drat fink

hearts and minds

"Amid the wreckage I counted 12 dead civilians, lying in the road or in
nearby ditches. All had been trying to leave this southern town
overnight, probably for fear of being killed by US helicopter attacks and heavy artillery.

Their mistake had been to flee over a bridge that is crucial to the coalition's supply lines and to run into a group of shell-shocked young American marines with orders to shoot anything that moved."

inseitz

"After six years on this beat, I know one thing for sure: expecting TV to be coolheaded, complex and forward-looking during times of global panic is expecting it to act against its nature. It's like asking a shark to eat salad."

shock and awe

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - American television network NBC said on Monday it had severed its relations with veteran reporter Peter Arnett after he told Iraqi television that the U.S. war plan against Saddam Hussein had failed."

rakes egress

"The military has gotten very good at using the media for its own purposes. I should know—I taught them how to do it.

As a public affairs officer in the Marine Corps, I taught military-media relations to commanders and staff officers. In other words, it was my job to teach Marines how to work with the media. To begin with, here’s what I usually said: “Think of them as an offensive weapon. Plan for their employment just as you would plan for any of your other supporting arms—your artillery, your close air support and your naval gunfire. They’ll be there and there’s nothing you can do about. It’s a fact of life."

the more things change

doonesbury cartoon from thirty years ago today.

worst law ever

"NEW YORK, March 29 (UPI) -- Saturday was the last day smokers could light up in most bars and restaurants in New York City."

the horses mouthpiece

state dept press releases

uneven steven

asymmetical warfare links

money for schools

useless scrip

"Pentagon war games pit "Red Force" (simulating the enemy) against "Blue Force" (the United States). In this war game, as in many war games over the years, Van Riper played the Red Force commander. In his e-mail (which was promptly leaked to the Army Times then picked up, though in much less detail, by the Guardian and the Washington Post), Van Riper complained about Millennium Challenge 02, writing that, "Instead of a free-play, two-sided game … it simply became a scripted exercise." The conduct of the game did not allow "for the concepts of rapid decisive operations, effects-based operations, or operational net assessment to be properly assessed. … It was in actuality an exercise that was almost entirely scripted to ensure a Blue 'win.'"

city slickers

"Welcome to the Urban Operations Journal. This site is designed as an online aid and web portal for members of United States, allied and coalition military services researching urban military operations. The intended audience also includes civilian members of the U.S. Department of Defense and defense contractors who are attempting to find solutions to the problems inherent to this most difficult operating environment."

down for the counter

initiating operation clutterfuck today. i will soon have more mismatched pointless furniture than i need. who needs a desk, a kitchen table or a stove when you can have three sofas and a free standing bar-height counter?

peer review

Brussel's famous statue Manneken Pis is dressed the colors of the city with a sign reading "Not In My Name."

hall to the chiefs

"After taking some political heat, Halliburton is stepping out of the kitchen. The giant energy and construction firm once managed by Vice President Dick Cheney is no longer in the running for a $600 million rebuilding contract in postwar Iraq, NEWSWEEK has learned.

Timothy Beans, The chief acquisition officer for the U.S. Agency for International Development, said in an interview that Halliburton is not one of the two finalists to be prime contractor for the reconstruction of Iraq, though the Houston-based firm could take part as a subcontractor. The contract is to be awarded next week."

integrated circuitousness

"Of the 30 members of the Defense Policy Board, the government-appointed group that advises the Pentagon, at least nine have ties to companies that have won more than $76 billion in defense contracts in 2001 and 2002. Four members are registered lobbyists, one of whom represents two of the three largest defense contractors.

The board’s chairman, Richard Perle, resigned yesterday, March 27, 2003, amid allegations of conflicts of interest for his representation of companies with business before the Defense Department, although he will remain a member of the board. Eight of Perle’s colleagues on the board have ties to companies with significant contracts from the Pentagon."

too legit to quip

damn that ethel and his research --

Instruments of Statecraft: us guerrilla warfare, counterinsurgency and counterterrorism (1940-1990)

eurobowling for petrodollars

Crude Vision: How Oil Interests Obscured US Government Focus On Chemical Weapons Use by Saddam Hussein

punkrock city, usaf

the antic muse on potential punkrock band names to emerge from the fray. my first editions would be Siege of Basra and The J-DAMs.

nothing to see here

hey, my first instapundit link. can a subscription to the weakly standard be far behind? cant argue with this, though.

theres no ass in texas

who could imagine dr. seuss and sodomy would make strange bedfellows at the supreme court lodge?

that swinger over at harvard has more.

neocontactics

"When the histories of the U.S.-Iraqi war are written, someone is going to have to track down when exactly the neoconservatives sold the Brooklyn Bridge to our president.

I don’t mean the idea of the war itself, though the neocons have been promoting it ever since Poppy Bush let Saddam off the hook in 1991. I have in mind, rather, the notion that the war would unleash the genie of democracy throughout the Middle East, that with our victory would come a quantum leap in America’s prestige and reputation. Television would beam to all the world heartwarming images of U.S. troops being rapturously received as they speed across Iraq; and we would again become the liberators we were in 1944-5."

please please tell me now

"We certainly never thought it would get this big," concludes Robison. "If we did, we would have thought of a better name than the Dixie Chicks."

the revolution will be motorized

get your asymmetrical war on

radiating charm

just saw an ad for this on the msnbc feed running on nbc. who said advertisers would be scared off by proximity to war coverage?

by george

i just wanted a chance to say that if mcgovern had been elected president we wouldnt have had all these problems were dealing with now.

face off

"In the mid-1700s a new strain of Muslim extremism began to flourish in a small village in the Arabian desert—a strain that would have a profound effect on Islam and the world as a whole. As Stephen Schwartz describes it in his recent book, The Two Faces of Islam: The House of Sa'ud from Tradition to Terror, little is known about the early life of the sect's founder, Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, except that as a young man he is thought to have traveled through much of the Ottoman empire. He returned from his travels with a belief that Islam had been corrupted and weakened by the Ottomans, and that it needed to be brought back to its roots. But his brand of "an original, authentic Islam," as Schwartz writes, was both harsher and more stripped down than the religion that the Prophet Muhammad had founded centuries before. Al-Wahhab forbade many practices and traditions that were an established part of Muslim culture, such as the celebration of the Prophet's birthday, the decoration of mosques, and the use of music in worship and daily life. But most striking was his attitude toward those people—both Muslims and non-Muslims—who didn't share his beliefs. As Schwartz describes it, "Shi'as, Sufis, and other Muslims he judged unorthodox were to be exterminated, and all other faiths were to be humiliated." Al-Wahhab soon established a political-religious alliance with a local bandit, Muhammad ibn Sa'ud, and they agreed that any territory they conquered could only be ruled by their descendants. The House of Sa'ud—which rules Saudi Arabia—is directly descended from that alliance, and Wahhabism (though Saudis don't use the term) is the religion of the regime."

fly paper

"GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- The future of surveillance aircraft will take off next Saturday from a small hayfield in northern Florida, but observers will have to look hard to see it. The next generation of spy planes will be small--perhaps less than 6 inches in diameter--and agile as a hummingbird."

con housekeeping

"What do William Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Elliot Abrams, and Robert Kagan have in common? Yes, they are all die-hard hawks who have gained control of U.S. foreign policy since the 9/11 attacks. But they are also part of one big neoconservative family – an extended clan of spouses, children, and friends who have known each other for generations."

looks like gibsons been mucking around the blogs (and his referrer log) lately. yesterday he gave shoutouts to agonist and salam pax, and im guessing today he is stealing links from hesiod, unless hes a drudger outright. in other news, this is funny.

"Umm Qasr is a town similar to Southampton", UK Defence Minister Geoff Hoon told the House of Commons yesterday. "He's either never been to Southampton, or he's never been to Umm Qasr", said one British soldier, informed of this while on patrol in Umm Qasr. Another added: "There's no beer, no prostitutes, and people are shooting at us. It's more like Portsmouth."

i thought i was going to be clever and say he had a case of Blogorrhea but apparently thats been appropriated for other maladies.

am i josh or not?

has josh marshall come fool circle?

cheers and jazeeras

wow. pbs just cut off a bbc world news feed about a report on al-jazeera. im guessing because they deemed the images too imflammatory. somebody forgot to tell the brits about our fair and balanced journalistic standards. meanwhile, the english version of al-jazeera online remains unreachable due to denial of service attacks.

bread lines

"IS HALF A LOAF worse than none? That's the question posed by the surprise Senate vote yesterday in favor of a measure that would cap President Bush's proposed $726 billion tax cut at $350 billion, and the answer, apparently, is no. While this country is fighting a war of unknown duration, while overall tax revenue is down thanks to recession, while hundreds of thousands of people risk losing their health insurance because of state fiscal crises and proposed Medicaid cuts, it is irresponsible of Congress even to consider passing a tax cut worth $350 billion -- let alone $726 billion -- over 10 years, thereby creating a vast budget deficit for the next decade and possibly beyond."

judtment of history

"What is missing in recent American commentary is not so much an appreciation of history—there has been too much of that, with "Munich" invoked at every turn. What is lacking is a sense of the tragic. If the US has had such a long run of foreign policy successes in the modern age, it is in large measure because, as Dean Acheson once put it, "we were fortunate in our opponents." This may not last. We were also fortunate in our leaders. This has certainly not lasted. There is much confident talk of the coming American century; but one hundred years ago many thought it was Germany that held the keys to the new era—and they had good reasons for thinking it. As Raymond Aron once remarked, the twentieth century could have been the German century."

pnac sack

another pnac article from asia times.

shock tropes

"The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation"

watch tower

couple of warblogging resources --inteldump and yahoos list of blogs of warwatchers.

mustard gas

"THE ONLY THING FRENCH ABOUT FRENCH’S® MUSTARD IS THE NAME!"

wonder bread

"This plan, in the form of a budget resolution tied to a firm tax-cut mandate, is moving forward on Capitol Hill even as lawmakers' boilerplate speeches resound with calls for shared wartime sacrifice by all Americans. How an average $90,000 tax cut for each millionaire counts as sacrifice is only one of many unexplained mysteries as Republican leaders fiercely protect President Bush's second wave of tax cuts. The gallant troops in Iraq who are being invoked daily in speeches by members of Congress might be interested to know that the array of cuts includes an estimated $14 billion reduction in military veterans' programs."

surrender at yorktown

many articles worth a look from the new yorker today.

a day in pictures

"(YellowTimes.org) -- YellowTimes.org was temporarily shut down Sunday night. Its new hosting provider shut it down due to publishing "Inappropriate graphic material."

After removing pictures of civilian Iraqi deaths and injuries, along with photos of American POWs, YellowTimes.org was allowed to print again."

tie died

wish i could find thisarthur schlesinger op-ed but heres a part of it in an atrios thread and heres a newsweek interview.

not in my hood

"To anyone who has looked closely enough, Al Qaeda and its sister organizations plainly enjoy yet another strength, arguably the greatest strength of all, something truly imposing -- though in the Western press this final strength has received very little attention. Bin Laden is a Saudi plutocrat with Yemeni ancestors, and most of the suicide warriors of Sept. 11 were likewise Saudis, and the provenance of those people has focused everyone's attention on the Arabian peninsula. But Al Qaeda has broader roots. The organization was created in the late 1980's by an affiliation of three armed factions -- bin Laden's circle of ''Afghan'' Arabs, together with two factions from Egypt, the Islamic Group and Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the latter led by Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda's top theoretician. The Egyptian factions emerged from an older current, a school of thought from within Egypt's fundamentalist movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, in the 1950's and 60's. And at the heart of that single school of thought stood, until his execution in 1966, a philosopher named Sayyid Qutb -- the intellectual hero of every one of the groups that eventually went into Al Qaeda, their Karl Marx (to put it that way), their guide."

pro-warts

as would be expected, the local news played up a pro-war rally in times sq today. apparently "thousands" gathered, that being 1 or 2 not 1 or 2 hundred thousand. and, of course, they shoot tight shots to make it seem like there are alot of people. but what irked me most was that they offhandedly mentioned that there would be another pro-war rally at the un on friday. i have never heard any news outlet mention an anti-war protest prior to the event. so much for fair and objective.

warped speed ahead

"Osama bin Laden, in his wildest dreams, could hardly have hoped for this. A mere 18 months after he boosted the US to a peak of worldwide sympathy unprecedented since Pearl Harbor, that international goodwill has been squandered to near zero. Bin Laden must be beside himself with glee. And the infidels are now walking right into the Iraq trap.

There was always a risk for Bin Laden that worldwide sympathy for the US might thwart his long-term aim of holy war against the Great Satan. He needn't have worried. With the Bush junta at the helm, a camel could have foreseen the outcome. And the beauty is that it doesn't matter what happens in the war."

i mfer

gotta love this one from ethel - the imf disses the efficacy of the imf.

its a fothermucker

great cover of sun-ras Nuclear War by Yo La Tengo. (scroll down)

also a couple of mp3s from their upcoming album at the bottom of this page.

perle jam

"Famed Prince of Darkness Richard Perle is a political animal unique to Washington. He has successfully melded personal, ideological and commercial entrepreneurship into a polished package that looks kosher just so long as no one examines its particulars. Too bad for Perle, Rabbi Sy Hersh decided to take a look in the March 17 New Yorker."

war torn

"This weekend 23-year-old American peace activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by a bulldozer as she tried to prevent the Israeli army destroying homes in the Gaza Strip. In a remarkable series of emails to her family, she explained why she was risking her life."

commons cause

live parliament debate about war in iraq

chem suits

"Which makes the parking lot of the Kuehne plant a uniquely scary place to stand. As the United States stands on the brink of war with Iraq, terrorism and Middle East experts warn us that al-Qaida is already using the prospective war as a rallying cause. Rohan Gunaratna, the author of "Inside al-Qaeda: Global Network of Terror," told Salon that a U.S. attack on Iraq, without United Nations support, could arouse terrorist "sleeper cells"; such an attack could seem like a war against Islam, and sleeper cells might rationalize, "'My God, we went and trained in Afghanistan, and now we must go and fight the infidels.'" And that's what contributes to making Kuehne a possible ground zero. Its lethal combination: proximity to a densely populated area and some of the deadliest chemicals around. A well-executed attack upon it could kill 12 million Americans."

paper chasers

"NEW YORK (AP) -- CNN has reached an agreement with The New York Times and The Boston Globe to make the newspapers' reporters available for stories on the impending war with Iraq.

The reporters will deliver their reports on-screen with the newspapers' logos visible."

pharm teem

"AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) -- Just what the doctor ordered?

Pharmacies may fill prescriptions for marijuana and patients can get the cost covered by insurance, according to a law that went into effect Monday."

booty call

"But even if there's nothing exactly new about making money from war, this particular conflict, a preemptive war of choice, presents the somewhat novel prospect of the U.S. government deciding how war profits will be distributed even before the first sorties are launched. Whether you think Iraq will be "conquered" or "liberated" by American forces, regime change in the country will open up vast new opportunities for commercial interests to do business there, and the Bush administration could have wide latitude in determining which of those interests win out. Already, companies are jockeying for prime positions, and already there are signs that the White House is being nicest to its friends."

window to the world

i just saw someone break into a car in the lot outside my window. i had heard a loud crash but had ignored it. i thought someone was throwing out some garbage. then i was mindlessly staring down at someone at the back of a bmw mini-suv as i was closing the window. just looked like a guy was putting something in the back of the vehicle. then he rollerbladed off with a couple of bags and only then did i notice that the back window had been smashed. about three minutes later he returned and snagged another bag from the back. i felt like screaming at him but im not sure what good that would have done. just pop that one into the "people suck" file.

fish tales

"An obscure Jewish sect in New York has been gripped in awe by what it believes to be a mystical visitation by a 20lb carp that was heard shouting in Hebrew, in what many Jews worldwide are hailing as a modern miracle."

somebodys watching you

"“Almost all of the pieces for a surveillance society are already here,” says Gene Spafford, director of Purdue University’s Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security. “It’s just a matter of assembling them.” Unfortunately, he says, ubiquitous surveillance faces intractable social and technological problems that could well reduce its usefulness or even make it dangerous. As a result, each type of monitoring may be beneficial in itself, at least for the people who put it in place, but the collective result could be calamitous." (reg req)

bacteriophage

"Subviral marketing is a topsy-turvy trend that's said to be being pioneered by brands including Budweiser, Ford, Levi's and Mastercard. While traditional viral attachments feature short, slapstick video clips stamped with the brand's logo and web address, subviral campaigns are carefully shot to seem like they were produced by an internet prankster."

bull in the heather

"An American woman peace protester was killed Sunday by an IDF bulldozer, which ran her over during the demolition of a house at the Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip. Another activist was wounded in the incident."

east village people

"Sporting a cameraman's vest and lugging a satellite phone, Christopher Allbritton may be no match for heavy artillery. But he's apparently got enough guts to be the Web's first independent war correspondent.

Allbritton, a former New York Daily News reporter living in the East Village, plans to file stories directly to his weblog, Back to Iraq 2.0, next month as part of an independent news-gathering expedition to Iraq."

vidal fluids

"MARK DAVIS: In the past few years, you have shifted from being a novelist to principally an essayist or, in your own words 'a pamphleteer'. It's almost the reverse of most writers' careers. Why the shift for you?

GORE VIDAL: Why the shift in the United States of America, which has obliged me --since I've spent most of my life marinated in the history of my country and I'm so alarmed by what is happening with our global empire, and our wars against the rest of the world, it is time for me to take political action. And I think anybody who has the position, has a platform, must do so."

essex arms

"As political events go, the gathering last week at Essex, a hip Manhattan restaurant on the Lower East Side, was a resounding success. Several hundred people crammed the sleekly decorated space, clutching beers and awaiting former Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont, a Democratic presidential candidate. Outside, several hundred more formed a line halfway around the block."

and the winner isnt?

"The backlash against prominent stars opposing any attack on Iraq has impacted on this year’s Oscars, with organisers drawing up a blacklist of people who will not be allowed a platform to air anti-war views.

Meryl Streep, Sean Penn, Vanessa Redgrave, George Clooney, Dustin Hoffman and Spike Lee are among those who will not be speaking, amid fears they could turn the ceremony into an anti-war rally."

shes a brick...house

lego my cityscape.

grover and garafolo

i wonder how early youd have to geek out to get a seat at this What Liberal Media panel?

skirting the issuance

puma gets their knickers in a twist about sexually implicit fake ads.

striking out

we must strike pre-emptively to pre-empt the pre-emption of our pre-emptive strike. and now for something completely different.

vetting committee

"From JONATHAN WEISMAN, Economics Writer, Washington Post:
In the wake of Seymour Hersh's open statements about the way the White House treats the press, I feel compelled to relate a personal story that illustrates how both the White House and the press have allowed manipulation of the printed word in Washington to get out of hand. This is a bit of a confession as well as an appeal to the White House and my fellow reporters to rethink the way journalism is practiced these days."

sugar shock

"WASHINGTON -- A classified State Department report expresses doubt that installing a new regime in Iraq will foster the spread of democracy in the Middle East, a claim President Bush has made in trying to build support for a war, according to intelligence officials familiar with the document."

repeat performance

"In 1963 Britain and Israel backed American intervention in Iraq, while other United States allies — chiefly France and Germany — resisted. But without significant opposition within the government, Kennedy, like President Bush today, pressed on. In Cairo, Damascus, Tehran and Baghdad, American agents marshaled opponents of the Iraqi regime. Washington set up a base of operations in Kuwait, intercepting Iraqi communications and radioing orders to rebels. The United States armed Kurdish insurgents. The C.I.A.'s "Health Alteration Committee," as it was tactfully called, sent Kassem a monogrammed, poisoned handkerchief, though the potentially lethal gift either failed to work or never reached its victim."

poster children

nypress gets in on this daily posting thingamawhatits.

hanging up his shingle

elvis costello is sitting in for letterman tonight. best guest host yet. although watching amy goodman befluster charlie rose was even more compelling television.

wing ding

"This is why conservatives spy left-wing authoritarians everywhere. Seeing the world in terms of norms and presuming others do the same, they easily mistake a liberal tolerance for diverse options, even unconventional options, as an endorsement of the unconventional options. The presence of gay people on TV, for example, looks like a recommendation of homosexuality. That break in the natural order tempts chaos; chaos invites panic. Which is why conservatives fight by any means necessary to make the world look the way they insist it must look, while liberals are busy playing fair. And which is why it is now more accurate to say, as Eric Alterman, The Nation columnist and MSNBC.com blogger, does, that even as it “so perfectly contradicts conventional wisdom . . . the bias of the American media is more conservative than liberal.” They fight the media war ruthlessly, and they are winning."

offshore accountings

"WASHINGTON — Richard Perle, the influential foreign policy hawk, is suing journalist Seymour Hersh over an article he wrote implying that Mr. Perle is using his position as a Pentagon adviser to benefit financially from a war to liberate Iraq.

"I intend to launch legal action in the United Kingdom. I’m talking to Queen’s Counsel right now," Mr. Perle, who chairs the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, a non-paying position, told The New York Sun last night.

He said he is suing in Britain because it is easier to win such cases there, where the burden on plaintiffs is much less."

weiner roast

"The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) announced today that all six national sponsors of MSNBC's "Savage Nation" debut have publicly withdrawn from the program, sending a clear message to NBC News that they refuse to support Michael Savage's attacks on women, people of color, immigrants and the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community."

neoconniving

"In the Middle East, impending "regime change" in Iraq is just the first step in a wholesale reordering of the entire region, according to neoconservatives -- who've begun almost gleefully referring to themselves as a "cabal." Like dominoes, the regimes in the region -- first Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia, then Lebanon and the PLO, and finally Sudan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia -- are slated to capitulate, collapse or face U.S. military action. To those states, says cabal ringleader Richard Perle, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and chairman of the Defense Policy Board, an influential Pentagon advisory committee, "We could deliver a short message, a two-word message: 'You're next.'" In the aftermath, several of those states, including Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia, may end up as dismantled, unstable shards in the form of mini-states that resemble Yugoslavia's piecemeal wreckage. And despite the Wilsonian rhetoric from the president and his advisers about bringing democracy to the Middle East, at bottom it's clear that their version of democracy might have to be imposed by force of arms."

know boundaries

"She was an archaeologist, a linguist and the greatest woman mountaineer of her age. And in Baghdad in 1921 she drew the boundaries of the country that became Iraq. James Buchan on the extraordinary life of Gertrude Bell."

step by step

another nyc anti-war protest on march 22, this time with real marching.

vichy soiree

heres some more crazy right wingnut theatre that digby dug up from the national review. and you thought we were joking about invading france.

sunset boulevard

"Now that it seems certain that the Big Posse ordered up by our Hard Sheriff (President Bush) will soon go thundering into Iraq, scribes and helmers (Variety's words for writers and directors) can hardly be oblivious to the epic possibilities, cinematic and televisual, unfolding here.

My own thought is that it's far too epic a possibility to be relegated to the small screen. Television, after all, is where we'll see the real war -- or, at least, the real propaganda. Desert epics of this magnitude need a screen that will show a lot of sand. Remember "Lawrence of Arabia"? Remember "The Wind and the Lion"? Remember "Ishtar"?"

do i overstate?

wow. it was bad enough when a couple of shitforbrains in buttfuck thought it was ever so clever to redub their french fries "freedumb fries," but for this to be taken up by members of congress is beyond ludicrous.

stormin' norman

"That is a big statement, but I can offer this much immediately: At the root of flag conservatism is not madness, but an undisclosed logic. While I am hardly in accord, it is, nonetheless, logical if you accept its premises. From a militant Christian point of view, America is close to rotten. The entertainment media are loose. Bare belly-buttons pop onto every TV screen, as open in their statement as wild animals' eyes. The kids are getting to the point where they can't read, but they sure can screw. So one perk for the White House, should America become an international military machine huge enough to conquer all adversaries, is that American sexual freedom, all that gay, feminist, lesbian, transvestite hullabaloo, will be seen as too much of a luxury and will be put back into the closet again. Commitment, patriotism, and dedication will become all-pervasive national values once more (with all the hypocrisy attendant). Once we become a twenty-first-century embodiment of the old Roman Empire, moral reform can stride right back into the picture. The military is obviously more puritanical than the entertainment media. Soldiers are, of course, crazier than any average man when in and out of combat, but the overhead command is a major everyday pressure on soldiers and could become a species of most powerful censor over civilian life."

not so suddenly susan

long susan sontag interview on booktv.

a life in pictures

"a borderless space provides the opportunity to build a collective memory with a people who have no national archive. Images and recollections serve as testimony to the long and suppressed history of the Kurds."

Hawks Gone Wild: Vol. 1

atrios asks you to Name That War! a new reality show soon to be saturating the airwaves.

pennitent

the first effort at blogging your way to congress?

liner notes

"The element of tragedy here is arguably implicit in the whole imperial project. Ever since Rome conquered and partitioned Gaul, the best-known colonial precept has been divide et impera—"divide and rule." Yet after the initial subjugation the name of the task soon becomes the more soothing "civilizing mission," and a high value is placed on lofty, balanced, unifying administration. Later comes the point at which the colonized outgrow the rule of the remote and chilly exploiters, and then it will often be found convenient for the governor or the district commissioner to play upon the tribal or confessional differences among his subjects. From proclaiming that withdrawal, let alone partition, is the very last thing they will do, the colonial authorities move to ensure that these are the very last things they do do. The contradiction is perfectly captured in the memoir of the marvelously named Sir Penderel Moon, one of the last British administrators in India, who mordantly titled his book Divide and Quit.
"

good luck

"This is not the news as Brit Hume construes it or Dan Rather intones it. In a "Showdown: Iraq," Blix-is-nixed, pack-my-trench-coat-honey testosterone media age, Amy Goodman and her radio show, "Democracy Now!," beam in as if from some alternative left galaxy."

org.org

"Dot-org politics represents the latest manifestation of a recurrent American faith that there is something inherently good in the vox populi. Democracy is at its purest and best when the largest number of voices are heard, and every institution that comes between the people and their government -- the press, the political pros, the fund-raisers -- taints the process. ''If money is what it takes to get attention, we'll do that,'' Pariser says. ''But we'll do it the grassroots way.''

Pariser says that he and other organizers are less political propagandists than ''facilitators'' who ''help people to do what they want to do.'' Even the structure of moveon.org -- more than a million members and only four paid staff members -- embodies the idea that a simple and direct line connects scattered individuals and the expression of their political will. With an interactive feature on the Web site called the Action Forum, members regularly make suggestions and respond to the staff's and one another's ideas. Automated reports are generated by the server every week, moveon.org's staff looks at the top-rated comments -- and somehow, out of this nonstop frenzy of digital activity, a decision gets made. And, in a sense, no one makes it. Dot-org politics confirms what Tocqueville noticed over a century and a half ago: that Americans, for all our vaunted individualism, tend to dissolve in a tide of mass opinion."

secreting secrets

"An employee at the top-secret Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) has been arrested following revelations in The Observer last weekend about an American 'dirty tricks' surveillance operation to win votes at the United Nations in favour of a tough new resolution on Iraq."

hedging his bets

saw this bill moyers interview with author chris hedges the other day. very persuasive perspective from someone who has been covering wars for many years.

"HEDGES: Our whole civil society is being torn apart. Once again, as is true in every war, the media parrots back the clichés and jingles of the state. Imbibes and promotes the myth. In wartime, a press is-- the press is always part of the problem.

And that we are about to engage in that ecstatic, exciting, narcotic that is war. And that if we don't get a grasp on the poison that war is, then that poison can ultimately kills us just as surely as the disease."

mother of perle

"Khashoggi professes to be amused by the activities of Perle and Hillman as members of the policy board. As Khashoggi saw it, Trireme’s business potential depended on a war in Iraq taking place. “If there is no war,” he told me, “why is there a need for security? If there is a war, of course, billions of dollars will have to be spent.” He commented, “You Americans blind yourself with your high integrity and your democratic morality against peddling influence, but they were peddling influence."

conjunction unction

just in case you missed shrubs lackadaisical perfomance last night, like i did, uggabugga breaks it down, way down. im sure you could find a stream on c-span but why would you want to subject yourself to it.

cigars and viagra

"Bill Clinton and his opponent in the 1996 presidential election, Bob Dole, are teaming up to revive the commentary segment "Point-Counterpoint" on "60 Minutes."

laden ladens

"Still, we are left with the question of why both Bush Jr. and Clinton would hold back disclosure of Saudi funding of terror. I got the first glimpse of an answer from Michael Springmann, who headed up the U.S. State Department's visa bureau in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, during the Reagan-Bush Sr. years. "In Saudi Arabia I was repeatedly ordered by high-level State Department officials to issue visas to unqualified applicants. These were, essentially, people who had no ties either to Saudi Arabia or to their own country. I complained bitterly at the time there." That was Springmann's mistake. He was one of those conscientious midlevel bureaucrats who did not realize that when he filed reports about rules violations he was jeopardizing the cover for a huge multicontinental intelligence operation aimed at the Soviets. Springmann assumed petty thievery: someone was taking bribes, selling visas; so he couldn't understand why his complaints about rule-breakers were "met with silence" at the Bureau of Diplomatic Security."

mauling of america

"NEW YORK (Reuters) - A lawyer was arrested late Monday and charged with trespassing at a public mall in the state of New York after refusing to take off a T-shirt advocating peace that he had just purchased at the mall."

remark of distinction

"Bulgaria's ambassador, Stefan Tavrov, said that having the U.S. eavesdrop on their missions was almost a mark of prestige for smaller countries. "It's almost an offense if they don't listen," he said. "It's integrated in your thinking and your work."

A U.S. government official with experience at the world body confirmed that American administrations long have relied on spying at the U.N., and not just during times of crisis.

"We've always done it," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "It's routine."

too much information

malcolm gladwell enlightens as to the problems inherent in intelligence gathering mechanisms.

plunder plunder plundercrats, ho!

bush has hired a new cabal of campaign slogan writers but i dont think they have his best interest at heart. which one do you think best fits the man and his (di)vision?

married by america

jake tapper picks up on the un bugging 'dirty tricks' story.

and if you bother to get a day pass you might as well read the piece about colin powell.

jimmy who

my good friend sarah silverman is co-hosting with jimmy kimmel this week (pre-empted tomorrow night because of nightline, and i know you were going to watch too). ok, shes not my good friend but i did meet her after one of her standup shows and was invited to dinner along with a bunch of people. we didnt go though. seems like a bad decision in retrospect, that i was invited at all, i mean. anyway, i read somewhere that they are dating. im not sure how that effects my opinion of either of them (and they keeping bugging me about it). but one thing i am sure of, theyre on tv and im watching them.

as for the show, kimmel is a terrible interviewer and quick to embrace the lowest common denominator but has an endearing shnooky quality. if anyone saw bruce willis sit in for letterman last week, you could see how easy it is to look bad behind the desk. so kimmel seems like he'll be around for a little while, if he can get guests to appear on his show. apparently, its hard to get big names, that is MOVIESTARS promoting their latest picture, because the other shows might not have you on. they only want virgin guests. who knew the late night shows acted like the alpha girls in junior high? or maybe its a sergeant shrub ethos, youre either with us or against us. in any case, i hear sarah silverman is developing a pilot for hbo....

meanwhile digby plumes the depths of la noonan but finds only a sign that reads 'gone fishin.'

blog virus

"The Project Blogger network of personal sites was created to connect our clients with individuals like you who would be willing to help advance their marketing efforts. Sometimes these clients want to pick your brain through a survey. Other times, they want to take advantage of your site traffic to launch products like cell phones or new drinks. For your efforts, you get advance access to these products, cool free stuff, and yes, even hundreds of dollars in compensation."

postcards from the edge

"The Democratic candidates who seek to unseat President Bush in 2004 now know they must not only convince a skeptical public that they can lead the United States through its current crises but that they can lead the country better than Bush. FOREIGN POLICY magazine asked four Democratic presidential hopefuls to articulate their vision of the United States’ role in the world."

deter detour

"The belief that Saddam’s past behavior shows he cannot be contained rests on distorted history and faulty logic. In fact, the historical record shows that the United States can contain Iraq effectively—even if Saddam has nuclear weapons—just as it contained the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Regardless of whether Iraq complies with U.N. inspections or what the inspectors find, the campaign to wage war against Iraq rests on a flimsy foundation."

future sounds

"No one knows what will happen when Saddam Hussein's death grip on his country is finally broken. Prediction is a dangerous business in politics generally, but in the case of Iraq, where since 1968 the only political activity that won't get you killed is unambiguous loyalty to the Baath Party, the future is especially opaque. For the past several months the country has been crawling with foreign journalists, yet the security apparatus is so extensive and terror so deeply internalized that most of what we know about Iraqis' unofficial thoughts is confined to facial expressions and buried meanings. When Makiya and two other Iraqis were invited to the Oval Office in January, he told President Bush that invading American troops would be greeted with ''sweets and flowers.'' More fancifully, Prof. Fouad Ajami, a Middle East scholar at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, predicts ''kites and boom boxes.'"

choke hold

unqualified offerings dismantles recent pollack oped.

appeal me off another one

"Bashman, an appellate lawyer with Philadelphia's Buchanan Ingersoll, presides over "How Appealing," the pre-eminent blog for the appellate court community, the primus inter pares of all legal blogs, the undeniable Marbury v. Madison of the genre."

espirito beneficiente

"The Centro Espirito Beneficiente Unaio do Vegetal (UDV) is a Brazilian church combining Christian beliefs with a practice copied from certain Amazonian Indians: ritual use of a psychoactive sacrament brewed from two Amazonian plants. The church and its sacraments are legal in Brazil. Its small American branch, which has both US and Brazilian nationals as members, sued the federal government, claiming the right to pursue its worship here in the face of the drug laws, after a shipment of the sacramental mixture was seized in 1999."

friedman flashback

"Nothing is local anymore. It's all global because the Internet makes everything local, which is the same as everything being global, because nothing has to be local when everything's global. Especially the local. For instance, I was talking to the guy who cleaned the toilets in my suite at the Bombay Hilton, and he told me, "If only I had a computer! You see, toilet-scrubbing in Bombay is really a local business, but with a laptop and a modem, I could maybe branch out into e-commerce services."

lesson up

"Blast from the past: Politicians on both sides of the argument over Iraq have been busy rummaging through the history books. The pro-war camp constantly warn against repeating the mistakes of appeasement. The antis claim we are heading for another Suez. But which is the more plausible parallel? Matt Seaton asked a dozen leading historians (what they think)."

youre such a cut-up

"A man's body - from which a lung and the heart and liver had been neatly extracted - was found in an abandoned North Philadelphia rowhouse yesterday afternoon by a man who had been foraging for scrap metal."

undermedicated

just got linked from hullabaloo. he also added tom moody to his blogroll.

shouldnt be long now before we're the center of the left-leaning blogworld. with all the in depth commentary that i provide, the breadth width and height of my soaring intelligence, and the overall excellence of my faculties, not to mention my command of the language (which one im not entirely sure), i wouldnt be surprised if people stopped blogging as a result. i mean, who wouldnt be embarrassed if they start comparing themselves to what's going on here?

ok, maybe thats a bit of an overstatement. i did catch two mice today. can anybody top that?

here no evil

"The United States is conducting a secret 'dirty tricks' campaign against UN Security Council delegations in New York as part of its battle to win votes in favour of war against Iraq.

Details of the aggressive surveillance operation, which involves interception of the home and office telephones and the emails of UN delegates in New York, are revealed in a document leaked to The Observer."

heart felt

the 24-judge U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit is deemed terrorist organization by ashcroft justice dept.

kamel's back

Who is Hussein Kamel?
counterspins perspective
wapo counterspin

next stop, baghdad

i got pinged by the aiea. i wonder if im to be tapped for the next round of inspections. they dont call me the human geiger counter for nuthin.

mama africa

"Naturally, everybody is trying to figure out which way the swing countries will come down. And naturally, the Bushies are using leaks and spin to try to convince the press they ultimately will land on the winning side – of the war, if not the UN vote.

For various reasons -- which may or may not involve large wire transfers to numbered Swiss bank accounts -- I think Mexico, Chile and Angola probably will vote for the resolution. Let’s just say each country has compelling motives to want to stay on Don Bush’s good side.

That leaves Cameroon and Guinea. (I can hear Shrub now: “Guinea? What the hell do the Italians have to do with this?)

This is ironic. Very ironic. Beyond ironic. Because in any coalition for democracy, these two are really awkward fits. They’re both stereotypical African "big man" dictatorships, ruled by leaders with, um, extensive human rights records. Not to mention criminal records."

fresh perspective

eric alterman interview on nprs fresh air discussing media bias.