The leading edge of the Baby Boomlets...children of Baby Boomers...are now graduating from college. They are thoroughly versed in technology, especially the Internet. They have money. They will soon start to look for careers. They are starting to get married. They will soon start to spend a lot more money on eating out, drinking, buying cars, buying furniture. They like big movies (Lord of The Rings). They like eco-tourism and extreme sports. They have never worn suits.

The Baby Boom folks are being financially squeezed by their postponement of child-bearing, which means that money to fund retirement is being used to college bills for their kids. This is happening at a time when many of the Boomers are unemployed (and do not show up in the labor statistics because they are out of the labor force or underemployed). They are also getting sick, whether bad knees or the consequences of bad living.

The Boomers’ Mom and Dad. Mom and Dad are getting sick but they will live a long, long time and they will not have enough health insurance to cover the costs of extended or merely chronic illnesses. Their inevitable demise will mean a very large transfer of wealth, assuming that things like the Medicare spend-down requirements do not wipe it out.

The Middle Classes of the Developing World. At the same time, a middle (and upper middle) class has now emerged in developing countries...people with incomes, lifestyles and aspirations roughly equivalent to the American upper middle class. For example, there are now more people in India who can afford Mercedes Benz higher-end models than there are in the United States.

The Entrepreneurs Live Elsewhere. Whatever you can do to increase your business, entrepreneurs in India, China and elsewhere can do just as well and at a lower cost. With access to capital (look at China), they are even more potent. They are export-oriented or, rather, they happily understand that their markets will be elsewhere, such as the US and Europe.

The Wired World is Going Overseas. Depending upon who is counting, somewhere between 40 and 60% of Internet users are now outside of North America and most of them are non-English speaking.

Talk amongst yourselves...

« ok, I'm done now

I'll leave aside McCain's elevation of the fight against terrorism with World War II, an oratorical and intellectual error he shares with many people, including many Democrats.

Well, let's start. Obviously this war is one that's different than World War II. Nothing, except World War II will be the same as World War II. But to compare the current war - in seriousness - that one is not, to me, farfetched. If Confessore doesn't think this is that serious how serious does he think it is? Is it more serious than, say, organized crime? Bad Olympic judging?

The worst of his offenses against the truth came, predictably, with regards to Iraq:

[snip McCain speech]

The only reason Michael Moore makes an appearance in McCain's speech is to provide the senator with the requisite straw man -- someone who believes Iraq is an "oasis of peace" to go along with the unnamed people, presumably Democratic peaceniks, who supposedly supported freeing Saddam Hussein from the box of sanctions and the threat of military force.

Well, let's examine that. Did the 70 Members of Congress who signed a letter that said:

In February, seventy members of the House of Representatives signed a letter to President Clinton asking that the Administration "delink" economic sanctions from the military sanctions against Iraq.

"More than nine years of the most comprehensive economic embargo imposed in modern history has failed to remove Saddam Hussein from power or even ensured his compliance with international obligations, while the economy and people of Iraq continue to suffer," the letter states. "Morally, it is wrong to hold the Iraqi people responsible for the actions of a brutal and reckless government."

count? It's not hard, if you have any kind of a memory at all - it's only four or five years ago, remember, and I'm the one who went to Santa Cruz in the 70's - to recall that there was a large body of opinion that held that the sanctions were immoral, were killing 500,000 Iraqi children a year, and that they should be narrowed or better still, eliminated.

This is not to say that McCain's argument is entirely poppycock. Many smart analysts on both the right and the left believed that the costs of keeping Saddam boxed in were so high relative to the costs to Saddam of being boxed that, over time, the status quo would erode and war might someday be necessary to prevent his resurgence.

But no credible voice in the Democratic foreign policy establishment was calling for an end to sanctions or backing down from our deployments in the Persian Gulf, nor considered Saddam an angel.

So here be moves the goalpost, and suggests that far from 'presum[ed] Democratic peacenicks' we need to be concerned with 'credible voices.'

The bottom line is that the choice McCain posited last night was a false one. It was not a choice between knocking Saddam off on the one hand, and letting him acquire nukes on the other. On the central justification for the Iraq War -- preventing a dictator from developing a WMD capability -- the inspections regime worked, showing before the invasion what is now undeniable: Saddam didn't pose a threat to us at the time.

And here, I'll pose the simple problem that while the sanctions regime may well have worked, it was obvious - and I think it was obvious, but will try and document my case a bit more when I get a moment - that sanctions were beginning to fail. Anyone else remember the North Koreans $10 Million ripoff?

For two years before the American invasion of Iraq, Saddam's sons, generals and front companies were engaged in lengthy negotiations with North Korea.

So, given the amount of cash Saddam was siphoning off under the gaze of those who controlled the sanctions, how long, exactly, were they supposed to hold up? And what would have happened next?

There's probably an argument to make somewhere that sanctions could have collapsed and all would have been OK. I think it would have been a wrong and stupid one, but it would have been an argument.

Confessore's whole post was just a dodge of McCain's central point, which was that the choice wasn't a binary one between war and peace, and that those who argued for peace need to understand that the status quo ante wasn't sustainable.

When the Democrats come up with an argument, as opposed to a dodge, on this issue we'll have a much more interesting election.

« ok, I'm done now

The average CEO compensation at the 50 firms outsourcing the most service jobs increased by 46% in 2003. That increase compares to an average hike of 9% for CEOs at 365 of the largest U.S. companies, according to a report by the Institute for Policy Studies, a non-profit that focuses on progressive research, and United for a Fair Economy, best known for its opposition to the repeal of the federal estate tax.

I'll comment that the source isn't exactly unbiased, and I'll go and read the study and see how solid I believe it to be before I give this total credence.

And I'm not an opponent of the internationalization of business (I'm not an opponent of gravity, either). But when you see that the issue isn't one of lowering costs to customers, or one of increasing shareholder value - but of nakedly lining the pockets of the managers who make the decisions - it's hard not to frame this as one in which the managers see the decision to internationalize as one where they can pocket a substantial amount of the salary dollars they save.

But ultra-luxury housing is doing better in Los Angeles than upper-middle priced housing, like mine. See the LA Times article "$10 Million is the new $1 Million":

Even in the mid-1990s, even among rich folks, $10 million was freakishly big money; only a handful of homes each year sold in that range. Not Madonna, not Cher, not Arnold Schwarzenegger lived in $10-million houses, at least in those days. Now, however, even with the market momentarily cooling, real estate agents say $10 million is your basic starter mansion. "In the high bracket," said Beverly Hills real estate broker Cecelia Waeschle, "$10 million is now almost the norm."

John Edwards' 'Two Americas' may be the tagline to a good joke by Giuliani for the next few months.

But it's an issue that won't go away soon.

« ok, I'm done now

McCain had a brilliant speech, delivered somewhat flatly until the end, when the punch line "...We fight for love of freedom and justice--a love that is invincible. Keep that faith! Keep your courage! Stick together! Stay strong! Do not yield! Do not flinch! Stand up! Stand up with our President and fight! We're Americans! We're Americans and we'll never surrender! They will!" was delivered with what sounded like real passion.

Then Giuliani came on. I've never heard him speak; just a few sound bites from press conferences seen in airport lounges and hotels. He's the street version of Mario Cuomo; they both have the knack for being both oratorical and personal. Giuliani gave a major speech as though he was having a conversation with a friend.

TG is a committed Democrat; she adores Edwards (as do I), sees gay marriage as the #1 issue and doesn't share my misgivings about Kerry's foreign policy. But she was rattled by the speeches tonight, and the clear line they seemed to draw between Kerry's policies and Bush's.

So I surf over to the left blogs - to TAPPED and TalkLeft and read - carping.

"GIULIANI'S SPEECH, 11:20 P.M.: This is unbelievably long. --Sam Rosenfeld"

Sam, I hate to break it to you, but that's not how it's going to read in Pennsylvania.

If anyone is the personification of the opposite of freedom, it's former federal prosecutor and Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Herr Giuliani is a more apt name for him. How could anyone just not want to retch listening to Giuliani tonight as he tried to sell himself and the Republicans as the party that would bring freedom to the world. Giuliani cleaned up the streets in New York by arresting the poor, the homeless, the squeegee cleaners, the mentally ill and the addicted. Yes, New York became cleaner, but at what price? At the price of freedom....which he now fraudulently pretends to champion. Sickening.

Jeralyn, I don't think that that's what is going to help swing votes in Columbus.

Look, I assume that I'm not the only one who would like there to be an election contest here. And what needs to happen if that's going to be the case is pretty simple isn't handwaving and denial.

One can only hope that's not what's happening behind the doors in the Kerry campaign. We didn't get to the moon first by denegrating the Soviet space program.

« ok, I'm done now

I commend Ms. Powers for her piece on the Darfur situation and Sudan. It's timely, necessary, and well written. But I look at the timing and selective focus of her Sudan coverage, then observe the difference in the media's (non) coverage of persecuted Christians in Indonesia, China et. al. vs. their coverage of other persecuted minorites in those countries and regions. The difference is striking - and if you don't read Christian and/or conservative media (or certain warblogs), you may not even know what I'm talking about. It all makes one wonder:

When will many liberals and other bien pensants start to see believing Christians as people, rather than just abstractions they associate with their political enemies?

Repeat after me, folks: Christians are people, too - people whose human/religious rights and sufferings are worthy of our attention.

UPDATES: Praktike posts a couple of items that speak to the points above. More pieces by Ms. Powers that broaden and explain her focus, and some material on the media's definition of "news" and its instuitutional (vs. political/religious) biases.

Having said all that, note Robert Oliver's open letter to Jesse Jackson in the comments to this Command Post article.

« ok, I'm done now

Am I the only one bothered by this? It's not new - here in Los Angeles, the director of the Department of Animal Services recently retired after protesters circled his home; the same group has protested at the home of Los Angeles Mayor Hahn.

Now Scott McNealy may believe that "privacy is dead, get over it," and he may be right.

But it seems that by blending the public (would anyone be as squeamish about demonstrations in front of Jerry Greenwalt's office?) and the private, these demonstrators are changing the game somewhat, and in a way that I'm not sure I'm comfortable with.

And, what's more, they are doing it in a way that doesn't exactly level the playing field.

Demonstrations against Greenwalt were led by 'Animal Defense -LA'; a whois shows a maildrop address (amusingly, Amy Alkon gets her mail at the same place), and the name of 'Marcus Wolf' - those who know a bit about Stasi history might wonder whether that's a pseudonym...

So when will the Protest Warriors start showing up at the homes of Indymedia contributors? Or groups of grad students in biology at the homes of animal defense organizations?

Do we need more James Kopps??

Or am I just being too concerned about this?

« ok, I'm done now

SPORTS

• While important political events were unfolding in Iraq, overseas the spotlight was firmly on Iraqi athletes. The new Iraqi team finally made its debut appearance at the Olympic opening ceremony: "The U.S. team were greeted with cheers at the opening of the Athens Olympics on Friday but Iraq's squad won an even warmer reception."
  


• Iraq's new sporting heroes are the soccer team, which initially managed to get into the final eight, after beating Costa Rica 2-0. The reaction back home was predictably ecstatic: "Shooting is all too common in Baghdad, but on Sunday night it was in a good cause... As the Iraqis secured their quarter-final spot, gleeful residents of the capital opened up with weapons of all calibers and tracer bullets could be seen streaking through the sky." The team has quickly become an international sensation and the pride of fans back home. Ahmed Al-Samarrai, the president of Iraq's Olympic Committee thinks there is a message in the team's success that all Iraqis should take to heart: "There are a lot of stupid people in Iraq, like Muqtada al-Sadr. They don't think about the future. I am asking the Iraqi people to look at this Olympic experience. This is life. This is how to live it."
  


• Iraq's soccer dream run was to continue with a quarter-final 1:0 victory over Australia, which was again greeted by scenes of wild jubilation back home. In the words of the Qatar-based midfielder Emad Mohammed, who was responsible for the winning goal, "People where I live (in Iraq) have suffered so much... It's very confusing for us and hard to keep our minds on the game. But we hope we can give a little happiness to our country." As the report noted, the advancement into semi-finals was "an almost fairytale achievement for a team that shares a training pitch with grazing sheep in Baghdad."
  


• While the team eventually went down 3-1 to Paraguay in the semi-finals, just getting that far had proved an inspiration for most Iraqis: "I'm very proud of my team. It's great that the world got to see that we are not just people with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades. We also know how to compete in the Olympics," said Rasheed Rumayed, who watched the game back home. And Adnan Khadin, who owns a sidewalk cafe in Baghdad had this to say: "It's still a great achievement even if we don't get a chance to win the gold... No other team in the world could have done half of what Iraq has done in the circumstances in which we are living."
  


• Iraqis have also been following with keen interest the efforts of Mohammed Ali, the 23-year old weight lifter from Sadr City in Baghdad. "I'm optimistic because things have changed, (with more) financial support and the general standard of living. I'm encouraged," Ali says. His namesake, Najif Ali, has also given his fellow Iraqis reasons to be celebrate, with his stunning 21-7 boxing victory over North Korea's Kwak Hyok Ju: "With his nation's flag on his chest and his American coach's chosen slogan - 'Iraq Is Back' - across his back, Ali punched, feinted and danced across the ring for four impressive rounds." And while Ali lost his next round's match with Aleksan Nalbandyan of Armenia, he is not too despondent: "All the people shouting my name was even bigger than winning. I know that people like me and like the way that I fight." Ali is now hoping to begin graduate school at the University of Houston while preparing for his professional debut.
  


• One of the people credited with the success of the Iraqi Olympic team is Mark Clark:
  

  "He is being hailed as a national hero by the Iraqi people. After almost single-handedly rebuilding the sports network in the war-ravaged nation, he has been credited with ensuring that Iraq fielded a 25-strong team for this year's Olympic Games. And the man who is at the centre of the praise was born in Scotland.

  "Mark Clark, a 30-year-old Edinburgh lawyer, is now Iraq's team manager and even helped the country's Olympic committee draft its constitution when the International Olympic Committee lifted a suspension in February on the country taking part in world athletics events...

  "It was because of the Iraq war that Mr Clark ended up in the country. He had given up his job with Dundas & Wilson, an Edinburgh law firm to take up his posting in Iraq as a Territorial Army reserve officer. Last July, he began working with the coalition provisional authority, the temporary governing agency in Iraq. But with a degree in intellectual property and sport-related law, Mr Clark was invited to take on the role of adviser to the CPA on sport."

• It's not just the Western assistance that got the Iraqi Olympic team to Athens; the Jordanian government has underwritten housing, training and equipment costs for the 25-member Iraqi squad. Says Prince Faisal bin Al-Hussein, the younger brother of King Abdullah: "Peace is greater than gold. But sometimes you have to restate the obvious."
  


• Back home, sport and physical exercise are already breaking down barriers:
  

  "At the Arnold Classic Gym in Baghdad, two things matter: Arnold Schwarzenegger and bodybuilding.

  "No matter what's happening outside - Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, mortars, kidnappings - this shabby gym is an island of civility. Under hundreds of pictures of oiled and bulging Arnolds, Kurds train next to Christians, Sunnis spot Shiites, and foreigners pump iron with the toughest Iraqi strongmen (Nick Berg used to be a regular). If you show up at the right time, you can even find a couple of Shiite women who come all the way from the distant and devoutly Shiite neighborhood of Kadhimiyah to bench press right alongside men. Here, at least, Iraq is one nation under maximum intensity training."

SOCIETY:

• It's not often that an Arab newspapers editorialises about virtues of democracy and praises the march of freedom in Iraq, but this is exactly what the Saudi "Arab News" has recently done:
  

  "For the past month or so, while the media have been obsessed with the activities of Moqtada Sadr and his fighters in Najaf, much of the really important news about Iraq has gone largely unreported...

  "[L]et us not begrudge Sadr's 15 minutes of fame... Students of journalism, however, know the difference between the events that furnish most of the daily headlines and the undercurrents that shape the broader context of a society's political life. Now what are the undercurrents that, with eyes fixed on the current events, are largely ignored?

  "The most important is that post-liberation Iraq, defying great odds, has succeeded in carrying out its political reform agenda on schedule. A governing council was set up at the time promised. It in turn, created a provisional government right on schedule. Next, municipal elections were held in almost all parts of the country. Then followed the drafting of a new democratic and pluralist constitution. Then came the formal end of the occupation and the appointing of a new interim government.

  "Earlier this month, the political reconstruction program reached a new high point with the convening of the National Congress."

• The meeting of the National Congress has, indeed, been the most significant event, political or otherwise, in Iraq over the past two weeks. In the scenes reminiscent of deliberations of America's Founding Fathers, 1,300 delegates representing the widest possible cross-section of Iraq's political, ethnic and religious groups have met in Baghdad "to form a 'people's' council that will advise the interim government."
  


• In the course of its often stormy sittings, the Iraqi National Conference has selected delegates to fill 81 seats on the new 100-member Interim National Council, with the other 19 spots reserved for members of the former Iraqi Governing Council. The Interim National Council, expected to operate until the elections of January 2005, will advise the interim government on policy issues and approve the 2005 budget; it will also the two-thirds veto power over the decisions of the Iraqi cabinet.
  


• Most international media couldn't wait to find faults with the Conference. Typical of the coverage, Agence France-Presse noted "poor preparation" and "charges... of behind the scenes manipulation", and went on to describe it as a "foreign-inspired gathering", "just a colorful photo opportunity", and "one big talk fest". The minority of reporters, however, chose to provide a far more positive way of looking at the event: "the conference... turn[ed] into a vociferous political convention of a kind unimaginable in the Saddam era."
  


• For too long, the government of Iraq consisted of a room-ful of uniform-clad Saddam look-alikes listening attentively to Hussein's every word. Robust debate, controversy, and vehement disagreements - all present in large quantities at the Conference - are novel political experiences in Iraq. For the media, they are symptoms of political chaos and disorder, unless they take place in the West, in which case they're just called democracy.
  


• Iraqi bloggers, as always, had a much better perspective on events than most of the Western media. Wrote Ali of Iraq the Model:
  

  "For the first time we saw free discussions with the absence of fear. No one man talking and the rest just listening and nodding their heads in approval. Many members were so eager to talk and show their opinions, interrupting each other many times and of course this is all natural as a result of being forced to silence for such a long time."

• And Zeyad at Healing Iraq reminded his readers of just how much catching up the Iraqis still have to do in their march to democracy:
  

  "[T]he majority of Iraqis are unfamiliar with the rules of parliamentary sessions. The closest thing we had to a parliament was abolished in 1958 with the introduction of 'Revolutionary' Republican rule. Whatever the level of political maturity Iraqis had accumulated at that stage, it slowly disintegrated year after year under the successive totalitarian ('Revolutionary') regimes. Today, 45 years later, we are back again at point zero.

  "Under Ba'athist rule, proceedings from the so-called National Council were televised from time to time. The Revolutionary Command Council was the sole source of legislation, so basically the National Council had no other function but to approve and stamp the endless amendments. Votes were always unanimous. It was a joke really. A farce."

• To their credit, some media outlets were able to recognize the reality. This NBC report had this to say about the Conference:
  

  "They yelled and cursed, waving their hands in angry gestures. Surrounded by heavily armed American troops, they were holed up for days, with Iraq's future in the balance. But no one got killed. In scenes unimaginable under Saddam Hussein, and in sharp contrast to bloody battles in the holy city of Najaf, Iraqis this week formed the country's first representative council in three decades...

  " 'We had no freedom to talk under Saddam,' said Dr. Raja al-Khuzai, a moderate Shiite taking a seat on the new assembly. 'Now I can stand and talk in front of 1,300 people.'

  "A senior U.S. official described the formation of Iraq's interim National Assembly as an 'eye opener' in a region long governed by authoritarian rule. 'I have never seen a group (in the Arab world) speak so freely and so unconsciously,' the official said speaking on condition of anonymity. 'Clearly the reason was because there was no 'big brother' watching. There was no party line to follow'."

• The new interim Iraqi National Council selected at the Conference is expected to have its first sitting on September 1.
  


• Iraq's democratic elections are still a few months away, but the supporting infrastructure is now starting to come together in time for January 2005. Iraq's Project and Contracting Office is currently completing a $3 million, thorough renovation of the building which formerly belonged to Saddam's Governing Council, but which will now house 600 employees of the new Iraqi Independent Electoral Commission. The United Nations, too, is sending in the first of the teams to assist with election preparations.
  


• One party contesting the January election is Iraqi Pro-Democracy Party, the brainchild of Ali and Mohammed, the creators of the very popular Iraqi blog, Iraq the Model. Ali and Mohammed explain the decision to throw their hats into political ring:
  

  "For sometime we thought that we can help by doing our jobs and by posting our opinions here on the blog, and while we still think it does help, the battle against tyranny and fanaticism in our country demands more than that. It demands that each one of us put all the effort he/she can make and take an active stand regardless of how difficult or dangerous it may seem. We simply cannot just stand and watch and we hope that we will encourage others also to do their best in order to achieve our freedom and establish democracy in a country that suffered more than enough from wars, dictators, terrorists and fanatics. We believe that democracy is the only cure to all those diseases and the only answers to all threats. As hard the battle seems now and as far victory may look, we believe in our people and we believe in our friends and we know we will win."

• Iraq could do with more people like Ali and Mohammed. Let's hope that the elections will bring forth many others who want to see Iraq become a safe and normal country that is no danger to its neighbor or its own people.
  


• Not just sporting life, but culture, too, is reviving. The Iraqi arts community is finding some previously undreamed of outlets for its creativity, expanding into the cyberspace. Meanwhile, a theatre group is bringing Baghdad to Japanese audiences: "The troupe had written a play about actors, whose activities were prohibited under the regime of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, who took up arms to protect a theater from being plundered."
  


• Lastly, Iraqis are now free to get a tattoo - a practice that was banned under Saddam. "Now people have more freedom, people have a choice about what they do, there's no laws to restrict them," says Sarmad Shamael, a tattoo artist who himself now sports Celtic crosses, screaming eagles and death's heads.

ECONOMY:

• In Baghdad, the Ministry of Trade has recently announced that the city's old central markets, damaged during the 2003 fighting, will be converted into modern shopping malls, due to a high demand from Western and Arab companies looking for commercial opportunities and more shopping space.
  


• In manufacturing news, turning swords into ploughshares will soon become a reality in the new Iraq, as Ministry of Industry is developing plans to convert the country's once significant armaments industry into civilian production. Meanwhile, the Destination Baghdad business expo (DBX), scheduled for later on this year, is gaining momentum as foreign corporations announce their intention to participate (Motorola being the latest one). DBX follows in the footsteps of the successful business opportunities showcase organized back in May in Turkey by the Iraqi-American Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which attracted some 1,500 Iraqi businessmen who used the opportunity to network with 120 foreign companies.
  


• Some welcome efforts to modernize Iraqi banking system are also taking place:
  

  "With limited capital and investment, the majority of Iraq's banking processes are fairly primitive. Banking services are limited to deposit taking, cash withdrawals and manual cheque clearing, while newly printed Iraqi dinars are convoyed between bank branches, government buildings and businesses. Salaries are paid in cash, while most transactions also use hard currency.

  "However, the situation does appear to be changing, with the implementation of a new inter-bank and intra-bank payment system controlled by the Central Bank of Iraq (CBI). This system allows for money transfer using a mechanism called original credit (OC), which is transacted through Visa's global processing network - VisaNet.

  "The VisaNet system currently links together 20 state and privately-owned commercial Iraqi banks. To side-step problems with poor terrestrial communications networks, each of the banks' branches are able to access the network via a laptop-sized satellite communications receiver and satellite dish. Originally conceived as a mobile Internet connection tool by its makers Inmarsat, the satellite communications box links to VisaNet for payment processing, acting as a payment host terminal for the bank."

• One of the foreign experts who has been helping Iraq to modernise its economy and banking system is Michael Silva of Little Silver, New Jersey. SIlva, an employee of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, had for three months acted as an advisor to the Central Bank of Iraq. After returning from Baghdad, Silva is optimistic about the country's future: "The Iraqis are very educated, and they are very entrepreneurial, very hard working. They're tough because they've lived under 25 years of brutal dictatorship. You've got capital, you've got education, you've got a work ethic."
  


• In transport news, "Iran's semi-privatized shipping line has offered to help develop the Iraqi economy by using its shipping and land links to open a transportation route to the war-torn country." In the air, "[a]n Iraqi Airways Boeing 737 made a test flight from Amman to Baghdad on Monday for the first time since the airline's planes were grounded in Jordan by UN sanctions in 1990." The resumption of normal services is planned in the near future. And on the land, 137 kilometers of the new railway line between Baghdad and Baiji have been finished so far. New materials used in manufacturing the tracks will make travel safer and faster, up to 120 kilometers per hour. In Baghdad, meanwhile, the work has started to modernise the hub:
  

  "The Iraq Republic Railway (IRR) recently held a ceremony to celebrate the start of the Baghdad Central Railway Station rehabilitation, with the aid of the PCO/US Mission-Iraq. The building is badly in need of repair from years of neglect, according to the Project and Contracting Office (PCO). Approximately 200 Iraqis will work to make the facility comfortable, clean and safe for employees and railway customers alike.

  "Construction on the station began in 1916 by the Germans and was completed by the British in 1948 on an art deco structure. All train movements through Iraq are controlled, monitored and coordinated from this facility. Although the railway system is only operating at 43 per cent of its total capacity currently, it is the most economic way to transport Iraq's grain, oil, and containerised construction equipment. The railway system is part of a 2,400 km track network which goes from Port of Umm Qasser to Turkey.

  "The renovation, which began on 12 August, will restore all building systems, including heating, ventilation, air conditioning, plumbing, electrical and power, as well as fencing and lighting. The non-construction portion of the project will include spare parts for the diesel locomotives which come from England, the Czech Republic, Poland, China, Russia, Germany and France.

  "Trains will be equipped with VISTAR tracking device, which will track all engines at any one time to enhance safety and security. 'It's one thing to do the work and another to do it well,' said David Nash, director of the PCO. 'With state of the art technology, Iraq makes the jump from massive disrepair to modern safety and design'."

• In communications news, Ray Murphy, a New York postal employee who has led the American team working with Iraqi counterparts to restore the country's postal system, has some good news to report:
  

  "Murphy said in a recent interview that circumstances were grim for the mail when his five-member team arrived there six months ago. Domestic mail that once took weeks to reach its destination is now getting delivered in days, and the time for international deliveries has gone from months to weeks.

  "Murphy said the economic neglect over the last 30 years was 'horrifying,' and the system had deteriorated so much under Saddam Hussein's government that a letter from abroad took three to six months to arrive.

  "The team found that of 375 post offices, 275 were functioning with limited coverage. Only an estimated 13 percent of Iraqis use the mail.

  "Murphy's team helped establish postal codes to improve speed and reliability and negotiated with the Universal Postal Union to get Iraq full voting-member status. The organization coordinates postal policies among its 189 member nations."

• The normal postal service between Iraq and the United States, by the way, has now been restored.
  


• As its economy grows, Iraq is starting to experience economic immigration: the Iranian "government's policy of not hiring Sunni Iranians in mid-level and high-level management positions, even in their own areas, has driven educated Iranian Kurds to northern Iraq, where they are hired in managerial and administrative positions by the local government and industries." Kurdistan is also attracting more regional development opportunities, as South Korean businesses follow in the wake of the local deployment by the South Korean troops:
  

  "Latif Aref, general director of the Kurdistan Regional Government's office for registering companies, said there had been a 25 percent rise in new registrations of Kurdish companies since Arbil was formally selected as the location for the Korean deployment.

  " 'We are going to see much wider export and import trade with the Korean market,' said Aref, adding that a long-awaited foreign investment law would soon be put into action.

  "Sitting outside Arbil's unfinished airport terminal with his Kurdish mobile phone glued to his ear, Jeong-Hee agreed that the Kurdish zone could be ripe for foreign investment - provided the investment laws provided guarantees for foreign firms. 'The region does have good advantages - like easy access to Turkey, Syria and Iran. The Kurds could make this area into prosperous free-trade zone,' he said."

• More good news for the Kurds, as global shipping firm Transoceanic opens its second (after Baghdad) Iraq office in Mosul: "the office will cater to the needs of companies focused on construction efforts in northern Iraq. The Mosul team is available 24/7 to supervise cargo transports and to provide ongoing status reporting."
  


• There are positive developments on the agricultural front, too, with the announcement by Iraqi Minister of Agriculture, Dr Sawsan Ali Al Sharifi, of numerous new projects, including new cattle breeding stations, which will in addition supply manure to private sector farmers. "The ministry is [also] working on importing cows and the rehabilitation of an artificial fertiliser centre. It has also prepared a plan to establish new fish aquariums in the Baghdad area while many foreign and Arabian companies look to rehabilitate the Al-Soeira center." In order to provide a fresh start for its agriculture industry, Iraq is currently importing 360,000 tons of seeds. And in the area of Research and Development, the Agriculture Ministry is conducting more valuable research on the use of salt water in irrigation. This is part of an overarching effort to develop greater agricultural opportunities in areas of high salinity, a problem common in many areas of the country.

RECONSTRUCTION:

• The international efforts continue to bring the Iraqi infrastructure into the twenty first century after the destructive hiatus of Saddam's rule. As one report notes:
  

  "After long delays and broken deadlines, there are signs that the largest reconstruction effort since World War II's Marshall Plan is poised to explode. New and refurbished power stations are starting up weekly. Contractors are finishing plans for building thousands of schools, clinics and infrastructure projects. Iraqi jobs have soared from 5,300 daily employees to more than 88,000."

• Let's hope that the pace does indeed pick up. The World Bank has now come onboard with some hands-on reconstruction assistance:
  

  "The World Bank is aiming to embark on its first reconstruction projects in Iraq since the overthrowing of the previous regime, the head of the bank's Iraq program declared on Monday. Faris Hadad-Zervos said that the projects would improve infrastructure within Iraq, helping to provide water and sanitation and to rehabilitate schools.

  The bank's interim reconstruction program for Iraq estimates projects for Iraq, which also include labor-intensive irrigation schemes, are likely to cost between $400 and $600 million. The World Bank officially recognized the new Iraqi government on 29 June, the day after it was sworn in, opening the way for money to be loaned to the country."

• Other governments, too, are providing reconstruction assistance to Iraq: over the next three years starting in 2005, Japan is expected to contribute some $3.5 million in loans and $1.5 billion in direct grants towards modernization of energy and water infrastructure, as well as health system. The Japanese government is also planning to provide some practical training assistance for Iraqi professionals: in September, about 40 Iraqi health workers and between 20 and 30 diplomats will come to Japan to learn and update their skills. Japan will also pay Egypt to conduct in September and November this year training programs for 375 Iraqi doctors and medical workers and 75 Iraqi electrical engineers.
  


• The World Bank is also contributing to the training effort: "Up to 30 civil servants from various Iraqi ministries were recently awarded certificates at a small graduation ceremony, marking the conclusion of a two-week training course on financial management, procurement and project management. Financed by a European Union grant contributed to the World Bank-administered Iraq Trust Fund, this course represents the latest in a series of 20 training activities launched since February with the intention of gearing Iraqi civil servants to manage internationally funded reconstruction projects." So far, the World Bank has provided for training of some 600 Iraqi officials and professionals as part of its capacity-building program.
  


• On a somewhat smaller scale, though just as usefully, a group of 25 Iraqi agriculture delegates will be attending a four-and-a-half month training course organized through Western Australian Department of Agriculture and Curtin University. The course will bring the Iraqis up to speed with the world's best practices and update them on the latest research to help them re-establish a successful agriculture industry back home.
  


• The Russian government, too, has offered to train Iraqi teachers, hospital staff and rescue workers, in addition to oil industry workers already receiving training.
  


• Elsewhere, vital infrastructure is being created. A small Utah firm, Altiris Inc, for example, is building and managing the growing computer network used by the Coalition forces and Iraqi authorities. Says P.J. Bulger, senior vice president of Altiris' partner 3HT: "Our efforts do not even compare with what the men and women of the Coalition Forces, Iraqi government and Iraqi people are doing... Hopefully, we made their jobs a little bit easier as they move forward - but the people that remain in the area working day to day with the rebuilding are the real heroes."
  


• In education news, Iraq's regional neighbors continue to contribute towards rehabilitation of Iraqi schools: "Dubai TV is airing a six-hour live telethon on September 3 as part of its fund-raising efforts for schools in Iraq. The telethon is in cooperation with Unicef and Dubai Aid City (DAC). Funds will go towards the Getting Iraqi children back to school campaign, launched by Unicef in June." The international community, too, is providing considerable assistance to Iraq's education system. UNICEF, which targets its efforts at improving the lot of children has no illusions: "[R]eversing the trends towards degradation of the last two decades will be one of the major challenges of the reconstruction effort." UNICEF has already helped rehabilitate 220 schools, and distributed teaching materials to 18,000 schools country-wide. In addition, "UNICEF also helps deliver water to 350,000 people every day. About 200 projects are underway to repair pumping stations, treatment plants and sewage works that will improve the lives of millions of people."
  


• Meanwhile, new technology gives hope and opportunities to Iraq's gifted students:
  

  "A room full of teenage girls in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, are chatting with each other during the last five minutes of class, practicing their hard-learned English. In the classroom next door, teenage boys are designing logos to put on posters they will make to explain computer projects. After a 15-minute break, the two groups switch - the girls clustering around the 10 or so computers, the boys in the English-language class.

  "After months of planning and red tape, the al-Amal Association, an Iraq-based aid agency, has started working with a group of students chosen for their leadership abilities and their smartness. More than 40 boys and 40 girls attend the enrichment classes at the al-Amal office three days a week.

  "Students will learn how to use the computers, correspond with teenagers in Canada and other places by Internet and sharpen their English language skills, Laith Salman, a computer teacher, told IRIN. They'll also learn about how to deal with the conflict still going around them and other 'social phenomena,' Salman said."

• After three decades of wasted opportunities there is a lot of catching up to do.
  


• In the health sector, one Iraqi sub-contracting company working on air conditioning units in Sadr City Hospital reduces the temperature inside the building from 38� C to 24� C. Great Britain, Italy, India, Croatia and other countries are providing medical assistance to Iraqi children who cannot get necessary treatment in Iraq. And down south, Basra Health Administration has recently started the construction work on eleven new clinics, including a new training facility. Challenges abound, but significant progress has already been achieved, as this expert who helped to rebuild Iraq's health system testifies:
  

  "Michigan's former top health official wants Americans to remain patient. It takes time to rebuild a country. James K. Haveman Jr., who served as director of the Michigan Department of Community Health during the Engler and Granholm administrations, had a firsthand look at Iraq's rebuilding process as a senior adviser to the Iraqi Ministry of Health...

  "Iraq's health care system was in a shambles when Haveman arrived in 2003. The twin, 11-story towers that served as Iraq's Ministry of Health were looted and 65 percent of the equipment in hospitals didn't work, Haveman said. Yet there was no shortage of technology or expertise. For instance, Haveman said the coalition authority found 55 X-ray machines in a warehouse still in their crates.

  "Why? The regime wanted the country's health care system to deteriorate so it could blame United Nations sanctions, Haveman said. Of particular importance to Haveman and the provisional authority's health team was addressing Iraq's high infant mortality rate, which Haveman said was deliberately ignored for political purposes.

  "By the time Haveman left Iraq, he said 240 hospitals and 1,200 clinics were back on line. The Ministry of Health had its first real budget in years, spending $1 billion, or about $40 per capita, compared to a health budget of $16 million during Saddam's reign. Doctors, pharmacists and other health professionals were making a living wage -- $383 a month for physicians -- for the first time in years. Authorities are aiming to reduce the infant mortality rate, at 130 deaths per 1,000 births under Saddam, by half."

• In electricity news, more power will be available for the south of the country, with the opening of the new 52 Megawatt generator at the Khor Az Zubayr power plant, 40km south of Basra. The generator will be producing enough power to supply an extra 156,000 homes. According to the Iraqi Electricity Ministry, more generators are expected to come online over the next few weeks to satisfy growing demand for electricity: "With more than half a million new jobs created, new industries and new factories coming on line and with the sale of thousands of home appliances such as washing machines and air conditioners, Iraq has experienced a rapid increase in electricity demand. The increase in demand is a good sign of a thriving economy emerging from three decades of isolation." This is the first new power generator to be opened in Iraq since 1976.
  


• A second new generator has also now started operation: "The Iraq electrical grid will be able to service an additional 84,000 homes... thanks to a new generator in southern Iraq. The 28-megawatt generator at the Nasiriya Power Station near Al Amarah came online over the weekend and is the second new power station in the country built from scratch by Iraqi and American engineers. 'This is very good news,' said Raad Shalal, an official at the Iraq Ministry of Electricity. 'This will help to reduce the shortage of electricity across the country.' Iraq and US engineers have reduced the shortage this month, adding 152 megawatts to the national grid to bring the national total to more than 5,200 megawatts - enough to service 15.6 million Iraqi homes." You can read more about the new generators here.
  


• Overall, the Ministry of Electricty has recently allocated $1.5 billion for the reconstruction and development of the electricity sector. The Iraqi authorities are also working to protect country's electricity assets, cooperating with Jordanians who are supplying equipment and the Thai who are providing training for security staff. You can also read this story of how the Coalition authorities have poured resources and effort into the Baiji power station north of Baghdad to now watch five stacks of smoke shooting into the sky, instead of just one or none back in February.
  


• The water supply around Baghdad is improving, too, as 35-year old water networks are undergoing some much needed upgrades, thanks yet again to American funds. More on that here.
  


• You might also recall the international efforts to restore the marshlands of southern Iraq, which have been destroyed by Saddam in revenge for the Shia uprising in 1991. Japan will now provide the necessary assistance for the project: "Japan will provide environmental protection technology as well as necessary funds to develop human resources in the environmental field."

THE COALITION TROOPS:

• The Coalition forces have a lot more on their plates than just their essential security role. Every day around the country, civil affairs detachments of Army and Marine units are working hard on reconstruction and aid projects. These are people like Major Harry Klein:
  

  "Klein leads a team that works for 3rd Battalion, 82nd Field Artillery, normally based in Fort Hood, Texas. The battalion has completed 62 projects at a cost of more than $4 million and has requested another $4 million."

• Meanwhile, soldiers from the Alpha Battery of the 3rd Battalion, 82nd Field Artillery are helping to save the Dina Institute, a private hospice which cares for around 60 Iraqi children with Down syndrome, cerebral palsy and other developmental disabilities:
  

  "The institute was on the verge of collapse a couple of months ago, with too many children and rent three months overdue. The prospect of sending children home or closing altogether loomed...

  "The unit commander, Capt. Mike Burgoyne, had heard about the institute from local leaders and decided to check it out. Jawad told him the institute had no money, and food was scarce. They had had no meat for more than a month.

  "Moved to action by what he had witnessed, Burgoyne worked with Hanson, the battalion's civil affairs officer, to tap the Army's civil affairs funds and give the institute $3,000. They brought a pallet loaded with food and supplies."

• And they also arranged for the Institute to be transferred to a house that used to belong to one of Saddam Hussein's wives.
  


• It's not just construction and infrastructure work - the troops are also helping individual victims of war or circumstance. Ma'rwa Ahteemi, Iraqi girl who was wounded in a Coalition artillery strike, received medical treatment in Iraq and the United States thanks to the chain of US military personnel and civilians, which started with Lt. Col. Nate Sassaman, commander of the 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, and soon grew into a full-fledged charity operation. There is also this story of an Iraqi boy:
  

  "Several weeks ago, life looked bleak for young Abdul Jabur Raid Jabar. The 8-year-old was in a small, war-torn Iraqi town with little hope of getting treatment for his life-threatening heart condition.

  "Then, coalition forces came through his town and his father asked for help. The U.S. military sent out information about the boy, which caught the attention of Heidi Hess, a Tampa nurse practitioner at St. Joseph's Children's Hospital.

  "Working through the Gift of Life program, which Hess and her late husband, Gary Haas, established at St. Joseph's eight years ago, Hess arranged to bring Jabar to Tampa, where he arrived Thursday."

• The troops' families, friends and neighbors back home also continue to bring assistance to people of Iraq. Homewtown families attached to the Army National Guard base in Paris, Arkansas, for example, have been collecting and sending over "back to school" gifts for Iraqi children. Others have been organizing some much needed help for victims of war:
  

  "Iraqi civilians who've lost arms and legs in the war will soon get new prosthetics from Methodist Rehabilitation Center's Operation Restoration program.

  "A truckload of amputee supplies will leave Jackson on Wednesday, heading to the U.S. Army base in Fort Hood, Texas, where the supplies will be shipped to a free amputee clinic in Baghdad.

  "Certified prosthetist Steve Lindsley, who's serving in Iraq with the Army's Canton-based 112th Military Police Battalion, came up with the idea after seeing a great number of Iraqi amputees."

• And sometimes in Iraq, soldiers even fall in love, like Robert Hall, of the 402nd Civil Affairs Battalion, who has just married Vivian Mansour, a Christian Kurd from Baghdad.

DIPLOMACY AND SECURITY:

• After years of tense relations, Iraq is slowly normalizing relations with its northern neighbor: "Ankara and Iraq's interim government entered a new era in their bilateral relations when Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yaver arrived... for a two-day visit to Turkey. This is the first postwar high-level contact between our neighboring countries, a development which is expected to speed the normalization of bilateral relations. It is also al-Yaver's first visit to a foreign country. His choosing Turkey for his first state visit shows that Baghdad places a high premium on its relations with Ankara. In addition, as Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi is also expected to visit Turkey next month, our two countries seem to have plans to improve their relations further."
  


• Meanwhile, some positive words from the European Commission President-designate Jose Manuel Barroso: "Some people in Europe may think that it is good that things are going badly for the US. I really think that is an irrational and a bad policy." Barroso also called on his fellow Europeans to "leave behind our disagreements on Iraq" and "give a positive, strong contribution to the Iraqi problem." Barroso has always been pro-American and a supporter of war in Iraq, so his statements are not surprising, but hopefully under his leadership more time and attention will be given to the voices of reason within Europe.
  


• Security situation inside Iraq is still precarious, of course, but are some positive developments, too. In Najaf, Iraqi army has been fighting alongside the American forces to crush the al Sadr uprising. Meanwhile, the Iraqi air force, trained by the Americans and the Jordanians, has taken to the skies, with the maiden flight of two Seabird Seeker SB7L-360 reconnaissance aircraft. The once 750-aircraft strong Iraqi air force, destroyed in wars and through neglect, is expected to soon grow from 162 to 500 personnel and take over some of the surveillance missions over Iraq.
  


• NATO's 50-strong Training Implementation Mission in Iraq, led by Dutch Major General Carel Hilderink has began their task of helping the main Coalition forces to train the new Iraqi army: "The mission's tasks include liaising with the Iraqi interim government and US-led multinational forces, helping Iraq establish defence and military headquarters and identifying Iraqi personnel for training outside the country." Germany has also pledged to assist in a separate program, training Iraqi military personnel in the United Arab Emirates.
  


• While the NATO partners are only just beginning their involvement with Iraqi security forces, the Coalition troops already on the ground in Iraq continue to train Iraqi personnel:
  

  "Next to a dirt-packed soccer field on an island in the middle of the Tigris River, the men who represent the long-term U.S. exit strategy for Iraq crawl through the dirt.

  "Taking shelter behind a makeshift barricade of stacked sandbags, one of the Iraqi National Guard trainees aims his AK-47 and fires at an invisible enemy. 'Bang, bang,' he shouts, mimicking the sound his rifle would make if it were loaded. After firing several imaginary rounds, he ducks his head back under the sandbags. 'That's bull,' U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Haily Darnell, one of the ING drill instructors, shouts - along with several colorful expletives - at the trainee prostrate in the dirt. 'That's just bull. Go back and do it again'."

• Read the full story of how American soldiers at the "ING Island," a 25-acre facility inside the 1st Infantry Division's headquarters in Tikrit, are training Iraqi recruits.
  


• Other allies also contribute in vital security roles. Bosnia-Herzegovina, also a scene of war not that long ago, is planning to send a mine clearing unit to Iraq. "Defense Minister Nikola Radovanovic said... the Balkan country has a moral obligation to help in Iraq after all the international assistance it received during the conflict of the 1990s in the Balkans."
  


• Iraq's 3,500 kilometer long, porous border has in the past provided little by way of obstacles for foreign insurgents crossing over to fight the Coalition forces. Now, "Iraq is training 15,000 new border guards and hopes to have them in place within six weeks." There are certainly some signs of better controls already in place, as border guards confiscated 100 tank-containers and 20 ships that were used to smuggle oil. As well, "Iraqi border and customs police foiled an attempt to smuggle weapon production lines to Iran in eastern Iraq of Diyala... The productions lines, remains of the former Iraqi institution of military industry, were disassembled and hidden under heaps of junk in six 16-ton-cargo cars. The haul included complete lines for manufacturing different kinds of weapons, explosives and small arms."

Next time you have a drink, make sure you invite this guy for a glass of water. A native of Baghdad and a one of 18 children, he has been until recently working as an English translator for Iraqi TV. Once, when working on a Bette Davis movie, "The Virgin Queen," a mistake he made had angered Uday Hussein so much that he was thrown into jail for 30 days. He is now studying at Dartmouth College under the newly reinstated Fulbright program. He has this to say:

"I see the Americans working hard day and night to establish the basic needs for the Iraqi people... I think people (in America) are divided because it's a war. War is always a bad idea. [But] I want to emphasize this point. For me, it was 100 percent a liberation. There's nothing worse than a dictator."

It often happens that the people who have been thirsty for a long time can tell you the most about water.

If you have any tips for future instalments of �Good news from Iraq� please email the to goodnewsiraq �at� windsofchange �dot� net.

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REPORTS FROM THE FIELD

• Zeyad, at Healing Iraq has an in-depth account of the situation in al-Najaf, including concerns regarding the holy treasury of the Imam Ali shrine. He also mentions that the son of one of the four senior clerics in Najaf has been kidnapped.

• Arthur Chrenkoff examines Imam al-Sistani's role in the Najaf situation and notes Sistani may be one of the big winners of the battle. Norm Geras concurs, chiming in with a detailed analysis from one of his own readers.

• Blackfive publishes a letter from a U/SMC reservist helicopter pilot in Fallujah. "This War is About Des Moines, Not Falluja"

• ...And here's a view from the other side of the war. The Command Post has a MEMRI translation of an interview with Iraqi Sheik Mahdi Saleh Al-Sumide’i, who fought in Fallujah. The interview was conducted by Syrian TV (which means Syrian Government TV in that Ba'athist regime).

THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE

• Former director of the BBC Greg Dyke has launched a vicious attack on British Prime Minister Tony Blair, accusing him of either incompetence or lying regarding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. As Mr. Dyke had to resign after it was revealed the BBC was 'sexing up' antigovernment reports, this might be construed as sour grapes, but it is also a reminder that the electoral fallout of Iraq is not yet over. (Hat tip: The Agonist.)

• France is sending a minister to negotiate for the release of two French journalists being held in Iraq.

WMD HUNT

• The Greatest Jeneration reveals the ISG is having a hard time getting information from Iraqi WMD scientists - because someone is killing them.

ETCETERA

• The Army released the Fay report on intelligence activities at Abu Ghraib. The report details where the chain of command, intelligence system and prisoner control procedures broke down and how to fix these issues going forward. (Hat tip: INTEL DUMP.)

• Iraq the Model's Omar discovers a perhaps un-anticipated
  benefit of Iraq's liberation. He wonders if Halliburton is in on this market too.

• The troops are still there. So is the Winds of Change.NET consolidated directory of ways you can support the troops: American, Australian, British, Canadian & Polish. Anyone out there with more information, contact us!

• Don't forget Chief Wiggles' Toys for Iraq drive!

Thanks for reading! If you found something here you want to blog about yourself (and we hope you do), all we ask is that you do as we do and offer a Hat Tip hyperlink to today's "Winds of War". If you think we missed something important, use the Comments section to let us know.

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The Times story doesn't spare the consequences on Ted's family of his decision to "...give up his family to live on the streets."

But there's a summation.

As Joanna grew older and politically aware, she came to respect the choice her father had made.

"Obviously, with my dad, there have been times when I've been angry with him," she said. "But there are so many more times when I've been proud of him."

"I will," she said proudly, "always be the Dome Village girl."

Ted Hayes was cheering in the stands in Athens this week along with Joanna's mother and other family members.

I was cheering when I read about her victory as well.

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He says:

Someone like me, who never served in the military, has no business passing judgment on a combat veteran’s record - and I am not doing that here. Anyone such as Kerry, who carries shrapnel in his body as a result of service to his country, deserves to boast if he wants to. But politics is not always fair, and Kerry’s eagerness to harness his military background for political purposes is haunting him. It fits a lifelong pattern of grooming himself for high office. Voters like ambition, but they'd rather not see you sweat.

and

We learned that, unlike Kerry, he [Bush] was most willing to use his privileged status to avoid harm’s way in Southeast Asia.

But in light of Bush’s hawkish presidency, claims that he dodged a fight do not fit the pattern of how voters see his character.

Instead, Bush’s military record fits a character pattern that many voters like about him. His war years demonstrate that this is not a man who spent his entire adult life plotting to run for president.

For starters, how lame it was for Bush to lose his Texas Air National Guard flight status simply because he missed a physical examination. But it does fit his image as a regular guy who cannot stand paperwork.

Even if Democrats could prove their unsubstantiated claim that Bush was AWOL in the summer of 1972, it is not clear that enough voters are going to care to make a difference.

A great analysis, and one that points to where the Democrats must not go if they're going to have a chance (certainly, a chance with me - and I assume that I'm pretty typical).

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"many of us maintain that China should aspire to take its place as a world power instead of lamely emulating Western society as, for example, Japan has.... Critics of China Can Say No have noted that we make no secret of our appreciation of Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the Russian nationalist.... No doubt our views on Taiwan will worry the Americans and some people in Taiwan because we encourage Chinese youth to prepare to solve the Taiwan issue by force.... At the end of the 20th century, China has once again become a world power in its own right. It need not play second fiddle to anyone."

Zhirnovsky, for those unfamiliar with him, is a bit more than a Russian nationalist. "Russian neo-fascist" is more like it. Now let's look at this excerpt from Geoffrey York in Canada's Globe and Mail (Oct 25, 2004):

"The nationalist mood seems to be gaining strength every year here. The schools are filled with "patriotic education" classes. Young people are organizing boycotts of Japanese products. Web petitions against the Japanese government are attracting millions of supporters. The Japanese are routinely denounced as "devils" and "little Japs" in chat rooms on the Chinese Internet, and one bar in southern China went so far as to post a "Japanese not welcome" sign.

A few years ago, optimists had hoped democracy would be nurtured by China's growing personal freedoms and its new Internet culture. But in reality, it is the nationalists, not the democrats, who have scored the biggest victories from the relaxed atmosphere.

....Thousands of petitioners and protesters in Beijing had been rounded up by police during the Communist Party meeting to avoid any embarrassment to the political elite. Yet even as arrests continued, the Chinese patriots were allowed to carry out their demonstration freely, under the noses of police officers who carefully supervised the event and even escorted one of the organizers inside the embassy's fence to deliver his petition.

It was further evidence of Beijing's semi-official approval of the new nationalists. The Communist leaders are seeking to harness Chinese nationalism as a unifying force, a sentiment that can be tapped by authorities to build loyalty, to quell opposition, and to fire the passions of young people who might otherwise drift into dissent.

"With the decline of Communist ideology as a source of legitimacy, the Communist Party depends even more on nationalism to legitimize its rule," wrote American scholar Peter Gries, author of the book China's New Nationalism, in a forthcoming issue of the China Quarterly."

....And this excerpt from Kate's blog The Roadkill Diaries, where she reposts a letter from Guangzhou (June 28, 2005):

"Re the nationalist side of China, I've witnessed the rise of this during the last 12 years and, yes, it has already surpassed the nationalism of what we read was evident in pre-war Germany, Italy, Japan etc.

The "us" and "them" mentality(i.e. we Chinese and you foreigners led by America) is staggering in China. And the expectation that China will directly challenge the US one day isn't debated over here, it's seen as an inevitable fact.

The govt here encourages a victim mentality complex and a sense of aggrieved history among the population (as in the recent anti-Japan riots) as well as teching all schoolchildren that The Middle Kingdom ruled the world for millenia before, several hundred years ago, the industrialised west stole it's technology like gunpowder etc. and usurped China's rightful place in the world. China incurred a HUGE loss of face and now China has started on the road to re-claiming it's rightful place in the world...."

Will China's future live Zhirnovsky's dark dreams, in an arc of conflict that stretches from Siberia through the Straits of Malacca, into India and the Middle East, and thence into Africa? Will it feature economic integration, the spread of religion, and relatively peaceful engagement with the rest of the world instead? Or something in between?

All we can do is consider the possible stories for China's future, note which elements seem to go together, and watch for developments that suggest trends in the direction of these stories. With our readers' support and help, we'll continue to do that here at Winds of Change.NET.

UPDATE: Winds offers a set of questions and scenarios designed to help our readers evaluate China's potential futures... and a more comprehensive post covering China's Stresses, Goals, Military Buildups... and Futures, which includes tips on how to do that kind of analysis.

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It's going to be a damn important election, there's no question. But guess what. As much as there are at least two dozen people I'd rather have as president than either George Bush or John Kerry, one of those two will be our president on January 20, 2005. He'll have to lead the country through what will be one of the most challenging periods in our history as we try and fight a low-intensity war and keep it from becoming a high-intensity one.

The biggest threat they will face isn't Islamist terrorism, European intransigence, Chinese economic power, or Iranian nukes. It will be a polity paralyzed by internal rage, distrust, and contempt. If we - as a nation and as citizens - can manage to engage each other in constructive ways, I am certain that we will beat whatever events throw at us.

Go read Josh Marshall or Wizbang. Or look at how Kevin Drum's rhetoric has changed over the year. These aren't semi-humorous blogs like Scrappleface or IMAO. They are serious commentators on the events of the day, people who I take seriously, and their rhetoric displays exactly what it is that I'm afraid of. I used to comment (as snark) that Matt Yglesias' overheated partisan rhetoric meant he was trying out for the DNC. That's less funny in light of Atrios' and Oliver Willis' employment, but I wonder why it is that the amateurs are working so hard to outdo the professionals at thuggery.

It would be nice if we could all - acknowledging that we have sides - work to make the professionals a little bit ashamed instead.

It's interesting how Dean Esmay's challenge has fallen off the radar.

For what it's worth, here are the blogs in my reader:

American Digest
Andrew Sullivan - The Daily Dish
Asymmetrical Information
Belmont Club
BLACKFIVE
Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: A Weblog
BuzzMachine
Calblog
California Insider
Crooked Timber
Daniel W. Drezner
Defamer
DRUDGE REPORT 2004
Dynamist Blog
EconoPundit
Eschaton
Guardian Unlimited
Hakmao
Harry's Place
Healing Iraq
Hit & Run
Howard Lovy's NanoBot
Instapundit.com
INTEL DUMP
IRAQ THE MODEL
L.A. Observed
LAist
Lessig Blog
Little Green Footballs
Los Angeles Times
Mark A. R. Kleiman
matthew
MY WAR
MyDD
One Hand Clapping
Outside The Beltway
OxBlog
Patterico's Pontifications
Political Animal
Power Line
Priorities & Frivolities
Roger L. Simon
Slate Magazine
Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall
TalkLeft: The Politics of Crime
TAPPED
The Idea Shop
The Indepundit
The New Republic Weblogs
The New York Times > Home Page
The New York Times > Opinion
The Southern California Law Blog
The Volokh Conspiracy
The Washington Monthly
Tim Blair
War and Piece
washingtonpost.com
Wired News
Wizbang
Wonkette

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... The other argument I hear cbf apologists make has something to do with some nebulous Southern heritage. Now, I'll be right up front and tell you that I love it Down South. Ever since undergrad, I have been planning to move down there at some point, and not to Atlanta. I'm talking about back in the cut Down South. But let me tell you, nothing that I appreciate about the South is represented by the cbf. That's a piece of the history of the South, but that's not its heritage. I wouldn't care if my great-great granddaddy owned a plantation and worked his way up to general in the confederate army, I would still refuse to capitalize confederate and I would still say that no matter how brave he was, he was pure-d wrong. That would be a part of my family's history, but that don't make it my heritage; my legacy would not be that of a slave-owning Black man unless I chose to embrace that.

It's worth reading the rest of it, and perusing the rest of his site for some excellent discussions on education, identification, and some completely fascinating discussion of language and dialect from the perspective of a member of the Conservative Brotherhood.

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IRAN REPORTS

• Iran's Defence Minister is backing away from threats of offensive action. Al-Jazeera quoted him as saying "We will not sit to wait for what others will do to us." Now, though, Tehran says "misinterpretations" were made by al-Jazeera.

• A senior U.S. diplomat says the issue of Iran's nukes can be resolved with diplomacy, and the United States does not want to topple the mullahs.

• Meanwhile, Iran says the next IAEA report will give the Islamic Republic a clean bill of health.

• Grab a handful of salt, and check out Debka's take on Iran's regional goals. Of particular interest is the re-orientation of Turkey towards Iran and away from Israel. More on Turkey below...

DOMESTIC SECURITY BRIEFINGS

• A senior Hamas financier has been arrested for videotaping the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Maybe of interest: The Globalization of Hamas Terrorism.

• Osama's chauffeur has been charged with conspiracy to commit war crimes and delivering weapons to al-Qaeda. David Hicks, the Aussie Taliban and KLA fighter, will also be charged with war crimes.

• Law enforcement continues to play a valuable role in the fight against terror by following the money.

• The eight men charged with conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism have been remanded in custody. They have also been charged with conspiracy to murder in the period from Jan. 1, 2000, to Aug. 4, 2004. They were arrested on August 3rd in a pretty rushed fashion, with high speed chases rather than early morning raids. Perhaps the British disrupted something rather nasty...

• The Swiss have netted a suspected al-Qaeda support cell, which allegedly provided false documents to al-Qaeda members looking to enter Europe. They've also blocked access to bank accounts containing $27 million.

• The U.S., Britain and Canada will conduct a joint exercise simulating attacks on those countries. The exercise will probably take place next year.

THE WIDER WAR

• The GSPC has killed seven Algerian security personnel in an ambush east of Algiers. As civilised as ever, they drew them in by setting a youth centre on fire.

• Hezbollah's deputy leader has announced that they are "more highly prepared than at any previous time" to fight Israel. The message is clear enough: attack Iran, and we'll hit back along the northern border.

• After the spate of truck bombs entering Jordan from Syria, the Jordanians are demanding Syria tighten border security.

• TIME magazine discovers that Abu Sayyaf is a real terrorist organisation - someone should let President Arroyo know... Meanwhile, a mortar-bomb placed outside a pharmacy in Jolo is discovered.

• The United States is warning of more terrorist attacks in Uzbekistan. 17 people have been convicted of involvement in the March-April terror campaign.

• Idris, a man who confessed that he'd blown up the Sari Club in Bali, will not be punished for it, due to the Indonesian constitution prohibiting retrospective anti-terror laws. He will serve 10 years for involvement in the Marriot Hotel bombing - not nearly enough for helping kill 12, let alone the 202 killed in Bali.

• Pakistani Prime Minister Shujaat Hussain says Jihad is the supreme duty of every Muslim.

• The Islamic Jihad have called for Moqtada al-Sadr to attack oil pipelines in Iraq.

• A war crimes court in Sierra Leone has reported that Charles Taylor sold conflict diamonds to al-Qaeda.

• Al-Qaeda turn to petty crime to support themselves.

• Barry Rubin looks at the increasingly strong Islamist party in Turkey. Today's Turkey has good relations with Syria and Iran, poorer relations with Israel and the U.S. and a weak military establishment, which has kept Turkey secular. (Thanks to someguy).

• Lastly, did you ever want to give the president a makeover?

Thanks for reading! If you found something here you want to blog about yourself (and we hope you do), all we ask is that you do as we do and offer a Hat Tip hyperlink to today's "Winds of War". If you think we missed something important, use the Comments section to let us know.

UPDATE:

• A new report claims that Syria was a customer of AQ Khan, and purchased centrifuges to enrich uranium.

• Pakistan foils attacks against U.S. Embassy, Musharraf and government targets.

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This is, for example, kind of crucial in solidifying (or, better, creating) the legitimacy we're seeing in Iraq.

The consequence of losing that legitimacy looks like this:

Maria del Refugio Perez is a 60-year-old street vendor who says she abhors violence. But this month, she joined a raging mob that corralled, pummeled and hog-tied a suspected thief and almost burned her alive.

Drawn by a butcher's shouts that she had caught the woman grabbing money from a cash drawer at her shop, Perez and other neighbors quickly seized her. Once the church bells in this Mexico City suburb started ringing, signaling a town emergency, the mob grew in size — and anger.

"These things happen because the authorities don't do anything," Perez said, recalling days later how the woman, Juana Moncayo, was tied to a flagpole in the town plaza for several hours as the crowd of 200 insulted and beat her.

An orderly society not only requires some control over who gets to use force and in what conditions; more important, it requires a public sphere of justice and respect for the law. The risk of a formulation like Kleiman's is that we may decide not to punish certain criminals, because for us as a society, it is as Kleiman suggests simply too expensive (we do that today - ever try and report an auto burglary in a major city?). Kleiman says:

[Putting someone away is a benefit when an especially active bad guy gets locked up, preferably for a long time, thus reducing criminal victimization through incapacitation, but the median person who goes to prison isn't actually worth locking up, balancing the costs -- financial and non-financial -- of keeping him behind bars against the benefits of the crimes he doesn't commit while incarcerated.]

In making that calculation, he needs to add to the costs the erosion of the legitimacy of the overall body of laws in the eyes of the victimized noncriminal class.

« ok, I'm done now

China, Taiwan and Hong Kong

• Sports: Tom reports on Hong Kong's newest metallic import from Europe. Laosan talks about China's stunning early success at the Olympics. The Ruck talks about China's outshooting the gun-loving USA.

• While on sport, there was the Asia Cup soccer final between Japan and China. ACB was looking at the build-up the final. Fumier congratulated Japan on their weekend soccer win but says China has won too. ESWN wraps-up the stories and photos of the weekend's Asia Cup from the press. FY looks at the whole mess from Korea, saying it proves China's not ready for an Olympics. Jodi also has more. The Ruck has photos and also has some strongly worded thoughts on the hooliganism of China's fans. ESWN looks at passion in soccer and rates the Asia Cup final.

• The Rest of the World: Chris looks at the problems with Hong Kong's list system of voting in the upcoming LegCo elections. Hong Kong was titillated with when a LegCo candidate was arrested for soliciting a prostitute in China. ESWN notes significant differences between the English and Chinese language versions of events. He also notes the rapid retreat by HK's Democrats in claiming political persecution.

• "The sloppy baker" finds some say it is a matter of not if but when China will invade Taiwan, while Donald Sensing takes another look at the potential for China to invade Taiwan.

• ACB says China has compiled a summary of China's assessments of various naval powers.

• Stephen says when the US releases Uygurs from Guatanamo Bay, they won't be going back to China. There are good reasons why. He also summarises the recent history and current suppression of China's Uygur population.

• Andrea wonders if China is actually worried by a possible reunification of Korea?

• ACB says CCTV, China's official TV network, has subtly endorsed John Kerry.

• Ralph Jennings talks about the case of Zhao Yan, the Chinese citizen bashed by a US border guard, and how it is being used as a pawn in a propaganda campaign. It also points out some stark differences in how the case is being handled to how it would be handled in China. ESWN says stupidity can be a two-way street in dealings between East and West. He also updates the facts on the case of Zhao Yan, the Chinese woman in question.

• Economy: Richard looks at the release of a book written in 1989 that predicted many of the problems now emerging in the world's greatest toilet bowl: the Three Gorges Dam.

• China is facing a shortage of migrant labour for the first time in 20 years. ALN has. plenty. more. about it, including why, as does China Herald.

• ALN also says China is not just attracting investment, it is starting to become a big investor itself.

• ESWN continues his translation of the controversial study of China's peasantry that's been banned on the Mainland.

• Edward Hugh says the China economic slowdown has begun; the question is how will it end?

• Which would you rather: working in rice paddies or rubbing feet?

• ESWN talks about sales training in China, the begging way. He also highlights two very different approaches to reporting the same event. There's additional commentary on this from ALN and CSR Asia.

• Taiping talks about the emergence of China as a force in modern architecture.

• Culture & Society: Danwei has a list of China's top Google searches for July. Also Google never cut a deal with China's censors, according to one of its founders.

• Slowly but surely Putonghua (Mandarin) is asserting itself as China's national language, but at what cost? Jodi takes a look at the same issue.

• In China, some things can be illegal but not a crime.

• ALN reports that doing good deeds in China sometimes has a price.

• After all the fuss over Hong Kong's ICAC raids on newspapers, it turns out all they had to do was ask.

• Fons says China's efforts at clamping down on online p0rn has been primitive and largely unsuccessful.

• China has both a new rock star and a hairy beast.

• John at LiC talks about China's latest fashion craze.

• Chris has a look at Hong Kong's alleged paper of record: the South China Morning Post. Marmot says Korean and Chinese journalists are at war.

• Tom explains why AIDS is dangerous just to talk about in China.

• Via LiC I came across this survey of differences in attitudes between Chinese and American students on a range of issues. Also via LiC is this article by Shelley Timmins on the differences between Chinese people and Chinese tourists.

• They say that sex sells...firstly Danwei says sex education classes are starting early in China.

• Secondly there was another trade fair in China: the adult toy expo. It includes this interesting bit: "In Australia we sell three million vibrators per year, mostly made in China," said Michael Rutner, of 'Next to nothing'. That means on average one vibrator for every sexual active woman." Now you know why Aussie women smile so much.

Korea and Japan

• Again with all things Olympic, Tom talks about Japan's latest efforts to capture Olympic gold, and they are extreme. It's not the Olympics butJodi follows Bobby Fischer's Japanese chess game.

• Just in case readers in America thought North Korea was nothing to worry about, maybe you should think again.

• South Korean President Roh doesn't want North Korean refugees. Marmot has more on those pesky defectors. Meanwhile Jodi looks at that little known group: defectors to North Korea.

• Kevin says the Korean blog block continues in part, as does FY.

• Marmot and Cathartidae covered the ongoing tussle between Korea and China over that most delicate of topics: history. Marmot goes through the background of this tiff here. Oranckay has more and thinks the spat will serve to cure those in Korea fixated with China. Marmot has plenty more on the Koguryo controversy here and here.

• Coinciding with Liberation Day in Korea (FY has the historical details) Kimchee GI translates an article that says South Korea's economy is being dragged down by left wing values.

• Conrad explains that smell in Tokyo.

• Jodi talks about some forgotten survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. She also explains why it's not good to be a Korean dog when it gets hot.

• South Korea was trying to ban reporting on its deployment of troops to Iraq.

SE Asia

• Everybody is blogging these days...although most people just stop blogging when they've had enough instead of abdicating their throne.

• First Conrad says "Crooks Endorse Fool", then Myrick finds a coalition of the despicable building in Indonesia.

• Myrick also disagrees with Lee Kwan Yew about what Beijing did in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

• The Swanker says cedrtain prisoners were celebrating Indonesia's Independence Day; there may even be a family reunion in the offing, including mass murderers. Jakartass talks about some who didn't get to celebrate the big day and excerpts an editorial that hopes the day will be a reason to look forward as well as back. The Swanker says another crook in Indonesia's military got away with it. Jodi also takes an insightful look at the mess. Jakartass looks at Indonesia's judicial system and finds it wanting. Conrad asks why foreigners would bother investing in Indonesia.

• Mr. Brown says political freedom may be coming to Singapore, via the mobile phone. Apparently Singapore is not even a U.S. ally. Rajan said happy birthday, Singapore. Nicholas looks at the Singaporean blogging of its National Day and isn't impressed; instead he gives a dose of realism. Mr. Brown asks is Singapore a country or a child-care centre? (also at Andrea)

• Richard looks at another country following North Korea's example.

• Giles has found an alternative to the traditional wedding cake in the Philippines.

• Jodi follows the aftermath of Malaysia's PM remarks on religious tolerance and how it took less than a week for tolerance to give way to warring. She also talks about religious tolerance (or lack thereof) in Asia.

• CC asks where are the Philippine press in reporting on the revelations of Gracia Burnham and he takes the Philippine Government to task over its spin efforts on the testimony. Wretchard talks about the whole mess in the Southern Philippines and wonders how much (if at all) the US should help.

• Jodi measures the toll of the massive monsoons that wrecked havoc over South Asia.

Miscellany

• The alternative Big Mac index continues compiling the numbers from around the world. The premise is simple: how long does it take a McDonald's worker to earn enough to buy a Big Mac?
  
• Wayne has found a fake Chinese document with interesting contents.

• Spirit Fingers has the results of HK's beauty pageant. There's also the new series of lesser-known brands to shop for and the "fashion road-kill" series continues.

• Tony conducts an interesting experiment in racism.

• Jodi says it ain't easy being a husband in Thailand. She also gives a detailed account of "booking" (with an intro here).

• Roy's trying his hand at redrawing maps.

• Via Doug comes this article on how it can be tough for single Western women living in Asia (printed from the Asia Wall St Journal from September 2003).

• In the history section, Joel looks at some of the last holdouts from WW2.

« ok, I'm done now

I thought we could have easily avoided the war in Vietnam by supporting the legitimate national aspirations of the Vietnamese people against the colonial power - the French - that ruled them.

I thought that we were sending the wrong message to the world by supporting dictators and by using our might to oppose a relatively weak and poor enemy. I believed then, as I believe now, that we have been given our power and wealth to help the weak and poor, not to kill them.

When I graduated college, like other young men of that era, I was feeling a draft. I wavered - I certainly wasn't excited about fighting in a war that I did not believe in - but I also knew that I owed a duty to my country and to those who had fought for the freedom I enjoyed.

Duty won, as it often has in my life, and I enlisted.

Whatever I have done in my life, I've tried to do well. When I enlisted, I made a conscious decision that if I was to wear the uniform of the United States Navy, I would be the best sailor that I could possibly be.

And when I was given a command, I decided I was going to be the best leader I could be. I would execute my missions, protect and lead my men, and put my life on the line in service to the country that had given me so much.

I did my best to do so.

But it was difficult. Not only because the work was hard and dangerous, which it was and which I freely accepted when I put on the uniform for the first time.

It was difficult because what I had believed about the war as a college student was confirmed in front of my eyes every day by me and my men and the men who served with us. We used the machinery and power of a mighty state to kill people who - dangerous as they were to us as individuals - were no threat to us as a state, and whose desire was simply that we leave them alone and let them have their own country.

I talked to Vietnamese men, women, and children while I was there. Members of their armed services who rode on my boat, women and children in the cities where we were based. They hated the Communists, but knew that the Communists had only been able to take power when the French refused to leave. I began to regret every morning, every new mission, every bullet that we fired.

Today, looking at what tragedy followed out withdrawal, I am filled with a different regret. I wonder if I was right. I know that there must have been a better way.

The regret then became a moral struggle within me that I felt began to weaken my ability to perform as an officer, and would - I believed - either destroy me as a person or cause me to fail in my duties and endanger my men.

I took the option open to me because of my wounds, and asked - as many others did - to leave the theater of battle. I no longer had that moral certainty I had entered the Navy with, and as I struggled, the decision to simply leave certainly seemed like the right one to make.

When I came home, I began to talk to other veterans who felt as I did, and who questioned what we had done and what was being done by our fellows in our name. The more we talked, the more certain I became that the war was wrong, and that we needed to work hard to stop it.

I did so, in every way open to me.

In doing that, I said and did some things that were immature, exaggerated, and hurtful. I don't know today if the moral value of any help I may have been in ending the war outweighs the personal hurt that I visited on my fellow veterans. I hope it does, and I offer my hand in apology to those whose wounds I deepened.

Today, I still believe that we have to balance duty and morality - a service to a higher honor, and that the hardest thing we can do looking forward is to strike that balance as best we can.

History and my Church both teach that we are imperfect. I know that in my own life, I have tried to balance the conflicts as best I can, and while I know that I could have done better then if I knew what I know now, that I did the best I could and I have never hung my head because I did not try.

The scar of Vietnam is deep within the memories of this country and the lives of the Vietnamese even today.

I cannot dissolve that scar and make it as though there was never a wound. But I can stand before you, imperfect and human, as we all are and offer my own life and service and my continued service to lessening the pain of the past and improving our vision of the future.

No one who stands behind the podium that I am behind today is free of ambition. But please know that the ambition I have is not for myself - I have already been far more successful than I ever dreamed as a child - but for the future we can make together, a future where wounds are healed by hope.

« ok, I'm done now

Footnotes:

{1} Most divisive? The Civil War, of course.

2nd place actually belongs to the War of 1812. Not only was the war bitterly opposed in the legislature and beyond; it is likely that a Northeastern secessionaist movement would have arisen had the war continued much longer. Unlike Vietnam, however, the War of 1812's long-term effects were much more positive: it gave America her national anthem, The White House (painted so after we burned it down), and the beginnings of a strong national identity.

« ok, I'm done now

SOCIETY:

• The presidential elections are still some two months away, but the foundations have already been laid down with considerable success: according to initial United Nations reports, almost 80 per cent, or 7.9 million out of estimated 10 million eligible voters have registered to vote in October's poll. Other reports at the time put the figure as high as 9 million registered voters, but when the voter registration officially closed on Sunday, 15 August, the United Nations realized that a staggering 9.9 million Afghans had registered to vote, of whom almost 42 percent were women. In the words of Manoel de Almeida e Silva, a spokesman for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), "This registration process has concluded after a number of problems and what is even more remarkable is the number of Afghans registered in spite of these problems." One of those who have recently registered to vote is Afghanistan's former king.
  


• To assist in the proper running of the election some much needed foreign aid continues to flow in, including an addition $2 million from Australia (A$2 million has already been provided). "Australia's total assistance to Afghanistan since September 2001 stands at [A]$110 million, making it Australia's third largest humanitarian effort, exceeded only by East Timor and Iraq," said Australia's foreign minister Alexander Downer. The European Union is also providing an extra $10.9 million towards the running of the elections. Some 5,000 polling centers are expected to operate across the country, each consisting of 5 polling stations, making it a total of 25,000 places where the Afghans will be able to cast their vote in October.
  


• There's already considerable political interest in the presidential poll:
  

  "Three of the political parties, the Afghanistan National Unity, the Afghanistan National Welfare and the National Ideal of the People of Afghanistan officially began their activities on Saturday August 17 after registering with the Afghan judiciary.

  "The latest reports released by Afghanistan's Justice Ministry indicate that so far 61 parties have asked for permission to campaign for the nation's top job and 31 parties have obtained permission to participate in the elections.

  "According to Afghanistan's laws on parties, one of the main conditions for establishing a party is to dissolve military sections; therefore, it seems that Afghanistan's active political parties have done an about-face in their policy by accepting this law."

• The Afghan Joint Electoral Management Body has recently announced the names of 18 eligible candidates for the presidential election. "Of the 23 candidates who filed their nomination papers prior to the 26 July deadline, three were rejected for failure to comply with the nomination procedures and two others later withdrew."
  


• Not surprisingly, it's those who have suffered the most in the past who feel most passionately about the need for democracy. Take, for instance, the Panjshir valley, which used to be the hotbed of anti-Taliban resistance and where the voter registration figures now are twice what the UN has originally expected. As the poll draws near, the enthusiasm is palatable:
  

  "Like virtually every adult in this Panjshir Valley village, Rahmal Beg registered to vote weeks ago. Indeed, popular enthusiasm is so high for the Oct. 9 presidential election -- the first in Afghan history -- that thousands of people in the valley have reportedly registered twice. " 'Everyone wants to vote,' the 75-year-old farmer said proudly. 'The radio, the mullahs and the district officials have all promoted the election. This is our chance to choose a leader who is patriotic and Islamic. Our valley was the center of resistance against the Russians and the Taliban. Now we want to become the center of democracy'."

• The feelings are similar among the minority Hazaras who have also strongly opposed the Taliban takeover in the 1990s and as a consequence suffered thousands of their own people killed by Mullah Omar's not-so-holy warriors:
  

  "There is one main reason Sher Aga will not allow the Taliban to scuttle his chance to vote in the October presidential election. Aga... recalled how agents of the former regime fatally shot his friends in this provincial capital's bazaar.

  " 'They really exploited us,' he said at a teashop in the market. 'They killed a lot of our youth, burned our houses, destroyed the Buddhas and even released sheep and cattle into our fields to destroy our crops. Now it's a good opportunity for us to elect someone to serve the country... I have a voter card, so now I have the power...'

  "Aga's comments are typical of the ethnic Hazara minority who live in the central Afghan province of Bamian. Armed with a new constitution that guarantees equal rights to minority groups, Hazaras are engaged in an intense campaign to grasp some power and lift themselves from the bottom of Afghan society."

• There's more about the Hazaras in this current profile of their province:
  

  "It is an idyllic image of what the rest of Afghanistan could be: University students play volleyball against the backdrop of the destroyed Bamyan Buddhas, while groups of chattering young girls walk to school through fields of wheat. Taliban fighters are hiding in caves just 60 kilometres to the south, launching attacks against U.S.-led coalition forces, election workers and the aid community, but the central province of Bamyan has become the safest, most egalitarian place in Afghanistan."

• Unlike in some conservative tribal areas of Afghanistan, women were actively encouraged to enroll to vote by the local Hazara religious and community leaders, and they have done so in numbers equal to their men. Speaking of Hazaras, the famous ancient Buddha statues, whose destruction by the Taliban had generated so much anger across the world a few years ago, might soon be raised from the ashes, or in this case, rubble:
  

  "[T]he fate of the Buddhas may lie with a veteran Bavarian art restorer with a walrus moustache who has spent a lifetime in German castles and cathedrals. Edmund Melzl has been sent out by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) for the summer to sort through the rubble piles to evaluate whether they contain the raw material to rebuild... 'Yes, we think it is possible to recreate the Buddhas,' he said. 'In restoration terms, this is the biggest challenge imaginable. Really good restorers could do it. A giant scaffold is needed, and a lot of money. It could take years. We could train local people so Afghans would do most of the work'."

• Not a minority like the Hazaras, the Afghan women, too, continue to enjoy their new-found freedoms. Both Afghanistan and Iraq have for the first time sent official delegations to the Global Summit of Women, held this year in South Korea. "I can't compare before with now," says Soraya Rahim, deputy minister of the Afghan Ministry of Women's Affairs, who heads the nine-person delegation. Indicative of the huge social changes that have taken place in the post-Taliban Afghanistan, Masooda Jalal, a female doctor from the Tajik ethnic minority, is contesting the presidential elections. It's not just politics, as dangerous as they can be; after the hiatus of the fundamentalist rule women are also rejoining the security forces:
  

  "Nahid, 18, from Kushhal Kan in the western part of Kabul, leaned against the wall as she watched hundreds of young male recruits, march in formation in a graduation rehearsal at Afghanistan's only police academy. "Her decision to become a police officer had caused a family row, she said. Her uncle cut off all relations with her parents, who supported her decision to enter the academy. But despite such challenges, women are once again joining the ranks of the police in Afghanistan."

• And in their more traditional roles, yet still undreamed of under the Taliban, two Afghan women give birth to test tube babies at the Australian Concept Infertility Medical Centre in Karachi, Pakistan.
  


• As the situation in Afghanistan slowly returns to normal, refugees continue to flow back to their homeland: more than half a million have returned from Iran and Pakistan so far this year, bringing the total to 3 million out of the estimated 4.5 million who have left Afghanistan over the last quarter of a century of war and dictatorship. The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is providing an extra 20,500 housing units for the returnees. So far, "[a]s part of an initial reintegration effort to help vulnerable returnees, UNHCR, in collaboration with the Afghan Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation (MRR), provided some 100,000 rural shelter units as new homes that have benefited more than half a million Afghans in the past two years." You can read how this assistance is helping to rebuild houses in Kabul.
  


• In entertainment news, "Earth and Ashes", a film by Paris-based Afghan director Atiq Rahimi, shared the Best Picture prize with a Taiwanese entry at the sixth Osian Cinefan film festival. Back in Kabul, French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres has officially reopened the capital's famous 600-seat Arian cinema, which was destroyed during the civil war in the 1990s. The cinema was rebuild with donations from the French film industry. And Afghanistan now has its first entertainment television channel:
  

  "Using a mobile antenna positioned on a hill overlooking the capital, the broadcast range of 'Afghan TV' station only covers Kabul city, but its owner, Ahmad Shah Afghanzai, hopes to widen its range across the country in a year's time. 'Within a year we hope to be watched all over the country through a satellite station,' he told Reuters. Afghanzai, a 34-year-old businessman, has invested $200,000 in the nascent private operation, and needs nearly $3 million to expand it to cover the whole of the country."

• Mullah Omar must be turning in his cave. Another new station, Ayna TV (Mirror TV), which is broadcasting to northern Afghanistan, is also up and running.
  


• And in sports news, Friba Razayee and Robina Muqim Yaar are the first Afghan women to compete in the Olympics (in Judo and sprint, respectively): "When asked about her chances of winning an Olympic medal in Judo, Friba Razayee smiles and giggles that she's just happy to be able to compete at the games. 'I am really happy, winning or losing is not important for us, because we are the first women,' she says. 'The Olympic Games are important to us, we are all Olympians and it is important to us to participate and we are not here just for a medal'." Afghanistan was banned from competing in the 2000 Sydney Olympics, partly because the then Taliban government did not allow female athletes to participate.
  


• The sprinter Robina Muqim Yaar recently had this to say about the day she stopped wearing her burqa: "It was liberating, marvelous. I was very happy. The burka was not me, it was forced on many people by others." Her Olympic message back home is simple, yet powerful: "I am here to give hope to the women of my country. They can look forward to the future. Sports like athletics cost nothing to do. I would like to see many more Afghan women competing in sport."
  


• It's an example that others are already following. On the somewhat more junior level, eight girls with four months of soccer experience behind them are the first team from Afghanistan to participate in the International Children's Games, held this year in Cleveland, Ohio: "They're part of the Afghan Youth Sports Exchange, which brings Afghan girls to the USA for a six-week sports leadership camp. When program organizer Awista Ayub, a 24-year-old Afghan-American, learned about the Games, she realized it would be a great event for her girls to work toward." The rest, as they say is history; or in this case, history in the making. The team in now being couched by the local Cleveland soccer legend, Iranian immigrant Ali Kazemaini and President Bush has already met with the girls.
  


• Not just the two female members but the whole Afghan Olympic team is making history, even without getting onto the podium:
  

  "For Afghanistan's athletes, gold medals are a distant dream. For them, the Athens Olympics merely represent ground zero after years left out in the cold. For the five Afghan athletes bravely carrying the flag for their war-torn nation, Olympic glory will be measured simply by the fact they were able to take part at all.
  



• Afghanistan Olympic officials have long-term plans. 'All of Afghanistan is proud of what the athletes are doing in Athens,' Sayed Mahmood Ziadashti, vice-president of the Afghan Olympic Committee, told Reuters on Sunday. 'This is a very important step for Afghan sport and will encourage the youth and younger generations so we can build for the future'."More here about the tough journey of the Afghan team from their war-torn country to the Olympic stadiums: "The road to Athens is tough for any athlete, but for some it is lined with land mines. For those representing war-torn countries, training can mean risking bombs and bullets to reach the stadium, and making do without the barest essentials of equipment and coaching... But many say the adversity they face has strengthened their resolve to push themselves to the limit." Let's hope that win, lose or draw, the Afghan Olympic squad with their determination, tenacity and hard work will provide some much needed inspiration and role models for their compatriots.
  


• And finally, a moral victory in the war on the local scourge of drug cultivation, after Afghanistan's religious leaders declare any involvement in drug industry out of bounds: "Afghanistan's Council of Ulemas earlier this month issued a fatwa, or religious decree, saying the cultivation, processing trafficking and consumption of drugs must be prevented... opium poppy cultivation, even if it is not consumed by Muslims or if it is done out of poverty, is illegal." This coincides with signs of increased efforts to combat drug cultivation: "US-led coalition forces are preparing a coordinated effort to attack the narcotics trade in Afghanistan, recognizing that drug income could be used to fund insurgents and terrorists in the country."

RECONSTRUCTION:

• Says Lt. Col. Scott Normandeau, of Manchester, New Hampshire, commander of the 157th Communications Flight for the Air National Guard: "There is a huge reconstruction effort going on... I came back here [to the United States] and was surprised at what I heard on the news." Having been following the media coverage of Afghanistan I can sympathize with Lt. Col. Normandeau. "I don't think people realize, this isn't a country at war," he continues. "It is a country that is in the process of recovering." Normandeau provides a good picture of how the reconstruction is taking place every day, out of the eye of news camera:
  

  "The city is divided into reconstruction zones, whose first effort is to establish security. After that, people like Normandeau go from zone to zone, having tea with the governors and finding out what they need. Schools top the list, but after almost a quarter of a century trying to defend itself against invaders and the Taliban, they need everything.

  "So Normandeau and others act as liaisons between the provinces and the workers who are being taught basic skills such as plumbing techniques and reinforcing concrete. 'The engineering unit there isn't just doing the building for them, they are teaching them how to do it themselves,' Normandeau said. 'The Afghanis are learning a trade.'

  "Because the last two decades have been spent waging war, there hasn't been much time to create infrastructure, let alone build anything, Normandeau says. 'We are helping them rebuild and providing the security so they can do that,' he said. 'But we are just a part of it. Most of the security is provided by the Afghanis. And we are just one of 68 nations. There are Germans, Poles, Italians'...

  "Normandeau's area of expertise is telecommunications. In that role, he worked with the nationals to design systems, obtain equipment, build new telecommunication centers. The 'first generation' of communication will be cell phones, he said, which will replace the switchboards and radios in use now. After that - in five to 10 years - fiber-optic cables will be laid."

• On the other side of the world, University of California-Berkeley recently hosted about 100 businesspeople, professors and government officials at the International Conference for the Rehabilitation and Development of Infrastructures in Afghanistan. The conference was organized by the Society of Afghan Engineers, a global group of about 500 members, which has a large local branch in the Bay Area:
  

  "Invited to the conference were prominent guests including Afghanistan's deputy ministers of education, water and power, housing, irrigation, and education; leading scholars, such as Bernard Amadei, professor of civil engineering at the University of Colorado and head of the U.S. branch of Engineers Without Borders; and Afghan-American activists Rona Popal of Fremont and Humaira Ghilzai of San Francisco, both of whom simply want to understand what's going on in their homeland and see what they can do to help. "The academic setting provided an opportunity for Said Mirzada, 29, a Newark computer engineer who plans to return to Afghanistan in about two years. Mirzada wanted to meet with big names in the field such as Hunter Lovins, president of Natural Capitalism in Colorado, who spoke about how Afghan engineers have an opportunity to develop their homeland 'right the first time' by using eco-friendly infrastructure. 'My dream is to rebuild Afghanistan and get it stabilized,' Mirzada said."

• Back on the ground, the World Bank has announced a grant of $456 million, half of nearly $900 million already pledged to Afghanistan, which will be released by June next year. The Bank has also approved a $145 million package of extra assistance: "$35 million in grant funding for education, a $25 million credit for urban reconstruction, a $80 million credit to support the Afghan government's medium-term development strategy, and a $5 million in seed money for a private investment guarantee initiative."
  


• In transport news, Russian Railways (RZD) will be constructing a railway network which will link major Afghan cities and extend to Iran and Pakistan. Meanwhile, Pakistani Minister for Railways, Ghous Bukhsh Mehar, has announced that his government is considering the construction of the Pakistan-Afghanistan rail link to slash the high transport costs between the two countries and open Afghanistan to the international markets. "To accomplish the objective, both Islamabad and Kabul had already agreed to lay down railway track of about 103 Km between Chaman and Kandhar", said the Minister.
  


• Pakistan is also donating 200 trucks and 100 buses to help in the reconstruction effort in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the Manila-based Asian Development Bank is funding the development of a master plan to "identify the main road systems required to link major markets, production centers and development opportunities in Afghanistan" as well as linkages between Afghanistan and its neighbors. Earlier this year, the Asian Development Bank has already pledged $1 billion in loans and grants to Afghanistan between 2005 and 2008.
  


• And in the private sector, some quite unexpected business concepts prove to be quite successful: "Afghanistan's first fashion brand -- 'Tarsian & Blinkley' -- is selling fast in New York and various other cities around the world. It is a product of a company a 30-year-old female fashion designer has created with the local non governmental organization 'Morning Star.'
  

  " 'Morning Star''s office in the Taimai residential area in the heart of Kabul is always crowded with Afghan women, mostly those who lost their husbands to war, trying to meet the designer, Sarah Takesh, to sell their embroidered products..."

HUMANITARIAN AID:

• The Coalition forces, in addition to their vital security role, continue to assist in reconstruction. Some of their tasks are unlike any faced in previous deployments: for example, getting more girls to schools:
  

  "Coalition officials are working with village elders in Aibat Khile to improve the learning environment for the girls who are starting to go back to school. The groundbreaking ceremony for Aibat Khile Girls School was held July 15. 'As the number of children in the village grows, so does the number of students,' said Gen. Maulano, a local mujahedeen commander. 'There will be 600 girls attending Aibat Khile Girls School when the construction is done'."

• The Coalition governments are also providing valuable assistance, which in some cases can take quite a high-tech form:
  

  "The Bush administration is sending talking, electronic books to Afghanistan to give women basic lessons about public health. The concept is based on LeapPad, a top-selling line of electronic books that help children learn to read... "The books have a small wand that can be used to touch images of everyday life in Afghanistan that are then described in Dari or Pashto, the country's two principal languages. One scene describes how to make water safe to drink, another how to give basic care to an infant. Health clinics initially will distribute 20,000 books to Afghan women."

• Other health assistance is more straight-forward: "Japanese surgeons successfully removed a bullet from a 13-year-old Afghan girl's head, eight years after she was caught in crossfire in her war-torn homeland. Fatema Safar was hit by a stray bullet during fighting when she was five years old. The bullet, embedded near the top of her nose, caused her chronic headaches. Safar was brought to Japan by a Tokyo-based aid group last month for treatment." You can also read this story about one humanitarian "over-stayer" in Afghanistan: "When Army Col. (Dr.) Richard Gonzales arrived in Afghanistan, his mission was to serve 90 days before he could return to his family and private practice in Puerto Rico. Now, six months later, his private practice is sold and he has signed on for an entire year." Col. Gonzales will be teaching modern orthopedic techniques to Afghan surgeons.
  


• Civilians, too, are active in humanitarian work on the ground in Afghanistan. These are people like Cindy and Zack Taylor (Zack is a gastroenterologist in Germantown), who have taken medical teams with them into Afghanistan on six occasions so far. The genesis of their effort lies on September 11, when Cindy Taylor was onboard one of the planes which were diverted to Canada when the terrorists struck. "We began to ask ourselves what we could do to help," says Cindy.
  


• Agriculture still remains Afghanistan's major industry, and so in that area, too, some major assistance programs are currently under way. A native of Fairfield, Iowa, Randy Frescoln, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development business and cooperative program director, is going to Afghanistan on a six-month assignment to help increase agricultural growth and rural incomes. Meanwhile, Canada's Drew Gilmour is "trying to marry business and aid by forming Development Works Canada with two silent partners" in a $4 million aid project to build a sustainable business for Afghan farmers. Says Gilmour: "Smart development doesn't have to be charity. Emergency relief is absolutely necessary, but if a country is going to recover, it has to have opportunities. Long-term recovery can only happen through economic investment and job creation." Hence, Gilmour's new project: a vegetable dehydration facility.
  

  "Dehydration is labour-intensive and increasingly popular, two reasons that attracted Mr. Gilmour to it. In addition, the climate of Afghanistan allows many things to grow well. 'Afghanistan is an agricultural greenbelt. The quality of goods you can get there is amazing,' says Mr. Gilmour. 't's sandy, but things can grow in that environment. They have wonderful soil that has not been contaminated (by pesticides or chemicals).' "The company has already sold its dehydrated vegetables to Dutch, German, British and French customers. With produce coming from 1,200 farms, the new venture employs 5,000 people. A top-of-the-line dehydration factory is under construction and will open in December, employing another 125 people. A second factory is being considered."

• Another of Gilmour's projects: producing sun-died tomatoes, with four hundred farms led by women participating in the project.
  


• It's not just the Coalition governments which are providing funds and support to aid in Afghanistan's reconstruction: the government of New Zealand, for example, is spending an additional NZ$5 million on education, agriculture and governance programs, targeted specifically at the southeast province of Bamiyan, which is the base of the operation for a New Zealand provincial reconstruction team.
  


• Private businesses are also contributing to the reconstruction: "All thanks to the efforts of a construction company owner from Matsudo, Chiba Prefecture, a badly needed schoolhouse is rising from the rubble in a small village in the east of war-ravaged Afghanistan. Mitsuhiro Kanemoto, 61, has donated the majority of the funds for the project with money he raised to help the children of Qara-i-wazir, about 10 kilometers south of Kabul."
  


• Japanese students, too, lend a helping hand: students form Tsuruma Elementary School in Tokyo's Machida, for example, have all donated their old school bags after the graduation. "Artificial-leather manufacturer Kuraray, Co. and JOICPF [Japanese Organization for International Cooperation in Family Planning] teamed up in February to collect and deliver the bags, along with stationery and other utensils. Contributions came from around the nation. Of about 10,000 bags donated so far, 2,200 were shipped from Yokohama in May to the mountainous Nangarhar province of eastern Afghanistan. JOICFP has asked an Afghan group to distribute the bags to schools."

SECURITY SITUATION:

• The fight against the Taliban remnants continues: in recent fighting in the Khost province along the Pakistani border, the US forces have killed 50 Taliban fighters. In another recent success, "Afghan forces acting on a tip captured four regional Taliban commanders and killed six other militants in two separate weekend raids in southern Afghanistan." And in eastern Afghanistan, a Taliban commander has been killed during an unsuccessful ambush against a Coalition convoy.
  


• Some successes in border control, too, as Pakistani Frontier Corps arrest 13 suspected terrorists near the border between the two countries, also seizing a "huge quantity of arms and ammunition" that the arrested men were attempting to smuggle into Pakistan.
  


• After two and a half years out of power and under constant military pressure, a split has developed in the Taliban ranks, resulting in the formation of a breakaway faction. Claiming the loyalty of about one third of fighters, the new faction is led by Sabir Momin, the Taliban's deputy operations commander in southern Afghanistan. According to Momin, "the Taleban militia was beset by internal differences and suffered serious losses due to poor leadership." May they continue.
  


• As the new Afghan security forces are slowly building up and gaining strength, there is more foreign military assistance with Eurocorp, the European security force, arriving on the Afghan scene. In the force's first deployment outside Europe in its 12 year history, Eurocorp has now taken control over the 7,000-strong peacekeeping contingent in Afghanistan: "Eurocorps is made up of detachments from five European Union countries - Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg and Spain. Created in 1992 by France and Germany, it was later put at the service of the European Union and is certified as a NATO rapid reaction force... Ultimately some 350 Eurocorps troops will be deployed to Kabul. While the peacekeepers patrol Kabul and parts of northern Afghanistan, another 20,000-strong coalition of troops under the United States' leadership is hunting militants in the southern and eastern parts of the country."
  


• There is a strong cooperation between the foreign troops and the new Afghan security forces: the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, for example, has been airlifting Afghani army units to trouble spots around the country. Other contributions are smaller in scale, but just as valuable: "Cisko the sniffer dog is worth more than a new Corvette sports car, but his ability to intercept explosives is priceless."
  


• While armed forces work to guarantee a more peaceful tomorrow for the country, international organizations are working to deal with the legacy of Afghanistan's bloody past:
  

  "Ahmed has had to grow up fast. Aged 12, he found the bodies of his parents amid the rubble of their home bombed by Taliban aircraft four years ago. By then he was already a fighter in Afghanistan's resistance forces, and ever since has been providing for two younger sisters.

  "With shaved head and troubled, darting eyes, the thin 16-year-old seems to have lost his childhood, although he loves to play soccer when he can. Like thousands of other child soldiers in Afghanistan being prepared for civilian life under a programme sponsored by the U.N. children's charity UNICEF, he is looking forward to a less turbulent future.

  " 'I want to be a blacksmith,' he said, after enrolling in the scheme in a village on the old frontline between the Taliban and Northern Alliance forces north of Kabul."

• According Yousaf Ghaznavi, programme supervisor and UNICEF's local partner, between 2,000 and 2,500 former child soldiers (out of the total of around 8,000) have enrolled in the scheme since February. You can read more about this valuable program here.

No one is pretending that Afghanistan doesn't have a long way to go yet - it is, after all, starting almost from zero. But thanks to the Coalition military action that overthrew the Taliban regime almost three years ago, and with the continuing assistance from governments, organizations and individuals around the world, the Afghans are finally allowed to be optimists again. For a country that has suffered so much, it's a good start.

If you have tips for future editions of "Good news from Afghanistan", please email goodnewsafghanistan "at" windsofchange "dot" net. Similarly, for Iraq, please email goodnewsiraq "at" windsofchange "dot" net.

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REPORTS FROM THE FIELD

• An American reporter was released from captivity Sunday, but two French reporters and an Italian reporter have now been reported missing, as kidnapping seems to remain a popular sideline for Iraqi terrorists.

IRAQI POLITICS

• Ali, at Iraq the Model, discusses a strange, new experience inside the Iraqi National Assembly. The freedom to have open discussions and elections for the new Iraqi National Council. Zeyad from Healing Iraq has some thoughts as well.

• Grand Ayatollah Al-Sistani is leaving a London hospital, but remaining in England as he recovers from heart-related treatment. Al-Sistani is considered the most important moderating force in post-war Iraq and his departure from Iraq is seen by many as disapproval of Muqtada al-Sadr's activities.

THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE

• The Italian Friuli Briagade and 'Pozzuoli' unit will soon be "Changing the Guard" in Nasiriyah. The Trieste-based Friuli Briagade is due in Iraq on 27 August.

• Arthur Chrenkoff examines some recent U.S. polls regarding the war in Iraq and comes away confused.

ETCETERA

• Iraq's soccer team stunned Australia with a victory in the Olympic quarterfinals, and dealt a rebuke to President Bush as well for his campaign's ad mentioning their presence at the games.

• SSG Grant, a reservist combat engineer with Company B, 458th Engineer Battalion at Camp Victory-North has created quite a following with his cartoon series - Bohica Blues. For Milspeak-challenged individuals, BOHICA is the acronym for Bend Over Here It Comes

Again. Hat Tip: Intel Dump

• The troops are still there. So is the Winds of Change.NET consolidated directory of ways you can support the troops: American, Australian, British, Canadian & Polish. Anyone out there with more information, contact us!

• Don't forget Chief Wiggles' Toys for Iraq drive!

Thanks for reading! If you found something here you want to blog about yourself (and we hope you do), all we ask is that you do as we do and offer a Hat Tip hyperlink to today's "Winds of War". If you think we missed something important, use the Comments section to let us know.

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They shut him up. Fast. You never even saw him. No footage of him coming off the plane, no flags or banners waving, no parade in his honor. He came home from Iraq in May, but there wasn't even a formal announcement. In fact, you're not supposed to know he's here.

He lives in a secret location. It might be just down the street, or it might be halfway to nowhere. Maybe he was sitting at the next table last night, having dinner right beside you. You have no way of knowing: Nobody knows what he looks like.

[...]

Each day, she would catch another snippet of the hostility brewing around her. There was the candlelight vigil in Cumberland, Maryland, to show support for the disgraced soldiers, including the ones who did the torturing, about a hundred supporters standing in the pounding rain, as if beating and sodomizing prisoners were some kind of patriotic duty. Or the 200 people who gathered one night in Hyndman, Pennsylvania, waving American flags to honor Sivits, the first soldier tried in the scandal. They posted a sign in Hyndman. It said JEREMY SIVITS, OUR HOMETOWN HERO. And the mayor told reporters that even though Sivits would sometimes do "a little devilish thing," on the whole he was "a wonderful kid."

Where were the signs for Joe? Bernadette had to wonder. Where was his vigil? Where was his happy mayor? Where were his calls of support? Down at the gas station, Clay overheard some guys say that Joe was "walking around with a bull's-eye on his head," just casually, just like, oh, everybody knows Joe's dead. Some of Bernadette's family even let her know that other members of the family were against her now, that they couldn't support a traitor. The more Bernadette heard, the more paranoid she became. How serious was this? Her nerves were so fried from the media onslaught that she couldn't be sure what was serious and what was just talk. Had those cops really ignored Maxine because they were against Joe? And if so, what else would they ignore?

[...]

And then the phone rang.

It was a major from the U.S. Army, and he was coming over. Within a few minutes, everything began to shift around Bernadette, and it was hard to tell what was happening. She found herself in the passenger seat of an unmarked government vehicle, speeding down the highway to some unknown destination, Clay's truck right behind her with Maxine and the kids packed inside, the whole group snatched up by military protective custody without any prior warning or even a clear idea of why. Bernadette called Virginia and said, "We're in protective custody now. I don't know where we're going, but we'll call you when we get there."

The whole thing felt insane. Could all this really be happening? Did they know something she didn't?

Well, yes. Quite a few things, actually. Like, one thing Bernadette didn't know—because almost nobody knows it, because almost everybody who does know has either been lying or keeping it a secret—is the rest of the story, what really happened at Abu Ghraib. Oh, you hear allusions to the fact that certain things haven't been told, like Rumsfeld saying in May that the whole story is "a good deal more terrible" than what you've seen. But you don't hear Rumsfeld saying any more than that, or explaining what "more terrible" means.

[...]

All this in a prison, by the way, that was overcrowded by about 350 percent. According to Major David DiNenna, who served under Karpinski in Abu Ghraib, "Towards the end, we had over 7,000 prisoners. We were only supposed to run 2,000." Karpinski says the same thing.

Or how about this: children. Little kids. In the prison. Sure, the army will say they weren't little, but they were, and they still are. According to Florian Westphal, at the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva, there have been at least 107 juveniles in American custody this year, and according to an army spokesman at the Pentagon, there are still "about sixty juveniles under the age of 18"—but he insists that "the youngest would be 14." As if 14 isn't young. As if 14 is a perfectly reasonable age to be housed in an adult prison.

Not that it's even true.

At least one person from Abu Ghraib says the kids in custody go far younger than that. And this person ought to know. After all, it was her prison—that is, until military intelligence and private contractors took it away. "There was one kid in there, he looked like he was 8," remembers General Karpinski. "His hands were on the bars, and he was clearly a juvenile. So I touched his hands, you know, and I spoke to him in Arabic to the extent that I could. I asked him how old he was, and he said that he was almost 12 and that he wanted his mother and could his mother please come, and he was crying, and he was grabbing my hand so hard. I asked him, what did he do? What was he there for? And he said he was bringing some food, and all of a sudden these soldiers came, and there was a lot of noise and a lot of shouting, and him and his brother were just playing there, just bringing some food to these people. So I asked him, 'Do you know about any weapons? Saddam? Planning?' He was swearing to me, 'No, no,' and crying. His brother was with him in the cell, and I asked him how old he was, and he said 15."

[...]

You didn't see those pictures on the news though, didn't hear Rumsfeld talk about that. Just like nobody except Janis Karpinski is talking about the three military-intelligence officers who were sent home in January after the sexual assault of two female prisoners. That case is confidential, just like the roughly 5,950 pages of Major General Antonio Taguba's 6,000-page investigation of the Abu Ghraib scandal are "confidential." Just like all the pornography coming out of Abu Ghraib is being kept from you, the videos of Lynndie England fellating an unidentified man, the pictures of soldiers having sex. The members of the United States Congress apparently couldn't tell who the man was when they watched the highlight reel on a loop in a dark room on Capitol Hill one afternoon in May, an event that one Congressman calls "Bizarro World," with representatives coming and going while hundreds of pictures and videos rolled by, people like Nancy Pelosi sitting in front of a screen of depravity, with a military minder occasionally interjecting, "This one's from Tier 1A."

That wasn't on 60 Minutes II, either.

Just try calling your senator and asking him about that. Ask him what he saw. Any children? Pornography? Sexual abuse? Richard Durbin: No comment. Lindsey Graham: Can neither confirm nor deny. Joseph Lieberman: No response. Sam Brownback: No response. Carl Levin: No comment. Joseph Biden: No comment. Ron Wyden: Can neither confirm nor deny. Tim Johnson: Can neither confirm nor deny. Jon Corzine: No comment. Chuck Schumer: No response. Barbara Boxer: No comment. John Warner: No comment. Lincoln Chafee: No comment. Dianne Feinstein: No comment.

[...]

Three months in protective custody have been a mixed blessing. The house has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a chandelier. That's all you need to know. That, and also that it's the nicest house they have ever had. They've made friends with the security detail and will probably stay in touch, and Joe changed his appearance, just a little, just to be sure.

Read The Rest Scale: 10 out of 5. Read The Rest, for god's sake. And ask: how is it this is what we do to a hero?

This isn't America.

This should not be America.

This must not be America.

Gary Farber's home blog is Amygdala.

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BIOTECH & MEDICAL

• The government continues to fund biovaccines in preparation for any future terrorist attacks through Project BioShield. However, government money may not be enough to cover all the costs. Learn more about the companies that are putting forth such efforts and the products they are developing.

• Findings from a recent animal study indicate that we may actually be able to get by (a bit better) with a little help from our friends.

• Women who think they will live longer lives tend to produce boys when pregnant. It sounds a little crazy, I know, but that's what the data indicates.

• Skinplex is a product which enables the skin to transmit data. Soon we'll be able to trade business cards and other information with nothing more than a handshake.

• The world continues to witness scandal after scandal involving athletes who seek to get ahead of the competition through drug doping. Too many athletes are getting caught, and its most embarassing when Olympians are bagged on the international stage. So, some are looking for new, less detectable solutions.

NANOTECH

• Some oil companies are looking to use nanotechnology to make oil extraction more efficient, and increase their recoverable reserves.

• Meanwhile, nanotechnology is also being touted as a key enabler of competitive alternative energy solutions.

• Nanodot.org points to a speech by India's President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, who says "Our Future Lies in Nanotechnology." Given India's past record developing an IT industry in Bangalore et. al. via IIT, it will be interesting to see what investments are made in nanotech education.

INVENTION & DISCOVERY

• Food allergy sufferers may soon have reason to celebrate. Scientists at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology are using high frequency sound waves to neutralize the protein in sesame seeds which unleashes the harmful allergenic effects. The scientists believe that the same technology can be applied to peanuts, milk and other foods.

• Sir Isaac Newton is one of the most famous and most accomplished scientists in world history, and we will soon be able to learn much more about him on the web. I'll be checking it out for sure.

• DARPA is creating its own 'U-Haul in the Sky' which will be able to deliver an 1,800 person unit to any spot in the world within four days. Sure, sometimes DARPA stretches it's creative mind a bit too far, but then other times they come up with the most useful technologies in the world.

• Smoke em out! Who? No, not al Qaeda or the Taliban. In Tokyo, robot guards are being designed to locate and even apprehend ordinary intruders.

• Have you ever felt uncomfortable sitting next to a glass window on a bright and sunny day because the heat from the sun seems to keep pouring in? Well, smart glass will provide the benefits of sunlight without all that heat.

• The Society for Information Display held its annual international symposium where visitors got to play with all the up and coming visual gadgets that will soon (or already have) hit the marketplace. Very cool stuff.

SPACE

• If humans will ever reach the most distant galaxies, then it will certainly require some degree of hibernation. A typical trip might span across several generations. Well, while it still may be decades away, scientists are already at work studying the possibilities of human hibernation.

• As we venture further away from this planet, space law is becoming a bright new field for the next generation of attorneys, and the rules are still being written.

• Meanwhile, Alan Boyle's Cosmic Log explores the future of space tourism.

THE ENVIRONMENT

• John Atkinson explores wave power and its potential to reduce California's dependency on coal, natural gas and all that stuff.

• Hybrid cars generate and store electrical energy, and the surplus power may some day be sold to power companies. Will ownership of hybrid vehicles turn into a moneymaking scheme for the environmentally aware drivers out there?

• The Beeb frets over the future possibility of a super tsunami and other "gee-gees" which could wipe out whole cities, and

• "Dead zones" have been detected off the Oregon coast and Scotland too. Global warming may be the culprit.

• On the bright side, the huge uniform stretches of Purple Loosestrife cluttering up North American ecosystems may soon be a thing of the past. This invasive European species has some natural enemies, and tests in my different locations reveal that importing some of them will cut Lythrum salicaria down to size - without negative effects on the rest of the ecosystem.

Please check back soon for another exciting edition of Winds of Discovery!

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Religious Hate:

• Via MEMRI: Egyptian Government Weekly Magazine on 'The Jews Slaughtering Non-Jews, Draining their Blood, and Using it for Talmudic Religious Rituals’ Res ipsa loquitor, as Ralph Nader would say. Reading the fine print, the weekly in question is only “linked” (there’s that word again) to the Egyptian government. Obviously not a career threatening move though for the personnel involved.

• Al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad threatens Dutch with 'Islamic earthquake' Hey, they know it really is an international coalition. “You did not learn the lesson of Spain” says Zarqawi’s group (what lesson is that again?) Similar greetings have been extended to Denmark and of course Italy. Old CW: AQ groups are scary because they don’t have a strategy. New CW: AQ groups are scary because they do have a strategy.

• Frontpage’s Erick Stakelbeck and Michal Deskalo write that Hamas has up a website to indoctrinate and recruit suicide bombers. According to the article, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade all run summer camps to indoctrinate youth in terror. It’s hard to believe but if you see the pictures that Charles Johnson has put together, it’s quite chilling. The part that sticks in my craw: Hamas recognizes academic excellence, but then,

  The students were presented with certificates of achievement and told to avoid “the Western lands of the infidels” while pursuing their college degrees.

  Feh, again with the kufr cooties. Hat tip – Rochi Ebner.

• Not exactly hate speech, but interesting nonetheless: Islamists in Pakistan chose to conduct debate about the appropriate curricula for madrassa – with bombs. I too have wanted to blow up my computer on occasion, but this strikes me as… extreme.

• These guys are not moderates: MEMRI has translated a Friday sermon delivered by Sheikh Abu Hamza Al-Masri in London’s Finsbury Park Mosque on April 23. And Qazi Hussain Ahmed (”Suicide bombers represent the real Ummah”), leader of Pakistan’s largest religious party Jamaat-e-Islami, is to speak in Oslo August 22

• You remember Mohammed Junaid Babar, don’t you?

  This is the man who attracted a lot of attention after 9/11 by claiming that his mother had safely gotten out of the World Trade Center on that day -- and that he was going over to Afghanistan to join Al-Qaeda.

  Turns out when he said he would fight us, he meant it: he’s pleaded guilty to a bomb buildings in London, and is suspected of planning terror in New York. why?

  "I did grow up there. But that doesn't mean my loyalty is with the Americans," said Babar in a November 2001 interview. "My loyalty will, has always been, is, and forever will be with the Muslims.”

  Interesting that he sees these as disjoint sets. Can we afford to disbelieve people who say such things?

• I’ve seen many items on the centrality of jihad with respect to the current crisis in Darfur. Garry Farber points to a Slate piece which discusses jihad as motivation for Darfur genocide. I’ll confess I’m still not clear on this. I need a diagram.

Idiotarian Seethings:

• From Winds of Change commenter “JK” comes this tidbit about the Socialist Workers Party:

  At the SWP’s Marxism 2003 conference one former Alliance member claimed that women’s rights and gay rights were described by the secretary of the Stop the War Coalition as a ‘shibboleth’ which couldn’t be allowed to get in way of unity with Muslim groups.

  So much for the universalist nature of secular humanism.

• Via Joe Katzman to Michael Totten, check out this WaPo editorial calling out Ralph Nader for accusing our President and Congress of being Israeli “puppets”.

  This is poisonous stuff. And if Mr. Nader doesn't understand what such words actually mean, the less savory elements of American society certainly know how to read such code.

  Two cheers for the Post (if they ran this as News, they’d get three), but with respect, most elements of American society know how to read this “code”, if you can even call it that.

• John-Paul at Watchblog has more on Nader (Hat tip – Rochi Ebner)

Race and Culture:

• Via Drudge: Just another case of random Frenchmen ranting at Jews who make the mistake of identifying with Israel. That these Jews were the subject of violent rage while visiting Auschwitz makes it noteworthy.

  It was simply shocking," he [Weinbaum] says. "In some way, I felt that these men were satisfied to visit Auschwitz. This was another reminder that in Western Europe there is sympathy for dead Jews; it's just the live ones that they cannot tolerate."

• Iranian world Judo champion Arash Miresmaeili has refused to fight Israeli Ehud Vaks. The refusal is “voluntary” but consistent with the policy of the Iranian Olympic team, which remains defiant:

  “Our policy is not to recognize the Zionist regime in any international event ... We cannot accept the presence of anyone in international events under the flag of that regime”, government spokesman Abdollah Ramazanzadeh told a news conference.

  Principled political stand, or outright bigotry? The right of an athlete to protest is hard to question, but his right to do so immune to penalty and sanction must be forfeit. A price must be paid, or else international sporting will have to end all pretense to being a brake on discord, and assume the role of an engine. Sadly it seems the IJF disagrees with me, there will be no penalties for Miresmaeili or his team as the IJF have accepted the “official” dodge disqualification that Miresmaeili couldn’t make weight. I don’t believe it.

  Iran's President Mohammad Khatami said Miresmaeili's act would be recorded among the nation's glories.

  Obviously Iran’s “moderate” president doesn’t believe it either.

• Perhaps the War on Terror really is a war on bad philosophy:Psychiatrist: Terrorists 'normal'

  Suicide bombers are rational, sane people whose choice to end their lives as they kill others is considered perfectly normal in societies they grow up in, the Globe and Mail reported yesterday from a southern Ontario religious conference.

  How’d they get those ideas growing up?

• The echoes of Abu Ghraib continue to sound… ugly. Via Drudge we learn that the scandal’s whistleblowers, Sgt Joseph Darby, requires protective custody, and his family is shunned and threatened by the community. This “community” is obviously unworthy of the name.

• Meanwhile, back in the blogosphere, Gary Farber follows up on Bjørn Stærk’s efforts to call out hatred in blog comments. Bjørn comments:

  One thing I've begun to notice is how much easier it is to get links by taking another cheap shot at left-wing idiots than by criticizing people on your own side.

  Bjørn was pretty widely linked, though.

• And in that spirit of Bjørn’s call to action, I have to say I find this cartoon from Cox and Forkum to be over the top: neither nice, nor true, nor necessary. Nor funny.

• Via Drudge, more lessons on how not to conduct yourself online: Jerry Corsi, co-author of Unfit for Command” has had his bigoted internet flames come back to burn him. The more prominent your voice becomes, the bigger the bite, and “fairness” has nothing to do with it.

A Hopeful Snarky Note:

• The latest CD-ROM from patriotic resistance fighter Jordanian militant terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is more of the same tired material: wage jihad against the “crusaders”, “get up friends, God has opened the doors of paradise (to martyrs).”… boring. It’s like his script hasn’t changed in, like, fourteen centuries or something… oh wait… anyway, what really ticked me was not the content, but the title: ‘The Winds of Victory’. Sounds a lot like… hey! Paging Joe Katzman! I think the Z-man is infringing on your intellectual property! Forget the Patriot Act, sic the DMCA on this guy!

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REPORTS FROM THE FIELD

• Toughness, Silence and Solace: Zeyad at Healing Iraq expresses misgivings about the Allawi "toughness" but also describes the "silent approval" of Najafis for the coalition's efforts against the insurgents. He was recently in Basra, and describes his eventful trip back to Baghdad. Omar at Iraq the Model has been sojourning in Basra, which he describes as idyllic. I wonder if he ran into Zeyad? Anyway, he finds some levity in "Moqty's bandaged hand" (an old Iraqi trick to elicit female attention and sympathy).

• Last Chance Saloon: Another Iraqi blogger, Sam at Hammorabi, has been maintaining a running account of the Najaf battle from his "man-on-the-street" perspective. He describes the current situation as the "last chance before the final storm."

• Back to Iraq: Chris Allbritton has posted the transcript of the outtakes of his interview with Iyad Allawi on his blog. The published portion of the interview is available here.

• Worth a Thousand and One: Blackfive has some recent images you may not have seen on CNN.

• Western Iraq: The Forgotten Corner: Phil Carter has an excellent summary of some of the toughest fighting in Iraq, that you never heard.

RECONSTRUCTION & THE ECONOMY
(See Chrenkoff for one stop shop on social, cultural and economic good news.)

• Good News Sampler (Cultural): Iraqi women learn leadership lessons in the US, with 25% of Iraqi decision--making positions guaranteed to women. Another Iraqi delegation to the US studies the results of the Madisonian prescription for factionalization: cross-cutting alliances. The principle of federalism that Madison's concept was designed to facilitate receives the blessing of Ayatollah Sistani. He recommends that the "idyllic" provinces of Basra, Zikar and Missan merge to become part of a "democratic, federal and united Iraq."

• Good News Sampler (Economic): Expectations are high for oil production, and cooperative ventures with Kuwaiti, Iranian and Chinese firms. Availability and reliability of electricity are also improving with three new power plants as well as an agreement with a German firm to construct three more. Other industries that are improving include automobile manufacturing, and insurance.

• On the Field: Iraqis massacre the Portuguese and later scuttle the Costa Ricans to advance to the quarter final round in Olympic Soccer tonight (Wednesday).

IRAQI POLITICS

• Suicide by Hyperbole: After an attempt to negotiate everyone's favorite Shi'a cleric lists a series of "modest demands", employing what the Belmont Club calls the bargaining strategy from hell." When the conciliation is predictably rejected he vows to fight using the now-familiar Islamo/fascist sideways strategy.

• Deceptive Support: Ali at Iraq the Model has some interesting thoughts about the precise composition of the pro-Sadr demonstrations, which may spill over to explain some of the "pro-Sadr" sentiment expressed at the recent Iraqi National Conference, including the moderate tone of Sadr's cousin, Hussain. He argues that not everyone who "supports" Sadr really wants him to succeed.

• Channeling Saddam?: A delegation to Sadr is rejected, after which he wants to commune with the Pope (who could blame him). Then he decides to call a cease fire and leave Dodge, but within minutes issues new demands. According to the latest, he's still leaving. Where have we seen this before?

• Favorite Sons!: And how could we wrap up this Iraqi Politics section without mentioning that our friends at Iraq the Model are running for the Iraqi National Assembly! (Hat tip: Well... everybody.)

THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE

• The UNGovernment: The Sadr death dance deeply saddens Kofi Annan, but the UN Refugee Agency suspends convoys of Iraqi refugees from Iran. Meanwhile UNSCAM is finally covered by the NYT's Judith Miller.

• Who's Invited/Leaving Early?: Iranians caught fighting for Sadr and other "foreigners" threaten to destroy mosque. Meanwhile a growing Bulgarian "peace" movement seeks to bring troops home. (Hat tip: Agonist)

ETCETERA

• Shame and Blame: Phil Carter pens an exhaustive review of Gen. Tommy Franks' American Soldier by way of fisking Max Boot's review of the same book in WaPo.

• Blameless in DC: Rumsfeld deemed blameless on Abu Ghraib, but of course some people call it a whitewash. A reservist sues the Secretary over troop retention. (Hat tip: Agonist)

• The troops are still there. So is the Winds of Change.NET consolidated directory of ways you can support the troops: not just Americans, but other nations with soldiers on the front lines. Anyone out there with more information, contact us!

• Another way to support the troops is to help them to help the locals. That's exactly what Spirit of America does. Winds of Change.NET supports them 100% - and not just because "Armed Liberal" is their COO. Get involved! Spirit of America wants YOU!

• So does... Adopt A Sniper!

• We try to close on a lighter note if possible.... Satan vs. Satan: Jeff Goldstein overhears Sadr Jihadists' locker room strategy. (I'll bet you didn't know the Imam Ali Shrine had a locker room.)

Thanks for reading! If you found something here you want to blog about yourself (and we hope you do), all we ask is that you do as we do and offer a Hat Tip hyperlink to today's "Winds of War". If you think we missed something important, use the Comments section to let us know.

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But as I see it, the criticisms of the Alliance forces attacks on al-Sadr come down to three things:

1. It probably won't work, because al-Sadr will not surrender and his capture or death will stir up a Shi-ite uprising;

2. It is a waste of our strategic assets (including credibility and moral standing) because al-Sadr isn't so bad and Allawi is just another thug;

3. It is immoral, because if 1) and 2) are true, we are killing Iraqis and risking our own and our allies' troops for nothing.

I disagree on all three counts, and believe that today's events support this case. Does anyone believe that he would have negotiated as he did if the Iraqi government had not made a credible threat to remove him and his men from the shrine?

It all started with a post by John Quiggin, over at Crooked Timber.

In it, he attacked the military operations aimed at the Sadr Army, and at the person of al-Sadr. A careful read of his post suggests that the core justification is straightforward: that al-Sadr is not a particular threat to the U.S. or to stability in Iraq. He is, instead just a (fairly) bad guy among bad guys.

These people weren't Al Qaeda or Baathists, they were (apart from the inevitable innocent bystanders) young Iraqi men who objected to foreign occupation. Sadr’s militia is one of a dozen or so similar outfits in Iraq, and there are hundreds more around the world, quite a few of which have received US support despite having a worse record than Sadr’s. Moreover, there was no cause at stake that justified a war - the first started when Bremer shut down Sadr’s newspaper and the Sadrists retaliated by taking control of some police stations and mosques.

In his first post, Quiggin argues that the moral burden - the blood debt that we will owe for killing these 'young men' is simply not one that we can or should afford. In his second post, Quiggin amplifies the points in the first post, and adds to it the certainty that violently suppressing al-Sadr and his militia will fracture the fragile Shi'ite/Sunni entente that exists today.

In the short term, his death would make it just about impossible for any Shi’ite leader to give support to the Allawi government1. Already, Ayatollah Sistani who has no love for Sadr and would have been happy to see him pushed out of Najaf2, has called for a ceasefire.

Quiggin's solution in both cases is simple:

The only remotely feasible option is to make a place for Sadr and his supporters in the political process, and to hope that he is moderated by the attractions of office, as has happened in many cases before. There were some tentative steps in this direction in the period between the April insurrection and the current fighting.

My original disagreement with Quiggin's point was simply that I disagreed with his calculus; that, simply, if the measure was the deaths that would be directly caused by a decision we'd never do anything - invading Normandy would have been an impossible decision if this is the formula that ruled the Allies' thinking.

To a certain extent, this remains the core of my disagreement - which is to say that it is less on the subject of a detailed analysis and projection of the current political/military struggles in Iraq, and more on a challenge to the style and form of analysis that Quiggin is using.

But I have issues with his analysis, as well.

al-Sadr is an Islamist thug; he intends to push Iraq to set up a mullah-led theocracy like Iran's, and closely allied with Iran. While I don't share Trent's beliefs that Abrams should and will be rolling down the streets of Tehran this fall, it's clear to me that the current leadership in Iran does represent a key part of the Islamist forces that are arrayed against us, and that acceding to the expansion of those forces isn't something that makes a lot of sense.

It is in that light - that of tipping the balance of power within Iraq toward those who we believe would steer Iraq toward a more effective civil society - the attacks on Sadr's forces make sense, and seem worth the cost.

Yglesias disagrees:

This is a mission, then, that has an extremely low probability of success. In all likelihood it will either end with an exhausted America deciding to give up the game (in which case we'd best do it sooner rather than later) or else with a triumphant America having successfully set Iyad Allawi up as dictator of Iraq. He'll go, naturally enough, by the title "president" or "prime minister" but that's what he'll be. This is not, I think, a goal of such overwhelming moral vitality that it's worth expending significant quantities of American blood and treasure to achieve at a time when we face real, direct threats from other quarters. The point of suggesting that Allawi's fans form a Lincoln Brigade in support of their hero is not to call them "chickenhawks" but is recognition of the fact that Allawi is not the bad guy here per se. Someone who chooses to fight for Allawi's dictatorship over Muqtada's could have some very good reasons for preferring the former to the latter, and should be welcome to take up arms on his behalf if that's what he wants to do. But the lowish probability that the US Army and Marine Corps can successfully establish an Allawi dictatorship (and the vanishingly small probability that they can create a democracy) is not a reasonable objective of national policy at this point.

The core of his disagreement, as I see it, is that since Allawi will be a less-than-perfect democrat (note the small 'd'), it's not worth spending our national credibility and blood to prop him up - but if I and the others who support a more-free Iraq want to raise a private army to do it, that would be OK with him. I think that's still a poor position to take, because we do have a vital national interest in picking apart the Islamist problem, and that keeping them out of power in Iraq would seem to be a valid step in that direction.

And that, I believe is the core of my policy disagreement with Quiggin and Yglesias: That we have a vital interest in keeping the Islamists from gaining more power; that defeating the Sadr Army is a necessary step in doing this; that allowing him to hold hostage the holy sites Najaf strengthens him since it allows him to paint himself as the custodian of those sites; and finally, that it will be possible to defeat him and his forces without the 'explosion of the Arab street' that has been much threatened and seldom seen.

In a sense, what they are suggesting is that we should have given Monster Kody a seat on the LA City Council because he represented a largte armed forced in South Central Los Angeles. Now in some cases, gangs do transmute into political organizations (I can't think of a specific example offhand, but I'll grant that it's happened). But that key transition - from force of arms to politics - is the key step that has to be taken, and that al-Sadr must take before it can be decided that he gets a seat at the table of power.

What also strikes me most of all is the tone of resignation and hopelessness in both Quiggin's and Yglesias' posts.

On one hand, it's clear that they both strongly oppose both the current administration and the war which this Administration chose. And I imagine that no small part of their tone comes from the discomfort they feel at seeing death, injury, and destruction in the service of a cause they believe to be fundamentally immoral - much as we see the death of someone killed by a criminal in the course of a robbery as fundamentally different than the death of someone killed, say, in the course of trying to save a life in a fire.

I also wonder if it doesn't come from trying to overthink things. History is fundamentally irrational; it is messy, contingent, and resistant to planning.

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"We have been able to adapt and overcome our challenges but unfortunately, it has been at our own cost because the unit does not see the reason we need different gear than the line platoons. We have had to purchase rappelling harnesses, rope, carabineers, and flack vest's that allow us to seat the rifles in our shoulders better, along with other comfort items. On April 9th all hell broke loose here in Mosul and we were up on an OP. My shooter spotted approximately 150 personnel with RPG's and AK's inter mixed with civilian personnel. He was able to fire three shots before the crowd dispersed. He killed two and wounded one at a 430 meters while under indirect fire. Now the shot does not seem that difficult but if you add the fact that he was firing from the 5th story out of a 12 degree loophole and the persons were running. I am proud of my shooter for making those shots. We were in heavy fire for about 5 hours that day and in all my company killed about 30 NCF and sustained no friendly injuries. I just thought I would tell you a little bit about us."

This sort of bureaucratic b.s. is a fact of life in any military - but with your help, it doesn't have to stay that way. Michelle Malkin has further details, including items requested, FAQ excerpts, donation procedures, and links to more letters from grateful snipers on the front lines.

UPDATE:

• Phil Carter gives us 62 reasons to adopt a sniper.

• If you're looking for information about all aspects of sniping, even to the point of including useful suggested training exercises for units, Nordic Sniper News may be the best site on the web.

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VENEZUELA

• Well it's over and it appears the no vote has won, which means Hugo Chávez and his supporters have defeated the attempt to remove him from office.

• The Carter Center and the Organization of American States have said that the official findings are consistent with their counts and that there doesn't appear to be any pattern of fraud in the voting.

• Venezuelan bloggers and Chávez opponents, Miguel Octavio and Francisco Toro are also obviously disappointed, but acknowledging that it appears that Chávez has pulled out a significant victory.

• Oil prices have also eased in the wake of the Chávez victory. Indeed, the oil industry may be most relieved about Chávez's victory.

• JK: Michael Totten (whose view of Chavez has changed) He was wrong about Chavez' defeat, he says... but not wrong about Chavez.

• JK: Marc Cooper and Randy Paul would appear to agree re: Chavez. Their pre-vote opinions of Chavez' opposition may help to explain the referendum results.

• Marcela Sánchez sums this up as: the status quo may be preferable to the unknown.

• No doubt there will be plenty of post-mortems in the press and among the opposition as to what happened. My thoughts are that there are two primary reasons. First, the opposition was unified solely by their distaste for Chávez. I cannot recall many ideas other than the ouster of Chávez among any of the accounts I read. If I'm wrong, please clarify in the comments. The second reason is the amount of cash from the sale of Venezuela's oil that Chávez could lavish on the needy. Pork is the universal political lubricant.

• What does the future hold? I think we all wait with trepidation. Will Chávez be magnanimous in victory? Will the opposition be gracious in defeat? It's far too soon too tell and emotions on both sides are still too raw. Stay tuned. For the best sources on Venezuela add Caracas Chronicles and The Devil's Excrement to your favorites list.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

• Leonel Fernandez was sworn in on Monday as President of the Dominican Republic for the second time. He had previously served as president from 1996 to 2000, when the country's economy was virtually humming.

• This time it won't be as easy. To say that Fernandez will be inheriting a veritable Pandora's box of problems would grossly understate the situation. The nation has US$6 billion in foreign debt, 16% unemployment, double digit inflation of some 32%, and a weak currency. Many have become so desperate that they have taken to the seas with tragic results. To add salt to the wounds, there will probably be little money for social spending, tax increases are in the offing and Fernandez's party is a minority in congress.

• I'm going to the Dominican Republic on Friday and hope to have some more to add on this nation next month.

COLOMBIA

• Indicted alleged narco-trafficker Salvatore Mancuso and two other leaders of the right-wing terrorist paramilitary group, the AUC were allowed to address Colombia's Congress and plead their case for impunity amnesty for leading an organization that kidnapped, murdered and extorted.

• The show of support for Mancuso and company outside the Congress certainly appeared to be stage-managed. The US Ambassador called the appearance scandalous and rightfully so. Mancuso and his ilk as well as the FARC have not only financed their activities with criminal enterprises such as drug trafficking, but they have also lined their pockets with the proceeds.

• Nevertheless, I am truly torn when I read that three factions of the AUC have agreed to disarm. I cannot help but feel that this may be the start of some peace for the majority of Colombians trying to live decent lives, but I also feel that the entire process is rewarding criminals. If anything it continues to convince me that there are no simple solutions here.

PERU

• Peruvian President, Alejandro Toledo is the winner of a dubious distinction. A recent poll gave him the lowest approval ratings of any Latin American leader: 8%. That's not a typo, by the way: eight percent.

• Of course, the recent inauguration of a natural gas project raised Toledo's approval ratings to 10%, but allegations of bribery and the strength of two former presidents (including the awful Alan Garcia, but not the odious Alberto Fujimori) who are playing the nationalist card in a dispute with Chile only add to Toledo's problems. One wonders if a restive public will wait for elections in 2006.

CUBA

• Last Friday, August 13 was Fidel Castro's birthday and I for one won't be celebrating. As I said last year, perhaps it's time to retire and consider a nice retirement community. I hear The Hague is nice. You and Slobo Milosevic could swap stories in your cells.

• Val Prieto, who writes Babalu Blog rounded up a number of blogger posts about Cuba, some of which are cultural, some personal, as well as my own contribution in which I tried to combine the personal, political and cultural. Click over and check them out.

Randinho's Latin America Briefing will be back next month, including news about my trips to the Dominican Republic and Brazil. Meanwhile, regular updates concerning Latin American events can be found at Beautiful Horizons.

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Verizon customer service was good enough to have me wondering if this is the same company that I used to hate, and eighteen hours after I first called them, we have connectivity again.

So I connect, get a trackback from Laughing Wolf, and see that he thinks I'm Hillary Clinton. He's wrong.

He's actually wrong on two counts; first in assuming that I'm surprised when people as individuals do the right thing without the guidance of Big Brother. Almost everything I've written on the subject (and it's getting to be a lot, so I don't blame him for not having read it, but here's an example) says otherwise. He's also wrong in denigrating the role of government, however.

It's a fairly common error in certain conservatives and libertarians, who assume that government is, at best, a parasite - it's actually a symbiote.

Looking back on U.S. (and to an extent, Western) history, very little would have been accomplished without either government or individual intelligence and energy. As Sondheim says, "It Takes Two". The issue is finding and maintaining a balance between these.

But that's another story, as the Witch says. We'll talk about that later; there's work to do now.

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"By getting married, John and Rosa gained access to critical legal protections and benefits for couples and their children that provided for them in their time of need. Married couples are entitled to literally hundreds of rights and protections that permeate their financial relationship, both in extraordinary circumstances such as the one mentioned above, or in everyday matters, like simply renting a car.(1)

A 1996 government study found that there are at least 1,049 such protections, rights, and responsibilities that come with marriage under federal law alone. These protections include access to health care and medical decision making for a partner and children, parenting and immigration rights, inheritance, taxation, Social Security and other government benefits, rules for ending a relationship while protecting both parties and the ability to pool resources to buy or transfer property without adverse tax consequences...."

(fn1) John, Rosa, Juan, and Ryan are representative of the experiences that real-life people, gay and non-gay, have had in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. For true and detailed stories of the hardships and discrimination experienced by gay 9/11 survivors, see http://www.lambdalegal.org.

I have some issues with the way this "manifesto" was executed, but before I go into those it's worth noting some of the ways in which the legal state of marriage improves the situation of committed couples:

MARRIAGE MAKES LIFE TOGETHER MORE AFFORDABLE

Marriage makes almost every aspect of a relationship less expensive. Without money, a lawyer or any forethought, married couples receive the benefits of a complex set of legal rules that create default choices most couples would select anyway. Thus:

• Spouses are allowed to make life-saving decisions for each other without drafting powers of attorney or other complicated legal documents;

• Spouses presumptively inherit each other's estates without the need for intricate wills;

• Spouses may cohabitate in public housing units;

• Divorce laws protect both members of the relationship and minimize the power of one partner to keep the other in a situation of domestic violence;

• The spouse of a U.S. citizen may obtain residency in the United States without a long legal battle;

• Married people may adopt the children of their spouses easily and cheaply;

• Dependent health benefits are tax-free for a married couple, whereas an unmarried couple is taxed;

• By filing jointly, married couples in which one partner has a much higher income pay significantly less tax than similarly situated unmarried couples.

In addition to important tax benefits, other governmentally provided rights and privileges are simply unavailable to same-sex couples because they are unable to marry, disproportionately impacting the poor. These include:

HEALTHCARE AVAILABLE TO MARRIED COUPLES: Allowing same-sex couples to marry would extend Medicare and Medicaid spousal benefits and would allow for the tax-free provision of benefits by an employer to the same-sex partner of an employee;

HOUSING BENEFITS: Same-sex couples do not receive the protections of joint rental leases with automatic renewal rights. In highly competitive public housing slots, families can lose their homes.

IMMIGRATION BENEFITS: A foreign-born national has a presumptive right to a green card when married to an American citizen or legal permanent resident. The spouse may then obtain a work permit and eventually become a U.S. citizen. Spouses of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents also face a far shorter waiting period. These spousal rights even trump the United States' ban on immigration for HIV+ individuals. Same-sex partners are denied the family respect that otherwise governs immigration law.

SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS: No spousal benefits, including survivor benefits and disability benefits, are available to same-sex couples.

Evan Wolfson is Executive Director of Freedom to Marry, and has been heavily involved in the gay marriage issue for a number of years. He recently published a book called "Why Marriage Matters: America, Equality, and Gay People's Right to Marry." The complete manifesto is available in PDF format (350k) on ChangeThis.com

This enumeration of the current gaps for same-sex couples is a worthwhile thing, and allows the debate about same-sex couples and rights to proceed on a different and better footing. That said, I have some serious quibbles with Wolfson's document.

First of all, it isn't a manifesto. A manifesto is a general statement of belief, of principle. Eric Raymond's excellent Anti-Idiotarian Manifesto (which ChangeThis will also be releasing) is a manifesto. The Cluetrain Manifesto is a manifesto, speaking at a high level about observed truths and the author's perceptions of a deeper reality that lies beyond the specifics of any one company, polis, or policy.

A proper manifesto would list the substantive rights and benefits desired, and affirm their benefits for all. It would state its key articles of belief boldly without reference to current actors in political debate, and leave room for people to discuss how to get there. Wolfson could have laid out the above gaps, then issued a proper manifesto that set forth clear statements of belief and principle, addressed the spiritual and societal issues around the state of family and marriage, and called for us all to be a part of building a bigger, better future.

He did not.

Instead, he offers us a garden variety polemic that takes a specific position on a specific political debate. It's a "manifesto" that never seriously addresses the notion of marriage as something beyond a contractual convenience. A "manifesto" that doesn't even begin to deal with the other side's questions or objections, including concerns that what he asks for may lead to government interference in religious practices. A "manifesto" that dismisses the policy of civil unions as inadequate in one line, without a jot of discussion as to why this might be so. His "manifesto" has no depth, no soul.

I've seen Christian ministers on the other side of this debate proposing to address the decline of marriage's relevance and the concerns re: churches being legally forced to marry gay couples by saying: let's take religion out of the marriage game altogether. Now there's a bold and interesting position - one that thinks in broader terms and raises provocative ideas, one worthy of a manifesto. Too bad we couldn't get something at a similar level here.

Issue-based hack pieces are a dime a dozen in the blogosphere. Too many more of these and ChangeThis will be just one more boring partisan site with guest bloggers. They can do better than that - and need to, given their vision.

Fortunately, they have other manifestos up for your consideration. Go have a look.

Meanwhile, if someone out there wants to pen a quality manifesto on gay marriage, we have a Guest Blog space waiting for you right here. Evan Wolfson's contribution may have made the cut at ChangeThis, but it doesn't make ours.

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TURKESTAN

• The defendants in the March case pled guilty and provided interesting details on the relationship of their previously unknown group (which appears to be called "Islamic Jihad Group of Uzbekistan" or Jamoat). They claim to be linked to both Al Qaeda and Hizb ut-Tahrir, that the orders for the attacks were made by Mullah Omar, and that they received training in Kazakstan. The smart money is on there being an element of truth to this otherwise sensational testimony.

• The Hizb ut-Tahrir allegation is especially interesting as the conventional wisdom is that they have nothing to do with terror. In the aftermath of embassy bombings, most media outlets breathlessly reported that President Karimov had accused them of complicity in the latest attacks. Instead, as is reported by the very sharp Burt Herman of the AP (unlike many journalists, he's based in Tashkent), the Uzbek government is highlighting the radicalizing role of Hizb ut-Tahrir as pushing people on towards involvement in terrorist organizations.

• The State Department decertified Uzbekistan over its human-rights record, leading a cut of $18 million in direct, non-military aid. Not to editorialize too much, but much of the media coverage and analysis of the decision and its meaning was utterly facile. Radio Free Europe has typically superb and well-informed commentary (continued here) on the decision and its meaning for the US-Uzbek relationship.

• Despite the cut (or because of?), the Department of Defense announced an additional $21 million in aid to Uzbekistan under an earlier agreement to control and decomission biological weapons left over from the Soviet Union. Part of the aid will be used to purchase new boats for Uzbekistan's (double-landlocked) navy.

• After the announcement that US aid to Uzbekistan would decrease, there was well-founded speculation that the Russo-Uzbek relationship would continue to blossom. I expect it to grow, but into something resembling Kazakstan's balancing act between the great powers.

• Turkmenistan's President, Saparmurat Niyazov, a.k.a. Turkmenbashi, has issued a few new decrees of late that further cement his claim to being Central Asia's Kim Jong-Il. During a recent TV appearance, Turkmenbashi revealed he is all-seeing while reading from his new spiritual works. He also banned public use of nas, a local (much worse) variant of chewing tobacco. Television makeup is no absolutely forbidden. Perhaps most amusing of all is his determination to build an ice palace in the hot, arid mountains outside of Ashgabat. In the spirit of Ceaucescu, he is also demolishing sections of the capital to refashion it to his liking.

• An oft-overlooked and quite misunderstood aspect of Central Asian politics is the role of clans. Alisher Mirzabaev offers a couple looks at the system--one on how clans relate to the War on Terror and another on the role of clans in state-building.

• Voice of America's Uzbek language service has ended after 33 years. Brian Ulrich rightly wonders what is going on in the heads of those who made the decision. Listenership was apparently at the heart of the decision despite the fact that listeners in turn became transmitters of the news.

• Members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization held anti-insurgency exercises in Kyrgyzstan.

• IWPR worries that Uzbekistan's mahallas (essentially neighborhood committees) are being used to watch out for religious extremists. Alisher Mirzabaev sees them as essential to state-building in Uzbekistan.

CAUCASUS

• Tensions between Georgia and its two Russian-backed separatist regions continued to rise over the last month. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili threatened to fire on ships trying to enter Abkhazian ports without approval from Tbilisi. Much of the sea traffic is tourist boats from Russia and Georgia seems to be serious about enforcement.

• The Georgian government sees the conflict in each separatist region to be primarily with Russia and not the people of these provinces. President Saakashvili has declared that Russia is to blame for the South Ossetia crisis and Georgia's Parliament is calling for the removal of Russian peacekeepers from South Ossetia. In each region, Russia offers Russian passports and citizenship despite officially recognizing each province to be legally Georgian. However, in something of a departure, Georgia now wants direct negotiations with South Ossetia.

• Pavel Felgenhauer of the Moscow Times says that South Ossetia could spell big trouble for Russia.

• An additional small detachment of Georgian troops is preparing to deploy to Iraq.

• Donald Rumsfeld was recently in Azerbaijan talking up US-Azeri military cooperation which includes Azeri troops in Iraq and US support in Azerbaijan's naval security.

AFGHANISTAN

• Oxblog's Afghan correspondent checks in from Mazar-i-Sharif and the road to Kabul.

• Three American "bounty hunters" arrested for kidnapping and torturing Afghans in their Kabul home have received extra time to prepare for their trial.

• The Afghan National Army has been deployed to quell factional fighting in Herat.

• As registration drew to a close in most regions of the country, nearly 10 million have registered to vote in upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections.

• Lawyers for John Walker Lindh say that his case should be reconsidered now that another US citizen detained on the battlefield in Afghanistan will likely be released soon.

• US military officials say a fissure is developing between two factions in the Taliban and that it is "falling apart."

• jb brings up an interesting exercise in counterfactuals stemming from part of the 9/11 report dealing with the assassination of Ahmed Shah Massood.

• PakTribune reports on a young Afghan woman happy to be free of the burqa and allowed to compete in the Athens Olympics.

ENDING ON A HIGH NOTE

* A long-suffering group of people has finally found a home. Meskhetian Turks, originally from Georgia, deported to Uzbekistan, and now dispersed across the Soviet Union are coming to the United States as refugees. Those who lived in Uzbekistan and are now in Russia's Krasnodar region and unable to receive legal residency are being allowed to move to the United States after no other third party would take them. The program is being piloted in Philadelphia. A few families have been here for a few weeks, and I am happy to report (I'm volunteering with them) that they are doing well and extremely appreciative that the US has decided to provide them an opportunity to finally live in peace.

« ok, I'm done now

First he posts a list of reasons "why Islam should be banned in America" that a commenter posted to his blog.

He concludes:

Again, I'm not saying these views are shared by the owners of these websites, or the majority of their readers. But neither do I see many strong, principled objections. Phil says above that "the failure of good Muslims to object or organize and stop bad Muslims indicts the whole Islamic movement", which doesn't justify a ban on Islam, but is true in a sense. We all have a responsibility to speak up clearly against extremists in our own ranks, whether we are Muslims or peace activists or bloggers who criticize Islam and support the war on Islamist terror.

And so it's time to stand up for the basic values of our democracies and confront those in our own ranks who want to abandon those values. Because if we don't, outsiders will be justified in interpreting this as silent approval or apologism.

Something has gone rotten. We can't blame it on the "left", the "relativists", the "PC crowd" or the "multiculturalists", (and don't anybody dare blame it on the Muslims). It's gone rotten here, among people who on 9/11 woke up to the danger of Islamism. The ban Islam meme and all its relatives (Islam is Islamism, Islam is war) must be confronted here, now, before it spreads.

Damn straight. Now go read the entire post. This is mandatory before commenting, please, because it's the heart of this post. I didn't rewrite what Bjørn Stærk wrote because I didn't have to. So go read it, please, or skip this post.

I recently posted some comments to this "Hatewatch" thread here at Winds of Change:

There are a variety of sites on the Web with idiotarian hate. Here's a random example from one guaranteed site:

Probably is a muzzie though.

[...]

If the bastard wasn't a muzzie they would have said so.

[...]

We've already had Islamo-spies in Guantanamo, muzzies blowing up their officers in Kuwait... We also have illegal aliens with fake IDs, and assorted non-citizens (since we accept LPRs). There are several thousand throughout the military. Given the ideology they adhere to, suspicions must be raised far higher.

[...]

A few months ago I would have been very opposed to condemning all Muslims, but now I am at the point that they are going to have to prove that all Islam is not the problem.

[...]

While this is not an incitement to violence, my prediction is we'll see the slims hanging from light poles after the next attack. Their lies aren't going to mean squat to the great unwashed hordes. I'd just be satisfied with covering them with pork chops and putting them in a pit full of rottweillers.

[...]

Has anybody ever done any surveys or studies to determine how disloyal your average muzzie is to their new homeland?

[...]

Your allah (satan) lied to you, fool.

[...]

My grandchildren will wear muslim the fabric without ever being aware there was another definition.

[...]

Allah was the name given an idol to HaBa'al, brought from Assyria, and may indeed be the same false god Ba'al from the Bible.

Mohammad raided camel caravans, broke treaties, tortured and killed prisoners of war, and got hard-ons for six year old girls.
Any questions?

[...]

They whine about rights? Get rid of em. Inhale oxygen within our borders? That's right. Get rid of em. I'ts a disease. Kill it before it kills us.

And it just goes on and on; that's from only about the top five percent of comments on a single post.

I've long, as a Jew, found a highly useful test for distinguishing legitimate commentary from hate; I take the noun of the statement in question, switch it to "Jew," or the adjective to "Jewish," and see how I think it stands up.

One can also switch out, say, one religious figure for another who did things, in a different religious tradition, we now would call horrible and despicable. Enjoy the game! "If the bastard wasn't a Jew they would have said so." "I'd just be satisfied with covering those Jews with pork chops and putting them in a pit full of rottweillers."

Feel free to use "Christian, " or "atheist," or "Hindu," or whatever works best for yourself. lewy14, I thank you for your efforts, and very much hope you'll keep a sharp eye out for, as well, anti-Islamic hatred, which is a very great danger and quite prevalent in our time, and that you'll call it wherever you find it. It's a moral test for all of us today to distinguish between Islamic terrorism and Islam, between terrorists and Muslims, just as we largely failed, in 1941-2, in the U.S., to distinguish between those who served the Japanese empire, and our own loyal citizens of Japanese ethnicity.

I subsequently had the following exchange:

"Don't worry, Gary, when Jews fly planes into skyscrapers I'll be hunting them too."

Yes, I know.

And then my two last comments:

"And so I prefer to consign such repugnant comments on all blogs to a well deserved obscurity."

This is purely my own opinion, of course -- that should be clear, but I want to make it ultra clear -- my own policy is that I believe blogs are responsible for what they publish. Period. That includes comments. I believe blogs should have prominently posted commenting policy as to what are and are not acceptable comments. I believe that posters should be warned that if they violate the guidelines/rules, their offensive comments will be deleted, and if they continue to offend, they will be banned. I believe blogs need to enforce that policy, and if they do not, they are completely responsible for what is posted on their blog. If enforcing such policies is too much work, they should shut down comments, because they are responsible for what is posted on their blog.

To me, that's a matter of individual responsibility. It's a matter of accepting that responsibility.

I believe that sites that are full of hate for white people, for black people, for red people, for yellow people, for Christians, for Jews, for Moslems, for Hindus, for animists, for atheists, for religious people, for short people, for tall people, for whatever kind of people, are hate sites.

I boycott hate sites, regardless of whatever value might be attached to them. Hey, Krupp built great guns, but I wouldn't have contracted with them in the Forties.

Again, that is purely my own personal policy, and I respect the right of all to have their own policy, of course.
[....]

And, excerpted:

It strikes me that if we are "looking hard at the dark places most mainstream media seem determined to look away from," and we, as bloggers want to see blogs achieve large-scale, mainstreamish, success and recognition, that we can't turn a blind eye to hatred in blogs. Better an early start than having to wait until our soles/souls are held to the fire later and inevitably. (And sooner or later we will read mainstream stories about hate in blogs; mark my words; I'd rather we started policing ourselves first.)

[...]

Ten thousand words would be far too much. But it occurs to me that, in fact, a reasonably (a thousand or two, words, perhaps; perhaps even less, just a naming of blogs with a couple of sample comments each) sized monthly (or so) round-up of the most significant sites spewing hatred in comments -- whatever the form or target of the hatred -- would be a useful way to point a spotlight at these much-read blogs, and perhaps -- just perhaps -- give them a nudge towards being shamed, and cleaning up their act. (And I include, myself, sites that spew political hatred, as well as ethnic hatred.)

Anti-Muslim hate is hate. And hate in blogs is hate.

Both need to be fought. Neither should be tolerated.

Read The Rest Scale: 0 out of 5.

Gary Farber's home blog is Amygdala.

« ok, I'm done now

To be sure, to partisans on each side, it feels like their ox is the one gored. But to me, as someone with a basically Democratic bent but who hasn't yet drunk the Kool-Aid and signed on, it sure looks like they're shaping opinion right and left, and doing it in the interest of the Kerry/Edwards campaign.

Doing this, not only are they doing no favors for the polity we're all a part of, but they're doing Kerry and the Democrats no favors either.

Slate's search engine sucks, and so I can't find the stories in Kaus' archives about the overconfident Gray Davis and the way that the partisan, opinion-shaping coverage (led by the L.A. Times) of the recall election hung him out like a Chinatown duck.

If I'm correct, the media aren't doing Kerry any favors either.

« ok, I'm done now

The challenges still ahead in Iraq are considerable, but the media in its manic rush from one disaster to the next and from one "quagmire" to another rarely provides the context that would help us understand the situation. Having followed the mainstream media coverage, one can be forgiven for thinking that our task in Iraq is merely to return the country to its pre-war status quo. More often than not lost in reporting is the realization that Iraq has to recover not just from the violence and destruction of the last year and a half, but of the past 30 years. Iraq of March 2003 was not a normal, well-functioning state thrown into chaos and mayhem only by the arrival of the Coalition forces. In reality, the pre-invasion Iraq was a wreck of a country whose great potential of the 1950s and 1960s has been all but completely squandered for the sake of the aggrandizement of one man and the hegemony of his party. It's important to bear that in mind before rushing to criticize the Coalition authorities for failing to rebuild in a year what took three decades to destroy.

That the Iraqi people are not giving up on their desire to overcome the tragic and soul-destroying legacy of the Baath Party misrule and are courageously forging ahead with their new lives is truly a testament to the power of the spirit and human tenacity.

• The elections are scheduled for January 2005. The national conference to select an interim national assembly is set to be taking place as you're reading these words. In the meantime, the new generation of leaders is getting a crash course in democratic governance. A group of 14 Iraqi women is visiting the United States to get acquainted with the American political process and learn lessons which might be put to a good use at the next year's poll. The group, which already visited Washington and the Democratic National Convention in Boston, includes among others Taghreed Al-Qaraghuli, "a Baghdad resident who says she was denied the chance to pursue her education when she refused to join Saddam Hussein's Baath Party. Al-Qaraghuli is an active member of the Iraqi Independent Women's Group, a political party formed last year to advocate for equal rights." In all, some 50 non-government women's organizations have sprung up in Iraq recently; many women are getting involving in politics and civic life. "We succeeded in getting a target of 25% of women to be included in decision-making positions [in the new Iraqi government]. Now we have to train enough women to take on those jobs," says Tamara Sarafa Quinn, a Chattanooga resident, who helped organize the delegation. You can also read about the group's visit to Chicago (also here), and Michigan.
  


• Meanwhile, another Iraqi delegation, which includes three mayors and an assistant provincial governor, is also traveling around the United States, "hoping to glean some insight into how communities here deal with divergent populations and opposing perspectives." The tour has been sponsored by the U.S. State Department and included stops in Washington, DC, Memphis, Los Angeles, and Chicago. "Many of the delegates' questions focused on 'how to bring different factions together to ensure broad-based representation in government,' says Judy Rambeau, Assistant to the [Santa Monica] City Manager for Community Relations, including 'Christian women in male- and Muslim-dominated neighborhoods.' They also wanted to know how to get people - 'especially young people' - interested in voting." Michael Moore is wrong yet again; the insurgents are not Iraq's version of Minutemen. It's these people instead, who are Iraq's own Founding Fathers and Mothers.
  


• On the macro political scale, the concept of federalism is attracting increased attention in Iraq: a mini-congress which met in the southern city of Basra has recently proposed a formation of a southern province out of exiting provinces of Basra, Zikar and Missan. "Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, blessed the proposal in a speech read to the congress on his behalf, saying it will be part of a democratic, federal and united Iraq."
  


• And one of the preconditions of a healthy, democratic society - freedom of speech - continues to revive on Iraqi streets:
  

  "Saddam Hussain would be grumbling in his prison cell if he knew.

  "Al Mutannabi Street, the book-lined alley whose spirit he tried for decades to crush, is again filled with customers, from communists to clerics, who would once have faced jail for reading some of the material on offer.

  "One man browsing the stalls was Sami Al Mutairy, a one-eyed poet and playwright who wrote The Tribes of Fear, a thinly veiled attack on Saddam's attempts to sow ethnic disunity. He was imprisoned and tortured by the Baath party's secret police.

  " 'They used a ring to grind out my eye,' he said. 'They said I was a communist. Well, that was true enough - I am a Trotskyite. But I don't think the punishment fitted the crime'."

• On the health front, this report provides a much needed context to reconstruction efforts: "Health Minister Ala'adin Alwan says three wars, international economic sanctions, and years of neglect under Saddam Hussein degraded a once advanced health care system to the point of almost complete collapse. Health statistics took an equally precipitous drop since the 1991 Gulf War, with life expectancy, for example, declining from 67 years to 59...
  

  "Rebuilding Iraq's health care system is almost like starting from the beginning, and that is precisely where American government and Iraqi Health officials began when the U.S. led-coalition forces took control of the country in April, 2003...

  " Iraq spent only $20 million on health care in 2002. Now, the Ministry of Health has a $1 billion budget. Most of the money comes from oil revenues, but the United States and other nations are supplementing this as the result of last year's donors conference in Madrid. This does not mean the Ministry is awash in money, but the increase has raised health care spending from 68 cents per Iraqi in 2002 to about $40 today.

  "As a result, Iraq's 240 hospitals are running despite severe shortages of medicines and other supplies and staff are being paid after going unsalaried for months leading to the 2003 war."

• In another health news, the number of AIDS cases in Iraq is staying low, with only 67 listed as suffering from the disease. Their treatment is being fully funded by the government.
  


• In the field of education, Iraqi academics continue to benefit from the assistance of their Western colleagues. A group of 14 Iraqi lecturers from the universities in Dohuk, Sulaiymania, Kirkuk and Arbil are currently taking part in a summer training course at Huddersfield Technical College in the United Kingdom, to bring themselves up to date with teaching and marketing methods and the use of information technology, which was restricted under Saddam's reign. The course is funded by the British Council and was initiated by Rasheda Zaher Draey, of the Huddersfield College, who while visiting Iraq in 2001 had noted the outdated teaching methods and limited resources at Iraqi universities.
  


• In the media news, Royce Bitzer and Shafi Shaafi of the Human Service International group are conducting talks with the authorities at Basra University to start a newspaper, tentatively called "The Times of Humanity". The paper would focus on providing Iraqi readers with good news about the reconstruction of their country. Bitzer and Shaafi are currently also at work to restore Iraq's southern marshes and create a training program for teachers.
  


• Meanwhile, Baghdad's favorite radio station, Radio Dijla, continues to be a huge hit with the audience: "At the studio microphone - as he is for a remarkable seven hours a day discussing everything with his listeners from politics to pop music, sewage to suicide bombing, corruption to conjugal disharmony - Baghdad's top jock, Majid Salim... How has life changed [since Saddam's overthrow]? Well, [Salim] says with a smile, for one thing you couldn't mention, let alone play the music of, Iraq's most popular singer, Kazem al-Saher, after he failed to turn up to a birthday party of Uday Hussein. More seriously, he says: 'You couldn't mention the word Kuwait. Or Iran.' He adds: 'Now I have the freedom of giving my opinion as a presenter and to encourage the listeners to give theirs'." In another story, Salim reminisces about his old radio days under Saddam:
  

  "Sometimes I accused some ministers and ministries of corruption and bribery... Uday's security would come, shave my head, beat my legs and I would go back into the studio and continue my program."

• Now, all that Salim has to worry about are the ratings. On TV, meanwhile, a new station is filling the entertainment vacuum in Iraqi lives:
  

  "The Al-Sharqiya network, launched in June with an initial budget of $30 million, has eagerly sought to fill Iraqis' need for diversion with soap operas, reality shows and music videos...

  "Shows in the works include 'Chaif Kheir,' or 'Blessed Wedding,' in which the network funds a young couple who would otherwise be too poor to tie the knot. In exchange, the couple allows the show to tape their wedding, honeymoon and domestic life.

  "Another show, which could be called 'Iraq's Most Nostalgic Home Videos,' will show footage of Iraqis living abroad to folks in the emigres' old neighborhoods back home in Iraq, who will then reminisce about the good old days.

  "Al-Sharqiya's female newscasters are conspicuously young, beautiful bottle-blondes wearing flashy, low-cut blouses. More prevalent than footage of Mideast violence are music videos of Egyptian, Lebanese and Iraqi exile pop stars. The men sing; the women wear skimpy miniskirts and dance in the background."

• Trash TV? Perhaps, but who are we to deny it to the Iraqis after three decades of nightmare? "Blessed Wedding" must make a nice change from the obligatory daily dose of Saddam only a year and a half ago.
  


• Meanwhile, a satellite TV channel, Al Fayhaa, has started broadcasting into Iraq from the United Arab Emirates. In the words of Iraqi blogger Alaa: "This station seems to be an answer to our prayers with a clear patriotic message, which can be understood by the simple people. This is the first attempt at talking plainly to the people with a direct anti terrorist message reassuring and encouraging the ordinary man and spreading the ideas of hope and democracy."
  


• In sports news, the new Iraqi Olympic team has been farewelled with these words from Ahmed al-Samarrai, Iraq's Olympic committee chief: "The sports field brings together people of all countries, backgrounds and religions... In that respect it is emblematic of the new Iraq. Lifting the Iraqi flag over the skies of Athens will be a great defining moment for our country." Al Samarrai, who served on Iraq's Olympic committee under Uday Hussein before escaping abroad in the 1980s, also adds: "The greatest thing I can imagine is the 202 nations at the Games cheering as the Iraqi delegation arrives. We want to show the world that we are coming back, peacefully and with a sporting spirit, to share sports with everybody." The Olympic Committee has been set up only six months ago and it has successfully raced against time to assemble the Iraqi team to compete in Athens. In another profile of Iraq's Olympic Committee, Al Samarrai says:
  

  "The most important part is we are here. It doesn't matter if we don't win a medal. We've already got the best medal: the friendship and support from everyone. This is our first step in a 1,000-mile journey for Iraqi sports. We will move ahead with sports while our country recovers and eventually, I believe peace will win."

• The Iraqi Olympic team has been flown from Baghdad to Athens by the Royal Australian Air Force. In the words of Australia's Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer: "It's very appropriate that a country like Australia, which has helped to free the Iraqi people from Saddam Hussein, should play a role in getting their Olympic team to the Olympic Games. I think there's a nice symbolism about that."
  


• The Iraqi soccer team, by the way, has just upset Portugal with a 4-2 win in the Olympic competition. "This victory will be received with happiness by my people, who have suffered through much," said Iraqi coach Adnan Hamad.
  

For more good news from Iraq, including good news in economy, reconstruction, humanitarian aid, Colaition forces, and security and diplomatic situation, see the complete post at Chrenkoff.

« ok, I'm done now

IRAN REPORTS

• Iran's involvement in the Shiite rebellion in Najaf becomes clearer each day. Iraq's Defense Minister accused Iran of "clear interference in Iraq" as Iran is infiltrating spies, arming Sadr's Mahdi militia and the take over of Iraqi border posts. Over 30 armed Iranians were arrested after attempting to enter Iraq to fight with Sadr's militia in Najaf.

• A general in Iran's al-Quds corps admits to aiding al-Zarqawi with suicide bombings in Iraq and elsewhere. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warns Iraq will become another Vietnam and urges Iraqis to fight against American soldiers. If Iraq is the next Vietnam, does this mean that Iran is equivalent to Cambodia? And if John Kerry is elected President he will spend Christmas there?

DOMESTIC SECURITY BRIEFINGS

• Phil Carter of Intel Dump reports the active duty Army is not suffering recruiting and retention problems due extended deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

• Amidst concerns that al Qaeda is using the Mexican border to enter the United States, the laws concerning illegal immigration via Mexico are changing, making all non-Mexicans subject to deportation without a hearing.

• The Olympics have begun under an umbrella of impressive security. This impressive show-of-force includes SEAL frogmen, aerial sensors, NBC teams, and a naval flotilla. A British reporter is not impressed and claims to have breached security in various different way.

THE WIDER WAR

• Belmont Club takes a look at the progress on the Global War on Terror, which he refers to as World War III. An excellent post, except really we are fighting World War IV...

• Mauritania believes Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is behind the recent coup attempt. Is there anything this guy can't do? Apparently not, and his $25 million price tag is well earned.

• Yemen wants anti-American cleric Husayn al-Huthi dead or alive. Shockingly, Al Jazeera speculates that this is a ploy by Yemen to prove its commitment to America in the GWOT.

• Pakistan and the FBI are cooperating in the hunt for al Qaeda, using sophisticated electronic surveillance to helps nab high level al Qaeda members.

• Recently captured high level al Qaeda operative Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani is talking, and appears to be divulging links to al Qaeda's network in Africa and elsewhere.

• Pakistani tribal leaders almost come to blows over the question of supporting the government in tracking terrorists in Pakistan's tribal regions.

• After the Philippines' humiliating withdrawal from Iraq, it turns around and sentences seventeen terrorists to death. Go figure.

• John Robb of Global Guerrillas takes a look at Al Qaeda's structure in light of recent arrests, and sees a redundant architecture with few chinks in the armor.

• Over 180 refugees were brutally murdered in a United Nations run refugee camp in Burundi. Recently the U.N. and Sudan agreed to establish safe havens in the Darfur region. Caveat emptor.

• We try to close on a lighter note if possible. Meet Snoop Doggie Ali Muhammed Ibn al-Saud Dog and his posse. Saudi youth emulate their favorite American gangsta rappers. Except for the glorification of drugs, alcohol, violence and the demeaning of women, that is......

In other news, I have a new assistant for late-night blogging. Meet Jaime Anne, the newest addition to the Roggio family and the fourth rail staff.

Thanks for reading! If you found something here you want to blog about yourself (and we hope you do), all we ask is that you do as we do and offer a Hat Tip hyperlink to today's "Winds of War". If you think we missed something important, use the Comments section to let us know.

« ok, I'm done now

REPORTS FROM THE FIELD

• Al-Sadr has submitted a list of demands, which must be met before he will end the resistance against Iraqi and Multinational forces. Most notable among them is that the Sadrists be recognised as an ideological movement and be allowed to carry weapons.

• The significance of Najaf in securing peace in Iraq and why al-Sadr chose this town to make his stand is concisely explained at Terrorism Unveiled, while Wretchard at Belmont Club goes into a great amount of detail on why al-Sadr chose Najaf for his stand.

• Phil Carter takes a look at the 'forgotten corner' of the war in Western Iraq.

RECONSTRUCTION & THE ECONOMY

• Arabia'a Hatif's neighborhood has been without a sewage system for 35 years - until the Americans came to town. The most shocking part of this story? AlphaPatriot has the details.

IRAQI POLITICS

• The Iraqi government has evicted reporters from Najaf as the fighting picks up again. This promises to teach the interim government a valuable (if painful) lesson about the power of the press. (Hat tip: The Agonist.) Wretchard, however, thinks this indicates an impending operation against the Imam Ali Mosque.

• Salaam at The Messopotamian underscores the need for Iraqis to remain patient, saying that - while imperfect - the new Iraqi government does not lack the backbone necessary to accomplish the goal of peace and prosperity for the Iraqi people.

• In his August 14th entry he's also quite vocal in his disgust for al-Sadr and his ilk, while warning of growing problems around the oil wells of Basrah.

THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE

• South Korea's plans to send additional troops to Iraq were the focus of protests near the U.S. embassy in Seoul. To his credit, Korean President Roh warned his people against 'blind opposition' to the United States, a warning that would probably be useful on our side of the Pacific as well.

• Arthur Chrenkoff takes a look at 43 Iraqi-Australians' response to 43 Australian diplomats against Prime Minister John Howard.

ETCETERA

• Phil Carter looks at another investigation of Abu Ghraib, this one looking at some of the external factors that contributed to the scandal there.

• The troops are still there. So is the Winds of Change.NET consolidated directory of ways you can support the troops: American, Australian, British, Canadian & Polish. Anyone out there with more information, contact us!

• Don't forget Chief Wiggles' Toys for Iraq drive!

Thanks for reading! If you found something here you want to blog about yourself (and we hope you do), all we ask is that you do as we do and offer a Hat Tip hyperlink to today's "Winds of War". If you think we missed something important, use the Comments section to let us know.

« ok, I'm done now

These are, admittedly, not the sort of assignments that investigators envision when they join the New York Police Department. But such missions, however mundane, have become as much a part of police counterterrorism efforts as the posting of detectives in places like Tel Aviv and Singapore, the planning for a bioterror attack or the identification of Arab speakers on the force.

Involving more grunt work than glamour, the city's counterterrorism effort has largely been built atop a nuts-and-bolts program of cultivating contacts with the businesses that might become unwitting parts of the next terror plot. Detectives visit scuba shops and hardware stores. They talk to parking garage attendants and plastic surgeons, hotel managers and tool rental companies, bulk fuel dealers and trade schools.

Called Operation Nexus, the program has focused on particular types of businesses based on intelligence that the department has culled from sources like an Al Qaeda manual for terrorist operatives and debriefings of some of the group's leaders and foot soldiers, said David Cohen, the deputy commissioner for intelligence.

Those debriefings and other evidence have suggested, among other things, that Al Qaeda has at least considered, if not plotted, using scuba divers to blow up bridges, riding in tourist helicopters for surveillance, turning trucks and limousines into rolling bombs and using special torches to cut the cables of the Brooklyn Bridge.

And Mr. Cohen noted that Qaeda members are trained to avoid the police.

"The next Mohamed Atta is far more likely to intersect with someone in the private sector than a law enforcement officer," he said, referring to the leader of the Sept. 11 plot.

Mr. Cohen, a former deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency, who oversees the program, said it is based on personal contact with people and repeated visits to various businesses. "If you take the time to talk to people, it leaves an imprint," he said.

The effort is focused largely in and around New York City, where six or so detectives have made close to 20,000 visits, returning to some businesses time and again to leave their business cards and the department's terrorism hot line number. The detectives are encouraged to spend time with the businesses, leaving an outline of what they describe as possibly suspicious activity tailored for each type of business: more than 60 altogether, said Lt. Christopher S. Higgins, whom police officials credit with developing the program from concept to reality.

At an agricultural or mosquito-spraying business, which the authorities fear could be used to spread a biological agent like anthrax, the detectives cite possible warning signs like the loss, theft or attempted theft of equipment or machine components. They tell business owners to call if they encounter evasive customers who inquire about equipment but seem to lack previous experience in the industry.

Businesses that offer used emergency vehicles for sale are told to watch for requests to buy fire or police vehicles with radios or other equipment intact. Army-Navy and uniform stores are warned to watch for people who say they are in the military or civil service but who make statements suggesting their stories are false.

"We're going to have eyeball-to-eyeball contact with that individual who may be approached by someone who wants to do harm to our city," Mr. Cohen said, noting that the business owners themselves can best spot an anomaly.

Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, who instituted the program, said it quickly expanded from its initial focus on explosives and marinas, at a time when there was heightened concern about terrorists using boats in attacks, to a wide range of other businesses. They include chemical and insecticide companies, livery car businesses, truck and van rentals, travel agencies and self-storage businesses, where the authorities fear terrorists could store explosives or radioactive materials for a dirty bomb.

"We're looking for anything that with a little thought could be used by a terrorist," Mr. Kelly said.

[...]

Other jurisdictions, including the Metropolitan Police in London, have studied New York's program and are trying to use it as a model in some fashion, Lieutenant Higgins said. The New York State Office of Public Security recently put in place a mirror image of the city's program across the state.

[...]

Lieutenant Higgins said he usually fields three teams of two detectives each day, and they are expected to visit more than a dozen sites a day. Each visit is recorded in an extensive database that tracks the contacts, listing the detective assigned, the type of business, hours of operation, those who were spoken to, and whether they have any security equipment, like video cameras, that can capture images of people who come in.

It's a good idea; it's a force-multiplier in a big way, enlisting the front line of defense: the citizenry. I'd throw at least a few dozen more cops at it, if not a couple of hundred (given that NYC has approximately 20,000 police officers, not counting civilian employees, I think they can be spared). And, yes, more jurisdictions should adopt this program insofar as it's an effective use of police staff levels.

Read The Rest Scale: 2.5 out of 5.

Gary Farber's home blog is Amygdala.

« ok, I'm done now

It's in the works.

Then I read Matt Yglesias weighing in on the same subject.

To put this another way: Who wants to die for Iyad Allawi? Certainly I don't. If people do, they should consider forming a new Abraham Lincoln Brigade and shipping out.

Now personally, I don't argue that those who care more than Matt or I do about, say - genocide in Darfur, or the Hutu/Tutsi conflict - ought to saddle up and head out to personally do something about it. I accept that they're a legitimate part of our polity, and that these are issues we need to decide on together, and costs that we will bear together. Matt thinks that the only way one gets to play is to be willing to go fight.

Does this mean we can simply turn this election over to the troops? I'm willing to if he is...

But I'm getting effing tired of giving any moral authority at all to people who think that's a clever argument.

[Update: I edited out a sentance I wrote out of bad temper; Yglesias doesn't deserve to be called names, and I'm embarassed to have been the kind of person who did. Sorry to all concerned.]

« ok, I'm done now

Before we get to Darfur, let's not let Congo, Burundi, and Uganda be forgotten or obscured.

Congo, Burundi, and Uganda. Here an excellent short write-up by Tapped's Mark Goldberg:

A collection of human rights and child welfare experts working with the UN’s peacekeeping mission in the Congo issued a scathing report yesterday that accused all armed groups in Congo’s troubled Ituri province of committing massive human rights abuses and war crimes. The 65-page report was based on some 1,600 interviews, including victims and eyewitnesses, and was presented to the Security Council. It claims that at least 8,000 civilians were deliberately killed or were victims of the indiscriminate use of force in Ituri province in 2002 and 2003,and more than 600,000 civilians were displaced. Perhaps most damning of all, the report accused both Rwandan and Ugandan government forces of having a hand in some civilian massacres. Though the report made no mention of it, the International Criminal Court is already investigating war crimes in Ituri as well as in a separate conflict in Northern Uganda. The report’s accusations of crimes committed by the Uganda People's Defense Forces (UPDF) in Congo actually throws a rather large kink in the ICC’s other investigation in Northern Uganda. Last February, when Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni requested that ICC investigate suspected war crimes of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Northern Uganda, he assured the Court that he would allow it to probe into suspected abuses on both sides of the conflict, and this, of course, includes the UDPF.

Uganda’s official response to yesterday’s report seems to suggest that this rhetoric of cooperation might not be backed up in policy. UPDF spokesman Maj. Shaban Bantariza told The Monitor in Uganda, "Saying that is one thing and providing credible evidence is another. What jurisdiction does [UN’s mission to the Congo have?"]

And, lo, today, on cue in Burundi:

Dozens of attackers raided a United Nations refugee camp in western Burundi, shooting and hacking to death at least 180 people, witnesses and officials said Saturday.

A Burundian Hutu rebel faction, the National Liberation Forces, claimed responsibility for the attack late Friday near the border with Congo, saying that its fighters were pursuing Burundian soldiers who fled to the camp from a nearby military position. The camp sheltered Congolese ethnic Tutsi refugees, known as the Banyamulenge, who had fled the fighting in Congo's troubled border province of South Kivu.

The attackers screamed war cries as they rushed into the camp and set it on fire, said Louis Niyonzima, a local official.

"What we have seen so far are many, many, many bodies of children, women and men," said Eliana Nabaa, spokeswoman for the United Nations mission in Congo. "People were sleeping when the attack happened. People were killed as they tried to escape."

"The scene is absolutely horrific," Ms. Nabaa said by telephone from Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu. "There are many people burnt." She described the attackers as well armed and organized.

Isabelle Abric, spokeswoman for the United Nations mission in Burundi, said 159 people were killed and 101 others were wounded in the attack on the camp in Gatumba, 12 miles from the Congolese border. At least 30 of the wounded died later in a hospital, she said.

The bloodshed came after gunmen attacked a Burundian Army position about a half-mile away.

"These guys were armed with grenades, machetes and automatic weapons," said Fernando del Mundo, a spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva. "While the attack was going on they were beating drums."

[...]

A renegade Congolese Army commander, whose troops briefly seized Bukavu in June over complaints that Banyamulenge kinsmen were singled out by Congolese authorities, said the attack in Burundi proved his charges. But he stopped short of threatening retaliation.

The commander, Brig. Gen. Laurent Nkunda, accused the Congolese Army of letting attackers of the Burundi operate in its zone unchallenged. "This event proves me right," he said by telephone. "This confirms that there's an extermination plan against the Banyamulenge."

President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, speaking in Kigali, the Rwandan capital, said the massacre "proves what we have been saying over time, that there have been incidents that are ignored by the international community and the U.N. where people are being killed in eastern Congo, being targeted for who they are."

United Nations officials were studying whether the attack was carried out with the help of Congolese tribal fighters known as the Mayi-Mayi or with Rwandan rebels based in eastern Congo, an official said.

Read The Rest Scale: 5 out of 5.

• Sudan.

Meanwhile, in Sudan, Sudan Accused of Arresting Those Who Disclose Dire Conditions:

A human rights group accused the Sudanese authorities on Tuesday of rounding up scores of people in the conflict-torn western Darfur region because they had spoken to visiting officials and journalists about the dire situation there.

According to the rights group, Amnesty International, the detainees included 15 men arrested in the Abushouk camp near El Fasher after a visit to Darfur by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell on June 30, and 5 people taken after a visit on July 27 to the same camp by the French foreign minister, Michel Barnier.

Six men were arrested from July 15 to July 17 in Abu Jereda, a village near El Fasher, after they had spoken to members of the cease-fire commission run by the African Union, according to a report by Amnesty International, which is based in London.

This should be a good thing, but it's not going to help anyone in the short term, if ever: Sudan and 2 Rebel Groups Agree to Peace Talks:

The Sudanese government and two rebel groups fighting in western Sudan have agreed to peace talks in Abuja, Nigeria, on Aug. 23, the African Union said Sunday. A spokesman for the African Union, Adam Thiam, said the group's chairman, President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, would mediate discussions between the Sudanese government and the Justice and Equality Movement and Sudan Liberation Army in the Nigerian capital. Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail of Sudan said the government would take part in the talks without conditions. The leader of the Liberation Army, Abdel Wahed Muhammad Ahmed al-Nur, said from the Darfur region of Sudan that his rebel movement would send a high-level delegation to the talks and that he welcomed Nigeria as a neutral site and Mr. Obasanjo and the African Union as neutral mediators.

At best this might affect things in the long run.

The horrors of Sudan's war on the young. Read The Rest Scale: 5 out of 5; I can't bear to quote it. Fortunately, Sudan is taking steps:

Sudanese police officers sent to restore security in troubled Darfur are sexually exploiting refugee women, according to a U.N. report.

Khartoum says it has sent10,000 police to the western region, and has only about two weeks to convince the U.N. Security Council it is serious about improving the plight of people in Darfur or face unspecified sanctions.

``IDPs (Internally Displaced People) report increasing incidents of sexual abuse and exploitation in Abu Shouk Camp near el-Fasher committed by police officers,'' said the U.N. humanitarian situation report, received by Reuters Saturday.

Read The Rest Scale: 2 out of 5. But Khartoum says just give us time:

President Omar el-Bashir pledged to end violence in Sudan's western Darfur region in comments aired Saturday, but his vice president said it was not practical to disarm within 30 days the Arab militias responsible for the killings of some 30,000 people. El-Bashir blamed ``plotters'' and ``enemies'' for the violence in Darfur in remarks apparently aimed at defending his government's claims that rebel groups were behind the conflict.

Read The Rest Scale: 2 out of 5. This is a micro-step that also won't do much for now:

A contingent of Rwandan troops heads to Darfur this weekend -- the first foreign soldiers to deploy in western Sudan, where thousands have been killed in communal strife that some are calling genocide.

Their main mission is to protect 80 African Union truce observers already there. But with a somewhat vague mandate, and Arabic nomads still attacking African farm villages, the 154 Rwandans could easily find themselves defending civilians and getting drawn into the conflict.

[...]

On Friday, Sudan announced that President Omar el-Bashir ordered tribal leaders in Darfur to form security forces to disarm the Arab militias blamed for the killings of 30,000 people over the past 18 months.

But human rights groups and aid workers say earlier Sudanese pledges to improve security in Darfur have not been fulfilled and attacks on civilians continue unabated.

In Geneva, meanwhile, the United Nations' World Food Program said it had reached a deal with rebel groups in Darfur to allow the agency to truck in food supplies from Libya. The aid agency hoped to begin the shipments over the weekend.

The Rwandan troops will leave Sunday for al-Fasher, Darfur's main city, in an operation that will be a major test for the African Union. The union was established two years ago to replace the Organization of African Unity, which over the years failed to intervene effectively in the continent's wars and insurrections.

The Rwandans' mandate is ``filled with creative ambiguity,'' said David Mozersky, an analyst at the International Crisis Group in Brussels, Belgium. ``How proactive (the soldiers) will be about protecting civilians is entirely up in the air.''

Can the Rwandan troops only step in if they witness a raid in progress? Can they set up a defensive perimeter around a village facing imminent attack? Can they launch a pre-emptive strike on Arab militiamen?

While the mandate is to protect the truce observers, African Union spokesman Desmond Orjiako said Friday: ``I'm not saying they cannot defend civilians.'' He would not elaborate.

A Rwandan army spokesman, Col. Patrick Karegeya, said the troops will defend civilians if they are attacked.

``But it's not that they are going out to hunt for'' Arab militiamen, he added.

Sudanese officials, who deny charges they have provided military support to the rampage by Arab militias, are not happy about having foreign troops come to Darfur, an expanse of desert roughly the size of Iraq.

The government gave in to pressure from African leaders last month and agreed to allow the protection unit, but it appears to be dragging its feet on whether the African Union can send in a full-fledged peacekeeping force. And when the idea of Western intervention was recently floated, Sudanese officials said they would forcibly resist such a move.

[...]

The Rwandans represent the first contingent of what is to be a 300-soldier force to protect African Union monitors observing a little-respected cease-fire agreed to in April. Nigeria and other African countries are expected to contribute the rest of the force, though no date has been set for the additional troops to go.

Finally, the Guardian is moved to comment, although with an idiotic solution.

Today marks the halfway point in the UN security council's 30-day ultimatum to the government of Sudan to disarm the Janjaweed militias, responsible for what is commonly described as the world's worst humanitarian disaster. Already it is apparent that the response of the Islamist regime will be to continue bluffing it out with protests of injured innocence in the hope that the international community eventually gives up and loses interest.

Daily reports of attacks against civilians continue to come in from across Darfur; 30,000 people are said to have fled in the latest round of violence. But far from restraining the militias, the government is providing continued military support for their campaign of ethnic terror. In the past week the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that helicopter gunships had again been used in attacks; and the traumatised victims of earlier atrocities, crammed into refugee camps, continue to suffer violent assaults by the Janjaweed, often under the nose of Sudanese troops supposed to protect them. This is not a little local difficulty; it is a war waged by the government against its people.

To the extent that the authorities have acted at all, it has been to cover up evidence of what is happening. Instead of being disarmed and disbanded, the militias are being integrated into the security forces where they will be less conspicuous. Refugees are being pressured to return to their villages with threats of violence or offers of desperately needed food, only to become victims once again. Those who speak to international observers are being rounded up and imprisoned, according to Amnesty International. And aid workers attempting to get supplies to those most at risk from malnutrition and disease are reporting new government-imposed restrictions on their operations. Everything that is being done is a calculated play for time.

The reaction of the Khartoum regime is scarcely surprising. Little of what the international community has done suggests that the political will exists for any meaningful intervention. The watering down of security council resolution 1556, as a result of pressure from several states, will not have been lost on Sudan's rulers. While the original draft contained an explicit threat of sanctions, the final version did little more than vaguely promise to "consider further actions" in the event of non-compliance. This will have been interpreted, correctly, as a sign of weakness and an indication that little is likely to be done when the UN deadline expires.

Those of the "nothing must be done" persuasion dismiss outside intervention as irresponsible or malevolent, and probably both. Not one of them has suggested a credible way for this hopelessly one-sided conflict to be resolved except for it to run its bloody course. They are entitled to their position, but they are not entitled to deny its human consequences.

Splitting hairs over the definition of genocide or quibbling over how many thousands have been killed doesn't alter the fact that serious crimes against humanity are being committed with every passing day. Nor does the argument that the militias are beyond Khartoum's control. Disputes about whether the regime is orchestrating the violence or has simply lost control of events are unimportant when set against the suffering in Darfur. States that fail to protect the human rights of their own citizens forfeit the sovereign right to non-interference in their internal affairs. Without that principle, the universal declaration of human rights isn't worth the paper it's written on.

Excellent up to there, it's at this point that the piece went off the rails in proclaiming that the problem was the lack of primacy of international law (hinting that Britain was a major cause of injustice in the world because of lack of upholding this principal), and the cure is:

If he really wanted to push a radical agenda, he could do worse than propose that the power to impose sanctions and authorise the use of military force should be exercised by the UN membership as a whole. The general assembly has its problems, but is a far more representative body than the security council and is becoming more so with the passage of time. The days when its membership consisted largely of the representatives of military juntas and one-party states are long gone.

This is a notion that is, shall we say, premature. Read The Rest Scale: 1 out of 5.

Gary Farber's home blog is Amygdala.

« ok, I'm done now

One morning when she was before her shrine, he came and stood at the gate and called her name: "Mrs. Tu! Mrs. Tu!"

Hearing this, she grumbled to herself: "If you have come here why don't you just come in, instead of standing out there shouting?"She began to grow very irritated. She invited the bell and the wooden fish as loudly as she could and she recited the name of the Buddha at the top of her voice in order to send the message that she was reciting the name of the Buddha and it was very impolite of her neighbour to interrupt. The neighbour, however, pretended not to hear. He just stood outside the gate and continued to call her name. In the meantime, she was trying to recite even more loudly. Both of them were shouting loudly and the neighbour persisted in pretending not to hear the recitation and to call the lady.

Finally she could bear it no longer. She pushed the bell and wooden fish out of the way and went outside, with her hands on her hips, to reprimand him: "Don't you know that this is the time when I practice recitation of the Buddha's name? Your behaviour is extremely impolite and improper."

The neighbour laughed loudly and said: "Heavens above! I only called your name twenty or thirty times and it has made you so angry, but every day you call on the Buddha for a whole hour; the Buddha must be very angry with you by now."

...And the lesson of this story is?

« ok, I'm done now

I'm not ashamed of those stances today (although I'm glad no recordings exist - outside of some dank FBI storage boxes, I'm sure - of my rhetoric then). I say this for two simple reasons: 1) I was flat wrong about the threat posed by the Soviet Union and the Communist movement in the 50's through the 70's. I was in good company, but I was just plain wrong. The challenge was real, and had to be confronted, by force if necessary. 2) Vietnam was, however, the wrong place to do it. It was an unnecessary war. Ho Chi Minh had approached Harry Truman, asking for recognition and aid, and the Viet Minh had cooperated with the OSS in fighting the Japanese. In Ho's words:

These security and freedom can only be guaranteed by our independence from any colonial power, and our free cooperation with all other powers. It is with this firm conviction that we request of the United Sates as guardians and champions of World Justice to take a decisive step in support of our independence. What we ask has been graciously granted to the Philippines. Like the Philippines our goal is full independence and full cooperation with the UNITED SATES. We will do our best to make this independence and cooperation profitable to the whole world.

Any time for a decade or so after this - probably into the late 50's or early 60's - the U.S. could have taken the side of the Vietnamese people and supported their nationalist desires. We didn't.

We got a Communist-backed war of national liberation. Our bad, we chose the French over the Vietnamese. Lots of good that's done us...

My guess is that some people will agree with and understand my position; others will debate me but still find my positions understandable. I don't see any unbridgeable gap between where I was then and where I am now, and I think that most people would agree that these positions and the change betwen them at least makes some sense. I was wrong about the threat posed by the USSR and China through their proxies. That makes me as wary about adopting Trent-like positions on the level of threat posed as about adopting the rosy views of John Quiggin - without careful examination of all sides. I was wrong before, after all.

But given that I do see a major threat coming from the Islamists - as evidenced by 3,000 dead who were mostly civilians - I do continue to think that the challenge is real and must be confronted.

That's how I got from there to here.

Kerry needs to do at least this well in explaining how he got from antwar undergraduate to Navy officer with an 'interesting' record to a leader in the antiwar movement who told lies to a presidential candidate who supports the invasion of Iraq. He needs most of all to explain his 'gentlemen's heoism' in service, and do it quickly.

« ok, I'm done now

We've run a number of articles on bioterrorism here before, from a big picture bioterrorism overview in the TCS article "Toxic Terror Tick Tock" to a 10-point platform for change, articles covering the necessity of molecular fingerprinting (there's a small effort underway in Puerto Rico), and even the potential for Emeril's anthrax vaccine marinara. I'll acknowledge right up front that pulling off an effective bioterrorism attack has been difficult ths far - but as I point out in Toxic Terror Tick Tock, there's no guarantee that this will remain true into the future:

"Thus far, the record of chemical and bio-terror is actually rather unimpressive. The weapons take real technical skill to manufacture safely, and especially to "weaponize" into a form that is highly potent, disperses widely, and causes significant casualties. Simpler strategies using just explosives and nails are far more reliable, and their physical effects more severe. Witness Oklahoma City, or the death toll from suicide bombers in Israel over the past few years.

This record of past failure does not, however, translate into the certainty of future failure. When modern terrorism was first introduced on an international level by the Palestinian movement in the 1970s, the death tolls were low. As expertise was gained and terrorists learned to aim higher, methods were refined and the death tolls changed for the worse. Simple scenarios could do the same for chemical and biological terror. After all, the first World Trade Center attack failed, too."

If reading this stuff concerns you, good. It probably ought to. I don't want to end on a downer note, so here's one small but positive thing you can do: write a letter to Congressman U.S. Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT), whose work on the bioterrorism front both before and after 9/11 has been tireless and largely unacknowledged. Thank him for his efforts, include a link to our 10-point platform for change, and ask how you can help Rep. Shays and other interested legislators move this issue forward.

UPDATES:

• FuturePundit has also been following this area for a while, and the Threats & Biowarfare category archive contains a treasure trove of scientific links. See esp. CIA Panel on our Darker Bioweapons Future.

• Part of my article covering The Bush Doctrine looks at bioterrorism as the most serious long-term proliferation threat. A venture capitalist who follows the biotech area looks at what's going on, and says there's an "event horizon" of about 20 years until engineered bioterrorism becomes a threat to be taken very seriously. With likely "3 Conjectures" level results - after all, unlike nuclear weapons, the retaliation options tend to be rather fewer and broader under those circumstances.

« ok, I'm done now

Actually, the answer may surprise you. Yes, it does - but not because of what Kerry (and his troops) did thirty-five years ago. But because of what they're doing today.

The stunning ineptitude of the Kerry campaign in dealing with this issue, in my mind, calls into question their ability to lead the country.

One of the first things a competent person does when they decide to run for office is to sit down and list the bases that their opponents will use to attack them. I've done it, and believe me, I'll never be running for anything...but the stories I could tell!

Every one of Kerry's Vietnam-era vulnerabilities was something I was aware of, and with ten minutes of Google research, I bet I can find a dozen national-level commentators who were aware of them as well.

The Swift Boat Vets have been unhappy with him for decades. His service in Vietnam, on it's face, needs an explanation (four months, three Purple Hearts, no days off duty from injuries). His behavior after the war (Winter Soldier, VVAW, medals across the White House Gate) needs an explanation.

I don't think that explanations would be that hard to make. If I have time tonight, I'll try and mirror Noah Millman and draft the Vietnam speech Kerry should have given when he announced his candidacy.

He hasn't made that speech.

He shows no signs of making that speech.

His handlers and spokesmen are reduced to fits of incoherence when confronted by the claims made about his service. What will they do in October when the claims - and video - of his VVAW speeches and activities are broadcast?

There are three major qualifications to lead this country. You have to have some idea where you want us to go. You have to make us believe you can take us there. And you have to be able to communicate, not only to articulate your vision and show your character but to respond to challenges and convince us that you have the capability to do so.

I'm not seeing it.

I'd like to.

« ok, I'm done now

REPORTS FROM THE FIELD

• The US has called for civilians to be evacuated from Najaf, in what many see as the prelude to a once-and-for-all assault on Al Sadr's forces.

• Some of Uncle Sam's Misguided Children talk about exactly how much Iraq sucks - but that having gauze up your nose to stop you choking on blood is a hell of a way to get sent back to Germany.

• British forces said to be straining at the leash. In the latest developments, some may have been let loose.

• Dramatis Personae in Najaf. The Iraqi National Guard are playing a large and increasing role, comprising over 1/3 of Coalition forces.

RECONSTRUCTION & THE ECONOMY

• Getting the Iraqi economy back on its feet isn't being helped by the folks at Atlas Shipping. Operation Give, the toy drive for Iraq, is down to the tune of $30,000. Latest news is that the $20,000 cheque Atlas sent was a Dud.

• Iraq's Oil exports are now reported as down to 35,000 barrels/hour instead of 80,000.

IRAQI POLITICS

• Grand Ayotollah Sistani, the moderate head of the Shiite community and a 'moderating influence' was evacuated to London immediately before the fighting broke out. There was immediate speculation as to whether he was conveniently evacuated so the US Marines could lower the boom on Al Sadr, or whether he was truly sick, and Al Sadr saw his chance and took it. Zayed of Healing Iraq has some insider info.

• Ahmed Chalabi, currently residing in Iran with his backers, has stated that all the charges against him are politically motivated. His nephew, Salem Chalabi, is overseeing the trial of Saddam Hussein. He is the subject of a Murder charge, and currently is in London. They have both said they will be flying back to refute the charges Real Soon Now. Latest reports even say that this International man of Mystery has already returned.

• Southern Iraq heading for Splitsville?

THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE

• There are both first-hand reports of Iranians involved in the latest fighting, and an official statement by the Interim Iraqi Defence Minister of weapons being supplied by Iran to Al Sadr. European media reports are divided as to whether the worsening US-Iranian relations are the result of Zionist pressure or American reckless haste.

• Two Iranian Journalists are now 'assisting Iraqi police with their inquiries', and it's confirmed that some of the fighters captured recently are Iranian.

• Meanwhile, the border with Iran can best be described as porous.

NO NAMES, NO PACK DRILL

• The unofficial UK intel summary is that several different games are being played at once.
  1. Senior Shias want Sadr "dealt with".
  2. America is quite willing to play Rome, but expect Interim Government to play Sanhedrin.
  3. Iran is attempting to set up a client Shia state in the South, to include Najaf and Bashra. They are well aware that Bush's hands are tied.
  4. Interim Government wants to go hard and fast to establish a secular state, prior to any elections. Sadr either comes on board as a Political leader, or leaves the scene. See (2) above.
  5. British Military think that "Now" is the time to play Mr Nasty, Foreign
     Office want to avoid any actions other than self defence. (Strong scent of YES MINISTER !).
  6. MoD well prepared to send further Bde Group into theatre.
  7. OPEC (read Saudi) quite happy for Iraqi oil supplies to be threatened.
  8. Expect (further) attacks on Northern Pipe lines.

ETCETERA

• The troops are still there. So is the Winds of Change.NET consolidated directory of ways you can support the troops: not just Americans, but other nations with soldiers on the front lines. Anyone out there with more information, contact us!

• Another way to support the troops is to help them to help the locals. That's exactly what Spirit of America does. Winds of Change.NET supports them 100% - and not just because "Armed Liberal" is their COO. Get involved! Spirit of America wants YOU!

• We try to close on a lighter note if possible.... John F. Kerry's call for additional support from other nations may run into some difficulties. Finland in particular is finding that many of its conscripts are addicts unfit to serve. They're Internet Addicts.

Thanks for reading! If you found something here you want to blog about yourself (and we hope you do), all we ask is that you do as we do and offer a Hat Tip hyperlink to today's "Winds of War". If you think we missed something important, use the Comments section to let us know.

« ok, I'm done now

IRAN REPORTS

• The IAEA has linked Iran's nuclear program to Pakistan's. The way this is being played, Iran can claim full compliance with the monitoring agency, thus masking their enriched uranium program even further from prying European eyes. And, it means the US faces an increasingly uphill battle to bring Iran before the Security Council to face sanctions.

• Having finally noticed that Bush cleverly surrounded their country with US troops, many officials within Iran are calling for more engagement with neighboring countries. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, for example, traveled to Tehran recently, in an attempt to open up relations and allow trade.

• Don't hold your breath for a new, open Iran, however: the recent silliness over the new, half-billion dollar International Airport, partially operated by a Turkish/Austrian company, is a prime example of how Iran will never be able to interact with the rest of the world as long as the Ayatollahs run the place.

• On Wednesday, Trent Telenko posted his thoughts on Iran's October Surprise (which includes many more thoughts on the recent events within Iran's nuclear program). If you haven't read it, you should, because the implications of a nuclear Iran armed with ballistic missiles is nightmarish, and worth considering when deciding between two rather contrasting foreign policies this fall.

DOMESTIC SECURITY BRIEFINGS

• A bad omen, methinks? The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has been invited to monitor the US Presidential elections this November. Coupled with the recent, vague, announcement of Al-Qaeda threats against the election itself, this is shaping up to be quite a memorable election.

• L'affaire Plame is fizzling out as DC journalists face jail time for their silence over the identity of the leaker. The irony of reporters begging Congress to investigate what they already know is apparently lost on many, as Democrats still seem intent on somehow using the scandal to hurt Bush.

THE WIDER WAR

• Via The New York Times: a new generation of leaders is springing up within Al-Qaeda, filling the vacuum left by all the recent captures and executions. They are a strange mixture of long-standing, low-level operatives and relatively new recruits, all of whom seem to use the existing, centralized data nets with harder encryption. Now that we know about these methods, it will be interesting to see how well we can keep breaking into them, or how quickly these new "leaders" will adopt more a distrubuted, less detectable method of communication.

• The UN is still toothless, in case anyone forgot. Sudan is now saying it will "satisfy" the UN over the Darfur region, by promising to stop the genocide. What, are they afraid of "serious sanctions?" The horror! Oh, wait.

• Israeli PM Ariel Sharon is fighting the Housing Ministry's plan to build yet more houses in various West Bank settlements. Though played off as an attempt to comply with the American "road map" peace plan, it's likely Sharon is continuing his previous efforts to partially withdraw as a conciliatory move toward the Palestinians.

• The Strait of Malacca, one of the busiest shipping lanes on the planet, is a prime target for terrorists. Bedeviled with pirates for decades, the Singaporean, Malaysian, and Indonesian governments have begun coordinated patrols of the Strait. The thought of coordinated terror attacks against tankers and container ships, even on a small scale, could cause ruin for all three countries if shipping lanes switch to less endangered waters.

• Siddarth Mohandas, guest blogging at Drezner's blog, has written an interesting take on the growing collaboration between Turkey, Israel, and India. It's called the "Axis of Democracy," and could represent a powerful, unofficial alliance with which to ally. Of course, all three countries are on friendly terms with the US, but regional collaborations are almost always fruitful.

• Hugo Chavez's recall vote in Venezuela, scheduled for the 15th of this month, is proceeding apace. The Chavez government, however, is nervous, and is planning on blocking any news broadcasts of early election results.

• Also, Venezuelan bonds have risen to six-month highs, a reflection of the general warm/fuzzy feelings the recall has generated internationally.

• We try to close on a lighter note if possible. Because every major corporation is obviously Jew-owned, those zany Muslims have decided to create their own cottage industry of "Islamic" drinks and snacks. Jeff at Beautiful Atrocities explores The Explosive Taste of Mecca Cola. Heh.

Thanks for reading! If you found something here you want to blog about yourself (and we hope you do), all we ask is that you do as we do and offer a Hat Tip hyperlink to today's "Winds of War". If you think we missed something important, use the Comments section to let us know.

« ok, I'm done now

I've written a bit about it before:

...I was having a late-night dinner at a terrible Italian restaurant in Long Beach, CA (wow, too awful to even allow me to remember the name), and the only other party was a group of “modern-Okie” aerospace workers ... badly dressed, overweight, uncultured (they were talking excitedly about ‘The Bachelor’). The dads (two couples w/multiple kids) were apparently in the aerospace industry, and I had a jolt of realization ... these were the families that built the airplanes that I fly around in, and millions of families like them build our houses, buildings, sewers, provide water and electricity, etc. etc. And I began to look at my own attitudes and wonder just why the hell I felt permission to look amusedly at them, and to wonder for a moment which team I was on, and which one I wanted to be on.

and in getting connected with all the amazing people in the military I've met through Spirit of America, most of them definitely were not on the same side of the cultural divide as my friends in Venice Beach.

CBFTW is.

Here's his Blogger profile:

Interests

* drinking
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* Taxi Driver
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* Sinatra
* Big Band
* everything.

Favorite Books

* Love is A Mad Dog From Hell
* Ham On Rye
* Catcher In The Rye
* On The Road
* Hells Angels
* Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas
* Steal This Book
* Anarchist Cookbook
* The Killer Inside Me
* Army Training Manuals and Field Manuals
* Ranger Handbook
* Jack Kerouac
* Hunter S. Thompson
* Hemmingway
* Naked Lunch
* James Ellroy

Here's a guy as comfortable as I am hanging out at Skylight Books or searching for an old Social Distortion live album.

Maybe - just maybe - there are a lot of us trapped at the boundary between the two cultures. Maybe it's the old guys like me who are so polarized, and many of the younger cohorts just don't worry about it as much as we do.

That'd be good news.

More good news in the form of the response of his chain of command on discovering his blog.

He calmly looked up and told me that my shit was really good, and he liked reading my stuff, and that I was a good writer. He even mentioned something about including it in the units history and archives. That didn't relieve me one bit, like I said, it made me more freaked out. I'm waiting for him to say the word: "BUT" followed by my punishment. Then we discussed things, and he pointed things out, and told me things. I agreed with 100% of everything he was saying, and the final conclusion from what he told me was that I could continue writing, but maybe have my Plt Sgt read my stuff before I post. He stressed that he didn't want to censor me and that I still had the freedom of speech thing, as long as I wasn't doing anything that would endanger the mission. I totally 110% agree with him on that one. I thanked him and I told him that I of course would not want to do anything that would endanger anybody here or back home, which is of course true. He suggested that I should look into getting this stuff published and made into a book someday.

Yes, the military continues to impress me.

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The growing toll is by now familiar to many: Tens of thousands have been killed, more than a million forced from their homes, and hundreds of villages razed. The crimes committed also include mass rape, the slaughter of young boys and the destruction of village after village.

The dictatorship in Khartoum claims it has no control over the Janjaweed, but it continues to neglect the first responsibility of every government: to protect its people. Unless the genocide in Darfur is halted immediately, tens of thousands more will die before the end of the year. The rainy season makes roads impassable for relief convoys and facilitates the spread of waterborne disease. The United States has provided more than 80 percent of the supplies now flowing to Darfur and eastern Chad, and has sent more than $140 million to aid the refugees. Humanitarian supplies may soon dry up unless other nations quickly fulfill their commitments.

Further, there is a good chance that this conflict could spill over into neighboring states and create instability in the region. Sudan's actions inflame ethnic tensions and impose an exceptional burden on local communities across its borders. Sudan's policies are creating turmoil in regional governments and populaces, some of whom identify with or are ethnically related to the oppressed peoples of Sudan.

The first step toward addressing this problem is to provide adequate security for the refugees to return home and for relief workers to assist them. Khartoum must abide by U.N. Security Council Resolution 1556: It must disarm (and disband) the militias and bring those responsible for their crimes to justice. It must provide unfettered access to humanitarian workers. And it must begin the political process critical to permanently resolving the differences between the Khartoum regime and the non-Arab peoples of Darfur.

Despite Khartoum's claims that it cannot meet the U.N. deadline, I believe it could do so in a matter of days. But given the government's likely motives, its failure to live up to previous agreements and its past practices, we should not rely on the Khartoum regime alone to fulfill its obligations. Nor can we rely on escalatory steps such as economic sanctions to pressure Khartoum as it employs dilatory and diversionary tactics to complete its final solution.

The crisis in Darfur is a regional problem that demands an African remedy. It requires forces capable of providing security in a timely and credible manner. Such a remedy is available. Forces led by the African Union (AU) are already deploying to the region. They can be complemented by troops from Khartoum and the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), which stands ready to provide thousands of well-trained soldiers to protect the people of Darfur.

The Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA) is in a unique position to help. During one of the world's longest running civil wars, the SPLA fought Sudanese forces to a standstill. In June the Sudanese government and SPLM signed a historic peace accord that includes creating SPLA-GOS (government of Sudan) integrated units. Creating a security force for Darfur would merely accelerate this peace-building initiative.

Having been victimized by Khartoum for decades, the southern Sudanese understand the plight of their fellow citizens in Darfur. Khartoum claims it does not have the capacity to protect the people of Darfur. The southern Sudanese are eager and ready to provide the balance of forces.

Finally, logistical support for these AU-led forces could be provided by world nations as necessary. This formula builds on available resources and serves the needs of the people of Darfur. It also serves the interests of the region. It should be pursued immediately under U.N. auspices.

As a U.S. senator and a physician who has practiced medicine throughout Sudan, I am convinced that time is not on the side of the people of Darfur nor the countries of the region. A wise man told me recently that genocide is what they call it after the killing is over; it is usually followed by a solemn promise of "never again." Action must be taken while there is still reason to act.

Read The Rest Scale: 0 out of 5.

Gary Farber's home blog is Amygdala.

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It's a terrfic read, starting out with the tale of the Mignonette in 1884, and the ensuing cannibalism trial, and its effect upon law of the sea.

Aside from colorful stories, this turns out to have critical, overlooked, concerns for us today.

Fresh from reporting on chaos at the site of the Twin Towers in American Ground, William Langewiesche has taken on the rampant legal chaos of the sea in the twenty-first century. The Outlaw Sea is in part a sequence of lucid and often thrilling stories about recent founderings, groundings, and acts of piracy. It is also an unsettling appraisal of the laws, treaties, conventions, traditions, and organizations which, meant to regulate the sea, succeed largely in creating myriad loopholes for ingenious rogues to exploit. According to Langewiesche, the watery seven tenths of the globe are littered with some 143,000 ships: most sail under "flags of convenience," registered in such countries as the island state of Tuvalu in the Pacific; many are dangerous rustbuckets, nearly all are undermanned, with crews on third-world wages. The owners of these vessels, hidden behind multiple fronts and shell companies, are hard—and sometimes impossible—to trace. Though there now exists an International Law of the Sea (still not ratified by the US) and its enforcing body, the International Maritime Organization, the best efforts to police the sea have so far proved alarmingly ineffective. Meanwhile, as Langewiesche dryly notes, Osama bin Laden and his associates "are in the shipping business," with a considerable fleet of elderly freighters. The whereabouts and identities of these much-sought-after ships are unknown: in the way of the sea, their present names, and the flags they now sail under, are buried so deep in an ocean of misleading paperwork that they are beyond discovery. The flag of convenience—that flimsiest of legal fictions—bears much of the blame for the lawless state of the sea.

This is because it can be almost impossible for even the most dedicated investigations to dig out the true owner of a ship, hidden as it can be through a maze of corporate shells.

Langewiesche cites the case of the Erika, an aging tanker, registered in Malta, that broke in two off the Brittany coast while it was transporting 22,000 tons of oil from Dunkirk to Livorno in Italy, coating miles of French beaches in black sludge. The captain claimed "that he himself had no idea who the owners were"; his only dealings had been with a management company in Ravenna, Panship Management & Services:

Panship worked for the ship's registered owner, Tevere Shipping of Valletta, Malta, which in turn was held by two other companies, Agosta Investments and Financiers Shipping, both of 80 Broad Street, Monrovia, Liberia. Somehow in the constellation of names behind this single ship there appeared to be still other companies —in Switzerland, the Bahamas, Panama, and England. There were various banks too, including one in Scotland and a Swiss branch of France's Credit Agricole. After a month of trying to follow these connections, the official French inquiry admitted defeat.

Eventually the shipping newspaper Lloyd's List traced ownership of the Erika to a cheerful Italian named Giuseppe Savarese who professed to be "bemused" by the hue and cry, and boasted of the excellent condition of the ship at the time she broke up at sea.

How does this matter to us?

After September 11 the Bush administration made the US Coast Guard a branch of the Department of Homeland Security, and since then American efforts to regulate shipping bound for US ports have taken on an air of panicked urgency. So far, though, these efforts have produced little more than piles of new forms for captains to fill in, along with airy assurances that all will soon be well:

There is unembarrassed talk in Washington of a future under control, in which sailors will undergo meaningful background checks and will be supplied with unforgeable, biometrically verifiable IDs by honest, appropriately equipped, and cooperative governments. Panama, for instance, will vouch for the integrity of, say, an Indonesian deckhand working on a ship operated by a Cayman Island company on behalf of an anonymous Greek. This is a vision so disconnected from reality that it might raise questions about the sanity of the United States.

In Rotterdam, Langewiesche spoke to a Dutch maritime official who had watched the recently introduced American system of preinspection of containers before they are craned aboard:

"Look, if you want to send a bomb through, it's so simple! The chances of it being filtered out are almost nil!" He was not being critical so much as flatly descriptive. As a believer in good government, but long exposed to the chaos of the ocean, he seemed to have learned the hard lesson that government tools might simply not apply.

In the end, we must consider this:

Even now, it is said that only 2 percent of containers have their contents inspected before they are shipped, and that is probably an optimistic estimate. A more thorough and time-consuming system of inspection would threaten to bring international trade to a standstill, and would in any case be unlikely to deter a terrorist bent on shipping, say, two flat sheets of the plastic explosive Semtex with a radiological or biological payload. A single ship can carry up to 4,000 containers, while the average container has a capacity of 2,720 cubic feet—a vast space in which to secrete an object as compact as a dirty bomb would probably be. The port cities of the United States have good reason to feel uneasy. On July 1, the federal government's long-trumpeted Operation Safe Commerce came into force, and of the 265 ships arriving from abroad in US ports that day, six foreign-flagged vessels were denied entry by the Coast Guard because their paperwork was not in order. Tom Ridge has described the new measures as "creating a culture of security in ports around the world," but their real impact is more frankly characterized by William Langewiesche:

The only sure effect of the new regulations is that legitimate operators, who do not pose a threat, will comply. But it is likely that terrorists will comply as well, and that, like many shipowners today, they will evade detection not by ducking procedures and regulations, but by using them to hide. This would be very easy to do. Paradoxically, when a ship approaching US shores does not comply, it will be because it is a bumbler, and therefore almost by definition innocent.

Asymmetric or "fourth-generation" warfare pits a nation-state against an enemy who is everywhere and nowhere; who has no flag, no uniformed army, no capital city, no ascertainable geography. For such an enemy, the sea is the friendliest place on earth, the natural habitat of the stateless terrorist. Its legal ambiguities suit him perfectly; it offers secrecy, anonymity, and the ability to change identity at will; it is one enormous hiding place. The lax internationalism of the ocean might have been expressly designed to accommodate the kind of loose, far-flung, fugitive, paranational organization that may now confront us. The rusty cargo ship is a potential weapon that could deliver death on a considerably greater scale than September 11 —and the chances of a ship reaching the heart of its chosen target city without being detected are so high that they hardly bear thinking about.

More money for port security has consistently been asked for by, yes, the Democrats in Congress. If it's partisan to note that, so be it. We need the money spent. We need attention paid to this issue, by whomever runs Congress, and whomever is in the White House. Sooner, rather than later.

Or, sooner, rather than later, we'll regret it, and I only hope we'll live to regret it.

Read The Rest Scale: 5 out of 5.

Gary Farber's home blog is Amygdala.

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This is from the London Daily Telegraph:

"Iran Starts Atom Tests In Defiance Of EU Deal
By Anton La Guardia, Diplomatic Editor

Iran has broken the seals on nuclear equipment monitored by United Nations inspectors and is once again building and testing machines that could make fissile material for nuclear weapons.

Teheran's move, revealed to The Daily Telegraph yesterday by western sources, breaks a deal with European countries under which Iran suspended "all uranium enrichment activity".

It will also exacerbate fears that the regional power is determined to make an atomic bomb within a few years."

This from the Times of London dated July 27, 2004:

"Iranians Will Soon Be Able To Create A Nuclear Bomb, Claim Diplomats
By Michael Evans, Defence Editor

IRAN is just "months away" from having the capability to enrich uranium for a nuclear bomb, Western diplomatic sources said yesterday.

Through diplomatic manoeuvring, Tehran had bought time to complete its research on constructing a centrifuge system to produce highly enriched uranium, the sources told The Times.

The Iranians had clearly chosen that track for developing bomb-grade material over creating plutonium from its nuclear reactor facility at Bushehr, they said.

"Iran appears to be further advanced in acquiring the relevant nuclear technology than we had initially thought," said one British official."

So what has these British diplomats punching the panic button? Try these reports from the Washington Times and Agence France-Presse via Spacewar.com. There were traces of highly enriched uranium found at two separate sites in the Iranian cities of Natanz and Tehran by the IAEA. It is suspected that in addition to getting foreign centrifuges, the 36% enriched uranium traces detected came from a Russian research reactor:

"Nuclear expert David Albright told AFP from Washington that Iran's "centrifuge story just doesn't hold up".

He said the numbers made it look like Iran rather than doing research was seeking "to go into serial production." Highly enriched uranium (HEU) can be nuclear fuel or the explosive in an atom bomb. Particles of 36-percent HEU found at Farayand, a new site after IAEA inspectors had last year detected such particles at the Kalaye Electric Comany in Tehran, leave the IAEA unable to confirm Iran's claims the contamination was from imported equipment, probably from Pakistan, rather than a sign the Iranians may have been trying to enrich uranium on their own.

"This means they're probably lying about the origin of that 36 percent enriched uranium," a Western diplomat close to the IAEA said.

"Obviously they either imported the enriched uranium from abroad or it originated in their own enrichment," the diplomat said, mentioning that the HEU might be from a Russian research reactor."

The reality of Russian pre-enriched unranium feed stock for its centrifuges means that Iran is months, and by that I mean less than a year and perhaps as few as six months, away from having weapons grade highly enriched uranium for nuclear devices.

What was learned when Libya turned "states evidence" and revealed the wide spread dispersal of Chinese fission warhead designs via Pakistani scientist A. Q. Khan, means these devices will be operational missile warheads of a proven design.

SHARON WILL ACT AGAINST THAT THREAT!

In Iran’s Spoiling Attack I said that these were the stakes we faced:

"More than Iraq is at stake here there are other players, notably Israel. Iran's mullahs are developing nuclear weapons, which they view as a magic shield against America and a sword to destroy the Jewish state. They have made overt threats to nuke Israel as soon as they have nuclear weapons, and said they believe Iran would survive any exchange of nukes with Israel. The mullahs do not at all understand that their inflammatory rhetoric intended for domestic political effect has a whole new meaning for other countries when backed up with nuclear weapons.

This brings up the following question:

Does anyone doubt for a moment that Israel will, absolutely, positively WILL preemptively destroy Iranian nuclear facilities, with nukes if necessary, to prevent another holocaust?"

And that as a result we would invade Iran after Israeli air strikes on its nuclear facilities because:

"...I don't see America waiting for an Iranian revolution. We will do it ourselves no later than my friend's fall/winter 2005 prediction. We both feel that the deal between Sharon and Bush on this has already been made. If a successful Iranian revolution makes the invasion unnecessary, fine, but we won't take the risk of delay.

Iran is at war with us whether or not we want to be at war with them. Nukes are on the table now, and they are not our nukes. We are on a count down to invasion to keep the nuclear genie from escaping.

Much more is at stake in November's presidential election than President Bush is willing to admit."

You heard it here before, now you will hear it again... I told you so.

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• The UN has passed a resolution asking Sudan to disarm Arab militia's in Darfur within 30 days, but does not threaten sanctions against Sudan if it fails to comply. AfricaBlog sees more evidence of UN toothlessness.

• Andrew warns that time is of the essence in dealing with Darfur.

• The EU has failed to declare the situation in Darfur a genocide. Black Star Journal isn't pleased.

• Abiola seems unimpressed as well.

• AfricaBlog doesn't understand the crucial distiction between genocide and the "widespread, silent and slow killing and village burning of a fairly large scale." Now that's what I call nuance.

• Rajan Rishyakaran reports on recent Russian arms contracts with the Sudanese government.

• More evidence that the Sudanese government is behind the Darfur genocide.

• In a strong expression of Arab solidarity, the members of the Arab League appear ready to defend Sudan against any international censure.

• Maybe the Arab League is well-disposed toward Sudan because some of the Darfur rebels might be supported by THE JEWS! Abiola has comments.

• Of course, be sure to check out The Passion of the Present for comprehensive coverage of the Darfur crisis.

War on Terror

• Speaking of Sudan, Mostly Africa noticed that a few US special forces have been there hunting al Qaeda recently.

• In homeland security news, Abiola noted the recent arrest of a South African national trying to board an airplane with an altered passport. Part of an al Qaeda dry run?

Uganda

• The Ugandan army says that they nearly caught up with Joseph Kony, leader of the long running rebellion in northern Uganda.

• Meanwhile, Head Heeb finds evidence that Kony's Lord's Resistance Army may be fizzling out, in part because of the changing political situation in southern Sudan.

Finally...

• Kenyan Pundit has an interesting post on African "brain drain," i.e., the tendency of the best-educated Africans to seek careers in highly-developed countries, particularly the West. What's interesting is that brain drain also occurs within Africa: 50% of Kenyan graduates move to South Africa.

• As another example, take Zimbabwe. Its commercial farmers are now moving to Zambia, Nigeria, Angola and Mozambique in order to escape the misrule of Robert Mugabe. I'd say they're lucky if they can leave.

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IN "WE'RE ALL ONE BIG HAPPY EUROPEAN FAMILY" NEWS :

• President Horst Köhler broke with the tradition of the German head of state making France the destination of the first official foreign trip, and visited Poland instead. "Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski was delighted with the decision. 'This is a sign of how closer our relations have become,' the Polish leader said in an interview with Berlin's Tagesspiegel newspaper. In an article Köhler wrote for the Polish paper Gazeta Wyborcza, he stressed his biographical ties with Poland. Köhler was born in 1943 in the Polish village of Skierbieszow, but his family was forced to flee at the end of the war along with millions of other ethnic Germans. 'This means that I can help Poland realize its dreams and hopes in Europe,' said Köhler." It sounds like a diplomatic case of "treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen," but what will the scorned France think?
  


• Meanwhile the German-British love affair seems to be a one way street, according to this recent study of young people's attitudes conducted by the British Council and the German Goethe Institute. Overall, 50% of young Germans have visited Great Britain; "[they] view the UK as a successful multi-cultural society which is modern and future-oriented. Britain is also considered to be a country where important trends are set, for instance in the art and music scenes." On the other hand, only 37% of young Britons have visited Germany; "[Germany]'s not seen to be trendy, but most young Britons mention Germany's technological capabilities and its drive for perfection... Many young Britons still believe that Germans are not open-minded and - even worse - without any sense of humor." Long live the European Union of Stereotypes.
  


• And in case you had any doubts, Spain has most definitely ditched the New Europe: "In an interview with French daily Le Monde [of course - ed.], [Spanish Prime Minister] Zapatero said, 'France and Germany are the two decisive countries for the European construction and Spain should be there.' He acknowledged that Spain has re-joined the European family after the departure of his predecessor Jose Maria Aznar, who had 'one foot in Europe ... and one outside to slow it down'." Meanwhile, as the previously quoted story suggests, Germany thinks that Poland is the other decisive country in Europe, and Poland thinks it's the United States, so we're back to square one.
  


• Speaking of Spain, its relations with Great Britain are rather strained at the moment over the decision of the Brit Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon to attend Gibraltar's celebrations of 300 years of British rule. In the words of the Spanish foreign secretary Miguel Angel Moratinos, "This commemoration of a past military event weakens the relationships with Spain. It turns out to be very strange that in this 21st century, the military occupation of part of an EU member-state's territory is commemorated by another member-state." The best response comes from the Conservative Party's Shadow Foreign Secretary Michael Ancram: "Grow up."
  


• Lastly, this - about strained relations with oneself: "Citing bad service and high prices, French residents are choosing other Mediterranean sites, such as Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Croatia for their holidays. 'This year I'm going to Barcelona because at least people there smile and are welcoming,' a senior Peugeot executive said." Something must be going right in the world when even the French don't like the French.

IN THE TRANS-ATLANTIC RELATIONS NEWS:

• The government of Austria is planning to honour their most famous expatriate son, Gov Schwarzenegger, with a 1 euro ($1.25) postage stamp. "The stamp features a portrait of a serious-looking Schwarzenegger in a suit and tie in front of the U.S. and Austrian flags. It also bears his name, the word Austria in English and the number 100, signifying that it is worth 100 cents." Austrians, depending on their attitude to Arnold, will now be able to either lick or spit at his back.
  


• German government has meanwhile brushed off reports that the United States is planning to block Germany's bidto obtain a permanent seat at the Unites Nation's Security Council. "The German government stands by its position that the United Nations Security Council should be reformed... Germany is ready to take up its responsibility as permanent member of the UN Security Council." There's already four vetoes on the Security Council to every US action; the fifth one hardly constitutes a reform.
  


• On the positive side, you might remember Aage Bjerre, the Danish pizza maker and a passionate supported of the American invasion of Iraq. Last year, Bjerre was sacked for refusing to serve French and German tourists, as a form of protest against these countries' anti-American foreign policy. Bjerre also spent eight days in a minimum security jail for refusing to pay the fine for his offence. Well, Bjerre has just been fired from his new job, for again refusing to serve German tourists. Isn't it the time that the right-wing blogdom has finally honoured this champion of the American alliance?
  


• And speaking of Europe's own Axis of Evil (the United States, Great Britain, Israel), who can forget the recent kind offer by French President Chirac not to receive Israeli PM Sharon, after the latter called on French Jews to emigrate to Israel, following the rise in anti-Semitic incidents in France.

IN THE WAR ON TERROR NEWS:

• Our friends the Germans are reportedly dropping the charges against a Hamburg-based Moroccan Mounir el Motassadeq, accused of aiding the September 11 hijackers, because of concerns that evidence supplied by the Americans might have been obtained through torture. "[The testimonies from America contain] no details as to where [the witnesses] were questioned, nor whether torture or other forms of force were used to make them talk," says a senior German intelligence official. Notice the reversed presumption: you have to prove that terror suspects were not tortured, but since that's too difficult to prove we'll just throw out the evidence altogether. This would be funny if it actually wasn't so serious. I can't say I'm surprised though, remembering the story I reported some time ago, about German military personnel refusing to take Taliban prisoners in Afghanistan because they would have to be turned over to the Americans who might in turn abuse them.
  


• Meanwhile, as America had its own scare with Syrian musicians, Spain is keen to learn from the experience. The Iberian authorities have now, without providing any reasons, denied entry visas to the Nokhchu youth folklore group from Chechnya. The group was to perform at the 16th International Folklore Festival. The Spanish decision is entirely understandable; after all, we've all heard of the dreaded suicide folk dancers of Grozny.
  


• Somebody else, however, hasn't learned from the recent American experience: "A German teenager faces legal action after faking his own kidnapping because he didn't want to finish his compulsory military service." Speaking of military service, in case you were wondering about the European military prowess, wonder no more: "A number of Finnish conscripts have been excused their full term of military service because they are addicted to the Internet... Doctors have found the young men miss their computers too much to cope with their compulsory six months in the forces."

For more Euro Absurdities, including economic, science, education, aviation, health, openmindedness and tolerance, cultural, (qasi) religious, law and order, real estate, sports and animal welfare news, read the complete round-up at here at Chrenkoff.

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The Arab League has rejected any sanctions or international military intervention as a response to the crisis in Sudan's Darfur region.

Of course we do; if we make an exception, who's next? One of the rest of us? How many of us? Say, wait, has anyone noticed none of us are democracies? (Iraq is not yet fully re-admitted, so far as I know, nor yet precisely a democracy, either.) Wait a second! Crap. We're all oligarchies or dictatorships, some more benign than others, some more repressive. Why didn't anyone tell us this before?!

Arab foreign ministers at an emergency session in Cairo backed Khartoum's measures to disarm Arab militias and punish human rights violators.

Said "measures" being along the lines of waving at the militias and saying "so long, boys! Have fun storming the castle!"

They called on the UN to give Sudan more time to resolve the conflict.

I think a century or two might be sufficient, don't you? But let's not be rash; put a provision for extension into the resolution.

And Sudanese Vice-President Ali Osman Taha said he thought the UN's end of August deadline was impractical.

August, 2100, is much more convenient for us; does that work for you?

He told the BBC's Hard Talk programme that Khartoum was committed to disarming all militia forces in Darfur. He said 6,000 Sudanese police and government troops were currently in Darfur, and there were plans to expand the force to 12,000.

Since most of the "police" and the "militias" are the same people, this should work out well.

"We are really committed to disarm whoever is acting outside the law," he said, adding that comprehensive stability was only possible if both the Arab Janjaweed militia and rebel groups disarmed.

"Our Janjaweed/police are inside the law. We must preserve the right to drive out, rape, and kill the black abeed/slaves."

But he added that logistical problems were hampering deployment,

It is difficult for us to kill and rape as fast as we'd like with all the damn foreigners around now.

...which meant that fully disarming the Arab Janjaweed militia, and other forces, by the end of August would not be possible.

[...]

Mr Moussa said before the talks that the group was inclined towards helping Sudan avoid sanctions.

Is anyone in need of smelling salts? I have some right here. No one? Okay, then.

The BBC's Magdi Abdelhadi in Cairo said there were no surprises in the Arab League statement and Khartoum got what it wanted.

The statement welcomed measures already taken by the Sudanese government to disarm the Janjaweed and bring those responsible for human rights violations in Darfur to justice.

The Arab foreign ministers also pledged to assist Sudan and the international community in resolving the conflict peacefully.

Our correspondent says the statement was very much in line with a report by an Arab League fact-finding mission to Darfur earlier this year, which largely exonerated the Sudanese government from responsibility and laid the blame on a combination of factors, including protracted drought, tribal conflict and under-development in western Sudan.

[...]

Human Rights Watch has demanded the Arab League "stand behind the victims" in Darfur.

Its Africa division chief Peter Takirambudde accused Sudan of "trying to manipulate opinion in the Arab world to hide the massive crimes it has committed against Sudanese citizens".

The Arab League replied "I can't heeeaaarre you!," and went back to passing resolutions condemning Israel for its indiffence to human life.

Read The Rest Scale: 1.5 out of 5.

Gary Farber's home blog is Amygdala.

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Russia's Economy

• Aeroflot has been a lasting icon of the Soviet era and has remained the "state airline" of Russia. In late July, however, Russia announced plans to sell its majority share in the airline. Aeroflot officials loudly denounced the plan as unwise, citing the airline's strategic economic importance, fears of the airline becoming foreign owned and concerns that the airline is currently undervalued. (Ed: My experience is the airline is not undervalued - the planes are horribly maintained and the "service" is non-existent)

• For the first half of 2004, the number of people living below the poverty level in Russia has decreased to nearly 30 million. This still places the percentage of Russian citizens living in poverty at 21%, however.

Internal Politics

• The Russian oil firm YUKOS is fighting for its life. While it does, the global oil market is impacted significantly. YUKOS former CEO and largest shareholder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, stands trial for fraud and tax evasion. YUKOS is facing a 3.4 billion dollar government imposed penalty, which would bankrupt the firm. There is no question that this is a case of abuse of power. The question is whether the abuser is YUKOS or the Russian government.

• The Soviet Gulags are all gone - but what about the prisoners? Hundreds of thousands former soviet prisoners were left in towns near the Arctic circle to fend for themselves when the Soviet Union collapsed. The Russian government has offered assistance to move families of former gulag inmates into the interior of Russia - but until the assistance comes, they wait. The one thing most of the aging, former inmates living in Vorkuta, near the Arctic Circle, do not have is the kind of time estimates say is necessary at current funding levels - 100 years.

Chechnya

• Aslan Maskhadov, the Chechen separatist leader who is a constant thorn in the side of Russian President Putin, has claimed responsibility for an attack on the Republic of Ingushetia, on the western border of Chechnya. The attack resulted in the deaths of 90 Russians - mostly law enforcement officials. This is seen as a serious risk to solving the rebellion in Chechnya diplomatically.

• Akhmad Kadyrov, the recently elected President of Chechnya, was killed by a bomb in May. With new elections slated for August 29, 2004 the Putin government is stating its support for Alu Alkhanov - the former interior minister. If he can survive until the elections are held, Alkhanov is not seriously threatened by any of the other candidates. Alkhanov has long been an advocate for returning Chechnya to Russia proper, which explains the Putin's government support for his candidacy.

International Relations & Security

• Russia will conduct exercises in Kyrgyzstan to test their ability to mobilize a rapid deployment force (RDF) to Central Asia to combat terrorism. Russia is also investing in a base in Kyrgyzstan reported as a stepping off point in support Central Asian RDF operations going forward.

• No "warm fuzzies" in Georgia-Russia relations lately. Russia is using strong diplomatic language over an incident which found Russian military vehicles being seized by Georgian troops. Russian government officials state the vehicles contained supplies destined for peacekeeping forces in South Ossetia, a break-away republic of Georgia populated mostly by ethnic Russians.

Paging Mr. Bond...

• Russia and Lithuania are trading diplomatic body shots over the expulsion of three Russian diplomats accused of espionage from Lithuania in February 2004. In response, Russia has recently declared persona non grata the military attache at the Lithuanian embassy in Russia. Furthermore, Russia refuses to accredit the replacement attache for entry into Russia as a diplomat.

• Maria Konnenkova is not well known - but she easily could have been. She was the Soviet spy who dated Albert Einstein in a 'close surveillance' operation to gain information about the Manhattan Project during the 1940s.

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Sci-Tech stories:

• The old futures are the best futures. A wonderful site full of drawings and plans for technology the past envisioned for the future.

• The wireless police and wiring of the Democratic convention; no politics, just pure tech about what's involved in dealing with thousands of demands for wireless communication.

• Burt Rutan will launch Spaceship one on September 29th, and again within two weeks to attempt to win the Ansari X Prize.

• Everything you ever wanted to know about payphones.

• How not to make science policy.

• The growing cult of do it yourself outdoor mass digital movie theaters.

• The AI biologist doing useful science.

• The robot librarian. I see a date with the robot biologist coming up!

• Mm, your edible blood bisquits, yogurts, ice creams, and other yummy foods.

The Odd And Amusing:

• Saddam is sad! Play rock, scissors, paper with him!

• Ever seen an air shark?

• No chewing on the Metro in D.C.; you won't like the results.

• George Bush's blog.

• I reveal the secret Colin Powell tried to keep from you!

• Britain is hiring for a new court jester.

• Where is the White Lion? Help find the missing pub!

• Cats & Dogs Dying Together. Emily Yoffe finds amazing and funny pet artifacts and stories at the sales/promotion area of a veterinarian's expo.

• The plot of Revenge of The Sith? You decide.

• Donations to the cause of me would be most welcome right now.

I hope you might find something worth whatever time you've spent here. If not, my apologies.

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...his statement that most of the thugs were from outside Najaf rule out all the claims that this is an uprising, as if it was so then we would’ve seen the people of the city themselves revolting in large numbers but the fact is that Muqtada has gathered his criminals from many cities and focused on Najaf and Baghdad only because he knew he wouldn’t find enough people to support him had he depended on the people of Najaf alone. While the fights in other cities were small compared to Baghdad and Najaf and there was absolutely no fights in the rural areas which shows that the distribution of fighters was planned to focus on important areas only, and this ensures more media coverage which in my mind is one of the main goals of such movement, as it’s clearly supported and planned by outside parties which are dying to show Iraq as an unstable and hopeless place. Besides we all saw how the people of Najaf were delighted to see the IP control the city again in the previous revolt after many days of fighting. Also an uprising is a reaction rather than a planned action and here the percentage of the fighters from outside the city show clearly that this is closer to a planned revolt.

Note that Quiggin's criticism was centered on the notion that we were fighting the residents of the community who were engaged in a spontaneous uprising based on the poor conditions and aimed at ousting the foreign occupiers.

Assuming Omar's claim is true - and he's closer to the action than John or I - my only comment must be that facts can be such annoying things.

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He immediately radioed for help. Soon after, a team of Oregon Army National Guard soldiers swept into the yard and found dozens of Iraqi detainees who said they had been beaten, starved and deprived of water for three days.

In a nearby building, the soldiers counted dozens more prisoners and what appeared to be torture devices -- metal rods, rubber hoses, electrical wires and bottles of chemicals. Many of the Iraqis, including one identified as a 14-year-old boy, had fresh welts and bruises across their back and legs.

The soldiers disarmed the Iraqi jailers, moved the prisoners into the shade, released their handcuffs and administered first aid. Lt. Col. Daniel Hendrickson of Albany, Ore., the highest ranking American at the scene, radioed for instructions.

But in a move that frustrated and infuriated the guardsmen, Hendrickson's superior officers told him to return the prisoners to their abusers and immediately withdraw. It was June 29 -- Iraq's first official day as a sovereign country since the U.S.-led invasion.

The incident, the first known case of human rights abuses in newly sovereign Iraq, is at the heart of the American dilemma here.

[...]

An Oregon guardsman who witnessed the day's events, Capt. Jarrell Southall, provided The Oregonian with a written account of the incident. Other guardsmen interviewed in Iraq corroborated Southall's account on the condition that their names not be used.

The U.S. Embassy in Iraq confirmed the incident occurred and disclosed for the first time that the United States raised questions about the June 29 "brutality" with Iraq's interior minister.

The embassy declined to say what response was received in the meeting between the minister and James Jeffrey, the second-ranking U.S. diplomat in Iraq, saying it would be "inappropriate" to discuss "details of those diplomatic and confidential conversations."

The embassy, in a written statement, said U.S. soldiers are "compelled by the law of land warfare and core values to stop willful and unnecessary use of physical violence on prisoners." The U.S. soldiers involved in the incident, it said, "acted professionally and calmly to ease tensions and defend prisoners who needed help."

The June 29 confrontation between U.S. troops and Iraqi officials at the Interior Ministry has been mentioned in news accounts in the United States and Britain. But details about the prisoners' injuries, the actions of the Oregon Guard and the high-level American decision to leave the injured detainees in the hands of Iraqis has not been previously reported.

And the rest of the details are given in a substantial account that leaves little room for doubt about any of the facts. What remains to be determined is what it means for the future of Iraq, and the future of the US in the Mideast.

Will we indeed wind up with a "Mubarak" in charge in Iraq? Or merely during a "transition period"? (Mubarak's "state of emergency" in Eqypt has been continuous for approximately twenty years, and nearly continuously since the passage of Law No. 162 of 1958; there's no democracy in Egypt, nor love of the U.S.) Or what?

Let no one be sure of their assertions, unless they have a crystal ball, but let no one avoid the historical importance of this question, nor look away.

Read The Rest Scale: 5 out of 5.

Gary Farber's home blog is Amygdala.

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IRAN REPORTS

• Iran will soon test an advanced version of the Shihab-3. To protect itself against Israel, of course. Iranian Defence Minister Shamkhani: "[W]e have to invest on nuclear defense preparation".

• Jane's Defence Weekly alleges that Iran is testing ballistic missiles for the North Koreans, which Iran denies. Jane's describes the two new systems as "appreciably expanded the ballistic-missile threat".

• The Monkerat, the Iranian religious police, are stepping up their oppression.

• Reformist parties are backing a Mir Hossein Mousavi as the next president of Iran. Hopefully he'll work out better than the last guy.

• Speaking of whom... 'Moderate' sell-out President Khatami says Iran cannot tolerate U.S. attacks on Najaf.

DOMESTIC SECURITY BRIEFINGS

• Of the original 13 al-Qaeda suspects arrested in the U.K, two have been released without charge and another two charged with having forged documents. Another two of them were trained by Hamas. A summary of the arrests can be found here.

• Time Magazine has been informed by "unnamed U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials" that al-Qaeda discussed using petrol tankers and limousines to attack financial targets in the United States. Given the barricades around the Capitol, this will come as no surprise: Officials: Capitol among new U.S. terror targets Drudge has more...

• Australian intelligence finds that 10 more of their citizens trained with al-Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Taiba. However, they cannot be prosecuted, as they trained before the groups were outlawed in September 20

• An FBI sting operation in New York has led to the arrests of two men - one a mosque-founder, the other an imam at said mosque. The Deputy Attorney General suspects they are linked to Ansar al-Islam. The bogus plot concerned a SAM attack on a Pakistani diplomat.

• The Abu Hafs al-Masri's "truce" offer with Italy ends on August 15. This comes during a time of unusual 'chatter' on al-Qaeda linked message boards.

THE WIDER WAR

• Authorities in Dubai have captured Qari Saifullah Akhtar, wanted for involvement in two attempts of Musharraf's life. He has already been flown to Pakistan.

• Jordan is trying to prevent radical preachers from inciting hatred of the United States.

• Wretchard at the Belmont Club looks at the end of the Hudna in Mindanao.

• Mohammed Dahlan's deadline for Arafat to hand over control of the terrorist militias P.A. security forces is tomorrow.

• An al-Aksa Martyrs Brigade leader says the P.A. territories may be infiltrated by al-Qaeda. I took a look at this here.

• In the Phillipines, an Abu Sayyaf kidnapper of an American is captured. Meanwhile, the military is hunting Abu Sayyaf leader Kaddafy Janjalani in the province of Tawi-Tawi.

• A primer on the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.

• Of the 26 names on Saudi Arabia's most wanted list, only 11 remain alive and at large. Faris Ahmed Jamaan Al-Zahrani, who was #11, surrendered to police after a chase by police.

• According to a psychiatrist who works for the C.I.A., suicide bombers and terrorists are sane and normal, not mentally disturbed.

• The Aussies pledge to fight terrorism in what PM John Howard called "our patch".

• The legendary Delta Force are in Sudan hunting al-Qaeda.

• Israelis near the nuclear research centre at Dimona are being given radiation antidote. Perhaps the Israelis are preparing to bomb something? Maybe something Iranian...?

• Finally, for someone predicted to lose in November, Dubya seems pretty relaxed...

Thanks for reading! If you found something here you want to blog about yourself (and we hope you do), all we ask is that you do as we do and offer a Hat Tip hyperlink to today's "Winds of War". If you think we missed something important, use the Comments section to let us know.

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REPORTS FROM THE FIELD

• Zeyad has a collection of reports on the fighting in Iraq as of Friday well worth reading. Omar at Iraq the Model has more.

• Arthur Chrenkoff points to some early good news from Iraq.

• SBN: Back in 2003 Ben Stein wrote a column called, "How Can Someone Who Lives in Insane Luxury Be a Star in Today's World?", in which he talks about heroism. The father of a Stryker Brigade soldier recently sent the article to his son, who is serving in Iraq. His
  son responded with a long email about a few of the heroes he's served with.

• SBN: Stryker Brigade News also has two albums of photos submitted by Stryker Brigade and Task Force Olympia soldiers. The first is called Smiles From Iraq, and the second is titled Landscapes From Iraq.

IRAQI POLITICS

• As combat continues in Najaf, Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi visited the city to call on the Shiites to lay down their weapons and end the fighting. Allawi was forced to leave the city when fighting flared again, however.

• Iraq has reinstated the death penalty for certain crimes, saying it was a necessary move in response to the continued violence. (Hat tip: The Agonist.)

THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE

• Reporters Without Borders is protesting Iraq's decision to close the offices of al Jazeera for the past month.

• Australian Prime Minister John Howard is the latest coalition partner to face potential election blowback from his support for the Iraq war.

ETCETERA

• Arthur Chrenkoff notes the rapid expansion of the Army's training brigade at Fort Benning as we prepare for a potential expansion of the U.S. armed forces.

• Phil Carter examines some of the problems Iraq veterans are facing looking for health care. It's hardly a new story, but no less frustrating.

• The troops are still there. So is the Winds of Change.NET consolidated directory of ways you can support the troops: American, Australian, British, Canadian & Polish. Anyone out there with more information, contact us!

• Don't forget Chief Wiggles' Toys for Iraq drive!

Thanks for reading! If you found something here you want to blog about yourself (and we hope you do), all we ask is that you do as we do and offer a Hat Tip hyperlink to today's "Winds of War". If you think we missed something important, use the Comments section to let us know.

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The first is that it ignores the question of whether there are values worth dying - and killing - for. Poland, France, and the UK could have avoided all those deaths in WW II, if only they had simply surrendered. If only President Lincoln had commanded the forces holding Ft. Sumter to simply strike the flag and come home.

You get the point.

It is clear, on one hand, that people often kill for trivial and shameful reasons. It is equally clear, to me at least, that we must sometimes kill for honorable ones.

The second problem, and sad fact, is that we can never know whether we saved lives or not - because events in the world of politics and warfare are 'wicked problems,' and so can't be rerun like computer models with different assumptions.

Doonsbury today has a strip in which Mike has a daydream. He dreams:

"George Bush never became President!

"Not only that, we never invaded Iraq, killing thousands of civilians and turning it into a vast, new staging ground for terrorism!"

"And get this - it says we didn't torture and kill prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo!"

"And look! We're not hated around the world!"

"Nope! The American people are far more secure! And haven't been polarized by a war that has cost nearly 900 U.S. lives!"

As a sidenote, it may be the case that it would be worth re-electing Bush for the simple reason that it might force Trudeau into retirement. On the other hand, if he were to promise to retire if Kerry were elected, he might sway my vote that way...

But back to my point. How does Trudeau know? How does one estimate what the world would look like in an alternate present? And, more important, when one runs his alternate present forward into alternate futures, what do they look like?

We're dealing in a world where we can count our costs, but have no idea how to measure the benefits. And that's one of the biggest failures, I believe, of the Bush Administration. They haven't made it clear what we're getting for the costs we're bearing (as they haven't been as clear as they should of what the true likely costs are).

Quiggin goes on:

These people weren't Al Qaeda or Baathists, they were (apart from the inevitable innocent bystanders) young Iraqi men who objected to foreign occupation. Sadr’s militia is one of a dozen or so similar outfits in Iraq, and there are hundreds more around the world, quite a few of which have received US support despite having a worse record than Sadr’s. Moreover, there was no cause at stake that justified a war - the first started when Bremer shut down Sadr’s newspaper and the Sadrists retaliated by taking control of some police stations and mosques. The current fighting seems to have had even more trivial causes. It’s the willingness of the US government to send in the Marines that’s turned what would normally be noisy disturbances into bloodbaths.

You know, it's always us causing the mess. But let's skip that and point out that one of the primary criticisms of the occupation by war opponents such as Quiggin has been that we have not established order; that we have taken a country that was oppressed - but stable! - and knocked it backward into chaos and horror. Well defeating chaos and horror sometimes involves defeating - which means capturing, killing or otherwise rendering ineffective - those forces that would promote it. Sadr could have chosen a political route; instead he built a militia, and with it, took territory.

That territory is being retaken. One would think that if a pacified, orderly Iraq - and just possibly a free one - is the goal, this would be seen as a good thing. But instead, let's blame the Marines for creating a bloodbath.

Let's blame Lincoln and Churchill, too.

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I believe in moderate and reasonable gun control laws (defined by me, of course), and the right of the government to pass them. I also believe they don't do much good, in most cases, in fighting crime, and that some are outright irrational, designed solely to cosmetically reassure people who think guns are magically evil.

I understand the fears of those greatly concerned about the Second Amendment, although I think they're ultimately a bit irrational, and unhelpful in preventing reasonable compromise. (Yes, of course I'm wrong about that, as it's an inevitable slippery slope to confiscation, and the line must never be crossed; I've heard; yes, I know what happened in Britain and elsewhere; really, I'm not unfamiliar with the arguments, thanks.)

I'm also glad that the Democrats, at a national level, to a fair degree, recognized after 2000 that the urban Gun Control Uber Alles stance was politically more harmful than helpful. If you want to win elections in America only in big cities, all sorts of gun control laws are winners; elsewhere, however, not.

But so long as Kerry keeps going around saying things like this, he's not helping himself with anyone.

"You know, I'm a hunter and a fisherman," he said on a ranch in Smithville, Mo., on Friday. "I've been a hunter since I was about 12 years old. I'm a gun owner. I believe in the Second Amendment. I know it matters out here in parts of the world. But we've got to have a habitat if we're going to hunt."

This completely fails to get that the concern of the Second Amendment folks isn't remotely about hunting. It's about the right to protect themselves. Period. End of paragraph, end of story, end of book, end of serial.

So long as Kerry, or any other politician, goes on about "understanding" your "need to hunt," they might as well be wearing a flashing neon blimp on their head that screams "I'm a clueless urban git who doesn't get the gun issue!"

It's. Not. About. Hunting.

What needs to be said is something along the lines of "I pledge my party will never confiscate any weapon you legitimately need to protect yourself and your loved ones; that right is guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution, and cannot be taken away, and it never will! Small arms in the hands of responsible owners can save lives, and have many times. I understand that, even though my Party hasn't always; a vote for me is a vote for your right to keep your gun! A vote for me is a vote to keep us safe by enforcing our present gun laws! God bless America!"

I've never owned a gun, by the way, and I don't presently expect I ever will. I simply understand, I think, the issues.

(I also support right-to-carry laws that also mandate licensing, registration, and training; if we license you to drive, and require you to register your care, it's legitimate to do that for your gun. And being for that no more means intending to confiscate your gun that that the government intends to confiscate your car. Unless you violate the law. That, in my view, is the sensible moderate position.)

Read The Rest Scale: 2 out of 5 if it's a relevation to you that Kerry is now playing to the center.

Gary Farber's home blog is Amygdala.

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The seven Iraqi civic and community leaders are in the midst of a three-week American tour, sponsored by the State Department, that also includes stops in Washington, Los Angeles and Chicago.

They are visiting Memphis to learn about the government process and the city's place in the civil rights struggle.

[...]

And a morning meeting between City Council member Carol Chumney and the Iraqis was moved to the Memphis Convention and Visitors Bureau because the delegation was barred from City Hall at the edict of City Council chairman Joe Brown.

Elisabeth Silverman, the group's host and head of the Memphis Council for International Visitors, said Brown told her he would "evacuate the building and bring in the bomb squads" if the group entered.

Brown denied that, saying he was only concerned about the safety of the delegation and the people in City Hall.

"We don't know exactly what's going on. Who knows about the delegation, and has the FBI been informed?" Brown said. "It was about the facility. That's the bottom line. We must secure and protect all the employees in that building."

And thus the lovely results of Arabaphobia, fear of Arabs. Welcome, friends, to America!

As well, the Mayor of Memphis refused to meet with them.

Mayoral spokesman Gale Jones Carson said Herenton never received an official written request.

How well we respected our brave visitors. However, they were indomitable.

The delegates seemed to be in good spirits Monday morning, however, meeting with Chumney to hear how local government operates. The delegation took numerous notes and asked several questions, mostly through three translators.

"They are in charge of setting up processes in their country. They have to educate themselves about how it works in this country," Silverman said. "They are (also) looking at how people emerge out of an era when there has not been any civil rights."

Shahla Waliy, a 31-year-old native of Baghdad, was especially intrigued by the latter opportunity, which includes visits with civil rights leaders and a trip to the National Civil Rights Museum.

"I heard there was a kind of majority-minority conflict in Memphis, especially in history," she said. "We have these smaller provinces, and we have majority-minority conflicts in these places."

Of course, there was another reason Waliy was intrigued by Memphis. After arriving at her downtown hotel Sunday, she quickly left.

"I go directly to the Graceland," she said. "It's so nice to give respect and honor to such a singer who gave so much to a generation."

It sounds as if they were undaunted. And have priorities.

But people need to consider carefully the contradiction between desiring to win the hearts and minds of the Islamic and Arabic worlds, and treating them all with harsh fear and suspicion that every single person is a probable terrorist.

Because, that, too, friends, is a threat to national security, in the end: our own fear, suspicion, and hostility.

And the America I love is supposed to be better than that.

Read The Rest Scale: 1 out of 5.

FOLLOWUP: It turns out that, after the described events, two of the Iraqis were robbed on the street.

Two members of a group of Iraqi visitors who were barred from city hall were robbed at gunpoint on a Memphis street, police said Wednesday. No one was hurt.

[...]

Two members of the group, identified by police as Rwad Fanary and Liza Hido, were walking along a downtown street Tuesday when they were accosted by a man with a handgun. Police said the robber got away with an undisclosed amount of money, travelers checks and a camera. No arrests were made.

This was clearly a way to make them feel right at home.

Also Mayor Willie Herenton has issued an apology, which may presently be found here, if you scroll to the bottom of the page and hit the javascript link "Mayor's Iraqi Delegation Statement" under "Memphis Notes." (Warning: small pdf.)

On behalf of the citizens of Memphis I deeply regret the unfortunate events the Iraqi delegation experienced while visiting Memphis earlier this week. In no way should this experience reflect the feelings of our citizenry or its elected officials. I believe these incidents occurred due to lack of communication and heightened
anxiety as a result of world events. I apologize to the Iraqi delegation and their
hosts. I want them to know they are always welcome to the city of Memphis and
my door at City Hall is always open to them.

Gary Farber's home blog is Amygdala.

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(I don't have my copy of Campbell's collected letters any more, alas, but you'll find more at this URL.) Some of what Campbell says here is right, some wrong. Wouldn't this, to van Vogt in 1942, have been nice?

Socio-technical pressures after the war will be, for some time, directed toward rebuilding Europe, but with atomic technology coming in, and the immense population now available, that job will be effectively completed within 5 years. The time for interplanetary overflow will be at hand. First explorers, then colonies, then —the old cycle over again. Eventually, someday in the not-too-remote future, there will be overflow toward other stellar systems. The overflow will probably be directly from Earth, not from the other Solar planets. Earth will always develop the highest pressures; man is ideally adapted to this planet, and is bound to breed and work best here. The pressure will be for the discovery of other stellar planets more nearly identical to Earth in climate.

[...]

Incidentally, the time scale: Science-fiction tends to go very wrong on time-scale, because authors and readers in the field are very timid about it all. I'm betting on a first landing on the Moon by 1965 at the latest, Mars by 1970, Venus at or about the same time. There will be a scientific colony on the Moon from 1965 to 1970, consisting of astronomers, solar specialists, and electronics and atomic engineers. There will probably be some research chemists, and some map specialists too, the chemists working on projects more readily conducted under conditions of total vacuum and low temperature.

Bit premature; we could have had a moon colony by 1965, but, even assuming mankind went hellbent towards that goal from 1946 on, it would be have a damn unsafe place, given the technology of the Sixties.

I wonder what the mix of truth versus legend is to this?

Arwine's a Lt. Commander, but he told me he'd never commanded any ship, which puzzled me. I mentioned it to Heinlein, who said it wasn't any particular secret, but Lt. Commanders who haven't commanded ships are in another division of the Navy's work. He then dropped that, but went on to tell me about the very bad luck the Navy has with men who are sent to the Japanese Language School, also run by the Navy. A number of the very shortest Annapolis men take the course, but the Navy has the worst luck; nearly all of them, just about the time they've completed the long and very thorough course, get into a jam, a bad one —they go wrong, like taking a bribe and being caught at it, or something— and get court-martialled out of the Navy with a bang.

The obvious tale is that short Japanese-speaking Naval intelligence officers went off to, well, be as inconspicous as an undercover "caucasian" would be somewhere that Japanese is useful. I suspect more myth than fact to this, but probably with some grain of truth.

Campbell's rejection letter on Heinlein's Starship Soldier/Troopers:

In this yarn, there are several sections of multi-page preachments of his thesis. Some of the preachments I agree with fully; they still strike me as being ineffective because of the technique of direct-statement presentation.

The real suasion power of fiction lies, and always has lain, in the non-logical solution to the old logical paradox, "Epaminondas, the Cretan, says `All Cretans always lie.'"

The more fiction is kept at the level of fiction, the more the reader is forced to accept that any conclusions he reaches from the words of a professed liar are his own, personal conclusions, and that he, not the author, has reached that conclusion.

Jesus used parables –fictions— because what any listener derives from a fiction is the listener's own thought. And that sticks far deeper and tighter than the ideas of an external mind.

Properly done, you could produce a profound anti-Nazi feeling in the reader by telling a story 100% from the viewpoint of a dedicated, fervent Nazi.

Here I fear Bob's going to induce considerable anti-patriotism in a lot of readers by telling a story from the viewpoint of a 100% dedicated patriot.

Therefore, the points with which I agree with Bob in full make me uncomfortable when presented in this overly-homolitic fashion.

And there are points with which I disagree very strongly —including, as a matter of fact, his fundamental thesis-point. That shooting-war is, was, and forever will be, ahmen.

There's a lot more at this URL.

Read The Rest Scale: if interested, 5 of 5.

Gary Farber's home blog is Amygdala.

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Teenage boys steal Yu-Gi-Oh! cards - Pokémon-type prints of cartoon characters that are worth some money - from Asian children.

[...]

He thinks about what it must have been like to be the commanding officer of the precinct when he became a beat officer 20 years ago: "It would have been a much nicer job. They worried about crime, but they didn't worry about crime like I worry about crime. They worried about summonses, corruption. They weren't so focused on reducing crime. That's something Compstat did. I mean, don't get me wrong. It's a good thing, but it's an odd thing."

[...]

At the April community meeting, for example, a woman raised her hand toward the end with a complaint. An ice cream truck passed - and often stopped - in front of her apartment building every day, playing its song at high volume. She had written down the truck's license plate number.

Before Captain Matusiak could answer, a second woman raised her hand and said that as a matter of fact, she had the same problem, and had also written down the license number, but it was a different truck.

A uniformed officer stepped forward and said: "I took care of him today. You won't have a problem with him anymore. You have a problem, you call me personally. I'll take care of it."

Afterward, disbelief spread quickly among the officers. "Crime's been down," said Sgt. Sean Looney, a community affairs officer, "but the other complaints haven't gone anywhere. It used to be, 'Hey, there's guys with guns going to shoot them off,' and now it's Mister Softee playing his music."

Ten years ago, someone complaining about ice cream trucks would have been laughed out of the room. Ten years ago, an officer who promised to take care of it would have been marked for life, still hearing about it at his retirement party: Hey, Officer Ice Cream.

Police officers sat around after the meeting. Maytag repairmen in bulletproof vests.

One asked, "What's the world coming to?"

And another answered, "We've got to bring crime back."

[...]

"What surprises me is that the city has prospered so much that it's not the violent crimes that are happening in excess," she says. Lieutenant Fanale is a lesbian, and she likes provoking the red-cheeked Irish rookies who arrive in the spring. Out of earshot of the other officers, she says: "I'm so out in this job. That's the greatest part of this job. I'm free to be me, and that makes me a better person, a better boss."

[...]

Minutes later, the lieutenant is rampaging down Mott Street, shouting over an open cardboard box of frozen fish for sale on the sidewalk without a permit. "You don't speak English?" she shouts at the proprietor. "O.K., then I'll stop talking." She lifts the heavy box of ice and seafood and hurls it into the store. Sales girls jump. "Do you understand what 'inside' means now?"

[...]

Beside her is Officer Jacqueline Peters, her driver and friend since the lieutenant arrived in the Fifth. "I wish Sonny would get here with my shots," the lieutenant says. She left her hormone injections back at the precinct house. The officer finally calls her cellphone.

"I'm on the corner of Eldridge and Hester," Lieutenant Fanale says. She hangs up and chuckles. "It's like a drug transaction."

Another unmarked car pulls up. An officer, Richie Stellmann, leans out with a paper bag. "We got the goods," he says, passing it over and driving away.

Her driver, Officer Peters, takes the needles and small bottles that Lieutenant Fanale hands her and arranges them on the keyboard of the laptop computer between the front seats. Working in the pale glow of the screen, she draws liquid from the bottles into the syringe, tapping the tube with a fingernail to get the bubbles out. "You know somebody's going to call this in," the lieutenant says. " 'They're shooting up in the car and they're wearing N.Y.P.D. jackets.' "

[...]

The little boutiques are Officer Stellmann's beat. Incredible, the changes around here. Fathers used to make their family wait in the car while they checked their building's foyer for sleeping homeless people. These days the most obvious crime is the Bolognese sauce. Today, fathers drop $20 on a round of rice pudding cups, from a shop that sells only rice pudding.

The story reads a bit as if Michael Wilson, the writer, went in to write about the changes Compstat, the computerized anti-crime system that has revolutionized NYC policing and crime, madet, but found that, actually, there was so little crime left, the real story was just the everyday life of the precinct, where, um, crime is very minor, police are very bored, and all the children grow up strong and healthy.

Read The Rest Scale: 3 out of 5 for more of this episode of Police Story.

Gary Farber's home blog is Amygdala.

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...The false teacher will pay great attention to appearance, and will know how to make the Seeker think that he is a great man, that he understands him, that he has great secrets to reveal. The Sufi has secrets, but he must make them develop within the disciple. Sufism is something which happens to a person, not something which is given to him. The false teacher will keep his followers around him all the time, will not tell them that they are being given a training which must end as soon as possible, so that they may taste their development themselves and carry on as fulfilled people.

Rumi calls upon the scholastic, the theologian, and the follower of the false teacher: "When will you cease to worship and to love the pitcher? When will you begin to look for the water?" Externals are the things which people usually judge by. "Know the difference between the color of the wine and the color of the glass."

Many Sufi ideas are at work here, implicit in what is stated. Just as there are inauthentic teachers, there are many Seekers who do not, in fact, seek the enlightenment they claim to be after, but rather an emotional experience or "attention transaction"...one the false guide is only too happy to provide. The fact that the true Sufi does not always appear to be such, according to the expectations of the Seeker, is a means of sifting out the students with true potential...those who are able to see beyond the surface appearance, who are not so easily distracted by the trappings of a would-be guru.

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When you worry that the world is going to hell in a handbasket (or, as a good friend puts it, "...when you wake up wondering 'Why is it so warm, and what am I doing in this handbasket?' "), it helps to look at the kids and the fact that they will outrun us.

And when you wonder what's worth fighting for when things look bleak, the answer's simple - their future.

So he's the inaugural kid-blog, straight off my refrigerator.

Blue is the sky
Blue is the sea
Blue is kindness
between you & me.
Blue is water,
blue is tears,
blue comforts you when
all hope is nowhere near.
You can hear things
that are blue if you use
your ears.

-Littlest Guy, age 7

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Religious Hate:

• Again with the whole apes and pigs thing: An impressive performance by Jihadwatch director Robert Spencer, who engages with Prof. Khaleel Mohammed and dhimmi studies scholar Bat Ye’or in a Symposium on the Koran and Anti-Semitism. Included is a discussion on the origins of the infamous zoomorphic slurs in the Qur’an. Money quote (Spencer):

  The very fact that Dr. Muhammad identifies what he is doing as offering “refutations of traditional approaches” is the only point I am trying to make: that the anti-Semitic approaches I have explained are indeed traditional, and widely held.

  Somewhat long, but worth reading the whole thing – a good demonstration of civility tested and (well, mostly) triumphant.

• MEMRI has a good summary of incitement to Jew hatred and America hatred on Saudi Arabian television.

• Ever wondered how suicide bombing can be reconciled with the Islamic prohibition on suicide? Hint: terror is involved. More on Al-Qaradhawi below.

• From LGF, some interesting background on Imam Yahya Hendi, the Georgetown University Muslim chaplain who will gave the closing benediction at the Democratic National Convention. There is a troubling linkage here to a profoundly anti-democratic message:

  Whoever calls the people (and/or himself) to the following and obedience of another law other than the shari’a is a disbeliever and a mushrik

  OK, to be perfectly fair, it’s only “linkage” - RTFP. But now a question: if a fundamentalist pastor had similar indirect linkage to Christian theocracy and gave the benediction at the RNC, would the Democrats not protest? (And wouldn’t they be right to?)

• Is it just me, or are others out there suffering from jihad fatigue? Joe Katzman kindly sends me this link to an article about Jihad indoctrination in Egypt. Sigh. Yet another pedagogic exegesis of Qur’anic sacralized decapitation. Aimed at teenagers. Yawn. But then this paragraph leaps out and pokes me in the chest:

  Let us fight fanatically for our religion; let us love a man-because he is a Moslem; let us honor a man- because he is a Moslem; let us prefer him to anyone else-because he is a Moslem; and never let us make friends with unbelievers, because they have nothing but evil for us.

  To be fair the article this quote is culled from is over half a century old, and any number of similar chauvinistic quotes can be drawn from any number of sources. But let’s be clear: the force pushing into the space between us all, pushing us further apart, is not piety, it is bigotry and hatred. If I cannot be the friend of a Muslim, then the terrorists have won.

• But will you be putting your Muslim friends in danger? If your are a Muslim in any way protecting or working for the infidels, then it’s apparently it’s OK to kill you, too. Cutting off your head? Still up for debate.

• Hatewatch been reminded by commenters that there is hatred beyond anti-Semitism, which some feel receive disproportionate coverage. While a fair response is that the Jews receive disproportionate hatred, it is also fair to cast a wider net. Jeffrey Goldberg writes in the New Yorker of his travels among the Israeli settlers of the West Bank and Gaza. Excerpts do no justice to this long and consistent piece, but these paragraphs deserve highlight:

  There remains a moral gulf between the most zealous settlers and the most extreme of the Palestinian Islamists. Small cells of settlers have shown themselves to be capable of committing atrocious acts of violence, but the main institutions of the settlement movement have not endorsed the sort of violence against Arabs that members of many Palestinian factions commit against Jews.

  Still, there are similarities. Like the theologians of Hamas, the ideologues of the settlement movement have stripped their religion of all love but self-love; they have placed themselves at the center of God’s drama on earth; and they interpret their holy scriptures to prove that their enemies are supernaturally evil and undeserving of even small mercies. And, like Hamas, which would build for the Palestinians a death-obsessed Islamic theocracy, the settlers, if they have their way, would build an apartheid state ruled by councils of revanchist rabbis.

  To eschew moral equivalence does not entail forswearing all comparison or criticism, and hatred is not too strong a description for some of the attitudes expressed by the settlers. Difficult but essential reading.

Idiotarian Seethings

• The Holocaust is a Zionist Lie Aimed at Extorting the West claims a columnist for Egypt's ruling party newspaper. But wait, there’s more…

• The cryptic comments by Saudi Arabia’s Prince Abdullah that “Zionists” were behing the recent terrorism in the Kingdom have been expanded on by Shaykh Ibrahim Mudayris in Gaza: Jews and Americans are behind all chaos in Saudi Arabia.

• Who’s behind the recent wave of attacks against civilians working on reconstructing Iraq? Ask Iran’s supreme leader:

  In comments made during a meeting with visiting Singaporean Prime Minister of Singapore Goh Chok Tong, Khamenei said: “We seriously suspect the agents of the Americans and Israelis in conducting such horrendous terrorist acts and cannot believe the people who kidnap Philippines nationals, for instance, or behead U.S. nationals are Muslims.”

  Who is really the audience for this dreck?

• Not to be left out, Arafat claims that Israel blew up it’s own bus in Tel Aviv. Is there a pattern here?

• According to Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi, 'There is No Dialogue between Us and the Jews Except by the Sword and the Rifle'. So much for interfaith dialog. The Jihadwatch post has some excellent links on the topic of Al-Qaradhawi’s recent host, London Mayor “Red” Ken Livingston. Be sure to check out the linked MEMRI post where Iraqi writer Hassan Assad asks, “Will London's Mayor Become a Mufti, or Sheikh Al-Qaradawi Become a Marxist?”. Assad provides more grist for the Islamist / Leftist confluence mill.

• But is Al-Qaradhawi mainstream, or an extremist? From yahoo via LGF:

  Qaradawi is revered in much of the Muslim world for his intellectual rigor and ability to adapt the fundamental tenets of Islam to the modern world.

  Plus according to the BBC he has “star status” star status. So comforting.

• More terrorist sympathizers hiding in plain sight in Britain:

  Professor Ahmad has publicly praised the Taleban regime in Afghanistan. In an article in July 2003 on his party’s website, he wrote: “All of that area which was controlled by the Taleban had become the cradle of justice and peace.”

  It had become a cradle of a few others things as well, if I recall.

Race and Culture

• Last month, Chirac let it be known that Ariel Sharon was not welcome in France. At the New Republic, Marty Peretz had this response: Mazel Tov! More substantively, he offered the following cogent observation (emphasis mine):

  But not before he demonstrated in an off-hand remark that, for him, neither Jews nor Muslims, for that matter, are really genuinely French: "we are witnessing racial events involving our Jewish and Muslim compatriots. ... Sometimes just simple Frenchmen are attacked."

  Peretz goes on to make what I read to be a blunt accusation that anti-Semitism drives French foreign policy with regard to Israel: But the real reason that France and some others oppose the [security] fence is that it works. Yet on the other hand, the EU has been working on a UN resolution condemning anti-Semitism, which the Arab countries have recently rejected. According to a source present at the recent UN seminar on anti-Semitism: The Europeans were depressed when they left the meeting. Assuming France was represented among the Europeans reported by the source, wouldn’t this deflect Peretz’s accusation? Hat tip – Rochi Ebner

• When is criticism of Israel really anti-Semitic? Maybe when it’s delivered wearing a Nazi uniform, eh? This guy is supposed to be a comedian. Stop it. You’re killing us.

• And if you’re upset at the way some singers mix entertainment and politics, the people of Darfur have a particular beef with these women, the Hakama.

A Hopeful Note:

• Robert Spencer links to a petition opposing political Islam, sponsored by an international coalition of Islamic civil rights groups. He also links to the Free Muslim Coalition Against Terrorism, which also opposes political Islam. And Charles Johnson links to a manifesto opposing political Islam, this time from a French Muslim. There are 495 signatures as of this writing. Godspeed.

• Rev. Donald Sensing looks at Iraq, where the recent bombing of 6 Christian churches during worship services appears to have done something the terrorists didn't expect: brought Iraq's Muslims and Christians closer together.

Finally, a brief word on format and content: you may have noticed the move to a more focused, structured format, intended to make it easier for you to find items of interest. As always, suggestions on format and future topics of coverage are welcome.

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but he was certainly a guy with issues of his own.

But the man who saw conspiracies everywhere, who was an equal opportunity bigot, and who decried America’s moral decrepitude, had, himself, a skeleton in the closet. It came to light in a curious way. An Orange County child abuse case in 1982 concerned a thirteen-month-old infant who was discovered with hair so tightly wound around his penis that the organ had nearly been severed. The baby was placed in protective custody, and the court demanded that the father step forward. It turned out to be none other than John G. Schmitz, now again a state Senator, paterfamilias of five children and, er, two others with his German mistress, once his student at Santa Ana.

One of the reasons I'm so resistant to calls for public enforcement of morality is that sad fact that so many of those who do so are moral failures on their own terms. In my post at Armed Liberal, I suggest that "I’ll take as a given that the family had...issues...." Well, that appears to be true as well (from the same article as above):

...the Schmitz household was revealed to have been a chilly place, often under siege due to John’s latest atrocious remark. Mary Kay and her brother would sometimes play German marching music out the window to drown out angry demonstrators. Schmitz’s wife Mary was said by Mary Kay to be an unaffectionate mother who stressed personal appearance, counseling her daughter to always wear lipstick and even toenail polish. Mary was a vocal ally of Phyllis Schlafly, and appeared on TV to denounce the ERA. She stuck with her man to the end.

Eugene Volokh has an interesting essay on the different thinking about sex between an older woman and a boy as opposed to an older man and a girl. As a parent of three boys, it's something I'm chewing on a bit. Our emotional reaction is somewhat different; but I know that I'd be mighty pissed off if my twelve year old were seduced by his teacher.

And I'll also note that if - nine years later - he were to go off and build a real life with her, and be genuinely happy, I'd eat my words on toast.

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1. this is a good thing to do, for three basic reasons: a) it will shelter our economy - relative to the rest of the world's economies - from interruptions in supply or spikes in price, both of which are likely as the Middle East works out it's problems with or without our help and guidance; b) it will allow us to pick and choose where we buy our energy from - which may not help when it comes to price spikes (see above) but will make us relatively invulnerable to interruptions caused by shutting off the ME oil spigot; c) it will lessen the damage to the world economy from interruptions in supply, as there will be more 'headroom' in the markets; d) it will give us more of the moral high ground in discussion about the future of the Middle East, as we take concrete (and expensive) steps to demonstrate that we're not killing Arabs to ensure that we have cheap gas to burn in our SUV's.

1. that the "don't conserve" alternative has to be examined and priced out as well. As many of the same commenters who dinged me noted, increases in demand from a consumer society in China and India will wipe out the markets anyway.

Well, let's go to the numbers again. Again, from www.eia.doe.gov, we get this Excel file that shows annual energy budgets by country.

In 2002, the US used 97.6 * 10^15 BTU. China used 43.2, and India 14.3.

Assume for a moment that China and India - each of whose populations in increasing at slightly more than 1%/year - start using 5% more energy each year. That suggests that in eight years, they'll go from using a total of 57.2 (*10^15) BTU, to 84.4, for an increase of 27.3.

If the US consumption increases at about 1% per year, we'll go from 97.6 to 105.7 - an increase of 8.1. But if, instead, we were to cut our consumption by 2% per year, we'd end up using 83.1 - for a swing of 22.7, almost enough to make up for the monstrous growth in consumption in China and India. And certainly enough to have a significant impact on the markets for energy worldwide.

As before, disagreements are fun, but they're even more fun when based in facts (and occasionally arithmetic).

Do I think that we can conserve out way out of the Middle East crisis? Of course not, and I've never said so. I do believe that we'll have far more freedom to act in the Middle East when we're not worried that the Saudi's will shut off the Middle East tap and lop 10% or so off our annual petroleum energy budget.

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Armed Liberal has talked about "the beginnings of a set of waves of terrorism, caused in some part by philosophical and ideological fractures here in the West." John Farren and Lee Harris have put their fingers on an important part of that mentality, one shared by significant sections of the radical Western left since the mid-60s. More on that another day.

-- UPDATES: --

• Athena has some worthwhile thoughts in the comments section.

• David Blue looks at this from another angle: "Humiliation and destruction of key enemy symbols is a key part of religious/cultural war to the death. If the few and the bold are to wreck and subjugate substantial cultures, this is really how it is done."

• Outside the Beltway argues that Osama has six political goals, and that "they have political objectives for what they view as a war." That makes for a nice segue into Robin Burke's post about The Terror Web, which addresses this argument via an interesting live example. What do you think?

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Although the document was posted on the Internet in December, 2003, the authors note that a draft had been written in September. In October, assassins shot a Spanish military attaché in Iraq, José Antonio Bernal Gómez, near his residence; in November, seven Spanish intelligence agents were ambushed and murdered south of Baghdad. Photographs of the killers standing on the agents’ bodies circulated on Islamist Web sites. Another Internet document soon appeared ...

Variations in the Arabic transcriptions of English words in the “Jihadi Iraq” document suggested to Amirah that writers of various nationalities had drafted it ... Those clues, plus certain particularly Moroccan political concerns expressed in the document, such as the independence movement in Western Sahara, suggested that at least some of the authors were diaspora Moroccans, probably living in Spain.

The link between the Internet document and the bombings soon became clearer....

The Al Qaeda cell in Spain is old and well established. Mohamed Atta, the commander of the September 11th attacks, came to Spain twice in 2001. The second time was in July, for a meeting in the coastal resort of Salou, which appears to have been arranged as a final go-ahead for the attacks. After September 11th, Spanish police estimated that there were three hundred Islamic radicals in the country who might be affiliated with Al Qaeda. .... And yet, according to Spanish police officials, at the time of the Madrid attacks there was not a single Arabic-speaking intelligence agent in the country. Al Qaeda was simply not seen as a threat to Spain. “We never believed we were a real target,” a senior police official said. “That’s the reality.” ....

“Al Qaeda has four different networks,” Aristegui told me in Madrid, the day after the Socialists took power.

Until the Madrid attacks, the Al Qaeda operations—in Dhahran, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Aden, New York, Washington, Jerba, Karachi, Bali, Mombasa, Riyadh, Casablanca, Jakarta, and Istanbul—had been political failures. These massacres committed in the name of jihad had achieved little except anger, grief, and the deaths of thousands. ... as the Spanish attacks showed, the new generation was more interested in committing violence for the sake of immediate political gain.

Had the Madrid cell rested on its accomplishment after March 11th, Al Qaeda would properly be seen as an organization now being guided by political strategists—as an entity closer in spirit to ETA, with clear tactical objectives. April 2nd throws doubt on that perspective. There was little to be gained politically from striking an opponent who was complying with the stated demand: the government had agreed to withdraw troops from Iraq. If the point was merely humiliation or revenge, then April 2nd makes more sense; the terrorists wanted more blood, even if a second attack backfired politically...April 2nd is comprehensible only if the real goal of the bombers was not Iraq but Spain, where the Islamic empire began its retreat five hundred years ago. “Spain is a target because we are the historic turning point,” Aristegui said. “After this, they are going to try to hit Rome, London, Paris, and the U.S. harder than they did before.” ...

Outside the Leganés apartment, the police attempted to negotiate, but the cornered terrorists cried out, “We will die killing!” ... the police decided to storm the apartment. ... an explosion shattered the apartment, killing the terrorists and a police officer....

In the ruins, police found twenty-two pounds of Goma-2 and two hundred copper detonators that were similar to those used in the train bombings. They also found the shredded remains of a videotape. These fragments were painstakingly reassembled, to the point where police could view the final statement of Fakhet and two other members of the cell, which called itself “the brigade situated in Al Andalus.” Unless Spanish troops left Iraq within a week, the men had declared, “we will continue our jihad until martyrdom in the land of Tariq ibn Ziyad.”

Al Andalus is the Arabic name for the portion of Spain that fell to Muslim armies after the invasion by the Berber general Tariq ibn Ziyad in 711. It includes not only the southern region of Andalusia, but most of the Iberian Peninsula. For the next eight hundred years, Al Andalus remained in Islamic hands. “You know of the Spanish crusade against Muslims, and that not much time has passed since the expulsion from Al Andalus and the tribunals of the Inquisition,” Fakhet says on the tape. He is referring to 1492, when Ferdinand and Isabella completed the reconquest of Spain, forcing Jews and Muslims to convert to Catholicism or leave the Iberian Peninsula. “Blood for blood!” he shouts. “Destruction for destruction!”

Were these the true goals of Al Qaeda? Were the besieged terrorists in Leganés simply struggling to get Spain out of Iraq, or were they also battling to regain the lost colonies of Islam? In other words, were these terrorists who might respond to negotiation or appeasement, or were they soldiers in a religious fight to the finish that had merely been paused for five hundred years? .....

One of the most sobering pieces of information to come out of the investigation of the March 11th bombings is that the planning for the attacks may have begun nearly a year before 9/11. ... It appears that some kind of attack would have happened even if Spain had not joined the Coalition—or if the invasion of Iraq had never occurred.

Go on. Go RTWT.

UPDATE: Thomas Nephew of Newsrack has more commentary on the New Yorker article and the Andalucia front in the GWOT.

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Senior government officials said Tuesday that new intelligence pointing to a current threat of a terrorist attack on financial targets in New York and possibly in Washington - not just information about surveillance on specific buildings over the years - was a major factor in the decision over the weekend to raise the terrorism alert level.

The officials said the separate stream of intelligence, which they had not previously disclosed, reached the White House only late last week and was part of a flow that the officials said had prompted them to act urgently in the last few days ...

In addition to the surveillance activity, detailed in reports uncovered late last week from computer disks in Pakistan, a senior intelligence official said that "very current and recent activity on the part of Al Qaeda'' has left little doubt that "Al Qaeda is moving toward the execution stage of attacks here in the homeland.''

This is consonant with the transcript Drudge published:

the official said "documentary evidence" found after the capture had demonstrated in extraordinary detail that Qaeda members had for years conducted sophisticated and extensive reconnaissance of the financial institutions cited in the warnings on Sunday. The documentary evidence, whose contents were reported urgently to Washington on Friday afternoon, immediately elevated the significance of other intelligence information gathered in recent weeks that had already been regarded as highly troubling, senior American intelligence officials said. Much of that information had come from Qaeda detainees in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia as well as Pakistan, and some had also pointed to a possible attack on financial institutions, senior American intelligence officials said.

So why didn't the White House say so in the first place? Well, as the Drudge transcript shows, to some degree they did.

The more important reason, however, may be that (as the Times article notes) doing so required compromising ongoing counterterror operations:

A senior White House official who mentioned the new stream of intelligence in an interview refused to say anything more about its source or content. The official said it had not been publicly disclosed out of concern that such a step could compromise intelligence and law enforcement operations in the United States and around the world. Officials would not describe those operations but said they were meant to disrupt a possible plot. .... But senior federal intelligence and law enforcement officials also described the intelligence as important. They said it had reached the White House last Friday and strongly reinforced the sense of alarm prompted by the separate flow of information that was arriving at the same time via the Central Intelligence Agency from Pakistan and that was based on information culled from seized computer disks that contained detailed case reports of reconnaissance conducted on buildings in Manhattan, Newark and Washington in 2000 and 2001.

It is going to be extraordinarily difficult for any administration to find the right balance with regard to public warnings. Meanwhile, the Pakistanis have already arrested 7 more Al Qaeda suspects as a result of the information already gleaned. And the Brits have captured 13 more.

Looks like leaders other than the Bush Administration are taking this info seriously.

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