the war journal

Sullivan Seems Convinced He Keeps the Blogosphere Running

2002-12-13T09:57:00.000-08:00

You've heard me before so I'll cede to a reader on why it's important to keep the blogosphere running.

Andrew Sullivan, who apparently makes $6000 a month from running his site, is running a pledge week to make it worth his while to keep his writing available on his website. Now I am all for he, and anyone else, making a living from their words but this seems a bit suspect to me. He has such interesting, and sometimes infuriating, things to say. But his web site does not "keep the blogosphere running" no matter how big his ego may have gotten over the last year or so.

I run websites which are pretty popular themselves and I think I have a fair idea of his expenses. If indeed he makes $6000 a month, as he has declared, then he is making a fair wage for his efforts. It would be great if he could make twice that. I wish him luck with that. But please sir don't make comparisons between the health of your web efforts and that of the blogoshpere as a whole. There are many reasons why you write. Only one of them is money and you are already making more money per month than the majority of folks in the country. Don't lose site of what you are doing or give yourself more credit than is your due. It's not becoming.

The Latest Kissinger Outrage - Why is a proven liar and wanted man in charge of the 9/11 investigation?

2002-12-02T23:13:00.000-08:00

- Christopher Hitchens

When in office, Henry Kissinger organized massive deceptions of Congress and public opinion. The most notorious case concerned the "secret bombing" of Cambodia and Laos and the unleashing of unconstitutional methods by Nixon and Kissinger to repress dissent from this illegal and atrocious policy. But Sen. Frank Church's commission of inquiry into the abuses of U.S. intelligence, which focused on illegal assassinations and the subversion of democratic governments overseas, was given incomplete and misleading information by Kissinger, especially on the matter of Chile. Rep. Otis Pike's parallel inquiry in the House (which brought to light Kissinger's personal role in the not-insignificant matter of the betrayal of the Iraqi Kurds, among other offenses) was thwarted by Kissinger at every turn, and its eventual findings were classified. In other words, the new "commission" will be chaired by a man with a long, proven record of concealing evidence and of lying to Congress, the press, and the public.

I'm feeling you Christopher. But please, you're trying to put an awful lot of stuff into a very awkward and stilting paragraph; your audience requires a surer hand. Often a writer will resort to an arbitrary list of, say, 5 items in a vain attempt to impose cogentability (2-bit word) on a detailed argument. It's such a tiresome tactic. You really hit it later on though:

There is a tendency, some of it paranoid and disreputable, for the citizens of other countries and cultures to regard President Bush's "war on terror" as opportunist and even as contrived. I myself don't take any stock in such propaganda. But can Congress and the media be expected to swallow the appointment of a proven coverup artist, a discredited historian, a busted liar, and a man who is wanted in many jurisdictions for the vilest of offenses? The shame of this, and the open contempt for the families of our victims, ought to be the cause of a storm of protest.

I know I'm all a'storm!

Read Comments

2002-11-27T23:22:00.000-08:00

Read Comments being right wing
I can't believe I forget this from last night. Laura and I were being sooo right wing. We sold a lot of people on our tax plans. For instance, there's the rape tax

THE YOUNG AND WAR:

2002-11-19T22:56:00.000-08:00

I've been impressed by George W. Bush's support among the young. Maybe it's not as anomalous as I thought. Here's a study by blogger Jim Miller that shows how the young were consistently more supportive of the Vietnam War than their elders - throughout the conflict. - Andrew Sullivan

These would be the same youth who grew up to see the futility of it all now and so stand against this current war.

Instapundit.com:

2002-11-19T19:54:00.000-08:00

Dude, it's cuz he's a tyrant! Duh! What you want, should I cry? Is this surprising somehow to you?

anil dash - New York Invented Hip Hop

2002-11-19T00:52:00.000-08:00

It gets better, too. "The appeal hearing was not public, and only the Justice Department's top appellate lawyer, Theodore Olson, presented arguments." Umm... your secret court had a secret trial and secretly heard arguments from one side?! Can we send in some troops to D.C.? 'Cause I have the feeling we're gonna be needing some liberation. [anil dash]

They Make It So Easy

2002-11-05T15:47:00.000-08:00

Sen. Tim Hutchinson, the first GOP senator from Arkansas since Reconstruction, ran in 1996 on a campaign stressing "family values" and was elected with support from the Religious Right. Afterward, he divorced his wife of 29 years and married a Senate aide. Hutchinson faces Democratic state Attorney General Mark Pryor, son of former Sen. David Pryor.

First Amendment Zones In Action

2002-11-05T09:55:00.000-08:00

At least six volunteers for the McBride campaign said they obtained tickets to the Bush rally because they wanted to hear the president speak. However, they said, Republican organizers confiscated their tickets and turned them away at an entrance gate because of the McBride buttons they were wearing.

2002-11-05T00:31:00.000-08:00

So where's the commercial Arianna? Surely such a thing could be bandied about on the net and reach millions of folks.

TalkLeft: Military is Easing Its War on Drugs

2002-10-22T21:27:00.000-07:00

"Citing the need to redirect resources to the war on terrorism, the Pentagon has quietly decided to scale back its effort to combat international drug trafficking, a central element of the national "war on drugs" for 14 years."

Mixing Gefilte & Hyperbole

2002-10-22T10:28:00.000-07:00

Apparently Andrew Sullivan thinks the left is responsible for a brisk business in selling the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in Central Park. [insert snarky remark here]

2002-05-06T12:57:00.000-07:00

On the news they interviewed some folks in Afghanistan. Evidently there was a complete news blackout on the events of September 11th. These folks were apparently quite pleased at the invasion and ouster of the Taliban. Go figure.

2002-04-12T00:06:00.000-07:00

Middle East Peace Process Historical Background

A few choice selections:

2002-01-18T10:22:00.000-08:00

"They say Sept. 11 was the current generation's Pearl Harbor, and I believe that," Wenger said. "But World War II ended with an official surrender and peace treaty, so everybody knew exactly when they could take their flags down. I highly doubt this thing's gonna end with President Bush and Mullah Omar signing an armistice on the deck of the USS Theodore Roosevelt. Ah, screw it—I'll just leave the things where they are."

2002-01-17T17:06:00.000-08:00

In October 1993, 18 US soldiers died during a botched mission in Mogadishu. The incident is the subject of a new film, Black Hawk Down. But, asks Alex Cox, why have the deaths of the Somali civilians been forgotten?

2002-01-07T21:38:00.000-08:00

The Mirror Project | Redrick

2002-01-07T10:31:00.000-08:00

The Air Force Flier In the Ointment

Exactly what that would mean for McSally became clear immediately. In a briefing right after she arrived, officers matter-of-factly laid down the rules for travel off base, even on official business: All female personnel would wear the customary head-to-toe gown, the abaya and its matching head scarf, similar to the Afghan burqa. They could not drive. They would ride in the back seat. They would be escorted by males at all times.

2002-01-05T12:34:00.000-08:00

Patriotism on the Cheap

This is where we were, and it is why our new closure feels so empty. Rather than visit the new, tourist- friendly ground zero, a sharper antidote to complacency may be to travel uptown to a Sept. 11 exhibition at the New-York Historical Society, where a 25-minute impromptu video of the attack, aptly labeled "a Zapruder film for our time" by The Times's Sarah Boxer, runs continuously. The video is jagged and its images are not suitable for framing. It plays out as spontaneously as its cameraman, Evan Fairbanks, shot it. There are no logos, no crawls, no flag graphics, no network anchors to mediate between the viewer and the unfolding events — in fact, no sound at all, either on the tape or from those watching it in stunned silence.

2002-01-02T22:30:00.000-08:00

The most obvious bold national project that Mr. Bush could launch now — his version of the race to the moon — would be a program for energy independence, based on developing renewable resources, domestic production and energy efficiency. Not only would every school kid in America be excited by such a project, but it also would be Mr. Bush's equivalent of Richard Nixon going to China — the Texas oilman weaning America off of its dependence on Middle East oil. That would be a political coup!

2002-01-02T12:31:00.000-08:00

But challenged by his father to take up true religious scholarship, Abou El Fadl began a journey of Islamic learning that would transform him into a nemesis of the extremists he once endorsed. Today, at 38, he is a leading warrior in the intellectual struggle that exploded into America's consciousness Sept. 11: Who speaks for Islam? Who defines it?

2002-01-01T01:29:00.000-08:00

Averted Disaster Captured on Film

2001-12-31T20:37:00.000-08:00

The ability to forgive lies at the very basis of the idea of a future society marked by justice and solidarity.

2001-12-31T20:34:00.000-08:00

Terrorism exploits not just people, it exploits God: it ends by making him an idol to be used for one's own purposes.

2001-12-29T14:05:00.000-08:00

As the President said recently, one in three Afghan children is an orphan and almost half suffer chronic malnutrition. He has asked
American children to help Afghan children by making contributions of one dollar individually or collectively to:

America's Fund for Afghan Children

C/O The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Washington, DC 20509-1600

For more information, go to www.whitehouse.gov/afac/

2001-12-28T23:29:00.000-08:00

The Dailies: 9.11.01

2001-12-28T23:18:00.000-08:00

Having rejected modernism and the Saudi royal family, it's no surprise that Bin Laden would turn against Yamasaki's work in particular. He must have seen how Yamasaki had clothed the World Trade Center, a monument of Western capitalism, in the raiment of Islamic spirituality. Such mixing of the sacred and the profane is old hat to us—after all, Gilbert Cass' classic Woolworth Building, dubbed the Cathedral to Commerce, is decked out in extravagant Gothic regalia. But to someone who wants to purify Islam from commercialism, Yamasaki's implicit Mosque to Commerce would be anathema. To Bin Laden, the World Trade Center was probably not only an international landmark but also a false idol.

- Laurie Kerr

2001-12-28T09:20:00.000-08:00

You can imagine us being slightly nervous at this point. We were forced to sit down. We had to put hands up to go to the toilet. Anyone standing up was a suspect. The crew decide to show the film "Legally Blonde" to calm us down. It kind of works, until we see F15 fighter jets on starboard. It seems that we landed quickly. The aircraft goes to a quiet bit of the runway and we're surrounded by flashing lights. Police, fire, ambulance, state police etc. We get boarded by a SWAT team in full bulletproof gear and they take him away safely. We slowly deboard, go through customs, get stopped for two hours with no news, get moved to somewhere else (guarded by military police and only allowed to the toilet under escort). 20 FBI agents arrive and start interviewing everyone familiy by family. A nice FBI man named Jamey wishes my father happy birthday. We'd forgotten. Up to the interview nobody had really told us anything. We find out he had a fuse and some explosive in his shoes, possibly C4. and that he had tried to board the same flight the day before but was stopped by police. Only at this point to we realise how serious it is. A guy calls his girlfriend and we find out we're on CNN (they mostly get everything correct). It is currently 9pm. We're still in Boston airport. We've been up 24 hours (time differences). We're exhausted and stressed. The FBI have gone home. We head off to Miami very slowly. They check all our bags for explosives. The machine takes 15 mins per bag. There are about 200 bags. We point out it'll take more than a day. Mob rule when they're nasty to us. I was going to dive on my holidays. I think I'll just lie on the beach.

2001-12-25T23:40:00.000-08:00

On the television sing a choir of fire personnel, american heroes, lending their voices to that most Christian of holidays - the Advent.

2001-12-23T22:27:00.000-08:00

When the plane landed and authorities boarded the plane, according to James, the suspect said: "It will happen the way it's supposed to happen. The way it was written to happen."

2001-12-21T16:00:00.000-08:00

click here

2001-12-19T23:04:00.000-08:00

They say the fires at ground zero have gone out.

2001-12-13T21:51:00.000-08:00

The U.S. government's transcript of the Osama bin Laden video tape.

2001-12-11T10:16:00.000-08:00

American Society for the Prevention of Postal Cruelty

God Bless America!

If You Don't Want American Flag Stamps, Watch Out!

American Civil Liberties Union

Electronic Freedom Foundation

Due to wise stamp conservation during the salad days of the nineties the American Society for the Prevention of Postal Cruelty is pleased to announce the availability of United States Postage which DOES NOT feature the American Flag as the central motif of the postage stamp.

We here at the American Society for the Prevention of Postal Cruelty know how painful it can be to maintain a discrete presense as a person of conscious during wartime. Due to the extreme efficiency of the American War Machine^TM a person of conscious may find themselves caught in a STATE SITUATION in which the very act of buying stamps, changing coinages, driving their car without the proper American Flag appendage and/or sticker may result in long wastes of time, stress, and apparent crisis to the STATE.

We at the American Society for the Prevention of Postal Cruelty know that these STATE SITUATIONS can have profound effects in their fallout. These types of occurances detract from the WAR EFFORT and needlessly introduce the STATE into your everyday life. No one wants that. Some of us may place our postage stamp on the envelope backwards or upside down in an effort to look "counter-culture", or "anti-war", and hip. Some of us may have genuine feelings of jingoistic fervor but, for example what if, in the by-laws for the Sandia Heights Flower Club it says that all mailings to the membership have to use postage stamps featuring flowers. Of course we could simply excuse the the breaking of that rule, after all it's for the WAR EFFORT, but we do live in a nation of law and if we can't rely on the rules in our flower club to be followed how can we possibly expect people like the United States Attourney General John Ashcroft to follow the law. This is where we come in, the good people at the American Society for the Prevention of Postal Cruelty, with our wonderful collection of generic United States postage in an assortment of attractive designs, colors, and denominations.

We are pleased to announce that the American Society for the Prevention of Postal Cruelty is making available millions of stamps of denominations of: .01,.05.,10.,.32.,.52,.1.00.,3.20., & 12.50 to the general public. All you need do is buy your stamps at the post office as you would normally. When the clerk asks you whether you want this American Flag or that American Flag on your postage you simply smile and take whatever American Flag she recommends. Then drop us a note at postage@chronotope.com (Please do not send us snailmail as it will not be opened due to an apparent anthrax of the postal system) and we will be willing to exchange your new American Flag postage for our non-descript postage. We have moon shots, Elvis, lots of flowers, buildings, figures from history, breast cancer research, you name it we've probably got it.

Tell your friends, tell your family, we at the American Society for the Prevention of Postal Cruelty will unload all the postage we are now carrying as our part of the WAR EFFORT. We are also forming a political action committee to push for legislation forming a National Postage Reserve to avoid this dangerous situation in the future. It is our belief that with an initial small investment of 250 million dollars our nation could place the power to relieve these postal tragedies, through an executive order to open the Postage Reserve, in the President's^* Hand.

Won't you join now in preserving our common postal heritage from the tyranny of the AMERICAN FLAG?

^* or psuedo-potus, depending on the situation.

2001-12-10T22:25:00.000-08:00

I must admit it is awfully tempting to desire that al-Qaida in the final stronghold be wiped off the planet. I don't want to see them spread out after some truce. I don't want to see them on trial by some god-damn military tribunal. SO conflicted.

2001-12-09T16:30:00.000-08:00

Confessions of a Traitor
John Ashcroft, testifying before the Senate on Thursday, declared that those who challenge his wisdom "only aid terrorists" and will "give ammunition to America's enemies." Tough words. They make you wonder what the guy who's charged with helping us whip Al Qaeda is afraid of. The only prominent traitors in sight are the usual civil- liberties watchdogs and a milque- toast senator or two barely known beyond the Beltway and their own constituencies. Polls find the public squarely on the attorney general's side, and even the few pundits who knock him are ridiculed by their journalistic colleagues as hysterics so busy fussing about civil liberties that they forget "there's a war going on."

2001-12-07T23:35:00.000-08:00

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it."
- Thomas Jefferson
"Those willing to give up a little liberty for a little security deserve neither security nor liberty."
- Benjamin Franklin

2001-12-01T00:33:00.000-08:00
You live in a country of war. A country of deprivation confounding its own, a country of war. You live in a war and a country and car you call your own. Live in the war in the country and the car will follow you home. You live in a country of war. You live in a country of war.

2001-11-30T09:07:00.000-08:00
Where does the Taliban stand on dwarf tossing?

2001-11-29T05:41:00.000-08:00

Public Citizen, on behalf of several civil liberties and historic organizations, has filed a lawsuit against the Bush administration, charging that the president's executive order severely restricting public access to presidential records violates federal law. "We will not stand by while the administration tramples on the people's right to find out about their own government," said Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook. "The president should not have the ability to arbitrarily withhold public information to hide wrongdoing or avoid embarrassment." Bush's order would also allow former presidents to block access to their administrations' records, according to a Public Citizen press release. Prior to Bush's order, the Presidential Records Act provided that all but the most sensitive presidential records be made accessible to the public 12 years after the president leaves office. Public Citizen won a similar suit against the Reagan administration in 1988, overturning a Justice Department directive requiring the National Archives to refuse any requests if a former president invoked privilege for any reason.

2001-11-29T05:17:00.000-08:00

"Of all the enemies of true liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manner and of morals, engendered in both. No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
- James Madison

2001-11-29T05:16:00.000-08:00

I must admit I'm a tad confused too. How come the Congress has not declared war? It just seems like it's not supposed to work this way. But I guess the election wasn't supposed to work that way either.

2001-11-26T23:22:00.000-08:00
september 11th, 2001+economy+children+grief+son+marriage+help+greed+love+hate+revenge+soul+emotions+sex+time+nature+breast

2001-11-26T23:14:00.000-08:00
http://google.com/search?hl=en&q=september+11th+2001+fucking+Christians

2001-11-26T21:51:00.000-08:00

A keynote research paper showing that Middle Eastern Jews and Palestinians are genetically almost identical has been pulled from a leading journal.

2001-11-24T21:08:00.000-08:00

"It is not clear that Osama has been involved in crimes but it is a hard fact that Rushdie committed a crime against Islam. Why are people taking care of him in your country?" Haqqani said.

2001-11-22T22:31:00.000-08:00
"I just wait for the intensity level to get good, for the lyrics to start being psychic," she told NME. "There's a new song, 'Life Despite God', which literally described planes hitting buildings and an apocalyptic dreamscape city - weeks before September 11, as morbid as that is. I know I'm in the flow when my lyrics start getting psychic and dream-connected again."

2001-11-22T00:19:00.000-08:00

Saudi Arabia has no elections, women are treated only slightly better than their Afghan sisters, religious police harass the population, and defendants have no right to a lawyer. Transvestites are lashed and sentenced to five-year prison terms, thieves get their hands sawed off, and convicted sodomites are beheaded on Fridays.
Remember those good ole days when a protest was a woman driving a car...

2001-11-21T23:54:00.000-08:00

What does it serve to explain why bin Laden's cultists hate us; it does not justify Sept. 11. It is intellectually, morally, and, yes, journalistically lazy to think that "balance" means reporting their hatred along with their crimes; it makes a connection that is illegitimate and even dangerous.
This is bullshit!

2001-11-21T23:49:00.000-08:00

The majority of the bomb-making instructions were easy to understand and used domestic items, including Alka Seltzer tubes, condoms, wax, mousetraps and cigarettes as contact switches to initiate charges.

2001-11-19T23:48:00.000-08:00

Slav Macedonian nationalists insist that they face their own Osama bin Laden in an Albanian Macedonian guerrilla leader called Ali Ahmeti.[1 ]Yet, they say, the United States and NATO have been making deals with this terrorist, and pressing the Macedonian government to grant him amnesty. Of course, nationalist regimes around the world have always played this semantic card—Russia denounces Chechen "terrorists"; Israel, Palestinian "terrorists"; China, Tibetan "terrorists"; and so on—with widely varying degrees of justification. In this case, however, it is not just the local nationalists who have taken a dim view of Mr. Ali Ahmeti.

2001-11-19T22:33:00.000-08:00

The Sept. 11 hijackers, using readily accessible tools like box cutters, the Internet and Boeing flight manuals, hatched a plot too brazen for many to fathom. It forced authorities to consider whether a range of public sites and sensitive facilities was much more vulnerable than they had realized--and whether public records could provide a playbook for targeting them.

2001-11-19T16:35:00.000-08:00

Your words do much to abate the fire that
writhes inside
It is hard
But that I had done a bit more...
Had the towers stood up for just one
minute longer...
It is hard.
- Leslie E. Robertson

2001-11-17T00:06:00.000-08:00

The National Museum of American Jewish Military History, under the auspices of the Jewish War Veterans of the U.S.A., documents and preserves the contributions of Jewish Americans to the peace and freedom of the United States, educates the public concerning the courage, heroism and sacrifices made by Jewish Americans who served in the armed forces, and works to combat anti-Semitism.

2001-11-16T23:37:00.000-08:00

I got the following message today...I'm very sorry you feel that way. Go back to your native home land if you don't like being an American By Birth................there must be a pinko liberal in every crowd. Only an insecure person would feel the way you do! Sorry for the offense!

2001-11-16T23:35:00.000-08:00
"It's amazing what a few visits from Mr. B-52 and his girlfriend Daisy Cutter can do to reacquaint the enemy with reality. An application of American firepower appears to have snapped the Taliban's spine and sapped their morale, resulting in liberation. Freedom. Celebration. This is what the anti-war forces have been secretly dreading: news reports of happy Afghans."
- James Lileks
This is of course nonsense. Some folks are so angry. I'm just amazed at the anger.

2001-11-16T14:12:00.000-08:00

World War II Posters: Powers of Persuasion
The speech so inspired illustrator Norman Rockwell that he created a series of paintings on the "Four Freedoms" theme. In the series, he translated abstract concepts of freedom into four scenes of everyday American life. Although the Government initially rejected Rockwell's offer to create paintings on the "Four Freedoms" theme, the images were publicly circulated when The Saturday Evening Post, one of the nation's most popular magazines, commissioned and reproduced the paintings. After winning public approval, the paintings served as the centerpiece of a massive U.S. war bond drive and were put into service to help explain the war's aims.

2001-11-16T13:08:00.000-08:00

Bush's Tribunals Under Fire
When the Army refused to bring Merryman before the high court, Taney said the U.S. marshals had the authority to haul Army General George Cadwalader into the courtroom on charges of contempt -- but Taney wouldn't order it since the marshals would likely be outgunned by the regular army. Instead, Taney protested and called on Lincoln "to perform his constitutional duty to enforce the laws" and the "process of this court."

2001-11-15T20:15:00.000-08:00
"The current situation in Afghanistan is related to a bigger cause -- that is the destruction of America. The plan is going ahead and God willing it is being implemented, but it is a huge task beyond the will and comprehension of human beings. If God's help is with us this will happen within a short period of time."

2001-11-13T23:33:00.000-08:00
It's the search for Osama with Eric Brown.

2001-11-13T00:00:00.000-08:00

"Who is the leader you most admire?" Sharpton asked.

"Mao Tse-tung," Arafat replied briskly.

"Why Mao?" "Because Mao Tse-tung is the only leader who fought four occupying forces, and beat them all-at a time when so many of his people were addicted to opium," Arafat explained.

"He got them off opium and freed them from occupation.
He was a phenomenal leader." The discussion about Arafat's hero clearly energized him.

2001-11-12T23:51:00.000-08:00

As Al Sharpton sped along a dusty road in the Gaza Strip to a historic meeting with Palestinian Authority leader Yasir Arafat last week, he and a top aide, riding in the backseat of a black Mercedes Benz, imagined the look on Jesse Jackson's face.

It would be one of disbelief, they conjectured, as Jackson watched his rival dodge the crossfire of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and become the premier black statesman on the world stage-brokering peace through shuttle diplomacy.

Since the Taliban embarrassed Jackson-by denying he had an agreement with them to negotiate the handover of Osama bin Laden and the release of eight Christian aid workers detained in Afghanistan-Sharpton, 46, has been maneuvering through the ranks of the civil rights movement, vowing to lessen Jackson's political influence abroad.
- Peter Noel

2001-11-12T23:19:00.000-08:00
As they left, the Taliban took eight foreign aid workers, including two Americans, accused of spreading Christianity in Muslim Afghanistan, witnesses said.

2001-11-11T15:33:00.000-08:00
I'd say most if not all of these articles should be a must read.

2001-11-10T21:48:00.000-08:00
Al-Qaeda nukes may have reached US shores

2001-11-10T20:48:00.000-08:00
Bin Laden: Yes, I did it

2001-11-09T20:24:00.000-08:00
As veteran commanders never tire of saying, amateurs discuss tactics, but professionals understand logistics.

2001-11-08T23:57:00.000-08:00
Bill Clinton, the former president, said yesterday that terror has existed in America for hundreds of years and the nation is "paying a price today" for its past of slavery and for looking "the other way when a significant number of native Americans were dispossessed and killed."

2001-11-07T23:41:00.000-08:00
So are you about as tired of that as I am?

2001-11-07T23:39:00.000-08:00
America Fights Back
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2001-11-07T23:38:00.000-08:00
It's Pearl Harbor Day.

2001-11-07T00:01:00.000-08:00
I'm sick, sick, sick of the patriotic schmaltz trade that has sprung from the WTC attacks. I'm sick of the "Bin Laden: Wanted Dead or Alive" t-shirts, the "IT'S PERSONAL: 9/11/01" bumper stickers. It's shallow nationalism of the worst, most puerile kind, and I'm so tired of it.

2001-11-05T23:22:00.000-08:00

As I understand it the rules are pretty well laid out. Implementing them, and whether or not they are effective, is another question entirely. Supposedly, laid over this is a series of random checks which come as directed from the checking agents computer screens. Of course then there are discretionary searches as well. I believe anal probes are most likely delivered in the B terminal. But that is at the direction of the searcher.

As I see it whether the Green Party USA Coordinator was dealt with as a function of her political affiliation or as one cog in a machine lurching fitfully into being the salient point is the way in which she has used her overly loud voice to express outrage. This is happening all over the country at every airport. I have seen it and others I know have. It seems spurious and callous and mean no doubt but I honestly find the Green Party USA Coordinator's story to be simply hilarious. I can just see this lady protesting her ruthless delay. Her eyes flashing indignately as she yells "But, I'm the Green Party USA Official Coordinator and I simply must make my flight!"

I was involved in the creation of the Greens in New Mexico many many years ago. Oh how far the party has come. Where once we were concerned with local politics no bigger than the local bio-region; today we can send blustering blowhards into the gale force of cross country airline travel.

The whole story just made me laugh out loud.

Whatever the case may be I have no intention of flying until they figure this thing out. My political thoughts will no doubt get me in trouble as I always travel with 'Desert Solitaire' and that document is of course is the core of revolution.

2001-11-05T14:14:00.000-08:00
The monstrous events of September 11 have given the United States a second historic chance, after the squandered opportunity of the 1990s, to establish a truly cooperative relationship with post-Communist Russia. Such a relationship is essential for coping with today's real security dangers, which exceed those of the cold war and make the United States so vulnerable that even it can no longer meaningfully be considered a "superpower." Indeed, both the decay of Russia's nuclear infrastructure since 1992 and the "low-tech, high-concept" attacks on America in September may be omens of an unprecedented dark age of international insecurity. None of its dangers can be dealt with effectively without Russia, the world's only other fully nuclearized country and its largest crossroad of civilizations.

2001-11-04T11:36:00.000-08:00
And yet we go on—working and maintaining while breathing the ashes of our fallen comrades, we go on.

2001-11-03T21:36:00.000-08:00
Armed government agents grabbed Nancy Oden, Green Party USA coordinating committee member, Thursday at Bangor International Airport in Bangor Maine, as she attempted to board an American Airlines flight to Chicago.

"An official told me that my name had been flagged in the computer," a shaken Oden said. "I was targeted because the
Green Party USA opposes the bombing of innocent civilians in Afghanistan."

Oden, a long-time organic farmer and peace activist in northern Maine, was ordered away from the plane. Military personnel with automatic weapons surrounded Oden and instructed all airlines to deny her passage on any flight.

"I was told that the airport was closed to me until further notice and that my ticket would not be refunded," Oden said.

2001-11-03T21:08:00.000-08:00
What if everything you think is wrong and in reality you are part of the evil contingent?

2001-11-03T20:33:00.000-08:00
"What does it take? What has to happen for them to take it seriously?''

2001-11-03T10:43:00.000-08:00
One library employee ventured outside to see what all the commotion was about. "I'm not offended by the American flag," he said.

2001-11-03T10:39:00.000-08:00
Disillusioned with life on the front line, a British deserter from the Taleban is warning other young Muslims that if they go to Afghanistan seeking glory or martyrdom they will only find themselves at the mercy of “lunatics and liars”.

2001-11-03T10:33:00.000-08:00
Peyrard was arrested on October 9 in the Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan dressed in Afghan women's clothing -- the head-to-toe burqa. British journalist Yvonne Ridley was released after 10 days, after trying to enter the country dressed in a burqa last month.

2001-11-03T01:19:00.000-08:00
More than 6,000 people die to terrorism, and Bill Clinton still thinks it's all about him.

2001-11-03T01:09:00.000-08:00
Maria Shriver says 15,000 kids lost parents in the WTC.

2001-11-02T23:56:00.000-08:00

abc as a merchant of flags

2001-11-02T23:42:00.000-08:00
Says here that Congress is going to pass an "Anti-Evil" bill tommorrow.

2001-11-02T23:40:00.000-08:00
The flag as fashion accessory is seriously vain and beneath a true patriot. In my humble opinion.

2001-11-02T23:11:00.000-08:00
1. People are dieing.

2. Everyone is lieing & spinning madly.

3. Everyone is uncomfortable

2001-11-02T21:17:00.000-08:00

the tour diary of jenny toomey
Back in the car for a dose of unreality…There are Journalists with Anthrax in NYC where we just were. Suddenly every tickle in my throat is hatching spores. When we arrive at the NPR studio we are scheduled to be a bit of lighter fare in between the scientific explanations of biological threats and a heartbreaking interview with the wife of a man who walked down to take photos of the towers only to be crushed, only to be found with camera, only to have the posthumous photos published in Newsweek. The interviewer is nice but facile (Franklin’s word). “So this song is mean…what’s THAT all about?” When I explained a bit of the politics behind the FMC speaking tour the interviewers response was something like… “Wow..those people who see you as a little 5 foot 5 woman with a shock of red hair and a guitar have no idea…”

2001-11-02T16:21:00.000-08:00
"This is not an instant gratification war."

2001-11-01T13:58:00.000-08:00

Uncle Sam and Aunt Samantha - this is so so so true. I'm going to write my congressional reps about this.

2001-10-29T23:47:00.000-08:00
"The President's job is to prosecute the war abroad."

2001-10-29T10:38:00.000-08:00

On September 19, only eight days after the tragic terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, the Bush Administration unveiled its proposed Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), legislation that included many changes to the nation's current surveillance laws. The chart below compares the changes proposed by the ATA, the latest versions of that proposal passed by the House and Senate, and a now-abandoned compromise bill that was passed by the House Judiciary Committee. Also included are capsule ACLU comments on those changes.

2001-10-28T23:04:00.000-08:00
I could be wrong, but I think that those who are protesting are not protesting our rational anger, but rather our choice of methods. Furthermore, this attack was directed specifically in many ways against our freedoms, so asking that we voluntarily give them up seems very counterproductive.

2001-10-28T17:19:00.000-08:00

Temeczko told his lawyer, William Wangensteen, in late September that he wanted help with a will.

"He told me, 'I think you're going to like what I'm going to do,"' Wangensteen said.

2001-10-28T10:26:00.000-08:00
In America, we must stop promising so much, and in the world that looks to us for leadership, you must find your own way to freedom.

2001-10-28T00:49:00.000-07:00
This whole thing now is seeming more and more like a parade of self interest and celebrity building. I can't help but feel nausous at the notion of Billy Graham attending every memorial service. How many memorial services are we going to have anyway?

2001-10-24T23:50:00.000-07:00
No weapon formed against you shall prosper.

2001-10-21T21:22:00.000-07:00

CNN.com - Propaganda war may miss targets - October 21, 2001
Young cited, for example, attempts by Iraq's Saddam Hussein to demoralize U.S. troops during the 1991 Gulf War. While they were away fighting, Iraqi broadcasts warned, movie stars like Bart Simpson were seducing the troops' sweethearts.

2001-10-21T21:15:00.000-07:00

CNN.com - Rangers leave Taliban photos of U.S. firefighters - October 21, 2001
Franklin, 35, photographed the firefighters hoisting a flag plucked from a yacht onto a single flagpole anchored in the rubble about 20 feet off the ground. Using a long lens, he captured the moment from 100 feet away, unbeknownst to the three firefighters -- Dan McWilliams, George Johnson and Billy Eisengrein.

2001-10-20T12:07:00.000-07:00

A senior Taliban commander was quoted Saturday as saying American soldiers are too soft for the rigors of ground combat in Afghanistan and that the U.S.-led air campaign has inflicted little damage on the country's defenses.

I must admit that despite my pacifist stance this guy just doesn't seem to understand the "waking giant" which was unleashed on the 11th of September.

2001-10-19T14:48:00.000-07:00

Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar - Why Washington's smoothest diplomat is falling from favor.

by David Plotz

The American media and American policy-makers have finally realized that Bandar no longer speaks for his country, and that his country, unfortunately, is not the kind of place he says it is. Bandar wants it to be like the good old days, when he and President Bush could settle this over dinner and a stogie. But post-9/11, Bandar's charm, pragmatism, and optimism are not merely useless but destructive. He is peddling fragrant lies at a time America needs dirty truths.