Tristero

Saturday, December 27, 2003

Friedman's Experiment Goes Boom  

Aficionados of Tom Friedman's remarkably clumsy, clueless op-eds will recall that in regards to the Iraq reconstruction, he wrote in May and with every indication that he was looking forward eagerly to the results:

It isn't often you get to see a live political science experiment...

Well, Tom, looks like someone forgot to control for a few of them there confounding variables. It seems... how to put this? well, things ain't going as hypothesized:

"There's no question that many of the big-picture items have been pushed down the list or erased completely," said a senior U.S. official involved in Iraq's reconstruction, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Right now, everyone's attention is focused [on] doing what we need to do to hand over sovereignty by next summer."

The new approach, U.S. diplomats said, calls into question the prospects for initiatives touted by conservative strategists to fashion Iraq into a secular, pluralistic, market-driven nation. While the diplomats maintain those goals are still attainable, the senior official said, "ideology has become subordinate to the schedule."

By the way if you're feeling a little too cheerful, by all means read the entire article. To say the situation is grim is a gross understatement. To say the situation will get worse over the next year and disastrous if the US leaves as planned next summer by Bush is merely to state the obvious.

(And speaking of confounding variables, I just love this description from a paper on the subject of ubiquitous computing:

[T]here are no reports of people's direct, experiential understanding of the "lived experience" of context. As a result, there is a significant gap between theoretical approaches for understanding context and the actual practice of context, which is critical for the specification of systems...We conclude that context is simultaneously more subtle, fluid and idiosyncratic than previously reported under theoretical approaches to understanding context.

Exactly right.)
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 11:51 PM

Bremer Says Blair's Spreading "Red Herring" On WMD  

Hee hee. Sounds like some crossed wires:

Tony Blair's claim that Saddam Hussein had laboratories for developing weapons of mass destruction has been dismissed by the US official running Iraq.

The prime minister said in a Christmas message to UK troops that the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) had unearthed "massive evidence" of clandestine labs.

The head of the Coalition Provisional Authority said it was not true.

Paul Bremer, said it sounded like a "red herring" made up by someone to upset the rebuilding effort.

Former chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix has also said Mr Blair's assertions are untrue.

It sounds like someone who doesn't agree with the policy sets up a red herring then knocks it down

Dr Blix said it was "innuendo" to suggest laboratories were used for WMD.

Mr Bremer seems to have been unaware that the quotes had come from Mr Blair when they were put to him in an interview on ITV1's Jonathan Dimbleby programme.

"I don't know where those words come from but that is not what (ISG chief) David Kay has said," he said.

"I have read his reports so I don't know who said that.

"It sounds like a bit of a red herring to me. It sounds like someone who doesn't agree with the policy sets up a red herring then knocks it down."

posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 10:57 PM

The Answerable Question  

Josh Marshall:

Is it really reasonable to expect that the values which undergird liberal democracy in America will be effectively spread abroad by the most illiberal people in America?

Best answered thus:

It is not America's destiny to spread its cooties around the world. Rather it is every country's responsibility to act compassionately but nearly always in its self-interest, demonstrating by example the values of its system of government.

It is only to be expected that "the most illiberal people in America" would be the ones most anxious to impose their sense of American values on the rest of the world. They fool no one and indeed draw attention to one of the most basic problems with the American worldview: its curious insistence that freedom and coercion do not contradict each other. Thus, the notorious "legalizing" of slavery in the Republic, thus the notorious legacy of the neocons in the early 21st Century.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 5:10 PM

The Unanswerable Question  

As a vegetarian, how on earth am I to respond to this survey?



If I answer the truth, that is, "no," then my vote may be mistaken for that of a -horrors!- carnivore, implying I will still eat beef.

But if I answer "yes," I'm technically telling the truth according to the bias of the survey, that I won't eat beef from now on, but I'm actually lying, because I haven't eaten beef since 1982 or so and the presence or absence of mad cow won't change my beef-eating habits one bit.

Grrr...

[Update] Revised and edited immediately after original post.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 4:35 PM

Iran Earthquake Relief Donations  

Some posters at Atrios suggested these links to donate to Bam disaster relief. It is a dreadful catastrophe:

Red Cross/Red Crescent
Relief International
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 12:57 PM

Seraphiel's Daily Cartoon Roundup  

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posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 12:49 PM

Earthquake In Iran  

My God:

``As more bodies are pulled out, we fear that the death toll may reach as high as 40,000. An unbelievable human disaster has occurred,'' said Akbar Alavi, the governor of the city of Kerman, the provincial capital.

The leader of one relief team, Ahmad Najafi, said in one street alone in Bam on Saturday, 200 bodies had been extracted from the rubble in one hour's work. Workers used their bare hands and shovels, while a few bulldozers moved piles of bricks in the search for bodies and survivors.

posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 8:56 AM

Straw Man Alert!  

Here's a terrific one:

Last spring it suddenly became fashionable to assign blame (or, if you prefer, credit) for the Iraq invasion to the University of Chicago political theorist Leo Strauss.

The influence of Strauss is clearly observed when you read the position papers of the neoconservatives and their fellow travellers. His overwrought fear of the world's very real dangers, his contempt for liberal democracy, and his fixation with uncovering the real, hidden meaning in texts that only he and his followers can understand are reflected in the neo-cons' basic principles: attack first, justify later; ignore international law; we know best. No one I've read has blamed the Bush/Iraq War specifically on Strauss, but it's easier to knock down that straw man than examine his real, and troubling, general influence on those who are still shaping American policy.

Likewise, no one said that Wolfowitz was the "architect of the invasion" of Iraq in the sense that he alone drew up the battle plans, as the author also claims. Look, no one believes Wolfowitz is competent enough to do anything like that. But this war, which Wolfowitz proactively supported with his numerous lies and evasions to Congressional committees, has his fingerprints, and Perle's, and many other neocons', all over it, for example in the dumb lack of planning for an aftermath and its deluded "spread American cooties far and wide" rationales.

[Update] By accident, I came upon this article by Jim Lobe which says in part:

Wolfowitz is also seen as the chief architect of Washington's post-9/11 global strategy, including its controversial pre-emption policy.

Please note that being "seen as the chief architect of Washington's post-9/11 global strategy, including its controversial pre-emption policy" is a far cry from being the architect, ie the overall planner, for an invasion. As "chief architect", one would expect that Wolfowitz would propose the general outlines for a foreign policy strategy, which is exactly what everyone I've read claims he did. In fact, a book to be published in 2004 by a Wolfowitz fan at the Weekly Standard is entitled "The Brain : Paul Wolfowitz and the Making of the Bush Doctrine" which seems to be making a similar point.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 8:48 AM

Well, At Least Saddam's Capture Made The US Safer...  

Right?

Iraqi insurgents launched several attacks in the southern city of Karbala on Saturday, and there were 20 coalition casualties, a military spokesman said. Two coalition troops were reported killed.

posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 8:23 AM

Friday, December 26, 2003

The Right And Everyone Else (Part One)  

One of the major reasons that most of us find it nearly impossible to comprehend right wing ideas and tactics - let alone oppose the right effectively - is that they are working with a fundamentally different epistemology than the rest of us.

(Epistemology, in case the word is unfamiliar to you, is the philosophical theory of knowledge.)

This will be short, and of course, oversimplified. So first, a caveat: Naturally, everyone exhibits all the traits I'm about to describe, but the relative importance of these traits in a person's character defines the difference in the left/right ways of knowing. To isolate them, distill them into a left/right epistemological essence, is helpful in order to understand what is peculiar about the right wing worldview, which emphasizes certain epistemological concepts that we don't.

Those on the right take the following for granted:

1. There is a reality out there.
2. It is our duty as human beings to apprehend fully that reality in our hearts and souls; then, we must conform ourselves to it. Acting in accord with that reality is what is known as morality.
3. If new observations and experiences contradict what we know in our hearts and souls to be true, then those experiences must be faulty or incomplete.

Now, those of us not on the right take this for granted:

1. There is a reality out there.
2. It is up to us to observe that reality and create responses to it based on what we learn from and about reality.
3. As we make more observations, our responses will by necessity change, becoming more refined or even changing entirely, as old notions of reality are discredited through new observations and experiences.

As I said this is oversimplified. For instance, to say that everyone accepts that there is a reality apart from human experience sweeps under the rug such puzzling and interesting issues as the post modern notion that what that reality might be is not half as interesting as studying how humans describe, accept, and privilege representations of that reality.

Nevertheless, this formulation gives us some useful purchase on understanding the different mindsets that can flow from such principles.

For example, it clarifies the Bush administration's strategy regarding Iraq's dangers. The Bushites knew to the depth of their being, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Saddam really was a serious, imminent threat who had to be taken out before he announced his intentions via a mushroom cloud.

When overwhelming evidence poured in that contradicted this moral certainty (eg, that no evidence of wmd's was found by the weapons inspectors), it was patently obvious to the hardcore Bushites that the evidence was so fragmentary that it could not possibly be telling the entire story. Why? It contradicted what they knew simply had to be true, so it was incomplete.

And so, Rumsfeld and Cheney issued directives, pressured subordinates, and formed alternate intelligence analysis groups to find the missing evidence of the truth. Anything that confirmed what they indisputably knew about Saddam - ie, that he had wmd's or was trying to acquire nukes - was deemed convincing, even if it came from shaky sources like Chalabi or from selectively reading the testimony of Hussain Kamel.

(N.B. I am assuming that the Bushites honestly believed Saddam was a major threat. It is not out of the question that they were both sincere in this belief and entirely cynical about it at the same time; most people in power do things for many reasons, after all. But right now, I am interested only in understandting the part of their worldview which appears deeply, sincerely held.)

A second example illustrates how those of us who don't reason like the Bush administration deal with the world.

As more and more friends and relatives became more open about their relationships, many straight people, who either condemned homosexuals as perverts or were creeped out over the subject, gradually realized that their views weren't in accord with what they were experiencing. Gays, which included beloved daughters and sons, were folks who differed not a whit from straight people except in a way that suddenly seemed as important a judge of character as skin color or nose size Thus, support for gay marriage now extends far beyond gay couples, the only group (and a small minority in every culture) who would be directly affected by legalizing gay unions. It now includes many straights as well. The straights who support gay marriage represent, in this example, the kind of person who changes his/her mind when reality contradicts preconceptions. Sooner rather than later, those in favor of gay marriage will constitute a majority of Americans (but not before a lot more blood, sweat, and tears have been shed).

More tomorrow.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 10:29 PM

Dean Is  

optimistic. In fact to say that Dean is optimistic is an understatement. Not only is Dean optimistic but I, too, am optimistic about Dean's chances. With such positive feelings about his candidacy, I think the country also should be optimistic about the prospect of a President Howard Dean in 2004. Far better he than that miserable failure we have now.

[Update] Links fixed. Thanks, Mary, and thanks for being so optimistic about the regime change next year. I too am optimistic.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 9:54 PM

God is not a right-wing zealot  

Interview with Rev. Pennybacker, head of the Clergy Leadership Council, which is mounting a progressive response - FINALLY! - to the religious right:

How is your view of Christianity different from that practiced and preached by George W. Bush or others who consider themselves religious conservatives?

Well, I'm not part of the evangelical right. I believe that God's spirit is inclusive, not exclusive. I believe that the public marketplace -- the place where ideas are exchanged and decisions are made -- is not to be monopolized by one religious point of view.

I believe that we are an open country with religious and even non-religious diversity, and that's a good thing, a democratic thing and very American.

And then I believe part of the appeal of the evangelical religion is for offering certainty, not faith. Certainty about what's doctrinally correct. I think one of the dangers of religion is to believe we've got God all buttoned down. And I believe just the opposite. I believe in the freedom and mystery of God that doesn't allow us to be certain but allows us to be loving.

To put it in street talk, I look more to how people live than what they say they believe.

posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 11:28 AM

Seraphiel's Daily Cartoon Roundup  

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posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 10:48 AM

National Park Sells Christianist Propaganda At Grand Canyon  

There are few things a society can do that is more self-destructive than teaching children lies. That is why the right wing obsession with teaching creationism garbage in public schools so infuriates people like myself. Now, via Metafilter, we learn that creationists are expanding their reach. In a government bookstore in the National Parks, a young earth creationist tome has been made available for sale.

posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 10:39 AM

Krugman's New Year's Resolutions  

They are addressed to his journalist colleagues and they are so good.

I hereby propose some rules for 2004 political reporting.

Don't talk about clothes.

Actually look at the candidates' policy proposals.

Beware of personal anecdotes.

Look at the candidates' records.

Don't fall for political histrionics.

It's not about you.

posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 9:49 AM

Unhappy Holiday In Iraq  

Iraqi Insurgents Kill Three U.S. Soldiers

A total of 11 U.S. soldiers have died from hostile action since Monday.

posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 9:34 AM

Thursday, December 25, 2003

More On Wolfowitz And The Cuban Missile Crisis  

Yesterday, I wrote that compromise is "a word that is at the heart of any sane international relations in a nuclear age." To expand briefly:

This is self-evidently true, which explains why even the most rabid dogs in the Bush Administration (except for Bolton, who is mad as a hatter, even by Bushland criteria) are not terribly eager to invade North Korea.

But what about compromise with terrorists, like bin Laden? Is it possible?

No and yes.

No with bin Laden in particular. As a self-styled revolutionary and one of the most famous and admired men in Islam, he has no incentive to strike deals with the US or any other "infidel." With bin Laden, it makes sense to destroy his ability to create havoc - not in the way Bush is doing it, by conquering irrelevant countries - but in other ways.

With others, including very dangerous states, yes, of course it is possible. Viz, Libya, Iran, and North Korea. None of them will be perfect, cheating will be rampant, but it is possible, and necessary, to engage them with due wariness and strike deals. Even with ngo's clasified as terrorist groups it is possible and necessary; the Bush administration cut a deal with an anti-American terrorist group soon after the fall of Baghdad, for example.

The point is that even with terrorists and rogue states, you can't kill them all; "evil" cannot be eradicated. Sooner or later, you have to talk to someone. And when you do, you enter a world which is tense and fraught with uncertain peril. But you also enter a world where the possibility of nuclear holocaust is diminished. No one is naive about countries that are dangerous to the US. But it is hopelessly naive to think that by killing and invading indiscriminately you can make this present world safer; just the opposite.

Had there been no back door deal during the Missile Crisis, had Kennedy pursued a Bush strategy of "no compromise with evildoers" and invaded Cuba to take out the missiles, the situation would, with near certainty, have escalated to a worldwide nuclear war within weeks.

The bipolar option available in the neocon formulations of the world - either kill all the evildoers or face nuclear destruction - is so wildly out of touch with reality that it doesn't bear discussion. Indeed, such an attitude is little short of a self-fulfilling prophecy - a strategy of unlimited pre-emptive war invites resistance, a resistance that can only spread and become more capable. In short, it invites the very possibility of nuclear annihilation neocons claim they are working to avoid.

In the real world, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of options to neoconservative manicheism. The sooner an American government skilled in weighing and implementing these options is returned to power, the safer we all will be.

And if the neocons complain that it's just compromise with evil, we should borrow a riposte from Tom Delay and say, "You're welcome! That compromise saved your life."

[Update] Billmon has a far more interesting and informative post on the neocons rise -and hopefully, it's fall- from power than anything you are likely to find in a newspaper or magazine. There is only one thing that is needed further: an "intellectual" history or description, which details the similarities and differences in the various neocon positions.

[Update] Once again, Billmon provides a good post on this subject, answering the question What is a Neocon?. However, he fails to name a single neocon, which again points to the importance of an indepth article that compares and contrasts the various neocon positions. Josh Marshall: feeling up to it?
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 10:58 AM

Merry Christmas  

Have a good one.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 8:44 AM

Wednesday, December 24, 2003

Wolfowitz And The Cuban Missile Crisis  

For reasons that remain unclear, WaPo thinks Paul Wolfowitz not only has a brain, but a brave, sensitive soul as well. Never mind, that they quote this deluded space cadet putting down students who object to his policies as Saddam lovers. He's an intellectual and a lover of humanity to WaPo. Incredibly, WaPo reports

Wolfowitz, who just turned 60, shies away from discussing his family's losses [in the Holocaust: most of his extended family was killed]. Asked about it, his response is seemingly off point. "The event that happened in my college years that had the biggest single impression on me, even more than Kennedy's assassination, was the Cuban missile crisis" -- that is, the prospect of nuclear holocaust.

That Wolfowitz would dare to bring up the Missile Crisis is evidence not only of his blind ignorance of American history, but also of the ignorance of those who cover him.

Anyone remotely familiar with the Missile Crisis knows that Kennedy originally wanted to bomb Cuba, an idea enthusiastically supported by Wolfowitz's "intellectual" forbears like Curtis Lemay. What no one knew was that had Kennedy attacked in the last few days of October in '62, they would be facing the possibility of a nuclear retaliation from Cuba, because some of the missiles were already operational.

Even though he was unaware of the full danger, Kennedy prudently recognized, and steered his advisors to recognize, that cooler heads should prevail. The minimal possible response, a "quarantine" of shipping, was approved and despite considerable provocation, Kennedy refused to escalate to a war. A back door deal was struck, nuclear war was averted, and we are all alive now as a result.

Given the Wolfowitz worldview, there is only one way to look at Kennedy's actions: appeasement. In fact, Lemay even presumed to bring up Munich to Kennedy during the discussion. With Wolfowitzian ideas of confrontation prevailing, a general, uncontollable nuclear war that no one wanted would have prevailed.

The lesson of the Missile Crisis is that Wolfowitz's ideas of foreign policy are not only naive and foolish, but dangerous to the point of madness. In the article linked to above, Wolfowitz is quoted in an earlier interview as saying, "The idea that we could live with another 20 years of stagnation in the Middle East that breeds this radicalism and breeds terrorism is, I think, just unacceptable."

There are two glaring intellectual problems with this. First, twenty year predictions are notoriously unreliable. In 1983, neither Wolfowitz nor any other neocon thought Islamism was the main problem; instead the utterly intractable problem of irreversible communism was the problem. He has no way to know what the next 20 years will bring, especially since, as the article points out, some experts state he has no particular expertise in Islam or the Middle East, except for Israel.

Another problem is this. For well over 20 years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, and in spite of the hysterical alarms of the Wolfowitzes in the US government, the world endured the Cold War. No one wishes that kind of world again, but through endless negotiations, frustrations, and compromises - a word that is at the heart of any sane international relations in a nuclear age - the world avoided a level of horror that would make the Holocaust look like a blip.

Negotiation and diplomacy are not in Wolfowitz's armory, however. What he does have is a sense of idealism and a faith in democracy that many observers, but certainly not this observer, admire. Both he and they are wrong for reasons I have blogged about often.

It is not because of Wolfowitz's childishly simplistic formulation, that nay sayers don't believe Muslims are incapable of democracy, that we object to Wolfowitz's "idealism" and reject his proposals. Rather, it is because the notion that you can act as an unequivocal "force for good" in a world that you have not taken even the slightest trouble to understand is insane. I challenge Wolfowitz to name the leaders of all the Arab and other Muslim countries, to name their capital cities, locate them on a map, and identify what kind of Islam is the predominant one in each country.

Even if Wolfowitz was fluent in Arabic or even if he knew at a minimum level what he was talking about, the notion of making the world "safe for democracy" is an idea that should have long ago been abandoned. Aside from the numerous intellectual stupidities the idea embodies, the US, as I've mentioned numerous times, has a failure rate of 75% when trying to coerce democracy into being, even higher when you look at situations similar to the Middle East.

Both in theory and in practice, Wolfowitz has been proven wrong time and again. And the example he singles out as making a huge impression on him, the Cuban Missile Crisis, is by far the best example that Wofowitz's ideas have no business being taken seriously.

Please, in the New Year, if you have not already done so, pick up a copy of the extraordinary Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis and perform a simple thought experiment. Imagine the same scenario but with Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney and Wolfowitz as the prime movers in ExComm. Then count your blessings that they were not in charge back then and that sensible people were.

Beyond a doubt, the next four years will be difficult and dangerous ones for this country. We simply cannot afford men as poorly equipped to deal with that world as Wolfowitz or his possible replacements. That, folks, is why the battle next year for the White House may be the most important political battle in this country's history since the 1930's or even earlier.

Don't kid yourself. Your safety, and the world's, is THE issue right now. That is why Bush must be defeated, because, neither intellectually or morally is he or his administration even remotely capable of meeting the challenges we face, while the Democrats, who are far more clear-eyed about the strengths and limits of both force and diplomacy, offer a far safer future.

Whatever faults Dems may have, they are not Wolfowitz, and never since the Cuban Missile Crisis has the country needed a Paul Wolfowitz less.

[Errors corrected and minor editing 12.25.03]
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 6:06 PM

News From Oklahoma  

Greetings from Oklahoma City! Here's today's big story from The Daily Oklahoman:

A case of mistaken identities involving an inmate suicide at an Oklahoma prison profoundly affected two families.

One wrongly heard from prison officials that its son -- Kevin B. Wyckoff, 23, a one- time fast-food service cashier from Sallisaw -- was dead.

Family members realized a mistake had been made when Wyckoff called from prison Monday just hours after his funeral.

Presumably, they were delighted to hear from him.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 11:00 AM

Advice To The GOP: Let The Dems Do The Lifting For You  

Atrios touches upon something I've been meaning to jot down for awhile, namely that if I were Karl Rove, I'd have a Tivo programmed to tape everything that the Democrats were saying against each other.

Come this summer, I'd make a series of commercials saying something like "Why is Howard Dean not qualified to be president? The Democrats can tell you far better than we can." Cut to the appropriate footage.

Sooner or later, the "opposition party" might consider a change of strategy and start opposing the opposition, not each other.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 10:43 AM

Seraphiel's Daily Cartoon Roundup  

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posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 10:18 AM

Limbaugh's Back  

Atrios has some links up regarding the mystery of the origin of Rush Limbaugh's addiction to oxycontin, inspired by Greg Beato's latest take on Limbaugh's recent legal machinations.

As you may recall, Limbaugh claimed that he became hooked on painkillers because of extreme pain following back surgery. Here's what he said at the time:

"I first started taking prescription painkillers some years ago when my doctor prescribed them to treat post surgical pain following spinal surgery. Unfortunately, the surgery was unsuccessful and I continued to have severe pain in my lower back and also in my neck due to herniated discs. I am still experiencing that pain. Rather than opt for additional surgery for these conditions, I chose to treat the pain with prescribed medication. This medication turned out to be highly addictive."

Well, looky here. It seems like the story may be starting to change a wee bit:

At a hearing Monday, Black [Limbaugh's lawyer] said his client suffered from a degenerative disc disease with 'pain so great at one point doctors thought he had bone cancer,' but Limbaugh chose to take painkillers rather than undergo surgery. Surgery to reach the affected part of Limbaugh's spine could have threatened his voice, Black said.

Note: No mention of an earlier surgery which was ineffective.

It is possible that the news reporter scrambled what Black said, that Limbaugh chose to take painkillers rather than undergo additional surgery after a failed operation. But given the clear discrepancy between this statement and Limbaugh's earlier one, some reporter should clear this up once and for all:

When, and where, did Rush Limbaugh have back surgery? And what do the contemporary notes of his doctors say about his pain? What did they prescribe?

Before conservative swill-throwers think I'm cruelly beating up on Limbaugh, they should know that my consistent opinion of Rush Limbaugh, the drug addict, is that he is a man to be pitied. Since he has relapsed more than once, odds are that for the rest of his life, he will be in and out of rehab and that the lives of those around him will be harmed even more than they already have been by his habit. Compassion for him compels me to hope that Limbaugh beats the odds.

Likewise, compassion for the countless victims of Limbaugh's irresponsible, hateful, hypocritical, and bigoted behavior compels me to hope that, finally, his public career and influence is over.

His addiction excuses not a single one of his acts, not the Chelsea Clinton insults, not calling Tom Daschle the incarnation of Satan, not his near-racist remarks, not a blessed thing.

posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 2:08 AM

Scowcroft-Chaired Board: White House Was Incompetent, But Didn't Deliberately Lie  

Well, that's a relief:

An advisory board to President Bush concluded that he made a questionable claim but was not deliberately deceptive when he charged in his State of the Union address that Iraq tried to buy uranium for nuclear weapons, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

Citing a well-placed source familiar with the findings of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, the report said the accusation made its way into the Jan. 28 speech because the White House was desperate to show that deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was trying to develop nuclear weapons.

According to the newspaper, the source said that after reviewing the matter for several months, the board, chaired by former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, determined that there was ``no deliberate effort to fabricate'' a story.

posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 1:09 AM

Real Life Increasingly Resembles Philip K. Dick's Brain  

Kynn over at Shock and Awe catches CNN being just a little too appallingly truthful about the abuse of police power in Los Angeles.

Originally the story about LA's reaction to the terror alert began like this:

LAPD: 'Pre-emptive' arrests made to get terror info

Federal source says investigation 'trying to beat a ticking clock'

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- In response to the national terrorism alert, Los Angeles police have made "a number of pre-emptive arrests," a high-ranking LAPD source said Tuesday.

Those arrests were made in the past 48 hours and included people who came to authorities' attention after the September 11, 2001, al Qaeda terror attacks in the United States.

The source stressed that none has been charged with any terrorism-related offense but were rounded up on unrelated charges -- in one case, credit card fraud -- in an effort to get information about possible threats. None of those picked up was identified.

Well, apparently, whomever in the police department who made this comment had never heard that pre-emptive arrests are like a totally big no-no in a free country, or rather they used to be within the memory of those who recall a time before the so-called Patriot Act.

But don't worry, no reason to get alarmed; this ain't The Minority Report, after all. Well actually, it sort of is The Minority Report, but without the precogs.

Apparently, someone at CNN thought so too, because the article was heavily edited so it doesn't sound so Dicky any more. The only reference to pre-emptive arrests is this:

In response to the alert, Los Angeles police made an arrest in an ongoing post-9/11 roundup aimed at disrupting terrorist activity.

The man arrested was charged with fraud -- not terrorism -- but likely would not have been picked up at this time were it not for the heightened terrorism concerns, LAPD sources said.

Pass the soma, please.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 12:44 AM

Tuesday, December 23, 2003

Seraphiel's Daily Cartoon Roundup  

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posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 4:04 PM