Shirin Akiner answers Fred Starr's question

Shirin Akiner presents her paper at SAIS

Fred Starr introduces Shirin Akiner

The Al Dura Affair Exposed

This Commentary article by Nidra Poller documents how French TV perpetrated a hoax in the Al Dura affair, when reporters blamed Israel for killing a Palestinian boy murdered by Palestinians. (ht New Sisyphus)

I suspect things like this may still go on in mainstream "journalism" and "human rights" reporting, whenever hidden political agendas clash with inconvenient facts...

Thoughts from Bob

Thanks to Google's new blog search feature (see below), I found this interesting website, that has some thoughts about monopoly and the problems in New Orleans.

Making one big super-agency (FEMA/DHS) with a monopoly on disaster relief made things worse than having a number of competing agencies, according to this theory.

I believe it.

Another Neat Feature!

Google Blogsearch...

Mark Steyn on Pennsylvania's Flight 93 Memorial

Most of us are all but resigned to losing New York's Ground Zero memorial to a pile of non-judgmental if not explicitly anti-American pap: The minute you involve big-city politicians and foundations and funding bodies and 'artists' you're on an express chute to the default mode of the cultural elite. But surely it's not too much to hope that in Pennsylvania the very precise, specific, individual, human scale of one great act of American heroism need not be buried under another soggy dollop of generic prettified passivity. A culture that goes to such perverse lengths to disdain its heroes cannot survive and doesn't deserve to.

(ht Little Green Footballs)

BTW, I'm not resigned to losing NYC's Ground Zero. New Yorkers could just rebuild the World Trade Center, as Washingtonians did with the Pentagon. No museums, no "artists". To paraphrase Christopher Wren, New Yorkers could say: "If you seek their monument, look around you." It's the same reason Churchill rebuilt the Houses of Parliament exactly as they were after the Blitz--to show that the Nazis couldn't destroy it. New Yorkers still have a chance to do the same...

Bush Joins "Incompetents Anonymous"

The Bull Moose has a cute post today:

The Moose notes that the President has enrolled in a twelve-step program.

"Hi, I'm George W. and I'm an incompetent." That is what the President tentatively declared yesterday when he accepted "responsibility" for the Katrina fiasco. Ok, maybe he just implied it. But it is clear that the President just enrolled in Dr. Karl Rove's (Director of the Federal Emergency Image Management Agency) Twelve Step Poll Recovery Program.

Dr. Karl insisted that his patient enroll in the program when it became apparent that the "shift the blame to the locals" strategy wasn't working. Even Brit Hume was having difficulty with the talking points. Panic has stricken the ranks of the President's supporters as there is a fear that old Rush will reach for the Vioxx again and the GOP Congress will go on an inebriated spending binge.

The rest is funny, too. Read the rest of it here.

Will Leahy Block Roberts?

Darren Allen writes in the Montpelier (VT) Times-Argus that Senator Leahy is growing "frustrated" with Roberts. This is the ranking Democrat's hometown paper, and may give some indication that Leahy will attempt to block the confirmation. The grounds would seem clear: According to Leahy Roberts lacks candor before the committee. In other words, they don't trust him:

MONTPELIER – Without more specific answers from Chief Justice nominee John Roberts, Sen. Patrick Leahy said Tuesday he will have to make up his mind based on what he already knows about the president's pick to be the 17th leader of the Supreme Court.

And, if his growing frustration with a man he has become more critical of since his nomination earlier this summer is any indication, the Judiciary Committee's senior Democrat isn't satisfied with what he's heard in the two days of confirmation hearings.

"He makes a wonderful appearance, he's very bright, but I think he is taking too much to heart what a lot of Republican lawmakers are telling him," Leahy said in a brief telephone interview from Washington, referring to the GOP's advice to not give answers to questions seeking the judge's personal opinions.

"In some areas he has not been as forthcoming in the hearing as he was in private meetings," said Leahy, who is now poised to weigh in on his 11th Supreme Court nominee. The Vermonter has met privately with Roberts twice over the last two months. Some of the most troubling issues, Leahy said, have to do with individual rights, the right to sue, abortion rights and whether or not the president is above the law.

Can Leahy pull this off? I'm sure the Democrats are counting votes right now. If I were a Democrat, I'd throw as much sand in the gears as possible over the next few days, while Bush is at a record low in the public opinion polls...

Bush and the "R" Word

Belgravia Dispatch reflects on the President's upcoming speech:

Meantime, in closing, a word on the "R" word. I seem to recall that Don Rumsfeld, around the time of Abu Ghraib, also said he accepted 'responsibility' for what happened. But it's one thing to utter the R word, another thing to really mean it. This seems to be something of a peculiar Washington phenomenon, doesn't it? Some grandee states, flatly, that they accept responsiblity for this or that outrage. And then, in practice, they really don't. Nothing happens to connect the statement of assuming responsibility to, you know, some action that might evidence a connection between stating they take responsibility and, well, taking it. But, hey, they said they did, and so, you know, all is well and one garners kudos for all the Trumanesque 'buck stops here' bravura. But we always knew Washington was a strange place, right?

Attorney-General Janet Reno accepted "responsiblity" for the Waco tragedy--but didn't resign, either. IMHO, that led to a Republican House and Senate.

Whatever Bush says, it no longer matters.

The Guardian on Rioting in Northern Ireland

Here's The Guardian's account of recent riots in Northern Ireland.

I Love This Feature

The sitemeter box on the left has a link to an animated world map that shows the last 100 places that have looked at this blog. It's nice to see hits from around the world...

Wow!

Samsung has announced 32 gigabyte flash memory cards.

Where Have We Seen This Before?

Hat tip to Roger L. Simon for this photo of a burning synagogue (abandoned, luckily) in Palestinian-controlled Gaza (you can read the accompanying article here)...

What's Cooking?

Enjoyed Gurinder Chadha and Paul Mayeda Berges first film on DVD, What's Cooking?(2000). An ensemble melodrama, set at Thanksgiving, the picture criss-crosses four family holiday get-togethers in the same Fairfax neighborhood in Los Angeles--one Mexican, one Vietnamese, one African-American, and one Jewish. Each one has its share of fights and tensions, and it is really a different look at Thanksgiving, which is refreshingly unsentimental. Yet the filmmakers have a heart. A tough balancing act, but they pull it off. It reminds me a little of film school, but there's some nice acting. You can see the seeds of Bend it Like Beckham, and Bride and Prejudice. The themes of multicultural family and multicultural romance are the same. They seem to be getting better and better...

Will Bush Nuke Iran?

The Washington Post headline readsPentagon Revises Nuclear Strike Plan. And it seems to be a threat to Iran.

The Pentagon has drafted a revised doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons that envisions commanders requesting presidential approval to use them to preempt an attack by a nation or a terrorist group using weapons of mass destruction. The draft also includes the option of using nuclear arms to destroy known enemy stockpiles of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.

The document, written by the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs staff but not yet finally approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, would update rules and procedures governing use of nuclear weapons to reflect a preemption strategy first announced by the Bush White House in December 2002. The strategy was outlined in more detail at the time in classified national security directives.

At a White House briefing that year, a spokesman said the United States would 'respond with overwhelming force' to the use of weapons of mass destruction against the United States, its forces or allies, and said 'all options' would be available to the president.

The draft, dated March 15, would provide authoritative guidance for commanders to request presidential approval for using nuclear weapons, and represents the Pentagon's first attempt to revise procedures to reflect the Bush preemption doctrine. A previous version, completed in 1995 during the Clinton administration, contains no mention of using nuclear weapons preemptively or specifically against threats from weapons of mass destruction.

Unfortunately, Bush has lost credibility due to both Katrina and the WMD issue in Iraq. Were he to launch a pre-emptive nuclear attack on Iran, or North Korea for that matter, Bush would risk more than impeachment with his gamble--he would risk war crimes trials for making aggressive war and killing innocent civilians. Especially if the rest of the world is not convinced that he were justified. Ironically, Chinese and Russian judges might condemn George W. Bush to death at the International War Crimes Court.

Maybe he needs to think things through a little, since his strategies have not worked so far, and this proposal sounds both dangerous and irresponsible, at least to a layman who grew up in the era of Mutual Assured Destruction, and remembers that the Russians still have 7,000 nuclear warheads in their arsenal.

Andrew Sullivan: The More You Look, The Worse It Gets

Writing in the London Times, Andrew Sullivan lays into the 3 Cs of the Bush administration: cronyism, corruption, and "conservatism." His verdict on Bush?

He campaigned fundamentally on his ability to run the country in wartime, on emergency management, on protecting Americans from physical harm. That was his promise. It was swept away as the waters flooded New Orleans. And Al-Qaeda was watching every minute of it.

The Constant Gardener

Just saw The Constant Gardener with Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz. As I see everything through the prism of Antigua, now, it was interesting that Fiennes played a British diplomat. His relation, Sir Eustace Fiennes, was Governor-General of Antigua during the colonial period. On his death, Sir Eustace left a bequest that pays for the Fiennes Institute, an almshouse and old-age home that cares for needy Antiguans to this day. An earlier Fiennes, Lord Saye and Sele, was the founder of Old Saybrook, Connecticut. His descendant, a cousin of Ralph Fiennes, still lives in Broughton Castle. We toured this National Trust home, and it is worth a look. It is quite possibly the homiest castle in England.

In any case, although the plot was ridiculously PC (why kill people over a report that sounds like dozens already posted on the internet--or tonight's 60 Minutes story about Amgen?), everything else about the movie was first rate--travelogue, suspense, acting, sets, costumes, music, lighting, and so forth. So, forget the storyline, and just take a bath in Anglophile porn.

Pew Poll: Bush Sinking

Andy Kohut summarized this Pew Poll on the same Lehrer Newshour (a really good show, btw). Bush is ahead of Richard Nixon in the middle of Watergate, but that's about it. His popularity is way down, sinking fast in the Big Muddy...

This may turn out to be Bush's Waco. After the Clinton administration botched the David Koresh operation, the country turned to the Republicans, who swept into Congress. In 2006, if the Democrats play the good government card instead of the race card, they can pull off the same trick.

Then, impeachment looms for Dick Cheney and George W. Bush. One reason for Democrats to try and hold off confirmation of Supreme Court nominees for a year or two...

Calling Clark Kent (Ervin)!

I watched the former DHS-IG on the Lehrer Newshour last night talking about New Orleans, and was impressed with the content of his comments as well as his manner. Ervin deftly inserted the needle in Bush administration positions (his style reminded me a little of Robin McNeil). Here's what Ervin told Margaret Warner last night, about FEMA chief Michael Brown:

I question whether it makes sense to put Brown back in Washington to be in charge of overall FEMA efforts since obviously this kind of thing can and likely will happen again. I think the larger issue is whether there's leadership at the top of FEMA that has the competence that's necessary to do the planning and preparedness that is necessary to make sure this kind of response doesn't happen again.

Ervin was so impressive--Who is this guy? I thought--that I googled him.Here's another quote:

CLARK KENT ERVIN: Well, it seems to me at the Department level as a whole there has been a lack of attention to detail, a lack of focus on management. And I think we're seeing the consequences of that. It seems to me absolutely inexcusable that, frankly, both the secretary as well as the FEMA director said it wasn't until Thursday that they learned there were thousands of people stranded without food and water when all you had to do was turn on the television set to see that. So it seems to me a lack of attention to detail. And it is just inexcusable. It is inexplicable. I don't have an explanation for it. I don't know that there is one.

Turns out that until he was canned, Ervin had been a loyal Bushie, from Texas. He was apparently purged, best as we can figure out, because he was competent and good at his job (which made some Bush cronies look bad). Here's the USATODAY story on his departure from government service. Title: "Ex-official tells of Homeland Security Failures."

While in office, Ervin made some scathing findings. He reported that:

• Undercover investigators were able to sneak explosives and weapons past security screeners at 15 airports during tests in 2003.

• Federal air marshals, hired to provide a last line of defense against terrorists on airlines, slept on the job, tested positive for alcohol or drugs while on duty, lost their weapons and falsified information in 2002.

• Department leaders should have taken a more aggressive role in efforts to combine the government's myriad terrorist watch lists since the department was created in 2003.

• The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) gave executive bonuses of $16,477 to 88 of its 116 senior managers in 2003, an amount one-third higher than the bonuses given to executives at any other federal agency.

• The TSA spent nearly $500,000 on an awards banquet for employees in November 2003. The cost included $1,500 for three cheese displays and $3.75 for each soft drink.

The department complained that many of Ervin's reports were based on outdated information. After the report on air marshals, border and transportation chief Asa Hutchinson said the problems had long since been fixed.

Ervin, a Harvard-trained lawyer who worked for Bush when he was governor of Texas and for Bush's father in the White House before that, couldn't explain why he didn't get the nod to continue his work. It "will be an enduring mystery to me," he said.

Ervin currenlty heads the Homeland Security program at the Aspen Institute.