Population: One

Not surprising but rather important: the US military presence in Saudi Arabia is ending. This had been coming for a while — the Saudis didn’t let us use those bases for Gulf War II, for example. It’s also a smart move, since those troops have been the source of a lot of tension. Bin Laden will tout it as a victory, which is a minor PR coup for him, but without them there some of his support will also fade.

The interesting question is what happens now. In the short term, we can expect to see something around 100,000 troops in Iraq. Rumsfeld claims there won’t be any permanent bases. I think that the question of a permanent presence in Iraq probably doesn’t need to be made right now, from the administration’s point of view. It’ll be a few years before we can pull out of Iraq, given our stated goals.

(For that matter, even as an anti-war advocate, I couldn’t support pulling out right now. We’d leave the country in worse shape than it was in under Saddam and you could bet on Kurdish/Arab civil war within six months.)

Anyhow, I’d bet that Rumsfeld and Powell are planning on making a decision about permanent bases in Iraq after 2004, if they’re still around, since nobody can really be sure what the Middle East will look like in a few years. Maybe the Palestinian peace process will work. Maybe there’ll be a revolution in Iran. Maybe Syria will display nuclear capacity. No point, from Bush’s point of view, in making the decision until we know more.

Hey! Why aren’t Democrats winning the culture wars? Because conservatives are supporting college Republicans like this while liberals support college Democrats like this. Note in particular the differences between the Conservative Student Conference schedule and the Young Democrats Association schedule. On the one hand, you have a reception and a tour to Niagara Falls. On the other hand, you have lessons (or, if you like, indoctrination) on criticizing “liberal textbook bias” and becoming “a more effective advocate for your beliefs.” Also, one’s in Buffalo and one is in Washington, DC. Which city is more apropos if you want to encourage new blood to participate in the political process?

Similarly, the progressive left is blowing the Democrats away as far as student organization goes. I suspect some Democrats are blithely assuming that this chunk of the left is breeding future Democratic thinkers. Nope; this is the progressive wing of the left and it’s doing an excellent job of creating future progressive thinkers. Think Green Party.

This post should not be taken as approval of any particular segment of the left, or, for that matter, of the right. It’s just an observation, cause I’ve seen a few Democrats talking about party problems lately. Time to stop bitching about Nader and start recognizing the successful tactics of both the radical left and the radical right.

(Hey, I know I have some readers from outside the US. I am deeply curious about the sort of student outreach that exists in Australia and the UK, if there’s any.)

So one frequent criticism of anti-war types is this: “You’re only against this war because Bush wants it.” Sometimes it’s phrased as “You wouldn’t be against this war if Clinton were fighting it,” which is nicely non-falsifiable. Either way, though, the appropriate answer is “No duh?”

It’s perfectly reasonable to be against a specific action because of the President who’s promulgating it. For example, if Bush said “I’m going to hold an overnight prayer meeting with the cast of Bend It Like Beckham,” I wouldn’t particularly think twice about it. If Clinton said the same thing I’d think it was a rather unwise move on his part.

Some people have genuine moral objections to the war that are rooted in the fact that they simply don’t trust Bush. It’s also reasonable to say “I don’t think this war is being fought for moral reasons.” That doesn’t preclude a moral outcome — deposing Saddam, for example — it just speaks to motivation. Some people think motivations matter. Some of those people would have trusted Clinton if he’d said the exact same things Bush had said. (And some wouldn’t.) That doesn’t make them inconsistent. It just means they don’t trust Bush, and they don’t think a war should be fought for immoral reasons.

This becomes particularly relevant as the US backs off predictions of WMD. As ABC reports, “Officials inside government and advisers outside told ABCNEWS the administration emphasized the danger of Saddam’s weapons to gain the legal justification for war from the United Nations and to stress the danger at home to Americans.”

Tacitus thinks that the above news vindicates nobody, but I think he’s wrong. It isn’t necessary for anti-war folks to have argued against the existence of WMD. The point is that the Bush administration used the existence of WMD to tip the scales in their arguments. “Sure, it’s true that this may cause a wave of anti-Americanism, but the threat is so damned high we have to go in.” Now we’re finding out they misled us regarding the nature of the threat, and where does that leave their argument? I have to believe that the burden of proof is on the people who want to declare war — I’m not a pacifist, but surely the default state should be peace.

Which brings us back to trust. Yes, many people objected to this war because they didn’t like Bush and more importantly, didn’t trust him. And it looks more and more as though their lack of trust has been proven accurate. It doesn’t matter so much for the country if Americans decide they don’t trust Bush, although you can bet Howard Dean is praying no WMD turns up. On the other hand, it’s gonna matter a lot to the rest of the world if Chirac and Schroder can say, a year from now, “Bush lied to you.”