At some point, I expect Bill Kristol, after some inevitable dipshit "idea" or "observation" in the near future, to break character and go, "Aaah, I'm just fuckin' with ya!". I mean, has this guy ever been right about anything? How bad at your "job" do you have to be before you have to go out and earn an honest paycheck?
Showing posts with label kristol balls. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kristol balls. Show all posts
Monday, June 06, 2016
Sunday, March 22, 2015
World On Fire
The Republicans are basically the proverbial car-chasing dog who, once he's caught his quarry, has no idea what to do with it. If they really want to stick with their formula of Johnny Walnuts having a permanent seat at the Sunday morning follies, the usual think-tank monkeys agitating for war with whoever looks good, and Ted Cruz making an ass of himself at every turn, hey, go with what you know, guys.
It's become a well-worn truism that football (yes, American football, dammit) has become more dangerous in recent years not in spite of better technology, training, and protective gear, but because of those things. Instead of average-sized men holding off-season jobs to make ends meet so they can play football for a couple months in the fall, you now have superbly conditioned, freakishly proportioned men colliding with one another in suits of technologically sophisticated armor, at much higher rates of force and impact than in the era of Chuck Bednarik.
Similarly, the rapid advancement of drone technology has emboldened the hawks to instantly assume that airstrikes and drone-bombings are the "safe" option. And they are safe -- for us. Drones give policy-makers, armchair generals, and average joes alike the ability to just not think about there being any consequences to military actions. Not that they think about those things unless they or one of theirs is in the line of fire.
It's bad enough that we have been bombing -- maybe not indiscriminately, but not all that carefully either -- civilians in remote areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. But airstriking Iranian nuclear facilities means hitting cities. Tehran and its suburbs have somewhere around 20 million people. The nuclear labs have been quite deliberately placed in populated areas, albeit mostly underground. They make it sound so simple, we'll just "take out" their facilities, knock out their program, end their attempt at regional hegemony. Done and done.
Did we not just finally extricate ourselves from a decade-long clusterfuck that was sold as a slam-dunk, one that we'll be paying the financial, ethical, and medical costs for the next generation? Is the region not worse off in every way since we barged in and gave them their sweet, sweet freedom? Is there really a preponderance of 'murkins that thinks it's a simple and good plan to "surgically strike" the Iranians pre-emptively, that moral considerations aside, it would even just accomplish what its advocates say it will accomplish, nothing more, nothing less?
I don't think anyone has any illusions about what Iran is up to here. They really are moving, quickly and with purpose, to expand their influence in the Middle East. They are Bashar Assad's lifeline; they do flex nuts in Beirut, Damascus, and Baghdad -- and now in Sana'a, Yemen. They are surrounding the Saudis, waiting for the off chance that they flinch and provoke the Iranians, or more likely, waiting for ISIS to continue streaming into Saudi from the north, radicalizing an already radical citizenry, overthrowing the petrocrats, sending that country and probably the world economy into (to put it lightly) a turbulent situation.
So no one's saying that they're the good guys, the mullahs. But when the very same people who got us into Iraq are insisting that we simply must start it up with Iran, that it'll be quick and precise and work better than any other option, well, that's the time when you look at the people and politicians in this country, the United States, and see if they're ready to fall for that one again, so soon after the last one.
Some of them will; some of them are always ready to fall for whatever affirms their assumptions about how the world works. Some of them have trouble remembering that while we are friends to Israel (and they have the checks to prove it), our foreign policy is supposed to protect our interests first. But if it's a majority that's in favor of that mess, then you have a real problem.
It's become a well-worn truism that football (yes, American football, dammit) has become more dangerous in recent years not in spite of better technology, training, and protective gear, but because of those things. Instead of average-sized men holding off-season jobs to make ends meet so they can play football for a couple months in the fall, you now have superbly conditioned, freakishly proportioned men colliding with one another in suits of technologically sophisticated armor, at much higher rates of force and impact than in the era of Chuck Bednarik.
Similarly, the rapid advancement of drone technology has emboldened the hawks to instantly assume that airstrikes and drone-bombings are the "safe" option. And they are safe -- for us. Drones give policy-makers, armchair generals, and average joes alike the ability to just not think about there being any consequences to military actions. Not that they think about those things unless they or one of theirs is in the line of fire.
It's bad enough that we have been bombing -- maybe not indiscriminately, but not all that carefully either -- civilians in remote areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. But airstriking Iranian nuclear facilities means hitting cities. Tehran and its suburbs have somewhere around 20 million people. The nuclear labs have been quite deliberately placed in populated areas, albeit mostly underground. They make it sound so simple, we'll just "take out" their facilities, knock out their program, end their attempt at regional hegemony. Done and done.
Did we not just finally extricate ourselves from a decade-long clusterfuck that was sold as a slam-dunk, one that we'll be paying the financial, ethical, and medical costs for the next generation? Is the region not worse off in every way since we barged in and gave them their sweet, sweet freedom? Is there really a preponderance of 'murkins that thinks it's a simple and good plan to "surgically strike" the Iranians pre-emptively, that moral considerations aside, it would even just accomplish what its advocates say it will accomplish, nothing more, nothing less?
I don't think anyone has any illusions about what Iran is up to here. They really are moving, quickly and with purpose, to expand their influence in the Middle East. They are Bashar Assad's lifeline; they do flex nuts in Beirut, Damascus, and Baghdad -- and now in Sana'a, Yemen. They are surrounding the Saudis, waiting for the off chance that they flinch and provoke the Iranians, or more likely, waiting for ISIS to continue streaming into Saudi from the north, radicalizing an already radical citizenry, overthrowing the petrocrats, sending that country and probably the world economy into (to put it lightly) a turbulent situation.
So no one's saying that they're the good guys, the mullahs. But when the very same people who got us into Iraq are insisting that we simply must start it up with Iran, that it'll be quick and precise and work better than any other option, well, that's the time when you look at the people and politicians in this country, the United States, and see if they're ready to fall for that one again, so soon after the last one.
Some of them will; some of them are always ready to fall for whatever affirms their assumptions about how the world works. Some of them have trouble remembering that while we are friends to Israel (and they have the checks to prove it), our foreign policy is supposed to protect our interests first. But if it's a majority that's in favor of that mess, then you have a real problem.
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Missing the Point
Perhaps being deliberately obtuse so as not to be caught me-tooing a current mini-wave of the blogonistas, Jack Shafer takes the opposite tack and berates the leading cats of the herd for picking on poor ol' Billy Kristol.
Yes, and if the Times wishes to descend into the print version of talk-radio carnydom, this is certainly one way to do it. What I have read of Kristol's schtick strikes me less as "interesting" and more as pointedly, even needlessly combative. That he has occasionally locked spurs with fellow ideological banty roosters like Newt Gingrich is of little relevance, except that it illustrates that both men live (and are employed) by their ability and desire to antagonize. The problem is not Kristol's consistent wrongness, in and of itself -- it's that he doesn't give a shit about being right or wrong, not only because there's no consequences, but also because it doesn't even seem to occur to him. In a sensible profession, this would likely be a disqualifying characteristic.
Where most other people were wrong on Iraq in terms of degree, Kristol has been wrong by design, unrepentantly so; for him, it was to be merely the prelude to an overhaul of the most ancient settled region on the planet. Societies have thrived and perished there for nine thousand years, but they're going to unfuck themselves in a generation or two because Billy Kristol says so. Shafer's right that it's an "interesting" gambit, to be sure, but what it isn't is competent, logical analysis, which is at least nominally the game of the major-league columnist.
But then major-league papers like the Times and WaPo have their own institutional instincts to follow, the way the government does no matter which face adorns its official stationery. It is the crucible in which acceptable mainstream opinions are contoured and refined, to bamboozle the less sensible into going along with the right riff, and to disempower the more rational set of readers by desensitizing them to cheap tricks and rhetorical flummery, getting them to chase sophist phantoms or (better yet) to give up altogether in frustration.
It would be much simpler if newspapers rededicated themselves to harder news stories and more rigorous opinion writing, instead of coughing up this or that hack to serve as an emotional tampon for a dissociative niche of sob sisters. Whom, exactly, would fall into Kristol's niche? Embittered dead-enders who, rather than simply admit that they fucked up and they're willing to at least meet the rest of the planet halfway, prefer to double down because they meant to do this shit. Is there some hidden ontological quest in catering to such a group, or is it an elaborate practical joke?
What other reason could there be, ferchrissakes, for off-brand legacy dimwits like Kristol and Pantload to always find work, to get cush gigs at flagship newspapers, to peddle their flatulent jabber to the repulsed and the indifferent and the irrational, not even bothering any longer to conceal their nonsense with even the appearance of an innovative idea or thought? Why do the keepers o' the First Amendment flame prattle on so nervously about the pernicious gubmint threats to their profession, when they prove so willing to give ample and frequent space to some of their most vicious detractors? Maybe that's part of the shakedown this crew uses, the "prove you're not liberal traitors by giving us jobs" move. You know the Moonie Times doesn't fall for that shit.
Pundits are wrong sometimes and right others. Pundits shouldn't lose or win gigs on the basis of how many of their predictions come true but whether they write interesting copy. Kristol—love him or hate him—writes interesting copy.
Yes, and if the Times wishes to descend into the print version of talk-radio carnydom, this is certainly one way to do it. What I have read of Kristol's schtick strikes me less as "interesting" and more as pointedly, even needlessly combative. That he has occasionally locked spurs with fellow ideological banty roosters like Newt Gingrich is of little relevance, except that it illustrates that both men live (and are employed) by their ability and desire to antagonize. The problem is not Kristol's consistent wrongness, in and of itself -- it's that he doesn't give a shit about being right or wrong, not only because there's no consequences, but also because it doesn't even seem to occur to him. In a sensible profession, this would likely be a disqualifying characteristic.
Where most other people were wrong on Iraq in terms of degree, Kristol has been wrong by design, unrepentantly so; for him, it was to be merely the prelude to an overhaul of the most ancient settled region on the planet. Societies have thrived and perished there for nine thousand years, but they're going to unfuck themselves in a generation or two because Billy Kristol says so. Shafer's right that it's an "interesting" gambit, to be sure, but what it isn't is competent, logical analysis, which is at least nominally the game of the major-league columnist.
But then major-league papers like the Times and WaPo have their own institutional instincts to follow, the way the government does no matter which face adorns its official stationery. It is the crucible in which acceptable mainstream opinions are contoured and refined, to bamboozle the less sensible into going along with the right riff, and to disempower the more rational set of readers by desensitizing them to cheap tricks and rhetorical flummery, getting them to chase sophist phantoms or (better yet) to give up altogether in frustration.
It would be much simpler if newspapers rededicated themselves to harder news stories and more rigorous opinion writing, instead of coughing up this or that hack to serve as an emotional tampon for a dissociative niche of sob sisters. Whom, exactly, would fall into Kristol's niche? Embittered dead-enders who, rather than simply admit that they fucked up and they're willing to at least meet the rest of the planet halfway, prefer to double down because they meant to do this shit. Is there some hidden ontological quest in catering to such a group, or is it an elaborate practical joke?
What other reason could there be, ferchrissakes, for off-brand legacy dimwits like Kristol and Pantload to always find work, to get cush gigs at flagship newspapers, to peddle their flatulent jabber to the repulsed and the indifferent and the irrational, not even bothering any longer to conceal their nonsense with even the appearance of an innovative idea or thought? Why do the keepers o' the First Amendment flame prattle on so nervously about the pernicious gubmint threats to their profession, when they prove so willing to give ample and frequent space to some of their most vicious detractors? Maybe that's part of the shakedown this crew uses, the "prove you're not liberal traitors by giving us jobs" move. You know the Moonie Times doesn't fall for that shit.
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