The latest from Iraq is pretty bad

In this Independent article 150 hostages and 19 deaths leave US claims of Iraqi 'peace' in tatters, Patrick Cockburn reporting from Mosul provides a survey of recent Iraq news (pretty bad) and provides a convenient capsule summary of the situation in Iraq now:

Despite the elections on 30 January, the US problem in Iraq remains unchanged. It has not been defeated by the Sunni Arab guerrillas but it has not defeated them either. The US army and Iraqi armed forces control islands of territory while much of Iraq is a dangerous no-man's land.
After overthrowing Saddam Hussein in 2003 the US tried direct rule, dissolving the Iraqi army and state. This provoked the Sunni rebellion. By early 2004 there was a danger that part of the Shia community would also rise up. Elections were promised. The victors at the polls in January were Shia parties, mostly militantly Islamic and often sympathetic to Iran. Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, visited Baghdad this week to stop Shia radicals taking over the Interior and Defence Ministries.
Iraq is now more sectarian. Sunnis boycotted the elections. The Kurds and Shias triumphed. The interim prime minister, Iyad Allawi, despite heavy US support, got only 14 per cent. If the Shia hostages taken on Friday are executed or Shias are forced to flee, then we are closer to a sectarian civil war.
The Sunni insurgency is not going to go away. US generals say there are only 12,000 to 20,000 guerrillas. But the real lesson of the past two years is that, though many of the groups in the resistance are fanatical or semi-criminal, they will still be sheltered by the Sunni community.
If the new Iraqi government succeeds in establishing itself it will be a largely Shia state with no more interest than the Sunnis in retaining a US presence. Iraqis say they sense that the US wants Iraq to be a weak state, and this they are bound to oppose.

Those who live by the sword. . .

die by the sword.
And it couldn't be happening to a more deserving guy. Reports Rock Support for U.N. Nominee

Good, bad, ugly

Good

Patrick Corrigan, Toronto Star

Bad

Chris Britt, The State Journal-Register, Springfield, Ill.

And ugly

Onward Christian Soldiers

Onward Christian soldiers,
marching as to war,
with the cross of Jesus
going on before!
Christ, the royal Master,
leads against the foe;
forward into battle,
see, his banners go.
At the sign of triumph
Satan's host doth flee;
on then, Christian soldiers,
on to victory!
Like a mighty army
moves the Church of God;
Brothers, we are treading
where the saints have trod;
What the saints established
that I hold for true.
what the saints believèd,
that I believe too.
Crown and thrones may perish,
kingdoms rise and wane,
but the Church of Jesus
constant will remain;
Onward, then, ye people,
join our happy throng;
blend with ours your voices
in the triumph song:
glory, laud, and honor,
unto Christ the King;
this through countless ages
men and angels sing.
Onward Christian Soldiers,
marching as to war,
with the cross of Jesus
going on before!

Another Fallujh in the making?

Al Quaim, near the Syrian border, is apparently under attack. In a NYT story entitled At Least 19 Killed in String of Suicide Attacks Across Iraq , which describes attacks all across Iraq, the 8th paragraph reports "In northwestern Iraq near the Syrian border, American military officials continued a virtual siege of the city of Qaim, where suicide bombers drove three cars packed with explosives into an American base on Monday. After the attacks, American armored vehicles backed by helicopters blocked access to the city and fought a major battle with insurgents, killing about two dozen on Tuesday and Wednesday, Iraqi security officials in Qaim said."
And here's how the news is being reported from the Iraqi perspective: Resistance fighters take over Al-Qaim and Resistance Throws Back Savage US Assaults on Al-Qaim
Oh, yes, turning the corner any day now . . . .

Associated Press - Wanker headline

Way to slant the important news, guys. Anti-Gay 'Day of Truth' Signs Up 1,150
Oh, and by the way, Pro-Gay 'Day of Silence' Signs Up 450,000.
Thanks to The Next Hurrah for the link.

Wankers of the day

I like the occasional feature used by Atrios, where he awards someone "wanker of the day" for a paticularly glaring or gratutious bit of lying.
So here's my candidate for today's wanker -- MPs accused of trying to humiliate former Martin aide Ah, yes -- once again, its the kind of stupid politicking for which our Loyal Opposition is so beloved across the land.
If the committee members don't even know what they want to ask these former government aides about, then it means they have no evidence or even any suspicion of any wrongdoing whatsoever.
They're just trying to generate a headline or two -- "Former Liberal aides questioned about contracts" or, more likely, "Liberal aides say they can't remember contract spending" -- and what is truly disgusting is that they don't care if they gratituously trash the reputations of government staff in the process.
Wankers!

How to turn police and prosecutors into thugs

Human Rights Watch issues a report which blows the lid off the pathetic "but they told us they wouldn't do it" excuse Still at Risk: Diplomatic Assurances No Safeguard Against Torture
Saying that 'diplomatic assurances' have been given that a prisoner would not be tortured has allowed many western governments to skirt their own laws against torture by shipping suspected terrorists and others off to Syria, Egypt, Uzbekistan, Yemen, Algeria, Moroko, Russia, Tunisia and Turkey.
The report looks at the United States, of course, but also reviews cases from Canada, Sweden, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Austria and Turkey -- all countries where men and women, even families, have either actually been sent off to be tortured or where courts have stopped government officials from doing this.
Here are the key findings: "individual protection is consistently sacrificed to state interest, . . . even well-intentioned monitoring under diplomatic auspices is ineffectual, and . . . in the end, sending and receiving states have a common interest in pretending assurances are meaningful rather than verifying that they actually are." Their conclusion is that "the practice should stop."
I agree. But not only am I outraged on behalf of the people whose cases are listed in the report, but I also worry about how such practices will threaten the quality of the justice system for all of us.
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Using torture or the threat of torture to keep 'bad guys' locked up is so much easier and quicker, and certainly a lot cheaper, than using highly skilled police and prosecutors with good investigative techniques to develop cases which can be prosecuted in court.
Why bother investigating a case when you can get a confession or an allegation against someone else just by threatening a suspect with torture -- as long as you don't really care whether you got the truth or not. And why bother assembling admissable evidence and putting together a case good enough for court, when its so much easier to just ship suspects off somewhere else -- as long as you don't really care whether the person is actually guilty or not
And if you don't care about truth or justice, then our police and prosecutors no longer need to be intelligent, principled and skilled -- they can just be a gang of thugs. Like they are in Syria and Egypt and Uzbekistan and . . .

Deja vu all over again

CNEWS writes "Conservative Leader Stephen Harper was far more coy about his party's plans . . . " in Harper: No need to wait for report
The Globe writes "Mr. Harper pledged over the weekend that, if given a mandate, he would introduce federal legislation defining marriage as between one man and one woman . . . . [the party] believes the Supreme Court would agree that Parliament has the final say" in Tory same-sex motion rejected
This is what lost Harper the election last June -- a toxic combination of smugness about winning the election, and hypocrisy about running the country.
So here he goes again.
He's already acting "coy" about when he might bring down the government. Well, maybe this is funny for him, maybe all the Tories are laughing about how awful this is for the hated Liberals, but the electorate is not amused. We voted for these guys less than a year ago, because we thought they would do a good job running the country, and we don't want to see Conservatives laughing now about how stupid we all were.
And the Conservatives are STILL outright LYING about how they will manage the same sex marriage issue. They lied all last June, and now they're doing it again.
Restricting marriage to one man/one woman is unconstitutional unless Parliament uses the notwithstanding clause. Hugo Cyr, constitutional law professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal says “Taking away civil marriage rights without using the notwithstanding clause will only guarantee that same sex marriage ends up back before the courts for years to come.” Why are the Conservatives pretending they don't understand this? It doesn't matter how much they wish this wasn't so, the country cannot base its policies and legislation on wishful thinking. And if they lie so easily about this, what else are they going to lie about?

"Is this supposed to be good?"

Over at Pandagon they're having a discussion about The New Culture War. They seem to be focusing on whether government should censor offensive stuff or not -- a discussion which seems pretty pointless to me, because what governments would censor would be swearing and nudity. This would cancel brilliant and thoughtful shows like The Sopranos, and truncate Desperate Housewives -- when what is truly offensive about TV are the junk cultural values expressed by voyeuristic "reality" shows like Growing Up Gotti and The Bachelor, and shows featuring pop-star Lolita wannabes who dress like hookers -- leading to shows like this -- gag me with a spoon.
As I commented at Pandagon, I remember how annoying it was when I was a teenager and my dad would walk in as we were watching TV, look at it for a minute or so, then say with a sarcastic tone in his voice "Is this supposed to be good?"
And then, of course, I did exactly the same thing to my own kids. Because the value of such a skeptical attitude was that it forced me and my sister and brother to decide whether what we were watching actually was any good or not. And if not, then why were we watching it?
Its the reason, today, that there is a lengthy list of shows my husband and I don't bother watching, and neither do my adult children.
So remember those words -- "Is this supposed to be good?" -- and use them.

And check this out too

As well as his "clusterfuck" site described below, James Kunstler also does am "Eyesore of the Month" posting of architectural blunders. Here's one I enjoyed reading:

This June 2003 posting, which Kunstler describes thusly:

The Tang Museum, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York. Architect, Antoine Pradock. This remarkable monstrosity has six backs and no front. The elevation above is what you see from the "street" -- or more precisely the ring road that runs around Skidmore's pod-like campus. Thus, the public "face" of the Tang is its loading dock (with accessory dumpster). Notice the excellent opportunities for skateboard suicide. Predock's own website describes the building as follows: "A stone ramp rises from geologic origins of water shed and limestone caves and culminates in 'one ivory tower,' engaging earth and sky, beginning the journey of encounter. . . " Right, and every Monday at three p.m. winged monkeys fly out of his butt.

Techno hubris and organizational hubris

Wolcott points to this terrific site: Clusterfuck Nation by James Howard Kunstler who writes about our society's mindless and baseless optimism and the coming dark age:

I notice lately that there are two kinds of hubris operating among the 'forward-thinking' classes in America (which is to say, those who are thinking at all). One I call techno-hubris. It represents the idea that there are really no limits to our powers of innovation and it is obviously the product of our experience in the past century, especially of our victory in World War Two and of the 1969 moon landing. The other kind is organizational hubris, the certainty that we can organize our way around the oil bottleneck, global warming, and population overshoot. What both modes of thinking have in common is that neither recognizes the probability that we are moving into a period of discontinuity, turbulence and hardship. Both modes of thinking assume that we can negotiate a smooth transition from where we are now to a new-and-improved human condition.
There is a remarkable consistency in the delusional thinking at every level of American life these days. When Americans think about the future at all, they seem to think it will be pretty much the way we live now. The buyers of 4000 square foot McHouses think that they will be able to continue heating them with cheap natural gas, not to mention commuting seventy miles a day. The stadium builders assume that major league sports will continue just as it is today, with chartered jet planes conveying zillionaire athletes incessently back and forth across the continent. The highway engineers and the municipal planners are focused like lasers on providing more roads and more parking spaces for evermore cars. The architects are designing more skyscrapers, despite the decrepit condition of the electric grid and the frightful situation with our depleting natural gas supply. We're so confident, so sure of ourselves.
When you combine the seven deadly sins with high technology, you get some some really serious problems. You get turbo-sins. It's dreadful to imagine what goeth after turbo-pride.

Great stuff, what? He is one of those writers who says what I realized I was thinking when I read what he wrote.
And here's more:

Herbert Hoover was vilified for doing nothing about the depression that followed the stock market crash. When we look back on the years of George W. Bush we will marvel at his failure to lead, especially his failure to inform the public that our habits of daily life would have to change, that we could not continue to burn twenty million barrels of oil a day, and spend money we hadn't earned; that we desperately had to reform our suburban land development habits, that the WalMarts and other predatory corporations had to be restrained in their systematic destruction of local economies, that our railroads needed to be rebuilt, that our borders needed to be defended, that our local small farmers needed to be supported, that our industries needed to be re-scaled and retained here, that corporate chiseling had to be policed, that finance had to be qualitatively different than a craps game in some casino.
The Hooverization of George W. Bush has begun. Only it will go much worse for Bush. His fall could be so hard, swift and awful that he may not be allowed to finish his second term. That's how stunned the public and even their entrenched oligarchical elites will be as the economy tanks and our national life begins to unravel. The Republican majority will go down with him, including such arrant villians as Tom Delay and the hosts of corporate CEO chiselers who sold out their workers and their country. They can pray all the want. It won't help.

So what can we all do to protect ourselves in the coming dark age? Well, I don't think I'll be moving to the country to live off the land -- my dad was a farmer, and living off the land is just too hard. But it sounds like we should do whatever we can to get out of debt and mortgages, to simplify our lives, and live off the grid as much as we can.
And hoard stuff -- like pepper, yeah, pepper is good . . .

The Choice

This is why there is no law or rule or religion which should cover these decisions. It must be the woman's own choice, painful as this choice can be -- Hard Labor

Sister Gatling Gun of Mindfulness

You might notice a new link to the right, to Unitarian Jihad First explosed to the world by the San Francisco Chronicle, it is spreading all over the progressive blogosphere as the rolling waters of reasonableness overwhelm and smooth out the right-wing ruts of righteousness.
The Naming Committee has given me the UJ name of "Sister Gatling Gun of Mindfulness" which I will wear proudly as a sign of membership in the vast centre-wing conspiracy. And you, too, can get your own UJ name, just click on the link.
Here is the UJ creed:

We are Unitarian Jihad. We are everywhere. We have not been born again, nor have we sworn a blood oath. We do not think that God cares what we read, what we eat or whom we sleep with. Brother Neutron Bomb of Serenity notes for the record that he does not have a moral code but is nevertheless a good person, and Unexalted Leader Garrote of Forgiveness stipulates that Brother Neutron Bomb of Serenity is a good person, and this is to be reflected in the minutes.
Beware! Unless you people shut up and begin acting like grown-ups with brains enough to understand the difference between political belief and personal faith, the Unitarian Jihad will begin a series of terrorist-like actions. We will take over television studios, kidnap so-called commentators and broadcast calm, well-reasoned discussions of the issues of the day. We will not try for "balance" by hiring fruitcakes; we will try for balance by hiring non-ideologues who have carefully thought through the issues.
We are Unitarian Jihad. We will appear in public places and require people to shake hands with each other. (Sister Hand Grenade of Love suggested that we institute a terror regime of mandatory hugging, but her motion was not formally introduced because of lack of a quorum.) . . . We are Unitarian Jihad, and our motto is: "Sincerity is not enough." We have heard from enough sincere people to last a lifetime already. Just because you believe it's true doesn't make it true. Just because your motives are pure doesn't mean you are not doing harm. Get a dog, or comfort someone in a nursing home, or just feed the birds in the park. Play basketball. Lighten up. The world is not out to get you, except in the sense that the world is out to get everyone. Brother Gatling Gun of Patience notes that he's pretty sure the world is out to get him because everyone laughs when he says he is a Unitarian. There were murmurs of assent around the room, and someone suggested that we buy some Congress members and really stick it to the Baptists. But this was deemed against Revolutionary Principles, and Brother Gatling Gun of Patience was remanded to the Sunday Flowers and Banners committee.
People of the United States! We are Unitarian Jihad! We can strike without warning. Pockets of reasonableness and harmony will appear as if from nowhere! Nice people will run the government again! There will be coffee and cookies in the Gandhi Room after the revolution.

Different verse, same as the first

I added The Poorman to my list of links because I found I often laughed at his posts. But here is one that is not so funny.
He links to the WP story about that judicial conference that just about everyone in the left blogosphere is writing about today with many good insights and conclusions. Here's what The Poor Man says about Mandate Madness!: ". . . it's the same folks it was thirty, forty years ago, and they've dusted off all the old talking points . . . it's fags now, fags and immigrants and heathens, dear, because kikes and niggers went out with Beatle boots . . . the hour is getting late. Everyone in America had a pretty tough day on 9/11, and in the days and weeks and months that followed . . . a lot of people found certainty and security by making themselves believe that the universe had suddenly become a totally different place, where the President . . . had become this messianic figure, capable of resolving the world's most tortuous and least resolvable problems with one neat and decisive stroke . . . such a great and good man requires great and diabolical enemies, and these enemies became anyone who doubted - liberals, Democrats, foreigners, reporters, academics, professionals, whoever. It makes you feel better. It's intoxicating. But it doesn't have much relation to reality. When reality conflicts with fantasy, you can either abandon the fantasy, and deal with the hangover that follows, or pull the soft, warm covers over your head. And the harsher the reality, the nastier the hangover, and the deeper under the covers you hide to avoid it. But the hour is getting late, now, and you would do well to take off the beer goggles and see who you’ve been sharing that bed with."