|
|
|
Archives By SubjectAfghanistanArts & LettersBlogging The LouvreBlogommageChess, Jazz & EthicsChinaDear LeaderDomestic PolicyEuropean UnionFeatured LinkForeign PolicyGlobal War On TerrorGood News Of The DayHoops, Hardball & FisticuffsHuman RightsIndiaInternational RelationsIranIraqLa France PolitiqueLa PresidentielleLas AmericasMarkets & FinanceMedia CoverageMorning News RoundupOdds & EndsOpen ThreadPakistanPoliticsQuote Of The DayRace In AmericaRussiaSay What?The Middle EastThe Natural WorldTurkeyVerse & ProseArchives By DateOctober, 2008September, 2008August, 2008July, 2008June, 2008May, 2008April, 2008March, 2008February, 2008January, 2008December, 2007November, 2007October, 2007September, 2007August, 2007July, 2007June, 2007May, 2007April, 2007March, 2007February, 2007January, 2007Search Headline Junky |
February, 2007Monday, February 26, 2007 Seen Any Bees Lately?One of my friends here is a beekeeper. And a few years ago, he told me that his bees had started disappearing. Each year since then, it's gotten worse: fewer hives, fewer bees in the ones that are still active, and, not surprisingly, less and less honey. According to this article in the IHT, beekeepers in 22 states are facing the same problem this year, only more dramatic and more sudden. Of course, bees are the primary agents of pollenation for the plant world. So when you haven't got any bees, what you've got is problems. Pretty freakin' scary. Monday, February 26, 2007 Props To... No, I Can't Say ItThere are a lot of means available to state governments to break through the inertia that can sometimes develop in Washington. One of them is simply to take action. That's what California, Oregon, Washington, New Mexico and Arizona have done to fight greenhouse gas emissions. The Western Regional Climate Action Initiative requires the five states to define an emissions target within the next six months. They will then develop a market-based approach, to be announced over the next 18 months, to meet the target. I'm not enough of an expert on this kind of stuff to know whether they've chosen an effective strategy. (Any readers with expertise, feel free to weigh in in the comments.) But it's nice to see some policy initiatives being driven from the state level. It's one of the advantages of a Federal system like our own. All it takes is a governor willing to flex some muscle. Monday, February 26, 2007 Moqtada BlackoutInteresting. You'd think that Moqtada al-Sadr withdrawing his support for the Surge would be front page news. But while all the major American dailes carried the story, it took some digging to find it. Could it be that it's actually a non-story? The NY Times had this to say:
Like I said. Interesting. Monday, February 26, 2007 Open ThreadIt'll probably be a little light on posts this week, as I'll be helping a friend build a guest cottage. I'll try to take some pictures. In the meantime, if you see anything interesting, link to it in the comments. Sunday, February 25, 2007 The Hillary ShowIf you haven't seen this already, take a look: An anti-Hillary website called Stop Her Now dot Com, complete with flash videos of "The Hillary Show", where Hillary's the host and Howard Dean's the Ed McMahon sidekick. There's an episode with John Kerry as the guest, and another with Nancy Pelosi, that are actually kind of funny, in the way that something that's not very funny can sometimes be. Sunday, February 25, 2007 Bad Day In BaghdadAccording to the AFP, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has fallen ill and been taken to Jordan for further tests. The cause is apparently work-related exhaustion. Talabani has won praise for championing unity and working towards reconciling Iraq's various interest groups. It would be a shame to see him sidelined, especially now. The same article describes a letter from Moqtada al-Sadr that was read outloud in Baghdad, calling for Iraqi forces to stop cooperating with "the occupiers." That would be us, for everyone keeping score at home. Update: Le Monde has a longer excerpt from Moqtada's letter read out loud in Baghdad today than the English-language AFP story. Translated, it continues:
Now, I'm admittedly reading quite a bit into this, but "Stay away from them" sounds like a heads up to me. Kind of like telling them to get out of the line of fire. Could Moqtada be giving his guys the green light to start targeting the Surge? Sunday, February 25, 2007 Fifteen Minutes Of FameynessFrom The Secret Life Of Cory Kennedy:
All of which can only lead to this, of course:
I imagine the biopic is already in the works. Starring Lindsay Lohan, I'd guess. If she's not in rehab when shooting starts, that is. Sunday, February 25, 2007 The World Is Your (Tainted) OysterWe've already heard alot about the Hollywood blockbuster apsects of global warming: Rising ocean levels, flooded coastal regions, hurricanes, droughts, etc. Now here's an LA Times article on the impact of climate change on the spread of disease, and it ain't pretty: The spread of marine bacteria into previously frigid waters; disease-bearing ticks and mosquitoes migrating further north and into highlands; allergy-provoking weeds thriving and producing more pollen. I'd kind of made my peace with spending Christmas vacations on the beach in Nebraska. But if all I'll be doing is sneezing, I'm not so sure anymore. Sunday, February 25, 2007 Virtuosity, Yes. But Whose?I'm a little late catching up to this one, I know, but it's a pretty fascinating story of musical plagiarism and fraud. Unlike some of the more comical examples of critics being conned by artists or their own pretensions (award-winning paintings discovered hanging upside down, for instance), the recordings in this case apparently deserved all the praise they got. They just weren't recorded by the person who took credit for them. Give it a read. It's worth it. Sunday, February 25, 2007 The Attitude CensusHere's a great little slide show from the Times: 18 graphs that give a snapshot of Americans' social attitudes over the last 35 years. It's gleaned from the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago's General Social Survey, which has been conducted annually or bi-annually since 1972. So let's see how well you know your fellow Americans. What percentage of those surveyed:
Give your answers in the comments before you click through, without any subsequent spoilers for those who follow. Extra credit if you can say whether the trend has risen, fallen or stayed constant over time. Sunday, February 25, 2007 Are You Scared Yet?There's been a lot of chatter over the last few days about Israel seeking (and by some reports receiving) overflight clearance for a hypothetical airstrike against Iran, although the Israeli Deputy Defense Minister has denied the reports. At the same time, alleged contingency plans for an American aerial campaign against Iran have been leaked to the British press and now to the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh, although the Pentagon claims there's nothing unusual about them, since they maintain and revise contingency plans for dozens of potential conflicts at any given time. Now these reports might very well be true, although that's far from certain. What's clear, though, is that the psy ops campaign designed to convince Tehran that time is running out for them to freeze and eventually abandon their uranium enrichment program has just cranked up a notch. Sunday, February 25, 2007 Start Spreading The NewsRegular reader and frequent commenter GS has a Letter To The Editor published in today's NY Times. A short but sweet ode to the greatest city on Earth. I'll give you a hint: It ain't New London. Saturday, February 24, 2007 Even More War PowersA few more thoughts about the Bush administration's reasoning for why the 2002 Iraq War Authorization Act still applies, which now hangs on the clause that calls for the enforcement of "...all relevant UN Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq." Let's assume, for argument's sake, that it's reasonable to interpret that clause as referring to resolutions passed after the invasion, as the White House is suggesting. We're now talking about the series of resolutions passed to legitimize the war ex post facto, since the pre-War resolutions had, by most accounts, not done so. A series of resolutions, you'll recall, that was demanded by the UN and opponents of the war before they'd participate in Iraqi reconstruction. The administration's argument, then, is that the War Authorization Act still applies because we're enforcing UN resolutions that were passed after the actual war, to make up for the absence of the UN resolutions initially demanded by the War Authorization Act as a condition for the war. But even setting aside the logical incoherence of that argument, a quick glance at the post-War resolutions shows that only the first two, Resolution 1483 and Resolution 1511, identify the Multi-National Force as an occupying power with the resulting legal obligations to guarantee Iraq's security and territorial integrity. Beginning with Resolution 1546, which recognized the sovereignty of the Iraqi Interim Government, and continuing through Resolution 1723, which recognized the formation of the Iraqi Unity Government, the Multi-National Force's mandate is a function of the attached formal requests by the Iraqi government for its presence. The resolutions themselves simply serve to recognize the legitimacy of those requests. The Bush administration has got nothing but smoke and mirrors here. Which won't necessarily stop them, seeing as they've gone to war on less. But I'm guessing they'll have to fall back on procedural tactics again to shoot down a repeal. After that, wherever public opinion comes down should go a long way to clarifying how soon it will be before we withdraw from Iraq. Saturday, February 24, 2007 What Kind Of Crossroads?Something else that jumped out at me about Obama's Austin speech, which I'm assuming is a variation of what's becoming his standard stump speech. He starts off by saying that America is at a crossroads. Then towards the end, to illustrate what he means by the audacity of hope, he runs off a litany of turning points in American history, where small movements defied the common wisdom of the day to transform both the country and its destiny:
A litany that he wraps up with, "And that's the moment that we're in today." Which is a pretty striking claim to make. Especially considering that the meat of the speech that precedes it is largely a gloss on health care and education, with a lingering emphasis on the War in Iraq. About the most radical proposal he tosses out is a new way of doing politics, which ends up being... unity and consensus. In other words, the very qualities critics so often used to argue against the movements he cites. If you ask me, there's a significant disconnect here, and as it stands, something's got to give: Either he tones the speech down, or tones the policy up. Count me as one of the cynics, but I've got a nagging suspicion it'll be a couple notches down on the rhetoric. Saturday, February 24, 2007 More War PowersReading through the 2002 Iraq War Authorization Act again, there's also this: A requirement for a Presidential determination that,
I'm not a constitutional scholar, or a legislative specialist, so I don't know whether this is further grounds to repeal the act. But it seems like a pretty strong argument could be made that this has not been the case. Saturday, February 24, 2007 Nothing To Apologize ForI'm listening to the speech Barack Obama gave in Austin. And while it's true that he got in a few zingers at Dick Cheney's expense, he also dropped this in:
Lumping in authorizing the war with waging it. Wonder who he's trying to distinguish himself from there? Saturday, February 24, 2007 Read It And WeepIn yesterday's White House press briefing, spokesman Tony Fratto staked out the Bush administration's position regarding any Democratic attempt to replace the 2002 Iraq War Authorization Act with a more strictly defined, updated mission. And needless to say, it's a doozy. According to Fratto, even though the ongoing American military presence is no longer necessary to meet the Act's first goal, ie. to "...defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq...", it is still necessary to meet the second, ie. to "...enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions regarding Iraq..." Not the pre-War Security Council Resolutions calling for disarming Iraq and allowing weapons inspections, mind you. The post-War resolutions defining the Multi-National Force's mandate to secure and stabilize Iraq. Either way, it's strikes me as the height of irony, or else the height of cynicism, or both, to see the Bush administration finally find a use for the United Nations. Saturday, February 24, 2007 Disempowering TerrorismI noticed the headlines last week about the Friendship Express rail bombing in northern India, and I vaguely registered the Indian and Pakistani governments' reaction to it. But it wasn't until this morning that it occured to me what a remarkable story this really is. Both India and Pakistan recognized that the bombing targeted the peace process between the two nations as much as the civilian victims of the attack. They responded by not only jointly condemning the violence, but by announcing an agreement that limits the risk of accidental nuclear war between them. They also called for renewed cooperation in rooting out the extremist gorups responsible for the violence. It's important to hold governments accountable for their efforts, or lack thereof, to control terrorists operating from within their borders. And India didn't shy away from complaining, albeit delicately, about Pakistan's lackluster performance. But when negotiations are conditioned on the total eradication of terrorist attacks, it allows extremists of all stripes to exert a disproportionate influence on the peace process. India and Pakistan didn't allow that to happen. Hopefully other countries whose efforts towards peace have been derailed by the violence of a relative few will take notice. Friday, February 23, 2007 Death Of A ChampionI always hated Dennis Johnson. Which was only natural, seeing as I was a Knicks fan and he was the Boston Celtics point guard. But still, there was something a little maddening about the way he always seemed to nail the clutch jumper, seal off the crucial defensive stop, and most importantly make the right decisions that meant that more often than not, Ray Williams or Bernard King might finish the game with a half-century, but the Celtics walked away with the "W". DJ collapsed yesterday after a practice for the NBA development team he coached in Austin, TX. He was pronounced dead not long thereafter. He was only 52, survived by his wife and three kids. Funny, now that I think about it, I always liked Dennis Johnson. I just wished he played for the Knicks. Friday, February 23, 2007 Clinton's Speech No ImpedimentLet's say someone asked you how much Bill Clinton made last year on the speech circuit? How much would you guess? Leave it in the comments, and then click through to this article and see if you're right. Friday, February 23, 2007 Talking To TehranOne of the problems with the Bush administration's stance towards Iran is that they've set it up so that the simple act of sitting down around a negotiating table becomes tantamount to defeat. Which is too bad because, if you read Ray Tayekh's article in the March issue of Foreign Affairs, it seems as if there are some very real, very attractive advantages to a détente policy towards Iran. The Soviet Union posed more of an existential threat to America than Iran ever could, and yet we had diplomatic relations and ongoing negotiations with them throughout the Cold War. Nixon's diplomatic overture to China serves as another example of the stabilizing effects that dialogue can have even in the absence of any fundamental agreements. Not every strategic rival is an enemy. And not every negotiated settlement is the Munich Agreement. The regional interests of the US and Iran converge in a number of areas. Reinforcing cooperation where they do can provide the leverage for inluencing behavior where they don't. But first you've got to agree to talk. Friday, February 23, 2007 Working On The Cheney GangThree weeks ago I outlined why impeaching Dick Cheney would be a better way for Congressional Democrats to pull in the reins on the Bush administration than impeaching Bush himself. To begin with, Cheney is more politically vulnerable than the President. Removing him would eliminate the most bellicose and ruthless member of the administration, leaving Bush politically isolated. And it would dramatically raise the stakes of an eventual Presidential impeachment by putting Speaker Pelosi next in line for the Presidency. Of course, that still leaves the trifling question of a legal pretext. Luckily, the March issue of GQ Magazine has now gone to the trouble of actually drafting the Articles of Impeachment against him. They nail him for everything from ginning up the pre-War intelligence, to promoting Halliburton's interests over those of the country, to obstructing justice by defying court orders and Congessional subpoenas to divulge the members of his Energy Task Force. But most importantly, they point out the fact that, as Gerald Ford once said while still a Congressman:
These guys have been running roughshod over the Constitution from the minute they started contesting the Florida recount in November 2000. Since then, it's been one game of political brinksmanship after another. So if it takes trumped up charges to take them down, I say, Trump up the charges and impeach the bastards. Just start with Cheney. Friday, February 23, 2007 Chauncey PhotographerModern art, or perhaps more precisely, modern artists, make a pretty easy target. Especially in the post-Warhol era, when so much of what seems to make an artist important is the degree of unabashed self-promotion that goes into their work. So I'm willing to take it with a grain of salt, but still, it was satisfying to see the New Statesman give Gilbert & George, whose work always made me think of the Peter Sellers character from "Being There", a serious smackdown. If you really have to build a career out of photographing yourself, at least make it entertaining, like Cindy Sherman, or even annoying, like Nan Goldin. But just plain old boring? Blech. Thursday, February 22, 2007 What Took Us So Long?According to eyewitnesses cited in this post on Iraq Slogger, the Baghdad security plan is having a noticeable effect on conditions on the ground. The body count at the city morgue dropped from 300 per week to 50. Foot soldiers of the Mahdi Army, the Sadrist militia, are being targeted enough to no longer feel comfortable patrolling Shiite neighborhoods with their assault rifles visible. And government vehicles are no longer being used for personal, or even sectarian, use. Why it took us four years to get around to such basic security issues is a question that no one seems to be making the White House address. They should. Thursday, February 22, 2007 Blond, James BlondIf there weren't so many lives at stake, the whole US-Iran showdown would make for great comedy. Take this article in the Guardian describing how a lot of the intelligence the CIA has supplied to the IAEA to help it inspect Iran's nuclear facilities has turned out to be false. Like the list of sites that, when visited, showed no signs of banned nuclear-related activities. Or the laptop computer containing plans for a nuclear weapon, supposedly stolen by a CIA informant inside Iran. As an IAEA official put it:
But it's not just the Americans who come off looking like the Keystone Kops. The IAEA is still waiting for a satisfactory explanation for how and why Iran procured a 15-page document on how to manufacture hemispheres of enriched uranium, whose only known use is in nuclear warheads. A document that the Iranians apparently turned over to the IAEA by mistake along with a stack of other paperwork. Pretty amateurish for the build up to a major regional conflagration, if you ask me. Thursday, February 22, 2007 Another Dirty Little WarWith all the attention-grabbing headlines out of Iraq, it's easy to forget the other civil war that the United States is involved in, this one much closer to home: Colombia. Under the auspices of the cocaine eradication program, Plan Colombia, the Bush administration has funneled $3 billion to the government of President Alvaro Uribe since 2000. At least part of that money has gone to fighting the FARC and other leftist guerillas that are linked to drug-trafficking as a means of financing their insurgencies. In the meantime, critics have claimed, Uribe has shown much more leniency to rightwing militias, many of whom are also involved in the drug trade. Of course, that could be because his government has very close ties to those militias. The kind of ties that have gotten nine members of his governing coalition arrested. The latest is Jorge Noguera, former head of the secret police, who's been charged with supplying a right-wing militia with the names of union activists and human rights workers, a number of whom later turned up dead. I suppose it could be worse. At least they're getting arrested this time around. Thursday, February 22, 2007 Lock And Load (And Cross Your Fingers)I remember reading in James Gibson's "The Perfect War: Technowar In Vietnam" that as far back as that conflict, the M16 was notorious for being a lightweight and accurate rifle that jammed and failed often. Apparently, the same is true for the M4 rifle which was introduced in the early Nineties. Which is why starting in 2002, members of an elite Special Forces unit teamed up with a German light arms manufacturer, Heckler & Koch, to design and field test a combat assault rifle, the H&K 416, that has proven to be significantly more reliable than either the M4 or the M16 while remaining cost competitive. It's been production-ready since 2004, and the Delta Force members fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq are already outfitted with them. But the Army has ruled out issuing them to the general infantry, citing the cost -- $1 billion -- of replacing the entire fleet of M16's and M4's as prohibitive. And they've ordered 100,000 more M4's for 2008, even though a 2001 Special Operations Command study found that it suffered from an "obsolete operating system," and a 2006 Army reliability test found that brand new, off the shelf M4's & M16's misfired every 5,000 rounds in laboratory conditions, compared to every 15,000 rounds for the H&K 416. So the next time the GOP talks about supporting our troops, someone might mention that a good place to start would be with rifles that actually fire when you pull the trigger. Thursday, February 22, 2007 Try Getting A First LifeIt was bound to happen sooner or later. Early adapters of Second Life, the online virtual world, are starting to wish for the good old days before real-world corporations like Adidas and American Apparel opened up "in-world" virtual shops and Nissan started giving away "in-world" virtual cars. So much so that a group of players has formed what it calls the Second Life Liberation Army. Last year they gunned down avatars that frequented the offending stores. Recently they blew up two nuclear devices, the first outside of American Apparel, the second in front of the Reeboks outlet. Their demands? Voting rights for issues effecting their "in-world" experience. The problems don't end with corporations, though. With the steady growth of Second Life, the "in-world" has become overrun by trend-followers, losing its original utopian edge. Consider the case of Catherine Fitzpatrick, 50, who joined Second Life "...to explore her creative side and meet like-minded people...":
Of course, we've all had the experience of a favorite underground club or local watering hole get written up in New York magazine, with the change in atmosphere that follows. But getting blocked out by a giant refrigerator? Now that's a dis. Thursday, February 22, 2007 Snow JobI recommend giving this Dana Milbank piece about a National Press Club panel discussion a read. The panel consisted of Tony Snow and six members of the White House press corps. And it sheds a little light on what goes on behind the scenes: the personalities, the relationships, the camaraderie. As a news consumer, it's important to remember how much this stuff influences what ends up in the headlines. Wednesday, February 21, 2007 Can't Lose For WinningYou've got to hand it to these guys. Not only do they come up with whoppers, they do it on the fly like it was no thing. No sooner had Tony Blair announced that he would draw down British troop levels in Southern Iraq (by 1600 out of roughly 7000, with the rest to follow depending on conditions on the ground), than the Bush administration claimed it was a sign that things were going as planned. Anthony Cordesman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, didn't quite see it the same way in an analysis published today:
He also had some sobering words for the Surge in Baghdad:
He goes on to outline any number of tactics the insurgents could use to respond to the surge, including:
It seemed like public opinion had already come to terms with losing the war before the Surge. But at that point it had been lost, not to an enemy, but to the uncontrollable chaos and violence of the Iraqi civil war. What happens if the Surge not only doesn't work, but actually exposes us to significant losses? Will the possibility of actually leaving Iraq as a "defeated" army be enough to restore public support for the war? Or will it, on the contrary, accelerate the calls for withdrawal? And if the goal now has been reduced to leaving Iraq with honor, as Cheney put it recently, will that be further justification for escalating our involvement? Up until now I didn't really think things could get much worse. I'm not so sure anymore. Tuesday, February 20, 2007 When A Delicate Balance Becomes A Double BindThe WaPo has a story today ostensibly about a group of affluent, educated Black parents and their efforts to keep their middle school-age kids from rejecting academic achievement as something meant for white children. But I couldn't help but read it as a testimonial to just how complex a matrix racial identity has become in contemporary America. Take this paragraph, for instance:
Now, my reactions upon reading those three sentences started out pretty high on the politically correct meter, steadily worked their way downwards, and then bounced back up a notch or two. So to begin with, I felt outrage, that the hard work of parenting should be subverted by a society's insistance on promoting racial stereotypes for commercial gain. Then I wondered whether, in 2007, this is a phenomenon limited to black middle class families. In fact, isn't this what American middle class families in general have been dealing with since the days of James Dean and Marlon Brando? Then I found myself feeling less sympathetic to the kids, who just happened to be adopting behaviors that come along with obvious social advantages within their peer group. Because let's face it. If you're a black nerd trying to navigate a white school at the onset of adolescence, playing up the hip hop angle is a pretty safe bet. And then it occured to me that if you're a thirteen year-old white nerd, you're just a nerd. But if you're a thirteen year-old black nerd, well, you've got a whole lot of explaining to do. Because given the kind of racial conditioning we get in America, the assumption is that you had a choice. Between the bling and the books. And you opted for the books. And that's what these parents are trying to do. Get their kids to believe that there's nothing un-Black about opting for the books. But given how much American pop culture has modelled its image of coolness on Black popular culture, it seems like it's a delicate balance they, and we, are asking these kids to strike. A delicate balance that's not at all lost on the kids:
Of course, when they do buy into the academic system, when they do excel, when they rise in their chosen careers and run for high elected office, aren't these the same kids who, thirty years later, are asked, "Are you Black enough?" Tuesday, February 20, 2007 I'm With StoopidYes, I'm on record as agreeing that it's stupid for the Presidential candidates to declare two years before the election. But I never said anything about fantastic conjectures about how things may play out two years ahead of the election. So here's a thought that just occured to me. With the Democratic candidates as a whole looking as strong as any field I can remember, it's conceivable that they reach the Convention without any of them having won enough delegates to clinch the nomination. In other words, an old-school, smoke-filled room kind of convention that actually decides who the nominee is. Or else, one that doesn't decide a thing, leaving two Democrats in the general election to split the vote and deliver the most winnable White House in decades to the GOP. Anyone else got any predictions? For the 2008 election, or the 2008 NBA Finals, take your pick. Tuesday, February 20, 2007 Knockout PunchThe BBC claims that American contingency plans for an aerial assault on Iran are not limited to the uranium enrichment facilities that are at the heart of recent tensions between Tehran and the West, but instead include most of the Iranian military's command and control infrastructure. They also report that the trigger for any attack would be confirmation that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon, but also any high-casualty attack in Iraq that could be directly traceable to Iran. If true, it confirms my suspicion that the strategy of any intervention will be to absorb the immediate reprisals that Iran may have already prepared (ie. infiltrated networks in Iraq, a Hezbollah attack against Israel) in order to permanently incapacitate the Iranian military. Of course, the US has denied any immediate intention of going to war. But if it does go down, chances are it'll be a massive bombardment campaign rather than surgical strikes. Monday, February 19, 2007 They're BackThe New York Times:
Both al-Qaeda and the United States have diminished strategic capabilities compared to six years ago. The difference being that they've turned the corner and are now getting stronger. And the damage they sustained wasn't self-inflicted. Monday, February 19, 2007 The Shape Of Things To Come?This article in the Times about a bold, co-ordinated daylight attack on a US outpost north of Baghdad is troubling , because it describes a sophisticated insurgency that's capable of picking off isolated American units and inflicting heavy casualties (2 dead, 17 wounded). Casualties that could have been considerably higher given that four helicopters were flown in to evacuate American wounded while the firefight was still going on. Remember that the Surge plan for Baghdad calls for not just sweeping the city, but quartering American troops outside the fortified Green Zone in neighborhood outposts. Which makes them particularly vulnerable to this kind of attack. Up to now I'd been basing my reaction to the troop escalation in Baghdad on two assumptions. One, that it would have a short-term impact on that city's level of violence by displacing attacks to other areas of the country. Two, that whatever violence continued in Baghdad would not be directed at American troops. Now it looks like the Sunnis have decided to take the fight elsewhere while continuing to blow up civilians in Baghdad. And if that continues, it's a safe bet the Shiites won't be laying low for long. Add in an insurgency that's shown it's willing and able to inflict damage in well-coordinated conventional attacks, and it looks like a volatile mix just got even more volatile. Monday, February 19, 2007 When Bigger Is Not BetterIf you want a metaphor for the challenges facing further European political integration, look no further than the Airbus A380. Airbus is the pan-European manufacturing arm of EADS (the European Aeronautic Defense and Space company), with facilities in France, Germany, Spain and England. It's the object of no small amount of European pride, and its rivalry with Boeing is something of a spectator sport over here. Billed as the largest passenger airplane ever built, the A380 was destined to be the feather in Airbus' increasingly decorated cap. Its initial test-flights in late 2005 and 2006 impressed, and orders streamed in, eventually totalling 166 airplanes (pretty healthy sales for a $300 million bird). Major buyers include Emirates Airlines (43), Lufthansa (15), Qantas (20), and even UPS, which contracted to buy 10 units of the freight model. In the meantime, in June 2005, before the plane was even test-flown, Airbus announced a six-month production delay. This was followed by another six-month delay announced in June 2006, followed by another delay accompanied by a delivery shedule re-structuring announced in October 2006. The cause of the problem was ostensibly the cabin wiring, but insiders blamed a power struggle between German and French management factions resulting in poor communication throughout the company. Now, with production delays of two years, orders in limbo, $6.6 billion in lost projected revenue, and stock value having taken a hit, EADS was supposed to announce a re-structuring plan to cut 10,000 jobs (20% of their workforce) tomorrow. An announcement which was postponed because none of the four countries involved can agree on where to make the cuts. Which is why if you're waiting to see what an integrated EU foreign policy would look like, or a non-NATO European military force, I've got one piece of advice for you: Don't hold your breath. Monday, February 19, 2007 What A Difference Forty Years MakesWith all the comparisons being made between Iraq and Vietnam, it's interesting to note one major difference in progressive opposition to the two wars. Unlike with the Vietnam War, opposition to the Iraq War is almost never expressed in pacifist terms. Critics take pains to point out that they're not anti-war, they're just anti-this-war. Then there's the oft-leveled criticism of the diversion of troops and resources from Afghanistan to Iraq, a criticism that implicitly accepts the necessity of the War in Afghanistan. Of course, it's not surprising. The 1960's anti-war movement was conditioned by the pacifism of the civil rights movement that preceded it. A pacificism that became something of a knee-jerk reaction for the progressive left throughout the two decades that followed. Already, a number of events during the Nineties would begin to change all that. The Yugoslavian wars, for instance, and in particular the ethnic cleansing that accompanied them, where isolated voices on the left argued in favor of armed intervention. Then there was the horror and shame that came from America's failure to intervene in Rwanda. By the end of the decade, although its instinct was still to consider military intervention a last option, the American left was no longer so monolithically pacifist. Now, in the aftermath of September 11, pacifists seem like an endangered species. The only difference being, you still read about the spotted owl every now and then. Sunday, February 18, 2007 Obama's Young IdealistsThere's been alot of coverage lately of Barack Obama's appeal among young voters, who have used Facebook and other online social networking tools to organize themselves in unprecedented numbers and with surprising speed. (Almost 280,000 members of one online group within a month of its formation.) And it occured to me that this might pose some problems for him down the line. Why? Well, he's building his campaign on a rhetoric of hope and a new way of doing politics. Both of which usually refer to progressive/radical policies, and both of which tend to attract either older idealists who have been disillusioned with the political process (I'd throw myself in that category), or younger ones not yet familiar with it. And I think what we're seeing here is obviously an example of the latter. Only trouble is, Obama's new way of doing politics, ie. consensus-building, tends to result in relatively risk-averse policy. Which, so far, is what I've seen from him. (I don't think his Iraq plan, given the current political climate, qualifies as anything earth-shattering.) So what's going to happen to the kids when they realize that Obama is not the crusading progressive his preacher cadences make him out to be? My hunch is he's positioning himself in relation to Clinton and Edwards. But it's Kucinich who stands to steal his thunder. Sunday, February 18, 2007 Surging Into The AbyssFrom Foreign Affairs:
Sunday, February 18, 2007 Paradigm Shift?Daniel Byman's got an intriguing op-ed in the WaPo about Iran's strategic interests in Iraq. He uses the example of Hezbollah in Lebanon to argue that Iran's arming of various Iraqi factions (a point which he takes for granted) should be understood more as a means of establishing a post-War influence in Iraqi affairs than as an act of aggression towards the US. He also pointed out that it wouldn't be unheard of for the Iranians to enter into tactical alliances with Sunni groups if it served their longer-term strategic goals, as their sponsorship of both Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza demonstrate. But what really caught my eye was this:
This is the second time in a few weeks that I've seen someone suggest that the worst-case scenarios of an American withdrawal from Iraq are far from inevitable, and may reflect a failure of imagination as much as anything else. Something tells me it won't be the last. Saturday, February 17, 2007 The Permanent CampaignIt's not often I find myself in agreement with Newt Gingrich. But here's one time that I do:
I don't know about nine weeks. But eighty-nine weeks and $500 million (that's the estimate of what each of the two eventual candidates will have spent between the primaries and general election) seem like a big waste of time, money and energy. Campaigning is a full-time job, and most of the candidates are already on the government payroll, ostensibly to govern. Unfortunately, this trend is probably only going to get worse. Saturday, February 17, 2007 Hillary's Dark PrinceOne day when I was managing apartments in Euless, TX, just outside of Dallas, this kind-of-hot sales rep came by the office with an offer for some new phone plan. And since she was kind-of-hot, and on a sales call, I said something along the lines of, "Aren't you supposed to wine and dine me to get the account?" Before you knew it, we had a date for after work, and I was feeling pretty smooth. Until we got to the bar where we were going to have drinks and the first thing she asked me after ordering an iced tea was, "So, are you a Messianic Jew?" Now, in general, there are only two types of people who use the term "Messianic Jew": Messianic Jews, and evangelical Christians. And given that my nickname for Euless was Jewless, it was a pretty sure bet she was the latter. Which made it pretty clear that, wherever else the evening might be headed, there were certain outcomes that could be ruled out. Well, I managed to contain my urge to find an excuse to leave immediately, and we went on to have a conversation about evangelical Christianity, which I've found is what most evangelical Christians have conversations about. Which was fine, because I can get passionate about evangelical Christianity, in an academic sort of way, especially with a couple of beers in me. So the evening turned out to be pretty enjoyable. Or at least less unenjoyable than I had any right to expect. Now, this lady was a real, dyed in the wool fundamentalist. The kind who, when I asked her what she would say to the Muslim tenants from the apartment complex I managed, who were just as convinced that Allah was the true name of God as she was that it was Jesus, replied, "That they're wrong." So when the conversation came around to politics, it came as no surprise that she was a die-hard Dubya fan. Bill Clinton, according to her, was evil. To which I replied that I preferred a Bill Clinton, who you got the sense fell down on his knees every Sunday to beg forgiveness for his failings, to a George Bush, who I picture looking up at the altar with a smirk on his face as he gives thanks for his triumphs. (This was back in 2003, when it still appeared like he'd had some.) Her response, I think, shows why Hillary Clinton is going to have a tough time come 2008 if she ends up winning the Democratic nomination. "Yes, you might be right," she said. "Bill Clinton was a good Christian. But not Hillary." And here, in a perfectly unself-conscious gesture, she leaned a bit closer and lowered her voice, before dropping the clincher. "Hillary works for the Prince of Darkness." Not the Devil. Not Satan. The Prince of Darkness. Now for all I know, she might be right. After all, her phone plan ended up saving us some dough. But one thing's certain. You can forget about convincing her, and the thousands like her, that they're wrong. And that's a problem. Saturday, February 17, 2007 Fill In The BlanksFile this one under "What you don't know might kill you." According to this article in the IHT, American intelligence agencies actually know very little about the Iranian elite unit known as the Quds Force. That's the group that the Bush administration was blaming last week for supplying weapons to Iraqi insurgents.
You'd think they'd get some of these questions answered before they start tossing accusations around. Let alone invading the place. Saturday, February 17, 2007 Now That's What I Call HelpingApparently one of the reasons Condie Rice snuck into Baghdad today was to pressure Iraqi PM Maliki to crack down on Sadr City, Moqtada al-Sadr's Baghdad fiefdom, and not just the Sunni neighborhoods that have already been Surged:
Getting out of town = co-operating. Classic. Saturday, February 17, 2007 Absolute Power ZonesThe Times has got this article describing the two years an Iraqi Sunni spent in an American detention facility. Needless to say, it ain't pretty: stun guns, exposure to cold and heat, 24 days in a pitch-black solitary confinement cell. Now, this is the kind of story that, sadly, I think we've all grown somewhat accustomed to hearing about. Often it's used to condemn America's slow slide into a torture-sponsoring state, and rightly so. But I'd like to put it into a slightly different context. Because as much as this kind of abuse has to do with official American policy, it also has to with the fundamental danger of creating environments where one or several individuals have absolute, unchecked power over the physical person of another. What I call in the title of this post, Absolute Power Zones. Whether it's American soldiers abusing detainees in the GWOT, or Russian soldiers forcing younger recruits into male prostitution, or American prisoners raping other prisoners, the common thread is the existence of physical perimeters within which there is no oversight. Where society is either unable or unwilling to restrain the strong and protect the weak. With the result that there is nothing to limit the victimization of the latter by the former. The abuses that take place within them might originate in the darker regions of human nature. But they are exacerbated by institutions that manipulate, encourage, or overlook them. State-sponsored torture is just one example of a much wider phenomenon. A particularly egregious example, because of the state's singular responsibilities as holder of the "monopoly of legitimate violence". But as long as we countenance legal black holes of any kind, disavowing state-sanctioned torture won't be enough. Friday, February 16, 2007 The Surge's Early ResultsOne thing it's important to keep in mind over the course of the next few weeks, as the first articles about it (like this one or this one) start appearing, is that in its initial phases the surge in Baghdad is going to have some very positive results. There will be less violence, more visible signs of law & order, and a sense of hope will probably prevail. Bush, I'm sure, will get a bump in the opinion polls, and the Dems will be made to look like party-poopers who'd rather see the plan fail than be wrong about it. All that's to be expected because it's not in anyone's interest to engage the American and Iraqi forces that are finally, after four years, securing Baghdad. To begin with, most of the violence in Baghdad itself was internecine or sectarian, and had nothing to do with us. Besides that, the Iraqi troops that are taking part in the surge are in many cases simply uniformed wings of the Shiite militias they're supposed to be policing. But none of that will actually mean that the surge is actually a tactical success. Remember, the Shiites have been waiting a long time for payback. In some cases, like Moqtada al-Sadr's, for generations. Remember, too, that this won't be the first time Moqtada put his guns down. So they can afford to wait some more. Hell, they might even wait until we eventually do leave Iraq. But then the only thing the surge will have accomplished is to provide some cover for us to save face while we pull up stakes. But that's really all we're fighting for at this point. Update: Of course, this should come as no surprise either:
So there you have it. The insurgents are doing what insurgents do when counterinsurgents do what counterinsurgents do. That wasn't so hard, now, was it? Friday, February 16, 2007 The Islam QuizABC News just put up a quick 8 question quiz, based on Jeff Stein's Congressional Quarterly article that revealed the levels of ignorance in Congress about which Muslim groups are Sunni, and which Shiite. Click through and see how you do. And leave your results on the Comments page. Once there are enough results in the comments, I'll let you know how I did. Hint: I could be in line for a committee chair. Via GetReligion Friday, February 16, 2007 The Exorcist, M.D.First it was the pharmacists who wouldn't fill certain prescriptions, in particular birth control and morning after pills, that they disagreed with on religious grounds. Then there was the Washington Post article last week that described how 8% of doctors surveyed said they weren't obligated to present medical options that they disapproved of to patients, while 18% said they weren't obligated to provide referrals for care they found objectionable:
Now along comes a story about a doctor in Bakersfield, CA who refused to treat a young girl's ear infection because her mother has tattoos:
According to the American Medical Association, as things stand, he didn't do anything wrong. A doctor is only required to provide life-saving care. Besides that it's his or her call. 2007. Shocking. Via The Sinner's Guide To The Evangelical Right Friday, February 16, 2007 The End Of The BubbleI talked yesterday about how the tactics being applied in Iraq, ie. Clear and Move On, will become America's regional strategy in the event of a war with Iran. All it takes is a look at the ways in which the geo-political landscape has been altered over the past six years to understand why it won't work. In January 2001, the United States was an often resented, but widely admired and respected superpower wielding a historically unprecedented global influence. Rightly or wrongly, we occupied a perceived position of moral leadership among the global community, which when coupled with our economic, diplomatic and military power made our involvement decisive in every continent. Russia was too busy shaking down the oligarchs who had made off with all of the Soviet Union's industrial infrastructure and most of the Western world's capital infusion to spend much time on projecting its power abroad. China, while a looming economic giant, seemed fatally compromised by its abysmal human rights record to ever be more than a regional power. Chavez had his hands full holding onto power in Venezuela. And Iran was constrained to the role of regional troublemaker and spoiler in the Middle East. If America faced a potential threat to its position of global hegemon, it was the prospect of an increasingly integrated and assertive European Union trying to contest it on the international stage. Fast forward six years to January 2007... Thursday, February 15, 2007 When The Writing's DoneThe act of writing, distilled to its essence, is a jail break. A solitary gesture of defiance, of desperation, of hope. A shaking of the fist at the walls that surround us, or a rueful glance. And always, in the end, an attempt to breach, climb, or tunnel under them. And then sometimes the metaphor becomes real, as is the case with prison literature, and we realize, as readers, the true power of the word. To bear witness. To transcend. To liberate. Kody Scott, the LA gangbanger known as "Monster", was the latest in a long line of jailhouse writers. Before him there was Jack Henry Abbott, and George Jackson, and Henri 'Papillon' Charrière, and Jean Genet. Men who wrote from within their prison cells, or about them, in the hopes of one day knowing freedom. Or Antonio Gramsci, who kept his meticulous prison journals knowing that he would certainly die behind bars. Kody Scott's back on the LAPD's Ten Most Wanted list, for a carjacking, or for pissing off William Bratton, depending on who you ask. Last time he was arrested, for parole violations, he said he wouldn't mind heading back to prison, because it would give him some time to write. The tough part, for Scott, for all of us, is when the writing's done. Thursday, February 15, 2007 Winning Friends & Influencing PeopleEver wonder what China's doing with its $1 trillion-plus foreign exchange reserves? Well, they're using part of the loot, as this article explains, to buy influence with resource-rich countries through generous foreign aid packages. Aid packages that undercut World Bank and other development organizations by offering more money, with less oversight, to countries where public funds have a tendency to end up in Swiss bank accounts. These are the kinds of deals that, if Tony Soprano were arranging them, would be called graft. And as with all graft schemes, the folks who suffer the most are the ones who might otherwise have ended up with a functioning railroad system, or an environmentally-friendly power grid, but instead wind up with nothing at all, if not worse. Oh, and for what it's worth, our trade deficit with China for 2006 was a little over $232 billion. How do you say, "Don't spend it all in one place," in Chinese? Thursday, February 15, 2007 The Tactics Are The StrategyIt's hard to get into the heads of the neocon clique that's itching for war with Iran. If the definition of crazy is doing the same thing and expecting a different result, they would certainly seem to qualify. But it would be a mistake to write them off as a bunch of lunatics. These guys are not crazy. They got the result they wanted in Iraq. And they're looking for more of the same in Iran. The fact is, Iraq is a catastrophe, but it's a manageable catastrophe. The only thing that threatens our continued occupation there is American public opinion. And it's become clear that Americans want to call it a wash and pull up stakes. Which is why attacking Iran has now become essential: in order to create the conditions that make a continued American garrison in the Persian Gulf a necessity. But what about all the dire warnings we've heard about Iran's capacity for reprisal, through missile strikes on our carriers, through proxies in Iraq, and with the threat Hezbollah poses to Israel? They're overblown. Yes, there will be an initial wave of casualties, perhaps even severe casualties. But it will eventually recede once a massive aerial bombardment campaign deteriorates the Iranian regime's command and control capabilities, as well as their military-industrial infrastructure. But then what? Between the civil wars in Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, and potentially Iran, most of the region will be a chaotic, deadly mess. And in that kind of geopolitical climate, the United States will be obligated to maintain a permanent garrison (probably in the order of what we already have stationed in Iraq, with a quick-strike capacity to respond to flashpoints of conflict as they spring up around the region) in order to guarantee the security of our Arab allies and Israel. Mission accomplished. The traditional counterinsurgency tactics of Clear, Hold, and Rebuild, as put into practice in Iraq, have become Clear and Move On. It's time to realize that this is no accident. The tactics have become the strategy, and the strategy is about to be widened to a regional level. More later on why it won't work. Wednesday, February 14, 2007 My Enemy's Enemy?Here's some breaking news that should give us pause. According to the Guardian, a terrorist attack in southeastern Iran that killed 11 Revolutionary Guard members is being blamed on a Sunni terrorist outfit linked to al-Qaeda. Any way you parse this, you end up with the Bush administration being full of crap. Why? Well, for starters, they've spent the last few weeks claiming the Iranians are arming the Sunni insurgency in Iraq. The same Sunni insurgency that they've repeatedly claimed is a branch of al-Qaeda. The same al-Qaeda that they've repeatedly claimed is an operationally integrated organization. Now obviously, all three of these claims can't logically co-exist with one another. At least not back here in the real world. I'm curious to see which one they're willing to cut loose. Wednesday, February 14, 2007 No More Mr. Bad GuyYou know the story about the ruthless terrorists who've gotten their hands on a rusting nuclear warhead that the Russians have lost track of? You know. They made a movie about it. Every three months. For the past fifteen years. Well, it looks like Hollywood's going to have to update its plot templates. From a rundown of Russia's program to renovate its Army:
Betting pool for Hollywood's next generic villain now open. I say North Korea, with Venezuela as a darkhorse. Wednesday, February 14, 2007 Guilty PleasureSorry, I can't help myself. A website for evangelical young adults called The Rebelution recently conducted a Modesty Survey to let Christian girls know how Christian men of all ages think they should be dressing. Some sample questions (in traditional five-point agree-disagree format)?
I could go on, and on, and on, and on, I really could, because there are over a hundred questions, and they're all classics. Like:
Hmmm. That's actually a tough one. Anyway, here are the results. Better click through quick, though, before I lose control and...
...add another one. OK. I'll stop...
He-e-e-lp!!! Wednesday, February 14, 2007 Not Guilty By Reason Of InhumanityBy all accounts, Jose Padilla was a man who excercised poor judgment in the company he kept. But was he in fact a dangerous terrorist when he was arrested in May 2002, as the Bush administration claims? A lot is riding on the answer to that question, not least of which is Padilla's liberty. Unfortunately, we may never know, because according to his lawyers, three years and eight months in the Navy brig at Charleston, SC, have rendered him mentally incompetent to stand trial:
The Bush administration's lawyers (normally I'd say "the government", but in this case I refuse to) disputes the claims, both of mistreatment and of Padilla's incompetence to stand trial. And given the very low bar set for mental incompetence in criminal law, the court's ruling may very well go their way. But it says alot about the steady erosion of their credibility, both in this case and others like it, that Padilla's claims could even be entertained as possible, or worse, likely. This is not an episode of 24. This is the United States of America. At least it was. I'm not so sure, anymore. Wednesday, February 14, 2007 Kobe Who?So if the Knicks are admittedly a source of embarrassment for anyone who's ever proudly staunched a nosebleed beneath the rafters of Madison Square Garden, what does this make the Lakers? Hah. Hah. Hah. Hah. Hah. Hah... Wednesday, February 14, 2007 When The Mrs. Is A Ms.The first thing that popped into my head while reading this Times story about bullying male cooks and the women who love them was, Is this the way of life we're fighting two wars to defend? But then I got to this sentence:
Now, I know that Ms. was introduced as a means of identifying a woman without reference to her marital status. But in common usage, it was usually adopted when the woman in question's marital status was unknown by the speaker, or when the woman's mature age made it awkward to address her as Miss. But this is the first time I can remember seeing it used in a context where it's quite obviously a conscious choice, either on the part of the writer or the subject. And in case you're thinking it might have been a typo, the woman was again referred to as Ms. LaVallee two paragraphs down. I'll put aside for now the politics of a post-post-feminism, where a wife cheerfully accepts being elbowed out of one of the more enjoyable domestic tasks by a domineering husband (three guesses as to who gets clean-up duties), but insists on being addressed as Ms. Because I'm more interested in the style usage question. Have I just been missing something, or is this a developing trend? Anyone? Wednesday, February 14, 2007 She Stoops To Conquer?This from the NY Times:
So what's an Army feeling the strain of two wars to do? Why, grant more waivers, of course:
I guess at least the folks driving around Baghdad have something to be thankful for. Which is better than nothing at all, as this video demonstrates. Tuesday, February 13, 2007 Bayrou & EuropeI remember the tangible feeling, when I moved to France in 2001, of bearing witness to the birth of something new and exciting, something that doesn't come along very often: a new identity. A European identity. Two events brought it home. The first was the passage to the Euro, when half a continent, transformed into tourists without having left home, discovered a new and common currency, examining each bill for the first time, double checking coins at the cash register, and doing hurried mental conversions to get a sense of how much they'd just spent. The second was the film, "L'Auberge Espagnol", which told the story of a young French exchange student's year abroad in Madrid, and how, through the friendships he forms with his roommates, all, like him, adrift and far from home, they arrive at a common language to define themselves. And it occured to me, in a way that was somehow very moving, that these twenty-somethings might be the first generation to really think of themselves, not just as French or English or Spanish or German, but as European... Tuesday, February 13, 2007 The President Who Cried WolfIt could be, as some folks are saying, that this weekend's rollout of military intelligence linking Iranian weapons to the Iraqi insurgency is not so much a run-up to war as it is a means of pressuring the Iranians back to the negotiating table. Either way, for some reason or another, no one seems to be taking it very seriously. Tuesday, February 13, 2007 Two-Track MindBoth the Bush administration and the EU agree that only a two-track approach will get Iran to negotiate a settlement of the uranium enrichment question; sanctions alone aren't going to cut it. The problem is deciding what the second track should be. The Europeans think we ought to offer the Iranians incentives, such as a security guarantee, to balance the dis-incentives represented by sanctions. Call it the carrot and the stick approach. The Bush administration thinks we ought to signal the clear threat of military action to let them know that things only get worse from here on out. Call it the stick and the aluminum baseball bat approach. Of course, threatening a war with Iran is a tricky matter, since we don't really have the force levels for it, and we can't really afford the consequences it would have on our occupation of Iraq. Which might explain why an internal EU document accepts as a foregone conclusion that Iran will eventually have the capacity to produce weapons-grade uranium. Tuesday, February 13, 2007 Foreclosure 101Pop... Pop, pop... Pop... (From the LA Times):
|
RSS Feeds