Regime Change in Zimbabwe?

How thrilling: the Obama administration is not even a month old and it is already flirting in some capacity with regime change, that terrible taboo among liberals. The Times of London reports President Obama is seeking to refer the case to the UN Security Council. I think diplomatic solutions are no longer feasible, especially after Robert Mugabe's recent declaration, "Zimbabwe is mine." Last month a priest who runs a clinic in rural Zimbabwe told the Times,

People are starving here. The extent of the suffering has reached Auschwitz proportions. ... It’s a silent tsunami. They die so quietly. They don’t demonstrate or cry out or stand up. They just die.

I prefer the position of John Sentamu, the Uganda-born Archbishop of York and Primate of England, who wrote in December:

As a country cries out for justice, we can no longer be inactive to their call. Mugabe and his henchmen must now take their rightful place in the Hague and answer for their actions. The time to remove them from power has come.

This sentiment has been endorsed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu ("He has really turned into a kind of Frankenstein for his people. ... I just hope I mean that we don't wait until it is too late.") and Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga:

The crisis in Zimbabwe has now reached a point where further lack of action by the African Union and the international community will constitute nothing less than a crime against humanity. ... If no troops are available, then the AU must allow the U.N. to send its forces into Zimbabwe with immediate effect, to take over control of the country and ensure urgent humanitarian assistance to the people dying of cholera and starvation.

Updike on Death

"Perfection Wasted"

And another regrettable thing about death
is the ceasing of your own brand of magic,
which took a whole life to develop and market—
the quips, the witticisms, the slant
adjusted to a few, those loved ones nearest
the lip of the stage, their soft faces blanched
in the footlight glow, their laughter close to tears,
their tears confused with their diamond earrings,
their warm pooled breath in and out with your heartbeat,
their response and your performance twinned.
The jokes over the phone. The memories
packed in the rapid-access file. The whole act.
Who will do it again? That's it: no one;
imitators and descendants aren't the same.

The White House Is Up for Sale

The one in Atlanta, I mean.

A Brief Thought on Liberal Democracies in War

We have just seen through the example of Israel's Gaza campaign the labyrinthine complications a liberal democracy takes upon itself when engaging in asymmetrical warfare against a poorer, undemocratic foe. The specific amount of force Israel used allowed it to destroy a large number of military targets while not destroying Hamas' military capabilities. The number of civilian deaths was such that it roused international anger but not to the point that it shocked the world's conscience.

In dealing a heavy but not knockout blow to Hamas and in riling world opinion against itself while not decisively concluding its business in Gaza, Israel fell victim to the impossible balancing act that liberal democracies set up for themselves in wartime. The ethical standards prevalent in these societies serve to ensure that conclusive military victories are rarely achievable in the event they require extensive time commitments, large numbers of soldiers, and--most importantly--the utter abandonment of the rules of war.

I don't know how liberal democracies should address this strategic and moral quandary, but I think we shouldn't be afraid of considering the benefits of unleashing such a tremendous level of violence that it redefines the physical reality of the military theater and the metaphysical reality of the enemy. I mean a level of violence that, in Gaza for example, would make it unthinkable for Hamas leaders to come out of hiding after the conflict and declare victory and stage parades and begin to rearm anew. I mean a level of violence that would cause what few Hamas members remained to survey the complete devastation of their surroundings, to confront the undeniable fact that they did not win because everything from their possessions to their family to their very land was destroyed, and to come face to face with an irrefregable new reality that comprehensively refutes the ideology that prevailed thitherto.

I'm only theorizing and have no solutions, but we should consider the transformative power of psychological trauma, induced by shocking levels of violence, and its potential to reconfigure the realities of the enemies of civilization.

"Empire"

Here is a hilarious yet furious review of Empire, a Marxist critique of contemporary world politics that was published in 2001. The book has become a textual lodestar of the left, to everyone's detriment.

R.I.P.

John Updike, dead at 76.

Utopian Designs for Infrastructure

The stimulus package before Congress is only the first of what will likely be a series of expensive, expansive investments in American infrastructure. The composition of the current bill reflects short-sighted and mundane considerations and an occasional political farce: Nancy Pelosi's contention that family planning will stimulate the economy.

An article in City Journal, a small magazine with outsized intellectual weight published by the Manhattan Institute, discusses the pettiness of our politicians' infrastructural aspirations. The author Howard Husock cites projects like the Erie Canal, postbellum land grants to the railroad companies, and the interstate highway system as epochal investments that engendered economic growth far beyond their costs.

We clearly need infrastructure projects to spur the economy, but I do think policymakers should "think big" instead of throwing money at banal plans like road repaving. There should be a vision for where these expenditures will be directed, and it should look to our country's future needs. It should also address related socio-economic problems. For example, I think a nationwide high-speed rail network, possibly powered by something other than fossil fuels, would be an insuperably valuable investment. It would also counteract, to some extent, the overuse of automobiles. An even more creative idea, suggested by some, is to resurrect the Federal Writers' Project, to employ talented and patriotic workers less inclined to construction labor.

The point is, if we're going to spend all this money to revivify the economy, it should be on momentous projects that historicize our era, serve a practical purpose, and forge national cohesion and pride. For a trillion or two dollars, we should demand public works with symbolic and architectural potency and not settle for a thousand remodeled toll booths.

The Critics' Top Tens

Apparently I didn't see a lot of good movies this year.

Published at Last

The new opinions editor at The Red & Black must not be an anti-intellectual troglodytic harpy like her predecessor. I say this because in today's paper I have finally been allowed a voice. It's a little opinion piece about Obama's foreign policy that I updated from a draft previously rejected by the last R&B opinions editor, an insular stultifying virago. I hope this is a change in direction towards more serious pieces for the opinions page, but it could be mere expiation for the embarrassingly unfunny article from Thursday.

Jon Stewart on the Scene

"That's Hillary Clinton freeing the State Department."

"There Is Nothing That I Welcome More Than a Good Debate"

Hillary's remarks to State Department employees on her first day. Apparently the underlings at Foggy Bottom were hanging from the rafters as she entered the building. Also today President Obama appointed Richard Holbrooke envoy to Afghanistan-Pakistan and George Mitchell to the Middle East. I really hope they can forge a breakthrough in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

This Is an Outrage

Neither Gran Torino nor Revolutionary Road was nominated in any of the major Academy Award categories.

BHL on Israel-Gaza

We could, as Israeli pacifists do, tell ourselves that the destruction of these tunnels would have been sufficient. As is the case with me, we could gather that, this war having already exposed the existence of these tunnels to the world, and thus having put the Egyptians up against the wall, Israel could stop there and, today, cease fire. What we can't ignore is this fact -- this context: Gaza which, evacuated, is becoming not the embryo of the so-desired Palestinian State, but the advance base of a total war against the Jewish State.

Bernard-Henri Lévy, reporting from Israel

An Amusing Anecdote

Elaine: Did you read the whole thing?
Kramer: Oh! Yeah.
Elaine: Huh. So what’s it about?
Kramer: Well it’s a story about love, deception, greed, lust and... unbridled enthusiasm.
Elaine: Unbridled enthusiasm...?
Kramer: Well, that’s what led to Billy Mumphrey’s downfall.
Elaine: Oh boy!
Kramer: You see Elaine, Billy was a simple country boy. You might say a cockeyed optimist, who got himself mixed up in the high stakes game of world diplomacy and international intrigue.
Elaine: Oh! My God.

From Seinfeld, "The Doodle"

The Black Death Strikes al-Qaeda

Several outlets have reported the Bubonic Plague killed dozens of terrorists aligned with al-Qaeda's North African franchise. News like this deserves much more attention in the American media, especially television. There should be celebration and gloating when the enemies of social equality and freedom of inquiry suffer and perish.

Hitchens vs. Ali

I've been searching for a recording of this debate (in seven parts) from the moment I heard it occurred. In April of 2002 at Georgetown University Christopher Hitchens debated Tariq Ali, the leftist Anglo-Pakistani writer and campaigner (and supposed inspiration for the Rolling Stones' "Street Fightin' Man," on sundry global topics, particularly American imperialism and the Muslim world. These two intellectual titans had a decades-long friendship as activists on the left, but Mr. Hitchens' departure from what became the prevailing left analysis of 9/11 resulted in a rupture that, as the debate audio indicates, was bitter and not soon forgotten.

Two weeks after the World Trade Center atrocity Mr. Ali wrote in Counterpunch a denunciation of his former comrade. In his opening remarks at the debate Mr. Hitchens responded:

Now Tariq Ali spent the months of September and October in London mobilizing for a demonstration with others under the pathetic slogan “Stop the War Before It Starts.” That’s in October and November. Not only is that the most lame, abject slogan I think any peace movement has ever come up with, but it also makes very clear the view of its organizers, which was and is obviously this: that the war hadn’t started yet, which in turn means war did not start on September 11. There would only be a war if there was a counterattack. I swear to you Tariq--I'll look at you and tell you this--I never thought I'd live to see the left sink so fucking low.

Not in a generous mood either, Mr. Ali said a few minutes later, "So if we're talking about intelligent and principled debate I don't intend to learn any lessons from you." They have since debated three other times, once in London and two times on Democracy Now. The volatility, bitterness, and rhetorical intrepidity of these debates is rivaled only by the Hitchens-Galloway confrontation--a must-see.

Très Français

What a headline: "Former French President Chirac hospitalised after mauling by his clinically depressed poodle." The article says, "The 76-year-old statesman was savaged by his white Maltese dog - which suffers from frenzied fits and is being treated with anti-depressants." Oh my.

Chris Matthews Has Foregone His Integrity

I just watched MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews ridicule and belittle and trivialize "the coalition of the willing," the multinational force that intervened in Iraq in 2003. It's an omnipresent line of masturbatory glee for liberals, but their callow delight in criticizing our allies betrays their unseriousness. The coalition included among others the US, the UK, Australia, Italy, Spain, Poland, the Netherlands, South Korea, Georgia, Ukraine, and Japan. Had the case for war been made by someone of even average eloquence, instead of a man totally numb to international diplomacy (George W. Bush), the list would have been more comprehensive. Nevertheless, the shame ultimately belongs to those who giggled at jokes about Mr. Bush's intelligence instead of supporting the removal of the fascist crime family that formerly subjugated Iraq.

The Flubbed Oath

I can't bear the endless repetition in the media of the fumbled oath!

Shades of a Foreign Policy in the Inaugural Address

I found several passages in today's speech illuminative of President Obama's worldview:

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with the sturdy alliances and enduring convictions.

They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use. Our security emanates from the justness of our cause; the force of our example; the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

...

We will not apologize for our way of life nor will we waver in its defense.

And for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that, "Our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken. You cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you."

...

To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict or blame their society's ills on the West, know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.

There was a specific and unequivocal rebuke of postcolonial theory (to which many of Mr. Obama's supporters subscribe) in the lines "We will not apologize..." and "blame their society's ills on the West...." That he didn't need to make such a statement but did so anyway bodes well for a foreign policy that confronts not coddles dictators.

Top 10 Films of 2008

To herald my return to blogging after a month-long hiatus, here is my list of the ten best films of 2008:

1. Gran Torino
2. Revolutionary Road
3. Changeling
4. Blindness
5. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
6. Burn After Reading
7. Vicky Cristina Barcelona
8. The Reader
9. Synecdoche, New York
10. Doubt

By way of comparison, here is my 2007 list:

1. No Country for Old Men
2. Atonement
3. There Will Be Blood
4. Michael Clayton
5. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
6. Zodiac
7. Into the Wild
8. The Darjeeling Limited
9. Juno
10. In the Valley of Elah