Posted by Sarah,
5:34 PM
-
Picture of Saddam toppling
So I posted that wide-angle picture down below of a sparse crowd around the spot where Saddam's statue was toppled. To answer Mr. Hogan's question, the picture is from Indymedia (and I don't remember which blog linked to it, possibly Atrios). Seems like now there's a bit of a controversy as to whether the wide-angle picture is legitimate or not.
A reader on OxBlog thinks the picture is bogus, or at least misleading. He claims that the statue is already down and gone in the wide-angle, and that the picture was taken much later in the day, long after the crowds had dispersed.
Then there's CalPundit, who had posted the wide-angle picture on his blog. He finds the case against the photo somewhat iffy (color cast is always tricky business), though certainly reasonable. He continues with a finger-wag against the media:
What's really frustrating about all this is what I was originally complaining about: the role of the media. None of us should have to be doing half-assed amateur analysis of this, but a moderately thorough search of news sites shows nothing except closely cropped photos of the scene. This series from the BBC is about the best I could find, and #8 in the series (shown at right) pretty clearly shows a group of no more than 100-200 Iraqis standing around the statue as it fell (you can see the edge of the crowd, so that's probably all there was).
Unlike CalPundit, I can't hedge: I posted the picture to "demonstrate" general Iraqi wariness, so I'd be interested to know just how many people where at the statue-busting. If the photo turns out to be wrong or misleading, it doesn't negate my general point (that skeptical caution, rather than elation, is certainly a creditable and moral stance for antiwar folks to take right now). But hell, it makes me look a bit foolish (I guess I can live with that). Regardless, I'll see if I can find any more updates.
Update:Here's a much better photo that bumps the numbers up to swim-team-rally-at-Parkhurst size. Oh, and the original photo is from BBC, I discovered. So Emmett, I hope that answers your questions, because all this research to refute myself is getting sort of tiring.
Posted by Brad Plumer,
2:29 PM
-
Rumsfeld's sex advice Here. (via Andrew Sullivan)
Posted by Timothy,
4:31 AM
-
Hospital lootings in Iraq - incubator stories back in the headlines I hear looters are getting away with everything under the sun, including vital medical equipment such as incubators. The latest tales of incubator theft are an ironic sequel to the notoriously fabricated incubator theft stories trumpeted during the first gulf war. Then, stories of Saddam's soldiers ripping babies from Kuwaiti incubators, and stealing the equipment were vital in getting national support for the war. It was only discovered later that the stories were mostly the invention of Hill & Knowlton's, an American PR organization in the pay of Kuwaiti royalty.
Now, it's looters stealing incubators from Iraqi hospitals while coalition troops look the other way: a reversal of sorts. Shouldn't we conscientious Americans be wondering what's happening to any of the babies that might have been in those incubators, as we were so prone to wonder when it was Kuwaiti incubators in question? Oh, but then, it's probably more excusable this time around because the power in these hospitals had long ago gone out anyway, so doubtless any babies in the incubators would have already been dead by the time looters got there.
Please excuse my cynicism. I know this is all speculation, but if we were so quick to speculate (falsely) on the fates of Kuwaiti babies during Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, shouldn't we also be speculating now?
Posted by Justin Sarma,
2:17 AM
-
Friday, April 11, 2003 Hypocricy Emmett on dartlog gets all huffy about the anti-war movement: "They never condemned Saddam in anything other than a perfunctory way ("Saddam is of course evil, but..."). Many of them were livid that we didn't wade into Rwanda during the genocide there, but now of course they're livid when we wade into Iraq. And, indeed, many of them suggested that we actually reward Saddam, by lifting the UN sanctions. That's called shilling for evil, and it's a moral failing." First, it was Reagan-Bush that supported Saddam during the worst atrocities. Guess your moral outrage extends to them and Rumsfeld, right? Second, how many conservatives said we should go into Rwanda? Or Kosovo for that matter? Or Sierra Leone? Third, does anyone think the reason Bush went into Iraq was to liberate the Iraqi people? He might yet sell out the Kurds, so do not give me this false pretense that it is moral outrage driving Bush. Of course, hypocricy can have good results. But don't pretend it is not hypocricy. Fourth, whatever the arguments for and against sanctions, the advocates of lifting them were not simply shilling for Saddam, they cared about the humanitarian disaster the sanctions wrought on the people of Iraq. The latter was their motivation. Those who favored sanctions probably valued Iraqi lives less. They valued how the U.S. might be hurt by a powerful and armed Hussein. You can say U.S. citizens should be concerned for their own security first and right to make this tradeoff with Iraqi lives, but do not pretend pro-sanctions people cared more about the Iraqi people than people who lifted the sanctions. If anything, the criticism is that the anti-sanctions were only humanitarian and did not think about the larger security implications.
More Fun with Emmett Hogan Emmett groups all anti-war protesters together, apparently using his 'shock and awe' non-precision bombs:
A good point, but all I'm emphasizing is that the reasons the anti-war crowd were wrong to oppose the war before it began are simply being confirmed. The victory does matter in this regard: the extent of Saddam's atrocities will soon be known. What was never in doubt, however, was that his rule was atrocious, and what I abhor is the fact that the anti-war crowd buried its head in the sand.
Emmett, do you honestly think the primary reason the administration fought so hard for this war was to stop atrocities in Iraq? Did the neo-cons plan 'regime change' for years to go on a humanitarian mission? No. Those other reasons (or lack thereof) for going to war were part of the anti-war movement's opposition. I think the worst part of the Iraqi regime came when Bush 41 was President and Vice-President, when some of the same people were in power. The same people running this war knew a decade or two ago how horrible Saddam's regime was yet they supported the regime. They stood by in the face of evil, no? Do you condemn their actions then, or do you stupidly say Rumsfeld is forgiven because so many deaths later he makes up for his mistake? Am I going to deny that the Young Sparticus League had reasons for opposing the war that were stupid? No. But explain to me how the extent of the atrocities matters. To maintain this, you also must say that if the atrocities had not been as great, then the war would not have been justified, no? In any case, Emmett had better admit that a lot of people who oppossed the war thought Saddam was a bad, nasty, brutish dictator. Repeat after me: not going to war to overthrow a regime is not necessarily an apology for the regime, as Emmett says. You would think he would understand that. I could list all these liberal programs and banning of hate speech that a lot of people think are necessary to end racism. Does the difference between them and Emmett lie in their opinion of how bad racism is and its extent? Does not supporting affirmative action mean you are racist or soft on racism? (on second thought, don't answer that, Emmett may show this to be a great case in point on how unwillingness to take action does indicate something!) To some up: the actors in the Bush administration are clearly NOT prosecuting this war to stand up for evil. Maybe others who care about evil should stand by them because of the effects. But do not pretend that this administration is morally superior and more intelligent than all anti-war people because they clearly see the evil of the atrocities of Hussein's regime. That's utter bushit. They may see evil in anyone who opposses them and who they link to Al Qeada, but this is not because of their atrocities. The Bushies have far more important interests and ideas which they will not sacrifice on the alter of human rights in other contexts. To claim that as the source of their moral authority is niave; it is also dangerous because it ignores how far the actual logic may extend.
The mighty Brad "C.A." Plumer says: "So tell you what, 'loggers. When Iraq holds its first fair and free election, I'll cheer, pump my fist and break out the champagne. Until then, you won't get shit."
One of the 'loggers, Alex Wilson responds: "More important, is he actually saying this won't have been a moral thing to do until we establish a perfect democracy in Iraq?"
Notice how one fair election = perfect democracy for Wilson? A little slippery there, huh? (but Alex calls me sharp, so I'll forgive him!) Wilson also nicely takes the time to address an argument of mine no one else has, but his answer is a little silly:
Menashi's argument is that Dartmouth students need fraternities as counterweight, not the administration or even necessarily the institution as a whole. The dangers of unchecked power are to those without it. The proper analogy is that the rest of world needs intermediary institutions (i.e. the United Nations) as a counterweight to U.S. power. The U.S. on the other hand would best serve it's interests by eliminating those counterweights. As it happens, I think this revised analogy is in most respects correct (the ways it's not will have to wait for another day). But right or wrong, nothing in it makes much of a case for U.S. citizens to support checks on U.S. power."
Too easy: there's not of a case for U.S. citizens to support checks on U.S. power, unless U.S. citizens care about right and wrong, care about the well-being of citizens in other countries, don't think their interests always fully coincide with what their government decides, are concerned that continual war may undermine the democratic nature of our government here at home, care about how the rest of the world perceives them, care that other countries may eventually act against the interests of the U.S., care that they might be dragged into future wars, and/or realize that how other people in other countries view our actions ultimately affects U.S. citizens by determining what kind of world we live in.
Alex says U.S. citizens should not oppose unchecked administrative power. But the analogy akin to Menashi's reasoning is that citizens around the world should support checks on U.S. power. Untrammeled U.S. could will eventually lead to trouble for the world (and if we as U.S. citizens care about the world...). It is in the interest of Parkurst bureaucrats to say we should eliminate any counterbalance to their power, but they claimed to want to eliminate fraternities in the name of helping students, not their own interest. Similarly the U.S. now claims it is doing it for the benefit of the Iraqi people. If we only care about U.S. citizens, then do not give me any high moral preaching about we are so good and moral because we liberating Iraq. Otherwise, I think the analogy still has some potentional to be useful.
Update: to be clear, Alex Wilson seems very reasonable in his arguments on dartlog and has actually been a voice of sanity. I appreciate the tone which he has approached things, so I hope he does not take too much offense for me being quick to call his point silly. Also, at the bottom of his post "Freedom of Expression vs. Political Inquisitions", John Stevenson has talked about my post "Radical Republicans today and then" on Reconstruction during the Civil War and in Iraq (my post is way down below, from Wednesay).
Posted by Timothy,
9:00 PM
-
Royal Flush! Your defense dollars at work: This one's a winning hand. Go Fish!
Posted by Richie Jay,
8:57 PM
-
Pocket Pussies Esteemed blogger and law professor Eugene Volokh writes:
So here's a circumstance I've wondered about. Imagine that a close single female friend (just a friend) mentioned to you that she has a vibrator that's shaped like a highly stylized penis. It's not too anatomically correct, just a normal vibrator. Assume that this came up in a suitable context, for example when something -- a store you're driving by, a joke you hear on the radio, a blog post you've just read -- naturally raised the question, so it didn't just come out of the blue ("You say you're out of batteries? Speaking of batteries, I just LOVE my vibrator!"). What would you think? I suspect that in my general circle -- coastal, relatively socially liberal professionals -- most people wouldn't think much of it. We expect that many women use vibrators occasionally. We've heard about them often enough that they're hardly shocking. If anything, some men might find the idea a bit exciting, perhaps because they see it as a sign that the woman is at ease with her sexuality. OK, now imagine that a close single male friend (just a friend) mentioned to you, under similar circumstances, that he has a vibrator that's shaped like a stylized vagina. What would you think then? My sense is that many people will think it's a bit icky, in some hard to pin down way. Not everyone would; some people won't care. But I think that a much higher fraction of people -- again, at least people in my social circle -- would be put off by the idea of a man using a vagina-shaped vibrator than a woman using a penis-shaped vibrator..... Is that so, and, if it is, then why? Why is this sort of sexuality seen as fine for women but not for men?
Posted by Timothy,
6:57 PM
-
Republicans and Race Part XIX Atrios links to this Washington Post editorial on Rep. Cubin:
Where's the Outrage? IT WAS LESS THAN four months ago that Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott lost his job as majority leader, and deservedly so, after praising the segregationist presidential campaign of Strom Thurmond. Now another lawmaker, Republican Rep. Barbara Cubin of Wyoming, has out-Lotted Mr. Lott. Mrs. Cubin's remarks came not in a birthday tribute to a centenarian but on the floor of the House of Representatives, in the midst of a serious debate on a gun measure. No historical memory is needed to adequately appreciate their bald racism. And unlike in the case of Mr. Lott, Mrs. Cubin's remarks seem to have provoked barely a word of protest from her Republican colleagues. For fear that some may think they are taken out of context, we reprint the offending part here in its entirety: "My sons are 25 and 30. They are blond-haired and blue-eyed. One amendment today said we could not sell guns to anybody under drug treatment. So does that mean if you go into a black community, you cannot sell a gun to any black person, or does that mean because my -- " At this point, Rep. Melvin Watt (D-N.C.) demanded that her words be stricken from the record as inappropriate. You might think that Mrs. Cubin then would have realized she had equated African Americans with drug addicts and apologized as profusely as possible. Instead, she told Mr. Watt, who is African American, that she wanted "to apologize to my colleague for his sensitivities." When Mr. Watt noted, correctly, that it was not a matter of whether his feelings were hurt but of "using words that are insulting to the entire African American race," Mrs. Cubin declined the opportunity to back down. "Mr. Chairman," she said, "I do not withdraw my words." Mrs. Cubin said later that she was simply trying "to make the point that stereotyping is always wrong." If so, she chose an odd way to do so. The reference to her sons, she explained, was headed in the direction of asking if they should be kept from buying guns because they look like "the children at Columbine." But to argue analogously that the amendment would have kept dealers from selling guns in the black community is true only if you subscribe to a worldview in which "African American" equals "presumptive drug user." Yet more astonishing than Mrs. Cubin's obtuseness was that when the full House considered whether to have Mrs. Cubin's words "taken down" as offensive -- a move that would have stricken them from the record and kept her from speaking for the rest of the day -- it voted in her favor, 227 to 195. Not a single Republican lawmaker voted against the remarks. Afterward, not a word of criticism from House Republican leaders. Upon being asked for comment, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) yesterday ventured (through a spokesman) to say that the remarks "clearly left the wrong impression." He also described Mrs. Cubin as a "sensitive and at heart a very good person." Maybe so; but shrugging off the offensiveness of her statement is no more appropriate now than when Republican leaders tried the same tactic immediately after Mr. Lott made his remark.
Update: I almost wish the remark had not been interrupted, so we knew what Rep. Cubin would have said. It is not always easy to judge a statement without the context and any possible qualifiers. Eric Mueller suggests a possibility:
It's still hard to say exactly where Mrs. Cubin was going with her remark, but it looks to me like an inartful way to argue against stereotyping. She was arguing, I think (maybe?), that drug addiction is an arbitrary and irrational basis for denying someone a right in the same way that race is an arbitrary and irrational basis for denying someone a right.I think. Maybe.
In the post below that, Mueller also has links to how when Cubin was a state representative, "she was best known for the penis-shaped cookies she once served Wyoming legislators and the pictures of her male colleagues’ crotches she posted on the state Capitol bulletin board."
Update: Josh Marshall is outraged and points to the Post editorial. Let's look at the explanation there again:
The reference to her sons, she explained, was headed in the direction of asking if they should be kept from buying guns because they look like "the children at Columbine." But to argue analogously that the amendment would have kept dealers from selling guns in the black community is true only if you subscribe to a worldview in which "African American" equals "presumptive drug user."
Ok, if Cubin really would have said that part about Columbine and her sons, then perhaps that last sentence in the Post does not logically follow. The worldview in which "African American" equals "presumptive drug user" is indeed offensive and racist. But to save Emmett Hogan the trouble, one way to wiggle out of this would be to interpret Cubin to mean that she personally does not subscribe to that worldview; she also personally (we can assume) subscribe to the view that her blond, white child are like the Columbine killers. What Cubin may worry about is that gun dealers subscribe to that worldview. So Rep. Cubin from Wyoming is slurring gun dealers?!? I have more faith in gun dealers than that! At the risk of stereotyping Representatives from Wyoming, I'd guess Rep. Cubin is more likely to slur Blacks than gun dealers. I'd bet the reason why Rep. Cubin would so easily say that gun dealers would make the presumptive connection is because it seems a natural one to her as well. But in this case, I can't read her mind and we did not see the full comments.
These war weasels are like whack-a-mole: knock one down and another keeps popping up in his place. Now they're getting giddy, claiming that the antiwar left has lost the moral high ground. Oh dear, oh dear. Here's the esteemed Alston Ramsay:
A few brief words on the anti-war movement. While I'm not sure I'd necessarily call the movement a moral failing as Emmett has, I think they razed their own credibility with their silence. And for that, they should be ashamed. As Stefan pointed out in our latest issue, many on that side of the fence have come to see Saddam's regime of terror as the "Achille's Heel" of the anti-war movement; it just makes them look bad, and, as such, they haven't/couldn't come up with a way to deal with it.
Right, because the lefties aren't giggling themselves crazy over the toppling of Saddam's statue. Hey, guess what? Neither are Iraqis. All that jubilant footage on CNN was well and good, but here's an aerial view of the same scene (another lesson in media propaganda):
Well shit, that just doesn't quite bring the same tingle to my toes. Looks to me like most Iraqis are doing what the antiwar groups are doing: staying home and waiting cautiously. That doesn't make them immoral. That makes them prudent.
Someone forgot to alert Mr. Hogan, Mr. Ramsay, and the rest to the fact that the war is not over. The real challenge begins as soon as the bombing stops. It was always that way, even for those of us who thought (as I did) that the actual fighting would be bloody and difficult. National Review pundits and Weekly Standard scribblers who pay lip service to the difficult process of reconstruction are no better than the leftists who try to trivialize Saddam's atrocities. If the Butcher of Baghdad is our Achilles' heel, Mr. Ramsey, then post-war reconstruction is yours. Steve Gilliard at Daily Kos has some excellent posts on why Iraq could still turn into a disaster (go here, here, and especially here.)Yes, these are all worst case scenarios, but perfectly realistic.
So what then? What if Turkey starts rolling tanks into Kurdish territory? What if Syria and Iran try to sabotage the reconstruction process, as they have every reason to do? What if cities descend into anarchy? What if Shia and Sunni turn against each other, letting the country degenerate into an "Arab Congo"? Looting and uprisings and massacres, oh my! Will you still claim moral high ground and preach on, brother? Will you still puff yourselves up at the fact that the 12 Iraqis in the picture above were cheering the demolition of a statue? Hey, cool, plenty of Russians initially cheered their Nazi "liberators" during Barbarossa, and their hopes and prayers were quickly, ruthlessly squashed. American should, and assuredly will, do better, but they should remember that swapping one dictator for another is not liberation. And until proven wrong, the antiwar crowd has every right to be skeptical. Indeed, there is hardly a more moral position to take.
So tell you what, 'loggers. When Iraq holds its first fair and free election, I'll cheer, pump my fist and break out the champagne. Until then, you won't get shit.
Update: A few cliffnotes for this fellow. Mr. Wilson, the moral case for invading Iraq, as I see it, is to make the lives of Iraqis better. Unseating Mr. Hussein is immoral if Iraq is worse off for it in the end. And until reconstruction succeeds, that still remains a possibility. The removal of Saddam may well create a power vacuum as harmful and devastating as the dictator himself, in which case, no, there's no cause for celebration. The picture is there to illustrate just how many Iraqis have chosen caution and reserve rather than outright rapture (and I'm guessing that caution is actually the majority view), because plenty can still go wrong. Eh? You seem to nod at that fact without really thinking about it (although in fairness, your post on Tikrit was exactly what I had in mind. My apologies for being lost in my own excitement). If I'm proven wrong, and reconstruction goes well, and Iraq becomes a better place, then I'll happily admit that I predicted wrong. But until then, I have no reason to give you the joy and excitement you seem to want as proof of my credibility. I don't see why this is such an extremist position to take.
Double update: As Mr. Wilson pointed out, I was being a bit rhetorically overblown when I said I won't be satisfied until elections come about. Even being optimistic, I wouldn't expect elections for at least a couple of years. But there is still so much to do: get the power running again, stop the looting and rioting, eliminate the Republican guard, impose order, create a working Iraqi police force, fend off Syria and Iran, get humanitarian aid flowing, resolve Kurdish-Turkish tensions, and on and on ad infinitum. Until all these things and more take place, the war isn't even close to being over, and elections seem like as good a benchmark for success as any.
Posted by Brad Plumer,
3:49 PM
-
And COSO Has Its Own Division in the Luftwaffe Of course Frank could make my favorite argument. The Nazis had the SA and they went around beating up people with whom they disagreed. We don't want to be like the Nazis do we? - John Stevenson (I don't think their link-to-post anchors work)
Janos Marton is Ernst Rohm.
Posted by Jonathan,
2:42 PM
-
Faux News Bias We all know that Fox News is the Bible-as-opposed-to-Koran-thumper's Al-Jazeera. Here's a nice example of their selective reporting. Grossman, early this morning, posted this link to a Fox News story, which borrows heavily from these two articles (1 and 2). What Fox News does not add, in their version of the story is this tidbit from one of the two other articles:
But an expert familiar with U.N. nuclear inspections told the Associated Press that it was implausible to belive that U.S. Forces had uncovered anything new at the site. Instead, the Marines apparently broke U.N. seals designed to ensure materials aren't diverted for weapons use or end up in the wrong hands.
Al-Tuwaitha was among the first sites that IAEA inspectors sought out after the resumption of inspections on Nov. 27 after a four-year break.
For almost a week, the Combat Engineer Battalion of the U.S. Marines has defended the mammoth nexus of laboratories, warehouses and offices from Iraqi counterattacks.
Marines now also must safeguard those apparent atomic stores. The Combat Engineers said looters or Iraqi officials broke seals placed on uranium stores at the Yellowcake site by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Now, it may turn out that this is the "smoking gun," and the Dartloggers will inseminate their pants in excitement because those goddamn liberals were wrong again. However, this is like their fallacious argumentation strategy vis-a-vis the "moral failure" of those who opposed the war on the grounds of a principle based in respect for international law and diplomacy (not out of impractical pacifism or some conspiracy oil theory that doesn't necessary hold water). Arguing that this being an actual find undermines the accusation of shoddy journalistic standards is more of that a posteriori moralizing. It's very easy to be right when your premises are formed from conclusions, rather than the other way around.
"...Clint Hendler asks me if I condemn Pope John Paul II's opposition to the war as quickly as I do that of most war opponents.The answer? Yes, I do... he should know better than to softpedal for dictators... When I saw that photo of the Pope meeting with Tariq Assiz, I was disgusted."
Emmett, how does this picture make you feel?
Posted by Clint,
11:56 AM
-
Fred Cowan '67 to challenge Jim Bunning... ...in Kentucky's 2004 senatorial election. Jim Bunning (R), besides his recent accusations of "treason" towards Peter Arnett, is best known for being a Detroit Tigers pitcher and baseball hall of famer. In 1998 he narrowly defeated Scotty Baesler, a former University of Kentucky basketball star, in an open race for the seat he now holds. Paul Patton, the current governor, was expected to get the Dem nod to challenge Bunning, but withdrew after a sex combined with abuse of power scandal broke.
Cowan is the former Attorney General of Kentucky. I was on student council with his youngest daughter in middle school, and ran into her at gay rights and anti-Klan protests throughout high school. She used to frequently wear a shirt with the full text of the ERA printed on it. Another daughter is a Dartmouth '93, and a KDE founder--as I remember. Cowan hosted a reception at his house for all Kentucky kids accepted or wait-listed in the '05 class--there were 25 of us. He convinced me that Dartmouth was not a bad place to go for politically active--or liberal--students by pointing out his contemporaries--Angus King '66, former Governor of Maine, and Robert Reich '68, former Labor Secretary.
Over thanksgiving I ran into him at a talk that Robert McNamara (Kennedy and Johnson's Secretary of Defense and long time World Bank head) was giving at the University of Louisville. McNamara and Cowan had a relationship analogous to my relationship with Rumsfeld. Cowan participated in anti-Vietnam war activities while he was an undergrad. He was sitting alone, near the back--those in the room who recognized him buzzed at how surprised they were to see him here. After the lecture had finished, I went up to Cowan and asked what it was like to hear his old nemesis bash the (then) upcoming war in Iraq while apologizing for his Vietnam misdeeds. Cowan laughed and admitted that it was unsettling--and said something to the effect the never thought he'd find himself agreeing with McNamara.
Kentucky is tough on Democrats--especially liberal ones. The only Democrat in the congressional delegation is very conservative "Blue Dog." I don't put his odds very high. People are already dismissing him as a second tier candidate since Cowan hasn't won a race in the last ten years, which included runs for county executive and Lt. Governor.
At cnn.com you can find out that there have been 136 "coalition" deaths, mostly American. In addition, "at least" 399 of our troops have been wounded. NYTimes.com estimates that 13,800 Iraqi soldiers have been killed.
Suicide bombers, depleted uranium. hard times. As the conservatives news networks trip over themselves to declare victory, they disregard the sacrifice that so many American soldiers and their families have made in this war. They disregard the hard road ahead before our troops get to return home. For a war that might not have been fought, it doesn't seem like there's that much to celebrate. I hope the best for our soldiers and that they are able to enact a fast transition to better times in Iraq. But Iraq is still volatile, and with Bush and his gang eyeing Syria the situation looks grim.
Posted by Graham,
12:55 AM
-
Thursday, April 10, 2003 The Dartmouth
The highlight of today's paper may well have been the picture of the beautiful tree being drawn by someone taking a drawing class. I also can't come to quite so depressing a conclusion as their guest columnist as matter of factly as he can:
So, what I am trying to say is that democracy is bad for Iraq and for the Middle-East. They don't want it. We can't be sure if a bin Laden-like radical may take over Baghdad and, with the world's second largest oil reserves under his belt, declare jihad on everyone else. We can't let the majority rule and the Shia won't allow the minority to stay in power. So why do we need democracy in Iraq at all? Let's just keep a benevolent American military administration in Baghdad, and sit back and enjoy the cheap oil.
I have a nagging suspicion -- well a hope -- that he was being sarcastic. He was also the guy who decided that the Israel-Palestine conflict was "a wholly unnecessary struggle, with the Palestinian goal totally unattainable under any circumstances in today's world," and that Palestine ought to just give up.
I must say, if I want to read nonsense, I'd much rather get the Dartmouth Review. At least those guys have some skill at writing, wit and rhetoric.
For links to both the editorials (and to decide if he was just being sarcastic...) go here
Posted by Nikhil,
10:38 PM
-
No, the Nazis weren't stupid.
"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." -Nazi leader Hermann Goering, interviewed by Gustave Gilbert during the Easter recess of the Nuremberg trials, 1946 April 18, quoted in Gilbert's book Nuremberg Diary
Before Emmett and his friends at Dartlog get too carried away, they might want to take a look at the third gallery here: Iraq's Agony, courtesy of Newsweek.
President George W. Bush signed the Afghanistan Freedom Support Act into law last Dec. 4, authorizing $3.3 billion in economic, political, humanitarian and security assistance for Afghanistan over the next four years. The next month, Bush submitted the 2003 budget authorization to Congress but requested slightly less than that.
Posted by Nikhil,
9:53 PM
-
New Hampshire Poll from before last week Dean and Kerry were tied in New Hampshire with 21%. Lieberman was at 9%, Gephardt was at 6%, and Gary Hart at 3%. All the rest, including Edwards (the big fundraiser) were at 2% or below. (Franklin Pierce poll cited by the Hotline)
"Those who opposed war should hang their heads in shame... they have forfeited any claim to the moral high ground -- for a long time to come." "I'm giving no quarter on this. The anti-war movement was a moral failing of disastrous proportions." --EmmettHogan
What about this guy?
"By now, it should be clear to all that the use of war as a means of resolving disputes between States was rejected, even before the UN Charter, by the consciences of the majority of humanity, except in the case of legitimate defence against an aggressor. The vast contemporary movement in favour of peace ... demonstrates this conviction of people of every continent and culture."--Pope John Paul II
Posted by Clint,
4:48 PM
-
SA lunacy Student Assembly is full of smart assed reps who will raise the most peripheral objections to no-brainer/not worth discussing resolutions. Here's a great one from this week's meeting notes:
Hand sanitizer near blitz terminals-- will it create superbugs?
Posted by Clint,
3:22 PM
-
Re: Pomp and Circumstance Secondly, there is simply no comparison between the Constitution (which is real, honest-to-goodness law) and the blustering declarations coming from the UN, which -- when they fail to enforce them -- loses even the veneer of real law. Naturally, my dismissal of the UN's "law" as arcane minutiae does not extend to the U.S. Constitution, the details of which I take as seriously as the broad principles themselves. Your argument is quite disingenuous.
...or so says Emmett in a response to my post, below. In response to Emmett, I offer a question: why do you view the Consitution as "real, honest-to-goodness law," and the "blustering declarations coming from the UN" as something other? Is it merely because you take the "broad principles" of the Constitution more seriously than those of the UN Charter? Our ratification of that document was done through the instruments of the United States government, vested with the authority of the people through the Constitution you hold so dear. Our failure to respect and take seriously the UN is a failure to uphold the solemn promise of our nation to the other Charter signatories. In the same way, if those bound by the Constitutional agreement into which they willingly entered - citizens of the United States (those by birth have the option of departing, should they wish) - are only bound by the Constitution because they have endowed it with their fealty.
What would be disingenuous would be for one to claim American citizenship and then work from within to subvert the Constitution. Likewise, it is disingenous to have sworn our oath to a body (the UN) which we then ignore at our whimsy. If the UN is dysfunctional, it is because those who have sworn themselves to respecting it are neglecting that responsibility. However, "dysfunction" is not defined as nations within the UN maintaining their rights under the Charter to exercise a veto. To call this dysfunction is the same as throwing away votes that don't agree with your opinion; you are making a mockery of democracy, even if it is for something you perceive to be a greater good.
If you think that a "republic of nations" cannot possibly function to the betterment of the world, then you should advocate our complete withdrawal from the UN and whatever costs we might bear in doing so, not the flaunting of our oath to the UN. If, like me, you believe there is something to be gained from a regime of international law that you are so quick to pooh-pooh, then you should work within that regime to strengthen it for the sake of upholding moral principle, rather than instituting the method most expedient in acheiving a goal. I cede you no moral ground, sir, merely because the Iraqis rejoice. I am glad for this consequence of our actions, I am not happy over what our actions mean for the credibility of our country vis-a-vis its status as a "moral" nation. Morality dictates that one abides by one's commitments. Our nation must choose whether it wishes to remain committed to international law, or to a priori decline such a regime. Should we choose the former course, we are bound to uphold that law, even to our own detriment, in the same way Voltaire bound himself to defending what you had to say, even if he didn't like it.
The Bush tax cut on dividends is supposed to spur economic growth by removing disincentives for investment & hard work, if you believe in Arthur Laffer-inspired voodoo-economic theory.
But, in practice, the vast majority of stock market wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few, who are all so rich that decreasing returns have set in. They already have so much money that tax cuts are irrelevant. Sandy Weill and Larry Ellison aren't in it for the money anymore.
Posted by sam,
2:03 PM
-
Took Them Long Enough I've been blogging about this for awhile. I'm glad someone up near the top finally came around (and I'm sure it was from reading this blog).
Today, the Army, seeking to demonstrate that its troops in Iraq are "liberators" and not "conquerors" barred any display of the American flag on vehicles, buildings, statues, and command posts. - NY Times
The fall of Baghdad gives us a reason to cheer and strengthens hope for a free, prosperous Iraq. But the job is not over... it is just beginning
Posted by sam,
1:54 PM
-
In Response to Chien Wen CW - This analogy is faulty. The element on the left, while not an element I find favorable, has virtually no chance of facing relegation. That on the right, on the other hand, can effectively be said to have been relegated at this point.
Posted by Jonathan,
10:16 AM
-
Anarchy, State, and Rent Control Brad Delong posts a great old TNR story about how libertarian Robert Nozick once zealously sued to enforce rent control laws. I have to post on this, as it is such a perfect story for political theorists and former TNR interns like me. Delong also posed to his class the interesting question of whether this should affect our interpretation of Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Here's part of the TNR story:
Robert Nozick, a philosophy professor at Harvard, is the intellectual hero of libertarians. His book, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, winner of the National Book Award in 1974, argues that "free minds and free markets" are the key to a successful society. While endorsing personal choice on social issues like drugs and pornography, Nozick mocked the economic interventionism of contemporary liberals who, he said, are "willing to tolerate every kind of behavior except capitalistic acts between consenting adults." Alas, it now appears that like so many other advocates of the free market, Nozick is willing to make one small exception --himself. In September 1983, Nozick signed a one-year lease on a condominium apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts, owned by Eric Segal, the eminent classical scholar and author of _Love Story_. Segal, who bought the place in 1972, has lived there only occasionally and now resides in England. The apartment is a beauty, actually two combined units with 2,500 square feet of space, a wine "safe", Jacuzzi, sauna, and a 50-foot balcony overlooking the Charles River. As a consenting adult, Nozick agreed to pay Segal $1,900 a month. ... Nozick knew he had not been the first tenant. Segal had rented out the apartment several times before to friends and acquaintances. After some investigating, Nozick turned up a couple in the building who house-sat the apartment for six months in 1976, without a lease, paying only $675 a month. In September 1985, Nozick's second lease expired. Even though he had no contractual right to stay in Segal's apartment, he did not want to move out. The interventionist state to the rescue once again! Under Cambridge's rent control ordinance, even a tenant without a lease is evictable only if the owner himself wanted to move into the apartment. Not only did Nozick stay put, but a month later he filed suit against Segal in Cambridge District Court. Nozick argued the rent --based on the $675 base figure-- should now be only about $800. He demanded a $25,000 refund for two years of "overpayment" --plus triple damages.
Also, in the comments, there is a link to an interview of Nozick by blogger Julian Sanchez:
RN: Yes. But I never stopped self-applying. What I was really saying in The Examined Life was that I was no longer as hardcore a libertarian as I had been before. But the rumors of my deviation (or apostasy!) from libertarianism were much exaggerated. I think this book makes clear the extent to which I still am within the general framework of libertarianism, especially the ethics chapter and its section on the "Core Principle of Ethics." One thing that I think reinforced the view that I had rejected libertarianism was a story about an apartment of [Love Story author] Erich Segal's that I had been renting. Do you know about that? JS: I did hear about that. The story that had gone around was that you had taken action against a landlord to secure a certain fixed rent… RN: That's right. In the rent he was charging me, Erich Segal was violating a Cambridge rent control statute. I knew at the time that when I let my intense irritation with representatives of Erich Segal lead me to invoke against him rent control laws that I opposed and disapproved of, that I would later come to regret it, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do.
Posted by Timothy,
1:35 AM
-
And speaking of filibustering (judicial nominations that is...) You really have to admire this guy's style (via atrios).
Update: lower down on the same page, uggabugga reprints this exchange on the Charlie Rose Show on April 8, 2003:
David Brooks: If you go to The New Republic website, you read this fantastic diary the Iraqi intellectual Makiya is writing. One of the things he talks about are the wounds that psychologically these people have suffered. They've suffered incredible deprivation ... Tony Judt: I hate to agree with you David. This is going to undermine your reputation at the Weekly Standard and elsewhere. But I do agree. However ... Charlie Rose: He's already done that by quoting The New Republic. Tony Judt: That's true. [pause] Well, not so much these days.
You know Eric Alterman is laughing.
Posted by Timothy,
12:42 AM
-
The Filibuster is Dissed! Ok, I know the daily paper at Dartmouth seems to avoid like the plague mentions of other campus publications like The Review and The Free Press. But they do mention it occasionally, such as printing a letter to the editor complaining about a racist statement on dartlog. They can claim their excuse is that other publications are not news. But things at Columbia are ridiculous. Columbia Political Review's blog The Filibuster has lately been tearing up the blogosphere. Ghe granddaddy of the blogs, instapundit, linked to them multiple times, calling them De Genova central, and the best lefty group blog, period. That's high praise! Yet today, the Columbia Daily Spectator prints this story on blogs without mentioning the filibuster or really any other student political blogs! (link from this Columbia blogger, via SpecAlert) How pathetic. And how pathetic a story too. I can understand not writing about blogs, but if you were to write about blogs at Columbia now, you had to mention the Filibuster. Again, pathetic and deserving of criticism. Are we supposed to believe the Spectator's reporters are that imcompetant? If I were a leftist group, I would use this as a prime exhibit for how the Spectator's agenda shapes and skews its coverage. (Of course, a leftist group likely would not want to take up the cause of the filibuster, and Columbia Political Review editor Adam Kushner would not likely want to see the blog not being mentioned used to bash the Spectator! Heh. By the way, no jokes from Dartmouth people about how I already am a 'leftist group' unto myself.)
With all the war profiteering going on, one would think Halliburton would be a much better investment...
Posted by sam,
12:11 AM
-
Wednesday, April 09, 2003 Republicans and Racism Part XVII
Rep. Barbara Cubin, R-Wyo., was accused of being racially insensitive by Rep. Melvin Watt, D-N.C., during debate over whether to prohibit lawsuits from being brought against gun and ammunition manufacturers, dealers and importers for damage resulting from misuse of their products. Cubin, who supports the bill, was complaining about a failed Democratic amendment that would have banned gun sales to drug addicts or people undergoing drug treatment. "So does that mean that if you go into a black community, you can't sell any guns to any black person?" she asked. Watt immediately interrupted Cubin, calling for her words to be stricken from the House record. Cubin apologized for offending Watt's "sensitivities," saying she was sorry if her words offended anyone, but she refused to have her words removed from the debate. More
Posted by Timothy,
11:59 PM
-
Shameful The provisions of the Patriot Act are not due to expire for 2 and a half years. Yet Republicans want to pass a law making permanent these 'temporary' provisions for fighting terrorism passed in the wake of September 11. And they will schedule a vote on this possibly next week (coincidently in the middle of war celebration... hmm....). It seems like the anti-war marches should change, or at least incorporate this into, their message.
Posted by Timothy,
11:51 PM
-
Fair and Balanced? Emmett Hogan on dartlog likens Al Jazeera to 'Saddam's Spin Doctors' (or worse, the BBC). Wonder what he has to say to Bush administration officials quoted in TNR?
Speaking to USA Today on March 24, Lieutenant Joshua Rushing, Central Command's liaison to the station, said, "I think [Al Jazeera is] as fair and balanced as a lot of our coverage in the United States. ... I think in terms of the higher principles of journalism, they are just like the 24-hour news stations in the U.S."
Several male students, one wielding a wooden plank, broke into the suite of an anti-war activist in Calhoun College March 27 and wrote a hateful note on her bedroom message board, said the victim, Katherine Lo '05. Lo said the incident occurred a day after she hung an American flag upside-down from her bedroom window to protest the war in Iraq. More
Posted by Timothy,
11:22 PM
-
Still Feeling Vindicated?
"If such was needed. All over the news today, even from the Stevenson-style centrists at CNN, it has become clear that this war wouldn't be easy. "
"It has become clear that while Mr. Hussein was a vile dictator, many Iraqis, and certainly many in the rest of the Arab world, are more concerned with our own brand of Facism."
"The dream of hoardes of newly freed civilians who chant our praise have sort of turned out to be as much a fantasy as any of the other pretexts of this war. "
"The freed child has become the suicide bomber - at least one familliar face in all this, and a foreshadowing of what will likely be the most clear and literal impetus for organized terrorism the world has ever seen."
"The American People stll support the war, but unless things change soon, even Fox News will have to post some news about our failure in Iraq."
Posted by sam,
10:45 PM
-
Regime change: Bush just needs to change his ideologies of mass destruction... In September of last year, Josh Marshall noted that President Bush had this interesting interpretation of the meaning of the phrase 'regime change':
If [Saddam] were to meet all the conditions of the United Nations, the conditions that I've described very clearly in terms that everybody can understand, that in itself will signal the regime has changed ...
Bush was willing to say the term 'regime change' did not by definition mean that the head of the regime had to leave, but that the regime had to at least change its behavior. I mention the quote cited by Marshall because if Bush can stretch the meaning of regime change so far, how can GOP political operatives and pundits automatically assume what John Kerry meant or must have meant when he called for 'regime change' in the U.S.? If we use Bush's above quoted definition, then perhaps regime change in the U.S. need only involve Bush repealing his tax cuts, restoring civil liberties, and having a coherent, sane, foreign policy not directed by neo-cons (and a few other little things). But all the evidence of the past few years shows that Bush will not change his his ways and we do not want prolonged tests of Bush's ideology, where he plays hide-and-seek by dishing out little bits of compassionate conservatism. I say hold the elections as planned.
Posted by Timothy,
10:37 PM
-
Radical Republicans today and then: the Legality of the Civil War Amendments and Democratic reactions to the war on Iraq
A while ago, I read a story in the New Republic comparing today's Republican hawks to Abraham Lincoln. I have been looking at law reviews on Civil War reconstruction (yes, I do this for fun), and it occurred to me that we do have the radical Republicans again and we have to think about how THEY (and we) want to pursue reconstruction in Iraq and its dangers. I do not want to make too much of this, but it seems that a problem with quick U.S. military victories everywhere without resistance means the dangers of unchecked power: this point is similar to former Dartmouth Review editor Steven Menashi's argument about how Dartmouth needed fraternities as a counterweight to the power of the college administration (I believe he cited De Tocqueville). If the U.S. can impose its will everywhere, this can be a problem itself, and we cannot be sure its intentions will remain good (and it is not clear they are good now or the means are justified). Rather than argue for a conclusion, I'm here trying to draw out the difference in the structures of the arguments, not their validity or soundness. Conservative thought has long been against radical overthrow and revolutions, but the neo-cons seem to have replace the lovers of Burke.
But if the Republicans are the radicals, what are the Democrats today? Staying on the side of procedure and constitutionality and non-use of force bears a resemblance in structure to the position of Southern Democrats in the Civil War era. For those of us who think international law is important and following the procedure of gaining U.N. approval is important, we must ask how far this extends. Do the ends of freedom ever justify the means? Are the ends valid in Iraq? Who decides and how do we legitimate the political authorities who decide these questions?
So partly in fun, I suggest we test this by asking people's position on the adoption of the reconstruction amendments the constitution. Was this done illegally? If so, what is your theory? If not, is it still justified to say they are part of our constitution? Anyway, here's some stuff from law reviews. First from Bruce Ackerman, who thinks that the fourteenth amendment to the U.S. was not ratified under Article V of the constitution (but that's OK by him; a similar thing happened at the founding and during the New Deal):
I begin my three stage argument by elaborating on Chief Justice Hughes' gesture toward the dark clouds surrounding the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. As the Coleman court intimates, ten of the existing state governments of the South, along with three border states, solemnly rejected the Republicans' initiative during the months following its proposal in June, 1866. n97 If the Reconstruction Congress had accepted these rejections, it would have been obliged by the rules of Article Five to conclude that its proposed Amendment was dead. Thirteen rejections is a lot more than the nine then required to invoke the veto formally accorded one-quarter of the states by the rules of Article Five. n98 The Reconstruction Republicans in control of Congress, however, refused to accept this outcome. Instead, they passed a series of Reconstruction Acts that sought [*501] nothing less than to destroy the dissenting governments of the South and to reconstruct them on a basis that would make ratification of the Amendment more likely -- instructing the Union Army to register freed blacks as well as whites in the reconstructed state electorates (note that this was before the Fifteenth Amendment). n99
The obvious question this raises is whether congressional reconstruction could be justified under the clause making the United States a guarantor of the republican form of government in all the states. n100 Even if this difficult problem is solved satisfactorily, it only prepares the way for a truly unresolvable dilemma. The impossible question arises when we see how the Reconstruction Act treated the new black-and-white Southern governments even after they had organized themselves in complete compliance with Congress' demands. Section Five of the first Reconstruction Act denied these new democratically elected states the authority to send senators and representatives to Congress on an equal footing with the other states until they ratified the Fourteenth Amendment! n101 Now there is simply no way that this demand can be reconciled with the rules of Article Five. If these rules mean anything, they deny Congress the authority to bootstrap its amendments to validity by destroying dissenting governments and then denying congressional representation to the new ones until they accept the constitutional initiatives that the preceding governments found unacceptable. Can [*502] it be thought surprising that Secretary Seward's first Proclamation concerning the Fourteenth Amendment expressed doubts about the Amendment's validity when state consent had been procured under ground rules at such variance with those specified by Article Five? n102
As if this were not enough, the formalist should be on notice that the Republican decision to play fast and loose with the rules of Article Five did not begin in 1868. Instead, the chain of "historic precedents" that mark the break with the Federalist rules begins with the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. n103 For present purposes, I restrict myself to a single additional problem, which I will call the Thirteenth-Fourteenth Amendment Paradox. The problem can be introduced with a single fact: The very governments Congress destroyed in response to their veto of the Fourteenth Amendment played a critical role in the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment. n104 How, then, could it be that these governments were legitimate enough to validate the Thirteenth but not legitimate when they refused to validate the Fourteenth?
The Paradox deepens when we introduce another fact about the months between February and December 1865 -- the period during which the states were considering whether they would ratify the Thirteenth Amendment. As the first set of post-War governments in the South were considering ratification, they were also selecting Senators and running elections for Representatives to the House. By early December, then, the Southerners were sending two legal signals to Washington: The first consisted of ratifications of the Thirteenth Amendment; the second, senators and representatives to the Thirty-ninth Congress, scheduled to convene on December 4, 1865.
These two communications were treated very differently when they were received in Washington. On December 18, Secretary Seward proclaimed the Thirteenth Amendment valid, explicitly citing the Southern ratifications in his official Proclamation. n105 Two weeks earlier, the Republicans in Congress refused to seat any of the Southern representatives, [*503] and continued to deny the Southern states representation throughout the entire period during which the Fourteenth Amendment was proposed and "ratified." n106 Southern exclusion, moreover, was a necessary political condition for the Republicans to gain the two-thirds vote required by Article Five for the proposal of a constitutional amendment. n107 How, then, can the formalist explain the legitimacy of the proposal of the Fourteenth Amendment by the Rump Republican "Congress" without simultaneously delegitimizing Secretary Seward's Proclamation validating the Thirteenth Amendment?
And if you would like some more background history, here's some material from a different law review (not by Ackerman):
Let's begin with some numbers. In 1865 there were thirty-six states; eleven were in the Confederacy and by Appomattox, twenty-five states supported the national cause. There were two theories on which an amendment could be ratified. First it could secure either twenty-seven (3/4 of 36) states. Alternatively, it might need only nineteen Union ratifications (3/4 of the 25) on the assumption that the Southern states were out until brought back in. Lincoln believed that excluding the Confederate states from the ratification process ""would be questionable and sure to be persistently questioned'" (p. 148) and in the brief period in which exclusion was viable, even the radical Henry Wilson, who thought it legitimate, eschewed reliance upon the nineteen Northern ratifications.
The Confederacy presented a constitutional dilemma. Once Andrew Johnson started with his vetoes, if the South were admitted to Congress, its representatives could join with Northern Democrats to block any legislation implementing the Thirteenth Amendment and, indeed, any further constitutional change. Yet if the South were excluded as states, no constitutional amendments beyond the Thirteenth could hope to achieve nineteen Northern ratifications. n7
On December 18, 1865, Secretary of State William Seward proclaimed the Thirteenth Amendment had been ratified by the requisite twenty-seven states (including the constitutionally intriguing West Virginia as well as eight from the Confederacy). Yet, two weeks earlier, Republican majorities in the Thirty-Ninth Congress had refused to seat Southern Representatives and Senators. The exclusion included Horace Maynard from eastern Tennessee, even though he had been seated during the Civil War!
[*551] Problem One, therefore, is how a state can ratify an amendment but be denied representation in the national government. Problem One, however, is easy compared to Problem Two. With the South excluded, as it would be throughout the Thirty-Ninth Congress, the Congress by 2/3 votes of its Northern members in both Houses proposed the Fourteenth Amendment. The new amendment could not receive the needed nineteen Northern ratifications. Therefore, to reach the three-fourths mark, some, perhaps all, states of the Confederacy were essential. With the exception of Tennessee (which ratified quickly and was rewarded with its Congressional seats), the Confederate states rejected the Fourteenth Amendment. Congress responded, after an extensive debate, by adopting a policy of military reconstruction. It wiped out the existing Southern governments that had ratified the Thirteenth Amendment and replaced them with new governments, which were informed that they could not have Congressional representation until the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified. Like Andrew Johnson facing conviction on the articles of impeachment, the South,too, switched.
Problem Two requires explanation of how a state can be stripped of Congressional representation unless and until it agrees to a proposed constitutional amendment. Not surprisingly, the text of Article V does not authorize excluding states from Congress unless they assent to proposed amendments. Conversely, Article V textually states "that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate." One need not be a dimwitted hypertextualist to understand that no representation for the South is not equal representation with the North.
....But no stalemate occurred because the 1866 elections were a spectacular Republican triumph. Republicans carried the House by 144-49, won every Northern legislature, and every contested gubernatorial race. By winning in the states that counted, the Republicans made them the states that were allowed to count. Meanwhile, Johnson clung to his former position and his hope for a different outcome in the 1868 elections....
The same numerical logic that had been operating to exclude the South was driving these events. If Johnson and the Democrats could successfully hold out, they could turn the 1868 elections into a battle over whether to adopt the Fourteenth Amendment (and whether to seat the South without the Fourteenth). In one sense, this was hardly an idle hope: Northern citizens would eventually tire of the constant political battles and some form of normalcy would reassert itself. The question was when. Because it might be 1868, the Republicans wanted the Fourteenth on the books before the elections. ... Second, after the Senate heard one of the House managers, Ben Butler, argue that Johnson could be convicted not only for actual crimes but also if his actions were "subversive of some fundamental or essential principle of government or highly prejudicial to the public interest," Johnson switched. (p. 227) (emphasis in original) He assured moderate Republicans that he would do nothing to violate the laws or Constitution if acquitted, but more importantly, he ceased his obstruction of Congressional Reconstruction in the South...
Posted by Timothy,
10:13 PM
-
Voices from the Arab Street:
Forget the pundits, this is what we need to listen to now....
"We discovered that all what the (Iraqi) information minister was saying was all lies," said Ali Hassan, a government employee in Cairo, Egypt. "Now no one believes Al-Jazeera anymore."
However, Tannous Basil, a 47-year-old cardiologist in Sidon, Lebanon, said Saddam's regime was a "dictatorship and had to go."
"I don't like the idea of having the Americans here, but we asked for it," he said. "Why don't we see the Americans going to Finland, for example? They come here because our area is filled with dictatorships like Saddam's."
Tarek al-Absi, a Yemeni university professor, was hopeful Saddam's end presaged more democracy in the region.
"This is a message for the Arab regimes, and could be the beginning of transformation in the Arab region," al-Absi said. "Without the honest help of the Western nations, the reforms will not take place in these countries."
"I spit on them," he said. "Do those crowds who are saluting the Americans believe that the United States will let them live better?" Fakhoury said. Americans "will loot their oil and control their resources, leaving them nothing."
Posted by sam,
9:00 PM
-
Straight unstraight strait talk I'm not sure WHAT to call Kerry's call that all judges uphold Roe v. Wade. From NJ's Hotline:
Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) said "as president he would only appoint judges" to SCOTUS who support Roe v. Wade. He told Dem women in IA "he would break the tradition that judicial candidates shouldn't be disqualified" over a single issue. Asked at the Hotel Fort Des Moines "if he would appoint judges who would uphold" Roe v. Wade, Kerry said: "Yes. That is not a litmus test, so to speak." In an interview after he said: "I don't want to get into an argument about litmus tests. The focus is on the constitutional right that Roe established in America. I want jurists to agree, who swear to uphold the Constitution." More Kerry: "If some people want to call it a test, they can call it a test." Univ. of WI prof Donald Downs, on Kerry's jud nominee comments: "I can't think of any example where it's been put that baldly." More Downs: "You know that that's sort of behind the agenda of some people, but to come out and say so specifically that's pretty much unprecedented." RNC spokesperson Jim Dyke said Kerry "sounds like he's willing to say anything to get elected." NARAL IA dir. Brenda Kole, who asked the question of Kerry, said: "I was expecting a confident answer from him." But ex-Univ. of WI prof Charles Johnson said Kerry's statements on "regime change" and jud nominees "are either boldly calculated to appeal to liberal voters or careless and potentially damaging" (Beaumont, Des Moines Register, 4/9). More Kerry, after his speech: "Litmus tests are politically motivated tests; this is a constitutional right." He "contrasted" Roe support "because it is a constitutional right" with GOP demands that jud nominees oppose abortion rights and said: "They're trying to undo a constitutional right. That's the difference." In his remarks 4/8, Kerry also "echoed a warning" ex-VP Al Gore made about the president's ability to shape SCOTUS
Posted by Timothy,
8:28 PM
-
To Earth Day planners on campus
Looking for a big issue around which to center the April 22 festivities on campus? Here's one idea:
In order to avoid staging a visible protest on an extremely important topic too late to have any impact (see DFP editorial here about an Arctic drilling protest on campus during the week before a Congressional floor vote), I recommend that interested parties on campus visit this page to learn more about the New Source Review issue. Cheney's gang could not be more in the pocket of the coal industry, and the proposed NSR changes would loosen pollution controls on power plants.
Once armed with all the important info, launch a blitzkrieg campaign to flood the EPA with letters. It's a lot to ask before the public comment period ends on May 2, but it has the potential to make a big difference. Unlike many issues on which public comment or demonstration is futile at best, federal agencies are required to read public comment; a couple thousand well-informed messages can heavily influence environmental rule-making.
Even the most anti-war of you have to smile at the thought of our troops liberating Baghdad to the shouts of cheering Iraqis. Regardless of your views on this conflict, we should support our armed forces when they are at war. This Washington Post article reminds me of the vids of allied forces liberating Paris. Now let's get our troops home safely!
Posted by Michael,
5:52 PM
-
Read their Lips: No New Tax Cuts!
Posted by sam,
5:24 PM
-
John R. Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, explained the standing U.S. policy on countries pursuing weapons of mass destruction today at the Vatican:
"It is our priority to achieve a peaceful elimination of these [WMD] programs so that supporters of terrorism cannot use them against innocent people."
"The United States considered Iraq a distinct case because attempts to eliminate its weapons have gone on for 12 years"
If you make the assumption that we have been "attempting" to eliminate North Korea's weapons since Kim Il Sung's death in July 1994, and that we have a new 12-year time-limit on peaceful attempts at WMD elimination - that would put us on schedule for a major Korean conflict sometime around 2006.
Posted by Dan,
2:24 PM
-
FTD Glad I never weighed in on the flower-tossing:
Crowds threw flowers at the Marines as they drove past the Martyrs' Monument, just three km (two miles) east of the central Jumhuriya Bridge over the river Tigris.
Posted by Jonathan,
12:28 PM
-
Pomp and Circumstance Those who opposed war should hang their heads in shame. The coddled mandarins of the West, enough removed from the reality of existence that they can think abstractly about life, must now realize the great extent of their moral failing. By putting the arcane minutiae of UN protocol above the security of the world and above the moral imperative to oppose the suffering of the Iraqis, they have forfeited any claim to the moral high ground -- for a long time to come. - Emmett at Dartlog
While it is difficult to argue that it seems, barring massive humanitarian failure, that the war will not have been a boon for ordinary Iraqis, Emmett's reasoning is spurious. By his reasoning, it would be a positive thing to jail every Muslim in the United States, disregarding the "arcane minutiae" of the Constitution (ironic coming from Mr. FIRE himself, congrats on the Harvard victory, btw) if jailing every Muslim resulted in fewer acts of terrorism. While it seems Mr. Ashcroft is content to do so (and everytime this comes up, I get a good excuse to link back to this), some of the others believe in the power of established principle over a luck-of-the-outcome style morality. Those who do might certainly enter into a debate with the Mr. Hogans of the world, but I hardly think that "they have forfeited any claim to the moral high ground."
Update:A Dartlogger weighs in, offering arguments similar to this one against the ex post facto moral superiority Emmett offered up.
Posted by Jonathan,
11:56 AM
-
Calling Dick Cheney, Calling Dick Cheney Cheney said the war has sent a clear message to all violent groups that the United States has the capacity and the will to wage war on terrorism and win decisively. - The AP via NYT
I think the Bushies need a Stevensonian logic lesson. There's someone for you to go "deprogram," John. The war sends a clear message to dictators sitting on top of ragamuffin armies of unwilling conscripts that we can topple them and defeat their militaries. It does not send a message to fanatical terrorists sitting on top of millions of dollars and armies of supporters willing to kill themselves for a cause that we can "win decisively" against them. Osama who?
Posted by Jonathan,
11:37 AM
-
Building Democracy / Killing Democracy
It doesn't really help our image over there either. If I lived in the Middle East, and read this, I'd be pretty scared of the big, bad United States too.
Posted by Nick,
10:22 AM
-
Texas Tea Josh Marshall has something pretty interesting to say about Iraq's oil. He, in turn, is blogging about an idea from an Op-Ed in the NYTimes. Sounds like a terrific idea to me, actually. What is it? Look and see. Should make the socialist-types amongst you happy, though.
Posted by Jonathan,
3:23 AM
-
Just so you don't miss it... In case you're taken by the idea that no one lost their cool over the recent sarin (oops, turns out that was pesticide) that they found in an agricultural warehouse - Iraq, you stoop so low. Jon posted this in comments. There was a great quote from the NYTimes: "We're treating it as real, we're reporting it as real," said Col. Tim Madere, the top chemical warfare officer in the V Corps of the Army.
Posted by Jared,
1:00 AM
-
Strange Moments in Constitutional History, Part II Yes, I find this oddly funny. Yes, I am going crazy. But you knew that already. I have found that law review articles sometimes have a terribly interesting way of beginning:
Brace yourselves for this one, Mountaineers: West Virginia might not legitimately be a State of the Union, but a mere illegal breakaway province of the Commonwealth of Virginia. In the summer of 1861, following the outbreak of the Civil War, thirty-five counties of Virginia west of the Shenandoah Valley and north of the Kanawha River met in convention in the town of Wheeling, to consider seceding from secessionist Virginia. In short order, the Wheeling convention declared itself the official, lawful, loyal government of Virginia and organized a proposed new State of (what would come to be called) West Virginia. Then, in what must certainly rank [*294] as one of the great constitutional legal fictions of all time, the legislature of Virginia (at Wheeling) and the proposed government of the new State of West Virginia (at Wheeling), with the approval of Congress, agreed to the creation of a new State of West Virginia (at Wheeling), thereby purporting to satisfy the requirements of Article IV, Section 3 of the Constitution for admission of new States "formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State." n1
...[I]s it clear that the text of the Constitution permits creation of new States out of existing States at all, irrespective of anybody's "consent"? A careful look at Article IV, Section 3 reveals a subtle ambiguity: A semicolon, rather than a comma, separates the "Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States" clause - which contains the consent requirements - from the prohibition of new States being "formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State." n3
Should the semicolon be understood as separating two distinct commands - as appears to be the case with the first semicolon of Article IV, Section 3, separating the grant of power to Congress to admit new States from the (two separate?) limitations on the power of Congress to admit States in the special case (cases?) of States formed by junction or separation, out of existing States? If so, even formal, legal-fiction consent does not matter: The limitation on admission of States carved from the "jurisdiction" of an existing State is a flat prohibition, not a description of circumstances for which consent is required; the consent proviso only applies to new States created by the junction of two or more existing States, or parts thereof, and thus cannot save poor West Virginia (and probably cannot save Kentucky, Maine, and possibly Vermont, either) from unconstitutionality. Indeed, even if the semicolon is merely an overgrown comma, and not a hard clause-break, the same conclusion might follow under the grammatical convention that a qualifying phrase (usually) modifies only the immediately preceding antecedent phrase. Both grammar rules and punctuation marks thus appear to conspire against the constitutionality of West Virginia. ... Part II, in addition to offering what we immodestly think is the most comprehensive analysis ever written on the linguistic meaning and original understanding of the Constitution's use of semicolons and antecedent phrase modification, offers serious lessons of more general application, concerning what should count as persuasive evidence of constitutional meaning, and the relationship of considerations of text, history, structure, purpose, intention, and accident, in theories of constitutional interpretation.
(I have slightly condensed the quote from my original post in hopes that others will see the hilariousness of it).
Posted by Timothy,
12:04 AM
-
Tuesday, April 08, 2003 Did this really happen? Mr. Wolfowitz, however, played the diplomat on Sunday, gliding past Tim Russert's probing on whether the neo-cons' dreams of other campaigns in Syria, Iran and North Korea would come true. Pressed, he said, "There's got to be change in Syria as well."
The Times's David Sanger reported that when a Bush aide stepped into the Oval Office to tell the president recently that his hard-boiled defense secretary had been shaking a fist at Syria, Mr. Bush smiled and said one word: "Good." - Maureen Dowd's "Dances with Wolfowitz" Column in the NYT
The civilian population of the US is going to pay in its blood for these jaunts and expeditions.
Posted by Jonathan,
11:07 PM
-
Another Saddam Here's a perspective on Saddam Hussein that you may have trouble finding among western sources. Mani Shankar Aiyar, a former Indian diplomat to Iraq, writes of how the spectacular modernizations achieved by Iraq under Saddam Hussein might not have been achievable under a more typical Islamic government held captive to fundamentalist interests. He's certainly treading on controversial territory though. I've heard similar arguments made to justify Stalin's brutal rule. Nonetheless, a good read.
Update: Discussion of Baathist modernizations are not entirely absent from western media. Last night, I was watching a Charlie Rose interview with Mark Bowden, the author of a recent Saddam biography/villification. Bowden actually mentions these same "liberalizing" policies of the Baath party, only he puts them in a context of Saddam piggybacking on his more reform-minded colleagues. According to Bowden, Saddam used undoubtedly noble reform policies as stepping stones to consolidate power - Obviously, a more of a negative spin than in the above article.
Posted by Justin Sarma,
7:32 PM
-
Not yet, folks AFP is reporting that the "nerve agent" found and much ballyhooed actually ended up being pesticide. Shouldn't be much of a surprise to those who caught this in today's NYTimes. You know, there's a great story about this boy who cried wolf too many times....
Posted by Clint,
6:12 PM
-
the motive if this fight is really over the liberation of the Iraqi people, why is Bush so intent on an American controlled reconstruction process? This article explains the goings on in Northern Ireland where Bush and Blair are conspiring. Sounds like Blair is trying to pull the world back into the picture. Hopefully that's what's happening anyway. Why on earth would it be better for the Iraqis to keep the UN out of a meaningful role? Why on earth would it be better for America CITIZENS (who aren't employed by certain major corporations) for Bush to deny the UN the participation that it wants? If the goals are as self-serving as I suspect, how empty is the republican flag waving patriotism and censure of John Kerry's recent calls for regime change at home? But patriotism comes real cheap these days as Krugman explains. Also, maybe I'm out of the loop or something, but has anybody seen any "WMDs" around lately? I thought this war was about defending American and our global allies. But then the Iraqi army folded (for the sake of our troops in the field, I hope this apparent trend doesn't change). And then I thought this war was about liberation. But now I see Bush boxing out the international community from the rebuilding process like he was Charles Oakley in the low post.
what's going on in America? opposition to an extremely partisan president is unpatriotic. liberation of suffering people looks more like corporate racketeering. nobody is asked to sacrifice back home during wartime, except of course the military families. and of course the veterans whose programs are being cut to provide tax breaks for people who don't need them. oh yeah, sick poor people are also being asked to give up services. and kids who would have gained from improved rather than hamstrung public schools.
and for anyone curious about propaganda and "the coalition" check out this column by Nicholas Kristof especially the bottom half.
Posted by Graham,
3:08 PM
-
Dynamic Budget Lies Slate's Daniel Gross describes how the Congressional Budget Office's new "Dynamic Scoring," method of fiscal analysis will take into account the possible effects of tax cuts on growth, the economy, and government revenues (thereby projecting a smaller deficit). This is one of the worst ideas that the supply-side addicts ever came up with. First of all, CBO can't come up with an accurate 10 year economic prediction -- without dynamic scoring -- much less one with dynamic scoring, which involves even more guesstimation. Second, the notion that tax cuts are the only policies that have "dynamic" effects on the economy and the government revenues is absolutely ridiculous. Many of the domestic programs Bush is planning to gut in order to "shrink government" have at least as good a chance of stimulating the economy. Question to CBO: Who is more likely to put a government hand out back into the economy, a starving military veteran (facing an $14B cut in services) or a wealthy CEO?
Posted by Dan,
2:17 PM
-
Boondocks Censorship Aaron McGruder's The Boondocks, which, according to John Nichols of The Nation "has been the most biting and consistent critique of the war and its discontents in the nation's mass media" has been pulled from the The Durham Herald Sun for this strip:
Seems very funny to me. I hate Cuba Gooding Jr. And war mongers.
Posted by Clint,
1:48 PM
-
This is what they call 'blowback"
CIA paramilitaries and Delta Force commandos had tracked Saddam using his British-made communication system known as "Jaguar," senior U.S. intelligence officials say. The system, sold by Britain to Iraq during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, encrypted, or scrambled, Saddam's voice. But U.S. intelligence officials say they recently cracked the code.
From USA Today Good thing we learned the code-recently. In other words, Saddam was able to converse secretly for the Persian Gulf war, and in the sanctions period, because of a British sale to him when he was an ally of the Anglo-Americans.
Posted by Clint,
1:17 PM
-
String up Geraldo! Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court. - US Constitution, Article III, Section 3
Geraldo (1) drew our troop locations in the sand for the TV camera of a network that almost certainly (and unfortunately) was/is being monitored by someone in the Iraqi military - that is certainly aiding the enemy - and (2) his act was certainly witnessed by at least two people/US citizens physically present, and many others watching on television. I say he gets one of those military tribunals!
Of course, Jim Bunning (R-KY) only asked for one for Peter Arnett, who by any "objective" (I thought that was supposed to be Fox News) view did less in the way of treason - if in fact either of them could be said to be committing it - than to map out a US troop location in the sand. Arnett could probably renounce his US citizenship and go back to his native New Zealand. I wonder if Geraldo will renounce and go back to whatever hole spawned him.
You could also ask, though, what makes a nation an "enemy." I'd be interested in hearing a formal definition. If it is a declaration of war against that nation, looks like neither Arnett or Geraldo will be hanging any time soon. Hell, no one will; Congress has too many cowards in it to take a stand like actually declaring war.
Posted by Jonathan,
4:47 AM
-
And I thought Columbia editorials were bad... Take a look at this piece of drivel from The Dartmouth a week or two ago:
Overall, the clear and constant reporting of military operations benefits citizens at home and abroad. The steady stream of information allows for stances on the war that are based in fact. Protests, be they for or against the conflict, carry little weight when the protestors are not informed. The media's intensive efforts have resulted in a public that is more educated about -- and involved in -- its government's military decisions. Perhaps as important as informing U.S. citizens, the media's coverage has made the military's actions far more transparent. Even those nations opposed to war can be more confident that this conflict will not be conducted in secret. On the other hand, this barrage of information does not guarantee a comprehensive understanding of the situation. People are easily swayed by graphic images or reports of casualties. We need to be cautious to see photographs and reports for what they are: small pieces of a much larger picture.
Yeah, the media has done such a good job informing the public that half of them think Saddam was behind 9/11. Take a look at the letters page on medianews.org for some criticism of embedded journalism (which should have been at least mentioned in the editorial). Editors of The Dartmouth responsible for this: I understand you no longer seem to care if others do not respect you as journalists, but how can you even respect yourselves?
Posted by Timothy,
1:08 AM
-
Dartmouth Review idiot Here's a post from dartlog on a march against sexual assault they say took place on fraternity row (emphasis added):
"2-4-6-8...stop the date rape" and "Hey hey, ho ho...sexual assault has got to go" or something to that effect Pots and pans banged Sexual Assault Awareness march down frat row Any more appropriate than having a protest against Affirmative Action outside of Cutter Shabazz?
How suprised would any one be if Reviewers did organize some kind of counter-protest putting white boys denied admission by affirmative action on par with rape victims? (But try protesting outside the admissions office, OK guys?)
Posted by Timothy,
12:55 AM
-
Monday, April 07, 2003 Fox News through the ages What if Murdoch's channel had reported on historical events. (Via atrios, who has the best one here)
The headline on the CNN site right now looks exactly like this: LEADERSHIP STRIKE Someone tell me that's not sensationalism
Posted by Nikhil,
11:09 PM
-
Transnational Progressivism The National Review has this article on what those craxy lefty academics are up to now:
Another school of radicals does some imagining of its own. It envisages an international political monolith with which to replace America and indeed all of liberal democracy in the West. These yearnings are embodied in a doctrine called “transnational progressivism,” which is gaining prominence in law schools, for example, at Princeton and Rutgers. As John Fonte of the Hudson Institute points out, professors in this camp argue for the establishment of a new transnational regime, or world government, that is post-liberal democratic and, in the American context, post-Constitutional and post-American. Within such a regime the key political unit would not be the individual citizen who voluntarily associates with fellow citizens but the racial, ethnic, or gender group into which one is born.
I got this from Tapped which wisely notes: "Tapped don't know about this whole 'transnational progressivism thing,' which from her description sounds goofy and marginal. But we do know that Princeton doesn't have a law school. Actually, it all makes sense. Given that the horrors of liberal academia have ascended, in the hands of conservatives like de Russy and David Horowitz, to the status of myth, it only makes sense that a thing like 'transnational progressivism' would thrive at a place that doesn't actually exist. " Matthew Yglesias has these conclusions:
1. There is no such thing as transnational progressivism. 2. There is no such place as Princeton Law School. 3. The nonexistent ideology of transnational progressivism is not being taught at Princeton’s nonexistent law school or any other (real or fictional) place. 4. The National Review is lying to you.
The National Review is certainly lying. How can you trust them to describe a lefty doctrine when they claim it comes from a law school that does not exist. But Matt is not quite right either. There is something like 'transnational progressivism" in academia, but it is not called that, and it is not like how the national review describes it (it's absurd to say that your ethnicity suddenly becomes "the key political unit"). What is in academia are attempts to figure out how to deal with globalization and increasing interdependency. It is a question we will have to deal with more and more: if the domestic political state is less able to affect a lot of the decisions that matter to citizen's lives, how do we build fair international institutions. Unless you are a protectionist who wants to stop free trade (Matthew says he most definitely is not), or someone happy with the current WTO/IMF arrangement (I do not think anyone will defend them on democratic lines), academics are reasonable to think how we might deal with this. One way to look at this is how to have a political response to economic globalization. There are a lot of varied responses to this problem, some just starting to bloom, and only in that sense can there be "transnational progressivism." The term is absurd when you consider that the other alternative is Jesse Helms style defense of sovereignty, or a world in which key decisions affecting our lives across borders go entirely unregulated. Another way to look at this is consider Habermas' essay The Postnational Constellation, arguments about global civil society, and what might be described as attempts to build regional and eventually world-wide federalism. Chris Brown in Britain had a book on Sovereignty, Rights, and Justice that just came out on how to approach these problems. Brown's earlier book in 1992 opened me to looking at how political theory has often taken place in the context of the nation-state, when it is not clear there should be such a separation between international relations and political theory. (of course, this is all simplistic.. more on this when time permits.)
In an interview, Pipes says that, in the context of the middle east peace process: "Any kind of compromise solution is not going to work as Oslo so eloquently showed us."
And he's going to be on the Institute of Peace? What kind of peace?
Posted by Nikhil,
9:24 PM
-
While the Children Starved
Posted by sam,
9:21 PM
-
Look what's coming down the Pipes now... Reuters, via the New York Times, is reporting that some American Muslim groups are pissed off about Bush's nomination of one Daniel Pipes to the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace. Read the article to learn more about Mr. Pipes, and then decide if we need any more positions in the government filled by this sort of people (wasn't Ashcroft enough? - see below for what's already going on with him).
Posted by Jonathan,
7:13 PM
-
LOOK at The following areas at a minimum are being ignored because of the war in Iraq. Here's where we need sanctions, peacekeepers; real international involvement:
Today's D has a critique of Dartmouth's expanded graduate programs. As a graduate student, I'd like to address some of the authors concerns.
I don't have the figures in front of me but I don't think that expanded graduate programs are the source of the current budget woes. Hasn't the non-academic budget for administration, student life and random associate deans increased by 40% in the last five years? Asch mentions the extensive expenditures on mega-libraries and bureacracy.
The Dartmouth graduate program is dominated by the confluence of DHMC (now a national cancer center and northern new england's leading hospital), DMS, and related programs in the sciences and engineering. Relative to the growing life-science juggernaut, Thayer, Physics, Chemistry & Computer Science are smaller players. Tuck is relatively self-contained and content to be a smaller school. Graduate programs in liberal arts are non-existent.
The growth in life science research does not necessarily hurt the undergraduate program. In fact, I would argue it enriches them. Biological & Biomedical research has been reinvented in the last generation. Today, top science programs require extensive facilities, graduate students to do grunt work and research grants to fund the entire operation. Without these factors, the college will not be able to attact top-caliber faculty.
The main point that Asch misses is that research programs are self-funding. Since much of the research money comes from federal sources like NIH, expansion in this area does not imply taking money away from undergraduate programs. All together, as long as the college requireds faculty to focus on teaching, these facilities will provide significant opportunities for undergraduates and aid them with postgraduate options.
Finally, expanded research activities also have the potential for significant financial upside. In 2000, Dartmouth earned $140 million from patent licensing fees. The college also stands to benefit from Dartmouth-birthed startups, like GlycoFi.
The character of the college is changing, but for the better. On its current track, Dartmouth is in no danger of becoming a huge, impersonal research university. The current administration is creating something unique: a top undergraduate institution coupled with leading scientific research in a bucolic rural setting.
Posted by sam,
6:25 PM
-
"All of that force wasn't necessary."
"They shot my guys. We're not going to work today," Willis [a business agent for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union] said. "The cops had no reason to open up on them."
This, my friend, is some messed up shit, courtesy of Oakland's finest.
Even what is still called “American” studies is riddled with anti-American prejudice. Cultural critic Alan Wolfe has surveyed these studies, and he ironically concludes that current academics in the field, such as those at Dartmouth and Duke, display “a hatred of America so visceral that it makes one wonder why they bother studying America at all.”
I have been encouraged to create a major in American Studies by my good friend T. Wood Grinsell, but there is no such department at Dartmouth. Any thoughts as to what profs could so raise Wolfe's ire? (I'm going to try to track down the original piece...)
I did not want to do the attack because I hate Saddam and his regime and the British I see as my friends.
"I am a Muslim and killing people is also against my religion but they gave me no choice. When I walked up to the gate I thought, I cannot do this. So I told the British soldiers I am their friend and I pulled up my shirt and showed them my weapons and they didn't shoot me."
Posted by sam,
2:43 PM
-
More on the Liberal Case for War... Andrew Sullivan's latest article picks up on the growing liberal hawk meme.
"He saw that any liberal who does not rejoice at the destruction of Saddam Hussein's despicable regime is no real liberal."
Since many of the conservatives who support the war denounced Clinton's actions in the Balkans because the "US should not be involved in nation-building" I would be remiss not to frame this in a larger argument. Today, US politics have become so partisan that people sell out their principles to attack their political enemies.
Posted by sam,
2:36 PM
-
Don't mind if we liberate your property, too American soldiers who reached the New Presidential Palace used the toilets, rifled through documents in the bombed-out compound and helped themselves to ashtrays, pillows, gold-painted Arab glassware and other souvenirs.
"I do believe this city is freakin' ours," boasted Capt. Chris Carter of Watkinsville Ga. - America's #1 News Source
Wait a minute, Fox News, I thought your job was to make us look good at all costs? Way to go! And way to go, officer Carter of the military that represents my country! Although Saddam enriched himselves with the blood of the people you're "liberating," you may as well make off with a little bit of the blood-spoils, right? And nice move trying to hoist an American flag over Baghdad, guys. Make us proud.
These people are a disgrace to our military. I hope higher-ups read this stuff, know who is doing it, and discipline them appropriately.
Casualty estimates for Iraqis on last nights attack on baghdad range between 1,000 and 3,000. Casualties for America: 1. A tank commander who decided to stick his head out of his turret for some reason.
That's not a battle, that's a massacre.
Posted by Nikhil,
1:24 PM
-
Foreign students go home!
A bill before the Florida Legislature would ban state aid to university and college students who are citizens of countries on the State Department's list of nations that sponsor terrorism.
The proposal was drafted by state Rep. Dick Kravitz, who said he doesn't like the idea that the United States is educating people who will return to regimes that oppose America.
The bill would bar state aid from going to university students from six of the seven countries on the State Department list: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya and North Korea.
So if all these countries hate us because they haven't yet tasted the sweet, sweet nectar of liberalism and Western thought, doesn't it make more sense to educate their youth, rather than turn them away? Hm? Would state universities really breed terrorists and masterminds, Mr. Kravitz? I haven't finished college quite yet, but I'm reasonably sure that I've never learned how to hijack a plane with boxcutters in any of my classes. And I'm willing to bet that for every Mohammed Atta and Sayyid Qutb the West educates, we create ten Middle East moderates and reformers (indeed, Western education might well be the primary source of reform in the Middle East).
Posted by Brad Plumer,
12:20 PM
-
The Iraq fight was never about WMD According to that left wing nut, Robert Novack:
On the day after the U.S. launched the military strike that quickly liberated Afghanistan from the Taliban, my column identified Iraq as the second target in President Bush's war against terrorism. I did not write one word about weapons of mass destruction because not one such word was mentioned to me in many interviews with Bush policymakers.
The subsequent debate over WMD ensued when Secretary of State Colin Powell, over Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's objections, talked the president into seeking United Nations sanction for military action. Pre-emptive elimination of Hussein would not win over the U.N. Security Council, which had to be convinced the Iraqi dictator was a present danger. Failure to supply hard WMD evidence at the United Nations doomed Security Council approval....
There is, therefore, a double mission for U.S. forces. The primary mission is to destroy an evil regime... The secondary mission is to come up with substantiation of the avowed reason by President Bush for asking the world to remove Saddam Hussein from power....
The rationale that the American people were sold, and that Powell tried to sell the UN was never the true justification. And not only that: one of the two biggest reasons that remain to be in Iraq is to demonstrate that Bush wasn't lying--when he was.
UPDATE: Sorry folks, I forgot to cite my source for this gem: Tom Tommorow.
Posted by Clint,
11:58 AM
-
Patriotism and a tale of two flags I am not of the De Genova school of thought on U.S. patriotism, that says patriotism is inseparable from white supremacy, imperialism and the like. But I suddenly wondered if there was not a giant inconsistency on the part of patriots on the left who do not deny the terrible things that have been done by the U.S.: what do they say about the confederate flag? Why, generally pretty similar things to what 'hard-core' leftists might say about U.S. patriotism and the U.S. flag. So why do many people view one form of patriotism (or pride) as acceptable but the other is not? (This obviously is not a problem for people who fly both flags on the back of their ride). I remember in high school when I went to a Youth in Government national conference (which happened to always be held in North Carolina), there was a bill proposed to ban the confederate emblem from state flags or some other similar thing (what exactly, I forget). There was this one con speaker who got up and impassionately listed all the atrocities of the U.S., saying under what flag were the Native Americans killed? He would point to the American flag and say This flag! He'd go on, saying under what flag were the Japanese interned, what flag were the Tuskigee experiments conducted under, and so on. His point was that with all that had been done under the U.S. flag, how can you condemn the confederate flag? That speaker made a point that each flag has stains. Yet surely we do not want indulge in extreme patriotic relativism and say that the Nazi flag can be divorced from the history of Nazi Germany or such nonsense. The speaker gave a pretty powerful speech, and I am thinking what I would say against him today. For now I'll note that some symbols and concepts are worth trying to retake and define the meaning of, while others have been filled with such bile and venom so as to be largely irretrievable. Can one maintain that one flag is so stained and irredeemable and the other may be sullied but still washable? Part of the problem with the confederate flag is that while I have met earnest southerners expressing pride without seeing themselves as racist; yet at the same time a lot of people (in the North and South) do use the flag as a racist symbol, and it is seen that way by most African Americans. So it's important to look at both how people use the symbol and how it is perceived. I'm not sure how the U.S. flag and U.S. patriotism is seen in the eyes of the world and its victims, but from where should we look when assessing the meaning of the flag and worthiness of a concept like patriotism? How do we judge if a history ever becomes too bad to show pride in?
Posted by Timothy,
4:49 AM
-
Iraqi soldier casualties
War supporters are gushing over how many Iraqi soldiers we've wiped out, using the figure as a benchmark for the war's success. But Gregg Easterbrook of The New Republic notes that soldier casualties are no less tragic than civilian casualties:
Though valid military targets, most Iraqi combatants are forced conscripts who want no fight. They're poorly trained and poorly equipped, with almost no chance of survival should they be foolish enough to discharge any weapon: The U.S. military locates and obliterates sources of fire with almost robotic competence. Most Iraqi combatants are in uniform not through voluntary choice, as is the case with all U.S. and British combatants, but because they were impressed. Iraqi men cannot refuse conscription, and face summary execution if they try to return to their families. It's awful when even one Iraqi civilian dies, but civilian deaths are occurring in small numbers by the standards of warfare. Iraqi combatants are dying en masse. This conflict must end soon so that the United States can stop doing what is, by the logic of war, entirely legal, proper, fair, and necessary--killing Iraqi soldiers.
Yep. He also argues that Iraq may be the easiest country in the world to conquer-- even Syria could be a more difficult military operation. Read it all here.
Posted by Brad Plumer,
3:04 AM
-
SpecAlert There is a new blog at Columbia called SpecAlert, but the purview of the site aims to wider than criticizing the Columbia Daily Spectator (the "Spec"). SpecAlert says that Columbia lacks a progressive viewpoint, and specifically mentions The Dartmouth Free Press (Merlin aslo speaks kindly of my posts here on De Genova). But what stuck me when reading SpecAlert and The Filibuster's commentary, is the differences between the political environment nationalwide, at Columbia, and at Dartmouth (at least when I left two years ago). It was fairly easy to hash out a simple mission statement when we first started the Dartmouth Free Press, which included a line about the line "a forum for liberal and alternative viewpoints at Dartmouth" and another mentions bringing students "progressive" perspectives while informing and educating. I think the free press has gone more left than it was under my tenure, and that may be part of the reason the paper is more often referred to as 'progressive'. But that ambiguity helped it galvanize a lot of different people, as did a strong dislike for the often inept daily paper and The Dartmouth Review. But I think it is wrong to say that Columbia does not have outlets for 'progressive' students if you mean those on the left (if you mean 'moderate' left, that may be so, but it does not strike me the blog is advertising itself like that). Columbia seems to me to be far more to the left than Dartmouth's campus (big suprise). I think there are many groups with different ideological viewpoints, such that you couldn't smooth over the differences like we could at Dartmouth. We had one regular column called 'a socialist perspective', but unlike here he was one of the only socialists on campus-- he wrote his column as he wished and the paper was edited as the editorial board wished. Plus, leftist voices ARE heard here at Columbia. Maybe not in print media, but no one can pretend they are not a force; the same was not true (at least 3 or 4 years ago) at Dartmouth. So uniting 'progressives' or those on the left is a problem I thought long and hard about, but it was one that did not materialize to a significant extent at the Dartmouth Free Press. Perhaps some just do not join, but Greens and Democrats get along fine. Another example of how the perspective changes from different political environments is that The Filibuster is called the best lefty blog by instapundit, but I don't see anything strikingly liberal about its tilt, and its affilitated magazine, the Columbia Political Review, is backed by a non-partisan group. I am not sure I would have started the Free Press had there been a vibrant non-partisan opinion publication at Dartmouth, simply because I knew starting a paper on the left would be hard work! But I suspected (correctly) that a non-partisan effort could not likely be sustained by a small group of people at a small college like Dartmouth. Giving liberal or progressive students a voice was a great rallying cry and people were willing to put a lot more effort into that. So SpecAlert may face different problems, and it will be interesting to see how they are dealt with. This may be my Dartmouth experience talking but I don't think it is too sophisicated of SpecAlert to say that the Spec has a neo-conservative bias. Maybe it has a conservative bias, but save the word 'neo-conservative' for something more specific and when they get really crazy. I knew the Reviewers here (Andrew Grossman: you never blitzed me for drinks this weekend!).
Adam Kushner at The Filibuster thinks that SpecAlert may be misguided, saying that the Spec people are training to be professionals. I have sympathy for reporters' plight, but that's no reason to think something like Spec alert isn't valuable. Shouldn't the reporters become accustomed to being criticized when they get quotes wrong, and rightly so? Better to learn that lesson here than later: the media has a lot of power and they need to be held accountable. I mean, we are talking about basic reporting skills they need to internalize. Part of their training should be to learn that criticism will come when they mess up, and Kushner does allow this can be a benefit. I hate to say it, but even aside from whether they get it right or wrong, reporters eventually will have to learn to deal with readers hating them and criticizing them rather than esteeming them. Within limits that can be part of the training. If SpecAlert makes new reporters quit who would otherwise develop better skills, I can see a problem, but a mere blog is not that big of a deal. But I gather that people's criticism is not confined to newbies at the Spec, and presumably after a term or a year at the paper, you have gotten your sea legs. Good intentions and dedication may be a good excuse in the beginning, but not forever. A friend told me how a trustee of Dartmouth College, who also works at the Boston Globe, once told Dartmouth students that he thought college journalism was a waste of time. If they don't learn these skills, it pretty much is. Reporters and editors have a responsibility to get it right and should be called on it when they don't. (whether Merlin will continue to find it worth his time, I don't know, but then we all love blogging, right?).
Posted by Timothy,
1:43 AM
-
Sunday, April 06, 2003 Thoughts On The French "Remember if it weren't for those cheese-eating surrender monkeys at Yorktown we'd have Queen Elizabeth II instead of George Bush as our unelected head of state." -Rashid Khalidi, Professor of History, University of Chicago
Cheer cheer for old USA Interferes too much in the world's backwards ways "Christianize em," Ann Coulter says From Pyongyang to Karachi, or Fez Humble nation my tail Anthrax in the mail Citizens in jail (on reasoning frail) Intelligence failed Osama? No trail. Next we'll look for the Grail! Oh cheers for the USAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
- J. Eisenman
Posted by Jonathan,
9:47 PM
-
Supporting the troops without supporting the President's decision to take us to war
"...I cannot support this military action in the Persian Gulf at this time. Both the timing and the policy are subject to question. I am opposed to endangering the lives of brave American men and women in the military for action in Iraq that will not effect real change in that nation. If, however, military action is taken, all Americans will fully support our troops in battle." -A statement issued by Trent Lott in 1998
I found this one by myself: atrios has a bunch of other good ones.
Reuters: An Iraqi opposition leader who told U.S. officials to expect an easy victory over Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) said in an interview taped for broadcast on Sunday that the American military may have to stay in Iraq (news - web sites) for at least two years.
If I were in the White House Press office I'd be looking up some of the old lines that they used on George I, etc, right about now. King & Emperor, President & Emperor...
Guns don't kill people... Children kill people! From The New York Times Silde Show Series (Patrick Baz/Agence France-Presse) Also in that series, see pictures of Karbala residents destroying a Saddam statue.
Posted by Jonathan,
8:04 PM
-
Stevenson Watch It only gets better. John writes: Though being male I cannot totally discount the physical power of the flesh;
Posted by Kumar,
4:35 PM
-
Remember this war? Here's a taste of what I fear could be awaiting US soldiers in an occupation period:
The body of police commander Medzhid Aguyev with multiple bullet wounds was discovered in a car ... Another policemen, Ruslan Visarigov, was killed when a bomb exploded near his home..." From an Interfax bulletin on Chechnya, released today.
Posted by Clint,
3:46 PM
-
While Bodies count and are counted in oil fields. . . .
"This thesis, attractiveness is inversely varies with political activism/ identity politicking, has held true over time" [sic]
Then why am I so hot? If Stevenson were correct, then the Young Dems would be hotter than the Greens. We know that's not true. This is only increasing Stevenson's membership to the Idiot club.
...be allowed to say the following things about America, says the onion:
It's one thing to question our leaders in the days leading up to a war. But it is another thing entirely to do it during a war. Once the blood of young men starts to spill, it is our duty as citizens not to challenge those responsible for spilling that blood. We must remove the boxing gloves and put on the kid gloves. That is why, in this moment of crisis, I should not be allowed to say the following things about America:
Then there's 
