Black Box Recorder

2007-05-15T18:04:00.000-07:00

Falwell dead

False TV evangelist Jerry Falwell has died at the age of 73.

Normally, I try not to rejoice when people - even evil ones like Falwell - die. But in Falwell's case, I'll say this: good riddance.

Falwell was a liar, deceiver, and human scum, a condition seen most clearly when he blamed "pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way - all of them who have tried to secularize America" in part for 9/11.

Falwell didn't give a shit about Jesus or his message. His main motivation in life was to force or dupe others to adhere to his antediluvian ideology of control and persecution, targeting everyone who did not share his views. Indeed, anyone who actually tried to live the ideals of Jesus, as presented in the Bible, would have been a prime target for Falwell and his cohort of true-believing allies and minions.

So, so long, Falwell. It's a new dawn in America.

2007-05-14T15:00:00.000-07:00

Marine officers: No need to investigate civilian deaths

Several Marines on trial for the killings of two dozen Iraqi civilians in Haditha in 2005 have claimed that there is no need to investigate civilian deaths in combat situations:

Civilian deaths that occur during combat do not need to be investigated, a Marine lawyer testified Saturday at a hearing for an officer charged in the killings of 24 Iraqis in the town of Haditha.

"There isn't an automatic law-of-war violation if you have collateral damage," said Lt. Col. Kent Keith, a judge advocate for the 2nd Marine Division.
...

Over the past four days, Marines have testified in court that they saw no need to investigate the killings.

One more step towards the "kill-'em-all," no-one-is-innocent, "collateral damage" mentality among the soldiers on the ground, a mentality which already surfaces from time to time among various American leaders.

Of course, the only way to determine whether soldiers have broken any laws of war is to... conduct an investigation. So what these defendants are arguing is that their word is simply enough. We say we didn't act illegally or immorally - therefore, we didn't.

And if other people - for example, the victims' families - say otherwise, it's all lies:

Capt. Jeffrey Dinsmore testified Friday that the Haditha town council had circulated a flier demanding an investigation into the deaths and outlining allegations that Marines deliberately targeted civilians, but he dismissed the flier as propaganda.

Remember: when victims try to get their side of the story heard, it's just "propaganda."

2007-04-30T23:36:00.000-07:00

Success

The War of Terror has been a huge success, according to the State Department.

Oddly, the United States - without whose activities none of the terror in Iraq would be taking place - did not make the list. That's one of the perks of being the judge, jury, and executioner, I suppose.

2007-04-23T13:54:00.000-07:00

Yeltsin dead

Boris Yeltsin is dead. He was 76.

He was also one of the 20th century's great thieves, handing away the former Soviet Union's wealth to a handful of gangsters and cronies.

Perhaps his tombstone can read "Here lies the man who fucked up Russia".

Yeltsin, when alive and drunk

2007-04-18T14:06:00.000-07:00

Instead of playing in a carefree manner, children look at one of the thousands of former human beings that have turned up recently in Iraq (photo lifted from Antiwar.com)

Baghdad bombs kill almost 200

The final death toll may well be over 200 by the time all the bodies are collected. Thank god for "The Surge" - one can only wonder how many more would have been dead without it.

Two hundred people dead. That's like six Virginia Tech shootings, in one go. But you won't be seeing candlelight vigils - or even anything that might actually be an effective response - marking these bombings here in the US. At most, perhaps a shopper somewhere will pause before a television in the window of an electronics store at the mall and feel bad for a moment, before resuming their more important matters.

We have gotten to the point where "only" 33 people killed - one VT - is a "good day" in Iraq. This would be a major success, at this point, for the US in Iraq - getting the daily death toll down to a point that, over here, causes the media and the public to convulse and engage in yet another round of "soul-searching" and "debate", at least until some other shiny object appears.

Meanwhile the children of Iraq keep getting treated to images like the one above. Real dead people, not the fake pixellated or film versions kids here are weaned on almost from the cradle onward. But, as we are witnessing, both seem to do a good enough job in preparing children to grow up and do the business of shooting, stabbing, blowing up, or otherwise killing off their appointed "bad guys".

This is what America has set into motion. America - not just Bush, Cheney, the Republicans or any of the other easy targets. No, America put these people in charge and allowed them to carry out whatever plans they had for Iraq. And now America has no clue about how to even begin fixing what it has broken.

2007-04-15T18:33:00.000-07:00

Betrayal in the time of Stalin

A sad and awful chapter in the history of the PCI:

Three hundred Italian Communists who fled to Russia to avoid persecution by the Fascists ended up in Stalin's Gulag, dying in front of Soviet firing squads, many of them falsely denounced by their Italian comrades as Trotskyites or worse.

2007-04-12T17:33:00.001-07:00

US officials: Green Zone not safe

A "no shit" moment.

2007-04-12T12:48:00.000-07:00

The failure of the media

Gary Kamiya at Salon has an interesting in-depth article analyzing the failure of the media in coverage leading up to and during the early part of the Iraq war.

I don't share Kamiya's cautious optimism, though, concerning whether or not the media has learned any "lessons" from this episode of shameful coverage of and often outright connivance with the Bush administration. We need look only as far as the NY Times, which Kamiya holds up as an example of a media outlet that has improved, to see fluff propaganda pieces on the "Iranian menace" by a major peddler of bullshit the first time around (Michael Gordon).

Plus ca change, as some might say.

(Link via Antiwar.com)

2007-04-11T21:35:00.000-07:00

The end of the story

Kurt Vonnegut has died from injuries he recently suffered. He was 84.

He'll be missed.

(Unfiltered Pall Mall pack for tribute purposes only.)

2007-04-10T17:49:00.000-07:00

British military looks into the future

The Guardian has an article about a British Ministry of Defence report that looks at some "key risks and shocks" that the UK's military establishment thinks it might face in the near future.

Reports like this are more interesting for what they say about how the people in charge of the sources of power see the present rather than the future. Prediction, or as the MoD prefers to call it, "probability-based" assessment, is a notoriously difficult business. The report, as presented by the article, is kind of a mixed bag. Some points raised are genuinely interesting, such as projections for new weapons and demographic changes.

Others are confusing. Why, for example, should "information chips" wired directly to the brain be a possible risk to Britain's military? Do they foresee "counter-counter-insurgency" chips being peddled at the local greengrocers? And the references to Marx are preposterous - if the middle classes are projected to take on the role of a revolutionary proletariat that would... be nothing at all like Marx's analyses of the revolutionary potential of the lower/working class. Marx and Engels recognized that other classes could be revolutionary in certain circumstances (like the French Revolution) - where, specifically, does Marx fit into all this?

Other "strategic" risk assessments sound like the authors have drunk a little too deeply from the right-wing Kool-aid well. Consider this analysis of trends in "Islamic militancy":

Tension between the Islamic world and the west will remain, and may increasingly be targeted at China "whose new-found materialism, economic vibrancy, and institutionalised atheism, will be an anathema to orthodox Islam".

China has already had problems with its Muslim minority in its western provinces. Still, the idea that "Islamic world" will turn against China because of its "materialism", "economic vibrancy," and even "institutionalised atheism" is pretty far-fetched, and the only people who would come up with such a scenario are those who have bought into the whole "the-terrorists-hate-us-becaue-we're-free" bullshit line.

Now if China began invading countries to, say, prop up favored clients, like the USSR did in Afghanistan, or for contradictory but ultimately self-serving reasons, like the US has done in Iraq, then the "Islamic world" might not be too happy, and its "atheism" and "materialism" might become issues. But in that case we would be dealing more with the form that grievances would be aired rather than the grievances themselves. The majority of the people in the Middle East - and the "Islamic world" in general - simply hate imperialism and people from the West interfering in their lives.

Another curious part to this report is the idea of

"declining news quality" with the rise of "internet-enabled, citizen-journalists" and pressure to release stories "at the expense of facts".

There is a debate going on as to whether or not such vehicles as blogs contribute positively or negatively to the general social and political debate (see, for example, this rather elitist view of blogs as platforms that poison "real" political debate by someone who is apparently a "left-wing neoconservative"). I don't want to get into that issue right now, although my opinion is that such "internet-enabled, citizen-journalists", in general, have the beneficial effect of forcing an increasingly insular and unaccountable mass-media to do a better job when it comes to reporting. In any event, it is interesting to note that the MoD, an organization currently engaged in a war of aggression in Iraq sold on blatant lies helpfully peddled by much of the media and against the overwhelming opinion of the British public, can complain about "declining news quality" and the lack of "facts" in news coverage. What exactly are they talking about?

Full report, if I can find it, and other thoughts, if I feel like, later.

2007-03-30T20:01:00.000-07:00

Anabasis for the 21st century

William Lind offers us an interesting scenario involving US and UK forces in Iraq:

If the above scenario [the events related in Anabasis] sounds familiar, it should. America now has an army, not of 10,000 but of more than 140,000, deep in Persia (which effectively includes Shiite Iraq, despite the ethnic difference). We are propping up a shaky local regime in a civil war. Our local allies are of dubious loyalty, and the surrounding population is not friendly. Our lines of communication, supply and retreat all run south, to Kuwait, through Shiite militia country. They then extend on through the Persian Gulf, which is called that for a reason. If those lines are cut, many of our troops have only one way out, the same way Xenophon took, up through Kurdish country and Asia Minor (now Turkey) to the coast.

What is the chance that could happen?

Perhaps not the most likely scenario, but one to keep in mind nonetheless. I also can't help but wonder if the Iranian leadership has taken into account these possibilities when deciding upon short- and long-term strategies.

2007-03-30T15:08:00.000-07:00

Grand theft, and bloody murder

How is the new $125 billion supplmental bill linked to the proposed Iraq hydrocarbons law? Richard Behan lays out the case:

The supplemental appropriation package requires the Iraqi government to meet a series of “benchmarks” President Bush established in his speech to the nation on January 10 (in which he made his case for the “surge”). Most of Mr. Bush’s benchmarks are designed to blame the victim, forcing the Iraqis to solve the problems George Bush himself created.

One of the President’s benchmarks, however, stands apart. This is how the President described it: “To give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country’s economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis.” A seemingly decent, even noble concession. That’s all Mr. Bush said about that benchmark, but his brevity was gravely misleading, and it had to be intentional.

The Iraqi Parliament has before it today, in fact, a bill called the hydrocarbon law, and it does call for revenue sharing among Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds. For President Bush, this is a must-have law, and it is the only “benchmark” that truly matters to his Administration.

Yes, revenue sharing is there-essentially in fine print, essentially trivial. The bill is long and complex, it has been years in the making, and its primary purpose is transformational in scope: a radical and wholesale reconstruction-virtual privatization-of the currently nationalized Iraqi oil industry.

If passed, the law will make available to Exxon/Mobil, Chevron/Texaco, BP/Amoco, and Royal Dutch/Shell about 4/5’s of the stupendous petroleum reserves in Iraq. That is the wretched goal of the Bush Administration, and in his speech setting the revenue-sharing “benchmark” Mr. Bush consciously avoided any hint of it.

The legislation pending now in Washington requires the President to certify to Congress by next October that the benchmarks have been met-specifically that the Iraqi hydrocarbon law has been passed. That’s the land mine: he will certify the American and British oil companies have access to Iraqi oil. This is not likely what Congress intended, but it is precisely what Mr. Bush has sought for the better part of six years.

It is why we went to war.

If the hydrocarbons bill passes, the result will be one of the single largest cases of theft in the history of the human race. An injustice on this scale will virtually ensure major instability in the region for the rest of our lives.

And the Bush administration has already sacrificed the lives of tens, possibly hundreds, of thousands of people to make this theft possible. If it succeeds, there will be many more added to that list.

(Via)

2007-03-28T20:51:00.000-07:00

Blast from the past

Norm Geras, Marxist supporter of the war on Iraq and one of the more mendacious and hypocritical commentators on The Left, back in the heady days of July 2003:

Tomorrow I’ll be posting, and posting long, on the predominant left and liberal response to the war in Iraq.

Meanwhile here is an example of the genre by Gary Younge. Money quote: ‘Neither [Bush nor Blair] has a clue how to rebuild the country they have just destroyed’.

That’s the country, note, not the regime.

Yeah... that stupid Gary Younge and his statement that Bush and Blair had no clue what they were doing and had completely fucked up Iraq - what the hell was he thinking? Not like the serious, True Leftist, humanist Norman Geras.

And Geras' link to James Lileks - priceless. What a fucking git.

2007-03-26T19:12:00.000-07:00

Biofuels: Just say no

Sorry, hippies - biofuels are bad for the environment. George Monbiot:

Since the beginning of last year, the price of maize has doubled. The price of wheat has also reached a 10-year high, while global stockpiles of both grains have reached 25-year lows. Already there have been food riots in Mexico and reports that the poor are feeling the strain all over the world. The US department of agriculture warns that "if we have a drought or a very poor harvest, we could see the sort of volatility we saw in the 1970s, and if it does not happen this year, we are also forecasting lower stockpiles next year". According to the UN food and agriculture organisation, the main reason is the demand for ethanol: the alcohol used for motor fuel, which can be made from maize and wheat.
...

Already we know that biofuel is worse for the planet than petroleum. The UN has just published a report suggesting that 98% of the natural rainforest in Indonesia will be degraded or gone by 2022. Just five years ago, the same agencies predicted that this wouldn't happen until 2032. But they reckoned without the planting of palm oil to turn into biodiesel for the European market. This is now the main cause of deforestation there and it is likely soon to become responsible for the extinction of the orang-utan in the wild.

But it gets worse... A report by the Dutch consultancy Delft Hydraulics shows that every tonne of palm oil results in 33 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, or 10 times as much as petroleum produces. I feel I need to say that again. Biodiesel from palm oil causes 10 times as much climate change as ordinary diesel.

Monbiot's excellent point that ethanol is currently made from wheat and maize - i.e., food - does not seem to trouble many "eco-friendly" types. It is rather disturbing that burning food to power the personal vehicles of wealthy Westerners, while at the same time many poorer, browner people around the world starve, is somehow seen as a "progressive" or "enlightened" thing to do.

The problem of alternative fuels - or, more accurately, our future energy sources - is a very real one. But biofuels are not the answer. At the risk of sounding like I have my head too far into the clouds, or up my ass, as the case may be, I would point out that we already have a clean and plentiful source of energy, one that will last for the next 2 billion or so years: the sun. All of this money that is going in to support research down the dead-end of biofuels would be much better spent finding ways to harness all this energy that is being beamed directly to us 24 hours a day. This entails a) improving collection methods and b) improving storage capacity. These are substantial problems, to be sure, but certainly not insurmountable ones - provided that we allocate resources to overcoming them.

Instead, we get billions spent on invading and destroying countries in the Middle East and on the "fraud" (to use Monbiot's terminology) of biofuels (which are strongly backed by big oil - something that should immediately raise suspicion).

2007-03-22T20:23:00.000-07:00

Dems to vote to fund war

The Democrats in the House will foolishly vote tomorrow to continue funding the war in Iraq, to the tune of $125 billion.

You can read all of the impassioned pleas and convoluted explanations from "anti-war liberals" on how voting to fund the war is really, magically and cunningly, an anti-war move. All the big-hitters have lined up on the side of funding the war: for example, Atrios, Kos (who thinks that the "particulars of the bill matter little") and the patronizing David Sirota, who would like to lecture us about how it's "radical" and "progressive" to fund wars of aggression, cave in to pressure, and ignore the voices from the "Professional Protest Industry".

The whole rationale behind supporting this monstrous bullshit is that Bush, the boy emperor, is sure to veto the bill because it supposedly places restraints on him (the whole provision for troop readiness) and it includes a deadline for beginning the redeployment of US soliders from Iraq. A veto would look good politically for the Dems (a huge concern for Kos - as if the Dems "looking good" will help the Iraqis and US soldiers who will be dying over the next year-and-a-half, thanks to this money). And even if he doesn't veto it, we are further informed, then we have a deadline for the first time that is "The Law".

But what if Bush doesn't? What if he takes the money and runs? In view of Bush's record with signing statements, the Democrats' reasoning is incredibly foolish and their strategy is flawed. If the bill, giving the president $125 billion to spend any way he sees fit, arrives at the Oval Office desk even with provisions attached, what is to prevent Bush from signing it, with statements attached to the effect that the guidelines and deadlines are merely "advisory" - as he has done before?

Dec. 23, 2004: Forbids US troops in Colombia from participating in any combat against rebels, except in cases of self-defense. Caps the number of US troops allowed in Colombia at 800.

Bush's signing statement: Only the president, as commander in chief, can place restrictions on the use of US armed forces, so the executive branch will construe the law ''as advisory in nature."

How smart will the Democrats look then, having just decided to continue funding a war they supposedly oppose?

In fact, constitutionally, Bush - as the commander-in-chief, will have a leg to stand on if he ignores Congressional attempts to dictate the deployment or redeployment of military forces or assess their "readiness". No, Congress' power is the purse - they could have chosen not to fund the war, but cravenly they decided against this option. Congress also could have retained war-making powers to itself - but, as we all know, it felt like giving these to the executive was the best thing to do. Once you give away power - and money, I might add - there's no telling when you'll see them again.

Congress will continue funding the war - thanks entirely to "anti-war" Democrats, and Bush will sign their bill and simply ignore the parts he doesn't like - kind of like how Democrats seem to ignore history.

2007-03-11T01:34:00.000-08:00

The madness of Sparta

A famous historian reviews 300.

2007-03-08T00:03:00.000-08:00

Warmongering Democrats

Here you go, antiwar voters - your options for the next presidential election. Unprovoked nuclear war, anyone?

- Hillary Clinton, speaking at an AIPAC conference in January:

“U.S. policy must be clear and unequivocal,” Clinton told the crowd. “We cannot, we should not, we must not, permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons, and in dealing with this threat, as I have said for a very long time, no option can be taken off the table.”

- John Edwards, offering his wisdom via satellite at the Herzliya conference in January:

"Iran must know that the world won’t back down. The recent UN resolution ordering Iran to halt the enrichment of uranium was not enough. We need meaningful political and economic sanctions. We have muddled along for far too long. To ensure that Iran never gets nuclear weapons, we need to keep ALL options on the table, Let me reiterate – ALL options must remain on the table."

Never mind the "update" at the top of the article - Edwards qualification was a mealy-mouthed equivocation delivered to a timid interviewer. But pay attention to the praise Edwards heaped upon war criminal Ariel Sharon - someone this craven should not be allowed to clean the levers of power, much less operate them.

- And finally, we come to the Democrats' great hope, Barack Obama - also, funnily enough, speaking to an AIPAC conference earlier this month:

"The world must work to stop Iran's uranium enrichment program and prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. It is far too dangerous to have nuclear weapons in the hands of a radical theocracy. And while we should take no option, including military action, off the table, sustained and aggressive diplomacy combined with tough sanctions should be our primary means to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons."

Obama, as Raimondo points out, also sermonizes about how the US "should never seek to dictate what is best for the Israelis and their security interests". That's great. And what happens if the case should somehow, strangely, oddly, arise that America's
security interests are at odds with Israel's "security interests"?

There are two things connecting all of these statements. The first is the recurrent use
of the phraseology involving "options" being on "tables". Are these clowns handed the same talking points by the same people before speeches? The second thing in common is that they were all delivered before right-wing, pro-Israel audiences. What is it about delivering addresses before this kind of crowd that requires threats of unprovoked nuclear attack to be made?

And just to show that it's not just about Iran, here's Senator Carl Levin, looking for any reason to attack Syria:

“These weapons (in Iraq) are coming from a state which doesn’t recognize Israel either, just like Iran doesn’t, we’ve got to try to stop weapons coming into Iraq from any source, they’re killing our troops. I agree with the comments about trying to stop them coming in from Iran. I think we have to stop them going to the Sunni insurgents, as well as to the Shia, and I was just wondering, does the military have a plan, if necessary, to go into Syria, to go the source of any weapons coming from Syria.”

New US Intel Chief J. Michael McConnell answered that there is already an attempt to stop the flow of weapons, and also that most of the weapons being used are already in Iraq.

Levin appeared annoyed, and said that we need to take action “on all fronts.”

The Democrats were voted in to get America out of a war - and now these schemers are looking already to the next one.
Syria, Iran, it doesn't matter. No wonder they've been utterly ineffective at doing anything substantive to stop the war in Iraq - they really don't give a damn.

2007-03-07T23:54:00.000-08:00

Follow the Yellowcake Road

Who knows what's at the end of it?

2007-02-27T11:41:00.000-08:00

Target: NYC!!!

No, not by bicyclists or cartoon characters. No, it's much worse: Iranians.

"We're concerned that Iranian agents were engaged in reconnaissance that might be used in an attack against New York City at some future date," Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly told NEWSWEEK.

I'd recommend to Commissioner Kelly and his crack police team that they guard against the possibility of unmanned drones flying over the city and spraying something evil over everyone. Because, as we all know, Iraq had some pretty fucking rocking drones before the war, and they had to have gone somewhere.

This is beyond laughable. Thank you, Mark Hosenball and Newsweek, for covering this important story and helping to whip up patriotic hate-frenzy against Iran The Enemy Which Must Be Attacked Right Now. If you're not getting a check from the administration, you should be.

2007-02-26T21:38:00.000-08:00

Little pots of money

Gonna be busy over the next few days, with deadlines approaching, crime fighting, and what not. So, sadly for you, my hordes of dedicated readers, light posting till then.

Seymour Hersh's new piece is getting a lot of play, for good reason. One quick thing to point out related to a recent post on this blog is this little insight:

The Pentagon consultant added that one difficulty, in terms of oversight, was accounting for covert funds. ?There are many, many pots of black money, scattered in many places and used all over the world on a variety of missions,? he said. The budgetary chaos in Iraq, where billions of dollars are unaccounted for, has made it a vehicle for such transactions, according to the former senior intelligence official and the retired four-star general.

So there was a method to the "madness" after all. Shipping all that nice, untraceable cash to a war zone makes perfect sense - if you're planning on doing things that don't bear a great deal of oversight (like, to take just one completely random example, financing death squads).

The fuckheads in the Bush administration are in way over their heads and are going to get played - on your dime and with a lot of dead people left in their wake. Just as short-sighted American interference in Afghanistan helped lead to the rise of OBL and The Al Qaida Phenomenon, the US government now is paving the way for some bad shit to roll through a few years down the line.

Anyway... try this for surreal distraction. Goes well with peanut butter:

2007-02-21T19:54:00.002-08:00

How stupid is we?

Matt Taibbi once again considers what passes for news here in America:

On the same day that Britney was shaving her head, a guy I know who works in the office of Senator Bernie Sanders sent me an email. He was trying very hard to get news organizations interested in some research his office had done about George Bush's proposed 2008 budget, which was unveiled two weeks ago and received relatively little press, mainly because of the controversy over the Iraq war resolution. All the same, the Bush budget is an amazing document. It would be hard to imagine a document that more clearly articulates the priorities of our current political elite.

Not only does it make many of Bush's tax cuts permanent, but it envisions a complete repeal of the Estate Tax, which mainly affects only those who are in the top two-tenths of the top one percent of the richest people in this country. The proposed savings from the cuts over the next decade are about $442 billion, or just slightly less than the amount of the annual defense budget (minus Iraq war expenses). But what's interesting about these cuts are how Bush plans to pay for them.

Sanders's office came up with some interesting numbers here. If the Estate Tax were to be repealed completely, the estimated savings to just one family -- the Walton family, the heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune -- would be about $32.7 billion dollars over the next ten years.

The proposed reductions to Medicaid over the same time frame? $28 billion.

It's way past time for a "sensationalist" press who will deal with shit like this head-on - and by "sensationalist," I mean a press who will actually cover it.

2007-02-21T19:11:00.000-08:00

Italian government falls

Prodi's broad coalition in Italy has collapsed*. The trigger was a failed vote on Italy's participation in the NATO Afghanistan force and the construction of a new US military base in Vicenza.

Various commentators will have their opinions, and much of the blame is already being levelled at Rifondazione, the communist party in Prodi's government. Communists always make good punching bags, it is true, but a good portion of the blame should be assigned to Prodi himself and, especially, Massimo D'Alema, the foolish (ex-) foreign minister.

First, D'Alema was the one who made the vote into a vote of confidence when it wasn't intended as such. Naturally, the far-right, led by the reprehensible and criminal Berlusconi, happily picked up on this when the vote failed. Second, and much more important, D'Alema's reasoning behind both Italy's Afghanistan venture and the US base is deeply flawed and, considering the Italian public's overwhelming anti-war position, unsustainable.

As long as countries like Italy keep their soldiers in Afghanistan, the US can continue to devote its resources and attention elsewhere (like Iraq and, increasingly likely, Iran). Propping up the US in Afghanistan - in which it has had a military occupation for nearly 6 years already, with deteriorating conditions and nothing like the promises that were made before the invasion - enables the Bush administration to interfere elsewhere in the world and maintain a damaging and unworkable policy there.

D'Alema's contention that rejecting the base "expansion" (actually, the construction of different facilities in a different part of the city) would have been a "hostile act" towards America is laughable and, to put it as nice as I can, rather stupid. It might have been a "hostile act" towards the Bush administration's arrogance and hubris - certainly not a bad thing - but not towards the United States, whose ever-increasing network of bases around the world enables it to engage in increasingly despotic imperialistic behavior. Such an eventuality is not good for the victims themselves, not good for Italy, and also not good for Americans.

D'Alema and Prodi were in a position to deliver leadership, actually represent the Italian public and contribute (in a small way, to be sure) to reigning in America's overinflated and increasingly dangerous ambitions. But they chose not to do this. The danger now is that Berlusconi will take over the government again, and they will have contributed to this potential outcome in no small measure.

*One part of this article is rather disingenuous. The author makes it seem like the "Machiavellian" Giulio Andreotti was one of the string-pulling communist wreckers by placing his betrayal of the government in between two paragraphs fingering the far-left for the government's collapse, when in fact Andreotti is a member of the Christian Democrats.

2007-02-19T16:28:00.001-08:00

Time for "congestion charges" in the US

When I see reactions like this to "Red Ken" Livingstone's "congestion charge" for driving in certain areas of London, my confidence in the wisdom of this policy only increases:

Michele Weininger, a businesswoman from west London, said: "Ken Livingstone has a built-in hatred for people on this side of London. He calls us toffs. What he doesn't realise is that this area is mixed. We voted against this. The riff-raff voted Ken Livingstone in. But we are not riff-raff here. We are decent people."

Yes, Michele, you toff - and now you're going to be a little poorer while you drive around doing your "decent" things.

It is past time for a similar policy in our larger urban centers in the US. I'm thinking particularly of New York (and specifically Manhattan) and San Francisco - both are relatively small in size, making it easy for riff-raff (and, surprisngly, decent people as well) to get around on foot, bike or public transport, as long as the streets are not clogged up with toffs driving their cars everywhere.

Oh, and we might think of taxing the rich while we we're at it.

2007-02-19T12:40:00.000-08:00

A "surge" of their own

Looks like "The Insurgents" have launched their own "surge":

Two U.S. soldiers were killed and 17 wounded when insurgents launched a coordinated attack on an outpost north of Baghdad on Monday in what appeared to be one of the biggest such assaults in months.

Four years later, still "bringing it on". Happy, President Bush?

2007-02-18T18:55:00.000-08:00

Administration ponders what may have - but probably didn't - go wrong

I have to admit that I had my doubts about whether Tony Snow would be able to replace - really replace - the inimitable Scotty McClellan as Bush's chief mouthpiece. But reading the following exchange with the press removed a lot of the doubt:

"What went wrong?" the reporter reasonably asked.

Snow replied: "I'm not sure anything went wrong."

Not bad. The method is irrefutable and shows a subtle understanding of the complexities of meaning and communication: when faced with a hostile question, just shift into that mode where words no longer have the meanings that you and I usually assign them. Cut the tie between signifier and signified and make any word mean whatever you want. Don't bother trying to refute stuff using "facts" and "arguments," because in that case you've already accepted your tormentor's codes, rules, and a host of taken-for-granted assumptions. No, simply act like you don't even speak the same language as your interlocutor and dodge the whole game.

But he's still not quite there yet:

But you have -- it is pretty clear that some of the other assessments were wrong, and you deal with it.

Well, damn. So something went wrong after all. It must be hard sometimes, keeping everything straight. Thankfully, just "assessments" were at fault, though - the hundreds of thousands of deaths, disintegrating country, and deadly capital city must have been all part of the plan.

2007-02-09T21:21:00.000-08:00

Personality Crisis

New York Dolls, 1973:

Johansen/Thunders or Strummer/Jones? It's a difficult decision - but I think I know who I would take.

2007-02-09T16:03:00.000-08:00

US Senators: true Financial Panthers

Funny how things like this work:

US senators' personal stock portfolios outperformed the market by an average of 12 per cent a year in the five years to 1998, according to a new study.
...

A separate study in 2000, covering 66,465 US households from 1991 to 1996 showed that the average household's portfolio underperformed the market by 1.44 per cent a year, on average. Corporate insiders (defined as senior executives) usually outperform by about 5 per cent.

Of course, with the way things are going, you don't need a Financial Panther, senatorial or otherwise, to know where to invest.

(NYT link via Max)

2007-02-07T21:45:00.000-08:00

Free money

Of course, such a thing doesn't exist - but America's first viceroy of Iraq, "Jerry" Bremer, acted like it does:

In a hearing before the chief House oversight committee, Democrats on Tuesday demanded answers from Paul Bremer, who headed the Coalition Provisional Authority, Iraq's first post-occupation government, and oversaw the disbursement of $12bn in cash in reconstruction funds in the months after the invasion.
...

Mr Waxman took Mr Bremer to task for the manner in which US officials disbursed $20bn (?15.5bn, £10.2bn), including $12bn in cash, in Iraq between March 2003 and June 2004. Mr Waxman said that, in a 13-month period, the US government had shipped 360 tonnes of cash to Iraq. "Who in their right minds would send 360 tonnes of cash into a war zone? But that's exactly what [this government] did."

One official from the provisional authority described an environment awash with $100 bills, said a memo released by Mr Waxman's office. "One contractor received a $2m payment in a duffel bag stuffed with shrink-wrapped bundles of currency." In some cases, cash was stored in unguarded sacks in Iraqi ministry offices.

Ok - so the Dems are all over Bremer, and by extension his boss in the White House, for incompetence and, quite probably, corruption and financial malfeasance. Good, right?

Actually, compare the tone of that article with one by Dana Milbank on the same hearings:

But Bremer proved unexpectedly agile at shifting blame: to administration planners ("The planning before the war was inadequate"), his superiors in the Bush administration ("We never had sufficient support"), and the Iraqi people ("The country was in chaos -- socially, politically and economically").

And Democrats, after 12 years in the minority, were out of practice. Instead of going after Bremer's greatest vulnerabilities -- his autocratic management style and his "de-Baathification" of Iraq -- Democrats instead chose a strange focus for the hearing: the failure to account for $8 billion of cash payments three years ago. After nearly five hours of questioning, the lawmakers failed to find a smoking gun: It wasn't U.S. taxpayer money, it was a pittance compared with U.S. spending in Iraq, there was no hard evidence of fraud, and the episode had been investigated two years ago.
...

Republicans could hardly believe their luck. "Nobody took him on," exulted Tom Davis (R-Va.), who surrendered the chairman's gavel to Waxman last month. "We thought they'd be all over him for de-Baathification."

Leaving aside the reprehensible justifications that appeared there - apparently, it was ok to throw away the money (a mere "pittance"), because it was Iraqi money, not good American money - the fact that the Dems went into this with nothing other than the charges and with no new evidence to pin anything on Bremer is fucking lame, because, as noted in Milbank's article, this charge is two years old.

We don't need a rehash of stuff that happened two years ago. Try doing something useful: actually hold these cretins responsible, get the soldiers out of Iraq, and prevent them from going into Iran.

2007-02-06T14:39:00.000-08:00

Your tax dollars at work

Via the Antiwar blog comes this story, sure to bring a tear to the eye of even the most jaded and cynical snake-oil peddler:

President Bush yesterday asked Congress for an additional $6.4 billion to develop ways of defeating roadside bombs in Iraq -- nearly double what has been provided since 2003 -- in the hopes of reviving an effort once billed as the "Manhattan Project" of the war but which has failed to stop the insurgents' weapon of choice from becoming even deadlier.

Yes - $6.4 BILLION for the sole purpose of combatting IEDs - homemade bombs that are stuffed in soda cans or, as the Antiwar writer put it, in a "dead dog's belly" . But wait - it gets better:

The Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization... has received $6.7 billion in taxpayer dollars since 2003, for the sole purpose of eliminating the threat of so-called improvised explosive devices.

Yes - $6.4 BILLION (making a total of $13.1 BILLION) going to a group that goes by the preposterous name" Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization", for the sole purpose of combatting home-made bombs. I think I can be excused for failing to have confidence in a project with a sub-Inspector Gadget moniker.

The program has ballooned into a massive organization employing thousands of private contractors, and is based in a northern Virginia office complex where some of the largest defense industry firms have their Washington operations.

Follow the money, indeed. "Supporting the troops" has never been so profitable.

2007-02-05T19:47:00.000-08:00

The time is coming...

George Galloway makes rabble-rousing speeches in Parliament and prophecies of Blair's doom so that I don't have to.

Sadly, you'll never see a Democrat with this kind of fire taking on our dim-witted war criminal president.

2007-02-04T22:16:00.000-08:00

No one is spared

Joel Beinin has a piece in the local rag on free speech, hatemongering, and having an honest look at Israel/Palestine.

Beinin's book, Was the Red Flag Flying There?, an examination of the socialist and communist parties' involvement in the foundation and early life of Israel, remains one of the more interesting studies of the Israel-Palestine conflict - at least if you're interested in leftist politics and its failures (kind of redundant, I know).

I think I can sum up Beinin's conclusions by saying that the flag wasn't so much red as a very, very light pink - almost a white flag, in fact.

2007-02-03T23:56:00.000-08:00

"Genuine success"

Matt Taibbi on "The Surge":

I was in Tal Afar's "genuine success" story over the summer. It was such a success story that the city's neurotic, hand-wringing mayor, Najim Abdullah al-Jubori, actually asked American officials during a meeting I attended if they could tell President Bush to stop calling it a success story. "It just makes the terrorists angry," he said.
...

After that meeting, the unit I was with -- MPs from Oklahoma on a personal security detail, guarding a colonel who was inspecting police stations in the area -- went to a precinct house in one of Tal Afar's "safe" neighborhoods. There I found five American soldiers huddling in a room about the size of a walk-in closet, hunched over a pile of MRE wrappers and PlayStation cassettes. They seldom ever left that room, they explained. Occasionally they would have to go out and fight whenever someone started shooting at the police station (a regular occurrence, they said)...

Such success - so why does Matt Taibbi hate America so much?

2007-01-31T20:31:00.000-08:00

Fear

Their infamous appearance on SNL from 1981 - hurry and watch it before some network executive gets afraid and has it pulled down:

2007-01-31T19:42:00.000-08:00

Now for something simply pathetic...

I laughed. I cried.

Is this how easy it is in America these days to cause havoc and mayhem in a major urban area? To cause supposedly sane city administrators and police to hyperventilate? Does it really take just a small group of people to throw up some flashing lights that look like a character from a cartoon show about talking food?

How's this for stupidity:

"It [the flashing cartoon character] had a very sinister appearance," [Massachusetts' Attorney General Martha] Coakley told reporters. "It had a battery behind it, and wires."

Remember that, kids: batteries + wires = DANGER. Get rid of your iPods before they explode!

You can tell Fight Club came out before 9/11 and our national enfeeblement of any mental, moral and intelligence capabilities. Blowing up buildings would be absolute overkill these days. Bicycles in New York... cartoon characters in Boston... Iranians in Iran... all sources of unimaginable horror.

Why are Americans so scared of everything?

2007-01-31T19:19:00.000-08:00

Death and glory

The US's newest glorious victory in its Middle East adventure was probably anything but:

There are growing suspicions in Iraq that the official story of the battle outside Najaf between a messianic Iraqi cult and the Iraqi security forces supported by the US, in which 263 people were killed and 210 wounded, is a fabrication. The heavy casualties may be evidence of an unpremeditated massacre.

A picture is beginning to emerge of a clash between an Iraqi Shia tribe on a pilgrimage to Najaf and an Iraqi army checkpoint that led the US to intervene with devastating effect. The involvement of Ahmed al-Hassani (also known as Abu Kamar), who believed himself to be the coming Mahdi, or Messiah, appears to have been accidental.

Smells like... victory.

2007-01-23T23:43:00.000-08:00

"Feminine virtue"

What's the deal with the new old idea of chastity as a virtue?

It just needs to be dispatched really fast - there is no physiological evidence for women and men having different needs from congress (our kind, not the American kind), only circumstantial evidence, which is indivisible from the social conditioning that creates it.

Right, as the kids used to say, on.

Be very, very suspicious when someone tries to sell a certain type of behavior as "human nature" or, even more dodgily, limited to only a certain sector thereof.

2007-01-23T23:18:00.000-08:00

No shame

Joe Lieberman, the most shameless and cynical senator in American history, has a yuk-yuk moment with General "Surge" Petraeus:

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) asked Army Lt. Gen. David H . Petraeus during his confirmation hearing yesterday if Senate resolutions condemning White House Iraq policy "would give the enemy some comfort."

Petraeus agreed they would, saying, "That's correct, sir."

Of course, as we all know, "giv[ing] the enemy some comfort" is a big part of how the US Constitution defines "treason".

What a piece of shit. How stupid was the electorate of Connecticut to elect this fuckhead for another 6 years?

It surely can't be long before Lieberman appears in the Senate chamber making vague, but threatening, accusations and waving around a list of "known Islamists" working in the State Department.

2007-01-23T22:19:00.000-08:00

Alternate energy sources

I can't believe that wood chips made it into a U.S. president's State of the Union Address.

Why does anyone still take this clown seriously?

2007-01-20T22:38:00.000-08:00

How low?

Bad Brains in 1982. H.R. demonstrates why he was such a fantastic frontman:

2007-01-20T17:24:00.000-08:00

New low for American "justice"

Having hit rock bottom, they've somehow managed to keep digging. You have to wonder what would not be acceptable to Bush and his friends. According to a new proposal, "suspected terrorists" may be imprisoned or put to death based on hearsay evidence and "coerced" (i.e., obtained through torture) testimony:

The Pentagon has drafted a manual for upcoming detainee trials that would allow suspected terrorists to be convicted on hearsay evidence and coerced testimony and imprisoned or put to death.

According to a copy of the manual obtained by The Associated Press, a terror suspect's defense lawyer cannot reveal classified evidence in the person's defense until the government has a chance to review it.

What this proposal is, is not so much codifying any kind of procedural norms as it is enshrining the lack of any rules whatsoever on the treatment of desginated "enemies". This is another plank in the edfice of our rising American despotism.

People in the military have already begun speaking out against this disgusting bit of "justice". Can we get a unified Congressional stance against it as well?

2007-01-20T17:05:00.000-08:00

Engels the stockbroker

What would Friedrich Engels think of NASDAQ's proposed takeover of the London Stock Exchange?

An Engels' biographer thinks he would have welcomed it as a smashing idea (smashing capitalism, that is).

Personally, I'm not entirely convinced about the basis of the author's argument (WARNING: discussion involving Marx follows - any "Internet Leftists" who have lost their way and stumbled onto this site may want to run away). No doubt Marx and Engels (a) recognized the strengths and power of capitalism and (b) understood the historical circumstances around its beginnings and development. They had an understanding of the larger structures in history, whatever their flaws.

However, that doesn't mean that they would have adopted a passive attitude to any and all developments, a kind of fatalist "it-will-turn-out-alright-in-the-end" attitude. No, there was also an important place for the action of the individual in the writings of Marx and Engels, no matter how constrained by historical circumstances.

I'm not sure how far the author intended it, but the "inevitability of capitalism's demise" premise seems the guide the article. Perhaps the biography would clarify this point.

2007-01-19T13:41:00.000-08:00

Choose your King...

...As Poison Idea once invited us to do. It's come to light recently who The King (no, not Jesus, the other The King) himself chose:

AP/White House photo

Via Max comes this story about how The King offered Nixon the chance to make him a special agent. Elvis' letter in part:

Dear Mr. President.

First, I would like to introduce myself. I am Elvis Presley and admire you and have great respect for your office. I talked to Vice President Agnew in Palm Springs 3 weeks ago and expressed my concern for our country. The drug culture, the hippie elements, the SDS, Black Panthers, etc. do NOT consider me as their enemy or as they call it The Establishment. I call it America and I love it. Sir, I can and will be of any service that I can to help The Country out. I have no concern or Motives other than helping the country out. . . .

I can and will do more good if I were made a Federal Agent at Large. . . . Sir, I am staying at the Washington Hotel, Room 505-506-507. . . . I am registered under the name of Jon Burrows. I will be here for as long as it takes to get the credentials of a Federal Agent. I have done an in-depth study of drug abuse and Communist brainwashing techniques and I am right in the middle of the whole thing where I can and will do the most good. . . .

Respectfully, Elvis Presley

The drugs I can understand, but how did he become acquainted with Communist brainwashing techniques?

2007-01-19T13:07:00.000-08:00

Smoke, mirrors and poppets

Or mirages, as Glen Ford might say. Ford's newest piece on Obama should - but almost certainly won't - inject a little bit of common sense into the debate around and hopes for his presidential run and the new "ascendency" of the Democrats in general.

In at least one important respect, Ford's article is like Comrade Max's recent post that started the whole tempest-in-a-teacup among the "Internet Left": there's an underlying admonition to these "leftists" to remove your head from your ass. You're happy that the Dems won? That's great - but keep some perspective on matters. Actually, try a lot of perspective.

Effective is not the same thing as empowered. The Democratic party was there a long, long time before any of these clearinghouse websites were even gleams in the eyes of their comfortable middle-class founders, it has its own history, and that history only overlaps a tiny, tiny bit with yours.

Most important: what are you actually getting from your elected "servants"?

2007-01-18T22:36:00.000-08:00

US bombs drifting overhead

Sigue Sigue Sputnik video for "Love Missle F1-11":

2007-01-18T19:33:00.000-08:00

So was it about oil?

Of course it was - you're not still doubting that, are you?

A draft of a new law on oil is supposed to the Iraqi cabinet this week. Few details are available but according to some flak in the government, this proposed legislation will "achieve the highest benefit for Iraqis". Let's not make any bets about how high the benefit will be for the oil companies.

This article, and most of the others on the wires right now, are pretty lightweight. For background, here are two investigative articles published over the past week:

But let's not simplify things: it wasn't all about oil. Even among the "shifting sands" of a "desert country" like "Mesopotamia", to adopt some of the condescending bullshit terms media types love to apply to Iraq, there are other forms of wealth besides oil - and some special concerns have become familiar with them.

2007-01-17T00:11:00.000-08:00

Plan 9 Channel 7

Hilarious video from The Damned for the song "Plan 9 Channel 7":

Not as funny as Black Panthers with their toasters, but not everyone can rise to that level of genius.

2007-01-16T15:48:00.000-08:00

Blah blah blah

(Apologies to Husker Du)

What a fucking loudmouth. Other people may have glowing bullshit to spew about Gilliard - if that's what you want, go read them.

First of all, as Comrade Max points out, however you choose to define "Internet Left", Gilliard is not the only member of it. Neither is Kos. Come in out of this solipsistic little bubble, man.

But let's leave aside exaggerated self-importance: this one line tell you everything you need to know about where this post is going:

The "Internet Left" has done more in three years than any of the groups you hail as heroes from the 1960's did in 10 years.

Really? Like what? How far has the "Internet Left", in these three glorious years, been successful in stopping this fucking war in Iraq? Helping out the lower class, or even the middle class? Placing any kinds of checks on the increasingly open authoritarian and imperial (we can't say "fascist" - that wouldn't be "serious") Bush presidency? You fucking ponce.

I'm serious - what achievements does this veritable Red Army have under its belt? If this is a reference to helping elect Democrats to office, big fucking deal. I remember what the Democrats were doing when they weren't in power (these are just some examples from the past three awesome years, which I refer to forthwith as Years 0-2 of the Inter Left Era (ILE) - don't get me started on the Leftist paradise that was the Clinton era):

- Supporting and enabling the Iraq war. More Democratic senators supported the 2002 Congressional blank check to Bush than opposed it. If these 28 schemers had joined with those opposing it, the authorization would have failed 52-48. If there had been the same party discipline among the Democrats as among the Republicans (only Chafee voted against it), we wouldn't be where we are today.

But, of course, we can't even frame this in terms of "party loyalty", because opposition to the war wasn't a Democratic position. And this "Internet Left" that Gilliard wants to put on a pedestal was also divided (notwithstanding opposition by Kos and Gilliard), with many flat-out supporting it. Try, for example, reading Matthew Yglesias' pro-war bullshit from 2002 and 2003 - oh, wait, you can't, because he has purged them all from the public domain).

- Support of the 2005 bankruptcy bill. A total of 73 Democratic representatives voted for this gift to the credit card industry. And you want to talk about the working class "slowly being screwed"? I suppose doing it rather quickly, on the other hand, is pretty alright.

- How about the 19 Democrats who voted for cloture on the debate concerning Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court, the last chance the Democrats had to keep this hard-right nutjob from fucking things up for the next 30 years?

You'll have to excuse me if I'm less than impressed by the triumphalist tone extolling the "Internet Left's" achievements when they boils down to bullshit like this.

Treating the fact that the "Internet Left" helped elect Democrats to office as a major accomplishment makes a mockery of the "strengths" that Gilliard cites: no leaders and "empower[ing] people to act on their own or with others". Is this supposed to be serious? Indicative of this confusion, which revolves around treating the "Internet Left" as some kind of independent political force rather than the unpaid (and, let me predict, in the final analysis, unappreciated) proxy of the Democrats, is this incredible statement:

I think what you resent about the "Internet Left" is that they get things done. The Greens can't get past the city council level. Chris Bowers got millions of dollars to win races. Which might actually change people's lives and not end up in a circle jerk discussion.

What "races"? Why not come clean and tell us that Bowers was a shill for the Democrats? This is a joke, and a particularly cruel one. Buy a fucking clue.

As for the dig at Marx: Fuck you. Seriously - fuck off.

But to show that even clueless wankers like this, caught up in the liberal flipside of conservative/neocon delusion and denial of history, have a sense of humor, I'll end with this:

You [Comrade Max] laud these groups, but forget what they did. They [e.g., the SDS and the Black Panthers] shifted the discussion on the left from civil rights to toasters. They embraced the consumer economy and sought to perfect it, while the working class was slowly being screwed.

Yeah - those Black Panthers really were into toasters.

2006-05-18T09:17:00.000-07:00

Fours years on, not so evil anymore

How do you negotiate with evil?

If you're the Bush administration, kind of in an incompetent way.

Once again, the lesson is clear - develop the Bomb, get the US out of your face. Now the question remains: will there be the hand-wringing by the "liberal" (and other) hawks, or is Iran providing enough moral outrage at this point?

2006-04-16T12:50:00.000-07:00

Democracy Now! debate between Finkelstein and Ben-Ami

Transcript of a fascinating debate between Norman Finkelstein and Shlomo Ben-Ami, former Israeli FM in the Barak government, on Democracy Now!.

2006-04-16T03:26:00.000-07:00

McKinney and the Democrats

Is there anyone who the Democrats won't screw over? They're even throwing their own overboard; BC's take (which seems entirely plausible, based on past Democratic "strategy") is that it's part of a plan to stand aside, do nothing, and wait for the Republicans to magically implode.

You'd think that when a small woman fought back against people harrassing her, she'd be kind of a hero. But you'd be wrong.

2006-04-16T03:13:00.000-07:00

Blockade of Gaza

Palestinian residents of Gaza are facing a crippling blockade by Israel. Being caged in like animals is not enough - no, no mere degradation is enough in this case. Better add a little starvation to get a better result.

The principle of punishing people for voting has been established. Don't complain when it happens to you. But I'm sure some wingnut out there has reliable information on how Palestinian Gazans are actually enjoying feasts and dances at every mealtime.

This quote, from the ever-lovable Dov Weisglass, was certainly the high-point of the article:

Israel's policy was summed up by Dov Weisglass, an adviser to Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, earlier this year. 'The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger,' he said.

Weisglass, of course, was also advisor to Ariel Sharon. Maybe if Weisglass had advised his fat fuck of a war criminal boss to go on his own "diet", Sharon might not be brain-dead in a hospital. But, leaving Sharon aside, it's funny how the fat and wealthy are always the ones talking about how the poor need diets, crash programs, and pain. They should try it themselves sometime.

2006-04-16T02:08:00.000-07:00

God and the unfalsifiability of being

Well, since no one else is going to do it, I guess I'll have to be the one to update this damn blog.

Let's start with this column in the Observer by Richard Harries, bishop of Oxford, on religion and science. Harries would have us believe that he's a religious person who's really into science. But his confusion over some pretty simple scientific concepts would make the Baby Einstein cry. Why is it so hard for even intelligent people to come to terms with both what science is and the difference between it and religion?

A few points from Harries' article will clarify the issue. He writes:

From time to time, I see American creationist magazines with articles by people claiming to have doctorates in science. Judging religion only on the basis of its least credible examples is as though I judged all science on the basis of creationist science.

First, there's no such thing as "creationist science" - as Harries himself recognizes later in his article, when he calls creationism a "false science". Creationism is not science, for the simple fact that its claims cannot be verified by means of the scientific method. No scientific method, no science.

The second point arising from Harries' statement here, concerning judgment, is a little more involved. I've already dispatched the notion that "creationist science" has anything to do with science (as has Harries). So the second part of Harries' "judging" statement makes no sense, even for the sake of argument. If we replace "creationist science" with "pseudo-scientific religious quackery" (as in, "...as though I judged all science on the basis of pseudo-scientific religious quackery"), this point becomes clear.

But what about the first part of Harries' statement - the judging of religion "only on the basis of its least credible examples"? Unfortunately for Harries, in all of the foundational religious texts (including, but not limited to, those of the major montheistic religions), there are no criteria for judging something as more or less credible than anything else. No miracles, no statements, no examples of divine agency are accompanied by a disclaimer that it should be taken less seriously than anything else that appears therein. The burning bush and the resurrection, for example, are presented as being part of the same reality as things that Harries might recognize as being more "credible".

Moving from theory to practice, the records of the major religions concerning enforcement of orthodoxy and their punishment of people who deviate from it are quite clear. This is a simple matter of examining the historical record, something Harries appears to be loathe to do. His statement on the progress made in the debate between religion and science since Galileo was forced to recant misses the point, at best, and is disingenuous, to be more honest. Any progress made on that front has not been because of the kind-heartedness of religious organizations, but rather has been due to the efforts of those who fought back against religious coercion.

In any event, religious institutions have always claimed possession of "The Truth", so again, it is a little disingenuous of Harries to bring up credibility, since no decisions and/or acts of figures representing the major religions have ever been accompanied by statements that they were less serious than any others. Harries entire ability to discern "credibility", in fact, is based on non-religious advances made by the sciences (including, in this context, history), and he can't even recognize this.

Which brings us to another point:

Recently, an eminent professor was found to have falsified the data of one of his experiments on stem cell research. I don't judge science on the basis of those few scientists who fudge their results, but on scientific method as it ought to be practised. People expect no less from those who are critical of religion.

So... the fact that "one" scientist faked the data of "one" of his experiments should be given equal weight as sustained, historically-based critiques of the pronouncements and deeds of hundreds of popes and other major religious leaders? Anecdote should take the place of reasoned argument, based on easily available examples that permit generalization? This is scientific understanding?

In any event, the fake scientist's fake results would have soon been easily detected, thanks to the principle of falsifiability. Other scientists would have attempted to replicate the fake scientist's results, and when this would have been found not to be possible, they would have been discarded. Try that with religious claims - any of them.

Harries' later statements on the possibility of religious views coexisting with scientific ones are prefectly fine and welcome. But to make this a credible point of view will require people like Harries to shed the idea that what works (or, perhaps more accurately, doesn't work) for religion also works for science. It doesn't, and people like Harries need to get a better grasp of science, what it is, and what it does (in addition to what it doesn't, which is already their field), before lecturing others about their misunderstandings of religion.

2005-10-23T09:25:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-10-02T00:34:00.000-07:00

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."

2005-09-28T00:53:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-09-24T21:49:00.000-07:00

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

2005-09-21T23:21:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-09-21T22:24:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-09-20T09:13:00.000-07:00

Nein Danke

Haha... Steve Bell.

2005-09-19T21:57:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-09-12T01:39:00.000-07:00

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.)

2005-09-12T00:15:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-09-11T04:51:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-09-10T04:35:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-09-09T20:05:00.000-07:00

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?

2005-09-07T22:03:00.000-07:00

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".

2005-08-31T23:03:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-08-31T22:54:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-08-26T09:31:00.000-07:00

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".

2005-08-21T15:17:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-08-17T23:01:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-08-17T22:55:00.000-07:00

Murder

Wow... cops lie.

2005-08-14T14:29:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-08-14T12:53:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-08-02T22:51:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-08-02T22:30:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-07-07T22:02:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-07-07T20:30:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-06-30T22:42:00.000-07:00

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!

2005-06-29T22:44:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-06-26T16:04:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-06-26T12:59:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-06-24T00:22:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-06-24T00:18:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-06-23T23:21:00.002-07:00

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.

2005-06-23T23:13:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-06-21T00:21:00.000-07:00

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?

2005-06-18T22:30:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-06-17T23:32:00.000-07:00

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?

2005-06-17T00:52:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-06-16T22:48:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-06-15T09:57:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-06-14T00:24:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-06-13T01:23:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-05-16T22:58:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-05-13T12:34:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-05-02T17:03:00.000-07:00

"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.

2005-05-02T10:26:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-04-30T12:00:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-04-29T21:24:00.000-07:00

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.