We want scarier troops

“The occupation is the problem, not the solution.” Yup.

Neither is it the solution in Haiti, where Kofi Annan wants American troops added to the UN operation already in that country protecting its thuggish coup regime. Annan evidently told Condi Rice that Haitians respect the US military, having had so many opportunities during their history to observe the Marines up close and personal. Says one UN official, anonymously, in a quote that simply cannot be improved upon, “We want scarier troops.”

Sharon is beginning to talk about the Gaza settlers the same way he talks about Palestinians. He says, for example, that “under no circumstances can we allow a lawless gang to try to take control of life in Israel.” Well, irony and self-knowledge were never Shamir’s strong suits. “We cannot let a small group of lawbreakers impose a reign of terror.” Yes, just imagine what a reign of terror in Gaza would be like... oh, wait...

Philippines President Gloria Arroyo, in trouble because of corruption scandals and having told the head of the election commission just before the 2004 elections that she wanted to win by a margin of one million votes, a conversation followed shortly by her winning re-election by a margin of one million votes, has sent her husband into exile (and away from arrest in case she gets impeached and can no longer protect him).

In his dissent in the Ten Commandments case he was on the losing side of, Scalia wrote that “nothing stands behind the court’s assertion that governmental affirmation of the society’s belief in God is unconstitutional except the court’s own say-so”. How does an abstract collective entity, society, have a “belief in God”? Such anthropomorphization is simplistic and intellectually lazy.