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Day-Before-Finals Good Stuff

Jill

Ah, civil procedure. The Erie doctrine. Impleader, interpleader, and intervention. Joinder and supplemental jurisdiction. Yay!

In the meantime, some thoughts.

1. What the fuck Johnny Damon. What the fuck.

2. Perhaps I spoke too soon on the transit strike. Is the MTA negotiating in bath faith? (via Majikthise and Haley PC’s away message).

3. If you get fat, only black men will want you — so says one doctor. Well, if that’s what it takes to land Mos Def or Morris Chestnut, I’ll do what I have to.

4. Federal judge resigns in protest of the Bush administration’s spying. Woah. (Yes, that’s the sound of shit about to hit the fan).

5. Thanks, EPA! Clean air is overrated anyway.

6. Intelligent design is a crock. What’s up next from the anti-science godbag crowd??

7. Love him or hate him, no one damns Christmas better than Christopher Hitchens.

8. Is anorexia genetic?

And now, back to the books.

54 thoughts on Day-Before-Finals Good Stuff

  1. Is the MTA negotiating in bath faith?

    The NYT story doesn’t seem to include any new information. Is the big shock supposed to be that the MTA dropped its demand to raise the retirement age in exchange for all new workers contribute 6% to their health benefits? This has been widely reported, and you even acknowledged it as reasonable in your original post, Jill, when you said:

    But from what I’ve read, the MTA dropped the retirement-age issue, so workers can continue to retire at 55 with full benefits (I don’t know about you, but I plan on working long past 55; so do my parents). But in order to pay for those benefits, they’re asking workers to pay 6% of their salaries into their pension funds for the first 10 years of employment. Six percent is a lot, especially when the current payment is 2% — but if you want an early retirement age, you’ve gotta pay for it somehow, right?

    So I’m not seeing what the big revelation is. Is it that this would only save $20 million for the first three years? If so, then why only consider the impact for three years? I’ve heard that in something like 10 years it could end up saving $160 million and then $80 million per year thereafter. Regardless, if this is the pro-strike side’s new “smoking gun”, it’s pretty weak. The MTA is certainly responsible for the poor financial state of our transit system, and you won’t find me defending many decisions that they’ve made, but at the end of the day they were willing to keep on negotiating. It was Roger Toussaint who recklessly brought this to a head.

    Federal judge resigns in protest of the Bush administration’s spying. Woah. (Yes, that’s the sound of shit about to hit the fan).

    And on the flip side, a former Clinton associate attorney general says everything Bush did was legal. (h/t JeffG) If the shit’s hitting the fan for anyone, it’s Congressional Democrats, who have clearly forgotten the results of trying to politicize national security in the 2002 elections. And the 2004 elections, for that matter.

  2. Jon, shame on you!

    When Clinton did it, he was selflessly defending the nation against the threat of foreign enemies – enemies that the Republicans would gladly sell your babies to in exchange for just one drop of that sweet, sweet Middle Eastern crude.

    Bush is doing it because he’s a fascist warmonger.

    I mean, duh.

  3. Hey, Jill, what is the deal with Johnny Damen? Everyone in NYC seems to be having a strong reaction but I can’t really tell why. Did he beat up handicapped New York orphans or something?

  5. That article about anorexia was a bit off–she implies that there’s conflict between saying that anorexics are control freaks and that anorexics are lured into their disease by anxieties provoked by the media. It seems to me those two things dovetail into each other–anorexics are intelligent perfectionists obsessive types who fixate on dieting and your figure in a culture where they are told, repeatedly, that it’s the most important thing about them.

  6. I do really take her point about anorexics being portrayed as victims, when in fact there’s a fair amount of conscious choice involved. I made a conscious decision to be anorexic. I found books and articles about anorexia and did research to help me figure out how to pull it off. That’s something you hear a fair amount from former (and current) anorexics and almost never in media depictions of anorexia. (You can see why media discussions of anorexia wouldn’t talk about that: it implicates them in the problem. Some day I’m going to write a little primer about how to write a story about anorexia that won’t encourage would-be anorexics.) I also think that a lot of people fail to mention that there’s a certain warped status that comes from being anorexic. I didn’t just get complimented for being very thin, and in fact a lot of people made it clear that they thought my emaciated body was disgusting. I got complimented for having the “willpower” to overcome my body’s desires and dictates. I think that there’s probably a genetic component to anorexia, but I do think that society plays a role. It’s just a slightly more complicated role than is generally suggested. And in some ways, I think it says worse things about our culture than the usual “anorexics want to look like Kate Moss” story does. It’s not just that we’re held to a usually-impossible standard of beauty. It’s that we’re praised and rewarded for torturing and mutilating our bodies. What my peers found impressive about my anorexia wasn’t the way I looked; it was the crazy things I did to make myself look that way.

    I’m pretty happy that people have stopped blaming toxic mothers for anorexia, though, and I think it’s a good sign that people have started suggesting that there might be more than one kind of anorexia, with more than one set of causes. I’ve always thought that, because it was pretty clear to me that there were very different things going on with the various kids I met in eating disorder treatment.

  7. Jon C. Says:

    And on the flip side, a former Clinton associate attorney general says everything Bush did was legal. (h/t JeffG) If the shit’s hitting the fan for anyone, it’s Congressional Democrats, who have clearly forgotten the results of trying to politicize national security in the 2002 elections.

    Oh yes, the old “if the President does it it’s not illegal.” You guys just keep pushing that. Historically, Americans just love that argument.

    This nonsense is dealt with in detail by Orin Kerr over at Volokh and Daniel Solove here and here.

  10. I know, I know… I truly root for the Mariners, so hopefully that will relieve me of some part of the sin. I only root for the Red Sox when it’s a Sox/Yankees thing. I like the underdog, what can I say. Plus, I resent that the Yankees just buy up every good player in the league as their winning strategy, and make them cut their hair. They’re a bunch of rich pretty-boys. And while I may adore rich pretty-boys when I’m dating them, I don’t support them as professional athletes.

  11. ok. it’s JOHNNY DAMON. SPELLING FOLKS. and yes, he’s going to burn in hell for this. BURN IN HELL. you hear that johnny? YOU’RE GOING TO FUCKING HELL WITH BABE RUTH AND ROGER CLEMENS YOU SOB. fucking shithead.

  12. One of the problems with any theory on the causes of anorexia is that every case is different–a different combination of behavioral, psychological, social, emotional, interpersonal, and yes, genetic, factors. The combination is often extremely different for each individual case and is part of what makes this particular disease so intractable. It’s up to the patient, and her medical/psychological team to decipher this combination and come up with a course of treatment. So, what this particular writer feels caused her anorexia is probably quite different from anyone else’s. I do think the victim model can be appropriate in some cases, but perhaps not in others. I’m in graduate school for counseling, specializing in the treatment of eating disorders, and after you read enough case studies it’s quite obvious that there is never going to be a one-size-fits-all solution.

  13. I’m hoping for a Red Sox/Cubs World Series sometime soon. Just so we know for sure that the 20th century is really, truly over.

    The MTA and TWU are now talking, despite Bloomberg and Pataki’s best efforts. The union has plenty of pressure on it to settle. If anyone can think of any way to pressure the MTA, do it. Otherwise, we’ll either have a strike forever or unhappy, underpaid transit workers who will ultimately stop caring about their job. Workers who don’t care about their jobs are dangerous, especially when they’re in positions where their decisions could affect lives. I predict that if the MTA wins in a big way we start having lethal subway crashes within a year. Not because of sabatoge, just because of indifference induced incompetence.

    BTW: We just passed a bond that should give more money to the MTA. They aren’t going to increase services. They aren’t going to raise workers’ pay. They have a surplus so the money isn’t needed to pay off old debts and bring the system into balance. So what’s the money for? The MTA admin’s party budget?

  15. So what’s the money for? The MTA admin’s party budget?

    More stadium subsidies!

    But let us not get into the Atlantic Yards scam, which Shelly Silver failed to block, as he blocked the Jets stadium boondoggle.

  16. Robert, I think you made a mistake (or you said something dishonest in the service of humor): nobody says Clinton actually turned the NSA intelligence apparatus on US citizens. Mr. Schmidt appears to me to say merely that he took the position that Clinton could do so. He would have been wrong, and moreover, if he actually did what Bush concedes he did, I take the position that he should be indicted, tried, convicted and incarcerated.

    All you “libertarians” ought to recognize the stomping boots as republic turns to empire. When this is over, if it all ends peacefully, nobody is going to forget that when the greatest threat to the freedoms of the American people arose, “libertarians” stood firmly on the side of enhanced power for the intelligence organs of the executive. Oppose Bush’s actions or forfeit all credibility.

  17. Tosh. Defense of the state is the state’s most legitimate function. In the very worst case scenario, people from the government listened to phone calls. We can live with it.

    If it it turns out not to have been a legitimate national security operation, then there is condemnation to pass around. But you anti-Bush folks jumped the shark on this whole question about ten sharks ago.

  19. Robert, it’s not just this.

    The NYT reports today that the NYPD has been putting undercover officers in protests not only to monitor events, but apparently, as agents provocateurs to perform fake arrests and see if they can stir the crowd to violence.

    The U.S. is running a network of secret prisons around the world.

    The U.S. has asserted the right to snatch a U.S. citizen from civil aviation and hold him forever without charge — and when it appeared the Supreme Court would hold otherwise, attempted to forum-shop to thwart an adverse ruling.

    The DOD investigates and keeps records of non-violent groups on the political left (gay and lesbian advocates, vegans, communitarian Catholics), while apparently ignoring right-wing groups, though the former have not committed a terrorist attack resulting in a fatality in the U.S. in twenty years, but the latter blew up the Murrah Federal Building.

    Magistrate Gorenstein in New York just ruled that the government does not have to show probably cause to track my movements with GPS precision using my cell-phone’s location data.

    Robert, I work in Manhattan. I saw the smoke plume. WTC was my subway stop for three years, ending just months before 9/11. If the choice is between living in a police state with the unchecked power to investigate, harass or detain any of us, or to see the blood spattered as suicide bombers blow themselves up on the F train, I’ll take the suicide bombers. If you’re any kind of libertarian, you would too.

    I still say, “give me liberty or give me death.” Apparently, you’d rather live on your knees and trust the great daddy-state to protect you from the bad men.

  20. The FISA rules provided no impediment to getting warrants to do wiretaps in the past; keep in mind that they will retroactively approve applications up to 72 hours after an emergent situation. The FISC has pretty much rubber-stamped any application by the government — from 1998 until 2002, not one, NOT ONE warrant application was denied. In 2002, four were denied, but several of those were later modified and approved.

    It was after 2002 that the administration started going around the FISC. That says to me that either they didn’t think they could get approval for their proposed surveillance because it had fuck-all to do with national security (I mean, vegans? Gay law students?), or they just wanted the unfettered ability to monitor the conversations of US persons without having to make a showing to a court.

    If you’re comfortable giving the executive branch that kind of power, you’re giving in to fear.

  21. Oh, and two other things, Robert:

    (1) You failed to acknowledge your mistake. Bill Clinton did not act to use the NSA to intercept the communications of Americans, and your statement was erroneous in that respect.

    (2) Your argument justifies any action by the State to protect it from enemies. Could the NSA implant each of us with a chip-sized throat microphone and transmitter to monitor all of our conversations? Certainly, that would be very effective in heading off terrorist cells. Surely you draw the line short of this, but your argument does not make clear that you see any principled limit to the power of the government.

  22. And now this

    In Ohio, the police will be able to say stop anyone for no reason in any public place, and demand name and birthdate on pain of arrest.

  23. Robert Says:

    Defense of the state is the state’s most legitimate function. In the very worst case scenario, people from the government listened to phone calls.

    Yeah, it’s not like they’ve held an American citizen in military custody for over three years while denying access to the courts. Padilla is of course such an overwhelming threat that they tried to get the 4th circuit to transfer the case to the civilian courts so that he can’t appeal to the Supreme Court.

    But hey, very worst case scenario is people from the government listened to phone calls, right?

  25. PL: Toussaint was unwilling to accept a ridiculously bad contract with stupid changes imposed at the last minute. The MTA wasn’t offering anything reasonable. It’s pretty clear that the MTA wanted to force a strike. Maybe they’re hoping to weaken the union. New Yorkers seem to be falling right into line with that goal by blaming TWU rather than the MTA, beliving the MTA’s claims of innocence and good faith. Even Jill fell for it. If a fine of 2 days income per day of strike were imposed on the MTA bureaucrats rather than the transit workers, the strike would have ended by now because the admin scum are only interested in making more money for themselves. Fire them all. And fire those who hired them.

  26. Oh, and if anyone still thinks that the TWU members have cushy, overpaid jobs, I have a suggestion: Take one of those jobs. The MTA is nearly always hiring. See if after a few weeks of dodging subways (a number of workers have been killed in the past few years after being struck by trains because the MTA was too cheap to bother with basic safety equipment for small teams of workers), having rats run over your feet, dealing with extreme temperatures, being insulted, threatened, and/or assaulted by every rude and/or crazy person in NYC, and being reprimanded for not smiling while all this is going on, you still think it’s a cushy overpaid job and you intend to keep it until you retire at 55. If you do…I’ll agree that you were right and it is a cushy job after all. But I won’t join you in the tunnels.

  27. One last note on the strike before I stop ranting: From an article on NY1 about a survey of people’s attitudes towards the strike:

    “A final note about race. White New Yorkers see the union as deserving more blame for the strike than do black or Latinos.

    “Thirty-five percent of white residents blame the union over the MTA, while only 12 percent of African-Africans and 17 percent of Latinos do.”

    Full article, all of which is interesting, at http://ny1.com/ny1/NY1ToGo/Story/index.jsp?stid=1&aid=55816

  28. Defense of the state is the state’s most legitimate function. In the very worst case scenario, people from the government listened to phone calls. We can live with it.

    I agree with the first part, Robert. But how far will our government go to defend itself? How many liberties must we surrender to ensure we won’t be attacked again? They’re listening to phone calls now, but what will they be doing after the next major terrorist attack? With the way technology is advancing we might see the government intruding into our lives like we never imagined. It’s intimidating and it’s terrifying, if you ask me.

    “Those willing to give up a little liberty for a little security deserve neither security nor liberty.” –Benjamin Franklin

    “As nightfall does not come at once neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air however slight lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.” –William O. Douglas, former Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court

  30. I’m very disappointed by all the lefties speaking out of the dogma box. This kind of uncritical black and white thinking is no better than wingnut speak, and really doesn’t get us anywhere. So the MTA did this bullshit with the pension. That doesn’t justify f-ing over the city for a week. The strike was unnecessary.

  31. I’m very disappointed by all the lefties speaking out of the dogma box. This kind of uncritical black and white thinking is no better than wingnut speak, and really doesn’t get us anywhere.

    Come on. Weren’t you just complaining about people being condescending?

  32. Highly respected legal scholars are squelching the left’s talking points on the Bush administration’s NSA effort. Left-liberal Cass Sunstein says Bush’s argument is at least “plausible”, and Richard Posner finds the program manifestly justifiable.

    Sunstein’s assessment is far more qualified than you represent — for example, the plausibility of some of Bush’s arguments, he says, depend on FISA not being taken into account.

    Posner justifies the administration’s actions by arguing that FISA is *too* restrictive, and that in addition to wiretapping, data mining should be allowed because some people might not be aware that they have useful information.

    Neither explains how warrantless surveillance of vegans, Quakers, gay law students, etc., could have been justified by national security concerns.

  33. The left’s outrage at this strikes as pretty hollow since if there was another attack tomorrow, the first question they would ask is “why didn’t Bush do more?”

  34. Neither explains how warrantless surveillance of vegans, Quakers, gay law students, etc., could have been justified by national security concerns.

    You are conflating different issues here I think.

  35. Yes, I would, Eric, because he’s been farting around watching vegans and Quakers and gays (oh my!) instead of, oh, creating a real transportation security infrastructure, properly funding first responders in cities that are actually targets of terrorism instead of letting HSA funds be used for pork projects in sparsely-populated states, doing something about port security.

    And I also know that he could have easily gotten warrants for surveillance of US citizens associated with Al Qaeda, because the FISC has routinely issued them in the past upon a showing that they were necessary and related to terrorist activity.

  36. EricP, I do not accept your prediction. It depends in part on what happens. If a container ship explodes with a nuke in it, then the President should have done more, because the entire left have been screaming about port security since 2002 (you didn’t think that was Kerry’s idea, did you? That man never had an original thought in his life). If a guy walks into Sbarro with a bomb strapped to him, my comment will be this: “It’s very hard to stop suicide bombers. We can’t allow ourselves to be cowed by terrorists.”

    In fact, my reaction to much terrorism is not “oh, no, protect me.” I get angry at people who say that. My reaction is, “I will not give in to threats. I’ll be in my office tomorrow, same as every other day. Kill me or go away.” And that’s from a guy who worked in Manhattan on September 12, 13, and 14, 2001.

    You are of course right to assume I will criticize Bush — but not for failure to do more. I’ll say that all the rhetoric about keeping us safe was nonsense, and that nobody can make that promise, and that he was just saying it in the hope that he could take credit for an absence of attacks. And if the attackers are folks who were not active in planning attacks on the U.S. before the Iraq invasion, I will say that the invasion made us less safe. But I will not ever say that we needed a more effective police state.

  37. Zuzu didn’t put those issues together, Eric. I did. That’s because they go together, with a long list of erosions of our civil liberties that do not make us safe or free. Are we either safer or more free because men in dark sunglasses pay a visit to a student who orders Mao through interlibrary loan?

  38. Are we either safer or more free because men in dark sunglasses pay a visit to a student who orders Mao through interlibrary loan?

    I’d say we’re a lot less safe with limited FBI Counterterrorism resources being diverted to watching Catholic Workers and people protesting llama fur.

    Like Thomas, I work in Manhattan, and I worked two blocks from the WTC on 9/11 (I, personally, was getting my phone installed that morning but the early-arrivers in my office had to run for it). We were displaced for many months, and we took up temporary space in the Wall Street area, so we were close enough that the dust collected on my teeth every evening when they washed down the streets. Our department assistant opened the mail with latex gloves and a mask because of the anthrax attacks.

    So I’ve been through this already, and I’m not willing to give an inch on civil liberties. No damn way will I give in to fear.

  39. PL: Toussaint was unwilling to accept a ridiculously bad contract with stupid changes imposed at the last minute. The MTA wasn’t offering anything reasonable. It’s pretty clear that the MTA wanted to force a strike.

    Dianne, that was the point of the link to the article that says as much…. i was just quoting Jon C earlier &… err… putting links in his mouth, as it were

    maybe a bit too abstract – i’ll go now

    *poof*

  40. Jon C. Says:

    Left-liberal Cass Sunstein says Bush’s argument is at least “plausible”,

    Yeah, plausible if completely ignore FISA, and if we interpret the authorization for force in Afghanistan as authorizing the use of wiretaps without warrants on American citizens. That’s weak brew.

    and Richard Posner finds the program manifestly justifiable.

    Do us all a favor and read the stuff you link to.

    “The department’s National Security Agency has been conducting, outside the framework of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, electronic surveillance of U.S. citizens within the United States.”

    He then goes on to make the argument that FISA is too restrictive. You see that phrase “outside the framework of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.”? That’s a nice way of saying ILLEGAL.

  41. EricP Says:

    The left’s outrage at this strikes as pretty hollow since if there was another attack tomorrow, the first question they would ask is “why didn’t Bush do more?”

    That’s because Bush’s idea of fighting terrrorism is to pour a couple hundred billion and the entire military into a country that had no significant Al Qaeda presence.

    The right’s talk of limited government and rugged induvidualism strikes as pretty hollow since every time Bush says the word terrorism you guys all piss yourselves and scream for Big Government to protect you.

  42. That’s because Bush’s idea of fighting terrrorism is to pour a couple hundred billion and the entire military into a country that had no significant Al Qaeda presence.

    Gswift, please explain to me how Morocco was crucial to the German war effort.

  43. Robert Says:

    Gswift, please explain to me how Morocco was crucial to the German war effort.

    How about you explain to me how the invasion of Iraq was crucial to combatting terrorism?

  44. I’d be delighted.

    The specific enemy that the GWOT is most concerned with is a brand of militant Islamic irredentism/imperialism that has failed to make a sufficient foothold in the population to be democratically viable. (Think the Nazis if Hitler hadn’t managed to squeak out electoral victory.)

    Saddam Hussein’s Iraq exemplified one possible variant of the state such folk would establish; Afghanistan under the Taliban, the other. Secular or religious in nature, it’s essentially the Nazis, Islamic style. Some of the would-be tyrants, like bin Laden, have global visions. Others, like Saddam, were more regional in scope – so far as we know. (What proof would we have of Hitler’s geopolitical intentions, if he had been stopped and deposed after knocking over Czechoslovakia in 1938-1939? None that would stand up.)

    Deposing the Iraqi state and re-establishing it under at least reasonably republican principles drives a stake into the global aspirations of the bin Laden wannabes. Can I become a feared terrorist warlord? Sure, kid. Can I set up my own private empire with cities and palaces and nuclear bombs? Well, uh, no. Because if you do, the Americans will come and kick the shit out of you.

    Palaces, unfortunately for the bad guys, have fixed street addresses.

    (I’m cross-posting this response at my blog.)

  45. Robert Says:

    The specific enemy that the GWOT is most concerned with is a brand of militant Islamic irredentism/imperialism that has failed…

    Saddam Hussein’s Iraq exemplified one possible variant of the state such folk would establish

    Except that Saddam’s regime was largely secular and wasn’t cooperating with terrorists that target the U.S.. He had regional ambitions that we quashed in the first Gulf war, was cut off from the Kurds by the no fly zone, and sanctions had shut down progress on his nuclear program.

    Deposing the Iraqi state and re-establishing it under at least reasonably republican principles

    If by “reasonably republican principles” you mean “Shiite theocracy akin to Iran” then things are humming right along.

    Can I set up my own private empire with cities and palaces and nuclear bombs? Well, uh, no. Because if you do, the Americans will come and kick the shit out of you.

    Pakistan…Iran…Korea…hmmm, no invasions.

  46. Robert, there are huge holes in your model.

    First, if by your analogy the Taliban are the Nazis, then Hussein and the Ba’athists are Stalin: they hate each other, and can barely work together with much gritting of teeth. (Analogizing the Taliban to the Nazis and the Ba’athists to Stalin is ironic, because the Ba’athists actually have their roots in Arab admirers of fascists. The Ba’athists are pretty much the last actual Nazi bastards to run any nation anywhere.) These groups of people are not simple variants of each other. The Shiite religious extremists and the Sunni secularists have incompattible interests.

    Second, showing that the US will take out a secular dictator does nothing to deter a would-be bin Laden. UBL is a Wahabbi extremist, content to renounce vast wealth and be publicly (though probably not privately) repudiated by his family, and to live on the run and in caves for his faith. The kid who wants to be that guy does not want a palace in this life. The kid who wants to be Stalin or Hussein or Hitler is, right now, getting beated regularly by his father and torturing animals to vent his frustrations. He can be deterred, because he is damaged and evil, but rational. The kid who wants to be UBL is also rational, but starts from premises that we cannot alter and that result in a total inability on our part to deter him. Instead, we have to win that kid away from fundamentalism with chocolate, sexual liberation, a good job, a mortgage, a European car and a retirement plan.

    Also, you failed to respond to #21, above.

  47. As noted, Gswift, there are more and less secular varieties. The flailing concerning Saddam is amusing; ok, he wasn’t cooperating with terrorists who targeted the US. (Except for when he did.) Instead, he cooperated with terrorists who target our allies.

    Pakistan, Iran and Korea – one thing at a time. Are you advocating the invasion of these states, two of which are nuclear powers?

    Now, I’ve answered your question. Can you please answer mine? What important role in the German war effort did Morocco play?

  49. What important role in the German war effort did Morocco play?

    I imagine as zuzu says, to control the Straits of Gibraltar. Any war effort in Europe would take a lot of oil, and if you want to move oil around Europe, you’d need to control the Mediterranean.

  50. Robert Says:

    The flailing concerning Saddam is amusing; ok, he wasn’t cooperating with terrorists who targeted the US. (Except for when he did.)

    Apparently the flailing was so amusing you forgot to actually provide examples of all these times he cooperated with terrorists targeting the U.S.

    Instead, he cooperated with terrorists who target our allies.

    Even if for the sake of argument we assume we’re going to invade a Middle Eastern country because of their cooperation with groups targeting Israel, Iraq doesn’t top that list either.

    Pakistan, Iran and Korea – one thing at a time. Are you advocating the invasion of these states, two of which are nuclear powers?

    No, the obvious point was that if this administration was really serious about states with nuclear technology we wouldn’t be screwing around in Iraq.

  51. I imagine as zuzu says, to control the Straits of Gibraltar. Any war effort in Europe would take a lot of oil, and if you want to move oil around Europe, you’d need to control the Mediterranean.

    You’d also want your ally, Italy, to be able to use its navy and to prevent attacks based in Allied-held North African colonies.

    The flailing concerning Saddam is amusing; ok, he wasn’t cooperating with terrorists who targeted the US. (Except for when he did.)

    When did he?

  52. Robert, the African underbelly of Europe is an obvious opportunity for strategic circumvention. An allied footprint in North Africa could (and did) provide a place to (1) launch air assaults; (2) base naval operations; and (3) stage amphibious invasions of Italy.

    Hitler did not believe he could “make Africa safe for Naziism” or any such nonsense. He believed that Rommel could keep us and the British from using it as a base to attack the Axis.

    My longer comment to you is above at 46, stuck in the moderation que.

  53. There is an unclear path from the militant antiwestern Islam and Arab nationalism in that argument. The common denominator seems to be Arabs and geography.

    The Fascism premise is to take populist themes and combine them with existing power groups to form an aggressive militaristic version of the status quo.

    That Fascist idea was very present in SH’s Iraq, but not in radical Islamic theocracies. Afghanistan, for example, was mostly decentralized and run by zealots pushed by religious groups/leaders.

    That leaves only one thought left. The global enemy is underground disenfranchised Moslem terrorists, and if they establish power, we can bomb them.

    This doesn’t jive with the GWOT in practice. The clear focal points in encouraging terrorism have been:
    – Iran (an established theocracy)
    – Syria (Fascism, needs populist cause of anti-Israel)
    – Possibly Saudi Arabia (crypto-Fascist, needs popular cause of Wahabiism for popular cause and as a quid pro quo with clerics used as thought and activity police)

    Given this, the interesting thing to me is that Iraq is the only state bordering on all.

  54. Apparently the flailing was so amusing you forgot to actually provide examples of all these times he cooperated with terrorists targeting the U.S.

    Sorry to be so long in responding to this; holidays trump argument, at least according to the new dictate handed down from my wife.

    And now I find that my delay was unnecessary, as someone already wrote the summary that I was going to. Jim Robbins of NRO lays out the links between Iraq and al Qaeda here.

    I appreciate the good strategic insight displayed in response to the question about Morocco, the Germans, and World War II. Now, just apply that same insight to Iraq and today: not terribly important in and of itself, critically important to the larger effort.

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