Sacrifice

If President Bush is reelected, there will be spending cuts for "virtually all agencies in charge of domestic programs"--even homeland security. Read the details here: 2006 Cuts In Domestic Spending On Table (washingtonpost.com) [link found at Body and Soul] An excerpt:

The funding levels referred to in the memo would be a tiny slice out of the federal budget -- $2.3 billion, or 0.56 percent, out of the $412.7 billion requested for fiscal 2005 for domestic programs and homeland security that is subject to Congress's annual discretion.

But the cuts are politically sensitive, targeting popular programs that Bush has been touting on the campaign trail. The Education Department; a nutrition program for women, infants and children; Head Start; and homeownership, job-training, medical research and science programs all face cuts in 2006.

"Despite [administration] denials, this memorandum confirms what we suspected all along," said Thomas S. Kahn, Democratic staff director on the House Budget Committee. "Next February, the administration plans to propose spending cuts in key government services to pay for oversized tax cuts."

But with the budget deficit exceeding $400 billion this year, tough and painful cuts are unavoidable, said Brian M. Riedl, a budget analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

Federal agencies' discretionary spending has risen 39 percent in the past three years. "I think the public is ready for spending cuts," Riedl said. "Not only does the public understand there's a lot of waste in the federal budget, but the public is ready to make sacrifices during the war on terror."

...Amazing how discretionary spending spirals out of control when Republicans are in control. And they talk about 'sacrifice' now, when young American soldiers are dying every day in a pointless and counterproductive war. And the wealthy cannot pay more in taxes . . .

More Statue of Liberty images

The more I look for images of the Statue of Liberty, the more I find. Here is another of that Iraqi wall painting:

Amnesty International has released its annual report on human rights around the world. This cartoon emphasizes one of the themes of this year's report: the 'war on terror' has become a 'war on human rights.'

Amnesty International -- Danziger/Cartoon Arts 
[Click picture to enlarge]
Next, we have a quartet of promotional photos advertising the new movie [opening today, by the way] The Day After Tomorrow:


Horizontal icicles? [Click picture to enlarge]



From The Day After Tomorrow
Tsunami hits the Statue of Liberty
[Click photo to enlarge] 
An unknown blogger [Update: Ponderance] watched a preview and says:

I'm starting to wonder if it's the mark of truly great disaster films to have some sort of mutilated but still-standing version of the Statue of Liberty to gawk at; this one encases her in 15 metres of snow and ice.

I should take better notes . . . I'll update this post to give proper credit for this quote, and I'll throw in a Planet of the Apes picture of the Statue of Liberty too.

UPDATE

Here are the promised Planet of the Apes pictures:


This [lower] image is not up to our usual high standards. It looks like one of those garish 1940s postcards where the colors don't quite line up correctly.

Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name.
Bless the LORD, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits.
. . . For as the heavens are high above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west, so far he removes our transgressions from us.
. . . The LORD has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all.
Bless the LORD, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding,
obedient to his spoken word.
--Psalm 103:1-2, 11-12, 19-20

Today's reading on pacifism

Recommended by Hugo Schwyzer: Episcopal Priest Father Jake posting about Pacifism for Violent SOBs. Here he quotes Stanley Hauerwas:

"I say I'm a pacifist because I'm a violent son of a bitch. I'm a Texan. I can feel it in every bone I've got. And I hate the language of pacifism because it's too passive. But by avowing it, I create expectations in others that hopefully will help me live faithfully to what I know is true but that I have no confidence in my own ability to live it at all. That's part of what nonviolence is--the attempt to make our lives vulnerable to others in a way that we need one another. To be against war--which is clearly violent--is a good place to start. But you never know where the violence is in your own life. To say you're nonviolent is not some position of self-righteousness--you kill and I don't. It's rather to make your life available to others in a way that they can help you discover ways you're implicated in violence that you hadn't even noticed."

In my recent search for statue of liberty stamp images, I ran across a few that comment on the situation in Iraq:


I don't remember where I found these pictures.

Update:

I corrected the spelling of Hugo's name--I should have spotted it but Blogger's post creation window scrolls horizontally and Hugo's name was in the extreme right margin.

Jesus looked up to heaven and said, "Father, I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me."--John 17:20-21

Republican Survivor

Starting June 3, 2004. Sign up for Republican Survivor today [from the DCCC].

Democratic optimism and Republican pessimism

I have just run across an interesting political blog by Ed Fitzgerald. It's called Unfutz. Here's a link his post It's all over but the shouting.
And here are links to the posts he cites:

Zogby Battleground States poll results for May [Wall Street Journal]

A Kerry Landslide?; Why the next election won't be close. By Chuck Todd [Washington Monthly]

Kerry will win huge [mydd.com - who are they?]
Instead of the conventional wisdom that this is going to be a very close, nail-biter of an election, this poll and these articles are pointing to a John Kerry landslide. The swing states are swinging decisively toward Kerry.

Before we rest on our laurels, remember that many things can change between now and November . . . [capture or killing of bin Laden, terrorist attacks, voting machine hacks, 'October surprise', etc. . .]

Also at Unfutz, I saw a link to Ariana Huffington's New Contract For A Better America, from her new book, Fanatics and Fools. [Fanatics are Republicans, Fools are Democrats.] Here are the major points:

1. ACHIEVE ENERGY INDEPENDENCE

2. PRESCRIBE A CURE FOR THE HEALTH CARE EPIDEMIC

3. TREAT LOST JOBS AS A SOCIAL CALAMITY, NOT A LAGGING ECONOMIC INDICATOR

4. TRULY LEAVE NO CHILD BEHIND

5. BREAK DOWN BARRIERS AND CREATE NEW OPPORTUNITIES IN EDUCATION

6. CALL A TRUCE IN THE DRUG WAR

7. SECURE THE HOMELAND FIRST

8. BE A LEADER, NOT A BULLY

9. RESTORE INTEGRITY TO THE POLITICAL PROCESS

10. PUT PEOPLE ABOVE CORPORATE PROFITS

If John Kerry and the Democratic Party were to run on this contract or something like it, they should be able to attract many 'swing voters.'

Back to President Bush's failure in Iraq: Here are the 10 mistakes we made in Iraq, according to Gen. Anthony Zinni, USMC (Ret.) He gave a speech at the Center for Defense Information Board of Directors Dinner on May 12, 2004. A summary of the 10 mistakes:

1. Misjudging the success of containment.

2. The strategy was flawed; the Middle East situation will best be improved by starting with the Israel/Palestine problem.

3. We created a false rationale for going in to get public support.

4. We failed to internationalize the effort.

5. We underestimated the task.

6. Propping up and trusting the Iraqi exiles. [this speech was before Chalabi's 'official downfall!']

7. Lack of planning.

8. Insufficiency of military forces on the ground.

9. The ad hoc organization (the CPA) we threw in there.

10. A series of bad decisions on the ground (de-Baathification, disbanding the Iraqi army, inablity to connect with local leaders.)

Read the whole speech. Zinni is not ready to cut and run, but he's getting close. I feel that we have a responsibility to minimize chaos and disorder during the transition to self-governance; we have a moral obligation to restore Iraq.


While writing about Zinni and Iraq, here's a post by 'ProfessorBainbridge': Uh oh, Bush may be in trouble if he's losing the support of hawkish writer Tom Clancy.

And to wrap up today's links, a neo-con writer from the Weekly Standard criticizes Bush the flip flopper.

Jesus looked up to heaven and said, "Father, sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth." --John 17:17-19

[note: the sanctification Jesus is talking about isn't merely outward piety; we are to be consecrated so that the divine reality can fill our lives. [Paraphrased from Sacred Space.]

Eternal life

Eternal life is not merely endless life, but a quality of life that comes from knowing God completely. [Paraphrased from today's Sacred Space]
Sunset May 24, 2004 Duncan OK
This is a composite or blending of three photographs I took yesterday.
[Click to enlarge]

After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, "Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do."
--John 17:1-4

Shocking

Amazing what liberals can do, when they do what conservatives have been doing for years. Read Liberals show they can work together by Walter Shapiro in USA Today.

Since 1993, a consortium of Republican-loyalist conservative groups has been holding Wednesday confabs hosted by Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform. In a political year when the shock troops of the Democratic Party have been emulating the organizational moxie of the GOP right, it was inevitable that liberals would steal a page from Norquist's playbook. Asked about the competing America Votes effort, Norquist admitted he was ''flattered'' but quickly added skeptical comments about the ability of liberal groups to work together.

Conservatives don't seem to realize that they are also on the verge of splintering into various divisive factions.

Denglish

What is it? Read this essay in FAZ Weekly to find out:

“Denglish“ is a well-documented phenomenon, but I've discovered something new. English words seem to be entering the German language unchanged and, even better for me, unnoticed.
Perhaps it's because of our growing global culture, but English words are burying so far into the consciousness of the average German that they either don't know the word in German or it doesn't exist.

The author, Elizabeth Book, has been studying German for two years.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Gardiner Street Gospel Choir

sings One Love (the Bob Marley song)[MP3, 1:36 clip] The Gardiner Street Gospel Choir is from Dublin, Ireland.

At the Gardiner Street Gospel Choir Mass people gather to celebrate their faith in Christ and they do so with an energy which inspires those who do not share that faith - and those who doubt - to come and join in. The keystone of the Gospel Choir Mass is contented faith in Christ.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

The Mallet O' Understanding

I wonder if Pearls Before Swine is making a comment about United States foreign policy? Click the picture to enlarge it to a readable size.


Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis
Today I heard one of the gaggle of Republican hack radio talk show hosts saying that since one explosive device in Iraq had Sarin in it, critics of the war in Iraq can't claim that Iraq didn't have WMD; the Bush administration wasn't lying after all. I can't speak for all critics of the war, but I still say Bush administration officials were lying when they said they knew with no doubt that Saddam Hussein had amassed stockpiles of WMD and was rapidly developing more:

Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.
Dick Cheney, Vice President
Speech to VFW National Convention
8/26/2002

Another:

The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas.
George W. Bush, President
Cincinnati, Ohio Speech
10/7/2002

Billmon at Whiskey Bar [Alas, the Bar is closed as I write this] compiled these quotes when it became apparent that stockpiles of WMD would not be found, and Republican spin-doctors were attempting to claim that Bush administration officials had never said that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.]

On a distantly related topic, several works of the political caricaturist James Gillray have been posted to Giornale Nuovo. Here is one--a caricature of Edmund Burke:
Cincinnatus in Retirement, coloured print by James Gillray, 1782. [Click to enlarge.]
Caricatures such as this were the ancestors of political cartoons and eventually the comic strips (like Pearls Before Swine) that we love so well. Quoting Giornale Nuovo: "During the 1780s, he [James Gillray] worked for a number of publishers, and accepted commissions from all-comers, attacking Whigs and Tories alike with equal venom." Interesting--he was a hack for hire. Is that better than a partisan hack?

But let the righteous be joyful;
let them exult before God;
let them be jubilant with joy.
Sing to God, sing praises to his name;
lift up a song to him
who rides upon the clouds
--his name is the LORD--
be exultant before him.
Father of orphans and protector of widows
is God in his holy habitation.
God gives the desolate a home to live in;
he leads out the prisoners to prosperity.
--Psalm 68:3-6a(or Psalm 67 in the Roman Catholic numbering)

Ascension Day

So when they had come together, they asked him, "Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?" He replied, "It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven."
--Acts 1:6-11

How do I receive the message from the men in white? Am I consoled, ashamed, frightened, simply overawed? [from today's Sacred Space]

Check out this grasshopper! Photo taken today on a rose in the front yard. 

Chalabi -- Spy for Iran

Even right-wing freepers know that something's fishy about Ahmed Chalabi--[quote from New York Post]

May 3, 2004 -- WASHINGTON - U.S. spy agencies claim Iraqi leader Ahmed Chalabi, who has close Pentagon ties, may have given Iran's ayatollahs some top-secret tips on U.S. actions in Iraq and that could "get people killed," it was reported yesterday. The Newsweek report claims electronic intercepts show Chalabi gave Iran "sensitive" tips about U.S. political plans in Iraq - but gives no details - and says there are "indications" that Chalabi leaked details of U.S. security operations.
A Chalabi aide dismissed the report as "absolutely false" - and some Pentagon officials countered that Chalabi had provided information that saved American lives. The anti-Chalabi leak to Newsweek appears to be part of the behind-the-scenes struggle for power and influence in Iraq when sovereignty is transferred on June 30, leading to elections next year.

Chalabi, who heads the Iraqi National Congress, has been favored by some Pentagon officials to become leader of a free Iraq - but the CIA and State Department have a long and intense dislike for him.

"Rushing to judgment and cutting off this relationship could have unintended consequences," one Pentagon official said.

But the CIA and State Department are pushing the claim that Chalabi is playing a double game with Iran's fundamentalist ayatollahs, Newsweek said.

Scroll down to the comments to see who the right-wingers blame. Yep--Clinton holdovers and treasonous moles in the State Department and CIA:

Or maybe Hillary still has a few moles deep in the bowels of goverment.

Clinton-infested State Department and The Company competent in drug running but not competent enough to predict the fall of Soviet Empire.

I am convinced that the entrenched beaurocrats [sic] left over from previous admins are fighting tooth and nail to destroy President Bush and his efforts.

do not dispute "Chalabi" may very well have character flaws. HOwever, any finger pointing that comes from the State Department after they did nothing to put an end to that UN "Oil for rotten Food" program scam, hardly gives them credibility to have a say about "Chalabi".

It couldn't possibly be Bush, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Feith at fault, now could it?

Jesus said to his disciples, "On that day you will ask nothing of me. Very truly, I tell you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete."
--John 16:23-24

Statue of Liberty on Postage Stamps

With my sons, I am preparing a presentation on the Statue of Liberty on postage stamps for the local stamp club. Of course, we are concentrating on stamps from the United States. But I am curious about which other countries have had the Statue of Liberty on their stamps. Here are some examples from the last couple of years--
First, here is a stamp issued in February of this year by France:

This stamp was issued to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the death of the sculptor of the Statue of Liberty, Auguste Bartholdi.

And here is a set of two, issued by Romania in 2002:

But what exactly is that thing in the right stamp? The problem with this photoblogging software is that sometimes I want 2 pictures in one post. So much cutting and pasting should not be necessary...

Do I share God's desire...?

Do I share God's desire to make of all the nations citizens of his Kingdom of justice, love and peace?

From Catholic Ireland Zine:

We need look no further than today's newspapers to see the shocking misuse of power in the prisons of Iraq. Nothing can justify that behaviour, which so degrades human beings. Power entrusted to the hands of a fallible human being can easily lead to distorted judgments and exploitative behaviour… The power over others that comes with military victory has been abused and it is right that such events be brought to light.
– Most Rev Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Birmingham

Remember, it is our fallibility and weakness--our sinfulness--that make limits on power necessary. We should not trust people with power when they say "Trust us. We won't misuse our power."

Also at Catholic Ireland Zine, an article by the late Father Niall O’Brien on Preemptive strikes for peace has caught my eye. Here are some excerpts:

What will a future generation say of us who are so judgmental about the failures of previous generations? Today we know far more about what is going on in the Congo, Chechnya or the Middle East and have far greater possibilities of checking out the truth than our predecessors ever had. We have enormous financial and technical resources and still, for instance, nothing was done to stop the mass-destruction of half a million people in Rwanda or the slaughter of so many in Central America.

War, often promoted by outside financial greed, is the main cause of suffering in many of these poverty stricken places. Someone described war as the ultimate poverty. In war you loose everything. We are paralyzed with horror by the abduction and murder of children here at home. Yet in the armed conflicts that are presently taking place two thousand children are killed or injured every single day.

[snip]

Peace is not just the absence of war or tension. Peacemaking involves scanning the horizon for those things that are the seeds of war and then undertaking deliberate preemptive work to remove them. Peacemaking means support for those unsung people who work at the various peace processes throughout the world. It demands an awareness of what is going on in the world around us and a commitment to confront the conditions and issues which produce war and oppression. It means taking time to study issues like the effect on children of sanctions in Iraq (which according to a visiting group of Nobel Prize winners cause up to 4,500 deaths every month); the reasons why Palestinians are prepared to blow themselves up; or the involvement of multinational companies in Africa's wars. Peacemaking means educating ourselves, taking stands on issues and continually praying for peace.

[snip]

What is the alternative, you ask? The short answer is active non-violence. As one who has studied and tried to promote non-violence over the years I am sometimes daunted by the ignorance of ordinary Christians about the possibility and effectiveness of non-violence as an alternative to war.

Let me just say this: "Boy, do they prepare for war!" All those weapons, technology and research, all that discipline and money. And we expect nonviolence to work without preparation. God will provide! Not without our involvement!

Non-violence is not a magic wand, but a disciplined way of life. It is an art that demands much study and training. An example of what it can achieve was the fall of President Marcos in the Philippines (1986). Those of us who lived through his oppression were familiar with his death squads, with their massacres and "disappearances". A friend once said to me: "maybe non-violence would work in India with Gandhi and the British – who were sort of gentlemen – but certainly not here in the Philippines." Not long afterwards the Marcos supporters watched with amazement as his regime crumbled before crowds armed with flowers, sandwiches, statues and prayers.

[snip, to concluding paragraph:]

Some time ago I edited a prayer book and when I came to the part on confession I put in at the beginning the question: Before thinking of confession have you yourself forgiven? I suddenly realized that I had never seen that as a requirement for confession before. Yet it is in every line of the Gospel, it is the lifeblood of the Christian story. Start with your own life. Learn to forgive, disarm your own heart. Then begin to think of ways to bring the Gospel of Peace to your own house, to your neighbourhood and to the wider world.

I have been reading Simon Wiesenthal's book The Sunflower; On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness. It is easy to understand the Christian responsibility to forgive sins against oneself. What authority does one have to forgive trespasses against others? This topic came up recently on Hugo Schwyzer's blog in a post entitled Nick Berg, anger, and pacifism:

Look, I'm a Christian pacifist more than I am a "liberal". My pacifism is not situational. And it is not rooted in idealistic illusions about human nature, either. Before the Nick Berg video, I was not under the impression that the boys in Al Qaeda were nice, reasonable folks, who just needed to be shown the love of Christ in order to bring them around to civilization. Real pacifists have no doubts about the reality of human depravity! Human beings do awful, disgusting, beastly things to each other -- they've been doing those things for centuries; only recently have they insisted on filming themselves while they do it. So no, I haven't "changed my mind" about anything as a result of being presented with video evidence of barbarism.

Most Christian pacifists throughout history have held to their pacifism in the face of incredible ugliness and persecution. I am tired of the accusation that Christian pacifism is a position of the "comfortably naive", while just war theory is the position of the (apparently) "responsibly wise". Pacifism flourished in the persecutions of 3rd century Rome, in 16th century Europe, and in 20th century South Africa. Sometimes the patient endurance of suffering impressed the oppressors so much that they rethought their oppression (the British in India), but most of the time, a lot of nice pacifists just got killed. I am a pacifist not because I believe that "love can change the world", but because I believe that God can and does act dramatically in human history to change what we cannot. I believe that to follow Christ is to foreswear the use of weapons, even in self-defense. I believe that the victory over death and evil has already been won by Christ, and my only job is to follow Him.

Look, these are the musings of a childless man. (Pacifism, I'm told, gets a whole lot tougher when you have little ones). But despite what some of my more conservative and hawkish friends say (and they are truly friends), I am not a pacifist because I fail to comprehend the enormity of human wickedness, nor am I pacifist because I am a coward. I am a pacifist because my lord tells me that even while I grieve Nick Berg, and feel nausea and sadness and, yes, rage at his death, I must pray all the harder for the men who killed him. I must respond even to this unspeakable ugliness with love. If Nick Berg had been my brother, could I write those same words? In the short run, no; I would surely be overcome by an anger so intense that it blinded me. But in the end, no matter what my human emotions may be, I know the only way forward is forgiveness, and that, as my Savior taught me and as my church teaches, that forgiveness must be expressed in action. And responding to Nick Berg's death with violence is incompatible with that understanding of forgiveness.

[emphasis in original]Then, read a comment by xlrq to this post:

Sorry, Hugo, but this time you're on your own. Your concept of forgiveness is, quite frankly, whacked, both as a matter of Biblical theology and as a matter of basic morals. No one has the right to "forgive" the monsters who butchered Nick Berg. Only Berg himself has that right, and thanks to them, he is no longer capable of exercising it. All you have the right to forgive them for is the pain that their heinous act caused to YOU. The rest is not yours (or mine, or anyone else's) to forgive. If there's a God (which, as an agnostic, I will neither admit nor deny), then I'll concede that HE has that right. For anyone else to take it upon themselves to forgive a wrong committed against someone else is, I submit, to play God.

But perhaps I err. Perhaps, when Jesus urged everyone to pray saying "forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors," he really meant "forgive us our debts, as we forgive each other's debtors." If that's how it works, have I got a deal for you: I'll forgive your mortgage if you forgive mine. I'm sure the banks will understand.

[emphasis added] If it is true that only the murdered can forgive the murderers...

And read Hugo Schwyzer's follow-up post on this topic:

What does it mean to not "repay" evil with evil, when no evil has been done to me in the first place? How can I advocate turning the other cheek when my cheek has not been struck?

[emphasis in original]

Clap your hands, all you peoples;
shout to God with loud songs of joy.
For the LORD, the Most High, is awesome,
a great king over all the earth.
He subdued peoples under us, and nations under our feet.
He chose our heritage for us, the pride of Jacob whom he loves.
God has gone up with a shout, the LORD with the sound of a trumpet.
Sing praises to God, sing praises;
sing praises to our King, sing praises.
For God is the king of all the earth;
sing praises with a psalm.
--Psalm 47:2-7 (46:2-7 in the Roman Catholic numbering of the Psalms)

New image host for Ghost Town Orange

Finally, Blogger has enabled image hosting for cheapo blogs like Ghost Town Orange. We are so sick of arbitrary band-width restrictions by these free hosts that shut down images whenever they actually get used.

So here's a plug for Picasa's Hello Software with Bloggerbot. This, plus Blogger's recent revamp with new templates, comments, RSS feed, etc. means I have some template tinkering to do... :-}


To do's:
1. Find one of Blogger's new template for Ghost Town Orange's Archive.
2. Check links in old posts.
3. Move image files to new host and update in posts.
4. Clarify RSS feed. It seems that I promised to write about newsfeeds and never have...
5. Maybe I'll provide an alternative non-Javascript-heavy version of Ghost Town Orange.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Straight talkers about Iraq

So much news about Iraq today; I have not read enough about the Chalabi raid to have an informed opinion about it; I never have trusted Chalabi and his group. Chalabi was a primary promoter of the 'WMD imminent threat' meme. Chalabi is also partly responsible for the inadequate preparation for post-occupation Iraq--the claim that the Iraqi people would welcome the US as liberators has turned out to be exaggerated.

A couple of choice quotes found in today's Guardian:

First, General Joseph Hoar, former commander-in-chief of US central command, speaking to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:

I believe we are absolutely on the brink of failure. We are looking into the abyss.

[More quotes from General Hoar here]

Second, Larry Diamond, analyst at the Hoover Institution:

I think it's clear that the United States now faces a perilous situation in Iraq.

We have failed to come anywhere near meeting the post-war expectations of Iraqis for security and post-war reconstruction.

There is only one word for a situation in which you cannot win and you cannot withdraw - quagmire.

Note that Diamond is cautiously optimistic about the prospects for democracy everywhere. Read his article "Universal Democracy?"


Pelosi telling it like it is. 

Here's what Nancy Pelosi, House Democratic Leader, has to say, in the San Francisco Chronicle:

"Bush is an incompetent leader. In fact, he's not a leader,'' Pelosi said. "He's a person who has no judgment, no experience and no knowledge of the subjects that he has to decide upon.''

Pelosi has long been an outspoken critic of Bush and the war in Iraq. Yet the tone and extent of her comments during an interview with The Chronicle go well beyond criticisms leveled by her and other Democratic leaders in the past.

Speaking from her Capitol office for 45 minutes, Pelosi portrayed the president as dangerously in over his head and stubbornly unwilling to consider information that clashes with his own preconceptions.

"He has on his shoulders the deaths of many more troops, because he would not heed the advice of his own State Department of what to expect after May 1 when he ... declared that major combat is over,'' Pelosi charged. "The shallowness that he has brought to the office has not changed since he got there.''

Amen.
Update: grammar and spelling corrected in post, 9:11 pm CDT

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

This R. is said to have no end 

Guided prayer

Try a daily guided prayer with Irish Jesuits at Sacred Space.

And here is a similar American site for younger people: Sacred Gateway.
If I find these links useful, I will add them to my Christian links page.

Jesus said to his disciples, "Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy." --John 16:20

Irish Postage Stamps Commemorate the 50th Texaco Children's Art Competition

An Post, the Irish Post Office, has issued a set of stamps commemorating the 50th Texaco Children's Art Competition. Earlier today, the Irish President, Mary McAleese unveiled the new stamps (see McAleese praise as youngsters stamp their art class [story from Breaking News.ie].)

Here is a low resolution composite image of the new stamps:
(Click on the image to see higher resolution images of the original artwork.)

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Site of ancient Alexandria's library found

Or maybe we should call it the world's first university? Here's the BBC report by Dr. David Whitehouse--Library of Alexandria discovered:

Announcing their discovery at a conference being held at the University of California, Zahi Hawass, president of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, said that the 13 lecture halls uncovered could house as many as 5,000 students in total.

A conspicuous feature of the rooms, he said, was a central elevated podium for the lecturer to stand on.

"It is the first time ever that such a complex of lecture halls has been uncovered on any Greco-Roman site in the whole Mediterranean area," he added.

"It is perhaps the oldest university in the world."

Later in the article, Dr. Whitehouse lists some of the famous achievements that occured at Alexandria:

It was at the library that Archimedes invented the screw-shaped water pump that is still in use today.

At Alexandria Eratosthenes measured the diameter of the Earth, and Euclid discovered the rules of geometry.

Ptolemy wrote the Almagest at Alexandria. It was the most influential scientific book about the nature of the Universe for 1,500 years.

The library was later destroyed, possibly by Julius Caesar who had it burned as part of his campaign to conquer the city. [link to article by Preston Chesser, which gives several possible culprits--all accused by biased 'authorities' with axes to grind...]

Why, oh why, did the library have to be burned?

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Macedonian plot update

I blogged about this Macedonian plot about 2 weeks ago, but now the New York Times has reported on it. The New York Times report by Nicholas Wood includes rather gruesome photos and more information about how the plot has come to light:

Instead of offering troops to support American soldiers fighting in Afghanistan, as other countries in the region had done, senior officials and police commanders conceived a plan to "expose" a terrorist plot against Western interests in Skopje, police investigators here say.

The plan, they say, involved luring foreign migrants into the country, executing them in a staged gun battle, and then claiming they were a unit backed by Al Qaeda intent on attacking Western embassies.

On March 2, 2002, this plan came to fruition when Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski announced that seven "mujahedeen" had been killed earlier that day in a shootout with the police near Skopje. Photos were released to Western diplomats showing bodies of the dead men with bags of uniforms and semiautomatic weapons at their side.

At the time, diplomats in Skopje questioned the government's story, but it was not until the nationalist-led government lost elections in September 2002 and a new center-left administration came to power that the police began to investigate the shooting in earnest. The full extent of the state's involvement in the incident has only emerged in the last two weeks.

Let's see, 'conservative' nationalist politicians cook up phony anti-terror plot and cover it up; 'center-left' administration comes to power and eventually uncover the truth. This is just more evidence that good, competent governance comes from center-left parties, not right-wingers. (My political bias is showing!)

Well, it's safe to say many people in Macedonia have known or suspected the truth about this plot for quite a while. It is an exageration to suggest that 'just now' the truth is coming to light. Maybe it's more accurate to say that the truth is finally coming to the attention of the SCLM.*

*So-Called Liberal Media

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Chess column critique of Bush and Blair

Nigel Short, International Grand Master and chess columnist for the Sunday Telegraph, began today's column with a blistering critique of George Bush and Tony Blair:

The day after submitting my column last week - in which I mentioned that the Womens World Championship was no longer to be held in Ajara - Aslan Abashidze, the Ajaran despot, was unceremoniously deposed.

I am quite sure this was coincidence but, on the off- chance it wasn't, my wife has requested that I write about Tony Blair and George Bush this time. Regrettably, there is little documentary evidence to suggest that either of these gentlemen play the noble game.

It is a pity, for, judging by their actions in Iraq and elsewhere, both of them clearly possess the mental capacity, foresight and aptitude to execute a plethora of one-move combinations.

For those not familiar with chess, there is no such thing as a one-move combination; by definition, a combination consists of two or more moves working together for a common purpose.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

we should remember that we are messengers of Jesus’ gospel of peace

not of “the Mennonite peace position.” From an editorial by Paul Schrag in Mennonite Weekly in which he discussed a speech by Richard Kauffman on “Communicating the Message of Peace to Skeptical Audiences”:

Jesus desires all his followers to live peaceably, but many have failed to accept this essential part of his message.

At the same time, peace advocates must be clear that they do not claim to know how to solve all the world’s problems quickly. Christian peacemaking “is not about the most expeditious way of dealing with violence in the short term,” Kauffman said. “Part of being a Christian is saying we don’t take short cuts. Jesus’ way of peace isn’t the shortest way.”

Sometimes an effective way to stop violence, at least for a time, is to answer it in kind. We should admit that. But, eventually, violence breeds more of the same. Problems either aren’t solved, or they are traded for a new set of problems. We see this in Iraq: The invasion ousted Saddam Hussein but produced increasing terrorism against Iraqis and Americans.

That’s the practical argument, and we should make it. But it’s not the most important one. Fundamentally, we don’t advocate peace because it works but because it is a response of faith, an unavoidable consequence of a decision to give our lives to Jesus completely. When faced with a choice between doing what “works” and being true to Christ, we hope and pray we will choose to act faithfully.

Now the problem in Iraq is that the United States can't quickly disentangle itself without making things worse. How can the coalition forces leave without dumping Iraq into a bloody civil war and partition?

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

The whispering wheel

From Radio Netherlands, a new Dutch invention that can make vehicles much more efficient with already-existing technology-an in-wheel electric engine:

All this is made possible by an ‘in-wheel' electric engine, in fact nothing more than a normal electric engine turned inside out.

The outer wall of a traditional electric engine is a cylinder lined on the inside with copper wire. If electricity is fed into the copper wire, the current will circle the cylinder on the inside at high speed. Cylinder and wire together are called the ‘stator' (because it doesn't move).

To change the electricity running along the inner wall of the cylinder into movement, another part of the engine comes into play: ‘the rotor'. This is in fact an axle, mounted in the centre of the cylinder, with permanent magnets attached to it. The electrical current in the stator pulls the rotor magnets along and the axle starts to turn.

The wheel works precisely the other way around. The fixed part of the engine - the stator - is now on the inside. The wire is wrapped around it.

The moving part of the engine – the rotor - is no longer an axle fitted with magnets but a ring running on the outside of the stator.

The magnets are fixed on the inside of this ring. If power is fed into the engine the magnets will – as before - follow the current, but now it's the ring on the outside, which will turn.

Eureka
And that's what makes ‘the whisperer´revolutionary; a ring functioning as a wheel. By just putting a tire on it you can drive a bus, a car, anything with it. Since the wheel is in fact the engine, no axles or any other friction-producing and therefore energy-wasting mechanical parts are needed.

Even the transmission is unnecessary; if you want to go faster you just run more electricity through the engine. And it works really well while braking, when the in-wheel engine works as a generator, produces electricity to charge the batteries.

A report on this invention was featured on the Radio Netherlands program Research File. Listen by clicking here (RealPlayer required)What a great idea! This kind of engine reminds me of the kind of water heater that heats water right at the sink or shower. This makes so much more sense than heaters that keep a big tank of water hot 24 hours a day.

UPDATE

Here's a link to e-Traction, the company behind the whispering wheel.

SPIEGEL TV exklusiv: Iraker in US-Haft zu Tode gefoltert - Politik - SPIEGEL ONLINE

The German newsweekly doubts that 47 year old Iraqi prisoner Asad Abdul Kareem Abdul Jaleel died in his sleep:

Zuvor hatten amerikanische Truppen den angesehenen Stammes-Ältesten auf offener Straße festgenommen und zur amerikanischen Militärbasis Al Asad westlich des Ortes Khan Al Baghdadi gebracht. Angeblich bestand der Verdacht, der Festgenommene gehöre dem irakischen Widerstand an. In dem Gefängnis innerhalb der Basis sollen die Soldaten Asad Abdul Kareem Abdul Jaleel massiv unter Druck gesetzt haben. Ein Mitgefangener beschrieb gegenüber SPIEGEL TV detailliert, wie der 47-Jährige fünf Tage lang auf sadistischste Weise gefoltert wurde. Von den Misshandlungen hätten US-Soldaten auch Fotos gemacht, so der Zeuge.


Am 9. Januar dieses Jahres starb Asad Abdul Kareem Abdul Jaleel in der US-Haft. An der Version eines natürlichen Todes jedoch gibt es erhebliche Zweifel. Ein irakischer Gerichtsmediziner, der den Leichnam des Mannes von den US-Streitkräften übernahm, bestätigte gegenüber SPIEGEL TV in Bagdad eindeutig Folterspuren am Körper des Verstorbenen diagnostiziert zu haben. Bilder des Toten belegen zudem, dass der Mann entgegen den US-Angaben sehr wohl obduziert wurde. Die Narben auf dem Oberkörper deuten daraufhin, dass dies westliche Ärzte durchgeführt haben.

The emboldened quote can be paraphrased: A fellow prisoner described in a face-to-face interview with SPIEGEL TV in detail how the 47-year-old was tortured in a sadistic way for five days. There's no torture going on in Iraq, just fraternity high-jinks and good-ole American amateur porn. Or if there is torture, it's the fault of a few bad apples. Or if it's not just a few . . .

I thought President George Bush the Elder was evil . . .

but look at this comment posted at Daily Kos by GussieFN (in a thread about this post:

In its April 21, 2003 edition, in the Conventional Wisdom section, Newsweek gave Janeane Garofalo a big fat red down arrow, with the following explanation:

Predicted 'doom' for U.S. forces, promised apology to Bush if troops greeted as liberators. We're still waiting.

Ooops. I think Newsweek owes Janeane an apology.

The elder President Bush was infinitely wiser than his son:

Elder Bush in "A World Transformed"
GHW Bush and Brent Snowcroft wrote, in 1998 (pg. 489-490), that occupying Iraq would have the following results:
"The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under those circumstances, there was no viable "exit strategy" we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different--and perhaps barren--outcome."

Bob Graham, on October 10, 2002, in his floor statement on the Iraq Resolution, ended by saying: "I close with the words spoken in one of the darkest periods of history of the Western World, in 1941, by Winston Churchill: "Never, never, never believe [that] any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.""

-Never- believe a war will be smooth and easy. Not a cakewalk.

I can't believe how much I'd prefer a return to the reign of Bush the Elder.

On News Fasts

On Thursday, I ran across the New York Times article on the CIA and coercive interrogation (aka torture.) I attempted to write a post about it, but Blogger was down at the time. So I spent some time de-cluttering the garage...

Thursday evening we went to the stamp club meeting. For the first meeting in June, I volunteered (with my boys) to make a presentation on the Statue of Liberty on postage stamps, a topic I've been compiling information on for a while. So, yesterday I read no news at all; no newspaper, no blogs (gasp!), no television news. I went on a news fast. My web-browsing time was spent looking for information on the Statue of Liberty. The best single source I found was the 1954 booklet prepared for the National Park Service, which has been put on-line at the Statue of Liberty National Monument website.

My son Joe is going camping with the Boy Scouts this weekend (working on the fishing merit badge, apparently.) So my other son Tim and I watched Jason and the Argonauts on Turner Classic Movies last night. (Joyce was half-watching and trying to read at the same time!)

This morning, I have just spent about 45 minutes browsing at Project Gutenberg for e-texts about the Argonauts. Good old stuff. But I wonder why I can't find anything by Euripedes?

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Apology

Ghost Town Orange has noticed that it has apparently exceeded the daily download limit from its free image host. So they say:

Downloads from your account has been temporarily locked.
Our system has detected that your usage over the last 24 hours has exceeded your daily download limit. Download links to your files are temporarily unavailable.As soon as your 24 hour total usage drops below your daily transfer limit, public access to your files will be restored.

But "In the last 24 hours, you have used 3.56MB(71%) of your daily transfer allowance." So Ghost Town Orange does not understand how it exceeded the daily transfer allowance. . .But Sitemeter says we have had 21 visitors today, which must be a new high for our very humble site.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Senator Inhofe is against humanitarian do-gooders

He's our Senator, and he fights for Oklahoma values in our nation's Capital, and he is more outraged by the outrage than he is by the abuse of Iraqi prisoners:

Transcript of Senator Inhofe’s Remarks at the 05/11/2004 Senate Armed Services Hearing on Iraqi Prisoner Treatment (Panel 1)

Tuesday, May 11, 2004
SEN. WARNER: Senator Inhofe.

SEN. INHOFE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I -- well, first of all, I regret I wasn't here on Friday. I was unable to be here. But maybe it's better that I wasn't, because as I watched the -- this outrage, this outrage everyone seems to have about the treatment of these prisoners, I was, I have to say -- and I'm probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment.

Question: Is Senator Inhofe referring to anyone in particular? Are there other Republican Senators as outraged at the outrage as he?

The idea that these prisoners -- you know, they're not there for traffic violations. If they're in cell block 1-A or 1-B, these prisoners, they're murderers, they're terrorists, they're insurgents. Many of them probably have American blood on their hands.

Allegation from the ICRC Report (PDF): "The ICRC also started to document what appeared to be widespread abuse of power and ill-treatment by the Iraqi police which is under the responsibility of the Occupying Powers, including threats to hand over persons in their custody to the CF [Coalition Forces] so as to extort money from them, effective hand over of such persons to the custody of the CF on allegedly fake accusations, or invoking CF orders or instructions to mistreat persons deprived of their liberty during interrogation."

Another quote from the report: "Certain CF military intelligence officers told the ICRC that in their estimate between 70% and 90% of the persons deprived of their liberty in Iraq had been arrested by mistake."

So we can't assume that prisoners in cell block 1-A or 1-B were terrorists--they may have simply been people that wouldn't or couldn't pay bribes to the police.

And here we're so concerned about the treatment of those individuals. And I hasten to say yeah, there are seven bad guys and gals that didn't do what they should have done. They were misguided, I think maybe even perverted, and the things that they did have to be punished. And they're being punished. They're being tried right now, and that's all taking place. But I'm also outraged by the press and the politicians and the political agendas that are being served by this, and I say political agendas because that's actually what is happening. I would share with my colleagues a solicitation that was made. I'm going to read the first two sentences. "Over the past week, we've all been shocked by the pictures from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. But we have also been appalled at the slow and inept response by President Bush, which has further undermined America's credibility."

Apparently to Senator Inhofe, the real crime is criticizing President Bush.

And it goes on to demand that George Bush fire Donald Rumsfeld. And then it goes on to a timeline, a chronology, and at the very last it makes a solicitation for contributions. I don't recall this ever having happened before in history.

Question: what exactly is Senator Inhofe claiming has never happened before in history?

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that this solicitation be made a part of the record at this point.

SEN. WARNER: Without objection.

SEN. INHOFE: Mr. Chairman, I also am -- and have to say, when we talk about the treatment of these prisoners, that I would guess that these prisoners wake up every morning thanking Allah that Saddam Hussein is not in charge of these prisoners.

Interpretation: Saddam Hussein was worse than us, so we shouldn't be criticized for this 'minor' torture.

When he was in charge they would take electric drills and drill holes through hands, they would cut their tongues out, they would cut their ears off. We've seen accounts of lowering their bodies into vats of acid. All these things were taking place. This was the type of treatment that they had. And I would want everyone to get this and read it. This is a documentary of the Iraq special report. It talks about the unspeakable acts of mass murder, unspeakable acts of torture, unspeakable acts of mutilation, the murdering of kids -- lining up 312 little kids under 12 years old and executing them, and then of course what they do to Americans, too. There's one story in here that was in the I think it was The New York Times, yes, on June 2nd. I suggest everyone take that -- get that and read it. It's about one of the prisoners who did escape as they were marched out there, blindfolded and put before mass graves, and they mowed them down and they buried them. This man was buried alive and he clawed his way out and was able to tell his story. And I ask, Mr. Chairman, at this point in the record that this account of the brutality of Saddam Hussein be entered into the record, made a part of the record.

SEN. WARNER: Without objection, so ordered.

SEN. INHOFE: I am also outraged that we have so many humanitarian do-gooders right now crawling all over these prisons, looking for human rights violations while our troops, our heroes, are fighting and dying. And I just don't think we can take seven -- seven bad people.

Translation: it's just a few bad apples. No systemic problem here. Couldn't be. George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld are in charge.

There are some 700 guards in Abu Ghraib. There are some 25 other prisons, about 15,000 guards all together, and seven of them did things they shouldn't have done and they're being punished for that. But what about some 300,000 troops have been rotating through all this time and they have -- all the stories of valor are there. Now, one comment about Rumsfeld. A lot of them don't like him. And I'm sorry that Senator McCain isn't here, because I just now said to him, "Do you remember back three years ago when Secretary Rumsfeld was up for confirmation, and I said these guys aren't going to like him because he doesn't kowtow to them, he is not easily intimidated." I've never seen Secretary Rumsfeld intimidated. And quite frankly, I can't think of any American today as qualified as Donald Rumsfeld is to prosecute this war. Now -- oh, one other thing. All the idea about these pictures. I would suggest to you any pictures -- and I think maybe we should get direction from this committee, Mr. Chairman, that if pictures are authorized to be disseminated among the public, that for every picture of abuse or alleged abuse of prisoners, we have pictures of mass graves, pictures of children being executed, pictures of the four Americans in Baghdad that were burned and their bodies were mutilated and dismembered in public. Let's get the whole picture. Now, General Taguba, many, many years ago I was in the United States Army. My job -- I was a court reporter. I know a little bit about the history. The "undue command influence" that is a term that we've heard, and I'd like to make sure that we get into the record what that is. I'm going from memory now, but it's my understanding that the commanders up the line can possibly serve as appellate judges. Consequently, commanders up the line are not given a lot of the graphic details but merely said, as in the case of Rumsfeld, serious allegations need to be investigated and they start an investigation. This is back in January. Now, Rumsfeld said -- and I'm quoting him now -- "Anything we say publicly could have the impact on the legal proceeding against the accused. If my responses are measured, it is to assure that pending cases are not jeopardized." Do I have an accurate memory as to why they have this particular "undue command influence" provision that we have been following now for five decades that I know of?


GEN. TAGUBA: Sir, I'm not a lawyer and --


SEN. INHOFE: But isn't that the reason you were called in? Well, I should ask General Smith. General Smith, isn't that the reason that General Taguba was brought in in the first place to keep this from happening? GEN. SMITH: Yes, sir; to do the investigation and do the fact- finding so that the commanders could make informed decisions on what actions should be taken thereafter. And the difficulty in the command influence piece is that should General Sanchez or should I or General Abizaid say something along the lines that we must take this action against these individuals, then that is command influence down the line that those that are making judgment on them would influence and bias their decisions.


SEN. INHOFE: And that, sir, has not changed over the last 45 years? GEN. SMITH: That has not changed. And that has happened; we have had a number of folks that have -- their sentences, or whatever, have been impacted by command influence.


SEN. INHOFE: Mr. Chairman, one last question to General Smith. All kinds of accounts are coming out now that are -- many that are fictitious, I would suggest. One was about a guy being dragged out of a barber shop. This is in Washington Post this morning. They talked about the person doing this had AK-47s, was blindfolded. Are our troops issued AK-47s? GEN. SMITH: They are not, sir.

Comment--maybe Senator Inhofe should read some newspapers before he spouts off about 'fictional news reports.' Here's an Associated Press report by Andrew England (August 24th, 2003) in which poorly equipped American soldiers are indeed allowed to have and use AK-47s:

'We just do not have enough rifles to equip all of our soldiers. So in certain circumstances we allow soldiers to have an AK-47. They have to demonstrate some proficiency with the weapon ... demonstrate an ability to use it,'' said Lt. Col. Mark Young, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 67th Armor Regiment, 4th Infantry Division.

To the end of the Inhofe transcript:

SEN. INHOFE: Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Juan Cole argues with President Bush

Statements from Bush's paean to Secretary of Defence Rumsfeld are refuted by Juan Cole: More Arguments with Bush. Here is a sample or two:

BUSH: And our forces are also helping to ensure the delivery of humanitarian supplies to families that suffer as a result of the chaos in certain communities created by the terrorists and those who want to halt the advance of freedom . . . "

Not so long ago, Bush's policy in Fallujah was to besiege and starve the city. US troops prevented civilian aid convoys from getting through. Even some members of the American-appointed Interim Governing Council made it public that they thought the siege was being conducted in ways that contravened the Geneva Conventions, involving collective punishment against innocent civilians.

[snip]

"One basic difference between democracies and dictatorships is that free countries confront such abuses openly and directly. In January, shortly after reports of abuse became known to our military, an investigation was launched. "
In other words, Rumsfeld sat on this for months in hopes it wouldn't come out, and thinking in his own mind it wasn't a big thing. And now that it is out, a few privates are going to be hung out to dry while Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Cambone and Boykin, who set the tone that allowed all this to happen, do not have to take any responsibility or suffer any accountability at all.

By the way, Juan Cole is a Professor of History at the University of Michigan.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

There Is No Honor

I heard part of Rumsfeld's testimony on the radio while driving Friday morning. Senator Lieberman's comments about the 9/11 hijackers not apologizing were idiotic. Senator, apologizing does not make the wrong go away; an apology is not a band-aid that can heal the wound inflicted by this Administration in Iraq. It is apparent that the only thing Bush and Rumsfeld are sorry about is that the pictures of the abuse became public.

Via wood s lot, I found a link to Better Angels of our Nature: There Is No Honor:

There is no honor.
I saw Don Rumsfeld's testimony today, and there is no honor. Certainly, the other men present at the witness table did not acquit themselves well, but in the end, it comes down to Rumsfeld and the President. And there is no honor.
'Who was in charge? What was the chain of command?' Simple questions, these. Asked by John McCain, an honorable man. Simple questions, deserving of a simple answer. But the simple answer never made it past the lips of the Secretary. There were evasions and dodges, a dance of deceit, if you will.
No one was in charge, it seems--because that way, the only people who suffer punishment are the sergeants and privates in the photographs and videos. And as for the chain of command, well...uh...well, that was left behind somewhere in the recesses of the Pentagon. And there is no honor in that.

[snip]

And just when you thought one side had the market cornered on moral hypocrisy, you had Saint Joe Lieberman, patron saint of pious sanctimony, try to wash away the sins of Abu Ghraib by saying that since the Secretary had apologized (the way a six-year-old apologizes, only after being caught red-handed with the broken hards of pottery in his hands), and the 9/11 hijackers hadn't, that made things better.

I thought the world of Joe, once. Not anymore--I despise his empty bromides, his saccharine piety. If there was any way I could run against him in two years, I would. Hey, Sen. Dodd, there's something you can do with all that money you're squirrelling away: get someone to run against this sorry excuse for a Democrat.

[snip]

In the end, the only thing we have in this life, as people and as a nation, is our honor. This Administration has grieviously tarnished our national honor, by their deeds and their attitudes. What the sergeants and privates did at Abu Ghraib--and, it must be mentioned, other places and other times, from the beginning of this war till now--wasn't done in a vacuum. It was done because people from the bottom all the way to the top didn't think it was a matter worthy of condemnation until the whole world knew about it.

How about another sanctimonious bromide: Our true character is shown when we are alone and no one is looking. We see what evil we are capable of when we think no one is looking. We see how poorly we behave even when we know the whole world is watching. The Bush Administration was only able to do what it did by counting on the support of the American people; the blood is on our hands; the shame is ours. Lord, forgive us.

Today's Lesson from Iraq

Found at wood s lot: here's an opinion from an Iraqi blogger--Today's Lesson: Just Go:

So are the atrocities being committed in Abu Ghraib really not characteristic of the American army? What about the atrocities committed by Americans in Guantanamo? And Afghanistan? I won't bother bringing up the sordid past, let's just focus on the present. It seems that torture and humiliation are common techniques used in countries blessed with the American presence. The most pathetic excuse I heard so far was that the American troops weren't taught the fundamentals of human rights mentioned in the Geneva Convention… Right- morals, values and compassion have to be taught.

All I can think about is the universal outrage when the former government showed pictures of American POWs on television, looking frightened and unsure about their fate. I remember the outcries from American citizens, claiming that Iraqis were animals for showing 'America's finest' fully clothed and unharmed. So what does this make Americans now?

We heard about it all… we heard stories since the very beginning of the occupation about prisoners being made to sit for several hours on their knees… being deprived of sleep for days at a time by being splashed with cold water or kicked or slapped… about the infamous 'red rooms' where prisoners are kept for prolonged periods of time… about the rape, the degradations, the emotional and physical torture… and there were moments when I actually wanted to believe that what we heard was exaggerated. I realize now that it was only a small fragment of the truth. There is nothing that is going to make this 'better'. Nothing.

Through all of this, where is the Governing Council? Under what rock are the Puppets hiding? Why is no one condemning this? What does Bremer have to say for himself and for the Americans? Why this unbearable silence?

I don't understand the 'shock' Americans claim to feel at the lurid pictures. You've seen the troops break down doors and terrify women and children… curse, scream, push, pull and throw people to the ground with a boot over their head. You've seen troops shoot civilians in cold blood. You've seen them bomb cities and towns. You've seen them burn cars and humans using tanks and helicopters. Is this latest debacle so very shocking or appalling?

The number of killings in the south has also risen. The Americans and British are saying that they are 'insurgents' and people who are a part of Al-Sadir's militia, but people from Najaf are claiming that innocent civilians are being killed on a daily basis. Today the troops entered Najaf and there was fighting in the streets. This is going to cause a commotion because Najaf is considered a holy city and is especially valuable to Shi'a all over the world. The current situation in the south makes one wonder who, now, is going to implement a no-fly zone over areas like Falloojeh and Najaf to 'protect' the people this time around?

I sometimes get emails asking me to propose solutions or make suggestions. Fine. Today's lesson: don't rape, don't torture, don't kill and get out while you can- while it still looks like you have a choice... Chaos? Civil war? Bloodshed? We’ll take our chances- just take your Puppets, your tanks, your smart weapons, your dumb politicians, your lies, your empty promises, your rapists, your sadistic torturers and go.

There is nothing to add.

Who do you believe?

An editorial in Army Times says Rumsfeld should be fired:

Editorial: A failure of leadership at the highest levels



Around the halls of the Pentagon, a term of caustic derision has emerged for the enlisted soldiers at the heart of the furor over the Abu Ghraib prison scandal: the six morons who lost the war.
Indeed, the damage done to the U.S. military and the nation as a whole by the horrifying photographs of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi detainees at the notorious prison is incalculable.

But the folks in the Pentagon are talking about the wrong morons.

There is no excuse for the behavior displayed by soldiers in the now-infamous pictures and an even more damning report by Army Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba. Every soldier involved should be ashamed.

But while responsibility begins with the six soldiers facing criminal charges, it extends all the way up the chain of command to the highest reaches of the military hierarchy and its civilian leadership.

The entire affair is a failure of leadership from start to finish. From the moment they are captured, prisoners are hooded, shackled and isolated. The message to the troops: Anything goes.

In addition to the scores of prisoners who were humiliated and demeaned, at least 14 have died in custody in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army has ruled at least two of those homicides. This is not the way a free people keeps its captives or wins the hearts and minds of a suspicious world.

How tragically ironic that the American military, which was welcomed to Baghdad by the euphoric Iraqi people a year ago as a liberating force that ended 30 years of tyranny, would today stand guilty of dehumanizing torture in the same Abu Ghraib prison used by Saddam Hussein’s henchmen.

One can only wonder why the prison wasn’t razed in the wake of the invasion as a symbolic stake through the heart of the Baathist regime.

Army commanders in Iraq bear responsibility for running a prison where there was no legal adviser to the commander, and no ultimate responsibility taken for the care and treatment of the prisoners.

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, also shares in the shame. Myers asked “60 Minutes II” to hold off reporting news of the scandal because it could put U.S. troops at risk. But when the report was aired, a week later, Myers still hadn’t read Taguba’s report, which had been completed in March. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also failed to read the report until after the scandal broke in the media.

By then, of course, it was too late.

Myers, Rumsfeld and their staffs failed to recognize the impact the scandal would have not only in the United States, but around the world.

If their staffs failed to alert Myers and Rumsfeld, shame on them. But shame, too, on the chairman and secretary, who failed to inform even President Bush.

He was left to learn of the explosive scandal from media reports instead of from his own military leaders.

On the battlefield, Myers’ and Rumsfeld’s errors would be called a lack of situational awareness — a failure that amounts to professional negligence.

To date, the Army has moved to court-martial the six soldiers suspected of abusing Iraqi detainees and has reprimanded six others.

Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who commanded the MP brigade that ran Abu Ghraib, has received a letter of admonishment and also faces possible disciplinary action.

That’s good, but not good enough.

This was not just a failure of leadership at the local command level. This was a failure that ran straight to the top. Accountability here is essential — even if that means relieving top leaders from duty in a time of war.

— Military Times editorial, May 17 issue

Meanwhile President Bush says that Rumsfeld is doing a superb job:

Bush told Rumsfeld, "Thank you for your leadership. You are courageously leading our nation in the war against terror."

"You're doing a superb job. You're a strong secretary of defense and our nation owes you a debt of gratitude," Bush said.

How much credibility does President Bush have? None.

Boontling

My son Joe likes to make up words. I wonder what he'll think of this: Boontling

The Nine Ways of Being an Accessory to Another's Sin

Making Light has posted some comments about the Abu Ghraib 'interrogations'that are worth reading:

We delude ourselves when we give permission to commit evil acts to what we tell ourselves is a limited group of specialists.

There’s going to be some unavoidable human evil in any large undertaking. We can prepare for it, and do what we can about it when it happens, but nothing we do can wholly eliminate it. Still, in its state of nature it’s going to be limited, sporadic, improvised, situational, and in most cases not very effectual. That’s because only a fraction of the population will think up and carry out evil actions on their own steam; and, as with any other naive inventions, what they initially come up with probably won’t work very well.

A lot of what military discipline, employee supervision, law enforcement, and other rules maintenance systems boil down to is spotting these actions, and keeping them from happening again so that the people who commit them don’t have the opportunity to get additional practice, refine their techniques, make contact with other like-minded individuals, and share what they’ve learned about what works and what doesn’t.

This level of everyday enforcement is hugely important—one of the underappreciated bases of a law-abiding society—because while only a small percentage of people will do evil on their own, a much larger middle group will do so if they see others committing evil acts unchecked. Things the midrange would never think up to do on their own, they’ll learn in the company of others; and it will become part of their character. It’s the difference between four or five drunk, irresponsible louts jumping some defenseless person and beating them half to death—heinous though that is—and the complex learned social behaviors of American lynch mobs during the first half of the twentieth century.

No one ever forgets how to do something that’s worked for them in the past. Just replacing it with another behavior can be hard enough, and the old behavior is still going to be lurking there underneath it. Thieves keep stealing. Liars keep lying. Drunks never forget about chemically modifying their nervous systems. And what our troops are learning to do in Iraq, they’ll know when they come home again. For the best of them, that knowledge will be a sickening burden. For the worst, it’ll be usable expertise. And for that broad moral midrange, this will be stuff that doesn’t shock and nauseate them the way it once might. They’re our children, and this is what they’ll be bringing home to share with us.

We delude ourselves when we think we can keep a little pet evil set aside, telling ourselves it’ll only be used on Bad Guys. Whomever that turns out to be. Not that we’ve been thinking about that question real hard.

…

And now, a list: The Nine Ways of Being an Accessory to Another’s Sin.

1. By counsel.
2. By command.
3. By consent.
4. By provocation.
5. By praise or flattery.
6. By concealment.
7. By partaking.
8. By silence.
9. By defense of the ill done.

(Emphasis added) By the way, the Wall Street Journal has published the full report of the International Committee of the Red Cross about the abuse of prisoners in Iraq--but unfortunately it is only accessible to subscribers.

The science of love

From the Economist (of all places)--Scientists are finding that, after all, love really is down to a chemical addiction between people:

The prairie vole is a sociable creature, one of the only 3% of mammal species that appear to form monogamous relationships. Mating between prairie voles is a tremendous 24-hour effort. After this, they bond for life. They prefer to spend time with each other, groom each other for hours on end and nest together. They avoid meeting other potential mates. The male becomes an aggressive guard of the female. And when their pups are born, they become affectionate and attentive parents. However, another vole, a close relative called the montane vole, has no interest in partnership beyond one-night-stand sex. What is intriguing is that these vast differences in behaviour are the result of a mere handful of genes. The two vole species are more than 99% alike, genetically.

But it's not all in the genes, and are humans hard-wired like prairie voles or montane voles?:

Of course, love is about more than just genes. Cultural and social factors, and learning, play big roles. Who and how a person has loved in the past are important determinants of his (or her) capacity to fall in love at any given moment in the future. This is because animals—people included—learn from their sexual and social experiences. Arousal comes naturally. But long-term success in mating requires a change from being naive about this state to knowing the precise factors that lead from arousal to the rewards of sex, love and attachment. For some humans, this may involve flowers, chocolate and sweet words. But these things are learnt.

Read the article for much more than I can explain about hormones, smells, brain activity, etc.

Spinoza and Mortimer Snerd

Ken Wiwa (in the Globe and Mail--from Canada) has been wondering about what the pictures from Abu Ghraib say about American values and concludes "Those scenes from the Abu Ghraib prison are the byproducts of a systematic racket designed to protect the American way of life." I'm not sure if that is true, but let's examine Mr. Wiwa's reasoning:

At the heart of any value system is invariably a set of rules, of guidelines, a code of conduct, be it the Good Book, the U.S. Constitution or a bill of rights. Contained in these august texts are the articles of faith that define the character of a community and a nation. The soldiers who violated American values were not operating from the guidelines of those principles, but were acting under the influence of another source — the "Kubark Counterintelligence Interrogation" manual.

The Kubark manual outlines a Cold War-era program designed to extract information from prisoners by breaking them down psychologically. Kubark is the bible of interrogation. Its instructions have allegedly been refined by the CIA and are probably the basis of some of the techniques that have been employed in the gulags of the military-prison complex that America Inc. has erected from Texas to Tikrit.

Now, in keeping with the manuals of journalism, I was going to offer you some quotes from the Kubark manual as an exhibit. But whenever I tried to cut and paste the apposite quotes from the Internet, my computer started to behave rather erratically, like some hidden hand was trying to thwart me. I had to shut everything down and start over. About a minute after I was up and running again, I received an e-mail inquiring whether "you self-righteous Canadians would have anything to write about if not for Americans?"

Well my American-based computer seems to be working; here is a little piece of the Kubark manual, describing the theory behind coercive interrogation:

Coercive procedures are designed not only to exploit the resistant source's internal conflicts and induce him to wrestle with himself but also to bring a superior outside force to bear upon the subject's resistance. Non-coercive methods are not likely to succeed if their selection and use is not predicated upon an accurate psychological assessment of the source. In contrast, the same coercive method may succeed against persons who are very unlike each other. The changes of success rise steeply, nevertheless, if the coercive technique is matched to the source's personality. Individuals react differently even to such seemingly non-discriminatory stimuli as drugs. Moreover, it is a waste of time and energy to apply strong pressures on a hit-or-miss basis if a tap on the psychological jugular will produce compliance.

All coercive techniques are designed to induce regression. As Hinkle notes in "The Physiological State of the Interrogation Subject as it Affects Brain Function"(7), the result of external pressures of sufficient intensity is the loss of those defenses most recently acquired by civilized man: "... the capacity to carry out the highest creative activities, to meet new, challenging, and complex situations, to deal with trying interpersonal relations, and to cope with repeated frustrations. Relatively small degrees of homeostatic derangement, fatigue, pain, sleep loss, or anxiety may impair these functions." As a result, "most people who are exposed to coercive procedures will talk and usually reveal some information that they might not have revealed otherwise."

One subjective reaction often evoked by coercion is a feeling of guilt. Meltzer observes, "In some lengthy interrogations, the interrogator may, by virtue of his role as the sole supplier of satisfaction and punishment, assume the stature and importance of a parental figure in the prisoner's feeling and thinking. Although there may be intense hatred for the interrogator, it is not unusual for warm feelings also to develop. This ambivalence is the basis for guilt reactions, and if the interrogator nourishes these feelings, the guilt may be strong enough to influence the prisoner's behavior.... Guilt makes compliance more likely...."(7).

Farber says that the response to coercion typically contains "... at least three important elements: debility, dependency, and dread." Prisoners "... have reduced viability, are helplessly dependent on their captors for the satisfaction of their many basic needs, and experience the emotional and motivational reactions of intense fear and anxiety.... Among the [American] POW's pressured by the Chinese Communists, the DDD syndrome in its full-blown form constituted a state of discomfort that was well-nigh intolerable." (11). If the debility-dependency-dread state is unduly prolonged, however, the arrestee may sink into a defensive apathy from which it is hard to arouse him.

Here is a little about the mind-set of the interrogator:

Although it is often necessary to trick people into telling what we need to know, especially in CI interrogations, the initial question which the interrogator asks of himself should be, "How can I make him want to tell me what he knows?" rather than "How can I trap him into disclosing what he knows?" If the person being questioned is genuinely hostile for ideological reasons, techniques of manipulation are in order. But the assumption of hostility -- or at least the use of pressure tactics at the first encounter -- may make difficult subjects even out of those who would respond to recognition of individuality and an initial assumption of good will.

Here is an oddly effective technique with an odd name--Spinoza and Mortimer Snerd:

Spinoza and Mortimer Snerd

If there is reason to suspect that a withholding source possesses useful counterintelligence information but has not had access to the upper reaches of the target organizations, the policy and command level, continued questioning about lofty topics that the source knows nothing about may pave the way for the extraction of information at lower levels. The interrogatee is asked about KGB policy, for example: the relation of the service to its government, its liaison arrangements, etc., etc. His complaints that he knows nothing of such matters are met by flat insistence that he does know, he would have to know, that even the most stupid men in his position know. Communist interrogators who used this tactic against American POW's coupled it with punishment for "don't know" responses -- typically by forcing the prisoner to stand at attention until he gave some positive response. After the process had been continued long enough, the source was asked a question to which he did know the answer. Numbers of Americans have mentioned "...the tremendous feeling of relief you get when he finally asks you something you can answer." One said, "I know it seems strange now, but I was positively grateful to them when they switched to a topic I knew something about."

Well, these brief quotes from the Kubark manual do not really say anything about American values, but they do say something about the mind-set of the interrogators who felt they had to induce intense feelings of guilt and dependency in their prisoners. When it comes to 'softening up' interrogatees, apparently anything goes in Iraq and Gitmo. If the Americans were using the Kubark manual as a bible of American values, they would have read it a little closer:

Interrogations conducted under compulsion or duress are especially likely to involve illegality and to entail damaging consequences for KUBARK. Therefore prior Headquarters approval at the KUDOVE level must be obtained for the interrogation of any source against his will and under any of the following circumstances:

1. If bodily harm is to be inflicted.

2. If medical, chemical, or electrical methods or materials are to be used to induce acquiescence.

3. [approx. 3 lines deleted]

The CI interrogator dealing with an uncooperative interrogatee who has been well-briefed by a hostile service on the legal restrictions under which ODYOKE services operate must expect some effective delaying tactics. The interrogatee has been told that KUBARK will not hold him long, that he need only resist for a while. Nikolay KHOKHLOV, for example, reported that before he left for Frankfurt am Main on his assassination mission, the following thoughts coursed through his head: "If I should get into the hands of Western authorities, I can become reticent, silent, and deny my voluntary visit to Okolovich. I know I will not be tortured and that under the procedures of western law I can conduct myself boldly." (17) [The footnote numerals in this text are keyed to the numbered bibliography at the end.] The interrogator who encounters expert resistance should not grow flurried and press; if he does, he is likelier to commit illegal acts which the source can later use against him. Remembering that time is on his side, the interrogator should arrange to get as much of it as he needs.

Note that in Iraq and Gitmo, time is on the side of the interrogators--apparently they can hold anyone they want for as long as they want. So there shouldn't be any extreme need for interrogation under compulsion and duress. So is this evidence of a systematic racket to protect the American way of life? I don't see how it is. If it's true that cooks and drivers are being used as interrogators, I'm certain they don't have a clue about the psychological techniques used in the Kubark manual. It isn't the bible for interrogators.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)