How To Lose Moral Authority - assuming you ever had any
1. Start a war in Iraq using WMD as a causus belli. When it turns out there were/are no WMD;
2. Justify the war based on Saddam's human rights record. When you take over,
3. Have mercenaries, not subject to your Uniform Code of Military Justice, rape prisoners of war, and allow your soldiers to torture prisoners of war (in one of Saddam's most infamous prisons, no less).
4. Despite advice from eery local and international expert to the contrary, dismiss the Iraqi army and insist upon total "de-Baathification." Give Iraq a new flag that reminds Arabs in general and Iraqis in particular of Israel's flag. When your siege of Fallujah utterly fails, turn the enterprise over to
5. A former Brigidier General and his Iraqui army soldiers who march under Saddam's flag of Iraq (story).
Well at least aWol and his Merry Men have the whole weekend to figure out how to blame Clinton for this.
Thursday, April 29, 2004
Observations, Prognostications and Questions
How to get richer in a stagnant world economy? Start a war and then give tax payer money for the war to your friends. LA Times has the story of a senior Pentagon official rigging the bids for cell phone contracts so a firm run by his friends would get the contract. Pudentilla wishes that aWol would find a burning need to teach classical humanism in Iraq – she could start a company that would hire Latin teachers and make a bundle. Oh, wait. Pudentilla is not a Republican. I guess the contract would go to Victor David Hansen.
CBS poll indicates that the support for the war is sharply down according to the NYT story today. Does that mean they’ll find Osama this week? Pudentilla thinks it’s too soon for that particular rabbit – but, WaPo reports that “TaDa! – the seige of Fallujah has ended.” Reports on our masterful victory expected soon. Hope the news about the nine soldiers who died in Baghdad yesterday doesn’t drown out Rummy’s drum roll.
JP2 and friends are at it again. The NYT reports that they’ve fired a priest who supported victims of sexual abuse by priests. Pudentilla is less than persuaded since arguments in defense of the archbishop who fired the guy four months before his retirement are made by the people who don’t think priests should serve the women of the church and who don’t want to give communion to Democratic politicians who won’t support an American woman’s right to control her body.
And under the “So what if al-Quaeda hits us again, no American will ever smoke a cubano” department, the AP has a story detailing how the Treasury department as assigned four whole agents to tracking down Osama and Saddam’s wealth. Twenty four are assigned to violations of the US embargo of Cuba. No wonder polls show Americans think aWol is such an effect leader on the war against terror.
Now to the important questions – will Debby’s love interest on West Wing turn out to be a woman? Pudentilla wants to know! And remember, tell all your friends:
1) Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11;
2) We have found no WMD in Iraq
3) Mr. Bush, unlike Senators McCain and Kerry, has refused to release all of his military service records.
How to get richer in a stagnant world economy? Start a war and then give tax payer money for the war to your friends. LA Times has the story of a senior Pentagon official rigging the bids for cell phone contracts so a firm run by his friends would get the contract. Pudentilla wishes that aWol would find a burning need to teach classical humanism in Iraq – she could start a company that would hire Latin teachers and make a bundle. Oh, wait. Pudentilla is not a Republican. I guess the contract would go to Victor David Hansen.
CBS poll indicates that the support for the war is sharply down according to the NYT story today. Does that mean they’ll find Osama this week? Pudentilla thinks it’s too soon for that particular rabbit – but, WaPo reports that “TaDa! – the seige of Fallujah has ended.” Reports on our masterful victory expected soon. Hope the news about the nine soldiers who died in Baghdad yesterday doesn’t drown out Rummy’s drum roll.
JP2 and friends are at it again. The NYT reports that they’ve fired a priest who supported victims of sexual abuse by priests. Pudentilla is less than persuaded since arguments in defense of the archbishop who fired the guy four months before his retirement are made by the people who don’t think priests should serve the women of the church and who don’t want to give communion to Democratic politicians who won’t support an American woman’s right to control her body.
And under the “So what if al-Quaeda hits us again, no American will ever smoke a cubano” department, the AP has a story detailing how the Treasury department as assigned four whole agents to tracking down Osama and Saddam’s wealth. Twenty four are assigned to violations of the US embargo of Cuba. No wonder polls show Americans think aWol is such an effect leader on the war against terror.
Now to the important questions – will Debby’s love interest on West Wing turn out to be a woman? Pudentilla wants to know! And remember, tell all your friends:
1) Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11;
2) We have found no WMD in Iraq
3) Mr. Bush, unlike Senators McCain and Kerry, has refused to release all of his military service records.
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
On the Home Front
BeatBushBlog quotes Matt Miller who offers us a slogan that has to make it into Kerry’s ads: Bush’s tax policy: "$100,000 for the millionaires - six hundred bucks for the reservists!"
Another meme that Kerry’s people need to promote: Mr. Bush’s War. We are actually fighting two wars right now, the war on terror and Mr. Bush’s war. As in:
Another Mainer died fighting in Mr. Bush’s War this week (story). He was a post office employee who re-upped in the reserves after 9/11. “His family reacted to the news of his death with "shock, terror, you name it," said his mother-in-law Jane Keller.”
In other news from away of interest to Mainers:
Matthew Hale, a white-supremicist, hateful-christian wingnut, was convicted yesterday of soliciting the murder of a federal judge (story. Hale’s arrest took the wind out of his planned hate rally in Lewiston, Maine a year ago, to protest the presence of Somali immigrants. The community and entire state, including the Many and One Coalition, responded to his efforts with an inspiring pro diversity rally which thousands attended. Maine’s population is small, 1.25 million, and widely dispersed in small towns. On the coldest January day in memory (and remember, in Maine any January day is really cold), about 5,000 people gathered to reject Hale’s hatefulness. On the other side of town a handful of hatemongers gathered in Hale’s absence to celebrate their lack of diversity. It was a great day to be a Mainer.
BeatBushBlog quotes Matt Miller who offers us a slogan that has to make it into Kerry’s ads: Bush’s tax policy: "$100,000 for the millionaires - six hundred bucks for the reservists!"
Another meme that Kerry’s people need to promote: Mr. Bush’s War. We are actually fighting two wars right now, the war on terror and Mr. Bush’s war. As in:
Another Mainer died fighting in Mr. Bush’s War this week (story). He was a post office employee who re-upped in the reserves after 9/11. “His family reacted to the news of his death with "shock, terror, you name it," said his mother-in-law Jane Keller.”
In other news from away of interest to Mainers:
Matthew Hale, a white-supremicist, hateful-christian wingnut, was convicted yesterday of soliciting the murder of a federal judge (story. Hale’s arrest took the wind out of his planned hate rally in Lewiston, Maine a year ago, to protest the presence of Somali immigrants. The community and entire state, including the Many and One Coalition, responded to his efforts with an inspiring pro diversity rally which thousands attended. Maine’s population is small, 1.25 million, and widely dispersed in small towns. On the coldest January day in memory (and remember, in Maine any January day is really cold), about 5,000 people gathered to reject Hale’s hatefulness. On the other side of town a handful of hatemongers gathered in Hale’s absence to celebrate their lack of diversity. It was a great day to be a Mainer.
Tuesday, April 27, 2004
Strand by Strand: Untangling the Vietnam charge imbroglio
Kos has a post calling on Karen Hughes to have her son sign up for the military. The comment section to the post enjoys the sense that Kos has nailed Hughes, but many are squeamish about using her son as a pawn in political debate.
Pudentilla has called for the Bush twins to enlist, so she’s on record here. But it occurs to her in reading the fray about Hughes comments on CNN that several issues are entangled here. It might be helpful to untangle them. The SCLM won’t unless the blogosphere holds their hands and does the work for them.
1) aWol and his Merry Men and Maids lie. Hughes comments deliberately distort Kerry’s comments. QuickSauce has provided a helpful analysis of Ms. Hughes mendacious comments about Mr. Kerry’s statements. The blogosphere needs to identity these misstatements quickly and communicate them to the media.
2) aWol and his Merry Men make faux imbroglios for the SCLM to write about so the reporters won’t have to, um, work. Peanut’s post today at SadlyNo! has this nailed. So we’ve had 3 days of stories on whether Mr. Kerry threw ribbons or medals over the fence. None on the brutal skirmishing around Falluja and Najaf. None on the pathetic spectacle of the "chat" aWol and Darth Vader will jointly have with the 9/11 commission. Pudentilla believes that many of the Vietnam imbroglios aWol et al offer could easily be untangled if the SCLM offered a few quick questions. For example
_Do you believe that the United States was correct to pursue military action in Vietnam. Are you objecting to Mr. Kerry’s actions because you supported the war in Vietnam?
_If you do believe the war was correct, do you find it odd that Mr. Bush avoided military service in Vietnam and Mr. Cheney avoided military service altogether. (Pudentilla notes that one could extend this list to include Mr. Wolfowitz and Mr. DeLay, Mr. Libbey, and Mr. Feith, etc.)
_If you believe the war was mistaken, why was Mr. Kerry wrong to oppose the war after he returned home?
_Why was Mr. Kerry’s exercise of his First Amendment rights wrong or unpatriotic?
3) aWol’s Vietnam military service record is troubling. Pudentilla would have agreed that aWol’s National Guard records could have been off the radar of political debate had it not been for the fact that aWol made it part of the debate. He chose to run as a war president. His character as a warrior, accordingly, is a subject of legitimate debate. Furthermore, aWol and his Merry Men and Maids, for reasons only known to themselves, seem to think that attacking Mr. Kerry’s service record is a good idea. Since they opened the door, it is surely legitimate to discuss Mr. Bush’s service record.
Bloggers need to remind the SCLM that Mr. Bush’s record is a legitimate topic of reporting and debate for these reasons. James C. Moore in Salon has a good summary of the issues the SCLM needs to address. Thus, reporters should at least ask for the DD214, the Flight Inquiry Board Report (or commander’s written report) on the reasons for his grounding. They should ask for his Final Officer Effectiveness Report (for the 38 days of service credited to aWol after May 2, 1973), his pay stubs and W-2s for his Guard years. They should also ask why Mr. Bush won’t sign a general release for all his military records. They should remind the White House and the American public that aWol said that he would release everything to Tim Russert. He hasn’t. (He lied, see 1, above). They should do this every single day. And they should remind their readers that Mr. Kerry released his records w/in 48 hours of promising to do so.
4) aWol and his Merry Men and Maids do not support the troops. Pudentilla wrote a long post on February 21, 2004 on this topic. The recent Newsweek story, titled, G.I.’s Don’t Have The Gear They Need To Stay Alive, suggests that aWol and his Merry Men and Maids persist in their lack of support for the troops. This legitimate point of criticism has gained greater political urgency since aWol and his Merry Men and Maids argue that any criticism of aWol or his record as "war president" gives aid and comfort to the enemy and fails to support the soldiers.
This strand of the imbroglio is bound closely with the Vietnam service question. Pudentilla believes that aWol and his Merry Men have cleverly deployed a false historical logic here. Thus, those who opposed the war in Vietnam didn’t support the troops (no parades to greet them, etc.). Not supporting the troops then was bad. Therefore, those who oppose the war now are like the hippies who didn’t support the troops then. Therefore, those who oppose the war now don’t support the troops and are bad. Because Mr. Kerry was both a soldier and an opponent of the war, he, for aWol et al, works beautifully as a repository of confused American thinking and feeling about the present and prior war.
Pudentilla very firmly believes this thread must be untangled. First, bloggers must help the SCLM ask the questions that demonstrate how aWol doesn’t support soldiers (even though he supports the war) then and now. Failing to show up for duty is a pretty clear case of not supporting the troops in Pudentilla’s opinion (although, since she’s a dyke, she thinks those who have heterosexual testosterone should be asked). Failing to provide soldiers you command with the armor they need to survive is also a pretty good example of not supporting the troops.
5) aWol and his Merry Men and Maids feel compelled to destroy anyone with military experience who disagrees with them. Thus, aWol and his Merry Men have attacked the service of Messrs. McCain, Cleland and Kerry. Why do they feel compelled to do this? Well, because they’re chickenhawks (see point 3) who are running a hypermasculine, hypermilitary political campaign. When Pudentilla shakes her head and asks, "why do they invite these comparisons?" she is missing the point. Given the campaign they have chosen to run, they have to. Thus the increasingly vicious nature of the attacks (and its only April). Their campaign forces the voter to ask is Bush more macho than Kerry. So every "macho" thing Kerry does has to be undermined. They have to be impervious to the hypocrisy and irony of this.
The question of what the children of the chickenhawks are doing, accordingly, becomes so tempting. A colleague of Pudentilla’s served in Vietnam and he firmly believes that those who want to support the troops should enlist and offers to publicly debate the proposition regularly. Pudentilla can’t help noticing that the generals in Iraq keep asking for more soldiers and more armored vehicles.
The chicklets question in fact is a kind of dare not unlike what the ancient Athenians did when escalating political litigious conflicts. If the chicklets enlisted, those who opposed aWol et al could not say that they were self-serving hypocrites. After all young Hughes and the twins are their parents irreplaceable treasure. Pudentilla think most folks regardless of ideology or partisan identity would agree with this assertion. Those who make the chicklets dare are confident that aWol ("why should I care what you think") and his Merry Men and Maids will never put their irreplaceable treasure at risk. That is why we, the little people, exist. If the chicklets were serving in Iraq, you can be darn sure the humvees would be armored and there would be oh, 750,000 troops over there.
Pudentilla believes that the blogosphere needs to explain the point of the chicklet dares. Of course no one wants young Hughes or the twins to serve if they don’t want to. But they fact that they don’t want to, and their parents don’t want them to, reveals the hypocrisy of the "support the troops" claims aWol and his Merry Men and Maids make.
That is all Pudentilla has to say on this topic. However she reminds everyone.
1) aWol admits that SADDAM HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH 9/11; and
2) THERE WERE NO WMD IN IRAQ.
Kos has a post calling on Karen Hughes to have her son sign up for the military. The comment section to the post enjoys the sense that Kos has nailed Hughes, but many are squeamish about using her son as a pawn in political debate.
Pudentilla has called for the Bush twins to enlist, so she’s on record here. But it occurs to her in reading the fray about Hughes comments on CNN that several issues are entangled here. It might be helpful to untangle them. The SCLM won’t unless the blogosphere holds their hands and does the work for them.
1) aWol and his Merry Men and Maids lie. Hughes comments deliberately distort Kerry’s comments. QuickSauce has provided a helpful analysis of Ms. Hughes mendacious comments about Mr. Kerry’s statements. The blogosphere needs to identity these misstatements quickly and communicate them to the media.
2) aWol and his Merry Men make faux imbroglios for the SCLM to write about so the reporters won’t have to, um, work. Peanut’s post today at SadlyNo! has this nailed. So we’ve had 3 days of stories on whether Mr. Kerry threw ribbons or medals over the fence. None on the brutal skirmishing around Falluja and Najaf. None on the pathetic spectacle of the "chat" aWol and Darth Vader will jointly have with the 9/11 commission. Pudentilla believes that many of the Vietnam imbroglios aWol et al offer could easily be untangled if the SCLM offered a few quick questions. For example
_Do you believe that the United States was correct to pursue military action in Vietnam. Are you objecting to Mr. Kerry’s actions because you supported the war in Vietnam?
_If you do believe the war was correct, do you find it odd that Mr. Bush avoided military service in Vietnam and Mr. Cheney avoided military service altogether. (Pudentilla notes that one could extend this list to include Mr. Wolfowitz and Mr. DeLay, Mr. Libbey, and Mr. Feith, etc.)
_If you believe the war was mistaken, why was Mr. Kerry wrong to oppose the war after he returned home?
_Why was Mr. Kerry’s exercise of his First Amendment rights wrong or unpatriotic?
3) aWol’s Vietnam military service record is troubling. Pudentilla would have agreed that aWol’s National Guard records could have been off the radar of political debate had it not been for the fact that aWol made it part of the debate. He chose to run as a war president. His character as a warrior, accordingly, is a subject of legitimate debate. Furthermore, aWol and his Merry Men and Maids, for reasons only known to themselves, seem to think that attacking Mr. Kerry’s service record is a good idea. Since they opened the door, it is surely legitimate to discuss Mr. Bush’s service record.
Bloggers need to remind the SCLM that Mr. Bush’s record is a legitimate topic of reporting and debate for these reasons. James C. Moore in Salon has a good summary of the issues the SCLM needs to address. Thus, reporters should at least ask for the DD214, the Flight Inquiry Board Report (or commander’s written report) on the reasons for his grounding. They should ask for his Final Officer Effectiveness Report (for the 38 days of service credited to aWol after May 2, 1973), his pay stubs and W-2s for his Guard years. They should also ask why Mr. Bush won’t sign a general release for all his military records. They should remind the White House and the American public that aWol said that he would release everything to Tim Russert. He hasn’t. (He lied, see 1, above). They should do this every single day. And they should remind their readers that Mr. Kerry released his records w/in 48 hours of promising to do so.
4) aWol and his Merry Men and Maids do not support the troops. Pudentilla wrote a long post on February 21, 2004 on this topic. The recent Newsweek story, titled, G.I.’s Don’t Have The Gear They Need To Stay Alive, suggests that aWol and his Merry Men and Maids persist in their lack of support for the troops. This legitimate point of criticism has gained greater political urgency since aWol and his Merry Men and Maids argue that any criticism of aWol or his record as "war president" gives aid and comfort to the enemy and fails to support the soldiers.
This strand of the imbroglio is bound closely with the Vietnam service question. Pudentilla believes that aWol and his Merry Men have cleverly deployed a false historical logic here. Thus, those who opposed the war in Vietnam didn’t support the troops (no parades to greet them, etc.). Not supporting the troops then was bad. Therefore, those who oppose the war now are like the hippies who didn’t support the troops then. Therefore, those who oppose the war now don’t support the troops and are bad. Because Mr. Kerry was both a soldier and an opponent of the war, he, for aWol et al, works beautifully as a repository of confused American thinking and feeling about the present and prior war.
Pudentilla very firmly believes this thread must be untangled. First, bloggers must help the SCLM ask the questions that demonstrate how aWol doesn’t support soldiers (even though he supports the war) then and now. Failing to show up for duty is a pretty clear case of not supporting the troops in Pudentilla’s opinion (although, since she’s a dyke, she thinks those who have heterosexual testosterone should be asked). Failing to provide soldiers you command with the armor they need to survive is also a pretty good example of not supporting the troops.
5) aWol and his Merry Men and Maids feel compelled to destroy anyone with military experience who disagrees with them. Thus, aWol and his Merry Men have attacked the service of Messrs. McCain, Cleland and Kerry. Why do they feel compelled to do this? Well, because they’re chickenhawks (see point 3) who are running a hypermasculine, hypermilitary political campaign. When Pudentilla shakes her head and asks, "why do they invite these comparisons?" she is missing the point. Given the campaign they have chosen to run, they have to. Thus the increasingly vicious nature of the attacks (and its only April). Their campaign forces the voter to ask is Bush more macho than Kerry. So every "macho" thing Kerry does has to be undermined. They have to be impervious to the hypocrisy and irony of this.
The question of what the children of the chickenhawks are doing, accordingly, becomes so tempting. A colleague of Pudentilla’s served in Vietnam and he firmly believes that those who want to support the troops should enlist and offers to publicly debate the proposition regularly. Pudentilla can’t help noticing that the generals in Iraq keep asking for more soldiers and more armored vehicles.
The chicklets question in fact is a kind of dare not unlike what the ancient Athenians did when escalating political litigious conflicts. If the chicklets enlisted, those who opposed aWol et al could not say that they were self-serving hypocrites. After all young Hughes and the twins are their parents irreplaceable treasure. Pudentilla think most folks regardless of ideology or partisan identity would agree with this assertion. Those who make the chicklets dare are confident that aWol ("why should I care what you think") and his Merry Men and Maids will never put their irreplaceable treasure at risk. That is why we, the little people, exist. If the chicklets were serving in Iraq, you can be darn sure the humvees would be armored and there would be oh, 750,000 troops over there.
Pudentilla believes that the blogosphere needs to explain the point of the chicklet dares. Of course no one wants young Hughes or the twins to serve if they don’t want to. But they fact that they don’t want to, and their parents don’t want them to, reveals the hypocrisy of the "support the troops" claims aWol and his Merry Men and Maids make.
That is all Pudentilla has to say on this topic. However she reminds everyone.
1) aWol admits that SADDAM HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH 9/11; and
2) THERE WERE NO WMD IN IRAQ.
Monday, April 26, 2004
Let's Do Our Part To Promote the Truth
SADDAM HUSSEIN PLAYED NO ROLE IN THE 9/11 AL-QUAEDA ATTACK ON THE US .
People who tell you otherwise are lying. People who suggest otherwise without saying so explicitly are playing you for a fool.
SADDAM DID NOT HAVE WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
People who tell you otherwise are lying. People who suggest otherwise without saying so explicitly are playing you for a fool.
SADDAM HUSSEIN PLAYED NO ROLE IN THE 9/11 AL-QUAEDA ATTACK ON THE US .
People who tell you otherwise are lying. People who suggest otherwise without saying so explicitly are playing you for a fool.
SADDAM DID NOT HAVE WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
People who tell you otherwise are lying. People who suggest otherwise without saying so explicitly are playing you for a fool.
Sovereignty by any other name....
NYT 4/23/04:
The Bush administration's plans for a new caretaker government in Iraq would place severe limits on its sovereignty, including only partial command over its armed forces and no authority to enact new laws, administration officials said Thursday.
Oxford English Dictionary:
1.Supremacy or pre-eminence in respect of excellence or efficacy.
2. Supremacy in respect of power, domination, or rank; supreme dominion, authority, or rule.
3. spec. The position, rank, or power of a supreme ruler or monarch; royal authority or dominion.
b. transf. The supreme controlling power in communities not under monarchical government; absolute and independent authority.
NYT 4/23/04:
The Bush administration's plans for a new caretaker government in Iraq would place severe limits on its sovereignty, including only partial command over its armed forces and no authority to enact new laws, administration officials said Thursday.
Oxford English Dictionary:
1.Supremacy or pre-eminence in respect of excellence or efficacy.
2. Supremacy in respect of power, domination, or rank; supreme dominion, authority, or rule.
3. spec. The position, rank, or power of a supreme ruler or monarch; royal authority or dominion.
b. transf. The supreme controlling power in communities not under monarchical government; absolute and independent authority.
Saturday, April 24, 2004
Vatican to US: Catholics Make Lousy Citizens
When asked in general about "unambiguously pro-abortion" Catholic politicians, Arinze said such a politician "is not fit" to receive Communion. "If they should not receive, then they should not be given," he said. The story, via Hesiod, is in the SF Chronicle.
First. Arinze's position is simply incoherent. Those who claim there is a tension between between the belief as a Catholic that something is a sin and believing as an American that something is a legal right for non-Catholics to choose to do are being disingenuous to a disturbing degree. If there were such a tension, the Vatican and American Bishops would insist that Catholic politicians actively work to make divorce illegal, or birth control illegal, or to ban the sale of meat on Fridays during Lent. They don't for a good reasons. The Church after Vatican II accepted the benefits of religious pluralism in the US. Thus, since John F. Kennedy, in the US, an American politician who was Catholic was religiously obliged not to receive an abortion. Such a politician, however, could in a fashion that was both religiously and intellectually coherent, recognize that the Constitution permitted women the right to control their own bodies and recognize and even support that right. Catholics could choose not to exercise that right without prohibiting Americans who do not confess the Roman Catholic faith from exercising that right.
Second, this abstract question is precisely the kind of question Arinze shouldn't answer. Arinze is not the confessor of any American Catholic politician. Therefore he is uniquely unqualified to determine whether an individual politician is, or is not, fit to receive communion.
The Vatican, however, as Arinze's statement indicates, is not interested in intellectual coherence or individual salvation when it comes to the question of American politicians and the right of a woman to control her body. In January 2003, the Vatican issued a "DOCTRINAL NOTE
on some questions regarding The Participation of Catholics in Political Life." Arguing that abortion violates natural law, the authors of this document, claim that opposition to abortion is thus not a matter of confessional faith. Thus it is appropriate for the Vatican to order Catholic politicians to oppose a woman's right to control her own body (under the natural law they,who preclude women from their ranks,have defined) and to deny them sacraments if they do not.
The Vatican's logic is something akin to, "you don't have to be a Catholic to be against abortion. Therefore the Church can compel the political position of American Catholic politicians on this issue." In their mind reason not faith will lead all to this position. Pudentilla might argue that the current state of world is such that reason has led many to the conclusion that abortion is not wrong. The Vatican's answer is "we know better - so shut up." The argument of this Doctrinal Note is based upon premises that the Vatican will not submit to debate. They argue that the premises are a matter of reason, however, not faith.
The Vatican's position is clear, however. If American Catholic politicians embrace American Constitutional principles embodied in the First Amendment, they cannot receive the sacraments. Thus, we have to conclude that the Vatican does indeed want to direct American politics from Rome. If Republicans have any moral integrity they will be as outraged by this intrusion into our political system by a foreign power as they were by the claims that the Chinese government contributed to the Clinton/Gore campaign in 1996. But that's a big if. I guess they won't mind when the Vatican starts insisting Catholic politicians move to outlaw divorce and contraception.
When asked in general about "unambiguously pro-abortion" Catholic politicians, Arinze said such a politician "is not fit" to receive Communion. "If they should not receive, then they should not be given," he said. The story, via Hesiod, is in the SF Chronicle.
First. Arinze's position is simply incoherent. Those who claim there is a tension between between the belief as a Catholic that something is a sin and believing as an American that something is a legal right for non-Catholics to choose to do are being disingenuous to a disturbing degree. If there were such a tension, the Vatican and American Bishops would insist that Catholic politicians actively work to make divorce illegal, or birth control illegal, or to ban the sale of meat on Fridays during Lent. They don't for a good reasons. The Church after Vatican II accepted the benefits of religious pluralism in the US. Thus, since John F. Kennedy, in the US, an American politician who was Catholic was religiously obliged not to receive an abortion. Such a politician, however, could in a fashion that was both religiously and intellectually coherent, recognize that the Constitution permitted women the right to control their own bodies and recognize and even support that right. Catholics could choose not to exercise that right without prohibiting Americans who do not confess the Roman Catholic faith from exercising that right.
Second, this abstract question is precisely the kind of question Arinze shouldn't answer. Arinze is not the confessor of any American Catholic politician. Therefore he is uniquely unqualified to determine whether an individual politician is, or is not, fit to receive communion.
The Vatican, however, as Arinze's statement indicates, is not interested in intellectual coherence or individual salvation when it comes to the question of American politicians and the right of a woman to control her body. In January 2003, the Vatican issued a "DOCTRINAL NOTE
on some questions regarding The Participation of Catholics in Political Life." Arguing that abortion violates natural law, the authors of this document, claim that opposition to abortion is thus not a matter of confessional faith. Thus it is appropriate for the Vatican to order Catholic politicians to oppose a woman's right to control her own body (under the natural law they,who preclude women from their ranks,have defined) and to deny them sacraments if they do not.
The Vatican's logic is something akin to, "you don't have to be a Catholic to be against abortion. Therefore the Church can compel the political position of American Catholic politicians on this issue." In their mind reason not faith will lead all to this position. Pudentilla might argue that the current state of world is such that reason has led many to the conclusion that abortion is not wrong. The Vatican's answer is "we know better - so shut up." The argument of this Doctrinal Note is based upon premises that the Vatican will not submit to debate. They argue that the premises are a matter of reason, however, not faith.
The Vatican's position is clear, however. If American Catholic politicians embrace American Constitutional principles embodied in the First Amendment, they cannot receive the sacraments. Thus, we have to conclude that the Vatican does indeed want to direct American politics from Rome. If Republicans have any moral integrity they will be as outraged by this intrusion into our political system by a foreign power as they were by the claims that the Chinese government contributed to the Clinton/Gore campaign in 1996. But that's a big if. I guess they won't mind when the Vatican starts insisting Catholic politicians move to outlaw divorce and contraception.
Friday, April 23, 2004
A Thousand Words
As corrente would say, Bush lied, they died.
Mark A. R. Kleiman points out that we have yet to see the following picture: "the separation codes on 1LT Bush's DD-214."
Via Matt Yglesias, we find at the Reveler a discouraging portrait of the man whom aWol has proposed to be U.S. ambassador to Iraq, John Negroponte. Apparently in Honduras, where he was once ambassador, the authorities killed an tortured nuns and priests right under Mr. Negroponte's nose, but he either didn't notice or he simply lied about it because he thought killing and torturing nuns and priests would further US policy. I guess human rights in Iraq is not all that high on aWol's list of things to do in Iraq.
The vile sinners who comprise the Michigan Catholic Conference ("the official voice of the Catholic Church in Michigan on matters of public policy" according to their web site) although keen to ensure that medical professionals will have the legal right to deny medical care to queer folk (Pudentilla still can't find the reference to queers in Luke 10:25-37, but she's trying), are utterly indifferent to the poor quality of life clergy enjoys on Mr. Negroponte's watch. Try searching for his name on their web site.
As corrente would say, Bush lied, they died.
Mark A. R. Kleiman points out that we have yet to see the following picture: "the separation codes on 1LT Bush's DD-214."
Via Matt Yglesias, we find at the Reveler a discouraging portrait of the man whom aWol has proposed to be U.S. ambassador to Iraq, John Negroponte. Apparently in Honduras, where he was once ambassador, the authorities killed an tortured nuns and priests right under Mr. Negroponte's nose, but he either didn't notice or he simply lied about it because he thought killing and torturing nuns and priests would further US policy. I guess human rights in Iraq is not all that high on aWol's list of things to do in Iraq.
The vile sinners who comprise the Michigan Catholic Conference ("the official voice of the Catholic Church in Michigan on matters of public policy" according to their web site) although keen to ensure that medical professionals will have the legal right to deny medical care to queer folk (Pudentilla still can't find the reference to queers in Luke 10:25-37, but she's trying), are utterly indifferent to the poor quality of life clergy enjoys on Mr. Negroponte's watch. Try searching for his name on their web site.
Thursday, April 22, 2004
We will know they are Christians by their hate
Atrios points us to a news item from Michigan that describes how Catholics there are driving nails into the flesh of Christ as he lies dying on the cross (a very colorful expression Pudentilla's grandmother used to describe evil, un-Christian behavior). The full story is here.
The "Michigan Catholic Conference" is the group of vile sinners, who, in conjunction with the Michigan Republican Party (a political organization which thinks that fostering hatred and cruelty will win votes), was able to get a bill passed in the Republican controlled House which will permit health care workers, in non-emergency situations, to refuse care to anyone.
Paul A. Long, vice president for public policy for the Michigan Catholic Conference, said the bills promote the constitutional right to religious freedom.
Remember, just because someone claims an idea is a deeply held religious belief, it does not mean that the idea isn't a hideous corruption of religious values. Nor does it mean that the person who espouses such an idea is not loathsome and dangerous. It is true that such a person has the constitutional right to wrongfully assert such ideas are Christian. When confronted by such stupidity, Pudentilla urges you to remember the Gospel of John.
Atrios points us to a news item from Michigan that describes how Catholics there are driving nails into the flesh of Christ as he lies dying on the cross (a very colorful expression Pudentilla's grandmother used to describe evil, un-Christian behavior). The full story is here.
The "Michigan Catholic Conference" is the group of vile sinners, who, in conjunction with the Michigan Republican Party (a political organization which thinks that fostering hatred and cruelty will win votes), was able to get a bill passed in the Republican controlled House which will permit health care workers, in non-emergency situations, to refuse care to anyone.
Paul A. Long, vice president for public policy for the Michigan Catholic Conference, said the bills promote the constitutional right to religious freedom.
Remember, just because someone claims an idea is a deeply held religious belief, it does not mean that the idea isn't a hideous corruption of religious values. Nor does it mean that the person who espouses such an idea is not loathsome and dangerous. It is true that such a person has the constitutional right to wrongfully assert such ideas are Christian. When confronted by such stupidity, Pudentilla urges you to remember the Gospel of John.
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
Contempt for/of Congress
Pudentilla's local paper allows one letter to the editor a month. Here is April's. Feel free to borrow it.
Mr. Bush's contempt for the Constitution of the United States is one of the reasons I will not vote for his election this fall. Bob Woodward's latest book reveals the most recent example of Bush's constitutional disdain. In July 2002, Bush spent $700 million dollars of funds, which Congress had earmarked for the war in Afghanistan, for preparations for the invasion of Iraq. Bush did this despite his public claims not to have made a decision about Iraq. Mr. Bush diverted these funds without informing Congres, despite legislative requirements to keep Congress informed on how it was spending the money. Mr. Bush diverted the funds, despite the fact that Article I, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution forbids the executive to spend money not explicitly appropriated and authorized by law.
In other words, Mr. Bush lied, cheated and stole. Every press account about Afghanistan published in the last six months details how the under funding of rebuilding efforts by the Unites States has crippled efforts to defeat the Taliban (they’re still there) and to create a legitimate and stable government in the country. In other words, Mr. Bush’s decision to rob Afghanistan reconstruction funds to pay for the invasion of Iraq, was both a stupid and an unconstitutional decision. The United States has survived unconstitutional presidents and it has survived incompetent presidents, but I fear it cannot survive both at once. I will vote for Mr. Kerry.
Pudentilla's local paper allows one letter to the editor a month. Here is April's. Feel free to borrow it.
Mr. Bush's contempt for the Constitution of the United States is one of the reasons I will not vote for his election this fall. Bob Woodward's latest book reveals the most recent example of Bush's constitutional disdain. In July 2002, Bush spent $700 million dollars of funds, which Congress had earmarked for the war in Afghanistan, for preparations for the invasion of Iraq. Bush did this despite his public claims not to have made a decision about Iraq. Mr. Bush diverted these funds without informing Congres, despite legislative requirements to keep Congress informed on how it was spending the money. Mr. Bush diverted the funds, despite the fact that Article I, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution forbids the executive to spend money not explicitly appropriated and authorized by law.
In other words, Mr. Bush lied, cheated and stole. Every press account about Afghanistan published in the last six months details how the under funding of rebuilding efforts by the Unites States has crippled efforts to defeat the Taliban (they’re still there) and to create a legitimate and stable government in the country. In other words, Mr. Bush’s decision to rob Afghanistan reconstruction funds to pay for the invasion of Iraq, was both a stupid and an unconstitutional decision. The United States has survived unconstitutional presidents and it has survived incompetent presidents, but I fear it cannot survive both at once. I will vote for Mr. Kerry.
Tuesday, April 20, 2004
Don't Republicans Drive?
Pudentilla found an interesting post at "Rush versus Reality" that reviews a tirade of Rush' against Clinton and Gore. Rush averred that Clinton and Gore had accepted funds from China in violation of the law. He seemed pretty upset about elected officials receiving assistance from foreign nationals.
Pudentilla also notes that yesterday, CNN reported that Bob Woodward's new book asserts that the Saudis promised aWol they would help him out in the presidential campaign by lowering oil prices in time for November.
A top Saudi official has assured President Bush that his country will increase oil production to lower gas prices before November to help the president's re-election prospects, according to a broadcast report Sunday.
Rush was pleased to distort this little news item today, however. First, Rush ran a tape of Bob Woodward's clarification of the CNN story on Larry King.
What I say in the book is that the Saudis -- and maybe you looked at this section of the book, ambassador -- that the Saudis hoped to keep oil prices low during the period for -- before the election because of its impact on the economy.
Then Rush ran a tape of Bandar's comments on Larry King.
I think the way that Bob said it now is accurate. We hoped that the oil prices will stay low because that's good for America's economy and more important it's good from our economy and the international economy.
Note that Bandar is not saying what Woodward said. Woodward did not say that the Saudis always try to keep oil prices low because its good for the economy. Woodward said the Saudis wanted to keep the oil prices low during the period before the election. Pudentilla wonders why her gas prices have been rising if Prince Bandar is telling the truth. If the Saudis want the prices low to help our economy, surely they want them low now. But didn't Opec just agree to another production cut? Perhaps Prince Bandar is a mendacious bag of excrement.
But Pudentilla notes with sadness that Rush (who still has not apologized to the 9/11 widows he slandered on his show in March) is not appalled that the Saudis would interfere in US elections. Why does Rush Limbaugh hate America?
David Frum humorously dismisses the whole story with one of those Republican attempts at irony that has the grace of an elephant waltzing. He thinks that the story proves that the Saudis are out to hurt aWol. Pudentilla wonders whether Mr. Frum, like Andrew Sullivan, does not own a car and so misses the chance to contemplate gas prices every week. Maybe he's just rich and the cost of gas is a marginal expense to him. Pudentilla wonders whether everyone who voted for aWol in 2000 is as fortunate as Mr. Frum.
Woodward also reported that the Merry Men briefed the Saudi ambassader, Prince Bandar, on war plans and indeed showed him a top secret map which was not supposed to be shown to folks who weren't US citizens. Perhaps aWol had "his Father's" permission.
[Edited, at skippy's suggestion, to reflect skippy's "aWol" orthography. Pudentilla is thrilled to take skippy's advice and sends out a big old "ago tibi gratias" for the plugs for her blog on his site.]
Pudentilla found an interesting post at "Rush versus Reality" that reviews a tirade of Rush' against Clinton and Gore. Rush averred that Clinton and Gore had accepted funds from China in violation of the law. He seemed pretty upset about elected officials receiving assistance from foreign nationals.
Pudentilla also notes that yesterday, CNN reported that Bob Woodward's new book asserts that the Saudis promised aWol they would help him out in the presidential campaign by lowering oil prices in time for November.
A top Saudi official has assured President Bush that his country will increase oil production to lower gas prices before November to help the president's re-election prospects, according to a broadcast report Sunday.
Rush was pleased to distort this little news item today, however. First, Rush ran a tape of Bob Woodward's clarification of the CNN story on Larry King.
What I say in the book is that the Saudis -- and maybe you looked at this section of the book, ambassador -- that the Saudis hoped to keep oil prices low during the period for -- before the election because of its impact on the economy.
Then Rush ran a tape of Bandar's comments on Larry King.
I think the way that Bob said it now is accurate. We hoped that the oil prices will stay low because that's good for America's economy and more important it's good from our economy and the international economy.
Note that Bandar is not saying what Woodward said. Woodward did not say that the Saudis always try to keep oil prices low because its good for the economy. Woodward said the Saudis wanted to keep the oil prices low during the period before the election. Pudentilla wonders why her gas prices have been rising if Prince Bandar is telling the truth. If the Saudis want the prices low to help our economy, surely they want them low now. But didn't Opec just agree to another production cut? Perhaps Prince Bandar is a mendacious bag of excrement.
But Pudentilla notes with sadness that Rush (who still has not apologized to the 9/11 widows he slandered on his show in March) is not appalled that the Saudis would interfere in US elections. Why does Rush Limbaugh hate America?
David Frum humorously dismisses the whole story with one of those Republican attempts at irony that has the grace of an elephant waltzing. He thinks that the story proves that the Saudis are out to hurt aWol. Pudentilla wonders whether Mr. Frum, like Andrew Sullivan, does not own a car and so misses the chance to contemplate gas prices every week. Maybe he's just rich and the cost of gas is a marginal expense to him. Pudentilla wonders whether everyone who voted for aWol in 2000 is as fortunate as Mr. Frum.
Woodward also reported that the Merry Men briefed the Saudi ambassader, Prince Bandar, on war plans and indeed showed him a top secret map which was not supposed to be shown to folks who weren't US citizens. Perhaps aWol had "his Father's" permission.
[Edited, at skippy's suggestion, to reflect skippy's "aWol" orthography. Pudentilla is thrilled to take skippy's advice and sends out a big old "ago tibi gratias" for the plugs for her blog on his site.]
Monday, April 19, 2004
Why do Republican Women Believe That Republican Men Are Slow Learners?
Pudentilla's back from a conference in New York, where, unlike Maine, the grass is green and the cherry trees are in bloom. The conference was great and to add to her good mood, she got to spend a day in the Greek collection and the Byzantine exhibit at the Met. Then she came home and caught a show on PBS called "To the Contrary," in which women who were pollsters and political commentators for the Republicans and Democrats talked about politics.
One topic they discussed was a poll which suggested Kerry was doing well among college educated women, but not among women who hadn't received a college education. The democratic pollster (Anna Greenberg??) suggested a range of reasons that this might be true. The brain dead twit speaking for the Republicans suggested that the reason was all the liberal college professors those poor democratic girls had been exposed to.
This is an UTTERLY STUPID assertion - men with college degrees are more likely to vote Republican. Does the twit believe that Republican men are so thick that they are impervious to the influence of their professors? No, men with college degrees are more likely to vote Republican, in part, because college degrees are correlated with income and income strongly correlates with the likelihood that a man will vote for a Republican. In fact, women with college degrees used to be more likely to vote Republican than women who did not have college degrees. During the Clinton administration those numbers flipped. Note to the twit and her friends - the professorate has not changed dramatically since the pre-Clinton period during which college educated women were more likely to vote Republican and the post Clinton period when they are more likely to vote Democrat.
There are many interesting conversations to be had about why this happened - i.e., why income ceased to explain the voting behavior of women. Nothing of them will involve discussions of the partisan preferences or ideological leanings of the professorate as anyone with three functional brain cells would realize. Which leads Pudentilla to conclude that "bash the professors" talking points have completely permeated the Republican machine. Pudentilla also believes that the Democrats and the professorate should address this issue directly. As she will soon.
The answer to the question posed in this post's title is: "Because they have to sleep with them."
Pudentilla's back from a conference in New York, where, unlike Maine, the grass is green and the cherry trees are in bloom. The conference was great and to add to her good mood, she got to spend a day in the Greek collection and the Byzantine exhibit at the Met. Then she came home and caught a show on PBS called "To the Contrary," in which women who were pollsters and political commentators for the Republicans and Democrats talked about politics.
One topic they discussed was a poll which suggested Kerry was doing well among college educated women, but not among women who hadn't received a college education. The democratic pollster (Anna Greenberg??) suggested a range of reasons that this might be true. The brain dead twit speaking for the Republicans suggested that the reason was all the liberal college professors those poor democratic girls had been exposed to.
This is an UTTERLY STUPID assertion - men with college degrees are more likely to vote Republican. Does the twit believe that Republican men are so thick that they are impervious to the influence of their professors? No, men with college degrees are more likely to vote Republican, in part, because college degrees are correlated with income and income strongly correlates with the likelihood that a man will vote for a Republican. In fact, women with college degrees used to be more likely to vote Republican than women who did not have college degrees. During the Clinton administration those numbers flipped. Note to the twit and her friends - the professorate has not changed dramatically since the pre-Clinton period during which college educated women were more likely to vote Republican and the post Clinton period when they are more likely to vote Democrat.
There are many interesting conversations to be had about why this happened - i.e., why income ceased to explain the voting behavior of women. Nothing of them will involve discussions of the partisan preferences or ideological leanings of the professorate as anyone with three functional brain cells would realize. Which leads Pudentilla to conclude that "bash the professors" talking points have completely permeated the Republican machine. Pudentilla also believes that the Democrats and the professorate should address this issue directly. As she will soon.
The answer to the question posed in this post's title is: "Because they have to sleep with them."
Thursday, April 15, 2004
Supporting the Troops
Here in Maine we learned that one of our guard detachments will be held over an other three months in Iraq. I support the right of these guys to come home. They have done their duty to the country and more so.
I'm all for supporting the troops. I've seen precious little evidence that Awol and his Merry Men share this sentiment. What they do share is the knee-jerk response to any criticism of their conduct of the war in Iraq as a "failure to support the troops." Here's what I say to them.
Send your children to the war. Show me how much you support the troops, Awol, by sending your daughters down to the recruiting stations and having them join up. Let the Vietnam-era chicken-hawks redeem their patriotism with the treasure of their children. Then they can tell me I can't excercise my rights of free speech. Then, they will have the moral high ground.
After all, we need more soldiers in Iraq. The generals on NPR this morning were pretty clear on the fact that our military is stretched to the max. Awol's current policy is going to wreck recuritment and retention in the armed forces. If Awol wants to show us how much he supports the troops, lets see the twins in uniform. Until then, he should really shut up about how those who criticise policies which are hurting our military don't support the troops.
Here in Maine we learned that one of our guard detachments will be held over an other three months in Iraq. I support the right of these guys to come home. They have done their duty to the country and more so.
I'm all for supporting the troops. I've seen precious little evidence that Awol and his Merry Men share this sentiment. What they do share is the knee-jerk response to any criticism of their conduct of the war in Iraq as a "failure to support the troops." Here's what I say to them.
Send your children to the war. Show me how much you support the troops, Awol, by sending your daughters down to the recruiting stations and having them join up. Let the Vietnam-era chicken-hawks redeem their patriotism with the treasure of their children. Then they can tell me I can't excercise my rights of free speech. Then, they will have the moral high ground.
After all, we need more soldiers in Iraq. The generals on NPR this morning were pretty clear on the fact that our military is stretched to the max. Awol's current policy is going to wreck recuritment and retention in the armed forces. If Awol wants to show us how much he supports the troops, lets see the twins in uniform. Until then, he should really shut up about how those who criticise policies which are hurting our military don't support the troops.
Wednesday, April 14, 2004
Trash Talking the Widows
Oliver Willis leads us to Dorothy Rabinowitz, who is trash talking the widows. It's a pretty offensive little piece, and of a piece with Rush's March slanders and Bill Kristol's recent complaints about the "moral blackmail" of the victims' families. You can respond to Ms. Rabinowtiz after you read her trash. Below is the letter I wrote.
I find your argument (to be generous) unconvincing. The "Jersey Girls" have an audience because the Bush Administration's penchant for secrecy, especially with regard to 9/11 is so offensive. Unlike you, I wouldn't presume to know what anger and rage the victims' families feel toward Osama and al-Quaeda. However, like the Jersey Girls, I am a citizen, and as such, feel justified to holding Mr. Bush to a higher standard of conduct than Osama bin Laden. As a citizen I am appalled at how fiercely he has fought inquiry into the disaster in national defense (the government's first job).
As a human being, I find the co-ordinated effort by the right's punditocracy (I've read Rush and Kristol working off the same set of talking points your piece does) to attack the Jersey Girls (precisely because their points are valid) disgusting.
Oliver Willis leads us to Dorothy Rabinowitz, who is trash talking the widows. It's a pretty offensive little piece, and of a piece with Rush's March slanders and Bill Kristol's recent complaints about the "moral blackmail" of the victims' families. You can respond to Ms. Rabinowtiz after you read her trash. Below is the letter I wrote.
I find your argument (to be generous) unconvincing. The "Jersey Girls" have an audience because the Bush Administration's penchant for secrecy, especially with regard to 9/11 is so offensive. Unlike you, I wouldn't presume to know what anger and rage the victims' families feel toward Osama and al-Quaeda. However, like the Jersey Girls, I am a citizen, and as such, feel justified to holding Mr. Bush to a higher standard of conduct than Osama bin Laden. As a citizen I am appalled at how fiercely he has fought inquiry into the disaster in national defense (the government's first job).
As a human being, I find the co-ordinated effort by the right's punditocracy (I've read Rush and Kristol working off the same set of talking points your piece does) to attack the Jersey Girls (precisely because their points are valid) disgusting.
Tuesday, April 13, 2004
A Dry Drunk?
Hullabaloo led me to E.J. Dionne, who had an interesting quote from Awol today:
"We stand for a culture of responsibility in America. We're changing the culture of this country from one that has said, if it feels good, do it, and if you got a problem, blame somebody else, to a culture in which each of us are responsible for the decisions we make in life."
At tonight's press conference, however, Awol couldn't identify any mistakes he may have made. As one of Atrios' readers noted, the message tonight was "same policy - hoping for different results." At 12 step meetings they tell you that repeating a mistake in hopes of finally getting it right is the kind of behavior people with addiction problems often engage in.
Maybe Awol's a dry drunk. He stopped drinking and snorting, got right with God, but never got sober. Under this theory, he would never have made an inventory of his faults nor sought to make amends to those he hurt or harmed. Sound familiar?
I thought he was awful, but I don't know that my reaction, or those of the bloggers and their commentators whom I read, are indicative of the country's reaction. I watched the PBS show and both Oliphant and Babbling Brooks thought he was clear and direct and that his audience was some mythical middle America which is not tuned into the news the way the media elite are. To this audience he was great and with a few exceptions, the press made it easy for him. I tend to agree the questions, while not fawning, were hardly challenging and allowed him to swing for the fences with the terrorists are evil people tirades.
He's clearly got some messianic thing going with the "changing the world" meme. I personally don't think the people who voted for him gave him a mandate to change the world. Even if 9/11 "changed everything," it didn't change that.
The periodic shots of Rove, Card and Condi in the corner were unnerving. Rove always looks the same to me. Card seemed thrilled to be there. Condi looked dour. He's her student, he's doing the best he can and.....he stinks.
He claims he wants the election to be on the question, "who will better lead the war on Iraq and the war on terror." Pudentilla thinks John Kerry should jump all over this and quick. How about ads like, "George Bush asks, "who will better lead the war in Iraq. The answer is John Kerry." Then three things Awol has screwed up (post invasion planning, size of force, training of Iraqi security forces). Then three things Kerry will do (yield control to UN, increase force size, get allies to supply 30% of troops on ground).
Someone needs to tell Karen that the tie was a distraction.
Hullabaloo led me to E.J. Dionne, who had an interesting quote from Awol today:
"We stand for a culture of responsibility in America. We're changing the culture of this country from one that has said, if it feels good, do it, and if you got a problem, blame somebody else, to a culture in which each of us are responsible for the decisions we make in life."
At tonight's press conference, however, Awol couldn't identify any mistakes he may have made. As one of Atrios' readers noted, the message tonight was "same policy - hoping for different results." At 12 step meetings they tell you that repeating a mistake in hopes of finally getting it right is the kind of behavior people with addiction problems often engage in.
Maybe Awol's a dry drunk. He stopped drinking and snorting, got right with God, but never got sober. Under this theory, he would never have made an inventory of his faults nor sought to make amends to those he hurt or harmed. Sound familiar?
I thought he was awful, but I don't know that my reaction, or those of the bloggers and their commentators whom I read, are indicative of the country's reaction. I watched the PBS show and both Oliphant and Babbling Brooks thought he was clear and direct and that his audience was some mythical middle America which is not tuned into the news the way the media elite are. To this audience he was great and with a few exceptions, the press made it easy for him. I tend to agree the questions, while not fawning, were hardly challenging and allowed him to swing for the fences with the terrorists are evil people tirades.
He's clearly got some messianic thing going with the "changing the world" meme. I personally don't think the people who voted for him gave him a mandate to change the world. Even if 9/11 "changed everything," it didn't change that.
The periodic shots of Rove, Card and Condi in the corner were unnerving. Rove always looks the same to me. Card seemed thrilled to be there. Condi looked dour. He's her student, he's doing the best he can and.....he stinks.
He claims he wants the election to be on the question, "who will better lead the war on Iraq and the war on terror." Pudentilla thinks John Kerry should jump all over this and quick. How about ads like, "George Bush asks, "who will better lead the war in Iraq. The answer is John Kerry." Then three things Awol has screwed up (post invasion planning, size of force, training of Iraqi security forces). Then three things Kerry will do (yield control to UN, increase force size, get allies to supply 30% of troops on ground).
Someone needs to tell Karen that the tie was a distraction.
Do as I say
Scorpio has a wonderful analysis of efforts by Awol's occupation team to suppress efforts by towns in Iraq to organize democratic systems of local government.
Makes you wonder if we're over there for the oil or something.
Scorpio has a wonderful analysis of efforts by Awol's occupation team to suppress efforts by towns in Iraq to organize democratic systems of local government.
Makes you wonder if we're over there for the oil or something.
It's not partisan
It is indeed in there. QuickSauce has the link to Larry C. Johnson's piece in Tom Paine which explains how ridiculous the "historical" spin on the 8/6/01 memo is. Mr. Johnson is a former C.I.A. agent who contributed to the Bush 2000 campaign.
At a minimum, the details in the 6 August PDB should have motivated Rice to convene a principals’ meeting. Such a meeting would have ensured that all members of the president’s national security team were aware of the information that had been shared with the president. George Bush should have directed the different department heads to report back within one week on any information relevant to the Al Qaeda threat. Had he done this there is a high probability that the FBI field agents concerns about Arabs taking flight training would have rung some bells. There is also a high probability that the operations folks at CIA would have shared the information they had in hand about the presence of Al Qaeda operators in the United States. While Condoleezza Rice is correct that there was no “silver bullet” in that PDB, she conveniently ignores the huge pieces of the puzzle that were in the hands of various members of the U.S. government.
None of these steps were taken. Bush was on vacation and Condi—the smartest woman in Washington, we are told—was asleep at the switch.
And the truth shall set you free.
It is indeed in there. QuickSauce has the link to Larry C. Johnson's piece in Tom Paine which explains how ridiculous the "historical" spin on the 8/6/01 memo is. Mr. Johnson is a former C.I.A. agent who contributed to the Bush 2000 campaign.
At a minimum, the details in the 6 August PDB should have motivated Rice to convene a principals’ meeting. Such a meeting would have ensured that all members of the president’s national security team were aware of the information that had been shared with the president. George Bush should have directed the different department heads to report back within one week on any information relevant to the Al Qaeda threat. Had he done this there is a high probability that the FBI field agents concerns about Arabs taking flight training would have rung some bells. There is also a high probability that the operations folks at CIA would have shared the information they had in hand about the presence of Al Qaeda operators in the United States. While Condoleezza Rice is correct that there was no “silver bullet” in that PDB, she conveniently ignores the huge pieces of the puzzle that were in the hands of various members of the U.S. government.
None of these steps were taken. Bush was on vacation and Condi—the smartest woman in Washington, we are told—was asleep at the switch.
And the truth shall set you free.
The Other Memo
Kevin Drum via Orcinus points us to a Newsweek "web edition" story which offers some disturbing news.
1) Awol et al. are trying to bury the report from the Joint Congressional Investigation of the intelligence and law enforcement failures that preceded 9/11. Bob Graham (D.) and Porter Goss (R.) chaired the committee. The committee generated an 800 page report which it completed in December. "But nearly six months later, a “working group” of Bush administration intelligence officials assigned to review the document has taken a hard line against further public disclosure." The abuse of security classification (they are insisting that the joint committee reclassify by Awol et al should concern citizens greatly. The 9/11 committees report will be subject to the same review that the Joint Congressional Investigation is receiving. In other words, Awol et al are already trying to bury the reports.
Why don't Republicans want Americans to learn why we were unable to stop 9/11? Perhaps because the information the report contains would undermine the spin Awol and his Merry Men (and Maid) have given to the 8/6/01 "historical" PDB.
2) The CIA prepared a briefing in July which, as the pros say, should have set everyone's hair on fire. "One such CIA briefing, in July 2001, was particularly chilling and prophetic. It predicted that Osama bin Laden was about to launch a terrorist strike “in the coming weeks,” the congressional investigators found. The intelligence briefing went on to say: “The attack will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties against U.S. facilities or interests. Attack preparations have been made. Attack will occur with little or no warning.”
Who? - Osama bin Laden
What? - terrorist strike: "spectacular attacks" with "mass casualties"
Where? - U.S. facilities or interests
When? - "in the coming weeks"
Historical? - "Attack will occur with little or no warning."
Having heard the July 2001 C.I.A. briefing, how could Awol and any of his Merry Men (and Maid) have treated the 8/6/01 PDB as "historical?
Kevin Drum via Orcinus points us to a Newsweek "web edition" story which offers some disturbing news.
1) Awol et al. are trying to bury the report from the Joint Congressional Investigation of the intelligence and law enforcement failures that preceded 9/11. Bob Graham (D.) and Porter Goss (R.) chaired the committee. The committee generated an 800 page report which it completed in December. "But nearly six months later, a “working group” of Bush administration intelligence officials assigned to review the document has taken a hard line against further public disclosure." The abuse of security classification (they are insisting that the joint committee reclassify by Awol et al should concern citizens greatly. The 9/11 committees report will be subject to the same review that the Joint Congressional Investigation is receiving. In other words, Awol et al are already trying to bury the reports.
Why don't Republicans want Americans to learn why we were unable to stop 9/11? Perhaps because the information the report contains would undermine the spin Awol and his Merry Men (and Maid) have given to the 8/6/01 "historical" PDB.
2) The CIA prepared a briefing in July which, as the pros say, should have set everyone's hair on fire. "One such CIA briefing, in July 2001, was particularly chilling and prophetic. It predicted that Osama bin Laden was about to launch a terrorist strike “in the coming weeks,” the congressional investigators found. The intelligence briefing went on to say: “The attack will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties against U.S. facilities or interests. Attack preparations have been made. Attack will occur with little or no warning.”
Who? - Osama bin Laden
What? - terrorist strike: "spectacular attacks" with "mass casualties"
Where? - U.S. facilities or interests
When? - "in the coming weeks"
Historical? - "Attack will occur with little or no warning."
Having heard the July 2001 C.I.A. briefing, how could Awol and any of his Merry Men (and Maid) have treated the 8/6/01 PDB as "historical?
They were brilliant, and they were fools
Pudentilla believes that everyone should take the advice of Oliver Willis, who indeed is like kryptonite to stupid, and immediately read James Fallow's piece, Blind into Baghdad.
Fallows demonstrates that Rumsfeld, Cheney and Rice had been told repeatedly for over a year by teams of experts from the CIA, the military and NGOs that the US would face every single problem it has faced since the end of the war. They chose not to believe these experts because their evidence was in conflict with the theoretical premises men like Wolfowitz and Perle had used to analyze the problem of Iraq during the last twenty years, and because the experts insisted that the military would need a much larger force than Rumsfeld wanted to supply. Rumsfeld had his own theory about the military that he wanted to test. Iraq, for Awol's Merry Men, was a laboratory in which they could test ideas they had dreamed up during their years of exile (i.e., the Clinton Administration).
Since the US "liberated" Iraq, hundreds of coalition soldiers have died, and thousands more have been maimed. Thousands of Iraqis have died and been wounded. Iraqi civil society has collapsed. And none of it had to happen. Over and over, the people who knew told the Administration what the problems would be and how to avoid them. Awol and Rumsfeld and the Neo-Cons chose to ignore this advice. They had new theories they wanted to try out.
As a "war president," Awol is an unmitigated disaster.
Pudentilla believes that everyone should take the advice of Oliver Willis, who indeed is like kryptonite to stupid, and immediately read James Fallow's piece, Blind into Baghdad.
Fallows demonstrates that Rumsfeld, Cheney and Rice had been told repeatedly for over a year by teams of experts from the CIA, the military and NGOs that the US would face every single problem it has faced since the end of the war. They chose not to believe these experts because their evidence was in conflict with the theoretical premises men like Wolfowitz and Perle had used to analyze the problem of Iraq during the last twenty years, and because the experts insisted that the military would need a much larger force than Rumsfeld wanted to supply. Rumsfeld had his own theory about the military that he wanted to test. Iraq, for Awol's Merry Men, was a laboratory in which they could test ideas they had dreamed up during their years of exile (i.e., the Clinton Administration).
Since the US "liberated" Iraq, hundreds of coalition soldiers have died, and thousands more have been maimed. Thousands of Iraqis have died and been wounded. Iraqi civil society has collapsed. And none of it had to happen. Over and over, the people who knew told the Administration what the problems would be and how to avoid them. Awol and Rumsfeld and the Neo-Cons chose to ignore this advice. They had new theories they wanted to try out.
As a "war president," Awol is an unmitigated disaster.
Monday, April 12, 2004
Your Tax Dollars at Work
David Cay Johnson on Al Franken just said that Awol spent $33 million sending Americans letters about his tax cut, but refuses to give the IRS $12 million it requested to spend hunting down terrorists. (his NYT story here).
Why do Republicans hate America?
David Cay Johnson on Al Franken just said that Awol spent $33 million sending Americans letters about his tax cut, but refuses to give the IRS $12 million it requested to spend hunting down terrorists. (his NYT story here).
Why do Republicans hate America?
Catholic Women's Smelly Feet
Sean O'Malley, the Boston Bishop contemplating denying Communion to Catholic politicians who support a woman's right to choose wouldn't wash women's feet (story) in Holy Thursday rituals.
In fairness to the Bishop, Pudentilla notes that the Vatican is very clear on this topic. No female Catholic feet are to be washed . FreeRepublic.com offers this Q&A with Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical Athenaeum from Zenit.orgt.
A-2: The rubrics for Holy Thursday clearly state that the priest washes the feet of men ("viri") in order to recall Christ's action toward his apostles. Any modification of this rite would require permission from the Holy See.
It is certainly true that in Christ there is neither male nor female and that all disciples are equal before the Lord. But this reality need not be expressed in every rite, especially one that is so tied up to the concrete historical circumstances of the Last Supper.
A-3: The rite of the washing of feet is not obligatory and may be legitimately omitted. However, this is usually not pastorally advisable.
While the rite may not be delegated to a non-priest, a concelebrant may substitute the main celebrant for a good reason.
The rubrics describing this rite are limited to the essentials (selected men sit in a suitable place) and so allow for practical adaptations to the realities of place, time and circumstances.
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Liturgy offers a more nuanced view of the foot-washing ritual and the role of women in it.
1) The Vatican's rubric refers to viri selecti or "selected men" (i.e., those whose feet will be washed).
2) In 1987 the USCCB Committee on Liturgy published its interpretation of the rubric.
3) The interpretation interpreted the ritual as a sign of Christ's love for his faithful and his injunction that Christians love one another. "Such as my love has been for you, so must your love be for each other. This is how all will know you for my disciples: by your love for one another" (see John 13, 34-35)."
4) The Bishops noted, "Because the gospel of the mandatum read on Holy Thursday also depicts Jesus as the "Teacher and Lord" who humbly serves his disciples by performing this extraordinary gesture which goes beyond the laws of hospitality, (footnote re biblical traditions on the greeting of guess omitted) the element of humble service has accentuated the celebration of the foot washing rite in the United States over the last decade or more. In this regard, it has become customary in many places to invite both men and women to be participants in this rite in recognition of the service that should be given by all the faithful to the Church and to the world. Thus, in the United States, a variation in the rite developed in which not only charity is signified but also humble service [emphasis added by Pudentilla].
Pudentilla believes it is probably within the purvue of the Vatican to overrule the USCCB teaching on liturgy and ritual, even if that teaching had been the rule for 15 years.
Pudentilla also believes Catholic women should be aware that their bishops, who criticize the politicians who support a woman's right to choose, may also believe that it is not the job of priests and bishops to serve humbly or to love faithful women as Christ did.
Sean O'Malley, the Boston Bishop contemplating denying Communion to Catholic politicians who support a woman's right to choose wouldn't wash women's feet (story) in Holy Thursday rituals.
In fairness to the Bishop, Pudentilla notes that the Vatican is very clear on this topic. No female Catholic feet are to be washed . FreeRepublic.com offers this Q&A with Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical Athenaeum from Zenit.orgt.
A-2: The rubrics for Holy Thursday clearly state that the priest washes the feet of men ("viri") in order to recall Christ's action toward his apostles. Any modification of this rite would require permission from the Holy See.
It is certainly true that in Christ there is neither male nor female and that all disciples are equal before the Lord. But this reality need not be expressed in every rite, especially one that is so tied up to the concrete historical circumstances of the Last Supper.
A-3: The rite of the washing of feet is not obligatory and may be legitimately omitted. However, this is usually not pastorally advisable.
While the rite may not be delegated to a non-priest, a concelebrant may substitute the main celebrant for a good reason.
The rubrics describing this rite are limited to the essentials (selected men sit in a suitable place) and so allow for practical adaptations to the realities of place, time and circumstances.
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Liturgy offers a more nuanced view of the foot-washing ritual and the role of women in it.
1) The Vatican's rubric refers to viri selecti or "selected men" (i.e., those whose feet will be washed).
2) In 1987 the USCCB Committee on Liturgy published its interpretation of the rubric.
3) The interpretation interpreted the ritual as a sign of Christ's love for his faithful and his injunction that Christians love one another. "Such as my love has been for you, so must your love be for each other. This is how all will know you for my disciples: by your love for one another" (see John 13, 34-35)."
4) The Bishops noted, "Because the gospel of the mandatum read on Holy Thursday also depicts Jesus as the "Teacher and Lord" who humbly serves his disciples by performing this extraordinary gesture which goes beyond the laws of hospitality, (footnote re biblical traditions on the greeting of guess omitted) the element of humble service has accentuated the celebration of the foot washing rite in the United States over the last decade or more. In this regard, it has become customary in many places to invite both men and women to be participants in this rite in recognition of the service that should be given by all the faithful to the Church and to the world. Thus, in the United States, a variation in the rite developed in which not only charity is signified but also humble service [emphasis added by Pudentilla].
Pudentilla believes it is probably within the purvue of the Vatican to overrule the USCCB teaching on liturgy and ritual, even if that teaching had been the rule for 15 years.
Pudentilla also believes Catholic women should be aware that their bishops, who criticize the politicians who support a woman's right to choose, may also believe that it is not the job of priests and bishops to serve humbly or to love faithful women as Christ did.
Altar Egos?
Pudentilla believes that the NYT and WaPo have been covering Sen. Kerry's consumption of the Eucharist with a disturbing avidity. Fox had the archbishop of Washington on to opine that Kerry "should follow the teachings of his Catholic faith" (story). What the SCLM wants, of course, is the opportunity to broadcast the spectacle of a priest refusing communion to a political candidate who supports a woman's right to choose.
Pudentilla thinks the SCLM who breathlessly cover Senator Kerry's attendance at Catholic Mass, if the interests of fairness, should
a) ask the Bishops if they will refuse the Eucharist to Catholic politicians who support the death penalty or the war in Iraq (both American legislative actions which conflict with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church);
b) ask the Bishops if they will refuse the Eucharist to Roman Catholic Bishops who a) hid child molesters within the clergy from the reach of civil and criminal law; and b) moved child molesters from parishes where they had abused innocent children to new parishes where they could continue to abuse children, without any warning to the parishoners whose children they endangered.
Pudentilla believes that the NYT and WaPo have been covering Sen. Kerry's consumption of the Eucharist with a disturbing avidity. Fox had the archbishop of Washington on to opine that Kerry "should follow the teachings of his Catholic faith" (story). What the SCLM wants, of course, is the opportunity to broadcast the spectacle of a priest refusing communion to a political candidate who supports a woman's right to choose.
Pudentilla thinks the SCLM who breathlessly cover Senator Kerry's attendance at Catholic Mass, if the interests of fairness, should
a) ask the Bishops if they will refuse the Eucharist to Catholic politicians who support the death penalty or the war in Iraq (both American legislative actions which conflict with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church);
b) ask the Bishops if they will refuse the Eucharist to Roman Catholic Bishops who a) hid child molesters within the clergy from the reach of civil and criminal law; and b) moved child molesters from parishes where they had abused innocent children to new parishes where they could continue to abuse children, without any warning to the parishoners whose children they endangered.
Sunday, April 11, 2004
Comfort to the Enemy
Pudentilla watched Capital Gang yesterday in amazement, despair, and anger (at her own willingness to believe that Novak and O'Beirne might sacrifice a moment of partisan posturing on the altar of intellectual integrity). Novak and O'Beirne at least gave us Awol and his Merry Men's playbook for this week.
First, they will defend Condi, her testimony and the conduct of the Bush Adminstration between 8/6/01 and 9/11/01 to the max. Every effort will be made to insist that la Principessa's description of the PDB and the content of the PDB, released yesterday, are in perfect harmony. They are not. La Principessa, under oath, cleverly chose her words in order to duck the strict evidentiary standards a perjury prosecution requires. Her insistence that the document was "historical" in nature, however, is spin akin to Clinton's description of the nature of his relationship with Monica Lewinsky.
Unless we're paying astrologers, all briefings, by nature, are historical. The items reported were hardly grey with age (three months in some cases). The age of the information, moreover, may not be that important when you consider the amount of time al-Q takes to plan its attacks. If Osama takes three to five years to plan an attack, then information that is three years old, might be very current indeed.
Most importantly, however, la Principessa's testimony reveals the fundamental contempt in which Awol ("why should I care what you think") and his Merry Men (and Maid) hold the American citizenry and all governmental processes outside the Executive Branch. Everyone expects politicians and their minions to spin reporters. We have higher standards for government officials testifying under oath in hearings televised to the nation. Awol et al. don't share these standards. The title of the August 01 PDB was, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." That title by its very nature is forward looking. Blandly insisting that it was "historical" in nature is appallingly close to "2 + 2 = 5."
The second glimpse into the playbook was an attack on the patriotism of any who dared to challenge's Awol's competence in leading the war on terrorism or the war on Iraq. The irony of such a charge is the psychological projection it reveals. Because, of course, the point of the American experiment, the Constitution of the United States, the Bill of Rights, Democracy as We Know It, etc., is to enshrine, indeed to institutionalize, dissent within political process. Suppressing the expression of dissent is, well, un-American. People like Stalin, Hitler, and Mullah Omar suppress political dissent. Americans embrace it. So when Awol's Merry Men attempt to suppress dissent by challenging the patriotism of those who criticize Awol's competence as a "war president," they are in fact offering a vision of political life that would be suprisingly reassuring to our enemies.
It is striking that this invocation of patriotism by Awol's Merry Men is the first weapon in the arsenal. Patriotism, of course, is the last refuge of the scoundrel. How bare must be the intellectual cupboards of the Merry Men when it comes to a defense of the war in Iraq.
Another irony is the notion that criticising Awol's competence as a "war president," is the same as "not supporting the troops." Much of the criticism of Awol et al. has been their effort to win the war in Iraq (and Afghanistan) on the cheap, at the expense of the mission and the safety of the service men and women fighting overseas. Much of the criticism of Awol et al. has noted that while Awol claims to be a "war president," he has fought efforts that would improve the pay and benefits of serving men and women.
The reality, of course, is that Awol and his Merry Men (and Maid) hope to shield themselves from all criticism of their competence by stigmatizing any opposition as "unpatriotic" and "not supporting the troops." In other words, by choosing to run as a "war president," Awol hopes to suppress any criticism of his conduct as a "war president." Could anything be more savagely unpatriotic and unsupportive of the troops than plunging the armed forces into an unnecessary and unjustified war that will undermine the country's ability to protect itself from terrorism and that will, indeed, increase the number and effectiveness of terrorists to whom we are vulnerable.
Let us, for a moment, however, accept Awol's claim that Iraq is a proper front on the war on terror. Why is it unpatriotic, how does it not support the troops, that Awol, as a war president, is an abiding failure. The fact that Americans have come to realize how incompetent this administration is at war, and that they may will indeed choose new and more effective leaders, will give no comfort to our enemies.
Pudentilla watched Capital Gang yesterday in amazement, despair, and anger (at her own willingness to believe that Novak and O'Beirne might sacrifice a moment of partisan posturing on the altar of intellectual integrity). Novak and O'Beirne at least gave us Awol and his Merry Men's playbook for this week.
First, they will defend Condi, her testimony and the conduct of the Bush Adminstration between 8/6/01 and 9/11/01 to the max. Every effort will be made to insist that la Principessa's description of the PDB and the content of the PDB, released yesterday, are in perfect harmony. They are not. La Principessa, under oath, cleverly chose her words in order to duck the strict evidentiary standards a perjury prosecution requires. Her insistence that the document was "historical" in nature, however, is spin akin to Clinton's description of the nature of his relationship with Monica Lewinsky.
Unless we're paying astrologers, all briefings, by nature, are historical. The items reported were hardly grey with age (three months in some cases). The age of the information, moreover, may not be that important when you consider the amount of time al-Q takes to plan its attacks. If Osama takes three to five years to plan an attack, then information that is three years old, might be very current indeed.
Most importantly, however, la Principessa's testimony reveals the fundamental contempt in which Awol ("why should I care what you think") and his Merry Men (and Maid) hold the American citizenry and all governmental processes outside the Executive Branch. Everyone expects politicians and their minions to spin reporters. We have higher standards for government officials testifying under oath in hearings televised to the nation. Awol et al. don't share these standards. The title of the August 01 PDB was, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." That title by its very nature is forward looking. Blandly insisting that it was "historical" in nature is appallingly close to "2 + 2 = 5."
The second glimpse into the playbook was an attack on the patriotism of any who dared to challenge's Awol's competence in leading the war on terrorism or the war on Iraq. The irony of such a charge is the psychological projection it reveals. Because, of course, the point of the American experiment, the Constitution of the United States, the Bill of Rights, Democracy as We Know It, etc., is to enshrine, indeed to institutionalize, dissent within political process. Suppressing the expression of dissent is, well, un-American. People like Stalin, Hitler, and Mullah Omar suppress political dissent. Americans embrace it. So when Awol's Merry Men attempt to suppress dissent by challenging the patriotism of those who criticize Awol's competence as a "war president," they are in fact offering a vision of political life that would be suprisingly reassuring to our enemies.
It is striking that this invocation of patriotism by Awol's Merry Men is the first weapon in the arsenal. Patriotism, of course, is the last refuge of the scoundrel. How bare must be the intellectual cupboards of the Merry Men when it comes to a defense of the war in Iraq.
Another irony is the notion that criticising Awol's competence as a "war president," is the same as "not supporting the troops." Much of the criticism of Awol et al. has been their effort to win the war in Iraq (and Afghanistan) on the cheap, at the expense of the mission and the safety of the service men and women fighting overseas. Much of the criticism of Awol et al. has noted that while Awol claims to be a "war president," he has fought efforts that would improve the pay and benefits of serving men and women.
The reality, of course, is that Awol and his Merry Men (and Maid) hope to shield themselves from all criticism of their competence by stigmatizing any opposition as "unpatriotic" and "not supporting the troops." In other words, by choosing to run as a "war president," Awol hopes to suppress any criticism of his conduct as a "war president." Could anything be more savagely unpatriotic and unsupportive of the troops than plunging the armed forces into an unnecessary and unjustified war that will undermine the country's ability to protect itself from terrorism and that will, indeed, increase the number and effectiveness of terrorists to whom we are vulnerable.
Let us, for a moment, however, accept Awol's claim that Iraq is a proper front on the war on terror. Why is it unpatriotic, how does it not support the troops, that Awol, as a war president, is an abiding failure. The fact that Americans have come to realize how incompetent this administration is at war, and that they may will indeed choose new and more effective leaders, will give no comfort to our enemies.
Friday, April 09, 2004
Mission Accomplished?
Remember Afghanistan?
Reuters - Afghan Renegade Continues Advance Despite Talks
The Afghan government tried on Friday to persuade a renegade adviser to President Hamid Karzai to withdraw forces that overran a remote northern province in a fresh challenge to the U.S.-backed government.
Remember Iraq - The central front of the war on terror?
From Juan Cole on Ret. Gen. Barry MacCaffrey's appearance last night on CNN:
He gave away a great deal. One may conclude that a) the US has lost control of Baghdad and b) the US communications and supply lines in the South have been cut. That is, a year after the fall of Saddam, the US faces the task of reconquering the country.
Mark. A. R. Kleiman on blogs from Iraq:
The River: And as I blog this, all the mosques, Sunni and Shi’a alike, are calling for Jihad...
Tell Me a Secret: People are making jokes about how americans won't handle control to Iraqis...cause they dont have it at the first place:)
Iraq the Model:
The "Islamic resistence" called for a general strike in Baghdad next Saturday. A shop keeper told me this morning that the "resistence men" ordered him to close his shop before afternoon and that he should also close the shop on Saturday. Leaflets have been distributed cotaining a call for a strike with a threat that says "anyone who disobeys this order shall be punished".
What I would love is someone with an ounce of guts to get up in Congress and suggest that maybe Awol if just utterly incompetent. Or maybe it's simply the vacation time. As Josh Marshall points out, Bush has spent 40% of his Presidency at Crawford, Camp David or Kennybunkport.
Remember Afghanistan?
Reuters - Afghan Renegade Continues Advance Despite Talks
The Afghan government tried on Friday to persuade a renegade adviser to President Hamid Karzai to withdraw forces that overran a remote northern province in a fresh challenge to the U.S.-backed government.
Remember Iraq - The central front of the war on terror?
From Juan Cole on Ret. Gen. Barry MacCaffrey's appearance last night on CNN:
He gave away a great deal. One may conclude that a) the US has lost control of Baghdad and b) the US communications and supply lines in the South have been cut. That is, a year after the fall of Saddam, the US faces the task of reconquering the country.
Mark. A. R. Kleiman on blogs from Iraq:
The River: And as I blog this, all the mosques, Sunni and Shi’a alike, are calling for Jihad...
Tell Me a Secret: People are making jokes about how americans won't handle control to Iraqis...cause they dont have it at the first place:)
Iraq the Model:
The "Islamic resistence" called for a general strike in Baghdad next Saturday. A shop keeper told me this morning that the "resistence men" ordered him to close his shop before afternoon and that he should also close the shop on Saturday. Leaflets have been distributed cotaining a call for a strike with a threat that says "anyone who disobeys this order shall be punished".
What I would love is someone with an ounce of guts to get up in Congress and suggest that maybe Awol if just utterly incompetent. Or maybe it's simply the vacation time. As Josh Marshall points out, Bush has spent 40% of his Presidency at Crawford, Camp David or Kennybunkport.
Thursday, April 08, 2004
Your President is Not a Crook
I remember watching the press conference where Tricky Dick said that. I was in high school and I was watching tv with my father. He was a loyal Nixon supporter. I was not. We had had more than a few conversations on the topic and I think each felt bewildered that someone we loved so much could be so wrong. After Nixon uttered that line, my father suddenly stood up, walked over to the tv and turned it off. "Damn it," he said, "he did it." My surprised must have shown on my face because he explained. "He'd never have said that if he wasn't a crook." He was so sad , so betrayed and confused (and I might add, in Chicago, it took a lot of political scandal to upset the citizenry) that I could take no pleasure in the outcome.
What will be the event, the words, the stupidity, the catastrohpe that awakens Awol's supporters from their stupor? Will they become apathetic or angry. Will Kerry offer them a vision of America they can embrace? I hope so. I hope the important people are ready for the sea change of sentiment among the ordinaries.
I remember watching the press conference where Tricky Dick said that. I was in high school and I was watching tv with my father. He was a loyal Nixon supporter. I was not. We had had more than a few conversations on the topic and I think each felt bewildered that someone we loved so much could be so wrong. After Nixon uttered that line, my father suddenly stood up, walked over to the tv and turned it off. "Damn it," he said, "he did it." My surprised must have shown on my face because he explained. "He'd never have said that if he wasn't a crook." He was so sad , so betrayed and confused (and I might add, in Chicago, it took a lot of political scandal to upset the citizenry) that I could take no pleasure in the outcome.
What will be the event, the words, the stupidity, the catastrohpe that awakens Awol's supporters from their stupor? Will they become apathetic or angry. Will Kerry offer them a vision of America they can embrace? I hope so. I hope the important people are ready for the sea change of sentiment among the ordinaries.
Faster Than A Speeding Bullet?
Pudentilla wants to know: What's with the silver bullet rhetoric? Who elects people for silver bullet solutions. Don't we elect politicians and expect them to pick expert advisers who work for a living. If you work hard why would you need a silver bullet?
Because, Condi, you cling to ideological premises unsupported by the contemporary evidence.
Gut check, America. What do you fear more this evening - a missile attack from a rogue nation or terrorism from al-Q?
Pudentilla wants to know: What's with the silver bullet rhetoric? Who elects people for silver bullet solutions. Don't we elect politicians and expect them to pick expert advisers who work for a living. If you work hard why would you need a silver bullet?
Because, Condi, you cling to ideological premises unsupported by the contemporary evidence.
Gut check, America. What do you fear more this evening - a missile attack from a rogue nation or terrorism from al-Q?
Maybe it's me, but...
Have you noticed that Condi gives a speech when asked a question by a Democrat? She answers yes or no when questioned by a Republican.
Thus far,
it was Dick Clarke's fault; and
it was the Clinton administration's fault (he only used faggy cruise missiles); and
it was Osama's fault (they didn't tell her where they were going to strike).
To which, if you suggested that she was the National Security Advisor when 3000 Americans were killed on 9/11 she would say,
"I had only been on the job for 233 days." and therefore it was Dick Clark's fault, and Bill Clinton's fault and Osama's fault.
Hey Condi, we pay taxes so that people like you find out the where, when and how when al-Q chatter says things like "something really big is going to happen."
Have you noticed that Condi gives a speech when asked a question by a Democrat? She answers yes or no when questioned by a Republican.
Thus far,
it was Dick Clarke's fault; and
it was the Clinton administration's fault (he only used faggy cruise missiles); and
it was Osama's fault (they didn't tell her where they were going to strike).
To which, if you suggested that she was the National Security Advisor when 3000 Americans were killed on 9/11 she would say,
"I had only been on the job for 233 days." and therefore it was Dick Clark's fault, and Bill Clinton's fault and Osama's fault.
Hey Condi, we pay taxes so that people like you find out the where, when and how when al-Q chatter says things like "something really big is going to happen."
The Muslim Street
From Juan Cole yesterday,
It seems a little unlikely to me that Muslims around the world are going to say, "Oh, well, they only knocked some holes in the mosque wall. This isn't really so bad. And, they had every right to do it in international law."
From Juan Cole yesterday,
It seems a little unlikely to me that Muslims around the world are going to say, "Oh, well, they only knocked some holes in the mosque wall. This isn't really so bad. And, they had every right to do it in international law."
Wednesday, April 07, 2004
Condi's collateral damage?
Condi Rice's Question: "I don't what we could have done differently."
Pudentilla's Answer: Not start a war in Iraq on a lie.
Via Hesiod - al Jeezera pics of the civilian dead - infants, but not infantry.
Condi Rice's Question: "I don't what we could have done differently."
Pudentilla's Answer: Not start a war in Iraq on a lie.
Via Hesiod - al Jeezera pics of the civilian dead - infants, but not infantry.
George Will is Unhappy
Under the headline, A War President's Job, George makes the following observations today:
_ It is a sign of things falling apart that common language seems unable to get a purchase on Iraq's new reality -- a civil war defined by the uprising of many Shiites against the U.S. occupation.
_ A U.S. official in Baghdad accurately insists that the violent insurgency involves "a minuscule percentage" of the 25 million Iraqis. However, history usually is made not by majorities but by intense minorities.
_ Not much else having gone as planned since the fall of Baghdad, a delay in the transfer of sovereignty, scheduled for June 30, should not be unthinkable.
_ The transfer is to be to an institutional apparatus that is still unformed. This is approaching at a moment when U.S. forces in Iraq, never adequate for postwar responsibilities, are fewer than they were.
_ Since Sept. 11, 2001, Americans have been told that they are at war. They have not been told what sacrifices, material and emotional, they must make to sustain multiple regime changes and nation-building projects. Telling such truths is part of the job description of a war president.
Gee, this is what Awol's friends say.
Under the headline, A War President's Job, George makes the following observations today:
_ It is a sign of things falling apart that common language seems unable to get a purchase on Iraq's new reality -- a civil war defined by the uprising of many Shiites against the U.S. occupation.
_ A U.S. official in Baghdad accurately insists that the violent insurgency involves "a minuscule percentage" of the 25 million Iraqis. However, history usually is made not by majorities but by intense minorities.
_ Not much else having gone as planned since the fall of Baghdad, a delay in the transfer of sovereignty, scheduled for June 30, should not be unthinkable.
_ The transfer is to be to an institutional apparatus that is still unformed. This is approaching at a moment when U.S. forces in Iraq, never adequate for postwar responsibilities, are fewer than they were.
_ Since Sept. 11, 2001, Americans have been told that they are at war. They have not been told what sacrifices, material and emotional, they must make to sustain multiple regime changes and nation-building projects. Telling such truths is part of the job description of a war president.
Gee, this is what Awol's friends say.
Tuesday, April 06, 2004
Ken Adelman is a Mendacious Bag of Excrement
This morning the BBC did a report on Ted Kennedy's speech (in which Teddy said that Iraq was George Bush's Vietnam).
Some of today's headlines might seem to support Teddy's argument:
_ AP: 8 U.S. Soldiers Killed in Iraq Violence
_ Reuters: Battles Flare as Iraqi Shi'ites Vow Resistance
_ Chicago Tribune: Military mulls boosting Iraq force
_ AP: Blix: Iraq Worse Off Now Than With Saddam
The BBC always calls on Adelman when the want a Merry Man for Prince Awol [Media Lens has been pulling their hair out since forever of the free ride Adelman gets on the BBC - story]. So, Ken. "Iraq, it'll be a cakewalk!" Adelman was on this morning. And he said something like, Iraq isn't Vietnam. There was no 9/11 before Vietnam. [Pudentilla can't find a link to the transcript of the broadcast yet. Please send the URL if you have it.]
But 9/11 had nothing to do with Iraq, Cakewalk. As much as Awol wants people to believe that Saddam was linked to al-Q, even he said that "We have no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the Sept. 11" attacks."
So Cakewalk, why are you perpetuating the falsehood that 9/11 justifies the war in Iraq? Who would benefit by the perpetuation of this false linkage? Not the Americans dying over there today, you mendacious bag of excrement.
This morning the BBC did a report on Ted Kennedy's speech (in which Teddy said that Iraq was George Bush's Vietnam).
Some of today's headlines might seem to support Teddy's argument:
_ AP: 8 U.S. Soldiers Killed in Iraq Violence
_ Reuters: Battles Flare as Iraqi Shi'ites Vow Resistance
_ Chicago Tribune: Military mulls boosting Iraq force
_ AP: Blix: Iraq Worse Off Now Than With Saddam
The BBC always calls on Adelman when the want a Merry Man for Prince Awol [Media Lens has been pulling their hair out since forever of the free ride Adelman gets on the BBC - story]. So, Ken. "Iraq, it'll be a cakewalk!" Adelman was on this morning. And he said something like, Iraq isn't Vietnam. There was no 9/11 before Vietnam. [Pudentilla can't find a link to the transcript of the broadcast yet. Please send the URL if you have it.]
But 9/11 had nothing to do with Iraq, Cakewalk. As much as Awol wants people to believe that Saddam was linked to al-Q, even he said that "We have no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the Sept. 11" attacks."
So Cakewalk, why are you perpetuating the falsehood that 9/11 justifies the war in Iraq? Who would benefit by the perpetuation of this false linkage? Not the Americans dying over there today, you mendacious bag of excrement.
Monday, April 05, 2004
Fox News Poll on war in Iraq
Fox News' web page is running a poll on Iraq in light of the recent casualty rate. At the moment 25,000 or 77% of the responders have checked the following description.
This is tragic, but this is war and we should expect casualties.
Other possible answers include:
b. I am beginning to have second thoughts about US being in Iraq - 5%
c. We never should have gone into Iraq in the first place - 9%
d. It is going to get worse soon - 5%
e. It is going to get better soon - 4%
Go vote. [It's on the lower right hand corner of the front page.]
Fox News' web page is running a poll on Iraq in light of the recent casualty rate. At the moment 25,000 or 77% of the responders have checked the following description.
This is tragic, but this is war and we should expect casualties.
Other possible answers include:
b. I am beginning to have second thoughts about US being in Iraq - 5%
c. We never should have gone into Iraq in the first place - 9%
d. It is going to get worse soon - 5%
e. It is going to get better soon - 4%
Go vote. [It's on the lower right hand corner of the front page.]
Blasts from the past:
"Oh what a tangled web we weave, when at first we practice to deceive."
Sir Walter Scott, Marmion, Canto vi. Stanza 17
[Thanks to Scorpio for the correct citation and attribution!]
10/17/02: Salon quoting retired General Wesley Clark:
One of them was Gen. Wesley Clark, a former NATO military commander. "If we go in unilaterally, or without the full weight of international organizations behind us, if we go in with a very sparse number of allies, if we go in without an effective information operation ... we're liable to supercharge recruiting for al-Qaida," Clark said.
3/11/03: Paul Wolfowitz in a CNN interview:
The Iraqi people understand what this crisis is about. Like the people of France in the 1940s, they view us as their hoped for liberators.
7/15/03: Paul Wolfowitz in NPQ
Certainly in the north and in the south, where these people are much less strong, the evidence is very clear. But even in the Sunni areas of the country, the overwhelming preponderance of the population welcomes the change, and we were greeted as liberators. All over the country we were greeted as liberators. We continue to be greeted as liberators.
--snip—
I do think it's fair to say that we were accurate in our perception of how the population would receive us.
9/26/03: David Corn in Capital Games quoting retired General Anthony Zinni:
"Right now, in a place like Iraq, you're dealing with Jihadists that are coming in to raise hell, crime on the streets that's rampant, ex-Ba'athists that still running around, and the potential now for this country to fragment: Shi'ia on Shi'ia, Shi'ia on Sunni, Kurd on Turkomen. It's a powder keg. I just got back from Jordan. I talked to a number of Iraqis there. And what I hear scares me even more that what I read in the newspaper. Resources are needed, a strategy is needed, a plan. This is a different kind of conflict. War fighting is one element of it."
3/9/04: WaPo: U.S. Rushes to Prepare Embassy in Iraq
Another well-placed U.S. official involved in Iraq policy said the Pentagon is now "deferring" to the State Department, "because it's happy to get rid of responsibility for Iraq."
4/5/04/: U.S. Helicopters Strike Shi'ite Area in Baghdad
Overall, 12 U.S. troops have been killed in combat over the past 24 hours.
"Oh what a tangled web we weave, when at first we practice to deceive."
Sir Walter Scott, Marmion, Canto vi. Stanza 17
[Thanks to Scorpio for the correct citation and attribution!]
10/17/02: Salon quoting retired General Wesley Clark:
One of them was Gen. Wesley Clark, a former NATO military commander. "If we go in unilaterally, or without the full weight of international organizations behind us, if we go in with a very sparse number of allies, if we go in without an effective information operation ... we're liable to supercharge recruiting for al-Qaida," Clark said.
3/11/03: Paul Wolfowitz in a CNN interview:
The Iraqi people understand what this crisis is about. Like the people of France in the 1940s, they view us as their hoped for liberators.
7/15/03: Paul Wolfowitz in NPQ
Certainly in the north and in the south, where these people are much less strong, the evidence is very clear. But even in the Sunni areas of the country, the overwhelming preponderance of the population welcomes the change, and we were greeted as liberators. All over the country we were greeted as liberators. We continue to be greeted as liberators.
--snip—
I do think it's fair to say that we were accurate in our perception of how the population would receive us.
9/26/03: David Corn in Capital Games quoting retired General Anthony Zinni:
"Right now, in a place like Iraq, you're dealing with Jihadists that are coming in to raise hell, crime on the streets that's rampant, ex-Ba'athists that still running around, and the potential now for this country to fragment: Shi'ia on Shi'ia, Shi'ia on Sunni, Kurd on Turkomen. It's a powder keg. I just got back from Jordan. I talked to a number of Iraqis there. And what I hear scares me even more that what I read in the newspaper. Resources are needed, a strategy is needed, a plan. This is a different kind of conflict. War fighting is one element of it."
3/9/04: WaPo: U.S. Rushes to Prepare Embassy in Iraq
Another well-placed U.S. official involved in Iraq policy said the Pentagon is now "deferring" to the State Department, "because it's happy to get rid of responsibility for Iraq."
4/5/04/: U.S. Helicopters Strike Shi'ite Area in Baghdad
Overall, 12 U.S. troops have been killed in combat over the past 24 hours.
Dan Senor, CPA Spokesman has a problem connecting the dots
All along along
There were incidents and accidents
There were hints and allegations
Paul Simon, You Can Call Me Al
11/30/03: CNN
QUESTION: Lordis Navarro (ph), AP Broadcast. Yesterday, journalists who came across the scene where the seven Spaniards were killed saw Iraqis celebrating the deaths of these soldiers. What does that tell you about some of the attitudes towards the coalition? And are you really -- have you already lost perhaps hearts and minds?
SENOR: I would repeat what I just said. The overwhelming majority of the Iraqi people are grateful for the liberation and they don't want us to leave. There will be isolated pockets of events like the one you just described. But they are just that, isolated pockets. They do not represent the mindset and the attitude of the overwhelming majority of Iraqis.
1/3/04: Juan Cole
AP said that in Kirkuk on Thursday night, armed Arabs killed one Kurd and wounded another as they strolled through an Arab quarter of the city, according to Police Chief Gen. Turhan Youssef.
--snip—
Daniel Senor of the CPA dismissed the events in Kirkuk as "isolated incidents"," and said that reprisals against Baathists had been relatively few.
2/17/04: afis
"I think Iraqis recognize that these (attacks) are isolated incidents designed … to undermine this path to Iraqi sovereignty," he continued, adding that they continue to step up to security roles because they know the Iraqi people have the biggest stake in the outcome.
3/12/04: CPA briefing
Q A very quick follow-up question. How confident would you say you are in the background and vetting process [ed.: of Iraq policie forces] right now? Very? Somewhat? Not too confident?
MR. SENOR: I'm not going to use your adjectives to characterize it, I will use mine. And the adjective that I have been using is robust; we have a very robust process. And the fact is we have incidents, like we had this past week. They are incidents. They are isolated. They are exceptions. They are not the rule.
4/1/04: L.A. Times story on desecration of mercenaries’ bodies in Fallujah
Officials with the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority condemned the attack and characterized it as an isolated incident that did not reflect the views of the majority of Iraqis.
"The people who pulled those bodies out and engaged in this attack against the contractors are not people we are here to help," said coalition spokesman Dan Senor.
All along along
There were incidents and accidents
There were hints and allegations
Paul Simon, You Can Call Me Al
11/30/03: CNN
QUESTION: Lordis Navarro (ph), AP Broadcast. Yesterday, journalists who came across the scene where the seven Spaniards were killed saw Iraqis celebrating the deaths of these soldiers. What does that tell you about some of the attitudes towards the coalition? And are you really -- have you already lost perhaps hearts and minds?
SENOR: I would repeat what I just said. The overwhelming majority of the Iraqi people are grateful for the liberation and they don't want us to leave. There will be isolated pockets of events like the one you just described. But they are just that, isolated pockets. They do not represent the mindset and the attitude of the overwhelming majority of Iraqis.
1/3/04: Juan Cole
AP said that in Kirkuk on Thursday night, armed Arabs killed one Kurd and wounded another as they strolled through an Arab quarter of the city, according to Police Chief Gen. Turhan Youssef.
--snip—
Daniel Senor of the CPA dismissed the events in Kirkuk as "isolated incidents"," and said that reprisals against Baathists had been relatively few.
2/17/04: afis
"I think Iraqis recognize that these (attacks) are isolated incidents designed … to undermine this path to Iraqi sovereignty," he continued, adding that they continue to step up to security roles because they know the Iraqi people have the biggest stake in the outcome.
3/12/04: CPA briefing
Q A very quick follow-up question. How confident would you say you are in the background and vetting process [ed.: of Iraq policie forces] right now? Very? Somewhat? Not too confident?
MR. SENOR: I'm not going to use your adjectives to characterize it, I will use mine. And the adjective that I have been using is robust; we have a very robust process. And the fact is we have incidents, like we had this past week. They are incidents. They are isolated. They are exceptions. They are not the rule.
4/1/04: L.A. Times story on desecration of mercenaries’ bodies in Fallujah
Officials with the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority condemned the attack and characterized it as an isolated incident that did not reflect the views of the majority of Iraqis.
"The people who pulled those bodies out and engaged in this attack against the contractors are not people we are here to help," said coalition spokesman Dan Senor.
Sunday, April 04, 2004
Awol's foreign policy team hard at work
From this weekend's headlines:
Brazil Shielding Uranium Facility: story
The diplomatic standoff plays into fears that a new type of nuclear race is underway, marked not by the bold pursuit of atomic weapons but by the quiet and lawful development of sophisticated technology for nuclear energy production, which can be quickly converted into a weapons program.
Iran Says It Has Hidden No Nuclear Sites from U.N. <story>
A group of Western diplomats who follow the U.N. nuclear watchdog said recent intelligence provoked suspicion Tehran had not stopped enriching uranium but moved enrichment activities to smaller sites out of the United Nations (news - web sites)' view.
Blast Rocks Madrid Suburb: story
Many of the Madrid Bombers blew themselves up, but: Acebes also said it was possible that one or more other suspects had escaped before the explosion, which tore the sides from the four-story apartment building, exposing support pillars and a caved-in ceiling.
Gunmen Storm Karachi Police Post, Kill 5: story
At least 10 gunmen stormed into a police station in the southern Pakistan city of Karachi on Sunday, killing five policemen and wounding one after demanding the officers recite Islamic verses, police said.
Powell Expresses Doubts About Basis for Iraqi Weapons Claim: story
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell voiced new doubt yesterday on the administration's assertions of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (news - web sites), saying the description in his U.N. presentation of mobile biological weapons laboratories appears to have been based on faulty sources.
Shooting Kills 4 Salvadorans, 14 Iraqis: story
Gunmen opened fire on the Spanish garrison in the holy city of Najaf on Sunday during a huge demonstration by followers of an anti-American Shiite Muslim cleric. Four Salvadoran soldiers and at least 14 Iraqis died, and more than 130 people were wounded.
Official: Afghans, U.S. to Attack Al Qaeda Fighters: story
Afghan and U.S. forces will soon launch an attack on al Qaeda militants who fled from an offensive in Pakistan's tribal lands into Afghanistan (news - web sites), an Afghan official said Sunday.
U.N. Urges Peace Efforts in Sudan story
Thousands of people are being driven from their homes in Sudan's western Darfur region in an "ethnic cleansing," a U.N. official said Friday, calling it "one of the worst humanitarian crises."
Sudan, that's the failed state where Osama organized himself before heading to Afghanistan, right?
Addenda:
Senators Wary of U.S. Deadline on Iraq: story
The security situation in some cities is in shambles and Iraqi police forces are not prepared to take over, said Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind.
AP: Bush Loyalists Pack Iraq Press Office: story
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Inside the marble-floored palace hall that serves as the press office of the U.S.-led coalition, Republican Party operatives lead a team of Americans who promote mostly good news about Iraq (news - web sites).
--snip--
The office counts 21 Republicans — 11 of whom have worked inside the Bush administration before their Iraq posting — among its 58 U.S. civilian staffers, according to figures Senor provided.
--snip--
Republican figures also permeate the wider CPA staff, including top advisers to U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer and the Iraqi ministries.
The U.S. team stands in deep contrast to the British team that works alongside it, almost all of whom are civil or foreign service employees, not political appointees. Many of the British in Iraq display regional knowledge or language skills that most of the Americans lack.
--snip--
One CPA staffer who spoke on condition of anonymity said the press office had sent targeted "good news" releases to American television, radio and newspaper outlets that were timed to deflect criticism of Bush during the Democratic primaries.
Your tax dollars at work.
via Atrios: Bodyguards in Iraq turn to 'massive firepower' after attack: story
BAGHDAD -- American bodyguards in Iraq want to strengthen their weaponry with hand grenades and high-powered machineguns after four private security consultants were murdered in Fallujah last week.
--snip--
The Coalition Provisional Authority is horrified by the contractors' plans to flout the rules, believing that such action could lead to a serious escalation in violence as the June deadline approaches for power to be transferred to the Iraqis.
If it's broke, fix it.
From this weekend's headlines:
Brazil Shielding Uranium Facility: story
The diplomatic standoff plays into fears that a new type of nuclear race is underway, marked not by the bold pursuit of atomic weapons but by the quiet and lawful development of sophisticated technology for nuclear energy production, which can be quickly converted into a weapons program.
Iran Says It Has Hidden No Nuclear Sites from U.N. <story>
A group of Western diplomats who follow the U.N. nuclear watchdog said recent intelligence provoked suspicion Tehran had not stopped enriching uranium but moved enrichment activities to smaller sites out of the United Nations (news - web sites)' view.
Blast Rocks Madrid Suburb: story
Many of the Madrid Bombers blew themselves up, but: Acebes also said it was possible that one or more other suspects had escaped before the explosion, which tore the sides from the four-story apartment building, exposing support pillars and a caved-in ceiling.
Gunmen Storm Karachi Police Post, Kill 5: story
At least 10 gunmen stormed into a police station in the southern Pakistan city of Karachi on Sunday, killing five policemen and wounding one after demanding the officers recite Islamic verses, police said.
Powell Expresses Doubts About Basis for Iraqi Weapons Claim: story
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell voiced new doubt yesterday on the administration's assertions of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (news - web sites), saying the description in his U.N. presentation of mobile biological weapons laboratories appears to have been based on faulty sources.
Shooting Kills 4 Salvadorans, 14 Iraqis: story
Gunmen opened fire on the Spanish garrison in the holy city of Najaf on Sunday during a huge demonstration by followers of an anti-American Shiite Muslim cleric. Four Salvadoran soldiers and at least 14 Iraqis died, and more than 130 people were wounded.
Official: Afghans, U.S. to Attack Al Qaeda Fighters: story
Afghan and U.S. forces will soon launch an attack on al Qaeda militants who fled from an offensive in Pakistan's tribal lands into Afghanistan (news - web sites), an Afghan official said Sunday.
U.N. Urges Peace Efforts in Sudan story
Thousands of people are being driven from their homes in Sudan's western Darfur region in an "ethnic cleansing," a U.N. official said Friday, calling it "one of the worst humanitarian crises."
Sudan, that's the failed state where Osama organized himself before heading to Afghanistan, right?
Addenda:
Senators Wary of U.S. Deadline on Iraq: story
The security situation in some cities is in shambles and Iraqi police forces are not prepared to take over, said Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind.
AP: Bush Loyalists Pack Iraq Press Office: story
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Inside the marble-floored palace hall that serves as the press office of the U.S.-led coalition, Republican Party operatives lead a team of Americans who promote mostly good news about Iraq (news - web sites).
--snip--
The office counts 21 Republicans — 11 of whom have worked inside the Bush administration before their Iraq posting — among its 58 U.S. civilian staffers, according to figures Senor provided.
--snip--
Republican figures also permeate the wider CPA staff, including top advisers to U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer and the Iraqi ministries.
The U.S. team stands in deep contrast to the British team that works alongside it, almost all of whom are civil or foreign service employees, not political appointees. Many of the British in Iraq display regional knowledge or language skills that most of the Americans lack.
--snip--
One CPA staffer who spoke on condition of anonymity said the press office had sent targeted "good news" releases to American television, radio and newspaper outlets that were timed to deflect criticism of Bush during the Democratic primaries.
Your tax dollars at work.
via Atrios: Bodyguards in Iraq turn to 'massive firepower' after attack: story
BAGHDAD -- American bodyguards in Iraq want to strengthen their weaponry with hand grenades and high-powered machineguns after four private security consultants were murdered in Fallujah last week.
--snip--
The Coalition Provisional Authority is horrified by the contractors' plans to flout the rules, believing that such action could lead to a serious escalation in violence as the June deadline approaches for power to be transferred to the Iraqis.
If it's broke, fix it.
Saturday, April 03, 2004
David Kay to Awol: You Stink!
Hesiod caught Kay on C-Span last night and offers us this rather succinct analysis from Kay:
I think we have enough evidence now to say that the intelligence process, and the policy process that used that information, did not work at the level of effectiveness that we require in the age that we live in.
And the truth shall set you free.
Hesiod caught Kay on C-Span last night and offers us this rather succinct analysis from Kay:
I think we have enough evidence now to say that the intelligence process, and the policy process that used that information, did not work at the level of effectiveness that we require in the age that we live in.
And the truth shall set you free.
Friday, April 02, 2004
The New Praetorians
Today's New York Times story on the use private security firms offers some factoids of interest. First, the story estimates that private security firms are presently fielding 15,000 employees in Iraq.
They are providing security details for diplomats, private contractors involved in reconstruction, nonprofit organizations and journalists, security experts said. The private guards also protect oil fields, banks, residential compounds and office buildings.
Second, the caption to a picture of Jerry Bremer on a trip to Mosul offers the following information:
L. Paul Bremer III, left, the American administrator in Iraq, was protected by a security guard, employed by Blackwater USA, during a four-hour visit to Mosul Thursday, even in a heavily guarded military complex.
Bremer’s security, in other words is not being provided by US military forces. Rather, he has a privately contracted security force. A personal praetorian guard not subject to either the standards of accountability or force protection the military imposes on itself. The Washington Post story notes:
The men, all employees of Blackwater Security Consulting, were in the dangerous Sunni Triangle area operating under more hazardous conditions -- unarmored cars with no apparent backup -- than the U.S. military or the CIA permit.
For risks undergoing risks that the military refuses to impose on itself, these men earn on the average $1,000 a day. In addition, the CPA has paid Blackwater Training "$13 million between April 2002 and June 2003 for security training of Navy personnel." The US does not pay its soldiers $1000/day. (The basic pay of active duty soldiers is about 1/10 of this payrate (military payrate chart . While the military increases the pay of US soldiers according to various factors (specialty, hazardous duty, etc)[chart], Pudentilla can find no public information which suggests that it is possible for a soldier in the US armed forces to earn $1000/day.
One would think that the planners in the Pentagon would prefer to pay enlisted US soldiers than mercenaries for their services, if only to enjoy the cost savings. The United States, however, is actively recruiting retired soldiers from foreign countries to provide security services in Iraq (story). They NYT documented US reliance on mercenaries some time ago (story).
In addition to the problem that mercenaries employed by the US are not protected by military force protection standards, and to the problem their disproportiate pay creates, mercenaries your tax dollars pay for are not subject to military standards of conduct and discipline. Does this create problems. Ask folks in Bosnia.
In Bosnia, employees of DynCorp were found to be operating a sex-slave ring of young women who were held for prostitution after their passports were confiscated. In Croatia, local forces, trained by MPRI, used what they learned to conduct one of the worst episodes of "ethnic cleansing," an event that left more than 100,000 homeless and hundreds dead and resulted in war-crimes indictments. No employee of either firm has ever been charged in these incidents.
Because the US based firms are often founded and run by former members of the US military the line between mercenary force and armed services subject to civilian oversight is often blurred. MPRI, the company the NYT story studies, has provided ROTC training, run recruitment offices and written the manual which governs the relationship between the US army and mercenary forces like MPRI.
When armed mercenaries fire their weapons on the field of battle in Iraq (and clearly we anticipate that they will do so if we are using them to provide security for Mr. Bremer), they cannot claim the status of non-combatants. Their status on the law of war and the Geneva Conventions for the treatment of prisoners of war seems very difficult to assess. Pudentilla wonders whether it is good policy for the Pentagon to create such a difficult problem of international law.
Pudentilla, indeed, wonders whether it is sound national policy to outsource security to mercenaries in a war zone. Is it, she wonders, good for morale, for our troops to observe privatized commandos receive five to ten times more pay than they receive for comparable work. Is it good for representatives of the United States government to choose mercenaries, outside the military chain of command, for their personal security detail. Pudentilla notes that the formal creation of a security guard separate from the military was an act associated with Augustus’ destruction of the Roman Republic and creation of a monarchy. Demosthenes, five hundred years earlier, had warned the Athenians against reliance on mercenaries.
But even since your mercenary forces have gone to war alone, it is your friends and allies that they conquer, while your enemies have grown more powerful than they should be. (Phil 1. 23)
His warnings were ignored. Athens lost her independence and her democracy. Such precedents are not heartening.
Today's New York Times story on the use private security firms offers some factoids of interest. First, the story estimates that private security firms are presently fielding 15,000 employees in Iraq.
They are providing security details for diplomats, private contractors involved in reconstruction, nonprofit organizations and journalists, security experts said. The private guards also protect oil fields, banks, residential compounds and office buildings.
Second, the caption to a picture of Jerry Bremer on a trip to Mosul offers the following information:
L. Paul Bremer III, left, the American administrator in Iraq, was protected by a security guard, employed by Blackwater USA, during a four-hour visit to Mosul Thursday, even in a heavily guarded military complex.
Bremer’s security, in other words is not being provided by US military forces. Rather, he has a privately contracted security force. A personal praetorian guard not subject to either the standards of accountability or force protection the military imposes on itself. The Washington Post story notes:
The men, all employees of Blackwater Security Consulting, were in the dangerous Sunni Triangle area operating under more hazardous conditions -- unarmored cars with no apparent backup -- than the U.S. military or the CIA permit.
For risks undergoing risks that the military refuses to impose on itself, these men earn on the average $1,000 a day. In addition, the CPA has paid Blackwater Training "$13 million between April 2002 and June 2003 for security training of Navy personnel." The US does not pay its soldiers $1000/day. (The basic pay of active duty soldiers is about 1/10 of this payrate (military payrate chart . While the military increases the pay of US soldiers according to various factors (specialty, hazardous duty, etc)[chart], Pudentilla can find no public information which suggests that it is possible for a soldier in the US armed forces to earn $1000/day.
One would think that the planners in the Pentagon would prefer to pay enlisted US soldiers than mercenaries for their services, if only to enjoy the cost savings. The United States, however, is actively recruiting retired soldiers from foreign countries to provide security services in Iraq (story). They NYT documented US reliance on mercenaries some time ago (story).
In addition to the problem that mercenaries employed by the US are not protected by military force protection standards, and to the problem their disproportiate pay creates, mercenaries your tax dollars pay for are not subject to military standards of conduct and discipline. Does this create problems. Ask folks in Bosnia.
In Bosnia, employees of DynCorp were found to be operating a sex-slave ring of young women who were held for prostitution after their passports were confiscated. In Croatia, local forces, trained by MPRI, used what they learned to conduct one of the worst episodes of "ethnic cleansing," an event that left more than 100,000 homeless and hundreds dead and resulted in war-crimes indictments. No employee of either firm has ever been charged in these incidents.
Because the US based firms are often founded and run by former members of the US military the line between mercenary force and armed services subject to civilian oversight is often blurred. MPRI, the company the NYT story studies, has provided ROTC training, run recruitment offices and written the manual which governs the relationship between the US army and mercenary forces like MPRI.
When armed mercenaries fire their weapons on the field of battle in Iraq (and clearly we anticipate that they will do so if we are using them to provide security for Mr. Bremer), they cannot claim the status of non-combatants. Their status on the law of war and the Geneva Conventions for the treatment of prisoners of war seems very difficult to assess. Pudentilla wonders whether it is good policy for the Pentagon to create such a difficult problem of international law.
Pudentilla, indeed, wonders whether it is sound national policy to outsource security to mercenaries in a war zone. Is it, she wonders, good for morale, for our troops to observe privatized commandos receive five to ten times more pay than they receive for comparable work. Is it good for representatives of the United States government to choose mercenaries, outside the military chain of command, for their personal security detail. Pudentilla notes that the formal creation of a security guard separate from the military was an act associated with Augustus’ destruction of the Roman Republic and creation of a monarchy. Demosthenes, five hundred years earlier, had warned the Athenians against reliance on mercenaries.
But even since your mercenary forces have gone to war alone, it is your friends and allies that they conquer, while your enemies have grown more powerful than they should be. (Phil 1. 23)
His warnings were ignored. Athens lost her independence and her democracy. Such precedents are not heartening.
Thursday, April 01, 2004
Wouldn’t it be more accurate to call them "mercenaries?"
Their deaths were brutal and horrific. The desecration of their bodies was terrible to behold. The suffering of their families must be immense. To call what happened yesterday in Fallujah barbaric and uncivilized, however, is surely to miss the point that war is barbaric and uncivilized. Peggy Noonan, who insists upon the uniqueness of yesteraday's horrific events, is simply wrong. Since Homer, the rage and fury of war has inspired such acts.
And from Hector as he was dragged the dust rose up, and on either side his dark hair flowed outspread, and all in the dust lay the head that was before so fair; but now had Zeus given him over to his foes to suffer foul entreatment in his own native land. Homer, The Iliad, Book XXII, 395 ff: [Butler trans.]
The tragedy of these deaths led Pudentilla to wonder, who were these poor victims of such awful violence.The media call them "American contractors". See, e.g. the AP story:
Frenzied mobs dragged the burned, mutilated bodies of the four American contractors through the streets and strung two of them up from a bridge after rebels ambushed their vehicles.
The Washinton Post headline refers to the individuals killed as "civilians."
Terms like "contractors and "civilians makes you think of engineers and guys who work on highway projects. It is true these people were under contract to the US military – but there contract was to provide military services. As the report notes, the four worked for Blackwater Security Consulting of Moyock, N.C. and had been hired to provide "security for the delivery of food in the Fallujah area." Juan Cole firms like Blackwater hire former U.S. service members and pays them between $100K and $200K/year. This is more than they’d make in the army. But what they were doing, protecting convoys, is exactly what soldiers do.
Thus, they do the work of the army but when they die as soldiers might, there is no consituency of bereaved families to ask the Pentagon, "what the hell were you thinking?" We are, under this mercenary system of war, all elegy and misguided outrage. Commentators like Noonan may decry the Iraqis who committed these acts, freed by the mercenary's contract, from the obligation to consider the decisions of it leaders that may have contributed to the disaster. Billmon notes that US Marines have been conducting a campaign to take control of Fallujah for the last 10 days. That campaign has obviously utterly failed. An AP report today observes that there are no US forces in Fallujah.
Perhaps if the Pentagon were forced to use American soldiers and not mercenaries in its military campaigns, Americans would have a better sense of the true cost of the war in Iraq and the real military failures of the Pentagon. Perhaps Mr. Bush and his war cabinet would be held politically accountable for their failures. That is how it is supposed to work in democracies.
In other news from away, Knight Ridder reports that Bremer believes it will take at least a year before the Iraqi’s have an Iraqi police force.
Their deaths were brutal and horrific. The desecration of their bodies was terrible to behold. The suffering of their families must be immense. To call what happened yesterday in Fallujah barbaric and uncivilized, however, is surely to miss the point that war is barbaric and uncivilized. Peggy Noonan, who insists upon the uniqueness of yesteraday's horrific events, is simply wrong. Since Homer, the rage and fury of war has inspired such acts.
And from Hector as he was dragged the dust rose up, and on either side his dark hair flowed outspread, and all in the dust lay the head that was before so fair; but now had Zeus given him over to his foes to suffer foul entreatment in his own native land. Homer, The Iliad, Book XXII, 395 ff: [Butler trans.]
The tragedy of these deaths led Pudentilla to wonder, who were these poor victims of such awful violence.The media call them "American contractors". See, e.g. the AP story:
Frenzied mobs dragged the burned, mutilated bodies of the four American contractors through the streets and strung two of them up from a bridge after rebels ambushed their vehicles.
The Washinton Post headline refers to the individuals killed as "civilians."
Terms like "contractors and "civilians makes you think of engineers and guys who work on highway projects. It is true these people were under contract to the US military – but there contract was to provide military services. As the report notes, the four worked for Blackwater Security Consulting of Moyock, N.C. and had been hired to provide "security for the delivery of food in the Fallujah area." Juan Cole firms like Blackwater hire former U.S. service members and pays them between $100K and $200K/year. This is more than they’d make in the army. But what they were doing, protecting convoys, is exactly what soldiers do.
Thus, they do the work of the army but when they die as soldiers might, there is no consituency of bereaved families to ask the Pentagon, "what the hell were you thinking?" We are, under this mercenary system of war, all elegy and misguided outrage. Commentators like Noonan may decry the Iraqis who committed these acts, freed by the mercenary's contract, from the obligation to consider the decisions of it leaders that may have contributed to the disaster. Billmon notes that US Marines have been conducting a campaign to take control of Fallujah for the last 10 days. That campaign has obviously utterly failed. An AP report today observes that there are no US forces in Fallujah.
Perhaps if the Pentagon were forced to use American soldiers and not mercenaries in its military campaigns, Americans would have a better sense of the true cost of the war in Iraq and the real military failures of the Pentagon. Perhaps Mr. Bush and his war cabinet would be held politically accountable for their failures. That is how it is supposed to work in democracies.
In other news from away, Knight Ridder reports that Bremer believes it will take at least a year before the Iraqi’s have an Iraqi police force.
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