Why the Left Should Concede that Iraq Had WMDs

The right-of-Bush news site WorldNetDaily is claiming that a recent, private, intelligence summit was targeted by members of the U.S. intelligence community, trying to quiet or discredit news emerging from the summit that Iraq was, in fact, working on WMDs and trying to conceal those programs from U.N. inspectors. The idea, of course, is to rehabilitate George Bush's initial, and most effective, rationale for the war in Iraq -- especially now that support is crumbling from the very pillars of the right. We should let them do so, and help them.

Thanks to the war, Iraq's lack of WMDs can never be positively proven. And yet, for some reason, Bush has jumped onto the no-WMDs bandwagon. Why would have done that, when there way to prove him wrong? Perhaps because his advisors realized that continuing to claim that Iraq had WMDs is a political time bomb that he had to ditch as soon as possible. The left should put it back in his hands, by not only conceding the right's claim that Iraq had WMDs, but shouting it from the rooftops. Here's why.

Prior to now, the left's opposition to the war has, sensibly, centered around the notion that Iraq did not have WMDs and, therefore, President Bush was wrong to wage war with Iraq. The obvious instinctive sense of this argument has pushed President Bush to change (time and again) his war rationale -- ending up lately with the toughest-to-disprove, unrefutable-in-the-short-term argument that the war will, eventually, allow some form of democracy to take root and that, eventually, that democracy will provide for stability which will, eventually, make it tougher for terrorists to operate in Iraq.

There are several advantages to arguing that Iraq had WMDs. One, it protects the left's credibility in the event some shred of evidence turns the tide on public opinion. Two, it reminds people that Bush's rationales have shifted on the war. But, most importantly, it forces people to confront a brand new, and starkly terrifying reason why Bush's war was not only a failure, but proof that he and the Republicans are not only inept at anything but talking about national security, they're actually detrimental to it.

Remember, the war was justified as an attempt not just to deny Saddam the possibility of using WMDs, but to keep those WMDs out of the hands of terrorists. It would be bad enough if the war failed to do so, but what if the war were the very thing that made it possible for terrorists to acquire WMDs? George Bush would have helped the terrorists more directly and undeniably than all the journalists and dissenting Democrats of the last four years combined.

So, in the campaigns for Congress this year, Democratic candidates should stake out very clear ground declaring the war a failure. When Republicans call them on "declaring defeat," Democrats should simply respond that the goal of the war in Iraq was not to triumph over insurgents, but to stop terrorists from getting WMDs. If Bush was wrong and there were none, the war was a failure from the beginning. If Bush was right and there were WMDs, the war itself made it possible for terrorists to get them. And they should quote this concession of the fact that the United States government can not assure us the weapons did not fall into the hands of America's enemies:

They could have been destroyed during the war. Saddam and his henchmen could have destroyed them as we entered into Iraq. They could be hidden. They could have been transported to another country.

That was George W. Bush talking -- admitting, though the mainstream media failed to notice it, that the war may have led to the weapons making their way into some other country, into the hands (since we haven't heard about it) of an enemy. As more time passes, the less likely is the scenario that the weapons were hidden. So let's start conceding the right's point -- Iraq had WMDs. They're gone now. Our enemies have them. And that's George Bush's fault.

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Listen

If you liked Air America Radio's Morning Sedition, there's good news. I wrote earlier about how the show I helped launch (as its co-creator and first producer) was cut off at the knees, rather than supported, by new AAR CEO Danny Goldberg (whose explanations for his decision-making I've previously addressed). To his credit, Goldberg did give Rachel Maddow (whom I also produced) more exposure. But his canning of Morning Sedition was universally panned, both outside Air America and inside. Well, Goldberg's apparently been forced to address his mistake, albeit in a slightly face-saving way. Morning Sedition lead host Marc Maron is back. And, no, I've actually got no inside information on this, but from AAR's release, it looks like Maron's new show will return to the airwaves most, if not all, of what people liked about Morning Sedition.

The Cardinal is back.
So is Lawton Smalls.
Even Johnny K. Street, against all odds.

And I'm pretty sure that uber-producer Brendan McDonald is on board, too. Most importantly, though, Maron's getting two hours, rather than just one. I know that many of the people who praised Morning Sedition cited the chemistry of the on-air pairing as a crucial element. And, yes, it was fun. But please trust me when I say that the chemistry was not the catalyst for the show's unique identity. The chemistry was merely a prerequisite for two people to share the mike. With one person owning the mike, chemistry is no longer relevant -- and if you liked Morning Sedition, I can pretty much guarantee you'll like the new show just as much, if not more. (To get a sense of just how electrifying Goldberg's Maron-less mornings have proven, check out the fiery energy on full display at the show's web site.)

Not surprisingly, AAR's release doesn't make clear exactly where or when Maron's show will air, outside Los Angeles. But it apparently will be available through alternate venues, as a podcast, at least. Although we created Morning Sedition together, I can't pretend to know Maron's mind. But I do suspect that, without having to work as part of a team -- and to honor that on-air partnership -- Maron is capable of exploring territory and plumbing depths on his own that might not have been appropriate for a duo. In other words, if you thought Morning Sedition was groundbreaking radio, The Marc Maron Show has the potential to take groundbreaking to new heights.

It starts Tuesday. Please post your thoughts here if you get a chance to hear it.

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Forced Fertilization

I don't know where I stand on abortion. Neither should you. Our notions about taking life are complicated, and still evolving. We wrongly share with nations like Iran and China the distinction of killing people when we don't like things they've done. We also rightly make it possible, in some cases, for people to take their own lives when they've decided they don't want them any more.

Both of these examples involve issues of consent and autonomy. Capital punishment is always wrong for the same reason suicide (and its cousin, euthanasia) are sometimes right -- because of the intentionalities of the person being killed.

That's part of why abortion is a complicated issue. It not only involves an entity possessing no conscious intentionality (though an inferrable one: To live), but prohibiting abortion to preserve the autonomy of the unborn is an infringement on the autonomy of the mother.

Abortion is also complicated because of the nature of the entity being aborted. Birth itself no longer seems a reasonable time at which life ought to be accorded equal rights and protections under the law. Any time you draw a line, in this issue, it's going to be arbitrary on some level. That's why it is, or should be, impossible given our current scientific knowledge to know for certain when and why abortion is okay, if you think it ever is.

South Dakota is about to pass an unconstitutional law banning almost all abortions. (Despite the outcry, the bill is at least logically consistent: If your premise is that a fetus is a life, that life is surely not less valuable or deserving of protection depending on the circumstances -- i.e., rape or incest -- of its conception). The point, of course, is to give the new Supreme Court a chance to overturn Roe v. Wade. And while it's hardly a sure bet, there's certainly reason to think the court might.

The problem with the South Dakota bill is that it makes no distinctions based on anything. A zygote is a fetus is a life. If you don't care about the nature of that life, or the degree of differentiation, or the qualia of that life, then it's a fine argument. But maybe rather than oppose this approach, pro-choice forces ought to start educating people on the logical implications of this slippery slope, by pushing the amniotic envelope, as it were.

If every embryo is entitled to equal protection under the law, and maternal autonomy carries no legal weight, then science has opened the door to a dystopian conclusion that, it would seem to me, the anti-choice forces can not escape: Forced fertilization.

Specifically, if the embryonic claim to life trumps female claims to autonomy, should not the same law that calls on us to force women to deliver children also call on us to force women to bear children? After all, it's not the fact that a woman chose to create life that legally obliges her to carry it to term -- or else South Dakota would have exempted rape. That leaves only the fact that her womb represents the embryo's sole chance for life as the legal motive for forcing her to bear the child. And if that's the case, there's no reason the law shouldn't also start assigning the excess embryos that result from in vitro fertilization to fertile women.

The South Dakota bill addresses only the reality that a woman's choice to withhold her womb -- whether she chose to conceive or not -- can lead to the death of an embryo. The pro-choice movement should take it the next step and start lobbying South Dakota to take similar steps to protect the untold thousands of embryos -- which deserve no less protection under the new law! -- by forcing women to carry them.

And if that doesn't work, let's put some scientific effort into bio-engineering a male capability for carrying embryos, so that all these undiscerningly anti-choice men can start saving embryos by spending the rest of their lives carrying them to term.

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If Iraq is the New America, Both Countries Are in Big Trouble

Yesterday, as Iraq tried desperately to avoid spinning entirely out of control, President Bush tried to assure us that the hundreds of sectarian attacks throughout Iraq are just part of that nation's growing pains as it becomes a free, democratic society. Here's the analogy he drew, addressing the American Legion yesterday, to assure us that everything would be all right:

Yet history teaches us that the path to a free society is long, and not always smooth. I've seen that in our own history. In the years following the American Revolution, there were riots and uprisings and even a planned coup. In 1783, Congress was chased from Philadelphia by angry veterans demanding back pay, and Congress stayed on the run for six months. It was then that Congress learned, don't mess with America's veterans.

It's important to remember that our first effort at a governing charter, the Articles of Confederation, failed, and it took over a decade after independence before we adopted our Constitution and inaugurated George Washington as our first President.

Riots? Uprisings? A planned coup? Let's consider exactly what the awful events Bush describes suggest about the future of Iraq.

There are three possibilities here: He's wrong and Iraq will take longer than America did to achieve peaceful, democratic stability; he's wrong and Iraq will take less time than America did, or he's right and Iraq will take exactly as long as America did to achieve peaceful, democratic stability. If he's wrong and was overly pessimistic about Iraq's current path, it would probably be the first time this administration has erred on the side of caution regarding Iraq. However, even if he's right, we should not be assured by his analogy, we should be horrified.

As Bush rightly points out, America in its earliest days was beset by violent strife. Was it comparable to what Iraq is experiencing? For one thing, all of it was localized. For another, consider the nature of the grievances:

There were the folks pissed off at doctors for graverobbing, dissecting, and playing mean pranks with the bodies. Really.

Then there were the Scottish distillers pissed off that the tax on their moonshine was higher than the tax on larger distilleries. That's why it wasn't called The Sectarian Rebellion, but The Whiskey Rebellion.

And if anyone can tell me exactly what the New York City Brothel Riot was about, I'd be obliged.

Then there were the organized movements actually aimed at overthrowing the fledgling government. There was the Newburgh Conspiracy, such a fiendish plot that it was stopped only by George Washington reading the conspirators a letter, and so heinous that one of its leaders went on to become the first secretary of the Treasury.

And, of course, there was the Shays Rebellion. What sinister ends did Shays and his zealots pursue? They stormed courthouses, lynching judges and killing bystanders. And by "lynching" I mean "prevented from holding court" and by "killing bystanders" I mean "sought to prevent the imprisonment of American citizens guilty of nothing more than being in debt."

The key difference between early America and early Iraq is that the early disturbances here were (sometimes) violent expressions of legitimate, or at least genuine, concerns about fairness and the appropriate nature of America's government. They weren't trying to prevent the establishment of government, in some cases, they supported a stronger central government. They were on the same team and their grievances were not of such nature that they had to be overcome and only then could the "real" Constitution take hold -- their grievances brought to light problems with the existing Articles of Confederation, making clear why changes were needed.

For Bush's analogy to hold, he should address whether he thinks the insurgents in Iraq have legitimate grievances and, better still, he should identify what constitutional changes he thinks are necessary to transform Iraq's current equivalent of the Articles of Confederation into a workable analogue to the Constitution. If he thinks the government and its charter are fine, then he can't argue that Iraq's violence is analagous to America's. If he thinks they're not fine, he ought to specify how and suggest ways to fix them.

Furthermore, even if his logic were somehow reconcilable, consider the timetable President Bush is implying we've got in store. Let's call 2005 Iraq's 1776. Here's how the future of Middle East plays out, if America follows America's path:

2005 - Iraq achieves true independence.
2018 - Iraq's Constitution goes into effect.
2094 - Iraq's civil war ends, with all its citizens equal
2196-2197 - A series of Civil Rights Acts ensure legal protections for all Iraq's citizens regarding everything from access to the courts, to voting, to jobs and housing.
???? - Iraq elects its first atheist-Jew lesbian president.

Iraq is not America. The fact that America -- which was an experiment to determine not how democracy should work in a specific country, but how it should work at all -- endured minor, localized strife over financial and judicial matters should not be a balm to those concerned about Iraq's religious, ethnic and tribal violence.

And, perhaps most damning against our president, if Iraq's status as a democracy strong enough to ensure it's free of terrorist havens is such a distant dream, then -- if America's safety really was the motive for invading -- our country would have been better off leaving Saddam in power (isolated and defanged) and focusing our military and policy energies on the immediate threat: Osama bin Laden.

We chose not to do that, and the further off a stable, free, democratic Iraq is, the less and less certain we can be -- because who knows what alternate events might have transpired? -- that invasion was the best course of action.

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Why Democrats Don't Need a Plan

A common refrain we hear from Republicans -- and even from the pundits and commentators -- in response to Democratic criticisms is that Democrats, in order to be taken seriously as critics or as election-day alternatives, need to offer specific plans of their own first. They don't. And they can win without them. Here's why.

For one thing, I would be mightily surprised to hear of a single president, or even a senator, who won because of a single plan or even a set of plans on how to address anything -- the economy, a military foe, job creation, etc. Bush didn't. Clinton didn't. (Yes, they offered plans, but those plans were not meaningful elements of their success). Democrats shouldn't feel like they need to, individually or even as a party. (And media gatekeepers should stop acting like plans are prerequisites for valid criticism: No one requires theater critics to rewrite scenes before explaining why a play stinks).

In fact, Democrats should let the Republicans run on plans. Democrats should stipulate that they're not running on the basis of plan superiority. Democrats can run and win, instead, not just on personality superiority (which, unfortunately, looms far too largely in electoral decision-making) but also on philosophical superiority. Because where once the parties shared the same goals and basic philosophies of American governance, that's no longer the case. The White House has opened up a philosophical divide and most of the Congressional leadership has followed. Democrats should make the next elections a referendum on the philosophies on either side of that divide.

This country wasn't founded on plans for how best to organize executive-branch agencies or how to ensure independence from foreign supplies. This country was founded on the philosophy of how to go about deciding our plans and what system best embodies that philosophy. That system was intended to be both open and adversarial. We -- Americans -- were and are supposed to know as much as we can about everything, and then fight about it. That's why the plans were less important than establishing a system of three branches -- each somewhat insulated from and answerable to the others -- to determine the plans.

President Bush and the Republican Congress have not wounded this country's economic strength, its national security and its standing in the world because they had bad plans -- they have done so because they formulated and executed their plans by rejecting and subverting the governing systems that embody core American principles.

This fact is central to understanding the political and popular fallout from the Dubai Ports deal, the Katrina failures, the wiretapping debate, renditioning, Abu Ghraib and the war with Iraq itself. Each and every one of these was made possible by congressional abdication of its role as a check on the executive branch. Even the Cheney shooting gained traction because it embodied both the administration's lack of accountability and its lack of communication internally and externally.

Democrats don't need to run on lengthy, detailed plans for how they propose not to let companies owned by foreign dictatorships run our ports, not to botch disaster preparedness and response, not to violate the Constitution by spying on Americans without warrants, not to torture people and not to launch pre-emptive wars based on not skewing and not cherry-picking intelligence instead of not not continuing the hunt for Osama bin Laden. All that Democrats need to run on is a return to the American way of life: Engaging all of America's voices in healthy debate about America's future and then building consensus for how to get there. That's how we used to do things in this country not that long ago. Polls historically have shown that Americans are happiest, in fact, when neither party controls both the legislative and executive branches.

The only argument Bush has had to justify not governing this way has been the need for secrecy that national security entails. The reason that argument no longer holds is that Americans have now seen enough empirical evidence -- Iraq, Katrina, wiretapping, Dubai -- that the Bush administration lacks the basic competence we were promised from the wartime, CEO president. That means Americans are no longer willing to defer to him. And that means Democrats can and should run on one plan and one plan only: Expanding American-style democracy to America.

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How Bush Sold the War on Terror

The Associated Press is reporting that Malaysia's former prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, claims that Jack Abramoff was paid $1.2 million to arrange a meeting for Mohamad with President Bush.

According to the article, the 2002 meeting was not Mahathir's idea, it was suggested by the Heritage Foundation. What did the Heritage Foundation have to gain by this? Here's one clue.

So, Prime Minister Mahathir, whose policies had been rebuked by both the Clinton and Bush administrations, was told by the allegedly conservative alleged think tank that he could patch up his relations with Washington by meeting with Bush. How to arrange such a meeting? Here's what Reuters said regarding coverage by the Bernama news service of Mahathir's recent remarks:

Mahathir said it was the practice of the U.S. government to ask people who wanted to meet the president to use the services of lobbyists and this was not viewed as a form of corruption, Bernama added.

And what lobbyist did Malaysia turn to? According to the L.A. Times, Jack Abramoff back in 2002 allegedly took credit for setting up Mahathir's meeting with Bush, with help from his old buddy Karl Rove.

The White House told the Times the meeting was arranged through "normal staffing channels." Which is a classic way of getting to sound like you're denying something, when you might actually be acknowledging that you do it all the time.

Why does any of this matter? Because it wasn't just a corrupt lobbyist selling out to an anti-Semitic, anti-democratic national leader. It wasn't just the Heritage Foundation doing a complete 180 from its previous, principled opposition to Mahathir. It wasn't just President Bush somehow getting duped into meeting with the wrong guy. It was the executive branch of the United States of America selling itself by selling Mahathir to the American people as an ally and a friend.

Bush met with Mahathir, the White House told America, "to discuss Malaysia's role in the war on terrorism." But that's not what Mahathir thought he was paying $1.2 million for. Here's how the Associated Press reported Mahathir's comments Monday:

Mahathir said the Heritage Foundation believed he could help "influence (Bush) in some way regarding U.S. policies."

And Bush himself was asked after that May 14, 2002, meeting, what the point was of meeting with Mahathir. Here's what Bush said, according to the White House transcript:

Q Mr. President, can you tell us what you -- what we can expect of future Malaysia-U.S. relations as a result of these talks that are taking place today?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think you can expect continued cooperation -- intelligence sharing, for example. Let me finish, please.

One of the things that we're finding is that our enemy is shadowy. They lurk behind civil institutions and then they strike. They -- they're not like an enemy we've known before. And in order to make sure our respective societies are as secure as possible, we must share intelligence. We find out a lot about movements throughout the region, and we're more than willing to share with the Prime Minister's government what we know. And vice versa, and that's important. That's incredibly important. My most important job -- I remind this to the American people -- is to secure our homeland.

Q Not more extensive than that --

THE PRESIDENT: There's a lot more. We'll talk about trade. We'll talk about economy. There's a lot more to talk about. But when it comes to the security of a homeland, that's about as extensive as it gets. You see, I'm not going to let our nation forget, or our friends in the world forget what happened to us on September the 11th. It could happen to somebody else, as well, and the Prime Minister understands that.

The point of laying all this out is not to launch into a gratuitous opportunity to bash the president. It's to point out the striking familiarity of the language he used back in 2002 to explain his meeting with Mahathir. He acknowledged that trade and economic issues were on the table, but he refused to talk about them, steering the issue right back to the safety of his even-then-tired rhetoric about terrorism. It's fair to wonder what's not being said the other times he hews to that rhetoric.

Bottom line: An un-democratic country wanted to do business with America, so they made friends with influential people at the Heritage Foundation and they poured $1.2 million into a bogus foundation set up by an American lobbyist who called his friend Karl Rove and arranged to have the president of the United States -- for whom the lobbyist had raised more than $100,000 -- appear on national television to look the American people in the eye and tell them that he was meeting with a man previously found abhorrent by Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Colin Powell and the Heritage Foundation itself, in order to pursue the war on terror.

This is called war profiteering and the White House is now officially a part of it.

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Drudge REPOrt

I'm sure there were a zillion better ways to do this, but I'm an HTML idiot, so I just copied the entire page. That said, can anyone explain to me why Drudge, in a headline/link about Sen. Hillary Clinton, chose to spell the word "aids" entirely in capitals? (UPDATE: Drudge has now removed the headline entirely. Wonder why?) In any case, you can still see what the page looked like beforehand here:

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The Left Screws Up on Global Warming

This past week, 86 Christian evangelicals issued a statement acknowledging the abundance of evidence that global warming is real, and that mitigating action should be taken. The response from the left was pretty predictable: Lauding this development and trumpeting its support for the cause. The instinct behind this reaction is understandable. Acting on it is stupid and short-sighted.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those people who rejects any endorsements from the right, or from religious people, for the causes I favor. Hell, I agree with some of their positions. And in the past, I've specifically argued that the left ought to applaud right-wing nutjobs when they see the light on any particular issue. In that case, I was talking about Rick Santorum, who is, whether we like it or not, due to his office, involved in every issue. But, in general, I was referring to the kinds of issues that are, essentially, subjective matters of public policy. The kinds of issues on which everyone has a voice.

Global warming is not such an issue. Global warming is science. It's very new science, and it's very complex science, and it's very uncertain science. But it's still science. That's why the correct response to 86 evangelicals, or 8600 evangelicals, should be the same as if they had weighed in on the fine points of brain surgery, or the principles of building a suspension bridge. The only correct response is: Who gives a fuck what you say?

Yes, it's tempting to say that we serve a greater good by hailing this announcement and praising the evangelicals who made it. After all, that could, in theory, help lead to some positive policy changes. But it would also be helping to perpetuate the same dynamic that has allowed religion to hobble science for, well, always.

Why? Because religion -- most notably Christianity -- has been at odds with science since day one. And religion has virtually always done whatever was within its power to stifle any scientific advances that challenged its tenets or its power or its authority. Only at those junctures when empirical evidence is so overwhelming that broader society has stood up to defend science has science (i.e., rationality) been able to prevail.

And the only reason religions have managed to withstand these challenges is that they -- with unwitting irony -- evolve new adaptations that enable them to survive. When their anti-Copernican cosmology became untenable, for instance, they revised their claims about what the Bible says about Earth and the heavens. Religions have consistently retreated when faced with common-sense evidence of scientific reality -- in order to avoid the jeopardy to their credibility that would ensue if they maintained their opposition.

When you praise the recent evangelical announcement as meaningful, let alone laudatory, you're essentially helping to perpetuate their hold over people who should be looking to the scientific community, rather than the religious community, for guidance about scientific issues. When you appeal to evangelical worshippers to support environmental progress because their evangelical leaders do, you're perpetuating the power those evangelical leaders have to dictate scientific policy not just now, but in the future. In fact, there's a very easy way to determine how much this announcement is genuinely about seeing the light on science, and how much is about maintaining their own credibility and power. How?

Well, if they are sincere in their intentions, and sincere in wanting to remedy their past wrongs (i.e., their vocal support for anti-environmental politicians), they would say the following: We were wrong to stake a claim to leadership on scientific issues; we hereby renounce any and all authority on empirical matters and we urge those in the evangelical community to turn in the future to the scientific community for guidance and leadership on such issues. But that would mean giving up their power.

So, we're left with the absurd spectacle of allegedly "green" evangelicals battling it out with the old-school evangelicals. That's right, such stalwarts as Colson, Wildmon and Dobson released their own manifesto in response to the 86. You can read it here, but please don't bother. The idea that anyone is going to listen to what either side of this supposed debate believes their magic book tells them about planetary climatology is almost obscene. Throughout history, scientific and medical advances have been delayed and thwarted by the forces of religion. Imagine how much further humanity might have advanced by now if religions hadn't opposed advances in astronomy, physics, germ theory, evolutionary biology, genetics, psychology, dissection, reproductive medicine, stem-cell research, etc. Imagine how much better your life would be. Speculate for a minute on how many years of scientific progress have been lost to religious interference. One? Ten? A hundred? Who would still be alive if not for religion? How much longer would you live, and with how much greater a quality of life? How much pain will your children endure, thanks to the scientific progress religion has impeded? When you suggest that evangelicals have a credible voice on global warming, you become a part of this problem.

In each and every field, religions have retreated only when evidence became so overwhelming that their opposition became untenable. When we endorse the notion that evangelical Christians have a place in the field of climatology, we perpetuate a cycle that has been detrimental to humanity throughout history.

When religions get on board with the latest scientific advances, it's not evidence that religions are somehow improving. Religions have always survived by flexing enough to accomodate prevailing notions of reality. The Christianity of the year 100 A.D. could never survive today. It would have to redefine itself to conform to modern notions of reality in order to survive. That's all these evangelicals are doing: Surviving long enough to keep fucking up our future, just as their predecessors survived long enough to elect the anti-science politicians determined to fuck up our present.

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Response to the Washington Post...

Emily Messner of the Washington Post quotes my attack on the journalistic outlets claiming to cover the cartoon controversy, while opting not to show the cartoons. Here's what she writes:

The Petty Larseny blog says that "American and western media outlets that cover the cartoon controversy without showing the cartoons are cowardly, hypocritical, un-American and sometimes all three. The notion that they might cause offense is, itself, offensive."

I hope the Petty Larseny blog and others who take that position would also defend other cartoons that some people find offensive, such as the widely-misinterpreted Tom Toles cartoon depicting Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as stretching the military too thin and not being concerned enough with the number of war wounded and the severity of their injuries. (Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt addressed both the Toles and the Prophet Mohammed issues in a column earlier this week.)

I'm not sure whether Messner is genuinely uncertain of the position I and others of like thinking on this issue would take, but I'll try to be as clear as I can be: Yes, I would defend every cartoon that any person found offensive. I don't care whether Tom Toles draws me as a quadruple-amputee getting gang-raped by Jesus, Mohammed and Dakota Fanning, I will defend it. Hell, I promise to post a link, okay?

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The Cartoons: Stunning, Irrelevant Revelations!

We've been treated to two seemingly important takes on the Mohammed cartoon controversy during the most recent news cycle:

The original cartoons were published in an attempt to inflame!
The violent response was, itself, provoked and incited!

The only appropriate response to both of these, um, shocking twists(????) is this: So the fuck what?

There is only one question worth asking about the cartoons in a civilized, free country: Can they be published? If the answer is yes, then everything else -- questions of intent, taste, offensiveness, blah blah blah -- is just subjective, thumb-sucking blather. Anyone who addresses whether the paper had the right to publish them with "Yes, but they shouldn't have," is a weasel. If you've been asked whether you support free speech, don't interpret that as an invitation to serve as a critic, too. It's a yes-or-no question.

On the flip side, there is one, and only one, question worth asking about the criminal and violent response to these cartoons: Is it permissible? If the answer is no, then everything else -- whether rioters were "inflamed," or embassy ransackers were responding to a broader cultural climate of American-Islamic tensions -- is irrelevant. Defending free speech means condemning -- and using force of law against -- those who try to abridge it. Whether you disagree with the speech, or even concur with the sentiments of those acting criminally in opposition to it, is irrelevant. Stop the violence. Period. (I'm not saying it's not journalistically and diplomatically of interest if some governments have fueled the protests; I'm addressing this purely in regard to issues of free speech).

Furthermore, from a journalistic point of view, all the hand-wringing today about whether the Danish paper was out to provoke controversy (that used to be a goal of journalism in this country, too, when we still had journalism) or whether the outcry in response (legal and otherwise) was fueled by advocacy, misses the point entirely.

What makes this story so fascinating -- to me, anyway -- and, I think, important, is that it does precisely what the Danish newspaper set out to do: It explores a fundamental difference between two differing cultures.

And let's not make the mistake of thinking this is a question of predominantly Christian culture on one hand, and Islamic culture on the other. It's not. It's a question of a predominantly secular culture on one hand, and religious culture on the other.

Politicians supposedly of the world's free societies miss the point when they apologize for the cartoons by explaining that sometimes free speech leads to offense. No. That's not how it works. Offense isn't a regrettable by-product of free speech: It's the point. Bad ideas, offensive ideas, wrong ideas aren't something we tolerate because free speech is an otherwise good thing. The entire point of free speech is to ensure that bad ideas, offensive ideas and wrong ideas are exposed to the light of day. Free speech is not something we protect because it allows us to share good ideas. Free speech is the mechanism by which we identify good ideas. We can only be sure we are doing so if we vigorously promote not just the right to discuss bad/offensive ideas, but the airing of those ideas themselves.

That's why this is not a Christian-Muslim clash. Because many Christians -- including many in this country -- don't believe in free speech, either. And many Muslims, even in countries that are not free, are considerably more sophisticated and pro-free speech than some "western" theocrats. In this country, the theocons try to decide not just their own viewing fare, but what the entire country can choose to watch, as well. And Christians believe stuff just as dumb as Muslims do. The Bible bans "graven images." Many Jews write "G-d" because YHWH will get mad if they type an "o" in the wrong place. It's all superstitious idiocy. And there are adherents of every stripe willing to die and/or kill to support their own brand of it. So let's not get too smug about how our superstitions are much more sophisticated than theirs. (See this bit of bonding across national boundaries, thanks to the magic of religiously fueled hate).

What this really is is a test of which countries and which politicians have the understanding of human rights and the conviction of democratic principles to both know and say that the only response to people upset by the cartoons is: Too bad. Anyone who doesn't get that really does hate us for our freedoms. And anyone who argues for sacrificing our freedoms in response -- free speech or any other civil liberty -- does, too.

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How To Call Iran's Cartoon Bluff

The Iranian newspaper, Hamshahri, has begun a contest to the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten's publication of a dozen cartoons of Mohammed that spurred deadly violence by Muslims in several European and Mideast countries. The Danish paper commissioned depictions of the alleged prophet of Islam, Mohammed. The Iranian contest, in reply, is seeking Holocaust cartoons -- and daring western newspapers to print them the way they have printed the cartoons of Mohammed.

There's an easy way to respond to the seeming quandary of Iran's bluff.

Print the Holocaust cartoons.

Better yet, reprint the most famous Holocaust cartoons: The Pulitzer-Prize-winning Maus.

The dare is, of course, disingenuous. As Maus so ably illustrates, there is no western or even Jewish prohibition against depicting the Holocaust. Remember, the Danish cartoons did not run afoul of Islam because of HOW they depicted Mohammed, but because they depicted him at all. Liberals will be making a big mistake if they don't side with conservatives on this one: Any version of Islam that endorses bans on OTHERS depicting Mohammed is fundamentally in conflict with basic tenets of western civilization. Just as are those versions of Christianity that, based on literal readings of the Bible, forbid any "graven images" of god or anything else.

The American and western media outlets that cover the cartoon controversy without showing the cartoons are cowardly, hypocritical, un-American and sometimes all three. The notion that they might cause offense is, itself, offensive. As Tucker Carlson correctly pointed out on MSNBC today, lots of things in the news might cause offense. What makes the media honor this potential offense? Is it the number of adherents? Is it the violence they might do in response? If so, then any journalistic outlet hiding behind this rationale ought to be clear about what its policies are:

How many adherents must a religion have in order to have its prohibitions followed by the particular media outlet?
What level of violence will be sufficient to cow the particular media outlet into observing a religion's teachings?

Better yet, what is the ratio? For instance, if 1 billion Muslims oppose depictions of Mohammed, and 10 people will die in anti-Mohammed-depictions-violence, is that a sufficient ratio to make ABC, CBS and NBC observe Islam's ban on depictions of Mohammed?

If so, does that mean a religion of only 100 million adherents only needs to kill 1 person to get its bans followed? Or does it work in reverse, that if I only have, say, 10 million people in my religion, I'd have to up my violence quotient to compensate?

Any allegedly journalistic outlet that doesn't have the balls to show the cartoons at the root of this controversy ought to make clear what its policies are about which religions get to determine their editorial coverage, using how much violence.

Conversely, those journalistic outlets -- such as Fox News and the Philadelphia Inquirer -- ballsy enough to display the Mohammed cartoon ought to send an equally clear message by printing Iran's Holocaust cartoons. The best way to prove that we really do have free speech is to exercise it. The best way to demonstrate that bad ideas are best defeated by exposure, rather than suppression, is to do it.

Oh, and before I forget, here, in flagrant defiance of the Koran, are my own depictions of Mohammed, in two very different moods:

:)
:(

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