The Rittenhouse Review isn't exactly back -- but maybe sneaking in the side door?

Our Friends at Work
The United Nations has found evidence that a leading Afghan warlord and strong ally of the US tortured witnesses to stop them testifying against him in a war crimes inquiry, a senior UN source said last night.

General Abdul Rashid Dostam, an Uzbek warlord from northern Afghanistan, was a part of the opposition Northern Alliance which overthrew the Taliban regime with US help, and has been used extensively by the American military in operations against al-Qaida and the Taliban.

Witness accounts suggested that his troops were responsible for torturing and killing up to 1,000 Taliban prisoners after the regime fell in November last year. If confirmed, this would be the worst atrocity committed during the US campaign in Afghanistan, and would raise questions about the role of US special forces troops who were supervising the detention of the prisoners...(more)

Reading for regressives
See what reading cheesey books does to you?

I mentioned over the weekend that Congress had passed an aid package for Afghanistan that includes funds to expand the International Security Force outside of Kabul -- which is desperately needed to ensure some measure of safety for Afghans, especially women, and also to make it possible for humanitarian workers to do their jobs outside the capital.InterAction, an alliance of American NGOs, has hailed passage of the bill -- which many humanitarian and relief organizations have been calling for for a long time -- and are urging President Bush to sign it. The administration, until recently, has resisted the expansion of the ISAF, but there have been signs of some openness to the possibility of increasing the force. General Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently suggested that it may be time for the United States to change its priorities in Afghanistan from combat to reconstruction. There is still some opposition within the administration however, and Afghanistan seems to be falling off the presidential radar. It's not a lost cause, but not an easy one either. A little citizen pressure might help. If you haven't already added your voice, please do.

A little arm twisting at the UN
We've all heard about the astonishing feat of diplomacy that earned George Bush a unanimous vote in the UN Security Council. How did he do it? According to an article from the Inter Press News Agency, by reminding a few countries that opposing the United States can get very expensive.

Once around the blogroll…

Cal Pundit finds less political correctness (and less support for women) in "liberal" academia than right-wing rumor might lead you to believe.

Hesiod notes that Wesley Clark may be considering running for President as a Democrat, and has some interesting thoughts about the reception that may await him.

Sam Heldman puts class action suits in perspective: Do you believe it's just too damn hard right now for a big company to cheat you? Should we make it easier?

Liberal Oasis watches the Sunday talk shows (so you don't have to), sees Tom Ridge's defense of all Bush and Company have done to make us safer shredded, and wonders why it wasn't the Democratic leadership running the shredder. Good question.

"I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused." -- Graham Greene, The Quiet American

I'm a little clueless when it comes to popular culture, including movies, so maybe everyone except me has already heard about this, but there's a new movie out -- well, sort of new -- based on Graham Greene's novel, The Quiet American, about an American who arrives in French-occupied Vietnam in the early fifties, with no understanding of the local language or culture, but with a great, and genuinely idealistic commitment to American values, and a belief that the United States knows what is best for Vietnam. His mixture of naïveté and arrogance leads him to support people involved in a terrorist bombing in Saigon.

Given the current administration's apparent determination to remake the entire Middle East in the American image, that would seem like a pretty timely subject for a movie.

The movie is actually more than a year old. Unfortunately, it had its preview on September 10, 2001 -- and the producers immediately decided that this was not the time to release a film with a less than glowing and heroic portrait of an American.

And over the past year, the film's theme has grown more and more eerily relevant. But has it grown any more acceptable? Are we allowed to suggest yet that cultural arrogance might get us into trouble again?

Well, The Quiet American is back. Sort of. Thanks to one of its stars, Michael Caine, who pressured the producers to release the film in time for Oscar consideration, it was shown at the recent Toronto Film Festival (where it got a standing ovation) and opens this week in New York and Los Angeles. But that's it. No general release is planned. But some of us out here in the boonies would like to see it as well, and think it would be a very good thing if a lot of other Americans got to see it.

Sometimes somebody else just says what I'm thinking a lot better than I could:
"The party has to work to build a Democratic majority, not simply wait for it to emerge, and it needs both its center and its left to do that. I feel silly stating the obvious, except it's apparently not self-evident to the two wings of the party, who are still taking daily potshots at one another, most recently over the election of "San Francisco Democrat" Nancy Pelosi as House minority leader. Democrats need a center that's courageous and inclusive, and a left that wants to be relevant, not merely righteous -- and at this moment, it has neither. They still have almost two years to get it together, if they want to build a majority in '04, but the clock is ticking, loudly." -- Joan Walsh, "Donkey In Distress"

So, John Ashcroft has a heart. All this time, he's been keeping secret from us his empathy for the powerless, but now the truth emerges. Ashcroft has arisen as the voice of the truly oppressed -- the last group it is still socially acceptable to mock and despise. While every other victimized minority group has found its champion, no one has ever had the moral courage to stand up for the most downtrodden and despised group of all. But that was before we had an Attorney General whose commitment to Christian ethics and understanding of the social message of the Gospel place him in the company of leaders like Martin Luther King and Cesar Chavez. Ashcroft has hoisted his standard for the too long unappreciated cause of downtrodden phone sex operators, massage parlor owners, and escort services.

Last month, a Los Angeles alt-weekly, L.A. Weekly, bought out a less profitable one, New Times. Sad, and it's always a shame to lose a journalistic voice, but there are only so many advertising dollars to go around. And there are limits to how much phone sex people can take -- even in Los Angeles.

But, truly, there was an outrageous injustice committed, one that no decent person could watch in silence. Once New Times closed, L.A. Weekly could -- and did -- raise its classified advertising rates. The hungry and desperate escort services were out on the streets (so to speak), with nowhere to go, until this week, when the Department of Justice began an investigation into whether the two newspapers violated federal anti-trust laws.

Once again, this administration is displaying its well-established commitment to fair business practices and a free press. But surely the most important factor in the decision to investigate this case, was the administration's famous preferential option for the poor. All I can say is that it's about time we had an Attorney General willing to fight for the rights of decent and hard-working pornographers. Bravo, John Ashcroft.

Ich kann meine Gummischuhe nicht finden. (Sorry, but that's about all I remember from high school German.)

This is beyond bizarre. Who did this? And why?

Well, whoever you are -- Haben Sie einen schönen Tag.

UPDATE: Zizka writes from Vanity Site to point to some other interesting machine translations, including this one at his own site, and this soliloquy from Macbeth looped around through an assortment of languages.

There hasn't been a lot of good news for women in Afghanistan in the past few months. Their legal position is better than it was a little more than a year ago, but violence, threats, and intimidation continue to make daily life a horror for many women. What they need most is an expansion of the international peacekeeping forces outside Kabul -- and right now there's a chance they might get it.

Congress just passed the Afghan Freedom Support Act of 2002, providing $3 billion dollars for Afghan reconstruction, humanitarian aid, and expansion of the peacekeeping force. It includes an amendment making Afghan women a funding priority and earmarks $15 million per year for the Ministry of Women's Affairs.

The only catch is, President Bush still needs to sign it. Please call or e-mail the White House today, and ask him to do so. And while you're at it, e-mail Senators Biden and Boxer to let them know how much you appreciate their hard work in getting this bill passed.

Sisters under the skin, I guess
The Gender Test guessed (with 86 percent accuracy) that I'm female. The odd thing is, it said exactly the same thing about Ampersand. I think that's very cool. I want to be able to transcend gender, too.

UPDATE: Hey, Sisyphus is 86 percent female, too. Should we start a club or something?

UPDATE: Joe Duemer of Reading & Writing fame, and Sam Heldman (Ignatz) have both written to tell me they turned out to have women's souls as well. Welcome to the coven, guys.

UPDATE: I was just wondering if any women came out male on the test, when Mad Kane wrote to tell me she did just that. Now the question is, should we let her join the coven? I vote yes, but only if she promises to entertain us with song.

UPDATE: But at 2.1, I'm a tad more fascist than Bertram. How about a club for anti-fascist females of any gender?

There's a war looming, the economy's tanking, and as Skippy has discovered, Congress is hard at work dealing with one of the greatest dangers we face -- pornographic pudding pops.

Definitely in the running for weirdest Google search I've ever gotten. This is not an episode of Sesame Street I want to see.

There ought to be some kind of blogging prize for people who go way beyond what is expected in this haphazard, generally flakey medium. Ampersand's analysis of the statistics behind the men's rights movement's claim that men and women are equally victimized in domestic violence cases wouldn't have much competition for first prize. He's done an incredible amount of research, and combined it with a clear understanding of the subject. As someone who has lived through family violence, I strongly appreciate his understanding of the powerlessness and loss of control that women feel under those circumstances. How often do you find both empathy and intelligence in a blog post? Go read it.

I can give you lots of reasons to oppose an invasion of Iraq, but when it comes right down to it this is the one that counts.

Cal Pundit maps the twists and turns an idea makes as it weaves around the Web. How right-wingers begin by screwing up and manage to turn the screw up into an attack on the left. Don't miss it.

The Dick Cheney Terror Index
The F.B.I. warning was sent today as a confidential alert to 18,000 law enforcement agencies throughout the country, but it was not issued to the public. Government officials said the threat warning would remain at the current level of Code Yellow, the middle range on the five-level terror code index. That was because, the officials said, that the threats were serious enough to warn state and local authorities, but not specific enough to warrant a general alert. Vice President Dick Cheney, who has been sent to an undisclosed location under previous alerts, remained in town tonight.

Forget all that color-code nonsense. Just watch where Cheney is:

Cheney in the bunker: Highest alert

Cheney in his office: Medium alert

Cheney reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar to a really cute kindergarten class: Osama's at Gitmo. Have a nice day.

I admit it. I'm baffled. At the end of an article in this morning's Washington Post on the plans of the United Nations inspection teams that will be going to Iraq next week, I find this:

El Baradei and Blix have repeatedly pleaded with Washington and London to provide them with fresh intelligence they have collected on Iraqi efforts to procure key ingredients that can be used for either conventional or nuclear weapons programs.

Pleaded? If Bush and Company want to demonstrate that Iraq is trying to get the ingredients for a nuclear weapon, shouldn't they be eager to supply inspectors with any evidence they have, since that would increase the odds of success?

I mean, it's not like they want them to fail or anything.

Saddam opposes multiculturalism

Saddam Hussein does not tolerate hyphenated identities. Under him no one can be Kurdish-Iraqi or Sabean-Iraqi. You have to be Arab. His problem has been how to Arabize Iraq.

Saddam and Pat Buchanan ought to get together for a chat sometimes. They can compare notes on the evils of diversity.

This entry has also been posted at Stand Down -- the anti-war blog that explores reasons for opposing war with Iraq from multiple politcal perspectives. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here.

As Eric Boehlert pointed out in a recent Salon article, the White House managed to spin real concessions (and perhaps some shady, behind-the-scenes deals as well) at the UN into a media image of absolute victory. To most Americans, who aren't paying much attention to the details, there was a clear message: If you hang tough, the world will eventually come around to seeing things your way. After all, George Bush's "moral clarity" won everybody over, even Syria.

That misreading is significant because polls have shown that most Americans oppose war with Iraq if it doesn't have UN sanction.

Yesterday Kofi Annan stuck a pin in Bush's unalloyed victory balloon, reminding anyone who is still paying attention to the details, that the United Nations has not been won over, and that it has serious concerns about this administration's willingness to act without UN support. Annan's language reflects an awareness of what most of us who oppose the war fear -- that Bush is not trying to solve a problem (the need to disarm Saddam Hussein) while remaining willing to go to war, if necessary, to solve it. Rather, he is searching for a pretext for war, and is willing to seize any "flimsy or hasty excuse" to do so.

Americans don't support an invasion of Iraq if the UN opposes it. The UN, apparently, is not going to roll over and play dead for George Bush. If Annan's reasonable voice holds out, it will be interesting to see if the administration is able to continue the spin that they have UN support, or rather, if they will begin demonizing the UN in general, and Kofi Annan in particular.

From the people who brought you Armageddon…

A couple of items dealing with Republican theology (or heresy if you prefer) demand to be read one after the other. Mixing church and state is a bad idea. Getting the state mixed up with twisted and superstitious notions of God is chilling.

And speaking of twisted notions of God, check out this odd couple. All my nightmares rolled into one. (Via Locust Eater.)

This is not your father's Republican Party

Bill Moyers: Way back in the 1950's when I first tasted politics and journalism, Republicans briefly controlled the White House and Congress. With the exception of Joseph McCarthy and his vicious ilk, they were a reasonable lot, presided over by that giant war hero, Dwight Eisenhower, who was conservative by temperament and moderate in the use of power. That brand of Republican is gone…

Garrison Keillor: The old GOP of fiscal responsibility and principled conservatism and bedrock Main Street values is gone, my dear, and something cynical has taken its place. Thus the use of Iraq as an election ploy, openly, brazenly, from the president and Karl Rove all the way down to Norman Coleman, who came within an inch of accusing Wellstone of being an agent of al-Qaida. To do that one day and then, two days later, to feign grief and claim the dead Wellstone's mantle and carry on his "passion and commitment" is simply too much for a decent person to stomach. It goes beyond the ordinary roughhouse of politics. To accept it and grin and shake the son of a bitch's hand is to ignore what cannot be ignored if you want your grandchildren to grow up in a country like the one that nurtured and inspired you…

Bin Laden tape a reminder of war: Bush

Did he need to be reminded? We're in trouble here, folks.

Eve Tushnet made an interesting comment today about feeling more comfortable calling herself a Catholic than a Christian, because "Christian seems like such an amazing thing to claim to be." Although I no longer consider myself a Catholic (except in the "born a Catholic, die a Catholic" sense -- which I'm not making fun of, the Church I was raised in will always be a part of me), I've always had much the same feeling about the word "Christian." I think Christianity is something you aspire to, rather than ever securely stake a claim on. It's like poetry. I've written many poems, but I rarely summon the audacity to call myself a poet.

(Unfortunately, the link is not to any specific post, because Eve's links are not working right. I'm not complaining. My are hiding, too. Just go over and hunt for the post. I'm sure you'll stumble across other interesting things while you're there. I always do.)

The second worst thing that can happen to anyone is having their child hurt in a way that they can't do anything about. The worst thing is knowing that it didn't have to happen.

Matthew Yglesias recently came up with a rather startling proposal -- helping the women of Afghanistan by arming them. Since I'm coming to the issue a little late, I notice that Matthew's already had quite a few comments on the post, and I pretty much agree with the objections, especially Ampersand's, so I won't belabor the point here. Just go over and read Matthew's intriguing post and the excellent comments.

The only thing I would add is that empowering women in places like Afghanistan is not simply a matter of equalizing power. We want to improve women's lives not just because it's the right and fair thing to do, and because no human being should be treated the way women were (and, to a lesser but still significant extent, continue to be) in Afghanistan, but because women -- as people who exist outside the power structure -- have potential to offer an alternative to the status quo. I'm not suggesting that women are innately better or kinder or less power-hungry than men. "Warladies" may sound odd, but it's not an impossibility. When women have access to the same sort of power men have, they're equally capable of brutality -- just look, for example, at the story of Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, the Rwandan minister for women's affairs, who is currently facing a tribunal in Tanzania, charged with committing genocide.

But because in most places women do the most fundamental work of a society -- making sure everyone is fed, clothed, healthy, and educated -- when they gain enough education and freedom from intimidation to make their needs known and their voices heard, they're more likely to advocate for the kinds of things a country really needs, rather than grabbing their piece of power. It's not just that women deserve to be treated better, but that societies can be made better by hearing the voice of the "other." If you pressure women to adopt the rule of the gun (and all assumptions about power that go with it), you risk losing what are potentially the strongest voices for reform.

Congratulations, you're San Francisco, the city of change.
What US city are you? Take the quiz by Girlwithagun.

I guess that makes me a San Francisco liberal (not that there's anything wrong with that.)

Great Moments in Blogging

Beyond Corporate tells some important truths about presidential lying.

Through The Looking Glass notes that the ruling class lives by different rules.

Reading & Writing, appropriately enough, has a writing assignment.

Seeing The Forest (which I've been meaning to add to my blogroll for a long time) has so much good stuff up today that I stand in awe. Start at the top with the post on why many people who call themselves conservatives are not, and continue on through the posts on how "regressives" hijacked the public discourse, and what progressives can do about it. There's a lot to think about here.

This entry has also been posted at Stand Down -- the anti-war blog that explores reasons for opposing war with Iraq from multiple politcal perspectives. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here.

The Iraqi Kurds share the northern no-fly zone with another non-Arab minority -- -- the Assyrians. Like the Kurds, they've suffered from serious human rights abuses under Saddam, and they've benefited under Kurdish control of the no-fly zone.

But there are tensions between the two groups. Many Assyrians were forced off their land in the '70s and '80s. Now that the Kurds control that land -- which, of course, is loaded with oil -- ownership has become a point of contention. On top of that, Assyrians have been repeatedly attacked by Kurdish Islamic groups, at least one of which may have ties to al Qaeda. Kurdish authorities have banned the groups, but the Assyrians claim the Kurds have been slow to bring the attackers to justice. The Kurds have also attempted to classify Assyrians as "Kurdish Christians," which the Assyrians see as an attack on their ethnicity, recalling Saddam's attempt to "Arabize" the north by forcing Assyrians and Kurds to call themselves Arabs.

Right now, those tensions are minimized by a shared hostility to Baghdad, but Assyrians fear that if the United States attacks Iraq, the Kurds may use the chaos of war to declare an independent Kurdish state (or at least an autonomous Kurdish region), which would threaten their survival as an ethnic and linguistic minority. There is also some concern that Turkey could use the war as an excuse to take over the oil-rich northern cities of Kirkuk and Mosul -- an idea nationalist politicians and senior generals raised during campaigning for the recent Turkish elections. The 1915 Turkish genocide, it should be noted, was directed at Assyrians as well as Armenians.

None of this, by itself, is an argument against attacking Iraq. It is, however, one more example of the complications, and potentially disastrous consequences, of a war, which the Bush administration is refusing to take seriously. There's a tragic symbolism in this particular complication. The Assyrians are a Christian community and they speak a language that is on the verge of extinction: Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke. One of the consequences of this war could be the loss of Jesus' language -- literally as well as figuratively.

A long post with a lot of rambling stuff in it. Sorry. I left my brain in Santa Cruz (and my heart in San Francisco -- soon there will be nothing left of me…)

No, I didn't go on hiatus again -- at least not intentionally. My cable connection went out Friday morning, so I couldn't post anything (or read anything online, for that matter.) And I was gone Sunday, and most of Monday, anyway. We drove up north to hear my son play in his college jazz band. I've been hearing since September that it's hard, but hard in a good, challenging way, and it was wonderful to finally hear the result of that work. My son's high school jazz band was really good, for a high school band, but the stuff he's playing now is such a huge jump up. He only taught himself to play trumpet a little over three years ago (before that he was a French horn player -- well, still is, actually), and I'm just blown away by what he can do now.

This being Santa Cruz (aka Berkeley in the Redwoods), you also get Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk played by teenagers in mismatched shoes, strange hats, oddly dyed hair (I know I live in a rather unsophisticated town -- the local state college is sometimes referred to as "Cow Poly" -- but I'd never seen cheetah-spotted hair before), and an assortment of piercings, which seems right somehow. A girl with her nose pierced sang a torch song, "You Don't Know What Love Is," which is one of my favorite pieces on Billie Holiday's Lady in Satin, which is one of my favorite albums of all time. Unfortunately, the song doesn't sound right to me unless it's sung not only by Billie, but the older Billie, with the weak and ravaged voice, who knew and touched every bit of pain in the song. It's just not a young, inexperienced woman's song. But I kept thinking, yeah, if Billie Holiday were still around, she'd probably have her nose pierced, too. And the young woman was a good scatter. More Ella than Billie -- but that's nothing to turn up your nose at (pierced or unadorned).


I knew I'd get around to writing something about Billie Holiday eventually.


The cable connection apparently kicked back in while we were in Santa Cruz, so I got home to a functioning computer and an overloaded e-mail box. Even after I got rid of the Nigerians and the penile implant ads, it was still groaning, so if I owe you a response -- well, it may take me awhile. Sorry. One of the e-mails, though -- which took issue with the last thing I wrote right before my computer went into hibernation -- I should respond to here.


To Patrick Nielsen Hayden: As usual, your ear for liberals unnecessarily placing themselves outside the mainstream is perfect, and I agree with you about 98 percent. (Okay, maybe 99). It was a quickly written post that I didn't give much thought to. I don't know anything about General Myers, either, and his comments do seem perfectly sensible. I don't disagree with a word he says, and, in fact, I've been saying basically the same thing for a long time. It's quite possible that General Myers has been saying it for a long time, too (or maybe thinking it, but looking for the most effective moment to say it.) And you couldn't be more right that career military people have an insight into how things operate that those of us outside the military lack, and that we owe them a certain amount of attention and respect. (Of course, I'd like to see pacifists get a little respect too -- but that's another issue.)

There have been plenty of examples of military officers demonstrating more critical and nuanced thinking about defense than we've heard from most members of the current administration -- or from critics of the administration, for that matter. An article in Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle, on a speech given by former Secretary of the Navy James Webb at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey offers the most recent example of that openness. I suspect we're going to see more and more of that, and, of course, I welcome it.

So what was that outburst in my post all about? I don't think I'm reflexively anti-military (although I am a little wary of the glorification of "military values" I see seeping in all around me -- but that's a topic for another post.) My father was career military -- a chief petty officer in the navy. I was born in a naval hospital. I was in college when the Vietnam War ended, and I had high school friends who went to fight (fortunately, they all came home), and friends among veterans who came back to fight against the war here. If I have any gut-level anti-brass feelings, I acquired them not from the left, but from friends and relatives in the military.

I think the problem with that post is a matter of a feeling that found the wrong target. While I seemed to be lashing out at General Myers, my real frustration should have been directed elsewhere. I'm very happy to have someone like General Myers as an ally. But at the same time, every time I hear someone in the system come out with a statement that supports what I believe, I also remember how many times I've been called anti-American, and a lot worse, for saying the same thing. As satisfying as it is to hear the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs say, "Reconstruction may be the single most important factor in increasing security throughout Afghanistan and preventing it from again becoming a haven for terrorists" -- the statement can't help but remind me that in the past, when I said that, I've been told that I was an idiotic woman who didn't understand anything about fighting, just some fool who thinks all the problems in the world will be solved if we give everybody big hugs. (Women on the left get the same insults as men, they just get them with an extra dollop of condescension.) I'm sick of being called an idiot and I'm sick of being told I hate my country. And I'm a little confused when a general and I are saying the same thing, but he's a hero, and I'm a traitor. Somebody owes me -- all of us -- an apology. But, you're right, that somebody isn't General Myers. The anger is legitimate, but misdirected.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admits, The Left Was Right

The U.S. military is losing momentum in the war on terrorism in Afghanistan because the remnants of al Qaeda and the Taliban have proven more successful in adapting to U.S. tactics than the U.S. military has to theirs, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said this week.

Gen. Richard B. Myers also said there is a debate taking place within the Pentagon about whether the United States needs to change its priorities in Afghanistan and de-emphasize military operations in favor of more support for reconstruction efforts.

"I think in a sense we've lost a little momentum there, to be frank," Myers said in after-dinner comments Monday night at the Brookings Institution. "They've made lots of adaptations to our tactics, and we've got to continue to think and try to out-think them and to be faster at it."

Myers, the nation's top military officer, suggested it may be time for the military to "flip" its priorities from combat operations aimed at hunting down al Qaeda and Taliban fighters to "the reconstruction piece in Afghanistan," a notable shift in priorities for an a Pentagon that has eschewed nation-building exercises.

You're a little behind the curve, honey. We have been trying to tell you for almost a year now that keeping Afghanistan from falling back into the chaos that made a cozy little nest for terrorism was at least as important as tracking down the big guy with the beard. Okay, so you're a little slow. We forgive you. You don't even have to apologize or anything. (It would be a nice gesture, but we understand about all that stupid macho pride stuff…) Just do it. And if you'd like more advice, feel free to call on us any time.

Places to visit and sites to see…

I don't want to think much more about the election, but Making Light has a wonderful essay about moving on in sensible and effective ways (and make sure you follow the links -- they're great.)

Okay, I can't completely escape the election. The Rittenhouse Review has the best summary of blogger's reactions (with his own biting and honest analysis right below it.) And scroll up for a good piece on Katherine Harris, otherwise known as Crudelia DeMon -- although you may not appreciate it as much as I did. (There aren't many advantages to having done grad work in Italian lit, but this is one.) (And I will never refer to Ms. Harris as "onorevole." Figlia di… oh, never mind.)
UPDATE: If you don't happen to read Italian, go immediately to Sisyphus Shrugged's "translation." Hey, you only think you know what went on in 2000. I bet you never even heard the story about how the Supreme Court stopped the riconteggi and sent Bush to the house white woman…

CalPundit expounds on reasons for raising the minimum wage.

Off the Kuff looks at corporate radio (and what happens to a pickup truck when you remove the bumper sticker.)

Alas, a blog has a moving and perceptive piece on bullies and "blaming the victim." (and don't miss this week's cartoon either. In fact, pass a copy on to your favorite spineless Democratic politician.)

Remember that list of words and phrases Newt Gingrich came up with to tar Democrats? Joseph Duemer at Reading and Writing has composed a nice progressive version of it. And his is a hell of a lot more honest than Newt's.
UPDATE:
... and more.

Shed your veils, EU lawmakers tell Afghan women

I can't tell for sure if this is an example of clueless feminists or clueless journalists. Did a female delegation from the European parliament actually tell Afghan women that they should get rid of their veils, or did the journalist simply interpret it that way? The headline is unambiguous, the quote from one of the women in the delegation less clear: "If you have real freedom in Afghan society there is no place for the forced veil." The key word, of course, is "forced." There's a huge difference between saying women should not be forced to live inside a shroud, and telling women who choose to wear a veil that they're fools if they do so, or even that they shouldn't be allowed to do so.

The problem is that for many Americans and Europeans, the burqa is a great big ugly symbol of women's invisibility and powerlessness. That can lead to the illusion that if you eliminate the symbol, the problem vanishes. But it doesn't. Afghan women are no more empowered taking fashion orders from French feminists than they were taking them from the Taliban. How they dress effects our comfort level. We look at them and think, how can they be free if they're still in those sacks? But it's not about how we feel, it's about how they live.

There's a long, ugly history of coercive attempts to "free" Muslim women by removing their veils. Lord Cromer, the consul general in Egypt who assumed office after British occupation in 1882, called veiling the "fatal obstacle" that kept Egyptians from developing the "elevation of thought" that would allow them to become part of Western civilization. Christian missionaries also campaigned against veiling. Ironically before the colonial era, the condition of women in Egypt had already started to improve. The first schools for girls had been built. Women were becoming doctors and teachers, and some were even beginning to discard the veil. But when the British focused on the veil as a symbol of Egyptian inferiority, it inevitably created a backlash, turning the veil into a symbol of resistance to colonialism (which, to some extent, it remains today).

Something similar happened in Iran, in the 1920s, when Reza Shah, who wanted Iran to look more "modern" and "Western," made wearing the veil illegal. Soldiers would tear women's veils off with their bayonets and publicly shred them. That didn't liberate women, it left them feeling violated. (Which brings to mind the way soldiers in Pinochet's Chile cut women's trouser legs on the street and said "In the new Chile, women wear dresses." -- it's interesting how authoritarians need to control what women wear.) Such actions made secularization -- a liberating movement in the West -- brutal and coercive. Under those conditions, wearing a veil becomes a symbol of power and self-assertion.

Feminists ought to know better than to tell other women how to dress. Instead of lecturing Afghan women, or threatening to cut off aid if their sensibilities are offended, they should be making sure that a lot more of that aid gets channeled directly to women. As the Afghan-American writer Tamim Ansary pointed out in an essay almost a year ago, the most critical needs in Afghanistan -- food, clothing, education, health care, taking care of children -- all coincide with women's traditional roles. If international agencies work closely with women, especially rural women, to meet the country's needs, women could quickly end up running those operations, and learning leadership skills in the process. That is a lot more important than the absence or presence of a stupid piece of cloth.

Thank you. I really needed that laugh.

You didn't come here for an analysis of the election results, I hope. I turned off the television once I heard that Jeb Bush won big (the advantage of living on the West Coast is that you get bad news early, and have time to digest it before you go to bed). I knew it wasn't going to be pretty, and I didn't particularly want to watch it happen. Who knows, I figured, maybe I'll wake up and be pleasantly surprised.

And anyway, I have a seven-year-old who needs a supervised bath, a chapter of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and tucking in. Priorities and all.

In last night's chapter, the White Witch and her evil hordes tied Aslan down, muzzled him, cut off his mane, made fun of him, and killed him. Evil is greedy. People doing bad things always overreach. I could see from the look on my daughter's face that she was very confused. This is not the way things are supposed to go in children's books. Evil is not supposed to win. Trickery is not supposed to be rewarded. Oh, maybe it will look that way briefly, but by the end of the chapter, someone is supposed to come and save Aslan. Or Aslan will fight back and win.

When the Witch's rabble muzzled Aslan, my daughter announced quite confidently that Peter would come with his sword. That was why Aslan had told Peter to make sure he kept his sword clean, wasn't it? -- because Aslan knew that Peter would need it to save him.

We're a very bookish family. She's read and heard a lot of stories. She's very sure of her ability to predict the way a story will go. A second grade pundit.

At the end of the chapter the children turned away because they couldn't stand to watch Aslan be killed. My daughter thinks she sees a loophole there. Since Lucy and Susan didn't look, maybe Aslan didn't die after all. Maybe he got away. Maybe Peter came, and Lucy and Susan just didn't see it. That's what happened, right?

"You'll just have to wait and see, sweetheart," I said.

I went to bed early last night, and got up early. Made coffee, trudged back up the stairs, turned on the computer, and went straight to the New York Times.

Sometimes trickery is rewarded, even if you turn away. The widow loses her home. The bully beats up the guy in the wheel chair, and gets away with it. Politics is not a children's story.

I poke around various political sites, expecting anger and gloating, and am pleased to find signs of wisdom and class. (Okay, and a little anger too. If you don't weigh yourself down with a little righteous anger at a time like this, you're liable to be blown away.) But I'm still feeling depressed.

This morning I am going to drive my daughter to school, go grocery shopping, make a big pot of minestrone for tonight's dinner (and maybe some bread, too, although I may take it easy and just buy a baguette), and pay some bills. This afternoon, I will take my daughter to her dance class. She has a wonderful, funny teacher -- a woman about my age who does cartwheels. It is hard to be sad when you see a forty-some-year-old woman do cartwheels. Makes you believe anything is possible.

Tonight I'll read the next chapter of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. In case you've never read it -- Aslan comes back.

"The job of a citizen is to keep his mouth open." -- Gunther Grass

Did you vote yet?

Honey, just because you let him kiss you doesn't mean you have to go all the way.

More religious violence
Over the weekend, a Catholic boy in Belfast was "crucified" by "loyalist" Protestants. Harry McCartan was nailed to a fence and beaten with a baseball bat spiked with nails. The symbolism was clearly not accidental, and the boy's father insists he was tortured because of his religion. Police in Belfast note that although what happened to Harry McCartan was "extreme," it is not uncommon for such assaults to be inflicted "as a warning to others." Just a question: Can we call those Protestants terrorists, or is the word reserved for Muslims?

The Afghan Supreme Court has dismissed a female judge because of immoral conduct -- in a photo-op with President Bush last month, she didn't wear a headscarf. I don't know about you, but personally I'm appalled by such licentiousness. So far, the arbiters of morality have not issued any rulings on the ethics of opium, arms sales and torture (see below), but I'm sure it's just a small matter of time and priorities.

They like us. They really like us.

The commander of the coalition forces in Afghanistan, Lt. General Dan McNeill, would like us to stop fussing about our "allies" in Afghanistan. Stop calling them "warlords." Manners, please -- they are "regional leaders." Yes, some of them are a tad unsavory, their main sources of income are you and me, opium, and arms sales, and they seem to get a kick out of torturing people. But since it's going to be awhile before Afghanistan has its own functioning army and we don't want to expand the International Security Assistance Force beyond Kabul (to be fair, the UN envoy to Afghanistan thinks he sees signs that the US position is inching from "no" to "it's a good idea, but we can't do it because we have other things to do and it would be good if somebody else did it''), they're the closest thing Afghanistan has to a police force. If you had to choose between drug-dealing, extortionist cops who beat prisoners with rifle butts, whipped them, hung them upside down and administered electric shocks, and who also intimidated journalists and anyone else expressing political opinions, not to mention humanitarian workers who got in the way of their battles with other cops -- if you had to choose between cops like that, and no cops at all, what would you do?

The reason none of this is supposed to matter, is that Lt. General McNeill has spoken to the war lords -- sorry, slip of the tongue, I meant regional leaders -- and they assure him that "they support the U.S.-backed government of Hamid Karzai." It's good to have supporters, and I guess this is an administration that doesn't have a problem with sleazy supporters. In fact, the relationship could get closer than that. Earlier this year, Donald Rumsfeld had a get-together with Ismail Khan, one of the more notorious "regional leaders," and described him afterward as "an appealing person." It's nice that Donald is making friends.

This entry has also been posted at Stand Down -- the anti-war blog that explores reasons for opposing war with Iraq from multiple politcal perspectives.

"We respectfully urge you to step back from the brink of war."

As Lisa English documented yesterday, many mainstream churches have issued strong statements of opposition to war with Iraq. Some churches have pacifist traditions that make it impossible for them to regard any war as "just," but this is not the case for most churches, and it is instructive to look at instances in which religious leaders have taken different positions on war against Afghanistan and war against Iraq.

In November of last year, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a pastoral letter which the media categorized as support for military action in Afghanistan. That was a somewhat simplistic reading of a morally complex document. The main purpose of the letter was to lay out a "moral framework" for conducting a "just war," and the bishops also emphasized that pursuing peace and justice in the world was an essential component in stopping terrorism. Military action is not enough.

Still, the bishops clearly stated that they "support efforts of our nation and the international community to seek and hold accountable, in accord with national and international law those individuals, groups, and governments which are responsible" for the September 11 attacks, and further, while acknowledging that Christian "principled non-violence" is a valid response, they argued for "the right and duty of a nation and the international community to use military force if necessary to defend against mass terrorism."

In essence, the bishops suggested that as long as the war was carried out in accord with moral principles (doing everything possible, for example, to minimize civilian casualties, and ensuring that the needs of refugees were met) and if military action was viewed as a single component (and a less important component, at that) in a broader, humanitarian effort to promote justice in the region, then military action would be morally justifiable.

But this new war requires rethinking what makes a war justifiable. In a letter to President Bush regarding Iraq, Bishop Wilton D. Gregory mentions that his predecessor as president of the US Bishops Conference expressed that support for military action in Afghanistan, but that the bishops "believe Iraq is a different case" and that they "find it difficult to justify extending the war on terrorism to Iraq, absent clear and adequate evidence of Iraqi involvement in the attacks of September 11th or of an imminent attack of a grave nature." Bishop Gregory urges the president to "step back from the brink of war."

Why the change? Or is it a change?

First, the bishops saw "just cause" for war in Afghanistan. Without reliable evidence of a connection between Iraq and the September 11 attackers, or evidence of an imminent Iraqi threat, they express skepticism that adequate cause for war exists and insist that we should be pursuing alternatives to war. Beyond that, the bishops suggest that the prospect of the most powerful country in the world taking military action contrary to the broad international consensus sets a disturbing and dangerous precedent. Such action promotes the idea that might makes right, which no person of faith can accept.

The most important part of the letter, in my opinion, is the section in which Bishop Gregory focuses on the just war criteria of "probability of success" and "proportion." I've heard people discussing just war theory talk about proportion as if it were a simple matter of "an eye for an eye": If "they" killed three thousand of our citizens, we shouldn't have a moral problem with killing three thousand of theirs. That's a ghastly distortion of the concept. In truth, "proportion," in just war theory, has more to do with the need to take seriously the evil you will produce in the name of doing good. It is simply immoral to fix your eye on the "good" you want to accomplish and not think about the price other people will pay in evil consequences.

Bishop Gregory is quite specific about those evil consequences. He mentions the possibility of increasing terrorism -- by provoking attacks and by undermining the coalition. But his focus is on something few people mention -- Iraqi civilians. Bishop Gregory asks, "How would another war in Iraq impact the civilian population, in the short- and long-term? How many more innocent people would suffer and die, or be left without homes, without basic necessities, without work?"

Given the political and journalistic silence on this issue, those are audacious and morally brave questions. They shadow the moral cowardice of "leaders" unwilling to look ahead to the consequences of war. They are the kinds of questions ethical people must ask themselves -- and must ask without coddling themselves with quick and easy answers.

Underscoring that audacity, Bishop Gregory reminds the president that there will be moral obligations long after the battles in Iraq are over, and that, indeed, we still have unmet moral obligations in Afghanistan. The bishop is asking the president to think seriously about the fact that he is considering killing massive numbers of people in a war that will not diminish the threats we face. That is not just bad policy, it is deeply immoral.

When the bishops pastoral letter was issued a year ago, sanctioning war against Afghanistan, it disappointed many liberal Catholics. But looking at the letter now, it is clear that it contains as much warning as support. Yes, fight, the bishops told us, but be very careful, because there is an enormous danger of becoming the kind of people who can't see our own sins, who can easily overlook the suffering of others, and who choose war as a first step. The bishops' more recent letter, on Iraq, pulls those warnings to the forefront: We have crossed a line. We are standing at the brink of becoming the kind of country that we, as ethical people, do not want to be. In the words of Bishop Gregory, it is time to step back.

I mentioned a somewhat unusual candidate for school board that we have out here in the land of fruits and nuts to Julia at Sisyphus Shrugged. I thought she would appreciate the humor. Her response is a classic.

I love it.

I'm sure you already know that Stand Down is a new umbrella blog in which writers from all across the political spectrum make the case against the use of military force to overthrow the government of Iraq, collect relevant links, and explore related issues. If you look over on the left, you'll find me listed as one of the contributors. To be honest, since I just got back, I haven't contributed anything yet, but I promise I will soon -- although I must say the high quality of what's already been posted has me a little intimidated at the moment. Stand Down is going into it's fourth day of operation, and it's already my first click of the day

Diary of a blogging hiatus

Day 1: Life is better if you don't read the New York Times.

Day 2: We are burdened by the obvious and nevertheless absurd idea that nonfiction is real and fiction is false. Newspapers are full of lies and there is nothing as honest as a Raymond Carver or Alice Munro story. I don't think I ever want to bother reading nonfiction again.

Day 3: The New Yorker's fiction isn't as good as it used to be.

Day 4: I should at least look at the headlines. I mean, I'm still a citizen and all, right? I ought to have some notion of what's going on in the world. It doesn't require me to express an opinion or anything.

Day 5: I should save that article. I might want to write about it if I start blogging again.

Day 6:

* Who coined the phrase "unashamed liberal?" What's to be ashamed of? Would the opposite of an "unashamed liberal" be a "shameless conservative?"

* Christopher Hitchens says "I don't favor an invasion of Iraq. But I favor a confrontation with Saddam Hussein." Suggested reading.

* And then there is Hitchens' obsession with the left running away from the moral issue -- what to do about the Kurds and the dissident Iraqis. Since he is talking more to the right than the left these days, shouldn't he be asking them what they plan to do about the Kurds and the dissident Iraqis? After they finish bombing them, that is. Why does the right-wing get a pass on ethical issues?

* I repeat, why does the right wing get a pass on ethical issues?

* If we care so much about women in Afghanistan, why is nobody paying any attention to Sima Samar's trip to New York and her plea to tie the distribution of aid to Afghanistan to the advancement of women's rights? Might the Afghan Minister of Women's Affairs who was forced from her position by death threats have something to tell us?

* My God, they're bombing girls' schools outside Kabul and we still don't feel any sort of moral or even self-protective obligation? Well, this certainly bodes well for post-war Iraq.

* Partying While Afghanistan Burns: The seeds of the current government's destruction were sown by the American-backed victory over the Taliban, and nourished by the Bush administration's failure to devote the necessary resources to rebuilding Afghanistan. Before the bombing ever started, those knowledgeable about Afghanistan warned that massive postwar reconstruction would be necessary to prevent the nation from once again becoming a terrorist breeding ground. They warned that ancient ethnic and tribal tensions, in particular between Tajiks and Pashtuns, could quickly rage out of control. All of their grim predictions of postwar anarchy are coming true -- and America is doing nothing…

The fact is that less than a year after the celebrated demise of the Taliban, Afghanistan is experiencing a low-grade war, a bubbling pot of violence and anarchy that only the U.S. military presence is keeping from boiling over. The moment the international presence scales down in the capital, the very second that U.S. military attention drifts away and westward toward Iraq, ambitious men within the new Afghan government will kick off a bloody snatch-and-grab operation, leaving a large number of civilians dead, and they will take anything that is not bolted down and then shell the rest, a replay of the mid-'90s when Kabul was laid to waste. It will be the same people doing it, another tragic irony. No one can predict the future, but this is how it feels in Kabul, and everyone I asked, whether journalist or Afghan national, agreed that this was what was coming. Conflicts are breaking out all over the country, but Afghanistan isn't a story any more, so most of these battles and the reasons they are being fought are going unreported. And as Iraq looms, Afghanistan will shrink even more. When I left Kabul, the big agencies were already scaling back their news bureaus, the great unblinking eye of the media making plans to look at something else.

* And since this Afghan thing is going so well, and Iraq will just take a minute, anybody want coffee and a piece of Venezuela?

* I have to write more about the Catholic Bishops' letter. At first it seemed hesitant and overly deferential to me, but looking at it again, I can see an admirable moral honesty. I prefer moral honesty (for all its uncertainty) to moral clarity.

* You can't make this stuff up.

* Saddam Hussein should be tried for war crimes, but not by a country that exempts itself from international law and does everything it can to destroy the International Criminal Court. Victor's justice doesn't support international law, it makes it stink.

* How do you support democracy in the Middle East? Support women like Shehnaz Bokhari.

* This is going to be really interesting. Maybe I could write something about the Bishops' letter. Or Hitchens. (Do I really want to write anything else about Hitchens? Certainly his time is soon to expire, if it hasn't already.)

* There are too many things I want to write about, and I can't make a choice. And anyway, I don't feel like writing. Is it just me, or does the word "blog" sound like something that gets stuck in your drain? And I haven't even started The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse yet. And I really want to make sure I don't spend all my writing time at the computer and not leave enough time for writing fiction. Balance, girl, it's all a matter of balance.

Day 7: Have a nice weekend, but use it wisely. See you on Monday.

ON HIATUS
As is so often the case, I agree with Ted.

Bush Enlists Government in GOP Campaign

A recent e-mail to the 6,100 full-time headquarters employees of the Environmental Protection Agency reminded them of the provisions of the Hatch Act, which was designed to protect federal employees from political pressure. But some employees said they were surprised by its emphasis on participating in, not abstaining from, campaign activities. The memo said they "are permitted to take an active part in partisan political management and campaigns," subject to limitations, and reminded them they are free to "express support for the president and his program" when they are off-duty.

Bobby L. Harnage Sr., president of the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union of federal workers, said he has been hearing increasing complaints about what his members consider politicization of their work, and said the effect is dampened morale. He asserted that Republicans' use of the federal government is the most aggressive he has seen in 34 years as a union official. "Bush and his administration are making no attempt to cover up what they're doing," Harnage said.

I must say, it is so good to finally have a president who is above politics.

This is the most sane and honest and beautiful thing I've read in a blog in a long time. Wisdom for parents and bloggers.

Everyone can stop searching for the right link now. Atrios is back in place (and all's right with the world.)

UPDATE: … and on top of that The Rittenhouse Review is back. Life is good.

Avedon Carol has two great posts up -- one on why so many journalists are obnoxious and incompetent and right below it a reminder (which I, for one, could use) that we're not as powerless as we sometimes think we are.

I give up. Blogger wins. I'm tired of typing in the URL or hunting for someone who has the right link. Here is the new Eschaton. I'm changing the link on my blogroll as well. If he ever gets home to the old one, I'll change it back. I hate Blogger.

Update: The link in my blogroll is still wrong, because while Blogger will let me post (after a half dozen tries), it will not let me change the template. Forget hate. I DESPISE Blogger. On my ranked list of people and things I don't like, Blogger is now a few levels above Jeb Bush and right below Jerry Falwell. Keep going, Blogger, there is still a chance for you to beat Saddam Hussein.

Awhile back I mentioned Michael Ignatieff's suggestion that one of the best investments the US could make in Afghanistan (assuming, of course, that we actually do have an interest in helping nurture democracy there -- a big if ) would be to help rewrite the legal code and train lawyers in order to build a system of justice in the country that would have a chance of undercutting the rule of the warlords and the possible return of religious law. A UN special envoy is now suggesting that an international inquiry into human rights abuses -- along with local training and funding to implement it -- might be the first step in creating a real justice system in Afghanistan. Any chance of the United States contributing to that?

There were small but surprising protests in Baghdad yesterday, after Saddam's release of prisoners confronted some Iraqis with the fact that their "prisoner" relatives were no longer prisoners, but victims of political murder. God only knows if it has any meaning or long term significance at all, but it's interesting that the protesters appear to have been mostly -- or at least headed by -- women.

UPDATE: Josh Marshall -- who's a hell of a lot smarter about this sort of thing than I am -- thinks he may hear the sound of a regime cracking in this protest.

Dana Milbank's piece in yesterday's Washington Post about Bush's lies was good. Dwight Meredith's list of lies is better.

It isn't a good time for nice, well-meaning, idealistic liberals like me and Tom Friedman. Friedman's piece in this morning's NY Times starts out beautifully, rooted in a distinction between the "Arab street" -- the mass of public opinion -- and the "Arab basement" -- the hard-core ideologues and dangerous young men who follow them. He argues that while the "basement" has to be defeated, we also need to respond to the grievances that cause people to move from the street to the basement, or at least feel some sympathy with the young men who are down there. That's a standard liberal reading of the situation -- one I basically agree with -- held together by pretty decent metaphor.

But then problems peek in. Friedman states idealistically that the US must start "speaking out for the values that America has advocated everywhere in the world — except in the Arab world: namely democracy." From there he goes on to wonder whether replacing Saddam Hussein with a "progressive Iraqi regime" would help. And, Friedman wonders, does Bush really want to do that?

The frustrating thing here is that while Friedman is right that it would help enormously if the US stood up for human and civil rights, the basic liberal, humanistic values that are the foundation of democracy, I'm having a hard time coming up with examples of the US doing that. Venezuela, perhaps? Indonesia? The truth is, we advocate for those values when it suits us, and ignore them when it doesn't. Let me put it in even cruder terms: we advocate for those values when it gives us an excuse to go after a country that we feel is threatening us, we ignore, or even oppose, those values when it threatens profits. Not just in the Arab world. Everywhere.

Which brings us to Friedman's concluding question. Does George Bush envision a war "not just to disarm Iraq but to empower Iraq's people to implement the Arab Human Development Report"? I'm sorry, but Tom Friedman knows perfectly well what the answer to that question is, and to leave the question hanging in the air, to cling to your idealism and pretend that maybe, just maybe, it might be true, perhaps this time it will turn out that the president cares more about human rights and democracy than about markets and profits, is neither intellectually nor morally honest.

Standing up for democracy everywhere in the world starts with telling the truth: Those liberal and humanistic values are a solution. And George Bush does not share them.

Coming back to the subject of progressive values, The Agonist argues that the right had one big idea -- "if only the free hand of the market were unchained there would develop a general harmony of interests" -- but that in the wake of corporate scandals and increasing inequality that idea has exploded. There are nothing but damp little shreds of that pretty balloon littering the floor. The problem is the left has busied itself picking up the litter and tossing it out (or maybe just pointing at the mess), but doesn't have a clear and compelling idea to replace the obviously broken one.

He promises more detail in future posts, and asks for comments from readers. This could get interesting.

	You are Kermit! Though you're technically the star, you're pretty mellow and don't mind letting others share the spotlight. You are also something of a dreamer.
Take the What Muppet Are You? Quiz!

You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one...

The irreplaceable Molly Ivins on George Bush -- the chickenshit president.

Why Women Should Rule The World
"Lest you think that all we aspire to for the world can be accomplished by male-dominated organizations, I have only to say to you: Enron, Taliban, Roman Catholic Church."

I haven't had time to read through everything yet, but alt.muslim has pulled together some pieces on the compatibility of Islam and democracy that look interesting. This article, about the leader of one of the religious parties that was so unexpectedly successful in the recent Pakistani elections caught my attention, because Qazi Hussain Ahmed seems less focused on opposing the United States (he is apparently backing off on one of the issues the religious parties campaigned on -- expelling American troops and the FBI from Pakistan) and more with opposing Musharraf's attempts to cement his own power and undermine democracy in the country. His comments raise the issue of how much anger in the Muslim world is truly directed at the United States, and how much is local anger twisted in our direction.

There have been a few other interesting recent articles that would fit in well here:

* Iranian president Mohammad Khatami's acknowledgment of women's poor status in many Islamic countries, and argument that this repression is counter to Islamic teaching.

* Last February, women in Bahrain were given the right to vote and run for office. They will be voting for the first time in the country's history this Thursday. They're given a "miniscule" chance of electing a female representative to Parliament, but they are already making demands -- and, interestingly enough, rooting those demands in the tenets of their relgion.

* Legal, political, and social victories for Iranian women (and the inevitable conservative backlash.)

* Struggles between moderates and fundamentalists in Malaysia. Among the more prominent moderate voices is Zainah Anwar, head of Sisters in Islam -- a group of professional women who argue for women's rights within the framework of Islam. In Malaysia the "politcal safety valve" of free elections and open debate have so-far defused the tensions (and repression) that have lead to violence in so much of the Muslim world.

Iraq War "Unjustifiable," Says Bush's Church Head
I wish someone could get a photo of Bush's face when he hears that sermon.

The United States arrests a Canadian citizen and deports him… to Syria . Or maybe Jordan. No one seems to know for sure where he is, including his wife. Too bad Rod Serling is dead. He'd know where to look for the guy.

UPDATE: TalkLeft has more recent developments.

I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, the faith in our fellow citizens as individuals and as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith. For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves. -- John F. Kennedy, What Is A Liberal?

I started working on a long post over the weekend, trying to pull together some of my own thoughts about the issues raised by the readers' letters I posted last week about American values and cultural imperialism, but I abandoned it. The issues are simply too complex for me to deal with over a busy weekend. It will be a long time, I suspect, before I come to any clear conclusions. I'm not even sure there are neat conclusions out there for me to come to, but I'm still feeling around in the dark for them.

I think part of what is bogging me down is the difficulty of articulating an alternative vision when I realize how powerless I am to have any influence. Those of us on the left can prattle about what the ideal way of helping establish a functioning government in Afghanistan is, and how much aid we should give, and what form that aid should take, and how much influence we should try to have on the nature of the country's reconstruction and reformation, (and if this next war takes place -- assuming the cynics are wrong and it won't conveniently go away as soon as the election is over -- we will probably be making the same arguments about Iraq), or we can talk about supporting democratic forces within oppressive countries, and all of that is both humanitarian and in the long-term interest of the United States, but none of it has a thing to do with what the Bush Administration sees as the interest of the United States -- which has more to do with markets and dominance than human rights and democracy. Arguing about what our ideals are and how they can be put into practice seems a waste of time as our country marches off to enforce a poorly thought out Pax Americana. Maybe just screaming "Stop" is all we can do.

Or maybe not.

There was a time when I believed that even though the Bush Administration was cynically manipulating humanitarian ideals while pursuing their own self-interest, the best course of action for dealing with them was not primarily exposing their hypocrisy, but holding them to the expressed ideals. On so many occasions, they've stolen our language, speaking of hope and justice as an alternative to terrorism, of the necessity of women's voices in a society. Bush even lays claim to an appreciation for international law in his attempt to find a rationale for attacking Iraq. I suppose people who have no real values of their own have to get them from somewhere. They were hypocritical and scheming as all get out, sure, but what the hell. I figured they could go right ahead and steal my language and my beliefs, but I'd keep reminding them that they had used the language of feminism and human rights, and having used that language, they had an obligation to keep the faith. I did not, however, count on this administration's extraordinary ability to slide away from promises as soon as people stop paying attention. As Dwight Meredith cleverly pointed out yesterday, the president seems to have learned everything he needs to know as a teenager -- from Eddie Haskell. I no longer see much value in trying to hold them to the ideals they've expressed. But I don't yet have an alternative way of dealing with them.

Except perhaps to claim those values back, and insist that they can't be put into practice by people who don't believe in them.

As I was mulling all this over, two readers directed me to Christopher Hitchens' rather inflammatory piece in the Sunday Washington Post, which deals with some of the issues discussed in this site last week.

I always have a problem reading Hitchens, although I don't dismiss him as easily as most leftists do. And this essay is not just typical Hitchens, it's Hitchens ratcheted up several levels beyond his day to day obnoxiousness. As always, his point is overwhelmed by ad hominem attacks, the refusal to comprehend any position but his own, lying about other people's ideas, and his godawful self-congratulatory tone. Now that he's left the Nation, and doesn't see himself as communicating with the left at all anymore, the negatives have only gotten worse. The lies about the left have reached pathological levels. Ramsey Clark is the center of the anti-war movement in the United States? Leftists see Saddam Hussein as a victim and bin Laden as a "slightly misguided imperialist?" Has Hitchens left the planet entirely? Statements like that are either the ravings of a lunatic, or deliberate lies intended to court and pander to a new, right-wing audience.

But the reason I've never been able to dismiss Hitchens is that he often buries some point that has to be made -- and that no one else on the left is making quite as forcefully (if at all) -- deep in the crap. And that's true here too: There's a glimmer of sanity in Hitchens' ravings. In his brief moment of lucidity, he argues that the left should not be supporting an oppressive status quo -- whether in Iraq or any other country where human rights violations are routine -- in the name of keeping the peace, and he's absolutely right about that. Peace, as Dr. King reminded us, is not the absence of conflict, but the presence of justice. That doesn't mean the left "supports" Saddam Hussein. It means that just saying "Of course we recognize that Saddam Hussein is an evil man but there's nothing we can do" is not an answer that people who believe in the importance of human rights ought to wrap themselves comfortably in while they settle down for a long nap.

That's more or less why I started the discussion about values and colonialism -- because I think the left has to come up with some answers about how we should be dealing with toxic, oppressive states, and whether or not there is anything we can do for the people who live in those states.

The "we" in that last sentence is awkward, and I can't find any way around that. Because what "we" are able to do as a country headed by a president who values nothing other than opening markets and insuring that the United States is the toughest of the tough is very different from what "we" can do as individuals whose values stand in opposition to those of this administration.

The answer from the right is simple -- if it doesn't work, toss it out and replace it with a "better" culture. I can't help but notice the consumer ethic at work in the assumption that a culture -- including the most deep-seated beliefs and values -- can be replaced as easily as an outmoded computer. I find it hard to understand people who see the traditions and values that give meaning to people's lives as things that can be easily cast aside (maybe that's all you can expect from a politician who claims Jesus is his favorite philosopher, yet shows no sign that his "philosopher" has had the slightest influence on his thinking), but in any case, even on a practical level, they're simply wrong. All the brutality at the command of a shah can't plant a culture and make it grow.

But I honestly don't hear many good alternatives coming from the left. That may not be an entirely fair statement. Maybe it's quick, simple and easily explainable alternatives that we're short on. I'm aware as I write this that in order to deal with the topic in any reasonable way, I need to start getting more detailed and specific than I can reasonably be in a single post. Talking about dealing with "the Muslim world" is, in many ways, absurd. Iraq and Saudi Arabia have very little in common. We have enormous opportunities for influence in Afghanistan -- if we want it, and know how to use it -- and very few ways of influencing Iraq. The "values" of people in the "Muslim world" are no more uniform than the values of Americans. And in many cases, the best course of action really is simply to butt out and do no harm. I'm heartened by some recent developments in Iran, for instance, but I can't imagine anything we could do directly that would not make the dissidents' position more difficult. The best thing to do is leave them alone, and try to avoid doing things elsewhere -- like invading a bordering country -- that complicate their ability to dissent. But even if the situation is more a matter of complexity than avoidance of the issue -- we need to get a lot better at articulating the alternatives.

Of course the fact that the left doesn't articulate good answers doesn't make Bush's course of action reasonable, or suggest that it offers some kind of hope to oppressed people. Hitchens holds up the Kurds as an example of a people the old left would have championed and the new left supposedly doesn't care about. I'm simply astonished by his obtuseness in not recognizing that Bush doesn't share his concern for the Kurds or for Iraqi dissidents.

I've written in the past about the Kurds, because the society they've built in northern Iraq offers a glimmer of hope, and suggests to me that when people have an opportunity to create open and free societies, they do. Their success offers reassurance that the corruption and violation of human rights that are endemic in the Arab world are not the result of toxic cultures, but of leaders who exploit and encourage the most twisted elements of their societies for their own purposes.

But I can't imagine any way in which the Kurds will benefit from this war. Right now they exist in a protected bubble. Unless that perfectly democratic utopia that the neo-cons expect springs up miraculously in Iraq -- which no reasonable person expects -- the Kurds, absorbed back into Iraq, are going to lose the seeds of democracy they've planted. If we get a more compliant tyrant in there, and get that oil flowing in our direction, we're not going to protect the Kurds' experiment anymore. The only way for them to hold on to their achievements would be through an independent Kurdistan, and the US is not going to go to war with Turkey to make that happen.

Hitchens doesn't seem to realize that his laudable desire to get people out from under the yoke of Saddam (and after that the other tyrants in the region) is not in any way, shape or form Bush's goal. Or actually he probably does realize it, but has decided to push the issue aside -- certainly an act of intellectual dishonesty and moral cowardice that far surpasses anything to be founded on the farthest and craziest reaches of the left. In one of his final columns for the Nation , Hitchens, in fact, asked directly, "Is the Bush Administration's "regime change" the same one the Iraqi and Kurdish democrats hope for?" He never answers the question -- he goes off instead on a tangent attacking the left for not insisting that Bush make it the same cause (employing, I assume, the left's enormous influence on this administration) -- because the obvious answer is not one that supports his point. If Hitchens believes for a second that Bush's evocation of Saddam's attempted genocide of the Kurds translates into support for their cause, he's a fool. Ask the women of Afghanistan how much it means when this president champions your cause.

But Hitchens is, nevertheless, pointing to a genuine weakness on the left, and those of us who, unlike Hitchens, still define ourselves as leftists, need to rise to the challenge of not just standing in the way, but articulating an alternate vision. And I think part of that task is asserting, in a positive, not just a reactive way, what our values are.

UPDATE: Jason Rylander seems to be on the same wavelength.