Weighing Detention and Democracy Posted by Suzanne Nossel

The report in today's New York Times seems to make it official:  for all of the power of the American media, American products, the lure of democracy and the "public diplomacy" efforts made over the last few years, the U.S.'s image in the Muslim world is increasingly defined by the abuses at Guantanamo Bay and other U.S. detention facilities around the world.   One of the key points of proof cited is:

In one of Pakistan's most exclusive private schools for boys, the annual play this year was "Guantánamo," a docudrama based on testimonies of prisoners in Guantánamo Bay, the United States naval base in Cuba.

The play is not something Pakistani teachers dreamed up.  It was written by British dramatists Victoria Brittain and Gillian Slovo (the article does not mention that Gillian Slovo is the daughter of Joe Slovo - one of the most prominent leaders of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa; I believe Slovo was the highest ranking white person in the ANC). 

This is a good illustration of a point discussed here a week or so back:  that so-called liberal anti-Americanism -- the sort of righteous indignation of Germans, Canadians, Australians and even Brits - - can bleed over to influence attitudes in parts of the world where anti-Americanism can get violent.  So we shouldn't be so quick to dismiss our friends' distaste for what we do as minor spats between friends that will have no larger impact.

A series of events and revelations this week have laid bare the dark side of the inroads the U.S. has supposedly been making in the Arab and Muslim worlds.   Hamid Karzai has expressed shock over gory revelations in yesterday's Times about the torture that proceeded deaths of two Afghani prisoners in the notorious Bagram detention center maintained by U.S. troops in Afghanistan. 

Despite autopsy findings that the two men had died of homicide, army investigators originally proposed closing the cases without bringing any criminal charges.   It took two years for senior army personnel to get to the truth, leading to charges against seven soldiers.   From the sound of things, only when the New York Times got onto the case, did the army realize they wouldn't get away with utter inaction.

Karzai has said that the Afghan government now wants custody of all detainees held in-country.  Given the supposed intelligence value of these suspects and sources, its hard to imagine the U.S. military acceding.

The consensus now seems to be that Newsweek's retraction of the Koran flushing story had little impact, because it was accompanied by confirmation that, toilets aside, desecration of the holy book was one among many appalling violations to the rights and dignity of Guantanamo inmates.

I believe that some progress toward greater freedom is underway in the Middle East, and that this may eventually affect the broader Muslim world.    I say so based on the accounts of people from the region and people who know the region well and have traveled there recently.  Its this sort of statement, excerpted from a very interesting op-ed on enfolding Islamists into democracy written by Egyptian human rights activist, dissident and now presidential candidate Saad Eddin Ibrahim that convinces me:

Whether we are in fact seeing an "Arab spring" or a mirage depends on where you stand. Many in the Middle East, having been betrayed in the past, cannot be blamed for fearing that this is an illusion, and remembering other spring stirrings of democracy - like Budapest in 1956, Prague in 1968 and Tiananmen Square in 1989 - that were brutally crushed while the world looked on.

For me, however, something about events of the past few months feels new and irreversible. Too many people in too many places - Egypt, Iran, Lebanon and elsewhere - are defying their oppressors and taking risks for freedom. Across the region the shouts of "Kifiya!" - "Enough!" - have become a rallying cry against dictators.

I find Fouad Ajami's assessments, in this April article and in a more recent Wall Street Journal op-ed likewise convincing.  Like Ajami, I believe the Bush Administration's policy - mainly ousting Saddam and freezing out Arafat - have played an important role in this.

But the revelations about egregious human rights violations being perpetrated and condoned or at least swept under a rug at U.S. detention facilities put all the progress at risk:

- They embolden radicals who hate the U.S. and make it easier for them to recruit and mobilize;

- They sow doubts among ordinary citizens about what many see as U.S. values - ideas like liberty and democracy become tainted by association with lawlessness, brutality, lack of respect for religion and human dignity and lack of accountability.

The question at this point is whether its two steps forward one step back, or the opposite.  Is the progress being made toward democracy ultimately more powerful than the impact of these revelations?  The Administration's answer is a resounding yes - how can anyone doubt that liberalization at long last in the Arab world matters more than a few bad apples at Abu Ghraib and Bagram and Guantanamo.

One part of the answer may lie in a concept introduced by Shibley Telhami.  It's the notion that each population must be understood through their "prism of pain."  The prism is the thing most compelling and distressing to them, and provides the lens through which they tend to view everything else.  For Jews the prism might be the Holocaust.  For African Americans perhaps slavery.  For many Arab Muslims the Israeli occupation.   For Americans in recent years, 9/11.

My suspicion is that the abuses at the U.S. led detention centers are viewed through a prism of pain tied to the experience of repression throughout the Muslim world.  All these peoples have lived under repressive governments, for which abuse of detainees was one among untold forms of human rights abuses.   

Through this lens, albeit perhaps distorted, acts of repression look much larger than acts of liberation.  Going on that theory, it may take a lot more than a few elections to undo the damage being inflicted by a group of army interrogators and those that give them their orders.

Red Cross in the Cross-Hairs Posted by Suzanne Nossel

So here's the question:  the International Committee of the Red Cross has now come forward and said that they alerted the Pentagon to various forms of desecration of the Koran occurring at Guantanamo.  They don't go into whether this included flushing the holy book down the toilet.  The spokesman cryptically states:

"We're basically referring in general terms to disrespect of the Quran, and that's where we leave it," Schorno told The Associated Press. "We believe that since, U.S. authorities have taken the corrective measures that we required in our interventions."

It's hard not to surmise that the vagueness may be driven by a concern that confirming the allegations reported by Newsweek might lead to more bloodshed.   Is it incumbent on the organization to come forward with specifics based on their investigations, or are they justified in simply alluding to the fact that abuses may have taken place?  Maybe they've concluded that a few weeks or months from now, once tempers have calmed, further details can safely emerge.

Assuming that Newsweek may have been able to corroborate their earlier, poorly sourced reporting on this subject, they could be left in the impossible position of either being blamed by some for the deaths that have occurred thus far, or coming forward with information that might lead to further mayhem and killings. 

Given the choice, will we and should we let truth be the casualty here?

Small Signs that Reason Can Prevail Over Extremism Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Sari Nusseibeh has long been one of the most level-headed and forward leaning Palestinian leaders around.  Now, as President of the West Bank's al Quds University he has joined with Menachem Magidor, the President of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, to call for the British Association of University Teachers to end a boycott of Israeli Universities enacted at the behest of 60 Palestinian organizations.

Nusseibeh said this:

"The reason I don't believe the boycott is the way to go is that I believe peace must be built on the bridge between two civil societies," Professor Nusseibeh said.

While some people believed that one way to deal with Israelis was "to bash them on their heads," he said, "the other way is to reach to their hearts, and it's the reaching out that's important."

Speaking separately, Professor Magidor said: "Academic cooperation is extremely important for creating the infrastructure for, eventually, a peaceful Middle East. What people don't realize sometimes is that while you report a lot about the violence and confrontation, there is below the screen a lot of academic research and collaboration going on."

This is exactly right.  Reconciling divided societies depends heavily on wresting individuals away from the extremes by giving them a stake in the center, and building on the relationships that quietly develop between ordinary people who have something to gain from cooperation and even more to gain from peace and normalcy.  It shouldn't take a don understand that.

Now Who's Strong on Defense? Posted by Michael Signer

From the hard-working Tommy Ross at Byron Dorgan's Democratic Policy Committee, the following installment in our C'mon-You've-Got-To-Be-Kidding-Me Category: 

As the DPC's analysis of H.R. 1268, the Emergency Supplemental Act on Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Tsunami Relief, 2005 shows, progressives in Congress are doing more to protect our military than their "conservative" counterparts.

Let's do this in bullet form.

-  Senator Murray (D-WA) introduced an amendment to give an additional $1.98 billion in additional funding to the Department of Veterans Affairs, including over $600 million to help address a health care crisis in the VA system.  The measure was defeated by Republicans.

-  Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN) introduced an amendment to research the current need for heavily-armored Humvees, and to provide $213 million to procure more of them.  The amendment passed, despite the opposition of dozens of Republicans.

-  Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) passed an amendment to require the federal government to equalize the gap between civilian and active duty salaries for federal employees mobilized for duty.  The amendment passed the Senate -- then, guess what, Republicans removed the amendment in the final budget report.

-  Senator John Kerry (D-MA) introduced a successful Senate amendment to extend housing allowances for families of deceased service members, and another amendment to increase President Bush's paltry death gratuity of $12,000 to $100,000. 

OK -- those are the weenies.  Look at them, sniffling and wiping their noses with their sleeves.  Now, check out how the Daddy Party flexes its big muscles:

-  On the four amendments above, no fewer than 25 conservatives voted against each. 

-  And seventeen of them -- EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM FROM A RED STATE -- voted against every single one of the four amendments above.

-  Who were they?  Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), Majority Whip Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and Senators Wayne Allard(R-CO), Robert Bennett (R-UT), Kit Bond (R-MO), Jim Bunning (R-KY), Richard Burr (R-NC), Thad Cochran (R-MS), John Cornyn (R-TX), Jim DeMint (R-SC), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Richard Shelby (R-AL), Ted Stevens (R-AK), and George Voinovich (R-OH).

So what's going on here?  Most likely, a combination of blind partisanship -- anything to deny a Dem a win -- and chicken-hawkism -- only war sells, not taking care of the people who actually have to fight. 

The fact that these Senators are from red states shows they're taking their voters for granted -- coasting on cultural posturing and division.

A lantern like this should reveal a path out of the wilderness.  We've seen conservatives before retreating into nationalism and defeatism -- just think about the Republican Party in the 1930's and 1940's -- and turning away from the real Americans who defend our country.  We've also seen Democrats formulate strong, engaged policies that united our fighters and our foreign policy -- just think John F. Kennedy in the early 1960's.

They can only fool America for so long.  It's time the joke was over.

Afraid of Our Own Ideas Posted by Suzanne Nossel

I agree with Derek that Bush gave a good speech last night.  I really like his idea for an Active Response Corps.  It bears a fair resemblance to the Stabilization Corps that I recommended be created in this March, 2004 Foreign Affairs article and then again here on Democracy Arsenal.  As Derek points out, many others have been arguing along similar lines.

Here's the interesting thing.  Given the amount of attention to the need to beef up post-conflict capabilities within progressive circles, I am sure I wasn't the only one trying to convince top foreign policy advisers to the Kerry campaign that the candidate should get out in front with a bold proposal along these lines.  That kind of proposal would have been creative, timely, and the sort of bold initiative that could have gotten people excited. 

But the campaign never made an ambitious proposal along these lines.  Why? 

Progressives have been so caught up in trying to establish their bona fides as anti-terror, anti-WMD hawks that many shy away from any issue or idea that could come off as soft.  Talk of a stabilization corps is put aside in favor of emphasis on enlarging the military.  I fear the same effect is at play on Darfur, where now that its been revealed that the Sudanese are aiding in the war on terror, the demands for action to end the killings seem a bit more muted.   

There was plenty of this en route to Iraq.  Though some harbored doubts about the the evidence on Saddam's WMD and criticized Bush's attempt to steamroll the UN, there was fear that particularly if the war turned out to be relatively quick and bloodless, those who opposed it would look like wimps.

A lot of keystrokes have been devoted to the need for progressives to become better educated about and more comfortable with the use of force.   All of us here, and indeed most progressives - be they in the think tanks, the Congress, or the grass roots - believe that U.S. military intervention is an essential part of the foreign policy toolbox in a variety of situations.   We need to keep making that point, and refining our ideas about the fighting terror, containing WMD and improving U.S. military capabilities.

But this cannot be the sum total of progressive foreign policy.  If it is, we will find ourselves drawing relatively fine distinctions between our own ideas and Bush's, and trying to be convincing on a set of issues where you cannot be put to the test while you're on the sidelines. 

Progressives should not be afraid to put forward bold foreign policy positions because they don't relate to the narrow set of security issues that have helped keep conservatives in power.  The longer we do so, the more ground conservatives will gain in appropriating and refashioning agendas - like the promotion of freedom and democracy - that traditionally belonged to us.

To go back to the stabilization corps, there's room for progressives to go a lot further than Bush has.   His Active Response Corps is limited to foreign and civil service officers and volunteers, but should be expanded to include paid workers with far wider backgrounds and skill sets (engineers, builders, etc.).  Properly done, such a force could draw into government service whole populations that wouldn't consider joining the military, thus alleviating some of the burden on our armed forces.  The allocation of just $24 million to fund this effort is a warning sign that Bush doesn't really take the matter seriously. 

Progressives can refine and build on what Bush has proffered.  But next time we shouldn't be afraid to propose it first ourselves.

Good for Bush Posted by Derek Chollet

It isn’t often that we at DA heap praise on the President, but today he deserves some.  Last night at an event hosted by the International Republican Institute, he gave a pretty good speech on the importance of democracy and freedom.  But most interesting, he spoke at length about the importance of an issue that his administration once derided, nation-building, and how we have to build our civilian capacity to help war-torn states get back on their feet.  He described a new office the State Department created last summer to be the locus of forward planning and preparation for post-conflict situations (remember, the State Department was cut-out or largely ignored in the planning for Iraq), and described in detail an important new initiative: to create a new corps of civilian post-conflict “first responders,” called an Active Response Corps.

It is worth quoting in full:

“We must also improve the responsiveness of our government to help nations emerging from tyranny and war. Democratic change can arrive suddenly -- and that means our government must be able to move quickly to provide needed assistance. So last summer, my administration established a new Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization in the State Department, led by Ambassador Carlos Pascual. This new office is charged with coordinating our government's civilian efforts to meet an essential mission: helping the world's newest democracies make the transition to peace and freedom and a market economy.

You know, one of the lessons we learned from our experience in Iraq is that, while military personnel can be rapidly deployed anywhere in the world, the same is not true of U.S. government civilians. Many fine civilian workers from almost every department of our government volunteered to serve in Iraq. When they got there they did an amazing job under extremely difficult and dangerous circumstances -- and America appreciates their service and sacrifice. But the process of recruiting and staffing the Coalition Provisional Authority was lengthy and it was difficult. That's why one of the first projects of the new Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization is to create a new Active Response Corps, made up of foreign and civil service officers who can deploy quickly to crisis situations as civilian "first responders." This new Corps will be on call -- ready to get programs running on the ground in days and weeks, instead of months and years. The 2006 budget requests $24 million for this office, and $100 million for a new Conflict Response Fund. If a crisis emerges, and assistance is needed, the United States of America will be ready. (Applause.)

This office will also work to expand our use of civilian volunteers from outside our government, who have the right skills and are willing to serve in these missions. After the liberation of Iraq and Afghanistan, Americans from all walks of life stepped forward to help these newly liberated nations recover. Last summer a Lancaster, Ohio police officer named Brian Fisher volunteered to spend a year in Baghdad training Iraqi police. Brian says, "The Iraqi people have been under a dictatorship and now they are moving toward democracy, and I want to do something to help." What a fantastic spirit that Brian showed. But he's not alone. Last May, a Notre Dame Law School professor named Jimmy Gurul helped train 39 Iraqi judges, some of whom will conduct the trials of Saddam Hussein and other senior members of his regime. Because of efforts of people like him and Brian, these trials will be fair and transparent.

These are ordinary Americans who are making unbelievable contributions to freedom's cause. And the spirit of the citizenship of this country is remarkable, and we're going to put that spirit to work to advance the cause of liberty and to build a safer world. (Applause.)”

For years, many in the think-tank world as well as Democratic and Republican members of Congress have been talking about such ideas, and we can justifiably criticize the Administration for being slow on the uptake.  And remembering this Administration’s penchant for making bold promises and then letting them go unfulfilled (think global HIV/AIDS assistance), we need to ensure that actions match rhetoric.  But last night’s statement is an important start.

Boots and Pumps Posted by Suzanne Nossel

The problems being discussed here and here aren't going to get solved on their own.  The Generals in charge of the military operation in Iraq now report that a recent rise in the insurgency and delays training Iraqi troops and police mean the U.S. military won't be able to draw down below current troop levels of 138,000 anytime soon.

Close Encounters Posted by Suzanne Nossel

So Derek is writing about a bi-partisan Congressional group's call to add 100,000 troops to the U.S. army and Lorelei is arguing that we need to reallocate funds to beef up up other agencies to help shoulder pressing challenges now shouldered by the military.  Meanwhile the Pentagon is spending untold billions - and proposing to appropriate far more - on offensive and defensive weapons in space.  The NY Times reports:

The Air Force believes "we must establish and maintain space superiority," Gen. Lance Lord, who leads the Air Force Space Command, told Congress recently. "Simply put, it's the American way of fighting." Air Force doctrine defines space superiority as "freedom to attack as well as freedom from attack" in space.

Never mind that no one has ever attacked us from space, nor has or is building the means to do so.  Never mind that the $100 billion already spent on a "Star Wars" missile shield has failed to yield a functioning technology.  Never mind that, based on my confessedly limited knowledge of the Judeo-Christian tradition, space was supposed to be god's realm, not man's.

Some of the proposed programs to be developed include:

Another Air Force space program, nicknamed Rods From God, aims to hurl cylinders of tungsten, titanium or uranium from the edge of space to destroy targets on the ground, striking at speeds of about 7,200 miles an hour with the force of a small nuclear weapon.

A third program would bounce laser beams off mirrors hung from space satellites or huge high-altitude blimps, redirecting the lethal rays down to targets around the world. A fourth seeks to turn radio waves into weapons whose powers could range "from tap on the shoulder to toast," in the words of an Air Force plan.

Speaking of Star Wars, can it really be coincidence that this is being pushed to coincide with the final Star Wars Revenge of the Sith release?  Having learned what to expect from Karl Rove, I doubt it.

Democracies Combating Terrorism Posted by Suzanne Nossel

The Security and Peace Institute held an excellent seminar on this topic today in New York City.  The most provocative and sobering part of the day was a panel discussion on the tension between the war on terror and the protection of civil liberties.  Richard Ben-Veniste, late of 9/11 Commission fame, laid out how easy it is for a government to use fear to lure people into giving up their freedoms voluntarily to a point where there is no reclaiming them.  He ended with this quote:

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."

It was a statement by Hermann Goering at the Nuremberg trials.   Next up was former Congressman Mickey Edwards, a conservative Republican who put the onus squarely on the Congress to stand up for civil liberties in the face of executive overreach. 

Then Professor Jenny Martinez of Stanford laid out four imperatives for a detention regime in a democracy:  1) a law governing detentions; 2) a mechanism for judicial review of the application of the law; 3) a set of human rights standards applied to detainees; 4) transparency so that the public and the media can monitor how the system works.   The U.S. has none of this (we do have a law governing detentions, the U.S. constitution, but by declaring some detainees "enemy combatants" the government has argued that constitutional protections and habeas corpus do not apply - the Supreme Court disagrees, but this is one area where its far from certain which branch will get the last word in practice).

Professor Cherif Bassiouni of DePaul University, whose ouster as the UN's Expert on human rights in Afghanistan is discussed here, then weighed in to say that he differed from the other 3 panelists only in his view that the Administration is not well-intended when it comes to preserving civil liberties.  He gave a host of examples from his work in Afghanistan, including the U.S.'s practice of extraordinary rendition, which means turning over detainees for interrogation in countries that we know practice torure.   

My question to the panel was how do we build a political constituency to fight against all this?  Detainees are a voiceless population.  The media has very limited access to what's happening at Guantanamo, much less detention facilities that the U.S. maintains in Afghanistan and Iraq (moreover, after the Newsweek debacle, they will likely be more circumspect in what they report). 

The panel's reply was that there's a way to make the case to the American people that the war on terror can be fought effectively without resorting to these tactics.  That's true, but until they are detaining our children, parents, and friends, there will be no pressing reason for ordinary people to demand the less repressive alternative. 

The same point, of course, is true relative to so many issues we talk about here.  We are confounded by how to get the broader public to understand the ill-consequences of the U.S.'s approach in Iraq, its manipulation of intelligence, its high-handedness at the UN and other multilateral forums, its misuse of the military. 

You might think that the riots in the Muslim world last week would be a wake up call about the resentment caused by US detention practices, but rather than taking a hard look at what's behind the reaction, the Administration blames it all on Newsweek.

What will it take to turn this around?  This may be naive, but I believe that bit by bit the American public is waking up to the painful boomerang effect of many of Bush's policies.   

They worry that we'll soon learn that the Koran incident actually did happen.  They know that, based on everything reported about Guantanamo, Muslims had reason to believe it even if it wasn't true.  They don't want to live in a world where America's standing is withering like a leaf in winter. 

They see the contradiction between Bush's stand for Sunni minority rights in the Iraqi government, and his trammeling of minority rights in the U.S. Congress back home. 

They were fearful enough to bury all these misgivings for a while, but not forever. 

Boots on the Ground, Pumps Too Posted by Lorelei Kelly

I am on the road this week, visiting my family in New Mexico, so here's my unofficial poll on the latest foreign policy happenings: both seat mates on my flight out here offered unsolicited opinions on John Bolton upon finding out that I work on national security issues. A Republican on my left and an unaffiliated on my right -- after a spirited exchange over the absurdity of it all -- both agreed that the Congress and its conservative leadership is off the tracks and dragging the rest of us unwilling participants along for the ride.

An important contribution to the DA discussion about how to fix our broken legislature: please have a look at "The War Congress: Shouldering the Responsibilities of a US Global Role" (PDF).

This document examines the shocking failure of today's Congress to participate in foreign policy and defense deliberations in a truly meaningful way. It examines the War Powers Act, specifically in the context of congressional actions post 9/11 and the second Iraq war. Author Eugene Kogan depicts the dangers that befall us when committees of jurisdiction become political advocacy venues -- rather than oversight focused.

On expanding the size of the US Army by 100,000 individuals. Although I believe we do need more "boots on the ground", I fear that calling for 100K more troops is just too easy because it assumes that the military -- especially landpower forces -- is the organization that can best solve problems in the post 9/11 world. We have to be more creative than the "more is better" solution. Any additional personnel on the defense side should always be discussed and in fact conditioned upon an integrated strategy of balance between civilian and military tools for engagement.

What do I mean by that?

We need more than boots. In fact, over-reliance on boots may be a primary cause of our public relations problems with the rest of the world. We need loafers, pumps, Birkenstocks, waffle-stompers, sensible flats and tourists in tennis shoes out around the planet… working to retrieve the golden reputation of the good ole USA. The more the face of America is seen in uniform and holding weapons, the less this reputation holds up.

Now, I love the Army as much as anybody, so why do I have a problem with it expanding to carry out ever more duties around the globe? This question needs to be answered with perspective sharing. The American experience with the military institution is by and large positive and mutual. Civilian control over the military is scrupulous and most military officers themselves know democratic principles backwards and forwards.

This is, however, not true for many countries. Just think back two or three decades. In Central and South America, military dictatorships crushed popular participation and democracy. Today, countries where the military is the most functional government organizations are not considered healthy (Pakistan) by any democratic standard. If the United States bills itself as the paragon of democracy, it should model balanced partnership between civilians and the military. Today, as is discussed frequently on this blog, that is just not the case in our tools for engagement.

How about this suggestion? Why doesn't the Army just come out and declare that it will assume a ten year "interim" inter-agency leadership responsibility for our current global challenges...but with the explicit acknowledgment that part of the decade long planning will be to de-militarize our international security policy? During this time, Congress and the federal agencies will work together with the military to set up a time-line and framework for discussion, plus explicit benchmarks for how spending priorities must change. This also means that the military will have to get used to advocating for civilian agencies. I know this is professionally uncomfortable for the uniformed, but we must find a way for this shared responsibility, indeed, this vital national security interest to move forward productively. American landpower professionals have the best stories to tell about how the world has changed. We need to figure out a way for them to inform the process of helping us create better policy. From my discussions with friends in the military, most of them support a variation on the theme of a larger Army…but always with serious caveats about balance and who should be responsible for what. Progressive security policy is to be found in those footnotes. Bonus: it gives the Army ten years to figure out the doctrine for what "fighting and winning the nation's wars" means in today's world.

More on Newsweek Posted by Suzanne Nossel

So now the Administration is calling on Newsweek to undo the "serious consequences" and "lasting damage" of its Koran report.   But with Karen Hughes on leave until the summer and the Administration's public diplomacy [Ed.  There was a typo here helpfully pointed out by Greg Djerejian.  Sorry, Greg, as a Texan might say, its the A'merkin way.  Actually, it was posted consciously to celebrate just how close we are to the 70,000 visitors mark] effort having won little ground, the question is who will undo the "serious consequences" and "lasting damage" of U.S. policies and approaches.

Question 1: Mideast Transformation Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Many thanks to Heather and Derek for intrepidly helping answer the 10 toughies I posed a couple of nights ago. I will try to gradually work through thoughts on several of the others. I also urge everyone to read through the thoughtful comments appended to the original post.

The Middle East

: Isn’t it the case that had a progressive been in the White House, Saddam Hussein would still be in power, with the Middle East as stagnant as ever? Do you now admit that the only way to get the region moving was to dislodge a major dictator and launch at least one important country on the route to transformation? How else would you have gotten change afoot?

Before getting to answers, there are three things that – while highly relevant to an evaluation of the Bush Administration’s Mideast policy – are tangential to the question posed here: 1) the grave mistakes made en route to, and in the occupation of, Iraq; 2) the anti-American backlash triggered by those policies; and 3) the legitimate misgivings over whether the apparent progress in the region is sustainable and significant. 

These points are all important subjects of continuing debate, but they don’t answer the question of how progressives would have gotten the Arab world’s head out of the desert sand. They illustrate the wrong way to go about transformation of the region, but don’t illuminate the right way.

Dana Rohrabacher Got It Right Posted by Heather Hurlburt

You won't catch me typing that very often.  But continuing Suzanne's effort to find common ground with our conservative friends, I want to note that Rohrabacher called it right on Uzbekistan -- and did it while the Administration was still summoning the courage to be "deeply disturbed" about Karimov's use of force.

I caught him regaling NPR listeners about his trip to Uzbekistan just last month, and how he had told President Karimov that he could "leave as a statesman" by allowing a free election for someone else to succeed him, or "leave feet first." 

This time, Rohrabacher understands something too many of our friends in the blogosphere do not -- that there are plenty of options between supporting authoritarian stooges and abandoning a country to extremist rule. 

Or, when it first became obvious a decade ago that Karimov was nobody's idea of a great ruler, there were options.  There were also considerably fewer radical Islamists.  Now there is a powerful, shadowy and highly radical Islamist organization, along with poverty, resentment, heightened ethnic tensions -- all in all, just the place for the US to be building big military installations.

Karimov has squeezed out civil society, peaceful Islam, and other avenues for protest -- and the US military presence makes a mockery of the well-meant efforts of State Department human rights officials to insist that the US really does want change. 

Last July, for example, the US determined that Uzbekistan was not making progress on human rights concerns and cut $18 million in aid.  Just a month later, though, Human Rights Watch says, the Defense Department ponied up an additional $21 million.  If you were Karimov, what would you think?

This is a great opportunity for progressives to stress what we would do differently with respect to two of Suzanne's questions from Drezner readers:  are you for democracy promotion, or not, and what about hypocrisy?

As I have written before, the US will deal with nasty governments in order to preserve our national interests, no matter who is in power.  "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds," Emerson says.  But smart policymakers -- a category that doesn't have to be limited to progressives -- will limit their hypocrisies by being able to ask themselves hard questions.  Such as:

how many of our eggs do we really want in this sleazeball's basket?

given the discouraging Soviet and British precedents, do we really want a long-term heavy-footprint presence in Central Asia?

are we diminishing our long-term prospects by getting ourselves identified too closely with this lousy government in the near term?

And, now that this violence has happened, and Karimov appears to be unrepentantly following up by ordering large-scale arrests:

are we stuck?  if so, what levers do we have, beyond expressing "deep concern," to put the situation on a better track and communicate to Uzbeks who aren't (yet) committed to Islamist revolution that there is another way?

Progressives on democracy promotion:  you promote democracy by increasing, in big ways or small ways, the ability of people to make decisions that affect their own lives.  You don't promote democracy by lecturing about it -- how much did conservatives like being lectured by Europeans about our elections?  You don't promote democracy by installing it by force, as I argued (with some nice company, like Wes Clark) in this month's Washington Monthly.   

100,000 stronger? Posted by Derek Chollet

Suzanne has given us a daunting list of questions to deal with, and I’ll go ahead and dive in to try to address one of the tougher ones – the gap between progressives and the military. 

As we’ve argued here before, I think that this is one of the most consequential problems that progressives have to confront over the next few years.  Having been a part of a Democratic presidential campaign, both during the primaries and the general election, this gap was an eye-opener.  Just an anecdote that illustrated this for me: throughout the 2004 campaign, the favorite parlor game for most national security professionals in the Democratic Party was debating who would be Secretary of State, with most choosing between Holbrooke and Biden.  What was amazing is that for the most part, no one talked about who might become Secretary of Defense – and when asked, no one even had any good ideas. 

One should not make too much of beltway gossiping by a bunch of wannabes, but in retrospect, it is illustrative.  Here we are, a nation at war, with nearly 200,000 troops fighting everyday in Iraq and Afghanistan (which by the way, ladies and gentlemen, would still be there today -- although hopefully with more help – if John Kerry had been elected in November) and we were so focused on our “comfort” issues – diplomacy, etc. – that we were overlooking the most important national security job of the new Administration, the 8000 pound gorilla – DoD. 

Which brings me to a big part of the problem: that too many progressives do not see military issues – or “national security issues” – to be as important as foreign policy issues.  In fact, I think that one reason the relentless focus on the flaws of the Bush Administration’s homeland security policies has come up short politically is that most people are left with the impression that we’d rather just have strong defenses at home rather than take the fight to the bad guys overseas. 

But here’s the opportunity.  Because right now we don’t have enough boots to do much more than we’re doing to take the fight abroad.  The military is under tremendous strain, and nearly every military professional that I’ve met, heard or read over the past few months is deeply worried about “breaking” the all-volunteer force.  This is not just bad for handling today’s challenges – Iraq, Afghanistan, etc – but potential future threats, like North Korea, Iran, or a humanitarian crisis. 

So what do we do?  One way to start the discussion would be to read the recent report by the policy group Third Way, which provides an excellent analysis of the problem and offers a big solution: enlarge the Army by 100,000 troops.  This report -- written by Aaron Scholer, a former Lieberman and Kennedy staffer -- is not too wonky and has lots of interesting tidbits (as well as telling quotes from military brass) about the challenges the military is facing.  The idea behind this report, as with all Third Way work, is to introduce these ideas into legislation in the Senate, so stay tuned.

Newsweek, Cont'd Posted by Michael Signer

More on Newsweek... To paraphrase Chris Matthews from some years ago, talking about the Al-Gore-Is-Stiff meme that captivated most of the mainstream media, jokes work not because of their conclusion, but because of their premise.  It wasn't the specific formulation of Gore's bedevilments (he was Awkward, he was Condescending, he was Boring) that made all of those iterations so funny -- it was the premise behind them:  that the Prince of Tennessee didn't connect with folks.

If this applies to jokes, it also applies to outrages.  Which explains the outrage throughout the Middle East about the Koran-flushing episode. 

We cannot of course retroactively test history, but the reason that Muslims in Afghanistan and Pakistan rioted was not solely, simply, and exclusively because of the toilet episode.  For the Administration and their toadyish media friends to frame the riots this way attempts, ridiculously and disingenously, to unthread this episode from the tangle of preceding events -- from lies on WMD to abuses at Abu Ghraib -- that constitute the premise that drove the riots:  under the Bush Administration, GWOT policy has been one of bullying and condescension, disregard for local values, and a swaggering parade of ten-gallon hats obscuring a disproportionate focus on energy resources.

And it didn't have to be this way.

Just run the counterfactual.  The Middle East is an interconnected web.  Earthquakes in Aghanistan and Pakistan begin with tremors elsewhere.  Would the Koran episode have triggered riots if the Administration ran foreign policy more through professional diplomats at State than military planners at Defense; if the post-invasion regime in Afghanistan had been run more responsibly; if they had engaged in a subtler and less backfire-prone de-Baathification programme in Iraq; if they had worked directly with anti-war forces rather than brushed them aside, fanning the flames of opposition?

If, if, if.

Suzanne, as always, is on the money here, as is Kevin Drum:

As near as I can tell, the Pentagon has demonstrated more genuine outrage over this incident than they did over months and months of disclosures of similar (and worse) actions at Abu Ghraib. It's revolting.

Kevin gets it right.  What's most aggravating about the White House's approach to the Newsweek story so far is its hyper-political opportunism.  It's well-known in Washington that the Bush White House in general has been proud to the point of boasting about how obedient -- as a general matter -- the press corps has been. 

One exception was the Abu Ghraib coverage. 

We can see in the Administration's approach to Newsweek a chops-licking, sloppy wet kiss of the image of the newspaper's mistake (whether the mistake was actually made -- and it would certainly be grievous if it was -- is immaterial to the Administration's strategic use of the mistake). 

They see this as the signal moment to finally put the press, and, by extension, Congress, the U.N., the Hague, and, for that matter, any legacy-makers, on the defensive about Abu Ghraib and other missteps in the GWOT.

And, as far as casting stones goes, as CAP notes, the Administration itself relied on a single, anonymous source for the mobile biological weapons story.  So where's the outrage there?

Roiling Flush Posted by Suzanne Nossel

So the State Department and Pentagon are madder than hell over Newsweek's poorly sourced report on the Koran flushing incident, discussed here and here.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher says: 

"It's appalling, really, that an article that was unfounded to begin with has caused so much harm, including loss of life,

"One would expect, as the facts come out of how this story was written - one would, in fact, expect more than the kind of correction we've seen so far . . . it's very clear to us nonetheless that the effects around the world have been very bad."

White House spokesman Scott McClellan:

"The report has had serious consequences . . . People have lost their lives. The image of the United States abroad has been damaged."

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman:

"Newsweek hid behind anonymous sources, which by their own admission do not withstand scrutiny. Unfortunately, they cannot retract the damage they have done to this nation or those that were viciously attacked by those false allegations."

Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita:

"They owe us all a lot more accountability than they took."

All these quotes were reported in the New York Times.

If in fact the allegations cannot be substantiated than the Newsweek story will go down in the annals of American journalism as a crushing embarrassment and a somber reminder of the life and death consequences of getting the story right.

But there are a couple of other facts worth noting here.  First, the Newsweek story was run by two Pentagon officials prior to publication, neither of whom disputed the Koran charge.  Also, at a press conference last Thursday Joint Chiefs Chairman General Richard Myers minimized the link between the Newsweek story and the Afghan riots, saying that the violence stemmed from other sources.

Two conclusions emerge:  one, that Pentagon officials did not think the Koran allegations so far-fetched as to question them; two, that there's enough anti-American sentiment and unrest in Afghanistan that Myers didn't think the Koran provocation mattered all that much as part of the mix.

The larger point is that we best not let our indignation over faulty journalism blind them to the circumstances that rendered the Newsweek story the firebomb it became.    After all, 60 Minutes reported just a week ago about menstrual blood being used in Gitmo detentions, an allegation that seems comparably inflammatory, and one that I don't think elicited a peep of rebuttal. 

We have created an environment in which the Koran story seemed credible to those who heard it, including savvy journalists and military officials, and where anti-American riots may not need any special provocation. 

Less than a week ago I wrote this on Dan's blog:

One of the most serious consequences of the U.S.'s lapses in upholding the human rights and related standards that we purport to represent is that we play into the hands of those who claim that our ideals are empty or hypocritical. We allow them to call into quesetion the promise that our principles signify in the minds of their populations. We sow doubts in the minds of people that would otherwise tend to cleave in the values the U.S. stands for, rather than listening to the promises of corrupt leaders.[Ed. I just added this para from the original post on Drezner to make clear that, despite what I say immediately below, I don't regard the Abu Ghraib abuses as purely individual acts - I think the blame has to be a lot broader than that.  I should have said in the sentence below "Some may . . ." rather than "We can . . ."]

We can write off Abu Ghraib as the work of a few misfits. But in the eyes of much of the rest of the world the abuses were linked to a pattern of disregard for international norms governing the treatment of detainees.

Particularly given our under-investment in public diplomacy, we have limited ability to shape how our actions are seen from the outside. When we are seen as not taking the problem seriously, that adds further fuel to the fire of those trying to fan skepticism about American motives.

Though we may not always see the link, I suspect we will be living with the consequences of Abu Ghraib for a long time to come in the form of charges of hypocrisy, doubts about American sincerity, and a sense around the world that America does not hold itself to the standards it would impose on others.

Lawrence DiRita is demanding accountability from Newsweek, but when the Abu Ghraib allegations were revealed he said that those implicated were "still only a tiny percentage of the more than 300,000 troops who have served in Iraq" and that "If you look at the tenor of the coverage, it's been focused on policies and procedures that are at best indirectly associated with the activities at that prison."  Hmm.  Not much accountability there.

Newsweek made a blunder that has led to horrific consequences.  But we all know that the reason its mistake was so serious has everything to do with the context in which it occurred, a context of the Administration's making.  DiRita's insistence on accountability from Newsweek would sound a lot less tinny if accompanied by some accountability from the Pentagon's end as well.

[Ed. one key here is that the facts are not yet fully aired on whether or not the toilet incident occurred.  Flushing of the Koran was described in a witness statement taken by a Shearman & Sterling attorney and filed in a pleading in the U.S. Distict Court for the District of Columbia.  That Newsweek's sourcing was inadequate doesn't mean the incident did not happen. I don't think we know for sure yet.]

Weekly Top 10 List – Top 10 Questions Progressives Should be Prepared to Answer Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Last week on Dan Drezner’s blog I posed a series of questions to conservatives and got an avalanche of answers, some snarky but many substantive and thoughtful.  I am planning to eventually return to all those issues, although doing so seriatum was getting a little tedious.

I promised the Dreznerites I would post a companion set of tough questions for progressives to try and answer. Since Dan’s respondents complained about the loaded phrasing of some of my queries, I am going to try to prove I can take about as much as I dish out. I’ll try to get to answers later this week (and, yes, I do think we have answers to all of these - although some are better thought-out and more persuasive than others), and urge my co-blogganists to chime in as well if they care to. Also curious as ever to hear what the commentariat has to say.

1. The Middle East: Isn’t it the case that had a progressive been in the White House, Saddam Hussein would still be in power, with the Middle East as stagnant as ever? Do you now admit that the only way to get the region moving was to dislodge a major dictator and launch at least one important country on the route to transformation? How else would you have gotten change afoot?

2. The UN: Do you honestly believe that an organization as bureaucratic, nepotistic, fractured and politicized as the UN will ever be a trustworthy foreign policy instrument? Your reform prescriptions do not address the fundamental problem of uneven political will to confront key challenges; until that is addressed, isn’t the UN doomed to be a talkshop or worse?

3. Non-Proliferation: What would you really do differently on non-proliferation? Your criticisms center on process more than substance, and its not clear that Bill Clinton’s policies were any more effective than Bush’s. Do you really believe treaties are the answer, and that verification can protect us against dangerous cheaters? You keep saying non-pro's a top priority for you, but how exactly – in a broad sense – would your approach depart from that of the Bush Administration?

4. Democratization: You go on and on about how democracy cannot be forced on other countries.  Does the promotion of democracy belong as a U.S. foreign policy priority and, if so, what's your strategy for getting it done?  Will you do anything beyond lending a helping hand to dissidents and NGOs and hoping for the best?  Don't fledgling democrats expect more from the U.S.; what are you prepared to deliver?  Or have you now decided that democratization is the province of conservatives?

5. Anti-Americanism. How can we be sure you won’t sacrifice American interests out of an urge to be better liked around the world? Don’t you realize that a certain level of resentment against the world’s largest superpower is inevitable? Don’t you see some risk in country’s taking advantage of the U.S. if they believe we are preoccupied with winning other countries’ approval?

6. Overextended Military. If you’re so attuned to the stressed placed on the military and the frustrations that members of the armed forces feel with the current leadership and approach, then how come more servicemembers don’t vote your way? Don’t you realize that all your concern over the need for diplomacy and getting others on board makes the military (and many other citizens) afraid that you won’t be willing to fight back against terrorists and others who threaten us?

7. Hypocrisy. You’re constantly accusing conservatives of failing to match rhetoric with resources when it comes to programs like the Millennium Challenge Account, and of being “hypocritical” in cooperating on terrorism with regimes like Sudan and Saudi Arabia’s, despite their egregious human rights records. Don’t you realize that foreign policy demands tough trade-offs? What makes you say progressives will do a better or more principled job managing the inevitable contradictions?

8. International Law. When push comes to shove, who would you rather have as the arbiter of what’s considered “legal” in international relations – some tribunal, court, or multi-national forum, or the U.S. government? Doesn’t it worry you to vest more and more power in bodies over which the U.S. has no control, and that – while they may have a great many perfectly respectable members – also include countries that are single-mindedly out to get us? I understand why smaller countries want stronger international legal regimes and multilateral organizations (in significant part to hem us in), but isn't the calculus different for the U.S.?

9. Use of Force. Under what circumstances do you think the U.S. is justified using military power without UN imprimatur? Is it only in self-defense? Only when one of the UN Security Council members has what we judge to be a self-interested reason for trying to block what we propose? Is the fact that the rest of the world “just doesn’t get it” enough of a justification for us to act alone? If not, what do we do when others simply refuse to recognize what we view as a real threat?

10. Derek’s point. What’s your agenda? You’re full of criticism and have had a field day with John Bolton, but I haven’t heard many ideas coming from your quarter. If you had to draw up a foreign policy “contract” to offer the American people, what would be in it?

Flushing out the truth Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Since Dan Drezner has returned from Hawaii and ever-so-politely revoked the keys to his castle, I'll update a post I did there on the deadly riots provoked at least in part by a Newsweek report of interrogators at Guantanamo flushing a copy of the Koran down a toilet.

Newsweek now says that its report was wrong, and that the source of the supposed incident is unable to confirm that it occurred.  So far the riots sparked by the report have killed 16 and wounded 100.  Today Afghan Muslim clerics reportedly called for a holy war against the United States.  It sounds as though Newsweek may not have actually gotten to the bottom yet of whether the incident happened, but is trying to tamp down the chaos by disavowing its thinly sourced earlier report.

One question from a policy standpoint is whether, if an incident just like this had occurred at one of several points in the past:  say before 9/11; before the Afghan invasion; before the Iraq invasion; before the occupation of Iraq and the rise of the insurgency - - the reaction in the Muslim world would have been the same.  I'm not sure the answer, but there's reason to believe that hostile attitudes have only intensified.  Either way its a pretty terrifying situation when one spotty news report can ignite a region into anti-American rage.   

It will be interesting to see whether the recantation calms things down.  There's plenty more at play here than just the Gitmo incident - concerns about an ongoing US military presence in Afghanistan, Taliban and al Qaeda holdovers, internal Afghan political factionism, and even possible links to Iran.  The Bush Administration prides itself on having spread democracy in Afghanistan and the Middle East (and as I've said before I think he deserves some credit on that score).  But this week's demonstrations suggest its far too early to declare victory just about anywhere.

Blogging on Blogging Posted by Suzanne Nossel

I've resisted the temptation to blog on blogging, but since my husband David has burst into the mainstream media after just a week at the keyboard, I am going to indulge just this once.

This is for any NY Times newcomers to the site, and anyone at all.

I started DemocracyArsenal.org about two months ago with the support of the Century Foundation and the Center for American Progress through a joint organization they've created called the Security and Peace Institute.  Since I have a day job and a 9-month old I invited 4 of the sharpest and most creative young thinkers on these issues (all of whom have distinguished avocations galore) to join forces.

Our goal is to offer a progressive take on US foreign policy.  We're not trying to accomplish what others - Kevin Drum and Laura Rozen, for example - do so well in keeping a running narrative tagged to the latest news.   Nor do I think we'll wind up mounting the kinds of amazingly effective one-man lobbying campaigns that Josh Marshall pioneered on social security and that Steve Clemons has been waging so relentlessly on the Bolton nomination.

Our goal is to surface and analyze issues that are part of the progressive critique of Bush's foreign policy or, even more importantly, explain how we would approach things differently.   We're trying to broaden the conversation on these issues and also, ultimately, to drive new ideas and positions.

We've been described as wonky but I don't take that personally because at least part of the time we're trying for something that the blogosphere doesn't always do well:  namely, depth.

Over the past couple months we've covered a dizzying array of topics - lots on Bolton, but also some in-depth looks at what UN reform does and ought to mean; a lot on the military; on non-proliferation; Iraq; Democratization; South America; Zimbabwe; human rights (check out the category links on the left-hand side of the site).  If it matters to U.S. foreign policy and it hasn't been dealt with yet, it will be.

Unlike my husband, I am besotted with the blogosphere.   Although I am outside DC and not working in foreign policy, I get to debate the issues I care about with a knowledgeable group of people every single day (actually night - I am a bat of the blogosphere in that most everything I do happens between the hours of 8 PM when a certain 9-month hold hits the crib and 8.30 AM when I morph into a corporate suit).   

I can blog for 10 minutes or 3 hours.  I can research as much or as little as I care to (though if I opt for the latter, its at the risk of an occasionally embarrassing comeuppance in comment form).  I can pick up on a thread from a fellow Arsenalist or another blog, or I can start my own and try to suck others in. 

I don't have to laboriously restate points already made in order to build on them, I just link.  I don't have to fully spell out someone's argument in order to take it apart - I can let readers look for themselves.

In a strange way, I also feel like I've made some friends here.   Matthew Yglesias who, as far as I can tell, is some sort of youthful prodigy who knows more than most on just about everything and must blog to the point of collapse every day, seems to read and care about what's on our blog.  I love him for it.  I had never met or emailed with Dan Drezner before he lent me the keys to his blog, but I hope someday soon I will.

In my view, for those interested in current affairs its just a matter of time before the spontaneity, interactivity, immediacy, and scope of the biosphere becomes more addictive than any other information source.  The problems of reliability and sourcing will probably get worse before they get better, but they won't hold back the momentum.

The fact that the NY Times saw fit to cover my and David's guest blogging stint as if it were the equivalent of Joan Rivers debuting as a stand-in for Carson says a lot.  The next time the Times has a headline like this With Vigorous Defense, Arsenal Stays Open, hopefully they'll be writing about us.

Husband, Wife and 2.2 Blogs Posted by Suzanne Nossel

New York Times, Sunday May 15 2005

By DAVID GREENBERG

"YOU should have a blog."

Apparently I push my opinions on my friends rather aggressively, because I often hear this remark.

Last week, I had my chance. My wife and I agreed to be "guest bloggers" - the online equivalent of what David Brenner used to do for Johnny Carson - for Dan Drezner, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, who runs a popular libertarian-conservative blog, DanielDrezner.com.

How hard could blogging be? You roll out of bed, turn on your computer, scan the headlines, think up some clever analysis while brushing your teeth, type it onto your site and you're off.

But as I discovered, blogging is no longer for amateurs or the faint of heart. Blogging - if it's done well - has evolved into an all-consuming art.

Last Sunday, after a cup of coffee, I made my first offering, a smart critique, I thought, of an article about liberal politics in The New York Review of Books by Thomas Frank, the author of "What's the Matter With Kansas?"

I checked back a while later. There were, I think, three responses. Later, another post generated eight replies. Another, two. A couple got zero.

I checked the responses to Dan's posts. He seemed to average about 50. Sure, my wife, Suzanne, had been blogging for weeks on her own site, democracyarsenal.org, but still how was she getting 12, 19, even 34 replies?

I started to worry. It wasn't just my ego. I didn't want to send Dan's robust traffic numbers into a downward plunge.

As I thought about what else to opine about, I started to see that blogging wasn't as easy as it looked. Who were these people, blogging on other sites, who so confidently tossed about obscure minutiae relating to North Korea's nuclear program or President Bush's proposed revisions to Social Security benefits? Where did they find the time? (To say nothing of the readers.)

Serious bloggers, I realized, aggressively report a pet issue, updating their sites throughout the day. They scavenge the Internet for every shard of information on a hot topic, like John R. Bolton's chances of becoming ambassador to the United Nations or Tom DeLay's ethical troubles.

Since I wasn't going to make myself expert on these subjects anytime soon, I decided to write about what I knew, history.

On Tuesday, I posted a link to a piece I'd written for the online magazine Slate, faulting President Bush for his remarks criticizing the 1945 Yalta agreement, in which he said that Europe was unjustly carved up by Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin.

This time I got a lot of responses - abusive ones. Sample: "Anyone who thinks its 'ugly' to point out what was done to millions of people at Yalta is a moral cretin."

I posted again to clarify my point - that the Yalta agreement wasn't what consigned Eastern Europe to Soviet oppression. But I wasn't looking forward to the next fusillade of invective.

I did have sympathy for the audience. They expected their usual diet of conservative commentary. Instead, they got a liberal foreign policy expert (Suzanne) and a liberal historian linking to Arts & Letters Daily (aldaily.com) and the History News Network (hnn.us).

One Dreznerite vilified me for linking to a piece by the liberal journalist Joe Conason ("Why on earth would you think that gutter-dwelling hack would have any credibility on this blog?").

At one point, Dan took time out from real surfing in Hawaii to post a note informing readers that he had two liberals subbing for him. He must have been watching the train wreck on his beloved blog with horror.

I posted an item thanking readers for their indulgence.

"Could you please stop with these silly remarks about how you 'liberals' have to deal with Dan's 'conservative' readers?" came the reply. "I'm liberal, and I regularly read Dan's blog."

As I checked other sites for ideas, I now realized that I didn't need only new information. I needed a gimmick - a motif or a running joke that would keep the blog rolling all week. All of a sudden, I was reading other blogs, not for what they had to say, but for how they said it.

The best bloggers develop hobbyhorses, shticks and catchphrases that they put into wider circulation. Creating your own idiosyncratic set of villains to skewer and theories to promote - while keeping readers interested - requires as much talent as sculpting a magazine feature or a taut op-ed piece.

I'd always enjoyed kausfiles.com, for example, but I had taken for granted the way my friend Mickey Kaus paced his entries and mixed his news topics (Social Security) with personal obsessions (Jonathan Klein, the CNN honcho).

I knew I wasn't going to master the art in my few remaining days. And the vicious replies were wearing me down. I've gotten nasty responses to my articles before, but blogging is somehow more personal.

When Dan Drezner guest-blogged at the Washington Monthly site, one reader wished bodily harm on his family members. I found the blood lust jarring - especially when it started arriving in bulk, daily. (Suzanne cheerfully said, "Oh, just ignore them!" and kept posting thousand-word items by night.)

It's not that the readers were dim. Some forced me to refine or clarify my arguments. But the responses certainly got reductive, very quickly. And for all the individuality that blogs are supposed to offer, there was an amazing amount of groupthink - since some of them were getting their talking points from ... other blogs.

By the end of the week, with other deadlines looming and my patience exhausted, I began to post less and less. There was a piece for Slate due, a book chapter to finish, my baby boy, Leo, to entertain and a piece to write for the Week in Review.

I wasn't the only newcomer to blogging last week. On the ballyhooed "Huffington Post," Gary Hart, Walter Cronkite and David Mamet dipped their toes in the blogosphere as well.

I don't know how they'll fare, but I doubt that celebrity will attract readers for long. To succeed in blogging you need to understand it's a craft, with its own tricks of the trade. You need a thick skin. And you must put your life on hold to feed an electronic black hole.

What else did I learn by sitting in for Dan Drezner? That I'm not cut out for blogging.

David Greenberg teaches at Rutgers University and is the author of "Nixon's Shadow: The History of an Image."