Fire away!

I don't intend to snark about the innocent Afghanis who have been slaughtered by the Taliban suicide bombers and attacks. The civilian deaths that NATO troops are causing in Afghanistan are in no way comparable.
But I did think this story made it sound like NATO is writing off civilian deaths as just unfortunate collateral damage:

'If these things happen, they are mistakes, it's never intentional,' [NATO secretary-general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer]said . . . 'It can happen because our enemies use children and civilians as human shields.'

But our hearts are pure:

Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor, who was also in Quebec City, called for the civilian deaths to be put into perspective.
'From our point of view, a civilian gets killed and it's an error,' he said. 'But just recall that last week the Taliban killed 35 policemen and civilians in Kabul and they continue to do this. They continue to blow bombs off in their cities with indiscriminate actions. They don't care who gets killed.'

We, on the other hand, do.
But apparently, we fire anyway.
UPDATE: Boris has more at The Galloping Beaver: Self-Defeating Prophecy

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!
'Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Epitaphs

Digby highlights Sidney Blumenthal's new piece in Salon about how the Bush Court is disintegrating.
Here's the classic line, quoting some unnamed Bush legal official:

"Not everything we've done has been illegal."

Sorta gobsmacks you, doesn't it? How can one respond to that -- well, at least they have SOME standards? Or, so this is the gang that brought dignity back to the White House? Its an epitaph for the whole Bush administration. Though speaking of epitaphs, here's one from George Will, too:

When, against the urgings of the Israelis, we pressed for the elections that overthrew Fatah, who we were backing and put in Hamas, Condoleezza Rice said nobody saw it coming. Those four words are the epitaph of this administration.

Great post of the day

From Kung Fu Monkey, Irrational Fear? IRRATIONAL?

The roller coaster in Montreal was plainly cobbled together from demolished lake-house decks and railroad ties. So although I waited for a half-hour in line with my comedian friends, I felt perfectly justified in stepping into the car, considering my options, and then stepping right on out the other side.
Oh, how they mocked. But my momentary cowardice still allowed me to retain a shred of dignity, and so was worth indulging. Because if I'd gotten on that ride, my friends would have actually heard me scream. Like a little girl. Like a little girl who just woke up because somebody licked her foot. Like a little girl who just woke up because somebody licked her foot, and then when she turns on the light there's an evil clown sitting in the middle of her bedroom, eating her pony.
There's no comeback from the clown-pony scream . . .

Read the whole thing, it gets better.
And don't miss the comments -- more stories to be read with the lights on. Because, as James Wolcott says, we all owe it to our friends to find some new stories:

. . . it's also imperative that I pay attention to what others say because, to be frank, I'm running dangerously short of personal, dispensable anecdotes. The winsome, self-mocking, namedroppy anecdotes that stood me in good stead for so many years have acquired so many age spots and faded hues that I can't bring myself to haul them out of the potato sack one more time.

You can set your clock by them

Kagro X at Daily Kos notes that June is the month when the Bush administration talks about closing Guantanamo.
And looking at the BBC Iraq timeline, September seems to be the month when Iraq is really turning a corner, while January is the month when significant progress is being made. April is the month when casualties skyrocket, thus demonstrating the imminence of American success.
At this rate, the US should be achieving the milestone of 5,000 troops killed right around the time of the 2008 Presidential election.
Or maybe faster -- now the American troops are being told to patrol on foot because Iraqi bombs are getting too good. And Robert Farley at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes that the return to "sweeps" is a demonstration of bankrupt strategy:

. . . maybe this offensive [in western Baquba] will achieve what no other counter-insurgency offensive has achieved (barring perhaps some minor local successes), and actually trap the 500 or so fighters that look like everyone else amid a civilian population that hasn't fled. If history is any guide, however, they won't; they'll catch and kill some, many more will escape, plenty of civilians will either be killed or have their houses destroyed, and little of any significance will be accomplished.

Somewhere else in the blogosphere, a link I cannot find now, I also read a question about what are they're doing in Baquba when it was supposed to be Baghdad that the surge was going to target. Oh well, that was last month's idea. Another day, another "plan" to win Iraq!

Try to imagine how little I care

'Serious flaws' in Saddam's trial, says HRW
The criticism is that the court "essentially assumed" Saddam's guilt, that the judges did not always maintain an impartial demeanour, and that the defendants were not allowed to properly confront witnesses.
Try to imagine how little I care.
Hussein had spent the previous 50 years killing tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis, including members of his own family. At least he got a trial, and while it may not have been as perfectly fair as it could have been, it was not a travesty of justice.
I don't understand why organizations like Human Rights Watch should spend their time trying to generate any sympathy for Saddam Hussein.

Great line of the day

Today Digby writes about the concern-troll pseudo-Democrat in the New York Times who thinks Democrats can get pro-life votes if they just start lying about whether they really support abortion. What Dibgy says:

The pro-choice movement has never made a moral judgment against any woman who chose to bear a child. In fact, we worked hard to allow her to be able to make that decision freely by working to eliminate the stigma that was once attached to divorce, out of wedlock births and other social restrictions on motherhood. We support every program out there that will help her raise her children if she decides to have them. We believe that women and men alike should be able to make enough money to support a family with a decent wage.
The other side treats women with unwanted pregnancies as either selfish sluts or childlike innocents who can't be trusted to make moral decisions at all. They would deny women birth control to help them avoid such circumstances and they believe the traditional nuclear family is the only legitimate way to raise children.
In other words the anti-choice movement makes it simultaneously more difficult for women to have children and more difficult for them to avoid it. So let's not fool ourselves. It's not about children. It's about women. And that means it is simply more conservative resistance to the long march of progress this country has made toward equal rights for all its citizens. The same philosophy that fought tooth and nail against every advance made to ensure that this is truly a free country by denying equal rights to all its citizens also animates those who argue that the rights of the fetus are paramount. It's just another way of ensuring that the rights of women aren't.

Emphasis mine.

More on Edwards

Another John Edwards hit piece, with no substance and a lot of vague innuendo.
Because if Edwards can get the democratic nomination, he would be unstoppable as a presidential candidate.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth Edwards is breaking new ground by speaking at the San Francisco Pride Parade.
Interesting contrast, isn't it -- in some Canadian pride parades, the politicians are so thick there is talk that they have to be limited just so they don't overwhelm the real participants.

Overreaction

Joe Friesen at the Globe is becoming one of my "go-to" writers -- everything he covers is interesting, well-written and well-researched. Lately he has been covering the Saskatchewan high school student suspended because he told his classmates alcohol is worse than marijuana -- which, of course, it is.
The more I read about this story, the more obvious it is that this was an hysterical overreaction on the part of school officials -- drama queens who would rather lock down their school and call in the RCMP instead of just talking to an intimidatingly-brilliant 15-year-old boy. I guess he's just too scary!

Great line of the day

From Some Guy with a Website (August J. Pollak):

It seems almost insane how right-wingers are in some advanced state of denial that there might be a president in the near future who isn't George W. Bush, let alone isn't a Republican. It continues to fuel my partial interest in seeing Clinton become president just for the entertainment value.
It might be useful to get a lot of Senators on record right now about their feelings on signing statements, because if Hillary Clinton becomes president next year I'm pretty sure a lot of them are going to have a massive epiphany about Executive powers.

Emphasis mine.

Ohhh, hot!

It is, of course, completely trivial and ridiculous to focus on what political candidates look like.
But all this pundit swooning over how sexy the Republicans are is ridiculous too.
Compare this group:



to this one:


The only way these three could be considered sexy is if "hotness" is now an index of balding, jowly, squinty-eyed, pudgy, double-chinned, wispy-haired and bulbous-nosed.
Oh, yeah, mama, bring it on!

Infuriating phrases

The Cursor refers us to this Telegraph contest for infuriating phrases -- like this:

. . . Stakeholders will be fully engaged in a consultation exercise breaking down barriers, pushing the envelope towards a seamless, one-stop shop service. Safety and value for money will be paramount so we are investing a funding stream to put in place a supportive multidisciplinary team to head up this exciting upcoming project, provide local ownership and robust clinical governance. Doing nothing is not an option...

But I think the Telegraph missed one. The world's most infuriating phrase is this one -- Homeland Security spokesperson Fran Townsend's statement about the US failure to capture Osama Bin Laden:

"It's a success that hasn't occured yet."

Great post of the day

I was just going to quote a line or two from this, but the whole thing expresses so clearly what I feel. From Ian Welsh, Hanging Is Too Good For Them:

. . . Let's be real clear - people were raped and tortured at the behest of America's government, with the knowledge and approval of the highest members of government. This rot didn't start at the bottom, it spread from the very very top.
And it was known in 2004, and the US re-elected George Bush anyway.
I'll never forget that, and until George Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and a number of generals are behind bars, I'll never entirely forgive it either. There is no greater crime against humanity than torturing someone. There is nothing more despicable than rape. And there is nothing more pathetic than senior officers refusing to accept responsibility for what their soldiers do, especially when there is every evidence they knew.
Abu Ghraib was the grave of America's soft power; of its reputation as, for all its complicity in other countries unfortunate policies, a basically decent nation that didn't step over the line. It is when bin Laden's rants about the US were given weight, and for many Muslims, made true.
It's when the US became no better than those it fights. Oh, "pre-emptive war", for which the US hung Nazis, had pushed the US close - war based on lies, on classic big lie propaganda scare mongering no different in nature than anything any fascist or totalitarian dictatorship would use, for all that "reporters" bent over backwards to help the administration spread their lies, had pushed the US close to evil.
But Abu Ghraib sealed the deal in the eyes of the world.
America the Good, the city on the Hill, had become a country that tortured. And then, in 2004, in full knowledge of that torture, the US's citizens re-elected George Bush.
There's no fall so far that there can't be redemption. But redemption in this case means facing up to what happened. And that means, in part, that George Bush and his enablers have to go to jail. Really, they should probably be hung, and hanging is too good for them, but since their crimes were those against all human kindness and decency; against all standards of civilized behaviour, the death penalty is not appropriate. Let them rot in jail.
Until the US does this, until the US cleans house, many in the rest of the world will always believe that it could happen again - that George Bush was not; is not, just an aberration, but he is what America is becoming, that your system of "checks and balances" is so broken, so non-functional, that the country is ripe for demagoguery and totalitarian impulses of the worst and darkest kind.
I hope, as someone who believed in America as a bastion of freedom, for all its flaws; that you do clean house. Failure to do so will not just have moral consequences, it will have realpolitik ones as well.

Emphasis mine.
I agree. Unless there is truth and reconciliation, it will take a long, long time -- 50 years? 75? a century? -- certainly the rest of my lifetime, and perhaps my children's as well -- before the world might trust the United States again, or believe then when they say they stand for justice.

Summing up Harper

Two recent Globe and Mail columns about Harper and the Conservatives provide a lot of food for thought.
Macleans magazine Megapundit site summarizes the columns of Rex Murphy and Lawrence Martin summarizing our recent session of parliament:

In The Globe and Mail, Rex Murphy says it’s not so much “the arcane principles of equalization, or the particular dispute on the Atlantic Accord that has hurt the Harper government,” but rather its attitude in dealing with it. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s dismissal of the complaint - "Our government is not in the process of making any side deals for a few extra votes” - is evidence, he suggests, of “a chilly haughtiness that has become all too readily the signature key of the Harper administration.
“This is not an attitude that will widen his quite closeted appeal. And it is surely not an attitude that will have the multitudes strewing palms on the road when he seeks a re-lease on the comforts of 24 Sussex Dr.”
The Globe’s Lawrence Martin is of like mind. Referring to published accounts of Stephen Harper’s early life by William Johnson and Preston Manning, he attempts to psychoanalyze the Prime Minister’s “angry-man syndrome,” which he says dominated this nearly-ended session of Parliament. “The Harper idea of consensus-building was through consultations - with his own mind,” Martin writes. “His life in the cauldron of politics has seemingly taken away soft edges, making him even more partisan and more contemptuous than other practitioners of the sport.”

"Real" Questions

So Chris Matthews is at a Washington conference asking Hilary questions about Scooter Libby and finally the audience starts yelling at him to "ask a real question". Then Hilary chimes in with "A question about the people in this audience and not what goes on inside of Washington." Matthews was visibly upset at first but finally he went along with it and switched to a question about the labour movement.
I wonder if Tweety will think about this at all.