Let Bush Tax Cuts Expire in January!

Congress must allow the George W. Bush administration’s unfair federal tax cuts to expire this January — and let's not call the result a tax increase!

I am not a socialist. But I am a social democrat. In the 1890s a wonderful politician from Nebraska, William Jennings Bryan, three-time candidate for President, preached “the Social Gospel.” He was against too much Wall Street, too much paper wealth, and especially against the increasing concentration of the country’s growing wealth into too few hands.

I’m not “against the rich”—my concern is not simplistically focused on the rich getting lower taxes. Rather, I’m in favor of a better life for all Americans.

In Tony Judt’s seminal 2010 book, Ill Fares the Land, we read reliable graphs proving how income inequalities have grown enormously since about 1970. In 2005, 21.2 percent of U.S. national income accrued to just 1 percent of the earners. America’s “Gini coefficient” (the conventional measure of the gap separating the rich and the poor) is about that of China. While the income inequality gap was shrinking between 1870 and 1970, in the last American generation it has widened greatly, unlike in most European Union countries.

The federal government’s massive tax-cuts, set to expire this January, cannot legitimately be called tax increases as Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) and some Republicans now try to label them. It’s just not true.

Condensed, the expiring Bush tax-cuts will significantly affect the top two percent of American households — holding perhaps 40 percent of all U.S. wealth — by reverting to a 39.5 percent tax rate rather than the 36 percent rate they’ve enjoyed from 2001/2003. Remember, they paid this 39.6 percent rate before; the 39.6 percent is not new, and when restored in January it is therefore not a “tax increase.” Further, the expiration restores (does not create) the 20 percent tax rate on capital gains, and taxpayers in the top two brackets will also pay 20 percent on dividends. Finally, the estate tax on inherited wealth imposes a 45 percent tax of inheritances above $7 million for couples.

Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, among others, favor an inheritance tax. Getting $3.5 million from your mom or dad seems plenty generous to most of us middle-income Americans who will not be getting over $500,000 from our long-living parents, god bless them.

If any of these amazingly wealthy two percent of citizens supported either of our crazed military adventures in Iraq or Afghanistan, or enhanced their paper fortunes by profiting from the recent financial bubble, they might be pleased to be able to make up for their lack of judgment by ruefully paying more to the government beginning in January. How can plutocratic Republicans support two losing and insanely expensive foreign wars (Iraq and Afghanistan), and a very expensive prescription drug benefit given to older Americans on Medicare, yet moan about the extension of the recent jobless benefits bill? Their math doesn’t compute at all.

As others have pointed out, the deeper question that begs to be asked is: “Who counts as rich?” There’s an entire group out there, whom James Surowiecki calls “the lower upper class,” who have fallen short of the to one-to-two percent of earners.

In order to be consistent, let’s look at the expiration of tax cuts for the “middle class,” realizing it’s a slippery label at best. A July 25 New York Times financial analysis did not go into the additional money the middle class would have to pay if their tax cuts expire — but it could amount to as much as $1.6 trillion over several years. Since this issue is so political, what with the November Congressional elections looming, conventional wisdom holds that neither party would dare eliminate this “middle class” tax cut.

But the press should examine this complicated issue, because the explosion in wealth at the top of the pyramid (particularly in the very top one tenth of the top one percent) has meant many doctors, lawyers, accountants, and investors making more than $150,000 a year (or $200,000 per household ) do not feel “rich,” and desperately want to retain their lower tax rate. Yet I favor ending my own “middle class” economic group’s tax-breaks in January, along with those of the wealthier tax brackets. Its part of the Social Gospel that those of us actively working should contribute to the welfare of others — the elderly, the disabled and ill, the poor, and the homeless.

Without the restored revenues from all the expiring tax cuts, our federal government, which we expect to do so much, will lose around $3 trillion ($3,000,000,000) over the next decade. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, a Wall Street insider if there ever was one, said last month that the expiration of the tax-cuts would not harm the economic recovery. Recent Nobel Prize winner in economics Paul Krugman agrees. Yet all we hear from conservatives is, “Don’t raise my taxes!” (See: Tea Party.) We have to ask: Where is the gratitude from the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans for their nine years of fabulous tax cuts, given out in 2001 and 2003 during the financial bubble? It’s like the political leaders of the city of Bell [LA] paying themselves outlandish salaries.

Digital Maoism -- A Review

Digital Maoism — a review of Lanier's You Are Not A Gadget

In his book You Are Not a Gadget, a collection of columns previously published online, digital pioneer Jaron Lanier considers how “cybernetic totalism” destroys creativity on the web, while the anonymous character of online trolls limits true debate.

Lanier is an Internet pioneer, credited with coining the term “virtual reality.” He’s also been a leader in developing the software for immersive virtual reality applications. This former net enthusiast now inveighs against a variety of digital phenomena: from the now-standard, locked-in web designs that he derides as Web 2.0, to belief in “the Singularity,” which is the notion that computer intelligence and competence—their fitness to lead—will at some point surpass that of humans.

Lanier notes that Google co-founder Larry Page is not alone among the cloud lords in believing the Internet will literally come alive. Others think this may have already happened: The “blogosphere” is a living cosmos in the minds of some. Students of world religions will resonate with Lanier’s comparison of the techies’ “faith” in the Singularity, and orthodox Religion. Or Maoism, for that matter.

We once had an IT guy at my school who enthusiastically touted our 21st century students as digital natives compared to veteran teachers who were digital barbarians. But Lanier argues that the once-beautiful digital dream of intense, creative individuality has been suffocated by the conformity-creating “hive mind.”

It is fair to say that Lanier, who calls his book a “manifesto,” has humanistic concerns about the diminishing sense of hope and promise in the vision of an international community instantly linked together. He talks about how the individual human participants in the web end up as “peasants” working for the “lords” of technology—Google, Yahoo, and hedge-fund managers with vast analytic resources. Lanier has the courage to show how the cloud lords profit from our volunteer labor; how we’re letting our kids become liquid-crystal serfs. Yes, a young person may have hundreds of “friends,” but practically all of them are on Facebook. When a web design is so locked-in that an actual human’s definition of friend gets deeply altered, Lanier writes, the “idea of friendship is reduced.”

Lanier is surely onto something when he states that a culture of sadism has gone mainstream online. He refers to the nasty edit wars on Wikipedia as well as on Slashdot, both of which accept pseudonymous comments, as “drive-by anonymity.” When my own on-line feature article appeared in the Santa Barbara Independent’s Voices column under the title “Open Carry at Starbucks [July 1, 2010]” it quickly developed a fascinating, long tail of corrosive digital comments—soon numbering 100—signed with pseudonyms. After reading Lanier’s fine book, I realize that it shouldn’t have surprised me how few of the writers really took up the question I raised, which was: Should people be able to swagger around Montecito Starbucks openly displaying handguns, even if they are unloaded?

No one picked up on my quotation from the Constitution’s famous Second Amendment, which involves Americans’ notorious gun rights; and no one directly addressed my question asking if “Arms” meant long weapons of the 1791 type or today’s extremely powerful handguns like Glocks? (I had written, “The Second Amendment to our great United States Constitution, in order to ensure ‘the security of a free State,’ guarantees citizens the right ‘to keep and bear Arms.’”) Dominating the long thread were commenters with such names as Major, Jarhead, gravedigger, and Edukder, using terms like “Eurotrash,” “snot-nosed journalist,” or “this coward who is so against guns.” (That last epithet was bravely signed by Against Cowardly Writing.)

Readers who need further proof of the nastiness of on-line anonymous commenting need look no further than the response to Matt Kettmann’s cover article A Mosque Grows in Goleta. Or the long tails of amazingly nasty meta-comments during the endless healthcare debate.

I believe Lanier’s book should be carefully read and its warnings heeded. In 21st century America I see a digital flattening and reduction of the self. After 36 years of teaching, I am deeply concerned that our kids are far too wired-up, far too “electronified.” They sit in front of various screens too many hours per week, prefer sitting to running. They need to get out more. Back to outdoor sports and active, experiential learning. Back to dinner at home with the family. Back to nature!

Lanier’s book gives us an insider’s critique of Internet technologies today. He’s a humanist in Silicon Valley drag, an apostate from the Singularity, a cybernetic Jeremiah warning us against where we’re going. All that being said, Lanier mentions three potential solutions in Chapter 8—read the book to find out what they are—and still feels the Internet holds genuine promise for humanity and for the planet. Let us hope so.

John McCain and U.S. foreign policy

Presidential candidate Sen. John McCain has been highly rated in the vital areas of national defense and security for Americans, higher than either of his two Democratic rivals for the White House. Since our president serves as “commander in chief” of the armed forces, he or she wields incredible power in the world, so the foreign policy questions are crucial for America as well as the entire globe.
With deep respect for the Senator’s prior military service for this country, his inspiring survival story, we must consider that neither flying combat aircraft over Hanoi nor suffering five years’ captivity in an enemy prison necessarily make the sufferer wise on defense. The nuclear-powered carrier USS Reagan’s recent port call in Santa Barbara reminds us that the young Navy pilot John McCain took off from such a lethal offensive weapon before he was shot down. Like his Admiral father, Sen. McCain is very accustomed to projecting US power far overseas.
Despite his military record, Sen. McCain’s published foreign policy views reflect a continuation of our current President’s inept global strategy. McCain simply continues George Bush’s rash belligerence abroad. Consummate true believer, he’ll stay there as long as it takes to “win.”
McCain feels we have failed in Iraq ONLY because we didn’t go all out in the first place when we invaded Iraq. But the good Senator forgets “shock and awe” in March and April 2003, and the later battle of Fallouja — this was our battle of Algiers. He trumpets his early support of Bush’s “surge” believing these reinforcements have turned the tide there. Recent reports indicate this is not the case, and the surge has also been reduced by British and Australian pull-outs. Now we’re stuck in the fifth year of an unsavory, bloody occupation.
Sen. McCain won’t consider the competing geo-political idea that the next president could choose NOT to go harder in Iraq — we could pull out of the Mesopotamian mud by the end of 2009. McCain falls into more of the deadly Cheney-Bush illogical thinking when he stresses how the sacrifices of our 4000 war dead mean we have to stay. We can expect waves of surges for the next hundred years from the Arizona Senator.
Withdrawal from Iraq by late ’09 dishonors only the executive branch incompetents who thoughtlessly hurled our men there; while a judicious withdrawal will restore some of our moral stature around the world and give our armies time to heal. Pulling out of Iraq does NOT require leaving the entire Middle East nor does it have to feel like a defeat. Often we have two stupendous nuclear carriers cruising off the Strait of Hormuz guarding oil lanes (intimidating Iran?), or even three, and friendly Israel is a staunch military ally.
What does “win in Iraq” really mean to the Cheney-Bush-McCain troika and their followers? The neo-cons chose to disband Saddam Hussein’s army, but then banned these Sunni Baathists from participation in the political process of the “new” Iraqi government. John McCain did not protest this. After finally getting rid of Saddam Hussein, Bush suddenly said America next had to “install democracy” in Iraq. John McCain did not protest this policy.
Today we can ask, ‘how do you force a democratic government down the throats of traditionally competitive Arab desert tribes?’ Today, the new democratically-elected Iraqi leaders openly thumb their noses at us by lavishly welcoming the crazy Iranian President into Baghdad, while the past few days witness mortar attacks on our Green Zone redoubt. Can Sen. McCain see that our true contest is in the global war on terror (GWOT), not these posturing puppets on the Euphrates? Our enemy is NOT a country. Our enemy uses the internet and cell phones and text messages to communicate, and he hides openly among us all across the globe. McCain’s sadly simplistic to contend that “winning” in Iraq equates to victory in the GWOT against the West.
To continue trying to “win” in Iraq sustains an incredible strain on the US economy, already reeling for other reasons. This three trillion dollar war has to stop not only because of the unbearable cost of American and Iraqi lives, but also because we are borrowing the war-funding from our own children. Twelve billion dollars a month is too much. The current Iraqi occupation is unsupportable financially and inexcusable morally.
In every US war we’ve ever had, we have had to raise taxes in order to pay for it. This is logical, and usually the government has also borrowed vast sums of money from the banks and the people. The Cheney-Bush crowd, however, not only CUT TAXES for the very wealthy, those most able to pay, but they also failed to ask sacrifices from the American people. We gave up tax revenues for the government while waging an unbelievably expensive war, yet asked for no sacrifices from the people! If they really believed this attack on one country would win the GWOT they’d demand parallel sacrifices from “the people” — how about gasoline rationing like W.W. II?
Sen. McCain would prolong our unsuccessful Iraqi occupation, and send more of our increasingly exhausted army there to fight. He’s such the Bush foreign policy clone that he’s incapable of cognizing the COSTS of our occupation debâcle. He also seems to have no ideas about how to pay for the NEXT three trillion dollars of expenses, and he doesn’t dare demand sacrifice from the people to help the war. Sen. McCain has also spoken recklessly about Iranian impudence and nuclear intransigence, and recently kept saying “Iran” when context demanded “Iraq.” These are not senior moments, and many think a President McCain would countenance invasion of Iran.
With no new foreign policy ideas on how to wage the GWOT, or pull-out plans for Iraq, Senator McCain should remain in the U.S. Senate dispensing his wisdom as an elder statesman. America will be much stronger if we elect a leader who will extract our men from Iraq as expeditiously as possible, certainly by December 2009 as Barack Obama has promised.

Open Letter to US Rep. Lois Capps (D Calif):

Considering your status as a “super delegate” to the Democratic Nominating Convention, and given your strong stand against our continued occupation of Iraq, I hope you will speak out stridently against the McCain-Bush-Petraeus strategy to keep the “surge” reinforcements in Iraq longer.
Maintaining current troop levels, i.e. NOT bringing the 30,000+ surge soldiers back as promised, damages American interests and uses up our soldiers. The US armed forces, especially the infantry and the armored battalions, need to regroup and heal themselves. We have to replace thousands of Humvees and many Apache gunships, etc. And asking our young warriors to go for third tours while the leadership has no overall reasonable goals in Iraq — this is wrong. This is criminally inept. The intolerable costs of this misguided mistake, almost $12 billion a month, bankrupt the nation. Our national economy may be our strongest defense.
We need to get out of Iraq and much of the Middle East (not Afghanistan), so I urge you, Mrs. Capps, to haggle with both the Obama and the Clinton campaigns to push them into harder anti-war stances. The stated goal of mostly withdrawn by Dec. 2009 is too far off — how about pledges to have 90% of American forces out of Iraq by August 2009, with the last 10% out by year’s end? Both Democratic candidates need to stop hedging about leaving “a few troops” within Iraq; please use your super delegate status to press our candidates to publicly call for withdrawal from Iraq NOW!

John McCain and U.S. Foreign Policy

Presidential candidate Sen. John McCain has been highly rated in the vital areas of national defense and security for Americans, higher than either of his two Democratic rivals for the White House. Since our president serves as “commander in chief” of the armed forces, he or she wields incredible power in the world, so the foreign policy questions are crucial for America as well as the entire globe.
With deep respect for the Senator’s prior military service for this country, his inspiring survival story, we must consider that neither flying combat aircraft over Hanoi nor suffering five years’ captivity in an enemy prison necessarily make the sufferer wise on defense.
Despite his military record, Sen. McCain’s published foreign policy views reflect a continuation of our current President’s inept global strategy. McCain simply continues George Bush’s rash belligerence abroad. Consummate true believer, he’ll stay there as long as it takes to “win.”
McCain feels we have failed in Iraq ONLY because we didn’t go all out in the first place when we invaded Iraq. But the good Senator forgets “shock and awe” in March and April 2003, and the later battle of Fallouja — this was our battle of Algiers. He trumpets his early support of Bush’s “surge” believing these reinforcements have turned the tide there. Recent reports indicate this is not the case, and the surge has also been reduced by British and Australian pull-outs. Now we’re stuck in the fifth year of an unsavory, bloody occupation.
Sen. McCain won’t consider the competing geo-political idea that the next president could choose NOT to go harder in Iraq — we could pull out of the Mesopotamian mud by the end of 2009. McCain falls into more of the deadly Cheney-Bush illogical thinking when he stresses how the sacrifices of our 4000 war dead mean we have to stay. We can expect waves of surges for the next hundred years from the Arizona Senator.
Withdrawal from Iraq by late ’09 dishonors only the executive branch incompetents who thoughtlessly hurled our men there; while a judicious withdrawal will restore some of our moral stature around the world and give our armies time to heal. Pulling out of Iraq does NOT require leaving the entire Middle East nor does it have to feel like a defeat. Often we have two stupendous nuclear carriers cruising off the Strait of Hormuz guarding oil lanes (intimidating Iran?), or even three, and friendly Israel is a staunch military ally.
What does “win in Iraq” really mean to the Cheney-Bush-McCain troika and their followers? The neo-cons chose to disband Saddam Hussein’s army, but then banned these Sunni Baathists from participation in the political process of the “new” Iraqi government. John McCain did not protest this. After finally getting rid of Saddam Hussein, Bush suddenly said America next had to “install democracy” in Iraq. John McCain did not protest this policy.
Today we can ask, ‘how do you force a democratic government down the throats of traditionally competitive Arab desert tribes?’ Today, the new democratically-elected Iraqi leaders openly thumb their noses at us by lavishly welcoming the crazy Iranian President into Baghdad, while the past few days witness mortar attacks on our Green Zone redoubt. Can Sen. McCain see that our true contest is in the global war on terror (GWOT), not these posturing puppets on the Euphrates? Our enemy is NOT a country. Our enemy uses the internet and cell phones and text messages to communicate, and he hides openly among us all across the globe. McCain’s sadly simplistic to contend that “winning” in Iraq equates to victory in the GWOT against the West.
To continue trying to “win” in Iraq sustains an incredible strain on the US economy, already reeling for other reasons. This Three Trillion Dollar War has to stop not only because of the unbearable cost of American and Iraqi lives, but also because we are borrowing the war-funding from our own children. Twelve billion dollars a month is too much. The current Iraqi occupation is unsupportable financially and inexcusable morally.
In every US war we’ve ever had, we have had to raise taxes in order to pay for it. This is logical, and usually the government has also borrowed vast sums of money from the banks and the people. The Cheney-Bush crowd, however, not only CUT TAXES for the very wealthy, those most able to pay, but they also failed to ask sacrifices from the American people. We gave up tax revenues for the government while waging an unbelievably expensive war, yet asked for no sacrifices from the people! If they really believed this attack on one country would win the GWOT they’d demand parallel sacrifices from “the people” — how about gasoline rationing like W.W. II?
Sen. McCain would prolong our unsuccessful Iraqi occupation, and send more of our increasingly exhausted army there to fight. He’s such the Bush foreign policy clone that he’s incapable of cognizing the costs of our occupation debâcle. He also seems to have no ideas about how to pay for the next three trillion dollars of expenses, and he doesn’t dare demand sacrifice from the people to help the war. Sen. McCain has also spoken recklessly about Iranian impudence and nuclear intransigence, and recently kept saying “Iran” when context demanded “Iraq.” These are not senior moments, and many think a President McCain would countenance invasion of Iran.
With no new foreign policy ideas on how to wage the GWOT,or pull-out plans for Iraq, Senator McCain should remain in the U.S. Senate dispensing his wisdom as an elder statesman. America will be much stronger if we elect a leader who will extract our men from Iraq as expeditiously as possible, certainly by December 2009.

A Celebration of Threats: comparison of carrier USS Reagan's 2008 Santa Barbara Visit with that of the 1908 Great White Fleet

Recent public commentary praising the Navy League for welcoming the nuclear-powered carrier REAGAN to Santa Barbara last month misses the point by failing to understand our global position. Blinded by pure nationalism, these "patriots" wanted us to celebrate the sailors from this enormous warship that also carries nuclear bombs and missiles along with 80 combat aircraft. However, most of the paeans to honor brave sailors immediately morphed into the pageantry and blazing power of the USS Reagan itself. The new science-technology religion in our military democracy requires orgasmic exuberance whenever we behold our best weapons. What does such fervent celebration of our mobile naval nuclear weapon imply? Did the sailors also visit the crosses at Arlington West?

For global geo-political understanding, let's look at the context one hundred years ago when President Theodore Roosevelt ordered his new fleet of battleships to steam around the world, setting off in 1907. TR had recently won the Nobel Peace Prize for helping settle the 1905 Russo-Japanese War, but he was still worried about Japanese military moves in the Far East. Having just seen construction of 16 state-of-the-art new battleships, Roosevelt realized it was basically an Atlantic Ocean fleet, and that we were weak in the Pacific. He had the vessels deliberately painted an un-warlike white, and they set off in December of 1907 around South America. It was a technical feat to get the 16 ships safely through the Strait of Magellan and up to California on a showy world circumnavigation. TR's global goal was to forestall Japanese aggression by a peaceful show of force in the Far East, including a provocative fleet visit to Yokohama. Always contradictory, TR did love the pageantry of American power abroad but his chief goal was to prevent war. Indeed, we avoided hostilities with Japan until December 7, 1941 (Pearl Harbor).

The thunderous cheers for the 1908 Great White Fleet's visit to southern California reflected a jubilant nation at peace. By contrast, the USS REAGAN's 2008 port call in Santa Barbara reflects a worried and aggressive America. The behemoth boasts incredible firepower, dwarfing that of all the 1908 battleships combined, and will eventually return to the Persian Gulf region again to support our assault on Iraq. The never-ending-war has become a never-ending-story for our children.

Yes, it was certainly important to support the visiting sailors during their port call here—they are the young we've chosen to sacrifice in order to continue our occupation—but we could have worn black and kept a sober mien mixed with sorrow. A global outlook reveals that America is the aggressor in the Middle East, and now we're enmeshed in a bloody occupation. Writers who extol the REAGAN's unbelievable firepower and go through these techno-enthusiasm orgies usually add the noun "defend." Since Iraq did not attack the USA, how can offensive maneuvers by our gargantuan carriers be in defense of America? Jingoistic nationalism celebrates offensive weapons and blitzkrieg air strikes.

We currently have over 150,000 soldiers plus an unknown number of mercenaries occupying Iraq, with many thousands more in Afghanistan (as well as NATO forces), and mighty naval forces cruising off the Strait of Hormuz. Why shouldn't Iran be terrified? Like wealthy and powerful Athens in her Classical Age, we're off on belligerent military adventures around the globe, and the rest of the world see the REAGAN as an offensive, threatening weapon. Why can't US military forces be applied to globally rather than to occupy? How could true patriots celebrate the recent visit like the 1908 Californians when they know where the REAGAN goes and what it will do "for us" in the Persian Gulf?

Let Islam be Islam and America be America!

Allowing Islam to be Islam is an important new principle that can help change U.S. foreign policy and reduce warfare in the 21st century. Since I’ve been teaching about Islam and other world religions to sixth graders since 2001, this focus on Moslem beliefs and practices is a familiar subject. Every fall I begin the year studying ISLAM partly because American kids have great curiosity about it and also because of its great complexity and depth.
If the United States wants to avoid that ‘clash of civilizations’ Samuel Huntington warned us about — and which Bush and Bin Laden are bringing closer — we have to figure out “what IS Islam?” This question is more vital than “why do they hate us” and answering it will help us deal peacefully with Moslems globally. The Prophet Muhammed, may his name be blessed, received some explicit instructions from Jibril (Gabriel) — including praying 5x per day, making the hajj to Mecca, and fasting during Ramadan month. Many individual Moslems will actually obey these and other prescriptions from the Islamic pillars of practice. The US consistently enrages some Moslems when our foreign policy prevents them from carrying out these sacred actions prescribed in the holy Qur'an. Islam is by far the youngest of the three “western” Abrahamic religions that actually began in the Near East. Still without a “Reformation,” many Moslems are determinedly serious about carrying out the prescriptions of the Prophet, and this intensity is difficult for non-Moslems to appreciate.
The bipartisan 9/11 Commission Report stated that “the American homeland is the planet,” meaning an attack on American interests overseas is the same as a terrorist assault in North America [p. 362]. But if we have to consistently intervene to protect our “foreign” homeland — call it empire! — using military force, we encounter significant opposition by uprooting Moslem daily life. Thrusting troops into Panama, or stationing divisions in Germany or South Korea, works out globally, but having troops anywhere in Saudi Arabia near the Ka’aba becomes a problem. Our invasion of Iraq and ongoing bloody occupation there disrupts required Moslem daily practices. What about the mosques we’ve accidentally damaged, the civic destruction in the two battles for Fallouja, and the tens of thousands of Moslem women and children killed as collateral damage? We need to review our foreign policy principles, cease imagining the whole planet as part of our “homeland,” and admit to limits on our enormous power.
Andrew Bacevich, author of the acclaimed The New American Militarism (Oxford, 2005), recently posited 5 principles to guide American actions abroad; one of them is to husband your economic and military resources. Steering clear of reckless invasions or selective airstrikes (Cheney’s plotted cruise missiles vs. Iran) does not mean passive isolationism. As von Clausewitz famously stated, the THREAT of using force is usually more influential than outright attack. When we do attack this squanders our advantages, reveals the shocking limits of power, and damages the American planetary empire’s longevity.
Bacevich also advocates our need to reinvent that “containment” strategy which was so successful against the USSR. Thus we see the necessity of letting Islam simply be Islam, a 1300 year old “younger” Abrahamic religion with all the monotheistic aspects that go with that tradition. A new strategy of CONTAINING Islam by forgoing military intervention allows Moslem moderates time to calm the stresses of western modernity on their belief system. It gives the 1.4 billion Moslems the security to know they can carry out their sacred activities without an external threat, and WE can husband our resources.
Just as my students find Islam quite mysterious and complex, so do many Mohammedans find America enigmatic, violent, and imperialistic. As we struggle to understand them, let’s give them time to develop and to co-habit with a restrained American influence on our shared planet.