This will sound to some people like an anti-American column. It is not meant to be. As the writer, I assert that it is not. I'm the one who knows. I am not anti-American in any of the conditioning senses the epithet usually signifies: ethnically hostile, corporately obsessed, economically resentful, chanting every night the well-known litany of Washington's postwar dirty deeds.Of course not, dear. You have, I'm sure, a most thorough-going fondness for the dear dim little yahoos. (By the way, how does one go about being "ethnically hostile" to a multi-racial nation of 280 million?)
That my disclaimer is necessary, however, is a commentary on the diminished state of consultative democracy just now.Pssst ! Hugo. Doll-baby. Just a word to the wise here. More than one earnest soul has irredeemably branded himself a buffoon in the eyes of honest and decent folk with this sort of last-honest-man-see-what-a-brave-lover-of-democracy-I-am-unlike-the-rest-of-you-sheep posturing. And they all richly deserved what they got. You had the chance to redeem yourself by actually presenting informed and rational criticisms of, say, the rejection of Kyoto, or the administration's position on the Conventions. But you didn't. Well, there's #2 and #3.
The war has allowed a president without a mandate to grow into a heroic figure whom nobody wishes to challenge.Nice - a concise use of #2 and #4.
Innocent Afghans have been killed.There goes #5.
#3 gets a lot of play in various forms, for example:
The need for the coalition was perfunctorily acknowledged, but not the faintest doubt was allowed to attach to the fact that it would continue to operate on America's terms. The military success, in other words, emboldened the president to speak as though there is no broader purpose than the assertion of American power. He sounded like a man whose war had intensified rather than slackened his belief in America, if necessary, going it alone.If necessary, yes. What nation operates on terms unacceptable to its own interests? How does this signify "no goal but power"? What "broader purpose" should America be pursuing? Ah yes:
Other voices, it appears, are not terribly interesting, especially European voices that bring up the priority of a Middle East peace process being resumed, or publicly insist on codes of behaviour in the Guantanamo prison camp that rest on different attitudes to human rights than those now prevailing in war-torn America.Here is a perfect example of how "multilateralism" is often code for "doing as Europe says". Yes, the "peace process", which Europe insists must be pursued as an end in itself, detached from any consideration of its effectiveness. How dare Washington take a position on Arafat contrary to the EU's? Oh, and here's #7. What "different attitudes to human rights" might you be talking about, Mr. Young? The attitudes of European nations who are deporting right and left, sometimes on secret evidence, without appeal, and in violation of supposedly prevailing human rights standards? What "behaviors" in Guantanamo are you referring to? Wait, best to be vague about that. Don't want to be hoist by the Plasmodium petard. Young graciously admits that "[t]here can be arguments about that" - oh, I see. He doesn't mean arguments from Americans:
Our governments do not have them, at least in public. To judge from the tortuous haste with which Mr Blair yesterday backed away from the early doubts his foreign secretary expressed about Camp X-Ray, they don't have them in private either. Instead, we fall in with the unilateralist impulse of a new age.Ah, that's why. Couldn't have anything to do with the foolishness and inaccuracy of said secretary's pronouncements on Camp X-Ray. It's the unilateralist tyranny! The following paragraph is ripe with the odors of #1 and #3, and:
Now, with all the yapping about Camp X-Ray, the White House has begun to ruminate in semi-public that, like ABM, the Geneva Conventions may be suddenly unsuitable to the new era. Many Americans must find this only sensible.Will Young acknowledge that sensible persons can argue about the relevance or obsolescence of 30- and 50- year old agreements, or disagree about their interpretation, in the case of the Conventions? No, of course not. Why? Because, like the Kyoto Treaty, the ABM treaty and the Geneva Conventions are revealed truth (and, as is the case with many sacred documents, many holy sermonizers appear not to have read that last one). The only reason Americans presume to question them is because we are, well, a pack of bullies: "After all, it reflects power relationships nobody can contest.". (He's also scandalized that "[n]uclear testing is blithely listed for resumption". Would that those childish Americans would follow the sage example of multilateral France!) This dreadful impiety of looking after one's national interests, and refusing to obey the commands of babbling Europe, "negates the notion of a world community of self-respecting nations". Yes, those are direct quotes. Young really is the paragon of bloviating unreflective pomposity I here represent. Follow the link and you'll find #6 and get lots more of #3 before the wind dies down. But stay alert for one last fragrant gust of #8 before the all clear.
Taking on Saddam Hussein would probably have the support of
most Middle East and European leaders, if the US finished the job this time.
He is seen as a menace by most of his neighbours.
But even Mr Powell agrees that captured al-Qa'ida fighters will"Big shift?" Maybe the headline should read "Press softens line on status of detainees".
not be formally declared prisoners of war. In Mr Bush's words, "these are
killers, these are terrorists, they know no country". The most that is likely
is US agreement on a tribunal, as laid down in the convention, to determine
whether captives qualify for protection. Beyond that, says Mr Bush, Washington
will observe "the spirit" of Geneva. But it will not accept any curtailment
of its right to interrogate the prisoners.
"The minute a provocateur puts a brick through a window in Manhattan, the media will grab onto it and that'll be the story. In the post-September 11 climate, this is a trap." If it is a trap, some may feel inclined to fall into it anyway. David Graeber of the Anti-Capitalist Convergence, a coalition of anarchist groups, said: "We feel like we're under some obligation to do something, and to show that if you can do it now, in New York, you can do it anywhere. It's scary, they're going to kick our asses, but we've got to do it anyway."Nice to see that young people still have a sense of duty. Such noble resolution will surely strike a blow for....for...something.
But [a "New World Order"] will only come about if the US abandonsIs he suggestng that there is now no international
its unilateral approach to the handling of terrorism and recognises that
it can only effectively be dealt with by the international community that
it has itself done so much to create, but which still needs American leadership
if it is to function effectively. The eradication of al Qaeda and its associates
will be the task of co-operative action by national police and intelligence
services; a task comparable to, and closely linked with, the eradication
of the drug traffic: dirty, unglamorous, unheroic, and mainly conducted in
the shadows.
If a further "war" against a sovereign state does become necessaryOf course, this pretty much amounts
to root out the terrorist network, let us be clear that it is a war. It is
one undertaken after all peaceful alternatives have been clearly exhausted,
with full understanding of its regional and international repercussions and
consequences, waged with the support, if not the participation, of the bulk
of the international community, sanctioned by the UN, and conducted so far
as possible in accordance with civilised conventions and with the least possible
collateral damage, and in full realisation of the mess that will have to
be cleared up afterwards.
"An official can't simply say the Geneva Conventions don't apply...The conventions apply to anyone taken out of a conflict."A Human Rights Watch representative says:
"It's a legal impossibility not to be covered by the Geneva Conventions" once one has been captured in a war[...]And actually, they're both correct. The Geneva Conventions try to "cover" every possible category of person "taken out of a conflict". What they don't do, however, is classify every person captured in a conflict as a prisoner of war.
America is threatening to return up to 40 alleged al Qaeda fighters to Britain, presenting the Government with a security, legal and diplomatic nightmare. [...] "What do you do with these people, if you get them back here?" demanded a security source. "Most of them are people who have simply been fingered by some Northern Alliance character in Afghanistan as a member of al Qaeda. It would be incredibly difficult to marshal evidence against them that would last five minutes at the Old Bailey. "On the other hand, it would be disastrous politically if you were forced just to pat these guys on the head when they land here, and send them home to Leicester or Croydon."Things are tough all over, guv'nuh. The earlier article quoted an unnamed minister sure that the Americans had screwed up the evidence-gathering (like the clods we are), unlike British forces, whose hypothetical forensic efforts would have been ever so much more professional. (But even assuming that the evidence was good he'd rather the clods handle the matter.) Max Hastings, though he ended by wringing his hands over the vicious brutality of American treatment of the prisoners at Gitmo, had some sharp comments on this attitude:
These past few weeks, as the drama in Afghanistan has unfolded, even some quite grown-up Brits have been heard to murmur. If the British Army had been responsible for finding Osama bin Laden, we would have got him by now. If it had been us who still possessed military and naval dominance over the globe, we would have handled this better. If it had been us who were leading the world's democracies in a struggle against international terrorism, we would not have ended up with an image of freedom as crass as that of hooded and manacled prisoners, squatting at the feet of their captors. In reality of course, many of these sentiments are nonsense. History tells us that when Britain was Top Nation, we upset the world by our arrogance as least as much as do the Americans today.(Now that would make an interesting study - how the American press reported British diplomatic and military behavior in the days of empire.) ON THAT NOTE:
Even as European governments criticize the United States for its treatment of Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, they are showing new willingness to expel terror suspects to countries that were previously shunned because of records of torture and execution. Human rights groups contend that these moves, sometimes done with minimal court proceedings, can violate local law and international treaties, a claim the governments contest. [...] Sweden's lightning-fast expulsion of the two Egyptians followed a government decision based on secret testimony by the Swedish security police. It happened so quickly that their attorneys were unable to lodge emergency appeals at the European Court of Human Rights, which hears such cases.Etc., etc., etc.
I would love to see the entire version of what Bernie Trainor
(Lieutenant General USMC retired) said. He is not one of your run-of-the-mill
retired generals (although I don't think you can say that any retired general
is run-of-the-mill, considering what it takes politically to become a general).
While on active duty and to this day, he writes articles about the military.
Right after he retired, he became the New York Times's Military Correspondent.
After a couple of years, he realized he had a bad fit with the Times (my
speculation only) and became a (professor, instructor, exactly what?) with
the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, where I believe he rermains to
this day. In short, he's not given to boorish statements. So, I would
really like to see what his comment was excerpted from.
We go along for months having a war -- the war in Afghanistan,
the war on terrorism, the war to get Osama bin Laden dead or alive, troops
on the ground, bombs in the air ... in other words, war. Those of us who
suggested that maybe war was not the right rhetoric for this situation were
booed down for being insufficiently bloodthirsty, and the caissons went rolling
along. Now we've won the war It's not clear what we've won, but we've definitely
won, which is better than losing. So we take the prisoners we've captured
off to our base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and suddenly announce that they
are not prisoners of war after all, because this isn't really a war we've
been fighting. Therefore the prisoners are "illegal combatants," and we don't
have to treat them in accord with the Geneva Convention on POWs.
This is why a lot of people hate us. For the sheer bloody arrogance
of having it both ways all the time. For thinking that we are above the rules,
that we can laugh at treaties, that we can do whatever we want -- we don't
have to keep our word or behave like other civilized nations, and we can
just tell people to bugger off when they raise questions.
But here's a better illustration of Ivins' muddied perspective:
Retired Gen. Bernard Trainor said, "Well, they like to spend a lot of time on their knees anyway." That'll sound good on Arab TV.Now, she's right to complain about the boorishness of the General's, er, quip. But is she really so laughably naive as to believe that if we muzzled the General Trainors, "Arab TV", or anybody else's TV (all those scrupulously neutral outlets!), would refrain from the habit of putting a negative spin on U.S. action? What kind of world does she think we live in?
Thanks largely to Egypt's willingness to make peace with Israel and ally itself with the United States, the country has received more than $55 billion in aid over the past quarter-century from Western governments, international lending organizations such as the World Bank, and oil-rich Arab neighbors. Only India has gotten more. Ironically, this aid -- motivated by a desire for stability in the Middle East -- helped the Egyptian government maintain a system whose failings are now recognized as a source of the alienation that may stir unrest worldwide. The problem is not that the system generates widespread deprivation; on the contrary, poverty rates are relatively low in Egypt and other Arab countries as well. But the lack of opportunities for the young and educated translates into deeply frustrated aspirations. [...] Economic problems like these can't always be fixed with foreign aid. On the contrary, aid can sometimes enable a government to hold on too long to outdated policies. Ask World Bank economists why they didn't use their leverage to induce Egypt to drastically change its ways, as they do in many other countries, and the answer is almost invariably the same: The World Bank lacks such leverage in Egypt, having been essentially "marginalized" because Cairo can rely on other donors, notably the United States and European countries, for the funds it needs. Ask if that means the billions of dollars showered on Egypt by the U.S. Agency for International Development have been wasted, and the answer is an emphatic "no." World Bank economists credit USAID with bankrolling well-designed, well-implemented projects, such as an investment in a power system that supplies electricity to 95 percent of Egyptian homes. But the aid has not served as a catalyst for the sort of business investment Egypt requires to ignite its economy. That level of success would entail much more ambitious economic reforms than Cairo has yet undertaken -- and, privately, World Bank economists contend that Washington's largesse has kept the Egyptians from feeling pressured to do so. Khalid Ikram, who retired a few months ago as the World Bank's resident representative in Cairo, cited a conversation he had with a senior U.S. diplomat during the late 1970s. When the diplomat exhorted the World Bank topress Egypt for economic reform, Ikram responded by noting that USAID's disbursements to Cairo dwarfed those of the bank, and he asked whether Washington might conceivably withhold its money. The diplomat paused, Ikram recalled, and referred to Egypt's then-president Anwar Sadat, who made peace with Israel and was later assassinated. The diplomat said: "We believe President Sadat is a force for moderation in the Middle East, and as long as he continues to be a force for moderation, he deserves our support."
Too bad. Right now, what is of supreme importance to Americans is not the moral high ground of salon opinion but the strategic high ground of military intelligence -- the advantage we gain in combating terror with the knowledge we glean from these prisoners. The world loves us, bleeding and suffering nobly, at the moral high ground of Ground Zero. To which we say: no thank you. Our paramount national duty today is to prevent another Sept. 11, not to glory in the moral high ground -- the moral vanity -- of the victimhood we suffered last Sept. 11.The real mischief done by European "salon opinion" this time 'round was its immediate and complete conflation of legitimate and necessary debate - about the Geneva Convention and the definition of PoWs - with hysterical slander about the abuse of prisoners. They've behaved disgracefully, but I'm sure they can still find a way to blame it all on Rumsfeld's tart tongue.
In contrast, the Quran describes the formation of the universe as a big bang, beginning with the creation of the heavens and the earths. The plurality of these terms is stressed in order to indicate that there are numerous galaxies. Next, the formation of water, the development of the land, and the creation of plants and animals took place (7:54, 41:9-12, 21:30, 44:7, 78:37). This account coincides with current scientific data. For example, according to the Quran, humans were created in the fourth period on earth, and geologists have concluded that humans appeared in the quaternary, or fourth, era.This must mean that 19th-century geologist Jules Desnoyers decided to change the strata-designation formerly known as "Alluvium" to "Quaternary" on the basis of divine revelation. The author of another site not only implies that the Koran uniquely asserts that man was made from clay, but that this is an exposition of evolutionary theory. He also neatly divvies up all of paleoanthropology into proof of "four transformations of man" to suit his Koranic exegesis: Australopithecus, Pithecanthropines, Neanderthals ("Paleanthropians"), and Homo sapiens. (Their relation to, and how they replaced, one another is left pretty vague. Wise move.) Well, you can find plenty of stuff like that. I'm not at all surprised at its parallels with Christian fundamentalism. But in the end it's not very amusing - there is someting deeply pathetic about people with brains trying to do science with holy books. But the saddest thing in this particular exercise in fundamentalism is the denial of the universalism of human scientific endeavors. The WSJ article cites U of Penn historian S. Nomanul Haq:
He attributes the rise of Bucailleism to a "deep, deep inferiority complex" among Muslims humiliated by colonialism and bidding to recapture faded glories of Islamic science.Well, I'd say a desire to raise science to glorious new heights is all for the good. But scientific excellence is not the preserve of any one human group. The article cited above, while properly exhorting youth to excel in science, ends on this misguided exclusionary note:
It is regretable that the task that was asigned to the Muslims that is being done by non Muslims, why Muslims are not on the fore-front, while they have the guidance of Quran in their hand. Earlier Muslims made scientific discoveries, as a matter of fact they are the pioneers of today’s Science. Karen Armstrong, the author of “Holy War”, says, “This fact has never been acknowledged in the west that all the scientific and technological development that we have today, we owe it to the Arabs and Muslims”.First , a quibble about straw-men: no historically literate Westerner is unaware of, or refuses to acknowledge, the contributions of Arab and Muslim civilization to science. Second quibble - I don't have the book he mentions, but that quote sounds a wee bit doctored. Not even Karen Armstrong would argue that the West has made no original contributions to science and technology. It's pathetic that somebody ostensibly referencing the Islamic Golden Age should feel the need to veer into Black Athena territory. But what's really disturbing is how this fundamentalism completely misses the lesson of the history of science, which is that science is a human project, that flourishes and fails across time, geography, and peoples - and that scientific advances are not made from the study of spiritual literature , or by wasting one's time in obscurantist arguments worthy of interpreters of Nostradamus. The great names of the Islamic Golden Age, like the great names of the Scientific Revolution - whatever their personal religious beliefs, or hopes of reconciling their beliefs with their reason - advanced science by putting down their holy books and opening the book of nature.
The Ministry of Defence confirmed that it would be helping the Afghans to set up an army to provide a counter-balance to the warlords who control large areas of Afghanistan. The West fears that, otherwise, Russia and Iran will take the lead in training a new army to gain influence in Kabul. They are thought to have offered already. [...] The western coalition would prefer a truly national army of 25,000 to 50,000 that would represent all factions. This would enable the government to bring the warlords under control and would not put too much strain on Kabul's resources. How much attention Gen Fahim [the Afghan Defense Minister] will take of British suggestions is open to question. His relationship with British commanders was difficult during last month's negotiations over the establishment of the international force. [...] Western diplomats are worried by the lack of American assistance to the new government in extending its authority and Washington's continuing funding of warlords in the hunt for Osama bin Laden. The warlords are now defying the government and on occasion even the Americans, further destabilising the country. "If America does not take the lead, Britain should," a western diplomat said. "Britain heads the ISAF and is ideally placed to help the Afghans realise the new realities about military strength. "There is also deep concern about other countries stepping forward if the coalition does not act quickly." It would be anathema to the coalition if Iran or Russia trained a new Afghan army. [...]
Addendum: How could I have forgotten Ken Layne's definitive explanation for the phenomenon in question?
If the Coke can is not hurled at the hijacker, it can add criticalGroan. No, we wouldn't look at it like that. Sometimes a weaponized can of pop is just a weaponized can of pop.
mass to a blow to the head or neck. There is no irony intended, and none
seen, in using the ultimate symbol of American cultural imperialism as the
last line of homeland defence.
I shared those feelings of patriotism even as I criticized the president of the United States and his attorney general in the days after the attack, and I still do. Because that criticism was published, I was quickly called by the BBC, the British Broadcasting Corp., and asked to talk about the dangers of "collateral damage" and brutal American retaliation in countries as defenseless as Afghanistan. "But I am for retaliation; we have to retaliate," I said. Then I quoted President Kennedy as saying he would have been impeached -- and should have been impeached -- if he did not respond militarily to the placement of Soviet missiles threatening the United States from 90 miles away in Cuba in 1962. The interview turned nasty, and I found myself asking my questioners whether they thought it was immoral to send waves of British bombers over German cities after the Nazi terror-bombing of London in World War II -- even if that surely meant collateral damage, the killing of innocent German women and children in the wrong place at the wrong time. They hung up on me, more or less.
Yet fail they did [to accomplish the humanitarian mission inUm, which
Somalia]. For most of the past decade, poverty-stricken Somalia has been
abandoned by the rest of the world. Perhaps, then, the most suitable lesson
regarding Somalia is a more recent one, from Afghanistan, where it is now
clear that years of Western neglect allowed bin Laden and his al-Qa'eda network
to take root. Somalia, like Afghanistan, needs a political and cash commitment,
to help rebuild schools and stabilise government; to welcome Somalia back
to the league of nations. Somalis say they have matured, and should not be
cast as villains of the piece.
Isn't this the way America should step back into Somalia, ratherIt would be nice to know exactly what "way" that
than by renewing military strikes - and thereby risking the start of a new
blood feud?
In particular, U.S. and U.N. officials say recent intelligence reports suggest large numbers of explosives aere being smuggled into Kabul in preparation for an attack on U.S. officials or Western aid workers in the city. The explosives are being brought in by forces loyal to the recently overthrown Taliban regime and by regional warlords, angry because they haven't been give a prominent role in the new central government[...]It only gets worse from there. The common argument is that we have to "fix" places like Somalia and Afghanistan to ensure our own security. Nice idea, but is it possible? The article also refers to reports that Iran is already busily working away at destabilizing whatever government exists in Afghanistan.
Colin Powell said Afghans should take responsibility for their own security, adding that international assistance should be designed to "train Afghans to take care of themselves and not depend on foreign forces to do so."These two examples suggest that, in the meantime, we can only keep governments (or tribal groups) from giving terrorists safe-haven by maintaining a credible threat of force against them.
Ministers have privately told Washington they want the British Al-Qaeda prisoners held in Cuba to be tried in America if there is sufficient evidence against them — and not sent back to the UK. The government believes that trying them in Britain would be legally problematic and that any failed prosecution might lead to the suspects being released onto British streets.Also because, according to an unnamed minister, they believe the American military was too careless in collecting evidence:
“Picking people up, giving them a good going over and sticking them on a plane to Cuba isn’t what our police and security services would do. Our forces would have gone through the whole thing on the ground much more closely in terms of following through the contacts of the individuals, where they are based and witnesses and so on."But at the same time:
“If there is sufficient evidence for a trial we believe that the US should do it. We would have to try them under the 1351 Treason Act, which would be a bit avant-garde.”Avant-garde? Besides, trying them under your laws wouldn't be half as satisfying as criticizing us for trying them under our laws, would it? All sarcasm aside, I have nothing against legitimate criticism of, and debate about, how these prisoners are being or should be handled. But I think this article illustrates how thorny a problem this is for the U.S., and how self-righteous and hypocritical some of that criticism is.
We're not interested in listening to European advice because the Europeans have proved that their advice is worthless.
But how we define terrorism, where we diagnose it, and to what resorts we think it right to go in combating it, are debates in which we Europeans and the United States may find our preferred positions sliding apart. I think that slide began this week, as the unsavoury pantomime took to the stage in Guantanamo Bay. Take Donald Rumsfeld’s angry brushing aside of concerns about the treatment of prisoners, an outburst which, from the Prime Minister down, members of the British Government have been trying to sidle past, looking the other way. Said the US Defence Secretary: “I do not feel the slightest concern at their treatment. They are being treated vastly better than they treated anybody else.” In a saloon bar this will do, but is that the standard? How much does the Secretary of State really know about these individuals? And why are they not prisoners of war? Face it: Mr Rumsfeld does not care about the niceties and cares little who knows it.But what's the issue here? The question is: is it a fact that these prisoners are being abused? And people like Parris seem far more occupied with Rumsfeld's brusqueness than they are with the facts of the matter. The denunciations and accusations began before the Red Cross had even arrived for inspections at Guantanamo. It can hardly be the case that Americans are willing to throw away civilized values, or lack "a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind", for critics would not cavil at real savages for allowing prisoners to get rained on along with their guards. Rumsfeld is not an uncivilized man, nor are his countrymen, and the fact is, he has been listening to unfounded accusations of "violating human rights" - of torture, of massacre, of indifference to civilian casualties - since the campaign began. His brusqueness is more a comment on the credibility of the critics than an expression of contempt for civilized values. "Rumsfeld is popular because Americans are simple-minded Manichean rubes" is a comforting, but false, explanation for American attitudes.
I'm not sure whether to be insulted or honored that Jim Henley puts me at the other end of the spectrum from Justin Raimondo. But if reporting the facts about Saudi Arabia and viscerally expressing my horror at their indisputable corruption qualifies as "incitements" then I must plead guilty.He outlines his views on Iraq here. Thanks, Charles.
Until now, the earliest human civilisations — the Harrapan and"Cavemen"? Anyway, interesting. I'll stay tuned.
Indus Valley communities — had been dated to about 2500BC. [I assume they
mean here " in this area/outside Mesopotamia" - mb.]. However, experts have
speculated that “civilised” communities may have existed much earlier but
were lost as sea levels rose at the end of the Ice Age around 8000BC. Other
specialists remained sceptical yesterday, dismissing the discovery. [...]
Derek Kennet, a research fellow in archaeology at the University of Durham,
said: “It all sounds extremely dubious. If it’s true it means an utter re-evaluation
of how we view history. Even the earliest cities came 2,000 years later than
this supposed discovery. If this is true we’re looking at a period of about
a thousand years after the end of the Ice Age with cavemen building cities.
Lost between Raimondo's apologias and Charles Johnson's incitements(Particularly on the heels of this morning's WaPo report
is the idea that we might just tell the Saudis to fuck off and fend for themselves.
If the sand around their precious holy places is so sacrosanct, may they
have much joy in it.
Why don't Americans, individually generous people, think itBecause we're stupid and evil. Hope that helps.
outrageous that the US gives a smaller proportion of its GDP in foreign aid
to poor countries than any other developed nation, and thumbs its nose at
international treaties?
When I came to the penultimate paragraph of her article, I did let out a good American snicker at seeing the line from Blake's Jerusalem misprinted (misquoted?) as "I will not cease from from mental flight".
Mrs. Green said students were given the option to dress up as a Muslim for extra credit.I may be being unfair here, as it's not clear from the story what "Muslim dress" applied to - perhaps it only referred to traditional attire for a pilgrimage. But if not, how does one "dress like a Muslim"? Here is an earnestly multi-culti and "sensitive" curriculum leading teachers into bad-old-days howlers, like having your students "dress like Africans" or "observe Oriental customs". Can one "dress like a Christian"? How is one supposed to "dress like a Buddhist"? "Dress like a Muslim"? A Muslim from where? Los Angeles? Jakarta? Kabul? London? Khartoum?
I won't jaw about the exact percentages but I thought she was spot-on with the general message of this:But that's the point, isn't it? As an astute reader pointed
"The moment a man gets married," Maushart says, "his domesticThen Moira comes back with,
workload almost disappears. He immediately gets about 70 per cent less cleaning,
50 per cent less cooking and 90 per cent less laundry. There are nowhere
near these benefits for a woman when she gets married. And these days you're
at pains to deny that you're doing it, because apart from being exhausted
by it, you're ashamed of yourself."
"Not a very nice thing to do someone you allegedly care for, is it?" And
that is also spot on. But the two statements are not incompatible, either
as to intrinsic truth or likelihood of together accurately describing a married
couple. The mark of a system, or climate of opinion, that needs reform is
that it makes people who may well be nice - at least as nice as most people
- do un-nice things. Let's take the approximate truth of those statistics
first. If you get a bunch of women together they moan about these same things.
They have the status of proverbs, so common are they. Study after study says
that in households where both have jobs, the woman does, in fact, do more
than her share. She can't bear to have dirty socks on the floor; he can.
Moira herself good-humouredly admits that tidiness "is a chick thing."
One of the numerous intellectual debts I owe to my former politicalOh,
incarnation as a left-winger is this observation: it is always easier for
the winners to act nice. My lord can dispense mercy to the peasants with
a merry smile; I bet the peasants were a surly, resentful bunch. When women
first broke into such professions as medicine and law, can you imagine what
a bunch of obsessive harpies those first pioneers had to be? Feminism is,
by hypothesis, a matter of looking at institutions and customs that have
proceeded without opposition for centuries and pronouncing them wrong. It
is seeing and denouncing a problem where no-one, even the victims, saw it
before. It is hard to do this and stay welcome at parties.
I don't much relate to Maushart's particular example of theAh ha! Got you there,
woman being expected to worry about how family relationships pan out. But
"organising the whole family enterprise," yeah, been there. I challenge you,
Moira, or any married woman to put your hand on your heart and swear to me
that your husband has never said, "have we got my sister's birthday present
yet?" or words to that pattern.
But you are right about the highly-orderd micro-environment.
Precisely because it is a noxious piece of totalitarian propaganda! It is a wonderful period piece of insanity, sort of like 'Triumph of the Will' on peyote: think of the arrival of Hitler's aircraft in 'TOTW' before he confronts the massed uniformed SS at Nuremberg... then think of Klaatu's arrival, but faced with the ungrateful uniformed American soldiers rather than the adoring Germans, as he brings us the message 'obey collectively or die collectively'. Klaatu even befriends a young boy who he is prepared to kill along with everyone else if his mission fails, sort of like some kindly guard at Belsen. Superb stuff. Totally nightmarish and made even more so by the fact Klaatu is shown as THE GOOD GUY! Truly a classic.Glad we cleared that up.
I should add to the comments of my esteemed syndicated analyst (Tom Roberts) that McSally is an officer of the United States government in perfomance of her duties - to expect her to abide that stupid policy (which the Kingdom actually demurrs on: it's the local U.S. command's policy) is indefensible.
With regards the men being shackled and possibly hooded on the
plane, he said he had not protested because of the "special circumstances"
of the accusations against them. "I defy anybody to say how you could transport
potentially profoundly dangerous prisoners other than by wholly restraining
them and ensuring that they couldn't signal with each other."
When the 27-year-old Susan Maushart arrived at her marital
home with her new husband after their honeymoon night in a swanky hotel,
she found herself suddenly acting very strangely. She proceeded directly
to the bathroom and started cleaning and didn't stop until it had been scrubbed,
scoured and polished from top to bottom. When that was done, she moved to
the kitchen, pulled out a recipe book and started work on a casserole. Normal
behaviour for some blushing brides maybe, but for Maushart, an ardent feminist
and hardened New Yorker who'd previously existed on fast food, this was decidedly
out of character. "It was like some weird way of marking out female territory,"
she says. "A reverse form of weeing in every corner perhaps? All I knew for
sure was that scrubbing the bathroom felt good. Wifely, even.
Then, frankly, she just starts to disgust me:
In her book, entitled Wifework [gag - mb], Maushart sets out to explain why an intelligent PhD student like herself should suddenly regress into archetypal Fifties housewife mode."An intelligent PhD student like herself" who believes that a desire to maintain a civilized household is "regressive". Odd. All the female PhDs, MDs, MBAs of my acquaintance tend to share a common desire for an orderly abode. It's a chick thing. If you were a guy PhD student you might be indifferent to the fact that you're living in a dark hole with thick layers of mold in the corners [viz. spouse]. But even they eventually get sick of that lifestyle.
[...]Maushart draws some disturbing conclusions. Marriage, she concludes, is far more than a piece of paper [...]Duh.
"The moment a man gets married," Maushart says, "his domestic workload almost disappears. He immediately gets about 70 per cent less cleaning, 50 per cent less cooking and 90 per cent less laundry. There are nowhere near these benefits for a woman when she gets married. And these days you're at pains to deny that you're doing it, because apart from being exhausted by it, you're ashamed of yourself."What is this woman talking about? There no doubt exist men who expect their wives to be both a breadwinner and shoulder all the housework; I've known intelligent, decent women who married too young, or made a mistake, ditched the bum, and straightened out their lives. But how did this fate befall an "intelligent PhD student", not once, but twice, and why does she still believe the puerile relations she has known are the prevailing condition? The spouse and I have been through just about every work/school/stay home permutation - I worked full-time when he was getting his doctorate, and part-time, and did the stay-at-home housewife thang. In none of these situations did I get stuck with an unfair share of the household labor. Not a very nice thing to do someone you allegedly care for, is it? Maushart felt terribly put-upon, but what did she ever do about it? Apparently, found even more things to feel martyred about:
And it's not just the obvious household chores that come under Maushart's "wifework" tag. There's the broader task of general husband maintenance. "There is the more subtle, emotional care-taking work," she says."Husband maintenance"? What, are you changing this guy's diapers or something? Where do these ladies finds these grotesque mama's boys? Are you seriously telling us you have married a man who expresses no affection, who shows no concern for your happiness, who is completely self-absorbed and regards you as a sort of ego-stoking retainer? I am truly grossed out by these revelations. What a cad. What a boor. What an oaf. What are you doing with him?
"Things like organising and masterminding the whole family enterprise and taking responsibility for the way relationships pan out – and those aren't just husband and wife, but the in-laws, the extended family and parenting."Well, sure I care about how my nearest and dearest are feeling. They give every indication of feeling that way about me, too. This is one of the things that people form bonds and family groups for in the first place, eh? But no, I've never lain awake at night worrying about the emotional states of my extended family, or felt responsibility for the success of their relationships. I certainly wish them all happiness, but it is certainly beyond my power to grant it. In fact, there's some sort of ugly control-freaky strain slithering under this complaint against the terrible responsibility that the author is claiming society thrusts upon women. I am the great and terrible bestower of happiness and sorrow! Get over yourself, lady. But here's where I tossed my cookies:
And crucial to this, of course, is the "sex work" that the wife, often unconsciously, finds herself partaking in. "That is, the way a woman subtly adjusts her dance sexually to the man's rhythm, men calling the shots and leaving women wondering why they're so strung out and fantasising about being single again."This is just vile. "Sex work". So you live like this, huh? Your loving mate is utterly indifferent to your misery and dissatisfaction. I see. You have misplaced your gift of articulate speech and are unable to express your dissatisfaction, make a complaint, insist upon your rightful status, lay down the law - not in this, not in anything. Ah. Wimp, meet lout. Lout, wimp. Live long and prosper.
Maushart's motivation comes directly from her own marital experiences. Perhaps the alarm bells should have started ringing prior to tying the knot on her own happy day. "I remember being surprised when he requested, rather firmly, that I refrain from smoking during our outdoor wedding reception," she writes of her husband-to-be in the book. "As a heavy pipe-smoker, he was hardly in a position to get all holier than thou on me. 'But why now?' I wanted to know. 'My cigarettes have never bothered you before. And everybody else will be smoking'. 'I'd just prefer that you didn't,' he replied evenly."Uh huh. The "intelligent PhD student" is sure there were never any manifestations of flaming assholery on the part of her intended until that fateful day. Then she washes, rinses, and repeats. (And of course, we're only getting her side of the story here. She doesn't sound like any prize pig herself.) Maushart is a brave purveyor of truth to silenced, martyred women everywhere. Oh, it appears she's also written a book on the horrible truths about motherhood. I may be terribly callous and unsympathetic here, but, hey, I got married. I became a mother. I have a comfortable middle class life, as I assume someone who was an "intelligent PhD student" like Maushart also has. And I don't know what the hell she's talking about. What kind of worthless soul-sucking lump do you have to have allied yourself with to really feel that it's easier to raise three children alone than with him? But she nobly urges that we women take up the female's burden and suffer the presence of some worthless....man (spit it out, now) - for the children!
Maushart claims that by spelling out a few truths and letting women off the hook, her ideas have, in fact, saved some marriages. "Looking at it from this perspective makes you realise there's only so much you can do to influence a marriage. Given that marriage is terribly important for children, women can weigh up the odds. They may decide the sacrifices are worth it for the sake of their children, so instead of ending up with angst as to why our marriage is not perfect, they could look at it and say, 'Well, no wonder', and congratulate themselves."Then we'll burn 'em for a saint.
The crystals -- each no larger than nanometers or billionths of a meter -- can be attached to proteins as well as DNA. This opens up the possibility of controlling more complex biological processes such as enzymatic activity, protein folding and biomolecular assembly. "There are already numerous examples of nanocrystals attached to biological systems for the purpose of sensing," Schifferli said. "However, we hadn't come across any examples where they are used as a means of controlling the biology. We feel that's what's new about our work." Ultimately, cell component functions and the cell life cycle itself may be electronically regulated using radio waves, said researcher Joseph Jacobson, head of the MIT Media Lab's molecular machines group. Biological machines may one day be used to perform computation, assemble computer components or become part of computer hardware or circuitry. "If we're interested in molecular-scale machines, biology is a wonderful place to start," Jacobson said. "Manipulation of DNA is interesting because it has been shown recently that is has potential as an actuator -- a hard drive component -- and can be used to perform computational operations." Exquisitely fine electronic control of biology also will likely become more and more important in dissecting intricate molecular interactions and formations in great detail. There is currently no way to achieve this fine control over one molecule without disturbing its neighbors.
Someone reminded me of the movie, "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (TDTESS). I never liked it. The filmmakers' invocation of wise aliens struck me as a collectivist dodge, with a not-so-subtle anti-American leitmotif in the guise of anti-nuclearism. It's as if the moviemakers didn't have the nerve to say, "We are socialists and want to tell the rest of you how to live." So instead they invent some super-cool extraterrestrial authority figures to say it for them (and - so advanced and humane of them! - threaten to kill us if we don't comply). Yeah right. The film's implicit argument has the same moral legitimacy as does my threatening to have my brother beat you up if you don't agree with me. A proper response to this crew of sanctimonious space pricks would be, "Who elected you?". . . followed by our judicious use of nuclear weapons. If I were rewriting the movie, the U.S. government would pretend to negotiate with the aliens while quietly soliciting ideas for countermeasures. The day would be saved when a clever high-tech robot immobilizer - invented in a garage by a self-taught immigrant tinkerer - would be rushed into secret production by patriotic U.S. capitalists. The aliens would be marooned on Earth and would have to get real jobs. Gort would go on display in the Smithsonian where children would plug his deactivated death ray with chewing gum. Mankind would be saved from captivity in the little-green busybodies' interplanetary prison. I much prefer "High Noon" to TDTESS as a 1950s morality tale. TDTESS uses the manipulative power of film and a hoary sci-fi plot device - wise, omnipotent aliens (Q: how can they be both wise and omnipotent? A: because they aren't real) - to make heavyhanded insinuations of collective guilt and shout down questions. (It's somewhat in the same spirit as "The Man in the White Suit" and other films that emerged from the post-war British socialist miasma, where individuality and enterprise were mocked while collective action and authoritarian do-gooding were framed as high morality.) "High Noon," in refreshing contrast, portrays its characters as rational individuals possessing various degrees of decency and courage, facing wicked adversaries, and capable of deciding for themselves how to deal with them. The message of "High Noon" is that it's important to confront evil, and that weak, imperfect individuals can prevail in that fight if they have courage and loyalty to their values and each other. The message of TDTESS is that we are all children, some of us have been bad, and if we don't behave the grownups are going to get really mad and punish us.Now what I want to know is why Perry was defending TDTESS (that noxious piece of totalitarian propaganda) to me as a "classic". Scandalous!
To quote Glenn Reynolds many months ago posing as AG Android in Slate's Fray, "When in Rome do as the Romans do, but wait a minute! In this case we are the Romans." Nobody in a Roman protectorate, let alone the Empire, ever asked a legionaire to change his uniform because they didn't like his knobby knees.Not even if they were Woger or Woderick's knobby knees.
But here's the thing: It's easier for us to accept restrictionsAnd
when they are shouldered equally. The restrictions that have Martha McSally
riled are shouldered only by women. So in respecting the Saudi's fundamental
values, we violate one of our own: equality. [...] I don't mean to demonize
the military. There is legitimate reason to fear that a casually dressed
American servicewoman might become a target of violence in Saudi. But McSally
contends that there are circumstances -- service personnel traveling in a
large group, for example -- when that risk is virtually nonexistent. She
has said she'd accept a compromise allowing servicewomen to cover themselves
head to toe in mainstream American wear, as opposed to the abaya. Which
sounds reasonable to me. Yes, we should avoid offending one of our few friends
[rolling eyes here - ed.
] in this volatile, strategically important region. Yes, it's something of
a concession for them to even allow infidel Americans -- much less American
military women -- to base themselves in a nation that is home to Mecca. Yes,
we are guests, there to defend the oil. We're also there to defend the Saudis.
That ought to count for something. Ought to entitle us to require a more
equitable compromise that serves the purpose without undermining who we are.
It doesn't trouble me that we change some of our behaviors to avoid affronting
nations with which we do business. It doesn't trouble me that we respect
their values. But is it too much to ask that they respect some of ours?
My father attempted this morning to buy a loaf of bread at a bakery here in Paris. He handed the man behind the counter a shiny new one Euro coin. The baker held it up to the light and examined it carefully. A miasma of distrust passed across his cunning face; he handed the coin back to my father with visible disdain and a clear sense of triumph. "I cannot accept this, Monsieur," he said gravely. "This is a Spanish Euro."
The total level of brightness is of course arbitrary, in fact we can calculate the whole range from dark to light to give a range of perceptual shades[...]I'll take the darker end, thank you. That way I can be seen out and about in the universe without looking ghastly.
With the Ottomans being the predominant power in the MoslemThis disucssion reminds me of another book I read and enjoyed a while back: Alfred W. Crosby's The Measure of Reality: Quantification and Western Society, 1250-1600
world for centuries, and the Abbasid Caliphate before them, both of these
Sunni regimes were noted for their religious tolerance. In particular Jews
and Greeks were widely given both worship and economic rights. In most cases
the rulers simply did their banking with the local representatives of offshore
banking interests, whose representatives were these Jews and Greeks. The
other way was as I noted, to charge 1 dinar 5 years from now for 0.8 dinars
lent today. But this assumes that the lender is in good standing with the
borrower at that time in the future, which was speculative with some rulers.
But this issue of how the rulers financed themselves is eclipsed by the
way that eventually most of the Levant trade came to be financed through
the Italian city state bankers. This gave the Venetians and Genoese a strangle
hold on who actually made a profit off of anything traded in much of the
Mediterranean. It wasn't just the cultural benefits of seeing the high culture
of the East that led to the Italian Renaissance. It was the trading and banking
profits that financed all that sculpture, building, art patronage, and literary
endeavor. For more than 2 centuries Italy was the center of the financial
and cultural world and this was only broken by the deluge of American silver
that financed the Hapsburg conquest of Italy and much of the rest of Central
Europe. Eventually finance moved north, such as the founding of the Fugger
Bank in Augsburg, and culture moved with it as the Northern Renaissance led
to the Baroque era. But the Moslem world never recovered either its financial
nor its cultural independence. Most of the more mundane contributions of
the Italian Renaissance are not commonly appreciated: a. The Italians seized
upon Arabic numbers to make multiplication, division, and decimal arithmetic
feasible. The application of this to business is obvious, and how anybody
did large scale business without such methods prior to the Italians is hard
to imagine. b. An Italian monk invented double entry bookkeeping, which is
a revolutionary device for showing how a business actually functions. c.
An Italian money lender [re?]invented paper money, but made sure he had enough
reserve hard currency to make his notes trusted by a wide geographical range
of business acquaintences. All of these business coups de main could have
been done by the Arabs and Turks, but they simply had no motive to do so.
Back to the Jews mentioned above, many of these Sephardim married into the
Italian financial families, and the Orthodox Greeks always had a fairly prominent
place in Sicilian and Calabrese society. The death toll of the Italian Renaissance,
the Office of the Holy Inquisition, had an equal effect on these elements
of the financial community as it did on the Gallileos of science. The packed
their bags and moved north, leaving for fairer environments. Which is Braudel's
overall point about Capitalism in general. Braudel also wrote a great book
called "The Mediterranean".
CBT encourages sufferers to think differently about everydayIt's my understanding (somebody out there correct me
situations - to help them control the links between behaviour, thoughts and
mood.
"Would a patient engage with a computer screen? We are takingA reasonable concern - but then she makes this astonishing statement:
about emotions here and I personally am not convinced it would work in cases
of major depressive illness."
"In all my experience I have not come across people who are reluctant to talk about issues and so would respond better to a computer.Is she saying here she has never had for a patient a person who has difficulty discussing personal issues and emotions with a stranger? She must have a highly unusual population of human beings for patients, if so.
[a]nti-retroviral medication is kept in most hospitals as a matter of course, as it is used as a prophylactic for health-care workers in the case of needle-stick injuries, or other cases where doctors or nurses have been exposed to HIV-contaminated blood.Note also the related side-bar story.