Black Box Recorder

Cassus belli ad Syriae

Jack Straw, Tony Blair's roving secretary of bullshit, speaking on the Syrian government's alleged involvement in the assassination of Rafik Hariri:

"... they have to get the message that you cannot have a government, if I may say so, at any level going into assassinations."

What Straw, of course, was really saying is that "you" (whoever that is) cannot have a government that the US and Britain don't like going into assassinations. His little maxim surely does not apply to Britain's senior partner in aggression, the US, for example. Nor would Straw be in favor of sending a real "message" to the Israeli government, despite his occasional noises in this direction (emphases added):

Bridget Kendall [BBC interviewer]:
You mentioned the Middle East. We've had an e-mail from Mark Messenger in Brighton who says: What's your opinion of the letter written by 52 former UK diplomats? Do you feel they had a valid concern about this government's relentless following of a right wing American administration that seems to support political assassinations in Palestine and illegal settlements in the West Bank?

Jack Straw:
Well they were entitled to their opinions, is what I say, and at least it shows that contrary to the parody that Foreign Office diplomats are not sort of clones.

Bridget Kendall:
But did they raise a valid point?

Jack Straw:
Well of course they raised points which were valid to them. Were they justified? No I don't happen to think that they were. And we are against assassinations or killings, let's be clear about this, by the Israelis, no one, in a sense, has been more vocal than have I - making it clear that we regard the so-called assassination policy as unjustified, unlawful and counterproductive. ... We also however, need to take account of the terror which has been perpetrated against the Israelis. And that too has to be put into the balance.

In condensed form, what Straw is saying is that these 52 diplomats' aim is wildly off the mark, since Israel doesn't actually use "assassinations", but even if it does, there are extenuating circumstances that make it alright.

And the US and the UK will always be the ones who can define what these extenuating circumstances are.

Sunday reading

Ghost in a directory: A man considers his and his family's history in Palestine/Israel.

Reviews of several books looking at the effects of WWII on the German population. Two excerpts:

Payback is infinitely darker. The title itself (Vergeltung in German) is a grotesque reminder to the Germans that Hitler had promised to "pay back" the English with his "V," or Vergeltung, rockets; instead, the English paid back the Germans, and Ledig's implication is that they got what was coming to them. Even more disturbing is how the Germans behave in the midst of catastrophe... An American pilot is shot down and lynched by an angry, sadistic mob; the most fanatic of the bunch are a pimply boy who stares at the helpless victim with "the indifferent face of a child torturing an animal" and a medical doctor who beats the pilot with a poker while in a state of sexual arousal. Through it all, the narrator remains scathingly ironic about Germany and the possibility of religious consolation. "God on our side," he writes at the novel's end, mimicking a popular Nazi slogan. "But he was on the others' side as well." This was not the kind of memory that Germans wanted to cultivate in the 1950s.

...

Here we can see the reason this topic [the mass rape of German women by occupying Soviet soldiers] remained off-limits for so many years: not so much because the women were ashamed as because the men were doubly humiliated, first for having lost the war on the front, and then for having been unable to protect their wives and daughters at home. Some of the most devastating remarks in this diary concern the emasculation of German men--the "miserable and powerless" civilians who grub for food and stand idly by as the Russians claim their sexual booty; but also the returning soldiers with their "stubbly chins and sunken cheeks" who inspire only pity, "no hope or expectation." "The Nazi world--ruled by men, glorifying the strong man--is beginning to crumble," she remarks; the end of the war marks the "defeat of the male sex."

Report: Armed dolphins may be missing

Dolphins trained and armed by the US military may have been swept out into the Gulf of Mexico during Hurricane Katrina:

Armed dolphins, trained by the US military to shoot terrorists and pinpoint spies underwater, may be missing in the Gulf of Mexico.

Experts who have studied the US navy's cetacean training exercises claim the 36 mammals could be carrying 'toxic dart' guns. Divers and surfers risk attack, they claim, from a species considered to be among the planet's smartest.

...

"My concern is that they have learnt to shoot at divers in wetsuits who have simulated terrorists in exercises. If divers or windsurfers are mistaken for a spy or suicide bomber and if equipped with special harnesses carrying toxic darts, they could fire," [accident investigator Leo Sheridan] said.

Maybe the military should look into developing a super-high-tech stealth tuna-fishing boat to take care of this problem.

Several from the Independent

The Independent has a very good issue this Sunday. Some highlights:

- Does Blair have any principles at all - besides poodle-ism?

Tony Blair has admitted that he is changing his views on combating global warming to mirror those of President Bush - and oppose negotiating international treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol.

His admission, which has outraged environmentalists on both sides of the Atlantic, flies in the face of his promises made in the past two years and undermines the agreement he masterminded at this summer's Gleneagles Summit.

- Israeli soldiers serving in Hebron speak out. Remember: purity of arms, morality, blah blah blah.

- What were those "British soldiers dressed as Arabs" doing in Basra anyway?

- Race against time to track down last surviving Nazis

US and China: Father knows best for the 21st century

Nag, nag, nag, nag, nag:

Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick bluntly warned China last night that it must begin to take concrete steps to address what he called a "a cauldron of anxiety" in the United States and other parts of the world about Chinese intentions.

The WaPo article conveniently lists, in bulleted format, the list of demands that Zoellick presented to China. They include an explanation of "defense spending, intentions, doctrine and military exercises". Perhaps if China replied that it was simply building up its military to conduct wars of aggression against weaker states and be in a position to launch pre-emptive nuclear strikes against parties it found dangerous, then Zoellick - as an official of a country doing both of these things - might be reassured.

Zoellick also demanded that China "not attempt to 'maneuver toward a predominance of power' in Asia by building separate alliances in Southeast Asia and other areas". One would usually think that "building alliances" with countries, especially those in your immediate neighborhood, are a normal aspect of diplomacy. Is Zoellick asking that China turn to the US for approval of its foreign affairs decisions? Maybe someone should inform Zoellick about the Monroe Doctrine, and whose idea that was.

It seems that Zoellick and others are happy to see China and its army of poorly paid and abused workers serve as the world's source of cheap consumer goods - but not so happy to see it actually function as a major world power. Still, I'm not convinced that adopting a "father knows best" philosophy is going to be very productive, especially when the "child" in this relationship holds the pursestrings and all the IOUs. But considering the smashing successes of the Bush administration's foreign policy so far, maybe they know something I don't.

Roberts in; next Supreme to be worse
Or, the sound of shit and failure (apologies to Born Against)

It is now clear that John Roberts will be the next Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

Senator Pat Leahy, the Judiciary Committee's senior Democrat, announced that he would be supporting Robert's nomination. Notice how he explained his support with phrases like "left with the understanding" that Roberts will do this or not do that, "trust that he's a person of honor", and that Leahy can "only take him at his word" that he will not be a right-wing nutjob bowing and scraping before Bush or whatever other right-wing nutjob ends up in the White House after Bush (and it will be another right-wing nutjob).

Senator Leahy, in other words, "knows" nothing about this guy he is supporting. He knows nothing - he's happy to take it all on faith. Now who exactly are the Democrats supposed to be representing?

But some of the rank-and-file never fucking learn:

See, to me the idea is to get MORE people to the Democratic Party, not less. Not by compromising our values, but by finding shared values with folks like Gene Taylor... He can't speak for me on social issues, privacy, choice, gay rights, etc. I do not want Gene Taylor to be the Dem spokesman on those issues. I'll disagree vigorously with his views on those issues. But I am glad he is a Democrat. I am for a Big Tent Democratic Party.

So, in other words, you can disagree with someone about virtually everything of substance - everything you find objectionable about Roberts, for example - and you still want them in your party, because they say one correct thing at one correct moment? That makes no fucking sense.

And yet the same people are eternally surprised and dumbfounded and shocked that the "big tent" Democrats will sell them out again and again and again. Well, these are your rewards for supporting and participating in a "big tent" organization of this nature. That strategy might work in an ad hoc coalition or a particular interest group, but it is absolute shit for a political party. This is what the "big tent" policy is going to bring you - unreliable politicians who will fail you at crucial times and leaders who cannot make a vote on something that supposedly matters a great deal a matter of party loyalty.

And Democrats need to get rid of the silly idea that Bush will nominate someone less "ideological" or more "liberal" to "balance" the court:

Leahy and Reid both said they would strenuously object to some of the names being discussed and urged the president to select someone who is open-minded and not an ideologue.

Let them object, "strenuously" or otherwise, all they want - everyone knows that Reid and Leahy and whoever else the Democrats put forward will be powerless to stop whoever Bush decides to pick. And, let me assure you, it will be someone (Janice Rogers Brown?) who will be measurably worse than Roberts - just to spite the powerless Democrats and those people who actually believe in progressive ideas. As Lugal said once, this is how the Bushies work - always in attack-dog mode.

The idea that Bush actually gives a shit what his political enemies think is simply preposterous. After 5 years of Bush and company, you'd think that the Democrats and their lackeys would have figured this out by now. But, then again, there's a reason why the Democrats keep losing.

Nein Danke

Haha... Steve Bell.

Occupation army jailbreak

It's a good thing that the US and the UK have returned sovereignty to the Iraqis. Now that Iraq is sovereign, we'd never see things like, oh, an occupying army deciding to break some of its soldiers out of jail using tanks.

Oh, wait:

British soldiers used 10 armored vehicles to break down the walls of the central jail in this southern city Monday and freed two Britons, allegedly undercover commandos arrested on charges of shooting two Iraqi policemen, witnesses said.
...

The latest violence in the oil city of Basra, 340 miles south of the capital, began early Monday when local authorities reported arresting the two Britons, described as special forces commandos dressed in Arab clothing, for allegedly shooting two Iraqi policemen, one of whom died.

Sovereignty - it's on the move in Iraq.

New Orleans doctors and life and death

Thanks to having no other option, New Orleans doctors were forced to choose between abandoning their patients to a horrible, slow death and speeding along the process:

Doctors working in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans killed critically ill patients rather than leaving them to die in agony as they evacuated hospitals, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
...

In an extraordinary interview with The Mail on Sunday, one New Orleans doctor told how she 'prayed for God to have mercy on her soul' after she ignored every tenet of medical ethics and ended the lives of patients she had earlier fought to save.
...

The doctor said: "I didn't know if I was doing the right thing. But I did not have time. I had to make snap decisions, under the most appalling circumstances, and I did what I thought was right."

Read it all. The fact that the doctors were put in this dilemma was not their fault. But who will make the case that that it was not their fault, and that other people - high-ranked people who are not bound by Hippocrates Oath or any other moral or ethical guidelines - are to blame for this awful dilemma?

(Thanks to Left I for the link.)

The class war in action

Mercenaries descend into New Orleans to guard the houses of the rich.

There have been no major repairs to the infrastructure leading into or out of New Orleans since the hurricane hit. Yet the rich - the same scum who "Libertarians" and other assorted Republican ideologues want to see shouldering the burden of public assistance - can somehow manage to bring an army, not of social-work volunteers, but of goddamn mercenaries to protect their own little mansions from looters.

And it was impossible for the federal government to bring in relief workers and transportation to get the hostages in the Superdome and the convention center out of the city?

The Guardian article informs us that some mercenaries

...had been hired by Jimmy Reiss, a descendant of an old New Orleans family who made his fortune selling electronic systems to shipbuilders. They had been flown by private jet to Baton Rouge, the capital of Louisiana, and then helicoptered to Audubon Place....

What the Guardian doesn't tell us is that Reiss is one of the racists who wants to see a "New Order" (i.e., ethnic cleansing) take place in New Orleans:

The new city must be something very different, Mr. Reiss says, with better services and fewer poor people. "Those who want to see this city rebuilt want to see it done in a completely different way: demographically, geographically and politically," he says. "I'm not just speaking for myself here. The way we've been living is not going to happen again, or we're out."

This, my friends, is the class war in action. Reiss (weiss?) is not the only one who wants to see a gleaming, white New Orleans take the place of the one that the Republicans allowed to be destroyed. They want to clear the place out of the poor people (excepting the absolut minimum that have to be there to serve Hurricanes to tourists and martinis to Reiss and his sick little band of assholes).

The Guardian articles ends with this observation by one of the mercenaries:

"I spoke to one of the other owners on the telephone earlier in the week," Yovi said. "I told him how the water had stopped just at the back gate. God watches out for the rich people, I guess."

Funny (and not "ha ha" funny) how that works.

Why the Democrats suck and shall continue to lose: Part XXIII

Take a look at this analysis from Kos:

There's that 38 percent [Bush approval and general Republican approval rating] again. This may be the floor. Bush may have finally hit rock bottom. If we can keep him there, we may be able to sweep out the whole lot of them from the Congressional leadership. Numbers like these will help recruit better candidates, raise more money, and create the sort of clear-cut distinctions between our side and theirs that voters can grasp on a gut level. [Emphasis mine]

Dude... I cannot see how poll results - as opposed to actual motherfucking Democratic Party action on behalf of poor and lower middle-class voters - could possibly create any sort of "clear-cut distinctions" between the Democrats and the Republicans. I really don't - but perhaps Kos has some kind of secret formula by which voter reaction to a specific (albeit major) event magically forces the same voters to begin reacting on a "gut level" to things that they weren't reacting to before they responded to the polls. It is as if these voters were taking their cues from their own responses as opposed to what the Democrats were actually fucking doing.

Again, we have Democrats doing worse than chasing their own tails; they are chasing the tail of another mutt turning in its own circles. Enough of this crap - forget branding and this other bullshit. It's not going to do the party of H. Clinton, Biden and Lieberman any good.

The "Libertarian" response to disaster

I'm going to be kind... this has to be the most retarded blog post in the history of the medium. No, hold on a second... I'm afraid that, while being kind, I have unintentionally devalued the sheer stupidity of the argument. Really, I'm surprised that the person who wrote it has enough intelligence to breathe, much less pick up a pen and write or bang out shit on a computer keyboard.

Such a short post, and yet so much bullshit: tendentiousness, density, and the most unlikely "logical" conclusions. Let's start with this "ironic" observation:

In the wake of compounding disasters, ordinary people spontaneously kept a whole city fed, clothed, watered, and in some instances, even powered.

No, not at all. First of all, approximately 500,000 people lived in the city of New Orleans, and over 3 million in the metropolitan area, before it was destroyed. Even counting all the people held hostage by the Bush administration and redneck suburban cops in the Superdome and the convention center, we only get to about 50,000 people (i.e., much less than 10% of the pre-hurricane population). This hardly counts as the "whole city" of New Orleans.

Second, without at all denigrating the very real heroism of the "ordinary people" who kept their comrades and compatriots alive, they "spontaneously" did nothing along the lines of what the author suggests. The food, water, and clothing they found and the electricity they connected to were already there due to previous activities of the state. But according to the author's narrative, we should believe that the "communists", unwittingly relieved of the burden of "centralism", somehow managed to incant into existence all of these basic necessities. Needless to say, this is absolute poppycock.

It is much more credible to say that the survivors of this natural/manmade catastrophe mananged, through their actions, to scrounge enough remnants of previous state activities to carry on a bit of civilization in circumstances under which all of the foundations of civilization had been knocked out.

And finally, without help from the outside (i.e., the "statist" outside), exactly how long would these heroes have been able to carry on? The author doesn't say, and let me tell you, he can't, because it would not have been long at all. Let us, for a very brief moment, consider the necessities of life: food - requiring arable land and laborers to work it; and water - requiring clean water sources, neither of which were not possible in a city into which all kinds of toxic shit had flowed.

Can we really expect that a few hundred ragged survivors could have carried on indefinitely completely cut off from all of the basic sources of life in a ruined post-industrial wasteland? Hell fucking no. Saying that the survivors in New Orleans managed to survive "spontaneously" is akin to saying that all of those Soviet parades took place "spontaneously". Anyone, and especially "Libertarians", who believes this needs a real head examination.

Then there's this:

At every turn, these civilizational functions were halted by slobbering subhumans with big guns, unlimited funds, and a license to kill -- collectively known as the State.

Does a Libertarian need to blame the entire apparatus of "The State" for this? Perhaps there is a simpler explanation - like "racism", for example. Hello... the idea of "turf", and "our land is our land" and "if you are not our color, then get the fuck out"? All of these have a long-lasting, and still very relevant, currency in the United States. Speaking as someone who comes from the South, if you actually go there, you will, I guarantee you, see these principles in action.

And in any event, one of the tenents of "Libertarianism" is that the only functions of the State should be to provide for a) national defense, and b) protection of private property. The "subhumans with big guns" were police and National Guard - the very people whose functions someone like "Sapienza", the author, would normally be defending. Considering that they were "defending" private property in White areas, like Gretna, I really cannot see how "Sapienza" can be attacking them. If he has to swallow institutionalized racism as part of his "libertarian" pill, then he should either spit the whole thing up or shut the fuck up.

When I read shit like this, I have to conclude that so-called "libertarians" are actually advancing the agenda of the crypto-fascist Right and the Bush administration. I mean, hey, after all, it doesn't matter if Bush - someone who, like Reagan, sees government as "The Problem" preventing you from solving all your difficulties - is competent or motherfucking incompetent. The real problem is not competence or motherfucking incompetence - the real problem, according to shitheads like "Sapienza", is that anyone who steps into government are even judged at all according to criteria like "competence" or "motherfucking incompetence", since they think that the whole system of governance is wrong and wrongheaded anyway.

This is the same belief that Bush holds and Reagan held. How can you possibly judge the performance of a system when it is run by people who are determined to "strangle it" in their disguting bathtub? As Dave Lindorff says,

Yet with such governmental nihilists in power, how could the outcome in New Orleans have been other than an epic disaster? Would these people have hired teachers for their schools who didn't believe kids could learn? Would they have gone to doctors when they were sick, who professed a belief that medicine was a joke? Would they have hired a contractor to build their home who said that engineering and architecture were for sissies?

Finally, you may wonder why I have put "Sapienza", the author's name, consistently in quotes. This is why: "Sapienza" means "wisdom" in Italian. Anyone who writes this tripe, and then ends with the question "Anyone want to mock the "invisible hand" now?", surely must either have a seriously ironic made-up name or a serious genetic defect in the family line. No, Mr. "Sapienza", I shan't mock your Santa Claus-like belief - I'll only mock your crappy argument (I'm being generous again) and your ridiculous surname.

Open letter to the president re: FEMA director

Dear President Bush,

I'm just curious: why did you relieve the FEMA director of his duties, when just last week you said that "Brownie" was doing a "heck of a job"?

Had he stopped doing a "heck of a job" in the meantime?

I don't get it - don't people doing a "heck of a job" deserve to keep working? What happened?

Please let me know. If you are too embarrassed to use the comments, you can send me a private email. I promise I won't tell anyone.

Awaiting your response,
I remain,
unhumbly yours,

Manumission

P.S. - Has Cheney begun fucking himself yet?

Republicans and "activist judges"

Can't live with them:

The sacred institution of marriage should not be redefined by a few activist judges.

Can't live without them:

Schwarzenegger wouldn't comment on the bill while it was pending before the Legislature, but Tuesday night his press secretary, Margita Thompson, issued a statement: "[...]The governor believes the courts are the correct venue for this decision to be made".

New Orleans is destroyed




New Orleans has been destroyed. Even after the water is pumped out - in 3 or 4 months - the next order of business will probably be to condemn and demolish a quarter or more of the city's housing stock. Thankfully some of the people forced to stay behind were rescued.






It is incredible that the focus now in news reports seems to be on looting. Hello... people are dying. People are dying because they could not afford to leave their city. Don't we have better things to worry about?

Let's make the situation perfectly clear. Wealthier residents of New Orleans were able to flee the endangered city, using their own resources, and abandoning whatever property they could not take with them. Let us also stress that they essentially abandoned their fellow, poorer and overwhelmingly black, citizens to their fate. So poor people, left to die a horrible death from drowning or disease, are now getting shit from observers in their safe, happy middle-class homes for taking abandoned property.

Once again, we have to turn to newspapers outside of the US (here, the Guardian) to get the straight story on this betrayal of the lower classes:

Professor Dumas added that not enough provision seemed to have been made for poor people. "There doesn't seem to have been much attention paid to people who didn't have private automobiles," he said. "I didn't hear anything about school buses or city buses being used to aim people out of town." He said that there appeared to be little forward planning to cater to those on low incomes who would be unable to return to their homes for up to two months but who would not have the money to pay for that time in a hotel.

The racists who want to take a "hard line" to looting in New Orleans or curse the "cussedness" of those staying behind actually should be looking elsewhere to see what real looting looks like. Don't know? Let me show you:





Over $5/gallon in Georgia. Who are the real looters? When the poor use the "two hands that god gave them", that's "looting". But when the rich do it, that's just "good business" or, even better, "inviolable market forces".



Any government official giving an order for police or National Guard to prioritize dealing with looters over helping stranded residents (insofar as the looters are not hindering rescue efforts) is a criminal and will have blood on his or her hands.

Hell, people trying to get out of the fucking city by any means possible have to deal with gun-toting Texas rednecks:



Meanwhile, as New Orleans drowns, Bush fiddles:



Bush will, without a doubt, go down in history as one of the most incompetent and foolish leaders of all time, along with Nero, Louis XVI, and Czar Nicholas II. Don't believe me? Take a look at this quote from Bush's luxury fly-over of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast:

Turning to his aides, he said: "It's totally wiped out. ... It's devastating, it's got to be doubly devastating on the ground."

You think? Only "double" the devastation that a pampered fool can imagine from his luxury plane, doing a circle or two and then going back to DC?

Why did this happen? For sure, hurricanes are a fact of life along the Gulf Coast. But that's the entire point: they are a fact of life, and therefore you plan ahead as best you can and make preparations for the worst case. But that explicitly did not happen with New Orleans: resources for levee maintenance were diverted to the war in Iraq, natural barriers to storms were deliberately degraded by the needs of big business and development, and few people gave a shit. Again, from the Guardian article:

"Human activity, directly or indirectly, has caused 1,500 square miles of natural coastal barriers to be eroded in the past 50 years. Human activity has clearly been a significant factor in coastal Louisiana land losses, along with subsidence, saltwater intrusion, storm events, barrier island degradation, and relative sea level changes," the society said in a paper last year.
...

The war in Iraq was also being seen as playing a part in the federal response to the crisis. Many members of the National Guard who would normally have been swiftly mobilised to help in evacuation are on duty in Iraq. Although US air force, navy and army units were deployed to assist, the locally-based National Guard is depleted by the demands of the war.
...

The corps has long wanted to strengthen some of the levees which have been sinking, and on its website yesterday said it planned to build a further 74 miles of hurricane defences. But according to local media, it was last year refused extra funding by the White House which wanted to save money to pay for homeland security against terrorism. "In its budget, the Bush administration proposed a significant reduction in funding for south-east Louisiana's chief hurricane protection project. Bush proposed $10.4m, a sixth of what local officials say they need," reported Newhouse News Service yesterday.
...

Last year Walter Maestri, emergency chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, one of the worst affected areas, reportedly told the Times-Picayune newspaper: "It appears that the money [for strengthening levees against hurricanes] has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

Calling this criminal negligence is dead wrong. This is just fucking criminal. The people responsible should pay.

In the meantime, good luck to all of those still in New Orleans and those out but with no place in the world to go. I hope y'all make it ok.

Leading Democrats: Spineless, or evil?

One answer for the latter:

The Dems know full well there is an enormous anti-war constituency out there. If they used their considerable resources to organize it and give voice to it, then it would quickly prevail. A sorry example is Cindy Sheehan's effort. Not a single major Democrat has shown up at Camp Casey. They are blowing off Sheehan just like Bush.

In fact far from being cowardly, the Dems are showing considerable spine in standing up to the anti-war constituency that routinely does the leg work and contributes the dollars to elect them. Here their courage and resolve befit heroes of Homeric proportions. In the face of powerful anti-war sentiment from their loyalists, the Dems resolutely call for "staying the course" in the war for which they voted. Now there is spine.

You make the call.

Several for your reading pleasure

More-or-less regular posting expected to resume shortly. Until then, here are some articles for your titillation and edification.

- What Jeff Bale says. A real Left alternative to the SPD in Germany is welcome, but the attacks against gays and non-German citizen workers are disgusting. The fact that some leftists are seemingly ignoring them is worse.

- Matt Taibbi (who is no longer at NY Press) meets Cindy Sheehan.

- Daniel Lazare at The Nation takes on "patriotic history".

- Another look at the Gaza "withdrawal".

Support striking workers

Support the striking Northwest Airlines mechanics - fly another airline. If you're going to the airport (where, of course, you will hopefully be stepping on a non-Northwest plane), say hello to the strikers and offer them some encouragement.

Northwest's relationship with its mechanics is yet another example of workers being asked to make major sacrifices while incompetent executives continue to receive large compensation packages - in essence, rewarding failure. Incompetent?, you may ask. Actually, that's probably the most polite way to describe an executive who thinks that managing to lose billions of dollars for several years in a row constitutes a "winning strategy":

Steenland must engineer a turnaround at the airline that has lost $1.2 billion in the past three years, cope with dramatic increases in fuel costs and try to convince unions to give concessions that will allow Northwest to reduce annual labor costs by $950 million.

...

Q: Any major changes in top management?

A: There will be no major changes. Obviously, we'll move some boxes around on the organizational chart, but we don't have any other major announcements.

Q: Will the traveling public see any major changes at Northwest?

A: Not immediately, that's for sure. We think we've got a winning strategy and a winning hand.

I was an active participant in developing that strategy in the past, and I fully support it. I have no intention of changing it. (emphasis added)

In addition, Northwest is a company with a record of fattening executive bank accounts in the middle of attacks on labor; and even now, extraordinary pensions and compensation packages are the norm for Northwest executives.

But if these arguments in defense of workers' rights don't sway you, consider this: mechanics are the ones making sure your plane is safe to fly. Their hard work helps to prevent things like, oh, brake mishaps and faulty air conditioners on landing planes. So, one might say that not flying Northwest during the strike would be an example of "enlightened self-interest".

And I'd like to give a special little "fuck you" to the scabs performing the work of the striking mechanics. There's no excuse for what you're doing.

Quote of the day

It's a tough call - two good ones from today's Bob Herbert column in the NY Times.

Here's an opinion I agree with wholeheartedly:

If Mr. Bush's war in Iraq is worth dying for, then the children of the privileged should be doing some of the dying.

But this statement of fact is also quite good:

David Brooks is on vacation.

Anything to keep him away from writing utensils is good news.

Murder

Wow... cops lie.

Blacklisting Beyond Chutzpah

The Harvard Bookstore in Cambridge, MA, and Barnes and Noble have rescinded prior offers to host promotions for Norman Finkelstein's new book, Beyond Chutzpah. B&N, however, is allowing a promotion for the new Israel book of Torture Professor and Plagiarist Alan Dershowitz.

I urge readers (all two of you) to write letters to these bookstores (contact info here) and respectfully ask that these decisions be reviewed and overturned.

A dishonest little eulogy

The New York Times has invited readers to shed a tear about the impending withdrawal of colonist fanatics ("settlers") from the Gaza Strip. Touching.

But the tears streaming down our faces (whether due to anguish, or joy, or whatever other reason) should not blind us to the blatant dishonesty present in the article. It seems impossible for many journalists to write an analysis or background article on Israel/Palestine without such gross distortions appearing. But this NYT piece surpasses these already high standards of deceit by intentionally denying an important fact cited in the article.

The article notes that

[o]n Thursday, the newspaper Haaretz reported that the proportion of Jews in the combined population of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza had dropped below 50 percent for the first time.

Right - Jews no longer form the majority in all the territory under the direct control of the State of Israel. But in the very next sentence, Ethan Bronner, the journalist, denies the implications of this demographic fact:

This means, many Israelis argue, that unless they yield territory, they will have to choose a Jewish state or a democratic one; they will not be able to have both. (emphases added)

No, what this means is that Israelis have already chosen the "Jewish state" over the "democratic one". The use of the future conditional here is a bald denial of the reality of the situation or, in expansionist Zionist terminology, the "facts on the ground". "Disengagement" means nothing in terms of "Israeli democracy" since Gaza is not achieving any kind of independence through the removal of the settler fanatics and will still be subject to Israeli approval for virtually any important decision. Palestinian Gazans, in other words, will still be subject to the whims and laws of a ruling class that is now not the majority in the territory over which it rules. Needless to say, this is hardly "democratic" in any accepted sense of the word.

Unlike Bronner and his ilk, I have real news for Israel's supporters: the "undemocratic Jewish state" and the "apartheid state" are not "dangers" that Israel faces at some hazy point in the future - they exist right now. And any attempt to deny these facts is a denial of reality.

Send the Boy Scouts to Iraq

Let these little snot-nosed 10-year-olds take on IEDs and fight for Bush in Iraq - at least, that's what Bush thinks should be happening:

Men in black "Army" T-shirts coached young boys to chant "OO-rah" like soldiers. A giant "ARMY" hot-air balloon bobbed overhead.

Bush said the Boy Scouts "understand that freedom must be defended," and touted what he called the "armies of liberation." The Army has fallen behind its recruiting goals amid the Iraq war.

"When you follow your conscience and the ideals you've sworn as a Scout, there is no limit to what you can achieve for our country," Bush told the crowd, which chanted "USA, USA."

Well, I'll be fair: maybe Bush doesn't want to send the 10-year-olds to Iraq. After all, their stubby little fingers might have trouble applying enough pressure to the triggers of their M-16s to actually fire a bullet, much less kill any "jihadists" or "dead-enders". But we all know that 10-year-old snot-nosed kids grow into strapping 18-year-old cannonfodder potential recruits.

But to show that life can sometimes imitate good art:

***Bush's visit***

Bush had originally planned to visit Fort A.P. Hill on Wednesday. Scouts waited for hours in the blazing sun for him to arrive, some collapsing from the high temperatures and humidity. More than 300 had to be treated for heat-related illnesses.

***Parades in Catch-22***

The men fell out for the parades early each Sunday afternoon and groped their way into ranks of twelve outside the barracks. Groaning with hangovers, they limped in step to their station on the main paradeground, where they stood motionless in the heat for an hour or two with the men from the sixty or seventy other cadet squadrons until enough of them had collapsed to call it a day. On the edge of the field stood a row of ambulances and teams of trained stretcher bearers with walkie-talkies. On the roofs of the ambulances were spotters with binoculars. A tally clerk kept score. Supervising this entire phase of the operation was a medical officer with a flair for accounting who okayed pulses and checked the figures of the tally clerk. As soon as enough unconscious men had been collected in the ambulances, the medical officer signaled the bandmaster to strike up the band and end the parade.

So maybe Catch-22 will be the great anti-war novel for another generation after all.

Obsolescence

The Democrats have gotten to a point where a loss is seen as a victory. I could go on about how sad a thing this is, but I won't, because it isn't. The Democrats delight in screwing over ordinary working Americans (and let's not even talk about ordinary working non-Americans) - witness the recent bankruptcy legislation, the ongoing refusal to demand a troop withdrawal from Iraq, the toying with the quasi-fascist right-wing concerning abortion rights, the incapacity to seriously challenge the Bush administrations about anything at all, etc. etc. - and then expect them to salute even when they lose. And these are not things that can shoved off onto Joe Lieberman and the rest of the dickheads in the DLC. There is a systemic flaw in the Democratic party.

The Democrats are obsolete as a political force. When they go the way of the Whigs, things might look up for progressive Americans and the rest of the world as a whole.

Report: Finkelstein's book to be published by UC Press on schedule

According to a report on Norman Finkelstein's website, UC Press has agreed to publish his new book, Beyond Chutzpah, on schedule.

Good. As Beshara Doumani says in his letter, the readers can decide whether or not the book is good scholarship and makes a good case. And if Torture Professor Dershowitz wants, he can make his case in a court of law, where higher standards prevail than those found at such rags as Frontpage magazine.

London hit by terror bombings

Four bombings in London killed at least 38 people and injured more than 700.

I will try to talk about these attacks - particularly in terms of the Bushist "flypaper" theory - in more detail in the near future. And yes, I am mad as hell. But I don't want to turn this tragedy into a soapbox.

For now, I just want to extend my condolences to the victims, their families, and the Brits in general.

Beware these people!

US soldiers and prospective armed forces volunteers: the question of "support" for US troops in Iraq has been raised. It has been raised, by people who think war is a wonderful enterprise, above the heads of anyone who brings up any kind of objections to or dissents from the US's policies in Iraq and in the "war on terror". But who are these people who claim to be supporting soldiers from their comfortable, middle- and upper-class homes in the United States, while you carry out the president's orders far away? What does their support consist of?

A group of them - including, most unfortunately, some of America's future leaders - had a convention recently. Here are the people you are fighting for; here are the people who will be sending you or people you know abroad in a few years' time to fight another war for their positions:

In interviews, more than a dozen [College Republican] conventiongoers explained why it is important that they stay on campus while other, less fortunate people their age wage a bloody war in Iraq. They strongly support the war, they told me, but they also want to enjoy college life and pursue interesting careers.
...

I chatted for a while with Collin Kelley, a senior at Washington State... Kelley told me he's "sick and tired of people saying our troops are dying in vain" and added, "This isn't an invasion of Iraq, it's a liberation--as David Horowitz said." When I asked him why he was staying on campus rather than fighting the good fight, he rubbed his shoulder and described a nagging football injury from high school. Plus, his parents didn't want him to go. "They're old hippies," Kelley said.

If young master Kelley really thought this war was worth it and was vital for America's security, wouldn't he tell his parents that he respectfully disagreed with them and go and sign up - most especially if they were a pair of old dirty hippies? What better way to rebel?

By the time I encountered Cory Bray, a towering senior from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, the beer was flowing freely. "The people opposed to the war aren't putting their asses on the line," Bray boomed from beside the bar. Then why isn't he putting his ass on the line? "I'm not putting my ass on the line because I had the opportunity to go to the number-one business school in the country," he declared, his voice rising in defensive anger, "and I wasn't going to pass that up."

Like Cheney during Vietnam, Bray has "other priorities" that prevent him from serving in a war he "supports" so much. Did you or your comrades have anything approaching Bray's chance, which you passed up to join the military? Or, like one of my relatives who is currently serving in Iraq, was the military the only opportunity you had to get away from an unbearable situation?

The people who sent you into war trotted out the same lines during Vietnam. And these "supporters", engaging in the same hypocrisy, will be taking their place in the near future. These are your leaders; these are the people who will send you off to die, without ever even considering making your sacrifices - because they don't have to.

Soldiers! Take a good look at the people you fighting for! Take a good look at how these people are "supporting" your service!

The Iraq war and the Democrats

The Democrats (or at least many of the leading figures) appear to be coming to a consensus on the Iraq war: pulling out and bringing US soldiers home is not an option; "accountability" and "success" are what's needed. This has been more or less the default Democratic position at least since the convention in 2004, when Kerry, Edwards and the party leadership shamefully silenced the anti-war faction (presumably as part of their desire to "make America stronger"), but now the position stressing Bush's errors and accountability, rather than the need to get the fuck out of Iraq, seems to be spreading out into the rank-and-file.

Never mind the fact that most Americans want to begin withdrawing soldiers right away. For the Democrats, swinging around a bigger dick than the Republicans is the way to go, not listening to their constituents or standing on principle.

Some recent reading on this issue:

- Raimondo at antiwar.com comes up with very good column (that is, he manages to keep the libertarian ranting to a minimum) on Biden's bogus position on the US's Iraq policy.

- Comrade Max compiles a list of Democratic and "progressive" viewpoints on the need to win, win, win.

- Not entirely related, but good for a laugh: why YOU are causing the Yankees to suck.

ADD Kerry's plea to Bush to encourage Iraq's ethnic and religious militias to become more active:

Iraq, of course, badly needs a unified national army, but until it has one - something that our generals now say could take two more years - it should make use of its tribal, religious and ethnic militias like the Kurdish pesh merga and the Shiite Badr Brigade to provide protection and help with reconstruction. Instead of single-mindedly focusing on training a national army, the administration should prod the Iraqi government to fill the current security gap by integrating these militias into a National Guard-type force that can provide security in their own areas.

This is a bad idea, for reasons I have alreay discussed. This isn't policy, this isn't even clutching at straws. This is flailing and drowning. Unfortunately, many others are going to be pulled down by these policies.

Rumsfeld: US can't beat guerillas in Iraq

That was quick:

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Sunday that American forces would not defeat Iraq's rebels but would make way for Iraqis to put down an insurgency that could go on for a decade or more.
...

"That insurgency can go on for any number of years," Rumsfeld told Fox News.

"Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years. Foreign forces are not going to repress that insurgency."

Everything Bush and company said before the war and up till a week ago and will probably keep saying concerning turning corners and dead-enders and victory - down the toilet. Now we hear about what is not possible. "I doubt six months" indeed, Mr. Rumsfeld.

Rumsfeld added:

"We're going to create an environment that the Iraqi people and the Iraqi security forces can win against that insurgency."

General Abizaid also chipped in:

The U.S. Middle East commander, General John Abizaid, said: "It's clear to me that by the ... early part of next spring next year to the summer of next year you'll see Iraqi security forces move into the lead in the counterinsurgency fight."

But, in a U.S. television interview, he added: "That doesn't mean that I'm saying we'll come home by then."

No, of course not, because that would defeat a major purpose of the invasion, which is to maintain a long-term (or permanent) presence in the country. So even while Rumsfeld and his generals now advise the public not to expect the glowing victory they were promised - indeed, they are virtually conceding defeat - they stress that no matter what happens, US soldiers are not going to be leaving Iraq anytime soon, as seen in Rice's "generational commitment".

It should be clear that no matter what these liars say, there are no plans to remove US soldiers from Iraq and there won't be, until some circumstances force this withdrawal.

Dershowitz: add censorship to his list of liberties

Torture advocate Alan Dershowtiz has attempted to add censorship to his noble list of "civil liberties":

What do you do when somebody wants to publish a book that says you're completely wrong? If you're Alan Dershowitz, the prominent Harvard law professor, and the book is Norman Finkelstein's Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, you write the governor of California and suggest that he intervene with the publisher--because the publisher is the University of California Press, which conceivably might be subject to the power of the governor.

Schwarzenegger, showing unusual wisdom, declined to act. The governor's legal affairs secretary wrote Dershowitz, "You have asked for the Governor's assistance in preventing the publication of this book," but "he is not inclined to otherwise exert influence in this case because of the clear, academic freedom issue it presents." In a phone interview Dershowitz denied writing to the Governor, declaring, "My letter to the Governor doesn't exist." But when pressed on the issue, he said, "It was not a letter. It was a polite note."


Why does Harvard keep this cretin on its faculty? He advocates torture; denies and rewrites history; and engages in plagiarism and other dubious practices. Now Dershowitz is attempting to silence people like Finkelstein who want to demonstrate that he is full of shit. I wonder where the "academic standards" crowds are on this one. Maybe still tied up with the Mideast faculty at Columbia.

Supreme Court expands local eminent domain powers

Ok, deep breath... calm down... I am forced to admit that I have to side with wingnuts Scalia and Thomas (along with O'Connor and Rehnquist) on the Kelo v. City of New London decision on eminent domain. The fact that my reasons for opposing this ruling almost certainly differ from those of Scalia and Thomas offer little consolation.

Eminent domain is absolutely crucial for governments (at the local through national levels) to acquire enough contiguous property to construct projects for the public good. The key word here is "public". Electrical plants and conveyances, water improvements, roads, mass transit, public hospitals and schools - these are all "public" improvements, in the sense that any member of the public can make use of them, by virtue of being a member of the community exercising eminent domain in order to appropriate property.

But this is not what Kelo was about. Here, the Supreme Court ruled that municipal governments can act as a proxy for private interests, rather than the public interest (despite the difficulties of defining this, as Comrade Max points out), based on nothing more than the vague notion that private enterprise will ultimately benefit the public at large.

This decision opens the door to massive corruption, due to the fact that individual property owners now have very little legal recourse to fight against appropriation of their property and that eminent domain can be invoked on behalf of any large business interest that has enough clout (financial or otherwise) to persuade local governments that their "redevelopment" schemes will benefit the public-at-large.

I want to be clear: I do not share the common American veneration of private property. But this decision is simply a means of empowering large, private business interests against ordinary homeowners and other small property owners. In other words, it is yet another means of redistributing wealth from the poor to the rich.

Proposed flag-burning amendment moves to Senate

Do the US really need a Constituional amendment on this? Is sweating all over a US flag bandana going to count as "desecration" or "patriotism"? Or is this 2005's version of "freedom fries"?

If you have to enforce respect of something on pain of legal punishment, it's probably not worth respecting.

Another sorry Democrat

So Dick Durbin caved in and apologized for his remarks on America's torture at Guantanamo.

I'm not surprised - this type of snivelling weakness and inability to stand up for any kind of principle increasingly seems to be a characteristic of the leading figures in the Democratic Party. Pelosi would not attack Bush until it became painfully clear that there were no WMD in Iraq; Kerry would not stand up and say he was lied to and hell no, knowing what he knew in summer 2004 he would not have voted to give Bush monarchical power to wage war in 2002; and now Durbin with his stupid apology.

Of course, the whole episode was bullshit: Durbin never compared US soldiers to Nazis or anyone else. He was merely stating that the type of torture in Guantanamo is more like Nazi behavior rather than what many people usually consider "American". This is isn't true, as anyone who doesn't think history is simply for trampling upon knows - America has been responsible for training torturers for decades in places like Latin America, the Middle East and Africa. When considering something like torture, I don't see very much of a difference in morality between enabling and training torturers and actually getting involved in the wet stuff. Seen in this light, the whole "this-isn't-America" line is offensive - it implies that torture isn't "American" when, viewed historically (again, actually reading the pages of history rather than wiping our asses with them), it is very "American".

Nevertheless, the whole outrage over Durbin's remarks was entirely manufactured and rested upon the deliberate tendentiousness and misrepresentation that I pointed to above. So, he shouldn't have apologized, but dug in and told people that the truth hurts sometimes and that they should deal with it. But he chose to handle his predicament dishonorably instead. And now the Democratic faithful go about in a daze, again, wondering how and why another of their leaders sold them out and pandered to the right-wing. You would think that after a while, this tendency would become apparent.

These well-meaning, clueless individuals should develop some sense. Assorted right-wing cretins make all kinds of statements, totally disconnected from reality, accusing everyone who disagrees with them of treason, and they get away with it. You want to know why? Because they aren't timid and they don't give a shit about what their political enemies think. Does anyone really believe that Rove is going to apologize or resign for his recent statements? The Democratic demand for an apology would be laughable, if it weren't such a pathetically transparent attempt to make up for the Durbin fiasco.

Once again, the Republicans and their quasi-fascist minions strike up a number, and once again Democrats start dancing. This will never win elections.

CIA: US's Iraq adventure creating militants

Iraq is becoming a training ground for militants, who may carry their new skills back to their home countries, according to a CIA report.

Glad to see that the eggheads at the CIA are catching up. And to think that I give this away for free.

Paging David Ignatius: "true anarchy" on line 2



AFP photo. Caption reads: "Kurds dig a grave for 13 traffic policemen who were killed when a suicide car bomber blew himself up in a crowded sports ground, in the Kurdish city of Arbil in northern Iraq".

Hey, Ignatius: why don't you file your reports from Arbil or Mosul for a while, and then get back to us about the lack of "true anarchy" outside of the Beltway?

A disagreement between enemies

The president issues some high-sounding utterances about Iraq:

"Some may disagree with my decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, but all of us can agree that the world's terrorists have now made Iraq a central front in the war on terror".

Excuse me - I do not recall reading about suicide bombings, car bombings, kidnappings and hostage-taking, rival militias, beheadings, drive-by shootings, daily assassinations, and targeting of innocent civilians in mosques and markets in Iraq before the Americans arrived. So I have to conclude that Bush's statement is wrong here - it is the Americans who have made Iraq "a central front" in the "war on terror".

While we're on the subject, let me point out something that seems to have escaped the grasp of Bush, his egg-head flunkies, and the disgusting sycophants who sidle up to him in the press: militants, both Iraqi and non-Iraqi, are using Iraq as a testing and training ground for the future. Getting rid of the Americans and their longer-term goals, whatever they are, are certainly important, but they do not see their struggle ending there. People who would like to see what is going on Iraq as some kind of desperate struggle on the part of the militants/terrorists/call-them-whatever-you-like to defeat America then and there need to get a clue.

Consider Afghanistan: militants there ("freedom fighters", according to Reagan, who loved to equate them to figures such as Jefferson, Franklin and Madison) were involved in the next decade and later in operations in places like Bosnia, Chechnya and, of course, New York City on 11 September 2001. Afghanistan was a training ground, an irreplaceable venue for recruiting hard-core believers and instilling them with a solid and coherent ideology (in addition to the logistical and military/tactical aspects). Afghanistan may have been a graveyard for the Soviets, but it was a maternity ward for radical militants who have not yet ended their careers.

A similar thing is going on in Iraq. Militants are coming in and/or being developed locally there. The less-capable will be killed off, as will those who are happy to go the way of martyrdom. The more capable recruits, who want to stay alive for as long as possible so to inflict the maximum damage possible, will survive and be around to put their expertise (developed thanks to the American intervention) to use in the next decade and beyond. Iraq is not the West Bank - the US does not have a captive population living in a little ghetto, members of which it can track down and assassinate with F-16s, helicopters, or death squads. This is a large country, exit and entry into which is relatively easy.

So the idea that pacifying Iraq will end a "central front" on the "war on terror" is completely preposterous. But this analysis should not be seen as vindication of the bad old "fly-paper" hypothesis: the idea that the more talented militants, who have survived their ordeal, gained experience against all odds, and thus seen their beliefs and actions vindicated, will be content to limit their operations to Iraq is dubious in the extreme. So the Bush administrations is not limiting the "battle field" to Iraq; on the contrary, it is providing a giant training camp that will make it possible for militants to expand the arena of conflict.

The standard of success here is not measured year-by-year in one country; it must be seen in terms of decades and regionally and even globally. Thus, the fruits of America's Iraq disaster are not just the tens of thousands of dead Iraqis and the 1700 dead US soldiers; the fruits from this rotten tree will keep falling for years to come.

The energy policy "smoking gun"

Or, to paraphrase David Rees, the disassembled gun that may smoke if put together and fired: is it just me, or has this not gotten the attention it deserves thanks to the whole Downing St. (that's "Street", not "Saint") Memo affair?

In briefing papers given before meetings to the US under-secretary of state, Paula Dobriansky, between 2001 and 2004, the administration is found thanking Exxon executives for the company's "active involvement" in helping to determine climate change policy, and also seeking its advice on what climate change policies the company might find acceptable.

Other papers suggest that Ms Dobriansky should sound out Exxon executives and other anti-Kyoto business groups on potential alternatives to Kyoto.

Until now Exxon has publicly maintained that it had no involvement in the US government's rejection of Kyoto. But the documents, obtained by Greenpeace under US freedom of information legislation, suggest this is not the case.

"Potus [president of the United States] rejected Kyoto in part based on input from you [the Global Climate Coalition]," says one briefing note before Ms Dobriansky's meeting with the GCC, the main anti-Kyoto US industry group, which was dominated by Exxon.

But in evidence to the UK House of Lords science and technology committee in 2003, Exxon's head of public affairs, Nick Thomas, said: "I think we can say categorically we have not campaigned with the United States government or any other government to take any sort of position over Kyoto."

These documents probably represent just a tiny fraction of the volume of corporate dominance of the Cheney energy task-force memos that were "heavily censored" before being released to the public. At the very least, the House of Lords might want to look into perjury proceedings against this Thomas guy and his higher-ups in the Exxon hierarchy.

And I can say that categorically.

Finally, it's always instructive (I'm not sure why exactly, though) to look at how good old Scotty McClellan (and, thus, the Bush administration) deals with these kinds of questions. Happily, for my purposes, Scotty had to confront a press question referring specifically to the Guardian's article:

Q My second question is, The Guardian Newspaper in England has reported FOIA documents released to Greenpeace show that the White House views Exxon Corp. as one of the leading opponents of the Kyoto protocol, leading opponents of binding controls on greenhouse emissions. You now have Philip Cooney going to Exxon, after a period in which he served as Chief of Staff on the Environmental Council here at the White House, in which he edited scientific documents coming out of the administration that appeared to water down conclusions about global warming. Is there any connection here between a guy who worked in the White House editing out conclusions about global warming going to work for a corporation that opposed it?

MR. McCLELLAN: That's a pretty absurd question that you just raised...

It sure was an absurd question - what kind of jackass would dare suggest corporate nepotism between the Bush administration and big business - much less expect an honest answer from a wanker like Scotty?

Hello, I'm David Ignatius, and I'm a confused, cluless dolt

Hot on the heels of the now-infamous WaPo editorial, in which the paper's editors informed us that everyone "knew" by mid-2002 that Bush was dead-set on taking the US to war (despite Bush saying the opposite until March 2003), comes this offering by David Ignatius.

Ignatius trots out a number of lines and ideas in support of the general consensus now developing to rewrite certain parts of history concerning the lead-up to the war while suppressing discussion of other parts (yes, strong charges, and ones fully merited by the facts of the matter). His arguments thus deserve a closer look, if for no other reason than to understand the thinking (if I may describe what goes on in their heads with this word) of the "reasonable pundit/policy-maker".

Ignatius states that

The central problem in Iraq is the same one the United States encountered when it invaded the country in March 2003. That conundrum can be summed up in a phrase attributed to a top U.S. commander a week or so into the war: "Where are the Iraqis?"

This statement, of course, presupposes that the US's main goal was regime change all along, which is another bit of historical revisionism, since the ostensible purpose of the war was disarmament, not regime change. The real question - or conundrum, as Ignatius likes to call it - was actually something more like, "Where the fuck are the WMD"?

Next, we get a revision of what is currently going on in Iraq:

The militias are a fact of life. The Kurdish pesh merga forces are maintaining order in the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq. The Iranian-trained Badr Brigade and other Shiite militias are keeping peace in the south and in Shiite areas of central Iraq. It's only in the Sunni heartland north and west of Baghdad, and in the checkered quilt of the capital itself, that true anarchy reigns.

Right - "anarchy" only in the "Sunni heartland". I guess a self-satisfied fathead like Igantius wouldn't care to describe what's going on in Mosul as "true anarchy":

The measures - surrounding Mosul with a moat-like ditch and ordering taxi drivers to take the trunk lids off their vehicles - are aimed to prevent militants bringing in car bombs and other weapons and kidnapping locals.

In recent months, the insurgents have been stepping up their activities in the area, with around 30 car-bomb attacks per week, according to the US Defence Department.
...

On June 2, five Iraqis were killed when two motorcycles rigged with bombs exploded here. And on May 23, at least 20 people died when two car bombs blew up.

Maybe Ignatius would have a different opinion of what constitutes "true anarchy" if he had to deal with this shit on K Street every day.

Moving on, Ignatius proceeds to endorse ethnic and religious gangs - "militias" - as a regrettable but necessary step towards ending the daily violence in the country. Naturally, when groups of rival religio-nationalist formations face off with each other in a desparate situation, nastiness in the form of civil war might occur. But the clever Ignatius has a plan for dealing with this eventuality:

The United States must make clear that it will tolerate the militias as local peacekeepers -- and continue doling out cash to tribal warlords -- only if they avoid such provocations and observe "red lines."

Just like that - when dealing with armed militias, whose cultures and history you have a pitiful grasp of, just treat them as you would squabbling children: threaten to withold favors, make sure they play nice in their own areas, see to it that they show proper respect, and maybe give them a pat on the head if they behave, and then everything will work itself out.

Unfortunately, this "grand strategy" neglects the possibility that all of the rival militias will tell the US where it can stick its "red lines", for the simple fact (which Ignatius, in his clumsy roundabout way, acknowledges) that the US needs them far more than they need the US. The US then would be faced with one of two scenarios: either certain more favored militias (like the Kurds) would be more and more emboldened to carry out policies like those detailed in this WaPo article, or the US military would end up fighting Kurds and Shia, in addition to Sunnis.

You would think that someone who proudly proclaims his opposition to withdrawing the US military would come up with something a little better. But, then again, when you're dead-set on making a bad decision with a terrible execution look good, silly scenarios are pretty much all that's left.

Pipeline dreams

Haaretz has another article on plans to resurrect the old Kirkuk-Haifa pipeline.

Two points stick out in my mind. First, we find out that

The Prime Minister's Office... views the pipeline to Haifa as a "bonus" the U.S. could give to Israel in return for its unequivocal support for the American-led campaign in Iraq...

I have to ask: is Sharon's office serious? Or has that old criminal finally lost his mind? A "bonus" for the "unequivocal support" Israel gave to the US's war of aggression against Iraq? What this "support" amounted to in the run-up to the war was mostly bad intelligence about the state of Iraq's WMD programs and delight that the US was going to take care of one of Israel's main enemies in the Mideast. If this kind of support necessitates a bonus, then a pink slip would be more in order.

Second, the article does not even mention Iraq's role in this proposed project. There is a statement to the effect that Jordan would have to be consulted/bought off, but apparently, what the Iraqis think is not so important. The US has an idea for dispensing with some of Iraq's resources; the Israelis have the facilities and the desire; what more do you need?

I wouldn't think that this pipeline project has much of a chance right now - defending existing pipelines is more than the US can handle at this point. But whether or not a project is realistic doesn't seem to be so much of a concern these days.

Saddam on trial

Fisk on Saddam's recent court appearance, footage of which was presented without sound:

If Saddam was really being charged with war crimes over the killings of Shias - which I hope he was - then why, in heaven's name, didn't we hear what he had to say? Why use the methods of Saddam himself? The silent film, the assumption of guilt? Or was Saddam telling the court that the United States was behind his regime, that Washington had given him the means to destroy the Halabja Kurds with gas?

Personally, I'm surprised Saddam is even getting this level of treatment. I thought by now he would have suffered a sudden heart attack or been involved in an unfortunate accident - for example, involving an Iraqi Jack Ruby pumping Hussein full of lead in front of surprised US soldiers.

In any event, there is no way the Bush administration and the Pentagon are going to allow Hussein a forum to inform the American public about his dealings with various US administrations over the years. It's not going to happen. Supporters of such a policy will say something to the effect that Saddam should not be allowed to issue propaganda to the various "dead-enders" fighting in his name and other anti-American forces out there. It will be another case of the historical record taking a backseat to current policy - in this case, misguided in the extreme.

Syria and the Iraq "insurgency"

The Guardian recently ran an article about Syrian citizens going to fight against US soldiers in Iraq (the WaPo also ran a version, written by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad).

Some of the stuff in this article sounds a little far-fetched; it makes me wonder if the one source quoted is really credible (the guy can fight five people at once?). However, the article does hit on an interesting possibility that I have not seen seen seriously examined elsewhere and that is, unfortunately, not examined further in this piece.

The call to jihad [at the beginning of the US invasion in 2003] was openly encouraged by the Syrian government, says Abu Ibrahim (a nom de guerre); it also arranged for buses to ferry fighters, speeded up the issuing of documentation and even gave prospective jihadis a discount on passport fees. Meanwhile, the Syrian media [entirely controlled by the Syrian government] were banging the drum for jihad... Eyewitnesses recall Syrian border police waving to the jihadi buses as they crossed into Iraq.
...

But the Syrian authorities didn't want cross-border traffic in fighters to stop [in 2003]. The security services pressured them to keep sending people. "Why were they so keen for us to go and fight in Iraq?" asks Abu Ibrahim. "So we would die there?"

The possibility, of course, is that the Syrian government and intelligence services deliberately allowed budding "jihadis" to cross over into Iraq, not so much to fight Americans specifically as to simply get rid of them and remove a threat to the regime there.

If this is the case, then ironically, from the point of view of the anti-Syrian US government, the war in Iraq may be helping to prop up the hated Assad dictatorship in Syria. Taken together with the scenario in which Iranian intelligence contributed to the manipulation of US policy in the run-up to the war, America's actions and ignorance are a kind of irreplaceable fountain of good luck for its self-defined enemies in the region.

Casting stones

Billmon on Ralph Nader:

I see Ralph Nader wants Congress to impeach George Bush -- his nominal opponent and sometime political benefactor...

This sneering little broadside encapsulates neatly what is wrong with the Democratic party and its supporters. Namely, this: Democratic partisans still must find demons and windmills to attack instead of looking real close at their own failings to explain their disastrous electoral performances over the last decade.

The idea that Ralph Nader cost Al Gore the election in 2000 has become so enshrined in Democratic mythology that people today still feel obligated to snidely attack Ralph Nader - no matter the merits of his positions or suggestions. An irrational hatred, which one would expect from a petulant six-year-old but not an otherwise serious adult, characterizes such an attitude. Impeach Bush? Well, why not - except, when Nader suggests it, we should act all indignant and sarcastic.

I shouldn't have to say this, at this late date in 2005, but comments like this force me to: Al Gore defeated Al Gore in 2000. Gore did not even carry Tennessee, his home state, in 2000. Gore did not differentiate himself from Bush, he distanced himself from Clinton during the campaign, he chose a terrible running mate (which again, in true Democratic fashion, is only becoming apparent to people now, 4 or 5 years after the fact), he did not fight back against all the Republican crap that was thrown his way during the campaign and, finally, the "Ahh ahgree" line in the head-to-head debates against Bush will remain in history, condemning Gore at every turn of the page and every replay of the footage as the immense loser that he was.

It also funny (in the "I think I'm going to puke", not "haha", sense) that someone who carried a large "Popular Front" badge on his page during the 2004 campaign, encouraging liberals and "leftists" to rally around someone who was an even bigger loser than Gore (and, for dim-witted Democrats, let me spell it out for you - K-E-R-R-Y), can talk with a straight face about Bush being one of Nader's political benefactors. Politically and morally, Nader accepting money and/or support from the Republicans was wrong.

What was more wrong, however, was the absolutely undemocratic and digusting campaign the "Democrats" conducted against Nader to keep him off the ballot in so many states. One could be forgiven, considering the time and money that went into the anti-Nader campaigns, for thinking that the Democrats thought that Nader was the main enemy rather than Bush. But we have not seen very many of the same people looking back and saying, hey - we really fucked up on that one - that was wrong and undemocratic. Or, hey, maybe we should have pressed Kerry to accept Nader's offer of an alliance - something approaching a "popular front" more than in just a recycled 1930s Spanish poster (when the concept made real sense). No, of course not - not when we have a convenient scapegoat. It doesn't matter that the so-called "Popular Front" strategy will go down in history as one of the most pathetic failures in American political history, as Joshua Frank argues. No, better to keep ahold of our nice little myths.

But some people just don't learn. New DNC chairman Howard Dean makes a pertinent observation on how the Demoratic party is unrepresentative, and what happens? A "hair-on-fire" comment and follow-up about how these statements are not going to be helpful for winning (see above, re: miserable failures of the "big tent" strategy as has been carried out so far and lack of analysis on this point). Here in America, an election is a success in terms of turnout if more than 50% of the people go to the polls. What about the other 50%? Do we write them off as politcally apathetic? Sure, it's another easy little myth - and another that will continue to condemn the Democrats to further irrelevance. Time wasted on the swing voter and the "big tent" would be much better spent getting people who are interested in politics and actually give a shit about how the country is run to the polls (and a consideration of this fact makes Nader's statements on the lack of difference between Bore/Kerry and Bush a little more comprehensible).

Milquetoast fretting about these kinds of viewpoints is not going to do this, however. Nor is an increasingly silly demonization of certain political figures. When Democrats learn this fact, they may start doing a little better at the polls. But, then again, the Democratic party structure they demand is not going to make this possible.

US administration involved in "oil-for-food scandal"; Galloway to testify

Well, well, well... looks like Norm Coleman is really going to have his hands full now:

"The United States was not only aware of Iraqi oil sales which violated UN sanctions and provided the bulk of the illicit money Saddam Hussein obtained from circumventing UN sanctions," the report said. "On occasion, the United States actually facilitated the illicit oil sales."

How embarrasing is that? You start a shitstorm when it looks like your only victim is going to be the UN... and, goddamn, if the Bush administration isn't somehow knee-deep in the muck. So is Coleman now going to go after his masters for participating in this heinous scandal? We see, in this Torygraph article, that he probably will not be inclined to do so:

Mr Coleman led the bipartisan inquiry into Enron, the discredited industrial giant, and last year he fastened on an even juicier target, the UN's oil-for-food programme.

Cause, you know, that Enron inquiry did a lot of good, getting back all that money stolen from investors, and putting Ken Lay behind bars, and clarifying Enron's ties with the Bush administration, and... oh, wait, never mind.

But it gets worse:

Mr Coleman was a Democrat until the mid-1990s, and as a young man attended the Woodstock festival...

I don't what's more disgusting: the fact that Coleman is conducting a political circus or the fact that he's yet another hippy who, to paraphrase Bob Dylan, felt which way the wind was blowing after the fabulous 60s came to an end.

And just a reminder - British MP George Galloway has entered the room. Already the retards at sites like RedState are tripping over themselves at the possibility that a British "Dennis Kucinich" will get his come-uppance at the hands of the Senate. Here's a little bit of advice: a factual basis (like the dude's actual party affiliation) is always nice before you start shooting your mouth off.

But do take Galloway's advice and get a ringside seat.

Earlier: the Guardian's media commentator on Galloway's bum media rap.

Bolton passed on to full Senate vote

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has sent John Bolton's nomination as UN ambassador to the full Senate for a vote.

I cannot, for the life of me, understand why much of the media is painting this as some kind of "rebuke" or minor defeat for Bush. The challenge was getting Bolton's nomination out of committee, where one Republican with half a conscience could step up and kill it, and into the full Senate, controlled by the Republicans and populated by worthless shitheads like Joe Lieberman. In the full Senate, Bolton cannot lose. Bush succeeded. Far from being a defeat or a rebuke, getting Bolton's nomination out of committee is a major victory for him.

According to the WaPo's article, Bush's pressure on Voinovich was decisive:

Voinovich in recent days had privately signaled he would vote against Bolton, GOP aides said, but in a deal arranged before today's vote, he agreed not to block the nomination from reaching the full Senate.

What is this deal? We know what the coward Voinovich delivered, what his end of the bargain was. But what did he get in return? A pledge from Bush and his army of cretins that they wouldn't ruin his career or break his kneecaps?

Voinovich had this to say for himself:

"Mr. Chairman, I am not so arrogant to think that I should impose my judgment and perspective of the U.S. position in the world community on the rest of my colleagues. We owe it to the president to give Mr. Bolton an up-or-down-vote on the floor of the U.S. Senate."

This cowardice and lack of principle is praised in this editorial as indicating a "nuanced" position. It is nothing of the sort. What does Voinovich and the Cincinnati Post's editors think his job entails? Why did the voters elect him, if not to make hard decisions and defend his "judgment" and "perspective"?

Bolton's now-certain confirmation and the press's reaction to it are indications of part of what is wrong with America today. Cowardice is praised; psychosis is seen as strength; and journalists cannot tell a political victory from a defeat, preferring instead to present meaningless utterances as meaningful defiance. So Bolton will now be confirmed and the UN will be gone.

"A million of us warned them..."

Gary Younge has an excellent column in the Guardian about Labour's demands for voter loyalty "where none has been shown":

Many used their clothes pegs in 2001, after the bombing of Serbia, the asylum bill and student loans. This time round they will need blindfolds and earmuffs as well. Decadence is believing you are not accountable for the consequences of your actions. Let those accusations be laid at the doorstep of 10 Downing Street before they make their way to any mythical dinner party. For only then will it become clear that Labour's principal weakness is not middle-class petulance but working-class indifference.

Sharansky resigns from Sharon cabinet

Natan Sharansky has resigned from Ariel Sharon's cabinet in protest against the "Gaza withdrawal plan".

Here is a fucking hypocrite who is upset that he is not allowed to do the same things to the Palestinians that the Soviet government did to him - enforce restricted movement, keep people under siege in their homeland, and in general treat them like second-class human beings.

Good riddance. Maybe now Sharansky will have time to return to his writing career and provide Bush with another "inspirational" tract. I suggest that he analyze the causes of his own hypocrisy and why the world still thinks he has anything of importance to say.

Battle for the ruins of Uruk in Iraq

A shepard is battling looters at the archaeological site of Uruk in Iraq, according to this report.

Mr Altubi, 65, calls himself custodian of the dead city of Uruk.
...

"When I saw them [looters], I shouted at them to leave, get off this land. What is buried here doesn't belong to any man. It belongs to the world," Mr Altubi said.

Uruk was the most important site in southern Mesopotamia, and probably the entire Middle East, in the 4th-3rd millennia BCE, the period in which the legendary king Gilgamesh supposedly built the city's walls. But, in Iraq, it's almost impossible not to find antiquities when you dig a little bit anywhere.

If this story is true, it's a good one.

Study finds Labour doomsday scenario "misleading"

Looks like Blair is employing a favorite political tactic again:

John Curtice, the respected psephologist and professor of politics at Strathclyde University, who carried out the analysis, said: "Labour's claim that switching from Labour to the Liberal Democrats could enable Mr Howard to win the election is highly misleading."

Blair? Misleading? Using bullshit scare tactics not backed up by any evidence (if you don't vote Labour, Howard will fly his balsa-wood drones over London and spray you with Tory dust)? Say it isn't so.

If Labour and all of the well-meaning British liberals who, for good reason, do not not want to see the Tories back in power really want to see Labour go on to a certain win at the polls next week, then all this effort directed at getting people to hold their noses and reward Blair for his part in the Iraq war would be better spent in a getting a set date for him to step down as PM - as in right after the elections.

Robin Cook makes the argument that Labour has done a lot for lower-class and elderly people in the UK. Fine. You know what? Labour will survive without Blair, and they can keep doing all their nice things without him. But Blair fucked up, big time. The Labour mantra that British voters should "get over it" might as well be phrased as "fuck you". When you screw up that badly, and condescend that much, you have to go.

America's second-most important columnist

Has Robert Novak always been this much of a jackass?

Republicans, weak and disorganized, were ground down by the Democratic juggernaut. Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio was so impressed by Democratic demagoguery that he impulsively dropped his support of Bolton, ending the narrow 10-8 committee tally for sending the nomination to the Senate floor.

Awful, simply awful. "Juggernaut"... "demagoguery"... "impulsively" - Novak sounds like an eighth-grader forced to write an essay incorporating this week's vocabulary words. Who cares if it makes any kind of sense, as long as it's grammatically correct.

Then there's this:

The only new element in Dodd's case against Bolton was the claim by Melody Townsel (self-described as a "vocal" outspoken Democrat) that she was mistreated by Bolton in a 1994 dispute in Moscow when Bolton worked in the private sector. Her claims were buttressed by Washington consultant Kirby Jones, and here again the Cuban connection emerges. Jones is described by Newsweek as having "better contacts in Cuba than any other American" and by the New York Times as "the man to see about business in Cuba."

A person claims she was subjected to psychotic behavior by a guy who wants to be UN ambassador - and this is merely a "new element" in the mix? Shit - it's a good thing Bolton didn't stick an ax in someone's head, because then Novak might have to somehow work around a "minor incident" or maybe, going back to the grade-school vocabulary, an "episodic outburst". And is Novak trying to imply that all the fuss about Bolton is simply about Cuba? Maybe Fidel is secretly transmitting instructions to his dupes in the Senate.

Or maybe Novak has simply been a hack all along.