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Despite all of today's bad news, or perhaps rather particularly because of today's bad news, I would like to wish everyone a happy and safe Thanksgiving.
Mark Steyn online is finally up (thanks for the tip Andrea). And a good thing, too, since otherwise I would have missed this one.
Christopher Hitchens on anti-Americanism:
as with the simultaneously over-capacious and over-specific analogues ("terrorism," "anti-Semitism") we do seem to need a word for it. There are those in the Islamic world for whom the slogan "Death to America" is a real and meaningful invocation. There are those in Europe and elsewhere for whom the word "American" occasions a wrinkle in the nostril. And there are those, in America itself, for whom their country can do no right. I at any rate would claim, perhaps uselessly, to know this phenomenon when I see it...
He proposes the new terms "anti-modernist" or "anti-cosmopolitan." I'm not sure about those, but I do like his suggested designation for our own home-grown anti-Americans: "native masochists."
Two Palestinian gunmen opened fire Thursday on a Likud Party office crowded with voters casting ballots in a leadership race and also attacked passengers at a nearby bus terminal in northern Israel. Five Israelis were killed and dozens wounded.
The War Begins?
al Qaeda attacks Israelis for the first (known) time.
Three suicide bombers blew themselves up in an Israel-owned hotel in Kenya; a "light plane" simultaneously dropped three "bombs" on the site; and at the same time, two missiles were fired at an Israeli airliner as it left Mombasa airport.
Kenya officials say they believe it was an al Qaeda operation. Say what you want about Israel: it's no "paper tiger." Whoever is responsible is messing with the wrong guys. And if a hint of Iraqi involvement surfaces (not at all out of the question) they won't wait for UN authorization to respond.
UPDATE: a "previously unknown group" calling itself the Army of Palestine has, via fax, claimed responsibility. (The Kenyan ambassador's statement that there was "no doubt" that the attacks were perpetrated by al Qaeda was issued before these faxes arrived.) At this point, who knows?
Bill Quick says: "This smells of a joint Palestinian-Iraqi operation to me, with Iraq supplying tools, planning, and money, and the Palis supplying the suicidally lunatic manpower." Maybe...
He's definitely right about one thing though: "folks who think this can't happen here in the United States are suffering from a potentially fatal failure of imagination."
Another powerful editorial from Salman Rushdie, on the Miss World fatwa, "fanaticism as usual," and other recent milestones in "the wonderful world of Islam" (the quoted phrases are his, irony included):
A couple of months ago I said that I detested the sloganization of my name by Islamists around the world. I'm beginning to rethink that position. Maybe it's not so bad to be a Rushdie among other "Rushdies." For the most part I'm comfortable with, and often even proud of, the company I'm in.
Where, after all, is the Muslim outrage at these events? As their ancient, deeply civilized culture of love, art and philosophical reflection is hijacked by paranoiacs, racists, liars, male supremacists, tyrants, fanatics and violence junkies, why are they not screaming?
At least in Iran the students are demonstrating. But where else in the Muslim world can one hear the voices of the fair-minded, tolerant Muslim majority deploring what Nigerian, Egyptian, Arab and Dutch Muslims are doing? Muslims in the West, too, seem unnaturally silent on these topics. If you're yelling, we can't hear you.
If the moderate voices of Islam cannot or will not insist on the modernization of their culture — and of their faith as well — then it may be these so-called "Rushdies" who have to do it for them. For every such individual who is vilified and oppressed, two more, ten more, a thousand more will spring up. They will spring up because you can't keep people's minds, feelings and needs in jail forever, no matter how brutal your inquisitions. The Islamic world today is being held prisoner, not by Western but by Islamic captors, who are fighting to keep closed a world that a badly outnumbered few are trying to open. As long as the majority remains silent, this will be a tough war to win. But in the end, or so we must hope, someone will kick down that prison door.
Andrew Sullivan covers much of the same ground here.
Mama mia!
The man who attempted to hijack that Italian plane turns out to have been a would-be serial hijacker:
It later emerged the man had a history of hijackings, raising questions about how he had managed to secure a seat on the plane...
The man's mother, on learning that her son had hijacked a plane, reacted by saying: "My God, he's done it again!", said Italian newspaper La Repubblica website.
Face transplants '18 months' away
Peter Butler of the Royal Free Hospital in London said that new techniques and improved anti-rejection drugs have made it possible to graft a face on to another person. It is believed that a team of clinicians is being created at the Royal Free.
In the future, patients will be to have the donated "face" of a dead person, complete with arteries and muscles, grafted on to their own. The complicated and lengthy operation would give the recipient greater movement in their face, marking a departure from the mask-like characteristics of current grafting techniques.
In other news relating to Modern Marvels, the Times didn't try to charge me 60 bucks to read this.
This is a couple of weeks old, but still worth a look. sp!ked's Mick Hume laments the lack of persuasive arguments on both sides of the war/anti-war divide and in the process comes up with this fine withering passage:
For those of us opposed to Bush’s war plans on anti-interventionist grounds there is no comfort in today’s peculiar anti-war mood. Its rather loathsome character was summed up for me by a letter we received at spiked-online.com, arguing that those killed in the Bali nightclub could not really be considered innocent victims, since they were rich Western tourists who had ‘decided to enjoy themselves at the expense of folks in a Third World country’. Those killed in New York on 11 September were, it added, even less innocent, since they had chosen to ‘work in the generic cause of global imperialism’ on Wall Street. Our sympathetic correspondent concluded, ‘The only truly innocent are babies and the mentally challenged — the rest of us share all kinds of guilt.’ It is a depressing sign of the times that many will now proclaim such infantile, moronic sentiments who do not have the excuse of belonging to either of those categories.
Honky Tonk Wyman
It turns out that Bill Wyman, the music critic, received a cease and desist letter from attorneys representing Bill Wyman, former bassist for the Rolling Stones, demanding that he stop using the name Bill Wyman:
Journalist Bill Wyman was asked to cease and desist being Bill Wyman, "if indeed, (his) given legal name is Bill Wyman (a fact which we would insist be reasonably demonstrated to us)," according to the letter the paper received from attorney Howard Siegel of New York.
If journalist Bill Wyman turned out to truly be Wymanian, then Siegel asked that a "prominent disclaimer" accompany every mention of his very Wymanness.
Journalist Wyman suggested one: "Not That Bill Wyman."
Of course, Bill Wyman is not Bill Wyman's real name, but rather his stage name. (You can tell which Bill Wyman I'm referring to because the other Bill Wyman would not have needed a stage name.) That Bill Wyman's real name is Bill Perks. The other Bill Wyman's real name is Bill Wyman.
I can't tell from this article exactly how it all got resolved, but apparently Bill Wyman ended up deciding to let Bill Wyman continue to call himself Bill Wyman.
I knew a guy in school whose name was John Lemmon.
(via Boing Boing)
MEMRI Motel
For what it's worth, MEMRI has posted a summary of the contents of an interview with an "unidentified Iraqi official" from a London-based Arabic language daily newspaper. The u.I.o. boasts of previous occasions where Iraq "did not hesitate" to use weapons of mass destruction, and hints that this time won't be any different.
Then he added "oops, I mean, um, actually, let me rephrase that-- we haven't got any weapons of mass destruction this time. Heh heh heh..."
(I made that last part up.)
Also, according to this Weekly Standard blurb, MEMRI's Yigal Carmon says of the pseudo-Osama letter: "this is obviously a propaganda co-production of Suleiman Abu Geith... and Omar Bakri."
And another piece of red left my blogroll today...
If I'm reading this article correctly, it appears that the Telegraph is the only major British newspaper that does not have definite plans to start charging for content in the near future.
(via Peter Briffa.)
Malaysian police have arrested some "suicide bombers."
It's in inverted commas because, though these guys claim to be part of a "suicide bombing squad," there is some doubt as to whether they're telling the truth.
So the "question" "is": how does an as-yet-unexploded "suicide" "bomber" establish his "bona" fides beyond a "reasonable" doubt? (Or perhaps that should be "the" question.)
Never mind getting dandelions pulled, or the screen door patched or the beefsteak pounded
A lack of seriousness in Congress? No way...
The man knows everything
Noting my mention of a recent referral from a search for "famous quotes relating to goats," Dr. Weevil supplies one from Suetonius's Life of Caligula. As he says, it's not nearly as famous as it deserves to be.
Syd, Chuck, Kris, a dark globe, some drunk guy, and me, Elizabeth
So I'm walking down the street in Berkeley, and there's this hippie-type guy walking just behind me playing a Spanish guitar (not singing, just playing.) To my amazement, he was playing one of my favorite songs: the Syd Barrett tune that goes something like "oh where are you now pussy willow that smiled on this leaf when I was alone?"
He was doing a perfect, chord for chord, note for note rendition complete with the lovable, quirky, impossible-to-replicate rhythmic anomalies. (You know, a measure of four, then one of 5, then one of three and a half, then an unquantifiable pause, etc.) This is really hard to do. I've been trying ever since I was a teenager, and I've never been able to get the hang of it.
So I turn around to look at him, and perhaps to congratulate him on his taste and virtuosity, when I realize "oh wait, he's not playing that song at all. He's just drunk."
He looked at me like he thought I was going to punch him or something. So I said "hey," and we moved on.
This says something either very bad or very good about my personal aesthetic. Maybe both.
I was on my way to meet my good friend Chuck Prophet who just got back from all his touring for his new big radio record. We sat in Tully's cafe and spent about two hours talking about about how hard it is to write songs and how great Kris Kristofferson is.
A perfect day.
TNR's Jason Zengerle on the long over-due "Saudi-gate" brouhaha initiated by that Newsweek article:
As any connoisseur of the Sunday shows knows, guests and discussion topics are determined days in advance of the actual shows. Usually by Friday afternoon, the weekend's lineups are set. But when news breaks, the shows must adjust accordingly. This weekend's report from Newsweek about possible Saudi government financing of two of the 9/11 terrorists certainly qualified as news--and the Sunday shows responded with alacrity, adding guests and shifting focus. The Bush administration, on the other hand, was not so agile--and their silence on the Saudi story spoke volumes...
By begging off this week's Sunday shows, the Bush administration managed to avoid having to answer these questions right away. But laying low has its downside--namely, the Bushies have now allowed Lieberman and others to frame the debate, and when the administration finally does get around to addressing the Saudi matter, it will be forced to do it on the terms that Lieberman and the others have set. It's not like the White House to cede the initiative when it comes to public relations; but, in this instance, the Bushies have opted for the extra time because, in the matter of the Saudis and 9/11, the administration has apparently concluded it is dealing with an extremely volatile situation. Based on what we saw today, there's no reason to believe they're wrong about that.
Boy, I'll say.
Aside from the actual content of this story (the details of which are very nearly as significant as they're cracked up to be-- the overall issue incalculably so) it's also fascinating from a political stagecraft angle. Watching it play out is something else. It's like a movie, a morality play about political hubris and the pundits who love it. The Republican army is utterly victorious in the Glorious Midterm Elections, its foes nothing more than mangled chunks scattered across the battlefield. The victors retire to the palace for a grand feast and celebration. They fought bravely, and the defeat was so decisive that everyone is certain their benevolent rule will endure, unchallenged in any serious way by the defeated enemy, till the end of time. We hear the sound of the cheering of a great crowd: it's the Emergent Republican Majority proclaiming that they will never vote for anyone else ever again. The audience expects the credits to roll...
and then...
...we see Joe Lieberman's hand, groping in the bloody snow, for what, we know not. Suddenly, the hand alights upon a copy of Newsweek, which seems to be shining with an unearthly inner light. With tremendous effort and visible pain, Lieberman arises and trudges towards the palace, holding the magazine aloft. The crowd of rabble who had, in a previous scene, been triumphantly exchanging their betting markers for crumpled wads of cash are now shown handing back the cash to the other crowd of rabble; some are tearing the markers up, some gazing upon them wistfully. The Republicans refuse to come out of the palace, recognizing the potential power of Lieberman's makeshift amulet... and in the distance, we see the massing hordes of the more dangerous, common enemy, preparing for battle...
I don't know how the movie ends. Saudi-gate won't solve all of the Democrats' problems. It will be tricky to use it effectively, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if they can't manage it. But it is a real issue, upon which Bush himself is extremely vulnerable. And it's not going to go away.
Frankly, I don't much care about the political sweepstakes. I'm just glad the issue is finally being raised. Whatever happens, we learn, once again: it ain't over till it's over. And even then, well, you never know.
Osama to America: sign the Kyoto Protocols or die!
Could it be for real? Who knows?
I'm sure there will be those who will make a great deal of hay over the rhetorical similarity of some of it to Chomskyite Indymedia-type "anti-Imperialist" claptrap. I'll leave it to someone else to try to come up with the wittiest way to make this relatively trivial and banal observation. (To my surprise, and to his credit, Andrew Sullivan has resisted the temptation: his long post on this letter is eloquent, clarifying and utterly non-trivial.)
If nothing else, this Osama or pseudo-Osama has presented us with fodder for a thousand cheap high school debate society gags, similar to that provided by Hitler's vegetarianism, e.g., "in other words, like Osama bin Laden, you believe that the US isn't doing enough to prevent global warming," or "so Rush, would you say you agree with Osama bin Laden that Bill Clinton's escape from punishment for his immoral acts in the Oval office is the worst event in our history...?"
Trivia aside, the biggest surprise about this letter, for me, is its lucidity. The religious stuff sounds completely wacko, like that sort of thing always does; but it is possible to follow it. The anti-Imperialist stuff is preposterous, but far more clearly-stated than I'm used to seeing from home-grown anti-Americans: if Gore Vidal ever learned to express himself half as clearly, he'd probably be much more effective as a self-styled "enemy of the state." It has a certain "all of your base are belong to us" quality, evoking a Surrender Earthlings message delivered by movie Martians. Yet, though risible and absurdly implausible, the demand for, the expectation of, "complete submission" to Sharia law, on pain of death, is nonetheless far more disturbing than it ought to be: because they really mean it, you see?
It's puerile, atavistic in multiple layers (the usury paragraph achieves a "medieval" flavor that adds a whole old dimension to the Hitlerian anti-Semitism it otherwise invokes-- a grim irony to be sure); it is hectoring when it isn't whining; it is obtuse, belligerent, nasty, appallingly devoid of humanity or charity. It is stylistically monotonous and irritating: reading it is like being pestered by a mosquito you can't swat away. It achieves the oppressiveness of totalitarian rhetoric, but with a lot less jargon. It conjures the impression of an announcement issuing from a loudspeaker at some kind of bizarre, implausible religious concentration camp. Despite the "religious" content, though, the author seems spiritually dead, a machine animated only by hatred and cold belligerence. But he does not rant or rave incoherently, like so many of us do.
In short, to my surprise, it doesn't sound crazy.
Just evil.
In case there was any doubt: it's a religious war. That's how they see it. As such, there is no compromise, no tolerance, no "live and let live." "Simplistic" as it still sounds, they really do hate America and our way of life; they hate, mock, and want to destroy the very idea of freedom, of democracy, of pluralism, of tolerance, of secular law; they hate Jews; they hate humanity. It's not an exaggeration, or a convenient hypocritical conceit. It's not "propaganda." It's actually true.
I recently saw Christopher Hitchens on some talk show or other glibly say something like: "they want to live in the 6th century desert with just one book. Their demand is that you cease to exist." Turns out, he was right.
UPDATE: Instantman says the letter is bogus. I'd say that's more likely to be the case than not. As Andrew Sullivan says, though, either way, it's a sincere attempt to sum up the Islamist/al Qaeda position, written by someone who obviously put a great deal of effort into the project. Otherwise he's an extremely clever satirist. And it has been enthusiastically circulated among al Qaeda sympathizers. Anyway, Reynolds has posted a concise reply.
This post by Josh Marshall begins as a sort of comment on Krauthammer's recent by-the-numbers piece on the "left-wing idiocy" of Bill Moyers, Paul Krugman, et al. (Well, not entirely by the numbers: this one includes a prescription for Thorazine-- a novel, maybe even handy, twist.) I enjoy this sort of thing as much as anyone, but I try not to let a good time get in the way of the truth. (I'm a shameless liar, of course: a good time usually wins with me. But nevertheless...) Marshall's comment is apt: "whatever other causes or effects the election may have had, it popped the cork on a new bottle of conservative conceit and self-congratulation."
The interesting part of the post, however, spurred by the fact that the Krauthammer piece appears in the Weekly Standard, is a perceptive question:
What happened to conservative reform? National Greatness conservatism? You know, McCain-ite TR worship and the rest?
The answer:
Some will say that National Greatness Conservatism is alive and well in the zeal for the drive to Baghdad. But that's a weak rejoinder. Aggressive foreign policy was only part of the equation. The truth, I think, is pretty clear: it's dead...
What happened is that Bush got popular because of the war. And after that happened why did anyone need reform anymore?
There's a great deal of truth in this. The Weekly Standard does seem to have lost some its fire. And even in spite of the Democrats' perverse apparent determination to consign themselves to the political margins at all costs, the withering away of internal dissenters like the McCainiacs bodes ill for the long-term health of the Republican party, even if it means that Bush has "won" again.
I really hope the that the person who arrived at this site searching for "famous quotes relating to goats" was able to find what he was looking for.
Cherry Bomb
From Joan Jett's open letter to Rolling Stone:
I tried to find some cleverly worded way to express my disgust with your "Women in Rock" issue, but what i have to say is really quite simple: You guys are completely retarded.
(via Laughing Hyena)
In case you missed it, here's a history lesson from Matt Welch on Eastern Europe, NATO expansion, and Vaclav Havel:
The historic NATO summit in Prague was cast largely as another chapter in the geopolitical melodrama about Saddam Hussein. "Bush draws NATO allies to anti-Iraq campaign," The Globe and Mail's headline read on Thursday morning. "U.S. Wins NATO Support on Iraq," the Financial Times chipped in yesterday.
The forest missed by the tree-obsessed press was vast, and worth considering. Beyond the real significance of guaranteeing security for oft-trampled Central and Eastern European countries, the Prague summit provided them with their first tangible multilateral reward for overthrowing communism, gave U.S. President George W. Bush a noticeable shot in the arm and served as the crowning achievement of Czech President Václav Havel's fabled political career.
Read the rest.
Defining Victory Down
Way down.
Mark Steyn's latest, much-linked column is entertaining as always, and as usual, there's some substance between the one-liners:
For over a year now, nothing has been asked of Muslims, at home or abroad: you can be equivocal about bin Laden and an apologist for suicide bombers, and still get a photo-op with Dubya; you can be a member of a regime whose state TV stations and government-owned newspapers call for Muslims to kill all Jews and Christians, and you'll still get to kick your shoes off with George and Laura at the Crawford ranch.
This is not just wrong but self-defeating. As long as Dubya and Colin Powell and the rest are willing to prance around doing a month-long Islamic minstrel-show routine for the amusement of the A-list Arabs, Muslims will rightly see it for what it is: a sign of profound cultural weakness.
Steyn wonders why this past year appears to have been singularly devoid of War on Terror action.
As things stand, there are only three countries that are serious about the "war on terror": America, Britain and Australia. And, even within that shrunken rump of the West, there are fierce divisions... President Bush's resoluteness doesn't extend to his Secretary of State or even, during Ramadan, to himself. The longer this already too long period of phony war continues, the more likely it is that even these stalwarts will decay and Canadianize. I worry about the thin line on which our civilization depends. This last year has been too quiet.
It's a fair question. Bush has defined Iraq as the most serious imminent threat to our security and vowed to hold the sponsors of international terrorism accountable. He must know that the public's confidence in his leadership rests almost solely upon the perception that he can handle this situation. So why has he continued to coddle the Saudis and to procrastinate on Iraq for a full year?
That's a tough one. But I wonder if some of it might not have to do with the fact that Bush partisans have constructed a giant self-congratulatory feedback loop, declaring Victory in advance of action; constantly reassuring each other, for example, that "defeating" the moribund, politically-retarded Democrats and diplomatically out-manoeuvering the French makes GWB into some kind of cross between Abe Lincoln and Winston Churchill. Anyone who can handle Tom Daschle and Jacques Chirac with such aplomb will make short work of our real enemies, right? That is, when the time is right, by and by, after the process has run its course. All part of the master plan, for regime change or disarmament or cooperation (which is a kind of regime change, isn't it?) Or preemption or containment or unilateralism or multilateralism, that sort of thing. Some of us might prefer a more direct approach, but that's just Dubya's way, and who's to say it's not the best solution, whatever it is?
And anyway, back to the main point, isn't that Nancy Pelosi just awful?
Steyn himself wrote one of these victory-dance columns just last week. Maybe Bush read it along with all the others, and forgot that technically he still has to trot around the bases before he gets official credit for hitting another one out of the park.
OK, I'm kidding. Mostly. But it is amazing that GWB hasn't come in for stronger criticism from the right, given the lackadaisical post-Afganistan phase of his own war on terror, and the non-confrontational attitude towards countries which some consider to be our most dangerous enemies. Steyn's column (the second one, I mean) is a rare example to the contrary. Granted, from the perspective of those who would like a war to occur, the situation might have been far worse under Gore; but one must assume they'd consider that to be a pretty low standard. At any rate, I don't think there's any doubt that had a President Gore decided to entrust the fate of Iraq and its WMDs to the UN and to continue the Saudi suck-up policy, they wouldn't be putting much energy into devising ingenious rope-a-dope theories to sustain their wishful thinking; rather, they'd be fisking him from here to kingdom come morning, noon, and night. I'm sure Bush means well, but some constructive criticism from his friends wouldn't go astray.
I see merit in both columns, contradictory though they may be. The French were wrong (though it may yet turn out that they were wrong "like a fox"), and the Democrats deserved to lose, in part because of their lack of credibility on defense. But on what, at this point, is Bush's unquestioned credibility based? How long does he get to enjoy such uncritical credit for striking intermittently tough attitudes and articulating aggressive policies that somehow never get put into practice? As Bill Quick memorably put it, you can only dine out on Afghanistan for so long.
Now I may be wrong, but it seems like the principles articulated on 9/20/01 and in the 2002 State of the Union address, the ones which won over so many skeptics among his critics, the ones that led many who did not vote for Bush to express, to their own astonishment, relief that the guy they voted for was not in the White House-- these principles appear to be in a shambles. Taking the fight to the enemy, making no distinction between the terrorists and their abettors, dismantling the "axis of evil," the newly unapologetic confidence in American power-- much of this seems to have been diluted into a kind of low-grade mush. Afghanistan was the necessary preliminary step; but it was supposed to be peripheral to the main order of business, which was to challenge, de-fang, and if necessary defeat the states that sponsor, shelter, and encourage Islamofascist extremist proxies in their collective war on America and her interests and allies. After Afghanistan fell, hawkish pundits crowed that the only way to earn the respect of these enemies was to face them head on and defeat them utterly, and that only such crushing defeats would quell their ardor for launching further campaigns. This may have been true enough, but for some reason we failed to take the next step. I fear that much of this momentum, this progress toward an Islamofascist attitude adjustment, if such it was, has now dissipated. Do they still see the US as a "paper tiger" that lacks the will to challenge them in any serious way? It seems as though Saddam Hussein does. Well, why wouldn't he? He has no reason to fear the UN (his partner in obfuscation) and the US doesn't seem to be all that into dropping bombs these days.
In the meantime, Bush spent several months thrilling the hawks and scaring the bejesus out of the Europeans with a series of bellicose speaking engagements and sabre-rattling commencement addresses on unilateralism and the "doctrine of preemption" that, it now appears, served no purpose other than to thrill the hawks and scare the bejesus out of the Europeans. What was gained during all those months of empty rhetoric and "Homeland Security?" Incremental progress in tracking down and gathering intelligence on al Qaeda members, which is laudable to be sure, and time to prepare and organize our forces for a theoretical future engagement with Iraq and others, which is only prudent. (Iraq has had a year to continue its programs, too, of course; but, on the plus side, we've introduced rigorous shoe inspections at airports and soon we're going to have a giant database of domestic credit card purchases.) We (and they) will have even more time now that we have deliberately enmeshed ourselves in a UN inspections process intentionally designed to hamper and impede American action.
There are those who maintain that the Bushies, in keeping with a carefully-formulated long-term plan whose brilliance is yet to be revealed, entered into this inspections charade with the express intention of abruptly disentangling themselves from it on December 8th. The Europeans won't like it, but there's not much they can do. There was never much they could do. And the point is... ? Never fear, my poppet, all will be revealed in time. They've been saying this sort of thing for a year, like Jehovah's Witnesses telling you to mark your calendar for successive Second Comings-- the only thing that changes is the date. You know, I'm beginning to wonder if they know what they're talking about.
These are tough decisions, with serious risks and grave consequences, and I don't propose that they be taken lightly or hurriedly. They were never going to be easy. Someone has to make them though. I remember thinking, during the 2002 State of the Union address, that Bush would have a lot of explaining to do if Saddam Hussein were still in power in January 2003. At the time it seemed scarcely conceivable. Now it's all but certain.
We'll be deliberate, yet time is not on our side. I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons. (Applause.)
Will these lines get as much applause the second time around? In any case, it's going to take some doing to make it sound like "victory," feedback loop or no.
Copycats, or worse...
Islamic Jihad has attempted its first known al Qaeda-style suicide boat attack on an Israeli naval vessel off the north Gaza coast. Rather small potatoes for al Qaeda, but you never know. It doesn't sound as though the small patrol boat that discovered the self-detonating seafaring psychos was the intended target. What were they aiming for?
Forward-thinking Atavism
Miss World contestants are preparing to fly to London, amid criticism over the decision to host the beauty pageant in the UK...
The UK's Islamic Liberation party has condemned the contest as offensive to people of any religion...
Spokesman Sajjad Khan told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "The idea of having a beauty contest anywhere would be against many forward-thinking people, whatever faith and whatever ideology."
He added: "A beauty contest is anathema, more akin to the dark ages than having a contest in the 21st century."
The Irony Olympics
Eric Alterman faults Andrew Sullivan for failing to "engage with the work of liberal writers" like Paul Krugman.
"Hate Speech" alert: Lock her up
Why is two women being killed each week acceptable, whereas the murder of two blacks or gays would not be?
--Julie Burchill, of the Guardian, taking a leaf from Robin Page's book.
Family Values
Are you ready for... Anarchist Parenting?
Up until now I have been unable to stay at home with my oldest son and un-school him. He is now 15 years old and doesn't want to be home schooled, so he's in public school. After all of these years of participating in the school system, I finally decided just last month that I would never again make that mistake. That is, of course, if I can help it.
My family is quite privileged inasmuch as we are even capable of considering unschooling our two younger boys. However, we are also just making it week-to-week, selling plasma twice a week for miscellaneous living expenses, juggling from month to month to prevent this utility or that one from being shut off.
At this very moment, I think our water has just been disconnected (yep, I was right).
(via Fimoculous)
No business like show business
I'm not as up-to-date as I ought to be on the activities of aging British Socialists, so I wasn't even aware that Tony Benn has a "highly rated one man show" called Free at Last (which is incidentally also the title of his published memoirs.) Well, he does indeed, though judging from this description it sounds like more of a promotional speaking tour than a "show."
Nonetheless, the Brussels performance described in this article seems to have had its moments:
In the UK his show is normally attended by the converted, but here in Brussels the audience was very different. Many of the 500 or so spectators had come along out of curiosity. Eurocrats, MEPs, lobbyists, consultants, journalists, thinktank-ers, research assistants and lawyers all crammed in to hear the 77-year old reminisce about the past and fulminate about the future...
One of Benn's main criticisms was that there is not enough democracy in Brussels, a point with which it is hard to argue.
The European commission, he reminded the audience, is not elected and therefore not accountable, and the European parliament, he told crestfallen MEPs, is not a parliament in the real sense of the word...
The most important question to ask someone in power, he quipped, was how you go about getting rid of them, and in the case of the European commission the disturbing answer is you can't.
It's funny because it's true.
A prominent Tory MEP who insisted on shouting "Hear Hear!" after any of Benn's pronouncements he liked (and there were many of them) reminded the audience that doubts about the EU and its direction are shared by the right too.
Like the man said: something for everyone. Though I admit I prefer a good leg show.
(via Airstrip One.)
A good material breach is hard to find, as TNR's Ryan Lizza explains:
This week's international debate over the definition of material breach is a harbinger of things to come. In fact, the debate over paragraph eight will be nothing compared with the coming war over paragraphs three and four. Those paragraphs mandate that, by December 8, Iraq must provide the inspectors with "a currently accurate, full, and complete declaration" of every aspect of its chemical, biological, nuclear, and missile programs...
Despite Bush's tough rhetoric on Wednesday in Prague--"Deception this time will not be tolerated"--State's interpretation is that even the most bogus declaration cannot by itself equal material breach. Paragraph four says that "false statements or omissions in the declarations submitted by Iraq pursuant to this resolution and failure by Iraq at any time to comply with, and cooperate fully in the implementation of, this resolution shall constitute a further material breach [emphasis added]." State's reading of this paragraph--the only one in the resolution in which material breach is defined--is that lies in the disclosure must be accompanied by noncooperation with inspections to reach material breach...
"There is no material breach until Iraq has not cooperated in the verification of the declaration," says a Western diplomat who was closely involved with the negotiations. "Merely telling lies in the declaration is not in itself a casus belli." In fact, the presence of the word "and" in paragraph four was key to getting a unanimous vote. "The British were extremely specific about this," adds one diplomat. "[U.K. Ambassador Jeremy] Greenstock stressed it and stressed it." The Brits concur. "It's the two things together," says a British official. "To get to the level of material breach, we're talking about a lie in the declaration and noncooperation" with the inspectors. As long as there is cooperation, even if the inspectors discover that the declaration was false, there is no material breach.
This interpretation, of course, gives Saddam zero incentive to be forthcoming in the declaration. Why should he provide Blix with any clues when he is only really going to be judged by his cooperation with inspections on the ground?
The death toll of the Nigerian Miss World riots, which have now spread to the capital, stands at 100.
This Victor Davis Hanson column, like every other VDH column, will be linked to by everyone hither and yon. He makes a convincing case that the US-Iraq war, should anyone ever manage to start it, will probably wind up as a siege/blockade of Baghdad:
[Saddam] has learned that a conventional battle with the United States amounts to a circus in which thousands of poor draftees surrender to either helicopters or Italian reporters. Therefore we should realize that Saddam accepts that on Day One of the next war, he will lose his entire air space. He concedes as well that, a few days later, what provincial conscripts do not surrender will, like the Taliban, be obliterated in the field. Some regional cities staffed by such units could fall within hours to coalition forces and popular uprisings.
In short, his only real alternative is to circle his wagons in Baghdad and accept the realization that his own people loathe rather than support him. We see that popular discontent as a given and to our great advantage; he accepts the former reality, but not altogether the latter...
If Saddam can hold out for a month or two in Fortress Baghdad, use his own population of millions as veritable hostages whom he prays will be casualties to collateral bombing damage, snipe at Americans who venture Mogadishu-fashion into his redoubt, and like Chechens send out an occasional salvo or some terrorists to cause havoc — he believes he can create a war of attrition and wage it with a few thousand diehards hidden among the general population. Under such a scenario, merely his continued survival will be a rallying cry that not only might change Iraqi opinion, but could galvanize the Arab street should Americans or Jews start dying in real numbers.
As I've said before, I doubt Saddam really believes it will come to this (which is one reason that the weapons inspections/gradual coerced disarmament approach is, ultimately, doomed.) But in a shooting war, just as in the last Gulf War and as well in the current phoney war, simply avoiding annihilation would be a victory, no less real for the fact that it's the only type of victory available to him. The US will win, of course, if the war is waged in earnest. But we shouldn't kid ourselves: this will be a serious test of American will (that of leaders and of the public.) And our recent track record isn't all that promising.
Topple Saddam at any cost, say Iraqi Kurds
As well they might.
John Weidner has posted this article from the Deutsche Presse-Agentur (not available on-line.) Here's an excerpt:
"I want him dead, even if I or my family lose all our belongings and our whole existence," said Farugh, a 39-year-old trader in Suleymanieh. "And believe me, I mean it," he added.
The bitter hatred towards the Iraqi president in the Kurdish regions is unanimous. No Kurd can forget the genocide in 1988 when Saddam brutally killed hundreds of families in the northeastern Kurdish town of Halabja by dispersing toxic gas. "The hatred is genuine and justified. What he did to us (Kurds) in 1988 is unimaginable," said Saadi Pireh, the foreign policy spokesman of Suleymanieh, the centre of the Patriotic Union (PUK) governed Kurdish autonomy. "He should be on trial at the Hague Tribunal as war criminal at least," said the spokesman.
The Kurdish people however are less diplomatic and call for Saddam's assassination either by United States military intervention or a coup within the ruling Baath party. "I want to see his death live on CNN," said Rahman, a member of the PUK Peshmargas (Kurdish military forces) and one of the few survivors of Halabja, where he lost his parents and his younger sister. "Only then might I forget Halabja and only then might my recurring nightmares of the massacre of so many innocent Kurds come to en end," he said.
Cops
Take a look at Bill Quick's close-reading and commentary on this Reuters report about Colin Powell's latest televised statements on Iraq. I think he's right. It certainly looks as though the administration is laying the groundwork for a retreat. (Or perhaps an indefinite delay, which comes to the same thing.)
Did you think that the December 8th deadline for Iraq to declare its weapons programs was the moment of truth, and that the resulting "severe consequences" would include an invasion? Despite the enduring faith of some of GWB's indefatigable cheerleaders, this time-table has always seemed a bit far-fetched to me. Powell's statements seem to bear out this skepticism. At minimum, this looks like an attempt to preserve the (disastrous) option of inaction, in the event that the Commander in Chief is unable to summon the fortitude to make the decision to act. (Of course, if this can be accomplished while leaving the impression that action is just around the corner, so much the better.)
President Bush said on Wednesday that Saddam would be entering his "final stage" if he says in the declaration that he has no such weapons.
Other members of the Security Council say that a false declaration alone would not justify war.
Mr. Powell, what does the President mean by "final stage"? Answer: a false declaration would be "a big signal to the international community as to what we might have to do in the future." These don't sound like the words of a man who expects imminent military action.
I don't think it's all part of some elaborate, perfectly-planned disinformation campaign to keep the enemy guessing. (Though, if so, it will have been one of the most effective in history: if there is an attack on Dec. 9th, thereabouts, or even in the next year, I'm pretty sure it will come as a complete surprise to Saddam Hussein-- he clearly believes that the US and the UNSC are just blowing smoke.) Is Powell merely playing "good cop" to Bush's "bad cop"? There's some precedent for this, of course. But to what end?
I keep thinking of another, more worrying, good cop/bad cop scenario, in which the Bush administration with its bellicose rhetoric is the bad cop to the UN/EU's conciliatory good cop. The mutual, unarticulated, de facto goal: to preserve the status quo in the Middle East while cultivating the appearance that something is being done about the problem. That was the goal of the GHWB foreign policy team (many of whom are still with us), and it led to the disastrous lack of resolution to the Gulf War and to so many of our current problems. 9/11 was supposed to have changed everything. We shall see.
As it stands at this moment, we have something like the worst-case scenario on our hands: a strident ultimatum backed by threats that no one takes very seriously. Meanwhile, the clock is still ticking, and our Islamist enemies grow more emboldened with every second.