well, shit, diz, I think you converted me.
well, thanks, even if i don't know if i'm converted myself. i just thought it was worth making a pitch as a Devil's Advocate kind of thing, if for no other reason.
but you know, in a funny way the theory you've outlined is actually the more optimistic one, because it's betting that the Reps will eventually get called out on destroyed the country/world,
i agree that it's the more optimistic one, and that's kind of the big hurdle for me, because i worry that that optimism on this point in particular may not be justified. if you told me five years ago that the general public would put up with secret trials, detention camps, mass round-ups of immigrants, torture, suspension of civil rights, a massive war of aggression, etc, i might have balked, but they seem to be pulling it off pretty well so far.
the pessimistic scenario would be that the American public will never "get it," and America will just slide into economic collapse and authoritarianism, still railing against the godless liberals who have laid them low.
you forgot - the catchphrase of the century - WE DO NOT NEGOTIATE WITH TERRORISTS.
i was flying home on family issues a few weeks ago, and i was on JetBlue, so i got sucked into watching Deborah Norville on MSNBC or whatever crap "news" network she's on. she was having a discussion on the Beslan massacre.
one of the panelists was a Russian policy expert from some university or other, and he seemed to have a pretty thorough grasp of the issues. he explained a lot of the issues relating to Chechen separatism and the war there and so on, and Norville waited patiently for him to finish, before asking him "What do we know about these people, and most importantly, why would they do such a horrible thing?"
he kind of looked at her for a second as if to say "i just finished explaining this, you bleached-blonde twit" and managed to stammer out "there's a war going on there."
she asked what Putin could do to stop this sort of thing from happening, and he outlined a detailed plan that basically revolved around opening up bilateral negotiations on the issue of Chechen separatism with Maskhadov's government in exile, explaining that, unlike al-Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist organizations which are diffused and ultimately stateless, there was an identifiable leader of the separatist movement, who had been democratically elected, and who regularly condemns separatist terrorism. he's clearly someone who's just sitting there waiting to be engaged diplomatically.
she pounced on him and said in this totally dismissive tone "But Putin already addressed that! He said 'why don't you just negotiate with bin Laden?'"
he looked like steam was going to come out of his ears, answering tersely that there's actually an answer to that question, and that the answer is that the Chechen separatist movement and al-Qaeda are (shocker) different types of organizations, and as a result, the situations are different. he starts to explain the whole Maskhadov thing again, and she just cuts him off again and asked why we should expect anyone to negotiate with terrorists.
i wanted to punch the screen, but i thought that the guy sitting in front of me would probably not appreciate that. it's just amazing how deeply that simple catchphrase (WE DO NOT NEGOTIATE WITH TERRORISTS) has penetrated the American psyche, to the point where it's just axiomatic and any argument to the contrary is met with blank, uncomprehending stares. |
