Thursday, October 29, 2009

The "second coversation" is the only one worth having.

This morning on Dylan Ratingan's Morning Meeting the conversation between blogger Glenn Greenwald and former Bush official Dan Senor was an excellent display of the very restrictive boundaries for debate the mainstream media has crafted for the Afghan War:

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Glenn Greenwald demonstrated how reasoned debate seems wild and radical when one is forced to operate between the narrow choices provided, mainly, should we escalate our presence in Afghanistan, or should we keep our numbers steady while continuing the intractable war?

The pretense for this discussion is, quite plainly, how to deal with terrorism. The Afghan presence is justified by the danger an unstable, Al-Queda infested, Afghanistan poses to the American people. Terrorism being the main concern, Glenn Greenwald confronts it directly by asking what is the basis for anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world. But when you sit Glenn Greenwald next to Dan Senor, it seems as if Greenwald is from Neptune; it becomes clear that they are having an entirely different conversation.

So lets be clear here: the pretense for this conversation is how to deal with terrorism, but the actual conversation has to do with narrow technical questions of how the war ought to be conducted and how American power ought to be imposed on the Muslim world. When Greenwald addresses the issue of terrorism earnestly, ignoring the boundaries Senor is operating within, it becomes clear that the discussion they were meant to be having is actually the cause of terrorism, and we run into an absurdity. You debate the different methods America should exert her power on the Muslim world in order to stop terrorism, but the motivation for terrorism is America exerting her power on the Muslim world. This conversation is plainly not worth having. The "second conversation" that Ratigan says Greenwald wanted to have is the only one worth having with regards to addressing the threat of terrorism, because it concerns itself with the motivation for terrorism. Normally the hawks and the doves in the press are debating between different options within the bounds of the first conversation, the absurd one.