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April 9, 2005
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EU Constitution – France votes (III)
The last one did not draw many comments over here, so I won’t post it as a separate post in here. Feel free to complain so that I change my mind (hint, hint), or to go discuss the post over there (or to ignore it altogether).
Posted by: Jérôme | Apr 9 2005 23:04 utc | 1
pardonnez moi jerome, mais je ne parle pas francais 🙁
i’d like to suggest for this forum that you and bernhard (hi …) collect book mentions or recommendations from readers and instaurate something like a “book roll”.
i’d like to recommend everything written by martin van creveld, a military writer who is as sharp as he is amoral.
apart from that, “culture and imperialism” by edward said. said is another author whose whole work should be read in school.
van creveld is an israeli teaching in the netherlands (or also a hollandese jewish professor advising sharon), and said was a palestinian teaching in the US. he died not so long ago.
as for the EU constitution, who really cares. the gist about the EU is that it will build a political superstructure not controlled by national politics or the interests of national constituencies but by other interests ($$$) which will work against the interests of all countries in the EU, current and future, in a way similar to what the US federal govt can be seen doing right now.
any legitimate political party within the EU should at least think about getting out of the EU, but in truth we have politicians as corrupt as those in the US but not yet as bold in displaying their debasement. here at least they still try to keep appearances.
Posted by: name | Apr 10 2005 0:33 utc | 2
Totally OT, and I’m sorry, but does anyone here know where galiel is/hangs these days?
Posted by: nearpass | Apr 10 2005 2:34 utc | 3
I followed DeAnander’s link on the last thread to Mike Whitney’s Coming Sooner Than You Think: The Economic Tsunami, which asserts in part that
The Bush administration is mainly comprised of internationalists. That doesn’t mean that they “hate America”; simply that they are committed to bringing America into line with the “new world order” and an economic regime that has been approved by corporate and financial elites alike.
The catastrophe that middle class Americans face is what these elites breezily refer to as “shock therapy”; a sudden jolt, followed by fundamental changes to the system. In the near future we can expect tax reform, fiscal discipline, deregulation, free capital flows, lowered tariffs, reduced public services, and privatization. In other words, a society entirely designed to service the needs of corporations.
While there at Counterpunch I found a perspective on how the left should approach living in a Third World country, perhaps more apropos of our situation than the author intended. John Ross outlines John Holloway’s Marxist critique of the state-oriented left in the Third World and his growing influence in the anti-globalization movement. Interviewing Holloway at the University of Puebla, John Ross found
a sort of thinking man’s Naomi Klein, who makes a point of not having all the answers… ” Change the World without Taking Power? It sounds absurd but we have no other alternative.”
…”I mean, everyone knows that Capitalism is disgusting and disastrous. Although no one talks much about the Revolution these days, everyone knows we need one. But what will we do with this revolution? Take state power again? The error stems from a fundamental misconception of the role of the state in sustaining capitalism. Substituting one state power for another just repeats the same problems over and over again and eventually exhausts the revolution. This is the old way of thinking about revolution and it doesn’t work anymore. We have to find a new way. There is no alternative.”
For John Holloway, insurgent social formations in Latin America are that other way… In Holloway’s equations, “power” is a word with two terribly distinct meanings – “poder hacer” in Spanish (the Spanish edition of “How To Change The World” has outsold the original English version) or the power to create, to do, vs. “poder sobre”, “power over”, the power of domination and subjugation which stifles the power of the people to create.
…Although the electoral triumphs of Brazil’s Lula, Kirschner in Argentina, and Tabare Vazquez in Uruguay, and the aggrandizement of Venezuela’s Chavez would seem to point to the primacy of taking state power, Holloway issues a caution. When a Lula or a Chavez take the power of the state, they suddenly find themselves trapped in alignments that force obeisance to the World Bank and the White House from which they cannot break away. Their promises begin to sound hollow as transnationals reap fortunes at the expense of the people whose progress is pretty much straight down hill.
Given the probability of such a scenario, John Holloway suggests that the Zapatista model will prosper. “When people are disillusioned, they begin to look for the real solutions. Building a party that’s a little more to the left isn’t one of them.”
(I’m new at this – couldn’t get my “snips” to show up.)
See the article for more elaboration of his ideas. Adding them to peak oil theory, and speaking as one who voted for John Kerry (how quaint that hope seems now), perhaps the Alternativistas will be the wave of the future.
Posted by: liz | Apr 10 2005 4:06 utc | 5
Frank Rich on a roll:
A Culture of Death, Not Life
Mortality – the more graphic, the merrier – is the biggest thing going in America. Between Terri Schiavo and the pope, we’ve feasted on decomposing bodies for almost a solid month now. The carefully edited, three-year-old video loops of Ms. Schiavo may have been worthless as medical evidence but as necro-porn their ubiquity rivaled that of TV’s top entertainment franchise, the all-forensics-all-the-time “CSI.” To help us visualize the dying John Paul, another Fox star, Geraldo Rivera, brought on Dr. Michael Baden, the go-to cadaver expert from the JonBenet Ramsey, Chandra Levy and Laci Peterson mediathons, to contrast His Holiness’s cortex with Ms. Schiavo’s.
Posted by: Fran | Apr 10 2005 5:16 utc | 6
Billmon has a great post, check April18 2003 archives under” War Party” ha ha, not kidding this post predates all the Digby an Joe Bagaet’s posts outlining of red state/red neck Scotch-Irish cultural history and its current influence — by almost 2 years. I’m thinking many have missed this great piece (there were exactly 0 comments) and would encourage giving it a look. And am wondering weather Billmon might have some updated thoughts? Wow.
Posted by: anna missed | Apr 10 2005 8:20 utc | 7
ex-Fed chairman Paul Volker thinks there is An Economy On Thin Ice
Yet, under the placid surface, there are disturbing trends: huge imbalances, disequilibria, risks — call them what you will. Altogether the circumstances seem to me as dangerous and intractable as any I can remember, and I can remember quite a lot. What really concerns me is that there seems to be so little willingness or capacity to do much about it.
We sit here absorbed in a debate about how to maintain Social Security — and, more important, Medicare — when the baby boomers retire. But right now, those same boomers are spending like there’s no tomorrow. If we can believe the numbers, personal savings in the United States have practically disappeared.
…
Hmm – The Washington Post recognizes trouble in Turkey and the book Metal Firtina.
In Many Turks’ Eyes, U.S. Remains the Enemy
In Turkey, heralded as the model of a Westward-looking Muslim democracy, sales records were shattered this spring by a book that imagines a U.S. invasion of this nation, a longtime U.S. ally. Polls show an overwhelming majority of Turks regard that scenario as a real possibility.
Mainstream newspapers here routinely mock U.S. troops in Iraq, and many feature breathless but unsubstantiated reports of American atrocities there, including mythical accounts of troops harvesting organs from dead civilians. One paper announced the U.S. offensive against Fallujah in November with a photo illustration of President Bush wearing a swastika.
Politically, Tettamanzi is hard to characterize.
Like John Paul, he is very conservative about church doctrine – taking strong positions against homosexuality, stem cell research and abortion – but liberal when it comes to issues of social justice.
Thus Helen Kennedy in today’s New York Daily News (I’ll fetch up the link in my next post).
I’m struck by the rhetoric of her sentence, or the style of her thinking. On the one hand, she very intelligently opposes “church doctrine” to “issues of social justice”–for the two are not the same. On the other hand–if I’m reading her sentence correctly, she supposes that “issues of social justice” can be set apart from “positions against homosexuality, stem cell research and abortion”.
Posted by: alabama | Apr 10 2005 14:59 utc | 11
Helen Kennedy’s rhetoric is twice a disaster–first, because “homosexuality,” “stem cell research,” and “abortion” are the very stuff of “social justice” (i.e. there can be no social justice without the ongoing exercise of these three practices, which are necessary, if insufficient, causes of social justice in their very different ways); and second, because the taking of positions against the exercise of these three practices is in and of itself an “issue of social justice” (by virtue of being unjust). Helen Kennedy’s style of thinking is of course the Vatican’s; it would have us do bad things and feel concurrently just (by doing good things, such as doling out charity to the poor, for example, or denouncing “globalism”–Tettamanzi’s favorite mantra).
Posted by: alabama | Apr 10 2005 15:00 utc | 12
The practice of homosexuality is a necessary, if insufficient ground, of social justice: and why? When sexual difference is not actively practiced by a society, the society cannot differentiate sexual injustices from sexual differences. Pedophilia (an injustice) is not specifically homosexual or heterosexual, and only when the Church is openly gay (and admits women into the clergy) can it begin to address the pedophilia endemic to its clergy. As to whether the clergy should be free to marry, that’s a different thing: they should certainly be free to cohabit and produce children, which is–de facto, if not de jure–the practice of a kind of “marriage”.
Posted by: alabama | Apr 10 2005 15:26 utc | 14
What a shame: France fights for fromage against the big cheeses
In an attempt to alert the nation to the gradual disappearance of its splendid and varied cheese heritage, hundreds of events were held across France to celebrate National Cheese Day.
“In the past 30 years, more than 50 varieties of French cheese have disappeared for ever. Other types are down to their last two or three traditional producers,” said Véronique Richez-Lerouge, head of the association which promotes traditional French cheeses. “The share of the market taken by industrial, pasteurised cheeses, which are actually fake cheeses, with a fraction of the true taste and character, is growing all the time.”
…
Traditional French cheeses came in hundreds of different types, partly because of the variety of landscapes and climates in France, partly because of the national devotion to culinary excellence, and experimentation. Mrs Richez- Lerouge, president of the Fromages de Terroirs association, says that this heritage is threatened by a “bland homogenisation of tastes”, and by overbearing and unnecessary hygiene rules, imposed by the European Union and interpreted with “excessive zeal” by the French state. “You cannot expect a small, one-farm cheesemaker to obey exactly the same norms as a factory,” she complained. “That does not mean that farm-made cheese is somehow inferior or unhealthy. Quite the opposite.”
If this continues, the next generations will not experience the taste of real, pure and natural food anymore.
Posted by: Fran | Apr 10 2005 16:10 utc | 15
Riverbend: The Cruel Month…
Thousands were demonstrating today all over the country. Many areas in Baghdad were cut off today for security reasons and to accomodate the demonstrators, I suppose. There were some Sunni demonstrations but the large majority of demonstrators were actually Shia and followers of Al Sadr. They came from all over Baghdad and met up in Firdaws Square- the supposed square of liberation. They were in the thousands. None of the news channels were actually covering it. Jazeera showed fragments of the protests in the afternoon but everyone else seemed to busy with some other news story. Thanks to E. for sending me this link. Check out the protest here.
BBC and EuroNews were busily covering the wedding between Prince Charles and the dreadful Camilla. CNN was showing the Pope’s funeral. No one bothered with the demonstrations in Baghdad, Mosul, Anbar and the south. There were hundreds of thousands of Shia screaming “No to America. No to terrorism. No to occupation. No to the devil. No to Israel.” The numbers were amazing and a little bit frightening too.
…
Posted by: Fran | Apr 10 2005 16:44 utc | 16
Direct link to the site mentioned by Riverbend:
Massive “End the Occupation” Protest in Baghdad Dwarfs the “Saddam Toppled” rally: Photos
Posted by: Fran | Apr 10 2005 16:48 utc | 17
DeLay is toast:
Santorum: DeLay Needs to Answer Questions
Shays bucks DeLay
With Friends Like These…
Unfortunatly this is too early. DeLay scandals should be kept alive until the 2006 election. So let´s hope he puts up a public fight for his position.
The new threat to our lands
April 11, 2005
The system of communal title on Aboriginal land is under renewed challenge, writes Galarrwuy Yunupingu.
In the early 1960s, as a young man, I saw bulldozers rip through our Gumatj country in north-east Arnhem Land to mine bauxite at Gove. I watched my father try to stop them clearing sacred trees and saw him chase away drivers with an axe. I watched him cry when our sacred waterhole was bulldozed. It was one of our Dreamings and a source of water.
The great struggles of that time, including the bark petitions, Wave Hill walk-off, and the 1971 Gove Land Rights case, led to the Commonwealth’s 1976 Land Rights Act with 44 per cent of the Northern Territory now Aboriginal land and the establishment of Aboriginal-controlled Commonwealth authorities, the Northern and Central Land Councils. This paved the way for the High Court’s recognition of communal native title in Mabo and the 1993 Native Title Act.
This legal recognition of rights, with basic but relatively adequate education, health and housing provided by government and missions into the 1970s, led to a great flowering of Aboriginal culture throughout Australia and the world. Aboriginal culture and rights are a bedrock of the tourist industry, as icons such as Uluru, Kakadu and Nitmiluk show. Aboriginal art and music are world-renowned and bring income to remote communities.
And, although much Aboriginal land has limited economic viability, there have been many commercial developments including leases for mining, the Alice Springs to Darwin railway, wharves, defence, housing, utilities, stores, pastoralism, safari hunting, tourism, horticulture, pearling, fishing, aquaculture and crabbing. The NLC approved 44 such agreements at its last meeting in October 2004. Negotiations are advanced for a 940 kilometre gas pipeline across Aboriginal land from Wadeye to Alcan’s alumina refinery at Gove.
Now, 40 years later, a new threat to Aboriginal rights seems to be forming. With Coalition control of the Senate on July 1 looming, two recent papers call for substantial amendments to the Land Rights Act, and attack the very basis of Aboriginal culture – communal title.
Both papers, prepared by the Centre for Independent Studies and for the National Indigenous Council, dismiss communal title as a cultural relic, said to stultify development and prosperity, which should be converted to individual ownership in the form of 99-year leases of Aboriginal land – a device whereby traditional owners’ rights would be cancelled for generations.
These simplistic and disingenuous claims are a Trojan horse to attack Aboriginal rights and land councils. They derive from an academic ideology that seeks to blame the victim, and which has no appreciation of the values and customs by which Aboriginal people live their lives. The true cause of impoverishment in remote communities, whether or not on Aboriginal land, is long-term government neglect in providing education, health and housing – especially since NT self-government in 1978. Indigenous Affairs Minister Amanda Vanstone need go no further to appreciate why Aboriginal people in the NT are “land rich, dirt poor”.
Take housing. Currently in Wadeye (Port Keats) and other major communities there is an occupancy rate of about 17 people in each house, nearly five people a bedroom.
Take education. It was a condition of self-government that the NT fund former mission schools (e.g. Wadeye) at the same level as government schools. But a 2005 report for the Council of Australian Governments by the ANU Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research concludes that for every education dollar spent on an average NT child, only 26 cents is spent on an Aboriginal child in Wadeye.
Take health. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare estimates that indigenous life expectancy is 19 years lower than for other Australians, with the infant mortality rate in the NT, Western Australia and South Australia being 2.5 times greater. Despite a much poorer health status, on average three times worse than for other Australians, total expenditures for each indigenous person are not much higher (a ratio of 1.22:1).
These figures are a national disgrace for which both NT and Commonwealth governments bear responsibility. Without proper education, health and housing no child, no community or people, will prosper.
But neither will a people whose communal rights and ancient culture are dismissed as irrelevant to the modern world and blamed for Third World disadvantage – as the CIS and NIC papers urge. It is wrong to claim that only individual owners will develop land and that traditional owning groups will not. At Gove, the Gumatj and Rirratjingu have initiated housing and other commercial developments on Aboriginal land, as have the Larrakia in Darwin, Jawoyn at Nitmiluk, and groups in Kakadu.
The sloppy and ideological thinking in the CIS and NIC papers is a return to the past that would breach the Racial Discrimination Act and be a recipe for litigation and international outcry. The true challenge is to embrace the successes of Aboriginal culture and communal rights by assisting traditional owners to develop their land for the benefit of all, combined with a comprehensive and long-term plan to deliver education, health and housing to remote communities.
By establishing a high-level ministerial taskforce, Prime Minister John Howard has shown he is committed to ending indigenous disadvantage. This important initiative, and the recent service-delivery agreement with the NT Government, must be backed by sufficient funding for pragmatic long-term programs that focus on education, health and housing in remote communities. Comparable Western countries, including Canada, the US, New Zealand and Norway, have taken this course and greatly improved indigenous life expectancy and health outcomes. In the 21st century Australia must not remain the odd one out.
Galarrwuy Yunupingu, AM, a former Australian of the Year, retired as chairman of the Northern Land Council last October after 27 years’ service
theagecom.au
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Apr 10 2005 18:29 utc | 20
When sexual difference is not actively practiced by a society (@11:26 AM, upthread). Faulty phrasing on my part. Rather, it should read, when differences in sexual orientation are not fully affirmed by a society…. Fighting the fog within is always surprisingly hard. I can’t claim to have noticed the following obvious fact before: Only when a given social group (military, ecclesiastical, pedagogical, etc.) accepts sexual difference can it enforce valid and practical sanctions against the injustice of pedophilia, or of sexual harrassment of any kind. The absolute necessity of this precondition hasn’t been obvious to me. It presupposes, in the interests of it’s own consistency, that hierarchical societies, and even patriarchal hierarchies, can, in principle, be just. Can be and should be. It’s still a strange argument to make, and I’ve yet to test it out. There may be a radical anarchism–Stirner’s, perhaps?–that would countervail against it….so off we go to Stirner…
Posted by: alabama | Apr 10 2005 18:51 utc | 21
There is Fannie and Freddie, with their combined books of business of $3.8 Trillion backed (hopefully) by a little sliver of shareholder’s equity. Troubled GM and Ford have total liabilities of $740 billion, with equity stated at $45 billion and absolutely dismal prospects. AIG has total liabilities of almost $700 billion (SH Equity of $83bn). Combined, these five companies’ exposure of almost $5.3 Trillion is in the neighborhood of 30 times reported equity. In the best of times, there was no room for error or chicanery. These may be the worst. And one does not want to forget MBIA. This troubled risk guarantor has written insurance – “Net Debt Service Outstanding” – to the tune of $890 billion, with shareholder’s equity of $6.6 billion.
Staggering numbers.
Credit Bubble Bulletin, by Doug Noland
@ b
What’s wrong with the USA? Link (Quicktime video)
That made me angry for two reasons, first unfortunately, as cheezy as it sounds I’d really like to believe America is a spiriually evolved,
leader and beacon (i.e shining light for democracy and freedom and justice for all the world).
But it just isn’t so. We are the complete opposite of that. Second, I feel manipulated by emotionally charged anthems such as this and know there are many whom are taken in by such things. And finally, the sad part is that we could be all the things mentioned above. I feel as many here do that America has been highjacked by greedy criminal thugs. And to top it off it didn’t start w/Bush. And has always used it’s hegimonic means to our selfish ends. Only most of America don’t want to see it.
Posted by: Unlce $cam | Apr 10 2005 20:08 utc | 23
yeah right-on R-giap. After 27 successful years as chairman of the Northern Land Council (40% of NT) – this guy is pissed that anyone would suggest his success could be improved on by individual Aboriginal land ownership. All that is required is for ‘white’ Australia to pony-up enough money to remove all the disadvantages of Aboriginal people, and to allow the continuance of communal rights and ancient culture. I mean, he is right. Life expectancy and infant mortality rates are unacceptable. This is because total expenditure on health for Aboriginals is only 1.22:1. It has nothing to do with ancient culture and communal drinking binges and petrol-sniffing.
Posted by: DM | Apr 10 2005 23:07 utc | 24
Can We Change The World Without Taking Power? by John Holloway
Taking Power Seriously: A Response to John Holloway by M. Junaid Alam (from lefthook)
John Holloway, well-known left intellectual and author of the popular polemic Change the World Without Taking Power: The Meaning of Revolution Today, recently offered a concise presentation of his strategic vision on revolutionary change at ZNet. In his essay there, he strongly rejects the idea of approaching or seizing the state as an instrument for achieving social change, and encourages the notion of multiplying various kinds of incipient rebellions that bypass the state as the most fruitful path to human self-determination.
In advancing his thesis, however, Holloway fails to take stock of important current political developments or ground his definition of capitalism in a concrete context. As a result, he makes a number of simplistic assertions and leans on certain false dichotomies about the state and the process of revolutionary change. By examining these flaws, I think it is possible to show that Holloway’s concept of “changing the world without taking power” is, unfortunately, trapped in a narrow framework where premises hang from a ceiling of intellectual defeatism and conclusions crash into walls of political paralysis.
Posted by: b real | Apr 11 2005 3:31 utc | 26
After slogging through Alam’s language (“vanguardist”, etc.) I don’t see that his critique of Holloway addresses the issue noted above, namely the constraints placed on a bankrupt state. He bases his entire case of the good works a state can carry out on oil-rich Venezuela. Against the possibility that the US is indeed headed for subjugation to its creditors, Holloway’s ideas could be worth discussing.
Posted by: liz | Apr 11 2005 4:19 utc | 27
This is crazy: US turns away KLM plane with unwanted visitors on board
THE HAGUE (AFP) – A Dutch airline KLM plane on a direct flight from Amsterdam to Mexico was forced to turn back after US authorities barred it from entering their airspace because it was carrying two unwanted passengers.
The aircraft was already nearing Canada when the pilot was told he would not be allowed to enter US airspace, KLM spokesman Bart Koster told AFP on Sunday.
…
Posted by: Fran | Apr 11 2005 5:24 utc | 28
Well, maybe Ohio investing $50millions into coins wasn’t such a bad idea – that is if they invested in the right coins.:)
Death warms up market for euros in Vatican and Monaco
Posted by: Fran | Apr 11 2005 5:46 utc | 30
U.S. cash goes down the drain in Iraq
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraqi officials have crippled scores of water, sewage and electrical plants refurbished with U.S. funds by failing to maintain and operate them properly, wasting millions of American taxpayer dollars, according to interviews and documents.
Hardest hit has been the effort to rebuild Iraq’s water and sewage systems, a multibillion-dollar task considered to be among the most crucial components of the effort to improve daily life for Iraqis. Of more than 40 such plants run by the Iraqis, not one is being operated properly, according to the Bechtel Group, the contractor at work on the project.
The power grid faces similar problems. U.S. officials said the Iraqis’ inability to properly operate overhauled electrical plants contributed to widespread power shortages this winter. None of the 19 electrical plants that have had U.S.-funded repair work is being run correctly, a senior American adviser said.
An internal memo by coalition officials in Iraq obtained by the Los Angeles Times says that throughout Iraq, renovated plants “deteriorate quickly to an alarming state of disrepair and inoperability.”
“There is no reason to believe that these initial experiences will not be repeated for the other water and sanitation projects currently underway throughout Iraq,” the memo said. “This is the antithesis of our base strategy and a waste not only of taxpayer funds, but it deprives the most needy of safe drinking water and of streets free from raw sewerage.”
Iraqis are paying the price. Schoolchildren have to step over rancid brown puddles on their way to classrooms. Families swim in, fish from and get their drinking water from the polluted Tigris and Euphrates rivers, leading to high rates of child mortality and waterborne illnesses……
.
Saddam may escape noose in deal to halt insurgency
But it’s not all gloom, there is encouraging news for all those parents with lying, thieving, forging, embezzling, double-dealing, spying, nasty sneaky children:
“……There will now be two vice presidents, according to the al-Zaman newspaper. One will be Ahmad Chalabi, as vice president for security affairs. The other will be a Kurd, Barham Saleh…..”
Posted by: Nugget | Apr 11 2005 5:59 utc | 31
vbo, don’t know if you’d need this, but from one who took forever to learn how to link, and in spite of many confusing instructions, finally figured it out, so will try to explain it so even I can figure it out, by the numbers: Posted by: anna missed | Apr 11 2005 6:29 utc | 32
step 1) on your “post a comment” block, see the last line under HTML Tags, it starts out
step6) now type in the word(s) you want to appear red
step7) now type
step8) check the preview button to see if your link word now appears red in your text, if so it will probably work, you must get all the capital and lower case and the one space between
Nooooooooo!!!
guess the link code symbols made a link, then disappeared in the post, good grief. anyway if you wanted to show in red words (in the final post)Link to ACLU you would copy exactly the last line under the HTML Tags: stopping before that little arrow and the red letters.
to make any other link
simply cut and paste any other address where the “http// http://www.aclu.org” is
then pick a new word or phrase to fit between the > symbols
the red link word
Posted by: anna missed | Apr 11 2005 6:52 utc | 33
Anna missed, in order to avoid html tags disappearing in posts you need to use < at the beginning, which translates into <. So <a href=""> displays as <a href=””> and so on.
Yeah Colman, same impression here. Not sure why.
Everybody watching the Camilla- Charles wedding, then the golf Masters? or enjoting springtime in the real world?!
Posted by: Jérôme | Apr 11 2005 7:37 utc | 36
Anna I know how to link (thank you for tour effort anyway) but I just forgot to do it. Later I saw that somehow (at least on my computer) it appears to be done automatically (or someone just did it for me later).
In case it’s not visible for others here it is again:
The Long Emergency
Posted by: vbo | Apr 11 2005 8:12 utc | 37
Your effort Anna …of course…
…Do not know for others but I am not watching TV or enjoy too much of a nice weather… I am just from time to time sick of EVERYTHING…haha…and I tend to forget reality for a while…
This site is not helpful in that way haha…
Posted by: vbo | Apr 11 2005 8:17 utc | 38
@vbo –it appears to be done automatically
That was me as the way it was original posted the link streched the page layout
@Nugget – U.S. cash goes down the drain in Iraq
Bechtel propaganda and rassist in my view. “Oh these Iraqis are so stupid!” The same Iraqis did reconstruct their bombed out electricity network within one year in the 90s.
Juan Cole thinks so too.
Most of the repairs this time was paid with Iraqi money going to US companies. It was their oil-for-food money that was spend, not US tax dollars.
Did anyone see the story about most of the reconstruction fund being invested into Wall Street? I meant to copy the story over here on Friday, forgot, and now have no clue where I saw it.
The gist of the story was that 14B of the 18B had been spent on Wall Steet while it was waiting to go to Iraq, and had lost 1.7% of value in mean time. Didn’t get time to check credibility either.
Remember, welfare is bad unless it’s corporate welfare.
Jérôme: however the front page seemed to go into overdrive while I was gardening and doing and weekend stuff.
Three poems.
COMING
On longer evenings
Light, chill and yellow,
Bathes the serene
Foreheads of houses.
A thrush sings,
Laurel-surrounded
In the deep and bare garden,
Its fresh-peeled voice
Astonishing the brickwork.
It will be spring soon,
It will be spring soon–
And I, whose childhood
Is a forgotten boredom,
Feel like a child
Who comes on a scene
Of adult reconciling,
And can understand nothing
But the unusual laugher,
And starts to be happy.
—————
GOING
There is an evening coming in
Across the fields, one never seen before,
That lights no lamps.
Silken it seems at a distance, yet
When it is drawn up over knees and breast
It brings no comfort.
Where has the tree gone, that locked
Earth to the sky? What is under my hands,
That I cannot feel?
What loads my hands down?
——————-
Both by Philip Larkin.
And here’s more Shakespeare:
SONNET 8
Music to hear, why hears’t thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.
Why loves’t thou that which thou receiv’st not gladly?
Or else receiv’st with pleasure thine annoy?
If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
By unions married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.
Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering,
Resembling sire and child and happy mother,
Who, all in one, one pleasant note do sing;
Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,
Sings this to thee: thou single wilt prove none.
———————
Posted by: erg | Apr 11 2005 9:27 utc | 41
From Haaretz a very realistic Zeèv Schiff piece
Two states, one nation
The events in the Gaza Strip are liable to deteriorate into an overall violent conflict between two Jewish states with different goals. One is the State of Israel, and the other is the state of the settlers.
Despite the profound ties between them, each of them feels threatened by the other. The major clash is expected when the State of Israel carries out the disengagement from the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria. But it would be a mistake to think it will end with that. If the Israeli government really intends to carry out its commitments to the road map, the conflict between the sides will probably intensify.
The State of Israel established the state of the settlers and, in the final analysis, the golem is rebelling against its creator.
…
On the ground, the settlers decided which of the State of Israel’s laws should be observed in their state, and which ones should be ignored. Thus, they fearlessly stole private lands belonging to their Palestinian neighbors, as well as lands defined as “state lands.” They cut down the Palestinians’ olive trees and stole their fruit. None of these robbers has been indicted, and those who did get to the courts for acts of killing had their punishments mitigated.
At the same time, the settlers infiltrated the most sensitive arms of the Israeli administration. Thus, they gained control of essential information in the Civil Administration in the territories, allowed illegal construction activities and violated the orders of ministers, as was proved in a report by attorney Talia Sasson concerning the illegal outposts. One of the results is that the Israel Police is afraid to enforce the law in the state of the settlers, while the IDF ignores illegal acts. In order to obtain information about the state of the settlers, the security services had to operate expensive private flights for filming purposes.
…
The argument that, in their struggle against the disengagement, the settlers are trying to save democracy in Israel by means of a national referendum is false. The state of the settlers has only one goal, perpetuation of the occupation and domination of the Palestinian people; in other words, the war with the Palestinians will continue, and if the settlers actually harm Islamic holy sites it will be a world war with the Islamic world, and an irreparable rift with the Arab community in Israel.
“Pretty quiet weekend around here! I normally miss more between Friday afternoon and Monday.”
Posted by: Colman | April 11, 2005 03:19 AM | #
Weather. Really nice for anything outside here. I saw someone load my old broken tv on his truck Saturday morning before the trash collector’s came. Sucker. I spent some time sitting outside, reading and watching my fish as they have come out of their winter lethargy.
Posted by: beq | Apr 11 2005 15:07 utc | 43
oh yea, the weather here was fantastic and perfect for being outdoors. i’ll share one experience b/c it really highlighted my w/e. i spent the better part of saturday sitting in a kayak in a wildlife sanctuary watching: a bald eagle chill in her nest; a group of 6 does walking along the lake shore while a large buck remained in the backgroud, snorting his disapproval when we ventured too close; large groups (50+) of white pelicans gliding effortless on high thermals, circling across the horizon; large groups (80-90+) of double-crested cormorants sunning themselves in trees; wood ducks, mallards, canvasbacks, loons, canadian geese, red-wing blackbirds, swifts, great blue herons, white egrets, hawks, turkey buzzards, gulls, woodpeckers (btw, why do the males of all species of woodpecker have a red spot on their head?) and a host of other birds feeding, nesting, playing & relaxing; hundreds of turtles sunning themselves on a couple islands and any available tree branch (amazing how good of climbers these little guys are); kayaking unknowingly into large contingents of spawning buffalo carp & being startled when the water erupts all around the kayak; three times accidently running into large snapping turtles and then following them as the swam alongside me. just an amazing day.
Posted by: b real | Apr 11 2005 15:58 utc | 44
@b real – I am envious – we had little sun and it was quite cold here.
Joel Achenbach is teaching journalism and has a blog at the Washington Post. Todays piece is really fine writing:
Tiger’s Shot
By now everyone probably has seen or heard about The Shot. The 70th hole of the Masters, everything on the line, huge pressure, Tiger’s off the 16th green in the rough, he chips the ball not toward the hole but way left of it, up onto a high point of the green, where the ball stops, and then slowly begins to roll and weave and wander its way back down the slope, toward the hole, as though it smells it. The ball seems to be out of gas but keeps rolling, and finally reaches the lip, and stops, and for two seconds it doesn’t move, and then it drops, for birdie.
What few people realize is that this is all done with powerful magnets. Augusta National has the most advanced electronics underneath its greens of any golf course in America. There’s essentially an entire city down there, with technicians in jump suits, hallways as long as a Par 5, enough computing power to track a fleet of satellites. In fact they use GPS to guide the ball into the hole. Basically all Tiger had to do was get the ball somewhere on the green — anywhere. Although he hit a terrible shot and came nowhere close to the hole, the folks in the bunker took over and guided the ball home.
…
beq – 🙂 saw a few of those too, but not from the kayak
here’s an article pointed out in teh Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy – UK Terror Trial Finds No Terror: Not guilty of conspiracy to poison London with ricin
The trial of the infamous “UK poison cell,” a group portrayed by Secretary of State Powell as al Qaida-associated operatives plotting to launch ricin attacks in the United Kingdom and in league with Muhamad al Zarqawi in Iraq, found nothing of the sort. The jury did find “the UK poison cell,” known as Kamel Bourgas and others (Sidali Faddag, Samir Asli, Mouloud Bouhrama, Mustapha Taleb, Mouloud Sihali, Aissa Kalef), not guilty of conspiracy to murder by plotting ricin attacks and, generally speaking, not guilty of conspiracy to do anything.
…
It is no longer a surprise when one finds that many claims from the alleged best of American government intelligence in the war on terror are bogus. It is still dismaying, though, to see intelligence derived from materials submitted in the alleged trial of the “UK poison cell” that is so patently rotten. Who was informing Colin Powell on the nonsense before his date with the UN Security Council?
There was no UK poison cell linked to al Qaida or Muhamad al Zarqawi. There was no ricin with which to poison London, only notes and 22 castor seeds. There was no one who even knew how to purify ricin.
However, the mythology on the UK poison cell will probably always be with us. In only one example of many, a United Nations investigative arm published a report in February 2005 with the claim that an al Qaida “associated” group had come close to launching a poison attack in the United Kingdom before being arrested. (Source: Milton Leitenberg, “Assessing the Biological Weapons and Bioterrorism Threat,” advance copy of a paper prepared for international conference, “Meeting the Challenges of Bioterrorism,” April 22-23, 2005, Furigen, Switzerland).
The news was too terrible and repeated too often to easily replace as common wisdom. Indeed, there will be many convinced that justice was not served, that a poison plot was foiled and that convictions would have been certain if only the -right- evidence had been presented and taken seriously. They will think that the case of Bourgas and others was a defeat in the global war on terror.
Others, however, will view it as a victory, an affirmation that specious intelligence, fear, stupidity and suspicions cannot forever trample on reality.
Posted by: b real | Apr 11 2005 19:02 utc | 47
@b real – thanks for that one – I did miss that.
Buyers’ market as house prices slide
Today in Sydney, tomorrow in LA
U.S. audit probes $212 million in Halliburton Iraq work.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. oil services giant Halliburton Co. may have overcharged by at least $212 million to get fuel to Iraqi civilians under a no-bid deal with the U.S. military, said Pentagon audits released on Monday.
California Rep. Henry Waxman, a leading critic of Halliburton’s work in Iraq, released portions of audits by the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) that identified overcharges and questioned costs for fuel delivered in Iraq by Halliburton unit Kellogg Brown & Root in 2003 and 2004.
In one case, the overcharges exceeded 47 percent of the total value of one work order, said Waxman in a letter to Rep. Christopher Shays, chairman of the House of Representatives Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations.
Halliburton, which was run by Vice President Dick Cheney until he joined the race for the White House in 2000, has said its KBR subsidiary delivered fuel for the best possible price in Iraq and has consistently denied it overcharged.
Neither Halliburton nor the Pentagon immediately responded to questions over the latest audits….
War’s toll on U.S. military gear may be $8B a year
The war in Iraq is burning through U.S. military equipment at five to 10 times the peacetime training rate, and the services will have to spend $13 billion to $18 billion to replace it, congressional budget experts say.
The services have asked for $12 billion in the 2005 emergency supplemental funding request to replace worn-out vehicles and equipment, but the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said current operations are wearing out vehicles at a rate of $8 billion per year. The CBO released its cost estimates April 6 at a hearing of the House Armed Services readiness subcommittee. Readiness and logistics chiefs from the four services also testified.
The services themselves calculate they have unfunded equipment losses of $13 billion. But the CBO said it’s too soon to provide an exact estimate, which is why auditors provided a range using two separate accounting systems….
Posted by: Nugget | Apr 11 2005 21:03 utc | 50
Colman said:
Pretty quiet weekend around here! I normally miss more between Friday afternoon and Monday.
jdp said at another thread:
I had a interesting little conversation at a conference this morning with our US Congressman. I told him I posted on a blog that corruption in Washington has one common denominator; Texas. He as much as said the blogs are watched by the FBI and they could come knocking. He said you could get your community on the map. (It already is, but I think he meant another way). I didn’t know how serious he was but it kind of took me back. I felt like asking him when free speech was banned in the US but I left it alone.
And someone said something a few days ago about starting to worry when barflies gets picked off. So the obvious…
wait a minute somebodys knocking at the door. I will continue this later.
Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Apr 11 2005 21:20 utc | 51
skod
you know , frankly i couldn’t give a fuck, if what is parodically called the intelligence service followed our every thoughts – if that was something that even limited our openness with one another – i would suggest it as a weakness – as a surrendering to the institution of fear
& after all – they are so stupid, their venality hurts & indeed kills people but to live an hour honestly in this life is hard enough without thinking of whomever they may be. the world they are giving us is so interlaced with stupidity & vulgarity – i would consider it an honour to be their enemy in form & in substance
& this image anyway – of them being all knowing – if the last 30 or 40 years have taught us anything – they have taught us how incredibly incompetent they are – in every possible way. their analysis have been so completely full of fault & their networks so corrupted – that to think of themselves as some kind of ivy league elite ‘understanding all’ is a joke of such proportions it is impossible even to laugh
they have declared war as all criminals do in the most violent way & depend crucially on the consent & the silence of the people – who can be bought bit by bit at the same time as their capacity to act becomes more limited. in the end it creates corrup civil society which even the elites cannot benefit – not in any real & fundamental way
in any case i do not envy them their emptiness. i certainly do not envy their answers – which to almost all questions on almost all matters have been wrong. i envy them even less their hollow lives papered over by journalists i wouldn’ piss on if they were on fire
nor do i pity them. one day, their kind will come to an end
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Apr 11 2005 21:41 utc | 52
It was not the police at the door. I am still safe. 🙂
I agree, to justify their own work they need to be institutionally stupid. Even if somebody gets this discussions over at FBI, actually using that knowledge would probably include saying things that are not within the accepted discourse there.
I was mostly jesting anyway. Mostly… 😛
Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Apr 11 2005 21:49 utc | 53
Somebody tell the F.B.I. – America’s economy is under attack
Dr. Gal Luft, Director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security says Osama Bin Laden’s main goal is the destruction of the U.S. economy – and that, so far, he appears to be succeeding.
…Al Qaeda’s attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, was planned to strike at the epicenter of the American economy. That attack, which cost the American taxpayer one trillion dollars in damages, and the subsequent war in Afghanistan and Iraq, are “bleeding” the American economy of its wealth.
Dr. Luft says that Bin Laden is also attempting to disrupt the American economy by causing the price of oil to rise. He claims that the sabotage of oil pipelines in Iraq and attacks on foreign oil workers in Saudi Arabia succeeded in raising the price of oil by $10-$15 per barrel.
That price rise alone cost the U.S. economy tens of billions of dollars in lost wealth. To add salt to the wound, this money, ironically, is being transferred to America’s enemies in the Middle East, such as Iran. Iran and radical Saudi groups then use their oil riches to finance the Jihad, which is dedicated to destroying the United States….
Posted by: Nugget | Apr 11 2005 22:32 utc | 54
….Normally, Pentagon officials are reluctant to ascribe US strategic moves to concern over the safe delivery of energy supplies. Nevertheless, in their explanations of the need for new facilities, the oil factor has begun to crop up. “In the Caspian Sea you have large mineral [i.e., petroleum] reserves,” observed General Charles Wald, deputy commander of the US European Command (Eucom), in June 2003. “We want to be able to assure the long-term viability of those resources.” Wald has also spoken of the need for bases to help protect oil reserves in Africa (which falls under the purview of the EUCOM). “The estimate is [that] in the next ten years, we will get 25 percent of our oil from there,” he declared in Air Force magazine. “I can see the United States potentially having a forward operating location in São Tomé,” or other sites in Africa.
Of the dozen or so locations mentioned in Pentagon or media accounts of new basing locations, a majority–including Algeria, Azerbaijan, Cameroon, Gabon, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Qatar, Romania, São Tomé and Príncipe, Tunisia–either possess oil themselves or abut major pipelines and supply routes….
…Equally strong geopolitical considerations link the pursuit of foreign oil to American concern over the rise of China. Like the United States, China needs to import vast amounts of petroleum in order to satisfy skyrocketing demand at home. In 2010, the Energy Department predicts, China will have to import 4 million barrels of oil per day; by 2025 it will be importing 9.4 million barrels. China will also be dependent on major producers in the Middle East and Africa, and so it has sought to curry favor with these countries using the same methods long employed by the United States: by forging military ties with friendly regimes, supplying them with weapons and stationing military advisers in them. A conspicuous Chinese presence has been established, for example, in Iran, Sudan and the Central Asian republics. To counter these incursions, the United States has expanded its own military ties with local powers–and this in turn has helped spark the drive for new basing facilities in the Gulf and Caspian regions…..
Imperial reach – Michael T. Klare.
Posted by: Nugget | Apr 11 2005 22:43 utc | 55
American Economy under attack … by whom ?
spearheaded by Bin Laden and Al Qaeda …
Bin Laden thinks he can do the same thing to the United States …
Bin Laden is also attempting to disrupt the American economy …
Bin Laden says he wants oil to go up to $140 per barrel …
Yea? Well where the hell is Bin Laden? They haven’t rolled him out since November.
Posted by: DM | Apr 11 2005 22:47 utc | 56
Nugget- Like I said waaay back when…
Bush missed a golden opportunity to ask for some sacrifices on the part of Americans after 9-11 relating to conservation and also to the idea of energy self-sufficiency as a “patriotic” thing…like a victory garden in WWII. Building locally to create both jobs and ways to create energy in the event of either a major attack on electric supply, or manipulation of the oil mkt.
but Bush is making money hand over fist so he’s happy. and he thinks he’s the freaking second coming (or he plays one on tv), so whatever god (psssst…his name is really Rove, not god) whispers in Dubya’s ear is divine. What did Dubya tell Americans to do after 9-11? GO SHOPPING. what an ass.
To me, it’s just another example of what a horrible leader the guy is, and what corporate fuckers, basically, he and Cheney, et al are that they could not do the right thing by this country, but instead did the right thing for the oil-i-garchy and the corporate CEOs who could give a damn about people in this country…
those are the ones, btw, that Bush calls “his base.” Just like bin Laden has his “base.” I’ve never felt so manipulated in my life as I have over the last four years. it’s blatant, but it’s hard to not wonder about the threat of an attack sometimes. I don’t personally feel threatened, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think about others.
and btw, mr or ms fbi, if you’re here, would you please do something about the nutcases in the administration before they destroy us all? …like give up some of their nasty personal secrets or something? don’t you have any respect for your fellow agents, like Colleen Rowley, who were dedicated to the idea of defending the constitution, and not the power elite? or what about former lt col Karen Kwiatkowski? like the man said, “Tell it like it is…don’t be afraid to let your conscience be your guide…”
Posted by: fauxreal | Apr 11 2005 22:56 utc | 57
DM- bin laden is the saudi name for The Carlyle Group. (/snark)
Posted by: fauxreal | Apr 11 2005 23:01 utc | 58
Thanks fauxreal. Now that article makes sense.
Dr. Luft says that The Carlyle Group is also attempting to milk the American economy by causing the price of oil to rise. He claims that the sabotage of oil pipelines in Iraq and attacks on foreign oil workers in Saudi Arabia succeeded in raising the price of oil by $10-$15 per barrel.
…
So far, however, without U.S. leadership on this issue, it appears that The Carlyle Group is gaining the upper hand. “The Carlyle Group says it wants oil to go up to $140 per barrel. Based on what it’s done so far this year, they are on there way to getting it,” Dr. Luft lamented.
Posted by: DM | Apr 11 2005 23:32 utc | 59
U.S. to stay in Iraq until 2009
The Mirror is a British tabloid not noted for serious investigative journalism and was caught out publishing fake ‘torture of Iraqi prisoners by British troops’ photographs but here it is quoting U.S. documents, contract documents and a British parliamentary source.
Can a draft be deferred until 2009?
Posted by: Nugget | Apr 12 2005 0:31 utc | 60
A report to the UN human rights commission in Geneva has concluded that Iraqi children were actually better off under Saddam Hussein than they are now.
This, of course, comes as a bitter blow for all those of us who, like George Bush and Tony Blair, honestly believe that children thrive best when we drop bombs on them from a great height, destroy their cities and blow up hospitals, schools and power stations.
It now appears that, far from improving the quality of life for Iraqi youngsters, the US-led military assault on Iraq has inexplicably doubled the number of children under five suffering from malnutrition. Under Saddam, about 4% of children under five were going hungry, whereas by the end of last year almost 8% were suffering.
These results are even more disheartening for those of us in the Department of Making Things Better for Children in the Middle East By Military Force, since the previous attempts by Britain and America to improve the lot of Iraqi children also proved disappointing. For example, the policy of applying the most draconian sanctions in living memory totally failed to improve conditions. After they were imposed in 1990, the number of children under five who died increased by a factor of six. By 1995 something like half a million Iraqi children were dead as a result of our efforts to help them.
A year later, Madeleine Albright, then the US ambassador to the United Nations, tried to put a brave face on it. When a TV interviewer remarked that more children had died in Iraq through sanctions than were killed in Hiroshima, Mrs Albright famously replied: “We think the price is worth it.”
But clearly George Bush didn’t. So he hit on the idea of bombing them instead. And not just bombing, but capturing and torturing their fathers, humiliating their mothers, shooting at them from road blocks – but none of it seems to do any good. Iraqi children simply refuse to be better nourished, healthier and less inclined to die. It is truly baffling.
And this is why we at the department are appealing to you – the general public – for ideas. If you can think of any other military techniques that we have so far failed to apply to the children of Iraq, please let us know as a matter of urgency. We assure you that, under our present leadership, there is no limit to the amount of money we are prepared to invest in a military solution to the problems of Iraqi children.
In the UK there may now be 3.6 million children living below the poverty line, and 12.9 million in the US, with no prospect of either government finding any cash to change that. But surely this is a price worth paying, if it means that George Bush and Tony Blair can make any amount of money available for bombs, shells and bullets to improve the lives of Iraqi kids. You know it makes sense.
Posted by: Nugget | Apr 12 2005 2:14 utc | 61
U.S.wages lagging behind prices
For the first time in 14 years, the American workforce has in effect gotten an across-the-board pay cut.
The growth in wages in 2004 and the first two months of this year trailed inflation, compounding the squeeze from higher housing, energy and other costs….
…This is the first time that salaries have increased more slowly than prices since the 1990-91 recession. Though salary growth has been relatively sluggish since the 2001 downturn, inflation also had stayed relatively subdued until last year, when the consumer price index rose 2.7%. But wages rose only 2.5%.
The effective 0.2-percentage-point erosion in workers’ living standards occurred while the economy expanded at a healthy 4%, better than the 3% historical average.
Meanwhile, corporate profits hit record highs as companies got more productivity out of workers while keeping pay increases down.
Posted by: Nugget | Apr 12 2005 2:27 utc | 62
Papers illustrate Negroponte’s Contra role
The day after the House voted to halt all aid to rebels fighting to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, U.S. Ambassador to Honduras John D. Negroponte urged the president’s national security adviser and the CIA director to hang tough.
The thrust of the envoy’s “back channel” July 1983 message to the men running the contra war against Nicaragua was contained in a single cryptic sentence: “Hondurans believe special project is as important as ever.”
….Overall, Negroponte comes across as an exceptionally energetic, action-oriented ambassador whose anti-communist convictions led him to play down human rights abuses in Honduras, the most reliable U.S. ally in the region. There is little in the documents the State Department has released so far to support his assertion that he used “quiet diplomacy” to persuade the Honduran authorities to investigate the most egregious violations, including the mysterious disappearance of dozens of government opponents.
Posted by: Nugget | Apr 12 2005 2:52 utc | 64
here’s another kick while you’ve got him down
Negroponte and the Eclipse of the CIA
The Negroponte nomination, preceded by that of Goss, signaled the end of the CIA’s dominant position among the government’s 15 intelligence agencies. A diplomat with a four-decade history as a ruthless and highly effective foreign policy operative, Negroponte has most recently served as the ambassador to Iraq. Negroponte, who received quick Senate confirmation for his positions in Iraq and at the UN, can count on bipartisan support for his latest nomination.
…
Since the mid-1960s Negroponte has moved around the globe doing whatever is required to further what successive U.S. administrations have defined as U.S. economic interests and national security-including such diverse roles as advising the puppet U.S. government in South Vietnam during the war, supervising the Reagan administration use of Honduras as its logistical center for the counterinsurgency and counterrevolutionary campaigns in Central America, ensuring good U.S.-Mexico relations during the NAFTA negotiations, managing relations with UN Security Council members in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, and overseeing U.S. nation-building and counterinsurgency operations in the lead-up to the Iraq elections in January 2005.
…
Negroponte is not an ideologue, and certainly not a neoconservative. Since the 1960s Ambassador Negroponte has earned a reputation as a ruthless and determined political operative who always gets the job done-however “dirty” or undiplomatic. Unlike most of President Bush’s foreign policy team, Negroponte has no direct connections with the network of conservative policy institutes, think tanks, or foundations that have set the administration’s foreign and domestic policy agenda.
Not a theorist or strategist, Negroponte instead is commonly regarded as a pragmatic realist with decidedly hawkish inclinations. Negroponte has throughout his career maintained a low public profile despite his high-profile positions-rarely writing or speaking about U.S. foreign or military policy, apart from diplomatically worded statements issued by his office. Ever the flexible diplomat, Negroponte has proved comfortable in adopting whatever foreign policy language-from idealist to realist-is deemed most appropriate and effective for the job he has been assigned.
…
As a practitioner of “strategic intelligence,” Negroponte for four decades has focused not on truth but on victory. Typical of other hawks, Negroponte blames the defeat of South Vietnam on the liberals and moderates in Washington–not on any misguided notion of U.S. national security or self-deception by the “war party” in U.S. government.
But Negroponte has presided over numerous short-term victories, such as deceiving the world about Iraq’s purported ties with terrorism and its mass destruction weapons, crushing the leftist guerrilla and popular movements in Central America in the 1980s, and implementing NAFTA and the “Washington Consensus” in Mexico. Problem is that they were Pyrrhic victories at best. Any intelligence worth its name would better describe Negroponte’s history of representing U.S. interests as a series of wrong turns, dead ends, and deadly collisions.
there was also a short segment on negroponte on democracynow earlier on monday
the code pink ladies caused a stir during the bolton hearing this morning. will they make it to negroponte’s hearing as well? and how come their ranks haven’t increased, despite all the success they’re having? it seems to be the same two or three ladies popping up everywhere. or am i wrong?
okay, this next thought doesn’t necessarily apply to either of these two nominations, but there has been a lot of grumbling in the recent past about promotions for people associated w/ this administration who fail upward. but isn’t that how gwb got to where he is today? monkey see, monkey doo.
Posted by: b real | Apr 12 2005 3:35 utc | 66
and another thing. is it just me or do these criminals look like cartoonish, stereotyped villians? i’m thinking negroponte sitting behind powell at the UN. richard armitage flashing a toothy grin while equating covert ops w/ god’s work. condie in her thigh-high leather boot/matrix garb. cheney doing his best impersonation of the penguin from the old batman tv series. rumsfeld looking like skeletor. and then there’s grover norquist as the bearded lady. and…okay, i’m giving them way too much credit for being entertaining.
Posted by: b real | Apr 12 2005 3:48 utc | 67