Month: March 2006

Out of The Mouths Of Babes

by digby

Jim Angle, covering for Hume, just interviewed three wounded veterans who he probed for “good news” about Iraq that made their sacrifice worthwhile. One of them was a public affairs specialist who dutifully delivered the GOP boilerplate about schools and soccer games. But one of the guys, a very young kid grievously wounded, didn’t know the script. He said:

Angle: You’ve seen some of the media coverage since you got back. Does it accurately reflect what you saw when you were there?

Cpl Diaz: Well, in my case I was out west in the Anbar province and the media kind of, kind of goes for major things that happen in Bagdad or Falluja during voting times and the media doesn’t cover that IED’s go off every day, numerous times.

I don’t think that’s exactly what Angle was looking for.

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Bubble Boy

by digby

One of the most curious things I’ve seen recently is George Bush’s favorite Democrat going a little bit kooky for no apparent reason. What the hell is up with Joementum? Why so emotional and weird about this?

I have to think that he’s suffering from the same bubble boy disease as his best buddy. In the beltway, Joe Lieberman is the most popular Democrat in town. The political establishment is totally dominated by Republicans and Republicans positively love him. As far as he can tell, he’s the most popular guy in town.

Unfortunately, he didn’t seem to realize until now, even after his experience in the 2004 primaries, that outside the beltway he has been the poster boy for GOP appeasement going all the way back to the impeachment. His acceptance on the ticket in 2000 was out of respect for Al Gore — the grassroots could barely stand the sight of him.

His voting record is beside the point. Through his rhetoric he’s given tremendous solace to the Republicans over and over again at the most critical times. He’s advanced their most pernicious ideas, not through votes, but by continuously validating their premises. He’s not the only member of the party to have done this, but he’s the one who has gone the farthest to normalize the cheap, phony moralism the GOP sells as “character.”

He just doesn’t seem to understand the nature of the current political environment, probably because he is ensconced in the bosom of the establishment, sharing cocktail weenies with the cognoscenti and believing his own hype. The terrain looks far different from where the rest of us sit. “His way” looks a lot like treachery.

I did not think it was possible for him to lose the primary. But damn if it doesn’t look like it is. Lamont is an impressive candidate, attractive and well-spoken. His run is not joke and it appears that Lieberman is actually worried. Joementum seems to leave the door open to running as an independent if that happened, a la his nemesis Lowell Weicker. I don’t know why he wouldn’t just make the leap and join the GOP. That’s what his new idol, the very moral Frank Sinatra, did. Why play games?

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Iraq: More Deaths. Sistani Ignores Letter From Bush.

by tristero

In Baghdad, Three women were killed by a mortar and six handcuffed bodies were found. The article goes on:

Tensions arose over complaints of U.S. interference in Iraqi political affairs.

A letter from President Bush to Iraq’s supreme Shiite spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, was hand-delivered earlier this week but sits unread and untranslated in his office, according to a key al-Sistani aide.

The aide who has never allowed use of his name in news reports, citing al-Sistani’s refusal to make any public statements himself told The Associated Press Tuesday that the ayatollah laid the letter aside because of increasing “unhappiness” over what senior Shiite leaders see as American meddling in Iraqi attempts to form their first, permanent post-invasion government.

hat tip to Juan Cole who also links to a report of 8 workers shot dead at an oil refinery.

Funny how underplayed the reports of these 17 deaths have been in, say, the New York Times. One would almost get the impression – false – that there was a lull in the carnage.

By the way, it’s not news that no one in Iraq bothers to listen to anything Bush says anymore. I think it was Steve Coll, or maybe Sy Hersh, who reported that in the New Yorker a while back.

Oh Brother Where Art Thou

by digby

I have been joking for years that the Republicans would eventually try to bring back chain gangs to do the work of illegal immigrants. That way, they could appease their law and order, racist and corporate constituency all at once. (If they could add forced conversions to Christianity to it, it would be perfect.)

I should have realized the nothing is beyond the pale for the modern GOP:

Representative Dana Rohrabacher, Republican of California, dismissed arguments made by President Bush and business leaders who say the United States needs a pool of foreign workers. He said businesses should be more creative in their efforts to find help and suggested that employers turn to the prison population to fill jobs in agriculture and elsewhere.

“Let the prisoners pick the fruits,” Mr. Rohrabacher said. “We can do it without bringing in millions of foreigners.”

This is actually no joke. There is a lot of prison labor being used in the private sector these days. It’s not even controversial, despite the fact that while the prison is paid minimum wage, the workers are paid sometimes less than a dollar an hour. (Room and board, you see.)

Considering the racial make-up of our prisoner population, we could see a day in the not too distant future in which the fields of the United states are picked by African Americans with guns trained on them. Interesting picture, isn’t it?

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No Satisfaction

by digby

Pantload is “getting increasingly bugged” by Jill Carroll:

And maybe JPod’s right about Stockholm syndrome. And maybe the media’s selectively choosing what to show of her statements. But it would be nice to hear her say something remotely critical of her captors, particularly about the fact that they murdered her translator in cold blood. I’m very glad she’s alive, but I’m getting a very bad vibe. More, no doubt, to come.

He reminds of one of those guys who says a rape victim didn’t act traumatized enough for him, so she’s probably lying.

Pantload is not just an ordinary GOP dimwit; he apparently can’t even read. She made the tape right after she had been released to the Iraqi Islamic Party offices and before she was in the hands of her friends and colleagues:

Carroll’s captors dropped her off in a Baghdad neighborhood, outside an office of the Iraqi Islamic Party. The politicians inside gave her juice, candy, water and tissues.

Composed, Carroll negotiated her way through the first of many politically laden conversations she would have Thursday, trying to stick to what she wanted and didn’t want to say.

The party officials asked her to write out and sign a statement saying she had not been harmed in her brief time at their offices. They had her record a question-and-answer session on camera that they said was for their records. It showed up on television shortly afterward.

Jill Carroll has more testosterone in her little finger than all these bedwetters put together. I’m sorry that she has not given the 101st one-handed keyboarders the picture of blood and horror they need to get satisfaction from their safe little offices, but I think it’s highly unlikely these bedwetters would have handled themselves with such fortitude in those circumstances. They are after all, the same brave soldiers who believe the shoe bomber is a greater threat to the nation than having thousands of ICBM’s pointed at every major American city.

Oh, and I’m glad to report that Jonah has also won today’s Jeffie.

Update: I’d love to see how Don Imus and his pathetic little crew of flaccid, middle aged gasbags would hold up under her circumstances. I have a feeling that it wouldn’t take much more than the kidnappers putting too much lemon in the bernaise sauce and Imus and these walking viagra commercials would break down and start calling themselves Tanya.

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Money

by tristero

Ah, money. John Aravosis brings the subject up again. A few comments on his post, which is well worth reading:

1. No one should be surprised that, one-on-one, politicians are really, really nice. It’s their job to be nice. If you think about it for twenty seconds it becomes patently obvious that only someone with a nice personality could get anywhere in politics – which, after all, is all about working with other people 24/7. The Nazi-loving Schwarzenegger is really nice. By contrast, The Great KAT, who makes the young Bob Dylan look like a docile interview subject, is likely never to be elected… dogcatcher (couldn’t resist). I’m told even Nixon was nice, even if I find that incredibly hard to believe.

Why is being nice essential to political success? Why is being nice as important for a political leader as being well-read and intelligent? My friends, if you have to ask those kinds of questions, then my advice is to pursue that degree in advanced statistics you’ve always wanted. I couldn’t possibly begin to explain it to you. (Irate statisticians, please note: Musicians easily rival you for the title of professionals with the worst social skills.)

It also goes without saying that because nice-osity is such a critical skill, politicians are exceedingly adept at turning up the charm in order to disarm an opponent, or modulate the niceness in all sorts of subtle ways to suit their ends.

Therefore, John is absolutely right to report on the behavior of the politicians he meets. It is a crucial part of understanding who they are. So we can crush them at the polls.

But John is mistaken, when he writes about the charming Katherine Harris, “That doesn’t mean I think she’s a wonderful human being, it simply means that whatever she is, it’s a lot more complicated than folks would like to present.” It’s not complicated at all, John. One-on-one Harris is professionally nice and she’s so good at it, it looks sincere. It may even be sincere. That is her job. That’s why she has supporters. What’s so hard to understand?

2. The question readers of John’s blog should ask is this: If John goes to these affairs – and why not, since he didn’t have to pay for it, so, hey, the food’s free – will being nice to Katherine Harris help advance the liberal causes John so passionately believes in? Well, it can’t hurt. Being mean to her in that situation gets you nowhere.

3. Point 2 above notwithstanding, he should have kicked Katherine Harris in the shins. Hard.

4. Regarding money, it’s painful to read John’s justifications. That anyone as smart and savvy as John Aravosis would waste his time defending his desire and need to be paid for a job well done! That anyone could object to competent people being paid well to do their job! This just blows my mind.

Phil Glass put it succinctly – you pay me money. I give you music. There isn’t a composer who ever existed (with the exception of Charles Ives) who would disagree. Don’t like Phil’s music? I assure you: Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven (to name just three) had exactly the same attitude.

5. To clarify point 4, please understand: I think John Aravosis is absolutely right about money. It is a crime that he should be wasting his valuable time defending his need to be paid. However, it clearly is necessary for him to educate his audience in reality. Hopefully, they’ll get it. But if they don’t, John will simply have to learn to ignore them. (For the little that it’s worth, full disclosure: I’ve never been paid to do any political writing, or political work, of any kind, including blogging. Nor am I seeking payment. This makes me morally superior to nobody who does earn money – honestly, duh – from political work.)

6. John really should have kicked Katherine Harris in the shins when he had the chance.

7. John’s last point is the most important. From the small involvement I’ve had with “real” politics, via blogging, attending conferences, interviewing and talking to politicians and diplomats, I am certain that politics has the potential to be enormously enjoyable.

Yes, indeed: Confronting the far-right – and destroying their ability to influence mainstream American politics is a moral obligation, I believe, for any American that cares about the well-being of his/her family, friends, and neighbors, not to mention the rest of the world. It’s also potentially a lot of fun (and yeah, it can be dispiriting; no one said it was gonna be easy fun).

There simply is nothing wrong to be paid well for fighting effectively for liberal causes AND having fun. In fact, that’s also part of the fun. Only crazy puritans think you should be miserable when you do good.

8. God-DAMMIT, John! Crutches! I want to see Katherine Harris on crutches! I want to sign the fucking cast on her leg! How could you pass up the chance?!??!

Afghanistan

by tristero

Be sure to read through to the punchline:

U.S. officials are practically ignorant of this silent advance of fear. And their response to the exposed tip of the iceberg–open violence–has been misguided. Despite tough proclamations and battles against so-called insurgents in isolated valleys, U.S. military and civilian officials remain obsessed with ‘Al Qaeda’ and any possible manifestations of an Osama bin Laden-style, ideological confrontation. This concern acts as a set of blinkers, blinding Americans to the real problems in Afghanistan and vastly contributing to the Afghans’ disillusionment.

The fact is, except in a training capacity, Al Qaeda hardly has any presence here. This is logical: Why would Al Qaeda send Arab or Chechen operatives to notoriously chauvinistic southern Afghanistan, which hated the domineering Arabs when they were guests of the Taliban, and where foreigners stick out like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer? For ideological combat against the West, Iraq is a far more convenient and penetrable battleground, which is one reason why countless more Americans die there than in Afghanistan.

Even the ‘suicide bombings’ in Afghanistan that have garnered mentions in the Western press of late are often something else. In one case I investigated carefully–the target, an Afghan official, was a friend of mine–much evidence contradicted the notion that the attack was a suicide bombing, as it was immediately labeled: the condition of my friend’s body, the type and location of the survivors’ wounds, and eyewitness descriptions. Everything pointed to a remote-controlled mine planted ahead of time. But no Afghan or U.S. official bothered to collect this evidence or to examine it seriously when it was presented to them.

Why such sloppiness? Because the terrorist suicide bombing explanation suits everyone. Americans are comfortable spending their resources searching for the Al Qaeda bogeyman; the real perpetrators take cover behind the Al Qaeda label; and Afghan officials are absolved of complicity or incompetence and the responsibility to properly investigate.

The steadily worsening situation in southern Afghanistan is not the work of some ineffable Al Qaeda nebula. It is the result of the real depredations of the corrupt and predatory government officials whom the United States ushered into power in 2001, supposedly to help fight Al Qaeda, and has assiduously maintained in power since, along with an ‘insurgency’ manufactured whole cloth across the border in Pakistan–a U.S. ally. The evidence of this connection is abundant: Taliban leaders strut openly around Quetta, Pakistan, where they are provided with offices and government-issued weapons authorization cards; Pakistani army officers are detailed to Taliban training camps; and Pakistani border guards constantly wave self-proclaimed Taliban through checkpoints into Afghanistan.

But beleaguered Afghans have a hard time getting U.S. political and military officials to focus on these two factors, which feed on each other. U.S. personnel cling to the fictions that Afghans are responsible for the local officials who rule over them–despite the overwhelming moral and material support the United States has provided these officials–and that the Pakistani government is cooperating in the war on terror. And so the Afghan villagers, frightened, vulnerable, and disillusioned, are obliged to come to terms with the ‘fairies who come at night.’

This state of affairs is so bewildering that Kandaharis have reached an astonishing conclusion: The United States must be in league with the Taliban.

hat tip to Avedon Carol

Fashion Week

by digby

This season’s little black dress:

Order your T-Shirts courtesy of Tennessee Guerilla Women

Via Avedon Carol, who I’m sure knows the perfect bra to wear under it.

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Big Brother Is Freezing

by digby

Another Homeland Security success story:

From Anchorage it takes 90 minutes on a propeller plane to reach this fishing village on the state’s southwestern edge, a place where some people still make raincoats out of walrus intestine.

This is the Alaskan bush at its most remote. Here, tundra meets sea, and sea turns to ice for half the year. Scattered, almost hidden, in the terrain are some of the most isolated communities on American soil. People choose to live in outposts like Dillingham (pop. 2,400) for that reason: to be left alone.

So eyebrows were raised in January when the first surveillance cameras went up on Main Street. Each camera is a shiny white metallic box with two lenses like eyes. The camera’s shape and design resemble a robot’s head.

Workers on motorized lifts installed seven cameras in a 360-degree cluster on top of City Hall. They put up groups of six atop two light poles at the loading dock, and more at the fire hall and boat harbor.

By mid-February, more than 60 cameras watched over the town, and the Dillingham Police Department plans to install 20 more — all purchased through a $202,000 Homeland Security grant meant primarily to defend against a terrorist attack.

Your federal tax dollars at work, folks. Bridges to nowhere and terrorist surveillance in remote arctic villages. This is how the Republican party keeps the nation safe, promotes small government and shows fiscal responsibility.

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Is America A First World Nation?

by tristero

Not when it comes to science it ain’t. Check this out from Discovery Institute’s so-called Center for Science and Culture, the clowns who brought you “intelligent design” creationism, the clowns with ties to Christian Reconstruction and the Moonies. Now don’t peek, but can you spot, as PZ Myers says, the “serious problem in the logic” of “intelligent design” creationist Jonathan Witt’s argument?:

In Dover, they [mainstream scientists] insisted that physical evidence presented against their theory wasn’t an argument for intelligent design. Darwinist [sic] Kenneth Miller made this argument on the stand and the judge concurred. But in Ohio they wanted to scare people into thinking that simply teaching students the scientific evidence for and against Darwinism was somehow legally dangerous. Since it isn’t, the Darwinists had to get creative, had to change their story. So now they asserted that simply exposing students to the evidence against Darwinism constitutes the teaching of intelligent design. Thus, their Ohio position flatly contradicts their Dover position.

Give up? All right, go to Pharyngula and marvel at the extent to which these people can lie without breaking a sweat. And the president of the United States thinks their “theories” deserve equal time with real science. Incredible.

[Note to creationists: All attempts to prosleytize for your nonsense will be ignored. As usual, please take your science questions or your disputations to a science site and air them there. If a reputable scientist – meaning a scientist who understands Darwin and accepts evolution – says you have a legitimate point, come on back and let us know exactly what they said (no “paraphrases” or partial quoting). ]