Reflecting American values

David Cameron, running to be the man who leads the British Tory party to defeat in the next election, has said that he hasn’t used any hard drugs... since 2001. That should settle that question....

The head of MI5, the British rough equivalent of the FBI, says that torture does in fact produce very useful intel (“detainee reporting”). Oh, not that they’d do it themselves, but if that intel happened to come from foreign security agencies they wouldn’t ask any awkward questions. The statement was made in a legal case; some people Britain is trying to deport on the basis of “evidence” resulting from torture are appealing.

US embassies around the world have been told to explain that the burning of the bodies of dead Taliban fighters by American troops in Afghanistan does not reflect American values. Loudly taunting the locals as they did it, though, pretty much does.

There’s some background noise here, a lot of chatter, a lot of speculation and opining

Lady boys?

Bush met the Palestinian president today and told him, “The way forward must begin by confronting the threat that armed gangs pose to a genuinely democratic Palestine. And those armed gangs must confront the threat that armed gangs pose to lasting peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.” Uh, right, sure, whatever.


Asked about the distractions of Plamegate, the failed Miers nomination & the scandals of Republican congressional leaders, he said, “there’s some background noise here, a lot of chatter, a lot of speculation and opining.” Someone stop him before he says “opining” again. Also, considering how bad Jon Stewart’s Bush imitation is, why is it impossible to read that sentence without hearing it in that voice?

Shrub said that trust was real important-like in the Middle East, saying

The Gaza withdrawal is a magnificent opportunity to help develop trust. It’s an opportunity to develop trust between the Palestinians and the Israelis. And after all, the world watched strong cooperation between two willing governments to help good disengagement of Gaza, which is a -- right now, I guess, we take it all for granted.

“Good disengagement”? “Two willing governments”? Actually, someone stop him before he says anything at all again; it’s just too painful. “I think prior to the disengagement, there was a lot of consternation, a lot of concern. I suspect some of you might have even reported that, you know, better watch out”.

And on the failed Miers nomination, “I picked Harriet for a lot of reasons. One reason was because she had never been a judge. ... Secondly, the questionnaire that she filled out is an important questionnaire, and obviously they will address the questions that the senators have in the questionnaire -- or as a result of the answers to the questions in the questionnaire.” No one made it out of that sentence alive.

But, after reading a transcript brimming even more than usual with Bushy imbecility, I have made it out with life and limb, if not sanity, intact, and that is a very good disengagement indeed.

Pro-life, with three exceptions

Scottie McClellan, asked today if Bush shared Harriet Miers’ 1989 unwillingness to countenance abortion even for victims of rape, said, “The President is pro-life, with three exceptions, and that’s been his position all along.”

Mostly, Little Scottie stone-walled questions (I was going to say dodged, but that implies a nimbleness that Scottie, to put it mildly, lacks) about the NY Daily News article you’ve all read by now. I’m sure it’s true that Bush did indeed know two years ago that Rove had done what Rove does, but the article as stands is based entirely on anonymous sources, which means it rests entirely on the credibility of... the New York Daily News.

That makes not one but two man-bites-dog stories about Bush: usually, Bush really doesn’t know about things that he claims to know about, but in these cases he actually did know about things (Miers’s position about abortion, who leaked Valerie Plame’s name) he had claimed not to know anything about.

Speaking of wilful ignorance, an AP story entitled “Guantanamo Hunger Strikers Shirk Tubes,” which informs us a) that AP doesn’t know what the word “shirk” means, b) that Gitmo prisoners allege that forcible feeding has been used as a punishment and that, ew gross, the NG tubes are not cleaned between prisoners, quotes the Pentagon spokesmodel for Guantanamo, Lt. Col. Jeremy Martin, calling those charges “wholly inaccurate and blatantly misrepresent the excellent work being done here by honorable military and civilian professionals,” BUT adds that Martin “did not know the specific procedures for handling the feeding tubes.” So a pretty categorical statement issued from a position of complete admitted ignorance. And if the Guantanamo spokesman doesn’t know about this, what does he know about?

Saddam’s trial began today, and it was, as predicted, showy. In Iraq, it was televised but on a delay, in case of a wardrobe malfunction. The trial, which may be the only one of Saddam because of the requirement that if convicted he be executed within 30 days, is about the many deadly punishments Saddam inflicted on the Shiite town Dujail after an assassination attempt on him occurred there in 1982. An odd choice, at least to those of us who remember the phrase “He’s the guy who tried to kill my dad.”

The trial was immediately adjourned, not because Saddam’s lawyer asked for it, which he did, but because, according to the lead judge, none of the witnesses showed up because they were all scared. Which may be true, but the fact that the judge said it doesn’t speak well for his impartiality. Of the 5 judges, we only know the name of one, who is a Kurd, which I’m sure will go over real well among the Sunnis. The cameras stayed off the anonymous four, two or more of whom have no more judicial experience than Harriet Miers, which is especially important because the standard of proof that the Americans designated for this tribunal is that the judges must only be “satisfied” by the evidence, as opposed to, say, convinced beyond a reasonable doubt. By the way, the prosecutor is accusing Saddam of having used improper procedures (“nominal and only on paper”) in the conviction of people in Dujail.

Condi Rice told the Senate foreign relations committee that American policy in Iraq is “clear, hold and build,” which sounds like the sort of management jargon the pointy-haired boss in Dilbert would recite. Biden, evidently asking for the very most he thought he could ask, which is why he is such a waste of space, asked her “at what point, assuming the strategy works, do you think we’ll be able to see some sign of bringing some American forces home?” She forthrightly responded, “I don’t want to hazard what I think would be a guess, even if it were an assessment, of when that might be possible.” And thus was Congressional oversight accomplished in our fair republic.

It ain’t over ‘til the whiny lady sings

I watched tonight’s Frontline on Abu Ghraib, which didn’t quite succeed in making torture boring, but had little new (there were some “home movies” I hadn’t seen before that are worth seeing; they are at about 73 minutes in), and could have used some editing. I’d be interested in other people’s opinions, in comments.

After the revelations, didn’t we promise to turn Abu Ghraib over to the Iraqis? What ever happened with that? A bunch of prisoners were released just before the referendum, suggesting either that the US suddenly received information clearing several hundred prisoners all at the same time, or... no, that’s what it must have been. But while prisoners are kept waiting in their dungeons for months while any allegations against them are investigated ever... so... slowly, there are evidently plenty of resources available for the show trial of Saddam Hussein. I still want to know if the Americans would let him go if he were acquitted.

From the NYT arts section:

Anyone searching for an opera built on violent conflict more recent than the Trojan Wars need look no farther than Tufts University, where plans are in progress for a spring production of “Nancy and Tonya: The Opera,” based on the rivalry between the ice skaters Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding that led to an attack on Ms. Kerrigan before the 1994 Winter Olympics. PlaybillArts.com reported that the opera, with a libretto by the novelist Elizabeth Searle and music by Abigail Al-Doory, a Tufts graduate student, features an aria based on Ms. Kerrigan’s lament: “Why? Why? Why?”

The WaPo has a scoop: “Class, Color May Drive New Orleans’s Future.” D’ya think?

According to the WaPo, Secretary of War Rumsfeld “began his first official visit to China on Wednesday by urging an audience of rising Communist Party leaders to play a greater role in global affairs” etc. Yeah, he really, really wants the Chinese to play a greater role in global affairs.

Caption contest:

I’m guessing minus

About that poll showing Bush’s favorable rating among blacks was 2%: its margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

BBC headline: “French Crack Baby-Smuggling Ring.” Who would want to smuggle French crack babies?

George Bush wishes everyone a merry Ramadan

Smoking will be banned in pubs, restaurants and other workplaces in Northern Ireland. Just what we need, more cranky people in Northern Ireland. People in prisons and mental asylums will still be allowed to smoke.

Update: the Supreme Court tells Missouri not to block the abortion of that prisoner. She will get her abortion this week, more than 8 weeks after she first asked for it.

At an Iftaar dinner at the White House (!), Bush announces that the White House library now has a Koran, right next to The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and says “I believe the time has come for all responsible Islamic leaders to denounce an ideology that exploits Islam for political ends, and defiles your noble faith.” He doesn’t explain why it is the particular responsibility of Muslim leaders (but note his use of the word “Islamic”) to denounce every single “bad” Muslim of the billion plus Muslims in the world, or indeed why it is any business of a Christian American to point out their supposed duty to them. Maybe he wants them to set up a Muslim Inquisitio Haereticae Pravitatis Sanctum Officium too.

Oh, what the White House website doesn’t tell you: there was a segregated Iftaar dinner for women, hosted by Laura Bush.

The last Australian World War I veteran (at least the last one posted to a war zone) has died, age 106.

I was going to write something about Saddam Hussein’s impending trial, then decided against. But here are the pictures that would have accompanied it:

The idea of deciding to go into a ballot box is a positive development

Bush today repeated one of the silliest talking points about the Iraqi referendum: “an increase in turnout was an indication that the Iraqi people are strongly in favor of settling disputes in a peaceful way”. How is it an either/or situation? Was there fine print that no one read, like the license agreement for a piece of software which says that using the software means you’ve given up all your legal rights? Or is it more that it would be kinda hypocritical? I mean they might be willing to blow themselves up outside the post office, but surely they wouldn’t do it after having voted, that would just be so tacky.

And yet I suspect there will be many purple fingers on triggers. I’m sorry, but most people don’t look at casting a ballot as a grand statement of principles, like John Hancock signing the Declaration of Independence, but view it a tad more instrumentally. If anyone knows that, it should be Republicans, since no Republican has ever run for any office ever without promising to cut taxes.

Bush went on, “I was pleased to see that the Sunnis participated in the process. The idea of deciding to go into a ballot box is a positive development.” I know we’ve blown up a lot of their houses, but isn’t a ballot box just a little cramped? He added, “It’s an exciting day for a country that only a few short years ago was ruled by a brutal tyrant.” Somehow I don’t think they’ve feel like short years to the Iraqis.

George Packer in the New Yorker describes Bush’s philosophy as “more Harding than Reagan; not anti-government, just anti-good-government”.

Hate, fear, dominatrixes and cocaine

Two adjacent headlines in the London Times:

Hate and Fear Drive Sunnis to the Polling Stations

Iraq Referendum Gives Hope to Those Seeking New Democracy

Schizophrenic much?

But when support for the constitution is 95% in Karbala province and 3 to 5% in Fallujah and Samarra, it’s by definition unworkable, whether it meets the technical grounds for ratification or not.

Speaking of hate and fear, the British Tory party has been trying to pick a new leader, and of course it all comes down to... whether front-runner David Cameron took drugs at college. He won’t say, and his opponents are deploying that air of superiority which makes the Conservatives what they are. Another contender, David Davis, has opined that anyone who has used drugs shouldn’t lead the Tory party, although last go-around he refused to the answer the question himself. In an interview, Jonathan Dimbleby asked Davis if it wasn’t true that he was “skilful at dripping poison into the campaign” and then “pretending to pour balm on the wound.” And we only get Tim Russert and Judith Miller. You have to love a campaign that gives you headlines like “Dominatrix Leaves No Mark in Tory Dirty Tricks Dispute” (The Times). The dominatrix in question appears in a 12-year old photo with Shadow Chancellor George Osborne (who was 22) and a suspicious line of white powder. Osborne’s office says that he never took cocaine... with her. And so it goes.

After all, the purpose of a democracy is to make sure everybody is -- participates in the process

At the Million Man March reunion, there were signs reading “Bush Lied, People Died.” You know, that doesn’t really narrow it down that much, does it?

The Bushies are claiming that even Sunnis who turned out for the sole purpose of voting against the constitution have now accepted the political process, and are welcoming them back like the formerly lost lambs they are. Condi on Mess the Preet today said she was “confident that Sunnis participated in large numbers, which means that the base of politics has expanded in Iraq.” For example, in Samarra, 95% voted No; somehow it’s hard for me to see that as expanding the base of politics. Along the same lines, Shrub says, “After all, the purpose of a democracy is to make sure everybody is -- participates in the process.” Now you know what the purpose of a democracy is, in case you were wondering. The Chimpster adds, “The vote today in Iraq stands in stark contrast to the attitudes and philosophy and strategy of al Qaeda and its terrorist friends and killers.”

On that Meet the Pross, Tim Russert asked Condi “do you have any information that Osama bin Laden may have been killed or injured” in the earthquake in Pakistan.

She doesn’t.

Russert asked her about Bush’s low approval rating among blacks (2%). She just doesn’t understand it, she said more in sorrow than in anger; after all,

I represent the fact that the United States of America is a multicultural and multiethnic society in which we are finally coming to terms with a history in which not all Americans were always represented. And so, I think, as an African-American secretary of state, that’s special.

Yes Condi, it’s all about you, you, you. And you are special, yes you are, yes you are.

Forced pregnancy, a Missouri value

A federal district court judge told the Missouri prison system to stop blocking a prisoner from exercising her right to abortion; they had been refusing to transport her to a clinic, under a policy adopted in July. The state, with the governor noising off about “an outrageous order from an activist federal judge that offends Missouri values,” then went to the Supreme Court and got Clarence Thomas to block the order, at least temporarily. The woman has been fighting the prison authorities on this for several weeks, and is now 16 or 17 weeks pregnant. I guess they wanted to delay until she was showing. Geddit, the “show me” state, geddit?

3½ inches

In his weekly radio address, Shrub is still touting the Zawahiri letter, which he says “explain[s] why Iraq is the central front in their war on civilization,” though it is now universally understood to be not only a fake, but as badly executed a fake as the Nigerien yellowcake forgeries. I actually expected, silly me, that Chimpy would drop this latest scam once it was exposed. Forgot for a moment who I was dealing with.

An Iranian woman has been convicted of adultery and sentenced to death by stoning. Iranian officials, though, insist that Iran is a civilized country that no longer stones people to death; she’ll probably be hanged instead, they say. Hey, she might just be lashed. (Update: the Reuters story has a little detail the Observer left out: she was also convicted of helping her lover kill her husband. For that, she received a separate sentence of 15 years. Note that adultery got a stronger sentence than murder.)

The Observer’s Jason Burke notes that, once again, when a natural disaster hit a Muslim nation, the government fell down badly (Musharraf was early on excusing the slow response to the earthquake by comparing it with Bush’s response to Katrina) while Muslim charities, many connected to extremists (but many not), not bogged down by incompetence and corruption, did excellent work, undermining the credibility of yet another secular government.

The Guinness Book of World Records has recognized this man, Mehmet Ozyurek of Turkey, as having the largest nose in the world, 3½ inches. Congratulations, Mr. Ozyurek.

Was that a fairly typical way that he gets information about what’s happening in Iraq?

From today’s Gaggle:

Q Scott, just to follow on the event yesterday the President had with the troops. Was that a fairly typical way that he gets information about what’s happening in Iraq?

MR. McCLELLAN: No.

Q When the President meets with his commanders, is there a more vigorous give-and-take, or what we saw yesterday --

MR. McCLELLAN: Of course there is. I don’t even know why you’re making such a suggestion.

Q Just asking.

So I’ve pre-ordered Robert Fisk’s Great War for Civilization, which will be out next month. I’ll review it here, but it’s 1,136 pages long – evidently it’s a war of attrition – so you probably don’t want to hold your breath waiting.

A while back I thought that Rick Santorum’s It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good might be good blog fodder, but my local public library hasn’t purchased it, and I didn’t want to spend money on it. I thought about asking you, my readers, to buy it for me, then I would read it and quote all the (unintentionally) funny bits and mock them for you, only I really didn’t want anyone spending money on this book, so I thought about asking you, my readers, to shoplift a copy for me, preferably from a Wal-Mart, but ultimately thought better of it.

Russia has crushed the Chechens who invaded Nalchik, killing many of them and many civilians, we’ll never know how many. I don’t really have anything to say about that.




The Justice Dept is in court defending the refusal to let the lawyers and families of hunger-striking detainees in Guantanamo speak with them. “There are all kinds of security issues there,” said the government lawyer. He claimed that there were 24 hunger-strikers, of whom 7 were being forcibly fed, but we know the Pentagon’s figures are no more worthy of trust than the official Nalchik death count will be. There is an article in the current British Medical Journal (not free to the general public), by a doctor who works in a British prison, which notes that the American justification for force-feeding hunger-striking prisoners, that authorities have a right to prevent “suicide,” and that hunger striking constitutes a suicide attempt, “has been almost universally rejected. The aim of suicide is death. Hunger strikers do not want to die; they want to live. They want to live with a better quality of life”. If the prisoner is sane, he or she has the same right to refuse medical treatment as anyone else. The British Medical Journal has come a long way since 1909, when it was very much in favor of the forcible feeding of suffragette prisoners, but even then (editorials Oct. 9, 1909, Dec. 18, 1909; sorry, no links!) it was contemptuous of politicians who hid behind the doctors and disclaimed any responsibility, as the Pentagon does today.

Interfacing with Iraqi civilians

Follow-up on Bush’s heavily staged video-conference blogged in my last post (Scotty McClellan, by the way, claims that the obvious scripting and admitted prepping of the soldiers, which was overheard by CNN, was necessitated by the technological problems of the event with the satellites and all that). But as scripted as it was, the exchange could still be revealing, as when Bush asked one captain, “As you move around, I presume you have a chance to interface [!] with the civilians there in that part of the world. And a lot of Americans are wondering whether or not people appreciate your presence or whether or not the people are anxious to be part of the democratic process.” The captain responded, “Sir, I was with my Iraqi counterpart in Tikrit, the city Tikrit last week, and he was going around, talking to the locals. And from what he told me that the locals told him, the Iraqi people are ready and eager to vote in this referendum.” So the only interfacing he’s doing is with someone in the Iraqi military, who told him exactly what he wanted to hear (and who in turn was informed by locals who told him what he wanted to hear).

Growing confusion and some misunderstanding

From the Schwarzenegger Prop 75 campaign, a cartoon every bit as subtle as the Governator himself.

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Speaking of subtle, at MacDill Air Force Base, Secretary of War Rumsfeld suggested that troops should set their fellow citizens straight and dispel the “growing confusion and some misunderstanding” about The War Against Terror (TWAT). Evidently, “the public impression is so different from the reality.” Why does “the public” hate America? Rummy wants the troops to send out lots of emails to present the public with “a balance of what’s happening, as opposed to an imbalance that they’re receiving through normal channels.” If you have not yet been the lucky recipient of one of these Rumm-e-mails, here is some of the suggested content: “Well, you can tell those who ask such questions that you and your friends across the world are standing on the front lines to protect them and to safeguard their freedoms, as well as your own.” That should certainly take care of that growing confusion and some misunderstanding.

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Speaking of growing confusion and some misunderstanding, George Bush says he wants Syria to be a “good neighbor to Iraq.” Oh, and it should also not “agitate killers in the Palestinian territory.” Really, agitating killers is probably not a good idea anywhere.

Bush also video-conferenced today with some American soldiers in Tikrit. He told them that “the American people are standing strong with you.” Well, not actually with them, that would be kinda dangerous; he was actually watching them on a large tv from several thousand miles away, so it was more sort of a metaphorical standing with them than an actual standing with them although, to be fair, he really was standing.

He added, “Thank you for all your work. When you [get] back to the United States, if I’m hanging around, come by and say hello.” The soldiers, who were not pre-screened or carefully prepped in any way, were able to answer Chimpy’s probing questions:

“Do the Iraqis want to fight, and are they capable of fighting?” he asked. He was told they were. [AP]

And Bush informed them that in Iraq they were facing “an enemy that actually has a philosophy.” Oh, the horror.

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The NYT’s Joel Brinkley, following Condi Rice in her travels, has been doing some nice work in sneaking irony past his editors. Tuesday:

Rice, beginning a trip to Central Asia, urged the region’s leaders on Monday to hold “elections that are free and fair,” even though in one state she plans to visit nearly all the likely opposition candidates have been jailed and in another laws have been passed that stack the odds in favor of the present rulers.

And today:

“Afghanistan is inspiring the world with its march toward democracy,” she said here, just hours after insurgents fired three rockets into downtown, wounding two Afghans.

The latter story also highlighted the introduction of suicide bombing into Afghanistan, which you’d think would have gotten a little more notice than it has.

Guarantee

Iraq’s parliament has indeed approved the changes to the draft constitution, 3 days before the referendum, which I suppose is better than 3 days after the referendum. The draft now begins, “This constitution is a guarantee for the unity of Iraq.” Always start off with a joke.

A Chinese gentleman who sold bile extracted from the gall bladders of living bears was attacked and eaten by six living bears. Chinese think bear bile has medicinal effects; I don’t know about that, but reading this story did me no end of good.

Waiting

The Air Force’s recruitment website’s slogan is “We’ve been waiting for you.” Should the military really be taking its slogans from the theme songs of ‘70s sitcoms? And does anyone have suggestions for recruiting slogans taken from theme songs of other ‘70s sitcoms?

John Bolton prevented the Security Council from hearing the report of a UN envoy about atrocities in Darfur, for reasons that are obscure to me. His explanation was that the Council should act and not talk. What’s really going on?

I guess it doesn’t matter that so many Iraqis haven’t been given a chance to see the draft constitution they’re supposed to be voting on, since the thing was rewritten yet again today, 4 days before the referendum, by people who had no right or authority to do so, and with the active participation of the American ambassador . One change: instead of the document being unamendable for 8 years if it passed, the next parliament would start rewriting it in December.
(Update: you wouldn’t know from the WaPo story about this just how negligible and unrepresentative were the only Sunnis willing to participate in this farce).

Out of this rubble is going to come some good

Politics at its most elemental: in the Liberian presidential elections, this slogan:

Did he kill your ma? No!
Did he kill your pa? No!
Vote for George Weah!

Bush was asked by a reporter today about Karl Rove & the Plame case. He responded, “I’m not going to talk about the case. It’s under review. Thank you for asking.” The latter was of course sarcastic. His top aide is being investigated for a felony and he thinks he has the right to be snippy when he’s asked about it.

Bush went to Louisiana again, because “Out of this rubble is going to come some good,” by which he meant a photo op. He went to a Habitat for Humanity site, where they gave him, dear God, a hammer. There were no survivors.






Yes George, you’re holding up that wall all by yourself. Just stand like that and you won’t get into any trouble.


Spoke too soon. Looks like he hit himself in what Dick Cheney likes to call “an undisclosed location.”


Aw, the LauraBot’s helping out too. Note that the LauraBot doesn’t need a helmet, as her positronic net is protected by a skull made of durable titanium.


This man is hoping, in vain, that the Secret Service will stop George before he hammers in another nail.

That means when crisis hits an ally, another ally steps forward

Tony Blair is asking Parliament to ban 15 Islamicist groups, i.e., make membership in them or raising funds for them a crime. The groups all seem to have national goals, that is they want to turn Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Somalia, Libya, Bangladesh, Morocco into radical Islamic states. Because it makes life easier if you can convict people based on guilt by association rather than prove they did something themselves. MPs will also be relieved of the burden of having to figure out for themselves whether each of the 15 organizations is as bad as the government says they are, because they will not be allowed to vote on the 15 individually, just on the whole list.

How is it I’ve never heard of the sport of chessboxing, in which rounds of 4 minutes of chess alternate with rounds of 2 minutes of boxing?


The London Times notes that while the US is giving Pakistan $50m for earthquake relief, it is careful to point out that it is also a present for what the American ambassador called Pakistan’s “long-term strategic relationship” with the US, i.e., its alleged help in The War Against Terror (TWAT), adding, in case they don’t get it, “that means when crisis hits an ally, another ally steps forward.” Also, of course, Bush told Musharaf that the US will be offering an urgent shipment of prayers “for the Almighty God’s blessings on the people of Pakistan.” The Pentagon will assist in search and rescue operations, which they must be highly experienced at by now, seeing as they’ve been searching for Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar in that region for four years.

Stamp out meaningless phrases

Not feeling inspired by the news, except, you know, with horror, so here are some highlights from the New York Magazine competition for 9/13/93, which asked for slogans for any movement du jour:

Save the dead white males.

It’s the stupidity, economist.

Let’s give it up for the King’s English

Bring back long division.

Give denial a chance.

Send a gay to camp.

Is a barrel of monkeys your idea of fun?

Carnivores are people too.

Godfather knows best.

Get involved. Make love and war.

[NOTE: More New York Magazine competitions here.]

Some people are sycophants, some are Dinks

Maureen Dowd: “W. is so loath to leave his little bubble - where caretakers tell him how brilliant and bold he is - that he keeps selecting the people in charge of the selection committees. It’s just so much easier to choose a sycophant who’s already in the room than to create one from scratch.”

An editor in Turkey who rejoices in the name Hrant Dink has been convicted of “insulting Turkishness,” although his prison sentence was suspended. Actually, his article called on Armenians to reject the poisoning effect of their anger against Turks for the, you know, genocide and whatnot. The prosecutors, who are not good readers, claimed he was saying that Turkish blood was poison.