The Times, They Are A-Changing

I am not now, nor have I ever been, a political conservative. I've occasionally adopted what could be called conservative ideas, when they seemed the best for the particular situation. But in the end, I think that part of the role of government is to make its society better, and to do the things that are beyond the ability of that society to do any other way. While I've never liked the term "liberal", in the modern American sense of that word, I am one.

All that is to say that I'm probably not the most knowledgeable observer of the conservative movement in this country. In fact, I don't pay as much attention to it as I should. While reading another blog, I found this enlightening rant from Little Green Football's Charles Johnson:

1. Support for fascists, both in America (see: Pat Buchanan, Robert Stacy McCain, etc.) and in Europe (see: Vlaams Belang, BNP, SIOE, Pat Buchanan, etc.)

2. Support for bigotry, hatred, and white supremacism (see: Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, Robert Stacy McCain, Lew Rockwell, etc.)

...

And much, much more. The American right wing has gone off the rails, into the bushes, and off the cliff.

I won’t be going over the cliff with them.

Why I Parted Ways With The Right

It's a rather extraordinary list, and well worth reading, I think. That list includes any number of sins that, if you believed the news in this country, were things that only liberals objected to. The plain fact is that many things, like a functioning government that isn't corrupt, a court system with rights for the accused, freedom of speech, and a fair and open market are things that many conservative intellectuals believe in, too.

Andrew Sullivan backed up Johnson the next day:

[T]here has to come a point at which a movement or party so abandons core principles or degenerates into such a rhetorical septic system that you have to take a stand. It seems to me that now is a critical time for more people whose principles lie broadly on the center-right to do so - against the conservative degeneracy in front of us. Those who have taken such a stand - to one degree or other - demand respect. And this blog, while maintaining its resistance to cliquishness, has been glad to link to writers as varied as Bruce Bartlett or David Frum or David Brooks or Steve Chapman or Kathleen Parker or Conor Friedersdorf or Jim Manzi or Jeffrey Hart or Daniel Larison who have broken ranks in some way or other.

...

I cannot support a movement that refuses to distance itself from a demagogue like Rush Limbaugh or a nutjob like Glenn Beck.

I cannot support a movement that believes that the United States should be the sole global power, should sustain a permanent war machine to police the entire planet, and sees violence as the core tool for international relations.

Does this make me a "radical leftist" as Michelle Malkin would say? Emphatically not. But it sure disqualifies me from the current American right.

Leaving the Right

Sullivan goes on to paraphrase Ronald Reagan: "I didn't leave the conservative movement. It left me."

Having read Sullivan's writings in the last few years, I'm not too surprised by his opinion. I hadn't read much of Johnson's, though, so his break with the movement came as something of a surprise. You can probably add John Cole of Balloon Juice to Sullivan's list, too, since he broke with the Republican Party last year.

These defections, and the further defections of many politicians, such as Sen. James Webb (D-VA), have helped bring the Democratic Party into majority status in both houses of Congress, and many state legislatures as well. They have also turned the Democratic Party into a more politically conservative organization than it has been in decades.

It's hard to believe today, but while I was growing up in the '60s and early '70s, I had a very different impression of Republicans than what's represented by their leaders now. They were decent folks who, if they had a failing, was being a bit to eager to like money and order. They were the guys who dressed up in three-piece suits and told us kids to get off their manicured lawns. They were also the guys who believed that science and greater education would guarantee a better tomorrow. They were the ones who, many years before, had been the first to insist on equality, and on a Square Deal, because markets and an orderly society needed them. They felt that we didn't need to be involved in the affairs of other nations, as long as they left us alone and we could trade with them.

That image of them is quite a contrast to what we're confronted with today. The loud morons, the god-bothering politicians, the anti-science crackpots, and the racist assholes were mostly either Democrats or independents. Now, as those links will attest, they all seem to be collected together in what's left of the Republican Party.

We've actually seen quite a shift in that time. In essence, the Democrats rid themselves of many of these embarrassments and the GOP, under Richard Nixon's Southern strategy, took them in. The GOP gradually became the party of facile nonsense like "getting the government off our backs" and similar phrases that increasingly meant allowing Wall Street thieves and the bigots to do exactly as they wanted.

Meanwhile, the Democrats became more enamored of big business and the cash it could dole out, and thus it also became more conservative.

If you took the Republican Party of the early 1970's, added a few more token liberals and nonconformists to it, and moved its headquarters a few blocks, you'd have the Democratic Party of today. The sort of conservative politicians who would appeal to Johnson, Sullivan, or Cole are now mostly Democrats, or looking to become Democrats. The Republican Party is on its way to becoming a home for morons, lunatics, and the politicians who exploit them, a party with no interest or ability to run a country. It's in worse shape than the old Democratic Party ever was. At least that party could come up with effective leaders. This Republican Party comes up with leaders like John McCain and Sarah Palin.

There are certainly folks who celebrate the demise of the Republican Party, but I'm not one of them. The reasons it has changed, and the way it has changed, are disturbing. Not only have these changes made progressives a minority voice in what used to be their party, but it has also created a situation in which voters have no credible alternative to the Democratic Party. Sooner or later, we're going to need one. We've never seen a party yet that could stand being in power for too long without becoming either corrupt, indolent, or both.

When that day comes, we'll be very sorry that the Coles, Johnsons, and Sullivans of this country have no party of their own.

Stewart Skewers Beck

Jon Stewart skewers Dougie awardee Glenn Beck in this segment of The Daily Show:



It's pitch perfect, from the mannerisms to the inane stream of consciousness dribbling that passes for logic in Beckworld.

The full episode is available online. It's worth a viewing, if only to know why the line ".. and that, Billy, is how the dinosaurs died" will be cracking me up for days.

Under The Rug No Longer

Caption: From left, President Barack Obama, U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Daniel V. Wright and Army Brig. Gen. Michael S. Repass salute as a team of soldiers carry the remains of Army Sgt. Dale R. Griffin during a dignified transfer ceremony on Dover Air Force Base, Del., Oct. 29, 2009. U.S. Air Force photo by Jason Minto

Image credit: Jason Minto/U.S. Army

One thing that I would never have thought of criticizing Barack Obama for is this:

President Obama before dawn this morning paid tribute to the 18 U.S. military personnel killed in Afghanistan Monday, making a surprise trip to Dover Air Force Base as their bodies returned home to the United States.

The solemn visit - Obama's first such experience since taking office and lifting the ban on photographing the war dead - comes as he's wrestling with a decision to send up to 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

Obama Makes Surprise Overnight Visit To Dover To Honor Troops Killed In Afghanistan

For eight years now, we've been hiding this part of the cost of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Bush Administration tried to hide the rows of caskets from us, as though they were some sort of distraction. They never asked Americans to give up anything to pursue those wars, other than the lives of the ones who died or lost their loved ones.

As you might imagine, bringing these losses to light doesn't sit too well with the people who started those wars, and then failed to win them:

Cheney, on Fox News Radio's John Gibson Show yesterday [Oct. 29]:

I think that what President Bush used to do is do it without the cameras. And I don't understand sort of showing up with the White House Press Pool with photographers and asking family members if you can take pictures. That's really hard for me to get my head around...It was a surprising way for the president to choose to do this.

It's not clear exactly what Cheney is referring to when she says, "Bush used to do it without the cameras."
...
[A]s CBS's Mark Knoller reported yesterday, Obama was the first president to visit arriving dead at Dover during the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq -- meaning that when it came to taking trips to Dover like Obama did yesterday morning, Bush never used to "do it" at all.

Liz Cheney Suggests Obama Honored Fallen Soldiers For The Publicity

Like her father, Liz Cheney isn't shy about using weasel words like "I think that". She didn't check whether what she said was actually true before she said it, which might be excusable if she hadn't anticipated the question. I suspect that she's not going to retract this assertion, however. Let's see if I'm wrong on that one.

Even if I were in favor of these wars (at one time I was in favor of the war in Afghanistan) I would still think that hiding the bodies of returning military personnel in this way does more to dishonor them than publishing a few pictures. Among Americans, the human cost of these wars is paid almost exclusively by the military and their families. Sweeping the losses they experience in wars under the rug does nothing to honor their sacrifice. We should openly acknowledge and appreciate those sacrifices. As Blue Texan reminds us, past conservative Presidents weren't shy about visiting the returning dead.

That some conservatives seem to think otherwise, and that there are folks in the press corps in DC who take such assertions seriously, shows how starkly isolated these folks are from the rest of us.

UPDATE: Added the links in the second to last paragraph, which discuss many of the human costs of these wars we're fighting.

Interesting Questions

Last week, Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams asked this about conservative radio personalities on his blog, and then answered his own question:

Talk show hosts have no legal or ethical obligation to do anything but entertain. And judging by their successes, [Rush] Limbaugh and [Glen] Beck are brilliant at their jobs. I find it mind boggling that anyone believes a TV talk host is expressing his own true views.

You could make a case that the things Limbaugh and Beck say influences the gullible masses in ways that are not helpful to society. But that's probably true of every pundit, left or right. It's a price of free speech.

Do you think that Limbaugh and Beck have the same views in private as they spray into the entertainmentsphere?

Entertainers

From the rest of his article, it's clear that Adams thinks the answer is "no", or at least, it would be no if they were speaking honestly.

Here's how conservative columnist, and former Bush speechwriter David Frum answered the question:

That question is easy: Yes of course Limbaugh and Beck express the same views in private as in public. Consistent hypocrisy demands exorbitant levels of imagination, energy, and cynicism. Much less exhausting over time simply to bring your private views into alignment with what you are paid to say in public.

Do Limbaugh and Beck Believe What They Say?

I find this answer a bit cynical, which probably explains something about the difference between progressive bloggers and conservative pundits. Still, I suspect he's mostly right. It's hard to believe that anyone who is smart enough to get where Limbaugh has gotten, or even someone like Bill O'Reilly (more on him in a moment), would believe all the nonsense they say week in and week out. Still, Stanislavski had a pretty good handle on how to be convincing, and that involves being at least somewhat convinced yourself. There's something in each of those guys that really is a right wing bigot, but how much is an open question.

Frum then upped the stakes, though, by asking this question, and then providing his own answers:

Let me put the thought experiment slightly differently however. Suppose an agent arrived in the offices of Limbaugh/Beck/Hannity/O’Reilly etc. with an offer. “I can guarantee you a deal that will pay you twice as much - bring you twice as much fame - and extend your career twice as long - if you’d say the exact opposite of what you are saying now.” Which of them would sign?

My nominations: O’Reilly accepts for sure. Beck likewise almost certainly says yes. Limbaugh would want to think it over, but would ultimately say no. Mark Levin: certainly not. Sean Hannity would need the offer explained a few times. Ann Coulter - that one puzzles me - but probably no. Roger Ailes? Do you even need to ask?

Do Limbaugh and Beck Believe What They Say?

Steve Benen answered this way:

I like this game -- and I laughed out loud at the Hannity analysis -- though I'm not sure about the conclusions. I agree that O'Reilly would gladly accept the offer. I'm less sure that Beck would take it; he seems more motivated by the voices in his head than financial rewards. I think Levin and Hannity would reject the offer, but I think the smart money is on Coulter accepting it. (Sometimes I think Coulter is actually a secret liberal doing some kind of performance art now, so the leap would be a short one.) Ailes, of course, wouldn't hesitate.

Thought Experiment Of The Day

I agree with both about O'Reilly, and I agree with Benen about Beck. The other folks I'm not so sure about. The problem is that they almost certainly know that being a lefty commentator isn't going to be profitable - Air America is a classic example of how that goes. With the possible exception of Beck and Hannity, they're all smart enough to realize that. In a way, they've all done this so long it's hard to see any of them changing. I doubt they would, but I think most would be tempted if they thought the offer was real.

What do you think?

Where Do They Find These People?

A blog called Look At This Teabagger has been collecting photos of teabaggers at various events. There are some real gems:

Considering that the USSR never had czars, that's a fairly trivial point there, Jethro.

Proof that Fox "News" keeps Americans better infromed than other cable news channels:

I can't wait to see the ad campaign this inspires...

A New Award, And A Worthy Recipient

It's Labor Day in America, a holiday. It's time for something lightweight to distract us from all the crap that's been happening lately. When it comes to intellectual pursuits, it doesn't get much more lightweight than Glenn Beck, so his latest book seems like the perfect holiday subject.

Image credit: Publicity shot from Amazon Books



This is the cover of Beck's latest tome. Saying it contains irony is like saying that a nuclear missile contains explosives. But it's a holiday, so picking low-hanging fruit should be OK, right?

The ultimate irony, I suppose, is the "Arguing With Idiots" portion of the title. Here is a guy who:

• Doesn't know that energy can be stored and transferred.



• Isn't sure whether Democrats are fascists or socialists, but is quite certain they are one or the other.



• Called President Obama, whose mother was white and whose father was black, a racist, and then contradicted himself less than two minutes later. This particular tirade has led to a host of advertisers, including Wal-Mart, to drop their support of his show.

If there was ever a group of people who qualified as idiots, it's the people who take this guy seriously. Just as people who could spell "potato" were elitists to Dan Quayle, so it appears that people who can spell "oligarch" are idiots to Glenn Beck. Think about that.

Meanwhile, we at SnS have finally invented an award suitable for someone of Beck's intellectual attainment - the Douglas Feith Memorial Stupidist Fucking Guy On The Planet Award, AKA, The Dougie. Since stupidity is such a common commodity, potential awardees must be actively involved in politics in some way. That should eliminate about half the possible awardees, I suspect. There's no cash value to this prize, just the prestige of knowing that no one does stupid better than you.

Congratulations, Mr. Beck. May I just add that gray really is your color?

(h/t Comrade E.B. Misfit, without whom I would have heard of this for at least another few days.)

Afterword: Doug Feith's still alive you may be wondering, so why is it the "Douglas Feith Memorial, etc. Award"? It's named after his mind, not his body. (And yes, baseball fans, I stole that line from Tim McCarver. Sue me.)

Irony Abounds In Right's Response To DHS Report

The right-wing blogs, Fox News, and the usual gang of idiots are all up in arms, so to speak, about a report that was released by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently. Glenn Greenwald provides a summary:

Right-wing polemicists today are shrieking in self-pitying protest over a new report from the Department of Homeland Security sent to local police forces which warns of growing "right-wing extremist activity."  The report (.pdf) identifies attributes of these right-wing extremists, warning that a growing domestic threat of violence and terrorism "may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single-issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration" and "groups that reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority."

Conservatives have responded to this disclosure as though they're on the train to FEMA camps. The Right's leading political philosopher and intellectual historian, Jonah Goldberg, invokes fellow right-wing giant Ronald Reagan and says: "Here we go Again," protesting that "this seems so nakedly ideological." Michelle Malkin, who spent the last eight years cheering on every domestic surveillance and police state program she could find, announces that it's "Confirmed:  The Obama DHS hit job on conservatives is real!"  Lead-War-on-Terror-cheerleader Glenn Reynolds warns that DHS -- as a result of this report (but not, apparently, anything that happened over the last eight years) -- now considers the Constitution to be a "subversive manifesto."  Super Tough Guy Civilization-Warrior Mark Steyn has already concocted an elaborate, detailed martyr fantasy in which his house is surrounded by Obama-dispatched, bomb-wielding federal agents.  Malkin's Hot Air stomps its feet about all "the smears listed in the new DHS warning about 'right-wing extremism.'"

The ultimate reaping of what one sows: right-wing edition

[links from original]

As Glenn points out, the same people who are now complaining about this situation were some of the main cheerleaders for the domestic surveillance and human rights abuses of the Bush Administration. This report has opened a rich vein of irony that may supply all our needs for decades.

As Blue Girl notes, if there's any group of radicals that has proved themselves dangerous to public safety in the last couple of decades, it's those on the right.

As Dana Hunter observes, these people identify themselves with militias and other armed and potentially dangerous cranks. They haven't shown any similar concern for the rights of liberal, progressive, LGBT, or anti-war groups that have confined themselves to peaceful protest.

As Brendan Calling points out, this is something we've been warning about for years.

In fact, I have deliberately invoked the specter of a Hillary Clinton presidency to get my point across. I didn't do that because I found her to be particularly scary. I did it because I knew the Right finds her scary. Here's what I wrote on the subject of domestic surveillance in 2007:

I'll just add parenthetically that I don't trust any government with my civil rights and liberties. Governments are supposed to serve their people, not the other way round. That's as true for a Clinton Administration as it is for a Bush Administration. Everyone who has been in politics for a while has enemies and antagonists. You'd think all these bozos who assume that they can trust President Bush would think about that for a moment. Of course, if you're foolish enough to trust Bush, thinking probably isn't your strong suit.

Finally, A Definite Answer

In all the articles I've written on the subject of human rights or domestic surveillance, you'll have to look hard to find mention of left-wing or Democratic Party organizations in particular being at risk. My worry is that any government can abuse its powers, and that many do.

That's clearly not the case on the Right.

Today, Think Progress showed that the irony runs much deeper than we imagined:

Yesterday, a Department of Homeland Security report about the rising radicalization of “rightwing extremists” was leaked. The right wing was immediately incensed, viewing the report on radical “extremists” as an attack on “conservatives.” MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, for example, tried to suggest it was a report about Republican “loyalists.”

However, this morning, Fox News’s Catherine Herridge revealed that the report, along with an earlier report on radicalized left-wing groups, was actually “requested by the Bush administration” but not completed until recently:

HERRIDGE: Well this is an element of the story which has largely gone unreported. One looks at right-wing groups, as you mentioned. And a second is on left-wing groups. Significantly, both were requested by the Bush administration but not finished until President Bush left office.

Herridge’s reporting undermines her network’s own “reporting” over the past 24 hours. Since news of the DHS assessment broke yesterday, Fox anchors and guests have been seizing upon the report as evidence that the administration is trying to intimidate tea party goers or “stifle speech”[.]

Fox Reporter Contradicts Fox: DHS Report On Right Wing Was ‘Requested By The Bush Administration’

I suspect that with reporting instincts like those, Ms. Herridge will soon be the go-to correspondent for Big Disastrous Fires and Bizarre, Scary Street Crimes. She certainly is far too inquisitive to be covering Washington politics for Fox News.

It's delicious that their own hero, George W. Bush, was the one who ordered these reports. It's even more delicious that, while these same people have been lamenting every step the Obama Administration has taken in the direction of the rule of law and respecting our rights, the Obama Administration has mostly chosen to continue the abuses of the Bush Administration. In view of the fact that this is a project left over from the prior administration, the protests ring particularly hollow.

It's hard to imagine that there will be more irony content in this story, but I'm sure if it's there, the right wing will find it and expose it for us.

UPDATE: It was Blue Girl, not Blue Gal, who made noted the relative danger from right and left-wing radicals. I've now corrected that oversight, thanks to Blue Gal's comment.

Ken Starr Endorses Harold Koh

Now I'm starting to wonder about this guy. President Obama's nominee for the State Department's Legal Advisor, Harold Koh, has been endorsed by none other than Ken Starr, according to Greg Sargent:

Starr’s letter — which was addressed to Senators John Kerry and Richard Lugar, both ranking members of the Foreign Relations Committee — makes his backing for Koh official for the first time. Starr was said to have backed Koh during a talk at Yale University, but that report was unconfirmed.

Starr’s backing for Harold Koh — Obama’s choice for legal adviser to the State Department, where he’d potentially undo controversial Bush-era legal policies — should permanently disable the conservative assault on him.


Kenneth Starr: Obama Legal Nominee Under Assault From Right Should Be Confirmed

Most of the folks who have been speaking well of Koh, including and NYU Law Professor Brandt Goldstein, have been doing so under the assumption that Koh would reintroduce the State Department to all those "quaint documents" that they've been ignoring lately. If Starr, whose out-of-control special prosecution of the Whitewater scandal is the stuff of legend, is endorsing Koh, you do have to wonder a little.

Oh, alright, I'm being sarcastic. Here's what Prof. Goldstein had to say recently:

In court, Koh has challenged both republican and democratic administrations in the name of constitutional principle and the rule of law. In 1993, as a young professor, he led the legal fight to shut down this nation's first Guantanamo detention camp, which at the time held innocent Haitian refugees. As explained in my book Storming the Court, Koh sued both the first Bush administration and the Clinton administration to establish the principle that Guantanamo is not a law-free zone. Koh later pressed this view on behalf of Cuban detainees in the mid-1990s and then again during the post-9/11 years, when the second Bush administration's lawless use of Guantanamo alienated all of our allies. Koh has staked out an equally strong position against torture. His views are firmly in the mainstream - in line with those of most Americans and similar to the views of Senator John McCain.

Confirm Harold Koh as State Department Legal Adviser

There really has been a wave of idiocy on the Tubez recently regarding Koh, and nearly all of it coming from the usual crowd of right-wing lunatics. They accuse him of favoring Sharia law, for instance. Given the previous quote, that ought to be an absurd accusation on its face. Koh has worked within our legal system to make it obey the law, which isn't based on Sharia. As Dahlia Lithwick notes at Slate:

The New York Post today published a letter from Robin Reeves Zorthian, who actually organized the Yale Club dinner to which Stein refers. In that letter, Zorthian writes that "the account given by Steve Stein of Dean Koh's comments is totally fictitious and inaccurate" and that she, her husband, "and several fellow alumni ... are all adamant that Koh never said or suggested that sharia law could be used to govern cases in US courts." Why should we believe her and her colleagues over Stein? Well, for one thing, Koh in all his academic articles and many public statements has never said anything to suggest some dogged fealty to sharia. But the right-wing blogs have yet to take note of Zorthian's version of events; the sharia fable is chuffing along on its own steam now; and Fox can continue to pass along Stein's account of the story in a breathless game of sky-is-falling telephone.

And Then They Came for Koh ...

The swift-boaters are at it again. They took a letter written by one person days after a supposed conversation that may or may not have taken place as he described it, and magically transformed its odd accusations into established fact.

While I can't be certain that Harold Koh never mentioned Sharia law in any of his publications, I have now searched through 100 entries in the search "Harold Koh sharia law", and have yet to find a single link or reference where Koh has actually discussed this subject. Neither, apparently, could someone at the Yale Alumni Magazine, who interviewed Robin Zorthian. Even the Conservapedia entry lacks a reference, other than to link to an online copy of Steve Stein's letter. Here's the screenshot:



The only links are to Koh's Yale biography, which doesn't mention sharia, and to Daniel Pipe's article, which doesn't provide any proof of the smears it proffers.

Never daunted by the lack of facts, the usual suspects in wingnuttia reiterated the smears, and now it's hard to find a true or profound thing written on this subject for all the blather. As Lithwick mentions, the news, particularly Fox, have now been repeating this nonsense, and some of the usual Republican politicians are now quoting these "news" reports.

This started out being a note about the irony of Kenneth Starr endorsing someone who clearly still believes in the rule of law. What it became, as I started doing Google searches, is another look into the appalling state of our nation's political rhetoric. By now, I've decided that, as Greg Sargent's original quote suggested, Starr's endorsement just might be a good thing. It certainly can't hurt.

The Neocons And The Dinosaurs

[Artist's rendering of the asteroid impact that is believed to have brought about the end of the dinosaurs. Image credit: Fredrik via Wikipedia.]

Patrick Lang, former special forces officer turned military consultant, made an interesting observation about how our effort to turn Afghanistan into a nation is going, and why we're on the course we're on:

[Political science] sells the idea that human society is evolving towards higher forms. The creed in this secular religion holds that human behavior is universal in nature in all important aspects and that apparent differences are fated to disappear as mankind and its societies develop toward higher and more general forms. The form sought by the more practical is that of national states. Some of the more visionary seek the emergence of a globalized world culture and state. PS is an idea system, that originated in the age of cultural, literary and scholarly romanticism of the 19th Century. European scholars like Durkheim and Weber reflected the same set of ideas that created romantic nationalism, marxism (a very romantic idea), belief in the "Golden Ages" of various peoples, Germans, Italians, Jews, etc.

The US Government and "Afghan Man."

Here I must digress for a moment to object to the way the term "political science" is used here. Political science is about the study of political systems. What Lang refers to here, I think, is a philosophy that's associated with it. The philosophy of "the Ascent of Man", is similarly associated with actual Darwinism, evolution. The implications that this philosophy, that evolution is some sort of force that creates ever more "advanced" forms, drew from the way evolution works led them to their conclusions about how intelligence should naturally evolve. There are few biologists today, I think, who agree with that premise. So let's not conflate the science with the philosophies it may have engendered among its practitioners or students.

Lang goes on to observe:

There is no "Afghan Man." There will not be an "Afghan Man" in any time frame relevant to the US armed forces' efforts to pacify Afghanistan. Afghanistan was created by the Russian Empire and the British Indian Empire in an effort to build a buffer zone in a wild, high, incredibly diverse region in Central Asia that happened to be both ungovernable and located between their respective holdings. There IS NO AFGHAN PEOPLE. There are half a dozen peoples within the borders of the STATE OF AFGHANISTAN. They have never blended into one people and will not do so unless such a thing occurs at a glacial rate of evolutionary change.

Bottom Line: The US armed forces should say, YES, YES to whatever nonsense political "scientists" say about Afghanistan. At the same time, apply what you have learned about the uses of diversity.

The US Government and "Afghan Man."

It's too bad that a true picture of evolution isn't taught generally in our public schools, because anyone who understands its true implications wouldn't make this mistake. Much as the philosophy of the political scientists can lead to the incorrect conclusion that societies must inevitably evolve into the more complex forms that appeared later in their history, Darwinism led many to think that the path life must take is to inevitably become more "advanced". Paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould pointed this out in his book Full House, which Andreas Ramos reviews:

Gould uses bacteria to illustrates his point that there is neither progress nor zenith in evolution. Those who point to the complexity of man are refuted by Gould who points out that this argument arbitrarily focuses on a minor, recent lifeform. Bacteria have been here longer and there's more of them. Bacteria live in odd places, including possibly up to 2 miles under the earth. By weight, bacteria make up most of the biological mass of the earth. They've been here forever, and they're not leaving. Since bacteria are able to live under the earth and get energy from the planetary core, it's possible that bacteria may live on other planets as well, protected underground from solar radiation, space chill, etc. Thus bacteria may be the dominant form of life in the universe. To think that mammals are proof of progress in evolution is mere mammal-centricity which silences the voices of bacteria.

Stephen Jay Gould's Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin

[It should be pointed out that Ramos takes some issue with Gould.]

Gould also observed, in the theory of "punctuated equilibrium" that he helped to develope, that cataclysmic events like asteroid strikes, extreme climate changes, and other large-scale disasters could speed up the rate of change by changing the conditions to which the existing biological forms must adapt. Such cataclysms caused the disappearance of the dinosaurs and the trilobites.

The lessons we should learn from evolution are that "more advanced" doesn't always mean "superior". Marsupials survived in Australia by being isolated for millions of years. Bacteria, despite being the earliest, or "least advanced" form of life still in existence, flourish because their short "gestation cycles" make them able to adapt more quickly than the species they compete with and depend on. What life exists in a particular ecological niche or physical location is the result of its ability to adapt to those conditions better than any competitive forms of life.

Thanks partly to their determination to remain ignorant of all forms of science that disprove or dispute their point of view, neocons are no doubt unaware of this irony. Thanks to theocrats' efforts to keep Americans ignorant of evolution, so are most Americans. It's too bad not only for them, but for the rest of us.

What does this have to do with "Afghan Man", and the idea that social structures must inevitably evolve to become nations? Like their biological constituents, political structures do evolve. But like biological organisms, the more advanced forms won't necessarily work best in particular regions. While it's difficult to prove (or disprove) that thesis, it's certainly a possibility that anyone who understands how evolution works would be aware of. As Darwin pointed out:

Many species when once formed never undergo any further change but become extinct without leaving modified descendants; and the periods, during which species have undergone modification, though long as measured by years, have probably been short in comparison with the periods during which they retained the same form.

On the Origin of Species, 6th edition, page 408-409

Isolated pockets of humans can retain the structure of their societies as long as no other societies can compete with and overwhelm them. Despite numerous tries, no society has yet managed to do that in Afghanistan.

The neocons, in essence, tried to create their own cataclysmic event to make Afghanistan a nation-state in the modern sense. That this was at best a task that would require much more patience than we as an individual country are likely to have, and at worst a fool's errand is something that both the history of the region and the lessons of evolution should have told them. The problem with cataclysms is that you never know what they'll end up affecting.

I can't help imagining that at the end of the Cretaceous period that there were some dinosaurs watching that asteroid strike and thinking that this was the thing that would finally get rid of those pesky little mammals.

UPDATE: Over at FireDogLake, Christy brings us another example of how we have failed to learn from the past and from science when it comes to how we deal with Afghanistan.