Hayden smacks down writer for distorting Kerry's plan

[ProSense]

and praising Biden's.

Tom Hayden
05.03.2006
where is george packer? does he favor the war forever?

George Packer writes more eloquently about Iraq than anyone in the establishment, usually for the very influential audience who read the NY Times magazine, the New Yorker, etcetera. His special talent is writing persuasively and gracefully about how impossible it is to withdraw from Iraq. His function is to freeze liberals where they are, which his crowd thinks is better than supporting withdrawal.

In fact, withdrawal is virtually taboo, delegitimizing, for anyone seeking a mainstream forum. In fact, the spectrum of "serious" debate nearly eliminates the option of withdrawal altogether. Like Packer, we apparently are to accept the tragic burden of justifying a war which is unjustifiable, but which will somehow become more tragic if we stop the justifications.

Packer's latest pronouncement as a key gatekeeper of acceptable opinion is a subtle assault on Sen. John Kerry in the May 8 New Yorker. Packer credits Kerry for "having found his voice" in his recent anti-war speech, but then criticizes Kerry for calling for withdrawal by the end of the year. "But abandoning Iraq is an exasperated rush will leave ordinary Iraqis far more vulnerable to the murderous conduct of the militias and the insurgents than they are now", Packer writes, in a declaration more inelegant than his usual prose. Without an "American buffer", he warns, there will be a wider war and a "larger safe zone for jihadis."

So there we are, burdened with carrying on a war that was a mistake to begin with. A "forever war", he lamented in the New York Times Book Review.

A problem with Packer is that from time to time he fixes the facts to suit the policy he favors, or so to speak.

In this case, he cleverly alters Kerry's proposal by leaving out the international summit Kerry has proposed to address peacekeeping, reconstruction and other issues concerning the transition to a post-war period. Kerry thus is categorized as an uncaring advocate of "out now", unlike Packer who at least cares about the killing he seems to support forever.

Why would replacing US troops, clearly the primary cause of Iraqi nationalist attacks, with an international peacekeeping force from neutral countries increase the violence? There is no answer.

Packer sees the US troops not as occupiers, not the cause of violence, but as "buffers" between violent Iraqis. The same civilizing role was claimed by the British when they sent troops to Northern Ireland in 1969; thirty years later they signed the Good Friday Agreement but still haven't permitted free elections. Baghdad is simply the next Belfast, in this view.

While distorting and dismissing Kerry for "finding his voice", Packer applauds the recent op-ed by Leslie Gelb and Sen. Joe Biden calling for a devolved, tripartite Iraq - Kurdish, Sunni, and Shiite - with a weakened central government to assure the fair share of oil revenues and other matters. This is the longstanding preference of numerous neo-conservatives, and Israeli officials, to put an end to Arab nationalism. By redefining Iraqis along tribal, not national lines, by weakening the central state apparatus, a threat to stability (oil stability, Israeli stability, presumably) would be removed from the Middle East.

It's another imperial scenario, of course, though it seems more benign than the continued slaughter. The problem is that Gelb-Biden take an opposite course from Kerry, failing to answer if and when a US troop withdrawal would take place, no small matter.

more...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-hayden/where-is-george-packer-d_b_20323.html

[kerrygoddess]

1. Hayden is an angel

from anti-war heaven!

[karynnj]

2. This is great - thanks for posting this

This really shows that the dependably liberal media really is split between neo-con and non-neo-con. I guess Biden is a neo-con. Of the foreign policy experts in the Senate, who other than Kerry is not a neo-con? (Feingold is on the SRFC)

I don't know why but this seems the clearest explanation I've read that explains the difference in the plans. It also suggests that Biden's ignoring the diplomacy part of Kerry's plan wasn't accidental. (Also, why he isn't countering Feingold's plan) I now get why a few people on DU-P refered to Biden as "British".

What's clear is that Kerry is a threat to the neo-cons because his plan IS a complete plan - and like the values in the Ireland speech - it respects the Iraqis enough to think they get to decide their government.

[beachmom]

5. Gandhi said it best

From the movie Gandhi:

Kinnoch: With respect, Mr. Gandhi, without British administration, this country would be reduced to chaos.

Gandhi: Mr. Kinnoch, I beg you to accept that there is no people on Earth who would not prefer their own bad government to the good government of an alien power.

Brigadier: My dear sir! India *is* British. We're hardly an alien power!

(silence)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083987/quotes

Wow. Kerry needs to start quoting Gandhi.

[karynnj]

6. Really great quote - I agree it would be a perfect quote for Kerry

Is the Kinnoch there the one Biden plagerized.

[beachmom]

3. Hey, I saw your comment there -- good one!

I actually will read George Packer -- he's a good OTOH person to read. But after reading his Tal Afar piece, I felt like there was plenty in his article to advocate withdrawal. Most notably that it took 1,000 troops to hold ONE TOWN, and that it was very fragile, and beginning to deteriorate.

Tom's reply is great. Sadly, I know many who oppose the war who hold similar views to Packer's -- that leaving is immoral and wrong as to what it will do to the Iraqi people. I think that view keeps us stuck. Maybe we should take a page out of a business class I took in college -- Strategic Management. One of the principles is that if a project is failing, is not working, and continues to not work, you should cut your losses and end the project. This is a tough one for businesses, especially if they have invested millions of dollars into a project already. But in Strategic Management, it is worse to continue to throw money into an enterprise that will fail. That mistake is worse than the original mistake of engaging in a project that didn't work out.

We've got a long way to go, guys. But this is a good argument to advocate withdrawal.

[karynnj]

4. Nice post

I submitted a post, but I think I'm still not trusted.

[wisteria]

7. It is too bad that Hayden's commentary will not appear in the NY Times Mag

The mainstream media types need to read this to actually get an accurate assessment of Kerry's plan.

As for Biden, he will not be doing Kerry any favors, after all he appears to be running for President himself.

[TayTay]

8. Plus Joe is pretending again that he invented

the Dayton Accords part of Kerry's Plan. Joe distorted Kerry's plan on the Bill MAher show by saying that only he, Joe Biden, was talking about the diplomatic end of the plan.

Sigh! I think Joe's doing this on purpose.

[wisteria]

9. Me too! I hope some talk show host calls him out on these omissions

and half truths. I an not crazy about Biden, he fits my definition of a greasy politician.

[beachmom]

11. Sadly, most politicians are greasy -- on both sides of the aisle

We're just pretty spoiled by JK. He certainly is the exception.

I still have a Bill Maher show in my DVR. I haven't felt compelled to watch it, because there's never anyone on who has half a brain or the knowledge to refute the B.S. Last time there was was when Max Cleland was on last summer.

[karynnj]

10. Once a plagerist always a plagerist

Doesn't Biden realize that between the op-ed and Kerry's floor speech, at least his Senate peers can see through him. It may be desperation - foreign policy is Biden's area and he is clearly out classed by Kerry. He needs to raise money if he wants to run, and he doesn't seem to have been too successful yet.

(Biden should remember why he said Kerry was a "classy guy" and think why that word isn't used to describe him. It was not Kerry's height, bearing, impeccable dress and manners, or eloquence but the way Kerry acted towards others - giving credit when due. (and being totally shallow: He doesn't have Kerry's hair.)

Now that Kerry is back, I hope he will be able to address this distortion. He may need to call Biden on this - Kerry has his plan in the record and Biden is clearly not being honest.

[TayTay]

12. It's more than that.

Biden was a Foreign Policy spokesman for Kerry during the Presidential campaign. He explained Kerry's plan for Iraq to reporters and in his surrogate function at speeches and stuff. He stone cold knows that Kerry has always had a diplomatic element to his Iraqi plans, even before he called for a full withdrawal.

Biden knows this, he spoke about it as a surrogate in '04. This is inexcusable.

[karynnj]

14. That is clearly true - Biden is just a slease

In a way, as one remaining knock is that Kerry doesn't fight back, I hope he does find a way to counter Biden's shading of the truth.

It is very likely each always had a diplomatic piece at every given stage - it's odd he is calling it the same thing - there are other references he could use.

[ProSense]

16. Oh, did he ever!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=273&topic_id=59613&mesg_id=59613

[karynnj]

17. Thanks for the link - I loved GV's summary of the long Biden discourse

She captured him perfectly - in far fewer words. I'm a Democrat, and if he won the nomination I would have to force myself not to listen to the news - and just vote in November. I simply can't follow his speeches -

[TayTay]

18. Biden will not win the nom.

He would, however, like to be Sec of State.

[wisteria]

19. I don't see him in that role. Now Senator Kerry on the other hand,

I could see him making something out of that position.

[TayTay]

20. It was supposedly something that came up in '04.

That I don't want to think about cuz it makes my head hurt. (And because the only friggin person my sister could identify in all of 'advisorland' in '04 was Richard Holbrooke. I believe he also wanted to be Sec of State. My husband and I would scratch our heads whenever my sister would correctly identify Richard Holbrooke on TV and not be able to identify anyone else. 'Ahm, Cheney, but I'm not sure.' People: Go figure.)

[beachmom]

13. But the MSM spread his plagiarism as "originality"

The Economist a few months back said Biden's plan was the "most original plan" even though the three points they mentioned were in Kerry's plan, some of it back from 2004. I suppose since Biden was an advisor to the campaign, MAYBE some of it was his idea, but these stupid MSM outlets practice amnesia and act like something is new when in fact it's old news. I wrote to those idiots, but then when they crossed the line with that disgusting, mean spirited, sorry excuse for an op-ed about Kerry, I cancelled my subscription. But they've never corrected themselves.

[ProSense]

15. Posted

in GD
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=1100372&mesg_id=1100372

[beachmom]

21. Okay, total conspiracy at my newspaper -- they ran Biden's op-ed

While ignoring Kerry's. So the imperialistic ideas get published but not the withdraw by the end of the year one. I really feel like I'm in the minority. Because of these stupid ideas, we stay stuck and unable to think outside the box, and how to solve the Iraq problem. With the way Biden's plan gets so much publicity, it is no wonder that many people think that the Dem and Repub parties aren't the same.

Sigh . . .

[jenndar]

22. I'm so sorry.

It's really unfair of them to pick and choose that way.

[karynnj]

23. Well at least they published the Herbert

op-ed (likely thanks to you) that does mention Kerry's position. Also, I think Kerry will restart a media campaign on it. I don't think Biden saying stay through 2008 will win him too many points.

[beachmom]

24. Well, they also may have printed the Biden piece partly due

to my complaint. My LTE that got published talked about Kerry but also about how the paper fails to cover "Democratic plans", so maybe they're trying to please me with this!! Obviously, I have a bit of an ego problem if I think a newspaper of 500,000 circulation is worried about one person writing in. But I can dream, can't I?

[karynnj]

25. Good point

Kerry's plan preceded that. It's also good that they are printing Biden's - I don't like the plan, but he is a top Democratic leader on foreign policy.

[beachmom]

26. For what it's worth, I just read the Packer piece that sparked this op-ed

Although I didn't agree with Packer, I thought he went fairly easy on Kerry. What Hayden said was right about ignoring Kerry wanting the summit . . . but, Packer did say some nice things about Kerry's speech.

Another note: last I looked, there are elections in Northern Ireland, so I'm puzzled by that part of his piece. Anyone have some insights on N. Ireland? I think he would have done better speaking of India. Other than that, great piece by Hayden.

[ProSense]

27. I saw the piece too.

It was a short piece, but leaving out the diplomacy piece and characterizing Kerry plan as cut and run is extremely disingenuous. Northern Ireland was mired in violence for over thirty years, and diplomacy is what tempered it. I'm no expert, but nothing about Packer's characterization is flattering, and Hayden is hits the nail on the head.


Here is Packer:

One alternative was recently offered by Senator John Kerry. Speaking in Boston on the thirty-fifth anniversary of his Senate testimony as a Vietnam veteran, Kerry delivered an indictment of the Bush-Cheney doctrine, with its cult of secrecy and its contempt for traditional American liberties, that was far more devastating than anything he could bring himself to say during the 2004 campaign. Having found his voice, Kerry abruptly concluded the speech with a new war policy: immediate withdrawal if Iraq doesn’t form “an effective unity government” by May 15th; withdrawal by the end of the year if it does. But abandoning Iraq in an exasperated rush will leave ordinary Iraqis far more vulnerable to the murderous conduct of the militias and the insurgents than they are now. As Sunnis, Shiites, and, possibly, Kurds finally face off without an American buffer, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkey could be drawn into a wider war that could further destabilize the region and create large safe zones for jihadis.

http://www.newyorker.com/printables/talk/060508ta_talk_packer

[karynnj]

28. I think he may not have seen the op-ed

or the Senate resolution. From memory, the speech didn't repeat all the details.

[beachmom]

29. Well, he's wrong

But I've read other Packer pieces, and he just has a different view of Iraq. He wants to double the number of troops there and have them go on extremely long deployments, learn Iraqi culture and Arabic, etc. That's what he thinks is the solution, and it strikes me as British imperialism. So he looks at Kerry's plan and views it as "cut and run", but look at it where he is coming from. He wants an escalation. Kerry wants Iraq to stand on her own two feet. Both ideas might fail, but Kerry's at least is in America's best interest. Packer's ideas are neither in the Iraqi's nor our best interest. He's talking about micro-managing the country; it may work short term, but if you look at the British, they also succeeded in putting down an insurgency in Iraq in the '20s only to have the country slip through its fingers later on.

So coming from a total hawk, I still say Packer went fairly easy on Kerry. But their ideas are so incompatible, that there would be no way for Packer to endorse the Kerry plan (and really, he didn't seem to like Biden's plan THAT much), unless after some serious soul searching on his own, Packer came to the conclusion that the U.S. military was not capable of bringing stability to Iraq. Give it time. He might get there eventually, albeit painfully.

[ProSense]

30. People can have different views

without being disingenous. This is no different from Biden, who knows Kerry's plan, pretending the diplomacy aspect doesn't exist. Hayden pointed out that Packer is fully versed on the subject, so I doubt he is uninformed about any of the prominent plans out there.

[beachmom]

31. But even with the summit, Packer would oppose withdrawing troops

I guess I've read so much worse, that the piece didn't make my blood boil like others have. I still think there is a dialogue happening between the doves/hawks in the Party. They're arguing, picking and choosing the facts for sure, but hey -- Kerry got a mention in the New Yorker -- the first in a long while, and it wasn't ALL negative. Plenty of people will read it, and still be in favor of Kerry's plan.

I don't disagree with you; I think it's just you're more irked with Packer than me. I view Packer as a persuadable -- he was forced into defending his hawkish ways. One day, he's going to get tired of being on the defensive. I'm optimistic in that way. And that goes for Andrew Sullivan, too. Eventually, those guys are going to give up on the Iraq Project and favor withdrawal. Unfortunately, it might not be until 2008, but it'll happen.

[ProSense]

32. That's fine.

I'm not holding out hope that the neo-con Democrats are going to come around to become doves. William Kristol is a neo-con and he's already written off Iraq. I'm not exactly considering that a victory, in as much as it is an indictment of Bush's failure.

Packer, like Biden, is actually a bigger danger than the occasional or inexperienced critic because their opinions will be assessed from the standpoint of credibility and knowledge on the subject. I'm not saying that Packer's or Biden's suggested solutions will take root, but how many of these mischaracterizations (unanswered) does it take to deter people from even looking at Kerry's plan seriously or writing it off as "cut and run."

There is an article by Lt. Gen. Odom titled, "Iraq: Get Out Now (originally titled "Cut and Run"). It is a piece about immediate withdrawal, but even here he acknowledges the need for diplomatic follow through:

Two facts, however painful, must be recognized, or we will remain perilously confused in Iraq. First, invading Iraq was not in the interests of the U.S. It was in the interests of Iran and Al Qaeda. For Iran, it avenged a grudge against Hussein for his invasion of the country in 1980. For Al Qaeda, it made it easier to kill Americans. Second, the war has paralyzed the U.S. in the world, diplomatically and strategically. Although relations with Europe show signs of marginal improvement, the transatlantic alliance still may not survive the war. Only with a rapid withdrawal from Iraq will Washington regain diplomatic and military mobility. Tied down like Gulliver in the sands of Mesopotamia, we simply cannot attract the diplomatic and military cooperation necessary to win the real battle against terror.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0504-21.htm