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Why Arianna Doesn't Get It
I admire Arianna Huffington. She is a strong, bold voice in our media firmament. But in the last few days, she has advanced an idea which, in my view, is wrong. She is urging Vice President Biden to resign if the Obama administration ignores his proposal to concentrate on counter-terrorist operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Arianna argues that by doing so, Biden would be following in the hallowed tradition of US officials, like Elliot Richardson and Cyrus Vance, who resigned for reasons of principle. Richardson resigned after refusing to fire Archibald Cox; he did so to uphold the rule of law and to prevent the presidential abuse of power. Cyrus Vance resigned to protest the attempted military rescue of American hostages in Iran, which he believed jeopardized diplomatic and peaceful efforts to win their release.
But the flaw in Arianna's reasoning is to equate Biden's advocacy of counterterrorism with principled stances on law and diplomacy. While Biden has been an important voice against escalation inside the administration, his proposal itself is questionable; it advances the doctrine of preventive military action that would violate the sovereignty of an American ally and that in the past has resulted in the death of innocent citizens. By any reasonable standard, Biden's position is a violation of international law because the United States is not under threat of an imminent attack from extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan and because the past eight years have made clear there are reasonable legal alternatives to protecting American lives in the form of intelligence and police actions that do not put innocent civilian life at risk.
That an otherwise principled figure like Arianna would, with such fervor, propose this idea is an indication of how the war on terror has damaged and distorted our society and politics.
74 Comments so far
Show AllSpot on, Ms. Vanden Heuvel. You are to be commended.
Arianna Huffington's positions and arguments lack intellectual rigor. She's appointed herself as the spokesperson of the progressive movement, which I find said. So much of her website is so dumbed down -- full of celebrity gossip, articles about fashion, etc.
Farmgirl in the city,i hope you have planters on a balcony or a roof top garden!I agree somewhat with your post.Too much "intellectual rigor" would be boring for point and click instant gratification junkies.Huff Po seems to be the "National Enquirer" of the Blogosphere.It is entertaining though to the extent that some good "left of center" bloggers do post there.Don't you want to know about Tantric sex and celebrity boobs?
In the words of Ronald Reagon "Well....." i don't know. peace
Since Katrina does not Get It either, I guess this is another example of hypocrisy of the Blind trying to Lead the Blind.
Elohim, I agree with you to an extent about van den Heuvel's "hypocrisy" since neither she nor her stable of Obama-fawning Nation writers tend to "get it" in many ways. But blind leading the blind though it may be, the blind will sometimes stumble over something useful, and I commend her for taking on Huffington on this issue, however much I have condemned her in other posts.
Afghan and Pakistani patriots are likely to defend against "counter-terrorism" actions. Like patriotic Americans, they would not like a brutal occupying power killing their citizens who, while labeled "insurgent" and "terrorists" are merely trying to preserve their land and their culture.
A Merkin pilot, safe in his cockpit at 30000 feet, who drops a 500 pound bomb on an Afghan wedding party is called a "hero," and an Afghan who straps explosives to his body to blow up a corrupt police squad is called a "coward." Say wha'?
Arianna Puffington is just a media servant of Empire.
- counter-terrorist operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan -
Ah, the DAFT war. The war to prevent future terrorism, featuring the killing of innocent people so they don't become future terrorists.
The Progressive movement (such as it is) will continue to fail as long as Progressive strategy consists of such idiotic and futile gestures such as this Huff idea.
The law that started this madness and that drives this insanity must be repealed.
Oh, there's been a rift between pseudo-progressives.
I just can't bring myself to use the acronym "LOL"-- but if I could, I would use it here.
Nothing to worry about, though; it'll probably turn out to be merely a pseudo-rift.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Probably just a tiff between Katrina and Arianna.
They'll be BFF again.
Arianna is a puffhead and not worthy of your analysis. Her website supports pro-Israel bloggers, supports the party line regarding Iran, and rarely allows the Palestinian side to be heard. She's a player, manages to insert herself into the Washington scene, and she's sometimes pretty good on domestic issues. However, on foreign affairs, her pro-Israel bias (or maybe it's anti-Muslim racism?) makes her an unreliable analyst.
Bring America Back !!!!......Thanks for this Donna; I've always sensed a
strong conservative testerone in Arianna and perhaps Zionist pheromones as well.
That Post is the wrong Post, not that WAPO is much better anymore.
What does that have to do with the price of rice in China? Maybe she's not trustworthy in terms of the Israel/Palestine issue, but an argument should be evaluated on its merits regardless of who makes the argument. If a murderer argues that one shouldn't commit rape, it's still a good argument. Illogic pervades our political discourse in this country in the form of ad hominem attacks, guilt by association, etc. It's probably better if progressives stick to common sense per usual rather than adopt those tactics.
I'm ambivalent about Huffington myself and am not well-informed enough to determine which course of action is preferable. The question one should ask about either course of action is: how many people will get killed as a result? I'd opt for the lowest number.
I don't think it's worth it to be in Afghanistan. We're killing innocent people and ruining their lives to catch one guy. But Americans want blood and no administration is going to walk away from Bin Laden because they will be punished politically. There will be some sort of presence in Afghanistan regardless of whether the US is violating international law. They've never been bound by it before. Basically, there are two choices available: bad and worse.
"Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel."--(?).
An argument should be evaluated on its merits regardless of who makes the argument.
Arguments:
The CIA was deeply involved in the assasination of JFK.
The USA is not a democracy.
Less than one tenth of one percent of the elite make ALL the decisions in the USA.
The internal combustion engine is the main cause of cancer in the USA (Directly from air pollution and indirectly from increasingly sedentary life styles).
Prison sentences for crimes on people are far more lenient than sentences for crimes on bank property.
---------------------------------------------
Now there you have arguments that affect us viscerally if proven true. Ah, but NOBODY wants to even begin to look at the merits. Merits?
As Good old Dr. Phil would say, "What are we getting out of this that causes us to never question these things?".
The bottom line, sir, is that "merits of an argument" don't mean a God Damned thing in the USA. Money means everything; the facts, as the Downing Street Memo said, are fixed to accommodate the desired premise. We are a dystopia, not a utopia.
Those would be "assertions", not "arguments".
Arguments would be what you might use to try to convince someone else of the truth of your assertions.
Assertions are also part of arguments. I believe that EVIDENCE is what you use in proving the assertions contained in the argument. You can assert all day and, without proof, it means nothing. Granted, all the statements above are only assertions if taken individually. However, all of them have a common thread constructing an argument that you are a fool to not consider the possible validity of those assertions because, if they are true, they are hurting you and your family. The cowardice of not actively seeking proof or the lack of it is also part of the argument.
That said, to lawyers, it's all a sophistic and semantic game where truth and integrity don't matter and cleverly moving the goal posts or basic assumptions around is what is important. A court room is not reality; it's a corrupt chrony showplace. Reality is biting us in the wallet now because we are being robbed. No court room will entertain that view. Everything is compartmentalized and cubby holed to make sure the corruption continues unimpeded. Ah, but that's an assertion that needs to be proved, right?
Donna: You're bang on. I just flip the channel when either Ms. Katrina VH or Arian H pop up on the screen--both are Zionists at bottom.
Bring America Back !!!!
****Duh, let me guess:.....innocent until proven guilty, and, the right of
free speech in the First Amendment !!
Answer as to how they are spokespeoples.
Wow Notobilia--
I was waiting for you to bring up the international conspiracy of the Masonic Lodge, Roman Catholic church, Jew Bankers, the Klan, and the Nation of Islam! Surely there must some connection there.
As much as I detest Katrina's occasionally vapid stupidity, some of her contributors (Barbara Ehrenreich, Naomi Klein, William Greider for instance) are well worth reading, aso don't throw out the baby (The Nation) with the dirty bath water (Katrina).
As for Ariana, think of her as Zsa Zsa Gabor but with brains dahlink--
Poet
I like your prose Poet,I think Arianna has a little satire in mind,imagine Mr. Bernanke committing Harri Kari if 0% interest rates do not produce full employment!Of if Mr Geithner jumped from the top of the New York Federal Reserve building if the Dollar slipped below a certain point.Or Treasury department employees all quit if M3 exceeded a certain level,the M.S.M. would love it. peace
Why ? Because they own the media. Beyond neighborhood gossip and Common Dreams, it's tough to get the word out. And of course, the first thing they do is try to ridicule what you say, along with your sources, so most sheep won't take you seriously. There are a lot of people, smart people, who have prostituted themselves to the rich and powerful in the "gatekeeping" role 24 hours a day.
Keep up the fight, friend.
- She is urging Vice President Biden to resign -
This bizarre idea showcases the absolute absence of strategic thinking anywhere to the left of Karl Rove.
The Progressive strategy for 9 months has been to ask Santa Obama to bring us everything we want.
Since that didn't happen, now the idea evidently is ask his chief elf.
Progressive strategies have failed for 8 years and Public Law 107-40 has been ignored for 8 years.
I insist there is a connection.
Listen to this when you get the chance (LEFT, RIGHT & CENTER):
http://www.kcrw.com/news/programs/lr
Although I can agree with the author on some points, at least Ms. Huffington is using what she has to get people thinking.
Don't get on her case because her filters aren't as finally tuned as you would like. At least she gets issues out, even with her last hook 'em headline.
It's the smart ones in the media who can at least get people to look at different sides of issues while relying on history and facts to support their points of interest...
progressives needs some unabashed left wing authoritarian leadership.
I submitted the following comment on Huffington Post, however, they refused to allow it. Please remember that my reference to humans having descended from the apes was for humans in general, not specifically Obama and Obama alone.
Here is the banned commment:
The MSM would make this (Biden's resignation) a news item tomorrow and it would be forgotten tomorrow. Does anyone seriously think that any member of the Rupert Murdoch conglomerate would spin this story in anything but a completely negative manner? And don't forget, the parent company of NBC, MSNBC, and CNBC is General Electric, one of the largest defense contractors in existence (primarily through its subsidiary, GE Aviation). Does anyone seriously think that any NBC-affiliated news organizations have a vested interest in promoting peace?
Biden has seemed to be more progressive than Obama, and to the extent that Obama listens to him, Biden's counsel may serve as a partial counterbalance to the advice Obama is receiving from many others he has chosen to advise him (i.e., Geithner, Summers, McChrystal, corporate heads of healthcare organizations, etc.). And even worse yet, consider the following scenario...
As desperate as Obama seems to gain the favor of the Republicans, would it be totally out of the question for him to advocate for a Republican to replace Biden: Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, Kay Bailey Hutchinson (which would impact the gubernatorial race in Texas) or someone similar in his seemingly insatiable quest to pursue that chimerical illusion of "bipartisanship"?
Don't think he'd do this? Do the names Ray LaHood and Judd Gregg (who almost became the Commerce Secretary) ring a bell? In attempting to satisfy those whose only mission is to ensure that he fails, his tendencies suggest that while humans evolved from the apes, perhaps that ancestry is shared with the lemming as well.
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/why-joe-biden-should-resi_b_320929.html
They can't handle the truth even when stated politely, as you did. They are part of the corporate repub/democrat party, period.
Both of these women should be banned from CD. They're warmongers, media & political hacks. Quite useless to stopping their murderous political party(s) or building a peaceful nation.
Both of you, please do your endless, boring and tired "strategizing" elsewhere.
Go away.
BTW: Dittos for Rachel Maddow.
I think you're looking for Glenn Beck's blog.
He doesn't really have one. He has a series of video blogs instead, where he takes on a certain topic and presents his own moronic talking points on it, and they're posted to his website.
...and add Bono's ass as well to this list. (has his guitar player ruined that large beautiful acreage with his 50k sq. ft. "house" yet.) What a bunch of "love the earth" fakes.
As for Glenn Beck, he's been promoted day after day here at CD, Alternet and TruthDig by "progressives", that apparently hate him, but follow his everyword and move anyway. (His advertisers love them for it.)
Never heard of him until the Maddows and the rest of them started their endless promotion of him. (Someone new to argue with, I guess) At the end of the day, they all sit back and count the cash while the followers of these twits (both left and right) continue their never-ending pissfest.
Where's my whiskey, dammit!
Actually Glenn Beck has lost over 80 advertisers at last count, thanks to the exposing of his insane and hateful comments.
Herding cats
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
The MSM's Katrina Tokenheuval cannot either know or prove that, "the United States is not under threat of an imminent attack from extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan," but the idea that "there are reasonable legal alternatives to protecting American lives in the form of intelligence and police actions that do not put innocent civilian life at risk" is more true than not. It would have been better stated that "there are reasonable legal alternatives to protecting American lives in the form of intelligence and police actions that put FAR FEWER innocent civilian lives at risk.
But the "deep policy" goals of Rumsfeld's Long War are full spectrum political dominance of the Muslim Middle Eastern and Central Asian nations and their oil and natural gas reserves, pipelines and best potential pipeline routes. And the Militiary-Petrol-Industrial complex cares not a whit how costly that Long War is in American and foreign blood and treasure--except as pre-factored in incidental costs of doing business. Their avarice completely blinds them to the related costs of global warming from our continued and growing dependence on non-renewable fossil fuels. The "Great Game" is still on from Israel to Azerbaijan and the Pentagon, neo-lib and neo-con fools playing it are too drunk on their visions of global dominance, and have gone too far to pull back from dragging down the Amurkan Empire at this point. That's one reason why every excuse they come up with for a "surge" here and a "surge" there make less and less sense except from the point of view of a Long War of attrition, low level conflict and subversion to destabilize and manipulate rulers and ruling cliques in those regions to constantly toil at achieving their true fossil fuel agenda.
Both KVH and AH are dead f@#king wrong:
One option only: out of Afghanistan. Period. We are in clear violation of our own, original AUMF, our Generals report zero terrorists presence, and there's not a chance in hell of 'defeating' the Taliban, since they have kids, and those kids have kids, and so on. It'd be like trying to defeat Christians...
Just like the health care "reform" debate - the only plan that's right is Universal Health Care For All Americans, yet that's the one plan that has been removed from the table completely.
Immediate pullout from Afghanistan - the only option that's right, now not even discussed.
Oh, and P.S. - if Biden resigns, he'll never see another penny in Big Everything bribes, so keep wishing for that to happen....
Well said.
As sneaker so admirably expressed it previously: "Oh, there's been a rift between pseudo-progressives."
I may have missed this, since this pseudo-story isn't worth intense scrutiny-- but has anyone raised the point that if Biden resigned, the Gorgon Pelosi would be a heartbeat away from the Presidency?
· Yr Obd't Servant
but has anyone raised the point that if Biden resigned, the Gorgon Pelosi would be a heartbeat away from the Presidency?
I'll see you that and raise you this:
KVH and AH, as pseudo progressives, may be doing this for that very reason. Pelosi is the ultimate "sorta liberal" they want in the presidency. They may be just trying to be clever. And on a more somber note, the Coulter nut case did say that Biden was assasination insurance. Busy folks, these elite sows. Maybe they just want to prove that women can be as evil as men like Obama, Geithner, Summers and Paulson.
Yeah, two mainstream "liberals" in a spat. Are they that different from each other? Two upper-middle class white women arguing for just a sliver of change. Not too much now, just a little. Can't have people like that being taxed like hell.
"By any reasonable standard, Biden's position is a violation of international law because the United States is not under threat of an imminent attack from extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan and because the past eight years have made clear there are reasonable legal alternatives to protecting American lives in the form of intelligence and police actions that do not put innocent civilian life at risk."
Katrina Vanden Huevel doesn't get it. A just and ethical foreign policy would make everyone safer, not just Americans. That means an end to Empire and all that comes with it. A withdrawal of US troops from everywhere, debt forgiveness, reparations, Green reform, an end to exploitation and plunder, and a redistribution of wealth and benign innovation.
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”
Albert Einstein
FREE AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY (DIRECT) DEMOCRACY
If you're going to quote Einstein, here are a few better ones:
"The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil."
"This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism."
"I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy"
Quotes from an article, "Why Socialism?", in the first issue of Monthly Review by Albert Einstein. Read the whole article here ...
http://www.monthlyreview.org/598einstein.php
"Abortion" lady wants D-MBNA to stay? Biden's a pro-war hack, a shill for the credit card biggies, one who overplays women and leaves out men, enjoys AMTRAK from our taxpayer money, backs bailing out Wall Street, and well I can't stand that fuck. I can't believe Obama picked that man for VP. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR !
I've occasionally referenced a close friend whose politics had been very similar to my own, but who flabbergasted me by jumping on the Obama bandwagon last year.
Not because he became an Obama supporter per se, but because the transition was like he flipped a switch. I still can't quite get my head around it; it was like this bogus "pragmatist" program emerged from the recesses of his intellect and deleted all of the insights of deep politics that called Obama's behavior into question.
One day we were enthusiastically discussing works like Morris Berman's "Dark Ages America", the next day he was defending Obama's pro-FISA vote with rationales like, "Oh, but Obama is like 'Jackie Robinson'! He's poised to make a Historic Change in Amerikan Government! He has to choose his 'battles' VERY carefully, because on the high wire HE's walking, he can't afford to put a foot wrong".
I heard this, and other cringeworthy rationalizations, as candidate Obama began to populate his administration with neoliberal Clintonista hawks and banksters.
But I REALLY knew that I had "lost" him after the Biden veep selection. Biden, for god's sake! "Oh, well, Biden... but you know, I watched Biden speaking to [can't recall], and I can sort of understand why Obama went with him..."
My interlocutor and I didn't have a "falling out", but I just stopped discussing politics with him. One of these days, I'm going to revisit the topic to see whether he's curbed his enthusiasm.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Isn't that why 0 picked him?
He is also a self-described Zionist.
Who isn't up there?
I enjoyed Huffington's suggestion, and I enjoy her sense of humor in making it as though it were a serious possibility.
Could we get a counter-offer and suggest 0bama resign too if Biden does not listen to his proposals?
What happened?
Some comments have gone from this article.
Must be pressure from Ariana.
No!
Pressure from another powerful source.
Good luck CD.
Obama could fire Biden and put Kucinich in his place. I don't know what difference it will make but it would make Obama appear liberal for a while.
Katrina Vanden Heuvel is a real leftist!!!!
Arianna Huffington is a Republican and high class socialite and pretend "liberal" and phony "progressive" but an adept social climber.....
Arianna Huffington also has very close ties to Rahm Emanuel's brother, Ari Emanuel, as does Michael Moore. Again, Mrs. Huffington should have no credibility with the left for the phony/fraud she is.
Huffington is a Republican....and even if she claims not to be any more...she is definitely no "liberal" or "progressive."
At least the Nation Magazine is CONSISTENT.....I admire Katrina Vanden Heuvel very much and she is way more sincere, honest and trustworthy than the very phony Huffington.
Katrina just doesn't get it. The Nation had endorsed Obama for pres. over Nader or Kucinich. Both had honest, non corporate campaigns, as opposed to Obama's whose top contributor was Goldman Sachs. So here we are, with an amoral charming fake as president and Vanden Heuvel pretending she's something more than a political groupie. She has no claim to intellectual ability. That's gone. Every day she and her fellow political groupies at The Nation continue to pretend Obama, his administration, and the Democrats in power are something more than corporate hacks that are destroying what's left of this country's social fabric, freedoms, ideals, environment and civilian rule.