Did anyone else see John Kerry and John Edwards on “60 Minutes” last night? I thought they did a great job together, and showed a lot of good team work when handling some of the pointed questions Leslie Stahl threw out them. When asking about a criticism levelled by Bush toward Kerry, John Edwards jumped out to his defense allowing John Kerry to appear to take the high ground.
I think maintaining the approach of optimism and reserve will help them with the Republicans. Judging from last night, I think they will do a good job of fighting in the election.
Society
12
Jul 04
Kerry / Edwards on 60 minutes
07
Jul 04
Allawi and martial law
There has been increasing talk of Allawi declaring martial law in parts of Iraq. In the following Christian Science Monitor article it states that: “the Iraqi government has repeatedly postponed its unveiling, because of US concerns that it grants Mr. Allawi too much power.”
On the contrary, It seems rather obvious that the US would have liked to have declared martial law itself and only refrained from doing so to prevent any negative consequences with regards to its already battered image as Iraq’s occupier. The hand-wringing over giving Allawi too much power is disingenuous. The US simply did not want to impose martial law themselves.
But other Iraqis reject the idea of martial law, seeing it as an extension of the US-led occupation and a reprise of Saddam Hussein’s regime. “If there is martial law, there will be arbitrary searches and arrests,” says Abu Ghayeb al-Kubaisi, a chicken farmer. “They will use the excuse of fighting terrorism or national security. If someone has an enemy, he will use that as a pretext for getting this person arrested.”
Mr. Kubaisi had just spent three hours at a checkpoint on Baghdad’s outskirts. A resident of Ramadi – a prime candidate for martial law – he described baking in the 120-degree sun while Iraqi troops held him at the checkpoint. “I think they took them to Egypt and Israel to teach them Israeli methods,” he says with disgust. (Egypt has been under emergency law since 1981).
Indeed, in many Arab countries, emergency laws, once declared, have dragged on for years or decades. “Emergency rule is often the Achilles heel of Arab constitutional systems,” says Nathan Brown, an expert on Arab legal systems at George Washington University in Washington. “In many countries, emergency rule becomes a permanent state that allows rulers to bypass the constitutional order completely.”
06
Jul 04
Editorial on journalism and Hitchens
I’ve been around journalists my entire life, since I was a little kid, and I haven’t met more than five in three-plus decades who wouldn’t literally shit from shame before daring to say that their job had anything to do with truth or informing the public. Everyone in the commercial media, and that includes Hitchens, knows what his real job is: feeding the monkey. We are professional space-fillers, frivolously tossing content-pebbles in an ever-widening canyon of demand, cranking out one silly pack-mule after another for toothpaste and sneaker ads to ride on straight into the brains of the stupefied public.
One friend I know describes working in the media as shoveling coal for Satan. That’s about right. A worker in a tampon factory has dignity: He just uses his sweat to make a product, a useful product at that, and doesn’t lie to himself about what he does. In this business we make commodities for sale and, for the benefit of our consciences and our egos, we call them ideas and truth. And then we go on the lecture circuit. But in 99 cases out of 100, the public has more to learn about humanity from the guy who makes tampons.
26
Jun 04
Fahrenheit 9-11
You need to see this movie. There are scenes that will grip you, not because of anything said, written, or done by Michael Moore, but because of the unadulterated and undeniable reality of what you are seeing. In one scene an older Iraqi woman walks amidst the rubble of her uncle’s home pleading with God to save them from the Americans, and asking where is He in their moment of need? When she cries out in anguish that “God is great” “Allahu Ackbar!” because she is scared and powerless to do anything else to protect her family and herself, you understand in an instant what the Iraqi people are going through. Exhorting God is the only way to keep your head up and your spirit from collapsing. It is powerful stuff and that’s just one small taste of it. Much of the rest of the film is the typical Moore ambush clueless politicians with a camera stuff, or talking to the average joe. Undeniably, Fahrenheit 9-11 will have a considerable impact on the election, especially if just half the people who see this movie vote in Novemeber.
Continue reading →
25
Jun 04
Cereality
It used to be just an idea popular among couch potatoes, college students, pot smokers, and other motivationally challenged sugar-addicts: a restaurant that serves only cereal. But now, that idea is a reality….a Cereality. Here’s the gist:
- The employees wear pajamas (the last thing I want to see is a franchise employee wearing pajamas unless they’re cute high school girls like the kind that always work at hot dog on a stick)
- You get your choice of two name brand cereals even hot cereals.
- A topping (nuts and milkballs, etc. wtf?)
- As much milk, soy milk as you want
- Prepared in a chinese-food-style container
24
Jun 04
Indo-American dogfighting
Interesting entry from the ever informative Defensetech.org:
The whole world knows that if you mess with U.S. Air Force pilots, you’re going down. Hard.
Except, someone forgot to send the memo to India, apparently. Because, in recent exercises, Indian flyboys in low-tech Russian and French jets defeated American F-15C pilots more than 90 percent of the time.
23
Jun 04
Iranian Thinking
Good analysis from Juan Cole:
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It seems to me very likely that Iran will get a nuclear weapon. Any ruling elite in the global south with bad relations with the US can look at the difference between how the Bush administration dealt with Saddam and how it has dealt with North Korea. The difference seems mainly to be that North Korea already had a couple of nukes, whereas Iraq was not anywhere close. So Khamenei would look at that and decide that his government needs a couple of nukes to avoid being overthrown by the US, especially since Bush telegraphed his intention to do just that. I don’t see how it could be stopped militarily; the US is overstretched and in no position to attack and occupy Iran.
21
Jun 04
Food for your mind
21
Jun 04
Israel and the Kurds
According to this article in the New Yorker, Israel is operating hundreds of Mossad agents within the Kurdish areas of Northern Iraq. The hope being to have influence with the Kurds in the likely event that they seek greater autonomy or independence. This is due to their outlook on the future of Iraq:
The former Israeli intelligence officer acknowledged that since late last year Israel has been training Kurdish commando units to operate in the same manner and with the same effectiveness as Israel’s most secretive commando units, the Mistaravim. The initial goal of the Israeli assistance to the Kurds, the former officer said, was to allow them to do what American commando units had been unable to do; penetrate, gather intelligence on, and then kill off the leadership of the Shiite and Sunni insurgencies in Iraq. (I was unable to learn whether any such mission had yet taken place.) “The feeling was that this was a more effective way to get at the insurgency,” the former officer said. “But the growing Kurdish-Israeli relationship began upsetting the Turks no end. Their issue is that the very same Kurdish commandos trained for Iraq could infiltrate and attack in Turkey.”
The Kurdish-Israeli collaboration inevitably expanded, the Israeli said. Some Israeli operatives have crossed the border into Iran, accompanied by Kurdish commandos, to install sensors and other sensitive devices that primarily target suspected Iranian nuclear facilities. The former officer said, “Look, Israel has always supported the Kurds in a Machiavellian way; as balance against Saddam. It’s Realpolitik.” He added, “By aligning with the Kurds, Israel gains eyes and ears in Iran, Iraq, and Syria.” He went on, “What Israel was doing with the Kurds was not so unacceptable in the Bush Administration.”