Month: January 2007

As chaotic as his execution. A video can be watched here. Meanwhile, here’s a riveting exchange on al Jazeera. Video here. Transcript here. Money quote:

Mish’an Al-Jabouri: You should have some self-respect, and choose your words carefully, or else, I will do to you things you cannot even imagine, you Persian liar… Behave yourself, you liar…

Sadeq Al-Musawi: You are a thief… You are a thief. You’ve been convicted for theft..

Mish’an Al-Jabouri : Get out. Saddam Hussein is your master and the master of your parents…

Mish’an Al-Jabouri: These are your documents. You are an Iranian citizen. You are Persian… You are an Iranian citizen… Saddam Hussein is your master and the master of people like you… (throwing the pages at Al-Musawi) These are your documents…

Sadeq Al-Musawi: Your father killed Kurds…

Mish’an Al-Jabouri: These are your Iranian documents… You are Iranian. These documents show that he applied for Iraqi citizenship in May 2004.

Sadeq Al-Musawi: We will settle accounts with all of you…

Mish’an Al-Jabouri: To hell with you and your accounts…

We are supposed to bring these people together with 20,000 more troops? Who are we kidding?

Today’s NYT piece on doctors’ urging more comprehensive testing for Down Syndrome fetuses omits one obvious fact: the reason for such testing. Which is to kill them in utero, of course. Why leave this out? Isn’t it the crux of the story? And no mention of the 90 percent figure for abortions after DS detection. Do the NYT’s editors believe readers cannot handle the truth?

"[A] well-managed retreat would be preferable to a continuation of the status-quo policy of the last 18 months, dressed up under new commanders and 20,000 more troops," – John McIntyre, RealClearPolitics at Time. The president’s toughest critics Wednesday night may be pro-war conservatives.

"The worst of all worlds would be a small, short surge of U.S. forces. We have tried small surges, and they have been ineffective because our commanders lacked the forces necessary to hold territory after it was cleared. Violence, which fell dramatically while U.S. forces were present, spiked as soon as they were gone. Any new surge needs to provide enough American troops to hold the areas on their own.

A short surge would have all the drawbacks associated with greater deployments without giving our troops the time to be effective. Announcing that we are surging for three or six months – or any other timeline – would signal to the insurgents and militias that they can wait us out, and it would indicate to the Iraqi public that the enforcement of their government’s authority will be fleeting. This would strengthen, not weaken, the power of the militias," – Senator John McCain.

I agree. But I also believe that a real surge means a minimum of 50,000 more competent, professional soldiers deployed for the indefinite future. That’s a minimum for Baghdad. More will be needed subsequently, escalating to perhaps 100,000 more troops within a year. McCain, alas, commits himself to a mere minimum of 25,000. Sorry, but no deal. Anything less than 50,000 means more of the same. We also need the best speech of the president’s life, if he is to persuade the American people to send young troops to rescue Iraq from the grotesque incompetence of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, and the pathologies of Muslim sectarianism. We’ll see.

(Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty.)

… and Romney fades in Massachusetts. The social conservatives seem to have taken a second look.

Here’s a provocative study on the psychological underpinnings of our current political divide. It may be that understanding human psychology will tell us more about who is a conservative or a liberla in today’s world. Money quote from Psychology Today:

We tend to believe our political views have evolved by a process of rational thought, as we consider arguments, weigh evidence, and draw conclusions. But the truth is more complicated. Our political preferences are equally the result of factors we’re not aware of‚Äîsuch as how educated we are, how scary the world seems at a given moment, and personality traits that are first apparent in early childhood. Among the most potent motivators, it turns out, is fear. How the United States should confront the threat of terrorism remains a subject of endless political debate. But Americans’ response to threats of attack is now more clear-cut than ever. The fear of death alone is surprisingly effective in shaping our political decisions‚Äîmore powerful, often, than thought itself.

The portrait of George W. Bush being anointed by Lincoln and Washington and framed by a cross is just one of many religious paintings by one Ron DiCianni. You can view his work here and, for the most part, it’s completely conventional spiritual artwork. But as with the anointing of Bush, some paintings suggest a fusion of American force and Christian theology that is troubling in a secular society, and especially in a war where we need to do everything we can to avoid the appearance of a "crusade." In that light, check out another painting by DiCianni above. It’s called "Chariots of Fire." It may spring from good motives, but it’s troubling to me to see the military so sectarianized.

There’s no question that it’s happening. A reader writes:

Thanks for the thought-provoking article about the moral and ethical dilemmas surrounding the potential detection homosexuality, or homosexual predilection, by genetic means. Your vision of a world in which some babies are aborted for being gay is indeed frightening, but not I’m afraid that hard to imagine. Look at what’s done to fetuses diagnosed with Down Syndrome. While reports vary, some literature  I’ve seen online suggests termination rates of over 90 percent for fetuses in which Down Syndrome is detected.

When I read that article, I found myself thinking about the last time I saw a child with Down’s. When first recognized, normal incidence was perhaps one in a thousand births. Here we are in 2006, after mainstreaming and an end to mandatory institutionalization, but rarely do I see a child with Down’s – just adults.

Another adds:

Clearly, if ninety percent of fetuses with Down syndrome are aborted, most of the people who claim to oppose abortion are unwilling to undergo the inconvenience, expense and – let’s face it – the public embarrassment of having a mentally disabled child.  Why should we assume that it would be any different with gay fetuses? After all, where nobody really gives much thought to Down syndrome children, there is widespread antipathy towards homosexuals. Even heterosexuals who support gay rights feel something between mild unease and outright revulsion at the thought of two men having sex (just ask Mickey Kaus).

In short, we really do live in interesting times. On the one hand, we are the first generation of gay men who has had a shot at living something like a normal life; on the other, we may be the last generation of gay men to have a shot at living.

A looming gay genocide? A grim thought.

The writer who got the Iraq war right beforehand describes the leaked "surge" strategy as "fantasy."