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 »
Devilin'
Bill O'Reilly on Shawn Hornbeck: "The situation here, for this kid, looks to me to be a lot more fun than what he had under his 'old' parents. He didn't have to go to school, he could run around and do whatever he wanted." Yeah, it was great. Go »And If You're Not Careful, You Might Learn Something
Ten things I learned from watching the entire run of The Cosby Show over the last few months on Netflix streaming: - Cliff wasn't the only one who wore wild sweaters. - Seinfeld was celebrated as the "show about nothing," but this show had even less plot. Entire episodes just riffed for twenty minutes on Vanessa fretting over a test or Theo having a crush on a girl, nothing more. Go »The Vagueness Continues
Things are looking up. Tomorrow, we sign the lease on a new house in Sarasota, bigger and cheaper than the ridiculously overpriced apartment we've had for five years. It's the first in a series of changes that we've wanted to make for a long time. Go »I Am Not Larry David
Last night, Kelly and I joined some friends from work at Tropicana Field to watch the Rays lose to the Blue Jays, something we do from time to time. In the second inning, I caught a foul ball that came wildly bouncing around our section. Everybody in our group got a kick out of it, and I savored the feeling. 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 »
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.