.  Baby steps are good. It's how babies learn to walk and keep their balance. Reactive better than proactive.

Back to topic:

So they went ahead and did it. And guess what? So far Armageddon has not happened as I feared! Just puts more faith in me that the common sense of most ordinary people who just want to live their daily lives in peace more and more will eventually adjust to whatever crap all you foreign policy planners throw at them. The more globalized it gets on this front, the better.

Back to mini-rant:

It's at the end of the movie version of Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath". Something like "we're the people, they can't stop us".

American foreign policy has now completed the task of fulfilling most of Iran's goals. It took us a couple of decades, but by God, we did it! That was our foreign policy plan, wasn't it? Zbigniew Brzezinski's brilliant policy planning finally bears fruit?  Wonder if Osama had the same plan? He was really always meaning to help the mullahs? </sarcasm :-)&gt

NYT Magazine

THE SECURITY ADVISER

Is a State Sponsor of Terrorism Winning?

By RICHARD A. CLARKE

Published: March 27, 2005

Imagine with me a nation's security leaders sitting around the conference table being briefed on the progress of things in Iraq. They celebrate the overwhelming victory of their favorites in the Iraqi elections. They are pleased with the effectiveness of their huge investment in building schools and hospitals in Shiite communities. They are delighted that the thousands of their security forces in Iraq are doing well, with few casualties. The nation? Iran.

Yes, Iran, the nation the Bush administration calls the greatest state sponsor of terrorism, is having some good days, largely at our expense. In the 1980's, Iran suffered an estimated one million casualties in a seven-year war against Iraq. From Iran's perspective, the purpose of the war was to place Iraq's majority Shiite religious faction in charge, to unseat Saddam Hussein, to protect the Shiite holy places and, perhaps, to get its hands on Iraq's vast oil deposits. The costly war ended in a draw, after the two sides exhausted themselves. Seventeen years later, Iran has now achieved three of those four war goals, thanks to 13,000 American casualties and scores of billions of American-taxpayer dollars....

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/27/magazine/27ADVISER.html

(Note: No archive url available as yet, maybe not at all.)

else I thought at the time. This one:

Many Germans Want Berlin Wall Back, Study Finds

http://reuters.myway.com/article/20050326/2005-03-26T132941Z_01_L26474730_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-GERMANY-WAL
L-DC.html

After all I had read about the Islamic world after 9/11, and all I had read on Iraq I thought that this is surely going to be another case of forcing democracy and capitalism on a culture that is not ready for it. Iraq was a totalitarian welfare state for many years, it would take many years for people to learn to take things into their own hands, they will expect everything from their leaders.

It does not seem to be turning out exactly the same way, as I suspected. It did at first but now maybe not. Every culture is different.

(A blatant generalization on that meme: I do think China has done it in the right order for its own culture, though: capitalism first, democracy second. They had so many other problems to solve, many of the same problems that India has. India did democracy first, capitalism second.)

...points, I would point out, as has Sean-Paul, that there were very, very significant problems with the containment strategy. For all the criticism of the terrible civilian toll wrought on the Iraqi people by the invasion, it's instructive to consider that in all likelihood we have not yet come very close at all to killing as many Iraqis via warfare as we did via that sanctions regime, a regime that the Duelfer report reveals to have been largely "successful" in the sense of having largely disarmed Saddam without us realizing it for well over half a decade -- another example of "catastrophic success". I'll advocate policies that would result in a death toll that would shock most people senseless, but it'll damned well be because it's necessary. Keeping that particular "unintelligent" sanctions regime in place because the political alternatives were unpalatable (and that very much seems to me to be what occurred) does not seem to me to be something that we should consider to have been a success, and nor should we consider it to be a viable alternative to what we did do, as unpalatable as that itself was.

NYT - Is a State Sponsor of Terrorism Winning?

By Richard A. Clarke

RSS feed yet when I put the link in the translator.

BTW, for those interested, the smaller magazine stories, I have found, are often not included on the RSS feed, therefore, they often will not give you an archive link here:

http://nytimes.blogspace.com/genlink

Only recently found that out, that the archive link generator works on the basis of RSS feed, and the NYT only puts a certain number of stories from each print edition section on the RSS feed.