Author: Jonathan Schwarz

I haven’t read Carter’s book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, but judging by his TV appearances there’s a real problem with his analysis—it’s not radical enough. And because the radical analysis is in fact the accurate analysis, the non-radical story Carter tells has some gaping holes in it. For instance, here he is on Hardball back in November:

PRESIDENT CARTER: So the persecution of the Palestinians now in the occupied territories under the occupation forces is one of the worst examples of human rights deprivation that I know. And I think it’s —

MR. SHUSTER: Even worse, though, than a place like Rwanda?…

PRESIDENT CARTER: I’m not going back into ancient history about Rwanda. Right now the persecution of the Palestinians is one of the worst examples of human rights abuse I know, because the Palestinians —

MR. SHUSTER: You’re talking about right now. You’re not talking about, say…

PRESIDENT CARTER: You can talk about Rwanda if you want to. I want to talk about Palestine. What is being done to the Palestinians now is horrendous in their own territory by the occupying powers, which is Israel.

This actually does seem shifty on his part, and leaves him open to criticism like that of Deborah Lipstadt:

Carter’s minimization of the Holocaust is compounded by his recent behavior. On MSNBC in December, he described conditions for Palestinians as “one of the worst examples of human rights deprivation” in the world. When the interviewer asked “Worse than Rwanda?” Carter said that he did not want to discuss the “ancient history” of Rwanda.

To give Carter the benefit of the doubt, let’s say that he meant an ongoing crisis. Is the Palestinians’ situation equivalent to Darfur, which our own government has branded genocide?

Here’s what Carter should have said:

While the situation in Palestine is very bad—far worse than most people in the U.S. know—it’s true it doesn’t compare to the genocide in Rwanda or Darfur.

But Americans should care about it, for several reasons. First, we’re paying for it, unlike Rwanda or Darfur. It wouldn’t happen without us. Second, it’s the source for enormous hatred toward the U.S. in the Muslim world. This means would-be terrorists can think—as Osama bin Laden did with 9/11—that casting themselves as champions of the Palestinians will make them politically popular if they attack the U.S. So it’s really a matter of life and death for Americans.

It’s also important to understand why many in the third world, Muslim and not, feel so strongly about Palestine. Here in the U.S. people often ask exactly the question you just did about why it gets so much attention, when on an absolute scale it’s not close to something like Darfur. No one here ever gives an honest answer, which leads some well-meaning individuals to believe there really is a double-standard for Israel, perhaps due to anti-Semitism.

So let me give an honest answer, even though it’s one many people won’t like. It’s this—in Europe and the U.S., we look at the past few hundred years and see two great evils: fascism and communism. But for most places on earth, there have been three great evils: fascism, communism, and colonialism. The colonization of the world by Europe and the U.S. killed tens of millions, just as many people as fascism and communism. It was just as cruel. If you ever doubt this, read up on what Belgium did to the Congo, or the British to Tasmania.

And whether it’s fair or not, to people in the third world, Israel is a symbol of colonialism. That’s not going to change. And they see it just as the victims of fascism would see a fascist state, or the victims of communism would see a communist state.

I realize it’s very difficult for Americans to get their minds around all this, but we have to, both for our own sake and the sake of the world.

Of course, Planet Earth would have exploded if a U.S president had said that on live national television. So maybe we should be grateful he didn’t. Still, Carter’s case will never be convincing as long as he leaves this out.

Since Bob hasn’t posted his thoughts here on Hillary Clinton’s announcement she’s running for president, I must direct you to read them on his site:

In the wake of 9-11, it wasn’t just George W. Bush telling the world "every nation has to be either with us or against us."  It was Hillary, as you can hear for yourself.

In October 2002, during the debate about giving Bush authorization to invade Iraq, it wasn’t just Dick Cheney telling the world in that Saddam Hussein had links to Al-Qaeda.  It was Hillary, from the floor of Congress.

And in February 2005, it wasn’t just John McCain claiming that democracy was taking root in Iraq, and that the insurgency was in its last throes.  It was Hillary, standing right at John McCain’s side.

Yeah.  So President Hillary would be soooooo much better about Iraq.  Clap louder, everybody.  Make it come true.

I’d forgotten at least half of that. And then there are the other things Bob mentions. God, she’s awful.

Anyway, be sure to read it all.

As part of the ongoing argument over how the dirty smelly hippies somehow managed to be right about Iraq, Avedon Carol has produced the clearest presentation ever of the anti-war case. She did this by ignoring all the pointless side issues people often get ensnared by and going right for the jugular:

Any reasonably sane person over the age of 15 knows that war is dangerous, expensive, and terrible. You know that it kills lots and lots of people, leaves many others damaged, and makes new enemies with new grudges. It is profoundly destabilizing and carries with it the threat of wider, more devastating unrest. So you don’t do it unless you absolutely have to.

In the run up to the invasion of Iraq, no one provided a credible justification for the war. It was obvious that we did not have to invade Iraq. This is the overriding fact: Invading a nation without cause (you can call it “preemptive”, but that just means you don’t have cause) is breathtakingly immoral and equally stupid and you do not do it…

A sane person starts from the position of not making war. The question of why not support starting a war should never even be raised—the reasons not to are always obvious…

Yes, we’d all like to be Superman, able to fly into countries and create freedom and justice for all. If I wake up tomorrow morning and discover I have become God, believe me, everyone will be hearing from me. But no number of weapons, and no army of whatever size, can compensate for the fact that human beings are not God and we can’t just make everyone behave the way we want them to.

And there is more, all well worth reading.

Dennis Perrin has some genuinely interesting and useful thoughts in response to an online dustup between liberal-ish bloggers and more radical types about the lessons of history.

EARLIER: Matt Stoller, then Max Sawicky, then Steve Gilliard and then Max again, and more Max and Matthew Yglesias, plus surely many others I’m missing.

I remember seeing this ad in the classifieds a few years back:

WANTED: Liberal hawk to write regular column for Los Angeles Times. Must be willing to say things that are 100% insane in attempt to redeem discredited political philosophy. Ability to do so without apparent sense of shame a +

As we now know, Jonathan Chait got the job. In his most recent column he disparages the idea that anyone who was right about Iraq should be listened to in the future. His particular whipping boy here is Jonathan Schell:

Being right about something is a fairly novel experience for Schell, and he’s obviously enjoying it immensely. But before we genuflect to Schell’s wisdom, it’s worth recalling that his own record of prognostication is not exactly perfect…

Schell insisted [in 1990] that we could force Iraq to leave Kuwait with sanctions alone, rather than by using military force. But the years that followed that war made it clear just how impotent that tool was. Saddam Hussein endured more than a decade of sanctions rather than give up a weapons of mass destruction program that turned out to be nonexistent. If sanctions weren’t enough to make him surrender his imaginary weapons, I think we can safely say they wouldn’t have been enough to make him surrender a prized, oil-rich conquest.

Sure, the sanctions motivated Saddam to get rid of his real WMD. But did they force him to get rid of his imaginary WMD? Clearly not!

Likewise, perhaps sanctions and regional negotiations could have forced Saddam out of the real Kuwait in 1991. But what good would sanctions have been in getting Saddam to leave the imaginary Kuwait? No good at all!

Thus, sanctions were “impotent.” QED.

BUT: Seriously, though, the people who run the United States are dangerously insane.