A forum for independent, progressive, and liberal thinkers and activists from Dartmouth College.

Civilian casualties update
Dartmouth

The Free Press
Dartmouth Alums for Social Change
The Green Magazine
The Dartmouth
Dartmouth Observer
Dartmouth Review
Dartlog
Inner Office
The Little Green Blog
Welton Chang's Blog
Vox in Sox
MN Publius (Matthew Martin)
Netblitz
Dartmouth Official News

Other Blogs

Ampersand
Atrios
Arts & Letters
Altercation
Body and Soul
Blog For America
Brad DeLong
Brad Plumer
CalPundit
Campus Nonsense
Clarksphere
Crooked Timber
Cursor
Daily Kos
Dean Nation
Dan Drezner
The Front Line
Instapundit
Interesting Times
Is That Legal?
Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo
Lady-Likely
Lawrence Lessig
Lean Left
Left2Right
Legal Theory
Matthew Yglesias
Ms. Musings
MWO
Nathan Newman
New Republic's &c.
Not Geniuses
Ornicus
Oxblog
Pandagon
Political State Report
Political Theory Daily Review
Queer Day
Roger Ailes
SCOTUS blog
Talk Left
TAPPED
Tacitus
This Modern World
Tough Democrat
Untelevised
Volokh Conspiracy
Washington Note
X. & Overboard

Magazines, Newspapers and Journals

Boston Globe Ideas
Boston Review
Chronicle of Higher Education
Common Dreams
Dissent
In These Times
Mother Jones
New York Review of Books
New York Times
Salon
Slate
The American Prospect
The Nation
The New Republic
The Progressive
Tikkun
Tom Paine
Village Voice
Washington Monthly

Capitol Hill Media

ABC's The Note
American Journalism Review
Columbia Journalism Review
CQ
Daily Howler
Donkey Rising
The Hill
Medianews
National Journal
NJ Hotline
NJ Wake-up call
NJ Early Bird
NJ Weekly
Political Wire
Roll Call
Spinsanity

Search Search the DFP

www.blogwise.com

Feedback by blogBack
 
 
  contact the freedartmouth

Friday, December 12, 2003


Krugman sees a wider conspiracy
But I've always found claims that profiteering was the motive for the Iraq war - as opposed to a fringe benefit - as implausible as claims that the war was about fighting terrorism. There are deeper motives here. Wolfowitz's official rationale for the contract policy is astonishingly cynical: "Limiting competition for prime contracts will encourage the expansion of international cooperation in Iraq and in future efforts" - future efforts? - and "should encourage the continued cooperation of coalition members." Translation: We can bribe other nations to send troops.

But I doubt whether even Wolfowitz believes that.


Posted by Nikhil, 10:22 PM -

A Palestinian State to save Israel, writes the NYT:
The Likud is publicly grappling with a prospect long raised by Israel's left: that within a few years Arabs are likely be the majority in Israel and its occupied territories, and that they may switch from demanding their own state to demanding the right to vote in Israel, threatening its Jewish identity.

The result is a breathtaking inversion: Though the Likud's platform opposes a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River as a threat to Israel, some members of the party say they have concluded that only the creation of such a state can save Israel as a Jewish democracy.

The debate within Likud is the most surprising development in a fall that has brought a two-month lull in the violence here and, with it, a series of official and unofficial initiatives for peace.


Posted by Nikhil, 10:10 PM -

Courts on Terror
Interesting Theory on a blog I've never read before (via Yglesias).


Posted by Timothy, 7:43 PM -

These guys know how to 'run an empire'
Kagan and Kristol in the Weekly Standard: But instead of being smart, clever, or magnanimous, the Bush Administration has done a dumb thing. The announcement of a policy of discriminating against French, German, and Russian firms has made credible European charges of vindictive pettiness and general disregard for the opinion of even fellow liberal democracies. More important, it has made former Secretary of State James Baker's very important effort to get these countries, among others, to offer debt relief for the new government of Iraq almost impossible. This is to say nothing of other areas where we need to work with these governments. This decision is a blunder. We trust it will be reversed.
So those of you who defended the decision, will you condemn Bush if and when he reverses course?

Update: Andrew Sullivan says the President is standing by his decision. Guess The Weekly Standard only speaks truth to power.

Josh Marshall has this analysis:
Some folks seem to be under the misimpression that there's some clever bargaining going on here. There's not.

Think about it. The whole pot is about $20 billion. Let's imagine the French and the Germans both got fabulously lucky and their companies managed to land contracts for a billion a piece. Does anyone think that Germany or France are going to write off billions of dollars in Iraqi loans or invite a backlash from their anti-Iraq war publics by sending in some troops all for the privilege of having the French or German versions of Halliburton or Bechtel make a few million dollars? Of course, not.

The heart of the matter here is that for some folks there's a certain failure to appreciate the situation we're in.

Think back to your grade school science class. We're like the Saber-toothed Tiger sinking into the tar pit. And over on dry land are a few giraffes munching away on some leaves. And we're taunting them with what terms we're going to give them to buy into the good thing we've got going on. Yes, an over-dramatic metaphor. But you get the idea.


Posted by Timothy, 7:38 PM -

The First Signs of a Social Disease
Former Dartmouth Review editor Andrew Grossman ('02), blogging from his new perch on townhall.com, authored this post, which he proudly linked to from the Inner Office.

In it he refers to what is known in sane circles as the "the Democratic Party" as the "Democrat Party," or uses the adjective "Democrat" where "Democratic" would usually be written. Four times. "Democrat Party ... Democrat Party ... Democrat filibuster ... Democrat leaders"

As this cartoon by August J. Pollack puts it: "IT'S CALLED THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY..." Click for the rest.


Posted by Clint, 3:32 PM -

Project Ratfuck
The New Yorker has a fantastic article on the redistricting question. The answer thumbed in the article is nonpartisan civil-service redistricting commissions, like in Iowa. Certainly a bit more easily obtainable than my (and John Cleese's) ideal solution: proportional representation.


Posted by Clint, 9:25 AM -

The Only Real Scandal of the Week

It amazes me how all of you missed the only true scandal of the week.

From the NYT, apparently Denny K is someone's man-mistress these days. As a result of that "vote Dennis Kucinich a date" contest:
Representative Dennis J. Kucinich ... may have met his Mrs. Right on Thursday morning: a 34-year-old New Jersey resident who won breakfast with him by entering an Internet contest entitled "Who Wants to Be a First Lady?"
...
"There is romance in some of these issues," Ms. Santore said before giving Mr. Kucinich a peck on the cheek goodbye.
...
As to whether the pair will meet again, that is an open question; Ms. Santore confessed to having a live-in boyfriend. But if she is not available, there are other finalists who may qualify. Among them is "Lucy," who is 48, a Unitarian Universalist clergywoman from Connecticut and a first cousin of a Kucinich campaign rival, Howard Dean.



Posted by Jonathan, 1:33 AM -

Thursday, December 11, 2003


War Profiteering, Price Gouging
All in an days work at Halliburton.
Feels good to know that our tax dollars are going to good use....no wait.

Hey, at least it wasn't in the trillions.


Posted by Graham, 10:25 PM -

To add to the list
- Half of the new Iraqi army (did anyone realize that it only had 700 members?) decided to resign in the past few hours, citing low pay (apparently, US$60/month).
- Bush's isolationist contract announcements have been subjected to further criticism, this time from Kofi Annan who decided to go for understatement describing them as "not unifying". All this as accusations break that Halliburton overcharged the U.S. government a little over sixty million dollars in overcharging for gasoline... I bet neither Elf nor Total would have dared.
- According to US-Based Human Rights Watch, civilian deaths in Iraq were "avoidable" and only occured because of "misguided tactics" used by US and UK troops. Human Rights Watch says that the U.S. Army's use of cluster bombs alone could be estimated to have killed over 1,000 people, and U.S. forces knew this: the U.S. Air Force, unlike the army, has stopped using cluster bombs in civilian areas.


Posted by Nikhil, 9:45 PM -

"Iran's Shirin Ebadi, the first Muslim woman to receive the Nobel peace prize, accuses the West of using the September 11 attacks as a smokescreen to cover up violations of human rights. The reformist lawyer was handed the $US1.4 million ($A1.9 million) prize and gold medal by the head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee at a glittering ceremony at Oslo City Hall on Wednesday."


Posted by Nikhil, 9:28 PM -

America's Finest News Source
WASHINGTON—According to the results of an intensive two-year study, Americans living below the poverty line are "pretty much fucked," Center for Social and Economic Research executive director Jameson Park announced Monday.
Again The Onion lives up to its motto.


Posted by Clint, 11:03 AM -

Wednesday, December 10, 2003


Bush's war
Why did we go to war when we did? How did the human rights atrocities under Saddam's regime in the early nineties make war necessary that March (rather than say in 2001 or later)? Was Bush being a moron a justification for not going to war? This post expresses a lot of interesting things along these lines. A lot of protesters were just simply oppossed to any war, but I think he's right that a lot of people were opposed the war on the basis that it was not necessary now. With the collapse of the WMD claim, how was it necessary at that time?


Posted by Timothy, 4:05 PM -

Give me one reason why...
...the decision to exclude companies from all but 61 countries (a list excluding Russia, Germany and France) from any Iraq contract bidding, and to give priority to isn't vindictive, petty, and contrary to the best interests of the United States and the Iraqi people?


Posted by Clint, 10:13 AM -

Gonzalez goes down.
Gavin Newsom defeated Matt Gonzalez 52%-48% in Tuesdays San Francisco Mayoral race--that's pretty damn close. Gonzalez is still chair of the Board of Supervisors, which ought to make things interesting. I expect Gonzalez will try again in four years, like Ammiano did after losing in 1999.


Posted by Clint, 10:09 AM -

Maybe... if Newt Gingrich says it for us:
"The real key here is not how many enemy do I kill. The real key is how many allies do I grow. And that is a very important metric that they just don't get."
(Via Newsweek/Print, Dec 15 2003, p21)


Posted by Nikhil, 5:52 AM -

Tuesday, December 09, 2003


Great Ivy League Papers

"America's a lot like the rapper, Biggie. It can spend a lot of benjamins, buy a lot of bling, even annihilate some of its enemies, but at the end of the day, it doesn't know how to spend its cash money money in a way that'll ensure safety."

That's how one student begins their paper on what Grand Strategy the U.S. should adopt. Sadly, it is so far one of the better ones I've graded.

UPDATE: Here's another introduction: "Most college students will never have the opportunity to talk to George Bush, Dick Cheney, or Donald Rumsfeld about international politics. In truth, neither did my international politics class, but at least we had a simulation of the event." Suprisingly, it's the best paper yet. I should be clear I have found only the intros undignified.


Posted by Timothy, 4:42 PM -

Prescient?
From this site on Monday, December 16, 2002.
Clearly, this whole scenario (what with Gore ducking out of the '04 race and making fun of Kerry, Lieberman, and Edwards on SNL) was designed to sweep Howard Dean into power in 2004. I think we can all get behind that (Sorry if I'm violating the "thoughtful discussion and debate" guideline. We can pretend I'm serious if that makes it better.).
[Posted by Jeff Vardaro, 9:23 AM - No Comments]


Posted by Jon, 3:29 PM -

DFP 4.6 Penetrates the Web

The on-line edition of DFP Issue 4.6 has cashed in it's V(eritably Online)-Card here. Check out Anthony Bramante's full-bodied summary of the SLI, an exciting interview of Brady Kiesling, Matt Stoff's voluptuous descriptions of the arts as activism, Jordan Kovnot on the irresistable appeal of Dean, Caroline McKenzie on Ryan Adams' thoughts on love in "Love is Hell," and Andrew Seal's double-penetration of Iraq-war policy and an APC concert.

And so the DFP ends this term on an issue of multiple climaxes. Awesome, indeed. Enjoy!


Posted by Nick, 1:35 PM -

What a day
So Gore's for Dean, Janklow's guilty, Lieberman's confused, Congress fought over some of the biggest pork of all time (golf for all floridians!?); but the story that I'm going to follow closely is the SF Mayoral Election. Here's the last minute rundown. Polls close tonight at 11pm ET.

Matt Gonzalez, the Green (and former Dem) and Gavin Newsom, the Democrat, both have pretty strong liberal credentials. Their biggest split seems to have come over a piece of legislation that Newsom sponsored call "Care Not Cash" that sought to restructure how SF took care of its homeless. Gonzalez opposed the legislation and it was defeated. A second version, with a housing clause that Gonzalez added, passed.

Newsom is viewed as the insider hier apparent to Willie Brown. Gonzalez's strong challenge has brought tons of national level Democrats to Newsom's side, including Bill Clinton. This helped him, in a sense, by stirring party sentiment in an overwhelmingly Democratic city, but it also played into Gonzalez's hands as he tries to portray himself as an insurgent outsider.
Since Gonzalez is 38 and Newsom is 36, no matter who wins SF will get its youngest mayor ever.

Polls have shown a dead heat, despite the fact that Newsom has reportedly outspent Gonzalez 10-1.


Posted by Graham, 11:15 AM -

Medicare Bill Bribery
Great run down by Slate on what should be a developing scandal. Rep. Nick Smith was offered $100,000 in contributions to his son's campaign to succeed him in congress, in exchange for his vote in favor of the Medicare bill. And he's on tape saying so.


Posted by Clint, 4:32 AM -

What's the best way to occupy?
Why not use Israeli tactics? They work sooo well! A selection of quotes from a Times article on how US actions in Iraq are "beginning to echo the Israeli counterinsurgency campaign in the occupied territories":
"[W]e recently traveled to Israel to glean lessons learned from their counterterrorist operations in urban areas." -- Brig. Gen. Michael A. Vane

"This fence is here for your protection. Do not approach or try to cross, or you will be shot." -- A sign posted in front of a barbed-wire fence

"With a heavy dose of fear and violence, and a lot of money for projects, I think we can convince these people that we are here to help them." -- Colonel Sassaman

"You have to understand the Arab mind. The only thing they understand is force — force, pride and saving face."-- Capt. Todd Brown, a company commander with the Fourth Infantry Division.

"I watched the Americans flatten that house." -- neighbor Abdullah al-Ajili

"This is absolutely humiliating. We are like birds in a cage." -- Yasin Mustafa, a 39-year-old primary school teacher

Muttered in anger: "I see no difference between us and the Palestinians. We didn't expect anything like this after Saddam fell." -- an Iraqi man named Tariq


Posted by Clint, 4:17 AM -

Warhead missing from Transdniester
Wha? Where? Washington Post has the goods on the country you didn't know existed (because it kind of doesn't).

Via Cursor.


Posted by Clint, 3:48 AM -

Monday, December 08, 2003


How to win the war of hearts and minds...
...in the Afghanistan and the Middle East:
1 - Disproportionate responses to resistance attacks.
2 - Accidentally killing children and civilians.
and apparently
3 - Feeding conspiracy theories by getting your troops trained by the Israelis.
"This is basically an assassination programme. That is what is being conceptualised here. This is a hunter-killer team," said a former senior US intelligence official, who added that he feared the new tactics and enhanced cooperation with Israel would only inflame a volatile situation in the Middle East.

"It is bonkers, insane. Here we are - we're already being compared to Sharon in the Arab world, and we've just confirmed it by bringing in the Israelis and setting up assassination teams."
Addition: The Christian Science Monitorreports:
"As the guerrilla war against Iraqi insurgents intensifies, American soldiers have begun wrapping entire villages in barbed wire," reads the first sentence of a front page article in Sunday's New York Times. "West Bank East: Americans in Iraq make war the Israeli way" is the headline of an opinion piece Saturday in The Daily Star, a Lebanese paper. The new strategy applied by the US military "appears to be succeeding in diminishing the threat to American soldiers," reports the Times. "But it appears to be coming at the cost of alienating many of the people the Americans are trying to win over." The Times quoted one of the Iraqi civilians lining up at a checkpoint in the Iraqi town of Abu Hishma as saying: "I see no difference between us and the Palestinians. We didn't expect anything like this after Saddam fell."


Posted by Nikhil, 9:28 PM -

Sigh
"I think it's a moot point." - Andrew Card, White House Chief of Staff, when asked whether our intelligence on WMDs going into the Iraq war were faulty. (CNN, via TPM)


Posted by Timothy, 7:28 PM -

On what Gore's Coming Endorsement of Dean means for the Democratic Party
In response to some of the commentary on Janos' post below, I thought you might be interested in how disconnected Gore is from the Clintonistas. Ryan Lizza wrote this in the New Republic 3 weeks ago:
As the party's split into Deaniacs and anti-Dean Clintonites unfolds, one of the most intriguing subplots concerns the machinations of Gore. Immediately after the Florida recount was decided in 2000, Gore's senior aides were purged from the DNC and Clinton's were installed. Some ex-Gore staffers are still bitter about the coup, and several express admiration for what Dean is doing.

The two men have a strained history, but lately Gore is sounding more and more like Dean. His three most important speeches since leaving office have been harsh attacks on President Bush's Iraq policy and his abuse of the Patriot Act. The two most recent were delivered before MoveOn.org, the Internet network for grassroots liberals, which is overwhelmingly pro-Dean. Some suspect that, just as Dean went outside the Beltway and built his own high-tech grassroots army to bypass the sclerotic D.C. establishment, so is Gore. It's not a bad way for him to exercise influence in the party, if he wants to make a potential endorsement more powerful or if he still harbors hopes of running for president in 2008. "The rest of the Democratic infrastructure is controlled by the Clintons," says one top Democrat.

Perhaps Gore would not endorse the former Vermont governor (though Joe Trippi, Dean's campaign manager, says "they talk relatively regularly"). Regardless, he'll have to choose sides, because the Democrats are splitting into two parties: the party of Clinton, and the party of Dean.


Posted by Timothy, 7:16 PM -

A Full Circle
So as of ten mins ago, good old Al Gore endorsed Howard Dean for President, and I believe will attend some rally in Harlem. For all the liberals who thought Gore ran too centrist a campaign, I guess this is his redemption. And the combination of Harlem, Al Gore and Howard Dean gives me the impression that the Democratic Party is beginning to coalesce...


Posted by janos, 5:42 PM -

"miserable failure"
type this into google and then click "i'm feeling lucky"

it's thanks to bloggers like yourselves.....


Posted by Meredith, 5:33 PM -

Sunday, December 07, 2003


Missing
The BBC reports:
Local villagers in Afghanistan have contradicted US reports that the target of an air strike that killed nine children also died in the raid.
The attack was carried out on Saturday in the village of Hutala, in a remote area of southern Ghazni province.
US officials said they were acting on extensive intelligence and had killed a former Taleban militant, Mullah Wazir.
But local Afghans told the BBC's Crispin Thorold the intended target had left the village 10 days earlier.
President Hamid Karzai has expressed his shock at the incident.
Of course noone has brought up the wisdom of using a bomb to target one single person living in the middle of a civilian area.


Posted by Nikhil, 11:22 PM -

A message of hope
"I hope tonight America laughed together," Sharpton said at the night's conclusion. "Maybe we can learn how to live together."

Here's a brief recap of the show and some information on where and why it wasn't broadcast.


Posted by Graham, 7:50 PM -
Powered by Blogger

The opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of Dartmouth College or the Dartmouth Free Press.