Third Way on security

[Fovea]

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/images/2007-06-11_Third_Way_Memo.pdf

I find this a very weak position paper that claims to create a counter frame for the Repub tired hypocritical attack that Dems want to surrender in the war on terror.


But their arguments and strategies simply use the Republican frame (war on terror) and say we will be smarter at fighting it offensively.

The truth is that had we not been venal in our imperialist grab on Iraqi oil, much of the world, including the Islamic world would *still* be on our side in this fight against Radical Islamists. Bush and the NeoCons made the invasion of Iraq into a monumental victory for Islamists, and we still use the Repub frame?

We must restore the sort of regional moral force in the Middle East, and encourage both Sunni and Shiites in the region to restore not just stability, but the rule of law not bound to sharia justice. We must understand that states in the middle east are not states the way Europe defined the term.

These are developing nations, and have behind the curtain of modernity, many of the same traditional mechanisms with new titles. Many of these patrons have the full force of population control systems from the west with less restraint on their use.

Further, these middle eastern states had their best periods under the rule of local city/regional potentates who were themselves subservient to Moslem rulers from outside the sacred territories, such as the Ottoman Turks. No such historical acceptance of Christian rule has long held.

The new frame about being smarter in policy does not require more offense, at least from American troops. It requires empowering economic justice to the Arab and Persian Street. It is about a fresh start in our whole regional policy that breaks the deadlocks and requires both America and the States/people of the middle east to forge a commitment to justice and peace.

That cannot happen with 14 military bases in Iraq. That only enflames the fundamentalists, and shows our rhetoric as the most cynical sort of crap. That cannot happen when we use the Likud party as our stalking horse and scary monster.

So we need to reject the whole war on terror frame, because we have not been fighting an abstract noun, but men, women, and children who bleed and die far easier than a noun. We need to get ObL. And we need to have the states that harbor his organization subject them to Justice in the name of mercy and human law.

When we do that, we dismiss the phantom menace in favor of the real, less grandiose, menaces, and we de-stigmatize a religion by giving it a chance to be in the forefront, not in the rear echelons in this real fight. The next century will have enough drama and threat without having to sham one up out of the thwarted aspirations and smoldering injustices of the Arab Street.

The third way does not see, as many of us here do, that the inconvenient truth is a wave of blowback from the natural world is about to hit us hard, and according to the pentagon (a group I trust a bit more than PNAC) global climate change will outstrip the causes of 20th century instability. We are in for a bumpy ride, and grownups don't play closet monster when the house is burning.

The war on terror is a construct, and we are the protagonists of it. John Edwards got it right when he compared it to a bumper sticker. Were it not for Iraq, the Taliban would be toast, and UbL would be sitting next to the blind sheik in a jail cell.

Justice for the victims of 911 is not about TWOT. It certainly is not about 14 American military bases in Iraq. And if we should be talking about nuking someone over 911, why is it the Iranians?

The frame is the history all the way back to the mujahedeen against the Soviets. We have been too terrorized by our own government to recall, let alone discuss these things in public. Blowback... let's stick that frame where it hurts. The Repubs cut the mikes on the truth on Faux. But they can't cut the mikes on the campaign trail. Let's talk about the greatest generation and the Marshall plan.

If they hate us for our freedoms, it is because they have none. If they have none, it is because we support their tormentors.

[EVDebs]

1. Did you mean Third Option ? That's certifiable CIA madness...

Third Option and Ted Shackley ? CIA's JFK/Oct.Surprise boy ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Shackley

[Fovea]

2. fortunately no

these are the torch carriers for Clinton (Bill)'s Third way of triangulating on Republican issues.

The thing is, that we don't have to take the wind out of the Republican party's sails. We just have to let the fact that they have done an ExxonValdese to themselves sink in while we enumerate a true progressive platform.

Sure they will shake their tiny fists in rage, and the echo chamber will make them seem larger than life. But they have feet of clay, and when you get them out into the light of day, they look like Karl Rove and sound like Brad Schlozman.


The point we need to make is that the need of average Americans is an extreme problem, greater than oil fortunes for the already so bloated on money that they look like Jabba the Hut. Greater than the dream of a New American Imperium.

It is the welfare of the people, and rather than being a dirty word, welfare is enshrined in the constitution.

So we need to shout that the people need fewer bombs and more gravy. When the puggies call us weak on defense, we call them pedophiles, con-men, and morons.