Tuesday, June 29, 2004

Philippine Past, Iraqi Future?. John Judis in the pages of Foreign Policy thinks President Bush should be discouraged by the example of the Philippines when contemplating the future of Iraq. An excerpt: [T]he U.S. Navy ousted Spain from the Philippines in the Spanish-American War of 1898. But instead of creating a Philippine democracy, the McKinley administration, its confidence inflated by victory in that "splendid little war," annexed the country and installed a colonial administrator. The United States then waged a brutal war against the same Philippine independence movement it encouraged to fight against Spain. The war dragged on for 14 years. Before it ended, about 120,000 U.S. troops were deployed, more than 4,000 were killed, and more than 200,000 Filipino civilians and soldiers were killed. Resentment lingered a century later during Bush's visit. As for the Philippines' democracy, the United States can take little credit for what exists and some blame for what doesn't. The electoral machinery the United States designed in 1946 provided a democratic veneer beneath which a handful of families, allied to U.S. investors÷and addicted to kickbacks÷controlled the Philippine land, economy, and society. The tenuous system broke down in 1973 when Philippine politician Ferdinand Marcos had himself declared president for life. Marcos was finally overthrown in 1986, but even today Philippine democracy remains more dream than reality. Three months before Bush's visit, a group of soldiers staged a mutiny that raised fears of a military coup. With Islamic radicals and communists roaming the countryside, the Philippines is perhaps the least stable of Asian nations. If the analogy between the United States' "liberation" of the Philippines and of Iraq holds true, it will not be to the credit of the Bush administration, but to the skeptics who charged that the White House undertook the invasion of Baghdad with its eyes wide shut. [Hit & Run] This isn't the first time that Bush has demonstrated his historical ignorance about the Phillipines. Still, I find it hard to believe that nobody restrained him from actually telling the Filipinos what a wonderful thing the US occupation had been for them. What's next, a German politician going to Israel and telling them how wonderful the Holocaust was for Jews? Here's an idea. Bush, and his neo-con buddies, should walk through any major city in the Phillipines and repeat that speech about how he's so proud of America's role in the Phillipines. He should not be given any bodyguards or weapons, so as to ensure that the Filipinos have plenty of opportunity to properly express their gratitude. 11:49:04 AM    comment () Groove and the US Government. Boston.com : Accidental Contractor When he founded Groove Networks in 1997, technologist Ray Ozzie envisioned a target market for its collaboration software: businesses eager to communicate with their partners and suppliers. ''In the founding documents, I don't think there was... [Jeroen Bekkers' Groove Weblog] Accidental or not, the connection, especially when considered together with Ray Ozzie's history of collaborating with the NSA, means that only a fool would rely on Groove for anything where security was important. 9:46:09 AM    comment () From madogre: "Ogre - The animal rights activists would lynch me for this, but here is how to stop a rodent infestation. Green and Brown glass (wine and beer bottles) finely ground into powder between two bricks. Mix the glass with molasses into a runny mixture. Set out this mixture in prominent rodent locations. The rodent packs this into his cheek pouches, and if he does not bleed to death on the way back to the burrow, the rest of the rodents in the burrow swallow this mess, and they all die. I have used this on mice in the grain bins on our farm. Works great. Mart" [End the War on Freedom] It sounds clever, but I'd worry about other animals (cats and dogs) being drawn to the molasses. I'll stick to cats for handling rodent infestations, I think. 9:25:05 AM    comment ()

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