{"id":1290,"date":"2007-01-13T14:37:35","date_gmt":"2007-01-13T19:37:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/in-review\/"},"modified":"2007-01-13T14:37:35","modified_gmt":"2007-01-13T19:37:35","slug":"in-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/in-review","title":{"rendered":"In review"},"content":{"rendered":"

I read two articles\/posts this morning that I found quite affecting. First, judiciary-writer Dahlia Lithwick at Slate, who isn’t given to alarmism, draws some nefarious conclusions<\/a> from the Bush administration’s legal wranglings in the terror-war:<\/p>\n

But it has finally become clear that the goal of these foolish efforts isn’t really to win the war against terrorism; indeed, nothing about Padilla, Guantanamo, or signing statements moves the country an inch closer to eradicating terror. The object is a larger one, and the original overarching goal of this administration: expanding executive power, for its own sake.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, this may seem like a slam-dunk conclusion to some, but she puts some interesting evidence together to explore the mechanics of how this has occurred. Give it a read<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the other piece I read this morning, Ron Rosenbaum discusses the lessons of Cambodia<\/a>, and explores the possible historical parallels with the current war. It’s an interesting article because Ron uses it to examine the evolution of his attitude toward the Vietnam war:<\/p>\n

My opposition to the Vietnam war, developed during my college days was based on the oversimplified premise\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009dwhich turns out, by most serious accounts, now bolstered by the former Soviet archives\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009dto be false or seriously flawed.<\/p>\n

My belief and that of most of the anti-war movement\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009dthat the North Vietnamese regime represented an indigenous, nationalist movement expressing the Vietnamese peoples centuries-long struggle for independence from foreign control\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009dwas only half-true at best.<\/p>\n

There was a germ of truth in it, but more than a germ of foreign control in Hanoi, whose government was in fact a Stalinist puppet state of the Soviet Union (here\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s where the diplomatic cables in the former Soviet archives are so important and dispositive).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

His post covers more than this, particularly the failure of the “world community” to prevent or stop genocide, but I found it important that he was able to reassess that situation in history, as more of “the truth” comes out. I’ve long contended that we can’t understand the situation in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, etc. without taking into account the history of Soviet aggression in the area. Just because the USSR has collapsed doesn’t mean that its influences were erased.<\/p>\n

Which is to say, while people blamed “U.S. withdrawal” from Afghanistan for the failed state that led to the rise of the Taliban, they managed not to blame the Soviets for invading Afghanistan in the first place, which led to the U.S.-sponsored mujahideen. It’s interesting to me, how often people will seek out “the truth” in issues like this, but stop once they get to the conclusion they wanted to reach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I read two articles\/posts this morning that I found quite affecting. First, judiciary-writer Dahlia Lithwick at Slate, who isn’t given to alarmism, draws some nefarious conclusions from the Bush administration’s legal wranglings in the terror-war: But it has finally become clear that the goal of these foolish efforts isn’t really to win the war against … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “In review”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-explicit","category-politics-implicit"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-kO","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":324,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/no-plan-for-the-peace","url_meta":{"origin":1290,"position":0},"title":"“No plan for the peace”?","author":"Gil","date":"August 10, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Vodkapundit writes pretty well about the war on terror, and how ideologies fight.","rel":"","context":"In "Politics (explicit)"","block_context":{"text":"Politics (explicit)","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/politics-explicit"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":328,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/sudans-osama","url_meta":{"origin":1290,"position":1},"title":"Sudan’s Osama","author":"Gil","date":"August 9, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Lee Smith, besides being the all-time MLB saves leader and a novelist who writes about southern women, also discusses the Arab world on Slate. Last week, he wrote a pretty neat piece about Sudan, discussing the \"palace intrigues\" and motivations for the genocide, while also trying to put the current\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics (explicit)"","block_context":{"text":"Politics (explicit)","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/politics-explicit"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":840,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/cola-war-on-terror","url_meta":{"origin":1290,"position":2},"title":"Cola War on Terror","author":"Gil","date":"February 10, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Last week's reading in the Official VM Book Club Of One was The Other Hollywood; this week it's The Substance of Style, Virginia Postrel's book on the value of aesthetic value, as it were. I just finished the third chapter, \"Surface and Substance,\" which ends with this passage: When terrorists\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":965,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/the-varieties-of-diversity-or-something","url_meta":{"origin":1290,"position":3},"title":"The varieties of diversity, or something","author":"Gil","date":"May 26, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Timothy Garton Ash on the stultification of Europe: In the great age of Renaissance Florence, diversity was indeed the dynamo of Europe's extraordinary creativity. There's a marvellous book called The European Miracle, by the economic historian EL Jones, that explores why Europe rather than China - scientifically and technologically more\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics (implicit)"","block_context":{"text":"Politics (implicit)","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/politics-implicit"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1450,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/less-than-zero","url_meta":{"origin":1290,"position":4},"title":"Less than Zero","author":"Gil","date":"April 13, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's an update on the construction efforts of the Freedom Tower and environs. I know you'll be shocked to discover that the budget is skyrocketing: Barry LePatner, Hon. AIA, a real estate attorney and construction cost expert, contends that the Freedom Tower's initial bid numbers were virtually meaningless -- unless\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":280,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/terror","url_meta":{"origin":1290,"position":5},"title":"Terror","author":"Gil","date":"July 27, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Took another big walk today. That's what I do in cities; walk around. I rarely take mass transit during trips, but I do consult lots of maps. (This never helps in Boston, of course, which I've pointed out is built along 4-dimensional principles.)As with my previous posts, all the photos\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Budapest"","block_context":{"text":"Budapest","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/travel\/budapest"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1290\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}