Reply to Larison

Charles Lindbergh, Call Your Office, New Ledger, April 30, 2010. "Earlier this week, I published a piece [1] in TNL on “Sovereignty and Humanitarian Interventions.” In it, I argued that Prof. Mark Mazower’s “new realism” – as I put it – “comes down to a quest for stability and unenforced ‘legal norms’ at the expense of human rights. It is a call for détente with the world’s dictators, . . . .if U.S. policy is not based on a preference for democracy over dictatorship, the pursuit of stability will lead the U.S. to cold shoulder its friends and sidle up to its enemies." Daniel Larison has taken considerable exception to my thesis in a piece in the American Conservative."

More Good Choices at Yale

Yale Names Its World Fellows, Contentions, April 30, 2010. "Yale’s just announced its 2010 class of World Fellows, its pallid imitation of the Rhodes. Two biographies caught my eye . . . ."

Birds Of A Feather, Part 2

The League of Totalitarians, Contentions, April 30, 2010. "As a coda to my earlier post on the flocking together of the far left and the far right under the banner of the Palestinian Telegraph, you should read Nick Cohen’s superb piece in Standpoint magazine, which explores in painful detail the unwillingness of the BBC to tell the truth about recently deceased actor Corin Redgrave. The BBC memorialized him as a fighter against 'all forms of injustice and oppression.' Redgrave was actually a devotee of the Workers Revolutionary Party, a Trotskyist cult led by Gerry Healy, who reveled in what 26 of his female followers described as 'cruel and systematic debauchery.'"

Birds of a Feather . . .

Conspiracy Theorists Flock Together, Contentions, April 29, 2010. "You may remember Baroness Jenny Tonge. Back in February, she was sacked as the Liberal Democratic spokeswoman on health in the House of Lords after she publicly called for an inquiry into allegations that the Israeli relief mission in Haiti was a front for organ-trafficking. It wasn’t the first time she’d been shown the door: in 2004 she was sacked as spokeswoman on children’s issues after she said she would consider becoming a suicide bomber if she lived in the Palestinian territories. The Lib Dems would appear to have a high tolerance for repeat offenders, at least as long as they’re anti-Israel."

Mr. Brown and the 'Bigoted' Voter

Uh, Mr. Brown, the Microphone's Live, Contentions, April 29, 2010. "Shades of Frank Drebin: Gordon Brown may have sunk his chances in Britain’s general election with an unguarded comment into a microphone he didn’t realize he was still wearing. After campaigning in Rochdale in northern England, he muttered, amid a stream of invective directed at his aides, that 61-year-old Labour supporter Gillian Duffy was a “bigoted woman” for questioning him about the impact on the British job market of immigration from Eastern Europe."

Back to First Principles on Sovereignty

Sovereignty and Humanitarian Interventions, New Ledger, April 28, 2010. "Mark Mazower is a distinguished historian of Europe, and a professor of history at Columbia University. He has a piece in the latest World Affairs that sheds useful light on the rise and fall of the concept of humanitarian interventions. But it also reveals some common misconceptions about the relationship between sovereignty and international institutions, and presents a thoroughly contradictory vision of the road forward."

Obama's Faulty Nuclear Vision

Obama Needs to Refocus His Vision Over Nuclear Weapons, Yorkshire Post, April 14, 2010. "Nuclear weapons are in the news again. But the focus of attention isn't dictatorial North Korea, whose weapons are under no international control. Nor is the spotlight on Iran's programme, even as its tyrannical leaders crush their own people, support terrorism across the Middle East, and threaten Israel's annihilation. The focus is on the United States. And, even stranger, it's the President of the United States who put it there by signing a new arms treaty with Russia. The spotlight will only brighten this week when Obama hosts his nuclear security summit in Washington."

A Faulty Nuclear Posture Review

A 'Declaration' Jack Bauer Wouldn't Make, Heritage Foundation Foundry, April 9, 2010. "The President’s recently-released Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) has come under intense criticism for its revision of the U.S.’s declaratory policy, the statement that sets out when the U.S. would consider employing nuclear weapons. Declaratory policy has two purposes. Publicly, it’s a warning. Privately, it provides the military guidance for building and modernizing the U.S. force, and so ensures the U.S.’s weapons are actually useable in a crisis. In other words, it makes deterrence creditable, politically and militarily."

Tony Blair and the Chilcot Inquiry

Tony Blair is Not Perfect, But He Showed Courage and Judgment over Iraq, April 4, 2010, Yorkshire Post. "Poet Walt Whitman said of the American Civil War that "the real war will never get in the books". Never is a long time. But, like the Vietnam War before it, we now know so much that isn't so about the Iraq War that it will take a generation to clear away the myths. The Chilcot Inquiry has contributed nothing to this process. That is because it, too, is a manifestation of a civil war, in this case the one inside the Labour Party. The purpose of the inquiry is to assuage the tender consciences of Labour MPs by rubbishing Gordon Brown's predecessor, who is the only reason Brown is now Prime Minister." This op-ed was written in my personal capacity.