Tristero |
||
Saturday, December 13, 2003Santorum's Victim And His ResilienceDave Neiwert, one of my favorite bloggers, is wrong for once. He should know better than to blame the victim. Here's what happened:A fellow named Eric Blumrich created this flash animation which is, to say the least, a hardhitting condemnation of Bush's war. A dog named Misha saw it, then penned an open letter to Mr. Blumrich which was posted on his blog, The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: Here's a hint to you, Eric: The gov't can't do anything to you over that ad, but that's the extent of your protection under the First Amendment.Misha, a resourceful critter, then scampered about the internet where he dug up Mr. Blumrich's home address and also, according to Mr. Blumrich, posted a map of his neighborhood with a red cross superimposed over his house. Also, according to Mr. B, who by this time was getting rather alarmed, Misha posted a second map which detailed the route from a local military base to Mr. B's house. Dave Neiwert, but even more so for obvious reasons, Eric Blumrich, are outraged over what they perceive as Misha's death threat. After all, Misha wishes Mr. Blumrich dead, offers a prize to the first person who informs him of his death, and helpfully publishes information and maps in case someone wishes to locate Mr. Blumrich's abode. But both Messrs Neiwert and Blumrich miss the obvious, which puts what would normally be a matter for the FBI in considerable perspective: 1. A dog can read and write English! That in and of itself is astounding but even more amazing is that 2. A dog is using the Internet! This used to be a joke. Remember this great cartoon? Now, given that dogs are without a doubt very stupid animals, barely more intelligent than rodents or sheep, does it matter what a rottweiler actually writes? The fact that it can simply type should be cause for universal amazement -well, at least among humans. However, once we get over our astonishment that at least one dog can express itself, more or less, in English, it does behoove us to look at what it actually says. Alas, what we find is more than sobering, but genuinely, pathetically sad. Misha, the poor mongrel, is obviously insane, obsessed with murderous fantasies by proxy. How could a clearly remarkable animal, a dog that blogs, become so warped? After consulting with noted psychiatriasts such as Dr. Charles Krauthammer, I believe I have the inkling of an answer. Given his proclivities, patently obvious on his blog, one can't escape the conclusion that Misha has been, shall we say, man's best friend to the likes of Senator Rick Santorum, who so memorably introduced man on dog sex into the national discourse. At the time, Republicans leapt to the defense of the hapless Senator, bravely asserting that what an adult dog and a human do in the privacy of their own kennel is nobody's business but their own. Frankly, I never bought that argument and Misha is living proof. Clearly, he is not merely a literate dog. He is also a traumatized dog, a rottweiler whose very soul has been seared by the dreadful experience of inter-species homosexual rape. A dog made rabid by the unwelcome violation of his body by a lust-crazed Republican, whose normal doggy desires have been corrupted by a filthy pervert. Misha's rage, while unmistakably subhuman and indisputably rabid, has all the hallmarks of certain human victims of sexual trauma who have a compelling need to lash back violently, indiscriminately, even murderously. That Misha clearly is not human should not deter us from labelling him from what he is: a victim of unspeakable sexual abuse by someone in the GOP. Perhaps, for all I know, Misha's rapist is Senator Santorum himself, the most prominent GOP leader to associate himself publicly with bestiality. And so, David Neiwert, and you too Eric Blumrich, I say don't blame Misha The Raped Rottweiler for his murderous rage. Pity him instead, for the terrible memories he cannot escape, helplessly cringing on some Republican floor in some Republican town as some deranged Republican maniac lifted Misha's innocently wagging tail and... Well, I needn't go on for you can get all the details you want simply by visiting The Family Research Institute website, a pro Republican organization from Colorado Springs that distributes this very enlightening report. But don't only pity Misha. You should admire him, an otherwise dumb dog that had enough, er... spunk to recuperate from its victimization and teach itself the basics of HTML. Seraphiel's Daily Cartoon Roundup12 3 4 Dean Is...William Jennings Bryan????Although Andrew Sabi thinks so but I don't, and neither does Southpaw. Southpaw discusses Bryan's travails as a presidential candidate, so go read him (he also says kind things about yours truly). Then, if you think that watching "Inherit the Wind" gave you deep insight into Bryan, Fundamentalism and the Scopes Trial, read Summer for the Gods, a terrific book on Scopes, Bryan, and Darrow. The truth is truly far more interesting and stranger than the fiction.Science You Can UseNY Times:A plastic bottle of Kabbalah water sells for $3.50. Cartons are stacked in the synagogue, so that when the Torah is read, the water absorbs the Torah's holy energy.A recent meta-analysis of Kabbalah water studies proved conclusively that it improves the ability to read backwards, thereby increasing the facility of 12 year olds to study Hebrew for their Bar/Bat Mitzvah. Currently, trials are under way to see if Kabbalah water can also serve as a treatment for dyslexia. Friday, December 12, 2003Two More U.S. Soldiers Killed in IraqPlus attacks on Polish troops:Insurgents detonated a bomb alongside a U.S. military convoy west of Baghdad on Friday, killing one soldier and wounding two others, the military said. Separately, another soldier died in Baghdad from what was described as a ``non-hostile'' gunshot wound. Americans: Vote Like CanadiansRobert Cringely has many excellent things to say about electronic voting technology.Then he comes up with the absolute best solution to using modern technology for voting: "First, the area where technology might be useful but isn't being used much, as far as I can tell, is voter validation. This could be a pretty straightforward database application that simply ensures that people are who they say they are, and they only get to vote once. The Help America Vote Act and its $3.9 billion don't touch this problem. If I were even more of a cynic than I am, I might suggest that's because it is often easier to disenfranchise specific blocks of voters by losing or corrupting their registration data than any other way.He is 100% right. Iraq: Is al-Sistani The Big Kahuna? Sure Seems So.Here's one that ain't in the NY Times. From English Al Jazeera:Grand Ayat Allah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's highest-ranking Shia cleric, wants the United Nations to rule if early elections can take place in the country, in a new embarrassment to the US occupation authorities.Strikes me we need to know a lot more about this fellow than we've been told. Here's a recent, but sketchy profile. Currently, he's not actively opposed to the US occupation. Bush's hamhanded diplomacy and inability to tolerate a challenge to his authority should change that fairly soon, unfortunately. Democrat Dean Tells Republicans: 'Bring It On'Damn, he's good at this:Republican advisers regard [Howard Dean] as the probable Democratic nominee, vulnerable to attack as inexperienced in national security and running too far left in the primary campaign to make a credible change of course to win in November.Anyone want to revise their opinion about what the Confederate Flag remark was all about? Heh, heh. Two Countries, Two StoriesFrom the United States:Afghan President Confident About Keeping Taliban at Bay From England: Video reveals Taleban regrouping. Two Papers, Two StoriesNew York TimesDespite threats from the Taliban, thousands of people participated in selecting the 500 delegates from around the country who have gathered in Kabul this week for the constitutional convention, or loya jirga, [President Hamid Karzai] said.LA Times Sarobi is as populous as some of Afghanistan's smallest provinces, yet it has no delegates registered for the loya jirga , or grand assembly, that is due to begin Saturday. As in several other districts, many of the people chosen to elect Sarobi's delegates instead voted for candidates outside their district, sparking allegations of widespread vote buying... Same Day, Two HeadlinesU.S. General Says Coalition Is Choking Funds to InsurgencyBremer Expects Rise in Violence as Iraq Builds Democracy Turkey Day Was Controlled Down To The Last GI And GibletThe Left Coaster alerts us to this Dana Millbank piece in WaPo:Stars and Stripes, the Pentagon-authorized newspaper of the U.S. military, is bucking for a court-martial.So nothing was left to chance. Which means that during Mission Accomplished Day, probably nothing was left to chance either, despite what Bush claimed. Iraq Contract Dispute: Why Shouldn't We Punish The Surrender Monkeys?Because it's just plain stupid, that's why:Some folks seem to be under the misimpression that there's some clever bargaining going on here. There's not. LA Times Gets It About DieboldTook everyone a while, didn't it?Voters' rights cannot be guaranteed merely by installing jazzy machines with shiny new buttons. One doesn't have to be a conspiracy theorist to recognize that the gadgets — as well as the people who build, program and operate them — need vigorous oversight.If the owner of Diebold was a Democrat who said "I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the Democratic nominee next year," you'd be able to hear the Republicans howling "voter fraud!" even in Antarctica. Is Bush UnelectablePandagon believes that Bush is unelectable. I also believe he is unelectable.Krugman Thinks Wolfowitz Is Deliberately Sabotaging BakerMaybe, but I think it looks more like simple incompetence.Of course it could be both... Mr. Wolfowitz's official rationale for the contract policy is astonishingly cynical: "Limiting competition for prime contracts will encourage the expansion of international cooperation in Iraq and in future efforts" — future efforts? — and "should encourage the continued cooperation of coalition members." Translation: we can bribe other nations to send troops. What Is The Plural of Madrasa?William Dalrymple, in a thoughtful and troubling essay about Pakistan in The New York Review of Books, alludes to a theme that I've been obsessing over since the 9/11 attacks: The ignorance of the non-Islamic world of Muslim countries.Why is this important? I assume the reasons are obvious, but here's a problem I hadn't thought of, frankly. It is possible that the president of the United States met with people who have ties to groups the US has classified as terrorist organizations. To say the least, this level of ignorance is dangerous. * Dalrymple lists many basic inaccuracies in a new book, Who Killed Daniel Pearl?, by Bernard-Henri Levy (known in the press as BHL) and points out, with justified indignation, to Levy's stereotyping of the Pakistani and his woeful ignorance of the complexities of Pakistani politics. He concludes: It is an alarming reflection of how widespread is the ignorance of Islam in general and of Pakistan in particular that only one of the many reviews of the book that I have seen in the US, by a Pakistani writer, has called attention to BHL's errors and elisions, or even bothered to note his disturbing expressions of contempt for ordinary Pakistanis. If Islamic terrorism is to be defeated, its causes and terrorists themselves must first be clearly and objectively understood. Instead, Who Killed Daniel Pearl? is not only an insult to the memory of a fine journalist who refused to accept the sort of crude ethnic stereotyping that Lévy indulges in, and who was notably rigorous in checking his facts. It also shows the degree to which, since September 11, it has become possible for a writer to make inaccurate and disparaging remarks about Muslims and ordinary Pakistanis as if it were perfectly natural and acceptable to do so.If only ignorance of Islamic issues was the province of pretentious French authors, I wouldn't be so worried. But, alas, that is not the half of it. In an essay on neocon strategist Laurie Mylroie, Peter Bergen does a very good job of debunking her bizarre ideas. To be kind, Mylroie is paranoid in the way old style anti-communists were paranoid. Without a shred of real evidence, she believes that Saddam Hussein was behind such acts as the original truck bombing of the WTC as well as 9/11. She thinks that al Qaeda is little more than a front group for Saddam's efforts to destroy the US. Would that she was merely a kook; her views have been praised by folks like Perle, Woolsey, and many others in a position of power and influence. What caught my attention was that Bergen makes a point of describing Mylroie as an important expert on Iraq and the Middle East: Mylroie has an impressive array of credentials that certify her as an expert on the Middle East, national security, and, above all, Iraq. She has held faculty positions at Harvard and the U.S. Naval War College and worked at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, as well as serving as an advisor on Iraq to the 1992 Clinton presidential campaign. During the 1980s, Mylroie was an apologist for Saddam's regime, but reversed her position upon his invasion of Kuwait in 1990, and, with the zeal of the academic spurned, became rabidly anti-Saddam. In the run up to the first Gulf War, Mylroie with New York Times reporter Judith Miller wrote Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf, a well-reviewed bestseller translated into more than a dozen languages.Something troubled me about this description when combined with Mylroie's ideas. So I wrote Peter Bergen and asked him whether Mylroie knew Arabic and, in particular, whether she knew how to read and write the dialects in use in Iraq. He was gracious enough to write back and said that while he didn't know for certain as she declined to be interviewed, he suspected that she could not. I suspect he is right. Think about it. A person described as an "expert" on the Middle East, who deeply influences American foreign policy, cannot, in all likelihood, read or speak the languages of the countries in which she claims a high level of expertise. If, perchance you think this is unimportant, that responsible translators can provide whatever a scholar needs, I can tell you that there is no possible way that someone else's translation would provide any real scholar with genuine knowledge of the original text, especially in a language so radically different from English as Arabic. In researching a piece that required English translations of the Qur'an, I consulted four different translations and acquired two concordances of the text. The differences in each version, both in nuance and substance, were profound. It is inconceivable that a scholar who cannot read the Qur'an in the original language would have any idea of how to interpret it in a sophisticated manner, no matter how reliable and how often s/he relies on a translator. In the case of modern texts, such as goverment documents, speeches, newspapers, broadcasts and the like, the problem is compounded. Since Arabic sounds quite different than English and uses a script very different than the Roman alphabet, a person illiterate in Arabic simply has no way, without a mediator, to know whether a given newspaper article has a sentence that could be useful, or if a broadcast on, say, a relatively minor event like a shortage of parts for tractors in a province, points to wider economic problems. Even more to the point, interpersonal communication at a sophisticated and/or informal level is all but impossible, especially with Arabic speakers who cannot speak English. Anyone who has gone abroad and conducted business through translators knows that understandings can be reached, but that crucial information about intentions, emphases, etc. are often entirely missed. A Middle East "scholar" who cannot speak Arabic cannot honestly claim to be an expert on the Middle East, any more than a person blind from birth can claim expert knowledge about Vermeer's art. I believe that there is no American that influenced Bush administration policy in Iraq that has even a passing acquaintance with the Arabic language, including Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith, Shulsky, Bolton and of course their superiors, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Powell, and Bush himself. As far as I know, the only high level official who can speak Arabic is General John Abizaid, who didn't assume his duties as Central Commander until July of this year. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that their assistants and aides are, for the most part, illiterate in Arabic. And I'd wager that none of them have troubled to read the Qur'an and, in addition, the crucial Hadith, without which one cannot even begin to understand Islam or Islamism, even in translation. But it gets worse, believe it or not. I know of only two major journalists, Tom Friedman, and Christiane Amanpour, who can speak Arabic. The American-born Friedman admits his knowledge is imperfect while Amanpour, who was born in Iran, is presumably fluent.** Apparently, even Peter Bergen, who certainly has some serious credentials including an interview with bin Laden in 1997 and much research in situ, uses a translator. I'm sure there are other journalists and lower level people in the government familiar with Arabic. However, the number of Arabic- literate people in the military and in our intelligence agencies is woefully small. What is most troubling, however, is that US foreign policy in the Middle East, South Asia and the rest of the Islamic world relies upon the opinions of experts who are experts in only one thing: English translations whose accuracy they are incapable of verifying for themselves. Knowledge of Arabic, of course, is not sufficient to claim expertise on Islam and Arabic matters. But like it or not, it is vitally necessary. Dalrymple is right: The Western world's ignorance, and especially the US's ignorance, is cause for alarm. PS And what is the plural of madrasa? It's madaris but English journalists typically write madrasas. If you don't know what a madrasa is, go read the Dalrymple piece linked to at the beginning of this post. *Admittedly, Frank Gaffney is less than reliable; even I could find a serious problem of fact in his article: his description of the charges against the Gitmo chaplaim, James Yee, are inaccurate. However, that there should even be any question that people who met the president might have terrorist ties is beyond the pale of acceptable security. **[UPDATE:] A correspondent - who will hopefully give permission to print the entire letter - informed me that while Iran uses Arabic script, they speak Farsi and that knowledge of Arabic is not to be assumed of Iranians. This, of course, illustrates my own ignorance about Iran and I am very glad to be corrected. Unfortunately, I suspect that Ms. Mylroie and Messrs Perle and Wolfowitz are capable making the same error. The difference is that they are in a position to create serious problems for the world while I, thankfully, am not. [UPDATE]: Apparently, I'm not the only one who noticed accuracy problems with Gaffney's article: The essays condemning Grover Norquist as a "fifth columnist" have suddenly vanished from David Horowitz's Front Page Web site. I could find no explanation on the site for their sudden disappearance. But a Norquist associate told me yesterday that Horowitz admitted he hadn't "fact-checked" the voluminously detailed charges made by Norquist's would-be nemesis, Frank Gaffney.Stay tuned... Well! Finally Someone Woke Up.Barbara Boxer will introduce a paper receipt for electronic voting bill.There are legitimate difficulties in getting this up and running by 2004, mainly because no one took this seriously until this fall, but so what? It has to happen. Thursday, December 11, 2003The Anti-Terror March In Baghdad Had Lotsa CommiesGreat job, Kynn. This has become a cause celebre of the right: how come the mainstream media didn't cover the anti-terror demo in Baghdad y'day?Well, I hate to tell you this, Mr/Miss/Mrs. Rightypants, but the February 15 anti-war marches around the world, and the follow-up on the eve of war in March, weren't covered very well either. In fact, Fox pointedly ignored American demos, as did many of the talk shows on the networks. And I caught the NY Times, that liberal/pinko rag shrinking the number of protestors as their coverage of it continued. Anyway, there were communists involved in the anti-terror march in Baghdad. The right objected loudly to commies when they marched against the war. They don't mind them now that they're on the same side as the Bushies. Kynn has the whole story so go there. New Koufax Awards Are OutThese are blogging awards for Left Blogistan. The info on them is here. I sent my nominations in. By the way, I didn't nominate myself for two reasons. One, it seems like an icky thing to do. Two, there are so many better people writing. If I come up with an occasional insight that others can use, great, but folks like Atrios, Jeanne d'Arc, Digby, and Kevin Drum are the gold standard in my book. Not to mention all the other fine writers who I haven't mentioned.Et Tu, Wall Street Journal?I've been dying to post about the "awkward position" that those masters of foreign policy, the Bushites, have found themselves in. But I saw something in the Wall Street Journal this morning about it which was by far the funniest article on the topic. You can't get it online, so I had to wait to get it. Finally, MSS, who has an online subscription, emailed it to me. Herewith some excerpts. Check out this lead: the reporters can barely contain their (justifiable) contempt for Bush.The Bush administration says it wants help in Iraq, but somehow it can't stop infuriating the countries that could shoulder more of the load.And here, heh heh, they nail the Bushite mindset perfectly; Bush and Co. truly believe they are the parents who have to teach the rest of the world a lesson: The White House scrambled to defend the policy Wednesday as part just deserts [sic] and part inducement for better behavior.And with the sociopathic lack of concern for other peoples' views that characterizes everything Bush does, he was apparently surprised by the reaction of the other countries' leaders: President Bush heard the complaints first hand when he called the leaders of France, Germany and Russia to ask them to forgive Iraq's official debt. Speaking privately, officials said that the timing and tone was disastrous and certain to make it much harder to pry troops, aid or debt-forgiveness out of furious allies.And yes, they all thought it was a good idea to punish the naughty children who said the Emperor had no clothes. Even the designated reasonable Bushie agreed: U.S. officials said Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz drove the decision, but that the rest of the Bush national-security team, including Secretary of State Colin Powell, signed off on the general idea with little objection.Bush wasn't the only one caught offguard; they're all clueless: Officials acknowledged Wednesday that they were surprised by the fierceness of the European response...Now, look, the countries that didn't go along with Bush aren't stupid. They knew they wouldn't get any spoils from the war. But the Bushites went out of their way to humiliate these countries: [The Pentagon memo] portrayed the exclusion of U.S. allies as "necessary for the protection of the essential security interests of the United States." Some officials said that the wording was intended to head off any legal claims. But others said that Pentagon aides had argued in private meetings that they couldn't be sure that French and Russian contractors -- some with a long history of dealing with Saddam Hussein -- wouldn't be infiltrated by anticoalition spies, although no one expected the Pentagon to even hint at it publicly.That is quite the understatement. So why did they behave so stupidly? Simple. They think they have nothing to lose: U.S. officials say they aren't sure whether that fundamental trust between Mr. Bush and the French, in particular, can ever be restored.Probably true, but one would wonder why any country should have a "fundamental trust" in the US ever again. Given that a George W. Bush became president once, what's to stop the US from doing the same in the future? (See here for longer discussion of this point.) And finally, the sentence that caused me to spew coffee about the kitchen table this morning: Some of the international furor may be a bit overblown.Get it? "Some" of the furor "may" be "a bit" overblown. But in fact, some of the furor with Bush is well deserved. By the way, Bush has a habit of infuriating everyone. And for the most part, no one outside the US wants to play ball with him. Remember this one? Or this? What a joke. Dean's ImportanceKos is absolutely right. This op-ed by Harold Myerson gets the Dean phenomena exactly right. The whole thing is worth reading but here are some choice nuggets:Disastrously, it's been the Democrats in Congress who've been the slowest to pick up on their new marginality. Some of the Democrats who voted to authorize the Iraq war in October 2002 did so -- or say they did so -- in hopes of prodding Bush to embrace a more multilateral approach toward Iraq.And Bush thought he was just being extra-polite to ask, because he never thought he had to ask anybody for permission to go to war. But to return to Mr. Myerson: While the nation's Democratic leaders were unable to understand just how marginal they'd become, however, millions of rank-and-file Democrats and just plain disgruntled Bush-haters intuitively grasped what was going on. Bush was bent on repealing the New Deal and replacing the internationalist order that the United States had erected after World War II with a more nationalist vision of his own. If you weren't with him, you were against him. And he was against you.Indeed there are limits, so what Dean has done simply must be supported by the rest of the party. If they don't, if the Democrats cannot retake the House, the Senate or the presidency, given the atrocious record of the Bush administration to run against, then this grass root will never vote for a Democrat qua Democrat again. I will only vote for a candidate endorsed by MoveOn or a similar organization - who may or may not have ties to a particular party. Bad MedicineGuess who's gonna get rich off the new medicare bill? Why none other than longtime Bush friends and contributors. CAP has the skinny:Bush is close friends with David Halbert – CEO of AdvancePCS. As the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported on 8/18/02 "before starting what would become AdvancePCS, David Halbert helped clean up a deal with Harken Energy that had prompted an SEC investigation of George W. Bush." After the investigation, Halbert then invited Bush to become one of the original investors in AdvancePCS – a transaction that made the President up to $1 million . UnelectableUnelectable.The Party Of Terrorism, Formerly The Party Of LiberalismDave Neiwert points us to an ugly meme that is being circulated by the right:Of course, Al-Qaeda and every other major terrorist organization are also rooting for a Democratic victory over President Bush. Do we see a disturbing pattern here? A vote for the Democrats in 2004 is a vote for Al Qaeda.Now the self-styled "American" Daily is a far right publication, but this is not the first time this kind of nastiness has surfaced, trying to draw parallels and associations between al Qaeda and the Democratic Party. The National Review, considered for some reason to be a "respectable" magazine published comments by Jed Babbin, deputy undersecretary of defense from Bush I. He insinuated that Democrats are rooting for an al Qaeda attack by preparing to take political advantage of it, should it occur: We are vulnerable, and any new attacks will be designed to do two things. First, they will be planned to interfere with Mr. Bush's reelection. That means the terrorists will attempt to cause very large numbers of casualties again, or a land a huge blow on our economy, or both. The most recent warnings that al Qaeda may be able to use WMD against us in the continental U.S. is simply a recognition of reality. From Marshall To Friedman, Via Jack And ShelleyIn 1953, George Marshall, he of The Marshall Plan, won the Nobel Peace Prize. Today in the Times the fellow who helped draft General Marshall's acceptance speech wrote a fine essay, with a superb quote from from the speech:Never one to shy from controversy, early in the speech Marshall addressed the issue of awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to a soldier, which had generated some comment in the press. "I know a great deal of the horrors and tragedies of war," he said, noting that he was chairman of the commission that supervised the construction of American military cemeteries overseas. "The cost of war in human lives is constantly spread before me, written neatly in many ledgers whose columns are gravestones."These words are about as perfect an image as have been written about war; the use of the driest of metaphors, an accounting ledger, is imbued with suffering and tears. And there is an association, clearly intentional, with the economics of the reconstruction of Europe, over which Marshall presided. There is an implication of sorts of an attempt not to balance the books of war with financial aid - an impossibility - but to acknowledge and address a moral and emotional deficit the conquerors owed the conquered, no matter how worthy the conqueror's cause. O, Discourse, how Protean thy character, who fits Herself so admirably to the glories or cruelties of an epoch! For, on the same page, Tom Friedman reaches for a very different metaphor to describe a very different war: Whenever I think of President Bush's invasion of Iraq, the image that comes to mind is that famous scene in the movie "The Shining" where Jack Nicholson, playing a crazed author, tries to kill his wife, played by Shelley Duvall, who's hiding in the bathroom. As Ms. Duvall cowers behind the locked bathroom door, Mr. Nicholson takes an ax, smashes it through the door, and with a look of cheery madness peers through the splintered wood and announces, "Heeeere's Johnny."Indeed it is. And, appallingly, Marshall's eloquence has no place in discussing it. The Perfect Christmas PresentA totally authentic, gold-plated Bush coin:![]() Wednesday, December 10, 2003Delusions in BaghdadSuperb roundup of what's going on in Iraq from Mark Danner in The New York Review of BooksIraq: New Top Dog Named BlackwillI usually link only to major news sources, but if Debka is right, Bremer has a new Bremer, Robert D. Blackwill, deputy national security adviser:It is a well-kept secret in Washington and Baghdad that the silver-haired, bespectacled Blackwill (whose name is often misspelled Blackwell), actually outranks Bremer. He was entrusted with providing the President with a direct assessment feed on the situation in the Red Zones – or Iraqi areas – as well as on the performance level of the US-appointed Iraq Governing Council and of Bremer himself....Assuming that Debka's story is accurate -not necessarily a foregone conclusion, as they have been less than accurate in the past, but sometimes they are highly accurate - there is so much wrong with Blackwill's plans that the mind boggles. First, if the IGC is dissolved, there is not even the pretense of a government beginning to be formed. As for GI's as Iraqi cops, let's just say that Blackwill's nuts. They are not trained to be cops and don't know how to do that job without over - or under- reacting. Second, with GI's spread far too thin as it is, to spread them even thinner is to place them in extreme jeopardy with absolutely no chance whatsoever that the situation will get safer. And that doesn't touch on all the other problems, like the fact that you can't be an effective cop unless you know the neighborhood you're patrolling and speak the language. Neither of which is true of most GI's in Iraq. What is the solution? Well, you know my answer by now. No solution has a chance to work until Bush is out of office and the UN or some other agency is actively involved. Both must happen. Until then, meaning January 2005 at the earliest, we just have to wait and pray that the situation doesn't get even worse. |
||