Asymmetrical Information

I am glad to hear someone else finally call out Kaplan after all these years of his gasbagging. Scott Shuger did a much better job and provided a much more unique perspective as a former naval intelligence officer. (It is very sad that he died. Slate lost a real treasure.) Kaplan's experience as a Pentagon reporter seems only to have made him even more Pentagon-centric than typical DoD reporting.

Cripes. I have to admit, when you wrote:

My politics and specialties are a bit different from hers, which is why Jane--who is also my cubicle-mate--and I have been known to drive coworkers out of the room with one of our multi-hour debates, shaking their heads and muttering darkly,

it never occurred to me that you meant that Jane was too far to the left for your tastes. Live and learn, I guess.

Tim,

Quite right. It's simply not possible for Contributor A to be a leftist with the intellectual honesty to recognize Kaplan's rhetorical questions as silly and stupid, and the courage to say so.

The horrible thing is, I can't decide whether I'm being sarcastic in the above.

Bush has been talking about the need to defeat extremist ideology for years, a fact that Kaplan well knows.

But he, like everyone else (including the Democrats) involved, has failed to put forth effective strategies to combat extremist ideologies, in the face of his deliberate inflamation of those ideologies via torture and specific mistreatment of Muslims.

Don:

I was joking. Sort of. I do think it's bizarre that Jane and Cont. A could spend several hours debating their political differences. To date, Cont. A. has had two political posts: today's shot at a columnist who has been generally dissatisfied with the Bush war effort, and a post indicating that he is marginally uncomfortable with racial profiling. It's impossible to believe that Jane wouldn't be in general agreement about taking a shot at a war critic, and I refuse to believe that Jane could be anything more than mildly in favor of racial profiling. So what are they debating? (Obviously, he hasn't said that he would display those differences, though I don't understand the tease in the initial post if wasn't planning to do so.)

From past comments in this blog:

Just FYI -- Contributor A is an ABB Democrat, currently pulling hard for Clark. Not a "Bushy" by any stretch of the imagination.
Posted by: Jane Galt on January 6, 2004 06:27 PM

Word. I usually avoid labelling myself a Democrat because I live in New York, and here that means "just left of Bukharin". I voted for Pataki and Bloomberg, but yes, I am ABB, and more or less Democratic-leaning.

That said, the point was about bad column-writing habits, of which Krugman has many, not George Bush's flaws. Of which he has many.
Posted by: Contributor A on January 7, 2004 11:48 AM

What does 'ABB' mean?
Posted by: wallster on January 7, 2004 07:31 PM

Anybody but Bush! I should say, though - here's the kind of centrist I am - that I wouldn't take Sharpton over Bush. I'm just reasonable and circumspect that way. Kucinich either. I'm not even sure I can spell Mosely-Braun, so I probably shouldn't offer an opinion there. Pretty much Anybody (Else) But Bush, though.

===

In other places, CA has described himself as a "Euro-weenie-lover." I would like to see some his more anti-Jane opinions. Jane seems to have very strong points of view on the labor movement and abortion, for example. Doubtless she and CA have clashed; I'd love to hear those arguments.

So, SomeCallMeTim -

Why do you hang out here if you disagree so much? Is it, to paraphrase Heinlein, that you learn nothing from talking to people you agree with?

I surely hope, that as you mature, you come to think more along the lines John Galts and Jane Galts of this world (though Jane and Contributor A are MUCH to the "left" of John Galt).

It is the only moral philosophy: to each, according to their ability. Anybody who uses force without a moral warrant is dead meat. End of Story.

I agree with Klug that Kaplan's been a real disappointment in the military-analysis department; his hatred of the administration and his profound cycnicism leave him unable to see anything but incompetence and venality in the prosecution of the war. Sort of like a narrow-focus Molly Ivins: once terrific, and still good outside his blind spot, but often unreadable these days.

Do I have to post an opinion on racial profiling for this comment to be valid?

Tim, one does not have to support the war to conclude that Kaplan's piece is inane. Unfortunately, Kaplan and inanity are on close terms.

I seem to recall that back on September 20, 2001 Mr. Bush said:

"Our war on terror begins with al-Qaida, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated."

Bush has been talking about the need to defeat extremist ideology for years, a fact that Kaplan well knows.

Are we talking about the Same Bush who ran in 2000 on a non-interventionist platform? This is utter claptrap. Bush was criticizing every military Adventure under the Clinton administration, every, railed against military adventures with no clear exit strategy (he got over that), and didn’t mention global terrorism at all during that campaign except to bitch about how the Russians were handling things in Chechnya.

Lot's of short memories around here.

Well, yes Rick, and when nearly 3000 are killed in lower Manhattan, one's views of the global situation might change just a wee bit. Just maybe.

uh rick - 9/11 ring any bells??? Non interventional crap, letting sleeping dogs lie with only a cruise missile into a tent was no longer acceptable. Bush realized the shortcomings of his foriegn policy pronouncements in 2000 and changed them. Democrats went backwards

Contributor A,

If you are going to tell the world you know more about this than Kaplan you should at least make an effort to back up your claim. Simply stating that Bush has been talking about defeating extremist ideologies is not enough.

Kaplan's article is based on the NYT's reporting, in turn based on talks with, and access to, senior administration officials, something you lack. The NYT reports tha administartion officials claim that this grew out of meeting that began this past January. Do you have anything to rebut that? If so you should post it.

Let's be clear here. You completely missed the point. The NYT is reporting that Bush administration officials told them that they are now refocusing the WoT and making a greater emphasis on the ideological side. This is not what Kaplan thinks. This is what the Bush adminstration is telling the NYT.

If you have anything that contradicts that, if you think the NYT lied about what administration officials said, then post it.

The Kaplan column in Slate has been terrible, and it's been terrible for *ages*. It is a polemical screen against Bush and GWOT and I have yet to see it tackle anything related with the Iraq war, and/or GWOT, in a serious way.

Bush's war against terror has been ideological since day 1. For those who have not noticed, bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East have been the stated goal of GWTO since day one. If people have not heard this it's because they were chanting "NO BLOOD FOR OIL" too loudly and did not hear.

If Kaplan wants to get incensed about changing a phrase he is welcome to do so. In the meantime, Iraq continues to struggle out of years of dictatorial rule and tries to join the rest of the civilized world. Preliminary elections are done, police are being trained, and a constitution is being written.

But no, Kaplan's throwing a fit about a phrase. typical.

Flaime: So, er, what was inflaming those ideologies before 9/11?

Maybe, just maybe, the problem with those ideologies is the ideologies themselves, not Western or American provocations?

(And if you have evidence that "specific mistreatment of Muslims" and torture (assuming the word means anything beyond "any action someone doesn't like", that is) were directed by Bush to deliberately piss off extremists, please share it.

[And what do you mean by "specific mistreatment of Muslims", anyway? The non-existent nationwide ethno-religious profiling of Muslims, that isn't happening? The way all the Muslims in the US haven't had anything at all done to them, or even threatened with anything? The way US troops saved Muslim lives in ex-Yugoslavia and in Africa in the 90s? Please clarify. Are you merely assuming that the US must be doing something bad to Muslims as a group, and that this is a deliberate attempt to make people who were already mad enough to try and blow up the WTC in 1993 more mad, for reasons unknown?]

Nobody else in the world has such evidence (or if they do, they're not talking), to my knowledge. The rest of the world is still very much debating what level of torture may have occurred, and whether it was done under orders or not, all the screaming that it must have been torture and must be Bush's fault, because, aside.)

But he, like everyone else (including the Democrats) involved, has failed to put forth effective strategies to combat extremist ideologies

Even if I agreed with your claim, which I most certainly don't, it is beside the point. Kaplan didn't ask "is the White House just now starting to deal with the ideological side of the war". He asked if they were only now realizing that an ideological side existed. The answer to that question is obviously "no"; the White House has been talking about the ideological side of the war since late September 2001.

in the face of his deliberate inflamation of those ideologies via torture and specific mistreatment of Muslims.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that the "specific mistreatment of Muslims" is something other than a myth. How have we "inflamed" Muslim terrorist ideology? They wanted to kill us all before Bush took office and presumably still want the same thing. The major change is that their ideology has been forced to confront the brutal reality that we can hurt them much worse than they can hurt us.

Speaking of short memories, Rick, the argument is not ωhether Bush has been speaking in ideological terms since time immemorial, as he obviously has not, but rather if the administration is "just noω coming around to the idea." That exact phrase is found in Contributor A's post, as quoted from Kaplan's piece. And since Bush changed his tune in late 2001, and it is presently mid 2005, Bush has, in fact, been talking about combatting ideology for "years."

If you can't even make it from the post to the comments section ωithout retaining that one short line, a foggy recollection of 9/11, and the current year, you probably shouldn't be criticizing other person's alleged limitations of mental retention.

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