Northman's Fury

I came across this article sometime back which gives empirical evidence that terrorism for the most part doesn't actually work. The author also attempts to explain why this is the case. Basically, terrorism doesn’t work because people infer the consequences of actions are the purpose behind the action.  Therefore when terrorists kill and maim large numbers of civilians, people infer that the slaughter of civilians is what the terrorists are after, and not some specific policy objective.

But wait a minute!  Wouldn’t such a theory work in reverse?  When the US and its allies carry out airstrikes in Iraq and Afghanistan that cause large numbers of civilian casualties, is it not reasonable to assume that the people there will judge that the purpose of these airstrikes was to kill and maim civilians?  After all, we’ve caused more civilian deaths this year than the terrorists have.

This doesn’t just explain why terrorists so rarely achieve their objectives, but why the current counterinsurgency strategy continues to fail as well.

John McCain won't be the first to leave the race for the Presidency, but its beginning to appear as though he will be the first big name to drop out. For all practical purposes, his campaign is over. I'm reminded once again of what I said after his trip to a Baghdad market:

You know, I almost wish he would take that stroll. Watching a guy I once admired so completely destroy his credibility is as painful as watching a guy like [Evander] Holyfield keep getting into the ring long past the point that he has what it takes to be a competitive boxer. Please stop!

It looks like that time is finally coming. On the other hand, maybe he'll take the Holyfield metaphor even further and keep on despite everybody around him walking away. I hope not.

Years before the war began, Pentagon officials knew of the effectiveness of another type of vehicle that better shielded troops from bombs like those that have killed Kincaid and 1,500 other soldiers and Marines. But military officials repeatedly balked at appeals — from commanders on the battlefield and from the Pentagon's own staff — to provide the lifesaving Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle, or MRAP, for patrols and combat missions, USA TODAY found.

In a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates late last month, two U.S. senators said the delays cost the lives of an estimated "621 to 742 Americans" who would have survived explosions had they been in MRAPs rather than Humvees.

The letter, from Sens. Joseph Biden, D-Del., and Kit Bond, R-Mo., assumed the initial calls for MRAPs came in February 2005, when Marines in Iraq asked the Pentagon for almost 1,200 of the vehicles. USA TODAY found that the first appeals for the MRAP came much earlier.

As early as December 2003, when the Marines requested their first 27 MRAPs for explosives-disposal teams, Pentagon analysts sent detailed information about the superiority of the vehicles to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, e-mails obtained by USA TODAY show. Later pleas came from Iraq, where commanders saw that the approach the Joint Chiefs embraced — adding armor to the sides of Humvees, the standard vehicles in the war zone — did little to protect against blasts beneath the vehicles.

I could add this to the body-armour issue, the Walter Reed mess, the cuts to veteran’s health care, and numerous other failings of the Bush Administration when it comes to actually doing something to “Support the Troops” and not just spout the words.  Certainly they do deserve a fair bit of the blame for this. Particularly Rumsfeld, who let his vision of what he wanted the military to look like interfere with what it needed to be.  But the truth goes beyond the Bush Administration and right to the core of the current US military culture.

This is a military that is trying to fight a war while maintaining a peace-time culture. Part of that is the fault of the administration over it, but the responsibility also lies within the Pentagon itself. Acquisition of new equipment is being done at a peacetime pace. Sitting behind desks and looking at powerpoint slides doesn't grant someone much of a sense of urgency. The senior commanders got to where they are because they were successful bureaucrats and they don't want to upset things too much and risk losing lucrative retirements in the defense industries. As a result, they are always on the lookout for new and expensive toys to buy from their prospective future employers and are not bothered by long lead times for shiny new toys, if they even get to the production stage.

And like most effective military solutions, the MRAP’s are neither new nor expensive.

The MRAP was not new to the Pentagon. The technology had been developed in South Africa and Rhodesia in the 1970s, making it older than Kincaid and most of the other troops killed by homemade bombs. The Pentagon had tested MRAPs in 2000, purchased fewer than two dozen and sent some to Iraq. They were used primarily to protect explosive ordnance disposal teams, not to transport troops or to chase Iraqi insurgents.

. . .

McGriff foresaw some of the turmoil over vehicles in a prophetic 2003 paper for the School for Advanced Warfighting in Quantico.

"Currently, our underprotected vehicles result in casualties that are politically untenable and militarily unnecessary," his paper read. "Failure to build a MRAP vehicle fleet produces a deteriorating cascade of effects that will substantially increase" risks for the military while "rendering it tactically immobile." Mines and IEDs will force U.S. troops off the roads, he wrote, and keep them from aggressively attacking insurgents.

The words were strong and the conclusions were damning. Rhodesia, a nation with nothing near the resources of the U.S. military, had built MRAPs more than a quarter-century earlier that remained "more survivable than any comparable vehicle produced by the U.S. today," McGriff wrote.

If you ever wonder how a bunch of seemingly poorly-equiped, massively underfunded insurgents can fight the US military to a standstill, this last point is as good as any in illustrating the reasons.

Part of the myth of the US military is that it is the best in the world at everything, and has or will find a high-tech solution to anything the enemy can come up with, and if you don’t believe that, Tom Clancy will be happy to explain it to you.  And of course if it isn’t really expensive, it’s not worth looking at.

Truthfully, the US isn’t even the leader in many war-fighting technologies, but even more to the point, the philosophy of finding high-tech and expensive solutions to every problem creates an institutional blindness to cheaper and simpler solutions.

The Joint IED Defeat Organization has spent at least $3 billion on defeating IED’s by creating signal jammers, remote detonators, and so forth.  In the meantime an off-the-shelf solution was sitting right in front of them.

Of course, now that they have delayed for so long, even these new MRAPs will be insufficient.  They’ve been successful so far because of their rarity.  The article notes that the newer Explosively Formed Penetrator type bombs the insurgents have begun using are effective against this type of vehicle.  Once the MRAPs start to be deployed in large numbers, you can bet that large numbers of EFPs will be there to great them.

Once again, the insurgents are several decision cycles ahead of the US military.

I knew there was a reason I didn't like him!

Creepy.

William Kristol has an incredibly delusional article up in the Washington Post called, "Why Bush Will be a Winner".

I suppose I'll merely expose myself to harmless ridicule if I make the following assertion: George W. Bush's presidency will probably be a successful one.

Well, ridicule certainly, but I'll leave that to those more qualified. There's just one thing I want to know.

What it comes down to is this: If Petraeus succeeds in Iraq, and a Republican wins in 2008, Bush will be viewed as a successful president.

I like the odds.

What do you think the odds are, and how much will you willing to lose betting on them?

Because if I've learned anything over the last few years, it's that betting against the predictions Kristol makes is a winning proposition.

Britain's most senior generals have issued a blunt warning to Downing Street that the military campaign in Afghanistan is facing a catastrophic failure, a development that could lead to an Islamist government seizing power in neighbouring Pakistan.

. . .

The situation in Afghanistan is much worse than many people recognise,' Inge told peers. 'We need to face up to that issue, the consequence of strategic failure in Afghanistan and what that would mean for Nato... We need to recognise that the situation - in my view, and I have recently been in Afghanistan - is much, much more serious than people want to recognise.'

. . .

'The consequences of failure in Afghanistan are far greater than in Iraq,' he said. 'If we fail in Afghanistan then Pakistan goes down. The security problems for Britain would be massively multiplied. I think you could not then stop a widening regional war that would start off in warlordism but it would become essentially a war in the end between Sunni and Shia right across the Middle East.'

That's an incredibly bleak assessment. A fair number of rightwing blogs and pundits use similar nightmare scenarios of what will happen after the US leaves Iraq to justify a continued presence, even if that presence isn't actually accomplishing anything to make those scenarios less likely. What worries me about this scenario, is that I have rarely heard British generals make such claims lightly, and they have a long history of involvement in the region to back up their assessments with.

The reason this worries me is because much like Iraq, I think Afghanistan has already moved past the point where we are capable of salvaging victory. The article even helpfully points out why:

Ashdown said two mistakes were being made: a lack of a co-ordinated military command because of the multinational 'hearts and minds' Nato campaign and the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom offensive campaign against the Taliban. There was also insufficient civic support on, for example, providing clean water.

Ashdown warned: 'Unless we put this right, unless we have a unitary system of command, we are going to lose. The battle for this is the battle of public opinion. The polls are slipping. Once they go on the slide it is almost impossible to win it back. You can only do it with the support of the local population.

'There is a very short shelf life for an occupation force. Once that begins to shift against you it is very very difficult to turn it round.'

The warnings from Ashdown and the generals on Afghanistan will be echoed in a report this week by the all-party Commons defence select committee. MPs will say that the combination of civilian casualties, war damage and US-led efforts to eradicate lucrative poppy crops risk turning ordinary people towards the Taliban.

Calls for greater reconstruction and resources from NATO countries that have been light on the ground so far sounds great, but there is little real prospect in getting any of it done. Not only has Iraq diverted resources from the US and UK which could have been used in Afghanistan, but the two wars are being linked into one broad US struggle. The unpopular and illegal Iraq War is therefore taking down the Afghan campaign by association. Pouring troops and resources into Afghanistan so the US can continue its focus on Iraq is of dubious worth to most people.

The simple fact remains that there are nowhere near enough forces in Afghanistan to wage a proper counterinsurgency campaign. Troops are so thin on the ground, and the countries that provide them are so casualty conscious, that there is a greater and greater reliance on air strikes to deal with threats real or perceived, which is among the worst ways to fight a counterinsurgency campaign.

The ridiculousness of the situation was brought to me the last time I read part of a briefing from the Canadian military spokesperson, saying that their mission was reconstruction, not combat, but that they couldn't get the reconstruction projects under way until things were more secure, which meant they had to participate in combat operations until things were secure enough to start reconstruction.

I read that as, "We'd like to be building stuff, but there are people around who shoot at us, so instead of building stuff up, we're going to keep blowing everything apart until there's nobody left shooting at us. At which point we'll start building things, assuming there's anybody left for us to build for."

There is no way we're going to win following that logic, and with the situation in Pakistan I noted earlier looking as though its about to get worse, and adding the warning from Inge above, I'd say we're going to be paying for the legacy of this war for a lot longer than I originally thought.

Russia has suspended its participation in a key arms control treaty that governs deployment of troops and conventional weapons in Europe.

. . .

Putin has in past months threatened to freeze his country's compliance with the treaty, angered over U.S. plans to base parts of a missile defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic.

This isn't entirely a surprise, and things have been moving in this direction since Bush withdrew the US from the ABM treaty in 2002. Actions have consequences, and pushing NATO into former Warsaw Pact countries and even former Soviet republics was bound to cause consternation in Russia. Add the ABM treaty withdrawal and the push to put a ballistic missile shield on Russia's doorstep, and Putin's actions start looking quite reasonable from Russia's perspective.

This is another case where the Bush Administration acting as though there are no rules that apply to them, and therefore encouraging others to act the same way if they can, makes the world and the US itself a far less stable and safe place.

Stability for stability's sake is not generally a good policy, but upsetting every balance in pursuit of your own goals can quickly cause events to spiral out of control; yours and everyone else's. It seems we're all cursed to be living in interesting times.

Now there's a new word I could get to like.

A Toronto judge has ruled that Canada's pot possession laws are unconstitutional after a man argued the country's medicinal marijuana regulations are flawed.

. . .

In court, the man argued that the federal government only made it policy to provide marijuana to those who need it, but never made it an actual law. Because of that, he argued, all possession laws, whether medicinal or not, should be quashed.

The judge agreed and dismissed the charges.

"The government told the public not to worry about access to marijuana," said Judge Howard Borenstein. "They have a policy but not law.… In my view that is unconstitutional."

This should cause some interesting debates. Personally, I've been in favour of decriminalizing marijuana for some time, so I can't help but applaud a ruling such as this one, Of course, I don't see the current government doing anything on that front. It's more likely the Conservatives will try and use this ruling as a reason to discontinue the medical marijuana policy instead. Still, rulings like this one means the momentum is moving in the right direction.

Crooks and Liars has a video up from the Bill Moyer's show featuring two guys from opposite ends of the political spectrum discussing why its important that Congress move towards impeachment proceedings.

The reason I like the clip is because it makes a point that, while I've argued it a couple of times myself, often gets lost in the mix when discussing the Bush Administration's excesses: An impeachment of Bush is not really about Bush.

Peggy Noonan wrote an article yesterday about how people, even and especially those who used to support him, are now gritting thier teeth at the mere mention of his name. Given that fact, its hard not to look at talk of impeachment as being as much about the person as about his actions, but as the commentators in the linked clip noted, impeachment is important not because of Bush, but because of precendent.

When the arguments about warrentless wiretapping and other excesses come up, the defenders of those policies don't just talk about the threats these actions are supposed to diminish, but that they are certain that Bush and his Administration would never abuse these powers. Even if they were right about that, and it has already been proven wrong in several instances, they miss the point as well. Whatever abuses the Bush Administration might partake in, the powers aren't being given to Bush, they're being given to the Office of the President; this one and all those who follow him.

Bush probably isn't the second coming of Hitler, but the purpose of seperating powers among the various branches of the US government wasn't because certain individuals wouldn't abuse absolute power, but because at some point, someone would wind up in that office who will. If the powers this Adminstration has amassed aren't reversed and its excesses punished, those powers will remain tied to that office, and odds are that eventually, someone will take office willing to use those powers in the worst way imaginable.

That is why the Unitary Executive has to be fought and why impeachment is necessary: To roll back the progress the US has made to becoming a dictatorship in the future.

Michael Gerson has one of what seems a long list of articles that say that those of us who don’t believe in God are somehow incapable of forming any kind of moral code, and as a result, are sure to lead the whole world into hell if we’re allowed to carry on in our disbelief and in doing so, cause others to stray from the One True Path.

You know its going to be good when he starts with this little piece of absurdity.

British author G.K. Chesterton argued that every act of blasphemy is a kind of tribute to God, because it is based on belief. "If anyone doubts this," he wrote, "let him sit down seriously and try to think blasphemous thoughts about Thor."

I'm sure there are some Asatruar who are properly offended by such an implication. If you don't believe, then you can be blasphemous without even trying. It's only blasphemous to those who do believe, or believe in a certain way. For everyone else, its just so many words.

I merely want to pose a question: If the atheists are right, what would be the effect on human morality?

If God were dethroned as the arbiter of moral truth, it would not, of course, mean that everyone joins the Crips or reports to the Playboy mansion. On evidence found in every culture, human beings can be good without God. . . . There is something innate about morality that is distinct from theological conviction. This instinct may result from evolutionary biology, early childhood socialization or the chemistry of the brain, but human nature is somehow constructed for sympathy and cooperative purpose.

But there is a problem. Human nature, in other circumstances, is also clearly constructed for cruel exploitation, uncontrollable rage, icy selfishness and a range of other less desirable traits.

So the dilemma is this: How do we choose between good and bad instincts? Theism, for several millennia, has given one answer: We should cultivate the better angels of our nature because the God we love and respect requires it. While many of us fall tragically short, the ideal remains.

Atheism provides no answer to this dilemma.

For Atheists, there is no dilemma.  Just because someone doesn’t have sky spirits telling him what to do, doesn’t mean they can’t tell the difference between right and wrong.  He says as much himself when he points out that there is something innate about morality that is distinct from theological conviction.

Some people are very good at the self-centered exploitation of others. Many get away with it their whole lives. By exercising the will to power, they are maximizing one element of their human nature. In a purely material universe, what possible moral basis could exist to condemn them? Atheists can be good people; they just have no objective way to judge the conduct of those who are not.

That’s just patently absurd, and one of the reasons that people like Hitchens, Dawkins, and Harris slam religion is that the people who are so very good at the self-centered exploitation of others have often found that the easiest way to do so is to wrap themselves up in the trappings of religious faith.  I don’t entirely agree with their stance against all faiths, but it is impossible to argue that the greatest atrocities committed on Earth almost always use theological justifications to absolve their perpetrators of their crimes.

Without God saying that it was okay to slaughter those who believe differently, those behind the pogroms, terror attacks, Crusades, and Holocaust would have to look at those acts robbed of the moral certitude their Theism grants them.

Maybe Atheism doesn’t offer someone a convenient short-hand for moral and immoral acts, but it also doesn’t allow someone to cloak their immorality in the comforting fiction of “doing God’s work”.  When you can’t count on some deity to forgive your excesses, you have to judge the actions themselves.

Granted, if the only thing that’s keeping you from doing all sorts of terrible acts is your faith in a deity that will punish or reward you, then I’m very happy that you have that faith and I won’t do anything to convince you otherwise.  I’ll only judge your actions, and of course point out hypocrisy if those actions run contrary to your stated beliefs.

In a world without God, however, this desire for love and purpose is a cruel joke of nature -- imprinted by evolution, but destined for disappointment, just as we are destined for oblivion, on a planet that will be consumed by fire before the sun grows dim and cold.

I grant it is a touch depressing.  Given a choice, I’d like to find myself waking up in Valhalla, but I figure the chances of that are highly unlikely.  I’d have to find a battle to get killed in while doing something heroic enough to catch the attention of a valkyrie.  Quite a bother, really, particularly given things are so peaceful here, which would mean a lot of traveling, and who likes that?

No I'll just have to treat this life like its the only one I'm going to get and not waste it on the hope that the next one will somehow be better.

I understand why Congressmen soliciting sex while claiming "sanctity of marriage" is news. The hypocrisy is considerable. I also understand that exposing such hypocrisy is a good thing and a valuable service.

What I don't understand is: Why is Larry Flynt and Hustler Magazine the ones spearheading the investigative journalism?

Another of the many situations that people don't seem to pay a great deal of attention to. McClatchy has a good story up regarding the increasingly complex situation in the region.

The account of the clashes around Songa village on June 9 and 10, given by African Union peacekeepers manning a small mountain outpost here in central Darfur, illustrates part of an increasingly upside-down security picture in Darfur. With some janjaweed now fighting alongside rebels they once tried to kill - and with the rebels riven by disputes and attacking peacekeepers and aid workers - this is hardly the same conflict of four years ago.

As desperate as life has become in Darfur, the new complications could make things worse.

At least 200,000 people - and perhaps as many as 400,000 - have been killed in Darfur since 2003, when Sudan's Arab-led government armed janjaweed to quell an uprising by non-Arab tribes demanding more political autonomy. The government's proxy war - labeled by the Bush administration as genocide - has emptied Darfur's Texas-sized countryside into refugee camps and unleashed what aid workers describe as the world's biggest humanitarian crisis.

Now there's a new set of problems: Few people know who's attacking or why. Armed groups are breaking off and recombining according to the tactical advantage that day. Aid agencies and peacekeepers are at greater risk than ever.

"One of the problems with the security situation at this point - it is not two sides fighting against each other," Andrew Natsios, President Bush's special envoy to Sudan, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April. "It's anarchy."

Simplistic storylines are great, but they rarely reflect the reality. The disintegration of this conflict from one of government-backed "Arabs" versus rebel "Africans" to a free-for-all probably wasn't that big a leap. For one, the difference between the "Arabs" and "Africans" in the conflict was that one side were nomadic herders and the other farmers. Stand them side by side and I'm sure most of us in North America couldn't tell the difference.

The fighting has its roots in water rights, and a drought and desertification that has driven the herders and farmers into conflict over the vanishing resource. In that context, the shifting alliances and control difficulties make much more sense. The jangaweed isn't fighting for the government so much as its fighting for resourced, and the rebels in the area are fighting for the same thing. With multiple tribal links all around, alliances of convenience become common.

Not that this changes much. The region is too isolated and under-reported for there to be any real international involvement, and the simple fact remains that the water is going to remain scarce and the population is going to fight over the scraps, however they organize themselves.

Maybe that's why nobody covers Darfur much; its too depressing.

An excellent article by David Halberstam at vanityfair.com called "The History Boys" regarding the Bush Administrations misuse of historical analogies.

And at the Agonist, Ian Welsh looks at the recent bill passed in the Senate regarding Iran and reminds us how easily a country can be manipulated into war.

The Canadian Transportation Agency on Wednesday suspended an application filed by Air Canada seeking to bar pets from its baggage compartments.

HAW Haw!

The suspension, which does not apply to domestic flights . . .

D'oh!

Oh well, I wasn't planning on flying them anyway.

A few days ago, I came across this interesting story regarding how people’s views are affected by the opinions they hear from others.

The study, carried out by Kimberlee Weaver and colleagues, found we can tell that three different people expressing the same opinion better represents the group than one person expressing the same opinion three times - but not by much.

In fact, if one person in a group repeats the same opinion three times, it has 90% of the effect of three different people in that group expressing the same opinion. When you think about it, that is strange. Indeed, I'm not sure I'd even believe it if I hadn't already read many other psychology studies that point to the illogical and unreasonable ways our minds sometimes work.

When I first read this, I thought the same thing, but upon reflection, it does make sense. If you join a group and somebody spouts some opinion and nobody present disputes it, you tend to believe that everybody agrees with the spokesperson, true or not. At least I won't feel so bad about disputing people's opinion anymore. People should get an accurate read of what people really think.

Where does this effect come from? The authors argue it comes down to memory. Because repetition increases the accessibility of an opinion, we assume it has a high prevalence. In everyday life we are likely to hear the same opinion many times in different places. We then put all these together to judge the general mood of a group. When one person repeats their opinion, we simply over apply the rule.

The theme of this research is something that has been known and used by advertisers and influencers for decades. Familiarity doesn't breed contempt at all, it breeds attraction. Making your voice heard is the only way to let others know what you think. Otherwise they will think you agree with the loudest person.

Similarly, and more worryingly, when an opinion is repeatedly broadcast at us by the same organisation - think of a particular media conglomerate or an advertiser - we're likely to come to believe it represents the general opinion. That's despite the fact it is analogous to the same person repeating themselves over and over again.

This is rather important when you think in terms of media consolidation.  The number of media companies that control the content of television, newspapers, and radio is ever shrinking in North America.  In Canada, there are basically three media conglomerates that control what we see, hear, and read.  If one of them takes a particular editorial position on a significant issue, it is likely you will be exposed to it multiple times, in what appear to be multiple sources, but are in fact a single company line.

Makes the argument against media consolidation all the more relevant, don’t you think?

USA Today has an article out today that states something that has been obvious for quite some time; that the next President of the United States is going to inherit a host of problems from the Bush Administration.

The 44th president will move into the Oval Office with an agenda defined in large part by the 43rd president.

In many ways, it will be George W. Bush's third term.

Among pressing issues left on the table: What's next in Iraq. How to restore America's reputation around the world. Whether to extend tax cuts that expire in 2010. What to do about Medicare's looming shortfall. And how to complete the job of helping the Gulf Coast recover from Hurricane Katrina.

No new president gets a clean slate — global politics and the economy don't run in neat four-year cycles — but presidential scholars say the unfinished business Bush will leave for his successor is unprecedented since at least World War II.

"I can't think of a single modern president about to bequeath to his successor such a difficult agenda and such a damaged presidency," says Paul Light of New York University.

None of this should be a surprise.  In the case of the Iraq War, Bush has as much as said that the solution would be left to his successors, and with that, his supporters will do everything they can to pin the blame of its loss on those successors as well.  Bush’s latest speech gives the same message; stay the course, beg for more time, don’t make any actual decisions, and hope to stumble along for another Freidman or two until he can hand off the unwinnable mess to someone else to act as the fall guy.

And while the Iraq War is the most prominent of the messes that Bush will leave to his successor, the other issues he will be handing off are no less serious, and in some cases, will be even harder for the next President to resolve.

Domestically, there are a series of economic timebombs waiting for the next administration.  The Medicare and Social Security shortfalls looming from the bulge of retiring baby boomers is just the beginning.  The Bush tax cuts, aggravated by war spending, and the massively expensive and inefficient prescription drug benefit have all made those looming crisis’ even more difficult to deal with.  Added to those problems are the huge budget and trade deficits that will have to be balanced out someday, probably painfully, and more painful the longer they are allowed to grow.  And thanks to the size and importance of the US economy, its inevitable tumble will affect the rest of us.

Internationally, the question of the US’s credibility and international reputation becomes the most pressing long-term issue.  In addition to the Iraq War, projects like the extra-legal prison at Guantanamo Bay and no-longer-so-secret CIA prisons in former Soviet satellites have eroded America’s moral authority when it comes to criticizing other countries behaviour.

Without that authority, the US has much greater trouble using its “soft power” to affect change.  Despite its name, soft power is usually far more effective at convincing folks to change their behaviour than the military kind.

And the deterrent value of America’s military power has also suffered greatly under Bush.  The continued ability of a bunch of lightly armed insurgents to tie down the world’s most expensive military machine has given new heart to all of America’s enemies, and has allowed countries like Iran to conclude a US attack is virtually impossible at present and to act accordingly.  Given how close the US Army is to cracking under the strain it has been placed in, and how long it will take them to recover, that perception is not too far from the truth.

There is one small ray of hope here.  If the next President moves quickly to distance himself from many of the policies that have caused most of the damage to the US’s image, I figure a lot of the people who used to have a high opinion of the US will be willing to treat the Bush Administration as an anomaly and forgive the rest of the country.  On the other hand, if the next President fails to move in a new direction and return to the ideals of America’s past, the damage will become rooted and take decades or longer to reverse or recover to pre-Bush levels.

There are a couple points that worry me.  The first is the simple fact that Bush has another 18 months in power.  While his actions are slightly more constrained with the Democrats in control of Congress, he could still do something like launch an air attack on Iran that will make the current mess he’s handing off even worse.

The second is some version of a Black Swan; a successful terror attack in the US being the most likely, but any major event that the US isn’t prepared for could quickly change the calculus for both the current and subsequent administrations, and I have the feeling that it is unlikely to change things for the better.

Given those headaches, why do so many candidates want the job? Well, for one thing, with big problems can come big prospects.

The presidents most highly regarded by history are those who took over in troubled times and negotiated them with skill. Franklin Roosevelt followed Herbert Hoover amid the Great Depression and then led the nation during World War II. Ronald Reagan is credited with restoring America's resilience after the Iranian hostage crisis and oil shocks of Jimmy Carter's tenure.

"I think the last president to have as much danger and opportunity was when Roosevelt got elected in 1932," Biden says. "The next president — I mean this literally, not figuratively — has a chance to change the world, to put the world on a different trajectory than it is on now."

A lofty goal for certain, and I can’t argue with the perception that America is in need of a great President, or possibly a string of them, to lead the country over the next several years.  Of course, that more than anything tells you what kind of President Bush is.

Tolerance really isn't this guy's forte.

The Vatican issued a document Tuesday restating its belief that the Catholic Church is the only true church of Jesus Christ.

I said most of what I want to say about the current Pope when he widened the use of the Tridentine mass. This announcement merely puts another data point in his litany of intolerant behaviour. The only thing I'll add is: Given that he's already pissed off Jews and Muslims, it's kind of fun to watch him pick on other Christians.

It looks like there's some other folks who have realized these new patrol boats aren't exactly everything there being promised to be.

On Monday, Harper announced that Ottawa will spend about $3.1 billion for the construction of six to eight new Polar Class 5 Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships, as well as invest another $4.3 billion to operate and maintain those vessels over their 25-year lifespan.

But critics have already deemed the steel-reinforced ships to be less powerful than icebreakers, as they can't break through thick ice in the coldest winter months. The armed patrol ships will also be stationed outside the North for most of the year.

Rob Huebert, an analyst with the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary, said Canada needs new icebreakers to replace the aging fleet of Canadian Coast Guard icebreakers currently in service.

While Huebert said Ottawa's made a positive step in the right direction with Monday's announcement, he remains somewhat skeptical because he has heard a lot of Arctic spending promises before.

"When we see the actual contract, and we see an actual ship start construction … it's at that point that I'll feel totally comfortable that in fact we are making the right steps," he said.

Audlaluk also said many people in the North have heard numerous government promises for everything from more military personnel to a deepwater port in a northern community.

"To me, as someone living in the High Arctic, I've heard talk like that before," Audlaluk said.

"I'm just curious to see how far that's going to go this time, because they made promises like that before during and after the election."

I'm not holding my breath on this. The one election promise tied to this that I have been paying truly close attention to is the promised deepwater port that is to possibly serve as a operational base for these ships in the brief summer months such vessels would be useful in the Arctic. The announcement of its location, not its construction mind you, just where they plan to put it, has been delayed at least twice since December, and they're still "looking at options" as of the announcement of these ships yesterday.

Given the large number of developing crisis' out there, you can expect to miss a few of them if they're not covered well. One everybody should be paying attention to, though, is the deteriorating situation in Pakistan, for the simple reason that they have nukes.

On Sunday, John Robb posted the following at Global Guerrillas:

Fareed Farooqui reports from Pakistan on the effects of a minor electricity outage (unintentionally caused by construction activity and exacerbated by load shedding due to insufficient production of power) in Karachi. Here are some examples:

• Vicious rioting broke out Wednesday evening in several parts of Karachi and continued into the night in protest against long spells of power outages.
• Residents of the affected areas came out on to the streets and burnt tires and other materials. In some areas, the protesters broke traffic lights and damaged fast food restaurants by pelting them with stones. The police resorted to shelling and aerial firing to disperse the crowds.
• Riots also took place in various areas of Lyari Town including Aath Chowk and Shah Baig Lane. Protesters besieged a KESC complaint centre near Aath Chowk, and tried to set it on fire, but the police reached there on time.

Pakistani guerrillas haven't yet (fortunately) adopted systems disruption against Pakistan's crowded cities (Baloch guerrillas have focused on the disruption of regional natural gas deliveries). However, given the example above, it appears that Pakistan's legitimacy is so weak (particularly given recent events) that if they did adopt systems disruption, the returns on investment would be exceptional.

And remember that we're talking about a country that has nukes.

Add to that this story from the Asia Times regarding the situation around the battle at the Red Mosque that he linked to yesterday.

Six days into the offensive against the radical Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in Islamabad, Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf was on Monday desperately searching for a way to contain the damage from the bloody confrontation.

Unrest over the clashes between armed students (and possibly foreign militants) inside the mosque and government forces has spread to Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and the semi-autonomous tribal areas on the border with Afghanistan. An army division (10,000-20,000 soldiers) has been sent to Swat Valley in NWFP to confront the allies of Lal Masjid as well as pro-Taliban Tehrik-i-Nifaz-Shariat-i-Mohammedi (TNSM) militants. There are also preparations for a massive army operation in the North Waziristan tribal area.

. . .

For the al-Qaeda leadership sitting in the tribal areas, the situation is fast evolving into the promised battle of Khorasan. This includes parts of Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan from where the Prophet Mohammed promised the "end of time" battle would start.

Jihadist circles clearly want to exploit the crisis to boost themselves as major players, and envisage even a share in the power in Islamabad.

The final battle for the mosque is now apparently underway. This is a situation that is going to have to be watched very closely. The repercussions could easily become global if Musharraf were to fall, and those nukes fall into hands more inclined to make use of them.

Ah, memories!

"Gopher tourism" is making inroads across the southern grainbelt, with some farmers offering free room, board and even free ammunition to anyone willing to kill the voracious gophers gobbling up their crops.

Farmers near Swift Current, Sask., are looking for tourists with guns to combat an infestation they say is especially bad near Aneroid, Ponteix and Hazenmore.

Les Jordet, a mixed crop farmer near Hazenmore, has opened his home to host visitors from Manitoba as well as a group from B.C.

"They drove 17 hours to get here. They just totally went on a real hunt," Jordet said. "They would drive to where they seen a pocket of gophers and sit out, and walk. They'd shoot for hours and hours in spots."

Local officials welcome the gun-toters so long as they save farmers' crops.

Jordet said the out-of-towners shot thousands of gophers a day, and even worried they would run out targets. He assured them that was not the case.

Granted, I never thought of turning it into a tourist attraction, but I remember trapping the little beggars for the bounty farmers would pay for them. I also recall hanging on while we swerved across the highway to run one down in a car. Farmers really don't like them, which is understandable given the problems they cause.

It does make me wonder at the type of people who would drive for hours for a chance to shoot at them. They're not exactly big game. if I remember correctly, the preferred weapon for taking them down was a pellet gun. Even a .22 is overpowered for such a small animal. Oh well, I guess it beats shooting targets at a range.

The federal government will fund the construction of six to eight new Arctic patrol ships to help reassert Canada's sovereignty over the North, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Monday.

A few things about this announcement:

a) They've announced this before, they're just milking it, and will probably continue to do so given there are a number of stages to go through yet before they even start building these ships

b) As the previous story noted, the Coast Guard needs its icebreakers replenished or replaced. The boats Harper announced are useless in heavy ice conditions. Hell, we just had an oil tanker arrive with greater ice-breaking ability than these are supposed to have. Without the big icebreakers, these little patrol boats aren't terribly useful.

c) Dave at the The Galloping Beaver, who has some expertise in these matters, posted about this during the May announcement, and pointed out that sovereignty patrols are the responsibility of the Coast Guard or RCMP Maritime units, not the Navy's, and so giving these new ships to the Navy makes little sense, plus in the comments it was noted that since Cabinet telling the Navy to get the ships rather than the Navy requesting them, the odds of them ever actually being built is quite low.

d) About that deepwater port we Iqaluvummiut were promised:

Documents obtained by CBC News indicate the military has evaluated four possible sites to base the vessels, including Iqaluit.

. . .

However, he said Iqaluit wouldn't be the best location because it is nowhere near the Northwest Passage. Canada's military should be centred right in the middle of the Arctic, at Resolute Bay, LeBlanc said.

"Iqaluit is completely on the east coast of Canada and it would take ages to go to the West Coast from Iqaluit," he said.

"In terms of Canadian sovereignty, I think it would be the wrong place."

Bastards!

in toking:

Canadians use marijuana at four times the world average, making Canada the leader of the industrialized world in cannabis consumption, a recent United Nations report found.

The 2007 World Drug Report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime says that 16.8 per cent of Canadians aged 15 to 64 smoked marijuana or used another cannabis product in 2006. The world average is 3.8 per cent.

Guess it isn't the Tim Horton's coffee after all.

A pretty decent article on the environmental effects of developing the tarsands in Northern Alberta. A more detailed look at the water issue can be found here.

A few days ago, Cernig posted about a campaign by British Muslims to condemn terror attacks in the name of Islam, asking whether or not it would do for those on the right who claim that Muslims in general don't condemn such attacks and therefore by default support them.

Of course is isn't. After all, once you've made the leap to Muslim=Terrorist, there's really very little any Muslim can do to convince you otherwise. It came to my mind again when I read two stories at BBC News. One regarding Muslim leaders calling on their followers to assist authorities in their search for extremists and to work on combatting extremist ideology in their midst, the second regarding an anti-terror rally in Scotland.

Since in the world-view of the xenophobes, such evidence of Muslim cooperation and protest contradicts their arguments, they must be dismissed and rationalized away. The two major arguments seem to be that they don't really mean it, and are just mouthing the words to take the pressure off so they can come back to blow us up in our beds at some later date. Or, that there just weren't enough of them showing up, so its only a puny minority of Muslims who dislike terror and therefore the vast majority are still basically extremists and terror-supporters.

None of this is a surprise, of course, but when you keep telling people that what they're doing isn't good enough and regardless of any positive actions they take, you're still going to treat them the same, they eventually stop bothering to try, and that will be unfortunate.

Roman Catholic priests will now be able to celebrate the Latin Mass without the approval of a local bishop, so long as a "stable group of faithful" requests it.

. . .

The Latin, or Tridentine rite contains a prayer that is read on Good Friday calling for the conversion of Jews. The U.S.-based Anti-Defamation League has criticized Benedict's decision, calling it a "theological setback" and a "body blow to Catholic-Jewish relations."

. . .

Benedict's move is widely seen as an attempt to reach out to an ultra-traditionalist and schismatic group, the Society of St. Pius X, and bring it back into the Vatican's fold.

I'm really beginning to dislike this guy. Say what you will about John Paul II, but at least when he made changes to Church doctrine, he generally moved in the right direction. Probably the most laudable thing he did was to improve the relationship between the Catholic Church and other denominations and faiths.

Pope Ratz is apparently supposed to be a "caretaker Pope"; someone who is supposed to serve for a couple of years and not make any major policy desicions in order to allow the legacy of the previous Pope time to settle in. Instead, he seems determined to turn the clock back as much as possible in this area. So far, he's managed to piss off Muslims and Native Americans, and now he's looking to reach out to a group widely known for anti-Semitism.

Given that the Vatican II reforms were undertaken in part to deflect criticism from the actions of a particular Catholic who took anti-Semitism to its greatest level in history, it is a rather impolitic move for a man who grew up in Germany in the 30's and 40's. Unfortunately, it is also entirely in line with many of the other actions he's taken so far.

Normally I avoid getting involved in the US elections. After all, I'm a Canadian, and I don't like it when folks outside our country tell us who we should be voting for or against, so I try to return the favour.

My dog Freya, on the other hand, doesn't recognize such boundaries, and after finding out what happened to poor Seamus, has begged me as only a dog can to unite with others of her kind in condemning his behaviour.

You can normally get away with pissing off a few special interest groups without suffering too badly for it, but dogs? Upset and unleashed, and with all those cute little puppies to generate sympathy, they'll do more to hurt Romney than any other group I can think of.

Dogs Against Romney - where his Presidential campaign will go to die.

Glenn Greenwald has an excellent article up where he shows the steep decline in how people around the world perceive the United States over the last six years. In some countries the shifts are quite dramatic, and he uses that data to disprove a couple of arguments regarding the legacy of George W Bush.

If one argues -- as I frequently do, including as a central argument in A Tragic Legacy -- that America's hard-earned moral credibility in the world has collapsed as a result of the Bush presidency, one can hear similar objections from each side -- namely, that while America is despised in much of the world, that has little or nothing to do with events over the last six years.

Instead, this line of reasoning goes, America was disliked well prior to the advent of Bush radicalism, either because (in the view of neoconservatives as illustrated by Hugh Hewitt here), those who dislike America are intrinsically hateful of America and our values no matter what we do. Or (in the view of a small group on the Left), America is hated not because of what we have done in the last six years, but because America has been a bullying force of Evil in the world for the last several decades (at least) and our behavior under Bush is nothing new for America; it is but a natural extension of the country's foundational or long-embraced values

. . .

Either way, what is indisputably true is that world opinion regarding America has profoundly shifted -- for the worse -- since 2000. The question, then, is why has that happened? My answer is the simplest and most obvious one (which does not mean it is right): namely, public opinion of America has fundamentally changed over the last six years because our behavior in the world, our national character and our defining values have fundamentally changed.

There is another possibility that Glenn does not look into, that it is the rest of the world that has fundamentally changed and America has failed to change with it.

Part of the reason those on the left make the argument that the US was "a bullying force of Evil" for decades, is because any fair read of American foreign policy history will show that there are many well-documented cases where US actions were far less than idealistic. What the left misses, and what Glenn picks up on, is that those cases didn't affect America's moral standing or credibility. The question then, of course, is why?

Earlier this week, I got into a discussion at Hairy Fish Nuts regarding the use of the A-bomb on Japan, mainly revolving around whether or not it was a moral decision. The reason I'm thinking about that is because in the context of the Second World War, the bombs and the decision behind dropping them was understandable and to most, particularly at the time, justifiable.

In the same way, many of the less savoury actions of the United States in the last several decades were allowed or overlooked by its allies and those more neutral because of the context of the Cold War. Confronting a militarized Soviet Union with thousands of nuclear weapons brought with it a lot of leeway.

The same actions now, under the Bush administration, are having such a negative effect on US credibility because the enemy used to justify them is nowhere near the same threat level, whatever the fear-mongers like to say. Actions that could be passed off as defensive or justifiable under the Soviet threat now merely look self-interested and aggressive.

That's not to say that the US hasn't shifted since Bush took office, but the fundamental shift took place outside its borders, and as a result, a fundamental shift in the way US actions are perceived was inevitable.

The BBC has what I hope will remain a regular feature; graphs and analysis showing what kind of progress the "Surge" in Iraq is actually accomplishing.

If with all those doctors being arrested in Britain in relation to the attempted car bombs, and with the attention Michael Moore is getting with his Sicko film, some nutcase tried to link the two and pretend universal health care could lead to terrorism.

What's that you say? Check out Fox News?

Damn! You can't even spoof these guys anymore. Even a really active imagination of far-out justifications can't match the reality of what they are actually putting out these days.

Excerpts from an article posted yesterday in McClatchy's Washington Bureau

Officials in the Bush administration awoke on the morning of January 26, 2006 to catastrophic news.

Hamas, a violent Islamist movement whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel, had won Palestinian parliamentary elections — elections that were deemed free and fair and a cornerstone to President Bush's initiative to bring more democracy to the Muslim world.

For the next 17 months, White House and State Department officials would undertake an all-out campaign to reverse those results and oust Hamas from power.

. . .

As recently as March 2007, Jordanian officials developed a $1.2 billion proposal to train, arm and pay Abbas' security forces so they could control the streets after he dissolved the government and called new elections. McClatchy Newspapers obtained a copy of the plan. While two sources close to Abbas said U.S. officials were involved in developing and presenting the plan, a State Department official described it as a Jordanian initiative.

. . .

"America is so far away, they are completely misinformed about what is happening," said Munib Masri, a Palestinian businessman allied with Abbas. "The more they do against Hamas, the more power they (Hamas) get from the people."

. . .

Hamas attacked in mid-June, sweeping away Fatah's forces in Gaza in a matter of days.

Bush administration officials argue that the attack revealed fractures in Hamas, saying it was apparently ordered by military commanders at odds with Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh. Hamas is now politically isolated, they say.

But as Rice and Israel again move to bolster Abbas with hundreds of millions of dollars in previously blocked funds, some current and former U.S. officials say the Bush administration has repeatedly underestimated Hamas and failed to recognize how dysfunctional its Fatah ally had become.

Said Miller: "I don't know if we grasp it even now."

Now, none of this is a surprise, at least not to me, but what I find interesting about this story is its similarities to a story in the Washington Post from almost exactly a year ago.

The Americans were in Somalia because of concerns about terrorism, not land. But when the gunfire rang out, the sources said, the U.S. officials wrongly concluded that they were under attack by Islamic terrorists and abruptly fled. It was a provocation, U.S. officials later told Somalis, that demanded a muscular response.

In the weeks that followed this little-known incident, which U.S. officials have refused to confirm or deny, the United States expanded its role in Somalia to levels not seen since it abandoned the country in 1994. The Americans helped organize a group of secular warlords into an "anti-terror coalition" and provided them with a large, steady diet of cash.

. . .

The infusion of cash upset a fragile balance between the two sides -- but not in the direction the Americans had hoped.

By March, the warlords were under siege. By June 6, they had fled. And by June 24, Hassan Dahir Aweys, a militant Islamic leader hostile to Western democracy and reputed to have ties to al-Qaeda, had taken control of Mogadishu.

. . .

Anti-Americanism, stoked by the war in Iraq, intensified as supporters of the Islamic courts spread word that the United States was backing the warlords, whom many residents of Mogadishu say operated with impunity as their gunmen terrorized the lawless city, raping, robbing and killing as they pleased.

Public opinion gradually coalesced in favor of the Islamic courts and their militias, Somalis say. Prominent businessmen contributed men, trucks and guns to the cause of driving out the warlords. And so on Feb. 18, when Raghe and several other warlords announced the formation of an "anti-terrorism coalition" -- featuring the backing of even more American money -- the reaction was swift. Battles broke out the same day in a struggle now seen as being between homegrown Islamic militias and a hated U.S. proxy force.

Two things leap out when the articles are read side by side. The first, is that the Bush Administration apparently has no ability to learn from its mistakes.

The second: Even the Republican candidates for President in 2008 don't want any implicit support from Bush lest it sink their chances. If his own party finds his support a burden, how much more people in areas of the world where there is far greater reason for dislike of him and his policies? These may have been unintended consequences, but they were far from unpredictable.

The Canadian military has identified the fifth of six soldiers who were killed Wednesday in Afghanistan: Iqaluit-born Cpl. Jordan Anderson was the first from the North to die on the mission.

My condolences to his family and friends, and to those of the other soldiers who died alongside him.

Newly released figures put the number of Private Military Contractors at more than the number of uniformed military personnel in theatre, and the article indicates that even that number is lower than the real total because certain categories of PMC's aren't included in the count.

Dave at The Galloping Beaver (and I love that name) has a good post up on the consequences and implications of so many mercenary forces in Iraq. The only point he doesn't cover is a question I posed a few weeks ago:

The point that worries me about these companies is what is going to happen after the US eventually leaves Iraq. That is going to leave a very large pool of individuals well-trained in counterinsurgency operations, used to quite sizable paycheques, all looking for work, or at least new "business opportunities".

There's a lot of places where such talents could be put to use. Hell, they've already turned up in New Orleans after Katrina, and there's lots of places they'd be under much less scrutiny. And there's a lot of people, both those representing governments and those on the other side, as well as a number of multi-national corporations, who will probably be hiring. That, to a large extent, is normal.

The real interesting part to me, is whether or not some of the less scrupulous of these folks decide that the best way to go, is to create some of those business opportunities for themselves.

A couple days ago, I wrote about how having the US and Israel doing everything they can to prop up Fatah and destroy Hamas would have the effect of robbing Fatah of legitimacy, and ultimately making Hamas more credible to Palestinians.

Last night, I read this:

More than 150,000 civil servants and security officers who are loyal to the new emergency government will be paid their full monthly salaries on Wednesday, officials said today. It will be the first time in months that the Palestinian authority has been able to pay the workers.

But about 20,000 public-sector employees who remain allied with the Hamas-led government of Ismail Haniya, which was dismissed by the Palestinian president in June, will not be paid by the Authority. That is expected to deepen the political and ideological rift in Palestinian society since Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in mid-June.

Gee, do ya' think? It also makes a mockery of this new "emergency government" representing the whole of the Palestinian people. Basically, Fatah is using the funds Israel transfered to them to pay off their cronies who they had put into positions over the decade or so before Hamas came to power on the promise of ridding the Palestinian Authority of the corruption that plagued it.

Compare that to this item.

Members of Hamas’s Executive Force police militia are protecting the banks in Gaza against possible assaults by angry unpaid workers — though the Executive Force members themselves are among those who will not be paid by the authority on Wednesday.

Guess who is going to come out of this looking better?

If Israel and the US are really looking for an end to hostilities and legitimate negotiating partner, then they are backing the wrong horse.

from Ian Welsh. It's well worth a good read; I'll only excerpt the conclusion:

Those of us who grew up in other countries; those of use who are America's real friends, want what all good friends want for those they care for - that you live up to your own ideals. That you be the nation we know you can be. A bastion of freedom; a nation with the highest respect for civil rights; a country that never gives up "a little freedom for a little safety" and finding neither. A country that doesn't torture, that believes that pre-emptive war is never excusable.

And we want it for you not just because it'd be best for the rest of the world, though it would be, but because it would be best for you. You would be safer, more prosperous, less fearful and have a more assured future if you lived up to the best of what it means to be America - to be American.

So, on July 4th, on your birthday, this is my wish for America and for Americans - that you remember that the right thing to do morally is almost always the right thing to do pragmatically. There is no choice between "freedom and safety"; there is no choice between prosperity and massive inequality; there is no choice between generosity and fiscal prudence and there is no such thing as "managed free speech".

Be the America the world loved. Be the America you can be proudest of - the one that does not torture, that treats all men as equal and with unalienable rights. Be the America that rebuilt Europe and that lends a helping hand to countries like Afghanistan. Be the America that would never invade a country that had not attacked you first. Be the America that is about lifting all boats and not just a few.

Be that America, and we will all be Americans.

Since unlike our neighbours to the south, we'll be working today.

From the Agonist, some Limey humour:

"The British are feeling the pinch in relation to recent bombings and have raised their security level from "Miffed" to "Peeved." Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to "Irritated" or even "A Bit Cross." Londoners have not been "A Bit Cross" since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies all but ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorised from "Tiresome" to a "Bloody Nuisance." The last time the British issued a "Bloody Nuisance" warning level was during the great fire of 1666.

Alas, the French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from "Run" to "Hide." The only two higher levels in France are "Surrender" and "Collaborate." The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France's white flag factory, effectively paralysing the country's military capability.

It's not only the English and French that are on a heightened level of alert. Italy has increased the alert level from "Shout Loudly and Excitedly" to "Elaborate Military Posturing." Two more levels remain: "Ineffective Combat Operations" and "Change Sides."

The Germans also increased their alert state from "Disdainful Arrogance" to "Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs." They also have two higher levels: "Invade a Neighbour" and "Lose."

Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual, and the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels."

And second, via The Galloping Beaver, the ultimate revenge on a telemarketer.

makes me really wish that the satellite pulled in MSNBC. The clips I've seen, and this clip in particular, make me think I would enjoy watching his show. His smacking around of Bush for commuting Libby's sentence is well worth watching.

And really, any time somebody invokes my boyhood hero of John Wayne to make a point, you've got me sold.

If I'd have know all I had to do was write an article about him, I would have done it much earlier.

A BBC reporter who was kidnapped in the Gaza Strip has been released, Hamas TV reported Tuesday.

. . .

It is believed Johnston is now in the care of Hamas, which seized control of the Gaza Strip three weeks ago.

I haven’t been following the Alan Johnston story too closely, but I have kept an eye on it.  It appears that the situation may be coming to an end, one way or the other:

Hamas milita members streamed into the streets of a Gaza Strip neighbourhood on Tuesday, closing in on the stronghold where a Palestinian clan is holding kidnapped BBC correspondent Alan Johnston.

Gunmen from the 6,000-strong force secured positions on rooftops and patrolled the roads outside the compound where the shadowy Doghmush clan, the family that controls the little-known group Army of Islam, has been keeping Johnston for nearly four months.

Security forces "will not spare any efforts to free the British journalist," a spokesman for the Interior Ministry said on Hamas radio. The broadcast also gave a toll-free phone number and urged the public to provide any information about the case.

Hopefully, Hamas can get Johnston out alive, though admittedly it feels kind of weird to be rooting for Hamas in any context.

One other point on this story, particularly given the “enemy of my enemy” theme of my last post.  The Army of Islam is linked, at least ideologically, to al Qaeda.  This situation shows once again the stupidity of lumping all of the various Islamic groups into one amorphous enemy.

And on a completely unrelated and irreverent note: Am I the only person who sees "Doghmush clan" and gets a picture in his head of a bunch of Inuit tooling around the desert in modified dogsleds?

Turkey has prepared a blueprint for the invasion of northern Iraq and will take action if US or Iraqi forces fail to dislodge the guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) from their mountain strongholds across the border, Turkey's foreign minister Abdullah Gul has warned.

"The military plans have been worked out in the finest detail. The government knows these plans and agrees with them," Mr Gul told Turkey's Radikal newspaper. "If neither the Iraqi government nor the US occupying forces can do this [crush the PKK], we will take our own decision and implement it," Mr Gul said. The foreign minister's uncharacteristically hawkish remarks were seen as a response to pressure from Turkey's generals, who have deployed some 20,000-30,000 troops along the borders with Iraq, and who are itching to move against the rebels they say are slipping across the border to stage attacks inside Turkey.

Among other things, Turkish military planners have been working on a scheme to establish a buffer zone on Iraqi soil to try to stop the rebels' movements.

This for me is the most worrying aspect for a widening Mideast war.  Most people focus on the US attacking Iran, and there certainly has been an uptick in the rhetoric there as well, but there has not been a corresponding increase in US military presence in the region.  Saber-rattling aside, that leaves the possibility of a US attack on Iran at a low level.

Turkey, on the other hand, has matched its rhetoric with the military means to back it up.  Not only have they beefed up its troop presence, they have brought in additional heavy artillery and tanks, and set up security zones along the border to further limit access and hide any additional preparations they may be making.

Turkey has already been testing the waters with cross-border incursions and shelling, (reconnaissance in force?).  Without some action by either the US or the Kurdish authorities in the region to at least appear as though they’re doing something, a Turkish invasion is beginning to seem inevitable.

One other point from the Guardian story:

Washington is nervous of any military operations by its Nato ally that could destabilise Iraq's Kurdistan region. There are fears too that any instability in the north could play into the hands of Iran, facing growing problems with its own Kurdish population.

You can bet that Iran’s Kurdish problems are encouraged and supported by Washington.  That giving Kurdish terrorists a safe haven to attack Iran would also give them a safe haven to launch strike in Turkey doesn’t seem to have entered the White House calculations.

Following the dictum, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” makes a mockery of the “freedom” and “democracy” rhetoric the Bush Administration spouts, since a fair number of these “friends” are as bad or worse than the enemies the White House is targeting.

More importantly, they tend to forget that “the enemy of my enemy” still has his own interests, and particularly in the Middle East, may only be acting as your friend so that he can keep his enemies occupied with each other and pursue his own interests unencumbered.

Really, the only thing about this that's surprising is that it wasn't a full pardon. The reason, apparently, is that commuting the sentence allows "Scooter" to maintain his 5th Amendment right to keep his mouth shut, where a pardon could have seen him forced to testify. He'll probably get the pardon in January. 2009.

Update: Yep.

As we get a little further away from the attempted car bombings, my mind keeps turning to the question of what the people who were behind these attacks were hoping to accomplish. I mean, they were obviously looking to kill folks, but terrorism is violence with a political aim. It's never just about killing people. It's about killing people to affect politics and policies. So I ask myself what affects were the terrorists looking for?

Two points have come to mind. The first is in regards to the attack in Glasgow and the Muslim population of Scotland.

From reading a couple of posts from Cernig and Craig Murray, it seems that the Scottish Muslim community is on the whole quite moderate and well-integrated with the rest of Scottish society. The fact that the attackers appear to have been recently arrived foreigners seems to reinforce that. It's part of what made the attack there quite a shock to locals.

So why attack Glasgow and Scotland, where Muslims are much better integrated than in England? I've read that it was because Gordon Brown is a Scotsman, but I think it was also an attempt to drive a wedge between the Muslim and non-Muslim communities there. Provoke some anti-Muslim backlash against the local Muslim community, who apparently weren't even involved, in the hopes of isolating them and making them more susceptible to jihadist recruitment.

The second point is one I kept hearing repeatedly in the coverage of the attempted attacks; Gordon Brown has just become Prime Minister. It seems unlikely that this is a coincidence. These attacks were meant to affect his government. From the LA Times:

Brown has indicated he will shift Britain away from his predecessor Tony Blair's whole-hearted support of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, but the attacks appear timed to push the government to move further and faster, and to deliver a message that the violence is directed at the policies, not the person.

"It was an obvious attempt to destabilize the government and to get the government to withdraw troops from Iraq," said Patrick Dunleavy a political analyst at the London School of Economics.

With all due respect to Mr. Dunleavy, I think he has it wrong. If Brown were to move to withdraw Britain from Iraq now, the cries of "Appeaser!", "Munich!", and "Chamberlain!" would ring so loudly they'd rival volcanic eruptions. (The Madrid bombings were an anomaly. 90% of Spaniards opposed the Iraq War. Anzar knew this and made his position worse by trying to blame the attacks on ETA. As a result, Spaniards rallied against their leader rather than for him, as is usually the case when a country is attacked.) Even if Brown wanted to withdraw from Iraq, he can't make that announcement now unless he has the kind of courage that's incredibly rare in a politician. He's stuck with continuing British involvement in Iraq for at least another six months to a year, and there's been no greater recruitment tool for the jihadists than that very involvement.

Add to that any actions he takes that can be perceived as targeting British Muslims, and the jihadists win the increased support they need to pose an ever more serious threat. In that, the failure of these attacks should work to Brown's advantage. Without any massive death or destruction, the need for vengeance or payback is muted. It gives him the chance to respond in an intelligent fashion without any impetus to the hysterical voices clamouring for counterproductive, short-sighted foolishness.

One of the most difficult things to realize about 4th generation warfare, is that the physical level of fighting; the bombs and missiles, the IED's and suicide attackers, isn't where the war gets decided. The really important battles are waged at the moral level on the stage of policies and politics. It is there where we will learn if these attacks remain failures, or if the Right Honourable Gordon Brown can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Since Michael Moore has a new film talking about Health Care, it has become one of the major topics of conversation. Say what you will about his movies, Moore knows how to provoke discussions.

Timothy Noah at Slate has a story about one the big health care costs to the US that Moore apparently doesn't cover in his movie, but is one that I always point to when defending Canada's system over the US model, the cost to business.

Sicko tells story after heartbreaking story about ordinary people getting screwed out of the health-care benefits they thought they had coming. Yet one significant victim of America's market-based health-care system is left out: market capitalism itself.

I refer not to health insurers, nor to health-maintenance organizations, nor to for-profit hospitals, but rather to businesses outside the health-care sector that are saddled with the growing cost of providing health insurance to their employees. This obligation puts American companies at a disadvantage with respect to foreign competitors whose governments provide health care. The most obvious victim, ironically, is a company Moore knows very well: General Motors. Because of health-care obligations, the automaker that Moore pilloried in his first film, Roger and Me, is fighting for its life.

I remember reading a few years ago about Toyota looking for a new factory site. Of the various options, one was in Canada, the rest in the US. The Canadian site was chosen, and one of the main reasons was that Canada has universal health care, meaning Toyota wouldn't have to provide anywhere near the level of health insurance for its workers as it would had they chosen an American site, therefore lowering costs and increasing margins. It's no accident that foreign auto companies are beating the hell out of the US "Big Three".

If you want to know why the Free Trade Agreement has been such a boon for Canada, this is a large part of it. Once the trade barriers were dropped, the margins were better on the Canadian side of the border for factory-produced goods because of health care costs. The low dollar helped, but once a factory is built, it doesn't get moved easily, which is why the rising dollar hasn't hurt us as much as some would expect.

The second point Noah doesn't mention; healthier workers are more productive workers. The costs here are a lot harder to quantify, but the increased number of sick days taken due to the lack of affordable preventative health care, costs US businesses as well.

At some point, the US will probably realize what their economy is losing under their current health care system. Until then, I'm quite happy to watch Canada reap the benefits of the competitive advantage our system gives us.

Israel has released some of the tax money it collected on the Palestinian Authority's behalf but withheld after Hamas's election victory last year.

. . .

Israel accelerated efforts to support Abbas after Hamas routed his Fatah movement and seized the Gaza Strip last month.

This isn't going to work. At least, not in the way people seem to be hoping it will. As William Lind pointed out, having Israel and the US rally around Abbas robs him of any legitimacy. Even if this influx of money actually reaches the Palestinian people in the West Bank, which given Fatah's legendary corruption is a debatable prospect, it won't make Abbas seem any more credible.

This is as if you had launched a lawsuit against some corporation and they told you they'd be happy to negotiate with you, so long as the guy who will be negotiating on your behalf is somebody they choose and who they will be giving large amounts of money to. Oh, and if you try to choose someone yourself, they'll make sure you are cut off of any funding whatsoever and starved.

Abbas now looks like a quisling. The Palestinians are unlikely to accept any agreement he signs as a result.

Of course, that may be the point. That way, the hard-right Israelis and their supporters can point to the fact that the Palestinians just won't negotiate in good faith, so they must be allowed to continue their campaign of creating "facts on the ground" with additional settlements and walls.

The True North, Strong and Free.