A Level Gaze

A Level Gaze

"What effect must it have on a nation if it learns no foreign languages? Probably much the same as that which a total withdrawal from society has upon an individual."
--G.C. Lichtenberg

Monday, July 18, 2005

Priorities

Boy, Bush sure knew the facts when he was selling the Iraq War. Never mind that his own CIA was telling him that his yellowcake assertions were unfounded, that the UN inspections team had found no evidence of WMDs, and that no links had been found between Saddam Hussein's government and the perpetrators of 9/11. In the absence of sure evidence, Bush went with his gut feeling. It was good enough for him, and it should be good enough for us.

But now, it's not just the lives of thousands of Americans, tens of thousands of Iraqis, or hundreds of billions of US taxpayers' dollars at stake. But this time it's important. It's his good buddy Karl Rove's future in the balance, and he wants to wait for all the facts before asking his pal if he broke the law.

Well, I understand that. Karl's future is obviously a bigger national security concern than taking the fucking country to war under knowingly false pretenses. There are some issues where it's important to be as sure as possible before going forward. Thank god my president knows the difference.

posted by David at 7/18/2005 01:56:00 PM ::

Sunday, July 17, 2005

United States of America: Terrorism Supporter

A joint Saudi-Israeli (!) study has found that the foreigners fighting against the US occupation in Iraq are motivated by the invasion itself. Reading that, I thought 'yeah, yeah, tell me something I didn't know.' And then they did: the mujaheddin who fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan were bad guys!

Out of the 154 [foreign] fighters [in Iraq] analyzed, only a handful had past associations with terrorism, including six who had fathers who fought the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, said the report, compiled by the Global Research in International Affairs Center in Herzliya, Israel.

Since when were the Islamic mujaheddin who fought against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan considered "terrorists?" We helped fund them. We helped train them. We helped arm them. We provided them crucial intelligence. We organized a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics because we strongly believed the Soviet invasion was illegitimate.

So now those who put their lives on the line, with our help, are to be regarded as "terrorists?" At the time, they were eulogized by none other than Saint Ronald Reagan as "the true voice of the Afghan people..." As of April, 2004, our friend and ally Hamid Karzai addressed them as "Mujahedin heroes."

Obviously, something has changed. Perhaps 16 years' worth of sober reflection has brought us to the conclusion that the Soviets were in fact justified in their invasion of Afghanistan, and our misguided efforts to counter it amounted to supporting terror. Perhaps our invasion of Iraq was in part an attempt to make up for our past mistakes. Indirectly, it's a reasonable conclusion because we currently consider terrorists those who are fighting against the invaders of their own country and in support of their co-religionists and fellow Arabs.

Or maybe it's just more politically convenient Newspeak. We have invaded a sovereign country, and thereby sparked a massive uprising that has drawn foreign help against what they clearly see as imperialist aggressors. It suits our purposes to cast those who fight against us as evil terrorists. However, the existence of so close a parallel, in which we were instrumental participants on the other side, puts the boldfaced lie to our righteous self-justifications. Far more galling has to be the fact that our then-allies, now-enemies have been steadfast in their adherence to their principles. As for us, Oceana has always been at war with the Mujahedin.

posted by David at 7/17/2005 11:19:00 AM ::

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

A question for Republicans:

What would George W. Bush have to do to lose your support? Check all that apply.

[ ] - Forget to leave the seat down

[ ] - Leave hair on the soap

[ ] - Kick a puppy

[ ] - Sleep with best friend's wife

[ ] - Drown a sack of cats

[ ] - Burn down a house containing a woman and three children

[ ] - Lie to the American public to facilitate the invasion of another country that winds up costing 1,700 lives, 200 billion dollars, tens of thousands of minds and limbs, and the respect and support of every civilized people on the planet

[ ] - Launch a nuclear strike on Peoria

[ ] - Eat 10,000 babies per day

[ ] - Destroy the earth

posted by David at 7/12/2005 11:34:00 PM ::

"Source" vs. "Criminal"

While talking about the Rove/Plame/Cooper/Miller situation to a co-worker, she kept saying that, regardless of what happened to Plame/Wilson as a result of the leak, and regardless of Rove's motivations, it was a Bad Thing that journalists could be legally compelled to give up their sources. After a number of attempts to explain why the pressure on Cooper and Miller was entirely justified, I came upon the following example:

Let's say you're a reporter interviewing Karl Rove in his office. He points to the corner behind you in which there is a baby with a small bomb attached to it, and says "This is completely off the record, but if I were to say a certain word, beginning with the letter x, that bomb would go off and kill that baby." You ponder for a moment what possible use there could be for voice-activated baby-killing bomblets, and then Rove blurts out, "Xylophone." Boom. Dead baby.

You get up to leave, shaken and horrified, and at the door Rove winks at you and says, "Remember, off the record."

For whatever reason, Rove doesn't hide the body or interfere with the evidence in any way. As the days go by and you are trying to decide what to do, the FBI announces they're 100% sure that: the bomb was in fact of a well-known type that can only be triggered by saying a specific word; that there was in fact a baby attached to it; and that the baby was killed by the explosion. In other words, that a murder had definitely been committed.

Very soon thereafter you are visited by FBI agents, who say that you are known to have been in Rove's office at the time the explosion took place. Do you tell them what happened, or are you obligated to keep what Rove said in confidence?

She got it then. The mere fact that the Plame leak involved words passing from a governmental official (or anyone, for that matter) to a reporter is not sufficient by itself to make the communication subject to journalistic privilege. What Rove is alleged to have said to those reporters is every bit as much of a crime as blowing up that baby. It's every bit as much of a crime as taking out a gun and shooting someone. There is no journalistic privilege that pertains to a reporter who witnesses a crime.

I know this topic has been done to death, but, in the spirit of Plame Made Simple, I thought I'd do my bit to cut through some of the bullshit that Rove's defenders in the administration and the press have kicked up over the issue.

The part I don't get is that the press itself fails to understand the distinction between source and criminal. Everywhere you turn, someone is lamenting the chilling effect Plamegate will ultimately have on freedom of the press. Unless freedom of the press is about enabling anonymous criminals to break the law in in front of reporters, there should be no effect from this case whatever.

One of journalists' main jobs is to expose criminal activity, especially in the government. Journalistic privilege exists to a great extent to protect whistleblowers from retribution while at the same time enabling the press to bring out evidence of wrongdoing. Reporters make use of thousands of confidential sources every day. Apparently many of them do so without even knowing what a source is.

posted by David at 7/12/2005 12:05:00 PM ::

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