August, 2006 archive

George Will:

The “new Middle East,” the “birth pangs” of which we supposedly are witnessing, reflects the region’s oldest tradition, the tribalism that preceded nations. The faux and disintegrating nation of Iraq, from which the middle class, the hope of stability, is fleeing, has experienced in these five weeks many more violent deaths than have occurred in Lebanon and Israel. U.S. Gen. George Casey says 60 percent of Iraqis recently killed are victims of Shiite death squads. Some are associated with the Shiite-controlled Interior Ministry, which resembles a terrorist organization.

(snip)

“The idea that the jihadists would all be peaceful, warm, lovable, God-fearing people if it weren’t for U.S. policies strikes me as not a valid idea. [Democrats] do not have the understanding or the commitment to take on these forces. It’s like John Kerry. The law enforcement approach doesn’t work.”

This farrago of caricature and non sequitur makes the administration seem eager to repel all but the delusional. But perhaps such rhetoric reflects the intellectual contortions required to sustain the illusion that the war in Iraq is central to the war on terrorism, and that the war, unlike “the law enforcement approach,” does “work.”

Froomkin:

President Bush’s startling assertion yesterday — that at the end of 33 days of warfare between Israel and the Hezbollah militia, Hezbollah had been defeated — once again raises questions about his ability to acknowledge reality when things don’t turn out the way he intended.

Here, from the transcript of his appearance at the State Department, are his exact words: “Hezbollah started the crisis, and Hezbollah suffered a defeat in this crisis. And the reason why is, is that first, there is a new — there’s going to be a new power in the south of Lebanon, and that’s going to be a Lebanese force with a robust international force to help them seize control of the country, that part of the country.”

My first question: Did he really mean to say that?

Bush clearly intended to blame every bit of the terrible carnage on Hezbollah, even though most of it was inflicted by Israel. That point, he made over and over again. And his central point — also controversial, but not new — was this: “The conflict in Lebanon is part of a broader struggle between freedom and terror that is unfolding across the region.”

But the conclusion that Hezbollah had been defeated was a rare, possibly unscripted moment of news-making amid a public appearance heavy on timeworn talking points about the march to freedom.

Richard Cohen:

The “birth pangs” are over. This was the term used by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to describe the war between Israel (supported by the United States) and Hezbollah (supported by Iran). If she is right, let us see what has come out: a defeat for the good guys, a victory for the bad guys (the “Islamic fascists” of President Bush’s formulation) and some clear lessons. This has been a very hard birth.

It has been particularly hard for the Lebanese, of course, but no fun for Israel, either. Although Hezbollah has, as they say, been downgraded, it has nonetheless emerged as the fighting force with the best reputation in the Middle East. Not only did it stand up to the supposedly invincible Israeli army but those two kidnapped Israeli soldiers — the proximate cause of the war — remain unreturned, either still captive or dead.

From the start, it seemed that Israel had failed to take due note of the mistakes of Donald Rumsfeld. The longtime and (inexplicably) current U.S. secretary of defense propounded the bright idea that Iraq could be conquered and pacified with about 150,000 American troops. Military men of sound mind and vast experience thought that maybe 350,000 to 500,000 troops would be more like it, but Rumsfeld, fearing a quagmire and eschewing nation-building, got his way. The United States is still in Iraq, mired there for some time to come.

The AP (courtesy the Local Rag):

The leaders of Iran and Syria crowed yesterday that Hezbollah had defeated Israel, with the Iranian president telling a cheering crowd that “God’s promises have come true” and his Syrian counterpart saying that U.S. plans for reshaping the Middle East had been ruined.

Iran and Syria may be the biggest winners from the 34 days of fighting in Lebanon – buoyed by the ability of their ally, Hezbollah, to stand up to Israel’s punishing assaults and by the new popularity of the guerrillas across the Middle East.

Hezbollah did not emerge from the conflict unscathed as a fighting force, and its domination of southern Lebanon and attacks on Israel are likely to be hampered by the deployment of the Lebanese army and international troops in that territory.

Juan Cole:

It was such a stupid war. It was thick-as-two-blocks-of-wood strategy on all sides. It was moronic for the Israelis to plan it out last year. It was idiotic for Hizbullah to cross over into Israel, kill soldiers, and take two captive. It was brain dead for the Israeli officer corps and politicians to think they could get anything positive out of bombing Lebanon back to the stone age and making a million people homeless. It was dim-witted for Hasan Nasrallah to threaten Israelis with releasing poison gases from Haifa chemical plants on them. It was obtuse for the Israelis to confront a dug-in guerrilla movement with green conventional troops marching in straight lines. It was dull of Hizbullah to fire thousands of katyushas into open fields where they mainly damaged wild grass. The few times when the rockets managed to kill someone, it was often an Arab Israeli civilian. Stupid.

Trudy Rubin:

Hasn’t anyone at the White House noticed that the U.S. Army is changing its doctrine on guerrilla warfare? Instead of all-out military assault, the new doctrine calls for waging a political battle for “hearts and minds” while exercising military restraint so as not to drive civilians into the arms of the terrorists.

One key army text is Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife by Lt. Col. John Nagl, which focuses on counterinsurgency lessons from the 1950s war in Malaya and from the Vietnam War. The title phrase was used by Lawrence of Arabia in describing the messy and time-consuming nature of defeating insurgents. Nagl focuses on the ability of armies to learn from mistakes and adapt their strategy and tactics – skills in which he finds U.S. forces lacking. He shows how the British in Malaya were nimble enough to defeat a communist insurgency, while the U.S. military in Vietnam clung to a failing doctrine of force.

Sadly, the Pentagon had not absorbed such insights before invading Iraq. Nagl himself says he learned a lot more during a one-year tour in Iraq. His ideas, if applied back in mid-2003, might have checked the growth of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq and prevented Sunni Islamists from provoking a civil war with Iraqi Shiites. It may be too late for the Army’s new doctrine to stop Iraq from falling apart.

Had the White House paid any attention to its own Army’s doctrine, it would have given Israel very different advice on how to confront Hezbollah. It would have stressed the need for Israel to pursue a political as well as a military strategy. Lebanon’s government, while weak, was the poster child for President Bush’s campaign to advance democracy in the region. Its gutsy Prime Minister Fuad Saniora, and several of its political parties, want a democratic state, and might have faced Hezbollah down had Bush and Israel given them some backing.

(snip)

It’s past time to make Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife required reading at the White House.

In the face of these natttering nabobs of negatavism, it’s essential that we join forces with Phillybits to support our president, without whom none of this would have been possible.

Or necessary.

This is where we were. Eat your hearts out, oh landlocked ones. Just start out walking east. Pretty soon, you’ll be at Gibralter. (Or not.)

Some of you might remember that a C5A crashed near Dover Air Force Base this spring.

Yesterday, driving back from the beach, we took a picture of it. It’s just across Del. Rt. 9 east of Dover AFB.

Retribution for rude driving cell phone users:

The “mobile slasher” is believed to make a note of an offender’s registration, and then “somehow” tracks the vehicle to the owner’s address before slashing the tyres and leaving a “blackmail” style note assembled from letters cut from newspapers on the windscreen. It reads: “Warning. You have been seen driving while using your mobile phone.”

As in Gantry.

Apparently scams targetting believers are on the rise. The AP reports that, from 1998 to 2001, believers were victimized to the tune of $2,000,000,000.

Investigators say all denominations are at risk, but the most susceptible communities are ones where members are deeply engaged in church activities, such as service programs and small group prayer, giving con artists plenty of chance to ingratiate themselves with congregants.

Often, perpetrators are so successful building an image as good Christians that churchgoers won’t cooperate with law enforcement authorities even after the crime is revealed.

“Money has a way of blinding objectivity, even for we who are believers,” Minkow says.

Only 132 shopping days to go:

It’s that special time of year again, when the first plush Santas, singing snowmen and blown-glass Christmas ornaments begin to appear on store shelves.

You know. August.

What, you find it hard to muster yuletide spirit when you’re wearing a bathing suit?

Well, too bad.

At T.J. Maxx in Norristown, two-foot-tall Santa figurines are already watching over a clutch of silver stocking-hangers, wooden-soldier nutcrackers and glittery tabletop trees. A few doors down, at the Dollar Tree, Frosty snow globes wait near the cash registers, not far from a selection of red-and-green ornaments.

At the Cracker Barrel Old Country Store in Plymouth Meeting, a full-size Christmas tree is up and shining. Below its boughs, a toy Santa blows a saxophone, though it’s hard to hear his version of “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” while a nearby mechanical snowman is crooning “Jingle Bells.”

(snip)

Researchers call it “Christmas creep.” That’s shorthand for the ever-backward march of the holiday retail season.

Hmm, better start sending out those Mother’s Day cards. It’s only nine months away.

Already the sycophants of the current Federal Administration are holding high yesterday’s revelation of a plot to blow up commercial airliners as some sort of justification for the misadventure in Iraq.

Here’s one example, from Charles Krauthammer, who normally is not given to hysteria; heaven knows what the nuttier fringe-dwellers are saying:

Like Iraq, Vietnam was but one theater in a larger global struggle — the struggle against the Soviet Union and its communist clients around the world — and by the early 1970s, the newly reshaped McGovernite party had to face the larger post-Vietnam challenges of the Cold War. The result? Political disaster.

The fallacy is this: Ignoring the argument–which can be made–that the Viet Namese war was not part of a global struggle against anything, but was, instead, the the continuation of the Viet Nam’s long struggle for independence from Western occupation–ignoring that fascinating debate . . .

The fallacy is that the war in Iraq is not part of the global struggle against anything; it is rather a foolish and fantastic waste of blood and treasure that ought to have been expended on identifying and neutralizing terrorists.

Eugene Robinson says it well:

Maybe the discovery of the airliner plot will bring us back to the real world. There are deadly enemies out there, and one way to fight them, as the British demonstrated yesterday, is through intelligence. One way not to fight them, as the Bush administration continues to demonstrate, is through reckless military action that may kill terrorists but also kills innocent civilians and thus creates a new generation of terrorists — doubtless including some bright young man or woman who will come up with a new idea for downing civilian airliners.

We will end up boarding our flights barefoot, barehanded and buck naked except for a hospital gown they’ll make us put on at the airport. And, at this rate, Osama bin Laden will be watching CNN from his cave, smiling contentedly.

Some will also use it to justify the current Federal Administration’s repeated violations of the law in abusing prisoners and gathering “intelligence” (Gosh, wouldn’t it be wonderful if they found some!). I’m not even going to look for links on that one.

Poppycock.

The American Way, which they claim to defend, is to obey the rule of law; if you don’t like the law, try to change the law.

The American Way is not to ignore the law.

Those of you who read carefully will note that I have avoided saying anything about who I think might be right and who might be wrong in the Arab-Israeli situation–I say Arab-Israeli because the conflict transcends the current horrors in Lebanon and northern Israel.

I have referred to thoughts from others that I felt merited consideration, and I have been quite vocal (bloggal?) about my opinion of my own country’s failure to do anything concrete to moderate the current Israel-Lebanon situation. (Aside: it seems quite clear to me that the current Federal Administration is willing to let the deaths continue, thinking it will somehow aid the United States, or, more likely, aid the Republican Party in November–remember, with this bunch, everything is political.)

Now there are some who believe that unconditional support of Israel is somehow a condition of being American. And that anyone who does not support Israel unconditionally is a tool of the Islamo-fascists (a term the nuttier fringe of the right-wing tends to hurl at anyone who doesn’t buy their vision of a theocratic America ruled by Emperor Dick George and Jester Karl).

Sadly for those folks, the world ain’t so simple as that. The only thing I know of that is 99.99% pure is Dove soap. The rest of us have good days and bad days, and, frankly, a person who has more good days than bad days over the course of his life has done pretty well.

The main reason that I haven’t said anything is that I am suffering a serious case of Mixed Emotions.

Today, we had some phone trouble at work; since my work life revolves around the telephone, I took advantage of that to catch up with some recreational reading. I stumbled across this in an old Washington Post chat involving Gene Weingarten, a humorist and author who inherited Dave Barry’s spot in the Washington Post Magazine when Dave Barry stopped writing his column (ironically, Weingarten, when he was an editor at the Miami Herald, gave Barry his start and the two remain good friends).

This exchange illustrated probably as well as anything I could have come up with the Mixed-Emotion-ness. These comments were made in 2002. That they still seem relevant today testifies to the world’s failure to do anything to make this situation better.

Note this well: I am not saying that I agree with everything Mr. Weingarten said. And I cannot see it entirely from his perspective, since I am not Jewish; I’m about as WASP as one can be. I am saying that I do not think I could have expressed the Mixed-Emotion-ness any more effectively that did he:

Washington, D.C.: So, what about the Middle East? Seriously. Where do you stand?

Gene Weingarten: For some reason, I get (and do not answer) a version of this question every chat. I am obviously not going to make jokes about the Mideast right now; knowing that, why why would anyone care what I think? I never even graduated from college. The only subject on which I am an expert is the uniform numbers of the 1961 New York Yankees.

However, I’ll answer this because I respect the anarchy of this chat business, and because it will allow me to, in the future, guiltlessly decline to answer the same question on the grounds that I already have.

I feel awful for both sides in the Mideast conflict, but my sympathies lean more toward the Israelis, and not for the reasons you may think. I am Jewish, but my sense of self is not wrapped up in that. My wife is not Jewish, and my children were not raised Jewish, and, as far as a religion, I consider myself mostly a practicing smartass.

I am absolutely certain that both sides can make an inarguable historical case for why they are right. On the merits, therefore, I take no position; I am way too ignorant. As a gut feeling, I favor the Israelis because Israel is, mostly, a modern secular democracy. They elect their leaders. They worry incessantly about their schools. Their politics shares the ludicrous insanity of ours. Whatever the excesses of their government, whatever the evils of occupation, I think the Israeli people are pretty much like us.

I am totally creeped out by the theology of death that the Palestinians have opportunistically embraced. I cannot shake from my head the TV images of Palestinian women ululating in glee on September 11th, and the Palestinian man who spoke almost no English, but managed to tell a British cameraman his reaction: “More!’ I do not understand a culture that encourages the mother of an 18 year old suicide bomber to beam with pride at his accomplishment. I am horrified by a political structure, in a sexually repressed society, that feeds to its youth the promise of 70 virgins in heaven so “perfect’ they do not menstruate or urinate. Creeps me out, big time.

Also, I don’t think any political movement worth anything has ever relentlessly targeted innocents; I think Gandhi and King made the same point.

So, yeah, I am biased. However, I think the fact of the suicide bombings reveals utter desperation and hopelessness that cannot be ignored. I am certain living under occupation is dehumanizing. It seems to me the only solution here is for the Israelis to vacate all occupied territories and make whatever other concessions are necessary for the entire world to conclude they lost, big time. It needs to be seen as a total capitulation. The current Israeli government will fall, which is not a bad thing. Then, if the Palestinians continue to kill innocents, they will be telling the world that their real motive all along has been the annihilation of a Jewish state — an important lesson to learn, and one that should indelibly affect world opinions. And if peace DOES occur, and last — then we will look at what these two societies have made of themselves in the next 20 years, and decide who really won.

That’s it. Issue closed. Back to jokes.

The (somewhat misnamed) Daily Dose–it’s more like a weekly or when-he-has-time-to-breath dose–is good today.

This is harsh. But makes the point.

It is no longer 1787.

Blinq has a well-done background piece on earlier blow-planes-up-with liquid explosives.

From Will Bunch of the Other Local Rag about the plane bombing plot (emphasis added):

As you may have heard, British authorities this morning captured 21 bad guys who they say wanted to blow up planes headed from the UK to the US. Right now, there’s more questions than answers, but it sounds like good police work by Scotland Yard & Co.

Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Most of the big victories in “the war on terror” have been racked up by cops, not by soldiers. Why, it’s almost as if terrorism is a law-enforcement problem — and less of a threat when it’s handled well in that fashion.

Speaks for itself, thinks I:

The Bush administration has drafted amendments to a war crimes law that would eliminate the risk of prosecution for political appointees, CIA officers and former military personnel for humiliating or degrading war prisoners, according to U.S. officials and a copy of the amendments.

Officials say the amendments would alter a U.S. law passed in the mid-1990s that criminalized violations of the Geneva Conventions, a set of international treaties governing military conduct in wartime. The conventions generally bar the cruel, humiliating and degrading treatment of wartime prisoners without spelling out what all those terms mean.

If you can’t obey the law, how about just rewrite it.

Maybe I should try that the next time I get a speeding ticket.

Trapped at a light today behind a Stupid Truck (that’s the one with all the extra lights and stuff). On the back of the Stupid Truck was a bumper sticker that said

“My child is Student of Character at (name of elementary school one mile up the road).”

I just googled “student of character.” Nothing that cast a light on this.

I wonder, is this what they give to parents whose kids aren’t bright enough to earn bumper stickers which say, “My child is an Honor Student at (insert name of school)”?

Now, I think those bumper stickers are really dumb, especially when the school in question is an elementary school, for heaven’s sake.

When I was growing up, back in the Jurassic period, there was no such thing as an honor roll until high school, and, even then, it didn’t rate a bumper sticker. It did rate a little list in the local paper every semester, but that was about it.

What a load of horse-hooey.

My favorite bumper sticker of that nature was this one, that the Amtrak Philadelphia Division Rocket Man (every division has an engineer who earns the title, “Rocket Man”) had on his pickup:

During a slow patch at work today, I followed the breadcrumbs of the World Wide Web to this post. It provides an analysis of the military action in Lebanon far different from what we are getting in most news reports. I’m linking to it, not because I agree with it (that’s not the issue for me), but because I think it’s a useful perspective that may cast more light on what’s going on over there.

It’s a perspective which I suspect has escaped those who craft what passes for our American foreign policy on this issue.

The men who run Hezbollah attacked because they finally figured out that they literally cannot lose. The IDF can never expel Hezbollah from South Lebanon, because it’s a genuine mass movement, as committed and crazy at the roots as at the top. (As opposed to Arafat’s PLO, which they could and did expel from Lebanon because it was topheavy, corrupt and cowardly.) If Israel comes down hard on the Lebanese, another generation learns to hate the Jews down south and dream of bloody revenge. If Israel holds off, then Hezbollah becomes the one victorious Arab/Muslim force in the world, darling of every little nine-year-old Jihadi in Jakarta and Khartoum. If Israel retaliates by blasting every target of value in Lebanon, every TV tower and shopping mall and freeway…well, that’s the beauty of the plan: the Shia are the poorest of the poor. They don’t own any of that shit anyway. They sit back and laugh watching their neighbors’ stuff that they’ve envied all their lives get blown away — and it’s the Israelis who get the blame.

Interestingly enough, Alan Deshowitz takes a somewhat consistent position, but cast in the light of nation-states. That is, he equates Hizbullah with Lebanon. This is somewhat different from equating Hizbullah with south Lebanon, as does the poster quoted above (follow the link to see the statement). The implications, though, as similar: Hizbullah is so interwoven into south Lebanese society that attempts to view them as outsiders are out of touch with reality.

Lebanon has now declared war on Israel and its citizens are bearing the consequences. Lebanon is no more a victim of Hezbollah than Austria was a victim of Nazism. In fact a higher percentage of Lebanese—more than 80%–say they support Hezbollah. The figures were nearly as high before the recent civilian deaths.

“Out of touch with reality.” “George W. Bush.”

Oh, never mind.

Oh, beautiful for spacious skies,

The American consumer economy is operating on two tiers. On top are the relative handful of CEOs and investment people, immune from assault. The Republicans’ gratuitous tax cuts on investment income have significantly lowered the tax burden on the richest Americans _ earning more than $10 million _ by an average of about $500,000. Mr. Bush continues to press Congress to make permanent cuts for the privileged while the national deficit goes through the roof.

for amber waves of grain,

The rest of us are in a squeeze as inflation is driven by energy costs, medical care, and prescription drugs. Home-foreclosure rates are growing; they jumped an average 13 percent a month nationally at the end of 2005, with highs of 30 percent in Massachusetts, 61 percent in Texas, 70 percent in Arkansas, 145 percent in New Mexico, and 210 percent in West Virginia.

for purple mountain majesties,

As for America’s standing in the world, the fog of the endless Iraq war has cost us friends that it took two world wars to win. Americans who felt pride in our triumphs see the leverage and reputation of this nation squandered.

above the fruited plain.

We are reduced from a beacon of hope to a saber-rattling thug. The Bush foreign policy is nonexistent. The radical right exploits the formless “war on terror” _ which can’t be won _ to retain power by keeping us afraid.

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years

Halliburton

Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!

Lies

America! America!
God shed his grace on thee

Concentration camps

And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

With apologies to Capitol Hill Blue.

From an old article by Gene Weingarten. This was written during the Clinton years, but it’s even more telling now:

He is out there somewhere: America’s savior, the next great president of the United States. He will not look presidential. He might be fat, or have bad teeth. He will mumble a little, or stammer, or speak in sound bites that run on a beat too long. He might be a woman; if so, he will seem dowdy. People who underestimate him will think him stupid; no one will overestimate him. He will have gumption. He will lack guile. He will not particularly want to be president. He will be strong-willed but humble. At night, alone with his terror, he will doubt that he is equal to the job.

And for that reason, he will be perfect.

The article is well-worth the 15 minutes it takes to read it.

Raw Story reports having the Republican strategy for the Senate campaign:

Next week, Republicans will tout efforts to “secure America’s prosperity,” through a variety of programs. Plans for small business health insurance pooling, spending reductions, increased domestic oil drilling, and “permanent death tax reform” are all to be pushed at the state level.

Mid-month, Republicans are expected to shift gears, instead focusing voter’s attention on a variety of values-based initiatives. “Democrats oppose preserving a clear definition of marriage, are blocking child custody protections, and have obstructed the confirmation of fair judges,” the document reads. “Republicans are committed to protecting these traditional values by fostering a culture of life, protecting children, banning internet gambling and upholding the rule of law.”

Stem cell bills, though vetoed by President Bush are also to be championed by Republicans, even as they promote a law preventing “fetus farming,” a practice lawmakers believe could one day result from stem cell research. Strangely, a section touting various types of stem cell funding set to be promoted by Republicans is followed by another section, headlined, “Setting The Record Straight: President Bush’s Stem Cell Policy Is Working.”

I don’t know that I agree with this–I sure don’t want to, but it’s a sad commentary on the current state of our polity that it sounds plausible.