July 30, 2006
Macabre Scores
None too soon, Prime Minister Siniora is using the phrase "war crimes." Yet the more Israel bombs, the more these war crimes morph into a statistic, and the more easily Miss Pianist Agonistes swooshes past them. "There is something fundamentally wrong with a war where there are more dead children than armed men," as Jan Egeland, the UN's top relief official dryly put it. How wrong, or how acceptable after all, marks a good measure of our humanity. (Image credit AP, for fair use.)
July 27, 2006
The Manchurian Clergyman
By Werther*
In the 1920s, explaining the growing phenomenon of religious fundamentalism and how it battened Prohibition upon a suffering nation, H.L. Mencken described Southern Baptism as "a theology degraded almost to the level of voodoo." Eighty years on, we could remark, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, but we would be wrong.
July 25, 2006
The Cowardly Lions of Switzerland
For the record: Some days ago I asked the press counselor at the Swiss Embassy here whether I could interview him about the situation in the middle east, given recent statements by the Swiss government. This morning I am told that the Swiss Embassy cannot make anybody available for an interview. Tant Pis.
Words Unspoken
The closest that the mainstream media comes to criticizing Israel is to mention that some people think—possibly—that 'disproportionate force' is being used. Disproportionate? Will somebody please tell me then, for heaven's sake, what proportionate force would look like and where the line would be? To make just one obvious comparison: the fact of the matter is that Serbia never did anything to Kosovo on the scale of what Israel is doing to Lebanon, yet Milosevic was brought before an international tribunal on charges which included, in regard to Kosovo, war crimes and crimes against humanity. To their great and lasting credit some senior UN officials have been using realistic language about Israel, yet almost everybody else has proven incapable of discussing or reporting events with neither fear nor favor. This is a pity. If we can't use words like murder, war crimes, and crimes against humanity to describe what's happening—apt words—we implicitly find ourselves in collusion with the bloody deeds. (Image credit AP, for fair use.)
July 24, 2006
So Come On: Jack Be Nimble
The principal feature of the American foreign policy bureaucracy—hierarchy—means that at the best of times it can cope with a limited number of major crises. This is a large part of the explanation why, for example, the US had so much trouble responding to (arguably, failing to forestall) the Yugoslav breakup in the latter part of 1991: decision-makers, as well as all the bureaucratic hamsters, were exhausted from Gulf War I, Operation Desert Storm. Other recurring organizational failings are important too, such as not moving information up and down the chain of command as needed—a particularly noteworthy shortcoming in the Baker State Department—but to my mind the "just a few crises at a time" limit trumps the others. Thus, when I see an article like this describing the accelerating disintegration of Iraq I know pretty much for certain that, because the US is now distracted with Israel and Lebanon, Iraq has moved beyond the point of no return. For a host of other reasons, for a couple years the most prudent policy would have been withdrawal; now it may well be that in the context of an inevitable withdrawal the main thing to worry about is that it not turn into a rout.
July 23, 2006
Lebanon — The Israeli Game Plan
By Terrell E. Arnold
Late last week Israel issued an injunction that all residents evacuate southern Lebanon. The Israeli instructions are to clear the coastal region of Lebanon from the Israeli border to the Litani River. This zone is about 25 miles deep and normally contains about 250,000 people. Many foreigners already have evacuated through Tyre, the main city of the region; the Lebanese population, however, is left to its own devices to escape. At the same time, the Israel Defense Force (IDF) has massed forces along the Lebanon/Israeli frontier under an obvious plan to initiate occupation of the territory. In preparation, the IDF has been conducting air and naval artillery attacks across Lebanon that appear designed to reduce the country to rubble, render large parts of it uninhabitable, and distract attention from the south. Hundreds of Lebanese civilians have been killed and many thousands wounded.
Could this carnage really be about the release by Hezbollah of two captured Israeli soldiers? The answer obviously is no, unless, of course, Israel's leadership have lost their collective minds. But then, what is it about?
Royal Lilliputians
How to say it? Arianna Huffington is to the monied elite a brown nose par excellence. And her site, which purports to be progressive, has got high temperature war fever. Look, for example, at this drivel from one of her bloggers, another synthetic progressive, Bill Maher ("I Love Being on the Side of My President"). She's got plenty of companion blog entries by writers of this ilk. On the flip side, a scorching anti-war screed the other day by Stan Goff disappeared into Arianna's back page maze within hours of posting, though assorted contemporaneous posts by others remained prominently on her front page throughout a normal blog cycle. Clearly a case of censorship. Why do I bother to mention it? Because it's symptomatic of a profound problem that afflicts the left practically to the same degree as it does the mainstream: An inability not only to think critically about Israel but, worse, a total inability to discuss the influence of the Jewish community on American life. Contra Mearsheimer and Walt, it's the latter point, not the former, that is the genuine taboo. What we desperately need is somebody like Mark Twain to shed a sensible, humane perspective on things.
Nary A Drop To Drink
As I indicated earlier, I lean towards the hypothesis that Israel's attack against Lebanon was an emotional reaction to an unanticipated setback. Wayne White, an experienced hand, tells Ken Silverstein (in one of a series of exceptionally excellent mini-interviews that Ken is doing) something similar at Harper's. What everybody now seems to agree about, in any case, is that the plans in use had been available for a year, or longer. To all that I would add: I'm hearing scuttlebutt that the mover wasn't Prime Minister Ehud Olmert or Defense Minister Amir Peretz, but the Air Force Chief of Staff, Elyezer Shkedy, a super hawk and classic Strangelove character. I can't source it otherwise and don't know exactly how to rate it but find this plausible. Finally, there's the ghostly question of what Israel may do once inside Lebanon. Juan Cole speculates that water—namely the Litani River—could be seized on a permanent basis (note also Cole's comment about Rumsfeld having had to have been in on the air war plans but, seemingly, not having kept the Tyrant in the loop). So does, in more alarmist terms, Terry Arnold. It's something that I've been wondering about as well, despite not having seen the least hint of the possibility in the mainstream media.
July 22, 2006
As Goes The Price Of Gas
Graphs are wonderful things. Sometimes they can be a bit deceptive, but often they capture an essential truth better than words. Here's a confection: the Tyrant's popularity (red) tracks the inverse of the price of gas (blue). For the full graph see Professor Stuart Eugene Thiel's Pollkatz page. For extra credit, project into the future.
July 21, 2006
A Bomb For All Seasons
It's pretty mind-boggling, watching the tempo of Israeli mechanized killing in Lebanon. Not something, one imagines, that could be thrown together just like that. There's no such thing as air war 'stone soup'. Now, it's true that the same munitions can have lots of different purposes but I think it's worth noting that last spring Israel began acquiring GBU-28 bunker buster bombs from the US, the first ever such sale to a foreign country. At the time it was thought they were meant for an Iran contingency, but the file needs to be flagged—it is certainly possible that what we're seeing today began with explicit, specific planning then.
July 20, 2006
The Dead Left To Rot
European leaders reacted slowly to the Tyrant's guileless, cornball performance at the recent G8 summit, but after two days it can fairly be summed up: nausea and disgust. Partly that's personal politics—the Caligula act doesn't play well in Europe—and partly that's simply a normal reaction to the icy moral squalor of US-Israeli policy in Gaza and Lebanon. Even the supine bootlickers at the Washington Post published an anonymous quote by a European official, speaking of Lebanon, "The danger of allowing it to continue is that the US is more and more despised." You wouldn't, you couldn't, understand the relationships in play by reading the mainstream US press or watching the news, but European media have done a more creditable job of reporting attacks by the world's fifth most powerful military on a civilian population. And it hasn't been picked up here, either, yet, but the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour (the former prosecutor at the Hague) is warning that the Israeli killing spree could result in war crimes charges. Indeed. That's how such charges always get started, with a passing comment by a senior official in a position to make things happen...
A Win Is A Win Is A Win
Since the Democrats might not have the moxie to defeat the Republicans in November—whether through failure to challenge rigged electronic votes, or an inability to present alternative policies, or a general unwillingness to articulate any coherent critique of Republican practices, not to mention their (the Democrats, that is) conspicuous absence of interest in the welfare of ordinary Americans—Lady Luck seems to have taken charge: The Tyrant's veto of stem cell research may mean that the Republicans snooker themselves. Recent polls, probably in error on the conservative side since how many people really have boned up on the potential of stem cell research (?), show a two to one majority in favor. And an aging population means almost everybody has someone in their family or knows someone who might benefit. Moreover, this veto gets at the Church/State nettle in a way people don't have to think too much about. Nobody wants an American Ayatollah, as Senator Tom Harkin puts it. Nor, indeed, should we ignore the mottled shadow thrown past us by Iran, which has developed stem cell lines for research since 2003.
July 18, 2006
Service Interruptions Explained
Out in Orem, Utah, where my host provider is located, they've been having a heat wave. Last Friday the city's power grid failed, taking BlueHost with it—some podcast listeners may have noticed it was difficult in the evening to download Friday's show—and today, as the power company was making repairs they experienced a second outage. Evidently the entire city of some 85,000 is affected. In any case, BlueHost is trying a workaround, relocating servers to where they have access to emergency power. I'm told it's not expected to be a chronic problem, so let's keep our fingers crossed.
Taxpayer Rip-Off
When I was evacuated out of Kinshasa (the military had been rioting because they hadn't been paid) I took a leaky ferry to Brazzaville Beach and flew out on Tower Air. As an Embassy employee I didn't pay, and so far as I know nobody who was brought out—a much larger number than just government people—paid. It is true that the State Department has traditionally charged Americans abroad for emergency repatriation: when it is the traveler's fault. In the case of Lebanon it is clearly not such, I haven't seen any reports of other governments charging their nationals, and I would be completely shocked if any others do. For the US government to charge Americans for repatriation in these circumstances is a disgrace, pure and simple. Moreover, it's as clear an indication of the utter contempt in which our rulers hold their subjects as any I've seen recently.
‡ As of Tuesday night, CNN reports these fees will be waived.
Feingold Disappoints
Russ Feingold shows what he's really made of: According to his web site (July 14), "I stand firmly with the people of Israel and their government as they defend themselves against these outrageous attacks." As far as I'm concerned this statement is an automatic disqualification from any leadership position in the progressive/opposition movement, regardless of what other issues he may have been right about. And pay attention to this, too: Fox News reports that Congress is preparing to vote this week on bipartisan bills supporting Israel. A few, such as Democrat Rep. John Dingell and Republican Sen. John Warner are expressing reservations about "unconditional support" for Israel. But that'll be the minority report. Take names, here, because over the next few years you'll want to know who your friends are, and aren't.
July 15, 2006
What Are They Thinking?
Israel's attack on Lebanon leaves me somewhat nonplussed. A priori, everything that the Israeli government says is either false or so far from the truth as to be worthless in trying to understand their behavior. That leaves us, I suppose, with two types of analytic approaches, not necessarily mutually exclusive, to make sense of it all. The first would be, don't 'over-think' what they're doing. They were busy wreaking havoc in Gaza, they didn't want to be bothered by pinpricks and now, out of hubris and inexperience, they're trying to slap down Hizbullah. An emotionally stunted reaction, nothing more. The second would be that they have some kind of strategic game up their sleeve, perhaps even a counter-intuitive one. (Photo credit AP, for fair use.)
July 14, 2006
Hoosier Hooey
By Werther*
Indiana, once deemed by National Lampoon to be the country's most boring state, is nevertheless the hatchery of two notable American bards, Booth Tarkington and Theodore Dreiser. Based on recent news reports, a third Hoosier spinner of tales is poised to join their august ranks.
July 11, 2006
And In The Darkness, Bind Them
Something must have thrown a scare into the Tyrant, but I don't think it was the Hamdan ruling. Perhaps the prospect of torture becoming a Senate football and political issue for a number of tight races in November, together with questions about the Tyrant's ability to escape international justice during post-incumbency travel. In any case, the mainstream media was awake enough to correctly report the government's sudden acceptance of the Geneva Conventions as a reversal, but failed, surprisingly, also to ask the logical questions of what happens now to Guantanamo, to the rendition program, and to 'black sites', or for that matter grey sites such as Bagram air base. Regardless of other aspects of their treatment, merely holding a person indefinitely without charges is, as I would interpret things, also a violation.
July 10, 2006
We're Here To Help
私達はここに助けることいる Yes, the Japanese government is at it again, egged on by a White House cabal that wants to see China's military knocked down a peg or two. But for the Japanese government to raise—and to do it publicly no less—the possibility of a preemptive military strike against North Korean missiles brings back a lot of memories in Asia. It's a breathtaking development. Once these passions get let loose it's not so simple to cork them back up. Keep your eye on the bounce: the prospect of an unstable northeast asian security rivalry is starting to look better than even odds. (Some browsers may not be able to render the Japanese characters at the top of this entry.)
July 5, 2006
Italian Master Spook Jailed Over Renditions
Following the previous item, here's another indication that despite the wheels of justice turning rather slowly, they do, in fact, still turn in some places. In the not-too-distant future it may well become impossible for the Tyrant and his henchmen to travel to civilized countries without being tossed in the clink on charges of war crimes: All it takes is a change of government to left of center in Italy for a former senior Italian intelligence official to be brought to account for his collaboration in US kidnappings/renditions. And remember, Italian judges also have issued outstanding warrants now for 26 (!) Americans involved.
Slow Motion Vivisection
It's some sort of grotesque political laboratory experiment: slowly torture a community, dispose of its members one by one by one, until it disappears. Do it just below the threshold of international opprobrium but, when necessary, use the power of the press to squelch complaints. Thus it's important, and more than merely symbolic, when the Swiss government, acting as the depository country of the Geneva conventions, dares to object that Israel is flagrantly violating international law by its collective punishment of the Palestinians, in this particular case, in Gaza. The Swiss seem to recognize, though perhaps through a glass darkly, that such an unrelenting, invidious corruption of basic human rights and decency affects not merely those whose lives are battered or snuffed out but that it coarsens and contaminates all of us, everywhere. On the day after the fourth of July we might reflect on the fact that Israeli atrocities are not the sort of thing that George Washington had been willing to risk his life for... (Photo credit Xinhua/Reuters, for fair use)
July 1, 2006
On A Cross of Iron
Four and a half stars out of five for "Why We Fight." A half star deducted for not at least keeping open the possibility that American decision makers prefer instability over stability and that things have worked out, so far, more or less according to plan. But putting this pet peeve of mine aside, "Why We Fight" is a must-see, an indispensable big-picture view of American militarism and our continuing descent into totalitarianism. Make no mistake about it: we're living in a system that's lost its political equilibrium, in which almost all change has a built-in tendency to make things worse, and where an accelerating rate of change is inevitable. Interesting times, indeed.
