Year: 2003

My outage at the weekend may not have been an accident. Various warblogs are now down – including Instapundit and Little Green Footballs. It looks like a coordinated cyber-attack. Here’s some detail.

I’ve agreed to write a weekly fisk of something or other for the New Republic. It will appear on Tuesdays. Today’s is on a rather confused op-ed by Bill Bennett on marriage rights. If you see anything that cries out for a righteous fisking, please send it in.

The brush-fire is spreading in Europe. More danger-signs here.

“Perhaps the most important source of the new (and not so new) American radicalism is what used to be viewed as a source of conservative values: namely, religion. Many commentators have noted that perhaps the biggest difference between the United States and most European countries (old as well as new in the current American distinction) is that in the United States religion still plays a central role in society and public language. But this is religion American style: namely, more the idea of religion than religion itself.
True, when, during George Bush’s run for president in 2000, a journalist was inspired to ask the candidate to name his “favourite philosopher”, the well-received answer – one that would make a candidate for high office from any centrist party in any European country a laughing stock – was “Jesus Christ”. But, of course, Bush didn’t mean, and was not understood to mean, that, if elected, his administration would feel bound to any of the precepts or social programmes actually expounded by Jesus.” – Susan Sontag, in the Guardian. This is a classic. Notice the assumption of the idiocy of America not to laugh out loud at a politician’s invocation of Jesus. Notice also the idea that Jesus actually expounded on various “social programmes.” So instead of the Sermon on the Mount, we have the Sermon on Medicare. Or Social Security. Or the Clean Air Act. How ignorant can Sontag be of Christianity to make such crude and stupid claims?

KRUGMAN AND ANTI-SEMITISM: Almost self-parody this morning. The point about Mahathir’s critique of Islamic backwardness is a decent one – and one I made yesterday. But the notion that he is forced into anti-Semitism by Bush is astonishing. Here’s the money quote:

Not long ago Washington was talking about Malaysia as an important partner in the war on terror. Now Mr. Mahathir thinks that to cover his domestic flank, he must insert hateful words into a speech mainly about Muslim reform. That tells you, more accurately than any poll, just how strong the rising tide of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism among Muslims in Southeast Asia has become. Thanks to its war in Iraq and its unconditional support for Ariel Sharon, Washington has squandered post-9/11 sympathy and brought relations with the Muslim world to a new low.

Is everything Bush’s fault? Even the hate that the president this morning actively condemned? The deeper theme here is a refusal to see that the enemies of George W. Bush – just because they are his enemies – are not therefore good. For Krugman to find a way to excuse virulent anti-Semitism for domestic political points shows how low the opposition has now gotten. (For a terrific analysis of Krugman’s Bush-hatred, check this column out from a Naderite.)

Here’s another version of the case for optimism in Iraq. And, on the scene, a great new blog is gathering steam, called “Healing in Iraq.” There’s a very helpful discussion of what exactly American casualties are being caused by:

[T]his resistance the Americans are facing is not ascribed to one group. There are already about 20 of them we hear about daily. Jaish Mohammad, Saraya Al-Faruq, Saraya Al-Jihad, Kataib Al-Hussein, Kataib Ali, Ashab Alrayat Alsud, Ashab Alrayat Albidh,…etc. Notice the similarity of some of the names with Palestinian militant groups, they have obviously took it upon themselves to make Iraq another Palestine.
And of course we have fingerprints of Al-Qaeda: The Jordanian Embassy and the UN compound bombings, and lately Baghdad Hotel’s attack. So it’s an unpleasant mix we’re dealing with here.
One thing is certain. The attacks are less frequent than say two months ago. The attacks lately have been harming more Iraqis than Americans. Mortar shells in Ba’quba three weeks ago took 12 innocent lives at a grocery market. A bomb planted beside the sidewalk in Adhamiya exploded when a bus stopped next to it killing 7 people. This has made people very bitter and critical whenever they hear about attacks. More and more people are informing against others they know involved with attacks. Large numbers of Arab infiltrators have been arrested. Of course they came from Syria, and Saudi Arabia.

Then there’s this fascinating account of a bombing the guy witnessed:

One afternoon I had just got back from work and was going to change my clothes when suddenly *BOOM* The windows shattered all around me in pieces, there was a smell of something like gunpowder. I looked out but there was dust everywhere. I remembered that my brother was outside. I carefully opened the door, and to my surprise found 4 American soldiers in our garden, they were knocking on my grandmother’s house door, I worriedly asked them what happened. They told me to stay away. I offered to open the door for them, which I did. They entered and went upstairs all the way to the roof, I stood in the hall with one of them who informed me that a bomb exploded behind their humvee just in front of the house, no one was hurt. They were suspecting someone attacked them from this house. The others came down, apologized to me and my grandmother (who didn’t understand what was going on anyway) then left the house.
I went out to find a crater in front of the house. My god that was close. By a miracle nobody in the street was hurt. The idiots who planted that bomb were dumb enough to put it inside a sewers drainage which absorbed the shock of the blast. The only damage was the sound it made. Most of our windows were shattered.
After a while the soldiers left the place. Suddenly a reporter and a cameraman from Al-Arabiyah station appeared, they were so fast. I crossed the street to take a look. They were talking to some bearded guy who I hadn’t seen before in the neighbourhood. He was enthusiastically talking about the humvee that flew in the air, and the 4 injured soldiers. I didn’t see any of that. I was bewildered. Someone next to me told me that nothing like that happened at all. My brother and a couple of friends of his started to chant in front of the camera: LIAR, LIAR,… Everyone laughed at this, but the bearded guy started to swear by Allah. Someone pointed out that the bearded guy wasn’t even in the area when the bomb exploded. Uh oh, I thought, he seemed to know about it before it happened. The cameraman violently shoved my brother and his friend aside telling them to shut up. I stepped forward and gave him a push from behind. He almost fell over. I warned him that the camera he was holding would be in a thousand pieces if he dared touch my brother again. He backed up. A neighbour of ours hollered them to come and see the damage in their house. They refused to do so and left.
In the evening, Al-Arabiyah reported the following: 3 Americans badly injured and one Jeep damaged at …. in Baghdad. They showed the bearded guy talking and edited the rest of it.
That’s the way media in present day Iraq works.

And not just in Iraq, buddy. You should listen to NPR sometimes.

“You know, a-lot of-our guys in-Iraq carry around pieces of-the World Trade Center. The chattering classes are talking about the relationship between Saddam Hussein and 9/11. These guys are under no-illusions. It’s-all part of-the same war.” – Richard Perle, in a worthwhile interview in the Jersualem Post. My favorite aphorism: “Syria is a terrorist organization.”

THE RUSSIAN GAMBIT: With Iraqi oil in the, er, distant pipeline, and the Russian markets beginning to pop, maybe Dubya’s grand energy strategy isn’t looking so foolish after all.

WITCOVER WON’T BUDGE: He stands by his use of the term “imminent threat.”

I guess it doesn’t surprise me that Tony Blair had to be hospitalized over the weekend with an irregular heartbeat. It would be difficult to think of anyone who has had a tougher political year. But even in the best of times, our major politicians lead punishing lives. The endless travel, the constant stress, the collapse of privacy: all these are terrible for the health. Is there some way we can tell these guys to take it easier? Far from believing, as some seem to, that president Bush’s predilection for long vacations at his ranch, attendance to sleep, and regular exercise, are forms of worrying idleness, I’d say his regimen shows an extremely shrewd understanding of what it now takes to be a public figure. Blair should take note.

TNR’s editors pen a statement that strikes the right note, I’d say. Mickey is razor-sharp as always.

A classic limo-lib comment from Joan Didion, former prose master, now, sadly, another generational scold:

Salon: When you remember your mother, more than 50 years ago, saying that California was too regulated, too taxed and too expensive, isn’t that exactly the same emotion that led to the recall?

Didion: Exactly. That’s what people thought in 1978 when they voted for Prop. 13. I mean, I was amazed this time. I hadn’t been out there for a while and I really hadn’t gauged the depth of the anger. I didn’t think all the people who had signed the petitions would show up at the polls. I just thought they were walking through the parking lot on the way to the car and they thought they could send a message. It was amazing to me that the actual recall happened. Somehow I thought there would be a separation between signing the petition and actually voting.
I mean, the car tax. I did not know what the car tax was. I had never heard of the car tax. Finally someone explained to me: It’s the vehicle registration fee! It’s just so insignificant.

Well, at least she recognizes her cocoon. But a big hike in a car tax is, for most people, not exactly “insignificant.” On a $30,000 car, the difference is between $195 before the hike and $600 after. On cheaper cars, the tax doubled as well. When you have to fork this out, on most wages, it hurts.

“I think 9/11 gave this generation an identity, and its identity is potentially fascist. My skin crawls when I think of the first week after 9/11. I was looking out of the window and there were people marching down the street carrying flags. It reminded me of spontaneous, angry Nazis and I thought, ‘Oh, man, we are in a lot of trouble’. There’s a whole bunch of people who have flags hanging from their cars and who are mistaking fascism for patriotism.” – Rickie Lee Jones, in the Guardian. Later in the interview, she is asked whether she would consider murdering the president, a new theme of sorts in the Guardian. “I guess the question is, would I kill anyone? And the answer is, no. But would I feel sorry if someone killed him? No, I wouldn’t. It would depend on who killed him, I guess.”