June 30, 2004
STASIS
Rancher sells archaelogical site to government (AP, 6/30/04)
For more than 50 years, rancher Waldo Wilcox kept most outsiders off his land and the secret under wraps: a string of ancient settlements thousands of years old in near perfect condition.This sounds like a fascinating site, and I hope I get to visit it some day. It is also an important corrective for both the left and the right to remember that human beings, if they can, are perfectly content to spend 3000 unchanging years in the same place doing the same things the same way.Hidden deep inside eastern Utah's nearly inaccessible Book Cliffs region, 130 miles southeast of Salt Lake City, the prehistoric villages run for 12 miles along Range Creek, where Wilcox guarded hundreds of rock art panels, cliffside granaries, pit houses and rock shelters, some exposing mummified remains of long-ago inhabitants.
The sites were occupied for at least 3,000 years until they were abandoned more than 1,000 years ago, when the Fremont people mysteriously vanished. The Fremont, a collection of hunter-gatherers and farmers, preceded more modern American Indian tribes on the Colorado Plateau.
NOW I'LL BE REASONABLE:
Kerry backs away from Northeast compact (Scott Schultz, 6/30/04, The Country Today)
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said that if he's elected, he'd no longer support special regional dairy pricing programs that some Wisconsin and Minnesota farm leaders have opposed.Sen. Kerry had supported the Northeast Dairy Compact, which Upper Midwest dairy leaders said unfairly benefited Northeast dairy producers.
He said in a June 23 telephone interview with The Country Today that he would seek a "reasonable" dairy policy that would be good for all regions.
"As a senator from the Northeast, I had to support it," Sen. Kerry said of the Northeast Compact. "But, as president, I have to represent the entire nation."
WHY "WE NEED MORE SOLDIERS IN IRAQ!":
Soldiers 'get the bad boys' in raids (Washington Times, 6/30/2004)
Under the cover of darkness, soldiers from Alpha Company, 91st Engineer Battalion, creep up a narrow alley to their target, ready to scale the front wall of a small home and seize the men who tried to attack their platoon.
First, they knock. When the gate swings open, they ask for the men in question and detain four of them. A field test reveals that the men have traces of explosives on their hands.
"This is how it's supposed to go," says 1st Lt. Nicolas Bradley, 27, of Salt Lake City, who led the pre-dawn raid. "This is the best part of our job, going to get the bad boys."
The worst parts of their job: reading the bad boys their Miranda rights; filing reports detailing the evidence against each detainee; giving depositions to the detainees’ lawyers; and flying stateside for the habeas corpus hearings.
THE ONLY GOOD GERMAN...:
Germany's underrated resistance (Uwe Siemon-Netto, June 30, 2004, UPI)
Shortly before the suicide of Maj. Gen. Henning von Tresckow, a leading coconspirator in the failed attempt to assassinate Hitler, he wrote: "The moral value of a human being only begins to show where he is prepared to give his life for his conviction."On July 20, Germany will commemorate the 60th anniversary of Tresckow's self-sacrifice and that of hundreds of others, almost all committed Christians, Catholic or Protestant. Some 200 of Germany's finest were executed for their part in this conspiracy.
Among them were 19 general officers, 26 colonels, two ambassadors, seven other diplomats, a government minister, three state secretaries, the head of the Reich chancellery, and several regional governors and police chiefs. Some -- like Col. Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg, who placed a bomb almost literally under Hitler's feet -- were immediately shot after the coup's failure.
[F]or decades their martyrdom was belittled and scoffed at. "The highest personalities in the Third Reich are murdering one another, or trying to," snorted Sir Winston Churchill, then British prime minister, even though the German resistance had informed him beforehand of the assassination plan.
Anthony Eden, later British Foreign Secretary, dismissed the coconspirators as traitors to their country. To this day, the myth has survived that the resistance against Hitler was a Johnny-come-lately undertaking by reactionary militarists who saw that for Germany the war was de facto lost by the summer of 1944, and tried to rescue as much of the spoils as possible.
That there have been more than 30, perhaps even 40 previous attempts to remove Hitler, according to some historians, is still not common knowledge. As Peter Hoffmann of McGill University, has long shown, these efforts began in 1933, the very first year of Hitler's chancellorship. [...]
Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia, grandson of Kaiser Wilhelm II and himself deeply involved in the conspiracy, once remarked to me that in the decades following Germany's defeat it was fashionable to belittle the resistance because the personality profiles of most of its members did not fit the fashionable left-wing fable that the heroes and martyrs of the struggle against Nazism evil were chiefly proletarians.
This fib made it possible for Nazis and traditionalists to be lumped together, he said, when in fact the opposition hailed from the upper-middle class and the nobility, whose religious, philosophical and moral values were deeply violated by Hitler and his thugs.
Almost 20 years ago in Chicago, I befriended an elderly German woman, a retired high school principal, who traveled the world trying to "vindicate" her father, Carl Goerdeler, who would have become German chancellor had the July 20 coup attempt succeeded. He was tortured and hanged in February 1945, shortly before Nazi Germany collapsed. His daughter, indeed his entire family, was liberated from concentration camp by the victorious U.S. forces. And yet it had become modish to dismiss him as just another right-winger, simply because he was a political conservative.
Her name is Marianne Meyer-Krahmer, and hers is an incredible tale. She had witnessed her father's resignation as mayor of Leipzig after the Nazis had blown up a monument to composer Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy in his city. This grandson of one of Germany's greatest Enlightenment philosophers, Moses Mendelssohn, was of Jewish descent, though a fervent Protestant Christian.
Financed by industrialist Robert Bosch, Goerdeler then traveled from Western capital to Western capital warning politicians and tycoons against making any deals with Hitler on the assumption that he might be a bulwark against Bolshevism. "Don't fool yourselves," he warned, "Hitler is a Leninist. First he will destroy the Jews, then Christianity and ultimately capitalism."
There's obviously nothing in it for the Left to acknowledge that Christians, conservatives, military men and combinations of the three opposed Hitler and might have succeeded in bringing him down had FDR not been blinded by hatred.
DON'T TELL E.J.:
Poll shows Bush leads widening in Arizona (UPI, 6/30/04)
In Arizona, U.S. President George W. Bush's lead over Sen. John F. Kerry has widened to 12 points, according to the latest KAET-TV/Channel 8 poll.Bush leads Kerry 47 percent to 35 percent in the latest statewide sampling of registered voters while liberal independent Ralph Nader polled at just 2 percent, well behind the 15 percent of respondents who said they were still undecided.
Until recently, Arizona had been seen as a clear swing state in November's presidential election...
There's no such thing as a Red swing state--the battleground is formerly Blue.
THAT'S THE SPIRIT:
Top Saudi Qaeda Spiritual Guide Killed in Riyadh (Isa Mubarak, Jun 30, 2004, Reuters)
Saudi police killed a top spiritual guide for the Saudi wing of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network during a shootout in Riyadh on Wednesday, security sources said.They named the slain militant as Abdullah al-Roshood, on a list of 26 most wanted suspects, and said his death was a hefty blow to the ideological hierarchy of al Qaeda in the world's biggest oil exporter.
The Interior Ministry said a policeman was also killed in the gun battle, the first militant violence since Saudi forces killed the leader of al Qaeda in the kingdom 12 days ago. Saudi Arabia has been battling militants trying to topple the country's pro-U.S. monarchy for more than a year.
The ministry statement said six more policemen -- and three passers-by -- were moderately to lightly wounded.
Imagine it's WWII and a leading Nazi theorist is killed in a bombing--do we suppose the Reuters headline would be: "Hitler Spiritual Guide Killed"?
THE RECONQUISTA IS A QUAGMIRE
Heatwave brings power cuts in Spain (Giles Tremlett, The Guardian, 6/30/04)
Spain has suffered its first power cuts of the summer, with a heatwave stretching what critics say is an already over-strained electricity network to breaking point.
THE DANGER OF LISTENING TO PAUL KRUGMAN:
Kerry Flip-Flops... Again (James K. Glassman, 06/30/2004, Tech Central Station)
The House of Representatives is ready to pass a bill that would sharply limit an attempt by an unelected accounting board in Norwalk, Conn., to force U.S. companies to guess the costs of broad-based employee stock options and write them off as expenses when they are issued.If the Financial Accounting Standards Board gets its way and stock options are expensed, it's almost certain that many businesses, including high-tech firms, will stop issuing them, and American innovation and competitiveness will suffer.
It all comes down to the Senate, where the House bill is being blocked by a few key legislators. Among them, according to an article in Monday's edition of National Journal's Technology Daily, is John Kerry, who, a month from now, will become the Democratic nominee for president.
In a speech in Silicon Valley last Thursday, Kerry extolled the benefits of stock ownership but, in the words of his economic policy director, Jason Furman, the Senator "believes that companies should be required to expense stock options."
As Drew Clark wrote in Technology Daily: "Some believe that Kerry's lack of support for an issue that TechNet CEO Rick White calls the 'number one, two and three issue' current of interest to technology companies could cost him support within the sector." By contrast, said White, "The president is clear that he is against expensing stock options."
Kerry is, at least for now, clearly in favor of expensing. But he did not always take that position.
Hating corporations is so pre-9/11.
AS THE QUESTION BECOMES HOW MANY JOBS HE CREATED, RATHER THAN LOST:
More U.S. jobs seen in June, buoying Bush (Andrea Hopkins, June 30, 2004, Reuters)
U.S. employment likely surged again in June, taking gains this year to some 1.4 million jobs and bolstering President George W. Bush's economic record ahead of the November election, analysts said onWednesday.Economists believe 250,000 jobs were created this month, virtually matching May's jump of 248,000, though the unemployment rate probably will not budge from 5.6 percent because newly hopeful job-seekers are returning to the job market.
"I think the gains will be quite widespread again, and as we saw in April and May, we are likely to create slightly more higher-paying than lower-paying positions," said Lynn Reaser, chief economist at Banc of America Securities.
MAD, QUITE MAD
U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 9, Clause 2: The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.There's some current discussion in the blogosphere, primarily at the Volokh Conspiracy about whether Congress could suspend the Writ of Habeas Corpus in response to the Supreme Court decisions in Hamdi and Razul. The argument that Congress can't relies on the fact that the current war is neither an "invasion" or "rebellion". I think that there are colorable arguments that the war on terror would satisfy either requirement, but why is the suspension clause so limited? Isn't the clear answer that the Founders, faced with a decision that the writ applies to foreigners captured on the battlefield, would think we had completely lost our minds.
SEPARATED AT BIRTH
Ralph Nader: Conservatively Speaking: The long-time progressive makes a pitch for the disenfranchised Right (American Conservative, 6/21/04)
Ralph Nader recently accepted Pat Buchanan’s invitation to sit down with us and explain why his third-party presidential bid ought to appeal to conservatives disaffected with George W. Bush. We think readers will be interested in the reflections of a man who has been a major figure in American public life for 40 years—and who now finds himself that rarest of birds, a conviction politician.The whole interview is worth reading, but Pat should be ashamed of "Why do they hate us?" That is not a conservative question.Pat Buchanan: Let me start off with foreign policy—Iraq and the Middle East. You have seen the polls indicating widespread contempt for the United States abroad. Why do they hate us?
Ralph Nader: First of all, we have been supporting despots, dictators, and oligarchs in all those states for a variety of purposes. We supported Saddam Hussein. He was our anti-Communist dictator until 1990. It’s also cultural; they see corporate culture as abandoning the restraints on personal behavior dictated by their religion and culture. Our corporate pornography and anything-goes values are profoundly offensive to them.
60-40 NATION:
Executive Decisions (Chuck Todd, June 30, 2004, NationalJournal.com)
One fact will remain this November regardless of what happens in the race between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. -- nearly 60 percent of the country's population will call a Republican governor. Thanks to the California recall, Republicans hold the governorships of our largest states (California, Florida, New York and Texas), which does a lot for the population advantage statistic.
Republicans would love to hit the 30-state mark and with the handful of governor seats up this year... the party has a serious shot at making that happen.But Republicans aren't satisfied with a mere 60 percent population dominance -- the party would love to hit the 30-state mark. And with the handful of governor seats up this year, particularly those in some GOP-friendly states, the party has a serious shot at making that happen. Currently, the Republicans hold 28 governor seats compared to 22 for the Democrats.
Since this could be our one and only profile of the 2004 gubernatorial races, let's start with the big picture:
* Eleven seats (6D, 5R) are up in this "off" year for governor campaigns.
* Four of the 11 races do not feature an incumbent.
* Two of the 11 have governors running for a second two-year term, as Vermont and New Hampshire still insist on non-stop campaigns for their highest elected office.
* Four of the 11 are taking place in presidential "purple states" (Missouri, New Hampshire, Washington and West Virginia). That number moves to five if Kerry names either Sens. John Edwards, D-N.C., or Evan Bayh, D-Ind., as his running mate -- both North Carolina and Indiana also feature a governor's race and both states would become presidential battlegrounds thanks to home state pride.
Election Night 1980 and 1994 may prove to have just been warm-ups for this year.
HOW ABOUT NAFTA INSTEAD OF THE EU?:
Nato summit sparks Turkish press debate (BBC, 6/30/04)
US President George W Bush's support for Turkey was received enthusiastically by a number of commentators.Mr Bush's visit to Turkey "had symbolic meaning", says Milliyet, indicating the country's "long-term importance" to the US.
The daily is also gratified that the president "stuck to his guns" in calling for Turkey's acceptance into the European Union, despite an earlier warning not to interfere by French President Jacques Chirac.
Vatan agrees, pleased that Mr Bush had urged that Turkey "should be crowned with European Union membership".
It also feels he sent the country "important messages".
"He said Turkey is on the ascendancy... with its democracy which can serve as an inspiration for the Islamic world."
Rather than yoking them to a dying Europe we should forge a closer relation with them.
SHI'ASTAN WEST:
Lebanese poll:56 % consider Syrian presence ''illegitimate'' (Albabwa, 29-06-2004)
A public opinion poll published Tuesday demonstrated that 56 % of those polled rejected the Lebanese regime's contention that Syrian presence in the country was 'legitimate and provisional,' with 40 % supporting that concept.In addition, 69 % of the Lebanese oppose an extension or renewal of President Lahoud's term in office and 90 % reject the concept of Syria appointing the president of Lebanon.
It's a problem that takes care of itself when we remove Assad.
MEANWHILE, ON THE REACTIONARY LEFT:
John Kerry sells out to big education (Armstrong Williams, June 29, 2004, Townhall)
The National Education Association, the nation's largest professional employee organization, is fundamentally opposed to any education reform that seeks to hold public schools accountable for their failures. On July 3, it will hold its national convention in Washington, D.C. That's when the association is expected to endorse John Kerry for president. Along with the endorsement will come thousands of votes from teachers across the country.In return, Kerry will talk about how school vouchers will tear apart our public education system.
Far more instructive, however, are the remarks Kerry made about education before he won the Democratic nomination and became beholden to the big interests of the teacher unions.
"We must end teacher tenure as we now know it," said Kerry in 1998 speeches delivered in Boston and Washington. During those speeches, Kerry took shots at a public education bureaucracy that shielded public schools and teachers from accountability and bemoaned that "those going into teaching have the lowest SAT and ACT scores of any profession in the United States."
In a 1998 New Republic article, Dana Milbank wrote that Kerry told her he'd "even approve government-funded vouchers - good for tuition at any accredited private school - as part of an overall education reform. ..." At the time, Kerry was proposing turning all public schools into charter schools. The reasoning was that, since students are assigned to public schools, the system has no incentive to improve and no accountability for failure. Stated otherwise, the public school system is a monopoly. But if poor families could send their children to any charter school, with the government paying all or part of the tuition, public schools would be forced to raise their standards or risk having their students flee.
"I'm for tough love here, folks," Kerry said. "It's time to come in and kick some butts. Democrats can't be viewed as somehow protecting these practices. You can't do this in some loosey-goosey ... way."
Six years later, Kerry is toting a different tune.
Who pays the piper calls the tune...
WHEN THEO MET NEO (via Tom Morin):
Political Paradoxes: how the terrorist assault on America sparked Bush’s progressive impulse (Peter Berkowitz, June 29, 2004, The New York Sun)
Conservatives maintain a lively sense of the weaknesses of human nature; cherish custom and tradition,and put a premium on preserving what has been achieved in the way of individual freedom and equality before the law, typically by limiting government’s reach.Progressives maintain a lively sense of the possibilities of human nature, celebrate innovation and reform, and focus on expanding individual freedom and enlarging the sphere of equality, typically by increasing government’s size and role. [...]
So how did it happen that a conservative president staked his presidency on a foreign policy rich with progressive implications that nevertheless most progressives have roundly condemned?
As for the progressive critics, their strange reversal was fortified by the appeal to sound arguments, grounded in a more conservative emphasis on the dependence of democracy on culture and morals, for believing that we lack the know-how to democratize a large, far-away country whose language we do not speak, whose traditions differ dramatically from our own, and whose politics is riven by ethnic and religious sectarianism.
But many progressives critics might not have come to these conclusions had they not found themselves in the awkward position of opposing policies that reflect, to a degree that the critics have not grappled with, the latent progressive impulse in both neoconservatism and Mr. Bush’s Christian faith. [...]
Mr. Bush’s conclusion that it was appropriate to use military force to remove Saddam Hussein was bound up with his judgment that once Baghdad had been liberated, America could restore order and establish democracy in Iraq.
This is where his deep-seated Christian progressivism, his belief in the universality of the human desire and capacity for freedom, comes in and converges with the progressive impulse in neoconservatism. Time and again in his major speeches about Iraq, Mr. Bush has repeated some variant on the idea that freedom is not America’s gift to the world but God’s gift to humanity.
One fascinating result of this is that the far Left and far Right are joined in common cause against the war, with Pat Buchanan and company marching in lockstep with the Nation crowd, Nancy Pelosi, Ralp Nader and the rest. The Left has to discredit the war because conservatism is laying claim to being the truly progressive political philosophy. The Right has to discredit it because George Bush is reshaping conservatism in the image of Christian progressivism--which makes it dang hard for nativism to thrive.
Of course, the same Christianity which is fueling Mr. Bush's progressivism also teaches the core conservative truth, that Man is Fallen and therefore imperfectable. This acts as the brake that Left utopianism lacks and establishes a perfect balance of the conservative and progressive human impulses.
POLITICS AS VOYEURISM:
Menino lets loose: Mayor slams ‘incompetent’ Kerry camp (David R. Guarino and Noelle Straub, June 30, 2004, Boston Herald)
Mayor Thomas M. Menino unloaded a searing attack on fellow Democrat John F. Kerry yesterday, calling his presidential campaign ``small-minded'' and ``incompetent'' - laying bare a years-old rift weeks before the city plays host to Kerry's FleetCenter coronation. [...]Menino said he was enraged to see a local newspaper item saying he hung up on Kerry Sunday. The mayor yesterday said Kerry's campaign floated the story, which he called untrue.
``I wasn't angry with him, that's a rumor they're spreading,'' Menino said. ``They are trying to balance out their decision by saying the mayor's angry. I had no harsh words with them.''Menino called the alleged leak ``the failure of the campaign to communicate with the public,'' adding, ``They are trying to find scapegoats for their incompetency.''
Watching the Kerry campaign in action is like being a character in the JG Ballard novel, Crash.
I KNOW THESE THINGS, I'M A NETWORK NEWSANCHOR... (via Tom Corcoran):
Brokaw Raps Iraqi PM for Linking Saddam to 9/11 (NewsMax, 6/29/04)
NBC "Nightly News" anchorman Tom Brokaw was so dismayed Tuesday night when Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi linked Saddam Hussein to the 9/11 attacks that he actually reprimanded him during his interview.When Brokaw asked the new Iraqi leader if he could "understand why many Americans feel that so many young men and women have died here for purposes other than protecting the United States?" Dr. Allawi responded:
"We know that this is an extension to what has happened in New York. And the war [has] been taken out to Iraq by the same terrorists. Saddam was a potential friend and partner and natural ally of terrorism."
Plainly miffed that Dr. Allawi hadn't accepted the U.S. media's attempt to cover-up links between Saddam, al Qaida and 9/11, Brokaw reprimanded him as cameras rolled:
"Prime minister, I’m surprised that you would make the connection between 9/11 and the war in Iraq."
Imagine Dr. Allawi coming on the program and trying to explain South Dakota to Mr. Brokaw?
RATES ARE TOO HIGH, NOT TOO LOW:
Bubble Bubble, Is There Trouble? (Arnold Kling, 6/29/04, Tech Central Station)
Many economists are skeptical that real interest rates will remain low. It appears to us that investors are ignoring the potential for large increases in borrowing by the U.S. government as deficits accumulate. For example, Rudolph Penner describes some alarming scenarios, including one in which our debt-to-GDP ratio reaches 100 percent in twenty years and keeps climbing thereafter.
Nonsense--Japan's ratio is 140% and its interest rates are lower. That's what happens in a deflationary cycle like the one we're in.
IT'S THE 1870,s, NOT THE 1970's:
Playing it cool: Is Alan Greenspan fretting enough about inflation? (The Economist, 6/24/04)
Inflation-worriers, including The Economist, have pointed out that the economy is growing apace, inflation is rising and yet short-term interest rates, even after June 30th, will be negative in real terms. In the year to March output grew at its fastest pace for 20 years. Consumer prices rose by 3.1% in the year to May, up from 2.1% a year ago. Admittedly, much of that rise is due to higher oil prices, but even core consumer prices—which exclude the volatile categories of food and fuel—are edging up, from 1.1% in the year to January to 1.7% in the year to May. And people think inflation is on the rise. According to a survey by the University of Michigan, Americans' expectation of inflation over the coming year is now 3.3%, up from 2% last May.More optimistic analysts note that inflation is still extremely low by historical standards. They point out that much of the recent acceleration may be due to temporary factors; and argue that price pressure is unlikely to damage an economy which still has a lot of excess capacity and where productivity is growing strongly.
According to conventional benchmarks, America's economy still has plenty of slack. The jobless rate at 5.6% is well above levels consistent with stable inflation and traditional measures of industrial capacity use are below historical averages. There are also signs that the jump in inflation at the beginning of the year is already abating: May's monthly core consumer prices rose by 0.2%, compared with 0.4% in March and 0.3% in April.
Indeed, given the rapidly dropping fuel prices mightn't the price index be negative for June?
60-40 NATION:
The GOP's blue-state convention slate (Terence Jeffrey, June 30, 2004, Townhall)
When you look at the slate of prime-time speakers the Republicans announced this week for their national convention in New York this August, it brings to mind Yogi Berra. It's deja vu all over again.For entirely different reasons, it resurrects images of 1992 and 1996.
It brings back 1992 because that's when then-Gov. Zell Miller of Georgia was the most conservative prime-time speaker at the Democratic convention. This year, Miller (now a senator but still a Democrat) will be the most conservative prime-time speaker at the Republican convention. [...]
The younger President Bush and Vice President Cheney will speak at this year's convention, of course, as will their wives. They can be counted on to give well-crafted and effective orations. But beyond them -- and the Democrat Miller -- all the speakers on the prime-time roster hail from more liberal precincts in the GOP.
They include: Education Secretary Rod Paige, Arizona Sen. John McCain, New York Gov. George Pataki, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Republican governors in CA, MA, HI, NY, VT, etc. amply demonstrate that there are no blue states anymore. This is what happens when the nation undergoes a genuine political transformation. After 70 years of the FDR/New Deal/Great Society epoch the pendulum has swung back to the Right.
June 29, 2004
ABDUCTED?:
Abducted Marine Had Deserted the Military (JEFFREY GETTLEMANand NICK MADIGAN, 6/30/04, NY Times)
The American marine who is being threatened by his kidnappers with beheading had deserted the military because he was emotionally traumatized, and was abducted by his captors while trying to make his way home to his native Lebanon, a Marine officer said Tuesday.The officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he believed that Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun was betrayed by Iraqis he befriended on his base and ended up in the hands of Islamic extremists.
The officer said Corporal Hassoun, a 24-year-old Marine linguist who was born in Lebanon, was shaken up after he saw one of his sergeants blown apart by a mortar shell.
"It was very disturbing to him," the officer said. "He wanted to go home and quit the game, but since he was relatively early in his deployment, that was not going to happen anytime soon. So he talked to some folks on base he befriended, because they were all fellow Muslims, and they helped sneak him off. Once off, instead of helping him get home, they turned him over to the bad guys."
THE AFRICAN AMERICAN PRESIDENT:
Why Sudan has become a Bush priority (Abraham McLaughlin, 6/30/04, CS Monitor)
The last time a US secretary of State visited Sudan was 1978, when Jimmy Carter's envoy, Cyrus Vance, stopped to refuel his plane.But in a sign of Sudan's growing significance, Colin Powell arrived Tuesday for a high-profile two-day visit. The trip is the latest evidence of a major shift in US policy toward the Muslim-led state that once harbored Osama bin Laden.
The visit is primarily aimed at halting the suffering and violence in Sudan's western region of Darfur, home to the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
But analysts say it may also fulfill other White House goals. If the Bush team can bring Sudan back into the family of nations, as it did this week with Libya, it would gain a diplomatic victory for the war on terror. It could also fire up its Christian-conservative base by securing a peace deal in Sudan's other war, a 21-year conflict between the Muslims in the north and the largely Christian south.
Mr. Bush, mainly as a result of Christian pressure on issues like this and AIDs, is more involved in Africa than any prior president and so far the results couldn't be better.
FOR WANT OF NIALL A NATION WAS LOST:
Europe gets my vote: As a Thatcherite, I support this constitution, which puts power back where it belongs (Niall Ferguson, June 29, 2004, The Guardian)
Is the new European constitution a blueprint for a United States of Europe - a fully fledged federation like the US on the other side of the Atlantic? Many of its continental proponents would say that is precisely the aim of the "treaty establishing a constitution" for the EU agreed by European leaders at Brussels last week.Unfortunately for the constitution, that is a view currently shared by the large proportion of British voters who have no desire to become just one of 25 states in a USE. If they vote against ratification in the referendum Tony Blair has promised, then one of two things will happen. Either the constitution will be a dead letter and the enlarged EU will muddle along under old rules. Or - as a growing number of British voters seem to wish - Britain will leave the EU. Suddenly, a great deal hinges on Blair's ability to persuade voters that the new constitution is not a federalist document.
As someone who is routinely labelled a "rightwing historian" in the British press, I am probably one of the last people Guardian readers would expect to take the prime minister's side in this debate. But I do. Yes, I was a young Thatcherite in the 1980s, passionately agreeing that we had to stand up to the Soviet Union, Britain's over-mighty unions and the French socialists like Jacques Delors, who had retreated to Brussels having failed in Paris. Yes, I think she was right to be nervous about British membership of the exchange rate mechanism, and to be hostile to the idea of our joining European Monetary Union. If all that still makes me rightwing today, then I plead guilty (though I have always preferred to think of myself as a 19th-century liberal).
But there was never a time when I regarded departure from the EU as a serious option - provided, of course, that it remained a confederal structure primarily concerned with economic integration, in which the nation states retain power on non-economic matters. Does the new constitution change that? No. Indeed, the constitution changes very little about the way the EU works.
There seem two possibilities with regard to the EU: it will either be too weak to be a threat to national sovereignty, in which case there's no sense in it; or it will be strong enough to matter and will start aggrandizing power to itself, in which case no patriot, and certainly no conservative, should support it.
SAVE THE BASTER FOR THANKSGIVING:
Woman inseminated with wrong sperm (news.com.au, June 30, 2004)
A JURY awarded $US435,000 ($622,273) to an American woman who was accidentally inseminated with unprepared sperm at a fertility clinic.
It's surprisingly easy to avoid this problem by having your husband inseminate you.
WHY AREN'T THEY AMERICAN?:
Forty Million Frenchman (Robert Brustein, 06.24.04, New Republic)
The two shows under review this month--the death, funeral, and canonization rites of Ronald Reagan, and the 2004 Tony award ceremonies--both prove Bernard Shaw's definition of popular democracy as a system "that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few." That our countrymen could have elected this good-natured, engaging, but utterly inconsequential B-movie actor to two presidential terms is commentary enough on the weakness of the democratic electoral process. But to hear pundits and pollsters claiming that Reagan should now be considered one of the great presidents of history, below only Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy (FDR apparently having dropped down a memory hole), is to enter the realm of the preposterous, if not the occult. Yes, his genial smile and crinkly quips made everyone feel good about themselves, except those afflicted with such un-American disorders as homelessness, minority status, and AIDS.
Two of those groups are by definition so disaffected from society that they're unlikely to share much in its triumphs, but no one's ever adequately explained why black America wouldn't have shared in the pride of waging and winning the Cold War nor why blacks wouldn't have felt better about the Reagan recovery that continues to this day than about the Great Society recession of the 70s. Does Mr. Brustein really intend to portray racial status as a social pathology?
NO ONE VOTES THEIR NEIGHBOR'S POCKETBOOK (via John Resnick)
Election-year economy (David Keene, 6/30/04, The Hill)
What’s happening now as month after month of good news comes out is reminiscent of the Democratic reaction to the Reagan economy back in 1984. First, the Democrats of that era predicted that the recession Reagan inherited would persist because of Reagan’s wrongheaded dedication to cutting taxes — every believing liberal Democrat knew wouldn’t work.However, when things turned around and the economy began to pick up a real head of steam, Walter Mondale, the John Kerry of the day, pooh-poohed the recovery. He proclaimed that while the rich were benefiting from the tax cuts, the only jobs being produced as a result of the Reagan recovery were for “hamburger flippers.”
Before it was over, Mondale was promising to raise taxes and give the American people the sort of Democratic economic policies he and his fellow liberals just knew that voters craved. He lost 49 states.
This year Kerry is repeating Mondale’s mistakes of 20 years ago.
The main difference being that Mr. Kerry won't carry his home state.
LESS NEO, MORE CON, AND A HEFTY HELPING OF THEO
How the neo-cons can do it better next time: Something went wrong in Iraq. George Bush and his advisers need to learn the lesson (John Keegan, 6/30/04, The Age)
The neo-conservatives' mistake was to suppose that, wherever tyranny ruled, democracy was its natural alternative. So, when planning for the government of postwar Iraq, the neo-conservatives jumped to the conclusion that, as soon as Saddam's tyranny was destroyed, Iraqi democrats would emerge to assume governmental responsibility from the liberating coalition and a pro-Western regime would evolve seamlessly from the flawed past.To think in such a way was to reveal a dangerously post-Marxist cast of mind. Marxists can think only in political terms. They accept, even if they despise, liberal and conservative opposition. What they cannot accept is that their opponents may be motivated by beliefs which are not political. That explains their hatred of religion.
It is religion, of course, which the neo-conservatives have come up against in post-Saddam Iraq. Not only religion; the survivors of the Baath Party, a strictly secular organisation, are also deeply involved in the opposition to the American presence. Religion is, however, the real opposition force.
Whatever the purity of their political motives, the American occupiers should not have dissolved the Iraqi army or police or civil administration, whatever the number of Baath Party members they contain.
Iraq's new Prime Minister, Ayad Allawi, has now to rebuild the country's military and civilian services from exactly the same group of individuals who the neo-conservatives rejected at the outset.
Let us hope the neo-conservatives have learnt a lesson, since it is unlikely that this will be the last time the US will have to undertake an exercise in nation-building. Next time Washington should take as its target the preservation of as much as possible.
Domestic politics stateside made de-Ba'athification inevitable whether a good idea or not. But the criticism of neo-cons as not being sufficiently conservative and not grasping the centrality of religion to a healthy democratic society is spot on.
MAKE THAT "DECISIVE MISSTEP" (via John Resnick):
Fed to take decisive step Wednesday (Rex Nutting, 6/29/04, CBS.MarketWatch.com)
The Federal Reserve will almost certainly raise its overnight interest rate target for the first time in four years when the U.S. central bankers conclude their two-day meeting on Wednesday.
Oil Falls to 2-Month Low on Iraq Optimism (Reuters, June 29, 2004)
Oil prices fell to their lowest in two months on Tuesday as the handover of power in Iraq raised hopes for less sabotage and steadier exports.U.S. light crude settled 1.6 percent, or 58 cents, lower at $35.66 a barrel.
Growing U.S. commercial supplies and higher OPEC output have eased fears about summer gasoline shortages and knocked about $6 a barrel off the price of oil since record New York futures highs at the start of June.
You can set your watch by them: by the time the Fed changes its bias they should be doing the opposite.
BETTER NATURE (via brian boys):
Couple Helps Churches Retrofit 15-Passenger Vans: Van Angels ministry launched with funds from settlement over daughter's van-related death. (Yvonne Betowt, 6/21/04, Religion News Service)
Malori [Smith] was one of three people killed when the church van they were in crashed near Monterrey, Mexico, following the separation of a virtually new left rear tire. The others killed were Bethany Bosarge, 16, of Peachtree, Ga., and Jonathan Lomeli, 23, of Laredo, Texas. Several others were seriously injured.While he was devastated at the loss of his only daughter and oldest child, [her father, Mark,] Smith and his wife, Cindy, decided not to sit by while others needlessly died — others such as 10-year-old Jesse Brooks of Albertville, Ala., killed coming home from a mission trip to Wyoming the same month as the Smiths' daughter.
After settling a class-action lawsuit against Ford and Michelin in February, Smith and the other families involved in the Mexico accident decided to set aside part of their undisclosed settlement to help churches and schools retrofit their 15-passenger vans by adding two rear tires.
"Each family decided what it wanted to contribute," said Smith, director of Van Angels. "After a few days of news, we asked ourselves, 'What can we do to prevent more accidents?' We came up with the idea of Van Angels to create educational awareness about issues relating to 15-passenger vans."
Smith said adding two rear tires will prevent most vans from rolling over during an accident.
THE WORST-RUN CAMPAIGN EVER:
A Republican Subs for Kerry With Relish: After John Kerry decided not to attend the annual meeting of the nation's mayors, Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts seized the chance to needle Democrats. (PAM BELLUCK, 6/29/04, NY Times)
"I wanted to indicate my support of Mayor Menino," Mr. Romney said."He's a man of courage and integrity," he added, saying, "In the executive responsibility, you put first the people and not the pickets."
Mr. Romney had declined an invitation to attend the conference on Saturday because of scheduling conflicts, said his spokeswoman, Shawn Feddeman. But when he heard about Mr. Kerry's decision on Sunday night, he called to ask if he could take the senator's slot.
Mr. Romney insisted Monday he was "not here to make any comment or statement on Senator Kerry."
So, to whom might he have been referring when he said:
"A mayor, a governor and a president have a responsibility to make tough decisions and balance budgets. A senator doesn't, and that's a big difference. Senators don't have to balance budgets. Senators don't have to make those kinds of trade-offs. That's what the mayor has to do, and that's why I want to be here for him."
Mr. Romney capped his comments by calling Mr. Menino a "good Democrat."
In an interview on Monday, Mr. Menino said: "I love that. To be called a good Democrat by a Republican - that's great. That shows respect."
Not like Mr. Kerry, the mayor suggested.
Paging Mr. Dionne....
THEIR WAR NOW:
Iraq's New History (Fouad Ajami, June 29, 2004 , Wall Street Journal)
[F]reedom can't be a fetish. There are the needs of Iraq, and they are staggering. There is the nemesis of Iraq's freedom, an insurgency drawing its fury and pitilessness from the forces of the old despotism, and from jihadists from neighboring lands who have turned Iraq into a devil's playground. We should be under no illusions about this insurgency. Its war against the new Iraq will not yield. For their part, the jihadists have a dreadful animus for the "apostates" within the world of Islam who ride with the infidels.Indeed, that prince of darkness, the jihadist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian sowing death in the streets of Iraq, anticipated this shift, and warned that the war would continue. "We do not wage our jihad in order to replace the Western tyrant with an Arab tyrant. We fight to make God's word supreme, and anyone who stands in the way of our struggle is our enemy, a target of our swords." The interim prime minister, Mr. Allawi, is a principal target of the Zarqawi bigots. "We have prepared for you a vicious poison and a sharp sword, we have prepared for you a full cup of death,"
Zarqawi warned the new Iraqi leader, in an audiotape released last week. The lines are drawn: A man of the Iraqi state against a drifter who has come to that country in search of a new battleground.
Grant Zarqawi his due: months earlier, in a message intercepted in Iraq--one that Zarqawi had intended for Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri--the Jordanian foresaw the shape of things to come. "America is being bloodied in Iraq," he said, "but has no intention of leaving, no matter the bloodletting among its own soldiers. It is looking to a near future, when it remains safe in its bases, while handing over control to a bastard government with an army and a police force. . . . There is no doubt that our field of movement is shrinking, and our future looks more forbidding by the day." It was war, Zarqawi wrote, with a stark realism, or "packing our bags and looking for a new field of battle, as has been the case in other campaigns of jihad, because our enemy grows stronger with every passing day."
Zarqawi and his breed of militants know that a native Iraqi government can shelter behind the call of home and hearth and of Iraq's right to a new political life. Americans can't hunt down the restless young men thrown up by the chaos of Arab lands, perhaps encouraged to make their way to Iraq, to kill and be killed. This is a task for Iraqis. It is for them to reclaim their country from the purveyors of terror. It is one thing for Fallujah to pose as the citadel of Islam against the infidels; it is an entirely different matter for that town to take up arms against a native government--even one protected by a vast foreign force. Iyad Allawi can call the insurgents "enemies of Islam," as he did after the transfer of authority. It is awkward, at best, for George W. Bush to insert himself into that fight over, and for, Islam. In the same vein, we warned Iraq's neighbors to keep their fires--and their misfits--away from Iraq, but it was infinitely more convincing when Mr. Allawi told his neighbors that Iraqis would not forget those who stood with them, and those who stood against them.
In their fashion, Iraqis have come to see their recent history as a passage from the rule of the tyrant to the rule of the foreigner. This has given them an absolution from political responsibility and toil. Dependence was easy, and easy, too, was holding America responsible for everything under the sun. A measure of this abdication on the part of Iraq's people will have to yield in recognition of this (circumscribed) sovereignty that has come their way.
This is the calculus that we failed to understand--that the majority of Iraqis, having despised their government rather than supported it, would view themselves as the victors rather than the defeated, and expect power to be tranferred to them far faster than it was to the Japanese and Germans after WWII. Now they have it and everything changes.
HANDOVER=ROLLOVER:
Let's Hear It for the Handover: Finally, Bush does something right in Iraq. (Fred Kaplan, June 28, 2004, Slate)
It was a smart move to transfer sovereignty to Iraq today, two days ahead of schedule. If the Bush administration keeps doing things this smart over the next several months, the transition to self-rule might go more smoothly than anyone has had reason to suspect.
Finally? If he's listened to the Fred Kaplans of the world Saddam Hussein would still be sovereign.
TO BUILD A SOCIETY OF JUSTICE:
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT IN ISTANBUL, TURKEY (6/29/04)
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen: Laura and I are grateful for the warm hospitality we have received these past three days in the Republic of Turkey. I am honored to visit this beautiful country where two continents meet - a nation that upholds great traditions, and faces the future with confidence. And America is honored to call Turkey an ally and a friend.Many Americans trace their heritage to Turkey, and Turks have contributed greatly to our national life - including, most recently, a lot of baskets for the Detroit Pistons from Mehmet Okur. I know youre proud that this son of your country helped to win an NBA championship, and America is proud of him as well.
I am grateful to Prime Minister Erdogan and President Sezer for hosting the members of NATO in an historic time for our alliance. For most of its history, NATO existed to deter aggression from a powerful army at the heart of Europe. In this century, NATO looks outward to new threats that gather in secret and bring sudden violence to peaceful cities. We face terrorist networks that rejoice when parents bury their murdered children, or bound men plead for their lives. We face outlaw regimes that give aid and shelter to these killers, and seek weapons of mass murder. We face the challenges of corruption and poverty and disease, which throw whole nations into chaos and despair - the conditions in which terrorism can thrive.
Some on both sides of the Atlantic have questioned whether the NATO alliance still has a great purpose. To find that purpose, they only need to open their eyes. The dangers are in plain sight. The only question is whether we will confront them, or look away and pay a terrible cost.
Over the last few years, NATO has made its decision. Our alliance is restructuring to oppose threats that arise beyond the borders of Europe. NATO is providing security in Afghanistan. NATO has agreed to help train the security forces of a sovereign Iraq - a great advantage and crucial success for the Iraqi people. And in Istanbul we have dedicated ourselves to the advance of reform in the broader Middle East, because all people deserve a just government, and because terror is not the tool of the free. Through decades of the Cold War, our great alliance of liberty never failed in its duties - and we are rising to our duties once again.
The Turkish people understand the terrorists, because you have seen their work, even in the last few days. You have heard the sirens, and witnessed the carnage, and mourned the dead. After the murders of Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Istanbul last November, a resident of this city said of the terrorists, "They do not have any religion ... They are friends of evil." In one of the attacks, a Muslim woman lost her son Ahmet, her daughter-in-law Berta, and her unborn grandchild. She said, "Today Im saying goodbye to my son. Tomorrow Im saying farewell to my Berta. I dont know what [the killers] wanted from my kids. Were they jealous of their happiness?"
The Turkish people have grieved, but your nation is also showing how terrorist violence will be overcome - with courage, and with a firm resolve to defend your just and tolerant society. This land has always been important for its geography - here at the meeting place of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Now Turkey has assumed even greater historical importance, because of your character as a nation. Turkey is a strong, secular democracy, a majority Muslim society, and a close ally of free nations. Your country, with 150 years of democratic and social reform, stands as a model to others, and as Europes bridge to the wider world. Your success is vital to a future of progress and peace in Europe and in the broader Middle East - and the Republic of Turkey can depend on the support and friendship of the United States.
For decades, my country has supported greater unity in Europe - to secure liberty, build prosperity, and remove sources of conflict on this continent. Now the European Union is considering the admission of Turkey, and you are moving rapidly to meet the criteria for membership. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk had a vision of Turkey as a strong nation among other European nations. That dream can be realized by this generation of Turks. America believes that as a European power, Turkey belongs in the European Union. Your membership would also be a crucial advance in relations between the Muslim world and the West, because you are part of both. Including Turkey in the EU would prove that Europe is not the exclusive club of a single religion, and it would expose the "clash of civilizations" as a passing myth of history. Fifteen years ago, an artificial line that divided Europe -- drawn at Yalta - was erased. Now this continent has the opportunity to erase another artificial division - by fully including Turkey in it.
Turkey has found its place in the community of democracies by living out its own principles. Muslims are called to seek justice - fairness to all, care for the stranger, compassion for those in need. And you have learned that democracy is the surest way to build a society of justice. The best way to prevent corruption and abuse of power is to hold rulers accountable. The best way to ensure fairness to all is to establish the rule of law. The best way to honor human dignity is to protect human rights. Turkey has found what nations of every culture and every region have found: If justice is the goal, then democracy is the answer.
In some parts of the world, especially in the Middle East, there is wariness toward democracy, often based on misunderstanding. Some people in Muslim cultures identify democracy with the worst of Western popular culture, and want no part of it. And I assure them, when I speak about the blessings of liberty, coarse videos and crass commercialism are not what I have in mind. There is nothing incompatible between democratic values and high standards of decency. For the sake of their families and their culture, citizens of a free society have every right to strive peacefully for a moral society.
Democratic values also do not require citizens to abandon their faith. No democracy can allow religious people to impose their own view of perfection on others, because this invites cruelty and arrogance that are foreign to every faith. And all people in a democracy have the right to their own religious beliefs. But all democracies are made stronger when religious people teach and demonstrate upright conduct - family commitment, respect for the law, and compassion for the weak. Democratic societies should welcome, not fear, the participation of the faithful.
In addition, democracy does not involve automatic agreement with other democracies. Free governments have a reputation for independence, which Turkey has certainly earned. That is the way democracy works. We deal honestly with each other, we make our own decisions - and yet, in the end, the disagreements of the moment are far outweighed by the ideals we share.
Because representative governments reflect their people, every democracy has its own structure, traditions, and opinions. There are, however, certain commitments of free government that do not change from place to place. The promise of democracy is fulfilled in freedom of speech, the rule of law, limits on the power of the state, economic freedom, respect for women, and religious tolerance. These are the values that honor the dignity of every life, and set free the creative energies that lead to progress.
Achieving these commitments of democracy can require decades of effort and reform. In my own country it took generations to throw off slavery, racial segregation, and other practices that violated our ideals. So we do not expect or demand that other societies be transformed in a day. But however long the journey, there is only one destination worth striving for, and that is a society of self-rule and freedom.
Democracy leads to justice within a nation - and the advance of democracy leads to greater security among nations. The reason is clear: Free peoples do not live in endless stagnation, and seethe in resentment, and lash out in envy, rage, and violence. Free peoples do not cling to every grievance of the past - they build and live for the future. This is the experience of countries in the NATO alliance. Bitterness and hostility once divided France and Germany... and Germany and Poland ... and Romania and Hungary. But as those nations grew in liberty, ancient disputes and hatreds have been left to history. And because the people of Europe now live in hope, Europe no longer produces armed ideologies that threaten the peace of the world. Freedom in Europe has brought peace to Europe - and now freedom can bring peace to the broader Middle East.
I believe that freedom is the future of the Middle East, because I believe that freedom is the future of all humanity. And the historic achievement of democracy in the broader Middle East will be a victory shared by all. Millions who now live in oppression and want will finally have a chance to provide for their families and lead hopeful lives. Nations in the region will have greater stability because governments will have greater legitimacy. And nations like Turkey and America will be safer, because a hopeful Middle East will no longer produce ideologies and movements that seek to kill our citizens. This transformation is one of the great and difficult tasks of history. And by our own patience and hard effort, and with confidence in the peoples of the Middle East, we will finish the work that history has given us.
Democracy, by definition, must be chosen and defended by the people themselves. The future of freedom in the Islamic world will be determined by the citizens of Islamic nations, not by outsiders. And for citizens of the broader Middle East, the alternatives could not be more clear. One alternative is a political doctrine of tyranny, suicide, and murder that goes against the standards of justice found in Islam and every other great religion. The other alternative is a society of justice, where men and women live peacefully and build better lives for themselves and their children. That is the true cause of the people of the Middle East, and that cause can never be served by the murder of the innocent.
This struggle between political extremism and civilized values is unfolding in many places. We see the struggle in Iraq, where killers are attempting to undermine and intimidate a free government. We see the struggle in Iran, where tired and discredited autocrats are trying to hold back the democratic will of a rising generation. We see that struggle in Turkey, where the PKK has abandoned its ceasefire with the Turkish people and resumed violence. We see it in the Holy Land, where terrorist murderers are setting back the good cause of the Palestinian people, who deserve a reformed, peaceful, and democratic state of their own.
The terrorists are ruthless and resourceful, but they will not prevail. Already more than half of the worlds Muslims live under democratically-constituted governments - from Indonesia to West Africa, from Europe to North America. And the ideal of democracy is also powerful and popular in the Middle East. Surveys in Arab nations reveal broad support for representative government and individual liberty. We are seeing reform in Kuwait, and Qatar, and Bahrain, and Yemen, and Jordan, and Morocco. And we are seeing men and women of conscience and courage step forward to advocate democracy and justice in the broader Middle East.
As we found in the Soviet Union, and behind the Iron Curtain, this kind of moral conviction was more powerful than vast armies and prison walls and the will of dictators. And this kind of moral conviction is also more powerful than the whips of the Taliban, or the police state of Saddam Hussein, or the cruel designs of terrorists. The way ahead is long and difficult, yet people of conscience go forward with hope. The rule of fear did not survive in Europe, and the rule of free peoples will come to the Middle East.
Leaders throughout that region, including some friends of the United States, must recognize the direction of events. Any nation that compromises with violent extremists only emboldens them, and invites future violence. Suppressing dissent only increases radicalism. The long-term stability of any government depends on being open to change, and responsive to citizens. By learning these lessons, Turkey has become a great and stable democracy - and America shares your hope that other nations will take this path.
Western nations, including my own, want to be helpful in the democratic progress of the Middle East, yet we know there are suspicions, rooted in centuries of conflict and colonialism. And in the last 60 years, many in the West have added to this distrust by excusing tyranny in the region, hoping to purchase stability at the price of liberty. But it did not serve the people of the Middle East to betray their hope of freedom. And it has not made Western nations more secure to ignore the cycle of dictatorship and extremism. Instead we have seen the malice grow deeper, and the violence spread, until both have appeared on the streets of our own cities. Some types of hatred will never be appeased; they must be opposed and discredited and defeated by a hopeful alternative - and that alternative is freedom.
Reformers in the broader Middle East are working to build freer and more prosperous societies - and America, the G-8, the EU, Turkey, and NATO have now agreed to support them. Many nations are helping the people of Afghanistan to secure a free government. And NATO now leads a military operation in Afghanistan, in the first action by the alliance outside Europe. In Iraq, a broad coalition - including the military forces of many NATO countries - is helping the people of that country to build a decent and democratic government after decades of corrupt oppression. And NATO is providing support to a Polish-led division.
The government of Iraq has now taken a crucial step forward. In a nation that suffered for decades under brutal tyranny, we have witnessed the transfer of sovereignty and the beginning of self-government. In just 15 months, the Iraqi people have left behind one of the worst regimes in the Middle East, and their country is becoming the worlds newest democracy. The world has seen a great event in the history of Iraq, in the history of the Middle East, and in the history of liberty.
The rise of Iraqi democracy is bringing hope to reformers across the Middle East, and sending a very different message to Teheran and Damascus. A free and sovereign Iraq is also a decisive defeat for extremists and terrorists - because their hateful ideology will lose its appeal in a free, tolerant, successful country. The terrorists are doing everything they can to undermine Iraqi democracy, by attacking all who stand for order and justice, and committing terrible crimes to break the will of free nations. The terrorists have the ability to cause suffering and grief, but they do not have the power to alter the outcome in Iraq: The civilized world will keep its resolve ... the leaders of Iraq are strong and determined ... and the people of Iraq will live in freedom.
Iraq still faces hard challenges in the days and months ahead. Iraqs leaders are eager to assume responsibility for their own security, and that is our wish as well. So this week at our summit, NATO agreed to provide assistance in training Iraqi security forces. I am grateful to Turkey and other NATO allies for helping our friends in Iraq to build a nation that governs itself and defends itself.
Our efforts to promote reform and democracy in the Middle East are moving forward. At the NATO summit, we approved the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative, offering to work together with nations of the broader Middle East to fight terrorism, control their borders, and aid the victims of disaster. And we are thankful for the important role that Turkey is playing as a democratic partner in the Broader Middle East Initiative.
For all of our efforts to succeed, however, more is needed than plans and policies. We must strengthen the ties of trust and good will between ourselves and the peoples of the Middle East. And trust and good will come more easily when men and women clear their minds, and their hearts, of suspicion and prejudice and unreasoned fear. When some in my country speak in an ill-informed and insulting manner about the Muslim faith, their words are heard abroad, and do great harm to our cause in the Middle East. When some in the Muslim world incite hatred and murder with conspiracy theories and propaganda, their words are also heard - by a generation of young Muslims who need truth and hope, not lies and anger. All such talk, in America or in the Middle East, is dangerous and reckless and unworthy of any religious tradition. Whatever our cultural differences may be, there should be respect and peace in the House of Abraham.
The Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk has said that the finest view of Istanbul is not from the shores of Europe, or from the shores of Asia, but from a bridge that unites them, and lets you see both. His work has been a bridge between cultures, and so is the Republic of Turkey. The people of this land understand, as Pamuk has observed, that "What is important is not [a] clash of parties, civilizations, cultures, East and West." What is important, he says, is to realize "that other peoples in other continents and civilizations" are "exactly like you."
Ladies and gentlemen, in their need for hope, in their desire for peace, in their right to freedom, the peoples of the Middle East are exactly like you and me. Their birthright of freedom has been denied for too long. And we will do all in our power to help them find the blessings of liberty.
Thank you, and God bless the good people of Turkey.
WE HAVE NO QUARREL WITH PRUSSIA
National Review Founder to Leave Stage (David D. Kirkpatrick, NY Times, 6/29/04)
As for conservatism today, Mr. Buckley said there was a growing debate on the right about how the war in Iraq squared with the traditional conservative conviction that American foreign policy should seek only to protect its vital interests.Below, OJ offers Mr. Buckley congratulations on a life well-lived, and I whole-heartedly agree. Because, however, his comment on the war is sure to be siezed on by the left, it is worth spending some time on this statement."With the benefit of minute hindsight, Saddam Hussein wasn't the kind of extra-territorial menace that was assumed by the administration one year ago," Mr. Buckley said. "If I knew then what I know now about what kind of situation we would be in, I would have opposed the war."
I do not take Mr. Buckley to be saying that "Bush lied", or even that the case for war, ex ante, was not convincing. Rather, at least seen through the lens of the New York Times, Mr. Buckley is saying that, because it turned out that there were no stockpiles of MWD's ready for use, and because it turned out that the ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda had not yet reached the level of cooperation to attack United States territory, there was in hindsight no conservative rationale for the war.
The more interesting question is, what difference does this make? Mr. Buckley certainly knows, even if the Times does not, that nothing can be known with certainty and the future least of all. This is a reason for war, not an argument against it. Mr. Buckley, according to the Times, was discussing the war in connection with a conservative idea that the foreign policy of the United States should only be concerned with the nation's vital interests. The Times' characterization is either much too broad or much too narrow. Does the left really want to cede to the right the idea that when we go to war, we should only do so to protect a vital interest? We joke that the left only supports wars, like Kosovo or Somalia (to stretch the term war) where we have no vital interest, but perhaps the left now agrees.
On the other hand, I don't believe that Mr. Buckley is suggesting, ex cathedra, that conservatives reject the idea of using our foreign policy to promote policies that are not vital to us. It is not conservative, in any sensible way, for us only to use jaw-jaw where we would be willing to use war-war. I assume that Mr. Buckley agrees that we should do what we can to discourage abortion in the Third World, but not go to war on Mexican abortionists.
All of which brings us to the real discussion. Given that the minimum requirement for a conservative war is that vital interests have been threatened, in what way does the Iraqi war not qualify. One supposes that Mr. Buckley was bringing up the difference between the paleocons and the neocons. But the true paleocons and the true neocons (read Jacksonians) have not wobbled. Those who supported the war for the right reasons understood that we should not change our behavior because the Islamists demand change, if our behavior is consistent with our values. Those who supported the war for the right reasons understood that terrorism is not caused by poverty, or Britney Spears or even Israel, but by the resentment of stagnant cultures that have lost the great arguments. Those who supported the war for the right reasons understood that our refusal to finish the job we began in 1991, our reliance on sanctions and the way in which we allowed the west to be scorned by the Ba'athists convinced our enemies we are vulnerable. Those who supported the war for the right reasons understood that peace for our children requires middle eastern governments that protect the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and thus the remaking of that region. We still do.
It is not conservative to go on grand crusades to remake the world. But it is conservative to see what has to be done to safeguard America, and then not stop until it is done.
EJ, AS IN ERRONEOUS JUDGEMENT (via Kevin Whited):
First Ripple of a Political Tidal Wave? (E. J. Dionne Jr., June 29, 2004, Wasshington Post)
"I've never seen a time with so many Republicans expressing consternation about their party and a willingness to support the other party," said Rep. Brian Baird, a Democrat whose district, in Washington's southwest corner, went for Bush four years ago.Baird, a psychologist who has worked with statistics, is also skeptical of making too much of anecdotes. But he is running across plenty of them on the anti-Bush side. "If you contrast this campaign to the campaign of four years ago, you saw George Bush stickers everywhere and very few Al Gore stickers," he said. "Now, it's at least 50-50" between Bush and Kerry. Baird speaks of a man in a health club wearing a John Kerry T-shirt who told him: "What you have to understand is that I am a lifelong Republican." And the congressman chuckles over a car he spotted that "had an American flag, an 'I'm the NRA' bumper sticker and a John Kerry bumper sticker."
Inslee's metaphor of the 1994 Republican sweep piloted by former House speaker Newt Gingrich is intriguing because the Republican wave was not obvious in the polls at this moment in the campaign 10 years ago. A survey in mid-June 1994 by Republican pollster Richard Wirthlin, for example, found the Democrats with a three-point lead in the House races.
Yet many Republicans correctly argued that intense voter dissatisfaction with Congress, Bill Clinton and the status quo was moving the country decisively in the GOP's direction. Republicans then sensed that the energy on the Republican side could swamp Democrats by producing a turnout heavily tilted toward Republican candidates -- exactly what happened. Democrats feel a comparable energy could work for them this year.
All that's necessary to buy Mr. Dionne's thesis is that you ignore reality, in which Mr. Bush has stronger support within his party than any president of modern times. Of course, delusion is the stock in trade of the author of the comedic classic: THEY ONLY LOOK DEAD: Why Progressives Will Dominate the Next Political Era.
50-0 FILES:
U.S. June Consumer Confidence Index Rises to 2-Year High (Bloomberg, 6/29/04)
Confidence in the U.S. economy rose this month to the highest level in two years, spurred by job growth and a decline in gasoline prices, a private survey found.``Some of the concerns about Iraq and terrorism have taken a back seat to the good news on the economy and employment,'' said John Shin, an economist at Lehman Brothers Inc. in New York, before the report.
The New York-based Conference Board's consumer confidence index increased to 101.9 this month, from a revised 93.1 in May. The figure exceeded the highest estimate in a Bloomberg News survey. Assessments of both current and future conditions rose.
The percentage that saw jobs as hard to get declined to the lowest since September 2002. The economy has added 1.2 million jobs so far in 2004 and economists forecast another quarter- million were added this month, boosting incomes and providing thrust for spending and the economy. Federal Reserve policy makers meet later today and are predicted to raise their benchmark interest rate tomorrow by a quarter-point to 1.25 percent to keep inflation from accelerating.
``The economy is slowly improving and doing better, and a lot of people are out traveling -- maybe more so than they have since 9/11,'' said David Neeleman, chief executive officer at JetBlue Airways Corp., in an interview. The company is raising the number of flights between its base in New York and Florida to 71 a day from a peak last year of 55, he said.
Higher consumer confidence and an improving economy may help President George W. Bush in his re-election bid against Democratic candidate John Kerry, a Massachusetts senator.
"may"?
LEAN, MEAN BOOM MACHINE:
Less-watched factors show strengthening economy (Matt Krantz, 6/28/04, USA TODAY)
Many investors might not know it, but Corporate America is in fine shape.While stocks have been turning in a comalike performance in 2004, companies are healthier than they've been in years, if not decades. That's according to a number of financial measures that might be less-watched than earnings growth, but are just as important.
Everything from improving corporate bond ratings to soaring profit margins shows companies are turning in record performances, normal for early in an economic recovery. That flies in the face of fears the economy is delicate at best.
The big thing now is to keep the economy growing through the '06 midterm.
ONLY DOUBTING DARWIN IS BLASPHEMOUS:
Faith and reason (Christopher Shea, June 20, 2004, Boston Globe)
IF YOU HAD TO LIST the problems afflicting America, lack of vigor in the culture wars would probably not be very high on the list. (Can any of us bear another red-state/blue-state story?) Yet two very different writers – from opposite sides of the secular/ religious divide – recently declared that there are two groups of people who ought to throw themselves into the fray with fresh energy: atheistic scientists and intellectual Christians.In the spring issue of The American Scholar, the literary journal of the honor society Phi Beta Kappa, the science writer Natalie Angier tries to rally the skeptics – by definition a hard thing to do – in a piece called “My God Problem – and Theirs.” The inspiration for the essay, she writes, was her visits with top scientists in the course of researching a forthcoming book about “the essential vitamins and minerals” of scientific literacy.
The scientists were uniformly appalled by polls that found that 82 percent of Americans think there’s a heaven and 51 percent believe in ghosts while only 28 percent believe the theory of evolution. Please, the scientists implored, help us bump up that last figure by getting across that evidence for Darwinism is “overwhelming” and that “an appreciation of evolution serves as the bedrock of our understanding of all life on this planet.”
But Angier detects a whiff of hypocrisy here. Sure, she writes, scientists sharpen the skewers when quizzed about “creationist ‘science’ . . . astrology, telekinesis, spoon bending.” But when asked about a different kind of supernaturalism, “they are tolerant, respectful, big of tent.” When it comes to discussing the virgin birth – “an act of parthenogenesis,” as Angier wryly puts it, “that defies everything we know about mammalian genetics and reproduction” – or the resurrection, or the parting of the Red Sea, scientists “don the calming cardigan of a kiddie-show host on public TV.”
The virgin birth doesn't conflict with their holy text.
GO LEAHY:
Bush Defies Chirac, Says Turkey Merits EU Place (Reuters, 06/29/2004)
President Bush said on Tuesday that Turkey belongs in the European Union and that Europe is "not the exclusive club of a single religion" in what amounted to a rejection of French President Jacques Chirac.In remarks prepared for delivery at a Istanbul university, Bush refused to back down in the face of Chirac's criticism on Monday that Bush had no business urging the EU to set a date for Turkey to start entry talks into the union.
"America believes that as a European power, Turkey belongs in the European Union," Bush said.
Bush is to use the speech to try to mend relations between Muslims and Americans left tattered relations by the Iraq war.
"We must strengthen the ties and trust and good will between ourselves and the peoples of the Middle East," he said.
Bush held up Turkey as an example of a Muslim democracy and said its entry to the EU would be "a crucial advance in relations between the Muslim world and the West, because you are part of both."
"Including Turkey in the EU would prove that Europe is not the exclusive club of a single religion, and it would expose the 'clash of civilizations' as a passing myth of history," Bush said.
Chirac said on Monday that Bush should not comment on Turkey's EU entry hopes as EU affairs were none of his business.
Mr. Chretien is way out of his league.
MAKE EUROPE HAPPY, ELECT THE ANTI-AMERICAN:
Hating America (Bruce Bawer, Spring 2004, Hudson Review)
[A]s my weeks in the Old World stretched into months and then years, my perceptions shifted. Yes, many Europeans were book lovers—but which country’s literature most engaged them? Many of them revered education—but to which country’s universities did they most wish to send their children? (Answer: the same country that performs the majority of the world’s scientific research and wins most of the Nobel Prizes.) Yes, American television was responsible for drivel like “The Ricki Lake Show”—but Europeans, I learned, watched this stuff just as eagerly as Americans did (only to turn around, of course, and mock it as a reflection of American boorishness). No, Europeans weren’t Bible-thumpers—but the Continent’s ever-growing Muslim population, I had come to realize, represented even more of a threat to pluralist democracy than fundamentalist Christians did in the U.S. And yes, more Europeans were multilingual—but then, if each of the fifty states had its own language, Americans would be multilingual, too.1 I’d marveled at Norwegians’ newspaper consumption; but what did they actually read in those newspapers?That this was, in fact, a crucial question was brought home to me when a travel piece I wrote for the New York Times about a weekend in rural Telemark received front-page coverage in Aftenposten, Norway’s newspaper of record. Not that my article’s contents were remotely newsworthy; its sole news value lay in the fact that Norway had been mentioned in the New York Times. It was astonishing. And even more astonishing was what happened next: the owner of the farm hotel at which I’d stayed, irked that I’d made a point of his want of hospitality, got his revenge by telling reporters that I’d demanded McDonald’s hamburgers for dinner instead of that most Norwegian of delicacies, reindeer steak. Though this was a transparent fabrication (his establishment was located atop a remote mountain, far from the nearest golden arches), the press lapped it up. The story received prominent coverage all over Norway and dragged on for days. My inhospitable host became a folk hero; my irksome weekend trip was transformed into a morality play about the threat posed by vulgar, fast-food-eating American urbanites to cherished native folk traditions. I was flabbergasted. But my erstwhile host obviously wasn’t: he knew his country; he knew its media; and he’d known, accordingly, that all he needed to do to spin events to his advantage was to breathe that talismanic word, McDonald’s.
For me, this startling episode raised a few questions. Why had the Norwegian press given such prominent attention in the first place to a mere travel article? Why had it then been so eager to repeat a cartoonish lie? Were these actions reflective of a society more serious, more thoughtful, than the one I’d left? Or did they reveal a culture, or at least a media class, that was so awed by America as to be flattered by even its slightest attentions but that was also reflexively, irrationally belligerent toward it?
This experience was only part of a larger process of edification. Living in Europe, I gradually came to appreciate American virtues I’d always taken for granted, or even disdained—among them a lack of self-seriousness, a grasp of irony and self-deprecating humor, a friendly informality with strangers, an unashamed curiosity, an openness to new experience, an innate optimism, a willingness to think for oneself and speak one’s mind and question the accepted way of doing things. (One reason why Euro- peans view Americans as ignorant is that when we don’t know something, we’re more likely to admit it freely and ask questions.) While Americans, I saw, cherished liberty, Europeans tended to take it for granted or dismiss it as a naive or cynical, and somehow vaguely embarrassing, American fiction. I found myself toting up words that begin with i: individuality, imagination, initiative, inventiveness, independence of mind. Americans, it seemed to me, were more likely to think for themselves and trust their own judgments, and less easily cowed by authorities or bossed around by “experts”; they believed in their own ability to make things better. No wonder so many smart, ambitious young Europeans look for inspiration to the United States, which has a dynamism their own countries lack, and which communicates the idea that life can be an adventure and that there’s important, exciting work to be done. Reagan-style “morning in America” clichés may make some of us wince, but they reflect something genuine and valuable in the American air. Europeans may or may not have more of a “sense of history” than Americans do (in fact, in a recent study comparing students’ historical knowledge, the results were pretty much a draw), but America has something else that matters—a belief in the future. [...]
If America is founded on liberty—and on the idea that its preservation is worth great sacrifice—those who steer the fortunes of Western Europe have no strong unifying principle for which they can imagine sacrificing much. Their common cause is not liberty but security and stability; the closest thing they have to a unifying principle is a self-delusionary, dogmatic, indeed well-nigh religious insistence on the absolute value of dialogue, discussion, and diplomacy. This dedication has its positive aspects, but it can also make for moral confusion, passivity, and an antagonism to the very idea of taking a firm stand on anything. If, in the view of many Americans, a love of freedom and hatred of tyranny provide all the legitimacy required for taking actions like the invasion of Iraq, European intellectuals, having no such deeply held principles to guide them, turn instinctively to the U.N., as if it existed, like some divine oracle, at an ideal, impersonal remove from any possibility of misjudgment or moral taint.
John Kerry certainly would get along with them better than George Bush does--he too values security at the cost of liberty.
THANKS, BILL:
Internet Explorer Is Just Too Risky: Until Microsoft proves it can fix IE's security bugs, you're better off using one of a few good alternatives as much as possible (Stephen H. Wildstrom, JUNE 29, 2004, BusinessWeek)
In late June, network security experts saw one of their worst fears realized. Attackers exploited a pair of known but unpatched flaws in Microsoft's Web server software and Internet Explorer browser to compromise seemingly safe Web sites. People who browsed there on Windows computers got infected with malicious code without downloading anything (see BW Online, 6/29/04, "What's the New IE Flaw All About?"). I've been growing increasingly concerned about IE's endless security problems, and this epsiode has convinced me that the program is simply too dangerous for routine use.
Historians looking back will one day wonder how we managed to achieve so much technologically despite the blight of MicroSoft.
IT'S FUTILE TO TRY COMING BETWEEN LEMMINGS AND A CLIFF:
Canadian Liberals to Form Minority Government (David Ljunggren, 6/28/04, Reuters)
Canada's ruling Liberals will stay in power after Monday's federal election, but will lose their majority in Parliament and need support from the left-leaning New Democrats to govern.CBC television said the Liberals, in power for a decade, would not win the 155 seats they needed to control the 308-seat parliament, although they would win more seats than the Conservative opposition.
That would produce Canada's first minority government for 25 years -- and many political analysts expect a new election within a year.
Well meaning folk keep underestimating how much the rest of the West would rather die peacefully than make the effort to live on.
HAPPY WARRIOR:
National Review Founder Says It's Time to Leave Stage (DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, 6/29/04, NY Times)
In 1954, when Ronald Reagan was still a registered Democrat and host of "General Electric Theater," the 28-year-old William Frank Buckley Jr. decided to start a magazine as a standard-bearer for the fledgling conservative movement. In the 50-year ascent of the American right since then, his publication, National Review, has been its most influential journal and Mr. Buckley has been the magazine's guiding spirit and, until today, controlling shareholder.Tonight, however, Mr. Buckley, 78, is giving up control. In an interview, he said he planned to relinquish his shares today to a board of trustees he had selected. Among them are his son, the humorist Christopher Buckley; the magazine's president, Thomas L. Rhodes; and Austin Bramwell, a 2000 graduate of Yale and one of the magazine's youngest current contributors.
Mr. Buckley's "divestiture," as he calls it, represents the exit of one of the forefathers of modern conservatism. It is also the latest step in the gradual quieting of one of the most distinctive voices in the business of cultural and political commentary, the writer and editor who founded his magazine on a promise to stand "athwart history, yelling 'Stop,' at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who urge it." [...]
Leon Wieseltier, literary editor of The New Republic, called Mr. Buckley's sometimes baroque style "genially ridiculous."
Mr. Wieseltier added: "It is a kind of antimodern pretense, but of course he is in fact a completely modern man. His thinking and his writing have all the disadvantages of a happy man. The troubling thing about Bill Buckley's work is how singularly untroubled it is by things."
But Mr. Buckley's voice has always been singular. He was not much older than Mr. Bramwell when he founded National Review. The son of an oilman, Mr. Buckley was already famous for his first book, "God and Man at Yale" (1951). Conservatism in the United States was close to its 20th-century nadir, marked by Dwight D. Eisenhower's defeat of the conservative Robert Taft for the 1952 Republican nomination. [...]
[H]e professed more than a little pride at the country's rightward drift during his years in control of National Review. "We thought to influence conservative thought, which we succeeded in doing," he said.
It's difficult to think of anyone who had a greater influence on the course of the second half of the 20th Century than Mr. Buckley, and Mr. Wieseltier has--quite unintentionally--put his finger on one of the key reasons why: Mr. Buckley made conservatism not just respectable but fun. Conservatism, which proceeds from the correct understanding of Man's nature as revealed in the Fall, can be rather a dark business. It is also, however, the source of all comedy. Liberals like Mr. Wieseltier--with their mistaken belief that men are basically good and that the world is therefore perfectable--are necessarily "troubled" by its rather parlous state. To be untroubled, even happy, as Mr. Buckley unquestionably was, despite the myriad causes for unhappiness all around us, must be monstrous in the eyes of the Left. One corollary of the great truth that to a liberal life is a tragedy but to a conservative a comedy is that conservatives find liberals amusing while liberals find conservatives appalling. Indeed, Mr. Buckley will get a good chuckle from Mr. Wieseltier's quote, get the last laugh, so to speak.
THEIR FIGHT NOW:
Iraqis Rejoice on Talk Radio Airwaves (TAREK EL-TABLAWY, 6/28/04, Associated Press)
Iraqi voices filled the airwaves of the nation's first independent talk radio station Monday, applauding a surprise move by the U.S.-led coalition to return sovereignty to Iraq two days early.The callers clogged Radio Dijla's telephone lines to congratulate interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, urging him to be strong, while warning insurgents against continued violence.
"I send my congratulations to all Iraqis and every Iraqi home," a woman who identified herself as Um Yassin gushed, her voice choked with emotion. "I want to tell Dr. Allawi to be bold, to be strong. We need him to build up the army because we need them at a time like this."
Her message was echoed by dozens on the day Prime Minister Allawi was given a letter transferring sovereignty back to the citizens of Iraq after about 14 months of coalition administration.
But in the midst of adulation for the new government, callers urged that all must be vigilant for insurgents seeking to sow more chaos in a country plagued by violence since Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled.
"I send all the Iraqi people my blessings," said Ali, a caller from Baghdad. "But I warn these terrorists, all the Iraqis will rise up and strike them with steel."
DOES THE TIMES NEVER TIRE OF CARRYING THE CIA'S WATER?:
Time to Polygraph the NY Times (Joel Mowbray, June 29, 2004, Townhall)
To a “small number” of civilian employees at the Pentagon, a New York Times story on June 3 came as quite a jolt: some of them had apparently already been polygraphed as part of an investigation into Iraqi Governing Council member Ahmed Chalabi.Thing is, it never happened. Three weeks later, it appears that the implicated civilian employees at the Pentagon have not been polygraphed.
And the Times is unapologetic in the face of substantial evidence that it got the story wrong. [...]
Common knowledge inside the beltway is that the Times story identification of the “small number” of “civilian employees” was a thinly-veiled reference to people working for Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz or in the policy shop, headed by Undersecretary Douglas Feith. (Most in that group are political appointees and were hawks on Iraq.)
The practical result was a smear of State’s and CIA’s political enemies—Chalabi and the Pentagon’s hawks. That’s undoubtedly the exact outcome for which the Times’ sources hoped. [...]
Reading the June 3 article leaves one with the conclusion that the Pentagon did not dispute the polygraph story. Nowhere in the piece is there even a reference to the Pentagon’s side of the story.
You'd think they'd have at least been bothered that their original story--which featured an Iranian agent sending a message that we'd broken their code in the code he was saying we'd broken--made little sense.
June 28, 2004
WHERE WERE YOU WHEN THE REFORMATION STARTED? (via Tom Corcoran):
Speaking Out: Muslim reformers condemn Saudi Wahhabism (Steven Stalinsky, June 28, 2004, National Review)
Liberal Egyptian intellectual Tarek Heggy, author of Culture, Civilization and Humanity, recently wrote about the need for Muslim moderates to work against Wahhabism: "What needs to be done at this stage is to champion the cause of enlightenment by supporting moderates and promoting the humanistic understanding of Islam.... Efforts in this direction must go hand in hand with a counteroffensive against the rigid, doctrinaire, even bloodthirsty, version of Islam that first appeared among isolated communities separated from the march of civilization by the impenetrable sand dunes of the Arabian Desert."Heggy, who will embark on a speaking tour in Washington, D.C., in late June to discuss his new Egyptian think tank and newspaper, added: "The time has come for the Saudi government to part ways with Wahhabism and to realize that the alliance between the House of Saud and the Wahhabi dynasty is responsible for the spread of obscurantism, dogmatism, and fanaticism, poisoning minds with radical ideas opposed to humanity...."
In addition to Heggy, an increasing number of reform-minded Muslims have begun to speak out against the impact of Saudi Wahhabism in the Muslim world. They have accused Wahhabism of serving as al Qaeda's guiding philosophy, "poisoning minds" of young Muslims, and being the main purveyor of anti-American, anti-Semitic, and anti-Christian sentiment in the Arab and Muslim world.
Fortunate that same folks who funded Wahahabism have a vested interest in getting rid of it.
IF IT WALKS LIKE A PERSON...:
Scans uncover secrets of the womb (BBC, 6/28/04)
A new type of ultrasound scan has produced the vivid pictures of a 12 week-old foetus "walking" in the womb.The new images also show foetuses apparently yawning and rubbing its eyes.
The scans, pioneered by Professor Stuart Campbell at London's Create Health Clinic, are much more detailed than conventional ultrasound.
BE LINCOLNESQUE:
In 3 Rulings, Supreme Court Affirms Detainees' Right to Use Courts (DAVID STOUT, 6/28/04, NY Times)
Besides the basic issue in their case, there was a secondary but still vital question involving the status of Guantánamo Bay itself.Since a 1950 Supreme Court case has been interpreted to mean that enemy combatants held outside the United States have no right to habeas corpus, the detainees had to show through their lawyers that Guantánamo Bay is functionally, if not formally, part of the United States.
On the one hand, a long-ago treaty with Cuba said that it retained sovereignty over the base. On the other hand, the treaty also said that the United States exercised jurisdiction and control.
In any event, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled last year that the federal courts lacked jurisdiction to hear habeas corpus petitions from the detainees — a position that the Supreme Court rejected today.
The majority noted that the 1950 case cited by the administration involved German citizens captured by United States forces in China, then tried and convicted of war crimes by an American military commission in Nanking, and finally imprisoned in occupied Germany.
In contrast, the Supreme Court majority noted today, the Guantánamo detainees are not only held in territory arguably under United States control but they also have not had their guilt or innocence determined, unlike the Germans of a half-century ago, and have been held without formal charges.
Justice Scalia's dissent, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice Thomas, was as emotional in tone as was Justice Stevens's dissent in the other direction in the Padilla case. The majority's holding in the Guantánamo case was so reckless as to be "breathtaking," Justice Scalia asserted.
Justice Scalia went on to declare that the majority's position needlessly upset settled law, and was particularly harmful in a time of war. "The commander in chief and his subordinates had every reason to expect that the internment of combatants at Guantánamo Bay would not have the consequence of bringing the cumbersome machinery of our domestic courts into military affairs," he wrote.
The solution seems pretty simple: the President should just suspend habeus corpus in Guantanamo.
WORTHY CANADIAN ELECTION
Minority looms with today's vote: Leaders end six-week campaign (Norma Greenaway, CanWest News Service, 6/28/04)
Recent polls put the Liberals in a dead heat with the Conservatives, although the final seat projections from Barry Kay, a political scientist at Wilfrid Laurier University, based on previously published polls, suggest the Tories would win the most seats at 115, compared to 108 for the Liberals, 59 for the Bloc Quebecois and 26 for the NDP.We tease Canada quite a bit around here because, well, what else can you do with it? But if final results are anything like what the polls now project, this will be a watershed election. Not only because the new Conservative party will have shown itself to be a real force, but because it will have shown itself to be a force in Ontario. This would be something like if the Republicans took more than 40% of the Massachusetts congressional delegation (current count: 0).Dr. Kay's regional breakdowns give Atlantic Canada to the Liberals, who are projected to win 17 seats, to 11 for the Conservatives and four for the NDP. In Quebec, the Liberals are now projected to take 16 seats and the Bloc 59, a two-seat Liberal improvement from Dr. Kay's last projections.
In Ontario, the Liberals are projected to take 57 seats, to 40 for the Tories and nine for the NDP.
The problem for Canada's friends is worry over the price the Bloc Quebecois will extract for a vote establishing the coming minority government. A risk-taker, finding himself head of a conservative party with the most seats in Parliment might well sit out that bidding war, force the Bloc to sell its votes cheaply (much better for the nation) and bet that a minority Liberal government will continue to annoy the electorate during the short time before the wheels come off.
I must confess, though, that my typically shallow analysis is, when the subject is Canada, joined to a proud ignorace. I will be very interested in what actual Canadians