I’m not sure the distinction Chris Bowers’ post here is about actually tracks the phenomenon Atrios complaints about here. Chris is pointing to the sociological phenomenon among progressive blogs of a division between what Henry Farrell calls the “wonkosphere” and the activism-oriented sites that comprise the “netroots” (see Mark Schmitt’s column) with the gap bridged primarily by Atrios’ site. This divide strikes me as a natural division of labor sort of thing. If I tried to dedicate this blog primarily to activism and movement building the result would be . . . a really bad job.

When I participate in activism it’s by doing stuff like working phone banks or knocking on doors. I’m one of the organized, not one of the organizers. Which is fine. The organizers wouldn’t have anything to do if there weren’t Indians to organize and make the calls (UPDATE: This was unclear — I meant you can’t have all chiefs and no Indians, too many cooks spoil the soup, that kind of thing), and I lack the capacity to spearhead anything more complicated than a trip to the grocery store. I think, however, that I do a pretty good job of writing a blog that’s primarily political punditry with a little pop culture and sports thrown in so that’s what I do and I primarily link to people whose blogs are similar to mine in subject matter not because our blogs are “better” than other kinds of blogs, but because it’s just in the nature of blogging that your site is going to mostly link to similar sites.

A separate question is whether or not journalists think of themselves as political actors. Overwhelmingly, I think journalists would tell you “no, they shouldn’t” and that most liberal (but not conservative) pundits would agree. To me, this is wrong. I could in perfectly good faith spend all my time looking for flawed arguments for conclusions I agree with, finding far-left people with unsound views to denounce them, and mocking the foibles of politicians whose views I agree with on the merits. A blog like that might even be entertaining and perhaps widely read. I wouldn’t do a site like that, however, because I think it would be irresponsible. I’m not a political activist by trade, I’m a writer, but hopefully my writing has some kind of impact on the world and I’d like it be a good impact rather than a bad one and that’s something I try to take seriously.

Returning to Reuel Marc Gerecht, the essential thing anyone who wants to justify this war as some kind of nice guy method of helping Iraqis out needs to grapple with is the extraordinary opportunity costs involved in fighting it. David Leonhart writes about this today, here’s John Quiggin’s take, and here was mine.

It’s not a coincidence that the administration’s pre-war cost estimates — anywhere from $0 to $50 billion — were so badly off-base. Nobody in their right mind would have agreed ex ante to spend over $1 trillion (so far!) in order to take out Saddam Hussein. The venture was sold as something that would be cheap and easy because it only made sense under the theory that it would, in fact, be cheap and easy. Indeed, I assume most of the prime movers behind the war actually believed it would be cheap and easy. This, after all, is the typical failing of the militarist. Diplomacy, compromise, patience, etc., all seem too hard better to reach for the easy answers of the bombs and tanks. In reality, there’s nothing easy about it.

The other thing to be said about counterinsurgency is that times change, and ideas and technology change with them. During the high tide of Victorian imperialism (also the time of America’s conquest of the Philipines) the gap in military technology between imperialists and the imperialized was enormous. Britain’s colonial service operated on the sensible slogan that “whatever happens we have got / the maxim gun and they have not.” Subjugated peoples had an extremely difficult time acquiring firearms, especially top-notch ones, and ammunition. The weapons of the day broke a lot and were difficult for indigenous peoples to repair or replace. The modern insurgent has recourse to the AK-47, which is cheap as shit, and thanks to modern transportation technology easy to get wherever you’d like. It’s a perfectly good gun, it’s easy to maintain, and you should read all about it in Larry Kahaner’s book.

Obviously, something like the modern American military still has large technological advantages, but they’re much smaller (for these purposes — today’s Air Force could destroy a whole country with nuclear ICMBs if it was ordered to) than the advantages enjoyed by rich countries today. What’s more, literacy is much more widespread and, combined with broadcast media, means you have much deeper and wider levels of political consciousness than you did in the past. Ideas — western ideas, really — about nationalism, self-determination, autonomy, etc. have spread past the point where people are wiling to accept foreign domination.

Here’s my column on America’s late December proxy war adventure in the Horn of Africa. John Judis in fantastic column gets much shriller about this.