I see my good friend Pat Buchanan, in the name of "supporting the troops" in wartime, has decided to withhold all criticism of this rotten war for the duration. This is nonsense. Sgt. Bey's sister is right: her brother died for no good reason, and that, my friend, is a crime that cannot be covered up much longer. Patriots have not only the right but the moral obligation to speak out against a war that is not in American interests, and that will sacrifice many more brave American soldiers – and Iraqis, both soldiers and civilians – before it is over.
Friday, February 21, 2003 11:31 p.m.
Perle Before Swine Richard Perle's lawsuit against Seymour Hersh will be filled in the UK even though both Perle and Hersh are Americans and the allegedly defamatory article was published in the US.
Last January, as reported in an article that Hersh published in The New Yorker, Perle may have inappropriately mixed his public and private roles. The article states that Perle met notorious Saudi arms trader Adnan Khashoggi and another Saudi businessman for lunch on January 3 in the French city of Marseilles. On the menu was a discussion of the upcoming war and, according to the two Saudis, whom Hersh interviewed, the opportunities for investment in Perle's company.
Hersh's article does not directly accuse Perle of wrongdoing. What it does is note that Perle's dual roles as unpaid Pentagon adviser and well-paid venture capitalist raise the possibility of conflicts of interest. It also suggests that Perle has not been overly scrupulous in trying to avoid the appearance of such conflicts.
Perle, who has been credited as the intellectual force behind the Iraq war, insists that his hawkish views are not up for sale. While Hersh does not challenge him on this point, he suggests that Perle should take greater care to insulate his foreign policy connections from his financial dealings.
Update: Speaking of Hersh, his New Yorker column this week on the nuclear program faked documents is worth a look
Monday, March 24, 2003 07:04 p.m.
Surprise
An elite team from Poland's military is assisting US troops in Iraq. Turns out, no one in Poland knew about it until several Reuters photographs were published
Monday, March 24, 2003 01:02 p.m.
Right Out of Line
Here's Antiwar on The Corner. Say what you will about Raimondo et al, but Antiwar is an astonishing resource. And do read this Robert Higgs piece.
I'm not reading the usual blog suspects. There's something grotesquely surreal about reading commentary about civillian targets following something considerably less substantial. I don't want that tone to come across here. As I've said -- again and I again -- I don't have anything to say, except that I have nothing to say. Check out Warblogs.cc and the blogs of the individuals that developed that site: George Paine, Christopher Allbritton, and Sean-Paul Kelley. Identity Theory has set up a warblog with frequently updates. Alternet's War on Iraq channel is also feeding good stuff. I'm also suffering 15 second "commercials" for Salon Personals in order to read Jake Tapper
What sickens me about the hawks is their relative sangfoid. Their major justification for action is the height of Saddam Hussein's evil. The level of our distruction therefore should theoretically be smaller than the horror Hussein has already inflicted. So the carnage now should be a reminder to all of us how unthinkably bad things are and were in Iraq. My referral log shows people are hitting this site looking for info on the "rape room videos." For those of you unfamiliar, Saddam likes to systematically rape women and children in torture chambers. Sometimes the action is videotaped and the videotape is mailed to the families of the vicims. Shockingly, that example pales in comparison to other horrors. Yes, he is evil. No one anti-war should lose sight of that fact. But what we are doing isn't making things better.
Update: I am a lot more forgiving of the Washington Times than I am of the National Review crowd, but I can't believe they published this erroneous propaganda. Then again, that was the same day as Paul Craig Roberts' now famous op-ed, "A Reckless Path"
Update 2: Andrew Sullivan is right on Ben Affleck (and Hollywood in general's) sanctimony, in addition to the "jubuliant" New York protestors Michelle Goldberg writes about in Salon. On the radio Friday, I suggested we stage a protest in suits and setting up Power Point presentations. Too bad I haven't got the networking prowess.
the sadness and dispair in this POWs face is horrifying enough.
Update: Here is a story on POW Joseph Hudson. The line that struck me is that his mother insists Hudson joined the military for a "good future," first and foremost. It sickens me that the Army markets itself as an easy way out of the ghetto. I know a large number of people from my high school -- inner city, predominatly black and Hispanic -- enlisted after graduation.
Update 2: Michael links to The Post's article on 19 year old Jessica Lynch, one of the soldiers missing. She joined the army "because there were few jobs in her hometown."
Sunday, March 23, 2003 06:16 p.m.
Fight Test
I'm still at a loss for words, though I've been talking things through with friends and colleagues. I spent a good deal of time this weekend asking others -- and opinions I don't normally respect, like my suburban mom neighbors -- what they think. Any despondent feelings by now should morph into blase. I'm just not ready yet. Maybe I can conceed that whatever regime the US puts in place, at least has a chance of ameliorating the present state. But if this war is successful, and as quick and painless as they promised; that is only a blank check to the Bush Administration to police any other rogue nation -- be their intentions altruistic or Machiavellian. So I guess this means another moment of silence over here.
My radio show with Zoe was a great success. We had several callers, hundreds of listeners, and despite some technical difficulty, a good report going. We may have an evening broadcast sometime this week. Yes, I have gone public
"The Moment of Truth"
No posting for a while. Check Antiwar or Stand Down instead. I need time to collect my thoughts. While I can't post anything unique about Iraq, it's all that's on my mind. I almost need to force myself to think about the superficial, just to temporarily disolve the grey cloud above my head. No amount of cynicicm I've had for the Bush administration prepared me at all, not even knowing it was inevitable; I feel at a loss, like my feelings are hurt. This war is built on lies
I guess if one good thing came out of it all, it is, as Radley noted, the UN has been rendered useless. We've also sorted out the decafinated "libertarians," who should not be allowed to wear the free-market label at all but be identified as hypocrites if they support this war. But I really haven't got the energy for a pro-liberty screed right now. Anything clever I could muster will only feel like false sentiments, like an elephant joke at a wake
Wednesday, March 19, 2003 01:33 p.m.
"Fighting For Peace is Like Fucking For Virginity"
I was wrong. When the war begins Washington will not feel relieved that the inevitable has finally occured, but suffer immesurable neuroses that every rebel out there from Chechnya to Sri Lanka has teamed up to make our government pay for its hubris -- by proxy, "terrorizing" us. Yes, now is the time to panic. This will be a long, cruel war. Iraq (as well the future wars in Iran and North Korea) will not go down without a fight. We can destroy their countries, their culture, their nationalism, and pride -- but we cannot kill anti-Americanism by bullying the international community. Anyone sleeping soundly tonight hasn't been paying attention.
Ah well. Calming down a bit, I'm embarressed by the level of hyperbole in this post. Go read this Slate article, "The Sum of All Fears" instead
Wednesday, March 19, 2003 11:06 a.m.
Great Minds Think Alike
The other evening, my friend Mira made a comment that stuck with me; that perhaps there is some logical explainaton for astrolology. After all, people born in the same month experience the seasons at the same age. That and other reasons of might lead to vaguely coincidental similar characteristics in people of a certain "sign."
After I picked up "The Fall" I noticed a number of Camus allusions in the media. Perhaps I'm simply more concious of them, or maybe other people for whatever reason, like me, had Camus in mind. Malcolm Glawdwell in The Tipping Point explains trends this way. Using the example of Hush Puppy shoes, if it were only a clique of people that tarted wearing the shoes, the trend would have been contained among this group of friends, and it wouldn't have infected the entire country like it did back in 97 or 98. He theorized that perhaps a number of people, influenced by some unknown factor, all went hunting in the thrift shops for vingage hush puppies, until the East Village trend went corporate.
That leads me to another thought: how easy it is for person A and an independent person B to come to the same idea or conclusion. Very easy. Our personal preferences and influences are not so unique when you realize there's a great big world out there with people able to make the same choices as you. Therefore a truely originial singular idea is almost impossible to come up with. What we can do uniquely is sythesize many ideas.
Tuesday, March 18, 2003 11:49 a.m.
Paiging Senator Hollings
Avoiding spam is as easy as starting a unique-sound email account and keeping it private. That's not easy enough for the Anti-Spam Research Group that wants to redesign the internet to avoid this minor inconvenience. It's a barely established organization as of yet, albeit one with key players according to CNN. I don't think I need to crib any Lessig arguments here -- redesign the internet so that Fredrick's of Hollywood can't alert us of their free panty offers?
In other tech news: MIT's excellent Tech Review has nice looking cover story, "Surveillance Nation" I haven't read yet, and The Boston Globe identifies virus writers as males under 34, computer-obsessed, and socially maladroit. Heh, that's also my type.
Monday, March 17, 2003 09:58 p.m.
We Aren't The World
Recent headlines seem to cast a shadow over all the conflicts in my life. Everything that was profound now seems silly, and so I feel like the protagonist in some melodramtic coming-of-age story. Like there should be a montage set to Green Day's "Time of Your Life," with highlights of my week spliced with sound bytes from The Shrub. It's too absurd to be tragic, and it's too big to ignore
Alina and I used to joke about starting a artistic and literary movement called "Tragical Realism," because irony, laughter, and sarcasm all went down with the World Trade Center. We may still smile, but we're all crying inside.
Or we just got the perfect scapegoat for all our problems. I'm a shopoholic because of the WTC disaster! My allergies are all the fault of al Qaeda -- or is it Iraq now? I abuse my children because 9-11 proves life is so uncertain! I can't control my impulses and solve my problems, I'll just blame a freak historical event.
My theory is this kind of paranoia can all be traced back to Y2K. After that hysteria ended and Piggly Wiggly customers found themselves on Jan 1, 2000, up to their ears in canned goods, a void of terror remained. It made it easy to hype Anthrax fever, Duct Tape madness, and whatever lurks around the corner. Even if this international disaster ever cleans up (it won't -- it will only get bigger) we love to worry! Irrationality is fun!
Monday, March 17, 2003 01:36 p.m.
Spring Cleaning I needed new reading; something to compliment the warm weather and overcast skies, so yesterday I cleaned out Idle Times Books.
I finished Camus's The Fall a minute ago and it set my thoughts in a spin. Sometime later I might give a thorough write up; maybe once I've wrapped up Sissela Bok's preachy yet cohesive treatise against dishonesty, Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life. Today's treat is Smilla's Sense of Snow after yesterday's sugar shock Fear of Flying. I don't ever feel guily about reading "popular" literature. It's better to go into default mode after the headier stuff than to shut down entirely. Isn't it better to fly through what you like,
than to plod Middlemarch or whatever classic at the rate of two pages a month? Practice makes perfect.
But back to the rest of my spring reading:
Carson McCullers was twenty-three when her elegantly titled The Heart is a Lonely Hunter was published. I've got another four months before that makes me feel inadequete. I also got a thick juicy autiobiography of George Sand. Rounding out the total was Short Friday by Isaac Bashevis Singer and The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov. It's a compulsive behavior to be proud of
Forget It! No Wait.. Err, Yes... Umm...
George Orwell was said to grow out of his anti-semetic prejudices by continually writing essays espousing the viewpoint he desired. In a similar way, I often try to reason out my inconsistant, irrational, or poorly developed thoughts. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. The best thing anyone can do for himself is to constantly ask "Why? Why this? Why that?"
I could not, though, allow my post of the virtue of niceness to remain on my site another minute. I do not suffer fools, I will never suffer fools, and anyone who thinks otherwise is himself a fool. To have "good taste" in people is no different than any other value judgement.
The Gay Gene.
New York Review of Books has a piece on four recent books about homosexuality and genetics. A viewpoint I believe strongly is explained by John D'Emilio
[He is] unsettled by "the ease with which many liberal Americans have embraced the born-gay approach." Being able to say that being gay is genetic, he feels, allows them to "push aside their personal squeamishness about what we do." Nor is he sparing about the views within the gay community. In his judgment, the premise that people may be born gay "allows us to sidestep our own internalized homophobia." He argues plausibly that the genetic explanation makes it too easy to deflect "the uneasy—and unarticulated—feeling that, if we did have a choice, we might choose otherwise." But it isn't clear why he frames the issue as one of self-hatred. Musing about having a different life need not imply enmity toward the one you have.
So what if it is someone's choice, rather than his genetically determined destininy? It's his sex life. Now that the "gay gene" theory is legitamized, people are forgetting there are men out there that have sex with other men and couldn't care less about Carol Channing or shower curtain patterns. The review ends with this heart-warming quote:
Perhaps it is a triumph of our species that there's no clear accounting for the imaginativeness of sexual fantasy and the permutations of sexual pleasure. Much of what I am suggesting was captured by the wedding guest—gender not specified—who was overheard remarking of the bride and groom: "They're a charming couple. I've slept with both of them."
Thursday, March 13, 2003 01:05 p.m.
At a Loss
The other evening I met with family friends for dinner at their house. They're a charming couple in their early sixties. I wondered if men were raised kinder and more mannered years ago, or if he got to be that way with age. The matriarch wore a navy cardigan with ducks embroidered near the collar. They're New England Wasps, transplants to the DC area just like me.
He's a childhood friend of my uncles. My father was the youngest and didn't know him as well. He mentioned Joe several times, each time bringing the brink of tears to my eyes. "He was so bright and so kind." Joe was the friendliest and the smartest of the four McNeil brothers. Maybe it is nostalgia. He died in Vietnam.
The emotional resonance the name evokes is not for the man I never met. It is for the sadness and pity that enveloped my father at the age of sixteen, and the emotional domino effect that means he never quite moved on. I have many vivid memories of the long, silent car rides after he cleans up Joe's memorial in the local park, setting up flags and planting flowers on the site. More vividy imprinted is our first family trip to DC; when I watched him shaking at Maya Lin's memorial. Joe was also my father's best friend.
He looks like Harrison Ford, and acts sometimes like an autistic child. He told me he wanted to be a writer at my age too, but I've never seen anything he's done. He's privately Catholic and doesn't know I'm an atheist. He can tell when I'm lying, "no, those cigarettes aren't mine," and probably understands that I feel guilty about it days afterward. Most of us are lucky enough to have a father who loves you, but fewer have one who at peculiar times grabs your hand and says "the day you were born was the happiest day of my life." Then together we will cry.
I always figured he was this way because of some shyness gene. My brother and sister are born loners too. Then after a freak accident, my grandmother died. My mother, the family extrovert, at the age of forty learned how to be alone.
I'm not really sure where I'm going with this, but that it's at random moments that you remember how valuable love is, and how precious life is. When I think of war, I think about awkward pauses and an empty chair at some family's dinner table.
