Monday, March 15, 2004

When Terrorists Attack, We Defeat Terrorism! John Kerry is finally sitcking it to Bush on the terrorism issue.  That's great news.  But check out this little gem from the article above: Administration officials went on television on Sunday to declare that the war on terrorism is being won, despite attacks like the Madrid bombings. "The events in Spain are just more evidence of the lengths to which these killers will go to try and intimidate free people," the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "We are succeeding, because, slowly but surely, their world is getting smaller, not larger," she said. So...if there were no terrorist attacks, that would be a sign that we were losing the war on terror.  But since these terrorists are resorting to, you know, terrorism, that shows that we are winning. Now, as far as their world getting smaller, I'm not entirely sure what that means.  Does it mean, "They used to be able to strike the U.S.  Now the closest they can get to us is Spain."  One wonders. And how, exactly, is the world of Al Qaeda getting smaller when we picked up absolutely no chatter or indication whatsoever that this attack was going to happen?  That doesn't sound to me like an operation that is desperate and on the run.  That sounds like an operation we are still trying desperately to understand, much less infiltrate or bring down. Madrid will change the terrorism discussion all around the world.  The Bush Administration has always hoped Europe would "get religion" with respect to the War on Terror, if they ever suffered their own 9/11.  Well, now they've got a 3/11, and there are serious fears in London and Rome as well. Madrid means that the U.S. won't be able to look down it's nose at Europe when they oppose our demands to attack a given country.  They've got just as much at stake as we do, believe it or not.  This is no longer just an American problem, not that it ever was that, but that's how so many people see it.  Europe opposed our action in Iraq with great vigor, only to be cast aside for the most part.  Over 90% of all people in Spain were opposed to their government's support for the U.S. in Iraq. 90%! Now Al Qaeda is attacking Europe, and there was no indication that it was coming, and there are good reasons to believe that our actions in Iraq had something to do with the attack.  What if a fraction of the money or resources spent on Iraq were spent on chasing Bin Laden in Afganistan?  What if the political capital that was wasted on Iraq was instead spent on Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, to help persuade them that they should not support these terror groups?  2:02:16 PM    Say what?[]

Stump Rummy Wanna see something great?  It happened on Face the Nation yesterday.  Donald Rumsfeld tried out the old, "We never said Iraq was an imminent threat" line, and Tom Friedman is forced to read back Rummy's 9/19/02 address to Congress.  Rummy then stumbles around for awhile and says something about intelligence. Now, I think this whole brouhaha over whether they did or did not say "imminent" or "immediate" or whatever is a ridiculous tit-for-tat.  But it's a tit-for-tat that the Administration has encouraged, as they try legalistic defenses of Clintonian proportions to deny their grandstanding prior to the invasion. 12:23:08 PM    Say what?[]

"What kind of restaurant makes you cook your own food?" Lost In Translation I finally saw Lost In Translation this weekend.  What a beautiful little movie. I say "little", because there isn't really a lot that happens.  It's more about what doesn't happen, for the most part.  Much has already been written and said about the movie, for good reason.  My own thoughts: Bill Murray is great, I think.  A part of that is just that I like Bill Murray, but I thought it was a wonderful performance, understated in parts, but funny where it needed to be.  He managed to be a guy who could be funny, but who wasn't having all that much fun underneath, at least in the beginning.  There are some adlib moments throughout the movie that could really only be pulled off by Bill Murray.  His portrayal of a faded star hanging around for a payday was pretty spot-on, I thought.  I hope this is a vehicle to get him into more serious roles. The less I say about Scarlett Johansson, the better.  All I'll say is that Bill Murray's character showed otherworldly restraint.  I'll be checking out Ghost World soon, now that I know she's in it. I am completely captivated by Japanese culture.  Yeah, it looks clausterphobic over there, but I just think Japan's youth culture is so interesting.  There are so many things that American culture and Japanese culture share, but they have their own bizarre niches, just as we do.  Look, any culture that likes rock and roll, drugs, video games, surfing and sex is probably going to be a lot of fun. Bravo to Sofia Coppolla for not letting us know what gets said at the end of the movie.  Too many movies in this country today would lay it all out for us, starting with a sweaty sex scene and ending with a tearful goodbye where everything is said in nice block letters for the audience to read.  That doesn't happen here. We don't know what he says to her.  I know what I want him to say.  You know what you want him to say.  It doesn't matter what we want.  He said it, they smiled, they kissed awkwardly, and they went and lived their lives both obviously happier for having parted on whatever their terms were. I couldn't really tell you whether Sofia Coppolla deserved the Best Director Oscar.  I wouldn't have had a problem with Bill Murray winning Best Actor, but I haven't seen Sean Penn in Mystic River, and even if I had I don't know enough about acting to distinguish a good performance from a great one.  But I do know a great story when I hear or see one.  That Sofia Coppolla wrote this movie, didn't dumb it down, and showed so much heart and patience in letting it unfold at it's own pace is a wonderful achievement in storytelling, and I'm glad she won the Oscar for her original screenplay. 11:11:31 AM    Say what?[]

Spain's Election Man, this stuff going on in Spain is interesting.  My initial take on it was that the Bush Administration was trumping up Al Qaeda's influence as a way to help Terror Fear here in the U.S., and I certainly think there are elements of that reality. But in reading more about what the political dynamics are in Spain, it became clear that the Spanish government (or at least, the government before the elections a couple days ago) had their own motivations for assigning blame to a given party.  And strangely enough, their motivation pointed them to lay blame on the Basque seperatist group, ETA.  They were seen as being tough on ETA, and a continuation of the current administration would have continued that policy. On the flip side, the government of now-defeated Prime Minister Aznar had a compelling reason to not want Al Qaeda to be responsible for the attacks, because most Spaniards had not supported the Iraq war, and had feared that it would cause an increase in terrorism in Spain.  The opposition party (and ultimate winners of the election) supported a withdrawal of Spanish troops.  And so now there is some evidence that Aznar's government was suppressing indicators that Al Qaeda may have been involved. I wonder how the Bush and Blair Administrations feel today, seeing a government ousted almost exclusively because of their support for the Iraq War?  TPM has a very good post on this issue today. Once again, the question is: Did attacking Iraq make the U.S. safer?  It doesn't seem to have made Spain any safer. 10:31:31 AM    Say what?[]

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