Been there, done that

According to an unpublished US Army report from last November,

[h]undreds of Iraqi prisoners were held in Abu Ghraib prison for long periods even though there was no evidence that they posed a security threat to US forces....

[Major-General Donald] Ryder, the army's provost marshal, reported that some Iraqis had been held for months for nothing more than expressing "displeasure or ill will" towards the US occupying forces.

The report, obtained by the New York Times, was submitted to Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez, the senior American commander in Iraq.

This comes as no surprise; after all, the scathing report by the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) included the statement that observers were told by US intelligence that 70-90 percent of Iraqi detainees were arrested by mistake. And, the Times story makes clear, one a detainee was labeled a "security risk" it was very hard to get that changed.

In one incident described in detail by the senior Army officer, an aggressive roundup in September brought 57 Iraqis into custody. But a review by military intelligence officers at Abu Ghraib determined that only two had intelligence value and that the rest should be freed.

An American general at the headquarters in Baghdad overruled that decision, and dictated that all 57 Iraqis be kept in custody.

In addition, the officer said, early judgments about who was a security prisoner were often made in haste and in error. "But once they were tagged as security detainees, it was very hard to get them released," said the officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of concern over retribution from superiors.

It also should be no surprise to longtime readers here, as I referred to several instances of people being arrested simply for being insufficiently enthusiastic about the occupation back on November 21.

Footnote: There is no link to the report on the ICRC website because, as the group points out, it was supposed to be confidential. However, it has acknowledged that "it is our report."

Jeopardy!

YESTERDAY'S QUESTION
What is the Korean War?

DOUBLE JEOPARDY!
From "C" to Shining "C" for $400

This word for stylish or elegant can describe an outfit or a restaurant.

Blows against the empire

AP reports on June 3 that a draft report by a review panel established by the Miami-Dade (Florida)County Commission has accused police of "unrestrained and disproportionate use of force" against protestors whose civil rights were trampled during demonstrations against an international trade conference last November.

While offering the usual assurances that "the vast majority" of Miami-Dade County officers acted "in a professional manner under trying circumstances," the draft

offered "heartfelt apologies to the visitors who came to our city to peaceably voice their concerns, but who were met with closed fists instead of open arms."

The city's deployment of massive force against peaceful demonstrations became known as "the Miami model" and some saw even it as a "model for homeland defense." But in the words of Jorge Reynardus, the panel' chair, the report is

a comment on what we saw overall. And some of what we saw is shocking and deplorable.

The panel, unfortunately, has no power to act, but it can make recommendations about future policy.

The problem I see with these sorts of panels, welcome as this report is, is that they are always, if you will, after the fact, that is, always about reading the past and not about affecting the future. Abuses, violence, violations of rights, it's done and done and then we have reports laying out what was done and done and yet except under the most unusual and extreme circumstances there are no consequences to the guilty. Police departments are, rather, admonished to be more careful, more respectful, to not do it again, they gripe and complain that they're being treated unfairly and the investigators "don't understand that we risk our lives every day," a few policies supposedly get changed - and when the next time it happens all over again, we have more commissions, more reports, and more no consequences.

If it's actually going to change, there must be consequences. But as long as the guilty officers walk free, as long as the police chief and mayor remain at their posts, there are no consequences. And no consequences, ultimately, means no change.

The police, for their part, had no comment; undoubtedly they're checking with their PR experts first.

You should have read the fine print

"Stop-loss" is originally a term referring to a kind of instruction to a broker regarding an investment. If the value of a stock fell to a certain point below the purchase price, the broker was to sell it off, thus preventing further loss to the investor.

But right now, it's best-known meaning is a military one.

Washington (AP, June 2) - The Army will prevent soldiers in units set to deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan from leaving the service at the end of their terms, a top general said Wednesday.

The announcement, an expansion of an Army program called "stop-loss," means that thousands of soldiers who had expected to retire or otherwise leave the military will have to stay on for the duration of their deployment to those combat zones.

The expansion affects units that are 90 days away or less from deploying, said Lt. Gen. Frank L. "Buster" Hagenbeck, the Army's deputy chief of staff for personnel.

Since such deployments can be for as long as a year, that means some soldiers will be kept in uniform for as long as 15 months after their supposed end of service.

The argument that it's intended to "keep units together as they deploy" is fooling no one; the real reason is that between Iraq and Afghanistan, the military has a total of about 150,000 combat troops in the field and the Pentagon is finding it hard to keep up the numbers. Allowing for rotations of units in and out of theater has stretched forces enough that 3,600 US troops are being redeployed from South Korea to Iraq - that's about 1/3 of the US force in Korea.

Some voices are calling the program contrary to the idea of an all-volunteer army and a "backdoor draft." For example,

[i]n an opinion piece in Wednesday's New York Times, Andrew Exum, a former Army captain who served under Hagenbeck in the 10th Mountain Division in Afghanistan, called the treatment of soldiers under stop-loss programs "shameful." ...

"[L]ike draftees, they have been conscripted to meet the additional needs in Iraq."

(Does that mean if they were draftees this would be okay?)

There's no reason to be surprised at this development, actually, and little basis to complain. "Military necessity" is used to trump all other considerations, just like it always has. Besides, our only president has made direct links between World War II ("the good war") and the "war on terrorism." Well, in WW2, soldiers were regarded as being "in for the duration," that is, until the war was over or they were disabled or killed. So what's the beef here? Don't you know there's a war on?

There's only one solution here, and it's not a stop-loss program and it's not a renewed draft.

It's set the damn date and get the hell out.

As if we didn't know

CBS News has obtained tapes of Enron energy traders laughing and gloating among themselves over the California energy crisis that they created and then profited from by manipulating supplies and prices in the wake of California's deregulation of its energy market. They even celebrated when a massive forest fire shut down a transmission line into the state, cutting supplies and raising prices still further. "Burn, baby, burn. That's a beautiful thing," a trader is heard to say.

The tapes, from Enron's West Coast trading desk, also confirm what CBS reported years ago: that in secret deals with power producers, traders deliberately drove up prices by ordering power plants shut down.

"If you took down the steamer, how long would it take to get it back up?" an Enron worker is heard saying.

"Oh, it's not something you want to just be turning on and off every hour. Let's put it that way," another says.

"Well, why don't you just go ahead and shut her down."

The traders are clearly heard taking what can be most politely described as perverse glee in the rolling blackouts, crushing utility bills, and economic disruption they caused - and knew they were causing - as Enron "steals money from California ... to the tune of a million bucks or two a day," as one estimated.

One trader is heard on tapes obtained by CBS News saying, "Just cut 'em off. They're so fucked. They should just bring back fucking horses and carriages, fucking lamps, fucking kerosene lamps."

And when describing his reaction when a business owner complained about high energy prices, another trader is heard on tape saying, "I just looked at him. I said, 'Move.' (laughter) The guy was like horrified. I go, 'Look, don't take it the wrong way. Move. It isn't getting fixed anytime soon."

(The CBS story printed it as "f----d" and "f-----g." I filled in the blanks.)

The CBS report ends by noting that "the only top company official who has never been charged with any crime" is Ken "Kenny Boy, uh, I mean who?" Lay.

Footnote: The estimable Tom Tomorrow at This Modern World had a link to this story, at the end of which he said

[o]kay, John Kerry - that one has just been delivered to you gift wrapped with a lovely bow.

Well, here's what I think Kerry will do with the story:

Zilch.

Nothing. Nil. Nada. Zippo. Bupkis.

People, get a clue. Corporate America is not a force John Kerry wants to attack, it's a force he wants to be friends with. He has gone out of his way to reassure the corporatist types of the DLC and elsewhere that he is not a "redistributionist Democrat" and that they can feel safe and comfortable with a Kerry presidency. Based on his own campaign's website, his economic policy is little more than standard bromides about "protecting the middle class" (through tax cuts), "creating jobs" (through corporate tax cuts), and "unleash[ing] the productive potential of America's economy," lathered with a little populist rhetoric about "making corporate America live by America's values" which, it turns out, means nothing beyond enforcing existing law. You would be hard pressed to find anything that indicates that corporations need any additional controls.

Even when he talks tough about changing the tax system that favors corporations that maintain overseas bank accounts, he does it in the context of arguing that the resulting increase in revenue can be used to cut the overall corporate tax rate.

It's one thing to say "Enron" as sort of a generic term for corporate misdeeds, it's quite another to go after them directly and explicitly in a way that takes on the very ideas of "the free market" (Wasn't that, when you come right down to it, what California was?) and "deregulation," which was, after all and despite our persistent amnesia about it, what allowed for the debacle in the first place.

So I expect John Kerry to do absolutely nothing with this news.

Go ahead John, shoot me down. I'd be delighted.

Footnote to the footnote: In fairness - sometimes I hate being fair, it can really screw up a developing rant - actually enforcing the law would be a change for the better, if it actually were to happen. (A big "if," admittedly.) And Kerry does support an increase in the minimum wage, a standard Democratic Party position, and, more importantly, indexing it to inflation, which is generally anathema to Big Business. How important that is depends on how big an increase he's looking for and on what measure on inflation to which he would index it, but still, it's something.

Anytime now, they'll expect us to salivate at the sound of a bell

This is an AP wire service story from the morning of June 2.

San Antonio - Two propane-delivery trucks were stolen from a gas company over the holiday weekend, raising fears of what could happen if terrorists got hold of the explosive fuel.

Police Chief Albert Ortiz said Tuesday that his department does not suspect that terrorism was behind the thefts. But officials said that since Sept. 11, such a possibility cannot be ignored.

"Four years ago, we probably would not be too concerned about this," San Antonio FBI agent Patrick Patterson said Wednesday on NBC's "Today." "It would be a major theft and handled like any other criminal investigation. Because of the nature of the day, we are very, very concerned about the whereabouts of these two trucks."

One of the tankers carried about 3,000 gallons of propane, while the other held 2,600 gallons, police said. The trucks were taken from a parking lot owned by Ferrellgas and have the company logo on them.

Another FBI spokesman, Rene Salinas, said the market for propane in Mexico is strong and that the thieves could have been filling an order, mirroring a similar theft about nine months ago. A nationwide alert has been posted and law enforcement officials in Mexico also have been contacted, he said.

"We don't want to alarm anyone," Salinas said. "But we do want people to be on the lookout."

Also under investigation is the weekend theft of 15 gas canisters from an ambulance supply company.

"We think it is just a coincidence at this point," said Ortiz, who appeared at a Tuesday news conference.

He said five of the stolen canisters were empty, but others contained nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide and oxygen.

Patterson said the theft of the canisters was unusual and they could be used for improvised explosive devices.

So be afraid. Except, well, don't, it's okay. Probably. But be afraid anyway, just in case. Even though it's okay. Although maybe it's not.

Oh, and something else happened. But it has nothing to do with the first something. Except maybe it does. But it's nothing to be afraid of, except if it is. So don't not be unafraid when you shouldn't. Maybe.

Footnote: The trucks were reported found Wednesday afternoon. Latest news as this is written says police can't say if the propane fuel was still in the trucks or not.

Wisdom from an unexpected source

In a piece published in the Washington Post on June 1, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf writes

[w]e need to understand that the root cause of extremism and militancy lies in political injustice, denial and deprivation. Political injustice to a nation or a people, when combined with stark poverty and illiteracy, makes for an explosive mix. It produces an acute sense of hopelessness and powerlessness. A nation suffering from these lethal ills is easily available for the propagation of militancy and the perpetration of extremist, terrorist acts. It is cannon fodder in a war of terrorism.

General Musharraf is a man whose own commitment to democracy and justice is certainly questionable at best, but here I think he is spot on and saying something that desperately needs saying.

January 5, 2002, in the aftermath of 9/11, I wrote this:

The fact is, terrorism can't be stopped unless it is understood - any more than you can cure a disease without knowing the cause. Terrorism is born of desperation-driven fanaticism, a desperation that can't be separated from the social and economic conditions in which such as al-Qaeda can take root and grow, conditions - it must be said bluntly - which we as a nation are complicit in maintaining for our own selfish benefit.

Together, all this means three things:

One, unless we are prepared to wipe out entire peoples, our "war against terrorism" will not succeed. It will only produce more anger, more hatred, more suicide bombers; the more so as it spreads to more poor nations.

Two, patient police work of effective investigation and intelligence has done and will do more to oppose terrorism than all our bombing sorties combined. ...

Three and most importantly, our best targets for "attack" in this "extended campaign" are not the actual terrorists (who likely number no more than a few thousand) but the tens of thousands, the millions, of denigrated, degraded, and denied people among who they recruit and from who they draw their strength. Our best weapons are bread and butter, not bombs; our best tactic reconstruction, not retaliation; our best strategy justice, not jingoism. The best way for us to fight terrorism is to ensure that the dispossessed have a genuine stake in the world and don't see us as grasping bullies - and the best way to no longer be seen as a grasping bully is to stop being one

I still think so.

Footnote: Musharraf's entire piece, in which he calls on

the Muslim world to shun militancy and extremism and adopt the path of socioeconomic uplift ... [and] the West, and the United States in particular, to seek to resolve all political disputes with justice and to aid in the socioeconomic betterment of the deprived Muslim world,

is worth reading.

Jeopardy!

YESTERDAY'S QUESTION
What is the Spanish-American War?

JEOPARDY!
America at War for $1000

The fiftieth anniversay of this Asian conflict often called "The Forgotten War" was observed nationally July 27, 2000.

The revolving door of return

Once again, the troops are arriving in Haiti, this time a cobbled-together UN force to take over from the US-led force that nailed down the overthrow of Jean Betrand Aristide. Once again, the talk is of "long-term commitment," of "restoring democracy," of disarming violent factions.

And once again the fact is that it is set up to fail.

Port-au-Prince - UN peacekeepers are returning to Haiti once again, but with many of the problems that plagued their last mission here - uncertainty about troop numbers and funding, a hazy mandate and no commitment to long-term aid. ...

Bright flags of about two dozen participating nations dot empty barracks at the airport but only samples of the blue UN hats and berets have arrived ahead of a Tuesday handover.

It was still unclear Monday even where the mission's headquarters would be, said Adama Guindo, a UN representative heading the mission until a permanent one is appointed.

So reports the Toronto Globe & Mail for June 1, which goes on to say that the UN mission

will again try to keep a tentative peace in the divided country, and again train an ill-equipped and understaffed police force, as well as work on development projects.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has asked member nations to make a long-term commitment to transform Haiti - which has suffered more than 30 coups in 200 years - into "a functioning democracy." But only a fraction of the $35-million (U.S.) he requested has arrived and the mission mandated by the U.N. Security Council remains at six months.

And the commitment to actually putting a stop to the violence that continues to oppress the many in favor of the few remains at the level of words, not actions.

Ex-soldiers are among leaders of several rebel factions that joined forces this year to oust Aristide again. Some boast that they carry the guns that never were taken from them nearly 10 years ago.

There was no difference this time round. The Americans did little about disarmament.

The question must be asked: Who does that mismatch of rhetoric and reality benefit?

Footnote Noted in Passing: From the BBC for May 31:

Ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide has arrived in South Africa, ending a two-and-a-half-month exile in Jamaica.

He said South Africa would be his "temporary home" until he can return to his country, Haiti.

The BBC's Victoria Phenethi in South Africa says that Mr Aristide was given a red-carpet treatment by President Thabo Mbeki and other officials.

Last time he was booted by the reactionaries, I had some hope that he would return, as eventually he did, after being politically eviscerated by the US and before being economically undermined by elites at home and abroad. This time, I think he's gone for good. They know better than to take another chance on him, knowing he will not roll over, at least not easily.

There is no question but that Aristide could have done better, that he could have made compromises he refused to make, that he failed to maintain the ideals he set for himself and others - that he was not an entirely innocent victim. But there is also no question that he was far more sinned against that sinning, far more, if you will, victim than executioner.

Just askin'

Georgie the Bush has insisted he had nothing to do with picking Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawir as president, or Iyad Allawi as prime minister, of Iraq.

"I had no role. I mean, occasionally somebody said: 'This person may be interested' or that, but I had no role in picking - zero."

Well, yeah, okay, maybe. But did Wolfowitz? Did Feith? Did Cheney? Did Bremer?

A bit old but still much worth noting

"Joy and relief" was the response to the signing of a deal that hopefully will lead to the end of a vicious civil war that has gone on for over 20 years and left two million dead in Sudan, said the BBC for May 27.

There were scenes of jubilation at the signing in Naivasha, Kenya, late on Wednesday evening as last-minute delays were overcome after two years of discussions. ...

The deal involved protocols on power-sharing and the administration of three disputed areas in central Sudan. ...

The framework brings together the mainly Muslim Arab government of the north with the black African Christian and animist rebels of the south.

The heart of the pact is that the south will be autonomous for six years, including with its own monetary system, with a vote on independence at the end of that time. Meanwhile, the north will continue to be ruled under Sharia law, a strict interpretation of Islamic law.

Toward that end, agreements have been reached on distribution of government jobs, the sharing of oil revenues, and security arrangements involving the respective armies. Supposedly, all that remains to put and end to the bloodshed are procedural details.

But it's said that every dark cloud has a silver lining. If that's so, does it also imply that every silver cloud has a dark lining? For in this case, hope has a dark side and it's name is Darfur. Yes, that Darfur, the one the executive director of Amnesty International called the case human rights violations most in need of being addressed.

Darfur, in the western part of the country, has been the target of a vicious campaign of "ethnic-based murder, rape and forcible displacement of civilians," carried out by government forces and its allied Arab militias known as "Janjaweed." One million people have been driven from their homes.

Those charges by Human Rights Watch, made in an April report, are echoed by a UN report of May 7, which found "appalling" conditions amid a "reign of terror."

One aid worker in Kailek described what happened there as the "politics of starvation". ...

Members of the UN team were said to be "visibly shaken" by circumstances in the town.

The fear among some is that the peace settlement between north and south will allow the government to shift military forces and resources against Darfur. Ominously, Sudan vice president Ali Osman Taha told a rally celebrating the peace accord that

[o]ne of the first fruits of peace will be the extinguishing of the conflict in Darfur....

We will begin tomorrow to focus our efforts, to turn over the page of war in Darfur as the page of conflict and killing was turned over in the south.

While some may take comfort in his linking of moves to peace between north and south with Darfur, I find it hard to find such solace in the words of someone who in the present situation uses the word "extinguish."

Jeopardy!

YESTERDAY'S QUESTION
What is a doughboy?

JEOPARDY!
America at War for $600

As a result of this war, America gained the islands of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.

The fat lady ain't sung quite yet

I suppose it ain't over until it's actually over.

Hong Kong, May 30 (New York Times) - Thousands of demonstrators marched here on Sunday afternoon to mark the coming 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown and to protest the growing restrictions on this territory's democratic development. It was the first rally in what promises to be a politically turbulent summer.

Under leaden skies and in tropical humidity, the crowd marched from a palm-fringed park to the main government offices, carrying black banners and a black coffin representing the deaths of students in Beijing on June 4, 1989. Organizers estimated the crowd at 5,600 people, while the police said "more than 3,000" had taken part.

At the end of March, I noted that in the words of one activist, "a gloom is settling over the city" as Chinese officials began to crack down on signs of dissent. That gloom deepened recently with the sudden resignations and departures of three radio talk show hosts who had been advocates of democracy, who, the Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor contends, were targeted by threats encouraged by Chinese officials.

However, despite rumors of troubles,

the march proceeded peacefully down broad avenues lined with onlookers.

There are still great and increasing difficulties facing democracy advocates in Hong Kong (and even more on the mainland), not the least of which is a law under which organizers of a demonstration can be held personally liable for any damage that occurs during its course, making the expense of taking out large liability policies a financially-burdensome necessity, one which so far has prevented planning for a rally intended for July 1, the anniversary of the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong from the UK to China.

But apparently, despite all, the movement is carrying on as best as it can. All power to them.

It ain't just us

The practice of the WHS* to punish anyone who crosses them is not limited to such as Paul O'Neill and Richard Clarke. It extends internationally as well.

In the wake of the failure of the April vote on a proposal for the "reunification" of Cyprus (the word is put in quotes deliberately) - a proposal the US supported - comes this from the Greek daily Kathimerini for May 27:

The news that Washington is planning measures to help the Turkish Cypriots break out of their isolation and to upgrade US relations with their breakaway state have provoked concern in Athens and Nicosia. At the same time, they are waiting for UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's report to the Security Council, which has already been written by his special envoy for Cyprus, Alvaro de Soto, and is said to include criticism of Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos [who opposed the plan].

The UN plan would have continued the existence of two separate parts of Cyprus, one Greek, one Turkish, in a confederation united by a weak central government. For Greek Cypriots, who have seen the northern one-third of the island occupied by Turkish troops for decades, that simply wasn't good enough.

In the runup to the vote, the US pledged $400 million in support of the UN plan for reunification, but only if the plan was approved, adding it would not leave Turkish Cypriots "out in the cold" in the event the plan fell through.

At the time, the message to Greek Cypriots seemed clear enough: Do it our way or you're screwed. They didn't. Now it seems it will be time for the screwing to begin.

*White House Sociopaths

Footnote: It actually doesn't mean a damn thing, really, and it counts all the Jeopardy! posts and the like, but I just realized via Blogspot's Dashboard that this is post number 1,000. Like I said, it doesn't mean anything, but as the late great Stephen Jay Gould noted, we do like those round numbers, don't we?

Fourth down

I've thought over and over about this and it still makes no sense to me at all. None at all. From the Christian Science Monitor for May 25:

Washington - The US Supreme Court has handed an important victory to law-enforcement officials, ruling that police don't need a warrant to search a car when the person they've arrested was recently in the car.

The 7-to-2 decision, announced Monday, is a setback to civil libertarians who see it as further erosion of Fourth Amendment privacy rights whenever Americans take to the nation's roads and highways.

I mentioned this case about two months ago. It involves one Marcus Thornton, who was approached by a suspicious police officer after Thornton had parked at a shopping center and gotten out of his car. He was discovered to have cocaine and was arrested. The officer then searched his car, found a gun under the seat, and added a weapons charge. The latter, based on the warrantless search, was what was at issue in the case.

The opinion expands a bright-line constitutional rule governing when police are allowed to conduct a warrantless search of a motor vehicle after arresting the driver. The high court said that such warrantless searches are justified whenever the arrestee was a recent occupant and still in the vicinity of the car.

"Once an officer determines that there is probable cause to make an arrest, it is reasonable to allow officers to ensure their safety and to preserve evidence by searching the entire passenger compartment," writes Chief Justice William Rehnquist for the majority.

Dammit, just how in hell is their safety threatened by something in, just how is it possible for evidence to be lost from, a car over there when the suspect is under arrest over here? This is beyond absurd and does not stand up to the most basic logical examination. These aren't reasons, they are excuses, justifications, and vapid ones at that, for allowing police increasingly to make our streets, our highways, our cars, a "No Fourth Amendment Zone."

If you want to know just how inane this is, consider that the issue at hand was a so-called "bright line rule" as to when such a search was constitutional. Previous decisions have held that if "contact was initiated" while the driver is still in the car, it becomes the "immediate vicinity" of an arrest, which can be searched. Now we have a supposedly "bright line" rule that uses terms like "recently," "vicinity," and "reasonable."

That sort of line only looks bright to some real dim bulbs.

Another small victory in the struggle

Ruling in San Francisco on a suit brought by Planned Parenthood, Federal District Court Judge Phyllis Hamilton earlier today threw out the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act as unconstitutional, saying it "poses an undue burden on a woman's right to choose an abortion."

The law, signed in November, banned a procedure called intact dilation and extraction, in which the fetus is partially removed from the womb and its skull punctured. With its typical eye to deceptive rhetoric, opponents insist on calling it "partial-birth abortion." But of course there is no "birth" in any meaningful sense of the term; it is rather, as doctors will point out, a different means of removing the fetus.

Opponents also argue that the procedure is cruel because of the pain the fetus supposedly suffers in the course of the procedure. But there is no evidence the fetus feels pain; in fact, since the brain is the last part to fully develop, it's at most unlikely. The judge, however, refused to get bogged down in that debate, ruling that because of the primacy of the right to choose, it's legally "irrelevant" whether a fetus feels pain or not.

Neither did she put up with a government lawyer's argument that it "blurs the line of abortion and infanticide," calling that "grossly misleading and inaccurate."

The decision affects some 900 Planned Parenthood clinics across the country. The case is one of three suits brought against the law; the others, in New York and Nebraska, are expected to be ruled on soon. No matter the outcomes, the matter is likely to be dropped in the lap of the Supreme Court.

Jeopardy!

YESTERDAY'S QUESTION
What is "The Brady Bunch?"

JEOPARDY!
America at War for $200

Like Pillsbury's Poppin' Fresh, an American soldier during World War I was called this.

Important addendum for those who want to say it's just campaign posturing

This is from an article in the May 30 Toronto "Star" discussing rising calls in the US, including among Democratic Party activists, for a commitment to a rapid withdrawal from Iraq:

Kerry had to face the question head-on Friday during a town-hall meeting in Green Bay, Wisc.

"What do you plan to do to bring our troops home?" a woman in the audience demanded of the candidate.

"I'm going to get our troops home as fast as possible with honour and the job accomplished in the way it needs to be," Kerry responded.

It is truly depressing to see the man who 30 years ago stung the heart of a nation by asking "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" embracing the Nixonian rhetoric of "peace with honor."

Footnote: A little while ago, the ISP I use actually ran a poll asking if people could see a difference between the positions of Bush and Kerry on Iraq. The very existence of the question speaks volumes.

We are so screwed

It has really, really hit bottom. From Sunday's Washington Post:

Sen. John F. Kerry indicated that as president he would play down the promotion of democracy as a leading goal in dealing with Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, China and Russia, instead focusing on other objectives that he said are more central to the United States' security. ...

In many ways, Kerry laid out a foreign policy agenda that appeared less idealistic about U.S. aims than those of President Bush or even fellow Democrat Bill Clinton. Although Kerry said it is important to sell democracy and "market it" around the world, he demurred when questioned about a number of important countries that suppress human rights and freedoms.

Atrios calls this "an interesting little bit of rhetorical judo," adding "it'll be sort of amusing to see Kerry strike back at Bush by asking why the hell we're wasting our money and soldiers' lives for those damn furriners."

Ezra at Pandagon says "it's time we had a foreign-policy realist who knows his shit."

In other words, Kerry stakes out a foreign policy position that is in significant ways to the right of Bush and we're supposed to be glad? Oh jeez....

About two weeks ago, talking about John Kerry, I dissented from a friend's comment that "the Anybody But Bush crowd has lost it's way", saying "As soon as your stand is 'anybody but,' you're admitting you have no such way to lose." I can't imagine a more perfect example.

We are, yes, so screwed.

Noted in passing

I expect you've heard about this little dollop of creepiness:

Washington (Reuters, May 31) - A handgun that Saddam Hussein was clutching when U.S. forces captured him in a hole in Iraq last December is now kept by President Bush at the White House, a spokesman confirmed on Sunday.

Time magazine, which first disclosed the gun's location, said military officials had it mounted after it was seized from Saddam near his hometown of Tikrit last year, and soldiers involved in the capture gave it to Bush. ...

"He really liked showing it off," Time quoted a visitor as saying. "He was really proud of it."

But did you hear that him having that gun is probably illegal and in violation of several DC gun control laws?

Jail no bail, wadda ya say?

RIP twice

They were not quite of the same generation, being 13 years apart in age, but they will always be linked in some fashion by the events in whose course they participated. First:

Archibald Cox, 92, the Harvard law professor and special prosecutor whose refusal to accept White House limits on his investigation of the Watergate break-in and coverup helped bring about the 1974 resignation of President Richard M. Nixon, died yesterday at his home in Brooksville, Maine. ...

In October 1973, Cox precipitated what would become known as the "Saturday night massacre." He did this by insisting on unrestricted access to tape recordings of presidential conversations in the Oval Office during the period immediately after five men with links to Nixon's Committee to Re-elect the President had been arrested in the June 1972 break-in at the Watergate headquarters of the Democratic National Committee.

An angry Nixon demanded Cox's firing. But Attorney General Elliot Richardson, who had recruited Cox as the Watergate special prosecutor, refused to carry out the president's order. He resigned, as did his deputy, William D. Ruckelshaus. Robert H. Bork, who as solicitor general was the third-ranking officer of the Justice Department, dismissed Cox.

Almost overnight, from Capitol Hill and in the national media, came the sounds of protest and dismay. ...

In the House of Representatives, members introduced 22 bills calling for the impeachment of the president or an investigation into impeachment proceedings. More than a million telegrams demanding impeachment poured into congressional offices.

It's amazing how far a few simple acts of integrity can sometimes carry events and a measure of how far we've fallen that actions such as those by Richardson and Ruckelshaus, surprising then, are utterly unthinkable now, when ideology trumps integrity at every turn.

And second:

Samuel Dash, 79, the chief counsel of the Senate Watergate Committee whose televised interrogation into the secret audiotaping system at the White House ultimately led to President Richard M. Nixon's resignation, died of multiple organ failure May 29 at Washington Hospital Center.

Dash was a long-time advocate for legal ethics who in 1951, while still a teaching fellow, conducted an undercover investigation into corruption at the Municipal Court of Chicago. He investigated human rights abuses in Northern Ireland, Puerto Rico, and Chile. His 1959 book The Eavesdroppers is credited with helping put legal limits on electronic surveillance. A new book, The Intruders, due out next month, "deals with the violations of individual rights and the Patriot Act," according to Judi Dash, a daughter. And he was planning a third, The Interrogators, on the rights of witnesses.

His last official act was in 1998 when he resigned, loudly and publicly, as ethics counselor to Ken Starr, charging him with becoming an "aggressive advocate" of impeachment and exceeding his authority. It's probably something of the measure of the man that people were surprised that he took the job - but not surprised that (or at how) he left it.

RIP

He was best known to most of the country as one of the Chicago 7 (nee 8), tried for a phantom "conspiracy" to incite the violence that occurred during the 1968 Chicago Democratic convention, violence that was later labeled "a police riot" by a commission set up to examine it.

But he was much more. He was a life-long pacifist, an author of several books, a union organizer in the 1930s, a civil rights activist in the 1950s and '60s, a leader of the anti-Vietnam movement in the '60s and '70s. In 1939, inspired by the example of Gandhi, he helped found the Newark Ashram in the heart of the Newark, NJ, ghetto, a forerunner of the interest both in community service and organizing and in communal living in the '60s.

During a 3-year prison term (one of many imprisonments over the years) during World War II for being a conscientious objector, he was among those who forced an end to Jim Crow seating in the dining halls of US prisons.

Greg Guma, editor of the political magazine Toward Freedom, called [him] "one of the major figures in terms of peace and social justice of the last half century."

His name was David Dellinger, and he died last week at the age of 88 in Montpelier, Vermont, at the retirement home where he'd been living.

He was at it until the end.

Just three years ago, at age 85, Dellinger got up at 2:45 a.m. at his home in Montpelier and hitched a ride to demonstrations in Quebec City against the creation of a free trade zone in the Western Hemisphere.

During the Chicago 7 trial, there were a number of stormy confrontations between the defendants and their lawyers on the one hand and the judge on the other, often triggered by the judge's patent bias in favor of the prosecution (which led to the convictions being overturned) and featuring shouted accusations. One observer later wrote that while some of the other defendants may have been louder or more dramatic, Dellinger was the one who was totally without fear.

A pretty good summation.

There's nothing artificial about this AI's intelligence

"Bankrupt of vision and bereft of principle."

The words were unsparing.

"Violating rights at home, turning a blind eye to abuses abroad."

The source was Amnesty International.

"Double speak."

The target was the US and its "war on terror."

Its 2004 annual report, issued this past Wednesday, was one of the strongest and harshest Amnesty International has produced,

saying governments, as well as armed groups, have declared a war on universal human values that is unprecedented in the last half century. ...

[T]he London-based organization said a worldwide decline in rights included the justification of abuse by powerful governments, hundreds of lives lost to terrorist attacks, indiscriminate killing by armed guerrillas, and a lawless environment in which the wheels of justice often seemed to be in reverse.

The US was, thus obviously, by no means the only target of criticism, nor were governments: AI's Secretary-General, Irene Khan, referred to the need to "confront the callous, cruel and criminal acts of armed groups and individuals." But, she added,

[i]t is also frightening that the principles of international law and the tools of multilateral action which could protect us from those attacks are being undermined, marginalized or destroyed by powerful governments,

among them, the US, which she charged with disregarding the rule of law and having "damaged justice and freedom, and made the world a more dangerous place." Amnesty

also rapped partners across the world in the United States' self-declared "war on terror" for jailing suspects unfairly, stamping on legitimate political and religious dissent, and squeezing asylum-seekers

as part of a "backlash against human rights created by the single-minded pursuit of a global security doctrine that has deeply divided the world."

But, to paraphrase the famous (but, it seems, possibly apocryphal) quote from Vietnam, we had to destroy the rights in order to save them. Doesn't Amnesty International know there's a war on?

Footnote: I want to re-emphasize that neither the US nor the broader "war on terror" were AI's only concerns. In fact, the report covers 155 countries and territories and points to

government repression and brutality continu[ing] against the Uygurs in China and Islamists in Egypt, while gross violations of human rights are unchecked in "forgotten conflicts" such as Chechnya, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nepal.

And when Kahn was asked as a press conference

whether a particular case of human rights violations in the world demanded immediate attention, Khan named Sudan's western Darfur region without hesitation.

"I would say that there is an emerging situation where international action and pressure can stop a humanitarian catastrophe and that would be western Sudan right now," she said.

Still, though, the "war on terror," probably because of the international scope of its reach, loomed over the report. Kahn noted that it had been used to justify relaxation of export controls of arms to governments with "appalling human rights records" and in her message with the report, she wrote

Iraq and the "war on terror" have obscured the greatest human rights challenge of our times. According to some sources, developing countries spend about US$22 billion a year on weapons and, for $10 billion dollars a year, they would achieve universal primary education. These statistics hide a huge scandal: the failed promise to attack extreme poverty and address gross economic and social injustice.

According to some analysts, there is a real risk that the targets of UN Millennium Development Goals - such as the reduction of child and maternal mortality, getting all children to primary school, halving the number of people with no access to clean water - will not be achieved because international attention and resources have been diverted to the "war on terror".

Like the man famously said:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children... This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. - President Dwight Eisenhower, April 16, 1953

Or, as the other man said:

Everything is connected to everything else. - Barry Commoner's First Law of Ecology

Which also means, I suppose, that our actions are connected to others' actions in a web of change that keeps getting shredded but some have the strength to keep trying to reweave. All praise to the dreamweavers. Keep hope alive.

Trust us, we're experts

Last Wednesday, British journalist Peter Hounam was arrested in Jerusalem by the Shin Bet security services

on suspicion that he was involved in interviewing former nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu, who was freed in April after serving 18 years for spilling Israel's nuclear secrets,

reported the Israeli daily Haaretz on Friday.

Vanunu has been banned from any contact with foreigners and any journalists, even Israeli ones, without permission from the security services. Hounam was part of the team at The Sunday Times of London that broke the story by reporting Vanunu's revelations 20 years ago and has remained his friend.

The deep seriousness of the matter was affirmed by Israeli officials.

Danny Seaman, director of the Government Press Office, said that if Hounam was arrested it was for serious offenses. ...

"This is irregular and so I assume they did not arrest him as a journalist but because they have real reasons," Seaman told the radio. "The Shin Bet is a serious organization that deals with serious issues." ...

[Yuval] Steinitz[, chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee,] said Thursday that "In general, the Shin Bet does not arrest people arbitrarily, but with considered judgement. I am not saying that the Shin Bet does not err at times, but it is generally a very responsible organization, and things like this are done after profound consideration."

Hounam was released without charge that same evening, one day after his arrest.

Footnote, Democracy Div.: The possible threat to Hounam arising from Israel's draconian state secrets law was real, Haaretz reports in another article.

"Israeli criminal law has clauses allowing legal action to be brought against journalists, providing that the alleged violations are in the security sphere," said legal commentator Moshe Negbi.

"This is something that is not generally an accepted norm in proper democracies, but it exists."

Hanegbi was referring to Clause 13 in Israel's criminal code, the same clause under which Vanunu was originally charged. According to the clause, "Whoever publishes a state secret in a newspaper has committed a crime punishable by 15 years imprisonment, without connection to the question of whether the information poses or is liable to pose a danger to the state," Hanegbi said.

Mere possession of the secret information - whether dangerous or not - by a journalist is punishable by seven years in jail.

It's easy to imagine a scenario for dealing with a troublesome journalist: Just feed them some meaningless "secret" - and then arrest them for possessing it. Free nations shouldn't just not do such things, they should aspire to not have the means to do such things.

Footnote, Oops! Div.: The International Herald Tribune reports that Israeli officials tried to keep the matter quiet; indeed, the Jerusalem District Court issued an order on Thursday barring release of details about Hounam's arrest. Unfortunately for officialdom, when five Shit Bet agents arrested him at his hotel, they walked him out - right past Donatella Rovera, an official of Amnesty International.

Keep your eyes on the prize

Massachusetts Governor Witness Wrongly is following through on his threats to try to use a old, almost-forgotten law that was originally intended to block interracial marriages to nullify marriage licenses issued to same-sex couples from outside the state.

Earlier this week, as gay marriage became legal in Massachusetts, Mr. Romney's administration demanded copies of marriage license applications from four cities and towns that were defying the governor by issuing licenses to out-of-state couples.

On Thursday, the governor said he had received the applications from two communities, Provincetown and Springfield, and found 10 out-of-state marriage applications that the state would not record, effectively nullifying those marriages. Out-of-state applications from the other two cities, Somerville and Worcester, would be treated the same way, he said.

Mr. Romney's actions are based on his interpretation of a 1913 law which says that the state cannot issue marriage licenses to couples if the marriage would be illegal in their home state. Mr. Romney has concluded that because no other state allows gay marriage, only Massachusetts residents, or people who intend to move to the state, can receive marriage licenses.

In addition, Governor Rockhead has asked the state's attorney general to consider taking legal action against the city clerks that issued the licenses.

While Wrongway's supporters say he's acting out of conscience, many others - me included - think there's another reason.

The gambit, capping months in which he has stood as the most visible opponent of gay marriage here, could jeopardize Romney's chances for reelection even as it thrusts him more prominently onto the national stage. Indeed, any political calculations behind his latest moves, experts say, are directed more at winning office in Washington than in Boston. ...

Analysts believe he is using the gay-marriage debate to build on his national profile. Some suggest he is being groomed as a possible replacement for vice president Dick Cheney on Bush's 2004 presidential ticket,

says the Christian Science Monitor for May 24. I don't know that I'd go quite that far, but it's well-known that his aspirations go far beyond a corner office on Beacon Hill and I'm convinced there's more of presidential politics than personal passion here.

There will undoubtedly be suits arising from this; what I noticed particularly is that among the marriages nullified, at least one was from New York - but the attorney general of New York has said that his state will recognize same-sex marriages performed in Massachusetts, so on what basis did Robbery void it? It will be interesting to see him defend that.

Footnote, Hypocrisy Div.: Gen. Rommel, in the course of announcing his intention to invalidate same sex marriages via a racist law that would have been overturned long ago if anyone remembered it was there, declared "this is a time for opening ourselves to others and for respecting other individuals."

Footnote, Unintentional Humor Div.: Romney downplayed his threat of action against the clerks, saying

his expectation was that the attorney general would tell the defiant town clerks, "Gosh, you need to get back on track."

"Aw gee, c'mon, pleeeze? C'mon! Golly gee whillikers!"

Jeopardy!

YESTERDAY'S QUESTION
Who are priests?

FINAL JEOPARDY!
Television

TV show inspired by an article that said about 30 percent of those who married in 1965 had kids from a previous marriage.

As long as I'm admiring my own insights

This is from the International Herald Tribune for May 29.

Five days after Salvador Allende was toppled in a violent coup as the Marxist president of Chile on Sept. 11, 1973, Henry Kissinger chatted on the phone with President Richard Nixon about the event, which clearly had delighted both men.

After telling the president that he might go to the Washington Redskins' football season opener, Kissinger exulted in the toppling of a pro-Communist government and complained about how much the news media was lamenting the coup, in which Allende was killed. The press's attitude, he said, was steeped in "unbelievable filthy hypocrisy."

That despite their protestations in favor of democracy, Kissinger and Nixon were thrilled with Pinochet is by now well-known. What intrigued me was this part of the exchange:

In the 1973 conversation, Kissinger tells the president that "of course the newspapers are bleeding because a pro-Communist government has been overthrown."

Nixon responds: "Isn't that something." To which Kissinger says that he and the president would have been hailed as heroes during "the Eisenhower period," 1953 to 1960.

Nixon then says: "Well, we didn't, as you know - our hand doesn't show on this one, though."

Kissinger replies: "We didn't do it. I mean we helped them." The transcript then says, with a long dash that seems to indicate that a word or words were deleted, "- created the conditions as great as possible."

At the time, there were a good number among my colleagues on the left who insisted that the US actually ordered the Chilean army to overthrow and murder Allende, who the White House visibly hated as the summation of all their fears: He was not only a Marxist who believed the welfare of the poor of Chile was more important than that of Kennicott Copper, he was a democratically-elected Marxist, something they maintained was impossible.

I demurred, insisting that there was no need for the US to order the generals to carry out a coup; they were quite willing to do that on their own. The only thing they needed from us was a wink-and-a-nod assurance that we would not oppose such a move. So we set out to create the conditions that would make a coup more likely: We sought to undermine the economy of Chile by halting economic assistance and cutting off its access to international credit while simultaneously strengthening the hand of the army by tripling military aid. Then we could stand with our backs to Chile, whistling an idle tune, rocking back and forth on our heels, until we could turn back around and with a gasp say "Oh-my! Look-at-what-has-happened! A-coup! Oh-my!"

It seems to me that the references above to "our hand doesn't show," "we helped them," and, significantly, "created the conditions" strongly hint that my analysis was spot on. After 31 years, vindication!

Okay, it's an ego thing....

Can't win for losing

Okay, as long as I'm bashing left analyses, let's go one more. Mother Jones' "Daily MoJo" for May 28 had this to say about the truce in Najaf:

The rebel Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr - whose Mahdi Army has been battling U.S. troops for almost two months - may come out the winner in a deal reached by Shiite religious and political leaders by which U.S. and Sadr's troops will pull out of the holy Shiite cities of Najaf and Kufa.

Billmon at The Whiskey Bar chimes in, saying

[a]ll that's been achieved by the past month of fighting in the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala has been to further trash America's reputation in the Arab world (on the Shi'a side, this time) and to make Sadr the second-most respected leader in Iraq, according to the coalition's own pollster.

Meanwhile, The Independent (UK) for May 28 calls the deal an "embarrassing capitulation" by the US, saying that Sadr "appeared to have got the most out of yesterday's deal."

This "Sadr is winning/Sadr has won/Sadr is the winner" meme (to which Hesiod was another contributor) has gotten to be annoying not only because of the irritation of repetition, like getting repeatedly poked in the same spot, but because it is so out of synch with what I think has really happened. In fact, Sadr hasn't "won" anything. What he's done is survived. Now, I suppose that may be victory enough for someone still theoretically facing murder charges, but that's not what the meme means. It means that because of the agreement, under which he remains free and his Madhi Army is not disbanded, he's now a player, he's "beaten" the US, at least politically, and has become a force to be reckoned with.

But claiming he's the "winner" based on that, on looking just at the last couple of days, is, if I can use a lefty buzzword, ahistorical. That is, it ignores context and background and thereby creates a false picture. Sadr did not suddenly appear out of nowhere in April and measuring his status now requires a comparison with that he held before the confrontation started, not with that of three or four days ago.

I first mentioned the "hardline ayatollah Moqtada al-Sadr" on January 22, when I noted he was credited with turning out the thousands of Iraqis who were demonstrating for immediate elections, adding that he and Ali al-Sistani were rivals, indeed

some have suggested that Sistani's stiffening insistence on immediate elections was driven in part by a fear that he was losing influence to Sadr.

And on March 26, I called him "an extremely powerful voice."

This is not to puff my own knowledge; I am by no means any kind of expert on Iraq's internal politics. Indeed, that makes the point even more strongly: If I, no more than an interested observer, was aware of Sadr and his degree of influence, shouldn't the voices now treating him as some new factor have known as well?

If anything, Sadr's influence has declined over recent weeks. The poll to which Billmon refers was done in mid-April, shortly after the confrontation began, when Sadr was at the peak of his popularity as a symbol of resistance to heavy-handed US rule. But earlier this month, on May 6, I described the increasing chorus of criticism of Sadr from other religious leaders in Iraq, pointedly referring to the fact that they acknowledged that they had refrained from speaking out until it was clear public Shiite opinion had turned against him. I also referred to the reports showing that opposition within Karbala and Najaf to the presence of the Madhi Army was becoming open.

Sadr was, I argued, becoming isolated both physically and politically, and had perhaps realized he had "overplayed his hand, perhaps severely." I went on to say that "perhaps taking advantage of [the] opening" provided by the criticism, US military forces moved to the outskirts of Najaf. That proved prescient, as the military soon began moving into the city itself. On May 27, the New York Times agreed that the clerics had

sent a series of signals that many interpreted as a green light for the Americans to move into Karbala and the other holy city, Najaf.

Indeed, the ceasefire itself did not come as a result of Sadr's pressure on the US, but of those other clerics. The New York Times says that

[a]ccording to two Iraqi Shiite leaders, American officials signed onto the agreement with Mr. Sadr after they received a forceful note from Ayatollah Sistani and other senior clerics, passed to them by Iraq's national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie.

"The religious leadership passed a strong warning to the Americans yesterday to end the stand-off in Najaf peacefully," said Hamed Khafaf, an aide to Ayatollah Sistani.

Had the Americans refused, Mr. Khafaf said, the ayatollah, convinced that the presence of American forces so near the Imam Ali Shrine was unsustainable, "would not stay silent."

Even the Mother Jones piece acknowledges that Sadr's truce/withdrawal proposal was not based on the strength of his position.

While Sadr claimed that the truce stemmed from his desire to prevent further damage from holy sites ... [his] decision stemmed from more earthy considerations. For one, Sadr's forces have sustained heavy casualties and one of his key commanders - also his brother-in-law - has been captured this week. The damage to religious sites has undercut Sadr's own authority, since it is widely understood that the actions of his militias made holy sites military targets. Morale among many of his fighters is dwindling after the mounting casualties and the disruption of trade and services in Najaf.

In short, being ground down militarily, hundreds of his fighters dead, the rest increasingly demoralized, the mass uprising he called for never having materialized, his influence waning, the target of increasing criticism from the religious leadership (Sistani's deputy, Mohammed al-Mehri, went so far as to blame the Sadr militia for the assault on the holy shrine of Imam Ali - Iraqi Press Monitor, May 26.), and facing open opposition within Najaf itself, Sadr simply cut the best deal he could under the circumstances, one in which he made a significant, little-noted concession: allowing for the presence of US military forces in Najaf, "protecting their headquarters and the governorate building" and running security patrols though the city center, until such time as Iraqi police can take over. Previously, Sadr had declared the city red-lined to American forces. And he wouldn't even have gotten what he did if it wasn't for the intercession of Sistani.

Meanwhile, letting his "army" stay "intact," which has been presented as a major concession to Sadr, actually means nothing at all.

"In Iraq many people have guns, every family has a gun, and these people are simply armed Shias from urban areas," Joost Hiltermann, director of the International Crisis Group, a think-tank based in Amman which has been studying the militias, told BBC News Online [on May 27].

"As they aren't a real army there is nothing to disband. What they are likely to do is just melt away, they will go back to their homes and their jobs and just keep their guns with them," he added.

Frankly, if all this adds up to Sadr being the winner, then to paraphrase Arthur Dent, this must be some new meaning of "winning" with which I'm unfamiliar.

Footnote: Just for the heck of it, I think it might be interesting to compare what has developed with what I wrote back on April 8:

I expect that the fighting will die down, perhaps with some face-saving agreement about releasing people seized "now that the situation is stabilized" and a vaguely-worded guarantee to Sadr about there being "no plans to take him into custody at the present time." For his part, I think that Sadr is going to realize that in the absence of that non-occurring general uprising, his people are going to be ground down - slowly, perhaps, but still ground down - by the sheer mass of the overwhelming numbers and firepower they face. I see him announcing an end to the fighting in a way that doesn't constitute any sort of surrender, perhaps something along the lines of "we have bloodied the enemy's nose, let us give him a chance to consider his error," at which point his militia melts back into the general population.

Okay, certainly not 100% accurate and things went on longer than I expected, but close enough to what's come out - the assurance that Sadr's case will be dealt with at some vague point in the future, the grinding down, the no-surrender end, the moving of the Mahdi Army back into the general population - to be no embarrassment.

How about others make the same sort of then/now comparison?

Now, if you want be a little conspiratorial, try this

I remember the scene clearly, but unfortunately, I can't really date it. I think it was in the '80s, during the Reagan administration, and the US was undertaking some military exercises in the Persian Gulf. It was considered a bad idea because the area was tense and the maneuvers provocative, but the acolytes of the certifiable Lyndon LaRouche went well beyond that: They claimed that the deployment was part of a plan to initiate a nuclear war, in fact to launch a first strike.

(N.B.: The info on the link is more than fair to him, even favorable, in that it takes him seriously, but it was the least partisan one I could find.)

When the war didn't happen, the LaRouche people declared that the reason it didn't was because they had revealed the plot before it could be executed! Since they were talking about an intent to produce a worldwide nuclear holocaust, you might think they would feel some need to explain why people knowing about it two or three days in advance would be a deterrent, but alas, that was left for the rest of us to figure out.

It's in that light that I offer the following.

You are aware, of course, that

Attorney General John Ashcroft said at a news conference that intelligence reports and public statements by people associated with Al Qaeda suggested that the terrorist group was "almost ready to attack the United States" and harbored a "specific intention to hit the United States hard."

You are likely also aware that others have cast doubts on both the timing and the necessity of the warning, noting that there was no new information, the people named had been named before, and there wasn't even a change in the "terrorist threat advisory" level. Even Asscraft was reduced to saying "We believe the public, like all of us, needs a reminder" as an excuse for the hyperventilating pronouncements.

However, what you may not have noticed is this:

Panama City, Panama (AP, May 27) - Global intelligence and police agencies are on a worldwide hunt for terrorists with ties to places as disparate as Boston, Islamabad, and Panama City, part of a U.S. scramble to head off what officials fear could be a massive attack this summer.

So if there's an attack, they can say "we told you so" and if there's no attack, they can say "it was because our massive effort protected you." A win-win for the WHS*, yes?

Footnote: It turns out that Burnedland couldn't even do melodrama right, according to MSNBC for May 28.

In warning Americans to brace for a possible attack, Ashcroft cited what he called "credible intelligence from multiple sources," saying that “just after New Year's, al-Qaida announced openly that preparations for an attack on the United States were 70 percent complete.… After the March 11 attack in Madrid, Spain, an al-Qaida spokesman announced that 90 percent of the arrangements for an attack in the United States were complete."

But terrorism experts tell NBC News there's no evidence a credible al-Qaida spokesman ever said that, and the claims actually were made by a largely discredited group, Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, known for putting propaganda on the Internet. ...

The group has claimed responsibility for the power blackout in the Northeast last year, a power outage in London and the Madrid bombing. None of the claims was found to be credible.

"The only thing they haven't claimed credit for recently is the cicada invasion of Washington," said expert Roger Cressey, former chief of staff of the critical infrastructure protection board at the White House and now an analyst for NBC News.

I'd already mentioned al-Masri in connection to the Madrid attacks, noting then the assessment that the group might be "little more than one person with a computer trying to take credit for events." I'd suspect some chickenhawk attempt at real deviousness here, but then again, these are the same crack minds that apparently really bought Ahmed Chalabi's Just So Stories ("How the Saddam Got His WMDs"), so I'm not really sure.

Thanks to David Neiwert, noble proprietor at Orcinus for the tip.

*White House Sociopaths

Jeopardy!

YESTERDAY'S QUESTION
What is a pyramid?

DOUBLE JEOPARDY!
Seems Like Ancient Times for $2000

Scholars assign the writing of the Book of Leviticus to "P," which stands for these religious officials.

TOMORROW'S FINAL JEOPARDY! CATEGORY
Television

Area 51 calling

You know, it's not as if we don't have enough provable conspiracies, inanities, and cruelties to choose from. I don't see why we have to go looking for bogus ones. We know about the in-fighting, the deceptions, the double-talk, deceit, and disinformation, the CYA about WMD, leading up to the Iraq War. We know about the deliberate attempts to connect Saddam Hussein falsely to 9/11. We know about the torture of prisoners and that the White House was specifically warned about "abuses" at Abu Ghraib months before anything was done (and then done only because of a gutsy whistleblower); and we know that the methods used had to be approved at a Cabinet level (i.e., by Donald Rumsfeld). We know about the curtailment, confinement, and criminalization of dissent at home, about the increasing practice of "arrest first and investigate later." We know about the deaths, the murders, the bombings, the blood on our hands.

So why are we wasting our energy on fantasies?

First, there was Nick Berg, his murder drowning in "unanswered questions" and "contradictions" and OHMIGOD!! "facts" that are usually the currency of choice of the black-helicopter crowd. Now, there are indeed questions and confusions about his arrest by Iraqi? US? is there really a difference? forces with a string of officials going "not I" and referring inquiries to someone else. (My own suspicion, as I've said before, is that he was in some legalistic, technical sense in the custody of the Iraqis but at the behest of the US, giving each a way to say that they weren't the ones holding him.)

But the fact is, as I mentioned the other day, he was released, after which he not only contacted his family, he was seen by two friends and the staff of the hotel where he was staying. His arrest and his subsequent kidnapping were two separate events - but you'd be hard put to find a conspiracy claim that doesn't conflate them.

I simply have no time for that kind of nonsense.

But now there's a new one: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

In discussing the Berg conspiracists, I noted that one outfit called Zarqawi "a flimsy propaganda creation" who only came to light in January, 2004. I figured that reflected simple (but rather large-scale) ignorance of the issue, but apparently they're not the only ones casting a wary eye in his direction.

Hesiod, the person behind Counterspin, had this to say on Thursday:

Anyone notice who's missing from the United States' "Most Wanted Terrorist" list?

This is another piece of a puzzle that indicates to me that Zarqawi is in fact an American agent.

He's being pumped up as part of a disinformation campaign by the CIA in order to gather intelligence against terrorist operations. He's got to be given credibility in the eyes of terrorists, so he's credited with all sorts of evil deeds.

That would explain his "letter" to Bin Laden offering an alliance, and complaining about how successful the U.S. was in Iraq.

It would explain why his terrorist camp wasn't bombed before the Iraq war.

It would explain why his name was grafted onto the Nick Berg video, and why other people unaffiliated with Al Qaeda were arrested for the crime. (How did they even know who these people were?)

It explains why, despite his being terrorist bogeyman number one right now, he's not listed on the most wanted list. And it cannot be because he's dead. They still list Mohammed Atef, even though he was supposedly killed in Afghanistan.

I may be crazy, but this smells.

Oh my. Have we really come this far? This is the caption on the web page to which Hesiod links; it's a list of the FBI's "most wanted terrorists."

The alleged terrorists on this list have been indicted by sitting Federal Grand Juries in various jurisdictions in the United States for the crimes reflected on their wanted posters. Evidence was gathered and presented to the Grand Juries, which led to their being charged. The indictments currently listed on the posters allow them to be arrested and brought to justice. Future indictments may be handed down as various investigations proceed in connection to other terrorist incidents, for example, the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

It is also important to note that these individuals will remain wanted in connection with their alleged crimes until such time as the charges are dropped or when credible physical evidence is obtained, which proves with 100% accuracy, that they are deceased.

Note first that it says those on the list have been indicted in the US, which Zarqawi, as far as I'm aware, has not. So there'd be no reason for him to be on the list. And it says that the name would only come off when they are absolutely sure the person is dead, which lets out the "supposedly" dead Atef. When the very evidence you cite flatly contradicts you, you've got a pretty damn weak case.

But just for the sake of completeness, let's glance at the rest of the arguments.

The letter to bin Laden: At the time, many among us, including Hesiod, suspected that it was a forgery (although, in fairness, he was less certain than some). He even linked to my analysis that expressed my own doubts about it. (Full disclosure: At the time, I concluded it was probably genuine but deliberately over the top in its descriptions of US successes, the better to argue for assistance.) Yet now it would have to be genuine for the argument to have any validity at all.

The terrorist camp: Another metamorphosis. It was widely noted that once journalists got to this supposed "camp" they could see that there really wasn't much of anything there. And since it was in Kurdish-controlled territory, bombing it could have angered people whose assistance we were counting on in the invasion.

The video: "Grafted on?" What the hell does that mean? Is he saying the video has been altered? That it's a fake? Are we back to that?

Other people arrested: There were four people arrested, two of who were quickly released. They are supposedly former members of Saddam Hussein's Fedayeen paramilitary - but

Iraqi sources would not say whether any of the four suspects in custody were among [those in the video], or whether the detainees were linked to the case in another way.

How that says anything at all about Zarqawi one way or another is quite beyond me.

People unaffiliated with Al Qaeda: Zarqawi is unaffiliated with al-Qaeda! He associates with bin Laden, sometimes has worked with bin Laden, but he's an independent agent who heads his own organization! Why is that so hard for us to get into our heads?

And all of this is supposed to show somehow that Zarqawi is a US agent. Hello? Do we think that terrorists operating now in Iraq have no contact with each other? That they would not very quickly smell a very big rat when all kinds of operations are connected to this Zarqawi fella which they know from their own sources were done by someone else?

I also can't help but note another aspect that always seems to arise with these kinds of speculations: the need for US spy agencies to be either Sherlock Holmes or Inspector Clouseau, either as devious as Machiavelli or as dumb as Ogrons, and to shift smoothly and instantly from one to the other, to whichever is required at any given moment for the conspiracy notions to hold up. In this case, we are to accept that the US set up someone as Zarqawi, in effect created a terrorist profile for him, had him in the field for years, tried to build his importance with a bunch of phony attributions of evil deeds (even though attention is the last thing any good spy would want to draw to themselves) - and then were so stupid as to leave him off a "most wanted" list.

This just won't fly. I admire Hesiod, read Counterspin regularly (I'm sure you've noticed it on my shortlist of links), but this is taking a running jump off the deep end. And I have no time for this kind of nonsense, either. Although I might later offer, at greater length than I did in discussing Nick Berg, some thoughts as to why we seem so intent on manufacturing deviousness when the real deviousness should be more than enough to keep us busy. We'll see.

Footnote: As relevant here as anywhere, I suppose. It seems the experts feel the same way I did about the blood during Nick Berg's decapitation. For example,

Dr John Simpson, executive director for surgical affairs at the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, told Ritt Goldstein of the Asia Times, "I would have thought that all the people in the vicinity would have been covered in blood, in a matter of seconds ... if it [the video] was genuine".

Simpson agrees with other experts who find it highly probable that Berg had died before his decapitation.

Some are, bizarrely, trying to use this as evidence the video was faked. It seems to me it just supports the contention that Nick Berg was actually killed sometime during the 11-hour gap between segments of the tape and they were cutting off the head of a dead man.

Trying to return with some cool news, chapter two

According to the Greek newspaper Kathimerini for May 27, a Polish archaeological mission has discovered the first physical evidence of the University of Alexandria in ancient Egypt.

Earlier knowledge of the university came only through historical and literary documents. Now archaeologists have unearthed lecture halls used during the later years of the institution, which survived into the 7th century.

The destruction of the university's world-famous library is considered one of the great intellectual tragedies of history, with many ancient works lost permanently, their existence now known only through references to them (and sometimes only to their titles) in other volumes.

Trying to return with some cool news, chapter one

"Oh, my goodness, it knocked our socks off."

That was the reaction of University of Wisconsin astronomer Ed Churchwell to a trio of discoveries made by the Spitzer Space Telescope, an orbital-based infrared NASA telescope launched last summer.

Not only has the telescope shown that protostars (young, developing stars) "are as common as the cicadas in the trees here on the East Coast" but also that the areas around infant stars contain a considerable amount of ice that could produce future oceans on developing planets - and where there is liquid water, there is the possibility of life developing.

To top it off, the device has discovered what is likely the youngest planet ever found, just about 1 million years old. That's about as old compared to the Earth as a 1-day old infant is compared to a 12-year old child.

The object is in the constellation Taurus, 420 light-years away - quite close by astronomy standards. It is believed to be on the inner edge of a planet-forming dusty disk that encircles a 1-million-year-old star.

University of Rochester astronomer Dan Watson said a sharply defined hole in the middle of the disk suggests that a planet created the opening. That gaseous planet would have been formed sometime since the star's formation.

Footnote: Spitzer is the fourth and last of NASA's Great Observatory series of space-based telescopes, which have included optical, x-ray, infrared, and gamma ray-detecting devices. The first of the four is the best known: the Hubble, now 14 years old and in danger of being shut down because of safety concerns for the astronauts who would do the repair work via the space shuttle.

However, on Thursday, a petition signed by 26 present and former astronauts was sent to President Bush in which "we, the real risk-takers," urged that the shuttle mission to Hubble be reinstated.

Jeopardy!

YESTERDAY'S QUESTION
What is rice?

DOUBLE JEOPARDY!
Seems Like Ancient Times for $1200

Egyptian ruler Snefru had to have a second one of these built after architects messed up the first.

Trying to return with some good news, chapter four

There may be - certainly can be - some difference of opinion as to whether or not this, relating to Oregon's Assisted Suicide Law, is good news, but I think it is. From the New York Times, May 27.

A federal appeals court yesterday upheld the only law in the nation authorizing doctors to help their terminally ill patients commit suicide. The decision, by a divided three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, said the Justice Department did not have the power to punish the doctors involved.

The majority used unusually pointed language to rebuke Attorney General John Ashcroft, saying he had overstepped his authority in trying to block enforcement of the state law, Oregon's Death With Dignity Act.

"The attorney general's unilateral attempt to regulate general medical practices historically entrusted to state lawmakers," Judge Richard C. Tallman wrote for the majority, "interferes with the democratic debate about physician-assisted suicide and far exceeds the scope of his authority under federal law." ...

"We express no opinion on whether the practice is inconsistent with the public interest or constitutes illegitimate medical care," Judge Tallman wrote. "This case is simply about who gets to decide."

The states do, the court ruled.

The law became effective in 1997; the Times notes that about 30 people a year have taken advantage of it since that time. That's about 0.1% of all deaths, hardly the flood of people ending their lives for transient reasons or on whims, contrary to predictions of opponents, who said it would undermine the respect for life - as if hanging on to the painful, excruciating, wasted-away, hollow-cheeked, gasping end advanced it.

Footnote: Cigarettebuttcroft relied on the Controlled Substances Act, under which doctors can be penalized for prescribing drugs for anything other than legitimate medical purposes. The court found that the law did not apply because it was meant to fight drug abuse, not regulate what constitutes medicine.

Judge J. Clifford Wallace, in a dissenting opinion, said the attorney general had the authority to issue his directive.

"There is simply no textual support for the majority's conclusion that 'the field of drug abuse,' as discussed in the Controlled Substances Act, does not encompass drug-induced, physician-assisted suicide," Judge Wallace wrote.

In other words, the DOJ had the authority to prosecute because the law didn't specifically say it couldn't.

This guy must be wrangling for a Supreme Court nomination in the event of a second Bush term.

Trying to return with some good news, chapter three

On May 19, the Bush administration's attempt to put the hammer to Greenpeace by prosecuting it under a rarely-enforced, 132 year-old law collapsed in complete failure. Judge Adalberto Jordan threw the case out without even the need for Greenpeace to make a defense, ruling that the government had failed to make a case.

The matter arose in February 2002, when Greenpeace volunteers as part of a peaceful protest boarded a cargo ship off the Florida coast that was transporting illegally-harvested mahogany from the Brazilian Amazon. John Ashcan, taking time off from color-coding our civil liberties, ignored those who actually boarded the vessel in favor of charging the entire organization under an 1872 law banning "sailormongering," the practice of having prostitutes board vessels approaching harbor in order to lure sailors off their ships and into brothels. It had previously been invoked exactly twice. The persecution, if successful, could have put the entire organization out of business.

Speaking from the Miami Federal Courthouse, Executive Director John Passacantando said, "America's tradition of free speech won a victory today, but our liberties are still not safe, the Bush administration and its allies seem bent on stifling our tradition of civil protest, a tradition that has made our country stronger throughout our history.

"Greenpeace is grateful to everyone who stood with us, from Al Gore and Julian Bond to the citizens of Miami and people around the world. We will never give up the struggle to protect our forests, our air and oceans, and to build a green and peaceful future."

Greenpeace is not without its problems, common among the so-called "Big Greens," of forgetting its roots, both grass and spiritual, but it still stands as a good example of the power of direct action and retains a valuable role to play. The victory should be celebrated both on civil liberties and environmental grounds.

However, we can't forget that even victories such as these are not unalloyed: Often, the government's purpose is not to win their case (they had to know that was a far-fetched possibility here) but to drain resources and distract attention, to make opposition groups less effective by making them spend their time and energies in legal defenses rather than political battles: a government form of SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, suits filed by corporations to intimidate and financially drain opponents). Until there is some form of redress, some variation of a SLAPP-back (the practice of counter-suing corporations when their SLAPPs failed, as they usually did, which has cut back on their use), until the government can be held accountable for its misuse of courts as a means of squelching opposition, this kind of thing will continue.

Trying to return with some good news, chapter two

The Agriculture Department, under pressure from trade groups and some members of Congress, has agreed to drop proposed guidelines that would have allowed produce treated with pesticides and antibiotics to still be labeled "organic," CNN reports on May 28.

[Agriculture Secretary Ann] Veneman's action is "refreshing," said Jim Riddle of Winona, Minn., chairman of the National Organic Standards Board, a 15-member panel that advises the department. Veneman directed department officials to listen to the board; Riddle said the department often has not heeded its recommendations. ...

The executive director of the Organic Trade Association, Katherine DiMatteo, said Veneman's action was "exactly what we wanted." DiMatteo said any future clarifications of the organic standards ought to meet consumer needs.

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) applauded the decision, saying that the label "organic" should "mean something." Indeed it should, and there is already more than enough deception from the WHS* going around. What this does indicate, moreover, is that people's desire for food products free of unnecessary chemicals (i.e., pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, etc.) and overuse of medications is a big enough market to support a big enough industry to get the corporate bootlickers in the White House to listen.

*White House Sociopaths

Trying to return with some good news, chapter one

In an unexpected move, a Chilean court has stripped former dictator Augusto Pinochet of his immunity from prosecution, clearing the way for him to be tried for human rights abuses, the BBC reports on May 28.

The BBC's Clinton Porteus in the Chilean capital Santiago says the decision came as a big surprise, provoking gasps - and cheers - in the courtroom.

He adds that a recent lengthy interview given by Gen Pinochet to a US television station might persuade judges that he is not mentally unfit to stand trial,

significant because the claim that he suffers from dementia was used to get previous cases dismissed on medical grounds.

Prosecution lawyer Francisco Bravo said: "This ruling makes the relatives of the victims and the whole Chilean society again trust Chile's justice."

Pinochet's legal troubles started when he was arrested in the UK after Spain requested his extradition on charges of torture. In 2000, however, he was allowed to return to Chile after being adjudged too ill to stand trial. Health reasons have kept him out of the dock since, but his luck may have finally run out.