I have Paul Craddick's view of the value of civility in political discourse . . . until I lose my temper.
Ginmar is still in Iraq and still writing about it.
Peter and I are still going back and forth on the Osirak strike. I think it might be time to call in Chomsky to explain himself, but in the meantime let me explain why I think Peter and Chomsky are just wrong about the main causes of Iraq's nuclear program. Peter writes:
As I understand it, Iraq in the early 80s had a lot of reasons to think they could win and maybe even win easily against Iran. If nothing else, a country rarely starts a war unless it has a fair bit of confidence about it chances. As far as I know such predictions of success were born out for a few years into the war. Furthermore, Iraq enjoyed significantly more diplomatic support both regionally and internationally than did Iran at that time. Remember, this is just after the Shah was send packing. Europe, Russia and the US all favoured Iraq. So, at the time of the Osirak attack, I have little doubt that Israel probabely looked like a much bigger threat to Iraq. Israel had superior military abilities than Iran. It enjoyed a far better political and military relationship with the US than any other country in the region. Also it had proven itself even before Osirak to be aggressive and eager to establish itself as a regional hegemon by fair, foul or military means. So, I don't think it is at all unreasonable to posit that Israel was of more longterm concern to Hussein in the early 80s than was Iran. Thus, if Hussain decided to accelerate his nuclear program in the early 80s, I don't think it is unreasonable to suggest that the Osirik attack had a lot to do with it. Did Iraq accelerate its program in the early 80s? Or was it always a priority? Well, I've read that top emigre Iraqi nuclear scientists have asserted that that this was indeed the case. And their assertions have some credibility behind them. Prior to Osirak, Iraq was in full compliance with both IAEA guidelines and the nuclear weapons treaty whose formal name escapes me. Or so I understand. At any event, compliance ceased in the 80s. Why? Okay, there was a war going on between Iran and Iraq. But before that war soured for Iraq, there was the Osirak attack. So, it seems to me that Chomsky's using the verb 'to set off' is not entirely unreasonable. Particularly, when he is making a point in parenthesis.Obviously Israel is going to be a security consideration for any country in the Middle East, but I think Iran loomed much larger for Iraq than anything else, and especially before the Osirak strike. Here is why: Iran is three times as large as Iraq, with a much larger population, and a capital which is conveniently much harder to hit from Iraq than Baghdad is to hit from Iran. When Iran had its revolution, and royally pissed off the U.S., Saddam Hussein saw a chance to strike when Iran was momentarily weak and internationally isolated.A few other points. You find it questionable that Hussein would have Osirak built considering his oil reserves. Okay. But neither of us are experts on nuclear engineering and if I read that the reactor was specifically built so that it could not produce plutonium I feel sort of compelled to think building Osirak is not evidence of evil intent. Particularly when oil is so useful in the international market place and when a regime might want to maximize its foreign earnings or even its leverage in the market. Or maybe I'm missing your point here.
I also think Hussein probabely always dreamed of having nukes. But the question may well be, when did he decide to seriously pursue them as something more than a cautiously pursued longterm goal? And, again, if I read that Iraqi scientists say Osirak was the key moment, I'm not sure I immediately see a reason for doubt.
Of all the times to attack Iran, the period right after the revolution was the smartest, but the move was still a monumental blunder of Saddam Hussein's part, since even with all its internal strife Iran managed to pull together reasonably quickly and counter-attack. It's true that Iraq enjoyed a fair bit of early success when the war started, but after a surprisingly short time things were going very badly for Iraq indeed. So contrary to what Peter writes, it didn't take long for it to become clear that Iraq was in a pinch, and moreover, that the Iranian regime, scenting victory, was in no mood for any kind of compromise (indeed, they wanted Saddam Hussein's head on a platter). At least, this is according to everything I've ever read on the history of the Iraq/Iran war.
Peter says "a country rarely starts a war unless it has a fair bit of confidence about it chances" - except that it wasn't a country that started the war, it was Saddam Hussein. To describe Saddam Hussein as a man who always bet on the lame horse would be a bit of an understatement. Try one hooked up to a respirator.
Even without the war, Iraq would have had plenty to fear from Iran, especially with a newly energized Shi'ite regime inspiring a restless and long-marginalized Shi'ite majority within Iraq. The cultural and religious affinity between Iran and Southern Iraq shouldn't be overestimated, but it was quite enough to make a secular Sunni regime more than a bit skittish. And there were territorial disputes between the countries (the original pretext for the actual war). These were exactly the kind of people I would want to keep at bay with nuclear weapons if I were running a secular Sunni regime, and this is one issue we don't need to explain by appealing to Saddam Hussein's evil. (Probable uses of such weapons, yes - but not the forces driving their development.) Who wouldn't want nuclear weapons in such a situation?
Now when I add all that together, it seems to me, as I've said before, that Israel may have been a factor in the development of Iraq's nuclear weapons program, but that a) the development of that program was causally overdetermined; and b) entirely rational fear of Iran surely played a larger role.
Now does Israel have a rational or constructive foreign policy? No. But that wasn't the question. The question was what role Israel played in the development of Iraq's nuclear weapons program. My contention is that the main role it played was in teaching Saddam Hussein to hide the program better. As for the program itself, it surely had many causes, but if we're talking about the stumulus of rational fear, I think Israel's contribution was insignificant compared to Iran's.
Peter seems to think that I'm being overly fussy about all this. And of course Chomsky makes this remark in an aside. But if I'm right then Chomsky is wrong about something important. It's not like he's just botched a date or something. We're talking about the causes of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, something that seems especially important to get a clear view of.
Today's new content is in the comments section of this post.
The proper steps are:
1. Tape the bottom of the enormous box.
2. Fill the enormous box.
3. Hoist the enormous box high.
Step one is essential. Forget step one and you are back where you started. Don't forget step one.
This actually made me angry, and so I wrote up a little rebuke that was fairly nasty (by my standards). But it's not worth it. Let me just say that after four years of supporting, excusing, apologizing and rationalizing for Bush, and after supporting his goddamn war in Iraq, Mr. Adesnik has no right to that snark. He has no right at all.
Commentator, friend, and former roommate, Peter, has been savaging me in the comments section for pooping on Chomsky. In order to placate him, let me say that this post seems to me a perfectly cogent analysis of the situation in Iraq. The only quibble I have is that Chomsky appears to think that a full-scale civil war is less probable than I do. I reproduce the entire post below the fold. Let the Chomsky-lovin' begin.
For what it's worth, polls in Iraq reveal very considerable and apparently growing support for withdrawal of the US occupying army, apart from the Kurdish regions.There, now the anti-Chomsky forces can flay me in the comments section.That doesn't mean withdrawal tomorrow. No one is talking about that, and it isn't even technically feasible. But expeditious withdrawal, with a clear deadline, and an authentic rather than merely nominal transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis. That isn't in the cards, but not because of concerns that the region will be left in chaos; rather, because it would mean abandoning the primary and quite crucial war aim of establishing the first stable military bases in a dependent client state at the heart of the energy-producing regions, a major lever of world control, as has long been understood. The US isn't about to do that.
There are other reasons. An independent Iraq would probably take steps to gain a leading position in the Arab world, which would mean confronting the main enemy, US-backed Israel. hat would mean rearming, probably with WMD, to counter Israel's. It might also lead to improving relations with Iran. Not impossible is a Shi'ite alliance with Iran and a majority-run Iraq, which might further stimulate moves towards independence in the nearby Shi'te areas of Saudi Arabia, where the oil is. That would lead to domination of the world's energy resources by an independent Shi'ite alliance. Nothing inevitable about any of this of course, but hardly impossible. Can you imagine
the US tolerating anything like this? These are among the reasons why permitting democracy in Iraq, even if the rhetoric were meant seriously by Washington and Western commentators, is hardly a likely prospect.Suppose that internal pressures in the US, and whatever pressures exist elsewhere, led to abandonment of the major war aims, so that there could be plans for expeditious withdrawal of the occupying army and transfer of authentic sovereignty. Would that lead to chaos in the region? Or would it reduce tensions and conflicts in the region? We cannot say much with confidence, of course, any more than
we could have said anything with confidence about withdrawal of Japanese armies from much of Asia in the early 1940s, or of Russian forces from Afghanistan, and many other cases. But that lack of confidence is not much of an argument for military occupation.
I'm not especially happy now. I'm a bit under the weather, and busy grading papers, moving this week, and fretting about my unfinished thesis. But then there is this, from a student paper, to brighten my day. Savour it while I cut blogging to an absolute minimum for a few days:
[The author in question] shows us the wrongness of this judgment in terms of logical reasoning and claims that argumentation must shift from target in order to find a fertile territory where argument reasoning is free from stumbling upon established assumptions.Ah yes, a clear image forms in my mind . . .
Did Kerry flip-flop on the Iraq War? Rodger A. Payne attempts to defend Kerry with the novel tactic of actually examining his speech before the war vote in the Senate.
Does Payne succeed in this effort? In a word, no. If speeches were anything to go on, Bush would be the greatest force for democracy in the entire world. Kerry's speech is a nice effort, and it places all kinds of sensible qualification and restrictions on his support for Bush. But Kerry had to have known that Bush would disregard those qualifications and restrictions, and he had to have known that by then it would be too late for Kerry to do anything about it. A vote for Bush at the time really was a vote allowing Bush to wage war if he deemed fit, and by that point, it was clear Bush deemed fit.
Kerry said in October 2002:
When I vote to give the President of the United States the authority to use force, if necessary, to disarm Saddam Hussein, it is because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a threat, and a grave threat, to our security and that of our allies in the Persian Gulf region. I will vote yes because I believe it is the best way to hold Saddam Hussein accountable. And the administration, I believe, is now committed to a recognition that war must be the last option to address this threat, not the first, and that we must act in concert with allies around the globe to make the world's case against Saddam Hussein.Yada yada yada. Except that Bush was obviously lying about the practical effect of the resolution. There is simply no way that Bush would have built up that many troops in the middle of the dessert and then sent them home. There was going to be a war, come hell or high water. Kerry's speech was an agonized response to the agonizing position which Bush deliberately placed Congress (and the country) in: Either support Bush (thereby essentially granting him the right to wage war) or support a humiliating climbdown before the entire world. That's a tough spot to be in, but let's be clear that no amount of fine speechifying changes the fact that Kerry knowingly chose the first horn of the dilemma.As the President made clear earlier this week, "Approving this resolution does not mean that military action is imminent or unavoidable." It means "America speaks with one voice."
Now, I agree with Payne that Kerry didn't want a war, and would have preferred to let inspectors continue their job. But that wasn't what the vote was really about, and Kerry either knew it or he doesn't deserve to be president.
Ah, Jimmy . . . perpetually associated with impotence, in contrast with manly, manly Ronny. Like most comic book history (no offence to comic books - just a turn of phrase) this picture is open to dispute.
A very nice story at Batgirl about last night's Twins-White Sox game in which Corey Koskie (who is Canadian) got hit by pitches 3 times. Worth looking at even if you aren't a baseball fan.
It helps to know that Spiderman is the nickname of the Twins' centerfielder, Torii Hunter.
It's true. Fafnir and Giblets have the details.
Update: Whoops! Fixed link.
Since I had a go at old Noam yesterday, I thought I would clarify the spirit in which I intended my criticism. For the record, I actually think that many Israeli policies are morally repugnant and deeply counterproductive. I've also learned quite a bit from reading Noam Chomsky. I just also happen to think that Chomsky gets it wrong sometimes. One thing he gets wrong is a kind of inconsistency in tone and language when describing different actors in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. [Update: Obviously, I should have written "Middle East," since the original target of my comments was Israeli's strike on Iraq's nuclear reactor. My bad.] I learned to watch for that sort of thing . . . by reading Noam Chomsky.
But, as I've noted before, it is a mystery to me why Chomsky is regarded as somehow beyond the pale within American politics. There is something deeply wrong about a political culture that sees, for example, Charles Krauthammer as fit for an editorial page, but refuses, without debate, to consider a point because Noam Chomsky makes it.
I criticize the Bush administration a lot on this site because I think it's important to dissent from very bad policies. But frankly, while there is room to quibble about details, an intellectually serious defence of the Bush administration is no longer possible, and hasn't been for some time. We're no longer having a real debate anymore. And so these days the more interesting project, as far as I'm concerned, is to mark out those areas in which I disagree with people who are in many respects in ideological sympathy with me. Look out, Noam et. al. I'ma comin' to getcha!
That's the spirit in which I intend my Noam bashing below. I hope that distinguishes me from that brand of liberal who tries to score "reasonable points" by bashing Noam Chomsky whenever he can.
Noam Chomsky writes:
Not reported but quite important is the dispatch to Israel of 100 F16-I's, advanced jet bombers, with the very specific announcement that they can reach Iran and return, are updated versions of the F-16s that Israel used to attack the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 (thereby setting off Iraq's nuclear weapons program, though that part of the story, though pretty well confirmed, is avoided), and are equipped with "special weapons" (according to the Israeli Hebrew press).Uhhhhhh, pardon? I've read a bit about the Israeli strike against that nuclear reactor and this is the first time I've seen anyone claim that the strike set off Iraq's nuclear weapons program.
Chomsky is new to the blogging game, so I'll forgive him for failing to link to confirmation. But I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that he is basically wrong about this. Reason: If I was a nutty dictator living in a dangerous part of the world and locked in a vicious war with a stronger rival to my East, I would be pretty darn interested in nuclear weapons. And Chomsky has to know that the history of nuclear proliferation is essentially a long story of one country after another developing nuclear weapons programs under the cover of peaceful nuclear power generation - until it is too late to do anything about it.
Now, I'm actually a big fan of the idea that you can make crazy people crazier than they already are by provoking them. (E.g., it wouldn't surprise me much to discover that North Korea stepped up its nuclear weapons program after Bush made his "Axis of Evil" speech. On the other hand, it wouldn't surprise me to discover that it hadn't.) So it's possible that the Israeli strike convinced Saddam Hussein to get a move on with the whole nuclear weapons project. But the main effect appears to be that it convinced Iraq that it needed to be a lot more savvy about hiding its nuclear program than anything else.
Does anyone know otherwise? I would be delighted to hear from you.
And by the way, note the neutral language: "setting off Iraq's nuclear weapons program," which almost manages to transform the Israelis into the main actors in the story of Iraq's nuclear weapons program. Reader challenge: Find me one instance in which Chomsky describes the Arab states as "setting off" Israel's nuclear weapons program. If you can do it, you win . . . I don't know, 15 smug points to be redeemed in the comments section of any post.*
*Offer valid only until Dec. 31st, 2004. Some restrictions may apply.
From a piece in the New York Times:
The demonstrators included many of the almost 240,000 settlers of the West Bank and Gaza, and also secular and Orthodox Israelis from around the country. Many dismissed Mr. Sharon's argument that it is foolish to send hundreds of Israeli troops to protect 7,500 Jewish settlers living among 1.3 million Palestinians.Mr. Hatuel makes a very good point, a very good point indeed. One wonders, though, if Mrs. Schwartz is teaching Shira to dream of a day when they can set the Torah aside."If we give up the Gaza Strip, by the same token we can give up Israel," said Chaim Markuza, a 62-year-old retired businessman who was standing near the Latrun junction about 15 miles outside Jerusalem.
Ayelet Schwartz, a 24-year-old teacher from the northern West Bank settlement of Dumim who had her 2 ½-year-old daughter, Shira, in a stroller, said, "If we believe in the Torah, then we believe that all of the land of Israel belongs to us."
. . .
One of the people at the wall was David Hatuel, whose pregnant wife and four daughters were killed last May in a roadside ambush by two Palestinian gunmen in Gaza. "Peace should be made with people who want peace," he said. "The Palestinians don't educate their children to want peace, and you can't have a peace with someone who doesn't dream about peace."
If you read one thing this month about Darfur, let it be this piece in the New York Review of Books. An excerpt below the fold:
What is to be done about a regime that visits such evils on its citizens? In the short term international aid agencies must be given free access to all areas of Darfur, across the lines between government and rebel-controlled zones. This should be the immediate focus of donor and UN pressure. Beyond this, it is essential to establish an effective international monitoring regime, in order to ensure the protection of civilians and unimpeded access to them. A team of military observers from the newly born African Union is being deployed in Darfur, but their number is too small and their mandate too limited. To prevent more killing-and the concealment of crimes already committed- the international presence in Sudan requires an information network in the field that can match that of the Sudan government's own security forces. Short of a serious threat of external military intervention, it will be difficult to achieve this. Even now, with evidence of war crimes mounting by the day, there is no international unanimity in condemning the government of Sudan. A general UN arms embargo would be opposed, for example, by China, which, in return for oil from fields in southern Sudan, has, in recent years, provided the Sudanese government with three new arms factories.[9] An embargo would, in any case, do little to stem the flow of weapons within Sudan. An international tribunal on the Rwandan model is something to be pursued, but this is a long-term project that will not resolve the immediate crisis.The United States and the European Union have both demanded the disarmament of the Janjawiid and said that they will impose sanctions and travel restrictions on militia leaders and the government military officers who control them. In the case of the Janjawiid, though, as a former governor of Darfur, Ahmed Diraige, has pointed out, an international travel ban is meaningless: these are not people who have cause to leave Sudan.[10] And in the case of the Sudanese military, where does responsibility stop? The government of Sudan, purged of hard-line Islamists, is now in thrall to its security forces. The proxy militias that are used to devastate civilian lives have become the means by which the government remains in power.
The ruthlessness of the government's response to the Darfur insurgency is a sign of fear: any hint of weakness is liable to encourage other insurgencies in the east, where rebels already control an enclave on the Eritrean frontier. To limit responsibility for military strategy in Darfur or the south to specific officials in the internal security agencies or military intelligence is not plausible. If anyone is guilty it must be the highest authority, the commander in chief, the head of state himself.
In 2002, in northern Bahr-el-Ghazal, the state to the south of Darfur, after years of international condemnation of the abduction and enslavement of local people by Murahaliin militia-and years of denial of government involvement-raids on villages ceased when the United States stepped up diplomatic pressure on the Sudanese government. Claims that the Janjawiid are outside government control are similarly unconvincing. It is clear that, when it wants, the government can call off the dogs of war. And it appears to be discreetly reining in the Janjawiid (and clandestinely incorporating them into regular military forces). As of this writing, aerial attacks on villages in Darfur have diminished, though they have not ceased. Barring a major offensive on the part of the rebels, it seems likely that the scale of abuses will be reduced, leaving a long aftermath of displacement and famine, affecting a million people or more, to be dealt with by yet another international emergency relief operation. In this way the government may yet manage to evade international condemnation, resume its deceptive engagement with donor countries, and, if the Naivasha Agreement holds, benefit from US, EC, and World Bank funding for the reconstruction of the country. While the militias remain, though, there is no guarantee that they will not be redeployed-and there will be no safety for the people of Darfur.
Ben Hammersley informs us that the winners of the 2004 Bulwer-Lytton Prize (for bad writing) have been announced. The honourable mention Hammersley quotes is awfully funny, in a completely disgusting sort of way.
I'm not very keen about spiders. That's why this story really creeped me out.
Ew. Ew, ew, ew.
From Slashdot (minus the hyperlinks):
RIAA Continues Distributing Dud CDs to Satisfy Settlement - by michael (27% noise) cosyne writes “Part of the music industry’s recent price fixing settlement involves giving free CDs to public libraries. Although they are technically complying with the the letter of the law, they’re abusing the spirit by giving the libraries large piles of crud. According to the Stevens Point Journal, ’[the] Milwaukee Public Library received 1,235 copies of Whitney Houston’s 1991 recording of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” 188 copies of Michael Bolton’s “Timeless,” 375 of “Entertainment Weekly: The Greatest Hits 1971,” and 104 copies of Will Smith’s “Willennium.”’ The recording industry obviously wouldn’t want to have libraries loaning out music that people might otherwise buy.” See also a related story about shipments to another state.I am a peaceful man, but if anyone has the nerve to bring a Michael Bolton CD within 10 feet of me I will be sorely tempted to bloody his nose.
Whatever you thought of the Iraq War, there's no getting around the fact that Uday Hussein was one sick fuck.
I've finished Butler's The Way of All Flesh and am now 200 pages into George Eliot's Middlemarch. The following is from the latter:
" . . . I don't like Casaubon." This was Sir James's strongest way of implying that he thought ill of a man's character.Sir James is not alone in this, I think."Why? what do you know against him?" said the Rector, laying down his reels, and putting his thumbs into his arm-holes with an air of attention.
Sir James paused. He did not usually find it easy to give his reasons: it seemed to him strange that people should not know them without being told, since he only felt what was reasonable.
Obviously, blogging about Victor Bout is a niche thing. But if you're a Bout enthusiast (in the sense that you're enthusiastic about the idea of his facing justice some time soon), you're going to want to keep tabs on the following blogs:
-- Douglas Farah (Alas, with no RSS feed. WTF?)
-- Laura Rozen
Bout, for those of you who aren't enthusiasts, is an arms trader with a very, very sordid past. Alas, it seems that Bout is also an arms trader with very, very powerful friends.
Tune in next week to find out what happens when a shadowy underworld arms trader with very very powerful friends collides with the righteous fury of a small rag-tag band of Victor Bout niche bloggers! Bout has battled international law enforcement for years, but is he a match for the blogosophere? We shall see. We shall see.
I would be tempted to sacrifice yet another fatted calf to the internet gods, but I've been sacrificing so many fatted calves to the internet gods lately that my stock is dwindling faster than I can replenish it, prices for fatted calves being what they are these days. Let me simply say that if I have to live in a world with people like Victor Bout, I am very glad that it is also a world which contains the above mentioned bloggers, and an internet that helps them work together with the long term goal of royally fucking up Bout's life and plans.
He's right about this, you know. A sample, below the fold, so I have a record of it:
But what some CT commentators seem to me to be saying is this: Politics is a dirty, hard business, and we have to play dirty to win. They're saying, don’t come in here with your effete intellectualism, your Marquis-of-Queensbury rules, your naïve pomposity. Moore works, he’s down with the people, he’s telling it like the American people need to hear it.This is precisely what I took up in my Cliopatria essay: is Moore effective, and effective at what? So I don’t disagree with the CT commentators who say that you have to play politics to win, and that if Moore is effective, that’s a countervailing virtue that outweighs any pedantry one might unload at him. What I think is the CT commentators are actually revealing, however, is why the American left is on a persistent losing streak in the tough game of political struggle (not to mention a nasty little streak of intellectualized anti-intellectualism that is another classic kind of left-wing panic button).
They assume that fairness and intellectual discipline are somehow antithetical to the crafting of effective political argument and rhetoric and they assume rather than demonstrate that Fahrenheit is positively influencing the constituencies whose mobilization against the Iraq War and the Bush Administration is useful or needed at this point.
Fairness and open-mindedness is a pretty crucial part of my own political and intellectual voice. That’s first because I assume that it is a positive good, an ethical position, and to adopt an ethical mode of acting in the world is itself a political strategy. It is a commitment to the dispensation that one hopes to build. I assume, very deeply and I hope not unreasonably, that there would be enormous social good that would come to pass if the American public sphere was everywhere authentically marked by fairness, open-mindedness, and mutually agreed-upon standards for rational argument and use of meaningful evidence.
This the critics would be right to say is an insufficient reason to criticize anyone failing to reach that standard. By itself, it is a luxurious high-mindedness. However, fairness also works as politics in the operational sense. An operatic, performative commitment to decency, an over-the-top acknowledging of the legitimacy of potentially legitimate arguments, an attempt to reduce cheap shots, a showy constraint for saying only that which can be said based on strong evidence: these all function as powerful tools in political struggle within the American public sphere.
Who brought Joe McCarthy down in the end? Not somebody playing “dirty”, down in the same gutter with McCarthy, but someone who waited for their moment and caught McCarthy in a decency trap, who revealed the man’s fundamental unfairness and viciousness in part by being scrupulously decent themselves. How did Archibald Cox defeat Richard Nixon? By walking the straight and narrow. Being decent and fair and meticulous isn’t intellectual wankery: it’s hardball.
It’s especially important in the context of the metapolitics of weblogs as a subdomain of the public sphere. Crooked Timber’s contributors regularly take other webloggers to task for the inconsistency of present arguments with past positions, or for their contradictory use of evidentiary standards. That kind of critique only has political influence, e.g., the capacity to alter the way that others think and act, inasmuch as it is a performative, demonstrated constraint on those who offer it. This is what I understand John Holbo to be talking about most centrally in his own comments. If you hold someone else accountable to standards that you do not maintain when you're talking in the public sphere about someone on your "home team", you've shot your wad, you've blown your credibility, you've lost political capital.
That’s the league that Michael Moore is in: the public sphere, weblog and otherwise. Within that league, there are or ought to be rules. Playing by the rules earns you political capital—and if you have political capital, and spend it wisely, you’re effective in influencing other players in the public sphere, even sometimes those who may pretend not to care about those rules. If you have none, you never get the chance.
From the United Nations Environmental Program:
For information only. Not an official record.Restoring Iraqi Marshlands Project Launched by UN Environment Programme
Hope Offered to the Marsh Arabs and Their 5,000 Year-Old Culture in Garden of Eden
Nairobi/Paris, 23 July 2004 ? A multi-million dollar project to restore the environment and provide clean drinking water in the Marshlands of Mesopotamia was announced today by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
The project, funded by the Government of Japan, will support the sustainable development and restoration of the Iraqi Marshlands through implementation of environmentally sounds technologies. Drinking water and sanitation systems will be installed in key communities and pilot wetlands restoration undertaken for the benefit of people and wildlife.
The Marshlands, considered by some to be the location of the Biblical Garden of Eden, were massively damaged in the late 20th Century, partly as a result of new dams on the Tigris and Eurphrates river systems and partly as a result of massive drainage operations by the previous Iraqi regime.
In 2001, UNEP alerted the world to their plight when it released satellite images showing that 90 per cent of these fabled wetlands, home to rare and unique species like the Sacred Ibis and African darter, and a spawning ground for Gulf fisheries, had been lost.
Further studies, released in 2003, showed that an additional three per cent or 325 square kilometres had gone. Experts feared that the entire wetlands, home to a 5,000 year-old civilization who are the heirs of the Babylonians and Sumerians, could disappear entirely by 2008.
With the collapse of the former Iraqi regime in mid-2003, local residents began opening floodgates and breaching embankments in order to bring water back into the marshlands.
Satellite images indicate that, by April this year, around a fifth or some 3,000 square kilometres of the marshes had been re-flooded.
The challenge now is to restore the environment and provide clean water and sanitation services to the up to 85,000 people living there.
A recent United Nations inter-agency assessment and public health survey found that most of the Marsh Arabs are collecting water directly from the marshlands.
Many of the settlements in the area lack basic sanitation services with waste water draining into the street or nearest stream. As a result, water-borne diseases have become commonplace.
The $11 million project, approved in the framework of the UN Iraq Trust Fund, will initially target around a dozen settlements with small-scale water treatment systems some of which are likely to be solar powered.
Reed beds and other marshland habitats which act as natural, water-filtration systems, will be restored which will benefit not only local residents but also provide new habitats for birds and other key wildlife.
Other activities will include the setting up of a Marshland Information Network, an Internet-based system that will allow those with an interest in the region to share their ideas and strategies.
Satellite images, documenting how restoration work is faring and chronicling changes in vegetation and the progress of re-flooding, will be
posted on the site almost daily.Some of the funds will support public awareness schemes, both locally and internationally.
The project will also help train the Iraqi authorities, both at national government and local levels. It will train experts in wetland management
and restoration, remote sensing analysis and community-based resource management.Several other governments and non-governmental organizations are involved in the Iraqi Marshlands. The UNEP project aims to strengthen the coordination of these various efforts to ensure maximum benefit for the people and wildlife there. It is envisaged that this coordinated approach will be applied to the future development of a wider Marshlands strategy in the region.
Klaus Toepfer, UNEP's Executive Director, said: " The Marshlands of Mesopotamia constitute the largest wetland ecosystem in the Middle East and Western Eurasia. They are also culturally significant. UNEP has taken a keen interest in their fate, documenting their destruction and alerting the world to their demise".
"I am therefore delighted that the Japanese government has stepped in to support a new beginning for the Marshlands and the Marsh Arabs. Half the world's wetlands have been lost in the past 100 years. I am sure that the lessons learnt during this project will provide important clues on how to resuscitate other lost and degraded wetlands elsewhere on the globe," he said.
Monique Barbut, Director of UNEP's Division of Technology, Industry and Economics which will be carrying out the project, said:" We will be putting together, in close cooperation with the relevant Iraqi ministries, a ten-person team of local and international experts. The project starts today and we hope to begin field studies and pilot water treatment projects towards the end of the year".
"Nobody fully knows how much of the Marshlands can be recovered," she said. "The future of the Iraqi Marshlands will be tied to the eventual
development of a master plan covering regional cooperation with those countries upstream and downstream in the Tigris-Euphrates river basin," she said.Notes to Editors
For pervious press releases, reports and satellite images on the Marshlands
of Mesopotamia please go to
http://www.grid.unep.ch/activities/sustainable/tigris/index.phpFor More Information Please Contact: Eric Falt, Spokesperson/Director of
UNEP's Division of Communications and Public Information, on Tel: 254 2
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robert.bisset@unep.frUNEP News Release 2004/34
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I've spent almost three years now arguing that Pakistan ought to be a top foreign policy priority for the U.S. Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI, had - alas, "has" is really more accurate - extensive ties with the Taliban and militant Islamic groups, including A.Q. The ISI is an extremely powerful and not completely controlled force within Pakistan, which itself has a highly dysfunctional political system. And the country is a nuclear power locked in a multi-generational dispute with a neighbouring nuclear power. If you think Iraq was more dangerous than that explosive combination, or even that it was rational to think that Iraq was more dangerous than that explosive combination, I give up on you. I think it's also fair to say that the U.S. has not made Pakistan a top foreign policy priority, and rather that it has tended to downplay some of the more serious concerns about the country.
So I was predisposed to look favourably on a recent piece in the Guardian by Michael Meacher arguing that the U.S. was looking the other way when it came to Pakistan's ties with A.Q. And it isn't a completely bad piece. But then I ran smack into one of the stupider paragraphs I've read in a while:
It has been rumoured that Pearl was especially interested in any role played by the US in training or backing the ISI. Daniel Ellsberg, the former US defence department whistleblower who has accompanied Edmonds in court, has stated: "It seems to me quite plausible that Pakistan was quite involved in this ... To say Pakistan is, to me, to say CIA because ... it's hard to say that the ISI knew something that the CIA had no knowledge of." Ahmed's close relations with the CIA would seem to confirm this. For years the CIA used the ISI as a conduit to pump billions of dollars into militant Islamist groups in Afghanistan, both before and after the Soviet invasion of 1979.Oh, it is rumoured, is it? Well then. What more could we need? How about some speculation about the rumours? And in comes Ellsberg with the speculation. Ellsberg may have hidden wisdom behind those ellipses, but his remarks as presented here are nonsense.
I set the following exercise for the reader: Try and think of a major event during the 90s involving Pakistan which caught the CIA completely off guard. Got it? Now ask yourself: Did the CIA look monstrously stupid for failing to know about it beforehand? Did the ISI manage - somehow - to keep the secret from the CIA? What light might that shed on Ellsberg's claim (as it is presented by the Guardian writer)?
Oy vey.
Moving on, the writer points to the CIA's twisted relationship with the ISI over the years. There is indeed much in that relationship to lament, and I am all in favour of setting the record straight on the long-term damage done to Pakistan (and the rest of the region) as a result of its pawn-status during the Cold War. But if Meacher checks his history books, he will find that the the Soviets withdrew its troops from Afghanistan in 1989. Pakistan's geopolitical significance to the U.S. diminished considerably with their departure. Over the 90s, the United States tilted increasingly towards India. The tit-for-tat nuclear tests conducted by India and Pakistan in 1998 prompted the U.S. to impose trade sanctions on both countries, but reflecting long-term interests, the U.S. was decidedly icier towards Pakistan. (The tit-for-tat nuclear tests caught the CIA completely by surprise. That, of course, is the answer to the exercise above.) And the coup which brought Musharraf to power sealed its status as a semi-pariah state. The drift was only reversed by 9/11 which forced both parties to quickly reevaluate their usefulness to one another, and to reforge old ties.
Now, throughout all this, the CIA no doubt maintained contacts with the ISI - institutional contacts of this sort can be awfully stubborn, and they are also useful. Still, the general trend for the last decade and a half has been decidedly in the other direction, and reaching back over that decade and a half to ground claims about the CIA's omniscience is, I think, simply dishonest.
All the same, I would not be at all surprised if the U.S. really was looking the other way as Pakistan covered up some deeply embarrassing pre-911 connections to A.Q. What, in that case, would the motive be?
I think it's obvious: The U.S. has decided that Pakistan's ongoing cooperation - or rather, grudging semi-cooperation - is preferable, all things considered, to a rift brought on by forcing Musharraf to come clean about everything. We can quibble about the terms of the deal (I would). But that does seem to be the deal, and we don't need to play games with highly dubious inferences to explain it.
This kind of silliness drives me nuts, precisely because I desperately want a full and public airing of the history of the U.S.'s relationship with Pakistan. It's a sordid tale, but it is full of lessons about the limits of realpolitik and the law of unintended consequences in foreign policy. What it does not require is embellishment and irresponsible speculation. That only makes it harder to get at the truth, and to convince other people that you've got it, once you have.
There's no point in paying for software when perfectly good alternatives are free. Below is a list of free, reliable software. Most of it is open source, too (meaning that the code the program uses is also distributed publicly, for anyone to inspect). Some of the programs have Mac and Linux versions, but I'll focus on PC software for now.
-- Keynote is a wonderful little note organizer. Here is a bit on the program cribbed from the help file:
Keynote is a flexible, multi-featured tabbed notebook, based on Windows standard RichEdit control. It's always accessible with a single keypress, even if you work in another application. It's certainly more fun to use than pen and paper! A large number of text formatting functions allows you to create very readable, clear, and well-organized notes.All Explananda posts are written on Keynote, in case you cared to know.The basic idea in KeyNote is that you can have many separate notes within a single file. This means that you do not need to open several files - for most purposes it is enough to create only one file and several notes inside it. With the addition of the tree-type notes, you now have a three-dimensional notebook: many notes within one file and a multi-level, nested pages within a single note. (Read more about KeyNote files)
-- By the same programmer, Oubliette is a great password manager. It encrypts all your passwords into a single, uncrackable file. Up until recently, I was in the habit of storing all my passwords in a single plaintext file. So . . . this is an improvement.
-- Thunderbird is a great email client (from the same people who brought you Firefox) which I use for Explananda-related email. I have about a hundred hits a day, and if one out of every 10,000 hits results in an email, well, you get the picture: It's a veritable torrent of electronic communication. Thunderbird is up to that job.
-- For word processing documents, I use OpenOffice. Why? Well, I can't afford Microsoft Word, and I can't be bothered to pirate it. And really, what excuse would I have, when the existence of a perfectly good alternative undermines any possible claim to necessity? OpenOffice is very intuitive for anyone used to Microsoft Word. It can read and store documents in word format, so document sharing with the rest of the Microsoft-lovin' world is not an issue (unless, I imagine, the documents have an awful lot of fancy-schmancy formatting). And it has a nifty little PDF button that Microsoft Word doesn't have yet. (And if you shelled out $90 for Adobe Acrobat just to produce PDFs, I can only say: Sucks to be you!) My thesis is currently being procrastinated on in OpenOffice.
-- I don't need to do much with graphics, so I can easily get by with Gimp, which is a free, open-source alternative to Adobe Photoshop.
-- For archiving files, I use Saintly Folder Zipper. This works for little jobs, but if something better came along, I might dump it. Anyone?
-- Finally, I use Notepad++ as my HTML editor, since it's better than the one you get with OpenOffice.
(If you're interested in free security-related software, see this earlier post.)
How in the world would someone find out about these? Lots of ways, but here are two. First, Pricelessware.org has a great selection of high-quality, free, open-source programs. The other thing to do is just go browsing through Sourceforge, which plays an invaluable role coordinating a kazillion different open-source projects, at every stage of development. The number of projects at Sourceforge is enormous, but each search allows you to add filters in order to narrow down what you're looking for fairly quickly.
Happy software hunting!
(Disclaimer: It should be obvious that I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. Take my advice at your own risk.)
Last week I finally got around to watching the entire first season of the BBC's comedy show The Office. I thought it was very funny. My enjoyment was marred only by the fact that I had to turn up the volume really high since the sound quality is poor and I can't understand British people when they talk quickly.
I confess that I might have enjoyed the episodes even more if I had watched them over a longer period of time, but I rented the DVD and so felt an (idiotic) urge to watch them all over the course of 24 hours when I had other things to be doing. I thought the first season peaked at the fourth episode, which contained one of the funniest scenes I've seen anywhere in a long time. (The scene is the one in which David and the visiting staff trainer role-play a customer's interaction with a rude hotel clerk.) Episodes 5 and 6 were either weaker, or I was, from so much watching.
My wife was less enthusiastic about the show, and I had to pout a bit in the video store to clinch its selection. She enjoyed the first two episodes, but then her patience wore thin. By the final episode, she was well and truly ticked. (We didn't watch them all in a row, but we've got a small Brooklyn apartment, and she was sort of involuntarily along for the ride.) She's also has the same feeling about the show Curb Your Enthusiasm, for which I have a boundless appetite. I find the socially uncomfortable scenes in Curb Your Enthusiasm painful, but in a good way. The first time my wife saw Curb Your Enthusiasm, she found the socially uncomfortable scenes painful, but that was because she got a migraine from watching it.
Thanks, by the way, to all you Brits (roughly 20% of my readership, according to my site meter) for paying for "The Office" through your BBC dues (or whatever they are).
I'm looking for a roommate in Brooklyn starting as early as August 1st. Tell all your friends! Tell the whole bunch! Details below the fold.
The apartment: A three bedroom duplex with two living rooms, located on the F line (Fort Hamilton Parkway stop), about a minute walk from the subway station. Quiet, safe neighborhood, close to two laundry mats, a grocery story, etc. etc. 3 minute walk to Prospect Park. It takes about a half hour to get into town by subway.
The room: The room is on the second floor of the duplex (fourth floor of the house). It's a bit dark (though it has a window), and is not the largest room around. But it's certainly livable.
The price: $525 plus utilities. (And each member of the house chips in $15/month for basic amenities like toilet paper, dish soap, cleaning stuff, etc. etc. etc.)
Roommates: My wife (a jazz singer and music teacher) lives there full time, as does Vincent (a jazz drummer). I am a graduate student in upstate New York and spend about half my time away from the city. So you would really have two and a half roommates. It is actually a pretty quiet house, and both musicians are sensitive about disturbing others with noise. We're pleasant people, too. Oh yes, we have a beagle, who is adorable, but also a bit thieving, so food must be guarded very carefully.
Duration: We've signed a lease until the end of August, 2005, but we've told the landlord that we would actually prefer to move out at the end of May, 2005. Obviously, the views of all roommates would be relevant to this decision.
Available: As early as August 1st.
What we're looking for: A quiet, responsible, mature person who isn't a complete slob. We would strongly prefer a woman, if only so that my wife isn't stuck dealing with three men.
If you have any questions, by all means email me!
Chris
Helena Cobban has a long and thoughtful post up about Yasser Arafat.
Arafat has been a nightmare for Palestinians. If the Israelis assassinated him I would be outraged. If, on the other hand, he were to drop dead of a heart attack, it would be a toss up for me between relief and annoyance that it took him so long.
Now this is giggle-worthy:
We're sort of befuddled that our jab at the prospects for Libertarian sex-for-votes trading didn't generate more indignant email from outraged Reason subscribers. These are people who can get a lively debate going about Schumpter versus von Mieses, but accuse them of not getting any and they're suspiciously silent. Sure, they talk a good free love game, but where are the swinging Chicago school devotees when push comes to, uhm, shove? We're not the only ones wondering. Noting that a special on A&E this week blares that "There may be as many as 50,000 people involved in polygamous relationships in Utah," a libertarian livejournaler responds, "And you poly Objectivists think you're all kinky and shit! Ha! You guys are being outfucked by MORMONS!"
The latest fuss is about Tony Blair's claim that 400,000 mass graves have already been uncovered in Iraq, when in fact "only" about 5000 have been so far uncovered. Kevin Drum has this to say:
I suppose the politically correct stance is that murder is murder, and quibbling over numbers doesn't change the fact that Saddam was a monster. Which is true enough.It's important to be fussy in demanding that politicians stick to the truth when they make claims of this sort and of this importance. Failure to complain makes it that much easier to stray from the truth the next time around. But I really wish that Drum had meditated a bit more on this post before he hit "publish". Indeed, it's almost surreal to watch Drum go from this point to raising the possibility that "even the humanitarian case wasn't as clear cut as they suggested."But the fact is that, yes, it does matter, in at least two ways. First, it matters because part of the humanitarian case against Saddam was that he was not merely a garden variety nasty dictator, he was arguably the #1 nastiest dictator on the planet. If he wasn't, it does weaken the emotional case for intervention, just as very high numbers strengthen the case for intervention in the proto-genocide currently taking place in Darfur.
Second, and perhaps more important, is the question of whether Tony Blair (and apparently the U.S. government as well) flatly lied about this. This was not a case of intelligence estimates, after all, it was a categorical statement that 400,000 bodies had actually been found by actual troops digging up actual graves. How could he have been off by a factor of 80x?
Needless to say, this wouldn't matter if it were the only exaggeration surrounding the war. But it's not. There was no WMD, no collaboration with al-Qaeda, no 45-minute missiles, no mobile bioweapons labs, no regional military threat, and now it turns out that even the humanitarian case wasn't as clear cut as they suggested.
Is there anything left that these guys told the truth about?
There is abundant evidence that tens of thousands, and perhaps even hundreds of thousands died during (or as a result of) the uprisings in the South at the end of the Gulf War. U.S. fighter pilots watched overhead as Iraqi helicopters poured napalm over large groups of people. The carnage was documented well enough that we don't need the confirmation of bodies dug up from mass graves to know that many people died. See, for example, the documents on human rights watch's website, the testimony of survivors, or simply observe the condition of the South by the time the U.S. military invaded. The South had been brutalized, and Saddam Hussein had almost achieved his goal of draining the Southern marshes in order to forever deny his enemies in the South a sanctuary if the fighting resumed.
All this has been established, and moreover established by human rights groups which are extremely critical of the Bush and Blair administrations, and so don't have the ideological axe to grind which might lead them to inflate their estimates.
Also, there's an easy explanation for how Blair might have been so wrong. It's entirely possible that 400,000 people were killed by the regime since the Gulf War. The mass graves that have been so far discovered provide some further evidence for those killings. Blair might simply have mixed these up. I don't have a high opinion of Blair's personal integrity, but that doesn't mean that everything that comes out of his mouth is a nasty lie.
The humanitarian argument for the Iraq War fails - or so I have argued repeatedly. But it doesn't fail because Saddam Hussein has turned out to be a sadly misunderstood guy. That judgment isn't up for revision simply because Blair misdescribed one piece of evidence, or even if he lied.
Ugh.
I'm officially confused about the 16 words debate (that is, the debate about Bush's claim in his State of the Union address that Iraq had attempted to procure uranium from Niger). As far as I can tell, either Josh Marshall is a biased hack or Gregory Djerejian is.
The back and forth is dizzying. Check out this post from Gregory Djerejian, for an example of the kind of criticism Marshall is getting.
Innocent question from the sidelines of this debate: Does Djerejian expect me to keep a straight face when he ends a post slagging Marshall for inaccuracy and partisanship by approvingly linking to a column of William Safire's which is, typically, riddled with errors?
I've been suffering a bit of blogger burnout lately, and haven't really had the stomach for some of the more repulsive pundits lately. But Laura Rozen pretty clearly isn't burned out, and she has an interesting post up on William Safire's latest:
Bill Safire didn't do his research. And misspeaks, numerous times:Now, as I say, I haven't had the stomach for this stuff lately, so I'm not keeping track of the details as well as I used to. What interests me here is that Safire can't even get the gender of the Italian journalist right. I suppose it could be a typo. And for all I know, Safire might have written it correctly, and then had it botched by a copy editor. Still, this error - along with the others in this column, and many other columns - is good circumstantial evidence that Safire won't let a fact-checker within 100 yards of his column. After all, outside of advanced graduate seminars on gender theory, few think that gender is simply a matter of opinion.. . .State Department intelligence also was dubious, reports the Senate, more so in October when an Italian journalist brought in a bunch of phony documents somebody was trying to sell him about a Niger uranium transaction. This outweighed the report of a top security official in the French Foreign Ministry, who told U.S. diplomats in November 2002 that "France believed the reporting was true that Iraq had made a procurement attempt for uranium from Niger."What did Safire get wrong here?Two months later, with no objection from C.I.A., the famous 16 words went into Bush's 2003 State of the Union.
But when word leaked about the fake documents — which were not the basis of the previous reporting by our allies — Wilson launched his publicity campaign, acting as if he had known earlier about the forgeries.
-- The Italian journalist was not a "he."
-- The forged Niger docs were indeed the chief basis for Italy's reporting to the US on the Niger uranium claims.
-- The French report was based on the forged Niger uranium docs.
-- Reports from the fake documents were the chief source of the previous reporting to the US by the Italians, and partly by the British as well, on the Niger uranium issue.
Either one of two things must have happened at the NYT for things to get this silly. Either Safire has had a confrontation with his editors, and they lost, or they have not found it prudent or desirable to have that confrontation. In either case, I imagine the rationale, or the consolation, is that no one with any sense is paying attention to Safire any more anyway (for any kind of insight, that is), and that is better to just wait for him to retire than to turn him into a martyr by firing or antagonizing him.
If I believed in sinister liberal plots, I would suspect the NYT of keeping around a token conservative of such poor quality in order to blunt the appeal of conservatism. There is also the thought that the fact checkers are mutinying and letting errors like this one slip through in order to embarrass Safire - the only problem with this hypothesis being that Safire is apparently incapable of embarrassment. But it seems to me that the most likely explanation is that people have just decided to grit their teeth and let crazy Bill do whatever he likes, on the assumption that he won't be around much longer anyway.
For a while now I've been meaning to read a bit about the Dreyfus affair. Are there any knowledgeable readers out there who can steer me to one or two good books on the subject? Many thanks, in advance.
I may need to refer to this in the future, so into the electronic scrapbook it goes:
Taken Questions Office of the Spokesman Washington, DC July 15, 2004 Question Taken at July 15, 2004 Daily Briefing
Egypt: Military And Economic Aid (Taken Question)
Question: What is U.S. policy on military and economic aid to Egypt? Can you comment on the Secretary's letter to Representative Jim Kolbe [Chairman of the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related programs of the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives]?Answer: Our policy approach toward Egypt is strategic and focused on advancing U.S. political, economic, and military objectives, justifying our annual assistance program of just under $1.9 billion in FY 2004.
Our bilateral military relations with Egypt are comprised of joint exercises, broad coordination on regional issues, and a $1.3 billion annual military assistance budget. Foreign Military Financing and International Military Education and Training assistance have helped to modernize the Egyptian military through training and weapons sales that have created a sound defensive force. We also maintain open lines of communication with the Egyptian military about the variety of challenges that it faces, from international peacekeeping operations to co-production of certain weapons systems. Virtually all of the 1.3 billion is spent in the United States for US military equipment, which greatly benefits US firms. Additionally, use of US equipment ensures that Egyptian forces are interoperable with ours, allowing us to work closely in joint deployments, as we have in Bosnia and the first Gulf War.
Our bilateral economic relationship, a $571 million dollar budget, is focused on delivering assistance through three main programs: programmatic assistance (including aid projects and technical assistance in health, education and infrastructure); the Commodity Import Program, which funds private sector imports of American products; and the Development Support Program, which provides direct budgetary support to the Government of Egypt in return for achievement of specific agreed-upon economic benchmarks. These programs have helped improve Egypt's basic infrastructure, improve the country's standard of living, and assisted its emerging transition to a more market-oriented economy.
Secretary Powell sent a letter dated July 14 to the Honorable Jim Kolbe, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related programs of the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives. The letter focused on the importance of our annual military assistance budget to Egypt by outlining Egypt's crucial role in our efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East and its contribution to regional stability.
I'm still working away on my monumental Mother of all Iraq War Posts, which aims to be so exquisitely evenhanded that it will bring concord to the blogosophere on this vexed issue. Indeed, I hope to persuade even the doubters among us to doff their hats and swear that my momma raised her first born to be a fair and balanced blogger. Why years from now, I imagine, other bloggers will point me out on the street and whisper reverentially to their blogger children, "Do you know who that is? That's the scallywag-in-chief of explananda. He settled the Iraq War debate back in '04. I never thought I'd see the Instapundit make up with Atrios. But they did, by golly, and I swear both of them had tears in their eyes."
OK, perhaps that's a bit ambitious. But I am trying to sum things up, and there's some value in that.
Just a few more days . . .
. . . about his sordid past fabricating intelligence:
Sexing-up the dossierA few years ago, when I was a computer programmer at Edinburgh University, I went to a meeting where two members of the SPGB were putting the case for socialism to a student society called, I think, Third World First, and dedicated, as far as I could see, to the promoting the kind of delusions (trade bad, aid good) that have done so much to keep the Third World third.
After Brian and Matt, the two Socialists, had put their case for the immediate global abolition of the market, some Frequently Asked Questions came up. One of them was: 'Who will do the dirty work?'
Some well-meaning sap in the audience - it may have been me - gave an earnest exposition of the Frequently Delivered Answer: that lots of the dirty work could be automated, that the objectionable thing about dirty work wasn't the dirt but the social stigma, etc. (You can find the rest of it in Bebel.)
'Ah,' said Brian, sounding disappointed. 'I've always thought it would be Matt.'
In the same spirit, I can now exclusively answer the question of who was responsible for distorting the intelligence from Iraq. It was me.
At least, I started it. I set the ball rolling.
Many years ago, when I was a postgrad at Brunel University, I and a Kurdish exile and an Irishman drafted an article for the student paper, Le Nurb. Control of Le Nurb rested on who had seized the means of its production - a golf-ball typewriter, some sheets of Letraset, an X-acto knife and a jar of paste - that week, so its editorial line fluctuated wildly from Tory to Trot to Anarchist to Young Liberal.
That week, it was Trot. The article I was drafting was based on a telephoned report from Iraqi Kurdistan to our Kurdish exile friend. (The Kurds, then as now, needed all the friends they could get.) An official demonstration in Sulimaniyah, under the slogan 'The Kurds are Ba'athist!' had turned into an angry anti-regime demonstration, under the slogan 'The Kurds are hungry!' (It was a pun in Kurdish.)
I transcribed all this.
'"... which could only be put down by the use of troops,"' added my Irish friend.
'You can't say that,' said the Kurdish guy. 'I have no information about the use of troops.'
'Oh come on,' said the Irish guy. 'You think there could be a demonstration like that, in Sulimaniyah, and it wouldn't be put down by troops?'
'Well ...' said the Kurdish guy, 'perhaps ...'
'There you go,' said the Irishman.
Reader, I wrote it, and Le Nurb published it. A couple of weeks later that article was lifted, with permission, by the much more widely read Militant, and shortly thereafter Militant's article was excerpted - imaginary troops and all - in the even more widely read Intercontinental Press. I don't know how many people who are now Labour MPs read either of these journals in their youth, but I'd hazard more than a few. How many minds were changed, how many opinions hardened, by that fictitious fusillade?
None, in all probability. But the lie still makes me blush.
You've probably already heard the charge against Allawi. I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be part of a smear campaign against him, since the man does have an enemy or two. Then again, I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be true, since the man does have a history which fails to inspire much confidence.
It's all so depressing, which is one reason I've been posting less and less about Iraq lately. I'm working now on a long post which tries to sum up a year and a half of writing on Iraq, but beyond that I'm just burnt out. That doesn't mean I'll stop caring (or reading), of course, but I will probably continue to write less about Iraq for the next little while. (I even skipped a Safire column the other day! What's happening to me?)
As for that long post, I promise it'll be a doozy. I may need a few days to whip it into shape, though.
Well, for starters, we both consider 4,500 calories a day to be "fasting."
Gotta give him this: No one ever sounded like Shooby Taylor.
(The link is to an MP3, which is very much worth hearing. The complete page is here.)
I think it's correct to say that Joe Wilson's credibility is irrelevant to the Plame investigation, or what anyone makes of the Plame investigation. There isn't anything exculpatory for the Bush administration in the fact, if it is one, that Wilson lied about whether his wife recommended him for his little jaunt to Niger or not. And if it turns out that the CIA never passed along Wilson's conclusions, as he supposed, that ought to influence our view of the way that the CIA handled information in interacting with the administration. But it is, again, irrelevant to the question of whether anyone in the administration acted badly in outing Wilson's wife.
Fine. That's true. But after reading and reviewing Wilson's books, and interviewing him, it's a bit much for people to turn around and say that Joe Wilson is not an issue at all. For a time, he was an issue, and his credibility was drawn on to bolster criticisms of the administration. The fact that the administration deserved the criticisms is also irrelevant, since much was made, once upon a time, of the fact that it was Wilson, a credible man, who was making them.
I didn't have a chance yesterday to note that the State Department has refused to certify Uzbekistan, citing concerns about human rights and democratization. Since almost day one of my blogging career I have been urging this as the correct policy, absent significant changes in the country's regime. But the issue is not an easy one, and I've come to see that some ambivalence is in order. I owe some of my ambivalence to the well-informed and intelligent criticism of decertification coming from The Argus, an excellent site devoted to all things Central Asian. And so, as soon as I get get the time to sort my thoughts out, I will try to explain why I think the folks at The Argus have got decertification, and indeed, the general thrust of U.S. "democracy building" wrong.
Rodger Payne, a professor of international relations at the University of Louisville, has an interesting series at his blog in which he contrasts the emails he writes to reporters with the use the reporters (actually, he focuses on one reporter) make of them. It's a great lesson in journalistic spin. Here's the most recent post.
By the way, I notice from snooping around in his site meter that Payne doesn't get many hits on his blog. That strikes me as odd, since he has excellent judgement and posts regularly. He's certainly worth a read, if you're looking for yet another blog to piddle your day away on.
The other day I mentioned a web site offering many, many different versions of the jazz standard, Body and Soul. In the meantime, I have discovered one drawback to listening to that many versions of the same song: Afterwards, it's awfully hard to get the damn tune out of your head.
Buh buh-buh buh buh buh-buh, buh buh-buh buh buh buh buh buh. Buh buh-buh buh buh. Buh buh-buh-buh, buh-buh buh buh.
Good lord. Did you catch the Fox memos posted by Wonkette yesterday? For those of you who missed this story, the memos are all from John Moody, the Fox News chief, to his staff.
I've cut and pasted the whole bunch below the fold. I think Noam Chomksy had a nightmare something like this once:
2003-05-09, John MoodyFrom: John Moody
Date: 5/9/2003We'll have to devote some time to the tornadoes, simply out of respect to the magnitude of damage they did. Fortunately there were no known deaths from last night's touch downs. But a lot of people have no homes.
Let's spend a good deal of time on the battle over judicial nominations, which the President will address this morning. Nominees who both sides admit are qualified are being held up because of their POSSIBLE, not demonstrated, views on one issue -- abortion. This should be a trademark issue for FNC today and in the days to come.
We'll take the Rumsfeld Franks briefing, as we did in the days before Franks opened his office in Baghdad.
At the UN, Catherine Herridge will follow the US sponsored resolution calling for the lifting of sanctions against Iraq. Not surprisingly, we're facing resistance from our erstwhile European buddies, the French and Germans.
2003-05-22, John Moody
From: John Moody
Date: 5/22/2003The terror alert continues to affect the way Americans live their lives, both as consumers, participants in public events and citizens. Let's explain to viewers that while prudent precautions need to be taken, the disruption of the American way of life is in itself a terrorist goal and should not be conceded to our enemies.
one obvious and visible example is the no fly zone over two disney theme parks, which la jeunesse will do live.
The tax cut passed last night by the Senate, though less than half what Bush originally proposed, contains some important victories for the administration. The DC crew will parse the bill and explain how it will fatten -- marginally -- your wallet.
In ever treacherous Iraq, there was gunplay between US troops and iraqi attacks who paid the price.
The Yale explosion looks like less than first imagined. We'll do some lives and see if any new info comes out.
2003-05-29, John Moody
From: John Moody
Date: 5/29/2003A word about Laci Peterson revelations: we need to be extra careful that we know from WHOM we are getting our information. There is no doubt that Mark Geragos is a skillful manipulator. That doesn't mean that he's wrong or deceitful. But everything he tells us, or anyone else, will be to benefit his client. The same is true of prosecutors and Ms. Allred. We don't need to discount what they say, but we need to be aware that it comes with attitude.
bush's G-8 trip is actually less important than his fledgling efforts to knock together the Israeli and Palestinian PMs' heads. Let's keep in mind that the G-8 contains the most obstreperous dissidents against the war on terror. Bush has a long memory and new friends in Poland the rest of Eastern Europe. FYI: the city where he's landing is pronounced KRAK-ov, not KRAK-cow. Let's see how this goes.
We should make use of Amy Kellogg's access to the newly refurbished St. Petersburg, celebrating its 300th anniversary. The pix should be pretty, even if it's not hard news.
2003-06-02, John Moody
From: John Moody
Date: 6/2/2003Heads of state don't leave G-8 meetings early unless they have good reasons. President Bush has two: he has to get to Egypt, and he doesn't like the French. Let's explain to viewers that despite the tepid handshake, Bush and Chirac are far from reconciled, as are the US and Germany. The early departure from Evian should take the sparkle out of the bottled water spa.
We have good perp walk video of Eric Rudolph which we should use. We should NOT assume that anyone who supported or helped Eric Rudolph is a racist. No one's in favor of murder or bombing of public places. But feelings in North Carolina may just be more complicated than the NY Times can conceive. Two style notes: Rudolph is charged with bombing an abortion clinic, not a "health clinic." and
TODAY'S HEARING IS NOT AN ARRAIGNMENT. IT IS AN INITIAL HEARING.We have FCC Chairman Michael Powell on Cavuto today (hosted by Brenda). Let's do a few hits on the commission's vote about media ownership rules.
2003-06-03, John Moody
From: John Moody
Date: 6/3/2003Lots of courtroom action today: the Moussaoui case hits a crucial question today: does a terror defendant have the right to communicate -- albeit by video -- with another terrorist in order to substantiate his innocence. Herridge and Emanuel will run back and forth to cover us.
Scott Peterson has an evidence hearing.
And Eric Rudolph will be arraigned (unlike yesterday) in Alabama in preparation for his death penalty murder trial.
The president is doing something that few of his predecessors dared undertake: putting the US case for mideast peace to an Arab summit. It's a distinctly skeptical crowd that Bush faces. His political courage and tactical cunning are worth noting in our reporting through the day.
The La Jeunesse lives should be used. The national forest as pot field story is pure Fox.
2004-03-12, John Moody
From: John Moody
Date: 3/12/2004For our purposes, as a story, it's very important to know whether ETA or Al Qaeda was responsible for the Madrid bombings. For the victims the distinction is minimal. Terrorism is international, and the United States is the leader of the coalition to stamp it out. That's the tone we want to impart throughout the day. We are beefing up our staffing there and will stay with the story through the weekend.
Scary thought of the day: what if it's a consortium of terrorist groups working together?
Spain's neighbor, the ever-superior France, had its own spate of railway terrorist warnings last week, though it's not clear that those were in any way related to the Madrid bombings.
The President is on the stump, this time for women's rights. His remarks may be worth dipping into and then getting out.
John Kerry may wish he'd taken off his microphone before trashing the GOP. Though he insists he meant republican "attack squads," his coarse description of his opponents has cast a lurid glow over the campaign.
There's a court hearing for Susan Lindauer, accused of selling out her country to Iraq for handful of silver. For the record, Lindauer worked at Fox News (among several other news organizations) in the 90s and was terminated.
Should the border with Mexico be subject to environmental standards, or is its main purpose to keep the nation secure? It's a question the California coastal commision is forcing to a head. Adam Housley looks at book sides.
Kofi Annan always defended the UN's oil for food program in the runup to the Iraq war. Now it appears his son may have had a role in the company that ran the program, which as we now know was used by Saddam to buy cooperation from influential people. Eric Shawn is pieces together the puzzle.
2004-03-16, John Moody
From: John Moody
Date: 3/16/2004What makes police think Charles McCoy is the Ohio Turnpike shooter? Where is he and is he still a danger? This and more needs to be answered, whcih is why Goldblatt is outside the Columbus sherriff's department.
Gas prices are at all time highs in the US. There are reasons for the surge, some economic, some mere business tactics. Remember: US prices, while they seem high tot\ us, are a half or less the cost of gasoline elsewhere.
ERic Shawn will take us through the labyrinth of the UN oil for food program, which is beginning to shine light on the role of SecGen Kofi Annan's son. Can the UN reach a consensus on a scandal in its midst?
The president meets the PM of the Netherlands and talks about healthcare. \
Kerry, starting to feel the heat for his flip-flop voting record, is in West Virginia. There's a near-meaningless primary in Illinois.
2004-03-18, Ken LaCorte
From: Ken LaCorte
Date: 3/18/2004Resist the urge to make any assumption about the potential Al Zawahiri story. Pakistani reports are often confused, especially when they come to us secondhand. Report only what we know and attribute it.
2004-03-19, Ken LaCorte
From: Ken LaCorte
Date: 3/19/2004For us, at least, it's spelled and pronounced Al Zawahiri.
The potential capture of al Qaeda's #2 is still the story of the day, but it's still the "potential capture." Stick with what we know, whether it's in reports, teasers or chyrons.
2004-03-23, John Moody
From: John Moody
Date: 3/23/2004TUESDAY UPDATE: (With thanks to Michelle Novy in DC) SHEIKH YASSIN WAS NOT A "SPIRITUAL LEADER" OF HAMAS. HE WAS THE FOUNDER OF HAMAS, OR ITS IDEOLOGICAL LEADER.
Attention mice: the cat is back.
(My thanks to Ken and David for filling in.)ON AIR TALENT: COULD WE MAKE AN EFFORT TO CUT DOWN ON MOUTH CANDY WHEN GETTING OUT OF GUEST SEGMENTS, SUCH AS, "WE APPRECIATE YOUR PERSPECTIVE."
We will be on full alert for Hamas retaliation for Yassin's precipitious departure, both in Israel and the US. Hamas's vow of vengeance must be taken seriously.
The so-called 9/11 commission has already been meeting. In fact, this is the eighth session. The fact that former Clinton and both frmer and current Bush administration officials are testifying gives it a certain tension, but this is not "what did he know and when did he know it" stuff. Do not turn this into Watergate. Remember the fleeting sense of national unity that emerged from this tragedy. Let's not desecrate that.
Yassin's assassination took the spotlight off Pakistan, but operations there continue. We'll make full use of Palkot and Harrigan from Afghansitan.
And there's the Kobe hearing, which we'll preview. The accuser, whose personal past is now a matter of public conjecture, is likely to testify this week.
2004-03-24, John Moody
From: John Moody
Date: 3/24/2004Wednesday update: If there are any questions about the information that Jim Angle reported today, please let me know. for the record, when Clarke gave the background briefing on government security two years ago, his remarks were on background, meaning his name could not be used. Jim ANgle got a copy of the audio. Today, the White House lifted the restriction, thus taking the two year old briefing off background. Neither Jim nor Fox did anything wrong, except accomplish some good reporting.
For everyone's information, the hotel where our Baghdad bureau is housed was hit by some kind of explosive device overnight. ALL FOX PERSONNEL ARE OK. The incident is a reminder of the danger our colleagues in Baghdad face, day in and day out. Please offer a prayer of thanks for their safety to whatever God you revere (and let the ACLU stick it where the sun don't shine).
As the witness list indicates, today is likely to be the apex of the so-called 9/11 commission hearings. Tenet, Clarke, and Clinton NSC advisor Berger all testify. We will carry their statements, along with he Q&A, live. Remember that while there are obvious political implications for Bush, the commission is looking at eight years of the Clinton Administration versus eight months (the time prior to 9/11 that Bush was in office) for the incumbent.
We also have an interview with chief of staff Andrew Card from Fox and Friends, where he makes the administration's case on the hearings and other things.
The Kobe Bryant case is also hotting up. The NBA star's accuser is expected to testify today, where her past may be discussed. The accuser, whose name we are not using, may pass before TV cameras on her way to the courtroom. While it's OK to show her as she enters the courthouse, let's make every effort not to show her face. Denis King is in contact with the control room and will warn us off any shots that portay the accuser's face.
SCOTUS considers if students can be required to say the pledge of allegiance, including the words "under God." The case is on of the more significant ones the court will have before it this session.
2004-03-25, John Moody
From: John Moody
Date: 3/25/2004There can be no proof more compelling and visual of what Palestinian suicide bombers are all about than the pitiful sight of a teenager frantically cutting away the bomb vest he was wearing in order to save his life. "I don't want to die" he said. Without willing dupes, this barbaric practice can't continue. Let's not overlook that story today, even if the tape has been out there for awhile.
As is often the case, the real news is Iraq is being obscured by temporary tragedy. The creation of a defense ministry, which will be run by Iraqis, is a major step forward in the country's redevelopment. Let's look at that, as well as the deaths of a US soldier in a roadside bombing.
The rummy news conference will be worth dipping into, though full coverage may be too much. Give it a chance.
We'll keep a watch on the Tyco trial, where jury deliberation seems to be dragging a bit.
2004-03-26, John Moody
From: John Moody
Date: 3/26/2004We have competing speeches from the candidates for president. George Bush speaks on home ownership in New Mexico. John Kerry gives an economic policy address in Detroit. We'll take whichever one starts first, time how long we stay with it, then give the same time to the other. Try not to get caught in the ritual "thank you's" that usually precede the meat of the speech.
We expect demos in the West Bank and Gaza as Palestinians vent about the death of Sheikh Yassin. Today is a likely day for retaliatory violence. Be first on it.
Kofi Annan will announce a top level investigation into the oil for food scandal in which his son is a player. How can the investigation get anywhere when it's run by the father of one of the probe's targets?
The LAci and Conner Act passed the Senate and the Prez will sign it. What does this mean for law enforcement and what does it say about the status of the unborn?
2004-03-31, John Moody
From: John Moody
Date: 3/31/2004WEDNESDAY UPDATE: PLEASE BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR APRIL 1 HOAXES. IF IT SOUNDS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, TAKE A BREATH AND THINK IT THROUGH. (with gratitude to Rev. Jackson)
Five American GIs killed in Iraq in a bomb and an attack represent one of the grimmest days there in months. There is also footage of a mutilated body being dragged down a road which WE WILL NOT AIR UNTIL IT HAS BEEN CLEARED.
March is the anniversary of the Kosovo conflict. What lessons can we learn from the UN handling of that troubled region as we look at its potential effect on Iraq.
The INTl Court of Justice ruling against the US is something that many americans might find offensive. We'll take a look at just what this court is, and what gives it the right to tell US courts what to do with death row prisoners.
We'll do another day of lives on the missing Wisconsin woman who's missing in suspicious circumstances.
Day 10 of the Tyco trial deliberations. What does the jury think the gold shower rings were for?
And, as if the country wasn't in enough trouble, folks in California are poaching bees so they can pollinate. No stinging or buzz puns, please.
2004-04-01, John Moody
From: John Moody
Date: 4/1/2004Again, and especially today, BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR HOAXES, FRAUDS AND OTHER APRIL FOOL'S STUFF.
The Wisconsin student found yesterday appears to be in good condition. Her captor is still at large. We'll keep Jeff Goldblatt on the story.
The pictures show in the Times and NY Post today of the dead American contractors are exactly what we chose NOT to use yesterday. Please don't get sucked into this taste race to the bottom.
The US military has said its response to the Fallujah massacre will be measured but forceful. Be prepared to get on this when it happens.
Majorie Alexander, the girlfriend of Peter Gotti of mob fame, was found dead with a plastic bag fastened around her head. Our own button man, Eric Shawn, tells the tale of the duct tape.
The President signs the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, also know as the Laci and Conner law. We'll take the ceremony and POTUS's remarks.
Kerry is out of action today because of his shoulder surgery.
Why does it take so long for military absentee votes to be mailed and are they being counted in national elections. Jim Angle has looked into this and has an interesting take on what could be a crucial segment of the electorate.
2004-04-04, John Moody
From: John Moody
Date: 4/4/2004MONDAY UPDATE: Into Fallujah: It's called Operation Vigilant Resolve and it began Monday morning (NY time) with the US and Iraqi military surrounding Fallujah. We will cover this hour by hour today, explaining repeatedly why it is happening. It won't be long before some people start to decry the use of "excessive force." We won't be among that group.
The continuing carnage in Iraq -- mostly the deaths of seven US troops in Sadr City -- is leaving the American military little choice but to punish perpetrators. When this happens, we should be ready to put in context the events that led to it. More than 600 US military dead, attacks on the UN headquarters last year, assassination of Irai officials who work with the coalition, the deaths of Spanish troops last fall, the outrage in Fallujah: whatever happens, it is richly deserved.
The Sharon interview with Israeli Army radio leaves little doubt that Yasser Arafat should not buy any green bananas. It's going to be a tricky road for Sharon who has previously promised not to harm the Palestinian figurehead
By the way, Israel will also be extra vigilant today as Passover begins. To all our collegues about to celebrate it, Zissen Pesach.
The President goes to Charlotte to talk about job training. Buoyed by the 300K job figure last week, he can boast his policies are working.
John Kerry has committed to selecting a running mate in the next two months, well before the Dem convention. He's back on the campaign trail after recovering from shoulder surgery.
2004-04-05, John Moody
From: John Moody
Date: 4/5/04More Americans dead in Iraq, as the military pursues Operation Vigilant Resolve in Fallujah and elsewhere. In Najaf, the anti-American cleric is hold up in a mosque with fighters around him.
The oil for food story being fronted by Eric Shawn is potentially a huge development. We have to be sure of each step, but if it works out, it will be a lede story after Iraq.
Air America, featuring Al Franken and other liberals, got on the air last week, but at what cost? Well, in New York, it took the place of an ethnic show. In LA, it knocked off a Korean program. And in CHicago,a spanish language broadcast was replaced. None of these people are happy.
2004-04-06, John Moody
From: John Moody
Date: 4/6/2004The events in Iraq Tuesday are going to be the top story, unless and until something else (or worse) happens. Err on the side of doing too much Iraq rather than not enough. Do not fall into the easy trap of mourning the loss of US lives and asking out loud why are we there? The US is in Iraq to help a country brutalized for 30 years protect the gains made by Operation Iraqi Freedom and set it on the path to democracy. Some people in Iraq don't want that to happen. That is why American GIs are dying. And what we should remind our viewers.
For consistency, the town is Ramadi, not Al Ramadi.
"Fierce" is a good word, but let's find a few synonyms.
We'll start to preview Dr. Rice's testimony before congress on Thursday. Angle is the point man for this story.
Kerry's speech on the economy at Georgetown is likely to move onto the topic of Iraq. We should take the beginning of KErry's speech, see if it contains new information (aside from a promise to create 10 million jobs) and see if other news at the time is more compelling. It is not required to take it start to finish.
The hearing on Rush Limbaugh's medical records could be a death blow to the case against him. If the 3 judge panel rules that his doctor's records cannot be used bythe prosecution, the case is likely to go away. Orlando Salinas will be available for lives all day.
Eric Shawn will have another day of Oil for Food lives, to coincide with congressional hearings on the topic. It's possible Kofi Annan will offer some additional information on what was going on at the UN. Either way, Eric will have new, and possibly exclusive information.
fyi, and thanks to the DC bureau, here's part of what senate foreign affairs committee chairman richard lugar will say:
THIS CORRUPTION WAS NOT SOLELY A PRODUCT OF SADDAM HUSSEIN'S MACHINATIONS. HE REQUIRED MEMBERS OF THE U.N. SECURITY COUNCIL WHO WERE WILLING TO BE COMPLICIT IN HIS ACTIVITIES, AND HE REQUIRED U.N. OFFICIALS AND CONTRACTORS WHO WERE DISHONEST, INATTENTIVE, OR WILLING TO MAKE DAMAGING COMPROMISES IN PURSUIT OF A COMPASSIONATE MISSION.
2004-04-08, Ken LaCorte
From: Ken LaCorte
Date: 4/8/2004The day's main stories are Condoleezza Rice's testimony and the continued fighting in Iraq.
First reports coming out of battlefield are always suspect, especially when on the ground "witnesses" invent things, as often happens in Iraq. Early reports of the "Mosque bombing" were quite different from later ones. When fighters shoot at US troops from Mosque compounds, it shouldn't be surprising that we shoot back.
American deaths in this renewed fighting are an important element, but not the only element of the conflict. A battle is more than a macabre statistics report.
Army troops are "soldiers." Marines are not; they're "Marines."
2004-04-09, Ken LaCorte
From: Ken LaCorte
Date: 4/9/2004UPDATE: The NY Times this morning has an unnamed source citing a "general mood" that anti-Americanism is rising and the insurgence is getting broader. However, the majority of other report from the region (AP, Reuters and our competitors) state the opposite. Stick with what we know.
US fighting, or the suspension of fighting, in Fallujah is still the story of the day. The kidnapping and threatened execution of Japanese aid workers and a journalist is also noteworthy, as is that government's reaction to the "cowardly threats."
Today is Good Friday and the beginning of a holy week for Christians. Let's not lose sight of the fact that to millions of people, Easter is more than colored eggs and chocolate bunnies.
The religious significance of this week is also not lost on terrorists. Be ready if they're successful.
Condoleeza Rice's testimony will still be picked apart by those looking to blame someone, whether it's Bush or Clinton, for September 11. Let's not forget UBL's share of that blame.
With hearings and bureaucrats getting a lot of air time, don't slip into their language, e.g. a person is given or assigned a project, not "tasked" with one.
2004-04-19, John Moody
From: John Moody
Date: 4/19/2004Today is Patriots' Day. Let's be very alert to the events that have occurred on this day in past years: Ruby Ridge, OKC, Waco, and, one day later, Columbine.
There's also a lot of tension in the Middle East with the weekend killing of Rantisi. Hamas has selected a new leader but is not revealing the name, for obvious reasons.
2004-04-20, John Moody
From: John Moody
Date: 4/20/2004TUESDAY UPDATE: Please say a prayer or offer a kind thought for Gen. Paul Vallely, our valued military contributor and colleague. Gen. Vallely's son, Scott, has died. Until the circumstances become clear, we should not make mention of this on the air, both out of respect for our colleague, Paul and his wife, and until we know what happened.
The inconsistencies in the Woodward book are beginning to mount to the point of questioning the accuracy of the Watergate hero's latest tome. Brian Wilson is looking through the book, what was said, and what's been denied and what's just plain wrong.
Rumsfeld briefing: let's take it.
The time for talking in Fallujah is nearly up. Let's follow this as long as possible before talk turns to a new firefight.
It should be obvious that we are working hard on the oil for food scandal story at the UN. Please be disposed to use stories on this topic, rather than not.
2004-04-21, John Moody
From: John Moody
Date: 4/21/2004The attacks in the south of Iraq have killed a lot of Iraqis, mostly civilians, who have no direct involvement inthe war on terror. The question can be asked: who's in favor of saving lives, and who's trying to take them.
The bombings in SAudi Arabia are one of the kinds of terror in the Kingdom that we've been hearing warnings about for more than a week. We'll pick up whatever info we can, given that we can't get into Saudi Arabia.
The Oil for Food hearings are a turning point in a story that Fox has been pursuing diligently for weeks. Claudia Rossett, a former WSJ writer who has become a paid contributor to Fox, is among the witnesses testifying today. Label her just that way: Former Wall Street Journal reporter/Fox News Contributor.
If Michael Jackson is indicted on sex charges, it's a big story for us, but PLEASE don't turn it into a nonstop circus. Please also remember that an indictment is NOT the same thing as a conviction. We've staffed the Santa Monica courthouse but let's not overdo it.
2004-04-22, John Moody
From: John Moody
Date: 4/22/2004THURSDAY UPDATE: let's rock n roll with the korean train explosion. korean websites are speculating freely that it was a mistimed hit on kim. that gives us the right to quote them, and let guests etc speculate. it is eerie that it happened just hours after the dear leader finished his business in china and pointedly took the train home.
for all the fun i make of the Jackson story, it is competitive and needs to be covered aggressively. With that in mind, we've pulled out the stops for the day after indictment. Jacko will probably plead not guilty when he formally appears in court at the end of the month.
More serious and more important is the US military's end of waiting game for Fallujah. If, as promised, the coalition decides to take Fallujah back by force, it will not be for lack of opportunities for terrorists holed up there to negotiate. Let's not get lost in breast-beating about the sadness of the loss of life. They had a chance.
John Kerry will hold an Earth Day event in Houston. If we know that he's going to speak, we should take some of it.'
'
Similarly, if the president speaks about the environment, we'll take a similar amount of his remarks.The National Education Association -- the NEA -- is supposedly neutral on the topic of abortion. Why then is it a co sponsor of Saturday's pro choice march in DC. Herridge has lives.
The CBS airing of a still picture of Diana dying in her car in Paris is causing a stir in England. We will not air the still. We can talk about it, describe it, analyze it. But we will NOT air the picture.
2004-04-23, John Moody
From: John Moody
Date: 4/23/2004As we worried yesterday, the death toll in the N Korean train wreck looks like it's being drastically revised downward. that doesn't mean we won't follow the story, to the exten we can get information from the Hermit Kingdom. The chance that it was an assassination against Kim is slim ( i took a poetry class to do this stuff). But it's not impossible.
Oil For Food, a story Fox News and the WSJ alone have kept front and center, may be approaching a new critical stage. Benon Sevan, the former head of the program, has returned to New York from his travels. Jonathan Hunt will track the story and Mr. Sevan's movements. Be careful what we say here. He hasn't been convicted yet, but he is a central figure in a mysterious set of circumstances.
The Moussaoui trial will proceed, a major victory for federal prosecutors and a boost for the judicial arm of the war on terror.
How does Hamas operate in the US? It buys apartment buildings for one thing. Catherine Herridge has the tale of Hamas Heights.
John Kerry has positioned himself squarely on the fight over abortion. He attends a pro-choice rally in DC, then addresses newspaper editors. We'll take the latter live.
The president goes to Florida to continue his Earth day remarks.
At the Vatican, which operates behind closed doors, Catholic theologians are discussing the moral responsibility of lawmakers who claim to be Catholics. While John Kerry's name will probably never be mentioned specifically, the debate includes is candidacy.
2004-04-26, John Moody
From: John Moody
Date: 4/26/2004The military action in Fallujah appears NOT to be the much anticipated US offensive to take the town. It may be terrorist activity to improve position before the push takes place. The coalition has said it will give people a chance to leave Fallujah before the offensive.
There was also an explosion at a factory near Baghdad. The factory's purpose is unclear.
Cheney will deliver a speech at Westminster college in Fulton Missouri. This is where, on March 5, 1946, Winston Churchill delivered his historic remarks and coining the term "The Iron Curtain." It's doubtful Cheney will forget to mention that.
Ribbons or medals? Which did John Kerry throw away after he returned from Vietnam. This may become an issue for him today. His perceived disrespect for the military could be more damaging to the candidate than questions about his actions in uniform.
The President is in Minnesota, where he speaks ot community colleges before returning to the White House. It's a day to make sure we take approximately equivalent live remarks from both candidates.
MONDAY UPDATE: THE BRITISH AUTHORITIES LOOKING INTO PRINCESS DIANA'S DEATH ARE TAKING A "CORONOR'S' TOUR" OF PARIS. NOT A CORONARY TOUR.
Michael Jackson's change of attorney was probably inevitable.We'll await the release of his statement top see if it means anything aside from fewer Mark Geragos pressers.
This is the week Kobe Bryant's accuser has her own seual past dissected. A Judge must decide whether the accuser's amorous history is relevant to her accusations.
Closing arguments in the Jayson Williams trial begin. There have been several delays which now appear at an end.
We'll do some lives about the San Francisco District Attorney who refuses to seek the death penalty for a man accused of killing a police officer with an AK-47. Law enforcement officials are displeased, to say the least.
2004-04-27, John Moody
From: John Moody
Date: 4/27/2004Lots of things to look at today:
TUESDAY UPDATE: Let's not overdo the appearances by Kerry's swiftboat mate John O'Neil. While his appearances so far have been OK, he represents one side of the 30 year recollections of what Kerry did, or didn't do, in uniform. Other people have different recollections.
Fighting overnight in Najaf didn't go the way the militants there had hoped. Reports say 43 of them were killed, with no US casualties being reported. This is one of the few times we've gotten a count of enemy dead. Let's use that to make the point what happens when terrorists take on the coalition.
Lakhadar Brahimi addresses the security council today. His tenure as the UN's man in Iraq is already marked by controversy. The algerian born diplomat blames Israel for the Mideast's problems.
The Al Qaeda confessions in Jordan reveal a sinister plot to kill tens of thousands of people. If anyone wonders if Al Qaeda has mended its ways, this is the answer.
Bill Clinton's book "My Life" may come out in time to let John Kerry have the spotlight by convention time. Then again, maybe it won't.
The Supreme Court hears the contentious case of Cheney v. District of Columbia. The vice president contends that the members his energy task force,convened in 2001, should be protected from disclosure because of Executive privilege. Judicial Watch and other litigants argue that the privilege does not apply. SCOTUS is only HEARING ARGUMENTS not rendering a decision today. It may release tape recordings of the arguments it hears. The role of Justice Scalia has also become a point of contention.
Kobe Bryant case goes into the second day of hearings on the accuser's sexual history.
The Jayson Williams jury is likely to get the case today.
2004-04-28, John Moody
From: John Moody
Date: 4/28/2004WEDNESDAY UPDATE: For perspective, the pictures coming out of Fallujah are a journalistic landmark. Beyond Gulf War I, beyond the first night of the attack on Baghdad, we are seeing very up close and, literally, from a GI-eye's eview, a military operation in real time. Try to explain this to viewers, who may take this incredible visual moment for granted.
Also, let's refer to the US marines we see in the foreground as "sharpshooters" not snipers, which carries a negative connotation.
We'll see a variety of admin officials including Rumsfeld on Capitol Hill to brief lawmakers on Iraq. With the action in Fallujah, they'll want some answers.
Do not ignore the Oil for Food story, please. Fox News is making steady progress in investigating what could be, without exaggeration, the biggest ripoff of all time, the House Intl Relations committee holds more hearings today.
The runup to the Bush-Cheney testimony on 9/11 is bound to generate speculation. Remember, we won't see or hear what's going on, the session won't be formally recorded, and POTUS/VPOTUS will not be sworn in. It will be historic testimony but bad TV.
SCOTUS issues orders and hears arguments onthe cases of Hamdi and Padilla (not an accident law firm), the US born foreign combatants.
2004-04-29, John Moody
From: John Moody
Date: 4/29/2004The president and VP are MEETING with the 9/11 commission. They are NOT testifying before it as did witnesses last week. It is an important distinction that we need to make.
While that is going on, John Kerry addresses the Black Mayors conference in Philly. We should take some of that live, until it reverts to stump stuff.
We'll get to the electronic voting machine debate, making the point that it has the POTENTIAL to delay elections in many states.
It sounds like a "hurrah" but the US based arabic language TV network is more a mixed bag a few months after it went on the air.
Another story that got away from us Wednesday -- the growing use of steroids by high school athletes -- will get some attention today.
Jayson Williams jury continues to deliberate. Even when a verdict is reached, it's not a blow-out-breaks story.
2004-04-30, John Moody
From: John Moody
Date: 4/30/04 7:45:04With trepidation, we'll go into the Michael Jackson indictment today ready to blow breaks and stick with it if it's a circus like last time, or to mix it with other news if, as promised by authorities, it retains some sense of legal decorum. It's a big step in the case. It does NOT mean he is guilty.
A story of much greater import in the long run: the influence of radical imams in Europe. Abu Hamza is only the best known of these hate mongers, who have been give much wider rein in Europe than they would even enjoy in their home countries. Kellogg has the goods. Use her.
The President and the PM of Canada meet today and will make remarks at midday. Take the remarks, even if Jacko is singing on top of a truck with no pants on at the time.
Should food stamp recipients be allowed to buy junk food with their government-subsidized coupons? The governor of Minnesota thinks not. Steve Brown's on the case of the taxpayer and the twinkie.
The decision by 20/20 to treat child adoption as a lottery has provoked a lot of reaction. Eric Burns has an opinion on this, as he does on most things.
2004-05-03, John Moody
From: John Moody
Date: 5/3/2004MONDAY UPDATE: WE are all so used to using the AP wires that their (temporary) absence today provides not just a challenge, but an opportunity. Check websites (including AP) and pay special attention to the urgent queue until AP service is restored. But use the outage to check just how much we rely on one service, and figure out alternatives.
We've given the escape of Thomas Hamill pretty good attention since it became known. Let us not overdo it. It's good news for him and for Macon, Ms., but it's weekend news.
As Gen. Richard Myers suggested on Fox News Sunday, Fallujah will not be under the command of former Republican Guard Gen. Saleh. Instead, it'll be a former Iraqi army senior officer who oversees the volatile region.
There will be a service for Pat Tillman, the NFL player turned army ranger turned symbol of patriotism. We can do some lives on the service, but as before, be cautious about making his death, though tragic, any more significant than the deaths of non-famous GI casualties.
Ariel Sharon is in a tough spot. His own party has rejected his Gaza pullout plan as being too soft. His many critics in Israel and around the world view him as too tough. What's a portly prime minister to do? Tobin and Griffin answer.
The president goes to Michigan, accompanied by a powerful campaign asset, the first lady.
Kerry is in Minneapolis buffeted by the addition of Warren Buffet as an economic adviser.
And in Oregon, Dennis Kucinich is making his final stand -- so he says -- in his quest for Democratic party respect. Springer is there.
2004-05-04, John Moody
From: John Moody
Date: 5/4/2004Politics may be the ticket today. Bush in Ohio, Kerry in New Mexico --both battleground states. We also have Kerry's not insignificant media buy as a way to counteract the Bush-Cheney blitz of last week.
Why do teenage girls hurt themselves, sometimes quite seriously? A nationwide trend of self-inflicted injuries suggests they are somehow trying to relieve stress.
We'll get more on the ordeal of Thomas Hamill as he makes his way back to the US, a certified hero. Apparently, he hasn't lost his American identity -- he wanted a burget and fries on his first night out of Iraq.
2004-05-05, John Moody
From: John Moody
Date: 5/5/2004We'll plan on taking Giuliani's comments on the war on terror at the Council on Foreign Relations. Leventhal will front the story.
Again, if Steve Harrigan pops up during the day, get him on. He's in the middle of the action and exclusive.
The president meets Jordan's king abdullah, after a similar visit was postponed last month in a minor diplomatic ruffle. We'll see if the two have anything to say about the Abu Graib situation.
Wolfowitz is now subbing for Rumsfeld, lowering the importance of the even by a notch.
Thursday update: the pictures from Abu Graeb prison are disturbing. They have rightly provoked outrage. Today we have a picture -- aired on Al Arabiya -- of an American hostage being held with a scarf over his eyes, clearly against his will. Who's outraged on his behalf?
It is important that we keep the Abu Graeb situation in perspective. The story is beginning to live on itw own momentum. The facts of the story may develop into the need to do much more in the days ahead. For the moment, however, the focus appears to be changing to finger pointing within the administration and how it plays out as an issue in the presidential campaign.
Many of you were no doubt alarmed and confused when I failed to post yesterday. I imagine you wandering around with your mouths open in shock, drooling on yourselves and intoning "explanaaaaaaanda". Well, I have an excuse. A server upgrade knocked out movable type for most of yesterday, and I wasn't able to post.
This was distressing to me as well, and I hope you can imagine me wandering around with my mouth open in shock, drooling on myself and intoning "explanaaaaaanda". I also kept having the thought, "I must post to the site to warn people that it is out." Now, since as an explananda reader you're a member of an intellectual elite, I don't need to spell out for you why that would be a problem. (Ok, ok, I'll spell it out for any riff raff who wander in from Google: I couldn't post because I didn't want to get drool on my keyboard.)
We're hosted by friends, for free, so complaining is a delicate business. When I returned to my computer last evening I had mentally drafted a diplomatic note, in case service was still out:
Large, ungrateful tears roll down my cheeks, for the service which you provide for me gratis still doesn't work. Jerk.I thought that struck just the right tone, since it reported the problem dispassionately and yet still hinted at my displeasure. But - thank goodness - the note wasn't needed in the end, since the service had been restored.
Bear with me. I'll try to catch up.
This piece by Christopher Hitchens on the Plame incident is filled with his usual nonsense. But he is right about one thing, and that is the recent infatuation on the part of much of the left with the C.I.A. In the rush to get the dirt on the Bush administration, I think many journalists, and even more bloggers than that, weren't critical enough about leaks coming from the C.I.A. Even more important, large segments of the left appear to have forgotten how awful so much of the history of the C.I.A. actually is. For my part, I'm all for a return to the days of the Church Commission.
That said, I still (mostly, I think) buy the Josh Marshall line on the Senate investigation into intelligence failures. The C.I.A. may have screwed up, but so did that investigation.
One detail of a piece I recently read about Fallujah has lodged in my brain, so I might as well dislodge here on the blog. The piece mentioned in passing that Fallujans who stayed behind during the fighting took a dim view of the people who left. Imams who fled were barred from returning to their mosques, and so on. One can imagine that women and small children were excepted from much of the opprobrium, but for men I doubt excuses were accepted in most cases as readily as they were offered. That may all be temporary, but then again, it may not.
Now, during the fighting in Fallujah, I believe it was said that residents were free to leave. And indeed they were, allowing for the fact that it is not always easy to just stroll out of a war zone. And it was also suggested, or insinuated, in some quarters that this was a relevant consideration in any assessment of the moral rights of those who stayed. What do they expect, it was asked, or implied, if they stay after they have been warned, and then allowed, to leave? And I believe this was also a factor in the general perception of the U.S. military's respect for the difference between combatants and noncombatants during the fighting, since it created a presumption that many people left over in the city were up to no good.
But all that hawkish huffing and puffing seemed to overlook the fairly modest point that there are different ways in which people might have been prevented, or disuaded, from leaving. And I don't think we can be casual about what must have been a wrenching decision, even for those (few, I take it) in Fallujah who wanted the overall U.S. effort in Iraq to succeed.
Think about that the next time you hear some blowhard making the same point about the next Fallujah.
Looking for a hundred different versions of the jazz standard "Body and Soul"? Get 'em here.
Via - who else? - Body and Soul.
I've had a good life so far, but I can't help but brood on how much better it would have been if I had only followed the good advice on offer from Bad News Hughes, here and here.
A lot of people are in a tizzy about the possibility that the U.S. presidential election might be postponed in the event of a major terrorist attack. Obviously no one can afford to be casual about the prospect of a postponed election (especially in the American political system, with its oddly inflexible timetables). Still, Billmon makes a decent case that there's something to be said for the notion:
I'm trying very hard not to be overly paranoid about this - which isn't easy considering the cast of characters involved. I don't know anything about Soaries or his political connections, and considering the administration's past patronage practices, I probably don't want to know.Of course, spelling this out in a plausible form is extremely difficult, as Billmon goes on to say. But I think he's making a sensible point here.But before rushing to the conclusion that this is the opening move in a plot to overthrow the Constitution of the United States and make George "Baby Doc" Bush president for life (Shrub: Well, it would make things easier...) maybe we should try the following thought experiment:
Suppose that one week before election day, the United States is hit by a major terrorist attack - I mean a really big one, like a dirty bomb on the Washington Mall or a liquified gas tanker exploding in the port of a major American city.
Suppose that on the eve of the attack, national polls and the electoral math both show Kerry-Edwards clinging to a narrow lead over Bush-Cheney, one that appears sufficient, barely, to put the Democrats back in the White House.
Let's further suppose that a week after the attack, on the eve of the election, those same national polls show an enormous "rally around the President" effect, one that pushes Bush's approval ratings back towards 80% - not only enough to guarantee Shrub a landslide reelection victory, but also enough to sweep the Republicans to a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and a 1932 or 1974-sized edge in our Chamber of People's Deputies.
Under those circumstances, would you want the election to be held as scheduled? Or would you rather it was postponed for a month, until the initial shock had passed and the voters had had a chance to consider whether the administration's incompetence and the relative indifference of the GOP Congress to homeland security needs might not have contributed to the disaster?
If your answer is yes, you definitely would want the election to go forward on the scheduled day, terrorist attack or no terrorist attack, then I guess you're entitled to regard any legal tampering as an automatic outrage.
But if your answer is no, you would not want the election to go forward on November 2 under the conditions I have described, then you have to acknowledge that some kind of legal mechanism needs to be created soon to allow someone in a position of national authority to make the call to postpone the election.
Onagrocracy: "Government by braying asses."
Now that is a useful word. Let us begin the countdown to www.onagrocracy.com.
(Benedetto Croce, by way of Samantha Power.)
Hot damn, I wish to could make it to this:
on Monday, July 12, and every Monday this summer:SLAVIC SOUL PARTY. Monday Night Balkan Party
Matt Moran leads one of the best Balkan Brass Band anywhere. They will be in residence every Monday until the end of the summer, so no need to travel all the way to Serbia. Stay right here in Brooklyn and experience a take on Balkan Music which is as brash and as strong as Slivovitz (the Serbian Plum Brandy) - equal parts fire, funk, free-form and old school-exuberance. SSP will make you feel like you're attending wedding orchestrated by Emir Kusturica . With Greg Squared (clarinet, alto sax), Nate Wooley (trumpet), Jacob Garchik and Brian Drye(trombones), George Rush (tuba), Peter Stan (accordion), Jerry Kisslinger and Matt Moran (percussion)
@ Barbes, 376 9th St. (corner of 6th Ave.) Park Slope, Brooklyn 718.965.9177
Discuss amongst yourselves:
Arnold Wilson did not foresee the problems of throwing such a diverse population into a single state. He was a paternalist who thought the British would remain for generations. "The average Arab, as opposed to a handful of amateur politicians in Baghdad, sees the future as one of fair dealing and material and moral progress under the aegis of Great Britain." He urged his government to move quickly: "Our best course is to declare Mesopotamia to be a British Protectorate under which all classes will be given forthwith the maximum degree of liberty and self-rule compatible with good and safe government." His superiors in London ruled that out. They preferred indirect rule, something the British had used in the Indian princely states and Egypt. It had the advantage of being cheaper than direct control--an important consideration, especially in 1919. As Balfour pointed out, when the Eastern Committee was talking away about all the glorious possibilities that lay before Britain: "We consider the advantage to the natives, the advantage to our prestige; we consider certain things connected with trade and commerce, and all the rest of it; but money and men I have never seen referred to, and they seem to me to be the governing considerations." And indirect rule did at least bow in the direction of Arab self-determination and liberal opinion. "What we want," said a senior official at the India Office, "is some administration with Arab institutions which we can safely leave while pulling the strings ourselves; something that won't cost very much, which Labour can swallow consistent with its principles, but under which our economic and political interests will be secure." (Margaret MacMillan. Paris 1919, p. 398)
It's unfair to judge Nader until you've heard him speak for himself. This interview gives a fine sense of the man and his cause. I hope it will change minds everywhere.
Amen:
Despite a new government line-up in Iraq and a supportive UN resolution, the Bush administration plan still will not bring peace or stability to Iraq. Nor will it lead to a timely and orderly withdrawal of US forces. Senator John Kerry's approach falls short as well. Neither addresses the root cause of America's postwar troubles in Iraq, which is the adoption of mission objectives that are overly ambitious and polarizing.By failing to disavow the ambition for long-term bases in Iraq, the U.S. has ensured itself even more resistance than it might otherwise have faced. They won't get the bases in any cases - mark my words. The only question is how long it will take them to see this, and to act accordingly. I am afraid that understanding will come much too late, whether Kerry takes the prize or not.A practicable postwar mission would have sought, in addition to undertaking humanitarian and reconstruction tasks, to establish some essential guarantees related to concerns about Iraqi militarism, human rights abuses, postwar stability, and representative governance. The objectives of the Bush plan far exceed these goals (which are daunting enough).
In practice, the US mission has sought not only to repair and selectively reform Iraq, but to virtually reinvent it -- economically, socially, and politically. It also has aimed to substantially decide the future political balance inside Iraq and to establish the country as a reliable ally and base for US operations in the region. These ambitions have made the mission an enemy to too many Iraqis and an affront to too many more.
A rollback in US goals is the first, necessary step toward a practicable postwar mission in Iraq and the timely withdrawal of US troops. Only a more modest and consensual set of objectives can bring the degree of international and indigenous cooperation needed for success.
-- Wodehouse. The Code of the Woosters and The Mating Season. It got so that I couldn't really read these in public, they're so funny (and I've never shown much restraint with laughter anyway, being a jolly, life-affirming sort of guy). When it comes to Wodehouse, once I manage to wrestle my own left-wing hatred of snobbery and classism into submission, there's really no looking back.
-- Margaret MacMillan. Paris 1919. A wonderful read. MacMillan looks at the six month long peace talks in Paris after the first world war. That the peace conference botched a great many things, no one could deny. And indeed, for a long time after few were willing to affirm that it got anything right. MacMillan challenges some of the harsher verdicts on the conference, and offers a fine sense of some of the complexities facing leaders, as they juggled revolutions, nationalisms, the break up of empires, public opinion, and oh so much more. I've been meaning to post a bit on this book, and I may yet if I can wrestle my inveterate laziness into submission. So much wrestling, so little time.
-- Evelyn Waugh. The Loved One. A dark and funny novel. Not as dark or funny, though, as his A Handful of Dust1 a book which will change forever the way you think of Dickens. (But if you are looking for one really funny book by Waugh, start at the beginning with Scoop.)
-- Fromkin. Kosovo Crossing. Now, what's the point of writing a clever, well-written little book that ranges over hundreds of years of history while exploring various conceptions of foreign relations in the context of U.S. political thought and meditating on humanitarian intervention within these traditions - what is the point, I ask you, if the book turns out to be really very shallow in the end? This is hit and run criticism, because I can't be bothered to substantiate the complaint in that rhetorical question. But there you have it. If you want to decide whether or not the book is worth reading, you can weigh the author's gargantuan reputation against some throw away criticism from an obscure know-it-all blogger. Choose wisely.
-- E.M. Forester. Where Angels Fear to Tread. Good. Not as good as his others (Maurice excepted, which wasn't great, but even so was worth reading), but good enough to keep writing a multi-volume study of E.M. Forester's works high on my fantasy list of things to do.
-- Currently reading: Butler. The Way of All Flesh. Prompted by a friend, to whom I am already feeling grateful, despite being only 50 pages into it. My only reservation is that Butler parades his characters' hypocrisies right past the reader's nose. In that way, he is a bit like Sinclair Lewis (I'm thinking especially of Babbitt). And while it's a fine show, after a while I begin to remember that I prefer it when an author lets hypocrisy play mostly in my peripheral vision, so that there's an interesting question about how serious it is, if in fact I'm right that hypocrisy is what I saw, and whether anything mitigates against it. There's more art in that, and also more to think about. To be fair, though, there is also a lot of art in Butler, of a different sort, and almost every page gives me something new to enjoy.
1. Originally, I had written "A Bend in the River" for some reason, a very different book by a very different author. Thanks to a reader for pointing this out.
What the hell am I wasting all my time writing for this blog when I could be getting posts generated automatically?
Ted, over at Diachronic Agency, makes a great point:
By parity of reasoningDamn straight, I say. The idea that this kind of claim has any value or interest is a journalistic fallacy that has long irritated me. It's easy to get some tough guy on the margins to say shit like this off the record, whether it's true or not - about as easy, I imagine, as getting some moron Democrat on the margins to say something absurd about Clinton or Kerry off the record. Would you accept evidence with that status in the one case? Well then, don't accept it in the other.In the funniest scene of The Control Room, an Al-Jazeera producer glumly translates an American interviewee's far-left boilerplate ("The war is all about oil," etc.) for his Arabic-speaking audience, slams down the headphones hissing "Where'd we find this guy? This is bullshit," and chews out the assistant producer, who replies incredulously "But he's talking about his own country, his own country!
Employing comparable journalistic standards, Danny Postrel includes the following paragraph in his (otherwise in a good way interesting) recent piece in the American Prospect (subscription required):
The neocons "got to" Bush after 9-11, a senior Republican strategist says, because "they were the only guys with a plan." He continues: "After you do Afghanistan, and the bloodlust wasn't sated, what do you do? Afghanistan wasn't enough. There were no big buildings -- nothing went 'boom!' It wasn't a big enough response to September 11. We needed something bigger. And these guys came in with Iraq."Well, a Republican strategist should know. After all, he's talking about his own administration.
If you switched to Mozilla Firefox lately, make sure you get the patch (if you're running XP or Win2000). Details here, at Pogge's site. (He's exhausted, but still posts to warn his readers of the vulnerability in Mozilla. Now if that's ain't supererogatory bloggin', I don't know what is.)
Via The Agonist, I see signs that the U.S. is facing opposition in the U.N. in its attempt to get a resolution through on Sudan . . . . Or at least so it seems. The Reuters story the Agonist directs me to looks like a real rush job: Only American diplomats appear to be interviewed for it, so one wonders if the self-serving spin in their story has been dealt with properly.
If the piece is accurate, however, then by the powers invested in me as a blogger, I firmly condemn that bullshit.
Simple question:
Just AskingSimple answer: Uh, could it be because the country is still a war zone?Part of the problem with the occupation of Iraq was that we didn't have enough civilians, and in particular not enough Arabic-speaking civilians, out among the population doing useful things for Iraqis.
Does anyone know why no attempt was made to either (1) shift current Peace Corps volunteers to Iraq or (2) recruit Peace Corps alumni, who are used to living rough among the folks they're trying to help, to re-join the Corps for service in Iraq? I don't know how many current or former Peace Corps members speak Arabic, but I can't believe the answer is "None."
Noam Chomsky writes:
If the goal were security, Israel would have built the fence a few km inside its borders. It could then be a mile high, patrolled on both sides by the IDF, mined with nuclear weapons, utterly impenetrable. Perfect security.The problem would be that it would not take valuable Palestinian land and resources (including control of water), drive out the population, and lay the basis for still further expansion as Palestinians flee from the dungeons that are left, like the town of Qalqilya. So to interpret as a land grab seems appropriate.
Doubtless a side benefit is to increase a narrow form of "security," while probably in the long run seriously increasing insecurity not only because of the regional impact but because sooner or later it is likely to inspire terrorist acts against Israelis abroad in revenge. But terror and security are not driving concerns, any more than they have a high priority in the planning of "the boss-man called `partner'," as more astute Israeli commentators describe Washington.
Well, the problem is there is more than one "Israel" here. I do think that Chomsky has accurately described the aims of an important segment of Israeli society. And I join him in finding those aims repellent. But Chomsky says nothing in the post about why so many Israelis - including many people who would not normally support a policy like the security fence - have acquiesced to, or even supported, the security fence. A lot of people have done so partly because they're tired of getting blown up, as I think we can recognize regardless of how badly we think the Palestinians have been treated.
A lot of stuff happens (especially in Israel) as a result of a fairly complex process of bargaining between lots of different groups with lots of different agendas. Hawks in Israel, at least the ones who support the fence (and many don't, which ought to give Chomsky pause), see the fence as a way of grabbing land, as Chomsky suggests. More moderate groups see it as a way of calming the conflict down, and they hope that it will be easier to persuade fellow Israelis to accept compromises later if they don't feel under the bomb, so to speak. The route the fence takes is also a product of negotiation between different groups with different agendas. But the fact is that many moderates have settled for a crappy route to the fence because they think that in the long run, no fence is worse than a bad fence - which might, after all, be rerouted at a later time.
As long as I'm pissing people off, let me say that if Israel had followed the explananda peace plan, it would have given the Palestinians a lot more than it ever offered and it would have done so a long time ago. But that's not the issue here, which is to try to figure out how best to understand Israel's intentions. And I don't think reducing Israel's intentions, or its policy, to a simple hunger for land, is especially helpful. There's that. But there's also more to it than that.
The moral: Whenever groups with all kinds of different agendas and priorities engage in bargaining, the result is often one that none would list as their first choice. Well, then, be very careful about extrapolating backwards from results to intention. The question is not, "What intention would have produced that result?" but rather, "What complex bargaining process would have produced it?" And that's a trickier question.
One of Atrios' guest bloggers has fallen for a long discredited story blaming the Halabja massacre on the Iranians. The preponderance of the evidence appears to be against this story, and I'm irritated that Eschaton is recirculating it uncritically. Ironically, the fabrication dates from the period in which the CIA was actively trying to come up with excuses for Saddam Hussein, in order to justify the U.S. tilt towards Iraq in its conflict with Iran - precisely the sort of thing that lefty bloggers never tire (rightly, of course) of slagging them for.
Mirabilis gives us some breaking historical news:
A long-rumoured secret crypt of Italy's mighty Medici family was discovered by scientists yesterday after a hunt reminiscent of an Indiana Jones movie.The rest of the story disappoints, since there is no mention of snakes, no lost religious artifacts with the power to destroy the world in the hands of evil Nazis, no chase scenes, and perhaps most damning, no huge rolling boulders.
INTERNET ACCESS IRREGULAR STOP LIGHT BLOGGING STOP RESUME SHORTLY STOP
I'm serving as a teaching assistant for a summer course called "Contemporary Moral Issues". This past week was our first, and I think it went reasonably well. Anyone who has ever taught an introductory ethics class knows that the first order of business is always to try to cut through some very popular excuses to avoid thinking hard about ethical issues: relativism, egoism, nihilism, scepticism, and so on. I call these excuses, but in my experience students actually come to these objections to moral reflection through some peculiar mix of genuine philosophical perplexity and sheer laziness. Specific proportions vary.
I have a lot to say about these matters. For now, though, I just want to note a common weakness in the way that ethics is often introduced to students.
When we introduce morality to our students, we tend to emphasize the demands it makes on us. The form of the question often is: "What is person X required to do for person Y in such and such circumstances?" where we spend a lot of time imagining ourselves as X. And presented that way, it's easy to regard morality as something external, in the sense that it consists in rules imposed from outside, and in a way that's likely to be highly taxing.
Well, even on fairly permissive views, morality can be very demanding. And since I'm not inclined to the more permissive views, on my own account, such as it is, morality can be extremely demanding. Even so, this way of presenting things can be misleading.
Morality is not just about what you owe other people. It is also very much about what they owe you and about what you can insist on for yourself, as fair, in your dealings with them.1. Some students tend to slouch in their chairs and fold their baseball caps over their faces if you begin by talking about what they might owe other people. They sit up straighter if you ask them what other people owe them, and, more important, why other people owe them what they do. There's a framing problem here: Once people see that their expectations of other people are morally loaded, they're much less likely to airily reject the whole project of moral reflection with a wave of their hand. Framed this way, morality turns out to be not something they're dispassionately considering whether to accept or reject, but rather something that, it turns out, they were committed to all along without noticing it.
What's more, if you can bring students to see that an essential part of genuine self-respect involves the capacity to recognize what others owe you and to understand why (as opposed simply to understanding what you want from them), the apparent conflict between morality and self-interest may seem a bit less sharp than it first appeared.2. (More on this - much more, I hope - later.) Morality has a firmer grip on us - by way of our self-conception, our self-respect, and our attitudes to others - than it could possibly have if it were merely a set of demands on us by other people that we're supposed to honour.
Notice this is not an appeal to self-interest. If it were, then it would be enough to point to what students want from other people, fairness aside. But that's not the point, of course. The point is what they expect from other people, and that they will often feel indignant if those expectations are not met. It can be very helpful at this point to emphasize that the emotion of indignation depends essentially on (or does it contain as a part?) the judgement that something is morally wrong. So this dialectical strategy is more a way of revealing a latent assumption about morality than an attempt to ground morality in self-interest. It's basically a souped up way of asking "How would you like it if someone did that to you?" - except that in this case, the dialectical strategy is aimed not at a particular issue, but rather at the more general question of one's attitude to morality in general.
Notice also that while this line of thinking might prove fruitful in ultimately justifying ethics, it needn't necessarily. To show someone that they are more deeply committed to a position than they originally thought is not (necessarily) to show them that they are justifiably committed to it. We're just getting started. But that's the point: Once we see that we are committed, it is easier to see how deep problems about the ultimate justification of morality really are. And then, whether the focus of the class is the foundations of ethics or particular ethical issues, we are ready to start doing philosophy.
1. This is point made fairly frequently in the philosophical literature, but for some reason no exposition of this point struck me more vividly than a very brief mention of it at the tail end of a paper by Elliott Sober called "Evolutionary Altruism, Psychological Egoism, and Morality: Disentangling the Phenotypes."
2. Of course, knowing what you are entitled to insist on, in fairness, does not tell you what you should do. You might want to be generous, that is, to take less than what you are entitled to. But there is no such thing as generosity if there is no such thing as what you are entitled to, for the obvious reason that generosity involves giving more than what you are entitled to.
-- Balkin to Safire: No, fuck you, Bill.
-- Abu Aardvark on Darfur in the Arab media.
-- Daniel Radosh and Wonkette both have fun with the New York Post's VP choice screw up. How embarrassing. Or is it all part of a conspiracy to make Kerry seem like a flip-flopper, as Radosh suggests? If anyone takes this line, it'll surely be Mr. I'm-as-irrational-as-I-am-smart Maguire. Stay tuned to see if he can resist the temptation.
I'm going to do something completely unprecedented for this site and use a post of Norm Geras' as a pretext to write about a couple of things that have been preoccupying me lately. The main question has to do with the tricky issue of what attitude you ought to take towards people who are wicked or misguided, but who for reasons of their own support political outcomes you want.
Norm is not impressed with Paul Krugman's column on Michael Moore's documentary. Krugman notes a number of flaws with the documentary, but concludes that it "tells essential truths about leaders who exploited a national tragedy for political gain..." Finding Krugman's qualifications more significant than his conclusion, Norm writes:
So, how I read all this is that it's OK, according to Krugman, to promote untruths, unproven conspiracy theories, other tendentious stuff, in the service of partisan political judgements. This reminds me of three things. One is what was recently said by some on behalf of Piers Morgan when he published pictures of British brutality in Iraq that were not authentic. Another is this snatch of conversation from Sleepless in Seattle:In other words, if I read him properly, Norm thinks that Krugman is mistaken to let Moore's documentary's value as propaganda trump his reservations about the accuracy of the propaganda. Rather, there ought to be some general restrictions on the kind of political persuasion we consider legitimate, that we should all be able to agree on, apart from our position on any particular issues. And Krugman gets it wrong here because the general restrictions are strict enough to rule out his support for Moore, given what Krugman himself thinks Moore gets wrong.Co-Worker: It's easier to be killed by a terrorist than it is to find a husband over the age of 40!The third are the reasons in favour of political honesty, especially over issues that are highly controversial.
Annie: That statistic is not true!
Becky: That's right it's not true, but it feels true.
As I'll soon admit, I'm certainly attracted to something like this. The problem is that that's a very difficult thing to follow with any consistency, once we get in the thick of things and begin arguing about particular political issues. How difficult is it? Well, ask Norm, who may not have achieved perfect consistency on the matter himself. At least, that's how it seems to me when I reflect on an article by John Keegan that Norm linked to approvingly, and which I obsessed about repeatedly not too many tantrums ago. The article offered an essentially dishonest account both of responsibility for many of the problems with the occupation and of the issue of torture at Abu Ghraib. Now, I hope that Norm agrees with me that Keegan was dishonest in his account of the difficulties with the occupation. But we can set that aside, since I know that Norm takes the issue of torture by U.S. troops in Iraq extremely seriously - and that Keegan's view of the matter as expressed in that article was very different from Norm's. So I think the most charitable interpretation of Norm's approval of Keegan's article is something like: "Damn, those anti-war types irritate me. This fellow is also irritated by them. May he persuade others that their objection to the war was foolish, even if he does so with arguments I'm not completely comfortable with."
Now, at the time I thought I knew what I thought of that. I wrote:
why does Norm want anything to do with such a person? The similarity of their views on Iraq seems to me entirely superficial. Indeed, if I were Norm my first priority would be to distance myself from Keegan's position. For example, Keegan writes in the column in question of "misbehaviour by a tiny handful of US Army reservists - not properly trained regular soldiers - in one prison." That is false, and false on a very important issue, and Keegan must surely know it. Norm certainly does. There are credible reports of torture and abuse in Iraqi prisons around the country, as well as Afghanistan. So I don't see why Keegan's sneering at war critics is worth repeating anywhere, unless it is to criticize. Sometimes the hypocrisy and bad faith of someone being quoted is worth pointing out, and then the question is: Why associate yourself approvingly with this crap, even if you approve of the bit yanked out of context.Quite a tantrum, as I later admitted (though without backing off my criticism of Keegan). In other words, I urged Norm to accept something very like what Norm now urges Krugman to accept: The basic point that we ought to be very choosy about the kind of political advocacy we approve. Serious reservations about a piece of political advocacy ought to lead to outright rejection, even if the piece of political advocacy happens to be in the service of a cause dear to your heart. Now, I don't want to suggest that Norm is consistently inconsistent on this issue. I (think I) remember him being upset about the possibility that the plaster shredder story was a fabrication. Etc. and etc. Still, I think it's safe to say that Norm has not devoted his life to the cause of ferreting out inadequacies in the pro-war arguments he finds inadequate. And there is surely some irony to note in the fact that Norm is slagging Krugman for praising Moore for fabricating in the course of opposing a war which Norm supported but which could not have been successfully sold to the public without some fairly serious fabrications, which, as I say, Norm has not devoted himself full time to challenging. At least, I'm sure I could find something noteworthy in that last sentence if I could only muster the courage to re-read it.
. . .
Really, Norm, read Keegan's column again and ask yourself: Is this an honest assessment of the war? Does Keegan obscure more than he illuminates? Does Keegan not aim to provide cover for people who badly bungled the invasion you supported? If he does, is that a good thing, or does it ultimately set back the attempt to deliver the country from chaos? (I assume that honest assessments are badly needed to go forward properly.) Does Keegan's pooh-poohing of torture allegations help contribute to the moral climate which makes such things possible? Does Keegan provide a fair representation of the situation regarding torture in Iraq? Are Keegan's attitudes consistent with your own attitudes towards torture in Iraq? Is Keegan's insinuation that critics of the war are either dishonest (because they know their history) or deluded (because they've forgotten it) fair? Does Keegan say anything - anything at all - that might persuade a rational person to change her mind about anything? What is it then?
But of course particular cases are sometimes very particular, and it can be difficult to tell when a particular case contains some feature that genuinely mitigates against the general principle and when we're just getting it wrong. Some more cases, to indicate how confused I am by all this:
-- The elated crowd of Iraqis pushing the statue over in the central Baghdad square was very much a photo-op, as anyone who reads the Memory Hole has known for well over a year. Photos of the event appear to have been doctored, and footage of the event edited to swell the numbers of the crowd. I'm not sure how to feel about that. On the one hand, it is important to object strenuously to misleading propaganda, if only because the failure to object makes it more likely in the future. On the other hand, I haven't been able to get very worked up about it, since it seems pretty obvious to me that even if the event was entirely staged, it did represent fairly truthfully the feelings of a whole lot of Iraqis (who were dissuaded from celebrating in the square by the fact that a war was going on at the time). Should I condemn this more energetically? Should Norm?
-- I don't know enough about the Piers Morgan case that Norm alludes to, since it was a tempest in a British teapot, and I tend to track weather patterns in North American teapots most of the time. I thought the main issue was whether he had exercised due diligence in screening the photographs alleging abuse. But there was also the claim that the photographs captured some essential truths about abuse of Iraqis even if they weren't genuine. And in this case, I was inclined to think that not nearly good enough. Part of the reason for this reaction must be the feeling that a serious accusation is either very well-grounded or very irresponsible. But can that justify the difference in my reaction to the statue photo-op? After all, I think that the photo-op was very valuable propaganda for an administration I detest in their effort to sell a war I opposed.
-- Then there is my own reaction to the Moore documentary, which will probably be something like Krugman's. I fully expect to wince throughout the documentary, as I winced at some of the anti-war claims in the run-up to the war. But if Moore's documentary contributes to a result I (desperately) want, Bush's defeat, I think it would be dishonest for me to pretend that I could sincerely regret that it was ever made.
It's tempting to say that our attitude towards useful propaganda comes down to the importance of the cause. And in some sense it may. But notice that if we follow this line uncritically we end up collapsing two issues we were trying to keep distinct: There is first the issue of what causes to support, and then there is the issue of what sort of political activity we can reasonably approve in the service of that cause. It is only if these two issues are kept distinct that we can make the sort of criticism Norm makes of Krugman over his attitude towards Moore and that I make of Norm over his attitude towards Keegan. I started out wanting a consistent position on political honesty in propaganda. That would help me figure out when something is flawed as propaganda, and not just flawed for pushing a conclusion I dislike. In other words, I want to know when I can (honestly) say: "I wouldn't approve of that propaganda even if I supported the cause."
So where we stand now is: If I criticize Norm for his criticism of Krugman's attitude to Moore, I may well have to withdraw my criticism of Norm for his attitude to Keegan. But I don't want to withdraw my criticism of Norm for his attitude to Keegan. And I want to criticize Norm for his criticism of Krugman's attitude to Moore. That there cake is a very nice looking cake. It is the sort of cake one wants to both have and eat too. Anyone have any suggestions as to how I might pull that off? Notice that it's not enough to just say that Norm is being inconsistent and walk away. I also want to know in which direction we ought to resolve the inconsistency.
Let me conclude by pointing out that Norm describes Krugman's position extremely uncharitably. This is not a mere "partisan political judgement," as Norm would have it. Krugman believes, as do I and many other sensible people, that the United States is now undergoing both a serious constitutional crisis and a related crisis about its self-conception as a global actor. The outcome of each crisis will have a determined impact on the character of the country for many decades, very possibly for the worse. So a more charitable reading of Krugman's point about Moore is also a more accurate one: The stakes are so high, in Krugman's view, that he is now desperate enough to reach out to Moore in an attempt to build as broad a coalition as possible to oppose Bush, in spite of all the reservations he has about other members of the coalition and the things they say. (And it's surely also relevant that Krugman also thinks that the things Moore gets right are precisely the things that the mainstream media has been afraid to say. It's not as if the things Krugman thinks Moore gets right are uncontroversial and universally accepted.)
So whether or not Krugman is right about this, he's not balancing his reservations about Moore against mere partisan political judgements. He is, as he sees it, balancing them against something approaching an existential threat to the Republic. Even if Norm rejects the latter judgement, I think this makes it harder for him to say (as I think he wants to say) that he wouldn't share Krugman's attitude towards Moore even if he shared Krugman's opposition to the war.
A while ago, I mentioned that my wife and I threw our beagle a surprise birthday party. (Oh piss off, of course I know that's ridiculous.) Naughty, naughty co-conspirators A. and Brad were present, and A. took pictures.
Here he is with his birthday hat. What a handsome devil! Have you ever seen such a handsome beagle? No. No, you have never seen such a handsome beagle.
And here (1, 2) he is lying on the floor. He's not sad. He's just tired after a long night. Sport humping a room full of people (serially, of course) can wear you out, as I'm sure you know if you've ever tried it yourself.
The other day, I took issue with a post at the blog, Blood and Treasure. The author of the post, Jamie, has responded, and I've updated my own post in response to the response. You can read it all here, if you're so inclined.
So: Move On had a contest in which members were invited to submit videos aimed at the Bush administration. One of the videos placed on the web site compared Bush to Hitler by having one face fade into the other. There was a protest, and Move On removed the video from the web site. Since then, (much of) the right has used the appearance of the video on Move On's web site to smear the entire organization, and indeed, to smear any Democrat, even if that Democrat isn't associated with Move On.
I note the Republican hypocrisy on the way to my own question about Move On: Every left wing blog that I've seen commenting on the controversy has noted that the video slipped past the Move On people and was yanked as soon as it was discovered. But surely that can't be quite right. After all, there must have been some initial screening process that the video made it through, right? I mean, surely you wouldn't have been able to upload, say, porn to their server unscreened if you had wanted to, would you have?
Honestly, I don't really care much. The Move On people made it perfectly clear that they weren't standing behind any particular ad, the Republicans in question are lying hypocrites, yada yada yada. But still, the official Move On story doesn't make sense to me either - and I must have read it now twenty times from highly intelligent people.
If anyone knows otherwise, I'd love to hear it.
My long promised guest commentator has finally made his appearance. If the high quality of his post and the fact that it is based on actual research didn't tip you off, please take careful note that the name attached to it is "Greg" and not "Chris".
I'm done posting for the day. I celebrate my third wedding anniversary today, and my wife has the crazy idea that that implies a break from blogging. In the meantime, give Greg's post a read.
This just in: I now have a niece. Welcome to the world, Annika Young.
May the force be with you.
The two torture memos that have been leaked to the public have received a lot of attention. Recently, the WH has tried to distance itself from them, but I think the memos continue to be a source of important insight into the thinking of this Administration, and an ongoing examination of the contents of these memos is still quite relevant. What’s been said so far about the memos doesn’t exhaust all that can be said about them, and in the next few posts, starting with this one, I will try to fill in some of the gaps.
What I say here relates only to the two longish memos: one prepared by the Justice Department, the other by the Department of Defense. (I shall refer to them as the Justice memo and the DoD memo, respectively.) There is a great deal of overlap in their contents, but there are also some differences, and I’ll say something about these differences below. Overall, the memos make the same four arguments, and it is these arguments that will serve as the focus of my remarks. Now, I must warn the reader that I am not an attorney. I am just a grad student in political philosophy with an interest in human rights and international law.
The memos essentially try to justify very harsh interrogation methods (IMs hereafter) for detainees who fall outside the protection of the Geneva Convention (GC hereafter) . Recall that Al-Qaida and Taliban fighters aren’t offered the protection of GC because they aren’t recognized as regular soldiers and are instead designated as unlawful combatants. (I won’t go into the reasoning behind this here because it is I think fairly familiar by now.) Still, even as unlawful combatants, they have to be given some protection, and the question is, What is that protection, if not the GC? Can the detainees be tortured during interrogation? In other words, can the IMs cross even this line with respect to unlawful combatants?
There seem to be two types of arguments being made. The first says that the IMs don’t constitute torture; the second says that even if they do, this would not be illegal. Of the four arguments, the first says the IMs aren’t torture; the rest say that torture is not illegal.
Let me talk about the first argument. With respect to this argument, the justification for the interrogation techniques is that they don’t cross the torture threshold; if they did, that would constitute violation of international law. Two of the most important sources of international law are custom and treaty. These sources generate international customary law and treaty law. Whether you take international customary law or treaty law (for the U.S.), torture is illegal with respect to both. Of the two memos, only the DoD memo mentions international customary law, and the memo simply dismisses it by claiming that international customary law isn’t federal law and so not legally binding on the interrogators. What is of importance here is the rough way that international customary law is dealt with. Not a single argument is presented to defend this assertion. It is as if customary law is something irrelevant and can be simply ignored. But this kind of dismissiveness is hugely misleading. Whether customary law is federal law remains hotly debated. Some argue that once a specific customary law has been established and the U.S. has not been a persistent objector during its process of formation, this indicates tacit agreement that such law is now also federal law. In other words, under these conditions, customary law becomes self-executing (like a self-executing treaty), and there is no need for Congress to step in. Others argue that customary law is not self-executing and Congress has to intervene before it is recognized as federal law. In any case, it is certainly not the case that this matter has been decided once and for all, which the DoD memo suggests. In the end, however, whether the DoD memo is wrong about customary law regarding torture is academic because there are several treaties, to which the U.S. is a signatory, that prohibit the practice of torture. And treaty law is uncontroversially federal law, and can’t be dismissed as not binding.
There are several important treaties that prohibit torture. Perhaps the most important is the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT hereafter).
In Article 1, CAT defines torture as:
[A]ny act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.
But CAT also makes a distinction between torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment (CIDT hereafter). Both are prohibited by CAT, and, therefore, illegal according to international law. But CAT requires that only torture be criminalized by states subject to the treaty. Of course, individual states can criminalize CIDT if they choose. What is important is that some statute exist – be it criminal or civil – that prohibits conduct that constitutes CIDT.
Within the U.S., it is Section 2340A of USC that criminalizes torture, and 2340A is discussed throughout the two memos. Specifically, the memos make the contention that the IMs won’t run afoul of this statute as long as they aren’t torture. Let’s suppose that for the sake of argument this is right. Still, this isn’t sufficient to justify legally the use of the IMs. That’s because they might still constitute CIDT (and this appears to clearly be the case). But if they do, then they should be outlawed. Thus to make sure that the IMs don’t violate CAT, not only do you have to show that they don’t constitute torture, but also CIDT. The drafters of the memos, however, don’t make much of an attempt at this, and seem content simply to say that IMs don’t violate 2340A. But this is not enough.
CAT does not offer a definition of CIDT unlike of torture. In response to this lack of clarity, the Reagan Administration added the following understanding:
The U.S. understands the term “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” as used in Article 16 of the Convention, to mean the cruel, unusual, and inhumane treatment or punishment prohibited by the Fifth, Eighth and/or Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the U.S.
In other words, if IMs violate any of the above Amendments, then they would constitute CIDT, and would, hence, violate CAT. Now, is there any doubt that the detentions and the IMs violate the “Due Process” of the detainees? Of course, not.
But there is a reply to this, found in the memos. Unlawful combatants aren’t U.S. citizens, and so they don’t get the protection of the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. If the IMs violate any of these Amendments, who cares, as long as there is no torture and we are not in trouble with 2340A. But this misses the point of the above understanding. What that does is to provide a test for determining whether something constitutes a CIDT. If it is in violation of any of the listed Amendments, then it is. Unlawful combatants aren’t directly protected by the Fifth, Eighth, and the Fourteenth Amendments. But this doesn’t matter in the end. They are protected by CAT, which prohibits CIDT. The U.S. is committed to prohibiting CIDT because it is a signatory to CAT, and from its standpoint, this means prohibiting any treatment that violates the said Amendments. If the IMs are in breach of these Amendments, then for the U.S. they are in violation of international law because they are in violation of CAT. It is pretty remarkable that the test for CIDT invokes these three Amendments, but in the end this is what the Senate approved. What is important to note here is that if the IMs involve CIDT, they are illegal according to both international law and domestic law. (If no federal law that says this exists, then under CAT one would have to be passed.) It does not matter that they don’t rise to the level of torture; that they rise to the level of CIDT is enough to secure their illegality. This goes for not just U.S. citizens, but for all detainees.
Here's another issue the pro- and anti- war left ought to be able to agree on. Cluster munitions violate the principle of discrimination between combatants and noncombatants. If you tend to oppose humanitarian interventions, part of the reason probably has to do with cluster munitions. If you tend to favour them, the use of cluster munitions has probably made you very uncomfortable. HRW press release below the fold:
U.S.: Reject Pentagon Call for Cluster Munitions Congress Should Refuse Funding for These Deadly, Outdated Arms(Washington, D.C., June 30, 2004) The U.S. Congress should reject the Pentagon’s request for thousands of cluster munitions, the type of weapon responsible for the majority of civilian deaths in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Human Rights Watch said today in a briefing paper.
Cluster munitions are large armaments that carry dozens or hundreds of smaller submunitions. In its budget for fiscal year 2005, the U.S. Department of Defense has requested hundreds of millions of dollars for the procurement of cluster munitions. The bill is currently under review by a House-Senate conference committee.
Both during and after U.S. military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo and elsewhere, cluster munitions have caused extensive—and predictable—harm to civilians. They endanger civilians during strikes with their broad footprint, and their explosive duds threaten people even years after they are deployed. The most common models of cluster munitions used in Iraq had dud rates of 16 percent, according to Department of Defense figures.
“The United States should learn a lesson from its recent wars and stop buying cluster munitions, which are guaranteed to kill and maim civilians for years to come,” said Bonnie Docherty, researcher in Human Rights Watch’s Arms Division. “Cluster munitions should not be used as long as they pose grave dangers to civilians during attacks and long afterward.”
In a 13-page briefing paper, Human Rights Watch examined the types of cluster munitions proposed in the Department of Defense fiscal year 2005 budget requests. Most of the military’s requests related to cluster munitions call for retrofitting of old weapons or procurement of newer technology to make them more reliable or accurate. These changes, however, are far from a panacea. In several cases, for example, accuracy is
improved, but the dud rate remains too high. Moreover, new technology must be tested and evaluated, and targeting changes must accompany technological improvements.Human Rights Watch identifies four requests for cluster munitions that should be rejected by Congress because they pose unnecessary dangers to civilians, especially with their unreliable submunitions:
* Ground-launched Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) rockets with old Dual Purpose Improved Conventional Munition (DPICM) submunitions;
* Helicopter-launched Hydra rockets with old M73 submunitions;
* Air-launched Joint Standoff Weapons (JSOWs) with old BLU-97 submunitions;
* Wind Corrected Munitions Dispensers for use with air-launched CBU-103 cluster bombs with old BLU-97 submunitions.Congress should also place conditions on the use of other models and demand that the Department of Defense provide more specific information about certain vague submunition requests.
During major hostilities in March and April 2003, the use of cluster munitions, especially by ground forces, killed more than 1,000 Iraqi civilians, by far more than any other conduct by the Coalition. Widespread cluster attacks in populated areas caused casualties during strikes, and high failure rates left thousands of explosive duds that continue to endanger civilians months after the end of major hostilities.
Nevertheless, the United States insists on the right to continue to use a large stockpile of more than one billion unreliable and inaccurate cluster submunitions.
Human Rights Watch has called for a moratorium on the use of cluster munitions until their humanitarian problems have been solved.
This briefing paper can be found at:
http://hrw.org/backgrounder/arms/clustermunitions/index.htm
Norm Geras has revealed the main tenets of the so-called "New Towelism" in an attempt to find some middle ground between our positions (Norm's here, and here; mine here, here and here). Alas, if the compromise has already had political implications, the chances of a full and genuine reconciliation appear slim.
I've been too busy lately to give this matter the thought that is deserves. So let me simply make a few modest points. First, my interests in this matter are more literary and philosophical than Norm's, who, like a good Marxist is impatient to change the world of towels where philosophers have hitherto only striven to understand it. I've been meaning to blog about the theme of towels in Borges, and George Steiner's perceptive remarks about the subject ("In the entire canon, towels were never so perceptively examined as in Borges' masterful 'Pierre Menard, weaver of the Don Quixote towel'." - It's a bit annoying that Steiner, as usual, can't pass up a chance to rub your nose in the fact that he's read the canon and you haven't. But when the man's right, he's right.)
I've also been meaning to take issue with Leo Strauss' treatment of the Socratic dialogue on towels I dug up the other day. Strauss argues, against the firm scholarly consensus, and rather perversely in my view, that Plato is in fact the author of the dialogue. Even worse, he suggests that the Plato intends there to recommend small towels, against the plain meaning of the text. Alas, as I say, both these literary and scholarly diversions will have to wait until I've dealt with other matters.
I can't resist one point - only a dialectical one, please understand - about a compromise suggested by one of Norm's correspondents. The correspondent writes, with Norm's approval:
I think the reason for your preference is to do with what I guess to be your temperament and the way in which you like to dry yourself. I imagine you do it quickly and with great efficiency, using the towel on various parts of your body until you're dry. I, on the other hand, just wrap the towel around myself and wander around with it there whilst doing stuff, until I get dry (as I suppose to be true also of WotN and Chris Young). With this method, dryness is obviously achieved more quickly the more of your body is covered with the towel; so, clearly it's better to have a bigger towel if it's the method you use. Otherwise, you may have a point. (Of course, during the winter, it's also better to have a bigger towel, just for that moment when you get out of the bath. You don't want to be cold, do you?)To which I can only say: If this is Norm's idea of a compromise, I would like to see his idea of capitulation! For there is still enough here, even if I grant this point for dialectical purposes, to convict Norm of irrationality. Proof:
1. England is a dark, cold, damp place.
2. Anyone emerging from from a bath in a dark, cold, damp place will need a large towel to stay warm.
3. Norm is in England.
4. Therefore, Norm will need a large towel to stay warm.
But Norm insists, contra 4 that he doesn't need a large towel to stay warm. He is therefore deeply irrational. How firm are my premises? Well, I've never been to England, but I have it on good authority that it is a very dark, cold, damp place. 2 is drawn from the passage just quoted, which Norm approves. 3 seems hard to deny. The argument is valid, and so 4 follows whether you like it or not.
And thus does the vice of reason groan shut, with truth held firmly in her grip.
Jamie at Blood and Treasure found a piece by Paul Berman through this site a while ago, so I'm going to interpret that as an invitation to comment on Jamie's response to it. Jamie writes:
This leads to a nice attempt at a reductio:To understand Saddam Hussein and the history of modern Iraq, you have to feel anger--or else you have understood nothing. [Quoting Berman]OK, let’s say that you can read Arabic, are fully versed in the history of the place and maybe even live there. But unless you’re emotionally correct, then you don’t know a thing. I would have thought the fundamental problem with people like Paul Berman is that they were so angry with Saddam Hussein that they understood nothing about Iraq. Nor did nearly all of the rest of us, but this is what tends to make sensible people wary, rather than enthusiastic.
Let’s apply the same principle to other countries. Say you have a fairly unsavoury regime - dictatorial, corrupt, brutal - but not in Saddam’s category and therefore not meriting anger.Now, I think this is precisely wrong, and I found it interesting that although I disliked the Berman piece, I actually nodded along with the offending quotation. Two points: First, I don't think there's anything objectionable in the notion that some circumstances call out for certain kinds of emotional response. That does not mean that we have to script out every reaction to everything we come across. It means that we should recognize that a certain range of emotional responses will be more or less appropriate in certain circumstances, often because they will be associated with (part of?) moral judgments. There is typically a fairly close connection between moral judgment and emotional response. In general, where certain moral judgments are called for, so will the emotional responses that go along with them (shame, disgust, outrage, etc.). Indeed, it seems to me that the reductio might just as easily be run in the other direction. Is it really odd to say this: "To understand the holocaust, you must feel sorrow, or you have understood nothing"? I don't think that's odd at all.To understand Aleksandr Lukashenko and the history of modern Belarus, you have to feel mild but constant irritation--or else you have understood nothing.
Now let’s say we’re talking about a certainly venal, probably fairly corrupt president, but one who has a firm mandate from the people of a country who, by and large, like the state they live in pretty well.
To understand Jacques Chirac and the history of modern France, you have to feel occasionally exasperated--or else you have understood nothing.
I wonder what emotions it is necessary to feel for me to understand, I don’t know, Norway for instance. Or Tonga. Or…
Second, even if we think that my first point is usually mistaken, I think the reductio only appears to succeed because it fails to take the vileness of the Ba'ath regime sufficiently seriously. That is, even if in most cases, understanding and emotion are easily separable, we ought to recognize limit cases in which they will - for almost all of us - go together. Iraq was surely one of those cases. I opposed the war, but the reading I did on Saddam Hussein's Iraq made me helpless with anger. It also gave me nightmares. And I confess that it is difficult to imagine reading and understanding and not feeling this anger.
I don't mean to pick on Jamie of Blood and Treasure for a lighthearted post. And I hope I don't come off as a hectoring prig. I think the proper point to make against Berman's remark is that it is all very well if you wish to insist that all thinking about pre-invasion Iraq must begin with the depravity of the Ba'ath party. What we always wanted to insist on was that thinking about Iraq couldn't end there, and that perhaps Berman's anger blinded him to that (as it nearly blinded me). I gather Jamie would agree with that.
UPDATE: Jamie has kindly responded:
Damn. I'm going to actually have to think about this. OK, here goes with the counter-response:I think I agree with everything Jamie says, up until the last paragraph. I think there's undeniably some of the same blinding self-righteousness to be found among the pro-war left that the pro-war left finds in the anti-war left. But I don't think that's all there is to it. I really do think that Saddam Hussein's Iraq was more than bad enough to justify a good-faith support of the war, even though I think the war was a terrible mistake.What really irritated me about the original statement was the word nothing. Certain circumstances may call for certain kinds of emotion; it may be that lacking that emotion makes your understanding deficient in a moral sense. It doesn’t follow that this moral deficiency means that one fails to understand whether the invasion of Iraq is likely to succeed in its aims, whether the people undertaking it are sincere in these aims, or whether these aims are likely to be welcomed by the people on whose behalf one is feeling anger. That requires kinds of knowledge that are irrelevant to whether anger is felt or not.
Conversely, there are circumstances in which don’t require anger which might justify war. Significantly, these were the arguments put forward by the government, namely that Saddam was a serious security risk to the region and the world as a whole. Justification for war was presented as a concrete threat rather than a moral cause, because this was seen as a stronger argument. Therefore anger at Saddam is neither sufficient nor necessary cause for war. Without feeling anger, one’s understanding of Iraq and what is to be done about it are not harmed in any significant way.
Berman’s article as a whole struck me as fairly typical of the pro-war left’s response to their project gping off the rails: we were wrong, but in a wider sense we were right, therefore whatever the actual results we should do it again. This is a dangerous way to go about making foreign policy.
It’s all about moral one-upmanship. Unless you realize this then you have understood nothing about the pro-war left.
But that's a side point. The interesting thing is that I basically agree with the rest of what Jamie says. That suggests that we're talking past one another. And indeed, I think that's just what's happening.
The offending Berman passage has to do with Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Jamie's argument has to do with support for the war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Berman really is right that you (if you are a normal, functioning human adult) cannot learn about Saddam Hussein's Iraq without feeling anger. Indeed, I would say that you could not learn about Saddam Hussein's Iraq without experiencing an intense desire to see him removed from power. But Jamie is right that Berman is still a very long way off from having a satisfactory case for war once he's noted that, and that Berman really should have seen that by now.
First a flawed election. Now this. There is a trend here, I'm afraid, and it's not an encouraging one.
In the course of a single post, Mark Schmitt manages to:
a) inform me that Hendrik Hertzberg has a book coming out; (I looooooooooooove Hertzberg, and on several occasions have found myself fruitlessly searching for something book-length of his after reading an especially good column in the New Yorker. This book collects pieces ranging from 1966 to 2004. Call me a geek, but this is very exciting news.)
b) get off a funny rip on David Brooks; and
c) use an old Hertzberg piece as a starting point for a few reflections on private and public morality.
Now that's blogging value!
Please remember, we aren't stuck with a stark choice between doing nothing and occupying the country. There are many, many things that international actors can do short of full scale war: targeted sanctions, publicity, pressure on outside parties like China and Russia to put pressure on Sudan, humanitarian aid, support for Chad as it copes with the crisis, and so on and so on. And while it's natural for many of us, especially Americans, to look to the U.S. to take the lead, it doesn't need to be that way. Indeed, the U.S. has its hands very full now with other obligations, which are also pressing. So: Where the fuck is Europe? Where the fuck is the Arab league? Etc. etc. and etc.
And not to be a snot about it, but have you considered giving to a charity working in the region? I know, I know: I'm broke too, and I couldn't afford to give much. But even twenty or thirty bucks would help.
I've been meaning for some time to blog about Christopher Hitchens' review of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11. An observation: It seems that Michael Moore makes Christopher Hitchens feel the way that Christopher Hitchens makes me feel.
I think both Moore and Hitchens are driven by a genuine concern about the issues they cover. But neither seems capable of grasping the possibility, even in principle, that political opponents might themselves be driven by anything other than some vile combination of culpable ignorance and corruption. It shows in their work: Both get off some nice rips from time to time. But they're mostly cheap shots. Neither is really capable of argument - the kind of argument, I mean, that is intended to persuade the unpersuaded by building on shared premises to address the reasonable concerns at the root of the failure to be persuaded.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that there is a cause and effect relation between the failure to credit political opponents with the capacity for genuine moral reflection and generally poor standards of argumentation. But by golly, sometimes I could swear I see something like constant conjunction between these two qualities.
I'll go to see the Moore and I'll probably enjoy some of the jokes. But I expect to wince at much of the film, in much the way I hope I would wince at Christopher Hitchens' columns if I had been a supporter of the war.
I saw the Palestinian documentary Jenin Jenin the other evening. I don't think anyone could call the documentary an unbiased look at the conflict, or the particular Israeli military operation that is its focus. If the point of a documentary is to explain, to provoke, and to complicate our response to an issue, then I would call the documentary a solid failure. Although I would put myself well to the left of most mainstream opinion about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I was repeatedly frustrated by the documentary's refusal to consider any but the simplest responses to the issue. On the other hand, I don't regret having seen it, since I would say that it is quite useful at documenting attitudes which really are a part of the conflict and which are very much worth trying to understand.
If I recall, the dialectic in the press over the incidents in Jenin in April 2002 went something like this: the Israelis were accused of absolutely monstrous crimes; the worst of these accusations turned out to be false, or impossible to substantiate; then defenders of Israeli tactics seized on the false charges to claim that the whole fuss about Jenin was trumped up hysterical nonsense; finally, attention moved on. Nowadays, mention of Jenin seems to draw a smirk even from some moderates, since it has become more an example of anti-Israeli rhetorical excess than military excess on the part of the Israeli Defence Force.
That's an unfortunate, since although the wilder charges about Jenin seem to have been completely false (something the documentary doesn't dare to address directly, preferring instead to stick to insinuations), it does look as if the incursion into Jenin was extremely brutal, and involved serious violations of the laws of war.
The survivors appear shell-shocked. They describe executions, deliberate killings by snipers, accidental deaths of innocents, and the gratuitous destruction of personal property. One Palestinian man marvels at length at the fact that the IDF soldiers urinated in his cookware. Some of this, I am sure, was propaganda. But much of it was plausible. The animosity between the parties is mutual, of course, and these are precisely the sorts of things that happen in the circumstances, unless military discipline is kept very strict. Military discipline in the IDF is indeed strict compared to, say, Russia. It could be much worse. But I've read too many credible reports of the IDF failing to investigate serious incidents to believe that discipline is good enough to prevent many of the things described in the documentary.
At no point in the documentary does an Israeli make an appearance, except as a soldier flashed up on the screen momentarily. It is as if the camera could not bear to rest on a Jew for more than a moment. And although some Palestinians talk of an abstract willingness for peace, at no point in the documentary does a Palestinian acknowledge that Israelis might have supported the incursion into Jenin for reasons other than a fiendish thirst for land or unreasoning spite. Indeed, at no point are Israelis treated as anything other than a monolithic group, united in doing this or that. One or two Palestinians point to a double standard in the way that terrorism is discussed by Israelis and Americans. And, indeed, they have a point. But the focus is always solidly on the hypocrisy, wickedness, and irrational spite of the other. No Palestinian who expresses a willingness for peace acknowledges that other Palestinians feel otherwise, and would work to undermine it.
I do think that many Israelis supported the incursion simply because they were frightened and angry about the suicide bombings. And that had to have played a role in decision making in the IDF and the Israeli cabinet. But I'm too cynical to believe that that was the sole, or even the main, motivation for the incursion. I think the bitterness and the polarization documented in Jenin Jenin was an important goal of the incursion in its own right. It's easier to oppress people who are bitter past the point of compromise or understanding, since their anger - and what that anger leads to - becomes further justification for the oppression. I'm also cynical enough to believe that the main purpose of the Palestinian suicide bombings was never to persuade Israelis, but rather to produce precisely the sort of Israeli response that hardens Palestinian attitudes and persuades them to reject compromise. I have always thought the conflict was better understood as two simultaneous conflicts between extremists and moderates on each respective side, with the extremists on either side tirelessly doing the recruiting work for the other. The documentary satisfies me that the extremists on both sides have been the main winners in the raid into Jenin. Sharon and Hamas got exactly what they wanted.
You can say - and I have said to myself - that it's easy for me to criticize Palestinians in the documentary for their lack of balance. The only thing I've ever had taken from me was a wallet, without my noticing it, 5 years ago. (And I've since recovered from the trauma.) The Palestinians have suffered a great deal, and these Palestinians even more than most. But setting aside the fact that I've never hesitated to condemn Israel for its responses to suicide bombings, which I don't have to deal with either, there is still the fact that a response can be understandable, and still mistaken. It's understandable that Palestinians at Jenin brood on revenge after the wanton destruction of their refuge camp, just as it's understandable that some Israelis look with grim satisfaction on the destruction of Jenin after years of wondering helplessly if their children would be blown up on the way to school. But it's still depressing, and wrong, and partial, and counterproductive, and a kind of defeat.
One of the stars of the documentary was a Palestinian girl, I guess about 10 or 11 years old. She was very articulate in a way, but after a while it became clear that she spoke almost entirely in stock cliches about the courage of the Palestinians and the greatness of the camp, and the awfulness of the Israelis, and her rejection of any possible peace. Again, understandable. But she said these things with an awful kind of certainty which I can only hope will evaporate as she grows older. I think we were supposed to admire this plucky little girl who can still stand up to the Israelis, but I found her hard, angry eyes absolutely chilling. Her extremism was a perfect replica of the adult extremism around her, extremism in miniature. Thanks to Palestinian atrocities and racist anti-Palestinian propaganda in Israel, she has nearly exact counterparts among Israeli children. When they grow up, they'll have a lot to fight about.
A fabulous article at The Hardball Times about making up baseball meta-games as a kid: Guys, Teams, and Fenceball.
For those of you who are more internationally-minded: does football/soccer inspire the same sort of fascination away from the game that baseball does? Do kids, if unable to actually play, make up games and stories, and pore over seventy year old games?
Alright, Chris has had the floor to himself for too long. Anyone read and understand Molloy by Samuel Beckett? For the most part, I just don't get it.
And no fair telling me I need to read the next two books to understand it.