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"The stream of Time, irresistible, ever moving, carries off and bears away all things that come to birth and plunges them into utter darkness, both deeds of no account and deeds which are mighty and worthy of commemoration. . .Nevertheless, the science of History is a great bulwark against the stream of Time; in a way it checks this irresistible flood, it holds in a tight grasp whatever it can seize floating on the surface and will not allow it to slip away into the depths of Oblivion. "
- Anna Comnena (1083-1153), The Alexiad
"I have taken all knowledge to be my province."
- Francis Bacon, 1592
Friday, August 1, 2003
Mr. We Could Use a Man Like Harry Truman Again
Lessons for strong Democrats in fending off the Left that wags their Party (but enough about The Progressive and its constituency for one week) from this article:
When Truman decided to oppose Communist expansion, the left tried to stab him in the back. They went so far as to run Henry Wallace, FDR's simple-minded vice president for president on a "peace" platform in 1948 as a third party candidate. Truman refused to give in or compromise. He wouldn't abandon the people of Europe to Communist slavery even though it might have cost him the Presidency. . .
The far left scurried back under its rock and didn't come out again until the Vietnam War. The far right's power and Jim Crow were broken. History vindicated Truman's policies, America won the Cold War. The Civil Rights movement proved racial equality worked and eventually became the bedrock of a new American dream.
Today more than ever the Democrats need a man like Truman; someone who is willing to take a strong stand on national defense to prosecute America's war against terrorism vigorously and make sure the adventure in Iraq succeeds. They need someone to do what it takes to destroy the terrorists, dictators and warlords who are plotting to wipe our country off the map once and for all. Democrats should find someone to stand up to the self-proclaimed peace activists who demand that we bow down and let the fanatics destroy us. They need a person who will give the loony left the boot and start doing what's right for America and the world. It should be possible to find someone capable of doing the right thing for average Americans by championing the social programs that might make their lives better.
I've never liked bullying meanness for the sake of meanness; it's a legacy of my youth. Often people resort to attacks on the psyche and spirit when they cannot defeat someone on the grounds of reasoned argument. This is done to destroy the self-confidence of people and drive them from the arena of debate and also as a means to reassure the people employing this tactic that they are the better sort of people. One sees sneering contempt and insults as a substitute for argument in the Left very often (see the Roger Ebert interview I linked to for just one example), on the Right, and in the form of middle and high school "in" cliques vs. the "outs": insults aimed at keeping the distinction alive, enforcing it on others, and keeping people from speaking up against it.
I respect reasoned arguments on both sides in this, and other, issues. But I have only contempt for this stuff.
I linked to Ebert's interview in a update to this post; today there is a FrontPage article on it. The whole thing's worth reading, but the final paragraph pretty much sums up Ebert's politics:
Ebert, or at least his latest incarnation, is incapable of writing such a piece – or any piece whose politics wouldn’t be at home in Mother Jones. When it comes to American politics, you see, it’s the yobs vs. the smart guys. And if the smart guys smear or slander the yobs, well, so what? The yobs have it coming. Through his boorish, knee-jerk leftism, Ebert has become merely another Hollywood elitist thumbing his nose at America. Two thumbs down.
Also in FrontPage today, a good piece on how Amerikkka is crushing dissent by funding Radio Pacifica.
I've been meaning to write a post on this for awhile, but only now am getting around to it. A number of people reacted to Americans considering moving to Canada in a rather odd way - either laughing at or castigating them.
In my opinion, the only people who should at all discourage this are, perhaps, conservative Canadians. But when I learned of this I thought it was a good thing, and not just in a "don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out" way, but in a better sense. Look, people come to this country because they think it will be preferable to whichever country they live in. Conversely, if an American finds they are unhappy with the way things are here and believes that another country is more to their liking - well, no one's keeping any of us here.
In my opinion, if an American likes another country's policies, going to live there is the right choice and should be encouraged. Liberals and the Left supposedly believe in "diversity", after all and emigration certainly beats attempting to turn America into a carbon copy of Canada or Sweden or France. To me, emigration to Canada if one is unhappy here makes a lot more sense than this. If it sucks so bad here, no one's forcing anyone to become a citizen or to stay against their will. Trying Canada is the "diversity" option.
Their leader has the same condescendingly aloof attitude towards America's as is held by the enlightened folks who prefer Canada, with (as mentioned in the CNN article) a proper admiration for bearded, cigar-smoking Socialist dictators.
So there are plenty of reasons for someone to want to move to Canada if they find America's policies inhospitable. There are some things one might need to learn to fit in socially, though:
Really, guys, this is mostly aimed at Americans who think Canada is doing everything so much better than the States are. But to them, again, to each their own: I'm much happier seeing Americans who prefer the Canadian system to ours moving there than trying to turn the U.S. into a carbon copy. Let a thousand flowers bloom! Just try not to plant any weeds in my yard.
Like many anti-tax-cut types, Edwards exempts himself.
Meanwhile, Stanley Crouch goes after the selective outrage of the "Civil Rights" Establishment and hits what he aims at.
R. Emmett Tyrell scopes out America's Holy Cities and finds that Najaf has nothin on Manhattan, Hollywood, or Washington D.C. They even have their Fatwah-issuing Mullahs.
Since Democrats and their friends in the media are heavily invested in asserting that no evidence of a connection between Saddam al-Qaeda exists, you really should forget this and you don't want to read this article. Instead, just listen to Bob Graham and ignore everything else. That's it. Go back to your simple lives. Forget. . .forget. . .
So, yesterday my car acted up and I didn't get to work on account of it. So I was at home to write the few posts I managed to make.
I was penning the below "Mel's Passion" post when my modem died. Completely fried out on me.
Other than joining me in mourning the demise of a stalwart behind-the-scenes contributor to this Blog, what this means is there probably won't be much for you all to read here today; I have a bit of catching up to do. Also, I have to get another modem for my home computer and instal it.
Many directors, producers, and film studios over the years have made the claim that this or that film of theirs is "historically accurate". Few have been completely accurate, but usually only a handful of historians, historically-minded people with an interest in the era, and a few of the more "serious" (read = snooty) film critics have cared. Hardly any have raised a fuss 8 months from the movie's release.
So what explains the uproar over Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion? A letter to Andrew Sullivan hits part of the reason (see also the letter from David Horowitz above; a link to it here).
But the problem with Gibson goes beyond the fact that he's making a movie about Christ that isn't spitting in the eye of Christians. That's just one of the aspects of the real thing that makes Gibson controversial.
Mel Gibson happens to be on the wrong side of the cultural divide as far as Hollywood and much of literary culture, including media culture, is concerned. Not only is he a serious Christian, but he's an unapologetic Patriot (if a bit hard on the British).
What we're seeing from many is an expression of animosity towards Mel Gibson that has been brewing for some time. This is just the opportunity for some people to give full throat to their ire over Gibson not conforming to expected cultural mores.
Update: Gibson's problem is his choice of subjects. If he were to be involved in a film portraying Pancho Villa as a hero just like Osama bin Laden, then the only problem he would have is with folks like us, ignorant redneck fools who can be safely ignored by the more enlightened and sophisticated set.
Additional: Here's Roger Ebert praising fiction master Michael Moore in an interview in The Progressive, and talking about how thoughtless and ignorant everyone who doesn't share his politics and the politics of The Progressive is. So no wonder Mel Gibson is right out. Self - Congradulation, Thy Name is Roger Ebert.
In response to this post from yesterday, Richard Heddleson writes:
You seem to quote McCaffrey favorably on force size, but I seem to recall he wanted to call up the same number of troops before the war because we didn't have enough troops to whip Saddam. I think he and Wesley Clark are Democrat Generals. It shows in their proposals. Call up 9 NG Bdes? Why, so they'll be worn out if we really need them? To disrupt the civilian economy? I agree we need more troops. Let's increase the active duty Army by the 3 divisions Clinton cut. And while we're at it, let's accelerate carrier construction so that we go back to 15 CBGs. But calling up 9 Bdes PERMANENTLY is only a move designed to create resentment with the Bush Administration with the 9Bdes, their friends and family and destroy the National Guard. Get real!
I know where Richard is coming from. I wasn't saying that I agreed with everything that McCaffrey said. However, in my opinion it's good to get the debate started on expanding the size of our armed forces again. I've written on what I think we need to do (I don't think we need 3 Divisions, I do think we need at least 3 Division-equivalents, the composition somewhat different).
Note that this is somewhat different from earlier proposals to activate the NG for the war in Iraq. IMO the key in the McCaffery piece was the permanent increase in the size of the Army; note that he says that the NG troops should be rotated back into reserve status after 12 months, when we have recruited & trained people to replace them. In practice that would likely take longer than 12 months but it depends on how much effort we devoted to it.
I don't think it's a bad thing that a "Democratic General" is starting the debate. Want to look at it in partisan terms? Well, if Democrats on Capital Hill and elsewhere object to expanding the size of the military to fit our needs, then it's actually a good thing that "Democratic" Generals are onboard. The response to partisan criticism can then be "well, your guy advocated it, we're just trying to decide the best way to go about it. There are merits to his plan but as we flesh it out there are things that could be done better."
Also, what is the National Guard for? We are at war, correct? Perhaps "when we need them" is now?
Likewise, I know deployment is hard on families. Many National Guard troops have already been activated and deployed. But, again, we're either at war or we aren't - at some point being in the National Guard is more than just getting a extra bit of cash and some help in paying for school in exchange for a weekend a month and two weeks out in the field somewhere. I say this as someone who was in the Wisconsin Army National Guard (HHQ, 132nd Spt BN, 32nd Mechanized Infantry Brigade).
I know what Richard is saying and where he's coming from, and I don't entirely disagree with him. But the above is the other side of the argument. Personally I'm torn and I'm not really sure if this would be the best way to go about it. But if it is, when you sign on for the National Guard you do so to serve in time of need, knowing that it will be a hardship on you and your family. At least you should know that; if you don't, then I'd argue that perhaps the National Guard is already "destroyed" in what its purpose is and should be.
This post, if you think the tone is too sharp, I agree; it kind of is but I don't know how to soften it except to say that I'm sorry if the response is harsher than it should be. Perhaps someday I'll learn how to argue my points less "agressively".
I posted something in the comments section of a post at Winds of Change that I think is worth expanding upon here. As part of a larger post, Trent Telenko wrote:
What Armed Liberal wants from the Bush Administration isn't to sell the public on Bush's Grand Strategy. It is to sell the Democratic Party on it so his pro-war liberal faction can run it for their mutual benefit.
This is too French for words.
I'm surprised Armed Liberal. and others haven't made more of this. First, American foreign policy has always been best when it is based on broad support, including key bipartisan support.
If a pro-War Democrat adopts Bush's Grand Strategy or what people like ourselves think should be our Grand Strategy and runs on it and wins, hell, I'd rather have that than a Democrat who doesn't adopt it, runs against it, and wins. I favor partisan success of the Republicans as better than the alternative, but I favor the success of America in the war more, and I'll be glad, not disgruntled, to see Liberal candidates who - sincerely, not insincerely - "run [on] it to their" - and I hope our - "mutual benefit".
That segment of Trent's post reveals an attitude that Bush should keep the policy secret not because America needs it secret but because the Republican Party and conservative movement shouldn't give the Democrats and Liberals any help in joining in. Me? I'd rather see them help sell the policy instead of see them chipping away at it. If this means they as Kennedy did against Ike's successor, as More-Staunchly-Pro-Defense-and-Anti-Soviet-than-Thou, I'd rather see that than what we're seeing play out.
Yes, Democrats are in denial, as Trent says. If A.L. and those like him can bitch-slap them into supporting our Grand Strategy with arguments that it will be better for them than continuing to be Sgt. Shultzes (at best) "knowing nothing, seeing nothing" and anti-Warriors at worst, then that will help us all.
Then we'll argue over who's really a "disaster" domestically and who isn't, but at least we'll be able to sleep better knowing that whoever wins the elections, they'll work to keep us safe and insure that we emerge from this in a more secure situation, rather than pandering to the Patty Murray vision. At least I know I'd sleep better.
What is left of national security Democrats don't make up a corporal's guard with respect to the Democratic party.
When President Clinton came into office, the best national security Democrats were those on the Congressional staffs for the Armed Services committees and their members. They were taken enmass over the Clinton' Defense and NSC staff without adequate replacements, and as executive level appointees, they are now too senior to go back to those staff jobs on the Hill. They have now either burrowed into the Senior Executive Service or gotten jobs as lobbyists. In either case they are lost to the Democratic Party as paid political, pro-national security, activist cadre. Democratic members of Congress on the Armed Service Committees have been hiring Republican national security experts as their staff since for lack of qualified Democrats.
Outside those groups, those who are left have no institutional $upport in the Democratic Party to put them in think tanks or foundations to develop ideas when out of power. The creeping PC/leftist group think in academic hiring and tenure has denied them that hidey-hole as a place to develop ideas as well. So there is no career ladder inside the Democratic Party any more for national security minded Democratic operatives to climb.
At best, compared to Republican hawks perched in the Republican-funded think tanks and foundations, credentialed Liberal Hawks are third raters.
Worse, none of the potential "Liberal Hawk" Democratic leaders are going to get professional class advise without the "Republican taint." The Democratic Party's "Liberal Hawk's" inability to accept that 9/11/2001 made America's deployment of global anti-ballistic missile defenses a certainty, and communicate that to the rest of the party, is a case in point of the problem. . .
The only way Democrats as a party are going to learn on national security is to have their face rubbed in it such that Democratic political leaders and money men create a career ladder for Democratic national security experts the way the Republicans have
First, it should be noted that many of the foreign policy experts in the Clinton administration, men like Strobe Talbot, were hardly people known for their keen insight into what sort of strategy works and what doesn't - Talbot, for example, was completely wrong in every respect when it came to how the last stages of the Cold War should be handled and what could be accomplished.
But still - I tend to agree with Trent that it will take awhile for the Democratic Party's Scoop Jackson wing to be rebuilt in detail so that it can fill the key staffing positions in a Democratic Administration. But, on the other hand, a solid Democrat could pick up some of the Hawkish Democrats who work and have worked in Republican Administrations - people like, say, Wolfowitz among others.
Yes, this will mean that Democrats will have to get over their Fear of a Republican Planet, their sense that anyone who may have worked with or even been sympathetic to a Republican has cooties and is an Untouchable. It's interesting the degree to which it hasn't always been that way; FDR had Republicans in several key Foreign Policy and Defense posts, as did JFK.
Even if one thinks, as Trent does and I tend to, that it will take time and several crushing defeats before the Democratic Party is slapped out of their Fantasy Ideology reverie, but they have to start somewhere, sometime, and if Armed Liberal can "sell it" to pro-war Democrats and get people moving in the right direction, the sooner the better I say.
I also think that there are Democrats who could fill the bill; is Sam Nunn too old to be Defense Secretary already? Is it impossible that people like him could find knowledgeable, hawkish young Democrats to fill out sufficient positions to staff an Administration? Zell Miller isn't returning to the Senate, might it be possible to get him to take a Cabinet Position? Would it be impossible for them to find Hawkish young Democrats or at least not-very-partisan-but-knowledgeable people sufficient to fill key posts in a Democratic Administration - with, perhaps, a few Republicans thrown in, playing the "see, we're bipartisan" card? It might be hard, but I don't think it wouldn't be impossible. If we look around the Bloggosphere we see Hawkish Dems, though many are disaffected at the moment they would likely rally behind a candidate such as Armed Liberal sees as a Democratic "Dream Candidate". Is it beyond reason to believe that out there in the country there might be a couple thousand people, Liberal in their politics, who have the kind of technical knowledge Trent is referring to and who want to wage the war assertively and embrace the kind of strategic goals and means we believe are essential? They are currently exiled from current institutional Democratic politics by the "PC/Groupthink" elements Trent points to and I definitely and wholeheartedly agree currently has a lock on Liberal and Democratic institutions, but this is a lock Armed Liberal wants to break. For that to happen such people will emerge and assert themselves as a precondition for that happening, and then we might end up seeing a wing of Strong Liberalism that has kept its head down and mouth shut for the last generation or so.
Look at it this way, too; if such a constituency doesn't exist, then a Democratic candidate won't be able to "run on" the Grand Strategy Trent and I support sincerely anyhow. If they do, then a candidate can, and the day that happens - be it soon (I agree unlikely) or later (possible) or much later (more possible), I'll breath a sigh of relief, not a sigh of frustration. For that "later" or "much later" to ever arrive, though, people like Armed Liberal will have to start "selling it" now, getting the ball rolling as it were, and initiating the reconstruction and rebuilding of the sort of Scoop Jacksonish Democratic foreign policy professional class that is missing or moribund now. Me? I want to encourage, not discourage and scoff at that.
Update: Jeff at Caerdroia has a good post on this subject, which differs from mine and is well worth reading.
Gen. Jack Keane, one of the most experienced and thoughtful Army officers we have, has laid out the global rotation plan for the near term. If you analyze the plan, the U.S. Army is very close to being overextended. The risk is too great. Our active strength of 491,000 is too small. Twenty-four of our 33 active brigades (73%) are deployed. Fifteen of our 45 National Guard battalions are deployed. Some 368,000 Army soldiers are deployed to 120 foreign nations. We are in a global war on terror with inadequate forces.
We must immediately call up nine National Guard Brigades (not just the two currently planned) and keep them permanently in the force structure, returning the Guard soldiers to civil life after 12-month tours. We should then sustain these additional units through active-duty recruiting. The current rate of return to active duty is far too high, and runs the risk of driving away our reserve component. About 22% of the 900,000 available Guard and Reserve forces of all services are now on temporary duty.
The U.S. is dealing with the consequences of success. Our resolve has made us immeasurably more secure since Sept. 11, 2001. Yet history will judge us on how well we sustain our accomplishments in Afghanistan and Iraq. Our war on terror has achieved great initial results. Now we must finish the difficult phase of ensuring the fruits of our victory.
Certainly a step in the right direction and would have an immediate effect.
Among Europe's many criticisms of America is now this: We refuse to relinquish substantial authoritah in Iraq to the United Nations. Until and unless we do, we're being told, don't expect much military or economic support from overseas.
But if the UN has the expertise to quash rebellions and construct sound government institutions, why is that not on display in Liberia? Why is the UN pleading instead that for American troops to assume responsibility for restoring law and order in that distressed corner of Africa?
It goes on, but this section is very apt:
It's not unfair to ask what proficiencies the UN does have beyond providing a forum for America's enemies, adversaries and sundry critics.
Notice that this is never really addressed in a serious manner by those asserting that we should get help from the UN - it is simply assumed that they have something that we lack, and can and will provide it without undermining our goals. But, conversely, the same people will frequently criticize progress in Afghanistan - putting the blame for whatever failures their may be or which exist in their imagination at our feet - but Afghanistan is being handled in the "right" way, through the UN and other entities of the "international community".
Here's another piece on how the UN confirs moral legitimacy:
In yet another example of its growing international uselessness, the United Nations has voted to suspend for one year the consultant status of the press-freedom group, Reporters Without Borders.
Its crime?
Some of the group's members protested the U.N. Human Rights Commission decision to award the agency's chairmanship to Moammar Khadafy's Libya.
The protesters were right to speak out, of course - few actions have underscored the world body's blatant hypocrisy as awarding chairmanship of its human rights commission to one of the world's worst violators of human rights.
Now, Khadafy's Libya - backed by Fidel Castro's Cuba - has convinced the United Nations' Economic and Social Council to lift the group's accreditation as a non-governmental organization.
That means Reporters Without Borders will not be able to testify and present evidence to U.N. meetings for the next year.
Well, it's obviously Reporter's Without Border's fault for failed diplomacy and not making the case to the UN on their position.
One I do disagree with; the hand wringing over whether the Democrats should make an issue of Saudi Arabia. First off, it beats the garbage they're harping on now and secondly but related to that - I don't think the Democrats would suffer electrically next year for being too hard on the Saudis and Bush's apparent coddling of them. Of all the things to worry might blow up in their face, it's the stuff they're actually doing that has that pitfall.
"If the counsel of the peaceniks had been followed, Kuwait would today be the 19th province of Iraq (and based on his own recently produced evidence, Saddam Hussein would have acquired nuclear weapons). Moreover, Bosnia would be a trampled and cleansed province of Greater Serbia, Kosovo would have been emptied of most of its inhabitants, and the Taliban would still be in power in Afghanistan. Yet nothing seems to disturb the contented air of moral superiority that surrounds those who intone slogans of the peace movement."
A piece by Bill Kristol reminds me of the flighty nature of even the most solid Democratic office holders - who are, on this, as solid as yogurt. We should remember last summer around this time they were demanding that Bush make his case and the matter be debated in Congress and a resolution voted upon. When they got what they were demanding, they didn't like it, and sallied forth with their Sancho Panzas in the press by their side to admonish against "politicizing the war". Then throughout the winter and into spring, they politicized the war again, hectoring Bush over his handling of the situation.
This reached its absurdist heights during the campaign in Iraq itself, when they, their sidekick General Disarr - I mean, Clark - and the minions unleashed their latest plot, fanning out across the television spectrum to declare that Bush had botched the war, bungled it, gotten bogged down, we'd need a lot more troops and it would be months before the campaign could be salvaged. Then a couple days later the statues fell in Baghdad and beyond and there they were to assert that this was a bipartisan effort and the war couldn't have been won without the support that Democrats gave it.
Dick Gephardt's 16 words, by contrast, change everything. They reflect the considered judgment of a centrist Democratic presidential candidate, one who voted to authorize the war, that his party must stand in fundamental opposition to the Bush foreign policy. They indicate the capture of the Democratic Party by the pace-setter in the presidential race, former Vermont governor Howard Dean.
Dean said on June 22 that "we don't know whether in the long run the Iraqi people are better off" with Hussein gone, and "we don't know whether we're better off." At the time, Gephardt demurred from Dean's agnosticism.
Now, exactly one month later, Gephardt is following in Dean's footsteps.
None of their behavior is unexpected, but next time some Liberal or Democrat gets into high dudgeon when someone (like us) says they are unserious about the war, remember these antics. There is no reason to let them off the hook for their weathervaining behavior which treats the war primarily as an exercise in political position rather than as the grave matter it is.
The situation gets worse from there. The alternative to the unserious positions of the mainstream Democratic politicians are the positions of the very serious people to the Left of them, who are part of their political coalition. There are fairly conclusive links between "mainstream Liberal" groups that the Democratic office holders must pay heed to and the hate-America Hard Left - that there is so much outraged reaction whenever someone asserts the existence of such links does not alter the facts.
As I'm sure most of those reading this are aware, People for the American Way is a group that Democratic politicians pay attention to. People for the American Way develops strategies that Democratic politicians implement, on subjects ranging from the handling of judicial nominees to legislation. . .to the war. People for the American Way established an ostensibly "moderate" anti-war organization, United for Peace and Justice, and seated as its organizers pro-Castro people with a long history of opposition to America and sympathy with its foes - Media Benjamin and Leslie Cagan. More can be read about their antics here. (here and here and here). It's as if the old tactic of Front Organizations still lives - when ANSWER became controversial for its Stalinism, a new, ostensibly less extreme, organization was created. . .and communist apparatchiks put in charge of it as well, but the game is we're not supposed to notice.
Yes, I'm sure that for some, pointing this out will smack of McCarthyism - which has come to mean identifying the pro-Communist Left in a way that is unfavorable to them. This is one means by which the taboo on certain subjects is enforced. We're not supposed to recognize the degree to which ostensibly "moderate" Liberal entities are captive to the Chomskyite Left masquerading as Liberals, and if we do then we're the sinister party, not those who are using Liberal institutions for radical ends without being honest about it. The unfortunate thing is that actual moderate Liberals tend to react to such things by this means; they see the problem not so much as hard Left radicals having hijacked their organizations, but in rotten, mean-spirited McCarthyite conservatives for pointing out what they'd rather everyone ignored.
Meanwhile, some of us want to treat a serious problem seriously.
Update: Examples of civil discourse continue here. Note that it's absolutely unacceptable to point out people who truly are Communists and admirers of totalitarian dictatorships, but it's completely within the bounds of acceptable discourse to assert that someone is a follower of Hitler, as "Dan" does, and to Blame America for Everything in the World, as Patrick Schaefer does; by the way, those lines were drawn in the nineteen teens and early twenties, not '40s and '50s as Patrick, the guy instructing us all in history, asserts. But then remembering the actual timeline makes it less easy to imply that Amerikkka Did It. So as a good PoMo, Patrick simply modifies the historical timeline to suit the needs of his text.
Meanwhile, for France, the issue is all about who gets control and they're keeping their marbles and staying home unless they get a veto (through the UN) over anything after having contributed nothing but opposition. But of course we must accept unquestioningly that the UN does these things better.
As Andrew Sullivan writes, Iraq was well worth doing, but as Charles Krauthammer points out, that doesn't stop the Democrats from undermining support for the whole endevour. Meanwhile, the press would rather ignore what Cheney says so they can mischaracterize it later or insist that there is a "perception" out there (which they create) that the Administration has failed to speak on these issues. At least at last there are a couple wire service accounts of Wolfowitz's recent appearances - but that will soon vanish, too.
In other news, it's too bad the Administration censored the 9/11 report, thus keeping secret the info on Saudi involvement that we're hearing so much about. In this case, censoring has meant highlighting something; one has to wonder how strongly the government wanted to keep this news secret with everyone knowing all about it. Never the less, I'm hoping this doesn't imply continued indifference to Saudi support for terrorism and extremist Islam. I'm thinking this could be a big issue in next year's election; certainly more worth discussing than the bogus scandal over the State of the Union Address, which, as we've pointed out here (scroll down) and elsewhere, is meritricious.
I wonder what will be found in the areas the UN protected in the Congo years from now. But it's a good thing that we have these international organizations to keep everyone safe and can have the U.S. step aside and let them take charge in situations like this.
Am I bitter and angry? You bet I am. Aren't you? People die in no small part to preserve for some the illusion that the "international community" and its instruments, such as the UN, are both willing and capable of doing things that we would only screw up. People die for the ideological fantasies of others. You bet I'm bitter. For all the problems we've had in Iraq, one can easily see how things would be if the UN were in charge there as so many people want - however, they would then wash their hands and move on.
While I'm adding links related to the underlaying attitude I'm addressing here, there is this one, which is a good reminder since everyone and their uncle has been claiming "Oh, everyone supported our action in Afghanistan, but not now; Bush has gone too far and ruined the consensus, alienating people" - like bovine fecal matter everyone supported the action to remove the Taliban. Don't let them make you forget that, and don't ever let them get away with that line. It's a lie.
Tonight on Around the World in 80 Days Michael Palin passed through Glenwood Springs and Aspen Colorado, not too far from where I live.
Only it was about 15 years and an entire era ago.
I really felt the difference watching it this time around. I had seen this series years ago, when it was first aired in the States, and it was interesting and fun but close. Perhaps it is just me, but it all seems more distant. When I first saw it, that was our world.
This time around, that was then - no longer now.
He boarded a ship and sailed out past the Statue of Liberty, and as the ship headed to sea the camera panned back towards the Manhattan skyline, and there they stood stabbing skyward, where they no longer stand.
EU Priorities, Dean's Iraq Policy, Blair Perceptions
Once again, while America is distracted in Iraq from the world's real problems, we can thank the EU for having its priorities in order and is dealing with grave issues of serious international importance.
Speaking of Iraq, Howard Dean has come out with a significant policy statement. Should help him among his constituency.
Elsewhere, the BBC has launched a new line of criticism against Blair. Of course, the real question is how will Tony respond to these very serious questions that have been raised, and the perceptions that are now out there that he is responsible for this death?
