Kissingerian
by Scott Hardie on November 26, 2006
Another of Fareed Zakaria's perfectly lucid articles today, suggesting the only way out of Iraq: (link)
Five Replies to Kissingerian
Scott Hardie | December 2, 2006
What does this have to do with the article? He is entitled to any defensible opinion regardless of his past. Are you bringing it up only because I mentioned him and you wanted to share it, or are you trying to make a counterargument?
Kris Weberg | December 3, 2006
Well, no, I actually think that element of his past renders most of his opinions on the matter somewhat suspect, since it calls into question both his ability to distance himself from the story and, more directly, taints what he's got to say on the matter with conflicts of interest.
That he's hailing Henry Kissinger's methods as a solution -- expecially given the torturous history of Kissinger's involvement with Vietnam -- likewise gives me a bit of pause. What I dislike about Zakaria's stance, in general, is that he remains committed to the idea that America's intentions and initial efforts were quite right. The problem, you'll note, is never America's in his article: it's still those damned Iraqis, failing to live up to our intentions and become a Western-style democracy as soon as Saddam was gone. And while Zakaria has been quite critical of the postwar efforts of the administration, he was certainly in favor of the military action that got us into the mess in the first place.
To be quite honest, I think neoliberal globalization advocates like Fareed Zakaria, as much as did neoconservative advocates of an American empire, badly misread the situation in Iraq from the start, and are now desperately attempting to find a way to unload the blame for problems there onto anything other than their own flawed assumptions. Thomas Friedman's new column today does pretty much the same thing as Zakaria's essay, except that Friedman's frustration spills over into a thinly-veiled bellicosity in the process. That these ex-war advocates are doing so in the language of moderation does not make them moderates.
Scott Hardie | December 3, 2006
Thanks for the follow-up. I didn't understand what you were trying to point out, exactly.
Amy Austin | December 31, 2006
Scott, why are you choosing to make a blog entry of news topics vs. discussions???
I only ask because it seems (to me anyway) that TC -- by comparison -- has been quite bereft of any good discussion for a while, and whenever I decide to read and catch up on all of these long blog posts, I find myself feeling weird about commenting so long after the fact... moreso when its on current news events. Are you trying to avoid heated discussion on TC???
I guess I'm having a hard time in general moving between the forum-based web and "the blogosphere" -- it's just confusing to me, I suppose.
Logical Operator
The creator of Funeratic, Scott Hardie, blogs about running this site, losing weight, and other passions including his wife Kelly, his friends, movies, gaming, and Florida. Read more »
DMV Mystery
My last car, a 1996 Mercury, was registered in my mother's name, so every year in December (the month of her birthday), the registration sticker would be delivered to her at her house and she'd have to pass it to me to put on the license plate. No big deal. A few months ago, I bought a 2007 Dodge in my name, though she co-signed the credit application since I had no credit history. Go »WLW: No Payin', No Gain
My weight loss plan – which has become our weight loss plan, since Kelly intends to do just about everything I do – is on hold until I can recover from the move, which took my last penny and then some. On the bright side, I've been eating less since getting together with Kelly, and I burned what felt like a week's worth of calories during that move. We should start walking soon before we settle into a daily routine. Go »So Long, NCSA Primer
Someone asked me for help learning HTML today. I turned to my trusted traditional source, the good old primer at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois, but alas, it has finally been removed after all these years. This was one of the major how-to guides in the early years of the web, and it's the very guide that I used to teach myself HTML one weekend in 1996, from which this very site you're reading has since evolved. Go »Photos from Milwaukee
Some of these didn't come out as well as I'd hoped (many were snapped from a moving vehicle), but I'm putting them up anyway. complete set Go »Pass Me the Green, I Need Some Trees with My Tennessee
Kelly and I just took a short vacation to Gatlinburg: Two days there, with two full days of driving to make it happen. We've been itching to get out of the house during this awful pandemic (and to use Kelly's PTO before it expires), but with options limited for places to go safely, we realized that we could rent a cabin with family and just go hiking and birdwatching and grilling, avoiding crowds in favor of natural spaces. Kelly's immediate family from Illinois drove over to join us. Go »
Kris Weberg | November 26, 2006
Fareed Zakaria ought to know all about the Iraq war, considering that he helped plan it. Not that he told his editors this even as he continued to report on the conflict, usually arguing in favor of the war during the runup in 2003.
His defense? He didn't know his breach of journalistic integrity would be documented in the form of a report. A report that his name was left off of.