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Tsunamis and Human NatureThe Tsunami has become one of those "must give" events. So many people have given, often in such large amounts, that you truly don't want to feel left out. In a way you have a double obligation to give--you owe it not only to survivors in the Indian Ocean, but also (perhaps even more) to the people around you, who are asking you to acknowledge your membership in the community of people who care.
Politically Correct LoveOK, this probably isn't very funny, but I like it.
Salisbury: Last WordsI think I'm finished reading Lord Salisbury for a while. Time to return the books. I'm back reading the original Dune.
... when it is once discovered that a nation loves peace so profoundly that, rather than break it, it will put with indignities and accept humiliations that would goad any other people into war, its influence absolutely disappears. This is precisely what has happened to England during the past twelve months. She has eaten an amount of dirt at which the digestion of any other people would have revolted. Foreign Powers see that, in spite of this unsavoury meal, her Government is as happy, as meddling, and as pacific as ever, and quite ready for another plateful. This is probably some of the language that caused his father--the previous Lord Salisbury--to say this is not the way a gentleman expresses himself. As he describes how Russia, France and Germany all came to have contempt for Britain, first over Poland and then over the Danish Duchies, he gets another shot in at the Germans in particular: "To be despised by the minor States of Germany is, perhaps, the lowest depth of degradation to which a great Power has ever sunk." I hadn't realized the extent to which the Brits sleep-walked through the period when Germany built a new empire, with good open water ports that it simply seized from Denmark. This was in the 1860s; for a while it must have seemed that Britain, which operated all over the world thanks to its navy, would not necessarily be disturbed too much by Germany. Perhaps the slightly cynical, highly educated and in some ways sophisticated British leaders showed their limitations in the lead up to World War I. At the beginning of the 19th century, Britain joined the Allies who defeated France. France has not been a similar threat every since. In the mid-19th century the German powers, which had played a pretty ignominious part in the Napoleonic wars, rose up. In the two world wars of the 20th century, Britain and Germany reduced each other to middling powers, and the United States and the Soviet Union emerged as the only two superpowers. In the 21st century, the United States is the only megapower. Does it have a kind of staying power that the old European powers didn't? Will its religion and Boy Scout optimism--in some ways very Victorian--help? The NY Times wrote recently that religion is growing in most areas of the world except Western Europe--not necessarily fundamentalism, but evangelical religion. (Search for "religion" on Althouse.com. My registration at NYT has stopped working.) Are the "red state" United States in some kind of alignment with much of the world already? Chris BoshPlayer of the Week in the Eastern Conference--only the second Raptors player ever to win this honour. (The first? Naturally, Vince Carter).
The UN made Bush lie?If so, they really do deserve to be punished somehow. Make the delegates and staff in New York pay for lunch out of their own pockets once a week, or something.
The biggest criticism of the Bush Administration here is that (1) it made the mistake of listening to George "slam dunk" Tenet and the CIA on this issue; and -- bigger mistake -- (2) it made the mistake of trying to go through the United Nations, which required it to make more of the WMD business than was otherwise necessary. Of course Reynolds still isn't admitting Bush lied. Bush trusted Tenet, and he made more of the WMDs than would otherwise have been necessary. What was Bush's "real" rationale, which for some strange reason (intimidated by the UN?) he didn't emphasize? ...the war was about remaking the Middle East, helping to establish a democracy in a vital spot, neutralizing a longtime, and still-dangerous foe with ties to terrorists, and putting the U.S. in a position to threaten Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, not simply about getting rid of WMD stockpiles. I guess these thoughts can be teased out of Bush's speeches, but on the whole it's something we've heard from pundits and bloggers more than the official spokespeople, who emphasized 1)WMDs and 2) Iraq's links to terror, and specifically the Al Qaeda terrorists who attacked the U.S., here and now. Wrong on both counts. Still the old dilemma: lying or clueless? Reynolds says "pretty much everyone" thought Saddam had "stockpiles" of WMDs (he hadn't actually proved otherwise); so maybe not everyone thought Saddam was working closely with Osama? Maybe that was convenient fiction from the get-go? It still just seems that a convenient package of crazy, hysterical crap from Ahmed Chalabi and Laurie Mylroie was moved very abruptly from rather obscure Power Point presentations in second-rate hotels, right into the White House, with very little opportunity for real debate or dissent. Matthew Yglesias reminds us that from the time UN weapons inspectors actually got back inside Iraq, none of the U.S. claims about WMDs panned out. The U.S. attempted to give locations that were supposedly certain to have big, significant facilities, but there was nothing. In other words, the best and most recent evidence showed nothing--not 90% of the most dire estimates, or 50% or 10%, or granted there were no nukes, but plenty of chemicals and biologicals (which a lot of people can make in their bath tubs): nothing at all. Reynolds has mentioned before that Clinton said about the time of the U.S. invasion of Iraq that he thought Saddam had WMDs. But by that time, Clinton had not been briefed on the subject by experts for more than two years. When the U.S. invaded, what we now know as the truth was slowly emerging: no WMDs whatsoever. It seems the U.S. wanted to invade quickly before that truth emerged--just as Bush chose not to take out Zarqawi, an actual Al Qaeda operative who was somewhere (actually in U.S.-friendly Kurdistan) in Iraq. Eisenhower was told in briefings, and in the annual intelligence estimate, that the Soviets had dozens or thousands of missiles. Recent photos showed nothing, and Krushchev said they had little or nothing. In 1960, it turned out, they had about four missiles. Eisenhower didn't blame the CIA for misinformation for the rest of his life, or force anyone to resign. He just made good decisions. The neo-cons, or whoever was decisive here, must have thought the stars had converged perfectly. The U.S. the only megapower--really no reason to fear a strictly military response from anyone at all. There is the old problem of winning hearts and minds, but who can resist democracy, if they're given a fair chance at it? And aren't we basically likeable? Maybe Vietnam was just an anomaly in the otherwise unblemished record of great and glorious U.S. success in war. Maybe we can succeed at relatively little cost. In his long book on the war between Athens and Sparta (what we call the Peloponnesian War--the losers in the war--Athens--wrote the books and taught us how to speak about it), Thucydides speaks of a cause of war (aitia) and a prophasis (roughly a pretext). Pretexts are offered up like the special of the day at a farmer's market; a real cause may not be spoken by anyone. Are we approaching the point where we can speak of both pretexts and real causes for the U.S. invasion of Iraq? I think there were some necessary if not sufficient conditions that brought it about: 1. Iraq was somehow related to 9/11. This is to take seriously what Reynolds and others have been saying. Either Saddam was somehow a) an immediate threat or b)working closely with those who were or c)anyway, it would help Iraq, the region and the world to get rid of him--make another 9/11 less likely. De-stabilize a number of bad regimes that either support terrorism or make it more likely (the two being constantly confused). Not clear whether this requires a stable regime, noticeably better than Saddam's; a democracy; or what. 2. Oil. This is to take seriously many critics of Bush. Among other things, Wolfowitz promised the U.S. Congress and the public that oil revenues would pay for the war. That was a relief. 3. Israel. Whether or not taking out Saddam would help Iraqis, Arabs, the U.S., the West, the future of civilization, it would surely help Israel. Although: experts have said Israel's first choice would have been regime change in Iran; second, probably Syria. Perhaps Israel didn't think Saddam was actively supporting terrorists to any significant extent. (Although he was apparently one of the bankers who would pay the families of Palestinian bombers/martyrs). 4. Should be easy--possibly even a cakewalk. None of these reasons are contemptible in the least, and they may actually work out. Popular movements against the worst Arab states and Iran may gain confidence from the Iraqi example; the flow of oil may be maximized, whether or not Iraq gets a democracy or a regime we particularly like; Israel may continue to make progress toward peace. A higher price will have been paid by the U.S. than Bush or anyone around him probably expected, but in a way there is something noble in that. Of course, Iraq may go south; then it will be a question whether the oil continues to flow even at levels that were sustained under Saddam; neighbouring countries may partition Iraq, and bad regimes may be encouraged rather than discouraged. The U.S. may "allow" such developments in order to reduce its losses. Such developments are not likely to help Israel, and may hurt. Are there underlying causes, largely unstated, that might help us explain what has gone on? 1. It is surely not too nasty to say that as a result of 9/11, Bush and many other Americans wanted to make war somewhere. It is especially striking in Bush's case, since he pretty well said openly he neither knew nor cared about any country outside the U.S. with the possible exception of Mexico. Afghanistan was good, but it wasn't enough. Why be the only mega power that has ever existed, only to feel helpless in the face of the 9/11 attacks? Why attack only places like Grenada? 2. Make history. Be the greatest generation. An extreme defence of Bush would say that civilization is at stake--in a way, as much as in a combination of World War II and the Cold War. If Islamic fundamentalism/terrorism keeps growing, it can threaten more and more of our people and our economy. Only the megapower can stop this. Diplomacy and negotiation are part of the picture, as the left-wing intellectuals say, but they are by no means all of it. If Bush succeeds, he may bring democracy to a significant part of the world by his own direct action--more than any U.S. president has done in Latin America, or in the ex-Communist countries. UPDATE: More from Yglesias (link above): ...contrary to the ex post rationalizations from the right, it's simply not the case that "everyone" -- or even almost everyone -- thought Saddam Hussein had WMD at the time the war started. [snip] But the United States wasn't being governered by rational people, so they, along with their cheerleaders in the press, proclaimed that if inspections weren't finding the weapons, that wasn't because the weapons weren't there but because the inspectors were corrupt, incompetent, or something like that. Therefore, an invasion was necessary. This judgment -- the judgment that took us to war, the judgment that's led to all the many American casualties and the many more Iraqi casualties, didn't reflect any sort of international consensus whatsoever. Again, I don't think that since there were no WMDs, there was no good reason to go to war at all. But I'm trying to be clear. On the part of some of Bush's defenders, there is a potent mixture of hatred of the terrorists who actually attacked the U.S., hatred of Saddam, and hatred of the UN for ... I don't know... not being sufficiently pro-American, and allowing "all these problems" to fester. Rather and other Media MistakesDan Rather, his producer Mary Mapes and other senior people got caught using documents that were probably forged, from a highly discreditable source, in an attempt to add to the story of "whatever happened to W during those last two years he was in the Guard?"
In January 2002, Idema sold CBS sensational footage, which he called the "VideoX" tapes, that purported to show an Al Qaeda training camp in action. The tapes became the centerpiece of the bombshell 60 Minutes II piece, "Heart of Darkness," reported by Dan Rather and touted as "the most intimate look yet at how the world's deadliest terrorist organization trains its recruits." Idema also sold video stills to a number of print outlets, including The Boston Globe. MSNBC, ABC, NBC, the BBC, and others later replayed the tapes. Questions are now emerging about their authenticity, some of which were detailed in a piece by Stacy Sullivan in New York magazine in October. Idema also served as an expert military commentator on Fox News and was a lead character in Robin Moore's best-selling book The Hunt for Bin Laden, which was supposed to chronicle the exploits of U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan. And he fielded hundreds of interviews with major newspapers, television networks, and radio stations, which seemed to take his swaggering claims--that he was an active-duty Green Beret in Afghanistan, an undercover spy, an explosives expert, and a key player in the hunt for Osama bin Laden--at face value. Idema used the platform the media provided to spread dubious information, much of it with crucial implications for national security and foreign policy. For example, he claimed to have uncovered a plot to assassinate Bill Clinton; that bin Laden was dead, and that the Taliban was poisoning the food that the United States was air-dropping to feed hungry Afghans. (In fact, people were getting sick from eating the desiccant packed with the food.) Idema's career as a media personality reached its peak during the final breathless weeks of the run-up to the war in Iraq. Much of the information he provided during that period echoed the Bush administration's hotly contested rationale for war. He told MSNBC that the link between Iraq and Al Qaeda was "common knowledge" on the ground in Afghanistan, and claimed in an interview with WNYC radio's Leonard Lopate that "Iraq has been involved in supporting Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations with money, with equipment, with technology, with weapons of mass destruction." He told other wide-eyed journalists that there was ample evidence linking "Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia to Al Qaeda and to the attacks on September 11," and professed to have firsthand knowledge of nuclear weapons being smuggled from Russia to all three members of the "axis of evil"--Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Few in the media questioned Idema's claims, much to the alarm of some who knew him. "The media saw this outfitted, gregarious, apparently knowing guy, and they didn't check him out," says Ed Artis, chairman and founder of the humanitarian organization Knightsbridge International, who met Idema in Afghanistan in late 2001 and later tried to warn the government and media organizations that Idema was misrepresenting himself. "They ran story after story that furthered the cachet of a self-serving, self-aggrandizing criminal." [snip]: [as Idema offered his "training camp" video:] CNN backed off precisely because it decided Idema could not be trusted. This was after the network's national security analyst, Ken Robinson, searched Google and LexisNexis and discovered that Idema not only had a criminal record, but also liked to batter his rivals with lawsuits. In addition to turning down the tapes, the network decided to shun Idema as a source. It was the only network to do so. [blockquote]On January 17, CBS's 60 Minutes II ran a story about the tapes. [snip] ABC, MSNBC, NBC, and the BBC subsequently paid thousands of dollars to air the training-camp footage, according to Idema's bank records. [/blockquote] Of all the networks, CBS had the longest-standing relationship with Idema. It had used him as a source or consultant on two projects before his arrival in Afghanistan. The first was the 1995 nuclear-smuggling story, called "The Worst Nightmare," which was produced by Scurka and aired on 60 Minutes As Atrios says, no one is going to be fired over this stuff--it was just part of the war hysteria at the time. One high-powered media organization after another took a fall over the most worthless lies and hoaxes, for which they paid top dollar instead of doing actual reporting. Yes, reporters are liberal, owners are conservative; conservatives have largely taken over cable and talk radio, which hardly existed in their present form 20 years ago. Howard Fineman says on the Newsweek site that CBS made a momentous decision when Cronkite (later joined by Rather) came out against the Vietnam war, and then the whole network came out against Nixon. You ain't gonna be treated like the voice of God if you're constantly in a street fight. I still tend to think business drives decisions more than anything. That's why they always "stupid down" the news. Liberals are now saying the media went after Clinton; I still think the way they went after Carter was even more amazing. Carter had displayed a kind of ordinary incompetence, and made himself a bit ridiculous; the media, probably mostly people who admired him and intended to vote for him, went after him like sharks. And let's not forget ordinary incompetence and carelessness. Past mistakes: it is hard to forget the time ABC's 20/20 aired a show about how "Buckwheat" from the Little Rascals was all growed up--and bagging groceries. They had the wrong guy; it was easy to find out where the real Buckwheat was (he was a film technician); and it was easy to discover that the guy they covered had been peddling his lies for 30 years. No one at ABC checked a single, solitary fact. Here's a site that summarizes that episode among others--I like the time the NYT fell for a bunch of made-up hip/hop slang--obviously no one at the paper having a single clue about "the street." What about NBC news and the exploding pickup truck? (They were trying to prove the truck was unsafe; they couldn't get it to explode "naturally," so they planted a bomb on it). What about CBS's treatment of General Westmoreland (Vietnam again). I remember Chris Wallace (mighty Mike's kid) doing a piece about the antique business in NYC. He proved conclusively that some objects sold as "antiques" are not particularly old or valuable; some of them (gasp!) are mere reproductions. When he tries to discover how people make a fairly honest living in this business, he shows that they will buy from a show where they are exhibiting, and then sell at a higher price. Imagine: retail based on buying low, and selling high! Sometimes fraudulently! And in New York City! How could Wallace keep the solemn, stupid expression on his face long enough to get through this piece? Salisbury's HumourI like this: three officers from a ship in the British navy get in trouble with the authorities in Rio, and it becomes an international incident. (Salisbury's larger point is that Prime Minister Palmerston tended to talk tough, but only act on small, sometimes ridiculous matters).
The Englishmen's account of the matter is that the sentry came up to them, and that thereupon they asked him a civil question, and that he forthwith knocked one of them down with the butt end of a musket. The sentry's account of the matter is that they came up to him flourishing a stick in his face, and making an uncomplimentary remark upon his trousers--which appear to be the sore point of a Brazilian soldier--and that he took them up because they tried to take hold of his legs and throw him over the parapet. It is obvious that he misunderstood them; for if they could not speak Portuguese at all, it is quite clear that they could not have observed intelligibly to him upon his trousers. One interesting thing is that all concerned seem to agree that if these naval officers had been in the uniform of the British navy, they would have deserved to be treated with respect almost no matter what they did, anywhere in the world. I guess if they needed to be disciplined, that would be done by the navy. As it was, however, they looked like civilians--and Salisbury among others is sympathetic to all the Brazilian participants for this reason. More SalisburyJust indulging myself:
...one of two alternatives may be safely predicted of the destiny of Germany as a European Power. Either the present subdivision which neutralizes her natural resources will cease, and she will become one of the most powerful Empires in the world; or else--a far likelier issue--the present enthusiasm will exhaust the energies of a people so unpractical, without leading to any definite result, and Germany will fall back into her old condition, more divided, more stagnant, more impotent than before, and more helplessly the slave of Russia. Fortunately, he says, Germany's actions show that she only intends to attack her weakest enemies; so a real demonstration of force will make her back down. The last lines of the essay are again less optimistic. But promptitude and courage are above all things necessary. In every portion of Europe the combustible materials lie scattered ready for the match. If they are kindled into war, no human power can set bounds to the conflagration, or predict the limits of its rage. Upon the action of England, who alone desires peace, the continuance of peace depends. The Austro-Prussian War or Seven Weeks War took place in the summer of 1866. If Austria had won, there probably would have been a larger German-speaking Empire, in which Prussia had a subordinate role, leaning towards the old balance-of-powers, more or less peace-loving approach. Instead Prussia won; cleverly left Austria with its existing territory, added to its own territory and began establishing a new, more warlike German Empire. The Franco-Prussian War lasted slightly longer: July 19, 1870 - May 10, 1871. The results were also much more dramatic. The Germans beseiged and took Paris. "The French emperor was captured in battle, resulting in a bloodless revolution and France becoming the only republican Great Power in Europe. During the final stages of the war, the German states proclaimed their union under the Prussian King, founding the German Empire." Shorter, Clearer HitchensWhere to begin?
Fun with SportsI rarely find the time to watch an entire game of anything on TV, but I spent some time watching Vikings vs. Green Bay yesterday with my son. He was born in Minnesota, and I became a bit of a fan during six years there.
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