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Saturday, March 16, 2002
In between yawns, I gave some thought to taking down Mo Dowd's latest bit of lightweight anti-Bush fluff, but Juan Gato beat me to it. Beat her pretty good, too. Which sure beats reading her. Of course, so does sticking white hot needles in my eyeballs.
I went to school at Metro State one year, and found it to be a nice little urban campus. I wish they'd had this course when I was there. I could have learned something actually useful.
WHEN Riad Oda Liftawi started selling stolen cars smuggled out of Israel, he seemed to have found a way of earning easy money in the collapsing Palestinian economy, writes Uzi Mahnaimi. Last week his venture ended in horror. He was killed by Palestinians after they discovered he was an Israeli collaborator who had unwittingly aided the assassination of one of Yasser Arafat’s senior military officers. Liftawi had several Palestinian officials among his customers for cars sold at a fraction of the market price, and he soon attracted the attentions of Shin Bet, the Israeli security service. Caught red-handed awaiting the delivery of a car stolen in Tel Aviv, Liftawi was offered a choice: collaborate or spend two years in jail. He chose the former. For months his controller, known as Captain Yussef, would meet him in secret, ask questions and let him go. Three months ago Yussef gave Liftawi a new four-wheel drive and told him to sell it to Abu Haliwa, a leading member of Arafat’s Force 17 presidential security organisation, who enjoyed expensive cars. Liftawi did so and pocketed £2,500. Later that week, as Haliwa drove near Ramallah, a guided missile from an Apache helicopter homed in on a tracking device the Israelis had placed in the vehicle. Haliwa and two bodyguards died instantly.
Mr. Parker notes, "A glimpse into how the game is played."
Indeed. The Israelis used to excel in the art of exploding cell phones. The progression to exploding SUVs seems a natural one.
While discussing a case of public goat-buggery, DodgeBlog asserts:
By not doing this act in secret he has affected other people and thus is in violation of a basic tenet of libertanism. By doing this act in public he has affected those who were watching his action, violating their rights not to see a goat get buggered in broad daylight!
Um, well, not any form of libertarianism I would recognize. For me, the absolute heart of libertarianism is the principle of non-aggression, or non-initiation of force. I know of no variant that prohibits free humans from affecting each other. In fact, anything that enshrined this notion would be about as far from libertarianism as I can imagine. Picture the assertion of spurious "rights;" "Your homosexuality offends me. Therefore, your sexual orientation must be made illegal." "I am affected by your use of (dope, prostitutes, Big Macs) so therefore you must not (use, buy, sell) those things.
And I can think of no natural "right" not to be offended, even by al fresco goat-poking. A classic libertarian response to such an "offense" would be to say, "Okay, sue the guy, and see if you can convince a judge or jury that you were injured and, if so, how much compensation you should receive.
DHAKA, March 16. — A fire swept through an Islamic school for girls on the outskirts of Dhaka early in the day, killing at least nine pupils, police said.
This is the second fatal blaze in an Islamic school for girls in the past week. Let us fervently hope there are no ghastly dots to be connected.
Two days ago, as an item in my continuing "LETTERS FROM MY HOMETOWN" feature, I posted an exchange between a Pentagon spokesman and a Chronicle editor over what the spokesman claimed were egregious errors in a Chron report on an interview with Paul Wolfowitz. I appended a very snarky comment designed to indicate my displeasure with the Chron editor's response. Now Matt Welch has thoroughly eviscerated the Chron editor, the Chron reporter, and the Chron itself over the issues raised.
So let’s sum up what we have seen here. A San Francisco Chronicle editorial unconscionably distorts the words of Paul Wolfowitz on three separate occasions (out of just five total quotes or paraphrases), in support of the paper’s claim that “if administration hard-liners get their way … the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks could be used as a green light to attack any U.S. enemies, even if they had nothing to do with bin Laden's al Qaeda network.” When the Pentagon points out these egregious offenses, the Chronicle prints the letter under the vague and even misleading headline “Pentagon challenges Chronicle editorial.” The paper responds by saying the Pentagon is “right on two key points,” but ignores the third, which also happens to be true. It blames the mistake on “the writer’s inadvertent errors in transcribing,” without naming the writer, or mentioning whether any editorial employee would be disciplined. It does not encourage readers to seek out the transcript online.
Newspapers are supposed to be transparent, not opaque. They are supposed to fight doggedly for accountability, not evade responsibility for even discussing plausible allegations of their own misconduct. They send their editors to a never-ending series of industry seminars dedicated to overcoming the profession’s “credibility crisis,” yet when an incident calls that very credibility into very real question – by suggesting to reasonable readers that the Chron may routinely twist people’s words to support its ideology – the paper acts like a student forced to write “I will not make up quotes” on the chalkboard in front of the whole class. “The Chronicle is committed to presenting quotes accurately and in context,” Diaz concludes. “This editorial did not meet those standards.” If the Chronicle is committed to being a good newspaper, this editorial response did not meet those standards either.
I almost hesitate to mention this, but in the past Matt has downplayed the very notion of ideological media bias, as has Jeff Jarvis, a guy who writes for the Chron. I've been reading this wretched rag every day for fifteen years. Perhaps both gents can now understand one of the primary reasons I'm hypersensitive on the subject.
CORRECTION: Jeff Jarvis emails to inform me that he no longer writes for the Chron. I misinterpreted a blurb from his site. I should have read it more closely. My apologies for the error.
ABJECT CORRECTION: Yeah, okay. I didn't just "misinterpret." I misread the whole damned thing. Even I am not usually sufficiently moronic to believe that "Examiner" and "Chronicle" are identical.
Israel had to revise an announcement Saturday on U.S.-brokered cease-fire talks when Palestinians denied they would attend, sowing confusion as U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni shuttled between the two sides.
Tell me again how deeply the Palestinians desire an end to the violence....
There are so many good blogs around - and more coming every day, it seems - that I can't get around to them as often as I'd like. Fellow San Franciscan John Weidner writes Random Jottings, one of my favorites, but it's been close to a week since I've had a chance to look through his perspicacious musings, which is why the sell-by date on this may seem a bit old. As a takedown of the risible Robert Kuttner (We call him "Risible Rob" around the DailyPundit household) it ages wonderfully well, though, and will spice up any intellectual stew.
President Bush surrounded himself with airborne soldiers and their cheering families today as he tried to pressure Congress to pass his huge defense budget quickly and in its entirety.
"Huge" is a relative term. Yes, in absolute dollars, this will be the largest defense budget any administration has ever proposed. But that isn't the whole story. If it were, you would be paying "huge" prices for houses, milk, automobiles, and just about everything else you buy - because price history over the past eighty years has been a story of inflation and ever-rising prices.
When you make your household budget, you do it by percentages - so five percent allowed for this, fifteen percent for that, until you've allocated your income. You can judge government expenditures the same way, by comparing them to the total Gross Domestic Product as percentages of that number.
Looked at that way, the current defense budget is about 3.6 percent of GDP. How does that stack up against previous budgets? Well, it's the highest in the past five years - but lower than any other defense budget since 1941!
Think of it this way: for a poor man, ten dollars is a lot of money. For a rich man, ten bucks is parking meter change. And the United States is a very, very rich country. If we were spending the same GDP percentage today that we spent in 1982 (5.8%), our defense budget, instead of being 379 billion dollars, would be 609 billion dollars. So the next time some rattlebrain with an agenda tries to convince you of the "hugeness" of our defense spending, tell them to buzz off. They don't know what they're talking about.
More power to them. If Russia (of all places!) can demonstrate the viability of private space travel, if only for the super-rich, it will move that much closer for the rest of us.
The discussion arising around this issue will be the most important outcome of this particular case:
The Yates conviction has appalled mental health professionals, who say if an insanity defence cannot work in her case – she was committed to hospital several times – it should be discarded as a legal concept.
Given the changes in the entire concept of legal sanity over the past fifty years, it is a discussion very much worth having.
"Every revolutionary idea seems to evoke three stages of reaction. They may be summed up by the phrases: (1) It's completely impossible. (2) It's possible, but it's not worth doing. (3) I said it was a good idea all along."
Editor -- Last Saturday, we learned of a secret Pentagon report advocating the development of new battlefield nuclear weapons and citing several scenarios in which we might choose to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike. The Bush administration scrambled to minimize the provocative nature of these proposals. Despite those disclaimers, it is not hard to see this escalation of nuclear policy as part of the administration's rapidly evolving military stance, which sees the United States engaged in an endless war against terrorism wherever it pops up around the globe. The report expands our list of potential enemies -- including China and Russia, and nonnuclear countries such as Libya and Syria -- and multiplies the number of situations that might provoke us to engage in preventive action. The infusion of offensive nuclear weapons into this volatile mix creates a situation in which we place both our perceived enemies and ourselves on the brink of nuclear disaster. A different, more pacific policy engagement with the world should be possible, but that would require a radical departure from the aggressive mind-set that guides the present administration's foreign policy. JOEL ISAACSON Berkeley
Yes, Joel Isaacson, this administration does see us as engaged in an endless war against terrorism wherever it pops up around the globe - if it threatens the United States. What would you prefer? Massed recitations of "Kumbaya?" All nuclear weapons are offensive weapons, by the way. You think a pacific approach "should" be possible. Would you care to suggest one that would have prevented 9/11? Finally, the development of contingency plans of all sorts to deal with all kinds of potential situations is a long-standing practice of all military planners - it is, in fact, more than practice, it is necessity. And it is a Good Thing, Joel Isaacson, that potential enemies understand the price they may pay for their own attacks on the United States. Osama bin Laden, assuming we were "paper tigers," felt free to attack us at will. Perhaps if he could have foreseen the consequences of his attacks, he might have decided not to launch them. The notion that denizens of Berkeley might retaliate with "a more pacific policy" certainly didn't deter him.
The NRA announced it would sue to overturn the Campaign Finance Reform proposal that now looks certain of passage. Bush has already signalled he will most likely sign the bill.
This may turn out to be an interesting victory for the Republicans over the long term. We already know the CFR favors Republican methods of fund-raising, so until the bill is overturned, probably by the Supreme Court, the political advantage will be to the Elephants. And once the bill is judged unconstitutional, Bush will be able to point out that a Republican president did support CFR and signed into law a bill proving exactly that. (Too bad the Supremes said it was no good. So sad...)
The only people certain to be annoyed by all this are those few members of the pie-in-the-sky hard core of CFR supporters, and the members of Congress who know that the way this bill is structured changes its nature from true campaign finance reform to that of a highly effective Incumbent Protection Racket. Which is what this is all about in the first place.
There is a whole lot of history - both short and mid-range - being wilfully forgotten, or just ignored about Israel and Palestine. David Gelernter provides some useful reminders.
U.S. intelligence officials believe that as many as 400 Al-Qaida and Taliban fighters may have escaped from ``Operation Anaconda'' into Pakistan because a local Pakistani military commander apparently failed to seal the Pakistani side of the border as he had been ordered to do.
Hmm. Why does this sound familiar? Oh, that's right:
"Osama bin Laden traveled out of Tora Bora two times in this Ramadan holy month. He left to meet Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar about three weeks ago and stayed with him near Kandahar," Mr. Jaffar says. "He left again just over a week ago and was headed to Pakistan, where he was helped across the border by Pashtun tribesmen."
It's beginning to look as if using local forces, whether Afghan or Pakistani as front-line troops is nowhere as effective as if first appeared. They don't put up much resistance when attacked, and their ability to "seal" escape routes seems to be non-existent. Their primary skills seem to be negotiating surrenders and accepting American - or al-Qaeda and Taliban - cash for their services. I don't know how many US troops we currently have in Afghanistan, but I'm betting that we're going to be seeing a lot more in the future.
Saudi Arabia's religious police stopped schoolgirls from leaving a blazing building because they were not wearing correct Islamic dress, according to Saudi newspapers. In a rare criticism of the kingdom's powerful "mutaween" police, the Saudi media has accused them of hindering attempts to save 15 girls who died in the fire on Monday.
There is nothing witty nor sarcastic to say about this. There is nothing to excuse it, either. The proper response of any civilized person must be cold rage.
What happened here was the theocratic tyranny-sponsored murder of fifteen helpless girls. The brand of religion that would support, even encourage a murderous slaughter like this is not a religion - it is a psychosis. Any civilized society would shoot down like rabid dogs the monsters who perpetrated this monstrous deed.
Do not speak to me soft words about how Islam is a peaceful religion. How not all Muslims are like this. These Muslims aren't peaceful, they are murdering swine, and this branch of Islam is like this. Saudi Arabia is now a pariah among civilized men and women and societies. Bringing the loathsome lunatics who actually perpetrated this deed to some sort of Islamic "justice" will never extirpate the stain, nor the shame, for they are merely the crop that flourished in the fertile fields of Saudi Wahabbist fanaticism.
Let every decent human in the world avert their eyes from those who believe and practice in this manner, for they have forfeited their humanity and become savages. And know that the sooner men and beliefs like this - all such handiwork, even the memory of it - are wiped from the face of the earth, the better and cleaner the earth will be. Beliefs and acts like these are a malignancy in the soul of humanity. If we are at war against forces who subscribe to such beliefs, then let it be a war to the death, and let us sow their fields and homes and temples with salt. I hope the men who did this thing experience even a small portion of the pain and terror those poor girls must have known - if only a little, before some good and decent soul rips the life from their worthless, evil carcasses.
For those of you who think of Ben Stein only as some sort of weird comedian, it's easy to forget he is a trained and talented economist, and the son of a great one. Hence, his blogger-like destruction of Paul Krugman carries all the more weight. My favorite line:
It really is shocking that someone of your limited background in economics presumes to judge a great man like Tobin or in eulogizing him to so pervert his opinions and work…
"Limited background in economics!" Hah! Go read it. (Link courtesy Media Minded).
I wonder what the US diplomat's title was? Second Air Force attache? Military affairs attache? The CIA usually hides its residents in "jobs" like that.
Evidently the language wranglers at Reuters (rhymes with "goiters") have decreed that there are no terrorists in Afghanistan, either. Just rebels. What ever happened to the freedom fighters?
Democrats invented "Borking." Even though I think Robert Bork would have been a judicial disaster (and his writings since only further convince me of the correctness of my judgment), no one who has followed Donkey efforts to smear Republican judicial candidates will ever believe their protestations of non-partisanship again.
The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Democrats urged Mrs. Gore to run after Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., announced last Friday that he would not seek re-election. One of the sources said Mrs. Gore was committed to public service and believed she owed it to herself to give some thought to a run.
The euphemisms become, over the long term, stifling. A soft, choking cloud of intellectual mist descends upon the mind, strangling all potential for rational thought.
Mrs. Gore is "committed to public service." Which apparently means that she "owes herself" something. And guess what that public service "something" is? A grab for the hereditary Gore place at the trough, evidently.
Only in the intellectual world of the professional ninny-nanny (Mrs. Gore, with her war against some drugs, music, and movies fully qualifies for membership) is the mere proferring of one's carcass considered public service. Well, and the world of prostitution, too.
Editor -- I've noticed the appearance of another kind of flag hanging beneath windows on a few homes in my neighborhood. On top of a midnight blue background sits a cobalt globe swathed in clouds. It's an image of Earth as seen from space. Instead of the single-minded nationalism suggested by flying American flags, these neighbors are displaying a loyalty to the Earth and all of its residents. The United States is not the only country to suffer from terrorism and war. The Earth flag symbolizes the need to pull together not only as a country but as a world. It nudges us away from strict partisanship toward a wider, more inclusive stance. It reminds us of what lies outside the boundaries of our country: the rest of the planet. Imagine the sight of thousands of Earth flags hanging from front porches and on lines of cars speeding along the highways. What would be the effect of that? KATHY BRICCETTI Berkeley
I don't know. The rest of the country gasping in horror as it mutters, "What the hell? Have we suddenly turned into Berkeley?"
Tropico? Okay, twice now today, in different ways, this issue has arisen, so I guess it's a hint for me to rant about it.
I was watching a show on the Food Network today, when a commentator, rapturous about the city of Chattanooga, TN, began to warble about how wonderful it was that the city had gotten rid of its dirty manufacturing past and improved itself into a total dependence on tourism and the luring of free-spending guests to the city. Now, thanks to a link from Chris Kerstiens I discover the game Tropico, which blurbs itself thusly:
Follow a socialist path of factories, mines, logging and fishing, or chase capitalist dollars by building resorts to lure Yanqui tourists.
The connecting link? Tourism as a wonderful form of capitalism - a capitalism consisting of luring rich people to visit a while and spend money. Not invest money, mind you, not build anything or buy anything, just...throw some transient cash around and then leave.
This is a liberal's notion of idealized capitalism - no nasty manufacturing, no oppressed and exploited workers, no pollution or congestion - just rich people (who evidently acquire their funds from the tooth fairy) dropping by to spread their antiseptic largesse.
Well, I should have guessed. Tropico is a game for the Mac.
Tanks, to the layman, look invulnerable. They are huge, heavily armored, wield enormous firepower, and seem capable of destroying anything in their path. Yet armor is surprisingly vulnerable, which is why tank-fighting doctrine almost always includes infantry. The reason is simple: the two protect each other.
The destruction of the two IDF Merkavas is a case in point: tanks are vulnerable to properly placed mines, as well as certain infantry-fired munitions, and air attacks. Supporting infantry can thwart low-flying tank-busters with man-fired SAMs, they can spot and clear mines, and they can take out enemy infantry capable of opposing tanks. By the same token, tanks provide mobile artillery platforms in support of infantry, and much greater firepower than infantry can manage in their lightly armored but fast and elusive vehicles. Naysayers will cite this pair of tank entrapments as evidence that the IDF needs to revamp their entire philosophy of armored deployment. Stratfor.com, in a new bulletin, advances precisely this point.
Such worries are well-intentioned, but they are needless. ("Needless" is polite for "bullshit"). At the most, some doctrine may need to be modified as to how infantry screens will be used in conjunction with armor in certain future scenarios, but any such modifications will be minor. The IDF still fields 700 Merkavas in one of the most modern and tactically innovative armored forces in the world. The loss of two of them to what are essentially large, clumsy bombs is no reason for panic - unless you are looking for a reason to panic in the first place.
Gun-hating, or gun-fearing, is a cult religion in the United States, and it has achieved the status of orthodoxy in Europe and much of the far east. Evidently Norm Mineta, a holdover from another cult, has succumbed to the faith (logic has nothing to do with it) that guns are, in and of themselves, dangerous. And so, like all converts, his faith overrides his reasoning faculties, resulting in idiocy like this. John Lott does an excellent job of explaining why Norman Mineta's faith is endangering your life (if you fly) and potentially thousands of others working in obvious terrorist targets.
Victor Davis Hanson puts his finger on the real problem in the Islamic/Arab world: they hate us. It doesn't matter why, not any more, not if even the educated class of Kuwait, the same people whose society we rescued from utter oblivion a decade ago, many of whom were educated right here in the states, say they don't like us at all.
It's all well and good for some commentators in the U.S. to sneer at those of us who would simply write off the hideous Saudi tyranny, or the equally merciless Kuwaiti dictatorship and treat them as the implacable enemies they really are, but I'd be very interested to see the results of a poll question nobody has yet asked - perhaps because the pollsters (or the governments) know the answer would be too horrifying.
"If it became necessary to kill every Jew in Israel in order to provide a homeland for the Palestinians, would you be in favor of doing so?"
Go ahead, ask it. Ask in Egypt and Kuwait. Ask in Syria and Saudi Arabia. Ask in Iran. Ask in Libya. Ask in Morocco. Ask in Algeria. Ask in Iraq.
I'll bet any honest poll would find at least 65% in favor. And that would make crystal clear the sort of culture with which we are dealing.
History has taught us how best to deal with that sort of culture. And it isn't by "getting the word out" about how much we've done for Islam.
Australian Roy Eccleston delivers himself of this gooey hock of snideness on the subject of President Bush's recent news conference, and notes that:
Asked about leaked reports of a controversial Pentagon Nuclear Posture Review, which set out contingencies where seven countries could be targeted by nuclear weapons, Mr Bush couldn't quite remember its name.
And, unfortunately, he has never been able to pronounce nuclear.
Izzat so, mate? You mean like you ignorant Ozzies can't seem to pronounce "rain" (rine), "Spain" (spine) and "plane" (pline)? Actually, in certain parts of the United States, the damned word is pronounced "nuke-you-ler." Now sod off, "mite."
If Robert Mugabe were a garden variety rightist tyrannical thug, the entire civilized world would be calling for his immediate ouster. But since he's a "hero" of the valiant battle against colonialism, this latest travesty in the history of his kleptocracy is greeted by meaningless finger-shakes, and statements like these:
The Organization of African Unity endorsed the poll as "transparent, credible, free and fair." South Africa called the elections "legitimate," though they avoided using the term "free and fair" and said they had been unable to independently verify many of the opposition charges of violence and vote fraud.
Anybody who thinks the Islamic world is a disintegrating wreck of a culture should take a hard look at sub-Saharan Africa (not to say the two don't overlap in some cases). Where one doesn't find reactionary Islam, one finds brutal, murderous thugs, kleptocrats, or advocates of another failed religion, Communism.
The problems in these places aren't so much a lack of money as they are a lack of the will to recognise that radical socialism, communism, reactionary Islam, and tyranny are not suitable structures for governments, societies, or cultures that wish to partake of the vast potentials of the 21st century. Until that changes, nothing else will.
There are several problems with the whole notion of body counts. First is the unfortunate experience the United States had with them in Vietnam. Not, let me hasten to say, that there were enemy bodies, just that the "body count" became the easiest way for the average American to judge the progress of the war. And so, because there was so much pressure on the government to come up with successes - and success was measured by the number of enemy corpses produced - the body counts were inflated and otherwise manipulated.
Rumsfeld rightly rejects this approach, but that leaves another problem - most Americans will still look for some shorthand, simple way of judging how we are doing in the War on Terror. It's all well and good to say that the war is complicated, or that we may never know our victories, or any of the other vague hand-waving we've seen, but if that is to be the case, public support for a war that seems to be going nowhere, with no results, and no end in sight, will quickly lose support among the majority of the American public.
Originally, the markers of progress were to be the bodies - dead or alive - of Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar, and other high Taliban and al-Qaeda officials. But the war effort so far has been unable to produce that sort of progress, in fact, has been unable to produce much of anything regarding the fates of those men.
Then, whether Rumsfeld likes it or not, body counts began to be widely reported - in particular, in Tora Bora, where initially "hundreds" of al-Qaeda casualties were cited, only to find (in much more muted - nearly invisible, in fact - reports) that instead of hundreds, there may have been less than a dozen captured or killed. STRATFOR.com reports:
Coalition forces claimed late last year that hundreds of enemies were killed during the bombing of Tora Bora, but when the fighting was over, fewer than 10 prisoners were taken and few corpses were found.
No wonder Rumsfeld doesn't want Americans to judge the war's progress by body counts that start out in the hundreds, and end up a mere handful.
Yet the problem remains: The huge majority of Americans will still try to find some quick, easy way to make their own judgments about the effectiveness of the War on Terror, and that something had better be less nebulous than simply, "Well, nothing's been blown up yet..."
For at least five thousand years it has been human nature that, when warring against an enemy, the natural reaction is to judge victory by piles of enemy dead. "I'm alive, and you're not," is the ultimate measure of triumph in any conflict. Rumsfeld, for obvious reasons, may not like body counts as a marker, but he'll have to find something equally compelling to replace them - and quickly. Americans will not support, and will not fight, a war of shadows forever.
Newsmax.com and Judicial Watch are anathema to some parts of Big Media, in part because of their highly effective attacks on the Clinton Administration.
It's early days yet to say what may come of this report, although Judicial Watch and David Schippers are solid, respectable investigators, whatever partisans may think. The most intriguing part of the article is this:
Wright complains that when he tried to continue and pursue certain terrorist investigations, he met with retaliation from his bosses and from the Justice Department who made it clear that they wanted the probes to go no further.
Here's my prediction: those "certain terrorist investigations" will turn out to involve the Saudis.
One of the least likeable aspects of the Bush administration is an almost reflexive tendency to smooth over, even conceal, government fumbling, bumbling, and active malignancy, whether its own, or even that of other administrations. As I've said before, at some point, if only for our own self-protection, we are going to have to learn the dirty details of the various failures that in one way or another contributed to 9/11, and we are going to have to hold individuals to account for them. This might be a healthy start.
Step by painful step, parts of the world outside the United States slowly return to sanity. If there is one form of corporate welfare I'd most like to see the Republican Party back away from, it's their price support programs for the worldwide illegal drug cartels. Anybody ever wonder why Opensecrets.org never lists the political contributions over the years from the Cali, Colombia, guys? I'd bet the totals would be a hell of a lot bigger than the boodleicious sums Enron handed over.
LETTERS FROM MY HOMETOWN: (We'll take a different tack today, and reprint an exchange on the Chron letter page between a Pentagon spokesman and a SF Chron editor that touches on the Chron's editorial page accuracy -Ed.)
Editor -- When serious journalists take issue with someone's views, they should make an effort to reflect those views accurately. Certainly, when they have an opportunity to explore a person's views at length and on the record, they have an obligation not to put words in that person's mouth and not to misquote him or quote him out of context. The writer of The Chronicle's editorial about Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz ("Soft cry of a hard hawk," March 1) violated all of these rules.
First, at no point in his interview with The Chronicle did Wolfowitz state that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs would, as the editorial paraphrased, "justify any decision to go to war with Iraq." Those words never crossed Mr. Wolfowitz's lips.
For those who wish to read what Wolfowitz actually said, the transcript of his interview with The Chronicle is available on the Department of Defense Web site, www.defenselink.mil. Unfortunately, The Chronicle did not publish the transcript or its relevant portions.
Second, the editorial stated, "Although he stressed that President Bush has not made any final decision to attack Iraq, Wolfowitz said the frequent allegations that Saddam Hussein has been covertly working on nuclear weapons development would justify any U.S. decision to go to war." Wolfowitz said nothing of the kind. This statement is a disingenuous attempt to suggest that the president will soon decide to take military action against Iraq.
Not only has President Bush not made any final decision to attack Iraq, he has made no decision whatsoever regarding military action against Iraq or other state sponsors of terrorism beyond Afghanistan. What Wolfowitz said in the interview with The Chronicle was, "Look, you're assuming that (the president) has decided a whole bunch of things that he hasn't decided to do -- I would just sort of caution people not to assume before the president has decided what to do that he has decided what to do."
Third, the editorial goes on to state, "When we pointed out that those allegations (about Iraq's nuclear development program) are unproved and are disputed by many experts, he scoffed." This exchange never occurred. The only allegations mentioned by your interviewer concerned Iraq's connection to Sept. 11. Had he referred to "allegations" that Iraq has been covertly developing nuclear, as well as chemical and biological weapons, a very different exchange would have occurred because of the powerful evidence on that point.
Finally, the editorial claims in discussing Iraq's links to terrorism that Wolfowitz said "it depends on the use of the word 'evidence.' " This is another fabrication; the deputy secretary of defense did not utter those words.
Falsehoods aside, what is perhaps even more disturbing is The Chronicle's editorial position on terrorism: that even if we know a terrorist state has weapons of mass destruction and has shown no hesitation in threatening its neighbors or the United States, we should wait until tens of thousands of Americans have been killed and then gather what amounts to a legal chain of evidence before acting to prevent an attack by weapons of mass destruction.
We know that terrorist attacks are no longer limited in their potential scale of destruction. Given the grave consequences and increasing likelihood of the use of nuclear or biological weapons that can kill tens of thousands if not millions of people, do we not have a moral obligation to prevent those attacks if possible?
VICTORIA CLARKE Assistant secretary of defense
for public affairs
Washington, D.C.
----------------------- Editor's note -- Ms. Clarke is correct on two key points. The editorial provided an inaccurate context for a Wolfowitz quote. It was not made in response to a question about Iraq's nuclear development program, as the editorial stated. A transcript of the interview makes plain that Wolfowitz was responding to a question about Iraq's alleged complicity in the Sept. 11 attacks when he said, "We can't afford to wait for proof beyond a reasonable doubt. That is a way in which any number of terrorist regimes have, over the last 20 years, gotten away with doing things." Ms. Clarke also is right in asserting that Wolfowitz was misquoted as saying, "It depends on the use of the word 'evidence.' We never have any perfect picture about what's out there."
What he actually said was: "But you know the use of the word evidence, there are, I think people shouldn't be under the impression that we have a perfect picture of what's out there."
These discrepancies resulted from the writer's inadvertent errors in transcribing a tape recording of the interview.
The Chronicle is committed to presenting quotes accurately and in context. This editorial did not meet those standards.
-- John Diaz Editorial page editor
The Chron's motto: "Opinions are like assholes, and we've got a million of them - of both kinds."
I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, some bit of political footgear that would make the Bush steel tariffs seem like something other than the blundering betrayal of principle only RINOs seem to really excel at. In one stroke Bush turns his back on his own base (except, of course, for the drooling morons inhabiting the Buchanan/anti-globalism camp), twists the private parts of just about every one of our worthwhile allies, and makes himself look like the fumbling idiot his enemies all claim he is.
According to this, American disdain for Europe - in this case, Britain - is of suprisingly long standing, and from some surprising sources. Thanks to reader R. Parker for the link.
Incidents like this are making me eat a lot of crow stuffed with verbiage I've previous written about the Canadian military. I don't give a damn. My pride is a hell of a lot less important than what these guys are doing.
Reader Randall Parker points me to this article in the UK Guardian, which features their new commentator, Mark Leonard, writing about global issues. Here, among much else, he notes:
Blair is accused of simply supplying a multilateral fig-leaf for US actions, but the alternative may be no international legitimacy at all.
Ostensibly, Leonard appears to be trying to justify the close relationship between Tony Blair and George Bush, and Blair's attempts to keep Britain closely aligned with the old "special relationship." Yet he still can't shake the notion that without England providing some moral and ethical "cover" for America, the US might have no legitimacy at all internationally.
This is something like the notion of having a priest explain why the murderer is really a good guy (he couldn't help himself). In some quarters it would be called "damning with faint praise." In other quarters, such as here at DailyPundit.com, we just call it condescending bullshit. It is becoming crystal clear that the assumptions underlying the European point of view are completely unmoored from reality, and it is becoming more pointless than ever for the U.S. to pay any heed at all to complaints arising therefrom.
Much as it galls the U.S. urban coastal aristocracy, it's entirely probable that far more Americans would like and enjoy this than cattle body parts marinating in formaldehyde.
"Since on or about May 2001, the Post has demonstrated a pattern and practice of not hiring female executives, and of hiring executives who are of British and Australian national origin,” the complaint states.
why the hell isn't Tim Blair in New York running the Post's damned news room?
The LAT has been doing some decent investigative reporting lately. Now they've discovered that, hard as it may be to believe, there may have been some family corruption involved with the Clinton pardons.
Many of the states that received billions of dollars in the national tobacco settlement have invested some of those funds in the stock market, benefiting the same tobacco firms that were meant to be punished by the settlement, according to a research group.
This betrays a basic misunderstanding of what the tobacco lawsuits were really all about. Far from being an effort to "punish" tobacco companies for selling a product that, no matter how misrepresented in advertising, has always been a legal product, the tobacco suits were nothing more than a naked example of using the power of the state to extort cash from legitimate businessmen. There is nothing odd about states then investing that money in the very companies from which they blackmailed their boodle - the mafia perfected the technique centuries ago. Now it's the state who makes you an offer you can't refuse. Don Corleone would understand, even if CNN News doesn't seem to.
On behalf of all of us at the California Patriot, Berkeley's conservative magazine, thank you so much for your recent contribution. We're sorry we haven't thanked you sooner, but as you can imagine, we've been overwhelmed from responses.
Your contribution, as well as others from across the nation, have helped us to reprint our stolen magazine, as well as put us on sound financial footing.
It really meant a lot to us that you were willing to help us out in our time of need. We hope you will enjoy your forthcoming subscription (make sure we have your address if you didn't already send it).
Our website should be revamped in the next week, so be sure to check it out to get the latest info on our growing and successfull conservative movement at Berkeley.
Once again, please accept our sincere thanks.
Kelso G. Barnett Publisher, California Patriot Executive Boardmember, Berkeley College Republicans
The Cal Libertarians website (What? Libertarians at Berkeley, too? You bet!) says of the Cal Patriot: "A well written ultra-conservative monthly magazine. Libertarians would probably find a third really funny, a third really offensive, and a third fairly interesting."That's about my take, too. But anytime totalitarian thugs steal a newspaper's print run for the crime of offending political correctness, no matter what the political/ideological stripe involved, I'll be there with a few bucks to help if I can. I'm glad the neanderthals at Berkeley who tried to stifle the Cal Patriot learned that a world beyond Berkeley cares about what goes on there, too.
Editor -- The proposal to allow oil and gas drilling in the Los Padres National Forest is another example of the Bush administration's focus on increasing profits for its families, friends and political contributors rather than representing tens of millions of Americans who use our forests for recreation.
President Bush is more concerned with short-term financial gain than reserving our natural areas for future generations.
MICHAEL FASMAN
San Francisco
Yes, indeed, Michael Fasman, the Bush administration increased profits so effectively for its pals at Enron that the company collapsed. And its aid to its friends at Pacific Gas and Electric in California was so copious that the company is now in bankruptcy. Oh, and by the way, Michael Fasman, tell me again which of the great national forests have been ruined by "short term financial gain?"
I've always thought Sandra Bernhard was about as funny as a suppurating STD, but I think that here she's managed to exceed (to the downside) even her own non-existent standards.
It is impossible to avoid the hypocrisy in any position that says the United States has the right to invade Afghanistan and kill thousands in self defense against terrorism, but any similar Israeli action in the face of terrorist threats are unacceptable
I wonder if the ninnies wailing about the horrors of Guantanamo can bear to tear themselves away long enough to devote a bit of attention to this bit of barbarism.
It is not unpatriotic, nor detrimental to the war effort - exactly the opposite, I think - to suggest that at some point we are going to have to investigate the systems that failed us on 9/11, and place blame on the people and procedures that still allow things like this to occur.
"Any movies with any kind of pro-tobacco imagery, I would give an 'R' rating," said UCSF Professor of Medicine Stanton Glantz, a leading tobacco industry critic and co-author of the study. "It's not censorship. If people want to make a film with the f-word and a lot of sex, they get an 'R' rating. Smoking should be the same."
Geez, professor, haven't you heard? Save the R ratings for those deadly lard butts and their pork burgers.
For years they told us not to worry about how much weight we gained when we quit smoking, since absolutely nothing was as bad for the health as killer nicotine. Now, the health nannies are changing their minds. Hm. Wonder if it could have anything to do with this?
Hitch can be absolutely infuriating in what looks like - but isn't, really - his inconsistencies. But of all the Euro expats working in the US, he and Andrew Sullivan "get us" the best. However, Hitchens surpasses even Sullivan at explaining us to the rest of the world.
What this account leaves out is the reason those American troops were there in the first place. According to a stratfor.com analysis:
At first U.S. commanders hoped to use Afghan units as the main striking force in Operation Anaconda. But Afghan forces showed low combat capabilities and morale on the first day: Under heavy fire they immediately retreated and in some cases ran away. As a result about 1,000 U.S. forces were deployed with other allies almost immediately on the ground, and more are now coming to the area.
In other words, the Afghan troops now "criticizing" US tactics had been whipped into screaming retreat by the al-Qaeda/Taliban/Nationalist forces they were sent to attack. But it's the American's tactics that are all screwed up.
This should be required reading for a generation of Soviet Communist apologists. It wouldn't do any harm for the current generation occupying the groves of academe to read it, either.
Parroting the latest new and improved Democratic party line - the one designed to undercut the Republican administration for no reason other than rabid partisanship - Janet Reno acknowledges the moral bankruptcy of her Florida run for governor.
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