Here’s a little treat for you in honor of the closing of Abu Ghraib prison. Remember when the scandal first broke and John Derbyshire said :
The Abu Ghraib “scandal”: Good. Kick one for me. But bad discipline in the military (taking the pictures, I mean). Let’s have a couple of courts martial for appearance’s sake. Maximum sentence: 30 days CB.
Well, here’s a video of tough guy Derbyshire getting his ass kicked by Bruce Lee. Derb’s the one in the striped shirt.
You’ll have to kick him a lot harder than that to knock some sense into him, Bruce. There’s more info about his brush with greatness at Wikipedia.
Good catch from Baxil. Apparently Bruce Tinsley was for conservatism before he was against it :
The “I’m really a libertarian” trend has been picking up steam lately among conservatives who want to seem reasonable in the face of undeniable corruption, but it should be pointed out that a real libertarian (assuming you can find one) wouldn’t spend half their time complaining about abortion, homosexuality, drug use, violent video games, etc. People who favor “small government” tend to do so because they want to be left alone, but conservatism has shown us time and time again that when push comes to shove, imposing regressive social values always trumps any professed love of limited government.
Even funnier than the popularity of bogus libertarianism is the pleas of “I’m conservative, but not a Republican” among wingnuts. For a crowd that prides itself on its toughness and resolve, it’s amazing to see how many of them are too cowardly to stand by the party they unquestionably support. This usually manifests itself in self-righteous odes to fiscal discipline with the chorus of “I didn’t leave them, they left me”, but anyone who would vote for a Republican after Ronald Reagan’s first term has no right to feign ignorance over the GOP’s irresponsible governance. Though they may try to absolve themselves of responsibility for the choices they make in the voting booth, anyone with a long record of supporting GOP candidates and bashing Democrats is a Republican in my book.
Or to put things another way, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…
Though the photo-ops and headlines seem nice, this India nukes deal should scare the hell out of you :
Reversing decades of U.S. policy, President Bush ushered India into the world’s exclusive nuclear club Thursday with a landmark agreement to share nuclear reactors, fuel and expertise with this energy-starved nation in return for its acceptance of international safeguards.
Eight months in the making, the accord would end India’s long isolation as a nuclear maverick that defied world appeals and developed nuclear weapons. India agreed to separate its tightly entwined nuclear industry — declaring 14 reactors as commercial facilities and eight as military — and to open the civilian side to international inspections for the first time.
Don’t get me wrong, forming an alliance with India and getting a handle on their nuclear program is a very good thing, but the President’s end-run around the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is dangerous and short-sighted. As Fred Kaplan explained in Slate :
First, the United States has no authority to grant such an exemption on its own. The NPT is a treaty signed by 187 nations; it is enforced by the International Atomic Energy Agency; and it is, in effect, administered by the five nations that the treaty recognizes as nuclear powers (the United States, Russia, China, Britain, and France). This point is not a legal nicety. If the United States can cut a separate deal with India, what is to prevent China or Russia from doing the same with Pakistan or Iran? If India demands special treatment on the grounds that it’s a stable democracy, what is to keep Japan, Brazil, or Germany from picking up on the precedent?
Second, the India deal would violate not just international agreements but also several U.S. laws regulating the export of nuclear materials.
In other words, an American president who sought to make this deal would, or should, detect a myriad of political actors that might protest or block it—mainly the U.N. Security Council, the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group, and the U.S. Congress. Not just as a legal principle but also as a practical consideration, these actors must be notified, cajoled, mollified, or otherwise bargained with if the deal has a chance of coming to life.
The amazing thing is, President Bush just went ahead and made the pledge, without so much as the pretense of consultation—as if all these actors, with their prerogatives over treaties and laws (to say nothing of their concerns for very real dilemmas), didn’t exist.
Seeing as this is the same President that’s all but shredded the NPT with pursuit of “low-yield” nuclear weapons and has been openly hostile toward international organizations and agreements since day one (Kyoto, UN weapons inspectors, John Bolton, etc.), we shouldn’t be too surprised that the President would once again give the finger to allies like Russia and France. This deal still has to pass Congress, so if you’re as concerned about this as I am, now would be a good time to write a letter to the editor, call your representatives, and help spread the word that the President shouldn’t be making bilateral agreements at the expense of the international community.
The miserable, uninspired blogger who hasn’t written anything interesting in a month side of me wants to write off this latest bombshell with a pithy line like “go ahead and throw this in the corner with the other smoking guns”, but this really hit a nerve with me. Hit tip John at Crooks & Liars since that’s where I originally saw the video, but you can watch it below as well :
It’s times like these when I wish we had a parlimentary system of government. In most other democracies, a fuck-up that big would be quickly followed by a “no confidence” vote and new elections. In the USA, the aggressively incompetent leaders who get us into one catastrophe after another are allowed to stay and screw up the reconstruction process as well. So for the next three years, we’re stuck with the same assholes who got us into this mess, unless we can convince enough members of Congress that criminal negligence that contributed to the deaths of hundreds of people is a “high crime” or “misdemeanor”.
And let’s be clear here. If we’re gonna play the “blame game”, then all fingers should be pointed Bush-ward. With the August 28th briefing that we saw above, the President made this promise :
“I want to assure the folks at the state level that we are fully prepared to not only help you during the storm, but we will move in whatever resources and assets we have at our disposal after the storm”
We all saw the videos of people trapped on their rooftops for days on end, begging for their lives. News personalities like Anderson Cooper and Geraldo Rivera were literally crying for help. State and local officials were begging for the federal aid that the President promised them in private. And there were unidentified corpses floating through the streets. It was an image that none of us could shake, but as Newsweek reported, the President didn’t know what the hell was going on :
The reality, say several aides who did not wish to be quoted because it might displease the president, did not really sink in until Thursday night. [Remember, the levees were breached on Monday. – g] Some White House staffers were watching the evening news and thought the president needed to see the horrific reports coming out of New Orleans. Counselor Bartlett made up a DVD of the newscasts so Bush could see them in their entirety as he flew down to the Gulf Coast the next morning on Air Force One.
How this could be—how the president of the United States could have even less “situational awareness,” as they say in the military, than the average American about the worst natural disaster in a century—is one of the more perplexing and troubling chapters in a story that, despite moments of heroism and acts of great generosity, ranks as a national disgrace.
This last bit is a rerun of an earlier post, but there’s a context here that I think has been missed lately. Every one of these photos and their accompanying captions are from the same day, August 30th, the day after the levees in New Orleans were breached.
Before going on an helicopter tour of the New Orleans, Kenner, Metairie, Arabi, Slidell and Mandeville areas to assess the extent of Hurricane Katrina damage, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco, center, expresses her concern for the victims Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005, in Baton Rouge, La. Blanco is surrounded by, from left, Louisiana National Guard Major General Bennett Landreneau, U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La, FEMA director Mike Brown and U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La. (AP Photo/Bill Feig, Pool)
Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., looks over flooded areas of New Orleans during a helicopter tour with Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005, after Hurricane Katrinamoved through the area. (AP Photo/Bill Feig, Pool)
Alabama Gov. Bob Riley surveys damage to beach houses along Dauphin Island, Ala., Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005, a day after Hurricane Katrina’s landfall along the Gulf Coast. (AP Photo/John David Mercer, Pool)
Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, center, speaks with, from left, Bonnita, Maria and Jimmy Baranyai and, from right Brittany Baranyai and Cheryl Davis, all from Kenner, La., at a Red Cross shelter, Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005, in Little Rock, Ark. The family left their home in Kenner early Sunday before Hurricane Katrina hit the area. (AP Photo/Danny Johnston)
Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, left, listens to James Jones, right, as he explains how his home, in the background, was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina as the governor tours storm damage in Fort Valley, Ga., Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005. The governor left the Southern Governors meeting in Greensboro, N.C., for a helicopter and ground tour of the damage around the state. (AP Photo/Ric Feld)
President Bush plays a guitar presented to him by Country Singer Mark Wills, right, backstage following his visit to Naval Base Coronado, Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005. Bush visited the base to deliver remarks on V-J Commemoration Day. (AP Photo/ABC News, Martha Raddatz)
At the time, I ended with the now-cliche remark that “Nero would be proud”, but I think Newsweek got it right. George W. Bush is a national disgrace. The American people counted on him to keep them safe, but that trust was clearly misplaced. The blood of hundreds of New Orleans residents is now on the President’s lazy, disinterested hands and we’re still stuck with him for another three years. Let’s just hope the republic can survive it.
Since dimwits like Michelle Malkin are jumping to the conclusion that liberals who are wary about the UAE ports deal somehow validate their own prejudices (as if they ever cared about our opinions anyways), here’s my question : How would a policy of scrutinizing every brown-skinned male with a funny name help us catch people like the infamous American Taliban John Walker Lindh :
…or alleged al Qaeda members with normal-sounding (to Western ears) names like Richard Reid and Jose Padilla?
Concentrating on superficial details like skin color and gender doesn’t help when you’re at war with an ideology or a tactic or whatever the hell the “war on terra” is supposed to be. I know the indignity of taking off your shoes at the airport has fueled your dream of replacing metal detectors with a “paper bag test”, but racial profiling doesn’t work. You may get a false sense of security, but trying to justify your own racism by scrutinizing people who fit your stereotype of what sort of person constitutes a threat isn’t just offensive, it’s counter-productive. Not only does racial profiling have the side-effect of making it easier for non-brown dudes to skip through the system, but it also can alienate many of our allies whose support we need if we’re ever going to catch Osama Bin Laden and his million or so second-in-commands.
