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  abunoor 11:17 am on November 11, 2009 | 3 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: David Brooks, Glenn Greenwald, Superior Sophisticated Civilisation Watch (25)

  Glenn Greenwald on David Brooks “self-loving tribalistic blindness laced with a pathological refusal to accept responsibility for one’s actions”

  “if you constantly cheer on one war after the next that results in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings and the extreme suffering of millions more (as Brooks has done — beyond Iraq and Afghanistan — and continues to do), then you can’t coherently claim that the targets of your wars have a unique disregard for human life; that they — but not you — “don’t see others as fully human”; that they — but not you — “cause incredible amounts of suffering”; and that they — but not you — “come to believe others can be blamelessly murdered and that, in fact, it is admirable to do so.”

  Brooks advocates exactly that which he condemns — and he does so over and over again. That doesn’t mean his condemnations are wrong (criminals can coherently condemn other crimes). But it does mean that his claim that such sentiments are unique to Muslim radicals is plainly false.

  If Mr. Greenwald does not win the Brass Crescent for Best non-Muslim blog then there is no justice in this world.

   

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  abunoor 9:43 am on September 4, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: afghanistan (396), Change We Can Make Believe In (28), Glenn Greenwald

  Glenn Greenwald on why Obama continues the Bush foreign policy despite the fact that 75 percent of his own party oppose it.

  But as became clear with Iraq, the “mere” fact that a large majority of Americans oppose a war has little effect — none, actually — on whether the war will continue. Like so much of what happens in Washington, the National Security State and machinery of Endless War doesn’t need citizen support. It continues and strengthens itself without it. That’s because the most powerful factions in Washington — the permanent military and intelligence class, both public and private — would not permit an end to, or even a serious reduction of, America’s militarized character. It’s what they feed on. It’s the source of their wealth and power.

  Remember all the talk during the presidential campaign about how, when it came to national security, John McCain was such a dangerous maniac, a war-monger, an extremist hawk? This was the exchange McCain had with George Stephanopolous last month:

  STEPHANOPOULOS: Would we be fighting these two wars any differently if you were president now?

  MCCAIN: Not now.

  That, of course, is the trend that has been repeating itself over and over: while Obama has certainly deviated from what the GOP would do in the realm of domestic policy, he has embraced the core prevailing principles of Bush/Cheney in the areas of war fighting, civil liberties, “counter-terrorism,” and secrecy/transparency — i.e., in the full-throated continuation of the National Security State (Politico’s Josh Gerstein — who, despite where he works, is a very good reporter — writes about the latest such episode here).