Results

My favorite line from Ghostbusters is this one:

"Personally, I liked the university. They gave us money and facilities, we didn't have to produce anything! You've never been out of college! You don't know what it's like out there! I've worked in the private sector. They expect results!"

Which brings us to Rick Salutin's column this week, about expecting results:

I wish leaders such as Stephen Harper, George Bush and Tony Blair, who often say they “accept responsibility,” would get clear on what they are responsible for. They are responsible for the results of their actions, not whatever good intentions they have when they embark . . . This is not a point in abstract theory. The situation in Iraq is far worse now than it was before the invasion . . . That is what Tony Blair and George Bush are responsible for.
It seems to me this kind of sage awareness underlies the scepticism that many Canadians feel about our Afghan mission. They are worried about the results, not the motives. So when Lewis MacKenzie wrote in The Globe and Mail this week that the polls should ask, “Do you support letting the Taliban return to power” and “Do you support beheading teachers,” he misses the point. People are not questioning goals; they are evaluating the chances of getting there. . . . it looks too much like Iraq.

Emphasis mine.
And I want to add this observation: when Canadian politicians and military and the Queen's Own 101st Fighting Keyboarders (Canadian branch) undertake to trivialize and ridicule legimate war concerns and questions -- the "cut and run" fingerpointing terminology is one example, as is the "Do you support beheading teachers?" type of question (to which I would be sore tempted to reply, why of course!, but I digress) -- the more suspicious we will be that somebody doth protest too much, that someone is trying to pull a fast one, to sell us a bill of goods. And maybe then we would start to wonder if the Afghanistan mission is failing but that Canada's leaders are trying to pretend results don't matter as long as our hearts are true.

More of the same

U.S. News & World Report: Bush is said to have no plan if GOP loses. So what else is new?

Are Canadian soldiers still turning prisoners over to the US?

Olbermann said on Countdown the other night that after all the big rush two weeks ago, Bush still has not signed into law the Military Commissions Act -- you know, the act informally known as the "torture bill" which allows accused terrorists to be tortured and denies them habeus corpus.
Hmmm. Let's connect some dots.
The official explanation, apparently, is that Bush has been too busy. But I wonder if that explains it.
One of the aspects flagged by Alison regarding the Arar case was the pious statement from the US that Syria had given "assurances that his treatment would meet the standards of the Geneva Conventions".
Hmmm.
Civilized nations cannot, or should not, turn prisoners over to countries which will not treat them humanely.
And once the Military Commissions Act is signed, America can no longer officially say that accused terrorist prisoners will be treated according to the Geneva Conventions.
So once that awful bill is signed, can "civilized"nations still turn prisoners over to the world's newest rogue state?
Perhaps Peter MacKay or Jack Straw whispered a quiet word to Condi . . .

Great line of the day

Billmon crunches the numbers to compare Iraqi deaths under Saddam with Iraqi deaths under Bush, concluding that the death rate under Bush is more than double what it was under Saddam. Billmon then draws this conclusion:

. . . you don't need to be an inhuman monster to cause an inhuman amount of death, destruction and suffering. You don't even need evil -- ignorance and arrogance and incompetence can manage the job quite nicely. But, as I've said before, it does requires a rare combination of those qualities to take a situation like Saddam's Iraq and make it worse . . .

Emphasis mine.

Open mouth

Change foot. Again.

What a show it was

Well, we finally did it -- we saw the Rolling Stones live and in person.
What a great, great show, from the greatest rock band in the world.
And you know, instead of acting like we should be happy they showed up, they acted like they were happy WE showed up.

Yay, Barney!

Great lines of the day

Pelosi spokesperson Jannifer Crider describes the problem with the GOP attempt to blame Nancy Pelosi:

Every mother in America is asking how Republicans could choose partisan politics over protecting kids, and the Republicans are asking who could have blown their cover-up.

The Culture of Victimization

Republicans are professional victims.
They are in charge of the whole US government. But whenever they do anything wrong -- which is frequently -- they blame:
1. The Librulls
2. The Democrats
3. The Librull Democrats
4. And Nancy Pelosi
Never have so many blamed so much on so few.

I don't understand it

Canadian Press reports that the Harper government is going to stomp on the outstanding legal cases of the lumber companies who reject the softwood lumber deal.
And here's what I need somebody to explain.
The story reports:

The court earlier struck down the U.S. lumber industry's claim Canadian imports posed a threat of injury and was set to rule on whether the roughly US$5.3 billion in duties collected since May 2002 should be returned.

Why is the Harper government so damned eager to abandon the court cases which may well declare that ALL of the US duties are illegal? Wouldn't our bargaining position be stronger if we won this case?

Say No To Torture!

Digby is asking everyone to post this today.

Ahead of his time

Jack Layton:

Sept. 1, 2006 - Layton suggests talks with Taliban
Sept 2 to Sept 30 - pile-on here, and here, and here, and here, and . . .
Oct. 1, 2006 - British troops in secret truce with the Taliban
Oct. 2, 2006 - Frist: Taliban Should Be in Afghan Gov't

Line of the day

Its not "Great" but it is the line America will remember:

...don't forget to measure.

Moral idiots

This week Republican supporters have endorsed torture, military tribunals, and the suspension of habeus corpus.
So why wouldn't they also ignore Republican pedophilia?
By the way, whatever happened to the Cunningham/Wilkes prostitues-in-the-limousine scandal? And who kept giving Jeff Gannon those White House press passes anyway?

Afghanistan update

The Asia Times has an interesting article about Afghanistan -- interesting as in the old Chinese curse "may you live in interesting times". It covers a lot of ground in describing what has gone wrong there and why and is worth reading in full. Here is its section about future problems:

What lies ahead is, therefore, becoming extremely difficult to predict. Even with 2,500 additional troops [there are about 20,000 US troops there already plus about 20,000 from NATO including 5,400 troops from Britain, 2,500 from Canada and 2,300 from the Netherlands] it is highly doubtful whether NATO can succeed in defeating the Taliban.
For one thing, the Taliban enjoy grassroots support within Afghanistan. There is no denying this ground reality.
Second, the Taliban are becoming synonymous with Afghan resistance. The mindless violations of the Afghan code of honor by the coalition forces during their search-and-destroy missions and the excessive use of force during military operations leading to loss of innocent lives have provoked widespread revulsion among Afghan people. . . .
Third, . . . the non-Pashtun groups in the eastern, northern and western regions also [are beginning] to organize themselves. . . .
Fourth, at a certain point it becomes unavoidable that regional powers will get drawn into the strife . . .

I hope Canada is planning a real exit strategy, even if they won't announce one. By "real" exit strategy, I don't mean just the idiotic "whenever we win" approach, but rather a strategic plan showing both what we as an individual nation can realistically achieve over there and the fail-safe points after which we would reevaluate our military purpose.
I think we're going to need it.