LINK: Oh sweet mother McCree... he really has joined the dark side, hasn't he?
Question for Dara: is it okay for me to be a Republican now?
"Thou shalt not extinguish thine anger, but shall master it,
that thy conscience may not be blunted by adjustment
to wrong causes."
-The Dutch Ten Commandments to Foil the Nazis
29.4.03
28.4.03
27.4.03
22.4.03
19.4.03
QUOTE: I generally don't do whole things, but this is too good:
I CONFESS
By JOHN PODHORETZ
April 18, 2003 -- OK, I'll admit it. I'm part of a vast conspiracy to control American foreign policy.
Yes, we neoconservatives have succeeded in brainwashing the leaders of the United States and Britain, using nefarious mind-controlling techniques. Those techniques include: Writing articles, circulating letters, giving speeches and appearing on television.
It's amazing and terrifying when you think about it. But even though I will be hunted down like a dog by my fellow conspirators for revealing this highly privileged information, I will now share with you the secret tale of how the neocon conspiracy came to dominate the mind of George W. Bush:
A group of people came to believe in certain things. Because they agreed, they got to know one another. They worked together. They became friends. Their relationships were strengthened by a commitment to a shared cause.
Because they cared about the ideas they shared, they dedicated their energies to making the best arguments for them. Because they believed these ideas would make the world safer and would make America better, some of them went to work in government to convert them into government policy.
Others published their ideas in forums hospitable to those ideas. For a long time, there weren't very many hospitable forums. So these people created new forums in which to advance these ideas.
They advanced their arguments no matter what. Sometimes their arguments had a somewhat attentive audience in government circles, as during the Reagan administration. Sometimes the attention was only grudging, as in the first Bush administration. And sometimes their arguments fell on deaf ears, as with the Clinton administration.
Here's what's interesting, though. Even though the Reaganites paid attention, these people felt entirely comfortable about criticizing the Reagan administration when it did things these people considered wrong.
And even when they had no influence and felt disgust for the president in power - the Clinton years - they offered praise and support when the president acted in ways they considered admirable.
In other words, they were more faithful to the ideas they shared than to the political party with which they were loosely aligned.
How evil!
It's kind of flattering, this notion that a group of people called "neoconservatives" - a term hostile people use to refer to Jewish Republicans with hard-line foreign policy views in and out of government without using the word "Jewish" - have seized the reins of power in the United States.
Especially considering the fact that it's not true. Condoleezza Rice is not a Jew. Nor is Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell or CIA Director George Tenet. Nor is, to put it mildly, George W. Bush.
Rice's mentor in government was Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser to Bush the Elder. There have been few government officials more hostile to the neocon worldview than Scowcroft.
In the House of Representatives, Dick Cheney was no friend to Israel and a consistent opponent of U.S. government spending on foreign aid - both key issues for neocons.
And as liberal Jews are always fond of pointing out, George W. Bush once asked his mother whether Jews could go to heaven since they had not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. Not very neoconservative-sounding.
These are the people in charge of U.S. foreign policy. Now, they have "neoconservatives" working for them in senior positions (well, all but Powell and Tenet). But these non-neocons are the policymakers.
Indeed, George W. Bush actually passed over one key neocon (Paul Wolfowitz) when it came to choosing a secretary of Defense back in 2000.
So: Why all this hysterical attention on the neoconservatives?
The purpose of focusing attention on a supposed conspiracy of neoconservative officials in and out of government is to deny President Bush ownership of his own foreign policy. Bush's enemies want to believe very badly that he is nothing more than an empty suit. They take comfort in believing that the president is the stooge of a bunch of clever Jews.
There's a sobering aspect for the neocons in Bush's full-throated advocacy of the positions we've advanced over the past three decades: The president seems to have come to an understanding of these ideas almost entirely on his own. He didn't need the books we wrote or the magazines we published.
On the one hand, that suggests our ideas are so commonsensical you don't need a degree from Neocon University to follow them. On the other hand, maybe our influence is really kind of an illusion.
Don't tell anybody, OK? This will be our little secret.
I CONFESS
By JOHN PODHORETZ
April 18, 2003 -- OK, I'll admit it. I'm part of a vast conspiracy to control American foreign policy.
Yes, we neoconservatives have succeeded in brainwashing the leaders of the United States and Britain, using nefarious mind-controlling techniques. Those techniques include: Writing articles, circulating letters, giving speeches and appearing on television.
It's amazing and terrifying when you think about it. But even though I will be hunted down like a dog by my fellow conspirators for revealing this highly privileged information, I will now share with you the secret tale of how the neocon conspiracy came to dominate the mind of George W. Bush:
A group of people came to believe in certain things. Because they agreed, they got to know one another. They worked together. They became friends. Their relationships were strengthened by a commitment to a shared cause.
Because they cared about the ideas they shared, they dedicated their energies to making the best arguments for them. Because they believed these ideas would make the world safer and would make America better, some of them went to work in government to convert them into government policy.
Others published their ideas in forums hospitable to those ideas. For a long time, there weren't very many hospitable forums. So these people created new forums in which to advance these ideas.
They advanced their arguments no matter what. Sometimes their arguments had a somewhat attentive audience in government circles, as during the Reagan administration. Sometimes the attention was only grudging, as in the first Bush administration. And sometimes their arguments fell on deaf ears, as with the Clinton administration.
Here's what's interesting, though. Even though the Reaganites paid attention, these people felt entirely comfortable about criticizing the Reagan administration when it did things these people considered wrong.
And even when they had no influence and felt disgust for the president in power - the Clinton years - they offered praise and support when the president acted in ways they considered admirable.
In other words, they were more faithful to the ideas they shared than to the political party with which they were loosely aligned.
How evil!
It's kind of flattering, this notion that a group of people called "neoconservatives" - a term hostile people use to refer to Jewish Republicans with hard-line foreign policy views in and out of government without using the word "Jewish" - have seized the reins of power in the United States.
Especially considering the fact that it's not true. Condoleezza Rice is not a Jew. Nor is Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell or CIA Director George Tenet. Nor is, to put it mildly, George W. Bush.
Rice's mentor in government was Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser to Bush the Elder. There have been few government officials more hostile to the neocon worldview than Scowcroft.
In the House of Representatives, Dick Cheney was no friend to Israel and a consistent opponent of U.S. government spending on foreign aid - both key issues for neocons.
And as liberal Jews are always fond of pointing out, George W. Bush once asked his mother whether Jews could go to heaven since they had not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. Not very neoconservative-sounding.
These are the people in charge of U.S. foreign policy. Now, they have "neoconservatives" working for them in senior positions (well, all but Powell and Tenet). But these non-neocons are the policymakers.
Indeed, George W. Bush actually passed over one key neocon (Paul Wolfowitz) when it came to choosing a secretary of Defense back in 2000.
So: Why all this hysterical attention on the neoconservatives?
The purpose of focusing attention on a supposed conspiracy of neoconservative officials in and out of government is to deny President Bush ownership of his own foreign policy. Bush's enemies want to believe very badly that he is nothing more than an empty suit. They take comfort in believing that the president is the stooge of a bunch of clever Jews.
There's a sobering aspect for the neocons in Bush's full-throated advocacy of the positions we've advanced over the past three decades: The president seems to have come to an understanding of these ideas almost entirely on his own. He didn't need the books we wrote or the magazines we published.
On the one hand, that suggests our ideas are so commonsensical you don't need a degree from Neocon University to follow them. On the other hand, maybe our influence is really kind of an illusion.
Don't tell anybody, OK? This will be our little secret.
LINK: Hitch goes at it again:
"At any rate, a burning well is a tough proposition and an uncapped well—permitting a wholesale discharge—an even tougher one. The situation was being handled by Boots and Coots, a fire-control company with an almost parodically American name, which is based in Houston. Boots and Coots, which also worked in Kurdistan and Kuwait after the much worse conflagrations of 1991, is subcontracted for the task by Kellogg, Brown, and Root (another name Harold Pinter might have coined for an American oil company), which is in turn a subdivision of Halliburton. And "Halliburton," which admittedly sounds more British and toney than Boots and Coots, was once headed by—cue mood music of sinister corporate skyscraper as the camera pans up in the pretitle sequence—Vice President Dick Cheney.
Well, if that doesn't give away the true motive for the war, I don't know what does. But unless the anti-war forces believe Saddam's fires should be allowed to burn out of control indefinitely, they must presumably have an idea of which outfit should have got the contract instead of Boots and Coots. I think we can be sure that the contract would not have gone to some windmill-power concern run by Naomi Klein or the anti-Starbucks Seattle coalition, in the hope of just blowing out the flames or of extinguishing them with Buddhist mantras."
"At any rate, a burning well is a tough proposition and an uncapped well—permitting a wholesale discharge—an even tougher one. The situation was being handled by Boots and Coots, a fire-control company with an almost parodically American name, which is based in Houston. Boots and Coots, which also worked in Kurdistan and Kuwait after the much worse conflagrations of 1991, is subcontracted for the task by Kellogg, Brown, and Root (another name Harold Pinter might have coined for an American oil company), which is in turn a subdivision of Halliburton. And "Halliburton," which admittedly sounds more British and toney than Boots and Coots, was once headed by—cue mood music of sinister corporate skyscraper as the camera pans up in the pretitle sequence—Vice President Dick Cheney.
Well, if that doesn't give away the true motive for the war, I don't know what does. But unless the anti-war forces believe Saddam's fires should be allowed to burn out of control indefinitely, they must presumably have an idea of which outfit should have got the contract instead of Boots and Coots. I think we can be sure that the contract would not have gone to some windmill-power concern run by Naomi Klein or the anti-Starbucks Seattle coalition, in the hope of just blowing out the flames or of extinguishing them with Buddhist mantras."
17.4.03
LINK: This strikes me as an eminently sensible proposal. Political rights, property rights--it worked for John Locke, it'll work for me.
RUSSIA WATCH: In addition to the well-dissected reports of Russian complicity with Iraq, it appears entirely likely that Putin (or, let's be fair, his associates) have taken up the hobby of killing off political opponents. Hmm... I feel like this may have happened before somewhere in Russian history, but where?
Well, I realized that's not entirely fair to Europe. Some of the most prominent forerunners to democratic theory came from that part of the world: Spinoza and Montesquieu leap to mind. Of course, the enlightened governments of Europe at the time either banned their works from circulation or branded the authors traitors and heretics. Then again, the Greeks murdered Socrates, so perhaps a prophet is without honor etc etc...
IF EVER A PHRASE DESERVED QUOTATION MARKS... this is it, from a newspaper report on European unification:
" While hailing the ceremony as a "joyful event" taking place in Western civilization's "cradle of democracy..." "
...because we all remember the esteemed history of Spanish democracy (Franco ring a bell?), French democracy (Napoleon, anyone?), Italian, German and Greek democracy. How many countries on that continent have actually been democracies longer than the U.S. (Great Britain aside, of course)? Just curious.
" While hailing the ceremony as a "joyful event" taking place in Western civilization's "cradle of democracy..." "
...because we all remember the esteemed history of Spanish democracy (Franco ring a bell?), French democracy (Napoleon, anyone?), Italian, German and Greek democracy. How many countries on that continent have actually been democracies longer than the U.S. (Great Britain aside, of course)? Just curious.
LINK: You know, for people as diplomatically incompetent as the Administration apparently is, this is the smoothest move I've read about in months
16.4.03
LINK: And the NYT helpfully reminds us that war with Iraq would only complicate the North Korean crisis... oh, right...
LINK: WaPo article reminds us all that there was no connection between Saddam and terrorism... yeah...
15.4.03
LINK: Muslims rush to the defense of Baghdad Jews... nothing like an active rebuke to those who argue Iraqis can't get past religious differences to work in their common interest
LINK: As a dyed-in-the-wool Yankees fan, I think Red Sox fans are sub-literate cretins. Nevertheless, I find this to be utterly heartwarming (scroll down to the picture).
LINK: I haven't read this in a source I can verify, but it does seem of a piece with yesterday's Telegraph report about Russian spying for Iraq. Russia may have helped Saddam escape into Syria.
LINK: John Howard offers advice to the new generation of Iraqi leaders, and wants France off the security council
14.4.03
13.4.03
12.4.03
THIS IS THE BIGGEST STORY that won't ever get any more extensive coverage than this. The credibility of foreign journalism now stands at about zero.
AND, P.S.: isn't it unfair how we force a certain amount of geographic diversity? I mean, shouldn't we be judging people on the content of their character, and not the location of their skin? Besides, I'm pretty sure that people from New York and people from Montana all have comparable life experiences, so it really doesn't matter where we get them from...
And I understand this is sacreligious, but just because Martin Luther King Jr. said something doesn't make it right... or smart...
And I understand this is sacreligious, but just because Martin Luther King Jr. said something doesn't make it right... or smart...
11.4.03
SHEER IDIOCY WATCH: Reporting from work. Vlad Putin:
Speaking alongside German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder at a conference in Russia's second city, he said: "We always said that the regime of Saddam Hussein does not correspondent to democracy and human rights... but you cannot solve such problems with military means."
Obviously they don't get TV in Moscow
Speaking alongside German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder at a conference in Russia's second city, he said: "We always said that the regime of Saddam Hussein does not correspondent to democracy and human rights... but you cannot solve such problems with military means."
Obviously they don't get TV in Moscow
QUOTE: I've been turning this around in my head quite a bit over the last few days. Abraham Lincoln:
"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations."
"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations."
HITCH: At it again:
"So it turns out that all the slogans of the anti-war movement were right after all. And their demands were just. "No War on Iraq," they said--and there wasn't a war on Iraq. Indeed, there was barely a "war" at all. "No Blood for Oil," they cried, and the oil wealth of Iraq has been duly rescued from attempted sabotage with scarcely a drop spilled. Of the nine oil wells set ablaze by the few desperadoes who obeyed the order, only one is still burning and the rest have been capped and doused without casualties. "Stop the War" was the call. And the "war" is indeed stopping. That's not such a bad record. An earlier anti-war demand--"Give the Inspectors More Time"--was also very prescient and is also about to be fulfilled in exquisite detail. "
"So it turns out that all the slogans of the anti-war movement were right after all. And their demands were just. "No War on Iraq," they said--and there wasn't a war on Iraq. Indeed, there was barely a "war" at all. "No Blood for Oil," they cried, and the oil wealth of Iraq has been duly rescued from attempted sabotage with scarcely a drop spilled. Of the nine oil wells set ablaze by the few desperadoes who obeyed the order, only one is still burning and the rest have been capped and doused without casualties. "Stop the War" was the call. And the "war" is indeed stopping. That's not such a bad record. An earlier anti-war demand--"Give the Inspectors More Time"--was also very prescient and is also about to be fulfilled in exquisite detail. "
QUOTE: Kanan Makiya, who is the new Alexander Hamilton, I think:
"Freedom is a heady thing. To an Iraqi, it is like being awakened from a 30-year nightmare by a blinding blaze of bright white light. When a young man steals a television set from the Ministry of Education, he thinks he is striking a blow against the Baath Party. He has not yet become aware that he is in fact stealing it from a building that now belongs to him and is about to start serving his needs, and not those of his tormentors. In between the one state of mind and the other lies the beginning of a responsible and responsive government--law and order as a friend, not a tormentor. "
"Freedom is a heady thing. To an Iraqi, it is like being awakened from a 30-year nightmare by a blinding blaze of bright white light. When a young man steals a television set from the Ministry of Education, he thinks he is striking a blow against the Baath Party. He has not yet become aware that he is in fact stealing it from a building that now belongs to him and is about to start serving his needs, and not those of his tormentors. In between the one state of mind and the other lies the beginning of a responsible and responsive government--law and order as a friend, not a tormentor. "
LINK: The Right Honourable Gentleman Mr. Paul Wolfowitz, as steady a friend as democracy and the Iraqi people have, gives us a little more info on post-war Iraq
10.4.03
It was, well, what else? an iconic moment. Now forever burned into the psyches of everyone in the world. It's right up there in the iconography of democracy with the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the liberation of Paris, the release of Nelson Mandela from prison, the crowds surging in Yugoslavia against Milosevic... I skipped class to see it live, and I don't regret it at all. It's a very gratifying moment for those of us who saw the potential in the war.
Make no mistake: this was not the beginning of the end, or the beginning of the beginning. This was the opening of Pandora's Box. Every evil parasitic on democracy will be unleashed now, and the fight for meaningful representitive government and self-determination is in its moment of birth. But there is also, now and for the first time meaningfully, hope. This is the moment for fire in the belly, in affirming the everlasting commitment freedom-loving peoples have to one another. Their hope is ours, their fate is our fate.
Make no mistake: this was not the beginning of the end, or the beginning of the beginning. This was the opening of Pandora's Box. Every evil parasitic on democracy will be unleashed now, and the fight for meaningful representitive government and self-determination is in its moment of birth. But there is also, now and for the first time meaningfully, hope. This is the moment for fire in the belly, in affirming the everlasting commitment freedom-loving peoples have to one another. Their hope is ours, their fate is our fate.
I TOLD YOU SO: I'll let Andrew Sullivan say it all for me:
"This is an amazing victory, a victory over a monster who gassed civilians, jailed children, sent millions into fruitless wars, harbored poisonous weapons to threaten free peoples, tortured thousands, and made alliances with every two-bit opportunist on the planet. It's a victory over those who marched in the millions to stop this liberation, over the endless media cynics, over the hate-America crowd, and the armchair generals. It's a victory for the two countries in the world that have always made freedom possible and who have now brought it to another corner of the world made dark by terror. It's a victory for the extraordinary servicemen and women who performed this task with such skill, cool, courage and restraint. It's a victory for optimism over pessimism, the righting of past wrongs, the assertion of universal truths against postmodern excuses, and of political leadership over appeasement. Celebrate it. Don't let the whiners take this away from you or from the people of Iraq. "
"This is an amazing victory, a victory over a monster who gassed civilians, jailed children, sent millions into fruitless wars, harbored poisonous weapons to threaten free peoples, tortured thousands, and made alliances with every two-bit opportunist on the planet. It's a victory over those who marched in the millions to stop this liberation, over the endless media cynics, over the hate-America crowd, and the armchair generals. It's a victory for the two countries in the world that have always made freedom possible and who have now brought it to another corner of the world made dark by terror. It's a victory for the extraordinary servicemen and women who performed this task with such skill, cool, courage and restraint. It's a victory for optimism over pessimism, the righting of past wrongs, the assertion of universal truths against postmodern excuses, and of political leadership over appeasement. Celebrate it. Don't let the whiners take this away from you or from the people of Iraq. "
8.4.03
WELL: I believe that was the fastest boycott ever. Now it's time for a weekend update joke-off!
the opposition crumbled faster than:
...the French facing German invasion
...a division of the Iraqi Republican Guard
...a pair of Bhudda statues blown up by the Taliban
...the Taliban
...Arab armies when they fight Israel
...a beer can on the forehead of a wasted frat guy
...your sandcastle after I step on it, jerk
...the honey bran muffins at Espresso Royale... mmm... muffins...
the opposition crumbled faster than:
...the French facing German invasion
...a division of the Iraqi Republican Guard
...a pair of Bhudda statues blown up by the Taliban
...the Taliban
...Arab armies when they fight Israel
...a beer can on the forehead of a wasted frat guy
...your sandcastle after I step on it, jerk
...the honey bran muffins at Espresso Royale... mmm... muffins...
ANNOUNCEMENT: I've decided to formally boycott David's blog. His philospher-hatred has no place in civilized society. So I would request that all fair-minded readers of mine refrain from patronizing him until such a time as he decides to tone down his partisan rhetoric some.
I figure that even if only Dara joins me in the boycott, we'll be cutting his readership by 67%-100%.
I figure that even if only Dara joins me in the boycott, we'll be cutting his readership by 67%-100%.
7.4.03
THINGS SCIENCE/MATH MAJORS CAN'T DO: Tell jokes that are funny. To wit:
"philosophy: i'm in no al-Samoud to be putting up with this Shiite"
UPDATE: Well, there's no law that says Tina Fey can't tell a non-funny joke. I watched WU, and she told several of them. She's still hot, and the joke's still stupid--these are not mutually exclusive facts.
UPDATE II: Come to think of it, for a man who dislikes philosophy as much as you do, it's a little puzzling as to why you keep on taking classes from the department. As long as we're going to be consulting a psychologist, you might want to ask him about that.
"philosophy: i'm in no al-Samoud to be putting up with this Shiite"
UPDATE: Well, there's no law that says Tina Fey can't tell a non-funny joke. I watched WU, and she told several of them. She's still hot, and the joke's still stupid--these are not mutually exclusive facts.
UPDATE II: Come to think of it, for a man who dislikes philosophy as much as you do, it's a little puzzling as to why you keep on taking classes from the department. As long as we're going to be consulting a psychologist, you might want to ask him about that.
6.4.03
5.4.03
4.4.03
MUST-READ: Being only halfway through this piece, it strikes me as exactly what war journalism should be like--rollicking and entertaining. Read it read it read it. You'll be glad you did.
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