July 30, 2003
Shut Up, Little Man
"We will act, whenever it is necessary, to protect the lives and the liberty of the American people," promised The Superbrain during his Independence Day sermon. It's a lie as big as the hole in his arse. But it's one that is accepted as Divine Writ."National Security", the pundits claim (and the Democrats faithfully ditto) is Bush's ought-four ace-in-the-hole. The question begging is whether his towering "National Security" gravitas will be undone by his Voodoo Economics achilles heel. Here's one of what must be five million examples by now, from Sandeep Kaushik in the July 31 edition of The Stranger (referring to the Democrats' strength with Washington state voters): "President Bush's popularity, and the post-9/11 emphasis on national security (which heavily favors Republicans), could change that."
Even setting aside (for now) the national insecurity inherent in a polity beset with never-ending increases in those unemployed and/or incarcerated, never-ending cut-backs in -- and privatisations of -- essential services, a pyschotic fundamentalist berserker in charge of the "justice" system, a virtually non-existent health-care system, the ever-increasing frankensteinisation of our food supplies, impending ecological catastrophe, and the revival of a nuclear weapons production programme; to focus only Bush's skillz in protecting Americans (or at least those not already locked-up or deported) from being annihilated by terrorists, one can't but wonder: what in the holy fucking hell are the talking heads thinking?
Are they living in a parallel universe where September 11th didn't happen? Do they not realise that September 11th occurred during George W. Bush's presidency? Is it not self-evident that the Bush Administration -- through almost incomprehensible levels of either hubris, neglect, incompetence, or complicity -- bears a major burden of responsibility for having allowed it to happen? Could they not conclude; when the Administration immediately enacted an executive ordering to keep all Presidential records sealed for "perpetuity", did everything it could to stall and obstruct an investigation, and finally redacted dozens of pages of the official report on the tragedy; that it had something to hide? Did they not raise an eyebrow when the Administration named Henry Kissinger -- Henry fucking Kissinger -- to head up the investigation into the tragic day's events?
Yes, it would've been preferable for the highjackers' plans not to have been put into action in the first place. (Better still had Bush, upon inauguration, immediately renounced this nation's shameful history of bombing Third World countries early and often, and offered up reparations to all victims, past and present, of said policies.) Surely, surely, the perpetrators of such deeds were and are some sick fucking wankers, who ought to be apprehended and made to stand trial. (We may, if we're permitted to recall events that took place more that ten months ago, here note that the Taliban offered on more than one occasion to extradite bin Laden should the United States offer up some evidence of his complicity.) But having said all that, how in the fuck can the man whose administration allowed the events to happen be straight-facedly campaigning as a guarantor of "National Security"? And how in the fuck can such assurances be received straight-facedly?
Moreover, what the fuck does the administration expect us to make of its repeated warnings that another attack is "inevitable"? Unless it's supposed to be some sort of bizarre reverse-pyschology ruse to dupe would-be terrorists into not planning and implementing future attacks, the Administration is openly acknowledging that it is patently incapable of "protecting the lives and the liberty of the American people". Sure, let's repeat that sentence: the Administration is openly acknowledging that it is patently incapable of "protecting the lives and the liberty of the American people". So why, whenever George W. opens up his fucking hole of a mouth, doesn't some, any, member of the press corps thrust a juicy hard-boiled egg inside?
Ashcroft unwittingly laid the cards on the table in early August, warning that, "They want to strike us whenever and wherever they can," and averring that bin Laden's latest threat "signals to us that the war is still under way, that al-Qaeda still has the same intentions toward the United States that it did when it unleashed its savage attack." September 11th should have demonstrated beyond any doubt that the greatest military force in the history of the world, the most massive arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, lasers and satellites patrolling the heavens, cracking down upon immigration, & cetera; will not make the country safe from future attacks. (Our Dubya could simply have asked the Israelis.)
If we want to decrease the probability of future attacks, we need to take measures to assure that those who currently want to "strike us whenever and wherever they can", in future don't want to do so. The answer is the same now as it's been since the dawn of humanity: do unto others as you would have done unto yourself.
Cease engaging in terrorist activities, cease befriending and arming brutallly repressive dictators, cease bombing Third World countries into oblivion, cease meddling in others' affairs, cease stealing others' resources, cease imposing devastating austerity programmes; and these injustices will cease "blowing back" and biting us in the ass. It's really not terribly complicated. Unfortunately, the Bush Administration has taken precisely the opposite course.
Alas, nobody seems to have noticed that the Administration's reaction to its own monumental failure to prevent the September 11th attacks -- the declaration of a military crusade against all niggers everywhere (including here at home), approximately zero per cent of whom have anything to do with endangering the lives and the liberty of Americans -- greatly exaggerated the likelihood of another attack against the lives and the liberty of Americans. Do intellectuals not read their own fucking newspaper headlines? To wit: "U.S. Warns Of New Global Terror Threats Due To Iraq Occupation", "Iraqis Warn U.S. Killings Will Breed Terror Recruits", "Afghanistan: Launchpad For Terror", "Taleban Leader Warns Of Jihad", "Al Qaeda May Be Rebuilding", "Al-Qa'ida Has Moved Its Base To Asia, G-8 Leaders Say, "Al-Qaeda Preparing New Attack In U.S.", "Report: New Threat From Al-Qaeda", "Al Qaeda May Be Back, And Stronger", "Terror Crackdown Has Not Reduced Al-Qaida Threat, Warns Think Tank", "U.S. Warns Of New Terrorist Onslaught", "U.S. Fears Network Has Regrouped, Fanned Out", "Attacks Show Al-Qaeda Is Back", "Iraq War Helped Boost Al Qaeda", "Britain: Al-Qaeda Capable Of Unconventional Attack", "Videocassette Warns Of More Terror", "Al Qaeda Mutating Like A Virus", "Did War Compromise Al-Qaida Hunt?", "Report: Iraq War May Have Helped Al-Qaida".
On top of that, while the Bush Administration has been busy dicking off on its military adventures and rising military spending to dizzying heights, the Department of "Homeland" Security is "understaffed, unorganized and weak-willed"; "Huge gaps remain in the defense of the American 'homeland' against terrorism"; "The Department of 'Homeland' Security's color-coded terror warning system has become ineffective because it serves only to alarm the public with information too vague to be of much good"; "The federal government faces numerous difficulties in preparing itself to handle the threat of a biological attack"; "Only 10 percent of the nation's fire departments could respond adequately to a building collapse"; "Measures taken by the U.S. administration against Arab and Muslim immigrants after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against New York and the Pentagon have not only failed to protect U.S. security, but may have made it more vulnerable"; "The Los Alamos National Laboratory has lost track of a small quantity of plutonium"; funding for needed security measures have not been forthcoming; and a former insider insists that, "The administration wasn't matching its deeds to its words in the war on terrorism. They're making us less secure, not more secure."
Feeling safer yet? Feeling as though your life and liberty are being protected? Feeling confident that George W. is going to zoom down and "get" those baddies before they get you? Feeling like he'll be able to do so even while re-colonising the entire "dark-skinned" world -- thus allowing us to have our cake and it eat, too? Feeling...ah, hell, maybe this blogger is the one living in a parallel universe. It would explain a lot.
What You Can Do: The next time some Republicans bleat that Bush's "National Security" cred is untouchable, tell them to fuck right off. The next time some Democrats repeat the same, tell the to fuck off twice.
Posted by Eddie Tews at 07:23 PM
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Chris Hedges, author of War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, has told of addressing a High School audience shortly before the massacring of Iraq was initiated. Asked by Hedges how many supported the impending slaughter, most raised their hands. Asked how many would be willing to enlist, none raised their hands.
Anecdotal, but perhaps an omen, as now the army, "stretched thin worldwide", is "clearly facing a crisis". Extended tours -- "The time frame has gone away, and there is no time frame" -- in the 120° heat of Iraq, coupled with commitments elsewhere, threaten to spell "the unraveling of the army" as weary and homesick troops "might leave in large numbers".
According to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, "the Army is either going to have to change the deployment environment or run the risk of having people vote with their feet."
But with other nations loathe to send occupation forces to Iraq, and with the Pentagon now allowing that, "It's fair to say it's still a war zone" in Central Iraq (while at the same time "a terror network in northern cities, including Kirkuk and Mosul, is set to begin operations against U.S. troops and those Iraqis who support them," and, "Once an anti-U.S. trend takes root in southern Iraq, the security of U.S. troops will be seriously in question,") a changed "deployment environment" doesn't seem likely.
Too bad the Bush Administration's ingenious plan to allow futures markets to predict geopolitical events has been ditched before it even got out of the gate: it would've been fascinating to see how high the "market value" for reinstating the draft might have climbed!
Uncle Sam Wants You (Pretty Please)!
Chris Hedges, author of War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, has told of addressing a High School audience shortly before the massacring of Iraq was initiated. Asked by Hedges how many supported the impending slaughter, most raised their hands. Asked how many would be willing to enlist, none raised their hands.
Anecdotal, but perhaps an omen, as now the army, "stretched thin worldwide", is "clearly facing a crisis". Extended tours -- "The time frame has gone away, and there is no time frame" -- in the 120° heat of Iraq, coupled with commitments elsewhere, threaten to spell "the unraveling of the army" as weary and homesick troops "might leave in large numbers".
According to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, "the Army is either going to have to change the deployment environment or run the risk of having people vote with their feet."
But with other nations loathe to send occupation forces to Iraq, and with the Pentagon now allowing that, "It's fair to say it's still a war zone" in Central Iraq (while at the same time "a terror network in northern cities, including Kirkuk and Mosul, is set to begin operations against U.S. troops and those Iraqis who support them," and, "Once an anti-U.S. trend takes root in southern Iraq, the security of U.S. troops will be seriously in question,") a changed "deployment environment" doesn't seem likely.
Too bad the Bush Administration's ingenious plan to allow futures markets to predict geopolitical events has been ditched before it even got out of the gate: it would've been fascinating to see how high the "market value" for reinstating the draft might have climbed!
Posted by Eddie Tews at 02:10 PM
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• "Taking a clear stand against anti-privacy provisions in the Patriot Act, the U.S. House of Representatives in an overwhelmingly bipartisan effort last night agreed to an amendment that would bar federal law enforcement from carrying out secret 'sneak and peek' searches without notifying the target of the warrant."
• "The House's approval early yesterday of legislation to allow Americans to buy less-expensive medicines from Canada and 24 other countries is a rare and resounding defeat for President Bush, Republican leaders, and the powerful drug industry."
• "The House overwhelmingly approved legislation Wednesday that would prevent media giants from buying up more TV stations -- a stiff rebuke to the Federal Communications Commission. With a similar vote likely in the Senate, the situation is set for a showdown with President Bush, who has vowed to veto any legislation that tries to undo the recent FCC decision to allow more concentrated ownership of television stations."
The moral of the story? Keep applying pressure to your representatives and senators! Phone, write, fax, e-mail, sit-in at their offices. Results may be slow in coming, may not be as expansive as we'd hope, and may be rolled back; but progress can be achieved.
July 26, 2003
That's What I'm Talkin' About!
• "Taking a clear stand against anti-privacy provisions in the Patriot Act, the U.S. House of Representatives in an overwhelmingly bipartisan effort last night agreed to an amendment that would bar federal law enforcement from carrying out secret 'sneak and peek' searches without notifying the target of the warrant."
• "The House's approval early yesterday of legislation to allow Americans to buy less-expensive medicines from Canada and 24 other countries is a rare and resounding defeat for President Bush, Republican leaders, and the powerful drug industry."
• "The House overwhelmingly approved legislation Wednesday that would prevent media giants from buying up more TV stations -- a stiff rebuke to the Federal Communications Commission. With a similar vote likely in the Senate, the situation is set for a showdown with President Bush, who has vowed to veto any legislation that tries to undo the recent FCC decision to allow more concentrated ownership of television stations."
The moral of the story? Keep applying pressure to your representatives and senators! Phone, write, fax, e-mail, sit-in at their offices. Results may be slow in coming, may not be as expansive as we'd hope, and may be rolled back; but progress can be achieved.
Posted by Eddie Tews at 06:47 PM
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Stufflebeem noted the U.S. military and its allies "have the means" to tighten the noose around elusive terrorist Osama bin Laden, still believed to be holed up somewhere in Afghanistan. The admiral said he didn't know when bin Laden would be captured or eliminated, but agreed with President Bush's announcement today that U.S. or allied forces would eventually "get" him.
"The noose" around bin Laden "is tightening", Stufflebeem emphasized. Afghanistan "is getting much smaller", offering fewer and fewer places for bin Laden to hide, he concluded. -- November 2, 2001
After the deaths of his sons, the net might be closing, U.S. commanders say. Acting on a tip-off, they rounded up 13 men near Tikrit on Thursday night. Some were suspected of being bodyguards of Saddam, though officers said it was not certain.
"We continue to tighten the noose," 4th Infantry Division commander Major General Ray Odierno said. -- July 26, 2003
Quote Of The Moment #0003
Stufflebeem noted the U.S. military and its allies "have the means" to tighten the noose around elusive terrorist Osama bin Laden, still believed to be holed up somewhere in Afghanistan. The admiral said he didn't know when bin Laden would be captured or eliminated, but agreed with President Bush's announcement today that U.S. or allied forces would eventually "get" him.
"The noose" around bin Laden "is tightening", Stufflebeem emphasized. Afghanistan "is getting much smaller", offering fewer and fewer places for bin Laden to hide, he concluded. -- November 2, 2001
After the deaths of his sons, the net might be closing, U.S. commanders say. Acting on a tip-off, they rounded up 13 men near Tikrit on Thursday night. Some were suspected of being bodyguards of Saddam, though officers said it was not certain.
"We continue to tighten the noose," 4th Infantry Division commander Major General Ray Odierno said. -- July 26, 2003
Posted by Eddie Tews at 06:09 PM
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A 1999 UNICEF Survey of child and maternal mortality determined that roughly 500,000 children under five years old had been killed by the Anglo-American sanctions regime.
As we know, a few years before that Madame Albright -- apparently chanelling Jehovah -- had said of the grisly toll that "...we think the price is worth it."
Now, if one searched far and wide enough, one might (however unlikely) eventually notice in the mainstream some perplexity at Albright's logic. The sanctions did, after all, strenghthen Saddam's hold over the Iraqi populace. Moreover, the project of debilitating his capacity to transmute so-called "dual use" items (e.g. pencils, water purifiers) into weapons of mass destruction -- the "worth" in Albright's equation -- was, if we can believe Ms. Condoleezza Rice, an abysmal failure.
But the principle -- that "we" have been divinely ordained to kill hundreds of thousands of negroid children in the service of demonising a former State Department employee now on our shit list -- is unassailable.
So the mainstream media's orgasmic reaction to the summary executions of Saddam's sons despite the "collateral damage" death of a 14-year-old child should probably come as no surprise.
While Dubya pontificates that "we" "have no quarrel" with the "brave people of Iraq", it is the most vulnerable sectors of this "brave" populace -- women, the infirm, children -- which have suffered the most.
Eqbal Ahmad once lamented, after the United States' attempted assassination of Qaddafi (an act, according to the Slate "Explainer", of self-defense) succeeded in killing not Qaddafi, but his four-year-old daughter, that, "The poor baby hadn’t done anything." Lord knows how many hundreds of thousands of poor Iraqi children who hadn't done anything will be killed before the "indispensable nation" is finished liberating them. But whatever the price, it will have been worth it. Q.E.D..
July 25, 2003
Only Another Dead Nigger
A 1999 UNICEF Survey of child and maternal mortality determined that roughly 500,000 children under five years old had been killed by the Anglo-American sanctions regime.
As we know, a few years before that Madame Albright -- apparently chanelling Jehovah -- had said of the grisly toll that "...we think the price is worth it."
Now, if one searched far and wide enough, one might (however unlikely) eventually notice in the mainstream some perplexity at Albright's logic. The sanctions did, after all, strenghthen Saddam's hold over the Iraqi populace. Moreover, the project of debilitating his capacity to transmute so-called "dual use" items (e.g. pencils, water purifiers) into weapons of mass destruction -- the "worth" in Albright's equation -- was, if we can believe Ms. Condoleezza Rice, an abysmal failure.
But the principle -- that "we" have been divinely ordained to kill hundreds of thousands of negroid children in the service of demonising a former State Department employee now on our shit list -- is unassailable.
So the mainstream media's orgasmic reaction to the summary executions of Saddam's sons despite the "collateral damage" death of a 14-year-old child should probably come as no surprise.
While Dubya pontificates that "we" "have no quarrel" with the "brave people of Iraq", it is the most vulnerable sectors of this "brave" populace -- women, the infirm, children -- which have suffered the most.
Eqbal Ahmad once lamented, after the United States' attempted assassination of Qaddafi (an act, according to the Slate "Explainer", of self-defense) succeeded in killing not Qaddafi, but his four-year-old daughter, that, "The poor baby hadn’t done anything." Lord knows how many hundreds of thousands of poor Iraqi children who hadn't done anything will be killed before the "indispensable nation" is finished liberating them. But whatever the price, it will have been worth it. Q.E.D..
Posted by Eddie Tews at 12:31 AM
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The he-said-she-said nature of the Niger Uranium Scandal, as well as the ferocity with which the media has seized upon the central debate, is more than a little comical.
To wit, if "The President knew" he was lying, well then, we've got to get to the bottom of this. If, on the other hand, the CIA had "cleared" Bush's State of the Union address, then it's time to "move on". It was George Tenet's fault, and the President still has "confidence in the men and women who work at the CIA". Game, set, match.
Everybody can go back to sleep, right? Er.... The friendly reminder: Regardless of who "cleared" the specific statement, it was perfectly obvious long before the war that the Bush Administration was well aware that Saddam's regime posed no threat whatsoever -- and that it never would have contemplated attacking Iraq if it thought Iraqis might be able to defend themselves. Moreover, even if Iraq had maintained its banned weapons programmes throughout the '90s, it would have been the height of hypocrisy to single out Iraq for deploying the "world's most dangerous weapons" while not taking stock of the threat to world peace posed by our own weapons programmes.
July 13, 2003
A Friendly Reminder
The he-said-she-said nature of the Niger Uranium Scandal, as well as the ferocity with which the media has seized upon the central debate, is more than a little comical.
To wit, if "The President knew" he was lying, well then, we've got to get to the bottom of this. If, on the other hand, the CIA had "cleared" Bush's State of the Union address, then it's time to "move on". It was George Tenet's fault, and the President still has "confidence in the men and women who work at the CIA". Game, set, match.
Everybody can go back to sleep, right? Er.... The friendly reminder: Regardless of who "cleared" the specific statement, it was perfectly obvious long before the war that the Bush Administration was well aware that Saddam's regime posed no threat whatsoever -- and that it never would have contemplated attacking Iraq if it thought Iraqis might be able to defend themselves. Moreover, even if Iraq had maintained its banned weapons programmes throughout the '90s, it would have been the height of hypocrisy to single out Iraq for deploying the "world's most dangerous weapons" while not taking stock of the threat to world peace posed by our own weapons programmes.
Posted by Eddie Tews at 01:18 PM
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"They need a political solution that vindicates the war and wins the peace. They're still groping for how to do that."
July 10, 2003
Quote Of The Moment #0002
"They need a political solution that vindicates the war and wins the peace. They're still groping for how to do that."
Posted by Eddie Tews at 11:55 AM
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There assuredly are cases in which it is allowable to go to war, without having been ourselves attacked, or threatened with attack; and it is very important that nations should makeup their minds in time, as to what these cases are....
There is a great difference (for example) between the case in which the nations concerned are of the same, or something like the same, degree of civilization, and that in which one of the parties to the situation is of a high, and the other of a very low, grade of social improvement. To suppose that the same international customs, and the same rules of international morality, can obtain between one civilized nation and another, and between civilized nations and barbarians, is a grave error....
L. Paul Bremer? Donald H. Rumsfeld? George W. Bush? Nope, it's John Stuart Mill's 1859 essay "A Few Words On Non-Intervention". The essay doesn't appear to be freely available on the web, more's the pity. Here's the remainder of an excerpt printed in the spanking new Summer Double Issue of Monthly Review (the best magazine in the country, yes yes).
Suggested usage: Since the Bush Administration has now openly acknowledged that it trades in plagiarism (somebody call the RIAA!), attempt to determine what percent of the Bush Doctrine was lifted directly from Mill's essay. Either that, or affix an Ari Fleischer mask and read the essay aloud to the children at bedtime.
Nations which are still barbarous have not got beyond the period during which it is likely to be for their benefit that they should be conquered and held in subjection by foreigners. Independence and nationality, so essential to the due growth and development of a people further advanced in improvement, are generally impediments to theirs....
Barbarians have no rights as a nation, except a right to such treatment as may, at the earliest possible period, fit them for becoming one....
A civilized government cannot help having barbarous neighbors: when it has, it cannot always content itself with a defensive position, one of mere resistance to aggression. After a longer or shorter interval of forbearance, it either finds itself obliged to conquer them, or to assert so much authority over them, and so break their spirit, that they gradually sink into a state of dependence on itself .... This is the history of the relations of the British Government with the native States of India.
Update: Tony Blair, in making a commitment to "progressive governance" has noted an eerily similar Canadian document (albeit, the language is a bit more touchy-feely, Blair's especial hallmark), The Responsibility To Protect. The "basic principles" of the responsibility to protect are:
State sovereignty implies responsibility, and the primary responsibility for the protection of its people lies with the state itself.
Where a population is suffering serious harm, as a result of internal war, insurgency, repression, or state failure; and the state in question is unwilling or unable to halt or avert it, the principle of non-intervention yields to the international responsibility to protect.
Iraq and Afghanistan -- where the "coalition" assumed its "international responsibility to protect" by slaugthering thousands of people, releasing into the atmosphere hundreds of tonnes of radioactive particles with a 4.5-billion-year half-life, littering the country with hundreds of unexploded bombs, bringing chaos (and with it disease and deprivation) which it has been helpless to address, and turning the country's resources over to politically placed multinationals -- will, presumably, be offered as the prototype for this "new world order".
Now, who's next? Indonesia? Israel? Colombia? Russia? Saudi Arabia? The United States (which, after all, maintains history's largest prison population, and is alone among "civilised" nations in continuing to practice capital punishment)?
Come on, Tony. Let's see you walk the talk.
The Canadian report also insists that, "The Permanent Five members of the Security Council should agree not to apply their veto power, in matters where their vital state interests are not involved, to obstruct the passage of resolutions authorizing military intervention for human protection purposes for which there is otherwise majority support."
It's decided, then: Israel is next up, and the United States shan't apply its veto power in to obstruct resolutions authorising the intervention there.
July 08, 2003
Not Counting Niggers Theme Song
There assuredly are cases in which it is allowable to go to war, without having been ourselves attacked, or threatened with attack; and it is very important that nations should makeup their minds in time, as to what these cases are....
There is a great difference (for example) between the case in which the nations concerned are of the same, or something like the same, degree of civilization, and that in which one of the parties to the situation is of a high, and the other of a very low, grade of social improvement. To suppose that the same international customs, and the same rules of international morality, can obtain between one civilized nation and another, and between civilized nations and barbarians, is a grave error....
L. Paul Bremer? Donald H. Rumsfeld? George W. Bush? Nope, it's John Stuart Mill's 1859 essay "A Few Words On Non-Intervention". The essay doesn't appear to be freely available on the web, more's the pity. Here's the remainder of an excerpt printed in the spanking new Summer Double Issue of Monthly Review (the best magazine in the country, yes yes).
Suggested usage: Since the Bush Administration has now openly acknowledged that it trades in plagiarism (somebody call the RIAA!), attempt to determine what percent of the Bush Doctrine was lifted directly from Mill's essay. Either that, or affix an Ari Fleischer mask and read the essay aloud to the children at bedtime.
Nations which are still barbarous have not got beyond the period during which it is likely to be for their benefit that they should be conquered and held in subjection by foreigners. Independence and nationality, so essential to the due growth and development of a people further advanced in improvement, are generally impediments to theirs....
Barbarians have no rights as a nation, except a right to such treatment as may, at the earliest possible period, fit them for becoming one....
A civilized government cannot help having barbarous neighbors: when it has, it cannot always content itself with a defensive position, one of mere resistance to aggression. After a longer or shorter interval of forbearance, it either finds itself obliged to conquer them, or to assert so much authority over them, and so break their spirit, that they gradually sink into a state of dependence on itself .... This is the history of the relations of the British Government with the native States of India.
Update: Tony Blair, in making a commitment to "progressive governance" has noted an eerily similar Canadian document (albeit, the language is a bit more touchy-feely, Blair's especial hallmark), The Responsibility To Protect. The "basic principles" of the responsibility to protect are:
State sovereignty implies responsibility, and the primary responsibility for the protection of its people lies with the state itself.
Where a population is suffering serious harm, as a result of internal war, insurgency, repression, or state failure; and the state in question is unwilling or unable to halt or avert it, the principle of non-intervention yields to the international responsibility to protect.
Iraq and Afghanistan -- where the "coalition" assumed its "international responsibility to protect" by slaugthering thousands of people, releasing into the atmosphere hundreds of tonnes of radioactive particles with a 4.5-billion-year half-life, littering the country with hundreds of unexploded bombs, bringing chaos (and with it disease and deprivation) which it has been helpless to address, and turning the country's resources over to politically placed multinationals -- will, presumably, be offered as the prototype for this "new world order".
Now, who's next? Indonesia? Israel? Colombia? Russia? Saudi Arabia? The United States (which, after all, maintains history's largest prison population, and is alone among "civilised" nations in continuing to practice capital punishment)?
Come on, Tony. Let's see you walk the talk.
The Canadian report also insists that, "The Permanent Five members of the Security Council should agree not to apply their veto power, in matters where their vital state interests are not involved, to obstruct the passage of resolutions authorizing military intervention for human protection purposes for which there is otherwise majority support."
It's decided, then: Israel is next up, and the United States shan't apply its veto power in to obstruct resolutions authorising the intervention there.
Posted by Eddie Tews at 05:30 PM
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The Superbrain has come up with a new wrinkle: "Two-and-a-half years ago, we inherited an economy in recession."
There is, after all, some truth in this charge. The Clinton boom was based on foreign investment, consumer debt, and high-tech speculation. The last two are unsustainable practices by their nature. The first is more a result of the rest of the world's economies' ennui that any sort of fundamental strength in the American economy.
But one wonders, if Dubya was so worried about "inheriting" a lousy economy, it took him until many months into his presidency to make a note of it.
Even more importantly, Bush has been in office for two-and-a-half years, and the economy seems to perform much more poorly every month. Begging the question, "Yeah, well, what the hell have you done to turn it around, dumbfuck?"
Bush should have welcomed an inherited recession, as it should have given him a golden opportunity to demonstrate once-and-for-all the validity of his party's Voodoo economic theories. Having done so, it would have allowed him to initiate a new round of tax cuts after the first round had done kick-started the economy with its mystical stimulative jolt. (Oh, wait, he was able to initiate the new round of tax cuts even after the opposite result obtained.)
And after the second round had roused economic performance to new and unprecedented heights, he could have swept to victory in ought-four with a bold programme of eliminating all taxes and social spending, while racking up a trillion-dollar military budget. (Oh, wait...)
Running Scared
The Superbrain has come up with a new wrinkle: "Two-and-a-half years ago, we inherited an economy in recession."
There is, after all, some truth in this charge. The Clinton boom was based on foreign investment, consumer debt, and high-tech speculation. The last two are unsustainable practices by their nature. The first is more a result of the rest of the world's economies' ennui that any sort of fundamental strength in the American economy.
But one wonders, if Dubya was so worried about "inheriting" a lousy economy, it took him until many months into his presidency to make a note of it.
Even more importantly, Bush has been in office for two-and-a-half years, and the economy seems to perform much more poorly every month. Begging the question, "Yeah, well, what the hell have you done to turn it around, dumbfuck?"
Bush should have welcomed an inherited recession, as it should have given him a golden opportunity to demonstrate once-and-for-all the validity of his party's Voodoo economic theories. Having done so, it would have allowed him to initiate a new round of tax cuts after the first round had done kick-started the economy with its mystical stimulative jolt. (Oh, wait, he was able to initiate the new round of tax cuts even after the opposite result obtained.)
And after the second round had roused economic performance to new and unprecedented heights, he could have swept to victory in ought-four with a bold programme of eliminating all taxes and social spending, while racking up a trillion-dollar military budget. (Oh, wait...)
Posted by Eddie Tews at 02:02 PM
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A few recent news items suggest that the country's visionaries may need to take a refresher course on the socio-economic system they hold so dear.
First, our heroes are confident that, "Utilizing highly automated systems and new, higher-bandwidth satellites, military planners expect to be able to still function even after a nuclear attack." Er, supposing that the machines are still able to function, and that the VIPs are able to high-tail it into their bunkers -- but that all the niggers have been killed. Desirable as this outcome may seem on the face of it, it overlooks a few problems.
For who then shall clean up the toilets? Who shall harvest the radioactive crops? Who shall work the assembly lines and the sweatshops? Who shall serve as guineau pigs for Donald H. Rumsfeld's new-fangled weapons? Who shall change the kids' shitty diapers?
Are Dubya and Co. really unaware of the elementary maxim that without labor, resources cannot be transformed into commodities (and that, without niggers there can be no labor)? It would appear so. Oh-by-the-way, even if the owners get up off their dimpled asses and do some fucking work, who shall purchase all their Pokemon crap and $20 compact discs? That's where us proles are supposed to come in -- but we'll all be dead, too.
Second, the U.S. biotech industry is up-in-arms over the EU's decision to require genetically modified foods be clearly labeled as such (they're currently not allowed into the Union at all).
"It's impractical. It will be impossible to monitor, hugely burdensome, and expensive. Rather than facilitating consumer choice, it's more likely to drive food producers to avoid using genetically improved ingredients." This sounds more than a little like hyperbole ("hugely burdensome and expensive" to label a product?). But what happened to the "free market"? What happened to the idea that the market would provide all the information consumers would need to make an informed purchasing decision? It shouldn't need to be monitored. The "invisible hand" should magically affix the label -- along with any other relevant information. No?
July 07, 2003
Capitalism 101
A few recent news items suggest that the country's visionaries may need to take a refresher course on the socio-economic system they hold so dear.
First, our heroes are confident that, "Utilizing highly automated systems and new, higher-bandwidth satellites, military planners expect to be able to still function even after a nuclear attack." Er, supposing that the machines are still able to function, and that the VIPs are able to high-tail it into their bunkers -- but that all the niggers have been killed. Desirable as this outcome may seem on the face of it, it overlooks a few problems.
For who then shall clean up the toilets? Who shall harvest the radioactive crops? Who shall work the assembly lines and the sweatshops? Who shall serve as guineau pigs for Donald H. Rumsfeld's new-fangled weapons? Who shall change the kids' shitty diapers?
Are Dubya and Co. really unaware of the elementary maxim that without labor, resources cannot be transformed into commodities (and that, without niggers there can be no labor)? It would appear so. Oh-by-the-way, even if the owners get up off their dimpled asses and do some fucking work, who shall purchase all their Pokemon crap and $20 compact discs? That's where us proles are supposed to come in -- but we'll all be dead, too.
Second, the U.S. biotech industry is up-in-arms over the EU's decision to require genetically modified foods be clearly labeled as such (they're currently not allowed into the Union at all).
"It's impractical. It will be impossible to monitor, hugely burdensome, and expensive. Rather than facilitating consumer choice, it's more likely to drive food producers to avoid using genetically improved ingredients." This sounds more than a little like hyperbole ("hugely burdensome and expensive" to label a product?). But what happened to the "free market"? What happened to the idea that the market would provide all the information consumers would need to make an informed purchasing decision? It shouldn't need to be monitored. The "invisible hand" should magically affix the label -- along with any other relevant information. No?
Posted by Eddie Tews at 03:49 PM
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Deposed Iraqi Poobah Jay Garner has estimated that up to 1 million victims of Saddam's vicious reign will be unearthed.
But he forgot to add that the overwhelming majority of those were killed while Saddam was a valued and trusted ally -- an issue this blog has discussed before now.
What You Can Do: Write you local newspaper, as well as your representatives, pointing up the hypocrisy, and requesting the Bush Administration to cease trying to gain political points for atrocities many of its members (who, as we know, are recycled from the Reagan-Bush days) helped facilitate.
July 03, 2003
Bloody Hands
Deposed Iraqi Poobah Jay Garner has estimated that up to 1 million victims of Saddam's vicious reign will be unearthed.
But he forgot to add that the overwhelming majority of those were killed while Saddam was a valued and trusted ally -- an issue this blog has discussed before now.
What You Can Do: Write you local newspaper, as well as your representatives, pointing up the hypocrisy, and requesting the Bush Administration to cease trying to gain political points for atrocities many of its members (who, as we know, are recycled from the Reagan-Bush days) helped facilitate.
Posted by Eddie Tews at 10:58 AM
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Donald H. Rumsfeld, in response to a recent "Quagmire" query, snapped, "There are so many cartoons where people, press people, are saying, 'Is it Vietnam yet?' hoping it is and wondering if it is. And it isn’t. It's a different time. It's a different era. It's a different place."
Er, does Donald H. think people are hoping and wondering if 2003 Iraq is literally morphing/time-travelling into 1960s Vietnam? If not, rather than a bizarre and meaningless statement of the obvious, why not a rigourous exposition of the failings of the analogy -- a demonstration that what appears to be a familiar pattern is actually something different?
So now we've got the President claiming that god hisself told him to attack Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Secretary of Nigger-Bombing apparently overdosing on his meds while in public.
No wonder Ari Fleischer's jumping ship! Pray for the Bush Administration, folks. Pray really good!
July 02, 2003
Is The Bush Administration Cracking Up?
Donald H. Rumsfeld, in response to a recent "Quagmire" query, snapped, "There are so many cartoons where people, press people, are saying, 'Is it Vietnam yet?' hoping it is and wondering if it is. And it isn’t. It's a different time. It's a different era. It's a different place."
Er, does Donald H. think people are hoping and wondering if 2003 Iraq is literally morphing/time-travelling into 1960s Vietnam? If not, rather than a bizarre and meaningless statement of the obvious, why not a rigourous exposition of the failings of the analogy -- a demonstration that what appears to be a familiar pattern is actually something different?
So now we've got the President claiming that god hisself told him to attack Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Secretary of Nigger-Bombing apparently overdosing on his meds while in public.
No wonder Ari Fleischer's jumping ship! Pray for the Bush Administration, folks. Pray really good!