January 27, 2007
Why Stop There?
What Emboldens the Enemy?
Gates: “[The] proposed Senate resolution…would embolden the enemy”
Gates: “Any indication of flagging will” would embolden the enemy.
Then why stop there?
Open debate emboldens the enemy.
Free speech emboldens the enemy.
Political opposition emboldens the enemy.
And why stop even there?
Elections? That’s just what they want us to do.
Democracy? If we manage preserve it, the terrorists will have won.
[WP for Gates quotes]
January 26, 2007
Bush Keeps Hope Alive
Washington Post: Bush said he recognizes that “there is skepticism and pessimism” in Congress, but he added that “some are condemning the plan before it’s even had a chance to work.”
All we are saying is give war a chance.
January 19, 2007
The Military Commissions--Worse than Just Procedures
Pentagon sets rules for terrorism suspect trials
WASHINGTON (Reuters), 1/18/07 - The Pentagon on Thursday gave broad discretion to judges to decide what evidence may be presented against suspected…Taliban members facing trial in the new military commissions court system.
DKo: So, suspected terrorists and suspected Taliban members may be regarded interchangeably. And, indeed, that is consistent with the basic setup of these commissions—even though the Taliban were the government of Afghanistan; their army was the army of Afghanistan; they were fighting a war against the American army within Afghanistan; and no claim is made that the Taliban even had knowledge of the terrorist attacks to be launched in the United States.
It is laudable that the commissions are being criticized on the basis of their egregious procedures, including the use of testimony-by-torture. Still, it reminds me of something I read long ago from Bertrand Russell (from memory here), that if the government announced plans to sterilize all deviants, the liberals would demand due process.
January 15, 2007
The FBI Effort to Drive Dr. King to Suicide
To me, this was the most disgusting part of the FBI’s campaign against Dr. Martin Luther King. It is pretty well known by now that the FBI had bugged King’s hotel rooms, and had recorded explicit sexual episodes. They used these tapes against him for years, and even played them for selected journalists. I heard about them from Sidney Zion, then legal editor of the New York Times. (He thought they were funny.) In 1964, they mailed King a tape anonymously, along with a threatening letter.
From the “Church Committee” Congressional Report, 4/23/76 [My boldface]:
“According to Congressman [Andrew] Young a letter had accompanied the tape, stating that the tape would be released in 34 days and…threatening ‘there is only one thing you can do to prevent this from happening.’ Congressman Young said, ‘we assumed that the letter and the tape had been mailed 34 days before the receipt of the Nobel Prize, and that this was a threat to expose Martin just before he received the Nobel Prize.’ Congressman Young testified. ‘I think that the disturbing thing to Martin was that he felt somebody was trying to get him to commit suicide…’ Both Young and Ralph Abernathy…interpreted it as inviting Dr. King to take his own life. The letter stated in part:
“‘King, look into your heart. You know you are a complete fraud and a greater liability to all of us Negroes….The American public, … will know you for what you are…’
“‘King, there, is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is….You are done. There is but one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy fraudulent self is bared to the nation.’”
http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/churchfinalreportIIIb.htm [Search for “34 days.”]
January 13, 2007
Kurds Killing Arabs to Stabilize Iraq?
Anger Mounts Over Deployment of Kurdish Forces to Baghdad
By Nidhal al-Laithi and Marsi abu Tareq
Azzaman, Iraq, 1/7/07
Kurdish leaders have decided to deploy their own militias in the fighting now taking place in Baghdad….This will be the first time Kurdish armed groups will fight in Baghdad, and specifically against their co-religionists, Arab Sunnis. The majority of Kurds are also Sunni….
In a city like Baghdad which is riven with sectarianism, it’s hard to know if the Kurds will actually engage in battle, given the religious decrees of top Sunni clerics - many of whom are Kurds – forbidding the taking up of arms against the resistance….
The Mahdi Army itself is a sworn enemy of the Kurdish Peshmerga militias and is spearheading the resistance to Kurdish moves to annex the oil-rich city of Kirkuk in the Kurdish autonomous region.
Many see the possibility of Kurdish militias fighting in Baghdad as a dangerous step, and one which is bound to deepen ethnic divisions and add fuel to the current sectarian fire.
January 12, 2007
It's So Unfair!
“‘If the Iraqis are unhappy with our presence and they are willing to attack us, my view would be that it’s because the overall situation in Iraq has become so unsatisfactory,’ [Defense Secretary] Gates said. ‘And probably the fact that many of those Iraqis blame the United States for the mistakes that were made after the original ouster of Saddam Hussein.’”
January 11, 2007
There are two sides to every question.
“Mortgage rates jump on strong labor market, inflation pressures
“WASHINGTON (Reuters) 1/11/2007— Average interest rates on 30-year mortgages crept upward in the latest week to 6.21% from 6.18%, according to a survey by finance company Freddie Mac on Thursday.”
January 5, 2007
"I'll give you these concessions, but then I'm going to shoot you."
Three Bush Foreign-Policy Hypotheses
I won’t undertake to substantiate these, just to offer them as hypotheses.
We (i.e., the Bush administration) are refusing talks with Syria and Iran, because we are afraid the talks would succeed.
We are afraid of the talks succeeding, because we’d have to renounce regime-change. (It is diplomatically untenable to say, “I’ll give you these concessions, but then I’m going to shoot you.”).
We won’t renounce regime-change, because being the only remaining superpower would be pointless if we couldn’t even threaten uncooperative governments.
January 2, 2007
The Future Now
I love the headline up on msnbc.com right now:
Doesn’t this look just like one of those fantasy headlines of some more perfect world? You know — the kind we daydream about while listening to Nancy Grace drone on about the latest unsolved horror…?
This one could only be better if the headline made mention of the fact that this change is the Democrats doing, instead of lightly dusting the credit over some implied magical bipartisan force (oh, if only….).
We’re off to a good start. At the risk of being greedy, here’s what I’d like to see next:
