What’s really needed here is political courage

Britain’s Channel 4 will be running a documentary today about US airstrikes last August on Azizabad in Afghanistan, which killed 91 civilians. Evidently there were no actual Taliban there, but the raid was based on a false tip from someone involved in a feud between that village and another one. American forces also tortured one Azizabadhoovian to death. If any British readers see this program, please report anything else interesting back to the rest of us in comments.

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The Education Department will spend $350 million to develop national standards. And by national standards, they mean national tests. Because, according to EdSec Arne Duncan, “If we’re going to have world-class international standards, we need to have world-class evaluations behind them.” “50 states doing their own thing doesn’t make sense.” The Obama administration policy is pretty much the same as the Bush admin’s, from the insistence that setting high standards automatically improves education, down to the refusal to admit that improving education might require spending some money on actual teaching rather than test development. Said Duncan, “Resources are important, but resources are actually a small piece of this puzzle. What’s really needed here is political courage.” And... moxie!

Netanyahu speech: flags and national anthems for everyone!

We have a winner: Kim Jong-un is now officially the “Brilliant Comrade.”

Speaking of brilliant comrades, Binyamin Netanyahu gave his anticipated speech today. He accepted Obama’s challenge to accept a two-state solution. “In my vision, there are two free peoples living side by side each with each other, each with its own flag and national anthem.” However, the neutered Palestine he’s willing to accept would have no military, no control over its own airspace, no Hamas, and Israel would have a veto over its foreign relations (no treaties with Iran, for example). But it would have a, you know, national anthem. Sort of a 1.375-state solution, by my calculations. But aside from those piddling details, and a few others, “Let us begin peace negotiations immediately without prior conditions.”


Bibi started by asking an important question: “Friends, with the advantages of peace so clear, so obvious, we must ask ourselves why is peace still so far from us, even though our hands are extended for peace? Why has the conflict going on for over 60 years?” He had the answer: “the refusal to recognize the right of the Jewish People to its own state in its historical homeland.” So, if you were wondering why there’s no peace in the Middle East, now you know.

Therefore, the first thing that Palestinians must do is acknowledge that they are at best second-class citizens in Israel. Oh, and they have to do so sincerely: “The fundamental condition for ending the conflict is the public, binding and sincere Palestinian recognition of Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish People.”

He said Israel will build no new settlements, but they’ll continue to expand the existing ones to meet what Israel used to call natural growth and is now calling “normal life”: “there is a need to have people live normal lives and let mothers and fathers raise their children like everyone in the world.”

Some people might say that settlements are an obstacle to peace, but not Bibi: “A great many people are telling us that withdrawal is the key to peace with the Palestinians. But the fact is that all our withdrawals were met by huge waves of suicide bombers.”

Anyway, “Israel needs defensible borders”. Palestine doesn’t need defensible borders, since it won’t be allowed even slingshots with which to defend them anyway. Without a totally disarmed and defenseless Palestine, he said, “sooner or later, we will have another Hamastan.”


Also, Israel gets to keep Jerusalem, and won’t allow any Palestinians to return: “For it is clear to all that the demand to settle the Palestinian refugees inside of Israel, contradicts the continued existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish People.” And Palestine must “overcome Hamas.” One would scour the speech in vain for a hint of anything Netanyahu is willing to give up for the sake of peace.

The White House has called the speech an “important step forward.”

To be fair, geese are quite scary

It’s been quite a while since I’ve run personals from the London Review of Books (the complete WIIIAI collection of LRB personals is here.)

If forced to commit, I’d say I feared geese more than ducks. Man, 47. Fears geese more than ducks. Box no. 02/03

I wrote this advert specifically to rebuke my rivals, undermine my critics, and fill the hearts and minds of my true followers with the love they so richly deserve. Kevin, 46, Sunbury Cross. Box no. 03/05

I subvert all the expectations built up in this column like a goat in space subverts gravy. Space-goat-esque gravy-subverting pervert (M, 51). Box no. 05/04

If you’re anything like me, you’ll be a marine biologist, 56, and enjoy secretly juggling crabs when no-one else is in the laboratory. Man, 56, seeks crab-juggling fish nerd. Box no. 05/05

For all you ladies keeping a vigil for my return to this column after an absence of 2 years, God has answered your prayers by forcing the LRB, after much petitioning, to lift almost all of their unreasonable restrictions on the content of my adverts. I am a man. I am 46. Box no. 05/06

Celebrate National Nurses Week with me! Man, 82. Box no. 05/03

Don’t read too much into this.

Short ugly bald bloke (32, Cambridge) seeks Scandinavian Model (F) due to marginal grasp on reality. No timewasters or photos of Volvos. Must not try to feed me broccoli.

No prosperity, no development, no humanitarian crisis

Ha’aretz has an interesting (but long) story about the Gaza blockade, designed, the Israelis say, to ensure “no prosperity, no development, no humanitarian crisis.” Israeli bans the import of “luxury” items, but whether, say, a pumpkin constitutes a luxury changes “from week to week, and sometimes from day to day”, depending, not on Palestinian nutritional needs of course, but on which sectors of the Israeli agricultural industry need propping up. “[S]ince the start of the blockade no list of permitted and prohibited items has been relayed to the Palestinian side. The DCO spokesperson says there is no such list and that the Palestinians ‘know what they’re allowed to bring in.’”

Out of old matzoh and dreidels

A note found in Holocaust Museum shooter-up James von Brunn’s car said, among other things, “Obama was created by Jews.” So that makes him a Kosher, secret-Muslim golem?

Negotiations, the Gitmo way

More info on Mohammad Ahmed Abdullah Saleh Al Hanashi (that’s all one person), the Guantanamo prisoner who the Pentagon says committed suicide but won’t say how (when a prisoner being forcibly fed abruptly dies, we need rather more information before we just accept a claim of suicide). Evidently he was asked by Gitmo’s commanders to represent the prisoners in talks with them. Only he never come back from the first of those talks: they sent him to the psychiatric wing, where he died five months later.

A quixotic quest to right all wrongs and repair all imperfections through the Constitution

Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that elected judges must recuse themselves from cases involving their substantial campaign donors. Duh. That duh being said, John Roberts, writing the dissent, had a point that the Court could have set a clearer standard than it did. (It would help if the states passed their own recusal rules, rather than having them be clarified through numerous lawsuits.)

However, Roberts argued that “sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.” The “disease” which he complacently suggests we just live with is judicial corruption. The lawsuits that will arise from this ruling, according to Roberts, “will do far more to erode public confidence in judicial impartiality than an isolated failure to recuse in a particular case.” This is the culture of secrecy; it is the language used by the Bush and, now, the Obama administrations to justify suppressing pictures of prisoner abuse. Roberts, like Obama, is unwilling to expose corruption because it would make the system look bad, and he thinks the exposure is the problem, not the corruption.

Scalia, also dissenting, wrote, “The court today continues its quixotic quest to right all wrongs and repair all imperfections through the Constitution.” Maybe it’s just me, but I’d actually like our courts to engage on a quixotic quest to right all wrongs and repair all imperfections through the Constitution.

I feel pretty, oh so pretty

In Taiwan, a man has been sentenced to 5 months in prison for tearing the toupee off the head of Kuomintang MP Chiu Yi. A court spokesmodel explained: “The judge thought Chiu Yi had the freedom to wear what he wanted, and Chiu felt the wig made him look prettier. The judge thinks that to remove it intentionally was to take away that right.” The right to look prettier shall not be abridged.

Pretty

Totally true

Sarah Palin accidentally plagiarizes the wrong Gingrich speech, asks some woman with cancer for a divorce.

Just a pinch of state-sanctioned murder

The new Ohio death-penalty procedure, which was used Wednesday on one Daniel Wilson, requires that after the prisoner is sedated, the warden make sure he is actually unconscious before proceeding to the lethal-injection stage: “the warden is required to call out the name of the condemned man, shake and pinch his shoulder, and then administer a second dose of sedative if there is a response.” Such as, “Hey, what’s with the pinching?”

Obama’s Cairo speech: America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire

Speaking at Cairo University, home of the Fightin’ Spinxes, Barack Obama said that “no single speech can eradicate years of mistrust” but failed to say precisely how many speeches might be required. I’m guessing seven.

Why had he come to Cairo? “I’ve come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition.” Also, have you tried getting a decent kebab in D.C.? I’m not sure if all this talk about the relationship between the US and Islam treats Islam as a nation or the US as a religion.

AND WE’VE GIVEN THEM McDONALD’S AND BRITNEY SPEARS: “Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires; timeless poetry and cherished music; elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation.”

FOR EXAMPLE, IT ISN’T A FLOOR WAX: “That experience guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn’t.”

WHEREVER THERE’S A COP BEATIN’ UP A GUY: “And I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.”

SOMETIMES, WE’RE JUST IMPERIALLY SELF-INTERESTED: “Just as Muslims do not fit a crude stereotype, America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire.”


“SO LET THERE BE NO DOUBT” IS THE NEW “IN OTHER WORDS”: “So let there be no doubt: Islam is a part of America.” He didn’t say what part.

He insisted that Afghanistan was not a war of choice, but Iraq was, adding, “Although I believe that the Iraqi people are ultimately better off without the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, I also believe that events in Iraq have reminded America of the need to use diplomacy and build international consensus to resolve our problems whenever possible.” So as long as we’ve learned a valuable lesson, I’m sure Iraqis will agree it’s all been worth it. They’re the reminderers.

“LET US BE CLEAR” IS THE NEW “IN OTHER WORDS”: “But let us be clear: Al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 people on that day.”

“MAKE NO MISTAKE” IS ALSO THE NEW “IN OTHER WORDS”: “Now, make no mistake: We do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan.”

“Denying that fact [the Holocaust] is baseless, it is ignorant, and it is hateful. Threatening Israel with destruction -- or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews -- is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve.” Adding, “Okay, two Jews walked into a bar...”

“SO LET THERE BE NO DOUBT” IS THE NEW “IN OTHER WORDS”: “So let there be no doubt: The situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable.”

WELL IF IT’S EASY, LET’S DO THAT THEN: “It’s easy to point fingers -- for Palestinians to point to the displacement brought about by Israel’s founding, and for Israelis to point to the constant hostility and attacks throughout its history from within its borders as well as beyond.” So the Israelis are subject to ongoing constant hostility & attacks, while the only thing Palestinians have to complain about happened 60 years ago.

In the most bizarre passage, Obama used American history to prove that Palestinians must suffer quietly: “Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and it does not succeed.” George Washington, War of Independence, ring a bell at all? “For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America’s founding.” Abraham Lincoln, Civil War, ring a bell at all? Really, did he just tell us that slaves shouldn’t have resisted slavery with violence?

He added that “It is a sign neither of courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children... That’s not how moral authority is claimed; that’s how it is surrendered.” Again, that’s just for Palestinians; we’ll still be using rockets and missiles and predator drones in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Oh, and I must have missed the part where he suggested that Israel also must “abandon violence.” Guess the speech was running a little long.


“Now is the time for Palestinians to focus on what they can build.” Well, maybe not now, since Israel is still banning the importation of building materials into Gaza.

YOU’RE SO VAIN, I’LL BET YOU THINK THIS ISLAMIC REPUBLIC’S ABOUT YOU: “For many years, Iran has defined itself in part by its opposition to my country”.

He admitted the US’s involvement in the 1953 coup. Has a president done that before? “In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government. Since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has played a role in acts of hostage-taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians.” It’s Day 10,806 of the Iranian Hostage Crisis! (Finally, Wolfram Alpha has proven useful for something).

BZZZ. I’M SORRY, YOU HAVE FAILED THE ALLITERATION PORTION OF THE TEST: “I recognize it will be hard to overcome decades of mistrust, but we will proceed with courage, rectitude, and resolve.”

He explained why it wasn’t unfair to sanction Iran for its alleged nuclear weapons program when “some countries” have nukes: “I understand those who protest that some countries have weapons that others do not. No single nation should pick and choose which nation holds nuclear weapons. And that’s why I strongly reaffirmed America’s commitment to seek a world in which no nations hold nuclear weapons.” So that’s okay, then.

“LET ME BE CLEAR” IS THE NEW “IN OTHER WORDS”: “So let me be clear: No system of government can or should be imposed by one nation by any other.”

AS OPPOSED TO WHAT, THE METRIC SYSTEM? “Among some Muslims, there’s a disturbing tendency to measure one’s own faith by the rejection of somebody else’s faith.”

FOR HIS NEXT TRICK, HE WILL HEAL THE SUNNI/SHIA SPLIT: “And if we are being honest, fault lines must be closed among Muslims as well, as the divisions between Sunni and Shia have led to tragic violence, particularly in Iraq.”

“LET ME BE CLEAR” IS THE NEW “IN OTHER WORDS”: “Now, let me be clear: Issues of women’s equality are by no means simply an issue for Islam.”

Three, maybe four times in the speech, he returned to the theme of rights for women. Well, one right in particular: “That’s why the United States government has gone to court to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab and to punish those who would deny it.” “it is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practicing religion as they see fit -- for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear.” “I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal, but I do believe that a woman who is denied an education is denied equality.” Of course the right he has chosen to emphasize for Muslim women living in Western countries (it will be interesting to see if there is a reaction to this from France or, indeed, Turkey), is compulsory for women in certain parts of the Muslim world, enforced by violence. Obama did not even hint that there might be a right for women to choose not to wear the hijab.

SEPARATE BUT EQUAL: “I do not believe that women must make the same choices as men in order to be equal, and I respect those women who choose to live their lives in traditional roles. But it should be their choice.”

WHICH WILL BE A PROBLEM FOR HAITI’S ZOMBIE-BASED ECONOMIC STRATEGY: “no development strategy can be based only upon what comes out of the ground”.

A sphinx, and some big statue thingy

We need to freedom

Monday, Uighur prisoners in Guantanamo held up signs, “We are the Uighurs. We are being oppressed in prison though we had been announced innocent,” “Where is the justice” and “We need to freedom,” in front of some journalists (who were then “hustled away,” in McClatchey’s words, without being allowed to speak to them).

Says the Navy chief in charge of guards, “As you can see, they are pretty much free men.”

Freedom....


ain’t it grand.

I tend not to use labels for folks

Obama was interviewed yesterday by the BBC about his upcoming world travels.

Obama refused to be drawn on whether Hosni Mubarak is an authoritarian ruler. “No, I tend not to use labels for folks.” Stop a moment and ponder the lameness of that evasion. “I think he has been a force for stability and good in the region...” If by stability, you mean a 30-year dictatorship. “...Obviously there have been criticisms of the manner in which politics operates in Egypt...” Well, not so much criticisms as screams of pain emanating from his dungeons.

Nor would he criticize Israel for refusing to stop settlement-building: “Well, it’s still early in the conversation. ... So, you know, one of the things that in the 24/7 news cycle is very difficult to encourage is patience, and diplomacy is always a matter of a long, hard slog.” Do tell us when it’s time to actually believe that they mean what they’re saying.

In an interview with NPR, he explained that the reason we’re still occupying Afghanistan is that “3,000 Americans were killed and you had a devastating attack on the American homeland; the organization that planned those attacks intends to carry out further attacks and we cannot stand by and allow that to happen.” He added, “We don’t have an interest in exploiting the resources of Afghanistan.” That’s too bad, because those poppy fields might help pay for the GM bailout.

NO HANGING OUT: “What we want is simply that people aren’t hanging out in Afghanistan who are plotting to bomb the United States. And I think that’s a fairly modest goal that other Muslim countries should be able to understand.”

Of musketeers and mouseketeers

John McCain refers to himself, Lindsey Graham and Holy Joe Lieberman as “the Three Musketeers.”

Speaking of silly titles, Kim Jong Il, the “Dear Leader” and son of Kim Il-sung, the “Great Leader,” has designated his 25-year-old (give or take)_son Kim Jong Un as his successor. Clearly, he needs an adjective of his very own. CONTEST: What sort of Leader is Kim Jong Un? (Since he was once caught trying to use a forged passport to visit Tokyo Disneyland, perhaps he should be called the Dear Mouseketeer)(Update: my mistake, that was Kim Jong Nam, the eldest son).


Oh, and if you want to submit a better name than the Three Musketeers for the team of McCain, Graham and Lieberman (the Axis of Evil?), feel free to do that too.

Is he allowed to say that about our lords and masters?

Middle East envoy George Mitchell more or less outright accuses the Israeli government of lying when it claims there was a secret understanding with the Bush admin over settlement “natural growth”: “The Israelis want us to commit to oral understandings we have never heard about, but at the same time they are not willing to commit to written agreements their government has signed, like the road map and commitment to the two-state solution.”

But... that’s how we resolve all our issues

Obama’s statement on the murder of Dr. Tiller: “However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence.”

There are only three clinics in the entire country that perform medically necessary late-term abortions. Seems to me the “issue” has been pretty nearly “resolved” to the satisfaction of the anti-choicers, and heinous acts of violence played no small part in that resolution.

More shit you can see from space

Headline of the Day, from the Daily Telegraph: “Penguin Poo Visible from Space.” Say what you will about the Telegraph, but I can tell you, that is not only the best headline for that story (and I checked Google News; I had to, I’m a blogger), but only the Telegraph had an actual picture.

Religious nutjob

WWJD, indeed.

Ominous patterns

John Oliver in The Bugle on impoverished North Korea’s nuclear program: “it’s like putting the most expensive security system ever made on an empty house.”

Helpful Clarification of the Day, in a story in the Sunday Times (London) about the punishment in Saudi Arabia of a man convicted of killing an 11-year-old body and his father: “Crucifying a headless body in a public place is intended to set an example”.

Unnecessary Adjective of the Day, in a WaPo headline: “Darfuri Women Report Ominous Pattern of Rape.” I’m gonna go out on a limb and suggest that any pattern of rape is kind of ominous.

Actually, it’s even ominouser than the headline suggests, in that there’s actually more than one pattern of rape. It seems that half the rapes of women now in refugee camps in Chad were done, as might be expected, by the Janjaweed, but that half were purely opportunistic rapes by local Chadians. Aren’t people just lovely?

Assume the best

SCOTUSblog notes that the Obama admin has filed a brief before the Supreme Court arguing against allowing the 17 Chinese Uighurs to be released from Guantanamo into the United States. According to the government, they’re not really in custody any more, what they are experiencing at Gitmo is “harborage”: “They are no longer detained as enemy combatants, they are free to leave Guantanamo Bay to any country that is willing to accept them... [their] continued presence at Guantanamo Bay is not unlawful detention, but rather the consequence of their lawful exclusion from the United States”. So that’s okay, then.

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George Bush gave a speech in Michigan. Asked what he wants his legacy to be, he said, “Well, I hope it is this: The man showed up with a set of principles, and he was unwilling to compromise his soul for the sake of popularity.” Hey, George has finally figured out that he’s not popular!

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Yesterday, Obama had a press conference with Mahmoud Abbas.

I was hoping someone would ask Obama what he thought about the Israeli Knesset’s moves to make it illegal to advocate that Israel be anything but a “Jewish state.” They didn’t, but he did express himself on the importance of free speech in Palestine, that is, the importance of curtailing it: “And I also mentioned to President Abbas in a frank exchange that it was very important to continue to make progress in reducing the incitement and anti-Israel sentiments that are sometimes expressed in schools and mosques and in the public square, because all those things are impediments to peace.”

Asked how he’ll respond if Israel continues its settlement-building and refusal of the two-state solution, Obama announced that by god he had a plan: “We’ll, I think it’s important not to assume the worst, but to assume the best.”