Among Israelis, Hamas has a reputation for honesty alongside its brutality. Unlike the PA, Hamas doesn’t hide its intentions, nor does it hide its resentment of other Arab groups. So we should take it seriously when Hamas declares that Palestinian Authority prisons are “worse than Israeli occupation prisons with regards to prisoners’ rights.” This, in the wake of the death of a 44-year-old Hamas preacher in a Ramallah prison, just a week after the PA arrested him. According to the report on Ynet,
The Hamas movement received some support from a report by one of the main human rights organizations in the Palestinian Territories, A-Damir – a group that specializes in defending the rights of prisoners. The organization noted that it appears that Barghouti was tortured in a Palestinian intelligence service base and added that the PA group refuse to allow Barghouti to continue medical treatment at a hospital in spite of doctors’ recommendations.
Now, I really do believe that Hamas is an evil organization, and that its preachings of terror and violence are a serious threat. But one has to wonder why we have not heard more about conditions in Palestinian prisons, and whether international human rights organizations, which spill so much ink in addressing American and Israeli prisons, will take a serious look at what happens in places where there is no “occupation.”
Obama could just as easily claim that he supported the surge from the beginning. Or even that it was his idea in the first place. It’s not as if his disciples would turn on him for that.
Well, *some* of them would, but an equal number would play along with it if they perceived some political advantage in doing so, and an even larger number doesn’t even pay attention to these things anyway…
I’ll dutifully hold my breath waiting for the intellectually bankrupt left to admit the painfully obvious. To quote one of the lefts heroes “The obscure we see eventually, the obvious takes much longer.” Edward R. Murrow. If only Keith Uberman possessed the intellectual curiousity to plumb the depths of that statement. I await history’s judgement on GWB. The present hair burners do not possess the intellect, distance or curiousity to render anything sensicle at this time.
I guess Beinart is recommending a “modified limited hangout” on intellectual honesty. And it’s not honesty for honesty’s sake. According to Beinart it’s only important so Democrats can better stay in power.
When it counts — being honest with voters, supporting the troops, and not emboldening our enemies — Democrats have made it clear their only loyalty is to their party and their power.
I guess this honesty is better than none, but not much better.
As modest and self-serving as Beinart’s recommendation is that Democrats should admit that the surge worked lest Democrats fall prey to hubris for “being proven right too many times”(!), who wants to bet that Democrats will take that even that small step?
No, Democratic hubris has already grown large and malignant. One has only to think back to Obama’s speeches (“the oceans will stop rising”) to realize it. Even Beinart has his surfeit on display.
http://www.liveeverett.com/Portals/3/flying%20pig.jpg
Here’s the problem for Beinart. If the Iraq war was fundamentally mistaken then what is the value of the success of the surge. To acknowledge the success of the surge, it is acknowledge some fundamental significance to US success. For Beinart and the Obamatons this is not possible. Except for most of the Obamatons, this is a sincerely held position borne of an overwhelming anxiety. It is Beinart who is trying to have it both ways. If the Dems acknowledge the success of the surge, then should the situation in Iraq deteriorate they will have to decide whether or not to surge again or withdraw quickly. Needless to say, this decision has already been made. It is one reason why the surprise will be that Obama pulls out much more quickly than expected. The sooner the US is out of Iraq, the better of the Dems. The longer we stay in Iraq, the more likely the Dems will be held accountable for a defeat.
If liberals are supposed to admit that the surge was awesome and they were wrong, will conservatives admit that starting the Iraq war on false pretenses was the dumbest American foreign policy move in history? No? Never mind…
I presume you have a top 10? I’m wondering what they would be. Might help us understand what this particular variation on the familiar leftwing cliche is really supposed to mean. So, 2 through 9 on “dumbest American foreign policy moves” – what are they? Or are you just passing on something that you heard somewhere else, that you actually have no idea how to justify? If so, who’s your authority?
CK MacLeod – franglo is just parroting what he hears, like most of the leftist hair-burners. It’s very doubtful he can even explain why (in his opinion) Iraq was a dumb American foreign policy move without invoking MSM mythology.
Right! No party has a monopoly on political wisdom. One party does, however, have a jealously-guarded monopoly on bigotry, slander, character assassination, , extortion, duress, and consorting with criminals. It’s been hidden. growing in dark, out of the way places. It is now about to become rampant, and some really twisted personalities are going to bloom, like the buds on Audrey II at the end of Little Shop of Horrors. I always did, really, want George Soros and Michael Moore for my tribunes.
I never witnessed anything like what they did to Sarah Palin. Now they will do it to us.
No crisis shall be wasted.
Seems like an awfully convenient epiphany. It justifies President-elect Obama’s continuation of the policies or even, possibly, delaying withdrawals. My guess is that Beinart wouldn’t have written it had the election turned out differently.
“Today, by contrast, it is conservatives who have been proven wrong again and again. Politically and intellectually, the right is discredited, and the arguments of its rump minority in Congress will be easy to dismiss. Liberal self-confidence is sky-high.”
That’s quite a statement. If the conservatives have indeed been proven wrong, does that make the utopians right? Does a 52.9%-45.7% popular vote advantage mean that the right is politically discredited? In what way are the utopians intellectually supeior to conservatives or, for that matter, the cargo cultists of New Guinea?
Beinart’s essay is a preening, vacuous, inconsequential attempt to fill column inches.
One party does, however, have a jealously-guarded monopoly on bigotry, slander, character assassination, extortion, duress, and consorting with criminals.
That’s not true. Democrats do those things from time to time, too.
Please show me someone who is willing to acknowledge a single Bush achievement without simultaneously paying fealty to every liberal dogma along the way — in order to avoid excommunication by his peers. Beinart took out his political calculator and decided BDS really looks a little ugly. Advice laced with insults and disclaimers is no peace offering.
What irritates me the most, however, is that folks like Beinart still refuse to describe the surge as anything other than putting more boots on the ground. That’s no acknowledgement! It’s more like saying Bush could have won the war much sooner (had he taken Shinseki’s advice!), and even that wouldn’t have been enough if he hadn’t lucked into the Awakening.
Sheesh.
Kudos to Beinart but I don’t think he’s going to be leading a large group of people admitting they were wrong. It seems obvious to be that many on the left opposed the surge not because they thought it would be futile and wasteful, but because they didn’t want us to win the war. This was sometimes for ideological reasons and sometimes because they were more interested in lashing Bush than deal with the merits of the case.
Despite their plaintive cries about the poor and oppressed people of Iraq, they had no interest in Iraq per se and were more interested in Bush failing and be seen to fail than in anything that might happen in Iraq. It’s one of the manyr easons why I am a former Democrat: large elements in the Democratic Party were rooting against American arms for political reasons. Michael Moore compared the insurgents favorably to the Minutemen and expressed the hope that they’d win; if he’s been read out of the party I missed it.
beinart supported the war initially.
I am not inclined to give Beinart any credit at all. His argument is essentially a selfish one. He believes that it benefits his side to admit error, so error should be admitted. Were there no such benefits he would refuse to admit error.
Before, Beinart’s position was corrupt because it was based on a lie. It is even more corrupt now because he is motivated to admit to being a liar only out of self-interest.