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Michael Parker's Journal
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Thursday, October 30, 2003 |
Black Hawk Down
# 5 Best of Film of 2001
This film was released in 2002. However, because it was nominated for Best Picture along with the films of 2001, I am including it that year.
Directed by Ridley Scott
Screenplay by Ken Nolan
Adapted from Mark Bowden’s work "Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War"
Starring: Josh Hartnet, Ewan McGregor, Tom Sizemore, Tom Shepard.
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Black Hawk Down is about the October 3rd 1993 military operation in the middle of Mogadishu, Somalia that ended up becoming the longest ground battle for U.S. troops since Vietnam. The mission was simple; the operation nothing more than a precise "in-and-out" job slated to take less than one hour to complete. But as soon as our Special Forces units were dropped on their target, all hell broke loose. The army leadership over the Somalia operation underestimated how well equipped and how large the enemy was. The first of two UH-60 Black Hawks were shot down. (Three other helicopters were also hit but they were able to make it back to base.)
In all, the forces got split up in the confusion that ensued because of the crash. The enemy, including women and children, came out to fight. What was supposed to be a 30 minute operation became a fifteen hour battle for survival.
Ridley Scott masterfully recreates the Battle of Mogadishu. He concentrates on the machinations of the battle and the bureaucratic rules of engagement and the proper lines of communication– between the command center, the surveillance helicopter overhead, and amongst the troops on the ground. Most importantly, though, he seems to accurately depict the cavalier and invincible attitude present in the behavior and preparations for this operation, not only amongst the soldiers but within the leadership.
There is an adage, maybe a military rule, that a soldier is to be prepared for any possible situation. I know for the Boy Scouts it is. However, the Rangers were not prepared. They didn’t think they needed to be. The operation was slated to take a mere thirty minutes.
But was it more than simply the time-frame of the operation? These men seemed above that because of how smoothly and successful previous operations had gone. It was a matter of time, possibly, that proper analysis, planning, preparation, and concentration fell victim to carelessness, lack of concentration and awareness, and laziness.
Black Hawk Down is a tight film, thanks to Ken Nolan’s script and the cinematography. Though there is a bit of side-stories between soldiers, Scott doesn’t really develop his characters. They come and go from sight like soldiers popping in and out from behind their security barrier. This approach does make the film more realistic to war. This approach also strengthens Scott’s intent of the film, which again is to depict the machinations of this battle from the standpoint of the soldiers and the leadership back at the command center.
Scott depicts the class structure between the soldiers and leadership. There are politics to war. A soldier can’t have any say about it though. He is a pawn to the operation. Expendable. It is his job and his duty. When the commander laid out the plans for the mission to his captains, the unit captains were present in the back. Obviously, they were there for ornamental reasons because they weren’t allowed to question or suggest changes to the plan. One of the Delta Force soldiers, who had gone undercover on the streets of Mogadishu, had reservations about the commander’s plan. Josh Hartnett’s character asked the DF soldier why he didn’t say anything. His reply was that once that first bullet flies by your head, the politics don’t matter anymore. At the end of the film, this same DF soldier decides to return to the battlefield to help find more soldiers and bring them back. He says to Hartnett that it is about the men next to you, that’s how you are able to return back to any battle.
Scott begins this film with a quote from Plato that reads "Only the dead have seen the end of war." This quote seems to be the theme of the soldier, the one out in the midst of death.
This mindset contrasts with that of the leadership. They are all about the success of the mission– the numbers, despite indications or warnings to the contrary.
The U.S. army hired a cab driver to use his car as a target. On the day of the operation, the cab driver drove his cab through the dusty, crowded, and heavily guarded streets of Mogadishu with a large black "X" on its top. He parked his cab in front of the hotel where the special forces were to drop in and abduct Aidid’s top lieutenants.
Scott shows the streets from the view of the cab driver. He’s in grave danger of being caught; he hesitates a couple of times before he gets to his destination place, making sure that his path to the target location is free from gorilla trucks that are everywhere. Scott then shows us the general at command central, biting at the bit, yelling at his people because the cab driver isn’t going as fast as he feels he should.
Indeed, Scott shows us early that the commander and his men are aloof from what was really going on in Mogadishu. Scott does focus on the primary soldiers in this battle, however, to help move the story along or to foreshadow a later event– like the scene in which a soldier bleeds to death when the medic can’t grab his protracted artery to clamp it shut. The soldiers who help hold the bleeding soldier while the medic works get covered in blood. His death is more tragic to them, because they were there at his side as he passed on.
This scene foreshadows, or sets up one of the memorable closing scenes in which the commander is walking the medical ward after the wounded and dead arrive. Passing near one of the makeshift operating tables surrounded by medics, a vein suddenly bursts. Blood spurts out onto the plastic covered pavement. The commander, aloof from the battle in his command center, grabs a doctor’s gown, kneels, and attempts to clean up the blood. All he does is smear it and then smear it more so that it covers a larger area. The look on his face, the frantic movement of his hands trying to clean up the blood invoked the image of Lady Macbeth trying to clean her hands of the blood of what she had done.
Scott creates an incredible dichotomy in the film– the one against the masses. Another effective dichotomy is the differing views of the battle– Scott contrasts the "life on the street" and "in the thick of the battle" with the safe, secure, and "out of touch" view of the general sitting back at the command center. In the battle, the soldiers were experiencing the deafening gunfire, the broken and shredded body parts, and the life-blood flowing from dying bodies. At command central, the general was simply hearing stats and numbers. Such contrasts cannot help but cause one to question the logistics behind our operations; planning and executing an operation without fully understanding and analyzing the enemy; etc.
Black Hawk Down is not a war film in the strain of Saving Private Ryan. It’s not like Platoon, The Thin Red Line, or Apocalypse Now: Redux. Black Hawk Down is unique in its near technical-like depiction of the modern war machine of the post-Reagon era, with its sterile "in-and-out" approach and military bureaucracy. However, I did see slices of humanity comparable to all of the war films mentioned above, especially with Apocalypse Now– the Rangers and Delta Force troops are dropped into an operation without finite whereabouts of the man they are supposed to apprehend. What ensues is a terrifying journey through city streets away from the target operation, simply trying to stay alive. The hunter has become the hunted.
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Wednesday, October 29, 2003 |
A Farewell to October
These last days of October are pallid, as if cast in half-shadows. The sun is so weak it might as well not be there.
I wonder if God has tricked us with a card-board cutout that he simply hangs in the sky for us to look at and be blinded by. On cloudy days, he yanks on the string and takes down that cold thing so that some mortal might not look closely and see that there are strings. Some men look for strings, metaphorically speaking, you know.
But I know that the Earth has shifted, that the sun has slid southward to the under-horizon. The landscape dies because of this. The trees, most likely because of their visible metamorphosis, seem the first to go. Something inside them can’t bare the cold. It seems as though, at the first stings of chill in the night air, that spirit within them–the one that pushes the life-sustaining milk through their arms and legs and out into their intricate leafy garment–seeks refuge in the roots underground. The leaves die slowly, the color of their skin changing from green to yellow to orange to brown. We can’t help but say this death is beautiful.
When the leaves do finally go brown we ignore them. Colder winds come; force themselves through the trees; and undress the leafy raiments as if in some unholy way. These leaves lie on the ground like dirty laundry, used, forever unattached to anything. Some of the leaves will be gathered and enjoyed by happy children. Most, however, will lie around in the cold of upcoming days. Soon, even the children will leave them for warmer recreations. Soon, snow from the cold heaven will fall and cover what’s left. The Earth will look clean at its death.
But now, during these last days of October, I feel the autumn wind and sense Winter in its bite. I see a few leaves attempting to cling to their life-source, trying to hold on forever, I suppose. Most leaves, though, have fallen and rustle about my feet as I walk to and from the places I visit. I kick many of them as I walk, not intentionally. Most of the time I’m stepping on layers of them. I hear them crunch as I step on them. I look down and see that all I leave is dust and strings. This makes me wonder if I unintentionally cause the death of things.
I look to the gray sky. It looks like it’s hanging. I feel the same wind that brushed against my face before and I look for strings. I curse the wind for its aggressiveness, its cold affection.
The death of summer is quickly upon us.
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Tuesday, October 28, 2003 |
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Monday, October 27, 2003 |
The Blair Witch Project
# 5 Best of Film of 1999
Warning:This film is not for individuals who need to be spoon-fed visual effects to stay interested!
Fear is not being able to explain what we see or hear. The Blair Witch Project works on the same concept: that the unknown, especially when we don't expect it or when we think we are dreaming, is indeed the most frightening. And it succeeds.
Blair Witch Project is about three college students who travel to Burkittsville to shoot a documentary about a witch. They interview a few of the townspeople and obtain non-sensical and rumor-like information about the witch. They hear a disturbing story of a strange hermit who had turned himself in for killing seven children, saying he didn't want to do the witch's bidding anymore. But these contemporary, all-american youth, backpack into the woods to get footage of some of the historical sites anyway. "This is America, we can't get lost." They are never seen again.
One year later, their footage of their journey into the forest is found in the basement of the hermit's abandoned house in the forest. (Yes, the hermit who killed the children.) The film is the footage of their last days--they get lost; run out of food and cigarettes; lose their map; fight; find mysterious things in their path that they cannot explain (piles of rocks and stick-figures hanging from trees); hear truly horrific things at night; and become hunted by someone or something.
Blair Witch is unique film-making. It succeeds by using the most basic elements of film-making to tell the story and scare us (i.e., the use of 8mm and 16mm cameras make the film more realistic and unsettling; filming in the late fall gave an especially haunting and unkind feel to the forest; and, the sounds and voices that wake them in the middle of the night are frightening, even after the movie is over.).
Mike, Josh, and Heather(playing themselves), are the cinematographers. They do a phenomenal job at making the forest its own ominous character--seemingly secure and friendly in its autumn-like appearance (on the surface), but hiding terrible secrets of death in and under its looming branches. They also get past those static high-school ad-libbing characters and create some well-developed characters and scenes in which their lines are truly delightful and/or profound (i.e., Heather's terrifying apology; Mike's witty statement about rednecks not being creative enough to place stick-figures in the trees; and Josh's disturbing interrogation of Heather in which he demands: "Are you going to write us a happy ending?"). If not profound, at least it's independent film-making at its best!
Heather's performance as the director of the documentary is superb, especially her close-up apology to the camera, in which her cold face displays torrents of tears and snot. Moreover, her apology is so personal, captivating, chilling, and sincere, that I felt like a voyeur listening to something not meant for me, and made it hard for me to believe this film was just fictional. I feel this is one of the greatest scenes in film history.
Blair Witch rewrote the marketing plan, being the first film to successfully use one of the most creative and impressive websites of any film I know. It was created by the directors as a way for interested readers to view a complete mythology about the witch and the events that have haunted the town of Blair and Burkittsville. (I suggest you read the mythology, found at www.blairwitch.com, as you will learn more about the witch there than in the movie.)
If you still don't believe me, try this data on for size: Take a grass-roots mocumentary starring three no names, make it into a household name, an urban legend, and a $129 million hit in less than a year by creating an expansive website and documentary about a fictional witch, not the Titanic, but a make-believe witch. To top it all off: get Time Magazine to write a cover-story on you and your film and get your mug-shot on the cover (August 16,1999).
Blair Witch is the antithesis of the Hollywood film. It scares us without any of the typical shock-effects used by the horror genre today. I'm awed by its success and ability to haunt me when I least expect it.
7:40:47 PM | |
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Sunday, October 26, 2003 |
How Evil Are You?
Steve at Abist Invidia introduced me to the Gematriculator, a system that analzes the content (text) of your blogs and scores you according to how evil and good you are. This system is based off Gematria methods. The home page for this system describes the method as such:
The Gematriculator is a service that uses the infallible methods of Gematria developed by Mr. Ivan Panin to determine how good or evil a web site or a text passage is.
Basically, Gematria is searching for different patterns through the text, such as the amount of words beginning with a vowel. If the amount of these matches is divisible by a certain number, such as 7 (which is said to be God's number), there is an incontestable argument that the Spirit of God is ever present in the text. Another important aspect in gematria are the numerical values of letters: A=1, B=2 ... I=9, J=10, K=20 and so on. The Gematriculator uses Finnish alphabet, in which Y is a vowel.
Experts consider the mathematical patterns in the text of the Holy Bible as God's watermark of authenticity. Thus, the Gematriculator provides only results that are absolutely correct.
Based on the Gematria method, I'm 32% evil and 68% good. In a comment to Steve, I wrote the following:
And the neighbors thought I was such a good person. Ha. Memo to self--stop wearing so much black; consider not printing the review of The Blair Witch Project; start quoting Holy Scripture in blog (daily); stop saying "Holy Shit;" and most importantly, re-examine blog after the evil week of Halloween.
Yours truly,
Michael
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Thursday, October 23, 2003 |
A Few Days in February
With all of the absolutely absurd conservative "oh-ya-prove-it" talk (focusing on whether or not Bush mislead America into war with Iraq), I’ve gone back and reread some articles I saved from February 12th through the 20th.
If you recall these days, you will remember these events: Bush was ramping up the pressure in the Gulf, sending tens of thousands of soldiers weekly; the UN had rejected the First Resolution; Tom Ridge at Homeland Security had encouraged Americans to be ready for a biological or chemical counter-attack when we started dropping bombs–hardware stores immediately sold out of plastic and duct-tape; rather than a terrorist attack, the eastern seaboard was hit with one of the largest snowstorms on record; the world witnessed record-braking numbers of peace protestors marching against the war; the UN weapons inspection team headed by Hans Blix gave their final report on weapons of mass destruction (it wasn’t the smoking gun the US wanted); and the US and her Allies prepared another resolution.
If anything, the critics of this war were right then and are still right now. The conservatives have no legitimate remarks to this debate. It’s ours, we own it, and we were mislead and forced into this war.
Here are some noteworthy excerpts from that stressful season:
War is coming very soon, possibly as soon as the next moonless nights over Iraq at the beginning of March.
As best one can tell, the war plans are now smart, meticulous and comprehensive - with one exception that is blindingly irresponsible. It's the loose talk in the Bush administration about using nuclear weapons in Iraq.
...One sign of the administration's interest in tactical nukes came last September when Mr. Bush signed Presidential Directive 17, whose classified version has leaked and specifically mentions using "potentially nuclear weapons" in response to chemical or biological attacks. And Republicans have tried to pass a law allowing the development of small nuclear weapons.
..."The way they are handling it is very counterproductive," said Spurgeon Keeny, a nuclear expert who held senior posts in both Republican and Democratic administrations. "It harms our efforts to discourage proliferation of nuclear weapons."
(From Flirting With Disaster by Nicholas Kristoff, The New York Times, Feb. 14, 2003)
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However, the polls are clear: 78 percent of French people oppose a military intervention in Iraq. Polls are similar in most other countries, including in Eastern Europe. European governments may be divided over the use of force in Iraq, but public opinion is united.
There are, in my view, three reasons the mood is so cautious. The first relates to our assessment of what is far and away the biggest threat to world peace and stability: Al Qaeda.
...Yet we haven't seen any evidence of a direct link between the Iraqi regime and Al Qaeda.
...A second reason for the reluctance of the French people is that Iraq is not viewed as an immediate threat.
...A third reason for the cautious mood relates to the consequences of a war in Iraq. We see Iraq as a very complex country, with many different ethnic groups, a tradition of violence and no experience of democracy. You can't create democracy with bombs - in Iraq, it would require time, a strong presence and a strong committment.
We also worry about the region - considering that no peace process is at work for the moment in the Middle East, that none of the great powers seem able to foster one, and that a war in Iraq could result in more frustration and bitterness in the Arab and Muslim worlds.
...The inspections should be pursued and strengthened, and Saddam Hussein must be made to cooperate actively. War must remain the very last option.
(From " A Warning on Iraq, From a Friend" by Jean-David Levitte, The New York Times, 14 Feb 2003. Levitte is French ambassador to the United States.)
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The "collateral damage" of Bush's war drive is mounting daily - the cohesion of Nato, the chimera of a common EU foreign policy (and Blair's fantasy of being at the heart of Europe) and the post-1945 structure of international law included. All of this seems merely to be whipping the US political class into a still greater frenzy of bellicosity. How long before France is officially designated a "rogue state" and Gerhard Schröder becomes a card-carrying member of the "axis of evil"?
It now must be clear to everyone that the US is hell-bent on war at any price , scattering to the winds any and every sensible proposal for a peaceful resolution to the crisis in its rush to get the shooting started. A fatal game of catch-22 is being played with the Saddam regime, in which every discovery of an unauthorised weapon is hailed not as evidence that UN inspections are working but as proof of Iraqi duplicity, while every failure to find such weapons is evidence that they are being concealed. But who can still believe that this has anything to do with weapons of mass destruction, any more than it has to do with terrorism? It has become an exercise in US military-political machismo.
(From "A Mandate to Go To War," by Andrew Murray, The Guardian, 14 Feb. 2003)
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During a week when the Bush administration would have liked nothing more than to continue its laserlike focus on the threat posed by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, the war on terror grabbed center stage in a series of chilling revelations.
....New intelligence pointed to impending attacks on the United States just as it is gearing up for possible war against Iraq. Concern was only heightened when FBI (news - web sites) Director Robert Mueller told a Senate committee that Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s al-Qaeda terrorist network remains the gravest danger to the U.S. and could attack American targets as early as this weekend.
....Thus, after months of trying to persuade the public that Saddam is linked to terrorism, the Bush administration was handed a clear connection. But instead of bolstering its argument that swift military action to disarm Saddam will reduce terrorist threats, the link raised a more frightening specter that the administration has yet to address: War with Iraq could place Americans at greater risk of retaliation by terrorists.
....The threats haven't been adequately addressed by an administration more interested in arguing the links between terrorism and Iraq than discussing how the connection complicates the war against terror.
....The Bush administration says that ousting Saddam is central to fighting terrorism because al-Qaeda cells operating in Iraq have received training in producing chemical weapons and could have access to Saddam's arsenal.
(From "Singular focus on Saddam poses risks in war on terror," USATODAY, 14 February 2003)
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Even leaders who would be happy to be rid of Saddam Hussein are put off by the Bush team's locker room taunts, counter-terrorism doctrine to "compel" other nations to get in line and bullying bromides.
President Bush, going to the martial setting of a Florida naval station, challenged the U.N. to show "backbone and courage," to stand up to Iraq or be seen as "an ineffective, irrelevant debating society." The subtext was not subtle: Are you important or impotent?
Rummy has painted the French and Germans as old biddies and East Europe as the virile new stud on the Continent.
Even some hawks think the administration's rhetoric is gratuitously gladiatorial. Radek Sikorski of the American Enterprise Institute said on the Diane Rehm radio show, "there is sometimes a little bit too much testosterone in the air in these trans-Atlantic exchanges . . . and sometimes in these matters flirtation and compliments do more good - achieve aims - than, shall we say, a more direct approach."
The real reason the Bush team has leapfrogged Iraq over more urgent priorities is that conservatives won't be happy until they erase what they see as the emasculating legacy of leaving Saddam in power, back when we were tied up with our coalition of nervous Nellie allies.
Henry Kissinger summed up the logic of conservatives: "If the United States marches 200,000 troops into the region and then marches them back out . . . the credibility of American power . . . will be gravely, perhaps irreparably impaired."
The painful parts of Washington history have often been about men trying harder to save face than lives.
With or without the fussy Frenchies, we're going to war. For this White House, pulling back when all our forces are poised for battle would be, to use the Bush family's least favorite word, wimpy.
(From "The Venus Trap," by Maureen Dowd, The New York Times, 18 February 2003.)
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To contemplate war is to think about the most horrible of human experiences. On this February day, as this nation stands at the brink of battle, every American on some level must be contemplating the horrors of war.
Yet, this Chamber is, for the most part, silent -- ominously, dreadfully silent. There is no debate, no discussion, no attempt to lay out for the nation the pros and cons of this particular war. There is nothing.
.... In foreign policy, this administration has failed to find Osama bin Laden. In fact, just yesterday we heard from him again marshaling his forces and urging them to kill. This administration has split traditional alliances, possibly crippling, for all time, international order-keeping entities like the United Nations and NATO. This administration has called into question the traditional worldwide perception of the United States as well-intentioned peacekeeper. This administration has turned the patient art of diplomacy into threats, labeling and name calling of the sort that reflects quite poorly on the intelligence and sensitivity of our leaders, and which will have consequences for years to come.
Calling heads of state pygmies, labeling whole countries as evil, denigrating powerful European allies as irrelevant -- these types of crude insensitivities can do our great nation no good. We may have massive military might, but we cannot fight a global war on terrorism alone. We need the cooperation and friendship of our time-honored allies as well as the newer-found friends whom we can attract with our wealth.
....In only the space of two short years this reckless and arrogant administration has initiated policies which may reap disastrous consequences for years.
One can understand the anger and shock of any president after the savage attacks of 9/11. One can appreciate the frustration of having only a shadow to chase and an amorphous, fleeting enemy on which it is nearly impossible to exact retribution.
But to turn one's frustration and anger into the kind of extremely destabilizing and dangerous foreign policy debacle that the world is currently witnessing is inexcusable from any administration charged with the awesome power and responsibility of guiding the destiny of the greatest superpower on the planet. Frankly many of the pronouncements made by this administration are outrageous. There is no other word.
Yet this chamber is hauntingly silent. On what is possibly the eve of horrific infliction of death and destruction on the population of the nation of Iraq -- a population, I might add, of which over 50 percent is under age 15 -- this chamber is silent. On what is possibly only days before we send thousands of our own citizens to face unimagined horrors of chemical and biological warfare -- this chamber is silent. On the eve of what could possibly be a vicious terrorist attack in retaliation for our attack on Iraq, it is business as usual in the United States Senate.
We are truly "sleepwalking through history." In my heart of hearts I pray that this great nation and its good and trusting citizens are not in for a rudest of awakenings.
To engage in war is always to pick a wild card. And war must always be a last resort, not a first choice. I truly must question the judgment of any president who can say that a massive unprovoked military attack on a nation which is over 50 percent children is "in the highest moral traditions of our country." This war is not necessary at this time. Pressure appears to be having a good result in Iraq. Our mistake was to put ourselves in a corner so quickly. Our challenge is to now find a graceful way out of a box of our own making. Perhaps there is still a way if we allow more time.
(From Robert C. Byrd (D-West Virginia) speech delivered on the floor of the United States Senate on Feb. 12, 2003.)
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Attacking Iraq offers the US three additional means of offloading capital while maintaining its global dominance. The first is the creation of new geographical space for economic expansion. The second (though this is not a point Harvey makes) is military spending (a process some people call "military Keynesianism"). The third is the ability to control the economies of other nations by controlling the supply of oil. This, as global oil reserves diminish, will become an ever more powerful lever. Happily, just as legitimation is required, scores of former democrats in both the US and Britain have suddenly decided that empire isn't such a dirty word after all, and that the barbarian hordes of other nations really could do with some civilisation at the hands of a benign superpower.
Strategic thinkers in the US have been planning this next stage of expansion for years. Paul Wolfowitz, now deputy secretary for defence, was writing about the need to invade Iraq in the mid-1990s. The impending war will not be fought over terrorism, anthrax, VX gas, Saddam Hussein, democracy or the treatment of the Iraqi people. It is, like almost all such enterprises, about the control of territory, resources and other nations' economies. Those who are planning it have recognised that their future dominance can be sustained by means of a simple economic formula: blood is a renewable resource; oil is not.
(From "Too much of a good thing" by George Monbiot, The Guardian 18 February 2003)
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I have a terrible foreboding that when we look back on our debate over the impending war with Iraq, we will be disappointed in ourselves. We may end up starting a war without any real argument over what it will take to win the peace.
....We doubters cannot identify with those who see American power as a force for evil in the world, and we believe President Bush was right to increase pressure on Saddam Hussein to disarm. Many of us agree with British Prime Minister Tony Blair's statement over the weekend that, given the nature of the Iraqi regime, "ridding the world of Saddam would be an act of humanity."
But doubters do not share the confidence of so many of the war's supporters that victory will revolutionize the politics of the Middle East. We worry about the unintended consequences of military action and can't quite shake the hope that the very military buildup Bush has carried out creates opportunities to disarm and perhaps even unseat Hussein through means short of war.
My own doubts are rooted in the Bush administration's failure to prepare our country for the long commitment that will be required if this war is to achieve the results its supporters promise. We still don't know how the administration intends to handle the aftermath of what one hopes would be an American military victory. And it is not as obvious to me as it is to the war's supporters that this battle is the clear next step in our response to 9/11. It's hard to escape the feeling that those who always wanted to "finish" the last Gulf war by getting rid of Hussein are using the events of Sept. 11, 2001, as a rationale for doing what they wanted to do on Sept. 10.
Some of my doubts are, purely and simply, doubts about this administration. I find it astonishing that Bush and his lieutenants are not willing to offer a sober calculation of the long-term costs of this war, factor those costs into the nation's budget and ask Americans to pay the price. Instead, they would shuck off the costs to the next generation.
Their failure to count the costs can only make you wonder about how committed they are to what will be an arduous struggle to pacify and democratize Iraq.
(From "Listen To the Doubters," by E. J. Dionne Jr. Page A25, The Washington Post Company, 18 February 2003)
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It would be so much easier if the Bush administration just dropped the confusing pretension of an earnest campaign for truth, international cooperation and the rule of law. The reality is and has been that the United States is determined to invade Iraq whether or not it has weapons of mass destruction and no matter the findings of the weapons inspectors or the judgment of the Security Council.
The troops are in place, the special ops expeditions and bombing runs have intensified, and Secretary of State Colin Powell is now a full-time hawk blasting away at and cynically distorting the inspectors' reports before they can finish reading them to the United Nations.
....The essential wisdom and appeal of this nation were captured eloquently in George Washington's warning about the dangers of illogical foreign entanglements. "The nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest," Washington wrote in 1796. "The nation, prompted by ill will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy."
....By acting like a man trying to fight his way out of a bar, Bush has squandered his post-Sept. 11 credibility -- his approval rating dropped 10 points in the last month alone -- and has backed the United States into a corner, strategically. Not surprising, then, that less than half of us believe he has a coherent plan to fight terrorism and only a third think we are winning that fight. Nevertheless, apparently believing that questionable ends justify questionable means, our leaders now daily produce claims of Hussein's perfidy with a wanton contempt for the public's ability to sort fact from fiction.
This past week, for example, Powell seized on the fact that Iraqi missiles might be able to fly a couple dozen more miles than are allowed under U.N. terms. The problem is, the specs on these missiles were there in the 1,200-page report released by Iraq two months ago, which was dismissed by Bush as containing nothing new or relevant. Pity poor Hans Blix. On Friday, the U.N. chief weapons inspector again emerged with a balanced, noninflammatory report that was immediately politicized beyond recognition by the White House spin doctors.
In fact, from the beginning of the administration's mockery of fact and logic, our damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't stance toward Iraq has been consistent: If they come forth with weapons we blast them for having them, and if they don't reveal enough we blast them for holding back.
....Amazingly, the Bush administration seems most alarmed at the prospect that if inspectors were allowed to do their job, they might find that Iraq doesn't have any weapons of mass destruction. Unfortunately, all of this is, as George Washington put it, "contrary to the best calculations of policy."
....Worst of all, we're giving al-Qaida exactly what it wants: the overthrow of Hussein's government, what Osama bin Laden called in his latest tape an "infidel regime" run by apostates, and the best recruiting poster he could hope for. Imagine it: a photo of a U.S. general, likely a Christian, who the Bush administration now says will run mostly Muslim Iraq for at least two years. In Arabic, the words are in big, red letters: "Oust the crusaders." (From "Stop the Charade," by Robert Scheer, Salon, 19 Feb 2003)
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Wednesday, October 22, 2003 |
Tom Tomorrow is one of the best political cartoonists around. I will post more of This Modern World every once in awhile, especially if you like him. After watching Bush address the political leadership of Australia, the content of this cartoon is fitting. Up is down and down is up....whoever penned this phrase to describe the philosophy of this administration should win an award.
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Tuesday, October 21, 2003 |
More Regarding Boykin’s Beliefs
The AP reported today that Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kansas) drafted a letter Monday in which he asked Defense Secretary Rumsfeld not to reprimand Boykin, citing that elected leaders and military officials "have talked about God and spiritual matters throughout U.S. history."
Tiahrt pleaded in the letter that "As elected officials serving in the United States Congress, we recognize the vital importance our personal faiths play in helping us make decisions. We ask that any actions taken in response to Lt. Gen. Boykin's remarks not, in any way, intimidate the free religious exercise of his faith."
Interestingly enough, the report states that the letter was circulated amongst colleagues but that only listed Rep. Todd Akin of Missouri as signing it.
This letter comes after the Pentagon on Friday released a statement by the General apologizing to those who were offended by his remarks. Of course, he is not sorry for saying what he did, only sorry that some took offense at it. Don’t you love how these people apologize?
By the end of the day, however, Rumsfield announced that there would be an inquiry into the General’s statements. One senator, I do believe he is a Republican, suggested that Boykin be put on leave till further notice. No word yet on that suggestion.
While viewing each of my favorite blogs I have listed to the left of this article, I came across some great commentary regarding Boykin’s beliefs by Kriselda, the author of Different Strings. In her post titled "Of photographing evil and mysterious, unheard-of planes," Kriselda cites an article from The Washington Post that reveals a few more of Boykin’s statements that "not only make him sound a bit unhinged but which lead the editors to question if he's actually fit for the position he's been given."
Here are a few highlights from her post.
1) She debunks his apology, especially for his comment about idol worship. Kriselda writes:
Gen. Boykin now argues that his "idol" reference was to the worship of money and power, not Allah. But a review of the full text of his remarks cannot support this reading. In fact, the full text only adds to the questions about his suitability. At the Good Shepherd Community Church in Sandy, Ore., last June, just after he received his third star and was named to his Pentagon post, Gen. Boykin said, "Don't you worry about what these courts say. Our God reigns supreme."
2) She cites two examples of how Boykin might be unfit, mentally, to fulfill the duties of his current position at the Pentagon. From her words:
He describes taking photographs during a helicopter tour before leaving Mogadishu, Somalia, and then finding an unexplained black mark on the developed pictures, which he explains as a manifestation of evil. "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your enemy," he tells the Good Shepherd audience. "It is not Osama bin Laden, it is the principalities of darkness. It is a spiritual enemy that will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus and pray for this nation and for our leaders."
Do you see where she is going with this? Do we trust someone with military intelligence to regard every "unexplained black mark" on a photograph as evidence of satan’s forces?
Kriselda continues:
He also offers this take on Sept. 11: "Whether you realize it or not, I believe there were at least two more airplanes that were headed for major installations in this country. I believe that there was one headed for the Capitol, but they were thwarted by the hand of God."
Other than the fact that his interpretation of intelligence is overtly religious and also too simpleton, Kriselda asks an interestingly valid question about what Boykin is revealing.
I am not the least bit comfortable trusting a man who think[s] that he can photograph evil to deal and believes God stopped two additional planes on 9/11. I'm sure some will claim that at least one of the planes he's referring to is the flight that went down in Pennsylvania, even though the way he's phrased his statement ("I believe that there were at least two more airplanes...") makes it pretty clear he means that he thinks there were six planes total - but even if we accept that one of them was the Pennsylvania plane, he's still claiming that there was yet another plane - a 5th plane.
Here's the thing, though. There were no reports of other crashes that day, and no reports from any pilots of other attempts at hijacking. So, my first question would be what makes Gen. Boykin think one existed? Is he privy to information none of the rest of us have? If so, why is he talking about it at all? I think that a publicly-unreported crash or hijacking attempt would have to be under perhaps the highest level of secret classification in order for us to have not even a hint of its existence to have escaped into the greater wilderness of public knowledge - and you know that if any conspiracy theorists caught so much as a whiff of something that explosive, we'd be seeing reports of it sailing around the internet. So, either there is no evidence of a 5th plane, or the General is talking about something he really shouldn't be talking about - making him either whacked-out or careless. I'm not quite sure which worries me more (especially for someone in an intelligence position.)
Kriselda continues talking about how God could possibly be relevant, or maybe related, to the events of 9/11. To read more, click here.
8:43:44 PM | |
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Monday, October 20, 2003 |
Ties that Bind: An Update on Saudi Arabia
Two noteworthy articles that demand my attention today-- "Did the Saudis Know About 9-11?" by Mark Follman and "The New Great Game" by Lutz Kleveman.
In Follman’s article, he discusses the content of Gerald Posner’s book "Why America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9/11." Most interesting is Posner’s allegation that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan knew about the attacks that would hit New York City.
What I appreciate in Follman’s article is a balanced perspective. He contrasts Posner’s views with others who suggest that Posner’s theory is mere conspiracy; "one analyst suggests the Zubaydah charges could be part of a disinformation campaign launched by neoconservatives who believe that the U.S. should decisively break with Saudi Arabia, which they regard as a corrupt, terrorist-supporting state," Follman writes.
Despite the contrasting views, I feel Posner has some great points that deserve further explanation from the Administration.
One of the allegations Posner puts forth is that "Top figures in the Saudi and Pakistani governments had been directly assisting Osama bin Laden for years and knew al-Qaida was going to strike America on Sept. 11. Posner cites two unnamed U.S. government sources, both of whom he asserts are ‘in a position to know,’ who he said gave him separate, corroborating reports. One source is from the CIA and the other is a senior Bush administration official ‘inside the executive branch,’ [Posner] told Salon in an interview."
Regarding the top figures in the Saudi government, Possner writes the following:
... four Saudi princes and the head of Pakistan's air force were deeply involved with Osama bin Laden for years, some of them meeting with him well after al-Qaida began its terror attacks on U.S. targets overseas in the mid-1990s...
How did this intelligence come about?
According to Posner's account, two Arab-American special forces personnel posed as Saudis and took over the questioning of [Abu] Zubaydah at the secret location in Afghanistan. CIA officials observing from another room watched Zubaydah's reaction with amazement: He was visibly relieved to be in "Saudi" hands, and started talking. He named three Saudi princes, recited their private phone numbers, and told his interrogators to call one prince, saying, "He will tell you what to do." That man was King Fahd's nephew Prince Ahmed bin Salman, a London publishing magnate and horse racing aficionado whose thoroughbred War Emblem won the 2002 Kentucky Derby. Zubaydah made clear he was under the protection -- and direction -- of the princes. During the questioning, Zubaydah also fingered Pakistani air force chief Mushaf Ali Mir, suspected to have close ties with some of the most pro-Islamist elements within Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI.
What is most strange, and what Possner suggests makes Zubaydah’s information legitimate, is what occurred after Zubaydah’s interrogation.
Shortly after the U.S. inquiry, on July 22, 2002, Prince Ahmed, age 43, died unexpectedly of a heart attack. On the way to Ahmed's funeral the next day, Prince Sultan al-Saud was killed in a single-car crash. A week later the third prince Zubaydah had fingered, Fahd al-Kabir , was found dead 55 miles east of Riyadh -- according to the Saudi royal court he'd "died of thirst" while traveling in the summer heat. Seven months later Pakistani air force chief Mir, his wife and 15 of his closest associates died in a plane crash near Islamabad. The plane had recently passed maintenance inspection, and the weather was clear. According to the Asia Times, "Reports at the time said that the pilot had been changed just minutes before takeoff."
"Zubaydah's interrogation leaves some questions unanswered which I think will eventually be run to ground," he says. "He's recanted his story. He's said he just picked these names out of a hat to spare himself some torture. But is it possible that he picked out three Saudi princes and the head of the Pakistani air force, and then they all just had the bad luck of dying -- the three Saudis within days of each other -- after the U.S. shared the information? And from a blood clot, a car wreck, dehydration and a plane crash? I guess technically it's possible. People do win the lottery. But as I view it, it's extremely unlikely."
The only one of the supposed conspirators of 9/11, revealed by Zubaydah, to survive is Prince Turki. Follman explains Possner’s information about him:
Turki, in fact, did have friendly contacts with radical Islamist groups, including Afghan jihadis fighting the Soviets in the 1980s and later with the Taliban, over a protracted period of time. "If anyone made payments to bin Laden and al-Qaida, it would be Turki, given his connections to them through the '80s," says Robert Baer, a former CIA case officer who did extensive tours in the Mideast and Central Asia during his 21-year career and is the author of "Sleeping With the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude." "Turki arranged for things like sending cars to the Taliban, and free gas for Pakistan and Afghanistan, and he supported the Islamic movement in Sudan -- it was his job. But I've never seen any evidence that Turki himself was complicit in terrorism."
The most intriguing and controversial claim, however, involved none other than the alleged key Saudi conspirator, former intelligence chief Prince Turki. Turki claimed his intelligence service warned the CIA in late 1999 and early 2000 about two al-Qaida members, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, who were later among the Sept. 11 hijackers. "What we told them was these people were on our watch list from previous activities of al-Qaida, in both the embassy bombings and attempts to smuggle arms into the kingdom in 1997," Turki told the Associated Press.
The CIA denied receiving any such information from Saudi Arabia until after 9/11, and Prince Bandar, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the U.S., admitted that "no documents" were sent. But Turki insisted his agency communicated the warning to the CIA, at least by word of mouth.
The New Great Game
The second article I want to comment on was published today on The Guardian, written by Lutz Kleveman. Being from Britain, it seems to be more forthcoming in information from their American compatriots–seeming to shed more light on this Administrations mission in the Middle East and the Caspian Sea region.
Here are some quotes from this article:
As part of the Afghan campaign, the US air force set up a base near the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek. Brawny pioneers in desert camouflages were erecting hundreds of tents for nearly 3,000 soldiers. I asked their commander, a wiry brigadier general, if and when the troops would leave Kyrgyzstan (and its neighbour Uzbekistan, where Washington set up a second airbase). "There is no time limit," he replied. "We will pull out only when all al-Qaeda cells have been eradicated."
Today, the Americans are still there and many of the tents have been replaced by concrete buildings. Bush has used his massive military build-up in Central Asia to seal the cold war victory against Russia, to contain Chinese influence and to tighten the noose around Iran. Most importantly, however, Washington - supported by the Blair government - is exploiting the "war on terror" to further American oil interests in the Caspian region. But this geopolitical gamble involving thuggish dictators and corrupt Saudi oil sheiks is only likely to produce more terrorists.
For much of the past two years, I have researched the links between conflict in Central Asia and US oil interests. I travelled thousands of kilometres, meeting with generals, oil bosses, warlords and diplomats. They are all players in a geostrategic struggle - the new Great Game.
***
The main spoils in today's Great Game are Caspian oil and gas. On its shores, and at the bottom of the Caspian Sea, lie the world's biggest untapped fossil fuel resources. Estimates range from 110 to 243bn barrels of crude, worth up to $4 trillion. According to the US department of energy, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan alone could sit on more than 130bn barrels, more than three times the US's reserves. Oil giants such as ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco and BP have already invested more than $30bn in new production facilities.
This interesting quote regarding Saudi Arabia–
Many people in Washington are particularly uncomfortable with the growing power of Saudi Arabia. There is a fear that radical Islamist groups could topple the corrupt Saud dynasty and stop the flow of oil to "infidels". To stave off political turmoil, the regime in Riyadh funds the radical Islamic Wahabbi sect that foments terror against Americans around the world. In a desperate effort to decrease its dependence on Saudi oil sheiks, the US seeks to control the Caspian oil resources. However, fierce conflicts have broken out over pipeline routes. Russia, still regarding itself as imperial overlord of its former colonies, promotes pipeline routes across its territory, including Chechnya, in the north Caucasus. China, the increasingly oil-dependent waking giant in the region, wants to build eastbound pipelines from Kazakhstan. Iran is offering its pipeline network via the Persian Gulf.
By contrast, Washington champions two pipelines that would circumvent both Russia and Iran. One would run from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to the Indian Ocean. Construction has already begun for a $3.8bn pipeline from Azerbaijan's capital, Baku, via neighbouring Georgia to Turkey's Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. BP, its main operator, has invested billions in oil-rich Azerbaijan, and can count on support from the Bush administration, which recently stationed about 500 elite troops in war-torn Georgia.
Kleveman’s assessment and possible effects of this new Great Game–
Besides raising the spectre of inter-state conflict, the Bush administration is wooing some of the region's most tyrannical dictators. One of them is Islam Karimov, the ex-communist ruler of Uzbekistan, whose regime brutally suppresses any opposition and Islamic groups. "Such people must be shot in the head. If necessary, I will shoot them myself," Karimov once told his rubber-stamp parliament.
Although the US state department acknowledges that Uzbek security forces use "torture as a routine investigation technique", Washington last year gave the Karimov regime $500m in aid and rent payments for the US air base in Chanabad. The state department also quietly removed Uzbekistan from its annual list of countries where freedom of religion is under threat. The British government seems to support Washington's policy, as Whitehall recently recalled its ambassador Craig Murray from Tashkent after he openly decried Uzbekistan's abysmal human rights record.
***
Worse is to come: disgusted with the US's cynical alliances with their corrupt and despotic rulers, the region's impoverished populaces increasingly embrace virulent anti-Americanism and militant Islam. As in Iraq, America's brazen energy imperialism in Central Asia jeopardises the few successes in the war on terror because the resentment it causes makes it ever easier for terrorist groups to recruit angry young men. It is all very well to pursue oil interests, but is it worth mortgaging our security to do so?
Nietzsche said that "It is our future that lays down the law of our today." In light of the information I read today, and in light of America’s aggressiveness world-wide, it’s clearly noticeable that this Administration has made a mockery of international law. The future they are laying for our children is bleak and possibly ravaged by terror. And just to think, it appears it’s because of oil after all.
9:47:22 PM | |
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Sunday, October 19, 2003 |
The Insider
#4 Best Film of 1999
Starring: Al Pacino, Russell Crowe, Christopher Plummer, Diane Venora, and Philip Baker Hall.
Directed by: Michael Mann. Written by Eric Roth and Micahel Mann, based on the Vanity Fair article, "The Man Who Knew Too Much," by Marie Brenner.
The Insider is a true story about Jeffrey Wigand (Russel Crowe) who is fired by Brown & Williamson and then monitored, harassed, and threatened by them when he attempts to break his code of silence stated in his constricting severance deal. The script cleverly weaves the Wigand story in with that of Lowell Bergman, a journalist for 60 Minutes, and his fight with the administration of CBS to air Jeffrey Wigand's interview with Mike Wallace.
Masterfully written by Michael Mann and Eric Roth, The Insider is by all means intellectual and artistic. The characters are smart. What they say and do is well thought out and smart. And the cinematography is smart, superb, highly artistic, and freshly unique. In fact, I could not help but notice that nearly each shot could hang in an art gallery.
Also regarding the cinematography: As a viewer, we receive an up-close and personal view of the lives of these characters. (Any closer and we would be able to see the pores on their faces.) This filming technique creates a definite claustrophobic and paranoid mood. We need to feel Jeff's pain and paranoia and the filming achieves this perfectly by showing vast views from behind the characters head or body. In fact, the opening scene places us with a character as he tries looking out from a woven cloth blindfold.
Other scenes relating to this technique are:
1) When Jeffrey Wigand is walking toward the revolving door of Brown & Williamson after being fired, it feels as if we are the ones leading him out because the shot is taken from directly behind his head.
2) When Jeffrey is talking his daughter through a severe asthmatic attack, we are placed behind her ear so that we hear the wheezing, and sense her struggle for air.
3) When Jeffrey and Lowell are talking about Jeff's pact of secrecy in the car, we see through the torrents of rain running down the windows a tugboat fighting the upstream current of the river off in the distance and understand that Jeff is alone and fighting against stronger currents like that tugboat.
4) When Jeffrey is being pressured to sign the second severance package, we are made to feel as if we are sitting with the Brown & Williamson lawyers.
Al Pacino is perfect as Lowell Bergmen. Russel Crowe is equally impressive as Jeffrey Wigand, giving his character a great depth of humaneness. Christopher Plummer is so superb as Mike Wallace that one wonders if Plummer was born to play this role.
The Insider is a film about corporate politics, personal ethics, big-money, the power of influence/persuasion behind any corporation or establishment, and about "normal people under extreme pressure." Moreover, it's about abusing power; about the corporate giant using money to cover up wrongdoing or to conceal secrets; about "insiders" within these corporations who stand up for what is right and good; and, about their friends, associates, and wives who either support them or betray them on the front lines.
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Friday, October 17, 2003 |
Eyes Wide Shut
# 3 Best of Film of 1999
Starring: Sam Douglas, Nicolde Kidman, Tom Cruise, Sydney Pollack, Todd Field, Rade Serbedzija, Leelee Sobieski, Vinessa Shaw, Alan Cumming, Marie Richardson, Thomas Gibson, Julienne Davis, and Louise J. Taylor
Directed by: Stanley Kubrick
Alice Harford (Nicole Kidman) reveals to her husband Bill (Tom Cruise) that their marriage has become "sad," too routine. "Why don't you ever get jealous of the men that want to take me to bed?" she asks.
"Do you love me just because I am beautiful and sexy?"
Bill unimpressively responds: "We are married, we have had a child together, and I trust you. Of course I love you."
So Alice reveals to him that she had an adulterous fantasy a year earlier while they were vacationing in Maine with their daughter, Helena. Alice had accidentally bumped into a young and handsome marine. Turning to apologize, their eyes made contact and "locked." Alice was enraptured by the event. She couldn't get it out of her head. "I felt that if he wanted me, I would give all I have--you, Helena, my life--for just one night with him."
When Bill hears Alice's revelation, he gets upset and leaves. Bill's time away from home becomes an epic journey complete with a realization of the meaning of love and relationships, mainly that he cannot always be in control; he has taken his marriage for granted; and temptation torments all humankind, even him. In mentioning the epic journey, I am reminded of Nathanial Hawthorne's character, Young Goodman Brown, who holds his wife on a higher standard than himself; and of Adam from the Book of Genesis, who is cast out of Eden for partaking of the fruit of good and evil and realizing sin.
Particularly, I am reminded of Aeneas, Odysseus, and other classical heroes who had to rediscover themselves by proving themselves, even if that route of rediscovery lead them through the depths of hell.
Like the classical heroes, Bill faces humiliation, temptation, and death in hell--a magnificently macabre mansion in which caped and masked guests perform sexual rituals. And he is redeemed and literally saved only because one of the guests offers her self as a sacrifice on his behalf. (This is truly one of the most haunting and unforgettable scenes in film.)
Eyes Wide Shut is a masterfully directed morality play about marriage and fidelity. Furthermore, it is a film full of human introspection, temptation, redemption, and forgiveness. Under the guise of temptation, Kubrick seems to say, anyone is capable of the fall.
On the technical side, Eyes Wide Shut looks, sounds, and feels like freelance poetry or stream-of-consciousness literature. The script is rich in symbolism and is spoken in abrupt, slow, and methodical spasms as if coming from a dream. Along this same line, Kubrick's characters are mere vehicles that focus on delivering the meaning behind the lines rather than on their actual meaning.
The scenes are richly splendid, both to look at and to read into. And like the stream-of-consciousness type literature, the scenes in Eyes are a cacophony of situations that compound one upon the other to make a symbolic whole, even though they appear centrifugal--another trademark of a Kubrick film.
A Christian proverb says that one should never cast pearls to swine. Eyes Wide Shut is a pearl, a visual and visceral masterpiece.
6:16:58 PM | |
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Thursday, October 16, 2003 |
About Boykin's Beliefs
In the post titled "Holy Crap," Eschaton points to a disturbing MSNBC article (written by Lisa Myers and the NBC Investigative Unit) about the man who is leading "a secretive new Pentagon unit formed to coordinate intelligence on terrorists and help hunt down Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and other high-profile targets." His name is General William Boykin
The recordings of Boykin, the new deputy undersecretary of defense, speaking at many church meetings and prayer breakfasts were analyzed and reported by NBC, the content of which calls into question whether a representative of the government should be voicing such potent beliefs, combining his own religious beliefs with current US affairs and military initiatives. The religious person in me thinks: "Boykin can voice religious beliefs in a religious setting." The civic person in me replies: "Boykin has a duty to stay neutral when it comes to religion–he should not mix the mission of government in with the mission of a particular religious establishment, especially when it vociferously condemns or belittles another religion."
I wanted to introduce a few quotes from Boykin’s speeches and then comment on each of them.
Consider this quote about why Bush is our president:
"Why is this man in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him. Why is he there? And I tell you this morning that he’s in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this."
Days after 9/11, I attended a vigil at Temple Square in Salt Lake City. During the opening prayer, offered by one of the apostles of the church, the adjectives Great and Wonderful, those used often to introduce the divinity and glory of Jesus the Lord and Savior, were used instead to introduce George W. Bush. Nor were any other adjectives used before the naming of Jesus or God throughout the remainder of the prayer. The name of Bush had trumped God.
I’m sure, for reasons quite beyond me, that somewhere in many peoples troubled psyches, there is need for someone to be recognized as God’s ruler on earth, especially after such tragedy. I think people such as Boykin are taking advantage of these people. Why? Because his thinking is pure conjecture. It is highly disingenuous to use the name of God to substantiate Bush’s spurious ascendancy to the White House. In fact, it’s tantamount to heresy. God may have helped bring Bush out of his life as an alcohol abuser, but that doesn’t mean that God appointed Bush as president, nor fixed the election so that Bush would become president. Man was responsible for that mess all by himself.
Consider this quote regarding our enemy, who is not Osama or Saddam, but Satan:
"Well, is he [bin Laden] the enemy? Next slide. Or is this man [Saddam] the enemy? The enemy is none of these people I have showed you here. The enemy is a spiritual enemy. He's called the principality of darkness. The enemy is a guy called Satan."
Consider this quote about Muslims:
"And we ask ourselves this question, ‘Why do they hate us? Why do they hate us so much?’
Ladies and gentlemen, the answer to that is because we’re a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian.
Finally, consider these choice lines in regards to his God being better than their God:
"There was a man in Mogadishu named Osman Atto. You see him in the movie ["Blackhawk Down"], smoking a big cigar and talking philosophically. How many of you have seen the movie? Acting like a big shot. Well let me tell you something. That’s not what Osman Atto did. The reality was Osman Atto was Aideed’s closest ally. He was Aideed’s top lieutenant. He was a multimillionaire financier for Aideed’s clan. And we knew if that if we could capture Osman Atto and take him away, that we could destroy Aideed’s network. So we went after Osman Atto about two weeks before the battle.... We went after Osman Atto. We got into a terrible fight. And I’m sad to say a lot of Somalis were killed as we went after Osman Atto.
But we missed him by seconds. He walked out of the facility that we raided, he walked down the street and blended in with the crowd and we missed him.
"And then he went on CNN and he laughed at us, and he said, ‘They’ll never get me because Allah will protect me. Allah will protect me.’
"Well, you know what I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol. But I prayed, Lord let us get that man.
"Three days later we went after him again, and this time we got him. Not a mark on him. We got him. We brought him back into our base there and we had a Sea Land container set up to hold prisoners in, and I said put him in there. They put him in there, there was one guard with him. I said search him, they searched him, and then I walked in with no one in there but the guard, and I looked at him and said, ‘Are you Osman Atto?’ And he said ‘Yes.’ And I said, ‘Mr. Atto, you underestimated our God.’"
Today, reported by AP, Donald Rumsfield had this to say about this matter:
"There are a lot of things that are said by people that are their views," he said, "and that's the way we live. We are free people and that's the wonderful thing about our country, and I think for anyone to run around and think that can be managed or controlled is probably wrong." {emphasis mine}
Probably, indeed. He, nor this Administration, have much appreciated all the views being spoken by their critics. Their bulldogs in the press have termed the critics traitors, among other choice names. One of the Administrations favorite remarks to these critics is that their criticism fuels terrorism and disrupts the morale of the troops. But in light of Bush’s comment that the United States is in a war against terrorism, "not a war against a religion," one would think that diatribes such as Boykin’s would be vocally reprimanded by the president, and Rumsfield.
While writing this, I’m reminded of a quote from Eric Hoffer’s masterpiece work on mass movements titled "The True Believer." In his chapter on doctrine, Hoffer writes:
All active mass movements strive...to interpose a fact-proof screen between the faithful and the realities of the world. They do this by claiming that the ultimate and absolute truth is already embodied in their doctrine and that there is no truth nor certitude outside it. The facts on which the true believer bases his conclusions must not be derived from his experience or observation....To rely on the evidence of the senses and of reason is heresy and treason.
Hoffer’s explanation may prove the reasons why so many people will continue to overlook the lies and misdeeds of this Administration–because these people are sold on the fact that "there is no truth nor certitude outside" this administrations doctrine; or, in the matter of Boykin’s speeches, indoctrination.
As a footnote to this, I appreciated the comments in Toby’s Political Diary today. He concludes that diatribes such as this are scary.
This is the stuff of nightmares. When we have generals spouting Christian evangelist drivel, how soon before they imagine themselves warriors in the battle of Armageddon. How soon before they, the ultimate terrorists fanatics, decide that the ends justify the means, and that a nuclear option against "evil" like they see in North Korea or Iran is justified.
We are a secular country for a reason. Religion is a private matter, and when it poisons the political views of Americans, it prevents the unity that is necessary if our country is to survive as a single cohesive nation. When our country was founded, it was within historical memory of the religious wars in England, when your religion, Protestant or catholic, was more important than your citizenship. When we have leaders or generals who don’t know enough to keep their religious beliefs strictly private, they should be disbarred from public or military life.
9:25:22 PM | |
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Wednesday, October 15, 2003 |
Bush’s 2004 Warchest
Not much is being said of the fund-raising report released by the Bush camp yesterday to the FEC. My friend Shawn sent me the CNN report by Robert Yoon, in which was reported that Bush raised an incredible $49.5 million dollars in the last quarter. The total amount raised is now $84 million dollars. The administration and the RNC would like you to believe that Bush is not focused on his re-election and is not yet actively campaigning, but Yoon reports otherwise--
...[T]he president has taken an active role in fund raising for his campaign. Roughly 83 percent of the $49.5 million raised from July through September and the $84 million raised overall came from fund-raising events that the president or vice president attended, campaign aides said.
In comparison, the six leading candidates for the Democrats have raised approximately $34.5 million; Howard Dean has raised $15 million of that amount.
I don’t have to lecture anyone on the benefits of money. But when one considers that the amount of money is grossly larger for the reigning and more aggressive party, especially considering the positive media attention, commercial airtime, and expensive theatrics that will barrage the more easily-influenced viewer as a result of this money, it should not be hard to realize that this one factor could win Bush a second term.
Even though the fundraising for Democrats will pick up when the presidential candidate is selected, I don’t consider this good news at all...not at all.
Toby’s Political Diary comments on Bush’s fund-raising efforts; it's a most fascinating blog. Toby compares the Rangers and Patriots who financially support Bush to jackals. Read Jackals feasting at the Trough.
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Tuesday, October 14, 2003 |
The Many Faces of Bush
The AP today published a disconcerting picture of Bush today as he spoke at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, part of the new PR move to spin the efforts in Iraq the way the Administration wants it to be viewed, which would be in a much more positive light than it should be. The photo shows the profile of Bush at the forefront of a large yellowish-orange globe, displaying Bush as a type of a saint, graced with a heavenly halo. Part of the PR campaign or happenstance? Hmmmm..... I wonder. (Picture forthcoming.)
Part 2 of this story is the fact that Bush went behind the back of the regular White House Press to answer questions about Iraq to those television media reporters friendlier to the Administration. The AP report can be read here.
If Bush knows what’s good for him, then he will put his money where his mouth is and get serious about frog-marching the senior administrators who leaked Joe Wilson’s wife’s name. In his article "Bush Had Better Take This Leak Seriously," John Podesto, the chief executive officer of the Center for American Progress and a visiting law professor at Georgetown University, who also served as a chief of staff under President Clinton, blamed the administration's handling of this incident as "at best curious and at worst irresponsible." He elaborated:
For example, his aides initially told The Post that the president had no plans to ask his staffers whether they played a role in revealing the name of an undercover officer married to Wilson. His national security adviser, on national television, treated the matter as unsubstantiated press speculation rather than the grave security breach it was. His chief of staff and White House counsel waited more than 11 hours after notice from the Justice Department and more than two days after the story broke in The Post to instruct the staff to preserve records and e-mails concerning the matter. And, perhaps most disturbing, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Ed Gillespie, was dispatched to virtually every cable outlet in the country to further discredit Wilson, a strategy one Republican aide on Capitol Hill referred to as "slime and defend."
Furthermore, Podesto urged Bush to do the following:
[T]he president should make clear to his White House political operatives, the RNC and friends of the administration that they are to cease and desist from the attacks on Wilson and his wife. Wilson served our country with distinction under both Republican and Democratic administrations. His only offense appears to be that he told the truth. He does not deserve the treatment he is getting, and further efforts to malign and intimidate him would raise serious questions of obstruction of justice.</ | |
