(Note to literalists: the Watched column presently contains only a smattering of 'warblogs' because the facilitator of the template-change--Dr. Menlo--is not very familiar with them, and will be adding more as they are sent to him. Also, this blog may contain areas of allusion, satire, subtext, context and possibly even a dash of the surreal: wannabe lit-crits beware.)
Control
[Watch this space for: Pentagon and Petroleum, The Media is only as Liberal as the Corporations Who Own Them, Wash Down With, and Recalcify]
WARBLOGGER WATCH
Saturday, November 30, 2002
Killblogger heartthrob Christopher Hitchens pulls ahead of Eric Raymond in the race to out-and-out insanity. When speaking of intellectual skirmishing, Hitchens avers that, "Only out of real confrontation does any enlightenment come." With both his championing of George Bush and Bush's war(s) as combatting Islamofascism, that nefarious political agenda that seeks to bind the world in Shari'a-specified ignorance and with the above, Hitchens can be read as putting Bush forward as an avatar of enlightenment, the only one with mental and moral fortitude enough to prevent the "destruction of society where only one book is allowed." posted by Anonymous5:37 AM
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Thursday, November 28, 2002
Today being a holiday and all, the Bloggers of Mass Destruction are slow to posting on the Kissinger appointment, though Son of Lucianne has already issued his prediction that, "Within 24 hours we will see Arab and homegrown conspiracy nuts saying this was done to assure that the role of the Israelis will never see the light. Possibly, though I think Kissinger's the right man for the job, what with all his first-hand knowledge of the events of September 11. posted by Anonymous4:56 AM
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Monday, November 25, 2002
Lawrence of Charabia continues to flog dubious physics for an ailing economy. True fans of the defrocked coke-sniffer will recall that he gave the game away some months back when he advocated "full-scale war" as an appropriate means of boosting GDP, and will recognize the recent piece as window dressing. posted by Anonymous1:43 AM
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Required reading for the dimmer lights comprising the warblogger constellation:
This fascinating study sheds new light on antebellum America's notorious "filibusters"--the freebooters and adventurers who organized or participated in armed invasions of nations with whom the United States was formally at peace. Offering the first full-scale analysis of the filibustering movement, Robert May relates the often-tragic stories of illegal expeditions into Cuba, Mexico, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and other Latin American countries and details surprising numbers of aborted plots, as well.
May investigates why thousands of men joined filibustering expeditions, how they were financed, and why the U.S. government had little success in curtailing them. Surveying antebellum popular media, he shows how the filibustering phenomenon infiltrated the American psyche in newspapers, theater, music, advertising, and literature. Condemned abroad as pirates, frequently in language strikingly similar to modern American denunciations of foreign terrorists, the filibusters were often celebrated at home as heroes who epitomized the spirit of Manifest Destiny.
Unlike any warblogger that I care to think of, Brian Deegan has actually lost someone to terrorism. He lost his son, Joshua, in the Bali attack. He wrote the following letter to The Australian, a national newspaper published by Rupert Murdoch. It's a compelling and moving piece, with Mr Deegan showing, just five weeks after the death of his son, what is really meant by the term, "moral clarity".
I AM writing to you in relation to my late son Joshua, a beautiful young boy aged 22, who along with scores of other beautiful Australians died on the island paradise called Bali five short weeks ago.
Joshua has three siblings and, until October 12, they had always looked to me to perform one very basic parental duty – protect them. Until then, I always thought I could, but now I wonder.
Prime Minister, I ask you, not just as our nation's leader but as a father to answer some of my questions.
Why did our children die and why have many others been sickeningly maimed? Was it because we, as a nation, have pursued a role in the US-led war on terror that we cannot possibly fulfil?
Since the tragedy of September 11, your words to the world have worried me. All too often, in the eyes of the world media, you have been our nation's unconditional supporter of President George W. Bush and US policy in the Middle East. Indeed, your Government's foreign policies indicate a preparedness for war. But are we and can we ever really be prepared?
Of course, as a country full of decent compassionate people, we have a duty to stand up for the oppressed, vis-a-vis the Timorese people. But surely we must stand in these uncertain times shoulder to shoulder – not just all the way with the USA – with all countries under the one banner of the UN. But let's not lead with a proverbial glass jaw.
I know that you and Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer refused all offers to visit the makeshift morgue set up in Bali – understandably with good cause. But in a way it is a pity, for the sight may have helped you in determining our future path.
To what extent was your Government aware of imminent danger to our citizens prior to October 12? After all, the US was reportedly well aware and it apparently alerted your Government. But your Government did not make my son aware.
Why is your Government torturing certain citizens of our country by allowing armed invasions upon their private properties – all in the name of national security?
After September 11, the US Government opened itself up to examination. The purpose was to determine who, if any, had made mistakes in the lead-up to that dreadful day in New York and Washington. What does your Government propose to do in this regard?
Does your Government intend to rehabilitate all those young children who are injured and psychologically damaged? I was dismayed when one of my son's best friends told me the other day that people told him that it was now four weeks and he should be "getting over it".
To those people, I pose this question: What part of "it" do you expect these kids to get over by now? They have returned from a war zone where people have attempted to murder them by the foulest of means. They have seen their best friends or relatives blown apart and then incinerated. They have been physically injured themselves. I repeat, what part should they be getting over?
As far as I'm aware, neither you nor I nor many people between our age groups have ever been remotely close to war. But it seems to me to be terribly unfair that it is men of our ages that pick the fights and then expect boys of my son's age to conduct the battle. Time and again countries send into battle children whose sense of adventure overshadows and totally clouds any sense of mortality.
I have forgiven those uneducated people who, with fear in their hearts, have murdered my boy for a paltry $10. But I will never forgive educated people who cause the death of another child as a result of belligerent policy.
For the sake of the remainder of my family, for the sake of your children and for the sake of all Australia's children, please think hard before you take us down a track from which we can never back out.
Brian Deegan
Adelaide, SA
Civilized societies have found it harder, though, to beat the barbarians without killing all, or nearly all, of them. Were it really to become all-out war of the sort that Osama and his ilk want, the likely result would be genocide -- unavoidable, and provoked, perhaps, but genocide nonetheless, akin to what Rome did to Carthage, or to what Americans did to American Indians. That's what happens when two societies can't live together, and the weaker one won't stop fighting -- especially when the weaker one targets the civilians and children of the stronger. This is why I think it's important to pursue a vigorous military strategy now. Because if we don't, the military strategy we'll have to follow in five or ten years will be light-years beyond "vigorous."
Therefore we conclude:
1) According to Reynolds, genocide may become a valid option for the US to pursue in its war against 'Islamic terror'. What is genocide? As a law professor, one can safely assume that when Reynolds uses the term, he uses it with some understanding as to its proper meaning. Defined in Articles II and III of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide as: "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such". In other words, genocide doesn't mean merely attacking the terrorists, but it means to intend to wipe off the face of the earth all those people who share the same nationality, ethnicity, race or religion as the terrorists.
2) Reynolds clearly believes that the genocide carried out against the native American population was 'inevitable' because those 'injuns' just wouldn't stop fighting back. In other words, they asked for it.
Waiting patiently for Handy Andy Sullivan - always willing to exercise his rawmuslglutes on behalf of his comrades - and golddigging Martin Peretz to comment on the horrible treatment meted these Arabic speaking homosexuals, a class often invoked to demonstrate the inferiority of Arab and Islamic states. posted by Anonymous10:45 PM
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Monday, November 11, 2002
Tut, tut, what to do about the thesaurus, boys?. . . I know! Call it an idiot with an 'arian' stupidly tacked on to the end! That solves everything!
(meanwhile, a Bush minion scribbles down: "Initiate Operation Reference Book Enlightenment/Axe thesaurus.") . . . pic thanks to Craig.
Eric Blair notes below that "Bill Quick is running a most bloodthirsty warblog contest. When I first started up WBW I would have been all over it, but now it just kind of seems desperate and sad. Here are a few highlights, my last word, unless one of these nuts goes postal and starts picking off brown people with a Bushmaster." Eric, desperate and sad it may be, but probably the mainstream! Reading some of the venom these pathetic ignorants are spouting, you remember what kind of country you live in, if waking up painted blue all over last Wednesday morning hasn't already done it for you.
Actually, I'm of two minds what significance to place on all this. As readers of my weblog Follow Me Here know, it is a longstanding preoccupation of mine to worry about exactly what influence thoughtful webloggers opposed to the madness, like those here at WBW, can have. Usually it seems to me we fill a universe with discourse, but that the universe is one of likeminded souls only preaching to the converted. This often discourages me (and inspires a shower of supportive comments in my mailbox). But, on the other hand, one of my responses to the fact that I live in a country whose denizens are over and over anally raped, played for fools and convinced they love it enough to beg for more — and then go on to impose our hypocritical brand of tyranny and pillage on the rest of the world — has been to dissociate myself. When people tell me my words can have an influence in the broader field of public discourse, not only am I often dubious but, usually, I'm not sure I want that. You can't argue about political persuasion any more than you can about religion —indeed, it is usually faith- rather than fact-based! It takes so much energy to argue with deluded ranters; is it well-spent?
Ever since the days of the moral bankruptcy of the Vietnam War, I took seriously the jeering jingoist yahoos who taunted us antiwar types to "Love it or leave it." I left. Not literally, not geographically, but I have never felt I lived in America as constituted, not their America. This was apolitical whenever possible, politically involved when an issue of peace, justice or survival made it morally impossible to ignore it. Actually, maybe I did leave geographically too; I've always lived in places which are pockets of resistance, university towns, mostly The Republic of Cambridge (I'm across the river from there now, but I still have my office there), and could not see relocating anywhere in the Vast Wasteland which still seems painful whenever it is necessary to venture out into it. At least, unlike my aloof beleaguered self-imposed conceptual isolation of the Reagan-Bush era, the pockets of resistance in these days of renewed tyranny and permanent war have expanded into cyberspace to assume a continuity. It's a little bit easier to inhabit this America. Let's hope, with the coming storm, it remains a place of refuge. Addendum: For more examples of the pathetic, sick rants of your warbloggin' countrymen, be sure and read the comments this post provoked. You'd think I were trolling for these textbook examples, the way they came out of the woodwork right on cue...
The War Against Terror (TWAT) continues apace, earning us no small measure of gratitude from the former unfortunates liberated thus far. Where the work of TWAT proves too taxing or unworthy of our attention, we subcontract to nice guys interested in bringing Our Freedoms to those who formerly hated the same.
Stateside fans of TWAT and the innumerable boons it brings to its beneficiaries are understandably eager to expand the venture. One of the deeper deep-thinkers recently wrote, "Y'know, I have a sneaking suspicion that the Iraqi people may actually be happy to see us when we roll into Baghdad a few months from now."
Graham Fuller is a former Senior Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation in Washington D.C. and former Vice-Chairman of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA. In 1982, he was appointed as the National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia at the CIA. While working for the CIA he was responsible for long-range Intelligence Forecasting. In 1986, Mr. Fuller was named Vice-Chairman of the National Intelligence Council, with overall responsibility for all national level strategic forecasting. In early 1988, Mr. Fuller joined the RAND Corporation; his primary work was on the Middle East, Central Asia, ex-Soviet nationality affairs, Russian-Middle East relations, Islamic fundamentalism and problems of democracy in the Middle East.
What is the single most important contemporary root cause of hostility between the Islamic world and the West? The sources of conflict are multiple, but if I had to name just one, I would point to Western interventionism in the Muslim world that takes the form--and this includes the Bush Administration--of unconditional support for a very right-wing government in Israel, and unconditional support for Israel in general.
But it goes beyond that, because there has been American and Western military intervention over the years in this region due its extreme strategic importance, due to oil and its geopolitical locations. So I think there’s a sense among the Muslims that the West has overpowered them militarily, and continues to intervene militarily and politically and to impose its will on a region that feel itself too impotent to be able to withstand this kind of pressure.
