Where's My Netflix?

Maybe the world is coming to an end--Netflix is all messed up.

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That's a bad sign...

Nepalese Elect Maoist Guerrilla Prime Minister

Is this Nepalese terrorist's (Maoist guerrillas killed some 10,000 people) victory a victory for President Bush's "democracy-buliding"? From the BBC:

The Maoists' deputy leader, Baburam Bhattarai, said: "Today is a day of pride and it will be written with golden letters in the history of the nation." He predicted earlier that Prachanda would be a leader "for a new era", comparable to Lenin or Napoleon.

Friday's ballot ends months of political deadlock that had followed the sacking of the unpopular King Gyanendra and the abolition of the 240-year-old monarchy.

Our correspondent says that Prachanda's elevation had long seemed inevitable after his party scored its convincing win in April.
Prachanda was almost guaranteed victory because he had the support of three parties - his own, the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist) and the MJF (Madheshi Janadhikar Forum).

The Maoists' Congress Party rivals accused them before the vote of plotting to set up a totalitarian communist regime, a suggestion they strongly denied.

A former agricultural science teacher-turned-revolutionary, Prachanda was originally named Pushpa Kamal Dahal, but he still uses his guerrilla nom de guerre.

Raymond Lloyd Questions Georgia's Celebration of Stalin

Attention John McCain: Did you know that Georgia still worships Stalin and has a large statue of the dictator on display in Gori? I didn't, until Raymond Lloyd emailed this question he asks of President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia

Apart from sending the Georgian military into South Ossetia on 8 August, the opening day of the Beijing Olympics and the Olympic Truce period, and the subsequent devastation of its capital Tskhinvali, democratic Georgia may have lost some sympathy by the sight in the centre of Gori of a statue of Stalin (and the portrayal of Josif Dzugasvili on a 500 lari gold coin of 1995), despite this tyrant being responsible for 42.6 million non-war dead, according to conservative estimates made by Rudolp Rummel in Death by Government ISBN 978-1-56000-927-6, democide by Stalin and his fellow Georgian Lavrenti Pavles dze Beria, head of the OGPU/NKVD/MVD predecessors of the KGB, which so traumatized the Russian people that few persons over the age of 65 have tried to stem the current slide into ex-KGB-dominated authoritarianism;

while the longterm guarantor of Georgia' democratic prosperity may be admission to the European Union, somewhat as Ireland's membership transcended five hundred years of British oppression, could not Georgia meanwhile claim some higher moral ground, beginning, say, on 9 April 2009, your 20th Day of National Unity, itself commemorating the massacre of 20 women by the soviet army in 1989, when you might consider making compensation payments for some of the crimes against humanity initiated personally by Stalin, such as to needy 80-90-year-old Ukrainian survivors of the worst genocidal famine in European history, when 6 000 000 persons were starved or beaten to death in 1932/1933; or to needy widows and orphans of the 22 000 Polish officers shot in Katyn, Kalinin (now Tver) and Kharkiv on the orders of Stalin and Beria of 5 March 1940, compensation which would not be expected to match that of democratic Germany to nazi victims, but more like independent Montenegro's decision in 2006 to make reparations for damage to Dubrovnik after it was shelled by the Montenegrin military in 1991/92?

Raymond LLOYD
Editor & Publisher
The Parity Democrat Westminster
www.shequality.org

Walid Phares: Confrontation With Russia Aids Jihadists

From The American Thinker (ht JihadWatch):

Jihadi Dual agenda

The world Salafists' ultimate wish is to see the two infidel superpowers at odds with each other again; and that is happening. The combat-Jihadists want bloodshed both in Moscow and in Washington now and in the future. The long-term Wahabis likes the idea of an American demobilization against Jihadism and a re-mobilization against Russia. Ending the War on Terror and reigniting the Cold war is the ultimate fantasy of the oil producing fundamentalist powers.

On the other hand, the Iranian regime and its allies in Syria and Lebanon have clearly opted for privileged strategic relations with Russia as a way to counterbalance the US and its allies in the region. The flow of petro cash from Iranian oil revenues can ensure a good business and military relationship with Moscow. Some in the latter city -- still recalling Cold War feelings -- like the idea of client states (or so they think) counterbalancing American presence in the Middle East.

In the final analysis, the two main trees of Jihadism are playing West against East to ensure the weakening and ultimately the collapse of their grand foes. The Wahabis wants to bring Russia down via the establishment of several Wahabi emirates in its midst --from Chechnya to Central Asia. And the Khomeinists want the US out of the region so that they can establish their own dominance instead.

Moscow and Washington (and Brussels as well) should not be manipulated by oil fundamentalist powers against each other. The Cold War should not be brought back at the expense of winning the conflict against Jihadi Terrorism. In clear terms: no wars should be waged outside the international campaign against the terrorists, should it be an ethnic or economic one. These, including the current Caucasus conflict, are wrong wars as they would profit the global Jihadi forces, both political and military.

BBC Analyst Agrees--Georgia Crisis Parallels Cyprus Crisis

From Paul Reynolds' report at BBC World News:

There are some clear winners and losers in the conflict over South Ossetia - and the crisis has shown the need for a fresh start in relations between Russia and the West.

First, the balance sheet:

Winners
Russia: It has emerged strongly, able to impose its will in South Ossetia and sending a clear signal about its readiness to assert itself.

It agreed to a ceasefire plan when its objective - control of South Ossetia - was achieved. The plan basically calls for no further use of force and some kind of return to the position before the conflict. However, Russia's foreign minister said Georgian troops would "never again" be allowed to resume their role as part of the joint peacekeeping force agreed with Russia in 1992. It is not clear whether Russian forces will be reduced to the battalion-sized unit allowed for in that agreement.

This is unlikely. Think more of Cyprus in 1974, when the Turks intervened, making similar claims about protecting their kith and kin. They are still there.

Since then, someone I know mentioned Bush 41's invasion of Panama to depose Manuel Noriega (and put him on trial) as another precedent for Moscow's actions. And there was President Clinton's invasion of Haiti,as well as President Reagan's invasion of Grenada to protect American medical students. Even without invoking the "Kosovo precedent," Russia's actions are not unprecedented: Turkey recently raided Iraq's Kurdish provinces, Israel raided Lebanon, and so forth and so on...

John McCain: We Are All Georgians

Hmm. From today's Wall Street Journal:

We should work toward the establishment of an independent, international peacekeeping force in the separatist regions, and stand ready to help our Georgian partners put their country back together. This will entail reviewing anew our relations with both Georgia and Russia. As the NATO secretary general has said, Georgia remains in line for alliance membership, and I hope NATO will move ahead with a membership track for both Georgia and Ukraine.

At the same time, we must make clear to Russia's leaders that the benefits they enjoy from being part of the civilized world require their respect for the values, stability and peace of that world. The U.S. has cancelled a planned joint military exercise with Russia, an important step in this direction.

The Georgian people have suffered before, and they suffer today. We must help them through this tragedy, and they should know that the thoughts, prayers and support of the American people are with them. This small democracy, far away from our shores, is an inspiration to all those who cherish our deepest ideals. As I told President Saakashvili on the day the cease-fire was declared, today we are all Georgians. We mustn't forget it.

And The New York Times ran this item about McCain foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, who reportedly has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the government of Georgia (I wonder if any of that was skimmed from US aid?):

Since the Russian invasion of Georgia, Mr. Scheunemann has drawn attention for his lobbying efforts on behalf of the Georgian government, for which he lobbied until March. Mr. McCain has been outspoken in his support of Georgia. During a flight on Tuesday on the McCain campaign plane, Mr. Scheunemann told reporters that Mr. McCain has known the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, for more than a decade.

Craig Holman, the governmental affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy organization, said Mr. Scheunemann’s dual role — sometimes advising Mr. McCain as a candidate, and sometimes advising private clients on their interactions with him as a senator — raised potential red flags. “This is a serious revolving door problem: a person who keeps fluctuating between being a lobbyist, and advising candidates,” Mr. Holman said.

Russian Analyst Blames McCain for Georgian-Russian War

I saw this in today's Johnson's Russia List:

#26
Izvestia
Auguste 13, 2008
WHEN WE SAY SAAKASHVILI, WE MEAN MCCAIN
Republican Party neo-cons ordered Georgia to start the war
Author: Sergei Markov, director, Political Studies Institute
[Neo-conservatives in the Bush Administration and John McCain's
campaign team have decided to arrange a virtual Cold War between
the West and Russia. Thousands of Ossetians, along with dozens of
Russians and Georgians, have already sacrificed their lives on the
altar of McCain's election campaign.

So, I read on. One thing is indisputably true. Russians have a different view of the conflict:

The neo-cons will make Saakashvili throw the Georgians into
the furnace of McCain's election campaign, but they seem to be
promising that after the victory, the USA will help him establish
full control over Abkhazia and Ossetia, and remain in power for a
long time as president of Georgia. And Ukrainian President Viktor
Yushchenko will take Ukraine to the brink of a split - apparently
in exchange for promises to admit Ukraine into NATO and support
widespread repression against Russians in Ukraine.

Some may read this article and call it a conspiracy theory.
Yes, there is a conspiracy. It's a conspiracy by the neo-cons with
the aim of retaining their control over the world's leading
country and carrying out their plan to establish global hegemony;
they make no secret of this. The neo-cons regard Obama as weak -
incapable of establishing American hegemony worldwide, and thus a
potential traitor to US national interests. So anything goes in
their battle against Obama - up to and including a Cold War with a
nuclear-armed Russia. Everyone remembers the huge international
media campaign launched by the neo-cons in the lead-up to the war
in Iraq. Now the neo-cons are launching a similar campaign against
Russia in the international media and the United Nations. The aim
of the media campaign surrounding South Ossetia is to start a new
pseudo-Cold War with Russia.

The European Union is our potential ally in this political
battle, since it has no interest in a new Cold War with Russia or
a victory for the miltarist neo-cons; President McCain would mean
a de facto third term for Bush. Another potential ally for Russia
is public opinion in the United States; most American voters hate
the neo-cons and their high-risk military adventures, and want
them out of power. Dick Cheney is America's most hated politician.

Thousands of Ossetians, along with dozens of Russians and
Georgians, have already sacrificed their lives on the altar of
McCain's election campaign - following hundreds of thousands of
Iraqis. We must not allow Cheney and McCain to kill thousands more
Ukrainians and Russians. Europe must use its combined efforts to
stop the mad neo-cons and prevent them from plunging our continent
into a new Cold War.

Everyone has been asking why the war started on the first day
of the Olympic Games. There's a simple explanation for that. The
order to start the war didn't come from Saakashvili, whose
attitude to China is neutral or positive. It came from Cheney and
the neo-cons, who hate China: thus, they also disrupted the
media's celebration of the Beijing Olympics.

The Turkistan Legion

A brief mention of the Turkistan Legion over dinner last night led me to a Google search that turned up some surprisingly contemporary reverberations from Hitler's use of Islamist troops during World War II. I think it may explain the failure of US policy in Central Asia. It seems that some US attempts to foster anti-Russian and anti-Chinese sentiment among Chechens, Uighurs, and the like may have been taken from an old German playbook.

No wonder it hasn't worked...

Here are some references:

1. Gates of Vienna

Our Flemish correspondent VH has done some research on the role played by the Muslims of Central Asia in World War 2, in collaboration with the Nazis:

When trying to find out a bit more about the Turkistan Muslims in Xinjiang, I stumbled upon this photo.

Though Muslim Nazi collaboration is mostly known for the notorious Muslim Handschar (Sword) SS division, the Turkistan Muslims were incorporated into the volunteer Östtürkischer Waffen-Verband der SS and fought mainly in France, North Italy, and — like the Handschar — in Yugoslavia. They were involved in the killing of over 800,000 Yugoslav citizens — 750,000 Serbs, 60,000 Jews and 26,000 Roma, with the help of Muslims in Bosnia (Bosnian 13th Waffen Handschar), Kosovo and Albania (Albanian Skanderbeg 21st Waffen SS division).

The first “Turkistan Legion” was mobilized in May 1942, originally consisting of only one battalion but having been expanded to 16 battalions and 16,000 soldiers by 1943 (Öst Battalions).

The all-Muslim “Turkistanische Legion” wore a badge picturing a mosque and the text “BiZ ALLA Bilen, TURKISTAN”: “Allah is with us, Turkistan,” equivalent of Gott mit uns (God with us), which was the German Army motto).
- - - - - - - - -
There is also a film of this Muslim-National Socialists alliance, “Uyghur's army and German troops (Turkistanische legion)”:

2. Wikipedia:

The Turkestan Legion (German: Turkistanische Legion) was the name for the military units comprised of the "freiwillige" Turkic peoples who fought in the German Army during World War II. Most of these troops were Red Army POWs, who opted to fight for the Nazis in the hopes of establishing an independent state in Central Asia after the war.
Although Turkic peoples had been perceived initially as "racially inferior", this attitude officially already changed in the Autumn 1941, when the Nazis attempted to harness the anti-Russian sentiment of Turkic peoples in Russia for political gain. The first "Turkistan Legion" was mobilized in May 1942, originally consisting of only one battalion but having been expanded to 16 battalions and 16,000 soldiers by 1943. Under the Wehrmacht's command, these units were mobilized exclusively on the Western front, isolating them from the Red Army, on the war fronts of France and north Italy.
Much of the Turkestan Legion was ultimately imprisoned by British forces and repatriated into Russia, where they would face persecution and reprisals by the Russian government in the wake of the conflict, for having fought alongside the fascist forces.
Notable members of the legion include Baymirza Hayit, who after the war, settled in Germany and became a historian of the history of Central Asia and Turkestan, and Turkestani nationalist leader Mustafa Chokaev.

3.Axis & Legion Militaria

Turkistan & Eastern SS Insignia

The Germans formed "Ost" (Eastern) Battalions from recruited prisoners of war and deserters. These Ost Battalions were fitted among the German Regiments and Divisions. The volunteers from the Ost Battalions were used as rear-area police duties.

Most of these Legions were used to fight anti-partisan operations in Russia and later in Yugoslavia.

One of the most distinguishing combat formations were members of the Turkistan Legion. The Legion was formed in the spring of 1942 as part of the German 162nd Infantry Division, referred as the "Turkoman Division." It saw extensive action in Yugoslavia and Italy.
In November 1943, the "Ostmanische SS-Division" was formed comprising of three separate eastern groups: Turkistan, Idel-ural and Crimea.

Reichsführer Himmler was very interested in this Eastern SS formation because his intent was to utilize some of the cadre personal for a training unit with the hope of raising further Eastern volunteer units. Because of volunteer shortages the unit was later designated as "1. Ostmusselmanisches SS-Regiment" in July 1944.

Finaly by October 1944, with more volunteers and conscriptions it was re-named as the "Osttürkischer Waffen-Verband der SS.

By March 1945 the Azerbaijan legion was added.

Below is a sample of insignias worn by members of the Turkistan Legion and Waffen-SS.

On top is a Wolf's Head collar tab with enlisted rank. It was intended to be worn by Crimean Tartar and Volga Tartar volunteers, one of four formations to be used in the creation of the "30. Waffen-Grenadier Division der SS (Westruthenische Nr. 1)."

Another interesting insignia is the German made cuffband with the green color, which represented the ethnic muslims.
The BeVo woven cuffband is made of bright green rayon with white Latin script "Osttürkischer Waffen-Verband der SS." The cuffband is border at both top and bottom edges in vertically woven white thread. The reverse shows the typical salt & pepper patterned found on these BeVo style bands.

Below on your left is a very rare early first pattern Turkistan shield. Oval grey-green backing with a light-grey border; depicting a white mosque with a center coupola in white and blue, two side spires and a large entry gate, all outlined in yellow with light blue shadows. Below the mosque is the inscription "TURKISTAN" and arched above the inscription "BIZ ALLA BILEN." (God with us)

The Germans appear to have believed that "Biz Alla Bilen" was the Arabic equivalent of "Got mit uns" (God with us), which was the German Army motto.

NOTE: Correctly this should have been "Allah biz bilen. There may have been some objection to this both as a grammatical error and to the fact that although five languages "Kazakh, Kirgiz, Turkmen, Uzbeck and Tajik" are spoken in the Turkistan region of what was formerly the USSR, Arabic is not one of them!

On your right is the second pattern shield, issued in September 1943. The angular shape shield has a red and blue horizontal stripes bordered in black with a black field at the top with the inscription "TURKISTAN" in light blue. In the center of the shield is the Legion's emblem a white bow and arrow.

Above is the gold Eastern Peoples first class with swords badge that was awarded for bravery. If you want to find out more information please visit my Eastern People's Awards web page.

Memo to Obama II: Run as a Winner

It's time for Barack Obama to use the race issue to his advantage in the 2008 election, by associating himself in the public's mind with African-American winners like Tiger Woods and Venus and Serena Williams. (He may have to fine-tune some tax policies...) It would be nice if he could get some endorsements to use in TV ads with working titles like: "Winner" and "Twice as Good." The message would be clear--like the champions who endorse him, Barack Obama is a winner, and the nation needs to elect a Winner, after eight years of losing...

The Wild Duck

Our Netflix BBC DVD had two Ibsen plays on it, and the other night someone I know and this blogger took a look at the 1971 television adaptation of The Wild Duck, starring a young Denholm Elliott and Jenny Agutter. It was really good, too, a nice compantion to the BBC production of An Enemy of the People.. One can see why Eugene O'Neill paid frequent homage to Ibsen. The themes of pipe dreams, alcoholism, destructive family tensions, crusading politics, and crushing social pressures on the individual were clearly evident in the no-frills production. The death of the wild duck, as the end of childhood, was particularly poignant. The symbolic doctor and preacher reminded me of John Ford (was that where he got the idea for symbolic characters in his Westerns?). Five stars.

Sarko the Peacemaker...

Looks like Nicholas Sarkozy has done it again. The Moscow Times reports:

Sarkozy said Europe was ready to send peacekeepers to Georgia if all involved parties agreed. "Could Europe get involved in a peacekeeping mission? Europe is available to do that, of course," he said.

Sarkozy took pains to be seen as a fair arbiter, saying he sent his Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner to meet refugees in North Ossetia. Before his visit to Moscow, Sarkozy met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and he said the two of them see eye to eye. Medvedev is scheduled to meet with Merkel later this week in Sochi, where he is scheduled to go on a working vacation.

Medvedev said the people of Abkhazia and South Ossetia should be allowed to decide themselves whether they want to be part of Georgia. "The Ossetians and the Abkhaz must respond to that question taking their history into consideration, including what happened in the past few days," he said.

Sarkozy and Medvedev had been scheduled to address reporters after two hours of talks, but a Kremlin spokesman announced that it had been delayed because the talks were continuing. A member of the French delegation said soon after that Putin had arrived for lunch with Medvedev and Sarkozy. The two presidents addressed reporters two hours later, while Putin chose not to attend.

When asked why the talks went so long, a senior Russian diplomat who participated in the meeting said only that the leaders had agreed on everything long before they emerged to speak with reporters and had in the remaining time "told jokes about women." The diplomat did not smile as he spoke, and it was unclear whether he was joking.

From the Kremlin, Sarkozy headed for Tbilisi where he was prepared to spend the night talking to Saakashvili. "The night is young," he said.

France holds the European Union's rotating presidency and is leading mediation efforts between Russia and Georgia. Shortly before meeting Sarkozy, Medvedev ordered a halt to fighting by Russian troops.

France is well-positioned for the mediation effort because it was of the countries that resisted U.S. calls to put Georgia and Ukraine on track to join NATO by giving them a Membership Action Plan in April.

Today's Georgian Crisis and the 1974 Cyprus Crisis

American pundits have their knickers in a twist about Russia. The Wall Street Journal called Putin Vladimir Bonaparte today while in today's Washington Post, George Will compared the invasion of Georgia with the outbreak of World War I. Yesterday, Robert Kagan compared Putin's raid on Georgia to Hitler's march into the Sudetenland.

As Bart Simpson might say, "Don't have a cow, man..." It's serious, but not the end of the world, nor the start of World War III.

IMHO, the current Georgian-Russian war has a lot more in common with the 1974 Cyprus crisis. Then, Turkey (a NATO member) invaded Cyprus (supported by Greece, also a NATO member) to protect Turkish Cypriots from Greek Cypriots. In the end, the island was divided into Greek and Turkish zones, under a cease-fire. In the case of Georgia, the Ossetians can be seen as equivalent to the Turkish Cypriots, in this case protected by Russia.

Here's a link to the Wikipedia entry for the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus.

Nabi Abdullaev on the Georgian-Russian War

From the Moscow Times:

Having forcefully reclaimed South Ossetia for its loyal separatist regime, Moscow has sent the strongest possible signal of how far it is ready to go to retain influence in other former Soviet republics.

The conflict is unlikely to escalate into a war by proxy with the West, however, and the situation will eventually return to the pre-conflict status quo, political analysts said Sunday.

President Dmitry Medvedev, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov have labeled Georgia's attack on the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, as "genocide" and said Tbilisi has lost the right to ever govern the separatist region.

Major Western powers have strongly urged Moscow to respect Georgia's territorial integrity and to avoid the excessive use of force -- which analysts said suggests that after a lengthy period of gradual military disengagement and negotiations, Georgia will have to accept continued Moscow-backed separatism on its territory.

The South Ossetian conflict was a foreign policy trap for Russia from the start, and the trap slammed shut after the Georgian troops started shelling Tskhinvali late last week and its residents pleaded for Moscow to intervene, said Alexander Khramchikhin, a senior researcher with the Institute of Political and Military Analysis.

"Russia was left with the choice of either becoming a traitor or an aggressor," he said.

This apparently was a tough choice for a country that feels encircled and humiliated as former vassal regimes turn to the West. The fact that Georgia is a close ally of the United States, which strongly backs its bid to join NATO, promises to further complicate the bigger, geopolitical ramifications of the violence in South Ossetia.

Washington and West European governments criticized Russia for its overwhelming use of force but did not place the full blame for the conflict on it.

The main reason for this was probably because Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili attempted to reintegrate South Ossetia by force without first winning approval from the West, said Alexei Malashenko, a Caucasus analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center.

Larisa Alexandrovna on the Georgian-Russian War

From AtLargely.com:

Russia's attack on Georgia is illegal and immoral. On that we can all agree. But, because our voice of reason and diplomacy has long been sold off to military defense contractors, our leaders criticizing Russia is irrelevant and worse, hypocritical because we attacked Iraq, illegally. I have been trying to explain this very problem to the far-right, but it is like trying to explain the basics of math to a flea.

Here is what our beloved leader said:

U.S. President George Bush said he told Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that the violence in the region was "unacceptable," and that Russia's response was "disproportionate."

Guess what Vladamir Putin (no matter who the Russian President is, Putin is the leader) will likely do in response to this stern warning? Putin will do whatever he wants to because the US cannot counter militarily, financially, or in any other way. We have lost the moral high ground through our total disregard for international law, treaties, and the basic decency of honoring human rights. That my friends is the exact problem with playing the "we are the greatest country in the world" game, with no serious understanding of reality.

Consider that Georgia is our ally and we can do nothing for them. That is how much power the US now has thanks to this administration. And consider too, that Putin will not stop at Georgia as he has always pined for the return of the former Soviet Union.

How Bush "restored honor and dignity to the White House..."

During the 2000 Presidential contest, George W. Bush repeatedly promised to "restore honor and dignity to the White House." Here's how he's doing it at the Beijing Olympics, by patting the back of a member of the US Women's Volleyball Team--around the same time Todd Bachman, father-in-law of men's volleyball coach Hugh McCutcheon was stabbed to death, and his wife Barbara critically injured in Beijing by a suicide attacker...

Glenn Greenwald Finds More Holes in FBI's Anthrax Case

Salon's Glenn Greenwald is looking at FBI "evidence" somewhat critically...

The fastest one can drive from Frederick, Maryland to Princeton, New Jersey is 3 hours, which would mean that Ivins would have had to have dropped the anthrax letters in the New Jersey mailbox on September 17 by 1 p.m. or -- at the latest -- 2 p.m. in order to be able to attend a 4:00 or 5:00 p.m. meeting back at Ft. Detrick. But had he dropped the letters in the mailbox before 5:00 p.m. on September 17, the letters would have borne a September 17 postmark, rather than the September 18 postmark they bore (letters picked up from that Princeton mailbox before 5 p.m. bear the postmark from that day; letters picked up after 5 p.m. bear the postmark of the next day). That's why the Search Warrant Affidavit (.pdf) released by the FBI on Friday said this (page 8):

If the Post's reporting about Ivins' September 17 activities is accurate -- that he "return[ed to Fort Detrick] for an appointment in the early evening, about 4 or 5 p.m." -- then that would constitute an alibi, not, as the Post breathlessly described it, "a key clue into how he could have pulled off an elaborate crime," since any letter he mailed that way would have a September 17 -- not a September 18 -- postmark. Just compare the FBI's own definition of "window of opportunity" to its September 17 timeline for Ivins to see how glaring that contradiction is.
In theory (and there is no evidence for this at all), Ivins could have left Fort Detrick that night after work and driven to New Jersey, but then the leaked information reported by the Post about Ivins' September 17 morning "administrative leave" would be completely irrelevant, and according to the Post, that isn't what the FBI believes occurred ("Authorities assume that he drove to Princeton immediately after" he took administrative leave in the morning). The FBI's theory as to how and when Ivins traveled to New Jersey on September 17 and mailed the letters is simply impossible, given the statement in their own Probable Cause Affidavit as to "the window of opportunity" the anthrax attacker had to mail the letters in order to have them bear a September 18 postmark. Marcy Wheeler and Larisa Alexandrovna have now noted the same discrepancy. That is a pretty enormous contradiction in the FBI's case.
* * * * *
The FBI's total failure to point to a shred of evidence placing Ivins in New Jersey on either of the two days the anthrax letters were sent is a very conspicuous deficiency in its case. It's possible that Ivins was able to travel to Princeton on two occasions in three weeks without leaving the slightest trace of having done so (not a credit card purchase, ATM withdrawal, unusual gas purchases, nothing), but that relies on a depiction of Ivins as a cunning and extremely foresightful criminal, an image squarely at odds with most of the FBI's circumstantial evidence that suggests Ivins was actually quite careless, even reckless, in how he perpetrated this crime (spending unusual amounts of time in his lab before the attacks despite knowing that there would be a paper trail; taking an "administrative leave" from work to go mail the anthrax letters rather than just doing it on the weekend when no paper trail of his absence would be created; using his own anthrax strain rather than any of the other strains to which he had access at Fort Detrick; keeping that strain in its same molecular form for years rather than altering it, etc.).

The FBI dumped a large number of uncorroborated conclusions at once on Wednesday, carefully assembled to create the most compelling case they could make, and many people -- as intended -- jumped to proclaim that it was convincing. But the more that case is digested and assessed, the more questions and the more skepticism seem to arise among virtually everyone...

Joshua Foust on the Georgian-Russian War

On Registan.net:

As the fighting in South Ossetia heats up, it’s interesting to see the rush by all the bloggers to do the biggest, grandest roundups. By looking at this, you see those who think they’re clever by either stating the obvious (Russia wants to split Georgia, Abkhazia is getting involved), the conventional wisdom (Russia wants to disrupt the Georgia energy corridor), or the plain old wrong (Russia wants to annex Georgia). The examples are countless, and while not necessarily wrong, none are really saying anything those who are knowledgable of the situation haven’t been saying for months or years. You also notice that the same four or five stories from the New York Times, CNN, or the BBC all get linked and excerpted, as people play arm-chair correspondents and try to track every bombing, explosion, artillery strike, and troop movement.

Basically, ignore all of that. We will not have a useful picture of the minutae of the fighting for at least several days (really? Russia will own Georgian airspace just like that?), until some good correspondents get on the scene and we’re not left hearing only what the various foreign ministries say. If you can read Russian or Georgian, there are many blogs posting pictures and personal accounts that can provide much better data (Yerevan-based reporter Onnik Krikorian is a notable exception and his collections of local blogger-journalism are absolutely necessary reading). Far more interesting than the minutae of the tactical aspects of this fight, at least to me, is the political aspect. Blake Hounshell did an admirable job of rounding up some of these, including the very salient point that Russia has refused a cease-fire.

But even that is just conventional wisdom. Who cares? It’s called conventional wisdom because everyone already knows it. Finding something new or interesting about this conflict is tough, and the blogosphere is being more hurtful than helpful in offering anything of value. There is very little attention being paid, for example, to Russia’s diplomatic moves, which seem curiously centered in Brussels, and not Tskhinvali, Tblisi, or Moscow. Why Brussels? This escalation happened right before Georgia was scheduled for its ascension into NATO, and Russian would love nothing more than to scuttle Georgia’s chances. Pretending that the South Ossetian shadow government makes any of its own decision is about as useful as pretending the shadow government in Abkhazia does. They got violent because Moscow told them to, and it has been that way for a good fifteen years now (the Abkhaz government is a bit more autonomous, but they remain fatally reliant on Russian support).

Memo to Obama: Pick Caroline Kennedy for VP

As the VP selection process enters its final days, someone I know made what seems to me to be a very shrewd suggestion--that Barack Obama pick Carolline Kennedy as his running mate.

This does several important things at once:

1) It takes McCain's absurd celebrity attacks and turns them into an advantage. "You want to run against celebrities? Make my day..."

2) It reinforces Obama's patriotism. No one is more beloved by America than the daughter of our slain ex-President, John F. Kennedy

3) It allows Ted Kennedy to give his own "Win one for the Gipper speech..." from his sickbed, if need be

4) Caroline is obviously a woman, so it demonstrates that Obama is no anti-feminist

5) It brings the Irish-American vote (some 40 million Americans at last estimate) into the Obama camp. Being from Chicago, he must realize the importance of the Irish vote. That helps to neutralize the abortion issue.

6) Caroline is a lawyer from New York, so who needs Hillary?

To those who might argue that it would be inappropriate for someone on the VP selection committee to pick herself--Dick Cheney did exactly that with George W. Bush in 2000, and afterwards the team enjoyed eight years at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue...

Science Magazine: FBI Gagged Anthrax Scientists

The journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science wonders if the FBI's handling of the anthrax case may have harmed scientific research:

The FBI, which had little microbial forensic experience back in 2001, relied on a network of labs--including Ivins's at USAMRIID--to aid its investigation. (The Institute for Genomic Research in Rockville, Maryland, not only sequenced many anthrax strains but worked on the case before it was integrated into JCVI, says Venter.) The bureau has ordered researchers not to discuss or publish that work. "As a scientist, I hope I'll be able to do that now," says Geisbert, who in his previous job at USAMRIID produced electron micrographs of the spores used in the letters sent to the Senate.

Many believe that the case is bound to have wider ramifications for the biodefense field. Before 2001, such research was largely confined to USAMRIID and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia. The anthrax letters, which plunged a nation reeling from 9/11 into further anxiety, helped spur a massive increase in the biodefense budget--now some $5.4 billion a year--and a construction boom in biosafety labs. "The entire rationale for that expansion was fraudulent," says Richard Ebright, a prominent biodefense critic at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey, because it assumed a threat from outside the country. The boom has made the country less safe, Ebright maintains: "The spigot needs to be closed."

Others say the threat remains real. "It would be unfortunate if people take away the message that the only individuals we should be concerned about are deranged biodefense scientists," says biosecurity expert Gerald Epstein of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. But he acknowledges that the debate about how much biodefense is enough will likely reignite.

There may be other consequences, says Paul Keim, an expert in microbial fingerprinting at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff who has also been recruited by the FBI. After the anthrax attacks, Congress passed legislation to limit access to bioterror agents to licensed researchers and imposed strict rules on where and how they can be used. Although researchers have decried them as overly cumbersome, the anthrax case may renew pressure to stiffen them further, Keim says. Additional measures could include cameras in virtually every lab, speculates Alan Pearson of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington, D.C. "The solution may well be if you work with pathogens like smallpox and anthrax, be prepared to be watched," he says.

The involvement of a U.S. scientist would also give new ammunition to local groups that have tried to stop construction of new biosafety labs. At BU, now a major academic biodefense hub, "we have had a lot of opposition--and this is not going to help," Geisbert says.

Walter Russell Mead: Why Americans Support Israel

I had been meaning to post something about Walter Russell Mead's essay in the July/August issue of Foreign Affairs for some time. It is well worth reading in its entirety. Mead's history lesson reminded me of Barbara Tuchman's Bible and Sword: England and Palestine from the Bronze Age to Balfour. which is about Britain's long historical involvement vis-a-vis Israel. Likewise, Mead provides valuable historical context that helps to discredit crackpot conspiracy theories presented by the likes of Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer.

An excerpt:

In the United States, a pro-Israel foreign policy does not represent the triumph of a small lobby over the public will. It represents the power of public opinion to shape foreign policy in the face of concerns by foreign policy professionals. Like the war on drugs and the fence along the Mexican border, support for Israel is a U.S. foreign policy that makes some experts and specialists uneasy but commands broad public support. This does not mean that an "Israel lobby" does not exist or does not help shape U.S. policy in the Middle East. Nor does it mean that Americans ought to feel as they do. (It remains my view that everyone, Americans and Israelis included, would benefit if Americans developed a more sympathetic and comprehensive understanding of the wants and needs of the Palestinians.) But it does mean that the ultimate sources of the United States' Middle East policy lie outside the Beltway and outside the Jewish community. To understand why U.S. policy is pro-Israel rather than neutral or pro-Palestinian, one must study the sources of nonelite, non-Jewish support for the Jewish state.

THE CHILDREN OF DAVID

The story of U.S. support for a Jewish state in the Middle East begins early. John Adams could not have been more explicit. "I really wish the Jews again in Judea an independent nation," he said, after his presidency. From the early nineteenth century on, gentile Zionists fell into two main camps in the United States. Prophetic Zionists saw the return of the Jews to the Promised Land as the realization of a literal interpretation of biblical prophecy, often connected to the return of Christ and the end of the world. Based on his interpretation of Chapter 18 of the prophecies of Isaiah, for example, the Albany Presbyterian pastor John McDonald predicted in 1814 that Americans would assist the Jews in restoring their ancient state. Mormon voices shared this view; the return of the Jews to the Holy Land was under way, said Elder Orson Hyde in 1841: "The great wheel is unquestionably in motion, and the word of the Almighty has declared that it shall roll."

Other, less literal and less prophetic Christians developed a progressive Zionism that would resonate down through the decades among both religious and secular gentiles. In the nineteenth century, liberal Christians often believed that God was building a better world through human progress. They saw the democratic and (relatively) egalitarian United States as both an example of the new world God was making and a powerful instrument to further his grand design. Some American Protestants believed that God was moving to restore what they considered the degraded and oppressed Jews of the world to the Promised Land, just as God was uplifting and improving the lives of other ignorant and unbelieving people through the advance of Protestant and liberal principles. They wanted the Jews to establish their own state because they believed that this would both shelter the Jews from persecution and, through the redemptive powers of liberty and honest agricultural labor, uplift and improve what they perceived to be the squalid morals and deplorable hygiene of contemporary Ottoman and eastern European Jews. As Adams put it, "Once restored to an independent government and no longer persecuted they would soon wear away some of the asperities and peculiarities of their character and possibly in time become liberal Unitarian Christians." For such Christians, American Zionism was part of a broader program of transforming the world by promoting the ideals of the United States.

Not all progressive Zionists couched their arguments in religious terms. As early as 1816, Niles' Weekly Register, the leading American news and opinion periodical through much of the first half of the nineteenth century, predicted and welcomed the impending return of the Jews to an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital. The magazine projected that the restoration of the Jews would further enlightenment and progress -- and this, clearly, would be good for the United States as well as for the Jews.

Prophetic Zionists, for their part, became more numerous after the American Civil War, and their views of the role a restored Jewish state might play in the events leading up to the apocalypse became more highly developed. Books and pamphlets highlighting the predicted restoration of the Jews and speculating on the identity and the return of the "lost tribes" of the ancient Hebrews were perennial bestsellers, and the association between Dwight Moody, the country's leading evangelist, and Cyrus Scofield, the important Bible scholar, put the future history of Israel firmly at the center of the imagination of conservative American Protestantism.

These groups of gentile Zionists found new, if sometimes unsavory, allies after 1880, when a mass immigration of Russian Jews to the United States began. Some of them and some assimilated German American Jews hoped that Palestine would replace the United States as the future home of what was an unusually unpopular group of immigrants at the time. For anti-Semites, the establishment of a Jewish state might or might not "cure" Jews of the characteristics many gentiles attributed to them, but in any case the establishment of such a state would reduce Jewish immigration to the United States.

In 1891, these strands of gentile Zionists came together. The Methodist lay leader William Blackstone presented a petition to President Benjamin Harrison calling on the United States to use its good offices to convene a congress of European powers so that they could induce the Ottoman Empire to turn Palestine over to the Jews. The 400 signatories were overwhelmingly non-Jewish and included the chief justice of the Supreme Court; the Speaker of the House of Representatives; the chairs of the House Ways and Means Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee; the future president William McKinley; the mayors of Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington; the editors or proprietors of the leading East Coast and Chicago newspapers; and an impressive array of Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Roman Catholic clergy. Business leaders who signed the petition included Cyrus McCormick, John Rockefeller, and J. P. Morgan. At a time when the American Jewish community was neither large nor powerful, and no such thing as an Israel lobby existed, the pillars of the American gentile establishment went on record supporting a U.S. diplomatic effort to create a Jewish state in the lands of the Bible.

SHARED COMMANDMENTS

Any discussion of U.S. attitudes toward Israel must begin with the Bible...