Wednesday November 26, 2003
Thanksgiving present
Here's a present for you, courtesy of Chris G. in the comments...
Gen. Franks Doubts Constitution Will Survive WMD Attack
Gen. Tommy Franks says that if the United States is hit with a weapon of mass destruction that inflicts large casualties, the Constitution will likely be discarded in favor of a military form of government.
[. . .]
If that happens, Franks said, “... the Western world, the free world, loses what it cherishes most, and that is freedom and liberty we’ve seen for a couple of hundred years in this grand experiment that we call democracy.”
[. . .]
Franks said that within hours of the attacks, he was given orders to prepare to root out the Taliban in Afghanistan and to capture bin Laden.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
Tuesday November 25, 2003
US soldiers take out frustrations on a Japanese news crew
The following is the content of a post made today by a translator living in Japan, to the Smirking Chimp forum (#5 in the thread):
Last week, shortly after Rumsfeld's visit to Japan, a news station here ran a 15-minute programme about the situation in Iraq, discussing both conditions of the occupation, and the issue of whether or not Japan should contribute troops. I should note that up till last week, the press was very "orderly" in its depiction of the government line on Iraq, and although a large majority of the Japanese public opposed the dispatch of SDF troops, it was very "soft" opposition.
The programme began by discussing all the bombings and attacks on US troops as well as other, "civilian" targets, to show how dangerous Iraq is. However, the Japanese reporters travelled throughout Iraq without incident, and stated repeatedly that they were greeted cordially by all the Iraqis they met, though occasionally they would be asked "Do you support America, or do you support Saddam?"
Then came the climax scene of the programme, where a Japanese cameraman films a scene of US troops roughing up some Iraqi civilians at a checkpoint, for no apparent reason. Suddenly, one of the soldiers sees the camera and shouts: "Hey you -- down on the ground!"
The reporter shouts back in broken English: "We friends. Japanese TV programme!"
"On the ground! " he repeats, and three soldiers are suddenly pointing their guns at the camera.
"What? No! Friends! Japanese TV!"
One of the soldiers approaches, gun still pointed threateningly. "Give me the camera"
More confused protests. What? what do you mean?. Japanese TV! Friends!
"Give me the fucking camera or I break it! You understand? Look you fucking Jap, give me the fucking camera or I break it!"
There follows a confused scene of wild swirling motion as the camera is ripped away from the cameraman. You can see him fall to the ground, apparently pushed down by the soldier, and then the camera is jarred heavily several times before the picture goes blank.
Unfortunately for the US public relations dept, the stupid grunt apparently has never heard of a digital video camera before. The reporters retreived the memory chip from the shattered camera, shipped it back to Tokyo, and it became prime time news.
The programme concluded with the broadcasters and commentators each making the comments that the Japanese government "should gravely reconsider its promise to send troops". This was a shocking development (Not the camera incident, but the comments themselves. Japanese journalists NEVER take sides on an issue, particularly on something that could be interpreted as criticism of the government)
This morning (three days after the broadcast), a nationwide poll showed 92% of the public opposed to sending troops.
Hearts and minds . . . . yeah, exactly!
This is sure to engender goodwill:
Monday November 24, 2003
Bush survives Somalia I?
By selectively dribbling out information and couching it in vagaries and half-denials, the administration has managed to take a story about soldiers who were shot, their throats slit, and their bodies mutilated, and completely defuse it. Here's how Brig. General Mark Kimmitt has spun the story of soldiers cut to pieces and their bodies looted: "This is an enemy that cannot defeat us militarily, and in engagement after engagement we see the enemy breaking off, running away."
"That's right! They're running! We've got those insignificant gnats and their puny toy weapons on the run! Their weapons don't even put a dent in our 130,000 strong force! We are winning this war on terror one terrorist at a time."
Later in that CNN piece, the sonsofbitches actually try to deny what happened: "A military spokesman disputed the accuracy of eyewitness reports that after the soldiers were shot, men came and cut their throats while they remained in the vehicle. U.S. Army Maj. Trey Cates, a spokesman for the 101st Airborne Division, told CNN the Army's investigation showed their bodies had no stab wounds or slash wounds." It depends on your meaning of the words "stab" and "slash"? Can we call these screws despicable yet?
But here's what Kimmitt said in response to questions about the scene: "We're not going to get ghoulish about this."
They're giving a half-hearted denial that apparently wasn't enough to stop the Post from writing this in the next paragraph:
"Al-Arabiya, an Arabic-language satellite news network based in Dubai, reported that the men were stabbed while their vehicle was at a stop. But witnesses quoted by Western news agencies in Mosul, about 215 miles north of Baghdad, said they may have been shot, then stabbed before their throats were cut. They told the news agencies that residents descended on the vehicle after the attack, looting it of weapons and the soldiers' backpacks. Some witnesses reportedly said the crowd tried to set the vehicle on fire."
This other story in the Post describes what happened to the men after the shooting: " After the soldiers' bodies fell into the street, the crowd pummeled them with concrete blocks." In that article, Kimmitt, the eternal optimist, is quoted as saying he's "not worried in the least" about attacks on Coalition forces in the region. Their families share his casual disregard, I'm sure.
This story from the AP corroborates the WP story, and describes how the American command didn't know for over an hour that the soldiers were there, until a teen ran and told them. They also state that the foot of one of the soldiers appeared to be severed from his body.
What can one say when confronted with such viciousness? I'm not sure what could be said, but the words of Kimmitt and the military spokesmen are the furthest from propriety that they could possibly get. Vile, repugnant, despicable -- take your pick. This crass spindoctoring deserves our collective revulsion. The vile murder of these men needs to be treated as such -- it does not deserve the cowardly, irresponsible words that the administration has resorted to.
Sunday November 23, 2003
We have a winner!
The winner of "The first food I've ever eaten that actually tastes like vomit" goes to Kashi's Cookies & Creme meal replacement bar!
Two soldiers killed, throats slit, bodies mutilated
At CNN, this news was overshadowed by the resignation of Shevardnadze.
"Gunmen killed two American soldiers driving through this northern Iraqi city Sunday, and then a crowd swarmed the scene, looting the soldiers' vehicle and pummeling their bodies, witnesses said."
And from the NYTimes:
"Two U.S. soldiers were shot in their car in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul Sunday and their bodies mutilated and looted by a crowd of Iraqis. [. . .] Witnesses said that after the shooting the soldiers were stabbed and their throats slit. A crowd looted the civilian car they were driving and tried to set it ablaze."
Thursday November 20, 2003
Charge it!
Limbaugh denies money-laundering charges.
Jackson denies molestation charges.
Two interesting opinion pieces in the NYTimes today -- and they're from Dowd and Friedman, of all people.
From Dowd's op-ed: "The bubble in London is just an extension of the bubble the Bush team lives in at home. It superimposes its reality on the evidence for war, the ease of the occupation, the strength of the insurgency and the continuing threat from Saddam and Osama. Isolationism has been a foreign policy before. But for this administration, it seems to be a way of life."
And Friedman's is interesting for this quote from Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch: "When you look at the muted reaction to the president's important speech on the need for democracy in the Arab world, you see that 'President Bush has moral clarity, but no moral authority.' He has a vision — without influence among the partners needed to get it moving. His is a beautifully carved table — with only one leg."
Finally Friedman's starting to come around: ousting Saddam was a good idea, but Bush and his cronies weren't the people to carry it out. They lacked support from the world and they were incapable of securing that support because it is manifestly clear (to everyone, even the Republicans who nightly pretend otherwise) that they don't give a damn what the world thinks.
Monday November 17, 2003
Bush goes to Britain
If you thought that the administration was somehow unaware that they have tarnished the reputation of the office, you were truly mistaken.
Just look at the exorbitant security measures requested for Bush's sojourn to Britain this week. They realize the man's a pariah, even in the one country that stood alongside him throughout this Iraq debacle. They actually suggested reinforcing Buckingham Palace for crissakes! The administration is so intent on stage managing every moment of the President's forays that he will no longer be giving a speech to the British Parliament, for fear that he will be heckled. Soon he's not going to be able to leave the White House without worrying that a bird might shit on his suit and it will get caught on camera. And the sad thing is that they don't realize the negative effect this has on their image. Bush is kept so far from the public eye that when even the simplest of mistakes happens -- falling off a Segway for example -- it becomes a spectacle. It's only going to get worse. As he hits the campaign trail, and actually has crowds that can't be controlled by his handlers, expect to see some serious heckling. He won't be able to avoid it. Unless he decides to campaign solely along the corridors of the West Wing.
Friday November 14, 2003
Seymour Hersh on the massive failure of the Iraq action. "You have a war fought by the underclass, financed by the underclass and for the profit of the upperclass. I think Bush's going to lose [the election], unless he makes some radical change, which he's not going to do."
74 mile-per-hour winds, and they feel like they're passing right through my windows and into my bones.
Wednesday November 12, 2003
At least 20 Italians killed in Iraq
The bloody, indiscriminate work of insurgents turns towards the Italians, killing 20 in the southern Iraq town of Nasiriyah. A number of Iraqis were injured as well. The soldiers were under the command of the British, and this particular group had arrived in Iraq only a month ago. The Italian government's first statement were that the attack was the work of terrorists. 20 dead, and the first thing Berlusconi does is parrot the US talking points. "No intimidation will budge us from our willingness to help that country rise up again and rebuild itself with self-government, security and freedom," Berlusconi mused.
What effect will this have on our ability to get outside sources to contribute money and military support to our work in Iraq? I wonder. What effect will this have on support in Italy for our renegade democratizing?
And with this coming on the heels of Bremer's hasty return to the US for talks on the war effort, and with the bleak CIA assessment of the situation in Iraq, will this bolster the insurgency, or is all of this simply a sign that they are "desperate" and "on the run"?
And what of the fact that we're apparently now back at "war"?
Maybe we should pull out and start again. Pretend the whole thing didn't happen, or that it was just a training exercise.
We'll get it right this time, for sure.
Tuesday November 11, 2003
It's important to note that Kaus's "great job turnaround" has, to this point, only served to stop the hemorrhaging of job loss suffered during the Bush Negligency, but nothing more.
Writing for history
I think the pressure to publish has created some of the worst examples of modern thought in our history. People with astounding arrays of knowledge are forced to put that knowledge to use in the most distressing of ways: supporting ideas that are 1) so convoluted as to be obscure even to the author, 2) so mind-blowingly trivial, and 3) so utterly subjective that they come across more as a personal weather report than a piece of scholarship -- "Is it cold outside today? Yes, I had to bundle up a bit more than usual." It's so easy to overstep the bounds here, yet that seems a matter of course for much writing in the humanities. Overstuffed with scholarship, these people can justify any position by just hanging it from the evanescent structures that define so much of our intellectual pursuits over the past century. "It's a post-structuralist attempt at..." sounds a lot like, "It rings with hints of cherry and oak...". Go to a magazine rack, pick up a few copies of different wine magazines, and try to find reviews of the same wine. If those reviews in any way correlate, I will be surprised. I think what we're bumping up against is specialization to such a degree that there are simply too few people out there who are willing or able to challenge the work of these "experts".
I witnessed recently a speech where a woman was apparently trying to make some point about gender and the uniforms of Fascist soldiers. And in the end, there was nothing. What was her point? Would it have even mattered if she had actually come to a conclusion? Who is there to challenge her? This speech still resonates as a defining moment for me: the moment in which I realized it is possible to be completely full of shit and very few people will care. Not just in an academic environment, but in life. You can strip yourself of any pretense of intellectual rigor, and go off parading on tv whatever idea pops into your head and there will be only a handful of people who will give a damn, and an even smaller handful who will actually confront it. Witness Ann Coulter. Witness Christopher Hitchens, who, when confronting Mark Danner in their second debate about the Iraq War, refused to address any concrete goings-on, and instead continued to assert the absolute necessity of doing what we are doing, and the necessity that it be done now. With not even a nod to the facts, you can justify just about anything. Does it matter that George Bush may not have the best motives for going into Iraq? Does it matter that the insurgents are getting bolder? That the Bush administration is considering pulling out troops in advance of the elections? That they have brazenly kept the world from playing a part in the administration of the conflict, instead only wanting financial and military support in the form of aid that would be distributed in a completely unaccountable way, and soldiers who will simply be replacing our own sitting ducks?
Don't be silly! We've entered a world of idealized fiction, where the events aren't being played out in real life, but are instead being shunted directlly to the history books. Thankfully we have people like Jessica Lynch who are willing to say, "Wait just a damn minute! It didn't happen that way!" In this era of expert opinion where folks like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and Norquist are able to transmute their ideas into flesh-and-blood consequences, it's going to take the people actually experiencing history to call these folks to the mat for their arrogant and reckless assumptions.
Friday November 07, 2003
A new solidarity?
Marines and more Reservists are on deck, ready to be rotated into Iraq for a 12 month stint. They will be replacing soldiers who will be leaving and coming home to video cameras and streamers -- and the others whose containers will be shuttled in the backdoor of Dover out of sight. Many of these soldiers will be fresh from the civilian sector. Many, however, are simply being rotated back into Iraq. And there will be many soldiers who are going to be stuck there on the ground in Iraq for another 6 to 12 months. Yet at the end of this new mobilization, there will be 30,000 fewer troops in Iraq, replaced by crack fighters from the administration's "Iraq peacekeeping for dummies" two-week supercourse -- a mix of Iraqi professional ex-soldiers learning the subtler techniques of a colonial occupation force (presumably clusterbombing a residential area is aesthetically more palatable a vocation than ripping out tongues), and the criminals, subversives, and threadbare breadline stragglers who realize that a steady paycheck from the American government is too good a deal to pass up.
Yet as good as this plan sounds for the Bush administration -- he will now have the super-saturated images of tearful family reunions to counter the sunwashed video of the twisted-metal smokestack remains of another RPG ambush -- it is clearly nothing more than shifting pieces around on the board. And these pieces and their families are voters here, and potential voters in Iraq; at some point they will begin to resent being pushed around while no fundamental changes are being made to the strategy of the game. Families here are already petitioning to have their loved-ones sent home. Reservists in the field are more and more resentful of their shoddy treatment compared to the full-time soldiers. Marines are resentful that they have to play cop. And all are resentful that they're standing around in Iraq like shooting gallery ducks.
This is the legacy of an administration that is running the world on the cheap -- unwilling to invest their political capital in hard decisions that could in any way cede advantage. They thought that Iraq was nothing but a win, that they would be sailing into 2004 with the head of Saddam Hussein on the wall and millions of neophyte Bush-worshippers gleefully building the structures of a happy capitalist state, where all are equal in the eyes of the tax collector and the country is parcelled out lot by lot to American business interests, the adminstration's Iraqi equivalent of our country's glorious patchwork diversity.
But Iraq is now tied to America more by its woeful maladministration than by the laudable democractic ideals that once defined our country. And Bush is the President of us all, American and Iraqi alike. Maybe we will find a new sense of solidarity with the Iraqi people when we all realize that the only way that we can start setting our houses in order is to remove Mr. Bush from office.
Wednesday November 05, 2003
Using images
Is there anyone else who just wants the Dem candidates to go into hiding for about 12 months? The feeling I get when watching them is that their attempts to pin the blame on Bush are having the wrong effect. The American people are slowly starting to come around to the notion that they've been had, and the poll numbers are starting to reflect that. But when the Dem candidates rail against Bush, the result is that the Republicans have something they can politically defend against, and it frames the whole argument in a partisan manner.
I say let the Republicans do themselves in. They're doing a great job on their own of elucidating why they are not only inappropriate governmental masters, but also imprudent financial administrators and inept foreign policy bunglers. The Dems don't need to say a word, and I think they less they say the better. I think the American people are much happier when they believe they come to a conclusion on their own, instead of feeling that it was something foisted on them by one party or another.
I'm not saying that we need to give the Republicans free rein. I think it might take America being a hair's-breadth away from a totalitarian regime before the American people realize it, and we just can't afford it. But as far as the campaign, I think the Dems need to focus less on policy and more on personality.
The Republicans control the airwaves, this is for sure. And they control the ultimate spin of any particular issue. But they can't control the images that Americans see, and this may be the way to get them. The administration is taking hits in Iraq not because the "liberal media" is not talking about the good things going on in Iraq, it's taking hits because of the footage of downed helicopters and smouldering command posts and humvees.
In the same way, Dem candidates need to be seen at rallies not being venemous, but connecting with the audiences, showing thoughtfulness and being able to clearly and honestly address problems expressed by the average American. This means more town hall meetings, more gladhanding, more trips to diners and house parties. This means more press, giving reporters exclusive access and allowing them much more access than they're currently getting. Every shot of Howard Dean being a fire-and-brimstone orator works against the Dems now. Have him with rolled-up sleeves in a town-hall setting, and he shines, and even Republican spin can't undo the image. Have Wes Clark interacting with servicemen and women, and the image itself will have more positive effect than anything he said to the soldiers.
Don't worry about policy. The Americans will work that out on their own. The images are what will make or break this election. Images from Iraq will continue to work against Bush; the Dems need to let their images do the same. Step off the playing field where the Bush team has the home advantage, and just play to the people in the stadium.
Tuesday November 04, 2003
whiff of fascism in the air?
I think it's fair to look upon with suspicion of motives anyone who would say the following:
"The arcs of history, culture, philosophy and science all seem to be converging on this temporal instant...
"Familiar arrangements are coming apart; valuable things are torn from our hands, snatched away by the decompression of our fragile ark of culture. But, it is too soon to despair. The collapse of the old system may be the crucible of a new vision. We must get a grip on what we can and hold on. Hold on with all the energy while we accept the darkness. We know not what miracles may happen; what heroic possibilities exist. We may be only moments away from a new dawn."
There's more than a whiff of fascist intent in those words; the whole palingenetic aspect is there -- the rebirth of the country, rising up out of the ashes of the old.
If only those were the words of a looney neighbor. They would have been easier to dismiss.
But those are the words of Bush's nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, Judge Janice Rogers Brown, at the ending of a speech she gave to the Federalist Society at the University of Chicago Law School in April of 2000.
When confronted during her confirmation hearing with the notion that she is an idealogue, she denied it. "I'm not sure that I would concede that because I really don't think that the conservative view that I have, which is a classical conservatism, is ideological at all." You can read more about Brown's extremism in this PDF document. You can read the speech in its entirety at communityrights.org
It's clear that the Republican party as it stands does not rise to the definition of fascism, although it seems more and more to share behaviors common to fascist and totalitarian regimes. And its ultranationalism is clear in the war currently being waged in Iraq. But what's not been visible is the palingenetic sense -- the idea of national rebirth that Roger Griffin believes is at the core of any upwelling of fascism. Many Republicans could very well hold this belief -- it would be difficult to say that Tom DeLay doesn't hold just such a vision -- but this revolutionary call has not found its way into the mainstream.
But it should be clear that this kind of revolutionary overthrow of the "socialist" America and the birth of a newer more rugged nation and national character is central to the philosophy of some of the Right's most radical thinkers. And these thinkers are now being nominated to spots in our Courts of Appeals.
Brzezinski's speech
So, as Josh Marshall recommends, you must either read the transcript of or watch the video feed of Zbigniew Brzezinski's speech at the New American Strategies for Security and Peace conference. You won't be disappointed.
UPDATE: Video feed requires Windows Media Player, and is currently unavailable. (surprise!)
I'm learning my lesson about getting a life. Not sure if it's actually worth it! It's damn hard to blog while taking classes and working 2-1/2 jobs and maintaining a website, keeping up with friends, and trying to keep oneself reasonably healthy. All I can assume about these prolific bloggers is that they're holed up in a dark room with nothing but Cheetos, beer, and a LexisNexis subscription...
Sunday November 02, 2003
I woke up today to the news of 13 dead and 20 injured in a rocket attack on a Chinook helicopter in Fallujah, and at leat 1 dead (I read 4 somewhere) in a convoy attack in Baghdad, where arriving film crews witnessed jubilant Iraqis dancing around the wreckage chanting anti-US slogans. Another convoy attack occurred in Fallujah. The soldiers in the helicopter were starting a brief turn of R&R.
Donald Rumsfeld and L. Paul Bremer will be appearing on the morning programs to once again defend the failed warplan and the failed reconstruction.
UPDATE: Live on CNN now, Rumsfeld's not saying positively that the helicopter was shot down. He's not confirming that the soldiers were on R&R. The Iraqis are now the "second largest coalition partner" now, according to Rumsfeld. "We've come down from 150,000 to 130,000 US troops," but the number of coalition forces is increasing due to the increase in Iraqi troops being trained. On a day that brings us the killing of 14 soldiers he's talking about the "terrific success" we've had training Iraqis.
Be sure to read Blueprint for a Mess at the NYTimes.
