Great line of the day

Is from Juan Cole at Informed Comment. He is writing about Tal Afar:

The latest US/Iraqi offensive in Tal Afar petered out on Sunday, as the invaders discovered that the guerrillas in the city had used tunnels to escape. The Iraqis and the US had been saying that they wanted to prevent the guerrillas from getting away, but now they just have to declare victory and go home. Most of the city has been emptied out. Most of the residents had not been guilty of any thing, but now they are refugees. These sweep operations such as have been conducted several times at Tal Afar and also at Qaim and even the Sunni parts of Baghdad have never really succeeded. It is like attacking water; it just flows around you and the situation ends up the same as before. Operation Lighting in early June in Baghdad was supposed to put an end to Sunni Arab guerrilla operations in Baghdad. It did seem to impede them for a brief period, but then they roared back. It seems possible, perhaps likely, that Tal Afar will revert again, too, when people come back to the city. The US/Iraqi government policy now appears to be to de-urbanize the Sunni Arab heartland by destroying Sunni cities one after another. The problem with such a tactic is that it will not actually reduce attacks on the US military or the Iraqi police. It will just seed ethnic hatred for decades to come.

The line I like is the one in bold, about attacking water. But I thought the whole post was worth quoting.
I haven't blogged much about Iraq because of the New Orleans tragedy, but I don't think things are going any better now than they were in mid-August. Cole also notes that the constitution is still a mess and the UN doesn't yet have a document that it can print for the vote which is supposed to be held in four weeks.
Also, it struck me as passing strange to hear reports that the US is blowing up bridges along the Tigris River, I think it was, to prevent Syrians from moving south. Isn't blowing up bridges something that armies do when they are retreating?

Its a sin to kill a mockingbird

In this editorial, the Vancouver Sun concludes that Irwin Cotler should refuse extradition of Marc Emery.
Why? Basically, because what Emery did is NOT wrong here:

Whether [Cotler] wants to admit it or not, selling viable cannabis seeds is de facto legal in Canada, and Cotler can therefore refuse to surrender Emery on the grounds that what he is charged with in the U.S. is not an offence in Canada . . . the federal government was referring medical marijuana users to Emery's website until two years ago. The actions and inaction of the federal government make it abundantly clear that the feds didn't -- and still don't -- consider Emery's operation illegal. Hence the prospect of sending someone to a country that considers such conduct an offence would appear to violate the principles of fundamental justice. Cotler seems morally and legally obliged to exercise his discretion and refuse extradition.

I hope other newspapers take up this same approach.
In the end, only one thing matters, I think. Just this: it would be morally wrong for Canada to send Emery and his two companions to jail in the United States for doing something which Canadians do not think is illegal.

Good

I had been intending to study up on the Shariah law issue in Ontario and post something on it, but I guess the debate is now over. McGinty's decision is, I think, the right one: McGuinty rejects Shariah law --

McGuinty announced his government would move quickly to outlaw existing religious tribunals used for years by Christians and Jews under Ontario's Arbitration Act. 'I've come to the conclusion that the debate has gone on long enough,' he said. 'There will be no Shariah law in Ontario. There will be no religious arbitration in Ontario. There will be one law for all Ontarians.' McGuinty said religious arbitrations 'threaten our common ground,' and promised his Liberal government would introduce legislation 'as soon as possible' to outlaw them in Ontario. 'Ontarians will always have the right to seek advice from anyone in matters of family law, including religious advice,' he said. 'But no longer will religious arbitration be deciding matters of family law.'

I think framing it on the basis of having a single law for everyone in Ontario is the correct approach. It follows the basic principle of democracy -- if people don't like that law, then elect a different government to change it, but until then the same law applies to all.

Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

From Huffington Post comes notice of this Telegraph story about the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster:


His Noodliness

In the past few weeks, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has become perhaps the world's fastest-growing "religion" and maybe its most improbable. While no one can be sure of the exact numbers of "Pastafarians", as acolytes are called, they may number in the millions.

This all started out as a letter to the Kansas City school board from an unemployed Oregon physics graduate Bobby Henderson demanding that they teach Flying Spaghetti Monsterism as well as Intelligent Design and Evolution. "I think we can all look forward to the time when these three theories are given equal time in our science classrooms across the country, and eventually the world; One third time for Intelligent Design, one third time for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, and one third time for logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable evidence."
And it has turned into just a... a ...a Monster!
See more at this website: http://www.venganza.org/, including this information on why this church is so much better than the rest: "1. Flimsy moral standards. 2. Every friday is a relgious holiday. If your work/school objects to that, demand your religious beliefs are respected and threaten to call the ACLU. And 3) Our heaven is WAY better. We've got a Stripper Factory AND a Beer Volcano."
Oh, is there NOTHING sacred these days?

Great line of the day

General Honore describes the media who are covering the New Orleans recovery efforts: " 'I can't swing a dead cat without hitting a reporter,' Honore said."

Batshit crazy

Associated Press reports that an updated US preemptive war doctrine now says it would be OK to use nuclear weapons as long as the US is sufficiently scared.
First, the news story tries to reassure us

The "Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations," which was last updated 10 years ago, makes clear that "the decision to employ nuclear weapons at any level requires explicit orders from the president."

Please forgive me if I don't trust Cheney's judgement on this anymore -- this is a guy who still wants to believe that Iraq was behind 911.
Then the article continues

"A broader array of capability is needed to dissuade states from undertaking ... courses of action that would threaten U.S. and allied security," the draft says. "U.S. forces must pose a credible deterrent to potential adversaries who have access to modern military technology, including WMD and the means to deliver them." It says "deterrence of potential adversary WMD use requires the potential adversary leadership to believe the United States has both the ability and will to pre-empt or retaliate promptly with responses that are credible and effective." It says "this will be particularly difficult with nonstate (non-government) actors who employ or attempt to gain use of WMD. Here, deterrence may be directed at states that support their efforts as well as the terrorist organization itself. However, the continuing proliferation of WMD along with the means to deliver them increases the probability that someday a state/nonstate actor nation/terrorist may, through miscaluation or by deliberate choice, use those weapons. In such cases, deterrence, even based on the threat of massive destruction, may fail and the United States must be prepared to use nuclear weapons if necessary." It notes that U.S. policy has always been purposely vague with regard to when the United States would use nuclear weapons and that it has never vowed not to be the first to use them in a conflict. One scenario for a possible nuclear pre-emptive strike in the draft would be in the case of an "imminent attack from adversary biological weapons that only effects from nuclear weapons can safely destroy.

In other words, when we tell a "state/non-state actor nation/terrorist" what to do -- and that terminology seems to include just about everybody -- then they'd better do it. Or else we'll think that maybe they are getting ready to attack us. And if we think they might attack us, then we'll nuke 'em and let God sort 'em out.
These people are hysterical batshit crazy, aren't they? It just goes to prove the statement that if all you have is a hammer then every problem looks like a nail.
I think the Pentagon just cannot understand it -- that even though they are the strongest nation in the world with all sorts of nuclear weapons, why is it that they still don't feel safe? So now they think that not only can they somehow use nukes to stop someone from dropping a vial of anthrax into the water supply -- but they think also that they have the moral right to do this.
And what will it take to get other nations to step forward and try to stop this craziness? China? India? Britain? Saudi Arabia? Even Canada? It's long past time for you guys to say something.

Another great line for today

Peter Daou posts on Bush at 39%. I will quote the whole thing, because this may be behing the Salon subscription wall for some people.

Like something out of Greek mythology, three women have brought Bush to his (figurative) knees: Valerie, Cindy, and Katrina. The first was betrayed, the second's son had his trust betrayed, the third brought an ill wind that betrayed the rot at the core of a political philosophy that wants to 'drown government in a bathtub.' On the political left, a half-decade of frustration is slowly turning into a glimmer of hope that fellow Americans see the emperor's nakedness. On the political right - as Bush enters the Watergate job approval zone - there is fury at what is seen as blind hatred of a great leader. But what really matters now is the reality on the ground. Cheerleading with a bullhorn on a sacred gravesite may substitute for leadership to some, but real leadership (or in this case the lack of it) has real-world consequences. And an increasing number of Americans don't like the consequences they see.

RCALF is at it again

RCALF is at it again - Cattle group wants another chance in court
And in looking through the Google News list of articles relating to this story, I also saw the link to this CattleNework story , which provides some additional perspective on the overall issues in the cattle market and notes the negative impact on the American cattle industry overall if RCALF is successful in what it is trying to do.

Great line of the day.

Toronto Star columnist Rosie DiManno writes 'U.S. must examine its soul' and includes this comment: "Twenty-five thousand body bags have arrived in New Orleans. Perhaps, just this once, for the first time in two weeks, the city will have too much of what it needs." Its a good article.

Cry me a river

Its interesting to see the level to which journalists will sink just to put a story on the wire. Here is an example of gonzo journalism at its finest: Brown Sent Candid E-Mail to Family. So I guess the reporter thinks Brown should have been left in charge just so his widdle feelings wouldn't be hurt?
Let's think of some other fanstatical stories which could be written about undeserving people who think they should catch some slack. How about: "Stockwell Day's feelings hurt because conservatives are mean to him" or "Republicans should let Nixon run for president again", "Ken Lay feels pretty bad about Enron, demands stock exchange let him sell shares in a new company" "Karla Homolka seeks no conditions on parole" . . . hey, wait a miniute . . .

Its not working

Judging by some editorial cartoons, the Bush administration efforts at damage control following Katrina aren't working worth a darn. Here are a couple:
Mike Keefe, Denver Post:


R.J.Matson, The New York Observer

Freaks at the circus

In THE NEWS BLOG, Steve Gilliard has a couple of very thoughtful posts about the racism of the core of the Hurricane Katrina crisis -- it is also, of course, at the core of the inner city mob myth I just posted about below.
Gilliard makes the point that the humanitarial disaster of Katrina has ripped away the mask of America --

The funny thing about crisis is that you have to put your cards on the table. The NRO [National Review Online] Klavern put theirs out. Straight up and with no question: Niggers suck, and they're proud to say it. Barbara Bush's mask of amiability was also ripped off this week. Her colonialist attitude towards her fellow Americans was recorded live. Anyone want to call Kitty Kelley a liar now? And the sheriff of Gretna, LA proved that every country has war criminals. most just don't have a war to commit crime in . . . The nation's leading black conservative commentators have been as quiet as door mice since this happened . . . Mehlman would be laughed out of the room if he said the GOP was a party of inclusion. Please. You had the President's mother speaking like a Kenyan colonist in a village . . . Bush showed he's a human clusterfuck and his government seems to run on the political prinicples of Mobuto Sese Seko, creator of Zaire, the world's first kleptocracy. So the old joke about seeing a nuclear explosion and kissing your ass goodbye seems appropriate. Too bad the same can be said for hurricane warnings as well. After 9/11, FEMA as dumping ground was not such a good idea. Now, after Katrina, we know it can kill people.

and he also notes how poorly the right blogosphere has responded.

. . . Sometimes the world changes before your eyes. December 7th was such a day, November 22nd was one, so was July 4th. Those days didn't just change America, they changed the way we saw the world. The right blogosphere, used to defending Bush, is caught on the wrong side here and not only do they don't know it, they keep digging deeper . . . Everyone from the Southern Baptist Convention to MTV are helping to raise money and feed people. The only people not doing anything are the righties . . . This is the most serious domestic crisis since Pearl Harbor, and these folks are acting like it's still Ok to be Bund members. They don't get that everything changed after Bush failed to help the Katrina survivors. The right bloggers are treating this as politics. A lot of people, left and right, realize the implications here, and Bush is being hammered because of this. If there had been a terrorist attack on a chemical plant or if an LNG tanker, FEMA's inaction would have killed thousands of people from untreated trauma injuries. This is no longer about politics, but survival . . . New Orleans is gone. I mean, a unique way of life is gone. It doesn't get much more serious than this. And the right bloggers are making jokes and arguing about buses . . . In this most serious of times, the right bloggers are looking like freaks at the circus.

The inner city mob myth

I remember noticing, at the beginning of the horror last Tuesday, that the US media were obsessed with looting. The reporters on the ground were trying to talk about a broad range of evacuation problems, while the anchors sitting in their New York studios kept focusing on looting -- how's the looting, any signs of looting, where are the looters, did you get any video of looting...on and on and on.
I remember noticing, at the height of the horror last Thursday, that it was very odd and tragic that people didn't just walk out of New Orleans by themselves. I thought maybe some had but there were just too many old people and babies left to make it.
Now both the things have turned out to be part of the same story -- the inner city mob myth. An inordinate and excessive fear of looters caused good-ole-boy police in the suburban neighbourhoods surrounding New Orleans to set up barricades which prevented the poor people of New Orleans from walking out to safety. Kevin Drum posts "Savagery...a followup..." which covers some of the details.
Its all part of this "inner city mob" myth in American culture -- the apparently primal fear of suburbia that a mob of rampaging, looting, screaming, tire-iron-clutching black people are going to come running down their street -- breakin' windows and rapin' women and crushin' the flowerbeds and tailored lawns.
Disaster planning in the US doesn't seem to have acknowledged the power of this myth. It may well have been a major factor in the disaster that was New Orleans, and certainly would be a factor in many many other US cities -- where the central areas of the city are populated primarily by poor black people while wealthier white people live in the surrounding suburbs and have white police forces who know their job is to protect suburbia from the black mobs. So in American cities, if something disasterous happens which creates refugees in the city core, the disaster will be compounded because the suburbs will be too afraid to let their neighbours in.
And I call it a myth because it is -- I am no expert on American history but when was there ever an example of an inner city mob which rampaged around the suburbs? I can't think of one. All the mobs I remember seeing on TV -- Detroit, Watts, the Rodney King riots, etc -- actually destroyed just their own neighbourhoods, not anyone else's.
In New Orleans, there were no mobs at all. Just desperate, suffering people.
The Wikipedia article on inner cities points out that in other areas of the world like London and Paris it is the wealthier and higher-class people who live downtown. But even in Canadian cities, which follow the American model where poor people live in downtown neighbourhoods, there is not this same kind of dynamic at all. In Canada, we have escaped this particular myth and thus this type of fear -- maybe this is why we also have escaped the American gun culture as well.

Great line of the day

In 'They look just like little bugs...' d r i f t g l a s s concludes "In the end, Bush failed the only test of leadership that matters, on the only platform he every really ran on. Character. But Character is what you are in the dark. And it was awfully dark in New Orleans last week."

The tourists are talking

And it ain't pretty:
Holiday in hell: Sask. pair recount ordeal in New Orleans

While New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin appealed to the masses to get out of the city, Mitzel and Johnson tried everything they could to escape. They bought plane tickets and tried to rent a car, and when those plans failed, they holed up for four days in the Monteleone Hotel with Mitzel's cousin, Eugene Herman of Regina. When all hotels were ordered to evacuate, they appealed to National Guard personnel for help in getting out. "The first four days were spent trying to contain us, to herd us," Johnson said. "There was no thought given to evacuation. It was all police and National Guard, and it was all, contain, contain, contain. Focus on the looters. Shoot to kill anybody after dark. Get everybody together under one roof so we can control them. We didn't need that. We needed out of town." Officials directed them to the Superdome, where conditions were unsanitary and reports were leaking out of lawlessness and death. "I think it was very frustrating for people to keep hearing 'get out, get out,' when all we were trying to do was get out and nobody could take us," Johnson said. Johnson didn't see many signs of disaster planning or emergency preparedness. Although guards told them repeatedly buses were coming to "take them to safety," the buses never materialized. "We didn't believe it any more," Mitzel said. "We made a joke of it," Johnson said. After spending a night on the streets of New Orleans, finally, buses and trucks picked up the pair and their companions. They took the tourists to a holding area in nearby Jefferson Parish that Mitzel describes as a "refugee camp." "The conditions in that refugee camp, I don't think you want to think about that," he said. "They were horrible." Mitzel and Johnson describe the camp as a swamp where 5,000 people waited in the blazing heat for more buses to evacuate them. A mere four portable bathrooms to serve the masses were overflowing. There were no garbage containers, and people of all ages and their animals were wading through ankle-deep excrement and Louisiana mud. Some had been there for 32 hours. A breakthrough came when two bus drivers got lost, and some helpful Louisiana State Troopers directed them to a back lot where about 100 tourists were loaded on and taken to Baton Rouge and Alexandria, La. In Alexandria, Johnson and Mitzel bought new clothes and luggage and secured flights to Atlanta, and then Saskatoon. Although Mitzel said the American government was the "bottleneck" holding people back from getting help, Johnson said she's disappointed in companies who could have stepped up to help thousands escape before the hurricane hit. "There should have been an immediate plan for evacuation," Johnson said. "Instead of Greyhound (buses) pulling out at 6 o'clock on Saturday, 36 hours before the hurricane, they should have brought in 100 more buses and started taking people out. Instead of Northwest (Airlines) cancelling their flights at 9 a.m., fully 24 hours before the hurricane struck, they should have been putting on more flights and evacuating people."

Two paramedics write about Hurricane Katrina - our experiences -- note that parts of this story were posted on Daily Kos a few days ago, too:

What you will not see, but what we witnessed,were the real heroes and sheroes of the hurricane relief effort: the working class of New Orleans. The maintenance workers who used a fork lift to carry the sick and disabled. The engineers, who rigged, nurtured and kept the generators running. The electricians who improvised thick extension cords stretching over blocks to share the little electricity we had in order to free cars stuck on rooftop parking lots. Nurses who took over for mechanical ventilators and spent many hours on end manually forcing air into the lungs of unconscious patients to keep them alive. Doormen who rescued folks stuck in elevators. Refinery workers who broke into boat yards, "stealing" boats to rescue their neighbors clinging to their roofs in flood waters. Mechanics who helped hot-wire any car that could be found to ferry people out of the City. And the food service workers who scoured the commercial kitchens improvising communal meals for hundreds of those stranded. Most of these workers had lost their homes, and had not heard from members of their families, yet they stayed and provided the only infrastructure for the 20% of New Orleans that was not under water [there follows an incredible description of three days of needlessly abusive, gratitiously insulting treatment by NO police and military.]official treatment was in sharp contrast to the warm, heart-felt reception given to us by the ordinary Texans. We saw one airline worker give her shoes to someone who was barefoot. Strangers on the street offered us money and toiletries with words of welcome. Throughout, the official relief effort was callous, inept, and racist. There was more suffering than need be. Lives were lost that did not need to be lost.

From the Herald Sun newspaper in South Carolina, 3 Duke students tell of 'disgraceful' scene describes the journey of three students who piled into a car and went to New Orleans to help:

. . . the students saw four or five bodies. National Guard troopers seemed to be checking the second and third floors of the building to try to secure the site. "Anyone who knows that area, if you had a bus, it would take you no more than 20 minutes to drive in with a bus and get these people out," Buder said. "They sat there for four or five days with no food, no water, babies getting raped in the bathrooms, there were murders, nobody was doing anything for these people. And we just drove right in, really disgraceful. I don't want to get too fired up with the rhetoric, but some blame needs to be placed somewhere." By about 7 p.m., the students made their way back to the boy on Magazine Street. He directed them to some people "who really needed to get out." The resulting evacuation began at a house at the corner of Magazine and Peniston streets. The first group included three women and a man. The students climbed into the front seats of the four-door Hyundai, and the evacuees filled the back seat. They left the city and headed back to Baton Rouge. There they deposited the man at the LSU medical center and took the women to dinner. The women later found shelter with relatives, and the students got about four hours' sleep inside the LSU chapel. At 6:30 a.m. Sunday, they made their second run into New Orleans, returning to the house at Magazine and Peniston streets. This time they picked up three men and headed back to Baton Rouge. Two of the men were the husbands of two of the women evacuated the night before. The students reunited them with their wives and put the two families on a bus for Texas.

The BBC reports Briton slams US rescue 'shambles':

Without their driving licences they were unable to hire a car and flee the city ahead of the storm and decided to remain in their hotel after being warned the Superdome would be too dangerous. The handling of the relief operation had been "horrendous", Mr Scott added. "I could not describe how bad the authorities were - taking photographs of us as we are standing on the roof waving for help, for their own personal photo albums, little snapshot photographs." He said at one point a group of girls was standing on the roof of the hotel lobby and called to passing rescuers for help. "They [the authorities] said to them 'well show us what you've got' - doing signs for them to lift their t-shirts up. The girls said no, and they said 'well fine', and motored off down the road in their motorboat. "That's the sort of help we had from the authorities," he said. Mr Scott added: "The only information we got from anybody in authority was if a policeman came past and we shouted to them out of the windows. "The only information we ever got off them was negative, 'Do not go here. Do not go there'. "There was no, 'Are you OK? Are you safe? Have you got water?'. "Most of the time they would ignore us." At night, the police presence disappeared altogether, leaving the stranded guests and staff to defend themselves. "You would hear shots ringing out during the night and that was one of the most worrying things, because we had no security," Mr Scott said. "We patrolled the halls and checked the doors throughout the night in the hotel - but if someone had wanted to come in, there was not much we could have done about it." They had a torch - but, Mr Scott said, "you knew if you went down in the dark the torch would only make you a better target". Nevertheless, the staff and guests had managed to chase one group of looters from the building, he added. He then had had to wade waist-deep through the filthy water to barricade the hotel's doors. "It was like wading through an open sewer. "It reeked to high heaven and made you want to vomit. Outside I could see bodies floating in the water." Mr Scott told BBC News he had ripped wires attached to speakers from the walls of the flooded hotel bar and tied tables and chairs together as makeshift barricades . . . When they were finally rescued it had been by Louisiana game wardens, who had entered the hotel with rifles and fixed bayonets, Mr Scott said.