# Posted 11:56 PM by David Adesnik  

STOP PLAYING WITH MY MONEY!!! Why didn't anyone tell me about the new Louisiana Purchase commemorative nickel? I was emptying pockets just now and saw what I figured must be a Canadian nickel, so I was feeling pretty ripped off. But then I took a closer look.

My first thought was: Which Bush administration offficial decided to mint a coin honoring successful American negotiations with France? Was this the brainchild of ironic liberal bureaucrats at the Treasury Department? Or had the neo-conservative cabal decided to mock the French for getting suckered in one of the worst real estate deals in recorded history?

As far as I can tell, the answer is 'neither'. Amazingly, the US Mint has designed a memorial to the Louisiana Purchase that doesn't even suggest that the French had anything to do with it. Instead, the back side of the nickel depicts an American soldier shaking hands with a Native American. Above the clasped hands are a peace pipe and a tomahawk.

Talk about no sense of irony. What do you suppose that the American soldier is telling his Native counterpart? "I just bought your home from the French"? As it turns out, the clasped hands & peace pipe design was first used on medals that the Jefferson administration minted in preparation for the Lewis & Clark expedition. The explorers then gave the medals to native chiefs and other dignitaries as signs of friendship.

The reverse of the friendship medals, much like today's nickels, had a portrait of Thomas Jefferson. What an egomaniac. Imagine if George Bush put his own portrait on the Iraqi dinar. Well, at least Bush is trying to promote democracy in Iraq. Jefferson and his successors were more interested in a permanent occupation. (I guess if the NYT were in business back then, it would insist that the United States had gotten itself into a quagmire in Nebraska.)

Anyhow, while we're on the subject of coins, I'd just like to state for the record that all the new state quarters are boring and dumb. Do I really need a picture of a race car on my Indiana quarter? No offense meant to any Hoosiers or racing fans (both of whom I like), but shouldn't our money be a little more dignified? What's next? A shirtless David Hasselhoff on the California quarter?

Also, I don't want there to be fifty different coins. Yes, I know the government makes a lot of money by creating instant collectibles. Even the new Jefferson nickels are expected to result in a $100 million profit. And it is good to see the government coming up with innovative market-based revenue plans. Maybe I could've accepted 13 quarters, one for each of the original states. But fifty is just ridiculous.

Oh, and while I'm ranting, I think that the next three Americans to get their own coins should be Harry Truman, Martin Luther King Jr. and Eleanor Roosevelt. They bumped Franklin off of the half dollar and replaced him with Kennedy in 1964. OK, so maybe they should've issued JFK coins for a couple of years as a tribute. But isn't Franklin just a little more important? And what exactly are we honoring Kennedy for? He got us into a quagmire!

MLK Jr. got shot four years after JFK and what did he get? Nothing. Why? Because that's the way The Man wanted it. It's not like I'm saying we should put Malcolm X on the dime. But what if we take JFK off the half dollar and give it to Martin? Or what about the golden dollar? It's not like too many people really care about Sacagawea.

Now, Harry Truman, what he really deserves is to be on the Russian ruble. Every time a Russian spends money in a free market, he or she has Harry Truman to thank. (We've heard rumors of the Reagan dime, but he isn't dead yet. And he didn't win the Cold War!) Of course, since Truman won't be getting his due from the Russians, I figure we should thank him for all that he did.

Finally, Eleanor Roosevelt. She was so multilateralist she helped found the United Nations. She also played a big role in coming up with its Declaration of Human Rights. And she's a woman. And she was gay. Now that's what I call killing two birds with one stone.

Finally thoughts? Yes. Put Jimmy Carter on a coin whose value is indexed to the rate of inflation. And is only legal tender in Europe. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:23 PM by Patrick Belton  

WE MAY NOT BE ABLE TO SINGLE-HANDEDLY DUMB DOWN AMERICA, BUT BY GOD WE'LL TRY, AWARD: Goes to USA Today, for managing to combine stunning amounts of both condescension and needless confusion in this answer:

Q: What is the formula for converting pressure in millibars of pressure to inches of mercury?

You don't really need a formula. The "standard" atmospheric pressure at sea level is 29.92 inches of mercury, or 1013.2 millibars. In other words, these numbers are the same, but in different measurement systems. Anyway, if you see a pressure on a weather map of, say, 1016 millibars, you can convert to inches of mercury by multiplying by 29.92 and dividing by 1013.2 to come up with 30.00 inches of mercury.

Why? Think of the rules for cancellation. When you multiply by inches of mercury and divide by millibars, the millibars cancel out and you're left with inches of mercury. And, it's OK to do the multiplication and division because the numbers represent the same air pressure. A number divided by itself is 1 and when you multiply a number by 1 you get the original number. To go the other way from inches of mercury to millibars, you just divide by inches of mercury and multiply by millibars. This method is a good way to do all sorts of conversions without memorizing a bunch of formulas, as long as you know one equivalent set of numbers in the two systems.

Or, for those of you who got lost somewhere in that mess of USA Today-speak, you could alternatively just use (milibars) * 0.02953 = (inches of mercury). (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:19 PM by Patrick Belton  

OXFORD MEETS BAYWATCH: Current Oxford graduate student Amanda Kempa competed in the world beach lifeguarding championship held, need you ask, in Los Angeles. Said Professor-to-be Kempa: "The first time we pulled out a kid, it was, like, what’s happening? At first, you can tell they were scared, because they don’t know what you’re going to do, but then, it’s like ‘Can we do it again?'”
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# Posted 5:21 PM by Patrick Belton  

PAGING DAVID: I think we've found you your next research project for after your dissertation.... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:03 AM by Patrick Belton  

WHAT AMERICA DOES WITH ITS HEGEMONY WATCH: This via email from Baghdad (and just in the off chance you won't be hearing about it on the evening news):

A new multipurpose recreation facility has opened in the Al Dura neighborhood, benefiting thousands of residents in Baghdad's Al Rashid district.

The Al Dura Sports Complex includes a soccer field with bleachers, basketball court, a place for volleyball and a playground with several types of exercise equipment. The area was a vacant lot full of trash when the project started. It is an example of renovating and improving areas for public recreation called for by Ambassador Bremer in his Baghdad Beautiful initiative.

This success is the result of neighborhood District Advisory Council (DAC) leaders working together with the US Army First Cavalry Division to determine a project which would most help the area.

The ribbon cutting ceremony opening the facility was led by Sami Ahmed Sharif, the Al Rashid DAC Chairman, and Colonel Stephen Lanza of the US Army First Cavalry Division. Also in attendance were Baghdad City Councilman Sabin Radhi Zubun and US Army Brigadier General Jeffrey Hammond. Over 500 local residents, mostly children and their parents, attended the ceremony

Councilman Saba' Radhi Zubun said, "This will benefit many families in my district. For example, 60 soccer teams will play here in a tournament soon. And there are five schools with over 1,000 children each who can use this facility."

The children liked it as well. A twelve year old named Jafa said, "This is a very good idea. I play soccer, and my brother is on the field right now playing for the Iraqi Police Service team." His friend Mustafa added, "Thank you, American Army!" A soccer game was played between the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps (ICDC) and the Iraqi Police Service (IPS). IPS was victorious by a score of 2 to 0.

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# Posted 5:20 AM by Patrick Belton  

AND SEMANTIC (NOT SEMITIC) ACCENT ANECDOTE OF THE DAY: This comes via our good friend Josh Cherniss (this is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true).

Roughly eight years ago, a Yale professor with a strongly Southern accent was giving the final lecture of his class on Faulkner, and advised his students that in studying for the final exam, they should focus particular attention upon "Sarah Sally Dang." Mystified, the students spent the entirety of reading week searching through the entire Faulknerian corpus and critical literature in vain for any mention of Sally Dang. Finally, with no one having encountered any such thing, they arrived at the exam confident that their professor had played an odd, and undoubtedly humourous, joke on them, the punch line of which he was about to reveal.

At precisely which point they received their blue books, and eight tightly spaced pages of questions about As I Lay Dying. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:08 AM by Patrick Belton  

OXBLOG AND OPTIMISTS CLUB JOINT HEADLINE OF THE DAY PRIZE: "Qatar plans tourist boom" (CNN)

(Incidentally, Josh, David, and I applied to join the Oxfordshire Optimists Club, but personally I don't think they'll let us in.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:23 AM by Daniel  

IS IT GOOD FOR THE JEWS? I just got back from the 5th Annual New England Leadership AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) dinner and had a great time. For a few hours, I forgot that I was in law school and became that guy at Oxford who always talks about America and Israel and finds a way to work it into every conversation. However, instead of running away, people nodded and kept wanting to discuss it! In that way it was not like Oxford. Also, unlike Oxford, everybody seemed pretty pro-Israel.

The event began with a reception for AIPAC Club Members, which I believe refers to those who give AIPAC many thousands of dollars (not tax deductible, mind you). We did not give many thousands of dollars, but made our way in. They had a great spread with delicious sushi (kosher, of course). We proceeded upstairs to the main event, where elected officials from New England competed in a game of "Who Could Possibly Be More Pro Israel Than Me?." After some introductory remarks, they played a video championing AIPAC's importance, including television news clips where news anchors referred to AIPAC's power. The video also showed Clinton Bush, Daschle, Sharon, Barak, Peres, and Rabin at AIPAC events where they too talked about AIPAC's importance.

Only nerds who studied AIPAC and America's relationship with Israel would have noted the irony of AIPAC including a clip of Rabin's praise for it. In late 1992, after one of AIPAC's VPs had said Rabin had "chutzpuh" for proposing territorial concessions, he reportedly scolded the organization's heads in a closed meeting, saying "You have failed at everything. You waged lost battles. You caused damage to Israel. You created too much antagonism." The Israel Policy Forum was created in 1993, a primary purpose of which was to create American support for Rabin's efforts (AIPAC was seen as dragging its feet in this regard). Rabin's confrontation with AIPAC makes sense: it is much easier to defend an embattled Israel, and when it seemed like Israel was no longer embattled and did not need to be defended from its enemies (or certainly less so), then AIPAC has lost its cause. It just seemed a bit awkward for them to include a clip of his praise for the organization. Or maybe I'm just a nerd. People nearly hissed when they showed clips of Arafat screaming in Arabic and grisly suicide bombing scenes. Those who had to tone down their anti-Arafat rhetoric during the early Oslo years must have wanted to say "I told you so" a few times to a few people.

Susan Collins (R-ME) gave a nice keynote address in which she addressed Israel's challenges as well as those faced by Jews worldwide. She finished strong with a quote from Amos Oz about how Jews in Europe used to be told to go to Palestine, and now they are told to leave Palestine...." She finished with the words "never again" and the crowd gave her a standing ovation.

The experience confirmed my feelings about how AIPAC's opponents and the organization itself often employ identical rhetoric: they say that AIPAC is all powerful. Its critics can do this as a way to ignore the considerable non-Jewish support that exists for Israel absent any lobby group, and AIPAC can use it as a fundraising tool--"you can support the most powerful organization affecting America's relationship with Israel!" It was nice to see so many supporters of Israel in one place, but there were several reminders that we are a long way away from Arab-Israeli peace. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:47 PM by David Adesnik  

MASTERING THE ART OF COUNTERINSURGENT WARFARE: Belmont Club has a pair of interesting posts about Coalition forces' subtle integration of military and political initiatives in Fallujah and Najaf. I hope his analysis is correct. If it is, we should see the results soon enough. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:40 AM by Patrick Belton  

THE CPA IS INDICATING BGEN Kimmitt will be making an important announcement this afternoon, at 2:30 Iraqi time.

UPDATE: And here is the announcement - an American hostage, Thomas Hamill, has escaped from his captors. He returned to the CPA, and indicated that he was healthy and eager to get back to work.

In other recent news, the tabloid photographs of British soldiers abusing an Iraqi prisoner appear to have been fabricated, according to recent reports. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:50 PM by Patrick Belton  

JUSTICE DAVID SOUTER is one of the nicest, most moderate and thoughtful people to presently occupy a position in the American bench. Which is why this is really awfully sad. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:31 PM by Patrick Belton  

HEY, LOOKEY, EUROPE JUST GOT ANOTHER TEN MEMBERS!

With that said, Rachel and I are off now to Magdalen to hear the May Morning Hymn Hymnus Eucharisticus sung, per tradition, dreadfully early on May morning annually as a requiem for the soul of Henry VII. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:19 PM by David Adesnik  

VEEPSTAKES: It takes guts for a political scientist to actually predict something. That's because all that political scientists really have are their reputations, and they can't afford to put those on the line. So here's a shout out to Larry Sabato, who isn't afraid to put his money where his mouth is. Click here for a digest of Larry's latest picks, via TMV. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:50 PM by David Adesnik  

MEMO TO VILLAGE: OUR IDIOT(ARIAN) IS LOOSE. This is the second time in 10 days that I have felt compelled to use the 'I'-word. It is also the second time in 10 days that I have felt compelled to use this word as a result of something said at a dinner sponsored by my own research institute. Finally, it is the second time in 10 days that I have felt compelled to use this word because of someone's unjust criticism of Israel and extreme naivete with regard to Palestinian 'activists'.

So here's the story: Our guest tonight was a very high-ranking official at the United Nations. Our discussion focused primarily on Iraq. It was a fascinating discussion upon which I will elaborate in a later post. An important concern raised in the discussion was the absence of an Arab model for Iraqi democrats to emulate. On that point, a question was asked by a certain graduate fellow in international relations known for her uncritical embrace of Palestinian 'activists'. If she were just one of the Trotskyites or Lyndon LaRouche supporters hawking flyers in Harvard Square, I would ignore her. But her intention is to become a professor. Therefore, she will be in a position to access hundreds of students who may not have access to another credible source of information. That is sad.

Now here is what my colleague asked: Given that the United States continues to have strong alliances with Arab dictatorships and continues to endorse the Israeli occupation of Palestine, might it be said that the United States has prevented the emergence of an Arab model of democracy for Iraq to emulate? All right. That is a standard argument found in the pages of The Nation. In fact, the President himself has said that the United States must no longer embrace Arab dictatorships.

But here's what really left my jaw hanging open. Before turning the floor back over to our guest, my colleague added that the first Intifada was a landmark example of democratic participation in Arab politics that the United States and Israel crushed without a second thought. Oh my God. The first Intifada happens to be one of the subjects of my colleague's doctoral dissertation. She will be arguing in journals and lecture halls that this was the lost model of Arab democracy.

My only consolation is that sometimes, people like this get their comeuppance. A number of months ago, this same colleague of mine delivered a paper on the subject of non-violent resistance. Her case study was the first Intifada. In the audience there happened to be a former Israeli soldier who is also a current graduate fellow at Harvard. He said to her: I served in the occupied territories during the first Intifada. Was it a non-violent rock that Palestinian rioters used to crush the face of one of my close friends? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:19 PM by David Adesnik  

JUSTICE, NOT FORGIVENESS: There is no excuse for the crude and humiliating treatment of Iraqi prisoners. The United States Army must punish the soldiers involved, including all those whose passivity and neglect enabled this shameful behavior to take place. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:30 PM by Patrick Belton  

NEWSPAPER REPORTING ON SCENARIOS FOR HANDLING SECURITY AMID THE HANDOVER: CS Monitor has a roundup. Andrew has more. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:58 AM by Patrick Belton  

IF YOU HAVEN'T YET READ DAN DREZNER'S TNR ESSAY today on why, counterintuitively, better prospects in Iraq seem to help Kerry, while Bush's lead has widened over the course of the Iraqi insurgency - then shoo!

(And Rachel has asked me to point out that Dan's blog is required reading for Truman National Security Project members, too.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:58 AM by Patrick Belton  

OXBLOG FRIDAY AFTERNOON REAL-LIFE-IS-ODDER-THAN-FICTION ROUNDUP:

• Most ambassadors to the UN are rather sad at the moment because....because...they're not being permitted to play the part of UN diplomats in an upcoming Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn film. Thus Inocencio Arias, Spanish ambassador to the UN, who was set to play a prime minister: "It was my dream that I was going to be in a movie with Sydney Pollack directing. My opportunity to have a nomination for the Oscar next year went away because of some stupid regulation."
  
  Jordan's UN ambassador Prince Zeid Al Hussein, similarly miffed, said: "It's a great shame we weren't allowed to have bit parts in this movie because we're very familiar with the setting."
  
  
• Only in Germany....A band in Germany, which performs only with giant panda heads covering their faces, is only releasing its subsequent albums in the form of mobile phone ringtones.
  
  
• The founder of terrorist organisation Ansar al-Islam lost his temper when a female Muslim comedian, having secured the cleric's permission to perform "a little test to see if he was a fundamentalist," walked on to the stage and picked up the cleric, while declaring to her audience "a man who can be carried by a woman can't be a fundamentalist." The cleric, Mullah Krekar, exploded in rage while the audience convulsed in laughter.
  
  
• Rhea County, Georgia Tennessee - whose principal, belated claim to fame had merely been providing the venue for the Scopes trial - briefly banned homosexuals by a unanimous vote of its county commissioners. When the commissioners were advised at a subsequent meeting by the county attorney that they could not actually ban homosexuals, they voted to rescind the ban, and have subsequently declined comment.
  
  
• Harvard Professor Weldong Xu, having raised $600,000 to fund a fraudulent nonexistent project of SARS research in China, then proceeded to blow the entire amount on a Nigerian email scam. (Note to self: remember to apply for professorship at Harvard - may actually be qualified!)
  

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# Posted 5:57 AM by Patrick Belton  

TODAY'S THE DEADLINE FOR OUR FOREIGN POLICY ESSAY CONTEST: Which means, of course, that there's still plenty of time to enter. Details are here. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:13 AM by Patrick Belton  

WHILE MOST COMMENTATORS ARE FOCUSING ON HIS FOREIGN POLICY or personality, the Economist displays a titular interest this week in Kerry's economic policies. Its verdict? There's good and bad there - first, the good. Kerry's plan to extend government health care to the uninsured is ambitious but more sensible than the early Clinton administration's proposal to reorganise the entire health-care sector. Also, in sterling contrast to the instincts of the current administration, he touts fiscal discipline (halving the budget deficit, and rolling back tax cuts on individuals earning over $200,000 a year).

Then, the worrying: while his trade rhetoric is nowhere near the protectionist nonsense touted by, for instance, the otherwise attractive Senator Edwards, in his desire to win over the battleground rust-belt states of the mid-west, Senator Kerry's trade policy is oriented around getting tough on China and Japan for manipulating their currency, and going after other countries engaging in unfair trade practices with the "Super 301" process. While this, erm, unilateralism isn't Ross Perot, neither is it the Clinton administration's leadership of new free trade rounds, either.

Finally, the inevitable: Candidate Kerry is not above subordinating the sensible, centrist economic instincts displayed by his Senate-floor counterpart to the dictates of appealing to an electorate. For instance, he has now distanced himself from his earlier bold proposals to restructure Social Security, claiming now that Social Security can survive as is without structural adjustment, raised reitrement age or premuims, or lowered benefits. Which, of course, is pure poppycock, but perhaps inevitable. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:44 AM by Patrick Belton  

A GOOD PART OF THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH'S ALLURE is that he's the only royal you could even remotely imagine having a pint with. This becomes increasingly the case as the proposition comes to involve an increasing number of pints. Case in point: a recent authorised portrait of Prince Phillip by avant-garde artist Pearson Wright, which depicted him with a fly perched on his finger and a naked torso modeled on that of an elderly homeless man. A more remote royal might simply have glared, but the response of the Prince Consort was precisely that of a middle-aged Londonner with a middling good-natured sense of humour: "Gadzooks - as long as I don't have to have it on my wall" and, asked whether he thought it looked like him, a candid "I bloody well hope not."

(As a further note, when Rachel and I were invited over to meet the family in August, he was, incidentally, by far the most friendly to us - which perhaps explains my source of personal bias. Admirable humility from someone whom the Pacific islanders on Tannu worship as a god.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:30 AM by Patrick Belton  

BRITISH CPA STAFFER RECEIVES AMERICAN AWARD FOR VALOR: This via email from the CPA press office, about a UK civilian who though injured saved the life of an army colonel and three others while under enemy fire:

Dr Andrew Rathmell, Director of Planning, Policy and Analysis at the Coalition Provisional Authority, today received the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Valor. The medal was presented by Ambassador L. Paul Bremer at a ceremony at the CPA Headquarters in Baghdad.

On January 21st 2004, Dr Rathmell was visiting the Forward Operating Base Warhorse in Baquba with civilian and military colleagues. While in Baquba, Dr Rathmell was caught in a mortar and rocket attack on the base. One mortar landed close to Dr Rathmell, and he was knocked to the ground, temporarily deafened by the blast. Despite his injury, Dr Rathmell was able to drag US Army Colonel Ralph Sabatino to safety, before running into the line of fire three more times to administer potentially life-saving first aid to others who were wounded, and tragically confirm that two soldiers were already dead.

As Ambassador Bremer presented the award to Dr Rathmell, he said "valor at risk of your own life requires strength of purpose sufficient to overcome the love of life, the fear of death. Andrew Rathmell is not a professional warrior, but he displayed the courage and coolness under fire to which all warriors aspire".

This might serve as a fairly moving reminder that even in our day, heroism is not dead. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:04 AM by David Adesnik  

IS SISTANI A FEMINIST? This post from NZ Bear may not answer the question, but it sure will make you laugh. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:48 PM by David Adesnik  

MEDALGATE II -- HEAVY MEDAL: Marine Rifleman (Ret.) JC writes that

Medals and ribbons are NOT considered to be interchangeable uniform accoutrements by anyone who served or is serving on active duty. In fact, in 1971, it would be possible for one to replace his ribbons with store bought official copies -- but not the medals. Medals were controlled items issued by the government. If you lost one (or several) they were hell to replace. John Kerry knew this then and knows it now.

That being the case, how do Kerry's explanations of the medal throwing incident stack up with it? JS writes:

Did you see the clip from the [1971] interview? [No, just read about it. -ed.] It was aired on Monday on The News on CNBC in a report from Kelly O'Donnell (the report was probably also shown on NBC Nightly News).

Here's a transcript of the clip:

INTERVIEWER: How many did you give back, John?

KERRY: I gave back -- I can't remember, six, seven, eight, nine medals (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

INTERVIEWER: Well, you were awarded the Bronze Star, a Silver Star, and three Purple Hearts.

KERRY: Well, and above that...

INTERVIEWER: Right.

KERRY: ... I gave back my others.

If you watch the clip, by "that" he was referring not to what he'd given back but to the interviewer's list of what he had been awarded; and by "I gave back my others" he meant: Yes, I was awarded those you just mentioned, but I was also awarded other decorations, and those are the ones I gave back (not the decorations you listed but the others).

That's a pretty good argument, but I'm not persuaded. When Kerry says "and above that...I gave back my others" he seems to be explaining how it was possible for him to have given back six or more medals if he'd only been awarded five. But that isn't the whole story. DC writes that

If you heard Kerry on Hardball last night or went to the site showing military ribbons with their medals attached to them, you would see that the medals are attached to the ribbons above them. Most soldiers don't usually wear the medals on their uniform, they only wear the ribbons. Purple Hearts, Bronze and Silver Stars all have corresponding medals. So when he said that in 1971 he threw his Bronze, Silver Star and Purple Hearts he was referring to the ribbons of the Silver and Bronze Star and the Purple Hearts. Ergo he didn't lie or mislead in 71 or 84 or now.

On Hardball he indicated he had gone to Washington with just his ribbons. Also the vets had initially come to Washington with no plan to toss medals. That was only decided the night before (with Kerry arguing against it and losing) because the Nixon administration had put up a fence which angered them. Military men or vets don't usually travel with their medals or wear the medals on their uniform. They wear the ribbons instead.

That seems like a good explanation, but then why does Kerry describe himself in the '71 interview as throwing back "medals"? If the distinction was so clear to all the veterans involved, why does Kerry continue to insist that "what I said was and back then, you know, ribbons, medals were absolutely interchangeable"?

By the way, I asked yesterday Kerry had gotten so defensive and tried to blame Medalgate on the GOP attack machine if he himself were responsible for it. As JS (same JS as above, same JS as yesterday, still doing research on OxBlog's behalf) points out, the only reason ABC got its hands on the '71 interview was that the GOP sent it to them. Still, it's sort of strange that Kerry is blaming the GOP for what he himself said (a long time ago).

Finally, we get to a letter from GH. He writes

I'm not the least convinced that Kerry was acting bravely during his three month stint in-country. Recall that he was awarded, at least, three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star, and a Silver Star. Many, including me, went in harm's way almost every day for a year or more and didn't collect an array like that.

I'm not sure what to say about that. As someone who has never put his life on the line for his country, Kerry's actions seem extremely impressive to me. But if his fellow veterans don't buy his story, then Kerry will pay for it at the polls.


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# Posted 6:24 PM by David Adesnik  

HOW THE NYT MANUFACTURES PUBLIC OPINION: Take a look at the front page of today's NY Times. When you're done looking at the stunning photo of colorfully-attired entrepreneurs in Bangladesh, look over to the headline at the top left that reads "Support For War Is Down Sharply, Poll Concludes".

That's some pretty big news, especially given that last weeks WaPo/ABC poll resulted in the headline "Poll Shows New Gains For Bush". So what happened? According to the first three grafs of the NYT article,

Support for the war in Iraq has eroded substantially over the past several months, and Americans are increasingly critical of the way President Bush is handling the conflict, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.

After initially expressing robust backing for the war, the public is now evenly divided over whether the United States military should stay for as long as it takes to stabilize Iraq or pull out as soon as possible, the poll showed.

Asked whether the United States had done the right thing in taking military action against Iraq, 47 percent of respondents said it had, down from 58 percent a month earlier and 63 percent in December, just after American forces captured Saddam Hussein. Forty-six percent said the United States should have stayed out of Iraq, up from 37 percent last month and 31 percent in December.

The first thing you need to know about the NYT poll is that there was a single question (#56) which asked

Looking back, do you think the United States did the right thing in taking military action against Iraq, or should the US have stayed out?

If you don't think that the US did the right thing, then you have to answer that it should've stayed out (or just not answer the question). I think that's somewhat of a misleading question, since there are probably a good number of Americans who believe that we did was right but, in hindsight, was a mistake. However, in order to get a fuller sense of why the NYT poll is misleading, you have to take a look at the sidebar entitled "Different Poll Results But Much in Common". The sidebar explains that

Wording differences among polls can [also] have a significant effect. In the ABC News/Washington Post poll, 51 percent said that the war in Iraq had been worth fighting, "all in all, considering the costs to the United States versus the benefits to the United States." That number was down from 56 percent in January and 59 percent in December. Forty-seven percent said it was not worth fighting, up from 41 percent in January and 39 percent in December...

Every polling organization has different ways of wording questions and of conducting surveys, but those methods tend to remain consistent over time within an organization. For this reason, the trends within an organization's polling are generally viewed as more relevant than the results from polls by different organizations within a short period of time

Now, I agree in principle that trends over time are an extremely important indicator of public opinion. But depending on what window of time you're looking at, trend lines can have a very different message. For example, the NYT started asking its 'done the right thing/should've stayed out' question (#56) in mid-December 2003. Thus, the 17 point decline among those who answered 'done the right thing' reflects the artificial high in support for the war that followed Saddam's capture. Moreover, there was only a 6 point decline from December to March, then an 11 point decline from March to April. Does that kind of single observation merit its own headline?

[CORRECTION APPENDED 5/9: JH points out that the NYT asked Question #56 both immediately before (Dec. 10-13) and immediately after (Dec. 14-16) Saddam's capture. There was only a one point difference between the answers. Thus, I was wrong to say that the 63 percent benchmark represented an artificial post-capture high.

One should point out, however, that the NYT had never asked Question #56 before Dec. 10-13/Dec. 14-16 and did not ask it again for a number of months. So first of all, there is no real benchmark against which to measure the mid-December results. This is especially important, since the second mid-December survey took place while the news of Saddam's capture had begun to spread. Second of all, one cannot confirm whether or not the December results were accurate since no further samples were taken until March.

By way of comparison, Question #13 in the WaPo survey (see below), which is analogous to Quesiton #56, was asked consistently over time. It demonstrated that there was, in fact, a post-capture high in support for the war, one which gradually dissipated thereafter.]

Perhaps. Before answering that question, take a look at the answer to Question #13 in the WaPo/ABC poll, which asked

All in all, considering the costs to the United States versus the benefits to the United States, do you think the war with Iraq was worth fighting, or not?

On April 18, there was a 51-47 margin in favor of 'It was worth fighting'. But what's really interesting is that the Post has been asking the exact same question at regular intervals since last April. By last July, support for the war had already fallen below 60 percent. In November if tell to 52 percent. It then rose to 59 after Saddam's capture before falling back to 51 percent today.

So if the NYT staff is so well aware of the important of trends over time, how did they manage to ignore the most important evidence against their conclusion that support for the war is dramatically down? Who knows.

Anyhow, I also think its extremely interesting that the NYT poll doesn't have a question like #11 in the WaPo poll, which asks respondents to say whether Bush or Kerry would deal better with a specific issue (taxes, healthcare, etc.). Instead, the NYT poll asks separate questions (#46 and #51) about whether Bush and Kerry will be able to handle the situation in Iraq effectively. Surprisingly, both men get around a 60-40 vote of confidence, with Kerry doing just slightly better. When it comes to fighting terrorism (Questions #47 and #51), both men get around a 75-25 vote of approval, with Bush supporters more likely to have a lot of confidence in the candidate.

Given that Bush continues to beat out Kerry by 30-point margins whenever voters are asked who will do a better job of fighting the war on terror, I think it's fair to say that asking separate questions about the candidates ability says very little about whom voters prefer. After all, the best way to explain why voters disapprove of how Bush is handling the situation in Iraq but still want to vote for him is that they think Kerry would do even worse.

In closing, I'd like to take a quick look at the second statistic that the NYT uses to demonstrate that suppor for the war has fallen sharply. According to Question #69, the public is evenly split at 46-46 about whether the US should stay in Iraq until it is a "stable democracy" or whether it should pull out "even if Iraq is not completely stable".

Again, the trend line on this question only goes back to last November, when the split was 49-43. It rose to 56-35 after Saddam's capture. Then, for some reason, the NYT didn't ask the question again until this past week. As a result, there was a sudden 10 percent drop in support for sticking it out.

The most comparable question to that in the WaPo/ABC poll is #17, whether the US should stay in Iraq until it restores order, even if that means taking more casualties. Surprisingly, the margin on that one is 66-33 in favor. But again, the question hadn't been asked since last fall, so there isn't much of a trend line to look out.

All in all, I'd say the NYT has a lot to learn about interpreting poll results and even more to learn about writing headlines.

# Posted 6:17 PM by Patrick Belton  

TEST-DRIVING GMAIL, PART DEUX: At one point last week, I reviewed Gmail here, on which I'd been allowed a test spin. (Hey, you think anybody would let me take out one of these next?) What I didn't yet have the ability to do was assess how Joe Google's latest project dealt with spam. So, I listed my gmail account, Patrick.Belton@gmail.com, on our blog. Once. Of the resulting 64 spam messages which winged their way to me in the following week, 50 went into the spam folder, 14 ended up in my inbox, and 3 more were from readers writing to offer me Nigerian diamonds. Thanks.

Note to Joe Google (actually, Sergey - and he sometimes wears a dress): you might want to work on the spam filter a bit more.

And note to everyone else: if you want to know how to amuse yourself with your Nigerian spammer, this guy's got the right idea. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:29 PM by Patrick Belton  

BUT I WANT TO KNOW WHAT YOU'RE REALLY FEELING: Harvard's Institute of Politics has released its annual study of undergraduate political attitudes, led by David King. Like always, it makes an interesting read. The surprising news is that centrists predominate among college students - the breakdown produces 29 percent secular centrists and 23 percent religious centrists, compared with 32 percent traditional liberals and a 16 percent traditional conservatives. The good news for the Senator is that college students are trending strongly toward him, toward the Democratic party, and souring on the war. The good news for the President is that swing voters - the two categories of centrists - are currently leaning toward him. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:27 AM by Patrick Belton  

KERRY'S IRANIAN-AMERICAN FUNDRAISER SUING THE IRANIAN STUDENTS: More here. Hassan Nemazee, a New York-based financier who favours closer ties with Iran and has raised $100,000 to date for the Kerry campaign, has taken the surprising step of taking the Iranian students' organisation to court to seek $10 million in damages. While details are a bit sketchy at the moment, Nemazee seems to be suing the students for this letter, in which they rather heatedly referred to him as an "agent."

An established Democratic fundraiser and longtime proponent of conciliation with the clerical government of Iran, Nemazee was denied an ambassadorship to Argentina in the Clinton administration when details of his past business dealings came to light. The entire latest affair seems rather silly all around, and above all regrettable as it seems to draw a further wedge between the Kerry camp and the much-needed cause of reform in Iran. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:29 AM by Patrick Belton  

A VICTORY FOR ANTI-ANTI-SEMITES: A few weeks ago, Josh had pointed out that the first of 1.75 million entries to appear for a Google search on "Jew" was, in actuality, an anti-Semitic site. As a result, we and a number of our blogosphere friends began a Google-bomb to instead propel Wikipedia's entry for the word Jew to the top of the search records. And, if you'd like to Google yourself to see, we can now happily report that the Wikipedia entry stands now proudly at the top!

An attempt by the anti-Semitic site's owners to vandalise the Wikipedia article notwithstanding, what's most noteworthy of mention is that the preponderant portion of the bloggers taking part in removing the vitriolic site from the top of the search results weren't even Jewish at all. Which reflects awfully well, I think, both on the great-spiritedness of the greatest portion of our society and that of the blogosphere. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:22 AM by Patrick Belton  

ANOTHER PAPER UP IN OUR THINK TANK: Yusuf Muntaz in our Asia program has just finished a stellar piece on US policy toward Sri Lanka and the conflict between its Sinhalese Buddhist-led national government and Tamil Tiger insurgency. His paper presents a nice review of US interests in the nation, connections between the Tamil insurgency and various criminal and terrorist organisations, and different strategies which Washington could adopt.

You can download it here. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:40 PM by David Adesnik  

MEDALGATE:

You write:

"But if someone asked me whether or not I had thrown away my medals, I'm pretty sure that I would be brave enough to tell the truth."

I guess you haven't had a chance to keep up on this issue. Check out Thomas Oliphant's column yesterday in the Boston Globe.

Salient points: (1) Kerry didn't have his medals with him that day (or the entire week in Washington, as it happened), only his ribbons, so that's what he threw. (2) "Medals" is often used in the military to include ribbons. It didn't occur to Kerry during those early interviews to make a distinction. [Emphasis added. -ed.] (3) Later in the day he returned to throw the medals of two other vets who couldn't be at the demonstration, at their request.

See the Oliphant piece for context. He was there, right behind Kerry in the line of vets tossing their medals.

There is no evidence anywhere that Kerry ever lied about whether he had thrown away his medals. It's an utterly bogus issue, and you ought to stop perpetuating it. You might even think about explaining to your readers that it *is* a bogus issue.

JS

To my mind, the italicized words above are the most important. Oliphant writes was that "It was clear from our [Oliphant and Kerry's] conversations back then and ever since that Kerry made no distinction among his various decorations, though others have." Yet according to ABC,

Kerry was asked [in 1971] if he gave back the Bronze Star, Silver Star and three Purple Hearts he was awarded for combat duty as a Navy lieutenant in Vietnam. "Well, and above that, [I] gave back the others," he said.

The statement directly contradicts Kerry's most recent claims on the disputed subject to the Los Angeles Times last Friday. "I never ever implied that I did it, " Kerry told the newspaper, responding to the question of whether he threw away his medals in protest.

If ABC has its story right, then Kerry didn't make a public distinction between medals and ribbons back in 1971 because he claimed to have given back both of them. But privately, Kerry understood the distinction, which is why kept the medals and gave back the ribbons. Anyhow, ABC also reports that

In 1984, when he first ran for the U.S. Senate, Kerry revealed he still had his medals. According to a Boston Globe report on April 15, 1984, union officials had expressed uneasiness with Kerry's candidacy because he had thrown his medals away. Kerry acknowledged the medals he threw away were, in fact, another soldier's medals. He reportedly invited a union official home to personally inspect his Silver Star, Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts, awarded for his combat duty as a Navy lieutenant.

In the 1971 Viewpoints interview, he made no mention of the ribbons or the medals belonging to another veteran.

And in 1988, Kerry again clarified his statement by saying he threw out ribbons he had been awarded for three combat wounds, but not his medals. "I was proud of my personal service and remain so," he told the National Journal.

Eight years later in 1996, Kerry said while he did throw out his ribbons, he didn't throw out his own medals because he "didn't have time to go home [to New York] and get them," he told The Boston Globe.

So what's really going on here? My guess is that Kerry himself forgot about the 1971 interview and was just as surprised as anyone else to see it broadcast on ABC. Thus, I don't think that Kerry was lying to Peter Jennings when he said he never even implied that he had thrown away the medals. But it's hard to avoid the conclusion that Kerry was consciously lying in 1971 if he claimed to have thrown away his medals after intentionally leaving them at home. I'd even speculate that Kerry was intentionally taking out insurance on his political future, since he knew that he was going to run on his war-hero image and couldn't do that if he'd thrown his medals away.

As for Kerry's inconsistent comments about the medals during his various Senate races, those aren't really worth bothering with. What really gets me is that on Good Morning America, Kerry tried to pin all the blame for this controversy on the GOP attack machine rather than recognize that his own questionable behavior was responsible for it. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:15 PM by David Adesnik  

THANKS, MOM: Mother Jones has posted the rest of George Packer's column on blogs. Kevin Drum adds his thoughts on the subject, which are slightly more critical than before. I still think that Packer is seriously underestimating the quality of what reads in the blogosphere, but I can't figure out why because we seem to read the same blogs. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:02 PM by David Adesnik  

QUESTIONS WITHOUT ANSWERS: The Christian Science Monitor is running a profile of Moqtada Sadr that provides a lot more information than usual about Sadr's influential father. This historical perspective is extremely important, given that Sadr's influence rests entirely on the legacy of his martyred father.

In spite of this historical perspective, however, the CSM profile leaves a lot of important questions unanswered. The profile suggests that the Sadr family's resentment of Ayatollah Sistani reflects the failure of the latter to speak out against Saddam during his reign. That makes sense, but I'd like to see some more evidence. One can also infer from the CSM article that the Sadr family's commitment to Islamic theocracy, which as far as I know, Sistani opposes.

But what is Islamic theocracy or wilayat al-faqih? Is there any room for democracy in Sadr's theocratic vision? The CSM tells us that Sadr wants to rebuild Iraq in the image of Iran. But does he want to create Khatami's Iran or Khomeini's Iran? Is there a place in Sadr's vision for Sunni muslims, both Arab and Kurd?

In its closing paragraph, CSM endorses the view that Sadr's current uprising is directed more at Sistani than at the Americans. That's plausible. But it raises an interesting question: What was Sadr's position on the invasion of Iraq before it happened? Having lost both his father and two of his brothers to Saddam, it seems that Moqtada must have looked forward to the American invasion, even if he saw it as a prelude to a struggle with Sistani.

That said, how has American behavior since last April compared with Sadr's expectations? Did his theological anti-Americanism lead him to expect vicious human rights abuses by American soldiers? Does he believe even now that the United States actually wants to hold elections and withdraw from Iraq? What does he think about Sistani's relationship with the Americans?

Finally, to what degree do the Shi'ites of Iraq share Sadr's beliefs? The CSM profile insists that

The younger Sadr has built on his father's popularity and created a militant Shiite movement that has eclipsed many in the more moderate Shiite majority.

At the same time, it acknowledges that Sadr's current revolt has failed. But why did it fail if Sadr has ample public support? Do many Shi'ites share his belief that Sistani sold out to Saddam? I don't know.

Up until now, every major American paper has reported that reverence for Sistani is universal. Is it possible to support both Sistani and Moqtada? Again, I don't know. All in all, CSM deserves credit for printing information that often gets overlooked by others. At the same time, its profile has only begun to scratch the surface. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:42 PM by David Adesnik  

BRITISH DIPLOMATS REVOLT: Greg Djerejian analyzes a harsh letter sent to Tony Blair by scores of former diplomats, including what the Financial Times describes as "the cream of Foreign Office expertise in the 1990s".

The immediate cause of the diplomats' revolt is Blair's implicit support for the Bush-Sharon entente re: Gaza. But as Greg points out, the signatories also insist that the Anglo-American effort to promote democracy in Iraq is misguided and futile no matter how much "Iraqis may yearn for a democratic society".

That is a strange statement to say the least. Is it supposed to mean that even though the Iraqi people want democracy, they are so short-sighted and resentful that they would prefer to endure another civil war or dictatorship rather than let the British and the American take credit for promoting democracy in Iraq?

By that logic, the smartest thing for the Coalition to do is declare that it wants to restore Saddam to power. Then the proudly nationalist Iraqi people will establish a democracy just to spite us. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:23 PM by David Adesnik  

LIBYA TO LEAD GLOBAL PEACE MOVEMENT:

"Libya, which led the liberation movement in the third world, has decided to lead the peace movement all over the world," said Colonel Qaddafi.

Well, I guess that this what we should have expected from a nation that has been so active during its time as chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:00 PM by David Adesnik  

KRISTOF ADMITS 'I AM A BLOGGER': Having read about two-thirds of Nicholas Kristof's column on Iraq this morning, I was a hair's breadth away from deciding to fisk it. Then, Kristof announced that he is holding a poetry competition and that "winners will be quoted on my blog."

He didn't say "web log". He didn't explain what a blog was. He just made it seem perfectly normal for a New York Times columnist to have a blog. If that is so, then there's no need to get worked up when other leading insist that the revolution will not be blogged. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:09 PM by Patrick Belton  

PAGING DAN DREZNER: As a further note in the Department of Blogosphere Affairs - Halle Berry is newly single. You've just had a piece come out in Foreign Affairs. Now how's that for a convenient two-by-two matrix?

UPDATE: Oh, wait, Dan's married. In that case, erm, paging my cobloggers, then. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:52 PM by Patrick Belton  

BYE, BYE, EASTERBLOGG: On behalf of all those of us who were Gregg's daily readers, I'm awfully sorry to see him go. With his blog, the always excellent TNR site managed to somehow get even better, and as he moves on to other projects and punditries, we in the blogosphere owe him a fond farewell. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:23 PM by Patrick Belton  

REMEMBER HAITI? As rebels continue to roam the streets, an interim government conducts a witch-hunt on the associates of its predecessor, and the world turns a blind eye to a nation one month already out of the headlines, new allegations have come forth that the Dominican Republic aided the insurgents in February's rebellion. See Economist and the Haiti Support Group for more.

UPDATE: Not surprisingly, Randy Paul has more, too. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:06 AM by Patrick Belton  

OXBLOG BEST LINE OF THE DAY: From our good friend Bob Kokta, director of studies in our think tank, on returning to Fletcher to finish his dissertation after having surgery to excise a rather useless abdominal organ: "...Now where did I put that appendix?"

Get better soon, our friend! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:00 AM by Patrick Belton  

REASON TO AVOID THE NHS LIKE, ERR, THE PLAGUE, NO. 667:

A hospital nurse accused of attempting to murder four elderly patients was motivated by a drive to free up beds, a court has heard.

Prosecuting barrister Robin Spencer QC told the jury on Wednesday that Ms Salisbury was even heard urging one patient "give in, it's time to go", as she administered an overdose.

The court heard Ms Salisbury allegedly tried to kill James Byrne by repeatedly pressing the booster button on the device delivering diamorphine.

She is accused of trying to kill Reuben Thompson by removing his oxygen supply and she allegedly tried to kill Frank Owen by lying him on his back and telling another nurse: "With any luck his lungs will fill with fluid and he will die."

Mr Spencer said: "She was driven to free up a hospital bed but in fact there will always be another patient waiting. If she thought there was no hope of recovery, she didn't want to wait too long.

"If the patient could be made well enough to be discharged, she would aim for that, if not she would hasten death.

"One way or another, she wanted these patients off her ward."

Awww, and they say it's impossible to get efficient customer service here.... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:07 AM by David Adesnik  

WES CLARK ON JOHN KERRY:

After risking his life in Vietnam to save others, John Kerry earned the right to speak out against a war he believed was wrong.

First of all, does that mean that those who didn't risk their lives didn't have a right to speak out against the war? Second, does risking one's life also endow one with the right to lie about the ways in which one protested the war? Clark doesn't answer those questions, but he does say:

Make no mistake: it is [Kerry's] bravery these Republicans are now attacking.

I have a lot of respect for Kerry's bravery in Vietnam. In my life, I haven't done anything nearly as brave as serving in the armed forces or pulling an injured comrade out of the water in the midst of a firefight. But if someone asked me whether or not I had thrown away my medals, I'm pretty sure that I would be brave enough to tell the truth.

UPDATE: Steve Sturm adds to my post. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:55 AM by David Adesnik  

JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS DEAD...It looks like South Park is trying to cash in on the Passion. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:38 AM by David Adesnik  

THAT OTHER CONTROVERSIAL MOVIE ABOUT A DEAD JEWISH GUY: I just finished watching The Last Temptation of Christ. Leaving aside the theological issues it raises, I think it is a stunning cinematic achievement. But having been just 11 years old when it debuted in theaters, I have no recollection of precisely why it provoked such profound resentment among Christians who felt that their faith was being maligned.

Then again, it isn't hard to guess why Temptation became such a cause celebre. The film's greatest literary achievement and most perilous theological statement departure are one and the same. In the Gospel, the divinity of Christ makes him seem distant and superhuman even when he is in his human form. In the film, Jesus of Nazareth becomes a human being with tragic failures and complex motivations all his own.

As the film begins, Judas Iscariot discovers that the Carpenter has been making crosses and selling them to the Romans. After watching the crucifixion of a fellow Jew on a cross that he has made, Jesus endures the taunts of an embittered mob that accuses him of betraying his people. I suspect that the attribution of this sort of selfishness and cruelty to the Son of God approaches the blasphemous. Yet at the same time, the profound irony of portraying Christ as a maker of crosses provides the character of Jesus with a powerful and credible motivation for abandoning his home in Nazareth to become a wandering prophet.

On a similar note, I also suspect that the closing scenes of the film, in which the crucified Savior struggles against temptation, would violate many Christians' sense of propriety and decorum. In order to render Christ's temptation in an emotionally compelling and realistic manner, Scorsese once again lets Christ become more human and more flawed than Christian doctrine can accept.

Now, as a non-Christian, I cannot put myself in the shoes of a Christian watching the film. Nonetheless, I found the general tone of the film to be inspirational rather than offensive. If one can accept the artistic license taken by the director, then one can benefit from a vision of compassion that speaks to all of us and not just Christians. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:06 AM by David Adesnik  

SISTANI VS. SADR: Swopa has some interesting thoughts on the situation in Najaf, where Moqtada Sadr seems to have lost whatever popular support he might once have had. Even so, Sadr occupation of Najaf may have endowed him with enough resources to continue the fight against both Sistani and the Americans. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:49 PM by Patrick Belton  

WORTH READING TODAY: Larry Diamond is calling for a redoubled troop presence in Iraq, as well as a consistent policy of opposition to private militias and political benefits to militias who voluntarily lay down their arms to participate in democratic institutions. (Also see his Lou Dobbs appearance tonight, where he speaks on the current confrontation in Fallujah.) Fred Kagan, too, is calling for a few more good men in Iraq. And Reuel Marc Gerecht is calling for lots of things - consolidating Sistani's position in the Shi'a community and relying on him to suppress Sadr; avoiding the delusion that Iran is not trying to - a term of art - screw us in Iraq (as is, secondarily, the case with France and Germany); backing away from the Kurdish veto in the TAL, as well as if necessary from the TAL itself; and sending in the Marines to storm Fallujah.

Madeline Albright and Sen. John McCain (correctly, to my mind) call for renewed US sanctions on Burma, as well as a refusal of international recognition for the junta's cynical "road map to democracy" - which is intended only to grant a thin veneer of civilian political legitimacy to the junta's continued rule, and that in a bid to avert regional and international sanctions.

Among the many pundits left and right currently experiencing an epiphany that Senator Kerry, whatever his virtues, is a terrible, terrible, terrible presidential candidate are John Podhoretz and the Village Voice's James Ridgeway (who is calling for a reinstatement of the draft - ideally, of Edwards). And elsewhere, Narasimhan Ravi, editor of The Hindu and a current fellow at Harvard, writes about India's parliamentary elections. And of Kofigate Claudia Rosett (rightly) asks of the Secretary General of the world's foremost corrupt organization, what did Kofi know, and when did he know it? (Note to self: that would almost make for a rather merited google bomb...) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:00 PM by Patrick Belton  

ONE INDICATION OF WHY I IN THE END DO LOVE ENGLAND: From an email,

Beating the Bounds of the Parish is a very ancient custom. At St Michaels at the North Gate (our Saxon tower is the oldest building in Oxford, predating the arrival of William the Conqueror) we have documentary evidence of the practice back to the fourteenth century and it probably goes back to Saxon times when parishes became the basic land unit for law enforcement and taxation. It was very important for members of the parish to know precisely where one parish ended and one began. It was even more important for neighbouring parishes to be told where not to trespass. So, on Ascension Day, Thursday 20th May 2004, armed with willow wands (spears maybe?) we process round the parish, marking the stones which ring our parish.

St Michael's is a small and now entirely city parish and thoroughly built over, so our beating the Bounds consists of processing down Broad street, walking through shops and bars, climbing into bike sheds, visiting the Town Hall and ending up in Lincoln College to drink Ivy Beer (actually a bit challenging). We start at 9 am with a short service in the church - the entrance is at the Cornmarket end of Ship St, then at about 9.45 we essay forth down Cornmarket towards the Clarendon Centre, through Littlewoods, Frewin Court, New Inn Hall Street and on to St. Peters. By 10.30 we are reading from Foxe's "Book of Martyrs" on the spot in Broad Street outside Balliol where Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley were burnt at the stake in what was the town ditch. By 11 am we will be coming out of Brasenose, 11.35 Bar Oz and the Covered Market. And so on and so on.

UPDATE: I love our readers:

Hi Patrick,

"Beating the Bounds" aka "processioning" the bounds was widespread in colonial America well into the 1700s. The purpose for periodically outlining, in this instance, private property (as the American wilderness was carved out) was to limit the number of disputes - passing the boundary info on to the next generation or latest buyer of the property. Conversely, by the 1700s in Britain, I suspect this event was more ceremonial. As you know, land in Britain was highly concentrated in few owners, and most boundaries, if not all were well documented for centuries.

Here is a snippet abstract I gleaned from Princess Anne County Virginia court record books which addresses the issue (Note: you often find these "processionings" mentioned in the records of Virginia parish churches):

Sept 17 1731 An account of land processioned on ye South Side of ye Eastern Branch by me Thomas Wiles

The land of Aron Fentris processioned with a quet procession in the presence of Moses Fentris and John Fentris

The land of Moses Fentris...in the presence of Michael Fentris and James Fentris

The land of Capt George Kempe...Capt John Ivy and James Kempe

And so forth. The list of processioned land goes on for pages.

Kenneth Scislaw

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:13 PM by Patrick Belton  

IT'S THE LEADING FOREIGN POLICY ESSAY CONTEST IN THE U.S. (just ask Google!), and if you're a high school or college student, you can still enter it through the end of this month!

For more information, please consult our essay contest guidelines or email our contest chair, Connie Chung. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:01 AM by Patrick Belton  

BUT IF YOU CAN'T TRUST THE TIMES, WHO CAN YOU TRUST? With regard to an amazing medley of factual errors in pieces in both the LA Times and NY Times,

Just as a minor correction to an interesting piece (Thomas Corbally, 83; Figure of Mystery Was Reputed Spy, April 26, 2004 Home Edition, Section:California; Metro; Metro Desk; Part B; Pg. 11), PM Wilson was actually not a Conservative but rather a lifelong member of the Labour party, and is still regarded by many non-Blairites in Labour as representing the high point that party reached.

With regard to the Profumo affair, it also was not Wilson's government, but Harold Macmillan's which fell. And further contrary to the author, it did not fall in elections at all, but by the collective resignation of the government in Commons, to be replaced by another Conservative government under Sir Alec Douglas-Home.

with all best wishes, yours faithfully,
Patrick Belton
Trinity College, Oxford

My, with this degree of neglect for detail in just one small matter of British parliamentary history I happen to know something about, I must say I'm starting to have some doubts about these people. Or as a reader rather eloquently puts it: "Whenever I read anything in a newspaper about which I know something, I find they get it wrong. So why should I believe them on subjects about which I know very little?" (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:34 PM by David Adesnik  

THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE BLOGGED: That's the title of the George Packer column that Josh mentioned earlier today. Matt Yglesias isn't too happy with Packer's column, however, since it is "dripping with condescension." I'd say that's a pretty fair statement. After all, Packer writes that blogs are both

Pleasurable and destructive: They're so easy to consume, and so endlessly available. Their second-by-second proliferation means that far more is written than needs to be said about any one thing. To change metaphors for a moment (and to deepen the shame), I gorge myself on these hundreds of pieces of commentary like so much candy into a bloated -- yet nervous, sugar-jangled -- stupor. Those hours of out-of-body drift leave me with few, if any, tangible thoughts.

Blog prose is written in headline form to imitate informal speech, with short emphatic sentences and frequent use of boldface and italics. The entries, sometimes updated hourly, are little spasms of assertion, usually too brief for an argument ever to stand a chance of developing layers of meaning or ramifying into qualification and complication. There's a constant sense that someone (almost always the blogger) is winning and someone else is losing. Everything that happens in the blogosphere -- every point, rebuttal, gloat, jeer, or "fisk" (dismemberment of a piece of text with close analytical reading) -- is a knockout punch.

A curious thing about this rarefied world is that bloggers are almost unfailingly contemptuous toward everyone except one another. They are also nearly without exception men (this form of combat seems too naked for more than a very few women). I imagine them in neat blue shirts, the glow from the screen reflected in their glasses as they sit up at 3:48 a.m. triumphantly tapping out their third rejoinder to the WaPo's press commentary on Tim Russert's on-air recap of the Wisconsin primary.

In contrast to Matt, Kevin Drum isn't too bothered by all of this. He observes that

Based solely on the thousand words that are online, I'd say Packer has blogs pegged pretty well. While it may be true that mainstream journalists are sometimes more contemptuous than they should be toward blogs, Packer is dead right when he says that we more than return the favor. In fact, practically the only place that liberal and conservative bloggers find common ground these days is their apparent belief that the New York Times ranks just below Richard Nixon's White House on the list of trustworthy American institutions.

Hmmm. I'm going to side with Matt on this one. Packer is right that blogs always seem to be keeping score and that they are far too quick to compliment themselves on landing a knockout punch. But isn't that exactly what Packer is doing in his column? Even the title of his column sounds like a blog post.

Of course, this kind of 'gotcha' attitude is widespread at all levels of the journalistic establishment. All you have to do is the open the paper in the morning to find a half-dozen examples. Here's one: The ABC website now has an article up on the mini-scandal set off this morning by John Kerry's extremely nuanced explanation of what medals he did (or possibly did not) throw over a fence during an anti-war protest in 1971. The article begins as follows:

Contradicting his statements as a candidate for president, Sen. John Kerry claimed in a 1971 television interview that he threw away as many as nine of his combat medals to protest the war in Vietnam.

So I guess the lesson here is that bloggers, myself included, have adopted some of the mainstream media's less desirable habits in spite of our constant efforts to demonstrate our moral superiority. Anyhow, I think the real problem with Packer's column (or that portion which is online -- even LexisNexis doesn't have the whole thing and I am certainly not giving my money to Mother Jones) is his assertion that blogs lack substance. While Kevin may be too moderate to say so, his own website disproves Packer's allegation that blog posts are "usually too brief for an argument ever to stand a chance of developing layers of meaning or ramifying into qualification and complication". And while I have my issues with Josh Marshall, I think that is absolutely impossible to accuse him of not developing his arguments in considerable detail.

Moreover, Kevin (and less frequently Josh) develop their arguments through active debate with other bloggers. How often can professional journalists say the same of themselves? While I'm sure that journalists deconstruct each other's work off the record, it is absolutely taboo for the New York Times or Washington Post to take apart each other's articles in the public spotlight (except when plagiarism is involved.) While Packer is right that bloggers tend to have a sort of rah-rah patriotic attitude toward the blogosphere as a whole, he is wrong to say that they are "unfailingly contemptuous toward everyone except one another." Right after the NYT, the #1 target of almost every blogger is his or her closest friends and closest enemies in the blogosphere.

So, how can one conclude a chest-thumping, navel-gazing post like this? By reminding everyone that George Packer is an absolutely first-rate journalist. He has published what is far away some of the best work on the occupation of Iraq. And in person, he is a very nice and down-to-earth kind of guy. But like the rest of us, he makes mistakes. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:08 PM by David Adesnik  

SAVING LATIN DEMOCRACY: Today, the NYT is running one of its periodic editorials on why democracy in Latin America simply won't last. The format is pretty standard. The editorial begins by discussing some unsettling aspect of Latin American politics, then concludes with some trite advice about how to strengthen the democratic order. The unsettling fact for today is as follows:

The U.N. [Development Program] surveyed thousands of people in 18 democratic Latin American countries and found that a solid majority would prefer an authoritarian system if it produced economic benefits.

Commenting on this result, the NYT observes that

Clearly, this endorsement of the Pinochet model shows that most Latin Americans do not feel as if they have a stake in their democracy.

Now hold on a second. Pinochet was a brutal dictator who murdered thousands. Is he what the UN's poll respondents had in mind when they expressed their willingness to trade freedom for prosperity? Probably not.

Along with most academic experts on Latin American politics, journalists often forget how powerful the memory of a brutal dictatorship is. I don't think it is any accident that democracy is strongest today in those Latin American nations that suffered the most under military rule (Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, etc.) whereas it is most threatened in those nations that had very moderate dictatorships (Ecuador and Peru) or haven't had to endure authoritarian rule for more than fifty years (Colombia and Venezuela).

On a related note, the NYT should probably mention that dictatorships actually have an extremely poor record of promoting economic growth or even economic stability. The Pinochet regime probably came the closest, although Chile suffered terribly during the pan-Latin crisis in the early 1980s. In theory, dictatorships are supposed to be able to implement those economic reforms that are too controversial for an elected government to implement. Yet in the absence of a democratic mandate, Latin American generals have often found themselves forced to buy off both the rich and the poor. So, what is to be done? The NYT recommends that

Democratization in much of Latin America, if it is to be completed rather than reversed, now requires a bold set of reforms aimed at bolstering the rule of law, such as the development of independent judiciaries.

I think it is fairly misleading to suggest that a lack of boldness is the cause of Latin America's troubles. Even the most well-meaning governments (and Latin America has had many) cannot will the rule of law into existence. If a policeman can't afford clothes for his children, do we really expect him to resist taking bribes? Perhaps if there were better child welfare programs, policemen wouldn't take bribes. But how can you set up such programs when the bureaucrats are also corrupt? And so the cycle continues.

Rather than a lack of will, what Latin America suffers from is a set of interlocking institutional crises that eviscerate the democratic order without necessarily promoting dictatorship. How can such interlocking crises be resolved? Unfortunately, nobody knows. Political scientists have been caught off guard, since they expect flawed democratic orders to be overthrown by dictatorships. In other words, this is the first time that Latin America's democracies have survived long enough for the experts to worry about institution-building rather than coups d'etat. At least that is something to be thankful for. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:30 PM by David Adesnik  

WHY NORTH KOREA NEEDS CABLE MODEMS: The crocodile tears are flowing over at Steve Sachs' blog, where Steve is lamenting the fact that Kim Jong Il's treatise on cinema is languishing at place #455,145 on the Amazon bestseller list.

Plus, don't forget to read the latest installment in Steve's series on Pornography and Prostitution, which not only explores the legal dilemmas surrounding such unsavory pursuits, but also explains what Josh Chafetz does on Thursday evenings. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:18 PM by David Adesnik  

YOU KNOW YOU'VE HIT THE BIG TIME WHEN: You're interviewed on the NBC Nightly News. Congratulations, Dan! (And enjoy the groupies.)

Plus: Read the latest entry in the annals of how high-tech outsourcing creates jobs right here in the USA. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:18 PM by David Adesnik  

BECAUSE THE EUROPEANS ARE SUPERIOR: Pejman asks

why it is that in-flight movies are so uniformly bad. There is rarely an Oscar winner shown on flights, and the movies appear to range from barely tolerable to profoundly awful.

Well, if you want high-quality films along with attentive service and reasonable food, you should fly Virgin Atlantic. I've flown from London to New York around a half-dozen times with VA and have almost always had something good to watch. Best of all are those flights on the newest VA planes, which are equipped with a sort of video jukebox that gives each passenger a choice of 50+ films to watch along with 50+ hours of TV (including The Simpsons, Ali G, etc.). Moreover, you can control the box the same way you would a DVD player: start the film whenever you want, pause it to go the bathroom, etc.

Among the films I've seen on VA are Igby Goes Down, which came highly recommended by Mr. Chafetz, and the very clever Japanese bank-heist farce, Space Travelers (not to be confused with the animated film of the same name and from it which it borrows playfully). Of course, VA gives you the right to watch bad films as well. Once, I made it through 30 minutes of watching Ben Affleck as Daredevil. Mr. Affleck should be shot.

Anyhow, the question remains as to why VA has better in-flight entertainment. In general, in-flight films are supposed to be as inoffensive and unstimulating as possible. If you look up "least common denominator" in the thesaurus, you'll probably see "in-flight films" listed first. However, Virgin prides itself on being a maverick in the airline industry. It built up its successful business by challenging the staid and government-backed British Airways (which is a perfectly good airline). This rebellious corporate culture -- embodied by CEO Richard Branson -- tends to affect all aspects of the VA experience, from the unorthodox style of animation used for the pre-flight safety video to the choice of films shown on board. Perhaps the best expression of Virgin's rebellious attitude is the fact that its in-flight magazine sometimes gives bad reviews to the films being shown on board. Now that is service. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:52 PM by David Adesnik  

MODO TREATS BUSH VERY FAIRLY: You can't accuse Maureen Dowd of picking on the President. As Spinsanity shows, she's willing to compromise the standards of professional journalism in order to make other people look bad too!

And a note for all you Spinsanity fans: Ben, Brendan and Bryan's first book is coming soon to a store near you! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:58 AM by David Adesnik  

HAPPY BELATED BLOGIVERSARY: The always thoughtful Robert Tagorda celebrated twelve months of blogging this past Thursday. I am proud to say that when OxBlog first stumbled upon Rob's work last June, we immediately recognized that he was a star in the making. So, congratulations! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:43 AM by David Adesnik  

I KNOW A CELEBRITY! Matt Yglesias, Dan Drezner and Harry Brighouse have all posted comments about economist Caroline Hoxby's recent paper on the effects that vouchers have on the quality of public education.

While I have absolutely nothing meaningful to add to this excellent discussion of vouchers and school choice, I am proud to report that I once met Prof. Hoxby at a barbecue and that both she and her husband Blair are no less charming than they are intelligent. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:32 AM by David Adesnik  

WELL-DESERVED TRIBUTES: Winds of Change collects many of the kind and inspiring words that have been written on behalf of Pat Tillman. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:25 AM by David Adesnik  

AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN LAWYER: OxBlog wishes the best of luck to Phil Carter, who is about to take his last set of final exams in law school. If Phil is as good a lawyer as he is a blogger, then he'll have a stellar career waiting for him.

In case you haven't already, take a good, long look at Phil's excellent posts on photographs of the fallen, the logistical challenges of waging a global war, and his two-part series on the relationship between security and reconstruction in post-war Iraq. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:01 AM by David Adesnik  

INTRICATE ILLUSIONS: Greg Djerejian takes an in-depth look at the past, present and future of the Arab-Israeli peace process. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:47 PM by David Adesnik  

THE HEIGHTS OF ELOQUENCE:

I wouldn't quite say that John Kerry Is A Douchebag But I'm Voting For Him Anyway but that's not wildly off the mark.

Man, Yglesias must be in a bad mood. However, the rest of his post is worth reading if you want to read even more about national security and opinion polls. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:37 PM by David Adesnik  

EYESIGHT FOR THE BLIND: Democratic pundits are laboring mightily to show that recent poll results aren't nearly as favorable to President Bush as one might think at first glance. I'd say the best argument against the polls comes from Ruy Texeira, who observes that Kerry is pulling ahead in the battleground states that will decide the election.

Much less impressive are the arguments made by Ryan Lizza and Josh Marshall, whose columns appear together on today's NYT op-ed page (alongside columns by Bob Herbert and Paul Krugman, just in case you find Lizza and Marshall to be insufficiently anti-Bush.) Marshall begins his column by pointing out an apparent paradox:

In this year's presidential campaign, no wisdom is more conventional than the assumption that George W. Bush's re-election effort will succeed or fail along with the American mission in Iraq. If Iraq collapses, the reasoning goes, the Bush presidency will soon follow. And yet here was the president gaining ground, in several polls released this week, in the face of what were certainly the worst three weeks in Iraq since the United States deposed Saddam Hussein a year ago.

As it turns out, there is actually a very simple explanation for this paradox. When asked who would do a better job handling the situation in Iraq, voters are pretty sure that the answer is Bush. His margin in the WaPo/ABC poll is 51-42, while his margin in the CNN/Gallup poll is 40-26 with 15 percent saying that both candidates would do a good job. If Marshall had noticed these numbers, he wouldn't wind up asking his audience (mis)leading questions such as

If Americans decide that Iraq is a disaster, why do they not see him as the cause of the problem? Why has support for the president bounced back (up four points in one poll) even as approval of his handling of Iraq has fallen (down three points in the same poll)?

Marshall's first question presumes that voters have identified Iraq as a disaster. But that isn't so clear cut. CNN/Gallup shows that voters are not happy with Bush's handling of Iraq by a margin of 49-48. The same respondents still believe that going to war was the right decision by a margin of 52-46. The WaPo/ABC poll shows voters unhappy with the situation in Iraq by 54-45 margin but still approving of the decision to go to war 51-47.

Looking at Iraq, the only numbers Lizza mentions are the 54% negative rating from the Wa/Po ABC poll and the same poll's observation that 65% of voters believe that the number of American casualties sustained in Iraq is unacceptable. The latter figure is misleading for two reasons. First, it has fluctuated in the same four point range (33-37%) for six months now. Thus, there is no correlation between the 65% figure and the recent upsurge of violence in Iraq. By extension, there is no reason to believe that the 65% figure has had an impact on Bush's re-elect numbers.

Second, how often will any poll respondent describe the tragic deaths of American soldiers as "acceptable"? That is why, when you ask voters whether the US military should restore order in Iraq even if it means taking more casualties, they answer 'Yes' by a stunning 66-33 margin. Moreover, that margin has been increasing over the last six months.

But what if you ask the public whether the United States "has gotten bogged down" in Iraq or is "making good progress"? Faced with that kind of black-and-white choice, the answer is "bogged down" by a margin of 59-41. Yet at the same time, the public favors sending more troops by a margin of 54-44.

That said, let's go back to Marshall's second question of why Bush' re-elect numbers are rising while approval of his work on Iraq is falling. The answer is "issue salience". If you take a look at Question 12 in the WaPo/ABC poll, you'll see that 22% of the public lists terrorism as the "single most important issue" affecting their vote while 23% say Iraq. 26% say "the economy and jobs". Six weeks ago, 36% said economy & jobs while the numbers for terrorism and Iraq were 17 and 10. In December, the numbers for terrorism and Iraq were 14 and 9.

All of these additional numbers I'm throwing at you really just make the same point: that no matter how much all the headlines about Richard Clarke and Moqtada Sadr hurt George Bush, they hurt John Kerry even more. Yes, it is ironic. Bad news makes national security more important. George Bush is responsible for a fair amount of that bad news. But what voters fear even more is giving John Kerry a chance to clean up the mess.

Do I feel the same way? I'm not sure. I'm undecided and probably will be for quite a while. But I am pretty sure that I will vote for whoever I think can do a better job of handling terrorism and Iraq.

Last but not least: Ryan Lizza points out that Reagan had a 54% approval rating in April 1984 while Clinton had a 56% rating in April 1996. In contrast, Bush is "hanging by his fingertips" with 51 or 52 percent. What Lizza overlooks is the fact both Reagan and Clinton won their elections by a landslide. No one expects Bush to do that. All that matters is who wins. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:22 PM by David Adesnik  

THE GOP'S SELF-INFLICTED WOUNDS: John Kerry's service record has become a front page story. Perhaps because the story itself is so inherently pro-Kerry, the WaPo is bending over backwards to lend credibility to the Senator's critics. For example, the Post reports that Kerry's

record has become both an asset and an issue as he seeks the presidency. The senator from Massachusetts has used it to define his qualifications for the office, his experience in foreign policy, his leadership -- and, regarding the conflict in Iraq, his firsthand knowledge of war. But critics have cited it as evidence that he was opportunistic and have questioned whether he deserved one of his medals.

From what I can tell, there is no evidence whatsoever to substantiate allegations that Kerry was anything less than a full-fledged hero. Thus, when conservatives play up such accusations, all they do is embarrass themselves and provide Kerry with exactly the sort of credibility he so desperately needs on national security issues.

For an in-depth look at both Kerry and Bush's service records, take a look at this post from Phil Carter. The praise that Bush received as a Guardsman is actually quite impressive. Yet as Kevin Drum reminds us, Bush's talent as an officer seems to have been matched by a disturbing lack of dedication to his military duties.

Finally, Campaign Desk thinks that the media has gone soft on Bush by not following up on the documents he released after coming under fire in February. I beg to differ.

What really happened was that the media raised expectations by building up Michael Moore's unsubstantiated charge that Bush went AWOL. Then Bush kept the story alive by stonewalling. Yet once the White House released a new set of documents about Bush's record in the Guard, it became apparent that there wasn't enough evidence to back up the critics' overblown claims. Let down, the media dropped the story -- after first creating it.

What Campaign Desk misses was that the Bush/AWOL episode was more about the media's inconsistent and incoherent definition of what counts as news, rather than its supposedly forgiving attitude towards the President's sins. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:32 PM by David Adesnik  

AN INSPIRATION AND A TRAGIC LOSS: Today, Army Ranger Pat Tillman lost his life in Afghanistan. Before 9-11, Tillman was a defensive back with the Arizona Cardinals of the NFL. After 9-11, he walked away from $3.6 million contract to join the armed forces. As the Cardinals' vice president observed,

"In sports we have a tendency to overuse terms like courage and bravery and heroes, and then someone like Pat Tillman comes along and reminds us what those terms really mean."

Hear, hear. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:18 AM by Patrick Belton  

CIAO, MAMA, Ammunì a Sichilia: Rachel and I are off to Sicily for the weekend, courtesy of that Irish national institution known as Ryanair. A lunedì, amici!

Fare thee well, ye banks of Sicily,
Fare thee well, ye valley and shore.
There's nae Jock will mourn the kyles o' ye
Poor bloody soldiers are weary.

The piper is tuned up and piping away;
He wullnae come round for his vino the day
The sky o'er Messina is unco an' grey
And the song that he's playing is eerie.

It's march doon the square, and light on the bay,
Packs on your back and the boats are away.
Waiting your turn while the pipes and drums play,
And the song that they're playing is eerie.

The drummer is polished, the drummer is grand
He cannae be seen for his straps and his bands.
He's raised himself up for a photo and stand
To leave wi' his Lola, his dearie.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:17 AM by David Adesnik  

THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH: I wanted to link to an old article from The Onion, but it turns out that the Onion archives are now available only to subscribers. That sorta sucks. Anyhow, in honor of the warm weather and the displays of feminine pulchritude that accompany it on campuses across America, I wanted to link to the classic Onion report entitled "Co-Eds Prepare Breasts for Increased Springtime Display." It is so true.

UPDATE: The resourceful JM points out that many lost webpages can be found in the "cached" version of a Google search. So if you want to read about curvaceous co-eds, click here. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:12 AM by David Adesnik  

DINNER WITH AN IDIOTARIAN: I haven't used that word in a long time. But sometimes there is no other way to describe someone who is so offensively stupid that rational debate becomes impossible.

Now, the official guest at tonight's dinner was Amram Mitzna, the Labor MP who lost to Sharon in the last general election. It turns out that he is an extremely intelligent and thoughtful human being. Of course, I am the low man on the totem pole, so there was no chance that I was going to be sitting with Mr. Mitzna. I did, however, get to sit next to Prof. Erez Manela, one of the rising stars in the History Department at Harvard. Unfortunately, a certain idiotarian hijacked the conversation at our table, so I didn't get to benefit from sitting with Prof. Manela.

The idiotarian in question is a professor of women's studies at Boston University as well as an activist in the peace movement. Nothing wrong with that. Israel could use some peace. But when you insult your dinner partners instead of having an intelligent conversation with them, you really just discredit your own cause. Now, the target of Prof. Stupid's comments was a friend of mine who happens to be a colonel in the US armed forces. In addition to being a thoughtful individual, he is one of the most mild-mannered and respectful individuals I know.

At one point during dinner, the Colonel asserted that even if Israel withdraws to its 1967 borders, radical Palestinians will continue to launch terror strikes against Israeli civilians. Prof. Stupid responded that the Colonel's comments were somewhat unfair because he criticized her approach to the conflict without offering any other. Then she asked, "And what is your strategy? Just to kill more people?"

Exactly. That was exactly the Colonel's point. Crush the skulls of Palestinian children with cinderblocks. Anyhow, at another point in the conversation, Prof. Stupid asked the Colonel how many Palestinians he had personally met. But that was just the set up for the Prof. Stupid's touchingly sarcastic remark that "You know, the Palestinians are human beings, too." Given that the Colonel is far too polite to respond to such remarks critically, I conspicuously turned to the quiet historian at my left and remarked, "That's funny. I thought that all Palestinians were robots."

Well, now that I've got that off of my chest, I'm feeling a little bit better. All in all, tonight's dinner was quite a nice event. The definite highlight of the evening was the seared tuna served as an hors d'oeuvre. The center of the delicate slices were deliciously red and their edges were encrusted with a flavorful mixture of spices. Almost as good as the seared tuna was the brief question and answer session with Mr. Mitzna.

When I first saw Mr. Mitzna at the cocktail hour, I assumed he was a member of the faculty because of his inobstrusive manner and his salt & pepper beard. As it turned out, Mr. Mitzna has something of the bearing of the professor, at least in an intimate setting. He listens very carefully to those who ask him questions, then responds slowly and thoughtfully. He also seemed very sincere. To be fair, there are a lot of Harvard professors who are obstrusive, clean-shaven, loud and disingenuous. But Mitzna wasn't one of those.

Of course, I also liked what Mitzna had to say. Without reservation, Israeli has the right and the obligation to strike at terrorists before they commit murder. This includes the right to hunt and kill the leaders of terrorist organizations, because they are no less responsible for terrorist attacks than the foot soldiers who carry them out.

Mitzna supports Arik Sharon's plan to dismantle the settlements in Gaza. While he finds it somewhat ironic that Sharon is now implementing the same programs he ran against as a candidate, Mitzna believes that Sharon has crossed an historic threshold by becoming the first Likud prime minister to recognize that Israel cannot rule over the Palestinians forever.
Yet while supporting disengagement, Mitzna believes that Sharon has impaired his own strategy by making absolutely no effort to provide the Gaza Strip with a post-occupation order. As a result, Gaza may become a haven for terrorists at whom Israel cannot strike because of the presence of those international relief workers who will arrive in the wake of the Israeli withdrawal.

The main point on which I disagree with Mitnza is his belief that there is an effective Palestinian peace camp -- represented by Yasser Abd Rabbo -- that wants a negotiated settlement with the state of Israel. Yet as Mitzna responded to one Palestinian who asked him a question, the next critical step in the negotiating process is for more Palestinians to step up and say that they want peace. The Israel people have made no secret of their desire. But they need the Palestinian people to show that it is the leaders of the peace camp who truly represent the people. If only...

UPDATE: After re-reading this post, I think I come off as a bit strident and too willing to describe others as idiotarians. The actual words spoken by Prof. Stupid were not that extreme. But what my post failed to convey was the tone in which she spoke them.

Rather than being defensive or rhetorical, her questions were condescending. She really seemed to believe that the Colonel was some sort of thug who actually thought that killing people is a good idea and that Palestinians are sub-human. It was this incredible presumption of malevolence and ignorance -- spoken without hesitation to a stranger in a public setting -- that marked Prof. Stupid as an idiotarian. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:21 PM by Patrick Belton  

REQUIESCANT: It's truly incredible how many people have lost their lives in today's tragic train accident in North Korea. It's sadder still that Pyongyang is dealing with this unbelievable tragedy with its accustomed state secrecy and silence, both within its borders and without. Our hearts go out to the families of the deceased, and to the three thousands who lost their lives. Lux perpetua luceat eis. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:11 PM by Patrick Belton  

MR KERRY, CALL YOUR OFFICE: In only a few sentences yesterday, Senator Kerry managed both to insinuate that democracy should take a back seat to security in Iraq, and that US troops should be happy to cut and run with Iraq stable but undemocratic. To give him his due, here's the full bit:

Democracy "shouldn't be the measurement of when you leave," Kerry said. "You leave with stability. You hope you can continue the process of democratization -- obviously, that's our goal. But with respect to getting our troops out, the measurement is the stability of Iraq."(SF Chronicle)

While I'd like to be charitable, it's pretty clear that what Kerry's doing here is establishing a lower bar for withdrawing troops from Iraq, which is tied in turn to downgrading the importance of democracy promotion in the US engagement in Iraq. Pretty dispiriting stuff - weren't the Dems once the party which had habitually criticised administrations for privileging security over democracy? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:49 PM by Patrick Belton  

BRIBE-TAKING SCANDAL AT THE UN: Reports have surfaced that three principal UN officials, including the undersecretary general, accepted millions of dollars' worth of bribes from Saddam between 1997 and 2002, in return for permitting Saddam to in turn make billions of dollars illicitly from the UN's oil-for-food programme.

This unprecedented amount of UN corruption is being referred to as "Kofigate," and is receiving coverage from across the spectrum (see Telegraph, Independent). If there's one edifying part to this entire sordid spectacle, it's that the story was initially broken by an independent Iraqi paper, Al Mada - showing that when it's allowed the safety to follow a story, the Iraqi Quatrieme Etat can hold its own with the Fourth Estates of the big boys. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:49 AM by Patrick Belton  

BRITISH IDIOCY WATCH FOR 22 APRIL: First, in the "no proposition is so silly that no English leftist has believed it" category, we have:

* In the 26th April cover story Appeasement: Should we strike a deal? (extra credit: guess now what the answer is going to be), New Statesman incorporates these maxims, worthy of Euclid:

" Appeasement has been present wherever terrorist violence has been controlled successfully."

"Appeasement is only another name for the willingness to negotiate."

"The truth is that force alone cannot end terrorist violence." (No, much better to trust to lots of hand-holding over shared marijuana and mellow guitar chords.)

And now for the "utter lack of moral clarity" category: From an NS piece with the catchy (and apposite) title Iraq - Invaders have ripped up the fabric of a nation that survived Saddam Hussein. This is a war of liberation and we are the enemy. By John Pilger
- we have:

first, the "nostalgia for Saddam" entry:
Four years ago, I travelled the length of Iraq, from the hills where St Matthew is buried in the Kurdish north to the heartland of Mesopotamia, and Baghdad, and the Shia south. I have seldom felt as safe in any country. Once, in the Edwardian colonnade of Baghdad's book market, a young man shouted something at me about the hardship his family had been forced to endure under the embargo imposed by America and Britain. What happened next was typical of Iraqis; a passer-by calmed the man, putting his arm around his shoulder, while another was quickly at my side. "Forgive him," he said reassuringly. "We do not connect the people of the west with the actions of their governments. You are welcome."

catchy inventive synonym, entry one: Marines public relations officers are referred to as "psychopathic spokesmen"

catchy inventive synonym, entry two: the last decade's western foreign policy toward Iraq: "both the economic siege and the Anglo-American assault on their homeland"

creative use of the term "terrorism" entry: on all US use of force in Iraq being terrorism, we have: "Thus, western state terrorism is erased, and a tenet of western journalism is to excuse or minimise "our" culpability, however atrocious. Our dead are counted; theirs are not. Our victims are worthy; theirs are not."

snarkiest Trotskyite v. Maoist put-down: On the Guardian, not cooky enough apparently for its tastes: "Britain's former premier liberal newspaper" (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:00 AM by Patrick Belton  

BY SPECIAL REQUEST from our favourite former shiksa chick from Ohio, ShaBot humour grapples this week with the manifold mysteries of bread, Orthodoxy, and getting religion. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:19 AM by Patrick Belton  

THE HOLOCAUST OF OUR TIME? This on the Sudan, and via CNN:

"What I saw was village after village which has been burnt down," [British journalist] Phil Cox said on CNN's International Correspondents program.

"Usually there are bodies around the villages. There are mass graves outside. When I say mass graves, I mean large pits in the earth, maybe 10 to 20 bodies in them, and these pits, 20 to 30 pits around the villages."

A promising sign is that an investigative team from the UN Human Rights Commission has been granted access to Sudan's western Darfur region today, and during the time it has been barred from entering Sudanese territory, has been conducting interviews with refugees in Chad. The U.S. administration has attracted praise lately from its more accustomed critics for successfully urging the Islamist Khartoum government and southern rebels to the negotiating table (and in the process, acquiring greater support from Khartoum against Al Qa'ida, which in its territory is strong). However, the ceasefire toward the south has directed Khartoum's fury to its west, and the nations of the world have been unduly reticent to decry the genocide there for fear that in so doing they would reopen one of the globe's most long-festering civil wars. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:17 PM by Patrick Belton  

THERE HAS BEEN a terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia today, killing nine, for which the Saudis are blaming Al Qa'eda. This on the heels, of course, of coordinated car bombings in Basra which killed nearly 70, including as many as 22 schoolchildren incinerated in their school buses. This is a sad day, and that radical insurgents would launch an attack killing not only wholly Iraqis but such a large number of children who had once been part of Iraq's future, show profoundly their blatant disregard and depths of cynicism about the future of Iraq. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:26 PM by Patrick Belton  

WAIT, I don't think I really like this. (And how come Eve gets all the good referral hits?) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:15 PM by Patrick Belton  

JIM LILLY, of whom we think the world, and who with the passing of HRW's Mike Jendrzejczyk likely understands China better than anyone now alive, has a book about his life of service for his nation as a China hand. I'll be looking forward to reading it, and sharing it with our readers. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:27 PM by Patrick Belton  

WAITING FOR BOUDREAUX, II: After we posted on the state of scholarly (for which, read: uninformed) discussion into whether the image of Marine reservist Boudreaux had been altered, we received a detailed note from a blogger named Dorkafork. He wrote to us with an awfully large amount of information about how to tell whether images had been digitally altered with photoshop, and he very kindly responded favourably when I wrote to ask

Dear, err, Dork,

Thanks extraordinarily much for this - would you mind if we used it on the blog?

with all best wishes,
Patrick

Also, Arthur at Tripias has also been keeping a very amusing running tally of Boudreaux spoofs. And for those of you who don't get the last one (i.e., Lcdpl Boudreaux killed my dad, then all your base are belong to us), here's the authoritative explanation. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:12 PM by Patrick Belton  

REPORTS of Syria facilitating the movement of foreign fighters into Iraq to assist insurgents. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:36 PM by Patrick Belton  

LETTER FROM BERLIN: OxBlog's Berlin correspondent writes in with his reflections and experiences in Germany. He's asked to remain anonymous, so to do our best to honour his request, we've replaced all personal names in his email with the names of Jewish porn stars:

Its a slow afternoon here in Berlin and so I thought you'd appreciate a little parcel of news, opinion, stories and a sprinkling of crass generalisation and bigotry.

I've been here for a few weeks now. The first thing to report is that I'm living with a couple of lesbians. they are very cool. Traci Lords (whose email name is Nora Louise Kuzma) and Janey Robbins (Robin Lieberman), whose email address would be valuable indeed. On the first day Traci and I had a beer off the wood on the balcony while she gave me a little gentle interrogation about who I was and what I thought I was doing in Berlin. I told her that I was interested in the mystique of violence in the first world war and that one day I'd like to work in America. This in liberal Berlin was rather a faux pas. Traci Lords peered at me and said sternly, "I hope you're not homophobic." I replied that, no, I come from an advanced and enlightened nation and totally understand her urge to make love to women (ha ha haa...ha...ha...ha...ha, give me a break, I'm just getting warmed up.) she told me exactly what she thinks of america, americans, and their beloved supreme court appointed leader. so then I changed the subject to the holocaust. best to get these things out in the open.

I'm doing research here in Berlin and am working in this strange place in the middle of the industrial sh**land of east berlin. around it, would you believe, are these roaving packs of 1980's style punks. With feral dogs. They shout a lot but don't do much. Like those sea creatures that look dangerous but actually can't do anything if challenged. They seem to be the appointed guardians of the protestant archive full of starchy, stiff, formal women in their 50's who haven't enjoyed congress since 1871. the bizarre thing is that this place has no catalogue. No computer, or book, or anything which allows the user to inspect their holdings. you tell them the subject that interests you and they go and get it. Its a totalitarian library, they control the knowledge, and you just have to trust them. Like in Name of the Rose, where these disfigured syphillitic monks hold the only keys to the great medieval library, a twisting endless maze which no-one, no-one can access. I find that kind of monopoly disturbing. the probability that they have nothing truly electrifying to hide makes it more disturbing. not like the vatican library. I asked one of the women whether there was a catalogue and by the way she looked at me I might as well have asked her whether I could bang her daughter.

the only thing that s**ts me about Traci is her mindless, reactionary, lazy thinking about the middle east conflict etc. she repeatedly, louldy declares how Palestinian terrorist groups are totally justified in suicide bombing because there is no alternative. Let me make myself clear, i am no extremist on this issue, but she seems to overlook the fact that under US mediation over 90% of the Palestinian demands were offered to them by Israel. and that Yasser didn't accept it. so there was and is an alternative, a diplomatic alternative to forge two states in co-existence. So no, blowing up children in buses and cafes because you can't bring yourself to accept co-existence is not a policy I can breezily endorse like Berliners. however, I keep my little mouth shut tight on this issue, there's no point mouthing off against your landlady.

hmmm. guess I'd better get back to it. sorry for that detour into politics, but lazy reactionary thinking (anything that America and its allies do is nefarious, anything that the PLO does is noble) gives me the sh*ts.

this email is wandering a bit. a good time to close up. Back on the weekend.
hope you're all well.

easy,

Ron Jeremy

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# Posted 5:46 AM by Patrick Belton  

GMAIL: FIRST IMPRESSIONS: So the folks at Google have been kind enough to let us take Gmail for a test spin and share our impressions with our readers. My first reaction: once you get past the considerable oddness of your email looking like - well, like Google - then it's a very nicely functioning mail program, although for Mac users it doesn't seem to work perfectly in Safari.

Famously, and as we've noted here before, it turns a buck by selling advertising targeted at you on the basis of the content of your inbox. Probably partly for that reason, they give you a ludicrously large amount of storage capacity (1000 megabytes), and zealously encourage you to "archive, not delete." Yeah, really, no surprise there. But I don't really much mind - if it's really the case that individually identifiable information isn't sold to advertisers but is only held by circuits somewhere in Googleland, then frankly I'd rather see ads for foreign policy magazines than for the cars and free vacations that get displayed on the rare occasion when I log into my Yahoo account. But I could see how that could annoy many privacy advocates, and frankly I don't blame them.

As far as the advertising itself, it seems linked fairly seamlessly into Google's justly famed search technology - when I sent myself a test email, over on the side appeared two "sponsored links" from advertisers, both fairly relevant (one a European international relations journal, and the other an advertisement urging me to "download a doctoral dissertation now!"), and then non-sponsored links that it thinks would interest me (oddly, a conservative seniors advocacy group, and a libertarian site). My suspicions of my own mortality are such that I don't really think I'll ever click on any of the links on the side, but I think by this point we've all become fairly inured to extraneous Google search results as part of the cosmic background radiation, and since they're not for Viagra, they're not really that annoying.

The much heralded search feature is, well, exactly what you'd expect - it's quick (particularly when you only have two messages to search), it lets you add a huge array of filters ("has the words", "doesn't have the words"), and it's prominently accessible from the top of each page. Somewhat oddly, it also lets you search the web, but that might just be a justifiably ingrained habit for the engineers at Google.

But what I'll be interested in is seeing how well its filters deal with spam- so if you're a spammer, please spam me at patrick.belton@gmail.com. Let me note that I'm particularly interested in acquiring Nigerian diamonds and a longer reproductive apparatus.

UPDATE: Ha, ha. I appreciate all of our readers who've emailed me in the last hour to offer me Nigerian diamonds. (Incidentally, I still owe a few of our friends and correspondents emails back, and am really awfully sorry about that - after meeting an attractive female Mossad agent in Rome, to my great surprise I was flown in handcuffs to the Middle East, where I was then inserted into a padded white room with a flourescent lightbulb, a computer, and the collected Public Papers of the Presidents (1988-present), and am currently being made to convert caffeine into dissertation text, all while running on a treadmill. You're all warmly welcome to come and visit.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:51 AM by Patrick Belton  

NEWS FROM UZ: Lately in Central Asia, Uzbekistan has foolishly and short-sightedly decided to kick the Open Society Institute out of the country. Things have been approaching this point for a while- in February, Karimov amended the criminal code to make giving international organisations any information the government chose to deem potentially harmful to it punishable as treason, and the government has been waging a media campaign against international NGOs depicting them as traitors. I've enjoyed having a great deal of contact with the OSI's staff, both stateside and in Central Asia, and the work they did in monitoring governments' treatment and persecution of democratisers and human rights activists was simply not being done by anyone else. When opposition leaders or advocates of democracy and human rights were trumped up on spurious charges, it was OSI's people who would be there in the courtroom each day of trials and visiting them in prison, to send a message that the rest of the world was not blind to those misdeeds. They were the largest dispenser of private aid in Uzbekistan, and Karimov's decision to kick them out only underscores what a wretched despot he indeed is.

And he's not even unqualifiably our bastard: desirous to expand his options now that he has an insurgency on his hands, Karimov visited Russia on 15-16 April to work out details of a new Uzbek-Russian security arrangement. Also, Karimov's government has begun a suppression of all religious minorities, including non-radical Muslims who simply remain independent of the nation's officially sanctioned clerical establishment. Perhaps he has been taking lessons in despotism from his Russian friends. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:22 PM by David Adesnik  

NOW THAT'S AN OMBUDSMAN: As if it weren't bad enough that I'm a Yankees fan, I betray Boston twice over by reading the NYT and WaPo rather than the Globe. But since restaurants and stuff often have copies lying around, I do get to take an occasional look. Today, for the first time, I came across a column by Globe ombudsman Christine Chinlund and I have to say that I was very impressed. Chinlund does an admirable job both of addressing reader complaints and of documenting the behind-the-scenes decisions in the news room that produced the complaints in the first place.

One especially interesting part of yesterday's column was Chinlund's observation that there were few complaints about the Globe's decision to run a photo of a fallen Marine on its front page, but that those few who complained were themselves Marines. As one corporal asked, "If you were over there in Iraq, would you want that to be your family's last memory of you?"

A very fair question. Still, I think the Globe made the right decision. The photograph in question showed a group of Marines praying over the body of their fallen comrade. It was very touching and I believe that it was respectful as well. Of course, each reader should judge for himself whether that is the case. (Which is easier said than done since I can't find the photo on the Globe website. Paging the ombudsman!) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:07 PM by David Adesnik  

LITTLE ORPHAN DONNIE: Even the red-blooded conservatives want nothing to do with Rumsfeld. After all, how often is it that both the Weekly Standard and the National Review devote their editorials to bashing a hawkish Republican Secretary of Defense?

Kristol & Kagan are even harsher on Rumsfeld than NRO was, and I agree with everything they have to say. As I mentioned before, I agree with NRO's criticism of Rumsfeld but don't think much of its attempt to pin's Rumsfeld's mistakes on the neo-cons.

Another point of difference between the Standard and NRO is that the Standard explicitly challenges the President to make good on his word about Iraq, instead of directing all of the accusations at his subordinates. Even so, after their initial mention of Bush, Kristol & Kagan focus exclusively on Rumsfeld. But how viable of a strategy is that? If the Secretary of Defense has been screwing that badly for that long, isn't it time to hold the President responsible? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:44 PM by Patrick Belton  

NEW DEMOCRATIC FOREIGN POLICY GROUP STARTS, MILLIONS RUSH TO JOIN: This just in from, errr...okay, my wife. But it's a damned good group anyway, and is set to declare the Scoop Jackson wing of the party once again open for business:

For those of you who feel you are Democrats longing for a party that takes national security more seriously, (or even borderline Republicans discontented with both parties) a new group has formed that would love to have you as members.  The Truman National Security Project (www.trumanproject.org) is a group of young foreign policy professionals dedicated to creating a strong foreign policy platform for the Democratic Party, and working to move the national security debate beyond the tired battles between Cold Warriors and Vietnam-era liberals, to create new ways of thinking about foreign policy for an age of transnational threats and terrorism.  

Truman Democrats believe in a strong military and intelligence network, and think that national security is best secured through proactive policies of democratization, liberalization, and free trade.  Unlike neoconservatives, however, Truman Democrats believe that in an age of transnational threats, real security can only be achieved by working in concert with international partners, convincing other countries that we share joint threats, taking malignant threats such as AIDS and social breakdown seriously, treating aid and trade as crucial national security tools, and bolstering American legitimacy to strengthen our soft power. 

And if you're feeling particularly like a joiner (or if you just want to keep track of them all), other organizations within the OxBlog universe you can also take part in are the Nathan Hale Foreign Policy Society, a burgeoning bipartisan national foreign policy society with thirteen local chapters (ed: quick, someone, add another!) and an active think tank; OxDem, which supports democracy movements overseas and democracy promotion as a keystone of American foreign policy; and the Ibn Khaldun Project for Internet Media, which will be involved in translating weekly selections from the English-language blogosphere into Middle Eastern languages. And once my cofounder Marianna finishes up her M.Phil. exams, we're also looking forward to establishing a race NGO with local chapters which will foster spaces, through dinners and an assortment of other programs, in which people can have conversations and make friendships across race lines. All these organizations are carrying out important work and could very much use your help if you'd like to be part of them; and most importantly, we just wouldn't be being completely honest with you if we failed to note that membership in any one (or all) of these organizations is reported by scientists to confer on the member instant irresistability to the opposite sex.

To find out more about the Truman Project and to become involved with its efforts, please contact Rachel Belton. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:19 PM by Patrick Belton  

REMEMBER CENTRAL ASIA? If not, that's okay, you'll fit in fine with our nation's principal newspapers. That's the region - just to jog your memory - where one rather despotic security ally has just exploded in insurgence, and where a second nation's reconstruction prospects lie pretty much in our hands. And when it comes to Central Asia, Nathan from The Argus is your man. He's got a roundup just for you on Winds of Change of what's new in that part of the world. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:17 AM by Patrick Belton  

IN YER OXBLOG IRISH-FRIENDLY CORNER FOR THE DAY: Tin whistle legends Chiff & Fipple answer the questions everyone's been asking and present an in-depth, side-by-side comparison of the tin whistle, the recorder, and the Norelco Triple Head shaver. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:43 AM by Patrick Belton  

QU'EST-CE QUE font les Français quand ils ont trop d'heure.... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:23 PM by David Adesnik  

NEGROPONTE AND THE DEATH SQUADS: As of June 30, US Ambassador to the United Nations John Negroponte has will become the United States' Ambassador to Iraq. And in case you haven't noticed, Matt Yglesias has been waging a one-man blog-war against Negroponte because of his toleration of right-wing death squads while serving as Ambassador to Honduras in the 1980s.

On Matt's behalf, I'd like to say that both the NYT and the WaPo have done a marvelous job of whitewashing Negroponte's record in their coverage of his appointment as Ambassador to Iraq.

Throwing balance out the window, neither the Times nor the Post bothers to balance the President's lavish praise of Negroponte with a single critical comment. And believe me, it would not be hard to find some very knowledgeable people who would be willing to gives the Times and the Post an earful. If any NYT or WaPo staff happen to be reading this post, why not give Bill LeoGrande or Cynthia Arnson a call? Both of them are well-respected scholars who have published op-eds in the leading newspapers as well as longer articles in places like Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy, not to mention numerous books on the subject of the United States and Central America.

You'd think Matt would've had some more sharp words for the Times and the Post, given his constant efforts to show that the media is biased in favor of the right and not hte left. So is this a case of conservative media bias? No, not really. I think what's going on here is simply that journalists have very little knowledge of any sort of history that they didn't experience themselves. If Ray Bonner or Alan Riding -- both of whom are current NYT correspondents with experience in Central America in the 1980s -- had written the Negroponte story, I seriously doubt that Negroponte would've gotten off so easily.

Now, you may be wondering, "What did Negroponte do that was all that bad? If the only one covering this story is Yglesias, wouldn't it be safe to dismiss the accusations against Negroponte as just another liberal Democratic vendetta?" Actually, no. For an excellent summary of Negroponte's amazing ability to deny the existence of death squads in Honduras, take a look at this article in TNR from March 2001. (Link via Yglesias)

However, Matt goes pretty far overboard with his suggestions that Negroponte will start training death squads in Iraq. Now, I generally agree with Matt that from an ethical perspective, Negroponte is not the right man to be running the Embassy in Baghdad. After all, how long will it be before Sunni and Shi'ite insurgents begin telling anyone and everyone that the United States has installed a death squad chieftain in the embassy in Baghdad? No, that characterization of Negroponte isn't fair. But the Iraqi people aren't likely either to appreciate the nuances of the situation in Central America in the 1980s or give the benefit of the doubt to an American pro-consul.

But nuances there were, and an American audience deserves to know a little more about them. While Matt and others have focused on the death squad issue, Negroponte real job in Honduras was to build up the right-wing Nicaraguan guerrilla force known as the contras. In addition to the logistical challenges of running a guerrilla war, Negroponte had to face the twofold diplomatic challenge of keeping the whole operation secret while also persuading the Hondurans to severely compromise both their own sovereignty and international law by voluntarily hosting a guerrilla force dedicated to the violent overthrow of a neighboring government.

In November 1982, Newsweek destroyed the myth that the United States wasn't the main sponsor and organizer of the Contra forces. Unsurprisingly, widespread knowledge of what the United States was up to made it far harder for the Hondurans to pretend that they weren't involved. The fact that Negroponte persisted in such adverse circumstances won him a reputation as a top-flight diplomat, at least on the Republican side of the aisle. Lately, Negroponte seems to have won admirers on both sides of the aisle.

What I can't say, since I haven't finished my research yet, is what role Negroponte played in the illegal phases of the Contra war. If you're interested in reading what an unreliable and partisan source has to say about Negroponte and the contras, click here. When I have some hard facts, I'll put up a post on the subject.

On a related note, it is also important to put Negroponte's blindness to human rights abuses in context. During Negroponte's five years in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran death squads only committed about as many murders as the Salvadoran death squads did in an average month (between 1980 and 1983). At the same time, the Guatemalan military was waging a genocidal campaign against indigenous Guatemalans that resulted in tens of thousands of innocent lives lost. Thus, Negroponte hardly stands out among diplomats of his time as someone blind to human rights abuses.

On the other hand, American diplomats in El Salvador did far more to speak out against the brutality. In 1981, Reagan sent Deane Hinton to replace Bob White, the Carter's administration's Ambassador in San Salvador who was appointed precisely because of his commitment to human rights. While Reagan & Co. expected Hinton to stay relatively quiet, Hinton delivered a blistering anti-death squad speech in late 1982 that the Reagan administration disavowed because it was so embarrassing to the United States.

On the other hand, it was Bob White who presided over the most murderous era in the Salvadoran civil war. His intentions were good, but does that really excuse the fact that he actively supported a junta responsible for ten thousand murders? The same can be said of Hinton. Should White and Hinton have resigned? Or was being more honest than their colleagues enough? The same can even be said of Thomas Pickering, the #3 man at State under Albright. As Ambassador to El Salvador after Hinton, he was so outspoken in the campaign against the death squads that they ultimately tried to kill him. Yet he, too, presided over a slaughterhouse far worse than that in Honduras.

Of course, it was not the killings in Honduras that truly represent Negroponte's greatest blindness. In my opinion, his willingness to work with the Contras, whose leadership was drawn from the ranks of the Somoza dictatorship's brutal National Guard, was even more problematic. Unsurprisingly, the Contras amassed a record of human rights violations far worse than that of the Hondurans. They just didn't have death squads.

But there is another twist to the story. Neither the New Republic nor Matt Yglesias describe how Negroponte helped consolidate democracy in Honduras. Although the transition to democracy in Tegucigalpa begun under Carter, it could not have been completed without the active support of the Reagan administration. While Honduras is not exactly a model democracy today, we'd probably all be pretty happy if Negroponte managed to build an Iraqi state that regularly held elections for more than 20 years, subordinated the military to the civilian government and ultimately got rid of almost all major human rights abuses.

All in all, the situation is far more complex than what you would pick up by reading either the NYT/WaPo descriptions of Negroponte's career or Matt's polemics against him. In spite of my belief that the Reagan administration made a tremendous contribution to promoting democracy in Central America, I still cannot forgive the fact that so many of its highest ranking officials regularly lied to Congress in order to support that policy. Even in hindsight, it is very hard to separate right from wrong.
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# Posted 9:28 AM by Patrick Belton  

BROOKINGS PANEL ON IRAQ AND ISRAEL: The transcript is interesting, not least of which because it incorporates both the views of a number of smart people we often agree with (e.g., Michael O'Hanlon) and others whom we occasionally differ from (such as Kenneth Pollack), as well as some new information and perspectives. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:23 AM by Patrick Belton  

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WE HAVE A NAME! I think we may have received a winning suggestion for a name for our project to translate weekly selections from the English-language blogosphere into Arabic and Farsi. So our friends, please say hello to the Ibn Khaldun Project! For those of you who aren't familiar with his work, Ibn Khaldun was a brilliant and incisive fourteenth-century traveller and scholar, who translated the outside world and its political dynamics for an audience of his countrymen. His Kitab al-l'bar was a masterful rendition of the history of every empire and people known to medieval Islamic civilisation, and his ponderous Muqaddimah revolutionised medieval historiography by searching for economic, sociological, geographical, and psychological factors underlaying the rise, evolution, and decline of states - it has in many ways been judged the superior by scholars of the Italian Renaissance's Prince. So in naming our project the Ibn Khaldun Project, we are trying to live up to his legacy of bringing the Western and Middle Eastern worlds into productive dialogue with each other, and to make legible to audiences in the Middle East the varieties of opinion and political conversations to be found in the English-speaking world.

We've also gratefully got our first handful of volunteers - Arabic and Farsi speakers, as well as expert computer hands. We can always make use of the efforts of more, and we will look forward to making this project worthy of its namesake!

(SIDENOTE: It's also an acronym, incidentally - "I" stands for internet, and "bn Khaldun," well, we won't get into that for considerations of space....) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:01 AM by Patrick Belton  

WAITING FOR BOUDREAUX: Glenn links yesterday to the ongoing investigation into a photograph - correctly publicised by CAIR - in which a Louisiana reservist poses with two smiling Iraqi children who are holding a sign which appears to read "Lcpl. Boudreaux killed my dad then he knocked up my sister." What's interesting in this whole matter - apart from the fact that CAIR staffer Ibrahim Hooper comes off as the most sensible person in the whole saga ("My assumption has always been these things didn't happen, and in fact I doubt there's any girl at all") - is the as-yet unresolved question as to whether the text on the sign was just photoshopped in the first place. Museum of Hoaxes tracks the image through its different permutations- which include a 'Lcpl Boudreaux saved my dad then he rescued my sister', a boring blank piece of cardboard, and the inevitable odd spoofs, some of which involve Teletubbies. Purely as a technical question, I'm curious whether any of our readers might have any idea about how to tell which among these different versions is a genuine photograph rather than a doctored one? To my untrained eye, the text looks equally fishy in the "shagged my sister" as in the "saved my sister" shot. But I wouldn't want to bet the ranch on it. (And no, that's not really my ranch.)

Also, just as an incidental sidenote, I've as yet only seen Teletubbies in Serbo-Croatian, which I've got to say didn't really help to reduce the oddness of the series for me.

UPDATE: We've got, ahem, fans. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:25 AM by Patrick Belton  

MODERN-DAY ENGLAND IN A NUTSHELL: Thus Education Secretary Charles Clarke:

"There is no point having improving GCSE results and higher education participation rising towards 50% if there remains a huge chunk in the middle that continue to drop out and enter into a cycle of continuous low paid work or unemployment."

While I'm hardly a Nietzschean in matters of education policy, it seems to me there actually is indeed some point in raising test scores and the number of people going to university, even holding for the moment constant the number of students dropping out of secondary school. This might be true, for instance, even if it were motivated only by Rawls's Difference Principle, and a desire to create a larger reservoir of income with which to drive a more robust social welfare state. But such ideas are coming to be seen as terribly out of fashion in an England which would rather condemn its principal research universities to slightly-below-European-level mediocrity than subject itself to criticism for pursuing any goal other than (or even together with) utter levelling equality, or allowing any inequality irrespective of how meritocratically attained or useful for the society as a whole. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:25 PM by David Adesnik  

BLOGGER-CON II, CONT'D: (Click here for Part I) Before letting you in on the secrets of how to blog for profit, I thought I'd let you know that Tara from Liloia.com has put up a comprehensive set of links to posts about Blogger-Con II. As you might guess, it's hard to think of an event that could possibly get more blog-love than a convention of bloggers. Anyhow...

There are a lot of different ways to blog for profit, and Jeff Jarvis has put up a rough list of them here. Even though I've never had much interest in figuring out ways to make money off of blogging, I've noticed that more and more of my favorite blogs have started to put up ads.

Sometimes, you just don't have a choice. As Kevin Drum mentioned when we met up last December, the cost of bandwidth for a popular site can add up to thousands of dollars per year. In other words, Kevin basically had the choice of paying out of his own pocket to give readers access to his site or, instead, selling ads to cover the cost. As Kevin found out, a site as popular as his can easily earn back five or six times in ad revenues what it lays out for bandwidth.

One of things I'm curious about is how many hits per day a site has to have before BlogAds will take it on as a client. I'm also sort of curious about the maximum amount someone can make off selling-ads. The BlogAds site says it has clients making up to $1500 a month. Is that a reference to Glenn Reynolds? Or will he break that ceiling wide open?

Anyhow, I don't think I'm doing a very good job of conveying the substance of Jeff's session. Frankly, a lot of the business talk passed me by because I don't have any sort of framework to plug it into. What definitely was both interesting and relevant was when Jeff polled the audience to find out what are the most important challenges facing the blogging industry.

The top two answers, far and away, were: 1) A blogging industry trade association and 2) Reliable demographic information about blog readers. A trade association is necessary to set standards as well as deal with collective welfare issues such as legal concerns, lobbying and insurance. Reliable stats are critical to turning profits because it is very hard to sell ads or product without a reliable way to quantify the target audience.

While blog audiences are small compared to big media, my suspicion is that our demographics are extremely impressive in terms of education, income and geographical distribution. But you can't sell a suspicion. The challenge then becomes how you get a representative sample of readers to provide information about themselves.

The technical folks at Jeff's session seemed to be in agreement that measuring internet traffic is a very, very hard thing to do. Why is that so? You probably know more about it than I do. But I wonder if there are solutions to this problem already out there. After all, the NYT and WaPo have a strong incentive to get demographic information about their readers. Whatever methods they use should have some applicability on a smaller scale as well. Or not. After all, what do I know?

In closing, I think that Jeff's standing-room only audience felt that his session was a big, big success. The participants were very excited about sharing their ideas and actually seemed very excited just about being together and sharing the hope of turning blogging into a major industry. I hope they're right about that. I could use the cash!

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# Posted 6:16 PM by David Adesnik  

HAS ISRAEL WON ON THE BATTLEFIELD? It looks like Oxblog underestimated the NYT. Right now, the lead story on its website is an excellent article by Greg Myre which reports (argues) that Hamas may simply not be able to follow through on its threat to retatiate for the death of Abdelaziz Rantisi.

In March 2002 alone, 16 suicide bombers struck Israeli citizens. In 2002 as a whole, there were fifty attacks. In 2003, there were twenty. So far this year there have been six, including a recent attack that only killed one border guard.

While Myre doesn't come out and say so directly, this trend may reflect an extraordinary vindication of Sharon's strategy of crushing terrorism with overwhelming force. I have to admit, I never really thought it was possible. Much as I resented the media's kneejerk condemnations of Sharon, I never really liked him either and never thought Hamas or Fatah could be beaten on the battlefield. Their popular support and organization resources were simply too deep.

But, hey, I've been wrong before. And I may be wrong now. The current setbacks for Hamas and Fatah may only be temporary. Of course, I hope not. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:03 PM by David Adesnik  

WHO KILLS AMERICAN SOLDIERS? Ten more soldiers lost their lives today during combat in Iraq. What I can't tell from the news coverage, however, is whether they are dying in battle against Ba'athist insurgents or against the Sadr militia. In fact, that distincation has almost never been made since the double insurgency broke out two weeks ago.

Based on where most American soldiers seem to have been killed, it looks like the Ba'athists and not the Sadrists have been responsible. But what is the significance of that fact? Are Sadr's men simply less proficient in combat? Are they less willing to die? Or is level of hostilities between Coalition forces and the Sadr militia simply not as serious?

Unfortunately, I don't have an answer to any of these questions. But my instinct says that our conflict with Sadr is very different from our war against the Ba'athists because Sadr and his men are not dead-enders with nothing to lose, but political operatives looking to establish themselves in the new Iraq. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:55 PM by David Adesnik  

SPAIN TO WITHDRAW: Even if Zapatero had some reservations about pulling out of Iraq after the Madrid bombing, there is no way that he could break his most important campaign promise. What Spain should do, however, is demonstrate its commitment to the War on Terror and refusal to compromise with Al Qaeda by sending two troops to Afghanistan for every one it pulls out of Iraq. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:13 AM by Patrick Belton  

DEMOCRACY IN THE WORLD THIS WEEK: Here's a quick round-up of democratization related stories that were in the headlines this week: (We also contributed brief posts on South African and Algerian elections over at Winds of Change, if you're interested...)

• Burmese democratic activists released: National League for Democracy chairman Aung Shwe and party secretary U Lwin were freed Tuesday by the country’s ruling junta after nearly a year under house arrest. With their release, Aung San Suu Kyi and her vice president Tin Oo remain as the last senior NLD officials in confinement. Yangon-based observers tell the press there is widespread expectation that Suu Kyi will be released shortly, most likely before the junta holds a convention on May 17 to court international support by touting its seven-point “road map to democracy,” which it claims will end with free and fair elections. Suu Kyi’s decision will then be whether to participate in - and lend legitimacy to - the junta’s multiparty conference, after having led the NLD to resounding victory in the country’s last election.

• In Iran, President Mohammad Khatami formally withdrew two key reform bills this week which had passed the country’s parliament last year, in a sign of the utter collapse of Iran’s reform movement within the country’s political system. At the same time, Tehran prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi - who was behind the closure of about one hundred pro-democratic publications in the run-up to elections - was publicly honoured as the "best manager" in the Iranian judiciary. The two withdrawn bills had each been vetoed last year by the Guardian Council; one would have increased presidential powers against the clerical Guardian and Expedience Councils, while the other would have barred the Guardian Council from disqualifying parliamentary and presidential candidates.

• In Nepal, thousands of people have taken to the streets in the last several weeks urging King Gyanendra to initiate democratic reforms. Gyanendra said last month that he hoped to hold elections by April next year, but left ample room to delay them past that date based on a lack of security. The country has been in the grip of a Maoist insurgency since 1996, with 9,300 people having died in fighting between Maoist and government forces. In 2002, Gyanendra dismissed the country’s prime minister for failing adequately to contain the insurgency, and used the occasion to postpone indefinitely elections which had been scheduled for November of that year. Over the past two weeks, more than one thousand people have been detained for taking part in demonstrations against the King, which are officially illegal.

• A Congress of Democrats from the Islamic World opened Tuesday amidst warnings from Turkey and Jordan that political reforms must not be imposed by outside powers. Separately, Egypt’s President Mubarak visited President Bush at his Crawford, Texas ranch, where the U.S. president lavished praise on him for having hosted a conference of Arab civil society representatives who met at the Alexandria Library in March.

• South Korea voted for its National Assembly this week under the shadow of presidential impeachment. Polls favored President Roh Moo-hyun’s Uri party, which campaigned on a government reform platform, and benefitted from a backlash against the conservative Grand National Party after it drove impeachment through the legislature. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:39 AM by David Adesnik  

JAILHOUSE BLOG: At the conference today, someone said that there aren't any bloggers working out of jail cells. It turns out there are. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:56 AM by David Adesnik  

BLOGGER-CON II: It's the Mecca of the blogosphere. More than 200 bloggers gathered together not just in real time, but in real space. Their purpose? To advance the state of the art. To navel-gaze with unprecedented commitment. To consume bandwidth with unmatched ferocity. To have a damn good time.

Sessions at BCII included everything from discussions of international blogging to personal television networks to blogging and religion. The sessions I attended were the prolific Michael Watkins' discussion of academic blogging and the illustrious Jeff Jarvis' workshop on blogging for profit. And no description of BC II (or for that matter, BC I) would be complete if you didn't mention the man responsible for it all, Dave Winer. Go Dave!

A professor at Harvard Business School (HBS), Michael opened up his session by existing whether universities still have a right to exits. After all, aren't there much more efficient ways to accomplish the conflicting objectives of teaching students, conducting research and certifying professionals? In spite of universities' self-image as the home of free think and the free exchange of ideas, doesn't the inflexible academic hierarchy unsure that the most innovative ideas are the ones least likely to be pursued? And finally, can the blogosphere save the university from itself?

The question that clearly preoccupied the participants in Michael's was whether and how blogs have the potential to subvert the informal mechanisms of control that limit academic freedom. Michael's personal experience is quite relevant on this front since he used his weblog, World Events on Weekdays, to challenge HBS when it denied him tenure. Michael's case is exceptional, however, in that his outstanding achievements as an author -- writing six books in five years and selling 50,000 copies of the most recent one -- have prevented him from becoming dependent on the academy for employment.

However, there are compelling examples of rank-and-file academics who have challenged the authorities within their discipline. As one anthropologist related, there was recently a case in which his discipline's governing body responded to a major academic scandal by appointing a rather lax investigative committee. Yet to the committee's surprise, rank-and-file anthropologists chose to post the early drafts of its report in an online forum and deconstruct the report in considerable detail. As a result, the committee was forced to take its job seriously and confront the scandal head-on.

In addition to institutions, individuals can also become the targets of the blogosphere. As one participant asked Prof. Watkins, how would he feel if his students set up weblogs devoted to the in-depth critique of all of his lectures? Now, that was a softball question for self-avowed subversive like Michael. But what if other professors suddenly found themselves the subject of online forums? What about elementary or high school teachers? Although often unstated, there is a powerful academic norm which says that what is said in the classroom stays in the classroom.

But why should that be the case? With some justification, teachers are often concerned that public pressures will get in the way of academic freedom. Yet at the same time, blogs might offer unprecedented opportunities for students, parents and concerned others to become involved in the educational process. Similar concerns about the vulgarity of popular taste often lead professors to treat the blogosphere as a means of communication that is beneath them. Online, they can't rely on the protection provided by membership on the faculty of an august university or publication in a prestigious academic journal. In the blogosphere, some punk kid might turn out to know more than the supposed experts and proceed to embarrass them quite thoroughly.

Of course, blogging isn't the only medium that professors avoid because it is beneath them. As two professors of marketing related, many of their colleagues refuse to watch television and fail to recognize how ironic it is that supposed experts in marketing are totally unfamiliar with the most important medium for advertising today.

Even in a post of this length, it is hard to cover all of the issues and illustrative examples that participants shared in the course of Michael's session. Thus, the last thing I'd like to focus on is what wasn't said this afternoon. While talking to a former CNN correspondent at the reception that followed the conference, I mentioned that Michael had begun the session by asking whether academics do anything that is relevant to the real world. Instead of addressing that question, however, the participants mostly decided to talk about themselves. Typical, she said. Academics more concerned with what goes on inside the ivory tower than outside of it.

While that brief exchange didn't do justice to a very thoughtful session, I think it is fair to say that we never looked back after wading into the bog of academic politics. As someone who rails prolifically against the irrelevance of political science to actual politics, I would have been glad to talk about whether blogging may help make scholarship more relevant. Then again, this discussion was just a first. It is the foundation for discussions to come, not the final word on the subject.

Coming soon: Jeff Jarvis on blogging for profit. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:38 AM by David Adesnik  

SUPPORT OUR TROOPS: Learn more about the innovative ways in which bloggers are working with American soldiers to make Iraq a better place. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:34 AM by David Adesnik  

THE MAN BEHIND 'WINDS OF CHANGE': Who is Joe Katzman? Follow the link and find out more about the man who created what may be the most impressive collection of foreign affairs experts in the blogosphere. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:47 PM by David Adesnik  

HAMAS LEADER SLAIN (YES, AGAIN): Last night, an Israeli missile strike took the life of Abdelaziz Rantisi, the leader of Hamas. I don't think anyone is going to miss Rantisi, who was a hardened terrorist devoted to the total destruction of the State of Israel. But was this a good time for Israel to lash out at Hamas? Will Hamas respond with a wave of suicide bombings?

These are, of course, the exact same questions that we all asked one month ago when Israeli missiles ended the life of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin. Back then, the NYT wrote that

Hamas will now redouble its efforts to send human torpedos into Israel. The Palestinian Authority will be even less inclined to confront terrorists in its midst and less able to coax Hamas into observing a cease-fire.

At the time, OxBlog shared the expecation that Hamas would hit back hard, but despondently observed that

After all, what is the difference if the bombers detonate themselves this week in honor of Yassin rather than next week in honor of someone else?

Well, as it turns out, OxBlog was wrong. Neither Hamas nor Fatah was able to retaliate with a major strike. My guess is that this kind of failure on their part only encouraged the Israelis to follow through on their plans for more targeted killings. Moreover, the targeted killings certainly didn't deter the Bush administratrion from coming out strongly in favor of Sharon's Gaza withdrawal plan.

What all this adds up to, I guess, is a strong incentive for Israel to continue with the targeted killings. Not a pleasant thought, but with no prospects for a negotiated settlement, violence is all that we can really expect. I'm also going to guess that most of the American media will raise the same objections to the killings that they did the last time around. But if neither Bush nor Sharon listened then, why listen now? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:04 PM by Patrick Belton  

104 YEAR OLD PROFESSOR RETIRES: At the rate I'm writing my thesis, I'll need an academic career roughly that long myself.... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:54 PM by Patrick Belton  

TODAY'S MUST-READ: Namely, TNR's Michael Crowley writing in Slate on the seven different factions vying for control of the Kerry campaign. Apart from the less interesting dueling-operatives jousting between Boston and Washington, the interesting policy fights are being fought between DLC hawkish centrists on the one hand (Bruce Reed, Gene Sperling, Richard Altman, Sarah Bianchi, Jamie Rubin) and fiery leftish populists drafted on a TDY basis out of Senator Kennedy's office (Bob Shrum, Mary Beth Cahill, Stephanie Cutter) and dovish Vietnam veterans (Tom Vallely, Chris Gregory, John Hurley) on the other, who respectively crave more class warfare and anti-war soundings out of the campaign. Interesting and useful analysis - and may the DLC folk win!

UPDATE: Matt has a different reading of Crowley's piece, and thinks Crowley's light tone extends both to his analysis as well as his presentation, as well as that the DLC faction (note to self: think up witty factional nicknames before end of campaign. then go back and put them here. result = really funny!) is running the more important policy shop rather than menial matters of political strategy. Matt's interesting as always, but I'm not sure I'm convinced yet. First, I think Crowley's analysis, as opposed to his metaphor of tribes and warlords, is meant to be fairly much taken at face value, but I guess in the final instance we could always just ask Crowley which of us is right. (Although Barthes might be grumpy.) Second, Mary Beth Cahill, a Kennedy office alumna, is Kerry's campaign manager, which seems like a more ponderous position to affect policy than from the issues staff. And incidentally, about the relationship of speechwriting to policies, there's actually an awfully interesting piece about how rhetoric can trap policymakers in being better than their intentions by some pundit daring to commit actual scholarship under the diabolically ingenious nom de plume of Adesnik. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:57 PM by Patrick Belton  

NEW WEBSITE: I've noticed that we get a really remarkable number of hits (and will get even more after this post, in all likelihood) from people googling "Dearborn (/Oxford / Washington / Kabul / Baghdad - hey, you're an adventuresome bunch) Massage Parlours," "Arabic gay sex pics," and even some really interesting combinations of Bush administration foreign policy statesmen (and women) and the former. This probably reflects the principal usages of the internet at this point in history (59% pornography, 31% Nigerian diamonds and Viagra sales, 10% email and e-commerce). In the past, I've tended to just say "welcome, gentlemen, and you can leave your trenchcoats by the door." But my current idea is that, if our dissertations don't come through in the end, we could always just spin out a companion website, OxxxBlog.

Second, we've been talking with friends in the democracy-promotion community about our idea to get funding to translate a weekly "best of blogs" round-up into Arabic and Farsi, with a scrupulously balanced representation each week of centre-left to centre-right blogs from the US and abroad. I have to admit, though, I still haven't figured out a cool title for the project. I've been thinking "Internet (something something) Project," where the middle bit has something to do with electronic political media, and perhaps the Middle East, but just neater-sounding. Any ideas? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:17 PM by David Adesnik  

NRO VS. THE NEO-CONS: The National Review have some sharp words for the Bush administration regarding its conduct of the occupation. But sharp or not, I think that NRO's criticisms are basically fair. (Thanks to JM for the link.)

Where NRO gets things wrong is when it tries to blame everything that's gone wrong on the Wilsonian neo-cons in the administration. Strangely, none of these supposed neo-cons gets mentioned by name. And in fact, the mistakes that NRO mentions were just as much (if not moreso) the fault of NRO-style conservatives like Rumsfeld, Cheney and Rice as they were of Weekly Standard readers like Wolfowitz.

Of course the real culprit here is George W. Bush. No one has done more to push a Wilsonian agenda for Iraq than the President himself. Judging from their public statements, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice and Powell have only gone along with the President because they have no choice. Yet the NRO is afraid to point its finger at Bush because what they're trying to do is get Bush to stop pushing the neo-con agenda. But perhaps the NRO should recognize -- as most of Bush's other critics have -- that he actually means what he says. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:54 PM by David Adesnik  

EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SHI'ISM BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK: Rob's got one helluva reading list. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:45 PM by Patrick Belton  

CAN YOU SMOKE IN THE UN CAFETARIA? According to this article, no - but New York cops can't stop you. Under the 1947 headquarters agreement (the article gets the year wrong), unless explicitly stated otherwise in the agreement, the federal, state, and city laws that apply to the rest of New York also apply to the Headquarters District - but American police officials can't enter the UN to enforce them. (An exception is that they can enter on the Secretary-General's invitation, which is contemplated in emergency situations to maintain law and order within the district).

So you can smoke a camel with your coffee, or even a Cuban in the cafeteria, there on the East River? If you're okay with violating unenforceable New York City regulations, well, sure - assuming the UN hasn't enacted a law for the Headquarters District. And in fact, Secretary General Annan tried to do so by decretal authority, but diplomats accredited to the United Nations protested that only the General Assembly had lawmaking competence for the Headquarters District. Indeed, the current, though disputed, dominant sense does seem to be that only the General Assembly, and not Secretary-General Annan, could outlaw cigarettes within the Secretariat building - and given how difficult it is to get the General Assembly to do anything, you can probably rest assured in the confidence that at the UN for a long while you will be able to smoke your stogies to your heart's content. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:42 PM by David Adesnik  

WHEN IT RAINES, IT POURS: Rob Tagorda isn't so sure that Frank Raines would make a good running mate for Kerry. Nor is Rob all that happy with what Kerry's saying about Iraq or about the economy. But as Rob reminds us, there is always another Senator from Massachusetts who could be President... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:30 PM by David Adesnik  

A WALK DOWN MEMORY LANE: Dan Drezner links to his April 2003 review of what the anti-war crowd got right and what they got wrong about the war. I'd say that the passage of time has only made Dan's post look even more insightful than it was 12 months ago.

Dan has also some very good posts up on US-China trade relations and the comparative efficiency of knowledge-based economies. While the talking heads may be wringing their hands about outsourcing and the loss of high-tech jobs, the numbers say that America is doing just fine. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:17 PM by David Adesnik  

NEGATIVE CAMPAIGNING: Attack ads will never be the same. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:53 PM by David Adesnik  

IGNORE THE HEADLINES: "Bush Planned For War as Diplomacy Continued" blares the WaPo. "Book Alleges Secret Iraq War Plan" says the NYT/AP. The existence of such a plan is one conclusion of Bob Woodward's new book on the invasion of Iraq. But the book also has something quite interesting to say about the phantom WMD:

Bush wanted someone with Powell's credibility to present the evidence that Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction -- a case the president had initially found less than convincing when presented to him by CIA deputy director John McLaughlin at a White House meeting on December 21, 2002.

McLaughlin's version used communications intercepts, satellite photos, diagrams and other intelligence. "Nice try," Bush said when he was finished, according to the book. "I don't think this quite -- it's not something that Joe Public would understand or would gain a lot of confidence from."

He then turned to Tenet, McLaughlin's boss and said, "I've been told all this intelligence about having WMD and this is the best we've got?"

"It's a slam dunk case," Tenet replied, throwing his arms in the air. Bush pressed him again. "George, how confident are you."

"Don't worry, it's a slam dunk case," Tenet repeated.

Tenet later told associates he realized he should have said the evidence on weapons was not ironclad, according to Woodward.

Woodward could be wrong about all of this. Critics often assert that he gets access to top officials because they know that he will write what they want to hear. But let's say Woodward got this exchange between Bush and Tenet right. Shouldn't the WaPo headline have read: "Bush Never Lied About WMD"? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:05 AM by Patrick Belton  

LONDON RESTAURANT REVIEW OF THE DAY: From OxBlog's Afghanistan correspondent (who's, disconcertingly, in Oxford; we're shooing back to Afghanistan, where he's supposed to be):

We all went out in the evening to Montuno's, a good restaurant (serving ostrich and alligator) in a dodgy East London neighborhood. It had a 1920s Prohibition theme that didn't quite come off (all the waiters were wearing black suits and fedoras, and looked more like Lubavitchers than Capone boys).

# Posted 6:49 AM by Patrick Belton  

TWO MATURIN QUOTATIONS: After coming back from a surprise birthday party that Josh and I, and a handful of our Oxford friends, threw for Rachel last night, I laid in bed for a bit with my moment's Patrick O'Brian novel, HMS Surprise, and ran across two passages which I wanted to share with our readers:

'Even more painful than the fact that my let us call it interrogation was carried out by the French, the nation I love best.'

'What civilised man does not? Their rulers, politicians, revolutions set apart, and this horrible engouement for Bonaparte.'


'Bonden,' cried Stephen, 'take pen and ink, and write-'
'Write, sir?' cried Bonden.
'Yes. Sit square to your paper, and write: Landsdowne Crescent - Barret Bonden, are you brought by the lee??'
'Why, yes, sir; that I am - fair broached-to. Though I can read pretty quick, if in broad print; I can make out a watch-bill.'
'Never mind. I shall show you the way of it when we are at sea, however; it is no great matter - look at the fools who write all day long.'

Just as a sidenote, I was still thinking about the first passage as I was about to wake up this morning, and while I was in the midst of dreaming of a very intense older woman who had been recounting to me how, as a member of the Free French in June 1940, she had broadcast the rally to occupied France: "Vous, vous, vous, vous, vous, vous, vous maintenant devez agir de défendre votre patrie. Vous, vous, vous, vous, vous, vous, vous devez soutenir vos voisins et vos familles. Vous, vous, vous, vous, vous, vous, vous vous devez prouver aujourd'hui que vous êtes digne fils de la France." I quickly woke up to realise the pigeons had begun their broadcast of "ooo, ooo, ooo, ooo" from outside my window, as they do dutifully each morning from 6 am until the broadcast day ends around dinner-time, occasionally later.

PS: And incidentally, I couldn't agree more wholeheartedly with David's sterling taste in the blogosphere's best exemplars, as reflected in the post immediately below! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:52 AM by David Adesnik  

A LESSON IN CIVICS: Kevin Drum has made a point of apologizing for his derisive and unfair comments about the quality of the CIA's prose. It was not a major point and Kevin clearly had the option of saying nothing and letting his readers forget about it.

In fact, Kevin had already put up one post acknowledging that Patrick's praise for the CIA's work may have been more valid than his (Kevin's) initial criticism. The fact that Kevin has continued to post additional corrections is yet another illustration of Kevin's commitment both to civility in public discourse and to putting the truth ahead of personal interests.

A damn fine blog and a damn fine blogger. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:31 AM by David Adesnik  

A SOLDIER'S SACRIFICE: A meditation on the human costs of war. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:26 AM by David Adesnik  

IRAQ ISN'T VIETNAM -- IT'S WORSE: So says Krugman. Unsurprisingly, Krauthammer disagrees. While some may find it disturbing that critics of the occupation have resorted to the language of Vietnam so quickly, I am actually encouraged by it. Their cards are now on the table. Their reputation as analysts is now invested.

After one week of hard combat, the critics gave up on the occupation as lost. We heard that Sadr's militia represent the advance guard of a national Shi'ite revolt. We heard that Shi'ite and Sunnis were joining forces against the Americans. But now things are quieting down again.

To be sure, there is still no transition government to speak of. But the US seems to have built a good working relationship with the UN envoy to Iraq. What may emerge from that relationship is a government appointed by the UN but which will respect both American and Iraqi interests. With very mild justification, Kerry's partisans are now claiming that Bush is following Kerry's line on Iraq. Yet the Bush administration hasn't come close to the turning over the occupation to the UN in the way that Kerry and other Democrats have demanded. Rather, the administration has invited the UN to mediate critical disputes that the CPA couldn't handle by itself.

In the long run, the emergence of a healthy democracy in Iraq is still a longshot. But if the United States stays the course, it can shift the odds in democracy's favor. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:53 AM by David Adesnik  

SUDDENLY BIN LADEN'S A GENIUS: This is how the WaPo opens its analysis of Bin Laden's latest offer:

Osama bin Laden's psychological operations campaign against the United States took a surprising turn yesterday with the release of an audio message that is modern, tactical and nearly diplomatic in tone, and that addresses Europeans rather than Muslim devotees, counterterrorism experts and intelligence officials said.

In doing so, experts who have analyzed his previous audiotapes and videotapes said bin Laden is employing a powerful weapon in psychological warfare: an adaptable propaganda machine that understands the nature of Western democracies, seeks to exploit political dissent and knows how to disseminate its message worldwide without being caught.

That is patently ridiculous. Is it "modern, tactical and nearly diplomatic" to tell Europeans that Bin Laden will stop murdering their fellow citizens if they surrender completely to his demands? If Bin Laden "understands the nature of Western democracies" why has every European government rejected the prospect of negotiating with Al Qaeda as unconscionable? Here's a sample of what Europe has to say:

"There cannot be negotiations with terrorists and criminals like Osama bin Laden," a German government spokesman said. "The community of nations must continue the fight against international terrorism, and Germany will continue to contribute to that fight."

Miguel ?ngel Moratinos, the new foreign minister of Spain, said Spain would not negotiate with Mr. bin Laden. "Bin Laden is the enemy of all of us who seek peace, democracy and freedom," Mr. Moratinos said. "Therefore we must not listen to him or pay attention to him."

The Italian foreign minister, Franco Frattini, said, "It is unthinkable that we may open a negotiation with bin Laden."

It should come as absolutely no surprise that Europe responded to Bin Laden with such united and unequivocal condemnation. No matter how controversial the war in Iraq has become, Europeans share our fundamental conviction that terror is beyond the pale. Rather than dividing Europe from the United States, Bin Laden has only succeeded in reminding us of the moral foundation on which our alliance rests. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:26 PM by Patrick Belton  

NEW ARAB REFORM BULLETIN: Carnegie releases these every month, courtesy of Yalie Arabist Amy Hawthorne, and they're always worth reading. In this month's issue, the Congressional Research Service's Kenneth Katzman says that the bulk of Iraq's Shi'i are quite moderate, CFR Next Generation Fellow Steven Cook writes that Algeria's elections were only democratic by Arab standards (why? because the military played a role in keeping the state secular, and sidelining Islamist parties...), and other pieces on Europe's response to the Greater Middle East Initiative, the role of Arab media in US reform efforts, and speculation as to the ultimate cause of the collapse of the Tunisia summit. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:10 PM by Patrick Belton  

EURASIANET ON US-UZBEK RELATIONSHIP: There generally isn't a lot of good analytical coverage of Uzbekistan and the rest of Central Asia, but Ariel Cohen offers a good piece in which he reports that the administration isn't planning to alter its relationship with Karimov in light of the explosion of terrorism in his country which occurred this month, and reports official scepticism that the violence was a result of Karimov's authoritarianism. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:07 PM by Patrick Belton  

AMERICA IN OPEC? On an APSA listserv which I take part in, Connecticut government professor Tristan Borer poses the interesting international law question of whether, as an occupying power exercising Iraq's sovereignty, the US is therefore currently a member of OPEC. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:56 PM by Patrick Belton  

MARINES FOR IRAQI LOCAL TV: Jim Hake and a group of Marines (see synonyms) have just begun a project to set up a network of low-powered local television stations in Iraq, which will be manned by Iraqis, and will report on local news - and particularly on things that are going on in parts of Iraq where there are no explosions, fires, bodies, or mainstream media coverage. There's more on the project's website. This sounds to be a wonderfully thought out and useful project, and definitely deserves any support people feel able to give it. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:04 AM by Patrick Belton  

A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO OUR FOREMOST READER, AND MY BELOVED WIFE: To Rachel, with many happy returns of the day, from the three of us....

First sight. First snapshot isolated
Unalterable, stilled in the camera's glare.
Taller
Than you ever were again.
Swaying so slender
It seemed your long, perfect, American legs
Simply went on up.
That flaring hand,
Those long, balletic, monkey-elegant fingers.
And the face - a tight ball of joy.
I see you there, clearer, more real Than in any of the years in its shadow - As if I saw you that once, then never again.
Ted Hughes, "St. Botolph's," Birthday Letters (about his first meeting Sylvia Plath at Cambridge in 1956)

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:17 PM by David Adesnik  

WHAT'S NEW HERE, EXACTLY? No question about it, this morning's Bush-Sharon press-conference is the top story of the day. But why, exactly? If you get your news from the WaPo or NYT, the answer to that question is far from self-evident. Both papers' headlines focus on Bush's support for Sharon's plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip unilaterally. So? Why does Sharon need Bush's support to make concessions to the Palestinians? Halfway through its cover story, the NYT provides a cryptic answer to that question:

The United States' support is expected to strengthen [Sharon] at home, and help him push his disengagement proposal through a binding vote by his Likud party on May 2.

Those familiar with the details of the peace process will recognize that the May 2 vote represents an effort by Sharon to overcome the opposition of Likud hard-liners to making any sort of unilateral concessions to the Palestinians. In other words, Sharon is investing a good amount of political capital in an effort to give up land to the Palestinians and Bush is investing political capital in an effort to support Sharon.

Of course, casual readers of the NYT would have a hard time figuring out that that is what they President and the Prime Minister are trying to do. Readers of the WaPo wouldn't have any idea at all about what's going on, since the WaPo cover story doesn't even mention the May 2 vote.

Now, if you focus on the text of the NYT and WaPo articles rather than the headlines, you get a better idea of the point that those papers' correspondents are trying to make. The first sentence in the Times tells its readers that

President Bush, in a significant shift in American policy, told Prime Minister Ariel Sharon today that the United States would not object if Israel retained some West Bank settlements under a future peace accord.

According to the second paragraph in the WaPo's version of the story,

In an appearance with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and in an exchange of letters to be made public later today, Bush accepted essentially all of what the Israeli leader had sought. The move substantially changes U.S. policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, softening the American objection to Israel's settlements and dropping a reluctance to dictate terms of a final peace settlement.

In other words, today's big story is that Bush is damaging the peace process by publicly endorsing -- for the first time ever -- the most unreasonable of Israeli demands. In case this message wasn't clear, the NYT reports that

The [American] announcement seemed sure to anger many Arabs and Muslims, many of them already deeply resentful of the United States occupation of Iraq. [If I were less generous, I might describe this reference to Iraq as entirely gratuitous. --ed.]

Ahmed Qurei, the Palestinian prime minister, issued a powerful denunciation, saying, according to Reuters, "Bush is the first U.S. president to give legitimacy to Jewish settlements on Palestinian land. We reject this."

Earlier today, anticipating the administration's action, Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, said in a statement that such an accord "means clearly the complete end of the peace process."

That's funny. I thought that the "complete end of the peace process" was when Arafat walked away from the negotiations at Taba in December 2000 and ordered a merciless assault on Israeli civilians that continues to this day. Now, given that both the NYT and WaPo describe Bush's new position on the peace process as a major innovation, you'd think that they would at least have the decency to compare his position with the one that Clinton endorsed at Taba. After all, how else can you figure out what's changed?

Well, FYI, Arafat walked away from Taba because neither Clinton nor Barak considered the Palestinians' Right of Return to be legitimate. The bottom line is that letting millions of Palestinians settle inside the Green Line is an invitation to civil war. Clinton and Barak also negotiated some marginal territorial concessions in order to bring as many Israeli settlers as possible inside the boundaries of Israel proper. Nonetheless, Clinton and Barak offered Arafat more than 90% of the occupied territories as a Palestinian state. As the NYT correctly states halfway through its coverage, Bush's position represents a

Clear shift from a longtime United States position that issues such as borders, the "right of return" for refugees and the status of Jerusalem be resolved in final-status talks.

In other words, what's changed isn't the substance of the American position but the articulation of it. But when it comes to diplomacy, articulation matters. That's why today's announcement really is a big story. By staking out a clear position in advance of final-status talks, Bush is essentially saying that important aspects of Israel's demands are simply non-negotiable. If the Palestinians negotiators accept those demands, they will now come across as giving in to American pressure rather than compromising in the name of peace. Thus, if you think that only a negotiated accord can end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, then Bush and Sharon really have thrown a wrench in the works. Clearly, that is the premise on which the NYT and WaPo correspondents are operating.

But there is another premise out there which also deserves a fair hearing: that a negotiated settlement is no longer possible and that Israel simply has to find the best way to let go of the occupied territories. That is why Sharon wants to pull out of Gaza. That is why he is building a massive wall to separate Israel from the West Bank. While one can argue that good fences don't make good neighbors, a strong majority of Israeli voters have taken Sharon's side on this one. Interestingly, Bush said that

the security fence Israel is erecting to separate part of the Palestinian territories "should be temporary rather than permanent, and therefore not prejudice any final status issues, including final borders."

In other words, Bush has no intention of letting Sharon use the wall to define the borders of a future Palestinian state. That message doesn't really come across in either the NYT or WaPo, which both cite Bush's statement but don't explain its significance. In fact, the WaPo follows it up by writing that

Bush's stance in favor of Sharon's policy of "disengagement" and promise that Israel need not return to its pre-1967 borders has the potential to further inflame relations between the United States and the Arab world. Although Arab states are opposed to the security fence, they have urged Bush not to allow Israel to use its unilateral withdrawal from Gaza to mean that it will keep its position in the West Bank.

That last sentence makes it seem that Bush actually is going to let Sharon use the wall to draw Palestine's broders. What it would be fair to say is that even if Bush describes the wall as temporary, what difference does that make if there is no prospect for peace talks that would enable Israel to remove the wall? Thus, I am very concerned that Bush has given Sharon an implicit green light to force an unfair settlement on the Palestinians.

As this excellent article in Foreign Affairs [subscription required] points out, there are multiple paths that the security wall might take. Some of them bring an overwhelming majority of the settlers into Israel proper without expropriating more than a small amount of Palestinian land. If such a path were followed, the wall would have the basic effect of imposing the Taba agreement on the Palestinians. However, there are Israeli hawks who want to use the wall to punish the Palestians by carving up their state and surrounding it with Israeli territory. That is a recipe for conflict and that is what the NYT and WaPo should be focusing on.
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:06 PM by Patrick Belton  

OPEN QUESTION FOR PEACE PROCESS JUNKIES IN THE AUDIENCE: Speaking today with Israeli PM Sharon, President Bush said "it seems clear" that Palestinians will have to give up the right of return in order to attain statehood. My question: have U.S. presidents addressed the right of return before in this way, or is this something more or less new in the history of American engagement in the peace process? I know Clinton suggested the Palestinians concede the right of return as part of a grand bargain, in exchange for East Jerusalem, or at least al-Haram al-Sharif (i.e., Temple Mount for Jews), but whereas that was a suggested exchange, this seems to me like a more a statement of a precondition. First answer that seems correct to me wins a falafel, but you have to come to Oxford for it. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:33 PM by Patrick Belton  

BBC BAITING, BEATS BAITING BEARS, COMPANY: Scott Burgess from Daily Ablution emails to suggest that if we have any readers who aren't preoccupied with skateboarding dogs, then they might be interested in his recent posts on the BBC's rather cockamamie poll asking "Is the US a bigger threat than terror?" (and the Beeb's response), and on the striking difference between how the Beeb treats the Israeli and Palestinian foreign ministers - which you don't exactly have to be an ardent AIPAC member to find rather striking.

Of course, if you'd rather bait bears - well, it's a rather unpleasant thing to do, and you shouldn't. But if you'd be happy looking at fairly cute pictures of bears instead, then here are some. (OxBlog: little. cute. furry. Not to mention generally amusing or at least inoffensive.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:58 AM by Patrick Belton  

SO YOU CAN TEACH A DOG TO RIDE A SKATEBOARD. What I want to know is, can you get him to wear baggy pants and a backwards baseball cap?

ANSWER: I love our readers. Apparently you can...if he's a dog, inside a cartoon, inside a cartoon.

So my next question is, when can we look forward to replacing all the teenagers in Oxford city centre with cute puppies who can do the same job more cheaply and with fewer piercings? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:10 AM by David Adesnik  

BLACKMAIL IS NOT ENOUGH: This evening, the Boston chapter of the Nathan Hale Society had the privilege of dining with Prof. Sung-Yoon Lee of the Fletcher School of Diplomacy at Tufts. Prof. Lee is an expert on Korean politics and history. The subject of our discussion was the North Korean nuclear program.

The analytical linchpin of Prof. Lee's approach to North Korean behavior is his conclusion that the Pyongyang dictatorship considers the possession of nuclear weapons to be the only reliable guarantor of its existence. In the absence of a nuclear deterrent, it would only be a matter of time before the South Korean government destroyed its Northern counterpart by tempting its citizens with the prospect of prosperity and freedom Thus, there is no reason whatsoever to believe that Kim Jong Il will accept the verifiable dismantling of his nuclear program in exchange for economic aid, international legitimacy, a non-aggression pact with the United States or some combination of all three. Immoral or not, giving in to blackmail simply won't work.

In other words, Prof. Lee vehemently disagrees with all those who believe that the United States can resolve its ongoing confrontation with North Korea by means of either bilateral or multilateral negotiations. Yet given that war is simply not an acceptable option, Prof. Lee has nothing against negotiation, since it can't make matters worse and -- given some extraordinary luck -- may result in a lessening of tensions.

In assessing the state of US-North Korean relations, Prof. Lee believes that both the Bush administration and its critics make the categorical mistake of interpreting North Korean behavior as a response to American initiatives rather than the imperatives of North Korean domestic politics. Coming from this perspective, Prof. Lee tends to believe that the Bush administration has been beset by critics who offer unrealistic alternatives because of their naivete about North Korean politics. Thus, with regard to the Bush administration's decision to confront the North Koreans in October 2002 with evidence of their illegal uranium enrichemnt program, Prof. Lee suggested that the temporary escalation of tensions was essentially insignificant given that North Korea constantly creates crises as a result of its own provocative behavior.

Turning southward, Prof. Lee expressed grave concerns about rising anti-American sentiment in South Korea. While describing himself as an ardent South Korean nationalist who puts the interests of his homeland above all else, Prof. Lee nonetheless argued that absolutely nothing is more critical to South Korean security than an unflinching American commitment to protect it from Northern aggression. Speaking historically, Prof. Lee observed that whereas Harry Truman went to war in 1950 in order to contain Communism and protect American interests, his decision had the unmistakable effect of liberating South Korea from Northern occupation and laying the foundations of the moderan South Korean state.

With no memories of the war to rely on, young South Koreans have forgotten the degree to which South Korean and American security are inextricably linked. Thus, young South Koreans' passionate desire for reunification with the North leads them to indefensible conclusion (expressed via opinion polls) that it is the United States, rather than North Korea, that is preventing reunification. What young South Koreans do remember is that in 1980, South Korea's military government slaughtered thousands of civilians in what became known as the Kwangju Massacre. While there is no question that the Carter administration supported the military government almost uncritically, many South Koreans believe that the United States actually played a direct role in the massacre, since the military government could not have transferred its soldiers from the northern border to the southern city of Kwangju without the direct authorization of hte United States. [Apparently South Koreans don't think highly enough of Jimmy Carter to believe that he would never do such a thing. --ed.]

In addition to his wariness of South Korean public opinion, Prof. Lee is fiercely critical of both the current administration of Roh Moo-Hyun as well as that of his predecessor Kim Dae Jung. One year ago, Prof. Lee wrote that

[South Korean] nationalism was a constructive force in resisting colonial oppression and in the staggering challenge of nation-building half a century ago. Today, in its virulent anti-US rhetoric and shockingly naive attachment to North Korea, it is simply self-defeating.

One example of naivete that Prof. Lee mentioned was the Kim and Roh governments' decision to all but abandon counter-espionage programs designed to protect the South from the vast network of covert operatives -- numbering in the thousands -- that North Korea continues to operate in the South. In fact, the North Korean commitment to espionage is so fanatical that drafts preadolescents into its espionage programs so that they can undergo decades of training and indoctrination before being deployed to the South.

In spite of this bleak assessment of North Korean motives, is there any hope for change in the near future? Prof. Lee says 'no'. At the moment, there are no indications of factionalization within the North Korean military and thus no known prospects for a coup d'etat. While the North depends on China to provide much of its food and most of its fuel, China is in many ways the subordinate partner in the relationship. Knowing that a collapse of the North Korean regime would result in the arrival of millions upon millions of starving North Korean refugees in northern China, Beijing simply will not take any sort of action that endangers the existence of the Kim regime. At the same time, China desperately wants to avoid a military confrontation on the Korean peninsula that involves the United States.

How does China reconcile such conflicting impulses? The answer isn't exactly clear. Prof. Lee observed that the Beijing government does all in its power to hide its intentions from the West, as well as denying to the West any of the information it derives from its unique relationship with North Korea.

In closing, Prof. Lee shared his expectation there will be no significant developments on the Peninsula before the US presidential election in November. Moreover, even if John Kerry takes the White House there is little reason to expect any substantive change in American policy. For as long as the imperative of survival governs the decision-making process in Pyongyang, the options available to the West will remain extremely renstricted.

If you are a young scholar or professional and this conversation with Prof. Lee sound like something you want to be a part of, then get in touch with your local chapter of the Nathan Hale Society. If you happen to be a fellow Bostonian or Cantabrigian, then get in touch with chapter President Ronan Wolfsdorf find out what we're up to. (Information is also available on the Nathan Hale blog, which you can find here.)

If you happen to be a young member of the working class or even a known felon, don't be deterred by the words "scholar or professional". They are meant to be more descriptive than prescriptive. If you are young at heart but middle-aged in body type, check out the Council on Foreign Relations. If you are still in high school, you are up past your bedtime. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:56 PM by Patrick Belton  

POLITICAL WEBSITE OF THE DAY: Apart, of course, from all of our friends in the blogosphere.... WaPo's Veep-o-matic: select up to five characteristics of the ideal vice presidential candidate for Senator Kerry to select (non-politician, southerner, live or work outside the beltway - hey, I'm not saying these are good characteristics to select a vice-president on....), and let the magic of 21st-century technology do the work for you. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:23 PM by Patrick Belton  

PESACH IS A VERY NICE HOLIDAY when it comes, but it's an even nicer holiday when it ends. So a very happy chametz eating season, everyone!

Here are lots of nice leavened recipes, to help you celebrate: for Irish soda bread, crumpets, and lots of other nice yummy types of bread. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:17 PM by Patrick Belton  

COUNTERTERRORISM AND DOMESTIC INTELLIGENCE IN DEMOCRACIES: RAND has a report gauging lessons learned from the experiences in domestic intelligence and counterterrorism of Britain, France, Canada, and other democracies.

Also from RAND lately, recommendations on organising counterterror responsibilities within the executive branch. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:41 PM by Patrick Belton  

SENATOR KERRY GIVES HIS VIEWS ON IRAQ this morning in the WaPo. While some is sound-biteish ("Progress is not possible in Iraq if people lack the security to go about the business of daily life. Yet the military alone cannot win the peace in Iraq. We need a political strategy that will work."), some is unfair or incorrect (e.g., the attempt to make political hay out of the recent violence: "In the past week the situation in Iraq has taken a dramatic turn for the worse." Or the factually disputable claim in - "Finally, we must level with our citizens. Increasingly, the American people are confused about our goals in Iraq, particularly why we are going it almost alone.") - but a few ideas are quite interesting, including increasing the role of Nato in Iraq. My take: this piece includes a number of notes - some anti-war, some more hawkish - which Kerry will be trying out in public over the next few weeks, while the campaign is still in a low stage of intensity, to develop the views that he judges will meet with the best public response. A great deal of his ultimate foreign policy stance will depend on the result, and is currently up for grabs. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:26 PM by Patrick Belton  

US TO STOP PATROLLING DMZ: The UPI is reporting that the U.S. military will relinquish its outpost along the Demilitarized Zone in October, in favour of permitting South Korea to take a greater role in its own self-defence. This comes at a time when President Roh Moo-hyun seeks to make good on campaign promises to move his country closer to its northern neighbour and away from the United States; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade remains in favour of close defence ties with the United States. It's unclear, however, whether this latest move, intended to downplay the U.S. presence, will gladden too many hearts across the Korean political spectrum - Korea's conservatives worry that removing U.S. forces from the DMZ removes an important security tripwire, while liberals complain that the U.S. will now build new bases further to the south to replace the reployed soldiers.

The more salient and interesting question here is, did the United States act correctly here? The answer in the short term, most likely, is a clear yes. There are no friends to be won for the United States by its sticking around in countries where its presence isn't wanted. Basing represents as much a natural irritant to a relationship as a solidifier of ties, and it may well be that ties between Washington and Seoul will draw closer minus a few hundred adolescents away from home for the first time, and largely immunized against local prosecution for their misdeeds by a Status of Forces Agreement, along with the electoral irritant their presence often provides. And that troops of the 2nd Infantry Division might be safely brought home without prejudicing the nation's security is a view not only held among the South Korean electorate, warming toward their northern neighbour and chilling toward their nation's historical alliance partner, but also among such rather less sentimental and anti-American voices as, say, Michael O'Hanlon. Rumsfeld's plan to eliminate redundant command structures in Hawaii, Japan, and Korea makes eminent sense if it can actually be carried out in the face of service-level bureaucratic inertia. And that the present moment represents a particularly good time to draw down the American footprint in areas where it's outsized, in order to shift troops home or toward theatres where they're acutely needed, is as clear a proposition as they come.

It's the longer term that's somewhat more tricky. The drawing-down of American troops in Korea is clearly a very pleasant scenario for the Chinese, who for the past two decades have been pursuing a quiescent strategy in which they plan that a peacefully unified Korea will naturally fall into its orbit, along with Tiawanese reunification. In Beijing's post-normalisation calculus, this process will be nudged along as its economy and trade ties grow stronger in the Asia Pacific, while the United States grapples with unpopularity in the region stemming both from basing and the rise of opposition parties to unseat historically governing pro-U.S. parties, while at home it comes to face the domestic electoral and economic effects of overextension. While one recent War College paper suggests Guam as an alternate American basing site, however ideal Guam may be in logistical terms, as a politically symbolic ally it leaves a bit to be desired. But a drawing down of basing in politically problematic crowded Seoul and Okinawa, along with the construction of the groundwork of a new alliance with the foreign policy establishment of Roh's party - and the dramatic upgrading and restructuring of security ties with a Japan which looks ready to have outgrown its post-World War Two straightjacket - may represent as good a policy choice for the United States in Asia as is out there. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:30 AM by Patrick Belton  

ROUND-UP: With Rachel having decided to erect a Mexican death shrine next to the sofa for my cold, laid out with lillies and various British cold ailment remedies, blogging at least holds out the possibility of making me feel slightly less like a 90 year-old Tamaulipeca woman waiting patiently for the angel of darkness.... (There's also something distinctly Indian in my shrine, too - most likely in the flowers - but I can't quite tease it out yet.)

Rob's suggesting the UN call on Sistani to crack down on Sadr, since Sistani seems to have deferred to it in the past. Meanwhile, Crooked Timber points out far-right tabloid speculation that Europe will become a province of Islam is utter demographic scaremongering, and touches on jurisdictional challenges in prosecuting spam.

Josh Kurlantzick points out that the internet has not been the death knell to authoritarianism that enthusiasts in the optimistic 1990s had hoped: the reasons why - principally the individual nature of web-surfing (but then again, what about such electronic political phenomena as blogging and meet-ups?), and the suppression of sites with political content (successfully "nailing jello to the wall," is his quote with regard to China). Still, in countries which unlike China and Singapore don't actively suppress independent electronic fora for political conversation, it sounds from this piece that there's likely a great deal of potential in spreading internet-mediated political technologies such as blogging and meet-ups to young populations that already frequent cybercafes, if only at present to download - merciless google troll coming - naked pictures of Brittney Spears and Paris Hilton kissing topless Osama Bin Laden while listening to free ringtones...

Christopher Hitchens points out, mercifully, that Iraq isn't Vietnam. Also in Slate, and equally mercifully, Lee Smith points out that Al-Jazeera's tendency of late toward conspiracy theories about the U.S. is unprofessional and silly. (Also awkward and silly is Bob Dylan in a bra, a phrase which is likely to win us substantially fewer google hits.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:25 AM by Patrick Belton  

MORE ON SUDAN: As genocide continues - and as human rights organizations continue to ignore it, preferring instead to comfortably attack the United States - Dan Geffen has more on the possible European response.

UPDATE: A former Oxford amnesty member emails in

OK, admittedly it's not as thorough as one would like (and dated 3 February so they are taking their eye off the ball) but still a step up from "ignoring" it...

http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAFR540102004

How's Trinity at this time of year? Do the ducks still nest next to the
porter's lodge near Staircase 1?

Hope you're feeling better,

MP

Thanks! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:41 AM by Patrick Belton  

I'M A SICK, SICK MAN: So possibly light posting from me today - too much Pesach celebrating and dissertating, I guess, not to mention cavorting with a sick, diseased woman. Go read Drezner instead. You could even enter our essay contest - deadline is May 1st! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:59 PM by Patrick Belton  

I HAVE A NEW favourite ship in the Royal Navy! I'm referring, of course, to the HMS Belton, which has won my heart. She was a minesweeper, run aground heroically in the Hebrides in 1974. (But there was no naval action in Hebrides in 1974! No, but it sounds sort of like the Falkands, and they were only eight years after. Oh) Incidentally, those interested in my academic work will be gratified to know "Belton is busier than ever", according to the website of the village of Belton in Lincolnshire. You can also read about medieval Belton and Victorian Belton, and even visit Belton House, which has apparently after only four years of entertaining already been put on the tourist map! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:04 AM by Patrick Belton  

GUINNESS IS GOOD FOR YOU: Now it's official.

UPDATE: But that doesn't mean it doesn't have its detractors nonetheless:

Although I don't always agree with you, I usually find your posts worthwhile or at least inoffensive. (Ed: new OxBlog slogan - "usually worthwhile or at least inoffensive!") In this case you are spreading psuedoscientific nonsense that could have serious detrimental effects on an entire class of people. The nutritional benefit of Guinness has been systematically exaggerated by corporate propaganda for a century. As more recent research has shown, Guinness is beneficial only as part of a balanced diet. Please see this link for proof.

The link goes on to note "So, to fulfill all of your daily nutritional requirements you would need to drink a glass of orange juice, two glasses of milk, and 47 pints of Guinness." (I actually know a bloke in Galway City who does that.) Personally, in this genre of biased, malinformed detractor literature, my preferences run toward the classic "Young Scientist Proves Guinness Not 'Good for you'" (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:36 AM by Patrick Belton  

IN BOSTON? WANT FUN? Our foreign policy society's Boston chapter is having its first meeting this week - if you live in the area, and would like to come along, please drop our friend and chapter president Ronan Wolfsdorf a note!

Also, warm thanks to Robert Tagorda in Los Angeles, Eric Hassman in San Francisco, Will Baude and Amanda Butler in Chicago, Justin Abold in Washington, Allen Dickerson and Roger Schonberg in New York, Tom Petrick in Houston, Marc Schulman in Miami, and now Lindsay Hayden at Yale for their kind efforts in starting up chapters of our foreign policy society around the country. If you'd like to get in touch with our friends in a city near you, please feel free to drop them a note! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:25 AM by Patrick Belton  

JUST BECAUSE IT NEEDS TO BE SAID, AND LOUDLY: BAD. BAD. BAD.

Incidentally, a friend and I are planning to start up an ngo soon to foster cross-racial understanding and friendships in cities in the US and UK - I'll be asking for your suggestions, and more on that to come shortly. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:07 AM by Patrick Belton  

OKAY, I DID IT. I have a confession to make. It was years ago, Rachel and I had broken up for a weekend, and I did it out of weakness. No, not go to one of the multiple students financing their Oxford education through prostitution - something much worse, and much darker. I sat down, in the dark, and in my weakness took a test for admission to a nerd group. I've pretty much been haunted by the results ever since. Particularly when I get emails like this:

UFO SIG: an international Mensa e-SIG for serious discussion about unidentified flying objects. (Ed: SIG="Special" Interest Group)

We are here to discuss unidentified sightings and experiences of our members. We encourage and welcome members with specific experiences to post a note about their observations to our group.
 
Whilst our group is factually-oriented, many of our members are also interested in science fiction. There are two international e-SIGs of possible interest to these members, M-Star Trek and M-Babylon 5. These groups' home pages are listed below.
 
FYI, our UFO SIG is the fastest-growing SIG in the history of international e-SIGs.

More links of interest to our members:

• UFO SIG http://groups.yahoo.com/group/UFOsig
  
• M-STAR TREK SIG http://groups.yahoo.com/group/m-startrek
  
• M-BABYLON 5 SIG http://groups.yahoo.com/group/m-babylon5

And unlike, say, much cooler clubs like the Illuminati, Skull and Bones or Freemasons, or even your average trip to the Madame in Magdalen, I think I'll be haunted by these folks for years to come.

MAILBAG: JH from Dallas notes "I joined long enough to get a Mensa Credit Card from
MBNA. I hand it to snotty waiters." Hey, good idea, can I get one? (a credit card, not a snotty waiter). And "Anon" from an academic email address takes a different tack entirely and writes: "Forget about all that Fallujah nonsense, what we all want to know about is the Madame of Magdalen. Does every college have one, and is there is an equivalent of the Norrington table?" No, but now we do have a slightly better idea where all those hits from "Oxford massage parlor" were coming from. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:04 AM by Patrick Belton  

MORE ON TRANSLATING THE BLOGOSPHERE INTO ARABIC AND FARSI: I'm really grateful to everyone who wrote in with their thoughts on my post on providing Arabic and Farsi translations of blogs across the political spectrum, whether automatically by using a translation program or by having volunteers translate a "best of the web" roundup which would represent blogs from across the political spectrum, and could appear, say, once or twice a week.

Right now I'm leaning towards thinking that a human-translated "best of blogs" roundup might be looking like the more attractive option, given the inaccuracies in web translating software at this stage of the game, but I'm also happy to keep looking into both possibilities. For my part, our think tank'd be very happy to host and help administer the project with help, and create a movable type blog for the purpose. I'd be particularly interested in hearing from any of our readers who speak Arabic or Farsi, and who might be willing to help translate posts, perhaps once or twice a month. If you have any other suggestions or would like to help out, please drop us a note! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:18 PM by Patrick Belton  

WHAT THE BECK: I am about to do something which is illegal on British soil. Not to call for the abolition of the monarchy - actually, we here at OxBlog have generally had quite good things to say about the usefulness of the Queen in the nation's diplomacy and in Britain's efforts to maintain a higher world profile. (Anyway, who in South Africa ever gets excited about a visit from the imponderous President of, say, Ireland?) No, this is to do something far more dangerous - to question, loudly, what the heck all of the fixation with David Beckham was all about in the first place.

I mean, come on - he looks like a ren-faire geek, just if possible even less manly. How he ever convinces random Euro-femmes to commit adultery with him proves, I think, just how easily sex is to come by in post-Christian Europe. He got his wife's name tattooed on his arm in Hindi - but it's spelt incorrectly. He has allowed himself to be seen in public in a sarong, never a wise fashion choice for any English male. And as far as his hair - shaved off, cut into a Mohawk, long and wild and carefully done into plaits, he's always looked basically like a geek. Yes, yes, he slipped one past Greece in 2002 to draw and keep England in the World Cup, but he got stood up by Lisa Simpson, when the show's producers decided he wasn't well known enough in the States to receive a cameo role. And he named his kid Brooklyn? What, so he can develop a fondness for America and be playmates with Prince Michael II?

His and Posh Spice's three-week publicity tour of the States in June was, well, basically ignored. But perhaps there's another side to this, that we're missing. Which is that Beckham shows all of us that you can be an effeminate, geeky looking, and style-challenged English male, and still have a chance of pulling when you go to the Continent. Which perhaps is worth letting the bloke hang around, after all.

UPDATE: After early mistaken attempts involving Arab democracy and gay rights, OxBlog finally hits on the secret for filling up our inbox. Randy Paul from Beautiful Horizons writes in amusingly, "I'm an Arsenal and FC Barcelona fan, so my antipathy towards Beckham is well grounded, but in fairness to him he did name his oldest kid Brooklyn because he was conceived there. Thank God he wasn't conceived say in a hotel near LaGuardia in Flushing for example." (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:34 AM by Patrick Belton  

PB ON THE PDB: While Kevin's as usual been doing some really wonderful blogging lately, I'm not sure I agree with him here about the President's Daily Briefing from August 6 which was just released:

[W]hat really struck me was that the whole thing was so short - considerably shorter than your average op-ed column, in fact - and written at about a high school level. This is an intelligence briefing prepared at the request of the president of the United States and he was apparently satisfied with it? Eleven paragraphs of pabulum considerably less authoritative than an average article in Foreign Affairs? Sheesh.

Actually, I'm not really sure I agree with Kevin here. If you look through administrations at documents prepared for the president (the National Security Archive has one fairly nice collection online), they're as a rule never over two pages. And while I strongly support inquiries into and subsequent reforms of both the analytical process and the current sad shape of information sharing among bureaucracies, where there's an awfully lot of good work to be done - what strikes me about this particular briefing, having spent some portion of my life reading sterling samples of bureaucratic argot, is that it's clear, concisely written, and packs a good deal of information into a short memo. If you'd like to see something that's none of these things, look around most government documents.

MAILBAG: A graphic designer points out how the PDB, which he notes disapprovingly "looks like it was done in Word," could be made more effective as a way of presenting information. Hey, we have a substantial readership in the EOP and national security agencies - for what it's worth, we're all for making the daily briefing as effective (and pleasant-looking) a tool as possible! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:57 AM by Patrick Belton  

A VERY HAPPY EASTER, TO ALL OF OUR READERS AND FRIENDS! The Pope, in his semiannual Urbi et Orbi message, urged humanity to oppose the "inhuman, and unfortunately growing, phenomenon of terrorism, which rejects life and brings anguish and uncertainty to the daily lives of so many hard-working and peaceful people. May [God's] wisdom enlighten men and women of good will in the required commitment against this scourge."

(SIDENOTE: Reuters, more colloquially, notes "Pop appeals for peace in Easter message." Which, semantically, is correct too - il papa) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:43 PM by Patrick Belton  

MORE ON IRANIAN SUPPORT FOR SHI'A INSURGENCY: London's Al-Hayat:

The direct Iranian presence in the Shi'ite areas of Iraq in the political, security, and economic affairs can not be ignored anymore. This presence is accompanied by a vigorous Iranian effort to create bridges with different forces in Iraq; first, by material and logistic aid to parties other than the Shi'a, and secondly through the traditional Iranian influence in the religious seminaries [hawza] and in the Marja'iya [religious Shi'a authorities] institutions.

A member of the Governing Council told Al-Hayat that the Iranians have recently managed to activate a known Marja' [a Shi'a cleric regarded as a religious authority], Kazem Al-Ha'iri, who lives in the city of Qum in Iran, and is known to be close to Al-Sadr's movement, and was regarded as an heir to Ayatollah Muhammad Sadeq Al-Sadr.

Iraqi security sources say that the escalation erupted after an American decision to oust Hassan Kazemi Qumi, the recently appointed chief Iranian agent in Iraq, who is an officer in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards... The sources connected the ousting of Qumi with Moqtada Al-Sadr's statements that his movement is an extension of the Lebanese Hizbullah and of Hamas... Sources said that the visit of an assistant of Moqtada Al-Sadr to Fallujah before the last uprising and Al-Sadr's statement that his movement is an extension of Hamas were both messages to his new allies among the Iraqi Sunnis.

It may well be that the Iranians, who apparently have influence in more than one sphere in Iraq, have intervened to reconcile the inner Shi'ite struggle for power. They intervened when Moqtada Al-Sadr sought to take control of the Husseini circle in Karbala, an attempt that the followers of Ayatollah Al-Sistani objected to. The Iranians worked out an arrangement under which large sums of money were sent to institutions belonging to Al-Sadr's family, which placated Al-Sadr, and satisfied him with controlling the Al-Kufa mosque only."

Al-Sharq Al-Awsat:

[former Iranian intelligence official in charge of activities in Iraq, who recently defected from Iran] Haj Sa'idi told Al-Sharq Al-Awsat that the Iranian presence in Iraq is not limited to the Shi'ite cities. Rather, it is spread throughout Iraq, from Zakho in the north to Umm Al-Qasr in the south, and the infiltration of Iranian Revolutionary Guards and the Al-Quds Army into Iraq began long before the war, through hundreds of Iranian intelligence agents, amongst them Iraqi refugees who were expelled by Saddam Hussein in the 1970's and 1980's to Iran, allegedly because of their Iranian origin, and who infiltrated back into Iraq through the Kurdish areas that were out of the Iraqi Ba'th government control.

After the war, the Iranian intelligence sent its agents through the uncontrolled Iraq-Iran border; some of them as students and clerics, and others as belonging to the Shi'ite militias.

Haj Sa'idi said that the assassination last summer of Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir Al-Hakim, who headed the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), was a successful operation carried out by the intelligence unit of the Iranian Al-Quds Army. He also revealed that there was a failed attempt on the life of the highest Shi'ite Marja, Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, at the Eid Al-Adha holiday last year, and that there was another plan to assassinate Ayatollah Ishaq Al-Fayadh.

Haj Sa'idi claimed that some of the Iranian intelligence officers in Iraq are known to everybody, for example in Al-Suleimaniya and Derebendikhan in the north. However, he said, the real threat comes not from the officers that are known, but from those that are unknown. Amongst them are 18 Shi'ite charities in Kazimiya, in Al-Sadr city in Baghdad, in Karbala, Najaf, Kufa, Nasiriyah, Basra, and other cities with a large Shi'ite majority. In those offices, new agents are recruited every day, under the guise of financial aid, medicine, food, and clothing for the poor.

Haj Sa'idi said that the Iranian plan to turn Iraq into another Iran is a wide-ranging plan, and it involves the recruitment of thousands of young Shi'ites for the next stage, which will take place with the [first] parliamentary elections in Iraq. Those recruited now are supposed to enlist their relatives to vote for candidates that will be endorsed by the Iranian intelligence apparatuses.

Haj Sa'idi also mentioned that more than 300 reporters and technicians who are working now in Iraq for television and radio networks, newspapers, and other media agencies are in fact members of the Al-Quds Army and the Revolutionary Guards intelligence units.

He also mentioned that the Iranian money allocations for activities in Iraq, both covert and overt, reached $70 million per month. He claimed that 2,700 apartments and rooms were rented in Karbala and Najaf, in order to serve agents of the Al-Quds Army and the Revolutionary Guards.

Haj Sa'idi added that the attempt by the Kurdish authorities in northern Iraq to act against the Iranian activities there prompted a reaction by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to incite the Turkmeni Shi'ites in the region against the Kurds. He claimed that many Turkmen Shi'ite commanders traveled to Iran and got huge financial support, as well as guarantees that Iran will stand by them in case of clashes between them and the Kurds.

Also in Al-Sharq Al-Awsat:

A source in the Quds Army of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard revealed to Al-Sharq Al-Awsat information relating to the construction of three camps and training centers on the Iranian-Iraqi borders to train elements of the "Mehdi Army" founded by Muqtada Al-Sadr. The source estimated that about 800-1,200 young supporters of Al-Sadr have received military training including guerilla warfare, the production of bombs and explosives, the use of small arms, reconnoitering and espionage. The three camps were located in Qasr Shireen, 'Ilam, and Hamid, bordering southern Iraq which is inhabited largely by Shi'a Muslims.

The newspaper also reported that the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad has recently distributed 400 satellite phones to supporters of Al-Sadr and to clerics and students at the A'thamiyya district of Baghdad, Al-Sadr City, and the holy city of Najaf, all of which are inhabited predominantly by Shi'a Muslims.

The Iranian source, known in Iraq as "Abu Hayder" confirmed that the intelligence service of the Revolutionary Guard has introduced to the Shi'a cities radio and TV broadcasting facilities which are used by Al-Sadr and his supporters.

During his recent visit to Iran, Al-Sadr met with Hashemi Rafsanjani, head of the Expediency Council as well as the head of the revolutionary guard intelligence, Murtadha Radha'i, and the commander of the Al-Quds Army responsible for Iraqi affairs, Brig. General Qassim Suleimani and other government and religious leaders.

The source estimated the financial support to Al-Sadr in recent months have exceeded $80 million, in addition to the cost of training, equipment and clothing of his supporters.

The source indicated that elements of the Al-Quds Army and the Revolutionary Guard Intelligence lead many of the operations directed against the coalition forces. These elements are also leading a campaign against the senior Shi'a clerics such as the Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, Hussein Al-Sadr [Muqtada's uncle], Ishaq Al-Fayadh and others because of their opposition to the concept of "the Rule of the Jurist" [Wilayat Al-Faqih] which is Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's style of government.

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# Posted 5:28 PM by Patrick Belton  

BUMMER OF LUCK: I just received an email with the promising subject "GET PAID F@R Y@UR @PINI@NS" from OxBlog's estimable correspondent EUQQGBWVIAOKFB@bn.com.br.

But then it turned out that they were just looking for freelancer pundits, and were only going to pay 15 cents a word.

Pity. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:41 PM by Daniel  

RICE AND RACE. I enjoyed Alessandra Stanley's article about the racial dynamics of Rice's appearance. Lee Hamilton's quote reminded me of the Chris Rock bit in "Bring the Pain" about how everyone always says Colin Powell is so well-spoken: "Well-spoken is not a compliment. Well-spoken is something you say about people you don't expect to be able to speak. How do they expect Colin Powell to sound? Like, I'm gonna drop me a bomb today!" (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:55 PM by David Adesnik  

OXBLOG TO HINDUS -- WE FEEL YOUR PAIN: The WaPo reports that

[Prof.] Courtright was not the first to find Oedipal overtones in the Ganesha story. But his book became a rallying point for devout Hindus in the United States who say the academic study of their religion is completely at odds with the way they experience their faith.

The academic study of Christianity and Judaism also tend to be completely at odds with the way tens of millions of Christians and Jews experience their faith. For that matter, the academic study of politics is entirely at odds with the way most Americans experience politics.

As the son of a religious studies professor, however, I endorse the academic study of religion wholeheartedly. It constantly provides thoughful perspectives on one's faith that, at minimum, provoke informative debates. At best, such perspectives enrich the faith with their insights. And in the absence of contrarian perspectives, the faith tends to become inbred and stagant.

If you don't like what the academicians have to say, you can always treat their work the way actual politicians treat the work of political scientists: Just ignore it. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:54 PM by Patrick Belton  

NOPE, NO JEWS OVER HERE: Not that England's any less welcome a place to be Jewish than, say, New York, but here is the unabridged text off the container of "Rakusen's Matzos: The big snack, low fat cracker for healthy appetites":

Matzos are ideal for those who prefer low fat diets. With no added salt Matzos can help reduce your sodium intake. Unlike other crackers, Rakusen's Matzos are simply a wholesome blend of fine English wheatflour and pure water. Each matzo is flame-baked in a traditional long oven for just sixty seconds to give them their incomparable crispness and subtle nutty flavour. Plate-sized Matzos contain no added salt or fat, making them a healthy, satisfying snack or lunchtime partner for toppings galore. Matzos - the original cracker that generations have enjoyed.

Note the studious avoidance of any mention of Passover or anything Jewish whatsoever. Nope, no Jews over here, just regular old English people enjoying a wholesome subtle nutty flavour - cheers, mate!

UPDATE: One of our friends wrote in to suggest this was because we hadn't bought the Kosher for Pesach matzos, which have Hebrew on the box. This may well be the case. But given the choice between a true and boring explanation, and an interesting but untrue one, you know which one I'll always pick...

 They could change the brand name to something a little less, you know, ethnic, like...
 
Definitely Not Jewish English Wheatflour and Water Crackers
Rakkossen's Finnish Flatbreads
Gatsby's Best Crackers
 
- MF, West Virginia

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# Posted 10:10 AM by Patrick Belton  

OPEN QUESTION TO READERS AND THE BLOGOSPHERE: We've all been following lately the efforts of Juan Cole and other like-minded folk to increase the quantity of western political discourse, both historical and contemporary, that's available in Arabic. There have also been a number of websites coming online lately - such as Babel Fish and Ajeeb - that have the capacity to translate automatically online text. These translation engines certainly don't provide perfect translations, but generally give ones that are competent enough to comprehend the meaning of the original text.

So my question is, does anyone out there have any ideas about how we might generate automatic Arabic (or Chinese, Farsi, Russian, or even Spanish and French) translations of English-language blogs from across the political spectrum? A number of writers have noticed a great thirst for political information and commentary in the Middle East, China, Russia, and other areas suffering under illiberal governance, and even in Latin America and francophone Africa it seems to me that making the American political debate readily available would increase understanding both of the United States and of the breadth of opinion within it.

I've been experimenting with Altavista's Babel Fish translation site (which offers Russian, Chinese, Spanish, and French translation), and while it thought our foreign policy society was a "cerveza inglesa," and couldn't even load OxBlog, InstaPundit, or Robert Tagorda, it did a fairly good job in translating both Kevin Drum and Matt Yglesias. My conclusion is that it must only read left-of-center blogs.

If anyone has ideas about whether this idea might be feasible, and how we might go about making it happen, I'd really love to hear from you. For my part I'm happy to help out however I can, and if it's helpful, our foreign policy society would be very happy, for instance, to host mirror sites of blogs from across the political spectrum on our server. Please let me know your ideas!

UPDATE: This has generated a lot of interest already, which I'm very grateful for. I think that one promising idea may be to rely on a handful of volunteer translators to translate into Arabic and Farsi a "best of the web" roundup, which would represent blogs from across the spectrum, and could appear, say, once or twice a week. For my part I'd be very happy to create a movable type blog for the purpose. I'd be very interested in hearing from any of our readers who speak Arabic or Farsi, and who might be willing to help translate posts. If you have any other suggestions or would like to help out, please drop us a note! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:01 AM by Patrick Belton  

OPPORTUNITIES TO WORK IN THE CPA: We've just received this from a friend in Washington, who thought our readers might be interested:

SOFIA (Support Our Friends in Iraq and Afghanistan)

The Department of Defense is seeking to hire highly skilled and deeply motivated U.S. citizens to work as civilians assisting the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in rebuilding the nations of Iraq and Afghanistan. This is a unique opportunity to serve our country.

People who submit a resume need to understand that conditions may be harsh, primitive and hazardous. Conversely, there may be few opportunities in life to make such a lasting contribution to world peace. Prior experience in the military should be a big help in adapting to the mission. Individuals will be hired by the department through the U.S. Army, which is the executive agent. For more information, please visit our website at: http://cpolwapp.belvoir.army.mil/sofia/.

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# Posted 9:35 AM by Patrick Belton  

FROM CHEESE TO NEOLOGISMS: Being a cultural francophile, even if my admiration of the country doesn't quite extend to any of its present or past political expressions, I'd like to note a very nice word for web-surfer that's originated in Paris: internaut. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:48 AM by Patrick Belton  

MADONNA, IRELAND, KABALLAH: This all makes for a great joke, which I'll tell as soon as it isn't the triduum and pesach. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:55 AM by Patrick Belton  

BEST OF THE WEB SITE RECOMMENDATION: And unlike Andrew's, you can even open this one at work.

The Information Warfare Site (UK) has got a quite nice website up, most notably including a compilation of all CRS reports as they're released, and news archives on subjects ranging from Al-Qaa'eda to cyberterrorism.

(Just disregard the Halloween-ish computer bug that makes all of the news stories appear to have been released on Friday 13 December....) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:00 AM by Patrick Belton  

LARRY DIAMOND argues in the Journal the case for suppressing Sadr and his militia, and also indicates that sentiment in the CPA has been moving quickly toward the demobilization of all of the militias using financial and employment incentives.

My inclination is to agree with his argument that, absent the demobilization and disarmament of the militias, every step of the transition to democracy in Iraq - the formation of parties, registration of voters, election campaigns, casting and counting of votes - will be done under the shadow of militia intervention. And that sounds like a recipe more for democracy à la pakistanaise than anything we'd like to impart to the Iraqi people, if we could possibly avoid it. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:47 AM by Patrick Belton  

MAYBE I SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN SO QUICK TO LOSE MY VIRGINIANITY: The attorney general in Richmond is pressing charges against the first three people to be arrested under Virginia's anti-spam laws. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:42 AM by David Adesnik  

THE CASE FOR NEGOTIATING: Two days ago I agreed with the WaPo that the United States should crush Moqtada Sadr and his outlaw militia. While I am still hanging on to that position, it is only by a thread. In the NYT, Yitzhak Nakash makes a very persuasive case for letting Ayatollah Sistani broker a ceasefire.

While Nakash comes across as somewhat naive, he makes one extremely persuasive point: that what Sadr wants even more than to end the occupation is to establish his dominance within the Shi'ite community. If Sistani brokers a settlement, it will re-establish his preeminence among Shi'ites and put the transition process back on track.

What Nakash fails to acknowledge is that negotiating with Sadr elevates him to level of respect that he hardly deserves. Yet doing so may be worthwhile, if Sadr consents to the verifiable demobilization of his militia while pledging to respect both the process and results of Iraq's first national elections next winter. Without a verifiable demobilization, however, there is no point in demanding Sadr's lip service to a democratic process he wants to destroy.

The case against negotiation is made rather well by David Brooks. There is good reason to believe that the great majority of Shi'ites, both clerics and parishioners, want nothing to do with Moqtada Sadr. We have to be patient now, rather than accepting at face value the unsubstantiated assertion that Sadr is leading a nationwide revolt.

Of course, the paper that Brooks happens to write for is reporting exactly the opposite: "Account of Broad Shiite Revolt Contradicts White House Stand". While I think it's premature to compare the Times' reporting to Drudge, its reliance on unnamed sources in the US intelligence community is somewhat problematic.

The sources in question provide no specific information to reinforce their claims. Moreover, there is no indication of whether the Times' sources represent a majority or minority opinion within the intelligence establishment. If it is a majority opinion, I expect to see other news outlets confirm the story while providing additional sources. If it is a nationwide revolt, we will have no choice to negotiate. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:50 AM by David Adesnik  

THE COVER UP IS ALWAYS WORSE THAN THE CRIME: Nixon and Watergate. Reagan and Iran-Contra. Clinton and Monica. None of them was punished for what they did. They were punished for lying about it.

All of them were second-term presidents, re-elected by a landslide. None of them learned the lessons of the past, thus condemning themselves to relive it. And now George W. Bush has brought himself to the brink of another major embarrassment because he has refused to learn from the mistakes of his predecessors. The editors of the WaPo observe that

The testimony of national security adviser Condoleezza Rice before the federal Sept. 11 commission justified President Bush's decision to authorize her exceptional appearance.

In other words, if Bush had dispatched Rice to Capitol Hill before being forced to do so, her testimony would have become a footnote, not a banner headline. Even though nothing that Rice said was new or interesting, her simple presence in the spotlight has motivated the administration's critics to pick up charges that had once been dropped.

We have known for almost two years that Bush was warned in August 2001 about Al Qaeda's intention to launch a major attack on US territory. Even back then, Condoleeza Rice didn't want to give an honest account of the the warning's exact contents. The WaPo reported at the time that

New accounts yesterday of the controversial Aug. 6 memo provided a shift in portrayals of the document, which has set off a political firestorm because it suggested that bin Laden's followers might be planning to hijack U.S. airliners.

In earlier comments this week, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and other administration officials stressed that intelligence officials were focused primarily on threats to U.S. interests overseas. But sources made clear yesterday that the briefing presented to Bush focused on attacks within the United States, indicating that he and his aides were concerned about the risks.

Perhaps because she wasn't punished for misleading the public the first time around, Rice has chosen to do so again. She told the 9/11 Commission that the August briefing consisted of "historical information based on old reporting. There was no new threat information. And it did not, in fact, warn of any coming attacks inside the United States." Yet

Several Democratic commissioners said in yesterday's hearing that the briefing also includes significant details about suspected al Qaeda sleeper cells and their plans to carry out domestic hijackings. The commission has demanded that the briefing be made public, a step that White House officials said yesterday was likely. "We hope to be able to make it available," communications director Dan Bartlett said.

And the WaPo is already reporting as fact that the Aug. 6 briefing contained specific information about Al Qaeda plans in progress. Even so, the publication of the full contents of the briefing may not embarrass the President:

Republican John F. Lehman, a former Navy secretary, is one of seven commissioners who have seen only a summary of the PDB. He said the current information within it is not particularly specific.

"On the FBI's part of it, it says don't worry about it, we've got 70 field investigations going," Lehman said. "That's the tone of it. . . . I found it to be net favorable to the president, which is why I can't understand why they were so restrictive in the first place [about] letting us have access to it."

Why was the administration so restrictive? Simple. Because it has learned nothing from the examples set by Nixon, Reagan and Clinton. The cover up is always worse than the crime.

But more important than the similarity between Bush and his predecessors is the difference: Bush is up for re-election. What if 2 or 3 percent of the electorate -- independent voters, not Democratic partisans -- stop trusting the President's because of his unwillingness to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth? What if Thomas Kean, the Republican chairman of the 9/11 commission declares that the attacks on New York and Washington could have been avoided? Reagan and Clinton had nothing to lose but their reputation. Bush may lose his job.

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# Posted 10:52 AM by Patrick Belton  

A VERY HAPPY GOOD FRIDAY to all of our readers and friends.

The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer's art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.

Our only health is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind of our, and Adam's curse,
And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.

The whole earth is our hospital
Endowed by the ruined millionaire,
Wherein, if we do well, we shall
Die of the absolute paternal care
That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.

The chill ascends from feet to knees,
The fever sings in mental wires.
If to be warmed, then I must freeze
And quake in frigid purgatorial fires
Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.

The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood—
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.
- "East Coker," IV, T.S. Eliot

See also Eliot's teacher Donne, in his metaphysical sonnets addressing, as always, theological mystery with wit:

Who sees Gods face, that is selfe life, must dye;
What a death were it then to see God dye?
It made his owne Lieutenant Nature shrinke,
It made his footstoole crack, and the Sunne winke.
Could I behold those hands which span the Poles,
And tune all spheares at once, peirc'd with those holes?

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# Posted 7:18 AM by Patrick Belton  

ADVERTISING FOR SPECIAL FORCES IN THE NEWSPAPER: Dishwasher, secretary, automative electronic specialist, commando....

The Army has attracted a bit of publicity lately by offering a direct enlistment option into special forces. The option permits enlistees to attempt the Special Forces Qualification Course immediately after finishing basic training, AIT, and jump school, rather than serving a number of years in the ranks and then attempting the course as an E-4 The wash-out rate for the course, however, is rather high - and enlistees who don't successfully complete the course will likely be heading to Iraq as 11B infantrymen. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:42 AM by Patrick Belton  

WASHINGTON GIVES IN TO BEIJING, PULLS CHIEF DIPLOMAT IN TAIWAN: Washington has given in to Beijing's repeated requests and pulled diplomat Therese Shaheen from the American Institute in Taiwan, where she was Washington director. Shaheen's clashes with the White House were intensified when she issued a letter of congratulations to President Chen Shui-bian for his election victory before the White House had issued its own.

That the nation's diplomats must hew to the instructions of the president they represent is beyond question the president's prerogative; that Washington give into Beijing's pressure in the personnel which it sends to Taiwan, however, is both kow-towing and reprehensible beyond measure. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:32 AM by Patrick Belton  

CEASEFIRE IN FALLUJAH: We received this press release from the CPA by email indicating a U.S. ceasefire in Fallujah; the WaPo reports it is for the aim of allowing a delegation of sheikhs from the city to travel to the Marine base outside of Fallujah for negotiations. Other sources report that the ceasefire is also to allow humanitarian access to the city:

Today at 1200, Coalition Forces initiated a unilateral suspension of offensive operations in Fallujah in order to hold a meeting between members of the Interim Governing Council, Fallujah leadership and leaders of the anti-Coalition forces, to allow delivery of additional supplies provided by the Iraqi Government, and to allow residents of Fallujah to tend to wounded and dead. During this suspension period, Coalition Forces retain the inherent right of self defense, and will remain fully prepared to resume offensive operations unless significant progress in these discussions occurs.

In other Iraq news, while Japan has stood strong against the insurgents' despicable seizure of three citizens, with the threat to burn them if Japan does not withdraw its forces in the Iraqi theatre - Thai PM Shinawatra has ordered his nation's troops to stay in their camp in Kerbala until fighting ceases.

UPDATE: Ceasefire over after 90 minutes. WaPo: "Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne, the commander of the U.S. Marine unit in southeast Fallujah, told reporters on the scene in Fallujah that offensive operations were being suspended to allow women and children and men too old to fight leave the battered city en masse in response to pleas from religious leaders in Fallujah." CNN, though, has reports that it's still on.

UPDATE 2: Amusingly, a friend in the CPA was reading this and writes:

I jumped on your blog briefly and wanted to let you know that the suspension of offensive actions against Fallujah are still on, as of BG Mark Kimmitt’s briefing about an hour and a half ago. We unilaterally suspended any actions at noon today for all the reasons the press releases lists and actions remain suspended at this time. The Marines do retain, however, the right to self-defense if fired on. My guess is that this is where the misleading reports are coming from – a media outlet hears a couple of shots and assumes we are resuming actions.

Thanks!
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# Posted 5:28 AM by Patrick Belton  

PAKISTANI FUNDAMENTALIST OPERATIVES IN IRAQ: Outlook India writes about the links between Pakistan's Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Islamists fighting the United States in Iraq. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:22 AM by Patrick Belton  

JUST HOW BROADLY BASED IS THE "BROAD-BASED SHI'A INSURGENCY"? Arthur Guray from Tripias writes that the NYT cites unnamed reports that there is a "general mood" that anti-Americanism is rising and the insurgence is becoming widespread, while

AP, Reuters, CBS, MSNBC, and WaPo all either flatly state in their reports that there is no sign of the insurgence becoming widespread, or don't discuss it (as in WaPo's case). The NYTimes has descended into Drudge Journalism.

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# Posted 4:58 AM by Patrick Belton  

AL-SADR NOT SUPPORTED BY OTHER SHI'A LEADERS: Al-Sistani has sought to marginalise Al-Sadr after, among other things, Al-Sadr assassinated Shi'a cleric Abd Al-Majid Al-Khoei, who was the grandson of Al-Sistani's mentor Ayatollah Abu Al-Qassem Al-Khoei. Ayatollah Al-Sistani is also reputed to be quite sore at Al-Sadr for his attempt to grab by force the revenues of Al-Hawza derived from religious pilgrims visiting Shi'a holy sites in Najaf and Karbala. This coldness is reflected in the fact that Al-Sistani has refused to grant a meeting to Al-Sadr. MEMRI has an analysis. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:38 PM by David Adesnik  

THE TRUTH ABOUT AL QAA'IDA: Ever since advertising my minimal knowledge of Arabic, the demands have been piling up for an explanation of one of the most perplexing aspects of the War on Terror: Why do some people spell 'al Qaida' with an 'i', whereas others spell it with an 'e', as in 'al Qaeda'?

To ensure a definitive answer, I decided to ask Harvard linguistics impresario CH for an answer. (Asking him was a good idea, since I would've given you a wrong answer otherwise.) So here goes:

The middle syllable of 'Qaida' is a long 'e', which most linguists write out as 'i'. CH speculates that the alternate spelling 'al Qaeda' emerged because experts in Persian (of whom there are many) prefer to write out long 'e' as 'e'.

Now, if one is going to invest the effort in understanding how to spell the name of the terrorist organization founded by Mr. bin Laden, one may as well learn how to pronounce it as well. First comes the 'al', meaning 'the'. Most people seem to know that this part is pronounced like the first syllable in the word 'olive' and not like the first name of Mr. Gore.

It's the 'Qaeda' that most people get wrong. Usually, it gets pronounced either 'al KAY-da' or 'al KY (rhymes with 'sky')-da'. Both are wrong for the same reason: they assume that there are two syllables in the word, not three. Actually, it's more like 'al KAA-i-da'.

The double 'a' is very important. In Arabic, a 'long' vowel actually has to sound longer than a short one. When writing out Arabic words in English, one indicates the presence of a long vowel either by doubling the vowel or putting a horizontal bar over it.

Now what about this whole 'Q'-instead-of-'K' business? Well, in Arabic there are two letters that have a 'K' sound, but one of them is aspirated, which means that a burst of air comes out along with the sound. Sometimes this gets written out as 'kh' instead of 'q' because the 'sound' of 'h' is really just an aspiration.

Finally, we come back to the long 'e' that started this whole discussion in the first place. There is actually an invisible consonant which precedes it, but which is unpronounceable in English. The letter is called 'ayin' in Arabic and sounds sort of like someone clearing their throat. When written in English, ayin becomes an apostrophe.

So, in the final analysis, the most precise way to write 'al Qaida' is actually 'al Qaa'ida'. (Of course, you don't have to capitalize the 'Q' since there are no capital letters in Arabic.)

If you've read this far, you'll probably also want to know why 'Taliban' also gets spelled as 'Taleban'. As CH points out, 'Taliban' is actually a Persian or Dari word, not an Arabic one (although there is an Arabic cognate for it which also means 'students'). And since long 'e' is written as 'e' when transliterating Persian, the proper spelling is 'Taleban'. However, English speakers are more likely to pronounce the long 'e' correctly if it is transliterated as 'i' in this context.

And since Kevin asked: There is no good reason for American newspapers to drop the 'al from 'al Qaeda' in order to save space in headlines. No Arabic newspaper would do that.
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# Posted 6:33 AM by Patrick Belton  

ALL MY ROWDY FRIENDS ARE COMIN' OVER TONIGHT: The WashTimes is citing military sources that al-Sadr is receiving support from Iran and Hizbullah - the source indicates that money, moral support, and possibly weapons as well are coming from across the border. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:49 AM by David Adesnik  

GONE AWOL? Greg Djerejian comments on America's failing effort to get Iraq's security forces ready to take care of themselves. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:31 AM by David Adesnik  

THE PROTESTANTS AND THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE: I have continued to receive many, many thoughtful responses to my comments on the Jewish-Christian relationship. (MP has also responded via blog.) One important thread of the conversation concerns how Protestants might respond to my comments differently than Catholics. DK writes that

Most progressive Christians would NOT reinterpret the Gospels to mitigate anti-Semitism. In fact, most of the "progressive" Christians I know would
explicitly say that yes, some parts of the Gospels are openly anti-Semitic, and other parts of the Bible are pro-slavery or anti-women or anti-gay. The prevailing progressive argument is that those parts reflect not the word of God, but the human prejudices of the writers, and that our new historical understanding of the Bible should lead us to reject entirely prejudiced-sounding passages that conflict with the divine command to love your neighbor. The usual argument is that the original oral or written Jesus stories contained nothing anti-Semitic (and were told by people who would self-identify as Jewish followers of Jesus), but statements blaming the Jews were added many years later, after violence had broken out between Christians and Jews who had previously shared the same synogogues and gatherings. So progressives would recommend excision over reinterpretation here.

I'm down with that. My only concern is that the percentage of Christians willing to embrace excision is not that high. (Although MF indicates that it may work out for the Orthodox.) Anyhow, DK adds that

Furthermore, many Protestants would disagree entirely with your comment that the Gospel's "[place] collective blame on the Jewish people for the death of Christ ... [as] an integral aspect of [their] theological agenda."

The problem with this statement are the words "blame" and "collective blame." It is pretty clear to me (and a longstanding Protestant dogma) that both of these concepts are alien to the Gospels and their agenda...Regarding collective blame, at least since the time of Martin Luther Protestants both progressive and non- have seen the Gosepls as entirely about individual guilt and redemption, and not in the least about collective guilt. This is even true in the most extreme theologies of original sin -- in Jonathan Edward's "Sinners in the hands of an Angry God" sermon, you aren't hanging by a thread for the sins of Adam, but for your own personal, specific sins flowing from your personal depravity, laziness, and wickedness.

IMHO, this does not absolve the Gospels of the charge of anti-Semitism, as Martin Luther himself was very non-progressive and very anti-Semitic. He was prejudiced, but he would have rejected any notion of collective guilt.

That also sounds about right, even though I hardly know enough about Protestantism to say so decisively. At the same time, I have vague recollections of Jews being called 'Christ-killers' even by American Protestants. Was I just not paying attention to who was accusing me of killing their Savior? Or has theological consistency sometimes been subordinated to the politics of anti-Semitism? I really don't know. Moving on, DC says

You wrote:

"Yet the message of the text seems clear: that only those Jews who abandon their own religion and become followers of Christ can overcome the burden of guilt that the Jewish people took upon itself by sentencing Him to death."

The problem with your sentence is that it doesn't require the term "Jew." That's the message of the Gospels for everybody. We all must overcome our guilt at having killed Him and become followers in order to find redemption and grace. There's no "special" burden on the "Jewish people" to overcome something extra.

I?ve been a practicing Episcopalian for 34 years and I've never once taken the view that the Jews in particular have anything special for which to atone. I have also never once heard that view espoused by any clergy or lay members of any congregation to which I have belonged. I can?t even remember any discussion of ?the Jewish people.? Church discussion centers on "mankind" as a whole. The central message has always been that humanity killed Christ. If you really think of, it was Judas who killed Christ and he was a disciple!

This point again leads me to turn inward and ask if the perils of persecution have prevented Jews from learning enough about Christianity to help overcome the divide. I hope that DC's perspective has gained widespread acceptance among Protestants. Yet when confronted with an unfortunate cultural artifact such as The Passion, my instincts take over and sometimes all I can hear is "Christ-killer." (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:51 PM by David Adesnik  

FROM A TEACHER TO HIS PUPIL: Thurston Moore eulogizes Kurt Cobain. (In the NYT, of all places.) I was a junior in high school when Cobain killed himself. I resented him for it. What right did he have to take away from all of us our source of inspiration? I know he didn't want to be a role model, but couldn't he show us that there is more to life than wandering through it in a drug-addled haze and ending it all with a shotgun blast?

I thought Nirvana would be forgotten after a while. Sure, we all believed that Nevermind had changed everything about what it meant to be a teenager in America. But teenagers always believe that what they care about is profound and historic. Toward the end of college, however, I began to notice that there were just as many Nirvana-clad kids wandering around Greenwich Village. They had the same angry and sensitive look we sought to perfect back in high school.

I always figured that if Nirvana survived, it would be a product of nostalgia. Those of us who remembered high school fondly would wear their Nirvana t-shirts on weekends. But I was completely wrong, and thank God for that. The music has survived the cultural moment in which it was created. Kids who were seven years old when Cobain died now think he's the greatest thing since sliced bread. I just hope that in another ten years it will still be the same way. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:52 PM by David Adesnik  

BEIJING CLAMPS DOWN: The CCP doesn't want direct elections in Hong Kong. I'm waiting to hear what the people have to say. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:46 PM by David Adesnik  

LIVING IN A GLASS HOUSE:

"John Kerry's newfound interest in fiscal discipline is a political gimmick that defies his 20-year record in the Senate and stands in stark contrast to his reckless and expansive promises of new government spending on the campaign trail," said Steve Schmidt, a Bush campaign spokesman.

If only George Bush had discovered that gimmick for himself before racking up a $400 billion deficit. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:21 PM by David Adesnik  

MORE BAD NEWS FROM IRAQ: Heavy fighting continues. There are further signs of a Shi'ite-Sunni alliance as well as indications that the depth of Shi'ite resentment is greater than expected. Perhaps recognizing that it is best to admit ones mistakes quickly, Donald Rumsfeld has announced that the occupation force will grow by as much as 25,000. Of course, that means that a lot of soldiers who deserve a rest will have to spend even longer away from home.

On the homefront, the politics of the occupation are getting louder. Joe Biden and John McCain are reminding the administration that responsible voices on both sides of the partisan divide wanted a larger occupation force from the outset. John Kerry is keeping his powder dry by offering vague criticism of the President while insisting that the United States must stabilize Iraq. However, Robert Byrd is doing his best to undermine Kerry's responsible stand by declaring that

"Surely I am not the only one who hears echoes of Vietnam in this development," said Mr. Byrd, referring to the possibility of an increase in troops. "Surely, the administration recognizes that increasing the U.S. troop presence in Iraq will only suck us deeper into the maelstrom of violence that has become the hallmark of that unfortunate country. Starkly put, at this juncture, more U.S. forces in Iraq equates more U.S. targets in Iraq."

While Ted Kennedy, Pat Buchanan and Maureen Dowd might agree, Coalition forces come across are fairly confident.

"We will attack to destroy the al-Mahdi Army," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, a military spokesman, told reporters today. "Those attacks will be deliberate, precise and they will succeed.

"As long as we keep paying attention to the fact that ultimately it's the moderate Iraqis who we're here to serve, I don't think we're going to have much to worry about."

I hope that such confidence is well-grounded. At minimum, I'm glad that Kimmit placed just as much emphasis on the political dimension of the struggle as the military. On a related note, the question of civilian casualties and collateral damage has begun to reemerge as a result of a rocket attack in Fallujah. The WaPo reports that

Witnesses told Arab journalists in the city that as many as 40 people were killed in the bombing, although the U.S. military said it had no reports of any civilian casualties.

In contrast, the headline of the NYT article about today's fighting is "US Rockets Reportedly Kill Over 2 Dozen Iraqis in Falluja". The Times goes on to report that

American marines fired rockets at a wall surrounding a mosque in Falluja, west of Baghdad, killing more than two dozen people, news agencies reported, quoting witnesses who said the death toll could be as high as 40.

I'm guessing that the "news agencies" referred to by the Times are the same as the "Arab journalists" mentioned by the Post. More importantly, I hope that as few civilians as possible were killed. As always, it comes down to hearts and minds. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:15 PM by David Adesnik  

OXBLOG DREAM JOB:

Lam Nguyen's job is to sit for hours in a chilly, quiet room devoid of any color but gray and look at pornography. This job, which Nguyen does earnestly from 9 to 5, surrounded by a half-dozen other "computer forensic specialists" like him, has become the focal point of the Justice Department's operation to rid the world of porn.

In this field office in Washington, 32 prosecutors, investigators and a handful of FBI agents are spending millions of dollars to bring anti-obscenity cases to courthouses across the country for the first time in 10 years.

I agree with Glenn. This is completely ridiculous. Those prosecutors and FBI agents should be hunting down terrorists. But Ashcroft is Ashcroft, so what can you do?

Well, here's a modest proposal: Let some of the Taliban guys out of Gitmo early on the condition that they volunteer for DOJ's anti-porn task force. They should do a good job, since they tend to share Ashcroft's militantly anti-porn stance. Moreover, they should work for peanuts since they're used to Afghan wages. And then the FBI guys can focus on Al Qaeda.

The biggest drawback to this plan is that it will antagonize opponents of outsourcing. After all, why should we be giving jobs to the Taliban when there are hundreds of thousands of unemployed Americans who want nothing more than to look at porn all day while getting paid by the government? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:11 AM by Patrick Belton  

WAITING FOR NEWDOW: Along with Amanda from Crescat, Leon Wieseltier from TNR also was in the gallery during the oral arguments for Newdow. His observations are worth noting - what came to his mind, in the midst of the jarring of counsels making the worse argument the better, was rather

a shrewd and highly un-American observation that was included among the aphorisms in Either/Or: "The melancholy have the best sense of the comic, the opulent often the best sense of the rustic, the dissolute often the best sense of the moral, and the doubter often the best sense of the religious." The discussion that morning fully vindicated the majesty of the chamber, as legal themes gave way to metaphysical themes and philosophy bewitched the assembly. But something strange happened. Almost as soon as philosophy was invited, it was disinvited. It seemed to make everybody anxious, except the respondent. I had come to witness a disputation between religion's enemies and religion's friends. What I saw instead, with the exception of a single comment by Justice Souter, was a disputation between religion's enemies, liberal and conservative. And this confirmed me in my conviction that the surest way to steal the meaning, and therefore the power, from religion is to deliver it to politics, to enslave it to public life.

His ensuing reflections on the relationship of belief, unbelief, and the search for truth within a polity are worth reading. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:46 AM by Patrick Belton  

AND ONE SECTOR'S POSITIVELY BOOMING: Defence contractor SAIC, mercifully a quite nice company which does a great deal of DOD and national security contracting, posts a profit up 43% for this fiscal year. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:10 AM by Patrick Belton  

FROM THE REFERRAL LOGS: OxBlog is apparently your blog of choice if you're bored, looking for something interesting in the news, searching for rude Patrick or Patrick Gaddis (and no, I didn't change my last name to kiss up when I took Cold War history), if you want culinary advice about What can I do with smoked salmon?, and my personal favorite, the oddly evocative "embarrassment restraint". (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:03 AM by David Adesnik  

THROWING DOWN THE GAUNTLET: Kevin Drum says that things in Iraq are shot to all hell. Moreover, this is proof that all those who criticized the media for manufacturing bad news about the occupation -- Who, me? -- should admit that they were wrong and the media was right.

Well, I'm going to hold off for now, first and foremost because I have an Arabic test at 9AM tomorrow. But also because there are some broader questions that I want to take the time to think over.

First of all, can what is going wrong in Iraq now be traced to what the media asserted was going wrong in Iraq all along? Over the past few months, the media has mainly been saying that the United States' great mistake was not to take Ayatollah Sistani's demands more seriously earlier on, since he commands overwhelming support among Iraq's majority Shi'ites. Did American hesitance to compromise with Sistani increase Moqtada Sadr's support, or did the media simply drop the ball on this one?

Second, what will happen if the media's most persistent critics go back and read the specific stories that we criticized for being one-sided or pessimistic? Do current events demonstrate that the flaws we detected in those stories were actual strenghts? Or are such flaws still present and unrelated to recent violence?

My guess is that I actually will go back and do some of the research necessary to answer these questions, if only because I'm a little taken aback by the sneering tone of the almost always affable Calpundit. What will I find? Who knows.

UPDATE: Compared to Kevin, Matt Yglesias is rather sanguine about today's violence. On the other hand, Matt has some tough but fair comments about a recent gauntlet I threw his way on the media bias issue. To clarify, I don't believe that moderate liberals see the media as fundamentally objective. Rather, they see the media's subjectivity as politically neutral. In contrast, Matt asserts that the media (inadvertently?) favors conservatives.
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:40 AM by David Adesnik  

THE PLURAL OF AL QAEDA: Since I have an Arabic test tomorrow, I thought I'd share some Arabic language trivia with you. As many of us know, 'Al Qaeda' means 'the base' or 'the foundation'. However, it does not just refer to physical objects, but also to concepts. Thus, the plural of Al Qaeda, 'Al Qawaid', means 'grammar'. Why? Because grammar is the foundations a language.

Now, it may just be a coincidence, but should we be surprised that George Bush is at war with grammar? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:34 AM by David Adesnik  

MAKING HISTORY ON THE COURT: Congratulations to UConn for becoming the first university ever to win both the men's and women's titles in NCAA basketball. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:28 AM by David Adesnik  

MARINES TAKE HEAVY CASUALTIES: It is a sad day. Heavy fighting against Sunni insurgents in Ramadi has taken the lives of 12 Marines. Coalition forces are also taking casualties in the struggle against Moqtada Sadr's Shi'ite militia in Baghdad and southern Iraq.

Are these losses the unfortunate price of victory? Or are they an indicator that something has gone wrong on the battlefield? Honestly, I don't know. The Marines say that they have secured Fallujah, where four American civilians were killed and mutilated this past week. It seem to early to say whether the struggle against Sadr's militia is going well or not.

Reports place the strength of the Sadr militia at anywhere from 3,000 to 10,000. Whether those are trained fighters or simply hangers-on I have no idea. As such, it is hard to say how strongly motivated Sadr forces are. Are they ideologically committed to establishing a Shi'ite theocracy? Or will they fall back when confronted with Coalition firepower and the condemnation of mainstream Shi'ites?

Speaking more broadly, does the recent outbreak of violence represent a serious threat to the stability of Iraq? As the NYT aptly put it,

One of the biggest questions at day's end was the role of most of the majority Shiites previously thought to be relatively sympathetic to American goals.

While Ayatollah Sistani has issued a decree urging Iraq's Shi'ites to remain calm, Moqtada Sadr is positioning himself rhetorically as a supporter of the Ayatollah. To that end, Sadr announced that "I proclaim my solidarity with Ali Sistani, and he should know that I am his military wing in Iraq." It is hard to know whether Sadr actually expects to win the Ayatollah over to his cause or whether he simply wants to draw as many mainstream Shi'ites as possible into his fold.

Another emerging question is the degree to which Shi'ite and Sunni radicals may unite against occupation forces. In one Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad, residents marched alongside the Shi'ite followers of Moqtada Sadr:

"What Moqtada Sadr did simply woke up the people," said Sarmad Akram, 36, who owns the small food shop next door. "Now the people have the guts to resist."

The exchange, in a middle-class Sunni quarter, was one scene Tuesday that appeared to challenge the assessment by U.S. military officials that Sadr speaks for only a radical fringe in Iraq and that his calls for mass resistance will resonate only with his followers.

Well, I hope not. And I expect not. Every sign until now has pointed to a broad Shi'ite preference for Ayatollah Sistani's strategy of taking control of Iraq through democratic means. The current uprising may provide a chance for a significant number of Shi'ites to vent their frustration, but unless mainstream leaders throw their support behind it, I don't see how it can gain momentum. On the other hand, those who know Iraq far better than I do are concerned. According to John Burns,

In effect, the militia attacks confronted the American military command with what has been its worst nightmare as it has struggled to pacify Iraq: the spread of an insurgency that has stretched a force of 130,000 American troops from the minority Sunni population to the majority Shiites, who are believed to account for about 60 percent of Iraq's population of 25 million.

Privately, senior American officers have said for months that American prospects here would plummet if the insurgency spread into the Shiite population, leaving American and allied troops with no safe havens anywhere except possibly in the Kurdish areas of the north.

Incidentally, Burns was briefly taken prisonerby Shi'ite radicals earlier today. In contrast to Burns, the editors of the WaPo have chosen to see the silver lining behind the hovering clouds:

For months it has been evident that it will be impossible to stabilize Iraq under a transitional government, much less stage the democratic elections planned for next year, unless factional militias are disarmed and disbanded. Mr. Sadr's Mahdi Army is the most dangerous among them. For weeks there has been a debate inside the occupation administration about whether and how to confront Mr. Sadr; by ordering attacks on coalition troops Sunday, the cleric may have ensured that a painful but necessary battle will go forward...

But now that the conflict with the Mahdi Army has begun, U.S. commanders should not hesitate to act quickly and with overwhelming force.

I tend to agree. There is nothing to be gained by cooperating with anti-democratic extremists. The faster that the United States crushes them -- while minimizing civilian casualties -- the faster it will demonstrate that there is no alternative to the interim constitution and the coming elections. In theory, one might call upon the United Nations to help resolve the current conflict. Yet at the moment, even its fiercest partisans have begun to admit that the UN's credibility has been severely damaged by the Oil-for-Food scandal and the incompetence of the first UN mission to Iraq in providing for its own members' security.

So here we are between a rock and a hard place. I've got my fingers crossed. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:47 PM by Patrick Belton