Sometimes it's hard to be a Mets fan

From yesterday's NYT:

Mike Piazza, who was not in the starting lineup, spent his free time getting a baseball autographed by the radio commentator Rush Limbaugh. "It was like meeting George Washington," Piazza said.

WPU to Host Conference on Terrorism

From the WPU Press Office:

William Paterson University to Host Conference on Terrorism

A two-day international conference designed to open a discussion about the global effects of terrorism on democracy will be held on April 13 and 14 at William Paterson University on the campus in Wayne.
“Terrorism and Democracy,” begins with a keynote address by Ambassador Javier Ruperez, executive director of the United Nations Counterterrorism Committee, on Wednesday, April 13 at 7 p.m. in the Cheng Library Auditorium.

The conference continues on Thursday, April 14 with four panel discussions to be held in the Martini Teleconference Center. The morning’s events begin with a panel from 9:30 to 11 a.m. focusing on “Mapping Contemporary Terrorism: The Global Contours Post 9/11/01.” Panelists are Andrea Bertoli, senior research scholar and director, Center for International Conflict Resolution, Columbia University; Pascal Boniface, director of the Institute for International and Strategic Relations, and professor of international relations, Institute for European Studies, University of Paris; and Ambassador Augustine P. Mahiga, permanent representative of the United Republic of Tanzania to the United Nations.

“Contemporary Terrorist Movements: Latin America, the European Union, Russia and the Caucuses” will be held from 11:15 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. Panelists are Stephan Duso-Baudin, associate professor, St. Cyr Military Academy, Maitre de Conferences L’Institut des Sciences Politiques de Paris, and senior researcher at the French Army’s Centre de Doctrin d’Emploi des Forces, Ecole Militaire, Paris, France; Nina Krusheva, professor, Graduate Program in International Affairs, New School University and senior editor, Project Syndicate Association of Newspapers Around the World; and Martin Weinstein, professor of political science, William Paterson University.

The topic of the first afternoon panel, which will be held from 1:45 to 3:15 p.m., is “Contemporary Terrorist Movements: Israel, Lebanon and Palestine, Indonesia, South Asia, Africa.” Panelists are John Gersham, senior analyst, Interhemispheric Resource Center, Asia/Pacific editor, Foreign Policy in Focus; David Makovsky, senior fellow and director of the Project on the Middle East Peace Process, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and adjunct lecturer in Middle Eastern politics, Johns Hopkins University; and Aaron Tesfaye, assistant professor, political science, at William Paterson University. Bertoli, Boniface and Makovsky will join Maya Chadda, professor of political science at William Paterson University, for the final panel, to be held from 3:15 to 5:15 p.m. They will discuss “Political Repercussions of the ‘Wars on Terror:’ The Domestic Impacts on Democracy, Human Rights and Peace.”

The program is sponsored by William Paterson University’s Department of Political Science, the Master’s Program in Public Policy and International Affairs, the Center for International Studies, and the Department of African, African American and Caribbean Studies. For additional information, please call John Mason, professor, political science department, at 973.720.3421.

Jane Fonda

Liz caught this article about Jane Fonda:

Fonda Says Vietnamese Visit Was a Betrayal
Thursday, March 31, 2005
(03-31) 10:27 PST NEW YORK, (AP) --

Jane Fonda says her 1972 visit to a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun site, an incident that brought her the nickname "Hanoi Jane," was a "betrayal" of American forces and of the "country that gave me privilege."

"The image of Jane Fonda, `Barbarella,' Henry Fonda's daughter ... sitting on an enemy aircraft gun was a betrayal ... the largest lapse of judgment that I can even imagine," Fonda told Leslie Stahl in a "60 Minutes" interview that will air Sunday night.

Fonda, whose memoir "Jane Fonda: My Life So Far" comes out next week, said she did not regret meeting with American POWs in North Vietnam or making broadcasts on Radio Hanoi. "Our government was lying to us and men were dying because of it, and I felt I had to do anything that I could to expose the lies and help end the war," she said.

Also on "60 Minutes," Fonda acknowledged that she had participated in sexual threesomes, at the encouragement of her first husband, French film director Roger Vadim. She said she consented because, "I felt that if I said no, that he would leave me and I couldn't imagine myself without him."

"Muslim Woman's Courage Sets Example"

Mirdita sends this to us:

I am doing research for one of my classes and came upon this article. After reading the article, I became totally outraged I knew that rape occurred in Middle Eastern/Asian countries but I thought it was done by the Taliban or extremists and not authorized by the government. Since March is Women's Month, I would like you to post this article on the superannuated blog. I think this article will spark some responses. Let me know what you think. Maybe you have heard of such savagery.

Mirdita

Muslim Woman's Courage Sets Example
March 16, 2005
by Wendy McElroy, wendy@ifeminists.net

Last week, Pakistan's Federal Shariat Court—the nation's highest Islamic court—vacated an appeals court decision that had outraged the world.

In essence, the appeals court had acquitted five of the six men convicted in the 2002 "honor rape" of Mukhtar Mai. Her ongoing story may well foreshadow the future of Muslim women who suffer under tribal law and other oppressive traditions. Hers is a savage tale of brutalization and courage, with confusing twists and a resolution that is uncertain. But it is a story of hope, which provides reason for optimism.

In it, the West provides an invaluable voice of conscience and compassion. But the story's ultimate message may be that Muslim women must stand up for themselves and say 'no.'

In the summer of 2002, a panchayat court (or village council) sentenced Mukhtar to be gang-raped by four men. The sentence was not to punish Mukhtar for wrongdoing. Rather, her 14-year-old brother was accused of associating in public with a girl from a rival and more powerful tribe; her rape was meant to punish the family for his transgression.

Gang-raped, beaten, and thrown naked into the street, Mukhtar was forced to walk home through her village. The public nature of the punishment ensured she was an outcast and unmarriageable. Mukhtar was expected to kill herself, but a suicide attempt failed. Her family revived her, and the support of her loved ones deterred her from making future attempts.

Her story grabbed the media's attention. Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times visited her home and observed, "a girl in the next village was gang-raped a week after Ms. Mukhtaran, and she took the traditional route: she swallowed a bottle of pesticide and dropped dead."

By contrast, Kristof wrote, Mukhtar survived and propounded "the shocking idea that the shame lies in raping, rather than in being raped."

In rural Pakistan, as in many remote Muslim areas, tribal courts often take precedence over the law of the land on matters of family and "honor." Indeed, when human rights organizations express outrage over ritualized violence against women in Islamic cultures, it is often the panchayat tribal courts toward which they point an accusing finger.

For example, Pakistan is notorious for "honor killings." This is the practice by which women are murdered, usually by male relatives, for sexual 'improprieties' such as having sex outside of marriage. Mukhtar's story is an international indictment of that system.

However, in recent years—largely due to its alliance with and dependency upon the United States—Pakistan's national government has been trying to reform how women are treated in their country. President Musharraf has declared an agenda of "enlightened moderation" that sets his more Western version of society at odds with tribal traditions.

In Mai's case, the first "official" encouragement came from a local imam (an Islamic cleric) who called for her attackers to be brought before a civil court. (The importance of calls of reform and rebellion originating from within the society itself cannot be overstated.)

Soon, international opinion took up the cry and Pakistan's authorities reacted quickly. A special anti-terrorism court sentenced the four accused rapists as well as two members of the panchayat court to death. Musharraf presented Mukhtar with approximately $8,300 in compensation and ordered the police to protect her.

Mukhtar used the money to open schools for children in her village.

Sarwar Bari of Pattan—a non-governmental organization that supports Mukhtar—states, "A lot of people would have taken the money and run away, tried to forget, but Mukhtaran has not only stayed but has launched a visible challenge to the feudal landlords to change the status quo."

And, then, a slow and boring appeals process ensued. And, then, world attention shifted focus.

Some of that shift was the natural consequence of a fast-moving world. Some was encouraged by Pakistan's government to mute global criticism. Clearly, the Pakistani government was not pleased with reporters like Kristof.

Last September, Kristof reported, "relatives of the rapists are waiting for the police to leave and then will put Ms. Mukhtaran in her place...I walked to the area where the high-status tribesmen live. They denied planning to kill Ms. Mukhtaran, but were unapologetic about her rape."

And while the world shifted focus, the appeals court set her rapists free.

Early this month, Kristof published an op-ed in the N.Y. Times entitled, "When Rapists Walk Free." There, Kristof commented, "I had planned to be in Pakistan this week to write a follow-up column about Mukhtaran. But after a month's wait, the Pakistani government has refused to give me a visa..."

But now that the higher court has overturned those acquittals, global attention is again on Mukhtar.

On a website about her ordeal, Mukhtar, a small, soft-spoken women in her 30s, says of the attention: "My legal name is Mukhtaran Bibi, though I have become known in recent years as Mukhtar Mai. The local media here in Pakistan gave me that name, meaning 'respected big sister,' after my story first became national news."

But what the world sees upon refocusing on Mukhtar is a woman who has stood strong for two years and become a lightning rod around which other women gather to march and protest.

One official reaction: a contempt plea has been filed against 14 people, including Mukhtar, for making statements critical of the court to the press. Liberalizing the treatment of women and moving too openly against tribal courts obviously places Musharraf in an uncomfortable position.

Yet change is coming. Mukhtaran has said. "It's more than I would have thought possible two years ago."

Imagine what might be accomplished if the world pays attention for the next two years.

Copyright © 2005 Wendy McElroy.

Matthew K. on the Patriot Act

Matthew K. sends in these comments on the The Patriot Act:

A continuation from Thursday’s class, in both the Daily Record and also in the NJ Herald there was an article dealing with an individual who was charged with blinding pilots while trying to land at Teterboro airport. The man faces 20 years in prison based on the Patriot Act charges. The man states that he was star gazing when his laser beam accidentally hit the planes. The charge against the man is for and I quote from the article “non-purposeful conduct”. The other article states that is was a reckless act, which endangered the safety of others.

For everyone to know big brother is always looking over your shoulders. Our personal freedoms have been limited further with the introduction of the Patriot Act. I fully understand that the intention was to keep my family safe from those wishing to do harm, but it would be nice if we had the ability to stop these people from entering our country. This may be too much for our politicians to handle and therefore will have to do this baby steps.


New Jersey Herald
Thursday March 24 2005
Laser Indictment Filed

Daily Record
Thursday March 24 2005
Laser-pointing Suspect Indicted

Liz writes in

from Liz:

The Terry Schiavo situation has been much on my mind and our discussion
in class yesterday has prompted me to submit this to your blog.

Often, when discussing this case, words like ‘killing’ ‘starving her to
death’ and ‘convenience’ are used. Some factions have advanced the
position that it has become inconvenient for Mrs. Schiavo’s husband to
care for her. They cite his relationship with another woman and his two
children with her as proof of their assertion. Others call this a right
to life case, stressing the ‘inalienable right to life…’ mentioned in
our Declaration of Independence. People argue about if Mrs. Schiavo is
‘really there’. Does she really smile in reaction to other people? Does
she follow with her eyes? Does she try to respond? Or are these all the
most basic involuntary reactions, completely unrelated to human thought
and cognizance?

The only thing I can say about the Schiavo case is this:

I don’t know.

What I do know is based on personal experience. I have been in the
unfortunate position of having to make a decision similar to
Mr.Schiavo’s two times: once for my father who'd been comatose for more
than a month after a work related head injury, once for my chronically
ill mother who suffered brain damage as a result of lack of oxygen. Her
body was so wracked and distorted with arthritis that when she needed to
be intubated by emts, they were unable to figure out how to do it.

My brother died at home, brain cancer at 29, assisted by hospice. Once
we knew that cancer treatments had failed, no 'life-saving' measures
were used. My brother in law died in the hospital, AIDS at 43. Again,
once it was clear that medicine was ineffective, no 'life-saving'
measures were employed.

My 'list' is much longer than this, as many of yours must be. These are
just the four most relevant to the discussion.

When my parents became incapacitated, – ten years apart and without
living wills - we as a family made the hard decisions together, in
consultation with the medical professionals and clergy we trusted. The
inevitable disagreements over which course to take, which ‘plugs to pull
when’ meant we waited a little longer to make our decision. One of us,
however - me - was given extra responsibility and my view was given
extra weight because of my position in the family and because the rest
of them trusted and loved me.

I can understand Mrs. Schiavo’s family's desperate hope because I lived
it. Every eye blink, every twitch – maybe that meant my parents or
brothers were ‘coming back’. We lived in hope, but had to be realistic.
I would have expected that somewhere along the line during these 15
years, that compassionate, experienced people would offer wiser counsel
to the Schiavo family than they've apparently been given. It seems that
counseling for THEM is in order.

Accepting the death of a loved one isn't easy, especially when they
appear to be 'awake'. And especially when you are, in effect,
facilitating their passing.

The question of 'is Terry alive?' is one that can only be answered by
the doctors and the family – and one it appears will soon be moot.

My own feeling is that...I don't know. I've been told that hearing is
the last sense to leave a dying person. Does Terri 'hear'? I don't know.
Is she sentient? I don't know. But it’s none of my damn business.

What I do know is that the decisions I made for my family members were
among the most difficult of my life. They were made with love, with
knowledge of the people I was speaking for, with occasional doubt, with
consultation with my brothers and sister, after talking with doctors,
with much thought and prayer and anguish and ultimately, with
responsible love. Woe betide the politician or ANYone who would have
tried to enter such a deeply familial time.

I'm sad that the toll of the last fifteen years has divided Mrs.
Schiavo’s family so deeply and that this painful situation is even worse
because of how they have conducted themselves. I wish there was an easy
answer. I know there is none. I know that any answer is individual in
nature.

But it is the rhetoric mongers on both sides of the issue who make me
ill: people who talk about 'starving the woman to death' when they have
no idea what they're talking about; people attempting to advance an
agenda using this poor family’s pain. Casually tossing around phrases
like ‘playing God’ and ‘murder’ and ‘starvation’ and ‘right to death’
with no thought to who is reading or hearing them, with no thought to
the pain they cause, with no compassion or empathy or kindness - and
frankly, with no business spouting off that faux Christianity when they
are not showing Christian love for all involved.

What I say to them is this:

Pray for Terri and the family if that's the thing you do.

Otherwise, butt the heck out.

American Democracy Project Events on Campus

American Democracy Project Events on Campus this week:

AMERICAN DEMOCRACY PROJECT AT WILLIAM PATERSON UNIVERSITY TO CELEBRATE PUBLIC EDUCATION WITH SERIES OF EVENTS MARCH 22 TO 30
—Performances and lectures to focus on role of public education in a democracy

A series of events designed to celebrate and highlight the important role of public education in a democratic society will be held at William Paterson University in Wayne from March 22 to 30. The events, part of the University’s year-long celebration of its 150th anniversary in 2005, are sponsored by the American Democracy Project of William Paterson University, part of a nationwide initiative by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) that seeks to increase civic engagement levels of U.S. students attending public colleges and universities in the 21st century. All events are open to the public.

“This series places a spotlight on public education—K-12 and beyond—based on the belief that education is the foundation of a healthy democracy,” says Christine Kelly, assistant professor of political science and director of the American Democracy Project on campus. “It is particularly appropriate, as the University celebrates its 150th anniversary as a public institution of higher education, to emphasize the important roles such institutions play in preparing active citizens.”

The events begin on Tuesday, March 22, with “Honoring Commitment: Performance, Poetry, Politics,” to be held from 6 to 8 p.m. in the University’s Power Arts Building at 25 Power Avenue, off Hamburg Turnpike, between Valley and Ratzer Roads in Wayne. The evening will feature a performance by the Northstar Navigators, a children’s Latin and African drumming troupe from the Montclair Academy of Dance directed by Reggie Workman, the renowned jazz bassist and composer, and Maya Milenovic, a choreographer and director of the Academy. Sonia Sanchez, the award-winning poet, will present a reading from her works. Also on the program will be David Sciarra, executive director of the Education Law Center, the non-profit advocacy center that initiated the ground-breaking Abbott vs. Burke lawsuit seeking equal funding for poor and urban school districts in New Jersey. The evening will conclude with the presentation of civic engagement awards to educators and students from the University and the local community who are making a difference; honorees will be selected by the American Democracy Project committee.

On Thursday, March 24, the series continues with “The Public Education Roots of William Paterson University: The Mission Continues,” to be held from 12:30 to 1:45 p.m. in the Martini Teleconference Center in Hobart Hall on campus. The program will feature lectures by Christine Kelly, assistant professor of political science and director of the American Democracy Project, who will discuss the politics of public education, and Djanna Hill, assistant professor of secondary and middle school education, who will examine the history of teacher education at William Paterson. The event will conclude with presentations by students from the University’s Paterson Teachers for Tomorrow project, who will offer portions of oral histories they have gathered from retired Paterson teachers.

The series concludes on Wednesday, March 30 with a lecture at 7 p.m. in the Cheng Library Auditorium by Adolph Reed Jr., a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of Class Notes: Posing as Politics and Other Thoughts on the American Scene. Reed’s topic will be “Access, Higher Education and Democracy: Why Not Free Public Higher Education?”

For additional information, contact the American Democracy Project at William Paterson University at 973-720-3921.

The Iraq War -- 2 years in

Today, the anniversary of the commencement of military actions against Iraq, is a good day to take stock of where we stand.

The Times has a relatively upbeat report, Insurgency Is Fading Fast, Top Marine in Iraq Says.

The WaPo counters with a front page story, Two Years Later, Iraq War Drains Military: Heavy Demands Offset Combat Experience

Another excellent Tomgram Dilip Hiro on Playing the Democracy Card surveys the situation, reminding us of U.S. historical interests in the Middle East.

Juan Cole continues the discussion about the spread of democracy in The Democracy Lie at TomPaine.com

Andrew Bacevich in the WaPo offers an assessment of why the war has gone so badly, Nothing 'New' in This War. This quote is especially eye-popping: "George Armstrong Custer knew more about the warriors he faced in 1876 than U.S. commanders today know about their adversaries."

The issue of our military strength should concern us, especially right now with the saber-rattling in Asia:

Taiwan Leader Criticizes China

And,

Homeland Insecurity
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: March 17, 2005

And,

Russian Denies War Games With China Are a Signal to Taiwan

Check out Tomgram: Chalmers Johnson, Coming to Terms with China for a long, detailed appraisal of the situation there.

Meanwhile, over in Afghanistan, democracy is marching slowly, Rice Calls Afghans Inspiring, but Election Is Delayed Again

Finally, and I hope you are still with me readers, as I have saved the worst for last, there comes this extraordinary report from BBC Newsnight & Harpers Magazine by Greg Palast, who more than any other single reporter dug up the truth about the 2000 presidential election. So far as I can tell the story has not been picked up by the mainstream media in this country. Read the article and watch the story at BBC Newsnight, Secret US plans for Iraq's oil:

The Bush administration made plans for war and for Iraq's oil before the 9/11 attacks, sparking a policy battle between neo-cons and Big Oil, BBC's Newsnight has revealed.

Two years ago today - when President George Bush announced US, British and Allied forces would begin to bomb Baghdad - protesters claimed the US had a secret plan for Iraq's oil once Saddam had been conquered.

In fact there were two conflicting plans, setting off a hidden policy war between neo-conservatives at the Pentagon, on one side, versus a combination of "Big Oil" executives and US State Department "pragmatists".

"Big Oil" appears to have won. The latest plan, obtained by Newsnight from the US State Department was, we learned, drafted with the help of American oil industry consultants.

Insiders told Newsnight that planning began "within weeks" of Bush's first taking office in 2001, long before the September 11th attack on the US.

Read the whole tangled tale, if your heart can take it.

George F. Kennan Dies at 101; Leading Strategist of Cold War

Excerpts from the NY Times obit:

George F. Kennan, the American diplomat who did more than any other envoy of his generation to shape United States policy during the cold war, died on Thursday night in Princeton, N.J. He was 101.

Mr. Kennan was the man to whom the White House and the Pentagon turned when they sought to understand the Soviet Union after World War II. He conceived the cold-war policy of containment, the idea that the United States should stop the global spread of Communism by diplomacy, politics, and covert action - by any means short of war.

As the State Department's first policy planning chief in the late 1940's, serving Secretary of State George C. Marshall, Mr. Kennan was an intellectual architect of the Marshall Plan, which sent billions of dollars of American aid to nations devastated by World War II. At the same time, he conceived a secret "political warfare" unit that aimed to roll back Communism, not merely contain it. His brainchild became the covert-operations directorate of the Central Intelligence Agency.

[...]

The force of Mr. Kennan's ideas brought him to power in Washington in the brief months after World War II ended and before the cold war began. In February 1946, as the second-ranking diplomat in the American Embassy in Moscow, he dispatched his famous "Long Telegram" to Washington, perhaps the best-known cable in American diplomatic history. It explained to policy makers baffled by Stalin that while Soviet power was "impervious to the logic of reason," it was "highly sensitive to the logic of force."

Widely circulated in Washington, the Long Telegram made Mr. Kennan famous. It evolved into an even better-known work, "The Sources of Soviet Conduct," which Mr. Kennan published under the anonymous byline "X" in the July 1947 issue of Foreign Affairs, the journal of the Council on Foreign Relations. "Soviet pressure against the free institutions of the Western world is something that can be contained by the adroit and vigorous application of counterforce," he wrote. That force, Kennan believed, should take the form of diplomacy and covert action, not war.

Mr. Kennan's best-known legacy was this postwar policy of containment, "a strategy that held up awfully well," said Mr. Gaddis.

But Mr. Kennan was deeply dismayed when the policy was associated with the immense build-up in conventional arms and nuclear weapons that characterized the cold war from the 1950's onward. His views were always more complex than the interpretation others gave them, as he argued repeatedly in his writings. He came to deplore the growing belligerence toward Moscow that gripped Washington by the early 1950's, setting the stage for anti-Communist witch hunts that severely dented the American foreign service.

[...]

Mr. Kennan had argued for "the inauguration of political warfare" against the Soviet Union in a May 1948 memorandum that was classified top secret for almost 50 years. "The time is now fully ripe for the creation of a covert political warfare operations directorate within the government," he wrote. This seed quickly grew into the covert arm of the Central Intelligence Agency. It began as the Office of Policy Coordination, planning and conducting the agency's biggest and most ambitious schemes, and within four years grew into the agency's operations directorate, with thousands of clandestine officers overseas.

A generation later, testifying before a 1975 Senate select committee, he called the political-warfare initiative "the greatest mistake I ever made."

[...]

Mr. Kennan, convinced that it would be folly to hope for extensive Soviet cooperation in the postwar world, was frustrated by the development in Washington of what he saw as an increasingly naïve policy based on notions of Soviet friendship. He wrote analytical essays, but these won little or no attention in the State Department.

It was not until the United States Treasury, stung by Moscow's unwillingness to support the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, asked the State Department for an explanation of its behavior that Mr. Kennan was able to make his points in the "Long Telegram," which arrived in Washington on Feb. 22, 1946. It was so well-received that "my official loneliness came to an end," he wrote later. "My reputation was made. My voice now carried."

Regrettably, in Mr. Kennan's view, the warnings that had fallen on deaf ears for so long found receptive ones partly for the wrong reasons, and he felt that the idea of a Soviet danger became as exaggerated as the belief in Soviet friendship had been.

He held that the Soviet Union should be challenged only when it encroached on certain areas of specific American interest, but he did not accept the view that this could be accomplished only by military alliances or by turning Europe into an armed camp. He felt that Communism needed to be confronted politically when it appeared outside the Soviet sphere.

Publicly, he was sharply critical of émigré propaganda calling for the overthrow of the Soviet system, believing that there was no guarantee that anything more democratic would replace it. In the 1960's and 70's, he concluded that the growing diversity in the Communist world was one of the most significant political developments of the century. But "he missed the ideological appeal of democratic culture in the rest of the world," Mr. Gaddis said, as the slow rot of Soviet Communism undermined the cold war's architectures.

The 'X' Article on Containment

Mr. Kennan had returned to Washington in 1946 as the first deputy for foreign affairs at the new National War College, where he prepared a paper on the nature of Soviet power for James V. Forrestal, then secretary of the Navy. In July 1947, that paper, drawn largely from his Moscow essays, became the "X" article. The article, advocating the containment of Soviet power, was not signed because Mr. Kennan had accepted a new State Department assignment. But the author's identity soon became known.

Mr. Kennan was attacked by the influential columnist Walter Lippmann, who interpreted containment - as did many others - in a military sense.

In his memoirs, Mr. Kennan said that some of the language he had used in advocating a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies "was at best ambiguous and lent itself to misinterpretation." He had failed to make it clear, he said, that what he was talking about was not the containment by military means or military threat, but the political containment of a political threat.

As chairman of the planning staff at a time when planning still played a large role in policy-making, Mr. Kennan helped shift the United States to political and diplomatic containment.

He contributed an overall rationale to a series of actions like Greek-Turkish aid, under what became known as the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan and the creation of the Western military alliance.

[...]

In 1966 Mr. Kennan, who had returned to Princeton in 1963, was called to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the Vietnam War, an American involvement he felt should not have been begun and should not be prolonged. In 1967 he took part in a Senate review of American foreign policy.

For Mr. Kennan the Vietnam years were what he later characterized as instructive. His views on what he saw as almost entirely negative Congressional interference in foreign affairs altered as Congress moved to curtail the American role in Southeast Asia, an area where he believed the American interest was not at stake. In an interview at the time of his 72nd birthday, he said that he had been "instructed" by Vietnam, and that he now agreed that Congress should help in determining foreign policy. He added that given that reality, the United States would have to reduce its scope and limit its methods because Congressional control of foreign affairs deprives the Government of day-to-day direction of events "and means that as a nation we will have to pull back a bit - not become isolationist, but just rule out fancy diplomacy."

[...]

Looting of Iraqi weapons

One of the interesting things about the current media environment is how people can correct and comment on the news as it develops. A couple of days ago the Times posted a depressing account:

March 13, 2005
Looting at Weapons Plants Was Systematic, Iraqi Says
By JAMES GLANZ and WILLIAM J. BROAD

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 12 - In the weeks after Baghdad fell in April 2003, looters systematically dismantled and removed tons of machinery from Saddam Hussein's most important weapons installations, including some with high-precision equipment capable of making parts for nuclear arms, a senior Iraqi official said this week in the government's first extensive comments on the looting.

The Iraqi official, Sami al-Araji, the deputy minister of industry, said it appeared that a highly organized operation had pinpointed specific plants in search of valuable equipment, some of which could be used for both military and civilian applications, and carted the machinery away.

The report goes on to detail how the looting occured. Then, Christopher Hitchens, in Slate, responded:

This Was Not Looting
How did Saddam's best weapons plants get plundered?
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Tuesday, March 15, 2005, at 5:29 AM PT

Once again, a major story gets top billing in a mainstream paper—and is printed upside down.

Hitchens doesn't challenge any of the facts in the Times investigative report; he merely tries to dismiss the whole thing, invoking Moveon.org (though they had nothing to do with the story) to ridicule anyone who might think there was a problem here.

Thankfully, the Poorman exists to provide Easy Answers to the Stupidest Question(s) I’ve Ever Heard, eviscerating Hitchens's nonsensical commentary thoroughly.

More on origins of rights

Finally, some discussion has picked up on danny's question below -- A Question for Readers on Rights. Click on the link and join the discussion.

The question is interesting nowadays because it relates to some degree to the quesion of sovereignty -- that is, from where does government derive? The theory of natural rights allowed people to argue for, as Lincoln famously put it, "government of the people, by the people, for the people."

Wherever people believed these rights derived FROM, they agreed that these rights made the people sovereign. As the first paragraph of the Constitution states,

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

It is my belief that these rights are under serious attack because Americans, in general, do not take the rights and responsibilities of self-government seriously. We love to brag about how we are the greatest country on earth (I wouldn't know, I have only been to a handful or so of them), but we willingly yield our power to liars, thieves, zealots and incompetents.

Brad Delong discusses the chilling perspective of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, namely, as Scalia recently said (twice!) "government comes — derives its authority from God." Delong writes:

Nino Scalia's views on this are profoundly--there is no other word for it--UnAmerican. Here in the United States, we are all children of Thomas Jefferson. God does not give us rulers. Instead, God gives us rights: to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We then institute governments to secure these rights, and they derive their just powers from our consent, not from God's decree. Moreover, it is not the YHWH of Revealed Religion but instead "Nature's God" and Nature itself that are the source of these rights.

I recommend you read his whole posting for his fuller exegesis of Scalia's truly frightening perspective. Frightening, that is, considering this is a man whose job it is to uphold and interpret our Constitution.

Delong concludes nicely:

Now this is a free country. And Nino Scalia is allowed to break with those like Jefferson, Madison, and Lincoln who think that legitimate power ascends from the consent of the people. It's a free country. He can take his stand with those like James I Stuart, Innocent III, and Khomeini who think that legitimate power descends from God.

But does such a guy have any business being a Justice of the Supreme Court of a free country? No.

publisher looking for college student writers

This came to me via email, looks legit and worthy even:

My name is Seth Spores; I am one of the three editors and co-founders of College Tree Publishing. We contacted hundreds of university and college conservative and liberal groups, political science departments, and university news papers and requested essay submissions from people in the 17 to 25 year old age group on political and social issues. The end result was What We Think: Young Voters Speak Out, which was put out nationally in late October. The book was meant to be a running forum for political expression of America's youngest voting demographic, and in that regard has been a success. Since the book was published in October, the book has already received national press on CNN, MSNBC, an hour long special on CSPAN-Book TV and has been nominated for the Franklin Award.

We are a non-partisan company possessing a Republican, Democrat and Libertarian leaning editor, trying to give fair and equal voice to all ideologies present among college age youth. We are currently accepting submissions for our next two books, What We Think 2 and What We Think About God and looking to increase the number of well written pieces. Our goal is to receive 10,000 submissions from now through summer, and to publish the top 200 to 300 in late third quarter.

I am contacting many blogs and other forms of media not necessarily connected to Universities, in hopes of reaching a wider base of essayists. We would like to know if you would run a short story on your blog, stating that we are requesting submissions for national publication. All authors are given full credit for their work, a short bio is dedicated to them in the back of the books, and we've been arranging book signings and talks across the country for authors in our current edition so these young authors get the credit and visibility they deserve. Let me stress finally that individuals submitting need not be in college to qualify for publication.

Please feel free to contact us with questions or requests for more information,
Seth Charles Guy Spores
Editor and Co-Founder of College Tree Publishing
seth@collegetreepublishing.com
www.collegetreepublishing.com
509-483-4079 (Office)

[update: check the comments on this post before submitting anything]

evolution

There was an interesting article in the Washington Post yesterday about the battle over teaching evolution in public schools.

Battle on Teaching Evolution Sharpens
By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 14, 2005; Page A01

WICHITA – Propelled by a polished strategy crafted by activists on America's political right, a battle is intensifying across the nation over how students are taught about the origins of life. Policymakers in 19 states are weighing proposals that question the science of evolution.

The proposals typically stop short of overturning evolution or introducing biblical accounts. Instead, they are calculated pleas to teach what advocates consider gaps in long-accepted Darwinian theory, with many relying on the idea of intelligent design, which posits the central role of a creator.

Amazingly -- to me -- 80 years after the Scopes Trial, nearly 150 years after Darwin's Origin of Species, religious reactionaries are fighting the teaching of one of the fundamental insights of the modern world. One pastor quoted in the article tells explicitly what is at stake:

To fundamentalist Christians, Fox said, the fight to teach God's role in creation is becoming the essential front in America's culture war. The issue is on the agenda at every meeting of pastors he attends. If evolution's boosters can be forced to back down, he said, the Christian right's agenda will advance.

"If you believe God created that baby, it makes it a whole lot harder to get rid of that baby," Fox said. "If you can cause enough doubt on evolution, liberalism will die."

The Panda's Thumb is a great blog chronicling evolution and politics.

Leninism, Stalinism, Fascism? You decide...

If you didn't get a chance to read the full NYTimes story on the Bush Administration's fullscale propaganda efforts, Digby has the salient excerpts.

Now That's Big Government!

"Iraq needed fuel. Halliburton Co. was ordered to get it there — quick. So the Houston-based contractor charged the Pentagon $27.5 million to ship $82,100 worth of cooking and heating fuel." More here.

recent reading

A good update (with lotsa links) on the path of democracy in the Middle East:

Will 'Arab spring' lead to 'summer of liberty'?
Some experts worry US 'triumphalism' masks more complicated issues in push towards Arab democracy.
By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com

I just discovered The Carpetbagger Report blog which has a couple of thought-provoking entries about "Americans' increasing inability to grasp a moral argument":

Killing kids: It's just plain wrong

And:

'Yes, yes! Elvis and I assassinated JFK! Now will you please remove the electrodes from my scrotum?'

Which begins:

We should not even be having this debate. Terrorists blow children to bits and torture people, not great world powers that are supposedly guided by a commitment to human rights, decency and the rule of law.

Would the pro-torture right-wingers please read a book? It's one of the oldest stories in the world: While fighting the horrible thing you fear the most, you become that thing yourself. It's downright archetypal – and it's happening to us. Roll over George Orwell.

Dig up the Feb. 14 issue of The New Yorker and read Jane Mayer's piece, "Outsourcing Torture." Then weep for your country because you won't recognize it any longer.

Over at TomDispatch there is an update on the legalities involved in the GWOT: Tomgram: Greenberg on the Legal War on Terror at Home

questions for readers of this blog

Folks: you may have noticed a marked decrease in postings on this blog over the past couple of months. There are several reasons for this -- currently I am trying to read those big, heavy things called books and so am reading online less; and I am trying to write one of those big, heavy things as well. But I am also somewhat at a loss as how best to serve all two and a half of you readers out there.

What do you want from this blog? What do you like or dislike? How can I make it better?

If I read something good, but don't have a lot of time to discuss it, would you like me to post the link anyway? This is something I have been doing more of lately. Here is an example: I finally caught up with my TomDispatch reading -- go read the last several postings there. Too much insight for me to summarize right now.

Do you prefer only my wisdom and erudition, or do you use this site as a portal into other readings?

How about my links along the side? Are they useful? Should I do a better job organizing them?

And comments: do you have any suggestions as to how to generate more interactivity on this site? I have assigned my U.S. as World Power students to post or comment three times during the semester, but to not much avail -- HINT, HINT. Maybe I should threaten to fail them and their progeny for generations to come?

Topics: what are you interested in reading about? I think I have run out of steam a bit with my Bush Administration bashing -- there's just too much, frinstance, from today alone:

Looting at Iraqi Weapons Plants Was Systematic, Official Says
By JAMES GLANZ and WILLIAM J. BROAD
Published: March 13, 2005

And,

Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged Television News
By DAVID BARSTOW and ROBIN STEIN
Published: March 13, 2005

Ugh. And that is just from the front page of today's Times.

Should I give you a daily torture update? That would keep me plenty busy.

Or should I just drink the koolaid and join the other side. Turning the corner! Freedom's on the March! Cut and paste RNC press releases?

Please, please, please, as the Godfather of Soul begs, let me know your thoughts, anonymously or otherwise... and you will have my gratitude.

Ink-Stained Wretch

If you just gotta get a tattoo -- or you're in the mood for some lithesome prose -- make your way to this from today's Times:

March 13, 2005
NEW JERSEY
Body Art or Tattoo, It Still Hurts
By DEIRDRE DAY-MacLEOD

Michelle checks in

No, she hasn't been sleeping all day and dancing all night. Michelle has been working, godammit. So get your reading caps on:

Hello again everyone. Here's the latest batch of reporting from yours truly. This month's theme is The Man, and why He sucks. But I guess that's every month's theme.

More wheezing at Ground Zero

Policing the police in cities across the country

Why your Internet connection is probably too slow to read this if you're in Illinois

Tax-time deception that preys on the poor

That's all for now. Keep it real.

MC

Truthout

I don't get over to Truthout.org much. But it is a good source and William Pitt sometimes writes powerful posts.

Here is one that talks about the lives of returning soldiers and also collects a long list of the lies that led us to war: This is war, and old soldiers don't fade away

Here is A History of the Bush Administration in One Sentence