George Packer has a pitch-perfect indictment of the latest round of inaction in Darfur, as a predictable spike in violence is/will be accompanied by a predictable round of condemnations, meetings, and failure to take effective action. His basic point: Africa is where everybody – meaning the U.S., Europe, the U.N., the Islamic world – has their gap between rhetoric and action exposed. We’re summoning greater and more timely outrage than we did with Rwanda, and still it makes little difference.

Africa and its tragedies – Darfur, Uganda, Congo, and on and on – simply cannot get the attention of western governments or the broad majorities of their public who would compel action. It does benefit from the attention of well-meaning celebrities, crusading jouranlists, and student activists, but there is a touch of condescension in this – that there is a status quo emerging where Africa is the domain of an international celebrity culture, and not institutions that could take more effective action (just look at the Clinton Global Initiative, where Bill Clinton is leading laudable efforts to solve problems in Africa after he has left the presidency).

Perhaps Packer’s most chilling statement is this: “But since when does the world listen to Africans? Unless Ivorians and Congolese start blowing themselves up in front of Western embassies and shops, it seems, their grievances won’t be taken seriously.” The implications of that statement are chilling in ways that the mind does not want to tackle.

Sometimes, to paraphrase from the Bible, ones cup, runneth over. In terms of interesting revelations, and I don’t mean the former Rep. Mark Foley, we have learned that Henry Kissinger has not confined his advice giving to his consulting business. Instead he has been called on by the Bush White house to give advice. Let’s hope he does better there than he did in Vietnam.

We also know thanks to a partially declassified National Intelligence Estimate that Iraq is a veritable Chia pet for creating terrorists; just add occupying American troops and stand back and watch the insurgents bloom.

What else? Well, as it turns out President Bush actually lied to the American people about the situation in Iraq. Yes, I’m shocked, shocked I say!

And the former national security advisor and present secretary of state Condolleza Rice may have shrugged off meeting with then Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet and his deputy Cofer Black in July 2001 who wanted to warn about a coming Al Qaeda attack. And, for that matter, Defense Secretary. Rumsfeld and former Attorney General John Ashcroft received the same CIA briefing about a week after Rice.

Since much of the above comes from Bob Woodward’s newly published book “State of Denial” it is worth spending a moment to consider the reception it is getting from inside the Beltway. Unlike 2002 when he published “Bush at War” or 2004, when he published “Plan of Attack”, which were well thought of and even recommended by the Bush administration this one is a 180 degree reversal.  Since Woodward has long enjoyed schmoozing with Washington elites and working with them, as opposed to confronting them, the book should be seen as further evidence of the splintering of the Bush dream world, where administration spin is dutifully regurgitated by the mainstream media outlets.

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I don’t regularly read either the National Journal or the National Review, but based on recent articles that friends forwarded to me, perhaps I should look more often. First, in the September 23 National Journal, James Kitfield warns about the false analogy behind the label “Islamo-Fascist,” which he (like others) argues scores domestic political points but hurts U.S. efforts overseas (sadly, the article only seems available online to subscribers). Then, in the October 9 National Review, John Miller helps explain why we might be susceptible to such dangerous analogies: military history (and diplomatic history and other flavors of history dedicated to the study of traditional international affairs) is dying out in America’s universities.

Calling our terrorist extremist adversaries “fascists” is not entirely wrong. I certainly am not an expert on fascist philosophy or history, but it seems to me that a reasonable intuitive understanding of fascist ideology highlights its emphasis on community values over individual rights and fascism’s natural resonance with moral claims about “traditional” values and the “right” way to live your life. Violent advocates of fundamentalist Islam (that is, not even all advocates of fundamentalism let alone all Muslims) apparently share fascists’ willingness to use coercion to enforce their communitarian vision. Of course, fascism seems inherently tied to nationalism and the power of the state, while the fundamentalist Islamic vision presumably gives supreme power to religious rather than political leaders. And of course there are many other differences. But there is a natural resonance to language that defines the particular people who lead our nasty, violent opponents in the War on Terror as those Islamicists whose ideas are quasi-fascist.

Kitfield doesn’t explore that resonance. Instead, he points out (correctly) that the main point of the public use of the term “Islamo-fascist” is to draw another analogy between our current adversaries and Hitler et al. Pretty much everyone in the U.S. remembers World War II-era fascism as posing a serious, perhaps existential, threat to the United States. Fascists seem powerful and scary, and calling violent Islamists “fascist” might suggest that they are powerful and scary, too, which presumably would motivate Americans to accept setbacks in the War on Terror, to sacrifice civil liberties for the justifiable goal of bolstering our threatened national security, and, most cynically, to vote Republican because voters are thought to feel more comfortable with tough Republican handling of national security threats. Kitfield provides some evidence for this interpretation by quoting another journalist’s suggestion that the phrase “Islamo-fascist” came from Karl Rove-sponsored focus groups rather than from analysis of the philosophical links between Osama bin Ladin and Benito Mussolini.

Kitfield then goes on to explore the dangers of using rough analogies as the basis for foreign and military policy. (more…)