Friday, July 3, 2009
Politburo Mulls Airbrushing Reagan
Barbara Hollingsworth, Washington Examiner:
At Wednesday’s Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Board meeting, chairman H.R. Crawford – a former District Council member and Marion Barry confidante – told fellow Board members that he has heard talk on Capitol Hill about yanking former President Ronald Reagan’s name off the local airport and returning it to its previous generic moniker: National Airport.
“It was just a discussion. We’re not aware of anything specific,” MWAA spokeswoman Tara Hamilton later told The Examiner.
The right-wing nutcases keep saying we’ve been saddled with a socialist government. But I dunno, that’s more Soviet. (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:05 am Comments (10)
Rule Of Law By Military Coup*
That’s different. Here’s a Honduran lawyer who says the old Latin American standby is a step forward. Octavio Sanchez lays out the constitutional case for the ouster of the president by the military in Honduras, with consent of several elected and appointed authorities, heralds a bright new day. Christian Science Monitor:
Tegucigalpa, Honduras - Sometimes, the whole world prefers a lie to the truth. The White House, the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and much of the media have condemned the ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya this past weekend as a coup d’état.
That is nonsense.
In fact, what happened here is nothing short of the triumph of the rule of law.
…
Continuismo – the tendency of heads of state to extend their rule indefinitely – has been the lifeblood of Latin America’s authoritarian tradition. The Constitution’s provision of instant sanction might sound draconian, but every Latin American democrat knows how much of a threat to our fragile democracies continuismo presents. In Latin America, chiefs of state have often been above the law. The instant sanction of the supreme law has successfully prevented the possibility of a new Honduran continuismo.
The Supreme Court and the attorney general ordered Zelaya’s arrest for disobeying several court orders compelling him to obey the Constitution. He was detained and taken to Costa Rica. Why? Congress needed time to convene and remove him from office. With him inside the country that would have been impossible. This decision was taken by the 123 (of the 128) members of Congress present that day.
Don’t believe the coup myth. The Honduran military acted entirely within the bounds of the Constitution. The military gained nothing but the respect of the nation by its actions.
I am extremely proud of my compatriots. Finally, we have decided to stand up and become a country of laws, not men. From now on, here in Honduras, no one will be above the law.
Whole thing here.
A Washington Post op-ed, meanwhile, offers a Zelaya backgrounder and posits he has no one to blame for himself. Here’s another at the NYPost: “Obama ‘meddles’ in Honduras, choose wrong side.” Not to be confused with backing off in support of the wrong side.
Legal Insurrection wonders, but not much, which side the United States is going to be on when it comes to tyrants.
Gateway on the other big pro-democracy protests the Obama admin is ignoring … the ones in Honduras in favor of rule of law by coup.
Big Fausta news and commentary roundup.
* Which, to clarify, looks like a good thing and constitutionally mandated, if ironic given the region’s history.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:54 am Comments (3)
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Missing
Believed captured in Afghanistan. An American soldier apparently wandered off his base. Washington Post: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:06 am Comments (5)
Whack Now
That’s the advice from John Bolton, who explains on today’s Washington Post op-ed page that President Obama’s mullah-coaxing plans make less sense now than ever. It’s time to greenlight Israel, if Israel isn’t already greenlighting herself. There’s a couple of other ways that could work, though. Theoretically. If someone else was president. Bolton first: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:43 am Comments (3)
Obama To Troops: “WTF?”
The news out of Afghanistan yesterday was bookended by a couple of Washington Post reports.
Bob Woodward on the ground at Camp Leatherneck reported this morning in an article ridiculously headlined, Preventing Another Iraq/US Says Key to Success in Afghanistan: Economic, Not Military, that the Obama admin considers it a “new era.”
The headline is not Woodward’s fault, except to the extent he buried and obfuscated his lede. He reports after the jump that National Security Advisor James L. Jones briefed commanders on the ground that there won’t be more troops, that requests for more troops will prompt a “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” response in the Oval Office.
That’s your lede, Bob. There’s your hed, Washington Post copy desk. Obama to Troops: “WTF?” (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 12:10 am Comments (6)
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Due To Technical Difficulties
Obama to Troops: “WTF” post bumped here:
http://www.julescrittenden.com/2009/07/02/obama-to-troops-wtf/
Thank you for your patience.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:10 pm Comments (0)
What Would Gaia Think?
Quote of the day from commenter MikeHu, re Earth Treason:
The actual 4.6 billion-year old planet, survivor of multitudes of asteroid hits, Milankovitch cycle changes, magnetic pole reversals, solar and cosmic radiation, myriad volcanic caldera collapses, mantle plume eruptions, etc., etc. doesn’t give a rat’s ass about a few degrees Celsius or what idiots like Krugman think.
Krugman can’t be an idiot. They wouldn’t give him a Nobel Prize if he was, would they? No matter. I’m guessing Gaia not only doesn’t give a rat’s ass what Krugman thinks, she doesn’t even know what the Royal Swedish Academy and the Karolinska Institutet are, she didn’t see Al Gore’s movie and she didn’t vote for Obama. But I’m guessing, if she knew what they were, she’d think carbon offsets are dumb.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 1:46 pm Comments (4)
ARVN Nights, IA Days
That’s meant to be a hopeful note, that title, as American forces pull back from Iraqi cities under a neogotiated political deal that will test the new Iraqi Army. Maggie’s Farm glances back for an understanding of current events, looking at the much-maligned and ultimately abandoned Army of the Republic of Vietnam, as an example of what should not be allowed to happen in Iraq:
After Tet, a lot more South Vietnamese came off the fence and decided that they really didn’t want the North to come down and take them over, enlistments in the Army went way up, training got a lot better, and the general quality of the South’s military began to improve noticeably in ‘69-’71 …
By ‘72, when we were gone, the number of subpar units in the ARVN had become a minority, and many units were excellent, their 1st Division for one. And when the Easter Invasion hit from the North, 200,000 NVA regulars in several divisions, with 400 tanks, much better artillery than we’d left for the ARVN, and AA missiles and guns to shoot down the South’s planes, they wound up in a series of large pitched battles that were as intense but a lot longer lasting than any we ever fought. The siege of An Loc was a kind of ARVN Alamo, went on for weeks and weeks, destroyed the city completely, but the cut off ARVN fought like tigers and refused to surrender. They stopped NVA tanks by jumping on them under fire to stuff grenades in the view slits. US Advisors were there to witness it all, and there are some good books about it.
But of course by then the media (both US and international) didn’t have that much interest in what went on … by the final invasion of ‘75, with NVA forces twice as big as in ‘72, superbly equipped and supplied from massive bases in Cambodia, the ARVN were on limited fuel and ammo, half their tanks were down for repairs that depended on spare parts they couldn’t get any more, and they started to fold under the blitzkrieg. Their President made a poor decision to start an unplanned retreat, and things when to hell in just a few days, leading to the panic scenes of soldiers running after planes and hanging onto chopper rails in Da Nang. (What you didn’t hear about were the radio calls from VN Marine units in the hills, who never surrendered and fought to the death.)
Whole thing, including an RFK vs Marx quote throwdown for Obama to mull. Plus links and some great comments from vets who served with ARVN units. Speaking of Obama, how committed is he? Who knows, but there’s been some improvement.
Wehner at Commentary looks at yesterday’s milestone, Powerline adds some thoughts, and RealClearWorld begs to differ.
Ralph Peters at NYPost is calling it a victory. Tigerhawk on why victory, declared, is important.
Strategy Page with some tactical advice: Girls with Guns Get It.
Woodward in Afghanistan with Obama’s plan: Economic, Not Military. I dunno, how about military, plus economic. (And heads up, Obama, they aren’t big government fans. I bet the local hacks will enjoy the pork if you call it something like “special beef,” though.)
Patrick Devenny at Foreign Policy digs deep into history, 1845, for a British officer’s observations on training up local defense force in Afghanistan. via Small Wars Journal, which has a daily war zone news roundup and also is offering Tony Corn, From War Manager to Soldier Diplomats and the Marine Corps looking at its future in a time of irregular warfare, .
Sounds like a good place to start building another section for the bookshop, on one small but critical corner of the Vietnam-Iraq nexus:
The Battle of An Loc, James H. Willbanks. Excerpt and a review:
“The [North Vietnamese] now held most of Binh Long province from Chon Thanh north to the Cambodian border with the exception of the town of An Loc. It was clear that An Loc would be the scene of the next major North Vietnamese effort. A lot was at stake. Not only were the lives of the South Vietnamese soldiers and their American advisers on the line, but so too was the prestige of the South Vietnamese government. The loss of a province so close to Saigon would be a disastrous loss of face for President Thieu and his administration. From the American perspective, the battle would be the supreme test of Vietnamization and President Nixon’s policies in Vietnam. More than that, however, was the fact that very little stood between the North Vietnamese and Saigon except the forces at An Loc.”
The Battle of An Loc is a fine book with rich, vibrant descriptions of combat, weapons, and command decisions. Willbanks writes from an insider’s perspective, but demonstrates the discipline of a historian who knows what questions to ask.
And this reader review:
As one who was “there”, I recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand what was at stake in the Spring Offensive in III Corps and how close a fight that it really was. Even most of us who were in it had no real idea of what was going on. After 33 years, it’s time that someone provided a complete, unvarnished accounting of what happened. I have access to some of the same documents as the author and was involved in one the events that he describes. He has remained faithfull to the truth, even though it may have had to be pieced together from fragmentary and disparate accounts. Thankfully the author has stuck to verifiable events and resisted the temptation to highlight the horror of battle. However, even his “toned down” accounts are troubling to read. Many participants are named, and like me, some may find it disconcerting to see your experience in print open to family, friends and others.
Abandoning Vietnam: How America Left and South Vietnam Lost Its War, James H. Willbanks
Vietnam’s Forgotten Army: Heroism and Betrayal in the ARVN Andrew Wiest
This sympathetic biography of Pham Van Dinh and Tran Ngoc Hue, mid-level officers in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), provides a unique perspective among American war histories. Built by American advisers in 1955 to repel a conventional invasion, the ARVN was a Western-style force that actually spent most of its 25-year life battling a lightly armed insurgency. Ironically, its destruction came at the hands of a traditional invading army from North Vietnam, but by this time U.S. forces (which it had relied on for heavy artillery and airpower) were gone. Vietnam’s army suffered a chronic lack of imaginative leadership at the top, yet historian Wiest (Haig) makes a good case that it often fought well, especially at the battalion and regimental level, when led by good officers such as Dinh and Hue. Wiest describes their energetic leadership as the war intensified during the 1960s, but it is not a story that ends happily. Hue spent 13 years in a North Vietnamese prison after his capture in 1970. Dinh surrendered his regiment in 1972, finishing his career in the NVA. Readers who persist through dense nuts-and-bolts battle descriptions will gain new respect for the mishandled South Vietnamese army
A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam Lewis Sorley
There was a moment when the United States had the Vietnam War wrapped up, writes military historian Lewis Sorley (biographer of two Vietnam-era U.S. Army generals, Creighton Abrams and Harold Johnson). “The fighting wasn’t over, but the war was won,” he says in this convention-shaking book. “This achievement can probably best be dated in late 1970.” South Vietnam was ready to carry on the battle without American ground troops and only logistical and financial support. Sorley says that replacing General Westmoreland with Abrams in 1968 was the key. “The tactics changed within fifteen minutes of Abrams’s taking command,” remarked one officer. Abrams switched the war aims from destruction to control; he was less interested in counting enemy body bags than in securing South Vietnam’s villages.
A Better War is unique among histories of the Vietnam War in that it focuses on the second half of the conflict, roughly from Abrams’s arrival to the fall of Saigon in 1975. Other volumes, such as Stanley Karnow’s Vietnam and Neil Sheehan’s A Bright Shining Lie, tend to give short shrift to this period. Sorley shows how the often-overlooked Abrams strategy nearly succeeded–indeed, Sorley says it did succeed, at least until political leadership in the United States let victory slip away.
(One degree of separation, appropos of nothing: I was in the sixth grade with Abrams’ youngest kid in Bangkok. Good kid, bit of an air of a general himself, no shortage of confidence. I remember him showing some of us kids a picture of his old man as a tank commander in a book at Patton’s 3rd Army, which I think was more interesting to us than his Vietnam command. I believe he had an older brother serving in Vietnam, as well, and though there were a lot of kids in school whose dads were active duty with Vietnam combat experience, we rarely talked about that war.)
ARVN: Life And Death in the South Vietnamese Army Robert K. Bingham
Scorned by allies and enemies alike, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) was one of the most maligned fighting forces in modern history. Cobbled together by U.S. advisers from the remnants of the French-inspired Vietnamese National Army, it was effectively pushed aside by the Americans in 1965. When toward the end of the war the army was compelled to reassert itself, it was too little, too late for all concerned.
In this first in-depth history of the ARVN from 1955 to 1975, Robert Brigham takes readers into the barracks and training centers of the ARVN to plumb the hearts and souls of these forgotten soldiers. Through his masterly command of Vietnamese-language sources-diaries, memoirs, letters, oral interviews, and more-he explores the lives of ordinary men, focusing on troop morale and motivation within the context of traditional Vietnamese society and a regime that made impossible demands upon its soldiers.
Offering keen insights into ARVN veterans’ lives as both soldiers and devout kinsmen, Brigham reveals what they thought about their American allies, their Communist enemies, and their own government. He describes the conscription policy that forced these men into the army for indefinite periods with a shameful lack of training and battlefield preparation and examines how soldiers felt about barracks life in provinces far from their homes. He also explores the cultural causes of the ARVN’s estrangement from the government and describes key military engagements that defined the achievements, failures, and limitations of the ARVN as a fighting force. Along the way, he explodes some of the myths about ARVN soldiers’ cowardice, corruption, and lack of patriotism that have made the ARVN the scapegoat for America’s defeat.
Ultimately, as Brigham shows, without any real political commitment to a divided Vietnam or vision for the future, the ARVN retreated into a subnational culture that redefined the war’s meaning: saving their families.
Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam H.R.McMaster
For years the popular myth surrounding the Vietnam War was that the Joint Chiefs of Staff knew what it would take to win but were consistently thwarted or ignored by the politicians in power. Now H. R. McMaster shatters this and other misconceptions about the military and Vietnam in Dereliction of Duty. Himself a West Point graduate, McMaster painstakingly waded through every memo and report concerning Vietnam from every meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to build a comprehensive picture of a house divided against itself: a president and his coterie of advisors obsessed with keeping Vietnam from becoming a political issue versus the Joint Chiefs themselves, mired in interservice rivalries and unable to reach any unified goals or conclusions about the country’s conduct in the war.
Completing the historical circle with the present:
Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam John A. Nagl
Brutal in its criticism of the Vietnam-era Army as an organization that failed to learn from its mistakes and tried vainly to fight guerrilla insurgents the same way it fought World War II. In [Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife], Col. Nagl, who served a year in Iraq, contrasts the U.S. Army’’s failure with the British experience in Malaya in the 1950s. The difference: The British, who eventually prevailed, quickly saw the folly of using massive force to annihilate a shadowy communist enemy. . . . Col. Nagl’’s book is one of a half dozen Vietnam histories — most of them highly critical of the U.S. military in Vietnam — that are changing the military’’s views on how to fight guerrilla wars. . . .The tome has already had an influence on the ground in Iraq. Last winter, Gen. Casey opened a school for U.S. commanders in Iraq to help officers adjust to the demands of a guerrilla-style conflict in which the enemy hides among the people and tries to provoke an overreaction. The idea for the training center, says Gen. Casey, came in part from Col. Nagl’’s book, which chronicles how the British in Malaya used a similar school to educate British officers coming into the country. ”Pretty much everyone on Gen. Casey’’s staff had read Nagl’’s book,” says Lt. Col. Nathan Freier, who spent a year in Iraq as a strategist.
The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One David Kilcullen
Kilcullen, adviser on counterinsurgency to General Petraeus … uses Afghanistan and Iraq as primary case studies for a new kind of war that relies on an ability to provoke Western powers into protracted, exhausting, expensive interventions. Kilcullen presents two possible responses. Strategic disruption keeps existing terrorists off balance. Military assistance attacks the conditions producing accidental guerrillas. That may mean full-spectrum assistance, involving an entire society. Moving beyond a simplistic war on terror depends on rebalancing military and nonmilitary elements of power. It calls for a long view, a measured approach and a need to distinguish among various enemies.
Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq and The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008 by Tom Ricks. The essential histories on what went wrong and how it was turned around.
The Forever War Dexter Filkins. The essential Iraq War mood piece/complexity backgrounder.
The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq Bing West. From a Nagl review:
West calls it like he sees it, and there is probably no American not wearing a uniform who has seen more of this war. A large number of senior (mostly Army) generals come in for scathing reviews in The Strongest Tribe, but West reserves his most critical assessments for politicians and journalists. Democratic Congressman and former Marine John Murtha of Pennsylvania was responsible, with the assistance of the media, for “distorting and deliberately exaggerating” the Marine killings of civilians at Haditha. In West’s opinion, President Bush failed at his primary responsibility, which was “to persuade the American people to support the war” …
… the American exit strategy requires that the government of Iraq earn that appellation from its own people, and in this reviewer’s opinion the Iraqi government will become the strongest tribe in Iraq only if it enjoys the continued support of a U.S. advisory effort for a number of years. This was the course the United States adopted in Vietnam, but in the wake of Watergate, public support collapsed, advisers were withdrawn, and South Vietnam fell to the North.
The Village Bing West. Newt Gingrich review:
Anyone interested in understanding the challenges of security in Iraq and Afghanistan would do well to read Bing West’s “The Village.” This is the classic study of small unit anti-guerrilla activity in Vietnam.
Embedded: A Marine Corps Adviser Inside the Iraqi Army Wesley Gray
Marine Corps 2nd Lt. Gray recounts his eight-month tour as part of a Military Transition Team, working as an advisor to the Iraqi Army on location. Gray was fluent in Arabic prior to deployment, giving him enormous insight into the culture and worldview of Iraqis as citizens and soldiers and obvious advantages over colleagues (and competing memoirists) relying on translantors On many occasions, Gray encounters an Insh’ Allah philosophy, a mantra of “If God wills it” or “God willing” can strike Americans as lazy or unmotivated. Among other startling lessons, Gray discovered that loyalty to tribe supersedes duty to the state; the Iraqi Army soldiers he was training were spending their monthly leave in the ranks of local tribal militias. Gray details the cultural nuances and interpersonal relationships of occupied Iraq with such care and clarity, it’s a must-read for anyone interested in the the reconstruction, especially those set to deploy.
God Willing: My Wild Ride with the New Iraqi Army Capt. Eric Navarro.
Navarro is emphatic that on his first tour in Iraq the situation was dismal to beyond hope, partly because of the Iraqi soldiers’ fatalistic attitude (i.e., “if God wills it”) and their seeming refusal to take any responsibility for their own well being. However, he says that by the time he returned for a second tour, things had turned around more than he ever would have expected and that this improvement was largely a result of a change in U.S. policy. Where the U.S previously had been installing their own hand-picked leaders in Iraqi villages, they instead began working with the village chieftans, who already occupied positions of authority. This strategy produced much better results, and Navarro ended the book appearing optimistic about the future of the U.S. in Iraq. However, he was adamant that the U.S. must not leave Iraq, because to do so would create a power vacuum in the area that Iran would quickly exploit.
As always, your recommendations and reviews are welcome and will be added.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:50 am Comments (1)
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Clown Wins Senate Seat
Smile! Comedian gives Dems their super majority. Seems appropriate it should happen this way. Not the drawn-out, months-long court battle part, though that did cut into Franken’s term. The fact that it took Bozo* winning to make them theoretically filibuster-proof. Now, everytime they bulldoze something through, it will be because Minnesota sent in a clown.
Politico with the news, roundup at Memeorandum.
Powerline with a local view. Ed at HotAir with another local view.
Reynolds notes a Gallup poll finds more Americans think the Democratic Party is “too liberal.”
No kidding? Just wait.
Being from a state that already has a clown in the Senate and another in Congress, and commands large parts of what Americans find too liberal about the Democratic Party, I’m don’t mind seeing some other state send a lib lightning rod to Washington. Maybe he’ll run for president some day …
Nah, too much to hope for.
* Sorry, not fair to Bozo or Bozokind, I know.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:27 pm Comments (4)
National Sovereignty Day
It’s a newly declared holiday in Iraq, and a new day as US troops pull out of the cities. Except to the extent they’ll need to be running around the cities training and advising Iraqi troops, and conducting hits on terrorists in the cities and out of them. Which sounds like a wide-open door you could fit a lot of troops through.
Noticed last night in the AP coverage a couple of things were missing. “George Bush” and “Surge,” which are directly responsible for the improvements in Iraq … no more Saddam and markedly better behavior among Iraq’s ethnic and political divisions. We’ll never know … or maybe we will yet find out … but I’d suggest the bloodshed, turmoil and interference by al Qaeda, Syria and Iran that Iraqis experienced have been considerably less than they would have experienced on the road to democracy and civil society without a U.S. presence.
No mention of “Saddam,” either, now that I think of it. One other phrase that I’ve noticed missing since about November or so from the AP coverage. “George Bush’s deeply unpopular war” and variations on the theme. Four American soldiers were killed in Iraq yesterday, but if no one could find a good excuse to bring up George Bush, Obama also gets a pass in every article I’ve read. Not his war, not his problem. I’m guessing they won’t be the last Americans to give their lives for Iraqi freedom, and the resulting gains in Middle East democracy and the world’s security.
None of that in this NYT story or this Washington Post one, either. It’s almost like Saddam self-deposed, Iraqi democracy and security just kind of happened, and the pullout negotiated itself. For such a historic day, the scribblers seem to be ignoring a lot of history. It’s like no one wants to talk about it anymore. Too bad. A great accomplishment, at tremendous sacrifice by both Americans, Iraqis and their British, Australian, European and Asian allies. Congratulations, Iraq. All yours now. Until and unless you need a little more help. Hopefully we’ll have an American president who is willing to help.
Omar at Iraq the Model, a Baghdadi who kept his faith through the darkest days, doesn’t have anything new up today, but here’s his June 1 post: “Iraq was a Just War.”
Nothing new from Days of My Life, where Sunshine’s latest is an update on her exams, June 9.
Poor media. Can’t get a break from anyone. It’s a Huffposter complaining that media failed to notice Obama hasn’t entirely abandoned Iraq.
Mudville, “Euphrates ain’t just a river in Baghdad,” notes 130,000 will still be there, notes the lefty complaints. Talk about denial. Euphrates ain’t a river in Baghdad at all. Tigris is. MG’s Dawn Patrol has a good on-the-ground roundup, as usual.
Blackfive questions the strategic soundness of a one-day-fits-all pullout. Outside The Beltway notes there’s pullouts and then ther’s pullouts. Danger Room notes “pullout from the cities” doesn’t mean “end to combat missions.”
Allah at HotAir gives Obama props for being big about it. He’s more charitable than I am. I’m not even interested in watching vid of Obama, now in office, being forced by reality to praise everything he disparaged.
And here’s the best wishes and prayers of Acute Politics, the GI combat engineer poet laureate. Don’t know Gordon Alanko? In his time, he was the best American combat writer on the ground in Iraq. He gave a year, three friends, some innocence and, like everyone else who has lived through it, a lot of peace of mind to this.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 1:29 pm Comments (1)
Earth Treason
They have betrayed the planet, and they must suffer the fate of traitors!
Paul Krugman at NYT, on warmalism deniers:
So the House passed the Waxman-Markey climate-change bill. In political terms, it was a remarkable achievement.
But 212 representatives voted no. A handful of these no votes came from representatives who considered the bill too weak, but most rejected the bill because they rejected the whole notion that we have to do something about greenhouse gases.
And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason — treason against the planet.
At first I was wondering … if it’s such a great bill, how come only the pols who passed it think so? I keep hearing from warmalists that it was a watered-down sellout. Then there’s the science thing. Krugman invokes some unspecificed MIT brainiacs. Gaia really is doomed. So how come I keep hearing that it isn’t actually getting warmer, it’s getting cooler, and more and more scientists are willing to publicly say the data is skewed?
These were my thoughts.
But Krugman’s a lot smarter than me. Krugman you’ll recall was deeply disappointed that Obama’s stimulus plan wasn’t three times bigger. Because if $800 billion of hackery, pork and agenda-pushing is good, $2.4 trillion must be better. Who wants to argue with that logic? Krugman is also way ahead of the curve in thinking al Qaeda and Saddam weren’t such a big deal. Eight years later, it’s starting to look like they aren’t anymore. Think about it.
Now Krugman’s tossing around the word “treason.” Sounds scary at first, a little cavalier, even dangerous. Sounds like radical left-wing hate speech. It made me worried, because the Department of Homeland Security warned against extremist political hate speech, and I’m worried that the next time PETA throws paint on someone or Earth First spikes a tree or Bill Ayers blows something up or an Manson follower or Jody Foster fan or a Middle Eastern dictator or a vanful of Middle Eastern journalists in Florida or some anti-American Georgian of Armenian extraction tries to kill a Republican president, people will think it’s Krugman’s fault.
Let’s be real. Krugman is an august Nobel laureate, not some frothing populist wackjob. And it isn’t like total nutcases read the New York Times. DHS was very specific about the threat. It’s from radical right-wing extremists. You don’t have to worry about the left-wing kind. Anyway, Krugman isn’t the only Nobel laureate talking in dire terms about impending doom. Don’t forget Al Gore, who got a Nobel and an Academy Award.
With that kind of weight behind the anti-planet betrayal movement, I’m convinced. I’ve turned the corner. I’m ready to go “green,” but I’m not really interested in pussyfooting around. When someone like Krugman starts using the “T” word, that can only mean it’s time for radical action.
No, I don’t mean targeted hits on Earth-hating Republicans or truck bombs outside power plants. Don’t be ridiculous. That would be wrong. We’re talking about a law-enforcement problem, just like global jihad should have been during the Bush regime, before they liked us better. (Thank Gaia that’s behind us. Terrorism is so Bush era. As the Secretary of Homeland Security noted that ”man-caused disasters” are the real problem, and if betraying Earth isn’t a man-caused disasterist offense, I don’t know what is.) It has to be dealt with in a lawful manner.
So here’s the deal. It’s time to establish an International Climate-Change Tribunal that has the authority to deal with Earth treason witht eh full weight of international law. In Bali or someplace like that, tropical and green. Yeah, its far away and they’d run up some frequent flier miles shuttling back and forth, but it’s a lot nicer and more unspoiled and exotic in remote Third World resorts, plus the labor is cheaper. It’ll need a big office complex, conference center, hotel rooms and cabanas, plus gyms and pools with swim-up bars, and courtrooms and holding cells. Lots of waterskiing, parasailing, bars and strip clubs, too. They can engage the world’s greenest minds to make sure all that stuff’s green. Wicked green. With high-tech window panes, solar panels and a wind turbine or something like that. Totally eco-friendly, minimal carbon footprint and non-globalizationist.
How hard could it be to get the UN General Assembly to make the United States pay for that?
Here’s how it works. Traitors to the planet, once indicted by the tribunal, could be seized by any member state and taken to the international tribunal Bali to be held indefinitely while evidence and witnesses are gathered for trial. This kind of thing can take time and is legally complicated. It helps that the United States already has the authority to do this, since President Obama reaffirmed powers of extraordinary rendition and indefinite detention. So we’re ahead of the game, and you know they’ll expect us to do the heavy lifting, as usual. Hey, here’s an idea. They could build that thing in Guantanamo Bay, once all the unlawful torture victims have been liberated in the Bahamas. Erase the stain of Bushitlerism. It’s a win-win!
Damn, they should be paying me to come up with ideas like that. Back to the Earth traitors. This isn’t just about punishment. It’s about re-education. They would need to be lectured a lot, for long hours, under bright low-wattage eco-bulbs, about the damage they have done to the environment. Might want to play a lot of Pete Seeger and Peter Paul and Mary to soften them up. Strict Vegan diet to cleanse their systems. All copies of Ayn Rand, down the composting port-a-potty! (Anyone who didn’t demand George Bush’s prosecution should probably be waterboarded to see whether they think it’s torture or not, but that’s a separate matter.)
It would be nice to think all of that would be enough to bring everyone around, but not everyone is amenable to logic and persuasion. Recalcitrant denialists have to suffer the fate of all traitors. Once convicted by the tribunal, they will be drawn, quartered, and finally, when not quite dead yet, burned at the stake. No half-measures, not where loyalty to the planet is concerned.
There may have to be some carbon offset arrangement to cover that, but technically, burning an Earth traitor at a minimum should be a wash, carbon-wise. Over time, the facility could prove to be highly carbon negative, racking up all kinds of lucrative credits by torching anti-Gaiaists. When you are doing that kind of good, you’re more than offsetting any incidental environmental damage.
Same thing goes for Krugman. According to this University of Colorado recycling website, it takes 75,000 trees to print a Sunday edition of the New York Times. That sounds a little high, and we already know that we greens tend to skew our data a little, but let’s just say that for Krugman to accuse certain humans of betraying their planet, it spelled doomed for a heck of a lot of trees. Look, it was in a good cause. To save that forest, Krugman had to destroy it.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:39 am Comments (9)
Monday, June 29, 2009
The Week Pop Culture Died
First Ed McMahon. Then Farrah Fawcett. And wham, before anyone really had time to react to that news, Michael Jackson.
Now Billy Mays. Cut down in his prime by a freak overhead luggage bin accident. Allegedly. The black-bearded pitchman has sold his last tub of OxyClean.
It felt like the week pop culture died. So much of our weird, cheesy folkways … gone.
But you know there’s another perfect straight man out there. Young lovelies who emerge to be both the embodiment of a generation’s spirit and object of its lust come along at least once every generation. Michael Jackson … it’ll be a long time before we see the likes of him again. The mass of pop weirdo wannabes pale — sorry, bad choice of words – before him.
Billy Mays. Here’s Perez Hilton’s tribute, speaking of weird cheesy pop culture. If the Orange Glo people know what they’re doing, and they do, they’ll have Billy Mays hawking their anti-goo from the grave in mournful, stirring tribute ads for months, maybe even years.
Billy would have wanted it that way. Billy Mays probably wasn’t cold before, from the Atlantic City boardwalk to Venice Beach and every traveling fair in between, pitchmen started angling to be the next Informercial King.
Someone should make a reality TV show out of that. I’m just glad that ShamWow guy took himself out of the running.
That guy creeped me out. Almost as much as Michael Jackson.
UPDATE: Big Hollywood, in a touching appreciation, reports Billy Mays was a Republican. Actually, “right of Attila the Hun,” according to Neil Cavuto. Not a big surprise. Self-made man, the embodiment of American free enterprise and homespun ingenuity. Not to mention traditional hucksterism. No cruel jokes about Bush-Cheney WMD infomercials, please. I don’t want to have to trot out any cheap “Hope and Change” shots at a time like this. Or bring up any “Inconvenient Truth.”
Here’s the must-see vid, Billy Mays and Sully on Cavuto, selling Obama’s Stimulus Plan … “For two easy payments of about 2 trillion dollars, we can get it done!”
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 7:58 am Comments (2)
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Good News For Obama!
And his anti-nuke foreign policy plans! NYT reports despair in Tehran as the anti-regime protests that threatened Obama’s peace plans sputter out, thanks to violence, arrests, tortured confessions and the threat of executions. Victorious Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, by showering Obama with insults, has signaled that the terms under which he is open to a partnership for peace have not changed! (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:44 am Comments (6)
Manure
It’s all about making the world a better place, but Boehner calls the big energy bill a pile of __it. Actually, it’s being reported as a “pile of s__t” at The Hill, where a Dem aide is allowed to yuk anonymously, “What do you expect from a guy who thinks global warming is caused by cow manure?” (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:42 am Comments (3)
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Burying The News
Which is that the mullahs would like to bury the opposition.
I’m trying to figure out why this CNN report would leave out Khatami’s “worthy of execution” remark.
Here’s the remark, from a WPost/AP compilation by the Dallas Morning News:
TEHRAN, Iran – An influential cleric told worshippers Friday that those stirring unrest in connection with the recent election should be punished “ruthlessly and savagely” for waging war against God, a crime that under Shiite Islamic law is punishable by death.
“Anyone who takes up arms to fight with the people, they are worthy of execution,” Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami said in a nationally broadcast sermon at Tehran University.
And here’s CNN in its entirety, leading with Khatami’s threat to deal “firmly” with protestors, not using the “e” word: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:31 am Comments (5)
Feel His Pain
Obama may be forced to order indefinite detention of terror suspects. Don’t worry, he isn’t doing it because he thinks it’s the right thing to do. Washington Post: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:26 am Comments (3)
Friday, June 26, 2009
Hate To Keep Rubbing It In
It’s not like I’m feeling nostalgic. But how can we stop laughing at him if he won’t go away? It’s John Kerry again. The Boston Herald’s Howie Carr catches the action as Kerry calls the plays: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:57 am Comments (1)
Thursday, June 25, 2009
His Inner Kerry (UPDATED: Adieu, Jacko)
WE INTERRUPT OUR NORMAL PROGRAMMING WITH THIS BREAKING NEWS:
Heat’s off Sanford … Michael Jackson’s dead. Do you remember where you were when you heard? Sanford does … off the front page. (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:35 am Comments (4)
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Sign Of The End Times #52
James Blunt covers the Pixies, “Where Is My Mind,” doesn’t screw it up.*
Damn. Hey James Blunt … play some Ramones! On second thought … don’t!
h/t the blogroll at Piece of Work In Progress, where Collins has enlisted Sonia Aquino to keep the masses entertained during a brief intermission. Damn. I think Sonia Aquino might be another sign of the End Times.
* Unless you think James Blunt covering the Pixies is screwing it up. Maybe, but I won’t die happy if I don’t get to hear “Wave of Mutilation,” ”Debaser” or “Monkey Gone to Heaven” in an elevator at least once. OK, I’ll settle for “Here Comes Your Man.”
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 4:11 pm Comments (1)
RealHotdogPolitik Seriously Reconsidered
UPDATE: RealHotdogPolitik abandoned. Fox: No hotdogs for murderous mullah regime.
“As you all know many weeks ago the administration extended an invitation to celebrate the freedom that this country enjoys. not surprisingly based on what we see in Tehran, no one has RSVP’d,” said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.
“Understand that July 4th allows us to celebrate the freedom and liberty that we enjoy. I don’t think it’s surprising that no one has signed up to come given the events of the last few days. Those invitations will be no longer extended.”
I dunno, what would Emily Post say? And what do you do when the mullahs tell their diplomats to show up anyway? I still think my idea is better. Previously:
CNN reports the Obama admin, raked over the coals for its Hotdogs for Mullahs Strategic Initiative, is reconsidering the Fourth of July invite to representatives of the protestor-murdering terrorism-sponsoring nuke-lusting regime. A major shift in the Obama admin’s Wienie Diplomacy or are they just going to try to slather some mustard on that scorched frank and hope no one notices? (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 1:31 pm Comments (2)
High School Mootical
Or maybe more of a Dust Side Story. Greased. Ahmadineo and Obamiette. Obama’s love that wasn’t supposed to be doesn’t look like it’s going to have a happy ending. Reading Jonah Goldberg’s description of the trainwreck that is Obama’s Iran policy, I just kept getting a heavy pall of adolescent stubborness, teen angst and puppy love gone badly, tragically wrong off all of it: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:56 am Comments (0)
Sullivanology Finals, With A Greenwald Pop Quiz
I’ve dabbled a little in Sullivan mockery. Make way for a maestro. Professor of Sullivanology Christopher Badeaux, The New Ledger. It’s an academic, footnoted deconstruction of the unprincipled mountebank know as Andrew Sullivan, but like the best of modern scholarship, is highly readable:
Rarely in human history has a gay man been that obsessed with a married woman’s vagina.
If you’ve ever thought this Brit who is periodically touted as the greatest conservative thinker of our time and the most incisive voice on the blogosphere is actually one of the biggest wankers out there on both scores, you’ll want to watch as Badeaux applies his scalpel like a wrecking ball. (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 7:14 am Comments (0)
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
BYO Sharia
By special request of American Neocon, as our president prepares to celebrate our nation’s independence by inviting a lot of backward, murderous, Koran-thumping religious extremists to eat U.S. taxpayer-subsidized hot dogs, here’s Angie Harmon. You remember Angie. What a sweetheart. I’m guessing she’d have no problem looking hot, looking All-American and telling off mullahs all at the same time. You know, Angie Harmon would probably make a heck of a Secretary of State.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:14 pm Comments (1)
Weirdness Remarked Upon
Matthew Cooper at The Atlantic mulls what today’s questions asked and unasked, re crises rampant and crises dormant, say about news and the presidency — Iran and health care’s hot, two wars and GM failure’s not. More proof of our national case of ADHD, at the highest levels. Cooper also remarks on the weirdness of some Obama utterances, like his personal smoking struggle analogy today, that it’s like being in “AA.”
Sounds innocent enough. He does have a penchant for odd jokes, weird remarks, non-sequitorial behavior, both at the overly personal and the grandiosely presidential levels, though. Don’t make me bring up that Hot Dogs for Mullahs Strategic Initiative again. Or the gee whiz guys letter to the Russkies. Or the gifts to the Brits. Or that strange love letter to Jacques Chirac. Or that time he horrified Steve Kroft on 60 Minutes by laughing about the recession. Or large parts of the entire press conference today. Then there was that weird bow to King Abdullah.
I dunno about you, I’m looking forward with a shudder to more profound weirdness as this presidency continues. I don’t think we’ve even scratched the surface of that yet. To paraphrase the late, weird Hunter S. Thompson, when the going needs a pro, this pres gets weird.
(Balloon-Juice #2 … who does as poorly at reading comprehension as BJ #1 does at communication that doesn’t involve the use of the word “asshole” … thinks weirdness is Cooper’s main point. It is the title, but better than three-quarters of the post addresses substantive aspects of the press conference before Cooper gets to the “AA” weirdness. BJ #2 has a point though. It was pretty mild as O weirdness goes. See above for your Obama weirdness starter kit. … And welcome, Alicublog readers! Your guy’s a little weird, too. Thanks for the comparison to the highly talented Christian Bale, though.)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 1:47 pm Comments (1)
Band Of Comrades
That Russkywood Goes To War matinee double feature the other day proved to be popular, so here’s a few more and we’ll make a Russian Front movie night out of it: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 1:30 pm Comments (0)
Disgust-Blogging The Press Conference
The president of the United States just kicked off his press conference with a stalwart speech that almost made it sound like he stands with the people of Iran. For all the words of bravery and historical right, though, he stopped short of even saying he stands in awe of them. He’s been trying to avoid making that speech. He was forced into making it. (YouTube’s a bitch.) But he made it clear that, admirable though he may have implied the brave people of Iran are in their struggle, he doesn’t stand with them.
It isn’t his problem, he’s steering clear of it, and he wants the world to know that. (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 1:22 pm Comments (7)
Monday, June 22, 2009
Hot Dog Diplomacy
Still on, as the Great Satan extends an invite to mullah diplomats on the Fourth. O admin’s Strategic Mullah Hotdog Initiative looks like a pretty dumb idea but that doesn’t mean patriotic American diplomats can’t make it work. Mullah-Proof Your Fourth field guide below. News first from AFP: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 1:42 pm Comments (9)
Agenda-Driven Stimulus
You already knew that, after the wild porkfest that the drunken rampaging chimp known as Congress engaged in, and the shoveling of stimulus funds to save as many government jobs as possible from their long-overdue reckoning.
Now, Christine Hoff Sommers at the Weekly Standard describes the “man-cession” and how feminists strong-armed Obama into diverting stimulus funds from the male-dominated, economy-driving construction sector that was hurting worst to the female-dominated health and education sectors, somewhat more indirect as economy drivers and way up in numbers anyway. (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:36 am Comments (3)
The Cruelty Of Shelvers
Via Blair, “An Inconvenient Shelf.” Turns out the Indians are getting ahead of the science curve after all. A bookstore in the booming Indian tech center of Bangalore puts Al Gore on the “Science Fiction” shelf. Unclear if this placement is a comment on the book’s content or a hurtful jab at Gore himself. Never mind the unkind Sci-Fi placement, I’d like to know how “Gore” got filed in the “Dick” section. Blair commenters note Philip K. deserves better company. Talk about Bangalore torpedoes, that shopclerk sure knows how to fire ‘em.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:46 am Comments (1)
Brilliant Gem
NYT UPDATE: Revolutionary Guards warn protestors of “revolutionary confrontation” if they take to the streets again. Odd choice of words. Be careful what you warn against, RG. … From the mouths of corrupt, violent oppressors.
NYT: Mullahs allow there may have been excessive electoral exuberance to the tune of 3 million votes, thanks to +100 percent turnout in 50 cities. It’s OK, it’s all legal. Iranians may not get to vote for whoever they want to, but actually have more democracy than we do. They get to vote all they want: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:31 am Comments (2)
zoloft long distance running G Postmessage Propecia Smiley Post accutane timeline symptoms of zoloft working! Lipitor Congestion lipitor drug cost prednisone stopped taking side effects; Prozac And Men difference between lexapro and celexa accutane timeline Clomid Steroids symptoms of zoloft working! lipitor drug cost Canine Prednisone Side Effects prednisone stopped taking side effects; difference between lexapro and celexa Subaction Showcomments Propecia Optional Watch accutane timeline symptoms of zoloft working! Order Propecia Online lipitor drug cost prednisone stopped taking side effects; Penis Growth Pills difference between lexapro and celexa accutane timeline Zoloft Paxil Differences symptoms of zoloft working!
