One of these things is not like the other

Three phrases struck me from the most recent Sy Hersh article about the Bush Administration Sunni-Shiite shennigans in the Middle East.
Short summary: the Bush Administration (ie Cheney) is, at the behest of the Saudis, now supporting the Sunnis -- even though they are the Iraqi insurgents and Al Qaeda -- instead of the Shiites -- even though they are the majority in Iraq -- because the Shiites are the majority in the new bogeyman Iran. And Lebannon and Hezbollah and Syria and the Saudi government are in there somewhere too, and there's apparently lots of money floating around for off-the-books secret operations.
Anyway, back to the three phrases.
First was this description from Patrick Clawson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy:

The new diplomatic approach ..."shows a real degree of effort and sophistication as well as a deftness of touch not always associated with this Administration."

Second was a description from "a former senior intelligence official" of why John Negroponti quit as ubermeister of US intelligence:

Negroponte "had problems with this Rube Goldberg policy contraption for fixing the Middle East."

Third was this description from "a former National Security Council aide" of the CIA reaction:

"The C.I.A. is asking, 'What's going on?' They're concerned, because they think it's amateur hour."

Now, which of these three is not like the others?
And, given the history and past performance, which would you tend to believe is the most accurate description of what the Bush Administration is now doing in the Middle East?

Punny -- very punny!

Found on a comment thread at Firedoglake

Logician: Here is an example of a syllogism. The cat has four paws. Isidore and Fricot both have four paws. Therefore Isidore and Fricot are cats.
Old Gentleman: My dog has got four paws.
Logician: Then it’s a cat.
Old Gentleman: So then logically speaking, my dog must be a cat?
Logician: Logically, yes. But the contrary is also true. . . Another syllogism. All cats die. Socrates is dead. Therefore Socrates is a cat.
Old Gentleman: And he’s got four paws. That’s true. I’ve got a cat named Socrates.
Logician: There you are, you see . . .

This logic gives me pause.
I just don’t know if it gives me four of them.

Groan....

Shorter

Shorter Stockwell Day:

Don't worry. Be happy.

Well, as long as you're not Mahar Arar, of course.

Bring it on

So some researchers asked about 400 young teenagers whether they had ever seen pornography and if so, how much.
Is anyone surprised that a hundred of the boys replied "yes, lots"?
For boys, that's not an admission, it's a boast.

Great line of the day

Yglesias talks about the US sabatoge of Israel-Syria talks:

. . . unlike American Middle East hawks, Israelis actually have to live in the middle of the Arab world and are relatively ill-served by the sort of grandiose transformational schemes the administration likes to come up with the justify their increasingly rudderless approach to the region.

Great line of the day

At The Galloping Beaver, Dave summarizes the sad and sorry Bush administration incompetence in dealing with Al Qaeda.

Al Qaeda survives because Bush let it survive. It grew stronger because his rubber-stamp congress endorsed every thoughless move Bush made. It may well be within reach of formulating another devastating attack because Bush and his cargo culture found al Qaeda an inconvenient barrier to an agenda from which they would not vary. They wanted to go into Iraq, they were going to go into Iraq and Iraq is where they ended up. The Republicans are not the capable military crew they purport to be. They talk a good story but when the truth of their accomplishments are analyzed they emerge as completely incompetent. In terms of foreign policy and global strategy, nobody has produced worse results than Bush and flock of war-bangers who supported him. They're good at beating people up, but they don't have the smarts to actually win a fight.

Emphasis mine. And not only are they incapable of developing a winning strategy, they have the attention span of a dung beetle.

JimBobby sings "Enviro-man"

Inspired by Ross, JimBobby writes a paean to our prime minister's new environmental sensitivity -- Sing Us a Song, You're Enviro-Man:

. . .
Now, Steve is an egghead Prime Minister,
There's a pit bull named Baird at his side,
Who snarls and snaps about emission caps,
While his limousine's idling outside.
And the Speaker is practicing politics,
As the insults and taunts fill the air.
While the climate is changing, they're just rearranging,
The Titanic's three hundred deck chairs.
La la la, de de da
La la, de de da da da
Sing us a song, you're Enviro-Man,
Tell us another one, Steve.
We're all in the mood for Kyoto compliance,
So, what have you got up your sleeve?

Here is the audio -- because you must hear it sung in JimBobby's inimitable "willie-nelson" voice!

Dastardly Librulls!

Oh, those dastardly Librulls! Singlehandedly stopping the urgent Air India investigation in its tracks -- a mere 22 years since it the disaster happened and a mere five years since the Anti-Terrorism Act was passed.
Why, it must be more Librull Corruption. Yeah, that's it. That'll be a winner theme.
And Harper lunged at it like a salmon to the spoon.
Vancouver Sun was following the Peggy Noonan Principle -- Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to! -- in their heavy-on-the-innuendo, light-on-the-facts article today, implying that Dion is opposed to extending some post-9/11 anti-terrorist legal provisions because he is trying to shield the father-in-law of a loyal MP from being questioned about the Air-India bombing. Here's the nut:

The Vancouver Sun has learned that [Mississauga-Brampton MP Navdeep Singh] Bains's father-in-law, Darshan Singh Saini, is on the RCMP's potential list of witnesses at investigative hearings designed to advance the Air India criminal probe.
But the ability to hold those hearings will be lost March 1 if parts of the Anti-Terrorism Act expire as expected, after the Liberals recently withdrew support for extending the provision being used to hold them.

Further down, the article passes lightly over the fact that the RCMP has been "preparing" for these investigative hearings since 2003 -- more than three years ago. And not even mentioned is the fact that they knew even in 2003 that the Anti-Terrorism Act was due to expire in 2007, so why didn't they get cracking on these hearings a little earlier? Of course, its always easier to blame politicians than it is to take responsibility for an inadequate investigation.
This Toronto Star article provides additional context:

Some Liberals have privately groused that Dion’s stance on the anti-terrorism provisions has been influenced by militant Sikh and Muslim groups, members of which helped secure the party leadership victory last December. Bains was instrumental in swinging the Sikh vote behind Dion.
But Liberals weren’t about to let Harper get away with linking Bains, however tenuously, to the Air India bombing. They repeatedly demanded an apology.
“The prime minister has just confirmed that to him, partisan advantage is everything — the truth does not matter, it is the allegation that counts,” bellowed an incensed Ralph Goodale, Liberal House leader.
“He just proved his devious and deceitful behaviour and he does not pay any attention to the consequences to any Canadian.” . . .
Dion said the fact that Saini’s name has been leaked to the media, when investigative hearings are supposed to be confidential, demonstrates why the anti-terrorism provisions shouldn’t be renewed.
“It’s an additional consideration that (confirms to) us that there is a problem with that because it’s smearing the reputation of somebody like this,” he told reporters.
That Bains has also been smeared demonstrates the “kind of guilt by association that this kind of provision may create.”
The issue appeared to help galvanize the Liberal caucus after a difficult caucus meeting earlier Wednesday. Sources said Dion appealed for a united front on the anti-terrorism measures, telling MPs it’s a crucial test of his leadership and warning that those who defy him may not be allowed to run for the party in the next election.

Heroes

What an amazing story, from Tuesday's Globe and Mail: Heroes from the sky

Alone, drifting on an ice floe in the Arctic dark, hunter Billy Wolki was facing the possibility of a slow, cold death. Then came ... Heroes from the sky
By Joe Friesen
Bill Wolki, an experienced Inuvialuit polar bear hunter and guide, was entering his 12th hour of frozen solitude on the ice.
He was thinking of his father, who had died in Arctic waters more than 20 years earlier when a boat laden with caribou meat overturned in bad weather. He was thinking of his older brother, who died more than 10 years ago, when his fishing boat capsized. And he was thinking of himself, wondering if his time had come.
Hours before, Mr. Wolki had set out in his aluminum fishing boat to collect a dead seal from an ice floe. He planned to use the seal as polar bear bait, for the benefit of a hunting tourist from Las Vegas.
As he always did, Mr. Wolki tied one end of a long rope to land, so he could pull himself back to safety. But when he was out on the ice floe, 10 metres from solid ground, the wind picked up and the ice began to move. The rope broke away.
Mr. Wolki was propelled into the unknown, adrift in the Arctic without a paddle.
His wife, Frances, and the American tourist watched helplessly. Fortunately, they had a satellite phone and could call for help. But there are few places as remote as Parry Peninsula in the Northwest Territories.
It took more than six hours for a Canadian Forces C-130 Hercules, dispatched from Winnipeg's 17 Wing, to reach the 70th parallel. It was joined in the air search by two Twin Otters from Yellowknife, but by then it was near midnight, and scanning the dark, barren ice was hopeless.
On the ground, a team of Inuit Rangers on snowmobiles came screaming across the ice from Paulatuk, four hours away. Among them was Mr. Wolki's brother, Hank. The Rangers were able to discern Mr. Wolki's last known location, and lined up their snowmobile lights to point the air search in the right direction.
They spotted Mr. Wolki crouched under his boat. A radio was dropped from the Hercules, and Mr. Wolki was able to speak with Sergeant David Cooper, a military Search and Rescue Technician.
He told Sgt. Cooper that he was unhurt, but he was cold and lonely. He had no food, no survival gear and, most importantly, no gun. He was scared that a polar bear might attack. Sgt. Cooper considered whether to attempt a rescue.
The risks were enormous. They would be aiming at a strip of ice 500 metres wide.
The sky was black, save for gently falling parachute flares. The wind was howling at 50 kilometres an hour.
Their trajectory would be entirely over water. If they came up short, they would smash through a thin crust of ice, drop into the frigid ocean and almost certainly die. If they overshot the mark, they would land on jagged, jutting ice that could leave them crippled.
The back of the C-130 Hercules opened wide, more than 900 metres above the Arctic Ocean. Outside, the temperature had dropped below -50 with the wind chill. Sgt. Cooper looked at his partner. They decided to jump.
Weighed down by more than 50 kilograms of extra equipment, they plummeted to the ground at a speed of six metres a second, falling straight down and slightly backwards.
At the last second, they pulled back on the parachute controls, slowing themselves enough to ensure a soft landing.
Mr. Wolki, dazed somewhat by his circumstances, watched them from a distance.
The SARTECS began unpacking their gear. Seven minutes passed before he even approached them. The first thing he asked for was a rifle.
Trusting that the polar bear hunter knew the dangers better than they did, the SARTECS gave Mr. Wolki one of the two compact rifles they had brought with them. He was immediately relieved. Seal carcasses — the polar bear bait that had sparked this crisis — were frozen in the ice barely 20 metres away.
The trio fought the elements together as they struggled to set up a tent.
The wind blew the canopy around like a flag, and the tent parts didn't operate well with the cold. Eventually, the group ran out of flares.
After 1½ hours, they succeeded in getting the tent up, and finally had some shelter. They lit a stove for warmth.
The three of them, with plenty of food, water and warmth, could now wait to be rescued.
They talked for several hours. Mr. Wolki told stories about bears he had hunted. He talked about the family members he had lost, and about his fear that he had been on the verge of joining them.
Even had they met in other circumstances, Sgt. Cooper said, they probably would have been friends.
The next day, they were expecting to be rescued before noon, but a helicopter hired by the Canadian Forces from a private U.S. search-and-rescue company was delayed by bad weather. A Canadian Forces Cormorant helicopter en route from Comox, B.C., to Whitehorse was diverted to retrieve them.
Mr. Wolki enjoyed a tearful reunion with his family.
He promised his brother, Hank, he would never make the same mistake again.
On Monday, Mr. Wolki was back out on the land, hunting polar bears.
It's what he does, he told his brother.

W.A.T.B.

It hasn't even been six months, and already the American lumber industry is complaining about the softwood deal.

Compare and contrast

Compare and contrast: here's the old Liberal government taxes and tarrifs page, and the "new" Conservative government taxes and tarrifs page.
Which one actually attempts to inform us about taxes and tarrifs?
Fairness compells me to report that I trolled through a number of other past and present Government of Canada websites, and other than a lamentable tendency to continue to call the Harper government "Canada's new government" in every press release, and a greater propensity for the minister's photo at the top of the page, the other government pages aren't nearly so totally partisan and promotional as this Finance page.
But here's the page that started me off on this search: its the one on the Agriculture site that's about the barley marketing plebicite now going on. The page is titled The Path Toward Marketing Choice for Western Wheat and Barley. Gee, I wonder what point of view they're trying to promote?

Another last king of Scotland?

Dallas Observer commentator Jim Schutze initiates the first "mainstream media" discussion I have seen about whether George Bush will go down in history as a war criminal:

. . . Writing on the op-ed page of The Dallas Morning News recently, [political science professor Matthew Wilson]went on to cite immigration reform, expanded free trade and global democratization as themes of the Bush presidency that will be of interest to scholars in the years to come.
I don't think so. Let me ask this bluntly: How much scholarly or general interest is there in Idi Amin's monetary policy? Long before anybody can get to the administrative details, history must address the butchery issue.
Is the Iraq war of a fabric with the American history of warfare? Or does the fact that we initiated a war against a nation that had not attacked us place the Iraq war in a dark category of its own? We see Democrats like Hillary Clinton trying to parse their patriotism now by speaking as if the holocaust in Iraq is the fault of the Iraqis, but what if that's bullshit?
These bombs that kill 150 human beings at a time, that send children flying from apartments and litter the pavement with burned skulls: What if the conclusion of history is that these events would not have taken place if George W. Bush had not decided to launch this war?
And what about us? What if, on careful examination, history concludes that Bush/Rove were able to knit together the overwhelming support we gave them at the outset of this war by a subliminal manipulation of our own anti-Arab, anti-Muslim xenophobia?
Afghanistan was war. The Taliban sheltered bin Laden. But Iraq is not Afghanistan.
The questions around Bush and Iraq are going to be whether Iraq was war or holocaust. I don't draw any direct parallel here between Iraq and the Nazi Holocaust, which stands unique in human history. But man can make other human holocausts—terrible mass murder expressing only evil, not any legitimate national interest.
I don't know on which side of the line the answer will fall. But I do know what the question is. Long before history develops a big interest in George W. Bush's immigration policy, historians will have to labor long and hard on the question of whether Bush was the white Idi Amin . . .

Much of their answer will likely depend on what happens next.
Saddam can be blamed for the deaths of half a million Iraqi children, not due to the Gulf War itself but due to the UN sanctions which resulted from his continued anti-semetism, his posturing and blustering through the 1990s about his non-existant weapons programs. But Bush's total is now ratcheting upwards of that.
If the Democrats succeed in shutting down the Iraq war, and if the Middle East returns to some level of stability, then history may well just find Bush to be just an incompetent, misguided by the neocons but fundamentally ineffective. But if Bush starts a war with Iran and engulfs the Middle East in war, with Israel, the Saudis, Lebannon, Syria and the Turks getting involved, resulting in the needless deaths of millions of people, then chances are likely pretty good that Bush will be one of history's war criminals. And the judgement on those who aided and abetted him won't be kind, either.

Great line of the day

From The Poor Man about diplomacy vs war:

One school of thought has it that all war represents a failure of diplomacy. Our current smart set on the Right, on the other hand, presupposes that all diplomacy represents a failure to go to war. “Negotiating doesn’t work” is truth so basic to this world view that it is never questioned, even when all evidence points out that, yeah, it actually does. It is a fact that the North Koreans are irrational, disagreeable, and enjoy making trouble. While this makes it a real bother to negotiate with them, it also makes it necessary, because these are precisely the sort of people who should not have the bomb. And it is also a fact that the North Koreans have very little in common with us, and have many goals which are entirely at odds with ours. This also makes negotiating hard, but, then again, there isn’t much point in negotiating with people who agree with you on everything. While it might seem a lot simpler to just invade and be done with it, this course of action would kill hundreds of thousands of people, and, in the ensuing chaos, put DPRK’s nuclear arsenal up for grabs. And, not to nitpick, but it is customary for invasions to involve these things called “armies”, and ours is currently bogged down in Iraq, a result of the last time we decided that diplomacy was for pussies. There’s probably a lesson there.

Emphasis mine.

Evolution of Dance

Talking cats and dogs