Judith Miller told us today that cobalt-60 was apparently found just west of Baghdad at a test range by the MET-Alpha team. Miller talked to "Drew," the MET-Alpha team's nuclear weapons expert. Drew was somewhat less than reassuring:
He said that, as far as he knew, neither his team nor the United States Central Command had a specific policy for handling radioactive material. Some of the material uncovered at former weapons sites in Iraq could be used to make "dirty bombs" designed to expose people to radiation, and some poses a health hazard to Iraqis and others exposed to it over time. Despite such threats, he said, nothing has been decided about what to do with the material.
Prior to the MET-Alpha team's arrival at the site where the cobalt-60 was apparently found, it was being subjected to the level of security the U.S. generally applies to anything in Iraq that doesn't involve oil:
There was no American security force when the inspection team members arrived at the sprawling test range, though they had been told there would be.
And afterward? Well, pretty much the same:
...the team recommended, as did the International Atomic Energy Agency when it surveyed the site, that the nuclear source in the area be secured, which has not happened yet.
Sleep tight now.
Monday, May 12, 2003
This makes me nuts:
Villagers suffer radiation sickness after looting nuclear power plants
Doctors fear that hundreds of Iraqis may be suffering from radiation poisoning, following the widespread looting of the country's nuclear facilities.
Seven nuclear facilities have been damaged or effectively destroyed by ransackers since the end of the war. Technical documents, sensitive equipment and barrels containing radioactive material are believed to have been stolen.
Many residents in villages close to the huge Tuwaitha Nuclear Facility, about seven miles south of Baghdad, were showing signs of radiation illness last week, including rashes, acute vomiting and severe nosebleeds.
As Saddam Hussein's regime collapsed last month villagers began looting barrels of the uranium oxide, known as "yellowcake", from the site, which they then emptied to use to store water, milk and yoghurt....
--Telegraph
Hundreds! Allowing this to happen is like dropping a huge bomb in a crowded neighborhood.
Mohammed Zaidan, the former chief agricultural engineer at Tuwaitha, said he had visited the nuclear site with Dr Hamid Al Bahli, a nuclear scientist, on April 7 when American troops were approaching from the south.
The soldiers, he said, assured the men they would secure Tuwaitha, but two weeks later they returned to find there were no American soldiers, only hundreds of people looting the facility and dogs rolling around in the contaminated uranium oxide.
"The soldiers had promised us they would secure the site but they did not and we wonder why," he said. "Perhaps it was because they always knew there were no real weapons there, despite all their claims. But, nevertheless, these materials represent a major health hazard and before long we may start to see people developing cancer and deformed babies because they did not stop the looting."
Saddam gassed people out of evil intent. Leadfooted America overthrew him with, we're told, good intent, then let chaos reign afterward, out of clumsiness or stupidity or calculation. Maybe the right-wingers are right and Bush's heart is pure, but funny thing -- people who die or become severely ill from being deliberately gassed are no deader and no sicker than people who nuked themselves as a result of "benign" neglect.
(Link from Cursor.)
Villagers suffer radiation sickness after looting nuclear power plants
Doctors fear that hundreds of Iraqis may be suffering from radiation poisoning, following the widespread looting of the country's nuclear facilities.
Seven nuclear facilities have been damaged or effectively destroyed by ransackers since the end of the war. Technical documents, sensitive equipment and barrels containing radioactive material are believed to have been stolen.
Many residents in villages close to the huge Tuwaitha Nuclear Facility, about seven miles south of Baghdad, were showing signs of radiation illness last week, including rashes, acute vomiting and severe nosebleeds.
As Saddam Hussein's regime collapsed last month villagers began looting barrels of the uranium oxide, known as "yellowcake", from the site, which they then emptied to use to store water, milk and yoghurt....
--Telegraph
Hundreds! Allowing this to happen is like dropping a huge bomb in a crowded neighborhood.
Mohammed Zaidan, the former chief agricultural engineer at Tuwaitha, said he had visited the nuclear site with Dr Hamid Al Bahli, a nuclear scientist, on April 7 when American troops were approaching from the south.
The soldiers, he said, assured the men they would secure Tuwaitha, but two weeks later they returned to find there were no American soldiers, only hundreds of people looting the facility and dogs rolling around in the contaminated uranium oxide.
"The soldiers had promised us they would secure the site but they did not and we wonder why," he said. "Perhaps it was because they always knew there were no real weapons there, despite all their claims. But, nevertheless, these materials represent a major health hazard and before long we may start to see people developing cancer and deformed babies because they did not stop the looting."
Saddam gassed people out of evil intent. Leadfooted America overthrew him with, we're told, good intent, then let chaos reign afterward, out of clumsiness or stupidity or calculation. Maybe the right-wingers are right and Bush's heart is pure, but funny thing -- people who die or become severely ill from being deliberately gassed are no deader and no sicker than people who nuked themselves as a result of "benign" neglect.
(Link from Cursor.)
I've posted some silly sex stuff today, but what Bob Herbert is writing about in this op-ed piece is no joke: A chemotherapy patient goes in for a breast examination and her doctor tells her another man will observe the exam; she later learns the man is not a doctor but a salesman, sues, and her case his dismissed because the judge claims she waived her right to privacy by not immediately objecting -- a judge now nominated to the federal bench by President Bush.
You know, Joycelyn Elders resigned late in 1994 and she's still a punchline in America. Why were Republicans able to make her a household name -- as well as Lani Guinier, whose alleged violation of American values involved abstruse voting schemes, not sex -- but most people, including most liberals, still don't know the name of this judge, Carolyn Kuhl? What the hell is wrong with the Democratic Party?
You know, Joycelyn Elders resigned late in 1994 and she's still a punchline in America. Why were Republicans able to make her a household name -- as well as Lani Guinier, whose alleged violation of American values involved abstruse voting schemes, not sex -- but most people, including most liberals, still don't know the name of this judge, Carolyn Kuhl? What the hell is wrong with the Democratic Party?
The L.A. Times noted last week that the tax-cut obsessives at the right-wing Club for Growth are running an ad in favor of the Bush economic "plan" linking Bush to JFK:
John F. Kennedy would be appalled at the company his name is keeping, his relatives have concluded.
The former president is mentioned and pictured in a television ad backing President Bush's efforts to persuade Congress to enact a large tax cut.
"President Kennedy cut income taxes and the economy soared," notes the ad, paid for by the Club for Growth, a tax cut advocacy group.
Maybe this was not the best timing:
President John F. Kennedy had an affair with a 19-year-old intern who traveled with him on official trips, according to a new biography of Kennedy.
"She had no skills. She could answer the phone," Robert Dallek, author of "An Unfinished Life," told "Dateline NBC" in an interview that aired Sunday. "Apparently, her only skill was to provide sexual release for JFK on those trips and maybe in the White House."
--AP
You know, we cut taxes once in the current administration and it did no good for the economy. However, the economy did wonderfully well during the Clinton years.
Maybe there's a cause-and-effect relationship between a soaring economy and Democratic presidents who fool around with young interns.
John F. Kennedy would be appalled at the company his name is keeping, his relatives have concluded.
The former president is mentioned and pictured in a television ad backing President Bush's efforts to persuade Congress to enact a large tax cut.
"President Kennedy cut income taxes and the economy soared," notes the ad, paid for by the Club for Growth, a tax cut advocacy group.
Maybe this was not the best timing:
President John F. Kennedy had an affair with a 19-year-old intern who traveled with him on official trips, according to a new biography of Kennedy.
"She had no skills. She could answer the phone," Robert Dallek, author of "An Unfinished Life," told "Dateline NBC" in an interview that aired Sunday. "Apparently, her only skill was to provide sexual release for JFK on those trips and maybe in the White House."
--AP
You know, we cut taxes once in the current administration and it did no good for the economy. However, the economy did wonderfully well during the Clinton years.
Maybe there's a cause-and-effect relationship between a soaring economy and Democratic presidents who fool around with young interns.
Yikes! Maureen Dowd cited it yesterday, but if you haven't read it, here's Lisa Schiffren's Wall Street Journal article about Sex God Bush. A condensed version:
...really hot...."hot," as in virile, sexy and powerful....I was mesmerized....stunning ..."He's a hottie. No doubt about it. Really a hottie. ... "Hot? SO HOT!!!!! THAT UNIFORM!" ..."Oh God, yes,"... "I mean, that swagger. George Bush in a pair of jeans is a treat to watch." ...all this heat ...
I'm so glad these people have, y'know, values, unlike us sickos on the left.
Oh, and by the way, this comes from The Wall Street Journal's "Taste" page.
****
In the Sex God Bush article, Schiffren sniffs that women on the snooty East Side of Manhattan get Bush's hunkitude, but on the liberal/nerd/pinko West Side, where she lives (as do I), the juices aren't flowing in sync with hers -- as she puts it, using wording that seems more appropriate for a Stalinist show trial, when she tried to discuss Bush's alleged attractiveness with Upper West Side women, "there was dissent."
Many of them still cite Bill Clinton and his allegedly penetrating intellect as more appealing.
Liberals make such a fetish of intellect.
It's impossible to respond to this -- especially from a former speechwriter for Dan Quayle.
But I do find myself thinking back to The Rocky Horror Picture Show -- specifically to Susan Sarandon saying, "I don't like men with too many muscles." Maybe we need to (partially) recast the movie, with George Bush as the dumb, lab-built macho man Rocky and Karl Rove as his creator, the transvestite mad scientist, who snaps at Sarandon in reply, "I DIDN'T MAKE HIM FOR YOU!"
...really hot...."hot," as in virile, sexy and powerful....I was mesmerized....stunning ..."He's a hottie. No doubt about it. Really a hottie. ... "Hot? SO HOT!!!!! THAT UNIFORM!" ..."Oh God, yes,"... "I mean, that swagger. George Bush in a pair of jeans is a treat to watch." ...all this heat ...
I'm so glad these people have, y'know, values, unlike us sickos on the left.
Oh, and by the way, this comes from The Wall Street Journal's "Taste" page.
****
In the Sex God Bush article, Schiffren sniffs that women on the snooty East Side of Manhattan get Bush's hunkitude, but on the liberal/nerd/pinko West Side, where she lives (as do I), the juices aren't flowing in sync with hers -- as she puts it, using wording that seems more appropriate for a Stalinist show trial, when she tried to discuss Bush's alleged attractiveness with Upper West Side women, "there was dissent."
Many of them still cite Bill Clinton and his allegedly penetrating intellect as more appealing.
Liberals make such a fetish of intellect.
It's impossible to respond to this -- especially from a former speechwriter for Dan Quayle.
But I do find myself thinking back to The Rocky Horror Picture Show -- specifically to Susan Sarandon saying, "I don't like men with too many muscles." Maybe we need to (partially) recast the movie, with George Bush as the dumb, lab-built macho man Rocky and Karl Rove as his creator, the transvestite mad scientist, who snaps at Sarandon in reply, "I DIDN'T MAKE HIM FOR YOU!"
In a post last week I forgot to include a link to the L.A. Times op-ed piece "Karl Rove: Counting Votes While the Bombs Drop" by James Moore, author of the Rove biography Bush's Brain. Here's the link. (I've also added it to the original post.) My apologies -- and thanks to the reader who pointed this out.
(Use "clipjoint" as user name and password if you can't read the article.)
(Use "clipjoint" as user name and password if you can't read the article.)
The Willie Horton ad did as much damage to Michael Dukakis and the Democratic Party as it was intended to do, but after the fact, at least, Democrats still had enough fight in them to denounce the ad and make its use a mark of shame. That's what should have happened with the ad used in the 2002 Georgia governor's race that linked Osama bin Laden and Saddam Huseein to then-Senator Max Cleland -- who, of course, lost three limbs in Vietnam and should never have had his patriotism questioned. The ad has been frequently denounced out here in Lefty Blogosphere Land, yet even out here I don't think I've ever seen anyone blamed by name for it, except, of course, Saxby Chambliss, the man it helped elect.
I learned from yesterday's New York Times Magazine that the man responsible for the ad is a GOP consultant named Tom Perdue -- the guy who got current Senate majority leader and likely future presidential candidate Bill Frist elected to the Senate for the first time in 1994 -- and that Frist had a hand in it, too:
Frist decided in 2000 to take the largest political gamble since he ran for office and to assume the chairmanship of the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, which controls every race across the country by recruiting candidates and disbursing millions of dollars...
While some Democrats claimed that Frist was calling into question their patriotism, Frist relied again on Perdue, who unleashed what was considered the most devastating ad of the cycle: it showed a picture of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein that eventually faded into the Democratic incumbent, Max Cleland, a Vietnam war hero who lost both his legs and his right arm in battle. Perdue told me that he sent each commercial he made to Frist and his staff to "let them be another focus group," and "they never told us not to do anything."
In '94, Frist and Perdue ran a fairly nasty campaign against Democrat Bill Sasser:
[Frist] dispatched Perdue to unleash a barrage of negative attacks.... His campaign ... tried to link Sasser to Joycelyn Elders, the black surgeon general who had spoken controversially about masturbation, and Marion Barry, the black mayor of Washington who had been caught smoking crack cocaine with a former girlfriend. ''We'd never seen anything like it,'' Sasser told me. ''I'd been in the Senate 18 years, and I'd never seen a campaign so vicious. Handbills would mysteriously appear in redneck areas showing me with Joycelyn Elders. He'd say while he was saving lives as a heart surgeon, I was busy sending Tennessee dollars to Marion Barry. It was clearly a racist attack. The slanders went on and on and on.''
The Democrats should have made the Cleland ads a national scandal, even after the election -- they could have, and should have, demounced them until the ads made the news and everyone in America saw them. Hell, if I were the Democratic presidential nominee in '04, I'd seriously consider picking Max Cleland as my vice presidential candidate. And it was the saintly Dr. Frist and his longtime hatchetman Perdue who were responsible. They should be held to account for them.
I learned from yesterday's New York Times Magazine that the man responsible for the ad is a GOP consultant named Tom Perdue -- the guy who got current Senate majority leader and likely future presidential candidate Bill Frist elected to the Senate for the first time in 1994 -- and that Frist had a hand in it, too:
Frist decided in 2000 to take the largest political gamble since he ran for office and to assume the chairmanship of the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, which controls every race across the country by recruiting candidates and disbursing millions of dollars...
While some Democrats claimed that Frist was calling into question their patriotism, Frist relied again on Perdue, who unleashed what was considered the most devastating ad of the cycle: it showed a picture of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein that eventually faded into the Democratic incumbent, Max Cleland, a Vietnam war hero who lost both his legs and his right arm in battle. Perdue told me that he sent each commercial he made to Frist and his staff to "let them be another focus group," and "they never told us not to do anything."
In '94, Frist and Perdue ran a fairly nasty campaign against Democrat Bill Sasser:
[Frist] dispatched Perdue to unleash a barrage of negative attacks.... His campaign ... tried to link Sasser to Joycelyn Elders, the black surgeon general who had spoken controversially about masturbation, and Marion Barry, the black mayor of Washington who had been caught smoking crack cocaine with a former girlfriend. ''We'd never seen anything like it,'' Sasser told me. ''I'd been in the Senate 18 years, and I'd never seen a campaign so vicious. Handbills would mysteriously appear in redneck areas showing me with Joycelyn Elders. He'd say while he was saving lives as a heart surgeon, I was busy sending Tennessee dollars to Marion Barry. It was clearly a racist attack. The slanders went on and on and on.''
The Democrats should have made the Cleland ads a national scandal, even after the election -- they could have, and should have, demounced them until the ads made the news and everyone in America saw them. Hell, if I were the Democratic presidential nominee in '04, I'd seriously consider picking Max Cleland as my vice presidential candidate. And it was the saintly Dr. Frist and his longtime hatchetman Perdue who were responsible. They should be held to account for them.
If you like conspiracy theories, go nuts now: A couple of weeks ago I pointed out the bizarre fact that Texas A&M University is building a campus in Qatar, where the U.S. has recently moved some military operations that used to be based in Saudi Arabia. Now I learn, from this New York Times article, that the president of Texas A&M is ... Robert Gates, former head of the CIA (under Bush the Elder).
I might find this truly ominous if the dominant people in the Bush II administration didn't seem to loathe Bush I. Nevertheless, it does seem worth noting....
I might find this truly ominous if the dominant people in the Bush II administration didn't seem to loathe Bush I. Nevertheless, it does seem worth noting....
Sunday, May 11, 2003
There still aren't nearly enough cops in Iraq to protect Iraqi citizens, or even to direct traffic, but Peter Maass reports this in The New York Times:
I was at the Oil Ministry on Thursday and noticed a convoy of a Bradley fighting vehicle and several armored Humvees with .50-caliber machine guns. They were escorting an S.U.V. with two civilians who work for KBR, an American oil-services company.
That's how the Americans who are supposed to fix Iraq travel around — in cumbersome convoys insulating them from the people they are supposed to help.
Lovely.
I was at the Oil Ministry on Thursday and noticed a convoy of a Bradley fighting vehicle and several armored Humvees with .50-caliber machine guns. They were escorting an S.U.V. with two civilians who work for KBR, an American oil-services company.
That's how the Americans who are supposed to fix Iraq travel around — in cumbersome convoys insulating them from the people they are supposed to help.
Lovely.
Here's something I didn't know:
On January 9, two days after Rumsfeld lyricized about [the volunteer military’s] virtues and got snooty about a peacetime draft, the Marine Corps, which reports to him, froze its entire active duty complement of 175,000 men and women in place for the next year; Marines who had completed their enlistments or who sought to retire after twenty years would be unable to do so. The Air Force has put a “stop-loss” order in effect that prohibits its officers and enlisted personnel from leaving active service. In the Army, the freeze is called “involuntary extension.”
...As of late March, over 212,000 reservists and Guard men and women had been activated. Though official Defense Department policy limits call-ups to twelve months, the Pentagon’s manpower demands have forced it to extend their tours for a second year.
Did we do this in other wars -- turn volunteer service into involuntary servitude? And remember, we're doing this while fielding an inadequate force to maintain stability in Iraq and Afghanistan, while we're also casting about for new wars to fight.
(I found this in John Gregory Dunne's review of Anthony Swofford's book Jarhead in the New York Review of Books. The review, unfortunately, is available online only to subscribers.)
On January 9, two days after Rumsfeld lyricized about [the volunteer military’s] virtues and got snooty about a peacetime draft, the Marine Corps, which reports to him, froze its entire active duty complement of 175,000 men and women in place for the next year; Marines who had completed their enlistments or who sought to retire after twenty years would be unable to do so. The Air Force has put a “stop-loss” order in effect that prohibits its officers and enlisted personnel from leaving active service. In the Army, the freeze is called “involuntary extension.”
...As of late March, over 212,000 reservists and Guard men and women had been activated. Though official Defense Department policy limits call-ups to twelve months, the Pentagon’s manpower demands have forced it to extend their tours for a second year.
Did we do this in other wars -- turn volunteer service into involuntary servitude? And remember, we're doing this while fielding an inadequate force to maintain stability in Iraq and Afghanistan, while we're also casting about for new wars to fight.
(I found this in John Gregory Dunne's review of Anthony Swofford's book Jarhead in the New York Review of Books. The review, unfortunately, is available online only to subscribers.)
Saturday, May 10, 2003
I like this Iraq War anecdote, from Michael Massing in The New York Review of Books:
A correspondent for the Los Angeles Times told me of a gung-ho colleague who, embedded with a Marine unit that was racing toward Baghdad, excitedly declared over the phone, "We're about to cross the Ganges!" When he was told that he must mean the Tigris, he said, "Yeah, one of those biblical rivers or other."
Massing also points out this, which I didn't know but should have guessed:
Six months before the [Iraq] war began, I was told, executives at CNN headquarters in Atlanta met regularly to plan separate broadcasts for America and the world. Those executives knew that [Paula] Zahn's girl-next-door manner and [Aaron] Brown's spacey monologues would not go down well with the British, French, or Germans, much less the Egyptians or Turks, and so the network, at huge expense, fielded two parallel but separate teams to cover the war. And while there was plenty of overlap, especially in the reports from the field, and in the use of such knowledgeable journalists as Christiane Amanpour, the international edition was refreshingly free of the self-congratulatory talk of its domestic one. In one telling moment, Becky Anderson, listening to one of Walter Rodgers's excited reports about US advances in the field, admonished him: "Let's not give the impression that there's been no resistance." Rodgers conceded that she was right.
CNN International bore more resemblance to the BBC than to its domestic edition—a difference that showed just how market-driven were the tone and content of the broadcasts. For the most part, US news organizations gave Americans the war they thought Americans wanted to see.
A correspondent for the Los Angeles Times told me of a gung-ho colleague who, embedded with a Marine unit that was racing toward Baghdad, excitedly declared over the phone, "We're about to cross the Ganges!" When he was told that he must mean the Tigris, he said, "Yeah, one of those biblical rivers or other."
Massing also points out this, which I didn't know but should have guessed:
Six months before the [Iraq] war began, I was told, executives at CNN headquarters in Atlanta met regularly to plan separate broadcasts for America and the world. Those executives knew that [Paula] Zahn's girl-next-door manner and [Aaron] Brown's spacey monologues would not go down well with the British, French, or Germans, much less the Egyptians or Turks, and so the network, at huge expense, fielded two parallel but separate teams to cover the war. And while there was plenty of overlap, especially in the reports from the field, and in the use of such knowledgeable journalists as Christiane Amanpour, the international edition was refreshingly free of the self-congratulatory talk of its domestic one. In one telling moment, Becky Anderson, listening to one of Walter Rodgers's excited reports about US advances in the field, admonished him: "Let's not give the impression that there's been no resistance." Rodgers conceded that she was right.
CNN International bore more resemblance to the BBC than to its domestic edition—a difference that showed just how market-driven were the tone and content of the broadcasts. For the most part, US news organizations gave Americans the war they thought Americans wanted to see.
I can't reproduce this for you, but the Republican Party arranged a photo op on Thursday that served, among other things, to help Rick Santorum reposition himself as "inclusive" -- and the print edition of The New York Times dutifully ran just the photo the GOP wanted.
The photo ran in yesterday's A section, accompanying this article about a Republican pleadge to spend nearly $1 million to refurbish the D.C. home of Frederick Douglass. GOP legislators went to Douglass's home and, what do you know, Senator Santorum just happened to be the most visible pol in Stephen Cowley's Times photo. Feel free to conclude that this was just a happy coincidence -- I don't.
The photo ran in yesterday's A section, accompanying this article about a Republican pleadge to spend nearly $1 million to refurbish the D.C. home of Frederick Douglass. GOP legislators went to Douglass's home and, what do you know, Senator Santorum just happened to be the most visible pol in Stephen Cowley's Times photo. Feel free to conclude that this was just a happy coincidence -- I don't.
Thursday, May 08, 2003
Media Whores Online points out (with links from AP, ABC, the Christian Science Monitor, and Reuters) that Bush's Top Gun stunt last week replicated a campaign stunt pulled in 2000 by Vladimir Putin. Nice work!
The Dixie Chicks boycott seems to have played itself out. Right-wingers, amending their previous remarks, have hastily hopped aboard the new anti-anti-Dixie Chicks train. To hear them tell it, they thought all along that the anti-Chicks fatwa should be temporary.
Yeah, right.
God forbid they should stick with an opinion once it turns unpopular.
Yeah, right.
God forbid they should stick with an opinion once it turns unpopular.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: When conservatives can't think of anything else to criticize liberals or Democrats for, they just make stuff up, then announce that we're evil because of what they think we think. Dan Kennedy of The Boston Phoenix caught Rush Limbaugh doing this recently. Try to keep your jaw from dropping as you read this:
SHORTLY AFTER 2 p.m. last Friday, right-wing radio blowhard Rush Limbaugh was orating his way through a few news briefs. After dispensing with the first Democratic presidential debate, which was to be held two days hence, Limbaugh turned to a story that had nothing to do with politics — or so one would have thought.
He began by reading a wire story about Aron Ralston, the 27-year-old mountain climber who cut off his arm with a pocket knife after he’d been trapped by a boulder for several days while hiking in Utah. Bleeding profusely, Ralston rappelled down the side of a cliff and walked to safety.
"Can you imagine the pain, having the presence of mind to do all this? It is amazing," said Limbaugh, briefly sounding like a normal human being. And then he started riffing, coming to a conclusion that was almost as "amazing" as Ralston’s tale of survival.
"You know, this is one of these stories, this is one of these acts of human courage, that people are going to strive to associate themselves with," Limbaugh intoned. "Such as Democratic presidential candidates. This is the kind of story — you know, you might have this guy in the audience and claim he’s one of your supporters or whatever. We might even hear from John F. Kerry, for example, that his Jewish grandfather was a mountain climber, and this story has reminded him that his Jewish grandfather was a mountain climber, and therefore he knows the rigors of this engagement, this enterprise, and can relate to what this Colorado climber went through. I mean, they’ll stop at nothing to build bridges of relatability to these acts of courage. They can’t cite many of their own." Heavy, theatrical throat-clearing. Commercial break.
In a sense, it was the perfect storm of demented reasoning: 1) attack the Democrats for cowardice and exploitative behavior, even though said behavior exists only in Limbaugh’s own fevered imagination; 2) aim the brunt of the attack at Kerry, the one Democrat who is a decorated war hero; 3) stick in a snide reference to Kerry’s late discovery of his ethnic and religious background. Nor did Rush neglect the opportunity to say "Jewish" twice, even though he had to repeat himself nearly word for word in order to do so....
(Thanks to Lee for the link.)
SHORTLY AFTER 2 p.m. last Friday, right-wing radio blowhard Rush Limbaugh was orating his way through a few news briefs. After dispensing with the first Democratic presidential debate, which was to be held two days hence, Limbaugh turned to a story that had nothing to do with politics — or so one would have thought.
He began by reading a wire story about Aron Ralston, the 27-year-old mountain climber who cut off his arm with a pocket knife after he’d been trapped by a boulder for several days while hiking in Utah. Bleeding profusely, Ralston rappelled down the side of a cliff and walked to safety.
"Can you imagine the pain, having the presence of mind to do all this? It is amazing," said Limbaugh, briefly sounding like a normal human being. And then he started riffing, coming to a conclusion that was almost as "amazing" as Ralston’s tale of survival.
"You know, this is one of these stories, this is one of these acts of human courage, that people are going to strive to associate themselves with," Limbaugh intoned. "Such as Democratic presidential candidates. This is the kind of story — you know, you might have this guy in the audience and claim he’s one of your supporters or whatever. We might even hear from John F. Kerry, for example, that his Jewish grandfather was a mountain climber, and this story has reminded him that his Jewish grandfather was a mountain climber, and therefore he knows the rigors of this engagement, this enterprise, and can relate to what this Colorado climber went through. I mean, they’ll stop at nothing to build bridges of relatability to these acts of courage. They can’t cite many of their own." Heavy, theatrical throat-clearing. Commercial break.
In a sense, it was the perfect storm of demented reasoning: 1) attack the Democrats for cowardice and exploitative behavior, even though said behavior exists only in Limbaugh’s own fevered imagination; 2) aim the brunt of the attack at Kerry, the one Democrat who is a decorated war hero; 3) stick in a snide reference to Kerry’s late discovery of his ethnic and religious background. Nor did Rush neglect the opportunity to say "Jewish" twice, even though he had to repeat himself nearly word for word in order to do so....
(Thanks to Lee for the link.)
Polling Report informs us that, according to a new Pew poll, Bush's job approval rating has dropped seven percentage points in just under three weeks. The survey was conducted over five days; the Top Gun stunt and speech were on the evening of Day 2. Hey, I thought we were all "entertained and impressed" by the Top Gun stunt! Margaret Carlson said we were. So why didn't a five-day poll in which three of the days were post-Top Gun show an uptick in approval?
UPDATE: This is from Gallup:
Speech Does Little to Affect Viewers' Opinions on Iraq
Speech watchers, like the adult population in previous Gallup Polls, are somewhat cautious in their assessment of the Iraqi war's end. Fifty-four percent say the war is over, while a substantial proportion (44%) says it is not. Bush's declaration that major combat is now over in Iraq did little to affect speech watchers' views on this matter, as prior to his address, 52% believed the war was over. Bush mentioned weapons of mass destruction several times during the speech; still, speech watchers' views on this topic did not change as a result of the speech. Seventy-nine percent of speech watchers say the war is justified even if such weapons are not found, the same percentage of this group who said this prior to the speech.
Bush's speech did have a slight positive effect on speech watchers' opinions about U.S. policy in Iraq. Seventy-four percent of those who watched the speech say the Bush administration has a clear plan for what to do in Iraq now that the major fighting has ended. Prior to the speech, 64% of the group thought this.
So the Top Gun stunt and speech weren't transformational experiences, apparently -- except, perhaps, for pundits.
UPDATE: This is from Gallup:
Speech Does Little to Affect Viewers' Opinions on Iraq
Speech watchers, like the adult population in previous Gallup Polls, are somewhat cautious in their assessment of the Iraqi war's end. Fifty-four percent say the war is over, while a substantial proportion (44%) says it is not. Bush's declaration that major combat is now over in Iraq did little to affect speech watchers' views on this matter, as prior to his address, 52% believed the war was over. Bush mentioned weapons of mass destruction several times during the speech; still, speech watchers' views on this topic did not change as a result of the speech. Seventy-nine percent of speech watchers say the war is justified even if such weapons are not found, the same percentage of this group who said this prior to the speech.
Bush's speech did have a slight positive effect on speech watchers' opinions about U.S. policy in Iraq. Seventy-four percent of those who watched the speech say the Bush administration has a clear plan for what to do in Iraq now that the major fighting has ended. Prior to the speech, 64% of the group thought this.
So the Top Gun stunt and speech weren't transformational experiences, apparently -- except, perhaps, for pundits.
James Moore, coauthor of Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential, says this, flatly, in an L.A. Times op-ed piece:
The cause of the war in Iraq was not just about Saddam Hussein or weapons of mass destruction or Al Qaeda links to Iraq. Those may have been the stated causes, but every good lie should have a germ of truth. No, this was mostly a product of Rove's usual prescience. He looked around and saw that the economy was anemic and people were complaining about the president's inability to find Osama bin Laden. In another corner, the neoconservatives in the Cabinet were itching to launch ships and planes to the Mideast and take control of Iraq. Rove converged the dynamics of the times. He convinced the president to connect Hussein to Bin Laden, even if the CIA could not.
Is he overstating the case? He's followed Rove for two decades and says he's learned this from administration sources:
The same old reliable sources from his days in Texas are in Washington with him. And they say Rove is intimately involved in the Cabinet and that he sat in on all the big meetings leading up to the Iraq war and signed off on all major decisions.
In addition -- this seems very plausible to me -- Moore's sources say Rove was
present at a war strategy meeting concerning whether to attack Syria after Iraq. Rove said the timing was not right. Yet.
Read the op-ed. (If you need an ID and password, use "clipjoint" for both.)
The cause of the war in Iraq was not just about Saddam Hussein or weapons of mass destruction or Al Qaeda links to Iraq. Those may have been the stated causes, but every good lie should have a germ of truth. No, this was mostly a product of Rove's usual prescience. He looked around and saw that the economy was anemic and people were complaining about the president's inability to find Osama bin Laden. In another corner, the neoconservatives in the Cabinet were itching to launch ships and planes to the Mideast and take control of Iraq. Rove converged the dynamics of the times. He convinced the president to connect Hussein to Bin Laden, even if the CIA could not.
Is he overstating the case? He's followed Rove for two decades and says he's learned this from administration sources:
The same old reliable sources from his days in Texas are in Washington with him. And they say Rove is intimately involved in the Cabinet and that he sat in on all the big meetings leading up to the Iraq war and signed off on all major decisions.
In addition -- this seems very plausible to me -- Moore's sources say Rove was
present at a war strategy meeting concerning whether to attack Syria after Iraq. Rove said the timing was not right. Yet.
Read the op-ed. (If you need an ID and password, use "clipjoint" for both.)
Wednesday, May 07, 2003
Professor says school vouchers improve school performance of black students. Professor is lauded by right-wing journalists who use study as stick with which to beat then-presidential candidate Al Gore. Research firm working with professor then says data show improvement only for one subgroup of blacks; this criticism gets far less media attention than what professor originally said. Professor writes book ignoring research firm's objections. Lead researcher of firm keeps up criticism. Professor agrees to release raw data. New analysis of data shows no improvement whatsoever for black students on vouchers.
Story makes page B12 of The New York Times.
Aw, hell -- at least the Times ran it at all. Here's the story.
Story makes page B12 of The New York Times.
Aw, hell -- at least the Times ran it at all. Here's the story.
The myth has now been accepted as fact in a court of law....
A federal judge Wednesday ordered Osama bin Laden,Saddam Hussein and others to pay nearly $104 million to the families of two Sept. 11 victims, saying there is evidence — though meager — that Iraq had a hand in the terrorist attacks....
In his ruling, Baer concluded that lawyers for the two victims "have shown, albeit barely ... that Iraq provided material support to bin Laden and al-Qaida" and collaborated in or supported al-Qaida's Sept. 11 attacks.
Baer said lawyers relied heavily on "classically hearsay" evidence, including reports that a Sept. 11 hijacker met an Iraqi consul to Prague, Secretary of State Colin Powell's remarks to the United Nations about connections between Iraq and terrorism, and defectors' descriptions of the use of an Iraq camp to train terrorists....
--AP
So, are we going to take this frozen Iraqi assets? Are we going to take money that rightfully belongs to the Iraqi people and -- instead of using them to help rebuild a thoroughly ravaged country -- give itto 9/11 survivors based on a fairytale?
Yeah, that ought to win some hearts and minds.
A federal judge Wednesday ordered Osama bin Laden,Saddam Hussein and others to pay nearly $104 million to the families of two Sept. 11 victims, saying there is evidence — though meager — that Iraq had a hand in the terrorist attacks....
In his ruling, Baer concluded that lawyers for the two victims "have shown, albeit barely ... that Iraq provided material support to bin Laden and al-Qaida" and collaborated in or supported al-Qaida's Sept. 11 attacks.
Baer said lawyers relied heavily on "classically hearsay" evidence, including reports that a Sept. 11 hijacker met an Iraqi consul to Prague, Secretary of State Colin Powell's remarks to the United Nations about connections between Iraq and terrorism, and defectors' descriptions of the use of an Iraq camp to train terrorists....
--AP
So, are we going to take this frozen Iraqi assets? Are we going to take money that rightfully belongs to the Iraqi people and -- instead of using them to help rebuild a thoroughly ravaged country -- give itto 9/11 survivors based on a fairytale?
Yeah, that ought to win some hearts and minds.
A few weeks ago I expressed skepticism about a report by Brian Ross of ABC News in which a breathless Ross described entering a building in Baghdad and miraculously stumbling upon embarrassing documents about Saddam's inner circle that had somehow survived war, a burning and shredding operation, and looting -- and that had been overlooked by American troops who'd secured the building. I don't know if I was right to be a skeptic, but, for what it's worth, apparently Swopa at the blog Needlenose is similarly suspicious of some other recent finds, including the ones Judith Miller reports on in her most recent story, as he explains here.
I've been reading a lot of stories about difficulties in Afghanistan lately....
Almost daily attacks by remnants of the Taliban on aid workers and Afghans as well as deadly factional clashes pose serious threats to the future of Afghanistan, a senior U.N. official said on Tuesday.
--Reuters, 5/6/03
Hundreds of protesters chanting "Death to Bush" and "Long live Islam" marched through Afghanistan's capital today in the first anti-American protest to erupt here since the United States and its allies drove the Taliban movement from power in late 2001.
Desperate for better lives, protesters accused the Bush administration of breaking its promises to the Afghan people by not rebuilding their war-battered nation.
--Washington Post, 5/7/03
"We don't like the Americans, and Karzai is a puppet of George W. Bush," said Abdul Karim, 26, a member of the Taliban movement until he left Afghanistan two years ago, referring to Hamid Karzai, the new leader of Afghanistan. "We want an Islamic government in Afghanistan," added Mr. Karim, who is now a student at a madrasa, or religious school, in Quetta.
Nasrullah, a religious student here who recently arrived from Kandahar, in Afghanistan, said that "if the situation continues and the Americans do not behave well, I am ready to fight, because jihad is the duty of every Muslim."
--New York Times story on the resurgence of the Taliban on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, 5/6/03
If you'll bear with me, I have a long gloss on the situation in Afghanistan from a newly published book, The Main Enemy by Milt Bearden (a former CIA chief in Pakistan who worked with Afghan rebels during the Soviet era) and James Risen (a New York Times reporter). It's written from an ex-spook's point of view and I'm not endorsing every word of it -- I just think it's interesting:
Enduring Freedom looked easy -- maybe a little too easy, like the British march on Kabul in 1839 or the Soviet Christmas invasion in 1979. All three enterprises had a common thread -- getting in was almost painless. Then Afghan history always kicks in. The British would founder and be forced into retreat in January 1842, three years after their fluid entry. They marched out of Kabul with a column of 16,500 souls, headed east to their garrison at Jalalabad, a distance of 110 miles. A single British officer made it to safety. Almost a century and a half later, the Soviets faced a similar fate. After a flawless invasion, the Red Army bogged down, and a decade later it limped home across the Oxus after giving up almost 15,000 dead. Their Afghan misadventure would also cost the Soviets an empire.
Now, in the second year of America’s Afghan enterprise, there is less talk of things being easy. The accounts of Operation Enduring Freedom and Leonid Sherbashin [of the KGB]’s sobering analysis of Soviet operations in the Panjshir in 1984 have begun to sound hauntingly familiar: crisp military briefers giving cheerily optimistic but unconvincing accounts of a beaten enemy, of high enemy body counts, but again without the bodies. “How can thirteen hundred rebels carry off seventeen hundred of their dead -- and their weapons?” Shebarshin naively asked the 40th Army briefing officer in Ahmed Shah Massoud’s Panjshir Valley in 1984. Those same questions have already been asked by journalists briefed on the battles of Tora Bora and Shah-i-Kot. And more are now asking how it is that those we have liberated seem to shell and rocket our troops with such regularity.
According to the premier historian on Afghanistan, the late Louis Dupree, four factors contributed to the British disasters in Afghanistan: having troops there in the first place; installing an unpopular emir on the Afghan throne; allowing “your” Afghans to mistreat other Afghans; and reducing the subsidies paid to the tribal chiefs. These fatal miscalculations, barely altered in form, were committed by the British in 1839 and again in 1878, and a century later by the Soviets. They are being committed today, and how we deal with them will determine the ultimate outcome of the American undertaking in Afghanistan.
The United States may not have placed a wildly unpopular emir on the throne -- indeed, America’s choice for an Afghan leader, Hamid Karzai, was the least objectionable of the possible candidates -- but Afghan politics, always murky, is as much defined by the contenders to the throne as by the occupant. The real power in Kabul after the rout of the Taliban is not Hamid Karzai but Marshal Mohammad Qasim Fahim, the successor to the murdered Ahmed Shah Massoud. Fahim is a Tajik, a Panjshiri with a reputation for ruthlessness. He has, to be sure, violated Dupree’s third dictum by grossly mistreating other segments of the Afghan population, notably and most dangerously the majority Pashtuns. As each day passes, Fahim is increasingly viewed by the Pashtun population and some other ethnic groups as the unpopular emir America has placed on the throne. Finally, the continued failure of the United States and its allies to make good on the pledges of massive reconstruction assistance -- more than $4 billion pledged but undelivered -- amounts to the same as the reduction of tribute paid by the nineteenth-century British to the tribal chiefs. This failure of the United States and its allies to engage in nation building is behind much of the unrest in the provinces.
Afghanistan, a year into its “American era,” is troubled and dangerous, but it is not hopeless. The success or failure of the Afghan enterprise will depend in large measure on how the United States manages to build alliances with the inhabitants of all of Afghanistan, not just the Tajiks from the Panjshir Valley. The CIA will have to rekindle and nurture old relationships with the dominant Pashtuns of eastern Afghanistan and undertake measures to convince the broader population to take a stake in a new Afghanistan and join in its reconstruction. It is a daunting task and the learning curve is short. But failure could allow the country to become a haven for international terrorists once again. Afghanistan will thus be the ultimate testing ground for the new CIA as it seeks to remake itself for the global war on terrorism.
Almost daily attacks by remnants of the Taliban on aid workers and Afghans as well as deadly factional clashes pose serious threats to the future of Afghanistan, a senior U.N. official said on Tuesday.
--Reuters, 5/6/03
Hundreds of protesters chanting "Death to Bush" and "Long live Islam" marched through Afghanistan's capital today in the first anti-American protest to erupt here since the United States and its allies drove the Taliban movement from power in late 2001.
Desperate for better lives, protesters accused the Bush administration of breaking its promises to the Afghan people by not rebuilding their war-battered nation.
--Washington Post, 5/7/03
"We don't like the Americans, and Karzai is a puppet of George W. Bush," said Abdul Karim, 26, a member of the Taliban movement until he left Afghanistan two years ago, referring to Hamid Karzai, the new leader of Afghanistan. "We want an Islamic government in Afghanistan," added Mr. Karim, who is now a student at a madrasa, or religious school, in Quetta.
Nasrullah, a religious student here who recently arrived from Kandahar, in Afghanistan, said that "if the situation continues and the Americans do not behave well, I am ready to fight, because jihad is the duty of every Muslim."
--New York Times story on the resurgence of the Taliban on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, 5/6/03
If you'll bear with me, I have a long gloss on the situation in Afghanistan from a newly published book, The Main Enemy by Milt Bearden (a former CIA chief in Pakistan who worked with Afghan rebels during the Soviet era) and James Risen (a New York Times reporter). It's written from an ex-spook's point of view and I'm not endorsing every word of it -- I just think it's interesting:
Enduring Freedom looked easy -- maybe a little too easy, like the British march on Kabul in 1839 or the Soviet Christmas invasion in 1979. All three enterprises had a common thread -- getting in was almost painless. Then Afghan history always kicks in. The British would founder and be forced into retreat in January 1842, three years after their fluid entry. They marched out of Kabul with a column of 16,500 souls, headed east to their garrison at Jalalabad, a distance of 110 miles. A single British officer made it to safety. Almost a century and a half later, the Soviets faced a similar fate. After a flawless invasion, the Red Army bogged down, and a decade later it limped home across the Oxus after giving up almost 15,000 dead. Their Afghan misadventure would also cost the Soviets an empire.
Now, in the second year of America’s Afghan enterprise, there is less talk of things being easy. The accounts of Operation Enduring Freedom and Leonid Sherbashin [of the KGB]’s sobering analysis of Soviet operations in the Panjshir in 1984 have begun to sound hauntingly familiar: crisp military briefers giving cheerily optimistic but unconvincing accounts of a beaten enemy, of high enemy body counts, but again without the bodies. “How can thirteen hundred rebels carry off seventeen hundred of their dead -- and their weapons?” Shebarshin naively asked the 40th Army briefing officer in Ahmed Shah Massoud’s Panjshir Valley in 1984. Those same questions have already been asked by journalists briefed on the battles of Tora Bora and Shah-i-Kot. And more are now asking how it is that those we have liberated seem to shell and rocket our troops with such regularity.
According to the premier historian on Afghanistan, the late Louis Dupree, four factors contributed to the British disasters in Afghanistan: having troops there in the first place; installing an unpopular emir on the Afghan throne; allowing “your” Afghans to mistreat other Afghans; and reducing the subsidies paid to the tribal chiefs. These fatal miscalculations, barely altered in form, were committed by the British in 1839 and again in 1878, and a century later by the Soviets. They are being committed today, and how we deal with them will determine the ultimate outcome of the American undertaking in Afghanistan.
The United States may not have placed a wildly unpopular emir on the throne -- indeed, America’s choice for an Afghan leader, Hamid Karzai, was the least objectionable of the possible candidates -- but Afghan politics, always murky, is as much defined by the contenders to the throne as by the occupant. The real power in Kabul after the rout of the Taliban is not Hamid Karzai but Marshal Mohammad Qasim Fahim, the successor to the murdered Ahmed Shah Massoud. Fahim is a Tajik, a Panjshiri with a reputation for ruthlessness. He has, to be sure, violated Dupree’s third dictum by grossly mistreating other segments of the Afghan population, notably and most dangerously the majority Pashtuns. As each day passes, Fahim is increasingly viewed by the Pashtun population and some other ethnic groups as the unpopular emir America has placed on the throne. Finally, the continued failure of the United States and its allies to make good on the pledges of massive reconstruction assistance -- more than $4 billion pledged but undelivered -- amounts to the same as the reduction of tribute paid by the nineteenth-century British to the tribal chiefs. This failure of the United States and its allies to engage in nation building is behind much of the unrest in the provinces.
Afghanistan, a year into its “American era,” is troubled and dangerous, but it is not hopeless. The success or failure of the Afghan enterprise will depend in large measure on how the United States manages to build alliances with the inhabitants of all of Afghanistan, not just the Tajiks from the Panjshir Valley. The CIA will have to rekindle and nurture old relationships with the dominant Pashtuns of eastern Afghanistan and undertake measures to convince the broader population to take a stake in a new Afghanistan and join in its reconstruction. It is a daunting task and the learning curve is short. But failure could allow the country to become a haven for international terrorists once again. Afghanistan will thus be the ultimate testing ground for the new CIA as it seeks to remake itself for the global war on terrorism.
Two hospitals in southern Iraq have reported 17 confirmed cases of cholera in Basra, and the World Health Organization said Wednesday it fears far more have gone unreported.
..."An outbreak of cholera, affecting probably several hundreds of people, is occurring," said WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib.
The first confirmed cases in Basra turned up in children age 4 and under. Tests were done by the Al-Tahir Teaching Hospital and Basra Maternal and Child Hospital.
...Health officials said they feared the disease is already epidemic.
With 17 confirmed cases, "you can expect 10 times more within the larger population," said Dr. Denis Coulombier, a WHO epidemiologist....
--AP
Mission accomplished.
..."An outbreak of cholera, affecting probably several hundreds of people, is occurring," said WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib.
The first confirmed cases in Basra turned up in children age 4 and under. Tests were done by the Al-Tahir Teaching Hospital and Basra Maternal and Child Hospital.
...Health officials said they feared the disease is already epidemic.
With 17 confirmed cases, "you can expect 10 times more within the larger population," said Dr. Denis Coulombier, a WHO epidemiologist....
--AP
Mission accomplished.
This is from Judith Miller's latest New York Times article on the teams hunting for Iraqi WMDs:
Of even greater interest to MET Alpha was a "top secret" intelligence memo found in a room on another floor. Written in Arabic and dated May 20, 2001, the memo from the Iraqi intelligence station chief in an African country described an offer by a "holy warrior" to sell uranium and other nuclear material. The bid was rejected, the memo states, because of the United Nations "sanctions situation." But the station chief wrote that the source was eager to provide similar help at a more convenient time.
Doesn't this seem plausible? Doesn't it seem plausible that at a certain point Saddam might have abandoned or suspended any programs he had to develop chem, bio, or nuclear weapons, in the hope of getting the hated sanctions lifted? It seems to me he really wanted his country to lose its pariah status, while giving up as little of his nasty behavior as possible. But if Blix and ElBaradei couldn't find WMDs, if we can't find WMDs, if he didn't give WMDs to any terrorists who then used them to attack the West, if he didn't give WMDs to Palestinian suicide bombers, then maybe he just didn't have them in recent years.
Which doesn't mean he wouldn't have restarted weapons programs if the sanctions were lifted. But the sanctions weren't going to be lifted.
Maybe -- at least as regards production and use of WMDs -- the sanctions worked.
Of even greater interest to MET Alpha was a "top secret" intelligence memo found in a room on another floor. Written in Arabic and dated May 20, 2001, the memo from the Iraqi intelligence station chief in an African country described an offer by a "holy warrior" to sell uranium and other nuclear material. The bid was rejected, the memo states, because of the United Nations "sanctions situation." But the station chief wrote that the source was eager to provide similar help at a more convenient time.
Doesn't this seem plausible? Doesn't it seem plausible that at a certain point Saddam might have abandoned or suspended any programs he had to develop chem, bio, or nuclear weapons, in the hope of getting the hated sanctions lifted? It seems to me he really wanted his country to lose its pariah status, while giving up as little of his nasty behavior as possible. But if Blix and ElBaradei couldn't find WMDs, if we can't find WMDs, if he didn't give WMDs to any terrorists who then used them to attack the West, if he didn't give WMDs to Palestinian suicide bombers, then maybe he just didn't have them in recent years.
Which doesn't mean he wouldn't have restarted weapons programs if the sanctions were lifted. But the sanctions weren't going to be lifted.
Maybe -- at least as regards production and use of WMDs -- the sanctions worked.
N E W Y O R K, May 7 — A month-long surge in consumer confidence ended with a sharp snap this week, putting a quick and unceremonious end to hopes of a sustained rally. But it shouldn't be a surprise: Confidence followed almost exactly the same course after the 1991 Gulf War.
Giving up a third of its postwar gains, the ABCNEWS/Money magazine Consumer Comfort Index fell a steep four points this week to -19 on its scale of +100 to -100. Propelled by the war in Iraq, the index had jumped a remarkable 13 points in four weeks, last week reaching its best level in seven months.
The index's performance is very similar to its track in 1991. It rose 10 points in the five weeks following the war's successful end, then faltered, losing three points in one week after its peak and six points over the next month. The index continued down gradually, bottoming out at a record low -50 in early 1992.
Confidence is much better than it was at this time in 1991, with an index of -19 now compared to -31 then. But confidence is sharply down from its peak (+38 in January 2000) and 10 points below its average since this weekly survey began in December 1985....
--ABC News
Giving up a third of its postwar gains, the ABCNEWS/Money magazine Consumer Comfort Index fell a steep four points this week to -19 on its scale of +100 to -100. Propelled by the war in Iraq, the index had jumped a remarkable 13 points in four weeks, last week reaching its best level in seven months.
The index's performance is very similar to its track in 1991. It rose 10 points in the five weeks following the war's successful end, then faltered, losing three points in one week after its peak and six points over the next month. The index continued down gradually, bottoming out at a record low -50 in early 1992.
Confidence is much better than it was at this time in 1991, with an index of -19 now compared to -31 then. But confidence is sharply down from its peak (+38 in January 2000) and 10 points below its average since this weekly survey began in December 1985....
--ABC News
So the White House has modified its justification of the Top Gun stunt. You should read the brief Washington Post article about the White House's slipperiness on this subject in any case, but savor this detail:
Bush's televised landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln, for which the president wore a flight suit and a helmet and took underwater survival training in the White House swimming pool...
Survival training in the swimming pool?
Survival training in the swimming pool???
Bush's televised landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln, for which the president wore a flight suit and a helmet and took underwater survival training in the White House swimming pool...
Survival training in the swimming pool?
Survival training in the swimming pool???
As I watched the President's speech, before the great banner proclaiming "Mission Accomplished," I could not help but be reminded of the tobacco barns of my youth, which served as country road advertising backdrops for the slogans of chewing tobacco purveyors. I am loath to think of an aircraft carrier being used as an advertising backdrop for a presidential political slogan, and yet that is what I saw.
... We expect, nay demand, that our leaders be scrupulous in the truth and faithful to the facts. We do not seek theatrics or hyperbole. We do not require the stage management of our victories. The men and women of the United States military are to be saluted for their valor and sacrifice in Iraq. Their heroics and quiet resolve speak for themselves. The prowess and professionalism of America's military forces do not need to be embellished by the gaudy excesses of a political campaign.
--statement by Senator Robert Byrd, May 6, 2003; full text here
... We expect, nay demand, that our leaders be scrupulous in the truth and faithful to the facts. We do not seek theatrics or hyperbole. We do not require the stage management of our victories. The men and women of the United States military are to be saluted for their valor and sacrifice in Iraq. Their heroics and quiet resolve speak for themselves. The prowess and professionalism of America's military forces do not need to be embellished by the gaudy excesses of a political campaign.
--statement by Senator Robert Byrd, May 6, 2003; full text here
I watched ABC's World News Tonight last night. There was nothing on the broadcast about the current state of Iraq -- northing about ongoing chaos, nothing about attempts to restore order, nothing about new U.S. interim appointees or Iraqi efforts to move to self-government. There wasn't even the usual story about one or another playing card being captured. (There was a story about the prewar removal of $1 billion from Iraq's central bank by Saddam's family.) And World News Tonight has been reasonably good in its coverage of Iraq, given the constraints of a nightly network newscast.
Is this story over, or nearly so? Surely in the weeks to come we'll be told every time someone claims to have found evidence of WMD activity, but apart from that, will most of the press soon just stop running stories about day-to-day life in Iraq?
Is this story over, or nearly so? Surely in the weeks to come we'll be told every time someone claims to have found evidence of WMD activity, but apart from that, will most of the press soon just stop running stories about day-to-day life in Iraq?
Tuesday, May 06, 2003
Donald Luskin, an author and blogger endorsed by National Review and by the right-wing blog of record, InstaPundit, thinks he has Paul Krugman dead to rights. He doesn't. Luskin objects to the following passage in Krugman's most recent column:
American presidents traditionally make a point of avoiding military affectations. Dwight Eisenhower was a victorious general and John Kennedy a genuine war hero, but while in office neither wore anything that resembled military garb... There was a time when patriotic Americans from both parties would have denounced any president who tried to take political advantage of his role as commander in chief. But that, it seems, was another country.
Luskin posts and links a photo of Bill Clinton in a military-looking jacket, and declares Krugman's point refuted.
Not so fast.
What Krugman writes is true. American presidents don't spend their days in uniform like Latin American dictators from the not-so-distant bad old days. Eisenhower and Kennedy didn't flaunt their military backgrounds. And there was a time -- I'd say it was pre-Reagan -- when taking advantage of being commander in chief for political reasons was regarded as unseemly.
Since the Reagan era, presidents both Democratic and Republican have worn military garb in photo ops. But what Reagan, Bush the Elder, and Clinton occasionally wore in those photo ops could be called dual-use clothing -- military-issue garb that wouldn't seem out of place on a civilian. The picture Luskin links bears this out: Clinton wears a military windbreaker and cap. On Thursday, by contrast, Bush the Younger wore this.
See a difference?
And when Clinton slipped on that olive-drab windbreaker, he wasn't followed by spin doctors feeding every reporter the line that the opposition party might as well not field a candidate in the next election because the photo op was going to be used all through the next campaign, to devastating effect. Right-wingers will sneer that that would have been a foolish gaffe coming from Clinton -- but I don't remember Bush the Elder or Ronald Reagan doing anything quite like that either. They both enjoyed wearing olive drab, and being photographed in it, but they never threatened to make themselves wearing olive drab the main issue in a campaign.
They also never used our military as a prop in quite this manner, as reported by CNN:
Commanders gauged the wind and glided along at precisely that speed so that sea breezes would not blow across the ship during Bush's speech. That could create unwanted noise, Daniels said.
When the wind shifted during the speech, the ship changed course to minimize the breeze, said Petty Officer 3rd Class Terrance Rice.
The camera angle also was arranged by the White House to ensure it did not show the nearby coastline. A huge banner reading "Mission Accomplished" was strung along the bridge and loomed behind Bush.
The Navy sent all but a couple of fighter jets off the plane Wednesday and Thursday. Those left behind were left on the flight deck as props for Bush's speech.
The Bush people created an excuse for a speech out of whole cloth -- remember, no victory was declared -- then insisted the speech take place on an aircraft carrier of their choosing, then said a tailhook landing in a fighter jet was "necessary." Bush's three predecessors never did anything quite like that.
I'm stating the obvious: this was a cheap, low, dishonorable stunt. Krugman was right to denounce it.
American presidents traditionally make a point of avoiding military affectations. Dwight Eisenhower was a victorious general and John Kennedy a genuine war hero, but while in office neither wore anything that resembled military garb... There was a time when patriotic Americans from both parties would have denounced any president who tried to take political advantage of his role as commander in chief. But that, it seems, was another country.
Luskin posts and links a photo of Bill Clinton in a military-looking jacket, and declares Krugman's point refuted.
Not so fast.
What Krugman writes is true. American presidents don't spend their days in uniform like Latin American dictators from the not-so-distant bad old days. Eisenhower and Kennedy didn't flaunt their military backgrounds. And there was a time -- I'd say it was pre-Reagan -- when taking advantage of being commander in chief for political reasons was regarded as unseemly.
Since the Reagan era, presidents both Democratic and Republican have worn military garb in photo ops. But what Reagan, Bush the Elder, and Clinton occasionally wore in those photo ops could be called dual-use clothing -- military-issue garb that wouldn't seem out of place on a civilian. The picture Luskin links bears this out: Clinton wears a military windbreaker and cap. On Thursday, by contrast, Bush the Younger wore this.
See a difference?
And when Clinton slipped on that olive-drab windbreaker, he wasn't followed by spin doctors feeding every reporter the line that the opposition party might as well not field a candidate in the next election because the photo op was going to be used all through the next campaign, to devastating effect. Right-wingers will sneer that that would have been a foolish gaffe coming from Clinton -- but I don't remember Bush the Elder or Ronald Reagan doing anything quite like that either. They both enjoyed wearing olive drab, and being photographed in it, but they never threatened to make themselves wearing olive drab the main issue in a campaign.
They also never used our military as a prop in quite this manner, as reported by CNN:
Commanders gauged the wind and glided along at precisely that speed so that sea breezes would not blow across the ship during Bush's speech. That could create unwanted noise, Daniels said.
When the wind shifted during the speech, the ship changed course to minimize the breeze, said Petty Officer 3rd Class Terrance Rice.
The camera angle also was arranged by the White House to ensure it did not show the nearby coastline. A huge banner reading "Mission Accomplished" was strung along the bridge and loomed behind Bush.
The Navy sent all but a couple of fighter jets off the plane Wednesday and Thursday. Those left behind were left on the flight deck as props for Bush's speech.
The Bush people created an excuse for a speech out of whole cloth -- remember, no victory was declared -- then insisted the speech take place on an aircraft carrier of their choosing, then said a tailhook landing in a fighter jet was "necessary." Bush's three predecessors never did anything quite like that.
I'm stating the obvious: this was a cheap, low, dishonorable stunt. Krugman was right to denounce it.
Idiocy from Margaret Carlson, who's thought to be a liberal:
The Democrats are trying to get through to a public who, on the one hand, hopes that toppling Saddam actually makes them safer and, on the other, is entertained and impressed by Bush landing in a fighter jet on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln. Democrats point out how artificial and choreographed the whole enterprise was. But it's a little like Christmas. Not believing in Santa Claus doesn't stop you from loving those presents under the tree.
Exactly what evidence do we have that the public was "entertained and impressed" by that cheap stunt? Maybe Mr. and Mrs. America really did enjoy it (my guess is that only Mr. America did) -- but all I know for sure is that the press keeps repeating the line that this was a great and impressive event that will generate many devastatingly effective campaign images, with no supporting evidence except all the other stories that say the same thing.
Me, I'll wait for the polls. I want to see whether surveys conducted after the Top Gun photo op show increasing disapproval of Bush by women, blacks, and registered Democrats -- the groups that are traditionally less susceptible to the charms of tuff-guy Republicans who act like overgrown eleven-year-olds. My hunch is they will.
The Democrats are trying to get through to a public who, on the one hand, hopes that toppling Saddam actually makes them safer and, on the other, is entertained and impressed by Bush landing in a fighter jet on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln. Democrats point out how artificial and choreographed the whole enterprise was. But it's a little like Christmas. Not believing in Santa Claus doesn't stop you from loving those presents under the tree.
Exactly what evidence do we have that the public was "entertained and impressed" by that cheap stunt? Maybe Mr. and Mrs. America really did enjoy it (my guess is that only Mr. America did) -- but all I know for sure is that the press keeps repeating the line that this was a great and impressive event that will generate many devastatingly effective campaign images, with no supporting evidence except all the other stories that say the same thing.
Me, I'll wait for the polls. I want to see whether surveys conducted after the Top Gun photo op show increasing disapproval of Bush by women, blacks, and registered Democrats -- the groups that are traditionally less susceptible to the charms of tuff-guy Republicans who act like overgrown eleven-year-olds. My hunch is they will.
Why, if you're a Republican, is there no limit to how much you can screw up and still expect to be taken seriously?
The Bush administration's budget director, Mitch Daniels, is resigning -- not because the shame of taking a well-managed federal budget and drowning it in a sea of red ink is finally too much for him to bear, and not because he's been driven from office by an outraged electorate, but because he thinks the voters of Indiana will reward him for the work he's done with the state's governorship. You'd think the voters of a state where the 2004 deficit is expected to be 8 to 9 percent of the budget would be wary of a deficit-creator like Daniels -- but, apparently, Daniels isn't worried, and he probably has no reason to be.
It's never a surprise when Republicans on the public payroll aren't held accountable for the actual work we pay them to do -- the press is generally so terrified by the prospect of being called "liberal" that it won't utter a word. For instance, we've all been having a lot of fun at William Bennett's expense recently, but why did he ever have credibility? He was our drug czar in the 1980s and the use of cocaine and crack skyrocketed; he was secretary of education and he did little or nothing to improve our schools, which were mediocre at best. And, of course, he served a president who had a reputation as a hater of fiscal irresponsibility even as he created massive deficits.
So Daniels will talk about fiscal prudence, without fear of contradiction (the linked article refers him as the "administration tightwad"), and will probably win the governorship in the state that gave us Dan Quayle and Dan Burton.
The Bush administration's budget director, Mitch Daniels, is resigning -- not because the shame of taking a well-managed federal budget and drowning it in a sea of red ink is finally too much for him to bear, and not because he's been driven from office by an outraged electorate, but because he thinks the voters of Indiana will reward him for the work he's done with the state's governorship. You'd think the voters of a state where the 2004 deficit is expected to be 8 to 9 percent of the budget would be wary of a deficit-creator like Daniels -- but, apparently, Daniels isn't worried, and he probably has no reason to be.
It's never a surprise when Republicans on the public payroll aren't held accountable for the actual work we pay them to do -- the press is generally so terrified by the prospect of being called "liberal" that it won't utter a word. For instance, we've all been having a lot of fun at William Bennett's expense recently, but why did he ever have credibility? He was our drug czar in the 1980s and the use of cocaine and crack skyrocketed; he was secretary of education and he did little or nothing to improve our schools, which were mediocre at best. And, of course, he served a president who had a reputation as a hater of fiscal irresponsibility even as he created massive deficits.
So Daniels will talk about fiscal prudence, without fear of contradiction (the linked article refers him as the "administration tightwad"), and will probably win the governorship in the state that gave us Dan Quayle and Dan Burton.
Rocky start for new Iraqi police force
BAGHDAD – Hundreds of former Iraqi police officers milled around the police college grounds here Monday, looking for the $20 they were promised and awaiting their marching orders. But those orders never came.
In fact, no one was clear who - whether former Iraqi police officials or the US military - would be giving the orders that would get them back patrolling the streets.
...Last week, Radio Iraq, the new station run by the US-led coalition, called on all former policemen to report to the college for work this week. "Put on your uniforms," they were instructed, "but leave your ranks and insignia at home. This is a new era." The promise of $20 - double or triple their usual monthly salary - added incentive.
But neither the instructions nor the money materialized, and a crucial step in returning law to Baghdad's streets and authority to the Iraqis themselves has gotten off to a rocky start.
...a few thieves were arrested in Baghdad on Sunday, too - but these were soon released. "We were not sure what to do with them," admits General Abdullah. "The Americans did not have interest, so we lost ours."...
--Christian Science Monitor
BAGHDAD – Hundreds of former Iraqi police officers milled around the police college grounds here Monday, looking for the $20 they were promised and awaiting their marching orders. But those orders never came.
In fact, no one was clear who - whether former Iraqi police officials or the US military - would be giving the orders that would get them back patrolling the streets.
...Last week, Radio Iraq, the new station run by the US-led coalition, called on all former policemen to report to the college for work this week. "Put on your uniforms," they were instructed, "but leave your ranks and insignia at home. This is a new era." The promise of $20 - double or triple their usual monthly salary - added incentive.
But neither the instructions nor the money materialized, and a crucial step in returning law to Baghdad's streets and authority to the Iraqis themselves has gotten off to a rocky start.
...a few thieves were arrested in Baghdad on Sunday, too - but these were soon released. "We were not sure what to do with them," admits General Abdullah. "The Americans did not have interest, so we lost ours."...
--Christian Science Monitor
What's been going on in Umm Qasr during the time Jay Garner's pastry chef was whipping up Black Forest cakes for Garner's little confab. Yes, folks, this is still going on. (Warning: the Umm Qasr link is accompanied by a disturbing photo):
"Water! Water!" they cry, running from the roadside towards passing cars, thrusting their fingers towards their mouths in the salute of the thirsty.
At the local school, a crowd of mothers swathed in black queues in vain for Red Cross handouts of enriched biscuits for their infants....
"The biggest problem is that the people have no money and no jobs," he said. "The economy has collapsed. The cement factory, the grain silos and the port have shut down. There is nothing in the markets and the prices of everything have risen three and four times."
Limited emergency food relief and medical supplies have been trucked in from Kuwait along with irregular tanker deliveries of water donated by the Kuwaiti Government. But everyone says it is not enough for the population of about 50,000 people living in the area.
Some of the help has proved useless. A shipment of Australian wheat that arrived with great fanfare had to be rerouted to Kuwait because there were no facilities to mill it into flour....
I know, I know --numbness sets in when you read too many articles like this. I keep linking them because the U.S. press has decided that focusing on the condition of ordinary Iraqis is just so last month -- nothing matters to the stateside press now except Jay Garner and his snazzy new government.
"Water! Water!" they cry, running from the roadside towards passing cars, thrusting their fingers towards their mouths in the salute of the thirsty.
At the local school, a crowd of mothers swathed in black queues in vain for Red Cross handouts of enriched biscuits for their infants....
"The biggest problem is that the people have no money and no jobs," he said. "The economy has collapsed. The cement factory, the grain silos and the port have shut down. There is nothing in the markets and the prices of everything have risen three and four times."
Limited emergency food relief and medical supplies have been trucked in from Kuwait along with irregular tanker deliveries of water donated by the Kuwaiti Government. But everyone says it is not enough for the population of about 50,000 people living in the area.
Some of the help has proved useless. A shipment of Australian wheat that arrived with great fanfare had to be rerouted to Kuwait because there were no facilities to mill it into flour....
I know, I know --numbness sets in when you read too many articles like this. I keep linking them because the U.S. press has decided that focusing on the condition of ordinary Iraqis is just so last month -- nothing matters to the stateside press now except Jay Garner and his snazzy new government.
A Colorado Springs radio station has suspended two DJs for playing the Dixie Chicks, even though station manager Jerry Grant says he expects to restore the Chicks to the playlist eventually, even though three quarters of the calls the station has received regarding the Chicks have been in favor of playing them, and even though the outrage is clearly fizzling out across the country.
If this is a matter of principle for the station, shouldn't the Chicks be dropped forever? And if it isn't, and nobody really cares any more, why the DJ suspensions now? Did the Chicks not serve some sort of mandatory minimum in Colorado country radio purgatory?
(By the way, for what it's worth, the station, KKCS, is not owned by Clear Channel.)
If this is a matter of principle for the station, shouldn't the Chicks be dropped forever? And if it isn't, and nobody really cares any more, why the DJ suspensions now? Did the Chicks not serve some sort of mandatory minimum in Colorado country radio purgatory?
(By the way, for what it's worth, the station, KKCS, is not owned by Clear Channel.)
Does every hospital in Iraq have adequate medical supplies yet? Does every city, town, village and hamlet have adequate food and potable drinking water? Has electricity finally been restored to the entire country? And if not, is it not just a tad unseemly that Jay Garner had a frigging pastry chef flown into Iraq?
(Thanks to BuzzFlash for the link.)
(Thanks to BuzzFlash for the link.)
TWO OF A KIND?
And if the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything....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.
--Senator Rick Santorum to an AP reporter last month
Omar's plan for the morning was to distribute leaflets outside Holborn undergroundstation entitled: "Homosexuality, Lesbianism, Adultery, Fornication and Bestiality: THE DEADLY DISEASES."
--account of a day in the life of Sheikh Omar Bakri, British advocate of Osama bin Laden, Hamas, and Hezbollah, in Jon Ronson's book Them: Adventures with Extremists
And if the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything....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.
--Senator Rick Santorum to an AP reporter last month
Omar's plan for the morning was to distribute leaflets outside Holborn undergroundstation entitled: "Homosexuality, Lesbianism, Adultery, Fornication and Bestiality: THE DEADLY DISEASES."
--account of a day in the life of Sheikh Omar Bakri, British advocate of Osama bin Laden, Hamas, and Hezbollah, in Jon Ronson's book Them: Adventures with Extremists
American efforts to foist new rulers on the people of Iraq are becoming increasingly grotesque. In some cities US troops have sparked demonstrations by imposing officials from the old Saddam Hussein regime. In others they have evicted new anti-Saddam administrators who have local backing.
They have mishandled religious leaders as well as politicians. In the Shia suburbs of Baghdad, they arrested a powerful cleric, Mohammed Fartousi al-Sadr, who had criticised the US presence. In Falluja, an overwhelmingly Sunni town, they detained two popular imams. All three men were released within days, but local people saw the detentions as a warning that Iraqis should submit to the US will.
The Pentagon's General Jay Garner has taken an equally biased line in his plans for Iraq's government. He held a conference of 300 Iraqis in Baghdad last week and excluded almost every group which has an organised following....
That's from an article by Jonathan Steele in today's Guardian. Go read it.
They have mishandled religious leaders as well as politicians. In the Shia suburbs of Baghdad, they arrested a powerful cleric, Mohammed Fartousi al-Sadr, who had criticised the US presence. In Falluja, an overwhelmingly Sunni town, they detained two popular imams. All three men were released within days, but local people saw the detentions as a warning that Iraqis should submit to the US will.
The Pentagon's General Jay Garner has taken an equally biased line in his plans for Iraq's government. He held a conference of 300 Iraqis in Baghdad last week and excluded almost every group which has an organised following....
That's from an article by Jonathan Steele in today's Guardian. Go read it.
I've been chided via e-mail for pessimism about the 2004 elections. Sorry -- I still think it's going to be a big Bush blowout. I basically agree with this assessment by Adam Nagourney from Sunday's New York Times. It's interesting to note that James Carville, whether or not he shares my gloom about the likely outcome, agrees that '04 won't be a rerun of '92.
Bushism will create disillusionment eventually -- I just don't think it will be soon, certainly not while most people still think there's a direct line between current front-page news (and economic woes) and 9/11.
Bushism will create disillusionment eventually -- I just don't think it will be soon, certainly not while most people still think there's a direct line between current front-page news (and economic woes) and 9/11.
Monday, May 05, 2003
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?
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?
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.
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