You Know Bush is in Trouble ...

... when even the right wing whackjobs start to question the rationale for war in Iraq:

Explain it to me. A ratpack of Saudis blew up New York, so we're going to wreck Iraq. We're going to do it because Hussein has Weapons of Mass Destruction, except that he doesn't, as far as anyone can tell. The more he doesn't have them, the more we want to blow him up because he does, or doesn't, or would if he did. Maybe.

Yes, Fred is a whackjob. But he's an amusing whackjob, if you're not easily offended.

More on Computerized Voting Machines

More on potential voting machine fraud. This one's a lot nastier than I was.

Marching Up the Hill

O, the grand Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men;
He marched them up to the top of the hill,
And marched them down again.
And when they were up, they were up,
And when they were down, they were down,
And when they were only half-way up,
They were neither up nor down.

-- Old nursery rhyme

We have well over ten thousand men on the way to Iraq, for no good reason. Georgie Bush claims that Saddam Hussein has Weapons of Mass Destruction, and that he is preparing to do Awful Things with them. Problem is, he hasn't been able to convince anybody else on the international scene of this. Tomorrow, the inspectors will present their report to the UN. Almost ceratinly, it will be inconclusive. Almost certainly, they will ask for more time.

And almost certainly, Georgie Bush will take this as a mandate to invade.

Frankly, with the troop buildup, the full-court press in the media, the howling of the right-wingers, and the dissing of our so-called allies, if Georgie marches his troops down the hill, he will look pretty stupid, by his own standards (he already looks pretty stupid by most other standards).

So Why Is Georgie Doing This?

I don't really know. The people inside things at the Republican National Committee probably do, but they aren't talking. Some ideas:

Imminent Danger

This is the "official" reason. Unfortunately, it simply doesn't wash. Why is Saddam more dangerous this year than last year? Why will he be any more dangerous next year?

If Georgie had any real information on WMD, why doesn't he give it to the UN inspectors, who have carte blanche to go anywhere, look at everything, and ask anybody anything? Either he is using the UN inspectors as catspaws or he doesn't have any real information to give. Neither conclusion is particularly reassuring.

My personal opinion is that Saddam has no nuclear program and that his biowarfare program hasn't produced anything that would do more than make a large mess. He still undoubtedly has poison gas, but if he used it for anything at all, he'd be committing quick suicide. Where is it? Nobody knows.

Feed the Starving Children?

This is the other "official" excuse. Again, doesn't wash. Yes, Saddam is one of the world's worst tyrants. Yes, he has used poison gas, both on Iranian soldiers and on his own people. So? The US has a long and dishonorable history of dealing with tyrants. The "forced repatriations" after WWII were particularly nasty, as we shipped tens of thousands of European refugees back to their "homelands", where their new Communist rulers promptly murdered them. As to the "starving children" so beloved of the Lefty press, I'll just note two things, both of which are quite well known: First, the shortages are the direct result of the "oil for food" campaign, supported by the US and nobody else. Second, in every picture of the Republican Guard, they all look suspiciously well-fed. If there's a a shortage of food, it's a distribution problem -- not necessarily fixable by relaxing sanctions. Our own media are Georgie's lapdogs; in other countries, this is not the case. If you want to know what's really going on in the world, you won't find it in the US press.

A thought: What do Algeria, Belarus, Burma, China, Chad, Cuba, North Korea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, and Zimbabwe have in common? Answer -- worse governments than Iraq. So when do we start the Wars of Liberation for them?

Fixing Poppy's Mistake?

In the first Gulf War, there was a lot of talk about throwing Saddam out, once we found out just how bad his "elite" troops really were. Unfortunately, the only way we were able to put the "coalition" together was to promise not to do that. The thought of the US as "kingmaker" in the Middle East scared the snot out of the other Arab rulers in the area. Only way they would sign on is if we promised not to.

In my opinion, the only things we did that were really wrong was to stop the war before we had completely destroyed the Republican Guards. The rebels in Basara who answered our call to revolt were promptly crushed.

So Georgie want to finish the job that Poppy didn't.

Unfortunately, Georgie hero-worships his father. The suggestion that Poppy Bush screwed up is not something I'd care to mention to Georgie.

Where's Osama?

OK, so Osama bin Laden was the guy behind 9/11. He directed it and al Qaeda carried it out.

So where is he?

We don't know. He may be dead. He may be incommunicado in Pakistan, a "guest" of the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence service.

Georgie has a broad mandate to dig him out, wherever he may be. But he can't. Worse, as essentially everybody predicted, we're losing interest in Afghanistan. The government is a mess. Pakistan won't let us cross the border in pursuit of the remaining Taliban.

So this idea is that, if Georgie makes a big enough noise in Iraq, people will forget about the reason we got into this fracas in the first place. It may be working; an oft-quoted poll shows that an awful lot of Americans think the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqi. In case you're counting, 14 Saudis, 3 from the United Arab Emirates, and one each from Lebanon and Egypt.

Follow the Money

Another reason for a diversion might be that every money trail leads straight to Saudi Arabia. Al Qaeda is basically rich Saudi kids. And the Bush clan is really buddy-buddy with the Saudis. You want repressive dictators? Try the House of Saud. But nobody wants to think about the fact that Saudi money finances all those "religious" schools that teach nothing but hatred for non Fundie-Muslim types, along with such vital modern concepts as the "real" meaning of the Koran (Kill infidels. Destroy Israel.)

This one's a possibility, except that it assumes 'way too much subtlety on everybody's part.

Weaken Radical Islam?

The invasion will put the Fear of God (our God) into the Heathen. I've actually heard this suggested; it is ridiculous. Iraq is one of the most thouroughly secular states in the Middle East. Whatever Saddam is, he's not a Muslim fundie. An invasion would seriously strengthen the position of the Fundies -- Saddam has them on a pretty short lesh.

$$$ for Georgie's Buddies?

Iraq has the second largest oil reserves in the world, after Saudi Arabia. If we take over Iraq, goes the argument, Georgie's pals in the oil business will make fortunes that would impress even the likes of Bush and Cheney. Sounds logical, except for one little fact, not reported in the US press. Originally, Pravda flogged this idea heavily, and gave it as the reason that Russia wouldn't go along with ousting Saddam. Turns out that a number of Russian oil companies have long-term deals with Iraq that would presumably be invalidated by a new government. However, recently, it seems that Putin, at least, is satisfied that we won't do that. Presumably, Halliburton would have to bid for new business; they'd probably make a lot of money, but in the normal way. Unless, of course, US troops were to be used as goons against non-US outfits. That'd be kind of raw, even for people of Georgie's (lack of) morals.

Note -- while Pravda has a lot of good information and a viewpoint that you don't find in the US media, they do have a tendancy to go for "black helicopter" kind of explanations.

So What's the Real Answer?

Beats me. Maybe he just likes playing wargames and doesn't have a PlayStation 2. Maybe he's paying off debts to the Chriatian Coalition by making Iraq safe for Christian Fundie doorknockers.

We'll probably never find out, even if he does march down the hill again.

Patton Couldn't Stand Him

Everybody else loved him, including the brass that he loved to take down a notch.

I just heard the news that Bill Mauldin died today, of complications of Alzheimer’s.

My father, like all GIs in Europe (except Patton) loved his stuff. He cut out and kept the cartoons from Stars & Stripes; I still have some of them. I also have a first printing of "Up Front", Mauldin's first book.

After the war, he continued drawing. Probably my all-time favorite shows Lady Liberty being menaced by a huge monster from across the ocean, with hammer-and-sickle eyes. "Maybe it would go away", says his Everyman character, "if we put out the light". Have things really changed that much? Replace the hammer-and-sickle with a crescent-and-star ....

Just another reminder that our collective memory of things like WWII is slowly going away. Soon, all that will be left is "official" histories, old letters, and second hand memories. We're in a dangerous period, with some people saying "War of any kind is too horrible to contemplate" and others saying "Think what would have happened if Hitler had won". Then there's the ever popular "WWII would have been much shorter and less brutal if we'd only <fill in the blank>". As long as we have folks that remember that kind of war, we have a very effective brake on those who want to do it again. I have no doubt that one of the chief restraints on the Soviet Union in the Cold War was that, when you said "More deaths in the first exchange of hostilities than in all of the Great Patriotic War", it really meant something to the war dogs running the Kremlin.

WWII was a very near thing. We could have lost. This is a thought that is anathema to the current crop of "chicken hawks" -- we might lose. Things might not go our way. I don't see this happening in Iraq, but it is always something to think about. The fact that "We're the Good Guys" (as we keep telling ourselves) counts for nothing in the Great Scheme of Things.

Anyway, here's a selection of Mauldin's most enduring characters, Willie and Joe

Letter from Baghdad

Salam Pax writes about what's going on in Iraq. He's seriously interested; he lives in (and posts from) Baghdad. This is the only online information I've found that doesn't come from a newsman or general pundit-type. Pax is "just" a guy who lives there, and as such, sees a lot that the news or political types never see,or want to see.

In his latest posting, he talks about who might take over after Saddam Hussein. This is a serious consideration; everybody seems to either ignore the problem or assume that the Spirit of Democracy will descend in the form of a dove. Personally, I fully expect the US to totally lose interest and just let some thug take over with dubious promises to Be Nice. In ten years, we'll be right back where we are now.

Pax takes it as a given that the Iraqi National Congress (the most prominent group) and it leader Ahmad Chalabi are simply American puppets, who would be little different from Saddam. He likes Nadia abdul Majeed; a Google search on her name (and some variant spellings) gives zero hits. Chalabi has supposedly promised oil concessions to American companies; it's hard to see Bush or Cheney (both oilmen, remember) resisting that kind of pitch.

Some things won't happen:

• Iraq won't be rebuilt on a Kurdish model. I don't know what it is with the Kurds, but everybody in the area is scared stiff of them. Turkey, in particular, will not go along with the program if it means that nice things will happen to the Kurds. No Turkey, no war. It's a long drive from Kuwait City to Baghdad, especially in a tank.
• A liberal democracy will not magically appear. There is no tradition of democracy in the Arab world. Assorted attempts have failed, with varying degrees of misery. Arab "democracy" has been described as "one man, one vote, once". If Iraq actually comes up with a democratic government, it will be the result of some really amazing diplomacy and hard work. Best of luck, guys.

People seem to forget why we didn't push for the removal of Saddam in the Gulf War. Basically, the idea of the United States as a "kingmaker" in the Arab world scared the snot out of every government in the area. As long as we were fighting to simply preserve the status quo, the Arab states were willing to sign on to the coalition. Now, I guess we just don't care any more.

The most dangerous time is the end of February. It's the dark of the moon; all American troops are equipped with night vision devices. The start of February is also the dark of the moon, but the UN report isn't due until 27 January and Georgie Bush & company have to pretend to look at it. Also, as Pax pointed out, the start of February is Haj season. Lotsa pilgrams getting in the way.

Anyway, best of luck to Salam Pax and his family. And everybody else in Baghdad. May it all be over quickly.

North Korea. What's the Fuss?

So North Korea supposedly has a couple of nukes and wants to make more. So?

For nearly twenty years now, we've been pouring money into the Strategic Defense Initiative. First priority has always been a Mad Dictator With Two Nukes. Well, now we have one. After all this effort, we should be able to stop anything that NK can throw, right?

What's that you say? It's not "ready for deployment"?

Reminds me all too much of the Nigerian scams going around the Net. "We'll give you US$20M for helping us get our money out of Nigeria. We just have to pay some small expenses first ...."

Personally, I think "strategic defense" is a terrific idea. Unfortunately, the current incarnation is simply welfare for defense contractors. Nothing is going to get done; that would involve far too many business, military, and government bigwigs admitting that they lied. Or even worse, were wrong.

For a lot of good info on the North Korean mess and how we got into it, see Talking Points Memo.

2002

Ok. It's next year. So where are we?

9/11

Not so good. We all know that any possible War on Terror would take a long time. However, we have depressingly few bright spots to look back on:

• No Osama. We have one new tape that may or may not be real. My personal idea is that he's either dead or being held incommunicado in Pakistan. Given his convictions (and his ego), his tapes would be all over the place if he were still around.
• No anthrax suspects. Hey, there are only about 200 total suspects (people who could get weaponized anthrax without killing themselves). Unless security at our bioweapons facilities is a lot worse than has been let on.
• Afghanistan. Crumbling into ruin while the Taliban moves back in. As per all predictions, we seem to have lost interest.
• Pakistan. Musharrif put his arse on the line for us, and we haven't done squat for him. Would it be so hard to jack up the textile import quotas for Pakistan? I'm not surprised that his cooperation is fading.
• Saudi Arabia. All the al Qaeda money trails lead here. No news. Presumably, we are doing diplomatic things to make sure that they don't get any more large infusions of cash. Unfortunately, this also looks just like doing nothing, which is possible. The Saudi royal family is very well connected politically. Remember, our President and Vice President are both oilmen ....
• al Qaeda. Still active. Kenya. Bali. A few arrests. No indication that they've been significantly reduced.
• The Home Front. More bad laws. Airport screening turning into more than just air safety. Selective enforcement of our hideous patchwork of immigration laws.
• The International Scene. After 9/11, there was a tremendous outpouring of sympathy and support for the US. "Yes" everyone said, "it's time to eliminate terrorism". By the end of 2002, we have managed to almost entirely fritter it away. Georgie has made it clear that we don’t care squat what other countries think.

Other Areas

More not so good:

• The economy. Still in the toilet. More bankruptcies, with evidence of fraud floating up like turds from a backed up sewer. Nothing's being done; these are Georgie's friends, after all.
• The election. By rolling over on their backs and waving all six legs in the air, the Democrats managed to hand the Senate back to the Republicans. The R’s of course, are treating this like a Total Mandate to do whatever they want.
• Iraq. Georgie Bush is damn well gonna invade. However, what passes for "cooler heads" managed to get the UN in on the deal. There's still no evidence that Saddam is more of a threat this year than he was last year. Common wisdom is that Georgie wants to make sure there's plenty of oil if Saudi Arabia turns off the tap. (They won’t. Without a large supply of cash, they’re dead meat. They need us like we need them.)
• Korea. Georgie screwed the pooch bigtime here. For future reference -- poking serious nutcases with sharp sticks is not a good idea, unless you have a plan for any kind of bizarre and violent behavior.
• The INS. As essentially everybody has noted, the use of trivial immigration violations to deport Muslims is seriously bad policy.

Sideshows

Stuff that generated a lot of words, but doesn't mean much:

• The Beltway sniper. Yah, a nut with a gun can shoot a lot of people if he works at it. May make some folks take a look at "profiling", given that all the talking heads were not only off, but way off. But I doubt it.
• Trent Lott. So? Republicans have to play to racist bigots to win elections? This is news? The Republican Party is a seriously top-down organization; the new leader will stick to the Party Line. No chance that anything will get done, like, say, getting rid of Ashcroft or formally denouncing neo-Confederate bigotry.
• The endless “terror alerts” from the Government. Never any arrests, or even any real information. Note to Gov’t: you’re getting boring.

Details

Anyway, for a detailed review of the year’s events, pretty much the way I remember it, Dave Barry has the wrapup.

Better luck for 2003, everybody.

Mysteries

How I'm rushing through this! How much each sentence in this brief story contains. "The stars are made of the same atoms as the earth." I ususlly pick one small topic like this to give a lecture on. Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars -- mere globs of gas atoms. Nothing is "mere". I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination -- stuck on this little carousel, my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light. A vast pattern -- of which I am a part -- perhaps my stuff was belched from some forgotten star, as one is belching there. Or see them with the greater eye of Palomar, rushing all apart from some common starting point when they were perhaps all together. What is the pattern, or the meaning, or the why? It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined! Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were like a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?

-- Richard P. Feynman

Is It Frozen Yet?

Christmas is Coming

Christmas is coming,
Cthulhu's getting fat.
Please put a virgin in the Old One's vat!

If you haven't got a virgin then an Eldar Sign will do,
If you haven't got an Eldar Sign, then God help you!