Michelle Malkin on South Park and the Danish Cartoons

Here.

Libby v Bush?

Someone I know suggested that the latest news stories about "Scooter" Libby's legal case may indicate that the former staffer is not willing to fall on his sword for George W. Bush. Which might mean a crack in the famous "loyalty" of the White House staff. Which might lead to more interesting developments. I do remember that President Bush said something like he would investigate who leaked confidential information, and if he found out who, then he would fire the person. Well, if it was Bush--he really ought to resign...

UPDATE: Here are relevant quotes from WarandPiece.com:

Update II: Reader SS sends these quotes along:

"I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action." [Bush Remarks: Chicago, Illinois, 9/30/03]


"The President has set high standards, the highest of standards for people in his administration. He's made it very clear to people in his administration that he expects them to adhere to the highest standards of conduct. If anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration." [White House Briefing, 9/29/03]
Uh huh.

Zorba's Wisdom

Saw Zorba the Greek with Anthony Quinn and Alan Bates last night. Was struck by the film's seriousness. Sort of grim. Tears under the laughter. Found this quote that sums it up, on an MIT Zorba page:

When everything goes wrong, what a joy to test your soul and see if it has endurance and courage! An invisible and all-powerful enemy-some call him God, others the Devil, seems to rush upon us to destroy us; but we are not destroyed.

Bush's "Sleaze Factor"

Bush promised to restore dignity to the Oval Office. Instead, his administration is making Bill Clinton look like Pollyanna. The latest sleazy news is of a Homeland Security p.r. official (I kid you not) arrested in a kiddie-sex internet sting. Before that, it was a domestic policy advisor in a fake-returns scam. Before that, Abramoff & Co. ripping off American Indians. Before that, "Heck of a job, Brownie!" Before that--torture memos. Not to mention Barbara Bush's donation to First Brother Neil's software company in the name of Katrina relief.

The resignation of Tom DeLay, like that of fellow Texan Jim Wright, puts a "Sleaze Factor" on the agenda for 2006 . If Democrats can't follow Newt Gingrich's playbook to retake at least one house of Congress by beating up on Republican arrogance and corruption--well, it doesn't bear thinking about...

Fallaci v. Rumsfeld

While browsing in a local Barnes and Noble bookstore today, I came across a copy of Oriana Fallaci's new book, sitting on a table. The Force of Reason,. I opened a page, began reading, and was struck at once by Fallaci's analysis of the current ideological conflict--one that differs from Donald Rumsfeld's point of view(scroll down):

I do not believe in moderate Islam. What moderate Islam? Is it enough not to cut heads off? Moderate Islam is another invention of ours.

There is not good Islam or bad Islam. There is just Islam. And Islam is the Qur’an. And the Qur’an is the Mein Kampf of this movement. The Qur’an demands the annihilation or subjugation of the other, and wants to substitute totalitarianism for democracy. Read it over, that Mein Kampf. In whatever version, you will find that all the evil that the sons of Allah commit against themselves and against others is in it...

The Paradox of Humanitarian Action

For research on an article about the role of NGOs in international relations, I've just started reading this interesting book by Fiona Terry, from Doctors Without Borders, called Condemned to Repeat: The Paradox of Humanitarian Action. I'll have more to say when I've finished it, but in the meantime, I thought that an interview with the author published on the organization's website gives some idea of the issues the author is wrestling with:

Q: What was your first experience in witnessing the manipulation or abuse of humanitarian operations?

At a political level, it was in Iraqi Kurdistan in 1991 when humanitarian action was deployed as the response to the terrible predicament of the Kurds at the hands of Saddam Hussein. The United States and its allies had encouraged the Kurds to rise up during the Gulf War but only offered them wheat flour as compensation for the violent repression that followed. Fearful that a massive influx of Kurds would destabilize Turkey, an important US ally, the would-be refugees were refused asylum and were lured back to their villages with humanitarian aid. Thus humanitarian action served as an alibi, giving governments an image of doing something to address the problem when in reality they did little to help the Kurds.

At a more direct level, it was in Somalia during the 1991-92 famine. While men, women and children starved to death, certain Somalis went to great lengths to steal food for their own use, including registering fictitious villages for distribution. Aid agencies were struggling to find the resources needed to feed hundreds of thousands of starving people, yet had to pay exorbitant fees to armed militias to protect them and their supplies.

But even at its worst, the abuse of humanitarian action in Somalia was not as bad as in the Rwandan refugee camps in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) when it was the aid - and only the aid - that sustained a regime and army responsible for perpetrating genocide.

Q: Would you please define what you describe as the "refugee-warrior" phenomenon in your book?

Refugees are generally fleeing some violence or oppression in their home country and seek asylum in a neighboring country. There some of them take up arms and use the refugee camps as rear-bases for guerrilla incursions against their home government. Although the notion of a refugee-warrior is a contradiction because combatants are not entitled to refugee status unless they put down their arms, in practice the refugee-warrior phenomenon has been widespread during the last 50 years. Refugee camps provide a good pool of potential recruits, many of who are understandably willing to take their future into their hands and try to return to their homeland by any means necessary. The camps provide protection against enemy reprisals as an attack on a refugee camp usually receives condemnation from the UN and its member states, and camps provide a whole host of resources such as food, money and medical supplies. The aid structures in the camps also provide mechanisms through which control can be exerted on the refugee population. And, by acting as interlocutors between the refugees and the aid organizations, combatants can gain legitimacy with the refugees as well as internationally by acting as the supposed representatives of the refugees.

Q: In your book you state that "do no harm," the common dictum among aid organizations, is an illusion. Why?

Because humanitarian assistance will always have some negative consequences even if these are not immediately visible to aid organizations. Aid will always generate some winners and some losers; in order to reach victims it is often necessary to work with and through rebel leaders or government officials who have blood all over their hands. Pretending that aid can actually be given without causing any harm is utopian. Moreover, it is counterproductive if we are to make hard-headed assessments about the relative good and harm of our actions and act accordingly.


Q: The 1990s term "complex emergency" with its implicit notion that humanitarian work is more complicated now than during the Cold War era is something that you discuss at length in your book. You feel that some humanitarian workers use this concept as an excuse for not learning (or wanting to learn) from past experiences, or more specifically, experiences that happened during the Cold War period. Why do you think that this is a mistake?

I think that too much emphasis has been placed on perceived changes in the context to explain the difficulties encountered in assisting victims of conflict, and not enough on the role of aid actors themselves. There are genuine changes in the nature of conflict in the post-Cold War world but these have coincided with the massive growth of the international aid regime, and the expansion of the field of intervention from the periphery of conflicts during the Cold War to the heart of conflicts in the 1990s. Aid is implicated in the dynamics of conflicts in most places but this is not a new phenomenon, and the dilemmas we face today are not more difficult than those of the past. I think that the choices aid organizations faced when trying to assist Cambodians along the Thai-Cambodian border and inside Cambodia in the 1980s were more difficult than most choices we have to make today. I think aid organizations too readily assume that what occurred in the "simple" past is not relevant to today's "complexities," and lament the complexities of contemporary crises as an excuse for their failings.

Q: In your book, you focus on four contexts where aid was manipulated to the benefit of combatants: the Afghan refugee camp in Pakistan (1980s), the Nicaraguan and Salvadoran refugee camps in Honduras, the Cambodian refugee camps in Thailand, and the Rwandan refugee camps in Zaire (DRC). Do you think that there are similar situations happening now?

Absolutely. The Liberian refugee camps in Guinea are used as a base for opponents of Charles Taylor's government in Monrovia, and the Burundian refugee camps in Tanzania have long hosted rebel fighters.

But the worst case of the manipulation of humanitarian assistance in the world today is not taking place in a refugee camp but in a huge open prison that is called North Korea. Refugees who have managed to flee the country and hide in China say that food aid meant for famine victims is not getting to those who need it but is going to citizens deemed to be loyal to Kim Jong-il's regime. Refugee testimonies suggest that three million people died from starvation and related illnesses in 1995-1998 alone, and many continue to die today. I think it is scandalous that aid organizations continue to work in North Korea when the government does not allow them to conduct an independent needs assessment, freely distribute their aid or monitor and evaluate the impact of the aid. These are the minimum conditions necessary to assure that aid is reaching those in need and not those chosen by the regime. To participate in such discrimination opposes the fundamental idea of humanitarian action. It is terrible to think that North Koreans are starving to death while North Korea is the second largest recipient of food aid after Afghanistan. Until last year, it was the largest recipient. Aid organizations have a responsibility to know what is happening to their aid for the sake of the people in whose name they intervene. In North Korea they are collaborating with the regime, channeling aid through the same regime that is responsible for causing and perpetuating the famine.

You can buy a copy of Fiona Terry's book from Amazon.com.

Blogger Wins Blooker

This 'n That has this story about Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen from the London Telegraph:

The organisers of the Blooker Prize, Lulu.com, an American online print-on-demand publishing company, says it wants its prize - which is worth $2,000 (£1,140) to the winner - to become better known than the £50,000 British Booker Prize within five years.

By coincidence, Powell has a connection with the Booker. "The first-ever recipient of the Blooker Prize is the former nanny of the first-ever two-time recipient of the Booker Prize. I think that's kind of neat," she said yesterday

Eight years ago, Powell worked for 12 months as nanny to the family of Peter Carey, the Australian novelist, when they lived in Manhattan.

Carey's Oscar and Lucinda won the Booker in 1988 and he became a double-winner in 2001 with his novel, True History of the Kelly Gang. Powell, whose success has allowed her to buy a better New York apartment, said that the time and cost of her cookery marathon had put great strain on her marriage.

Child's recipes are elaborate, so working outside the house and then cooking often meant that dinner was not ready until after midnight. And the financial strain meant that she was grateful when several fans of her "blog" tracked down her address and sent small sums of money or ingredients through the post.

Powell said: "It was enough to get me through some quite tough times paying the rent. There are 12 recipes requiring a whole leg of lamb. Legs of lamb in New York are not cheap."

America's D/D+ in the Battle of Ideas

The Secretary of Defense graded himself on March 27th. From the transcript:

QUESTION:  Inaudible]. My question has to do with the war on terror as a war of ideology. The National Defense Strategy, QDR (Quadrennial Defense Review), talks about the war on terror having a significant component as a war of ideology. What do you think we're doing well with respect to the war of ideology, and what do you think we could do better?

            SECRETARY RUMSFELD:  If I were rating, I would say we probably deserve a D or D+ as a country as how well we're doing in the battle of ideas that's taking place. I'm not going to suggest that it's easy, but we have not found the formula as a country.

            It's basically a struggle not between the West and Muslims. It's a struggle within the Muslim faith. There are a relatively small number of violent extremists and a very large number of moderates who do not believe in violent extremism in that faith. We're going to have to find ways that we can encourage and support those moderate voices because they're the ones who are in the struggle...

The Art Czar

Just got my review copy of Alice Goldfarb Marquis' new biography of critic Clement Greenberg. Full disclosure: Alice is a friend of mine, thanks to her book on the history of the NEA, Art Lessons. She has visited me in Washington and in Moscow, and I've visited her in San Diego. She mentions of my name in her acknowledgements. So, I'm biased.

That said, I already finished Chapter One. For a scholarly biography published by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, it sure is juicy... Love poetry, broken homes, drinking, Mary McCarthy dancing in a black leotard. Who knew?

I can hardly wait to see the movie. My pick for Greenberg: George Clooney.

Mark Steyn: Learn From the Australians

Mark Steyn explains why he thinks Australia is the country to follow (ht LGF):

If I had to propose a model for Western rhetoric, it would be the Australians. In the days after Sept. 11, the French got all the attention for that Le Monde headline -- "Nous sommes tous Americains" -- "We are all Americans," though they didn't mean it, even then. But John Howard, the Aussie prime minister, put it better and kept his word: "This is no time to be an 80 percent ally."

Marvelous. More recently, the prime minister offered some thoughts on the difference between Muslims and other immigrant groups. "You can't find any equivalent in Italian or Greek or Lebanese or Chinese or Baltic immigration to Australia. There is no equivalent of raving on about jihad," he said, stating the obvious in a way most political leaders can't quite bring themselves to do. "There is really not much point in pretending it doesn't exist."

Unfortunately, too many of his counterparts insist on pretending (at least to their citizenry) that it doesn't exist. What proportion of Western Muslims is hot for jihad? Five percent? Ten, 12 percent? Given that understanding this Pan-Islamist identity is critical to defeating it, why can't we acknowledge it honestly? "Raving on about jihad" is a line that meets what the law used to regard as the reasonable-man test: If you're watching news footage of a Muslim march promising to bring on the new Holocaust, John Howard's line fits.

Is it something in the water down there? Listen to Howard's Cabinet colleagues. Here's the Australian treasurer, Peter Costello, with advice for Western Muslims who want to live under Islamic law: "There are countries that apply religious or sharia law -- Saudi Arabia and Iran come to mind. If a person wants to live under sharia law these are countries where they might feel at ease. But not Australia."

You don't say. Which is the point: Most Western government leaders don't say, and their silence is correctly read by a resurgent Islam as timidity. I also appreciated this pithy summation by my favorite foreigner minister, Alexander Downer: "Multilateralism is a synonym for an ineffective and unfocused policy involving internationalism of the lowest common denominator." See Sudanese slaughter, Iranian nukes, the U.N.'s flop response to the tsunami, etc. It's a good thing being an Aussie Cabinet minister doesn't require confirmation by John Kerry and Joe Biden.

My worry is that the official platitudes in this new war are the equivalent of the Cold War chit-chat in its 1970s detente phase --when Willy Brandt and Pierre Trudeau and Jimmy Carter pretended the enemy was not what it was. Then came Ronald Reagan: It wasn't just the evil-empire stuff, his jokes were on the money, too. In their own depraved way, the Islamists are a lot goofier than the commies and a few gags wouldn't come amiss. If this is a "long war," it needs a rhetoric that can go the distance. And the present line fails that test.

Tom DeLay Resigns

Today's Washington Post has the story:

The decision came three days after Tony C. Rudy, his former deputy chief of staff, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and corruption charges, telling federal prosecutors of a criminal enterprise being run out of DeLay's leadership offices. Rudy's plea agreement did not implicate DeLay in any illegal activities, but by placing the influence-buying efforts of disgraced Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff directly in DeLay's operation, the former aide may have made an already difficult reelection bid all but out of reach.

The Immigration Crisis

I haven't blogged on this, because I really can see both sides of the dilemma. The issue of immigration has been a perennial source of conflict in American history. Probably whatever compromise is worked out by Congress will need to be revisited in a few years. Both Democrats and Republicans are divided, for good reasons.

There are no easy answers to the immigration problem, only tradeoffs.

Gators 73, Bruins 57

The better team won...

March Madness: Gators v. Bruins

USA Today favors Florida over UCLA. I don't know enough about basketball to have an opinion.

But I'm a Bruin alumnus, and the family of someone I know are all Gators...

So, I'll just say: "May the best team win."

Cuban Rhumba Queens!

Our friend Agustin Blazquez just released his new movie:

RUMBERAS CUBANAS/ CUBAN RUMBA QUEENS
directed & edited by Agustin Blazquez
produced & distributed by www.CubaCollectibles.com

Rumberas Cubanas Vol 1.

 MARIA ANTONIETA PONS.

This is a compilation of 40 musical numbers (1942-1959) and is an homage to the memory of this great star of Spanish language films.

Born Maria Antonieta Pons in Havana, Cuba, on June 11, 1922, she was discovered by the Mexican film producer, Juan Orol, who became her first husband. Her debut was in the made-in-Cuba film "Siboney" (1938). Soon she became a famous star participating in 53 more films until her retirement in 1965. She was one of the stars that helped to define the "rumbera films" genre. Characteristic of this genre are melodramatic stories about seductresses, fallen women and especially the musical numbers they performed in cabaret scenes. Pons was one of the stars that with her extravagant costumes and wild rumba dancing earned the nickname "Tropical Queens" and created a style that lasted into the 50s. Her second husband was Ramon Pereda who produced and directed some of her films.

Without a doubt this can be one of the most unique DVDs in your collection.

Price: $19.75
Click: http://www.cubacollectibles.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=C&Product_Code=108-RC1

Are Freelance Writers Expendable?

David Paulin blogs that one underreported angle of the Jill Carroll story is about Big Media exploitation of freelance writers (ht LGF):

The public hasn't a clue about what's going on. The average reader would never suspect Carroll's freelance status by looking at her byline in The Christian Science Monitor or other publications for which she wrote. Most would assume she was part of the paper's foreign staff.

In Iraq and elsewhere, Carroll was part of what might be called a three-tier system of news gathering; it enables news outlets to cut cost and boost profits, all while delivering a credible product.

Staff reporters are in the top tier. They earn decent salaries and get a variety of benefits. Next are freelancers along with "contract" reporters. Freelancers are paid per article; contract reporters get a salary but one that's probably below what a staff reporter gets. There are no benefits. And as many editors will tell new contract reporters, they're responsible for paying their taxes when living abroad (wink, wink). I say this based on my own experience as a contact reporter in Jamaica for the Associated Press. I worked there for a few months in 2001, until leaving after a row with a news editor.

On the bottom rung are news assistants or "fixers" who, in places like Iraq, are Iraqis. They may set up interviews and help with translation; they'll serve as guides and may even do a bit of reporting despite limited journalism training. In Iraq, they've become vital. That's especially so for the Associated Press, whose staff reporters tend to stay holed up in the safety of their offices in the U.S.-controlled "Green Zone."

Not surprisingly, Iraqi fixers are taking the bulk of the risk, and doing most of the dying. According to the Society of Professional Journalists, more than 20 news assistants have been killed in the line of duty in Iraq since 2003(www.cpj.org/Briefings/2003/gulf03/iraq_stats.html), including 20 Iraqis and one Lebanese. During the same period, 55 journalists have been killed in the performance of their jobs -- 65 percent or 36 of whom were Iraqis. Only two were Americans. Nine were from Europe and the rest form other countries including the Middle East, according to SPJ

That Iraqi fixers or news assistants are dying in the greatest numbers is another of the news media's dirty little secrets. Like freelancers and contract reporters, they generally work without benefits or insurance; there are just a handful of exceptions. Yet they are at the greatest risks because of Iraq's sectarian and political violence; not to mention widespread Internet access, which exposes fixers to retaliation when stories they played a part in are posted on media web sites.

Last August, Steven Vincent, an American freelance journalist who wrote for several conservative publications, was kidnapped with his translator, Nour Itais. Vincent was shot to death; Nour shot and left for dead. The incident occurred just three days after Vincent had published an Op-Ed in The New York Times criticizing the increasing infiltration of the Basran police force by Islamic extremists.

When put within a certain context, there is more than just a little hypocrisy here. What, after all, would happen if the news media in Iraq learned U.S. military commanders were sending Afro-American and Hispanic soldiers on its most dangers missions -- while keeping white troops confined to secure bases? Such a revelation would ignite a journalistic feeding frenzy. On the other hand, there's little if any public soul searching by the media in respect to its relationship to its fixers and freelancers.

Pollyanna

I missed Pollyanna on Masterpiece Theatre, when it aired in 2004 and 2005. But I caught it last night, and it really was a masterpiece...

Interestingly, it seemed to have a lesson about how to deal with depression, something I never heard about in discussions of the story. Of course, I never read the book, nor did I see the Disney version with Haley Mills. But last night, Pollyanna appeared like a psychotherapist for a number of depressed, isolated, and lonely people. There was nothing "Pollyanna-ish" about the her. She was serious, thoughtful, and moving.

This production for Carlton television, written by Simon Nye, directed by Sarah Harding, and produced by Trevor Hopkins was well done in all respects. The acting was just right. The whole cast played their parts to perfection: Amanda Burton as Aunt Polly, Kate Ashfield as Nancy, Kenneth Cranham as Mr. Pendleton, Aden Gillett as Dr. Chilton, et al. And most wonderful of all was Georgina Terry as the little girl who had to cope with life alone after her mother and father had died. Her courage, pluck, and determination to overcome whatever obstacles life threw in her path were inspiring.

"I laughed, I cried..." is an old cliche. But in this case, true.

Five stars.

Russia Fears American Nuclear Attack

Today's Washington Post runs reporter Peter Finn's account of Russia's fear of a new Cold War, sparked by comments from President Bush about nuclear first-strikes, and an agressive Council on Foreign Relations report:

MOSCOW -- In this city, it's beginning to feel like a new Cold War, driven by what many people here see as an old American impulse: to encircle, weaken or even destroy Russia, just as the country is emerging from post-Soviet ruins as a cohesive, self-confident and global power.

The specter of a U.S. nuclear first strike even resurfaced this month. An article in Foreign Affairs magazine, published by the Council on Foreign Relations, suggested that the United States could hit Russia and China without serious risk of retaliation. That sent heads spinning here with visions of Dr. Strangelove.

"The publication of these ideas in a respectable American journal has had an explosive effect," former Russian prime minister Yegor Gaidar wrote in an article in London's Financial Times newspaper. "Even those Russian journalists and analysts who are not prone to hysteria or anti-Americanism took it as an outline of the official position of the U.S. Administration."

I wonder whether provoking confrontation with Russia, while America is bogged down militarily in Iraq and Afghanistan--as well as diplomatically in Iran--is a smart move at this time...

Jill Carroll's Statement

Her written statement retracting earlier videotaped statements, in The Christian Science Monitor:

During my last night in captivity, my captors forced me to participate in a propaganda video. They told me they would let me go if I cooperated. I was living in a threatening environment, under their control, and wanted to go home alive. I agreed.

More info at Wikipedia.

April Fish!

The French call April 1 Poisson d'Avril, or "April Fish." French children sometimes tape a picture of a fish on the back of their schoolmates, crying "Poisson d'Avril" when the prank is discovered...