|
|
 |
|
|
Friday, September 13, 2002
And we made it through another week It's been clear to me that Richard Butler is engaging in historical revisionism, largely because I was a sentient being who read newspapers during the last decade , and I've been meaning to go back and do the research so I could write about it. But a reader steers me toward what appears to be a new blog by a woman named Elayne Riggs, and she's already done the heavy lifting for me, so go read her post on the subject. Looks like she's off to a good start, and this space welcomes her aboard the Blogville Express--lord knows we need all the rational voices we can find. Have a good weekend. At least the Sopranos are finally back.
Blogging is God's way of telling you that you've got too much time on your hands Those of you who pay attention to the Great Debates of Blogville may have noticed that there is some discussion going on as to whether blondes really have more fun. No, the debate is actually over the assertion that right wingers have more fun than left wingers. Seriously. I'd throw in my two cents, but I'm far too busy being
Evidence, schmevidence The White House document released yesterday as evidence that it is time to overthrow Saddam Hussein is a concise summary of his regime's abuses of Iraqis and its past use or possession of chemical and biological agents… But experts on Iraq's weaponry say that on this subject the report, with few exceptions, recycles a mix of dated and largely circumstantial evidence that Hussein may be hiding the ingredients for these weapons and is seeking to develop a nuclear capability and to weaponize chemical and biological agents… "Given the high priority for knowing what is going on in Iraq, I'm stunned by the lack of evidence of fresh intelligence," said Gary Milhollin, executive editor of Iraq Watch, a Washington-based nonprofit institution that tracks developments in Iraq's weapons program. "You'd expect that, for the many billions we are spending on intelligence, they would be able to make factual assertions that would not have to be footnoted to an open source." The document's evidence of Iraq's "support for international terrorism" is one-page long and lacks any reference to al Qaeda or to a purported meeting in Prague between Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence agent. The document confirms that the last terrorism operation by Hussein's regime was the 1993 attempt to kill then-President George H.W. Bush (presumably they mean "former President"--TT) during his visit to Kuwait. It cites Iraq's shelter of various anti-Iran and extremist Palestinian terrorist groups and says Hussein has increased from $10,000 to $25,000 his compensation to families of Palestinian suicide bombers. President Bush has been under pressure to reveal why he is pressing for a war with Iraq in the near future, and many analysts believed the document would make his case with new information of a more urgent nature. The absence of evidence, they say, suggests Bush will rely on what he believes are Hussein's intentions and potential actions, rather than on concrete, current activities. "This is a glorified press release that doesn't come close to the information the U.S. government made available on Soviet military power when we were trying to explain the Cold War," said Anthony Cordesman, a Middle East expert who has participated in many major studies of Iraq's capabilities. "It's clumsy and shallow when what we need is sophisticated and in-depth . . . as an overall grade, I'd give it a D-minus."
All them Ay-rabs look the same from here This week we are finally getting to the core excuse from the Bush administration for attacking Iraq right now. Vice President Dick Cheney, in an interview with CNN’s John King on Sunday, laid it out nice and simple, the way they like it back in Wyoming: "We have to worry about the possible marriage, if you will, of a rogue state like Saddam Hussein's Iraq with a terrorist organization like Al Qaeda." This notion that the Iraqi leader is in cahoots with Osama will be easy to feed the American people. To the American people, one bad Arab is the same as the next, and Osama equals Saddam. People who wonder about the Bush war-urgency only need to think about this: There’s a blind spot that needs to be exploited now, before too many journalists get the idea to go inside Iraq and find out what’s really happening… Anyone who spends a little time in Baghdad knows there is one thing the dwindling, beaten-down middle class of that country fears more than the hideous regime of Saddam Hussein: an Islamic uprising. The Iraqis sent millions of young men to their deaths in the 1980s fighting exactly the kind of fundamentalist Islamic mentality that we so dread now. As much as they hate their dictator, Iraqis hate the Islamists even more. As a Sunni Muslim, so does Saddam. As in the 1980s, this creepy strongman is standing between Iraqis and the jihad. Column here.
The big question Being asked, by CNN's Bill Schneider, of all people: There's a big question hanging over President Bush's Iraq policy: Why now? Why, more than 11 years after the Gulf War, is it suddenly so urgent for the U.S. to go after Saddam Hussein now? Some people are asking, is President Bush's Iraq offensive being driven by the fall election? An idea the vice president calls ``reprehensible.'' "The suggestion that I find reprehensible is the notion that somehow, you know, we saved this and now we've sprung it on them for political reasons," Vice President Dick Cheney said on NBC's "Meet the Press" last week. What's the political convenience? Strategist Dick Morris spelled it out in a recent column: ``Polls show that only one issue works in Bush's favor: terrorism.'' -------------------- Thursday, September 12, 2002
Thursday's reading list Mark Crispin Miller on the American media's embrace of a demented Caesarism: Although the evidence of our own senses tells us otherwise - after all, he's right there on TV - the press accounts routinely fix his grammar (he said "gooder" several times at one recent event, but that weird goof was not in any transcript), and sometimes even call him "a six-footer," which is very clearly not the case. Such frank cosmetic touches are, to put it mildly, un-American, more reminiscent of the cult of Stalin than of anything in US journalistic history. And yet such frank improvements of the president's own voice and person are not half as troubling as the journalists' refusal to stay with those major stories that pertain directly to the ugly fix that we are in today: Dick Cheney's criminal involvement in the arming of Iraq (against which brutal nation he now urges us to war); John Ashcroft's kid-gloves treatment of the robber barons at Enron - and that firm's many links to the administration (a scandal from which Gulf War II might help distract the rest of us); the abject failure of the "war on terrorism," as bin Laden walks (or sits) at liberty, along with most of the al Qaeda leadership (a big distraction would help there); and, speaking of the bombing of Afghanistan, the ruinous effect of that impulsive move on our attempts to nab the terrorists. (There's no distraction needed there, because the press has barely mentioned it.) Raining bombs down on (or near) the Taliban was comparable, as one intelligence insider put it, to "hitting a bee-hive with a baseball bat." Despite their clear importance, such expert views are quite unknown to most Americans, because the press, since 9/11, evidently sees it as somehow unpatriotic to report the hard, cold truth. Update: several people have written in to let me know that the "gooder" business was a misunderstanding of "good or service." I don't think it takes away from the larger point of Miller's piece, but this site strives to be, you know, fair and balanced. * * * The New York Times on the administration's half-assed preparations for war: WASHINGTON, Sept. 10 — Senior intelligence officials acknowledged today that the government had not compiled an updated, cross-agency assessment of Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons capacities, although the Bush administration is pressing for a quick statement of support for military action against Saddam Hussein. Intelligence officials, responding to repeated complaints from Senate Democrats, said today that they were working on the authoritative document. The last such thorough assessment on Iraq's clandestine weapons was produced about two years ago, Senate and administration officials said today. I generally prefer not to hit this space's audience over the head with too large of a sledgehammer, but let's reiterate this last one: the administration, which is about to take us into war because Saddam might have weapons of mass destruction, has not conducted a comprehensive assessment on Iraq's clandestine weapons in two years. Get it? They don't have the slightest idea if their most recent rationale for sending young American troops to die has any validity whatsoever. Bet that one's gonna be all over the right wing blogs. Right after a swarm of monkeys fly out of my ass, that is. * * * Simon Schama on the Bush oligarchy and the questions we should be asking: Since the United States, notwithstanding the Pilgrims and the Great Awakening, was very much the child of the Enlightenment, one might have expected this case for tolerant, secular pluralism to be made in the most adamant and unapologetic fashion by the country's leadership. But the shroud of mass reverence which enveloped everyone and everything after 9/11, and which once again is blanketing the anniversary, has succeeded in making secular debate about liberty into an act of indecency, disrespectful of the dead and disloyal to the flag. * * * Max Sawicky on 9/11 in general: I talk to a variety of far left characters quite often. Never once have I heard or read anyone say the victims of 9-11 "had it coming." As we all know, repeat the Big Lie enough and it takes hold. The idea of sympathy for fundamentalists on the left is a joke. We’re the godless secularists, remember? What use have we ever had for gluttonous monarchies and dictators propped up by the U.S.? What has been going on since September 12 is the practice of cover your ass by elites and their eager hirelings and volunteers. No government programs are as closely held in the U.S. as those entailing the use of force – the military, intelligence agencies, foreign relations, and law enforcement. The host of questionable acts associated with these agencies for decades that are directly pertinent to 9-11 is what the jingoists’ campaign seeks to obscure. The propaganda war that purports to oppose terror is really a war on accountability for deeds of commission and omission by U.S. elites in national security and business. * * * And Milton Viorst on the wisdom of imagining the worst case scenario: Just over the horizon lies Pakistan, a Muslim country armed with nuclear weapons and permeated by extremists. Pervez Musharraf, its president, has joined America's war on terrorism but he is unlikely to survive politically should there be a nuclear attack by an American ally on Iraq's Muslims. Islamists, overthrowing him, would take control of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal; lacking the ability to launch missiles that would reach Israel, they would turn on India, their more proximate enemy. A nuclear attack would set off global chaos... The responsibility of America's leadership is to prevent the plausible from becoming reality. The cold war is a useful precedent. Saddam Hussein's power, and perhaps his evil too, pale next to that of Stalin. Yet even when we had clear military superiority over Stalin we chose not to attack him. All our presidents, Republican and Democratic alike, accepted the principle of avoiding a war that might wreck the planet. Mr. Bush is the first to question this principle, and his resolve is bolstered by Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, both of whom close their eyes to the potential ramifications of a war with Iraq. Iraq, as a highly centralized tyranny dedicated to its own preservation, is not that different from the old Soviet Union, and it is no coincidence that the same deterrence that restrained the Kremlin has kept Iraq in line for a decade. The Soviet Union's ultimate fall with barely a whimper vindicated America's patience, and in time Saddam Hussein too will vanish. Is not Sept. 11 a compelling reminder that the steadfast vigilance exercised by our leaders for a half-century of cold war is wiser than rushing toward a worst-case outcome? * * * That's probably it for me for today; I've got work to do.
A year and a day… …and the consensus is clear: time to move on and kick some enemy butt! Which enemy butt, exactly, is never entirely clear. I guess the armchair warriors and modem militia types are talking about Iraq, but as I've noted before, that's the "light-is-better-over-here" argument. The administration has given up trying to connect Iraq to al Qaeda, the satellite photos "proving" that Saddam was busily constructing nuclear weapons were disproven almost as soon as they were announced, so the reasoning at this point seems to be, essentially, as follows: 1. Bad people attacked us on September 11. Now, anyone who's ever taken a freshman course in logic and reasoning can probably spot the fallacy in that one, without even working up much of a sweat. But we are, make no mistake, headed to war with Iraq, and there is a persistent and undeniable linkage to September 11, which only makes sense if you think the world out there is one big "they," as in "they attacked us, and we must strike back at them" (which, incidentally, is what I thought that business in Afghanistan was all about). Ultimately, I think it's a matter of reasserting the illusions we all superimpose over the world, just to make it tolerable, just to get by. To stave off the darkness and enjoy the precious time we have been given, we pretend, individually and collectively, that we are invulnerable, immortal. And--trust me on this--when you get that late night phone call, when those illusions are shredded as easily as tissue before a scythe, then you are never quite as able to block out the terrible uncertainty of the world again. This is what we have gone through collectively, as a nation, and the only way to regain that sense of control--which none of us really have to begin with, life being an inherently risky proposition--is to take action. At least in Afghanistan there was a clear rationale. As there would be if it turned out that Saddam Hussein had in fact personally ordered the attack on New York (and if attacking Iraq had not obviously been one of George Bush's two mandates from the beginning--along with that tax cut--the implementation of which were clearly the very raison d'etre for his installation at 1600 Pennsylvannia Avenue). But this "war on whatever bad guy we choose"--this is just an attempt to impose order on chaos, an attempt to piece our shredded illusions back together. We'll kick some Iraqi butt, and that'll show the world who's boss! Well, the world--or that portion of it which hates this country with such a terrible homicidal passion--already knows who's the biggest baddest muthafucka around. That's just not the point. Look at it this way: a lot of people say that the RIAA is a dinosaur stumbling around in the modern age. It evolved to deal with a certain set of circumstances, and when the digital revolution changed everything, it simply didn't know how to adapt. Well, the United States is in danger of becoming the RIAA of global politics. Our entire mentality and defense network is contingent upon the threat posed by oppositional nation states. We simply aren't set up to deal with this rootless, stateless, Ian Fleming supervillian sort of enemy. And so, just like the RIAA, we are trying to pretend that the world has not changed, and that our previous ways of dealing with things are still perfectly effective. And so here we are, about to go to war with a nation state, for no apparent reason except that that's what we know how to do. And it will make us all feel better, reimpose some sense of order onto the chaos into which we have been thrust this past year. Make us feel like we're in control. Until it all blows up in our goddamn faces, of course. -------------------- Wednesday, September 11, 2002
The return of the gang that couldn't shoot straight Looks like they're still having a wee bit of trouble with the concept of accurate vote counts down in Florida. After everything they put the country through last time, you'd think they would have bent over backwards to make sure this one went smoothly. But apparently, you'd think wrong.
Well, this is just appalling I don't usually link to DNC press releases, but I'll make an exception in this case. Click here to find out what Dick Cheney is doing on this day of somber reflection. -------------------- Tuesday, September 10, 2002
Once around the sun  Enough will be written, enough will be said. I don't really have anything to add. I just didn't want a post about a cancelled television program to be the most prominent item on this site tomorrow morning. -------------------- Monday, September 09, 2002
And now, a pause while your host geeks out Just heard that Farscape has been cancelled. Terrible news. It wasn't a perfect show, but it was darned good--certainly one of the smartest things currently on tv. I assume someone out there must be organizing a protest, must have the email addresses to which fans can send notes of protest, that sort of thing. Send the details and I'll post them here. Update: More info here, here, and here, for anyone who cares. I'm bummed. This was one of the few shows I really enjoyed. Update redux: Here's the latest. And here's contact info for the Sci Fi Channel: Sci Fi Channel c/o Sci Fi Channel Email: programming@scifi.com Phone: Viewer comment line: 212-413-5000 There's apparently a window of opportunity here of about a week, before they start destroying the sets for good, so I'd suggest phoning or emailing rather than snailing.
Things that make you go 'hmmmm'.... Richard Perle, one of the most enthusiastic proponents of war with Iraq, now says that the U.S. has proof that Mohammad Atta met with--not just Iraqi agents--but Saddam Hussein himself. The very odd thing about this is that he choose not to break this conclusive, paradigm-shifting revelation in the New York Times or the Washington Post or on Meet the Press or even Fox News--but instead let it slip while talking to an Italian business paper, Il Sole 24 Ore. I mean--the administration has proof that the 9/11 hijackers met with Saddam and they're not shouting it out from the highest rooftop? Instead a surrogate just happens to mention it casually in an interview with a foreign business newspaper most Americans have never even heard of? If you believe that, well, there's a lovely bridge not far from my home here in Brooklyn that you might be interested in purchasing. Story here. -------------------- Sunday, September 08, 2002
Catching up... ...with Scott Rosenberg's blog over at Salon, I ran across this. Scott focuses specifically on decoding Andrew Sullivan, but this sort of thing is endemic throughout the blogosphere, where men made of straw are constantly propped up and then knocked over again by a ceaseless army of would be knights-errant. He is an able rhetorical tactician, and sometimes you have to stop reading and step back to decode those tactics. For some time now, Sullivan has referred to those who do not share his exact hard-line, pro-Bush stances as "the forces of appeasement" or "the appeasement brigade." In applying this label he is, of course, associating his opponents with Neville Chamberlain and the other European leaders who, in the dark days of the 1930s, chose either not to oppose Hitler's aggressive moves against Germany's neighbors, or to oppose them with insufficient spine. This invocation of the Nazi analogy skirts perilously close to Godwin's Law, but it's worth examining. An "appeasement" policy depends on the notion of propitiation: There's a threat, but you believe, somehow, that you can give your enemy what he wants and avert the threat -- you can stop Hitler from going after you by giving him Czechoslovakia. But there is no Czechoslovakia today. If there were any true advocates of appeasement right now, you could identify them by their willingness to give in to some demand of our enemies. (The "war brigade" does not like to be pressed too hard to define exactly who our enemies are, which makes this a little problematic, but for the sake of argument let's name al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden, whom we can widely agree on.) Well, what are those demands? There are none. Which makes the whole "appeasement" argument a big red herring. --------------------
 |
|
|
 |