Losing the Moral Highground- Reprise 2

[Mandelstam]

Sua, I took the littany of “Nos” in context–as following from and tallying with the specific verdict at hand. I think that’s what Pjen meant.

Pjen is not a lawyer, to be sure, and his position required clarification of various kinds.

But IMO he made his meaning on the latter very clear.

I do agree though that he cast the other charges as “hysterical accusations.” I haven’t got the time right now (or really the interest) in delving into the question. I tend to agree with those who’ve said that Lindh was a small fry and that on small fry grounds alone he wouldn’t have been a conspirator. Whether that makes the government’s position “hysterical” or not, I don’t want to say. To me, Ashcroft is, shall we say, shrill–but I’d have said that in August 2001.

As to the rest: just wanted to make 100% certain that you know I’m a woman.

But yea, from one Pontiff to another:

[pldennison]

Mandelstam, all I can offer you in evidence is the fact that I read a lot of weblog sites – probably 10-20 on a regular basis – from all portions of the spectrum. And while I have never seen any self-professed conservative or libertarian reference whatreallyhappened.com as a credible source, I’ve seen lots of self-professed leftists do so.

You’ve also got Thierry Messan, president of leftist think-tank Reseau Voltaire, over in France with his execrable book claiming that the entire 9/11 attacks were hoaxes perpetrated by the government. You’ve got The Guardian in the UK, and writers like Robert Fisk, Margo Kingston and Ted Rall blaming the U.S. for the attacks whenever they can. Michael Moore is making quite a career out of blaming and hating American – he says that Osama bin Laden had nothing to do with 9/11, that the terrorists went after the wrong targets because New York went to Gore, and that it was all a conspiracy by the Bushies for access to oil. You’ve got the well-debunked Marc Herold figures for Afghan casualties still being used and touted as accurate by leftist writers. And let’s not forget the Jenin “massacre” that never happened.

The irresponsible, loony left is out there, and it’s seriously damaging any possibility of the non-loony left being taken seriously at all. It goes without saying that the same is true of the loony right.

As far as ZNet and Z Magazine . . . the overabundance of Chomsky there tells me all I need to know. Chomsky, who claimed that the massacres in Cambodia under Pol Pot didn’t happen, and that even if they did, it was America’s fault. You can’t get much more irresponsible than that.

[Shodan]

*Originally posted by Mandelstam *
**Shodan, for all your boredom I think you’re still missing Pjen’s point. He isn’t say that Lindh, as US citizen, shouldn’t have been found guilty of fighting for the enemy; he’s saying that the he wasn’t found guilty of anything else.
**

And his point is that therefore, the US has lost the moral high ground. Which is silly.

Lindh doesn’t have to be convicted of everything from mopery to killing Cock Robin for it to be clear that he is acting against the US by taking up arms against her. Just what he has already admitted to. Therefore, Lindh is guilty, therefore, it was correct to arrest him, therefore, the US has not lost the moral high ground.

Except to Pjen, for whom no action by the US is sufficient to gain the high ground, including self-defense or arresting US citizens who are bearing arms against us in defense of a morally repugnant regime.

*Originally posted by Mandelstam ***
From that he’s extrapolating (rightly or wrongly) that the Taliban detainees won’t be found guilty of anything else and, for them, fighting for the enemy isn’t a crime.
**

Legally, I don’t know, nor care very much. Morally, it is perfectly legitimate for a country to detain enemy prisoners who are found acting against them.

Pjen’s example is still silly. Lindh admits doing pretty much what Bush and Ashcroft told me he was doing all along. Pjen cites this as evidence that none of the rest of the prisoners held as a result of the war against the Taliban are guilty of doing what Bush and Ashcroft tell me they were doing. WTF? And why does this affect our moral high ground, or the lack of it?

*Originally posted by Mandelstam *
**
What you don’t seem to realize–or perhaps what you just don’t care about–is that the detention of the Taliban detainees is itself controversial.
**

Wrong about the first part, almost right about the second.

I am fully aware that the detentions are controversial. I have read with interest a couple of threads on the subject here on the SDMB. My conclusion is that the detentions are perfectly legitimate (morally), and that objections to them are fueled by a desire to appear fair-minded by bending so far over backward to avoid supporting the US that you fall over. Or by simple anti-Americanism, in some cases.

In any case, Pjen’s reasons why the US shouldn’t be detaining anyone aren’t anything you can base a case on. They are based on the sort of reflexively anti-American sentiment most characteristic of moral clods like Noam Chomsky and his like.

An attitude with which I have even less patience now than I did on Sept. 10 of last year.

Regards,
Shodan

[Mandelstam]

pld, with all due respect, what is your point? Of course there are loonies on the left–and everywhere else. And I’m sorry that you’ve been spending time at sites where people who call themselves lefties post links to kooks.

I deliberately mentioned Chomsky/Z as an example of a left position that isn’t kooky but is still extremely controversial.

Sometimes I agree with Chomsky et al. and sometimes I don’t. But in either case I make that decision in terms of the merits of the argument. I don’t dismiss the argument out of hand on grounds of kookdom–as I would tend to do with the site you provided.

So let me reiterate: there’s a distinction in my mind between 1) sane and reasonable left positions with which one might strongly disagree on reasonable grounds, or might hold to be incorrect on demonstrable grounds (Chomsky) and 2) nutters.

Messan is a complicated case: so far as I know he’s thought to be nothing but a kook by anyone who isn’t himself or herself a kook. But the French seem to like reading his book anyway. That doesn’t mean they believe; they just like it.

But that’s to do with the French rather than the left since the French left has been as critical of Messan as any other left–or so the New York Times reports.

Putting Fisk and The Guardian in the same category as Messan or your link is ridiculous and damages your own credibility.

In sum, you’ll be hard-pressed ot prove to me that there are any more nutters and cranks on the left than anywhere else.
I’m surprised we’re even debating this.

[pldennison]

My contention is not that there are more on the left. Go back to my initial post. My contention is that the segment of the left represented by Messan, Rall, Pilger, and, yes, Fisk is the segment that Pjen and people like him are following. The left side of the whole 9/11 topic, and the “War on Terror,” is being dominated by kooks. The reasonable left – and to some degree, the reasonable right – is closed out of the debate because of it.

The Guardian as a whole is not kooky, but their op/ed pages regularly show reflexive disdain for America, reflexive disdain for Israel, reflexive support for Palestine . . . for heaven’s sake, they just recently allowed Hilary and Steven Rose, who are in the spotlight for firing two people from their publication’s editorial board just because they were Israelis, to publish this preposterously self-serving editorial. My favorite part comes in the very first paragraph: " Ariel Sharon refuses to negotiate while ‘violence’ (ie Palestinian resistance) continues." Yep, they actually put it in quotes. As if murdering people with bombs isn’t violence. This isn’t something unusual for The Guardian’s op/ed pages; it’s the status quo.

I’m willing to be corrected about Fisk, but every word I’ve read from him shows a dislike for America and for Western values that’s nearly pathological.

So yes, I’m tired of seeing debate from the left dominated by Pjen and people like him, who hate America so much that it cannot possibly do anything right.

[Jackmannii]

**

Originally posted by Mandelstam *
As to the value of threads. Well, I think this is a personal issue. In my view if someone is distorting the facts than you offer a corrected view that is itself free of distortion. If, in response to distortion of some kind, you go to the other extreme, then–in my view–it becomes pointless. We might as well got the Pit.*

We is mightily confused by this statement.

I congratulate you on this being your "first Pjen thread (God, I wish I could say that), but I invite you to check out the myriad others for a sense as to why nowadays they tend to generate target practice rather than useful debate.

I also suggest that there is a bizarre form of self-gratification involved in generating morally panicked and hysterical charges about U.S. “kidnappings”, “torture”, “abuse” etc. When the charges turn out to be false, the irrational element that brought them eagerly pats itself on the back for having created an outcry that forced the evil Americans to behave properly. It’s dishonest and silly.

A little target practice helps you keep in trim, though.

[DSeid]

How about from neither the Left or the Right but from a centrist-all-over-the-board-depending-on-the-issue kind of guy? Poor choices can be made for good reasons.

IS the indefinite internment in legal limbo of the G’mo “detainees” the right thing to do? HRW makes some valid points in their letter to Donald Rumsfeld, http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/05/pentagon-ltr.htm ,

As Human Rights Watch has repeatedly noted in correspondence and conversations with the Bush administration, in time of war between states party to the Geneva Conventions (including both Afghanistan and the United States), Article 4 of the Third Geneva Convention requires granting POW status to all members of a government’s regular armed forces, whether the government is diplomatically recognized (Art. 4(1)) or not (Art. 4(3)). This rule requires the United States to grant POW status to all captured Taliban soldiers who were regular members of Afghanistan’s armed forces. It also requires granting POW status to the members of any militia, whether Afghan or not, that was part of these armed forces (Art. 4(1)). This latter requirement might embrace some al-Qaeda members, such as those in the so-called 55th Brigade, who were operating as a part of the Taliban military. When there is doubt as to status, Article 5 of the Third Geneva Convention requires the United States to convene a “competent tribunal” to apply the legal rules on a detainee-by-detainee basis, and to treat detainees as POWs until the tribunal determines otherwise. Until now, the United States has never taken exception to this straightforward and appropriate rule: during the Gulf War, for example, more than one thousand Article 5 tribunals were convened.
The U.S. government’s unwillingness to recognize as POWs the captured members of Afghanistan’s armed forces requires a strained reading of the plain language of the Third Geneva Convention.

It seems that they are not kidnapees but POWs and should be subject to the Geneva convention. Now if it comes time to “repatriate” them it is an interesting question as to where they should go. Many are not Afganis but from other countries that HRW would object to sending them to, as these particular Arab countries have a nasty habit of torturing folks. But aren’t those countries the correct legal place to repatriate to? If sent to Afganistan, then the current government would probably deport them to their country of origin anyway. Maybe they’d prefer to stay at G’mo for a while after all?

[Mandelstam]

pld:“My contention is that the segment of the left represented by Messan, Rall, Pilger, and, yes, Fisk is the segment that Pjen and people like him are following. The left side of the whole 9/11 topic, and the “War on Terror,” is being dominated by kooks. The reasonable left – and to some degree, the reasonable right – is closed out of the debate because of it.”

pld, that’s just silly. I’ve never even heard of Rall and Pilger and I’m as left a leftie as any self-professing lefty you’ll find.

If you like, check out
this link to see the solidly liberal David Corn refuting a number of conspiracy theories from France and from the States.

Perhaps it will make you feel better!

If Messan is your example, it’s not a “segment of the left” that we’re talking about, but a cadre of juicy conspiracy theorists. People love conspiracy stories: always have and always will. Grassy knoll anyone? Vince Forster?

Anyway, where have you been posting? Have the reasonable left and the reasonable right been closed out of 9/11 debate on this board?

“The Guardian as a whole is not kooky, but their op/ed pages regularly show reflexive disdain for America, reflexive disdain for Israel, reflexive support for Palestine . . . for heaven’s sake, they just recently allowed Hilary and Steven Rose, who are in the spotlight for firing two people from their publication’s editorial board just because they were Israelis, to publish this preposterously self-serving editorial. My favorite part comes in the very first paragraph: " Ariel Sharon refuses to negotiate while ‘violence’ (ie Palestinian resistance) continues.” Yep, they actually put it in quotes. As if murdering people with bombs isn’t violence. This isn’t something unusual for The Guardian’s op/ed pages; it’s the status quo."

First, “reflexive disdain for America,” much though I don’t condone it, is not tantamount to kookdom. There are legitimate reasons to criticize the United States (check out that link I posted) and it’s just possible that what seems to you like reflexive disdain is, from a European or British view, rational criticism.

Same goes for Israel. It’s possible to criticize Sharon’s policies (which I do) without hating Israel (which I don’t in the least.)

If you want me to respond to the editorial in the Guardian, why don’t you post a link to it. I can’t tell anything from a single sentence.

“I’m willing to be corrected about Fisk, but every word I’ve read from him shows a dislike for America and for Western values that’s nearly pathological.”

Well, if you like I’ll dig out some Fisk that struck me as worth reading.

“So yes, I’m tired of seeing debate from the left dominated by Pjen and people like him, who hate America so much that it cannot possibly do anything right.”

Phil–if I may. Seriously, time to lay off the internet

How is the debate from the left on these boards dominated by Pjen? I’ve hardly even seen a Pjen post.

Perhaps you ought to make clear how you define “left.” On these boards I see “the left” as including people like kimstu, xenophon, jshore, demosthensesian, to name just a few. Are you suggesting that such people are drowned out by Pjen?

I don’t like people who “hate America” either. OTOH, I don’t like Americans who can’t see the difference between legitimate complaint and blind hatred (and I’m not saying that you are such an American.)
Jack, sorry I don’t think target practice belongs in GD. If everything you say is true than minty’s yawn is the best way out.

I don’t, of course, don’t mean don’t argue. But some of what I’ve seen in this thread wasn’t even good target practice; it was just sloppy potshots.

Pjen may well have been repeating himself–and I’d not blame anyone for objecting to repetition. But nothing he was saying was, IMO, beyond the pale.

[Ace_Face]

*Originally posted by pldennison *
As far as ZNet and Z Magazine . . . the overabundance of Chomsky there tells me all I need to know. Chomsky, who claimed that the massacres in Cambodia under Pol Pot didn’t happen, and that even if they did, it was America’s fault. You can’t get much more irresponsible than that. **

Not to pile on, but I’d like to see a cite for Chomsky claiming that the massacres in Cambodia “didn’t happen.” I’ve read some Chomsky, and his point is usually to compare the treatment of Cambodia in the Western media versus the situation in East Timor during roughly the same period. He argues that the scale and scope of the Cambodian tragedy may have been exagerated, in part because they were easier to pin on “communist aggression.” Meanwhile the equally tragic situation in East Timor received comparatively little media attention, during a period in which the US was funnelling arms to Indonesia.

Chomsky has never to my knowledge argued that the Cambodian massacres didn’t happen.

[yojimbo]

I too would like a cite for Chomsky Cambodian issue. My reading and understanding of the situation is the same as Ace_Face’s.

There is a lot of BS out there about Chomsky, by any chance do you think he’s anti-Semitic as well?

[Mandelstam]

Thanks Ace, yojimbo, for doing a better job than I did of defending Chomsky.

Sort of a hijack, but while we wait for pld’s return:

I agree that Chomsky’s position on East Timor is and always has been spot-on. And the free speech issues that tarnished him with the “anti-semitic” label–well, the less said, the better.

I thought Chomsky’s analysis right after 9/11 much more arguable–not because it was factually inaccurate it any way, but because the comparison of
numbers of deaths in this context–I dunno I just felt that a different kind of argument was needed.

But that’s just by the by since neither he nor anyone else at Z is either kook or conspiracy theorist.

[Shodan]

As regards Chomsky and the Cambodian holocaust denials,
here is a link to a series of articles discussing Chomsky’s attitudes towards the Pol Pot regime.

It appears (unsurprisingly - they were, after all, anti-American and therefore appeared to Chomsky as harbingers of peace and freedom) that Chomsky came late and reluctantly to the idea that Pol Pot and his cronies may not have been such a good idea after all.

I doubt Chomsky is anti-Semitic, but he is anti-Israeli/anti-Zionist as reflexively as he is anti-Western, and probably for the same reasons.

He states in the articles to which I linked that he feels that one should be “more” concerned with human rights violations committed by one’s own country than with those committed by others. Superficially plausible, I suppose, but it leads to moral idiocies like condemning trivialities committed (or alleged against) the US, while turning a blind eye to much worse violations by others.

Which is why Chomsky and his ilk spend so much time condemning the actions of the US in defending itself against terrorism, and only mention the terrorism itself in passing. If at all.

Regards,
Shodan

[Mandelstam]

Shodan, I don’t know whether Ace or yojimbo will want to say more, since they had queried the subject in the first place. But I did want you to know that I’d looked at your link to a 1995 e-mail debate between someone criticizing Chomsky and someone defending him. The details concern what happened in Cambodia in the 1970s, and how it was covered in the US press. It is the kind of debate that leaves anyone who hasn’t read Chomsky’s books on the subject (which I haven’t), and hasn’t read any other books on Cambodia (which I haven’t), and hasn’t read the other information being cited by both sides of the debate (which I haven’t), and wasn’t old enough to witness the media coverage for oneself (which I’m not) at a loss to say who is right.

There’s no shortage of debate, but what an outsider can glean is that the critic thinks Chomsky hasn’t sufficiently repudiated his early optimism about the Khmer Rouge–even though Chomsky has since acknowledged their crimes. The thing to bear in mind is that no one accuses Chomsky of holocaust denial. The critic writes: “I’m fully aware that Chomsky acknowledges the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge… now. My intention was not to imply otherwise. …None of this, I must stress, is meant to imply that Chomsky is or was a Khmer Rouge apologist. He isn’t.”

You wrote: “He [Chomsky] states in the articles to which I linked that he feels that one should be “more” concerned with human rights violations committed by one’s own country than with those committed by others.”

I just want to point out that Chomsky doesn’t “state” anything in the e-mail debate. Much like a Straight Dope thread there are people describing what Chomsky has said over a period of years: sometimes disagreeing about what it means, sometimes misremembering etc.

To sum up: I don’t think that Chomsky can be written off as a Cambodian holocaust denier; I don’t think he’s a kook; and, more to the point of this thread, I don’t think that the left has, post 9/11, become bogged down in conspiracy theories: certainly not on this board, and not in the publications I read.

As to “reflexive” anti-Americanism, I am hard pressed to see, Shodan, how a person can, in your view, criticize anything without the criticism being seen as “reflexive.” Speaking for myself, I am reflexively pro-American. The US is my country, and I value it and my citizenship as least as much as someone who has never thought to question US foreign policy.

[Jackmannii]

*Originally posted by Mandelstam *
As to “reflexive” anti-Americanism, I am hard pressed to see, Shodan, how a person can, in your view, criticize anything without the criticism being seen as “reflexive”.

I think that what Shodan and numerous other posters have picked up on is what you are unable to see, the charitable explanation being that this is your “first Pjen post”.

If you’re going to make a habit of going around cleaning up after Pjen rants and making an actual debate out of them (this is a good idea, by the way - maybe someone can assume a similar mentoring role for december), it behooves you to use the handy search function and find out just what your protege’s M.O. is.

And I find laudable your position against taking target practice vs. posters who prefer to illogically rant rather than debate. There’s too much backbiting on the SDMB. Why, just the other day, someone in GD said to december “december, you are such a dunce!”

Actually, you’re the one who said that. But I guess you’ve reformed since then.

[Mandelstam]

Jack I have done my share, as have many others, to be civil to december, and I think you know it. This is my first Pjen post and he has outperformed december (at december’s worst) if, in no other manner, than by posting very little.

december was misbehaving absurdly in the thread of which you speak–posting links to urban legend sites and claiming that had bearing on the OP; arguing first that a prominent academic was a feminist and then that she wasn’t.

Apart from that, I didn’t mean to set myself up as an exemplar for the SDMB. I have said many foolish things on the SDMB–especially in threads in the Pit. Part of my reason for defending Pjen is that I am sympathetic to the cause that he described in the OP.

In any case, Shodan wasn’t talking about Pjen in his last post; he was talking about Chomsky; and pld had been talking about op-eds in The Guardian. It was with respect to such individuals, and to “the left” in general, that my remarks about reflexiveness were made.