Okay, so in the White House press room...
“... the most recent priest scandals in Boston and Chicago, and the hostage situation at that bank in Reno. This being the first Monday of the month, of course I’ll renew my denunciation of the Inquisition and of Timothy McVeigh. I’d also like to take a minute--if I may--to give a shout-out to former parishioner Daniel Munroe on his birthday. Daniel is currently serving time in Allenwood for aggravated assault, which of course we also denounce.”
A smattering of applause.
“Thank you, Father Bailey. And next we have... Rabbi Berman?”
“Thank you. Good morning, everyone. It’s always nice to see such a great crowd out on a rainy day. On behalf of the First Reform Congregation of Hoboken, I’d like to denounce the following deplorable acts by our fellow Jews for the week ending September 3. Locally, Jacob Levy stole a box of Raspberry Zingers from a convenience store and Mark Rothman assaulted a homeless man outside of a bar early Saturday morning. Nationally, we’d like to denounce Rebecca Weinberg’s role in that cheating scandal at Princeton and her recent attempt to publish a plagiarized young-adult novel, and we’d like to denounce Jon Stewart’s recent interview with that guy who wrote that book, because he was unnecessarily mean and that just didn't seem appropriate. As always, we’d like to denounce Adam Sandler. And that’s really it for denunciations this week. Quiet week.”
Applause.
“Thank you, Rabbi Berman. Next up is Imam Haddad.”
“Haddad isn’t here today. Ramadan.”
“Oh, that’s right.”
“Priestess Moonstone said she’ll read his denunciations when she does her own.”
“Oh, well that’s nice of her. Then that brings us to... Brother Kosal.”
“Thank you.”
“Keep it short this time?”
“Yes. Still sorry about that. On behalf of the community of the Mahayana Buddhavihara Temple of Greater Akron, I’d like to denounce the following deplorable acts by our fellow Buddhists for the week ending September 3...”
Peaceful Wiccas pls refudiate.
Showing posts with label the GWOT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the GWOT. Show all posts
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
On real progress
Okay, so one of the problems with the whole "bombing someone back to the Stone Age" concept is that they might just stay there.
...
Well, then. We should be thanking you, Mr. Akbari! It's good that I don't have to sit inside my burning house and roast because my husband isn't around to let me out. That's very generous of you. Please let me know to whom I must petition to approve my "reasonable excuse" for not performing my wifely duties.
One member of the upper house of parliament described the law as "worse than during the Taliban." Worse than during the Taliban.
The Taliban, in case you've forgotten, and you might have, as it's been a while since anyone has given a crap about U.S. military efforts that are crumbling to dust from neglect outside of Iraq, are the fundamentalist Islamic terrorist group that governed Afghanistan until the U.S.-slash-NATO removed them from power. We/they did that because, for one, the Taliban were sheltering Osama bin Laden, who perpetrated the attacks on 9/11, which you also might have forgotten, as we haven't heard his name from the Executive Branch in quite some time.
We did our job so solidly that as soon as we turned our backs, they began a resurgence that pitted them against the new government in Afghanistan (and firmly hand-in-hand with the government in Pakistan). But it didn't matter to Hamid Karzai whether the Taliban were for him or against him, because he had it in his power to do them one better. He's not terribly popular, he's sucking up to the Shia clerics, and that means Sharia law. And Sharia law is universally bad for, among other people, women.
It can be tricky to question laws like this. It's largely a cultural thing, and it's politically dangerous for the West to come in and impose their values and traditions on these brown folks out in the desert. And it's not fair, either; just like missionaries offering medicine as long as you'll convert to Christianity, it's not fair to offer Afghanistan aid and military support as long as they conform to our Western system of values.
You know what else isn't fair? Honor killings. Female genital mutilation. Forced child marriages. Laws that restrict a woman's freedom of speech, of education, even of physical movement. When a woman is stoned to death for adultery for being raped, it's not something we can sit back and chalk up to "cultural differences." Grilled goat meat is a cultural difference. Polytheism is a cultural difference. Bollywood movies are a cultural difference. Holding a young girl down, cutting off her clitoris with a knife, and sewing her labia together so she'll be "clean" and "pure" and not turn into a slut is torture, and I don't care who's imposing whose culture on whom, it's not wrong to speak up--it's wrong not to.
So yeah, I'm questioning the hell out of this law. I'm questioning any law that makes women so beholden to their husbands that they can turn into hermits and sex slaves should their husbands so decree. And I'm questioning a parliament and a president who have received near-unequivocal support from past administrations and are now explicitly intent on imposing Islamic law on their country and reducing women to second-class (if that) citizens.
It's time for the world to start paying some damn attention. The Taliban we were so desperate to oust eight years ago have been coming back for four, and the government of Afghanistan is moving to meet them. And we're staring so intently at Iraq, trying to figure out how to fix the mess we've made, that we haven't even noticed. Well, it's time to start noticing. Because half our justification for going into Afghanistan in the first place was to make lives better. The other half was to find Osama bin Laden. If laws like this, and worse like this, continued to get passed, we will have accomplished nothing. And that's one hell of a waste.
Hamid Karzai has been accused of trying to win votes in Afghanistan's presidential election by backing a law the UN says legalises rape within marriage and bans wives from stepping outside their homes without their husbands' permission.
The Afghan president signed the law earlier this month, despite condemnation by human rights activists and some MPs that it flouts the constitution's equal rights provisions.
The final document has not been published, but the law is believed to contain articles that rule women cannot leave the house without their husbands' permission, that they can only seek work, education or visit the doctor with their husbands' permission, and that they cannot refuse their husband sex.
...
Leaders of the Hazara minority, which is regarded as the most important bloc of swing voters in the election, also demanded the new law.
Ustad Mohammad Akbari, an MP and the leader of a Hazara political party, said the president had supported the law in order to curry favour among the Hazaras. But he said the law actually protected women's rights.
"Men and women have equal rights under Islam but there are differences in the way men and women are created. Men are stronger and women are a little bit weaker; even in the west you do not see women working as firefighters."
Akbari said the law gave a woman the right to refuse sexual intercourse with her husband if she was unwell or had another reasonable "excuse". And he said a woman would not be obliged to remain in her house if an emergency forced her to leave without permission.
Well, then. We should be thanking you, Mr. Akbari! It's good that I don't have to sit inside my burning house and roast because my husband isn't around to let me out. That's very generous of you. Please let me know to whom I must petition to approve my "reasonable excuse" for not performing my wifely duties.
One member of the upper house of parliament described the law as "worse than during the Taliban." Worse than during the Taliban.
The Taliban, in case you've forgotten, and you might have, as it's been a while since anyone has given a crap about U.S. military efforts that are crumbling to dust from neglect outside of Iraq, are the fundamentalist Islamic terrorist group that governed Afghanistan until the U.S.-slash-NATO removed them from power. We/they did that because, for one, the Taliban were sheltering Osama bin Laden, who perpetrated the attacks on 9/11, which you also might have forgotten, as we haven't heard his name from the Executive Branch in quite some time.
We did our job so solidly that as soon as we turned our backs, they began a resurgence that pitted them against the new government in Afghanistan (and firmly hand-in-hand with the government in Pakistan). But it didn't matter to Hamid Karzai whether the Taliban were for him or against him, because he had it in his power to do them one better. He's not terribly popular, he's sucking up to the Shia clerics, and that means Sharia law. And Sharia law is universally bad for, among other people, women.
It can be tricky to question laws like this. It's largely a cultural thing, and it's politically dangerous for the West to come in and impose their values and traditions on these brown folks out in the desert. And it's not fair, either; just like missionaries offering medicine as long as you'll convert to Christianity, it's not fair to offer Afghanistan aid and military support as long as they conform to our Western system of values.
You know what else isn't fair? Honor killings. Female genital mutilation. Forced child marriages. Laws that restrict a woman's freedom of speech, of education, even of physical movement. When a woman is stoned to death for adultery for being raped, it's not something we can sit back and chalk up to "cultural differences." Grilled goat meat is a cultural difference. Polytheism is a cultural difference. Bollywood movies are a cultural difference. Holding a young girl down, cutting off her clitoris with a knife, and sewing her labia together so she'll be "clean" and "pure" and not turn into a slut is torture, and I don't care who's imposing whose culture on whom, it's not wrong to speak up--it's wrong not to.
So yeah, I'm questioning the hell out of this law. I'm questioning any law that makes women so beholden to their husbands that they can turn into hermits and sex slaves should their husbands so decree. And I'm questioning a parliament and a president who have received near-unequivocal support from past administrations and are now explicitly intent on imposing Islamic law on their country and reducing women to second-class (if that) citizens.
It's time for the world to start paying some damn attention. The Taliban we were so desperate to oust eight years ago have been coming back for four, and the government of Afghanistan is moving to meet them. And we're staring so intently at Iraq, trying to figure out how to fix the mess we've made, that we haven't even noticed. Well, it's time to start noticing. Because half our justification for going into Afghanistan in the first place was to make lives better. The other half was to find Osama bin Laden. If laws like this, and worse like this, continued to get passed, we will have accomplished nothing. And that's one hell of a waste.
Friday, May 16, 2008
On the good, the bad, and the Friday Random Ten
Okay, so it's been a while, I know, and I also know I say that at the beginning of every TGTBATFRT, usually because it's been a while. Work continues to be a pain in my assholes, and the personal life is... good, actually, really good, but time-consuming. But quit you're whining, because TGTBATFRT is back, baby, we're back, and we're... back.
What's good (for the bunch of weeks ending 5/16):
- gays settlin' down
- chicken and vegetable potstickers
- Iron Man - a seriously entertaining movie, whether or not you care about comic books. And it brought teh hotness back to Robert Downey Jr.
- POKE!
- Bonnie Richardson is very, very good.
What's bad:
- all this bulljive over gays settlin' down. Seriously, people, I've heard the legitimate arguments and given them due consideration before refuting/dismissing them, but this whole "gay marriage destroys straight marriage" thing? How? For the love of the invisible pink unicorn, would someone please tell me how marriage becomes weaker when more people are allowed to do it?
- George W. Bush quitting golf... to show empathy for mothers who've lost kids in Iraq. Now, I'll grant him that playing golf while people die draws some pretty significant fiddling/Rome-burning associations, but if you've just lost your husband and the father of your children to a roadside bomb, is your first thought going to be, "Well, at least President Bush cares enough to sleep in on a Saturday"?
The Ten:
1. Dion, "Runaround Sue"
2. Queen, "We Are the Champions"
3. Cheap Trick, "Surrender"
4. Sarah Vaughan, "All of Me"
5. Brian Whitman, "(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me"
6. Frank Sinatra, "Fly Me to the Moon"
7. Chicane, "Low Sun"
8. Franz Schubert, "Das Fischermadchen" from Schwanengesang
9. Guster, "Born to Be Wild" (live, with Jump, Little Children)
10. Sarah Brightman, "Scene D'Amour"
What's good for you this week? That and your Ten go in comments.
What's good (for the bunch of weeks ending 5/16):
- gays settlin' down
- chicken and vegetable potstickers
- Iron Man - a seriously entertaining movie, whether or not you care about comic books. And it brought teh hotness back to Robert Downey Jr.
- POKE!
- Bonnie Richardson is very, very good.
What's bad:
- all this bulljive over gays settlin' down. Seriously, people, I've heard the legitimate arguments and given them due consideration before refuting/dismissing them, but this whole "gay marriage destroys straight marriage" thing? How? For the love of the invisible pink unicorn, would someone please tell me how marriage becomes weaker when more people are allowed to do it?
- George W. Bush quitting golf... to show empathy for mothers who've lost kids in Iraq. Now, I'll grant him that playing golf while people die draws some pretty significant fiddling/Rome-burning associations, but if you've just lost your husband and the father of your children to a roadside bomb, is your first thought going to be, "Well, at least President Bush cares enough to sleep in on a Saturday"?
The Ten:
1. Dion, "Runaround Sue"
2. Queen, "We Are the Champions"
3. Cheap Trick, "Surrender"
4. Sarah Vaughan, "All of Me"
5. Brian Whitman, "(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me"
6. Frank Sinatra, "Fly Me to the Moon"
7. Chicane, "Low Sun"
8. Franz Schubert, "Das Fischermadchen" from Schwanengesang
9. Guster, "Born to Be Wild" (live, with Jump, Little Children)
10. Sarah Brightman, "Scene D'Amour"
What's good for you this week? That and your Ten go in comments.
Friday, March 28, 2008
On the good, the bad, the annoying as hell, and the Friday Random Ten
Okay, so I'm not the world's most positive person, but I try. While I'm not really a pessimist, I'm certainly not all about the sunshine and the rainbows. That's one reason I've purposely limited my "bad" section on Fridays to two items; it would be really, really easy to lose track of myself and spew out a page-long bitch list with all of the things that have gone wrong in the past week.
But sometimes, things just have to be said, and that's why this TGTBATFRT comes complete with a bonus list of pet peeves, because some things just have to be said.
1. "booty." Shudder. We're all adults here, and we can use any of the multitudinous euphemisms for "ass" that don't sound completely infantile. I once fell asleep in front of the TV and woke up to an infomercial for Yoga Booty Ballet; I thought I'd died in my sleep and was finally being punished for my sins. Exception: Mos Def.
2. "entitled." Double shudder. This one hits me right in the editor button. If you're talking about a book, magazine, or movie, you can safely go with "titled" and not sound like a complete nutscrub. Exception: Entitlement complexes.
3. "exspecially." It's not spelled that way, there's no reason to pronounce it that way. Period. Exceptions: None, fool.
4. "a myriad." This used to be behind "plethora" on the Peeve List but has jumped ahead since I've started hearing it used as a noun. "Myriad" is an adjective, people. It's a word that describes nouns. And if you're using it, you'd probably be better off using "various" anyway. Exceptions: None.
5. man's inhumanity to man. Exception: Cage fighting.
But on a more positive note,
What's good (for the week ending 3/28):
- the Egg McMuffin. The creator of said delicacy died Tuesday, and I think we should celebrate his life and his creation by indulging in greasy breakfast goodness today.
- having someone to hold your spare keys. Everyone needs at least one person in their lives who will, after two days without contact, enter their apartment without invitation just to make sure they haven't been eaten by wolves.
- Easter leftovers. Not quite as good as Thanksgiving leftovers, but still up there; sourdough rolls + ham + beet relish + potato salad = one hell of a leftover sandwich.
- Sally Hansen Diamond Strength No-Chip Nail Color in Chocolate Chiffon
- the calm before the storm
What's bad:
- the storm
- 4,000+ war dead. Seriously, are we done yet?
The Ten:
1. Diane Schuur, "Come Rain or Come Shine"
2. Vertical Horizon, "Give You Back"
3. Gioachino Rossini, "Domine Deus" from Petite messe solennelle
4. The Ocean Blue, "Ballerina Out of Control"
5. Miredys Peguero, "Dragonfly"
6. Bon Jovi, "It's My Life"
7. Annie Sellick, "Gravy Waltz"
8. Jump, Little Children, "B-13"
9. Steve Tyrell, "Don't Get Around Much Anymore"
10. The Cure, "Just Like Heaven"
What's good for you this week? That, your own pet peeves, and your Friday Random Ten all go in comments.
But sometimes, things just have to be said, and that's why this TGTBATFRT comes complete with a bonus list of pet peeves, because some things just have to be said.
1. "booty." Shudder. We're all adults here, and we can use any of the multitudinous euphemisms for "ass" that don't sound completely infantile. I once fell asleep in front of the TV and woke up to an infomercial for Yoga Booty Ballet; I thought I'd died in my sleep and was finally being punished for my sins. Exception: Mos Def.
2. "entitled." Double shudder. This one hits me right in the editor button. If you're talking about a book, magazine, or movie, you can safely go with "titled" and not sound like a complete nutscrub. Exception: Entitlement complexes.
3. "exspecially." It's not spelled that way, there's no reason to pronounce it that way. Period. Exceptions: None, fool.
4. "a myriad." This used to be behind "plethora" on the Peeve List but has jumped ahead since I've started hearing it used as a noun. "Myriad" is an adjective, people. It's a word that describes nouns. And if you're using it, you'd probably be better off using "various" anyway. Exceptions: None.
5. man's inhumanity to man. Exception: Cage fighting.
But on a more positive note,
What's good (for the week ending 3/28):
- the Egg McMuffin. The creator of said delicacy died Tuesday, and I think we should celebrate his life and his creation by indulging in greasy breakfast goodness today.
- having someone to hold your spare keys. Everyone needs at least one person in their lives who will, after two days without contact, enter their apartment without invitation just to make sure they haven't been eaten by wolves.
- Easter leftovers. Not quite as good as Thanksgiving leftovers, but still up there; sourdough rolls + ham + beet relish + potato salad = one hell of a leftover sandwich.
- Sally Hansen Diamond Strength No-Chip Nail Color in Chocolate Chiffon
- the calm before the storm
What's bad:
- the storm
- 4,000+ war dead. Seriously, are we done yet?
The Ten:
1. Diane Schuur, "Come Rain or Come Shine"
2. Vertical Horizon, "Give You Back"
3. Gioachino Rossini, "Domine Deus" from Petite messe solennelle
4. The Ocean Blue, "Ballerina Out of Control"
5. Miredys Peguero, "Dragonfly"
6. Bon Jovi, "It's My Life"
7. Annie Sellick, "Gravy Waltz"
8. Jump, Little Children, "B-13"
9. Steve Tyrell, "Don't Get Around Much Anymore"
10. The Cure, "Just Like Heaven"
What's good for you this week? That, your own pet peeves, and your Friday Random Ten all go in comments.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Monday, January 28, 2008
On the third annual State of the Union Pledge Extravaganza and Chili Cook-Off
Okay, so tonight's State of the Union address should be a big one, because it's the last one that President Bush will ever make.
(Pause to wait for applause to die down.)
As in past years, I'm putting together my State of the Union Drinking and Donation Game but, truth told, it's kind of a challenge this year, because Bush didn't really do all that much last year and doesn't have a whole lot going for him this year. In past SOTUs, we've had bold statements on Social Security, human-animal hybrids, immigration, the war in Iraq, war in Iran, and deficit reduction. Now, Bush is coming into his lame duck year and has spent the last six months at least without enough personal or political pull or credibility to really throw his name behind so much as a K-Mart ribbon cutting. Despite past protestations by Tony Snow that Bush would never "cease to be bold" despite plummeting poll numbers, this year's SOTU is likely to be more covers, remixes, and old standards than new material.
I'll start by flat-out pledging an additional $20 for either of the following statements: "I know we all have places we'd rather be tonight, so I'd appreciate it if you'd hold your applause until the end of the address" and "The Democrats choose to forgo their traditional response in favor of this performance by U2, live from Washington, aired without commercial interruption."
Per traditional rules, $1 will be donated to the Wounded Warrior Project, a really fantastic organization that gives aid in a variety of forms to seriously injured servicemembers and their families, for every occurrence of the following:
- "bipartisan"
- "nucular"
- "terrorists"
- "freedom" ($5 if it's used as a plural)
- "surveillance" or "interrogation" ($5 if he actually says the word "waterboarding")
- "Iran"
- "recession" ($5 if he uses "deficit" in the same sentence)
- "economic stimulus" ($5 if he refers to Ronald Reagan in this context)
- 25 cents every time he pauses for applause, 50 cents per standing ovation
As an added bonus, $2 will be donated each time one of these classics is dredged up:
- "stay the course"
- "surge"
- "benchmark"
- "hard work"
- "they hate our freedoms"
And a whopping $10 if he says, at any point, in any context, "Osama bin Laden."
As always, you're invited to watch along with me and help keep count; as always, if you choose to use the SOTU for drinking games and not donations, be sure to have a designated driver, a trash can, and an ambulance on speed dial handy. Watch this space for commentary, final numbers, and the big take for the Wounded Warrior Project (to date: $200.75). Vaya con Dios.
(Pause to wait for applause to die down.)
As in past years, I'm putting together my State of the Union Drinking and Donation Game but, truth told, it's kind of a challenge this year, because Bush didn't really do all that much last year and doesn't have a whole lot going for him this year. In past SOTUs, we've had bold statements on Social Security, human-animal hybrids, immigration, the war in Iraq, war in Iran, and deficit reduction. Now, Bush is coming into his lame duck year and has spent the last six months at least without enough personal or political pull or credibility to really throw his name behind so much as a K-Mart ribbon cutting. Despite past protestations by Tony Snow that Bush would never "cease to be bold" despite plummeting poll numbers, this year's SOTU is likely to be more covers, remixes, and old standards than new material.
I'll start by flat-out pledging an additional $20 for either of the following statements: "I know we all have places we'd rather be tonight, so I'd appreciate it if you'd hold your applause until the end of the address" and "The Democrats choose to forgo their traditional response in favor of this performance by U2, live from Washington, aired without commercial interruption."
Per traditional rules, $1 will be donated to the Wounded Warrior Project, a really fantastic organization that gives aid in a variety of forms to seriously injured servicemembers and their families, for every occurrence of the following:
- "bipartisan"
- "nucular"
- "terrorists"
- "freedom" ($5 if it's used as a plural)
- "surveillance" or "interrogation" ($5 if he actually says the word "waterboarding")
- "Iran"
- "recession" ($5 if he uses "deficit" in the same sentence)
- "economic stimulus" ($5 if he refers to Ronald Reagan in this context)
- 25 cents every time he pauses for applause, 50 cents per standing ovation
As an added bonus, $2 will be donated each time one of these classics is dredged up:
- "stay the course"
- "surge"
- "benchmark"
- "hard work"
- "they hate our freedoms"
And a whopping $10 if he says, at any point, in any context, "Osama bin Laden."
As always, you're invited to watch along with me and help keep count; as always, if you choose to use the SOTU for drinking games and not donations, be sure to have a designated driver, a trash can, and an ambulance on speed dial handy. Watch this space for commentary, final numbers, and the big take for the Wounded Warrior Project (to date: $200.75). Vaya con Dios.
Friday, September 28, 2007
On the good, the bad, and the Friday Random Ten
Some people leave the world better than they found it.
Okay, so obviously, the biggest news coming into this week was Georgia's victory over Alabama - or so one might think. For me, it was that fact, plus the fact that my aunt and uncle in Northport had no problem with me eating their roast beef and using their washer and dryer while all this was going on. They're good people. I come, obviously, from good stock.
But there was plenty to love this week.
What's good (for the week ending 9/28/07):
- Lessons that only certain people can teach you
- 26-23 by whatever means necessary
- Having the option to go out and do something, and choosing to stay in and not do anything, and not feeling bad about it
- Keebler Fudge Stripes cookies
- fresh bedsheets
What's bad:
- Luring Iraqis into the street with explosive devices and then shooting them
- Quite literally capitalizing on a tragedy (hint to Giuliani and pals: If no one's willing to own up to it, it's probably a bad idea)
The Ten:
1. Sting, "Why Should I Cry for You"
2. W.A. Mozart, "Der Vofelfanger bin ich ja" from Die Zauberflöte
3. Athenaeum, "Plurabelle"
4. Live, "Dance With You"
5. Alicia Bridges, "I Love the Nightlife (Disco 'Round)"
6. The Beatles, "Day Tripper"
7. Marvin Gaye, "Mercy, Mercy Me (The Ecology)"
8. Kent, "Before It All Ends"
9. U2, "Like a Song..."
10. Annie Sellick, "Lullabye of the Leaves"
What about you? What's good for you this week?
Saturday, September 15, 2007
On the good, the bad, and the Friday Random Ten: YouTube Edition
Okay, so it's not even Friday anymore, and still no Random Ten. There was a hot dog lunch sponsored by the Alumni Society (and whoever came up with idea of bringing the marching band into a cavernous, all-concrete room while we all ate lunch? Brilliant. Well done), there was a buttload of rain (and I thanked God for it even as it soaked me right to the knees), there was a really interesting dance performance featuring one of my friends and proving that a guy doesn't have to do that rather disturbing spine-unhingeing-hip-swivelly thing to be a talented Latin dancer, but there wasn't a Random Ten.
I'll rectify that situation now, and I'll do it with motion and sound.
What's good (for the week ending 9/14/07):
- The next James Bond filming, starring... Tom Hanks:
- Hamster. A dentist. The Fishmaster!
- For fans of Prison Break (coming back this Monday, folks!), it's Brokeback Prison:
(And incidentally, anyone freaking out about implications of actual homosexuality on Wentworth Miller's part should know that if I've got a crush on him, chances are, yeah, he's gay. It's my curse. Sorry 'bout that.)
- The newest hot game: Count the innuendo!
(I got up to twenty; feel free to compile a list in comments.)
- And just in case there's a single person in the world with whom I've not yet shared this, it's Drinking Time at Dartmouth College:
What's not good:
- The Petraeus report:
President Bush needs a little more practice. Shari Lewis always managed to keep her lips from moving when Lambchop was talking. Note to General Petraeus: You were doing better when the mic wasn't working; we'll try to work with that in the future.
- Uppity women who don't know their place:
(And while that's bad enough, the response has piled bad on worse.)
Ugh. The Ten:
1. Franz Schubert, "In der Ferne" from Schwanengesang
2. Howie Day, "Madrigals"
3. Carmen Consoli, "Diversi"
4. Barenaked Ladies, "It's All Been Done"
5. Banx De France, "Diner Dans Le Desert"
6. Barenaked Ladies, "One Week"
7. The Surfaris, "Wipe Out"
8. 311, "Homebrew"
9. Texas, "Saint"
10. The Beatles, "I Feel Fine"
What's good for you this week? Your good, your bad, your Ten, and your naughty euphemisms go in comments.
I'll rectify that situation now, and I'll do it with motion and sound.
What's good (for the week ending 9/14/07):
- The next James Bond filming, starring... Tom Hanks:
- Hamster. A dentist. The Fishmaster!
- For fans of Prison Break (coming back this Monday, folks!), it's Brokeback Prison:
(And incidentally, anyone freaking out about implications of actual homosexuality on Wentworth Miller's part should know that if I've got a crush on him, chances are, yeah, he's gay. It's my curse. Sorry 'bout that.)
- The newest hot game: Count the innuendo!
(I got up to twenty; feel free to compile a list in comments.)
- And just in case there's a single person in the world with whom I've not yet shared this, it's Drinking Time at Dartmouth College:
What's not good:
- The Petraeus report:
President Bush needs a little more practice. Shari Lewis always managed to keep her lips from moving when Lambchop was talking. Note to General Petraeus: You were doing better when the mic wasn't working; we'll try to work with that in the future.
- Uppity women who don't know their place:
(And while that's bad enough, the response has piled bad on worse.)
Ugh. The Ten:
1. Franz Schubert, "In der Ferne" from Schwanengesang
2. Howie Day, "Madrigals"
3. Carmen Consoli, "Diversi"
4. Barenaked Ladies, "It's All Been Done"
5. Banx De France, "Diner Dans Le Desert"
6. Barenaked Ladies, "One Week"
7. The Surfaris, "Wipe Out"
8. 311, "Homebrew"
9. Texas, "Saint"
10. The Beatles, "I Feel Fine"
What's good for you this week? Your good, your bad, your Ten, and your naughty euphemisms go in comments.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
On a final observance
Okay, so this is going to be my last post on 9/11. It's sort of become a requirement among even the most vaguely political bloggers to post on September 11 and remember where we were when we heard about the attacks, whether or not we knew or thought we knew someone in the towers or the Pentagon, what happened in the immediate aftermath, what's happened since, what's happened with the families of the victims, why those attacks are such a vital (if you're blogging from the right) or ridiculous (blogging from the left) justification for our current war, and why everyone on the other side of the argument obviously hates America. And then it's pointed out that 9/11 changed everything.
Except the more I thought about it today, the more I realized: 9/11 changed nothing.
Now, don't get me wrong; there are people whose lives are deeply and irreconcilably different since those attacks. The families of these people, for instance. They had to deal with the fear to begin with, and then the pain of losing a loved one, and have since been bombarded with constant images of the attacks and been dragged around and used - by both sides - as political tools and pawns. And the workers who helped to treat survivors and clean up and rebuild, the ones who are now sick after being assured by the government that they were in absolutely no danger, many of whom are being denied affordable treatment for those same illnesses because God forbid we should have anything approaching universal health care. Those people who were directly and immediately touched by the attacks have their own unique experiential set resulting from that day, a set with which I sympathize and which I hope never to be able to fully understand. I begrudge those people no amount of grief or anger, and however they choose to mourn, publicly or privately, I offer no argument.
But for the vast majority of Americans, 9/11 changed nothing. And not just because so many of us were merely riding the grief train in the months following the attacks, manufacturing grief and fear beyond what we sincerely felt so that we could feel like a part of this national outpouring of emotion. And not because nothing changed. Our world right now is, in fact, quite different from the way it was before the attacks.
Since the attacks, Americans have become more jingoistic. We've lashed out at well-meaning allies. We've alienated just about every other country in the entire world with our foreign policy. In the co-opted name of the victims of the attacks, we've sent the men and women who've vowed to keep us safe to invade another, un-9/11-adjacent country without provocation. We're embroiled in a war seemingly without end. We've renamed "French fries" "Freedom fries" and then changed the name back. We've held up the families of 9/11 victims as justification for war, and then we've chastised them when they protested such exploitation or grieved in a government-nonapproved fashion. We've attacked Arabs for possibly being Muslims, and we've attacked Sikhs for looking like Arabs. We've decried the abuses of women in Arab countries, and then we've spat on women on our own city streets for daring to wear the hijab. We've convinced ourselves that the Iraqi people are innocent and worthy of our help and simultaneously ungrateful wretches who deserve anything that comes to them. We've made it okay, even admirable, to be xenophobic and hateful. We've normalized racial profiling. We've criminalized dissent. We've submitted to unconstitutional government invasions of our privacy. We've consented to torture. We've reduced the American flag to an item of apparel and the attacks of September 11 to a smoking-tower logo and "We'll Never Forget" suitable for t-shirt, bumper sticker, snow globe, or Commemorative Coin Forged From Genuine Ground Zero Salvaged Steel. Between American casualties in Iraq and lives lost in the attacks themselves, we're nearly 7,000 fewer than we were six years and a day ago.
But those changes aren't because of 9/11. Correlation vs. causation; those changes happened after the September 11 attacks, but not because of them. Those changes happened because someone - lots of someones - saw an opportunity to turn a tragedy into a campaign.
The 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, but we're not at war with Saudi Arabia. The attacks were coordinated by Osama bin Laden, but we're no closer to capturing him than we've ever been. Our airport security is and has been weak as water, but the best efforts made for our safety involve putting our travel-sized shampoo bottles in Ziploc bags. The terrorist cells that constantly threaten our safety are holed up on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, but our troops are too bogged down in Iraq and our global diplomacy cred is so shot that we can't get into other countries to punish those responsible for the attacks. We're told that the terrorists hate us for our freedoms, and all the while the government is systematically stripping those freedoms away unquestioned. We've given complete control of our lives to a man who takes vacations during natural disasters and hasn't mastered the pronunciation of "nuclear" yet and has fed us one untruth after another to justify his war, because he looks convincing in a cowboy hat, and because anyone preaching reason and moderation is far too removed from the "boot in the ass" misguided-revenge-seekers who appeal to the lesser angels of our nature.
But 9/11 didn't do any of that. We did that. We just used 9/11 as an excuse.
You know what would be awesome? If 9/11 really did change everything. If we took that feeling of global unity - "We are all Americans" - that immediately followed the attacks and ran with it. If, instead of alienating our allies and neighbors by lashing our randomly, we worked together to rout out the true causes of global terrorism. If we made it a priority to understand other cultures instead of demonizing them. If we reached out to grieving families instead of using them for our own purposes. If we stepped outside of our own personal bubbles and looked to happiness other than our own. If we reacted with compassion instead of fear. If, instead of playing directly from the terrorists' script and letting our lives turn into a reactionary chaos of fear and mistrust and hatred, we resolved to make our country, and our place in the world, stronger, safer, more welcoming, more understanding, more open. If we realized that life is precious and can be gone in an instant, and that the only way to honor that is to live life, with others, rather than cowering in fear.
We've been there. I've seen it. Right after the attacks, back before those in power set to really cultivating the fear that the attacks seeded, blood banks were overflowing with donors and state troopers were running bucket-brigade relays to get that blood where it needed to go. Anyone grieving or afraid had a set of available arms nearby. Some churches and synagogues and mosques were hosting seminars and gatherings to promote understanding and correct misconceptions between faiths. Firefighters held out boots at traffic lights, and those boots were always full to overflowing with donations. During that first flush, when news coverage showed nothing but disaster footage, for whatever reason we turned to each other in the US and in the rest of the world, and the sheer potential of it all was amazing. Back before it all got really dirty, it was the one shining hope that could arise from the rubble like the clichéd flower poking out of a crack in a sidewalk.
We can be that potential. We can choose, even at this late and seemingly immutable point, to go back and find that place where we could make a good thing out of something that seemed completely devoid of any goodness. And when we do that, you'll get another September post for me saying that I knew all along how 9/11 changed everything.
Except the more I thought about it today, the more I realized: 9/11 changed nothing.
Now, don't get me wrong; there are people whose lives are deeply and irreconcilably different since those attacks. The families of these people, for instance. They had to deal with the fear to begin with, and then the pain of losing a loved one, and have since been bombarded with constant images of the attacks and been dragged around and used - by both sides - as political tools and pawns. And the workers who helped to treat survivors and clean up and rebuild, the ones who are now sick after being assured by the government that they were in absolutely no danger, many of whom are being denied affordable treatment for those same illnesses because God forbid we should have anything approaching universal health care. Those people who were directly and immediately touched by the attacks have their own unique experiential set resulting from that day, a set with which I sympathize and which I hope never to be able to fully understand. I begrudge those people no amount of grief or anger, and however they choose to mourn, publicly or privately, I offer no argument.
But for the vast majority of Americans, 9/11 changed nothing. And not just because so many of us were merely riding the grief train in the months following the attacks, manufacturing grief and fear beyond what we sincerely felt so that we could feel like a part of this national outpouring of emotion. And not because nothing changed. Our world right now is, in fact, quite different from the way it was before the attacks.
Since the attacks, Americans have become more jingoistic. We've lashed out at well-meaning allies. We've alienated just about every other country in the entire world with our foreign policy. In the co-opted name of the victims of the attacks, we've sent the men and women who've vowed to keep us safe to invade another, un-9/11-adjacent country without provocation. We're embroiled in a war seemingly without end. We've renamed "French fries" "Freedom fries" and then changed the name back. We've held up the families of 9/11 victims as justification for war, and then we've chastised them when they protested such exploitation or grieved in a government-nonapproved fashion. We've attacked Arabs for possibly being Muslims, and we've attacked Sikhs for looking like Arabs. We've decried the abuses of women in Arab countries, and then we've spat on women on our own city streets for daring to wear the hijab. We've convinced ourselves that the Iraqi people are innocent and worthy of our help and simultaneously ungrateful wretches who deserve anything that comes to them. We've made it okay, even admirable, to be xenophobic and hateful. We've normalized racial profiling. We've criminalized dissent. We've submitted to unconstitutional government invasions of our privacy. We've consented to torture. We've reduced the American flag to an item of apparel and the attacks of September 11 to a smoking-tower logo and "We'll Never Forget" suitable for t-shirt, bumper sticker, snow globe, or Commemorative Coin Forged From Genuine Ground Zero Salvaged Steel. Between American casualties in Iraq and lives lost in the attacks themselves, we're nearly 7,000 fewer than we were six years and a day ago.
But those changes aren't because of 9/11. Correlation vs. causation; those changes happened after the September 11 attacks, but not because of them. Those changes happened because someone - lots of someones - saw an opportunity to turn a tragedy into a campaign.
The 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, but we're not at war with Saudi Arabia. The attacks were coordinated by Osama bin Laden, but we're no closer to capturing him than we've ever been. Our airport security is and has been weak as water, but the best efforts made for our safety involve putting our travel-sized shampoo bottles in Ziploc bags. The terrorist cells that constantly threaten our safety are holed up on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, but our troops are too bogged down in Iraq and our global diplomacy cred is so shot that we can't get into other countries to punish those responsible for the attacks. We're told that the terrorists hate us for our freedoms, and all the while the government is systematically stripping those freedoms away unquestioned. We've given complete control of our lives to a man who takes vacations during natural disasters and hasn't mastered the pronunciation of "nuclear" yet and has fed us one untruth after another to justify his war, because he looks convincing in a cowboy hat, and because anyone preaching reason and moderation is far too removed from the "boot in the ass" misguided-revenge-seekers who appeal to the lesser angels of our nature.
But 9/11 didn't do any of that. We did that. We just used 9/11 as an excuse.
You know what would be awesome? If 9/11 really did change everything. If we took that feeling of global unity - "We are all Americans" - that immediately followed the attacks and ran with it. If, instead of alienating our allies and neighbors by lashing our randomly, we worked together to rout out the true causes of global terrorism. If we made it a priority to understand other cultures instead of demonizing them. If we reached out to grieving families instead of using them for our own purposes. If we stepped outside of our own personal bubbles and looked to happiness other than our own. If we reacted with compassion instead of fear. If, instead of playing directly from the terrorists' script and letting our lives turn into a reactionary chaos of fear and mistrust and hatred, we resolved to make our country, and our place in the world, stronger, safer, more welcoming, more understanding, more open. If we realized that life is precious and can be gone in an instant, and that the only way to honor that is to live life, with others, rather than cowering in fear.
We've been there. I've seen it. Right after the attacks, back before those in power set to really cultivating the fear that the attacks seeded, blood banks were overflowing with donors and state troopers were running bucket-brigade relays to get that blood where it needed to go. Anyone grieving or afraid had a set of available arms nearby. Some churches and synagogues and mosques were hosting seminars and gatherings to promote understanding and correct misconceptions between faiths. Firefighters held out boots at traffic lights, and those boots were always full to overflowing with donations. During that first flush, when news coverage showed nothing but disaster footage, for whatever reason we turned to each other in the US and in the rest of the world, and the sheer potential of it all was amazing. Back before it all got really dirty, it was the one shining hope that could arise from the rubble like the clichéd flower poking out of a crack in a sidewalk.
We can be that potential. We can choose, even at this late and seemingly immutable point, to go back and find that place where we could make a good thing out of something that seemed completely devoid of any goodness. And when we do that, you'll get another September post for me saying that I knew all along how 9/11 changed everything.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
On stuff we already knew
Okay, so now it's time to play a little game we like to call "Who Said It?"
Here's the quote:
And now you get to figure out who said it! (See how that works with the name of the game? Kind of intuitive.)
Did you guess "ACG at Practically Harmless"? If so, you're... well, kind of right, maybe, because I'm sure that I've said that once or a dozen times. But no, that particular quote came from none other than Dick Cheney himself. 'Cept he said it back in 1994, back when logic still halfway applied, before invading Iraq became a good thing via the magical power of Karl Rove.
While we're playing the game, who said this?
That would be "political genius" and "brilliant mind" Karl Rove, who is packing up his shrunken baby heads and cat-o'-nine-tails for his departure from the White House at the end of the month. He says it's "to spend more time with his family," and although convential wisdom generally translates that to "I just got fired, either for my own stupidity or poltiical reasons," I think in this case it just means "the military developed a nice satellite remote that lets me control the president from the comfort of my living room."
Here's the quote:
Because if we’d gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. There wouldn’t have been anybody else with us. There would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq.
Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein’s government, then what are you going to put in its place? That’s a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off: part of it, the Syrians would like to have to the west, part of it — eastern Iraq — the Iranians would like to claim, they fought over it for eight years. In the north you’ve got the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey.
It’s a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq.
And now you get to figure out who said it! (See how that works with the name of the game? Kind of intuitive.)
Did you guess "ACG at Practically Harmless"? If so, you're... well, kind of right, maybe, because I'm sure that I've said that once or a dozen times. But no, that particular quote came from none other than Dick Cheney himself. 'Cept he said it back in 1994, back when logic still halfway applied, before invading Iraq became a good thing via the magical power of Karl Rove.
While we're playing the game, who said this?
“He will move back up in the polls,” says [our mystery speaker], who interrupts my reference to Mr. Bush’s 30% approval rating by saying it’s heading close to “40%,” and “higher than Congress.”
Looking ahead, he adds, “Iraq will be in a better place” as the surge continues. Come the autumn, too, “we’ll see in the battle over FISA” — the wiretapping of foreign terrorists — “a fissure in the Democratic Party.” Also in the fall, “the budget fight will have been fought to our advantage,” helping the GOP restore, through a series of presidential vetoes, its brand name on spending restraint and taxes.
As for the Democrats, “They are likely to nominate a tough, tenacious, fatally flawed candidate” by the name of Hillary Rodham Clinton. Holding the White House for a third term is always difficult given the pent-up desire for change, he says, but “I think we’ve got a very good chance to do so.”
That would be "political genius" and "brilliant mind" Karl Rove, who is packing up his shrunken baby heads and cat-o'-nine-tails for his departure from the White House at the end of the month. He says it's "to spend more time with his family," and although convential wisdom generally translates that to "I just got fired, either for my own stupidity or poltiical reasons," I think in this case it just means "the military developed a nice satellite remote that lets me control the president from the comfort of my living room."
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
On shrinking the government
Okay, so I'm an enthusiastic and unashamed therapygoer myself, and what's more, I don't think I've ever met a single person who wouldn't benefit from a couple or five couch sessions with a professional to help straighten out their heads and articulate the truth that they've been unwilling to tell themselves. And no one would benefit more from a little head-straightening and truth-articulating than the folks currently in charge of our government. Now, I won't pretend to be a licensed therapist, but I've spent enough time with them to have picked up a thing or two to my own benefit and the benefit of others.
I will dispense this advice now.
1. You can't control anyone's actions but your own.
A progress report due out this week is expected to report no progress in Iraq since the surge. The president has said that he doesn't intend to withdraw troops or even shift his strategy in light of the new information and that critics should just wait for General Petraeus's report in September. Then he once refreshed the tired old implication that Iraq was involved in the September 11 attacks. But mostly, the message was "stay the course and give the surge a chance to work."
Here's the problem, six months into the surge: It's not not-working because of the troops (although their very presence is seen as an irritant by many of the people they're bound to protect). It's not-working because of the Iraqi government. We can send as many or as few troops as we want, but the progress that needs to be made needs to be made by Nouri al Maliki and his pals. More Iraqi police and soldiers need to be trained, but they also need to be held accountable, to be required to show up for work, to be properly armed and armored, and to be loyal to the government and the people of Iraq rather than to the militias - and that's something that Iraq has to do. The militias themselves need to be put down and Muqtada al Sadr stripped of his power and his influence instead of just shuffled around until the heat is off and his armies can rise again - and that's something that Iraq has to do. The government needs to find a way to deal with religious freedom, civil conflict, and oil revenues - and that's something Iraq has to do.
George, you can plead with them. You can bargain with them. You can threaten to withdraw troops or withhold aid. You can negotiate with them. You can send advisors to help them plan to disarm and dissolve the militias, to build the police forces and the Army, and to distribute oil revenues, and they might be good plans. But what you can't do is make them do what they need to do. You can only control what you do. And when they choose not to do what they need to do, as they have been doing for two years now, you have only two choices: to keep troops there or to begin a phased withdrawal. You can't make the Iraqi government do what they're supposed to do, but you can control whether or not American troops are in danger while they don't do it.
2. If you keep doing what you're doing, you're going to keep getting what you're getting.
In an effort to shake us up and keep us good and scared when we might start to be not-scared, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Tuesday that chances are good for a terrorist attack this summer. He said there wasn't evidence of imminent attack, but that his "gut feeling" and past terrorist activity patterns made a "spectacular" attack more likely.
"We strike at them, we degrade them, but they rebuild." It's a pattern. "[Y]ou see an enemy that is improving itself just as we're improving ourselves." Pattern. We're in a war with the sole purported goal of fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here, and what we get is... patterns. Terrorist activity in north Africa, Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan, "spectacular" summertime terror threats in the US, and we degrade them, but they rebuild. Over and over and over.
Do something different, y'all. If what you're doing only knocks them down a little bit, and then they come back with a new plan or strike from a different direction or, heck, rebuild exactly where they were before with nobody saying a thing about it (Taliban, I'm looking at you), then what you're doing isn't working. We've been "staying the course" since 2003, and since 2003, we've been getting the same dismal results. Don't stick with a bum plan. My dad likes to say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I'm just sayin'.
3. You teach people how to treat you.
If you insist on being treated with respect, people will treat you that way. If people give you crap and you take it, they'll learn that you accept crap, and they'll continue giving you crap. If Alberto Gonzales lies on the stand and otherwise obstructs justice, Congress, and you don't call him on it, he's going to keep lying. Because he knows he can get away with lying to you. When Bush tells you you can't talk to his aides because he's extra special and above the law, Congress, you know that he isn't, but if you don't tell him otherwise, he's going to keep stonewalling you. Because he knows he can get away with stonewalling you. When the White House continues pushing the myth that Iraq had a hand in the September 11 attacks, new media, and you don't call them on it, they're going to keep lying to you. Because they know that can get away with lying to you.
The only way to stop the lying, to make them respect you and stop treating you like an idiot and/or particularly gullible toddler, is to call them on it. Call them on it every time. Let them know that you're paying attention and that you aren't afraid to use the brains God gave you and the free speech the Constitution guarantees you. You have to respect yourselves before anyone else will respect you.
4. When you find yourself on the wrong road, the worst thing you can do is keep driving.
Listen, President Bush, we know you've got a lot on your mind right now. You're in the middle of this war that isn't going nearly as well as Dick and Karl told you it would, and you're getting the blame for it. You're trying your hardest to show up your daddy and prove to him that you're just as smart and competent and take-charge as your brother Jeb, but every time you do, you end up screwing it up and looking even more incompetent in a real sitcom kind of way. Your supporters are shearing off. You recently pardoned Scooter Libby so that Dick Cheney, your surrogate father figure, won't be mad at you. George, you made a little girl cry.
You know that something is wrong. You can surely sense that something is very, very wrong. And I know that right now, you're trying to go along to get along, to do whatever you can to skate until the inauguration in 2009 when you officially won't have to worry about any of this terrorism crap or immigration crap or healthcare crap or global warming crap or any of the other crap that people seem to want you to care about. But putting on the blinkers and driving resolutely forward is not the way to go, George. Right now, you're gearing yourself up for a legacy as The President Who Screwed Everything Up So Badly We're Still Trying to Quantify the Fallout. If you want to avoid that fate, the only way to do it is to stop dead in your tracks this second and reevaluate. You need to talk with some people who know how to deal with these things - swallow your pride and talk to your dad's folks, for God's sake - and figure out what you want your legacy to be and how you can get there from where you are.
I can recommend a couple of therapists, if you'd like.
I will dispense this advice now.
1. You can't control anyone's actions but your own.
A progress report due out this week is expected to report no progress in Iraq since the surge. The president has said that he doesn't intend to withdraw troops or even shift his strategy in light of the new information and that critics should just wait for General Petraeus's report in September. Then he once refreshed the tired old implication that Iraq was involved in the September 11 attacks. But mostly, the message was "stay the course and give the surge a chance to work."
Here's the problem, six months into the surge: It's not not-working because of the troops (although their very presence is seen as an irritant by many of the people they're bound to protect). It's not-working because of the Iraqi government. We can send as many or as few troops as we want, but the progress that needs to be made needs to be made by Nouri al Maliki and his pals. More Iraqi police and soldiers need to be trained, but they also need to be held accountable, to be required to show up for work, to be properly armed and armored, and to be loyal to the government and the people of Iraq rather than to the militias - and that's something that Iraq has to do. The militias themselves need to be put down and Muqtada al Sadr stripped of his power and his influence instead of just shuffled around until the heat is off and his armies can rise again - and that's something that Iraq has to do. The government needs to find a way to deal with religious freedom, civil conflict, and oil revenues - and that's something Iraq has to do.
George, you can plead with them. You can bargain with them. You can threaten to withdraw troops or withhold aid. You can negotiate with them. You can send advisors to help them plan to disarm and dissolve the militias, to build the police forces and the Army, and to distribute oil revenues, and they might be good plans. But what you can't do is make them do what they need to do. You can only control what you do. And when they choose not to do what they need to do, as they have been doing for two years now, you have only two choices: to keep troops there or to begin a phased withdrawal. You can't make the Iraqi government do what they're supposed to do, but you can control whether or not American troops are in danger while they don't do it.
2. If you keep doing what you're doing, you're going to keep getting what you're getting.
In an effort to shake us up and keep us good and scared when we might start to be not-scared, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Tuesday that chances are good for a terrorist attack this summer. He said there wasn't evidence of imminent attack, but that his "gut feeling" and past terrorist activity patterns made a "spectacular" attack more likely.
You look at their activities around the world: bombings in North Africa from Al Qaeda, conflict in Somalia with radical Islamist groups contending for control over Somalia, training activity taking place in South Asia, the Taliban continuing to try to regain control of parts of Afghanistan.
I think if you look at that picture you see an enemy that is improving itself just as we're improving ourselves. They can't afford to remain static just as we can't afford to remain static. Our edge is technology and the vigilance of the ordinary citizen.
....
I think we do see a greater span of activity in South Asia, so we do worry about whether they are rebuilding their capabilities. We strike at them, we degrade them, but they rebuild. All these things give me kind of a gut feeling, not that I have a specific threat that I have in mind right now, but we are entering a period of increased vulnerability.
"We strike at them, we degrade them, but they rebuild." It's a pattern. "[Y]ou see an enemy that is improving itself just as we're improving ourselves." Pattern. We're in a war with the sole purported goal of fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here, and what we get is... patterns. Terrorist activity in north Africa, Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan, "spectacular" summertime terror threats in the US, and we degrade them, but they rebuild. Over and over and over.
Do something different, y'all. If what you're doing only knocks them down a little bit, and then they come back with a new plan or strike from a different direction or, heck, rebuild exactly where they were before with nobody saying a thing about it (Taliban, I'm looking at you), then what you're doing isn't working. We've been "staying the course" since 2003, and since 2003, we've been getting the same dismal results. Don't stick with a bum plan. My dad likes to say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I'm just sayin'.
3. You teach people how to treat you.
If you insist on being treated with respect, people will treat you that way. If people give you crap and you take it, they'll learn that you accept crap, and they'll continue giving you crap. If Alberto Gonzales lies on the stand and otherwise obstructs justice, Congress, and you don't call him on it, he's going to keep lying. Because he knows he can get away with lying to you. When Bush tells you you can't talk to his aides because he's extra special and above the law, Congress, you know that he isn't, but if you don't tell him otherwise, he's going to keep stonewalling you. Because he knows he can get away with stonewalling you. When the White House continues pushing the myth that Iraq had a hand in the September 11 attacks, new media, and you don't call them on it, they're going to keep lying to you. Because they know that can get away with lying to you.
The only way to stop the lying, to make them respect you and stop treating you like an idiot and/or particularly gullible toddler, is to call them on it. Call them on it every time. Let them know that you're paying attention and that you aren't afraid to use the brains God gave you and the free speech the Constitution guarantees you. You have to respect yourselves before anyone else will respect you.
4. When you find yourself on the wrong road, the worst thing you can do is keep driving.
Listen, President Bush, we know you've got a lot on your mind right now. You're in the middle of this war that isn't going nearly as well as Dick and Karl told you it would, and you're getting the blame for it. You're trying your hardest to show up your daddy and prove to him that you're just as smart and competent and take-charge as your brother Jeb, but every time you do, you end up screwing it up and looking even more incompetent in a real sitcom kind of way. Your supporters are shearing off. You recently pardoned Scooter Libby so that Dick Cheney, your surrogate father figure, won't be mad at you. George, you made a little girl cry.
You know that something is wrong. You can surely sense that something is very, very wrong. And I know that right now, you're trying to go along to get along, to do whatever you can to skate until the inauguration in 2009 when you officially won't have to worry about any of this terrorism crap or immigration crap or healthcare crap or global warming crap or any of the other crap that people seem to want you to care about. But putting on the blinkers and driving resolutely forward is not the way to go, George. Right now, you're gearing yourself up for a legacy as The President Who Screwed Everything Up So Badly We're Still Trying to Quantify the Fallout. If you want to avoid that fate, the only way to do it is to stop dead in your tracks this second and reevaluate. You need to talk with some people who know how to deal with these things - swallow your pride and talk to your dad's folks, for God's sake - and figure out what you want your legacy to be and how you can get there from where you are.
I can recommend a couple of therapists, if you'd like.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
On the power of the president
Okay, so today, President Clinton is still facing down the consequences of her decision to pull the US out of Iraq two years before. Congress, in the course of their relentless investigation into completely unfounded allegations of government intimidation of opponents to her withdrawal plan, has subpoened a number of documents from aides and advisors, and the president has, rightly, told them exactly where they can stick it.
Clinton insists that the arrest and six-month detention of two staffers to Iran war hawk Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) were a result of mistaken identity following more than 18 months of warrantless surveillance, wiretapping, and searches of electronic communications. She has already apologized, through a spokesperson, for the mixup, but she insists that the surveillance and detention were well within her powers as president under Article I of the Constitution.
Scandal - or is it just CDS? - has plagued Clinton throughout her presidency. Her numerous signing statements, most recently on the recently passed Southern Border Security Act, have had detractors accusing her of attempts at unitary executive power, claiming that she considers herself above the law.
And only a year into the administration, Vice President Obama was voraciously questioned about undue influence from and preferential contracts to Clinton supporters. He, too, cited executive privilege on the subject before finally agreeing to testify off the record, in a private meeting with a single member of his choosing from the Senate Judiciary Committee. Recent requests for information about classified documents from the Information Security Oversight Office have had him pointing out, accurately, that as President of the Senate, the Vice President fall sunder the legislative, not executive, branch and is thus exempt from that particular rule.
Clinton press secretary Philippe Reines puts it better than I ever could when he said that no statute passed by Congress "can place any limits on the president's determinations as to any terrorist threat, the amount of military force to be used in response, or the method, timing and nature of the response." Under Article I of the Constitution, the president has the responsibility to protect Americans from attack doing absolutely whatever is necessary.
And moreover, why the hell should she have to answer to us on questions of national security? If she does something that we don't really understand, and then she tells us that she can't explain it because that would reveal information that would endanger national security, well, then, just maybe it would endanger national security.
Listen, we elected Hillary Clinton president because we knew that she would be the best person to manage our country and protect our freedoms within our own best interest. She can't do that if we're going to ask her questions and tell her what to do all the damn time. If we really think she's good enough and trustworthy enough to protect our security, we need to stop worrying about things like rights and separations of power and stuff and just sit back, stop asking questions, and freaking trust her to lead. If she's not the kind of person we can trust to do that, why the hell did we elect her?
WASHINGTON - President Clinton, moving toward a constitutional showdown with Congress, asserted executive privilege Thursday and rejected lawmakers' demands for documents that could shed light on the intimidation of Iraq war proponents.
Clinton's attorney told Congress the White House would not turn over subpoenaed documents for former presidential counsel Gary Ginsberg and former political director Leecia Eve. Congressional panels want the documents for their investigations of Attorney General Sheila Anthony's stewardship of the Justice Department, including complaints of undue political influence.
...
In his letter, [White House counsel David] Kendall explained Clinton's position on executive privilege this way: "For the President to perform her constitutional duties, it is imperative that she receive candid and unfettered advice and that free and open discussions and deliberations occur among her advisors and between those advisors and others within and outside the Executive Branch."
Clinton insists that the arrest and six-month detention of two staffers to Iran war hawk Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) were a result of mistaken identity following more than 18 months of warrantless surveillance, wiretapping, and searches of electronic communications. She has already apologized, through a spokesperson, for the mixup, but she insists that the surveillance and detention were well within her powers as president under Article I of the Constitution.
Scandal - or is it just CDS? - has plagued Clinton throughout her presidency. Her numerous signing statements, most recently on the recently passed Southern Border Security Act, have had detractors accusing her of attempts at unitary executive power, claiming that she considers herself above the law.
And only a year into the administration, Vice President Obama was voraciously questioned about undue influence from and preferential contracts to Clinton supporters. He, too, cited executive privilege on the subject before finally agreeing to testify off the record, in a private meeting with a single member of his choosing from the Senate Judiciary Committee. Recent requests for information about classified documents from the Information Security Oversight Office have had him pointing out, accurately, that as President of the Senate, the Vice President fall sunder the legislative, not executive, branch and is thus exempt from that particular rule.
Clinton press secretary Philippe Reines puts it better than I ever could when he said that no statute passed by Congress "can place any limits on the president's determinations as to any terrorist threat, the amount of military force to be used in response, or the method, timing and nature of the response." Under Article I of the Constitution, the president has the responsibility to protect Americans from attack doing absolutely whatever is necessary.
And moreover, why the hell should she have to answer to us on questions of national security? If she does something that we don't really understand, and then she tells us that she can't explain it because that would reveal information that would endanger national security, well, then, just maybe it would endanger national security.
Listen, we elected Hillary Clinton president because we knew that she would be the best person to manage our country and protect our freedoms within our own best interest. She can't do that if we're going to ask her questions and tell her what to do all the damn time. If we really think she's good enough and trustworthy enough to protect our security, we need to stop worrying about things like rights and separations of power and stuff and just sit back, stop asking questions, and freaking trust her to lead. If she's not the kind of person we can trust to do that, why the hell did we elect her?
Monday, June 18, 2007
On the importance of precise definitions
Okay, so I just got an e-mail from a friend of mine, and in the name of OPSEC I'll refrain from sharing his branch of service or current location, but suffice it to say that it's very, very hot where he is, it's quite far away, and that he would have far more opportunities to buy Christmas presents in Dubai than anyone currently in their offices in Washington.
Because he's, y'know, there, and not here where I can sit him down and talk with him, I haven't had the opportunity to ask his opinion on this:
Yeah, I understand that this has been a challenge not only for the president but for the 101st Fighting Keyboarders and their Cheeto-Dust Coated Typing Fingers of Patriotism (and may God preserve them from carpal tunnel syndrome), but I thought this would be a great opportunity for some clarification.
1. Is the daytime temperature at your current location under 100 degrees?
2. Are you fewer than four time zones away from your spouse/the majority of your loved ones?
3. Is your nighttime sleep uninterrupted by jet engines, gunshots, and/or mortar fire?
4. Can you walk outside of your home without a flak vest?
5. Are you allowed to go home at the end of the workday?
6. Do you share at least one language with the majority of the people in your city?
7. Do you feel comfortable that very few of those people want you dead?
8. When your boss gives you an assignment, does s/he also give you the financial, physical, and human resources necessary to complete the job?
If you answered "yes" to two or more of the above questions, you're not actually on the front lines. You're in a place commonly known as "home." The front lines are somewhere else. It's rather far away and identifiable through extreme heat and humidity, gunfire and explosions, and lots of death. I'll try to dig up a map for you. Don't worry, though; it's a mistake anyone could make.
Because he's, y'know, there, and not here where I can sit him down and talk with him, I haven't had the opportunity to ask his opinion on this:
Q: Are there any members of the Bush family or this administration in this war?
SNOW: Yeah, the President. The President is in the war every day.
Q: Come on, that isn’t my question –
SNOW: Well, no, if you ask any president who is a commander in chief –
Q: On the frontlines, wherever…
SNOW: The President.
Yeah, I understand that this has been a challenge not only for the president but for the 101st Fighting Keyboarders and their Cheeto-Dust Coated Typing Fingers of Patriotism (and may God preserve them from carpal tunnel syndrome), but I thought this would be a great opportunity for some clarification.
1. Is the daytime temperature at your current location under 100 degrees?
2. Are you fewer than four time zones away from your spouse/the majority of your loved ones?
3. Is your nighttime sleep uninterrupted by jet engines, gunshots, and/or mortar fire?
4. Can you walk outside of your home without a flak vest?
5. Are you allowed to go home at the end of the workday?
6. Do you share at least one language with the majority of the people in your city?
7. Do you feel comfortable that very few of those people want you dead?
8. When your boss gives you an assignment, does s/he also give you the financial, physical, and human resources necessary to complete the job?
If you answered "yes" to two or more of the above questions, you're not actually on the front lines. You're in a place commonly known as "home." The front lines are somewhere else. It's rather far away and identifiable through extreme heat and humidity, gunfire and explosions, and lots of death. I'll try to dig up a map for you. Don't worry, though; it's a mistake anyone could make.
On DoD R&D: This Is Your Soundtrack
Okay, so I'm horribly ashamed that I didn't get my Ten in this week, especially considering that I had this little tidbit to kick it all off:
Now, the story is actually several years old; the report on the use of such nonlethal chemical weapons was written in 1994, and the story first became public sometime in 2005. But now we have actual confirmation from the Pentagon that our best hope for victory in Iraq involves making their d00ds super ghey.
Other options?
- a spray to inflict “severe and lasting halitosis”
- a chemical that would make their skin very sensitive to sunlight
- a chemical that would make them irresistable to bees and/or rats
The provided classification for these nontraditional chemical weapons? "Harassing, annoying and 'bad guy'-identifying chemicals." And that's why this Not-Even-Friday, Not-Even-Random Ten goes out to our guys at the Pentagon: Annoying the hell out of the enemy over there so we don't have to annoy them over here.
The Ten:
1. Paul Oakenfold, "Sex Drive"
2. Banx de France, "Sex In a Machine"
3. Marvin Gaye, "Let's Get It On"
4. Original Broadway Cast of Avenue Q, "If You Were Gay"
5. The Police, "Every Breath You Take"
6. Hot Chocolate, "You Sexy Thing"
7. Aqualung, "Brighter Than Sunshine"
8. Robert Palmer, "Simply Irresistable"
9. OMD, "Enola Gay"
And, of course,
10. Tom Jones, "Sexbomb"
Your whatever goes wherever; it's Monday, y'all.
Berkeley watchdog organization that tracks military spending said it uncovered a strange U.S. military proposal to create a hormone bomb that could purportedly turn enemy soldiers into homosexuals and make them more interested in sex than fighting.
Pentagon officials on Friday confirmed to CBS 5 that military leaders had considered, and then subsquently rejected, building the so-called "Gay Bomb."
Now, the story is actually several years old; the report on the use of such nonlethal chemical weapons was written in 1994, and the story first became public sometime in 2005. But now we have actual confirmation from the Pentagon that our best hope for victory in Iraq involves making their d00ds super ghey.
Other options?
- a spray to inflict “severe and lasting halitosis”
- a chemical that would make their skin very sensitive to sunlight
- a chemical that would make them irresistable to bees and/or rats
The provided classification for these nontraditional chemical weapons? "Harassing, annoying and 'bad guy'-identifying chemicals." And that's why this Not-Even-Friday, Not-Even-Random Ten goes out to our guys at the Pentagon: Annoying the hell out of the enemy over there so we don't have to annoy them over here.
The Ten:
1. Paul Oakenfold, "Sex Drive"
2. Banx de France, "Sex In a Machine"
3. Marvin Gaye, "Let's Get It On"
4. Original Broadway Cast of Avenue Q, "If You Were Gay"
5. The Police, "Every Breath You Take"
6. Hot Chocolate, "You Sexy Thing"
7. Aqualung, "Brighter Than Sunshine"
8. Robert Palmer, "Simply Irresistable"
9. OMD, "Enola Gay"
And, of course,
10. Tom Jones, "Sexbomb"
Your whatever goes wherever; it's Monday, y'all.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
On (non-celebrity) criminals walking
Okay, so I toldja, I toldja, I toldja I toldja I toldja. And I wish I could get some kind of pleasure out of "I told you so," but it sucks being right in this political climate.
My bitter tea comes courtesy of reader Duff, who points us to this:
Born in Qatar, al-Marri lived with his wife and children in Peoria, Illinois, where he was pursuing a master's degree and where he was arrested in 2001 as a"material witness" and al-Qaeda collaborator with Khalid Sheik Mohammed. He has been held without charges in various locations since then, most recently a brig in Charleston, South Carolina. Though he never personally took action against the United States, it's arguable that he participated in and assisted actions threatening to national security.
But because our president has declared himself above and untouched by the Constitution, Ali al-Marri may get to walk.
Al-Marri could be a real threat. He has been in government custody. It's probably better for everyone that he remain in government custody. The United States has numerous legal, ethical, constitutionally sound mechanisms by which he could remain in custody, if only George Bush hadn't gotten all "I'm the decider," declared him an "enemy combatant," and held him outside of those legal options.
The next steps will, most likely, be those legal, ethical, constitutionally sound mechanisms. With the civilian trial of Jose Padilla currently underway, we have proof that we can, in fact, bring terrorists to justice and keep our country safe without violating the Constitution that defends the rights of every U.S. citizen and legal resident. We can protect our country from terrorists and protect civil liberties at the same time. It just makes you wonder why, if those mechanisms are in place, our own president - who took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution - continues to insist on using unconstitutional, illegal tactics that only endanger national security and give Americans reason to fear their own government.
And that, really, is what makes the ruling from the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals so valuable. With this ruling, we have evidence that someone out there, some branch of the government, is interested in protecting Americans from being rounded up by the government and held without trial. If our president isn't going to do it, someone has to.
My bitter tea comes courtesy of reader Duff, who points us to this:
The Bush administration cannot legally detain a U.S. resident it believes is an al-Qaida sleeper agent without charging him, a divided federal appeals court ruled Monday. The court said sanctioning the indefinite detention of civilians would have "disastrous consequences for the constitution—and the country."
In the 2-1 decision, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel found that the federal Military Commissions Act doesn't strip Ali al-Marri, a legal U.S. resident, of his constitutional rights to challenge his accusers in court.
It ruled the government must allow al-Marri to be released from military detention."
Born in Qatar, al-Marri lived with his wife and children in Peoria, Illinois, where he was pursuing a master's degree and where he was arrested in 2001 as a"material witness" and al-Qaeda collaborator with Khalid Sheik Mohammed. He has been held without charges in various locations since then, most recently a brig in Charleston, South Carolina. Though he never personally took action against the United States, it's arguable that he participated in and assisted actions threatening to national security.
But because our president has declared himself above and untouched by the Constitution, Ali al-Marri may get to walk.
Al-Marri could be a real threat. He has been in government custody. It's probably better for everyone that he remain in government custody. The United States has numerous legal, ethical, constitutionally sound mechanisms by which he could remain in custody, if only George Bush hadn't gotten all "I'm the decider," declared him an "enemy combatant," and held him outside of those legal options.
"To sanction such presidential authority to order the military to seize and indefinitely detain civilians . . . would have disastrous consequences for the constitution -- and the country," U.S. Circuit Judge Diana Gribbon Motz wrote for the majority.
The next steps will, most likely, be those legal, ethical, constitutionally sound mechanisms. With the civilian trial of Jose Padilla currently underway, we have proof that we can, in fact, bring terrorists to justice and keep our country safe without violating the Constitution that defends the rights of every U.S. citizen and legal resident. We can protect our country from terrorists and protect civil liberties at the same time. It just makes you wonder why, if those mechanisms are in place, our own president - who took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution - continues to insist on using unconstitutional, illegal tactics that only endanger national security and give Americans reason to fear their own government.
And that, really, is what makes the ruling from the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals so valuable. With this ruling, we have evidence that someone out there, some branch of the government, is interested in protecting Americans from being rounded up by the government and held without trial. If our president isn't going to do it, someone has to.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
On a great time to stick with tried-and-true methods
Okay, so I've observed in the past, with regard to both the treatment of detainees in Guantanamo Bay and to the warrantless wiretapping program, that one of the dangers of breaking the rules in those ways is that when it comes to pursuing actual justice, we may find ourselves painted into a corner. It happened with Mohammed al-Qahtani, it nearly happened with Jose Padilla, and now it's happened again:
The problem they ran into? The Military Commissions Act specifically applies to "unlawful enemy combatants." Bush's Combatant Status Review tribunals? Only classified the Guantanamo detainees as "enemy combatants" - without specifying "lawful" or "unlawful." And while the administration obviously felt that, since the commissions and tribunals were creations entirely of their own imaginations to begin with, specific laws were immaterial, the military judges obviously felt otherwise and dismissed the cases, without prejudice, citing lack of jurisdiction.
The question of military tribunals and commissions was raised in the first place because of the Bush administration's assertion that the US lacked a judicial system equipped for dealing with the "irregular circumstances" of terrorism and conflict such as we've seen in Iraq. ACLU blog Find Habeas points out that that's not necessarily the case:
At the very least, it's comforting to know that there are judges out there who respect the rule of law, even if our own president won't.
So what's next for our intrepid administration? Plenty. The DoD does plan to appeal the dismissal, but since at this point, a court does not exist to which they can appeal, they'll have to wait for the Pentagon to establish a Court of Military Commission Review, as authorized by Congress. In the meantime, further Combatant Status Review tribunals may be held to re-classify the fourteen "high-value" detainees currently at Guantanamo, among them suspected 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
My advice to the government (and IANAL)? Just stick with what you know, y'all. They're a little bit trickier and pickier, since provisions would have to be made to keep top-secret information top-secret and prosecutors would have to make efforts to, like, follow the Constitution and stuff, but regular ol' trials within the current justice system are demonstrably suitable for terrorism suspects. They're not as fancy or Tom-Clancy-sexy as military tribunals, but they have the advantage of being constitutionally sound and being a tool with which the government has considerable experience. And trials like these are just too important to screw up.
In other habeas corpus news,
The Habeus Corpus Restoration Act of 2007, a bill "to restore habeas corpus for those detained by the United States," is expected to see a floor vote within the month.
Feel free to give your senator a call and encourage him/her to vote for this very important measure. Remember that it's not just foreign nationals who are affected by this bill - under the Military Commissions Act, the next "unlawful combatant" could be you.
The Capital Switchboard:
1 (800) 828 - 0498
1 (800) 459 - 1887
1 (800) 614 - 2803
1 (866) 340 - 9281
1 (866) 338 - 1015
1 (877) 851 - 6437
The government’s new system for trying Guantánamo detainees was thrown into turmoil Monday, when military judges in separate decisions dismissed war crimes charges against two of the detainees.
The rulings, the latest legal setbacks for the government’s effort to bring war crimes charges against detainees, could stall the military’s prosecutions here.
The decisions did not turn on the guilt or innocence of the detainees, but rather made essentially the same determination that the military had not followed procedures to declare the detainees “unlawful enemy combatants,” which is required for the military commission to hear the cases.
Pentagon officials described the rulings as raising technical and semantic issues, and said that they were considering appeals. If appeals failed, they said, they could go through the process of redesignating the detainees.
But military lawyers said the rulings exposed a flaw that would affect every other potential war-crimes case here. And the rulings brought immediate calls, including from some on Capitol Hill, for Congress to re-examine the system it set up last year for military commission trials and, perhaps, to consider other changes in the legal treatment of Guantánamo detainees.
The problem they ran into? The Military Commissions Act specifically applies to "unlawful enemy combatants." Bush's Combatant Status Review tribunals? Only classified the Guantanamo detainees as "enemy combatants" - without specifying "lawful" or "unlawful." And while the administration obviously felt that, since the commissions and tribunals were creations entirely of their own imaginations to begin with, specific laws were immaterial, the military judges obviously felt otherwise and dismissed the cases, without prejudice, citing lack of jurisdiction.
The question of military tribunals and commissions was raised in the first place because of the Bush administration's assertion that the US lacked a judicial system equipped for dealing with the "irregular circumstances" of terrorism and conflict such as we've seen in Iraq. ACLU blog Find Habeas points out that that's not necessarily the case:
In February 2003, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia, known more ominously by the Spanish acronym FARC (a moniker outdone in being scary-sounding only by the Haitian Tonton Macoute), kidnapped three American counter-narcotics contractors, which it then attempted to exchange for prisoners and a chunk of Columbian territory. All three remain captive.
Though FARC’s involvement in the drug trade has traditionally been its claim to infamy, recent administrations have increasingly focused on its use of terrorism (as well as its recruitment of child soldiers). It is currently designated a terrorist organization by both the State Department here and the European Union.
...
Notably, the parameters of the [senior leader Ricardo] Palmera case look a heck of a lot like the parameters of your mine run al-Qaeda criminal indictment. Most folks are going to be charged with material support, or some other catch-all-esque charge. Most are not going to face conspiracy, attempted murder or murder charges. The government has successfully prosecuted cases where training camp attendance alone constituted “material support” under the statute.
Contrary to [Pentagon deputy general counsel Daniel] Dell’Orto’s talking points, the civilian justice system is well equipped to handle these types of cases, which make up the vast majority of the alleged misconduct of the Gitmo detainees. The FARC trial underscores this point.
At the very least, it's comforting to know that there are judges out there who respect the rule of law, even if our own president won't.
So what's next for our intrepid administration? Plenty. The DoD does plan to appeal the dismissal, but since at this point, a court does not exist to which they can appeal, they'll have to wait for the Pentagon to establish a Court of Military Commission Review, as authorized by Congress. In the meantime, further Combatant Status Review tribunals may be held to re-classify the fourteen "high-value" detainees currently at Guantanamo, among them suspected 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
My advice to the government (and IANAL)? Just stick with what you know, y'all. They're a little bit trickier and pickier, since provisions would have to be made to keep top-secret information top-secret and prosecutors would have to make efforts to, like, follow the Constitution and stuff, but regular ol' trials within the current justice system are demonstrably suitable for terrorism suspects. They're not as fancy or Tom-Clancy-sexy as military tribunals, but they have the advantage of being constitutionally sound and being a tool with which the government has considerable experience. And trials like these are just too important to screw up.
In other habeas corpus news,
The Senate Judiciary Committee just voted for the Specter/Leahy habeas restoration bill. The committee sent it to the floor with no amendments, no debate and on almost a party line vote (with the GOP sponsor, Senator Arlen Specter from Pennsylvania voting in favor).
The Habeus Corpus Restoration Act of 2007, a bill "to restore habeas corpus for those detained by the United States," is expected to see a floor vote within the month.
Feel free to give your senator a call and encourage him/her to vote for this very important measure. Remember that it's not just foreign nationals who are affected by this bill - under the Military Commissions Act, the next "unlawful combatant" could be you.
The Capital Switchboard:
1 (800) 828 - 0498
1 (800) 459 - 1887
1 (800) 614 - 2803
1 (866) 340 - 9281
1 (866) 338 - 1015
1 (877) 851 - 6437
Monday, June 04, 2007
On another side effect of torture
Okay, so I've had some interesting discussions with some interesting people about this article.
Reactions have been varied. There have been the, "Those monsters! They deserve to suffer for all of the pain they've inflicted!" There have been the, "Look at what we're doing to our own troops! Look at what we make them do!" And then there have been more than a couple responses like this one:
And that made me wonder when we started equating general humanity with "pussification."
As a society, as a civilization, we have rules. You don't hurt people on purpose. You don't kill people. You don't take other people's things. We also have established exceptions to those rules; we've laid out circumstances in which it's okay to bypass those rules if it's absolutely necessary. If a guy's bearing down on you with an AK-47, you're allowed a waiver on the "don't kill people" rule. If a detainee has information that you need, information that could save lives, and he's not giving it up voluntarily, you get a waiver (to some extent) on the "don't hurt people on purpose" rule. But that doesn't mean that those rules don't go away, or that they aren't still important; it just means that, in some extreme circumstances, other rules are more important.
When people say things like "This civilization has been pussified," they act like it's a bad thing to recognize that yes, on the whole, you don't hurt people on purpose. That hurting people on purpose is the necessary exception, not the rule. Do we want to raise a generation of men who are so very, very manly that they don't recognize "don't hurt people on purpose" as a basic rule of society?
These guys are coming home and dealing with the conflict between what's necessary to complete the job there and what is societally acceptable here. That conflict is to be expected and shouldn't really surprise anyone. Instead of calling them pussies and telling them that they shouldn't feel bad for hurting/killing people, ("Hey, man, he was a terrorist! He hates your freedoms! What're you all broken up about, you pussy?") maybe we, who are sitting at home on our asses and not out there, could be a little more understanding.
I don't wish that kind of emotional turmoil on anyone. And, while a definite baseline of human behavior must be maintained, the fact is that we also don't benefit from interrogators who are so soft that they're not willing to invoke that "lives are at stake" exception and do what needs to be done. But nor do we benefit from someone who's willing to pretend that those basic rules don't exist at all and say, "Hey, he's not even human, so it really doesn't matter what I do." There is a middle ground, and these guys are the ones who have to walk on it.
I don't want to live in a society where mistreatment of anyone - even suspected terrorists, even confirmed terrorists - becomes a matter of course, nothing to worry about, something that's perfectly acceptable and not worthy of a second thought. I also don't want to live in a society where our troops come home miserable and fearful and guilt-ridden about the things they saw and did in the name of our safety and freedom. The solution there is to live in a society where we don't ask our troops to do things that they can't be proud of, things that most human beings know, deep in our hearts, are wrong. And the solution to that is to get our troops the hell out of Iraq.
In Iraq, when Tony Lagouranis interrogated suspects, fear was his friend, his weapon. He saw it seep, dark and shameful, through the crotch of a man's pants as a dog closed in, barking. He smelled it in prisoners' sweat, a smoky odor, like a pot of lentils burning. He had touched fear, too, felt it in their fingers, their chilled skin trembling.
But on this evening, Lagouranis was back in Illinois, taking the train to a bar. His girlfriend thought he was a hero. His best friend hung out with him, watching reruns of "Hawaii Five-O." And yet he felt afraid.
"I tortured people," said Lagouranis, 37, who was a military intelligence specialist in Iraq from January 2004 until January 2005. "You have to twist your mind up so much to justify doing that."
Being an interrogator, Lagouranis discovered, can be torture. At first, he was eager to try coercive techniques. In training at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., instructors stressed the Geneva Conventions, he recalled, while classmates privately admired Israeli and British methods. "The British were tough," Lagouranis said. "They seemed like real interrogators."
But interrogators for countries that pride themselves on adhering to the rule of law, such as Britain, the United States and Israel, operate in a moral war zone. They are on the front lines in fighting terrorism, crucial for intelligence-gathering. Yet they use methods that conflict with their societies' values.
Reactions have been varied. There have been the, "Those monsters! They deserve to suffer for all of the pain they've inflicted!" There have been the, "Look at what we're doing to our own troops! Look at what we make them do!" And then there have been more than a couple responses like this one:
Maybe we should let him get captured by the Iraqis so he can see what real torture is and maybe he'll realize that what he did was baby shit.
I hate how this civilization has been pussified to a level where everything is exaggerated far from what it really is.
And that made me wonder when we started equating general humanity with "pussification."
As a society, as a civilization, we have rules. You don't hurt people on purpose. You don't kill people. You don't take other people's things. We also have established exceptions to those rules; we've laid out circumstances in which it's okay to bypass those rules if it's absolutely necessary. If a guy's bearing down on you with an AK-47, you're allowed a waiver on the "don't kill people" rule. If a detainee has information that you need, information that could save lives, and he's not giving it up voluntarily, you get a waiver (to some extent) on the "don't hurt people on purpose" rule. But that doesn't mean that those rules don't go away, or that they aren't still important; it just means that, in some extreme circumstances, other rules are more important.
When people say things like "This civilization has been pussified," they act like it's a bad thing to recognize that yes, on the whole, you don't hurt people on purpose. That hurting people on purpose is the necessary exception, not the rule. Do we want to raise a generation of men who are so very, very manly that they don't recognize "don't hurt people on purpose" as a basic rule of society?
These guys are coming home and dealing with the conflict between what's necessary to complete the job there and what is societally acceptable here. That conflict is to be expected and shouldn't really surprise anyone. Instead of calling them pussies and telling them that they shouldn't feel bad for hurting/killing people, ("Hey, man, he was a terrorist! He hates your freedoms! What're you all broken up about, you pussy?") maybe we, who are sitting at home on our asses and not out there, could be a little more understanding.
I don't wish that kind of emotional turmoil on anyone. And, while a definite baseline of human behavior must be maintained, the fact is that we also don't benefit from interrogators who are so soft that they're not willing to invoke that "lives are at stake" exception and do what needs to be done. But nor do we benefit from someone who's willing to pretend that those basic rules don't exist at all and say, "Hey, he's not even human, so it really doesn't matter what I do." There is a middle ground, and these guys are the ones who have to walk on it.
I don't want to live in a society where mistreatment of anyone - even suspected terrorists, even confirmed terrorists - becomes a matter of course, nothing to worry about, something that's perfectly acceptable and not worthy of a second thought. I also don't want to live in a society where our troops come home miserable and fearful and guilt-ridden about the things they saw and did in the name of our safety and freedom. The solution there is to live in a society where we don't ask our troops to do things that they can't be proud of, things that most human beings know, deep in our hearts, are wrong. And the solution to that is to get our troops the hell out of Iraq.
On a matter of time
Okay, so there's been a lot of discussion about whether or not Bush has an exit strategy. He swears he has a plan (and what reason would we have not to trust him?), and that we just need to give it time to work.
And of course I wouldn't be so foolish as to insist on an immediate withdrawal from Iraq. It's a big deal, and things need to be planned. How quickly can you get Iraqi troops trained to take over (if, in fact, that's something you sincerely plan on doing)? How soon can the Iraqi government get the militias under control (if, in fact, that's something they sincerely plan on doing). At what rate should you start redeploying troops, and over what period of time, until the Iraqi people have regained control of their country?
If, in fact, that's, y'know, something you sincerely plan on doing.
The man says, "Give it time," and it's true that time can change a lot of things. F'rinstance, not too long ago, you were promising reports showing magnficient progress by September, and now you're saying that you were "way too optimistic." And just last year, Maliki was all, "Hey, pack your bags, y'all, 'cause Iraqi troops are taking over as of June 2007," and now he's fearful of a military coup. Things change when you give it time.
So maybe we just need to go ahead and give Bush's plans time to work. Maybe a couple of years. Maybe more than a couple; maybe fifty. Maybe we need to build an embassy the size of the Vatican, with a 16,000-square-foot house for the ambassador, while the rest of Baghdad is getting less than five hours of electricty a day.
And maybe, supplemental spending bill notwithstanding,
we need to gladly embrace the big ol' middle finger that our president is flicking us as he makes plans to maintain three or four bases throughout the country, and he'll stay there until he's good and ready to leave, because leaving is quitting and quitting is losing, and screw us for suspecting that he has no idea what he's doing and is only counting down the days until he's out of office and this whole mess is someone else's problem.
It's just a matter of time.
And of course I wouldn't be so foolish as to insist on an immediate withdrawal from Iraq. It's a big deal, and things need to be planned. How quickly can you get Iraqi troops trained to take over (if, in fact, that's something you sincerely plan on doing)? How soon can the Iraqi government get the militias under control (if, in fact, that's something they sincerely plan on doing). At what rate should you start redeploying troops, and over what period of time, until the Iraqi people have regained control of their country?
If, in fact, that's, y'know, something you sincerely plan on doing.
The man says, "Give it time," and it's true that time can change a lot of things. F'rinstance, not too long ago, you were promising reports showing magnficient progress by September, and now you're saying that you were "way too optimistic." And just last year, Maliki was all, "Hey, pack your bags, y'all, 'cause Iraqi troops are taking over as of June 2007," and now he's fearful of a military coup. Things change when you give it time.
So maybe we just need to go ahead and give Bush's plans time to work. Maybe a couple of years. Maybe more than a couple; maybe fifty. Maybe we need to build an embassy the size of the Vatican, with a 16,000-square-foot house for the ambassador, while the rest of Baghdad is getting less than five hours of electricty a day.
And maybe, supplemental spending bill notwithstanding,
SEC. 3301. None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this or any other Act shall be obligated or expended by the United States Government for a purpose as follows:
(1) To establish any military installation or base for the purpose of providing for the permanent stationing of United States Armed Forces in Iraq.
(2) To exercise United States control over any oil resource of Iraq.
we need to gladly embrace the big ol' middle finger that our president is flicking us as he makes plans to maintain three or four bases throughout the country, and he'll stay there until he's good and ready to leave, because leaving is quitting and quitting is losing, and screw us for suspecting that he has no idea what he's doing and is only counting down the days until he's out of office and this whole mess is someone else's problem.
It's just a matter of time.
Monday, May 21, 2007
On things conspicuously unmentioned
Okay, so some bloggers have pointed out that, Saturday being Armed Forces Day and all, it was somewhat unusual for President Bush to devote his weekly radio address to... immigration. Not a single mention of the troops.
I can hazard a guess as to why he might not want to draw attention to that particular group of people.
- Saturday, seven American soldiers and a translator were killed in a bombing in Baghdad, bringing to 3,422 the death toll for American troops in Iraq (3,404 confirmed by the DoD).
- Bush threw a tantrum a week ago and promised to veto troop funding - again - because Congress, though they compromised mightily, still refused to write him a blank check for the war in Iraq.
- The DoD has gone back on their promise to give troops 12 full months at home with their families between deployments.
- Bush decided Wednesday that the one thing the troops really don't need is more money or benefits, because they're "unnecessary" (cost of requested pay raise that Bush wants to veto? Six dollars per soldier per month).
So, yeah, soft-pedaling the "support the troops" angle, not a bad idea.
He could probably take some tips from a bunch of eighth graders in New Jersey.
(H/T Blue Gal)
I can hazard a guess as to why he might not want to draw attention to that particular group of people.
- Saturday, seven American soldiers and a translator were killed in a bombing in Baghdad, bringing to 3,422 the death toll for American troops in Iraq (3,404 confirmed by the DoD).
- Bush threw a tantrum a week ago and promised to veto troop funding - again - because Congress, though they compromised mightily, still refused to write him a blank check for the war in Iraq.
- The DoD has gone back on their promise to give troops 12 full months at home with their families between deployments.
- Bush decided Wednesday that the one thing the troops really don't need is more money or benefits, because they're "unnecessary" (cost of requested pay raise that Bush wants to veto? Six dollars per soldier per month).
So, yeah, soft-pedaling the "support the troops" angle, not a bad idea.
He could probably take some tips from a bunch of eighth graders in New Jersey.
(H/T Blue Gal)
Friday, May 18, 2007
On taking that damn gold star back
Okay, so I was so excited.
I was so excited.
I was so excited about the prospect of a day where I got to give President Bush props for something he did right and leave it at that.
I even considered not mentioning this, holding onto it until Monday, just to bask in the glow of our president not screwing something up for the entire weekend.
Dammit, Mr. President:
Bush also opposes a $40/month allowance for military survivors (apparently the current benefits are “sufficient”), additional benefits for surviving family members of civilian employees, and price controls for prescription drugs under TRICARE.
Mr. President, you talk about how important it is to fund the war effort, how important it is to support the troops, and then every time someone tries to approve money for that, you take it away! Mr. President, why? Why are you stealing our Christmas tree? Why?
Try to do something nice for a guy, and this is what you get.
I was so excited.
I was so excited about the prospect of a day where I got to give President Bush props for something he did right and leave it at that.
I even considered not mentioning this, holding onto it until Monday, just to bask in the glow of our president not screwing something up for the entire weekend.
Dammit, Mr. President:
Troops don’t need bigger pay raises, White House budget officials said Wednesday in a statement of administration policy laying out objections to the House version of the 2008 defense authorization bill.
The Bush administration had asked for a 3 percent military raise for Jan. 1, 2008, enough to match last year’s average pay increase in the private sector. The House Armed Services Committee recommends a 3.5 percent pay increase for 2008, and increases in 2009 through 2012 that also are 0.5 percentage point greater than private-sector pay raises.
The slightly bigger military raises are intended to reduce the gap between military and civilian pay that stands at about 3.9 percent today. Under the bill, HR 1585, the pay gap would be reduced to 1.4 percent after the Jan. 1, 2012, pay increase.
Bush budget officials said the administration “strongly opposes” both the 3.5 percent raise for 2008 and the follow-on increases, calling extra pay increases “unnecessary.”
Bush also opposes a $40/month allowance for military survivors (apparently the current benefits are “sufficient”), additional benefits for surviving family members of civilian employees, and price controls for prescription drugs under TRICARE.
Mr. President, you talk about how important it is to fund the war effort, how important it is to support the troops, and then every time someone tries to approve money for that, you take it away! Mr. President, why? Why are you stealing our Christmas tree? Why?
Try to do something nice for a guy, and this is what you get.
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