TMFTML says Roger Straus was a CIA covert operative.

Chalabi and Iraq, and then some
Newsday's take on Ahmad Chalabi, that he was (is?) working for part of the Axis of Evil, is a smear being spread by the CIA's George Tenet according to Chalabi and his supporters, like William Safire:

Since 1996, the C.I.A. has hated him with a passion. In that year, our spooks egged on Iraqi officers to overthrow Saddam. Chalabi claims to have warned that the plotters had been penetrated, and when the coup failed and a hundred heads rolled, he dared to blame the C.I.A. for bloody ineptitude. This is at the root of his detestation by Tenet & Company and the agency's subsequent rejection of most Iraqi sources of intelligence offered by Chalabi's group.

The wonderful journalist Ahmed Rashid has a great piece on the CIA's ineptitude in regards to the rise of bin Laden. However, he feels regime change in Iraq was a diversion from the project of nation-building in Afghanistan. (Rashid's two books, Taliban and Jihad are fascinating and well worth the read. Although, he tends to employ the archaic "whilst" a lot in his writing. Maybe he's just being cheeky.)

Rashid is based in Lahore, Pakistan, and must be encouraged by the recent election in neighboring India. India's stock market, though, took a dive on news that a less globalization-friendly government was taking power. (It's Thomas Friedman's "golden straightjacket" in action.) India's poor, rural voters mobilized and tossed out the Hindu nationalist, foreign investment friendly governing coalition. Another theory is that India's voters tend to vote out incumbents on a regular basis, but there is little doubt that the fruits of India's growing economy weren't trickling down to the lower classes. Back here in our own secular, multicultural, gigantic democracy, Thomas Geoghegan suggests ways to mobilize voters. Perhaps India's impressive election overseers can help out the Iraqis with their first election in years.

Not just another brick in the wall

Buried in his report earlier this year on Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba praised the actions of three men who tried to stop the mistreatment of Iraqi detainees. They are nowhere to be seen in the portraits of brutality that have touched off outrage around the world.

Although details of their actions are sketchy, it is known that one soldier, Lt. David O. Sutton, put an end to one incident and alerted his commanders. William J. Kimbro, a Navy dog handler, "refused to participate in improper interrogations despite significant pressure" from military intelligence, according to the report. And Specialist Joseph M. Darby gave military police the evidence that sounded the alarm.
...

"It is sometimes the case that they themselves have been scapegoated or turned on by the crowd,"said Dr. John Darley, a professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton. "If you go back into the lives of these people you can often find some incident that has made very vivid to them the pressures of conformity working on the others in the group."

People who break from the crowd to blow the whistle, history shows, are often the most psychologically distanced from the situation. In 1968, Hugh Thompson, a helicopter pilot, was flying over Vietnam as G.I.'s were killing civilians. The soldiers on the ground had been told that the vilage, My Lai, was a Vietcong stronghold. But from above Mr. Thompson could see there was no enemy fire. He landed his helicopter, rescued some villagers, and told his commanders about the massacre.

Rum Sodomy & the Lash*

When Winston Churchill was at the Admiralty, he was reported to have said that "the traditions of the Royal Navy are rum, sodomy, and the lash." The MPs who tortured Iraqi detainees in order to soften them up for the interrogators from MI and "OGA" were often drunk during the insanity. The Taguba Report found credible evidence of MPs "Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick." No doubt you've read or heard about or have seen photos of the other instances of torture, rape, humiliation and abuse. (Did you read that the prison was being hit constantly by mortar fire? I'd resort to drink too.)

I watched Major General Antonio Taguba testify in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee this morning. You could tell he was a "straight shooter" and he spoke well of the team who helped him compile the report. I agree with the Times here:

Under the scope set by his superiors, the inquiry was limited to the conduct of a military police brigade. But General Taguba used it to deliver a much broader indictment.

Among the findings laid out in the report was what General Taguba described as his strong suspicion that military intelligence officers and private contractors "were either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses."

(General Fay's report on this will come out at end of this month or perhaps the first part of June.) The choice of General Taguba reflects well on General McKiernan, who assigned Taguba to the case.

Then there's Joseph Darby, the lower-class reservist who was working at Wendy's before being shipped off to Iraq. (Darby was an average student who started at tackle on the football team in high school and had done a stint in Bosnia.) The 24-year-old was the one who blew the whole thing open with the photos, first anonymously, then by testifying. Men like Taguba and Darby keep hope alive - to use a shopworn phrase - that America can help Iraq and hence the Middle East move in the direction of democracy and justice. (Darby still believes the cause in Iraq is a just one, even though he wasn't convinced at first.) Not surprisingly, Taguba received a shit reassignment and Darby and his wife are afraid of retaliation from other military families. Both knew what would happen, no doubt, but did what they felt was right no matter the consequences.

* Three Pogues albums became available again last month as imports. One is titled Rum Sodomy & the Lash and features Gericault's Le Radeau De La Medusa as its cover art. I recently saw the excellent documentary "If I Should Fall from Grace - The Shane MacGowan Story" which came out last year. It features Nick Cave and a Pogues video which stars a Johnny Depp during his drinking days, before he had kids.

Fucking Goddamn Cocksuckers
Heather Havrilesky finally writes about HBO's Deadwood:

What really sets "Deadwood" apart, though, is that unlike other dramas on TV, which introduce a few compelling figures or satisfying scenarios then repeat them episode after episode, "Deadwood" expands in every direction like a well-written novel. Somehow, even as the scope of the show widens with more characters and more complicated story lines, instead of losing us, the writers keep drawing us in deeper.

Here's a fun drinking game: take a swig each time someone cusses during the show.


Adam Michnik interview
(Via Norman Geras via Matt Welch)


Fulan Gong Show

Yet Chang supplies welcome detail about the religious roots of Falun Gong -- and this, in an indirect way, helps explain both the Bush administration's silence and the comparative indifference of the Western human-rights community. It is, as it turns out, an extraordinary belief system. Li Hongzhi, a one-time junior government official in a provincial grain bureau, began practicing Qigong when he was a park police officer in Jilin province in the 1980s. Within less than a decade, he had devised his own take on the universe -- including the belief that all matter is essentially water, that human beings trace their origins to "the highest levels of the universe" and that aliens came to Earth around 1900, some of whom look like humans and others -- "most frightening!" he says -- live inside our bodies. Li claims to have divine powers to cure the sick, to fly and to walk through walls. Chang's explanation of Li's teachings is a salvation of sorts, both sober and unsentimental. Her book is written with welcome detachment. More valuable still is her attempt to place Falun Gong in the long history of cults and sects in China. The comparisons with the Boxers, the Taiping rebellion and, in particular, the White Lotus Society -- each in its own way a messianic sect that was a harbinger of dynastic instability -- will prompt anyone interested in the future of China to take Falun Gong more seriously

Dancing, dancing in the street / Way down in LA, everyday
Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko is that rare film which can induce nostalgia for the late 1980s when I was a teenager.

Kelly has a new project, Southland Tales, in pre-production. It's "a musical/comedy set in 2008 where a three-day heatwave in Los Angeles culminates in a huge Fourth of July party." The cast includes Seann William Scott, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jason Lee, Janeane Garofalo, Ali Larter, Tim Blake Nelson, Amy Poehler, and Kevin Smith. It will either be genius or uncomfortably bad. I'd bank on the former.

Why they hate us
The other day I rewatched Whit Stillman's Barcelona, which is now 10 years old, and it has held up remarkably well. In view of the recent elections in Spain and the growing anti-American sentiment worldwide, the comedy is as prescient a film as I can think of.

The movie is set during the waning days of the Cold War. Two cousins - one, a sales representative from Chicago, and the other, a naval attache - explore Barcelona's nightlife and have to deal with their fair share of anti-Americanism. Neither can understand why they're repeatedly called fascists (fasche) by the locals and therefore get into a few arguments.

The movie's dialogue makes it seem like a precursor to Wes Anderson's Rushmore, but that's just a guess.

SNAFU*
Michelle Cottle reports on the 911 Commission. She complains that since the Commission was partly carried out in public, it led to political posturing and grandstanding. She suggests closed-door hearings would have been better, but that sounds anti-democratic to me. Her fatalism regarding another attack resonates, unfortunately.

Ms. Cottle and I shared a creative writing class back in college and she was one of those reticent charmers who reflect well on the "New South."

* Situation Normal All Fucked Up

The worse, the better
Some misguided factions on the Left have used this slogan which indicates support for chaos to heighten the contradictions of politics. Dan Drezner points out the apparently worsening situation in Iraq is helping Bush in the polls. (via Andy Sullivan)

At this point, Kerry has to wonder whether he's in a parallel political universe. It seems neither logical nor fair that problems in Iraq should boost the president who sent U.S. troops there in the first place, while imperiling the challenger who voiced qualms about the invasion before it happened. But odd as this will sound, it's worth considering the possibility that failure in Iraq is helping Bush's reelection chances--and that immediate U.S. success in Iraq is Kerry's only chance to win.

"We begin bombing in five minutes"
Michael Kinsley once said a Washington gaffe is when a politician utters something everyone knows to be true. Laura Kipnis writes about politicians' parapraxes and uses Condi Rice's recent DC dinnertime faux pas as a spring board:

What Rice reportedly said was this: "As I was telling my husb—" before abruptly breaking off and correcting herself: "As I was telling President Bush." Jaws dropped, we're told. And though nobody thinks Bush and Rice are "actually an item," we were nevertheless reminded that the unmarried Condi does regularly spend weekends with the president and first lady.

Resistance is futile (or Sheena is a punk rocker)

Dear Reader, (all 0-2 of you)

Should you notice a change in tone or sudden drop off in the number of postings, it's because of a young lady. Let's call her A. for the purposes of discussion.

It doesn't look good on paper, I'll admit, but we have fun together. A. is a tattooed, streetwise yet kind, midriff-baring "Generation Y" gal who can hold her liquor like none other I have seen. Your humble servant is a jaded "Gen Xer", as you can probably tell. We do share a fondness for David Sedaris.

Still, I'm wary. But I've had a sip of the Kool-Aid and it tastes good.

19 tornadoes touched down way out in the Chicago suburbs, south of where my parents live.


The reason the President's Daily Briefings are classified (by Tim Cavanaugh)

There there
Reason's Hit & Run noticed how George Will is getting all gloomy on us. This presents me with an opportunity to clarify what the name of this site means to me. In his piece, Will quotes James Q. Wilson:

"So common have despotic regimes been that some scholars have argued that they are, unhappily, the natural state of human rule. This tendency raises a profound question: Does human nature lend itself to freedom? It is not difficult to make arguments for personal freedom, but the history of mankind suggests that human autonomy usually will be subordinated to political control. If that is true, then our effort to increase individual freedom is an evolutionary oddity, a weak and probably vain effort to equip people with an opportunity some do not want and many will readily sacrifice."

This is the typical conservative argument about "wasting money" on trying to change "human nature." To me this is too pessimistic - and stinks of racism - in regards to the average person, whatever nationality. This is a rationalization, pure and simple.

Granted, like anyone I'll have moments of doubt. In Ian McEwan's novel The Child in Time, there's a character so demoralized by tragedy and loss that he's reduced to gaping at daytime TV talkshows - think Jerry Springer. Seeing his fellow humans so eager to humiliate and embarrass themselves, he coins a name for watching the proceedings: "the democrat's pornography."

"Negative Outlook?" is not meant to refer to conservative rationalizations and pessimism. Keeping with the often adolescent-level tone, subject matter, and grammar, the title is taken from a song's lyrics, the Transplants's Diamonds and Guns:

Every last soul must pay the last toll
In the dice game of life, who gets the last roll?
Is it the one with the suit? The one with the sack?
The one who hides behind his fuckin' gun and his badge?
Negative outlook? Well that's how I'm livin'
And like he said, it's a wicked world we live in
It's a wicked world we live in

It's directed at the authority figure or sell-out who's telling you, condescendingly, "quit complaining, stop being such a downer, get with the program, consider how lucky you are." Etc.

For instance, Hitchens has a negative outlook and bucks the herd of independent minds.

Ana Marie Cox chillin' on the porch.

Last month, a party celebrating the start of her site was packed. Held at the Dupont Circle town house of Peter Bergen, the CNN terrorism expert, the party's heavily mediacentric guest list included Michael Isikoff of Newsweek; a former Clinton mouthpiece, Joe Lockhart; the political blogger Mickey Kaus; and a former Howard Dean spokeswoman, Tricia Enright. This is her devoted fan base: Wonkette registered 55,000 page views on its startup date in January, and over a million for the month of March. (The Drudge Report averages over seven million page views a day.)

The Times reports her curriculum vitae as such: "She was writing her own satirical blog, theanticmuse.com, after bouncing from editing jobs at The Chronicle of Higher Education, America Online and National Geographic. She was fired from The American Prospect magazine after six weeks (during which she playfully called its co-editor, Robert Kuttner, "Crazy Bob" behind his back) and was required to sign a confidentiality agreement about the terms of her dismissal." It should have read "She was writing her own satirical blog, theanticmuse.com, after bouncing from editing jobs at The Chronicle of Higher Education, America Online, National Geographic, and Suck..." but that might have given people pause.

The New Deal's Shock Troops
The White Whale for the American Right ever since the 1930s is that collection of institutions and legislation, dare we say "philosophy"?, known as the New Deal. Erected in response to the Great Depression, the New Deal is the source of countless evils and a "Wall" or barrier to greater prosperity, according to the Right .

Today's New York Times has a Michael Beschloss review of a book about the New Dealers who labored in the trenches.

''The Fall of the House of Roosevelt: Brokers of Ideas and Power From FDR to LBJ'' shows why [President] Carter felt free to ignore an event that his three Democratic predecessors would have considered mandatory. In keeping with its scholarly subtitle, Michael Janeway dutifully navigates the ideological differences that developed among the New Dealers and the ways in which the Democratic Party later moved away from their crowd. But his book is far more interesting and original as a biographical study of what human beings will do to acquire great power and try to hold onto it -- especially after their time has passed. (Full disclosure: Janeway writes in his acknowledgments that during his 10-year writing process I helped him with a research question, although I don't recollect doing so.)

Beschloss notes how, perhaps counterintuitively, many New Dealers sought not only to do good, but to "do well":

Janeway observes that in his sometimes reckless determination to become rich, his father resembled others he knew well. Long after the New Deal, Fortas had to resign from the Supreme Court when his secret cash payments by a foundation were revealed. Corcoran was scarred by charges that he had lobbied the Supreme Court on behalf of his client El Paso Natural Gas. The onetime Truman aide Clark Clifford went down in the flames of a banking scandal. Janeway sardonically notes that these same people had once inveighed against Wall Street's ''unconstrained license and greed'' and the abuse of ''other people's money.'' As he describes it, part of the problem was that they were greedy themselves. More than that, by the end of their lives, ''the Rooseveltians' great chain of dealing had become its own end.'' These once powerful men did not know ''how to leave their active association with power.''

There is no need for us to end the story on such a sour note. Under Franklin Roosevelt, these New Dealers built a lasting monument, showing how government could be made to improve people's lives. But Michael Janeway's book is a reminder that even monument makers can have feet of clay.

Beschloss is an impressive historian. He's deceptively mild-mannered in his TV appearances, but his work demonstrates an eye for the telling detail and a sense of the important grander themes which the equally mild-mannered mainstream rarely confronts.

Heather Havrilesky reminds us of why Chris Rock is still around after all these years. Rock on affirmative action:

But let's keep it fucking real, OK? A black C student can't run no fucking company. A black C student can't even be the manager of Burger King. Meanwhile, a white C student just happens to be the president of the United States of America!

Even partisan conservatives admit Bush's recent combo speech/press conference was C level at most however much they agreed with the content.

I'll never forget when Rock had Cornel West as a guest on his cable show and Rock was visibly amused by West's high-falutant vocabulary. His questions and give and take with the academic/actor demonstrated respect, though.

"Would-be Martyr's" Wish Granted
Abdel Aziz Rantisi killed.

During the mourning period for [Hamas founder and spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed] Yassin, Rantisi was defiant about Israel's threats against him. "We will all die one day. Nothing will change. If by Apache or by cardiac arrest, I prefer Apache," he said.

Divide and conquer
The always informative Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo (which won a Bloggie recently) is exasperated at the media's highlighting of Bin Laden's attempt to further divide America and Europe.

Marshall wonders:
"Why are we giving this al Qaida PR stunt so much credence?

Why does CNN report the news like the public is made up of a bunch of circus idiots?

And will Emmanuel Goldstein also be in on the negotiations?"

As polls and elections show, a majority of Europeans are against greater involvement by the West in the Muslim world. They want to back off. (No doubt some of the voters in Spain's recent election felt that way.) Given Europe's bloody colonial history and large Muslim population, it's understandable.

Bin Laden and al-Qaida are just playing upon that fact. My guess is that Marshall is irritated that this news highlights the fact that one of Bin Laden's goals is the same as the Democrats': a less aggressive U.S. and Western foreign policy. Let the Muslim and Arab regions be. Argue for pulling the troops out more quickly than the Republicans would (although Bush did give in to Bin Laden, with good reason in my opinion, by pulling all of the troops out of Saudi Arabia).

His frustration is demonstrated by the mention of Emmanuel Goldstein. In George Orwell's 1984, Goldstein was a fictitious saboteur employed by the state to keep the citizenry fear-stricken and thereby distracted and more accepting of repressive laws.

I doubt Marshall is being literal here - al Qaida exists of course - but his view that Bin Laden is being employed like a Goldstein is common for some (most?) of the Left. They view 911 as an aberration, a one in a million incident that is unlikely to be repeated (like, say, the assassination of JFK). After the next catastrophic attack, fairly likely given the National Security Apparatus's dysfunction, I wonder if Goldstein's name will be bandied about as much.

Democrats on the 911 Commission damn the Bush administration for not taking the pre-911 Emmanuel Goldstein threat seriously, which it in fact did not. But Democrats like Marshall then go on to argue that Republicans are playing up the threat of al-Qaida for political advantage. Republicans, they argue, were too complacent then and are too aggressive now.

"He gave me a look, a kind of wide-eyed, reproachful look, such as a dying newt might have given me, if I had forgotten to change its water regularly." P.G.Wodehouse.

What's your favorite sentence(s) from a novel? (that's not my favorite but it's pretty good. Via Maud Newton)

Que Sera Sera lists a couple of the Universal Laws of Nature.

those hang-overs where it feels like you've been through chemo

He manages to get up to his bedroom, where he has a final cigarette before turning in.Then comes the next morning.

Dixon was alive again. Consciousness was upon him before he could get out of the way; not for him the slow, gracious wandering from the halls of sleep, but a summary, forcible ejection. He lay sprawled, too wicked to move, spewed up like a broken spider crab on the tarry shingle of the morning. The light did him harm, but not as much as looking at things did; he resolved, having done it once, never to move his eyeballs again. A dusty thudding in his head made the scene before him beat like a pulse. His mouth had been used as a latrine by some small creature of the night, and then as its mausoleum. During the night, too, he’d somehow been on a cross-country run and then been expertly beaten up by secret police. He felt bad.

He feels worse when he discovers that a cigarette had burned 1) a large part of a bed sheet; 2) a smaller but still large part of a blanket; 3) a not inconsiderable bit of a “valuable-looking rug”; and 4) part of the top of his bedside table. It took a few moments for the full horror to sink in: “had a wayfarer, a burglar camped out in his room? Or was he the victim of some Horla fond of tobacco? He thought on the whole he must have done it himself, and wished he hadn’t.

Tax and Spend
Rabbit blog is, metaphorically speaking, throwing gasoline on the fire raging in Blogistan. So, here it goes.

After years in the big city, living beyond my means and spending like a drunken sailor on impulse-purchased books and rounds for the bar, I've finally found religion, like the Democrats, and have given in to fiscal discipline. I've forced a Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) upon myself, like what the IMF does to hapless third world countries whose treasuries have been looted by corrupt Western-backed dictators.

What's the first thing I do? I join the 21st century by purchasing a cell phone and offset the increase in my telecommunications bill by getting rid of my Caller-ID and telemarketer blocking service on my old-timey phone line.

Now, when people call at 2:30 on a Tuesday morning I don't know whether it was a wrong number or what. I get to lie in bed and stew about who could have possibly woken me up. And then I get to free associate ... but now I can write my free-associations down and post it on the Internet ...

"Soak the fat boys" was Robert Penn Warren's advice in All the King's Men. And if you think about, when travel writers and "hot spot" correspondents constantly relate how embarrassingly friendly and overly-generous folks often are in poverty stricken parts of the world and how often - but not always - the stinking rich people you come across, say, like Leona Helmsly or the Enron gang, are complete assholes, why not tax the shit out of them and redistribute a la Robin Hood? Yes, the rub lies in the redistributors and the pork and corruption which is why "good government" is essential. When Republicans and some Democrats demagogue the issue by saying "they want to raise YOUR taxes" the YOU they're addressing is 1% of the population, but that's not immediately apparent, is it?

Rabbit Blog says "sanity is overrated." I have to disagree, but I guess it depends on your definition of sanity. For instance, she's so sane and articulate, it's crazy. (By the way, the four most overrated things of all time? Champaign, lobster, anal sex, and picnics.)

Throw the Bums Out
Adam Cohen writes about the muckraking journalist Lincoln Steffens whose book "The Shame of the Cities" turns 100 this spring.

In a recent Los Angeles Times poll, 63 percent of those surveyed said President Bush is more concerned with corporations than workers, and it is not hard to see why. He has raised more than $180 million in campaign funds, much of it from corporate-minded contributors who want something from government — weaker environmental laws, lower taxes, government contracts — or have already gotten it. John Kerry and the Democrats, of course, raise money from many of the same sources.

Steffens would not be surprised by the extent of the alliance between business and government today. But he would be disheartened if the American people did not start to follow his simple electoral prescription. "Vote in mass on the more promising ticket," he urged, adding that if the choices are equally bad, "throw out the party that is in, and wait till the next election and then throw out the other party that is in." If the voters did that, Steffens promised, "the commercial politician would feel a demand for good government and he would supply it."