We know that the tale of the rescue of Pfc. Jessica Lynch was melodramatic, and inspiring to a lot of Americans -- almost too good to be true. And we know that The Times of London, The Washington Post, and now The Toronto Star all say that, yes, it was too good to be true -- Pfc. Lynch was treated very well by Iraqi hospital staff and wasn't being held under duress when she was "rescued." So isn't it odd that suddenly, according to Fox News, "Lynch says she can't remember anything about her time in captivity in Iraq"?
Call me a conspiracy-minded paranoid, but I think someone in the Bush administration has been following the story of the Central Park jogger, who is now promoting a memoir and who really can't remember anything about being attacked (she was left with far more horrific injuries than Lynch). Is it crazy to think that the administration might have gotten word to Lynch that she's under orders to say she remembers nothing (or, perhaps, that she should remain silent while ever-loyal Fox News floats the amnesia tale)?
I'm sure the Bushies think the original Lynch myth is potentially of political use to them. Do I think they'd order a soldier to lie, or refuse to tell what she knows, for political gain? Sure. Why not, with these guys?
Monday, May 05, 2003
I've got real-world tasks to attend to -- I'll be back with you when sometime later today. Meanwhile, go check out the Rational Enquirer. I know my recommendations of this site are getting a bit excessive, but please go there anyway. It's like stepping into a parallel universe -- or, rather, it gves you the sense that the world you see in most of the U.S. media, the one where "everything's just about back to normal" in Iraq and Afghanistan, is the parallel universe.
You can easily imagine the smirk on the face of His InstaPunditNess, Glenn Reynolds, as he typed the following into his MSNBC blog on April 8 (scroll down):
The latest Iraqi claim I could find was for 500 civilian casualties and it’s almost surely inflated. Various antiwar groups are claiming to keep count, but their numbers, as several different commentators have observed, appear to be bogus. So I think it’s very possible that Iraqi civilian casualties, too, will turn out to be under 500.
Knight-Ridder now has some rather different numbers:
The battle for Baghdad cost the lives of at least 1,101 Iraqi civilians, many of them women and children, according to records at the city's 19 largest hospitals.
The civilian death toll was almost certainly higher. The hospital records say that an additional 1,255 dead were "probably" civilians, including many women and children. Uncounted others never made it to hospitals and now lie in shallow graves throughout the city - in cemeteries, yards, hospital gardens, parks and mosque grounds.
More than 6,800 civilians were wounded, the hospital records show.
Note that that's just Baghdad.
The Baghdad death toll also does not include the hundreds of civilians who died in other parts of Iraq. Tabulations have not been made in many of Iraq's cities, but available information indicates that hundreds of civilians died during the U.S. assault. In Najaf, for example, the Najaf Teaching Hospital reported that it had recorded 286 civilian dead and 57 military dead.
And note that -- needless to say -- many of the dead never got to the ER:
Ameer K. Daher, a general surgeon who was trapped near his home by the fighting, noted that many people never made it to hospitals. He recalled that when cluster bombs smashed nearby houses, he and his neighbors set up a field hospital in a secondary school.
"We buried 10 people in the mosque and treated 45 more with what supplies we had in our homes," he said. "We were not the only people forced to do this."
(By the way, Iraq Body Count, often dismissed as the wildly inaccurate work of America-haters, currently estimates that between 2197 and 2670 Iraqi civilians have died as a result of U.S. military action. Those numbers aren't very different from Knight-Ridder's -- which, I should point out, don't attempt to distinguish which side was responsible for each death. To me that's moot: combat took place because we initiated it.)
The latest Iraqi claim I could find was for 500 civilian casualties and it’s almost surely inflated. Various antiwar groups are claiming to keep count, but their numbers, as several different commentators have observed, appear to be bogus. So I think it’s very possible that Iraqi civilian casualties, too, will turn out to be under 500.
Knight-Ridder now has some rather different numbers:
The battle for Baghdad cost the lives of at least 1,101 Iraqi civilians, many of them women and children, according to records at the city's 19 largest hospitals.
The civilian death toll was almost certainly higher. The hospital records say that an additional 1,255 dead were "probably" civilians, including many women and children. Uncounted others never made it to hospitals and now lie in shallow graves throughout the city - in cemeteries, yards, hospital gardens, parks and mosque grounds.
More than 6,800 civilians were wounded, the hospital records show.
Note that that's just Baghdad.
The Baghdad death toll also does not include the hundreds of civilians who died in other parts of Iraq. Tabulations have not been made in many of Iraq's cities, but available information indicates that hundreds of civilians died during the U.S. assault. In Najaf, for example, the Najaf Teaching Hospital reported that it had recorded 286 civilian dead and 57 military dead.
And note that -- needless to say -- many of the dead never got to the ER:
Ameer K. Daher, a general surgeon who was trapped near his home by the fighting, noted that many people never made it to hospitals. He recalled that when cluster bombs smashed nearby houses, he and his neighbors set up a field hospital in a secondary school.
"We buried 10 people in the mosque and treated 45 more with what supplies we had in our homes," he said. "We were not the only people forced to do this."
(By the way, Iraq Body Count, often dismissed as the wildly inaccurate work of America-haters, currently estimates that between 2197 and 2670 Iraqi civilians have died as a result of U.S. military action. Those numbers aren't very different from Knight-Ridder's -- which, I should point out, don't attempt to distinguish which side was responsible for each death. To me that's moot: combat took place because we initiated it.)
What the ... ?
US: 'Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction'
The Bush administration has admitted that Saddam Hussein probably had no weapons of mass destruction.
Senior officials in the Bush administration have admitted that they would be 'amazed' if weapons of mass destruction (WMD) were found in Iraq.
According to administration sources, Saddam shut down and destroyed large parts of his WMD programmes before the invasion of Iraq....
That's from Scotland's Sunday Herald.
(Link from BuzzFlash.)
US: 'Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction'
The Bush administration has admitted that Saddam Hussein probably had no weapons of mass destruction.
Senior officials in the Bush administration have admitted that they would be 'amazed' if weapons of mass destruction (WMD) were found in Iraq.
According to administration sources, Saddam shut down and destroyed large parts of his WMD programmes before the invasion of Iraq....
That's from Scotland's Sunday Herald.
(Link from BuzzFlash.)
There was one protester at the Dixie Chicks' show in Orlando on Saturday night? One?
I would love to see a wide-angle shot of that loser all alone in the parking lot.
(Story here.)
I would love to see a wide-angle shot of that loser all alone in the parking lot.
(Story here.)
Sunday, May 04, 2003
Remind you of anyone?
[Woodrow] Wilson never forgave those who disagreed with him. “He is a good hater,” said his press officer and devoted admirer Ray Stannard Baker.... The French ambassador in Washington saw “a man who, had he lived a couple of centuries ago, would have been the greatest tyrant in the world, because he does not seem to have the slightest conception that he can ever be wrong.”...
He was clear in his own mind that he meant well. When the American troops went to Haiti or Nicaragua or the Dominican Republic, it was to further order and democracy. “I am going to teach,” he had said in his first term as president, “the South American Republics to elect good men!” He rarely mentioned that he was also protecting the Panama Canal and American investments. During Wilson’s presidency, the United States intervened repeatedly in Mexico to try to get the sort of government it wanted. “The purpose of the United States,” Wilson said, “is solely and singly to secure peace and order in Central America by seeing to it that the processes of self-government there are not interrupted or set aside.” He was taken aback when the Mexicans failed to see the landing of American troops, and American threats, in the same light.
The Mexican adventure also showed Wilson’s propensity, perhaps unconscious, to ignore the truth. When he sent troops to Mexico for the first time, he told Congress that it was in response to repeated provocations and insults to the United States and its citizens from General Victoriano Huerta, the man who had started the Mexican Revolution. Huerta in fact had taken great care to avoid provocations.... [Secretary of State Robert] Lansing said sourly of his president: “Even established facts were ignored if they did not fit in with this intuitive sense, this semi-divine power to select the right.”
--from Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World by Margaret MacMillan
[Woodrow] Wilson never forgave those who disagreed with him. “He is a good hater,” said his press officer and devoted admirer Ray Stannard Baker.... The French ambassador in Washington saw “a man who, had he lived a couple of centuries ago, would have been the greatest tyrant in the world, because he does not seem to have the slightest conception that he can ever be wrong.”...
He was clear in his own mind that he meant well. When the American troops went to Haiti or Nicaragua or the Dominican Republic, it was to further order and democracy. “I am going to teach,” he had said in his first term as president, “the South American Republics to elect good men!” He rarely mentioned that he was also protecting the Panama Canal and American investments. During Wilson’s presidency, the United States intervened repeatedly in Mexico to try to get the sort of government it wanted. “The purpose of the United States,” Wilson said, “is solely and singly to secure peace and order in Central America by seeing to it that the processes of self-government there are not interrupted or set aside.” He was taken aback when the Mexicans failed to see the landing of American troops, and American threats, in the same light.
The Mexican adventure also showed Wilson’s propensity, perhaps unconscious, to ignore the truth. When he sent troops to Mexico for the first time, he told Congress that it was in response to repeated provocations and insults to the United States and its citizens from General Victoriano Huerta, the man who had started the Mexican Revolution. Huerta in fact had taken great care to avoid provocations.... [Secretary of State Robert] Lansing said sourly of his president: “Even established facts were ignored if they did not fit in with this intuitive sense, this semi-divine power to select the right.”
--from Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World by Margaret MacMillan
Today's New York Times says the Pentagon doesn't want cities to hold Iraq victory parades, such as the big one Mayor Bloomberg wants to have in New York City. Instead, the Pentagon says, any celebrations should be "recognition for the troops — and to say thanks to the American people for supporting them," whatever that means in the absence of acknowledgment of the outcome of the war. Now, don't you think that if a Democrat had proposed making the word "victory" taboo at such events, he or she would be pilloried across the country on talk radio and in the right-wing press? But this is the Pentagon, so it's OK.
I'm not really sure what's going on here. Is this a genuine effort to avoid angering Arabs and Muslims? (If so, someone should have thought about asking President Flyboy to go easy on the triumphalism last Thursday.) Is someone worried that there might be a victory parade running on CNN on a split screen with a simultaneous assault on U.S. troops in Iraq or Afghanistan that doesn't really look like victory? Or is this just a Rovian effort by the White House to ensure that every major Iraq celebration takes place on a timetable keyed to the '04 election, and that every event carries the Bush™ brand?
I'm not really sure what's going on here. Is this a genuine effort to avoid angering Arabs and Muslims? (If so, someone should have thought about asking President Flyboy to go easy on the triumphalism last Thursday.) Is someone worried that there might be a victory parade running on CNN on a split screen with a simultaneous assault on U.S. troops in Iraq or Afghanistan that doesn't really look like victory? Or is this just a Rovian effort by the White House to ensure that every major Iraq celebration takes place on a timetable keyed to the '04 election, and that every event carries the Bush™ brand?
Subhankar Banerjee went to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge not long ago and took photos. They were published in a book and became the basis for an exhibit at the Smithsonian. But according to last Friday's New York Times, some of the captions in the exhibit were simply unacceptable and had to be modified. You might want to ask very young children and other sensitive individuals to leave the room. OK, here's a caption that was unacceptable:
The refuge has the most beautiful landscape I have ever seen and is so remote and untamed that many peaks, valleys and lakes are still without names
Merciful heavens. I mean, did you ever? Why, that's almost as bad as those Mapplethorpe photos, isn't it? Thank goodness decency prevailed and the caption was changed to
Unnamed Peak, Romanzof Mountains
Oh -- and the exhibit was moved from the Smithsonian's main rotunda to a room on a lower level. And several other captions were deleted, including one from former president Jimmy Carter.
All of this, of course, just happened. It had nothing to do with political pressure, even though Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska said when ANWR drilling was voted down in the Senate, "People who vote against this today are voting against me. I will not forget it."
And, of course, even if this were the result of political pressure, it would not be a case of "political correctness," because Senator Stevens, after all, is a Republican, and everyone knows that political correctness is exclusively the work of those fiendish liberal Democrats.
The refuge has the most beautiful landscape I have ever seen and is so remote and untamed that many peaks, valleys and lakes are still without names
Merciful heavens. I mean, did you ever? Why, that's almost as bad as those Mapplethorpe photos, isn't it? Thank goodness decency prevailed and the caption was changed to
Unnamed Peak, Romanzof Mountains
Oh -- and the exhibit was moved from the Smithsonian's main rotunda to a room on a lower level. And several other captions were deleted, including one from former president Jimmy Carter.
All of this, of course, just happened. It had nothing to do with political pressure, even though Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska said when ANWR drilling was voted down in the Senate, "People who vote against this today are voting against me. I will not forget it."
And, of course, even if this were the result of political pressure, it would not be a case of "political correctness," because Senator Stevens, after all, is a Republican, and everyone knows that political correctness is exclusively the work of those fiendish liberal Democrats.
You may have noticed that the version of Bush's AIDS bill that was passed by the House last week included a requirement that a third of the money be used to promote abstinence. But did you also notice this?
The House also adopted a provision that said religious groups and other organizations opposed to the distribution of condoms could not be barred from receiving money.
And, as noted here, the bill requires any group that receives aid money under the program to completely separate itself from any group that promotes abortion.
If this keeps up, they may have to have send Rick Santorum to Africa, because he's just about the only person on the planet whose conduct would pass muster under the provisions of this bill.
The House also adopted a provision that said religious groups and other organizations opposed to the distribution of condoms could not be barred from receiving money.
And, as noted here, the bill requires any group that receives aid money under the program to completely separate itself from any group that promotes abortion.
If this keeps up, they may have to have send Rick Santorum to Africa, because he's just about the only person on the planet whose conduct would pass muster under the provisions of this bill.
Here's Allan Sloan, writing in Newsweek:
So last week Bush taunted dissident Republicans about their “little bitty” tax cut as opposed to his “robust” one, and stood on an Abrams tank at a factory in Ohio. Talk about your phallic locker-room imagery.
Call me naive, but it seems to me that we should be discussing ideas on their merits, not the relative size of people’s, ahem, policies.
That was before the Top Gun stunt. How much more of this sophomoric nonsense is there going to be?
So last week Bush taunted dissident Republicans about their “little bitty” tax cut as opposed to his “robust” one, and stood on an Abrams tank at a factory in Ohio. Talk about your phallic locker-room imagery.
Call me naive, but it seems to me that we should be discussing ideas on their merits, not the relative size of people’s, ahem, policies.
That was before the Top Gun stunt. How much more of this sophomoric nonsense is there going to be?
Friday, May 02, 2003
If you haven't yet read this Washington Post article about tensions in Fallujah, read it -- near the end you learn that people trying to compile a record of Saddam's crimes are begging for help and not getting it; in the middle you read about graffiti left on a Fallujah classroom ("'Eat [expletive] Iraq' was scrawled on a wall") by American soldiers. I said a few days ago that the tensions between U.S. troops and Iraqis were reminding me of what can transpire between cops and inner-city dwellers Stateside; the graffiti makes me think of some of the radio transmissions on the night of the Rodney King beating.
Also, if you haven't read it, read Matt Taibbi's howl of (utterly justified) outrage at New York Times coverage of Guantánamo.
(Links, once again, from Cursor, Rational Enquirer, and Atrios.)
Also, if you haven't read it, read Matt Taibbi's howl of (utterly justified) outrage at New York Times coverage of Guantánamo.
(Links, once again, from Cursor, Rational Enquirer, and Atrios.)
So, according to Newsweek and The Washington Monthly, while William Bennett was excoriating Bill Clinton for his off-and-on dalliance with Monica, Bennett himselfwas having pricey affairs with a series of one-armed girlfriends. ("I've been a 'machine person' [slot machines and video poker]. When I go to the tables, people talk--and they want to talk about politics. I don't want that. I do this for three hours to relax"), once losing $625,000 in one casino trip. Guess he's a gambling addict. Poor guy.
But ... but wait! Didn't Bennett's fellow conservative John Stossel tell us on ABC a couple of weeks ago that what most people refer to as "addictions" are really choices?
In Canada, some lawyers are suing the government, saying it is responsible for getting people addicted to video slot machines.
Jean Brochu says he was unable to resist the slot machines — that he was "sick." He says the government made him sick, and his sickness led him to embezzle $50,000. Now, he's suing the government to restore his dignity and pay his therapy bills.
Psychologist Jeff Schaler, author of Addiction Is a Choice, argues that people have more control over their behavior than they think.
"Addiction is a behavior and all behaviors are choices," Schaler says. "What's next, are we going to blame fast-food restaurants for the foods that they sell based on the marketing, because the person got addicted to hamburgers and french fries?"
As the Newsweek article points out, Bennett himself wrote in The Book of Virtues, “We should know that too much of anything, even a good thing, may prove to be our undoing … [We] need to set definite boundaries on our appetites.”
If we should do that, and excessive gambling is a choice, as Stossel says, isn't Bennett merely choosing immoral self-indulgence? Won't he burn in hell for that?
What will we tell the children?
But ... but wait! Didn't Bennett's fellow conservative John Stossel tell us on ABC a couple of weeks ago that what most people refer to as "addictions" are really choices?
In Canada, some lawyers are suing the government, saying it is responsible for getting people addicted to video slot machines.
Jean Brochu says he was unable to resist the slot machines — that he was "sick." He says the government made him sick, and his sickness led him to embezzle $50,000. Now, he's suing the government to restore his dignity and pay his therapy bills.
Psychologist Jeff Schaler, author of Addiction Is a Choice, argues that people have more control over their behavior than they think.
"Addiction is a behavior and all behaviors are choices," Schaler says. "What's next, are we going to blame fast-food restaurants for the foods that they sell based on the marketing, because the person got addicted to hamburgers and french fries?"
As the Newsweek article points out, Bennett himself wrote in The Book of Virtues, “We should know that too much of anything, even a good thing, may prove to be our undoing … [We] need to set definite boundaries on our appetites.”
If we should do that, and excessive gambling is a choice, as Stossel says, isn't Bennett merely choosing immoral self-indulgence? Won't he burn in hell for that?
What will we tell the children?
How crazy with Shrub Lust are conservatives right now?
This crazy.
No, skip that. Go back to it later. This crazy.
This crazy.
No, skip that. Go back to it later. This crazy.
I feel as if I'm always waiting for right-wingers who achieve dominance to slip up, and they rarely do. Oh, they regularly do things that make people like me (and probably you) wince (or go into a blind, stupefying rage) -- but the average Joe always seems to approve. I had a vague sense, though, that maybe, just maybe, the aircraft-carrier stunt might have been just a bit over the top -- not for fervent supporters of the war, obviously, but maybe for people (maybe just for a few soccer moms) who now wave the flag but were nervous going in.
Well, apparently it actually was over the top for the two lead bloggers on the pro-war side, Andrew Sullivan and Glenn InstaPundit. "Hubristic," says Sullivan; Insty says, "The whole leader-who-flies-jets thing seems, somehow, Third World to me." I think they've got it right. And if they thought the stunt was too much, I wonder how many average citizens thought it was infantile and self-indulgent.
By the way, I said in the early days of fighting that Bush had talked about the war as if it was all about him -- until the media took the story away from him and made it all about the soldiers and the Iraqis (in that order, unfortunately). Well, it's all about him again, isn't it? If you don't think so, check out this picture.
Well, apparently it actually was over the top for the two lead bloggers on the pro-war side, Andrew Sullivan and Glenn InstaPundit. "Hubristic," says Sullivan; Insty says, "The whole leader-who-flies-jets thing seems, somehow, Third World to me." I think they've got it right. And if they thought the stunt was too much, I wonder how many average citizens thought it was infantile and self-indulgent.
By the way, I said in the early days of fighting that Bush had talked about the war as if it was all about him -- until the media took the story away from him and made it all about the soldiers and the Iraqis (in that order, unfortunately). Well, it's all about him again, isn't it? If you don't think so, check out this picture.
Imagine the most overwrought hero worship possible -- screaming-at-the-Beatles-at-Shea-Stadium-until-you-pass-out hero worship. Now double it. Double it again. Okay? You'll still fall short of Michael Ledeen on Saint George.
Do you think things in this country (are generally going in the right direction) or do you feel things (have gotten pretty seriously off on the wrong track)?
During and just after the revelation of the evil Bill Clinton's satanic dalliance with Monica Lewinsky:
2/14/99: right direction 55%; wrong track 41%; no opinion 4%
11/1/98: right direction 55%; wrong track 43%; no opinion 2%
11/1/98 (likely voters): right direction 55%; wrong track 44%; no opinion 1%
8/21/98: right direction 57%; wrong track 40%; no opinion 4%
7/12/98: right direction 50%; wrong track 45%; no opinion 6%
4/4/98: right direction 55%; wrong track 41%; no opinion 4%
1/31/98: right direction 61%; wrong track 34%; no opinion 5%
1/30/98: right direction 61%; wrong track 34%; no opinion 5%
Immediately after the saintly Steely-Eyed Rocket Man's world-historical triumph in Iraq:
4/30/03: right direction 52%; wrong track 46%; no opinion 2%
--Washington Post (scroll down to question 3)
During and just after the revelation of the evil Bill Clinton's satanic dalliance with Monica Lewinsky:
2/14/99: right direction 55%; wrong track 41%; no opinion 4%
11/1/98: right direction 55%; wrong track 43%; no opinion 2%
11/1/98 (likely voters): right direction 55%; wrong track 44%; no opinion 1%
8/21/98: right direction 57%; wrong track 40%; no opinion 4%
7/12/98: right direction 50%; wrong track 45%; no opinion 6%
4/4/98: right direction 55%; wrong track 41%; no opinion 4%
1/31/98: right direction 61%; wrong track 34%; no opinion 5%
1/30/98: right direction 61%; wrong track 34%; no opinion 5%
Immediately after the saintly Steely-Eyed Rocket Man's world-historical triumph in Iraq:
4/30/03: right direction 52%; wrong track 46%; no opinion 2%
--Washington Post (scroll down to question 3)
Dan Harris said this on ABC News last night, reporting from Baghdad:
Iraq's health care system is still struggling, but things are getting better. Three weeks ago, Yarmik Hospital, one of the biggest in Baghdad, was bombed, then looted. Now, with the help of the Americans and international aid groups, they've made repairs, and most doctors are back to work. But the Americans and the charities haven't brought in enough supplies, which is why this man with two broken legs [video and audio of a man in pain] was given minimal painkillers.
So we can't get enough medical supplies in, but we were able to fly Donald Rumsfeld into Iraq for a high-priced photo op? Hey, Rummy, what exactly did you accomplish on that trip, apart from getting some triumphalist photos taken that will serve as red meat during the Bush '04 campaign? Why didn't you take a few boxes of painkillers along on your flight -- or skip the flight altogether and let the Red Cross have your landing spot instead?
Iraq's health care system is still struggling, but things are getting better. Three weeks ago, Yarmik Hospital, one of the biggest in Baghdad, was bombed, then looted. Now, with the help of the Americans and international aid groups, they've made repairs, and most doctors are back to work. But the Americans and the charities haven't brought in enough supplies, which is why this man with two broken legs [video and audio of a man in pain] was given minimal painkillers.
So we can't get enough medical supplies in, but we were able to fly Donald Rumsfeld into Iraq for a high-priced photo op? Hey, Rummy, what exactly did you accomplish on that trip, apart from getting some triumphalist photos taken that will serve as red meat during the Bush '04 campaign? Why didn't you take a few boxes of painkillers along on your flight -- or skip the flight altogether and let the Red Cross have your landing spot instead?
Thursday, May 01, 2003
Apparently President Hissyfit doesn't consider it sufficient for the U.S. to retaliate against France -- the administration is trying to compel other countries to join in this snit. From Express India:
US has drawn up a series of penalties to be inflicted upon France for not supporting it in the war against Iraq, media reports said on Thursday.
Political pressure from Washington could hurt several lucrative French weapons programmes, including Mirage 2000 fighter planes, Leclerc tanks and black Shaheen cruise missiles, the Defence news weekly reported....
Orders for French-made Mirage 2000 could drop if Gulf states, under influence from US, opt for US jets like F-16s. Washington could also pressurise countries like Saudi Arabia to decide against the Leclerc tanks, the weekly said.
Black Shaheen, the derivative of M8Da French scalp cruise missile destined for the UAE [United Arab Emirates] relies on components that require US export licences, it added....
GROW UP!
US has drawn up a series of penalties to be inflicted upon France for not supporting it in the war against Iraq, media reports said on Thursday.
Political pressure from Washington could hurt several lucrative French weapons programmes, including Mirage 2000 fighter planes, Leclerc tanks and black Shaheen cruise missiles, the Defence news weekly reported....
Orders for French-made Mirage 2000 could drop if Gulf states, under influence from US, opt for US jets like F-16s. Washington could also pressurise countries like Saudi Arabia to decide against the Leclerc tanks, the weekly said.
Black Shaheen, the derivative of M8Da French scalp cruise missile destined for the UAE [United Arab Emirates] relies on components that require US export licences, it added....
GROW UP!
A fascist jackbooted liberal member of the politically correct thought police is criticizing conservative newspapers for using what he sees as the patronizing word "kin" in reference to the relatives of a boy from North Carolina...
...no, wait, excuse me -- that's no liberal, it's my good buddy Lee, from the ultramegaconservative blog Right-Thinking from the Left Coast, who denounced this use of "kin" not once, but twice in the same day, once when he was ascribing it to the San Francisco Chronicle, then later when he realized the article that set off his snit originated at The New York Times. The offending headline? Hide the babies, here it is:
Missing boy's kin let their hopes rise
(Yeah, that's me in the comments, pointing out a San Francisco Chronicle review that talks about the "kin" of Anne Elliot in a film adaptation of Jane Austen's Persuasion and a New York Times article that talks about serious New York City shoppers and their "hard-shopping kin" in other cities. Shopping and Jane Austen! Lighten up, dude -- any word used in a coastal newspaper in reference to either of these subjects is, by definition, not offensive.)
Lee also objects to a Times reference to Baghdad as "the conquered Iraqi capital." He prefers "liberated."
(Yeah? Really? Did the Iraqi people get self-government while I wasn't looking?)
...no, wait, excuse me -- that's no liberal, it's my good buddy Lee, from the ultramegaconservative blog Right-Thinking from the Left Coast, who denounced this use of "kin" not once, but twice in the same day, once when he was ascribing it to the San Francisco Chronicle, then later when he realized the article that set off his snit originated at The New York Times. The offending headline? Hide the babies, here it is:
Missing boy's kin let their hopes rise
(Yeah, that's me in the comments, pointing out a San Francisco Chronicle review that talks about the "kin" of Anne Elliot in a film adaptation of Jane Austen's Persuasion and a New York Times article that talks about serious New York City shoppers and their "hard-shopping kin" in other cities. Shopping and Jane Austen! Lighten up, dude -- any word used in a coastal newspaper in reference to either of these subjects is, by definition, not offensive.)
Lee also objects to a Times reference to Baghdad as "the conquered Iraqi capital." He prefers "liberated."
(Yeah? Really? Did the Iraqi people get self-government while I wasn't looking?)
It sounded so scary:
Addressing the UN Security Council on February 5, Mr Powell said recent intelligence showed a missile brigade outside Baghdad was "dispersing rocket launchers and warheads containing biological warfare agent to various locations". Mr Bush was equally alarmist, describing satellite evidence showing that Saddam Hussein was reconstituting Iraq's nuclear weapons programs with his top nuclear scientists, his "nuclear mujahideen". Iraq's deadliest weapons could end up in the hands of terrorists.
"We cannot wait for final proof," Mr Bush said. "The smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."
Doubters were mercilessly mocked:
When Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, suggested Iraq's WMD program could be more fragmented and degraded, he was pilloried as naive or incompetent.
But that was then....
President George Bush's National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, is now acknowledging that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program is less clear-cut, and probably more difficult to establish, than the White House portrayed before the war....
According to Dr Rice, the weapons programs are "in bits and pieces" rather than assembled weapons. "You may find assembly lines, you may find pieces hidden here and there," she said. Ingredients or precursors, many non-lethal by themselves, could be embedded in dual-use facilities.
Oh -- and apparently we never found weapons because Saddam has been keeping up with innovations from the world of Western M.B.A.'s:
She had a new explanation too for Iraq's ability to launch these weapons that were not assembled. "Just-in-time assembly" and "just-in-time" inventory, as she put it.
Yeah ... he was making "just-in-time WMDs" ... that's the ticket....
That's from the Sydney Morning Herald; thanks to Thinking It Through, Cursor, and Rational Enquirer.)
Addressing the UN Security Council on February 5, Mr Powell said recent intelligence showed a missile brigade outside Baghdad was "dispersing rocket launchers and warheads containing biological warfare agent to various locations". Mr Bush was equally alarmist, describing satellite evidence showing that Saddam Hussein was reconstituting Iraq's nuclear weapons programs with his top nuclear scientists, his "nuclear mujahideen". Iraq's deadliest weapons could end up in the hands of terrorists.
"We cannot wait for final proof," Mr Bush said. "The smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."
Doubters were mercilessly mocked:
When Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, suggested Iraq's WMD program could be more fragmented and degraded, he was pilloried as naive or incompetent.
But that was then....
President George Bush's National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, is now acknowledging that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program is less clear-cut, and probably more difficult to establish, than the White House portrayed before the war....
According to Dr Rice, the weapons programs are "in bits and pieces" rather than assembled weapons. "You may find assembly lines, you may find pieces hidden here and there," she said. Ingredients or precursors, many non-lethal by themselves, could be embedded in dual-use facilities.
Oh -- and apparently we never found weapons because Saddam has been keeping up with innovations from the world of Western M.B.A.'s:
She had a new explanation too for Iraq's ability to launch these weapons that were not assembled. "Just-in-time assembly" and "just-in-time" inventory, as she put it.
Yeah ... he was making "just-in-time WMDs" ... that's the ticket....
That's from the Sydney Morning Herald; thanks to Thinking It Through, Cursor, and Rational Enquirer.)
GOD IS MY SATELLITE UPLINK
This is from Z Magazine:
The U.S. government this week launched its Arabic language satellite TV news station for Muslim Iraq.
It is being produced in a studio -- Grace Digital Media -- controlled by fundamentalist Christians....
Grace Digital Media is controlled by a fundamentalist Christian millionaire, Cheryl Reagan, who last year wrested control of Federal News Service, a transcription news service, from its former owner, Cortes Randell.
Randell says he met Reagan at a prayer meeting, brought her in as an investor in Federal News Service, and then she forced him out of his own company.
Grace Digital Media and Federal News Service are housed in a downtown Washington, D.C. office building, along with Grace News Network.
When you call the number for Grace News Network, you get a person answering "Grace Digital Media/Federal News Service."
According to its web site, Grace News Network is "dedicated to transmitting the evidence of God's presence in the world today."...
We just do this hearts-and-minds thing so well, don't we?
Grace has no control over content of these broadcasts, the government assures us.
Oh, and there's this:
The CEO of Grace News Network is Thorne Auchter.
The same Thorne Auchter who began the dismantling of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) under Presidents Reagan and George Bush I.
(Thanks to Atrios, who got this from Frog n' Blog.)
This is from Z Magazine:
The U.S. government this week launched its Arabic language satellite TV news station for Muslim Iraq.
It is being produced in a studio -- Grace Digital Media -- controlled by fundamentalist Christians....
Grace Digital Media is controlled by a fundamentalist Christian millionaire, Cheryl Reagan, who last year wrested control of Federal News Service, a transcription news service, from its former owner, Cortes Randell.
Randell says he met Reagan at a prayer meeting, brought her in as an investor in Federal News Service, and then she forced him out of his own company.
Grace Digital Media and Federal News Service are housed in a downtown Washington, D.C. office building, along with Grace News Network.
When you call the number for Grace News Network, you get a person answering "Grace Digital Media/Federal News Service."
According to its web site, Grace News Network is "dedicated to transmitting the evidence of God's presence in the world today."...
We just do this hearts-and-minds thing so well, don't we?
Grace has no control over content of these broadcasts, the government assures us.
Oh, and there's this:
The CEO of Grace News Network is Thorne Auchter.
The same Thorne Auchter who began the dismantling of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) under Presidents Reagan and George Bush I.
(Thanks to Atrios, who got this from Frog n' Blog.)
So much for de-Baathification....
Ahmad Chalabi, an Iraqi opposition leader favored by the Pentagon, says he has raised with President Bush's envoy to Iraq his concern that the United States appears ready to admit senior officials from Saddam Hussein's Baath Party in a transitional government here....
Jay Garner, the retired United States lieutenant general appointed to head the transition office here, has met with some director generals from Mr. Hussein's ministries, who by definition had to be members of the Baath Party. He said at a news conference several days ago that membership in the Baath Party would not in itself disqualify Iraqis from retaining their administrative jobs, but that close associates of Mr. Hussein and known violators of human rights would be barred.
... other representatives of the Iraqi National Congress, said that the Central Intelligence Agency had retained Saad Janabi as a key adviser. The opposition members identified Mr. Janabi as a former assistant to Hussein Kamel, Mr. Hussein's son-in-law who oversaw weapons programs, defected to Jordan in 1995, and was killed by Mr. Hussein's government when he later returned to Iraq.
--New York Times
This is especially curious because, as the Times article (written by Judith Miller) notes,
An American military official said today he feared that the recent attacks on American soldiers in Baghdad was the work of isolated members of the Baath Party.
This is also the opinion of a general quoted in the MSNBC story about the latest incident in Fallujah (the grenade attack that injured seven U.S. soldiers):
Brig. Gen. Dan Hahn, the Army V Corps chief of staff, said U.S. forces had solid intelligence that the “bad actors” in Fallujah were members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party who were using crowds as cover during demonstrations.
“The people in the city want to get rid of this problem. We have people in the city coming up to tell us who the bad actors are,” Hahn said.
I can't tell how much of what's going on in Fallujah is citizen outrage and how much, if any, is unconventional warfare on the part of Baathists or others. But I keep thinking about something I mentioned last month, a Washington Post op-ed piece by Gary Anderson, a retired Marine Corps general, published on April 2. Anderson speculated on what Saddam Hussein's strategy might be; here's what he thought might follow an inevitable defeat by the U.S. and Britain:
The second phase would be a protracted guerrilla war against the "occupation," which the American-British coalition bills as liberation. It is now obvious that the Baath Party has seeded the urban and semi-urban population centers of the country with cadres designed to lead such a guerrilla movement; this is not a last-minute act of desperation or an afterthought. Americans have overrun facilities that have been in place for some time. The war would be waged as an attritional struggle against the occupying forces and any Iraqi interim government. Attempts at free elections would be subverted and portrayed as a sham. The strategic objective of this phase would be to have the Americans and British tire of the effort and turn it over to the United Nations.
Phase III would then be to amass enough semi-conventional power to overwhelm the U.N. and interim government mechanisms. In other words, the concept would be to stage a combination of "Black Hawk Down" and the 1975 North Vietnamese offensive that crushed South Vietnam.
Here's what the general quoted in the MSNBC story says now:
“If you look at the country as a whole, it is stable,” said Hahn. However, he said the massive amount of arms and ammunition being uncovered daily across Iraq posed a major problem.
“The entire country is almost like an ammunitions and weapons dump. And they’ve placed them in places you would not expect,” he said. “There are weapons here from every country in the world that makes weapons.”
In the northern city of Mosul, 153 arms caches had already been found, one containing 1.2 million mortar rounds and 65,000 artillery shells. Some 150 arms and ammunition sites have been discovered in Baghdad, officials said.
Has Iraq been seeded with guerrillas and ammo? Is what U.S. soldiers are facing in Fallujah some sort of cocktail of legitimate popular anger and asymmetrical war? And are U.S. transition people making this easier by embracing some not-so-nice Baathists?
Ahmad Chalabi, an Iraqi opposition leader favored by the Pentagon, says he has raised with President Bush's envoy to Iraq his concern that the United States appears ready to admit senior officials from Saddam Hussein's Baath Party in a transitional government here....
Jay Garner, the retired United States lieutenant general appointed to head the transition office here, has met with some director generals from Mr. Hussein's ministries, who by definition had to be members of the Baath Party. He said at a news conference several days ago that membership in the Baath Party would not in itself disqualify Iraqis from retaining their administrative jobs, but that close associates of Mr. Hussein and known violators of human rights would be barred.
... other representatives of the Iraqi National Congress, said that the Central Intelligence Agency had retained Saad Janabi as a key adviser. The opposition members identified Mr. Janabi as a former assistant to Hussein Kamel, Mr. Hussein's son-in-law who oversaw weapons programs, defected to Jordan in 1995, and was killed by Mr. Hussein's government when he later returned to Iraq.
--New York Times
This is especially curious because, as the Times article (written by Judith Miller) notes,
An American military official said today he feared that the recent attacks on American soldiers in Baghdad was the work of isolated members of the Baath Party.
This is also the opinion of a general quoted in the MSNBC story about the latest incident in Fallujah (the grenade attack that injured seven U.S. soldiers):
Brig. Gen. Dan Hahn, the Army V Corps chief of staff, said U.S. forces had solid intelligence that the “bad actors” in Fallujah were members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party who were using crowds as cover during demonstrations.
“The people in the city want to get rid of this problem. We have people in the city coming up to tell us who the bad actors are,” Hahn said.
I can't tell how much of what's going on in Fallujah is citizen outrage and how much, if any, is unconventional warfare on the part of Baathists or others. But I keep thinking about something I mentioned last month, a Washington Post op-ed piece by Gary Anderson, a retired Marine Corps general, published on April 2. Anderson speculated on what Saddam Hussein's strategy might be; here's what he thought might follow an inevitable defeat by the U.S. and Britain:
The second phase would be a protracted guerrilla war against the "occupation," which the American-British coalition bills as liberation. It is now obvious that the Baath Party has seeded the urban and semi-urban population centers of the country with cadres designed to lead such a guerrilla movement; this is not a last-minute act of desperation or an afterthought. Americans have overrun facilities that have been in place for some time. The war would be waged as an attritional struggle against the occupying forces and any Iraqi interim government. Attempts at free elections would be subverted and portrayed as a sham. The strategic objective of this phase would be to have the Americans and British tire of the effort and turn it over to the United Nations.
Phase III would then be to amass enough semi-conventional power to overwhelm the U.N. and interim government mechanisms. In other words, the concept would be to stage a combination of "Black Hawk Down" and the 1975 North Vietnamese offensive that crushed South Vietnam.
Here's what the general quoted in the MSNBC story says now:
“If you look at the country as a whole, it is stable,” said Hahn. However, he said the massive amount of arms and ammunition being uncovered daily across Iraq posed a major problem.
“The entire country is almost like an ammunitions and weapons dump. And they’ve placed them in places you would not expect,” he said. “There are weapons here from every country in the world that makes weapons.”
In the northern city of Mosul, 153 arms caches had already been found, one containing 1.2 million mortar rounds and 65,000 artillery shells. Some 150 arms and ammunition sites have been discovered in Baghdad, officials said.
Has Iraq been seeded with guerrillas and ammo? Is what U.S. soldiers are facing in Fallujah some sort of cocktail of legitimate popular anger and asymmetrical war? And are U.S. transition people making this easier by embracing some not-so-nice Baathists?
The youngster had apparently lobbed his shoe at the jeep - with a M2 heavy machine gun post on the back - as it drove past in a convoy of other vehicles.
A soldier operating the weapon suddenly ducked, raised it on its pivot then pressed his thumb on the trigger.
That's from a chilling account of the second incident in Fallujah, from Britain's Mirror; two civilians died. The Mirror's reporter says he was "six feet from the vehicle when the first shots rang out, without warning." Read it, by all means.
(Thanks to TBOGG.)
A soldier operating the weapon suddenly ducked, raised it on its pivot then pressed his thumb on the trigger.
That's from a chilling account of the second incident in Fallujah, from Britain's Mirror; two civilians died. The Mirror's reporter says he was "six feet from the vehicle when the first shots rang out, without warning." Read it, by all means.
(Thanks to TBOGG.)
Postal worker David "Son of Sam" Berkowitz attacked women with long hair, then told long-haired female postal customers that they should be careful to wear their hair up.
The Bush administration attacks the fiscal stability of Social Security, then does this:
Your next annual statement from the government estimating your Social Security retirement benefits will state in blunt language that those funds are in jeopardy.
As if today's workers weren't worried enough that Social Security will not be there when they need it, the Social Security Administration will tell them: "Action is needed soon to make sure that the system is sound when today's younger workers are ready for retirement."
The warning, which the government plans to unveil today, will be included in the annual letter from Social Security to 138 million workers over the age of 25, estimating their benefits under various retirement strategies.
-- Minneapolis Star-Tribune
Compare and contrast.
The Bush administration attacks the fiscal stability of Social Security, then does this:
Your next annual statement from the government estimating your Social Security retirement benefits will state in blunt language that those funds are in jeopardy.
As if today's workers weren't worried enough that Social Security will not be there when they need it, the Social Security Administration will tell them: "Action is needed soon to make sure that the system is sound when today's younger workers are ready for retirement."
The warning, which the government plans to unveil today, will be included in the annual letter from Social Security to 138 million workers over the age of 25, estimating their benefits under various retirement strategies.
-- Minneapolis Star-Tribune
Compare and contrast.
I just flipped on the TV briefly and saw prepartions being made for the Bush speech tonight on the USS Abraham Lincoln, much of it shot using dramatic camera angles that emphasis the fact that the Abraham Lincoln is, you know, really, really big and awesome. If you enjoy seemingly the gleam and shine and sheer size of heavy military equipment, the coverage of this speech, or at least the establishing shots, could be porn for you.
A few weeks ago, when the Republicans announced that they're planning to hold their 2004 New York City convention as close to the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks as possible, some people looked at the exploitation and said, "Why doesn't Bush just go all the way and give his acceptance speech at Ground Zero?" After seeing the stage set he's chosen for tonight's meaningless photo op (Bush isn't even declaring the war over), I wouldn't put a Ground Zero speech past him.
UPDATE: I just heard this on NPR about Bush's speech on the Abraham Lincoln: "Getting there could be half the fun -- he'll be getting there on a Navy plane, stopped by a snag wire on deck." I wonder if they asked Leni Riefenstahl to film this.
A few weeks ago, when the Republicans announced that they're planning to hold their 2004 New York City convention as close to the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks as possible, some people looked at the exploitation and said, "Why doesn't Bush just go all the way and give his acceptance speech at Ground Zero?" After seeing the stage set he's chosen for tonight's meaningless photo op (Bush isn't even declaring the war over), I wouldn't put a Ground Zero speech past him.
UPDATE: I just heard this on NPR about Bush's speech on the Abraham Lincoln: "Getting there could be half the fun -- he'll be getting there on a Navy plane, stopped by a snag wire on deck." I wonder if they asked Leni Riefenstahl to film this.
Wednesday, April 30, 2003
Boy, that bounce didn't last long.
Bush job approval rating in the CBS News poll:
4/2-3/03: 67%
4/11-13/03: 73%
4/26-27/03: 67%
Bush job approval rating in the Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll:
3/25-26/03: 66%
4/8-9/03:71%
4/22-23/03: 65%
(Per Polling Report.)
Bush job approval rating in the CBS News poll:
4/2-3/03: 67%
4/11-13/03: 73%
4/26-27/03: 67%
Bush job approval rating in the Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll:
3/25-26/03: 66%
4/8-9/03:71%
4/22-23/03: 65%
(Per Polling Report.)
Gas prices in Dallas are at a six-month low, the folks at Free Republic remind us.
So I guess blowing off Ali's arms was worth it.
So I guess blowing off Ali's arms was worth it.
NEWSFLASH!!!
Hey! Guess what? People who want to protest President Bush peacefully are often limited to "protest zones" far away from the object of their protest! Wow! That's amazing! That's un-American! Did you know about it?
Until a couple of days ago, Andrew Sullivan didn't.
Oh, but let's not be too hard on the widely published political commentator and former editor of The New Republic for not knowing this -- it's only been going on for at least two years.
And besides, Sully's sure Clinton must have done it too, so it's not Saint George's fault.
Hey! Guess what? People who want to protest President Bush peacefully are often limited to "protest zones" far away from the object of their protest! Wow! That's amazing! That's un-American! Did you know about it?
Until a couple of days ago, Andrew Sullivan didn't.
Oh, but let's not be too hard on the widely published political commentator and former editor of The New Republic for not knowing this -- it's only been going on for at least two years.
And besides, Sully's sure Clinton must have done it too, so it's not Saint George's fault.
"We ought to be beating our chests every day. We ought to look in a mirror and get proud and stick out our chests and suck in our bellies and say: 'Damn, we're Americans!'," Jay Garner told reporters, saying that Iraq's oil fields and other infrastructure survived the war almost intact.
--Reuters
Did he really say it like that? "Go nuts, people! We saved the oil!"? I'm trying to find a full transcript.
--Reuters
Did he really say it like that? "Go nuts, people! We saved the oil!"? I'm trying to find a full transcript.
The Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for health authorities in South Carolina to collect names, addresses and other information about women seeking abortions, a power doctors say violates a fundamental duty to protect patient privacy.
The high court rejected a challenge to the state's plan to catalog medical records from clinics and abortion doctors. The court's action, taken without comment, ends a lengthy legal challenge that had kept the law on hold.
South Carolina is the only state whose law allows regulators to see, copy and store abortion patients' medical records without stiff requirements that the information be kept confidential, lawyers representing the clinic and outside medical organizations said....
The Greenville clinic argued there was no guarantee the abortion information would remain confidential once it was in the state's hands and there was no penalty to the state or its employees for public disclosure.
The clinic also contended the regulation would allow release of patient records, apparently including names and addresses, when a clinic or its staff is under investigation by state licensing authorities.
Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association and former health secretary in Maryland, said states can have legitimate reasons for data collection. But he said South Carolina's practice is worrisome. "Once you photocopy a record, you never know where it's going," he said....
--AP
I always thought the right's agenda led in directions like this, but right-wingers always told me I was being silly -- that conservatism was all about "freedom."
Now, I think conservatives should be honest and embrace this stuff. Pickup trucks in the South should have bumper stickers that say "REGISTER UTERUSES -- NOT GUNS." Web sites and blogs run by Republican small-government advocates should have banners that say, "I Love My Country, but I Fear My Government -- Except When It's Compiling Information About Sluts!" And maybe the companies doing reconstruction business in Iraq right now can help states skip the paperwork altogether -- maybe they can devise some sort of Womb EZPass system, a tracking device that will make it possible to keep tabs on filthy baby-killing liberals around the clock.
The high court rejected a challenge to the state's plan to catalog medical records from clinics and abortion doctors. The court's action, taken without comment, ends a lengthy legal challenge that had kept the law on hold.
South Carolina is the only state whose law allows regulators to see, copy and store abortion patients' medical records without stiff requirements that the information be kept confidential, lawyers representing the clinic and outside medical organizations said....
The Greenville clinic argued there was no guarantee the abortion information would remain confidential once it was in the state's hands and there was no penalty to the state or its employees for public disclosure.
The clinic also contended the regulation would allow release of patient records, apparently including names and addresses, when a clinic or its staff is under investigation by state licensing authorities.
Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association and former health secretary in Maryland, said states can have legitimate reasons for data collection. But he said South Carolina's practice is worrisome. "Once you photocopy a record, you never know where it's going," he said....
--AP
I always thought the right's agenda led in directions like this, but right-wingers always told me I was being silly -- that conservatism was all about "freedom."
Now, I think conservatives should be honest and embrace this stuff. Pickup trucks in the South should have bumper stickers that say "REGISTER UTERUSES -- NOT GUNS." Web sites and blogs run by Republican small-government advocates should have banners that say, "I Love My Country, but I Fear My Government -- Except When It's Compiling Information About Sluts!" And maybe the companies doing reconstruction business in Iraq right now can help states skip the paperwork altogether -- maybe they can devise some sort of Womb EZPass system, a tracking device that will make it possible to keep tabs on filthy baby-killing liberals around the clock.
Another shooting incident, per CentCom today:
Coalition civil engineers were shot at today while working in a gas-oil separation plant in the Ramaila oilfields. Three occupants in a white-pickup truck drove by and reportedly opened fire on the engineers. There were no injuries.
Coalition soldiers as part of the security force were in the area at the time, but did not return fire.
Coalition civil engineers were shot at today while working in a gas-oil separation plant in the Ramaila oilfields. Three occupants in a white-pickup truck drove by and reportedly opened fire on the engineers. There were no injuries.
Coalition soldiers as part of the security force were in the area at the time, but did not return fire.
Boy, I sure hope we de-Baathify Iraq a little bit better than we're de-Talibanizing Afghanistan....
Khost is not the only province with former Taliban officials in government positions - under a general amnesty, all but top Taliban officials have been allowed to reenter society. But Khost is of special concern, says Colonel King, because it appears to be a major transit point for Al Qaeda supporters entering Afghanistan from Pakistan.
That's from a now-it-can-be-told story in the Christian Science Monitor about Hazratuddin Habibi, who was a member of the Taliban and was subsequently appointed intelligence chief in Khost by Hamid Karzai:
... colleagues [of Hazratuddin] in the central government's intelligence agency, Amniat, and in other military departments began to notice that raids on Taliban hideouts were coming up empty. Arrests of Al Qaeda suspects went awry. It occurred to local political leaders as well as intelligence and military officials that Hazratuddin may be a double agent.
...US and Afghan military officials agree that the entire Afghan intelligence operation in Khost has been compromised: Afghan military officials in Khost say crucial files and documents are missing. And a copy of a list of intelligence agents appears to have been given to Taliban supporters in Pakistan.
Hazratuddin was removed from office in March, along with other government officials.
"It's definitely proven that [Hazratuddin] has links with Al Qaeda," says Gen. Khial Baz Sherzai, military chief of Khost. "He had 15 men from the Taliban working with him. And even now, after Hazratuddin is gone, about 60 percent of the people in the intelligence department are still committed to Hizb-i Islami (a radical Afghan Islamist party allied to Al Qaeda)."
"Several times we have requested the central government to fire him," says General Sherzai, military commander of Khost during communist times. "As you know, Hazratuddin was a very rich man, and every time he was struck from his job, he would go to Kabul and give some money, and he would be reappointed."
Hazratuddin, for his part, claims it's his enemies who have ties to Al Qaeda.
A year or so from now, I'm sure similar things will be happening in Iraq -- and I'm sure they'll get about as much attention in the U.S. media as this is getting.
Khost is not the only province with former Taliban officials in government positions - under a general amnesty, all but top Taliban officials have been allowed to reenter society. But Khost is of special concern, says Colonel King, because it appears to be a major transit point for Al Qaeda supporters entering Afghanistan from Pakistan.
That's from a now-it-can-be-told story in the Christian Science Monitor about Hazratuddin Habibi, who was a member of the Taliban and was subsequently appointed intelligence chief in Khost by Hamid Karzai:
... colleagues [of Hazratuddin] in the central government's intelligence agency, Amniat, and in other military departments began to notice that raids on Taliban hideouts were coming up empty. Arrests of Al Qaeda suspects went awry. It occurred to local political leaders as well as intelligence and military officials that Hazratuddin may be a double agent.
...US and Afghan military officials agree that the entire Afghan intelligence operation in Khost has been compromised: Afghan military officials in Khost say crucial files and documents are missing. And a copy of a list of intelligence agents appears to have been given to Taliban supporters in Pakistan.
Hazratuddin was removed from office in March, along with other government officials.
"It's definitely proven that [Hazratuddin] has links with Al Qaeda," says Gen. Khial Baz Sherzai, military chief of Khost. "He had 15 men from the Taliban working with him. And even now, after Hazratuddin is gone, about 60 percent of the people in the intelligence department are still committed to Hizb-i Islami (a radical Afghan Islamist party allied to Al Qaeda)."
"Several times we have requested the central government to fire him," says General Sherzai, military commander of Khost during communist times. "As you know, Hazratuddin was a very rich man, and every time he was struck from his job, he would go to Kabul and give some money, and he would be reappointed."
Hazratuddin, for his part, claims it's his enemies who have ties to Al Qaeda.
A year or so from now, I'm sure similar things will be happening in Iraq -- and I'm sure they'll get about as much attention in the U.S. media as this is getting.
For the second time in 48 hours, U.S. soldiers fired on Iraqi civilians in Fallujah and some civilians were killed. This is big news, but for some reason it's not seen by the American media as really big news -- MSNBC.com leads with Donald Rumsfeld's Iraq photo op, ABC and Fox lead with the suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, and the Fallujah story doesn't appear at all on CNN.com's front page. The top story in the print New York Times today is not the first Fallujah incident but the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Saudi Arabia, and the big splash picture above the fold is Rumsfeld on an aircraft surrounded by servicemen and trying, as usual, to supress a shit-eating smirk. (The Times Web site does, however, now lead with the second Fallujah incident.)
I can't help thinking that the protesters are going to have to set up an entire media operation -- expensively designed briefing area, daily press conference timed so it can appear live on Good Morning America and Fox and Friends, you know the drill.
A few weeks ago, that Columbia professor notoriously declared his wish for "a million Mogadishus" to humble the United States. At this point, if there were a million Mogadishus, I'm not sure reporters would portray them as a humiliation -- especially if CentCom briefers directed their attention elsewhere.
*******
Oh, and did you catch this? It wasn't just Fallujah. This is from the Times:
In the northern city of Mosul, meanwhile, 9 people were killed and 29 were injured as residents celebrated Mr. Hussein's birthday by firing guns into the air, hospital officials said. Doctors said the majority were killed by celebratory gunfire, but they said American soldiers had apparently shot several Iraqis after they mistook celebratory gunfire shots for attacks.
I can't help thinking that the protesters are going to have to set up an entire media operation -- expensively designed briefing area, daily press conference timed so it can appear live on Good Morning America and Fox and Friends, you know the drill.
A few weeks ago, that Columbia professor notoriously declared his wish for "a million Mogadishus" to humble the United States. At this point, if there were a million Mogadishus, I'm not sure reporters would portray them as a humiliation -- especially if CentCom briefers directed their attention elsewhere.
*******
Oh, and did you catch this? It wasn't just Fallujah. This is from the Times:
In the northern city of Mosul, meanwhile, 9 people were killed and 29 were injured as residents celebrated Mr. Hussein's birthday by firing guns into the air, hospital officials said. Doctors said the majority were killed by celebratory gunfire, but they said American soldiers had apparently shot several Iraqis after they mistook celebratory gunfire shots for attacks.
Tuesday, April 29, 2003
OK, one more thing about Rick Santorum, if you'll bear with me:
Yesterday BuzzFlash linked an article Santorum wrote for Catholic Online in July 2002, when sexual abuse by priests was page-one news. Read the entire article, by all means, if you want to be reminded that pleasure-abhorring theocrats are roughly similar the world over, whether they wear turbans or crucifixes -- but I want to point out one sentence that stuck in my craw:
While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm.
This is a disgusting distortion of the truth.
The New York Times reported two and a half months before Santorum's column appeared that there really wasn't a "center" of this scandal:
At least 177 priests suspected of molesting minors have either resigned or been taken off duty in 28 states and the District of Columbia since the clerical sex scandal erupted in January, a nationwide review of Roman Catholic dioceses by The Associated Press found.
The review also showed that in 18 other states, where priests have not been taken off the job, dioceses still have responded to the crisis in a variety of ways. They include turning over allegations to prosecutors, scouring personnel records to see whether old claims were properly handled, and reviewing and publicizing policies for handling complaints.
In the end, the review found only four states -- Arkansas, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming -- where the scandal seems to have had no impact on the way the church operates.
"Priest Scandals Expand Nationwide" was the headline of a Cincinnati Enquirer article at about the same time.
Boston wasn't the epicenter of the problem. Boston was the epicenter of the response to the problem.
And it wasn't the conservative Boston Herald or right-wing talk radio that exposed sexual abuse by priests -- as I noted a few days ago, at least one Herald columnist (quoted here) flogged the right-wing's line that most of the abuse wasn't really pedophilia because it involved post-pubescent boys. No -- it was the liberal-leaning Boston Globe, a paper detested by conservatives, that forced the issue of sexual abuse by priests onto the national agenda.
Rick Santorum could have acknowedged that. He didn't, of course -- bashing liberal coastal cities is considered an exquisite pleasure on the right, and, naturally, he couldn't resist (though I'm sure it was deeply disappointing to him that the most thorough exposure of pedophile priests didn't take place in New York, Hollywood, San Francisco, or Washington, D.C., the cities that are the most enjoyable targets of right-wing contempt).
Yesterday BuzzFlash linked an article Santorum wrote for Catholic Online in July 2002, when sexual abuse by priests was page-one news. Read the entire article, by all means, if you want to be reminded that pleasure-abhorring theocrats are roughly similar the world over, whether they wear turbans or crucifixes -- but I want to point out one sentence that stuck in my craw:
While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm.
This is a disgusting distortion of the truth.
The New York Times reported two and a half months before Santorum's column appeared that there really wasn't a "center" of this scandal:
At least 177 priests suspected of molesting minors have either resigned or been taken off duty in 28 states and the District of Columbia since the clerical sex scandal erupted in January, a nationwide review of Roman Catholic dioceses by The Associated Press found.
The review also showed that in 18 other states, where priests have not been taken off the job, dioceses still have responded to the crisis in a variety of ways. They include turning over allegations to prosecutors, scouring personnel records to see whether old claims were properly handled, and reviewing and publicizing policies for handling complaints.
In the end, the review found only four states -- Arkansas, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming -- where the scandal seems to have had no impact on the way the church operates.
"Priest Scandals Expand Nationwide" was the headline of a Cincinnati Enquirer article at about the same time.
Boston wasn't the epicenter of the problem. Boston was the epicenter of the response to the problem.
And it wasn't the conservative Boston Herald or right-wing talk radio that exposed sexual abuse by priests -- as I noted a few days ago, at least one Herald columnist (quoted here) flogged the right-wing's line that most of the abuse wasn't really pedophilia because it involved post-pubescent boys. No -- it was the liberal-leaning Boston Globe, a paper detested by conservatives, that forced the issue of sexual abuse by priests onto the national agenda.
Rick Santorum could have acknowedged that. He didn't, of course -- bashing liberal coastal cities is considered an exquisite pleasure on the right, and, naturally, he couldn't resist (though I'm sure it was deeply disappointing to him that the most thorough exposure of pedophile priests didn't take place in New York, Hollywood, San Francisco, or Washington, D.C., the cities that are the most enjoyable targets of right-wing contempt).
HISSYFITS FROM PRESIDENT HEATHER
Among members of the UN security council, the principal victim of Washington's displeasure has been Chile, which had been about to sign a free trade agreement with the US.
The deal had been bundled with a similar pact for Singapore, but has since been "unbundled". Singapore's prime minister, Goh Chok Tong, who supported the war, has been asked to the White House to sign his deal next week. Chile is still seeking a date, and the US trade representative, Robert Zoellick, has mused publicly on America's "disappointment" with Chile's attitude in its time of need.
Canada has also been on the receiving end of White House anger. A visit to Ottawa next week has been cancelled, because Mr Bush is too busy. However, time has been found to host Australia's prime minister, John Howard, an enthusiast for the war, at the presidential ranch in Texas.
Tony Garza, US ambassador to Mexico, another security council member that opposed the war, promised his hosts there would be no direct economic reprisals. But, he added: "The fallout will be that things won't happen as quickly as Mexico would like." And this year's Mexican Cinco de Mayo holiday, previously marked by the Bush White House, will be toned down or not held at all.
--Guardian; link via the Rational Enquirer
Among members of the UN security council, the principal victim of Washington's displeasure has been Chile, which had been about to sign a free trade agreement with the US.
The deal had been bundled with a similar pact for Singapore, but has since been "unbundled". Singapore's prime minister, Goh Chok Tong, who supported the war, has been asked to the White House to sign his deal next week. Chile is still seeking a date, and the US trade representative, Robert Zoellick, has mused publicly on America's "disappointment" with Chile's attitude in its time of need.
Canada has also been on the receiving end of White House anger. A visit to Ottawa next week has been cancelled, because Mr Bush is too busy. However, time has been found to host Australia's prime minister, John Howard, an enthusiast for the war, at the presidential ranch in Texas.
Tony Garza, US ambassador to Mexico, another security council member that opposed the war, promised his hosts there would be no direct economic reprisals. But, he added: "The fallout will be that things won't happen as quickly as Mexico would like." And this year's Mexican Cinco de Mayo holiday, previously marked by the Bush White House, will be toned down or not held at all.
--Guardian; link via the Rational Enquirer
Tom at Thinking It Through points out this story, which notes that among the dead in Fallujah are "three boys under 11 years old."
The Guardian has this explanation of the demonstration:
A local Sunni Muslim cleric, Kamal Shaker Mahmoud, told Reuters that the demonstrators had gone to a school occupied by US troops to ask them to leave.
"They were asking the Americans to leave the school so they could use it," he said.
The Guardian has this explanation of the demonstration:
A local Sunni Muslim cleric, Kamal Shaker Mahmoud, told Reuters that the demonstrators had gone to a school occupied by US troops to ask them to leave.
"They were asking the Americans to leave the school so they could use it," he said.
TBOGG looks at the shooting of civilians at Fallujah and responds with what, in a more cynical time, we used to call black humor:
Remember that old line about setting someone free, and if they didn't come back to you, hunting them down and killing them?
Apparently that's our policy in Iraq.
Remember that old line about setting someone free, and if they didn't come back to you, hunting them down and killing them?
Apparently that's our policy in Iraq.
If this, from the CNN story on the shooting of civilians at Fallujah, doesn't send a chill down your spine, you have no human feelings:
One U.S. Army sergeant said he shot at what he saw, "and what I saw was targets. Targets with weapons, and they were going to harm me."
"It's either them or me, and I took the shot, sir, and I'm still here talking to you," he said.
One U.S. Army sergeant said he shot at what he saw, "and what I saw was targets. Targets with weapons, and they were going to harm me."
"It's either them or me, and I took the shot, sir, and I'm still here talking to you," he said.
"Duh!" headline of the moment, from the CNN title screen, regarding the shooting of civilians in Fallujah:
Killings Spark Iraqi Anger
Killings Spark Iraqi Anger
The stories coming out of postwar Iraq are starting to remind me of the news out of inner cities in America in the 1980s and 1990s. I was struck on Sunday by this sentence from a front-page New York Times story:
As some of soldiers from the Army's Third Infantry Division tried to provide medical assistance immediately after the explosions, they were fired on by angry residents, officials said.
This is awfully similar to one of the things urban American firefighters, in particular, complained about in the '80s and '90s -- having to duck rocks and even bullets when rushing to fires.
Of course, this is what can happen when people are poor, hopeless, desperate, and angry, when they don't see any hope for a turnaround, and when they're surrounded by what seems to be an occupying force more concerned with containing them than helping them, a force largely made up of young armed men who don't always have enough patience, maturity, skill, or experience to know when to hold fire -- if the civilians have weapons at their disposal, even just rocks, they lash out. (It should be noted that the incident mentioned above happened after civilians were killed at a blast a Baghdad arms dump that was being guarded by American troops -- it's not hard to understand the anger.)
And now we have the deaths of 12 civilians in Fallujah. U.S. news reports emphasize that U.S. soldiers say people in the crowd fired first. The Guardian, by contrast, says:
US central command in Qatar said troops had shot at armed Iraqis who had fired on the soldiers. Witnesses said that the demonstrators, who had been protesting at a local school, had not been armed. They said that the protest had been peaceful.
Back in the '80s and '90s, stories of inner-city violence between the police and residents were invariably like that -- the cops insisted they'd responded to violent provocation and the residents insisted there'd been no provoking violence.
After Rodney King, Amadou Diallo, and others made front pages, America's police offers learned more restraint. A rising economic tide that briefly lifted most economic boats in the Clinton years reduced tensions as well. I wonder if anything similar could possibly happen in Iraq during our occupation.
This, of course, poses a problem for the American pro-war right. It was easy for rightists to dismiss the concerns of inner-city nonwhites in the '80s and '90s -- either they said (or implied via code words) that nonwhites were inherently uncivilized or they blamed Democrats and "the welfare state" for urban problems. But the rightists are in charge in Iraq now -- no New Dealers or Great Society types or Eurosocialists need apply. And this war was fought to liberate the Iraqi people, so rightists can't blame the Iraqis themselves.
Or can they? I wonder when right-wingers will drop the "noble Iraqi people" line and start saying that those damn ingrates are just, you know, like that, that they're just culturally predisposed to insolence toward even the most virtuous Westerners.
As some of soldiers from the Army's Third Infantry Division tried to provide medical assistance immediately after the explosions, they were fired on by angry residents, officials said.
This is awfully similar to one of the things urban American firefighters, in particular, complained about in the '80s and '90s -- having to duck rocks and even bullets when rushing to fires.
Of course, this is what can happen when people are poor, hopeless, desperate, and angry, when they don't see any hope for a turnaround, and when they're surrounded by what seems to be an occupying force more concerned with containing them than helping them, a force largely made up of young armed men who don't always have enough patience, maturity, skill, or experience to know when to hold fire -- if the civilians have weapons at their disposal, even just rocks, they lash out. (It should be noted that the incident mentioned above happened after civilians were killed at a blast a Baghdad arms dump that was being guarded by American troops -- it's not hard to understand the anger.)
And now we have the deaths of 12 civilians in Fallujah. U.S. news reports emphasize that U.S. soldiers say people in the crowd fired first. The Guardian, by contrast, says:
US central command in Qatar said troops had shot at armed Iraqis who had fired on the soldiers. Witnesses said that the demonstrators, who had been protesting at a local school, had not been armed. They said that the protest had been peaceful.
Back in the '80s and '90s, stories of inner-city violence between the police and residents were invariably like that -- the cops insisted they'd responded to violent provocation and the residents insisted there'd been no provoking violence.
After Rodney King, Amadou Diallo, and others made front pages, America's police offers learned more restraint. A rising economic tide that briefly lifted most economic boats in the Clinton years reduced tensions as well. I wonder if anything similar could possibly happen in Iraq during our occupation.
This, of course, poses a problem for the American pro-war right. It was easy for rightists to dismiss the concerns of inner-city nonwhites in the '80s and '90s -- either they said (or implied via code words) that nonwhites were inherently uncivilized or they blamed Democrats and "the welfare state" for urban problems. But the rightists are in charge in Iraq now -- no New Dealers or Great Society types or Eurosocialists need apply. And this war was fought to liberate the Iraqi people, so rightists can't blame the Iraqis themselves.
Or can they? I wonder when right-wingers will drop the "noble Iraqi people" line and start saying that those damn ingrates are just, you know, like that, that they're just culturally predisposed to insolence toward even the most virtuous Westerners.
Monday, April 28, 2003
If you're following their story, you've probably heard different things about how Natalie Maines's insult of President Bush has affected sales of Dixie Chicks CDs. Entertainment Weekly has the sales totals, and there's been a fairly steep drop.
Pre-Bush insult:
week ending February 9: 114,159
week ending February 16: 170,603 (up after a Saturday Night Live appearance)
week ending February 23: 26,096
week ending March 2: 202,350 (after winning some Grammys)
week ending March 9: 145,788
week ending March 16: 123,952
Post-Bush insult:
week ending March 23: 71,732
week ending March 30: 51,739
week ending April 6: 41,554
week ending April 13: 33,127
week ending April 20: 43,000
So the boycott is working -- though most musicians never sell 30,000 copies of any CD over a lifetime, much less in a week.
(Stats are from the print edition of Entertainment Weekly -- EW's content isn't available online to nonsubscribers.)
*****
Oh, and the Daily Howler asks -- quite properly -- why the Dixie Chicks have to answer for a mild insult of Bush when Jerry Falwell has never been asked to explain why he called Clinton a murderer.
Pre-Bush insult:
week ending February 9: 114,159
week ending February 16: 170,603 (up after a Saturday Night Live appearance)
week ending February 23: 26,096
week ending March 2: 202,350 (after winning some Grammys)
week ending March 9: 145,788
week ending March 16: 123,952
Post-Bush insult:
week ending March 23: 71,732
week ending March 30: 51,739
week ending April 6: 41,554
week ending April 13: 33,127
week ending April 20: 43,000
So the boycott is working -- though most musicians never sell 30,000 copies of any CD over a lifetime, much less in a week.
(Stats are from the print edition of Entertainment Weekly -- EW's content isn't available online to nonsubscribers.)
*****
Oh, and the Daily Howler asks -- quite properly -- why the Dixie Chicks have to answer for a mild insult of Bush when Jerry Falwell has never been asked to explain why he called Clinton a murderer.
Oh, dear ... please tell me he's joking:
According to [Steve] Ross, the idea for Crown Forum [Ross's new all-conservative book imprint, distributed by Random House] grew out of his relationship with one of the group's stars, Ann Coulter, whose "Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right" spent 20 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and sold more than 400,000 copies.
"Ann and I began talking while I was working with her on 'Slander,' which posits the existence of a liberal slant so organic to so many of our American institutions that we don't even recognize it as such," Ross said. "In working with her and thinking about
-- I hope you're sitting down for this --
the meticulous way she made her case, I came to recognize that what she was saying is fundamentally true with regard to book publishing...."
"Meticulous"? "Meticulous"?? Er, I don't think so.
The quote comes from an L.A. Times article about the new imprint (which is called Crown Forum because, I guess, He-Man Liberal-Haters' Club wouldn't fit on the spines of the books). The article gets one or two facts wrong (Free Press is still going strong, as an ideology-free imprint of Simon & Schuster, and was never exclusively conservative -- even in its heyday it published the loony but left-wing Andrea Dworkin). It leaves unchallenged Ross's erroneous statement "Most mainstream houses don't publish any conservative titles at all" (Rush Limbaugh's books were published by a Simon & Schuster imprint; William Bennett has been published by Simon & Schuster, Free Press, and Doubleday; Sean Hannity is a HarperCollins author; David Frum is published by Random House; Peggy Noonan has past or forthcoming books from HarperCollins, Viking Penguin, Random House, and Free Press; Laura Ingraham's Hillary Clinton book was first published by ABC/Disney's Hyperion; etc., etc.). But it does provide this fascinating tidbit, from a book written by Tammy Bruce and published by an earlier iteration of Crown Forum, Forum Prima:
There are all sorts of nasty elites in Bruce's moral schema, including black ones, academic ones and an entertainment one whose "moral depravity is beyond measure." Ozzy Osbourne, by the way, is "a moral terrorist."
Un -f@%&*ing -believable.
According to [Steve] Ross, the idea for Crown Forum [Ross's new all-conservative book imprint, distributed by Random House] grew out of his relationship with one of the group's stars, Ann Coulter, whose "Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right" spent 20 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and sold more than 400,000 copies.
"Ann and I began talking while I was working with her on 'Slander,' which posits the existence of a liberal slant so organic to so many of our American institutions that we don't even recognize it as such," Ross said. "In working with her and thinking about
-- I hope you're sitting down for this --
the meticulous way she made her case, I came to recognize that what she was saying is fundamentally true with regard to book publishing...."
"Meticulous"? "Meticulous"?? Er, I don't think so.
The quote comes from an L.A. Times article about the new imprint (which is called Crown Forum because, I guess, He-Man Liberal-Haters' Club wouldn't fit on the spines of the books). The article gets one or two facts wrong (Free Press is still going strong, as an ideology-free imprint of Simon & Schuster, and was never exclusively conservative -- even in its heyday it published the loony but left-wing Andrea Dworkin). It leaves unchallenged Ross's erroneous statement "Most mainstream houses don't publish any conservative titles at all" (Rush Limbaugh's books were published by a Simon & Schuster imprint; William Bennett has been published by Simon & Schuster, Free Press, and Doubleday; Sean Hannity is a HarperCollins author; David Frum is published by Random House; Peggy Noonan has past or forthcoming books from HarperCollins, Viking Penguin, Random House, and Free Press; Laura Ingraham's Hillary Clinton book was first published by ABC/Disney's Hyperion; etc., etc.). But it does provide this fascinating tidbit, from a book written by Tammy Bruce and published by an earlier iteration of Crown Forum, Forum Prima:
There are all sorts of nasty elites in Bruce's moral schema, including black ones, academic ones and an entertainment one whose "moral depravity is beyond measure." Ozzy Osbourne, by the way, is "a moral terrorist."
Un -f@%&*ing -believable.
This doesn't surprise me:
More civilians are being injured or killed in northern Iraq now than during the war, largely due to the breakdown of law and order and the dangers of abandoned caches of Iraqi arms, a human rights group said Sunday.
The New York-based group Human Rights Watch said it studied civilian injuries and deaths at five hospitals and morgues in the northern cities of Kirkuk and Mosul. Health workers reported daily weapons-related injuries, both intentional and accidental, and many of the victims were children who played with unexploded ordnance, it said.
"In some ways, the peace has proved more lethal than the war," Hania Mufti, the group's London-based Middle East director, said in a statement....
--AP
More civilians are being injured or killed in northern Iraq now than during the war, largely due to the breakdown of law and order and the dangers of abandoned caches of Iraqi arms, a human rights group said Sunday.
The New York-based group Human Rights Watch said it studied civilian injuries and deaths at five hospitals and morgues in the northern cities of Kirkuk and Mosul. Health workers reported daily weapons-related injuries, both intentional and accidental, and many of the victims were children who played with unexploded ordnance, it said.
"In some ways, the peace has proved more lethal than the war," Hania Mufti, the group's London-based Middle East director, said in a statement....
--AP
“It was liberating to take our Republican message -- to take our fight into the belly of the beast,” said Jessica Ochoa, a college Republican from California State University at Long Beach. “Like the Marines rolled into Baghdad a few weeks ago to liberate the city, we rolled into Berkeley ready for a fight.”
--young GOP protester from California quoted after a pro-war demonstration
Yeah, I bet the families of these folks would consider that a really apt comparison.
--young GOP protester from California quoted after a pro-war demonstration
Yeah, I bet the families of these folks would consider that a really apt comparison.
Two governors, one a centrist Democrat, the other an increasingly conservative Republican, both with ballooning deficits and plummeting poll ratings -- yesterday's New York Times had articles about both. In which article was the opening sentence "It is a matter of debate among elected officials and political scientists whether [unpopular governor] is a great leader or merely a great politician"?
Surprise, surprise: It wasn't the article about Gray Davis of California.
Then again, why shouldn't the Times praise the ever-more-Bush-like George Pataki? After all, last November it endorsed him.
Oh, that liberal media....
Surprise, surprise: It wasn't the article about Gray Davis of California.
Then again, why shouldn't the Times praise the ever-more-Bush-like George Pataki? After all, last November it endorsed him.
Oh, that liberal media....
I never got around to reading Paul Berman when he was a real lefty, so it doesn't really bother me that he's now a pro-U.S.-intervention liberal-basher -- he has a much more civil tongue in his head than, say, Christopher Hitchens, and it seemed to me that even as he advocated war by rightists, he wasn't really falling for their demagoguery. Then I read his review of two books on terror in yesterday's New York Times Book Review, one of which, Jean Bethke Elshtain's Just War Against Terror, he praises fulsomely. Why is he falling for crap like this in Elshtain's book?
[Elshtain] notes an inability to listen. Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda have openly expressed their hatred of Christians, Jews and Americans, and their desire for random murder. And yet, in her estimation, all too many people in the universities and in the pulpits profess to be in the dark about Al Qaeda's true intentions, or pretend to know the real reason behind the attack -- some modest, real-world complaint about American or Israeli policies....
She points to the modern reluctance to discuss or even to think about religious motivations. This reluctance, she figures, has made it nearly impossible for many people to take bin Laden and his comrades at their word. The same reluctance in a different version -- the reluctance to think lucidly and carefully about religious motivations -- has contributed, she thinks, to a certain kind of mush-headed sentimentality in antiwar opinion.
I've snipped out two paragraphs and part of a third in what I've quoted above, but go read the full review if you doubt that Berman slides effortlessly, almost unconsciously, from "people in the universities and in the pulpits" to "many [antiwar] people" -- as if lots of people on the left as a whole share the (alleged) tics of academic leftism, specifically an inability to think that Osama bin Laden is an evil guy, or a hater or Jews, or a hater of Americans. I don't hang out with lefty preachers and I know only one or two lefty academics, but I don't know anyone who thinks bin Laden is a nice guy, or who thinks he doesn't hate Americans, or Jews. Do you know anyone that naive?
Berman is easily impressed. Here's his lead:
On Sept. 16, 2001, the first Sunday after the terrorist attacks, Jean Bethke Elshtain listened aghast as a minister instructed his flock: ''It has been a terrible week. But that is no reason to lose your personal dreams! We need to hold on to our own dreams.'' In ''Just War Against Terror,'' she says: ''Thousands dead in Lower Manhattan and at the Pentagon, and this was the best the minister could muster? The disconnect between the words of the sermon and the reality of Ground Zero was stunning.''
I suppose this is jarringly upbeat, but what is leftist or anti-American about it? It seems like a traditional invocation of Positive Mental Attitude -- the sort of thing you heard all the time in the Reagan years. Elshtain might just as easily have expressed horror at this, from a speech made less than two weeks after 9/11:
I ask your continued participation and confidence in the American economy. Terrorists attacked a symbol of American prosperity. They did not touch its source. America is successful because of the hard work, and creativity, and enterprise of our people. These were the true strengths of our economy before September eleventh, and they are our strengths today.
These words are from that noted leftist George W. Bush -- specifically, his September 20, 2001, address to Congress. (Yes, they're very much out of context. I bet the preacher's words are as well.)
I'd need to read Elshtain's book to know how much she does this -- how much she takes out-of-context and unrepresentative words and describes them as representative, how much she hangs the thoughts of an America-bashing few around the necks of everyone else on the left. It's clear from Berman's review, though, that he thinks the worst represent everyone.
By the way, I don't know a lot about Jean Bethke Elshtain, but here's some of the company she keeps: She's on the board of directors of the Women's Freedom Network, where her colleagues include Mona Charen, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Virginia Postrel, Cathy Young, Christina Hoff Sommers, and Abigail Thernstrom. These aren't right-centrists. This is part of the brainiac wing of the far right.
[Elshtain] notes an inability to listen. Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda have openly expressed their hatred of Christians, Jews and Americans, and their desire for random murder. And yet, in her estimation, all too many people in the universities and in the pulpits profess to be in the dark about Al Qaeda's true intentions, or pretend to know the real reason behind the attack -- some modest, real-world complaint about American or Israeli policies....
She points to the modern reluctance to discuss or even to think about religious motivations. This reluctance, she figures, has made it nearly impossible for many people to take bin Laden and his comrades at their word. The same reluctance in a different version -- the reluctance to think lucidly and carefully about religious motivations -- has contributed, she thinks, to a certain kind of mush-headed sentimentality in antiwar opinion.
I've snipped out two paragraphs and part of a third in what I've quoted above, but go read the full review if you doubt that Berman slides effortlessly, almost unconsciously, from "people in the universities and in the pulpits" to "many [antiwar] people" -- as if lots of people on the left as a whole share the (alleged) tics of academic leftism, specifically an inability to think that Osama bin Laden is an evil guy, or a hater or Jews, or a hater of Americans. I don't hang out with lefty preachers and I know only one or two lefty academics, but I don't know anyone who thinks bin Laden is a nice guy, or who thinks he doesn't hate Americans, or Jews. Do you know anyone that naive?
Berman is easily impressed. Here's his lead:
On Sept. 16, 2001, the first Sunday after the terrorist attacks, Jean Bethke Elshtain listened aghast as a minister instructed his flock: ''It has been a terrible week. But that is no reason to lose your personal dreams! We need to hold on to our own dreams.'' In ''Just War Against Terror,'' she says: ''Thousands dead in Lower Manhattan and at the Pentagon, and this was the best the minister could muster? The disconnect between the words of the sermon and the reality of Ground Zero was stunning.''
I suppose this is jarringly upbeat, but what is leftist or anti-American about it? It seems like a traditional invocation of Positive Mental Attitude -- the sort of thing you heard all the time in the Reagan years. Elshtain might just as easily have expressed horror at this, from a speech made less than two weeks after 9/11:
I ask your continued participation and confidence in the American economy. Terrorists attacked a symbol of American prosperity. They did not touch its source. America is successful because of the hard work, and creativity, and enterprise of our people. These were the true strengths of our economy before September eleventh, and they are our strengths today.
These words are from that noted leftist George W. Bush -- specifically, his September 20, 2001, address to Congress. (Yes, they're very much out of context. I bet the preacher's words are as well.)
I'd need to read Elshtain's book to know how much she does this -- how much she takes out-of-context and unrepresentative words and describes them as representative, how much she hangs the thoughts of an America-bashing few around the necks of everyone else on the left. It's clear from Berman's review, though, that he thinks the worst represent everyone.
By the way, I don't know a lot about Jean Bethke Elshtain, but here's some of the company she keeps: She's on the board of directors of the Women's Freedom Network, where her colleagues include Mona Charen, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Virginia Postrel, Cathy Young, Christina Hoff Sommers, and Abigail Thernstrom. These aren't right-centrists. This is part of the brainiac wing of the far right.
SANTORUM: ...In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing. And when you destroy that you have a dramatic impact on the quality --
AP: I'm sorry, I didn't think I was going to talk about "man on dog" with a United States senator, it's sort of freaking me out.
--exchange in Rick Santorum's recent AP interview
Have you been wondering why, when homosexuality was brought up, Senator Santorum's thoughts quickly turned to interspecies sex? Maybe he's been reading Dinesh D'Souza:
Letters to a Young Conservative takes the form of an epistolary exchange, a la Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet or C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters. Each chapter is formulated as a response to a curious young man, Chris, whose nascent conservative ideology is being regularly tested by the forces of liberalism and relativism infecting his university....
Faced with a smoothly articulate gay-marriage proponent? Simply flip to Chapter 23, and watch your adversary slink away to his den of iniquity when you show him how the official sanction of same-sex unions would inevitably lead us down the slippery slope toward legally recognized polygamy, incest and bestiality.
--review of Dinesh D'Souza's most recent book
When you look into it, it appears that D'Souza is rather obsessed with this subject; it almost seems that every time intimacy crosses his mind, the familiar laundry list of transgressions, animal love notably included, floods his synapses, like cusswords on a Touretter's tongue. This is from a snotty article D'Souza wrote for National Review last November, "A Solution for the Democrats: How to Win Next Time":
But what is the need for this coyness? The Democrats should stop hiding behind "freedom of choice" and become blatant advocates for divorce, illegitimacy, adultery, homosexuality, bestiality, and pornography.
Of course, D'Souza virtually made his name invoking man-on-beast love. As Kevin Powers wrote recently in the right-wing newspaper The Minuteman,
While Dinesh D’Souza attended Dartmouth College, he started the Dartmouth Bestiality Club in response to a homosexual club that was formed and funded by the college.
Strange guy.
AP: I'm sorry, I didn't think I was going to talk about "man on dog" with a United States senator, it's sort of freaking me out.
--exchange in Rick Santorum's recent AP interview
Have you been wondering why, when homosexuality was brought up, Senator Santorum's thoughts quickly turned to interspecies sex? Maybe he's been reading Dinesh D'Souza:
Letters to a Young Conservative takes the form of an epistolary exchange, a la Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet or C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters. Each chapter is formulated as a response to a curious young man, Chris, whose nascent conservative ideology is being regularly tested by the forces of liberalism and relativism infecting his university....
Faced with a smoothly articulate gay-marriage proponent? Simply flip to Chapter 23, and watch your adversary slink away to his den of iniquity when you show him how the official sanction of same-sex unions would inevitably lead us down the slippery slope toward legally recognized polygamy, incest and bestiality.
--review of Dinesh D'Souza's most recent book
When you look into it, it appears that D'Souza is rather obsessed with this subject; it almost seems that every time intimacy crosses his mind, the familiar laundry list of transgressions, animal love notably included, floods his synapses, like cusswords on a Touretter's tongue. This is from a snotty article D'Souza wrote for National Review last November, "A Solution for the Democrats: How to Win Next Time":
But what is the need for this coyness? The Democrats should stop hiding behind "freedom of choice" and become blatant advocates for divorce, illegitimacy, adultery, homosexuality, bestiality, and pornography.
Of course, D'Souza virtually made his name invoking man-on-beast love. As Kevin Powers wrote recently in the right-wing newspaper The Minuteman,
While Dinesh D’Souza attended Dartmouth College, he started the Dartmouth Bestiality Club in response to a homosexual club that was formed and funded by the college.
Strange guy.
Sunday, April 27, 2003
FOUND POETRY OF THE NEO-FASCISTS
Some small
pitiful
upheavals,
some small
sourness.
Talent always
creates some
irritations.
--Jean-Marie Le Pen dismissing criticism of his decision to make his daughter a vice president in his party, as quoted in The New York Times, 4/27/03
Some small
pitiful
upheavals,
some small
sourness.
Talent always
creates some
irritations.
--Jean-Marie Le Pen dismissing criticism of his decision to make his daughter a vice president in his party, as quoted in The New York Times, 4/27/03
Friday, April 25, 2003
Last week there was a Field poll showing that if the '04 election were held now, Bush would win California; this week there's a Quinnipiac poll showing that if the '04 election were held now, Bush would win New York.
Sigh.
I know I'm not supposed to worry -- Shrub's approval rating is nearly twenty points lower than Poppy's after Gulf War I, and Poppy lost in '92. I wish that reassured me, but it doesn't. Gulf War I was a one-shot deal -- afterward we were supposed to be at peace, and peace is what Poppy couldn't manage. Now, by contrast, we're in a state of permanent war, or we think we are; all domestic woes can be blamed on 9/11 and the ever-lengthening list of Antichrist states (one of which, I firmly believe, will monopolize all political talk throughout the '04 campaign, after the Bushies move this state -- whichever one it is -- to the top of the agenda, while demonizing all skeptics who dare to suggest that it's not a clear and present danger). I just don't see a way past this by '04. (I'm looking ahead to '06 -- by that time it will probably seem as if we've been at war, and in recession and debt, forever. Bush Fatigue may really set in with a vengeance.)
Sigh.
I know I'm not supposed to worry -- Shrub's approval rating is nearly twenty points lower than Poppy's after Gulf War I, and Poppy lost in '92. I wish that reassured me, but it doesn't. Gulf War I was a one-shot deal -- afterward we were supposed to be at peace, and peace is what Poppy couldn't manage. Now, by contrast, we're in a state of permanent war, or we think we are; all domestic woes can be blamed on 9/11 and the ever-lengthening list of Antichrist states (one of which, I firmly believe, will monopolize all political talk throughout the '04 campaign, after the Bushies move this state -- whichever one it is -- to the top of the agenda, while demonizing all skeptics who dare to suggest that it's not a clear and present danger). I just don't see a way past this by '04. (I'm looking ahead to '06 -- by that time it will probably seem as if we've been at war, and in recession and debt, forever. Bush Fatigue may really set in with a vengeance.)
The real shadow government -- the one that hides in plain sight and is made up of current and former Defense Policy Board honchos, not the one we were worried about last year, which was probably just made up of midlevel bureaucrats -- has reared its ugly head again: Earlier this week it was Newt Gingrich sniping at the State Department; now it's Richard Perle yet again holding forth as if he's the secretary of state, defense secretary, national security adviser and commander-in-chief all rolled into one:
Pentagon adviser Richard Perle, a key architect of the U.S.-led drive to topple Saddam Hussein, was quoted on Friday as saying Washington would pursue other states in its crackdown on global terrorism.
"The military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq are part of efforts to fight against terrorism," Perle told the French newspaper Les Echos.
"We are not going to stop there. We shall continue to fight against countries who harbor terrorists and develop weapons of mass destruction."...
"We"? Excuse me, Richard, you don't work for the government anymore.
Do you?
Pentagon adviser Richard Perle, a key architect of the U.S.-led drive to topple Saddam Hussein, was quoted on Friday as saying Washington would pursue other states in its crackdown on global terrorism.
"The military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq are part of efforts to fight against terrorism," Perle told the French newspaper Les Echos.
"We are not going to stop there. We shall continue to fight against countries who harbor terrorists and develop weapons of mass destruction."...
"We"? Excuse me, Richard, you don't work for the government anymore.
Do you?
PAY NO ATTENTION TO THIS
A firefight near the Pakistan border in Afghanistan's Paktika province killed two U.S. soldiers Friday and wounded several others, including at least one Afghan soldier, U.S. Central Command said.
All the wounded have been transported to facilities in Bagram.
In a statement, Central Command said that a platoon-size group was investigating suspicious activity near a rocket launch site "previously used by enemy forces." ...
--CNN
A firefight near the Pakistan border in Afghanistan's Paktika province killed two U.S. soldiers Friday and wounded several others, including at least one Afghan soldier, U.S. Central Command said.
All the wounded have been transported to facilities in Bagram.
In a statement, Central Command said that a platoon-size group was investigating suspicious activity near a rocket launch site "previously used by enemy forces." ...
--CNN
Bush is gay-inclusive, counting Northeastern liberal Republicans among his closest allies, installing a pro-gay moderate, Marc Racicot, as party chairman, and avoiding any difficult showdowns on the subject.
--gay conservative Andrew Sullivan, praising George W. Bush in The Sunday Times of London, 11/10/01
The White House said GOP Sen. Rick Santorum is doing a good job as party leader and is "an inclusive man," despite his controversial remarks on homosexuality.
"The president has confidence in the senator and believes he's doing a good job as senator" and in his No. 3 Senate GOP leadership post, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Friday.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Santorum compared homosexuality to bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery. He also said the right to privacy does not exist in the Constitution.
"The president believes the senator is an inclusive man. And that's what he believes," Fleischer said.
--AP, late this morning
--gay conservative Andrew Sullivan, praising George W. Bush in The Sunday Times of London, 11/10/01
The White House said GOP Sen. Rick Santorum is doing a good job as party leader and is "an inclusive man," despite his controversial remarks on homosexuality.
"The president has confidence in the senator and believes he's doing a good job as senator" and in his No. 3 Senate GOP leadership post, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Friday.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Santorum compared homosexuality to bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery. He also said the right to privacy does not exist in the Constitution.
"The president believes the senator is an inclusive man. And that's what he believes," Fleischer said.
--AP, late this morning
This is bizarre....
A planned Texas A&M University campus in the Middle Eastern nation of Qatar could open by the fall.
The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board on Thursday approved a regional A&M campus in the capital city of Doha that would award A&M engineering degrees to students from Middle Eastern countries.
Doha is the site of the U.S. Central Command in the war with Iraq.
The nonprofit Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, founded in 1995 by a decree of the Emir of Qatar, is funding the project. It has also covered A&M's costs for the preliminary discussions, including three trips to the Middle East for university officials, said David Prior, A&M's interim executive vice president and provost. A 10-year agreement could be signed in June, Prior said.
The Qatar Foundation first approached A&M in 2001....
--Austin American-Statesman
Maybe Qatar, not Iraq, is destined to be the 51st state -- or maybe Texas will just annex it.
I still have a sneaking suspicion that Qatar is going to be the friend-turned-foe that we, sadly, "have" to invade ten or fifteen years from now. Recall this, from The New York Times last February, about Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, an al-Qaeda operative cited in Colin Powell's presentation to the U.N.:
Mr. Powell withheld some critical details today, like the discovery by the intelligence agencies that a member of the royal family in Qatar, an important ally providing air bases and a command headquarters for the American military, operated a safe house for Mr. Zarqawi when he transited the country going in and out of Afghanistan.
The Qatari royal family member was Abdul Karim al-Thani, the coalition official said. The official added that Mr. al-Thani provided Qatari passports and more than $1 million in a special bank account to finance the network....
Private support from prominent Qataris to Al Qaeda is a sensitive issue that is said to infuriate George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence. After the Sept. 11 attacks, another senior Qaeda operative, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who may have been the principal planner of the assault on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, was said by Saudi intelligence officials to have spent two weeks in late 2001 hiding in Qatar, with the help of prominent patrons, after he escaped from Kuwait.
But with Qatar providing the United States military with its most significant air operations center for action against Iraq, the Pentagon has cautioned against a strong diplomatic response from Washington, American and coalition officials say.
A planned Texas A&M University campus in the Middle Eastern nation of Qatar could open by the fall.
The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board on Thursday approved a regional A&M campus in the capital city of Doha that would award A&M engineering degrees to students from Middle Eastern countries.
Doha is the site of the U.S. Central Command in the war with Iraq.
The nonprofit Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, founded in 1995 by a decree of the Emir of Qatar, is funding the project. It has also covered A&M's costs for the preliminary discussions, including three trips to the Middle East for university officials, said David Prior, A&M's interim executive vice president and provost. A 10-year agreement could be signed in June, Prior said.
The Qatar Foundation first approached A&M in 2001....
--Austin American-Statesman
Maybe Qatar, not Iraq, is destined to be the 51st state -- or maybe Texas will just annex it.
I still have a sneaking suspicion that Qatar is going to be the friend-turned-foe that we, sadly, "have" to invade ten or fifteen years from now. Recall this, from The New York Times last February, about Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, an al-Qaeda operative cited in Colin Powell's presentation to the U.N.:
Mr. Powell withheld some critical details today, like the discovery by the intelligence agencies that a member of the royal family in Qatar, an important ally providing air bases and a command headquarters for the American military, operated a safe house for Mr. Zarqawi when he transited the country going in and out of Afghanistan.
The Qatari royal family member was Abdul Karim al-Thani, the coalition official said. The official added that Mr. al-Thani provided Qatari passports and more than $1 million in a special bank account to finance the network....
Private support from prominent Qataris to Al Qaeda is a sensitive issue that is said to infuriate George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence. After the Sept. 11 attacks, another senior Qaeda operative, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who may have been the principal planner of the assault on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, was said by Saudi intelligence officials to have spent two weeks in late 2001 hiding in Qatar, with the help of prominent patrons, after he escaped from Kuwait.
But with Qatar providing the United States military with its most significant air operations center for action against Iraq, the Pentagon has cautioned against a strong diplomatic response from Washington, American and coalition officials say.
Iraq, we keep hearing, is "getting back to normal." Here's what "getting back to normal" means in one Baghdad neighborhood, according to a reporter from The Guardian:
It was not a bad day for Saddam City, so far as it goes. A neighbourly dispute sent a bullet tearing through the gut and pelvic bones of a 12-year-old. A junior Shia cleric with a whisp of a beard roamed a hospital, hectoring female nurses and doctors to wear hijab while the director tried to find his way through an emergency that never came up at Baghdad Medical College -- should he use his last remaining cylinder of oxygen to operate on an eight-year-old boy, or wait to see what other miseries the morning would bring?
Outside, goats fed on mounds of rubbish, and gunfire crackled in the alleys between the low, mean houses. "Maybe they are celebrating because the electricity came back on," said a passer-by. "Maybe this is good shooting."
Good shooting, or bad shooting, it continues.
Two weeks after American troops took control of Baghdad and the world thought the war had ended, the gunfire goes on, and Iraqis get killed and injured at the rate of several dozen every day. When the lights came back to Saddam City for the first time in more than a fortnight, the hospital received seven gunshot victims. A woman in her late teens died from a bullet in the neck; a boy, about 12, and a girl, about 10, still had bullets lodged in their brains. Nobody recorded their names.
Somehow I think the fact that we're making our way through that frigging deck of evildoer cards is not going to help these people much.
(Link from the Rational Enquirer.)
It was not a bad day for Saddam City, so far as it goes. A neighbourly dispute sent a bullet tearing through the gut and pelvic bones of a 12-year-old. A junior Shia cleric with a whisp of a beard roamed a hospital, hectoring female nurses and doctors to wear hijab while the director tried to find his way through an emergency that never came up at Baghdad Medical College -- should he use his last remaining cylinder of oxygen to operate on an eight-year-old boy, or wait to see what other miseries the morning would bring?
Outside, goats fed on mounds of rubbish, and gunfire crackled in the alleys between the low, mean houses. "Maybe they are celebrating because the electricity came back on," said a passer-by. "Maybe this is good shooting."
Good shooting, or bad shooting, it continues.
Two weeks after American troops took control of Baghdad and the world thought the war had ended, the gunfire goes on, and Iraqis get killed and injured at the rate of several dozen every day. When the lights came back to Saddam City for the first time in more than a fortnight, the hospital received seven gunshot victims. A woman in her late teens died from a bullet in the neck; a boy, about 12, and a girl, about 10, still had bullets lodged in their brains. Nobody recorded their names.
Somehow I think the fact that we're making our way through that frigging deck of evildoer cards is not going to help these people much.
(Link from the Rational Enquirer.)
From a New York Times article about Tom Brokaw's interview with President Bush, which will be broadcast on NBC tonight:
Mr. Bush ... said he had some initial concerns about the first blow of the war, his last-minute decision to bomb a home in Baghdad where an agent had reported that Mr. Hussein and his sons might be spending the night.
"I was hesitant at first, to be frank with you," Mr. Bush said, "because I was worried that the first pictures coming out of Iraq would be a wounded grandchild of Saddam Hussein."
Isn't that nice? He doesn't say he was worried that a child would be the first person injured by U.S. weapons. He says he worried that the world would see a child injured by U.S. weapons. He wasn't worried about who would be hurt. He was worried about how it would look.
Compassionate conservatism.
Mr. Bush ... said he had some initial concerns about the first blow of the war, his last-minute decision to bomb a home in Baghdad where an agent had reported that Mr. Hussein and his sons might be spending the night.
"I was hesitant at first, to be frank with you," Mr. Bush said, "because I was worried that the first pictures coming out of Iraq would be a wounded grandchild of Saddam Hussein."
Isn't that nice? He doesn't say he was worried that a child would be the first person injured by U.S. weapons. He says he worried that the world would see a child injured by U.S. weapons. He wasn't worried about who would be hurt. He was worried about how it would look.
Compassionate conservatism.
Arthur Silber points out that Rick Santorum hangs out with the folks at Opus Dei. Why am I not surprised?
According to the National Catholic Reporter, Santorum attended the congress in Rome that commemorated Opus Dei's 100th anniversary -- "Santorum told NCR he is not a member of Opus Dei, but an admirer of [the group's founder, Josemaria] Escriva."
I'm not sure this really means he's not a member. As Time, among others, has noted, the group is closed-mouthed about the identity of its members.
Escriva became a saint in 2002. Here's some background information from an article that appeared in The Guardian at the time of the canonization:
Escriva's ultra-conservative movement, which recruited many of its members from Spain's wealthy and powerful families, flourished under Franco and eventually provided ministers to his governments.
Opus Dei's 84,000 members around the world deny he actively supported Franco - though Escriva went into hiding to avoid anti-clerical factions in Republican Spain when the civil war broke out in 1936.
...former members have complained that Opus Dei, whose extreme members expiate sins by committing self-flagellation, exercises a cult-like control over followers.
Members are divided into two groups. Supernumerary followers can marry, have families and are expected to lead exemplary lives. A small number of members take vows of chastity, live in sex-segregated communities and give much of their income to Opus....
Jesus Ynfante, author of the critical Founding Saint of Opus Dei, says that [Escriva] was an unashamed fascist. "He had Madrid under his control, starting with the dictator. Under Franco the clerical fascism of Opus Dei won out over the true fascism of the Falange [political party]," he wrote....
Oh yeah, about that flagellation -- this is from another National Catholic Reporter article, one that's quite sympathetic to Escriva:
I read a new biography by Italian journalist Andrea Tornielli, Vatican writer for the local paper Il Giornale and someone with whom I’ve shared papal travel. He describes a moment in 1937, in Madrid during the Spanish civil war, when Escriva and his early band of followers were stuck in the city’s Honduran consulate (their previous hiding place from the Republican anti-clerical forces having been a madhouse). Typically, Tornielli writes, Escriva would ask for the use of the bedroom alone when it was time for his spiritual practices. Once, however, his chief aide, Fr. Alvaro del Portillo (who would later succeed Escriva as head of Opus Dei), was sick and could not leave the room. Escriva thus told Portillo to cover his head with his blanket. Portillo described what followed: “Soon I began to hear the forceful blows of his discipline. I will never forget the number: there were more than a thousand terrible blows, precisely timed, and always inflicted with the same force and the same rhythm. The floor was covered with blood, but he cleaned it up before the others came in.”
And Opus Dei members practice "corporal mortification" to this day, as the Opus Dei Awareness Network notes. Some techniques:
Cilice : a spiked chain worn around the upper thigh for two hours each day, except for Church feast days, Sundays, and certain times of the year. This is perhaps the most shocking of the corporal mortifications, and generally Opus Dei members are extremely hesitant to admit that they use them. It is a painful mortification which leaves small prick holes in the flesh, and makes the Opus Dei members tentative about wearing swim suits wherever non-Opus Dei members may be.
Discipline : a cord-like whip which resembles macrame, used on the buttocks or back once a week. Opus Dei members must ask permission to use it more often, which many do. The story is often told in Opus Dei that the Founder was so zealous in using the discipline, he splattered the bathroom walls with streaks of blood.
Remember -- Rick Santorum thinks normal lovemaking between two men is weird, but this is OK.
(Thanks to Atrios for the first link.)
According to the National Catholic Reporter, Santorum attended the congress in Rome that commemorated Opus Dei's 100th anniversary -- "Santorum told NCR he is not a member of Opus Dei, but an admirer of [the group's founder, Josemaria] Escriva."
I'm not sure this really means he's not a member. As Time, among others, has noted, the group is closed-mouthed about the identity of its members.
Escriva became a saint in 2002. Here's some background information from an article that appeared in The Guardian at the time of the canonization:
Escriva's ultra-conservative movement, which recruited many of its members from Spain's wealthy and powerful families, flourished under Franco and eventually provided ministers to his governments.
Opus Dei's 84,000 members around the world deny he actively supported Franco - though Escriva went into hiding to avoid anti-clerical factions in Republican Spain when the civil war broke out in 1936.
...former members have complained that Opus Dei, whose extreme members expiate sins by committing self-flagellation, exercises a cult-like control over followers.
Members are divided into two groups. Supernumerary followers can marry, have families and are expected to lead exemplary lives. A small number of members take vows of chastity, live in sex-segregated communities and give much of their income to Opus....
Jesus Ynfante, author of the critical Founding Saint of Opus Dei, says that [Escriva] was an unashamed fascist. "He had Madrid under his control, starting with the dictator. Under Franco the clerical fascism of Opus Dei won out over the true fascism of the Falange [political party]," he wrote....
Oh yeah, about that flagellation -- this is from another National Catholic Reporter article, one that's quite sympathetic to Escriva:
I read a new biography by Italian journalist Andrea Tornielli, Vatican writer for the local paper Il Giornale and someone with whom I’ve shared papal travel. He describes a moment in 1937, in Madrid during the Spanish civil war, when Escriva and his early band of followers were stuck in the city’s Honduran consulate (their previous hiding place from the Republican anti-clerical forces having been a madhouse). Typically, Tornielli writes, Escriva would ask for the use of the bedroom alone when it was time for his spiritual practices. Once, however, his chief aide, Fr. Alvaro del Portillo (who would later succeed Escriva as head of Opus Dei), was sick and could not leave the room. Escriva thus told Portillo to cover his head with his blanket. Portillo described what followed: “Soon I began to hear the forceful blows of his discipline. I will never forget the number: there were more than a thousand terrible blows, precisely timed, and always inflicted with the same force and the same rhythm. The floor was covered with blood, but he cleaned it up before the others came in.”
And Opus Dei members practice "corporal mortification" to this day, as the Opus Dei Awareness Network notes. Some techniques:
Cilice : a spiked chain worn around the upper thigh for two hours each day, except for Church feast days, Sundays, and certain times of the year. This is perhaps the most shocking of the corporal mortifications, and generally Opus Dei members are extremely hesitant to admit that they use them. It is a painful mortification which leaves small prick holes in the flesh, and makes the Opus Dei members tentative about wearing swim suits wherever non-Opus Dei members may be.
Discipline : a cord-like whip which resembles macrame, used on the buttocks or back once a week. Opus Dei members must ask permission to use it more often, which many do. The story is often told in Opus Dei that the Founder was so zealous in using the discipline, he splattered the bathroom walls with streaks of blood.
Remember -- Rick Santorum thinks normal lovemaking between two men is weird, but this is OK.
(Thanks to Atrios for the first link.)
Thursday, April 24, 2003
I suggest anyone having a problem with this war go talk to the Iraqi's. Ask them if they prefer freedom (even at the price of, initially having what seems to be chaos), or if they prefer Saddam Hussein come back and reinstates the old ways.
I DARE anyone to say the Iraqi's were better off before, under Hussein.
--Gene Simmons of KISS, at genesimmons.com, 4/17/03
"I want to say that we hate America," said Ahid Alah, a 39-year-old mother of five who had turned up with the throng at the Abu Hanifa mosque in the Adhmya quarter of Baghdad and expressly elbowed her way to an American journalist....
"When you see a U.S. Marine," I asked the mother, "what goes through your mind?"
"I cross the street and ask God to take America out of Iraq," she replied. "Saddam is better than the U.S. He is our president."
--report from Baghdad by Tish Durkin in the current New York Observer
Go ahead, Gene -- go to Baghdad and kick Ahid Alah's ass.
(Or maybe you can deal with her in the usual charming way you deal with women who disagree with you.)
I DARE anyone to say the Iraqi's were better off before, under Hussein.
--Gene Simmons of KISS, at genesimmons.com, 4/17/03
"I want to say that we hate America," said Ahid Alah, a 39-year-old mother of five who had turned up with the throng at the Abu Hanifa mosque in the Adhmya quarter of Baghdad and expressly elbowed her way to an American journalist....
"When you see a U.S. Marine," I asked the mother, "what goes through your mind?"
"I cross the street and ask God to take America out of Iraq," she replied. "Saddam is better than the U.S. He is our president."
--report from Baghdad by Tish Durkin in the current New York Observer
Go ahead, Gene -- go to Baghdad and kick Ahid Alah's ass.
(Or maybe you can deal with her in the usual charming way you deal with women who disagree with you.)
The Anti-Antiphrasist (which now has links, by the way, and is now on my blogroll) points to the blog of Steve Bates, the Yellow Doggerel Democrat, who was recently called for jury service in a Texas capital-murder case and had to answer quite a few questions he found disturbing. Some -- the ones asking about relationships to lawyers, prosecutors, and psychiatrists -- seem familiar to me from jury duty here in New York; others strike me as rather intrusive:
* Would you consider yourself liberal, moderate or conservative?
* Do you have a political affiliation?
* Do you have any relationship with the ACLU?
* What is your religious affiliation?
* What political action groups do you belong to?
* What bumper stickers are on your car?
The questionnaire also asked,
* Have you, a relative or a close friend ever had an unpleasant experience with a black person?
Black jurors received a questionnaire with the same question.
*******
The Anti-Antiphrasist also notes this analysis of an Iraq crowd photo from London's Evening Standard. Subtle, but I agree -- I think it was doctored.
* Would you consider yourself liberal, moderate or conservative?
* Do you have a political affiliation?
* Do you have any relationship with the ACLU?
* What is your religious affiliation?
* What political action groups do you belong to?
* What bumper stickers are on your car?
The questionnaire also asked,
* Have you, a relative or a close friend ever had an unpleasant experience with a black person?
Black jurors received a questionnaire with the same question.
*******
The Anti-Antiphrasist also notes this analysis of an Iraq crowd photo from London's Evening Standard. Subtle, but I agree -- I think it was doctored.
One more Publishers Lunch announcement I should have mentioned yesterday in my "What liberal book business?" post: Plume, a division of the big U.S./U.K. publisher Penguin Putnam, will soon bring us
Slate's line of current events-oriented paperback originals, beginning with Christopher Hitchens' A LONG SHORT WAR: THE POSTPONED LIBERATION OF IRAQ, drawn from his Fighting Words columns and amplified with significant additional material, ... in June 2003
Oh boy. I can't wait.
This will be
followed by Will Saletan's FIELD GUIDE TO THE CANDIDATES, an irreverent, no-nonsense guide "for smart readers who want to know more about the candidates than the conventional media has seen fit to print" ....
I think some people think Saletan is a liberal. Saletan calls himself a "lifestyle conservative" -- whatever the hell that means. Priggishly, when he offered tempered praise for Maryland Democrat Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the first specific issue that came to mind for him was "She's against state-promoted gambling." Feh.
Slate's line of current events-oriented paperback originals, beginning with Christopher Hitchens' A LONG SHORT WAR: THE POSTPONED LIBERATION OF IRAQ, drawn from his Fighting Words columns and amplified with significant additional material, ... in June 2003
Oh boy. I can't wait.
This will be
followed by Will Saletan's FIELD GUIDE TO THE CANDIDATES, an irreverent, no-nonsense guide "for smart readers who want to know more about the candidates than the conventional media has seen fit to print" ....
I think some people think Saletan is a liberal. Saletan calls himself a "lifestyle conservative" -- whatever the hell that means. Priggishly, when he offered tempered praise for Maryland Democrat Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the first specific issue that came to mind for him was "She's against state-promoted gambling." Feh.
On Monday I cited a Financial Times story that said the "government" of Mohamed Mohsen al-Zubaidi, the self-declared mayor of Baghdad, was "backed by the Iraqi National Congress." Yesterday The Independent reported the following:
Zaab Sethna, an INC spokesman, said yesterday that Mr Zubaidi was not speaking or acting on behalf of the organisation. "He was a former intelligence operative with the INC and his work was very successful," Mr Sethna said. "He operated out of Lebanon and Syria and ran networks in Iraq. He penetrated the Iraqi government at many levels."
He added: "On 8 April he came to Baghdad and the next thing we heard he was making all these statements saying he was speaking for the INC. He came to see us yesterday and he was told to stop saying he was INC. He does not represent the INC."
I saw Zubaidi on ABC news last night. He was pressing the flesh like a veteran pol, and a lot of people were smiling back at him. At that point I started to think my post on Monday was wrong -- a guy who worked for the INC couldn't possibly be that popular in Iraq.
(Link via the Rational Enquirer.)
Zaab Sethna, an INC spokesman, said yesterday that Mr Zubaidi was not speaking or acting on behalf of the organisation. "He was a former intelligence operative with the INC and his work was very successful," Mr Sethna said. "He operated out of Lebanon and Syria and ran networks in Iraq. He penetrated the Iraqi government at many levels."
He added: "On 8 April he came to Baghdad and the next thing we heard he was making all these statements saying he was speaking for the INC. He came to see us yesterday and he was told to stop saying he was INC. He does not represent the INC."
I saw Zubaidi on ABC news last night. He was pressing the flesh like a veteran pol, and a lot of people were smiling back at him. At that point I started to think my post on Monday was wrong -- a guy who worked for the INC couldn't possibly be that popular in Iraq.
(Link via the Rational Enquirer.)
All liberal women are frumpy, humorless, hairy-legged prudes.
Not.
The Dixie Chicks definitely won this round.
(But is it true that National Review is going to respond by doing a version of this cover with Christopher Hitchens?)
Not.
The Dixie Chicks definitely won this round.
(But is it true that National Review is going to respond by doing a version of this cover with Christopher Hitchens?)
Wednesday, April 23, 2003
When you and I heard about the priests who abused boys under the age of consent, we thought it was child molestation -- the work of predators. Senator Rick Santorum thought,
In this case, what we're talking about, basically, is priests who were having sexual relations with post-pubescent men. We're not talking about priests with 3-year-olds, or 5-year-olds. We're talking about a basic homosexual relationship.
Where did he get that idea? From people like National Review's Rod Dreher:
The media will strain to avoid making the connection, for fear of being accused of homophobia. But this scandal cannot be understood and honestly dealt with in its absence....what we're seeing with priests is not pedophilia, which is a deep-seated psychological illness. What we're seeing is gay men who cannot or will not keep their pants up around teenage boys. Not teenage girls. Teenage boys.
You cannot blame people for asking if there's something about the culture of homosexuality in the Catholic priesthood that fosters this phenomenon....
A March 6, 2002, column by Joe Fitzgerald in the right-wing Boston Herald (quoted here) makes the distinction more explicit. Fitzgerald recounts a suspiciously unconversational-sounding discussion he says he had with a priest:
“Thanks for returning my call,” he said. “I have a take on what’s happening now, something no one else seems anxious to get into, including the people in your business whom I’m angry at, too. The papers keep talking about pedophilia. That’s the wrong word. The real issue here is homosexuality. It’s usually heterosexuals who are pedophiles, which is a psychological disorder that has something to do with arrested development, sending them back to an age where they last felt comfortable, identifying with someone who reminds them of themselves.”
“Where are you getting this from?” he was asked.
“From friends who are psychologists. John Geoghan? Sure, he was a pedophile. But of all the guys whose names we’re reading now, no more than a couple were pedophiles, a percentage probably consistent with the general population. The majority of these victims were not prepubescent; they were young teens, so it had nothing to do with pedophilia. It’s technically called ephebophilia, which is almost exclusively homosexual, and it isn’t about comfort; it’s about sex. The media don’t like talking about this because, by and large, they have come down on the side of gay rights, the advancement of the gay agenda, so there would be an uncomfortability because, again and again, gays are saying, ‘We’re no threat to children; that’s why we should be Boy Scout leaders, why we should be teachers, why we should be able to adopt.’ That’s always their justification for interactions with young people.”
"Ephebophile" and "ephebophilia" are terms that were popularized by an academic named Philip Jenkins; these terms were seized on by those who didn't want the Catholic Church to take responsibility for the harm done by its priests. Garry Wills has been the most passionate debunker of Jenkins (unfortunately his New York Review of Books article "Priests and Boys" is not part of NYRB's free archive). On this issue, Andrew Sullivan is also on the right side; he wrote in his blog on May 28, 2002:
The use of the term ephebophilia has been insisted upon by some Church conservatives for several reasons, it seems to me. It can help make the scandal seem less appalling to the general public (so helping to exculpate the hierarchy); it can help shift the onus of responsibility away from the abusers and toward the victims (arguments like "those teenagers were complicit," etc.); and it is a way to insist that this scandal is not about the abuse of minors or the abuse of power to cover such assaults up, but is in fact a function of the dreaded homosexuals, "conspiring" ... to destroy the Church.
Sullivan, of course, doesn't associate homosexuals with liberalism. But Santorum does.
In this case, what we're talking about, basically, is priests who were having sexual relations with post-pubescent men. We're not talking about priests with 3-year-olds, or 5-year-olds. We're talking about a basic homosexual relationship.
Where did he get that idea? From people like National Review's Rod Dreher:
The media will strain to avoid making the connection, for fear of being accused of homophobia. But this scandal cannot be understood and honestly dealt with in its absence....what we're seeing with priests is not pedophilia, which is a deep-seated psychological illness. What we're seeing is gay men who cannot or will not keep their pants up around teenage boys. Not teenage girls. Teenage boys.
You cannot blame people for asking if there's something about the culture of homosexuality in the Catholic priesthood that fosters this phenomenon....
A March 6, 2002, column by Joe Fitzgerald in the right-wing Boston Herald (quoted here) makes the distinction more explicit. Fitzgerald recounts a suspiciously unconversational-sounding discussion he says he had with a priest:
“Thanks for returning my call,” he said. “I have a take on what’s happening now, something no one else seems anxious to get into, including the people in your business whom I’m angry at, too. The papers keep talking about pedophilia. That’s the wrong word. The real issue here is homosexuality. It’s usually heterosexuals who are pedophiles, which is a psychological disorder that has something to do with arrested development, sending them back to an age where they last felt comfortable, identifying with someone who reminds them of themselves.”
“Where are you getting this from?” he was asked.
“From friends who are psychologists. John Geoghan? Sure, he was a pedophile. But of all the guys whose names we’re reading now, no more than a couple were pedophiles, a percentage probably consistent with the general population. The majority of these victims were not prepubescent; they were young teens, so it had nothing to do with pedophilia. It’s technically called ephebophilia, which is almost exclusively homosexual, and it isn’t about comfort; it’s about sex. The media don’t like talking about this because, by and large, they have come down on the side of gay rights, the advancement of the gay agenda, so there would be an uncomfortability because, again and again, gays are saying, ‘We’re no threat to children; that’s why we should be Boy Scout leaders, why we should be teachers, why we should be able to adopt.’ That’s always their justification for interactions with young people.”
"Ephebophile" and "ephebophilia" are terms that were popularized by an academic named Philip Jenkins; these terms were seized on by those who didn't want the Catholic Church to take responsibility for the harm done by its priests. Garry Wills has been the most passionate debunker of Jenkins (unfortunately his New York Review of Books article "Priests and Boys" is not part of NYRB's free archive). On this issue, Andrew Sullivan is also on the right side; he wrote in his blog on May 28, 2002:
The use of the term ephebophilia has been insisted upon by some Church conservatives for several reasons, it seems to me. It can help make the scandal seem less appalling to the general public (so helping to exculpate the hierarchy); it can help shift the onus of responsibility away from the abusers and toward the victims (arguments like "those teenagers were complicit," etc.); and it is a way to insist that this scandal is not about the abuse of minors or the abuse of power to cover such assaults up, but is in fact a function of the dreaded homosexuals, "conspiring" ... to destroy the Church.
Sullivan, of course, doesn't associate homosexuals with liberalism. But Santorum does.
What liberal book business? This is from Publishers Lunch:
Yesterday afternoon the Penguin Group announced the formation of a currently unnamed "major new imprint" that will focus on "books of political opinion and dissent with a conservative perspective." ... They plan on publishing about 15 titles a year....
But wait -- there's more. Publishers Lunch also points out that Random House's Crown division is upgrading its Forum imprint:
...The first title comes from Ann Coulter, who was of course already a general Crown author, and the line incorporates other previously announced titles like their joint venture with magazine and web site NewsMax. Steve Ross, who will oversee the line, has also acquired radio host Michael Medved’s RIGHT TURN and journalist Robert Novak’s memoir.
This is in case you're still not getting enough conservatism from Regnery, WND Books, Encounter Books, and the ever-more-accommodating big publishers in New York (who, of course, were always a lot more receptive to conservatives than conservatives wanted you to believe).
Oh, and there's this forthcoming title, also announced by Publishers Lunch this week:
Former US Representative and House Majority Leader Dick Armey's ARMEY'S AXIOMS: 40 Hard-earned Truths from Politics, Faith and Life, with a foreword from Sean Hannity, a collection of pithy lessons on politics, power, the role of government and world of work and life in general, interspersed with anecdotes from his own years on the Hill, to [be published by] Wiley, ... for publication in October 2003....
Can't wait for that one.
Yesterday afternoon the Penguin Group announced the formation of a currently unnamed "major new imprint" that will focus on "books of political opinion and dissent with a conservative perspective." ... They plan on publishing about 15 titles a year....
But wait -- there's more. Publishers Lunch also points out that Random House's Crown division is upgrading its Forum imprint:
...The first title comes from Ann Coulter, who was of course already a general Crown author, and the line incorporates other previously announced titles like their joint venture with magazine and web site NewsMax. Steve Ross, who will oversee the line, has also acquired radio host Michael Medved’s RIGHT TURN and journalist Robert Novak’s memoir.
This is in case you're still not getting enough conservatism from Regnery, WND Books, Encounter Books, and the ever-more-accommodating big publishers in New York (who, of course, were always a lot more receptive to conservatives than conservatives wanted you to believe).
Oh, and there's this forthcoming title, also announced by Publishers Lunch this week:
Former US Representative and House Majority Leader Dick Armey's ARMEY'S AXIOMS: 40 Hard-earned Truths from Politics, Faith and Life, with a foreword from Sean Hannity, a collection of pithy lessons on politics, power, the role of government and world of work and life in general, interspersed with anecdotes from his own years on the Hill, to [be published by] Wiley, ... for publication in October 2003....
Can't wait for that one.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)