James Schlesinger says Rumsfeld shouldn’t resign because that "would be a boon for all of America’s enemies." Possibly that was a misspelling and he meant to call Rummy a boob. That quote could, in theory, be read in either of two ways, and I’d like to point out that in practice we have all discarded one of those meanings out of hand (including the press, which didn’t ask Schlesinger to clarify). The discarded possible meaning: Rumsfeld is so wonderfully competent that he is indispensable and the republic would collapse without him. The real meaning: the US would lose face if it admitted to any mistake or misdeed by holding someone accountable for that mistake or misdeed. This is an argument based solely on PR, on appearances rather than realities. A man who could even make that argument, in public, is a man who set out to write a cover-up.
Another example, from the report: Gen. Myers is criticized for not having "appreciated" the "impact of the photos." Not the reality of what was depicted in them, but the impact of the photos themselves on public relations. His failure was not that he allowed the torture to occur, but that he failed to effectively manage the perception of that torture, the spin. Rumsfeld, likewise, was more annoyed that there was documentation of torture than he was about the torture itself, saying in May that he’d never told Bush about it before the pictures came out because "The problem at that point was one-dimensional. It wasn’t three-dimensional. It wasn’t photographs and video." Click here for my post on that from the time, it’s a good post.
Forgot to say: Mark Thatcher’s "alleged coup in Equatorial Guinea" (as he called it), was all about oil.
India had its first execution in 15 years earlier this month. One result: in 3 separate incidents, children playing at executions have accidentally hanged themselves.
The Najaf police chief once again had all foreign journalists rounded up at gunpoint and brought to his office so he could harangue them.
And Israel deports a British journalist after a court decides that her "naivety and convictions" left her open to, well, believing what Palestinians might tell her.
John McCain says he is "sick and tired" of the wounds of Vietnam being reopened. "It’s time to move on," he said. In fact, he doesn’t like the Kerry campaign using his own words from 2000 in an ad. "What happened to me in the year 2000 is over. I have put it behind me." He really is the perfect person to speak for Bush at the R convention, where he can make the case for forgetting everything that’s happened in the last 4 years. Because if we remember the last 4 years, except for you-know-what, the terrorists win.
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
Fear and smear
John Kerry has accused Team Chimpy and SUBVERT of using “fear and smear” tactics, which I believe is also a service provided by Thai hookers for $75, so not only does the charge rhyme, but I’m pretty sure he just called Shrub a Thai hooker. If he didn’t, he should have. And the rhyming thing will even catch GeeDubya’s attention, because he’ll think it’s Dr. Seuss: I did not fear him on a train, I did not smear him on a plane...
Speaking of idiot children of former leaders, Sir Mark Thatcher, the unsavory son of Maggie Thatcher, has been arrested in South Africa for involvement in an attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea. I find the last time I wrote about him was in 1998, when he was loan sharking.
Speaking of idiot children of former leaders, Sir Mark Thatcher, the unsavory son of Maggie Thatcher, has been arrested in South Africa for involvement in an attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea. I find the last time I wrote about him was in 1998, when he was loan sharking.
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
Freedom means freedom for everyone, unless they're queer or something
Bob Dole returns to the question of Kerry and Vietnam, saying Kerry’s "grandstanding" just didn’t "smell right". Rather than grandstanding, said Dole, Kerry should have let his rage and resentment fester inside himself for decades, growing increasingly bitter, corroding his very soul, until... and then Dole snapped out of it and abruptly ended the interview, going out to look for a puppy to kick.
Schlesinger complains that all the publicity about torture in Abu Ghraib has had "a chilling effect on interrogation operations." I think that means they are now using ice rather than electrodes on prisoners’ genitals.
Dick Cheney mentions his gay daughter while setting out his position on gay marriage, a position which is evidently being taken as more liberal than Bush’s because he advocates banning gay marriage on the state rather than the federal level. He said "freedom means freedom for everyone" and "people ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to." Someone should ask him if that means he opposes laws against sodomy. But he makes a distinction which some of the press fails to catch, saying that the question is "what kind of official sanction or approval is going to be granted by government?" No it isn’t. It’s about legal recognition, which is not the same as approval. The state gets to register the personal, private decisions of its citizens, it doesn’t get to approve or disapprove. That’s what freedom for everyone means.
Animal House
The program director for the R convention says, "We tried to look at what TV shows do to keep an audience. We’re taking lessons from TV shows." I hope they’re not getting a twin pregnant just to boost ratings. That would be wrong.
Once the convention starts, or perhaps before, I encourage those of you who can stand to watch to submit your choice for the convention’s jump-the-shark moment to jumptheshark.com. But in which category? "Special Guest Star"--Schwarzenegger? "They did it"--Bush & McCain?
In Guantanamo, the first military tribunal in 60 years, the names of whose members we are not allowed to know, has formally charged Osama bin Laden’s driver, possibly for failing to signal a turn, as part of George W. Bush’s bold plan to inconvenience bin Laden by making him have to walk, or possibly take a bus. Correction: the panel’s names were already known, but the media are now being asked not to print their names anyway. Only one member has any legal training.
In May I joked about Fox turning Abu Ghraib into a reality show, suggesting that Corp. Graner had provided the perfect title, "I Love to Make a Grown Man Piss Himself." It turns out that the guards already did just that, using their dogs in a competition to get under-aged prisoners to piss themselves. The Post does not say what the prize was.
I’m not sure why the Schlesinger report into the prison abuses is being portrayed as blaming Rumsfeld, when it seems to have gone rather far out of its way to avoid doing so. The "Animal House" line seems to follow the "boys will be vicious, sadistic, evil boys" position the Pentagon has been pushing from the start. In fact, the report is just blaming the prison night shift. We are supposed to believe that the day shift was torturing prisoners as part of an interrogation strategy (we know this, we have the memos), then the night shift came in and did the exact same things, but for fun, because they were bored.
As Argentina was to fleeing Nazis, so is the US today a haven for war criminals and other shits from all over the world, with very little comment or discussion. For example, Haitian death squad leaders live in Florida with impunity. And the guy on the left in this picture moved to Virginia, where he owned a pizza parlor and died in 1998 of natural causes.
So it's interesting that the trial of Alvaro Rafael Saviria, one of the masterminds behind the assassination of archbishop Romero in El Salvador in 1980, is getting so little attention. The trial, which is a civil trial, is going ahead although the guy has disappeared, fearing prosecution. Not for the assassination, but for rolling back odometers and selling lemons--he was a used car dealer in Modesto, CA.
The Palestinian hunger strikers will, obviously, overstrain normal prison medical facilities. But the Israeli health minister has said that "these murderers" will not be allowed into regular hospitals.
Once the convention starts, or perhaps before, I encourage those of you who can stand to watch to submit your choice for the convention’s jump-the-shark moment to jumptheshark.com. But in which category? "Special Guest Star"--Schwarzenegger? "They did it"--Bush & McCain?
In Guantanamo, the first military tribunal in 60 years, the names of whose members we are not allowed to know, has formally charged Osama bin Laden’s driver, possibly for failing to signal a turn, as part of George W. Bush’s bold plan to inconvenience bin Laden by making him have to walk, or possibly take a bus. Correction: the panel’s names were already known, but the media are now being asked not to print their names anyway. Only one member has any legal training.
In May I joked about Fox turning Abu Ghraib into a reality show, suggesting that Corp. Graner had provided the perfect title, "I Love to Make a Grown Man Piss Himself." It turns out that the guards already did just that, using their dogs in a competition to get under-aged prisoners to piss themselves. The Post does not say what the prize was.
I’m not sure why the Schlesinger report into the prison abuses is being portrayed as blaming Rumsfeld, when it seems to have gone rather far out of its way to avoid doing so. The "Animal House" line seems to follow the "boys will be vicious, sadistic, evil boys" position the Pentagon has been pushing from the start. In fact, the report is just blaming the prison night shift. We are supposed to believe that the day shift was torturing prisoners as part of an interrogation strategy (we know this, we have the memos), then the night shift came in and did the exact same things, but for fun, because they were bored.
As Argentina was to fleeing Nazis, so is the US today a haven for war criminals and other shits from all over the world, with very little comment or discussion. For example, Haitian death squad leaders live in Florida with impunity. And the guy on the left in this picture moved to Virginia, where he owned a pizza parlor and died in 1998 of natural causes.
So it's interesting that the trial of Alvaro Rafael Saviria, one of the masterminds behind the assassination of archbishop Romero in El Salvador in 1980, is getting so little attention. The trial, which is a civil trial, is going ahead although the guy has disappeared, fearing prosecution. Not for the assassination, but for rolling back odometers and selling lemons--he was a used car dealer in Modesto, CA.
The Palestinian hunger strikers will, obviously, overstrain normal prison medical facilities. But the Israeli health minister has said that "these murderers" will not be allowed into regular hospitals.
What, you again?
With so few states in play in the presidential election, some small towns in battleground states are being bankrupted by the security costs of the constant visits by Bush and Kerry. Some of them have taken to sending bills to the campaigns, which are never paid.
In Najaf, says the NYT, "Sadr’s loyalists appeared to be on the verge of collapse... American commanders said on Tuesday morning that they had been surprised by the lack of resistance to the attack and that they believed that Mr. Sadr’s forces were becoming discouraged." Maybe, but wasn’t that what we heard when Baghdad "fell"? Sadr’s followers were mostly not Najafians (Najafinos?), so leaving the town could be just a shift in strategy, a refusal to fight the type of war the Americans want.
The American problem is that the US military cannot remain in occupation of Najaf for very long, and I don’t imagine they can go knocking down doors in search of militia members and weapons, the way they did in Fallujah with such spectacularly bad results. Soon they will leave, and then what?
I’m still suspicious about how closely the timing of the Najaf campaign is being coordinated with the R convention. If Sadr is captured--or revealed to have already been captured sometime in the last week, when, like the integrity of Bob Dole and John McCain, he has seemingly vanished from the face of the earth--I won’t be especially surprised.
In Najaf, says the NYT, "Sadr’s loyalists appeared to be on the verge of collapse... American commanders said on Tuesday morning that they had been surprised by the lack of resistance to the attack and that they believed that Mr. Sadr’s forces were becoming discouraged." Maybe, but wasn’t that what we heard when Baghdad "fell"? Sadr’s followers were mostly not Najafians (Najafinos?), so leaving the town could be just a shift in strategy, a refusal to fight the type of war the Americans want.
The American problem is that the US military cannot remain in occupation of Najaf for very long, and I don’t imagine they can go knocking down doors in search of militia members and weapons, the way they did in Fallujah with such spectacularly bad results. Soon they will leave, and then what?
I’m still suspicious about how closely the timing of the Najaf campaign is being coordinated with the R convention. If Sadr is captured--or revealed to have already been captured sometime in the last week, when, like the integrity of Bob Dole and John McCain, he has seemingly vanished from the face of the earth--I won’t be especially surprised.
Monday, August 23, 2004
Moral gymnasium
When Dole deployed his more-wounded-than-thou act against Kerry yesterday, he didn’t even bother getting his facts straight first, falsely claiming that 2 of Kerry’s wounds occurred on the same day. And here’s the astounding part, to me: he actually used no-smoke-without-fire as if it were a legitimate debating point: "not every one of these people can be Republican liars. There’s got to be some truth to the charges." What a high standard of proof he holds himself to.
Kerry called Dole today to express his disappointment. Dole told him, "John, I didn’t mean to offend you." Or to quote Michael Corleone, "It’s not personal, Sonny. It’s strictly business." (Although Dole is really more like Fredo, but with Sonny’s temperament.)
Reporters did get to the Boy in the Bubble today, but once again he would only condemn the ad in the context of all the ads, which means he is effectively putting these scurrilous lies in the same category as all other 527 ads, honest or dishonest. He won’t give up using this form of ad unless Kerry does too, which means that he is declaring the use of libelous ads legitimate; he won’t unilaterally say that this sort of ad is beneath him. McClellan said today, "Sen. Kerry wants to have it both ways. He should call for a stop to all of these ads." Scotty is trying to establish a moral equivalence where there is none (indeed, CNN had a spectacularly stupid but not inaccurate headline, "Bush Urges Kerry to Condemn Attack Ads.") The American Prospect’s weblog today is a good one-stop shopping place for articles on 527s. And it has McClellan repeatedly dodging efforts to get him to answer whether Bush condemns the content of the ads.
It is fascinating to see how little historical content there is in what is that rarest of all things in American politics, a debate about history. I mean, with all this talk about what Kerry did or did not do in Vietnam, there is no discussion of the war itself, its legitimacy, the role of the US in the world, when and how the US should have withdrawn, etc etc. You’d never know the Vietnamese War had actual Vietnamese people in it, a bunch of them shot dead by Kerry himself, which I guess is somehow less significant, less revealing of his character, than the one American guy he pulled out of the water. In Kerry’s portrayal, it’s all about his relation to other Americans in Vietnam, the "band of brothers," as if, to quote Bernard Shaw, "the world [was] a moral gymnasium built expressly to strengthen your character in".
It’s not like the consequences of that war don’t continue. One of them is the tens of thousands of Hmong who made the mistake of fighting for the US, still sitting in refugee camps in Thailand. The US has finally agreed to take them, but only if they give up polygamy (and presumably leave the extraneous wives behind, although that’s not clear from this article).
An op-ed piece in the Indy asks what’s so "radical" about "radical cleric" Sadr, who wants the occupation to end, and even then didn’t turn away from non-violence until a year into the occupation.
Kerry called Dole today to express his disappointment. Dole told him, "John, I didn’t mean to offend you." Or to quote Michael Corleone, "It’s not personal, Sonny. It’s strictly business." (Although Dole is really more like Fredo, but with Sonny’s temperament.)
Reporters did get to the Boy in the Bubble today, but once again he would only condemn the ad in the context of all the ads, which means he is effectively putting these scurrilous lies in the same category as all other 527 ads, honest or dishonest. He won’t give up using this form of ad unless Kerry does too, which means that he is declaring the use of libelous ads legitimate; he won’t unilaterally say that this sort of ad is beneath him. McClellan said today, "Sen. Kerry wants to have it both ways. He should call for a stop to all of these ads." Scotty is trying to establish a moral equivalence where there is none (indeed, CNN had a spectacularly stupid but not inaccurate headline, "Bush Urges Kerry to Condemn Attack Ads.") The American Prospect’s weblog today is a good one-stop shopping place for articles on 527s. And it has McClellan repeatedly dodging efforts to get him to answer whether Bush condemns the content of the ads.
It is fascinating to see how little historical content there is in what is that rarest of all things in American politics, a debate about history. I mean, with all this talk about what Kerry did or did not do in Vietnam, there is no discussion of the war itself, its legitimacy, the role of the US in the world, when and how the US should have withdrawn, etc etc. You’d never know the Vietnamese War had actual Vietnamese people in it, a bunch of them shot dead by Kerry himself, which I guess is somehow less significant, less revealing of his character, than the one American guy he pulled out of the water. In Kerry’s portrayal, it’s all about his relation to other Americans in Vietnam, the "band of brothers," as if, to quote Bernard Shaw, "the world [was] a moral gymnasium built expressly to strengthen your character in".
It’s not like the consequences of that war don’t continue. One of them is the tens of thousands of Hmong who made the mistake of fighting for the US, still sitting in refugee camps in Thailand. The US has finally agreed to take them, but only if they give up polygamy (and presumably leave the extraneous wives behind, although that’s not clear from this article).
An op-ed piece in the Indy asks what’s so "radical" about "radical cleric" Sadr, who wants the occupation to end, and even then didn’t turn away from non-violence until a year into the occupation.
Sunday, August 22, 2004
It would be lovely
An interesting counterpoint to the military service or lack of it of those children of privilege, Bush and Kerry, is Prince William, who is talking about joining the military, but the Ministry of Defence doesn’t necessarily want the aggravation of trying to keep him from being killed while pretending they’re not coddling him. William, however, has said, "A career in the armed services would be the best thing at the moment because it would be lovely to recognise all the hard work that the armed forces are doing." I don’t need to point out the not-especially-martial word in that sentence.
"More than 40% of British adults have admitted comfort eating to mask feelings of sadness, tension or anger," according to the Guardian. I’ve eaten in Britain: comfort is not the word that comes to mind. In fact, the #1 cause in Britain of feelings of sadness, tension or anger is British cuisine.
Don’t know how I missed this story: "Unfortunately, my fellow Klansmen judged me solely on the colour of my robe. But I can’t help what colour my robe is, can I? It’s what’s inside that counts."
The hunger strike of Palestinian prisoners is in its second week, the number of strikers is over 3,000, the lack of interest by the rest of the world is almost total. I don’t even have enough information to tell you if I consider their demands legitimate, and I don’t know if they’re planning to carry the strike through to death. If so, a massive strike is precisely the wrong way to do it, because only a minority of people, however dedicated, are prepared to see their body consume itself. The high participation rate in the hunger strike, which is at least 3/4, and may be nearly all of the security prisoners, suggests that some prisoners were coerced or morally pressured into joining, which would be spectacularly immoral. The hunger strike is a tricky form of protest, ethically speaking, with rules that must be followed. In Gandhi’s words, "Fasting is a fiery weapon. It has its own science."
A WaPo editorial notes that the investigation of Gen. Boykin was designed to focus on petty technicalities without forcing Bush and Rumsfeld to denounce his blatant Islamophobia. One misstep in the article: "Such beliefs are the general's right, but when a senior defense official utters them in public, they undermine just about every value the administration is trying to project in this war." Not trying to project, pretending to project. Big difference.
"More than 40% of British adults have admitted comfort eating to mask feelings of sadness, tension or anger," according to the Guardian. I’ve eaten in Britain: comfort is not the word that comes to mind. In fact, the #1 cause in Britain of feelings of sadness, tension or anger is British cuisine.
Don’t know how I missed this story: "Unfortunately, my fellow Klansmen judged me solely on the colour of my robe. But I can’t help what colour my robe is, can I? It’s what’s inside that counts."
The hunger strike of Palestinian prisoners is in its second week, the number of strikers is over 3,000, the lack of interest by the rest of the world is almost total. I don’t even have enough information to tell you if I consider their demands legitimate, and I don’t know if they’re planning to carry the strike through to death. If so, a massive strike is precisely the wrong way to do it, because only a minority of people, however dedicated, are prepared to see their body consume itself. The high participation rate in the hunger strike, which is at least 3/4, and may be nearly all of the security prisoners, suggests that some prisoners were coerced or morally pressured into joining, which would be spectacularly immoral. The hunger strike is a tricky form of protest, ethically speaking, with rules that must be followed. In Gandhi’s words, "Fasting is a fiery weapon. It has its own science."
A WaPo editorial notes that the investigation of Gen. Boykin was designed to focus on petty technicalities without forcing Bush and Rumsfeld to denounce his blatant Islamophobia. One misstep in the article: "Such beliefs are the general's right, but when a senior defense official utters them in public, they undermine just about every value the administration is trying to project in this war." Not trying to project, pretending to project. Big difference.
More about John Kerry's thigh than I needed to know
The Swift boat thing has dominated the media for days, to the exclusion of all else, which was the point of the exercise. It’s been a pretty content-free campaign on both sides, so “to the exclusion of all else” may not be a great loss. Those people, especially liberal bloggers, who have focused on the details of the financing of SUBVERT and the accuracy of the charges, are missing the point. Even discredited, the campaign worked, because some mud always sticks, especially for people not paying a lot of attention, which is most of the electorate. Bush the Elder’s Willie Horton campaign, which was just as dishonest and significantly slimier, although less of a personal attack, worked for just that reason. Most people will not be reading the fine print on the award commendations of Kerry’s accusers, but will vaguely note that there is some controversy, figure there is no smoke without fire, and move on with their lives with their image of Kerry slightly tarnished. Mission--as Flight Suit Boy would say--accomplished. And Kerry, who actually interacts with the press and the occasional unscreened member of the public, had no choice but to waste time on it, while no one has gotten close enough to the Boy in the Bubble to ask that he forthrightly demand the SUBVERTers stop.
Shrub seems never to have to answer questions. 5 years ago tomorrow I asked, “Anyone want to start a pool on when Bush has to answer the question on cocaine?” I wouldn’t have bet on never. I don’t, of course, know whether Bush abused other substances than the one he’ll admit to, although his non-denial denials weren’t exactly confidence-inspiring. I’m just sayin’.
Bob Dole intervened on the issue today, saying Kerry should apologize to veterans, making the quite valid point that he can’t accuse US soldiers in Vietnam of war crimes and then run on that record, and belittling Kerry’s war wounds. Not the best performance from a man who once suggested to Bush the Elder “stop lying about my record.”
Best response, from John Podesta: “Senator Kerry carries shrapnel in his thigh as distinct from President Bush who carries two fillings in his teeth from his service in the Alabama National Guard, which seems to be his only time that he showed up.”
There have been other black propaganda (that’s the CIA term for lies) attempts to plant smears. Sometimes a story quietly planted somewhere on the periphery in the hopes that it will spread (this is also a common CIA technique: insert a news story in a pliable/gullible media outlet, often the Daily Telegraph in Britain, where it will be picked up by Fox News, Drudge, etc) dies on the vine owing to the vagaries of pack journalism. There was an attempt in March to blame 9/11 on Kerry personally, because someone had written him that security at Logan Airport wasn’t very good, which didn’t go anywhere. (My original link in March is dead, but check this out.)
And I know there have been other flash-in-the-pan attempts at scandal-mongering, but I can’t bring them to mind. It’s a Darwinian thing. Some stories have bright petals which attract the eyes of journalists, who spread the seed, while others don’t. Or to use another metaphor, a lot of mud is thrown at the wall, some of it sticks, some doesn’t, and I’ll stop with the metaphors now.
There’s a sort of anti-smear smear too. Kerry just took out an ad noting that in the 2000 primaries, "Bush smeared John McCain," which has the effect of using that smear to discredit McCain’s speech at the convention a couple of weeks from now.
Shrub seems never to have to answer questions. 5 years ago tomorrow I asked, “Anyone want to start a pool on when Bush has to answer the question on cocaine?” I wouldn’t have bet on never. I don’t, of course, know whether Bush abused other substances than the one he’ll admit to, although his non-denial denials weren’t exactly confidence-inspiring. I’m just sayin’.
Bob Dole intervened on the issue today, saying Kerry should apologize to veterans, making the quite valid point that he can’t accuse US soldiers in Vietnam of war crimes and then run on that record, and belittling Kerry’s war wounds. Not the best performance from a man who once suggested to Bush the Elder “stop lying about my record.”
Best response, from John Podesta: “Senator Kerry carries shrapnel in his thigh as distinct from President Bush who carries two fillings in his teeth from his service in the Alabama National Guard, which seems to be his only time that he showed up.”
There have been other black propaganda (that’s the CIA term for lies) attempts to plant smears. Sometimes a story quietly planted somewhere on the periphery in the hopes that it will spread (this is also a common CIA technique: insert a news story in a pliable/gullible media outlet, often the Daily Telegraph in Britain, where it will be picked up by Fox News, Drudge, etc) dies on the vine owing to the vagaries of pack journalism. There was an attempt in March to blame 9/11 on Kerry personally, because someone had written him that security at Logan Airport wasn’t very good, which didn’t go anywhere. (My original link in March is dead, but check this out.)
And I know there have been other flash-in-the-pan attempts at scandal-mongering, but I can’t bring them to mind. It’s a Darwinian thing. Some stories have bright petals which attract the eyes of journalists, who spread the seed, while others don’t. Or to use another metaphor, a lot of mud is thrown at the wall, some of it sticks, some doesn’t, and I’ll stop with the metaphors now.
There’s a sort of anti-smear smear too. Kerry just took out an ad noting that in the 2000 primaries, "Bush smeared John McCain," which has the effect of using that smear to discredit McCain’s speech at the convention a couple of weeks from now.
Saturday, August 21, 2004
Let us know what it is that they are doing
The US position of opposition to growth in Israeli settlements, according to the NYT has been covertly downgraded to merely asking that they "let us know what it is that they are doing." (quote from Condi Rice). Evil, Condi, they’re doing evil. And Ha’aretz reports that Sharon’s office will say only that "The issue is under discussion between us and the Americans." The new American position is not only a violation of the "road map," but all this "letting us know" and "under discussion" is between Americans and Israelis, and I seem to recall that there were other people involved, the Palestoovians...the Palestiners...wait, don’t tell me... The premise of the change in policy is also wrong: the premise is that as long as new units are built within existing stolen land, it won’t be making matters worse. But it will. Resources will be diverted from Palestoovians to settlers, most importantly water, which is already badly misappropriated in the Occupied Territories.
In response to the Supreme Court decision that Guantanamo detainees must have a hearing on their "enemy combatant" designation, the military set up laughably one-sided military panels and guess what, so far they’ve decided for the government in 14 of the 14 cases they’ve heard. The prisoners who refused to go before the panels made the right decision.
In response to the Supreme Court decision that Guantanamo detainees must have a hearing on their "enemy combatant" designation, the military set up laughably one-sided military panels and guess what, so far they’ve decided for the government in 14 of the 14 cases they’ve heard. The prisoners who refused to go before the panels made the right decision.
Those bloodstains were there when we moved in
The turning over of the keys is turning into a farce. Ayatollah Sistani, conveniently out of the country, won’t accept the keys until the shrine is vacated. But Sadr’s people won’t turn over the keys until someone from Sistani’s office inspects the place and confirms none of the treasures have been taken; Sistani’s people are rightly worried about being shot by someone if they come near the place. One minute it’s a civil and international war, the next minute a fight over the cleaning deposit.
What I’d like to hear is the Allawi clique’s explanation for why it claimed to have taken charge of the mosque yesterday. Update: the Observer likens this claim to the utterances of "Comical Ali."
Atrios has the transcript of the Senate testimony of John Kerry. Too bad that guy isn’t running for president, instead of the John Kerry we’re stuck with, who almost seems to romanticize the war.
Matthew Parris, a British, gay, Tory former MP and former parliamentary sketchwriter for The Times (for a hilarious description of a House of Lords debate on "buggery," click here) has written a good serious article on the "primitivisation" of the law, the "disturbing urge to elbow the formal structures of the rule of law impatiently aside in pursuit of those we hate". Most Times stories aren’t available on the Web outside Britain, but this one seems to be, here. Or if that doesn’t work, here’s the cached version.
Another London Times story begins "Ten-year-old Abbas is saving up his pocket money for a hand grenade. He wants an American one to throw at the huge US tanks that sit on every key crossroads of Sadr City. He doesn't want an Iraqi one although, at €3, it is half the price." And reports this graffito in Baghdad: "Country for sale: contact Iyad Allawi." A truncated version (reg. required).
Friday, August 20, 2004
Taking advantage of the olive branch
Possibly, watching the news from Iraq today, we all had this question: major Shiite shrines have keys?
Guardian: "At the moment, the Americans are doing all the fighting. The Iraqi police play merely a cameo role: a massive convoy rode towards the shrine yesterday, sirens blazing, celebrating a victory that never happened. Two minutes later it turned back."
Quisling-in-chief Allawi: "We have extended the olive branch and Mr Sadr can take advantage of the olive branch." He makes it sound so dirty.
Saw a bit of White House spokesmodel McClellan’s press gaggle on McNeil-Lehrer today and had to look it up. Much of it was on the Not Too Swift Veterans (or SUBVERT). Once again McClellan condemned the existence of the ads without getting at their content. Granted, he’s a member of the Bush "re"-election campaign, which isn’t known for its ability to distinguish between form and content. Oh, you say, but Scott McClellan isn’t a member of the Bush campaign, he works for the executive branch and is paid by the American taxpayers? Has someone told him that? Quote, "we weren’t involved in any way in these ads." He says it 3 times, using the first person plural each time. And he accused the Kerry campaign (3 times) of "fueling" attacks by "shadowy groups." Given the long, explicit NYT story about the funding of the Swifties (or NAMBLA) , he needs to be a lot more specific than "fueling" if he’s going to accuse them of something.
He also, as Mark Shields pointed out, accused Kerry of "losing his cool" (4 times) about being called a traitor. Once again, an opponent of Bush is being accused of being a hothead, like McCain in 2000 (and Dean of course, but Bush wasn’t in that fight). Don’t know how the D’s keep finding these emotional hot-blooded types, first Gore, then Kerry, like they’re recruiting candidates straight off a Mexican soap opera. Whereas GeeDubya is so calm and collected that he could hear about the most devastating attack on American civilians in his lifetime and for seven minutes....
(Later: wow, it seems the Kerry campaign also made the last joke. And the RNC chair told CNN, Kerry "looks to me to be wild-eyed.")
Ending what seems like months of speculation, it was confirmed today that Silvio Berlusconi indeed has gotten hair transplants.
Zanzibar bans gay sex. Play your vacations accordingly. The penalty is 25 years for gay men, 7 for lesbians.
Guardian: "At the moment, the Americans are doing all the fighting. The Iraqi police play merely a cameo role: a massive convoy rode towards the shrine yesterday, sirens blazing, celebrating a victory that never happened. Two minutes later it turned back."
Quisling-in-chief Allawi: "We have extended the olive branch and Mr Sadr can take advantage of the olive branch." He makes it sound so dirty.
Saw a bit of White House spokesmodel McClellan’s press gaggle on McNeil-Lehrer today and had to look it up. Much of it was on the Not Too Swift Veterans (or SUBVERT). Once again McClellan condemned the existence of the ads without getting at their content. Granted, he’s a member of the Bush "re"-election campaign, which isn’t known for its ability to distinguish between form and content. Oh, you say, but Scott McClellan isn’t a member of the Bush campaign, he works for the executive branch and is paid by the American taxpayers? Has someone told him that? Quote, "we weren’t involved in any way in these ads." He says it 3 times, using the first person plural each time. And he accused the Kerry campaign (3 times) of "fueling" attacks by "shadowy groups." Given the long, explicit NYT story about the funding of the Swifties (or NAMBLA) , he needs to be a lot more specific than "fueling" if he’s going to accuse them of something.
He also, as Mark Shields pointed out, accused Kerry of "losing his cool" (4 times) about being called a traitor. Once again, an opponent of Bush is being accused of being a hothead, like McCain in 2000 (and Dean of course, but Bush wasn’t in that fight). Don’t know how the D’s keep finding these emotional hot-blooded types, first Gore, then Kerry, like they’re recruiting candidates straight off a Mexican soap opera. Whereas GeeDubya is so calm and collected that he could hear about the most devastating attack on American civilians in his lifetime and for seven minutes....
(Later: wow, it seems the Kerry campaign also made the last joke. And the RNC chair told CNN, Kerry "looks to me to be wild-eyed.")
Ending what seems like months of speculation, it was confirmed today that Silvio Berlusconi indeed has gotten hair transplants.
Zanzibar bans gay sex. Play your vacations accordingly. The penalty is 25 years for gay men, 7 for lesbians.
Ironic censorship
So in a court case about secrecy and the Patriot Act, Ashcroft’s Justice Dept, in what may be the first use of irony in an act of censorship, tried to censor the ACLU’s brief’s quotation from Justice Powell in a 1972 Supreme Court decision requiring warrants for wiretaps: "The danger to political dissent is acute where the Government attempts to act under so vague a concept as the power to protect ‘domestic security.’ Given the difficulty of defining the domestic security interest, the danger of abuse in acting to protect that interest becomes apparent." Doesn’t it just? Justice is also using secret evidence the ACLU is not allowed to see.
The Sri Lankan legislature was stymied by its supreme court for passing a law against coerced or bribed religious conversions. There is evidently concern that poor Buddhists are being offered money by Christian evangelical groups funded by Americans. Which is really all I know about that.
While rich candidates for Congress are not allowed to use unlimited amounts of their own money in their campaigns, the FEC just quietly ruled that they can do so for "get out the vote" drives.
Thursday, August 19, 2004
Boykin gets off. The long national nightmare is over
The Iraqi admin raised the bar yet again, issuing still more demands for Sadr to comply with or else. He is to agree to their terms in writing, and go on tv & tell his militia to disband. While dressed in a tutu.
And the Pentagon has lowered the bar yet again. General William "My God Is Bigger Than Your God" Boykin has been made the subject of a jolly strong secret report, which says he broke a few piddling rules. Boykin was never a big story over here (by which I mean this country, not this blog), but for a while I had a news.google alert on Boykin, and when a general in the army that’s killing so many Muslims makes bigoted, idiotic comments about Islam, the press in Muslim countries do tend to bring it up over and over and over.
Dahlia Lithwick in Thursday’s NYT says that making of Shrub by portraying him as an infant (like here) makes liberals look like snotty know-it-alls and is a bad way to win over the people who voted for Bush in 2000, who will feel insulted. As for the second part, nonsense: a few years after Watergate, a poll showed that most Americans claimed to have voted for McGovern in 1972. People will remember what they want to remember.
A Russian human rights group has been invaded by the police--and oddly enough, by the public transportation police, the guys on the Moscow Metro.
AP headline: "Official on Leave Over Ten Commandments." What, all of them?
A must-read, on Arauca, Colombia, an oil-producing region, where a unit of the Colombian military, financed by Occidental Petroleum and the United States, is systematically murdering trade unionists. Also, some of those "friendly militias" so beloved by Paul Wolfowitz.
Suddenly, Caltrans doesn’t look so bad: due to mudslides, China has had a 10-day, 60-mile long traffic jam.
And another one for the Guinness World Book of Records: 31 cows were killed by a single lightning strike in Denmark.
And the Pentagon has lowered the bar yet again. General William "My God Is Bigger Than Your God" Boykin has been made the subject of a jolly strong secret report, which says he broke a few piddling rules. Boykin was never a big story over here (by which I mean this country, not this blog), but for a while I had a news.google alert on Boykin, and when a general in the army that’s killing so many Muslims makes bigoted, idiotic comments about Islam, the press in Muslim countries do tend to bring it up over and over and over.
Dahlia Lithwick in Thursday’s NYT says that making of Shrub by portraying him as an infant (like here) makes liberals look like snotty know-it-alls and is a bad way to win over the people who voted for Bush in 2000, who will feel insulted. As for the second part, nonsense: a few years after Watergate, a poll showed that most Americans claimed to have voted for McGovern in 1972. People will remember what they want to remember.
A Russian human rights group has been invaded by the police--and oddly enough, by the public transportation police, the guys on the Moscow Metro.
AP headline: "Official on Leave Over Ten Commandments." What, all of them?
A must-read, on Arauca, Colombia, an oil-producing region, where a unit of the Colombian military, financed by Occidental Petroleum and the United States, is systematically murdering trade unionists. Also, some of those "friendly militias" so beloved by Paul Wolfowitz.
Suddenly, Caltrans doesn’t look so bad: due to mudslides, China has had a 10-day, 60-mile long traffic jam.
And another one for the Guinness World Book of Records: 31 cows were killed by a single lightning strike in Denmark.
He wants them to do his dirty work
Has anyone noticed that the acronym for Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is pronounced Subvert? Kerry has (finally) accused Bush of hiding behind the Subversives: "He wants them to do his dirty work." Gee, Bush staying safe at home while sending others to do his dirty work...say, you don’t think Kerry is making a subtle allusion to Bush’s military record do you?
I wouldn’t ordinarily make a big deal over what Olympics competitors have to say about politics or anything else, but the decision of Team Chimpy to run an ad citing the presence of Iraqis at the Olympics as another "Mission Accomplished" moment without first finding out what the response of those Iraqis might be is a repetition in miniature of the assumption that American troops would be greeted with flowers, dancing in the streets and free blow-jobs.
Fafblog suggests that Bush isn’t living far enough in the future.
I wouldn’t ordinarily make a big deal over what Olympics competitors have to say about politics or anything else, but the decision of Team Chimpy to run an ad citing the presence of Iraqis at the Olympics as another "Mission Accomplished" moment without first finding out what the response of those Iraqis might be is a repetition in miniature of the assumption that American troops would be greeted with flowers, dancing in the streets and free blow-jobs.
Fafblog suggests that Bush isn’t living far enough in the future.
Not afraid to talk about problems
The Israelis have indeed been training American forces in counter-insurgency techniques, according to the London Times and Jerusalem Post. According to a professor of advanced evil and intermediate scumbaggery at the Israeli military staff college, Americans are especially interested in learning about assassination by helicopter, urban warfare, and conducting large military operations in heavily populated areas. I remember that before the war started, the military was using the Massacre of Jenin as a model.
Kazakhstan has elections next month, and it’s very exciting. Which party will win, Nursultan Nazarbayev’s or his daughter Dariga’s. So far it’s neck and neck. She supports daddy but denies that her party isn’t a real alternative, saying it "is not afraid to talk about problems. We're not afraid to criticise officials for working badly or disobeying the President." And it’s still more democratic than the process we just saw in Baghdad. Note to London Times: does every story about Kazakhstan have to mention that they play a form of polo with the headless carcass of a goat?
Kazakhstan has elections next month, and it’s very exciting. Which party will win, Nursultan Nazarbayev’s or his daughter Dariga’s. So far it’s neck and neck. She supports daddy but denies that her party isn’t a real alternative, saying it "is not afraid to talk about problems. We're not afraid to criticise officials for working badly or disobeying the President." And it’s still more democratic than the process we just saw in Baghdad. Note to London Times: does every story about Kazakhstan have to mention that they play a form of polo with the headless carcass of a goat?
Free from its imprisonment and its vile occupation
The FBI’s justifications for its questioning of people planning to protest the R convention suggest that the Fibbies are thinking of themselves less as a law-enforcement agency than a secret police. The assistant director Cassandra (!!) Chandler said that of course they wouldn’t bother innocent people, but those about whom they had received "intelligence" that they were planning violent criminal activity or knew of such plans. Law-enforcement agencies don’t receive "intelligence"--and you know she gets off on calling it "intel" when she’s not talking to the press--they receive information; spy agencies receive intelligence. The arguments for these harassing activities are pre-emptive; you’re not enforcing the law when the law hasn’t been broken yet. This is the Bush Doctrine gone domestic: we don’t want the smoking gun to be a rotten egg thrown at Mayor Bloomberg, to paraphrase Condi Rice.
Speaking of preemption, Iran is talking about launching pre-emptive strikes against Israel and the US (they seem to mean the American troops in Iraq, who the Iranian defense minister described as "hostages") to prevent them launching preemptive strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. They want to get their preemption in first.
The Iraqi national conference is now history, I believe. We never knew who they were. We never even knew how many of them there were--the tame media said 1,300, but 100 or 200 never showed up, and there were supposed to be 1,000 originally, but the first choices looked too unrepresentative, so more were conjured up somehow. And then they rendered what was already a sham even shammier by rubber-stamping a slate of candidates (that is, a list was chosen as a whole, rather than individuals being voted on) for the 81 seats out of 100 they were allowed to choose (it was meant to be 80, but Chalabi has been kicked out, although how and by whom we do not know). There wasn’t even a vote, the list was just declared to have been adopted. It’s like they think they’re in New Jersey or something.
Sadr, without ever meeting with the delegation, said he accepted their offer for him to give up the insurgency. Only... the US military would have to stop shooting up the place. So the Allayi clique upped the ante. Using the sort of playground-bully language so popular in Iraq lately, the defense minister threatened to "teach them a lesson they will never forget," and "set this compound free from its imprisonment and its vile occupation." And where previously the Mahdi Army was supposed to just drop its weapons and leave Najaf, now he’s telling them they have to turn in their weapons and themselves. Almost like he doesn’t want a peaceful solution. He added that only Iraqi troops would enter the shrine, American forces would just bomb it (sorry, I mean provide air support), and that Iraqi commanders would be in charge of the operation and why is everyone laughing at that? Guardian. Al Jazeera.
Ha’aretz says that Shin Bet is still torturing Palestinians. They got hold of a document. And continuing the foreign vocabulary lessons, here’s a Hebrew term for a torture technique: "hatayat gav" (forcing someone to maintain a position in which the back is bent backwards).
And as long as we’re doing Ha’aretz, there’s an article about a memorial plaque to the victims of a terror attack on a bus last year. All the Jewish victims are called "sainted" on the plaque, but a Filipina woman is just called "Mrs." because she’s not as, you know, good, as the Orthodox Jews.
No comment: "Mass. Judge Denies Relief to Gay Couples" (AP headline).
I also liked a headline about Greek sprinters walking out of the Olympics (as opposed to sprinting out, geddit?). I believe these are the two who missed their drug test because they "got the munchies and just spaced it." By the way, here’s what I wrote about drugs and the Olympics 4 years ago.
The Kerry response to Bush’s line about opponents of Star Wars living in the past is, for once, an effective response, noting that Bush’s pre-9/11 position was that the greatest threat to the US wasn’t, oh, say, terrorism but missile attacks, which are like, so 20th century. And Sam Rosenfeld at the American Prospect’s blog points out that most Americans when polled don’t understand why missile defense won’t work, and think we already have it (when the Russians launched the first Sputnik, many Americans wanted it shot down, not understanding that if the US knew how to shoot a satellite down, it would have been able to launch one of its own).
Funny, I thought we were supposed to have handed Abu Ghraib back to the Iraqis (and wasn’t it supposed to be torn down, too?). So why was it American forces who fired on prisoners today, killing 2 and wounding 5?
Speaking of preemption, Iran is talking about launching pre-emptive strikes against Israel and the US (they seem to mean the American troops in Iraq, who the Iranian defense minister described as "hostages") to prevent them launching preemptive strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. They want to get their preemption in first.
The Iraqi national conference is now history, I believe. We never knew who they were. We never even knew how many of them there were--the tame media said 1,300, but 100 or 200 never showed up, and there were supposed to be 1,000 originally, but the first choices looked too unrepresentative, so more were conjured up somehow. And then they rendered what was already a sham even shammier by rubber-stamping a slate of candidates (that is, a list was chosen as a whole, rather than individuals being voted on) for the 81 seats out of 100 they were allowed to choose (it was meant to be 80, but Chalabi has been kicked out, although how and by whom we do not know). There wasn’t even a vote, the list was just declared to have been adopted. It’s like they think they’re in New Jersey or something.
Sadr, without ever meeting with the delegation, said he accepted their offer for him to give up the insurgency. Only... the US military would have to stop shooting up the place. So the Allayi clique upped the ante. Using the sort of playground-bully language so popular in Iraq lately, the defense minister threatened to "teach them a lesson they will never forget," and "set this compound free from its imprisonment and its vile occupation." And where previously the Mahdi Army was supposed to just drop its weapons and leave Najaf, now he’s telling them they have to turn in their weapons and themselves. Almost like he doesn’t want a peaceful solution. He added that only Iraqi troops would enter the shrine, American forces would just bomb it (sorry, I mean provide air support), and that Iraqi commanders would be in charge of the operation and why is everyone laughing at that? Guardian. Al Jazeera.
Ha’aretz says that Shin Bet is still torturing Palestinians. They got hold of a document. And continuing the foreign vocabulary lessons, here’s a Hebrew term for a torture technique: "hatayat gav" (forcing someone to maintain a position in which the back is bent backwards).
And as long as we’re doing Ha’aretz, there’s an article about a memorial plaque to the victims of a terror attack on a bus last year. All the Jewish victims are called "sainted" on the plaque, but a Filipina woman is just called "Mrs." because she’s not as, you know, good, as the Orthodox Jews.
No comment: "Mass. Judge Denies Relief to Gay Couples" (AP headline).
I also liked a headline about Greek sprinters walking out of the Olympics (as opposed to sprinting out, geddit?). I believe these are the two who missed their drug test because they "got the munchies and just spaced it." By the way, here’s what I wrote about drugs and the Olympics 4 years ago.
The Kerry response to Bush’s line about opponents of Star Wars living in the past is, for once, an effective response, noting that Bush’s pre-9/11 position was that the greatest threat to the US wasn’t, oh, say, terrorism but missile attacks, which are like, so 20th century. And Sam Rosenfeld at the American Prospect’s blog points out that most Americans when polled don’t understand why missile defense won’t work, and think we already have it (when the Russians launched the first Sputnik, many Americans wanted it shot down, not understanding that if the US knew how to shoot a satellite down, it would have been able to launch one of its own).
Funny, I thought we were supposed to have handed Abu Ghraib back to the Iraqis (and wasn’t it supposed to be torn down, too?). So why was it American forces who fired on prisoners today, killing 2 and wounding 5?
Wednesday, August 18, 2004
A hell of a lot more determined
Sadr refused to meet the delegation from the national conference. At first I thought this was a PR mistake. But the delegation (which was flown out by the US military) was not going to Najaf to negotiate, whatever some news sources have said, but to issue an ultimatum for him to leave the Imam Ali shrine so he could be arrested and/or assassinated without pissing off a lot of Shiites and Sunnis. And the American forces didn’t take a break from bombarding the city, almost as if they didn’t want the mission to succeed or something.
Those forces are Marines, who replaced the Army this month and, as in Fallujah, decided they needed to mark their territory, a decision the NYT claims they made all on their own. Here’s my favorite bit: "The ferocity of the rebel resistance surprised the marines, who had seen Saddam Hussein's army disintegrate last year as they marched north to Baghdad. ‘The ones we fought the other day are a hell of a lot more determined,’ Lt. Scott Cuomo said." And you’ve been, what, napping in a dark cave in the year and half since then? Hadn’t heard they shoot back now? Slow learners, very slow learners.
The Village Voice’s very gay gossip columnist Michael Musto is amusing about McGreevey & Cipel.
Voter registration in Afghanistan is now up to 9 million. of the 9.8m. eligible. It won’t be really impressive until it hits 10 or 12 or 15 million. A story in today’s London Times describes a team of registrars entering a village with their bodyguard of American soldiers. Maybe it’s me, but when the Motor-Voter drive involves armored personnel carriers and begins with a fire-fight, I begin to wonder if the Afghans are being protected while they eagerly register, or are registering at the point of a gun held by a foreign national. Addendum: the Toronto Star says voter reg is actually over 10m. It also points out that women in burqas are best able to get extra voting cards, which puts the boast that 43% of registered voters are women in a new perspective.
Tuesday, August 17, 2004
Kak, can you spare a dime?
The US gov evidently still sucks at Arabic. A key piece of evidence in the prosecution of an imam in Albany, Yassin Muhiddin Aref, is that he was mentioned in a notebook found in a "terrorist camp" (like regular camp, but with fewer marshmallows) in Iraq as a "commander." Only it turns out the word used actually means "brother." The WaPo has this wrong, so I’ve removed the link to them as punishment: CNN & the NYT make it clear that the word was actually in Kurdish but written in the Arabic alphabet; the US was off by an entire language. The word is "kak," which doesn’t sound like a word that should be an honorific, but there you are. The document was not shown to the defense lawyers or the judge, who denied bail on the basis of it.
Bush is pushing Star Wars again, saying that Kerry, who would cut back on the program but not god forbid scrap it, is "living in the past." Bush, whose 20s and 30s are lost in an alcoholic haze, cannot be accused of that.
Onion headline: "Homosexual Tearfully Admits To Being Governor Of New Jersey."
Bush is pushing Star Wars again, saying that Kerry, who would cut back on the program but not god forbid scrap it, is "living in the past." Bush, whose 20s and 30s are lost in an alcoholic haze, cannot be accused of that.
Onion headline: "Homosexual Tearfully Admits To Being Governor Of New Jersey."
1000 > 0
The State Dept says that claims of fraud in the Venezuelan referendum should be "fully investigated." As opposed to claims of fraud in collecting signatures for the holding of this referendum, which the US didn’t want investigated (and fewer people actually voted for recall than were claimed to have signed the petitions).
The US is "studying" whether Ariel Sharon’s approval of 1,000 new housing units in the settlements amounts to a violation of his promise that there would be no new housing units. Forget studying, State Department: just this once, I’ll let you cheat off my paper: 1,000 > 0.
A pro-democracy candidate for the Hong Kong (land of cricket fights) legislative council (elections in September), Alex Ho Wai-to (Alex?)(Ho?) says that while on a business trip in the mainland, "he was asleep in his hotel when police burst in. While they beat him up in the bathroom they produced a prostitute, took photographs and video film and put condoms and women's underwear on the bed." The police imprisoned him (without trial; they can do that) for 6 months of "re-education." Link.
The International Herald Tribune story adds that relatives on the mainland of HK citizens have been ordered to ask them to vote for pro-Beijing candidates and to prove it, taking cellphone-camera pictures of their ballots.
Foreign language lesson of the day: Stehpinkeln, Sitzpinkler.
YOU SAY TOMATO: John Kerry’s campaign website mentioned, until Friday, his time as vice chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, because even his staff can’t remember the difference between John Kerry and Bob Kerrey.
The US is "studying" whether Ariel Sharon’s approval of 1,000 new housing units in the settlements amounts to a violation of his promise that there would be no new housing units. Forget studying, State Department: just this once, I’ll let you cheat off my paper: 1,000 > 0.
A pro-democracy candidate for the Hong Kong (land of cricket fights) legislative council (elections in September), Alex Ho Wai-to (Alex?)(Ho?) says that while on a business trip in the mainland, "he was asleep in his hotel when police burst in. While they beat him up in the bathroom they produced a prostitute, took photographs and video film and put condoms and women's underwear on the bed." The police imprisoned him (without trial; they can do that) for 6 months of "re-education." Link.
The International Herald Tribune story adds that relatives on the mainland of HK citizens have been ordered to ask them to vote for pro-Beijing candidates and to prove it, taking cellphone-camera pictures of their ballots.
Foreign language lesson of the day: Stehpinkeln, Sitzpinkler.
YOU SAY TOMATO: John Kerry’s campaign website mentioned, until Friday, his time as vice chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, because even his staff can’t remember the difference between John Kerry and Bob Kerrey.
Monday, August 16, 2004
The designated driver
Quote of the day, a US army major frustrated by the limitations on the use of heavy weaponry in Najaf: "It’s frustrating, like being the designated driver."
Hurricane Charley is a test of the idea of the Dept of Homeland Security, into which FEMA was merged. Priorities at FEMA are therefore now set by the terrorist-fighters (according to a story in the Wall Street Journal). This isn’t the first time FEMA’s priorities have been distorted: the Reagan admin redirected it to the task of preparing for a winnable nuclear war, leaving it totally unable to deal with hurricanes, earthquakes, etc.
Of course, according to Jeb Bush, it’s not like we need any preparedness, weather satellites, etc, because "God doesn't follow the linear projections of computer models." "This is God's way of telling us that he's almighty and we're mortal." And what were you telling us when you signed all those execution orders?
The NYT has two thematically linked stories today. One is that the FBI is questioning activists about possible protests at the R convention, the other (Bob Herbert’s column) that Florida state police have been questioning elderly black voters and get-out-the-vote volunteers. The theme these stories share, of course, is intimidation. The Justice Dept’s Office of Legal Policy, most recently heard or for arguing that torturing terrorism suspects was ok, has issued a ruling that the chilling effect on 1st Amendment activities is outweighed by law & order concerns. Florida claims to be investigating something to do with absentee ballots, they won’t say what. Remember, this is the state where the Republican party is telling R’s to vote absentee to ensure their votes are counted.
CNN & other media have started using the phrase "anti-Iraqi forces" for the very-much-Iraqi resistance, Juan Cole points out. He cites journalist Nir Rosen reports that the phrase was developed by a PR company, but "they were told that no Iraqis would fall for it. So apparently it has now been retailed to major American news programs, on the theory that the American public is congenitally stupid." Cole has no link to the Rosen piece, and I can’t find it. Has anyone seen it? Anyway, a News.Google search for the phrase scores 712 hits.
Update: Tex of the UnFairWitness blog has suggested to me that Rosen communicated this information to Cole privately rather than in a published article, which seems to me on re-reading to be a fair reading of Cole & Angry Arab. It would be nice to have more than anecdotal evidence, given the phrase's pervasiveness (now, 8/17/04, 5:30pm, 717 news.google, 4,240 Google hits).
1,600 Palestinian "security prisoners" in Israeli prisons have gone on hunger strike for better conditions. Prison guards have been barbequing meat and baking bread within smelling distance of the prisoners. It would be nice to know what percentage of them are being held without charge or trial. I don’t think they’re planning to fast to death, although they have been threatened with forcible feeding, something which the British prison system, to name one, stopped doing to sane hunger striking prisoners in 1974. The US has done it in Guantanamo, but generally won’t in mainland prisons.
Najaf police, no longer pretending to have ordered journalists out of the city for their own safety, have said they will shoot any reporters who leave their hotel.
Hurricane Charley is a test of the idea of the Dept of Homeland Security, into which FEMA was merged. Priorities at FEMA are therefore now set by the terrorist-fighters (according to a story in the Wall Street Journal). This isn’t the first time FEMA’s priorities have been distorted: the Reagan admin redirected it to the task of preparing for a winnable nuclear war, leaving it totally unable to deal with hurricanes, earthquakes, etc.
Of course, according to Jeb Bush, it’s not like we need any preparedness, weather satellites, etc, because "God doesn't follow the linear projections of computer models." "This is God's way of telling us that he's almighty and we're mortal." And what were you telling us when you signed all those execution orders?
The NYT has two thematically linked stories today. One is that the FBI is questioning activists about possible protests at the R convention, the other (Bob Herbert’s column) that Florida state police have been questioning elderly black voters and get-out-the-vote volunteers. The theme these stories share, of course, is intimidation. The Justice Dept’s Office of Legal Policy, most recently heard or for arguing that torturing terrorism suspects was ok, has issued a ruling that the chilling effect on 1st Amendment activities is outweighed by law & order concerns. Florida claims to be investigating something to do with absentee ballots, they won’t say what. Remember, this is the state where the Republican party is telling R’s to vote absentee to ensure their votes are counted.
CNN & other media have started using the phrase "anti-Iraqi forces" for the very-much-Iraqi resistance, Juan Cole points out. He cites journalist Nir Rosen reports that the phrase was developed by a PR company, but "they were told that no Iraqis would fall for it. So apparently it has now been retailed to major American news programs, on the theory that the American public is congenitally stupid." Cole has no link to the Rosen piece, and I can’t find it. Has anyone seen it? Anyway, a News.Google search for the phrase scores 712 hits.
Update: Tex of the UnFairWitness blog has suggested to me that Rosen communicated this information to Cole privately rather than in a published article, which seems to me on re-reading to be a fair reading of Cole & Angry Arab. It would be nice to have more than anecdotal evidence, given the phrase's pervasiveness (now, 8/17/04, 5:30pm, 717 news.google, 4,240 Google hits).
1,600 Palestinian "security prisoners" in Israeli prisons have gone on hunger strike for better conditions. Prison guards have been barbequing meat and baking bread within smelling distance of the prisoners. It would be nice to know what percentage of them are being held without charge or trial. I don’t think they’re planning to fast to death, although they have been threatened with forcible feeding, something which the British prison system, to name one, stopped doing to sane hunger striking prisoners in 1974. The US has done it in Guantanamo, but generally won’t in mainland prisons.
Najaf police, no longer pretending to have ordered journalists out of the city for their own safety, have said they will shoot any reporters who leave their hotel.
Unimaginable under Baath Party rule
Shiites at the Iraqi national conference loudly protested the forthcoming Battle of Najaf. The WaPo, oddly, calls it a “scene of political activism that would have been unimaginable under Baath Party rule.” Really? I think Saddam would have allowed protests against an American invasion of Najaf.
The attempt to overthrow Hugo Chavez by referendum has failed, and I am of two or more minds. I don’t especially like Chavez, but he pisses off some of the people I like to see pissed off, is what it amounts to. The US and the National Endowment for Democracy has been going after him using all the techniques familiar from their campaign against Allende in Chile in the early ‘70s, white-skinned Venezuelan capitalists are horrified at having a government that doesn’t reflect their interests. But the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend.
Maybe the best approach is regional rather than national: what’s best for South America as a whole? The transition over the last 20 years from military dictatorships to something resembling representative democracies has been impressive, but the veneer of democratic sensibility may not be very deep. From the perspective of democracy, events in Venezuela are close to a wash. Before winning office, Chavez headed a failed military coup; he should never have been allowed to run, but that was 6 years ago and he’s won several elections since then. His instincts are authoritarian and his followers use intimidatory violence, but he hasn’t moved against the newspapers, radio and tv stations which are almost uniformly hostile to him. He has trashed the institutions of government, courts and so on, but they were controlled by the country-club elite, but Chavez’s so-called populism is not embodied in any institutions--with any leader, you can gauge their relationship to real democracy by asking what would happen if they died suddenly in a plane crash, and Chavez (like Putin, say) does not score well there.
As for the referendum, well, Chavez allowed it to occur, but only after many delays, but I don’t believe that the opposition actually collected the required number of signatures (the US told the election commission it should ignore such “technicalities”). The opposition won’t accept the results, and Chavez probably wouldn’t have if it had gone the other way (assuming that the counting was reasonably fair, of course). Neither side is committed to democracy, both sides have shown a willingness to resort to coups and see the electoral process only as one weapon in their arsenal. Whatever works. Whether the electorate viewed the process so cynically and instrumentally, I’m less sure.
At any rate, the referendum in Venezuela would probably also have been unimaginable under Baath Party rule.
The attempt to overthrow Hugo Chavez by referendum has failed, and I am of two or more minds. I don’t especially like Chavez, but he pisses off some of the people I like to see pissed off, is what it amounts to. The US and the National Endowment for Democracy has been going after him using all the techniques familiar from their campaign against Allende in Chile in the early ‘70s, white-skinned Venezuelan capitalists are horrified at having a government that doesn’t reflect their interests. But the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend.
Maybe the best approach is regional rather than national: what’s best for South America as a whole? The transition over the last 20 years from military dictatorships to something resembling representative democracies has been impressive, but the veneer of democratic sensibility may not be very deep. From the perspective of democracy, events in Venezuela are close to a wash. Before winning office, Chavez headed a failed military coup; he should never have been allowed to run, but that was 6 years ago and he’s won several elections since then. His instincts are authoritarian and his followers use intimidatory violence, but he hasn’t moved against the newspapers, radio and tv stations which are almost uniformly hostile to him. He has trashed the institutions of government, courts and so on, but they were controlled by the country-club elite, but Chavez’s so-called populism is not embodied in any institutions--with any leader, you can gauge their relationship to real democracy by asking what would happen if they died suddenly in a plane crash, and Chavez (like Putin, say) does not score well there.
As for the referendum, well, Chavez allowed it to occur, but only after many delays, but I don’t believe that the opposition actually collected the required number of signatures (the US told the election commission it should ignore such “technicalities”). The opposition won’t accept the results, and Chavez probably wouldn’t have if it had gone the other way (assuming that the counting was reasonably fair, of course). Neither side is committed to democracy, both sides have shown a willingness to resort to coups and see the electoral process only as one weapon in their arsenal. Whatever works. Whether the electorate viewed the process so cynically and instrumentally, I’m less sure.
At any rate, the referendum in Venezuela would probably also have been unimaginable under Baath Party rule.
Some people with blogs are never going to get famous
"The Washingtonienne," the blogger who got fired from Sen. Mike DeWine’s office for writing about her complicated sex life, is quoted by the WaPo: "I was only blogging for, what, less than two weeks? Some people with blogs are never going to get famous, and they’ve been doing it for, like, over a year. I feel bad for them." Um, thanks, Jessica, ‘preciate it.
And in Monday’s WaPo, the results of Al Kamen’s In the Loop Carpetbagger Deflector contest for a sound bite for Alan Keyes to explain away charges of carpetbaggery after he denounced Hillary Clinton’s 2000 Senate run as "destructive of federalism." My favorite of the winners: "Did I say federalism? I meant FedEx -- when you absolutely, positively have to get a black Republican overnight."
And in Monday’s WaPo, the results of Al Kamen’s In the Loop Carpetbagger Deflector contest for a sound bite for Alan Keyes to explain away charges of carpetbaggery after he denounced Hillary Clinton’s 2000 Senate run as "destructive of federalism." My favorite of the winners: "Did I say federalism? I meant FedEx -- when you absolutely, positively have to get a black Republican overnight."
Sunday, August 15, 2004
If you do not leave by the deadline we will shoot you
The Indy & Daily Telegraph explain how the order for foreign journalists to leave Najaf was made: they were invited to the police chief’s office on false pretenses, told that while they couldn’t be arrested, their drivers and translators would be (and that the order came from the interior ministry). When they failed to comply, armed police were sent to tell them to leave or be shot. The excuse offered for the order was that a car full of dynamite had been found outside the hotel; even the usually gullible Telegraph doesn’t buy that one. And it was the police who made their point by firing shots at their hotel.
Secretary of War Rumsfeld announces a plan to make the deployment of troops more flexible. It will take several years to implement. All the flexibility of Rummy doing the limbo. I tried to look up his speech at the DOD website, www.defenselink.mil, but it’s stuck at August 3, more of that famous Pentagon flexibility.
Secretary of War Rumsfeld announces a plan to make the deployment of troops more flexible. It will take several years to implement. All the flexibility of Rummy doing the limbo. I tried to look up his speech at the DOD website, www.defenselink.mil, but it’s stuck at August 3, more of that famous Pentagon flexibility.
An Iraqi solution--shudder
I’m a little unclear about the whole Najaf thing at this point, and I’m not getting a lot of help. The WaPo was told that decisions about timing of military operations were made not by the US but by Allawi, in a blatant bit of playacting--oo, he’s so powerful he can tell the Marines to stop and they will--AND THEY FELL FOR IT! The LA Times quotes a US major, "Allawi has decided there has to be an Iraqi solution to the problem." Ah, Vietnamization. Negotiations failed; the Allawi clique (dammit I can’t call it a government, it’s not one, and I feel silly using the word puppet over and over) is blaming Sadr for refusing their demands that his forces give up their weapons and leave Najaf (it was never clear to me what the Allawiistas were offering in exchange for this complete surrender), and for Sadr failing to meet with them personally, which they were curiously insistent on, if you get my drift.
And Najaf’s police chief has ordered all foreign media to leave the city immediately. Maybe he’s just planning a surprise party and doesn’t want it ruined.
Meanwhile, the "National Conference," yet another group of Iraqi "leaders" who were actually appointed by the Americans, will meet in Baghdad today after several postponements. The 1,300 conferees will choose a 100-member national assembly, whose first task, if I understand traditional Iraqi practices, will be to bury the bodies of the other 1,200. Oh stop it, like you weren’t thinking the same thing. Shiite groups including Sadr’s are not participating, and it's not that clear who is. Al Jazeera, exaggerating only slightly, says "The names of the ‘representatives’ have not been made available, nor is it known who they represent or who has chosen them." (Correction: actually they're choosing only 80 members, the other 20 will be from the American-appointed governing council.)
McGreevey had polls done on the "I am a gay American" line. Now why would a guy resigning his office and presumably leaving political life need to do that? And I wonder what other slogans they tested. Still, it would say something about the progress of tolerance in America if he could make this about his gayness rather than corruption, if Golan Cipel could be the distraction that a black and white cocker spaniel was for Richard Nixon, and let’s not make a big deal about the "cocker spaniel" thing, sometimes a breed of dog is just a breed of dog.
Saturday, August 14, 2004
Not very sensitive
John Kerry is such a limp noodle when it comes to responding to attacks. This is his answer to Dick "Mr. Sensitive" Cheney: "I don't think it's very sensitive to have a vice president who has secret meetings with the polluters who write the laws. And I don't think it's very sensitive to expect the wealthy to shift the tax burden to the average American." And Edwards’s response was that Cheney was "talking about a man who is carrying shrapnel in his body today. His is talking about a man who spilled his blood for the United States of America." What’s that, the you-can’t-hit-me-I’m-wearing-glasses defense? Honestly, wouldn’t "shove it" have been so much more effective?
The R’s in Joisey are quite correct that McGreevey is timing the date his resignation goes into effect in order to game the election laws to avoid a special election, much as Rep. Rodney Alexander timed his conversion to make sure the D’s didn’t have time before the filing deadline to replace him. And in general, I’m in favor of elected leaders actually being, ya know, elected, but the special election would have been between candidates chosen in smoke-filled rooms (which in NJ probably are actually, by-God smoke-filled) rather than by a primary process.
Both the NYT & WaPo have good, long articles on the Bush admin’s undermining of regulations on health & safety, the environment, etc etc. There isn’t much overlap between the articles (the Post’s is the 1st of a series), because there are so many examples to choose from. Compare and contrast how the powers of regulators at OSHA, the EPA, Labor, etc etc (one might add the reduction of audits of the rich at the IRS) have been reduced to nothing, while those of cops, the FBI, CIA, military interrogators and border patrol agents, who this week were given incredible autonomy to deport illegal aliens without any hearing at all, have been greatly augmented. To paraphrase Tom Lehrer, if the detention and torture don’t get you, the monoxide will.
The R’s in Joisey are quite correct that McGreevey is timing the date his resignation goes into effect in order to game the election laws to avoid a special election, much as Rep. Rodney Alexander timed his conversion to make sure the D’s didn’t have time before the filing deadline to replace him. And in general, I’m in favor of elected leaders actually being, ya know, elected, but the special election would have been between candidates chosen in smoke-filled rooms (which in NJ probably are actually, by-God smoke-filled) rather than by a primary process.
Both the NYT & WaPo have good, long articles on the Bush admin’s undermining of regulations on health & safety, the environment, etc etc. There isn’t much overlap between the articles (the Post’s is the 1st of a series), because there are so many examples to choose from. Compare and contrast how the powers of regulators at OSHA, the EPA, Labor, etc etc (one might add the reduction of audits of the rich at the IRS) have been reduced to nothing, while those of cops, the FBI, CIA, military interrogators and border patrol agents, who this week were given incredible autonomy to deport illegal aliens without any hearing at all, have been greatly augmented. To paraphrase Tom Lehrer, if the detention and torture don’t get you, the monoxide will.
Imperialism and imperial hubris
Giving a press conference on Al Jazeera, Muqtada al-Sadr says, "Najaf has triumphed over imperialism and imperial hubris." That would be a set-back for George Bush, whose slogan is "4 More Years of Imperialism and Imperial Hubris." I wonder how much of the timing of the start & stop siege of Najaf is related to the Republican convention. That may also be behind the ban on Al Jazeera: preventing a split-screen presentation of pictures of the convention and of the bombing of whatever Iraqi city we’ll be bombing that week, like the 1968 D convention and the protestors. The whole world isn’t watching, if our tame censors can do anything about it.
Speaking of imperialism and imperial hubris, Colin Powell, in an interview with the Atlantic Monthly, says, "The United States believes it has worldwide obligations. Our European friends have never felt that that was their destiny or their obligation." How ignorant of history do you have to be to make a statement like that. Wait, it gets better: "The average European citizen, looking around, sees some of these out-of-the-way places like Afghanistan and the Balkans and Iraq." Who do you think used to go to war with each other on a regular basis to take those areas as colonies?
Speaking of hubris, Niyazov, the dictator of Turkmenistan who has exceeded even my taste for wacky news stories, has ordered a palace entirely constructed of ice to be built in his hot central Asian country. The Indy calls him neo-Stalinist, although neo-Dr. Evil seems more like it. It quotes one of his poems: "I am the Turkmen spirit reborn to bring you a golden age. I am your saviour ... My sight is sharp - I see everything. If you are honest in your deeds, I see this; if you commit wrongdoing; I see that too." So maybe it’s neo-Santa Clausism, which would explain the ice palace.
Speaking of imperialism and imperial hubris, Colin Powell, in an interview with the Atlantic Monthly, says, "The United States believes it has worldwide obligations. Our European friends have never felt that that was their destiny or their obligation." How ignorant of history do you have to be to make a statement like that. Wait, it gets better: "The average European citizen, looking around, sees some of these out-of-the-way places like Afghanistan and the Balkans and Iraq." Who do you think used to go to war with each other on a regular basis to take those areas as colonies?
Speaking of hubris, Niyazov, the dictator of Turkmenistan who has exceeded even my taste for wacky news stories, has ordered a palace entirely constructed of ice to be built in his hot central Asian country. The Indy calls him neo-Stalinist, although neo-Dr. Evil seems more like it. It quotes one of his poems: "I am the Turkmen spirit reborn to bring you a golden age. I am your saviour ... My sight is sharp - I see everything. If you are honest in your deeds, I see this; if you commit wrongdoing; I see that too." So maybe it’s neo-Santa Clausism, which would explain the ice palace.
Friday, August 13, 2004
Another nuance
Imagine an election campaign, indeed imagine a country, in which smart was considered a desirable quality (and I know that’s like Albert Brooks in "Broadcast News" wishing for a world in which insecurity and desperation made us more attractive). What if Kerry had responded to "my opponent has found a new nuance" with "I see President Bush has lost another nuance."
CACI international, which supplied interrogators to Abu Ghraib, has conducted an internal investigation and decided that none of its people did anything wrong. And they just got their contract extended. What makes this more significant than your standard corporate CYAery, as the NYT fails to make clear, is that the US military has made clear that any punishment of torture by civilian contractors is up to their employers.
CACI international, which supplied interrogators to Abu Ghraib, has conducted an internal investigation and decided that none of its people did anything wrong. And they just got their contract extended. What makes this more significant than your standard corporate CYAery, as the NYT fails to make clear, is that the US military has made clear that any punishment of torture by civilian contractors is up to their employers.
I don't fancy being kidnapped again
The Bush campaign commercials are getting odder and odder. This week alone, there was "Solemn Duty," with George and his faithful robot Laura talking about parents having to choose on 9/11/01 which child to pick up first (in their case, it would be the less slutty twin). Then "Ownership," in which Shrub says, "if you own something, you have a vital stake in the future of America." Paul Krugman says roughly what I thought when I saw the ad, that Bush is unconsciously echoing arguments made in the early American republic in favor of a property qualification for the franchise (not banned until the 15th Amendment) that only those with "a stake in the nation" should vote. (Some states preferred a tax-paying qualification, but, as Chimp Boy pointed out, rich people can always figure out how to dodge taxes.) And now there’s an ad, "Victory," that will be shown on tv screens in health clubs next to the treadmills and exercise bikes, boasting that because of the Bush wars, two former dictatorships, Iraq and Afghanistan, will be represented at the Olympics. So that makes it all worthwhile. Evidently, "Freedom is spreading throughout the world like a sunrise." As a metaphor, isn’t that a little too cyclical?
In the same week that Russia eliminates almost all benefits for the elderly, veterans and the disabled in favor of tiny amounts of worthless money, IN THE SAME FUCKING WEEK, MIND YOU, Putin announces a 40% increase in the military budget.
Quote of the day, from James Brandon, the Sunday Telegraph reporter kidnapped and then released, on why he is now leaving Basra: "I don't fancy being kidnapped again."
In the same week that Russia eliminates almost all benefits for the elderly, veterans and the disabled in favor of tiny amounts of worthless money, IN THE SAME FUCKING WEEK, MIND YOU, Putin announces a 40% increase in the military budget.
Quote of the day, from James Brandon, the Sunday Telegraph reporter kidnapped and then released, on why he is now leaving Basra: "I don't fancy being kidnapped again."
I really like this crowd
On Larry King, Bush finally explains the 7 minutes: "I was collecting my thoughts and I was sitting with a bunch of young kids, and I made the decision there that we would let this part of the program finish." Collecting his thoughts? How long could that take? there are so few of them. On the other hand, they’re very tiny.
The attack on Najaf, which I believe is called Operation Sensitive Resolve, has been postponed in favor of trying to starve the city into submission, but sensitively, or as Colin Powell puts it, "Our forces in Najaf are squeezing the city." He says the insurgents "don't understand the spirit of peace and reconciliation" and therefore have to be starved, bombed and shot, in a spirit of peace and reconciliation.
The Vatican comes out against Turkey being admitted to the European Union, saying it should go play with the other Muslim children instead.
A detail I missed about Cheney’s speech in Albuquerque: Dick "Mr. Sensitive" Cheney told the crowd, who had been required to sign a loyalty oath, stand in lines in the hot NM sun and go through a metal detector, "I really like this crowd!" Sure, they’ll put up with massive amounts of crap, what’s for a politician not to like?
Speaking of being willing to stand in lines: I’ve suggested before that Argentinian ants might be the end of civilization as we know it. Of course we never heard another word about the ants in Europe, but a column of ants 60 miles wide was just discovered under Melbourne. As in Europe, the ants have stopped fighting among themselves, as they do in South America, so their numbers are growing exponentially. Aussies call the laid-back ants metrosexuals.
The attack on Najaf, which I believe is called Operation Sensitive Resolve, has been postponed in favor of trying to starve the city into submission, but sensitively, or as Colin Powell puts it, "Our forces in Najaf are squeezing the city." He says the insurgents "don't understand the spirit of peace and reconciliation" and therefore have to be starved, bombed and shot, in a spirit of peace and reconciliation.
The Vatican comes out against Turkey being admitted to the European Union, saying it should go play with the other Muslim children instead.
A detail I missed about Cheney’s speech in Albuquerque: Dick "Mr. Sensitive" Cheney told the crowd, who had been required to sign a loyalty oath, stand in lines in the hot NM sun and go through a metal detector, "I really like this crowd!" Sure, they’ll put up with massive amounts of crap, what’s for a politician not to like?
Speaking of being willing to stand in lines: I’ve suggested before that Argentinian ants might be the end of civilization as we know it. Of course we never heard another word about the ants in Europe, but a column of ants 60 miles wide was just discovered under Melbourne. As in Europe, the ants have stopped fighting among themselves, as they do in South America, so their numbers are growing exponentially. Aussies call the laid-back ants metrosexuals.
I love my dead "gay American" governor of Joisey
Jim McGreevey, the governor of the state of big hair, resigns his, ahem, post, because, to quote Keith coming out to his workmates on Six Feet Under, "I'm gay. I have a boyfriend. I sleep with men. Okay? I have a lot of sex and it's really, really gay."
A quick googling of McG’s presumed lover Golan Cipel suggests that this was an open secret. There are references in newspapers to Cipel as McG’s "special friend," questions about why he was getting special treatment, etc.
A quick googling of McG’s presumed lover Golan Cipel suggests that this was an open secret. There are references in newspapers to Cipel as McG’s "special friend," questions about why he was getting special treatment, etc.
Thursday, August 12, 2004
Nuance, idn’t that a French word?
William Saletan goes into Kerry’s record of statements on Iraq to find out what he means, because god knows Kerry is incapable of making it clear himself. Saletan says at length what I said in 3 sentences on Tuesday.
The frightening thing about Kerry on this issue is that he’s letting Bush run rings around him, suckering him into a heads-I-win-tails-you-lose game. Bush spent days goading him about not having said whether he’d have voted for war authorization knowing what he knows now, as if Kerry’s failure to answer a hypothetical question, something Bush always refuses to do, is a sign of wishy-washiness. When he does give an answer, Bush again attacks him, this time for finding "a new nuance." Nuance is a dirty word to the Bushies--two years ago I said that "Don’t nuance it to death," the response of an unnamed official when no one could understand a Bush comment about Israel, should be the new Bush motto.
The thing, though, about this particular nuance--that he voted to authorize war in order to give the "president" a stronger hand in negotiations--is that while the Bushies now pretend not to know the difference between voting for that authorization and voting for the actual war we got, that was their stance at the time; they kept saying that they hadn’t made any decision to go to war, remember?
If Kerry can be portrayed as agreeing with Bush, Bush wins. If Kerry can be portrayed as disagreeing with Bush, or even presenting his own position, which is what you do in an election, Bush wins, attacking Kerry for "sending mixed signals" and fucking up Bush’s glorious little war: "The mission is not going to be completed as quickly as possible if the enemy thinks we’re going to be removing a substantial number of troops in six months." Here in California, in this week’s senatorial debate, R challenger Bill Jones absolutely refused to express any opinion on the war, presumably the most important issue this election year, on these grounds.
The same heads-I-win etc logic works in the appointment of Porter Goss, forcing the D’s to give him a pass, which he does not deserve on his merits, rather than be accused of obstructionism. So the D’s acquiesced in Bush’s portrayal of any oversight, much less disagreement with his policies, as illegitimate.
The frightening thing about Kerry on this issue is that he’s letting Bush run rings around him, suckering him into a heads-I-win-tails-you-lose game. Bush spent days goading him about not having said whether he’d have voted for war authorization knowing what he knows now, as if Kerry’s failure to answer a hypothetical question, something Bush always refuses to do, is a sign of wishy-washiness. When he does give an answer, Bush again attacks him, this time for finding "a new nuance." Nuance is a dirty word to the Bushies--two years ago I said that "Don’t nuance it to death," the response of an unnamed official when no one could understand a Bush comment about Israel, should be the new Bush motto.
The thing, though, about this particular nuance--that he voted to authorize war in order to give the "president" a stronger hand in negotiations--is that while the Bushies now pretend not to know the difference between voting for that authorization and voting for the actual war we got, that was their stance at the time; they kept saying that they hadn’t made any decision to go to war, remember?
If Kerry can be portrayed as agreeing with Bush, Bush wins. If Kerry can be portrayed as disagreeing with Bush, or even presenting his own position, which is what you do in an election, Bush wins, attacking Kerry for "sending mixed signals" and fucking up Bush’s glorious little war: "The mission is not going to be completed as quickly as possible if the enemy thinks we’re going to be removing a substantial number of troops in six months." Here in California, in this week’s senatorial debate, R challenger Bill Jones absolutely refused to express any opinion on the war, presumably the most important issue this election year, on these grounds.
The same heads-I-win etc logic works in the appointment of Porter Goss, forcing the D’s to give him a pass, which he does not deserve on his merits, rather than be accused of obstructionism. So the D’s acquiesced in Bush’s portrayal of any oversight, much less disagreement with his policies, as illegitimate.
Friendly militias
Wolfowitz wants to build a "global anti-terrorist network of friendly militias," bypassing insufficiently pliable national militaries in favor of building up warlords and death squads and you’ve got to be fucking kidding. He said this to the House Armed Services Committee, but of the 15 stories on this subject turned up in a news.google search ("friendly militias" or "wolfowitz +militias"), none are from an American source.
Voter registration in Afghanistan, like this year’s opium crop, has surpassed expectations. And by surpassed expectations, I mean they faked so many of them, after such a poor initial showing, that no one can keep a straight face. Except for Secretary of War Rummy Rumsfeld, visiting Afghanistan yesterday, who said "Given the campaign of intimidation and attempts to dissuade people from registering, the surge in registration has to be a very vivid demonstration that the Afghan people are determined to make democracy work." Oh yeah, it just "has to be." Couldn’t be anything else.
The WaPo’s Washington Briefing section finds that since the start of 2003, Bush has only mentioned bin Laden 10 times in public appearances, 6 of those in response to questions. The last time he spoke about him at any length was in March 2003, when he downplayed his importance--"Terror is bigger than one person." Unlike, presumably, the war on terrorism, which his campaign tells us every day is personified by one, oddly chimp-like, person.
Voter registration in Afghanistan, like this year’s opium crop, has surpassed expectations. And by surpassed expectations, I mean they faked so many of them, after such a poor initial showing, that no one can keep a straight face. Except for Secretary of War Rummy Rumsfeld, visiting Afghanistan yesterday, who said "Given the campaign of intimidation and attempts to dissuade people from registering, the surge in registration has to be a very vivid demonstration that the Afghan people are determined to make democracy work." Oh yeah, it just "has to be." Couldn’t be anything else.
The WaPo’s Washington Briefing section finds that since the start of 2003, Bush has only mentioned bin Laden 10 times in public appearances, 6 of those in response to questions. The last time he spoke about him at any length was in March 2003, when he downplayed his importance--"Terror is bigger than one person." Unlike, presumably, the war on terrorism, which his campaign tells us every day is personified by one, oddly chimp-like, person.
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Rich, white and wishy-washy
The White House has a pamphlet, "President George W. Bush: Friend of the American Jewish Community," which I can’t find online, although they emailed it as a pdf to Jewish leaders, some of whom were quoted, without permission, as if they supported Bush, but do not. And there’s this: "For Yasser Arafat, the message has been clear. While he was a frequent White House guest during the last administration, he has never been granted a meeting with President Bush." And evidently this was put out at gov expense, not by the campaign. Anyone know where a copy exists online?
Speaking of pandering, this is Bush’s "W Stands for Women" site. With 140 million women in this country, the 4 listed under "Women supporting W" include a former Miss America (!), and the vice president of West Group Commercial Real Estate. And it leads off with this condescending quote from Shrub: "Our country, my administration and my own life are improved and enriched by strong, capable women, from my wife, daughters and mother to senior members of my White House team. I’m proud that our administration has more women in senior positions than any administration in the history of our country. America’s wives, mothers and daughters bring strength, dignity, compassion and integrity to our communities and our country." He really does have difficulty seeing women other than as appendages of men. Would he refer to Rumsfeld, Ashcroft and Powell as "America’s husbands, fathers and sons"? Or not mention a single specifically women’s issue, as opposed to security, the economy, although it does mention education, as if women are allowed to be concerned for their children, but not for themselves.
And still speaking of pandering, here’s a WaPo article on ads that a white businessman, J. Patrick Rooney, who profits greatly from Bush policies, is running on black radio stations attacking Kerry for being "rich, white and wishy-washy", and Teresa Heinz-Kerry for having commented that with her Mozambican roots she could be called African-American, although Rooney, who I repeat is white, says in the article that he goes to an "all-black church." OK, stupid and silly, but... rich, WHITE, and wishy-washy? Is attacking a candidate’s race ok if he’s white?
We know from the recent Tigger-bad-touching case that the actors in character costume at Disney World have limited range of vision and motion. So OSHA has decided that maybe they shouldn’t be next to moving vehicles, and fined Disney a whopping $6,300 for an incident February where "Pluto" got his foot caught in a float at the "Share a Dream Come True" parade and was run over and killed, which for all we know was his dream, I mean if your job is to dress as Pluto, you must have pretty weird dreams. But my point was...$6,300. You may lose respect for me, but I have to say that fine is pretty Mickey Mouse.
Speaking of pandering, this is Bush’s "W Stands for Women" site. With 140 million women in this country, the 4 listed under "Women supporting W" include a former Miss America (!), and the vice president of West Group Commercial Real Estate. And it leads off with this condescending quote from Shrub: "Our country, my administration and my own life are improved and enriched by strong, capable women, from my wife, daughters and mother to senior members of my White House team. I’m proud that our administration has more women in senior positions than any administration in the history of our country. America’s wives, mothers and daughters bring strength, dignity, compassion and integrity to our communities and our country." He really does have difficulty seeing women other than as appendages of men. Would he refer to Rumsfeld, Ashcroft and Powell as "America’s husbands, fathers and sons"? Or not mention a single specifically women’s issue, as opposed to security, the economy, although it does mention education, as if women are allowed to be concerned for their children, but not for themselves.
And still speaking of pandering, here’s a WaPo article on ads that a white businessman, J. Patrick Rooney, who profits greatly from Bush policies, is running on black radio stations attacking Kerry for being "rich, white and wishy-washy", and Teresa Heinz-Kerry for having commented that with her Mozambican roots she could be called African-American, although Rooney, who I repeat is white, says in the article that he goes to an "all-black church." OK, stupid and silly, but... rich, WHITE, and wishy-washy? Is attacking a candidate’s race ok if he’s white?
We know from the recent Tigger-bad-touching case that the actors in character costume at Disney World have limited range of vision and motion. So OSHA has decided that maybe they shouldn’t be next to moving vehicles, and fined Disney a whopping $6,300 for an incident February where "Pluto" got his foot caught in a float at the "Share a Dream Come True" parade and was run over and killed, which for all we know was his dream, I mean if your job is to dress as Pluto, you must have pretty weird dreams. But my point was...$6,300. You may lose respect for me, but I have to say that fine is pretty Mickey Mouse.
Happy no matter what
I’ve gotten to the point where I can mostly ignore the banner ads Blogspot puts at the top of my site (a small price for the free hosting). Still, what’s with the one "Achieve personal freedom, learn how to be happy no matter what"? Self-help and New Agey goodness via "The Toltec Way." I guess that gets points for originality. But how did the Google program pick that particular ad? Did it analyze my site’s content, decide it was depressing as hell and that people reading it would need to "learn how to be happy no matter what"?
The British Court of Appeal will allow evidence obtained by torture, at Guantanamo, to be used to allow the home secretary to detain people indefinitely as terrorism suspects without charge or trial. The torture evidence was the sole evidence. Lord Justice John Laws (the other judge is named Lord Justice Pill; it’s like a very weak Monty Python sketch) says that if the home sec "has neither procured the torture nor connived at it, he has not offended the constitutional principle which I have sought to outline." So that’s ok then. And that he has no "duty of solemn inquiry as to the interrogation methods used by agencies of other sovereign states." Jesus wept.
Elsewhere in the British criminal justice system, a man on temporary release from prison (not clear why; he is supposed to be serving a life term for rape and sexual assaults) bought a lottery ticket. He won £7 million, so he was immediately moved from an open prison to a high-security one because with all that money, he now poses a flight risk. And his victims get to sue him for the money.
Turns out that Rep. Rodney Alexander of Louisiana, who switched parties from D to R last week at the last minute, to keep the D’s finding someone to run against him, was violating LA. election law.
A guest at a wedding in the Philippines is killed, cooked and served to the other wedding guests. The family of the bride were annoyed because he had touched her bottom.
The British Court of Appeal will allow evidence obtained by torture, at Guantanamo, to be used to allow the home secretary to detain people indefinitely as terrorism suspects without charge or trial. The torture evidence was the sole evidence. Lord Justice John Laws (the other judge is named Lord Justice Pill; it’s like a very weak Monty Python sketch) says that if the home sec "has neither procured the torture nor connived at it, he has not offended the constitutional principle which I have sought to outline." So that’s ok then. And that he has no "duty of solemn inquiry as to the interrogation methods used by agencies of other sovereign states." Jesus wept.
Elsewhere in the British criminal justice system, a man on temporary release from prison (not clear why; he is supposed to be serving a life term for rape and sexual assaults) bought a lottery ticket. He won £7 million, so he was immediately moved from an open prison to a high-security one because with all that money, he now poses a flight risk. And his victims get to sue him for the money.
Turns out that Rep. Rodney Alexander of Louisiana, who switched parties from D to R last week at the last minute, to keep the D’s finding someone to run against him, was violating LA. election law.
A guest at a wedding in the Philippines is killed, cooked and served to the other wedding guests. The family of the bride were annoyed because he had touched her bottom.
Ok, maybe Russert is only a semi-douchebag of liberty
Paul Wolfowitz thinks Pakistan has suffered enough on the whole spreading-nuclear-technology-to-anyone-with-a-MasterCard thing (by the way, a little-reported fact that puts Pakistan’s seriousness about this into perspective: not only was A Q Khan not prosecuted, he was allowed to keep all the money he made selling nuclear secrets). Wolfy wants to resume training Pakistani military officers in US military academies because, he says, this is the best way to increase our wonderful influence and decrease that of the Islamic fundies. See, the military is really powerful in Pakistan, so we should try to influence the military and not, say, work to reduce its power and restore (semi-)democracy. About the supposed beneficial influence of military to military contacts, I have just four words: School of the Americas.
Martin Sieff in Salon has a list of 21 mistaken assumptions Neocons made about Iraq. Put all together like that, it’s kind of awesome.
OK, maybe I owe a partial apology to Tim Russert, if it’s true that all he told the special prosecutor was that he hadn’t been leaked to. That’s not the same as naming names, but even helping in a process-of-elimination investigation is wrong.
Martin Sieff in Salon has a list of 21 mistaken assumptions Neocons made about Iraq. Put all together like that, it’s kind of awesome.
OK, maybe I owe a partial apology to Tim Russert, if it’s true that all he told the special prosecutor was that he hadn’t been leaked to. That’s not the same as naming names, but even helping in a process-of-elimination investigation is wrong.
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
And even my credibility
The WaPo has misquoted an attack made by Bush on Kerry today. It’s the usual flip flop thing about Iraq. The Post has Shrub beginning a sentence, "After months of questioning my motives and my credibility..." Now, I saw those remarks on McNeil-Lehrer and he actually said "questioning my motives and EVEN my credibility," which is a much more revealing comment because it is so arrogant of him to think that his credibility is beyond doubt.
First prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired.
Remember the scenes in Fahrenheit 911 with the military recruiters? The Post’s Sunday magazine has a good article on the subject. It’s all very Glengarry Glen Ross.
Billmon covers why Porter Goss is such a crappy choice to head the CIA for 5 months.
Saletan at Slate has an interesting article about the politicization of stem cell research, which reminds me that I meant to mention Laura Bush’s atrocious little intervention into that debate, which was to accuse proponents of stem cell research of offering false hope that cures are right around the corner. What the hell is she saying, that medical research shouldn’t be conducted unless it will produce immediate results? Where would we be if Alexander Fleming had had that short an attention span?
(Update: Good Michael Kinsley piece on this, ending "While she battles rhetorically against false hopes, he (George) works to ensure that there is no hope at all.")
The US military declares central Najaf a free-fire zone, ordering all civilians out.
Because of the reintroduction of the death penalty in Iraq, Danish troops there have stopped handing over prisoners, who might be executed for, say, "endangering national security." The British, while ostensibly opposing the death penalty decision, are not following suit. The US...actually, has anyone of significance in the US gov even been asked about capital punishment?
Billmon covers why Porter Goss is such a crappy choice to head the CIA for 5 months.
Saletan at Slate has an interesting article about the politicization of stem cell research, which reminds me that I meant to mention Laura Bush’s atrocious little intervention into that debate, which was to accuse proponents of stem cell research of offering false hope that cures are right around the corner. What the hell is she saying, that medical research shouldn’t be conducted unless it will produce immediate results? Where would we be if Alexander Fleming had had that short an attention span?
(Update: Good Michael Kinsley piece on this, ending "While she battles rhetorically against false hopes, he (George) works to ensure that there is no hope at all.")
The US military declares central Najaf a free-fire zone, ordering all civilians out.
Because of the reintroduction of the death penalty in Iraq, Danish troops there have stopped handing over prisoners, who might be executed for, say, "endangering national security." The British, while ostensibly opposing the death penalty decision, are not following suit. The US...actually, has anyone of significance in the US gov even been asked about capital punishment?
Dammit, I didn't get a free ice-cream sundae on my birthday
Kerry’s position on the Iraq War this week, as I understand it, is that he was right to vote to give Bush a blank check, even if he’d known that all of the intel was cooked, but Bush was wrong to use it the way he did. Kerry is obviously looking towards the future, when he might want to lie to Congress and be given absolute power. You have to keep those options open.
Tim Russert = Elia Kazan.
One-point plan.
The ACLU reports that the federal government increasingly bypasses privacy laws by using private companies to collect data on Americans. Of course we know about airlines passing along info on passengers to the gov since 9/11, sometimes without being asked. But the ACLU (in a pdf that keeps stalling when I try to download it) says the practice has grown tremendously, with the gov buying data, using court orders or simply asking for it. I remember something from early in the Reagan administration. There used to be an ice-cream parlor chain called Farrell’s, one of those olde-timey things where the staff wear straw hats and striped shirts, there are too many banjos, and you bring children on their birthdays, when they get a free sundae. Farrell’s was found to be handing its birthday list over to the Selective Service, which was harassing people who hadn’t signed up for the draft on their 18th birthday. This was discovered because people had, naturally, made up false identities to scam a free ice cream sundae.
The NYT has an editorial today against the banning of Al Jazeera in Iraq. It is against it, as am I. But the article makes some rather odd assumptions while trotting out its clichés. It says twice that "Owie" Allawi is "supposed" to be moving Iraq towards democracy (actually, the second reference is that he is supposed to be merely "pointing the way toward a more democratic Iraq," possibly in the manner of pointer breeds of dog which have been bred to indicate the location of a bird that has been shot out of the sky. And really, "more democratic Iraq"? Could you possibly set that bar lower?). He’s "supposed to" be doing that? Whose supposition is that? The NYT says that he "has begun yielding to the same kind of authoritarian mentality that has stifled democracy in too many neighboring states." Too many? What’s the right number? So are we meant to believe that Allawi was a liberal democrat who is being corrupted by power? Where’s the evidence that Allawi’s mentality was ever anything other than authoritarian? And when was democracy stifled in a Middle Eastern state; when was there ever a democracy to be stifled? The problem is that the Times is assuming that democracy is the normal state of affairs if there is no untidy interference from tyrants, ethnic strife, etc. That, I think, is what they really meant by "supposed to": that the natural flow of events is towards democracy, like one of the laws of the universe: a nation-state in motion tends to moves towards a state of representative democracy and civil rights. This is not the case. Democracy is hard, democracy is not natural or inevitable. This is not to say that Arabs are incapable of democracy--that straw man Bush keeps trotting out--but the laws of history do not ineluctably lead towards American-style democracy, and it will be much harder work to create representative democracy and, especially, liberal democratic values, than it would be to create another dictatorship. Only if you own up to that do you have any chance of accomplishing it.
Tim Russert = Elia Kazan.
One-point plan.
The ACLU reports that the federal government increasingly bypasses privacy laws by using private companies to collect data on Americans. Of course we know about airlines passing along info on passengers to the gov since 9/11, sometimes without being asked. But the ACLU (in a pdf that keeps stalling when I try to download it) says the practice has grown tremendously, with the gov buying data, using court orders or simply asking for it. I remember something from early in the Reagan administration. There used to be an ice-cream parlor chain called Farrell’s, one of those olde-timey things where the staff wear straw hats and striped shirts, there are too many banjos, and you bring children on their birthdays, when they get a free sundae. Farrell’s was found to be handing its birthday list over to the Selective Service, which was harassing people who hadn’t signed up for the draft on their 18th birthday. This was discovered because people had, naturally, made up false identities to scam a free ice cream sundae.
The NYT has an editorial today against the banning of Al Jazeera in Iraq. It is against it, as am I. But the article makes some rather odd assumptions while trotting out its clichés. It says twice that "Owie" Allawi is "supposed" to be moving Iraq towards democracy (actually, the second reference is that he is supposed to be merely "pointing the way toward a more democratic Iraq," possibly in the manner of pointer breeds of dog which have been bred to indicate the location of a bird that has been shot out of the sky. And really, "more democratic Iraq"? Could you possibly set that bar lower?). He’s "supposed to" be doing that? Whose supposition is that? The NYT says that he "has begun yielding to the same kind of authoritarian mentality that has stifled democracy in too many neighboring states." Too many? What’s the right number? So are we meant to believe that Allawi was a liberal democrat who is being corrupted by power? Where’s the evidence that Allawi’s mentality was ever anything other than authoritarian? And when was democracy stifled in a Middle Eastern state; when was there ever a democracy to be stifled? The problem is that the Times is assuming that democracy is the normal state of affairs if there is no untidy interference from tyrants, ethnic strife, etc. That, I think, is what they really meant by "supposed to": that the natural flow of events is towards democracy, like one of the laws of the universe: a nation-state in motion tends to moves towards a state of representative democracy and civil rights. This is not the case. Democracy is hard, democracy is not natural or inevitable. This is not to say that Arabs are incapable of democracy--that straw man Bush keeps trotting out--but the laws of history do not ineluctably lead towards American-style democracy, and it will be much harder work to create representative democracy and, especially, liberal democratic values, than it would be to create another dictatorship. Only if you own up to that do you have any chance of accomplishing it.
Monday, August 09, 2004
The slaveholder's position
Fay Wray has died. ‘Twas old age killed the beauty.
Zambia decides that democracy is literally too expensive, postponing local government elections for 2 years.
Bush says that there’s no point in raising taxes on the rich because "the really rich people figure out how to dodge taxes anyway."
Alan Keyes says Barack Obama’s support for abortion rights is "the slaveholder’s position." No, you’re thinking of Jack Ryan, your predecessor as R candidate for Senate for Ill.; he’s the one who was into whips and chains. He also said something about a victory for him being a victory for God. Hard to believe they actually had to go out of state to find a candidate like this.
Last week I advocated smiling on passport photos to screw up the biometrics. But this is better: a German has won the right to stick out his tongue (like the Albert Einstein picture, you know the one) in his passport photo.
Zambia decides that democracy is literally too expensive, postponing local government elections for 2 years.
Bush says that there’s no point in raising taxes on the rich because "the really rich people figure out how to dodge taxes anyway."
Alan Keyes says Barack Obama’s support for abortion rights is "the slaveholder’s position." No, you’re thinking of Jack Ryan, your predecessor as R candidate for Senate for Ill.; he’s the one who was into whips and chains. He also said something about a victory for him being a victory for God. Hard to believe they actually had to go out of state to find a candidate like this.
Last week I advocated smiling on passport photos to screw up the biometrics. But this is better: a German has won the right to stick out his tongue (like the Albert Einstein picture, you know the one) in his passport photo.
This business we call show trial
In my previous post, I didn’t link the two Iraq stories together as strongly as I should have. The issuing of warrants against the Chalabis while they were out of the country--and both warrants at the same time though for very different crimes, as a Daily Kos writer points out--tells you everything you need to know about the Interim Puppet Government’s willingness to use the criminal justice system against its political foes, like Karl Rove subordinating the federal government here to the dictates and timing of the Bush "re"-election campaign. Now apply that lesson to the death penalty: people willing to distort the justice system arming themselves with the ultimate sanction to use against their political, clan, ethnic and religious enemies. Roll on the show trials. (Update: shorter version of this argument, from Wonkette: "Hey, it's an unelected, unaccountable government without a functioning justice system and the ability to kill whomever it deems guilty! That seems familiar somehow.")
Also, according to the NYT, it’s broader than I realized: the death penalty applies to attacks on infrastructure, "endangering national security," and activities related to biological and chemical warfare, which I take to mean this will be applied retroactively. And the American-appointed Allawi will begin this wave of executions under the protection of the American military, which makes them our executions.
Alan Keyes figures out a way to justify running for Senate from a state not his own: Barack Obama is a bigger traitor, not to his state, but to "the declaration of principles our country was founded on," by supporting abortion rights. In fact, Keyes is a little like Abraham Lincoln: "You have to ask yourself: Are we in a position where if I do nothing the principles of national union will be sacrificed?" Pompous much? The WaPo explains why the Republicans’ cynical choice of Keyes is a travesty, and they do it without even once using the word whacko, which is the difference between a newspaper and a blog.
Also, according to the NYT, it’s broader than I realized: the death penalty applies to attacks on infrastructure, "endangering national security," and activities related to biological and chemical warfare, which I take to mean this will be applied retroactively. And the American-appointed Allawi will begin this wave of executions under the protection of the American military, which makes them our executions.
Alan Keyes figures out a way to justify running for Senate from a state not his own: Barack Obama is a bigger traitor, not to his state, but to "the declaration of principles our country was founded on," by supporting abortion rights. In fact, Keyes is a little like Abraham Lincoln: "You have to ask yourself: Are we in a position where if I do nothing the principles of national union will be sacrificed?" Pompous much? The WaPo explains why the Republicans’ cynical choice of Keyes is a travesty, and they do it without even once using the word whacko, which is the difference between a newspaper and a blog.
Sunday, August 08, 2004
Apparently I threatened somebody who subsequently was killed
Iraq restores the death penalty, supposedly only until stability is restored. Because capital cases are most likely to be fairly and dispassionately tried in trials held during a civil war. The ultimate penalty (unless you count having Lynndie England laugh and point at your genitals) will be applied for murder, kidnapping and drug-running. It is unclear if it applies to Saddam Hussein.
The Iraqi government also issues arrest warrants for Ahmed Chalabi and his nephew Salem Chalabi, who is Saddam’s prosecutor, for money laundering (or counterfeiting, depending on what story you read) and murder, respectively. The murder is that of an official in the finance ministry, who had prepared a report on the Chalabis’ seizure of properties. The government’s level of seriousness about this can be seen by the fact that they announced this while both Chalabis were out of the country. Salem "Witchtrials" Chalabi told CNN that "apparently I threatened somebody who subsequently was killed." Apparently?
Newly released Nixon tapes suggest that he delayed the inevitable military withdrawal from Vietnam in order not to hurt him in the 1972 elections. Henry Kissinger talked on the tape (8/3/72) about finding "some formula that holds the whole thing together a year or two"; by January 1974, he said, "no one will give a damn." Comparisons with Iraq are obvious.
US officials are trying to shift the blame for leaking the name of the Pakistani undercover agent onto a Pakistani intelligence official.
Mexico has found 2 men on its Most Wanted list. They were in jail. One of them, according to a story which provides no further information, is known as "the bullet swallower."
Just listened to a political humor program (excuse me, humour programme), "The Now Show," on the BBC website, thanks to a mention of it in the comments at lefti.blogspot.com. Rather good. Some of the references may be too British for Americans, but even if you decide not to listen to the whole 30 minutes (the current program will be online until the next one comes out Friday), don’t miss a song by Mitch Benn about 25 minutes in about the politics of fear. "Crap your pants for America, foul yourself for freedom..."
Update: the program has now been replaced. The lyrics are available online, but it's not the same thing. It wouldn't hurt to email the BBC about putting the song online permanently; there's certainly a demand for it, as I can testify from the number of people reaching this site through Google searches for it (I've become the go-to guy for Crap Your Pants for America; I'm so proud).
Update to the update: the lyrics are no longer online anywhere, so I'll append them here:
Crap your pants for America
We live in troubled times
Our enemies surround us
We must be vigilant
To the dangers all around us
There's evil little furr'ners
And perverts here as well
It's your patriotic duty
To be as scared as hell
So crap your pants for America
Foul yourself for freedom
Soil your shorts for the USA
Crap your pants for America
Only Dubya can save us
And we'll hide beneath our beds, and quake and pray
It could happen any minute
It could happen any place
So gaze with deep suspicion
In every stranger's face
Your government is struggling
They've run out of ideas
They've run out of excuses
All they've got left is fear
So crap your pants for America
Foul yourself for freedom
Soil your shorts for the USA
Crap your pants for America
The land of the paranoid
The panic-stricken, jittery, and free
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