Ungrateful Iraqis

Ken AshfordIraqLeave a Comment

On Sunday night, George W. Bush said:

I think the Iraqi people owe the, the American people a huge debt of gratitude.  That’s the problem, here in America.  They wonder whether or not there is a gratitude level that’s significant enough in Iraq.

And today we learn that:

Nearly 35,000 civilians were killed last year in Iraq, the United Nations said Tuesday, a sharp increase from the numbers reported previously by the Iraqi government.

Gianni Magazzeni, the chief of the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq, said 34,452 civilians were killed and 36,685 were wounded last year.

and just this morning….

Bombs kill 60 at Baghdad University; Gunmen kill 10 in marketplace; Two other bombings kill 19 in Baghdad

Yeah — WHY aren’t they grateful?!?

Shorter Jonathan Chait (Updated With Dreher)

Ken AshfordRight Wing Punditry/IdiocyLeave a Comment

Shorter Jonathan Chait:

Okay. Okay.  I was wrong about the Iraq War, and the anti-war liberals were right, just as they were right about Vietnam.  But you should listen to hawks in the future, because one of these days we’ll be right.

Seriously, this has to be one of the most embarassing mea culpas in the history of op-ed pieces.  Chait (repeatedly) says that hawks should learn the lessons of Iraq, but always in conjunction with a warning against "overlearning" them.

Chait’s thesis would be more powerful if he would explain — just once — what the "lessons of Iraq" are.  Then we can decide if they should or shouldn’t be "overlearned" (whatever that means).  Sadly, I suspect that he cannot articulate the lessons. [UPDATE: Jonathan Schwarz picks up on some Chait insanity that I missed.]

UPDATE: Conversely, Jon Dreher is as a self-described "practicing Christian and political conservative."  He writes for the National Review Online and uber-conservative blog, The Corner.  On 9/11, he "thanked God" that Bush was the President.  Yup, he’s been a full-throated supporter of President Bush and the Iraq War.

This weekend, in an essay at NPR, he came to terms with his conservative bent, and saw the light:

As President Bush marched the country to war with Iraq, even some voices on the Right warned that this was a fool’s errand. I dismissed them angrily. I thought them unpatriotic.

But almost four years later, I see that I was the fool.

In Iraq, this Republican President for whom I voted twice has shamed our country with weakness and incompetence, and the consequences of his failure will be far, far worse than anything Carter did.

The fraud, the mendacity, the utter haplessness of our government’s conduct of the Iraq war have been shattering to me.

It wasn’t supposed to turn out like this. Not under a Republican President.

I turn 40 next month — middle aged at last — a time of discovering limits, finitude. I expected that. But what I did not expect was to see the limits of finitude of American power revealed so painfully.

I did not expect Vietnam.

As I sat in my office last night watching President Bush deliver his big speech, I seethed over the waste, the folly, the stupidity of this war.

I had a heretical thought for a conservative – that I have got to teach my kids that they must never, ever take Presidents and Generals at their word – that their government will send them to kill and die for noble-sounding rot – that they have to question authority.

On the walk to the parking garage, it hit me. Hadn’t the hippies tried to tell my generation that? Why had we scorned them so blithely?

Will my children, too small now to understand Iraq, take me seriously when I tell them one day what powerful men, whom their father once believed in, did to this country? Heavy thoughts for someone who is still a conservative despite it all. It was a long drive home.

Like A Fish Needs A Bicycle

Ken AshfordWomen's IssuesLeave a Comment

For the first time in census history, more women (51%) are living without a spouse than with one.  It’s a trend that’s been going on for several decades.  The New York Times fills us in.

In 2005, 51 percent of women said they were living without a spouse, up from 35 percent in 1950 and 49 percent in 2000.

Coupled with the fact that in 2005 married couples became a minority of all American households for the first time, the trend could ultimately shape social and workplace policies, including the ways government and employers distribute benefits.

Several factors are driving the statistical shift. At one end of the age spectrum, women are marrying later or living with unmarried partners more often and for longer periods. At the other end, women are living longer as widows and, after a divorce, are more likely than men to delay remarriage, sometimes delighting in their newfound freedom.

0116natwebcensus

25 Years Ago: Air Florida Flight 90

Ken AshfordHistoryLeave a Comment

Af90It was 25 years ago tomorrow, on a snowy cold day (remember those?) in Washington, D.C., when Air Florida Flight 90 took off from Washington National Airport with its wings ineffectively de-iced.  Moments later, it hit the 14th Street Bridge, crushing six cars, one truck, and killing four people, before it belly-flopped and sunk in the ice-covered Potomac River.

All but 5 of the 79 passengers and crew on board died.

It’s a story of tragedy, but it is also a story of heroism — as exemplified by Roger Olian, a sheet-metal worker.  On his way home from work, Olian heard a man yelling that there was an aircraft in the water. As others tried to lower cables to the passengers in peril, Olian lept into the frigid water to save lives. 

A congressional office worker, Lenny Skutnick, was on the shoreline as a helicopter dropped lines to drag floating passengers to the shore.  When one woman grew too weak from the cold to hold on to the line, Skutnick took off his coat and boots and — in short sleeves — dove into the frigid waters to help her to shore — all recorded by news cameras.

It’s also the story of the so-called "sixth passenger" – a survivor of the impact who handed life lines to his fellow passengers in the water so that they would be rescued.  He was not rescued and was later identified as Arnold D. Williams, 46, a bank examiner from Illinois.  According to the coroner, Williams was the only victim to die from drowning — all others had died as a result of the impact.  The 14th Street Bridge over the Potomac is now known as the Arnold D. Williams Bridge.

I remember the crash well, and seeing the video on TV.  Hard to believe it was 25 years ago.

More from Wikipedia.

Is The Whole “Surge” Plan A Set-Up?

Ken AshfordIranLeave a Comment

Andrew Sullivan wonders:

This paragraph, buried by the NYT, leapt out at me this morning:

A Shiite political leader who has worked closely with the Americans in the past said the Bush benchmarks appeared to have been drawn up in the expectation that Mr. Maliki would not meet them. "He cannot deliver the disarming of the militias," the politician said, asking that he not be named because he did not want to be seen as publicly criticizing the prime minister. "He cannot deliver a good program for the economy and reconstruction. He cannot deliver on services. This is a matter of fact. There is a common understanding on the American side and the Iraqi side."

Views such as these — increasingly common among the political class in Baghdad — are often accompanied by predictions that Mr. Maliki will be forced out as the crisis over the militias builds. The Shiite politician who described him as incapable of disarming militias suggested he might resign; others have pointed to an American effort in recent weeks to line up a “moderate front” of Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish political leaders outside the government, and said that the front might be a vehicle for mounting a parliamentary coup against Mr. Maliki, with behind-the-scenes American support. [My italics.]

If this is the case, this president is lying to us once again. It’s one lie too far. If all of this is a ruse to depose Maliki and attack Iran, the constitutional consequences of a runaway, duplicitous president are profound.

Of course, there’s considerable discussion about whether the President can constitutionally attack Iran absent a Congressional authorization.  Clearly he can’t.  But constitutional limitations have not stopped this President before, and it’s pretty clear that the Bush Administration thinks it is not constitutionally required to get Congressional approval — a scary abuse of power that exceeds even the worst from the Nixon Administration.

Washington is full of rumors that Bush has already ordered a "secret war" against Iran.  I tend to doubt that, but I happen to agree with Pat Buchanan and others who say that Bush is trying to provoke an attack from Iran, in order to launch a war there.  After all, if Iran attacks us, then Bush can, under the War Powers Act, attack Iran without Congressional approval.

Recommended Reading: Christian Right’s Use Of The Bible

Ken AshfordGodstuffLeave a Comment

It’s a bit scholarly and long, but interesting if you’re into that sort of thing.

Margaret Mitchell is Professor of New Testament and Early Christian Literature at the University of Chicago.  In this essay, entitled "How Biblical is the Christian Right?", Mitchell chonicles how the Chiristian right, who claim themselves to be biblical "literalists", frequently engage in biblical cherry-picking — or mere bible invocation — to further their political (as opposed to biblical) views.  A typical example:

One clear example of the cyberspace Bible-as-sub-text hermeneutic can be seen on the family.org web site run by James Dobson (an American citizen who both sides will agree played an enormous role in the Supreme Court nomination and confirmation process, and merited an infamous thank-you note from Justice Samuel Alito). From the “Citizen Link” tab (www.family.org/cforum/) one finds a range of topical headings (rather apples and olives) under “Focus on Social Issues”: Abstinence Policy, Life, Constitution and Government, The Courts, The Media, Education, Gambling, Homosexuality and Gender, Marriage and Family, Origins, Persecution, Pornography and Worldview and Culture. Only two of these categories have a sub-heading “Biblical View.” Can you guess which? Actually, I was surprised, but they are Abstinence Policy and Gambling.

When one follows the link to the latter (“The Biblical View on Gambling”) we find only one actual passage cited: Matt. 10:16: “Jesus says ‘Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves.’” This may indeed be taken to refer to a single blackjack dealer, most of our state governments, or the whole “gambling industry” (as the statement later on the page puts it), but I think we can agree that in either case it is hardly a literal reading of Jesus’ commission to the disciples to walk the roads of Galilee preaching and healing. In an unusual concession the author says frankly “Gambling is not addressed directly in the Bible,” but follows that up with the last word on his own authority: “nor is it exempt from God’s instruction.” Yet the web page itself is anonymous, and the authority for its interpretation (gambling is not Biblical) depends entirely on the link to Dobson’s web site. So, despite the fact that there is no verse in the Bible about gambling, somehow (how?) God’s instruction about it can be known.

In other words, these evangelicals cloak themselves in the Bible and God, without having to go through the rigor of actual applying literal scripture:

A similar set of moves may be found in Jerry Falwell’s sermonic column (“Listen, America”) of January 31, 2004, which is entitled, “God is pro-war.”15 Falwell lines up Eccles. 3:8 (“a time of war, and a time of peace”), Exodus 15, Judges, 1 Chron. 14:15, and Prov. 20:18 and 21:15 (“It is a joy to the just to do judgment”) against what he characterizes as the errancy of “many present-day pacifists who hold Jesus as their example for unvarying peace. But they ignore the full revelation concerning Jesus pictured in the book of Revelation 19, where He is depicted bearing a ‘sharp sword’ and smiting nations, ruling them with ‘a rod of iron.’” Those who might respond by appeal to the sixth commandment are easily rebuffed by Falwell: it does not say “thou shalt not kill” but “actually, no; it says: ‘Thou shalt not commit murder.’” Falwell does not feel the need to document this point with reference to the Hebrew verb ratzach in Exod. 20:13 nor even to any particular translation (the venerable KJV so loved by many conservative Christians reads “kill,” but the more recent NIV and NLT read “murder”). It is just so because Reverend Falwell says it is so.

Mitchell sums it up thusly:

My thesis is that what makes the Christian Right biblical is not a literalistic hermeneutic so much as a mode of argumentation by reference to a deliberately selective set of biblical passages, annexed to the predetermined cause through a variety of exegetical moves, which are usually unexplained because they depend upon prior agreement of the ends of interpretation.

That’s a scholarly way of saying this: members of the Christian Right twist the Bible to make it fit with their own pre-conceived notions and agenda, not necessarily the Bible’s (or, indeed, God’s).

Finally, in the end, she answers her original question: "How Biblical Is the Christian Right?"

Biblical? Yes and no. Biblical in the sense of seeking biblical support for an agenda? Yes. Biblical in the sense of reading the whole Bible? No. Biblical in the sense of reading the Bible literally? No, not consistently. Biblical in reading parts for the whole, and in using the Bible as a source of weapons to define themselves against their enemies? Yes. Wrestling with the possible plural meanings and complex legacies of Bible itself? Not in public, at any rate.

Troop Reaction To The Iraq Escalation

Ken AshfordIraqLeave a Comment

Having announced his "new" strategy on Iraq on national TV Wednesday, the Bush team needed a PR boost to show Americans that real Americans are in support of the Bush plan.

They consulted the standard playbook, and placed President Bush in front of what they assumed would be a favorable rah-rah audience: the American soldiers.

So off Bush went to Fort Benning, Georgia, yesterday to give his plan to a rousing audience of uniformed men and women, who would should "huzzah!" and so on, and give good sound bites to the media.

Except…

…his lunchtime talk received a restrained response from soldiers who clapped politely but showed little of the wild enthusiasm that they ordinarily shower on the commander in chief. (New York Times)

Except…

…he received only tepid applause at this Army base (The Washington Times)

Except…

…it was hardly the boisterous, rock-star reception Bush typically gets at military bases. During his lunchtime speech, the soldiers were attentive but quiet. (The Washington Post)

Normally, at such events, the press is invited to talk to members of Bush’s audience to gauge their reaction.  This was no different, but for some reason:

The White House brought a planeload of reporters along when President Bush flew to Fort Benning to tout his new Iraq strategy to a roomful of American soldiers, some of whom will be deploying to Iraq sooner than expected. It just didn’t want the reporters to talk to those soldiers — or any others, for that matter.

Scott Stanzel, the deputy White House press secretary, initially told reporters that they’d be able to speak to some of the soldiers who had listened to the president’s speech in a large dining hall in Fort Benning, a sprawling facility in Georgia. That would have been the first opportunity for many reporters to talk to those most directly affected by the Bush administration’s Iraq troop escalation: the soldiers who will be sent to Iraq sooner, and kept there longer.

When the president finished his prepared remarks, however, reporters were shooed out of the dining hall by White House aides and public-affairs personnel from the military base, who said that soldiers were now off-limits to the media.

Later on, just as the press was getting on the plane back to Washington, the press liason at Fort Benning "made available" to the press a hand-picked group of soldiers, who (presumably) would spin the Bush plan favorably.  But the press was out of there — not interested in the pre-selected spin.

This is NOT a popular escalation, expecially with those who are going to be most affected by it.

RELATED:  This New York Times breakdown of the Bush speech is simply amazing in both analysis and format.

UPDATE:  The actual troops in Iraq have talked to the media, and they’re not crazy about Bush’s plan.  By the way, Rassmussen Reports does a daily tracking of Bush approval/disapproval.  Bush gave his speech on January 10 — look what happened (I’ll give previous days’ data just to show it wasn’t a fluke):

Bush Job Approval
Dec 2005 – Current
Approve Disapprove
Jan 12       35       61
Jan 11          39       58
Jan 10       44       54
Jan 9       42       55
Jan 8       40       57
Jan 7       40       57
Jan 6       42       55
Jan 5       45       54
Jan 4       44       55
Jan 3       43       56

35%, by the way, is the lowest recorded for Bush with Russmussen.

I Meant To Post This Earlier….

Ken AshfordRandom MusingsLeave a Comment

CNN:

After 10 years of research on a project that was supposed to take only five years, a Canadian industrial psychologist found in a giant study that not only is procrastination on the rise, it makes people poorer, fatter and unhappier.

Something has to be done about it, sooner rather than later, University of Calgary professor Piers Steel concludes…

Yeah.  We’ll get right on that….

Death Blogging

Ken AshfordBloggingLeave a Comment

Last Saturday, science fiction author and futurist Robert Anton Wilson posted the following on his blog:

Do Not Go Gently Into That Good Night

Various medical authorities swarm in and out of here predicting I have between two days and two months to live. I think they are guessing. I remain cheerful and unimpressed. I look forward without dogmatic optimism but without dread. I love you all and I deeply implore you to keep the lasagna flying.

Please pardon my levity, I don’t see how to take death seriously. It seems absurd.

According to the last blog entry, entered (presumably) by relatives and/or friends, Wilson died at 4:50 a.m. on January 11.

“An Inconvenient Truth” Banned From Seattle School

Ken AshfordEducation, Environment & Global Warming & Energy6 Comments

Al_gore_i_an_inconv_100607oThere’s about nine things funny with this story.  Sad, and funny:

This week in Federal Way schools, it got a lot more inconvenient to show one of the top-grossing documentaries in U.S. history, the global-warming alert "An Inconvenient Truth."

After a parent who supports the teaching of creationism and opposes sex education complained about the film, the Federal Way School Board on Tuesday placed what it labeled a moratorium on showing the film. The movie consists largely of a PowerPoint presentation by former Vice President Al Gore recounting scientists’ findings.

Oh, my.  Let’s here from the parent:

"Condoms don’t belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He’s not a schoolteacher," said Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven who also said that he believes the Earth is 14,000 years old.

Actually, Frosty (*snicker*), Gore is a schoolteacher. 

But let’s hear more from Frosty:

"The information that’s being presented is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is. … The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn’t in the DVD."

Well, it kind of is.  I mean, it is called "global warming", right?

School Board members adopted a three-point policy that says teachers who want to show the movie must ensure that a "credible, legitimate opposing view will be presented," that they must get the OK of the principal and the superintendent, and that any teachers who have shown the film must now present an "opposing view."

The article later explains that the phenomenon of global warming is "backed by the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Academy of Sciences."

So what is the "opposing view", and who has it?

Um, apparently, the opposing view is held by Frosty Hardison’s wife, Gayla:

Hardison and his wife, Gayla, said they would prefer that the movie not be shown at all in schools.

"From what I’ve seen (of the movie) and what my husband has expressed to me, if (the movie) is going to take the approach of ‘bad America, bad America,’ I don’t think it should be shown at all," Gayle Hardison said. "If you’re going to come in and just say America is creating the rotten ruin of the world, I don’t think the video should be shown."

Well, I wanted to find out more about the Hardisons of Federal Way, Washington.  So, hellooooo Google.  First of all, Frosty Hardison is all about Powerpoint presentations, and is quite furious that when he goes to complain to the city council, they forbid him from using the program.  I also discovered from his Amazon wish list that he’s a bit of a dork.

Anyway, back to the story.  It seems that the students in Federal Way, Washington are smarter than the adults — at least the Hardisons.  How’s this for reason and maturity?

"I think that a movie like that is a really great way to open people’s eyes up about what you can do and what you are doing to the planet and how that’s going to affect the human race," said Kenna Patrick, a senior at Jefferson High School.

When it comes to the idea of presenting global warming skeptics, Patrick wasn’t sure how necessary that would be. She hadn’t seen the movie but had read about it and would like to see it.

"Watching a movie doesn’t mean that you have to believe everything you see in it," she said.

Yup.

Bend It Like Beckham

Ken AshfordPopular CultureLeave a Comment

This is good news for those who wish soccer would become more popular here in the States:

David Beckham agreed to a five-year deal with the Los Angeles Galaxy of Major League Soccer, leaving the Real Madrid club at which he enjoyed worldwide popularity but experienced disappointment on the field.