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October 17, 2005
Open Thread 05-105
Comments
Outlook from Hoisington(pdf). Pretty good roundup of the ugly graphs and record deviations from historical norms in the US economy. Feels like 1999.
“Although energy prices have entered uncharted waters, Fed authorities have left no doubt that the price increases will not translate into a generalized inflationary environment. Accordingly, additional Fed funds rate hikes should boost short term interest rates even as bond yields fall. Such a policy mix will expose the highly leveraged U.S. consumer to a tightening vice of lower discretionary income, higher interest payments, and reduced money and credit availability. Such basic considerations, of far broader significance than catastrophic weather events, ensure that the present slowdown in economic activity will persist and undoubtedly worsen in the quarters ahead.”
Posted by: PeeDee | Oct 17 2005 22:32 utc | 2
Uncle,
Taleb is very provoking – I heard him debate risk at a conference in June.
His book “Fooled by Randomness” is an excellent exploration of the impact of chance on our lives and our seemingly constitutional inability to accept and appropriately react to it. Some general insights he articulated for me:
1) People routinely overestimate the expected value of extremely unlikely events, both positive (eg. rock star, lotto) and negative (eg. muggings, air crashes).
2) People routinely underestimate the value of certainty (eg. the dentist’s career prospects, the value of cash).
3) As you say, people are driven to rationalise purely random events, particularly their own success or failure.
4) Day to day news is mostly noise, and there is no reliable method of distinguishing the signal from the noise in the short term.
Much of the book is more relevant for people that deal with chance for a living, eg. the value of Monte carlo simulations in calibrating the impact of randomness.
Posted by: PeeDee | Oct 17 2005 22:49 utc | 3
I thought I would bring this (see below) post up here, also, there are several great posts by b ,and others in the last open thread that are worth a gander do check em out, (October 14, 2005) : Non-Plame Open Thread News & views …
Hurry! get in on the ground floor of this new market nitch…
The doomsday shower can sanitize 800 people an hour
With fears of a biochemical attack on the rise, many biotechnology firms have waded into the uncertain science of prevention and detection of biological and chemical agents. But a Maryland manufacturer has discovered a less-crowded market in homeland security: decontamination.
Call today about market shares ! Stocks sure to go up soon! Have that gated community dream home you always wanted!
TVI Corporation, Decontamination, Decon, Hazmat, and Tactical Shelters
Before Cheneyco is though, you’ll be glad you did!
Another PSA from your Uncle.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 17 2005 22:54 utc | 4
annie, the times will be eating crow for a long time.
PeeDee, the reason inflation will stay down is the forcing down of wages as in Delphi. Commodity prices can be offset by wages falling, thus not needing to raise prices for goods.
Posted by: jdp | Oct 18 2005 1:30 utc | 6
It may interest fans of Informed Comment that there is an interview with Juan Cole at TomDispatch.
I haven’t been frequenting Cole’s site for a while.
Although he is by far the most knowledgeable commentator on the Mid-East in the US I tend to disagree with some of his ‘solutions’ so I’m going to devour both parts of the interview to try and understand where Cole comes from.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Oct 18 2005 1:42 utc | 7
Oh, America is so decorous. Fascist hit squads here hide behind plane crashes & “suicides”. Guess that’s what happens when they come from CIA vs. Mafia backgrounds!
Posted by: jj | Oct 18 2005 2:34 utc | 9
@jj
The Strategy of Tension
(Italian; “strategia della tensione”) is a way to control and manipulate public opinion using propaganda, disinformation, psychological warfare, agents provocateurs and terror. Coined in Italy during the trials of the 1970s and 1980s terror attacks and murders committed by neofascist terrorists backed by deviated intelligence agencies or NATO’s secret stay-behind networks (“Gladio”). Other examples include Operation Condor in South America and events in Algeria during the 1990s.
Sound familiar ?
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 18 2005 3:00 utc | 10
Good Night and Good Luck, and Murrow speeches online
If you haven’t seen Good Night and Good Luck, you must. It’s an impeccable film about about the life and work of legendary CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow. More broadly, though, it explores the responsibilities of journalists — and the nature of courage, a quality not defined so much by the absence of fear as the willingness to act in spite of it.
Snip:
* The movie begins and ends with a famous speech delivered by Murrow at the Radio-Television News Directors Association (RTNDA) in 1958. It’s worth reading in entirety, and you can do that here
. Much of it seems just as relevant now, half a century after it was written:
much more goodness at boing boing..
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 18 2005 3:11 utc | 11
It’s so lonely & frankly embarrassing having to shoulder the burden of “enforcing order” upon the world all alone 🙁 Happily for xUS Elites, they have a very understanding Northern Neighbor:
Canada’s special forces unit has gone on a multimillion-dollar spending spree, outfitting itself with high-tech weaponry that is the envy of units throughout the military.
And lots more today in my fave webpaper…vicious attack on Canadian Teachers, link to Pepe Escobar art. in Asia Times (“How to Constitute a Civil War”)… link
Posted by: jj | Oct 18 2005 3:16 utc | 12
Uncle that’s very interesting. Was that developed by CIA et al. in Italy, w/its unique political dialectic?
Posted by: jj | Oct 18 2005 3:23 utc | 13
I picked this up on another blog. Apparently rep. tom coburn was on CSPAN tonight and said that the wall street Pirates destroyed so many american jobs that they have to cut/eliminate (?) Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid because there aren’t enough jobs left to sustain the payments.
Oh yes, and GM is accelerating the race to turn xAm. into Third World Country by forcing employees to forgo some/all medical insurance.
Posted by: jj | Oct 18 2005 4:25 utc | 14
Checking w/NY Daily News to see if they’ve published details of story Rawstory claims is breaking today, we discover bodies are showing up everywhere – even Sand Point, N.Y., the town F. Scott Fitzgerald used as a model for East Egg. Unidentified young woman bludgeoned to death and
dumped in L.I. village portrayed in ‘The Great Gatsby’
Posted by: jj | Oct 18 2005 11:07 utc | 15
With friends and allies like us who needs …
US troops kill 4 Afghan police by mistake -official
Reuters – 1 hour ago
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) – US troops shot four Afghan policemen dead and wounded another after mistaking them for militants during an operation in southern Afghanistan, a senior local official said on Tuesday. …
Posted by: Outraged | Oct 18 2005 11:23 utc | 16
Interesting social mapping via “books also bought by” Link
Divided we stand…
As ever the NYT proves itself to be just about good enough to wrap fish and chips in on a Friday night. Check out today’s news article, absolutely no mention of the Ninevah Province voting irregularities.
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Oct 18 2005 12:01 utc | 18
Billmon, do you mean this piece in The Guardian about plans for
attacking Iran?
Posted by: Anonymous | Oct 18 2005 12:01 utc | 19
Puplava on oil and consequences: THERE IS NO PLAN “B”
Interesting cite at the beginning.
“Two years ago, the Bush Administration set lofty objectives for the reconstruction of Iraq. These objectives, however, have never been met. Despite the spending of billions of taxpayer dollars, oil production and exports are below pre-war levels; electricity production is far below promised levels; and about one in every three Iraqis still lacks access to drinkable water. ”
Report: The Reconstruction of Iraq: Little to Show for Iraq Expenditures
Posted by: clip | Oct 18 2005 16:55 utc | 22
maybe, I’m just to jaded, but this seems about as likely to work as asking a serial killer to please pick someone else… but there it is:
The World Can’t Wait!
Drive Out the Bush Regime!
Mobilize for November 2, 2005!
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 18 2005 17:10 utc | 23
Scam’s post linking to the ‘opiates of the middle classes’ made me reflect.
The Swiss economy changed before and during WW2. A new arrangement was needed, and quickly set up. The Gvmt. sat down with as we call it here ‘l’économie’ (business etc.) and the workers (leftism was rampant) and hammered out a deal.
Mussolini had some influence here… The deal struck was that:
a) the Gvmt. would work with business, it was no longer possible to dissociate the two, the country needed to survive. The rule of law could not be considered separately from the food that would be available for children.
b) the workers needed stability and guarantees; business needed flexibility; and so la paix du travail was invented. This amounted to workers in x industries / professions negotiating with the owners periodically with both parties sticking -word of honor!- to their deals. Strikes were forbidden. (And still are, though some take place anyway.) Social aid (first just food, and today mud baths in exotic locales for joint pain..) was set up.
This model served CH well, particularly the ‘peace’ (and the word of honor, banking secrecy part, to cut a long story short!) The model is still applied today.
Now it is cracking. It has led to:
1) too much power to capital
2) endless pettifogging bureaucracy – a problem arises and the impulse has been to measure, study, analyse, legislate, control, etc.
3) a divorce between art, science, creativity and the economy, the last must keep on churning out growth and does it clumsily
4) a transfer of authority in many fields to the State, which now attempts to legislate everything, or paper over the abysmal cracks inefficiently, partly reluctantly, with tears in its eyes
5) a no-hope situation for the young, who are corralled
6) irrealistic expectations all over the board, imbalance in economic status, and potential explosions volcanically rumbling
The US is very different I know, still the similarities are there, even if they are framed otherwise.
The main difference is that CH does not export its problems by creating proxy wars (it has no colonial or genocidal past, on the surface..), but rather unconscioulsy seeks to suck the problems in – hubris! of a kind.
Posted by: Noisette | Oct 18 2005 17:18 utc | 24
@ Noisette
In 1956 a law was passed which ended up building 41,000 miles of interstate highways. 90% of the cost was born by the US Federal Government.
The US Government’s Marshall Plan forced Europeans to convert from coal to oil. When Europe asked the US for 47,000 freight cars and no trucks, the Marshall Plan sent 20,000 freight cars and 65,000 trucks. Thus by 1950, 11% of Marshall Plan “aid” was in oil – a wonderful boon for the US oil giants.
In 1945, the US Chamber of Commerce called for rural depopulation in order to create a mass of low-wage workers. Between 1945 and 1970 rural America lost one million farms and 25,000,000 people “one of the largest migrations in history.” The US Federal Dept. of Agriculture did everything possible to destroy the small farm and replace it with the technology and chemical dependent agro-business.
In the 1930’s only 5% of retail food sales were through supermarket chains. State-induced suburban sprawl destroyed the market gardens that used to surround every city. Thus the sale of produce was taken over by the supermarkets, who in turn pushed for corporate farming.
During the Second World War, William J. Levitt (Levittown) contracted to build housing for naval personel in Norfolk Virginia.(2)Levitt developed mass production methods for housing development. Levitt and imitators after the war used these techniques to develop the suburban housing tracts. Meanwhile, the Federal Government intervened in existing communities to separate commerce, work and residence. Mixed neighborhoods did not get funding for improvements. Furthermore, 40% of businesses evicted during housing renewal did not reopen. Their place was taken by corporations.
1. All info from THE DARK AGES by Marty Jezer, South End Press, 1982
2. African Americans were not allowed to live in Levittown – whites only!
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 18 2005 17:39 utc | 25
@ Noisette
In 1956 a law was passed which ended up building 41,000 miles of interstate highways. 90% of the cost was born by the US Federal Government.
The US Government’s Marshall Plan forced Europeans to convert from coal to oil. When Europe asked the US for 47,000 freight cars and no trucks, the Marshall Plan sent 20,000 freight cars and 65,000 trucks. Thus by 1950, 11% of Marshall Plan “aid” was in oil – a wonderful boon for the US oil giants.
In 1945, the US Chamber of Commerce called for rural depopulation in order to create a mass of low-wage workers. Between 1945 and 1970 rural America lost one million farms and 25,000,000 people “one of the largest migrations in history.” The US Federal Dept. of Agriculture did everything possible to destroy the small farm and replace it with the technology and chemical dependent agro-business.
In the 1930’s only 5% of retail food sales were through supermarket chains. State-induced suburban sprawl destroyed the market gardens that used to surround every city. Thus the sale of produce was taken over by the supermarkets, who in turn pushed for corporate farming.
During the Second World War, William J. Levitt (Levittown) contracted to build housing for naval personel in Norfolk Virginia.(2)Levitt developed mass production methods for housing development. Levitt and imitators after the war used these techniques to develop the suburban housing tracts. Meanwhile, the Federal Government intervened in existing communities to separate commerce, work and residence. Mixed neighborhoods did not get funding for improvements. Furthermore, 40% of businesses evicted during housing renewal did not reopen. Their place was taken by corporations.
1. All info from THE DARK AGES by Marty Jezer, South End Press, 1982
2. African Americans were not allowed to live in Levittown – whites only!
Think New Orleans…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 18 2005 17:40 utc | 26
TV- tip for tonight for US folks: The Torture Question PBS Frontline – could be interesting
The film begins with a policy born out of fear and anger and tracks how increasingly tough measures were taken to gather information about Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, and finally the rising insurgency in Iraq. In an examination that begins at the White House and ends in the public debate about alleged abuses at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Abu Ghraib, policy makers, government interrogators, and their subjects talk to FRONTLINE about their experiences as part of this internal battle.
A friend from up north sent me this today:
Ontario throws former Eron sales chief out of securities business Which is a lot more than the Alberta Government has done with its own homegrown scandal around Enron manipulating the deregulation of the Provinces electrical grid.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 18 2005 18:08 utc | 28
Uncle $cam,
Saw the movie last weekend and recommend it.
Posted by: Pat | Oct 18 2005 18:16 utc | 29
With regards to this , I say, Relax and be a fascist
…the fascist terms of political endearment are refreshingly straightforward and mercifully simple, many of them already accepted and understood by a gratifyingly large number of our most forward‑thinking fellow citizens, multitasking and safe with Jesus.
It does no good to ask the weakling’s pointless question, “Is America a fascist state?” We must ask instead, in a major rather than a minor key, “Can we make America the best damned fascist state the world has ever seen,” an authoritarian paradise deserving
the admiration of the international capital markets..?
I wish to be the first to say we can.
We’re Americans; we have the money and the know‑how to succeed where Hitler failed, and history has favored us with advantages not given to the early pioneers.
Also see:
Pop Psychoanalysis
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 18 2005 19:23 utc | 30
Well, Uncle, discussions are under way as we write for a new VP…Unfortunately, no one high enough has flipped yet, to jettison Idiot Boy…
But here’s the Official Portrait of the Sinister One in apparently the final moments of his tenure: Cheney resignation rumors fly (from US News & World Rpt.)
Posted by: jj | Oct 18 2005 19:43 utc | 31
Hey jj I love that link you put up. In today’s ‘politically correct’ world an honest repug can’t say what’s on his mind. So instead of saying “A black woman will be offsiding chimpee over my dead body!”
We get the lame:
“Isn’t she pro-choice?” asked a key Senate Republican aide.”
Posted by: Debs is dead | Oct 18 2005 20:24 utc | 32
While xAm. ec. & political elites plot to steal everything they can from us while hollowing out our govt., a retired Canadian politican isn’t going to work for wall street – like John Edwards, and…. Damn, those Canadians are sooo un-American. He’s put together a proposal to build a mega wind farm up North:
Gilbert Parent, recently retired from political life in Canada, has proposed building a 30 GW wind farm in the country’s northern regions. That’s roughly the current power generation capacity of Ontario (home to about 40% of Canada’s population of 32 million).
link
Posted by: jj | Oct 19 2005 2:53 utc | 35
Don’t know about Hebrew, but in Arabic there is actually no “P” (it’s OK, they have several letters that we lack but seem as obvious to them as “P” is to us)… so the notion that “Plame” gets transmuted to “Flame” by damage in transit through Arabic is not obviously crazy.
great one uncle $, particularly on how all our “freedoms” can be spared in the process — and remain on a pedistal for the world to see ( and be envious of)
Posted by: anna missed | Oct 19 2005 5:37 utc | 37
Wilma is getting nasty, but the projected track looks weired.
Based on dropsonde and flight-level data from an Air Force plane just returning from its mission in Wilma…the minimum central pressure is estimated to be 882 mb…26.05 inches. This is the lowest pressure on record for a hurricane in the Atlantic Basin.
Chris Allbritton from Baghdad in TIME Stealing Votes in Iraq?
The Electoral Commission plan is an attempt to reestablish the legitimacy of the poll, but the real outcome of the voting may no longer matter. Iraqi political discussion is often ruled by conspiracy theories and tribal passions rather than by evidence and cool reason. Whatever the findings of the Electoral Commission, the constitution will likely be viewed as compromised by many Sunnis, its passage seen as proof that the political process has been rigged against them from the start
…
It is in Mosul, in Nineveh Province, that the Sunnis may have their best reason to cry foul. Early numbers from the Associated Press — which aren’t endorsed by the Electoral Commission — showed almost twice as many “yes” votes for the constitution as the total number of voters in January’s elections for the National Assembly, meaning that every new voter and then some voted for the constitution. Nineveh is generally considered a majority Sunni province, and Mosul was the hometown of many of Iraq’s generals and other officers before the 2003 invasion.
“Mosul doesn’t make any sense,” said Mutlaq.
U.S. soldiers stationed in Mosul told TIME that District Election Officers had moved polling sites that day, confusing voters. In one case, they claimed, an official had moved a polling site to his office at another school two miles from the old site without informing anyone. There were also reports of election officials separating the vote tally sheets from the ballot boxes, allowing them to be marked separately — and possibly fraudulently.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if the election was rigged,” said a U.S. Army officer in Mosul who requested anonymity and who worked on security arrangements for the poll with Iraqi security and election officials. “I don’t even trust our election process.”
Frightening: The Guardian Are we going to war with Iran?
Looks likely – goddammed idiots
@b
Gone into it in detail before, however, short version … if the US/UK or Israel invade a third islamic nation ‘unilaterally’ or even carry out a decisive punitive ‘air strike/war’ … we can all kiss peace and prosperity goodbye for at least a generation … it would be handing Al-Qaeda and the ‘Arab street’ a political and moral fait accompli re an anti-western agenda re Infidels/crusaders … actions do speak louder than rhetoric … and given the shifting sands of geoplitical and economic power and alliances … potentially a ‘Guns of August’ moment for an assymetric WWIII.
Striking or invading Iran in the current Global/ME climate is my worst nightmare …
Posted by: Outraged | Oct 19 2005 14:02 utc | 41
Spanish Judge Issues Warrant for Three GIs
Wednesday October 19, 2005 1:46 PM
MADRID, Spain (AP) – A judge has issued an international arrest warrant for three U.S. soldiers whose tank fired on a Baghdad hotel during the Iraq war, killing a Spanish journalist and one other, a court official said Wednesday.
We are fast running out of friends in what is becoming an arguably justly hostile world …
Posted by: Outraged | Oct 19 2005 14:05 utc | 43
The Brits are masters of droll understatement … how dissapointing for the ‘powers that be’ … just when one is revelling in unilateral imperial war adventures the masses are’nt keen to volunteer to die, be maimed or sell thier souls …
War in Iraq putting off recruits, says (British) army
The army is facing a recruitment crisis triggered partly by its operations in Iraq, senior officers admitted yesterday. They are so concerned they are launching the first campaign in 10 years to attract young officers. “We are beginning to see the warning signs,” one officer who asked not to be named said. “Once you start tipping off over the cliff, it is difficult to stop.”
The shortfall in the total number of soldiers has risen by more than 300% this year to more than 2,000, according to the latest Ministry of Defence figures. Though figures do not yet show a shortage in the number of officers, they reveal that more are leaving the army early…
Posted by: Outraged | Oct 19 2005 14:18 utc | 44
@ Outraged
Nice to see you back here shedding light on dark corners. I have my doubts that Israel will attack Iran,
despite the long campaign of saber rattling it has fostered, nay, created from scratch. My reason for
this optimism (about Israel’s likely actions, not about
what the U.S. might do for their “indispensable ally”) is
that Israel has long term back channel deals with Iran, even including the mullah regime. The Iran-Contra affair was in large measure an Israeli operation, and surely a number of Mossad types became rich in the process. Iran is moslem but not arab, so figures at a lower level in conventional Israeli demonology. Furthermore, there must be some faction within Israeli military intelligence capable of grasping the folly of such action (although possibly not the dominant faction) even in the crimped optic of Israeli national interest.
All in all, it looks much more likely that they will once again act via third parties, quite possibly supplying the needed false flag “stimulus” to produce the desire effect. And of course, our witless Democrats will continue to try to be more zionist than Bush, thus virtually guaranteeing knee-jerk support for (suitably framed) aggression.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Oct 19 2005 14:22 utc | 45
Missing witnesses hamper investigation
Dozens of witnesses failed to show up for the Hussein trial. These things are so hard to stage-manage, aren’t they?
Posted by: clip | Oct 19 2005 14:27 utc | 46
@HKO’L
Glad to be back, lergely peronally ‘well’, reading and enjoying the posts of MOA/Billmon vets as well as some insightful new posters 🙂
I mentioned Israel only as a possibility or motivating/driving/manipulative force … and dare I suggest many would probably be surprised to find many in the Israeli Mossad, Shin Bet and MI are regarded by Sharon and his Zionist hardliners as ‘soft’ moderates !!!
Israel will sell technology, especially military, to anyone who will pay in hard currency … much like the former CCCP … that includes thier sworn enemy and sole remaining potential strategic ME foe, Iran.
Baiting the US/UK to neutralize Iran without spending Israeli treasure or blood would be seen as a dream come true for the hardline Zionists … a ‘hat trick’ re Afghanistan, Iraq & Iran … yet a potentially suicidal folly …
As the saying goes – ‘Be careful what you wish for …’
Posted by: Outraged | Oct 19 2005 14:42 utc | 47
@HKO’L
Dare I suggest focusing on Israeli online press articles re anything Iran for a week or so and you’ll soon discover the rather rabid outlook they’re promoting … they are leading the pack (US/UK) re agenda driven anti-Iranian rhetoric, fact-twisting and imagined provocations … much like the US elites can never forget the Iranian hostage debacle the Israeli elites can never forget thier humiliating defeat and withdrawal from occupied Southern Lebanon by the ‘rabble’ that is the Iranian backed and financed (Shia) Hizbollah …
Posted by: Outraged | Oct 19 2005 14:50 utc | 48
Demonization of Iraqi leader continues
No, not THAT one, do try and keep up!
Posted by: clip | Oct 19 2005 15:05 utc | 49
@ Outraged
Thanks for the suggestion: I’ll take a look
and expect confirmation of what you say. My “optimism” may prove to be wishful thinking, but at least there are cogent reasons to hold back now, and, as Iraq shows, the Mossad is quite capable of implementing long term projects in dissimulation. The present “chaotic” situation in Iraq can well be viewed as the capstone of a long term Israeli project to Balkanize its Arab neighbors.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Oct 19 2005 15:23 utc | 50
@clip
Well the problem with puppets/stooges is that they are rarely ‘strong leaders’ … an undesirable trait in one who should be easily manipulated and fawningly subservient … look at the Mayor of Kabul for example …
Is it just me or is the constant short-term hearty applause and then effective ridicule of each successive supposed Iraqi ‘PM’ so very Deja vu re the corrupt and equally powerless and emasculated series of puppet rulers in those bygone and heady days of South Vietnam ?
Or do the US/UK imperialists just subconciously, in a pique of nostalgia, wish Saddam was still ‘running’ the show circa pre 1990 ?
Oh well, Allawi and Chalabi are still waiting in the wings for a suitably managed and US/UK sponsored ‘staged’ ascendancy … if we’re lucky maybe even a ‘necessary’ bloody or blooodless coup for the greater good of all of Iraq !?
Posted by: Outraged | Oct 19 2005 15:29 utc | 51
“Ah, For The Good Old Days Of Secular Fascist Dictatorship”
October 12, 2005 Center for Defense Information Via Interpax
“There was electricity for air conditioners in the summer.
“There was running water.
“You could drive across Baghdad without encountering anything more serious than a shakedown from local police.
“In prewar days, a person could a have beer without worrying about getting his or her head chopped off. A woman could teach in a university without religious nut cases blowing her brains out, as had already happened to three female professors at the University of mosul in northern Iraq.
“Ah, for the good old days of secular fascist dictatorship.”
— Col. Chet Richards, US Airforce Reserve
Posted by: Outraged | Oct 19 2005 17:21 utc | 52
You might want to correct the date listed on the most recent post “What Did He Know and When Did He Know It?” It shows “October 19, 2003” twice for the New York Daily News story which appeared today.
Posted by: Rick Alber | Oct 19 2005 17:24 utc | 53
US soldiers in Afghanistan burnt the bodies of dead Taliban and taunted their opponents about the corpses, in an act deeply offensive to Muslims and in breach of the Geneva conventions.
An investigation by SBS’s Dateline program, to be aired tonight, filmed the burning of the bodies.
It also filmed a US Army psychological operations unit broadcasting a message boasting of the burnt corpses into a village believed to be harbouring Taliban.
According to an SBS translation of the message, delivered in the local language, the soldiers accused Taliban fighters near Kandahar of being “cowardly dogs”. “You allowed your fighters to be laid down facing west and burnt. You are too scared to retrieve their bodies. This just proves you are the lady boys we always believed you to be,” the message reportedly said.
“You attack and run away like women. You call yourself Taliban but you are a disgrace to the Muslim religion, and you bring shame upon your family. Come and fight like men instead of the cowardly dogs you are.”
The burning of a body is a deep insult to Muslims. Islam requires burial within 24 hours.
Under the Geneva conventions the burial of war dead “should be honourable, and, if possible, according to the rites of the religion to which the deceased belonged”.
Film rolls as troops burn dead
Posted by: clip | Oct 19 2005 18:01 utc | 54
The drums war ?
Rice Won’t Rule Out Force on Syria, Iran
Republican Sens. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island were among several lawmakers who asked Rice whether the Bush administration was considering military action against Iran and Syria, and asked whether the president would circumvent congressional authorization if the White House chose that option.
“I will not say anything that constrains his authority as commander in chief,” Rice said.
The lawmakers’ queries followed Rice’s earlier remarks that: “Syria and, indeed, Iran must decide whether they wish to side with the cause of war or with the cause of peace.”
Posted by: Outraged | Oct 19 2005 18:12 utc | 55
This oughta shake some people up… Bill Gates dumps dollar for euro
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 19 2005 19:01 utc | 56
don’t know if this will go through. I tried awhile ago to post a response to $cam’s post, but typepad balked.
In art. $cam links, Billy is quoted as saying to Charlie Rose “the ole’ dollar is going down”. So, can we have Treason trials for deliberately bankrupting the economy?? Bu$h, Cheney, Greenmad, Sumner Redstone, Wall Street, everyone who aided & abetted them?
Posted by: jj | Oct 19 2005 20:52 utc | 57
More than 100 detainees have died in U.S. custody since 2002, Human Rights First research in a soon to be released report indicates, including 27 cases the Army has to date identified as suspected or confirmed homicides, and at least seven cases in which detainees were tortured to death.
27 detainee homicides in U.S. custody
Posted by: greg | Oct 19 2005 21:55 utc | 58
Compared to the links here, last night’s Frontline was tame. It placed some blame for torture on Rumsfeld and General Miller, tangentially on John Yoo (The baby-faced fascist lawyer PBS loves to interview) and Sanchez, but other than that, I’d have to say that Republicans would be satisfied. No context of history of American torturing, little use of the word itself, preferring legalisms and references to the humanity of it in genral, no mention of our other prisons throughout Iraq, no mention of our constitution going down the drain and the threat these precedents set for Americans, no mention of the deaths we have caused, no mention of the trailerfulls of Afghans we murdered or supervised the murder of after the Afghan invasion. All in all, typical PBS “he said, she said” coverage–“Well, it might be wrong, but this is war and it might be necessary.”
Preacher of the profane
Daniel Binswanger on Giorgio Agamben
The article originally appeared in German in Die Weltwoche on October 13, 2005.
Translation: jab.
Along with para-academic Zeitgeist philosophers, militant opponents of globalisation have discovered Agamben as a guiding intellectual force. He is now one of the few European intellectuals of stature with anarchistic street credibility.(…)
Agamben’s fidelity to Heidegger is absolute. Until now it was difficult in Germany to use Heidegger for subversive purposes. What stood in the way was not only Heidegger’s compromised Nazi past, but also his provincial cultural conservatism. The Frankfurt School was unconditional in its rejection of the Freiburg prophet of being. But now all this is history: a Heideggerian Benjamin-editor has become anarchy’s new darling. By way of Verona and Paris, the German master has finally been cleared of his Nazism. An astonishing triumph of ignorance.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 20 2005 0:02 utc | 60
that is one of the saddest testimonies to modern philosophy – that it neither understands the messianic precision of walter benjamin, the lucid ethics of ludwig wittgenstein, the pure & clear understanding of the state brought by nicos poulantzes & louis althusser
agamben is not the first nor will he be the last to use the fraudelent & thin theoretical base of herr heidegger – who in any case stole what was to be known from husserl & jaspers whom he ridiculed & taunted
in the late sixties – such stupid things like est, forum, rajaneesh etc etc etc neurolinguistics & every brand of secondhand shamanism depended on their herr heiddeger & his implicit hatred of the people as either metaphor or actuality
these dummies have bever read their reich – neither wilhelm or the third – they are the cleaners of a shithouse that still stinks to high heaven
dear gunter grass in his density has put paid to herr heidegger, so too habermas – & in his satori in the black forest – paul celan proved what a fascist heidegger remained. a smalltown pastor
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 20 2005 0:31 utc | 61
agreed R’giap,
The Postmodernity of Heidegger= Listen Little Man .
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 20 2005 1:59 utc | 62
Heidegger’s essay on technology and the 4 vol. lectures on Nietzsche are astounding, beautiful.
Posted by: slothrop | Oct 20 2005 3:01 utc | 63
Propaganda and the Human Mind
Today’s show is about the topic of propaganda. Our guest will be Orville Schell, Dean of the Berkeley School of Journalism. The episode will focus on the nature of propaganda, on what precisely is wrong with it, on the difference between the production and dissemination of propaganda in democratic and totalitarian societies and on what we can do to combat it.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 20 2005 3:11 utc | 64
these dummies have bever read their reich – neither wilhelm or the third
You were close to making me wet my laptop, R-G.
Thanks for your insight.
Re: Frontline
They kept using the phrase “actionable intelligence” when discussing the prisoners at Gitmo and Abu Graib, without ever defining what that could mean.
I mean, it’s four years since 9-11. What could those guys, who are just grunts, possibly know at this point. The whole country has changed–they probably don’t even know who the mayor of Kabul is.
@Malooga
Gitmo has never been primarily about obtaining intelligence. The really grubby dirty work is done in somewhat obscure locations in very dark corners of the world. Think Guam and Diego Garcia …
Gitmo is the modern equivalent of an early Third Reich concentration camp and Bush&Co welcome a degree of public exposure, free advertising of thier message. Its a sanitised version of an early dachau but presented through the prism of a modern advertising executive … quite ‘presentable’ (3 meals a day, balmy climate, etc), yet very definitely ‘on message’.
Gitmo is a declarative statement. It’s existence and in the recent context is a neon sign, a billboard to the worlds largely non-American citizens, effectively declaring – “Don’t fuck with us, don’t even think about it. We (Empire) are above any law, any convention, any constraint. See with your own eyes … and tremble.”
The secondary purpose of Gitmo is as a ‘DR Mengele’ like R&D facility. The inmates are valuable human guinea pigs, logs, for refining and developing highly sophisticated physical and psychological interrogation techniques that can be ‘plausibly denied’ as not actually constituting a legal definition of torture … the permanent life long destructive effects for those that resist are truly tragic.
The existence of these early concentration camps and the rumours surrounding them instilled a nagging sense of fear among all Germans and effectively suppressed any political opposition to Hitler and the Nazi regime.
Brief summary of the early Nazi conentration camps
Posted by: Outraged | Oct 20 2005 4:59 utc | 67
“Think Guam and Diego Garcia”
The truly maddening part of that is that the inhabitants of both Guam and Diego Garcia are appalled at the prescense of the bases there let alone the torture centres within them.
Anyone who imagines that true colonialism died out after WW2 should do a bit of a google on Diego Garcia.
I would put the links in but researching the topic makes me simultaneously mad and sad.
After the US informed Britain who were meant to be looking after the place as a protectorate for the UN, that it would be a great place for a nuclear base, the brits went and rounded up the inhabitants getting the last of em sometime in the early 70’s they shipped them en masse to Mauritaus and dropped them at the docks. A couple thousand really nice people with a unique culture.
They have tried and tried to get compensation but the Brits won’t give them a brass razoo. Why? because they are worried that if the Diago Garcians ever got their hands on some real money they would be able to get justice in the International courts.
So they have let these people starve.
The US attitude is the Brits told em the place was uninhabited and that’s that.
Guam is about as bad. The locals there have been ruined by the the alcohol, drugs and sexual colonialism that goes hand in hand with such places. I had to do a report up there once on the impact of military bases on indigenous populations.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Oct 20 2005 5:51 utc | 69
Nader interviews Wm. Sloan Coffin. (For the youngsters around here, Coffin is a true Christian, a Much Valued Leader in Anti-War Mvmt., Vietnam version, and Generally One of America’s Finest.)
Rev. William Sloane Coffin: Sacrifice in and of itself confers no sanctity.
…
RN: What should the U.S. government do now?
WSC: The U.S. government should realize that if we can’t defeat the insurgents, we have lost. The insurgents, on the other hand, have only not to lose to declare victory. And to defeat the United States and its allies might go a long way to assuage, to offset the humiliation and rage so many Muslims presently feel. All of which indicates we should start to withdraw our troops. What we shouldn’t do is to believe President Bush when he says that to honor those who have died, more Americans must die. That’s using examples of his failures to promote still greater failures.
…
RN: What broader advice do you have for strengthening our democracy and confronting the concentration of power and wealth over the life-sustaining directions our country (with its impact on the world) needs to take? Please address any specific reforms that demand priority.
WSC: Something happened to our understanding of freedom. Centuries ago Saint Augustine called freedom of choice the “small freedom,” libertas minor. Libertas Maior, the big freedom was to make the right choices, to be fearless and selfless enough to choose to serve the common good rather than to seek personal gain.
That understanding of freedom was not foreign to our eighteenth century forebears who were enormously influenced by Montesquieu, the French thinker who differentiated despotism, monarchy, and democracy. In each he found a special principle governing social life. For despotism the principle was fear; for monarch, honor; and for democracy, not freedom but virtue. In The Broken Covenant, Robert Bellah quotes him as writing that “it is this quality rather than fear or ambition, that makes things work in a democracy.”
According to Bellah, Samuel Adams agreed: “We may look to armies for our defense, but virtue is our best security. It is not possible that any state should long remain free where virtue is not supremely honored.”
Freedom, virtue – these two were practically synonymous in the minds of our revolutionary forbears. To them it was not inconceivable that an individual would be granted freedom merely for the satisfaction of instinct and whims. Freedom was not the freedom to do as you please but rather, if you will, the freedom to do as you ought! Freedom, virtue – they were practically synonymous a hundred years later in the mind of Abraham Lincoln when, in his second inaugural address, he called for “a new birth of freedom.” But today, because we have so cruelly separated freedom from virtue, because we define freedom in a morally inferior way, our country is stalled in what Herman Melville call the “Dark Ages of Democracy,” a time when as he predicted, the New Jerusalem would turn into Babylon, and Americans would feel “the arrest of hope’s advance.”
link
(Sorry, B-, I know it’s a bit long, but I thought it was worth quoting this section in full.)
Posted by: jj | Oct 20 2005 5:56 utc | 70
Outraged, I agree on one level. But I think the Most Impt. Function of Gitmo is an attempt to put flesh on the scarecrow “War On Terra”. It’s theater. They refused to go after Osama bin Forgotten. They refused to prosecute the anyone for the Anthrax attacks. Gitmo exists: a) ‘Cuz they had to distract the masses from this, while convincing them that world is full of terraists, so many we have to build special prisons to house them. They’d look like fools if they’d arrested no one, so they grabbed anyone they could as replacements – hell, all the masses are fungible to them anyway. b) If you look at how they defined terraists in the unpatriotic act they’re really after American dissenters. But nobody would allow them to be treated to way MaleMuslims can be. Thus they need those poor suckers as guinea pigs to build entirely new body of law in preparation for declaration of Martial Law, necessitated by all the “liberalization” they’ve been implementing to bankrupt us all. Remember fascism is best implemented incrementally, so start building the legal architecture w/the Hated Other.
It’s worth remembering something about which far too little has been written. They got warm bodies to stuff in Gitmo the same way they got slaves over here back when. They bought ’em. Truthout sent out exc. article on this. They went to Pakistan & asked who knew a terraist, brandishing Fistfuls of Money to pay people for turning ’em in. These guys turned in anyone they hated for the desperately needed bucks. That’s why they can’t have trials, unless they tortured the hell out of them.
Posted by: jj | Oct 20 2005 6:36 utc | 71
We’ve heard that Cheney is physically decaying, but does he need a cane to walk now? Check out this photo, not in xUS press, of course. link
Posted by: jj | Oct 20 2005 7:16 utc | 72
@jj
No arguments here … all very true … if they manage to solidly establish precedents re ‘terrarists’ then ‘troublesome’ American dissidents will eventually be next …
Then they came for me
Posted by: Outraged | Oct 20 2005 14:54 utc | 74
Everyone’s favorite Old Bat Helen Thomas took a switch to rich kid Scotty McClellan
Turns out we killed 18 kids in a airstrike today and Helen was trying to get some answers from our “err on the side of life” administration. Especially take a good look at Scotty’s response at the end… the lines between “us” and “them” are blurring.
Posted by: Outraged | Oct 20 2005 16:25 utc | 76
Well, we’ve certainly got our prioities right … NOT !
Congress OKs Gun Industry Lawsuit Shield
WASHINGTON (AP) – Congress gave the gun lobby its top legislative priority Thursday, passing a bill that would protect the firearms industry from massive lawsuits brought by crime victims. The White House says President Bush will sign it into law …
Posted by: Outraged | Oct 20 2005 16:36 utc | 77
Our duplicity robs us of the moral high ground over Iran and Nuclear Power
Posted by: Outraged | Oct 20 2005 17:11 utc | 78
outraged
you contribute a tornado of information & links & i for one benefit directly from your offerings. i’ve said this before but i wanted you to know it
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 20 2005 18:32 utc | 79
@R’Giap
If you know in your heart it is wrong and say or do nothing ?
I only wish I could do more against the tide …
Time to go and surreptitiously blush in the corner … with a Guinness and some barsnacks, mon ami 😉
Posted by: Outraged | Oct 21 2005 3:33 utc | 80