I Guess It's Two Years Gone By

It seems to me that nobody focuses on how we found ourselves at this point. Two years on, with American soldiers still fighting and dying in Iraq. There were no WMD stockpiles, and the CIA has confirmed that the invasion increased, not decreased, the terrorist presence in Iraq. And don't let anybody tell you that there were other reasons for this invasion. The President went to Congress for a resolution authorizing the use of U.S. troops to invade – and to comply with that authorization, he sent the following letter to Congress, two years ago today:

Presidential Letter

Text of a Letter from the President to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate

March 18, 2003

Dear Mr. Speaker: (Dear Mr. President:)

Consistent with section 3(b) of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 (Public Law 107-243), and based on information available to me, including that in the enclosed document, I determine that:

(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic and other peaceful means alone will neither (A) adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq nor (B) likely lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq; and

(2) acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.

Sincerely,

GEORGE W. BUSH

This requires a real investigation, not the half-hearted, "how could the intelligence agencies have been so wrong" inquiry now under way. Pardon my language, but dammit, this is actionable, people.

But somehow, Congress is more concerned with investigating whether Jose Canseco stuck a needle full of steroids into Mark McGwire's derriere.

(And, yes, Rep. Henry Waxman did send a letter to the Committee Chair stating that the testimony of Canseco and McGwire was necessary "to get to the bottom of this growing scandal.")

The Mighty Casey

Today starts the Congressional hearings on steroid use in baseball. I think it was Jon Stewart of the Daily Show who asked something like: "Let's see, Halliburton, Abu Ghraib - and they decide to investigate BASEBALL?!!"

Of course, the classic testimony before Congress about baseball came from (who else?) Casey Stengel:

I had many years that I was not so successful as a ballplayer, as it is a game of skill. And then I was no doubt discharged by baseball in which I had to go back to the minor leagues as a manager, and after being in the minor leagues as a manager, I became a major league manager in several cities and was discharged, we call it "discharged," because there is no question I had to leave. And I returned to the minor leagues at Milwaukee, Kansas City, and Oakland, Calif., and then returned to the major leagues.

In the last ten years, naturally, in major league baseball with the New York Yankees, the New York Yankees have had tremendous success and while I am not the ballplayer who does the work, I have no doubt worked for a ball club that is very capable in the office. I must have splendid ownership, I must have very capable men who are in radio and television, which is no doubt you know that we have mentioned the three names — you will say they are very great.

We have a wonderful press that follows us. Anybody should in New York City, where you have so many million people. Our ballclub has been successful because we have it, and we have the Spirit of 1776. We put it into the ball field and if you are not capable of becoming a great ballplayer since I have been in as a manager, in ten years, you are notified that if you don't produce on the ball field, the salary that you receive, we will allow you to be traded to play and give your services to other clubs.

There's more, a lot more, of course. And, when he was finished, he was followed by Mickey Mantle, who could only add: "My views are about the same as Casey's."

"I Can’t Say That I’m SorryFor The Things That We Done"

On the eve of the second anniversary of the Iraq war, another Administration official is heard on Capitol Hill, explaining:

"I look back and I would say to you, if confronted with the same evidence we had back then, I would recommend exactly what I recommended then. It turns out we were all wrong."

Wait a minute, that was Alan Greenspan discussing why he thought the first Bush tax cuts were a good idea.

No word yet on second thoughts from those who made decisions which had more life-and-death consequences.

Something In The Night

It is not always a waste of time to visit OpinionJournal.com (home of the leading contender for "Most Annoying Person on the Internet"). Today's edition includes an essay by John J. Miller, through which I learned about the new Library of America edition of the work of H.P. Lovecraft:

If our country's literary canon has a dress code, then surely it involves those shiny black jackets covering the volumes produced by the Library of America. Lovecraft's new one runs for more than 800 pages and includes 22 novellas and short stories with titles such as "The Horror at Red Hook," "At the Mountains of Madness" and "The Thing on the Doorstep." There are now 25,000 copies in print, which is an above-average number for the nonprofit publisher.

~snip~

Lovecraft wrote in this dark and distinguished tradition, and much of his early work displays the influence of Poe and other predecessors. By the late 1920s, however, he was no longer a mere dwarf standing on the shoulders of giants but a genuine innovator whose lasting impact appears mainly in a set of stories known as the "Cthulhu Mythos." They begin with "The Call of Cthulhu," written in 1926 and one of Lovecraft's finest pieces. It's about a young sculptor's bizarre dreams, a hideous statuette he manufactures in his sleep, a dastardly voodoo cult, a shadowy book called the Necronomicon, and a menacing encounter in the Pacific Ocean with a monster that's perhaps best described as a gargantuan alien octopus with wings (and owning the unpronounceable name "Cthulhu").

This may sound silly and, at a certain level, it surely is. Yet "The Call of Cthulhu" is also strangely engrossing, and contains many elements that will be familiar to fans of "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown: The main character is an Ivy League professor determined to investigate ancient mysteries and their lingering effects on the present day. Readers who become accustomed to Lovecraft's writing style may find that it possesses a florid eloquence.

They will also appreciate his skill at producing a sense of mounting dread. Lovecraft knew what to place onstage as well as what to leave inside the haunted imaginations of his readers. "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear," he once wrote, "and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." If Lovecraft had been a film director, he might have come up with a movie much like "The Blair Witch Project," only scarier.

Not to mention being the inspiration for the classic send-up of those Jack Chick tracts (which the latter's lawyers have chased all over the Internet) - "Who Will Be Eaten First?"

I just may replace my ratty old paperbacks with this new collection.

Dog Bites Man

Headline in my local paper yesterday -

GOP looks to cut food aid for poor

WASHINGTON -- Cuts in food programs for the poor are getting support in Congress as an alternative to President Bush's idea of slicing billions of dollars from the payments that go to large farm operations.

Senior Republicans in both the House and Senate are open to small reductions in farm subsidies, but they adamantly oppose the deep cuts sought by Bush to hold down future federal deficits.

~snip~

Instead, Republican committee chairmen are looking to carve savings from nutrition and land conservation programs that are also run by the Agriculture Department. The government is projected to spend $52 billion this year on nutrition programs like food stamps, school lunches and special aid to low-income pregnant women and children. Farm subsidies will total less than half that, $24 billion.

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) said the $36 billion food stamp program is a good place to look for savings.

I'm shocked, shocked to discover this.

That Counts The Men Fallen AwayTo The Price You Pay

Towards the top of my page, to the right, under the heading "Because People Need to Pay Attention to This Stuff", is a link to the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count website. It’s a useful and sobering, not to mention eye-opening, compendium of the reality of war. It's a reminder of the simple fact that the choice of war, over other available options, carries a price which is paid, not be the decision-makers, but by those who trusted that the right decision was made.

Interestingly enough, the Iraq Casualty Count was linked to yesterday by none other than James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal. His "Best of the Web Today" is a compendium of a different sort of reality, one where (usually) the best of lame right-wing "humor", overlaid with a veneer of smarminess and incompetently-rendered snark, is used to try to obscure the facts of foreign and domestic issues in that classic, "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" fashion - all of which qualifies him as a finalist if there's ever a "Most Annoying Person on the Internet" competition. But I digress …

Because of a news item yesterday in which, it was claimed, an ex-Marine described Saddam Hussein's capture as being different from the version we first heard, the "BOTWT" staff needed some facts to debunk this possibility. Since the story claimed that a Marine of Sudanese origin had been killed in the encounter, the intrepid WSJ team needed some facts about actual casualties (there's a first time for everything). And, voila, they found them, and linked to the Iraq Casualty Count for their readers in order to demonstrate that no Marines were killed around that time, let alone one with a Sudanese-sounding name.

I don't know how many of Mr. Taranto's fans have ever bothered to look at the facts about the casualties of the Iraq war, or have even been aware that such information is available at their fingertips. Maybe having been sent there, they'll explore that site further, and obtain an education about the price we've asked our troops to pay.

Roulette, That’s The Game Now

Apparently, the Bush Administration's obsessive devotion to a capital punishment culture, trumps its interest in protecting Americans abroad. As reported in the news today:

The United States has withdrawn from an accord that lets an international court decide disputes over foreign inmates, an agreement U.S. death penalty opponents have been using to fight death row cases.

The decision followed an International Court of Justice ruling last year that ordered new hearings for 51 Mexican death row inmates because U.S. authorities did not tell them they could consult diplomats from their own country right after their arrests.

The withdrawal was likely to anger Mexico, which opposes the U.S. death penalty, on the day Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice left for a visit to the southern U.S. neighbor.

The United States initially backed the Vienna Convention protocol, hoping it would further protect its citizens detained abroad. But its withdrawal reflects a determination to counteract international pressure over the U.S. death penalty.

"We are protecting against future International Court of Justice judgments that might similarly interfere in ways we did not anticipate when we joined the optional protocol," State Department spokesman Steve Pike said.

I guess the part they say we "did not anticipate" was that the U.S. would have to comply, and provide the same protections to citizens of other countries, as we would want for ours. That's how these things work, they're reciprocal. By the same token, by saying that we will not longer provide this protection to the citizens of other countries, we remove the same protections from our own citizens.

Just to be clear, the protocol which we withdrew from provided that the International Court of Justice could review of the actions of any country, if it did not provide our citizens with their rights under this article of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations:

Article 36
COMMUNICATION AND CONTACT WITH NATIONALS OF THE SENDING STATE

1. With a view to facilitating the exercise of consular functions relating to nationals of the sending State:

(a) consular officers shall be free to communicate with nationals of the sending State and to have access to them. Nationals of the sending State shall have the same freedom with respect to communication with and access to consular officers of the sending State;

(b) if he so requests, the competent authorities of the receiving State shall, without delay, inform the consular post of the sending State if, within its consular district, a national of that State is arrested or committed to prison or to custody pending trial or is detained in any other manner. Any communication addressed to the consular post by the person arrested, in prison, custody or detention shall also be forwarded by the said authorities without delay. The said authorities shall inform the person concerned without delay of his rights under this sub-paragraph;

(c) consular officers shall have the right to visit a national of the sending State who is in prison, custody or detention, to converse and correspond with him and to arrange for his legal representation. They shall also have the right to visit any national of the sending State who is in prison, custody or detention in their district in pursuance of a judgment. Nevertheless, consular officers shall refrain from taking action on behalf of a national who is in prison, custody or detention if he expressly opposes such action.

2. The rights referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article shall be exercised in conformity with the laws and regulations of the receiving State, subject to the proviso, however, that the said laws and regulations must enable full effect to be given to the purposes for which the rights accorded under this Article are intended.

What does this mean for us? Well, if you compare the list of countries which are signatories to this protocol, with Amnesty International's list of countries that impose the death penalty, you'll find that these are the places where a U.S. citizen has no legal recourse if he is condemned to death, even if his right to contact with and assistance from the U.S. embassy is denied:

Cameroon, China, Congo (Democratic Republic), Gabon, India, Iran, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Malawi, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines.

In short, because of its obsession with the death penalty, the Administration has chosen to remove an American's protection against arrest and death at the hands of these foreign governments.

Well Now Way Back In The Bible

Through How Appealing, I read the following about legislators in Mississippi:

Rep. Tommy Reynolds, D-Water Valley, persuaded his colleagues to allow the display of the Beatitudes — the teachings from the Sermon on the Mount about the meek inheriting the Earth and peacemakers being blessed. The Beatitudes are in the book of Matthew.

"We need to not use God's holy word to divide us but to join us," Reynolds said. "The Beatitudes are the bedrock of everything all of us have been taught that is good and pure and decent."

The movement to display religious texts in Mississippi taxpayer-funded buildings comes a week after the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in cases from Texas and Kentucky on whether Ten Commandments displays are lawful on public property.

Rep. Jim Evans, D-Jackson, who's a minister, objected to the displays, saying politicians who try to use holy texts for their own benefit have "a weak understanding of God's word."

What caught my eye was the suggestion that the Sermon on the Mount should be included. Now, let's think about this, for a moment. Maybe it would be alright to encourage these legislators to vote for this – heck, let's encourage Congress. There would be a catch, though (there's always a catch). They'd have to read the Sermon on the Mount, and explain how they apply those teachings in their own actions. You certainly could start with the Beatitudes:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land.
Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

You know, you could get called a "liberal" for doing stuff like that. But, why stop there? What about this little ditty:

You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, "You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment." But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.

A rule like that would wipe out most of the cable news shows. Not to mention this left-wing propaganda:

You have heard that it was said, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on (your) right cheek, turn the other one to him as well. If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well. Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles. Give to the one who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow. You have heard that it was said, "You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy." But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you …

But, wait, there's more! The best part would be to have them explain why all of their public pronouncements, and demands for big, publicly-funded monuments (for their religion only) were consistent with this instruction:

(But) take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them; otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father. When you give alms, do not blow a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets to win the praise of others. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right is doing, so that your almsgiving may be secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you. When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.

I know that reading something before voting on it may be the exception for many elected representatives, but maybe in this case they could give it a try.

Somebody Callin' My Secret Name

You may have noticed that "progressive" is the new "liberal". Inside, I guess I would tell myself I was more liberal than conservative, but on the outside it seemed that "liberal" was a notch below "leper" as a word you would want associated with your name. I wasn't sure why I was bothered by substituting the P-word for the L-word, but I recently received some guidance from reading Jeff Jarvis:

Who went to the committee meeting that decided that liberals should be called progressive now?

Well, I can guess who went. And so I know why I wasn't invited. But I would have liked to have gotten the memo... so I could complain about it (and piss off the committee once again).

What wimpery. What balllessness.

It's as if liberals are ashamed of being liberal. It's as if we bought the conservative mantra that it's a bad word. It's as if we, too, started to believe it was a bad word and so they changed the word. It's as if the party believes it can win elections if it just changes a word. If that's the case, why not go all the way: Rename the Democratic Party. Any ideas?

Now, if you've been following along with Mr. Jarvis, you know that he's been having an argument with others over whether you can be a liberal and support some of what the Administration is doing in the Middle East. I think you can be (albeit a misguided one). At least by being a liberal, one is open to thinking about the issue, and refining one's views.

As you know, the conservatives are happy to gloss over their differences. The "financial conservatives" (i.e., "leave me and my money alone") are perfectly happy working with the "social conservatives" (i.e., "let me tell you how to live, and by the way, give me some of your money so I can do the same for other people"). It's a symbiotic relationship, perhaps. The "socials" hope one day to have enough money to be one of the "financials", while the "financials" figure that as long as the "socials" let them keep more of their money, they can buy their way out of any "inconveniences" which the "socials" may put in place.

It is time to take back a perfectly good, descriptive word. Besides, lately the "conservative" side seems to be the one for bloated budgets and "borrow now, tax later" policies.

Or, we could focus less on labels and more on sensible solutions to help improve society (a typical liberal view?).

From The Great State Of New Jersey

Found another fellow-Garden Stater with an interesting blog: The Opinion Mill. He also has lots of great links for those of you who spend any time on the Jersey side.

And, for links to blogs from NJ and the other 49 states, there's State's Writes, which is "The Progressives' Peer Directory" from the folks at The American Street. They're organized geographically, and there's more than you could ever possibly read.

So, they've both been added to the links.

Ash Wednesday Assignment:Your Reading For The Next Forty Days and Beyond ...

Pax Christi has a suggestion for those of you observing Lent – in addition to "giving up" something, give some thought to peace. In the words of one of the reflections on that site:

Save us from our desire to hurt as we have been hurt,
to punish as we have been punished,
to terrorize as we have been terrorized.

Give us the strength it takes
to listen rather than to judge,
to trust rather than to fear,
to try again and again
to make peace even when peace eludes us.

Also, I learned today that three gentlemen from my "People I'm Reading" list (Messrs. Steve Bogner, Nathan Nelson, and Joe Cecil) are among the collaborators on a new group blog on Catholic social teaching, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis. Anyone who buys into the current media trend to label religious thought as being the preserve of a single political party, could learn a lot from those folks.

"(Maple-Sugaring) Axes of Evil"

The Department of Education has apparently succeeded in protecting America's youth from being corrupted by scenes of "maple-sugaring" in the woods of Vermont. The scene of the almost-crime is a PBS children's show called "Postcards from Buster", which chronicles the travels of a white rabbit (hmm, wonder why they let that one go?). Anyway, this "Buster" rabbit journeys around the country, meeting different people. He has a "blog", where you can read details of some of his episodes/adventures. From looking at the various entries, he visits with Americans from all walks of life, from varied religious traditions, from all types of neighborhoods, and backgrounds ranging from immigrant to Native American. However, on one of those visits, in an episode called "Sugartime!", he visits with some people that the Department of Education would just as soon not be mentioned - a lesbian couple. This was too much for the Department of Education:

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said the "Sugartime!" episode does not fulfill the intent Congress had in mind for programming. By law, she said, any funded shows must give top attention to "research-based educational objectives, content and materials."

"Many parents would not want their young children exposed to the lifestyles portrayed in the episode," Spellings wrote in a letter sent Tuesday to Pat Mitchell, president and chief executive officer of PBS.

"Congress' and the Department's purpose in funding this programming certainly was not to introduce this kind of subject matter to children, particularly through the powerful and intimate medium of television."

She asked PBS to consider refunding the money it spent on the episode.

With her letter, Spellings has made criticism of the publicly funded program's depiction of the gay lifestyle one of her first acts as secretary. She began on Monday, replacing Rod Paige as President Bush's education chief.

Spellings issued three requests to PBS.

She asked that her department's seal or any statement linking the department to the show be removed. She asked PBS to notify its member stations of the nature of show so they could review it before airing it. And she asked for the refund "in the interest of avoiding embroiling the Ready-To-Learn program in a controversy that will only hurt" it.

In closing, she warned: "You can be assured that in the future the department will be more clear as to its expectations for any future programming that it funds."

Now, as it happens, the "blog" for that episode has already been removed from the show's website. But, it's still available via the Google cache. This is what was so contrary to the mission and intent of the Department of Education:

We traveled to Vermont in the spring. They call it "mud season" because all the melting snow makes lots of mud. It's like the whole state is a mud puddle!

While there, we visited Emma, David, and James, who live with their two moms, Karen and Gillian. Karen and my mom used to work at the same newspaper together.

Now, remember, this is a show in which the main character travels around and meets different kinds of people. The Department of Education apparently is concerned that simply meeting a same-sex couple will cause some sort of viewer trauma. Now, it seems to me that if any child has a question about what he or she sees on television (or a person he or she meets in real life, because that will happen), the parents can then share their views with the child. I find it hard to believe that the episode violated any valid Education Department policy, or any principle that would be espoused by a responsible educator. I think the Education Secretary's snit about this was uncalled for, and it's unfortunate that PBS felt that, politically, it had to cave in to these people.

Rice Whine

Dr. Condoleezza Rice was confirmed as Secretary of State by the Senate today. There was some opposition - and the usual suspects have latched onto the fact that ol' Senator Robert Byrd was in that opposition, in order to imply that racism was involved.

That's obviously nonsense.

I don't think it's so outrageous for some Senators to have a concern about Dr. Rice, who was in the middle of the Administration's efforts to convince the Senate, and the country, of their now-discredited claims about Iraqi WMDs and ties to Al Qaeda. As just one example, we have her activities in the fall of 2002, when the push was on for passage of the resolution which the President later used in order to launch the war:

In an interview with PBS' "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," Rice said the U.S. government clearly knows "that there were in the past and have been contacts between senior Iraqi officials and members of al Qaeda going back for actually quite a long time."

"We know too that several of the detainees, in particular some high-ranking detainees, have said that Iraq provided some training to al Qaeda in chemical weapons development," Rice said.

"So, yes, there are contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda. We know that Saddam Hussein has a long history with terrorism in general. And there are some al Qaeda personnel who found refuge in Baghdad," she said. "There clearly are contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq that can be documented."

At the same time, she cautioned that "no one is trying to make an argument at this point that Saddam Hussein somehow had operational control of what happened on September 11th, so we don't want to push this too far."

Rice added: "This is a story that is unfolding, and it is getting clear, and we're learning more. ... When the picture is clear, we'll make full disclosure about it."

Seriously, did that little "no one is trying to make an argument at this point" disclaimer really detract from her clear intent, and the Administration's intent, to imply a connection between Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden, a connection in order to justify invasion as the way to deal with Hussein?

The dissenting Senators may also have been concerned about how forthright the new Secretary of State will be in hearings. Look for example at Dr. Rice's performance during the hearings of the 9-11 Commission. She was questioned about the contents of a Presidential Daily Briefing, or "PDB", of August 6, 2001:

The fact is that this August 6th PDB was in response to the president's questions about whether or not something might happen or something might be planned by al Qaeda inside the United States. He asked because all of the threat reporting or the threat reporting that was actionable was about the threats abroad, not about the United States.

This particular PDB had a long section on what bin Laden had wanted to do -- speculative, much of it -- in '97, '98; that he had, in fact, liked the results of the 1993 bombing.

It had a number of discussions of -- it had a discussion of whether or not they might use hijacking to try and free a prisoner who was being held in the United States -- Ressam. It reported that the FBI had full field investigations under way.

And we checked on the issue of whether or not there was something going on with surveillance of buildings, and we were told, I believe, that the issue was the courthouse in which this might take place.

Commissioner, this was not a warning. This was a historic memo -- historical memo prepared by the agency because the president was asking questions about what we knew about the inside.

(Emphasis added) Now, at the time she was testifying, she knew that her interlocutor had seen the PDB, but could not reveal its contents because it was still classified. She therefor knew that she could say anything she wanted about it, and he could not contradict her in public. However, the public eventually did see the unclassified version of the PDB, and it seems more like a warning, not a "historic document":

Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US

Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate Bin Ladin since 1997' has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US. Bin Ladin implied in US television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America."

After US missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, Bin Ladin told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to a [deleted text] service. An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told an [deleted text] service at the same time that Bin Ladin was planning to exploit the operative's access to the US to mount a terrorist strike.

~snip~

Although Bin Ladin has not succeeded, his attacks against the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrate that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks. Bin Ladin associates surveilled our Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as early as 1993, and some members of the Nairobi cell planning the bombings were arrested and deported in 1997.

Al-Qa'ida members — including some who are US citizens — have resided in or traveled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks. Two al-Qa'ida members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our Embassies in East Africa were US citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1990s.

A clandestine source said in 1998 that a Bin Ladin cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks.

We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a [deleted text] service in 1998 saying that Bin Ladin wanted to hijack a US aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Shaykh" 'Umar' Abd aI-Rahman and other US-held extremists.

Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.

(Emphasis added) Dr. Rice managed to avoid being called to account for her lack of candor with the 9-11 Commission, during her confirmation hearings. Nevertheless, I don't think a charge of "racism" is appropriate, where some senators had good reason to express misgivings about promoting Dr. Rice to Secretary of State.

Deja Vu All Over Again

Lots of people have been commenting on the Inaugural Address. There was one aspect of it which just bugged me, but which also helped me to put my finger on what has to be done over the next four years. The President did the usual conciliation bit, about healing divisions:

Americans of every party and background, Americans by choice and by birth, are bound to one another in the cause of freedom. We have known divisions, which must be healed to move forward in great purposes - and I will strive in good faith to heal them.

However, he also went right into the same old methodology, where he makes stuff up, about the people who disagree with him:

Some, I know, have questioned the global appeal of liberty - though this time in history, four decades defined by the swiftest advance of freedom ever seen, is an odd time for doubt. Americans, of all people, should never be surprised by the power of our ideals.

The man isn't even a half hour into his second term, and he ignores the fact that his critics disagree with his methods, not with America's goals of peace and freedom around the world. The new term is starting with the same old attacks and distortions, which characterized the last one.

I have no brilliant insight as to how to do this, but somehow we have to get away from the notion that war is the first choice to solve these problems.

"Hump Day"

Okay, so today starts the second half of the George W. Bush presidency.

It's all downhill from here, right?

It's A Town Full Of LosersAnd I'm Pulling Out Of Here To Win.

Okay, so I haven't posted anything for a while. I blame the holidays, and a little "poster's block". But in the last few days I've seen various people suggesting that doing nothing would be the way to protest the inauguration of the recently reelected President (yes, that was a gratuitous strike-out). You can buy nothing (notonedamndime.org), or say nothing (bushblackout.com), or stay home from work and really do nothing (black-thursday.com) So, I am forced to post, if only to make it clear that "doing nothing" is not, imho, the way to go.

I don't think that actions such as these are appropriate or even helpful – they seem to be the acts of people wallowing in their loss, and not of people working for a reversal of fortune. First of all, the focus of opposition can't just be George W. Bush, the person, but should be the Administration, its leading figures, and its policies. Unfortunately, the President's more vocal supporters have been able to characterize any opposition as being "hatred" of him – as if Americans had somehow lost the right to disagree with their government's policies and to work to change them. And second, this jumble of activities (are the anarchists really getting organized?) will detract from the fact that there actually is a cogent, eloquent, and informed base of opposition to the expected initiatives of "The Man With A Mandate". Other than a mild (and temporary) catharsis, most of these protests won't do much to change anything. People who did not want to see a second Bush inauguration, may be amused, or may be embarrassed; either way, it won't do anything to encourage their further involvement. More to the point, people who think that opposition to the President's proposals is nothing more than "hatred", will find more than enough to confirm their assumptions – and then they will summarily dismiss anything that they do hear from the aforementioned cogent, eloquent and informed opposition.

So, instead of wasting a perfectly good inauguration day, I hope more people use it as the first day of the discussion leading up to the next national election.

"Tomorrows Fall In NumberIn Number One By One"

And now, completely ignoring what I just wrote in the post above, another person's take on the inauguration -





Yeah, I know it's stupid ...

Overreacting

In Washington State, they have a wiretap law which says that every party to a telephone conversation has to consent, before the call is intercepted or recorded. In a recent case, a mother whose daughter was friends with a robbery suspect, was asked by the local police to keep an eye out for any evidence against the suspect. When the suspect called the daughter, the mother listened in on the conversation, and provided testimony at the suspect's trial which helped to convict him. The appeals court ruled that the mother's testimony could not be used. As reported in the press:

Attorneys for the state argued that minors should have a reduced expectation of privacy because parents have an absolute right to monitor phone calls coming into the family home. The attorneys cited provisions in federal wiretap law which are less restrictive than Washington's law and allow parents to tape and listen to their children's conversations.

"The Washington act, with its all-party consent requirement, contains no such parental exception and no Washington court has ever implied such an exception. We decline to do so now," wrote Justice Tom Chambers in the court's opinion.

The local sheriff, Bill Cumming, was quoted as stating that the decision was only about trial evidence based on listening in on a child's telephone call: "The ruling will likely not result in parents being prosecuted for snooping, Cumming said. But it prohibits courts and law enforcement from using the fruits of such snooping."

Sounds fairly reasonable, with the court applying the law as written, on the issue of the admission of evidence in a criminal case. Well, it's not so simple if you're Bill O'Reilly and his Talking Points:

So let's get this straight. If you suspect your child is dealing with a criminal, a dope dealer, a mugger, a molester, you can't eavesdrop on that child's conversations. That's now the law in Washington state, which has become a model for progressive activism.

~ snip ~

So don't try to find out what your kids are up to on the computer or on the telephone. Children must have privacy in these matters, so 14-year- old girls can deal with 17-year-old criminals.

Now why is this happening? As with the Christmas controversy, which I explain in my column this week on billoreilly.com, there's much more to this than just a legal decision. If you study all [the] state dominated societies from the Soviet Union, to Nazi Germany, to Red China to Cuba, you will see those governments try to diminish parental power because it's easier to mold young minds when state-sanctioned values don't compete with traditional parenting.

Public schooling in America is now devoid of any moralizing or spiritual emphasis. The Pledge of Allegiance being the last holdout. So if the progressives can succeed in eroding parental influence at home, it becomes much easier to influence American children to embrace a secular point of view. That's what's going on here.

And once again, the courts are helping the Progressives. It is simply chilling to realize that you cannot monitor behavior of your children. Judges in Washington state have decided that even if your kid is dealing with a criminal, you have no right to be pro-active.— Incredible and dangerous.

Now, anybody who spends any time actually finding out about what happened, knows that this entire tirade is a lot of hot air. Unfortunately, there are too many people who do not get the facts, only the tirades. Mr. O'Reilly makes his living by scaring his viewers about the vast conspiracy between the public schools and the courts, in order to prepare young minds to be more compliant with secular state domination (or something like that).

Of course, one could argue that lack of accurate information is more likely to harm our citizens, young and old, but people don't give you shows on Fox in order to talk like that.

Like A Cool Romeo

It's been a bad week for that dapper man-about-New York, who entertained multiple paramours in his Manhattan love nest.

No, not Bernie Kerik - I'm talking about Pale Male, the evicted red-tailed hawk.

Say Goodbye To Hollywood

Found through Dr. Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo, William Donohue of the Catholic "League" on the Scarborough show, going into a full meltdown:

Who really cares what Hollywood thinks? All these hacks come out there. Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It‘s not a secret, OK? And I‘m not afraid to say it. That‘s why they hate this movie. It‘s about Jesus Christ, and it‘s about truth. It‘s about the messiah.

Hollywood likes anal sex. They like to see the public square without nativity scenes. I like families. I like children. They like abortions. I believe in traditional values and restraint. They believe in libertinism. We have nothing in common. But you know what? The culture war has been ongoing for a long time. Their side has lost.

You have got secular Jews. You have got embittered ex-Catholics, including a lot of ex-Catholic priests who hate the Catholic Church, wacko Protestants in the same group, and these people are in the margins. Frankly, Michael Moore represents a cult movie. Mel Gibson represents the mainstream of America.

This was an obscene outburst. Honestly, who voted to let this guy market himself all over as the voice of the Catholic "League", as if he had any sort of right to speak on behalf of people who call themselves Catholics. Seriously, this guy should just crawl back under his rock - he's worse than an embarrassment.

The truth is, as I have noted here before, you don't have to be Jewish, or a non-Catholic, or even anti-Catholic, to not love that movie (although the movie's marketing efforts did seem to rely on arguments to the contrary). For what it's worth, while I have my doubts as to whether Mr. Gibsons's film has any real value, I think that the themes treated in Michael Moore's films (worker rights, rights of the oppressed, alienated youth in a violent culture, the human costs of war which we too often forget, to name a few) are very consistent with what some consider to be a religious viewpoint.

Along these lines, I have this other thought. It's not fully developed yet, but it goes like this. While Mr. Gibson may be a "Catholic" film-maker in some people's eyes (although there can be an argument about that), there's a good argument that Mr. Moore (raised a Catholic, still attends Mass), with the social justice theme that pervades his movies, has a better claim to that designation than Mr. Gibson.

(I know, I should give this last point more thought, and make this clearer. I'll get back to you.)

So this is ChristmasAnd what have you done?

We just passed the anniversary of the murder of John Lennon, twenty-four years ago. We are also well-underway in the season during which we hear him, in his song, asking us: "And what have you done?" Our answer this year has to be, "Not enough, it turns out." Oh sure, there's a lot of blame going around, and the talk about "values" as a big issue in the recent election. The solution proposed by some is that people who disagree with the current Administration have to "get religion".

Personally, I think the whole thing is a problem of perception, more than anything else. I fail to see any lack of "values" in questioning a broad range of the government's domestic and foreign policies – to the contrary, whether it's the neglect of the needy or the environment at home, or the violations of our country's principles in the mistreatment of prisoners or false justifications for pre-emptive war, one is justified in questioning the "morality" of the path we're being led down. So, I don't think that any new "values" need to be adopted by those who want to change what's happening. Just the opposite, actually – there are perfectly good and fine values which need to be re-stressed and re-emphasized over the next four years, perhaps even more than they were in the election.

As we also hear this time of year, in that same song, "War is over, if you want it." I think that's what everyone wants, but they have to overcome the fear that is encouraged by those who think war is the way to solve our problems. I guess we need to encourage people to take a little "leap of faith"?

Sinterklaas Is Coming To Town

For everybody who wishes that the whole gift-giving frenzy could somehow be separated from the more spiritual aspects of Christmas - Happy St. Nicholas Day.

Upcoming alternative gift-giving days include Boxing Day and Three Kings Day. Or, we can deal as best we can with the Americanization/commercialization of "Xmas".

Got My Facts Learned Real Good Right Now

Thanks to the editorial board at the Wall Street Journal, I'm finally clear about what is a "good" leak, and what is a "bad" leak.

Want to reveal the name of someone with the CIA, who has worked undercover in the past, even if that reveals confidential information about the people she dealt with? That's a good leak:

Mr. Wilson had been denying any involvement at all on Ms. Plame's part, in order to suggest that her identity was disclosed by a still-unknown Administration official out of pure malice. If instead an Administration official cited nepotism truthfully in order to explain the oddity of Mr. Wilson's selection for the Niger mission, then there was no underlying crime. Motive is crucial under the controlling statute.

The 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act was written in the wake of the Philip Agee scandal to protect the CIA from deliberate subversion, not to protect the identities of agents and their spouses who choose to enter into a national political debate.

Got that? Leaking the name of the agent in order to change the subject, from what Mr. Wilson found to why he may have been there to find it, is okay. After all, by trying to get this information out, he chose to "enter a national political debate". So, that's a "good" leak, see?

Now, from yesterday's WSJ, we've learned what a "bad" leak is:

But now the ICRC has thrown confidentiality aside to attack the U.S., of all countries. And it matters little that the original leaker in this case might have been in the U.S. government. Officials at ICRC headquarters were only too happy to confirm the document's authenticity, and they quickly issued a statement complaining that "significant problems regarding conditions and treatment at Guantanamo Bay have not yet been adequately addressed."

This follows a similar leak in May regarding the Abu Ghraib prison, as well as the ICRC's unprecedented decision to publicly challenge the Bush Administration's original designation of the Gitmo detainees as unlawful combatants rather than prisoners of war. What's more, the leaked ICRC documents themselves reveal interpretations of the laws of war so contrary to what the Geneva Conventions actually say that it's hard to read them as other than products of anti-American animus.

Getting out information to the citizens of a democracy, about what their government is doing in their name, is clearly a "bad" leak.

Now, let's sum up. If you leak the name of a CIA operative, even though that might make future family members of CIA operatives reluctant to "enter a national political debate", you deserve a reward. If you leak (or confirm) information about abuse of detainees, such that the public might demand accountability, you deserve to be labeled as one of the "bad kids", and punished:

No longer careful, scrupulous and neutral, the ICRC has become just another politicized pressure group like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger is reportedly planning to visit Washington soon to press the U.S. government on Guantanamo and other issues. We hope he is told that he is leading his organization toward the loss of its $100 million-plus annual subsidy from U.S. taxpayers, as well as its special status come future revisions of the Geneva Conventions.

I hope this clears things up for all of you.

He Was Just Blinded By The Light

Last night on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, the guest was Christopher Hitchens talking about his new book. From the description, it seems to be a collection of previously published essays. Anyway, the interview was less about the book, and more about Mr. Hitchens appearing as, well, almost a caricature of himself (sort of a cross between William F. Buckley and Foster Brooks). He ambled onto the stage and over to his seat, clutching a paper cup (from which he continued to sip). Jon Stewart seemed amused by him (and he was amusing, sort of), as he slurred his way through some of his top themes, especially his continued defense of the Iraq invasion.

As best as I can tell, Mr. Hitchens has arrived at his pro-Iraq war stance via his trademark anti-everything involving religion. The 9/11 attackers were just another set of religious fanatics, a term he uses to describe anybody from a suicide bomber to Mahatma Gandhi or Mother Teresa. His new book appears to be an attempt to collect his various essays in support of his position. Listening to him last night, however, it occurred to me that his obsessive embrace of the Administration's choice to use warfare, is keeping him from appreciating the value of different approaches.

He made one good point last night, that we are not "at war with Islam". Instead, there is a struggle going on among various political and social movements in parts of the world with large Muslim populations. We are allied with some of those factions, such as the Kurds (of whom Mr. Hitchens often writes). He noted that our great task is to find, and ally ourselves with, those Muslims who reject the Osama Bin Laden view of where Islam should be going. And, that's why I think that he has prevented himself from recognizing the downside of the Iraq invasion – Iraq was not really a Bin Laden ally, and invading Iraq earned us the enmity of many people who never really cared for Bin Laden. So, the invasion effectively took us further from the goal of finding more allies in the Muslim world.

As I said, he mentioned the Kurds, and how they had been an insurgency against Saddam Hussein for a long time. But, one has to contrast the present situation, after our invasion, with the Kurds in Iraq as described by Mr. Hitchens before that invasion:

What would the lifting of the no-fly zones mean for the people who live under them? I recently sat down with my old friend Dr. Barham Salih, who is the elected prime minister of one sector of Iraqi Kurdistan. Neither he nor his electorate could be mentioned if it were not for the no-fly zones imposed--as a result of democratic protest in the West--at the end of the last Gulf War. In his area of Iraq, "regime change" has already occurred. There are dozens of newspapers, numerous radio and TV channels, satellite dishes, Internet cafes. Four female judges have been appointed. Almost half the students at the University of Sulaimaniya are women. And a pro al Qaeda group, recently transferred from Afghanistan, is trying to assassinate the Kurdish leadership and nearly killed my dear friend Barham just the other day.... Now, why would this gang want to make that particular murder its first priority?

Before you face that question, consider this. Dr. Salih has been through some tough moments in his time. Most of the massacres and betrayals of the Kurdish people of Iraq took place with American support or connivance. But the Kurds have pressed ahead with regime change in any case. Surely a "peace movement" with any principles should be demanding that the United States not abandon them again.

Under the circumstances, with a stable Kurdish north in Iraq, and Saddam Hussein pinned down with inspectors in the country, why would Mr. Hitchens have thought that rolling the tanks into Baghdad was the best approach? I think he put a little too much faith, as it were, in the Bush Administration, simply because they had already bombed some of those fanatics (and a lot of other people) in Afghanistan. Now, he's a "true believer", no matter how much damage this war has inflicted, even in places that had previously been relatively stable.

"Al Qaeda couldn’t kill Christian Engeldrum, but his own government’s dishonesty and incompetence could"

From Eric Alterman, something which should make you angry upon learning of it -

Christian Engeldrum of Ladder Company 61 in Co-op City in the Bronx, was killed while serving with the New York National Guard on Monday when a roadside bomb exploded near his convoy outside Baghdad. He lived through the attacks of 9/11 that took the lives of many of his friends and comrades, which took place even though his government was repeatedly warned to be on the alert for just such an attack but took no measures whatever for the protection of the nation. (He even helped raise the first flag over Ground Zero after the attack.) He lived through the still-unknown health effects on his respiratory system, after breathing the air at Ground Zero when his government lied to him about its safety. What he didn’t live through, however, was a war, which his government lied to try to tie to the attacks, in order to win the support of people like Christian, who had every right to be furious at America’s assailants, but whose duty and courage was exploited to attack people who had nothing whatever to do with it. Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda couldn’t kill Christian Engledrum, but his own government’s dishonesty and incompetence could. His two sons have lost a father, his wife, a husband, his parents a son, and for what? Yes Saddam Hussein is in prison, but is anyone really better off for the unending chaos and catastrophe this bunch has unleashed in Iraq? Most Iraqis certainly don’t think they are and the rest of the world hates us more than ever. Isn’t it about time we had an anti-war movement in this country to honor the deaths of exploited heroes like Christian Engeldrum and do our damnedest to minimize the number of brave mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters, husbands and wives, must follow in his footsteps?

(Emphasis added) I would just add that the results of the last election did not make opposition to the Administration's approach to war and foreign relations irrelevant; instead, it makes it necessary.