Month: December 2006

Move over, Chris Rock. Here’s Steve Jobs from 1984.

This one from Chris Rock about O.J. is creepily prescient.

Here’s some more information, related to my post earlier. Bill Clinton did sign the travel ban into law in 1993, but it was first proposed by (drum roll) Jesse Helms in 1987. A reader remembers the timeline better than I do:

I started working on this issue when it first surfaced – after the ban was created by the Reagan Administration in 1987. (I started working in the House, for then-Rep. Norman Mineta, earlier that year.) A little research on your part would have shown you this history:

The Reagan White House pressured the Public Health Service to include HIV on the list of excludable conditions in 1987. They did. There were protests about that, as the vast majority of public health experts believed that only active tuberculosis belonged on the list. In response, and in order to make sure the PHS’ decision was protected, Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC) authored an amendment in the Senate to put HIV on the list statutorily. The Senate adopted it on a voice vote, with Democrats thinking that because HIV was already on the list, the amendment was redundant.

We tried to get rid of it in the 1990 immigration bill by mandating that the list would henceforth be maintained by the CDC, and that it would include only conditions with a solid medical justification. To his credit, President Bush (41) signed it into law, and his CDC issued a rule in 1991 knocking everything off the list except tuberculosis. There was a revolt in the Republican Conference in the House, led by then Rep. Bill Dannemeyer (R-CA). The CDC pulled the rule and the INS kept the old list in place.

Clinton campaigned on a promise to remove the ban. Shortly after he got to the White House, in February of 1993, Sen. Don Nickles (R-OK) offered an amendment to the NIH reauthorization to keep the old list. Ted Kennedy tried to offer an alternative, but it failed 42-56. The Nickles Amendment then passed 76-23.

(All 23 “no” votes were Democrats. Notably, Joe Lieberman was one of the “yes” votes – one of the many early examples of his cozying up to Jesse Helms on gay rights and AIDS/HIV issues.

When the House and Senate went to conference on the bill, then-Rep. Tom Bliley (R-VA) offered a motion to instruct conferees to agree to the Nickles Amendment.  It passed 356 to 58. Again, all 58 who voted ‚ÄúNo‚Äù were Democrats (plus Bernie Sanders). At that point, both chambers of Congress had voted to block Clinton’s planned executive order by veto-proof margins.  When Congress sent Clinton the NIH authorization in June of 1993, he signed it.

The countries that have a similar ban on all HIV-positive tourists, travelers and immigrants are Armenia, Bangladesh, Brunei, Iraq, Libya, Moldavia, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, South Korea, Sudan and the U.S. Great company, no? This president has an opportunity to finish what his father started, and remove the irrational stigma that treats HIV like TB for immigration purposes. Let’s hope Mark Dybul continues the great start he has made.

Why not give a personally-dedicated copy of "The Conservative Soul" as a present this Christmas? If you’re a liberal who’d like to provoke a Republican into a rethink of where the conservative movement has gone, it’s a fun gift. If you’re a conservative who ‘d like to remind a liberal that not all conservatives are intolerant, pork-laden big spenders, then the gift works as well. Of course, there’s a product warning. As the Washington Post review put it, "[If you] have ever read anything by Ann Coulter, this is not a book for you."

Here’s the gimmick. I’m also happy to sign the book personally to whomever you want and add a personal greeting or inscription of any nature you decide. Just email theconservativesoul@gmail.com, tell me your mailing address and the precise inscription you want, and I’ll inscribe an adhesive, formal book-plate you can stick in the front of the book, and mail the book-plate back to you. Voila – a personalized Christmas gift. If you have a friend who’s a Dish-reader, it’s a nifty gift idea. If you’d like to challenge a conservative or liberal friend or family member, you can’t go wrong. No limits on the number of books or dedications. I’ve already done this for scores of readers and givers – and the final book-plate looks great. You can buy the book here or here. Once again: the email address for mailing addresses and inscriptions is theconservativesoul@gmail.com. Email soon so we have penty of time to deliver before Christmas comes around. Cheers. And Merry Christmas.

A reader writes:

Three thoughts on your recent blog posting ("The Gathering Storm’).

First, you mention that the technology of destruction has improved dramatically since the seventeenth century.  This is clearly true. But you cannot necessarily extrapolate from this that a Moslem equivalent of Europe’s religious wars will be that much more lethal. I say this for two reasons.  The first is that wars simply don’t get much more lethal.  The Thirty Years War killed off a third of the population in much of Europe, and by some estimates fully half the population in Germany.  The capability to organize the conduct of war simply cannot survive casualty rates much worse than this. 

The second reason is that the improvement in technologies of destruction has been matched by improvements in technologies that save lives. Modern logistics can feed huge populations whose indigenous food sources have been destroyed.  Modern medical and public health knowledge can prevent the much of the disease associated with war that traditionally (before antibiotics) killed far more people (soldiers and civilians alike) than enemy soldiers did.  A Muslim war of religion would certainly not be a pretty sight, and by contemporary standards the human costs would be horrendous and appalling.  But these costs would probably not be on the same scale as the Thirty Years War.

Second, you speak of Saudis and Egyptians and Iranians, but make no mention of Turkey.  I seems to me that the biggest danger facing out Middle East policy, and our Muslim policy, right now is taking Turkey for granted.  We are so accustomed to thinking of Turkey as being with the West (although not necessarily of the West) that we tend not even to consider the possibility of losing Turkey to the West.  But we are (arguably) closer to this possibility than at any time since the consolidation of Ataturk’s republic.  A quick look at a map establishes Turkey’s strategic importance.  Add to this an economy twice the size of Egypt’s, and a formidable army.  What are the odds of a regional conflagration that does not draw in Turkey?  This is a question that we need to be paying more attention to in discussing the Iraqi quagmire (and certainly in discussing any "Kurdish Option").

Third, in the picture of Bob Gates atop the posts, he strikes me as looking remarkably like an older version of Kevin Cline playing an imposter playing the President of the United States in the movie "Dave."  This is oddly disconcerting.

"The certainty of Christian hope lies beyond passion and beyond knowledge. Therefore we must sometimes expect our hope to come in conflict with darkness, desperation and ignorance. Therefore, too, we must remember that Christian optimism is not a perpetual sense of euphoria, an indefectible comfort in whose presence neither anguish nor tragedy can possibly exist. We must not strive to maintain a climate of optimism by the mere suppression of tragic realities. Christian optimism lies in a hope of victory that transcends all tragedy: a victory in which we pass beyond tragedy to glory with Christ crucified and risen …

But the Church in preparing us for the birth of a ‘great prophet,’ a Savior and a King of Peace, has more in mind than seasonal cheer. The Advent mystery focuses the light of faith upon the very meaning of life, of history, of man, of the world and of our own being. In Advent we celebrate the coming and indeed the presence of Christ in our world. We witness to His presence even in the midst of all its inscrutable problems and tragedies. Our Advent faith is not an escape from the world to a misty realm of slogans and comforts which declare our problems to be unreal, our tragedies nonexistent," – Thomas Merton, Seasons of Celebration.

The best introduction I know to Thomas Merton’s extraordinary expression of contemplative Catholic faith can be bought here.

That’s Kos’s view.

How many FBI agents have advanced Arabic language skills? Take a guess. According to this story, it’s six. And one of them is suing because he alleges discrimination. Five years after 9/11 and we have six FBI agents who can speak Arabic at a sophisticated level? If you’re not outraged by the incompetence of this administration, maybe this story will help anger up the blood. Money quote from some recent FBI depositions:

Dale Watson, now retired, was the FBI’s top counterterrorism official before and after 9/11. In a deposition taken on Dec. 8, 2004, Youssef‚Äôs lawyer Stephen Kohn asked Watson: ‘Do you know who Osama bin Laden’s spiritual leader was?’

Watson: Can’t recall.

Lawyer: And do you know the differences in the religion between Shiite and Sunni Muslims?

Watson: Not technically, no.

John Lewis was until recently the FBI’s deputy assistant director of counterterrorism. During his deposition on May 17, 2005, he was asked if he knew the difference between Shiites and Sunnis.

Lewis: You know, generally. Not very well.

Lawyer: Was there any relationship between the first World Trade Center bombing and the 9/11 attacks?

Lewis: I’m aware of no immediate relationship other than all emanates out of the Middle East, al-Qaida linkage, I believe. Not something I’ve studied recently that I’m conversant with.

Sanity in this White House? It’s possible. One feels a sense of great relief to hear the candor of Bob Gates in his Senate hearings. We are losing the war in Iraq; and our incompetence may have triggered the beginning of a massive regional conflagration. At least we now know that someone in this administration is grappling with reality rather than fantasy, that someone has some modicum of responsibility. At last.

My own darkest fear is that the Middle East is at the beginning of its own period that Europe experienced in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: a massive, sectarian, regional bloodbath. I hope this won’t happen. I hope to be proven wrong again. But I fear the process is already underway. The best hope for Iraq is perhaps a temporary surge in U.S. troops to make one last effort at some effort at a relatively peaceful de facto partition, before the near-inevitable U.S. withdrawal and subsequent involvement of Saudis and Egyptians in support of the Sunnis and the Iranians on the side of the Shia. (At this point, I’d be relieved if we can save the Kurds.)

The major powers in the Middle East, in other words, are on the verge of behaving like the major powers in Europe centuries ago: they will act as expressions of national interest but also of sectarian theology. And they will fight a terrible war before they agree on a chastened peace.

The difference between now and the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Europe is that this regional war within a divided monotheism will take place in a time of vastly greater technological capacity for destruction. So the consequences of such a war may be far more ominous than the massacres, burnings and civil wars that beset Europe in the past. The silver lining of this terribly dark prospect is that catastrophe may strike sooner rather than later, and that only through such a catastrophe will Muslim Arabs and Persians realize that their best interests lie in forgoing the bromides of fundamentalist certainties for the messy, secular, banal success of liberal democracy. So what took Europe two centuries may take the Middle East a decade.

America’s mistake is to believe it can impose this learning curve on another civilization – in a speed-reading course. We cannot. Moreover, America, because it was an unintended beneficiary and result of Europe’s religious failure, has never experienced this kind of religious conflict itself and so is ill-suited to manage it. Our basic goals, it seems to me, should be to protect those parts of the region not infected with religious madness: the Israelis, the Kurds and the Turks. Keeping the latter two apart and at peace is the great challenge. But a Muslim regional civil war may have the consequence of sidelining the Israeli-Palestinian question in the Muslim psyche. Maybe. Or it may lead to the eradication of Irsael through a nuclear strike from Iran. Such a strike may be the "Hail Mary" of the Shiites – a way of becoming the true savior of Islam by annihiliating the ancient enemy of both Shia and Sunnis.

This, I fear, is the wider context of our intervention in Iraq. Our best bet is a responsible attempt to restrain it, but not a full-scale attempt to stop it.  Some things are unstoppable. I fear this looming conflict is close to unstoppable (and Iraq was the trigger, not the cause). Meanwhile, we need a very serious plan for new energy resources – because oil will soon become prohibitively expensive. Environmentally, that may not be such a bad thing. Perhaps such a war could help save the planet in the long run, while it incinerates a part of it in the short run. We must do all we can to ensure we are not the ones incinerated. But I fear some kind of calamity in the West is also an inevitable side-effect at some point. Then the challenge will be stopping a world war rather than a regional one. That much, I think, we can do, with adults in Washington, London, Paris and Berlin (Moscow is a mafia rogue-state beyond reach). At some point, even the Chinese may get real and help. But I wouldn’t count on it any time soon.

Yes, it may be that grim. But at least we have an adult in the administration now who understands that.

(Photo: J. Scott Applewhite/AP.)

Josh Manchester argues for a redoubled, temporary neo-colonialism in Iraq. It sounds completely utopian to me.