Michael Totten's photo reply to Juan Cole seems to have a touched a nerve. I'm with the commenter over at Michael Totten's that the more Juan gets involved in these "blog wars," the more strained and unhinged his personality becomes. When it comes to the war on terrorism, Prof. Cole fluctuates between al-Qaeda being a major threat to US national security that was galvanized by our invasion of Iraq or anything resembling US support for Israel, and it being an insignificant threat on par with the threat posed by violent cults or the nuttier militia movements of the 1990s.
I've always regarded this as a fairly disingenuous approach determined more by what he thinks is most likely to hurt SATAN (err, Bush) on any given day. As I've written about time and time again, my main problem with Cole is not so much the fact that he has a different analysis of events in Iraq than I do, as it is the fact that, as Greg famously wrote back in January:
I'm getting some mail along the lines that I'm unfair to Cole by suggesting he might derive pleasure from the deaths of innocents. That's not what I'm saying above. Cole cares about the region and its inhabitants, quite passionately. What I'm saying is that his quasi-pathological distrust and hate of the Bushies has greatly reduced his credibility. Why? Because he too often appears to be rooting for this Administration's policy objectives to fail (witness the almost monomaniacal obsession with each and every setback--day in, day out-- at his blog (never a good day, Juan, just one?). And also, people, because Bush is simply not the devil incarnate. Believe it or not, some of his policy moves can and do advance the cause of human liberty every now and again.
This quasi-pathological distrust and hatred of the administration, however, really comes out whenever he ventures into the area of domestic politics (or Israel), as can be seen from the fact that as far as Cole is concerned, you might as well be a child molester as a committed Republican.
One of the most recent manifestations of this trend can be found in this rant on stem cells that gives you a pretty insight into what he thinks of his political opponents.
I'm particularly amused by his "Christian Taliban" rant because, as with his previous forays on the subject, he has no problem painting millions of social conservatives in his own country with the label of a totalitarian movement. But watch him perform intellectual gymnastics that should qualify him for an Olympic slot at the suggestion that there might perhaps be some serious problems within many Muslims' understanding of Islam, problems that leaves them suceptible to terrorist sympathies.
The association of Republican political dominance in the South with the unconquerable force of white southern racism, while predictable, also reveals far harsher words about his political opponents than I suspect he might ever be willing to apply to say, Muqtada al-Sadr. Heck, when Ahmadinejad was "elected" over in Iran, the only way that Juan could think to convey to his readership just how bad this guy is was to say that he's a mirror image of Bush and the neocons.
So taking all of this into account, I was somewhat amused by Juan's photo reply to Michael, as here again I think reveals far more about him than it does about whom he is criticizing.
Read some of the captions, for instance, it's clear that the focus of his hatred, the people that he blames for nothing less than the creation of al-Qaeda, is the US Republican Party in general and Ronald Reagan in particular. al-Qaeda itself sems to be deeply secondary to his real war.
The myopic focus on Reagan as far as the creation of al-Qaeda is concerned to the point where a whole host of other far more important actors like Prince Turki al-Faisal, Ahmed Shah Masood, Hamid Gul, Najibullah, General Zia ul-Haq, Abdullah Azzam, etc. are all shoved aside or ignored in favor of Reagan is not only disturbing, but also leaves one rather leery given that this is coming from a history professor.
One might note that the events in which much of Cole's ire against Israel occurred took place during the time period in which Bill Clinton was in office and were presumably supported or at least not actively opposed by the US. Yet for all his hatred of Israel, Cole cannot bear to criticize Clinton for enabling al-Qaeda, even though if one accepts Cole's rather loopy premises he was every bit as responsible for it as was the all-hated Ronald Reagan.
His summation of the war on terrorism tells you pretty much everything you need to know about the man on the subject:
The Bush administration responded to these attacks by the former proteges of Ronald Reagan by putting the old Mujahideen warlords back in charge of Afghanistan's provinces, allowing Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri to escape, declaring that Americans no longer needed a Bill of Rights, and suddenly invading another old Reagan protege, Saddam's Iraq, which had had nothing to do with 9/11 and posed no threat to the US. The name given this bizarre set of actions by Bush was "the War on Terror."
In Iraq, the US committed many atrocities, including bombing campaigns on civilian quarters of cities it had already occupied, and a ferocious assault on Fallujah, and tortured Iraqi prisoners.
In the meantime, the Bush administration put virtually no money or effort into actually combatting terrorist cells in places like Morocco, as opposed to putting $200 billion into the Iraq war and aftermath. As a result, a string of terrorist attacks were allowed to strike at Madrid, London and elsewhere.
... Then in July, 2005, General Richard Myers, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, announced that there was not actually any "War on Terror:" ' General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the National Press Club on Monday that he had "objected to the use of the term 'war on terrorism' before, because if you call it a war, then you think of people in uniform as being the solution." ' (Question: Does this mean we can have the Bill of Rights back, now?)
The American Right, having created the Mujahideen and having mightily contributed to the creation of al-Qaeda, abruptly announced that there was something deeply wrong with Islam, that it kept producing terrorists.
Informed comment indeed, and from the president of the Middle East Studies Association no less. And yet Cole frequently laments how much all the non-academic experts get to be on TV...
I've always regarded this as a fairly disingenuous approach ...
Isn't that the whole point? When everything is a patchwork quilt of paranoia, there's no such thing as disingenuous. You can't assuage someone who's still mad about the contras, or failing that, Orrin Hatch. As the guy in Repo Man said, it's all connected, see.
And it's always funny to see someone like Cole remind us all that Jerusalem is the "third holiest city" to Muslims. They never point out that it is the number one holy city to Jews and Christians. (I can see the look on his face ...)
To be fair, this is a bit kinder than he was to Reagan two days after he died. Lord only knows the kind of hysteria he'll slip into if he's still blogging when Bush (or failing that, Sharon) dies.
Now, why in the world did the US arm the mujaheddin? Was it simply a nihilistic desire to arm players around the world?
Oh, right, something about the USSR.
Hmmm. By those lights, one wonders:
Would it be appropriate to therefore denigrate FDR as a "radical" who took over the Democratic Party and armed the USSR? Indeed, sent his own personal advisors over to tell Uncle Joe it was okay to murder a few thousand Polish officers at Katyn Forest?
No?
Why not?
I think it's ironic that you gave this (link) on stem cells as an example of how Juan Cole feels about those who disagree with him, and then used Gregory Djerejian as a good example. Here (link) is good old Greg on those with a different opinion from him on the same topic: "To hell with the Dobsonites and their reactionary ilk ... it's good to see Frist wrestle with his conscience, seemingly genuinely, and choose the ideals of his profession and scientific progress over kow-towing to the supposed 'values voter' brigades."
For those who uphold the sacredness of human life, this is our normal fare, from the "good guys" and the "bad guys" alike. Singling out Jaun Cole for doing only what folks on the other side of the line often feel inclined and entitled to do seems inconsistent.
Nearly all of the hard-core leftists I know personally offer up the same sort of rambling, disjointed, inconsistent lashing out. A few 'soft-core' leftists are quietly sensitive and often moved to tears by some of the real horrors in the world regardless of who commits them.
Knowing something of the past personal lives of the hard-core types, one common thread seems to be that they smoked way too much weed and put way too much weird $#|+ into their bodies ... back when. Sometimes even still.
I don't know Cole at all, but I sure am familiar with his "thought process," if you can call it that. He sounds just like the people I know who fried their brains (at least the rational, logical parts thereof) in earlier years. When they lash out -- at who knows what, really -- they simply make no sense.
"By his own folly a man ruins his life, yet his heart rages against the Lord." Proverbs 19:3
Some things haven't really changed in at least three thousand years.
In the meantime, the US had steadfastly supported Israeli encroachments on the Palestinian Occupied Territories
The first time I read this, I thought that Cole was upset that Israel was encroaching on territories occupied by "Palestinians". Then I realized that he had meant it to be possessive. Besides his "history" being a bit awry, he could use some tightening up of his English.
I agree with nearly everything that Cole has written on these subjects, and think it is laughable that you and other pro-War folks keep resorting to attempts to demonize him as a "Bush hater" or "ant-American" or calling him "unhinged" or "strange", saying his arguments are "quasi-pathological", etc.
When in reality folks like yourself who become amateur psychoanalysists when all else fails are about the strangest and most unhinged people on the planet right now.
I feel sorry for you who attack Professor Juan Cole, the one authoritative voice authorized by us to speak the truth about Islam, the middle east, the world, and everything. So sorry for you who attack the one man whose opinions, if implemented, would create a perfect utopia for everyone. Those of us who authorize it know that very well and we feel sorry for you, so sorry.
Neither of the two defenders of Cole bother to address the substance of the post. Why would that be? Could it be that substance is unimportant to them?
#7 Embarassed,
Thanks for the reminder that amateur psychoanalysis usually offers fairly limited insights. But on the surface, it wouldn't seem unreasonable to expect an informed academic commenting about foreign affairs to approach his subjects with some degree of balance. It can be a bit strange to view Dr. Cole's demon-filled world. In that he's right as far as the existence of genuine monsters, but rather blind as to their actual identities.
cole is vile. Deeply vile.
But that said, didnt the admin open themselves up with this talk of GSAVE? why focus on words now? I mean i can see wanting to gradually reemphasize the non-military sides to the struggle. But did it take a cutesy acronym to do that? Doesnt that invite "i told ya so"s from all the idiots who claimed this was never a war? Why cant this admin make persuasive and convincing public cases, even when they are overwhelmingly in the right? i mean this counts, i think, this warwide dyslexia, or whatever it is, makes things more difficult.
Its not a simple problem - since this is really a war on ISLAMIC extremism, but its hard to say that in a way that wont get twisted into "its a war on Islam" So, youre elected to deal with hard problems. Blair seems to manage the rhetorical side pretty well. SOMEBODY in the US admin needs to as well.
David Blue:
I'm Catholic, so you can probably guess my own opinions on ESCR. That said it's a pretty complex issue (I certainly don't understand the ins and outs of all of it and I imagine most armchair pundits don't either), something I think that both sides need to concede. All the same, the fact that Greg was dismissive of opposition to ESCR (a point he later acknowledged if you read his post) has nothing to do with his earlier criticism of Cole. My point wasn't so much the issue of stem cells per se but rather the fact that Cole smears all opposition to it by labeling it a totalitarian movement (the Taliban), just as the only force he sees to explain Republican dominance in the South is irrepressible southern racism.
liberalhawk:
I'm with you all the way on that one.
One of the most recent manifestations of this trend can be found in this rant on stem cells that gives you a pretty insight into what he thinks of his political opponents.
Seriously Dan, you have no shame. This is probably the most hypocritical post I've ever read at WoC-- and that's saying a lot.
I don't doubt for a second that Cole has an agenda: anti greater-Israel, anti-fundy, anti-Bush.
The funny thing is you seem to take no notice of what WoC and it's friends (and by extension, you) think of their political opponents. I've read some of the vilest, most inane slander here or linked to here (perhaps the "pond scum" incident, where AL made a complete fool of himself should have been the hint to stop?). Vast swathes of the American public and the world declared traitors and moral ingrates (including me).
Cole is merely replying in kind... and yes when he does it, it's disturbing, because he is an historian. When you do it, it's also sad, but kind of typical- cause it's your M.O.
SAO:
I wasn't aware that I (or any other contributor, for that matter) had named you as a traitor or a moral ingrate, I'll have to look back through the back posts. Glad to hear you think it's the most hypocritical post you've ever read over at WoC, I do try.
Amidst all your righteous indignation, however, you might want to consider that I have never associated my political opponents with a totalitarian movement, though I have on occasion questioned their motives and intentions. 9 times out of 10, I don't generally even write about my views on US politics on WoC for a whole host of reasons. So I have no problem whatsoever with calling Cole out on what I don't do myself.
My issue with Cole, by the way, was never that he has an agenda (everyone does) but rather as Greg put it - "... his quasi-pathological distrust and hate of the Bushies has greatly reduced his credibility. Why? Because he too often appears to be rooting for this Administration's policy objectives to fail (witness the almost monomaniacal obsession with each and every setback--day in, day out-- at his blog (never a good day, Juan, just one?). And also, people, because Bush is simply not the devil incarnate."
In case you haven't noticed, I don't think that the American left is the Satan incarnate. I don't agree with them, I think they're wrong and borderline hysterical on any number of issues, and I strongly dislike many of them, but they certainly aren't anything resembling the kind of mass murderers like Zarqawi and Co. Whether that opinion differs with that of other WoC contributors or not, beats me. But then in case you haven't noticed, we don't need to get a nihil obstat or imprimatur from Joe to post this stuff to begin with. We're a pretty diverse group here and we disagree on a lot of things (if you think Michael and I are mirror images of each other you have another thing coming), so if you'd be so kind please let them address the points made in their posts and I'll address those made in mine.
Points? What Points? Your post is devoid. "This speaks for itself.. tells you all you need to know.. wouldn't criticize Clinton." Whatever, Cole still gives his opponents twice the curtesy (and half the paranoia) deemed adequate around these parts.
Cole also has a great point in that many of the same folks who cheered and supported rightwing Latin American deathsquads (terrorists by any definition, but hey "Viva la Reagan Revolucion!"), are the very same who are our current champions against Islamic fascism. Ditto for Afghanistan.
"Reagan responsible for 9.11?" Sorry, didn't read it that way. More like, "Neo-cons actually practitioners of bloody, amoral realpolitik-- despite their best language."
For some reason this reminds me of the time a friend (now evidently safely on meds that work for her) was told by her shrink, "Well, you're not floridly psychotic." And yes, she laughs about it now.
Folks, I've seen civil blog subcultures, and I've seen uncivil ones. This is a really civil blog.
SAO sees what he expects to see here; and taken literally in the post above he's not wrong. Some realpolitik gains are hoped for, it's true. Some of the people who supported funding the old caudillos, and worse, are cheering the Former WOT, and some of them are creepy bulletheads that would make Clint Eastwood edgy if he had to turn his back on them.
But that seems to be pretty much all SAO sees. There's no "center" to the components of the "other side" for him. I conjecture that it would infuriate him if I told him he was still on my team, even if he doesn't think I'm on his.
He might even say that that's fascist talk. And again, he'd be "right"... fascists are perfectly willing to talk that way.
The best I can do is to continue to examine my presuppositions, keep doing my best to look at the world as it is, and accept criticism as best I can.
But SAO, in the post above about neocons and death squad supporters... you think Cole's taking about me? He's not. And I still vote.
Basically, SAO, you are adding nothing to the discussion.
PS: I used a personal jargon phrase above--I wish I had a better one for this--"taken literally".
I'm practicing a simple technique I use when rhetoric gets heated: remove all adjectives and adverbs and then see if I can determine if the remaining sentence has some validity. If so, try to treat this new construction as a starting point for thinking and discussion.
I find the exercise an interesting one. The downsides include this: Taken to extremes, it can turn into hyperlogical "infuriating Mr Spock"-ism.
oh my god!!! there are folks who post in WOC who demonize their opponents as much as Cole? This is, you know, only a blog. If Cole was just another blogger his doing the same would be no big deal. But hes a tenured professor or middle east studies, an influential academic, and widely quooted by the mainstream media as an "expert". Which, AFAIK, no one here is.
And thanks for bringing up "greater Israel", the very week when Ariel Sharon is sticking to his guns and leading a withdrawl from Gaza, despite national trauma, and continued violence against Israel by terrorists based in Gaza. Coles conflation of settler ideologues, ordinary likudniks, and ANYONE (including most Labor supporters) who doesnt agree with going back to the '48 armistice lines as a permanent border, is one of the more despicable things from him.
Hi, Dan.
Yes I read the post that I linked to.
Dan Darling: "My point wasn't so much the issue of stem cells per se but rather the fact that Cole smears all opposition to it by labeling it a totalitarian movement (the Taliban), just as the only force he sees to explain Republican dominance in the South is irrepressible southern racism."
My point was that - while Jaun Cole goes in for particularly offensive and elaborate smears - basically smearing has become par for the course. That is not what is uniquely wrong with Jaun Cole. Even pervasive and seemingly delusional hatred is not so rare.
Jaun Cole outright fibs. That's been well-established. His odious attack on Martin Kramer (link) was a fiasco. Jaun Cole's credibility had been destroyed by his own efforts. Further attacks on it seem to me to be pointless and misguided. (shrug) Though this is not an issue where I'm raring for further debate.
I agree that GSAVE is a fiasco beyond excuse. It's supposed to be about confronting the ideology that is at war with us with words rather than with war. But it's self-refuting: since it hides who these extremists that are at war with us are, and "confrontation" ends before it begins. Meanwhile the war goes on, and by not calling it "war" we give away the store rhetorically. Unpleasant people naturally declare victory, and why not? What a hopeless mess this new label is.
I've always thought the "war on terror" was the best we could do given the constraints we work under. Given what the alternative turned out to be, my liking for the "war on terror" label is stronger than ever.
Once upon a time, a dangerous radical gained control of the US Republican Party. Reagan increased the budget for support of the radical Muslim Mujahidin conducting terrorism against the Afghanistan government to half a billion dollars a year.
I'm outraged! Who was the "dangerous radical" that began supporting radical Muslim Mujahidin in the first place?
Gee, PD, would that be the same ex-President going around and undermining our current efforts against terrorism by slandering soldiers at Guantanamo Bay?
SAO:
Cole basically accused (and then deleted without apology) Martin Kramer of being some kind of Israeli intelligence asset because he dared to call the good doctor on his BS. If you want to argue that he only exercises half the paranoia of WoC, you might want to take into account that I can accept that there are people out there who disagree with me without attributing those disagreements to the machinations of an evil Zionist conspiracy led by Ariel Sharon.
And as long as your making comparisons between rightwing opinions on Latin America in the 1980s, a far more cynical individual than myself might note that much of the current anti-war movement today has its roots in that of the 1960s, when it was trendy for all the cool lefties to make heroes out of the people who were killing their classmates.
David Blue:
The current level of political discourse in the US unfortunately lends itself all too freely to such smears. This is one of the reasons why (and maybe I'm wrong on this one) I like to think of myself as engaging people like liberalhawk and others rather than browbeating them about the antics of Michael Moore. I think there's an old saying that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
Wow, Robin you're right. Here's an interview with ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI in which he takes credit for going to Pakistan to coordinate the response, and collaborating with the Saudis, the Egyptians, and the Chinese to provide weapons to the Mujaheddin. And here's another interview in which Brzezinski says that Carter began funding the Mujahedden six months before the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. And here's an excerpt from a New Republic article from May 3, 1980 complaining of Carter's cynical tilt to Iraq to protect Saudi oil.
Are there any complaints Cole levies against Reagan in his area of expertise (the Middle East) that Carter didn't initiate?
SAO: Whatever, Cole still gives his opponents twice the curtesy (and half the paranoia) deemed adequate around these parts.
What's courtesy? Is that asking the latter-day Erlichmans and Haldemans at Daily Kos to dig up dirt on Martin Kramer because he made you look silly? Is that what a half-sized dose of paranoia makes you do?
Our crime, if any, is taking Professor-Doctor Cole too seriously. The University of Michigan obviously shares our guilt. Shame on us all.
PD Shaw -- I was wondering when someone would catch him on that. Good eye.
SAO -- If you're going to complain about partisanship and smearing, then fine, but picking on Dan is a rather odd choice since he's one of the most polite and cautious of the regular posters here. There have admittedly been comments made here that have been pretty rude (though not by Dan, AFAIK), but compared to a lot of other blogs I could mention the partisanship quotient here is still reasonably low.
I think you're falling prey to the same sort of thinking that makes conservatives talk about THE LEFT as some kind of monolith. But they're not a monolith, and neither is the right, and neither are the WoC posters. Try to be a little more discerning and direct your frustration at the people who really deserve it. Just a suggestion.
Just a lucky guess on my part, PD ... that a superior knowledge of the history of the region than Cole seems capable of demonstrating....
Huh -
I actually LIKE the idea of GSAVE - it's a site better than WOT (although WOE would have been funnier). But still, I am with Abizaid
It stands against a certain type of mind-set, and a certain type of actor - that in this case in Islamic in nature, but truly, we should be on guard for all types of violent extremism.
So I give the administration kudos for this, although I guess Bush is reversing it...
The problem of course with Totten is his massive oversimplifications, that truly only confuses what needs to be done.
Ikenberry's musings on the tough liberal order, Cordesman-type analysis on ALL the players on the geo-political stage. These are the type of analyses that lead to actions that work. In this sense, Cole AND Michael Totten don't move us forward substantially.
Dan writes..
"My issue with Cole, by the way, was never that he has an agenda (everyone does) but rather as Greg put it - "... his quasi-pathological distrust and hate of the Bushies has greatly reduced his credibility. Why? Because he too often appears to be rooting for this Administration's policy objectives to fail (witness the almost monomaniacal obsession with each and every setback--day in, day out-- at his blog (never a good day, Juan, just one?)."
Read Cole's blog much?
I've read dozens of posts pointing out positive developments in Iraq on Cole's site. From the news that Turkey has accepted the principle of federalism for Iraq, actually mentioning President Bush's positive response to Abbas coming to power and the US supporting a two state solution. There are dozens of other examples for anyone willing to read them.
What's much more difficult to find however is a positive post by Dan regarding any of Cole's posts.
Funny you should mention that, since I did just that recently with regard to his analysis of the Sharm el-Sheikh bombings and agreed with his assessment that Egyptian statements concerning either those bombings or the earlier ones in Taba should not be taken as credible.
Also, if you bother to read my posts on Cole you'll notice that I repeatedly point out that I don't quibble with most of his day-to-day analysis on Iraq even though I think he's dead wrong since we're both operating under different paradigms. It's when he starts drinking a little too much of Kool Aid and ends up sounding like an article in al-Ahram that I tend to turn my guns on the man.
Oh sh*t, we gave Muslims stinger missiles? 911 must be our own darn fault!
This is right up there (or down there) with Pol Pot’s crimes being our fault since we bombed them so much we drove em nuts (and made them murder their own countrymen)….
This is what happens when you have a conclusion you desperately need to prove by finding evidence after making up your mind first… you end up with piss poor stupid evidence because sometimes that’s all you can scrape up… and you look stupid to those outside your closed intellectual circles..
Yes Cole, you sound stupid.
The problem with Cole is the same as the problem with TE Lawrence, Fisk, and the various CIA folks. Arabists, both good and bad.
Good in that there are things in Arab culture that are positive, hospitality, love of the desert, tribal brotherhood. Bad in that there are far too many negative things in Arab culture, particularly it's treatment of women, religious and ethnic minorities, excessive tribalism and religious superstition, that deny it's people the opportunity to advance.
It's bad. Cole refuses like all other Arabists to see the reality: much if not all of the Arab world's failure to develop is the result of their culture, not evil imperialistic oppression, "the Jews," the evil United States, etc. Cole has no answer for Finland, a nation of 6 million people, having the same monetary value in exports in the year 2000 as the entire non-fossil fuel exports of the Arab World. When even the Arab Development Bank can recognize the problem, Cole falls into the same excuse and scapegoat tactics that the Arab culture as a whole falls into.
He is expert on Arab culture, language, customs, traditions, and so on. As a political analyst he is a total failure and should be considered that since he can't see the failure of his beloved culture even when it's right in front of him.
My favorite part of Cole's post is right here :
Reagan increased the budget for support of the radical Muslim Mujahidin conducting terrorism against the Afghanistan government to half a billion dollars a year.
Wait, you mean that there was already funding to the Mujahidin? Gosh, I bet a Republican was responsible for that, too. A Republican called.. um.. Jimmy Carter?
=darwin
I don't know if anyone else has pointed this out yet, but warts and all, "GSAVE" has an interesting symmetry.
Remember that 'way back, Dubya used the C-word? ("c r u s a d e", that is). That was, shall we say, polarizing.
Well now somebody has used the word "struggle".
And what is the "polite"/"civilized" counterpart for the English word "struggle" bandied about by certain controversial actors on the world stage, a word that starts with a J? (that'd be "J i h a d", I think.)
Get ready for a bit of blowback, whether we see it reported here or not.
I wonder if this one was deliberately crafted by a wordsmith with plausible deniability and a kind of psyops payoff in mind, since Dubya says nobody asked him.
But then, I think too much. :)