Excuse typos above horrify -> horrifying.

Posted by: jj | Sep 23 2006 18:28 utc | 4

It’s possible he’s really dead. He’s not a well man – he’s had malaria for decades, he’s pushing fifty and living in a part of the world with a low life expectancy and bad health care (and I doubt Dr Zawahiri makes house calls these days).

Posted by: Danyl Mclauchlan | Sep 23 2006 22:42 utc | 6

So our homegrown apocalyptic, soon-to-be raptured Christian Dispensationalists thought they had the End-of-Days market cornered. Well, wait… not quite: according to Juan Cole, the Iraqi Az-Zaman newspaper reports that the cleric Muqtada alSadr

maintained that the US Department of Defense has compiled an enormous file on the hidden Twelfth Imam, that is virtually complete save that it lacks his photograph.
[For Shiite Muslims, the Twelfth Imam or Imam Mahdi is a little like Jesus Christ for evangelical Christians. Shiites believe that the Imam was translated by God into a supernatural realm, from which he secretly rules the world and from which he will one day return to restore the world to justice.] Al-Sadr said during his Friday prayer sermon in Kufa that “The United States has been preparing for ten years a rapid reaction force against the awaited Imam Mahdi and the US provoked the Gulf War so as to fill the region with military outposts for this purpose.”

I will never doubt again that life is stranger than fiction.

Posted by: Guthman Bey | Sep 24 2006 0:07 utc | 8

thanks, anon, @ 9. 🙂

Posted by: conchita | Sep 24 2006 2:01 utc | 10

I wish them all God speed to the blessed afterlife they crave.
Guthman Bey hopes nobody is listening as he says: “Amen.”

Posted by: Guthman Bey | Sep 24 2006 2:16 utc | 12

Question for the geopolitical experts and expert linkers:
I am getting somewhat confused when I read news articles about the US and China participating in joint naval exercises. When the Bushies got into office, they immediately zeroed in on China as an Enemy (some people wrote that the war in Afghanistan provided a convenient excuse to have a military presence to the west of China.) Meanwhile, Iraq was used to drive the western Euros away – so much for trading oil on the Euro, “Old Europe”, “freedom fries”, etc. Russia has not exactly been embraced as an ally, and seems to hover in limbo as a somewhat friendly rival. In other words…I can’t detect any kind of pattern of trying to stop anyone. All I have are these theories:
1. The Bushies are completely honest: They are actually attempting to fight what they perceive as global terrorism, and have been since 9/11. Incompetently, of course, but there is no overall strategic goal other than the safety of the United States and its interests.
2. The Bushies have no plan: They simply are distracted by whatever shiny object appears and confronts them. Chinese spy plane? 9/11? Saddam? Iran? Sounds fun, go go go!
3. The plan IS to beat up on everyone: The Bushies believe that US is powerful enough to be the world’s only superpower and go it alone. The overarching strategic goal, then, isn’t to limit any specific country or interests, but rather, to ally with whomever is convenient to take whomever is available down a peg or three. If this means offending old allies and making new allies (to offend them too), so be it. The United States can use allies, but its needs are supreme.

Posted by: Rowan | Sep 24 2006 2:33 utc | 14

@Antifa
Know anything about how one makes a citizen’s arrest for war crimes? I seem to recall that anyone can do it in the name of the public good… is there any basis to my recollection, do you know? If so, maybe there is something that can be done, once these criminals leave office… presuming they are protected by immunity while in office? I really would like to know more about the international laws on all of that.

Posted by: Bea | Sep 24 2006 2:47 utc | 16

@Bea, see this story discussing N.H. citizen who tried the restraining order route:
A federal judge on Wednesday denied a former Republican congressional candidate’s request for a restraining order barring President Bush or Vice President Richard Cheney from bombing Iran or Syria.
Mary Maxwell, 59, of 179 Loudon Road, Apt. 10, Concord, filed a lawsuit Monday against Bush, Cheney and other “unnamed defendants actively engaging in acts of war against Iran and Syria in the guise of the war against terrorism.”
Maxwell’s suit seeks a ruling that the administration lacks legal authority to pre-emptively attack either Iran or Syria without a Congressional declaration of war, and that radioactive fallout from the use of nuclear weapons in any such attack would endanger people around the world, including herself. link

Posted by: jj | Sep 24 2006 2:57 utc | 18

A Detainee’s Story: The Man Who Has Been to America

IN THE ENEMY COMBATANT’S HOUSE, in the room where he eats and prays and sleeps, a single window casts its light on a single adornment: an enormous Soviet-era map of the world. It is the first thing I notice after I arrive unannounced one cold fall morning and am ushered into the warmth of the room…
The enemy combatant serves the tea. He smiles, and two wrinkles appear on his left cheek. I ask him his full name. Muhibullo Abdulkarim Umarov, he tells me. He says he is 24 years old. He asks, “You want to know the story of my capture, yes?”…
Two Americans were running the jail, both blond, one with long hair, one short. One was a “strong man,” big and muscular; the other had an average build. Neither wore a military uniform. “The reason I knew they were Americans,” Umarov says, “is that they told me so.” Later, he would hear that America paid bounties for suspected terrorists, and he would wonder if he, too, had been purchased…
Ahliddin tries to change the subject. “In Pakistan,” he says, “I met a family that had lived in America. They’d worked as dog washers.” He tries to say the words in En-glish: “dog wah sir.” We keep eating, pondering the absurdity that, somewhere in the world, it could be a man’s job to wash a dog. “That’s what’s wrong with America,” Kubad announces. “When a dog is dirty, you think it’s a problem. When a real problem comes, you don’t know what to do”…
The last investigator he met was an old man, and he [Umarov] was brought to him free of chains. The investigator was tall, with gray hair and a belly… He sat down at the table, and the investigtor made a speech… “He said that in a war situation, there are always people who are affected who were not guilty. He felt sad that two years had been taken from my life, and that I’d been kept away from my family.”…
At 2 a.m. on March 31, 2004, Muhibullo Abdulkarim Umarov, along with his two Tajik friends and a dozen others, walked without chains through a gauntlet of soldiers at the Guantanamo airfield. Journalists’ flashes popped and cameras rolled as the procession of detainees passed, and two guards—a man and a woman—carefully helped Umarov board an airplane. Inside its belly, away from the journalists, they then handcuffed him and chained him down, and they covered his eyes with the same plastic glasses. They covered his ears with the headphones. They covered his mouth with tape. “But this time we were not chained to the floor,” he says. “We were chained to the benches.”

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Sep 24 2006 3:13 utc | 20

From rense.com, an open letter from an affirmed republican to war criminal george bush. if only the dems would speak like this.

Open Letter To War Criminal George Bush
By Joe Cortina
http://
9-21-6
Mr. Bush:
I cannot in good conscience call you my ‘President’. That undeserved and unearned degree of respect would stick in my throat like warm vomit. – I respect the title, but do not respect you ­ NO decent American does. You are not only a disgrace to your high office, but a debasement to the dreams of our Founding Fathers. Your conduct is untrustworthy traitorous and treacherous to the good people of this country. You can forget the predictable disrespectful letter nonsense.
You must FIRST be proven WORTHY of respect to assess any criticism ‘disrespectful’.
You have broken the Holy oath you took as President. “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. So help me God” I took a very similar oath – but unlike you I have been true to MY oath. The ‘enemies’ DO include ALL ­ both FOREIGN ( our mortal enemy Israel) and DOMESTIC (you and your cabal of Israeli loyal neo-con traitors)
You have mocked God by your outrageous blasphemies and your sadistic murder of countless innocent lives ­ especially children. Your conduct will indeed merit the Scriptural “millstone about your neck and cast into the sea”. You are a monster (certainly not worthy of being called a “MAN”) of exceptional cruelty and evil ­ a consummate liar and hypocrite of biblical proportions.
History WILL eventually hail you as not only the most evil President in the history of the United States ­ but one of the most evil persons in history PERIOD! While you were leading your privileged life of a millionaire in grade school, I was training combat troops during the worst war crisis since WWII. Most of these ­ over 1,000 – were decent young warriors ­ not our modern day civilian murderers who do your dirty work without conscience because you tell them that God is on OUR side ­ what blasphemous arrogance.
Your mockery of Christian belief and conduct, as presented by our Lord Christ is so obnoxious that you must know the nature of your fate in the hereafter. Your lack of contrition for the unspeakable war crimes you have committed against helpless innocent civilians has sealed your fate in hell ­ where you WILL spend eternity.
Particularly odious in the eyes of God ­ must be your WILLFUL conduct in the implementation of especially sinister war weapons against civilian populaces ­ so cruel that you will find that even the WWII German Army did not in conscience employ these horrid things against helpless civilians ­ especially trapped or escaping refugees.
The ridicule and contempt for God ­ by swearing that HE ­ the Prince of Peace ­ commanded you to murder countless non-combatant men women and children ­ is blasphemy without equal in history. You will be reviled by generations to come ­ for your unparalleled treason and murder. The TRUTH of the 9-11 conspiracy WILL be exposed and I pray ­ along with countless millions of freedom loving people worldwide that you are convicted and hung as the mega-criminal that you most assuredly are.
How DARE you slander my good name and those of countless other REAL patriots who have unhesitatingly placed themselves in harm’s way for love of God and country – with insults of “traitor” ­ when you yourself have betrayed AN ENTIRE NATION.
I am a Veteran Mr. Bush ­ and a member of the dysfunctional incompetent under- funded VA hospital Administration. I discovered that I could not get the drugs preferred by my physician. I asked WHY the VA would NOT Supply these life saving drugs. Their answer? Because “they were more expensive that other similar drugs”. Well some of those ‘substitute similar’ drugs made me sick and it was months of my discomfort before it was discovered.
In other words ­ MY government ­ the most powerful and RICH nation on EARTH ­ CAN afford ­ at YOUR ORDER ­ to send the most deadly and agonizing weaponry to the Zionists ­ by special airlift ­ at the cost of MILLIONS of our hard earned dollars – so they can murder MORE civilians ­ YOU FULL WELL KNOWING OF THE IMMINANT CEASE FIRE! Isn’t that right ‘Mr. war criminal butcher’?
BUT ­ you will not authorize the pittance to supply the VA so that vets can have the proper medications. Now to make matters even a higher hardship ­ YOU – MR. Child murderer ­ have authorized this evil Government you control ­ to take funds out of my meager $930 SS check ­ which is my only formal income now. Why is my SS entitlement being robbed? Because I have not paid for those UNOPENED UNUSED drugs which made me sick ­ and which I have tried countless times to inform the VA – BUT no one will answer or return calls. The VA sent me a letter as if they were the Gestapo and I was a peasant servant of the State ­ stating that I had NO recourse for my grievances and THEY did NOT want or need my input and had NO intentions of contacting me.
Since it is evident that the VA will not help ­ I must now spend my life savings to buy my own drugs ­ a several thousand-dollar/yr expense. Thank you SO much for your ‘concern’ for us vets.
BTW ­ Since you would never bother to stoop so low as to read a letter from one of the common people ­ your Gestapo agent readers would otherwise presume that I am a leftist liberal disgruntled Democrat, right? You don’t have enough gray hairs on your head to preach morality to me.
WRONG! I am not only a REAL REPUBLICAN ­ but have been called the Republican’s Republican. Voted for you twice ­ many year card holding member of the RNC. Your administration is so foul and evil, from warmonger Rumsfeld to the high priestess of hate Rice that NO REAL Christian or informed ethical American could possibly support your imperialistic greedy self-serving war making on sovereign nations who have done us no harm.
YOU ­ SIR: have been the principle person who created an enemy out of a former ally. There was no US enemy in the Mid-East before the racist secular Christian- hating bogus State of Israel came into being. That hellhole is a MORTAL ENEMY of this country and whose evil parasitic people have turned this once great country into a morally-rotted corpse.
A quick quiz ­ Mr. Warmonger. Which is the ONLY country on planet earth that has ­ since Dec. 1941 – committed ­ by PUREST DEFINITION ­ and ACT OF WAR against the United States OF America – or committed the unprovoked merciless sadistic slaughter of over TWO HUNDRED of our fathers sons brothers and neighbors? But of course that was ‘ OK’ ­ just as long as the murderers were the ‘self-chosen’. Did you get that one right? Well here is another. Which is the ONLY country in the Mid-East that DOES IN FACT have a HUGE arsenal of REAL weapons of REAL mass destruction ­ AND who have OPENLY threatened/ blackmailed America that they would NOT hesitate to use them against us if we do not continue to start AND SUPPORT wars against THEIR enemies ­ NOT OURS.
YOU and YOU alone are responsible for bringing NOT ONLY AMERICA but the ENTIRE WORLD into a senseless conflict which will only end in a world wide cataclysm of horrors death and ruination the likes of which earth has never seen. You have worked VERY diligently to posture yourself as the anti-Christ ­ as I cannot imagine any world leader more evil and deceiving.
I fear more for my children and grandchildren and pray for the day of our deliverance from greedy immoral monsters of your ilk. Never in my adult life have I ever witnessed such sadistic evil and personal joy of the immeasurable suffering of your helpless innocent victims.
To forgive is divine ­ so it has been said. Perhaps Christ will forgive you ­ but I will not. You have led my country to the very edge of ruination with your bizarre slavish loyalty to the most perverse ­ violent – Godless ­ sadistic ­ pernicious people I have ever encountered. THESE are the animals that had Christ murdered. NONE of their mentality AND conduct has changed in 2 millennia ­ only the names. AND ­ I WILL remind you that according to our Lord ­ these people are vipers, hypocrites, Pharisees ­ and sons of the Devil.
If you are inclined to use tired inane insults like “anti-Semitic” then you had better rebuke Christ as well ­ for I am only the messenger ­ quoting His Holy Scripture from the NT. I am a mere mortal and am not entitled to such powers ­ but were I able ­ I would damn you to hell for all eternity for the misery and death that YOU have authored in the name of our Lord. My personal experiences of sufferings that YOU are DIRECTLY responsible for, are but a drop in a sea of tears authorized by your decree. You have MUCH innocent blood on your hands.
With utter disgust,
Joe Cortina
Father ­ veteran ­ patriot and Christian

Posted by: conchita | Sep 24 2006 3:18 utc | 22

She’s far to young to die! Let her soar!
.
puke…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 24 2006 3:26 utc | 24

Uncle, the only reason they’re going after her is ‘cuz she spied on the HP Board, violating Commandment #1 – Thou Shalt Only Spy on the Powerless (employees, etc.) Apparently, even under police state conditions, the Elite Retain their Prerogatives…

Posted by: jj | Sep 24 2006 3:38 utc | 26

Frank Rich’s NYT column (liberated version): Stuff Happens Again in Baghdad

The war’s many cheerleaders in the press fell into line. In keeping with the mood of the time, administration enforcers like Charles Krauthammer and Andrew Sullivan damned Mr. Rumsfeld’s critics as fatuous aesthetes exploiting a passing incident to denigrate the liberation of Iraq. In a column in Salon titled “Idiocy of the Week” (that idiot would be me), Mr. Sullivan asked rhetorically who was right about “the alleged ransacking” of the museum, Mr. Rumsfeld or his critics? “Rummy, of course. He almost always is.”
Of course, dear old Rummy’s what-me-worry take on the museum was the tip-off to how he would be wrong about everything that would follow: he reacted with exactly the same disdain and indifference to the insurgency happening under his own nose and to Abu Ghraib.
…
Our public diplomacy efforts were equally tone-deaf to Iraqis and their neighbors. In the early going, the State Department hired a Madison Avenue whiz who made sunny TV testimonials about America’s love of Muslims. These ads won no hearts or minds, but wasted tons of money and even more valuable time. Now this job belongs to Karen Hughes, the presidential flack, whose patronizing photo-op tour of the region last year earned mostly ridicule.
Our broadcasting outreach there is supervised by a longtime Karl Rove pal, Kenneth Tomlinson, who last month was found by State Department investigators to be using his office — literally — to run a “horse-racing operation.” One of Mr. Tomlinson’s thoroughbreds is named Karzai, in supposed honor of the Afghan president. If that’s his idea of lifting America’s image in the Muslim world, he might as well be on Al Jazeera’s payroll. On Wednesday, ABC News reported the bottom line of such P.R. misfires: a confidential Pentagon survey found that 75 percent of Iraq’s Sunni Muslims support the insurgency, up from 14 percent in 2003.
Speaking before the United Nations last week in what may be the run-up to our new war, Mr. Bush was still on his battle-for-civilization kick, flattering Iranians much as he has the Iraqis. “We admire your rich history, your vibrant culture, and your many contributions to civilization,” he said. All Iranians have to do is look to the Baghdad museum today to see that such words are worth no more now than they were in 2003.
…
One of the first Westerners to warn strongly of the dangers of someone like Mr. Sadr was Gertrude Bell (1868-1926), the legendary archaeologist, explorer, author and British political officer who masterminded the unlikely cobbling together of the modern Iraq state after World War I. She warned that a Shiite theocracy in the new country would be “the very devil.” As it happened, it was also Bell who created the Iraqi National Museum in 1923.
The fortunes of her museum, once considered the finest in the Middle East, have been synonymous with the fate of Iraq ever since. That’s because, like any such national institution, it is not merely some building that houses art but a repository of a country’s heart and soul.
…

Posted by: b | Sep 24 2006 4:49 utc | 28

Kitsch:
  The reduction of aesthetic objects or ideas into easily marketable forms. Some theorists of postmodernism see the “kitschification” of culture as one symptom of the postmodern condition. The term can be as difficult to define as its companion term, “camp,” since there are so many disparate examples that can be cited as kitsch. Jean Baudrillard provides us with a useful definition: “The kitsch object is commonly understood as one of that great army of ‘trashy’ objects, made of plaster of Paris [stuc] or some such imitation material: that gallery of cheap junk—accessories, folksy knickknacks, ‘souvernirs’, lampshades or fake African masks—which proliferate everywhere, with a preference for holiday resorts and places of leisure” (Consumer Society 109-10). As Baudrillard goes on, “To the aesthetics of beauty and originality, kitsch opposes its aesthetics of simulation: it everywhere reproduces objects smaller or larger than life; it imitates materials (in plaster, plastic, etc.); it apes forms or combines them discordantly; it repeats fashion without having been part of the experience of fashion” (Consumer Society 111). My class on the Holocaust (HONR 199K) defined kitsch on January 23,2001 by way of Spielberg’s film, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: 1) kitsch tends to simplify and trivialize complex ideas by reducing them to black-and-white stereotypes, as Dale Fresch explained (for example, Sean Connery’s speech about the “armies of darkness”); 2) it is oriented to the masses and thus tends towards a lowest-common denominator so that anyone can relate; 3) it tends to be tied to mass consumption and thus to profit-making entertainment. As Baudrillard puts it, “This proliferation of kitsch, which is produced by industrial reproduction and the vulgarization at the level of objects of distinctive signs taken from all registers (the bygone, the ‘neo’, the exotic, the folksy, the futuristic) and from a disordered excess of ‘ready-made’ signs, has its basis, like ‘mass culture’, in the sociological reality of the consumer society” (Consumer Society 110); 4) kitsch remains, on the whole, completely unselfconscious and without any political or critical edge. When kitsch becomes especially self-conscious it begins to tip over into camp. The one point in the Last Crusade where kitsch could be said to tip over into camp is when Hitler himself signs Indiana Jones’ book in the film.
……..
my bold, on the things too familiar, especially #4 marketed as such.
LINK

Posted by: anna missed | Sep 24 2006 9:14 utc | 30

If binny’s death catches on with faux viewers, thereby taking away one bogeyman I wonder if the fear mongers will be able to successfully launch a new threat, first discovered south of the Rio Grande The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is The Chupacabra

Posted by: dan of steele | Sep 24 2006 10:44 utc | 32

@conchita unfortunately the letter probably is real. It carries all the anger, desperation and frustration of a man who expects to still be the power in the community he thinks he once was. Those emotions are too palpable and close to the surface for the most capable disinformation expert to recreate in some weird attempt to argue that opponents of the war on terra and/or Israel’s colonial adventure are all jew haters.
Which is what this guy is. He may even be a genuine anti-semite as well. His attitude towards arabs seems to be more ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ than any real empathy for the parlous situation of Palestinians and other arabs who live close to Palestine.
It would be my guess that when the Israeli situation is settled and the state of Palestine fully established, he could just as easily believe Arabs were getting between him and his veteran benefits, and then turn on them.
His real grudge against jewish people has nothing to do with their extermination of palestinian people and the palestinian culture but has everything to do with the fact that a jewish bloke was put to death 2000 years ago, allegedly at the behest of some local jewish businessmen.
Now if his superstition persuades him that the actions of the Jerusalem jewish businessmwn’s lobby all those centuries ago, should even now be visited on all jewish people, why doesn’t he believe that all Italians should cop it as well. They actually killed the jewish bloke along with many other xtians.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Sep 24 2006 11:12 utc | 34

Wrote up a big long piece with links and circles and arrows with a paragraph under each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us… and then Typepad, damn their oily hides, ate it.
Short version…
Some talk above regarding the health and welfare of one Osama bin Laden. Short answer… well, duh.
In 2002, Bush and some Pentagon officials made it clear that they “weren’t all that terribly concerned” about Mssr. bin Laden. Seems they knew more than we did, since the whereabouts of the same were one of the main reasons people supported the “liberation” Afghanistan.
Shorter still… a major problem for the White House is that bin Laden ain’t bin forgotten… unlike the shifting rationales leading the U.S. into Iraq, people just won’t let go of that particular bogeyman.
This hasn’t been a huge problem, mind you, Even if Osama himself isn’t around to do any encore performances. If we can get Tom Hanks to shake hands with John F. Kennedy, we can put a face (or a voice)to the Two-Minute Hate. Doesn’t even have to be the right face.
But it is tedious. We auditioned a new bogeyman, but he didn’t play well in Peoria. So he was given a surprisingly photogenic curtain call for a man allegedly having been blown to bits. But there was an upside to this exercise in monster making. We discovered, just as we discovered when we found Hussein, that if we vilify someone enough and then end them, it’s good for a bump in approval ratings. And that was just for a second string bogeyman!
We’ve all talked about “October surprises”, so I’ll stick my neck out here a little bit. The White House has so far been unsuccessful at making people forget about Herr bin Laden (even though they were still making attempts at it as late as the Presidential debates in 2004), so why not go for the tried-and-true? How exciting would it be for Osama to meet a spectacularly photogenic demise in time for a major election? They probably wouldn’t even have to use a double for it; I expect they might still have his body on ice somewhere. It would sure pump up the U.S. fence-sitters and demoralise those Muslims, wouldn’t it? Even the bin Laden family couldn’t protest too much… after all, once a spook, always a spook.

Posted by: Monolycus | Sep 24 2006 12:36 utc | 36

What stands out to me in that long rant Conchita is that the dude voted for Shrub twice.
Not the sharpest tack in the drawer, apparently.

Posted by: ran | Sep 24 2006 13:48 utc | 38

I’ve heard a few times that the “real Bush record on national security” is the mere fact that no terrorists have successfully attacked the United States since 9-11. The more I think about it, the more logically sound that argument seems to me.
I, for example, keep a rock in my pocket at all times that protects me from tiger attacks. I’m not talking about something imaginary like vampires or compassionate conservatives… I’m talking about tigers, which we can all agree exist at the time of this writing (I give ’em another five years… I’m not the harbinger of good news that Professor Lovelock is). Now, in the time I have been carrying this rock in my pocket, I have never been eaten by a tiger. Not even mauled a little. As a matter of fact, they don’t even go through my trash. I offer this as proof positive that my rock has tiger-repellent characteristics. Q.E.D.
The only flaw I can see in what is otherwise an airtight conservative argument about the Bush administration’s terrorist-repellent characteristics is that it always has to have that little caveat “…since 9-11”. That little asterisk on their record bothers me. There is no such asterisk on my tiger-repellent rock. I don’t say things like “My rock will ward off every tiger attack since the last one”, and it keeps me awake at night knowing that an administration that overlooked (or oversaw… pick your own verb!) such a spectacular series of security breaches as this one has, now gets to tout their “record on national security”. But I do keep hearing it anyway.
Apart from the 3,000 some-odd dead and billions of dollars of property damage, though, they make a pretty good case. Maybe they should start selling tiger-repellent rocks just to raise some additional revenue. I could always use a spare; I’d keep it next to my bacteriological-warfare repellent roll of duct tape.

Posted by: Monolycus | Sep 24 2006 17:02 utc | 40

“there is no overall strategic goal other than the safety of the United States and its interests.”
McDonald’s and Starbucks have it made for sure.

Posted by: pb | Sep 24 2006 17:54 utc | 42

debs @ 34, it does seem that joe cortina is for real. however, a google search reveals that contrary to what you thought – his real grudge against jewish people has nothing to do with their extermination of palestinian people and the palestinian culture the anti-semiticism or better phrased anti-israelism arises from firsthand experience with the israeli marginalization of the palestinians. john francis lee googled him and sent me this link. He introduces himself to the reader as:

My name is Joe Cortina. I am a retired Florida businessman who has done substantial world traveling – some purely as a ‘tourist’ and some in areas -shall I say- ‘nothing to do with vacationing’. I am a former special operations officer and have done intelligence investigator work for over 15years – some of it overseas – mostly in Central America – but also in the Mid-East. My political posture is ‘conservative’ and my religious values are Christian.
Exposing lies and revealing the truth was what I did professionally for a long time.
I have hunted REAL terrorists in jungles with Salvadorian Rangers and Marines – so I am not a stranger to dangerous environments and am familiar with basic protocols of civilized conduct regarding civilians and the military – something that the Israelis do not consider applicable to them.

and continues to describe his experiences in Israel in 1989 and how he

was invited to Israel by a former military comrade who attained a substantial rank and subsequently ended up as the ranking military attache’ from our govt., to the Israeli military (IDF). I went places and saw things only a hand full of ‘private sector’ Americans will EVER experience. My ‘specially authorized’ trips included Gaza City, Hebron and areas of militarily protected Israeli ‘settlements’. I will touch on only a few of what I considered the most revealing experiences. I can’t stress this enough. What I write here is but a tear in a sea of misery that I witnessed.

From there he describes witnessing the atrocities we have all become familiar with. He concludes with a diatribe against the media that could easily have been written by a bar patron:

If you are disgusted with the mega-lies and misleading propaganda – educate
yourself as to what is REALLY going on in the world. You will NOT find the
complete truth in the newspaper – or Time – or Newsweek – Or Rush – or our
Govt. – or TV or even our hypocrite evangelical pseudo-Christian church
‘leaders’. These daily atrocities committed by the Israelis AND funded by YOU and ME,
are carefully ‘filtered’ by our Israeli controlled press. Despite the one-sided
propaganda, disinformation, distortions, and outright lies that we have been fed for years,
you may now find and know the truth. The REAL truth – as in “so help me God”
We American have been responsible for the deaths of WAY to many
innocent human beings throughout the world recently. Sooner or later – the
truth will come to light – as it always does.

except that he brings religon into it. i will mercifully spare you those quotes.
why share this? i guess it is because listening to george lakoff the other night discuss how to reach past stereotypes to understand and breakdown communication barriers with conservatives and then reading uncle $cams’s REd Family, Blue Family link has me thinking. joe cortina’s public letters are a prime example of a relevant intersection of the conservative and progressive mindsets. how many more conservatives think like him and what will it take for us all to come together and get these motherfuckers the fuck out of our government?

Posted by: conchita | Sep 24 2006 18:48 utc | 44

Well done conchita. #22 & #44.
I agree. It is important to discover the conservatives that are honest people with integrity that have seen through the American government mafiosi tactics and are expressing their outrage and disgust. I believe it can help us see the administration through the eyes of a disgruntled and disillusioned insider which could in turn help us “frame” the issues to reach more of the right and conservative bent. We won’t gain any converts preaching to the choir but may if we can properly frame our conversations with those still leaning right.
For those who still haven’t read it, “Don’t think like an Elephant” by George Lakoff is an excellent introduction into the theory and power of framing.
r’giap,
It is good to be reading your posts again. I have long been viewing the Cheney administration and for that matter a large portion of the economic elite of America as a closed shop crime family. The Mafia analog fits well IMO but I have been unable to come up with a single good word or phrase that encapsulates this meem into something that will be culturally understood when I discuss these gangsters and hoodlums with my friends. Gangsters, hoodlums, mafiosi, organized crime; none quite say it. The right word spoken from the right framework could help our communication significantly. I put this our hoping someone will have a flash of inspiration and communicate it here. Any takers?

Posted by: Juannie | Sep 25 2006 0:54 utc | 46

jj, i deliberately used the words progressive and conservative, not dem and repug. although i cited lakoff, i’m not talking about converting votes, i’m talking about building consensus and motivate to action from there. framing is basically about perception and communication, just another buzz word.
i don’t disagree with nafta and wto, and i could be wrong, but i think any mention of the us and mexico joining will scare most of these people away.
will take a look at kennedy’s book. i am grateful to and respect the work he has done on the environment and the election.

Posted by: conchita | Sep 25 2006 1:38 utc | 48

jj, my concern is that while you are aware of this, most americans don’t know jack shit and don’t want to know. when they hear stuff like this they start seeing tinfoil hats and begin to back away like you have a contagious disease. the headline on the cover of the ny post this friday was “u.s. unites against caracas crazy”. in general people aren’t open to the truth and there is just so much they will hear before turning back to their television sets. we are talking about people who don’t believe global warming is happening. your post was not the first i have been read about the consolidation of north america, and it is not that i do not take it seriously, but i don’t believe others will. i had been planning to move to mexico, but the election has me rethinking that plan.

Posted by: conchita | Sep 25 2006 2:10 utc | 50

in manuel castells’ trilogy the information age: economy, society and culture, written at the end of the 20th century, looking forward into the new century castells concluded that, as a result of the challenges put forth by the globalization of capital, new structures of power will result, replacing the authority of the nation-state w/ networks of regional alliances.

Nation-states will survive, but not so their sovereignty. They will band together in multilateral networks, with a variable geometry of commitments, responsibilities, alliances, and subordinations. The most notable multilateral construction will be the European Union, bringing together the technological and economic resources of most, but not all European countries. … But the European Union, for the time being, does not embody a historical project of building a European society. It is, essentially, a defensive construction on behalf of European civilization to avoid becoming an economic colony of Asians and Americans.

somewhere in the text, and i cannot find it after a couple of days of flipping & skimming, he mentions the conjoining of the united states w/ mexico & canada as a transformational response to these new power relations in the global economy. i’ve read similar mention of this union previously (maybe we touched on the topic discussing NORTHCOM?) as a hemispheric defense/protection of resources, institutions & a common market. it also provides a larger base for militarization – more conscripts – w/ which to wage battle w/ china and/pr a russian bloc.
two others items that stood out when i finished 1998’s end of millenium.

From the excluded segments of humankind, two different reactions can be expected. On the one hand, there will be a sharp increase in the operation of what I call “the perverse connection,” that is, playing the game of global capitalism with different rules. The global criminal economy … will be a fundamental feature of the twenty-first century, and its economic, political, and cultural influence will penetrate all spheres of life. The question is not whether our societies will be able to eliminate the criminal networks, but, rather, whether criminal networks will not end up controlling a substantial share of our economy, of our institutions, and of our everyday life.
There is another reaction against social exclusion and economic irrelevance that I am convinced will play an essential role in the twenty-first century: the exclusion of the excluders by the excluded. Because the whole world is, and will increasingly be, intertwined in the basic structures of life, under the logic of the network society, opting out by people and countries will not be a peaceful withdrawl. It takes, and will take, the form of fundamentalist affirmation of an alternative set of values and principles of existence, under which no coexistence is possible with the evil system that so deeply damages people’s lives. … Fundamentalisms of different kinds and from different sources will represent the most daring, uncompromising challenge to one sided domination of informational, global capitalism. Their potential access to weapons of mass extermination casts a giant shadow on the optimistic prospects of the Information Age.

other than arguing against the idea that it’s the excluded who comprise the global criminal economy, and not those who administer the system itself, i find his assessment that criminal networks will be the fundamental feature of this century on target. of course, we could also argue – in line w/ r’giap’s earlier comment on the parallels b/t american politics & gangsterism – that this is really nothing new, only more internationally entrenched.
the other item i find almost chilling in castells’ attempt to make sense of the pending century is this

Geopolitics will also be increasingly dominated by a fundamental contradiction between the multilateralism of decision-making and the unilateralism of military implementation of these decisions. This is because, after the demise of the Soviet Union, and the technological backwardness of the new Russia, the United States is, and will be for the foreseeable future, the only military superpower. … Under such conditions, various security alliances will have to rely on American forces. But the U.S. is confronted with such deep domestic social problems that it will certainly not have the means, nor the political support, to exercise such a power if the security of its citizens is not under direct threat, as American presidents discovered several times in the 1990s. With the Cold War forgotten, and no credible equivalent “new Cold War” looming on the horizon, the only way America may keep its military status is to lend its forces to the global security system. And have other countries pay for it.

well, dana priest covered the u.s. hiring out the military “as a regional mercenary force for Arab rulers who could not raise their own armies” in her book the mission: waging war and keeping peace with america’s military, but that was going on well before castells wrote his book. however, it didn’t take too long to witness the first new twenty-first century administration’s answer to the need for a “new Cold War” to keep that military humming & those dollars rolling.

Posted by: b real | Sep 25 2006 4:13 utc | 52

Conchita@44: I have hunted REAL terrorists in jungles with Salvadorian Rangers and Marines – so I am not a stranger to dangerous environments and am familiar with basic protocols of civilized conduct regarding civilians and the military – something that the Israelis do not consider applicable to them.
Wow them israelites is way bad. I bet that they would go so far as to murder a buncha nuns or shoot down an archbishop in his cathedral or massacre entire villages – something that nice Christian Salvadoran Rangers would never stoop to. Thank Jesus that we got real patriots hunting down real terrorists in the jungles.

Posted by: citizen k | Sep 25 2006 4:39 utc | 54

memo: Bush cares.
Who knew?

Posted by: ran | Sep 25 2006 5:10 utc | 56

Re: Rick Happ, #55:

You are missing my point. I am not saying that all Christians vote Republican, or that all Christians are stupid. I am saying that red-state conservatives will always vote Republican, or for an explicitly Christian candidate if the race is not between Republicans and Democrats, because they think that a candidate who makes a big song and dance about Christianity must be more in line with their interests than someone who just tries to do the right thing.

Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Sep 25 2006 5:24 utc | 58

@Truth, you’re way over-generalizing. There are even evangelicals who are seriously offended & threatened by these guys. And it doesn’t get much more red-state conserv. christian woman-hater than ex-sen. john danforth, who shepherded scalia’s lapdog (clarence thomas) thru the senate; yet, he just came out w/a book fulminating against the take-over of Repug. party by Fundies. All along he thought he was in good company ‘cuz they were just a bunch of woman haters like him, fighting to preserve male privilege, then they add in things like opposing gay marraige which would interfere w/what males want to do, and other crazy stuff like Terry Schiavo, and suddenly he wakes up.
In short, there is a far wider spectrum of of christians, even among conservatives, who haven’t spoken out, but oppose theocracy, and quite don’t know what to do.

Posted by: jj | Sep 25 2006 5:50 utc | 60

That’s a lot of nice Christian thinking (“I am a Christian”)–and happiness, too! (“I am very happy”)–that you offer to share with us, Rick Happ. The real thing, the Happ-type happiness. It lights up your day, working as you do with every kind of person coming from every place, faith, country, race, language, and vocation in the world. At the very least, a cosmopolitan and open-minded happiness.
Let’s be a little more precise here: this kind of happiness, the “Happ” kind, can be distinguished from another kind of “happiness,” the one expressed by those “many elites” who “are very happy to see usplaying word games and fighting amongst ourselves” (emphasis added, gleefully).
One can follow you, Happ, if one applies oneself to the task. On the one hand, there is the one called “Happ,” also known as “I” (as in the phrase “I am very happy”). But then there’s another group of folks called “elites”. They watch you, Happ, from a distance, and they notice that you are not alone. Others are near at hand.
You, Happ, refer to those others as someone or something called “us,” really a sort of “you” becoming a “we”–because “I, Happ,” along with some kind of “you” equals a “we” (or an “us”). That “you” is a problem for “Happ,” because it signifies that the “many elites” don’t set Happ apart from his frivolous playmates, and so they are “happy to see us“–Happ and his playmates–“playing games and fighting amongst ourselves.” These are things that Happ himself would never do, and that he regrets watching his playmates do, the more so because those “elites” might be tempted to think that he, Happ, also plays those games, and that he, too, “fights amongst” his playmates.
So: there are the good guys (see Happ’s infinite list of these in his post above), and there are the bad guys (the “many elites,” in case you were wondering), and then there are these too-close associates of “Happ” that make those “many elites very happy”. Those, of course, are the barflies right here at Moon at Alabama. We don’t measure up, and we even play into the hands of the “many” and “very happy” elites. We make them “very happy,” and this doesn’t make Happ very happy at all….
Or does it?
Happ, as we see, is totally open-minded Christian, except where those “elites” are concerned: he’s obviously glad he’s not one of them. And except where his playmates are concerned, “playing word games” and such. He’s worried that he himself might be taken for one of them, and so he puts himself to some effort to show us that he isn’t.
Happ, you’re nothing but a Pharisee, expressing you’re very sincere belief that you aren’t like that Publican over there.
Where have I seen this smarmy rhetoric before, all open arms and smiles and warmth and sheer, well, “happiness” all around (almost)? It’s true that I have a taste for that sort of thing–a little perverse, I have to admit, and can only hope that God is merciful unto me, a twisted, word-playing, fight-picking barfly….
Oh yes, I’ve seen it before. Here, for our delection (not Happ’s) are two very happy instances of that rhetoric–something to smoke, or to drink, or to fuck with:
Focus on the Family opposes stem cell research that destroys embryonic humans. In order for scientists to isolate and culture embryonic stem cells, a living, human embryo must be killed. It is never morally or ethically justified to kill one human being in order to help benefit another. By requiring the destruction of embryos, the tiniest human beings, embryonic stem cell research violates the medical ethic of “Do No Harm.”–Dobson.
It is apparent, in light of the rebirth of the State of Israel, that the present day events in the Holy Land may very well serve as a prelude or forerunner to the future Battle of Armageddon and the glorious return of Jesus Christ.–Falwell.

Posted by: alabama | Sep 25 2006 6:20 utc | 62

@Rick Happ, #63:

I bet a lot of red state conservatives are fed up right now!

Funny, we heard that a lot in 2004. Yet somehow all the angst drained away between their houses and their polling places, and the red states got even redder.

Red state blue state, who cares?

In a sense it doesn’t matter. In red states, Republicans always win a majority of the elections. In blue states, occasionally there are a majority of Democratic winners who merely act like Republicans. (Yes, Barack Obama, I’m thinking of you.) It’s just a question of whether you blame your candidate for being a duplicitous thief afterwards or whether you assume your candidate was virtuous and it’s everyone else that’s to blame.

Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Sep 25 2006 6:48 utc | 64

Surprise…(via Wayne Madsen)
Sources close to the Aga Khan (the Imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims) report that his special envoy to Kabul and Islamabad has complained to the Hamid Karzai government about the involvement of U.S. Special Forces and paramilitary private contractors in Afghan opium commerce. The smuggling of opium from Afghanistan, according to Afghan and Ismaili sources, involves trans-shipment routes through Turkey and the Balkans. The U.S. Special Forces are working with Russian-Israeli Mafia and Greek and Kurdish Mafia syndicates in Turkey to smuggle the opium. The proceeds from the opium smuggling are being laundered through Russian/Israeli Mafia-controlled banks in Cyprus.
…
As previously reported by WMR, the Russian/Israeli Mafia-connected Jack Abramoff targeted recently-convicted Ohio Republican Rep. Bob Ney with tainted money in order to neutralize him as a back channel for the CIA to Tehran. …
But Ney may not be the only back channel to Iran neutralized by the neo-cons, who are anxious for a war with Iran. According to WMR’s Middle East sources, the recent rape charges against Israel’s President Moshe Katsav reportedly are an attempt to neutralize him as a back channel to Tehran. Katsav, an Iranian Yazdi Jew, is said to have an important direct link to former Iranian President Mohamed Khatami. One of Katsav’s cousins studied with Khatami at Tehran University. In fact, Khatami studied and translated the works of Alexis de Tocqueville into Farsi. Katsav’s back channel to Khatami, whose recent visit to the United States was decried by the neo-con quarters, was as worrisome to the neo-cons as Ney’s direct links to Tehran. Therefore, Katsav was charged with sexually assaulting a member of the staff at his official residence — eliminating another important link between the West and Iran.

Posted by: jj | Sep 25 2006 7:13 utc | 66

grr..#67 was mine…
When the State Becomes God

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 25 2006 8:18 utc | 68

Yet somehow all the angst drained away between their houses and their polling places
Or between the polling place and the summation computer.
Interesting discussion on identity and voting. I suspect that identity is the main reason for voting (I belong to group X so I vote X). After all, it is not very rational to vote, when was the last time your individual vote decided anything?
So if you want a working class party you first must build a working class identity. That is not easy, but as the experiences from the late 18th century shows, neither is it impossible. Then you too can have a labour party that sells out its voters to corporate interests.

Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Sep 25 2006 8:26 utc | 70

@Vicious Truth (#69… duuuude)
“Actually, the “monopoly on violence” phrase is a well-established way of expressing the idea that the state exists to (1) prevent citizens from doing violence to each other (if the state has a monopoly, nobody else can do it) and (2) require any violence to go through official checks. So you may be mistaking citizen k’s meaning here.”
Of course I have heard the phrase state “monopoly on violence” in the senses you outline, but citizen k used it specifically to describe a “business-as-usual” approach to the policy of covert assassination that Clinton apparently wanted and nobody, apparently, finds any problem with. In this case, it is kind of apples-and-oranges to compare the way citizen k was using the term and the way it is used in most universities (that is, maintaining a foreign and domestic military force to implement its laws or punish lawbreakers).
I’m pretty sure I understood both the text and the context that were used… and using well-worn cliches like “state monopoly on violence” to empower or excuse tyrants is simple sophistry and rhetoric. Easy to slip under the radar, but doesn’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Or some other tired old metaphor.

Posted by: Monolycus | Sep 25 2006 9:52 utc | 72

Monolycus. You are doing a good job and I am sure that your tireless efforts are appreciated by many.

Posted by: DM | Sep 25 2006 9:56 utc | 74

@DM and $cam
Now… now… that kind of talk is only going to encourage me.

Posted by: Monolycus | Sep 25 2006 10:29 utc | 76

Monollycus: How about an example of a good state? I’ve never heard of a state that doesn’t murder people. That doesn’t mean all murdering states are the same, but it does mean that if you are not a pure anarchist you are forced to work within shades of gray.And contrary to what you seem to believe, democracies can be as or more warlike than any other type of state. For my part, I don’t care about Clinton ordering assassination of bin Ladin, I do care about his support for the Columbian death squads.

Posted by: citizen k | Sep 25 2006 12:56 utc | 78

@citizen k
Going to have to preface this by getting it out into the open that I am not being snarky. You raise some genuine “real world” issues, but you also resign yourself to inevitable systemic abuse. That very resignation represents a slippery slope and opens the door for more and more abuse. Kind of like what we’re dealing with now… if human lives weren’t being shattered in the process, this would be a cute little academic disagreement.
My position is that far too many people have just “dealt with it” when it comes to affairs of state, and that is why I haven’t even seen anyone apart from myself calling into question Clinton’s “executive privilege” to order the deaths of whomever he found politically inconvenient… because we are now so resigned to unlimited “executive privilege” that we are living in a de facto dictatorship. I see the difference between ordering the assassination of bin Laden (who I hasten to remind everyone was not a household name at the time in question) and the support of Colombian death squads to be quantitative, and not qualitative. One can not be appalled by the one and indifferent to the other without having some very serious ethical inconsistencies. (Incidentally, it was Clinton’s Balkan crusade which turned me off of him… but Clinton wars are popular with the Left and Bush wars are popular with the Right.)
And you are absolutely right to declare that democracies can be abominable things. But if we are going to play the game of calling ourselves “democratic”, then leaders must be accountable to the people they ostensibly represent. Without that accountability, the state becomes nothing more than a protection racket with none of the fancy protection that would entail.
You knew when you posed the question that I could give no real-world examples of a “good state”… I’ve employed that device myself when people bitch about this or that political candidate not having an absolutely spotless record. The closest state that I am aware of that is responsive to the needs of its people without being overly destructive to its neighbours would be Norway, but there’s always room to nit-pick.
The (imaginary) state I have in mind would be one that operates in practice as it does in principle… that is to say, does not engage in extralegal activities when its own laws become a nuisance to its business interests. It would be small enough to provide for its people without artificially manipulating both the market and engaging in duplicitous “perception management” against its own constituency. It would be transparent in its dealings and accountable for them. Most importantly, it would respect dissent and have nothing to fear from its own.
You will counter that this is naive and unrealistic. Yep. I concur. I also say that the second I begin to capitulate these ideals, I begin to enable those who would pursue abuses like those death squads you dislike so very much. You can’t be idealistic without bumping into frustrations, but you can’t be cynical without letting more and more slide until you wake up to discover that everything you cherished has swirled down into that little porcelain hole.

Posted by: Monolycus | Sep 25 2006 14:45 utc | 80

Citizen K,
you just can’t help yourself can you. Once your pro-Israeli double standard is threatened, some categorical imperative comes into play that forces you to muddy the water and depict the whole world as a giant genocidal anthive in Israel’s image. Basic motivations matter. Do yourself a favor and be honest about yours.

Posted by: Guthman Bey | Sep 25 2006 15:24 utc | 82

Did I open a can of worms? (#45) I’ve been eating them since. I enjoyed the clip of Clinton calling faux news on their hypocrisy in their own ballpark, but find myself confronted with my own. Thanks for the perspective, as always.

Posted by: beq | Sep 25 2006 19:42 utc | 84

@Rick Happ #55
I am sure many elites are very happy to see us playing word games and fighting amongst ourselves.
I envisage the day when most of us will be happy to see the elites playing power games and fighting among themselves and I have little doubt that it is happening today and it’s dog eat dog at it’s fiercest at the top. How can I/we play that card today?
But then again, it’s me/us against them and I’m working on imbuing oneness.

Posted by: Juannie | Sep 25 2006 22:36 utc | 86

This “anti-semitism” campaign is being orchestrated in Israel to silence anyone who might oppose attack on Iran, or other current policies. Jon Cook wrote an exc. history of it, as well as the reasons:
The trajectory of a long-running campaign that gave birth this month to the preposterous all-party British parliamentary report into anti-Semitism in the UK can be traced back to intensive lobbying by the Israeli government that began more than four years ago, in early 2002.
At that time, as Ariel Sharon was shredding the tattered remains of the Oslo accords by reinvading West Bank towns handed over to the Palestinian Authority in his destructive rampage known as Operation Defensive Shield, he drafted the Israeli media into the fray. Local newspapers began endlessly highlighting concerns about the rise of a “new anti-Semitism”, a theme that was rapidly and enthusiastically taken up by the muscular Zionist lobby in the US.
It was not the first time, of course, that Israel had called on American loyalists to help it out of trouble. In Beyond Chutzpah, Norman Finkelstein documents the advent of claims about a new anti-Semitism to Israel’s lacklustre performance in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. On that occasion, it was hoped, the charge of anti-Semitism could be deployed against critics to reduce pressure on Israel to return Sinai to Egypt and negotiate with the Palestinians.
Israel alerted the world to another wave of anti-Semitism in the early 1980s, just as it came under unprecedented criticism for its invasion and occupation of Lebanon. What distinguished the new anti-Semitism from traditional anti-Jewish racism of the kind that led to Germany’s death camps, said its promoters, was that this time it embraced the progressive left rather than the far right.
The fresh claims about a new anti-Semitism began life in the spring of 2002, …. How Israel is Engineering the “Clash of Civilizations”

Posted by: jj | Sep 25 2006 23:29 utc | 88

Monolycus: You began by asserting there was no difference between Clinton and Bush because both authorized illegal assassinations. I brought up Clinton’s adventures in Columbia, because those were truly immoral. And, in fact, the US has been torturing and murdering people for a long time – I second Hugo Chavez’s suggestion of Noam Chomsky as a source. So I don’t either mean to defend Clinton or to demand quietism, but instead to find some clarity. For all the objections I raise against marxist socialism, or for all the impracticalities of Dorothy Day’s philosophy, those are consistent moral and analytic systems. But modern post-cold-war “progressivism” is a mishmash that is full of self-defeating false premises and unacknowledged acceptance of state lies. The US has routinely murdered political enemies worldwide on a large scale for at least 50 years. There is an element of pearl clutching middle class self-deception in this constant shock at how the sausage is made. I urge you to read about operation phoenix to get an example or to consider the fate of Allende. I don’t have to approve it to acknowledge that it is so.
For me, practical politics requires a certain cold analysis, because all states and all actors are tainted. To see what needs to be done, we need to see beyond commonplaces and the dishonest cliches of the state. There is a famous poem by Auden pre-WWII where he speaks of “necessary murders”. Orwell lambasted Auden as a soviet apologist and propagandist for that line, but I think Orwell was being dishonest. Either you side with the saints like Dorothy Day, and you pay a huge price for that high moral standard, or you are down in the sewer with the rest of us killer monkeys arguing about when it is ok to murder other people. I’m not dismissing this sewer debate. I believe that it is possible to and essential to make distinctions between “necessary” and “unecessary” murders – but let’s not pretend.
For some of legal disputes about Bin Ladin.

Posted by: citizen k | Sep 26 2006 0:23 utc | 90

Are We Mice or Men?

Only last month, Steven Clemons blogged about a youtube video entitled “UAV Hunter Payload.” Seems as if when viewers watched this video, at least one noticed the coordinates placed the drone over Iran. Illegally, by the way. An act of war, by any measure. By the time I got there, one day later, the video had been “removed by user.” Porn clips on Youtube have a longer shelflife than proof of acts of war committed by Washington elites and simple-minded Presidents.
It’s all very interesting. We can wait and wonder, or we can heed Daniel Ellsberg’s call. If you can’t be inside the Pentagon, encourage those you know inside that system to do the right thing, the constitutional thing, the productive thing. The American people don’t want war or the destruction of Iran. We don’t want to be responsible for even more hatred and rage in a strange and alien place most never intend to retire to, or even visit. We certainly don’t want to be sent the bill for this administration’s desire for destruction and the nervously salivating Congress’s desire to be seen as something, anything, but what they are.
I hope that multitudinous stray forces for good will change what has become the American way of war – lie, bomb, embezzle, repeat. I hope that perhaps before or after November, we the people will be able to say the administration’s designs have been “removed by user.” I’d like to think an outpouring of truth will begin to restore our country’s heart and soul.
I hope like a mouse hopes, to find a bite to eat while not becoming one. It seems to me we need to ask ourselves, as Daniel Ellsberg has effectively asked, “Are we mice?” Or are we men? Sadly, we shall see.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Sep 26 2006 1:21 utc | 92

Well, 6 yrs. after the fact, when they’ve bankrupted the country, wrecked Iraq/Lebanon & shredded the Constitution, the elite has finally had enough..Great…
In last few days, Newsweek does feature on how they’ve lost in Afghanistan; NIE is leaked saying they’ve caused an explosion of terrorists; & apparently the WSJ had cover art. today on how broke the country is & how everyone’s standard of living will be reduced…
Too bad voting machines are rigged by Repugs…and last I heard exit polls cancelled…

Posted by: jj | Sep 26 2006 2:51 utc | 94

Muhammed Ali always thought of a good answer, kid.

Posted by: citizen k | Sep 26 2006 4:01 utc | 96

errata:
Dorothy…Doris… Interesting the things you’ll find once the coffee kicks in.
Ah, well. You say “potato”, I say “projectile”. The salient points stand.

Posted by: Monolycus | Sep 26 2006 6:42 utc | 98

Monolycus: “You accept as an axiom that states must operate on the level of criminal enterprises simply because, as far as we can see, they always have”
No. I accept as an empirical fact that the state operates on the level of a criminal enterprise because the data requires it. Dorothy Day, who was a nun, not an actress, lived a philosophy of opposition to the immorality of the state and I don’t criticise her – in fact, I see my own, very common, unwillingness to draw such a clear moral line as discreditable. But, comrade, once you are here on the side of those of us who accept the existence of and utulity of states, and even capitalist states, you are inextricably involved in fine moral distinctions and you don’t have the standing to dismiss Clinton as equivalent to Bush. We agree that states should exist and that they should operate military forces whose purpose is to murder people and destroy things – we are only able to argue about the rules of engagement. That is we have already agreed on principle to applaud some kinds of murder: we’ve settled the issue of who we are, and argue only about price. So it’s all very well to demand that the US state at least attempt to live up to the ideals of democracy and rule of law, I agree, and it’s laudable to point out that the “liberal” Clinton also assumed the mantle of imperial presidency that would have offended the slave owning Thomas Jefferson, but let’s be honest about the moral basis of the critique.

Posted by: citizen k | Sep 26 2006 13:01 utc | 100