Dan Feidt's log on Minnesota, Information Operations, spinstorms and latent contradictions.
Juan Cole catches a bitter Muqtada al-Sadr: (UPI)
Young Shiite nationalist leader Muqtada al-Sadr said Monday that Iraq is in a state of civil war. He responded to guerrilla provocations against Sadr City, with bombings and mortars having killed over 50 persons there Sunday, by ordering his Mahdi Militia not to engage in reprisals.
Like many Iraqi and Arab observers, Muqtada was shocked when US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said last week that the US military would not intervene in an Iraqi civil war, leaving that to Iraqi forces.
' "May God damn you," Sadr said of Rumsfeld. "You said in the past that civil war would break out if you were to withdraw, and now you say that in case of civil war you won't interfere." '
The Machine Rages On: Raimondo: Another War for Israel: The amen corner howls for war with Iran, The Shame and the Sorrow. UK Independent: Iraq: The reckoning. (photo via KarbalaNews.net)
Welcome to the Long War: We are moving from the War on Terror®© to the Long War©, a hellish state of perpetual warfare forever, but it will be totally badass according to the Quadrennial Defense Review, a Pentagon planning document prepared every four years. It's called the Long War, and most of the stuff in this article is apocalyptically gloomy and depressing. And they are going to take your money to pay for it too.
On a note that I hope is totally unrelated, from the Antiwar blog, Why are Marines Training in US Neighborhoods? as reported in the Toledo Blade. Let me fetch my tinfoil.
Blunt Honesty Dept: The State Department informs us in "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices" of Iraq's many human rights shortcomings: "The following human rights problems were reported:
Other than that, it's peachy. There's a ton of stuff in there, worth glancing at. I like how 'Impunity' has its own bullet.
REALLY, IT'S GOOD: CounterPunch: Neocon Advocates Civil War in Iraq as "Strategic" Policy; Daniel Pipes Finds Comfort in Muslims Killing Muslims:
"The bombing on February 22 of the Askariya shrine in Samarra, Iraq, was a tragedy, but it was not an American or a coalition tragedy. Iraq's plight is neither a coalition responsibility nor a particular danger to the West. Fixing Iraq is neither the coalition's responsibility, nor its burden. When Sunni terrorists target Shi'ites and vice versa, non-Muslims are less likely to be hurt. Civil war in Iraq, in short, would be a humanitarian tragedy, but not a strategic one." .... The fact is that the neocons who control U.S. strategy have no interest in preventing a civil war but only in inciting one. Sectarian tensions were virtually unknown in Iraq before the U.S. invasion. And in fact the Iraqi Shia fought loyally as Iraqis against Iranian Shia in the disastrous Iran-Iraq war. So to avoid an Iraqi civil war, the most important step is to get all the U.S. troops home and thus to terminate U.S. provocations. For it is now crystal clear that the neocon strategy is one of civil war to divide and destroy Iraq; and such a strategy amounts to a crime against humanity.
Which will really be a funny notion when the oil ports in eastern (the suppressed Shiite part of) Saudi Arabia get bombed. A real thigh-slapper.
JPost: India is not Iran. But they are Asians with Nukes, which counts for -10,000 points these days.
Fourth Generation Warfare: I have been saying that this is probably the best model to understand America's current strategic and especially tactical situation. It's gaining more notice now. They even care about the concept in Grand Forks. This long essay by Michael Mazarr, a professor at the U.S. National War College, details a crucial problem with the body of 4GW theory so far: it explains the modes of conflict, but not the underlying causes and motivations.
Libertarian critique of war and socialism: Iraq and the Democratic Empire by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
The US spends money, invades countries, sheds blood, and becomes ever more powerful at home and unpopular abroad. In the end, no matter how powerful its weapons or how determined its leaders, it loses. It loses because people resist empire. It loses for the same reasons that socialism and its central plans always fail. Large-scale attempts to force people into predetermined molds founder on the inability of the state to allocate resources rationally and to anticipate change, as well as the ubiquitous and pesky phenomenon called human volition. Mankind was not meant to live in cages.
Why did the US win wars in the past? Because it fought far poorer governments. Today it loses because it fights populations – people acting on their own, forming their own associations, using their brains to outwit bureaucrats, and cobbling together resources from underground markets. The market always outruns the planners for the same reason that guerilla armies usually win over regular armies. Decentralized and spontaneous associations of dedicated individuals are smarter and wiser and more committed than centralized and planned bureaucrats who follow their rule books.
.....Therefore, [Mises] said, war and socialism are both part of the same ideological apparatus. They both presume the primacy of power over property. In the same way, peace and free enterprise are cut from the same cloth. They are the result of a society with a regime that respects the privacy, property, associations, and wishes of the population. The liberal society trades with foreign countries rather than waging war on them. It respects the free movement of peoples. It does not intervene in the religious affairs of people but rather adopts a rule of perfect tolerance.
I'm sorry, this caught my eye and made me laugh:
Former Teacher Surrenders at French School: Armed Ex-Teacher Holds 23 Hostages, Mostly Students, at French School Before Surrendering:
Vilpail had taught at the Colbert de Torcy High School until two years ago, school officials said. He was armed with a gun that fires rubber bullets, police said, adding that the weapon was nevertheless dangerous. He surrendered after hours of negotiations, said Jean-Luc Prigent, a top aide in the local administration.
Even their crazies surrender!! All right, that's a little crass. But it speaks to a certain less-than-subtle difference in the American character. Our paranoid edge goes all the way to the bitter end -- see Falling Down, Fight Club, Glory, Bonnie & Clyde, Thelma & Louise. That key part of the American narrative where the suggestion of violent subversion is transformed into The Real. It is part of our national psychology. We are proud of it: any proper story tends to go this way. Otherwise it seems half-finished.
In this case, well, the French guy wanted to make a symbolic gesture without quite crossing over into the Real. It appears that he wanted to take a little swipe and then step back like a reasonable European. This is part of the reason that the various apocalyptic segments of the population voted for Bush in droves. It's who we are. No surrender.
Pissed off CIA dudes are cool: I still dig Larry Johnson's No Quarter blog, as well as Pat Lang's Sic Semper Tyrannis. Johnson is on point with tidbits about the Plame case, the 'victory' strategy, Libby's legal tactics, etc.
Misc file: Isaac Hayes quits 'South Park'. Hopefully Chef will have a funny death scene. Top 10 strangest Lego creations. Radiohead's 'Just' video brought to life via London graffiti (QT). This is really pretty sweet.
DC Democrats are Bastards & Chickenshits®™: Greenwald lays it out (via Kos - more here):
With very few exceptions, national Democrats in Washington see the blogosphere as composed of uninformed, ranting, dirty masses who need to be kept as far away as possible. While they are willing to take your money, many of the Beltway Democrats see the vibrant activism in the blogosphere as some sort of an embarrassment, while others see it as a threat to their feifdoms.
Here's a tip for DC: Your methods suck. Your fiefdoms are powerless. You guys have no guts (except Feingold). No one better deserves to put up with Howard Dean than you fuckwits that have absolutely no idea how to tread water, let alone win. Go cry with Joe Lieberman about how no one likes you anymore. Go straight to Hell, do not pass Go.
This was in the context of a NY Times review of "Crashing the Gate", a new book from Jerome Armstrong of MyDD.com and Markos Zuniga of DailyKos. It details how the Netroots can revolutionize the power structure in America and DC, and how it makes the Confused DLC Douche-bag Consultant Class (or whatever you care to call them) a little hot under the collar. Order it here
For his part, Kos has some really good wisdom today on how blogs can generate fundraising seed money for candidates, as well as more on the book & tour.
Oops, I guess [legal] abortion is doomed: "They Mean It" by digby, worth checking.
Batch O Goodies: Small victory for the First Amendment. And bongs.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - An Alaska high school violated a student's free speech rights by suspending him after he unfurled a banner reading "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" across the street from the school, a federal court ruled on Friday.
Joseph Frederick, a student at Juneau-Douglas High School in Alaska, displayed the banner -- which refers to smoking marijuana -- in January 2002 to try to get on television as the Olympic torch relay was passing the school. Friday's ruling by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco overturned a decision by a federal court in Alaska that backed Frederick's suspension and said his rights were not violated. "Public schools are instrumentalities of government, and government is not entitled to suppress speech that undermines whatever missions it defines for itself," Judge Andrew Kleinfeld wrote in the court's opinion. The court also cleared the way for Frederick to seek damages, saying Morse was aware of relevant case law and should have known her actions violated his rights.
Joe Fuckin Lieberman spends some quality time with Rush Limbaugh at a 50th anniversary party for National Review. Nuke him and support Democratic challenger Ned Lamont in the primaries.
Russ Feingold is on point these days, and CNN sucks in their coverage of the censure thing. What else is new?
Guardian: US postwar Iraq strategy a mess, Blair was told. In pretty blunt language, the British staff was honest about so much of the bad stuff, so long ago.
Israel is the New Athens: Time to gank some land already: Guardian: Israel sets four year deadline to draw final borders:
Mr Olmert, who is strongly favoured to win a general election in three weeks, told the Jerusalem Post that by 2010 he intended to "get to Israel's permanent borders, whereby we will completely separate from the majority of the Palestinian population and preserve a large and stable Jewish majority in Israel".
He did not specify the route of the new frontier, which he said would be decided after an "internal dialogue inside Israel" and consultations with Israel's foreign allies. But he repeated his intention to annex the main settlement blocks in the West Bank and retain control of the Jordan river area "as a security border", resulting in a Palestinian state entirely surrounded by territory under Israeli control.
The plan outlined by Mr Olmert would require the removal of about 60,000 Israelis from settlements deeper inside the West Bank but leave about 350,000 in the main blocks and East Jerusalem.
As they used to say in the Greek times, "Take it, bitch." The Thrasymachus principle of political power. Things haven't changed much since 431 BC: "History of the Peloponnesian War" by Thucydides: Chapter XVII: Sixteenth year of the war: The Melian Conference (aka The Melian Dialogue):
The Melians are a colony of Lacedaemon that would not submit to the Athenians like the other islanders, and at first remained neutral and took no part in the struggle, but afterwards upon the Athenians using violence and plundering their territory, assumed an attitude of open hostility. [Athenian generals] Cleomedes and Tisias, encamping in their territory with the above armament, before doing any harm to their land, sent envoys to negotiate. The Athenian envoys spoke as follows:
.....Athenians: For ourselves, we shall not trouble you with specious pretences - either of how we have a right to our empire because we overthrew the Mede, or are now attacking you because of wrong that you have done us - and make a long speech which would not be believed; and in return we hope that you, instead of thinking to influence us by saying that you did not join the Lacedaemonians, although their colonists, or that you have done us no wrong, will aim at what is feasible, holding in view the real sentiments of us both; since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.
....Athenians: When you speak of the favour of the gods, we may as fairly hope for that as yourselves; neither our pretensions nor our conduct being in any way contrary to what men believe of the gods, or practise among themselves. Of the gods we believe, and of men we know, that by a necessary law of their nature they rule wherever they can. And it is not as if we were the first to make this law, or to act upon it when made: we found it existing before us, and shall leave it to exist for ever after us; all we do is to make use of it, knowing that you and everybody else, having the same power as we have, would do the same as we do. Thus, as far as the gods are concerned, we have no fear and no reason to fear that we shall be at a disadvantage.
Thucydides: Summer was now over. ...the Melians again took another part of the Athenian lines which were but feebly garrisoned. Reinforcements afterwards arriving from Athens in consequence, under the command of Philocrates, son of Demeas, the siege was now pressed vigorously; and some treachery taking place inside, the Melians surrendered at discretion to the Athenians, who put to death all the grown men whom they took, and sold the women and children for slaves, and subsequently sent out five hundred colonists and inhabited the place themselves.
Old boss, same as the new boss. Thanks, Leo Strauss. Power => Morality.
Dubai deal and racism: Raimondo: Dubai and Demagoguery. Juan Cole basically notes that, well, if you spend five years whipping up racist nationalism, it can sort of spill over in ways you don't expect. Not that it's happened before. The Big Lie eventually catches up with you. There's more good stuff in this one about Islamic theology & how it relates to Christians... in other words, the backstory that the 'hatemongers' never ever talk about.
The hatemongers are well known. Rupert Murdoch's Fox Cable News, Rush Limbaugh's radio program and its many clones, telebimbos like Ann Coulter, Evangelical leaders like Franklin Graham, Congressmen like Tom Tancredo, and a slew of far rightwing Zionists who would vote for Netanyahu (or Kach) if they lived in Israel-- Frank Gaffney, Daniel Pipes, Michael Rubin, David Horowitz, etc., etc. And finally, there are many Muslims who have an interest in whipping up anti-Islamic feeling. Ahmad Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress helped maneuver the US into a war against Iraq with lies about a Saddam-al-Qaeda connection and illusory WMD. The dissident Islamic Marxist group, the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) is now placing equally false stories about Iran in the Western press and retailing them to Congress and the Pentagon.
More goodies coming. I had to get the Melian thing in though.
Hey all, things have been a little sparse here lately. It's damn early and I am just wrapping up the PIM Morning Report, which is quite a pain in the ass to deal with at 7 AM, but at least I have a nearly omniscient view of what is happening around Minnesota. I really promise that The Big Score will be up later today. Also some weeks ago, I promised Mordred a proper explanation of why I did not want to post the famous 'Mohammed bombhead' picture.
Also there have been some Turks around the site, and they are worth responding to. So there is a pile of goodies to deal with. Stand by folks, it's not a snow day anymore.