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July 31, 2005

Cats and Dogs


Click on the cartoon to see the full sized image.

Thanks to Paola van Loon for sending this my way.

Posted by Steven at 07:45 PM | Comments (0)

July 30, 2005

Jesus and the Me Generation

Harper's has an excellent essay this month on Being Christian in America. The main thrust of the piece is that self-proclaimed "Christians" in America are more selfish and narcissist that ever and that this runs counter to the core tenets of Christianity.

This Christian nation also tends to make personal, as opposed to political, choices that the Bible would seem to frown upon. Despite the Sixth Commandment, we are, of course, the most violent rich nation on earth, with a murder rate four or five times that of our European peers. We have prison populations greater by a factor of six or seven than other rich nations (which at least should give us plenty of opportunity for visiting the prisoners). Having been told to turn the other cheek, we’re the only Western democracy left that executes its citizens, mostly in those states where Christianity is theoretically strongest. Despite Jesus’ strong declarations against divorce, our marriages break up at a rate—just over half—that compares poorly with the European Union’s average of about four in ten. That average may be held down by the fact that Europeans marry less frequently, and by countries, like Italy, where divorce is difficult; still, compare our success with, say, that of the godless Dutch, whose divorce rate is just over 37 percent. Teenage pregnancy? We’re at the top of the charts. Personal self-discipline—like, say, keeping your weight under control? Buying on credit? Running government deficits? Do you need to ask?

Joe Bob sez, "Buy the magazine to get the other story about election fraud in Ohio."

Posted by Steven at 10:25 AM | Comments (0)

July 29, 2005

Gitmo and Abu Ghraib

Editorial from the Washington Post:

FOR 15 MONTHS now the Bush administration has insisted that the horrific photographs of abuse from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq were the result of freelance behavior by low-level personnel and had nothing to do with its policies. In this the White House has been enthusiastically supported by the Army brass, which has conducted investigations documenting hundreds of cases of prisoner mistreatment in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but denies that any of its senior officers are culpable. For some time these implacable positions have been glaringly at odds with the known facts. In the past few days, those facts have grown harder to ignore.

The latest evidence has emerged from hearings at Fort Meade about two of those low-level Abu Ghraib guards who are charged with using dogs to terrorize Iraqi detainees. On Wednesday, the former warden of Abu Ghraib, Maj. David DiNenna, testified that the use of dogs for interrogation was recommended by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, the former commander of the Guantanamo Bay prison who was dispatched by the Pentagon to Abu Ghraib in August 2003 to review the handling and interrogation of prisoners. On Tuesday, a military interrogator testified that he had been trained in using dogs by a team sent to Iraq by Gen. Miller.


In statements to investigators and in sworn testimony to Congress last year, Gen. Miller denied that he recommended the use of dogs for interrogation, or that they had been used at Guantanamo. "No methods contrary to the Geneva Convention were presented at any time by the assistance team that I took to [Iraq]," he said under oath on May 19, 2004. Yet Army investigators reported to Congress this month that, under Gen. Miller's supervision at Guantanamo, an al Qaeda suspect named Mohamed Qahtani was threatened with snarling dogs, forced to wear women's underwear on his head and led by a leash attached to his chains -- the very abuse documented in the Abu Ghraib photographs.

The court evidence strongly suggests that Gen. Miller lied about his actions, and it merits further investigation by prosecutors and Congress. But the Guantanamo commander was not acting on his own: The interrogation of Mr. Qahtani, investigators found, was carried out under rules approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Dec. 2, 2002. After strong protests from military lawyers, the Rumsfeld standards -- which explicitly allowed nudity, the use of dogs and shackling -- were revised in April 2003. Yet the same practices were later adopted at Abu Ghraib, at least in part at the direct instigation of Gen. Miller. "We understood," Maj. DiNenna testified, "that [Gen. Miller] was sent over by the secretary of defense."

Posted by mjones at 12:25 AM | Comments (0)

July 28, 2005

Costco, the Anti-Walmart

The New York Times has a fascinating essay on Costco, calling it "the anti-Wal-Mart".

Read the essay here.

Combining high quality with stunningly low prices, the shirts appeal to upscale customers - and epitomize why some retail analysts say Mr. Sinegal just might be America's shrewdest merchant since Sam Walton.

But not everyone is happy with Costco's business strategy. Some Wall Street analysts assert that Mr. Sinegal is overly generous not only to Costco's customers but to its workers as well.

Costco's average pay, for example, is $17 an hour, 42 percent higher than its fiercest rival, Sam's Club. And Costco's health plan makes those at many other retailers look Scroogish. One analyst, Bill Dreher of Deutsche Bank, complained last year that at Costco "it's better to be an employee or a customer than a shareholder."

Mr. Sinegal begs to differ. He rejects Wall Street's assumption that to succeed in discount retailing, companies must pay poorly and skimp on benefits, or must ratchet up prices to meet Wall Street's profit demands.

Good wages and benefits are why Costco has extremely low rates of turnover and theft by employees, he said. And Costco's customers, who are more affluent than other warehouse store shoppers, stay loyal because they like that low prices do not come at the workers' expense. "This is not altruistic," he said. "This is good business."

He also dismisses calls to increase Costco's product markups. Mr. Sinegal, who has been in the retailing business for more than a half-century, said that heeding Wall Street's advice to raise some prices would bring Costco's downfall.

"When I started, Sears, Roebuck was the Costco of the country, but they allowed someone else to come in under them," he said. "We don't want to be one of the casualties. We don't want to turn around and say, 'We got so fancy we've raised our prices,' and all of a sudden a new competitor comes in and beats our prices."

Posted by Steven at 01:39 PM | Comments (0)

July 26, 2005

Prosecutor's Net Widens in Plame Investigation

It just got a little bit hotter in the Bush White House today, as the Washington Post is reporting that the number of Bush WH staff interviewed by the investigation is wider than previously thought.

Prosecutors have questioned former CIA director George J. Tenet and deputy director John E. McLaughlin, former CIA spokesman Bill Harlow, State Department officials, and even a stranger who approached columnist Robert D. Novak on the street.

In doing so, special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has asked not only about how CIA operative Valerie Plame's name was leaked but also how the administration went about shifting responsibility from the White House to the CIA for having included 16 words in the 2003 State of the Union address about Iraqi efforts to acquire uranium from Africa, an assertion that was later disputed.

Most of the questioning of CIA and State Department officials took place in 2004, the sources said.

The suspense is killing me ... when will Rove be Frog Marched?

Posted by Steven at 11:36 PM | Comments (0)

China Taking Science Lead From U.S.

This article details new findings with respect to China's enormous advantage in maturing and training scientists and engineers, and how this will impact the United States.

According to a working paper of the National Bureau of Economic Research, rapid development of a science and technology base by populous Asian countries soon may threaten the economic position of the United States. Not only is the U.S. losing ground in high technology exports, but its very capacity to develop new technologies is declining rapidly with respect to the rest of the world. According to Richard Freeman, the paper's author, the sheer population of Asian countries may allow them to train more scientists and engineers than the U.S. while devoting a smaller share of their economy to science and technology.

Are you sure you wanna teach Scripture over Science?

Posted by Steven at 04:03 PM | Comments (0)

July 24, 2005

"Eight Days in July"

Frank Rich, writing in the New York Times this Sunday, has succinctly summarized the Rove/Plame situation.

But the scandal has metastasized so much at this point that the forgotten man Mr. Bush did not nominate to the Supreme Court is as much a window into the White House's panic and stonewalling as its haste to put forward the man he did. When the president decided not to replace Sandra Day O'Connor with a woman, why did he pick a white guy and not nominate the first Hispanic justice, his friend Alberto Gonzales? Mr. Bush was surely not scared off by Gonzales critics on the right (who find him soft on abortion) or left (who find him soft on the Geneva Conventions). It's Mr. Gonzales's proximity to this scandal that inspires real fear.

As White House counsel, he was the one first notified that the Justice Department, at the request of the C.I.A., had opened an investigation into the outing of Joseph Wilson's wife. That notification came at 8:30 p.m. on Sept. 29, 2003, but it took Mr. Gonzales 12 more hours to inform the White House staff that it must "preserve all materials" relevant to the investigation. This 12-hour delay, he has said, was sanctioned by the Justice Department, but since the department was then run by John Ashcroft, a Bush loyalist who refused to recuse himself from the Plame case, inquiring Senate Democrats would examine this 12-hour delay as closely as an 18½-minute tape gap. "Every good prosecutor knows that any delay could give a culprit time to destroy the evidence," said Senator Charles Schumer, correctly, back when the missing 12 hours was first revealed almost two years ago. A new Gonzales confirmation process now would have quickly devolved into a neo-Watergate hearing. Mr. Gonzales was in the thick of the Plame investigation, all told, for 16 months.

Thus is Mr. Gonzales's Supreme Court aspiration the first White House casualty of this affair. It won't be the last. When you look at the early timeline of this case, rather than the latest investigatory scraps, two damning story lines emerge and both have legs.

Joe Bob sez, "check it out!"

Posted by Steven at 02:31 PM | Comments (0)

July 23, 2005

Armstrong Poised to Take 7th Tour de France

Finally, some good news, and its about sports and (perhaps most amazingly) France. We've been following the Tour with baited breath, as some of our editorial staff are in Austin and almost all are in Texas (surprised?). We haven't posted anything for fear of "jinxing" Lance. It looks like our efforts have paid off, as Lance is poised to win tomorrow.

I wish I could be in Austin tomorrow when he does win, making history and possibly putting down a record that will never be beat. Way to go Lance (and to all you in Plano, a big PTTHTHTP for running him off in the eighties ... nice shoot'n, Tex).

Update

Lance wins for a seventh consecutive time! He's set a record that will likely stand for a long, long time (hey, at least seven more years). The SJR salutes a true American hero who over came cancer and "Old Europe" prejudice to win the top cycling trophy for seven years running.

Posted by Steven at 02:17 PM | Comments (0)

July 21, 2005

Iraq, GIS and IEDs

Check out this website for one of the most dramatic uses of GIS (geographic information systems) I've seen in a while.

Posted by Steven at 04:06 PM | Comments (0)

July 19, 2005

Reject Twisted Logic! Heck, Reject All Logic!

Two thirds of British citizens believe that Tony Blair deserves at least some responsibility for the London terrorist bombing, due to his decision to participate in the invasion and occupation of Iraq. A poll just published in the UK Guardian newspaper, shows that only 28% of Brits reject any connection between the Iraq war and the London bombing. This 28% includes Prime Minster Tony Blair.

It really should come as no surprise that Tony Blair is a vocal member of the "it's not Tony Blair's fault," faction, but the other constituents of the 28% are a little more baffling.

The day of the bombings, one fellow 28%-er, Christopher Hitchens, delivered another in his continuing series of comically obtuse opinion peices. In this article, he weakens the case for an Iraq war connection by offering some genuinely plausible alternative motivations. Hitchens' article is certainly interesting, but there really isn't any need to speculate about the terrorists' agenda.

Shortly after the bombings, a radical Islamist web site published a statement from the perpetrators that explicitly cited British military action in Iraq and Afghanistan as the primary provocation for their actions. This shouldn't have come as surprise to anyone.

Since the start of the Iraq war, there has been a geometric increase in the frequency and intensity of terrorist attacks worldwide. It is only logical that this increased threat would affect the countries responsible for that war, and many analysts, including those in MI6 and the CIA, predicted terrorist reprisals exactly like the London bombing. Why shouldn't we accept a conclusion that is both obvious and explicit?

Because that's just what the terrorists want you to do!

During a a press conference with Bush-selected Afghan leader, Hamid Karzai, Blair explained the folly of giving in to rational thought:

Of course these terrorists will use Iraq as an excuse. They will use Afghanistan.

Sept. 11 happened of course before both of these things, and then the excuse was American policy, or Israel. They will always have their reasons for acting. But we have got to be really careful of almost giving in to the perverted and twisted logic with which they argue.

Really, the bottom line is that you never know when your logic might turn out to be perverted and twisted, so it's best to avoid logic entirely.

Blair recites one of the favorite "no connection" talking points, reminding his audience that the terrorists found excuses for their actions before they had Iraq. An obvious British example would be IRA terrorism which clearly had no connection to Iraq. Of course, that would be a bad example, because Britain ended 30 years of Irish terrorism by finally agreeing to address some of those "reasons" the separatists kept bringing up. Instead, Blair hopes that throwing Israel in the mix will underscore his assertion that terrorists' stated agendas are irrational and arbitrary.

Blair wants people to see that linking terrorist attacks in London to British Middle East policy, is just as absurd as linking terrorist attacks in New York to American Middle East policy. When you look at it that way, you are forced to conclude that the 28% of the British public who agree with Blair are complete imbeciles.

Posted by Winston Smith at 06:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 15, 2005

Bush Admin Exposed Al-Qaeda Mole Who Knew London Bombers

Over at Ameriblog there is a comprehensive explaination of the Bush Administration's connection to the London Bombing.

ABC News just reported that the British authorities say they have evidence that the London attacks last week were an operation planned by Al Qaeda for the last two years. This was an operation the Brits thought they caught and stopped in time, but they were wrong. The piece of the puzzle ABC missed is that this is an operation the Bush administration helped botch last year.

I.e., last year Bush botched the effort to thwart the London subway attacks.

1. The London bombers, per ABC, are connected to an Al Qaeda plot planned two years ago in Lahore, Pakistan.

2. Pakistani authorities recovered the laptop of a captured Al Qaeda leader, Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, on July 13, 2004. On that laptop, they found plans for a coordinated series of attacks on the London subway. According to an expert interviewed by ABC, "there is absolutely no doubt that Khan was part of a worldwide Al Qaeda operation, not just in the United States but also in Great Britain and throughout the west."

So basically, in their zeal to show a trophy Al-Qaeda head just in front of the DNC, they ruined the only reliable mole in Al-Qaeda we had. And now the result is we could have prevented the Bombing in London. I wonder how well this will go down with Tony Blair's constituents?

Posted by Steven at 03:36 PM | Comments (0)

July 13, 2005

Rove's Leaking

'nuff said?

Posted by Steven at 03:05 PM | Comments (0)

July 12, 2005

Al Qaeda's Nuclear Family

In January 26, 2003, Bill Whittle, one of many pro-war pundits, posted his latest work on his web site, where it was lauded by his loyal fanbase. Following its one-word title, “War,” was a passionate and personal reiteration of the case for invading Iraq, in which Whittle centers on a specific, terrifying scenario:

Let us then examine the evidence and motivation that firmly places Iraq as the key component in an alliance of terror directed against the West in general and the United States in particular.

We should begin by having the honesty and integrity to admit that the direct connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda prior to the events of 9/11 are tenuous and murky at best. ... But to say that this is enough to prevent them from allying themselves against the United States is self-delusion of the highest order.

...

Anyone who doubts the willingness and ability of Al Qaeda to deploy and use [a portable “briefcase” nuclear weapon] has frankly not been paying attention and is unworthy of this debate.

...

A finished nuke can fit in a suitcase, but to build one takes a factory, indeed, takes a nation: money, massive equipment, large work areas, armies of scientists. These things, unlike suitcases, can be found, targeted and destroyed.

There can be no question whatsoever that Saddam Hussein has been desperately seeking the means to build such a weapon.

Ironically, it turns out that there is no question whatsoever that Saddam Hussein wasn't at all interested in developing such a weapon. Furthermore, despite no new information connecting Iraq and Al Qaeda, the pro-war partisans are no longer admitting that the connection is tenuous. In fact, in Whittle's most recent work, “Sanctuary (part 1),” he describes Iraq as, “a nation awash in Ba’athist murderers, Al Qaeda savages and former Saddam secret policemen.” (On a side note, it's worth reading the prose I deleted for brevity — it's hilarious.)

The most compelling case linking Al Qaeda and Hussein's Iraq is presented in The Connection : How al Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America by Stephen F. Hayes. According to the write-up from Publishers Weekly, the case is still murky, but compelling, “Hayes allows that some of these stories may prove unreliable. But he contends that the number, consistency and varied provenance of reports of high-level contacts between al-Qaeda and Iraq throughout the past decade allows one to 'connect the dots' into a clear pattern of collaboration.” Reader reviews suggest that the perceived credibility of Hayes' dots and their connections closely correlates with the reader's enthusiam for the Iraq War.

Even if you accept all of Hayes' allegations, you end up with a link between two entities with almost nothing to gain from an alliance. Although it's arguable that Saddam Hussein may have supported Osama bin Laden's anti-American activities, there wasn't anything that Iraq had to offer Al Qaeda that it didn't already have — particularly nuclear weapons.

Even Laurie Mylroie's discredited theory connecting Iraq to the 1993 WTC bombing, fails to connect Al Qaeda to an Iraq that had nuclear weapons, so why would anyone have concluded that the was a threat of Iraq passing nuclear weapons to Al Qaeda? Even the case allegeding a risk of chemical and biological weapon transfer is weak.

As it turns out there is not only a well-documented, albeit indirect, connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, but a connection which could have brought Iraqi nuclear weapons into the hands of Osama bin Laden himself. Was this what drove the concern?

No, the connection I'm talking about has gotten almost no exposure at all. Dire predictions of the certain doom we faced should America ignore the urgent need to invade Iraq — like Whittle's above — were born of simple ignorance and fear.

Let's start there.

The Farcical Mushroom Cloud

Before I introduce some new elements, let's get a clear picture of the reality of Saddam Hussein's post-1991 Gulf War nuclear program.

Prior to the invasion of Iraq in March, 2003, proponents of military action underscored the urgency of toppling the Hussein regime with ominous assessments of Iraqi nuclear capability. One of the quintessential examples, is the October, 7th, 2002 “Mushroom Cloud” speech by President Bush:

The inspectors discovered that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a workable nuclear weapon, and was pursuing several different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb.

Before being barred from Iraq in 1998, the International Atomic Energy Agency dismantled extensive nuclear weapons-related facilities, including three uranium-enrichment sites.

That same year, information from a high-ranking Iraqi nuclear engineer who had defected, revealed that despite his public promises, Saddam Hussein had ordered his nuclear program to continue. The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.

Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his "nuclear mujahedeen" — his nuclear holy warriors.

Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past.

Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.

If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy, or steal an amount of highly-enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year.

Even when it was delivered, the claims made by the speech were not credible. Just a few months earlier — with the full cooperation of Iraqi officials — the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) conducted an inspection tour, which found no evidence of any active Iraqi nuclear program.

Bush apologists might counter that the Iraq had hidden programs, missed by the IAEA, there is still the fact that the survey audited sites cataloged as “part of its nuclear program in the past,” yet saw none of the renovation Bush claims is visible in the satellite images.

The omission of such compelling, contrary evidence is dishonest, and the misleading implication that Iraq had been refusing to comply with the IAEA since 1998 is doubly so. Eventually, nearly every single claim in this excerpt would prove to be conclusively false, and the dishonest character of the speech makes it easy to believe that the Administration knew that at the time.

No Nukes

At the end of March, 2005, the the credibility of an Iraqi nuclear threat suffered a final knockout from a one-two punch in the form of two final reports from Bush-sanctioned working groups. The report from the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, concluded that. “that the intelligence community was dead wrong in almost all of its prewar judgments about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.” Big surprise.

This report detailed the ineptitude that contributed to this debacle, including the extensive reliance on a source codenamed “Curveball,” who wasn't considered trustworthy to begin with. Although it received less media fanfare, the second publication revealed that claims of any viable Iraqi nuclear program could not have possibly been corroborated by any authentic source.

In their terminal publication, Addenda to the Comprehensive Report, the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) addressed lingering proliferation issues, including the dispersal of Iraq's nuclear engineering talent. A large part of this exodus was the result of low morale; Iraq was no longer capable of pursuing either peaceful or military nuclear projects and the scientists had nothing to do. The narrative detailing Saddam Hussein's efforts to improve morale, and retain this talent, included this anecdote:

Early in 1998, Huwaysh said Saddam ordered him to take over what remained of Iraq’s nuclear power generation program. According to Huwaysh, he strenuously disagreed, finally convincing Saddam that to do so would further isolate Iraq’s nuclear scientists from their international counterparts, by creating the impression that Iraq’s nuclear program was focused primarily on military applications. Saddam rescinded his order.

This anecdote demonstrates that the Iraqi nuclear program was not only moribund, but that Saddam Hussein was making an effort to avoid any appearance to the contrary.

Iraqi Nuclear Reality

As the ISG report repeated states, a combination of 1991 Gulf War air strikes and UNSCOM-ordered demolition, completely dismantled Iraq's nuclear program circa 1991. With Saddam Hussein actively avoiding anything resembling a nuclear weapons program, was there any reason to suspect that he had one? Well, we had been surprised before.

In the aforementioned speech, President Bush explains, “Before the Gulf War, the best intelligence indicated that Iraq was eight to 10 years away from developing a nuclear weapon; after the war, international inspectors learned that the regime had been much closer. The regime in Iraq would likely have possessed a nuclear weapon no later than 1993.” This, ladies and gentlemen, is an actual fact.

In 1976, France — the nuclear sluts of the late 20th Century — contracted to build Iraq's Osirak nuclear power plant. In1981, an intelligence analyst named Jonathan Pollard noticed the Osirak facility on a satellite image, and passed the image to Israeli intelligence which had been granted blanket access to U.S. satellite intelligence. The Israelis promptly dispatched bombers to destroy the Osirak plant, which pissed everyone off.

The U.N. called on Israel to submit to monitoring of its nuclear program, which it refused to do. Pollard was convicted of spying for an friendly government, a crime that usual nets a seven-year prison sentence. Pollard got a life sentence which he has been serving in solitary confinement for the last 25 years.

After the loss of the Osirak plant, intelligence assessments echoed the common conclusion that Iraq's nuclear program had been effectively destroyed. A declassified 1983 Defense Intelligence Agency assessment speculates that Iraq might be able to fabricate a working nuclear warhead by “the 1990's,” but finds no evidence of a viable nuclear program at the time. So what happened between 1983 and 1990? Obviously, Iraq beefed up its program, but how did it manage to do this without drawing attention from the U.S. or IAEA?

The answer is in the dots that connect Iraq, nuclear weapons and Al Qaeda. These dots, and their connections, were reveled in 1994.

Connect the Dots

In July 1994, then secretary of the Saudi mission to the United Nations, Mohammed Khilevi, defected from Saudi Arabia. Khilevi proceeded to furnish the IAEA with 10,000 pages of documentation relating to Saudi Arabia's attempts to obtain nuclear capability. The documentation revealed a long-standing nuclear collaboration between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan in which the Saudis provided Pakistan funding in the form of cash outlays, and free oil, in return for access to nuclear capability.

These dots, backed up by Khilevi's 10,000 page disclosure, connect Al Qaeda's Saudi backers with Al Qaeda's Pakistani backers, raising concerns of terrorist access to nuclear weapons that are both alarming, and realistic. Further details of this disturbing state of affairs can be found in this Asia Times article. The article cites a particularly interesting arrangement that existed from 1985 to 1990.

At this time, the Saudi/Pakistani nuclear connection was a successfully-kept secret. Any attempt to transfer actual devices from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia included a substantial risk of detection, particularly by the U.S.

Not all countries were subject to such scrutiny. Just to the north of Saudi Arabia, was a country that was engaged in all sorts of nefarious weapons production, and the U.S. was deliberately turning a blind eye. In a declassified State Department memo from Spring 1984, Dick Gronet, a State Department official responsible for anti-proliferation issues, dispatched a memo calling for easing of restrictions so that Iraq could legitimately procure “dual-use” nuclear technology. I don't believe that Gronet's suggestion was approved, but it is irrefutable that from 1985-1990, Iraq's nuclear program made considerable progress toward the development of a nuclear weapon.

The advanced state of the program was revealed by UNSCOM inspection. The fact that Iraq's amazing progress began in 1985 was revealed by Mohammed Khilevi. Among the revelations found in his pilfered Saudi papers, was that from 1985 to 1990, Saudi Arabia paid Saddam Hussein's regime over $5 billion to develop a nuclear bomb.

Since 9/11 many dots have lead back to Saudi Arabia, and time and time again, Saudi involvement in what is supposedly America's number one threat — terrorism — is swept under the carpet by the Bush Administration.

Epilogue

Another thing happened in the mid-1990's that casts Saddam Hussein's nuclear ambitions into utter irrelevance. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, along with the United Arab Emirates, recognized a new faction as the legitimate government of Afghanistan: the Taliban. Additionally, Osama bin Laden, now exiled from the Arabian Peninsula, became an honored guest in the Taliban's regime. While the Iraqi “dot” in the nuclear puzzle was erased in 1991, all the other dots remain intact and there's no evidence that George W. Bush is going to do anything about it.

Posted by Winston Smith at 07:46 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 11, 2005

Dogpile on Scotty McClellan

Today's White House Press conference sounded almost like a real one, with grown up reporters asking hard questions even!

MCCLELLAN: If you’ll let me finish.

QUESTION: No, you’re not finishing. You’re not saying anything.
You stood at that podium and said that Karl Rove was not involved. And now we find out that he spoke about Joseph Wilson’s wife. So don’t you owe the American public a fuller explanation. Was he involved or was he not? Because contrary to what you told the American people, he did indeed talk about his wife, didn’t he?

MCCLELLAN: There will be a time to talk about this, but now is not the time to talk about it.

QUESTION: Do you think people will accept that, what you’re saying today?

MCCLELLAN: Again, I’ve responded to the question.

QUESTION: You’re in a bad spot here, Scott…
(LAUGHTER)
… because after the investigation began — after the criminal investigation was under way — you said, October 10th, 2003, I spoke with those individuals, Rove, Abrams and Libby. As I pointed out, those individuals assured me they were not involved in this, from that podium. That’s after the criminal investigation began.

Now that Rove has essentially been caught red-handed peddling this information, all of a sudden you have respect for the sanctity of the criminal investigation.

MCCLELLAN: No, that’s not a correct characterization. And I think you are well aware of that.
We know each other very well. And it was after that period that the investigators had requested that we not get into commenting on an ongoing criminal investigation.

And we want to be helpful so that they can get to the bottom of this. Because no one wants to get to the bottom of it more than the president of the United States.

I am well aware of what was said previously. I remember well what was said previously. And at some point I look forward to talking about it. But until the investigation is complete, I’m just not going to do that.

Sucks to work for lying liars, don't it Scotty?

Watch the video here.

Posted by Steven at 04:51 PM | Comments (0)

July 08, 2005

UK Home Secretary On Drugs

The UK Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, says that there is no connection between the War in Iraq and yesterday's bombings in London. Suuuuure. Riiiiiight. What a delusional git.

He said the bombers wanted to destroy the "very essence of our society".

Mr Clarke said: "There is no evidence [it] had anything to do with the Iraq war... of course it may have done and we'll have to see."

Anti-war MP George Galloway has said Londoners "had paid the price" of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr Clarke told the BBC that any conflicts or wars could increase tensions, but said those tensions could exist anyway.

He said: "The fact is that the people who make these kind of attacks are about destroying the very essence of our society: our democracy, our media, our multicultural society and so on.

"That's not about Iraq or any other particular foreign policy issue, it's about a fundamentalist attack on the way we live our lives."

You keep thinking that, Mr. Secretary, while Al-Qaeda prepares another round of bombing.

Posted by Steven at 11:04 AM | Comments (0)

July 05, 2005

Buckley Reinvents the Illuminati as “The Talibanate”

On July 1st columnist and editor of The New Republic, William F. Buckley Jr. showed disturbing signs of encroaching senility as he wandered aimlessly out of the select company of the conservative cognoscenti, only to be found ambling through Ann Coulter's neighborhood muttering paranoid gibberish.

In the latter half on his essay, Iraqi Doubts, Buckley quote san otherwise anonymous “student of the war,” who poses the following rhetorical challenge , “Surely we know that hardly any of the insurgents (if any at all) that we are now fighting in Iraq had any connection whatsoever to 9/11. The claim that we are fighting today the same war that began on 9/11 makes sense only on the assumption that in some more-than-metaphysical sense, the entire Arab-Muslim world was complicit in the 9/11 attacks. Perhaps this assumption is defensible, but it is at the very least not obvious, and needs to be spelled out."

Buckley addresses this question with only three paragraphs — one only a single line — in which he coins the term “Talibanate.” This term co-opts the near-universal support for the use of American military force against the Taliban and attempts to extend it to Iraq.

It's readily apparent that Bill was “phoning it in” on this composition; as described, “The Talibanate” are the same aggregation of foes — both real and imagined — that the rabid right has dubbed “Islamo-fascists.” Although it has gained some popularity, this latter term is the kind of combination of ungainly verbiage and overwrought implication that makes it a shibboleth of mindless ideologues. With public opinion turning against the war, Buckley's contrivance will meet the growing need for pro-war opinions that sound like they came from genuine smart people. As an added bonus is that it avoids confusing its intended subject — uncooperative Muslims — with Muslim Nazis, such as Iraq's Yunis Al Sabawi.

Of course, the prospects of Talibanate entering the lexicon ultimately rest on the credibility of its link between the Taliban and Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Here, again, Buckley illustrates the benefits of a classical education by employing a tried and true rhetorical mechanism: the conspiracy theory.

The Conspiracy Theory As Artform

Manufactured from fact, legend and specious induction, these mythologies are so ubiquitous in American culture that many Americans automatically dismiss anything they don't already believe as a “conspiracy theory.”

The belief that all criticisms of President George W. Bush are cynical inventions of his political enemies inspired one web site to create The George Bush Conspiracy Theory Generator assist people in emulating Bush critics such as Michael Moore and Al Franken. In a June 21st, 2005 Slate article, entitled Conspiracy Theory (no less), essayist and social critic, Christopher Hitchens dutifully acknowledges the suspicious convenience associated with dismissing an accusation as a “conspiracy theory”:

I am not one of those who uses the term "conspiracy theory" as an automatic sneer of dismissal. Conspiracies do occur. I spent a lot of my life at one point trying to show that William Casey of the Reagan-era CIA had made a private deal with the Iranian hostage-takers in 1979, inducing them to keep their prisoners until the Carter administration had been defeated, and I still firmly believe that something of the sort (which eventually culminated in the Iran-Contra underworld) was at least attempted. So do many senior members of both parties in Washington, with whom I am still in touch.

To illustrate the degree of absurdity he considers characteristic of a legitimate conspiracy theory, Hitchens references the explicitly fictional conspiracies detailed in Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code as well a couple of the latest additions to the canon of far-fetched 9/11 scenarios. The point of this amusing foray into the fringes of American culture is to lend an air of authority to Hitchens' attempt to dismiss the furor surrounding the so-called Downing Street Memo as a conspiracy theory.

The ensuing case is incoherent and condescending, and becomes what I can only hope is deliberate self-satire when it confidently asserts, “the English employ the word 'fix' in a slightly different way.”

Even if this were true, the meaning of “fix” in the Downing Street Memo is unambiguous given the surrounding context. Freakishly selective analysis and contortionist semantics are hallmarks of the B-grade conspiracy theory, and Brits have understandably met the “English meaning of fix” theory with well-derserved derisive ridicule.

Returning to the Talibanate, I'm hoping to succeed at what Hitchens attempted: to illustrate the characteristics of a conspiracy theory and then demonstrate why my subject — Buckley's essay — fits the pattern. Hitchens' fundamental misapprehension — a common one — is that conspiracy theories support unlikely, often absurdly unlikely, beliefs. Without a doubt, applying Occam's razor to most conspiracy theories inflicts upon them fatal injury, but they do not have to irrational or silly, just unfalsifiable.

To understand the prominence of the conspiracy theory in American culture, and to recognize its true form, you have to return to America's first decade as a fully-formed nation, and examine how American politics were impacted by the very first conspiracy scare.  This incident, dubbed the “New England Illuminati Scare,” became a blueprint of the modern American conspiracy theory, as well as remaining a component of many of them.

The 1790s

With the turmoil surrounding the French Revolution serving as a fertile incubator, 1790's Europe cultivated what became a series of successive conspiracy theories that dominated 19th Century European politics.

One of the recognized progenitors of these paranoid tales was authored by James Robinson, a Scottish University professor, under the title Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Governments of Europe, Carried on in the Secret Meetings of Freemasons, Illuminati, and Reading Societies.

After his original publication, Robinson discovered nearly identical claims in the the work of the Abbé Barruel, a member of the Jesuit Society, who published a four-volume work entitled "Mémoires pour servir a l'histoire du Jacobinisme." In 1798, after Barruel published his fourth volume, Robinson essentially appended the concurring portions of it to his work and issued a new edition.

This book found its way to America and fell into the hands of Jebediah Morse, a preacher in New England. In 1798, many New Englanders were unhappy with the direction being taken by the nascent American government, and suspicions that the Revolution was being betrayed provided fertile ground for conspiracy theories. Over the next two years Morse delivered three sermons, and published about a dozen newspaper editorials promoting the allegations made by Robinson's book.

More was greeted with ridicule, scorn and copious citations of European publications that had already thoroughly debunked Robinson and Barruel's works. In 1799, Morse conducted a hunt for the Illuminati Lodges that Robinson claimed to exist in Virginia. Morse, a fiercely partisan Federalist, was eager to uncover Illuminati subversion in the home state of Democrats such as Thomas Jefferson, but his entire campaign collapsed when his trip found nothing whatsoever.

Josaih Parker, a Virginia Congressman who had been pestered by Morse, noted:

Henceforth, the reverberations of the controversy, with a single exception, were to be of the nature of jibes and flings on the part of irritated and disgusted Democrats who adopted the position that the controversy over the illuminati had been introduced into American politics to serve purely partisan ends.

So, in a very literal sense, the New England Illuminati Scare of 1798-1799 was the "Swift Boat Smear" against Thomas Jefferson's campaign.  Of course, in that time, Presidential elections were decided by learned men in state legislatures, not by propaganda-dazed electorates unwilling or unable to exhibit a capacity for critical thought, so this smear failed to stop Jefferson from winning.

When the English-language edition of Barruel's work, entitled “Anti-Social Conspiracy” arrived in later in 1799, it was greeted with indifference. Shortly before he was sworn in as America's 3rd President, Thomas Jefferson made the following comment in a letter to Bishop James Madison of Philadelphia:

I have lately by accident got a sight of a single volume (the 3d.) of the Abbe Barruel's "Antisocial conspiracy," which gives me the first idea I have ever had of what is meant by the Illuminatism against which 'illuminate Morse' as he is now called, & his ecclesiastical & monarchical associates have been making such a hue and cry.

Barruel's own parts of the book are perfectly the ravings of a Bedlamite. But he quotes largely from Wishaupt[sic] whom he considers as the founder of what he calls the order. As you may not have had an opportunity of forming a judgment of this cry of "mad dog" which has been raised against his doctrines, I will give you the idea I have formed from only an hour's reading of Barruel's quotations from him, which you may be sure are not the most favorable. Wishaupt[sic] seems to be an enthusiastic Philanthropist.

Jefferson continues his favorable review of Adam Weishaupt's Illuminism and speculates that the climate of political and theological repression in Bavaria forced the Illuminati to pursue their agenda in secret, which ultimately fed the suspicions about them. This was, in fact, an accurate assessment, as Weishaupt reacted to a 1784 prohibition against secrecy societies by make a complete disclosure of the Illuminati's practices to Bavarian authorities. His candor was summarily rewarded with a 1785 decree outlawing the Illuminati explicitly.

Clearly, Hitchens could benefit from a study of this episode. In fact, a through study of the many events in Jefferson's life that reinforced his dedication to open and accountable government might spare Hitchens from authoring another apoplectic apologetic for the crypto-fascist behavior of the Bush and Blair administrations.

Then again, maybe not.

Just over a month ago, HarperCollins published Hitchens' Thomas Jefferson : Author of America, about which Publishers Weekly gushed:

Presenting countless excerpts from Jefferson's writings, Hitchens closely analyzes the President's words to reveal the Enlightenment ideas that shaped American policy, such as the separation of church and state and the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. This opinionated, lively narrative sheds light not only on Jefferson's complex personality but on the politics of his time, making it both a fascinating character study and an excellent review of early American history.

Reader reviews suggest that Hichens' book focuses on Jefferson's relationship with slavery, and to one slave in particular. My favorite reader comment, though, argues that the actual author of America is Jon Stewart and that Jefferson only wrote the foreward.

Well, back to actual American history.

By the time of Jefferson's letter to Bishop Madison, Reverend Morse had completely dropped the issue of the Illuminati, their alleged infiltration of the American government and its subversion to their evil plans of world domination. It's hard to imagine how the Illuminati scare could have been more thoroughly discredited, yet the conspiracy story re-emerged in the 1830's and has continued to maintain a devoted following into the 21st Century.

This seems an obvious vindication of P.T. Barnum's famous observation that “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public,” but it turns out that the endurance of this particular myth may be due to the fact that much of what Barruel and Robinson say about the Illuminati is based in actual fact.

The 1780s

The Illuminati was chartered on May 1st, 1776 by a Adam Weishaupt, a professor at the University of Ingolstadt. Original dubbed the “Society of Perfectibles,” it proposed to reform society by creating a path to “illumination” which would bring its practitioners to a state of unblemished virtue. In this enlightened condition, they be so reliably moral, that no system of laws or external authority would be needed to govern them. Weishaupt believed that by promoting rationalism, science and equality among all people (including women), humankind would advance to a point where nationalism and religion would become obsolete.

As Jefferson observes in the previously-quoted letter, these views weren't substantially different than those expressed by British proto-anarchist, William Godwin, in his work An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice.This isn't entirely accurate; though Godwin was convinced that government did more harm than good, he never suggested that adopting his world view would result in all governments being replaced by a mystical global “order.” Hence, Godwin's efforts didn't produce any conspiracy theories, although he did produce a daughter who later wrote the classic novel, Frankestein.

Weishaupt's secret society attracted about 2000 notable — and notorious — Europeans before being disbanded by decrees against secret societies in 1784 and 1785. Adam Weishaupt lost his position at the University, and spent the rest of his life in exile (with pension).

In the latter 1780's, Weishaupt published a series of books detailing his beliefs, but these were largely ignored, particularly by Jesuit scholars who were busy claiming that the French revolution was the result of an Illuminati scheme to overthrow all world governments.

Weishaupt's Illuminati had infiltrated the Freemasons hoping to use the network of Masonic Lodges as a vehicle to spread their doctrine. The Freemasons were the subject of intense — and largely unfounded — speculation that their network of lodges was used to organize the French revolutionaries and facilitate the insurrection. Expanding on this widely-held suspicion both Robinson and Barruel established a connection between the French Masons and the Bavarian Illuminati through a visit to Paris by known Illuminati, Johan Joachim Christopher Bode.

In 1787, more than a year after the Bavarian Illumanti had ceased to exist, Bode attended a conference at the Masonic Lodge Philalèthes in Paris where he presented a paper denouncing the study of alchemy and the occult. Robinson and Burreul allege that during this visit, Bode met with noted French revolutionaries and imparted Illuminati orders concerning the Revolution. Each account, however, presents an entirely different set of participants and locations, and even dates — Robinson places it in early 1798.

Attempts to verify these meetings using Lodge membership rolls revealed that the authors had confused Masons who were declared loyalists with Revolutionaries that have similar names. Further glaring inaccuracies in both accounts leave little reason to believe that Bode's brief visit to Paris had any connection with, much less effect on, the French Revolution.

I should note that a contributing factor to the credibility of the American Illuminati conspiracy theory is that Thomas Jefferson was also in Paris from 1784-1789.  He was first dispatched as a trade negotiator, but soon took over as ambassador from Ben Franklin.  The fact that Jefferson's time in Paris exactly overlaps the years between the ending of the Bavarian Illuminati and the start of the French Revolution is, naturally, cited as proof positive that Weishaupt's agents conspired with and subverted Jefferson.  Perhaps Andrew C. McCarthy can churn out another 4-page polemic on that topic.

Back in 2005

So when William F. Buckley Jr. claims, “The involvement of the government of Iraq with the Talibanate was at many levels,” what the hell is he talking about? Buckley's short exposition cites “a 4-page essay on al-Qaeda and Iraq in National Review Online,” written by “former federal prosecutor,” Andrew C. McCarthy. So what does that put forth?

McCarthy's essay is a tedious, updated retelling of the mysterious tenure of a certain Ahmad Hikmat Shakir Azzawi, an Iraqi national, as Malaysian airlines “facilitator” tasked with helping foreign VIPs find their way around the airport in Kuala Lumpur.

U.S. intelligence first became aware of Azzawi, when he was identified as the recipient of a phone call placed from the New Jersey headquarters of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers. Considering the lengths to which the FBI went to pursue the 1993 bombing suspects, the fact that Azzawi garnered no further interest might be an indication that he wasn't involved in anything particularly interesting.

It could also be possible that the FBI is both too apathetic and too incompetent to follow an obvious lead. This is McCarthy's favored explanation and he labors to establish it in pretty much everything he's written on the subject. In fact, it's a critical component of his arguments.

Whatever the case, in 1999, someone at the Iraqi Embassy secured Azzawi the “facilitator” position with Malaysian airlines. In January 2000, Azzawi greeted two of the 9/11 hijackers, and unexpectedly joined them on the trip to their hotel, where he was last seen entering with the pair. Azzawi disappeared a couple of days later and was not seen again until he was arrested in Qatar just days after 9/11.

Much of this detail is actually found in the writings of Weekly Standard editor, Stephen Hayes, who published a book detailing Iraq/Al Qaeda links. McCarthy's essay spends half of its verbiage “updating” a statement he made in a June 17th, 2004, article: “[Azzawi] is also the Iraqi who now appears, based on records seized since the regime's fall, to have been all along an officer in Saddam's Fedayeen.” As it turns out, that conclusion was based on a listing that named a Lt. Colonel with a similar-sounding name, but, in fact, was not the same person. Sound familiar?

McCarthy's wordy re-iteration of the Malaysian mystery seeks to frame the loaded question that Buckley uses to characterize his essay, “'Do you have any good answer to what Ahmed Hikmat Shakir' — an Iraqi intelligence officer — 'was doing with the 9/11 hijackers in Kuala Lumpur,' at the meeting where 9/11 was plotted?”

Of course, the damning weight of this unanswered question depends on the fact that Ahmed Hikmat Shakir [Azzawi] is an Iraqi intelligence officer and that he attended the 9/11 planning meeting.

Does McCarthy assert these things? Pretty much. On what basis? On the basis of Stephen Hayes' investigation. So Hayes says these things? Well, he finds them the only logical conclusion.  McCarthy would no-doubt gleefully point out — were he on my side of this issue — that this isn't the same thing as claiming that Azzawi is an Iraqi agent or that he attended the planning meeting.

In fact, while Hayes clearly seeks to strengthen support for claims of an Iraq/Al Qaeda connection, he makes a visible effort to be honest about what he can and can't state with certainty; he even supplies plausible alternative conclusions.  For example, he admits the possibility that Azzawi was asked by the hijackers to accompany them because he was familiar with the city, so that his suprising departure from the airport was actual part of his regular job.

But didn't Azzawi attend the 9/11 planning meeting?

No one really knows; the last tangible piece of information is a surveillance cameras image showing Azzawi entering the hotel with the two terrorists, but he could very well have split off and left the hotel through an side exit.

So was he an Iraqi agent?

McCarthy repeatedly notes that Azzawi was placed in his Malaysian Airlines position by a suspected Iraqi intelligence agent, working at the Iraqi embassy. Furthermore, McCarthy compulsively reiterates — in a manner much like that of paranoid schizophrenics — that it was the embassy staff, and not Malaysian Airlines, who controlled Azzawi's work schedule. That certainly seems strange, but if it is, in fact, strange, why did Malaysian Airlines permit it? Is Malaysian Airlines in cahoots with Al Qaeda, too? I'm just speculating, but it seems possible to me that the services of someone tasked with meeting inbound foreign VIPs might be provided by the airline, yet coordinated through the embassies.

A CIA analyst who is identified as a subject-matter expert on Iraqi intelligence service (ISS) concluded that the pattern in this case did not fit the profile of an operation initiated on behalf of the ISS. Perhaps — and, again, I'm speculating — the position was pursued by Allawi, who naturally used contacts at his own nation's embassy to secure it. McCarthy rejects the CIA assessment by claiming that the CIA is incompetent and, furthermore, deliberately worked to avoid seeing obvious links between Iraqi intelligence and Al Qaeda.

McCarthy consistently relies on the supposed ineptitude of the intelligence agencies and intentional obfuscation of Iraq/Al Qaeda ties by the 9/11 Commission to explain how his conclusions diverge so radically from theirs. Furthermore, his incredulity at their inability to see what he deems “obvious,” is based on over-reaching interpretations of Hayes' findings which are decidedly speculative, even after Hayes pushes them as far toward his intended thesis as he can.

Of course, like any decent wingnut conspiracy theorist, McCarthy happily accepts CIA analysis that supports his assertions. After Allawi's arrest in Qatar, he was extradited to Sudan — for no specific reason — where the CIA paid him a visit. McCarthy and Hayes both ominously relay the CIA observation that Allawi had recieved anti-interogation training.

Presumably, this means that they tortured Allawi and didn't get anything out of him. Maybe he didn't have any information, but it's been established that the CIA has experience torturing innocent people, so they probably know the difference between an innocent bystander and a guilty agent who's torture-resistant. Then again, if McCarthy's tireless derision of CIA competence is to be believed, maybe they don't.

Another "proof" of Allawi's status as an Iraqi agent is that the Baghdad government pressured Sudan to release Allawi and return him to Iraq post haste. Both Hayes and McCarthy make a point of this, but Hayes includes further, key information. For several months before the Iraqi government got involved, Amnesty International had been conducting an international campaign on behalf of Allawi who — and no one disputes this — was being held and tortured in Sudan without charge.

To borrow McCarthy's idiom for one last time: I challenge him to find a meaningful qualitative difference between his ranting and that of Robinson or Barruel. Buckley's breezy reliance on McCarthy clearly puts Talibanate Buckley in league with Illuminate Morse.

Epilogue

The 1983 terrorist attack that killed 241 U.S. servicemen in Lebanon has been cited by some as the inaugural event in the “War on Terror.”

An inquiry determined that the attack was sponsored by the Iranian government, although Syria was likely involved as well, so you'd expect that recent calls for extending our Iraq campaign into Iran and Syria would at least mention it. An example of such an appeal appeared in the August 16th, 2004, edition National Review Online — the Internet stepchild Buckley's National Review magazine — and contributing editor Michael Ledeen doesn't even allude to the 1983 bombing.

A survey of other articles on the same topic failed to uncover one that made any mention. Why?

After the 1983 bombing, President Reagan vowed two things: first, we would remain in Lebanon until we had restored it to peace and democracy, and second, we would respond to this attack.

In making his first promise, Reagan needed to offer the American public a compelling reason for U.S. forces to be in Lebanon in the first place.  Reagan's answer was that the U.S. had a vested interest in protecting the region's oil production. As far as staying the duration, we stayed another 6 months, after which we turned tail and ran, thus delivering victory in the first “battle” in the “War on Terror” to Hizb'allah.

Our decision to abandon our oil-related mission in Lebanon may also have had to do with the fact that there is no oil in Lebanon.

Reagan delivered on his second promise — in a way — by employing the prevailing conspiracy theory of his age, the International Communist Conspiracy. According to Reagan, the attacks in Lebanon were directly attributable to the nefarious ICC, so, naturally, any attack on communists was effectively a response to the events in Lebanon. That said, Reagan proceeded to teach those Hizb'allah commies a lesson by invading the tiny Caribbean island of Grenada.

And now you know how we got into Iraq.

Posted by Winston Smith at 01:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 03, 2005

Not All Right Wingers Love Gonzales

Word up! Not all Conservatives think Alberto Gonzales, George Bush's ass-tampon and current AG, would make a great Supreme Court Justice.

Within hours after Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's announced retirement from the Supreme Court, members of conservative groups around the country convened in five national conference calls in which, participants said, they shared one big concern: heading off any effort by President Bush to nominate his attorney general, Alberto R. Gonzales, to replace her.

Late last week, a delegation of conservative lawyers led by C. Boyden Gray and former Attorney General Edwin Meese III met with the White House chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., to warn that appointing Mr. Gonzales would splinter conservative support.

And Paul M. Weyrich, a veteran conservative organizer and chairman of the Free Congress Foundation, said he had told administration officials that nominating Mr. Gonzales, whose views on abortion are considered suspect by religious conservatives, would fracture the president's conservative backers.

The groundswell of opposition to Mr. Gonzales was just one sign of the conflicting forces suddenly swirling around Mr. Bush this weekend as he headed to Camp David to begin considering a replacement for Justice O'Connor, a decision his aides said would not be announced before he returned from a trip to Europe at the end of next week.

It makes me sick to think that Bush will nominate -- and get -- a Supreme Court Justice who will make Clarence Thomas look like a scholar. Gonzales would fit the bill perfectly -- this man authorized torture.

Posted by Steven at 11:52 AM | Comments (0)

Founder of Earth Day Dies

Sen. Gaylord Nelson passed away this weekend. He was a true humanitarian, who helped formulate the Clear Air Act and form the Environmental Protection Agency (expect both of these to be driven to extinction soon by the GOP). Who is the GOP equivalent? No such human exists.

Posted by Steven at 11:32 AM | Comments (0)

Still More Jobless Recovery

The New York Times published a story about boom times in Silicon Valley -- profit boom that is. No one is actually hiring in this country, mind you, for high tech employment.

Things are looking up at Wyse Technology, a venerable maker of computer terminals. Unless, that is, you happen to want to work for the company here in Silicon Valley.

Responding to booming demand in Asia and in Europe, Wyse is adding new development teams in India and China and expanding its worldwide work force to about 380, from 260. Its profits are recorded here - but almost none of its new jobs.

Amid widespread signs of economic recovery in the region, Wyse is emblematic of its economy, in which demand, sales and profits are rising quickly while job growth continues to stagnate.

In the last three years, profits at the seven largest companies in Silicon Valley by market value have increased by an average of more than 500 percent while Santa Clara County employment has declined to 767,600, from 787,200. During the previous economic recovery, between 1995 and 1997, the county, which is the heart of Silicon Valley, added more than 82,800 jobs.

Changes in technology and business strategy are raising fundamental questions about the future of the valley, the nation's high technology heartland. In part, the change is driven by the very automation that Silicon Valley has largely made possible, allowing companies to create more value with fewer workers.

Some economists are wondering if a larger transformation is at work - accelerating a trend in which the region's big employers keep a brain trust of creative people and engineers here but hire workers for lower-level tasks elsewhere.

"What has changed is that Silicon Valley has continued to move up the value chain," said AnnaLee Saxenian, dean of the School of Information Management and Systems and professor of city and regional planning at the University of California, Berkeley. That has meant that just as low-skilled manufacturing jobs fled the region starting in the 1970's, now software jobs are also leaving.

This is the case even with the small telco firm I work with. We're owned by Norwegians but they use only a few American workers with high experience and farm out the actual coding work to Ukranian and Romanian and Indian coders. How can the United States sustain itself like this?

Posted by Steven at 11:22 AM | Comments (0)

The Right's Time?

With Sandra Day O'Connor resigning from the Supreme Court, the hard right factions in the United States are poised to deliver their coup de grace against liberalism.

With the Supreme Court vacancy left by the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the conservative movement has within its grasp the prize it has sought for more than 40 years: the control of all levers of the federal government.

From the ashes of Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign, conservatives have built an enduring governing majority, with Republicans winning seven of 10 presidential contests and holding unified control of Congress for 11 years.

The judiciary has until now been alone in clinging to liberalism and the remnants of the Democratic New Deal coalition. A series of Republican appointments to the Supreme Court -- John Paul Stevens, O'Connor, Anthony M. Kennedy, David H. Souter -- have disappointed conservatives by frequently siding with the court's liberal bloc.

That could well happen again with O'Connor's replacement, but conservatives are cautiously hopeful it will not. President Bush has indicated that he will appoint a justice in the tradition of Antonin Scalia, a conservative stalwart. And the conservative movement has something it lacked during its losing battle for the confirmation of Robert H. Bork to the court 18 years ago: a highly coordinated movement that has fused the big dollars of economic conservatives with the grass-roots clout of millions of religious conservatives.

This, conservatives say, will prevent the defeat of another nominee such as Bork and will inoculate Bush from pressure to appoint a moderate such as Kennedy or Souter. And if it works with O'Connor's replacement, conservatives say, they will have found a formula that will allow them gradually to control the judiciary and revisit the full range of precedents regarding abortion, affirmative action, church-state matters and regulations of business and the environment.

"It is a moment of conclusion after years [in which] the conservative movement has moved very far," said Manuel Miranda, a former counsel to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) who leads a coalition of groups pushing for conservative jurists. "The resources on the right are so overwhelmingly different from what they were 11 years ago," when there was last a court vacancy.

Connie Mackey, of the conservative Family Research Council, said at a news conference Friday she sees "a tremendous amount of organization, unlike I'd ever seen" in past confirmation fights. "The social-issue groups as well as the fiscal conservative groups are determined that they're not going to see a Borking of any nominee that would be a good constitutionalist." That was a reference to the effective campaign by Democrats to demonize Bork and defeat his nomination by President Ronald Reagan to the high court.

The conservative bid to reshape the federal judiciary has been years in the making. Since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision -- widely condemned by conservative legal thinkers -- groups such as the Federalist Society have sought to expand the ranks of young conservative lawyers. Dozens of conservative judicial appointments by Reagan and President George H.W. Bush have given the current president a broad pool of judges from which to choose for the high court.

The prospect of a new Supreme Court vacancy has accelerated this campaign. With the blessings of the Bush White House, a team of conservative leaders self-dubbed "the four horsemen" formed in 2002 and has taken over much of the planning for the nomination fight.

These men are C. Boyden Gray, an establishment lawyer who chairs the Committee for Justice; Jay Alan Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice; Leonard A. Leo, executive vice president of the Federalist Society; and Edwin A. Meese III, attorney general during part of the Reagan administration.

It's appalling to me that the men the White House has hand picked to deliver the deathblow to Liberalism in this country call themselves "the Four Horsemen". Doesn't that strike you as a very bad sign?

The end of this nation as we know it is nigh.

Posted by Steven at 11:14 AM | Comments (0)

July 01, 2005

All Quiet on the Recruitment Front

This article was sent to me in email by my friend Dave. Dave lives in Golden, Colorado, a suburb of Denver and home to the Coors Brewing Company. Dave hit up an idea similar to the "Operation Yellow Elephant" campaign being pushed by Jesus' General. Operation Yellow Elephant challenges Bush supporters to demonstrate their true dedication to the war by joining to fight it.

Dave sent out email looking for feedback on his idea to produce a flyer and put it on cars displaying "Support the Troops" ribbons. The response was generally negative, and most people felt that the negative reaction to the flyer would overwhelm any message it might have.

Instead, Dave visited his local recruiter, to see how he could help get more young Republicans to join the fight in Iraq. His letter follows.

I now see that using bumper stickers is often just a form of bullying. They force a message on the person stuck behind you and permit them no reasonable means to respond. Flyers on windshields can easily have the same effect. I guess that's why it is so annoying to me when I receive them. So I'm going to avoid using either and focus on just having productive and respectful dialogue.

With that in mind, I'd like to share what I learned from a friendly conversation I had Wednesday night around 6PM with my local Army recruiters. I imagine that some of this may push a few buttons but some will find it interesting.

Before I arrived I had discarded my intent to use recruiting as a form of protest. I just wanted to find out how their work was going and if there was any way for me to actually help them (short of joining). It was a good time to check in because it was the day after a major Bush speech where he urged Americans to join the military ("no higher calling than service in our Armed Forces" is a very scary thing to hear from a self-described Christian) and only one week before our most patriotic national holiday.

I met two Army sergeants, one has 15 years of service, the other just a few. These guys were apparently working away on their computers, but nothing else was going on there. The office was dead empty and we had a leisurely half hour chat. I started by saying I heard Bush speak last night and it convinced me I should help out, although I did not intend to join the military, and probably couldn't anyway because I'm 35 and a convicted felon. I asked if the Bush speech caused a blip of interest. They said no. So I know what my neighbors thought of the speech.

I offered to help with whatever upcoming evening/weekend activities they needed help with. Apparently people never volunteer like that, because they were totally surprised by the offer. They had nothing prepared for that. They suggested they could give me an Army shirt and I could hand out flags and cards in the park at their booth on July 4th, or they could put together some info packets I could drop off at laundromats. I sort of expected there would be a list of plans just waiting for some volunteer resources.

It turns out that the Army does not put flyers under windshields because they feel that would just cause backlash. They had worked on one that they thought they would target just to people who had patriotic type stuff on their cars, but they abandoned that idea too because they figured it would surely turn some of those people away. I couldn't respond to that as I was too surprised that they'd arrived at the same conclusion I did.

Also the Army cannot distribute flyers on private property without getting permission and they've had enough negative reaction to requests for that that they don't really even try any more. Schools are extremely hard to get access to. I think that many people would be very pleased to know that. They will generally set up booths at public events like fairs and rodeos but there's not much else they can do.

When they make recruiting phone calls they almost never get past the parents. Parents and students alike are usually extremely rude and regularly swear at them. Nearly everyone tells them to never call back. One very interesting thing they mentioned is that they keep log books of the calls they make and the response. Comparing those notes to voter registration rolls would make for a fascinating study.

They said they believed that the local recruitment problem is due to the population being mostly liberal and "too rich". I always thought this area was more conservative and upper middle class at best but I guess it's all relative. I didn't think it would help bridge the divide to point out that Bush seems to be diligently chipping away at our "too rich" problem.

When they go out in public they get a very cold response. They feel like beggars because no one will talk to them, or even make eye contact, and some even pretend to be on the phone when they approach. It was clear that these guys saw their mission as futile, yet they believe strongly in it, and they are being tricked into blaming their frustrations on liberals (the word came up with negative connotations a few times).

I quietly wondered if liberals could control whether people join the Army, why they could not also control whether people vote Republican. The logical explanation is that a lot of non-liberals must be saying (voting) one thing and doing another. So I just explained that I am a liberal, I'm glad we invaded Afghanistan, I believe both Iraq invasions were based on carefully engineered deceptions, but I believe that we have to do whatever it takes to get the job done in Iraq now, and that's why I was there offering to help them. The younger guy said he was impressed at how patriotic that was. I don't know whether the older one just saw me as a liberal spy at that point, but I do honestly intend to help them out if they call me.

I didn't bring up the possibility of a draft, but they did. They were very vocal that they thought a draft would be a terrible thing they absolutely did not want to happen. The older guy talked about how America would be better off if we'd had a mandatory military service plan as some other countries do, or at least a system that encouraged it more. I think we agreed that our Iraq experience has made such a thing impossible in America for the near future. I actually think
that mandatory military service is a great idea unless you are a superpower with excessive corporate influence over government, like this one superpower I know of. They predicted that recruitment targets will be missed by ever larger numbers because America has no patience for long engagements. I suggested alternative explanations which didn't really fly and we wrapped up on friendly terms simply agreeing that none of us could see a workable solution.

I want to recommend that anyone on the left go chat with a recruiter sometime, even if only to thank them for their work, ask how things are going, and express sympathy. You certainly will not have to compete for their attention. We have an opportunity to build bridges and maybe prevent the military from being turned into our enemy.

They're being abused and misled just like we are.

Posted by Winston Smith at 08:05 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack