Panglossian Notes

Sitting around waiting for a plaster patch in a ceiling to dry: David Hicks, Faye Turney & et al, Tom Friedman & other assembled a-holes, ... .

It's Friday morning and I'm sitting in my study, just part of one of the bedrooms, waiting for a paster patch to dry in the other bedrooms ceiling, so I can do some small touch up painting. All originally caused by a cracked stack exhaust pipe which seems to, in turn, have been caused by the very cold spell in February here, North of the 49th, but below the 60th parallels.

With nothing better to do, plaster dries even slower than paint, I'm toddling around various sites on the web casually reading.

First there is this story from Reuters by way of Yahoo News:

Australian must explain guilt at Guantanamo which tells us that not only have the US military extracted a guilty plea from David Hicks, after his 5 years of enjoying all that sun and sea air down Cuba way, but now he has to explain his guilt.

I'm expecting, after the litany of crimes KSM - a.k.a. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or better "for sure, I'm American enemies" - took credit for, everything from the big bang to blowing down both the straw and stick houses of the first 2 little pigs, something a little less spectacular.

From the Reuters report [no laughing, this is serious US justice stuff, eh]:

"Australian David Hicks must explain under oath exactly what he did in Afghanistan with al Qaeda before he learns his sentence from the Guantanamo war crimes tribunal, the chief prosecutor said."

"Hicks is not accused of actually shooting anyone and [but] was trying to flee to Pakistan by taxi when he was captured in December 2001."

"... Davis [Moe Davis the US Air Force Col. whose the chief prosecutor], bristled at suggestions that Hicks was merely an al Qaeda bit player and said it was not "the grand strategic thinkers" who killed thousands of people in terrorist attacks around the world."

"Once the judge, Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, is satisfied that Hicks is guilty, five U.S. military officers who comprise the rest of the tribunal will decide his sentence."

Ralphy Kohlmann had some earlier advise for Hicks, those Reuters character must have been silently killing themselves laughing as they took it down:

"Before Hicks announced his decision to plead guilty and waive trial, Kohlmann said the prison uniform could compromise Hicks' presumption of innocence in the eyes of the tribunal members. He urged Hicks' lawyers to find him a suit, or at least a shirt and slacks that met "business casual" standards."

That last paragraph, I think, has made my, dull sitting around waiting for plaster to dry, day. Oh, yes, it has also restored my faith in US justice, and I won't think of US marines as thugs any more, too, or maybe now I may go back to giving them the benefit of the doubt when I read about their shoot-'em up antics in either Iraq or Afghanistan.

Second, from the Guardian, on a more serious note, we have a short comment piece by Ronan Bennett titled: A peculiar outrage. The essay contrasts the theatrical outrage of Tony Blair, over the treatment of the group of British sailors and marines captured or kidnapped, by the Iranians, with the the treatment explicitly or implicitly condoned by the PM in his partnership with various US middle East and Asian outings.

I wonder whether the Murdock type press in Britain will go ballistic and begin to attack Bennett for pointing out the hypocritical outrage of the beau Blair, similarly to the Andrew Suillivan, yawn, outrage around Susan Sontag's comment on 9/11 in the New Yorker.

With the cock-up spinmister Blair, I'm thinking, in the back of my mind, he is in cahoots with the Persians. This situation lets him try to save something of his reputation before he heads off to join the Carlyle Group dragging dippy Cherrie behind him.

And, third, or finally, Steven Clemons reporting on his Tuesday night attendance at the "Opinion Awards", sponsored by The Week and the Aspen Institute. Hey, just before I go on. Did you know, of course you did, that the largest single organism on earth is an aspen. It's estimated to weigh 6,000,000 tons but called, I hope, affectionately Pando - the trembling giant. When you wait for plaster to dry your mind can wander and start free associating even if reading about exciting gatherings of Tom Friedman & other assembled a-holes. Steven's site has a pointer to The Wonkette who seems also to have been in attendance and sitting with him.

A short snippet from The Wonkette note to give a flavour of the exciting festivities that took place:

"Then came the panel discussion. Four people with absolutely no credibility ambled on stage, sat down, and began bullshitting about Iraq. Thomas Friedman, Tucker Carlson, Jim Lehrer, and Claire Shipman were all goaded by typically frantic moderator Sir Harold into saying whether they’d been for or against the war. In one word, yes or no.

Friedman: Yes.
Lehrer: He had no opinion. Because, and this is a fairly accurate paraphrase, he knew too much about it, probably more than anyone else, and therefore could come to no conclusion.
Shipman: What Lehrer said.
Carlson: No. Well, yes. No at first. But then yes, as it was starting. But then no again!
We immediately ditched for a cigarette.

Thankfully we returned in time to hear Thomas Friedman say “9/11” fifteen times in one sentence, a sentence that also ended with the word “marketplace.”"

The Wonkette
March 28, 2007

Sorry, even thinking of the "tiny perfect man", Tom Friedman, bumphanating and pontificating again and again and again, ad nauseam really, about 9/11, the flat earth, marketplaces etc. etc., in fact, anything that comes into his head, has made me think I'd better get sanding that plaster patch, dry or not.

Technorati Tags: Huh, what?, Iran, Iraq, Nothing in particular, torture

The unreal world ...

There isn't much to even say about this piece at TPMMuckraker.

The Disneyland head of state surrounds himself with certified liars and delusional nitwits but who better to assure him of his roughish ways.

The Harper is to make a pilgrimage to Disneyland sometime after both our and their national birthday parties in July.

Too bad.

Technorati Tags: Canada, Liars, National Post, Politicans, puppy, Stupidity, The Harper

What a thing!

Even Josh Marshall was hit by the fiasco linked to the National Post's printing the false story on Iran and the "dress codes"

Good to see that The Harper's nonsense comments were noted.

Now there is a real reason not to speak to any media that know anything - they could ask you why you run off at the mouth before you know the facts.

Better to hid.

I note that The Harper has, or seems to have, the support of the usual cast of characters, the unquestioning don't bother me with details crowd.

Technorati Tags: Canada, Harper, National Post, Public honesty, Stupidity

The predicted US follow-up on the Aziz incident

As, it seems, can always now be predicted (see my earlier post), the US has defended its actions in the attack on the village of Aziz.

" troops were being fired on and they had the right to defend themselves"

"The ultimate cause of why civilians were injured and killed is because the Taliban knowingly, willfully chose to occupy homes of these people. We do everything we can to prevent killing civilians ..."

U.S. military spokesman
Col. Tom Collins

Le Monde summarized the US approach to dealing with people that aren't Americans from the US of A. in their editorial yesterday:

" The United States has committed mistakes in Afghanistan similar to the ones it has perpetrated in Iraq: a strategy almost entirely devoted to "the war against terrorism" rather than reconstruction; their army's intolerable behavior - arbitrary arrests and detentions, torture and mistreatment of prisoners, humiliations, contempt, and ignorance of the local culture. In Afghanistan as in Iraq, they have alienated a population that, shattered by decades of conflict and satisfied with the end of a tyrannical regime, wanted only to rally round."

Le Monde via truthout
May 23, 2006

The reports on the CBC website, regarding the incident, are the now standard confused and contradictory mess the National News source seems to provide.

It reports "No Canadian forces were involved ..". Then quotes a coalition spokesman Maj. Scott Lundy as saying the hostilities were "one of the most significant single engagements that we've had in the recent past." and "Coalition forces were under pressure and taking a lot of fire," Lundy said. "It was very intense."

Isn't a coalition more than one. So, were we involved or weren't we involved?

Looks to me like there are 13 happy coalition members of which Canada is one. Maj. Scott Lundy appears to think we were involved.

It would be nice for some clarity from the CBC. After all The Guardian reported that we were acting as traffic controllers for the attack on Aziz.

Technorati Tags: Afghanistan, Canada, CBC, Chaos

Canada adopts US strategy

Following on the Guardian's report yesterday that the Canadian military performed the roadblock duty as US warthogs and Apache gunships attacked the village of Azizi killing numerous civilian, it looks like we have accept the standard American strategy.

The moment troops are threatened bring in the planes. Can't have body bags going home after all or wounded, they are a drain on the health care system.

Understandable, I guess, in a conventional type mess.

Problem is the dumb civilians always get in the way.

Hey, but it lets the military, media and heroic politicians characteristic the enemy, terrorist, insurgents whatever they are, as really evil or even subhuman because they are using women and children as shields.

I thought the British, in dealing with Malaysia in the 50's and 60's had figured out the only successful way of dealing with an insurgence.

Win hearts and minds.

This means not killing the gd civilians your trying to save. It also takes a long time and is risky.

Most importantly it means some of yours die and more than you may want.

So far, it seems to have been the only successful sorting out of a mess at least a bit similar to Afghanistan.

I suspect if we were left with just the other Nato countries we might be able to figure out some way of actually dealing with our Southern neighbours mess without maybe shooting ourselves in the foot.

Technorati Tags: Afghanistan, Canada, foreign policy

The Blair visit or bunker delusions.

I wonder what Blair thinks he may be accomplishing in his jaunt off to the "Green Zone". I can hardly believe any more that there is a single British citizen who would take anything he says or does as relevant.

Blair's last two terms as PM are becoming a comical catastrophe as he seems to play out the role of the classic tragic character to the full. His domestic policy and hold on his party are coming a bit unglued and the Conservatives seem to be turning themselves into new-Tories following Labour's re-birth example.

In foreign policy, he truly demonstrates his tragic characteristics. Here, he made the choice to back Bush and the US in the Iraqi fiasco from which there seems to be no real escape. This visit to the "Green Zone" shows that he resists the obvious conclusion about the situation - that his decision was wrong.

But, he isn't a tragic hero, though. Just a tragic character.

Why?

Because, I don't think, he would actually die for the sake of the Bush cause. That's for others to do.

Passages of Patrick Cockburn's latest report contrasting Blair's visit and deluded declarations with the real situation on the ground, outside the "Green Zone", seem more like the movie Downfall's depictions of Berlin bunker in 1945.

I wonder who will get to play Blair in the movie about this modern madness.

Now, of course, Blair could maybe qualify as a comic character, particularly when you try to picture his Mexican holiday shindig just before 9/11.

During their stay at the Maroma Hotel, a pricey retreat on Mexico's Caribbean coast, Cherie Booth/Blair took her husband by the hand and led him along the beach to a 'Temazcal', a steam bath enclosed in a brick pyramid. It was dusk and they had stripped down to their swimming costumes. Inside, they met Nancy Aguilar, a new-age therapist. She told them that the pyramid was a womb in which they would be reborn. The Blairs became one with 'Mother Earth'. They saw the shapes of phantom animals in the steam and experienced 'inner-feelings and visions'. As they smeared each other with melon, papaya and mud from the jungle, they confronted their fears and screamed. The joyous agonies of 'rebirth' were upon them. The ceremony over, the Prime Minister and First Lady waded into the sea and cleaned themselves up as best they could.

Nick Cohen
Sunday March 31, 2002
The Observer

Nicholas Lezard in the Guardian said it best: "To read here of Tony and Cherie Blair's rebirthing experience in a Mexican mud bath in 2001 is to be torn between contempt and hilarity."

Lezard was refering to to the incident at the Maroma Hotel but had read about it in Francis Wheen's book How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered the World (A Short History of Modern Delusions).

Technorati Tags: Iraqi, News and Politic, Politics

Oh Canada!

Boy, oh boy, we've really come of age with Harper and his bobbing head colleagues.

I think this qualifies as our first "swift boat" incident. Juan Cole refers to it as black psychological operation - dump a rumor in a fringe newspaper, get it picked up by some more reputable source and then start link back to it and not the fringe.

Fitting that it occurred with the Harper Howard love-in still in play. Harper of course trying to demonstrate his toughness opens his mouth too much. Howard the senior seemed more cautious.

Technorati Tags: Canada, Politics, National Post, Stupidity

Afghanistan

I guess we'll have to just hold our breath to actually find out what is going on in Afghanistan.

Here is an MSNBC report that doesn't sound too good, but I have no idea how to actually read the implications and don't trust the media much right now.

Our fearless political leaders (sic) definitely can not be counted on to provide anywhere near a realistic appraisal about the on ground situation.

In fact I don't expect the politicians to share anything since they are now committed to some sort of plan for - what do they call it - D cubed: Defense, Development and Diplomacy.

Be great if it works. Wonder whether the AG will subject it to a "value for money" audit. Could be interesting.

Oh and if they get the Development thingy down maybe they can come back home and try it out on some of the less developed parts of our own country - say like on some of the first nation communities or and this could be really scary some the depressed parts of major cities.

I'm not holding my breath on any of this but the Afghanistan adventure will make for good copy for awhile and shows some kind of political commitment which I guess builds up brownie points for those in power at international meetings.

Another appraisal of the situation, past action botched but brighter futures, sort of, eh. I love how the military can't ever actually say anything that would ever be believed. Maybe better not to say anything than keep up the making good progress crap which simply undermines all their statements.

Technorati Tags: Afghanistan, Canada, foreign policy

The Equalization quagmire.

Everyone is waiting breathlessly for the Report of the Expert Panel on Equalization and Formula Financing. The first press staged leaks are now starting to happen. This is an old game and as the end of May approaches maybe we'll see more and more of them. The G&M this morning carried the first of this balloon testing.

Since the G&M allows comments - some anyways, you'll have to test this yourself and see if yours are actually accepted - you can get a very rough gage of sentiment regarding increasing Equalization payments.

Unfortunately the sentiment seems to be dumping on Quebec and not really understanding what the implications of the Expert Panel's potential recommendations, to include resource royalty revenues as one of the revenues to be equalized, mean.

I maybe wrong here and people may have simply cut to the quick without actually understanding any of the glorious detail of the Equalization program.

The message from the comments is: the "haves" are getting fed up with subsidizing the "have nots". This means provinces line up against each other. Normally a standard federal strategy - play the buggers off against one-another.

Currently, in the bizarre world of federal transfers ,there are only two "have" provinces - Ontario and Alberta. Saskatchewan believe it or not, is just hovering on the line between "have" and "have not" while poor British Columbia is a basket case under federal legislation. This latter situation seems to go against common perceptions but is little high lighted or spoken about by federal officials.

It seems as if the old line main stream media - bad in the great US of A but almost completely hopeless in the great North - generally finds any concept past the "see spot run phase" as too complex for them to understand let alone try to explain to their shmo public.

The divide and conquer approach is likely to be adopted by the Harper government to ensure itself more Quebec votes and maybe a majority next time out.

This, unfortunately, seems to be Harpers only real goal - i.e. he is definitely lacking on the vision thing for Canada - to get a majority no matter what the short or long term cost and no matter what the implications for our country.

Really too bad. But it maybe the situation for awhile.

Very long lead into a couple of notes I'll start to put up tomorrow going through the mechanics of transfers and in particular Equalization.

With harper around you want to always close saying: "keep the faith, eh."

Technorati Tags: Canada, Economics, Equalization, Globe and Mail, Resource Revenue

This has something to do with our National interest?

The G&M carried today a statement by the new defense minister -seems he doesn't like the give and take of debate or is being completely controlled by Harper. No matter the other parties wade in for what it's worth.

Have a look under globeandmail.com: Afghanistan.

Me

Some of it just seems funny. The new Defense Minister sounds like he is reading directly from his a briefing book.

"the mission is ongoing -[wait for it] - and evolving"

"we will stay the course"

I wonder if he knows why we are there with silly standard business speak like this. Come to think of it I'll bet the defense department drones didn't put clunkiers like this in the guy's speaking points, likely they are an indication of his own thoughts.

Now, why again is this mess a Canadian national interest?

Please no bromides that it is spreading good governance and will ultimately result in a more secure world. I hope Canadians are past being taken in by this type of feel good statement.

Haven't the CPC government just inherited the Liberal policy and isn't this policy just linked to Canada's Nato commitment. So I'm wonder what choice we had or have since most of our allies (trading partners) have been saying we are not carrying our weight when it comes to military commitments.

The new defense minister didn't say we are there as peace keepers so have to give him that but it would be nice for him to tell Canadians what the rules our characters are operating under and how will we know if there is any success.

The recent poll numbers indicating that 62% of Canadian were concerned with Canada being in this mess I take with a large grain of salt. I suspect what it really indicates is some uncertainty about any of the messes started after 9/11 and this country getting to far down some path and into some situation created by some other country.

After all the army - do they still call it that? - is all volunteers isn't it? So it's no skin off my nose if someone wants to go off and have an adventure in some dusty place. If a draft was in place you might really get peoples attention and maybe even some focus.

I dread the inevitable laboured media BS when some of these volunteers start coming back in bags and really don't want to be told by solemn politicians about self-sacrifice. This current little adventure has nothing to do with this countries defense or for that matter some of our democratic principles.

I'm not hopeful that any of our federal politicians will be able to clearly explain to me or Canadians as a whole why we are there.

I'm ultimately afraid that some of our federal politicians are quite uninformed about the whole Afghan mess and some of the charmers currently in power in Afghanistan.

This means, that as always, the politicians will commit other Canadians or other Canadians' kids to a situation they will cleverly steer themselves and their kith an kin away from any harm.

As a starter I'd like to know which of the current federal party spokes persons have read Kathy Gannon's book "I is for Infidel". If any had it might at least give me some confidence that an attempt at being informed had been tried before decisions had been made to get into this mess.

Technorati Tags: Canada, Globe and Mail, Politics