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February 4, 2005
Open Thread 05-14
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The “liberal” New York Times has a 44 paragraph article about the UN Oil-for-Food program.
It is bashing hard on Mr. Benon V. Sevan, who was the head of that program since 1997 because he may have gotton a kickback of $160,000 out of it.
Only in paragraph 25 do we get the essence of the Volker report.
Both the report and Mr. Volcker emphasized that the major source of Mr. Hussein’s illicit money was not kickbacks from the oil-for-food program but the estimated $8 billion in illegal oil sales to Jordan, Turkey and Syria that occurred even before the program was created. Mr. Volcker said that those sales were known to Security Council members, including the United States, and that Washington had specifically waived American laws barring such sales.
The article does emphasize everything but this elephant in the kitchen. As “congress reaction” two republican UN haters are cited.
The author of course is Judith Miller
When was the fair and balanced NYT sold to Murdoch?
WaPo is also owned by Murdoch.
26 paragraphs on Oil for Food and the alleged problem with Mr. Savan, the third last paragraph says:
Volcker’s team has not proved that Sevan received money from the company’s oil deals. Volcker is examining cash payments Sevan received between 1999 and 2003 amounting to $160,000. Sevan has filed U.N. financial disclosure forms saying the money came from his aunt, who died last year after falling into an elevator shaft.
The only mentioning of US supported oil smuggling that allowed Saddam to skim billions is in in paragraph 14.
Volcker said that the government received far more in illicit funds from unauthorized oil sales outside the oil-for-food program to Jordan, Turkey, Syria and Egypt.
Nothing mentioned here that the US severed its own laws to make this happen.
Iran-Contra Figure to Lead Democracy Efforts Abroad
Elliott Abrams, who pleaded guilty in 1991 to withholding information from Congress in the Iran-contra affair, was promoted to deputy national security adviser to President Bush.
Abrams, who previously was in charge of Middle East affairs, will be responsible for pushing Bush’s strategy for advancing democracy
The White House also announced yesterday that Faryar Shirzad, a deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs, will take on added responsibilities for humanitarian affairs, stabilization and reconstruction efforts.
Prior to joining the NSC staff, Shirzad was assistant secretary for import administration at the Commerce Department. Before that, he was the lead coordinator of international trade policy for the Bush-Cheney transition team.
The Motto for this government really seems to be: “The worse your are the more you get promoted!”
Posted by: Fran | Feb 4 2005 9:56 utc | 3
The Independent – interessting the difference in reporting, to the articles posted by b – no mentioning of Mr. Sevan.
Britain implicated in oil-for-food scandal, damning report says
The British Government became directly involved in subverting the process for choosing companies to assist in the management of the United Nations’ oil-for-food programme, intervening in 1996 on behalf of a London-based company that was ultimately granted the work, a report claimed yesterday.
The episode is an embarrassing revelation for the Foreign Office and is prominently described in an interim report released yesterday by former Paul Volcker, the US Federal Reserve Chairman, into allegations of widespread corruption in the running of the 6-year oil-for-food scheme.
Posted by: Fran | Feb 4 2005 10:03 utc | 4
this non-denial denial removes all doubt –
from the NYTimes website (I added the italicization):
U.S. Attack on Iran Is ‘Not on the Agenda,’ Rice Says
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 7:00 AM ET
“The question is simply not on the agenda at this point,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said today in London when asked whether the U.S. might attack Iran.
Posted by: mistah charley | Feb 4 2005 13:02 utc | 5
15,000 American hostages to be released from captivity in Iraq
Posted by: Wolfie | Feb 4 2005 13:30 utc | 6
@B @ 0247:
Re:ownership of the Washington Post.
Think you are wrong about Murdoch owning the Post. Think the Graham family still owns it.
Anybody know for sure?
Posted by: FlashHarry | Feb 4 2005 13:46 utc | 7
more on…erm, make that moron LTC Tim Ryan & his special powers of perception
Posted by: b real | Feb 4 2005 18:50 utc | 10
TOP SECRET
The Fuhrer has had new maps issued:
The Road to Baghdad Now Runs Through Tel Aviv
Posted by: heinz G. | Feb 4 2005 19:08 utc | 11
Henhouse Security Outsourced to Foxes.
Donors to DeLay fund put on ethics panel
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Two donors to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s defense fund were named Wednesday to the House ethics committee, which twice last year admonished the Texas Republican.
In a shake-up of the bipartisan panel that critics called part of a purge and a “shutdown” of ethics enforcement, Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican, also replaced the ethics chairman, Joel Hefley, a Colorado Republican, with Washington state Republican Doc Hastings, who was already on the panel.
Hefley’s term as chairman was up. Though it could have been extended, Hastert decided to replace him for the 109th Congress, which began last month.
Hastert appointed to the panel Republican Reps. Lamar Smith of Texas and Tom Cole of Oklahoma. Both have donated to a defense fund DeLay created in 2000 after Democrats filed a civil racketeering suit — later dismissed with the agreement of both sides — over his fund-raising network.
Smith donated $10,000 and Cole donated $5,000, according to the government-watchdog group Public Citizen.
The ethics committee last year admonished DeLay in two separate reports, on a total of three matters: a 2002 fund-raiser that it said gave the appearance of donors getting special access; enlisting the help of a federal agency in a Texas political spat, and offering a political favor to a member in an effort to win passage of the Medicare drug bill.
Well, it’s about bloody time that market forces were brought to bear on House committee appointments. Takes all that annoying guesswork about merit out of the picture.
Cole is my friggin’ congressman.
As if the story about Okla state senator Shurden and the little boxing gloves and vests for the cockfighting chickens wasn’t enough embarassment. I had to listen to them interview Shurden on NPR fer chrissakes. And he’s what passes for a Democrat out here! < puts paper bag over head >
Posted by: OkieByAccident | Feb 4 2005 19:50 utc | 12
Several reports for congress about illicit trade with Iraq were written over the years.
Reading some of them at the time, it was clear to me that the US (quite rightly) made no attempt to repress trade (oil, mostly, but not only), with neighboring countries. It was also clear that major players (of any kind) and small guys were not treated in the same way.
The link below is a typical example but needs close reading to be made sense of. (I haven’t re-read it now.)
1 report ->Congress
Iran had been for 20+ years – under economic sanctions – Complete ban on trade with, and investments in.
In 2000 Albright eased the sanctions (agri and medi products, aircraft parts, regular manufactured goods, carpets, etc.) Bill Clinton, I believe, even apologised for past bad relations. Sanctions were in effect basically lifted or considered inoperative, dead, except as pertaining to WMD.
Consequent trade with an axis of evil country has always been going on. But now:
Halliburton to wind down Iran operations
Forbes
GE to turn down new business in Iran
Market watch
Attack on Iran `Not on the Agenda,’ U.S.’s Rice Says _posted before too_
Bloomberg
The Iran Freedom support act (HR 282) is gathering steam.
HR 282
Posted by: Blackie | Feb 4 2005 20:21 utc | 13
The US will not attack Iran. The US is attempting ot have its cake and eat it too — always a poor, hesitant strategy that goes nowhere.
Besides that, even if the US drafts cute mascared college girls who will deploy with teddy bears, the 12 million or so Iranian conscripts (all men and acclimatised to war, even if indirectly, see Iraq- Iran) represent a formidable challenge, independently of military materiel and mechanical might. (See Iraq today.)
Nuking the place to bits is not an option, see the global economy, or ruining what you want to take (Though with Bush today one can always wonder…)
Posted by: Blackie | Feb 4 2005 20:48 utc | 14
@Blackie The US (can’t be) stupid enough to try to put boots on the ground, but they are looking for a pretext to bomb the shit out of the place. I’m not sure why you say that ‘nuking’ the place (figuratively) is not an option. The economy? What has the economy got to do with bloodlust?
Posted by: DM | Feb 4 2005 21:14 utc | 15
so sad are our times that even an attack on iran is not out of the question
if we have learnt anything about the cheney bush junta is that they are capable of even the most obscene crimes
i believe todat they prefer their mutually imbecilic arrangement with the mullahs in iran – they are gangster, after all – of a kind
this tyranny of little men or ‘little eichmann’s’ as ward churchill argued is a tyranny steeped in stupidity & coloured with crime
for thos of us in the midst of life we were born into the fear of the bomb that soiled whatever childhppds we might have had, that was then made pornographic with the entertainement provided by our american champions which have degrade our cultures until they are less than nothing. wistful nostalgia, the power of the ‘great books’, the redemption through culture have been destroyed beyond any reasonable doubt. we who teach culture are complicit in their criminality. we are complicit because we teach people to believe – to believe under our circumstances & they clearly are getting worse by the hour – is…yes….a criminal act – not in the sense that sic gloria or forgetting cant would have it – because that anti intellectual error is part & parce of the approach of the barbarians – it is not that culture can clean you – the 20th century taught us the opposite of that & i have more respect for a russian soldier from the urals than i have in a dozen books – but culture when incorporated into an existence reveals the irrevocable & demands within itself & reaction, a change, a transformation & i have witnessed that all my working life – but when culture is just one more way of making pornographic ouyr desires & dreams – when it turns our futures to shit, or into burial mounds – it is a partner in crime & as such must be treated with the greatest ruthlessness
we who in the midst of our lives have come upon the bush cheney junata know that the rest od our days will be marked by the crimes of this administration – that we will live in a state of siege – & they made that clear from the start – telling us this ‘war on terrorism’ will last longer than the cold war
how the pitiful make sordid the life of those close to grace & wonder. & in this world the closest to grace & wonder have always been the poor, the disinherited, the marginalised because as in the ancient tragoidia – they sing our song – their tears are our dance – & any dance we make away from them is a ballet of neglect, a ballet of shame
to be in the midst of life – & see my enemy – more criminal, more venal, more terrible in his desires than he was in vietnam does feel me with fear because finally for their little ‘ world’ they will risk us all & nearly have so many times from the 1950’s – so many times we have been saved by something – something as stupid as sense
i believe the criminal gang are capable of anything – i no longer want to go into predictions – because what they will do will be worse than anything than i could imagine but what they have done in four short years is to turn our worlds to shit – they have darkened the door with a mass of phantoms who will never let us sleep – if the ghosts of khe sahn frightend the american soldiers as herr & ‘o brian write – what will happen in our coming futures is surely much worse, much more frightening
because we have been reduced from 12 million opposants to this criminal war to being spectateurs of the most unbelievable crimes – we are spectators to the splitting of worlds that a robet oppenheimer would never have imagined – at least in his nightmare it went in one flash – in ours our night will be full of fires that will never be extinguished
& for that tonight i feel great sorrow & in a sense i feel shame
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 4 2005 22:09 utc | 16
r’giap
take it easy on yourself. these are dark times to be sure but you are not helping by being down. I understand you have fought long and hard and your health has suffered lately, you must not let this overwhelm you.
I once worked for a man who was very pragmatic and that is a quality I much admire. Anyway, one of his pet sayings was that you can eat an elephant. It may sound impossible but if you eat a half kilo per day or so, you will eventually finish off the whole damn thing.
Many of us, upon seeing a great task, think that it is too big, too awesome for someone as small and immpotent as we are. Fact is we have to keep plugging away, drops of water wear down a mountain.
Finally, after all the corny shit, remember what Nicholson’s character said in a film with Helen Hunt, “Maybe this is as good as it gets”.
Good night
Posted by: dan of steele | Feb 4 2005 22:28 utc | 17
take your cue not from the good old things, but from the bad new ones.–Brecht
People believe too much that, in America, “it can’t happen here”–that we’re good people. This faith will take us all far into hell.
Posted by: slothrop | Feb 4 2005 22:37 utc | 18
@OkieByAccident:
Oh, yeah, I heard Shurden on NPR talking about padded cockfighting. Best out loud belly laugh I’ve had all week.
It’s actually, sigh, a pretty good image for what the Dems have become, mad as banty cocks with their spurs blunted.
Posted by: catlady | Feb 4 2005 23:02 utc | 20
dan of steel/slothrop
of course you are correct but tonight it is the darker suggestions of an e.m. cioran that fill me than the brighter light of marx’s grundrisse
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 4 2005 23:46 utc | 21
DM, bloodlust is motivated —
Iran lives off its oil exports. It is a pipeline junction. That must continue. The West cannot do without.
Iran and its ressources cannot be taken. Taking it means destroying it and foregoing its ressources. (See Iraq fiasco.) Iran knows this.
Stasis. Therefore the recent emphasis by Rice, on, once again, supporting the Iranian ‘opposition’ – blind hopes of a Corrupt Baby Shah who will repeat Papa’s scenario, getting a gilded palace and free everythings, in exchange for controlling (ss..awak) and robbing ‘his’ people.
And even that solution is a poor one. If it could ever be made to work. There is no way out. None.
Posted by: Blackie | Feb 5 2005 0:03 utc | 22
@Blackie:
Is there a “Baby Shah” that’s interested? I can’t remember.
I think your analysis is correct.
Latest Yahoo says Shiites winning big in Iraq–not Allawi.
U.S. will be occupied with the Iraqi clusterfark for a long while.
Posted by: FlashHarry | Feb 5 2005 0:15 utc | 23
Gonzales is confirmed as AG. The Rude Pundit writes a letter to McCain, who, more than anyone else in Congress, should know better.
Oh, dear John McCain, sweet Senator from Arizona, how the Rude Pundit feels for you. You remember every night, don’t you, Senator McCain, the pain and humiliation….
All those nightmare things that happened to you, you poor bastard, all those aches that you feel on humid days, whenever you walk to a podium to speak. Vote yes on Gonzales, Senator McCain, and no one should give a shit about your story and your pain ever again.
Posted by: lonesomeG | Feb 5 2005 0:41 utc | 24
@catlady,
It is funny, in a really sick way. These people are so addicted to their violence that they’ll accept a watered down version rather than go without. Plus, there is quite a bit of money being made. There is opposition, thank god. We got the cockfighting ban passed, we can beat this too.
Ironically, xtian jock hero Steve Largent and the wingnut Daily Oklahoman paper supported the ban, and Brad Henry, the surprise Dem victor in the governor’s race, opposed it. CW has it that it was the rural good ‘ol boy Dems who elected Henry, because they came out in abnormally high numbers to vote against the cockfighting ban and voted Dem out of old habit.
Much like the religious wingnuts elected freakazoid Tom Coburn to the senate when they turned out in high numbers to support the state initiative to ban gay marriage.
Oklahoma Senator Frank Shurden (D) Henryetta has recently introduced Senate Bill 776 – a proposal to permit pari-mutuel gamecock boxing in Oklahoma. Please call your state senator (405-524-0126) and state representative (1-800-522-8502) immediately and ask them to oppose this latest scheme to create a legal loophole for cockfighters in Oklahoma. The following talking points may be helpful to you in your communications with legislators:
– Pitting animals against animals in any form for gambling and amusement is cruel and wrong. Even fitted with muffs, these roosters are capable of delivering blows that will knock out eyes, break bones, and possibly even kill. These sparring matches are currently against the law in Oklahoma as are all fights between birds whether or not fitted with knives and gaffs.
– Shurden’s gamecock boxing scheme would make enforcement of state and federal cockfighting laws nearly impossible. Cockfighters could simply claim they are raising and transporting fighting birds across state lines for the purpose of boxing matches thereby avoiding prosecution.
– Voters and the courts have spoken and its time for cockfighting enthusiasts like Frank Shurden to understand that no means no!
For further information, please contact: The Oklahoma Coalition Against Cockfighting.
This will sicken you. These cretins are my neighbors out here in rural Oklahoma, and this encapsulates all that we are struggling against in our time. “What would Jesus strap gaffs on?” I want to puke just thinking about it.
I’m gonna go home now and cuddle a human, a cat and a dog…
Posted by: OkieByAccident | Feb 5 2005 0:45 utc | 25
We’re going to bomb Iran. That’s pretty obvious by now.
Posted by: slothrop | Feb 5 2005 1:12 utc | 27
Bloodlust is insanity. Iran will be bombed.
OT – an oldie but a goodie. Can across this 13-9-2001 classic by the demented Coulter.
Posted by: DM | Feb 5 2005 1:33 utc | 28
@OkieByAccident:
When you get back from your human, cat & dog cuddles…
This will sicken you. These cretins are my neighbors out here in rural Oklahoma, and this encapsulates all that we are struggling against in our time. “What would Jesus strap gaffs on?” I want to puke just thinking about it.
Yeah I got the gut impulse as I finished the last paragraph.
I hesitate to even ask but I sense a non obvious irony in the comment in the article, I still didn’t get what Jesus had to do with cockfighting.
Then your comment “What would Jesus strap gaffs on?” even deepens to the mystery to me. Am I missing the obvious? The author never answers his own question.
Posted by: Juannie | Feb 5 2005 1:40 utc | 29
jeez. “‘twould ring the bells of Heaven,” the physical suffering of the fighting birds…
(sigh) all this harks back to Abu Ghraib, to the cruelty of most commercial porno, to Survivor shows, to Roman Games, to postcards of lynchings… the peculiar taste of human beings for watching someone or something else suffer, die, be defeated, humiliated, destroyed — “humilitainment,” rubbernecking, the picnicking families crowding to see criminals hanged at Tyburn, to see the heretics burning…
btw cockfighting was popular in England for many centuries; male aristos of C18 and well into C19 used to go slumming to rural cockfights, betting large sums on the outcomes. in those days it was not considered a suitable entertainment for women or girls. ain’t progress grand…
the vicious contempt with which the owner throws his losing bird onto the heap of dead and dying, how different is it from from the contempt with which the Yanks bulldozed retreating (losers!) Iraqi troops into the ground after GW1, or the contemptuous “fun” of shooting people (from a safe distance, using high technology)? did the executioners peer through the tiny windows to watch the “amusing” struggle and panic during those final minutes in the gas chambers? we can bet some of them did. and if they had had digital cameras back then, they would have taken mpeg movies and traded them with their friends. it would surprise me not one bit if they made bets, the executioners, on which struggling cyanotic victim would shudder and twitch the longest, or who would end up on top of the desperate heap near the door: cockfighting.
it is not sufficient merely to make an entertainment out of the suffering; to stare at it too earnestly for its own sake would give it too much primacy. we must then make a game out of it, a game among ourselves, a gambling game for which the suffering is merely the raw material — thus putting the sufferers even more firmly in their place as the mere background, the wallpaper of our lives, the jesters before our imaginary thrones.
barbarism thrives in the understory of civilisation, as well as in the amoral elite at its apex…
Okie.
Now I have some chickens, a couple of dozen free rangers in my yard and although the roosters do fight sometimes, we’ve never had any casualties. And besides, their fighting is’nt nearly as interesting as the natural comedic abilities all chickens possess. So you might suggest to Senator Shurdon, and I think he’s almost there with the little electronic fencing vests, to further explore these natural comedic abilities. A good start might be chicken races, really nothing more halarious than a chicken in a full out Groucho Marx run. My personal favorite is to hypnotise a chicken (absurdly easy) then say when I count to 5 and snap my finger, you will now become the president — and whooandbehold a perfect impersonation.
Posted by: anna missed | Feb 5 2005 1:59 utc | 31
@Anna Missed:
A good start might be chicken races, really nothing more halarious than a chicken in a full out Groucho Marx run.
And they could probably be bred for speed, and we could have wagers.
I’ve wasted too much money on horses.
Posted by: Groucho | Feb 5 2005 2:11 utc | 32
1 more on chickens
There is exactly One (1) monument commemorating the chicken — in the United States. And that monument is in Rhode Island, where a chicken is the state bird. I know it sounds silly, but considering our mammoth reliance on them, you’d think there would be a greater respect.
Posted by: anna missed | Feb 5 2005 2:43 utc | 33
speaking of birds – contemplate the question – which bird has the honor of having its name printed most often in english?
the eagle? the dove? the hawk?
no – it’s the chicken (all those cookbooks)
the birds that come to mind when one first encounters the question are more likely to be prototypical birds – the chicken is flightless, so less “birdlike” than most
now back to war and rumors of war
Posted by: mistah charley | Feb 5 2005 3:17 utc | 34
Well, we also have mammouth reliance on ME oil, but we don’t have any respect for the people whose land it is under. For that matter, we don’t treat the oil itself with any respect; if we did respect this resource, upon which we are so dependent, conservation efforts would have much more currency instead of being ridiculed. In that regard, our culture is quite different from native cultures that often worshiped the animals they hunted or the plants they cultivated (i.e., depended on) for food.
There is probably a theme here having to do with dependency – including mutual dependency – and the US right’s current obsession with power, domination and control. They see cooperation as weakness (“Bi-partisan is just another word for date rape” – Grover Norquist). This attitude sets the US up for a big comeuppance when other peoples of the world and the earth itself finally responds. Unfortunately, it looks like we’ll learn this lesson the hard way. If there is a God, as they say, the chickens will have some fun watching the likes of Shurden and DeLay in knife fights.
Posted by: lonesomeG | Feb 5 2005 3:34 utc | 35
Well there is Ward Churchills;
On People Pushing Back: The Justice of Roosting Chickens
Posted by: anna missed | Feb 5 2005 3:52 utc | 36
@Anna missed
Lol @ the perfect impersonation.
@ DeA
Survivor was a (much debated) inovation of swedish public service television. It got wievers which was what the board at the time fealt was the criterium of success.
I have been thinking a lot on the formation of the persona, and the social conditions thereof. Tonight I was at a party. Instead of surpressing my feelings of being a failed engineer/physicist/historian (by my failure to find a job where my talent and knowledge is actually utilised) by playing computer games (europa unversalis 2 right now) I suddenly found myself in a social setting where I was known as a brilliant feminist activist who has always removed any obstacle by utilising my training as a engineer/physicist/historian to find a solution to whatever problem there might be to rearranging our local environment. And by being wieved as this persona, this was who I was. I envisioned even bolder schemes for this year than what we did last year. Even though these were mainly my ideas, I would not have considered them except in this specific social setting and with these persons present.
Guess what I am trying to say is that we humans work in mysterious ways. And that what dreams may come when we have entered a common realm is in no way predictable. Ah, I am not sober and I should sleep and perchance dream.
Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Feb 5 2005 3:53 utc | 37
SKOD
Perforce the “dream” is the utopian moment when no one at any party asks “what do you do?” and everyone values the beauty of uselessness.
Posted by: slothrop | Feb 5 2005 4:18 utc | 38
There is so much beauty in the world, and truth.
This is why we give a fuck.
Posted by: slothrop | Feb 5 2005 4:31 utc | 39
re: Iraq:
I wouldn’t be suprised to see the Sunni Islamists (AMS) get together with Sistani in the next few weeks. Neither like the Baathists or the US. Eventually there will be a confrontation with the occupiers, if the Iraqi’s get some unity. I expect it to end ugly for “us”.
Posted by: ben r | Feb 5 2005 5:10 utc | 40
JFC. School Halts Adopt a Sniper Fund-Raiser
A U.S. university in Wisconsin has blocked an attempt by Republican students to raise money for a group called “Adopt a Sniper” that raises money for U.S. sharp-shooters in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The students were selling bracelets bearing the motto “1 Shot 1 Kill No Remorse I Decide.”
…
The brainchild of a Texas police SWAT officer Adopt a Sniper [name changed to american snipers] has raised thousands of dollars in cash and gear to supplement the kit of sharp shooters in U.S. combat platoons.
Posted by: b real | Feb 5 2005 5:19 utc | 41
Well, while we’re all feeling cheerful… here’s Sam Smith commenting on the rise of a new (actually a good old) social bigotry: the neofascist obsession with “useless mouths”. Lovely quote from Greenspan 1957, singing the praises of what Stan Goff once called “the preposterous novels of Ayn Rand”:
Atlas Shrugged is a celebration of life and happiness. Justice is unrelenting. Creative individuals and undeviating purpose and rationality achieve joy and fulfillment. Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should.
— Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan, writing in 1957 to the NY Times about a critical review of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.
ah yes, “parasites” — not those at the top who skim the cream, not the kleptocrats who squeeze that little bit extra out of every person below them, by force and by fraud, not the rentiers and the usurers, no… the “parasites” are the elderly, the young, the poor (or perhaps anyone who’s got a resource that the kleptos hanker after, like land or water or oil, that they’re not making “efficient, profitable use” of).
Sam raises an issue that has long troubled me. population rises, while automation and mechanisation proliferate. more people every day, yet fewer are needed to produce the same amount of Stuff: Taylorist “improvements” perpetually increase the amount of Stuff produced by one person/day of paid labour. so less and less work for all those people to do. the economy lurches and stumbles from oversupply, from a glut of consumer goods, even when most households are deeply into debt due to their faithful overconsumption. industries totter from overcapitalisation, from becoming so efficient that they can strip their resource base and collapse in record time, from a debt to earnings ratio that makes a mockery of their original effort (American farmers exist more to buy pesticides and keep the petro industry afloat than to produce food). and yet we continue to pursue “efficiency” and “cheapness”, no matter how expensive it gets in every way; we continue to “downsize” and “cut costs” no matter how many people we throw out of work and onto the streets.
Sam’s got a good question. at what point do the kleptos at the top decide that vast numbers of the proletariat are no longer necessary for capital accumulation? and what will they do about it when they have decided? Changes in technology, outsourcing, and labor intensiveness have made and will continue to make a growing percentage of the American population superfluous to the needs of the country’s capitalists, a phenomenon that is being dramatically reflected in our politics but not in our understanding of it. (Sam)
One more snack for tonight: rather delightful interview with Michael Pollan of Harper’s. He talks about the range of permissible discourse in US mainstream media; about how a bipartisan consensus stifled public debate over the introduction of bazillions of acres [my highly technical term, not his] of GMO crops; about the Corn Economy (cross ref to Manning’s excellent article “The Oil We Eat”); about journalistic ethics; and many other interesting points.
And for the lighter side, You Can Vote for your candidate in the Flat Earth Award Poll. Which pundit should receive the Flat Earth Prize for most egregious denial of global climate change? Crichton, Singer, or Limbaugh? The Comments Page in which voters append brief comments in support of their candidate, is also worth a read.
This from RAW’s “The Journal of Cognitive Liberties” I think would be of interest in this thread.
Concretely, the Violent Male——the extreme form of the -Right Man- edits out the suffering and pain he causes to others. That is only appearance and can be ignored. In The ““Real”” Universe, the victim is only one of Them——one of all the rotten bastards who have frustrated and mistreated the Right Man all his life. In existential reality, a large brutal male is beating a child; in The ““Real”” Universe of self-hypnosis, the Right Man is getting his just revenge on the oppressors who have abused him.
Posted by: Juannie | Feb 5 2005 6:19 utc | 44
Condi the diplomat: Rice lavishes praise on Britain – but attacks ‘loathed’ Iran
Such emphasis on the “special relationship” could be counterproductive for Labour in the run-up to an election in which the Iraq war will be an issue.
Mr Straw’s grin was in danger of becoming a rictus when she went on to criticise in undiplomatic language the Iranian government, whom Mr Straw has courted. Having described on the flight from Washington to London the Iranian government as “loathed” and run by “unelected mullahs”, she went on to ridicule their elections.
She said the Iranian people wanted a democratic future: “And that is something that those of us who happen to be on the right side of freedom’s divide have got to speak about.”
Posted by: Fran | Feb 5 2005 7:07 utc | 45
@juannie,
A different spin on phenomenology & existentialism, what I don’t quite understand is why do we allow those Real* types to keep stealing our water as we return from the well.
Posted by: anna missed | Feb 5 2005 7:55 utc | 46
@ the lighter side (DeAnander)
A voter’s comment:
Crichton: While each of these mis-informed or purposely ignorant persons may influence others I believe Michael Crichton to be the most likely to reach the majority of the half literate middle class. People will read his book and know the “truth”. His forum is powerful and the movie will probably follow.
Well, I’ll live with the risk of being condescendingly labeled as half literate, and I’ll even live with the risk of being labeled humourless, and take issue with the Flat Earth Awards.
Their humourous awards state “Remember when scientists were attacked for believing that the earth was round?”.
Well, actually, no – I don’t remember ‘scientists’ being attacked for believing that the earth was round. I think this might be yet another myth (completely unconnected with the undergraduate humour of the Flat Earth Society).
Aristotle didn’t believe the earth was flat, nor did Erastosthenes (born circa 276 BC) – whose calculations of the diameter of the earth were 68 miles shy of the modern accepted mean value. I do remember primary school drawings and accounts of Columbus’s crew imagining that they were going to fall off the end of the world.
I am (just a little) surprised though, that everyone appears to be so credulous and in awe of the “scientific consensus” when if fact, other than fictional liabilities, the absoluteness of this consensus is the only contention that Crichton makes.
I will admit to being pathologically skeptical of everything (even if this means being pilliored as a “global warming denier”). But I can be convinced. Not by hyperbole or another ‘there can be no doubt’ screed from the ‘Government Sponsored’ conference on climate change, with the carefully crafted caveats while depicting a coming catastrophe – but by real evidence. Don’t tell me that “scientists say”, but say which scientists. Don’t tell me about “computer modeling”, show me the model, algorithms, assumptions, pseudo code or source code. It’s all out there you say? Well, how many true believers have been there. The fact that “thousands of scientists” have confirmed this coming catastrophe does not impress me any more than that thousands of “computer scientists” have developed Microsoft Windows.
After all, were there not a bunch of “political scientists” telling us about WMD ?
Posted by: DM | Feb 5 2005 8:29 utc | 47
DM- So how does Crichton address the issue that the ice caps are melting? There is incontrovertible evidence (pictures of the glacier melts, satellite photos showing the changes in the arctic shoreline, for instance.) These changes are not just at the arctic.
You can surely find online (I’ve only seen the pictures in a book) that document the melt on mountainous areas in the United States, for instance.)
I know that Europe, in the middle ages, had a much warmer temperature than it does now. But that’s not what people are talking about when they look at the possible disruption of the Gulf Stream conveyor that is measurable from the levels of salinity and temperatures in the water.
I think skepticism is good and healthy. I think it should be applied equally to those who deny global warming. Aside from Crichton, who is paying those scientists who make those counter claims? What are their credentials? (for that matter, what are Crichton’s credentials compared to those who believe there is a crisis…an MD as an expert on climate is like a geologist declaring that that expertise makes him/her fit to perform heart surgery…)
What about the evidence of the problems with skin cancer, the “ozone warnings” in Chile for children there who cannot go outside without covering themselves because of the danger?
What about the polar bears who are endangered by their loss of habitat?
What about the desire to believe there is no global warming because the acceptance that there is posits a scary future if we have no effective leadership?
What about the decades and decades of evidence of businesses that have denied health/environmental problems caused by certain byproducts of their work that they had a vested interest in denying and even hiding from the public?
Who has the worst track record in this regard? Those who support the line of big business (i.e. oil in this case) or those who support the need to consider the earth as an organism that, like a human, has adverse reactions when extreme stress is placed upon its systems?
Posted by: fauxreal | Feb 5 2005 15:49 utc | 48
deanander
About the Sam Smith article…It’s true, however complex, class is sustained as a rational social organization by deferring the cause of all “failures” of accumulation and production to the underclasses. Always, when elites’ accumulation slows, its the little man who gets the blame.
As jdp and others point out, the dems could go a long why if they commit themselves to class war.
Posted by: slothrop | Feb 5 2005 16:07 utc | 49
DM,
I believe there will be climate change. I base this belief on the following:
a) Carbondioxide is a greenhouse gas. This is easily verifible as it is physics. It is also the second most important greenhouse gas (second to water vapour).
b) The level of carbondioxide is now around 350 ppm, quite a bit over the belt of 200-300 ppm it has stayed within the last 160 000 years. The level is also raising (the Kyoto protocal aims at stabilizing it at no more then 550 ppm in the year 2100). This is chemistry and climatearcheology and thus a bit more complex than a.
c) Raising the level of carbondioxide will probably affect the climate. How it will effect the climate is a question of modeling and of course debate. Myself I prefer to leave this to the experts (as I also have a general trust in weather-prognosis, a different branch of meterology but in the same discipline) but if you don´t I guess reading IPCCs “Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis” is a start.
Most evidence points towards a heating, but climate is extremely complex.
Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Feb 5 2005 16:53 utc | 50
@DM –
I have worked on climate model visualization with some people at the DKRZ years ago.
At least let me assure you – the folks doing the research and computations are serious and they do not have any special interest agenda. They to B-team their models, try to find different reasons why things they see happen do happen and why their models predict things to get worse.
These modells are huge and incorporate serious math. I have worked with some of the code (the data and code are usually open to anybody), discussed their models and I have had enough training in system dynamics math to understand the bigger relations, though not the details.
So my point of view:
There is climate change going on.
There is a real danger of climate change to a level that will have catastrophic results for billions of humans within our lifetime.
There are some human induced reasons for the change identified with high probablity.
Should we insure ourselfs and lessen the danger of catastrophic future change by changing our current behaviour?
My answer is yes. Your milage may vary.
DM: As B said, people working on that stuff are no goons like the neo-cons or Crichton, who know nothing about what they’re speaking about. And the quite serous, professional I know that work on that are no pinko leftists either – some, far from it. I could also assure you that they would prefer not have to worry about it and they would rather have a fine world with a non-changing climate rather than the shitstorm that is coming.
For having followed that for a long time, it’s also telling that basically every 5 years the range of temperature increase is revised and is the double of what was previously suspected – yep, at the beginng, most of the talk was about 1°C increase, and now 5°C doesn’t seem too unlikely, if the West continues on its SUV-driving tendencies and if China joins the party.
We’re not speaking of a bunch of amateurs doing that on spare time. This is the biggest topic of the time, and we haven’t seen so many people working on such an issue since Apollo project – except at the time it was a US project, and now we basically have teams in dozens of countries. If there was something very fishy, there are enough countries and people from different cultures and societies to raise questions. So far, the only to do this are a few 2nd grade scientists, all paid by Big Oil, and most of them Americans.
But then, there are some people who think creationism is the ultimate Truth and evolution is just some fringe scientists’ hoax.
Posted by: Clueless Joe | Feb 5 2005 17:32 utc | 52
But I can be convinced. Not by hyperbole or another ‘there can be no doubt’ screed from the ‘Government Sponsored’ conference on climate change… such laudable skepticism — and yet so easily convinced by the “nothing’s wrong, nothing to see here, move along, everything’s just fine” feel-good story paid for by the fossil fuel lobby?
These guys have an enormous stake in resisting technological change, resisting government regulation of their filthy industries, etc. Overconsumption of fossil fuel resources is how they make their living and, as is the practise of commercial interests everywhere, they are going to kick and scream and play dirty as long as they can to stave off any change in the way they do business. The financial motivation behind their desperate spin control is easy enough to see — and it fits, as fauxreal points out, a well known repeating pattern of information suppression and obfuscation by industry: documents just keep appearing that reveal perfect awareness by various industries/corporations of the harmful effects of this or that technology or product during all the decades that their tame “scientists” staunchly denied the harm, or sought to muddy the debate sufficiently to paralyse any political process that might address it. Do we have to go through the long list? DDT? Thalidomide? Cigarettes? MTBE? Teflon? rGBH?
There comes a point when the scientific consensus has become sufficiently solid that to continue to insist that it’s some kind of conspiracy or scare story merely makes one look like, er, a Flat Earther. Which is the whole point of the humorous web site I quoted.
The shrinking of ice caps world-wide is verified in photographs and in measures of spring and summer river levels. The melting of permafrost in the Arctic Circle is verified by field research and by the collapse of structures in Inuit villages. The breakup of ice shelves is verified. The stranding of Arctic and Antarctic wildlife due to collapse of ice bridges is verified. The retreat of glaciers worldwide is verified. The increase of mean annual temperatures has taken a while to plot due to normal randomness from year to year, but we have a long enough sample series now that the trend is pretty clear. The migration or failure of species (plant and animal) as mean temperatures rise in various bioregions is verified. The migration of invasive pests to regions now warm enough to sustain them is verified, and is having serious impacts on agriculture and some disturbing implications for public health. The increase in early Spring temperatures and changes in the planting dates for garden vegetables are quite obvious where I live.
Whether the effects of global warming will be catastrophic, or catastrophic in our lifetimes, or for whom they will be catastrophic, is still an open question. They are already pretty severe for the Inuit and for farmers plagued by drought or increasingly violent weather. Sensationalism in the treatment of this topic by the media doesn’t invalidate the science, any more than the science behind the Marcy/Butler planet search program is invalidated by breathless pop-science reports about “the Search for Life on other Planets,” or major astronomical survey catalogues are rendered ridiculous by internet businesses who pretend that they can sell you naming rights over astronomical objects.
We can stick our heads in the sand and place our faith in the fossil industries’ paid shills. We can also believe that Saddam really had WMD if we want to, and ignore all evidence to the contrary as a “subversive unAmerican conspiracy theory.” We can believe that cigarettes have no effect on lung health (all just a scare story hyped up by the media doncha know), that pesticides are perfectly harmless, that deforestation has no adverse effects, that the Earth was created in seven days with all its species in their current form — hell, we can read nutcake Julian Simon’s soothing nonsense and believe that the human population can expand indefinitely on this planet without experiencing any resource constraints, or that copper can be “created” by combining other elements. We can believe anything we want… at risk of making ourselves candidates for the Flat Earth Awards.
Flash Harry,
Baby Shah = Reza Pahlavi, son.
Check out his site – one title “From Dictatorship to democracy.” It used to sport a fluttering dove, and floatin’ ribbons (sickly blue!) but these have been removed recently, in favor of a less ornate design…
RPahlavi
His Mom’s, in the souvenir, souvenir category, still with a small flutter:
FPahlavi
Then there is the MEK! Roll the drums…Useful and legit dissidents of democratic stripe: NOT.
Posted by: Blackie | Feb 5 2005 20:39 utc | 54
Nothing to be done, tt eats the ‘ and the “.
Sometimes.
Posted by: Blackie | Feb 5 2005 20:42 utc | 55
DeA, I suppose you know that Greenspan had an affair with Ayn Rand? Long lasting and intense, it was.
DM wrote: I will admit to being pathologically skeptical of everything (even if this means being pilliored as a “global warming denier”)
Global warming itself is an uncontested and easily verifiable ‘scientific’ fact. Quibblers and de-bunkers have a hard time of it.
At issue is:
a) its mathematical significance – after all the nature of temps. is to go up and down, the earth has been, throughout the ages, hot, cool, temperate, warm, frozen….what is new?
b) its importance, impact, results – these are discussed, argued about, and are often not seen as purely negative, on the ground. E.g. Unfreezing Siberia might be – ha- cool; if Bangladesh vanishes under the water, and the Swiss can’t sell ski vacs any longer, so what? There is time to prepare…Etc.
c) its cause. Is it ‘natural’ – cosmic, etc. not really knoweable? Or perhaps in part explicable? What role have Man’s activities played? Is it Man’s fault? Some would prefer to see human activities (growth) as hallowed and uniquely wonderful; others prefer to stress that Man’s relation to Nature is f** up and that as part of Nature we are managing to destroy it, thereby destroying ourselves.
links between b) and c) end result, Kyoto.
Science has many speculative things to say about b) and c). I don’t see a clear path. Not my area.
Global warming sometimes seems to be the publically acknowledged symptom of Man’s rapaciousness and hubris, allowed in public discourse, just because it is so poorly understood, vague, odd. The other ravages can thus ignored. Sometimes, it also looks like Global Warming is a sneaky warning concerning Peak Oil.
Posted by: Blackie | Feb 5 2005 21:58 utc | 56
Social Security:
Lots of discussion and I don´t reallly wont to get into this but Josh Marshalls post rally captures the issue this about: Define Benefits versus Define Contributions. All you need to know plus, probably a little history about the depression and how “contribitions” failed and many people tanked into deep poverty and died thereof.
There was a very serious reason to introduce a solution to this and it was an insurance scheme instead of a failed savings scheme and the reason has not changed. Why change the very well proven successful scheme?
Blackie:
re Greenspan and Ayn Rand – I believe you’re thinking of Nathaniel Branden, who was the one who had the affair with Rand – it’s true that Greenspan was a disciple and member of Rand’s inner circle – see
http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleid.16149/article_detail.asp
Posted by: mistah charley | Feb 6 2005 2:42 utc | 58
Matt Yglesias has a decent summary of Bush’s Social Security swindle.
There are 3 phases to the plan:
The first phase is to default on the General Fund’s debt to the Social Security Trust Fund in order to make room in the budget (sort of) to make the Bush tax cuts permanent.
Phase 2 is to reduce promised benefits … into line with the (reduced) quantity of funds available. From here on out, Social Security’s accounts will be balanced in a cash flow sense. The amount of money paid out each year will be equal to the amount of FICA collected.
phase 3 is the private – now personal – account part. It is complicated but Yglesias conclues that Bush’s promised benefits are less not only than what you’re being promised right now, but worse than what currently scheduled benefits can afford.
Most Americans don’t know it, but they have been buying short term Treasuries with the surplus Social Security funds. Contributions increased in 1983 to cover the Boomer’s retirement costs. In the past, Social Security has cashed in bonds to cover monthly shortfalls in revenues needed to pay benefits. Bush wouldn’t technically default by refusing to redeem the bonds on request, but would legislate away any chance that Social Security would make a request to redeem the bonds. Conceptually, this is no different than an individual who bought Treasury bonds years ago – for retirement or a child’s education – being told now that he or she can’t redeem them.
Basically, general revenue (i.e., Congress) spent the money workers have been saving for retirement for years and now Bush doesn’t want to pay it back. Yes, we have a financial crisis on our hands but, as Krugman has said, we don’t have a Social Security finance problem, we have a national debt problem.
Posted by: lonesomeG | Feb 6 2005 2:43 utc | 59
I apologize if I’ve missed discussion that has already happened on this topic….but for everybody in Europe….
How are Schroeder’s distincly appeasement-like statements in response to Rice’s statements about no invasion of Iran (at least at the moment) playing?
Me, I thought some on your side of the pond might have heard extremely ironic echoes of ‘peace in our time’ in it all, although I have not seen any images of Schroeder waving a piece of paper at the throngs.
How are Schroeder’s distincly appeasement-like statements in response to Rice’s statements about no invasion of Iran (at least at the moment) playing?
Very well so far. The general feeling is that there is nothing to fear from Iran, nuclear or not, but a lot from US militarism.
The opposition party (Schäuble) is saying that nothing should be off the table, even military options, and that European should have more general trust in the US. He is ruining the oppositions election chances because -of course- that trust is gone and nobody would be willing to commit troops to an Iran.
Breaking speculation: Author believes that
Deep Throat was….George H. W. Bush. Motivation: revenge, a Bush family specialty.
Posted by: lonesomeG | Feb 6 2005 15:20 utc | 62
Now we learn that the Pentegon pays jounalists, too.
The Pentagon’s chief investigator is looking into the military’s practice of paying journalists to write articles and commentary for a Web site aimed at influencing public opinion in the Balkans, officials said Friday.
The investigation into paying journos to write about Iraq won’t come for several years yet.
Posted by: lonesomeG | Feb 6 2005 15:37 utc | 63
Cheney says he doesn’t see Iraq theocracy
Iraq Shiite leaders demand Islam be the source of law
Posted by: Spot the difference | Feb 6 2005 17:11 utc | 64
Can’t you just hear the Secretary of State leveraging Iraq with the Israelis and Palestinians? As thus: “Mr. Sharon, we’ve spent a trillion dollars basing ourselves in Baghdad–the embassy alone costs us a cool $1 billion–and it’s time for you guys to make nice with those little brown Palestinian people!”–“Yes, of course, Mme. Secretary!”…..And then a visit with the Palestinians, complete with a cheque for $50 million in hand: “Hey you guys, there’s more of this where it comes from, if you get what I mean…” “Yes, of course, Mme. Secretary!”…..Ah, but those swarming hordes of suicidal teenagers, who speaks for them–or who, for that matter, speaks to them? Hamas, I should suppose, or some other folks we’ve never heard of…..I think we can look forward to another “Wye” conference in August of 2008.
Posted by: alabama | Feb 6 2005 19:10 utc | 66
thx mistah charley I’ll review my mental gossip column!
Posted by: Blackie | Feb 6 2005 19:13 utc | 67
Thanks b re: Schroeder–
Guess my follow-up would be…..why would anybody in Europe actually believe anything that Ms. Rice says re: not invading Iran?
Who in the entire world can believe anything Rice says? She has a well documented history of lying.
All things considered, she is probably no worse than any of the other recent SoS’s i.e., Powell, Albright, Baker, and etc. They are all quite smarmy,
Posted by: dan of steele | Feb 6 2005 22:10 utc | 69
dan of steele, if Germany, France and England have set a price for their participation in Iraq, I think it would logically be some undeniable American “progress” in matters Israeli and Palestinian. And since, as you say, no one would ever dream of taking Rice at her word, the benchmarks for that “progress” would have to be very concrete, perhaps spectacular, agreed upon in advance, and irreversible. I can’t imagine what they might possibly be, but I don’t think $50 million is an impressive number.
Posted by: alabama | Feb 6 2005 22:32 utc | 70
This I do not like even more than I don’t like most of what is going on at present:
Instead of being fired for the grotesque military-political fiasco in Iraq and the shameful torture scandals, Rumsfeld has just managed to create a new, Pentagon spy/special ops organization, blandly named “Strategic Support Branch,” that will replace or duplicate many of the CIA’s tasks.
The CIA has been sent to the doghouse. Too many CIA veterans criticized or contradicted Bush’s and Cheney’s phony claims over Iraq and terrorism. So Bush has imposed a new, yes-man director on the agency, slashed its budgets, purged its senior officers, and downgraded CIA to third-class status.
Rumsfeld’s new, massively funded SSB will become the Pentagon’s CIA, complete with commando units, spies, mercenary forces, intelligence gathering and analysis, and a direct line to the White House. The Pentagon has just effectively taken over the spy business.
[…]
The Pentagon’s new spy arm will be largely excluded from Congressional oversight or media examination. Its special operations teams will roam the globe, all under cover of “deep black” missions of which no records will be kept, and no questions asked.
Equally worrying, the Pentagon’s new special-ops units are headed up by notorious religious fanatic, Lt. Gen. William Boykin, who calls the U.S. Army “the house of God” and Islamic insurgents “agents of Satan.” He warned Muslims, “my God is bigger than your god, which is an idol.”
Boykin’s command will now dispatch post-modern Christian crusaders to cleanse the world of Satanic Muslims and other miscreants. The Pentagon’s new special forces will be able to run operations of which the CIA knows nothing.
There’s more at the URL, none of it reassuring.
I feel compelled to point out that Paxton in Anatomy of Fascism states more than once that the construction of “shadow” agencies and directorates, wholly controlled by Party ideologues, which replicate and finally replace the original professional State services, is a telltale of classic fascist political strategy.
Keep an eye on this one also — I do not like Special Directives for Suspension of the Law. The stench of paramilitary dictatorship is beginning to hang more and more heavily over America and yet I don’t see noses wrinkling… is it possible the Amurkans will sleepwalk right into totalitarianism without even a bleat of protest?
you’d better stay home and do as you’re told
stay out of the road if you want to get old…
Wow, I mean WOW!!! they are finally getting serious about getting BinLaden. :^)
‘Most wanted’ ad for Laden in Pak paper!
The United States placed a newspaper advertisement on Friday offering rewards of millions of dollars for information leading to the arrest of Osama bin Laden and other Al-Qaeda kingpins.
The half-page ad in the Urdu daily Mashriq, published in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, near the Afghan border, puts a 5-million-dollar price on the head of the 9/11 mastermind and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Featuring black and white mugshots of the wanted men, it also offers 10 million dollars for Mullah Omar, the reclusive one-eyed chef of Afghanistan’s ousted Taliban militia.
Posted by: Fran | Feb 7 2005 6:40 utc | 73
From the Independent: James C Moore: If not now, when? – Condoleezza Rice says the United States has no plans to attack Iran ‘at this point in time’. But recent history suggests otherwise
Words might work to chasten Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but the US and Israel have stopped pointing fingers at Iran, and have begun to point guns. The White House has been steered by thinkers such as William Kristol, chairman of the Project for the New American Century, which created the neo-conservative movement calling for the US to exercise force to create democracies. Kristol does not believe President Bush has much choice when it comes to Iran. “I don’t think George W Bush thinks he got re-elected to preside over the theocratic regime getting nuclear weapons,” he said recently.
Israel, too, is a nation founded on religious conviction and its policy of nuclear ambiguity, sanctioned by the US, continues to aggravate Islamic countries. Israel is not a signatory of the non-proliferation treaty and has never formally acknowledged a nuclear programme. The consensus, however, is that Israel has as many as 200 sophisticated nuclear weapons, more than the 185 reportedly in the British arsenal. Islamists see great Western hypocrisy in tolerating Israel’s nuclear growth while threatening Iran for a programme it insists is for power generation.
Listen to the language of the Bush administration, though, and there will be no mystery about what probably comes next. The White House has never described Iraq as a “war” or a “conflict”, but as a “battle”. By implication, it is simply part of a larger war. President Bush sees the Middle East as the theatre of operations for the “war on terror”, which means we can expect additional battles. He has told advisers he wants to win this war before his second term ends, and he cannot do that by appeasing Iran, the country he sees as a factory for terrorists.
Posted by: Fran | Feb 7 2005 6:57 utc | 74
“I’m Ready To Die…”
gee. hey everybody, aren’t those muslim extremist suicide bomber mofos Just Plain Crazy? aren’t their Oriental Minds inscrutable as Hell itself? how can we civilised Westerners possibly fathom their nihilistic barbarism, their turning their backs on life itself, all for some mad religio-nationalist obsession?
“Look, the end is coming. I know that and you know that. You’ve seen the signs. I just don’t care about this guy, I don’t care what he says. The end is coming very soon. None of this is going to matter.” For the first time showing emotion, he added angrily, “I’m ready to die-I’m ready to go today, right now!”
uh huh.
Dear G-d, please… save me from your groupies…
Ya know De, I see a lot of people like the one in your linked article. It is completely senseless to talk to them as they can not make rational arguments for what they so fervently believe in.
I must admit that sometimes I wonder if they might just be on to something, how can someone be so convinced?
Spooky stuff.
Posted by: dan of steele | Feb 7 2005 22:14 utc | 76
i’m probably never going to have time to follow through on this ideal, but i’d imagine that there is a need for a published “right in front of you” series of books to counter the “left behind” propaganda. truth is stranger than fiction, plus it hurts.
Posted by: b real | Feb 7 2005 22:34 utc | 77
@De – there is a way to counter fundamentalism – talk
Koranic duels ease terror
“If you can convince us that your ideas are justified by the Koran, then we will join you in your struggle,” Hitar told the militants. “But if we succeed in convincing you of our ideas, then you must agree to renounce violence.”
The prisoners eagerly agreed.
…
“Since December 2002, when the first round of the dialogues ended, there have been no terrorist attacks here, even though many people thought that Yemen would become terror’s capital,” says Hitar, eyes glinting shrewdly from beneath his emerald-green turban. “Three hundred and sixty-four young men have been released after going through the dialogues and none of these have left Yemen to fight anywhere else.”
“Yemen’s strategy has been unconventional certainly, but it has achieved results that we could never have hoped for,” says one European diplomat, who did not want to be named. “Yemen has gone from being a potential enemy to becoming an indispensable ally in the war on terror.”
This will inevitably become the method of choice, after some religious cristian wingnut will have blown up a US city.
I’ve been meaning to throw this snake into the bar for a while, but the Guardian has beat me to it.
I might be MAD, but I sincerely hope that the Iranians are building the bomb. Nothing like an equalizer to make the bully take a step back.
So far at least, quite a few North (and South) Koreans can great each day thanks to some missing plutonium.
Posted by: DM | Feb 8 2005 1:49 utc | 80
Juan Cole and I am not posting any quotes, to difficult to choose.
Goldberg v. Cole Redux
Well, I can’t resist, so just the first paragraph, but the rest is worth reading too.
Let us see what has been established. First, I alleged that Goldberg has never read a book about Iraq, about which he keeps fulminating. I expected him at least to lie in response, the way W. did when similarly challenged on his book-reading. I expected Goldberg to say, “That is not true! I have read Phebe Marr’s book on modern Iraq from cover to cover and know all about the 1963 failed Baathist coup!” But Goldberg did not respond in this way. I conclude that I was correct, and he has never read a book on this subject.
I am saying I do not understand why CNN or NPR would hire someone to talk about Iraq policy who has not read a book on the subject under discussion. Actually, of course, it would be desirable that he had read more than one book. Books are nice. They are rectangular and soft and have information in them. They can even be consumed on airplanes. Goldberg should try one.
Posted by: Fran | Feb 8 2005 6:24 utc | 81
Well, I can’t resist choosing one more Fran.
Then one of my readers suggested that if he was so in favor of killing people abroad, he might want to make the sacrifice to go do it himself instead of sending others. He replied that his family needs the money he gets from his work and that he has a daughter! This response made me embarrassed for him.
Although I do not believe that everyone who advocates a war must go and fight it, I do believe that young men who advocate a war must go and fight it. Goldberg was in his early 30s in 2002, and the army would have taken him. An older colleague who was at Harvard in 1941 told me about how the freshman class rushed to enlist. That was the characteristic of the Greatest Generation– they put their money where their mouths were. Goldberg’s response was insulting to all the soldiers fighting in Iraq who have suffered economically and who are remote from their families.
Posted by: Juannie | Feb 8 2005 10:58 utc | 83
A quote from short interesting piece over at:
xymphora
Obviously, the IDF attempted to disrupt the summit, or even provide a reason to call it off, by faking a rocket attack by Hezbollah.
… But here’s the good part, and the aspect of this whole sordid matter that inspires some optimism. They were busted, and they were busted by IDF insiders.
Posted by: Juannie | Feb 8 2005 11:30 utc | 84
American and British politicians should understand that the statute of limitations does not apply to war crimes. The crimes against Iraq are well documented. At the moment, these people are smugly confident that they have gotten away with murder.
Sanctions and the Health Crisis in Iraq
the international economic embargo, established on August 6, 1990, prohibited the importation into Iraq of scientific journals and textbooks. In the intervening years, in every academic discipline, libraries across Iraq fell miserably behind the times. How many of the people working diligently to secure donations of medical textbooks for shipment to Iraq know that Iraq had the best system of a health care in the Middle East prior to sanctions? Many Iraqi doctors had trained in the West. At that time, Iraqi health care boasted a system of primary and tertiary care units not unlike what we find today in the US.
…
I didn’t understand why until the doctor translated: She said, ‘If you can save her baby, please take him with you.’ Part of me refused to understand the obvious meaning of her words. I could think of nothing to say. I stood there with a small child, dying slowly in my arms, a child who only needed a course of antibiotics.
Posted by: DM | Feb 8 2005 22:22 utc | 86
Has anyone else seen mention of 25,0000 American soldiers being removed from Iraq? This came across my email last night from rense.com:
US Secretly Pulls 25,000
Troops Out Of Iraq
By Omar Al-Faris – JUS
2-7-5
In an abrupt move, American occupation forces withdrew 25,000 troops from Iraq over the weekend, according to Islam Memo.
Citing reports from their correspondent in Basra and other eye witnesses, more than 65 military jets left Basra airbase and 40 American ships left the port of Basra, all carrying the troops to Kuwait. The sudden departure was also confirmed by Mr. Kamal Albasry, an administrator in charge of Um Al-Qasr port.
Many of the extracted troops were said to be mentally and physically impaired, unable to continue their military duties, and had therefore been deemed inactive. US military officials had previously announced that some troops would be withdrawn under the guise of handing more responsibility to the newly formed Allawi “National Guard” however it was indicated that these would be small numbers over time, not the significant evacuation that occurred over the weekend. There were no official US military statment on the departure.
Eye witnesses described the state of the departing soldiers as one of great joy and happiness. Children were seen giving their farewell to the departing troops by throwing stones and shouting at them.
US Military Bans Journalists, Photographers and Cameras
As more and more people became aware of the mass exodus of American troops out of Basra, many came to take a peek and some with the hopes of photographing the event. American and British occupation forces quickly closed off all major roads leading to the city. The Americans also prohibited journalists from approaching any military convoy. One journalist was arrested and his camera was confiscated after he took pictures of large numbers of American soldiers entering Basra airport on their way out of Iraq.
During the withdrawl, several fighter jets, reconnaissance planes, and unmanned spy planes filled Basra skies over Basra. All satellite, mobile phones and internet communications in the city were also scrambled to black out information pertaining to the event.
Mujahideen Bid Farewell With 30 Rockets; US Transport Plane Downed
In the meantime, Mujahideen targeted the Basra airport with an assortment of powerful rockets as well as 12mm mortar rounds while American soldiers were withdrawing. Over 30 rockets were said to have been fired as an act of “farewell”. The number of casualties is not known.
Sources in Basra reported that an American transport plane was shot down an area east of the city as it made its final approach towards Basra airport at about 6pm Sunday, local time after it came under attack from ground fire. No further information on the incident is available as of press.
Posted by: conchita | Feb 9 2005 3:30 utc | 87
At that time, Iraqi health care boasted a system of primary and tertiary care units not unlike what we find today in the US…
ah, DM, but that was one reason why it had to be destroyed. imho. for one thing, uppity brown people are not allowed to aspire in real life to the privileges of their white masters — that aspiration, so lovingly described by jerks like Friedman, is merely the carrot held out to convince them to knife each other in the back, liquidate their natural resources for our benefit, etc.
when they actually achieve nationalist aims — decent health care, literacy and employment for women, an independent computer industry, a first-class medical system, etc — then they have to be taken down a peg or two, “taught a lesson” doncha know. if they get too prosperous and secure, heck, we might not be able to push ’em around any more. and then where would we all be?
sometimes I could swear that the emotions of the neocons when looking at a prosperous (OK, repressive, nasty leadership cadre, but prosperous and in many ways advanced) country of swarthy Near Eastern people, were no different from the dyspeptic wrath of the old Southerners on seeing a prosperous Black man in a suit and tie or a respectable Black woman in gloves and a Sunday hat: how dare those N—–s act like Real People? particularly if the N—-r in question owned a farm with good riverbottom soil or sun exposure, or a dry goods store in an advantageous location. I mean, surely everyone knows that the good farmland and the good storefronts and such like — oil deposits for example — are predestined by G-d to be the good fortune of white folks, because He loves us so damn much? so how dare those uppity N—–s strut around enjoying what is rightfully Ours? never, but never underestimate the depth and power of American racism…
it’s one theory anyway… and if it’s really true, then it makes the role of Condi and Colin even more despicable than we can guess from more public and overt evidence.
Pat Buchanan – sounding a little like Ward Churchhill to me .. except I think he is a bit confused about who massacred who.
Is he allowed to say these things?
In his Inaugural, President Bush described Sept. 11 as “a day of fire … when freedom came under attack.” But was it really freedom that was under attack on 9-11? Was bin Laden really saying, “Give up your freedom!”? Or was he saying, “Get out of our world!”?
If al-Qaida was attacking our freedom, which of the freedoms in the Bill of Rights does Bush believe bin Laden wishes to abolish?
No, al-Qaida was no more attacking our “freedom” when it drove those planes into the World Trade Center than were Iroquois, Sioux and Apache attacking our freedom when they massacred settlers on the frontier. Like Islamists, the Indians saw us as defiling their sacred soil, dispossessing them, imposing a hated hegemony. They cared not about our Constitution – they wanted us off their land.
If we were truly being attacked for our beliefs, and not our behavior, the war would have no end…
Posted by: DM | Feb 9 2005 8:24 utc | 89