The Iraq War: A Personal Remembrance of Dissent

David Corn has a newsletter article in Our Land that brings back memories:

Twenty years ago, it was a lonely time in Washington. That is, lonely for anyone—particularly a journalist—who questioned the Bush-Cheney’s administration rush to war in Iraq. I was one such person, doing so in columns and media appearances. In the months prior to the US invasion of Iraq, as George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and their comrades in and out of government beat the drums for war, only a few reporters and pundits in the capital challenged their argument that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction; was tied to al Qaeda, the perpetrators of the horrific 9/11 attack; and posed a direct and immediate threat to the United States that could only be neutralized by full-scale war. In the aftermath of September 11, with patriotism rampant and fear affecting much of the land, few denizens of the commentariat wanted to buck the consensus for war.

I was then the Washington editor for The Nation magazine and no expert on the Middle East. But it was clear that many of the folks pushing the country to war were also no experts on the Middle East and likely would not wage war wisely or manage post-invasion Iraq competently. Consequently, it seemed obvious that an all-out attack on Iraq ought to have been a true last resort. First, the UN weapons inspection teams searching for WMDs should have been permitted to complete their mission. Then, if military action was deemed necessary, limited options or strikes ought to have been considered before a full conquest of Iraq was green-lighted. Short-circuiting the inspections, which had unearthed no significant WMDs or weapons programs, seemed foolish. Moreover, many of the administration’s claims that Saddam was loaded to the gills with WMDs and working covertly with al Qaeda were disputed by experts within and outside the federal government. Even worse, Bush and his crew talked little of their post-invasion plans. One did not have to be an experienced foreign policy professional or military strategist to fret that the war—predicated on contested accusations—could be a disaster.

Yet in post-9/11 Washington, not many pundits or politicians wanted to get in the way of the stampede toward war. (About half of the Democrats in the House and Senate voted for a measure granting Bush the authority to invade Iraq. And many prominent leaders of the liberal intelligentsia were on the side of war.) Most aggravating was that support for the coming war was often based on uncritical acceptance of the administration’s prevailing spin. At one dinner party, a close friend (and a well-known reporter) said there was no choice but to support the pending invasion because maybe Saddam possessed WMDs and opposing the war would brand one as not fully committed to American security. “You’ve got to be for this,” he said.

A few weeks before the invasion, I was doing a radio appearance with another friend who was working for an important newspaper. (He’s now a prominent media figure who has been a passionate foe of Trumpism.) He confided that he was uncertain how to assess the Bush administration’s argument for war. But, he said, since New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman was for it, he, too, supported the attack. At the time, Friedman had an odd stance. He believed a war would ignite progressive change throughout the Arab world, though he noted he was “troubled” that Bush was justifying the war by falsely alleging Saddam was allied with al Qaeda. “You don’t take the country to war on the wings of a lie,” Friedman insisted. Nonetheless, this important influencer backed the invasion. I was disheartened to see my friend, a smart fellow and usually an independent thinker, cede his opinion to Friedman. But like many in Washington, he decided that sticking with the herd provided adequate cover.

An aside: Two months into the war, Friedman asserted in an interview with Charlie Rose that the invasion was a necessary response to 9/11, despite the fact that Saddam had nothing to do with that attack: “We needed to go over there basically and take out a very big stick, right in the heart of that world, and burst that [terrorism] bubble. And there was only one way to do it…What they needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house, from Basra to Baghdad, and basically saying, ‘Which part of this sentence don’t you understand?…Well, suck on this.’”

Suck on this? That was the level of thought that fueled backing for the war.

In the fall of 2002 and winter of 2003, it was tough to counter the fearmongering, magical thinking, and unsophisticated analysis that drove the cheerleading for war. During the run-up to the invasion, I appeared on Bill O’Reilly’s Fox News show with Bill Kristol, the godfather of the neoconservative movement and a leading advocate for clobbering Iraq. I pointed out that the WMD inspections in Iraq could be useful in preventing Saddam from reaching the “finish line” in developing nuclear weapons. Kristol responded by exclaiming, “He’s past that finish line! He’s past the finish line!” He was saying that Saddam already had his mitts on a nuclear weapon, bolstering the White House’s assertion that Saddam presented a nuclear threat to the United States.

But Saddam wasn’t past any “finish line.” There was no evidence he possessed nuclear weapons. The UN inspectors had so far found no sign of an Iraqi program to develop them. (Post-invasion reviews confirmed Saddam had not been running a nuclear weapons project.) But in those dreadful months before the invasion of Iraq, the proponents of for war could say anything—and get away with it. The day before we jousted on O’Reilly’s show, Kristol declared that . . .

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How the NRA Rewrote the Second Amendment

Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law and author of The Second Amendment: A Biography, has a good article — presumably an extract from his book — in Politico:

“A fraud on the American public.” That’s how former Chief Justice Warren Burger described the idea that the Second Amendment gives an unfettered individual right to a gun. When he spoke these words to PBS in 1990, the rock-ribbed conservative appointed by Richard Nixon was expressing the longtime consensus of historians and judges across the political spectrum.

Twenty-five years later, Burger’s view seems as quaint as a powdered wig. Not only is an individual right to a firearm widely accepted, but increasingly states are also passing laws to legalize carrying weapons on streets, in parks, in bars—even in churches.

Many are startled to learn that the U.S. Supreme Court didn’t rule that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual’s right to own a gun until 2008, when District of Columbia v. Heller struck down the capital’s law effectively banning handguns in the home. In fact, every other time the court had ruled previously, it had ruled otherwise. Why such a head-snapping turnaround? Don’t look for answers in dusty law books or the arcane reaches of theory.

So how does legal change happen in America? We’ve seen some remarkably successful drives in recent years—think of the push for marriage equality, or to undo campaign finance laws. Law students might be taught that the court is moved by powerhouse legal arguments or subtle shifts in doctrine. The National Rifle Association’s long crusade to bring its interpretation of the Constitution into the mainstream teaches a different lesson: Constitutional change is the product of public argument and political maneuvering. The pro-gun movement may have started with scholarship, but then it targeted public opinion and shifted the organs of government. By the time the issue reached the Supreme Court, the desired new doctrine fell like a ripe apple from a tree.

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The Second Amendment consists of just one sentence: “A well regulated militia, being necessary for the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” Today, scholars debate its bizarre comma placement, trying to make sense of the various clauses, and politicians routinely declare themselves to be its “strong supporters.” But in the grand sweep of American history, this sentence has never been among the most prominent constitutional provisions. In fact, for two centuries it was largely ignored.

The amendment grew out of the political tumult surrounding the drafting of the Constitution, which was done in secret by a group of mostly young men, many of whom had served together in the Continental Army. Having seen the chaos and mob violence that followed the Revolution, these “Federalists” feared the consequences of a weak central authority. They produced a charter that shifted power—at the time in the hands of the states—to a new national government.

“Anti-Federalists” opposed this new Constitution. The foes worried, among other things, that the new government would establish a “standing army” of professional soldiers and would disarm the 13 state militias, made up of part-time citizen-soldiers and revered as bulwarks against tyranny. These militias were the product of a world of civic duty and governmental compulsion utterly alien to us today. Every white man age 16 to 60 was enrolled. He was actually required to own—and bring—a musket or other military weapon.

On June 8, 1789, James Madison—an ardent Federalist who had won election to Congress only after agreeing to push for changes to the newly ratified Constitution—proposed 17 amendments on topics ranging from the size of congressional districts to legislative pay to the right to religious freedom. One addressed the “well regulated militia” and the right “to keep and bear arms.” We don’t really know what he meant by it. At the time, Americans expected to be able to own guns, a legacy of English common law and rights. But the overwhelming use of the phrase “bear arms” in those days referred to military activities.

There is not a single word about an individual’s right to a gun for self-defense or recreation in Madison’s notes from the Constitutional Convention. Nor was it mentioned, with a few scattered exceptions, in the records of the ratification debates in the states. Nor did the U.S. House of Representatives discuss the topic as it marked up the Bill of Rights. In fact, the original version passed by the House included a conscientious objector provision. “A well regulated militia,” it explained, “composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, but no one religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person.”

Though state militias eventually dissolved, for two centuries we had guns (plenty!) and we had gun laws in towns and states, governing everything from where gunpowder could be stored to who could carry a weapon—and courts overwhelmingly upheld these restrictions. Gun rights and gun control were seen as going hand in hand. Four times between 1876 and 1939, the U.S. Supreme Court  . . .

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Where is Springfield?

I think of Springfield as the city in Illinois, but most counties in the US think of Springfield in Massachusetts. Some think of one or another of various other Springfields.

This site lets you enter a city name and see which of the cities that share that name come to mind for most people. For example, when I hear “Washington,” I think of DC. Most do not.

Good roundup of web browsers

I use both Opera and Vivaldi, both of which are on the list. Day-to-day, Vivaldi is my choice because of the widgets in its left vertical toolbar: history, calendar, notes, email, web pages, and others. Opera is good when VPN is required (it’s integrated into the browser, and you can turn it on or off). Both Vivaldi and Opera are built on the Chromium engine, as is Chrome, so for extensions you just go to the Chrome Web Store — Chrome extensions work perfectly in both Vivaldi and Opera.

I definitely will take a look at the others in this list from PC Magazine, compiled by Michael Muchmore. The list begins:

Though large tech corporations leverage their dominance to promote use of their own web browsers, you do have a choice in which browser you use. Many of the alternative browsers that aren’t so mainstream offer unique or interesting capabilities, such as greater customization, added privacy, and different browsing tools.

If you’re like the majority of web users, you’re using Google Chrome, which means you’re missing a few very useful features. For example, Chrome offers no reading mode, which you find in many of the alternatives included here. This mode lets you read a news article in a cleaned-up view without all the screaming clutter that adorns today’s web pages (present company included).

Perhaps of greatest importance is that Chrome’s built-in ad blocker doesn’t offer true ad blocking and privacy—only ad blocking that permits its own ad network to function unimpeded. Google has announced that even effective ad-blocking extensions won’t fully work in the future. Several browsers included here let you install plugins that block all ads and tracking. Some browsers in this list go even further, offering turbocharged privacy that includes VPN and Tor encryption.

A big factor in browser choice is customization. Chrome and Firefox offer backgrounds, but Vivaldi takes customization to new levels and Opera features a customizable side toolbar and a tile-based Speed Dial home page for easy access to your most-frequented websites.

Below, you’ll find some alternative browsers that are well worth your consideration. We’ve downloaded and installed them all to assure they work as advertised. If you have a favorite lesser-known browser that’s not listed here, please feel free to add it in the comments section. . .

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The Oatmeal Diet for diabetics — a surprise

The brief video below describes rigorous testing of the oatmeal diet and what those tests reveal. This video is third in a trilogy: first, Is Oatmeal Good for People with Diabetes?; second, How Does Oatmeal Help with Blood Sugars?; and third, Oatmeal Diet Put to the Test for Diabetes Treatment, the video below.

When Greger refers to “oatmeal,” he seems to mean old-fashioned rolled oats. I’m going to try this, but I think I’ll cook up a batch of oat groats (intact whole-grain oats) and see what that does.

Yuzu/Rose/Patchouli — Sometimes good, sometimes great

This morning I got a good hit of the Yuzu/Rose/Patchouli from Declaration Grooming’s Bison-Tallow soap, and it was a delight. Those three fragrances have excellent synergy. Some believe that mixing fragrance notes produces what amounts to olfactory brown sludge, but the right mix transcends the components, producing something better and beyond the individual notes. So it is with Yuzu/Rose/Patchouli, a combination due to the perfumer Chatillon Lux, who produced the aftershave.

This is another 22mm $10 synthetic from Maggard Razors, and it is also an excellent brush. It easily created a fine lather, and the Rockwell Model T felt especially good this morning and produced a perfect result. I was thinking of adding this to the discard pile, and apparently it sensed that, because today’s shave was so fine, in both feeling and result, that I’ve decided to keep it.

A splash of Chatillon Lux’s aftershave lotion finished the job. Chatillon Lux made a particularly good aftershave lotion/toner. I wish he would resurrect the line.

The caffeine this morning is Fantastico’s Sulawesi Toarco Jaya: “Silky, clean, and expressive — Sugar cane, pineapple, nectarine, dried mango, black tea, vanilla.” Very smooth, with not a trace of bitterness.