Shot In The Dark - Politics and Current Events in Minnesota and Beyond

Saturday, February 22, 2003

Open Question for NPR Staff - When National Public Radio's news reporters and anchors read the names of the capitals of France, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, Hungary, Romania and Russia, respectively - really, any first-world or first-world-allied nation - they say PAIR-iss, Bur-LINN, WAR-sah, AM-stir-dam, OSS-lo, Joe-HAN-es-burg, BOO-da-pest, BUU-ca-rest and MOSS-cow. They never use the native pronunciations: pair-EE, bear-LEEN, var-SHA-va, OMM-shter-dom, OO-slow, Yo-HON-esh-boork, boo-da-PESHT, bu-koo-REST-ee or MOS-kva.

But whenever the topic turns to Latin America, the Middle East or the Third World, suddenly the entire NPR news staff wraps their tongues floridly and tortuously around the most elaborate native (or pseudo-native) pronunciations. Away with Nicaragua, Pakistan, Tehran, Guatamala, Tijuana, Havana, Chile - in with Nee-ka-RRRAH-wha, Pock-ee-STON, Tay-hay-RRRRRON, Hwat-a-MAAA-la, Tee-WHAAA-na, Ha-BAAA-na, CHEEEE-lay. Combine the florid, pretentious and selective attempts at native pronunciation with the standard-issue, round-syllabled, college-professor NPR accent, and everyone sounds like Jimmy Carter on Quaaludes.

So why do NPR staffers throw themselves at Spanish and Arabic pronunciations with the determination of a pack of third-graders on a stack of Pokemon cards, but sluff through the rest of the world's place names with the gringo aplomb of a bunch of Indiana Kiwanians?

Anyone?
posted by Mitch Berg 2/22/2003 08:04:33 PM

Laughs in Danger's Face - Kevin Pollack in the NYTimes writes about why this may be our last chance to deal with Hussein on favorable terms.

The whole article is worth a read - but I want to call your attention to this bit here:
America has never encountered a country that saw nuclear weapons as a tool for aggression. During the cold war we feared that the Russians thought this way, but we eventually learned that they were far more conservative. Our experts may be split on how to handle North Korea, but they agree that the Pyongyang regime wants nuclear weapons for defensive purposes — to stave off the perceived threat of an American attack. The worst that anyone can suggest is that North Korea might blackmail us for economic aid or sell such weapons to someone else (with Iraq being near the top of that list). Only Saddam Hussein sees these weapons as offensive — as enabling aggression.
That's why I keep saying the Korean "crisis" is a diversion (very probably staged in collusion with Hussein himself, given his close relationship with Pyongyang; when all is said and done, Kim Jong-Il is at least rational (in a very aggressive way) about what force represents. It's a tool - a very overused tool, in his case, a tool he trots out with amazing freqency, but a tool nonetheless.

With Hussein, it's different. Why? Pollack continues:
Finally, we cannot forget that all evidence has shown Saddam Hussein to be an incorrigible optimist who willfully ignores signs of danger. Consider that on at least five occasions over the last three decades, he has embarked on foreign policy adventures that nearly destroyed him: his attack on Iraq's Kurds in 1974 (which might have ended in an Iranian assault on Baghdad if the shah of Iran had not unexpectedly decided to double-cross the Kurds instead); his invasion of Iran in 1980; his invasion of Kuwait in 1990; his assassination attempt against former President Bush in 1993; and his threatened attack on Kuwait in 1994. In each case, he took a course of action that we know even his closest advisers considered extremely dangerous.

This is the problem with Saddam Hussein. The assertion that he is not intentionally suicidal may be true, but it is irrelevant. In the end, he has frequently proven inadvertently suicidal.

And he seems to be doing it again. With more than 150,000 American soldiers taking positions on his borders he continues to run the international inspectors in circles, foolishly confident that his minor concessions will stave off an invasion. Is there any other person on earth who wouldn't turn his country inside out to prove that he did not have more weapons of mass destruction? Once again, he seems to be betting his life that the game is not as dangerous as everyone else thinks it is.
Democrats - show this article to your friends.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/22/2003 07:59:52 AM

Friday, February 21, 2003

Human Shields, Day One - Reports indicate that western "human shields" are starting to dribble into Iraq.
"We will try everything to get peace instead of war and to protect civil societies," said Ingrid Ternert, a Swedish member of the group.

The volunteers planned to spend only one night at the station, but said others would rotate in to protect the infrastructure installation, which wasn't bombed during the 1991 Gulf War.
Nice to know they've picked the right place.
Workers at the station were happy with their unusual visitors.

"We welcomed them. I feel happy and it is nice because they want peace for our country," said Hussein Alwan, a 32-year-old supervisor.
The WaPo didn't mention if Mr. Alwan had a gun to his head or not.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Wednesday that any Iraqi officials who help in the deployment of the human shields could be punished as war criminals.

Asked about Rumsfeld's remarks, Ternert, a high school teacher, said: "He doesn't know that this is protecting the society."
I can't wait - can not wait - to see how the average Iraqi citizen reacts to these people when liberation finally happens.
Some of the human shields weren't exposing themselves to much danger. Cano said the United States would be to blame if anyone is hurt - but conceded that likely wouldn't be him.

"I will be leaving Iraq in two days," he said. "So I personally think I will be all right."
Indeed, all of them - and, regrettably, Sean Penn as well - will probably live to tell the tale of their superhuman courage.

The real thing is almost wierder than Unfossilized's inside scoop.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/21/2003 10:46:54 PM

My Favorite New Toy - I could stare at it for hours.

(Via Coyote at the Dog Show)
posted by Mitch Berg 2/21/2003 10:28:44 PM

Pearl - Today's the anniversary of Daniel Pearl's murder.

Lileks has a great Bleat on the subject. Here's one of two money clips:
Playwright Harold Pinter, speaking at last weekend’s rally, said "The US is a nation out of control," and “unless we stop it, it will bring barbarism to the entire world." He said America was "a country run by a bunch of criminal lunatics with Tony Blair as a hired Christian thug."

When Blair shows up in the pulpit cleaving the air with a scimitar, let me know. When US television broadcasts a speech with Billy Graham hosting an Excalibur replica from the Franklin Mint Collection, demanding the decapitation of Muslims, let me know. When George Bush grips the podium and beseeches American rock formations to give up the location of non-Christians so we can slit their throats, and it’s carried live on national TV by presidential order, drop me a line.

It takes a particularly rarified variety of idiot to look at a Jew-hating fascist with a small mustache - and decide that his opponent is the Nazi.
The other:
every so often - say, when you’re standing in the aisle of Target, woolgathering, recalling something you heard on the radio on the way over, or read on the web that morning, and you see headlines: Israel retaliates; Syrian forces push south or Smallpox appears contained, for now and you wonder whether this simple trivial moment will seem unutterably precious in six months, or three - and then you shake it off, and buy Tupperware. Another normal February day.

March is named after which Roman god? Yes, yes. Of course.
It is, indeed, interesting to read things written before 9/11; my own diary, magazines, even peoples' weblogs. I often wonder - what will these days look like in a year? Like looking at peoples' diaries in 1938? The uncertainty, the political maneuvering, the thundering jeremiads from left and right...

I need to bookmark some of these things.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/21/2003 07:31:24 PM

Les Monquiez Surrendeurellement aux Consommez du Fromage - The French have been getting a lousy rap lately.

Much of it's deserved.

Yesterday's edition of Fraters Libertas did an able fisking of the execrable Molly Ivins' latest take on the French.

In her latest piece, Ivins proves that those who decry others' knowlege of history had best be up on it themselves. Ivins is not up to the challenge.

This is going to be just a tad redundant - the Fraters did a fine job - but I have no problem piling on Molly Ivins:
George Will saw fit to include in his latest Newsweek column this joke: "How many Frenchmen does it take to defend Paris? No one knows, it's never been tried."

That was certainly amusing.

One million, four hundred thousand French soldiers were killed during World War I. As a result, there weren't many Frenchmen left to fight in World War II. Nevertheless, 100,000 French soldiers lost their lives trying to stop Adolf Hitler.
Ivins gets part of it right - and some of the critics of France get it partly wrong.

Germany and Russia both lost greater numbers of men in action than did France. But France had a smaller population than Germany or Russia. Roughly 65% of all Frenchmen of military age were killed, wounded, captured or declared missing in World War I. That's nearly 2/3. The other combatants suffered grievously as well - Germany nearly 50%, Britain 35% and the US roughly 8%.

The gutting of an entire generation affected all Western societies - but the French worst of all. Although they remained a world power, they suffered from a malaise from which, in some ways, they never recovered. Picture America's post-Vietnam hangover, only 100 times worse.

This is the last part where Ivins is even close to the truth, though.
On behalf of every one of those 100,000 men, I would like to thank Mr. Will for his clever joke. They were out-manned, out-gunned, out-generaled and, above all, out-tanked. They got slaughtered, but they stood and they fought. Ha-ha, how funny.
Wrong on most counts.

The French Army was as large as the Germans. Combined with the Dutch, Belgian and British armies, they far outnumbered the Germans.
"Outgunned?" French artillery was excellent. Their 155mm howitzer was adopted by the US Army during WWII. The German 88mm anti-aircraft/anti-tank gun was excellent, but available in tiny numbers in 1940.
The French suffered from war-fighting doctrine that was outdated compared to Germany's (as did Britain and the US, as it happens). But many French generals - DeGaulle and Leclerc among them - were superb, and gave up little in skill to the Germans. France suffered more from its national demoralization than from any generalized lack of skill on the part of its generals.
Ivins is wrong. The French not only had more tanks - but on a tank by tank basis, French tanks were better; the Char B1 was better-armed and armored, the Somua was both plus much faster. Either is faster and smarter than Molly Ivins.
In the few places where they had tanks, they held splendidly.
Simplistic in the extreme. The French held out just fine in quite a number of areas - but it was irrelevent. The German Blitzkrieg was built around, as Nathan Bedford Forrest put it, "hitting 'em where they ain't". The Germans would force a breakthrough ( in the Ardennes mountains in Belgium), then force all their tanks through the hole. The French spread their tanks evenly over their entire front. Where the French held, with or without tanks, it was in a place the Germans weren't attacking.

And as the Fraters mention, there were a few armored counterattacks by British and French troops. They managed to win some localized successes (as the British did at Arras) that were overwhelmed by the German advance everywhere else.
Relying on the Maginot Line was one of the great military follies of modern history, but it does not reflect on the courage of those who died for France in 1940. For 18 months after that execrable defeat, the United States of America continued to have cordial diplomatic relations with Nazi Germany.
As irrelevant an observation as it is stupid.

Not as stupid as what follows:
For those of you who have not read Paris 1919, I recommend it highly. Roosevelt was anti-colonialist. That system was a great evil, a greater horror even than Nazism or Stalinism.
And with this, Ivins proves her own gaping cretinism. Naziism, Stalinism, and their offshoots, as well as the wars they started between them devoured as many as 150 million people in the last century.

If you have read Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild, you have some idea. The French were in it up to their necks.

Instead of insisting on freedom for the colonies of Europe, we let our allies carry on with the system, leaving the British in India and Africa, and the French in Vietnam and Algeria, to everyone's eventual regret.
Ivins is again raving.

Roosevelt in 1919 was an Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He had no power over colonial policy, to say nothing of that of other sovereign nations.

Or does Ivins mean after 1945? When the British began divesting their colonies almost immediately? Let's look into this:
Surrender monkeys? Try Dien Bien Phu. Yes, the French did surrender, didn't they? After 6,000 French died in a no-hope position. Ever heard of the Foreign Legion? Of the paratroopers, called "paras"? The trouble we could have saved ourselves if we had only paid attention to Dien Bien Phu.

Then came Algeria. As nasty a war as has ever been fought. If you have seen the film Battle of Algiers, you have some idea. Five generations of pieds noirs, French colonialists, thought it was their country Charles de Gaulle came back into power in 1958, specifically elected to keep Algeria French. I consider de Gaulle's long, slow, delicate, elephantine withdrawal (de Gaulle even looked like an elephant) one of the single greatest acts of statesmanship in history. Only de Gaulle could have done that..
So, which is it? Is colonialism worse than Naziism, or is the French defense of their colonies, and DeGaulle's foot-dragging and horribly bloody disengagement from Algeria proof that they're a tough, pugnacious people? I'm confused.
The other night on 60 Minutes, Andy Rooney, who fought in France and certainly has a right to be critical, chided the French for forgetting all that sacrifice. But I think he got it backward: The French remember too well.
Apparently not. They learned in the fifties and sixties that appeasement of terrorists was a one-way trip to a fiery death.
I was in Paris on Sept. 11, 2001. The reaction was so immediate, so generous, so overwhelming.

Not just the government, but the people kept bringing flowers to the American embassy. They covered the American Cathedral, the American Church, anything they could find that was American.

They didn't just leave flowers -- they wrote notes with them. I read more than 100 of them. Not only did they refer, again and again, to Normandy, to never forgetting, but there were even some in ancient, spidery handwriting referring to WWI: "Lafayette is still with you."
Nobody doubts that many, maybe most, French people have their hearts in the right place. Their government is where the problems come in.
This is where I think the real difference is. We Americans are famously ahistorical. We can barely be bothered to remember what happened last week, or last month, much less last year.

The French are really stuck on history. (Some might claim this is because the French are better educated than we are. I won't go there.)
Nor should Ivins "go there". Any putative French "historicism" is based on a collective national dogma - the same as Russian "paranoia" and Japanese "isolationism" and German "Volk". The French "knowledge of history" is neither particularly objective (not that Ivins is fit to comment) nor necessarily healthy.

Does it not occur to anyone that these are very old friends of ours, trying to tell us what they think they know about being hated by weak enemies in the Third World?
Yes, it does.

France gets a bum rap in the US, in some respects. The Germans swept them aside in 1940, largely because they were a demoralized people, many of whom felt more sympathy for authoritarian Vichy than their own republic. Their military is the butt of jokes, even though many of their special forces are among the best in the world. They have experience being hated in the Third World, largely because they were among the most brutal and autocratic colonizers.

The French story is neither as craven as the likes of Jay Leno would tell you - nor as monochromatically courageous as Molly Ivins would have you believe.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/21/2003 12:26:52 PM

Biting the Hand that Blogs Me - Blogger.com, the site with which I publish Shot in the Dark, has revolutionized web publishing.

For example, it's made instant web publishing possible for people who neither know nor care to know HTML code or how to FTP files to servers.

It also has bad habits, like losing archives - I have no idea where the archives for the last year have gone. Very irritating.

I'll be updating to a better system as soon as I get a job.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/21/2003 02:37:00 AM

The Pope of Bruce - It's no secret; I'm one of the small, misbegotten, misunderstood troupe of conservatives that are huge Bruce Springsteen fans.

I don't know who gives us more grief - conservatives like Jason Lewis, who mistake his marketing savvy and relentless blue-collar mien for socialistic diddling, or liberals who see his relentless blue-collar mien and often-dour lyrics about the dark side of American life as an indictment of capitalism and America itself.

Both are wrong, of course.

The most galling thing about Bruce, of course, is that some ultra-left demigog always manages to appoint himself the Pope of Bruce. During the first half of Bruce's career, Dave Marsh filled the role. Marsh was the most galling of rock critics - an able critic with impeccable musical taste (he wrote the definitive bios of the Who and Bruce, among many other great rock tomes), who nonetheless couldn't write a shopping list without slipping in a paeon to Castro or a condemnation of Ronald Reagan.

Eric Alterman has taken over the papacy of Bruce recently. The far-left pundit - most famous for the preposterous What Liberal Media? - also wrote Aint' No Sin to Be Glad You're Alive, a capable dissection of Springsteen's music as literature and social criticism which, despite being a fair set of opinions, is no less dogmatic than any of Marsh's neo-Maoist screeds.

Dexter Van Zile has written an interesting piece on Springsteen-via-Alterman in the Washington Dispatch.
In his recent piece in The Nation (“USA OUI! BUSH NON!” Feb. 10, 2003), Eric Alterman returns to a familiar trope – Bruce Springsteen’s moral and artistic superiority. It's an important theme in Alterman's writings and for good reason. Springsteen's body of work, shot through as it is with depictions of wounded manhood, mournful ambivalence and longing for redemption, provides convenient fodder for Alterman's proclamations of America's inherent greatness, the failure of Democratic leadership to live up to that greatness and the malign intent of Republicans to undermine it. But while mournful ambivalence and all that accompanies it may make for good artistry, it doesn't make for good foreign policy, which is why unlike Alterman, most Americans can embrace both Springsteen and George W. Bush in their respective realms. Americans may tolerate, even enjoy, watching artists grapple with self-doubt, but they realize that when it comes to responding to the challenges in the international arena, there are times when politicians must struggle with something aside from their own failings and face evil for what it is. In the cultural realm, Springsteen is the Boss; in the political realm, Bush is their man.
This is a fascinating point.

Alterman seems to feel that people must be consistent in all things; to favor action against terrorism, one must listen to Toby Keith and presumably eat steak twice a day and drive an SUV, while Springsteen fans must perforce be anti-war, vegetarian, and so on.

And yet hasn't art always been a vehicle by which people explore and soothe their self-doubts? An entry point into the insecure parts of the psyche to which one must tend before being able to put on one's war face?

Van Zile continues:
The main thrust of Alterman's piece, which discusses Europe's feelings toward the U.S., is that the people of Europe are disgusted by Bush’s alleged unilateralism, but love America, its people and its culture. To redeem its relationship with Europe, Alterman argues, America must fully embrace its values, adopt multilateralism and embark on a foreign policy that “protects and defends our values as well as our people.” Exactly what such a policy would look like in concrete terms, Alterman doesn’t say, but it appears we have three tasks before us. First, we must dump Bush as president, then give Europe veto power over the American use of force and lastly, appease Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq who has gassed his own people, invaded Kuwait and has lied to UN arms inspectors. Do these things, Alterman suggests, and all will be well between the U.S. and Europe.

The first proof Alterman offers to demonstrate Europe really, really does love us is the positive reaction of the crowd at a Bruce Springsteen concert Alterman attended at Paris' Bercy Stadium while reporting his piece. It seems that the crowd of 15,000 screamed the lyrics to “Born in the USA” at the “top of their lungs” and “with their fists in the air.” The scene inspired Alterman to write “You can't be anti-American if you love Bruce Springsteen.”
Oddly, it seems that Zacarias Moussaoui was a bit of a Bruce fan.

But that's a side issue. Whether one can be an anti-American Springsteen fan is as irrelevant as whether one can support the war and also admire Springsteen's music.

No, the real issue as far as I'm concerned is that people can simultaneously believe things that, to the overly-rigid mind, may seem contradictory, but for reasons that are thorougly consistent.

Even Springsteen himself.

Last summer, when The Rising was released, he did a series of interviews in which he said "The war in Afghanistan was handled well. It was deliberative, which I wasn't counting on. I expected a lot less from this administration." The muted praise of the President was more than some leftists could handle.

And after that, we saw the most amazing of phenomenae - the rock critic from the ultraliberal Village Voice lambasting the album and the artist, while a music critic from the conservative National Review lionized it.

It was an absolute gut-shot for many on the left. But many on the left have memories just as short as many on the right. Because while many leftist commentators still praise Springsteen for slamming Ronald Reagan for alluding to Born in the USA during the '84 campaign, many on both sides forget that he was equally quick to cut off Walter Mondale's attempt to exploit the incident for his own advantage as well.

Iraq is more complicated. Springsteen has taken some conservative heat during his current tour for asking people to be sure to stay on top of the situation, not to give to blind patriotism or revenge, to keep the Administration accountable. Fairly mild stuff, compared to the vast majority of the Hollywood "peace" movement, really. Some chalk it up to his being a lefty - and there's something to it. More importantly, there's an element of moral consistency to this stance; Springsteen is pretty forthright about the fact that he dodged the draft during the Vietnam war. According to the stories he's told in concert over the years, he managed to flunk the physical, on purpose. It's not something he's advertised, but neither is it something he's covered up (unlike a certain former president). He's said in previous interviews he doesn't believe it appropriate for someone who dodged the draft to be a hawk.

What's the point?

Demigogues of both sides (but especially the left) are quick to jam people into convenient, monochromatic containers. Dave Marsh and Eric Alterman may live, breathe and exude red to the cores of their beings - more power to them.

Most people aren't like that. I'm a conservative who still loves punk rock, Jersey-shore soul, and the date with the occasional Green.

Springsteen is a liberal who supported a war that the left roundly, and wrongly, condemned.

Life is complicated. More complicated than the likes of Alterman can usually gather.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/21/2003 02:29:38 AM

Thursday, February 20, 2003

The Bad Guys...- "Move On", an organization that was born to defend the rights of middle-aged white male philanderers, has moved on to "anti-war" actities (as has been noted in this space). It's behind Martin Sheen's upcoming ad campaign.

They're carrying out a "Virtual March on Washington", via their website.

The good folks at Instapundit, as well as many other blogs of conscience, are asking you to register your opinions. I second this.

When you register, the website assigns you times to call your senators. I plan on joining in.

Here's what I wrote:
I completely support the actions of our President and our military, and those of our allies (UK, Australia, Kuwait, Oman, Jordan, Poland, Hungary, the Baltic States, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Moldova and Bulgaria) to end the dictatorial and repressive regime of Saddam Hussein. Inspections have not, and will not, work to disarm Saddam - indeed, by design, they can not. He has played the US and the UN for fools and patsies for 12 years. It is time to return the country of Iraq to a free and unoppressed Iraqi people.

I repudiate the actions of Martin Sheen, who truly does not act "in my name".

And the only "move on" we need is into Iraq. The only way home is through Baghdad.
Sign up. Let us know.

More to come.

...and the Good Guys - Adam Yoshida is responding with his Virtual March to Victory.
Various ‘anti-war’ groups have declared that February 26, 2003 will be the day on which they will launch a so-called “Virtual March on Washington.” These groups, such as “Win Without War”, claim to represent the real will of the American people and the people of the world. For far too long that mainstream media has been allowed to represent the views of the protestors as the views of the average American. It’s high time for the great silent majority, that majority who polls show support President Bush and his efforts to defend America, to speak out against the tyranny of this vocal minority which is seeking to use their Hollywood connections, and the complicity of the mainstream media, to impose their views upon the American people.

Therefore, I am calling for a counter-demonstration, a twin virtual march to show that not all of the people of the world are fooled by the lies of Saddam Hussein. It’s time for the great silent majority of the world- that majority which recognizes the mortal threat posed by the alliance between terrorists and outlaw states- to tell the world that we stand with President George W. Bush...

...On February 26th let us flood the internet with messages of support for the brave forces deployed all across the world as part of the global war on terrorism and messages declaring our support for a war to disarm Iraq and remove the dictator Saddam Hussein from power.
I signed. Hope to see you there.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/20/2003 08:53:43 PM

Old Diplomacy, New Diplomacy - The left is fond on decrying the Administration's diplomatic skills. I read one pundit, last week, who said "Europe is so far ahead of us in every way..."

According to Charles Paul Freund in Reason, the Chirac incident belies all that:
Chirac's performance in Brussels this week was so clumsy that it surprised even the French. Members of the European Union were meeting to iron out a common position on Iraq, and were joined by applicants to the EU from central and eastern Europe. These included a group of nations that had recently expressed support for the U.S. hard line against Saddam Hussein. At a press conference, Chirac lectured these nations in an astonishing manner. He called their pro-American letter "irresponsible," and evidence that they had been "badly brought up." "They missed a good opportunity to keep quiet," Chirac said.

"Badly brought up"? What kind of an international showdown is this? The French regard the American global presence as that of a wild and trigger-happy cowboy. To face off against him, Paris is assuming the stance of a supercilious French governess ready to tongue-lash the whole of Europe into submission.

French TV showed a succession of eastern European foreign ministers attempting to maintain their dignity while responding to Chirac. One Czech representative tried to smile as he termed the French attitude "undemocratic." The Hungarian minister said icily that he hoped his refusal to respond would be evidence of his decent upbringing.

"We thought we were preparing for war with Saddam Hussein and not Jacques Chirac," the Czech deputy foreign minister told The New York Times. Eastern Europe "definitely cannot remain silent" about Iraq, he said.
After forty years of being talked down to as "members" of the "Warsaw Pact", it seems the eastern natives are restless. The upshot?
Compared to Parisian diplomatic contempt, American efforts begin to look remarkably deft. No sooner had France and Germany established their common opposition to American aims, for example, than the U.S. characterized them as "Old Europe" even as it worked to bring a "New Europe" into plain view. Now that Chirac has made his countermove—telling upstart Europe it should be seen and not heard—the American and British governments look like a pair of pretty smooth operators.

The New York Times' account takes a stab at interpreting Chirac's behavior. Support for the U.S., writes reporter Craig S. Smith, "reinforced widespread suspicion in France that the poorer European countries are primarily attracted to European Union membership for economic reasons while their political allegiance will remain with Washington." Smith added that French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin had noted testily last weekend that "Europe is not a cash register."
Read the rest of the article .
posted by Mitch Berg 2/20/2003 11:52:02 AM

Shot and Goal - Tim Pawlenty is fighting for his budget plan against a full-court press from the media, the non-profit community, and the DFL.

And he's getting in some good points.

DFL House Minority Leader Matt Entenza, said:
The governor can't have it both ways. He can't say he's balancing the budget solely through cuts and then claiming the cuts don't have an impact," Entenza said. "The reality is they're going to have real significant impact. The impact is on law enforcement.
Pawlenty retorted:
In a hastily called news conference at the State Capitol, a visibly irritated Pawlenty said local officials who could not handle the magnitude of the reductions without cutting police and fire services should be fired. The reductions would be limited to 5 percent of a city's total revenue the first year and at 9.5 percent the second year.

"If you can't manage your city with a 3 percent drop in revenue without having the first thing you do is run before the cameras and say you're going to lay off cops, then you shouldn't be in that position," Pawlenty said.
As an aside - perhaps Entenza's remarks are actually a good sign for Republicans. That Entenza would protest the potential loss of cops and law enforcement - as opposed to traditional DFL bases like welfare and social programs - is a sign that the DFL knows which voters are really in charge in this state.

Genocide Afoot in Minnesota- This also came from the Strib article:
"It [the LGA cuts] hits the inner cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul and rural communities extremely hard, and it doesn't touch the wealthy suburban districts at all," said Rep. Tom Rukavina, DFL-Virginia. "To me, the attack on rural Minnesota is almost like geographic genocide. The social fabric of the state of Minnesota is going to be severely damaged."
Geographic Genocide.

A cut in funding...is equal to genocide (the destruction of an entire people). I'll cut Rukavina a certain amount of slack - I've heard him speak, and let's just say the problems of having an overly-keen intellect are not ones he needs to worry about.

But "Geographic Genocide"? That's not just dumb - that's Maxine Waters/Carole Mosely-Braun-level stupid. And the worst part? Someone out there is going to take this seriously, and vote based on that kind of idiocy.

Seriously - the debasement of our language by such tripe is absolutely galling.

posted by Mitch Berg 2/20/2003 11:25:01 AM

Liberal Talk Watch - Ann Coulter touches on the same topic I did a few days ago - the putative "liberal talk radio network" that a group of big-dollar lefties are supposedly going to try to launch.

Here's the big point - one I sorta buried in Tuesday's screed:
Liberal persuasion consists of the highbrow sneer from self-satisfied snobs ladled out for people with a 40 IQ. This is not an ideology that can withstand several hours a day of caller scrutiny where their goofball notions can be shot down by any truck driver with a cell phone
If I were a liberal thinking about trying to float a talk radio network, the last thing I'd do would be to trot out another batch of liberal "big names" like Cuomo or Al Franken. "Big names" have one huge problem - they know they're "big names". Even if they can affect a "just plain folks" attitude long enough to avoid turning listeners off in droves (and that's difficult), the very fact that they're a "big name" exerts a chilling effect on reaction. People who have no compunctions about calling to rag on Bob Davis, Schlemiel Without Portfolio, will be just a tad intimidated at the notion of calling an ex-Big Wheel.

Which, as a conservative, sounds just fine to me. Bring on the Big Names! Put Barbra Streisand on afternoon drive!

As to Al Franken; bitter and snide don't sell on the radio. Well - they can, but it's rare. And nobody in the public eye comes across as more bitter and snide than your average comedian. Having never met Franken, I don't know if he fits the pattern, but I wouldn't bet against it. And if so - well, it doesn't bode well for an "Al Franken Show"s chances.

So bring 'em on!
posted by Mitch Berg 2/20/2003 09:39:41 AM

Whew - I was sicker than I thought yesterday. I'll try to make up for lost time today.

One word: Theraflu.

Premier Chirac - Most of Eastern Europe is overtly backing the Administration on Iraq. Virtually the entire former Warsaw Pact - Poland, The Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, the Baltic States, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria - are backing us. It must have something to do with having been subjects to a far-away dictatorship.

Last week, French prez Chirac attacked the Eastern European nations that had broken ranks with France, Germany and Belgium. At one point, Chirac said the nations had "missed a great opportunity to shut up".

Today: They're talking back:
Romanian President Ion Iliescu led the attack on France, describing the President's "outdated" views as an affront to democracy and free speech.

"Such reproaches are totally unjustified, unwise and undemocratic," he told reporters in Brussels, after a meeting for candidate nations on Iraq.

"It is unwise to separate countries into pro-American and anti-American. I thought it was outdated to say, 'He who is not with us is against us'."

"In the European family there are no mummies, no daddies and no kids - it is a family of equals," said Polish Foreign Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz
Chirac has be be nervous.

The EU is an offshoot of fifty-year-old efforts to reconcile France and Germany, after two world wars. Of course, the effort always saw France and Germany as the leaders of the effort.

But today, with their economies moribund, the French and Germans see some of their power shifting eastward, to countries that have largely adapted freer markets, that detest authoritarianism....

...and that are often staunch US allies. Poland and the Czechs are among the best allies we have in the world, these days. And unlike France and Germany, the economies of Eastern Europe have nowhere to go but up.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/20/2003 08:09:18 AM

Wednesday, February 19, 2003

Oh Blogger, Where Art Thou? - Blogger.com, the site I use to edit and publish Shot in the Dark, has been down most of the day.

As luck'd have it, so have I - I caught my first nasty cold in quite some time, and actually spent much of the day in bed. Let's look at the half-full glass and say that it's one nice thing about being unemployed; I can take a sick day when I want one. Unfortunately, my son was also home sick, so it wasn't the most restful day off I've had...

Anyway, more posts to come.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/19/2003 04:45:48 PM

Tuesday, February 18, 2003

Franken See, Franken Do - Jay Reding beat me to one story I've been chewing on for a few weeks here; efforts to kick off a liberal talk radio network.

Says the Times
The plan faces several business and content challenges, from finding a network of radio stations to buy the program to overcoming the poor track record of liberal radio shows. But it is the most ambitious undertaking yet to come from liberal Democrats who believe they are overshadowed in the political propaganda wars by conservative radio and television personalities.
My response should be obvious, but Reding said it first, so I'll defer to Jay: "They believe that since there's a such a lack of left-wing partisans in the media (other than Dan Rather, James Carville, Ted Turner, the Times own editorial staff, etc...) that there needs to be a left-wing alternative. The major problem with that logic is that there is a glut of liberal voices in the media, and even on the airwaves. One wonders if these people haven't heard of National Public Radio before..." Indeed.

But in terms of a muckraking presence among blue and white-collar breadwinners, the left really doesn't have much going on. There's a reason for that.

When I worked in talk radio, is was segregated into a ghetto on the AM band. In the eighties, it was widely agreed that AM radio was doomed to go the way of the steam-powered car; Talk radio was the province of blue-hairs and dyspeptic third-shifters. Larry King was the biggest name in the business - and he was no more astringent than he is today.

Then came Limbaugh - a sad sack schlemiel turned "pompous blowhard" who reveled in and excelled at pushing liberal buttons. Then as now, he mixed analysis - often glib, frequently brilliant - with pointed irreverence and fairly sophisticated humor (by radio standards) into something that appealed to "angry white men" and not a few women nationwide in numbers that radio had never seen.

Suddenly, between 1987 and 1989, all those AM radios that had been sitting unused at construction sites, in long-haul trucks, homes, and really anywhere that people with mal-educated kids and beleaguered families and big tax burdens gathered, suddenly sprang back into use.

Within two years of going nationwide, Limbaugh became the biggest thing in radio history. Today, the tables have turned; many AM talk stations will carry their FM and TV sister-properties, financially. Talk radio has boomed in a way that we in the racket couldn't have imagined in 1986.

And it's all conservative. All of it. The shows that are getting any numbers at all are conservative. There are few - very few - surviving liberal talk show hosts, and the number is dwindling.

And the left's not happy about it:
The concern has been around for years: Hillary Rodham Clinton first mentioned a "vast, right-wing conspiracy" in 1998. But the sentiment has taken on new urgency with the rise to the top of the cable news ratings of the Fox News Channel, considered by many to have a conservative slant, and the Republicans' gaining control of the Senate in November. Such events have spurred many wealthy Democrats to explore investments in possible, liberal-skewing media ventures. New campaign finance rules that restrict giving opportunities also gave them further incentive.

The new liberal radio network is initially being financed by the Paradigm Group, of which the Drobnys are the principal partners. Ms. Drobny is the chairwoman of the venture, which is being called AnShell Media L.L.C. Jon Sinton, a longtime, Atlanta-based radio executive, will be its chief executive. He helped start the nationally syndicated radio program of Jim Hightower, the former Texas agriculture commissioner. Liberals had hoped that would be their answer to Mr. Limbaugh, but it was canceled shortly after its start in the mid-1990's.

The failure of Mr. Hightower's show supported the notion of many in radio that liberal hosts do not have what it takes to become successful and entertaining hosts: the fire-and-brimstone manner and a ready-made audience alienated by the mainstream news media it perceives to be full of liberal bias.
The article's last paragraph is an interesting one, and flirts with the point without actually hitting it. What the left calls "Fire and Brimstone" is something much deeper.

The vast majority of people are conservative. No, I don't mean they're members of the Republican Party. Far from it. But when the beginning of the month rears its ugly head and the phone bill is arguing the with the mortgage about whom Daddy loves more, an awful lot of Americans that only Roger Moe would consider "rich" are fiscal conservatives at least in spirit.

The conservative hosts that have succeeded did it because they gave a voice - a passionate one - to those workadaddy, hugamommy concerns. Then, they connected those concerns (and that passion) to the larger politics involved.

And then they opened the phone lines. The rubes and schmucks sweating over their property tax payments not only had a voice, they could add theirs to the fray. And that voice was accepted on its own merits (within the context of being entertainment).

And when you call a conservative talk host, you know you're calling someone who's not too different from you.

And the results?
The list of successful conservative radio hosts is, in fact, fairly long Rush Limbaugh; Sean Hannity; Michael Savage; Michael Reagan. And there is no equivalent list of liberals. Past attempts, such as the programs of Mr. Hightower and Mario Cuomo, have failed.
And it's no wonder.

There's the nub of the gist - look at the past roster of liberal talk radio stars: former government figures like the insufferable Hightower and the narcotic Cuomo; the hopelessly eggheaded Michael Jackson and the vapidly tedious Owen Span; regional stars like Tom Leykis and Alan Berg (murdered by neo-Nazis in 1984) known for being nastier than Morton Downey Junior; locally, the rote cackling of Katherine Lanpher, Turi Ryder's snide hiss, the repetitive wonkery of KSTP's various Morning Spins (not overtly liberal in many cases, but you could and can read between the lines), the condescension Jim Klobuchar's grating rasp...

What do they all have in common? They're all Big Names. Experts. High Priests of Enlightenment.

Conservative hosts - especially the bigger names - are usually more like the kind of people you meet in bars and talk politics with. Only the bars are different; Rush Limbaugh's St. Paul Grill, Jason Lewis at the Monte Carlo, Joe Soucheray at Fern's, Mike Savage at Irv's on Broadway...only Michael Medved sounds like the kind of person you'd meet in a capitol conference room or a grad school seminar.

Now, what is the left going to throw up against the conservative phalanx?
Mr. Sinton [proposes] a full slate of liberally skewing programming with morning, afternoon and early evening shows featuring hosts with as many big names in entertainment as possible.
Pow! Exactly!

"Big Names!".

The success of talk radio is not about "Big Names". Who ever heard of Rush Limbaugh or Laura Schlesinger before they hit the big time? Nobody!

It's not about big names. It's about focusing the passions of a huge group that feels disposessed by the current culture!

Current talk centers around Al Franken:
A deal with Mr. Franken, the comedian, would help greatly in luring other big names, as well as in gaining distribution. He said he envisioned a daily program featuring Mr. Franken perhaps in the early afternoons (around the same time as "The Rush Limbaugh Show").

A representative for Mr. Franken, Henry Reisch of the William Morris Agency, said Mr. Franken was seriously considering the offer, and was mostly focusing on whether he could handle the commitment of a daily radio program. Judging from his comments as a guest last month on Phil Donahue's program on MSNBC, Mr. Franken would probably take a far different approach from that of Mr. Limbaugh. "I think the audience isn't there for a liberal Rush," he said. "Because I think liberals don't want to hear that kind of demagoguery."
Al "Big Fat Idiot" Franken isn't a demigogue?

But I digress - there's my point exactly. I can see Frank the Mechanic from Biloxi calling Rush Limbaugh and getting a relatively sympathetic hearing, even if Frank's a Democrat. Can you see anyone not of Franken's social circle doing as well calling in to Franken's show?

No! Because an Al Franken show would be about Al Franken's politics! Rush Limbaugh, as ego-driven as the show is, is about the audience.

As is all conservative talk radio that actually works!

But Wait! - One conservative radio wonk arouse my ire:
Some radio executives said they simply did not believe liberal radio could become good business. Among them was Kraig T. Kitchen, chief executive of Premiere Radio Networks, one of the nation's largest radio syndication arms with the programs of Mr. Limbaugh, Mr. Reagan and Dr. Laura Schlessinger, among others. Though Mr. Kitchin said he was a conservative, he also said he would have pursued liberal programs had he thought there was money in them. He ascribes to the popular view in the industry that liberal hosts present issues in too much complexity to be very entertaining — while addressing a diffuse audience that has varying views.

"Individuals who are liberal in their viewpoints can be all-encompassing," he said. "It's very hard to define liberalism, unlike how easy it is to define conservatism.
If you're talking about dittoheads, perhaps. But conservatism is much harder - and takes much more mental effort - than liberalism, to do it well at any rate. Liberalism may be "hard to define", but it's easy to do - just use the government to express your compassion for you. Conservatism is much harder; it's tough love, which is never easy. Much harder to justify to oneself, without a lot of thought.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/18/2003 12:22:27 PM

Monday, February 17, 2003

Saddam Dead Pool - Guessing the date of a potential invasion is a fool's game.

And fool's games are usually the most fun.

I've been guessing (and it's only a marginally educated guess) March 21 for some time now. It seems to add up - the troops we just sent to the Gulf (the 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions) will have their heavy equipment in place and ready to go by then; the troops already there (Marines, the 3rd Infantry Division and many others) will have had that much more time to acclimate themselves to the desert. And winter will be drawing to a close in the Gulf around that time.

But the real driver, of course, is politics, especially Tony Blair's need to placate the UK's strong anti-war movement (especially among his own party's strong left wing).

Sullivan says:
Here's one option: take Villepin's date of March 14 and make it a final deadline. Say that by that date, Saddam must provide an accounting for the anthrax, nerve gas and other missing and unaccounted for materials cited by Blix; and also by that date, Iraq must destroy all its al Samoud missiles, which are banned under existing resolutions. We need a deadline. We had one - "immediate compliance" - I know. But we lose nothing by giving the world a final one. It would put the onus back on Saddam, help Blair, show a little flexibility on the part of the U.S., maybe bring around a few more Security Council members and not lose any significant time. Again, this isn't logical from the point of view of 1441. But it is a reflection of the political pressures on a key U.S. ally. Recognizing that political pressure is not surrendering to it. But ignoring it when we can still offer an alternative would be foolish. We can afford to be a little flexible. So let's be.
It's such a fine line, the one between flexibility and enablement.

But for all the left's yapping about Bush's "diplomatic disaster", I think they can do it. In fact, I think taking a month (roughly) for one last round of futility at the UN would play nicely into the Administration's hands. Our troops can use the time to train in the desert, and (in the case of the recent arrivals) unscramble their equipment as it's unloaded from the cargo ships. And if it sews up the public opinion, especially of that part of the public that would support the war "as long as it's not unilateral", then the delay would serve both military and political ends.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/17/2003 11:49:41 AM

Sunday, February 16, 2003

New Europe Speaks Up - Solomon Pasi is Bulgaria's foreign minister. The London Telegraph quotes his response to French pressure to toe the "European" line:
In the meantime, Bulgaria has vowed to resist French attempts to bully it into withdrawing support for America's plans to disarm Iraq. Last week the French ambassador to Sofia warned Bulgaria that its pro-American stance could jeopardise its efforts to join the European Union.

"Bulgaria has to consider carefully where its long-term interests lie," Jean Loup Kuhn-Delforge said last week. "When people live in Europe they should express solidarity and think European-style."

Solomon Pasi, Bulgaria's foreign minister, condemned the French as neo-appeasers. "We all remember the hesitancy of the Allies, who weren't sure whether to attack Hitler. They could have prevented so much," he said.

"We're in a situation where we have a moral imperative to act and act now."
In peripherally-related news - could this be a sign that the Franco-German-Belgian anti-invasion bloc is fracturing?
France, Germany and Belgium have blocked Nato's plans to send Awacs surveillance aircraft, Patriot missile batteries and specialist equipment to protect Turkey against chemical, biological and nuclear attack. They argue that this would wrongly signal that war with Iraq was inevitable. The row over the Turkish request has further poisoned relations between Paris, Berlin and Washington.

While diplomats said that there was now no prospect of ending French opposition to military support from Nato for Turkey's defences, they believe that Germany and Belgium, which have so far backed France, may be wavering.

The countries have faced fierce criticism from Nato's 16 other members and have also come under fire from the seven nations recently invited to join the alliance, who accuse them of a "breach of faith" for refusing to grant Turkey's request for help.

"If Germany can be won over," said a senior Nato diplomat, "it's unlikely that Belgium will want to be isolated as the only one of 18 full military members holding out against aid to Turkey."
All of this is happening, as the left continues to pick at the Administration's diplomatic record. A leftist friend of mine said the other day: "The Administration's diplomacy is a disaster! We're still going it alone!". I rattled off all the nations that are currently supporting us, and added in the ones that support defending Turkey (Norway, the Netherlands - neither of them militarily trivial), and asked where precisely the diplomatic failure was. Toss in the possible split of Germany and France, and you're talking a pretty serious diplomatic win, in my book.

(Link via Instapundit)
posted by Mitch Berg 2/16/2003 12:28:36 PM

Someone Notify WAMM - Something for all those MacAlester College peaceniks to get into.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/16/2003 08:50:27 AM

Protest Report, With Twist - John from Blogs of War has an excellent report, with photos, from yesterday's pro-dictatorship, pro-Israeli-extinction rally in Houston.

But this story has a fun twist:
Things really got interesting around 2:00 when two guys ran up to our vantage point overlooking the protesters, held up a sign, and started making more noise than the entire crowd of protesters with a wicked airhorn [ Listen to Rhett.wav ]. Turns out Rhett Boren and his friend left the U.S. Marines three weeks ago and were there to stand up for George Bush, America, our troops, and common sense. [ Image 5 ]

Rhett had five or six different signs and was rapidly switching between them to counter specific protesters across the street from us. Things almost got ugly when some young punk got pissed and screamed "If you're pro-war why don't you go?" to Rhett. In what was easily the best moment of the day Rhett screamed "I just got back", held up his sign, and started blasting on his airhorn again.

It was totally sweet.

The protesters then moved to a nearby park while Rhett and his friend moved on to confront them. Police (very amused police) kept him a few feet away at all times but he continued to get up close and personal. [ Image 6 ] I couldn't help laughing each time he managed to drown out the entire crowd with blasts of his airhorn.
You know, I almost hope someone tries to throw another protest here in the Twin Cities on some weekday before I find another job.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/16/2003 08:40:06 AM

Big Words - I love great speech. British politics breeds great speakers - much more so than American politics. In the rough-and-tumble world of Parliament, one has to be a good, convincing, literate speaker, or one is booed from the lectern - a great difference from the US Congress, where most congresspeople exhibit the type of oratorical skills that would get them fired for a telemarketing job.

Andrew Sullivan compares Blair with Gladstone, even Churchill (the greatest orator of modern times) due especially to this speech to Parliament (read the whole thing here):
The time needed is not the time it takes the inspectors to discover the weapons. They are not a detective agency. We played that game for years in the 1990s. The time is the time necessary to make a judgment: is Saddam prepared to co-operate fully or not. If he is, the inspectors can take as much time as they want. If he is not, if this is a repeat of the 1990s - and I believe it is - then let us be under no doubt what is at stake.

By going down the UN route we gave the UN an extraordinary opportunity and a heavy responsibility. The opportunity is to show that we can meet the menace to our world today together, collectively and as a united international community. What a mighty achievement that would be. The responsibility, however, is indeed to deal with it.

The League of Nations also had that opportunity and responsibility back in the 1930s. In the early days of the fascist menace, it had the duty to protect Abyssinia from invasion. But when it came to a decision to enforce that guarantee, the horror of war deterred it. We know the rest. The menace grew; the League of Nations collapsed; war came.
Finally! I'm so glad to see a government leader put that comparison on record.
Remember: the UN inspectors would not be within a thousand miles of Baghdad without the threat of force. Saddam would not be making a single concession without the knowledge that forces were gathering against him. I hope, even now, Iraq can be disarmed peacefully, with or without Saddam. But if we show weakness now, if we allow the plea for more time to become just an excuse for prevarication until the moment for action passes, then it will not only be Saddam who is repeating history. The menace, and not just from Saddam, will grow; the authority of the UN will be lost; and the conflict when it comes will be more bloody. Yes, let the United Nations be the way to deal with Saddam. But let the United Nations mean what it says; and do what it means.
Which is, of course, a loaded request; the UN is institutionally unable to do much of anything.

These states developing Weapons of Mass Destruction, proliferating them, importing or exporting the scientific expertise, the ballistic missile technology; the companies and individuals helping them: they don't operate within any international treaties. They don't conform to any rules. North Korea is a country whose people are starving and yet can spend billions of dollars trying to perfect a nuclear bomb. Iraq, under Saddam became the first country to use chemical weapons against its own people. Are we sure that if we let him keep and develop such weapons, he would not use them again against his neighbours, against Israel perhaps? Saddam the man who killed a million people in an eight year war with Iran, and then, having lost it, invaded Kuwait? Or the other nations scrabbling to get a foot on the nuclear ladder, are we happy that they do so?
Hey, wait - wasn't Saddam elected?

It's a sad, sad world when legitimate leaders need to pound, constantly, on the illegitimacy of a Saddam Hussein to try to get through to some parts of their population.
Every time I have asked us to go to war, I have hated it. I spent months trying to get Milosevic to stop ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, delaying action while we negotiated endlessly. I agreed with President Bush not to strike Afghanistan after September 11th but instead to offer the Taliban, loathsome though they were, an ultimatum: yield up Al Qaida and we will let you stay. We used force in the end, but in Kosovo only as a last resort, and though I rejoiced with his people at the fall of Milosevic, as I rejoiced with the Afghan people at the fall of the Taliban, I know that amid the necessary military victory there was pain and suffering that brought no joy at all.
Amid the left's caterwauling about the "rush to war", I think it's fascinating how restrained we've been.

Remember in the first Gulf War? We went five months from the invasion of Kuwait until the air war began, and another month before the four-day ground war.

We've been waiting over a year with Iraq.
At every stage, we should seek to avoid war. But if the threat cannot be removed peacefully, please let us not fall for the delusion that it can be safely ignored. If we do not confront these twin menaces of rogue states with Weapons of Mass Destruction and terrorism, they will not disappear. They will just feed and grow on our weakness.
Churchillian.
When people say if you act, you will provoke these people; when they say now: take a lower profile and these people will leave us alone, remember: Al Qaida attacked the US, not the other way round. Were the people of Bali in the forefront of the anti-terror campaign? Did Indonesia 'make itself a target'? The terrorists won't be nice to us if we're nice to them. When Saddam drew us into the Gulf War, he wasn't provoked. He invaded Kuwait.
Too bad this is too big to fit on a bumper sticker.
Yes, there are consequences of war. If we remove Saddam by force, people will die and some will be innocent. And we must live with the consequences of our actions, even the unintended ones.

But there are also consequences of "stop the war".

If I took that advice, and did not insist on disarmament, yes, there would be no war. But there would still be Saddam. Many of the people marching will say they hate Saddam. But the consequences of taking their advice is that he stays in charge of Iraq, ruling the Iraqi people. A country that in 1978, the year before he seized power, was richer than Malaysia or Portugal. A country where today, 135 out of every 1000 Iraqi children die before the age of five - 70% of these deaths are from diarrhoea and respiratory infections that are easily preventable. Where almost a third of children born in the centre and south of Iraq have chronic malnutrition.

Where 60% of the people depend on Food Aid.

Where half the population of rural areas have no safe water.

Where every year and now, as we speak, tens of thousands of political prisoners languish in appalling conditions in Saddam's jails and are routinely executed.

Where in the past 15 years over 150,000 Shia Moslems in Southern Iraq and Moslem Kurds in Northern Iraq have been butchered; with up to four million Iraqis in exile round the world, including 350,000 now in Britain.

This isn't a regime with Weapons of Mass Destruction that is otherwise benign. This is a regime that contravenes every single principle or value anyone of our politics believes in.
It's also a regime that will have no problem using a nuke or VX bomb to hold the world's oil, or Israel, hostage. Or using Al Quaeda, or any of several other terrorist groups - as a long-range delivery system.
There will be no march for the victims of Saddam, no protests about the thousands of children that die needlessly every year under his rule, no righteous anger over the torture chambers which if he is left in power, will be left in being.
Yeah - has anyone asked ANSWER about this?
I rejoice that we live in a country where peaceful protest is a natural part of our democratic process.

But I ask the marchers to understand this.

I do not seek unpopularity as a badge of honour. But sometimes it is the price of leadership. And the cost of conviction.

But as you watch your TV pictures of the march, ponder this:

If there are 500,000 on that march, that is still less than the number of people whose deaths Saddam has been responsible for.

If there are one million, that is still less than the number of people who died in the wars he started.
Again - it's a shame it won't fit on a sticker.

Let me read from an e-mail that was sent by a member of the family of one of those four million Iraqi exiles. It is interesting because she is fiercely and I think wrongly critical of America. But in a sense for that reason, it is worth reading.

She addresses it to the anti-war movement.

In one part, she says:

"You may feel that America is trying to blind you from seeing the truth about their real reasons for an invasion. I must argue that in fact, you are still blind to the bigger truths in Iraq.

Saddam has murdered more than a million Iraqis over the past 30 years, are you willing to allow him to kill another million Iraqis?

Saddam rules Iraq using fear - he regularly imprisons, executes and tortures the mass population for no reason whatsoever - this may be hard to believe and you may not even appreciate the extent of such barbaric acts, but believe me you will be hard pressed to find a family in Iraq who have not had a son, father, brother killed, imprisoned, tortured and/or "disappeared" due to Saddam's regime.

Why it is now that you deem it appropriate to voice your disillusions with America's policy in Iraq, when it is right now that the Iraqi people are being given real hope, however slight and however precarious, that they can live in an Iraq that is free of its horrors?"
So many responses to this speech. I wish our system put such a premium on speech - although when we do get a good speaker (as Reagan and Clinton were), he or she certainly stands out from the crowd.

But Blair ticks off a very concise checklist of justifications for the upcoming war. Read the whole thing - it's worth it.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/16/2003 06:59:52 AM

Domino Effect - I've been saying for months - take Iraq, and we will force change in the terror-supporting regimes in Teheran and Damascus. I think this is as important as eliminating Hussein's Weapons of Mass Destruction program. It also make clear the context of the Iraq operation - as the second phase of the war on terror.

Fouad Afami on Iran:
Iran and Iraq are different, and the Bush administration knows the difference. Iran has the elements of change within it; Iraq will have to be changed by force. U.S. policy has been more subtle on Iran than its critics would have us believe. No credible American scenario envisages a war against Iran once the dust of battle settles in Iraq. The Iranians must know this, even as their clerical rulers protest their inclusion in the "axis of evil." Patience, deadly and dangerous in dealing with Iraq (in my view), could work in Iran's case. In this regard, the policy of the Bush administration has been on the mark. There has been no urge to court Iran. The zeal with which the Clinton administration pursued an accommodation with Iran's rulers has been cast aside. This has been one of the lessons of Sept. 11: Why court hated rulers if this only gets you the enmity of their resentful populations? It was in this vein that President Bush pitched his policy on Iran in his State of the Union address. A distinction was made between the Iranian theocracy and Iraq: "Different threats require different strategies." The regime in Iran was put on notice for its support of terror and its pursuit of weapons of destruction. But the people of Iran and their "aspirations to live in freedom" were embraced.

A silent revolution is under way in Iran; it lacks the fury of what played out in 1978-79. It is the imploding of the theocratic edifice, the aging of a revolution that has lost the consent of its children. A young Iranian-American author, Afshin Molavi, in a compelling new book, "Persian Pilgrimages," has just brought us fragments of that burdened land. It is of green cards and visas to foreign lands that the young of Iran now dream; in the year 2000, some 200,000 Iranian professionals quit their native land for Western shores. In a recent public-opinion survey, three out of four Iranians said they favored restoring relations with Washington. Iran is at the crossroads. In one vision of things, Tehran would barter the influence it has in Lebanon, through its sponsorship of Hezbollah, for a deal with Israel and a return to that covert understanding that once bound the Jewish state to Iran. In this vision, there would be a gradual accommodation with the U.S., an acceptance of America's primacy in the Persian Gulf. In the rival vision, Iran would continue to muddle through, alternating terror and diplomacy, hinting at moderation and then pulling back, offering its betrayed people more sterility, and a diet of anti-Americanism at odds with the fixation of young Iranians.

What does it all mean in the long run?
It is in the nature of things today, in an Iranian society deeply divided between those who would bury the revolution and join the world, and others hell-bent on keeping the theocracy, and their own dominion, intact, that the American drive against Iraq would be defined by that chasm. For those who want to normalize Iran, the thunder of war against Iraq is the coming of a blessed rain. The Americans would be nearby, but what of it? Liberty is rarely a foreigner's gift, and no American war in Iran's neighborhood will settle the fight between theocratic zealots and those in Iran who have twice, in presidential elections, cast their votes for a reform that never came. But the "contagion effect" of a liberated Iraq will no doubt have a role to play in the fight for Iran's future. In Persia, there will be multitudes hoping that the foreigner's storm will be mighty enough to clear their foul sky.
Read the whole thing.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/16/2003 06:32:27 AM

Berg's Law of Liberal Iraq Commentary:

In attacking the reasons for war, no liberal commentator is capable of addressing more than one of the justifications at a time; to do so would introduce a context in which their argument can not survive