Asymmetrical Information

The post is by Henry Farrell, not Kieran Healy.

I doubt very much any terrorist has read Foucalt/Derrida/Lacan/insert name here. The simple fact of the matter is that they have no need to read modern Western philosophers as they are almost entirely secular thinkers. What ideas exactly are they picking up? Equality for women? The vague support for nationalist movements that the academic left has? No since most of these guys seem intent on establishing a pan-arabic caliphate. I suspect Jane's point "They didn't become engineers or scientists because of their personal interests. They became engineers or scientists because that is what you do if you are a smart person in an Arab country" is the correct one. Islamic fundamentalism abhors Western ideas such as democracy, freedom of religon etc. It has a long tradition of reactionary views. Certainly no need to read Satre to develop them.

I'm puzzled as to whether you're talking about:

a) Arab students who acquire professional degrees in the Arab world;

b) Arab students who are first educated in the Arab world, but study abroad; or

c) both.

Could you clarify?

"But I want them to keep having ideas, because the world doesn't have enough, and odds are, if they keep trying, eventually they'll have some good ones. Trying to shame or punish them because they had some bad ideas, and someone else got a hold of those bad ideas and did some awful things with them, is a fundamentally illiberal activity."

Oh please! There aren't enough ideas? By what quota or count do you derive this conclusion? Besides, in the humanities there are few new ideas, mostly rehashed in new form to suit the times. Leave it to science (economics?) for new ideas. If the idiots on the academic left are not confronted about their bad ideas they will keep manufacturing more bad ones. At one point does the tether REALLY run out? Your argument implies, regardless of your motive, that shaming the left is some kind of censorship. You don't mean that, of course, but many on the left see criticism as an undue opposition and even persecution. To which I say wahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

Bad ideas are to be confronted and debated and may the more sane side win in due time. I hardly think that is an illiberal activity. Shame should follow those who have held, or hold, ideas that are clearly bad or proved to be so. And you know the academic left have much in common with the Islamists (both hate America, certainly that is entirely true of the latter and mainly true of the former).

It is wise not to draw a causation of ideas between the academic left and Islamists (e.g. al Queda), but to confront the nihilism of the left (Said, Chomsky, Sontag, or, for that matter, Sartre) is hardly censorious or illiberal in any way, but an opportunity for real discourse (debate) which, as you should know, is largely forbidden by the almost mafia-like lock-step political line of the academic left.

Hell, I don't think you could conclude that about American engineers

Well, I dunno. From my experience, most of us are nerds. I have no clue who Derrida is.

Hi Megan - Henry Farrell wrote that post, not me. Thanks.

is hardly censorious or illiberal in any way, but an opportunity for real discourse (debate) which, as you should know, is largely forbidden by the almost mafia-like lock-step political line of the academic left.

That's an amusing comment. I suggest you check out the site linked to in Jane Galt's post, crookedtimber.org. It is a leftish group blog and many of its bloggers are leftish academics.

However, I doubt you are likely to get very far describing people like Chomsky as "nihilistic", which displays your ignorance or misunderstanding of his work. Chomsky is a very principled individual, whatever you may think of his political views.

If you go around making silly accusations like that, it's no wonder that the "academic left" won't want to engage in a serious debate with you. You should not, however, mistake refusing to engage in debate with you for refusing to engage in debate tout court!

real discourse (debate) which, as you should know, is largely forbidden by the almost mafia-like lock-step political line of the academic left.

I guess this is why it was so hard to tell Henry and me apart, as we marched by in lock-step. Clomp, clomp, clomp. Would a search & replace be too much trouble, by the way? You wouldn't even have to change the references to the Irish education system, seeing as Henry and I are both Irish.

Umm, the point is less to "understand" terrorism than to say bad things about liberals/liberalism/academia.

As Kieran and a couple of others have pointed out, it was I who wrote the post in question. The anecdote about Egyptian students, while interesting, is perhaps secondary to what I was talking about - I was responding to a very specific claim by Armed Liberal that the 9/11 hijackers had picked up their anti-Western ideology in European universities (to be precise, German technical universities). Since I spent 2.5 years in the German academic system, and did a fair amount of work on vocational training, I can vouch for the fact that people pursuing technical degrees like computer engineering etc in technical universities get no exposure to the humanities - it's purely vocational training (damn good vocational training - but very different from the US system). And the prevailing evidence is that Atta etc, unlike your friend, didn't spend time hanging around in left wing discussion circles - they spent their time in mosques. Probably it would have been better for all of us if they had followed your friend's example.

"Would a search & replace be too much trouble, by the way? You wouldn't even have to change the references to the Irish education system, seeing as Henry and I are both Irish."

Irish? And your point? I'm indifferent to the ethnic issue, thank you. As for the left, they are pretty much lock-stop. Even mention "free market" or "democracy for Arabs" to a person of the left and you get laughed at or a blank stare or outright yelled out (and, believe me, I have been so polite in their not so gracious company). Can you name me one intellectual of the left, just one, who does not denounce the Bush Doctrine but gives, instead, a nuanced criticism in favor of it? There are those on the right who do oppose this doctrine (I'm talking variety of opinion within a particular part of the political spectrum). Please don't mention Hitchens. He is, after all, a "traitor" to the left.

As demonstrated above by our Chomsky apologist, one is simply accused of being ignorant when not in lock-stop, wooden clogs and all, with the left. Such Politburo (the academy) demonstrations of the will to power through assumption of the opponent's ignorance is the last resort of the dictatorial. Does that go too far? Well, how about forbidding Columbia University students from attending a campus lecture by Dinesh D'Souza after realizing it would be too unsubtle to ban him completely? Since he's truly not ignorant don't let anyone hear him at all! That, by the way, is just one example. And don't even talk to me about Middle Eastern studies in the academy!

"Chomsky is a very principled individual, whatever you may think of his political views."

My goodness, so defensive about Chomsky! Already a bad sign. Excuse me if I see someone as nihilistic who doesn't see 9/11 as an act of evil and blames America for it. I guess the whole good vs. evil thing is just too simplistic. Sorry to be such a dolt! Or, should I say, American?

But I take your point. Principled? O.K. So was Goebbels in that he stood by what he believed in (evil though he was). In contrast, I think it would be very easy to call Chomsky's bluff, thereby calling into question what he REALLY believes in. The whiff of nihilism here is not far off. He detests the very society in which he basks in luxury. He is, in short, a parasite.

We believe in nothing, Lebowski. Nothing. And tomorrow we come back and we cut off your chonson.

Donnel: I'll say it a little less politely than others have...

First off, nice work. A tour de force of wingnut cliches: from "the left is lockstep," to an absurd demand that "the left" agree with Bush in order to disprove this sweeping charge, to ranting about the "Politburo" and "Goebbels" in the same breath. Well done. (Quick! Show me someone from the American Enterprise Institute who can give a nuanced, reasoned defense of Marshal Tito. What? You can't? My God! Those bastards are so "lockstep"! Probably learned it from Hitler!)

Of course, I could click over to FreeRepublic and see two dozen of that same damn post in any given day. Not to worry, I'm sure that doesn't mean guys like you are "lockstep." Perish the thought.

If you froth like that in person with whatever "leftists" you imagine you've met, they probably have reasons for not being polite to you that have nothing to do with the Mind-Control Rays of their Evil Orbiting Politburo. Get a grip. Seriously.

Now that Donnel has reappeared from under his bridge, I realise that the lock-step comment originally came from him and not Megan -- sorry about that. So now we have symmertrical errors of misidentification.

Meanwhile, Donnel seems to be suffering from something else altogether.

Even mention "free market" or "democracy for Arabs" to a person of the left and you get laughed at or a blank stare or outright yelled out

I'd rebut this but I have to go fail out a student I overheard using the phrase "free markets are actually pretty great" in the corridor the other day.

I contend the current hoo-haa about "lefties and 9/11" is a backlash against a Colorado University prof who wrote an essay basically stating that "we deserved 9/11." There are daily protests here in Denver and the state governor wants the university to apologize, and fire the professor.

As for the Irish exams, I went to high school in Ireland and the Leaving Certificate (is it still called the same thing these days) was an "all or nothing" exam that decided your ability to enter college.

Managing the vote in Mosul

BY DIONNE SEARCEY
NEWSDAY STAFF CORRESPONDENT

February 4, 2005

MOSUL, Iraq -- Penned in Arabic across the helmet of a guard inside a polling station Sunday were the words "My God, Allah." Without as much as a second glance, voters in the crowded school courtyard queued past the soldier, who wore a brown speckled Iraqi military uniform and a scarf that covered his blond moustache.

He was a U.S. Marine.

In their preparations for facilitating Iraq's foray into democracy, Americans made sure Iraqi election workers got to bed early on the eve of the vote, demanding they be tucked in by 11 p.m. They considered telling Iraqi forces to be ready to dress in civilian clothes and jump into the voting line to encourage others to do the same.

The U.S. Army created phony polling centers, dispatching oblivious Iraqi soldiers armed with AK-47s to stand guard in the hope of fooling insurgents -- or any Iraqi forces who might be working as double agents.

And when the voting was done Sunday, American troops loaded ballots and Iraqi election officials into their armored vehicles and drove them inside the walls of an Army camp, where they nudged tired workers to keep counting.

The U.S. military consistently downplayed its role as Iraqis went to the polls, fearing it would tarnish the election's legitimacy. But at least in Mosul, whether through physical presence or verbal instruction, the United States was the maestro behind a complicated and volatile experiment in democracy.

The Americans in this troubled city of 1.8 million carrying out Operation Founding Fathers, the name for their election mission, served as half overbearing parent and half big-time campaign consultant swooping in to offer heavy-handed advice and cajole election preparations.

The tactics were not without cause: Warnings of beheadings for anyone who participated in elections had circulated for weeks, and Iraqi officials labeled this province one of the country's most dangerous. Military intelligence pointed to a "spectacular attack" in the works.

The voting here, however, was surprisingly peaceful. The light but steady turnout was more than expected, estimated at about 10 percent. Army officers praised the bravery of those who showed up.

When Election Day was over in Mosul, the U.S. military had taken the biggest hit. Shrapnel from a grenade tossed onto the roof where snipers were overlooking a polling site in a hostile Baathist neighborhood tore through the limbs of seven paratroopers with the 2nd Battalion of the 325th Airborne Infantry.

It was a chaotic end to the calculated precision with which the United States had prepared for the elections.

The plan for facilitating the Mosul vote was so meticulous it included the number of metal sockets needed to string cables between concrete barricades that American soldiers set up to protect voters from explosions. U.S. troops created mobile polling centers that could roll to replace sites should any be destroyed by bombings. They talked of sending Iraqis to disable speaker systems in mosques that broadcast anti-voting messages.

"We want to be problem solvers," Army Airborne Lt. Col. Chris Gibson told his commanding officers at a meeting four days before the vote.

It was in early November that the Americans realized they would need to intensify their role in the Mosul elections. Insurgents burned a warehouse full of voter registration cards and stormed Iraqi police stations, scaring off the local force and seizing banners and election materials being stored there.

Intelligence officials believed terrorists were planning to use the paraphernalia to lure voters inside fake polling places and kill them. The Iraqis, who until then had been bent on carrying out the elections themselves, agreed they needed help, Army officials said.

To thwart the enemy's trap, the United States worked with Iraqis to come up with a logo they called "Lady Liberty," a girl peeking through a chainlink fence, clutching red and white flowers. U.S. planes dropped leaflets and troops handed out fliers to let Iraqis know this logo marked the true polling sites.

The week before the vote, an Airborne unit got what it believed was firsthand confirmation that their obsession with voter safety was on target. A tipster led troops from the 2nd Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry to a weapons cache buried in a junkyard littered with overturned cement trucks and rusting bulldozers. Tucked underneath the insurgents' stash of mortar shells and other explosives were two white, vinyl election banners displaying the official markings of the Iraqi election commission: two people holding ballots overhead. An Army interpreter read aloud the Kurdish and Arabic writing: "Polling place. Vote here for Iraqi freedom."

"Sons of bitches," muttered an Army Airborne commander as he stood over the banners. "It's hard to believe someone could be this vicious."

In the buildup to Sunday, soldiers detained hundreds of Iraqis, even as they walked the streets to hand out sample ballots and other voting information.

The troops hit a few snags on their get-out-the-vote runs. An armored Bradley dispatched to check out a polling site rumbled down a narrow Mosul street and crushed a water pipe. The soldiers paid a local plumber to fix it.

Last Friday, U.S. troops were up all night, moving concrete barricades to the schools serving as election sites, uncoiling loops of razor wire and receiving an extra shipment of body bags just in case.

The Iraqi forces finally moved into the true polling sites. U.S. soldiers coached them on patting down voters far enough away from the buildings to limit casualties from a suicide bombing.

One problem vexed the all-male Iraqi troops: How were they to search women voters without offending them? Touch their wrists and check for an Adam's apple to make sure they were really female, U.S. soldiers advised, and wave the metal detector wand over their bodies. Or hire a woman from the neighborhood to search them.

Inside an Army camp, the civil affairs office had the feeling of a campaign war room. Maj. Anthony Cruz, a liaison to the Iraqis, escorted local election officials to media interviews and organized the workers.

"This whole operation looks like a massive get-out-the-vote campaign," said Civil Affairs Spc. Felipe Perez, 28, of Cambridge, Mass., who has worked in politics back home. The Americans "are the high-dollar consultant that puts order in the madness."

After 700 Iraqi election officials walked off the job last month under threat from insurgents, civil affairs helped the Iraqis cull about 500 poll workers from across the country. On Saturday, they sequestered them overnight in a military camp, tempering concerns that they, too, might flee before the vote.

"It just so happens they're out-of-towners and need a place to stay," said an Army captain. "This works to our benefit."

On the eve of the election, at a meeting of Airborne officers, Capt. Chris Carson, 46, a chaplain and Baptist minister from Fayetteville, N.C., prayed for the voters. "Do not let the oppressed retreat in disgrace," he said. "Give these people courage as they take their first steps toward freedom."

When he finished, Lt. Col. Gibson, a Bethpage native, addressed the room: "Our troops are trained, our plans are laid and our coordination is accomplished. Get your rest tonight. Be prepared for the worst as you are hopeful for the best."

When the polls opened at 7 a.m. Sunday it seemed that all of Mosul was still sleeping. The Airborne unit offered a wake-up call as it rolled through northwest neighborhoods with speakers blaring messages urging everyone to vote. Eventually, people started to trickle into voting booths and, later in the day, long lines wrapped around some polling stations.

Officers in some American units counted voters entering polling sites and, every hour or so, radioed the numbers to their higher command, though the U.S. military insisted it did not keep voter tallies. Army broadcasters all day long barked orders to make sure only Iraqis touched the ballots.

For all their attempts to be helpful, the Americans did produce a few glitches. An armored U.S. convoy escorting ballots to four outlying Kurdish towns didn't arrive in time for voting. The trucks dodged a roadside bomb, got lost briefly and then stalled at a checkpoint run by local authorities.

Perhaps the most telling evidence of the election's high stakes for the United States was the intimate role commanders took upon themselves in personally encouraging voters all day Sunday.

Gibson tried to rally every group of curious onlookers he saw, sometimes with success. "Tell the people how important it is to vote," he said, nudging his Iraqi military sidekick, Lt. Col. Ali Ghazi, to follow his lead. Ghazi said a few words to one group of men standing outside a market and got back into his Humvee. Gibson, on the other hand, was effusive. He turned on his best public relations skills. When an elderly man complained about the lack of fuel and power in the city, a smiling Gibson told him: "All the people showing up to vote today; that is the same kind of energy that will get the economy going."

About 3 p.m., Gibson stood in front of a group of 50 frowning young men and proclaimed the virtues of democracy like a street-corner preacher. He offered to remove his body armor, lay down his weapon and walk with the men to the polls.

This time, he got no takers.

"We can go vote with your help now, but what about later?" asked a man with bangs sweeping over his eyes. "Who will protect me when you're gone?"

There exists a revolutionary, conspiratorial organization, which has already done significant damage to US interests, and whose recruiting efforts are in fact very likely to be materially aided by the exposure of students to the likes of Ward Churchill. It's called the Republican Party. ;)

So why write such a sarcastic response if it does not pertain to the claim of the post (which doesn't even interest you?) Waste of time.

You know I think AL should explore the possibility that OBL is channeling some conservative ideology considering the call for jihad and the pining for a return of the caliphate.

Both of which are obviously tied not to the bogeyman "anti-american" (whatever the fuck that is) left of contemporary times but to religion and a pining for the past when the world was a better place, more moral, blah, blah, blah.

Everyone knows us leftists are all a godless bunch anyway, so how did we influence the islamofacists?

Even Donnel can't argue with that.

Good Doctor, I only asked for one lefty who supports the Bush Doctrine, with nuance. As I said, there are those on the right who would agree with you about the doctrine. I know I ask for too much. Contrary to what you suppose, however, I am polite around lefties. If I can manage to get one or two words out while they try to drown me out, I consider myself lucky.

For the record, I hate the Free Republic. Talk about ad hominem cliches! Bravo! And, by the way, why doesn't Churchill's comment about "little Eichmanns" not be condemned as a cliche since you take exception to my Goebbel's comment?

Well, I know I'm wasting my time. I'll go back to my "bridge" since I flunked Kieran's course.

Also, Knot My Hair, don't waste time posting some good news from Iraq (of course, there is plenty to complain about there). Any good news will not be greeted well, if at all, by my detractors.

Whether completely relevant or not, I believe Ms. Galt's point about the structure of secondary education in Egypt is basically correct. I am acquainted with several Egyptian emigreés to the United States -- doctors, almost every one of them. And a high proportion of doctors among their US-born, US-educated offspring.

Not only does getting into the top-tier of the Egyptian educational system give you access to the highest jobs, but it brings the prestige and respect associated with those jobs, so there's a lot of societal pressure (I've gathered, i.e., I'm not speaking from first-hand experience) for any person with a spark of intelligence to go the whole way.

What the curriculum itself looks like, I have no idea.

Good Doctor, I only asked for one lefty who supports the Bush Doctrine, with nuance.

I ask you for one righty who supports Fidel Castro, with nuance. If you cannot provide this, I shall henceforth indict "the right" as close-minded and incapable of debating any view different from their own.

If I can manage to get one or two words out while they try to drown me out, I consider myself lucky.

Funny, I have precisely that experience around wingers who demand that people around them support Bush.

And sorry, did Ward Churchill post on this thread and I missed it? If not, why are you bringing him up as though he's relevant to anything?

Oh, BTW, Donnell -- if you do get out from under the bridge again -- I suppose Paul Berman and Thomas Friedman don't count as lefties who support Bush, correct? Are we using the circular definition of "leftist" as "anyone who doesn't support Bush," or just the usual lump of inaccurate hippie/commie stereotypes? Get back to me.

Wow, I couldn't pass up that comment: a leftist who supports the Bush Doctrine, with nuance, is as hard to find as a rightist who supports Castro, with nuance. Think about that for a minute, j swift and others, when you ruminate on why some on the right consider those on the left "anti-American." (To review: GWB is the president of the United States of America. Fidel Castro... is not, to say the least.) And can we draw the next logical inference as well - that since many on the American right DO support the Bush Doctrine, and the Bush Doctrine is analogous to Castro but on the other end of the political spectrum, many on the American left DO support Castro?

(That might be a silly question.)

Jamie: That's a fair point, the comparison was ill-chosen. No, I don't actually think of Castro as analogous to Bush -- I picked him for want of a really prominent modern-day American left political figure. (Ralph Nader and Howard Dean don't count.)

Better comparison? How about a righty who agrees with Noam Chomsky or Michael Moore, with nuance? (And please, don't try to tell me this is the same thing as asking about Castro.)

Doesn't Joe Lieberman support the Bush doctrine? Isn't he a figure of the left? Sure, he's not lockstep but his voting record, aside from the foreign policy issues is quite liberal.

I think there is also a point that these guys studied engineering and people in non humanities areas tend to have more rigid political views because they spend less time thinking about them critically.

So making the argument that the terrorists were inspired by the left in academia, is not saying that that the left instructed them. So for instance arguing that Hitler was (apparently) partly inspired by the British Empire to create his own is not arguing that the British Empire was a Nazi entity. In the same way the Al Quaedists listened in on leftist discourse and cherry picked the bits they liked in order to construct, and in particular, verbalize their philosophy. But quite clearly they did not adopt the “whole” leftist package. Obviously the Al Quaedists did very much the same thing to Islam – cherry picked the bits they liked and ignored the rest.

And this is really the essence of fascism –which is what Al Quaedists are – it involves cherry picking the most “attractive” bits of other philosophy in order to disguise your basic lust for power. Nazisim was dressed initially as a sort of compromise between left and right with lots of family friendly posters. The pan arabist have done the same thing with Al Queada and the left.

Interestingly I think that this is more a good reflection on the left than a bad one – it says that their ideas and the way they are expressed are (superficially) internaitaonally attractive. By contrast there’s very little chance that say OBL will appear in his next video talking in the style of Newt Gringich - he’ll stick with Moore speak because its better.

Couldnt post yesterday, seeing if I can today.....

There is so much contradiction and distortion in this thread I hardly know where to begin. First, Ive read many times that over 92% of PHDs are athiests. Now Im suppose to believe that the smartest members of the Islamic states are signing up to be suicide bombers? If that were the case, 911 would have been much larger in scale, the only reason Al Qaeda didnt go after the left coast on 911 as originally planned was lack of pilots, not lack of financing. I find the whole idea that the pursuit of wealth takes presedence over the academic development of the individual in the Islamic cultures to be the type of ethnocentric nonsense that has us bogged down in Iraq. When was the last time someone blew themselves up for jesus or money? Last I looked the Islamic Madrassas are growing, while the wests Seminary schools beg anyone, even pediophiles to get down with Jesus.

Im very sick of the rights assertion if you dont back the lie in Iraq, your a "leftist". I supported the war in Afganistan, and I would likely support war on Iran, SA, or Pakistan. The fact is every reason we went into Iraq has proven to be a lie. Just like the freedom bs now being spouted by the reps. Iraq will soon be a Shiia theocracy closely alligned with Iran, who continues to pursuit nukes, fund the Iraqi insurgency, and laugh at you silly reps with your ink smeared finger.

Osama read Qutb, who read Fanon, who was Frankfurt School. It is important because ideas should be judged by their consequences.

It's not "dangerous" to say so, neither. But it is dangerous to ignore, deny, and evade what these kinds of ideas lead to. Why choose blindness?

But it is dangerous to ignore, deny, and evade what these kinds of ideas lead to.

You mean, like, how Adam Smith's ideas led to things like the London Fog disaster and the Belgian Congo?

"We believe in nothing, Lebowski. Nothing. And tomorrow we come back and we cut off your chonson."

A-ha! so that's where this whole joke of a "theory" came from. Someone with a severe deficiency in humour watched the Big Lebowski and was so fascinated by those German nihilist terrorists to they point they thought they had stumbled on a new interpretation for 9/11.
They Bruckheimerized the Coens. It should be a crime.

You know what I love best about this "theory", apart from the fact it sounds exactly like a parody of right wing loonies (which means at least two levels of wingnuttery)? That it fits so perfectly with the fact those who planned the attacks speculated in the stock exchange the day before, spent huge amounts of resources to organize the whole thing, had financial backers all the way back to Pakistan, and were headed by a member of one of the biggest Saudi business families, who had dealings with the Bushes and who are protected by US authorities right to this day.

You couldn't find anything more left-wing, no, in fact, more Marxist-nihilist-anticapitalist than that, could you. Oh yes, the influence of German communists is written all over the financial modus operandi of Al Qaeda. Absolutely.

You mean, like, how Adam Smith's ideas led to things like the London Fog disaster and the Belgian Congo?

Sweet God liberals are stupid.

"The fact is every reason we went into Iraq has proven to be a lie."

And every prediction of gloom and doom you leftist twits have predicted has been proven by events to be stunningly, hoplessly WRONG.

The repudiation continues and you on the left just refuse to see that you are on the conveyor belt to the Ash Heap of History.

I laugh at you harder every day, thanks for the entertainment, its great to watch and read you dancing fools on the left.

best regards,
thedaddy

Sweet God liberals are stupid.

I'm suitably impressed by the intellectual acumen and maturity of your response.

It's pointless to remind people who supported the war and approve of this occupation that our stated reasons for invading Iraq were lies. They don't care - if they cared, they wouldn't support it in the first place.

What people say they're doing, and why they say they're doing it, often have no relationship with what they're actually doing and why. The political facade of this Administration is particularly unconvincing, but demonstrating that to your political opponents is about as effective as complaining to Russian ministers that the Potemkin villages provided poor shelter for the serfs. Either they've been taken in by it, in which case sweet reason is spectacularly useless, or they don't care as long as their actual goals are being met.

When Osama produced a diatribe just before the election, he was pretty clearly channeling Michael Moore. Right down to My Pet Goat.

I'm sure Adam Smith's ideas led to the ability to pay for cleaning up air pollution and were part of the classical-liberal ideology that enabled Leopold's imitation of pre-Smith colonialism to be detected and stopped.

To return to the original topic, are there that many people who became leftists in college? As far as I can tell, leftist college graduates are usually on the left going in.

Offline for a day or two... Joe Lieberman is, I think, a pretty good example of a liberal who's pro-Bush Doctrine. Like it or not, the analogous situation on the Left can't be Moore nor Chomsky because Bush isn't as Right as all that (or the Medicare prescription drug benefit would be nowhere, Kennedy wouldn't have been involved at all with No Child Left Behind, there'd be NO federal funding for embryonic stem cell research instead of limited funding for lines already in existence, Powell possibly wouldn't have been chosen as SecState, Clarke would have had no place at all in Bush's first term, etc., etc.). It may be hard to accept if you're a committed Democrat, but Bush isn't the most conservative president in the history of the world... and Chomsky and Moore are WAAAAAAYYYY to the far side of the party that claims them (or at least, that's my fervent hope).

Repeating claims that only lies got us into Iraq doesn't make the statements in question lies. (Please give examples of demonstrable lies - false statements knowingly made - that resulted in the Iraq war. "No WMDs" does not fit that bill.) Noting the importance of religious faith in Bush's life doesn't make him Pat Buchanan.

These things being said, bravo, Giles, for pointing out that when you're an extremist you'll take your justification from wherever you can. It's not the fault of the Left that some of their ideas seem to have struck a chord with al Qaeda... but if I were on that side, I'd sure be looking hard at those ideas, just in case.

The claims that we had credible evidence of weapons caches (which we refused to locate for the inspection teams and were unable to do so ourselves after the invasion) weren't lies? The constant linking of Iraq and the "War on Terror" weren't lies of implication and association? The presentation of evidence that had already been shown to be a manufactured hoax wasn't a lie?

The entirety of the public justification for the invasion of Iraq was nothing but smoke, mirrors, and misdirection.

Matt G.:

I hesitate to use Jane's space this way since we're off-topic for this thread... but I'd love to continue the discussion elsewhere if you're interested. Please feel free to email me at jamie_mcardle@yahoo.com if you wanna join me in continuing to debate the dual issues of (a) Bush's putative lies and (b) how deeply held convictions affect people's perceptions of events. Anybody else welcome too.

P.S. I'm honestly not trying (even in a lame-o way) to "steal" people from Jane's readership... I plead ignorance of blogiquette or whatever it's called, promise to go look up any rules Jane has for this blog right now and do some research elsewhere for general rules of civil bloggery, and assert that the only reason I'm suggesting taking my point off-blog is because it seems to me that I'm abusing Jane's space by continuing on an OT topic.

Please give examples of demonstrable lies - false statements knowingly made - that resulted in the Iraq war.

There's an entire website devoted to the Prez and his gang's various falsehoods. The "good" news is that much of what's captured there can be wriggled out of by claiming that the people involved were too incompetent or flatly out-of-touch with reality to know they were lying. Why this is imagined to be a defense I have no idea.

I'm sure Adam Smith's ideas led to the ability to pay for cleaning up air pollution and were part of the classical-liberal ideology that enabled Leopold's imitation of pre-Smith colonialism to be detected and stopped.

Excellent. I agree. And I'm likewise sure Frantz Fanon's ideas have been very useful in identifying various forms of racism and neo-colonial paternalism... as I'm sure you'll agree. Good thing we're not blinding ourselves to or sidestepping where these ideas lead.

(BTW, is it so much to ask for some basic education on the topic of leftists one chooses to slag? In what world was Frantz Fanon part of the Frankfurt School, for Chrissakes?)

I think there is also a point that these guys studied engineering and people in non humanities areas tend to have more rigid political views because they spend less time thinking about them critically.

That's not right. What is right is that people in non-humanities careers often deal with occupational situations that lend themselves to fairly concrete, black-and-white solutions. This could indeed lead to attempts to simplify the political world to right/wrong, but on the other hand, there are plenty of humanities types who are pretty entrenched in their worldview, so I'm not particularly convinced that the humanities are a wondrous beacon of political grayscale.

I would love to see any evidence that backs up the statement: "people in non-humanities areas tend to have more rigid political views because they spend less time thinking about them critically."

This sounds like a total crock to me. In fact, it sounds like the kind of completely unsubstantiated statement someone in a humanities area might say to make themselves feel better. But maybe there is some evidence for it, in which case I'd love to hear it.

Dr. Slack: thanks for that grab.... allow me to belabor the point a bit more.

Anyone who thinks that either Franz Fanon OR the Frankfurt school is fertile grounds for the development of a militant Islamist is so fundamentally wrong that I would have a hard time even finding the fundamental misconceptions at work. Anyone who thinks that Fanon was PART OF the Frankfurt school is simply wrong about an empirical fact.

The major authors of the Frankfurt School were Marcuse, Horkheimer, Adorno, and Pollack... with Benjamin and Sohn-Rethel as important "fellow travellers".... their critical enterprise was, as they saw it, an extension of the work began by Immanuel Kant (hence Critical Theory), and heavily influenced, of course, by nontraditional Marxists (viz Luckacs)....

I know much less about Fanon, but i know he was a founding father of postcolonial theory and had an intellectual camaraderie with Sartre.

By the way, if you honestly think that leftist academics march in lockstep, you would do well to examine the vigorous and nuanced exchanges among the french intellegentisia (all of whom could be described, more or less, as leftist) surrounding the Heidegger affair. To suggest that, say, Bordieu and Derrida were in lockstep is beyond idiocy.

The intellectual game of first imposing a contradictory and impossible standard on the Left (if someone agreed with the Bush Doctrine they would, for more or less obvious reasons, not be a leftist), disqualifying a leftist who DOES it by referring to him as heretical, and then retreating into comfortable self-satisfaction is beyond ridiculous. It would be like saying "show me ONE free market capitalist, just ONE, who offers a nuanced support of the labor theory of value". The Bush Doctrine is incompatible with a leftist worldview, hence the left doesn't support it.

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