February 2004 Archives

(See below for 2/26/04 update.)

I will be Away From Keyboard until the 25th. Questions: Can I stand it? Do I wish I owned a laptop? Answers: Yes and Yes.

This is a tad frustrating from a blogging-perspective since the site has finally reached a stage where it is being linked to fairly consistently and also attracting item comments. Thank you to my readers! I hope you continue to find something of interest here when I return.

In the mean-time, please do use the links at left to explore some other news and info sites. There's a lot of good stuff over there. I'd particularly like to draw your attention to the blog sites on the list that either reciprocate or have been particularly generous with their linkage:

Aaron's Rantblog, American Digest, Angry Left, The Argus, Banagor, Celestial Blue, Classical Values, Common Sense & Wonder, Dancing w/Dogs, Davids Medienkritik, Dean Esmay, Dissident Frogman, Dodgeblogium, Elegance Against Ignorance, Freedom Loving Girl, The Ghost of a Flea, Hasidic Rebel, Head Heeb, HipperCritical, I Am Always Right, In Context, Insomnomaniac, Israpundit, Israellycool, Little Green Footballs, Marmot, Martin Kimel, Mind of Mog, Mutated Monkeys, Mythusmage, My Wide Blue Seas, National Security Blog, Normblog, One Hand Clapping, On The Third Hand, Peaktalk, Peoria Pundit, Phillip Coons, Protocols, Regnum Crucis, Right Wing News, Roger L. Simon, Setting the World to Rights, Silent Running, Smooth Stone, Somewhere on A1A, Terra Taco, The View From Here, Viking Pundit, Weekend Pundit, Who Knew?, Young Curmudgeon, Yourish, Zogby Blog (My apologies if I've missed anyone)

I have deactivated comments to prevent abuse while I'm gone (mostly from spammers).

See you soon!

Update - Thursday, Feb. 26, 2004: Back! Sort of. Off again to a business convention tomorrow and for the weekend and I'm sorting things out and getting caught up here in the office today. When I checked my email last night I had 700+ emails - mostly spam of the unwelcome sort, but much of it self-inflicted. All of those news updates and email pointers were a difficult temptation to resist after having spent the past nine days avoiding the news like the plague. Sadly, the world did not wait for my return, spinning on regardless, and it was all I could do to avoid spending the entire evening staring at the computer screen taking it all in and risking my marriage. May do a little updating here, but honestly, I don't even know where to begin. See you Sunday.

This time by the Boston Globe's Cathy Young. Young goes back to the Peggy Noonan interview and takes the side of those who believe Gibson missed an opportunity to set the record straight on his beliefs and intentions. Of interest to blog readers, she refers to the Volokh Conspiracy's David Bernstein, as I did here in my first post on the subject two weeks ago. (Further posts here, here and here.) I'd make a snarky comment about Young needing a blog to keep things fresher, but of course, she actually gets paid for what she does...

An interesting contribution to the discussion, none the less.

Boston.com / News / Boston Globe / Opinion / Op-ed / Does Gibson deserve the 'Passion' backlash?

Just received this from the JAT-Action email list. Honest Reporting's film, "Relentless" will be showing on Newton Massachusetts cable TV.

If you're in Newton and get this channel, I highly recommend checking it out.

My previous item written after my own viewing of the film is here.

Zeyad at Healing Iraq reports a number of Iraqi clerics have issued a Fatwa against attacking fellow Iraqis.

Aaron David Miller writes what appears to me to be a balanced look at the dangers and opportunities of Ariel Sharon's proposed unilateral Gaza pullout.

Sharon's Potential Opening (washingtonpost.com)

What impresses me about the piece is not the content, although it is interesting, so much as the fact that some of the things said here are really some of the things Tom Friedman was trying to drive at, and could easily have said in his last two ham-handed columns, if he weren't so side-tracked into childish partisanship. Wherefor the difference? Is it because Miller is not a professional columnist while Friedman is reflecting the entrenched New York Times culture he's ensconced in, where Bush and Sharon are the twin Satans of the prevailing demonology? I think so.

What's the solution? Four words: Term limits for columnists.

Update: Jeff Dunetz figures Friedman is so off he's just got to be using some sort of reverse psychology.

Another day with the mainstream media desperately trying to make hay of the Was Bush AWOL non-story, including yet another front-page "trial by headline" story (the article itself is fair-enough) in the Washington Post today Bush's Guard Service Cloudy.

Meanwhile, the [American] press is still silent about the emerging details (link via Israellycool) of John Kerry's alleged intern...activity.

Why do I care? Sauce for the goose. The press is beating the Bush Guard record story into a pulp (something that I think will rebound in Bush's favor in the long run - ask the LA Times about such things), they ought to be reporting on the Kerry kerfuffle as well.

...it's 28 - questions George Will has for John Kerry. Quite good.

The 1st 28 Questions For Kerry (washingtonpost.com)

Read 'em all.

The Washington Post today uses Dave Brown's controversial cartoon of Ariel Sharon as a hook for a decent discussion of British "Judeohphobia."

British Drawing Stirs Anti-Semitism Debate

My previous item on the cartoon is here. I hadn't posted a lot on the subject at the time in spite of giving it a lot of thought because I'd really had a lot of mixed emotions about it. With some things I've seen and read, I'm now more on the side of its being antisemitic than I was then.

The article itself is a decent short primer on the issue generally, and covers a lot of ground familiar to blog readers.

Oh, BTW, if you were also one of the people who didn't like the cartoon, it would appear you were not alone:

From outer spaaaaace... [cue Twilight Zone music]

Here's some money well-spent as a start on the path to winning hearts and minds. The US has finally gotten around to launching its own Arabic satellite channel. While Al-Jazeera, Al-Arabiya and the trunk-loads of state-run and sanctioned Arab TV stations have been murdering us for years, we'll finally have our own voice operating 24 hours a day. Let's hope they get the right people in there to do a good job with it. It's as important - maybe more important - than bullets and bombs. Will it solve all our problems overnight? Will people start tuning in and thinking, in their millions, "Wow, I never thought about it that way!" No. But some will, and it's a start. It's all about offering choices, and having a choice available for those who are seeking. In the grand marketplace of ideas, you can't win if you don't play. It's about time we did. Marketing and communications are America's strengths. We should start flexing.

Haaretz: Washington begins TV broadcasts to Arab countries

Update: Omar at Iraq the Model saw the first day's broadcast. He liked it so far.

Update2: Saw a report on FOX News. It looked sharp. In fact, it looked (visually - there's no way to know anything about the content) like FOX.

Via Hub Blog: From the blog of CS Monitor correspondent Abraham McLaughlin: Notebook: Africa: February 2004 Archives

Nutrigrain (feel great)

Washington Post: U.N. Envoy Backs Iraqi Vote - In Meetings, Brahimi Says Elections Are Viable Before Date Set by U.S.

Reuters: U.N. Official Says Early Iraq Elections Impossible - A U.N. official said Friday elections could not be held in Iraq before U.S.-led authorities hand power to an Iraqi government by the end June.

Looks like the Bush campaign isn't leaving anything to chance. They're getting right to work on going after John Kerry's record.

The video is here.

They call this one "Unprincipled, Chapter 1." I can't wait for Chapter 2.

Jonathan Edelstein and OceanGuy are discussing it. Is it a question of Optimism v. Pessimism, or a question of the Realistic v. the Idealistic? There are a lot of issues here. Start at Jonathan's, then head to OceanGuy's. My comment is there.

That's the title of this LGF thread. It's appropriate.

Here we go again, watching a country weasel around trying to pretend cooperation to keep the world guessing.

FT.com: Iran fails to declare nuclear design

And the US isn't sitting idly...well, we are for the moment:

US warns Iran over nuclear plans:

A couple of positive Iran-related stories here:

First in the Washington Post, this story about the positive experiences average Iranians have had with some of our soldiers in Iraq. For many of these people, those soldiers will be the only Americans they meet face-to-face in their lives, and the experiences they have will go a long way to influencing their feelings (and as a consequence, influencing the feelings of the people they talk to, and so on...) about Americans generally. These are important contacts.

A Kinder View of Uncle Sam (washingtonpost.com)

Also, you might enjoy this open letter to George W. Bush from the Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran (SMCCDI):

Drudge is reporting:

Y'know, it's a funny thing, when I make love to a woman, they have a tendency to fall in love and get all clingy 'n stuff - like I've addicted them to some intoxicating drug. In Kerry's case they have a tendency to flee the country, apparently. Poor guy. Wonder what he's doing wrong.

Foreplay Senator! Foreplay!

Update: Told my wife about this (I left out the sex god part). Her reaction: Clinton, she can understand. But Kerry? Look at that guy!

Ain't politics grand?

Or is that reflux? That's more the feeling I get reading Friedman's latest NY Times op-ed. Lynn says he's "slipping rapidly further down the rabbit hole." Heh. As Lynn points out, all this one is is an attempt to rescue himself from his last abortive attempt to blame the difficulties of ME peace on insufficient action on the parts of Sharon and Bush. He does a slightly better, but only slightly better job of articulating his points this time. Still, still, he uses a crummy literary device - last time it was "Can you hear me now?" this time the theme of the column is as a memo from George W. Bush to "All Arab leaders". Tom Friedman is way too good a writer for this. He should leave the cheap gimmiks to us unpaid-bloggers. I confess also to finding this method a bit weasly. He's using this device to hide behind someone else's "voice," and since it's to be read as a person in effect "speaking," one to the other, it has the side-benefit of the hope that it won't be read too critically - like the last column appropriately was. Friedman has the capability to make his points, in his own voice, with correct specifics. I wish he'd do so. Sadly, that would also require a sense of personal responsibility that I'm not sure NY Times columnists feel these days, if they ever have.

No fisking on my part this time. Anyone with a longish memory (apparently memory over an entire year is the domain of long-term memory in the Middle East) and who's been paying attention, understands that not only was Abbas never in a position to "be strengthened," as he never had any power in the first place, nor would any concessions have provided Arafat any reason to provide him any, but Friedman also again minimizes the concessions that were made at the time - the removal of roadblocks, the pullouts. They did nothing but allow the "extremists" to claim victory in any case, and did nothing to actually strengthen Abbas.

One gets the feeling, as Friedman calls for ever greater concessions in the face of unilateral concessions rarely buying anything of value, ever - and this applies in great part to much of the history of the entire 20th century with regard to the Arab world and the Jews - for some people it's...never...enough.

Well, he doesn't "fisk" him exactly, but he's not exactly impressed with Friedman's Times editorial of the other day in which he stated that "Mr. Sharon has Mr. Arafat surrounded by tanks, and Mr. Bush surrounded by Jewish and Christian pro-Israel lobbyists, by a vice president, Dick Cheney, who's ready to do whatever Mr. Sharon dictates, and by political handlers telling the president not to put any pressure on Israel in an election year..." Koch points out that this is typical of what we normally consider antisemitic conspiracy-theory rhetoric, and that, coming from another source, we'd probably take it that way. I don't think it's quite as bad as that (though I see the point), but Koch isn't letting Friedman off the hook. Certainly, Friedman is treading that ground where one must be very careful not to step over into loony-leftville. Farrakhan and self-hater Bob Novak also come quite appropriately under the gun here.

Yes, Jews do engage in anti-Semitic behavior

Yes, I've added yet another visual theme to the site. I'll probably continue to tweak it a bit, but it's usable as-is. It's a simple style, but I like 'em that way. Simple, readable pages are best. I call this one "IDF" for what will be obvious reasons if you take a look. Stop on over to the style picker page if you're interested.

Here is the transcript of President Bush's speech today in which he discusses issues of proliferation, recounts the circumstances surrounding the Abdul Qadeer Khan exposure and lays out seven "proposals to strengthen the world's efforts to stop the spread of deadly weapons." It was another one of those "important foreign policy speeches," so it bears setting aside a few minutes to give it a read.

President Announces New Measures to Counter the Threat of WMD

Is this for real? FrontPage: Celebrating 9/11 at the FBI By Paul Sperry. Worth reading in full, via Roger L. Simon.

There's more.

Hat tip to Mal for pointing to this NY Observer story about the inimitable Dr. Bob Arnot's not so amicable departure from NBC. Most will remember Arnot as the Doctor-turned-reporter who's dispatches from Iraq were not exclusively focused on the negative. Although they deny it, it certainly sounds as though NBC's refusal to allocate resources to his presence in Baghdad was precipitated in large part to Arnot's running headlong into the culture of negativism so dominant in the media.

You think of a dictator or sit-com character, the computer tries to guess who you are. Kinda neat.

It screwed up on my first one. I was Aunt Bee, but it thought I was Marie Barone from Everybody Loves Raymond. Someone needs to tell the computer that Mayberry isn't in the midwest.

It got me when I was Mussolini and when I was Hirohito, though.

Hat tip to Mal for pointing out this Tony Blankley article about the new book by John Lewis Gaddis, "Surprise, Security, and the American Experience," in which the author argues that Bush is "implementing only the third American grand strategy in our history." Gaddis, "not a long-time admirer of Mr. Bush," says Bush has undergone "one of the most surprising transformations of an underrated national leader since Prince Hal became Henry V." (I guess it's a day for Henry V references.)

It's not surprising that it's been a time to find new paths and purposes, in this post Cold-War age and with us still operating within an international system that's "really nothing more that[sic] a snapshot of the configuration of power that existed in 1945." I'm not sure you can fault Clinton for not recognizing the need for a new grand strategy at the time, even GWB didn't recognize it when he first took office, it took some traumatic events to change public perception enough to allow a leader to get us walking down this new path, even had he wanted to. I do think, however, that we have been fortunate to have a President who has been ready to recognize these new needs and lead us along this path that needs to be trod. For that we should feel fortunate.

Claudia Rosett of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and the Hudson Institute offers some ideas for disposing of Kim Jong Il's regime come the next round of six-way talks on February 25. Some of them are alright, like increasing the funding for Radio Free Asia's North Korean service and trying to entice Kim with offers of asylum, while I have to wonder if others are really serious. Offering lessons in the wonders of Capitalism? C'mon. I do like the imagery of her conclusion - in fact, I wish I'd thought of it before - drawn from one of my favorite of Shakespeare's works, "If we must discuss this extortion racket, let's start from the premise that as the world's leading democracy and superpower, we are the makers of manners..."

OpinionJournal: Tear Down This Regime - Let's negotiate North Korea's dictatorship out of existence.

The terrorists have certainly turned their full attention on preventing the formation of a new Iraqi civil society.

Second Vehicle Bomb Kills Dozens in Baghdad (washingtonpost.com)

It never takes long for the conspiracy theories to get going:

You hate to read stuff like this:

This is all the bad news. The good news? No Americans killed, in fact the attacks haven't been directed against Americans. To me that means that the terrorists understand that the Americans won't be deterred, and in any case, they'll be leaving inevitably. There's no need to use resources against "imperialists" who intend to give up their empire. It's with the Iraqis themselves that Iraq's future lies, and the terrorists seem to be recognizing that. That's a good sign. It means the conflict, as well as the responsibility for finding the way forward is becoming more and more Iraqified. It means that, hopefully, Iraqi security and the construction and defense of their society will become less and less a welfare matter, and more a matter of self-help. That will also have the side benefit of giving the Iraqis the feeling of ownership of their future as they take more and more of a role in earning it.

The blogging parade of self-pimpage is up at On the Third Hand. Go on over and take a look to broaden your horizons. This time I submitted a lighter piece: Adventuresome middle-aged female seeks companion - back hair and tail a plus.

Much is being made of this letter from a bunch of Kerry supporters trumpeting how much more the world will like us if we elect the good Senator come November.

The Tehran Times certainly views this as positive, and they have had a copy emailed to them. Their version has the title and the last couple sentences and signatures cut off.

Putting aside the fact that John Kerry is a Democrat even the Iranians could love, I found this part interesting:

Now that's interesting. I know that all of the Democrat candidates say they support Kyoto, but I was pretty sure that Kyoto failed in the Senate 98-0 during the Clinton years...and sure enough:

OK, 95-0. So what gives? Does Kerry or does he not support Kyoto? Has he had a change of heart, or is this just another case of being "for" something if it doesn't actually mean having to act on it, and taking an opportunity to criticize those who did? Was this another vote like his vote for the Iraq War? Maybe he had his fingers crossed on this one, too.

Nathan at The Argus posted regarding Bill Clinton's address to the US-Islamic World Forum in Qatar. I finally had a chance to watch the video of the address.

I'd agree with most of the positive attention the speech got. This was a refreshing change from the "Leftist American Abroad" fare we've been subjected to of late. No Jimmy Carter or Michael Moore is Clinton. Here is an ex-President who understands he's an advocate for America - and not just Bill Clinton's America, but George Bush's America, too. Only once during the speech did he take a bit of a partisan swipe (concerning the deficit), and he never named the administration or the President, he merely decried the deficit. Of course I'd rather he didn't do it, but if you gotta criticize, that's the way it should be done. Not personal - policy, and keep it down in front of the neighbors.

I got a little antsy watching him talking about the Geneva Accord, but maybe that's my own negative feelings coloring my perceptions. I thought I saw the old "Slick Willie" fighting to come out. He got that little head-shake, and he flapped his arms and got a little excited. His praise for Rabbo and the Accord sounded absolutely patronizing and insincere to me even as he tried to be praising. Perhaps that speaks well for him after all.

When he starts talking about America's many errors and mistakes, he seems to me like a swallow dipping and diving over deep waters, but just managing to keep from going under. He was clearly enough of an advocate for America to be critical without drowing in it. Again, he's more critical than I might have liked, but that's probably what was necessary given the audience, and it also allows him to get across a message of responsibility for the Arab world as well. Yes, yes, more focus on that might have been good as well, but you can only expect so much given the circumstance.

It's a shame. Clinton's brain and communication skill with Bush's moral core might make one decent President if his policies are right. Where have the great leaders gone?

Telegraph | News | I had a good time at Guantanamo, says inmate

Previous, similar entry on this subject, here.

Light posting today again. Doing real work AND added a new style to the blog. It's called "Founders." You can find it on the Style-picker page. As before, if you give it a try, please let me know if there are any problems.

CNN.com - Blair plans to meet Libyan leader

I gotta tell ya, if the Libyans are really doing this because they're afraid they're the next to be invaded, I just don't think they're paying attention - not that I'm at all upset that that may be the case. How do I see it? I think there is no way we're sending troops into any countries on any kind of scale any time soon. The Administration has done such a bad job of keeping control of the terms of the debate, allowing it to be narrowed to questions of imminence and stocks of WMD and other issues of nit-picky press negativism that they have no reservoir of political currency to draw upon. The President had an opportunity to try to take control of the debate again with the Russert interview, but he blew it utterly, and now they're back on the flats of their feet in reaction mode, and that's not where you need to be to accomplish complex foreign policy objectives.

Am I being too negative? Maybe. But a necessary ingredient of our Terror War is a credible threat of the use of force against our enemies, and the stresses of "intelligence failures" and election year politics has been wreaking havoc on our ability to be serious with respect to these issues.

So far, I think the momentum given us by the Iraq invasion and events there and elsewhere have kept our efforts to put pressure on our enemies moving forward, but I do worry over how long it will last.

Michael Ledeen says yesterday's Zarkawi letter is the Jihadi equivalent of a "Yaarrrhhh!" moment.

David Kaspar on how some turned Right and stayed on the outs to this day, and some stayed Left and came in from the cold.

Davids Medienkritik: Schily and Mahler: The Story Behind the Story - Germany's radicals

Because of stuff like this:

CNN.com - Gore: America 'betrayed' by President

Well Al Gore would know, wouldn't he, since he's likely one of the people who helped plan it. Everything I've read about Gore's role during the Clinton Administration has said that Al Gore was one of the hawks on Iraq, urging Clinton to take more action against that regime.

He put partisanship aside for exactly as long as he had to until he figured he could get away with it again.

But now here he is, running for nothing, not in office anymore, no responsibility but as a political gun for hire, coming out and damning the man with the weight of responsibility on his shoulders and using terminology like 'betrayed." It's just infuriating. And yes, for the record, I voted for the guy! I used to think some of the over-the-top Republican attacks against Clinton were too much, and I feel no different now seeing it done by people I used to support against the people I support now.

Why? Maybe because I don't have a job waiting for me if the parties switch power positions. I just care about some of the actual issues at stake. I actually care if some of the President's policies succeed, and for those I don't agree with, I'd like to, for once, see them defeated on substance, so when the other party gets in, we can have the same process.

Of course it's naive to wish for such a thing - demagoguing issues to death is nothing new. You can read history and find the venom going back to the Founders, but the the difference in impression one gets is that the venom was over sincere differences over genuine and important issues of Government. It strikes me that Al Gore would ditch a closely held principle (if he even has any) in favor of issues of Party in the wink of a politican's eye.

Not only do I disagree with Gore on this issue, but I detect a heaping-helping of hypocrisy to boot. And that's why I don't mind projecting a bit of disgust his way over this latest little bit of political debasement.

Update: Charles is taking Gore to task for his appearance at the Zayed Centre.

Who said the following:

Was it President George W. Bush, during his Tim Russert interview? Meh. No such luck. No, surprisingly, it was, according to MEMRI, Dr. Abd Al-Hamid Al-Ansari, former dean of the Faculty of Islamic Law at the University of Qatar, writing in the London Arabic-language daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat. Although the article ends with the usual condemnation of American support for Israel, it is not the usual "pile on America" stuff.

Now if only a few of our own politicians would be a bit louder in this regard...

Dave at Israellycool has some more preview gossip from the Gibson film. Newsweek is the latest to chime in, calling the film "powerful but troubling." Dave says he doesn't plan on seeing it, but there's no doubt that with all the attention this film is getting, it's going to have a big opening.

Frontpage Mag's headline piece is by a guy who's "come around" on the War on Terror. He's got a little different story than some, as unlike myself, he's come in from the cold from the far Right, as opposed to many of us "9/11 Conservatives."

From hanging with the "anti-Zionists" at Counterpunch and antiwar.com to thinking that GWB is doing about the best that can be expected. Interesting story follows. This time told from the former paleo-Right.

Why I Left the Anti-War Right By Anthony Gancarski

At Rantingprofs. Lots of angles to this. Check it out. (Via Roger L. Simon)

My only reaction is that this is a man who can make even the best cause sound bad. Doesn't he have anyone prepping him?

His inarticulateness is a real shame for those of us who basically support the man and his policies and do NOT want to see a John Kerry elected in his place. He seems sincere, but his inability to articulate and defend his positions clearly is a terrifically heavy liability.

Sorry for the lack of "style." I'm trying to figure out how this PHP style-switcher works and not doing very well.

Please bear with me.

BTW, trying to follow the instructions on this page. If anyone with tech skill has any MT-specific tips, or anything I should know (I think my problem is with trying to set the paths correctly), please leave a comment.

Update: I abandoned PHP since I would have had to change all the file extensions to .php and instead went with a java app. It seems to be working. You can give it a try by using the link at the top right of the page. There's only one other choice aside from the default for now. Feel free to make me aware of any problems (spots where there's white text on a white background, for instance) if you give it a try. (Suggestions are welcome, too.)

'Senator Kerry would seek direct talks with Iran'

How do they know what's going on behind the scenes...behind the scenes where official sanction to a terror regime won't appear to be given before the world?

This should give a good indicator of the truth behind one of the themes of this Ha'Aretz article - Nasrallah pulls no punches: Who would our enemies rather have in power? George W. Bush, or one of his opponents? And have no doubt, the current Iranian Regime is our enemy.

Update: Silly me, I was also thinking about this timely Lileks Bleat when I mentioned the Ha'Aretz article.

Roger L. Simon has a picture that speaks volumes about the media and how we receive our view of the world. It brings to mind the importance of groups like CAMERA and Honest Reporting and HR's film, Relentless.

A commenter on Roger's blog points to this Jonah Goldberg article on the famous picture of General Nguyen Ngoc Loan shooting a man. Goldberg:

And that's just it. Everyone has an angle. It is the rare bird of a journalist who doesn't have an ax to grind, or a conclusion they're trying, even subconsciously, to lead you to. The trouble is, the vast majority of people, even those who should know better, never really consider that, or they're only too willing to adopt the point of view of their information provider for reasons of ease, or belonging, or naivete (Hey, the Charter of the BBC says it must be impartial, therefore...it must be impartial, right?) or some other reason, good or not.

Roger says even blogs are suspect, and that's very, very true, but we are, as he implies, also responsible for getting the other angle out in front of people's eyes.

Now go have a look at one of those other angles over at Roger's.

Mal points out this text of European Parliamentarian Ilka Schroder's address to the Center for German Studies of Ben Gurion University in Israel (It appears to be the same address, even though the piece doesn't specifically say so). I pointed to this speech back in December, but this is the first time I've seen the full text. Very much worth reading, not just for what she says specifically about antisemitism in Europe and Arabia, and about the EU's support of the PA at all costs, but also what it says about the ongoing "Cool War" between the US and Europe that's causing some parties, much as the Cold War did before, to sacrifice what should be their principles on the altar of World Influence. In my previous entry, I paired it with my entry The Protocols of the Elders of Sheffield Hallam - a pairing that still holds.

The Sprout - Ilka Schroder MEP - The War Against Israel and Growing European Nationalism [Edit 4-30-06: Dead URL fixed]

C'mon. You gotta. The man says things that need to be said. Check out the latest at Davids Medienkritik:

Update: More here.

The folks from Blog Iran have done a Winds of Change Iran news roundup.

Lots of links to lots of news.

(Hat tip to mal - do you get a hat tip for pointing to an article from almost 4 months ago? Sure... [edit: Mal points out it was re-published today. My bad.])

This is the article Robert Kagan and Bill Kristol wrote back in October as a re-cap of how we got where we are. With all the partisan sniping going on these days, it's easy to get a bit lost. It never hurts to have a little refresher. They start with a quote from Bill Clinton.

Why We Went to War

(Hat tip to mal!) I like Caroline Glick a lot. She's one of the smartest people out there, and this article makes one of the best cases for the hard-line position against Gaza withdrawal and the strategy trade-offs involved. The trouble is, it suffers from the syndrome all such "hard-line" positions suffer from - failure to name an alternative. Is the status-quo OK? It doesn't seem sustainable forever. A longer term solution is needed, but one will have to look elsewhere for that plan, as Glick doesn't offer it. It's Sharon that has to find it, and that means a strategic re-alignment (and, as an aside, potential tranfer of the settlers to the West Bank).

Still, for the other side, read Glick's piece.

CNN.com - Committee: No politics in prewar intelligence- Feb. 5, 2004

Mike emails a pointer to yesterday's Thomas Friedman pap A Rude Awakening. Now, sometimes, Friedman is excellent, bringing forth well-written insight from a guy with mucho connections. The other Tom Freidman is...well...a dope, suggesting we raise the gas tax or appease the Syrians.

Sadly, yesterday's "effort" is part of the latter group. Tom should take whatever money he made writing yesterday's column and sign the check over to Steven Den Beste who wrote what can only be described as a balm on the wound this Freidman effort opens up.

Sadly, I haven't even felt compelled to fisk Freidman when he's writing like this. He's so obviously politically partisan and frankly out to lunch it just doesn't seem worth it.

Just a few comments:

I can't keep track anymore. I thought the Republicans were the ones who paid too much attention to foreign policy, and not enough to domestic issues. My bad. And regarding "Islamic Republicanism" - the electorate might care if that happens in Iraq, but I can pretty much guarantee you that if it happens in "Palestine," absolutely no one will give a shit. I doubt the American Electorate expects anything different.

OK, now this is a style criticism. Tom, the "can you hear me now" thing? The only reason that gets people's attention now is that it's annoying. It's over-done. It's this year's "talk to the hand." No one wants to hear that, and believe me, by the end of this piece, you'll be wishing this column just passed quietly out of memory. The rest of us certainly are.

Actually, Freidman never really gets back to talking about Iraq. He can't, of course, since it's still too early to say what's going to happen there, and further, it's almost impossible to make a case that the Administration isn't doing everything possible to empower a moderate middle there. That's the entire point of the effort. What the results will be are still open, but the idea the attention isn't on is absurd.

Yes, it follows that Ariel Sharon would come up with a plan for moving things forward, since he's one of the two main actors in this drama who can - and the other actor is NOT George W. Bush, by the way. If there's anyone keeping George Bush under house arrest, it's Yasir Arafat, the other actor in this drama who, it is plain, has no will to do his part to allow a third party to do any good whatsoever. He is an unreformed terrorist. Period. George Bush does not run the PA, and he doesn't run Israel. You play the hand you're dealt, and only one side of the conflict has shown any intention of movement - Ariel Sharon.

See above. This is nonsense, and just the kind of political outsider sour-grapes that one should expect of one of the prime-movers behind the suicidal Geneva Accord.

Freidman has an incredibly short and myopic memory. He has completely forgotten the prisoner release that happened under Mahmoud Abbas (at least one of whom later went on to blow themselves up in yet another suicide attack), Abbas' trip to the White House and his meeting with Sharon. Both Bush and Sharon did what they could to help Abbas. It was only one person who stood in his way - Yasir Arafat.

Nonsensical given the above. If Hamas takes over, the blame falls squarely on Palestinian, not Israeli or American shoulders. We can only do so much. Ultimately, it's the PA that wants to control Palestinian destiny, and they will reap what they themselves have sown. They bristle at any attempt by the US to help - even lashing out in anger that we should offer a reward for information on the terrorists who've murdered our own people. The Palestinians themselves, sorry to say, are the ones responsible for their own kids' education in hate and their own looming civil war.

[snip more of the same]

Funny thing, that. I thought the big complaint about Karzai was that he had no real power, and that we haven't, in fact, done enough to empower him and his "Islamic Republic of Afghanistan." And here I thought we started with the idea that having an "Islamic Republic" was an indicator of failure!

I guess building and empowering moderate Arab leadership under conditions we often can't control is even tougher than writing newspaper columns.

No, Tom. Talk to the hand.

According to David Kaspar, he's had to step aside as leader of his party. I guess reforming Germany takes a bit more effort than does "standing up to the USA."

CNN.com - West brings Libya in from cold - Feb. 6, 2004

Not that that would stop the French from doing business with Libya. See below.

Isn't it amazing what can be accomplished when a country truly cooperates in a disarmament program?

I don't think the Europeans do sanctions like we do sanctions.

And what's nice is that this new path will be walked by verified performance - not backroom realpolitik deals at the UN.

You know when I said in my last post on this subject that it was a "final update?" I guess I lied. The discussion continues.

The discussion, not surprisingly, has lost its original context of the Mel Gibson remarks and has gone on to the general question of Holocaust uniqueness. I'm not excerpting anyone. If you're interested in this ongoing discussion (and it is interesting), go ahead and follow the stepping stones.

First, there is this thoughtful post at Jumping To Conclusions pointed to by David Bernstein back at Volokh who also jumps back in to the discussion.

Teleologic Blog takes a stab at the subject, as does Judith at Kesher Talk (very good post there). Judith also points out this post by Jaako at Rye Beer who recaptures some of the Gibson context. The Truth Laid Bear has some comments, too.

Teleologic, Kesher Talk and TTLB are all pointed to in Sasha's latest reply. Sasha continues to try to tease out a formulaic answer to the question. I think the problem he's running into is actually a flaw in Utilitarianism - matters of Good and Evil are notoriously difficult to quantify and plug into formulas, i.e. Take Goods A and B and compare them to Evils C and D and look which is greater. The world just doesn't work that way, particularly with regard to events as huge as Genocide.

And that's why this discussion will probably continue.

Continued: Meryl points to posts at Back Seat Drivers and Damian Penny.

And Lynn B. has posted again with yet another resource.

Here are a couple of links for you:

Airplane Movies

Airplane Movie Clips

That first site, particularly, has some excellent action clips.

Pieter of Peaktalk has left a note kindly recommending this blog as one of those worth checking out while he's on a work-related blogging slow-down. Much appreciated, and welcome to Peaktalk readers. Hope you find something worthwhile.

The Boston Globe becomes the latest news outfit to investigate George Bush's military record. They conclude that it is most likely that Bush did not show up for most of the last year of his service - which is not to say that he was a deserter, or even necessarily AWOL, merely that there is a hole in the record there.

Boston.com / News / Politics / Presidential candidates / Bush's Guard service: What the record shows

Bill Hobbs has been all over this issue, so it will be interesting to see if he has any comment on this story.

A shot in the dark after giving this issue some thought and reading the article today at this still very early day in the campaign: I believe the question of "Vietnam" and other related issues will end up having a null effect on the final results. Although the media likes to play it up as a hook to write articles, I think the American public, by and large, is anxious to put the Vietnam era behind them. They understand that there are still deeply divergent views and experiences regarding that era, and that it does little good to open old wounds. Both men (Kerry and Bush) have lengthy life-records since those days, and it's in the record of those years that campaigns will rise and fall in the end.

I think John Kerry himself said it best. Opinion Journal today reprints a speech given by Senator Kerry on the floor of the Senate during the 1992 Presidential campaign a day after "Sen. Bob Kerrey, a Vietnam veteran and candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, spoke in Atlanta, where he criticized fellow candidate Bill Clinton for his lack of military service during Vietnam." And we all know how that race turned out...

Update: Lots of discussion on Kerry and Vietnam here at Roger L. Simon's.

Also, John Hawkins has much to say on the issue.

Reuters: Pakistan pardons rogue nuke scientist

Well, I guess we know who's in it up to their necks - the entire nation of Pakistan it sounds like. Khan gets a pardon and Pakistan won't be cooperating in any investigations. Incredible. But surprising?

Update: Roger L. Simon is connecting a lot of dots on this issue.

Cox & Forkum:

There has been some reaction to my post of Friday concerning Mel Gibson's Peggy Noonan interview and his remarks seeming to minimize the Holocaust.

Sasha Volokh has reponded to my comments on his and Clayton Cramer's remarks on the issue here. (I have also updated the original item with a pointer.

Now, I'm thinking I said most of what I really had to say in the original post. I maintain my...disconsolate...state of mind. Not to belabor the point, but I think many of the elements for an answer to Sasha are found in his own reply...and, although he's a bit more strident than I might be, Mike in the comments makes a very good point:

Mike quotes Volokh:

Then Mike again:

It's a good point. The bombing of Hiroshima was not a "little Holocaust," in spite of the fact that innocents undoubtedly were killed.

Volokh:

How about a series of events that embodies all of those characteristics to make a growing and unique whole? Might that not, combined with the fact that I think we can each think of circumstances under which innocents die or are killed that are morally distinct from one another, might that not begin to add up to an overridingly unique or "special" moral character of the Holocaust? I think so, and further, I think that Sasha also understands this, and that at a certain level we're arguing, dare I say it, semantics. I'm certainly not going to beat someone over the head until they mouth just the right words I'm looking for. Maybe if Sasha or Clayton were preparing the launch of a major motion picture based upon the final hours of Christ, I'd have more of an interest in fighting it out over a missing sentence or two.

Now, back to Mel Gibson...

By the way, both Lynn B. and Meryl Yourish tackle the issue in style.

Update: Of course, just as I hit the "send" button on this post, I see Sasha has posted further, addressing both Lynn B. and Meryl.

Nothing in this latest changes any of the above, though. I still say there's a factor missing from Sasha's calculus, but it's something that he's going to have to come to himself. [Edit: And I think Sasha misses the boat trying to disect the legal argument to see whether it supports him or not. If people are using legal examples, it's to put it into terms you might understand, Sasha, to help you take the point that you don't seem to recognize in your initial post, of differences between killing and killing - differences in morality the law recognizes, even if the morality isn't the only factor, and even if you might not agree with all the law.] Anyway, all the pieces are there.

Update: Lynn B. also reacts to Sasha's latest.

Final (I hope) update: Neither Clayton nor Meryl are happy.

Update: OK, the discussion continues.

Self-Pimpage ahoy!

The collection of blog-posts from around the blogosphere that you may have missed, sent in by bloggers who feel they are unappreciated in their time, the Carnival of the Vanities #72 is up at A Perfectly Cromulent Blog. Lots of good stuff over there. I submitted my Burnt Offerings post from January 27.

Go on and take a look.

(Via Blog Iran) Amir Taheri gives another primer on what's happening in Iran, why the reformers aren't really reformers and cogently explains the problems of reconciling Islam (or frankly, the idea of any sort of theocracy) with democratic principles.

GN Online: Amir Taheri: Iran's Islamic republic faces moment of truth

Hat tip to mal for a pointer to this profile of Chomsky and Said nemesis, Bernard Lewis. Nice backgrounder on this low-key scholar and the profound impact he's had.

WSJ.com - A Historian's Take on Islam Steers U.S. in Terrorism Fight

Even if you're already familiar with Lewis, this is a good refresher overview of just how long he's been around.

For some reason, I feel as though this essay on The Real History of the Crusades by Thomas F. Madden goes along well as a companion to the Lewis interview. The essay attempts to dispel the myth that the Crusades were an agressive Christian war against Islam. I've forgotten now where I found it (so no hat tip), but I've had it bookmarked in my "read this later" file for awhile now. Very well worth reading.

Update: Robert Spencer comments on Lewis' record regarding the Armenian Genocide.

Michael Ledeen gives some advice for making sense out of the goings-on in Iran. Happily, this advice is useful in many situations - if you want to make sense of the Iranian leaders' actions, "watch their feet, not their lips."

Ledeen on National Review Online

Daniel Pipes on the prisoner exchange: Hezbollah's Victory, Israel's Decline - article by Daniel Pipes

MEMRI has an interview with "Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, the highest ranking Iranian cleric, who led the Islamic Revolution along with Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini 25 years ago" from an Italian newspaper. Montazeri speaks about the way their revolution has been twisted into the anti-democratic torture regime that exists there now.

Also, this CSMonitor piece has a decent run-down on the current election boycott happenings.

Michael Ledeen's column in NRO comments on the reported cozying-up on the parts of Senators Specter and Biden and Congressman Bob Ney. My comments on Specter are here from a couple of days ago. It strikes me how difficult it is to keep the fires of a principled foreign-policy stoked. In this case it could pay huge dividends when this corrupt regime finally crumbles, on the other hand, it's so tempting for some, apparently, to just "be reasonable" and lift Iran's bankrupt rulers out of the pot rather than letting them stew.

It strikes me that part of the problem is that diplomats (leaving aside the potential for any corruption), whether in the State Department or the Congress, just find it natural to talk. It's an unnatural state of affairs for them to just let a situation sit. They feel compelled to fill the vacuum.

In this case, all they have to do, as a start, is shut the hell up.

(Via Blog Iran and Roger L. Simon)

(Hat tip to mal) Stuart Taylor, Jr., writing in National Journal calls for coopting one of Teddy Kennedy's ideas.

In Ted's Excellent Idea: Disclosing Admissions Preferences, Taylor explains that a planned piece of legislation, meant to require institutions of higher-learning to keep statistics cynically intended to show the prevalence of legacy admissions, could easily and properly be expanded a bit. By expanding it, and keeping an even wider range of statistics, we could easily shine a light on the flaws with race-preference programs generally.

The proponents of race-preferences tend not to like this, however.

Have had a lot of downtime today. Server troubles. Should be OK now. Sorry 'bout that.

Prior to watching the Super Bowl, it was necessary that I perform a pennance in advance by way of a little family entertainment. So it was off with wife and three-year-old in tow to a performance of Dora the Explorer Live!

For those not familiar, Dora the Explorer is a show aimed more or less at the Sesame Street crowd - slow paced, simple animation, healthy doses of Spanish thrown in for a good multi-culti flavor. Very popular with the pre-school set.

Fortunately, the place (the Wang Center) isn't very big, so even though we were most of the way back, the view was...OK. It started well enough, the characters started coming out on stage and doing their thing...whereupon it sinks in to my girl, who gets scared nearly to death when Chuck E. Cheese walks in the room, that those are real people up there on the stage which causes her, for reasons only known to certain three-year-olds, to shake, scream and demand to be taken home.

Being the considerate parent I am, I took the girl out to the back of the hall where we could look in from outside through a glass window while I tried to get her to relax and go back in to our seats. Any move back to the entrance of the hall caused the fits to start up again, so we just watched through to the intermission from the back and I'm thinking, "Oh great, 90 bucks for tickets, 15 bucks to park, 12 bucks for a friggin' Dora lightbulb on a stick thing..." But all was not lost. I was able to get her into it from a distance, and we were able to take our seats for the second "act."

And what a show it was. :rolleyes: Message to the Producers: Would it have killed you to put something in for the dads? You know, you go to the circus and there are some skimpy tu-tu's, same with the various ice shows, even Disney animates some cute heroines - that Snow White is alright. But this thing? Nada, zilch, nothing. I mean, I don't need the Lingerie Bowl, but come on, gimme something here. Throw me a bone. Dora looked like the person who played her was closer to forty than four, even the buttlerfly had a big ole' butt. And lest you think they might have thrown some innuendo into the relationship between Dora and her monkey companion "Boots," well all I can say is take a look at the pictures. Now, maybe if Dora had been a "Donnie" or a "Dick" it might have been different, but let me assure you, in this case, there was nothing there. Even the audience was MILFless!

So imagine me there in the first half, screaming kid, fighting off my wife who wanted to force the girl to go back in in spite of the screaming to prove some sort of point, and nothing to show for it. Oh, and the music? Let's see, the first number was exceptional. Lemme see, how did it go? Something like, "My teddy bear! Where is my teddy bear? I lost my teddy bear!!!" Say, isn't that a Rogers and Hammerstein number? Not.

Seriously, couldn't they have spent a few more minutes coming up with some catchy music to wedge in between the computerized beeps and boops from the TV show? I'll give them this, the finale was a rompin' production number that really had the kids going nuts. Why, oh why couldn't they have put a few more of those in there?

Ah well, my daughter did have a good time with it by the end, and an impression was made, unfortunately it's not the kind of thing you can go to again now that she's warmed up to it.

Well, anyway, we had a nice lunch and then a long nap and then an evening of adult (semi) entertainment which made it all worthwhile!

Pats Win! What a great game. It couldn't get any closer. The Super Bowl is usually a lame game, but the Patriots have been in a couple of doozies.

Very interesting thread at Davids Medienkritik on the nature and origins of Euopean anti-Americanism. The discussion is long and appears to be going strong. I haven't read it all myself, but from what I've seen there's a lot of interest there to take a look at.