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Saturday, February 25, 2006
Nepal, Now Appalling
Posted by on 2.25.06 @ 6:08PM
Re: Radio Address
Posted by on 2.25.06 @ 7:14AM
Jed and Dave,
Reagan created the radio address, writing the scripts himself quite often, as I understand. He aimed at evoking the spirit of FDR, and, being Reagan, he succeeded. Ever since, no President has felt secure enough to stop doing it, though nowadays I truly see no point in it.
Laughing at Tyranny
Posted by on 2.25.06 @ 1:49AM
There's a certain style of pitch-black humor -- one often encounters it among Eastern Europeans of a certain age -- that seems to sustain people caught under illiberal thumbs. Egyptian blogger Big Pharaoh serves up a classic slice:
There was a solidarity rally in front of the Danish embassy in Washington. The rally was led by Christopher Hitchens. I'm thinking of organizing the same rally in Cairo. I just need 70 bodyguards, 3 armored humvees, plenty of tear gas, and 3 helicopters to immediately airlift the participants in case things got nasty. If you would like to participate please register your name by sending an e-mail to suicide.mission@yahoo.com
Friday, February 24, 2006
Who Does the President Address on the Radio?
Posted by on 2.24.06 @ 7:40PM
Jed, I agree with your point below. But this gives me an occasion to express my bafflement over the President's radio address. In my few years, never once have I been surfing the radio dial on a Saturday and found the President opining. Maybe some older (by older, I mean that Reagan was president when I was born) AmSpecBloggers can shed some light: was the President's radio address once regularly and widely broadcast? Is this an anarchronism, now only useful for slow-news weekends and sound-bite excerpts?
Iraq, the Port Deal and Is Anybody Home?
Posted by on 2.24.06 @ 7:06PM
Well, we've had a busy week, haven't we? One of Shia Islam's principal shrines has been blown up, a port operator from an Islamic nation is about to take control of six American ports, the Philippines is in a state of emergency and -- surprise, surprise -- Hamas is going to get buckets of money for its terrorist government. With all this going on, you'd think that ol' Dubai Dubya would say something about them in his weekly radio address tomorrow, right? But nooooo.
I can assure you, your expectations will remain unfulfilled. Can't say what's in the embargoed release, but I can assure you of what isn't: ports, Iraq and pretty much everything that's important. The wartime leader we saw ever so briefly last fall has again benched himself. This is not a matter of going wobbly: it's the functional equivalent of abdication.
Standing With The Danes
Posted by on 2.24.06 @ 6:31PM
Nice turnout for the Danish Solidarity rally today, including two of your AmSpecBlog correspondents, James Poulos and myself. Christopher Hitchens was there, of course, along with Andrew Sullivan, Bill Kristol, Cliff May, Tony Blankley, and occasional TAS contributor Sean Higgins. Afterwards James and I joined Andrew, Hitch, and Richard Miniter (plus the female companions of the latter two) for a long lunch, during which I learned how far people had come for the event: One woman drove up from North Carolina, and an Iraq War veteran came in from California.
Pictures here, here, here, and here (plus video at that last link).
Thrills in Pierre, S.D.
Posted by on 2.24.06 @ 5:13PM
From the state capital that is only served by two-lane highways (imagine the legislative implications of that!), a Republican state legislature and governor are about to put their money where their mouths are on Roe and ban abortion except in cases where it's necessary to save the mother's life. It's great news, and the legislators and governor should be commended for their courage.
Keep in mind that even if South Dakota's ban survives (it'll be a long, hard road, folks... even Family Research Council Executive VP Chuck Donovan told the Post that the law "really doesn't stand a chance under Roe or Casey"), it doesn't come close to rolling back Roe, or even turning the clock to the late 1950s. As the redoubtable TAS contributor and Northwestern law prof Stephen Presser wrote in the current issue of the Texas Review of Law and Politics (page 94), before the 1960s all but four states banned abortions, with exceptions to save the life of the mother. "As of January 1973, thirty-one states permitted no exception other than to save the life of the mother, and most states actively enforced their abortion laws."
If you have the time, read all of Presser's article with Clarke D. Forsythe. It's an incredibly timely history of abortion legislation and judicial decisions.
Bush Address: "Ports, What Ports?"
Posted by on 2.24.06 @ 11:16AM
The Bush administration's PR failure in regard to the Dubai ports deal has reached a new height. The President just finished a major address to the American Legion this morning on the global war on terror. With such a stage and wide media coverage, that would have been a perfect setting to make his case a little. While one wouldn't expect a war on terror speech to go defensive on the ports deal, Bush had a golden opportunity to say something positive about UAE's role in the effort and go on the offense against the critics. But not a word about the subject on everyone's mind. Returning to the regular war on terror nostrums is admirable, and something the President should regularly do anyway. But wishing that something isn't a crisis doesn't make it so.
Rockefeller Feeling the Heat?
Posted by on 2.24.06 @ 10:33AM
So Sen. Jay Rockefeller sent a letter to Amb. John Negroponte complaining about White House leaks to Bob Woodward.
Why would Rockefeller be so uptight? Perhaps because he senses the FBI is locking in some of his loyalists in the NSA and overseas prison leaks? Things are going to be getting interesting for a number of folks on Capitol Hill in the coming days.
More on the Ports
Posted by on 2.24.06 @ 7:33AM
Yesterday I linked to Jonah Goldberg's LA Times column, so I ought to note that Mickey Kaus, who's not quite buying the new nothing-to-worry-about line, thinks Goldberg got one of his facts wrong.
Meanwhile, Dubai Ports World has offered to delay the takeover.
Saudi Arabia Fears Iraq
Posted by on 2.24.06 @ 1:45AM
A fresh intelligence source identifies the paradoxical motives of
On one hand, the Saudi princes gain by having an American coalition stabilize
On the other hand, Saudi Arabian imams are bloody-minded Wahhabists who are committed to the destruction of the Shia as heretics. Therefore a Shia-dominated, stable democratic, oil-rich state in
It is shocking to report that a popular tome now under distribution in Sunni-based
What
The American military is tied down between two hostile, conflicted, self-destructive, toxic states with limitless wealth and fanaticism.
Iran Attacks
Posted by on 2.24.06 @ 1:04AM
Best signals source points to the
Rather than wait to be attacked by the US fleet and air, Iran has attacked -- using all available surrogates to damage and intimidate the US-led coalition that is driving the IAEA referral recommendation to the UN Security Council.
The first, second and third things you should ask when there is an attack or collapse or discord in an oil-based state (
Reports indicate that the
The coordinated Shia-based assaults on hundreds of Sunni mosques that followed was directed by Iranian agents or fellow travelers. Signals source suspects the Iranians are using captured Salafists from
The Shia attack on the Sunnis is the continuation of a thousand-year-old sectarian war. Saddam Hussein's regime interrupted the fight in
Note that Mookie Sadr was in
My first summary of this offensive is that
Thursday, February 23, 2006
In Port Deal, Clinton Ships Passing in the Night?
Posted by on 2.23.06 @ 6:03PM
It appears that a number of people are already profiting from the sale of some operations management of U.S. ports. But it ain't the port guys.
Already, it has been established that former Sen. Bob Dole is, well, on the port dole. No surprise, then, that former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is also apparently drawing a check (someone should ask her just when she began drawing a check on this deal, as it appears it was some time ago, according to some Senate sources we talked to this afternoon).
But most interesting is the gossip among some Democratic Senators, who can't figure out why their colleague, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, is so hot and bothered by the port deal, since they believe her husband, the former president, was consulted and received fees for said consulting on the port management sale.
Re: Brooks
Posted by on 2.23.06 @ 4:00PM
Yes, Dave, he's basically right. But I wonder if, when he first heard about the ports deal without hearing the details, his reaction wasn't the same jolt of shock that all the rest of us felt. His language shows a weird lack of empathy for the very understandable concerns that this news raised at first blush. Compare his perspective to Jonah Goldberg's LA Times column: Goldberg is also critical of the hysteria over the ports deal, but unlike Brooks he doesn't descend into a reactive hysteria of his own.
Wal-Mart to the Dark Side
Posted by on 2.23.06 @ 3:52PM
So Wal-Mart will offer more extensive health care coverage to its employees after being bullied into doing so in Maryland, and with similar laws on the horizon.
But surprise, surprise, they're now advocating that the government bear the burden of such rising costs.
At the same time, Wal-Mart Chief Executive Lee Scott said Thursday that employers cannot continue to meet the rising costs of health care and urged a government-business partnership to find an answer. ...
Under mounting criticism from organized labor and other groups, Wal-Mart last fall offered new lower-premium insurance aimed at getting more of its work force on company plans.
It's either a sop to the extortionist Democrats or good business... or both! As David Hogberg wrote last year, CEOs pushing for government-run health care is a growing and foolish trend.
Blame Americans First
Posted by on 2.23.06 @ 1:15PM
Poor David Brooks. Remaking the Middle East is not turning out as easily as he had hoped. Today in his column, as last night on the Lehrer NewsHour, he blasts away at the "mass hysteria" that has erupted in the U.S. in response to news of the UAE ports deal. His notions of national greatness apparently never had a chance so long as a "reactionary" ("Whatever. You use the word. I won't use the word," Lehrer responded) like Michael Savage had any say. But here's the giveaway quote:
"[T]he point for politicians is at some point you have to be a statesman, you have got to resist when you get this popular tide and nobody on Capitol Hill is doing, that except John McCain."
"Except John McCain," Lehrer echoed. (Sigh.)
Actually, there was an earlier giveaway quote, in which Brooks began with a wonderful geographic name drop, "I just came back from Doha where you came across --" At which point Lehrer had him identify Doha as being in Qatar, right next to Dubai. Brooks then continued:
"And a lot of Muslim democrats in the conference over there, and the one thing you heard from them again and again and again, there's this democratic wave sweeping across the whole region but it's not warm and sunny. It's being -- the democratic opportunity is being seized by Hamas and other Islamic fanantics and their main argument is that the West is filled with racists.... And what's happening on Capitol Hill reinforces that. It gives tremendous strength to bin Laden, Hamas, and all the Islamists, and it's just doing tremendous harm to America's reputation in the West...."
Forget mass hysteria. How do you unravel the confused emotions racing through that excerpt? (Or when Brooks dismissed opposition to the ports deal as "a broad-based, xenophobic Know Nothing campaign of dressed-up photo-op nativism.") As it is, I'd love to know more about those Muslim democrats and whether they stand a chance against the Islamic fanatics in their midst. Ever if Americans were unanimously in favor of the Dubai contract, that imbalance wouldn't change one bit. Brooks will have to look elsewhere for scapegoats.
Isolationist Fever
Posted by on 2.23.06 @ 11:58AM
Is at the heart of the domestic opposition to the
But let's be clear: the opposition to the acquisition by Dubai Ports World is completely bogus.
The deal would have no significant effect on port security. ... Nor would the deal radically alter the workplace. ... Nor would the deal be particularly new in the world of global shipping. ...
Nor is
a bastion of Taliban radicalism. All Arabs may look alike to certain blowhard senators, but the Dubai is a modernizing, globalizing place. It was the first country in the region to sign the U.S. Container Security Initiative. It's signed agreements to bar the passage of nuclear material and to suppress terror financing. U.A.E. ports service United Arab Emirates military ships, and U.A.E. firms have made major investments in Chrysler and Time Warner, somehow without turning them into fundamentalist bastions. U.S. In short, there is no evidence this deal will do any harm. But it is certain that the xenophobic hysteria will come back to harm the
U.S.
The oil-rich nations of the Middle East have plenty of places to invest their money and don't need to do favors for nations that kick them in the teeth. Moreover, this is a region in the midst of traumatic democratic change. The strongest argument the fundamentalists have is that they are engaged in a holy war against the racist West, which imposes one set of harsh rules on Arabs and another set of rules on everybody else. Now comes a group of politicians to prove them gloriously right.God must love Hamas and Moktada al-Sadr. He has given them the America First brigades of Capitol Hill.
Brooks imparts the worst motives to the opposition. I wouldn't go so far, but it's hard to disagree with his general point: that the ports deal is opposed because the buyer is an Arab nation. Beyond that, there's no intelligible, rational standard being offered against the deal.
If They Don't Like the Cartoons
Posted by on 2.23.06 @ 11:25AM
The "Arab street" certainly won't like this hilarious video by TAS subscriber and loyal online reader Paul Kotik (aka Faul bin Qawtiq). Paul tells me Fa'ul's next dispatch will be an investigation of the Florida nip/tuck joints where terrorists get work done.
Rhode Island Succeeds in Lead Paint Extortion
Posted by on 2.23.06 @ 11:12AM
A Rhode Island jury found three lead paint makers (back in the day lead paint makers) liable for the harms of their product yesterday. The suit was brought by the state, so the decision opens the door for other states to squeeze paint companies for health, education, and cleanup programs they don't want to fund.
Re: Duty & Dershowitz
Posted by on 2.23.06 @ 11:03AM
Dave, Alan Dershowitz is on a roll. In the Boston Globe he whacks away without mercy at the Harvard clique that's finally succeeded in making a Trotsky of Larry Summers.
Max Weber once wrote of their type, 'For of the last stage of cultural development, it might well be truly said: "Specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart; this nullity imagines that it has attained a level of civilization never before achieved."'
When Dershowitz writes that "Once the academic bloodletting began, it was difficult to stanch the wound," he describes the conversion of the academy into Weber's glorious professional nullity, of which junking Summers is only a part. "Now that this plurality of one faculty has succeeded in ousting the president," he goes on, "the most radical elements of Harvard will be emboldened to seek to mold all of Harvard in its image. If they succeed, Harvard will become a less diverse and less interesting institution of learning governed by political-correctness cops of the hard left. This is what happened in many European universities after the violent student protests of the late 1960s. It should not be allowed to happen at Harvard in the wake of the coup d'etat engineered by some in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences."
The prosecution rests. Read my brief for a class-action suit against the Anticulture of Arts and Sciences here.
Abdication of Duty
Posted by on 2.23.06 @ 9:51AM
Bill Bennett and Alan Dershowitz make points similar to Ben Stein's current article in the Post today.
What has happened? To put it simply, radical Islamists have won a war of intimidation. They have cowed the major news media from showing these cartoons. The mainstream press has capitulated to the Islamists -- their threats more than their sensibilities. One did not see Catholics claiming the right to mayhem in the wake of the republished depiction of the Virgin Mary covered in cow dung, any more than one saw a rejuvenated Jewish Defense League take to the street or blow up an office when Ariel Sharon was depicted as Hitler or when the Israeli army was depicted as murdering the baby Jesus.
So far as we can tell, a new, twin policy from the mainstream media has been promulgated: (a) If a group is strong enough in its reaction to a story or caricature, the press will refrain from printing that story or caricature, and (b) if the group is pandered to by the mainstream media, the media then will go through elaborate contortions and defenses to justify its abdication of duty. At bottom, this is an unacceptable form of not-so-benign bigotry, representing a higher expectation from Christians and Jews than from Muslims.
As each day passes and the major newspapers fail to print the Mohammed cartoons, the media's total failure grows more apparent. Like in the Plame case, the media's actions have only harmed themselves. With confidential sources now in jeopardy, why not make the vaunted freedom of the press selective?
Herschel Woodrow Williams
Posted by on 2.23.06 @ 8:30AM
You wouldn't know it to look at him. "Woody" Williams is a cheerful guy, now in his later years. He teaches Sunday school at a church near his home. And, as you might expect, he speaks softly and always has a kind word. His smile is a real delight.
Sixty-one years ago today, Woody Williams fought -- for four hours, crawling back and forth through machine gun fire to get more ammunition and refill his flame thrower -- and cleared a path for his fellow Marines to break through Japanese lines on Iwo Jima. For this, he received the Medal of Honor. And, more importantly to him, he saved the lives of a lot of Marines. God bless you, Woody. I'll try to call you later.
Re: Dubai to All That
Posted by on 2.23.06 @ 7:31AM
Wlady:
You're right about this being a loser for the President. With my background in advertising and corporate communications, I believe I can fill in what happened.
Obviously, DPW and P&O have been talking about this acquisition for some time. You don't just pull a multi-billion dollar deal out of your back pocket on a whim over lunch. The Saudis are extraordinarlily media savvy. They would have had a corporate p.r. firm getting their country into the news in a positive way, from America's point of view, starting many months ago. DPW didn't do that. Nobody clued them in that such a deal might run into a buzz saw in the United States. This amounts almost to corporate nonfeasance.
Second major problem, the Commerce Department did not communicate about the merger to any of the rest of the administration until the decision to approve the deal was made. That speaks volumes about bad communication within the Bush administration.
So Bush gets a blivet dumped on his doorstep, and his instinct to defend kicks in, and he's stuck, badly served by a department he should have been able to depend on. I predict he'll chance his mind. He'll have to, facing a veto override. Unless he wants to take the deal directly to the people in an explanatory talk, and it may be too late for that.
There's a physical problem here: Only a handful of firms worldwide can even handle this kind of port container management business. So there may be nowhere else to go.
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Dubai to All That
Posted by on 2.22.06 @ 8:59PM
There's confusion galore over what the Dubai deal is all about. The one thing that is crystal clear is that this is a political lulu for the president. Unlike the reaction to Dick Cheney's hunting accident, none of this is press driven. Instead we see politicians reacting to a popular outcry. If, as is the current wont, the president's ports fiasco has to be compared to anything, it's more serious than, say, his selection of Harriet Miers. Rather, it's more akin to Iran-contra -- before the contra part of it was known.
When the Reagan administration sold arms to the Ayatollah's outlaw regime despite its firm public commitment never to trade arms for hostages, the public reaction was one of stunned, disappointed disbelief. That's what we're seeing now -- an administration signing off on an unexpected deal with representatives of a politics and culture the American public, for all it knows and has been told, thinks we're at war with. No Sam Alito will get the president out of this one.
The press seems to want to move in for the kill. Dubai wasn't even its lead story tonight. Rather, it was the outbreak what it apparently hopes will be real civil war in Iraq.
Buy Dane
Posted by on 2.22.06 @ 5:16PM
Wlady: What a wonderful idea. Buy Havarti, Legos for the kids, and Carlsberg for us. Here's a website that lists lots of Danish products we can buy. For those of us still boycotting France, this is an outlet for pent-up energy and saved dollars.
Re: Honor a U.S. Ally
Posted by on 2.22.06 @ 5:09PM
Today Christopher Hitchens attached this update to his call for a friendship vigil in front of the Danish Embassy:
Update, Feb. 22: Thank you all who've written. Please be outside the Embassy of Denmark, 3200 Whitehaven Street (off Massachusetts Avenue) between noon and 1 p.m. this Friday, Feb. 24. Quietness and calm are the necessities, plus cheerful conversation. Danish flags are good, or posters reading "Stand By Denmark" and any variation on this theme (such as "Buy Carlsberg/ Havarti/ Lego"). The response has been astonishing and I know that the Danes are appreciative. But they are an embassy and thus do not of course endorse or comment on any demonstration. Let us hope, however, to set a precedent for other cities and countries. Please pass on this message to friends and colleagues.
Don't forget to bring crackers for the Havarti and Legos for the kids. Save the Carlsberg for later.
Kosovo Asterisks
Posted by on 2.22.06 @ 5:04PM
As the Kosovo drama plays out around the negotiating table, loose ends twirl. Reader David Shoup took the mistaken view that I quoted the Communists on our NATO Easter bombing campaign out of opposition to them. In fact, I agree with Mr. Shoup, who wrote, "This is one time that I agree with the Communists." Who knows -- there might even be another time, someday.
That cleared up and away, anyone with one eye on Kosovo should start keeping the other glued to Montenegro. Like the Kosovars, many Montenegrins want out from under the Serbian umbrella, and they might get their way while their overwhelmingly pro-independence Kosovar neighbors get stiffed by the diplomats. This would make for an embarrassing geopolitical wedgie. Beware. Read the gory details here.
Re: Ports, Populism and Priorities
Posted by on 2.22.06 @ 5:02PM
Dear Lady G et al.: The issue isn't press strategies, dangers of having any non-U.S. companies (except the few nations we can really trust, which mean Israel, Australia and, and, oh never mind) doing it or whether the UAE is the most trustworthy of any Islamic nation. The issue is that the oversight of the port activities by the (Homer) Simpsonian D'OHS -- in those six ports and every other one -- is so poorly done it's a wonder al-Q hasn't sailed a fleet of nukes up the Potomac. And until D'OHS gets its act together, there's probably no increase in the risk we take by having the UAE company run it as opposed to any other.
This is a high-risk, high-gain strategy for the Bush administration. Having the UAE's people take charge of any asset that is essential to US national security is a huge vote of confidence in them that -- given the right diplomatic and infowar strategies to exploit it -- can benefit us as few things can. And if the trust we place in them is betrayed, it can damage us as few other things can.
The key question we should ask: is the deal with the UAE tied to extraordinary cooperation by the UAE government in penetrating and fighting terrorist groups? Are we, by this trust, purchasing the talents of their intelligence operators in pursuit of al-Q and such? We will never know what other, secret, parts of this deal there may be. But if there aren't such aspects to it, it's entirely wrong to do. Trust, but verify. And that we must leave to the Big Dog, Pat Roberts, and the others who can find the pony in this pile.
Support Scooter
Posted by on 2.22.06 @ 3:17PM
Scooter Libby and his supporters are putting up a strong defense to the Independent Counsel's case against him.
As more information about Patrick Fitzgerald's case against Libby leaks out to the press, the clearer it is that there just isn't much there for the man from Chicago, who fancies himself a latter day Eliot Ness, to hang his hat on.
Libby has a new website up www.scooterlibby.com both for information and for folks to support him. Go there often in the days ahead.
Re: Ports and Populism
Posted by on 2.22.06 @ 2:58PM
Lady G, you're right that there are important dimensions to this flareup that go beyond whether or not the deal is "by the book." The White House should have grasped the political implications, and, of course, should have been aware of the deal in order to so grasp. The air-ball on this is so profound that now we have to contemplate a Bush veto on Republican-sponored legislation, with support running from Frist on down to Ehrlich -- and with Sen. Clinton looming over everything, cackling.
Who wouldn't cackle? Even if the UAE deserves every dollar of that contract, even if the UAE would execute their obligations with every ounce of due diligence, the political price to be paid for not having "gotten out front" is mindbogglingly needless. It's the difference between a missed layup and the subsequent turnover for three. This kind of accidental craziness I cannot abide. There is room for one March Madness on my calendar this year, and Redick has a lock on it.
Re: Ports and Populism
Posted by on 2.22.06 @ 2:27PM
As I understand the situation, the main problem with the UAE Ports deal for the White House deal is the communications aspect -- a problem that is becoming more and more apparent each day in the White House's dealings with the press and its inability to "handle" the news. The UAE deal has been in the works for some time, yet once again the White House seemed to find itself blind-sided. Someone in the WH Press Office needs to step up to the plate and start proactively getting the messages out. (Or someone in charge at the White House has to step in and get the press office to act like one.) To find out now that the president wasn't even aware of the deal that he then went out and defended goes beyond fiasco.
For a start, people, it's called talking points -- and everyone having the same ones.
Ports and Populism
Posted by on 2.22.06 @ 12:23PM
As I catch up here (I was traveling over the long weekend) with the news and learn more about this UAE ports deal, the less inclined I am toward the populist position. Besides it the "it looks bad" criticism, I'm not convinced allowing a UAE-owned company to run the commercial (not security) activities of these ports poses a threat. The Wall Street Journal editorial board (no Bush lackeys) is particularly persuasive today: "So far, none of the critics have provided any evidence that the Administration hasn't done its due diligence." Until I see such evidence, this tempest looks more populist than principled.
To those opposed to the UAE deal: please send articles detailing the security risks to amspecblog - at - spectator - dot - org.
The AP Re: Ports
Posted by on 2.22.06 @ 11:57AM
The Associated Press, on which the NYT drops a big spotlight, leads with the central problem in the shipping news:
President Bush was unaware of the pending sale of shipping operations at six major U.S. seaports to a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates until the deal already had been approved by his administration, the White House said Wednesday.
Defending the deal anew, the administration also said that it should have briefed Congress sooner about the transaction...
Simply because the UAE can run our ports up to standard does not mean that they should, as a matter of sheer politics, and if politics is the art of the possible it is also the art of preventing the possible. Blowups like these are unforced errors, and recovery is dear. Should have briefed, should have been briefed -- this should have been cut off at the first pass at the first instant.
Port of Call, Part Duh
Posted by on 2.22.06 @ 10:31AM
Interesting to see how quickly Sen. Rick Santorum jumped on board to block the U.S. ports deal that Senate Leader Bill Frist jumpstarted yesterday.
In speaking with folks up on the Hill last night, we found they are unsure if they will be able to reach the numbers necessary to override, but they believe that Frist's move certainly helped them gain some traction against the White House.
We're still hearing that the consultant angle is something folks should be looking at related to the two companies that are trying to swing this deal in London. Perhaps a Senate committee with oversight should begin looking into that facet of the deal.
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Garbage In, Garbage Out, Continued
Posted by on 2.21.06 @ 6:42PM
Remember that Media Matters study I mentioned on Friday? The one that purports to show that the Sunday morning talk shows are biased to the right based on their guest line up? At my request, Media Matters sent me the raw data. Here are a few of the talking heads that Media Matters counts as "neutral":
Ron Brownstein
Alan Brinkley
Alan Dershowitz
Thomas Friedman
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Ceci Connolly
Gwen Ifill
Dan Rather
Douglas Brinkley
Bob Woodward
Carl Bernstein
Jeremy Rifkin (Author of The European Dream: How Europe's
Vision of the Future is Quietly Eclipsing the American
Dream)
Michael Scheuer (Author of Imperial Hubris: Why the West is
Losing the War on Terror)
You get the picture.
SCOTUS to Re-Examine Partial-Birth Abortion
Posted by on 2.21.06 @ 4:31PM
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear Gonzales v. Carhart, examining the federal Partial Birth Abortion Act of 2003. The lower courts struck down the PBAA under Stenberg v. Carhart, a 2000 decision in which SCOTUS struck down Nebraska's partial-birth abortion law. O'Connor was the swing vote in Stenberg, and Alito is likely to swing the other way. A good thing: Stenberg is preposterous and should be overturned.
There is a slight wrinkle: the PBAA, unlike the Nebraska law, is constitutionally questionable, to say the least, on federalism grounds (as Glenn Reynolds notes). The lower courts didn't consider the federalism question, though, so the Supreme Court probably won't either.
Port of Call
Posted by on 2.21.06 @ 4:21PM
So the possibility of a Middle-Eastern-managed American port system is all it took to get the President to notice that he had this weird procedural power called a "veto"? Maybe if that bridge to nowhere had been toward North Korea we'd have seen that veto pen whipped out a bit faster and held more firmly.
This port deal is getting weirder and weirder, and we're here to tell you that when everything is said and done, it will be weirder still.
What we can't figure out, is how tone deaf both the British (selling) and the Arab (buying) firms were to possible American political concerns. Usually in such deals, the corporations involved hire a raft of consultants to assist them in this regard. It would be interesting to see whom the corporations retained for this one. No doubt a lot of money changed hands, and neither side got its money's worth.
Honor a U.S. Ally
Posted by on 2.21.06 @ 2:56PM
Last week, our Bill Tucker suggested February 28 as a day of solidarity with Denmark. Now Christopher Hitchens proposes a friendship vigil outside the Danish Embassy in Washington, and he makes an offer one can't refuse:
"...I wonder if anyone might feel like joining me in gathering outside the Danish Embassy in Washington, in a quiet and composed manner, to affirm some elementary friendship. Those who like the idea might contact me at christopher.hitchens@yahoo.com..."
No matter what you might have heard about Hitchens, he really is excellent, delightful company.
West Bank siege failure
Posted by on 2.21.06 @ 2:56PM
Discouraging report from West Bank: the IDF operation that encircled two major Al Aqsa Martyrs` Brigade bad guys in the Balata refugee camp near Nablus has failed to capture either.
Ala Senakreh may not have been inside when the IDF teams closed the circle. (This is a roughly built, ramshackle neghborhood of concrete-poured dwellings, one family unit atop another, roofs and half-basements connected by narrow, often internal ladders: it is deliberately constructed to make pursuit and capure of residents most difficult.) Ala Senakreh is the Al Aqsa leader in Nablus, where the cells are recruiting and arming the next waves of suicide belt bombers for the Third Intifadeh.
Worse news: Abu Aziz, deputy comander Al Aqsa on the West Bank, was able to escape through the IDF cordon. This underlines how difficult it is to trap a gang leader in the camps, where he is provided total support by the beleaguered residents. It also illustrates the limits of IDF special operations. The IDF is the best in the counerterror business, after decades of practice, and here is a case study how the IDF cannot grab a completely well-known and shoot-to-kill enemy leader even when they have both the advantage of surprise, and superior force and firezone area control.
Last eve, while the siege continued, I spoke with a West Bank op, Mohammed by name, who identified himself as International Solidarity Movement, which is a terror support group: he described how his teams had been working to get food and water into the siege site for several days (this was a seventy-two-hour operation). What I learned from Mohammed by name is that there are no certainties to operations on the West Bank: all is fog of war.
I have asked my Jerusalem source to ask Abu Aziz (whom I spoke with on Monday 13 February) back on the air for next week, to hear from him in Arabic how he escaped the IDF trap. Abu Aziz is convincing, potent, articulate, ruthless, charismatic, as dangerous a man as there is on the planet. Abu Aziz knows that he is expendable and doomed. Nonetheless, Abu Aziz's devotion to the destruction of Israel and the Jews in Palestine is the genuine voice of the enemy.
(No word on the fate of the downed UAV and its camera, film, contents.)
Miers at the Piers
Posted by on 2.21.06 @ 12:29PM
For anyone wondering just how wrong-headed this Bush policy on port security is – I call it Miers at the Piers – this latest bit of news should clinch it for you.
''The overall threat to the I’m sure. Heartwarming how Carter gives Bush the benefit of the doubt as soon as Bush lets down his guard on national security. You can almost hear our worst president chortling, “It’s about time they saw things my way. This inordinate fear of terrorism must stop!”
Washington Times features Tierney
Posted by on 2.21.06 @ 12:16AM
Satisfying to see the leader in the Washington Times this news cycle feature Bill Tierney and intelligencesummit.org.
The WashTimes was especially taken with that startling detail in one of the translations from hundred of hours of recorded conversations between Saddam and his staff that "plasma" technology was a major focus as recently as five years ago.
"One new piece of information revealed on the tapes, released Saturday by Mr. Tierney at the Intelligence Summit, a private conference held in Arlington, is that Saddam was actively working on a plan to enrich uranium using a technique known as plasma separation. This is particularly worrisome because of the date of the conversation: It took place in 2000, nearly five years after Iraq's nuclear programs were thought to have stopped.
"Perhaps most disturbing of all, according to Mr. Tierney, was the fact that the Iraqi scientists briefing Saddam about the uranium enrichment plan in 2000 'were totally unknown' to U.N. weapons inspectors. The plasma program also appears to have escaped the attention of the Iraq Survey Group, which reported two years ago that it had ended back in the late 1980s."
Mention to those of you who remain winningly skittish about the merits of Tierney's and his colleague John Loftus's work, that there is a steep learning curve here for all of us amateur sleuths. Join in.
Monday, February 20, 2006
Re: Fukuyama, Name-Calling
Posted by on 2.20.06 @ 9:46PM
John: agreed -- another case of heat over light. More on bad terminology and the supposed "third way" between neocon and realist is hashed out at The Washington Realist. I also take a look at Jimmy Carter's latest WaPo plea -- "Don't Punish the Palestinian People" -- in light of the whole label issue here.
Curt Gowdy, RIP
Posted by on 2.20.06 @ 7:15PM
Just heard of the passing of Curt Gowdy, sportscaster extraordinaire. He was in his 80s.
Gowdy was everything a sportscaster should be: well-informed, well-spoken and excited about what he was doing. From Gowdy, you got the sports news straight. He wasn't one to preen or to make the story all about him. It wasn't at all about Curt, but about the sports he loved. From the old "American Sportsman" series (I remember one episode in which he took former Texas guv John Connally to Africa on an elephant hunt) to every imaginable kind of athletic competition, Gowdy's clear, crisp voice was always a pleasure.
RIP, Curt. Sorry I never got to hunt with you.
Siege update: one escapes; UAV crashes
Posted by on 2.20.06 @ 2:43PM
This is a second real time report from the siege at the Balata refugee camp near Nablus on the West Bank (aka Occupied Palestine) where the IDF has located two major leaders of Al Aqsa in the last hours.
Most recently someone from inside has managed an escape from the siege point: identity of the escaped suspect is unknown.
Also, most recently, an IDF UAV being used to monitor the siege site has crashed near Nablus, reportedly on the home of a Palestinian journalist. The IDF is in pursuit of the wreck. However it is reported and confirmed that Palestinian civilians have found the contents of the drone, including film and/or recording devices, and they are attempting to get the contents to the Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigade.
Meanwhile, the siege continues. It may be reaching a climax soon. The IDF is censoring battlefield reports: all details need confirmation, and as of yet it is impossible to confirm anything but general statements.
This is the fog of war in the dark in enemy territory up against the toughest hombres on the West Bank at a distance of seven thousand air miles via my source and his mobile phone sources when they turn their phones on (some are wanted men). Bumpy ride.
More soon, and a general recap and overview (UAV call your office) on my show later.
Re: Fukuyama
Posted by on 2.20.06 @ 2:15PM
There's less to object to than I expected, actually, but that's only because what Fukuyama is critiquing is a very broad caricature of neoconservatism. Does he really think that one must step beyond neoconservatism to grapple with how a democracy-promotion strategy should be circumscribed, or how to cope with anti-Americanism during the democratization process? If so, then various people generally counted within the neocon camp should be counted out of it (I'm thinking especially of Charles Krauthammer and Reuel Marc Gerecht, but there are many others). As with most discussions about neoconservatism, the labels tend to obscure rather than illuminate the ideas in play.
Real time siege of Al Aqsa chiefs
Posted by on 2.20.06 @ 1:38PM
This is a real time report of a siege underway at Balata refugee camp near Nablus on the West Bank (aka Occupied Palestine).
The IDF and agents have surrounded a dwelling and settled down to a stand-off. Surrender or collapse or death are the options. Inside the dwelling are two critical Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigade leaders on the West Bank. First is the Nablus leader, Ala Senakreh. The second is Abu Aziz, who is deputy commander of Al Aqsa on the West Bank and a major league bad guy.
I spoke with Abu Aziz at Nablus on his mobile phone last Monday, 13 February, along with my correspondent in Jerusalem. Abu Aziz, in measured Arabic, low, clear, confident, commanding speaking voice, described an imminent Third Intifadeh, to be led by Al Aqsa and Islamic Jihad from the West Bank. It will include suicide belts in waves and also rockets against Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, (In the last three weeks, the IDF has intercepted 12 belts sent by Abu Aziz, who is responsible for the last three attacks that got through the defenses). Abu Aziz said he was not loyal to Abbas or the now Hamas-controlled PA parliament. Abu Aziz said he had plenty of ops, weapons, explosives, money to launch a sustaining and devastating offensive.
The IDF moving aggressively against Al Aqsa means the Third Intifadeh launch date will change; it may move up. There is evidence that the funds are now coming from Tehran, as this will be a coordinated series of attacks by Al Aqsa, Islamic Jihad and (in disguise) HizbAllah. Hamas will claim it is not involved; yet Hamas will do nothing to stop the attacks.
I spoke to an IDF general officer (ret) last week, who said this will not be an intifadeh, it will be a war.
I will update the siege when I got more detail. Recall that the West Bank is seven hours ahead of the East Coast; it is full dark now; the optimum time for special operations is after 2 -3 am.
The End Of Neoconservatism?
Posted by on 2.20.06 @ 12:02PM
Francis Fukuyama returns to the ground he stomped over a decade ago in The End of History to announce, in The New York Times, the failure of the neoconservative project. Fukuyama's editorial asks all the right questions and supplies many of the wrong answers. To wit: 'the overarching lesson that emerges from these cases is that the United States does not get to decide when and where democracy comes about. By definition, outsiders can't "impose" democracy on a country that doesn't want it; demand for democracy and reform must be domestic.'
The truth of "democracy promotion" is that often a sudden application of power in a "hostile" environment tips the scales. Indeed, Fukuyama's "process" frequently crosses over into what he might call outright meddling -- think about Georgia or Ukraine. What was Radio Free Europe but an attack of ideas that countries didn't want? Fukuyama struggles on the horns of this dilemma. Discussion extended here.
Re: Saddam Tapes
Posted by on 2.20.06 @ 11:04AM
Given how very weird Tierney and the Intelligence Summit people are, I wonder if we should even be trusting their translations.
A Chavez Strategy
Posted by on 2.20.06 @ 10:59AM
Hugo Chavez's ego seems especially fragile. Every time Condoleezza Rice criticizes the Venezuelan strongman, his mojo is lost. His latest response is what you'd expect from a teenage gangster wannabe: "Don't mess with me Condoleezza. Don't mess with me, girl." From which a strategy may be derived.
From now on, our ladies should take the lead in leveling criticism on Chavez. He'll be reduced to a blubbering rubble of babble if Laura Ingraham, Monica Crowley and (shudder) Ann Coulter take him on. Ladies, he's all yours.
Saddam tapes: cover story
Posted by on 2.20.06 @ 12:34AM
More from intelligencesummit.org, the Tierney translation of Saddam Hussein’s tapes recordings of meetings with his staff with regard WMD.
Following is a section that features Saddam and an unidentified male briefer. They are discussing deceiving the UN inspections process by creating a cover story.
Tierney believes this is generally a discussion of “eliminating the technical mines’ to end the inspection process. Tierney also believes the briefer is joking when he says he “wouldn’t know about the presence (of WMD).” Tierney believes Saddam’s order is to let UNSCOM confirm erroneous pre-war assessments.
I puzzle if this is a general discussion of WMD or if it is specific to one of the four sensitive areas: chemical, biological, missiles, nuclear?.
There is no date to the discussion. The references seem to suggest a time before UNSCOM was kicked out by
SH: The teams that are now searching for them are not doing so to verify the facts as they are. They are doing so to create cover through any means possible, technically, I mean, even though umawiyat, but they write it up technically.
SH: The umawiyat are many, but they write it technically, politically, on how to be dignified…this is correct…I mean they are now more angry at us than before the hostility.
SH: Before the hostility, they had information and deductions that we were working in the direction we described, a dangerous direction. Now, we can confirm for them this false direction. I mean, according to the explanation.
SH: That is, there was a group of these guys and those guys, but all ended, and with that, the thing they will confirm is our cover story. Good, this is the way it goes…they are present.
SH: there isn’t anybody that is going to give away a card…well…this is- (indistinct) attempt in any sea’a.
Unidentified male: We must study how we can package this cover story so that we can have a program that won’t cause anxiety in the future, and not work in a program that will cause anxiety again.
SH: Let them wadfu us.
Unidentified Male: Let them wadfu us (laughs) really, I mean, this issue, there is no end to it, definitely
SH: They would refuse, but they would not be able to pay (indistinct) the return is very high…not standard (laughs)…
The clue I seize upon for deeper analysis is when Saddam Hussein speaks of a time “before the hostility.” We know these tapes were made of many hundred, thousands of hours from originals: this is a best of the best of, from recordings between 1988 and at least after 2000. Therefore “before the hostility” suggests he means before the Gulf War, 1990-1991.
Saddam Hussein says “they had information and deductions that we were working in the direction we described….”
What could he be referring to? WMD in general? Unlikely, since before the Gulf War, he had used missiles and chemical weapons. There was no reason to deduce from the outside of the country:
This leaves the other two areas of inspection, the two most dangerous WMD: biological and nuclear. Saddam Hussein says, “…a dangerous direction.” This means that before the war, outsiders had knowledge, and could deduce, that
Saddam Hussein adds in a sinister fashion, “Now we can confirm for them this false direction. I mean, according to the explanation…”
I interpret this to mean that
Again, is this biological or nuclear? Both fit the pattern. At this writing, I am leaning toward nuclear, because the
The questions then center on what was
All questions to ask and ask again. There are no answers here, just gigantic puzzles. There is also very loud indication that we have not learned enough of the Iraqi WMD programs that UNSCOM never found, and that no one has accounted for to this day.
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Will Hillary Run?
Posted by on 2.19.06 @ 2:52AM
The contrarian view that Hillary might sit out 2008 shows itself, just as Mickey Kaus predicted last month. Douglas MacKinnon's argument is worth reading, but consider a factor that he doesn't: the forward inertia of the Clinton fundraising machine. As long as the money keeps rolling in, it's very hard to see Hillary stepping aside.
First report Saddam tapes: biological: germ
Posted by on 2.19.06 @ 1:20AM
First look at the Tierney translation of a most compelling part of the Saddam Hussein tapes from intelligencesummit.org: there is no fixed date to these exchanges. There is a clue when Saddam Hussein says that America experienced a terror attack two years before, suggesting 2000, two years after the 1998 attack on the embassies in Africa. There is no reference to 9-11.
These are preliminary translations.
TA is Tariq Aziz. SH is Saddam Hussein.
Soon the Arabic originals will be in the hands of Iraqis who can easily understand the peculiar Tikriti slang of Saddam Hussein and others on the tapes and can fill in the blanks and the unintelligibles.
Note the use of the following critical and most threatening words: certain combinations of these words makes for a casus belli of the first rank: at the same time, certain combinations of these words would render the conversation between Aziz and Hussein as a dry colloquy on terrorism in the near future.
biological
French
Russian
terrorism
Americans
weapons of mass destruction
nuclear explosion
White House
germ warfare
biological (weapon)
TA: "Well, on the subject of biological which still remains, the French and the Russians, if they help us, we can reach a solution, I mean, I don't think it is unlikely that (unintelligible)
TA: This talk that
SH: Terrorism is coming...with the Americans, two years ago with the English, I believe, there was a campaign (unintelligible) with one of them, that in the future would be terrorism with weapons of mass destruction...
SH: what is it that we...consider this technique...and use people involved with smuggling...there were stories on smuggling.
Other Voice: but sir, germ warfare –
SH: Before a little, in 89, ... they said in the future they would see a car (unintelligible) a nuclear explosion, for example, Washington, or germ, or chemical.
TA: Sir, germ, biological, we can arrange a house, we can arrange a truck, with-
SH: this is coming, this story is coming, but not from
TA: Sir, they can't do it
SH: It is coming from others.
TA: biological, this is simple to arrange. This is easy. With any biological (weapon), you can use a truck with germ...and fill the water tank and kill (unintelligible). And this not a country, it is not necessary to suspect a country, anyone can do it.
TA: Anyone can do it, and American, in a house near the White House. They would not have much reason, except the institutes. They have big institutes, like Hakim. (Unintelligible) Hakim, and it is known that it was destroyed.
TA: They, if they can convince the others also, that this institute has the equipment, I don't think there would (mayakin (unintelligible). There would be (mumbling) Yes?
TA: Yes, care with all the shibabish. I mean, if actually, there is going to be destruction, I think our position is not going to be strong. The others are going to say that this is true, the five are not going to accept--
SH: Yes, that is like all, enough of (unintelligible)
Unidentified Male: (a speaker at a distance from mike raises concern about such an attack)
SH: (unintelligible) I know that biological is the farthest thing away from there being a story. Wadiyan (friendly), they ended it, their work and (unintelligible)
Unidentified Male: (most unintelligible), but mentions a window and air conditioning)
TA: (most unintelligible sentence)
[The tapes continue: there are hours. There are hundred more hours to find, translate, analyze.]
