Rudolph the Rad Knows Reign, Dear
Rudy Giuliani hired a ghostwriter to produce the requisite manifesto, “Don’t Say You Weren’t Warned,” for Foreign Affairs magazine. It’s full of lies, oversimplifications and vagueness, but makes up for all that by being very, very tedious. Because the genre requires him to name-check every part of the world – perhaps to assure the alleged author that it exists, perhaps to reassure the FA reader that the alleged author has heard of the world – you get whole sections of “I see India out there tonight. Keep rocking, India! And lemme give a shoutout to my peeps in Germany!” Those passages read like the fellow who addresses the Mount Pleasant, PA Oddfellows’ Hall every year on “The State of the World Today.”
The rest of it reads like the fellow who addresses the Mount Pleasant, PA Oddfellows’ Hall every year on “The State of the World Today” after being maddened by bees. Here’s what you need to know:
* You will pay through the goddam nose. According to Rudy, the United States should never have taken that silly “peace dividend” after the end of the Cold War, and needs to undertake a massive program of rearmament. Somehow spending half of all the world’s defense dollars isn’t enough. We need to add ten combat brigades just to give Rudy time to think about how many more to add. (It’s a good interim “baseline” increase, but likely not sufficient, he says.) We must build the “layered” ballistic missile defense that Rudy assures us is already practicable. (That’s one of the lies.) Needless to say he wants more ships and planes and, I assume, robots.
* You will not enjoy a day of peace so long as Rudy has anything to say about it. Peace is something we will “achieve” in the distant future when the lion has been clubbed senseless with the lamb.
* Rudy allows that he might negotiate with Iran at some point about something if the Iranians play their cards right and are very very lucky. He just won’t tell you what he would negotiate with them about. He probably can’t think of anything.
* There is not even a pro forma gesture in the direction of “preserving civil liberties” while maintaining America’s security by spying the fuck out of people.
* One, two, many John Boltons! In the section on “Determined Diplomacy,” Rudy informs us that he’ll make sure America’s ambassadors are better at the crucial function of bitching out foreigners who disagree with us.
* The Palestinians’ real problem isn’t their lack of independence but their lack of good governance. I’m not sure what people without independence actually govern, mind you, but there you have it.
* The fake-out:
After the attacks of 9/11, President Bush put America on the offensive against terrorists, orchestrating the most fundamental change in U.S. strategy since President Harry Truman reoriented American foreign and defense policy at the outset of the Cold War. Buttimes and challenges change, and our nation must be flexible. President Dwight Eisenhower and his successors accepted Truman’s framework, but they corrected course to fit the specific challenges of their own times. America’s next president must also craft polices to fit the needs of the decade ahead, even as the nation stays on the offensive against the terrorist threat.
Specifically, Rudy tells us, the next President must correct President Bush’s framework by . . . actually, he gives no clue.
* Giuliani’s theme is “idealism tempered by realism.” Judging by the section on Hamas, that means, “We have to be ready to ignore democratic results and thwart democratic aspirations that don’t suit us. But we still get credit for having our hearts in the right place.” Honestly I could almost take the bloody-mindedness if it weren’t tarted up with all the preening.
This is nitpicking, though. Rudy Giuliani presents a splendid plan for spending the nation into bankruptcy in a futile pursuit of continued dominance. Lucky for Rudy, since he’s demanding to blow absurd amounts of money on defense rather than tax cuts or domestic programs, no approved pundit or established journalist will ask him “How are you going to pay for all that?” Because those are the rules: military spending is free!
If I sound harsh, it’s purely personal pique, really. In late 2001, early 2002, I made a more or less conscious decision to devote my free writing time to blogging rather than play-by-e-mail RPGs, which meant a lifetime of evenings spent reading things like Rudolph Giuliani’s manifesto on foreign policy. What the fuck was I thinking?
If there’s one sentence we should all read, though, it’s the following:
Aspiring dictators sometimes win elections, and elected leaders sometimes govern badly and threaten their neighbors.
Many Batman villains, too, can’t help themselves from leaving clues where the hero can find them.
Comment by ran —
August 14, 2007 @ 9:26 pm
sweet post Jim. thanks for reading that odious drivel so I didn’t have to.
Comment by Jim Henley —
August 14, 2007 @ 9:29 pm
Who SAID you didn’t have to???? Not Rudy . . .
(But thanks!)
Comment by Leonard —
August 14, 2007 @ 9:58 pm
A good review obviates the need to read anything but the best stuff. Life is short. And I think that no thing that a politician “writes” can possibly fall into the category of “the best stuff”.
Comment by Michael —
August 14, 2007 @ 10:49 pm
The road not taken is damn fun.
Comment by Mona —
August 14, 2007 @ 11:42 pm
Outstanding, Jim. It wasn’t considered kewl when I lived in NYC in the 90s to diss Rudy, because all the cosmopolitan liberals felt he had cleaned up crime. But he was Benito Guiliani then, and he would step into a Yoo-prepared Executive with one additional (and dangerous) element Bush lacks: extreme intelligence.
We simply cannot let that happen. Think of the already abominable drug war put on steroids, and that is what a Giuliani Administration would bring both domestically and abroad.
Comment by Mona —
August 14, 2007 @ 11:43 pm
P.S. Cleverest post title EVER.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
August 15, 2007 @ 12:11 am
On the plus side, for the moment I can find myself doubting that Hillary Clinton could possibly be worse.
For the moment…
Trackback by Political Animal —
August 15, 2007 @ 12:16 am
Foreign Policy for Dummies…
FOREIGN POLICY FOR DUMMIES….I’m afraid that a substantive review of Rudy Giuliani’s latest attempt to pretend he has a foreign policy is beyond me at the moment. Instead, I’ll just highlight this passage from his recent Foreign Affairs piece:The w…
Comment by Avram —
August 15, 2007 @ 12:36 am
Wait, Mona, I lived in NYC in the ’90s, too, and we dissed Rudy all the darn time! Called him “Benito” and “Il Duce” too.
Remember Abner Louima, the man who was forcibly sodomized with a plunger handle by several cops in a Brooklyn police house? He initially claimed that the cops had shouted “This is Giuliani time!” while assaulting him. He later recanted, but the phrase perfectly summed up how many of us felt during those years. Cops were free to gun down civilians with almost no risk of consequences, and Rudy would pat them on the back and tell them they’d done good, and smear the victims in public.
Comment by md 20/400 —
August 15, 2007 @ 12:54 am
Robots
I miss Fafblog.
Comment by Gary Farber —
August 15, 2007 @ 1:24 am
“and, I assume, robots.”
That’s a pissant war robot. My manly war robot can beat up yours.
You’ve probably seen this Rudy quote, I trust, Mona.
Comment by alex_reno —
August 15, 2007 @ 2:08 am
Mr Henley, that was a lovely post.
Do you think there’s any chance you’ll kick out the authoritarians in 08? To me it seems that the main thing the American public has objected to about the Bush administration is the incompetence, not the goals. (At least he was honest about nation-building.)
Iraq is lost and likely so is Afghanistan. For Canucks like me the latter is significant as there I think was a window where something positive could be achieved, but it has passed. (See BruceR’s chart.)
Comment by Thoreau —
August 15, 2007 @ 6:17 am
That is some scary shit.
Does the “half the world’s defense spending” thing just go over everybody else’s heads? Yeah, I’m sure there’s a lot of fat rather than muscle in there, but still. It’s not like the rest of the world is buying pure muscle while we’re buying 95% fat.
Comment by The Modesto Kid —
August 15, 2007 @ 7:43 am
“when the lion has been clubbed senseless with the lamb” is a brilliant line. Is it your own? May I plagiarize?
Comment by Dave Intermittent —
August 15, 2007 @ 8:15 am
No, we’re spending absurd amounts of money on “offense.” Get your talking points straight.
Also, why has ABM become such an article of faith among the base?
Comment by wkmaier —
August 15, 2007 @ 8:18 am
Gary,
That is some quote by Rudy. Was that a speech or was he reading “1984″ to pre-K children?
Comment by Monte Davis —
August 15, 2007 @ 8:21 am
You’re just cranky because while you’re chained to a blog, Rudy is playing the biggest RPG EVAR.
He’s Super-Truman … no, he’s Bush III with a Batarang… no, he’s Rudy Coeur de Lion!
Comment by Thoreau —
August 15, 2007 @ 8:30 am
Also, why has ABM become such an article of faith among the base?
I remember reading a critique of missile defense written by nuclear physicist Hans Bethe in the 1950’s or 60’s. The basic points that he made then concerning decoys were just as true then as they are now. In a nutshell, decoys are cheaper than whatever technology we’re likely to use to shoot them down, which means our enemies can easily get them. And the real missile can always swim in a sea of decoys. To be safe, you have to either figure out which one is real (probably impossible with a good decoy) or have the ability to shoot down everything coming your way, which becomes a problem of scale and cost. The battle of scale and cost favors the people using decoys.
And nowadays it’s far more likely that a nuke will be brought to our continent by boat and either detonated in the harbor or driven to its final target in a truck. Which makes missile defense even less sensible.
Comment by Thoreau —
August 15, 2007 @ 8:32 am
Er, some clumsy phrasing. The decoys are real missiles, of course, because they fly through the air, but only one of those missiles has a nuclear warhead. And the phrase “our enemies” refers to states. Al Qaeda can’t afford an ICBM, with or without warheads, but Al Qaeda would never use an ICBM anyway. If they got a nuke they’d just load it on a boat.
Comment by jlw —
August 15, 2007 @ 9:15 am
Thoreau,
You’ve got the technical critique of missile defense just right, but you missed the question of why is missile defense so ardently sought by the Republicans.
My take is that it goes to the core fear of the bully/bedwetter that loves all that Bush has wrought. They want to act with impunity. They want to make grown men weep and foreign women yield. They want what they want, when they want it, and want only servile responses from all who answer.
But what good is it to stand astride the Earth like a colossus if someone can reach up and strike you in the balls?
The missile defense system being built in the real world is a boondoggle. But in the imaginations of the GOP base, it is symbolic of an ability to act without repercussion. It is a solid steel jockstrap. It is a razor wire fence. It is the hill shit flows down. It is never having to say you’re sorry, or that you even care.
David Brooks is an ass, but his observation that politics is as much about psychology as economics is spot on. And there is a huge chunk of the electorate that is insecure and paranoid and wants to find someone–anyone–to pound on.
Comment by Mona —
August 15, 2007 @ 9:26 am
Gary: I had seen that quote before, but thanks for reminding me. I didn’t exactly recall the wording or when he said it, but it does indeed come straight from his black heart.
Comment by Mona —
August 15, 2007 @ 9:29 am
Avram: Yes, I was in NYV during the Louima atrocity. It was horrific.
Do you recall when the Generalissimo proposed to shut down all the sidewalk food vendors? My god, Manhattan without hot dog sellers, the quintessential NYC experience. And cui bono? The restaurants and delis who would love to eliminate the competition.
Comment by dan robinson —
August 15, 2007 @ 9:44 am
Blog find of the day!
I got here through a link by Kevin Drum.
Good writing, this. I’ll be back for more.
-D
Comment by Gary Farber —
August 15, 2007 @ 9:57 am
“And I think that no thing that a politician ‘writes’ can possibly fall into the category of ‘the best stuff’.”
Never read Grant’s memoirs, or anything by Winston Churchill, I take it. Or perhaps you just don’t like their styles. Some would argue for Disraeli; others like some of Lincoln’s speeches and letters. I enjoyed Present At The Creation, but I’m a sucker for diplomatic and political memoirs, and shall thus spare you my listing others I favor.
You use a lot of absolutes.
“Wait, Mona, I lived in NYC in the ’90s, too, and we dissed Rudy all the darn time!”
What Avram said. Most of my friends were liberals, but some were libertarians and some were conservatives and some were sui generis, but not a single one ever had the faintest hesitation about going on a tear about Rudy, if that’s what they believed, and most of us — but not all of us, of course — despised him, and often ranted about it. In public, and everything.
“That is some quote by Rudy. Was that a speech or was he reading ‘1984′ to pre-K children?”
Ostensibly the former, but easily confusable with the latter. My conservative commenter naturally called pointing it out a “cheap shot.”
“Yes, I was in NYV during the Louima atrocity. It was horrific.”
I lived a couple of blocks from where he was picked up, which was near where I grew up, having temporarily moved back to the neighborhood for a brief time. But I’m pale-skinned, so I never had serious cop problem. No matter how many times I was stopped in my own neighborhood when I was instead living in Washington Heights.
I do wish everyone who thinks Rudy knows anything about terrorism, or is otherwise thinking of voting for him, would read Wayne Barrett.
jlw’s observations in #20 seem fairly apt, incidentally.
Comment by Brian —
August 15, 2007 @ 10:07 am
Is this a case where the dreaded “lesser evilism” makes sense? As horrific as Hillary may be, Rudy terrifies me. He’s a pathological personality writ large.
I hate the DLC, but….
Comment by Mona —
August 15, 2007 @ 10:16 am
Well, your mileage obviously varied. But I lived in the East Village — hardly a bastion of conservatism — and Rudy was pretty popular.
Comment by Jeff in Texas —
August 15, 2007 @ 10:25 am
jlw–
I think you hit the nail on the head. The idea that we cannot vaporize some pissant country like North Korea because they have or may eventually have ballistic missiles that maybe could carry a nuke to the west coast is simply intolerable to the type of people who would vote Rudy. Being able to nuke others with impunity is the ultimate wet dream for some of these people. The technological and/or economic impossibility of an ABM shield is beside the point, as is the fact that the real threat, to the extent there is one, is uninspected shipping containers from god knows where, offloaded in our ports and transported by rail and truck without ever being opened. Inspecting cargo ships is not sexy. Nuking wogs without consequence is VERY sexy. And since when is porn realistic? Why should war porn be any different?
Comment by Davis X. Machina —
August 15, 2007 @ 10:34 am
…because all the cosmopolitan liberals felt he had cleaned up crime….
I wouldn’t think cosmo liberals so m uch as far outer Queens, or Staten Island.
He might as run on the slogan “Create two, three, many Outer Boroughs”
This is why I fear his candidacy. He will attract fence-sitters who would otherwise vote Democratic, because they’re not theo-nutcases. Rudi’s ‘post-Decalogue’ personal life is a plus, not a minus, in the general election.
Comment by LP —
August 15, 2007 @ 10:51 am
Whew! I hereby award you the ‘Most Involved Pun Contained in a Blog Post Title’ award for 2007. Thanks for the RG breakdown.
Comment by jlw —
August 15, 2007 @ 10:53 am
To chime in on the Rudy in NYC phenom . . .
I moved to New York in the middle of Giuliani’s first year in office, so I don’t know exactly what the conditions were before. My neighborhood (Carroll Gardens) was at the time still fairly Italian and pretty pro-Giuliani. It’s general politics were outer-borough white-ethnic pro-union JFK-LBJ-RMN-JEC-RWR-??-WJC-GWB nominal Democrats. The general slur against white Midwestern professionals like me moving into the neighborhood was “liberal.”
Over time, however, Giuliani wore out his welcome, even for these Italians. Seeing your id empowered is a thrill at first, but eventually it became clear that Giuliani wasn’t responding to anyone’s secret desires but his own. Indeed, my neighborhood became a target of Giuliani’s pettiness as he tried to evict a psychiatric center and a non-profit children’s center as part of a hard-nosed payback play. By the end of August 2001, everyone in the city was tired of him.
For what it’s worth, Giuliani has never really been tested in an election. He ran for mayor three times against ineffectual Democrats and only won twice, and skeedaddled before his Senate campaign could be seen as a failure. It’s not certain that against a competent opponent he could take a punch.
Comment by brainy435 —
August 15, 2007 @ 11:34 am
I just wanted to reiterate the first few commentators take on this. I really appreciate that you read this and told me what to think so I didn’t have to worry myself with context or even real thought. Thank you so much.
Comment by Caps —
August 15, 2007 @ 12:11 pm
Still laughing over here, but mostly to keep from crying. God help us. Thanks so much for this.
Comment by Hesiod —
August 15, 2007 @ 1:05 pm
If there’s anything less relevant to how a presidential candidate would actually conduct foreign policy than an article the candidate “wrote” on that subject for Foreign Affairs, I can’t think of one.
Comment by Avram —
August 15, 2007 @ 1:14 pm
As far as missile defense goes, a big part of it is the desire to divert tax dollars into the pockets of big military contractors.
I remember a post Jordin Kare made to rec.arts.sf.fandom a few years back, talking about his experiences observing various SDI development efforts. He said the one with the best chances of actually working was the one known as “Brilliant Pebbles”, which used swarms of small interceptors to knock out missiles in the boost phase. He also suspects the project was killed because it was relatively cheap.
Comment by Jim Henley —
August 15, 2007 @ 1:27 pm
brainy, you’re too kind. I think you were way ahead of me on the matter you discuss.
Trackback by Daniel W. Drezner —
August 15, 2007 @ 1:27 pm
More candidates in Foreign Affairs…
In the September/October issue of Foreign Affairs, Rudy Giuliani and John Edwards get a crack at articulating their foreign policy vision. The gist of Giuliani’s essay, “Towards a Realistic Peace”: The next U.S. president will face three key foreign…
Comment by brainy435 —
August 15, 2007 @ 1:43 pm
Heh. I can neither confirm nor deny……
Comment by Matt Stevens —
August 15, 2007 @ 1:55 pm
I think conservatives have embraced missile defense because Ronald Reagan embraced it. I wish political beliefs were founded on a more rational basis, but there you have it.
Comment by BillCinSD —
August 15, 2007 @ 1:58 pm
I don’t know if boost phase interception will work well anymoe. The Russians have developed some extremely fast boost phase rockets that would require the interceptors to start extremely close to the rockets.
Comment by josephdietrich —
August 15, 2007 @ 3:02 pm
If there’s anything less relevant to how a presidential candidate would actually conduct foreign policy than an article the candidate “wrote†on that subject for Foreign Affairs, I can’t think of one.
So do you think his actual foreign policy would be better or worse than this? If worse, then I’d say that this man must be stopped at all costs (although I think the Big Apple Authoritarian ought to be stopped at all costs anyway).
Comment by Oregonian —
August 15, 2007 @ 4:50 pm
In late 2001, early 2002, I made a more or less conscious decision to devote my free writing time to blogging rather than play-by-e-mail RPGs
If I’d known you could send rocket-propelled grenades through e-mail, I’d have become a spammer a long time ago.
Comment by asdf —
August 15, 2007 @ 5:27 pm
Arch, you missed the point of these paragraphs!!! In this piece the stance against Iran you describe is… wait for it… the example* of how one should do diplomacy!
*) specifically its the “case in point”
So, diplomacy might work, after the diplomatic core has been cut down to its basic function of “explaining US policy” which I assume is part of “expanding” US “cultural influence” (McDonald’s is mentioned) by making sure that anti-Americanism isn`t and I quote “cost-free”!!!
There is the claim Iran is an example of how there are some cases where you do diplomacy and some where you don`t. you would think the author would explain which is the case for Iran… I mean whats the point of having an example if you leave it to the reader to figure out what it is an example of… Of course you would be wrong about this.
All of this is of course mixed with the notion one can deter a society and terrorist from developing WMD`s. But that won`t be a problem since rudy will sit on his hands while the US, I presume after finishing BMD, develops a “shield”…
What kind of “shield”? You tell me! The article doesn`t go into specifics but it looks like under Rudy the US will have to wait until it has a shield against antrax powder that one assumes is more effective than the borders are at keeping out cocaine powder…. OR maybe he will give everyone a hazmat suit.
All of this is basically direct quotes though I did remove the word “strength” and “terrorist” about a gazillion times. I didn`t see the word energy so I assume Saudi Arabia is just f@#cked. Rudy doesn`t mention Saudi Arabia, but with this worldview all it exports is terror, and rudy will make the bold decision of fighting terror. Afterall, he is a foreign policy realist. Don`t read the discussions of how foreign policy realism is great with looking at the world as it is and all… The only downside is not leaving much room for idealism, but that the only problem Rudy has with realism.
Oh and the Palastinians, their problem isn`t so much that they don`t have the government or a state, its that they do not yet deserve one yet! Here comes a quote again: “Palestinian statehood will have to be earned”
I mean when we talk “inalienable” “god given” rights we are obviously uh…. talking about rights god will give the Palestinians in the future… something… Maybe God just checks skin colors when handing out rights… help me out here? Anyway, when Bush decries people who says some people just are not ready to live democratically… he is apparently talking to Rudy. Sounds like bush should get in the GOP debates to spice things up.
The good news, Iraq is huge problem, mostly because the decision to win hasn`t been made. Making this “bold” decision is for some reason up to the next president.
Also there should only be all the interrogation that is legal, and the extended public diplomacy will be “honest”.
I stayed up till tree to read the entire damn thing. It felt like when I come home at twelve and decide to watch something from my twisted little brothers horror movie collection. You cant look, you cant look away and you cant stop watching.
I think after reading the whole thing I deserve to believe he says he Bush screwed up, he will close gitmo and stop waterboarding and stop paying of young newspapers. I deserve to believe he flipflopped on the waterboarding part!
I mean if water boarding is legal, than rather than cruel and unusual its polite and or common. So which of rudies wives waterboarded him every night before bedtime?
Oh I almost forgot anything less than victory in Iraq is a would create a way bigger threat than loosing in Vietnam. Obviously he is preparing the minds for a draft… Just thought young USian readers might wanna know.
Comment by PollM —
August 16, 2007 @ 1:44 pm
His foreign policy is a dangerous and far more confrontational. He’s obviously a bad choice for peace in the middle east. And bad for America, vote for peace.
http://www.youpolls.com/details.asp?pid=334
Comment by Nathanial —
August 18, 2007 @ 6:46 pm
hi nice post, i enjoyed it