Thursday, March 27, 2003

Thunderous Explosions Rattle Baghdad [AP World News] Iraqi officials, speaking before the late night attacks, said 36 civilians were killed and 215 injured in U.S. bombing a day earlier. "They are targeting the human beings in Iraq to decrease their morale," Iraqi Health Minister Omeed Medhat Mubarak said of the air attacks. "They are not discriminating, differentiating." These paragraphs illustrate something strange that I've noticed about Iraqi announcements. They're still putting out absurd propaganda statements such as this one about targeting people to decrease morale, yet they also appear to be releasing accurate casualty figures (or as accurate as can be expected during a war). I had expected them to be claiming that hundreds of civilians were killed, with similarly inflated casualties among the invading troops. 5:19:51 PM    comment () Who's Conservative?. Jeff Tucker recently stated what we've long realized: there is something profoundly wrong with what passes for conservatism today. Entirely ignorant of the conservative intellectual tradition, many self-described conservatives sound more like Woodrow Wilson or Leon Trotsky than Edmund Burke. Unlike Jeff, though, I'm not ready just yet to give up on the word conservative. Leftists have taken enough of our words away. National Review's Jonah Goldberg, for instance, who hates being told he's not a genuine conservative (even though nothing could be more obvious), offers this justification for war with Iraq: "The United States needs to go to war with Iraq because it needs to go to war with someone in the region and Iraq makes the most sense." Elsewhere, he writes: "Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show we mean business." If you're wondering if these are the words of a conservative, try to imagine Russell Kirk uttering them. But it is the various forms of Wilsonianism, uttered apparently in all seriousness, that most decisively disqualify neoconservatism from any place within the conservative intellectual tradition. When writing for Internet outlets, I inevitably receive a few emails from people who condemn me for not wanting to bring democracy to Iraq, and/or to "liberate" the Iraqi people. One man actually told me that if I weren't a "liberal" I would be more eager to liberate this oppressed people. Such an ignorant remark impugns the decency of every early American patriot, who to a man believed in what would today be called an America First foreign policy, but this does nothing to stop a belligerent minority from uttering it. It says a great deal about the state of conservative thought in America that any of this nonsense could actually be confused with genuine conservatism. To the contrary, this kind of messianic ideology, whereby there exists some moral obligation to spread democracy and to "free" the various unfree peoples of the world, is precisely what the great conservative Edmund Burke meant when he spoke of the "armed doctrines" of the French Revolution. Mesmerized by the universalisms of the Enlightenment, the Jacobins were ready to spread revolution throughout Europe -- for why should only the French enjoy the blessings of liberty? [LewRockwell.com] 12:48:50 PM    comment () Is There Something About Conservatism?. Of course these theories are not mutually exclusive. Maybe in combination we have the whole answer: the nationalist tendencies inherent in any people are mixing with the intrinsic flabbiness of conservative thought and the baseness of the media culture to generate uncritical loyalty to a nutty president who happens to be a Republican, a party which is increasingly dominated at the intellectual level by internationalist social democrats who know nothing and care nothing for liberty or traditional American values. [LewRockwell.com] Some theories on how it is that people who support the conquest of Iraq can call themselves "conservative." 12:29:34 PM    comment () Robert Mugabe's Rhodesia. Doris Lessing has a searing piece in The New York Revie of Books about Robert Mugabe's reign in Rhodesia. [Link courtesy of Arts & Letters Daily] [Hit & Run] A long and rather horrifying look at how Mugabe has destroyed Zimbabwe. Citizens of South Africa should pay close attention, because this is their future. 11:40:52 AM    comment () Blunkett pushes asylum havens. Asylum seekers would be deported to UN controlled centres outside Europe under UK proposals to the EU. [BBC News | Front Page | UK Edition] "Asylum haven" is a rather twisted euphemism for "concentration camp." If the US government had any decency, it would suggest to the UK that instead of setting up concentration camps, they give asylum seekers one-way tickets to America. 11:36:41 AM    comment () Henrietta Bowman at Sierra Times - Faces of the War - I'm not sure why Ms. Bowman thinks this may be her most controversial and unpopular piece, but it's a good one. [sierra] Use "Red Dawn" for a scenario if you will. How would you, as patriotic Americans, react if an overwhelming Chinese force invaded America, much as we are doing Iraq, to "liberate" us? Would YOU give a good rat's derierre about the Geneva convention? Look at these population figures for US cities most resembling Basra's 1.3 million: Press Release for Population Estimates The closest in both numbers and climate to Basra are Phoenix and San Diego. Now imagine both of those cities attacked by China and running out of water, food and medicines. That is what has happened to Basra. 60% of people in Basra are without safe water to drink. Three days in the desert without water is a death sentence...60% of 1.3 million... If the Chinese tried to do that to me, I would flay them alive. But the Iraqis are supposed to WELCOME us??????? All I can say is I am praying both for our troops and for the Iraqi civilians. Do I hate someone in this damned war? YOU DAMNED BETCHA! I want to see them hung from the nearest Liberty Tree ever since the NeoCons under Donald Rumsfeld did this: On 9/11/01, barely five hours after American Airlines Flight 77 plowed into the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld was telling his aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq--even though there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks. [End the War on Freedom] Evidently Ms. Bowman was correct, as her original post has disappeared from the Sierra Times forum--as have any other topics posted since 12 March. The following text now appears in place of the original post: This post closed by the Dept. of Homeland Defense, OIA, PATRIOT ACT I & II, FBI, Geneva Convention Protocols, Operation TIPS, John Asscroft, the Propaganda Machine and those who deliberately chose to close their eyes. 9:20:35 AM    comment () Bill Walker at Laissez Faire Electronic Times - Peaceful Trade--the Nemesis of Dictators - a short history of the United States' horrible record at getting rid of dictators, and a short exploration of what might actually work: free trade. [grabbe] [End the War on Freedom] 8:53:44 AM    comment () Scientists identify killer virus. Experts say they have now confirmed the identity of a virus which may have killed more than 50 people worldwide. [BBC News | Front Page | UK Edition] The US Centers for Disease Control says that a Corona virus -- possibly a strain never before seen in humans -- is to blame. Other types of Corona virus can cause the common cold. Still no news of a cure, unfortunately. 6:30:06 AM    comment () Today's message from the Committee for State Department of Homeland Security: Worry about dead fish during a hurricane. Thanks to Claire Wolfe's web log for the pointer. 6:17:47 AM    comment ()

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