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Monday, December 29, 2003
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Political Liberty in Iraq. Demonstrating for Saddam is right out, as this Iraqi teenager profiled in Slate learned. He and some school buddies were dragged out of school by nearly a hundred soldiers and taken into custody for allegedly attending a pro-Saddam rally back shortly after his regime fell. An excerpt: "They [the American soldiers] are civil in a way," Ibrahim said. "They are afraid of the situation here, and that's why they behave badly." But he is not intimidated by them. His family has seen plenty of American injustice. His father (something to do with the former government, though exactly what Ibrahim wouldn't say) has been detained three times, his uncle twice. His cousin was shot in the leg at an American checkpoint when he didn't understand what the soldier was shouting. His grandmother had three and a half kilos of gold and an heirloom diamond necklace taken during a nighttime raid on her house. All run-of-the-mill, unverifiable stories of the kind I have heard many times.
...
The Americans questioned Ibrahim and the others and determined that they were just schoolboys protesting; there had been no particular resistance involvement.
"I would have preferred not to have done it," said Lt. Col. Quintas, while acknowledging that the operation at the school had been undertaken on his initiative, "But they need to understand that they are not allowed to do this and that there are consequences."
And yes, I saw the part where the kid seems to admire Hitler. [Hit & Run]
The Iraqi teenager and his friends sound very much like teenagers in American public schools, right down to the fondness for Hitler.
6:06:45 PM
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The Bush Election Strategy. The only way to combat the Republican "Reichstag Fire" campaign strategy of terrorizing the electorate is to challenge it frontally, as Dennis Kucinich and, to a lesser extent, Howard Dean are doing, calling the administration's bluff, explaining that the War in Iraq is a diversion and that a War on Terror is counterproductive and is about as likely to be successful at making the world or the U.S. a safer place as the War on Drugs was at making America drug-free.
Meanwhile, playing by Bush's rules makes the Democrats, and indeed American democracy itself, particularly vulnerable to the possibility of another Al Qaeda attack on American soil. General Tommy Franks has warned recently that such an attack, if it were even partially successful, could spell the end of the Bill of Rights and of a 228-year-old experiment in American Democracy. Yet that dire prophesy, while quite credible, is only possible if the political leadership continues in advance to scare the American public into a quivering mass of irrationally spineless cowards ready to retreat into their bunkers at the first sound of a firecracker.
If Democratic leaders would instead start talking about the strength of the Constitution, the inviolability of the Bill of Rights, and the need to stand together in defense of American freedom and democracy in the face of those who oppose these traditions, any attack, should one come, would not be seen as reason to give it all up, but rather as a reason to rally to the defense of freedom.
For the sake of the '04 election, but more importantly for the sake of American democracy, the Bush campaign of fear, deception and manipulation needs to be challenged directly. No Democrat who plays along with that game should be given a chance in the primaries. (link)
This pretty much sums up what has been my view from the beginning and is a major reason for my support of Dennis Kucinich; as the author notes, Kucinich has been by far the most outspoken candidate and taken the clearest stands against Bush policies. Dean doesn't even come close. [Al-Muhajabah's Islamic Blogs]
I agree with the author's recommendation for Democratic leaders, but I recognize that there is absolutely no chance of them taking it. The Democratic Party leadership has been devoted to the destruction of the Constitution and the violation of the Bill of Rights since before my parents were born, and it's absurd to think that the Democratic establishment will suddenly reverse course.
Theoretically an "outsider" type within the Democratic Party could fill this role by gaining enough popular support to gain the nomination despite opposition from the party insiders. Kucinich is an outsider, certainly, and Dean presents himself as one, but unfortunately they are both socialists who gained their outsider status by wanting to destroy everything America stands for even faster than the Democratic establishment.
Perhaps someday someone like Ron Paul will emerge from the Democratic ranks, but it hasn't happened yet, and I'm not aware of any Democrats who could possibly fit the bill.
5:41:48 PM
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Syria Pushes for a 'Nuclear-Free Mideast' [AP World News]
Building on Iranian and Libyan moves toward disarmament, Syria on Monday pushed for a Security Council resolution to make the Middle East a nuclear weapon-free zone.
But diplomats said the council was deeply divided over the wisdom of taking up Syria's request, which was generally perceived as aimed at Israel, long suspected of having a nuclear arsenal.
Just Israel? The United States has considerably more troops in the Middle East than Israel does--perhaps Syria was aiming at the US as well.
5:00:09 PM
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MONTY PYTHON TAKES OVER. I do realize that there might be a serious point behind this -- and I would be prepared to view it much more seriously if this war were being run by more intelligent people with a slightly greater grasp of the operative principles -- but this runs the serious risk of heading irretrievably into Monty Python territory:
The FBI is warning police nationwide to be alert for people carrying almanacs, cautioning that the popular reference books covering everything from abbreviations to... [The Light of Reason]
Great, now we'll have all the Crusaders ranting about how Poor Richard is a terrorist sympathizer.
2:50:43 PM
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Apple and Pepsi to Give Away 100 Million Free Songs. Apple¨ and Pepsi-Cola North America today announced a historic promotion to legally give away 100 million free songs to Mac¨ and Windows PC users from Apple's iTunes¨ Music Store. Beginning February 1, 100 million winning codes will be randomly seeded in 20 ounce and 1 liter bottles of Pepsi, Diet Pepsi and Sierra Mist, and the winning codes will be redeemable for a free song from the iTunes Music Store. Winners will simply go to Apple's iTunes Music Store (www.iTunes.com), enter the code found under the bottle cap and choose any 99 cent song from the online store's vast catalog of over 400,000 songs. The Pepsi iTunes promotion will kick-off with a Super Bowl ad on February 1, 2004, and will run until March 31, 2004. [Apple]
So now Steve Jobs is selling sugar water. This is old news, and many others have noticed it before me, but it's still quite amusing.
2:04:32 PM
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MORAL BULLIES, PART I: YOU SPEAK OF THE "COALITION OF THE PISSY"? VERY WELL THEN. I PISS ON YOU.. I have a confession to make. On the day of Saddam Hussein's capture, I posted only a short entry. I was very busy with work, but promised to return with further thoughts very soon. But I haven't done so until now. This is why.
I am embarrassed to admit this, but in the name of full disclosure, I shall force myself to do so. I was cowed, overawed, and struck dumb with astonishment at the sheer breadth, subtlety, nuance, complexity, and overwhelming sophistication of the charges... [The Light of Reason]
I want to state one thing very clearly and unmistakably for the benefit of any warbloggers who might read this -- particularly those warbloggers and other hawks who strut their self-announced moral superiority and constantly shove it in the face of everyone else, and who act as if any disagreement with their historically ignorant views of the world constitutes some sort of treason. You are the enemies of America -- just as you are the enemies of thought, of history, of ideas, of any conception of what genuine liberty means, and how it is to be achieved.
You are a disgrace to this once-great nation, and if you have your way, this nation will follow many others on the route of total self-destruction in a conflagration of military might strewn purposelessly and mindlessly around the globe, while an increasingly authoritarian government destroys what remains of freedom here in the United States. And I also want to make it clear that there are many of us who are not at all cowed by your moral blustering. Many of us see it exactly for what it is: the phony posturing of a coward who relies on intimidation in place of argument, who feels that shouting mindless slogans will silence any opposing viewpoints, no matter how well-reasoned, and who counts on the reluctance or unwillingness of his opponents to stand up to the taunts of an obviously ignorant bully.
As your hollow and offensive tactics increasingly reveal themselves to be almost entirely devoid of thought, of any kind of historical grounding, and of any basis in principle, I think more and more people will call your bluff -- and finally shame you into silence. You are anti-American in every important sense: you have no understanding of individual freedom or how it is maintained, you have no appreciation of the dynamics of foreign affairs, and you have no grasp of how ideas or a culture of freedom are spread.
1:59:39 PM
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Baby Steps to PATRIOT II. Commenters in a thread below noted that, while media lenses were trained on the search for Saddam's beard lice of mass destruction, one more element of PATRIOT II—an expansion of the definition of "financial institutions"—was passed in the form of a rider to an Intelligence Authorization Act. [Hit & Run]
I had predicted this back in February. It would have been nice to be wrong, though.
8:40:06 AM
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© Copyright
2006
Ken Hagler.
Last update:
2/15/2006; 1:58:46 PM.
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